Thought Transference: An Application of Modern Thought to Ancient Superstitions

A fellow of the Royal Society, Professor Oliver Lodge, read this paper before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool on April 25, 1892. Some people of the late 19th and early 20th centuries wanted to investigate spiritualist phenomena as scientific ones, and this paper discusses the possibility of confirmable 'thought transference' between two people, while deriding the then-common practice of performing public experiments before a crowd. "Phantasms and dreams, and ghosts, crystal-gazing, premonitions, and clairvoyance: the region of superstition; yes, but possibly also the region of fact. As taxes on credulity they are trifles compared to the things we are already familiar with; only too familiar with; stupidly and inanely inappreciative of."