Baffling the Scientists
IT WAS inevitable that with two minds attuned in such perfect harmony as those of my wife and myself, we should experience many amazing and almost uncanny examples of thought transference.
On one occasion when we were in Chicago I was returning home from a club dinner one night rather late when, walking down a dark street, I felt rather than heard somebody following me. I seemed to sense something sinister, and could almost visualise the man who, with stealthy, silent steps, was trailing me.
There had been several robberies with violence in the district about that time, and I was on my guard. At length, when I felt that he was almost upon me, I turned suddenly and, holding out my hand, seized his, and shook it warmly, as though he was an old friend of mine.
The man was staggered for the moment, and in that brief flash of time I tripped him up and shouted for help. I managed to retain him until a policeman arrived and took him in charge.
When I reached home I found Mrs. Zancig in a state of nervous agitation bordering on collapse. Almost before I had reached the door it was flung open, and she greeted me with the words: "You have been attacked by footpads, but you are not hurt!"
Shortly after our marriage there were many occasions, when she anticipated my thoughts, as it were. Having to go to New York on cite occasion I determined to buy Gladstone bag. I said nothing to my wife about this, as it was just a passing thought. On arriving home that night I was astonished to see the very bag which I had seen in a shop, and which had actually determined me to get one, there on the table.
A Game of Poker
I remember playing a rather amusing trick on my wife during a game of poker. We were playing with a party, and it was really uncanny the manner in which my wife won. When it happened that she and I were left to fight it out, she always won, for the simple reason that when I looked at the cards she knew precisely what I had got.
However, I determined to foil her, and succeded. The cards were dealt, and although I pretended to take a glance at my hand I did not observe what cards I held. At length, after a long bluff, during which all the others threw in, my wife and I were left once more. She promptly threw down her cards, remarking, "You've got me beaten this time--three aces."
I displayed my hand, a pair of deuces and an odd card, and she gasped, I had actually visualised three aces, and my wife had received the faked impression, and acted upon it.
During our tours I have had the most extraordinary objects brought to me to convey mentally to my wife for description. Quite recently at the London Alhambra I had handed to me a lemon which had been cut in half. Now, to get a mental image of half a lemon is a pretty good test, but it wan done.
I have had pieces of hangmen's rope, bits of historic coffins, gold nuggets, and jewels of rare and unusual size and value, long Welsh words to transcribe, words which I could only spell and not pronounce, live snakes, tortoises, chameleons, and mice, and in connection with the latter I remember on one occasion a pretty little white mouse being handed to me by a lady who carried it in her muff.
The most difficult tests to which we have ever been subjected, however, were those which were held under the auspices of the Society for Psychical Research in this country, and a demonstration which we gave before the leading psychologists of Germany.
The conditions before the S.P.R. were most stringent, and although we were making no claims to occult powers, and left it for others to explain our phenomena, everything was done to prevent any possibility of communication by means of code either by signs or speech.
Mrs. Zancig was seated by a screen at the farthest end of the room. Two members of the party of investigators held her hands, and watched her carefully to see it they could detect any means by which she could receive any sort of signals.
Then twelve of the party each drew some diagram or design upon a piece of plain card, each one drawing precisely what they liked. The cards were then placed in envelopes which were sealed, and the whole lot were placed in a black bag, and thoroughly mixed so that no one could possibly know any particular card.
Then one of the party selected an envelope which was handed to me unopened. I opened it and withdrew the card. It was one of the conditions of the experiment that neither of us was to speak or make any sound.
After removing the card I conveyed a mental impression of the diagram upon it to my wife, who promptly reproduced a replica of the design behind the screen.
Other cards were then dealt with, and in each case we were successful. One card I remember bore nothing but a huge blot of ink, which had been purposely done to outwit us if possible. Mrs. Zancig did not falter, however, and despite the unusual conditions every difficulty was overcome.
In these big test experiments, although everyone is very charming and mean well, it frequently happens that the very knowledge that one is under the keenest scrutiny, and that everything is being done to hamper one, makes the conditions less conducive to good work.
After my demonstration before the S.P.R. I was approached by several members who wanted to provide us with a home and livelihood in this country entirely at their expense for the sole purpose of having us handy at any moment to produce before any committee of scientists or investigators who might care to put us to the test.
Madam would not hear of such a thing, however, as she said it was too suggestive of the pet puppy dog who is brought out on certain occasions to perform his parlour tricks before his mistress's visitors.
The most severe test to which we were over put was in Germany, when we were approached by the editor of a newspaper who organised a demonstration before a gathering of German professors, who took us very thoroughly and very seriously in hand.
We were thoroughly examined first, and learned doctors submitted me to a minute examination. Then madam was taken into the next room, where she was placed in a chair which was insulated by means of a large sheet of plate glass upon which it stood. I was kept in the other room, the whole time my chair standing on a table which was insulated in the same manner as madam's.
There I sat for forty-five minutes carrying out the biddings of these professors, who put me through the most remarkable test imaginable. In madam's room one of them was feeling her pulse the whole time, whilst another held a stethoscope to her chest to see what effect it had on the beating of her heart.
After forty-five minutes of most strenuous work, I was told that I might get down, and was profusely thanked for my demonstration I naturally concluded that I had finished. Not a bit of it, however, for one of the old professors came over to me and suggested that he would like to make one more test.
"I want to melt wax," he stated, "which I intend to pour into the ears of both madam and yourself. The ears will then be plugged with cotton wool, and you will then carry cut a few more tests."
I gazed at him in sheer amazement. Here was I, with no other interest but to satisfy the curiosity of these people, undergoing tests for nearly an hour, and then he calmly suggests plugging my ears with hot oil and wool.
Without being unnecessarily curt I informed him that there was nothing doing.