Los Angeles herald., 1892-01-17
MENTAL TELEGRAPHY.
INFLUENCE OF MIND ON MIND
STRONGLY ILLUSTRATED.

A Strange Story of Thought Transmis-
sion-Two Well Known Men Conceive
the Same idea at About the Same Time
An Odd Experience of Mark Twain's
Now come to the oldest thing that
ever happened to me. Two or three
years ago was lying in bed idly nusing
one morning-it was the I'd of March
when suddenly a red hot new idea came
whistling down into my camp and ex-
ploded with such comprehensive effec-
tiveness as to sweep the vicinity clean of
rubbishy reflections and fill the air with
their dust and flying fragments. This
idea, stated in simple phrase, was that
the time was ripe and the market ready
for certain book; book which ought
to be written at once; book which must
command attention and be of peculiar
interest-to wit, book about the Ne
vada silver mines.
The Great Bonanza was a new won
der then, and everybody was talking
about it. 1t seemed to me that the per-
son best qualified to write this book was
Mr.. William FL. Wright, journalist of
Virginia, New, by whose side | had
scribbled many months when | was a
reporter there ten or twelve before. He
might be alive still; he might be dead;
could not tell; but l would write him
anyway.
began by merely and modestly sug-
gesting that he make such a book, but
my interest grew as went on, and ven
tured to map out what thought ought
to be the plan of the work, he being an old
friend, and not given to taking good in
tentions for i'll. l even dealt with details
and suggested the order and sequence
which they should follow. was about
to put the manuscript in an envelope,
when the thought occurred to me that if
this book should be written at my sug-
gestion, and then no publisher happen to
want it, should feel uncomfortable; 80
concluded to keep my letter back until
! should have secured publisher
READING AN UNOPENED LETTER.
pigeonholed my document and drop
ped note to my own publisher, asking
him to name aday for business consulta-
ton. He was out of town on a far jour-
ney. My note remained unanswered, and
at the end of three or four days the whole
matter had passed out of my mind. On
the 9th of March the postman brought
three or four letters, and among them
thick one whose superscription was in
hand which seemed dimly familiar to
me. l could not ''place" it at first, but
presently succeeded. Then said to
visiting relative who was present:
"Now will do miracle / will tell
you everything this letter contains
date, signature and all-without break
ing the seal. 1t is from Mr.. Wright, of
Virginia, New, and is dated the I'd of
March-seven days ago. Mr.. Wright
proposes to make q book about the silver
mines and the Great Bonanza, and asks
what l, as friend, think of the idea.
He says his subjects are to be so and
so, their order and sequence so and so,
and he will close with history of the
chief feature of the book, the Great
Bonanza"
READ Alright.
opened the letter and showed that
had stated the date and the contents cor
rectly. Mr. Wright's letter simply con-
tanned what my own letter, written on
the same date contained, and mine still
lay in its pigeonhole, where it had been
lying during the seven days since it was
written.
There was no clairvoyance about this,
If l rightly comprehend what clairvoy-
ance is. l think the clairvoyant pro-
fesses to actually see concealed writing
and read it off word for word. This was
not my case. / only seemed to know,
and to know absolutely, the contents of
the letter in detail and due order, but
had to word them myself. translated
them, SO to speak, out of Wright's Ian
guage into my own.
Wright's letter and the one which
had written to him, but never sent, were
in substance the same.
Necessarily this could not come by ac-
cident; such elaborate accidents cannot
happen. Chance might have duplicated
one or two of the details, but she would
have broken down on the rest. could
not doubt-there was no tenable reason
for doubting-that Mr.. Wright's mind
and mine had been in close and crystal
clear communication with each other
across 5000 miles of mountain and
desert on the morning of March Q. did
not consider that both minds originated
that succession of ideas, but that one
mind originated them, and simply tele-
graphed them to the other.
MENTAL rELEGRAPHY.
was curious to know which brain
was the telegrapher and which was the
receiver, so | wrote and asked for par
ticulars Mr.. Wright's reply showed
that his mind had done the originating
and telegraphing and mine the receiving.
Mark that significant thing now;
Consider for moment how many a
splendid Original" idea has been un-
consciously stolen from man 8, 900 miles
away.
If one should question that this is so,
let him look into the cyclopedia and
con once more that curious thing in the
history of inventions which has puzzled
every one so much-that is, the frequency
with which the same machine or other
contrivance has been invented at the
same time by several persons in differ
ent quarters of the globe. The world
was without an electric telegraph for
several thousand years; then Professor
Henry the American, Wheatstone in