Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1874 — How Mind-Reading Is Accomplished. [ARTICLE]

How Mind-Reading Is Accomplished.

In Sunday morning’s Preu appeared a long article giving an account of the experiments of J. R. Brown, the so-called “mind-reader,” before several of the learned faculty of Yale College. Tossy the least, it is somewhat remarkable to see professors of Yale College unduly surprised by the performances of Brown, when the performances of the very same somewhat miraculous feats lie within the power of almost any person. Mindreading, as performed by Mr. Brown, is but a simple parlor amusement, which can be shown any evening, when the proper conditions, which are simple, are complied with. Dlustrative of this fact, a little personal experience may be detailed. More than three months ago a Prue reporter, spending the evening with a party of young ladies and gentlemen, first saw the same principle exhibited, and the very same feat which Mr. Brown performed upon his first experiment shown. A young lady of the party was blindfolded. One of the party then took a small table mat and carried it into another room, placing it upon a stand. Returning, the lady blindfolded took with her left hand the right hand of the person who had placed the mat in the other room, and she placed her right hand for a few moments upon her companion’s forehead. After standing in this position for a very short time the right hand was removed from the forehead, and raising the left hand of her companion, still holding it in her own, to her forehead, she went directly through intricate passage-ways to the very article.

After this experiment the same was repeated with other members- of the party, the articles each time being different and placed in a place unknown to the person blindfolded. The reporter was one of the number who took the character of the “ blind goddess” for the performance of two experiments. After being blindfolded and the articles hidden, he began to search for it, going directly to it at first, and, unconscious of his relative position in the house, and believing he was still going forward in a straight line, he suddenly came to a pause and experienced the strangest feeling he had ever known in his life. It is hard to explain it, but it was more like endeavoring to fly without knowing how to begin—a seeming effort to go up after something. This sensation is explained by the fact that the articles secreted had been placed some distance above his reach. Instead of going directly forward, as he had supposed, he was told he had continued to walk by the article without stopping, going from it for a short time but immediately returning. The experience during the second experiment was much the same. He is told that he passed the article more than a dozen times, then pausing before it. The article was placed below his head, and he only remembers feeling a sensation similar to some one pressing gently on the back of the head, and realized that his head was pressed upon a book—the article of which he was in search—safely deposited in the lap of a young lady. The only conditions necessary are that the person whom the then blindfolded person leads should keep the mind intently on the object and where it is hidden. The “ mind-reader” must as well keep his mind intent on the fact that he searches for something. The experiment is a decidedly amusing one which does admirably to while away an evening. While the reporter has never seen the other experiments detailed in the article in Sunday’s issue tried, he has no doubt they can be performed by almost any one as well as Mr. Brown.— St. Paul (Minn.) Press.