The Ghost Hunters - Deborah Blum [35]
Unfortunately, from that perspective, Barrett’s study could not be kept completely secret. The initial report received plenty of newspaper coverage and excited interest from readers, as well as rare approval from Sidgwick and even an offer of money from Fred Myers. “Remember that if in any way your experiments can be helped by money, I shall be positively glad to know of what I consider so good a way of spending some,” Myers wrote.
Still, Barrett was now also angry. Although he had known that his report would stir controversy, Barrett had not expected to be treated so shabbily. He was Tyndall trained; he was thirty-two years old; he had spent more than a decade following the rules of science to the letter. He knew his study to be worthy. His experiments were careful, his arguments rational. Barrett was irate enough not to step meekly back into line. He decided to continue his investigations, with or without the support of mainstream science. And he chose not to tiptoe around the results this time. He chose to make his next study as public as possible.
Barrett fired his first salvo by writing a letter to the Times of London in September 1876, announcing that he was interested in mind-reading and therefore seeking letters from people who had witnessed a good illustration of “the willing game.”
He described the response as “a flood of replies from all over England.” His university office was buried in banks of white envelopes. Letters formed drifts across his home office like the remnants of a winter storm. The postman literally staggered to his door, dumping resentment and pounds of mail in equal measure.
Barrett’s fellow scientists might not be interested in his new research project. But it seemed that just about everyone else was—or that a surprising number of British residents liked to play the willing game.
The willing game was a dinner party entertainment with a mind-reading twist—and a clever title. The rules were simple: after guests had gathered, one person would be chosen to leave the parlor. Once he or she had left, a task would be decided on: perhaps picking an iris out of a bouquet, maybe selecting a certain book from a shelf, kissing a wife, straightening a husband’s tie, finding a hidden object.
Ideally, the chosen person would be “willed” into the action chosen, following directions sent mentally by others. Often, he or she would be blindfolded before reentering the room, guided by another player. Sometimes the guide would place a hand lightly against the seeker’s shoulder or forehead, using touch as an additional aid in “willing” a job to be done.
To scornful physiologists, this was simply another version of table turning, easily explained by applying Faraday’s golden rule of unrealized motion or subtle cuing. It was all “unconscious muscular action on one side, unconscious muscular discernment on the other.” The guide was probably giving inadvertent signals, they said, tightening fingers in response to one move, pushing a little in response to another. The blindfolded follower was undoubtedly doing just that—following.
The willing game was an invitation to cheat, scientists said. It only required two confederates, agreed to work together in fooling the rest of the room. It was no wonder that so many wives were successfully kissed, irises plucked, books correctly selected off shelves.
When would the gullible public learn that it was participating in another variation on planchettes, tilting tables, and spirit cabinets? At least the willing game, unlike the tricks of professional, paid mediums, was played in private, with no money at stake.
In the case of slate writing—another new technique for supposedly communicating with the dead—one eminent British zoologist, Ray Lankester, became so outraged by the gall, the effrontery of it, that he decided to expose its