We now have nearly two hundred years of compelling written evidence in favor of psi phenomena such as clairvoyance and extra-sensory perception (ESP). Perhaps the first major document in favor of the phenomenon was the report of the French Royal Academy of Sciences investigation of 1825-1831, discussed here, which found resoundingly in favor of clairvoyance.
Clairvoyance was abundantly demonstrated by subjects put under hypnosis. Although practiced for at least decades before 1850, the term "hypnosis" only became popular around 1860, and earlier literature may refer to hypnosis under names such as animal magnetism or somnambulism. A nineteenth century physician (John Ashburner) summarized the clairvoyance observed in states of hypnotism:
"Numbers of persons have, in all the quarters of the globe, put patients into a state of somnambulism numbers of these patients have exhibited the phenomena of clairvoyance : some in a low degree, others to a more exalted extent. Some have seen the room in which they happened to be, enlightened as if by the rays of the sun ; others as if by all the colours of the rainbow. Others have been able to see through media, commonly known as opaque, into an adjoining room, or even to a great distance. The varieties in the degree of this phenomenon are very remarkable, I have testified that I have been present where persons, in sleep [i.e. under hypnosis], have declared to events passing in other places, which have been found, on investigation, to have been most accurately recounted. Often have I witnessed most accurate and minute descriptions given by [hypnotized] somnambules of the furniture and inhabitants of rooms, into which they had never in their lives set their feet. The visual sensibility of these clairvoyantes must have been extraordinarily augmented, as it enabled them to see light through media, which to us, in an ordinary state of sensibility, would be considered quite opaque."
I will give one of endless examples that could be quoted. On the page here and the next several pages we read an account by Dr. Ashburner of people reading mottos folded up in nutshells. The mottos were like fortune slips within fortune cookies, with the mottos being as hard to predict as fortune cookie fortunes.
We read this:
"A. B. first announced her readiness to read the motto in her nutshell. She said that the words were,
' The little sweetmeat here revealed,
Lays, as good deeds should lay, concealed.'
I wrote down to her dictation, then I cracked the shell, emptied out the comfits, and found among them a little strip of paper, several times folded, on which were printed the very words she had spoken."
Then on the same page we read this:
"A. B. then took another shell, and in a very short time read these words, which I wrote down,
'She's little in size
Has bright speaking eyes.
And if you prove true
Will be happy with you.'
The shell was broken open, and the words printed on the little slip of folded paper found among the sweetmeats within, were word for word with those written down by me.
E. L. took her turn at reading, the words she read out were,
'In every beholder a rival I view,
I ne'er can be equalled in loving of you."
Having written down these words, the shell was opened and it was found that E. L. had read the motto quite correctly."
The next five pages are filled with similar accounts of clairvoyants reading the mottos (each different) hidden in nut shells. Below is a letter written in 1848 by W. Buckley. It is found at the spot here in the book.
"Dear Dr. Ashburner. — I rejoice to find that I have convinced you and those of your friends who believe on the evidence of their own senses, that it is possible to produce a waking state of clairvoyance, enabling those placed in it to state correctly the words of a motto, while rolled up within a nutshell. Thirteen persons have done this ; three of them in your presence. I tried the experiment, for the first time, in a private box at the Lyceum, on the 16th of last August, when
the mottos in ten shells were correctly stated by three young ladies. On the following night, at the Opera, they told me the mottos in seven more. On this occasion, the shells were purchased while on my way to the Opera ; each shell was held in my own hand, — each opened by me, the motto taken out, unrolled, read, proved to be correct, and then (and not until then) touched by the party. Up to this date the mottos in 1512 shells (the words amount to 22,195) have been read. In many cases, (some of which you have witnessed), the shells have not only been brought by strangers, but held in their hands, and never touched by me, nor by the clairvoyantes. I have mesmerised [hypnotized] 319 persons, of whom 115 have been clairvoyant : out of this number 13 have read words placed on the head, back, under the foot, &c., &c., and 96 in boxes. 42 persons have thus read while awake. This includes three ladies and one young gentleman, who were never put into the mesmeric sleep [hypnosis], and two ladies who first read in the waking state, and were subsequently mesmerised... A. B. and E. L., during their stay in town, read the mottos in 223 shells in presence of 26 strangers, some of them marked by, as well as opened by 16 others. The young lady you saw with me at the Opera has, during the same time, read the mottos in 22 shells in the hands of, or marked by, several strangers."
From page 17 of the 1847 book here, we have this testimony by a professor of mathematics, who later authored a mathematics reference book. Click on the image to read it more clearly.
Referring to clairvoyance of a Madame Tecmen while under hypnosis, the author stated this:
"This lady, when in a mesmeric sleep, described to me with the
greatest exactness, persons and places that I thought or, and which she could
not have previously known. One of the persons must have been a stranger to
her, and was then in Germany. She described my brother, his apartments,
and what be was then doing; I marked the time, and on my return home,
found that she was correct to the very letter."
On pages 7 to 8 of the book here, we read of a woman who was hypnotized and asked to travel by clairvoyance to a patient living in some other building, for the sake of offering insight on the patient's medical problem. The woman said that the patient suffered from an enlargement of the spleen. The patient soon died, and an autopsy revealed the patient's spleen was fifty-seven ounces, about 10 times heavier than the average spleen. Innumerable similar reports occurred in the nineteenth century, claiming that under hypnosis people could have clairvoyance that could act like an X-ray.
The author of the book, Charles Morley, gives this account on pages 8 to 9:
"The following experiments were performed by the writer: June 19th, 1840, put Miss W , of Albany,
into a magnetic somnambulism [hypnotism] in 20 minutes ; she walked
wherever I directed her, either by word or simply willing her. Without any gesture or moving of my lips, she would converse with me or with any other one that
I willed. She would tell accurately what was held behind her head ; read cards placed on her stomach ; sung
whenever I willed. June 22d, put her into a magnetic sleep [hypnotism] in 14 minutes. Mr. Lancaster, Mr. Bulgin and several ladies were present. She walked as before ; a
large black-board was placed before her at the distance of four feet ; the different individuals present held
various articles behind it, and she told correctly in every instance, what they were ; she also read accurately,
cards and books held behind the black-board. I went
out of the room, after requesting her to notice what I should do, and on my return she stated accurately."
On the page here we can read an account of clairvoyance and telepathy in a hypnotized subject, published in the November 30, 1836 edition of The Rhode Island Republican. It is an article by Charles Poyen discussing a public exhibition witnessed by 170 people, many of whom Poyen names. The subject was a young woman named Cinthia Gleason. Poyen describes hypnotizing the woman, using the term "animal magnetism" that was used for hypnotism before the word "hypnotism" was coined. Poyen makes claims very often made around this time, such as that the hypnotized subject would respond only to the voice or thoughts of the hypnotist, and that the hypnotized subject would not respond to strong stimuli of light and smells. Reporting telepathy in the subject, he says this:
"I stood at the distance of a few feet from her, and mentally requested her, without touching her, to give me her hand, and she immediately held out her hand toward mine. I wished her to leave my hand and she did immediately....I mentally asked her whether she wished for some water, she answered, in a voice audible to those who were around her, that she 'did not feel thirsty.' I mentally again urged her to take some, then she opened her lips, grasped at the tumbler, and drank two or three swallows of the liquid."
There are many fascinating details in the long account.
At around this page of an 1849 book ("Illustrations and enquiries relating to mesmerism. Part I" by Samuel Moffey Raitland), we have many pages giving the most convincing-sounding accounts of clairvoyance, accounts sometimes quoting people who said they were highly skeptical about clairvoyance, but became convinced of its reality when seeing it demonstrated. The page quotes this account of the clairvoyance of Alexis Didier:
"The Hon. Edmund Phipps, brother to the Marquess of Normandy, took hold of the hand of Alexis, who described his house in Park-lane in many points with singular correctness ; but what was most remarkable, he said, among other things, that he saw a picture of a battle opposite the fire-place in the drawing-room, — he saw men on horseback with spears and helmets, describing the whole very distinctly and correctly, and particularly insisted that there was a figure in the centre of the picture with a crown on the head and a truncheon in his hand leading on the battle, which Mr. Phipps denied, but the boy insisted that he was right, and that if Mr. P. would look when he went home, he would find it, for that he saw it distinctly. I dined with Mr. Phipps that evening, and we examined the picture together, and found that the somnambulist [Didier] was quite correct, as well as with respect to some curious points described in another picture, which Mr. Phipps had never remarked before, but of too striking and curious a nature to be the effects of a lucky guess. Mr. Phipps was a sceptic, but is now satisfied of the lad’s extraordinary powers of clairvoyance.” — Zoist , No. YI. p. 293. July , 1844."
On page 9 the book gives us the case of clairvoyance in a severely epileptic girl named Ellen Dawson:
"One day Ellen being in the sleep-waking state, I observed her take up some publications which lay on the table and read the titles of them, by which I perceived she was clairvoyant. In order to test this faculty, I filled the tops of some pill-boxes with cotton and tied them over her eyes with a fillet of ribbon, taking care that the edges of the boxes should rest upon the skin ; still, she read and distinguished colours as before. I now placed her in a room from which I had shut out every ray of light , and then presented to her some of the plates in Cuvier’s 'Animal Kingdom' she described the birds and beasts, and told accurately the colour of each, as I proved by going into the light to test her statements. She also distinguished the shades and hues of silks, as indeed did her sister, who is also clairvoyant.” — Zoist, No. X. p. 228."
There follows in the book an account of the most impressive-sounding tests of the "traveling clairvoyance" of Ellen Dawson, which match the account on page 226 of the document here.
We have below a modern account of a girl with clairvoyant powers:
The account is similar to very many accounts of the nineteenth century, in which authorities would repeatedly report that under a state of hypnosis certain people would report being able to see into bodies as if they had something like X-ray vision. For a long discussion of clairvoyance reported under hypnosis, and many other astonishing and inexplicable powers reported under hypnosis, see my post here.
On page 610 of the December 23, 1905 edition of the periodical Light, which you can read here, we read the following testimony by the very distinguished scholar Isaac Funk (one of the two creators of the famous Funk and Wagnall dictionary) regarding May S. Pepper:
" Mrs. Pepper is undoubtedly a psychic of unusual power, but just what that power is I am not able definitely to tell. That she has such gifts, however, there can be no doubt. In the tests to which I have subjected her every possible precaution was taken to prevent deception. Letters which she was to read without opening were written on sensitised paper so that had they been opened the admission of light would have produced a discolouration which would have demonstrated that the letter had been tampered with. Black paper was also used on the inside of the envelope, so that there could have been no means of deciphering the contents by holding the missive to the light. I have seen some manifestations of her power which incline me to believe that she has clairvoyant ability—that she
is actually able to read what is within a sealed letter, just as Molly Fancher did. Recently I received a letter from a man in Chicago which he asked me to send to Mrs. Pepper. I did not myself know the contents of it. The letter was placed on the table at one of the public Services held by Mrs. Pepper. She picked it up and asked who had left it. I told her that I had placed it there. 'But you yourself do not know what it contains,' said Mrs. Pepper. She then said that the pearl necklace, concerning which a person whose name she mentioned was disturbed, had not been stolen, but was lost. On opening the letter I found that she had given the name and address correctly, and knew the whole contents of the communication. It would have been impossible for her to have opened that letter, owing to the means which had been used to prevent such a thing."
Speaking of well-documented psi (a term that is very broad), I just discovered a site www.macropk.org that gives extensive documentation of various reports of mysterious object movement phenomena which may also be described as psychokinetic phenomena or mind-over-matter phenomena or poltergeist phenomena. On the page here, we have a table telling us that "moving small objects" is the most common phenomenon reported in 1,151 cases, with a movement of small objects occurring in a majority of such cases. Being someone who has reported over the years many baffling cases of small objects seeming to appear or move around in mysterious ways (as you can read in my post here and in many of my series of 100+ posts here), I find it interesting to read that many others have reported such baffling anomalies.
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