Masters of the Machines

mountain top thought transmitter
interior art by Frank R. Paul

 In my previous blog post, I discussed several science fiction stories published by Mary Wright between 1929 and 1935 and tried to imagine how they might have influenced Isaac Asimov's writing. Wright's story "The Brain of the Planet" was published in 1929 and it begins with the dramatic scientific discovery (in the year 1935) that humans have telepathic abilities.

Masters of the Machines. After the discovery of telepathy, Harry Maxwell, a professor of psychology and an inventor, soon constructs a thought transmitter (see the image to the right) and deploys it against the Evil™ Masters of the Machines who "control the means of production and distribution". In analogy to a radio transmitter that broadcasts radio frequency light waves, Maxwell's thought transmitter broadcasts "thought vibrations" and it functions as a "central brain" for all the people of planet Earth, liberating them from the Evil™ "tentacles of materialism". 

Figure 0. Text from page 15 of "The Brain of the Planet".

 Technology-Assisted Telepathy. When the thought transmitter is first activated, thousands of the most extreme radicals and conservatives around the world quickly die because their minds are not compatible with the new regime of thought being imposed by Maxwell. Then Maxwell begins to gradually increase the intensity of his well-intentioned thoughts that are being mechanically broadcast to the people of the world (see Figure 0, above). 

the power of positive thinking

 Just Think! Sadly, readers of "The Brain of the Planet" were given little information about the mechanism of Maxwell's thought transmitter. Mary Wright simply wanted readers to accept that capitalism, superstition and nationalism would soon collapse... shazam! In 1906, William Walker Atkinson published Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World. Atkinson proposed that thought is analogous to radio transmissions and that people can accomplish great things just by having positive thoughts and desires.

I suspect that Mary Wright was inspired by the "new thought" movement to imagine a mechanical "thought transmitter" that could put on display Atkinson's "new thought" beliefs inside a science fiction story.

Figure 1. text from page 19 of "The Brain of the Planet"

By 1970, under a world government, a Golden Age is achieved and Maxwell destroys the thought transmitter; it is no longer needed.

Gernsback thought detector

 Under the influence of Maxwell's "central brain", human civilization has been transformed, including a universal enjoyment of much leisure time and perfect health. Readers are also told that "relations between the sexes became perfect" (see Figure 1, above). "The Brain of the Planet" suggests that before telepathy was scientifically demonstrated to exist, it was already used by some people (positives) to control the behavior of others (negatives). Strangely, once the new Golden Age of Humanity is achieved, there is no more mention of telepathy in the story.

into the future

It is interesting to ponder the origins of Mary Wright's interest in telepathy and also Hugo Gernsback's willingness to publish "The Brain of the Planet". In Gernsback's novel Ralph 124C41+ (A Romance of the Year 2660), he included the idea of a "menograph", a device that could convert thoughts into a printed form of communication that could then be read by others. The device required electrodes placed on the temples to pick up a person's thoughts. Published in book form in 1924 and republished in Amazing Stories Quarterly, in 1929, it seems possible that Mary Wright was aware of Gernsback's novel about future times. 

E. E. "Doc" Smith published his novel Skylark Three in 1930 and his story also featured technology-assisted communication between brains. 

cover art by John Solie

Here is how Smith described the power of a futuristic education device that could transfer thoughts between the alien Orlon and the human crew of Skylark Three: "from his mind into theirs there flowed smoothly a mighty stream of comprehension". This was some form of technology-assisted telepathy which required the use of special headsets worn by the learners.

I conclude that by the late 1920s, science fiction fans and story tellers were probably quite comfortable with the idea of technology-assisted telepathy. Mary Wright also seemed to take seriously the idea that humans might have a form of telepathic communication that can function without the aid of any mechanical amplifying device.

image source

For some of his science fiction stories, Issac Asimov adopted the idea that some humans had a form of telepathic ability by which they could influence the behavior of others. Asimov published several stories (example) in which some people had the inherited ability to make others like them. In the last science fiction novel written by Asimov (Forward the Foundation) Wanda inherited her telepathic ability from her father and it was possible for her, and others like her, to form the Second Foundation and a new human society composed of skilled telepaths.

Why were so many science fiction story tellers so eager to invent stories about telepathy? The history of psychology as a science of the mind includes people such as William James who treated the possible existence of human telepaths as a worthy topic for scientific investigation. Among some psychologists, telepathy seemed more likely than the idea that people could obtain information from past lives by reincarnation or communication with the dead.

When I was about 12 years old, I broke my foot and my sister, who was about 150 miles away, felt that something bad had happened to me. Similarly, in 1893, Hans Berger fell off a horse and his sister had a bad feeling about her brother. 

Figure 2. image source

That experience provoked Berger to wonder if there had been telepathic communication between himself and his sister. Berger went on to become a psychiatrist and did research on electroencephalography and is now credited with having made the first successful recordings of electrical signals from a human brain. For some of his science fiction stories, Isaac Asimov suggested that it might be possible to achieve telepathy by means of having a brain that could pick up electrical signals coming from another person's brain.

Asimov did not stop at telepathic "mind reading" by humans; he also wrote stories about telepathic robots (see Daneel). Asimov also suggested that powerful telepaths could use their mental powers to "reach" into another persons brain and exert "mind control" (see the Mule).

I've previously mentioned "The Tissue Culture King" by Julian Huxley (1927). Some people have traced the idea of a "tin foil hat" (to protect against telepathic thought control, see Figure 2, above) back to Huxley's story. Sadly, most scientists can't imagine how the jumble of weak electrical signals emitted by a brain could allow for "mind reading".

What was the general academic environment in the late 1800s when the physician-scientist Berger seriously considered the possibility of telepathic communication between people? In 1884, William James became one of the founding members of the American Society for Psychical Research. It was not unusual for scientists to be interested in the possibility of some as-yet-undiscovered way to send telepathic signals between people. Even in the 1900s, Joseph Rhine became famous for his claims about telepathy. Sadly, we got the book Extrasensory Perception in 1934, not the proof of telepathy that Mary Write envisioned for 1935.

 Related Reading: "The Machine Stops"

Also: eloptic energy

Next: a telekinetic experiment

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