switchboard of the human brain, the number of lines which connect the brain cells one
with another, equal the figure one, followed by fifteen million ciphers.
"The figure is so stupendous," said Dr. C. Judson Herrick, of the University of Chicago,
"that astronomical figures dealing with hundreds of millions of light years, become
insignificant by comparison.... It has been determined that there are from
10,000,000,000 to 14,000,000,000 nerve cells in the human cerebral cortex, and we
know that these are arranged in definite patterns. These arrangements are not
haphazard. They are orderly. Recently developed methods of electro-physiology draw
off action currents from very precisely located cells, or fibers with micro-electrodes,
amplify them with radio tubes, and record potential differences to a millionth of a volt."
It is inconceivable that such a network of intricate machinery should be in existence for
the sole purpose of carrying on the physical functions incidental to growth and
maintenance of the physical body. Is it not likely that the same system, which gives
billions of brain cells the media for communication one with another, provides, also the
means of communication with other intangible forces?
After this book had been written, just before the manuscript went to the publisher,
there appeared in the New York Times, an editorial showing that at least one great
University, and one intelligent investigator in the field of mental phenomena, are
carrying on an organized research through which conclusions have been reached that
parallel many of those described in this and the following chapter. The editorial briefly
analyzed the work carried on by Dr. Rhine, and his associates at Duke University, viz:--
"What is 'Telepathy'?
"A month ago we cited on this page some of the remarkable results achieved by
Professor Rhine and his associates in Duke University from more than a hundred
thousand tests to determine the existence of 'telepathy' and 'clairvoyance.' These
results were summarized in the first two articles in Harpers Magazine. In the second
which has now appeared, the author, E. H. Wright, attempts to summarize what has
been learned, or what it seems reasonable to infer, regarding the exact nature of these
'extrasensory' modes of perception.
"The actual existence of telepathy and clairvoyance now seems to some scientists
enormously probable as the result of Rhine's experiments. Various percipients were
asked to name as many cards in a special pack as they could without looking at them
and without other sensory access to them. About a score of men and women were
discovered who could regularly name so many of the cards correctly that 'there was not
one chance in many a million million of their having done their feats by luck or
accident.'
"But how did they do them? These powers, assuming that they exist, do not seem to be
sensory. There is no known organ for them. The experiments worked just as well at
distances of several hundred miles as they did in the same room. These facts also
dispose, in Mr. Wright's opinion, of the attempt to explain telepathy or clairvoyance
through any physical theory of radiation. All known forms of radiant energy decline
inversely as the square of the distance traversed. Telepathy and clairvoyance do not.
But they do vary through physical causes as our other mental powers do. Contrary to
widespread opinion, they do not improve when the percipient is asleep or half-asleep,
but, on the contrary, when he is most wide-awake and alert. Rhine discovered that a
narcotic will invariably lower a percipient's score, while a stimulant will always send it