selves
are often counted by her, so that each letter is finally connected
with a special number. This, indeed, reduces the situation to rather a
simple scheme. She succeeds only if her mother or sister is present
and if her eyes are open, and she succeeds only with material which
can be easily counted. A very short system of simple signs would thus
be entirely sufficient to communicate everything which her
mind-reading brings to her. As to the particular signs, I do not yet
feel sure. It would probably take months of careful examination before
I should find them out, just as in Germany it has taken months for
scholars to discover the unintentional signs which the owner of a
trick horse made, from which the horse was apparently able to
calculate. I have no time to carry on such an investigation in this
case, the more as I do not see that any new insight could be gained by
it.

Once I noticed distinctly how in the card experiments the mother
without her own knowledge made seven movements with her foot when she
thought of the figure seven. That gave me the idea that the signs
might be given by very slight knocking on the floor which Beulah's
oversensitive skin might notice. What speaks against such a view is
that the results stop when she is blindfolded. Yet in this connection
I may mention another aspect. It is quite possible that the covering
of her eyes may destroy her power, and that nevertheless she may
receive her signs chiefly not through the eyes, but through touch and
ear. It may be that she needs her eyes open because the seeing of the
members of the family may heighten by a kind of autosuggestion her
sensitiveness for the perception of the slight signs. I have no doubt
that this kind of autosuggestion plays a large role in her mind. She
can read a card much better when she is allowed to touch with her
fingers the rear of the card. She herself believes that she receives
the knowledge through her finger tips. In reality it is, of course, a
stimulus by which she becomes more suggestible and by which
accordingly her sensitiveness to the slight signs which her mother and
sister give her becomes increased. We must, however, never forget that
these signs, whatever they may be, are not only unintentional on the
part of her family, but also not consciously perceived by Beulah. If
she stares at the ceiling, and her mother, without knowing it, makes
seven slight foot movements, Beulah gets through the side parts of her
e