Mental Radio, by Upton Sinclair, [1930], at sacred-texts.com
Mental Radio, by Upton Sinclair, [1930], at sacred-texts.com
The experiments just described were all that were done with Bob, because he found them a strain. Craig asked me to make some drawings for her, and I did so, sitting in the next room, some thirty feet away, but always behind a closed door. Thus you may verify my assertion that the telepathic energy, whatever it may be, knows no difference between thirty feet and forty miles. The results with Bob and with myself were about the same.
The first drawings made with me are those which have already been given (fig. 2, 2a), but I give them again for the sake of convenience. I explain that in these particular drawings the lines have been traced over in heavier pencil; the reason being that Craig wanted a carbon copy, and went over the lines in order to make it. This had the effect of making them heavier than they originally were, and it made the whirly lines in Craig's first drawing more numerous than they should be. She did this in the case of two or three of the early drawings, wishing to
send a report to a friend. I pointed out to her how this would weaken their value as evidence, so she never did it again.
After my wife and I had compared the above drawings, she wrote a note to the effect that just
before starting to concentrate, she had been looking at her drawing of many concentric circles, which she had made in a test with Bob the previous day (fig. 19a). So her first vision was of a whirl of circles. This turned sideways, and then took the shape of an arrowhead, and then of a letter A, and finally evolved into a complete star. As the agent in this test, I wish to repeat that I made my drawing in my study with the door closed, that I kept it before my eyes the entire time, and that the door stayed closed until Craig called that she was through.
I do not find it easy to concentrate on a drawing, because my active mind wanders off to side issues. If I draw a lighted cigarette, I immediately think of the odious advertising now appearing in the papers; or I think: "Will Craig get this right, and what does it mean, and will the world accept evidence on this subject from me?"—and so on. Several times my wife has "got" such thoughts, and so we took to noting them on the record. On July 29, I drew a cigarette, with two little curls for smoke, each running off like a string of the letter "eeeee," written by hand. Underneath I wrote as follows: "My thought: 'cigarette with curls of smoke.' I said to myself these words: 'she got the curls but not the cigarette.'"
This would appear to be telepathy coming from Craig to me, for her drawing was found to contain a lot of different curves—a curly capital S, several other half circles twisted together, and three??? one inside the other. She added the following words: "I can't draw it, but curls of some sort."
Again, here is a work of art from my facile pen, dated July 21, and having underneath my notation: "Concentrated on bald head" (fig. 20)
My wife's note was: "Saw Upton's face." Then she drew a line through the words, and wrote the following explanation: "Saw two half circles. Then they came together making full circle. But I felt uncertain as to whether they belonged together or not. Then suddenly saw Upton's profile float across vision."
July 20 I drew a three-pronged fork, and made the note that I was not sure if it was a hay-fork or an oyster-fork, and decided it was the latter, whereupon my mind went off to "society" people and their many kinds of forks. Craig wrote: "I thought it was an animal's head with horns, and the head was on a long stick—a trophy mounted like this"—and she drew a two-pronged fork.
July 17 I drew a large round stone with a smaller stone on top: at least so I thought, and then decided they were two eggs. Craig drew two almost tangent circles, and wrote: "I see two round things, not one inside the other, as in Bob's drawing of circles. Then the above vanished and I saw as below"—and she drew four little oblongs, tangent, which might be a cluster of fish-eggs or fly-eggs.
July 20 I drew two heavy straight lines making a capital letter T, and Craig drew a complete cross or square X, which is, of course, the T with vertical arm prolonged. July 14 I drew a sort of jack-lantern. It is on next page (fig. 21). I looked at this drawing and thought of the eyes of M.C.S., and said mentally, "I should have drawn the curves over eyes." Afterwards I told Craig about this, and she noted it down on the drawing. On the reverse side of the sheet
she added the following: "I told U. it was shaped like a half moon with something in center—I supposed it must be a star, though I did not see it as star but as indistinct marks." Her drawing follows, turned upside down for greater convenience (fig. 21a):
