a percipient speaks

That sleep, or rather the borderland which lies on either side of sleep, is peculiarly favourable to the production in the percipient, not only of hallucinations in general, but of telepathic hallucinations in particular, has already been shown. – Frank Podmore, Apparitions and Thought Transference.

Let’s first imagine Albert Freiherr von Schrenck-Notzing, shall we? Of course we shall. A baron and a doctor, a respectable man whose investigations into sexual pathology have uncovered much rich material about the peculiar perversion of algolagnia. So we shall imagine him, one night, in the winter of 1886 … “I think it was in the month of February, as I was going along the Barerstrasse one evening at half past 11, it occurred to me to make an attempt at influencing at a distance, through mental concentration. As I had had, for some time, the honour of being acquainted with the family of Herr…, and thus had had the opportunity of learning that his daughter, Fraulein …., was sensitive to psychical influences, I decided to try to influence her, especially as the family lived at the corner of the Barerstrasse and Karlstrasse. The windows of the dwelling were dark as I passed by, from which I concluded that the ladies had already gone to rest. I then stationed myself by the wall of the houses on the opposite side of the road, and for about five minutes firmly concentrated my thoughts on the following desire: Fraulein … shall wake and think of me.”

Of course. A wholly natural scientific experiment to perform at eleven o’clock at night, especially when the ladies are asleep and one of them, you happen to know, is susceptible to psychic experiences. Schrenck-Notzing just might have been strolling home from a hard night experimenting with haschich, in his laboratory – a complete bust that, as it did not induce telepathic experiences as one rather hoped. No control in the percipient. And the agent, frankly, became susceptible to unnamed horrors. As we well know, it will be several years before Schrenck-Notzing finally makes his true scientific reputation with an exhaustive study of the ectoplasm exuded by mediums (200 + photos) with the truly Schrenck-Notzingian title, Phenomena of Materialisation: A Contribution to the Investigation of Mediumistic Teleplastics - but to return to our percipient for a second, Fraulein … - that night she was lying in bed with her eyes closed when suddenly the room seemed to brighten, “and I felt compelled to open my eyes, seeing at the same time, as it appeared to me, the face of Baron Schrenck.” It was just the kind of thing Fraulein … would confide, the next day, to her dear friend, Fraulein Prieger, who as it happens went skating the next day with Baron Schrenk and spilled the beans.

Well, such a gothic intro to the dry subject of the structure of political parties! A little parapsychological Ringen, and one hopes the best for dear Fraulein …, a case history headed towards tragedy if you ask me. But LI simply liked the metaphoric richness of the relation between agent and percipient, which we are going to use to talk about the party, the working class, and the state when we get around to our next post on Lenin, who as it happens did write “ What is to be Done” in Munich, while he signed his letters with the name Petrov and received all communications at Gabelsbergerstrasse 20a, München.

Meanwhile, a man is concentrated out in the parking lot on LI’s window. And my room is filled with light…