Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-12-08
'SOME EVIDENCES
OF SIXTH SENSE
An English Psychologist Makes
His Deduction from Two
Strange Cases.

In discussing the pros and cons of
/ the theory that women have a sixth
! sense, a well-known London psycholo-
! gist takes up the matter from the
/ points of view of two cases which
I have recently been related in detail
and with all necessary confirmation
as to facts in the columns of the Lon
] don Times One case was of wom-
an who seemed to be endowed with a
| strange subeonsciousness Of spiders,
/ however hidden. and collapsing when
/ ir their proximity. The other con-
| Germs a sisters dream, which revealed
| the secret site of her brothers sui
eide. The psychologist begins at the
beginning.
What is a sense? Is 1t some form
of activity or merely of sensitive
ness? Is it the sensitive plant or the
fly-catching leaf? Or, rather is 1t
NOT that manifestation of both %
gether, which is summed up in the
vague word "instincta-at once a re-
coil from danger and an effort TO
avert if2 And are not the familiar
senses" only survivals of a long Sc
ries vanished. or sparsely lingering
as in the enhanced powers OF some
savage tribes, or the commoner man
ifestations OF clairvoyance2 In
word, has not sense killed those
senses which are of scant use to the
mutual adjustments called civiliza-
tom The primitive instincts 70
longer avail for the jewellers in cities,
and thus very often the rare recur-
renee Of them is termed 'snpersti-
ton"
or course. il will occur to every
one that this illustration Of the
dream might really depend on some
dormant memory. The sister might
have heard the brother Cwho was
supposed TO have gone away threat
en- suicide in the cellar where ms
body was found. But even if this
were so it is only one of many OF
such condolences which cannot us-
pend upon memory.
Moi long ago / was assured by a
careful witness, well acquainted with
the fact Of such an instance. There
was a house which she knew where
sshaunting" took the form of what
seemed to be senseless ways OF in
viting attention. The occupants of
certain rooms would feel as if water
had been splashed in their faces. One
of those more especially affected was
a relation who seemed hidden and.
indeed, urged TO go to a remote
church in a distant county and I'M
earth the parish register. With the
greatest difficulty she effected the
purpose and thereby was able TO set
a sad matter right of which she had
not hitherto had an mixing. 1t Is I'M
possible to believe that some sort OF
sixth sense often exists, and to sus-
pect that it is the survival OF an
earlier time when man was nearear
the unseen than he now Is.
How surely, swiftly people are
tracked and scented in those early
myths, as surely and certainly as the
sixth sense yet lingering among some
red Indians enables them to find both
their way and their prey. Could
Argus have a more watchful sight
than some aborigines still exercise!
And is not this very "splder-sense
in some way associated with the ter
rible traditions of the vampire and
the ghoul? Is the diving rod merely
the result of some unascertained
law" or does it not rather presup-
nose some secret, il unrealized, faculty
in its wielder?
Everywhere we ind the sixth sense
inminant-even in the love and prop
critics of gems. The craving for anu
lets, under whatever garb 1t may
masquerade, seems simply a barking
hack to those vanished senses.
Heine in a magnificent passage has
figured the old pagan gods and god
desses in desolate ambush through
the long centuries. Sometimes in wan
beauty they step out of their forests
or glide down the mountains to en-
chant the wayfarer or scare the viii
Iage. So it seems it is with the
sixth sense" And when our great
analysts have done with unwilling
auto-suggestion perhaps they will
flash their searchlights on . power
and spell as primeval and eternal as
Mother Nature herself.