The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-12
STAMP IT.

| By Augustus Thomas, author of The Wttching Houf," in Chicago Tribune am often asked by people who have seen,
 The Witching Hour" if personally believe
 in thought reading. thought tranference.
 and other forms of thought mysteries that
 go generally under the name of telepathy And I wish to say that I do. As I nave
 rated into The witching Hour" have per
 sonal knowledge of Some of them are per-
 sonal experiences.
 To come at once to my experience with
 Washington Irving Bishop, will recall that
 this remarkable man, who has been dead nearly twenty years, was comparatively young at the time he died. suppose he was what physicians would have called neurotic. He claimed to have the power of auto-hyp.
 nosis He was the first man Of whom
 auto-suggestion is one now recognized by all pathologists.
 Bishops audiences imagined that he was
 making difficulties for himself when he re- quested to be biindfolded As a matter of
 fact, 1t would have been impossible for him his eyes open. and with the appeal Of his | senses to disturb what was teiepathic com
 munication The star exhibition and test
 that Bishop made In the various cities was
 to drive a team of horses through the city while he was bIindfolded. and while he acted
 ssstsa p osss psaqass Sesiae Rm which committee had previously driven over I the route he was taking Frequentiy Thenn- side Bishop as a matter of self-pFotection, but Bishop would have driven better without the man beside him.
 His work was never, in my opinion, expli-
 cable by the called muscle reading. In
 this particular feat Bishop would scream In terror at the recollection of some danger that he had passed while driving A team,
 and in a falsetto way would describe 1t. It
 would be something that three men in the
 carriage had not seen, but would be plainly witnessed by the fourth.
 He would then call to mind some other
 menace in the review of the route he had
 taken, and some other man of the four would be the only one that had seen 1t. And so on
 along the line until 1t became evident to the physicians who composed the committee ap- pointed by the skeptfcaal townspeople that Bishop, blindfolded on the drivers seat, had
 seen everything that had been seen by each
 and all of the men who rode behind him. It was my duty to precede Bishop to make arrangements for his reception in cities, and wherever this possible the reception was by a committee of fifty men of the liberal professions--law, medicine, and ministry. The l local tests were performed in the presencaf of a subcommittee selected from this larger l one of the fifty. and almost invariably com posed of men who had never even seen Blsh- op before men scientifically skeptical and anxious to convict him of fraud.
 Bishop was sincere and fine example of
 sensitive telepathist. I have met a mum
 Der since Bishops time, know now another
 man who Is as far ahead of what Bishop
 was in telepathy Bishop was superior to
 know. had only the receptive side of telepa- thy communications The man of whom I speak has also the dynamic side-that is. the ability Of the percipent as well as the recipient.
 This man I haev mentioned as exceIling Bishop in the possession of rare psychic powers Is not professional in any sense; in