Seeing the Invisible

About this book

Eyes shut, a witness describes an object across the room. Another person reports a landscape many miles away. James Coates collects claims that seemed to challenge the accepted limits of perception.

Seeing the Invisible belongs to a moment when hypnotism, psychic experiments and popular psychology were being discussed in overlapping circles. Coates describes testimony and proposed tests with the expectation that hidden mental faculties might be found. His evidence falls short of modern standards, yet the accounts show how difficult it was for investigators to distinguish a surprising experience from proof of a new power.