ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

94 Jaurnal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
are sometimes self-interpretative, as in the pictographic work of
Mrs. Chenoweth, but they are often the symbolic image from the
memory of Mr. Moriarty which he has learned to use as in some
way representing what is in the mind of the communicant,
whether living or dead.
Here we have a situation in which guessing is perfectly legitimate.
It is an attempt to interpret stimuli coming from the
outside. What the stimuli are or what form they take we either
do not know or they are mental pictures which do not seem
intelligible to Mr. Moriarty or any other subject affected by
similar phenomena. But in some way they instigate something
in the psychic's mind which makes the phenomenon appear to be
guessing, and often it is guessing, but perfectly legitimate guessing
when we understand what is going on. It is an honest
attempt to interpret what is coming to the medium's mind, and
perhaps what comes is not a discoverable or introspectively recognized
picture at all, but some subliminal phenomena which
can only arouse normal memories that are either mistaken for
spirit messages or used to guess from or interpret something of
interest to the sitter.
There is evidence in Mr. Moriarty's experiences that he
sometimes gets what I may call the direct picture, the exact duplicate
of what is transmitted to him. In one instance not connected
with the records in this article: namely, in the case of a Mr. X,
Mr. Moriarty got a remarkably clear picture of some little
chickens. The sitter's mother, whose name was written down
out of Mr. Moriarty's sight, was very fond of raising chickens.
This device was employed to prove her identity. The picture
was not a special incident in the life of Mr. Moriarty, but one in
the life of another. But the Pine Grove Cemetery incident in the
above records is such a specific incident in the life of the psychic
and at least apparently was invoked to interpret what my stepmother
was trying to convey to him. I could hardly give this
interpretation to the fact were it not that it occurred so often
that it is probable that I have the correct view of the incident.
The recall of the name of l\Iayor Wells and the quick guessing
at the well which was in my mind is a clear instance of the
phenomenon and renders it probable that the recall of Pine Grove
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