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Mental Radio, by Upton Sinclair, [1930], at sacred-texts.com
I have referred to the fact that my wife's drawings sometimes contain things which are not in mine, but which were in my mind while I was making them, or while she was "concentrating." One of the most curious of such cases came in series twenty-eight, which was after we had given up, as too great a nuisance, all precautions in the way of sealing the drawings in envelopes. I made eight drawings, and laid them face down on my wife's table, and then went out and took a walk while she did them. So, of course, it was easy for her to do what she pleased—and maybe she "peeked," the skeptic will say. But as it happens, she didn't get a single one right! Instead of reproducing my drawings, what she did was to reproduce my thoughts while I was walking up and down on the ocean front. It seems to me that in so doing, she provided a perfect answer to those who may attribute these results to any form of deception, whether conscious or unconscious.
There was a moon behind a bank of dark
clouds, and it produced an unusual effect—a well-defined white cross in the sky. I watched it for nearly half an hour, and my continued thought was: "If this were an age of superstition, that would be a portent, and we should hear about it in history." It was so strange that I finally went home and called my wife out onto the street. I did not tell her why. I wanted to see her surprise, so I purposely gave no hint. I said: "Come out! Please come!" Finally she came, and her comment was: "I just drew that!" We went back into the house, and she handed me a drawing. I give it alongside my drawing of an Indian club, which Craig had held while doing hers. You may see exactly how much of her impulse came from that source (figs. 99, 99a):
The "comment" reads: "Light 'fingers'—moonlight." Also: "black shadow."
Let me add also that in the eight drawings I handed to Craig there was neither moon, cloud,
cross, nor light. Two of these eight my wife failed to mark, and so I cannot identify them as belonging to this series; but we examined all eight at the time, and made sure of this point. Those which I now have are a flag, a bearded man, a chiffonier, a cannon, a dirt-scraper, and the Indian club, given above.
You will ask, perhaps, did Craig look out of the window. As it happened, this sky effect was invisible from any window, and I have her word that she had not moved from her couch. I should add that she is nervous, and keeps the curtains tightly drawn at night, and never goes out at night unless it is to be driven somewhere. It was early in March, with a cold wind off the sea, and I had to labor to persuade her to put a wrap over her dressing gown and step out into the middle of the street to look up at the sky.
