TELEPATHIC IMPRESSIONS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SI-ECTATOR."1 Sin,—I hope that you will permit the authors of the article on " Apparitions," in the current number of the Nineteenth. Century, to say briefly how exceedingly able and pertinent your criticism thereon appears to them to be. The point which you take is, we think, precisely that which ought to be taken at this stage of the evidence,—namely, that something more than a mere telepathic communication of sensations must probably be at work when a whole vivid scene is flashed on the percipient's mind. As you say, this seems more akin to clairvoyance; yet it cannot be a casual or spontaneous clairvoyance if it occurs just at the moment of the absent friend's death or danger. We should prefer to class it as telepathic clairvoyance ;—a sudden power of far-seeing evoked in the percipient's mind by the telepathic impact, just as a similar power seems in some cases to have been evoked by mesmeric influence. This singular rapprochement between phenomena apparently so different as mesmerism and apparitions is one of the indications which con- stantly meet us of the complexity, and at the same time the unity, of our subject. Detached papers on such a theme can convey fragments only even of our own fragmentary know- ledge ; but they serve good purpose if they elicit comment so searching and suggestive as that in last week's Spectator. And we desire them to effect another object too,--to bring us an increased harvest of well-attested " psychical incidents " of every kind,—thought-transference, clairvoyance, apparitions, hauntings, premonitions, &c. We are " supported by voluntary contributions," and these, we are happy to say, are becoming more and more numerous as the interest in our inquiry spreads, and as it is seen how many honoured names we include among our informants. We publish no names without per- mission ; but any well-attested narrative sent to the Hon. Sec., S.P.R., 14 Dean's Yard, S.W., or to myself, at Cambridge, will at any rate be gratefully received and attentively considered, and may prove to possess a very high theoretical interest and
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