Puslapio vaizdai
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Says Peter C. Austin:

"Particles of vibrations strike our nerve points in one way and we see light or color; in another way and we feel heat. Our nerves and brain transmute the motions into forms of sensation. The brain is the translator of motion into images; of sensations into ideas. There is no reason why there should be any limit to the modes of molecular or ethereal motion; but our senses, as we call our translators, are but few in number, bence we recognize but few of them."

Our physical senses comprehend a certain range of vibrations. All outside the range thus far set for us is a blank: there is no conscious recognition of anything. Animal life gives conclusive evidence of perception beyond the range of human consciousness, and may we not fairly conclude that there are many vibrations representing things beyond our present conscious ken?

Moreover, since much of our life is hidden in unconsciousness, have we not a right to assume that the subconsciousness has senses of its own that play an important part in determining conscious action and feeling?

Says Prof. Wm. James:

"Vibrations are, generally speaking, aerial waves. When the waves are non-periodic the result is a noise; when periodic it is a note or tone. Loudness depends on force of waves. The timbre of the sound depends on the form of the waves. The pitch of C is due to 132 vibrations a second; that of the octave C to twice as many -264. The highest pitched audible note is due to 38,016. Very low and very high vibrations are inaudible." Says Prof. John D. Quackenbos:

"The time has indeed come, as Maeterlinck predicted it would, when souls may know of each other without the intermediary of the senses."

Says Clark Bell:

"Telepathy, as it is regarded by scientists who accept

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it as a fact, is some unknown sense or power of the human body by which as a physical process communication is held between brain and brain of the human organism-some means by which the perceptions are reached in some manner analogous to the known and well-defined transmission of the electric current or the action of gravitation which we know exists. But we are as yet unable to comprehend how it acts or to know its methods."

Prof. Hyslop and many other students of spiritistic phenomena declare that either socalled spiritualism or telepathy of a most lucid character is true-the one or the other. Here are the horns of the dilemma. Let doubters take their choice. Since Hyslop, as I am informed, is Professor of Logic in Columbia University, such a conclusion should be allowed unusual weight.

The evidence herein adduced gives the question of "absent treatment" a standing before a medical tribunal, and I am sure there will be no adverse criticism of the author in giving it serious consideration.

Says Prof. Crooks:

"If we accept the theory that the brain is composed of separate elements-nerve cells-then we must presume that each of these components, like every other bit of matter, has its movements of vibration, and will, under suitable conditions, be affected; as, for instance, the nerve cells of the retina by vibration in the ether. If another neuron, situated not far away, should acquire the same movement of vibration, there seems no good reason why they should not materially affect each other through the ether."

"The earth does move," said Galileo, and so it does. The scientific men of his day were theological bigots-and bigotry is always cruel. A few years ago we all were ready to commit those who avowed faith in "absent treatment" to the

insane asylum, and most physicians are still ready to do so. The authorities are today about to put on trial for fraud a "mental scientist" because she claims to be able to cure ailments by means of health-thoughts sent to her patients through the ether. History repeats itself, not in identical, but in analogous, experiences.

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FIGURE 7.

Telepathic Lines of Communication. A, line of conscious thought transferrence; B, B, lines of unconscious transferrence.

We boast our twentieth-century toleration; but mankind is nearly as bigoted as ever.

There is no disputing the fact that those who have given the subject of telepathy attentive thought and patient investigation have become convinced of its truth and practicability. My own experience has given me unwavering convictions. I know that in some way thought can be transmitted from one conscious mind to another; and I have good reason to believe that it can be transmitted still more forcibly and fully to the unconscious mind of the percipient.

Having become convinced, one finds "absent treatments" on practically the same footing as suggestion in general. In one instance vibrations carry the thought in plain language to the patient access to the mind being had through the auditory nerve-while in the other, vibrations

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bear the thought in graphic images. It is much like the difference existing between wire and aerial telegraphy.

Formerly I laughed in derision at the suggestion of curing by suggestion, and I laughed again at the claim that suggestions could be made to jump great chasms of space to do their work. Now I am not only willing to admit the scientific possibility of both, but am a hearty believer in their practicability.

One of the evidences of senility is inability, or, oftener, refusal, to accept new ideas. The old physician is apt to cling to his well-practiced routine. His mind has been accustomed to run in certain channels, and its stream of consciousness is so viscid that it does not readily wear new channels.

Happy is he who can keep his mental powers in a state of plasticity and his thoughts limpid. The Sage of Concord says:

"God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please-you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets-most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth. He in whom the love of truth predominates will keep himself aloof from all moorings and float. He will abstain from dogmatism and recognize all the opposite negations between which, as walls, his being is swung. He submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion, but he is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, and respects the highest law of his being."

"Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" we have been asking-and always with an implied negative. To be sure it is a long step for medical men to take, this admitting even the

possibility of efficient suggestion by absent treatment. The testimony herein adduced will not be convincing to all. I neither expect nor desire such an effect. If it awakens in a few an honest endeavor to know the truth it will serve a useful purpose.

WE CAN BE TOLERANT WITHOUT BEING CREDULOUS. WE CAN BE SINCERE WITHOUT BEING SEVERE.

Says Carlyle:

"I will allow a thing to struggle for itself in the world, with any sword or tongue or implement it has or can lay hold of. We will let it preach and pamphleteer and fight, and to the uttermost bestir itself, and do, beak and claws, whatsoever is in it; very sure that it will, in the long run, conquer nothing which does not deserve to be conquered."

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