JOURNAL OF THE Society for Psychical Research VOL. XXVIII 1933—1934 For Private Circulation among Members and Associates only THE SOCIETY'S ROOMS 31 TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.i. All rights reserved Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/journalofsociety28soci CONTENTS PAGB A Veridical Dream - -- -- -- - 3 Annual Report of the Council for the Year 1932 - - - 19 The Question of the Possibility of Proving Survival by J. ; B. Rhine --------- 35 Annual General Meeting - -- -- --50 Hallucinatory Impression of a Relative's Death. (See also Journal XXVII, 326) - ----- 66 Prophecy versus Perspicacity Perovsky-Petrovo- ; by Count Solovovo - -- -- -- --67 Note on An Attempt to Locate in Space the Alleged Direct Voice observed in Sittings with Mrs. Leonard by Th. ; Besterman and G. Heard ------ 84 A Dream of an Explosion ------- 85 Notes on Sittings by Illit Grondahl - - - - - 102 ; The Investigations of Robert Chambers by Th. Besterman 105 r ; • A Sitting with D. D. Home in 1860 ----- 106 A Telepathic Impression - - - .- - - -156 " " A Fire Walking Ceremony in Fiji by S. M. White - ; 170 Annual Report of the Council for 1933 - - - - 187 Annual General Meeting ------- 203 Dream of the Result of a Race - - - - - - 216 Dream of a Monkey - -- -- -- - 236 An Impression Coinciding with an Illness subsequently Fatal 237 A Monition ---------- 239 Premonitory Dream of a Death ------ 249 Veridical Dream of a Present ------ 250 A Collective Visual Hallucination ~ Three Cases of Death-Coincidence - 253 iv Contents ; : - : .~ : . .- - An Impression Coinciding, with IHnfessr- . 256 - - or Coincidence .?. by Burke A. Evans 258 Telepathy ; - Telepathy and Sleepwalking-'; 'l>y A.- Gj. Hansard . *\ 265 Report of a Picture Test by The Rev. W. S. Irving - - 280 ; Reports of Two Picture Tests by the Rev. W. S. Irving - 299 ; A Veridical Impression Coinciding with an Illness subsequently fatal --- - 316 New Members - - - 2, 18, 34, 66, 82, 98, 122, 138, 154, 186, 202, 228, 248, 276, 296, 315 Meetings of the Council 2, 18, 34, 66, 82, 98, 122, 138, 154, 186, 202-203, 228, 229, 248, 276, 297, 315 Meetings of the Society 34, 35, 50, 53, 57, 83, 99, 123, 170, 203, 229, 236, 248, 249, 278, 298, 316 Obituaries 124, 138, 155, 276, 278 ; Lists of deaths, 28, 195 Correspondence 7, 45, 46, 75, 86, 111, 125, 130, 139, 158, 175, 197, 200, 204, 219, 221, 223, 240, 241, 242, 244, 259, 270, 286-8, 309 Reviews 7, 29, 47, 75, 76, 89, 112, 115, 116, 131, 134, 134, 135, 139, 145, 147, 148, 149, 149, 149, 150, 159, 179, 181, 182, 207, 209, 210, 211, 224, 270, 290, 310, 311, 320, 321 Notes on Periodicals - - 9, 31, 77, 91, 117, 135, 150, 160, 182, 212, 226, 244, 261, 293, 312 Notices 1, 2, 16. 17, 18, 33, 48, 49, 64, 65, 80, 81, 83, 96, 97, 98, 121, 122, 137, 153, 169, 170, 185, 186, 201, 215, 227, 228, 229, 246, 247, 262, 263, 264, -274, 275, 276, 277, 294, 295, 296, 298, 314, 315 Errata 152 — No. 491.—Vol. XXVIEI. January 1933 JOURNAL OF THE Society for Psychical Research NOTICE OF MEETING. A Private Meeting of the Society WILL BE HELD IN THE SOCIETY'S LIBRARY 31 TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C. 1 ON WEDNESDAY, 25 January 1933, at 5.30 p.m. WHEN A PAPER ON " SOME COMMUNICATIONS OF A PERSONAL KIND RECEIVED THROUGH MISS GERALDINE CUMMINS " WILL BE READ BY MISS E. B. GIBBES N.B. No Tickets of Admission are issued for this Meeting. Members and Associates will be admitted on signing their names at the door. Tea will be served from 4.45 p.m., to which Members and Associates are invited. A 2 Journal of Society for Psychical Research January 1933 NEW MEMBERS. Edwards, Francis H., 3b Fulwood Park, Liverpool. Green, Lady, Gotwick Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex. Kiralfy, Gerald A., M.B.E., 9 Addison Crescent, London, W. 14. Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand, Milner Park, Johannes- burg, S. Africa. Sydenham, Frederick, F.E.C.S., M.D., 48 Calthorpe Road, Edg- baston, Birmingham. Ward, Hon. Mrs Cyril, Horton Court, Chipping-Sodbury, Glos. MEETING OF THE COUNCIL. The 300th Meeting of the Council was held at 31 Tavistock Square, London, W.C. 1, on Wednesday, 30 November 1932, at 4 p.m., The Earl of Balfour in the Chair. There were also present : Lord Charles Hope, Miss Ina Jephson, Sir Lawrence Jones, Bart., Mr W. H. Salter, Mrs W. H. Salter, Dr F. C, S. Schiller, Mr S. G. Soal, Admiral the Hon. A. C. Strutt, and Miss Nea Walker ; also Mr Theodore Besterman, Librarian and Editor, and Miss Isabel Newton, Secretary. The Minutes of the last Meeting of the Council were read and signed as correct. Six new Members were elected. Their names and addresses are given above. The Monthly Accounts for October were presented and taken as read. IMPORTANT NOTICE. Gramophone Records of a Sitting with Mrs Osborne Leonard. Students of trance mediumship have long felt that it is necessary to make a comparative study of the Controls of different mediums if the real nature of these Controls is to be understood. In the case of the mediumship of Mrs Leonard there is a still more important task, the comparison of the different Personal Controls of this medium, a task which might throw much light on the whole ques- tion of survival, communication, and the modus operandi of trance mediumship. The Society has devoted much attention to this subject, but the work has been greatly hampered by the difficulty of studying these Controls at leisure, detached from the conditions of the actual sittings. It is clear that this can be achieved only by obtaining permanent and mechanical records of these sittings. This objective has now been attained by the Society. With the kind co-operation of the medium and of the Rev. W. S. — January 1933 Gramophone Records of a Sitting 3 Irving, who allowed one of his sittings to be used for this purpose, an entire sitting with Mrs Leonard has been very successfully recorded on twenty-three gramophone discs. Owing to the expen- sive nature of the experiment (which has cost nearly £100), only ten of these discs have been converted by The Gramophone Com- pany, Ltd., into permanent twelve-inch single-sided records. These, however, are quite sufficient for the purpose of the experiment. Finances permitting, it is hoped in time to make a series of records of the most important Personal Controls of Mrs Leonard and Controls of other trance mediums. The present experiment has fully demonstrated that the technical difficulties can be successfully overcome. These ten private records, which are obtainable only from the Society, preserve the entire Personal Control and the most interest- ing portions of the Feda Control, including the beginning and the end, as well as examples of the so-called direct voice. As many students of psychical research will no doubt wish to possess these records, which give a graphic rendering of a sitting with Mrs Leonard, it has been decided to place them on sale to Members and Associates of the Society at 5s. each or £2 10s. for the complete set of ten records. This price is only a little above the actual cost of the records to the Society. Application for records should be made to the Secretary, The Society for Psychical Research, 31 Tavistock Square, London, W.C. 1, not later than the end of February 1933. A VERIDICAL DREAM. We have received through Miss E. B. Gibbes, a member of the Society, the following report of an apparently veridical dream, the dreamer being Miss Geraldine Cummins, whose automatic writings (Paul in Athens, The Scripts of Cleophas, etc.) are well known. The names and addresses of all persons concerned are known to the Society, but, except in the case of Miss Gibbes and Miss Cummins, pseudonyms are given here. The first mention of the dream occurred in a postscript to a letter written by Miss Cummins, in County Cork, Ireland, to Miss Gibbes in England on the morning of 1 August 1932 as follows : " Any news of Alice ? I had a very sad and vivid dream of her last Tuesday night [2 August]. I won't seal this for fear it will delay it."' Details of the dream were noted by Miss Cummins on 3 August 1932 as follows : " Night of Tuesday August 2nd. " I dreamt in the small hours of the morning that I saw Alice F. 4 Journal of Society for Psychical Research January 1933- in a dim room. She was dressed in the clothes in which I had last seen her in London in the spring—a white silk blouse and dark skirt. Her face was ghastly pale and she looked terribly ill. She greeted me brightly and at first I was very glad to see her, but felt so sorry she looked so ill. Then she came quite close to me until it seemed as if her forehead was about to touch mine. I shrank away in frantic terror, feeling that at all costs I mustn't let her touch me. She smiled cheerily then and made a joke which I can't remember. But I distinctly recalled her saying, ' I'm quite all right.' After that she disappeared and then I saw Edith [an intimate friend of Alice's] in another room in the same house. I went down a stair to it. I told Edith that Alice had said she was ' quite all right ' so I supposed it meant she was going to get well again, that she seemed quite sure of it anyway. In fact at that moment I felt quite happy about her.