to their forming a word. Once I wrote Chicago on a
pad. The mother and sister gazed at the word, and
Beulah spelled correctly C-H-I-C-A-G, but made eight
wrong efforts before she found the closing O. In other
cases, she did not notice that the word was completed,
and was trying to fish up still other letters from her
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mind. Everything showed that the word as a word
did not come to her mind, but only the single letters.
I leave entirely out of consideration the marvels of
mind-reading which were secured by the judge and the
minister, the male and female newspaper reporters,
before I took charge of the study of the case. I rely
only on what I saw and of which I took exact notes.
I wrote down every wrong letter and every wrong figure,
and base my calculation only on this entirely reliable
material. Nevertheless, I must acknowledge it as a
fact beyond doubt that such results as I got regularly
could never possibly have been secured by mere coin-
cidence and chance. As chance and fraud are thus
equally out of the question, we are obliged to seek for
another explanation.

There is one explanation which offers itself most
readily: We saw that in order to succeed, some one
around her, preferably the mother and sister, who stand
nearest to her heart, have to know the words or the
cards. Those visual images must be in some one's mind,
and she has the unusual power of being able to read
what is in the minds of those others. Such an expla-
nation even seems to some a very modest claim, almost
a kind of critical and skeptical view. The judge and
the minister, for instance, in accepting this idea of her

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
mind-reading, felt conservative, as through it they dis-
claimed any belief in mysterious clairvoyance and tele-
pathic powers. In the newspaper stories, where the
mysteries grew with the geographical distance from
Rhode Island, Beulah was said to be able to tell names
or dates or facts which no one present knew. It was
asserted that she could give the dates on the coins
which any one had in his pocket without the possessor
himself knowing them, or that she could give a word in
a book on which some one was holding his finger with-
out reading it. No wonder that the public felt sure
that she could just as well discover secrets which no
one knows and be aware of far-distant happenings.
It is only one step from this to the belief in a prophetic
foresight of what is to come. For most unthinking
people, mind-reading leads in this fashion over to the
whole world of mysticism. In sharp contrast to such
vagaries, the critical observers like the judge and the
minister insisted that there was no trace of such pro-
phetic gifts or of such telepathic wonders to be found,
and that everything resolves itself simply into mere
mind-reading. Some one in the neighbourhood must
have the idea in mind and must fixedly think of it.
Only then will it arise in Beulah's consciousness.
But have we really a right to speak of mind-reading
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itself as if it were such a simple process, perhaps un-
usual, but not surprising, something like a slightly
abnormal state? If we look at it from the standpoint
of the scientist, we should say, on the contrary, that
there is a very sharp boundary line which separates
mind-reading from all the experiences which the scien-
tific psychologist knows. The psychologist has no
difficulty in understanding mental diseases like hys-
teria or abnormal states like hypnotism, or any other
unusual variation of mental life. The same principles
by which he explains the ordinary life of the mind are
sufficient to give account of all the strange and rare
occurrences. But when he comes to mind-reading, an
entirely new point of view is chosen. It would mean
a complete break with everything which science has
found in the mental world. The psychologist has never
discovered a mental content which was not the effect
or the after-effect of the stimulation of the senses.
No man born blind has ever by his own powers brought
the colour sensations to his mind, and no communica-
tion from without was ever traced which was not car-
ried over the path of the senses. The world which is in
the mind of my friend, in order to reach my mind, must
stimulate his brain, and that brain excitement must lead
to the contraction of his mouth muscles, and that must

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
stir the air waves which reach my ear drum, and the
excitement must be carried from my ear to the brain,
where the mental ideas arise. No abnormal states like
hypnotism change in the least this procedure. But if
we fancy that the mere mental idea in one man can
start the same idea in another, we lack every possible
means to connect such a wonder with anything which
the scientist so far acknowledges.

To be sure, every sincere scholar devoted to truth has
to yield to the actual facts. We cannot stubbornly say
that the facts do not exist because they do not har-
monize with what is known so far. The psychologist
would not necessarily be at the end of his wit if the
developments of to-morrow proved that mind-reading
in Beulah Miller's case, or in any other case, is a fact
beyond doubt. He might argue that all previous
knowledge was based on a wrong idea and that, for
instance, other processes go on in the brain, which can
be transmitted from organism to organism like wireless
telegraphic waves without the perception of the senses.
If these other processes were conceived as the foun-
dation of mental images, the scientific psychological
scholar of the future might possibly work out a consis-
tent theory and all the previously known facts might
then be translated into the language of the new science.

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Whether in this or a similar way we should ever come
to really satisfactory results, no one can foresee, but
at least it is certain that this would involve a complete
giving up of everything which scientists have so far
held to be right. Certainly in the history of civiliza-
tion great revolutions in science have happened. The
astronomers had to begin almost anew; why cannot
the psychologists turn around and acknowledge that
they have been entirely wrong so far and that they must
begin once more at the beginning and rewrite all which
they have so far taken to be truth?

Certainly the psychologists are no cowards. They
would not hesitate to declare their mental bankruptcy
if the progress of truth demanded it. But at least we
must be entirely clear that this is indeed the situation
and that no step on the track of mind-reading can
be taken without giving up everything which we have
so far held to be true. And it is evident that such a
radical break with the whole past of human science can
be considered only if every other effort for explanation
fails, and if it seems really impossible to understand the
facts in the light of all which science has already ac-
complished. If Beulah Miller's little hands are to set
the torch to the whole pile of our knowledge, we ought
first to be perfectly sure that there is really nothing

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
worth saving. We cannot accept the theory of the
apostles of mind-reading until we know surely that
Beulah Miller can receive communications which can-
not possibly be explained with the means of science.

Now we all know one kind of mind-reading which
looks very astounding and yet which there is no diffi-
culty at all in explaining. It is a favourite performance
on the stage, and not seldom tried as a parlour game.
I refer to the kind of mind-reading in which one per-
son thinks of a hidden coin, and the other holds his
wrist and is then able to find the secreted object.
There is no mystery in such apparent transmission of
the idea, because it is the result of small unintentional
movements of the arm. The one who thinks hard of
the corner of the room in which the coin is placed can-
not help giving small impulses in that direction. He
himself is not aware of these faint movements, but the
man who has a fine sense of touch becomes conscious
of these motions in the wrist which his fingers grasp,
and under the guidance of these slight movements he
is led to the particular place. Some persons express
their thought of places more easily than others and are
therefore better fitted for the game, and we find still
greater differences in the sensitiveness of different per-
sons. Not every one can play the game as well as a
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trained stage performer, who may have an extreme
refinement of touch and may notice even the least
movements in the wrist which others would not feel at
all. Such an explanation is not an arbitrary theory.
We can easily show with delicate instruments in the
psychological laboratory that every one in thinking of a
special direction soon begins to move his hand toward
it without knowing anything of these slight movements.
The instruments allow the reading of such impulses
where the mere feeling of the hand would hardly show
any signs. A very neat form of the same type is often
seen on the stage when the performer is to read a
series of numbers in the mind of some one who thinks
intensely of the figures. Some one in the audience
thinks of the number fifty-seven. The performer asks
him to think of the first figure, then he grasps his hand
and counts slowly from zero to nine. After that he
asks him to think of the second figure, and counts once
more. Immediately after he will announce rightly the
two digits. Again there is no mystery in it. He
knows that the man who thinks of the figure five will
make a slight involuntary movement when the five
is reached in counting, and the same movement will
occur at the seven in the second counting. If he is
very well trained, he will not need the touching of the

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
hand; he will perform the same experiment with figures
without any actual contact whatever. It will be suffi-
cient to see the man who is thinking of a figure while
he himself is counting. As soon as the dangerous digit
is reached, the man will give some unintentional sign.
Perhaps his breathing will become a degree deeper, or
stop for a moment, his eyelids may make a reflex move-
ment, his fingers may contract a bit. This remains
entirely unnoticed by any one in the audience, .but the
professional mind-reader has heightened his sensibility
so much that none of these involuntary signs escapes
him. Yet from the standpoint of science his seeing
these subtle signs is on principle no different from our
ordinary seeing when a man points his finger in some
direction.

But the experience of the scientist goes still farther.
In the cases of this parlour trick and the stage perform-
ance the one who claims to read the mind of the other
is more or less clearly aware of those unintended signs.
He feels those slight movement impulses, which he fol-
lows. But we know from experiences of very different
kind that such signs may make an impression on the
senses and influence the man, and yet may not really
come to consciousness. Even those who play the game
of mind-reading in the parlour and who are led by the
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arm movements to find the hidden coin will often say
with perfect sincerity that they do not feel any move-
ments in the wrist which they touch. This is indeed
quite possible. Those slight shocks which come to
their finger tips reach their brains and control their
movements without producing a conscious impression.
They are led in the right direction without knowing
what is leading them. The physician finds the most
extreme cases of such happenings with some types of
his hysteric patients. They may not hear what is said
to them or see what is shown to them, and yet it makes
an impression on them and works on their minds, and
they may be able later to bring it to their memory and
it may guide their actions, but on account of their dis-
ease those impressions do not really reach their con-
scious minds.

We find the same lack of seeing or hearing or feeling
in many cases of hypnotism. But it is not necessary
to go to such extreme happenings. All of us can re-
member experiences when impressions reached our
eyes or ears and yet were not noticed at the time, al-
though they guided our actions. We may have been
on the street in deep thought or in an interesting con-
versation so that we were not giving any attention
whatever to the way, and yet every step was taken

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
correctly under the guidance of our eyes. We saw the
street, although we were not conscious of seeing it.
We do not hear a clock ticking in our room when we
are working, and yet if the clock suddenly stops we
notice it. This indicates that the ticking of the clock
reached us somehow and had an effect on us in spite of
our not being conscious of it. The scientists are still
debating whether it is best to say that these not con-
scious processes are going on in our subconscious mind
or whether they are simply brain processes. For all
practical purposes, this makes no difference. We may
say that our brain gets an impression through our eyes
when we see the street, or through our ears when we
hear the clock, or we may say that our subconscious
mind receives these messages of eye and ear. In
neither case does the scientist find anything mysterious
or supernatural.

I am convinced that all the experiences with Beulah
Miller may ultimately be understood through those
two principles. She has unusual gifts and her perform-
ances are extremely interesting, but I think everything
can be explained through her subconscious noticing
of unintended signs. Where no signs are given which
reach her senses, she cannot read any one's mind. But
the signs which she receives are not noticed by her con-
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sciously. She is not really aware of them; they go to
her brain or to her subconscious mind and work from
there on her conscious mind.

What speaks in favour of such a skeptical view? I
mention at first one fact which was absolutely proved
by my experiments namely, that Beulah Miller's
successes turn into complete failures as soon as neither
the mother nor the sister is present in the room. All
the experiments which I have conducted in which I
alone, or I together with the minister and the judge,
thought of words or cards or letters or numbers did not
yield better results than any one would get by mere
guessing. In one series, for instance, in which we all
three made the greatest effort to concentrate our minds
on written figures, she knew the first number correctly
only in two out of fourteen cases. In another series
of twelve letters she did not know a single one at the
first trial. Sometimes when she showed splendid re-
sults with her sister Gladys present, everything stopped
the very moment the sister left the room. Sometimes
Beulah knew the first half of a word while Gladys stood
still in the same room, and could not get the second half
of the word when Gladys in the meantime had stepped
from the little parlour to the kitchen. Beulah was
helpless even when a wooden door was between her

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
and the member of her family. She herself did not
know that it made such a difference, but the records
leave no doubt. I may at once add here another argu-
ment. The good results stop entirely when Beulah
is blindfolded. Even when both her mother and sister
were sitting quite near her, her mind-reading became
pure guesswork when her eyes were covered with a
scarf. Again, she liked to make the experiment under
this condition and was not aware that her knowledge
failed her when she did not see her mother or sister.
Her delight in being blindfolded spoke very clearly
for her naive sincerity, but her failure indicated no
less clearly that she must be dependent upon uninten-
tional signs for her success.

Let me say at once that some of the observers would
probably object to my statement that the presence of
the family was needed and that she had to be in such
direct connection with them. The newspapers told
wonderful stories of her success with strangers, and
even the judge and the minister felt certain that they
had seen splendid results under most difficult condi-
tions. Yet I have to stick to what I observed myself.
It may be objected and it is well known that this is
the pet objection of the spiritualists against the criti-
cism of scholars that the results come well only when

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the child is in full sympathy with those present and
that I may have disturbed her. But this was not the
case. I evidently did not disturb her, inasmuch as we
saw that the experiments which I made with her when
the sister or the mother was present were most sat-
isfactory. Moreover, she was evidently very much at
ease with me when we had become more acquainted,
and just those entirely negative results were mostly
received on a morning when I had f ulfilled the dearest
wishes of the two children, a watch for the one and a
ring for the other, besides all the candy with which my
pockets were regularly stuffed. She was in the happi-
est frame of mind and most willing to do her best.
But if I rely exclusively on my own observation, it is
not only because I suppose that the experiments
yielded just as good results as those of other observers.
It is rather because I know how difficult it is to give
reliable accounts from mere memory and to make ex-
periments without long training in experimental meth-
ods. All those publicly reported experiments had been
made without any actual exact records, and, moreover,
by persons who overlooked the most evident sources
of error. As a matter of course, I took notes of every-
thing which happened, and treated the case with the
same carefulness with which I am accustomed to carry

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
on the experiments in the Harvard Psychological Lab-
oratory.

To give some illustrations of sources of error, I may
mention that the earlier observers were convinced that
Beulah could not see slight movements of the persons
in the room when she was looking fixedly at the ceiling,
or that she could not notice the movements of the sister
or the mother when she was staring straight into the
eyes of the experimenter. Any psychologist, on the
contrary, would say that that would be a most favour-
able condition for watching small signs. He knows
that while we fixate a point with the centre of our eye
we are most sensitive to slight movement impressions
on the side parts of our eye, and that this sensitiveness
is often abnormally heightened. Just when the child
is looking steadily into our face or to the ceiling, the
outside parts of her sensitive retina may bring to her the
visible unintentional signs from her sister or mother.
The untrained observer is also usually unaware how
easily he helps by suggestive movements or utterances
to the other observers. When Beulah gave a six in-
stead of a nine, one of our friends whispered that she
may have seen it upside down in her mind, or when she
gave a zero instead of a six that it looked similar.
In short, they keep helping without knowing it. Very
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characteristic is the habit of unintentionally using
phrases which begin with the letters of which they are
thinking. The letter in their minds forces them to
speak words which begin with it. If they start at
a C, we hear "Come, Beulah," if at a T, "Try, Beulah,"
if at an S, "See, Beulah." It is very hard to protect
ourselves against such unintended and unnoticed helps.
It is still more difficult to keep the failures in mind.
The eager expectancy of hearing the right letter or
number from the lips of the child gives such a strong
emphasis to the right results that the wrong ones slip
from the mind of the hearer. The right figure may
be only the third or the fourth guess of the child, but
if then the whole admiring chorus around say emphat-
ically at this fourth trial that this is quite right, those
three wrong efforts which preceded fade away from the
memory. I may acknowledge for myself that I was
mostly inclined to believe that the number of the cor-
rect answers had been greater than they actually were
according to my exact records. For all these reasons
I had the very best right to disregard the reports of
all those who relied on their amateur art of experiment-
ing and on their mere memory account.

What kind of signs could be in question? It may
seem to outsiders that the most wonderful system of

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
signs would be needed for every content of one mind to
be communicated to another. But here again we must
first reduce the exaggerated claims to the simpler reality.
When Beulah makes card experiments, the whole words
jack, queen, king, spade, club, heart, diamond, come to
her mind, but when she makes word experiments, never
under any circumstances does a real word come to her
consciousness, but only single letters. Why is this?
If king and queen can be transmitted from mind to
mind, why not dog and cat? Yet when the mother
thinks of dog, it is always only first D, and after a while
0, and finally G which creeps into her mind. This
difference seems to me most characteristic, because it
indicates very clearly that the whole performance is
possible only when the communicated content belongs
to a small list which can be easily counted. There are
only three face cards, only four suites, only ten numbers,
and only twenty -six letters, but there are ten thousand
words and more. It is easy to connect every one of
the ten numbers or every one of the twenty-six letters
with a particular sign, but it would be impossible to
have a sign for every one of the ten thousand words.
Yet if we had to do with real mind-reading, it ought to
make no difference whether we transmit the letter D
or the word dog. This fact that she can recognize
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words only by slow spelling, while the faces and the
suites of the cards and the names of the numbers come
as full words, seems to me to point most clearly to the
whole key of the situation. Anything which cannot be
brought into such a simple number series, for instance,
a colour impression, can never be transmitted. If the
mother looks at the ace of diamonds, Beulah says that
she sees the red of the diamond before her in her mind,
but if the mother looks at the picture of a blue lake,
this blue impression can never arise in Beulah's mind,
but only the letters B-L-U-E.

Moreover, I observed that for Beulah the letters of
the alphabet were indeed connected with numbers, as
in seeking a letter she has a habit of going through the
alphabet and at the same time moving one finger after
another. Thus she feels each letter as having a definite
place in her series of finger movements, and the finger
movements themselves are often counted by her, so
that each letter is finally connected with a special
number. This, indeed, reduces the situation to rather
a simple scheme. She succeeds only if her mother
or sister is present and if her eyes are open, and
she succeeds only with material which can be easily
counted. A very short system of simple signs would
thus be entirely sufficient to communicate everything
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
which her mind-reading brings to her. As to the par-
ticular signs, I do not yet feel sure. It would probably
take months of careful examination before I should find
them out, just as in Germany it has taken months for
scholars to discover the unintentional signs which the
owner of a trick horse made, from which the horse was
apparently able to calculate. I have no time to carry
on such an investigation in this case, the more as I do
not see that any new insight could be gained by it.

Once I noticed distinctly how in the card experi-
ments the mother without her own knowledge made
seven movements with her foot when she thought of
the figure seven. That gave me the idea that the signs
might be given by very slight knocking on the floor
which Beulah's oversensitive skin might notice. What
speaks against such a view is that the results stop when
she is blindfolded. Yet in this connection I may men-
tion another aspect. It is quite possible that the cov-
ering of her eyes may destroy her power, and that
nevertheless she may receive her signs chiefly not
through the eyes, but through touch and ear. It may
be that she needs her eyes open because the seeing of