Feb, 22.
We published on Tuesday the 16th instant an account of some} experiments in spiritualism and psychology by. Mr. 8. G. Seal, 'M.A, BSC. which was of more] than passing interest. From the experiments. some very remark-_ able results were obtained, but} these all went to prove that thought transference is capable of producing all the phenomena usually attributed to spirit lism and that no extra-mundane! influence is needed, Mr. Seal followed the usual methods adopt-_ ed in a spiritualistic seance, In this action three actors are necessary. There is the sitter, that is, the person making iaquiry who seeks a response from the spirit world, There is also the medium; a person supposed to be peculiarly sensitive to psychic forces and, lastly, the communicator, or spiritual entity, from whom communications are desired. These three form triangle, the medium being the Apex and the other Personalities being the opposite ends of the! base, All communications from the sitter and the communicator pass through the medium who is the necessary and, sometimes, the weak link in the chain, Mr. Seal received messages from his deceased brother and from a boyhood friend whom he supposed to be dead but subsequently discovered to he alive. Put, more astonishing still, the medium was able to get.into communication with a mythical person whom Mr. Seal had, for Purposes of this investigation, invented and clothed with certain attributes and an imaginary past. The deceased brother told of a medal, disc, that had been Yuried and of which Mr. Seal had no recollection. The dise was discovered in the place indicated. The friend, who was supposed to be dead but was really alive, gave convincing proof of his vitality by describing a house which he was then building. Subsequent investig: tion proved the accuracy of the! information,. Equally definite) messages were received from the fictitious person whom Mr. Seal had created in his own mind.
This non-existent gentleman deseribed himself in exactly the terms which his creator had mentally determined that he should use, To the medium he answer to which was clear in the mind of the investigator, no soply was forthcoming. Later, when the question and answer had passed from the mind of the }cuestioner, the medium suddenly] found the answer and gave it correctly. 'Thus showing that it was the sub-conscious, not the Jactive mind, of the sitter with rai Which' the medium was en rapport. This opens out a wide and almost untrodden field of speculation, There seem to be two ways of acquiring knowledge. One the plodding method of hard }thinking and painful reasoning land the other the flash of intuition which reveals the truth in an instant with lightning, like vividness. The records of, invention and discovery are full of instances of men who, we ied with baffled searching, had the solution of their problem revealed to them suddenly as by] a gift of the god:
Kepler sought for 20 years to unravel the intricacies of planetary motion, One day the solution burst on his mind, not as the reasoned results of his cogitations, but like "the unveiled sun". And he cried "Nothing holds me, 1 will indulge my sacred fury. I will triumph over mankind ete." Saul of Tarsus on the way to Damascus was stricken down by a light beyond the brightness of the sun and saw in that blinding flash a new truth for the sake of which he suffered the loss of all things and died a martyr's death. Men of genius, like Shakespear or Burns, who wrote. immortal truths with unconsefous ease, seem to have been under the inspiration of this unconscious mind, The Christian doctrine of meditation was to the mystics the way into the illumination of this thoughtless knowledge.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.