Telepathy Expounded

by: James H. Hyslop

Telepathy is a process now very widely assumed as an alternative to the spiritistic hypothesis. It is more or less synonymous with "mind reading" or "thought transference," which were the expressions in use before the more technical term was coined and adopted. It would have had little or no recognition if it had not been useful in displacing the supposition of spirits in the interpretation of certain phenomena.

It was a group of spontaneous experiences, called "mind-reading," which attracted the attention of investigators. But most people used the expression to mean more than the facts justified. They assumed some supernormal ability to read the mind without the use of normal senseperception and interpretation. That is, they made the phenomena more unusual and exceptional than they were, or at least more evidential than they actually were. The exhibitions of Cumberland and Bishop, as well as of persons imitating them, can be explained as muscle-reading. It is necessary to discriminate between unusually delicate sensations, and the imparting of knowledge without any sense-perception. Muscle-reading depends on detecting unconscious acts of a person by a performer, and any conditions of contact that make muscle-reading possible under the circumstances discredits the phenomena as evidence for anything more. Muscle-reading may be defined as the interpretation by the operator of unconscious muscular movements in the subject experimented on. It is evident therefore that phenomena referable to it are not evidence of any agency transcending sense-perception.

The term telepathy was coined to express exactly and technically this transmission of thought from one mind to another without sensory perception even of the hyperaesthetic type. Whether such transmission actually exists was yet to be proved; hence the term represented only an hypothesis, not a demonstrated fact It was meant to exclude every form of sense-perception including the subconscious. It might be easy to exclude conscious sense-perception, even hyperaesthesia, but it was not so easy to exclude subliminal sensibility. There was abundant evidence that subconsciously perceived stimuli existed. But we had to suppose that even subliminal perceptions were excluded from anything called telepathy; and the stimulus must be mere thought on the part of the sender, or agent. As thought is not a physical stimulus, any reception of it by another person could be said to be a phenomenon not involving normal sense-perception or even the interpretation of unconscious sensory stimuli.

It is very important to take all these facts into account, because the term telepathy has been very widely used to denote a process that would explain much more than the phenomena which it was coined merely to describe. The founders of the English Society defined the term as the "transmission of thought independently of the recognized channels of sense." I have preferred to define telepathy as "coincidence, excluding normal senseperception, between the thoughts of two minds." There is no essential difference between this definition and that by the English Society. The original founders of the Society probably did not intend that the term should imply or express a definite process of explanation; but the use of the term "transmission" and the assumption, at least for scientific cautiousness, that this "transmission" was a direct process between living minds and not in any way connected with the action of spirits, soon gave the term an implication which it did not originally have. All that we strictly know is that A's thought gets into the mind of B, without reference to the process by which this effect was brought about. We know only the fact of a coincidence inexplicable by chance or normal sense-perception. We have no reason to assume that it is a process exclusively between living people and not permitting the intervention of the dead, if the discarnate exist and can act on the living.

It thus became necessary to define very exactly the meaning of the term telepathy, absolutely excluding either the evidence or the action of the discarnate, or both, or else defining it with such breadth as to include any undiscovered process of transcendental action between minds of any kind, whether incarnate or discarnate. Only the former meaning of the term would bring it into rivalry with the spiritistic theory, while the latter would permit the employment of the term to describe the action of discarnate as well as incarnate minds. There has been a, growing tendency among some of the members of the English Society to extend the meaning of the term so that it might include transmission of thoughts between the living and the dead and between different discarnate minds, without fully realizing that they have cut off the right to use the term as excluding spiritistic interpretations of any or all of the phenomena involving transcendental transmission of thought.

In its only proper meaning, telepathy is a term to name facts which are not evidence for the existence of spirits, and it implies no explanation whatever of the facts so named. The process, if we knew it, might include a relation between the incarnate and the discarnate, and between different discarnate minds, if such exist. But the term itself is only a name for facts whose explanation we do not know. The first object of the English Society was the estimation of evidence, not the application of explanatory hypotheses. Telepathy involves no assumption of any known or hypothetical process to explain the coincidences cited as evidence of a supernormal relation between two minds.

The phenomena cited to prove the existence of telepathy represent the thoughts of A and the simultaneous acquisition or perception of them by B. There are no doubt coincidences between A's thoughts yesterday or ten years ago and those of B to-day or five years ago. But such coincidences would be no evidence of telepathy. But there has been a very marked tendency, even among supposed scientific students and investigators, to extend the import of the term to include coincidences between what may be a mere subconscious memory of A and the present thought of B. This extension of the meaning of telepathy has been adopted as an explanation of apparent spirit communications; that is, the messages which seem to indicate continued personal existence of the dead are regarded as a selection from among the sitter's subconscious memories, on the part of the medium. But no evidence whatever has ever been produced to prove that B can select memories from the subconscious of A. There may be, as I think there are, some coincidences which look very like selection from the subconscious rather than the direct action of the agent upon the percipient; but these are too often complicated with associated incidents indicative of spirit agencies, to be disposed of as selective telepathy from the subconscious.

Mediumistic phenomena too often suggest the action of spirits, to be cited as direct evidence for telepathy. The possibility of telepathy is only a ground for disqualifying an incident as evidence for the existence of spirits; but the fact that it is a possible alternative explanation is no proof that is the correct explanation. The possibility of spirits and the fact that an incident is appropriate to illustrate the personal identity of a deceased person forbids using it as positive evidence for telepathy. One can only insist that one theory is as good as the other to account for the facts. The possibility of telepathy in the case may nullify the value of the fact as evidence for spirits, but it does not exclude the hypothetical explanation of the fact by spirits, if the incident involves a proved memory of a deceased person. But when facts arise which both indicate the continued personal identity of the dead and are not explicable by telepathy, the spiritistic theory must be conceded.

Of course, the believer in telepathy replies that the proof for spirits has not been given and that telepathy still has the right of preference as a theory. But in order to make telepathy applicable to the facts, its defenders have unwarrantably extended its meaning. At first it was limited to the present active states of the agent and the percipient; that is, the present thoughts of A were received by B. Then, in order to avoid the acceptance of spiritism, its opponents invented, but did not prove, a selective telepathy. The meaning of the term was altered and extended to mean the selection by B from the subconscious of A, of the facts necessary to impersonate the deceased C. This selective process has not in any case been proved. But even the hypothesis of such telepathy is excluded when facts are obtained which B does not know about C, but which are verifiable from the mind of D, who is not present Hence, when one finds an incident that excludes both ordinary telepathy with the normal consciousness and selective telepathy with the subliminal consciousness of the person present, one must either abandon telepathy as an explanation or extend the meaning of the term to include selection from the mind of the absent D.

This sort of telepathy has been supposed, but no evidence has been adduced for it, and I do not see how it would be possible to adduce such evidence. Every extension of the term beyond coincidences between the mental states of two persons is wholly without warrant. The introduction of the assumption that this coincidence is due to a direct transmission from one living mind to another has never been justified, and as there is no known process whatever associated with the coincidences, we are permitted to use the term only in a descriptive, not in an explanatory sense.

An hypothesis may indeed explain facts that are not in themselves evidence of that hypothesis, but only after adequate evidence has already been adduced for it. An hypothesis may thus be applied to facts that are consistent with it but are not convincing evidence of it; and then associated incidents, not directly explained by the main hypothesis, will come under it as due to subsidiary causes consistent with it. But telepathy explains nothing certainly not those associated incidents which might be due to spiritistic causes, though not primary evidence of them. It is only a discriminating device in the estimation of the evidential problem and so serves to postpone the final judgment of the case. It has no relevance to those attendant phenomena which might naturally follow the influence of a transcendental agent, especially on the supposition that it retains its identity, for example, constitutional habits of the mind and organism that are often imitated by a medium, sometimes described as physical impersonation of the discarnate person. Very often the best proof of identity comes from this phenomenon, which bears no relation to telepathy.

Let me summarize the position we have reached in the scientific investigation of unusual phenomena:

1. There are in human experience a large number of coincidences inexplicable by fraud, secondary personality or subconscious creation, chance, or guessing. This general statement covers the whole field of psychic research, including telekinesis, or the movement of physical objects without contact, if we slightly stretch the meaning of the term coincidence. It includes, regardless of explanation, apparently spiritistic as well as telepathic experiences, and the phenomena of dousing. Apparitions may be classed as either telepathic or spiritistic.

   Some explanation of these coincidences must be made. The coincidences are so numerous and so well accredited that no hypothesis which does not go as far as telepathy can have any standing whatever. But telepathy, if applicable, must be used in an explanatory and theoretical, instead of in a descriptive, sense. If telepathy is supposed to have powers of infinite selection and of impersonation, it may be invoked to oppose spiritistic explanations. But without this extension of meaning, it is powerless to explain the facts.

   The spiritualists, of course, at the outset applied the spiritistic hypothesis to the whole field, and were as negligent of the analysis of the problem as the telepathists. The telepathists, in their turn, showed the same carelessness, in attempting to explain everything mediumistic by telepathy. Neither party has fully realized the importance of subsidiary circumstances in the phenomena. The public assumes that spirits are beings that have all the apparent properties of a living person except visibility and tangibility. The scientific man simply thinks of them as personal streams of consciousness, whatever else they may turn out to be; and capable of initiating or causing events in the physical world in cooperation with all sorts of bodily conditions and perhaps transcendental influences other than themselves. The scientific spiritist recognizes different kinds of phenomena, and uses the term spirits only when he wishes it understood that they are the chief cause of the series of phenomena manifested. He may not know in the least how this cause operates; he simply treats the facts as evidence of the existence of spirits and their undefined causal relation to the phenomena, whatever other causes or complicating circumstances may be present.

2. The rigidly scientific man has not yet accepted telepathy of any kind, unless as a possible hypothesis, which has to be eliminated before the spiritistic theory can be admitted even as an hypothesis But he well knows, when he concedes such a possibility, that it implies no explanation whatever of the facts. It merely classifies them as inexplicable and mysterious. The public seems not to regard them as mysterious at all, as it assumes that telepathy is a mere common-place, when in reality it involves considerations far more mysterious to scientific men than the spiritistic theory can possibly be.
3. The experimental evidence for telepathy, as presented in the publications of the English Society, is still under dispute by scientific men, and some of its best data have apparently been discredited. I myself am not convinced of anything more than coincidences excluding chance and guessing, though I am willing to concede the point for the sake of argument. But there are many striking incidents in the Piper phenomena which, though not evidence to the continued personal existence of deceased persons, are undoubtedly supernormal. Similar incidents occur in the work of Mrs. Chenoweth. Scientific men would have to go at least as far as the admission of telepathy, in order to escape the spiritistic theory in the explanation of them. Even if the experimental evidence of the English Society were nullified, these incidents would make out an experimental case for telepathy of some kind. But so many of them imply the continued personal identity of the dead that telepathy is by no means the obvious explanation of them.
4. Whatever real or alleged evidence there is for telepathy limits it to present active states of consciousness between agent and percipient. There is no scientific evidence for any of the following conceptions of it: (1) Telepathy as a process of selecting from the contents of the subconscious of any person in the presence of the percipient. (2) Telepathy as a process of selecting from the contents of the mind of some distant person by the percipient and constructing these acquired facts into a complete simulation of a given personality. (3) Telepathy as a process of selecting memories from any living people to impersonate the dead. (4) Telepathy as implying the transmission of the thoughts of all living people to all others individually, with the selection of the necessary facts for impersonation from the sitter present. (5) Telepathy as involving a direct process between agent and percipient.

Telepathy as explanatory in any sense whatever, implying any known cause. Such unsupported assumptions as these induce the scientific man to neglect the whole subject; but unless they can be sustained, there can be no appeal to telepathy as a rival of spiritistic hypotheses. There are facts which justify entertaining the possibility of telepathy as a precaution against haste in accepting the spiritistic theory, but it has no relevance when these facts are incompatible with it, or have been otherwise accounted for.

There is an interesting tendency of many minds to extend the application of telepathy until it coincides with the reading from other minds anything known by a living person. This is the fourth type mentioned before. It includes the conception also that even the memories or thoughts of some dead people could also be acquired in this way without the supposition that they were obtained from the dead. Thus as Mr. Smith, who is living, receives telepathically the thoughts of all living people he has received the thoughts of all dead people who were more or less contemporary with him but died previously, and hence with them the thoughts of all dead people, prior to his own existence, but contemporary with those dead from whom he received his telepathic impressions. This theory would involve access to the memories of all dead people whatsoever back to the origin of the human race, and perhaps the impressions and states of consciousness of all animate life!

While those who regard telepathy as operative on any fact known by the living are not conscious that they imply this extension of it, the assumption only awaits formulation to be recognized as virtually present. It means that no verifiable fact can be taken as evidence of the discarnate, and that we should have to accept unverifiable facts as data for proof! That is, if telepathy can reach all the thoughts of every living person, we could treat as evidence for spirits only facts outside its range that is, facts not known by any living person, and such facts could not be verified. But according to the extension of telepathy just explained, there are no unknown facts whatever, as presumably the thoughts of all living people would have been telepathically impressed on every other living person and with them also all the thoughts of the dead who impressed their thoughts on some living person before their death.

Such telepathy needs no serious consideration. But it is the logical result of the unverified and unverifiable hypotheses with which even psychic researchers play ducks and drakes with scientific method. If the simplest form of telepathy is still a subject of doubt for scientific men, what becomes of such a stupendous hypothesis as the one just defined? No intelligent man is called upon to take account of such extended hypotheses until the evidence is produced that they are probably facts or reasonably supposable. Their magnitude itself tells in favor of the spiritistic theory, because the latter hypothesis is the simplest explanation of the facts as observed and recorded. The telepathy assumed is both infinite and finite: infinite by implication and finite by the evidence of the facts.

The failures in experiments to read the present active states of the agent and the inability to verify any thoughts outside those states, in the opinion of science, is so finite that its very existence is doubted, while the extended hypothesis requires us to believe in its infinity without evidence! But the natural and pertinent selectiveness of characteristics relevant to the personal identity of deceased persons, and the absence of selectiveness relevant to the identity of living people; the mixed success and error in the facts obtained; the fact that a pictographic process explains so easily the mixture of success and error in many of the facts; the fragmentary character of the data, with confusion so easily explicable by misinterpretation of stimuli and the evident rapidity of the process; the difficulty in getting proper names, though this varies with the psychological constitution of the psychic; the frequently symbolic nature of the phenomena, showing intelligence in the selection of them, whereas telepathy is conceived after mechanical analogies; all these are so inconsistent with telepathy in any form in which it can be imagined, that no intelligent person who has critically examined and analyzed the facts would be tempted to use it as explanatory of the phenomena on record, though he might admit it as a convenient term for distinguishing between types of evidence for supernormal experience. As a name for the facts, with suspended judgment regarding explanation, it is tolerable; but there can be no doubt that spirits explain certain facts, while telepathy explains nothing. At least as an hypothesis, therefore, the spiritistic theory has the priority and the burden of proof rests upon the telepathic theory.

About the Author

James H. Hyslop
Contact with the Other World Copyright 1919