POWER OF WILL

Evening Star, Issue 19274, 12 June 1926, Page 22

POWER OF WILL

AN EXAMPLE OF INDIAN MYSTICISM Whether some men are nhle to control ntul direct matter by mind-power ! is a problem that has n great fascination for a largo number of people, Ridging bv the avalanche of correspondence received by the ‘ Daily Sketch concerning *1 recent account oi the clniins to .supernormal powers made by Mi is. M. Sturgess, an Ealing Tyatchmaker. Mr Sturgess, merely by placing his fingers on a table upon which stand a number of heavy pendulums, is able to make any of thorn swing by “ mesmeric power ” which emanates from him. I One of the most interesting jotters 'on the subject sent to the ‘ Daily Sketch ’ is that from Lieutenant-colonel C. L. Peacoeke, late of the Koval Artillery, who declares that anyone who vvill spend ten to fifteen minutes daily in a certain mental exercise can produce 1 such effects.

! When a young subaltern in India Colonel Peacoeke himself trieel the experiment, and after three weeks’ practice obtained, he says, complete success. I “ One day I wa.s asked to take (he instrument I had made to the house : of an Indian gentleman in order to show my experiment to a learned old j Brahmin,” writes Colonel Peacoeke. I “ The Brahmin asked me to move the I needle a, quarter-circle to the. right, and, of cnuise, it instantly obeyed my mental command.

“lie said ‘Very interesting indeed; hut now I would like to see you move it back to the starting point, please.’ “ I tried to do so, but could not get it to do more than quiver. “After some minutes of intense effort, which caused mo to break out into perspiration, the needle did move, but in the opposite direction. I looked up and saw the old man calmly smiling; lie had set his will against mine. “lie then said to me: ‘Do you know that in producing that movement you have liberated sufficient energy to hurl tliis houso to the ground, if you knew how to use it? It is just a tiny ray of your mental energy that happens to .strike the needle.’

“1 begged him In teach me hew to n,so the force, hut he shook his head.”

An entirely different view of the achievement of Mr Sturgess is taken by “Sou.sah,” the magician, who in private life is Air W. W. Howard, of Cherry Tree lane, Stockport, Cheshire. Tie challenges Air Sturgess to prove his powers on a billiard table or on a. concrete floor, or to suspend the. pendulums from the ceiling. “As a magician,” he writes, “I do not. often give away magical secrets publicly, but I make this offer: I will demonstrate to you nr any of your representatives the exact method employed by Mr Sturgess to set his pendulums swinging. “J will_give yon definite proof that the whole ‘ act ’ of Mr Sturgess is a simple one, which you and each member of your staff anti 99 per cent, of your readers can perform within a few minutes from the time they learn the secret." Air Sturgess himself writes to make it clear that he js a believer in spirit, return, but that he also believes that 75 per cent, of spirit iiuuifestations, both physical and mental, can bo pro. cluced by the power of the embodied human soul without any reference to the disembodied entity.”