CRYPTOM:\ESIA AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY*
by IAN STEVENSONt
'Originality is the suppression of sources' -George Watson (19 78)
INTRODUCTION The canons of research in parapsychology require us not to favor a paranormal explanation fora case unless we have eliminated-either completely or as nearly so as makes no difference-all possibilities for the subject to have obtained through normal means the knowledge shown in the experience. This rule applies whether we are concerned with a telepathic dream, a death coinciding apparition, a mediumistic communication, a claim to remember a previous life or any other experience in which the paranormal communication of information appears to have occurred. Communicated information must be verified as correct, which means that it must (usually) exist somewhere, either in a printed form or in the mind of a living person. (Other sources, important as they sometimes are, need not detain us here.) Each of these two types of deposit has advantages. On the one hand, information existing only in someone's mind is less accessible to other persons than is printed material; but it is also subject to the weaknesses of memory-both of forgetfulness and embellishment. On the other hand, written documents remain stable, but some types, such as newspapers and books, often have wide distribution so that it may become formidably difficult to exclude the possibility of the subject's having seen a particular source of information. Thus the same source that verifies an apparent paranormal experience may also suggest a normal explanation for it. Subjects of an experience in which information has apparently been communicated paranormally always deny that they had any prior knowledge of this information. It is a strength of experimental work in parapsychology that properly designed experiments can always exclude previous knowledge on the part of the percipient of the information acquired. We can similarly eliminate such knowledge in the majority of spontaneous cases in which the events communicated occurred at a physical distance fromthe subjects and close to the time of their experiences, so that information about the events could not have reached them normally; and if the events were not contemporaneous with the per:eptions, but occurred in the past, there should have been no publicly available record or route of other normal transmission available to the subjects. . When we appraise the likelihood that the subject of a case that seems to mclude a paranormal communication might have had normal access to relevant sources of information, we cannot rely exclusively on the subject's own
;��ts paper is an enlarged version of the Myers Memorial Lecture delivered in London on I 9 March
t Th anks are due to the McDonnell Foundation, Inc. and the Bernstein Brothers Parapsvchologv :�� �e�lth Foi:ndation for support of my research in parapsychology. I am grateful to La�ra Dal� Ennly Williams Cook for numerous suggestions that helped to 1mproYe the paper. 0037-H-75183/51/792!0265 $] 00/l © 1983 Socw!\. for Ps)rh;cal Re-search i Journalof the Society,farP sychical Research [Vol. 52, No. 793 February 1983] Cryptomnesia and Parapsychology
a ar a a o a enth n testimony as been os e o at some pp ently p r n rm l fi:t� -ce tury Fr�n e a are . It h p sibl t show th c ; nd they equally apt o e oo a e o s r r c e t ov rl k other sources communic tions derived, or almost certainly deriv d, fr m the subject' p io \-1,?1 h th subject might ha e ea e firom . v l rn d pertinent details. e t a no a e a or o e e s a o e On th o her h d:1 ' som rm l exposur to such sources. In the m j ity f these cases th subj ct h d cntKs f thes cases a ssume a a o . e th t if b ok th t ta e a l o r o e he a er e e o e a o h re o a e ms m det s c mpletely fo g tt n t ir e rli xposur t th inform ti n. In suc p vi us life' h s b en l e o e e � /�t ;;: i ?f the ' pub ish d s m wher t e ices e ca s en a a e s a a e o i on su to xpla e se -wh we c n ssume the honesty of th subject -we s y th t they 'pr vi us life'. They then m a o ' m th ke no effi rt to t s u d Y t he corres e e e e a e n s o a e e o a e o s pond nc m· d eta1·1 xhibited cryptomn si . This term was d fi ed by the p ychol gist J m s b tw�en b ok nd 'pr vi u life', a n e r e . to le r wh the th subje a a re re e a o ho a n a e o or t ass ct h. d i f: ct ad the D v r ( 1952, p. 55) s 'mem ry wit ut identific tion or recognitio s book m qu sti n, o ess a the likelihood th t he or � a e e e r ence o a e er e e e r o n or e re se a a c . she. mig h t v done s pr vious xpe i , [the] rigin l xp i nc s b ing fo g tte r p s d, nd N ive incredulity an e s as c o. imped u J ust m u h as a c e . e a e n a e r n a a n e r e e e o s e s a r e can n ive r dulity· their r inst t me t pp a i g s ew xpe i nc .' Som psychol gist pr fer I h 11 p opos three e s a n rul s for e t blishi g cryptomnes a a · er . ase source amnesia o r cryptomnesia. 1 r a e r i an mt pre a the phr t the te m fo a c s . In o_ de t o a t t10_n r bo h t show how I c me o e es s e e to ff r th e rute nd es o a er e e r o n a es o s a s fuln s s e a e s to t t then f prop se in this p p to revi w th bette -kn wn i st nc f cryptomne i u ss agam t p cific c s s, I a t h ll review many of he b ; ases a se n a e e a s e a e e an e e cryptomne a n e o � of with view to ei g wh t g n r l le sons w c n deriv from th m d wh th r si i th� fi ld f parapsyc n e a /:�:,7own hology. Alo g th w y r e a e e s e e r n o a e a the sake of compa o o e s s ment10n, fo w c n dev lop from th ir tudy guid lin s fo judgi g crypt mnesi to b ns n, s m ca e of unackno e o . e wl dg de b rrowmg er e a a ca a e e at e r who wer accused a 2 n s by writ s, likely xpl n tion for ses th t w inv stig e in th futu e. of plagi rism ·A. d final! a s ica · Y, I hs ll d1scus. a a as r o some p r psych I og· l c es 10r w h.Ich crypt mne a as e s e · r si h be n uggest d , ibut ror · n 0 · · n a a s a w h' IC h It Is· � -ot 1n PROPOSED RULES FOR INTERPRETING A CASE AS ONE OF CRYPTOMNESIA my pm10 , s t1 1 ctory m· terpretation. It woul� e ar as a a a a n o a a a r a e e a a b emb r singly unfitting a r o I h ve lre dy said th t the propo ent f p r no m l int rpr tation of c se c t n for the utho f a a e r p om es a o e e rces p r on a e o a n o e e no a o e o n a a a � 1 t forg t th sou of his n n r at ; 1 h s th blig tio t xclud rm l pr c sses of c mmu ic tion. If we re d am ow i fo m ion I h t h r a p s to expose all a er o e t ken o a a a e y e e en e s s o of mine; nd this is all the e �;:a report f such c se nd r main unconvinced b th vid c for uch exclu i n, a e mor necess�ry use ; r a on of sp c I must s a a a � re s s e a r t e a o a a n s g o e umm rize m nv c ses briefly e . n w m y eject h par n rm l expl natio or su pend jud ment. If, h wev r, we r a whil h p g that mteres e e ders will wish to study ta s t d assert positively that the case is one of cryptomnesia, the obligation forprovid ing further de il of them 1· n e o a B e r e . th n�gm: l reports f;o e b · g · mnmg my review r e a a supporting evidence falls on us. We should be able to identify a normal source ( or of el v nt c ses I shall mention · . proposed rules. a two of m three ces r n a s Re ders will find the third e s . sour ) of info matio nd how that the subject was ( definitely or probably) a rul which I h
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al a periodical had reported the deaths of the children, but had not given their full portray (�uring a tr nce) of the Arabian Princess Simandini, who had married n a a names as had the mediumistic communication. Podmore ( 1897) found that a Hindu p nce of K nara, Sivrouka Nayaka ofTch ndraguiri, included details a a t Histoire generate de l'lnde these �ames and everything else in the communications had been published in of names nd date (140 l) hat occur in by de Maries the obituary columns of The Times on 4 February 1874, six days before the (1828). So far as Flournoy could determine, only two copies of de Maries 's book t l a pertinent seance. (It should be added that the mediumistic communication exis ed in Geneva (where F ournoy and Helene Smith lived) t the time the case contained nothing more than The Times obituary provided.) devdoped. Both ':ere covered with dust, and it seemed unlikely that Helene a Podmore (1897) as well as Flournoy (1911) treated another and even better Smith h d seen either of these, although she might have seen another copy known case for which Stainton Moses \vas the medium, that of Abraham elsewhere. Although Flournoy could find no evidence that Helene Smith had a a l t a a Florentine, with similar reserve. A short communication (at a seance also in the ever re d de l\,f r es, he occurrence of the same prob ble historic l errors in both Isl e of Wight) on l September 1874 gave the communicator's name, his age at his book and in Helene Smith's narration of the corresponding events makes it death, the date of his death, the place of his death (Brooklyn, New York), and the likely that the second derived from the first.5 a detail that he had been a veteran of the War of 1812 (Moses, 1874, 1875). The In the l st decade of the nineteenth century and the firstof the twentieth three brevity of the communication, similar in this feature to that about Bertie Henry cases of unconscious borrowings by authors received widespread attenti�n. Of D'Oyly Jones, made an obituary in the newspaper seem a probable normal these, the first was also the saddest, because the 'plagiarist' was the heroic blind t source. It was only in 1921, however, that Dingwall (see Note, 1921, 1922) found and deaf Helen Keller. In her autobiography (Keller, 1903/1920), wri ten when obituaries of Abraham Florentine in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 5 August 1874 she was still in her early twenties, she described an extensive 'plagiarism' of and the New York Daily Tribune of 6 August 1874. There was ample time between which she had been the unconscious perpetnHor at the age of twelve. She had these dates and I September (when the communicator manifested) for one or written a short story the details of which seemed to come flowingly into her mind a t a t t a both of these newspapers to have crossed the Atlantic and been seen by Stainton with force h t she innocen ly mistook for crea ive power. Her storv w s a t a Moses. Cryptomnesia seemed even more probable because both newspapers admired in her family nd sent o an editor, who also liked it nd publisbed it gave the same age of Abraham Florentine at the time of his death as had the under the title 'The Frost King'. Not long afterward someone drew Helen communicator himself at the seance; and this age was discrepant with Keller's attention to the similarity between 'The Frost King' and a story entitled information given by the communicator's widow to an early enquirer about the 'The Frost Fairies' by MargaretT._ Canby, which had been published ,(in 1874, facts (Moses, 1879). It seemed unlikely that the widow would have been wrong before Helen Keller was born) m a book called Birdie and His Fairy Friends. In about her husband's age at death; and so it seemed reasonable to suppose that He len Keller's own words: the information given by the communicator had derived from the medium's T�e two sto\ies were so much alike in thought and la�guage that it was evident having seen one or the other of the newspapers that had given the same Miss recall nothing relevant. Her teacher, Miss a a a a � been wrong about his ge at death. The newspapers nd the communic tor h d Sulhvan, was also unable to recall 'The Frost Fairies', but she pursued the been right after all (Stevenson, 1965). matter further. Eventually she discovered that a copy of Birdie and His Fairy The communications about the Jones brothers and Abraham Florentine satisfy my first rule, but not the second one. The newspapers containing the reports of the communicators' deaths might have been seen by Moses, but we 6 Chari(l9631976' d e sea h s · e e a t t t at s , . 1 con uct d a rc_ mg. · · · mqu1ry mto the pos ible xistence of a Princ Sivrouk have no evidence hat he did see hem. On the other hand, he communic or Na h h h Yak a w o mig t m 1401 ave bmlt a fort at C handragiri. (Here I adopt r i Chari's English gave no more (and no less) information than the newspaper obituaries e e e d �rnan zatwn of_the name.) Th exist nce of thre ilfere nt Chand d s ffi · ragiris ma e thi inquiry more a d1 1cult , e e · d · · · e e contained. For these cases I should say, therefore, that cryptomnesi is possible, but b ne fl ),, hit b as e n 1mposs1"bl to 1 ent1fy an Indian pnnc call d Sivrouka Nayaka wh s r'f es ds e cor: pon a e perhaps even probable, but unproven. i � �/ to the statements made in Helene Smith's communic tion. Chari conclud d tl a av Maries (who g e no primary source for his statements) had probably picked a ted up some In the next case, that of Helene Smith (Flournoy, 1900, 1901 ), we h ve a more dist ': e e he d d e s � leg nds and giv n t m a certitu e they di not des rve. If thi verdict is correct and de a a a t Ma e ed mple communication nd possible printed source iden ified, but still no r � r cord errors h e d he rn { that other istorians did not r peat, bm which foun t ir way into Helene 5 S · definite evidence that the medium had seen that source. Helene Smith's d mmumcatwn, the likelihood is increa s e e f e �� : ��, sed _that he had, after all, somewh r seen a copy o a l s e h e s book. I disc�s furth r below_ t e addmonal w ight we. may gi,·e in our appraisals i e h to m stak · s t at a e e 5 occur both in commun1cat1on and m a pr sum d pnnted source for it. Flournoy investigated several instances of possibk cryptomnesia on the part of Helene Smith. Here e h e d a s d e h e e I shall consider only on of t es . er giv n for the , I se an ofic. a part only. the n me and at t at w read e the word loosely e e h previous incarnation of the 'Hindu eye.le'. Furthe r details of it and of the other instances of possible rnat here, b cause communication with Helen K ll r occurred through t e Ing of letters s he h d cryptomnesia in the mediumship of Helene Smith can be found in Flournoy's (1900, 1901) books- and other sign on t palm of her an . 6 7
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m o o s o admission by the subject that she had seen the book, removes all doubt that it Dy en� th ught that he had written his p em 'early in the war' ( ec nd World o so m m a was the source of the correct factual material in the communications. War), which c uld rea nably ean (for an English an) between 1939 nd u e s St. Martin's The subject was a young woman of unspecified age at the time of the J 942. He first p blish d 'St. Augu tine at Thirty-Two' in 1943 in the Review. s o o o s The Axe in the Wood, communications. If we suppose that she was about twenty-five at that time, the In 1944 he_ republi hed it in a c llecti n of his p em , a o oo o a contents of the book remained dormant in her mind for more than a dozen years and c py of th1� b k went t Sackville-West for review. Dyment received a s t m before being used as the factual ingredients for the staging of apparent letter from S ckv1lle-We t (da ed 8 Nove ber 1944) in which she commended a o o ms a sa t a o s e a communications from Blanche Poynings. It is worth adding that, from ;ev�r l f his_ p e _nd id, in par icul r, h w much h had appreci ted a us o, o s ou s a Dickinson's account of the case, we learn that the subject retained and afterward S mt Aug tine at Thtrty-Tw . Even s , Sackville-We t th ght that he h d o o o included in the communications at least twenty-three prnper names, most of written her p em 'in ab ut 1942 or 1943', which would (pr bably) have been a o o s o a o them of little-known persons. before the first public ti n fDyment' p em in I 943. But Sackville-West h d n o o om s o o s s o o �em ry f c po ing her p em, alth ugh he remembered ending a c py t a e s o om a t o s Cases of Cryptomnesia between 1910 and 1950 . fn nd. She wa unable t document fr ny writ en rec rd exactly when he . had written it. It seems extremely unlikely that her composition· antedated During the next few decades after the first years of this century, psychologists Dyment's , be�ause when, in 1944, she read and praised Dyment's poem she did and parapsychologists appear to have written little about cryptomnes�a. t least, . � not recog�1ze it as er own. Yet five years later, in 1949, when she sawDyment' s I have found little in the sources that I have consulted. The topic did not, � poe_m agam , she did. _Sackville-West' s composition therefore almost certainly however drop completely out of s�ght, as the note (Note, 1921, 19�2) concerning denves from her readmg of Dyment' s poem. She denied that she had made a the pertinent newspaper reports m t�e case of Abrah�m Florentine shows. copy ofDyment's poem, and she could findno copy ofit in a commonplace book In 1936 Lewis reported the expenence of an English army officer who had _ _ where she sometimes put copies she made of other poets' poems. Two students of caught himself, so to speak, in an act of cryptomnesia (Lewis 1936): '_[heo fficer the case, �owever, have suggested that she did nevertheless copy out Dyment's and his wife were travelling in a part of England they had never VlSlted before poem, which had appealed to her, but carelessly did not attach Dyment's name when they came to a wayside pool, which they both see_med to recognize. to h r copy. Later, \�hen the _edito_r of the Poetry Review asked her for a poem to Knowing that they had never seen it before, they began to th�nk they must �ave � publish, she chose this one wntten m her own handwriting without realizing that lived in that region in some previous life. A seeming recognition of other obJects It was not _one she h d com posed hers�lf Sackville-West admitted to having 'a in the area enhanced their conviction of having lived there. When they returned � most errat1c memory , s? this explanat10n may be correct. If she had copied out to London, they went again to an art gallery that they had visited just before , . Dyment s poem, the act1_on �f domg so_ might have fixed the text of the poem in starting on their tour. There they saw a picture of a wayside pool, which they had her m m m o u a so e seen at the time of their first visit to the art gallery, but had completely forgotten e ory, but I a mchned t thmk that it wo ld l hav fixed in her memorythe fact that she had done so. On the ?the� hand, if she had never copied in the interval. The picture adequately accounted for their experience of deja vu , Dyment s I?oei:n, her memory would have retamed Jt only from her having read when they had been at the pool on their tour. it or twice m 1943-44. This interpretation implies that an e n An instructive case, one of apparently unconscious borrowing, came to public once xceedi gly brief exi::osure led to the almost exact remembering of near! y 100 words in the order in attention in 1950 (Skelton, 1956; Taylor, 1965). In 1949 the poetess V. which they were written. I have dwelt on this feature of the case because I shall Sackville-West published a poem entitled 'The Novice and Her Lover' in the later _consider the different lengths of exposure to material remembered that we Poetry Review. Almost immediately afterward she noticed that another poet, find �n cases of cryptomnesia in parapsychology. Clifford Dyment, had published (also in 1949) an almost identical poem, 'Saint With the next case e return to parapsychology. The case is that of a man Augustine at Thirty-Two', in a collection entitled Poems 1935-48. The two poems _ � i ntified a 1.r· 1:"-· ( Pickford, 1943), who was the medium for a 'family circle' were startlingly alike. Dyment's first version of his poem, which he had �� � � _ g up of spmtuahsts m Glasgow. During the seances he underwent a change of published in 1943, contained 100 words, and of these, 88 occurred in _ personality, at least to the extent of a marked alteration in his voice and Sackville-West's poem and in almost exactly the same order. ' comm · a o s s · s u a n s o o s o umc t r pok e through him. The e were su lly well-know German This case fir t became known thr ugh c rre p ndence in the New Statesman. I o c mpos s u o a o m o s o o o su a m s s o s er , s ch as Haydn, Beeth ven, nd Weber. The c m unicat r sh wed can here pr vide nly the briefest mm ry, selecting for e pha i p int that so om os 8 me knowledge of mus ic and of the ostensibly c municating comp er They seem relevant to our main theme-cryptomnesia and parapsychology . When o W uld use a r,ew wor ds and expressi· ons of the German language but no full-scale Sackville-W est first noticed the close similarity between the two poems, she . . Xenoglo ssy o s m o s t o ' s o o m s m o m u u o co rre d . eTh ca e ca e t Pickford' a tenti n in 1937, when Mr . uld n t re ember ever having een Dy ent's p e before. B t it t rned ut on ._i c A· sult m s m o s as t t s s s � ed hi about her husband' co municati ns. apparently with the that he had, he fur her development in the ca e demon trated. motive O o · · p· t s m f c nvmcm� 1ck'.ord tha her hu band was a great mediu . Pickford ha t _ d a leng hy mterview with her and subsequently one with Mr. A. Two years later he a o o t - B Further details about the case will be found in Skelton (1956) and in correspondence in the NeIJJ h d a foll w-up interview with Mrs. A. She was c nfident hat her hu bs o o o m u Statesman of 21 January 1950 (p. 62) and 28 January 1950 (p. 100). and had n n rmal kn wledge of the Ger an lang age, of the communicat- 10 11 Journalof the Society for Ps_vchicalResearch Cryptomnesiaand Parapsychology [Vol. 52, No. 793 February 1983] ing composers, or of their music. But Pickford was able to learn from Mr. A. that 'previous life') to scan the memories of their (present) lives and inform him of the he had had a tendency to dissociations extending back many years. This had origins of the ingredients used to compose the 'previous lives'. Zolik believed that started not later than the First World War, during which Mr. A. had served in they had done this successfully. However, a careful reading of Zolik's reports the trenches in France. Mr. A. had had fugue states during this period, which leaves doubts in my mind about just what he accomplished. The correspondence were sufficiently severe so that at times he lost contact with his own unit and between the content of the hypnotically induced 'previous lives' and the wandered out of the British lines, into the German ones, and-miraculously presumed normal sources of information (for the two cases Zolik published in -out again. He seems to have remained on the German side long enough to have detail) is far from being close. Moreover, Zolik did not independently verify the picked up a few words and phrases of German. Mr. A.'s memories of these sources mentioned by the subjects, so a possibility remains that they were wanderings remained vague. Later, after the war, he continued wandering, responding to the compelling instructions of the hypnotist fully as much when probably at times in a dissociated state. He remembered that he had spent m�ch they named the sources as they had been when they had earlier produced the time reading in public libraries, and he 'thought that he had spent some time 'previous life'. studying biographies of the great German composers, for whom he felt a special Zolik has, however, had successors, and several of them have been more sympathy' (Pickford, 1943, p. 365). Unfortunately, Pickford was not allowed to successful than he was in showing (with matching details) correspondences make copies of the seance records, and so he could not ascertain whether the between a hypnotically induced 'previous life' and normal sources of information communicators' utterances corresponded closely or loosely with what Ivfr. A. (Bjorkhem, 1961; Hilgard, 1977; and Kampman and Hirvenoja, 1978). might have read about them in libraries. Nevertheless, the case is one of the few One of the two cases reported by Kampman and Hirvenoja seems particularly in which evidence has been found of a medium's learning in a dissociated state valuable. A Finnish girl of about twelve or thirteen was regressed during information that came again to expression during a later dissociated state. hypnosis to eight 'previous lives', including one as an English girl called Dorothy who lived in the Middle Ages. The 'Dorothy personality' sang a medieval song in Cases of Cryptomnesia between 1950 and 1980 English. Seven years later the subject was again hypnotized and asked to A revival of interest in cryptomnesia dates from the publication of the case of remember the source forthe English song. She then remembered that she had Bridey Murphy (Bernstein, 1956/1978), which was followed at first slowly, but seen it in the Finnish translation of a book (The Story of Music) by Benjamin in the 1970s more rapidly, by the publication of many other cases in the same Britten and Imogen Holst (1958). The medieval song is the well-known one genre: regression during hypnosis to an apparent previous life. This is not a beginning 'Sumer is icumen in'. Britten and Holst reproduced eighteen of its paper on experiments in hypnotic regression, and I propose to introduce only words in their book. The subject had evidently seen the book and assimilated the those cases that help us to understand better how normally acquired information song in her memory shortly before the first hypnotic session at which the may be expressed by persons who do not remember how they obtained that 'Dorothy personality' emerged. There was nothing unusual in her building up information. I shall argue later that the Bridey Murphy case is almost certainly the 'Dorothy personality' from whatever English materials lay at hand, so to not one of cryptomnesia, and certainly not a proven one, according to my rules. speak, in her mind. This is the way in which hypnotized subjects asked to But it was alleged to have been explicable by cryptomnesia (Gardner, 1957; produce a 'previous life' follow instructions. What is remarkable was the Kline, 1956). The publication of the report of the Bridey Murphy case subject's ability to identify seven years later the exact book in which she had seen stimulated not only further experiments in hypnotic regression to possible the medieval song.9 previous lives, but also a number of reports of experiments in which the contents It would not detract from the success of Dickinson and Kampman if we could of presumed previous lives were traced to information learned by the subject know in how many cases an unsuccessful search for normal sources of under normal circumstances. information has been made with a hypnotized subject who had previously In one of these cases the hypnotized subject spoke a language eventually communicated details about an apparent previous life. (I know of one case in identified as Oscan (Rosen, 19S6). (This language did not emerge explicitly as which such a search failed to uncover a normal source; this is the case of Jensen part of a 'previous personality'.) The subject himself was led-we do not know [Stevenson, !974c].) Failure to find a normal source does not eliminate by what techniques-to remember that he had read the words ofOscan that he cryptomnesia as an interpretation of a particular case, but it may help to prevent later reproduced in a library, where he had been daydreaming about his girl a too facile closure of its study. friend. He had seen the words when his eyes had happened to fall on a copy of Buck's A Grammar ofOscan and Umbrian (1904), which lay open on a table before him. The portion of the text thus absorbed was a ten-word section of 'The Curse :.In two accounts of this case, Kampman ( 1973; Kampman and Hirvenoja, 1978) suggests somewhat •ffe of Vibia', which dates from the third century, B.C. �ent ages for the subject, and his first account of the 'Dorothy personality' does not mention the medieval English t song. More systematically, Zolik (1958, 1962) conducted two experiments tha �ave examined a copy of the relevant page of the Finnish version of The Story of Music entitled MI _ ( employed the method used so successfully fifty years earlier by G. L. Dickinson. umkz� Vazheet), and found that reproduces the same eighteen (English) words of the song that p it He first asked hypnotized subjects to go back to a 'previous life', which they a pear m the English edition. (My thanks to Rita Castren-Nare for providing me with a copy of this seemed to do; he later instructed them (hypnotized but not regressed to the Page.)
12 13 Journal of the Sociel)·farPsychical Research [Vol. 52, No. 793 February 1983] Cryptomnesia and Parapsychology
t t My next two examples come frommediumship. In the firs of hem Edmunds retention of aurally perceived information. Berendt had a sitting with a London (1966) showed a close similarity between several paragraphs of scripts written medium, subsequently had some slight correspondence wi th her, and then had automa tically (in March 1949) by Geraldine Cummins, for which the purported another sitting (also in London) approximately two years after the first one. On communicator was Colonel P. H. Fawcett, and an article written by Colonel the occasion of the second sitting, the medium did not consciously recognize Fawcett himself and published in the Occult Review in 1923. (Fawcett was an Berendt. Nevertheless, she immediately reverted to the theme of the first sitting. English explorer who disappeared in the Brazilian jungle in 1925; he had an This concerned the murder of one ofBerendt's friends, of the details of which the interest in psychical research.) Edmunds, like Flournoy, printed extracts from medium could have had no normal knowledge. This friend's murder was at, or the original article and from the scripts in parallel columns in order to facilitate close to, the surface of Berendt's mind on each occasion, and this may have their comparison. The correspondence between the scripts and the article is not facilitated communication about it by telepathy between Berendt and the exact. It is not so close as that between Sackville-West's poem and Dyment's; but medium. Yet because on the second occasion the medium began the sitting with it is not far short of that. The ideas developed are quite similar, and in many the theme of the earlier one, Berendt concluded that she had unconsciously places the same phrases and words occur in referenceto the same �opics in both recognized him and that this stimulated, through normal associations, the texts. The similarity between the texts cannot be regarded as accidental. emergence of the theme developed during the first sitting two years earlier. At the time these similarities were discovered, Geraldine Cummins herself ( 1966) advanced three interpretations for them, and I cannot think of any other worth adding. The first was that Colonel Fawcett, having survived death, was THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT f ACILITATE CRYPTOMNESIA communicating through Miss Cummins and, having retained ideas that he had written down when alive, was repeating them in the scripts, often with the same If my survey of cases has been reasonably comprehensive and has included, as words and phrases. Miss Cummins suggested a plausible link between her own I hope it has, nearly all cases that have been investigated by parapsychologists, interest in the vitality of trees (a theme of the similar texts) and that of the then the most important conclusion we can draw from it is that the materials deceased Colonel Fawcett that might have led him (as a discarnate communi available are too scanty to justify any but the most provisional general cator) to quote his own remarks on the subject in the scripts. statements about the circumstances that favor the occurrence of cryptomnesia. The second possibility was that Miss Cummins had read Colonel Fawcett's Apart from the paucity of the cases in number, the reports frequently fail to article in the Occult Review and that portions of her memories of it had emerged in provide the detail we should like to have about the correspondences between the her scripts through a normal (if subconscious) process of association when she communication and its presumed normal source. And we are rarely told what we thought that she was receiving a communication from the deceased Colonel should like to know about the subjects' states of consciousness in these cases Fawcett. But had she ever read Colonel Fawcett's article? Miss Cummins herself either when they first assimilated the information or at the time of its late; admitted that this was possible, but she thought it unlikely and certainly had no emergence from the depths of their memories. But these gaps in our knowledge memory of having done so. If cryptomnesia is nevertheless the correct need not defeat us. A full exposure of ignorance can be the first step in a program explanation for the case, the length of the interval between normal exposure to ?f research. \'Vith these disclaimers, and adding here and there a few more the information and its later emergence-twenty-six years-may be a record in illustrative cases, I shall next summarize the little we can now say about how that respect. (But in the case of Nietzsche Qung, 1905/1957] the interval was cryptomnesia occurs and how the memories involved in it become· expressed. about the same length.) Miss Cummins also suggested a third explanation for the resemblances The between the two texts: telepathy between herself and Miss E.B. Gibbes, who was Amount of Information Involved in Cryptomnesia t her companion and the investiga or of her automatic scripts for many years. Read�rs will have noticed in the examples I have given that the cryptomnesic ally reta t Miss Gibbes had almost certainly read the article in question by Colonel med and correc ly communicated information was oftenex tremely brief. Several Fawcett. Miss Cummins found no difficulty in suggesting that telepathy could cases corresponded to two or three lines only of a newspaper obituary; the ?sc account for the similarities in the words and texts. She wrote that she had once an curse retained by Rosen's subject consisted of ten words only; and the t edi� telepathically obtained from the poet W. B. Yea s 'almost word for word an � v�l song of the 'Dorothy personality' studied by Kampman and Hirvenoja outline of a dramatic plot he was working on'. I cannot make a judgment about d (m Its printed source) only eighteen . words. On the other hand, we have also this claim without knowing how much material was conyeyed 'almost word for fo und several ot he� exa;nples in_ which the information was much more t t c ab nda t _ word'. However, it is, I think, highly unusual for anyone to claim he elepathi � n , and D1ckmso_n s case mcluded a copious store of proper names. communication 'word for word' of much information. The longest such rom the cases considered we may perhaps draw a warning to be alert t concern communication I can recall consis ed of only two stanzas of verse, each of four ing the poss1·b ·1·1 t t fy o cryptomnes1a when a communicat ev t . ion about a past lines (Suringar, 1923). e� is short. We cannot, however, I'1 say the opposite. \i\le do not now know the The second case, reported byBerendt (1970), contains much less detail than its of the 2mmmt of material t ;t that might be re ained cryptomnesicallv and preceding one; yet it has some value as an example of the cryptomnesic a erw the ard brought up, either verbatim or condensed and otherwise transfo�med. 14 15 [Vol. 52, No. 793 February 1983] Cryptomnesia and Paraps_ychology Journal ofthe Society for Psychical Research subject had identified each blank card by· some slight mark on 1· ts sur 1·ace an d was Embedded Material . . . Sensory A1odality of Cryptomnesically e to associate that mark with the ob•ect:1 sugge· sted , so tha t w hen s h e a 1ter The ertinent abl e the subject obtained the p · the cases that I have r viewed m,ze d t, h e mark of a particular card she could also recall the object she had In most of een, rec�g ns a printed source. We have s through reading, which mea from seen on the bla'.1k card. Telepathy from Bayer seems improbable from information s the earlier eridge it came in spoken word that . e that in the case reported by Col esign of the experiment. Bayer's subject was not hypnotized b t 111· howev r, by means the d ' u an e case it came in the tactile stimuli ect heard. And in Helen K ller's stensibly normal state ofconscious ness. subj e ension ofradio o o s t o her. With the widespread xt of which her teachers read bo k A case that I studied may include the briefest exposure to learned,.ma t ena · 1 i·n ses of cryptomnesia to derive from . . . we should expect future ca ory ofthis topic. It is one ofm ediumistic commun t and television, amount and the hist · . icators ma m,es mg wit h of these media. Unfortunately, the · forgotten exposure t o material a I·J� b oar d . The p:mcipal medium, Mrs . Southey (pseudonym), habitually broadcast will probably make it increasingly . the transiency of much of what is he�� sean�es with a fnen d, Mrs. Crowson (pseudonym), whose hand also rested retained information from tify exact sources ofcryptomnesically n e pomter ofthe board. The letters indicated by the pointer were te o difficult to iden o t� . dicta d t rce. � th1�d person or m to a tape recorder and later transcribed into legible and this sou . mtelhg1ble words and phrases. In this way a rather larrren n u mber of d rop-m of Information . Duration of Exposure to the Source mun1cators ":"ere recorded and their existence subsequently verified. I The e brief. c?� re to pertinent material may b The duration of the subject's exposu v1s1te d an d sat with Mrs. Southey and Mrs Crowson on t wo . occasions. · Th err· e her. Almost · e Frost Fairies' r ead only onc to . Helen Keller can have had 'Th hones�y seemed not to be 11: question; another senior member of the S.P.R. who o e for the seeming . ead Countess Maud (the s urc certainly Dickinson's subject r also v1s1ted them agreed with my evaluation on that point, and I hope read ers only once. And I have mentioned how . communications from Blanche Poynings) w1·11 accept It· as vahd, · so that I may go on to state what I think the correct source have read Dyment's poem 'St. Augustine at . unlikely it is that Sackville-West can of some of these drop-111 communicators must have been. It s true k me fii rst as e retained it almost verbatim. than once or twice before sh e e e Thirty-Two' more that he somewh at odd that the exist nc of many' of th drop-i·n com m umcators was o boy in Calcutta, India, who said · · . Bose ( 1959) reported the case f a :en fi1e� m the obituary columns of the (London) Daily Telegraph. It was village woman about which he gave remembered the suicide of a p articular 1mposs1ble also, to overlook the close similarity between some of the drop -in thought he could not possibly have learned . · details that persons around him commumcators statements about themselves and the brief obituary not ices o f t discovery of a piece ofnewspaper . exhaustive inquiries led o the 1 normally. But some th e D azry 1 T.e l egraph . L k e t h e communications of Abraham Florentine and B f ere the boy had stayed for a fewdays . (stuck to a windowpane) in a house wh Henry D-O�ly Jones: those of this tyl:'e :-"'ith Mrs. Southey usually gave no;�;: printed on the piece of newspaper, e r earlier. A r eport of the suicide was and no le.ss mformat10n than the venfymg obituary provided. y a s not e ofthe boy's visit to this place. It is which had been issued at about the tim I enqmred about the availability of the Daily Telegraph to Mrs. Southey and e heard e ofthe suicide in the newspap r or known whether the boy read the r port Mrs. Crowson. Mrs. Southey neither subscribed to the Daily Telegraph nor re d a ost t exposure to the information w s alm adults talking about it; in either even his It. But Mrs. Crowson's husband did subscribe to it, and he did its crosswo:d ertainly brief. puzzl�s. Sh� told me that she did not read the newspaper regularly, but she c t to s e studied the retention of informa ion . Some experimental psychologist hav met1mes picked It up to see whet�er she c�uld finish off a crossword puzzle that But their experiments, such as those of �: . which subjects have been exposed briefly. efeated her husband. The obituaries m the Daily Telegraph were (and are) to have been directed at studying �� Potter and Levy ( 1969), seem usually ri � on the same page as the crossword puzzle, or vice versa according to e a often . onsidering cryptomnesia, w re short-term memory, whereas in c f h1ch mterests you most. \,Yorkers of crossword puzzles tend to foldthe p t years before its t . e s ubject learned mon hs or concerned with information that th wic s? th�t they have before them the quarter of the page where the cross;�:J � p e is e t e s later emergence. a prmt d. \Vi�h h Dai'! Teleg�aph this leave a margin around the puzzle 57-58) conducted tested the ability of 0 An experiment that Bayer (1973, pp. co ered by obituary notices. When I found that several of the obituary n she had been oftwo weeks informatio to which n�=:ot' es � subject to retain over a period t at had verified the drop-in communicators had been printed on the t a series of about e. Bayer held up before this subjec bact briefly exposed only onc d ge not far from the puzzle, I considered it reasonable to suppose that (each about 8 centimeters square) an whe � thirty completely blank white cards n rs. Cro':'son (who also had her hand on the ouija board's pointer) had st to her, es card some object that he sugge ed attem instructed her to see on each succ sive o msh t�e puzzle for her husband, the obituary notices had come made a list of the suggested objects and Wit :�:� � � . ship, a hat, a car, etc. Bayer hi iel ofv1� 1on. I do i_iotthink e m n t such as a He then that she had r ad the i he sense in e object on the back of each card. Whi wrote a number corresponding to ach ch we' u sually t.hmk of readmg; but she had nevertheless assimilated them mbers on e again to the subject, with the nu Othe ° · shuffiedth e cards and present d them r bItuary notices placed elsewhere on the page she might have absorbed b knowing himself what object he had glan · Y the back concealed from her and without ces as she picked up the paper an d sett I ed m her chair to do the puzzle. 10 subject then called out the sted she should see on each card. The 10 previously sugge e I Two weeks lat r think it im -t t 1h 0 i 0 t 0 suggested for each card without a mistake. r dd h s s d objects previously s n e �� ato sh� �::� 0��:( pur��e�!!· ���� �h (: �i �� �y Mrs. n e ed the experiment, which the �; o ) s ei:J �� ��fcte��';'�t; e rop-m e the subject unexpectedly a d r peat : Bayer call d on unicators verified through the obituary columns of the Daily Tele;raph did �of error. In this case we must suppose that the subject again performed without an 17 16 e uary 1983] Cryptomnesia and Parapsychology Research [Vol. 52, No. 793 F br Joumal ofthe Societyfar Psychical
m i e o o omn e o d me o in e o� es. Th subjects f cas_es f cry�t esia appear to hav sh wn a wi e e ible normal ans f acquir g m a ci one example to illustrate th poss e e c o emo om c o o d I sh ll te o e d rang_ m th ex ellence f their � nes. S e subje ts, like Jac bs hn an a n held (by Mrs. S uth y an Mrs. to which I m referri g. At a sitting e ho e case I shall con�i der below_), have o ed h d information c m i on c d: Darn l� (w s ackn wl ged that they a e em owing o mun cati was re eive Hr on 28 S pt ber 1966, the foll claimed to have had) supenor memones' other, 11·ke Sack ·11e e e Crowson) i o (or · v1 - vv st ' hav m n en Of the Soc ety f · o n Denis. My name is Nor a D is of Salisbury. disparage d t helf · memones. · N rma o d h i e elligible w r ]. e e e m J esus, Rhodesia. Fellow of t e L nn an [unint Th g neral quality of a person's m mory ay have little bearing on the mo me o c e o n n he Daily Telegraph included the following a ng the velop nt f a as f cryptom esia ' since i terest plays such a I arge part m On 24 September 1966, t de h �t anyone remem be rs; we may be quite forgetful of content that we find dull h notices: w deat e h e em o n h e n a de orman, of th w il we rem ber well s methi g else t at w fi d exciting . Ap ar tr:lfom t h' 1s, we n o e suddenly at S lisbury, Rho sia, N Den is, n S pt. 19, as m e o e o m o e n o ie a e iem M s at nee d to l earn or ab ut p rs ns who reme ber materi'al wi·rhou t kn wmg· I at r o e a d e o e Li nean S c ty, ged 54. R qu o ety fJ sus, n F llow f th e h e o en he d o S ci oo her t y learned ·It, r ev that t y ha learned it A pers n liable to become on ctober 15, at 12 n n. w . . Farm Street Church, W.l. O e ec e o o m e o i d th su?J t of a cas f crypt mnesia ay hav hypermnesia for c ntent and o o d e in the lower r ght-han 24 September 1966 the cr ssw r puzzl was amnesia for source On d e nd . e o e o o an ennis's eath in the upp r left-ha corner of the pag , the n tic f N rm D The subjects of cases investigated by parapsychologists in which cryptomnesia quarter. has been demonstrated have nearly all been pers· ons capable of en tenng · rath er o d o a ar case. She saw in . . . ood h p. 113) rep rte a s mewh t simil o d es o d n h e e d O e o m . o G ric -Freer (1899, m e d prorr un stat f 1ssociat10" -w eth r the s lf-induce n s f ed u sh ip r i The Times. equently reme b re . n o bituary not ce in She subs h e d e o o i o o o 1 her crystal ball a n n t e oth r-in uced on s f hypn s s.11 \'Ve should all w fi r th e p ss1� b:'1111ty t hat d h o his newspaper co taini g the . e e vening before she had use t e page f t persons wit· h t h"1s much capacity for dissocia6on may also be on · that th o e o o pers s wit h an ai e h too h t. Th bituary n tice as a shield ag nst a h art fire that was unusual iaor ·1· 1ty r10r rememberi. ng mformat10n. . to which they hav e bee n bne · fl y obituaries e ne m out e e d a m e o ofit was r tai d in her ind, with . was in front of h r yes an n i pr ssi n e�pos�d . I am not saymg that everyone with hypermnesia is capable o f hi me d. . her being aware o f t s at the ti it occurre d1ssoc1at10�, 12 only that persons capable of dissociation may also have e o e to information that with some p rs ns bri f exposure m e om It would seem, therefore, n e hyper nesia, at l ast at s e times. d d h o e whe oth r a e o e emembere an later broug t t xpression m y suffic for it t b r e o o not believ this, d o e for this to happen. S me psych logists may The Suhjec 's State of Consciousness When Exposed to the Information con iti ns ar right e � e e den do I can give an exampl from the but many advertis rs vi tly . Of this For t�1s aspect o_f cryptomnesia also we have almost no substantial n d It is well known that . e o d house officersin the U ite States. o m n o o h e o e experi nce f me ical o e m� r atw . As mentioned above, m st f t e p rsons wh hav provitlecirhe c e m i e n ouse officersin the h p e manufa tur rs ai advert s me ts at h evid e om e e o d o ed pharmac utical o e ence we hav for crypt n sia have b en capable f entctifig- iss ciat e i e preference to th se of th ir them to prescribe th advert s rs' drugs in s�ates . A:1d e e e o n o e o of training o n a th y :'11�Yals? have be n th s rts of perso s wh , in a stat f artial e e o officers' habit of thr wi g way . mpetitors Equally w ll known is th h use issociatwn, ass�mdate. witho e a e co . i mformation ut lat r being aware that the: h v e i o mo e ing at t. The University of ' � all this mat rial w th ut r than glanc ° e s_o. B_ut of direct evidence o suppo h e n o e nearly d i ma t rt t is conjectur , I ca offer almost n n o e o ni place n the il room to Hospital pr vides a barr l c nve ently 0 � m P1ck�ord's ca�e and in Berend do h d c e c Virginia o i d n t's we ave evi en e that th subje t� e d e i e d cided t fight th s efia ce by ob�: these unr ad iscards.·On advert s r e u�ed the_ a n e o d in com o h h receive e o mfo�m t10 that th y later pr duce municati ns w ile t e d ed o d ertically on th outside f the the name o f its rug print b ldly an v were 1,n d o e o e d having o e o e a _ISs ciated stat earlier. T these examples, w ma erha s a � a d e e the vexed h us fficertri d e at the left-h n margin; in this way v n as sen s subject, who e a e ad d d n n e env lope e o d mo �eca�l d th t h h been ' ay reami g' i : Ebrar� wh n o e e his ey s w ul al st ;: ow the envelope int th waste-pap r barrel e d and a bso_rbed m his memo e e to thr e d m ry th Oscan curs . Perhaps we can conJecture e m o d manufactur r wante hi to a � : inevitably fall on th na e f the rug the is hat Goodnch-Freer and Mrs. Crowson (using a ouija board with Mrs o prescribe. S u I y), �ho reproduc�d ne�spape� obituaries, had assimilated these whe� :e the ; re m s�ates of slight �1ssociat10n; certain o its Later Emergence . ly they were n t deliberately The Duration of Retention oflnfarmation hefare rea�. e o mg t h e ob1tuanes at the tim . o o o n d examples sh w this subject I can say little. M st f the rec g ize On n fit d o e on owever, in the Cummi s case (i TheSub·l)ec tate OJ onscwusness When the Information e on over a perio f a f w weeks ly. H t'! S -re . Emeroes0 ret nti h c a c o om and in t e Nietzsche ase the C o o . . is best interpreted as n instan e f crypt nesia) ncermng th e b ·rmgmg · f the matenal mto expression, we know that states of o e as e o m o nformati n and its later mergence w · · betwe n n r al exp sure to the i i, I ornn. from consideration her e f c cious l interval n n se th un o � hte ary borrowings. At east one of these, d o e years in the Bla che Poyni gs ca hat ofSackville � � twenty-six years. An it was ab ut twelv � -West might haie a:�:�t:� t about hav ing copied c e o i e o a oem W kn w lit l : ::\ :�; e eesds f and seven in the Jacobsohn as f l t rary b rrowing. own p by another poet. e o t e b :::/;u ;s::::;:����l: m any o t hese cases. 12 . Th mst whom Luria ( l 968 studied could remember for years informati n Are Some Persons More Likelyto Exhibit Cryptomnesia than Others., �;::���: ) o to which he had bee o e w i n , p sed. Th re is no evidence that this subject as n a state of alt ere d ons ousness d d n o eithe h h 1 c. c, Little can be sai un er this heading also. It is i no way helpful t assert, after r w en he was exposed to the material t o be remembered or w en he ren embere d 1 t years la ter. the fact, that persons who have shown cryptomnesia have had superior 18 19 Journalof the Sociel)'farPsychical Research [Vol . 52, No. 793 February 1983] Cryptomnesia and Parapsychology dissociation, whether voluntarily induced or brought on by the sug estions fa '? ? Although a state of partial (or complete a n n 1 e ) dissoci tion mav facilita hypnotist, facilitate the expressio of info matio ordi arily latent m th mmd n f te the : : _ : expressio o cryptomnesically held ma n as en un n terial, it is ot nec�ssary for Another c e of appar tly co scious borrowm?, which I shall now n n this . emerge ce. �lour oy (191 l, pp .44 -452) made e e a e t e ea e n n unn a es . ? this point sev nty y ars ago summ rize, l nds weight o th id that th i �ormat10 fig g m c � o� e a . when h reviewed series of drop-m communicators ee e e a e es e n e en n n uh who had s m d to him cryptomn si may be xpr s d �uri g a stat of m�tt t10 to exter al stii:n a d e ea _ . prob bly eriv d from r dings in encyclope as e n n d a s n a n di . Th sitters de ied that the that I think we ca regar s a mmor type of d1s oc1auo . I 1972 n Amenca a e e ea f e u y _ � _ b d v r h rd o th comm nica f n a a n e t d tors before they mani ested a d lso---more n a 1972) publicly ck owledg d that m wn mg a book he ha e en to scie tist (D niels, the pr s t point--denied n en f e u d that a y of them had be in a state of e s substantial portions of the works o oth r a thors who ha en 'somnambu unint ntionally u ed lis1:1' wh the group e un s n rec !ved the comm _ication . I agree written books on the same topic as his. It was not, he confessed, a matter of o ly with Flournoy's insistence that cryptomnes1cally held e a e e f n a ed mat n l may merge during e e n eas. I n footnot s o his book D i ls h d acknowledg nes a stat of using other p rso s' id � ; conscious s that s eems in n o way abnormal. these debts; but he wrote that it had 'come to my attent10n that he had also used e e e f a d their v ry words. As h hims l st te : FURTH.ER CoNSlDERATION OF THE RULES FORjUDGING WHEN CRYPTOMNESIA HAS a e s s as the ideas, of the cite? author were OccuRRED .. . far too m ny of th word , a well _ n s e e e a ma y as 55 consecutive word ; m others th r n used . In one cas , there are s I wish ow to return to two of ee a e e e as my thr rules for saying that cryptomne e e a sentences, or key phrases that r actually th sam u sia has are s ntenc s, p rts of occ rred, and to refresh e a e your m mory I shall st te th first two again: e e us e a ed. n (a) a clos thos ed by th uthor cit corres onde ce e t e e n a p must xis b tw e t�e app rent source a nd e e e th reproduc d e e how he thought thes borrowings ha? a ena e d e n Daniels then w nt on to xplain m t l, and (b) w should have evi enc ot that the subje might e a e e e ct have e e the books in qu stion (bec us th y bor on his somewhe e e h e a a occurred. H had been r ading r s en t e source, but that h h d ctually done so or a a e e es a e ne h d probably topic) during the drafting of his own book. He had m d som not fwh t h do so. The first rule has e e e s a ? th w akn s that opinions m y differ concerning what read but had not copied any material from them. Nevertheless he retained many we sh uld consider a e � 'dos correspondence'. If readers will study ca e n d e e a e e e _ r fully, i ofth� actual wor s of what he had r ad as he work d on his own dr ft. H stat d th ong1 al re orts, the examples e a a � i: of cryptomn si that I h ve given, they c an e form th 1r own3 u e furth r: � dgments on th matter, but I should be surpris d e e e if th y did not e e n a agre with me t e e e u a \Vhen I wrot my own section, far from simply r porting on Cremi 's [ n tha most of th s exampl s ill str te 'close corres n e e ponde c '. The a ht degr e of corresponden e e n e author from whom he had borrowed] work, nd that of others, as I thoug I c , howev r, varies co sid rably from case to case and ad e d e e e this brings me to the f e de en h b en oing, I was actually r producing parts with th h lp of brief notes topic o the int r p dence of my first two rules. and the fresh reading [of the works from which he lifted sentences]. I have certainly been aware that I had an extraordinary ability to remember material The Interdependence of the First Two Proposed Rules e a e e ea e ha d unconsciously when I want d to, but I h ve n ver befor r liz d t t I id it I d e a e a e sai rli r that c s s som times occur d a a . . � in which we shoul not pply these (emph sis added]. two rules mflexibly a e ea h nd mdepend ntly of ch ot er. I think we may e e e e e a e n n e as som tim s Th state Daniels d scrib s himself s having be n i whe h w composing conc�ude that cryptomnesia s e _ ha probably occurr d even though we can a u s obtam e de e not his book m y have been nfamiliar to him; but it i quite familiar to many vi nce that th subje a e e s ct h d ver s en the pre umed source of the s u s n a e e communic e n a n e student of literarv and m sical compo itio . M ny authors and compos rs hav �t d i form tio or oth rwise learned a n a a the inform tio norm lly. \,Ve d e e as a e e e s e e m y do this n e escrib d th ir w�rks lmost b ing writt n forth m by expres iv forc s that when the verbal correspo d nce be e u a e tween th comm nication nd e se e e n a e t� pre a s u e they had only to r lea in order for th work to be s t do:-v on p p r. Its sumed norm l o rce is extr mely close. e e a . e In some of th cas s th t I have ingredients had often lain within the author's or composer·s m1 d for some time cit d, especially the n e � . insta c s of unconscious borrowing, such ha f ea s ne e u Sa e as t t o and the act of cr tion consi ted in conferring w and b a tiful forms on the ckv1ll -vVest, we shou n u e . ld, I thi k, have concl d d that the subject had seen en e an e n on a e e the lat t material. Th coming of 'Kubla Kh ' to Col ridge while he was i an gm l, ven if w had not known t en e from o her evid c that he or she had done a e n ee es e e e e n a so. How se e e d e opi t -i duced sl p provid an xtr m xample of how m� :al contents i:n y clo th corr spon enc between e e . e the two t xts should b before we e e a e e n s s d a ak such a n en b come assembl d by cre tiv forc s duri g tate of 1ssoci t1on. Few wnters ;: judgme t I shall not v ture to say. ea e e I think most r d rs will agree, an a e s e e e a W ver, e e e c ttain Coleridge's powers of synth si , but v n l sser writers h ve that th more clos ly the t xts resemble t e e on e each other' h mor likely is performed creative work when in a state not totally different from his when he to have derived from the other. se a 13 It will e e compo d 'Kubla Kh n'. b asier to make ajudgment of t e this kind in two circums ances. First. e Wh n a commumc· · a d 13 Fruman (1971) and Lefebure (1977) argued with some plausibility that Coleridge may ha� n . t10n, say f a rop-m· u de . _ . n � comm nicator,· provi s of factual deliberately misled readers when he claimed that 'Kubla Khan' came to him ma dream. Colendge s ia e ! �l no mor th n what a a e t e _ � � single '.1ewsp per d a h notice can verify, e Preface to the poem is somewhat implausible. There is evidence, moreover, that he revised the poem b JUst1fi 111 e w may e� thmkm that th medwm en e with the craft of which he was a master. It seems possible that Coleridge, who was short of funds th � had somehow se th obituary, even o�gh this seems unlikely. a when he published the poem, may have wished to excite interest in it by describing it as an effusion For ex mple, although it may seem u e a S tam n nlik lv th t that came to him complete during a state of drug-intoxication. ton Moses i England could a n h ve seen New York ewspapers that c�rried 20 21 uary 1983] chology Journalof the Society for Psychical Research (Vol. 52, No. 793 Febr Cryptomnesia and Parapsy the death notice of Abraham Florentine, the factualsimilarity between the death scripts reproduced, but the scripts did contain several egregious errors (proved from another source). Although notices and the communication makes me judge this more likely than it would we had no evidence that the medium had read the books in question before she obtained her communications, an accumulation have been if the two compared passages had shown wider disparities. Second, we may reach a similar conclusion when the presumed normal source of the evidence that I have mentioned, and some other evidence, made us feel justified in concluding that the information in the books had somehow come contains a mistake repeated in the later communication, provided we know that 1 the source was available to the subject of the case. I shall give an example of such normally before the medium's eyes. 5 a mistake. In a case of a drop-in communicator that I investigated in the 1960s, an CONCLUSIONS WARRANTED BY PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF CRYPTOMNESIA English medium practising in Philadelphia, Pen�sylv':nia, �roduced a commun At this point I shall pause to summarize what I think we can say with ication from a man who said that he had hved m Bnstol _and had been confidence about the possibilities for the occurrence of cryptomnesia. accidentally killed. (From the communicator's accent he was assumed to be First, after a brief exposure to information seen or heard, some persons have ny of the Bristols in English, so Bristol, England seemed to be in _qu�stion, not � preserved it more or less intact in their memories and brought it into the United States.) Some of the commumcat1on was given vocally by the consciousness years later. Sometimes the persons who have done this have been medium, and some in presumably automatic writing. The communicator said aware of normally assimilating the information at the time they did so; in other that his name was Albert Sargeant. He gave his address and the date of the cases they seem not to have been aware of this. There are also intermediate levels accident, as well as a few other details about it. The principal sitter of the session of awareness of the assimilation, examples of this coming from subjects who had had verified the details through correspondence with the officeof the mayor of no conscious memory of their exposure to the information, but who could Bristol (Wood, 1958, p. 92). Knowing that the medium had been impl cated in _ _i later-usually in a hypnotic or dissociated state-indicate its source. The fraudulentseances, but thinking that this did not preclude his also havmg some; demonstration of cryptomnesia in some persons invites, but does not warrant, paranormal powers, I decided to look further into the case. I wrote to the' the conclusion that anyone may become a repository for any information to communicator's widow and shortly received a friendly reply from her. She which he has at any time been exposed. Flournoy (1911), who should justly be confirmed the accuracy of the communication, and added: 'You will notice the, regarded as one of the founders of serious studies in cryptomnesia, adopted this name was spelt "Sargent."'(The correct name was 'Sargeant'.) She sent me a, stance, but his position derived froma small number of cases. (The number of copy of the report of the accident in the BristolEvening Post, from which I could_ see well-studied cases has increased since his time, but not greatly.) Nevertheless, that all the information communicated-no more and no less-occurred m the most parapsychologists probably agree with Flournoy, which may account for brief newspaper report, including the misspelling of the communicator's name. ' their usual lack of interest in any case depending for verification on a printed Having learned a lesson fromthe case of Abraham Florentine, I verified in the r source to which the subject might have had access. Registrar General's Officein London that the communicator had indeed died on, As parapsychologists we are surely committed to believing that, in principle, the date his widow gave me and that his name was spelled 'Sargent'. Ifl add thai · information may be obtained paranormally about past events no less than about the medium came from the west of England and probably subscribed in the present or future ones. If we believe that some persons show paranormal United States to newspapers from there, few will disagree with my conclusion knowledge of the future, we should be prepared to believe that some persons may that this case was a fraud. have paranormal knowledge of the past. In order to give my point some Beloff and I followed similar lines of reasoning in studying another medium,·. emphasis, let me remind you of just one case in which, in my view, the subject who specialized in drop-in communicators (Stevenson and Beloff, 1980). In this:; demonstrated paranormal knowledge of past events. I refer to the case of the case a close similarity of style and sentiment expressed by different communica-, communications of 'G.P.' through Mrs. Piper (Hodgson, 1898). The 'G.P.' tors suggested that the medium herself had contributed at least a substantial, le. portion of the communications. Then we observed that everything verifiab 15 we I_ earlier mentioned that the (probable) errors in de Marles's Histoire ginirale de l'lnde and the contained in one communication was printed within eight lines of a book that �imi!a nty between these errors and the statements occurring during Helene Smith's 'Hindu cycle' found in a library regularly used by the medium and herhusband. Next we found mcr �ase the likelihood that she had somewhere read a copy of de Marles's book. even though there is no that an error in another communication occurred in another book in the same, direct evidence that she had done so. n a library.14 And finally, for a third case vv·e found close similarities of both content . I case of hypnotic regression to a presumed previous life, the subject, who seemed to relive being , ied fo and the organization of that content between the communication and four pages � r witchcraft in the sixteenth century, gave numerous accurate details of an actual trial in helmsfo rd, Essex (Moss with Keeton, 1979). However, the subject set the trial in the year !556, of a biography to which the medium and her husband had easy access in a library when in fact it occurred in 1566. This same error in dating occurred in a nineteenth-century of a nearby town; the biography in question contained no mistakes that the reprintin _ g of a sixteenth-century chapbook that reported the trial, and some later writers on t hcr t c aft copied the error into their books. Although an immediate source of the subject's o led � w ge of this trial has not been identified, her inclusion of the error in dating increases the l4 Since publication of our original article on this case, Beloff and I have !earned that anot.her bo ; r1 � ?hhood that her information did derive froma printed or other source that has been available m the library regularly used by the medium and her husband contams mu (\ . that had repeated the error '\ils on, 1981). that is correct in this particular script and also contains another of its errors. 22 23 Cryptomnesia Journalof the Society far Psychical Research [Vol. 52, No. 793 February 1983] and Parapsychology communicator showed a detailed knowledge of persons known to the deceased a discarnate co�municator because we conclude that 'Phinuit', who gave a George Pelham but complete strangers to Mrs. Piper. The case consisted of more completely unvenfied account of the terrestrial life that he claimed to have Jived, than the medium's stating the names of Pelham's friends, which she might was a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper. In the statement of my third rule, I perhaps have accomplished by telepathy from them; in many instances she intend, therefore, that we should consider all portions of a communication or a correctly placed these friends in relationship to George Pelham and showed set of commun!cations. that are presented together. This is what I mean by the case knowledge about details of their personal lives of which she could not have had word m this rule. However, we may conclude that different elements of the normal knowledge. The authenticity of this series of sittings has never been whole that we are considering have different sources. In principle at least a questioned. The results are open to two interpretations of paranormal processes: communication could derive from a mixture of paranormally derived materiai' to ( l) communications from the surviving, discarnate mind of George Pelham or which had been added, by association in the mind of the medium perhaps (2) dramatized presentation by Mrs. Piper's mind of detailed information that material that the medium had learned normally. she obtained from living persons, some of whom were not present during the We shall find this third rule easy to follmv when a communication and a pertinent seances. On either of these interpretations, Mrs. Piper showed verifying obituary are each compacted into a few lines. There are, however, paranormal knowledge of past events. several types of cases that are much less amenable to such a facile solution, and it As Ducasse ( 1960) once remarked, in somewhat different words, a sure way of may be helpful to draw up an inventory of them. avoiding the discovery of anything new is to make the assumption that every new can be understood only by supposing that it fully resembles case we encounter CAsEs THAT CRYPTOMNESIA DoEs NoT ExPLAIN some case we already know. On the contrary, advances in science usually come from someone's insisting that two cases (or other phenomena) that superficially Before describing types of cases that are, in principle, invulnerable to the appear the same have, in fact, important differences. The differences can usually interpretati�n of cry]:>tomnesia, I shall remind you of one of my opening be seen only through a carefulstudy of small details. statements: m presenting a case as bemg paranormal we should be able to show For my part I accept that paranormal knowledge of the past is just as likely as that the subject had not obtained normally the knowledge he communicated. that of the present or future. (I do not mean to deny that the study of paranormal Th�s cryptomnesia is only one normal explanation for a case that we must guard knowledge of the past is even more difficultthan the study of precognition.) The agamst. task I set myself, therefore, is that of identifying the ways in which paranormal T�e �ypes of paran_o�1:1al knowledge of �he past that seem to me, in principle, knowledge of the past could be expressed under conditions that satisfy our to ehmmate the poss1b1hty of cryptomnes1a are the following. requirements for calling it paranormal. This brings me to mention my third rule (a) Cases in which the subject states facts about a person that could not have for judging a case to be one of cryptomnesia. derived from printed (or other normally available) sources. This could occur when no printed or other normally available sources exist whatever; and it could THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSIDERING ALL FEATURES OF A PARTICULAR CASE occur when su�h s�urces exist, but are normally inaccessible to the subject, �ecause the subject 1s too young to read, has no access to radio or television, or Earlier I said that responsibility for a paranormal interpretation of a case rests hve� so far from the person described or communicating that it is unlikely the with the subject and investigators, who must show that they have excluded subj ect could e:'er have. learned�bout ?im. The obvious examples here are many normal means by which the subject might have obtained the information cas�s of the remcarnat10n type m which the subjects are young children when expressed in a communication. The evidence provided may not convince others, their case begins (Stevenson, 1974b, 1975, 1977, 1980). Not to vaunt these cases and if it does not, a stance of suspended judgment on their part seems to me too much, I should remind readers that a disadvantage of verifying the subject's entirely acceptable. But if observers leave the ground of being uncommitted and statements with unrecorded sources is the fallibility of human memory. assert that the case definitely has a normal explanation, such as that of ' Th;re are m�diumistic cases in this group also, and I think the case of the cryptomnesia, I think they have the duty of showing the actual steps in the G .P. communicator through Mrs. Piper provides an excellent example. So also occurrence of this process. It is not enough to say how it might have happened. d some cases of psychometry that showparanormal knowledge of past events on (Similarly, forthe graver charge of fraud, we require that allegers of fraud show i t e ,art of a �ensiti_ve (Osty, 1923; Pagenstecher, 1922). not just how it might have occurred, but that it did actually occur or is very likely (e _ J Cases m which some, but not all, of the correct facts communicated are to have occurred.) verified in · · . . . a pnnte d newspaper report or other publicly accessible source· the If advocates of cryptomnesia accept this responsibility, they must account for rerna� m�g correct facts are verified only by oral testimony or unpublished di;ries all ( or at least most) of the features of a case satisfactorily. So my third rule is: and s1m . . i!ar matenal maccess1"bl e to the general public. Among the cases in this a case must be considered in its assessment, not selected cl s (c) All elements in we can include those of Klaas Kraaijenbrink (Zorab, 1940), John W� � tm pans only. an (Tyrrell, 1939), Robert Passanah (Stevenson, 1970), Harry Stock bri� e I think this rule is well established in parapsychology. To give an example, I (Gauld, 1971), Robert Marie (Stevenson, 1973), Runolfur Runolfsson (Bafal need only remind you that we do not discard the evidence for 'G.P.' having been dsson and Stevenson, 1975a), and Gudni Magnusson (Haraldsson and 24 25 Journalof the Societyfor Psychical Research [Vol. 52, No. 793 February 1983] Cryptomnesia and Parapsychology
i h i tion with some of these f i Stevenson, I975b). It s wort po nting out in conne� . o Edward Ryall (1974), and the less well known case ofl\'yr a (Campbell Praed, a u a come fro1;1 cases that if part of the veridical inform tion c�mm mc ted d:d �ot 1931). In none of these cases has a person corresponding to the facts stated about any although lt printed sources, there is no strong reason to believe that �f It did, a deceased person been identified, and so they cannot be said to be verified with u i a i e asensory p rcepnon s pposes-that a i h is poss ble- s the hypothes s of sup r-extr � . regard to that important fe ture. The nterest of each case lies in t e quite a u whate\.er th e medium concerned selected here nd there from different so rces obscure details about the periods concerned shown in the communications. In i was needed for the fabrication of the commun cations. . . the case of Edward Ryal!, and to a lesser extent in that of Bridey Murphy, the i o a The case reported by Zorab (1940) exempl fies the reverse f those m which correct statements are mixed with a n umber of errors and probable inventions. report communication repeated an error in a printed sour�e. The newspaper_ These do not necessarily cancel out the value of the correct details communi a u i a o a before the i a i about the accidental de th of the comm n c t r (which w s pnnte� _ cated. No source or sources have been ident fied s having prov ded normally the i a l iven m the e communication) had several deta ls bungled th t were correct y g corr ct facts to the subjects of these cases. Obviously such sources do exist or it communication. would not have been possible to verify the correct details. The verifications, u o T ese (c) Cases in which the facts are nknown to any single living P:rs n. � however, have required manys ources, often ones accessible only to scholars. It is may be of two subtypes. In the first, no living person could kn�w th� mformat10n; thus easier in these cases to imagine a hoax with concealed research than vast u o tests of this condition would be met if successful res lts were btamed 11: th� reading followed by complete forgetfulness of it. Under the circumstances we a loc s 1r survival with ciphers (Thouless, l 946-49a, l 946-49b) nd com�mat1on � cannot say positively that the cases are not instances of cryptomnesia, but if my could, m (Stevenson, 1968, l976a). In the second subtype the !nforrnat10n proposed rules have validity they have not been shown to be such.16 a i but almost cert rnly w�s n o . I should principle, be known to liv ng person, _ � � u a all the include in this group certain cases of drop-1? co1:1m mc tors rn ':h1ch o CONCLUDING REMARKS correct information communicated was venfied m two r more rndependent I o ah and f e o f r a sources (see, forexamples, the cases of R bert Passan [Stevenson, 1970] The main les;on w should learn from a study f cases o c yptomnesi is so a o a a I975a]). And sh uld lso v 1 Run lfur Runolfsson [H raldsson nd Stevenson, � ? j ob ious that it may seem otiose even to state it, but shall do so anyway: We o o n from, o i i i f h include cases such as that pr posed by Murphy (1945) fcommumcat1� � should be c nstantly vigilant for the poss b l ty o cryptomnesia in anycase w en of a e who had not known ach other when hvmg or communications about past events are offered for our appraisal. a group discarn t persons � 1 a he e i u known that they had shared an unusu l common mterest-for example, t I There ar , however, additional ways n which we may profit from the st dy of i h v collect ng of Wedgwood china. . I cryptomnesia. One of these is ad erence to the ad ice that we should attend as a a ar h as a i i a (d) Cases in which the subject displ ys an pp ently unlearned skill, su� much to the differences s to the s m l rities among cases of the same general e Stevenso and Pasncha, e o u that o f responsive x noglossy (Stevenson, 1974c, 1976b; � t type. This lectur honors Frederic rviyers, one f o r pioneers who struggled to i a language to i e ]980). I do not know of any case n :,vhic� � per�or;- le rned a foreign ; keep the materialists of the n nete nth century from massively applying their e e had a o a a u i the level of being able to converse mtelhg1bly m it and th n forgot that h l explan tions in physical terms t all phenomen th t fell within their p rv ew. It done so. was necessary to rescue, so to speak, some of these phenomena and isolate them When we can be sure that the subject of a c ase did not learn normally t?e for separate study that allowed for different interpretations, We would emulate recitative a ualify i h words of a foreign language spoken in a xenoglossy, the case m y q Myers and his collaborators poorly if with n t e field of study that they e for this group, as I think that of swarnlata Mishra �oes (St venson, 1974b). established, we should forget this lesson and ourselves impatiently force one . to The case of Patience Worth (Pnnce, 1927 / l 964; L1tvag, 1972) also belongs interpretation on cases that are somewhat similar but really diverse. i a i f ubject's rea ng u f i this group bec use, in my v ew, from what is known o the s . � The catalogue of s spected and proven cases o cryptomnes a that I have JC before the case developed, cryptomnesia cannot account for the lrngmst presented may discourage some parapsychologists from studying cases of
features of the case. 16 This statement indicates some change in my views concerning the best interpretation of Ryall's c ase. since I wrote the Introduction (Stevenson, 1974a) to Second Time Round (Ryal!, 1974). At that CASES OF POSSIBLE BUT UNPROVEN CRYPTOMNESIA tune I reserved the right to change my mind about the case in the light oflater evidence. I do not now bel accept th ir • ieve that the proper names of John Fletcher and his family and friends derive from memories of a I remarked, the preceding types of cases (when we � Previo As i us life. (The search for family names in the parish and other records had barely begun at the i i i of cryptomnes a·: ti authenticity)seem to me., in principle, nexpl cable· · as nstances · bC· me Ryall's book was written and published.) Obviously also, the mistakes Ryall made cannot have a t i group of cases m w hich cryptomnesia c nno� hat source either. It remains possible, however, that he had some memories of a previous life and that It remains to ment on a small cl o i h h e these are ruled out but has not yet been demonstrated. I refer t cases n whic t e su�J in Second Time Round, perhaps even comprising most of it, but mixed-now inextricably u -with later accretions from normal sources and literary inventions to complete the narrative. kn�wledge of numerous recondite details about a previo s place and orner shows . Before his death Ryall communicated to me and other correspondents a considerable body of i we can explam by what , e can le rn ° ad this knowledge go ng beyond anything . � � 1 dit1onal detail about his claimed previous life that he had not included in Second Time Round. I hope the subject's reading or other exposure to the commumcated mformat10n. in the future to publish some of this material together with a more complete appraisal of his case than hiiL \vo include in this category the case of Bridey ).furphy (Bernstein, 1956/1978), t uld be appropriate in this paper. 26 27 uary I 983] Cryptomnesia and Parapsychology Journalof the Society farP sychical Research [Vol. 52, No. 793 Febr
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