gattino
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2003
- Messages
- 2,522
I'm reading a slim but somewhat famous volume from the 1920s by Upton Sinclair, called Mental Radio. It recounts years of informal experiments between him and his wife in telepathy. Specifically of the "see if you can draw the picture I've just drawn" variety.
The book gets mentioned, usuallyin passing, in a lot of fortean and skeptical themed literature mainly because Einstein provide a supportive, if non commital, forward to the german edition. The book is available on amazon but you can also read it for free online. Just google the title followed by "pdf" and you'll find it.
Anyway I'm a few chapters in and already half a dozen different subjects deserving of threads of their own come flooding to mind. So these observations are a bit scattergun.
*
The first is about Scepticism and debunking. If any evidence were needed for the much talked about guerrilla skeptics who control wiki entries on any paranormal subject, this is it. The Wikipedia entry for Mental Radio has two sections..a summary of what its about and "critical reception", which as you might suspect means negative reception. It quotes a noted sceptic at length. And its quite extraordinary.
"In the first place, an intuitive wife, who knows her husband intimately, may be able to guess with a fair degree of accuracy what he is likely to draw—particularly if the picture is related to some freshly recalled event the two experienced in common. At first, simple pictures like chairs and tables would likely predominate, but as these are exhausted, the field of choice narrows and pictures are more likely to be suggested by recent experiences. It is also possible that Sinclair may have given conversational hints during some of the tests—hints which in his strong will to believe, he would promptly forget about. Also, one must not rule out the possibility that in many tests, made across the width of a room, Mrs. Sinclair may have seen the wiggling of the top of a pencil, or arm movements, which would convey to her unconscious a rough notion of the drawing."
This casual debunking - two likelys, three mays, a possibly and a possibility - is what anyone who had not read the book would believe of it if they googled it and so would not feel the need to find out for themselves. Which would appear to be the point. Because what it describes bears no relation that I can detect to the actual contents! I've seen this time and time again. In this particular case the idea that the wife could see the wiggle of the husband's pencil (ooer missus) is ruled out from the first page...great emphasis is put on them being in different rooms (with closed doors)/floors of the house/buildings or even cities! So why did the quoted sceptic/wiki entry suggest something which is palpably false as the explanation? The images themselves are not confined to obvious household items but a vast array of detailed randomness, and the author refers to flicking through magazines or books to pick an image. The examples also include inadvertent telepathy relating to things he is silently reading etc. What all this tells us about the sceptical literature is at the very least to treat it with great scepticism and check the original sources for ourselves. But as for the motive for such mischief it's beyond me.
*
The second point of interest is that in the background chapters psychic experiences in a state of induced hypnosis are cited several times...and that got me thinking: why do we never hear of such experiments any more? Does anyone carry them out? In the literature of the past telepathy and clairvoyance seem to have been regularly experimented with or noticed in hypnotic subjects...but you never hear of it at all now. Surely someone must have tried a proper study? Does anyone know?
*
The thing of greatest interest..though the bulk of the book is about drawing exercises (the kind of thing we've all seen Uri Gellar and most stage magicians do on TV, so must be doable by trickery, but in this instance we're not being shown a performance but rather recieving a written report of private experiences), they don't take place in isolation but stem from his wife's concerted effort to master and control such ability having witnessed and wishing to discover for herself. Subsequently lots of other material is reported in the first few chapters which, the author's sincerity seemingly beyond doubt, are quite staggering in that they essentially fit the comic book notion of telepathy rather than the dull card guessing and knowing who is about to phone which we always hear about these days. She appears, on his persuasive word, to have been able - with the two or three individuals with whom she established "rapport" - to direct her attention to their activiities and movements at will, pick up their thoughts in her dreams and even silently instruct them in what to do.
It's well worth a read. You'll want to experiment.
The book gets mentioned, usuallyin passing, in a lot of fortean and skeptical themed literature mainly because Einstein provide a supportive, if non commital, forward to the german edition. The book is available on amazon but you can also read it for free online. Just google the title followed by "pdf" and you'll find it.
Anyway I'm a few chapters in and already half a dozen different subjects deserving of threads of their own come flooding to mind. So these observations are a bit scattergun.
*
The first is about Scepticism and debunking. If any evidence were needed for the much talked about guerrilla skeptics who control wiki entries on any paranormal subject, this is it. The Wikipedia entry for Mental Radio has two sections..a summary of what its about and "critical reception", which as you might suspect means negative reception. It quotes a noted sceptic at length. And its quite extraordinary.
"In the first place, an intuitive wife, who knows her husband intimately, may be able to guess with a fair degree of accuracy what he is likely to draw—particularly if the picture is related to some freshly recalled event the two experienced in common. At first, simple pictures like chairs and tables would likely predominate, but as these are exhausted, the field of choice narrows and pictures are more likely to be suggested by recent experiences. It is also possible that Sinclair may have given conversational hints during some of the tests—hints which in his strong will to believe, he would promptly forget about. Also, one must not rule out the possibility that in many tests, made across the width of a room, Mrs. Sinclair may have seen the wiggling of the top of a pencil, or arm movements, which would convey to her unconscious a rough notion of the drawing."
This casual debunking - two likelys, three mays, a possibly and a possibility - is what anyone who had not read the book would believe of it if they googled it and so would not feel the need to find out for themselves. Which would appear to be the point. Because what it describes bears no relation that I can detect to the actual contents! I've seen this time and time again. In this particular case the idea that the wife could see the wiggle of the husband's pencil (ooer missus) is ruled out from the first page...great emphasis is put on them being in different rooms (with closed doors)/floors of the house/buildings or even cities! So why did the quoted sceptic/wiki entry suggest something which is palpably false as the explanation? The images themselves are not confined to obvious household items but a vast array of detailed randomness, and the author refers to flicking through magazines or books to pick an image. The examples also include inadvertent telepathy relating to things he is silently reading etc. What all this tells us about the sceptical literature is at the very least to treat it with great scepticism and check the original sources for ourselves. But as for the motive for such mischief it's beyond me.
*
The second point of interest is that in the background chapters psychic experiences in a state of induced hypnosis are cited several times...and that got me thinking: why do we never hear of such experiments any more? Does anyone carry them out? In the literature of the past telepathy and clairvoyance seem to have been regularly experimented with or noticed in hypnotic subjects...but you never hear of it at all now. Surely someone must have tried a proper study? Does anyone know?
*
The thing of greatest interest..though the bulk of the book is about drawing exercises (the kind of thing we've all seen Uri Gellar and most stage magicians do on TV, so must be doable by trickery, but in this instance we're not being shown a performance but rather recieving a written report of private experiences), they don't take place in isolation but stem from his wife's concerted effort to master and control such ability having witnessed and wishing to discover for herself. Subsequently lots of other material is reported in the first few chapters which, the author's sincerity seemingly beyond doubt, are quite staggering in that they essentially fit the comic book notion of telepathy rather than the dull card guessing and knowing who is about to phone which we always hear about these days. She appears, on his persuasive word, to have been able - with the two or three individuals with whom she established "rapport" - to direct her attention to their activiities and movements at will, pick up their thoughts in her dreams and even silently instruct them in what to do.
It's well worth a read. You'll want to experiment.
