Research source

Now this does not happen; if the fact exists only in the consciousness of a person who is at the time at the…

Date of account: English edition published 1904
Source: Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research
Reference: Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research · selected passage 128
Rights: public_domain
Language: English translation from French
Translation: English translation of Michel Sage with an Oliver Lodge preface
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Now this does not happen; if the fact exists only in the consciousness of a person who is at the time at the far ends of the earth, it makes no difference in the precision of the details

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Now this does not happen; if the fact exists only in the consciousness of a person who is at the time at the far ends of the earth, it makes no difference in the precision of the details. If an analogy should be made between telepathy--as we must conceive it, to explain the phenomena--and wireless telegraphy, Mrs Piper entranced must be regarded as a mere coherer of the telepathic waves. But this analogy is non-existent; wireless telegraphy is far from being unaffected by distance, and besides, when the coherer functions, it is because another instrument is emitting particular waves. When a fact known only to a distant person is reported, as in Mrs Piper's phenomena, it rarely happens that the distant person was actively thinking of the fact, which was lying unnoticed in the lowest strata of his consciousness.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

The passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.

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