Precognitive Amnesia and the Notifying Apparition

In 1896 a newspaper published the very interesting news article below (which you can read here). You might call this a case of precognitive amnesia. I have never heard before of that combination. 

In the article above (in the area I highlighted in red) we read this astonishing claim about Franklin Hart developing an extraordinary power after he tried to kill himself by gassing himself:

" 'While Franklin's physical condition is
so good that he will be able to leave the
hospital in a day or two,' writes Hart,
'his mental state startles me. His mental
vision is supernaturally perspective [i.e. precognitive ], instead of being retrospective, and the physicians here tell me that there is no
parallel case on record in any part of the
civilized globe. They claim that the 
phenomenon demonstrated in my son's
mentality is one of the many hidden
forces in human nature. In ordinary conversation

Franklin is as lucid as ever, yet it is difficult for him to recall past events without hard study. For instance, when I referred to his Portland visit and his departure from there, it took him two days to recall the more important events, as they had altogether passed from his memory since the almost tragic affair at the Palmer House."

"The writer adds that the phenomenon in his son's mind consists of his mental anticipation of events as, for instance, the day prior to Mr. Hart's arrival in Chicago Franklin repeated almost verbatim to the doctor attending him the conversation he had with his father eight hours later. The singular and  unheard-of metamorphosis of young Hart's mental vision consists of its power to read all manner of events, even of the most trifling import, forty-eight hours in advance, with the same distinct clearness that the healthy, normal mind conjures up the past."

Not many years earlier, another source had used the same "mental vision" phrase we read in the quote above. On page 205 of the 1888 Revue Philsophique which you can read here, we have an article entitled "MENTAL VISION OR DOUBLE SIGHT IN INDUCED AND SPONTANEOUS SLEEPWALKING."  The article by a Dr. Dufay is about clairvoyance in someone while that person is in a hypnotic trance. Such a phenomenon was very widely reported during the 19th century. The account is in French, but I used Google Translate to produce the translations below. 

On page 209 we have an account of a woman named Marie who seems to have clairvoyant powers. We read of a strange power of this Marie, a type of medical clairvoyance she had under hypnosis. In the passage "put Marie to sleep" the author refers to hypnotizing someone:

"Dr. Girault had several times witnessed me perform very curious experiments on this girl, whom he magnetized [hypnotized] almost every day. When he was called to the countryside, he would put Marie to sleep before leaving and question her about the condition of the patient he was going to visit, so that, he said, he knew positively—let's just say approximately—what medications he should take with him."

On the same page and the next page we read that this Marie seemed to know through hypnotic clairvoyance of the death of a person whose death was unknown to her through normal means. The reference to "the sleepwalker" is a reference to Marie while she was in a hypnotic trance.  We read this:

"Then, with the speed of lightning, the comedy turned into drama: the poor sleepwalker was overcome with suffocation, her tears flowed, a cold sweat wet her forehead, and she called Mr. Girault for help.

 'What's the matter with you, Marie?... What's your pain, my daughter?'

'Ah! sir... Ah! sir... How awful! He's dead!'

'Who's dead? Is it one of my patients?'

'The son of Father Limoges, the ropemaker... you know... In Crimea... He's just died. Poor people! Poor people!'

'Come, come, my child, pull yourself together; it's no doubt a dream, a bad dream you've had.'

'A dream!... But I'm not asleep [that's the pretension of all sleepwalkers]. I see him... He's just breathed his last... Poor boy! Look at him.'

And her eyes wandered to a point in the apartment she pointed to with her hand. She wanted to flee, but, barely getting up from her chair, she fell back, her legs unable to support her.

It took a long time for calm to return, and when M. Girault woke Marie, she was still in the grip of a great malaise... which she attributed to indigestion, having no memory of what had happened.

What had she suddenly thought of the young soldier about? It was known in the village that the father was worried; he had no news of his son. Was she concerned about him out of sympathy for the family, or out of a more tender feeling that the idea of ​​Mademoiselle de S.'s marriage would have rekindled in her at that moment?

In any case, Father Limoges was informed some time later of his son's death, which had occurred in Dalmate (was that the name of a French ambulance?) near Constantinople, on June 15, 1855, that is, the very day Marie had had the vision.

This recalls the account of Gregory of Tours, according to which Saint Ambrose, having fallen asleep while saying Mass in the church of Milan, dreamed that Saint Martin had just died in Tours, which happened precisely on that day, and at the hour of Mass."

On page 211 we read that the same Marie was subjected to tests in which she was asked to tell the contents of sealed envelopes.  The author (Dr. Dufay) says he took an envelope containing a letter from a military man telling of his dysentery illness; and the author says he put the letter back in the envelope, and enclosed that envelope inside another envelope. We read this:

"The ten or twelve people gathered in Mrs. D.'s living room were stunned by what they had just seen. The sleepwalker [Marie] had unmistakably recognized the contents of several packages they had prepared themselves, as I had done. But I left mine in my pocket to avoid the monotony of the experiments, merely slipping my letter into the hand of one of the assistants, signaling to her to pass it to Mr. Girault. He received it without knowing it came from me, and placed it in Marie's hands.

I didn't note whether her eyes were open or closed, but that, as you can imagine, was of no importance in such a case.

'What do you have in your hand?' asked Dr. Girault.

'A letter.'

'To whom was it addressed?'

'To Mr. Dufay.'

'By whom?' 

'By a military gentleman I don't know.'

'What is he talking about in his letter, this military gentleman?'

'He's sick; he's talking about his illness.'

'Is it an illness you could name?'

'Oh! Yes, very well;... it's like the old woodcutter's in Mesland, which hasn't yet subsided...'

'Very well, very well, I understand,... dysentery. Listen, Marie, I think you would give Mr. Dufay great pleasure if you went to see his friend the officer, to bring him back some reliable news.'"

Marie seemed to have correctly identified that the double sealed letter was from a military man with dysentery. 

On later pages (pages 213 and 214) we read of a man who was accused of murder, and who committed suicide in prison, hanging himself with his own tie. The article author (Dufay) says he took the tie, and wrapped it in several sheets of paper, giving it to Marie. She correctly identified the package as containing something that was used to kill a man, and that the package contained a tie. She also said the person who was killed by the contents was someone who threw his murder weapon at a particular spot in a pond. A search revealed a matching weapon at that spot. 

On page 215 in the same article we read of an extraordinary sleepwalker named Janicaud Théophile. We read in the next pages that Janicaud seemed to make clairvoyant mind trips in which he found out little details about distant persons that were only later verified as true. For example, on page 217 we read this:

"The following night, he said that he saw on the road to Glény the body of a man who had drowned while bathing in the Creuse, and that he was being brought back to Guéret in a car. The next morning I went to check the news and learned that a resident of the town had indeed drowned the day before in Glény and that his body had been brought back to Guéret during the night. However, no one in the establishment, or even in the town, had been aware of this accident the day before."

The accounts of Marie's ability to detect the contents of sealed packages and sealed envelopes is similar to many accounts in the literature of parapsychology, documenting such a skill in others such as Alexis Didier.  You can read many similar accounts in my posts here and  here and here. To read many posts discussing accounts of apparitions that seemed to act like a death notification, see my series of posts here, continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom right. 

If the topic of this post interested you, check out my free book "Psychics and Paranormal Phenomena," available on www.archive.org using the link here. Using the native www.archive.org file viewer in single-page mode (after clicking the [] icon at the bottom of the book viewer),  you can conveniently read the whole book by finger swiping. Scholars who are interested in following the links may prefer to download the book as a PDF file, which will allow opening links by right-clicking on a link. 

Chizuko Mifune, Clairvoyant Wonder Woman

The evidence for clairvoyance is overwhelming, and it includes nearly two hundred years of written evidence by distinguished writers including many doctors and professors. Let us look at another of the endless examples of written evidence for clairvoyance: the 1931 book "Clairvoyance & Thoughtography" by Tomokici Fukurai, a Japanese professor and president of the Psychical Institute of Japan, a book that can be read here.  On the first page of the book, Fukurai notes the hostile reception his observation reports received. Despite such hostility, he rightly states at the beginning of the book that clairvoyance is a fact. 

The first chapter deals with stunningly successful clairvoyance experiments Fukurai did with Chizuko Mifune (1886-1911), who Fukurai describes as having an odd, somber personality, and being very much prone to stick to what impressions she got about a person upon first meeting with such a person.  

Chizuko Mifune (1886-1911)

Fukurai suggests on pages 16-17 that Chizuko probably was driven to suicide by skeptics making unfavorable comments about her.  He says, "Judging from these letters, besides agony over her family affairs, the suspicious criticism of scientists on the clairvoyance force, the gradual declining of her psychic force, the appearance of Mrs. Nagao and many other mediums, etc seemed to wound her amour propre and to influence her to commit suicide."

On page 21 Fukurai describes this method of preparing sealed envelopes containing contents to be used for clairvoyance testing, one involving characters blocked by opaque cards on both the front and back, and also blocked by tin foil on the front of the characters, with this arrangement put in opaque sealed envelopes:

The sealed envelopes were sent to Chizuko and returned to Fukurai, and on page 22 Fukurai says he examined the envelopes and found them unopened: "I examined the seams of the envelopes, but there was not the slightest shadow of doubt."

Page 24 gives the answers that Chizuko gave. That page is shown below. References by Chizuko to "dingy paper" apparently refer to the tin foil in the envelopes. Clicking on the image and inspecting it carefully will reveal that the results are almost perfectly accurate, with almost every character correctly identified. Even without being able to read Japanese, an English reader will be able to check the accuracy by simply checking the appearances of the characters of the left column and the corresponding answers in the right column. The only shortfalls are that only the first  six characters in Envelope 10 were read, and that one of the characters in Envelope 6 (the last character in the second row) seems to be wrong. It is inconceivable that anyone could get so many matches by guessing. 

Japanese characters may use any of three different writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji.  The main part of the Hiragana alphabet is about 46 characters, and the main part of the Katakana alphabet is also about 46 characters, as we in the charts below. The Kanji alphabet apparently has thousands of different characters. I cannot find any of the more elaborate characters listed above in a listing of either the Hiragana or Katakana characters, like the one we see below. 

We apparently had Kanji characters being included in the guess targets for this test of clairvoyance. When such characters are included as guess targets, along with the two alphabets (Hiragana or Katakana) having a total of about 92 characters, the likelihood of correctly guessing three out of three random characters would seem to be less than about 1 in a million, and the chance of getting any of the more impressive successes shown above (such as 22 out of 23 correct or 16 out of 16 correct) is basically zero, something we would never expect to occur if there were 1,000,000,000,000,000 people spending their whole lives guessing. 

On page 25 Fukurai starts to discuss experiments done by "Dr. Imamuru, Professor at the Kyoto Imperial University." These were face-to-face experiments with Chizuko Mifune in which she was constantly observed. The first test on February 20 made use of twelve objects which were each put in a separate envelope, pasted and sealed. We read on page 26 of this success, in one of the characters was identified:

In the following tests conducted by the professor, Chizuko failed in test 2, but succeeded in tests 3 and 4, test 4 requiring the identification of a character wrapped in tin foil and thick paper. On page 30 we read of tests of Chizuko performed the next day (February 21).  We read of two consecutive successes in tests of clairvoyance:

On the next trial Chizuko was successful on a harder test of clairvoyance. She correctly identified the exact two Japanese characters in a sealed envelope in which the letters were on a scrap of paper covered by two thick sheets of paper. Particularly impressive was the 4th trial reported on pages 33-34. A professor randomly selected one of a thousand business cards, and without reading it, put in an iron pot which was wrapped in paper.  Chizuko successfully identified four characters on the business card. 

On page 36 we begin to read of tests done with Chizuko Mifune on April 10, 1910, in the presence of  Professor Imamuru, Mr. Kiyohara and Fukurai. In the second trial Chizuko was asked to identify characters on a name card put in a china tea pot sealed in paper. She correctly identified all five Japanese characters on the card. A few trials later in the day were unsuccessful. On the next day on the first trial Chizuko was successful, identifying four Japanese characters on a name card covered in two sheets of paper and put in an envelope. On the second trial involving a name card put in a china teapot with a double-lid, sealed in paper, Chizuko got three out of four characters correct.  In the third trial involving a name card in an iron pot sealed by paper, Chizuko named all four characters correctly. In all these tests she was closely observed by multiple witnesses, seeming to prevent any possibility of tampering with the guess targets.  

Another series of trials on April 12, 1910 was conducted in the villa of Mr. Nagasaki, and observed by Professor Imamuru,  Fukurai, and Nagasaki. The successful first test (involving naming all five characters on a name card) is described below:

There was later some trials on April 17, 1910, involving Professor Imamuru,  Fukurai, and a Mr. Kiyohara, at the house of Mr. Kiyohara. In the first trial Fukurai picked randomly from a group of fifty name cards, putting the card in a teapot, which was then put in a wooden box, over which a paper was pasted, with a seal put on the paper. Chizuko named four out of four characters correctly. The second trial involved similar conditions, with Chizuko naming the first three characters correctly, erring on the last one. In the third trial involving similar conditions, all four characters on the name card were named correctly. The fourth trial used similar conditions, with an even greater success:  Chizuko named ten out of ten characters correctly. Figure 16 shown below shows the name cards used in these tests, the one on the bottom right being the card with ten characters.

Later tests were done on April 15, 1910, at Mr. Nagasaki's villa, with the tests witnessed by Iseri, Kiyohari, Professor Imamuru,  and Fukurai, As you can see below, page 45 of the book lists the first three tests as producing perfect results, with 13 out of 13 hidden characters correctly identified:

The fourth trial was very different, involving a test of the ability to identify randomly selected coins, placed by Fukurai in what he calls a purse, and then wrapped in paper. Chizuko perfectly identified a series of coins consisting of "three coins of ten sen, one coin of one sen, and one coin of two sen." The author then describes a mail test involving cards in a wooden box wrapped up in multiple layers that had various types of seals to prevent tampering. Again, Chizuko perfectly identified ten out of ten characters in the heavily sealed box, which was returned with the seals unbroken. 

On page 48 we read of clairvoyance test targets Fukurai had another person prepare, after Fukurai got feedback from other professors. The targets are described below:

On pages 50 to 51 we learn of the results Chizuko achieved on these tests: perfect results, with 11 out of 11 characters correctly identified. Page 52 reports equally perfect results by Chizuko in tests of clairvoyance, involving targets that were mostly letters, but in one case a drawing of a shape looking like a pie with six pieces.  On page 55 we read of rigorous tests of clairvoyance performed on September 2, 1910, with  tests witnessed by Mifune,  Kiyohari, Professor Imamuru,  and Fukurai:

 

After failing on the first trial using such a method (not producing an answer because of some concentration problem), Chizoku succeeded perfectly on the second and third trials, both times naming three out of three characters.  Page 57 describes additional successful trials with Chizoku on another date:

On page 59 we read of a test of Chizuko in which she successfully named all three characters written on a piece of flat pipe that had its two ends sealed by heat-soldering.  The next page reports a similar success on the next trial, with all three letters being successfully read in a lead pipe that was in a pot kept in a wooden case, with additional paper covering and a seal.  On page 63 the author tells of nine tests he did with Chizuko on November 18, 1910, tests in which she was asked to tell the numbers shown on a pair of dice that were put in a black cigarette case, wrapped in paper, with the paper sealed by the author.  In 6 out of 9 trials Chizuko identified the correct number shown on the dice. 

There are 55 numbers that a pair of dice can show, ranging from 11 to 66. Using the binomial probability calculator at the Wolfram Alpha site, I get a probability of such a result as being about 1 in 300,000,000. Such a success seems to be vastly less impressive than the correct guesses of Japanese characters by Chizoku described above. As noted earlier, the simplest Japanese alphabets (Hiragana and Katakana) each consist of 46 characters. But the more complex characters listed above (which I cannot find on lists of Hiragana and Katakana characters) seem to be Kanji characters, and there are thousands of different Kanji characters. 

The author's last page on Chizuku is one with the saddest irony. We read of her success in the most stringent trial, involving reading letters written on a piece of paper inside a flat iron pipe that had both ends soldered tight.  The author tells us that this triumphant test was his last involvement with Chizoku, who soon thereafter committed suicide.  The groundless criticism of her by skeptics may have been a major factor in her suicide. 

No one who has seriously studied the evidence for clairvoyance should be surprised by the reports above. They are simply a replication of what was very abundantly reported in the nineteenth century by a great many reliable witnesses, including professors and many doctors.  As you can read here, the evidence for the clairvoyance of Alexis Didier was every bit as convincing as the evidence for the clairvoyance of  Chizuko Mifune; and Didier repeatedly passed the most stringent tests of his ability to reveal the contents of sealed boxes, and to state detailed corrections descriptions of houses he had never visited.

For example, on pages 508-509 of the  document here, we read that Alexis Didier was able to  describe an object in a thick closed case, an object he had never seen, and also to tell various unusual facts about that object that could not be guessed from its appearance:

"An officer, of long standing in the army, who was severely wounded at Waterloo, and is well known in the highest military circles, was one of the company present. He was an unbeliever, and knew nothing of mesmerism, and had never seen or scarcely heard of Alexis, — but having been accidentally invited to join the party, and been told that the young man had the power of reading through opaque objects, he determined to bring his talent rigidly to the test.
He produced a morocco case, eight inches long, and an inch and a half thick, looking like a surgical instrument case, or a small jewel-case. It was placed in the hands of Alexis, who held it for a short time in silence, and then gradually and slowly gave the following description :

 'The object within the case is a hard substance.'
' It is folded in an envelope.'
' The envelope is whiter than the thing itself.' (The envelope was a piece of silver-paper.)
' It is a kind of ivory.'
'It has a point (pique) at one end' (which is the case).
' It is a bone.'
' Taken from a body'—
' From a human body' —
' From your body.'
' The bone has been separated and cut, so as to leave a flat side.'

This was true : the bone, which was a piece of the colonel's leg, and sawed off after the wound, is flat towards the part that enclosed the marrow.

Here, Alexis removed the piece of bone from the case, and placed his finger on a part, and said, ' The ball struck here.' (True.)

' It was an extraordinary ball, as to its effect.'

'You received three separate injuries at the same moment.' (Which was the case, for the ball broke or burst into three pieces, and injured the colonel in three places in the same leg.)

' You were wounded in the early part of the day, whilst charging the enemy.' (Which was the fact.)"

To read 25 posts telling about how convincing is the evidence for clairvoyance, use the link here, and keep pressing Older Posts at the bottom right. 

Our education system will be operating well when every high school graduate knows some names such as Chizuko Mifune, Alexis Didier, Hubert Pearce, Daniel Dunglas Home, Leonora Piper, Kate Fox and Florence Cook. When 9 out of 10 students graduate high school and 9 out of 10 students graduate college without ever even having heard such names mentioned, as now occurs, it is a sign of how defective our educational systems are. 

Postscript: On page 145 of the same "Clairvoyance & Thoughtography" by Tomokici Fukurai, the author describes Tetsuko Moritake performing with perfect accuracy in a test of clairvoyance. The test involved trying to identify 9 different characters in Japanese. 

ESP Marvels Documented by Rhine

In his book New Frontiers of the Mind: The Story of the Duke Experiments, Duke University professor Joseph Rhine discussed his search for people who would perform highly on tests of ESP. Rhine discusses tests that are mainly tests of clairvoyance, not telepathy. (The term ESP refers to both telepathy and clairvoyance.)  In a laboratory test of telepathy, one person will typically attempt to transmit a thought (or will look at some image), and another person will attempt to receive that thought or guess what image the other person saw. In a laboratory test of clairvoyance, one person will attempt to perceive something that cannot be seen with his senses at that time. 

Rhine and Hubert Pearce

The tests Rhine describes were done with Zener cards depicted below. Each card in the deck would have five possible symbols, the symbols depicted below. Each symbol would appear in the deck of cards the same number of times. 

 

In a test such as the one shown above, a subject would attempt to guess what was the symbol of a card at the top of the deck. The pack of cards would be like a deck of playing cards, in that all of the cards have an identical appearance on one side, but different symbols on the other side. By looking at the top of the deck, you could not see what was the symbol you would see when the card was turned the other way. 

On page 74 Rhine discusses tests he did with A. J. Linzmayer. We read that in card-guessing tests using Zener cards in which the chance of guessing the card symbol correctly is 1 in 5, Linzmayer guessed nine consecutive cards correctly. We read that he did the same feat the next day. The chance of getting such a result with nine consecutive guesses of these cards is 1 in 5 to the ninth power, or 1 in 1,953,125. 

On page 76 we read that instead of guessing about 60 cards correctly in a series of 300 card guesses (about the result expected by chance), Linzmayer guessed 119 cards correctly. The probability of a result that good can be calculated using a binomial probability calculator such as the Wolfram Alpha binomial probability calculator. Below are the inputs you can use. That calculator uses the confusing term "endpoint." It would be better if it used the clearer term "number of successes."

As the screen above indicates, the probability of getting a result as good as the result reported for Linzmayer is less than 1 in 10 to the 14th power, less than 1 in 100 trillion. 

On page 78 Rhine says that he tested Linzmayer and saw him guess correctly 15 consecutive times, using the Zener ESP test cards. The probability of getting this result by chance is 1 in 5 to the 15th power, or 1 in 30,517,578,125, about 1 in 30 billion. When continued for a total of 25 guesses, the result was 21 correct out of 25. The probability of getting a result that good by chance is about 1 in 100 billion.

On pages 94 to 95 of his book, Rhine discusses an experiment with Zener cards done with Hubert Pearce. Pearce correctly guessed 25 consecutive times the symbol of the top card of a deck of Zener cards that was cut each time. The probability of getting this result by chance is 1 in 5 to the 25th power, or 1 in 298,023,223,876,953,125. Rhine says it was the most phenomenal thing he ever witnessed. On page 104 Rhine says that George Zirkle duplicated Pearce's feat of making 25 consecutive correct guesses when being tested with Zener cards. 

On page 100 Rhine says that June Bailey averaged between 8 and 10 correct guesses on "thousands of trials" in which the expected chance result is only 5 correct guesses. On the same page we read that T. Coleman Cooper "was able to score reliably about 8 hits per 25 over thousands of trials."

In a set of 2000 guesses with Zener cards, the expected chance result is about 400 correct guesses. Getting 8 hits per 25 in a set of 2000 guesses would mean a number of successes of about 640. (8 out of 25 is .32, and 2000 multiplied by .32 is 640.)  To calculate the probability of getting the results discussed above for Bailey and Cooper, you can use the inputs below in the Wolfram Alpha binomial probability calculator:

The calculator tells us that the likelihood of getting the results reported for Bailey and Cooper is less than 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

On the next page we read this about May Frances Turner: "Her averages through many thousands of trials were in the neighborhood of 9." The probability of getting such a result by chance would be much smaller than the tiny probability just mentioned. 

The account below appeared on page 90 of  the April 15, 1940 edition of Life magazine, which during its heyday was one of the three or four leading weekly magazines in the United States. We read of tests with Zener cards that have five possible symbols, on one side of the card. The chance probability of guessing one of the cards correctly is 1 in 5. 

On page 92 the same Life magazine article tells us of the remarkable success in a long-distance test carried out over a span of 250 miles. It is a test that can be considered either a test of clairvoyance or a test of telepathy:

The wording is ambiguous, leaving us in doubt whether the 16 out of 25 result was obtained on two consecutive days, or whether it was one result of 16 out of 25 spanning two days. I cleared up the ambiguity by searching in the writings of Joseph Rhine, to find his account. It occurs on page 60 of his book Extra-sensory Perception. We read this:

So the results on the first three tests were:

Test 1: 19 out of 25 correct

Test 2: 16 out of 25 correct

Test 3: 16 out of 25 correct

Rhine does not do a good job of explaining how unlikely this result is. But by using what is called a binomial probability calculator, we can estimate that. The first three tests add up to being 51 successes out of 75, in a test in which the expected chance result is about 15 (which is one fifth of 75). Using the Wolfram Alpha binomial probability calculator, we can calculate the chance of that level of success, by using the inputs below:

The probability of getting a result as good as this by chance is calculated above. It is roughly 1 in 10 to the 19th power or 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000.

The Life magazine article also discusses on page 95 tests of clairvoyance and ESP that Joseph Rhine did with the medium Eileen Garrett.  These were very unusual, in that the medium would go into a trance, and then start speaking as if she were another personality called Uvani. Often when this occurs with mediums, there is an impression of communication with some unearthly realm, such as an afterlife realm.  The original report of these tests appear at the beginning of this edition of the scientific journal Character and Personality, the December 1934 edition (Volume 3, Issue 2). On page 100 we read this report by Rhine:

"The experimentation with the Mrs. Garrett personality began on April 10 and lasted until April 28, approximately three weeks. During this period 14,425 tests or trials were given her in the normal state in clairvoyance and telepathy combined.

The work with the Uvani personality in clairvoyant and telepathic perception began on the 17th of April and lasted until the 25th. The amount of work per day, as well as the number of days, was limited by Uvani’s disinclination toward the experiments, which was in contrast to Mrs. Garrett’s willingness and patience. Only 1,575 trials were obtained with Uvani.

In all there were performed 16,000 trials at clairvoyant and telepathic perception. This number includes all the results, high scores and low. The most probable number of hits expected by chance for this number of trials would be 3,200 but the actual results were 4,018, or 818 hits above the chance mean. This gives an average per 25 of 6.3, and when evaluated for anti-chance significance, a value of X (i.e., deviation divided by probable error) equal to 24.0. This gives odds against the chance hypothesis of such a huge number—one with well over 50 digits—that it is beyond a moment’s question that chance is not the explanation."

Although he states very exactly the experiment's results, Rhine is not expressing very clearly how above chance these results are. But with a binomial probability calculator, a more clear idea of the improbability can be revealed. Using the Wolfram Alpha binomial probability calculator, the improbability can be calculated using the inputs shown below:

The tests involving guessing the symbol shown on a Zener card with 5 possible symbols. The tests were done with a deck of cards with an equal number of each of the five symbols. The probability of guessing correctly 4018 or more out of 16,000 cards is 1 in 7.7  times 10 to the 56th power. This is a probability of less than 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. We would never expect chance to produce such a result, even if you spent half of every person's life doing telepathy tests on them. 

The reported test result is one of the best test results ever achieved in a test of telepathy. I can recall only one better result: the result of the Riess test, reported here. 

Rhine's results were very convincing evidence for ESP.  I think he may have got results far more convincing if he had varied his procedural methods more. In the book we read of years using the same type of Zener cards, containing only abstract symbols with no particular emotional associations. There are endless other ways in which ESP could be tested. A method involving a more emotional component might be much more successful. For example, tests could be done with cards having emotionally powerful photos. A test of telepathy with such cards might produce much higher scores than tests using cards with abstract symbols. 

The 1925 New York Times article below (which you can read here) has the large headline "Balfour Says Telepathy Is Proved Fact." The Balfour referred to (Earl Balfour) was once a Prime Minister. 

They Use the Word "Delirium" to Gaslight the Dying

Dying people often report seeing visions or apparitions.  But skeptics often try to sweep under the rug such experiences, by dismissing them as "delirium." 

Researching the topic of deathbed visions, Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson conducted research surveys of hospital workers. In a July 1977 paper published in Volume 71, Number 3 of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, they reported 178 cases of dying people who reported seeing an apparition of a dead person (Table 1). The number was much higher than the 68 who reported an apparition of a living person. The majority of these apparitions were described as having a purpose of being there to "take away" the dying person.  In the US there was a very high percentage of deathbed apparitions identified as a mother, father, spouse, sibling or offspring, while in India there was a relatively high percentage of apparitions identified as unidentified figures (Table 2). Roughly half of the people reporting such visions were characterized as having a consciousness of "clear," rather than "mildly impaired," "severely impaired" or "fluctuating" (Table 3). Registered users of www.archive.org can read the book describing this research, using the links here or here or here.  

We read the following on a page of the Psi Encylopedia describing deathbed visions:

"In 2017, Una MacConville carried out a study with Irish health care professionals. The carers reported that 45% of their patients spoke of visions of deceased relatives, often joyful experiences that bring a sense of peace and comfort."

 Some examples of deathbed visions can be found here and here and here.   A survey of family members of deceased Japanese found that 21% reported deathbed visions. A study of 103 subjects in India reports this: "Thirty of these dying persons displayed behavior consistent with deathbed visions-interacting or speaking with deceased relatives, mostly their dead parents." A study of 102 families in the Republic of Moldava found that "37 cases demonstrated classic features of deathbed visions--reports of seeing dead relatives or friends communicating to the dying person." 

A 1949 book states this: 

"It is a commonplace truth, observed by many physicians and clergymen, that a dying person, when conscious near the moment of death, acts or speaks as if he saw standing near loved ones who have already died. Dr. Russell Conwell told Bruce Barton in the interview quoted earlier in another connection, that he had witnessed this phenomenon 'literally hundreds of times.' "

The 2024 paper "Nurses' encounters with patients having end-of-life dreams and visions in an acute care setting – A cross-sectional survey study" reports this: "Fifty-seven nurses participated from a workforce of 169 (34% response rate), of whom 35 (61%) reported they had encountered end-of-life dreams and visions." We read this: 

"A meta-analysis of studies of estimates of patient reports indicated that 77% (95% confidence intervals [CI] 69%–84%) of people dying an ‘expected death’ may report an ELDV [end-of-life dream or vision]  (Hession et al., 2022). Across the world, studies provide consistent findings about ELDV." 

The survey gives us these interesting results for the 55 of 57 participants who answered "Yes" to one or more of the survey questions (I will round down the percentages). The percentages seem to refer to anything that the respondents either witnessed themselves or things the respondents observed other people reporting. 

• "Visions of dead relatives or religious figures ‘collecting’ or ‘taking away’ the dying person": 45%. 
• "Visions of dead relatives sitting on or near the patient's bed providing emotional warmth and comfort":  56%.
• "Patients reporting a sense of going back and forth from a different reality during the dying process": 32%
• "Coincidences, usually reported by friends and family of the person who is dying who say that the dying person has visited them at the time of death":  40%.
• "Dying dreams or visions through which the patient seems to be comforted and prepared for death": 38%
• "A comatose patient suddenly becomes alert enough to coherently say goodbye to loved ones at the bedside":  46%.

In the periodical here, the August 8, 1935 edition of the periodical Light, Constance Buttenshaw describes a deathbed vision of her dying mother:

"It was very clear that she saw two Beings standing at the foot of her bed. 'Who are those beautiful tall people at the foot of my bed? ' she asked, and from then she could hardly take her adoring and beseeching eyes away from them. She afterwards explained to us that they had come for her and were waiting to lead her Home. She was afraid, almost desperately at times, that they would go without her. She then began a most vivid description of what she saw. Her eyes left the confines of the room and seemed to be gazing beyond at the most stupendous scenes. She used words of beauty and description that she would not have used normally. In trying to describe colours she failed, saying: ' You have no words to describe the colours or beautiful sounds in your language.'  She saw beyond the Guardians at the bed a very lovely scene of river, valley, and mountain pass, through which she said she saw throngs of people passing. She said : ' I was here last year, I wonder if I ought to have stayed, don’t hold me back this time'  (see above) and, smiling to the Guardians, she said : ' I shall soon be ready, please don’t let them go without me.' ... All through these hours, from 3 p.m. to 11, she at no time had a distraught or strained look in her eyes nor any suspicion of senility....

There appeared to her to be, among many other things, people looking after and playing with many children in a beautiful garden full of flowers. Also, she several times mentioned a Being : ' It is not Alfred' (my husband), she said, ' but he is working out ideas, putting them into Alfred’s head and helping him to design things.'  And so on, hour after hour, using beautiful sentences, laughing at times at us and with us in the sweetest way, she crept nearer and nearer to the end (I prefer beginning), while we sat enthralled and oblivious of time.   She began to droop a little, quite pleasantly, just tired with all her wonderful marvels, but always saw vividly the waiting figures whom she from time to time unconsciously included by a look or word with us, so real they were to her. Her general anxiety was that her tenacious body would again prevent her spirit leaving. At last she sank back very gently. She appeared to be seeing and talking to my father, who had died some years before... Then she sank back smiling and passed on."

Many have heard about what are called veridical near-death experiences, which are cases in which someone seems to acquire knowledge during a near-death experience that he could not have got through normal sensory means. Many examples of such veridical near-death experiences are discussed here.  A lesser-known type of thing is what we may call a veridical deathbed vision. In such a vision a person may seem to learn of things he never discovered through normal sensory means. One example of a veridical deathbed vision is discussed in the 1921 newspaper account below, which you can read here. 

But there is a technique that materialists try to use to sweep under the rug such deathbed visions. The technique is to call them examples of delirium.  What is meant by the word "delirium"? It turns out that the word "delirium" is defined in a ridiculously broad way. It's a term meaning any change in mental state that comes on quickly. 

The Mayo Clinic page on the topic of delirium defines the term in a ridiculously broad way.  The page lists the following as symptoms of delirium:

"Anxiety, fear or distrust of others

Depression

A short temper or anger

A sense of feeling elated

Lack of interest and emotion

Quick changes in mood

Personality changes

Seeing things that others don't see

Being restless, anxious or combative

Calling out, moaning or making other sounds

Being quiet and withdrawn — especially in older adults

Slowed movement or being sluggish

Changes in sleep habits.

A switched night-day sleep-wake cycle"

A description of delirium so broad is just perfect for those who want to gaslight the dying by sweeping under the rug their reports  of  deathbed visions. You start out with a word "delirium" that suggests the idea of hallucinations to 90% of the people who hear the word. Then you stretch the definition so much so that it applies to almost anyone with the slightest deviation from perfect mental normality.  So then you can talk like this:

"Was your dying relative feeling a little anxious?  She was delirious. Was she feeling elated? She was delirious. Did she act a little restless in bed? She was delirious. Was there any change in her sleep habits? She was delirious. Did her mood change? She was delirious. Did she seem uninterested in what you were saying? She was delirious. Did she get a little angry some time? She was delirious."

Now, having defined "delirium" in so insanely broad a way, so that it applies to almost any slight deviation from perfect normality, the stage has been set for sweeping under the rug reports of deathbed visions.  The skeptic can then say that almost all dying people are delirious, so we shouldn't pay attention to anything they report.  Given that 90% of the people who hear the word "delirious" think of hallucinations, this technique may be effective.  But it is an appalling piece of word trickery and gaslighting. 

If you happen to be present at the deathbed of your relative, note carefully what they say, and do not tell them they are hallucinating or delirious, because you do not know such a thing. Tender affection is appropriate behavior to a dying relative, not gaslighting. 

Postscript: A web site today has an article on another type of deathbed phenomenon, one I discuss in my posts here.  The New York Times also has an article on this phenomenon.  We have an interesting quote by a major neuroscientist : 

"But in his 2024 book, 'Lucid Dying,'  Parnia firmly staked his position in the mind-body debate. 'We are at the cusp of the exploration of a new frontier in science,' he wrote, declaring himself 'quite optimistic that the nature of human consciousness — our very selfhood — will be discovered to be a flux of energy like electromagnetic waves that interacts with the brain and body but is not produced by them.' "