e made
are, essentially, meaningless as a result of their lack of rigor."

Malone took a deep breath. "Dr. O'Connor," he said, "you know what I
mean, don't you?"

"I believe so," O'Connor said, with the air of a king granting a
pardon to a particularly repulsive-looking subject in the lowest
income brackets.

"Well, then," Malone said. "Yes or no?"

O'Connor frowned. "Yes or no what?" he said.

"I--" Malone blinked. "I mean, the things have names," he said at
last. "All the various psionic manifestations have names."

"Ah," O'Connor said. "Well. I should say--" He put his fingertips
together and stared at a point on the white ceiling for a second.
"Yes," he said at last.

Malone breathed a sigh of relief. "Good," he said. "That's what I
wanted to know." He leaned forward. "And if they all do have names,"
he went on, "what is it called when a large group of people are forced
to act in a certain manner?"

O'Connor shrugged. "Forced?" he said.

"Forced by mental power," Malone said.

There was a second of silence.

"At first," O'Connor said, "I might think of various examples: the
actions of a mob, for example, or the demonstrations of the Indian
Rope Trick, or perhaps the sale of a useless product through
television or through other advertising." Again his face moved, ever
so slightly, in what he obviously believed to be a smile. "The usual
name for such a phenomenon is 'mass hypnotism,' Mr. Malone," he said.
"But that is not, strictly speaking, a _psi_ phenomenon at all.
Studies in that area belong to the field of mob psychology; they are
not properly in my scope." He looked vastly superior to anything and
everything that was outside his scope. Malone concentrated on looking
receptive and understanding.

"Yes?" he said.

O'Connor gave him a look that made Malone feel he'd been caught
cribbing during an exam, but the scientist said nothing to back up the
look. Instead he went on: "I will grant that there may be an
amplification of the telepathic faculty in the normal individual in
such cases."

"Good," Malone said doubtfully.

"Such an amplification," O'Connor went on, as if he hadn't heard,
"would account for the apparent--ah--mental linkage that makes a mob
appear to act as a single organism during certain periods of--ah--
stress." He looked judicious for a second, and then nodded. "However,"
he said, "other than that, I would doubt that there is any psionic
force involved."

Malone spent a secon