{"collection":"psi","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/psi/mrad/mrad19.htm","path":"psi/mrad/mrad19.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/psi/mrad/mrad19.htm","text":"Mental Radio, by Upton Sinclair, [1930]\nThe casual reader may be bored by too many of these drawings, but they are easy to skip, or to take in at a glance, and there may be students who will want to examine them carefully. So I will add a selection of the significant drawings, with only brief remarks. I begin with what I have called partial successes, and then add a few more of those I have called \"complete.\"\nLet us return to the early drawings, made by my secretary. On the automobile ride to Pasadena, there was an ash-can (fig. 100):\nFor the above my wife wrote: \"I see a chain dangling from something\u2014resembling little chimney pot on top of house.\"\nAnd here is design for which the comment\nwas: \"These somehow belong together but won't get together\" (figs. 101, 101a):\nHere is a fan, with comment: \"Inside seems irregular, as if cloth draped or crumpled\" (figs. 102, 102a):\nHere is a one-half success (figs. 103, 103a):\nHere is a broom, drawn by my secretary (fig. 104),\nand several efforts to reproduce it (figs. 104a, 104b):\nThe comments accompanying these drawings read: \"All I'm sure of is a straight line with something curved at end of it; once it came\" (here is drawing of the flower). \"Then it doubled, or reappeared, I don't know which. (Am not sure of curly edges.) Then it was upside down.\"\nThe next drawing was a heart, and my wife got the upper half with what are apparently blood-drops added (figs. 105, 105a):\nThe above is interesting, as suggesting that whatever agency furnished the information knew more than it was telling. For if Craig's drawing, a pair of curves, constituted a crude letter N, or had no significance, why add the blood-drops, which were not in the original? On the other hand, if her subconscious mind knew it was a heart, why not give her the whole heart, and let her draw it?\nSo much for the drawings of my secretary; and now for my own early drawings. When I was a school boy, we used to represent human figures in this way; and, as you see, Craig got the essentials (figs. 106, 106a):\nSeveral weeks later, I drew a pair of such figures in action and the comment was: \"It's a whirligig of some sort\" (figs. 107, 107a).\nAfter the following drawing, Craig asked me not to do any more hands, for the reason that she \"got\" this, but thought it was my own hand\ndoing the drawing. She guessed something else, and wrote: \"Turned into pig's head, then rabbit's\" (figs. 108, 108a):\nNext, this bat, with very striking comment.\n[paragraph continues] \"Looks like ear-shaped something,\" and again: \"Looks like calla lily\" (figs. 109, 109a):\nA butterfly net (fig. 110, 110a).\nA key (figs. 111, 111a):\nThis highly humorous sunrise (figs. 112, 112a):\nA carnation which came after the preceding drawing, and apparently had been anticipated in the \"sunrise\" (figs. 113, 113a).\nNote that this camp-stool, as I drew it, really\ndoes appear to be standing on water (figs. 114, 114a):\nFor this little waiter, who follows, no drawing was made by my wife. Her written comment was: \"I see at once the profile of human\nface. Am interrupted by radio tune. Something makes me think of a cow. Now see two things sticking out like horns\" (figs. 115).\nThe following had no comment (figs. 116, 116a):\nNor the next one (figs. 117, 117a):\nThe comment on this caterpillar was: \"Fork \u2014then garden tool\u2014lawn rake. Leaf.\" I might add that we have a lawn-rake made of bristly bamboo, which looks very much like my drawing (figs. 118, 118a):\nIn the following case I drew sixteen stars,\nand you may count and see that Craig got twelve of them, and made up the difference with a moon! (figs. 119, 119a):\nComment on the following: \"Looks like a monkey wrench, but it may be a yardstick\" (figs. 120, 120a):\nIn the next one, the curve of the worm is amusingly reproduced by the bird's neck. The comment added: \"But it may be a snake.\" Craig says this is an example of how one part of the drawing comes to her, and then, in haste, her memory-trains and associations supply what they think should be the rest (figs. 121, 121a).\nThe umbrella brings up Craig's reptile \"complex\" again. I assure you that in her garden, she turns sticks into snakes when they are far\nless snake-like than my drawing. Her comment was: \"I feel that it is a snake crawling out of something\u2014vivid feeling of snake, but it looks like a cat's tail\" (figs. 122, 122a):\nI drew a wall-hook to hang your coat on (figs. 123, 123a):\nA design, evidently felt as a design, though not well got (figs. 124, 124a):\nA screw, with comment: \"light-house or tower. Too fat at base.\" If Craig's drawing were made narrower at base, it would reproduce the screw very well. Note that in the right-hand \"tower\" the screw-like effect of the \"set backs\" is kept (figs. 125, 125a):\nHere is a love story which seems to go wrong, the hearts being turned to opposition (figs. 126, 126a):\nHere is the flag, made simpler\u2014\"e pluribus unum!\" (figs. 127, 127a):\nHere is a cow, as seen by the cubists. Comment: \"Something sending out long lines from it\" (figs. 128, 128a):\nTelegraph wires, apparently seen as waves in the ether (figs. 129, 129a):\nComment on the following: \"Horns. Can't see what they are attached to\" (figs. 130, 130a):\nAnd here is a parrot turned into a leaf, with comment. \"See veins and stem with sharp vivid bend in it\"\u2014which seems to indicate a sense of the parrot's beak (figs. 131, 131a):","title":"Mental Radio: Chapter XVIII","type":"page"}