St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-12-01
MIND Reading INFLUENCES
EXPERIMENTS WHICH EVERYBODY
CAN TRY
BUT NOBODY CAN EXPLAIN.


a Spiritualist Says That Disem-
bodied Spirits Influence HUI
man Beings in the Same Way
Subjects Must Be Blind fold
ed to Shut Out External Influ
ences.
Most persons like to be puzzled. says
the New York Herald, especially by the
manifestations of seemingly occult pow
erS which have thus far eluded scientific
analysis, and which the average indi-
YIdual is content 10 regard as things
which no fellow can understand. Nearly
everybody is more or less familiar with
the phenomena of mind reading, thought
trarNterence or telepathy, as it is vari-
on. Y allied, either through witnessing
puu..c exhibitions or reading about
them.
But comparatively few persons who
have INDUCED i'll battling SpeculationS
concerlng them are aware that they
themselves. in the privacy of their own
family circles, or in the presence Of
friends and acquaintance, can elicit
similar phenomena, not by any means
as startling always as those seen at
what may be called professional per-
formances, but for all that just as mys-
ferrous when it comes to satisfactorily
accounting for them. Indeed, one might
say that they are even more so when
one considers that the conditions may
be made such as preclude the possibility
OF fraud and collision, which is the
explanation that the Skeptic always
jumps at.
Nearly all OF us possess in all attenu-
ated degree, but possibly susceptible of
cultivation, the power of mind reading
or OF interpreting and Obeying tie out
spoken thoughts and commands of
Others.
HOW TO TRY IT.
Here is the proof OF it, which nearly
every reader has it in his power to test
for himself. Let four or five or dozen
people get together III room, and after
blIndfolding one of their number and
placing him where he cannot overhear
the conversation, hide some small article
"a handkerchief will serve as well as
anything elSe-and agree among them
selves that they will concentrate their
thoughts on the desire that the subject
selected for the test shall find the hid
den object.
Then. when the blindfolded indvid-
dal is brought into the room again and
spun around TWO or three times, until
he loses what sailors call his bearings,
they should gather in circle around
him and, touching his waist with the
tips OF their fingers, will him with all
their might to do what they want him to
do. He,on his part, should reduce himself
to condition Of oySter-like passivitY,
both physically and mentally, yielding to
the slightest impulse that he feels.
Under these circumstances and con-
ditionS, provided what may be called
the operators refrain from levity and
preserve absolute silence, and really
bring their will power TO bear on the
subject, he will, as rule-the eXcep-
lions to which in my experience are not
more than one in tiVe-go to the object
hidden, moving sometimes all the way
backward to arrive at it.
AN INDEFINABLE INFLUENCE.
Some persons are much more suscep-
tible to the indefinable influence than
others. Who they are can be ascer-
tanned by experiment. | hSye seen the
test succeed equally we'll with boys and
girls, men and women. 1t succeeds with
me, and my har Is beginning to get
gray aarmingly fast.
i have spoken of the influence as in
detnable, because L have never been
able to make II clear to any body else
who hasn't experienced just what it is
like. Nor have l met anybody else who
mas felt 1t ana oDeyed 1t who Is able to
do it.
1t is very slight. The slightest effort
at seIf-assertiOn sutfices to overcome it.
Ii anybody submits to the test who
does not impose upon himself the con-
dltlon OF passlvity, and with whom the
wish that it may fail is father to the
thought, failure will almost inevitably
be the result. But with such person,
II he has mind open to conviction, his
own observation of the results of the
experiments upon others must convince
him that there is something in it,"
Those exercising their will power on
the subject, who are in contact with
MN, should, or course, refrain from eX-
erclslng any pressure with their hand.
There run foul of the explanation so
apparently obvious and conclusive that
1t must occur to everybody VINO reads
this, 20 wit: That the operators push.
perhaps unconsciouSly, the individual
whom they are willing to obey their nm
spoken thought, and that the impulse
10 which he Yields is simply muscular
pressure.
Try ii for yourself and see if it is. If
the lndehnable something that impels
you to move is muscular pressure. if
doesn't feel bit like it.
NOT ALWAYS MUSCULAR PRESSURE.
But. of course, if the test went no
further than to cause blindfolded in
dlvdual to move in the direction of a
hidden object. while three or four peo-
pie had their hands upon him, the mus
GUAR pressure theory would be regard
ed as all-Su1ficienJ IN this skeptical age
and generation. But persons are not
infrequently met with so susceptible TO
tins combination will power influence
that they can feel it and yield to it with
out any physical contact.
Inc best example of this that came
under my observation was afforded by a
very clever young man of a speculative
turn of mind who had got the uncon-
sci0Gsly exercised muscular pressure
theory down so fine that he professed
to be able to find in it all explanation of
BlShcplS teatS, and to be able thereby
TO duplicate some OF them himself. He
laughed to Scorn the idea that there
was anything not susceptible of the
easiest and most transparent expIana-
ton in such tests as | have re-
ferred to above. He wanted it tried on
himself. lie moved very readily toward
tire object selected for HIM to find.
DhndtOlded though he was, and not
knowing where ii had been hidden. But
although we all tried very hard not to
push MN toward 1t, he was very certain
that we must have unconsciousIv
pushed him, and that ne nnconsciousIy
responded TO the pressure, because that
was the only way it could be explained
scientifically.
PUZZLED THE SKEPTICs.
The fact that he seemed to yield so