It was on the phenomena of trance mediumship that Myers mainly based his argument for human survival in the work on which he was still engaged at his death in 1901 (Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death). Since then, however, a new type of phenomenon has arisen, which it is even more difficult to fit into any theory of telepathy between the living than "personal control," namely "cross-correspond ences" in automatic writing. Neither the faculty of automatic writing nor much of the content of automatic scripts can claim to be supernormal. In the case, however, of a particular group of automatists (all persons whose good faith is above suspicion) it was observed that the same phrases occurred in the scripts of different automatists with a frequency not to be explained by chance-coincidence. As the scripts continued (and they have now gone on for more than 25 years), a further development was noticed: Automatist A would write a phrase X, Automatist B a phrase Y; there was no apparent connection between X and Y, but automatist C would write a phrase Z which connected X and Y and gave a coherent meaning to the three phrases. That, in bold outline, is what is meant by a "complementary cross correspondence," of which numerous examples are to be found in S.P.R. Proceedings from 1906 onwards. The importance of them is that they seem to indicate a design originating outside the group. In point of fact, they purport to originate with the surviving intelligence of Myers. Claims of this kind need not always be accepted at their face value ; in judging, however, the validity of this claim, it must be noted that the cross-corre spondences began shortly after Myers' death, that they seem to supply a defect in the evidence existing at his death of which he was fully conscious, and that their literary content is very characteristic of him.
Cross-correspondences are a difficult study. They present a tangle of quotations from authors, ancient and modern. In this maze which the plain man of ordinary literary tastes is apt to wonder whether the alleged orderly arrangement exists outside the subtle imaginations of the annotators. The sceptic of literary training will admit the orderly arrangement, but will say that it is due to telepathic influence from some living person, possibly one of the automatists.
But the automatists may fairly be acquitted. It is not sug gested that any one of them was a deliberate or conscious agent, and there is no evidence which would support the view that an elaborate design could be first subconsciously formulated and then subconsciously transmitted. Moreover, practically all the original members of the group have dropped out, for death or other reasons, and still the cross-correspondences pour out with no im portant change of type, just as if the original group had not been replaced by a new one.
Looking, then, outside the group, we may ask, who is this remarkable person who has for 25 years been transmitting ideas to a round dozen of automatists with a success unrivalled in the history of experimental telepathy, and who still remains mute, inglorious and incognito? Unless we are prepared to accept in definitely a verdict of telepathy by some person or persons un known, we may have to take seriously the claims of the scripts to be inspired by Myers.
The only case in which there is any evidence for telepathy from a living person influencing cross-correspondence is the "Sevens Case" (S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. xxv.). But in that case, if telep athy from the living is to be involved at all, we must suppose that the subconscious minds of two living persons conspired to produce a design not in the conscious intention of either.
The question of design is raised in a slightly different form in the literary puzzles produced by one member of the S.P.R. group. The most interesting of these is The Ear of Dionysius, reported in S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. xxix. Readers who find the cross-correspondence too complex and tedious are recommended to study this case.
When William Blake claimed to have written poems "from immediate dictation" of his "friends in Eternity," "without premeditation and even against my will" (letter April 25, 1803), was he merely mistaking the efforts of his more or less dissociated subliminal mind for the promptings of discarnate intelligences? That the subliminal mind can pro duce poetry of the highest order is shown by Kubla Khan, and Blake was at least as much a poet born and bred as Coleridge. For a test of external inspiration we must look for literature of a high order produced by someone not so permeated through and through by imagination as Blake. We naturally cannot expect to find work of the same quality as Blake's, but coming a little down in the scale we may find cases of work of considerable merit, purporting to be inspired by discarnate intelligences and produced by persons who, in their ordinary life, are entirely commonplace. A striking example is The Case of Patience W orth, examined by W. F. Prince (Boston S.P.R., 1927). Until the age of 23, Mrs. Curran had no literary tastes and was mainly interested in outdoor pursuits; she then began to write novels and vers libres purporting to be inspired by "Patience Worth," who said she was a settler in New England in the 17th century. The writings show a power of vivid expression and a historical knowledge which those who know Mrs. Curran well declare to be altogether beyond her normal capacity. Prince's conclusion is: "Either our concept of what we call the subconscious must be radically altered, so as to include potencies of which we hitherto have had no knowledge, or else some cause operating through but not originating in the subconsciousness of Mrs. Curran, must be acknowledged."