'Twixt two worlds : a narrative of the life and work of William Eglinton

—
Evidence for Independent Mind- Action in Psychography. 157
on the slate. For this purpose, with closed eyes, I took a book from Mr. Eglinton's shelves,
which held about two hundred volumes. A crumb of pencil was placed upon the slate on
which Mrs. Kimber and Mrs. Wilson had written the number of the page and line respectively.
A second slate of exactly the same size and form was placed over this one, and the book
was put by myself on the top of the two slates. Mr. Eglinton and Mrs. Kimber rested their
hands on the book.
It should again be noted that :—(1) Precaution had been taken that no one besides Mrs.
Kimber knew what number she had written on the slate to express the page to be recited, the
same being true of the number Mrs. Wilson had written to express the line of that page.
(2) The slates and the book were on the top of the table immediately before the eyes of all
present. (3) Until I had placed the book upon the slates no one could have known what
volume had been taken from the shelves. Mr. Eglinton did not touch the book until the
moment when he and Mrs. Kimber rested their hands thereon. It had been handled by myself
alone, and I was particularly careful neither to open it nor to look at its title. (4)
Neither Mrs.
Kimber, Mrs. Wilson, nor myself have the slightest recollection of ever having seen or heard of
the said work, which was " Ghose's Indian Chiefs, Rajahs, etc., Part II."
After the lapse of a few seconds the sound of writing was heard within the slates. Upon
the usual signal of three taps (also seemingly within the slates), to indicate the end of the
experiment, I examined the slates, and found the following sentence, written on the under
one, with the pencil resting on the full-stop at the end. (I may mention here that all the
writings throughout the entire seance were conscientiously punctuated, and that every t was
crossed and every /' dotted.) This is the sentence:
"Page 199, line 14, is a table. The last
word is o." Mrs. Kimber had written 199, and Mrs. Wilson 14. I then opened the book
and turned to page 199, which commences thus :— " Table A. Estates belonging to the Hon.
Maharaja Jotindro Mohun Tagore Behaditr," etc. The fourteenth line of that page is as
follows :— " Shikharbdti, 24 Pargannas, 210 O o." This experiment closed the seance. Does it
prove the action of an independent— of a fifth mind
As such a test, it seems to have this weak point, namely that the book belonged to
the medium, and had probably been read by him. It can scarcely be supposed that he remembered
the fourteenth line of the 199th page in the sense that he could have reproduced it at will.
How then, since nothing is lost, and assuming it to have been at one time a part of his
consciousness, and lurking in the storehouse of his memory—how, I say, by what process was
that little unimportant fact revived
We are reminded of the mainsprings whereby latent thoughts are revived. There is (1) the
principle of association of ideas, (2) there is volition, (3) there is that acquisition of energy
which the reproductive faculty displays in certain abnormal states of nervous excitement.
1. In the experiment before us how could association be a reproducing agent "199
page, line 14," suggests nothing. When we read a book we don't read the numbers of the
pages, and count the lines of each page. Yet we must suppose the line lying latent in Mr.
Eglinton's mind, duly labelled with the proper number and page. This is supposing too much.
We admit that whatever a person reads may lurk in his mental storehouse to the end of
his life, but we cannot admit that the numbers of every line on each page of every book he
reads enter that storehouse at all. He cannot, therefore, give out what he does not possess.