569 C. Several sets of experiments are recorded in the S.P.R. Proceedings 1 in which the subject's power of response to a question was shown to be under the control of the unspoken will of the hypnotist, that will being directed during a long series of trials in accordance with an arbitrary list of yeses and noes drawn up by the committee who were conducting the experiments. One series of trials conducted by Professor Barrett (see Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 417, and, for a more detailed account, Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. pp. 59-61) gave forty-three successes without a single failure. In the last six of these trials the hypnotist, who was a complete stranger to the subject, was at a distance of 17 feet from him, outside a door, through a narrow chink in which he received from Professor Barrett one or other of two cards, containing respectively the words yes and no. The question, "Do you hear me?" was every time addressed to the subject by Professor Barrett. To ensure a neutral tone, he took care (after the first twelve trials) not to know himself which of the two cards he gave the hypnotist until after the result, which, according to the will that had been exerted, was either the answer "yes," or silence.

Many cases are recorded in the Zoist of the induction or inhibition of particular actions through the "silent willing" of the mesmerist,2 the subject being generally hypnotised at the time. These experiments were mostly of the type of the "willing game," but without contact between the agent and the subject.3 Unconscious muscular guidance was thus excluded, but the records are seldom sufficiently detailed to show that the possibility of all other physical indications was excluded, and though some of the observers (H. S. Thompson, at least, see Zoist, vol. v. p. 256) were well aware that hypnosis is often accompanied by hyperesthesia, especially in reference to the hypnotist, they had not the knowledge that we now have of the possibilities of subconscious perception and interpretation. Still, it is difficult thus to explain away all the cases of "silent willing," for instance, those in which the subject was in a different place from the operator (see, e.g., Zoist, vol. viii. pp. 131-33, and 143-44), and we can hardly doubt that H. S. Thompson had real telepathic power as well as unusual facility as a hypnotist.

1 See Proceedings S.P.R., vol. i. p. 256; vol. ii. pp. 13-17; also Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 59.

2 See, e.g., Zoist, vol. iii. pp. 321, 323-24: vol. v. pp. 253, 260, 323; vol. vi. p. 289; vol. viii. pp. 126, 142, etc. See also Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. pp. 89-91. Pététin (Electricité Animate, p. 103) records that he could produce any movement in his cataleptic patients by his will alone. Puységur also gives instances of " silent willing".

3 Speaking of the relation of the wilt to telepathic experiments in general, Gurney remarks (Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 92) that the will of the agent or operator seems at first sight to come more into play when the subject is desired to perform some action than when the image of some object is attempted to be conveyed to his mind. But even in the former case "there is little foundation for the idea that the operator's.