From the American pioneer of the New Thought movement, known for Thought Vibration, The Secret of Success, The Arcane Teachings, Nuggets of the New Thought, Reincarnation and the Law of Karma and more
The term “telepathy” is of quite recent origin. A few years ago it was not to be found in any of the standard dictionaries, and its use was confined to the small circle of investigators who were pursuing experiments in thought-transference, and who regarded the Society for Psychical Research of England as their centre of influence. At the present time, however, the word has passed into popular usage, is found in the current editions of the dictionaries and heard frequently on the streets. It was derived from the two Greek words, tele, meaning “afar,” and pathos meaning “feeling.” The term itself has been severely criticized as conveying a wrong impression, for thought-transference is not the same as “feeling”-transference. Some authorities have preferred the term “Telæsthesia,” which, freely translated, means “perception by the senses at a distance.” The present writer has sought to introduce the term “Telementatian” which, freely translated, means “mental action at a distance” and the said term has met with considerable favor among scientific investigators of the subject. But, in spite of the objections, the public clings to the original term, and “Telepathy” is generally used to designate the phenomena of thought-transference, or as the dictionaries state it: “The action of one mind on another at a distance and without communication by means of the senses.”
Thought-transference is not a new thing in the thought of the world, although it may seem to the ordinary reader to be a recent discovery. Its beginning is lost in the haze of the history of the primitive peoples of the race. The ancient writings of India give us many instances of the effect of one mind upon another at a distance. And the occult legends of other ancient peoples give evidence that the belief in the effect of mind upon mind at a distance was quite common. In many of the old occult writings we find traces of this almost universal belief in thought-transmission and thought-force, and we have every reason to believe that the old alchemists were fully acquainted with the phenomena.
In India, especially, has the belief in thought-transference prevailed from time immemorial. Passing over the legendary tales, and coming down to the time of recent history, we see many instances of the acceptance of this idea by the people of that old land of the strange and mysterious. The English who lived through the great uprising in India in the last century have passed on to us many tales of the strange power of the native Hindus which enabled them to flash from one part of India to another the news of great battles and uprisings. It is recorded by those who passed through this great uprising that the Hindus were noticed to be agitated in a strange way about the time of the actual occurrences in far distant parts of the land, and seemed to be fully informed regarding these occurrences, while the English were compelled to wait for days until their couriers brought them the news in the regular way. In other words, the natives maintained a mental-telegraphic system, while the English were compelled to rely upon couriers, the days of the electric telegraph not having as yet arrived.
But, so far as the subject of modern Telepathy is concerned we may as well assume that Telepathy had its birth into modern scientific thought at the time of the formation of the English Society for Psychical Research in 1882. One of the stated objects of the said Society was “to conduct an examination into the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally recognized mode of perception.” While the latter years of the Society’s existence has been devoted principally to an investigation of the phenomena of clairvoyance, spirit-return, trancemediumship, etc., its first decade was almost entirely devoted to the investigation of telepathy, thought-transference, and similar phenomena. The early experiments of the Society have been fully reported, and these reports, which comprise several volumes, have given the world a record of psychic phenomena of the greatest value to science.
The celebrated Sidgwick experiments, conducted under the auspices of the Society for Psychical Research in 1889 and 1890, excited great interest in scientific circles, and placed the subject of Telepathy upon a basis which science could not afford to refuse to perceive. And the result has been that many careful scientists have freely acknowledged that “there may be something to it,” some going so far as to openly advocate Telepathy as an established scientific fact, although there are many scientists who still adhere to the opinion that Telepathy remains to be proven scientifically, while some of the ultraconservatives go so far as to insist that Telepathy is scientifically impossible, this latter opinion being calculated to cause a smile to one who remembers how many “scientifically impossible” things have afterward been proven to be not only scientifically possible, or probable, but also actually existent. It is either a very bold man, or else a foolish one, who in these days can positively assert that anything is scientifically impossible. In this connection one is reminded of the learned body of scientists who sitting in conference solemnly decided that it was scientifically impossible for a vessel to cros the ocean by the power of steam. While the decision was being recorded on the minutes, the word was received that a steamship had actually made the voyage across the ocean, and was that moment entering the harbor. One also recalls the story of the eminent English scientist who had for a lifetime positively disputed the possibility of certain facts, and who in his old age, when asked to witness the actual demonstration of the disputed fact, refused to look into the microscope for the purpose, and left the room, angrily shaking his head and saying, “It is impossible.” Yesterday’s “impossibilities” are often tomorrow’s “proven facts.
In view of what has been said above, the following opinions of certain well-known scientists may prove of interest to the reader as indicating the change in the mental attitude of science toward the phenomena of Telepathy.
Sir William Crookes, in an address delivered several years ago at Bristol, England, before the Royal Society (of which he was president), said:
“Were I now introducing for the first time these inquiries to the world of science, I should choose a starting point different from that of old, where we formerly began. It would be well to begin with Telepathy; with the fundamental law, as I believe it to be, that thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized organs of sense—that knowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in any hitherto known or recognized ways. Although the inquiry has elicited important facts with reference to the mind, it has not yet reached the scientific stage of certainty which would enable it to be usefully brought before one of the sections. I will therefore confine myself to pointing out the direction in which scientific investigation can legitimately advance. If Telepathy take place, we have two physical facts—the physical change in the brain of A. the suggestor, and the analogous physical change in the brain of B. the recipient of the suggestion. Between these two physical events there must exist a train of physical causes. Whenever the connecting sequence of intermediate causes begins to be revealed, the inquiry will then come within the range of one of the sections of the British Association. Such a sequence can only occur through an intervening medium. All the phenomena of the Universe are presumably in some way continuous, and it is unscientific to call in the aid of mysterious agencies when with every fresh advance in knowledge it is shown that ether vibrations have powers and attributes abundantly equal to any demand—even the transmission of thought.”
The same eminent authority also says:
“It is supposed by some physiologists that the essential cells of nerves do not actually touch, but are separated by a narrow gap which widens in sleep while it narrows almost to extinction during mental activity. This condition is so singularly like that of a Branly or Lodge coherer (a device which has led Marconi to the discovery of wireless telegraphy) as to suggest a further analogy. The structure of the brain and nerves, being similar, it is conceivable that there may be present masses of such nerve coherers in the brain, whose special function it may be to receive impulses brought from without through the connecting sequence of ether waves of appropriate order of magnitude. Roentgen has familiarized us with an order of extreme minuteness compared with the smallest waves with which we have hitherto been acquainted, and of dimensions comparable with the distances between the centers of the atoms of which the material universe is built up; and there is no reason for believing that we have reached the limits of frequency. It is known that the action of thought is accompanied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of acting direct upon individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of the internal movements of the atoms themselves.”
Prof. Camille Flammarion, the well-known French astronomer, says:
“We sum up, therefore, our preceding observations by the conclusion that one mind can act at a distance upon another, without the habitual medium of words, or any other visible means of communication. It appears to us altogether unreasonable to reject this conclusion if we accept the facts. There is nothing unscientific, nothing romantic, in admitting that an idea can influence the brain from a distance. The action of one human being upon another, from a distance, is a scientific fact; it is as certain as the existence of Paris, of Napoleon, of Oxygen, or of Sirius…. There can be no doubt that our psychical force creates a movement of the ether, which transmits itself afar like all movements of ether, and becomes perceptible to brains in harmony with our own. The transformation of a psychic action into an ethereal movement, and the reverse, may be analogous to what takes place on a telephone, where the receptive plate, which is identical with the plate at the other end, reconstructs the sonorous movement transmitted, not by means of sound, but by electricity.”
Prof. Ochorowicz says:
“Every living being is a dynamic focus. A dynamic focus tends ever to propagate the motion that is proper to it. Propagated motion becomes transformed according to the medium it traverses. Motion tends always to propagate itself. Therefore when we see work of any kind—mechanical, electrical, nervic, or psychic—disappear without visible effect, then, of two things, one happens, either a transmission or a transformation. Where does the first end, and where does the second begin? In an identical medium there is only transmission. In a different medium there is transformation. You send an electric current through a thick wire. You have the current, but you do not perceive any other force. But cut that thick wire and connect the ends by means of a fine wire; the fine wire will grow hot; there will be a transformation of the current into heat. Take a pretty strong current and interpose a wire still more resistant, or a very thin carbon rod. The carbon will emit light. A part of the current then is transformed into heat and light