{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38492/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38492","id":"gutenberg_38492","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38492","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Immortality","Parapsychology","Personality"],"text":"Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was\nproduced from scanned images of public domain material\nfrom the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHUMAN PERSONALITY\n\nAND ITS SURVIVAL OF\nBODILY DEATH\n\nBY\nFREDERIC W. H. MYERS\n\nEDITED AND ABRIDGED\nBY HIS SON\nLEOPOLD HAMILTON MYERS\n\n                            _Cessas in vota procesque,\n    Tros, ait, Aenea, cessas? Neque enim ante dehiscent\n    Adtonitoe magna ora domus._--VIRGIL.\n\n    \"_Nay!\" quoth the Sybil, \"Trojan! wilt thou spare\n    The impassioned effort and the conquering prayer?\n    Nay! not save thus those doors shall open roll,--\n    That Power within them burst upon the soul._\"\n\n_NEW IMPRESSION_\n\nLONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.\n39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH\nSTREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS\n1918\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1906, BY\nLONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\nFirst Edition, December, 1906\nReprinted, March, 1907\nOctober, 1909; April, 1913\nAugust, 1917; April, 1918\n\nTHE PLIMPTON PRESS\nNORWOOD\u00b7MASS\u00b7U\u00b7S\u00b7A\n\n\n\n\n_DEDICATED_\nTO\nHENRY SIDGWICK\nAND\nEDMUND GURNEY\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                          PAGE\n\nEDITOR'S NOTE                              vii\n\nPREFACE                                     ix\n\nGLOSSARY                                  xiii\n\n\nCHAP.\n\n   I. INTRODUCTION                           1\n\n  II. DISINTEGRATIONS OF PERSONALITY        26\n\n III. GENIUS                                55\n\n  IV. SLEEP                                 93\n\n   V. HYPNOTISM                            116\n\n  VI. SENSORY AUTOMATISM                   168\n\n VII. PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD                212\n\nVIII. MOTOR AUTOMATISM                     254\n\n  IX. TRANCE, POSSESSION, AND ECSTASY      297\n\n   X. EPILOGUE                             340\n\nAPPENDICES TO CHAPTER II                   356\n\nAPPENDICES TO CHAPTER IV                   364\n\nAPPENDICES TO CHAPTER V                    378\n\nAPPENDICES TO CHAPTER VI                   384\n\nAPPENDICES TO CHAPTER VII                  400\n\nAPPENDICES TO CHAPTER VIII                 430\n\nAPPENDICES TO CHAPTER IX                   441\n\nINDEX                                      453\n\n\n\n\nEDITOR'S NOTE\n\n\nNearly four years have elapsed since the first appearance of my Father's\nbook \"Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death.\" It cost two\nguineas and was published in two volumes, each of which was little under\n700 pages in length.\n\nThe price and dimensions of such a work made the future issue of a more\npopular edition not improbable. Indeed, my Father himself indicated\nbriefly the lines on which an abridgment could best be made. In\naccordance with his indications I have endeavoured to keep as closely as\npossible to the original scheme and construction of the book.\n\nThe task of abridging, however, must always be an ungrateful one. It is\ninevitable that somewhere or other I should disappoint the reader who,\nalready acquainted with the unabridged edition, finds some admired\npassage curtailed in favour of others that are to him of secondary\ninterest. This I cannot avoid. All I can hope to do is so to reconcile\nthe principles of _omission_ and _condensation_ as least to do violence\nto the style while preserving as far as possible the completeness of the\nexposition.\n\nOne half of each volume in the unabridged edition consists of appendices\ncontaining examples of the various kinds of phenomena discussed and\nanalyzed in the text. It has been possible to reduce considerably the\nnumber of these cases without, I think, detracting much from the value\nof the work for the purposes of the ordinary reader. Those cases,\nhowever, which are included in this edition are quoted in full, an\nabridged version having very little value.\n\nIt must be remembered that the author in his preface insists that \"the\nbook is an exposition rather than a proof,\" and the remark naturally\napplies with even greater force to this abridgment. Here the cases must\nbe regarded simply as illustrative of the different types of the\nevidence upon which _in its entirety_ the argument of the book\nultimately rests.\n\nThe reader who may feel disposed to study this evidence will find\nnumerous references given in the foot-notes. The cases, however, to\nwhich he is thus referred are scattered in many different publications,\nsome of which will probably be less easy of access than the unabridged\nedition. In the many instances, therefore, where a case is quoted in\nthe latter its place therein is indicated by means of a number or a\nnumber and letter in square brackets, thus [434 A]: these being in\naccordance with the plan of arrangement observed in the larger book.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI wish to express my sincere thanks to Miss Alice Johnson, who very\nkindly read over the whole of the proof of this abridgment. I have\nprofited largely by her advice as well as from that given me by Miss\nJane Barlow, to whom my thanks are also due.\n\nL. H. M.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n     [This unfinished preface consists of several passages written at\n     different times by the author, who died on January 17th, 1901. In\n     1896 he arranged that the completion of his book should be in the\n     hands of Dr. Richard Hodgson in case of his death before its\n     publication. In the meantime he had entrusted the general\n     supervision of the press work and much of the detail in marshalling\n     the Appendices to Miss Alice Johnson (now Secretary of the Society\n     for Psychical Research), who was therefore associated with Dr.\n     Hodgson also in the editorial work needed for the completion of the\n     book, and much the greater part of the labour involved fell to her\n     share.]\n\n\nThe book which is now at last given to the world is but a partial\npresentation of an ever-growing subject which I have long hoped to\nbecome able to treat in more adequate fashion. But as knowledge\nincreases life rolls by, and I have thought it well to bring out while I\ncan even this most imperfect text-book to a branch of research whose\nnovelty and strangeness call urgently for some provisional\nsystematisation, which, by suggesting fresh inquiries and producing\nfurther accumulation of evidence, may tend as speedily as possible to\nits own supersession. Few critics of this book can, I think, be more\nfully conscious than its author of its defects and its lacun\u00e6; but also\nfew critics, I think, have yet realised the importance of the new facts\nwhich in some fashion the book does actually present.\n\nMany of these facts have already appeared in _Phantasms of the Living_;\nmany more in the _Proceedings_ of the Society for Psychical Research;\nbut they are far indeed from having yet entered into the scientific\nconsciousness of the age. In future years the wonder, I think, will be\nthat their announcement was so largely left to a writer with leisure so\nscanty, and with scientific equipment so incomplete.\n\nWhatever value this book may possess is in great measure due to other\nminds than its actual author's. Its very existence, in the first place,\nprobably depends upon the existence of the two beloved friends and\ninvaluable coadjutors to whose memory I dedicate it now.\n\nThe help derived from these departed colleagues, Henry Sidgwick and\nEdmund Gurney, although of a kind and quantity absolutely essential to\nthe existence of this work, is not easy to define in all its fulness\nunder the changed circumstances of to-day. There was indeed much which\nis measurable;--much of revision of previous work of my own, of\ncollaborative experiments, of original thought and discovery. Large\nquotations purposely introduced from Edmund Gurney indicate, although\nimperfectly, how closely interwoven our work on all these subjects\ncontinued to be until his death. But the benefit which I drew from the\nassociation went deeper still. The conditions under which this inquiry\nwas undertaken were such as to emphasise the need of some intimate moral\nsupport. A recluse, perhaps, or an eccentric,--or a man living mainly\nwith his intellectual inferiors, may find it easy to work steadily and\nconfidently at a task which he knows that the bulk of educated men will\nignore or despise. But this is more difficult for a man who feels\nmanifold links with his kind, a man whose desire it is to live among\nminds equal or superior to his own. It is hard, I say, for such a man to\ndisregard altogether the expressed or implied disapproval of those\ngroups of weighty personages to whom in other matters he is accustomed\nto look up.\n\nI need not say that the attitude of the scientific world--of all the\nintellectual world--then was very much more marked than now. Even now I\nwrite in full consciousness of the low value commonly attached to\ninquiries of the kind which I pursue. Even now a book on such a subject\nmust still expect to evoke, not only legitimate criticism of many kinds,\nbut also much of that disgust and resentment which novelty and\nheterodoxy naturally excite. But I have no wish to exalt into a deed of\ndaring an enterprise which to the next generation must seem the most\nobvious thing in the world. _Nihil ausi nisi vana contemnere_ will\ncertainly be the highest compliment which what seemed to us our bold\nindependence of men will receive. Yet gratitude bids me to say that\nhowever I might in the privacy of my own bosom have 'dared to contemn\nthings contemptible,' I should never have ventured my amateurish\nacquirements on a publication of this scale were it not for that slow\ngrowth of confidence which my respect for the judgment of these two\nfriends inspired. Their countenance and fellowship, which at once\ntransformed my own share in the work into a delight, has made its\npresentation to the world appear as a duty.\n\nMy thanks are due also to another colleague who has passed away, my\nbrother, Dr. A. T. Myers, F.R.C.P., who helped me for many years in all\nmedical points arising in the work.\n\nTo the original furnishers of the evidence my obligations are great and\nmanifest, and to the Council of the S.P.R. I also owe thanks for\npermission to use that evidence freely. But I must leave it to the book\nitself to indicate in fuller detail how much is owing to how many men\nand women:--how widely diffused are the work and the interest which have\nfound in this book their temporary outcome and exposition.\n\nThe book, indeed, is an exposition rather than a proof. I cannot\nsummarise within my modest limits the mass of evidence already gathered\ntogether in the sixteen volumes of _Proceedings_ and the nine volumes of\nthe _Journal_ of the S.P.R., in _Phantasms of the Living_ and other\nbooks hereafter referred to, and in MS. collections. The attempt indeed\nwould be quite out of place. This branch of knowledge, like others, must\nbe studied carefully and in detail by those who care to understand or to\nadvance it.\n\nWhat I have tried to do here is to render that knowledge more\nassimilable by co-ordinating it in a form as clear and intelligible as\nmy own limited skill and the nature of the facts themselves have\npermitted. I have tried to give, in text and in Appendices, enough of\nactual evidence to illustrate each step in my argument:--and I have\nconstantly referred the reader to places where further evidence will be\nfound.\n\nIn minor matters I have aimed above all things at clearness and\nreadiness in reference. The division of the book into sections, with\nAppendices bearing the same numbers, will, it is hoped, facilitate the\nuse both of syllabus and of references in general. I have even risked\nthe appearance of pedantry in adding a glossary. Where many unfamiliar\nfacts and ideas have to be dealt with, time is saved in the end if the\nwriter explains precisely what his terms mean.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nF. W. H. MYERS.\n\n\n\n\nGLOSSARY\n\n     NOTE.--The words and phrases here included fall under three main\n     heads:--\n\n     (1) Words common only in philosophical or medical use.\n\n     (2) Words or phrases used in psychical research with some special\n     significance.\n\n     (3) A few words, distinguished by an asterisk, for which the author\n     is himself responsible.\n\n\n_Aboulia._--Loss of power of willing.\n\n_After-image._--A retinal picture of an object seen after removing the\ngaze from the object.\n\n_Agent._--The person who seems to initiate a telepathic transmission.\n\n_Agraphia._--Lack of power to write words.\n\n_Alexia_ or _Word-blindness_.--Lack of power to understand words\nwritten.\n\n_An\u00e6sthesia_, or the loss of sensation generally, must be distinguished\nfrom _analgesia_, or the loss of the sense of pain alone.\n\n_Analgesia._--Insensibility to pain.\n\n_Aphasia._--Incapacity of coherent utterance, not caused by structural\nimpairment of the vocal organs, but by lesion of the cerebral centres\nfor speech.\n\n_Aphonia._--Incapacity of uttering sounds.\n\n_Automatic._--Used of mental images arising and movements made without\nthe initiation, and generally without the concurrence, of conscious\nthought and will. _Sensory automatism_ will thus include visual and\nauditory hallucinations. _Motor automatism_ will include messages\nwritten and words uttered without intention (automatic script,\ntrance-utterance, etc.).\n\n_Automnesia._--Spontaneous revival of memories of an earlier condition\nof life.\n\n_Autoscope._--Any instrument which reveals a subliminal motor impulse or\nsensory impression, _e.g._, a divining rod, a tilting table, or a\nplanchette.\n\n_Bilocation._--The sensation of being in two different places at once,\nnamely where one's organism is, and in a place distant from it.\n\n_Catalepsy._--\"An intermittent neurosis producing inability to change\nthe position of a limb, while another person can place the muscles in a\nstate of flexion or contraction as he will.\" (Tuke's _Dictionary of\nPsychological Medicine_.)\n\n_Centre of Consciousness._--The place where a percipient imagines\nhimself to be. The point of view from which he seems to himself to be\nsurveying some phantasmal scene.\n\n_Chromatism._--See _Secondary Sensations_.\n\n_Clair-audience._--The sensation of hearing an internal (but in some way\nveridical) voice.\n\n_Clairvoyance_ (_Lucidit\u00e9_).--The faculty or act of perceiving, as\nthough visually, with some coincidental truth, some distant scene.\n\n_C\u00e6nesthesia._--That consensus or agreement of many organic sensations\nwhich is a fundamental element in our conception of personal identity.\n\n_Control._--This word is used of the intelligence which purports to\ncommunicate messages which are written or uttered by the _automatist_,\n_sensitive_ or _medium_.\n\n_*Cosmopathic._--Open to the access of supernormal knowledge or emotion.\n\n_Cryptomnesia._--Submerged or subliminal memory of events forgotten by\nthe supraliminal self.\n\n_*Dextro-cerebral_ (opposed to _*Sinistro-cerebral_) of left-handed\npersons as employing preferentially the _right_ hemisphere of the brain.\n\n_Diathesis._--Habit, capacity, constitutional disposition or tendency.\n\n_Dimorphism._--In crystals the property of assuming two incompatible\nforms: in plants and animals, difference of form between members of the\nsame species. Used of a condition of alternating personalities, in which\nmemory, character, etc., present themselves at different times in\ndifferent forms in the same person.\n\n_Discarnate._--Disembodied, opposed to _incarnate_.\n\n_Disintegration of Personality._--Used of any condition where the sense\nof personality is not unitary and continuous: especially when secondary\nand transitory personalities intervene.\n\n_Dynamogeny._--The increase of nervous energy by appropriate stimuli,\noften opposed to _inhibition_.\n\n_Ecmnesia._--Loss of memory of a period of time.\n\n_*Entencephalic._--On the analogy of _entoptic_: of sensations, etc.,\nwhich have their origin within the brain, not in the external world.\n\n_Eugenics._--The science of improving the race.\n\n_Falsidical._--Of hallucinations _delusive_, _i.e._, when there is\nnothing objective to which they correspond. The correlative term to\n_veridical_.\n\n_Glossolaly._--\"Speaking with tongues,\" _i.e._, automatic utterance of\nwords not belonging to any real language.\n\n_Hallucination._--Any sensory perception which has no objective\ncounterpart within the field of vision, hearing, etc., is termed a\nhallucination.\n\n_Heter\u00e6sthesia._--A form of sensibility decidedly different from any of\nthose which can be referred to the action of the known senses.\n\n_Hyperboulia._--Increased power over the organism,--resembling the power\nwhich we call _will_ when it is exercised over the voluntary\nmuscles,--which is seen in the bodily changes effected by\nself-suggestion.\n\n_Hyper\u00e6sthesia._--Unusual acuteness of the senses.\n\n_Hypermnesia._--\"Over-activity of the memory; a condition in which past\nacts, feelings, or ideas are brought vividly to the mind, which, in its\nnormal condition, has wholly lost the remembrance of them.\" (Tuke's\n_Dict._)\n\n_*Hyperpromethia._--Supernormal power of foresight.\n\n_Hypnagogic._--_Illusions hypnagogiques_ (Maury) are the vivid illusions\nof sight or sound--\"faces in the dark,\" etc.--which sometimes accompany\nthe oncoming of sleep. To similar illusions accompanying the _departure_\nof sleep, as when a dream-figure persists for a few moments into waking\nlife, I have given the name _*hypnopompic_.\n\n_Hypnogenous zones._--Regions by pressure on which hypnosis is induced\nin some hysterical persons.\n\n_*Hypnopompic._--See _Hypnagogic_.\n\n_Hysteria._--\"A disordered condition of the nervous system, the\nanatomical seat and nature of which are unknown to medical science, but\nof which the symptoms consist in well-marked and very varied\ndisturbances of nerve-function\" (_Ency. Brit._). Hysterical affections\nare not dependent on any discoverable lesion.\n\n_Hysterogenous zones._--Points or tracts on the skin of a hysterical\nperson, pressure on which will induce a hysterical attack.\n\n_Ideational._--Used of impressions which display some distinct notion,\nbut not of sensory nature.\n\n_Induced._--Of hallucinations, etc., intentionally produced.\n\n_Levitation._--A raising of objects from the ground by supposed\nsupernormal means; especially of living persons.\n\n_Medium._--A person through whom communication is deemed to be carried\non between living men and spirits of the departed. It is often better\nreplaced by _automatist_ or _sensitive_.\n\n_Message._--Used for any communication, not necessarily verbal, from one\nto another stratum of the automatist's personality, or from an external\nintelligence to the automatist's mind.\n\n_Metall\u00e6sthesia._--A form of sensibility alleged to exist which enables\nsome hypnotised or hysterical subjects to discriminate between the\ncontacts of various metals by sensations not derived from their ordinary\nproperties of weight, etc.\n\n_Metastasis._--Change of the seat of a bodily function from one place\n(_e.g._, brain-centre) to another.\n\n_*Metetherial._--That which appears to lie after or beyond the ether:\nthe metetherial environment denotes the spiritual or transcendental\nworld in which the soul may be supposed to exist.\n\n_*Methectic._--Of communications between one stratum of a man's\nintelligence and another.\n\n_Mirror-writing_ (_\u00e9criture renvers\u00e9e, Spiegel-schrift_).--Writing so\ninverted, or, more exactly, _perverted_, as to resemble writing\nreflected in a mirror.\n\n_Mnemonic chain._--A continuous series of memories, especially when the\ncontinuity persists after an interruption.\n\n_Motor._--Used of an impulse to action not carrying with it any definite\nidea or sensory impression.\n\n_Negative hallucination_ or _systematised an\u00e6thesia_.--Signifies the\ncondition of an entranced subject who, as the result of a suggestion, is\nunable to perceive some object or to hear some sound, etc.\n\n_Number forms._--See _Secondary sensations_.\n\n_Objectify._--To externalize a phantom as if it were a material object;\nto see it as a part of the waking world.\n\n_*Panmnesia._--A potential recollection of all impressions.\n\n_Par\u00e6sthesia._--Erroneous or morbid sensation.\n\n_Paramnesia._--All forms of erroneous memory.\n\n_Paraphasia._--The erroneous and involuntary use of one word for\nanother.\n\n_Percipient._--The correlative term to Agent; the person on whose mind\nthe telepathic impact falls; or, more generally, the person who\nperceives any motor or sensory impression.\n\n_Phantasm and Phantom._--Phantasm and phantom are, of course, mere\nvariants of the same word; but since phantom has become generally\nrestricted to _visual_ hallucinations, it is convenient to take phantasm\nto cover a wider range, and to signify any hallucinatory sensory\nimpression, whatever sense--whether sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste,\nor diffused sensibility--may happen to be affected.\n\n_Phantasmogenetic centre._--A point in space apparently modified by a\nspirit in such a way that persons present near it perceive a phantasm.\n\n_Phobies._--Irrational restricting or disabling preoccupations or fears;\n_e.g._, _agoraphobia_, fear of open spaces.\n\n_Photism._--See _Secondary sensations_.\n\n_Point de rep\u00e8re._--Guiding mark. Used of some (generally inconspicuous)\nreal object which a hallucinated subject sometimes sees as the nucleus\nof his hallucination, and the movements of which suggest corresponding\nmovements of the hallucinatory object.\n\n_Polyzoism._--The property, in a complex organism, of being composed of\nminor and quasi-independent organisms. This is sometimes called\n\"colonial constitution,\" from animal _colonies_.\n\n_Possession._--A developed form of motor automatism, in which the\nautomatist's own personality disappears for a time, while there appears\nto be a more or less complete substitution of personality, writing or\nspeech being given by another spirit through the entranced organism.\n\n_Post-hypnotic._--Used of a suggestion given during the hypnotic trance,\nbut intended to operate after that trance has ceased.\n\n_Precognition._--Knowledge of impending events supernormally acquired.\n\n_Premonition._--A supernormal indication of any kind of event still in\nthe future.\n\n_*Preversion._--A tendency to characteristics assumed to lie at a\nfurther point of the evolutionary progress of a species than has yet\nbeen reached; opposed to reversion.\n\n_*Promnesia._--The paradoxical sensation of recollecting a scene which\nis only now occurring for the first time; the sense of the _d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu_.\n\n_*Psychorrhagy._--A special idiosyncrasy which tends to make the\nphantasm of a person easily perceptible; the breaking loose of a\npsychical element, definable mainly by its power of producing a\nphantasm, perceptible by one or more persons, in some portion of space.\n\n_*Psychorrhagic diathesis._--A habit or capacity of detaching some\npsychical element, involuntarily and without purpose, in such a manner\nas to produce a phantasm.\n\n_Psycho-therapeutics._--\"Treatment of disease by the influence of the\nmind on the body.\" (Tuke's _Dict._)\n\n_Reciprocal._--Used of cases where there is both agency and percipience\nat each end of the telepathic chain, so that A perceives P, and P\nperceives A also.\n\n_*Retrocognition._--Knowledge of the past, supernormally acquired.\n\n_Secondary personality._--It sometimes happens, as the result of shock,\ndisease, or unknown causes, that an individual experiences an alteration\nof memory and character, amounting to a change of personality, which\ngenerally seems to have come on during sleep. The new personality is in\nthat case termed _secondary_, in distinction to the original, or\n_primary_, personality.\n\n_Secondary sensations_ (_Secunddrempfindungen_, _audition color\u00e9e_,\n_sound-seeing_, _syn\u00e6sthesia_, _etc._).--With some persons every\nsensation of one type is accompanied by a sensation of another type; as\nfor instance, a special sound may be accompanied by a special sensation\nof colour or light (_chromatisms_ or _photisms_). This phenomenon is\nanalogous to that of _number-forms_,--a kind of diagrammatic mental\npicture which accompanies the conception of a progression of numbers.\nSee Galton's _Inquiries into Human Faculty_.\n\n_Shell-hearing._--The induction of hallucinatory voices, etc., by\nlistening to a shell. Analogous to crystal-gazing.\n\n_Stigmatisation._--The production of blisters or other cutaneous changes\non the hands, feet, or elsewhere, by suggestion or self-suggestion.\n\n_Subliminal._--Of thoughts, feelings, etc., lying beneath the ordinary\n_threshold_ (_limen_) of consciousness, as opposed to _supraliminal_,\nlying _above_ the threshold.\n\n_Suggestion._--The process of effectively impressing upon the subliminal\nintelligence the wishes of some other person. _Self-suggestion_ means a\nsuggestion conveyed by the subject himself from one stratum of his\npersonality to another, without external intervention.\n\n_*Supernormal._--Of a faculty or phenomenon which transcends ordinary\nexperience. Used in preference to the word _supernatural_, as not\nassuming that there is anything outside nature or any arbitrary\ninterference with natural law.\n\n_Supraliminal._--See _Subliminal_.\n\n_Syn\u00e6sthesia._--See _Secondary Sensations_.\n\n_Synergy._--A number of actions correlated together, or combined into a\ngroup.\n\n_Telekinesis._--Used of alleged supernormal movements of objects, not\ndue to any known force.\n\n_*Telepathy._--The communication of impressions of any kind from one\nmind to another, independently of the recognised channels of sense.\n\n_*Tel\u00e6sthesia._--Any direct sensation or perception of objects or\nconditions independently of the recognised channels of sense, and also\nunder such circumstances that no known mind external to the percipient's\ncan be suggested as the source of the knowledge thus gained.\n\n_*Telergy._--The force exercised by the mind of an agent in impressing a\npercipient,--involving a direct influence of the extraneous spirit on\nthe brain or organism of the percipient.\n\n_Veridical._--Of hallucinations, when they correspond to real events\nhappening elsewhere and unknown to the percipient.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n    Maior agit deus, atque opera la maiora remittit.\n\n    --VIRGIL.\n\n\nIn the long story of man's endeavours to understand his own environment\nand to govern his own fates, there is one gap or omission so singular\nthat, however we may afterwards contrive to explain the fact, its simple\nstatement has the air of a paradox. Yet it is strictly true to say that\nman has never yet applied to the problems which most profoundly concern\nhim those methods of inquiry which in attacking all other problems he\nhas found the most efficacious.\n\nThe question for man most momentous of all is whether or no he has an\nimmortal soul; or--to avoid the word _immortal_, which belongs to the\nrealm of infinities--whether or no his personality involves any element\nwhich can survive bodily death. In this direction have always lain the\ngravest fears, the farthest-reaching hopes, which could either oppress\nor stimulate mortal minds.\n\nOn the other hand, the method which our race has found most effective in\nacquiring knowledge is by this time familiar to all men. It is the\nmethod of modern Science--that process which consists in an\ninterrogation of Nature entirely dispassionate, patient, systematic;\nsuch careful experiment and cumulative record as can often elicit from\nher slightest indications her deepest truths. That method is now\ndominant throughout the civilised world; and although in many directions\nexperiments may be difficult and dubious, facts rare and elusive,\nScience works slowly on and bides her time,--refusing to fall back upon\ntradition or to launch into speculation, merely because strait is the\ngate which leads to valid discovery, indisputable truth.\n\nI say, then, that this method has never yet been applied to the\nall-important problem of the existence, the powers, the destiny of the\nhuman soul.\n\nNor is this strange omission due to any general belief that the problem\nis in its nature incapable of solution by any observation whatever which\nmankind could make. That resolutely agnostic view--I may almost say that\nscientific superstition--\"_ignoramus et ignorabimus_\"--is no doubt held\nat the present date by many learned minds. But it has never been the\ncreed, nor is it now the creed, of the human race generally. In most\ncivilised countries there has been for nearly two thousand years a\ndistinct belief that survival has actually been proved by certain\nphenomena observed at a given date in Palestine. And beyond the\nChristian pale--whether through reason, instinct, or superstition--it\nhas ever been commonly held that ghostly phenomena of one kind or\nanother exist to testify to a life beyond the life we know.\n\nBut, nevertheless, neither those who believe on vague grounds nor those\nwho believe on definite grounds that the question might possibly be\nsolved, or has actually been solved, by human observation of objective\nfacts, have hitherto made any serious attempt to connect and correlate\nthat belief with the general scheme of belief for which Science already\nvouches. They have not sought for fresh corroborative instances, for\nanalogies, for explanations; rather they have kept their convictions on\nthese fundamental matters in a separate and sealed compartment of their\nminds, a compartment consecrated to religion or to superstition, but not\nto observation or to experiment.\n\nIt is my object in the present work--as it has from the first been the\nobject of the Society for Psychical Research, on whose behalf most of\nthe evidence here set forth has been collected,--to do what can be done\nto break down that artificial wall of demarcation which has thus far\nexcluded from scientific treatment precisely the problems which stand in\nmost need of all the aids to discovery which such treatment can afford.\n\nYet let me first explain that by the word \"scientific\" I signify an\nauthority to which I submit myself--not a standard which I claim to\nattain. Any science of which I can here speak as possible must be a\n_nascent_ science--not such as one of those vast systems of connected\nknowledge which thousands of experts now steadily push forward in\nlaboratories in every land--but such as each one of those great sciences\nwas in its dim and poor beginning, when a few monks groped among the\nproperties of \"the noble metals,\" or a few Chaldean shepherds outwatched\nthe setting stars.\n\nWhat I am able to insist upon is the mere Socratic rudiment of these\norganisms of exact thought--the first axiomatic prerequisite of any\nvalid progress. My one contention is that in the discussion of the\ndeeper problems of man's nature and destiny there ought to be exactly\nthe same openness of mind, exactly the same diligence in the search for\nobjective evidence of any kind, exactly the same critical analysis of\nresults, as is habitually shown, for instance, in the discussion of the\nnature and destiny of the planet upon which man now moves.\n\nObvious truism although this statement may at first seem, it will\npresently be found, I think, that those who subscribe to it are in fact\ncommitting themselves to inquiries of a wider and stranger type than any\nto which they are accustomed;--are stepping outside certain narrow\nlimits within which, by ancient convention, disputants on either side of\nthese questions are commonly confined.\n\nA brief recall to memory of certain familiar historical facts will serve\nto make my meaning clearer. Let us consider how it has come about that,\nwhereas the problem of man's survival of death is by most persons\nregarded as a problem in its nature soluble by sufficient evidence, and\nwhereas to many persons the traditional evidence commonly adduced\nappears insufficient,--nevertheless no serious effort has been made on\neither side to discover whether other and more recent evidence can or\ncannot be brought forward.\n\nA certain broad answer to this inquiry, although it cannot be said to be\nat all points familiar, is not in reality far to seek. It is an answer\nwhich would seem strange indeed to some visitant from a planet peopled\nwholly by scientific minds. Yet among a race like our own, concerned\nfirst and primarily to live and work with thoughts undistracted from\nimmediate needs, the answer is natural enough. For the fact simply is\nthat the intimate importance of this central problem has barred the way\nto its methodical, its scientific solution.\n\nThere are some beliefs for which mankind cannot afford to wait. \"What\nmust I do to be saved?\" is a question quite otherwise urgent than the\ncause of the tides or the meaning of the marks on the moon. Men must\nsettle roughly somehow what it is that from the Unseen World they have\nreason to fear or to hope. Beliefs grow up in direct response to this\nneed of belief; in order to support themselves they claim unique\nsanction; and thus along with these specific beliefs grows also the\ngeneral habit of regarding matters that concern that Unseen World as\nsomehow tabooed or segregated from ordinary observation or inquiry.\n\nLet us pass from generalities to the actual history of Western\ncivilisation. In an age when scattered ritual, local faiths--tribal\nsolutions of cosmic problems--were destroying each other by mere contact\nand fusion, an event occurred which in the brief record of man's still\nincipient civilisation may be regarded as unique. A life was lived in\nwhich the loftiest response which man's need of moral guidance had ever\nreceived was corroborated by phenomena which have been widely regarded\nas convincingly miraculous, and which are said to have culminated in a\nResurrection from the dead. To those phenomena or to that Resurrection\nit would at this point be illegitimate for me to refer in defence of my\nargument. I have appealed to Science, and to Science I must go;--in the\nsense that it would be unfair for me to claim support from that which\nScience in her strictness can set aside as the tradition of a\npre-scientific age. Yet this one great tradition, as we know, has, as a\nfact, won the adhesion and reverence of the great majority of European\nminds. The complex results which followed from this triumph of\nChristianity have been discussed by many historians. But one result\nwhich here appears to us in a new light was this--that the Christian\nreligion, the Christian Church, became for Europe the accredited\nrepresentative and guardian of all phenomena bearing upon the World\nUnseen. So long as Christianity stood dominant, all phenomena which\nseemed to transcend experience were absorbed in her realm--were\naccounted as minor indications of the activity of her angels or of her\nfiends. And when Christianity was seriously attacked, these minor\nmanifestations passed unconsidered. The priests thought it safest to\ndefend their own traditions, their own intuitions, without going afield\nin search of independent evidence of a spiritual world. Their assailants\nkept their powder and shot for the orthodox ramparts, ignoring any\nisolated strongholds which formed no part of the main line of defence.\n\nMeantime, indeed, the laws of Nature held their wonted way. As ever,\nthat which the years had once brought they brought again; and every here\nand there some marvel, liker to the old stories than any one cared to\nassert, cropped up between superstition on the one hand and contemptuous\nindifference on the other. Witchcraft, Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism,\nSpiritism--these especially, amid many minor phenomena, stood out in\nturn as precursory of the inevitable wider inquiry. A very few words on\neach of these four movements may suffice here to show their connection\nwith my present theme.\n\n_Witchcraft._--The lesson which witchcraft teaches with regard to the\nvalidity of human testimony is the more remarkable because it was so\nlong and so completely misunderstood. The belief in witches long\npassed--as well it might--as the culminant example of human ignorance\nand folly; and in so comparatively recent a book as Mr. Lecky's \"History\nof Rationalism,\" the sudden decline of this popular conviction, without\nargument or disapproval, is used to illustrate the irresistible melting\naway of error and falsity in the \"intellectual climate\" of a wiser age.\nSince about 1880, however, when French experiments especially had\nafforded conspicuous examples of what a hysterical woman could come to\nbelieve under suggestion from others or from herself, it has begun to be\nfelt that the phenomena of witchcraft were very much what the phenomena\nof the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re would seem to be to the patients themselves, if left\nalone in the hospital without a medical staff. And in _Phantasms of the\nLiving_, Edmund Gurney, after subjecting the literature of witchcraft to\na more careful analysis than any one till then had thought it worth\nwhile to apply, was able to show that practically all recorded\nfirst-hand depositions (made apart from torture) in the long story of\nwitchcraft may quite possibly have been _true_, to the best belief of\nthe deponents; true, that is to say, as representing the conviction of\nsane (though often hysterical) persons, who merely made the almost\ninevitable mistake of confusing self-suggested hallucinations with\nwaking fact. Nay, even the insensible spots on the witches were no doubt\nreally an\u00e6sthetic--involved a first discovery of a now familiar clinical\nsymptom--the _zones analg\u00e9siques_ of the patients of Pitres or Charcot.\nWitchcraft, in fact, was a gigantic, a cruel psychological and\npathological experiment conducted by inquisitors upon hysteria; but it\nwas conducted in the dark, and when the barbarous explanation dropped\nout of credence much of possible discovery was submerged as well.\n\n_Mesmer._--Again, the latent possibilities of \"suggestion,\"--though not\nyet under that name, and mingled with who knows what else?--broke forth\ninto a blaze in the movement headed by Mesmer;--at once discoverer and\ncharlatan. Again the age was unripe, and scientific opposition, although\nnot so formidable as the religious opposition which had sent witches to\nthe stake, was yet strong enough to check for the second time the\nstruggling science. Hardly till our own generation--hardly even now--has\na third effort found better acceptance, and hypnotism and\npsycho-therapeutics, in which every well-attested fact of witchcraft or\nof mesmerism finds, if not its explanation, at least its parallel, are\nestablishing themselves as a recognised and advancing method of\nrelieving human ills.\n\nThis brief sketch of the development as it were by successive impulses,\nunder strong disbelief and discouragement, of a group of mental\ntendencies, faculties, or sensibilities now recognised as truly existing\nand as often salutary, is closely paralleled by the development, under\nsimilar difficulties, of another group of faculties or sensibilities,\nwhose existence is still disputed, but which if firmly established may\nprove to be of even greater moment for mankind.\n\nAt no time known to us, whether before or since the Christian era, has\nthe series of _trance-manifestations_,--of supposed communications with\na supernal world,--entirely ceased. Sometimes, as in the days of St.\nTheresa, such trance or ecstasy has been, one may say, the central or\nculminant fact in the Christian world. Of these experiences I must not\nhere treat. The evidence for them is largely of a subjective type, and\nthey may belong more fitly to some future discussion as to the amount of\nconfidence due to the interpretation given by entranced persons to their\nown phenomena.\n\nBut in the midst of this long series, and in full analogy to many minor\ncases, occurs the exceptional trance-history of Emmanuel Swedenborg. In\nthis case, as is well known, there appears to have been excellent\nobjective evidence both of clairvoyance or tel\u00e6sthesia[1] and of\ncommunication with departed persons;--and we can only regret that the\nphilosopher Kant, who satisfied himself of some part of Swedenborg's\nsupernormal[2] gift, did not press further an inquiry surpassed in\nimportance by none of those upon which his master-mind was engaged.\nApart, however, from these objective evidences, the mere subject-matter\nof Swedenborg's trance-revelations was enough to claim respectful\nattention. I cannot here discuss the strange mixture which they present\nof slavish literalism with exalted speculation, of pedantic orthodoxy\nwith physical and moral insight far beyond the level of that age. It is\nenough to say here that even as Socrates called down philosophy from\nheaven to earth, so in a somewhat different sense it was Swedenborg who\ncalled up philosophy again from earth to heaven;--who originated the\nnotion of science in the spiritual world, as earnestly, though not so\npersuasively, as Socrates originated the idea of science in this world\nwhich we seem to know. It was to Swedenborg first that that unseen world\nappeared before all things as a realm of law; a region not of mere\nemotional vagueness or stagnancy of adoration, but of definite progress\naccording to definite relations of cause and effect, resulting from\nstructural laws of spiritual existence and intercourse which we may in\ntime learn partially to apprehend. For my own part I regard\nSwedenborg,--not, assuredly, as an inspired teacher, nor even as a\ntrustworthy interpreter of his own experiences,--but yet as a true and\nearly precursor of that great inquiry which it is our present object to\nadvance.\n\nThe next pioneer--fortunately still amongst us--whom I must mention even\nin this summary notice, is the celebrated physicist and chemist, Sir W.\nCrookes. Just as Swedenborg was the first leading man of science who\ndistinctly conceived of the spiritual world as a world of law, so was\nSir W. Crookes the first leading man of science who seriously\nendeavoured to test the alleged mutual influence and interpenetration of\nthe spiritual world and our own by experiments of scientific\nprecision.[3] Beyond the establishment of certain supernormal facts\nCrookes declined to go. But a large group of persons have founded upon\nthese and similar facts a scheme of belief known as Modern Spiritualism,\nor Spiritism. Later chapters in this book will show how much I owe to\ncertain observations made by members of this group--how often my own\nconclusions concur with conclusions at which they have previously\narrived. And yet this work of mine is in large measure a critical attack\nupon the main Spiritist position, as held, say, by Mr. A. R. Wallace,\nits most eminent living supporter,--the belief, namely, that all or\nalmost all supernormal phenomena are due to the action of spirits of the\ndead. By far the larger proportion, as I hold, are due to the action of\nthe still embodied spirit of the agent or percipient himself. Apart from\nspeculative differences, moreover, I altogether dissent from the\nconversion into a sectarian creed of what I hold should be a branch of\nscientific inquiry, growing naturally out of our existing knowledge. It\nis, I believe, largely to this temper of uncritical acceptance,\ndegenerating often into blind credulity, that we must refer the lack of\nprogress in Spiritualistic literature, and the encouragement which has\noften been bestowed upon manifest fraud,--so often, indeed, as to create\namong scientific men a strong indisposition to the study of phenomena\nrecorded or advocated in a tone so alien from Science.\n\nI know not how much of originality or importance may be attributed by\nsubsequent students of the subject to the step next in order in this\nseries of approximations. To those immediately concerned, the feeling of\na new departure was inevitably given by the very smallness of the\nsupport which they for a long time received, and by the difficulty\nwhich they found in making their point of view intelligible to the\nscientific, to the religious, or even to the spiritualistic world. In\nabout 1873--at the crest, as one may say, of perhaps the highest wave of\nmaterialism which has ever swept over these shores--it became the\nconviction of a small group of Cambridge friends that the deep questions\nthus at issue must be fought out in a way more thorough than the\nchampions either of religion or of materialism had yet suggested. Our\nattitudes of mind were in some ways different; but to myself, at least,\nit seemed that no adequate attempt had yet been made even to determine\nwhether anything could be learnt as to an unseen world or no; for that\nif anything were knowable about such a world in such fashion that\nScience could adopt and maintain that knowledge, it must be discovered\nby no analysis of tradition, and by no manipulation of metaphysics, but\nsimply by experiment and observation;--simply by the application to\nphenomena within us and around us of precisely the same methods of\ndeliberate, dispassionate, exact inquiry which have built up our actual\nknowledge of the world which we can touch and see. I can hardly even now\nguess to how many of my readers this will seem a truism, and to how many\na paradox. Truism or paradox, such a thought suggested a kind of effort,\nwhich, so far as we could discover, had never yet been made. For what\nseemed needful was an inquiry of quite other scope than the mere\nanalysis of historical documents, or of the _origines_ of any alleged\nrevelation in the past. It must be an inquiry resting primarily, as all\nscientific inquiries in the stricter sense now must rest, upon objective\nfacts actually observable, upon experiments which we can repeat to-day,\nand which we may hope to carry further to-morrow. It must be an inquiry\nbased, to use an old term, on the uniformitarian hypothesis; on the\npresumption, that is to say, that _if a spiritual world exists, and if\nthat world has at any epoch been manifest or even discoverable, then it\nought to be manifest or discoverable now_.\n\nIt was from this side, and from these general considerations, that the\ngroup with which I have worked approached the subject. Our methods, our\ncanons, were all to make. In those early days we were more devoid of\nprecedents, of guidance, even of criticism that went beyond mere\nexpressions of contempt, than is now readily conceived. Seeking evidence\nas best we could--collecting round us a small group of persons willing\nto help in that quest for residual phenomena in the nature and\nexperience of man--we were at last fortunate enough to discover a\nconvergence of experimental and of spontaneous evidence upon one\ndefinite and important point. We were led to believe that there was\ntruth in a thesis which at least since Swedenborg and the early\nmesmerists had been repeatedly, but cursorily and ineffectually,\npresented to mankind--the thesis that a communication can take place\nfrom mind to mind without the agency of the recognised organs of sense.\nWe found that this agency, discernible even on trivial occasions by\nsuitable experiment, seemed to connect itself with an agency more\nintense, or at any rate more recognisable, which operated at moments of\ncrisis or at the hour of death. Edmund Gurney--the invaluable\ncollaborator and friend whose loss in 1888 was our heaviest\ndiscouragement--set forth this evidence in a large work, _Phantasms of\nthe Living_, in whose preparation Mr. Podmore and I took a minor part.\nThe fifteen years which have elapsed since the publication of this book\nin 1886 have added to the evidence on which Gurney relied, and have\nshown (I venture to say) the general soundness of the canons of evidence\nand the lines of argument which it was his task to shape and to\nemploy.[4]\n\nOf fundamental importance, indeed, is this doctrine of telepathy--the\nfirst law, may one not say?--laid open to man's discovery, which, in my\nview at least, while operating in the material, is itself a law of the\nspiritual or _metetherial_ world. In the course of this work it will be\nmy task to show in many connections how far-reaching are the\nimplications of this direct and supersensory communion of mind with\nmind. Among those implications none can be more momentous than the light\nthrown by this discovery upon man's intimate nature and possible\nsurvival of death.\n\nWe gradually discovered that the accounts of apparitions at the moment\nof death--testifying to a supersensory communication between the dying\nman and the friend who sees him--led on without perceptible break to\napparitions occurring after the death of the person seen, but while that\ndeath was yet unknown to the percipient, and thus apparently due, not to\nmere brooding memory, but to a continued action of that departed spirit.\nThe task next incumbent on us therefore seemed plainly to be the\ncollection and analysis of evidence of this and other types, pointing\ndirectly to the survival of man's spirit. But after pursuing this task\nfor some years I felt that in reality the step from the action of\nembodied to the action of disembodied spirits would still seem too\nsudden if taken in this direct way. So far, indeed, as the evidence from\napparitions went, the series seemed continuous from phantasms of the\nliving to phantasms of the dead. But the whole mass of evidence _prim\u00e2\nfacie_ pointing to man's survival was of a much more complex kind. It\nconsisted largely, for example, in written or spoken utterances, coming\nthrough the hand or voice of living men, but claiming to proceed from a\ndisembodied source. To these utterances, as a whole, no satisfactory\ncriterion had ever been applied.\n\nIn considering cases of this kind, then, it became gradually plain to me\nthat before we could safely mark off any group of manifestations as\ndefinitely implying an influence from beyond the grave, there was need\nof a more searching review of the capacities of man's incarnate\npersonality than psychologists unfamiliar with this new evidence had\nthought it worth their while to undertake.\n\nIt was only slowly, and as it were of necessity, that I embarked on a\ntask which needed for its proper accomplishment a knowledge and training\nfar beyond what I could claim. The very inadequate sketch which has\nresulted from my efforts is even in its author's view no more than\npreparatory and precursive to the fuller and sounder treatment of the\nsame subject which I doubt not that the new century will receive from\nmore competent hands. The truest success of this book will lie in its\nrapid supersession by a better. For this will show that at least I have\nnot erred in supposing that a serious treatise on these topics is\nnothing else than the inevitable complement and conclusion of the slow\nprocess by which man has brought under the domain of science every group\nof attainable phenomena in turn--every group save this.\n\nLet me then without further preamble embark upon that somewhat detailed\nsurvey of human faculty, as manifested during various phases of human\npersonality, which is needful in order to throw fresh light on these\nunfamiliar themes. My discussion, I may say at once, will avoid\nmetaphysics as carefully as it will avoid theology. I avoid theology, as\nalready explained, because I consider that in arguments founded upon\nexperiment and observation I have no right to appeal for support to\ntraditional or subjective considerations, however important. For\nsomewhat similar reasons I do not desire to introduce the idea of\npersonality with any historical _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of the philosophical opinions\nwhich have been held by various thinkers in the past, nor myself to\nspeculate on matters lying beyond the possible field of objective proof.\nI shall merely for the sake of clearness begin by the briefest possible\nstatement of two views of human personality which cannot be ignored,\nnamely, the old-fashioned or common-sense view thereof, which is still\nheld by the mass of mankind, and the newer view of experimental\npsychology, bringing out that composite or \"colonial\" character which on\na close examination every personality of men or animals is seen to\nwear.\n\nThe following passage, taken from a work once of much note, Reid's\n\"Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man,\" expresses the simple _prim\u00e2\nfacie_ view with care and precision, yet with no marked impress of any\none philosophical school:\n\n     The conviction which every man has of his identity, as far back as\n     his memory reaches, needs no aid of philosophy to strengthen it;\n     and no philosophy can weaken it without first producing some degree\n     of insanity.... My personal identity, therefore, implies the\n     continued existence of that indivisible thing which I call myself.\n     Whatever this self may be, it is something which thinks, and\n     deliberates, and resolves, and acts, and suffers. I am not thought,\n     I am not action, I am not feeling; I am something that thinks, and\n     acts, and suffers. My thoughts and actions and feelings change\n     every moment; they have no continued, but a successive existence;\n     but that _self_ or _I_, to which they belong, is permanent, and has\n     the same relation to all succeeding thoughts, actions, and feelings\n     which I call mine.... The identity of a person is a perfect\n     identity; wherever it is real it admits of no degrees; and it is\n     impossible that a person should be in part the same and in part\n     different, because a person is a _monad_, and is not divisible into\n     parts. Identity, when applied to persons, has no ambiguity, and\n     admits not of degrees, or of more and less. It is the foundation of\n     all rights and obligations, and of all accountableness; and the\n     notion of it is fixed and precise.\n\nContrast with this the passage with which M. Ribot concludes his essay\non \"Les Maladies de la Personnalit\u00e9.\"\n\n     It is the organism, with the brain, its supreme representative,\n     which constitutes the real personality; comprising in itself the\n     remains of all that we have been and the possibilities of all that\n     we shall be. The whole individual character is there inscribed,\n     with its active and passive aptitudes, its sympathies and\n     antipathies, its genius, its talent or its stupidity, its virtues\n     and its vices, its torpor or its activity. The part thereof which\n     emerges into consciousness is little compared with what remains\n     buried, but operative nevertheless. The conscious personality is\n     never more than a small fraction of the psychical personality. The\n     unity of the Ego is not therefore the unity of a single entity\n     diffusing itself among multiple phenomena; it is the co-ordination\n     of a certain number of states perpetually renascent, and having for\n     their sole common basis the vague feeling of our body. This unity\n     does not diffuse itself downwards, but is aggregated by ascent from\n     below; it is not an initial but a terminal point.\n\n     Does then this perfect unity really exist? In the rigorous, the\n     mathematical sense, assuredly it does _not_. In a relative sense it\n     is met with,--rarely and for a moment. When a good marksman takes\n     aim, or a skilful surgeon operates, his whole body and mind\n     converge towards a single act. But note the result; under those\n     conditions the sentiment of real personality disappears, for the\n     conscious individual is simplified into a single idea, and the\n     personal sentiment is excluded by the complete unification of\n     consciousness. We thus return by another route to the same\n     conclusion; _the Self is a co-ordination_. It oscillates between\n     two extremes at each of which it ceases to exist;--absolute unity\n     and absolute incoherence.\n\n     The last word of all this is that since the consensus of\n     consciousness is subordinated to the consensus of the organism, the\n     problem of the unity of the Ego is in its ultimate form a problem\n     of Biology. Let Biology explain, if it can, the genesis of\n     organisms and the solidarity of their constituent parts. The\n     psychological explanation must needs follow on the same track.\n\nHere, then, we have two clear and definite views,--supported, the one by\nour inmost consciousness, the other by unanswerable observation and\ninference,--yet apparently incompatible the one with the other. And in\nfact by most writers they have been felt and acknowledged to be even\nhopelessly incompatible. The supporters of the view that \"The Self is a\nco-ordination,\"--and this, I need hardly say, is now the view prevalent\namong experimental psychologists,--have frankly given up any notion of\nan underlying unity,--of a life independent of the organism,--in a word,\nof a human soul. The supporters of the unity of the Ego, on the other\nhand, if they have not been able to be equally explicit in _denying_ the\nopposite view, have made up for this by the thorough-going way in which\nthey have _ignored_ it. I know of no source from which valid help has\nbeen offered towards the reconcilement of the two opposing systems in a\nprofounder synthesis. If I believe--as I do believe--that in the present\nwork some help in this direction is actually given, this certainly does\nnot mean that I suppose myself capable of stitching the threadbare\nmetaphysical arguments into a more stable fabric. It simply means that\ncertain fresh evidence can now be adduced, which has the effect of\nshowing the case on each side in a novel light;--nay, even of closing\nthe immediate controversy by a judgment more decisively in favour of\n_both_ parties than either could have expected. On the one side, and in\nfavour of the co-ordinators,--all their analysis of the Self into its\nconstituent elements, all that they urge of positive observation, of\nobjective experiment, must--as I shall maintain on the strength of the\nnew facts which I shall adduce--be unreservedly conceded. Let them push\ntheir analysis as far as they like,--let them get down, if they can, to\nthose ultimate infinitesimal psychical elements from which is upbuilt\nthe complex, the composite, the \"colonial\" structure and constitution of\nman. All this may well be valid and important work. It is only on their\n_negative_ side that the conclusions of this school need a complete\noverhauling. Deeper, bolder inquiry along their own line shows that\nthey have erred when they asserted that analysis showed no trace of\nfaculty beyond such as the life of earth--as they conceive it--could\nfoster, or the environment of earth employ. For in reality analysis\nshows traces of faculty which this material or planetary life could not\nhave called into being, and whose exercise even here and now involves\nand necessitates the existence of a spiritual world.\n\nOn the other side, and in favour of the partisans of the unity of the\nEgo, the effect of the new evidence is to raise their claim to a far\nhigher ground, and to substantiate it for the first time with the\nstrongest presumptive proof which can be imagined for it;--a proof,\nnamely, that the Ego can and does survive--not only the minor\ndisintegrations which affect it during earth-life--but the crowning\ndisintegration of bodily death. In view of this unhoped-for ratification\nof their highest dream, they may be more than content to surrender as\nuntenable the far narrower conception of the unitary Self which was all\nthat \"common-sense philosophies\" had ventured to claim. The \"conscious\nSelf\" of each of us, as we call it,--the empirical, the supraliminal\nSelf, as I should prefer to say,--does not comprise the whole of the\nconsciousness or of the faculty within us. There exists a more\ncomprehensive consciousness, a profounder faculty, which for the most\npart remains potential only so far as regards the life of earth, but\nfrom which the consciousness and the faculty of earth-life are mere\nselections, and which reasserts itself in its plenitude after the\nliberating change of death.\n\nTowards this conclusion, which assumed for me something like its present\nshape some fourteen years since,[5] a long series of tentative\nspeculations, based on gradually accruing evidence, has slowly conducted\nme. The conception is one which has hitherto been regarded as purely\nmystical; and if I endeavour to plant it upon a scientific basis I\ncertainly shall not succeed in stating it in its final terms or in\nsupporting it with the best arguments which longer experience will\nsuggest. Its validity, indeed, will be impressed--if at all--upon the\nreader only by the successive study of the various kinds of evidence to\nwhich this book will refer him.\n\nYet so far as the initial possibility or plausibility of such a widened\nconception of human consciousness is concerned;--and this is all which\ncan be dealt with at this moment of its first introduction;--I have not\nseen in such criticism as has hitherto been bestowed upon my theory any\nvery weighty demurrer.[6]\n\n\"Normally at least,\" says one critic, summarising in a few words the\nordinary view, \"all the consciousness we have at any moment corresponds\nto all the activity which is going on at that moment in the brain. There\nis one unitary conscious state accompanying all the simultaneous brain\nexcitations together, and each single part of the brain-process\ncontributes something to its nature. None of the brain-processes split\nthemselves off from the rest and have a separate consciousness of their\nown.\" This is, no doubt, the apparent dictum of consciousness, but it is\nnothing more. And the dicta of consciousness have already been shown to\nneed correction in so many ways which the ordinary observer could never\nhave anticipated that we have surely no right to trust consciousness, so\nto say, a step further than we can feel it,--to hold that anything\nwhatever--even a separate consciousness in our own organisms--can be\nproved _not_ to exist by the mere fact that we--as we know\nourselves--are not aware of it.\n\nBut indeed this claim to a unitary consciousness tends to become less\nforcible as it is more scientifically expressed. It rests on the plain\nman's conviction that there is only one of him; and this conviction the\nexperimental psychologist is always tending to weaken or narrow by the\nadmission of coexistent localised degrees of consciousness in the brain,\nwhich are at any rate not obviously reducible to a single state. Even\nthose who would stop far short of my own position find it needful to\nresort to metaphors of their own to express the different streams of\n\"awareness\" which we all feel to be habitually coexistent within us.\nThey speak of \"fringes\" of ordinary consciousness; of \"marginal\"\nassociations; of the occasional perception of \"currents of low\nintensity.\" These metaphors may all of them be of use, in a region where\nmetaphor is our only mode of expression; but none of them covers all the\nfacts now collected. And on the other side, I need not say, are plenty\nof phrases which beg the question of soul and body, or of the man's own\nspirit and external spirits, in no scientific fashion. There seems to be\nneed of a term of wider application, which shall make as few assumptions\nas possible. Nor is such a term difficult to find.\n\nThe idea of a _threshold (limen, Schwelle)_, of consciousness;--of a\nlevel above which sensation or thought must rise before it can enter\ninto our conscious life;--is a simple and familiar one. The word\n_subliminal_,--meaning \"beneath that threshold,\"--has already been used\nto define those sensations which are too feeble to be individually\nrecognised. I propose to extend the meaning of the term, so as to make\nit cover _all_ that takes place beneath the ordinary threshold, or say,\nif preferred, outside the ordinary margin of consciousness;--not only\nthose faint stimulations whose very faintness keeps them submerged, but\nmuch else which psychology as yet scarcely recognises; sensations,\nthoughts, emotions, which may be strong, definite, and independent, but\nwhich, by the original constitution of our being, seldom emerge into\nthat _supraliminal_ current of consciousness which we habitually\nidentify with _ourselves_. Perceiving (as this book will try to show)\nthat these submerged thoughts and emotions possess the characteristics\nwhich we associate with conscious life, I feel bound to speak of a\n_subliminal_ or _ultra-marginal consciousness_,--a consciousness which\nwe shall see, for instance, uttering or writing sentences quite as\ncomplex and coherent as the supraliminal consciousness could make them.\nPerceiving further that this conscious life beneath the threshhold or\nbeyond the margin seems to be no discontinuous or intermittent thing;\nthat not only are these isolated subliminal processes comparable with\nisolated supraliminal processes (as when a problem is solved by some\nunknown procedure in a dream), but that there also is a continuous\nsubliminal chain of memory (or more chains than one) involving just that\nkind of individual and persistent revival of old impressions, and\nresponse to new ones, which we commonly call a Self,--I find it\npermissible and convenient to speak of subliminal Selves, or more\nbriefly of a subliminal Self. I do not indeed by using this term assume\nthat there are two correlative and parallel selves existing always\nwithin each of us. Rather I mean by the subliminal Self that part of the\nSelf which is commonly subliminal; and I conceive that there may\nbe,--not only _co-operations_ between these quasi-independent trains of\nthought,--but also upheavals and alternations of personality of many\nkinds, so that what was once below the surface may for a time, or\npermanently, rise above it. And I conceive also that no Self of which we\ncan here have cognisance is in reality more than a fragment of a larger\nSelf,--revealed in a fashion at once shifting and limited through an\norganism not so framed as to afford it full manifestation.\n\nNow this hypothesis is exposed manifestly to two main forms of attack,\nwhich to a certain extent neutralise each other. On the one hand it has\nbeen attacked, as has already been indicated, as being too elaborate for\nthe facts,--as endowing transitory moments of subconscious intelligence\nwith more continuity and independence than they really possess. These\nripples over the threshold, it may be said, can be explained by the wind\nof circumstance, without assuming springs or currents in the personality\ndeep below.\n\nBut soon we shall come upon a group of phenomena which this view will\nby no means meet. For we shall find that the subliminal uprushes,--the\nimpulses or communications which reach our emergent from our submerged\nselves,--are (in spite of their miscellaneousness) often\ncharacteristically different in quality from any element known to our\nordinary supraliminal life. They are different in a way which implies\nfaculty of which we have had no previous knowledge, operating in an\nenvironment of which hitherto we have been wholly unaware. This broad\nstatement it is of course the purpose of my whole work to justify.\nAssuming its truth here for argument's sake, we see at once that the\nproblem of the hidden self entirely changes its aspect. Telepathy and\ntel\u00e6sthesia--the perception of distant thoughts and of distant scenes\nwithout the agency of the recognised organs of sense;--those faculties\nsuggest either incalculable extension of our own mental powers, or else\nthe influence upon us of minds freer and less trammelled than our own.\nAnd this second hypothesis,--which would explain by the agency of\ndiscarnate minds, or spirits, all these supernormal phenomena,--does at\nfirst sight simplify the problem, and has by Mr. A. R. Wallace and\nothers been pushed so far as to remove all need of what he deems the\ngratuitous and cumbrous hypothesis of a subliminal self.\n\nI believe, indeed, that it will become plain as we proceed that some\nsuch hypothesis as this,--of almost continuous spirit-intervention and\nspirit-guidance,--is at once rendered necessary if the subliminal\nfaculties for which I argue are denied to man. And my conception of a\nsubliminal self will thus appear, not as an extravagant and needless,\nbut as a limiting and rationalising hypothesis, when it is applied to\nphenomena which at first sight suggest Mr. Wallace's extremer view, but\nwhich I explain by the action of man's own spirit, without invoking\nspirits external to himself. I do not indeed say that the explanation\nhere suggested is applicable in all cases, or to the complete exclusion\nof the spirit-hypothesis. On the contrary, the one view gives support to\nthe other. For these faculties of distant communication exist none the\nless, even though we should refer them to our own subliminal selves. We\ncan, in that case, affect each other at a distance, telepathically;--and\nif our incarnate spirits can act thus in at least apparent independence\nof the fleshly body, the presumption is strong that other spirits may\nexist independently of the body, and may affect us in similar manner.\n\nThe much-debated hypothesis of spirit-intervention, in short, still\nlooms behind the hypothesis of the subliminal Self; but that\nintermediate hypothesis should, I think, in this early stage of what\nmust be a long inquiry, prove useful to the partisans of either side.\nFor those who are altogether unwilling to admit the action of agencies\nother than the spirits of living men, it will be needful to form as\nhigh an estimate as possible of the faculties held in reserve by these\nspirits while still in the flesh. For those, on the other hand, who\nbelieve in the influence of discarnate spirits, this scheme affords a\npath of transition, and as it were a provisional intelligibility.\n\nThese far-reaching speculations make the element of keenest interest in\nthe inquiry which follows. But even apart from its possible bearing on a\nfuture life, the further study of our submerged mentation,--of the\nprocesses within us of which we catch only indirect, and as it were,\nrefracted glimpses,--seems at this time especially called for by the\ntrend of modern research. For of late years we have realised more and\nmore fully upon how shifting and complex a foundation of ancestral\nexperience each individual life is based. In recapitulation, in summary,\nin symbol, we retraverse, from the embryo to the corpse, the history of\nlife on earth for millions of years. During our self-adaptation to\ncontinually wider environments, there may probably have been a continual\ndisplacement of the threshold of consciousness;--involving the lapse and\nsubmergence of much that once floated in the main stream of our being.\nOur consciousness at any given stage of our evolution is but the\nphosphorescent ripple on an unsounded sea. And, like the ripple, it is\nnot only superficial but manifold. Our psychical unity is federative and\nunstable; it has arisen from irregular accretions in the remote past; it\nconsists even now only in the limited collaboration of multiple groups.\nThese discontinuities and incoherences in the Ego the elder\npsychologists managed to ignore. Yet infancy, idiocy, sleep, insanity,\ndecay;--these breaks and stagnancies in the conscious stream were always\npresent to show us, even more forcibly than more delicate analyses show\nus now, that the first obvious conception of man's continuous and\nunitary personality was wholly insecure; and that if indeed a soul\ninspired the body, that soul must be sought for far beneath these bodily\nconditions by which its self-manifestation was clouded and obscured.\n\nThe difference between older and newer conceptions of the unifying\nprinciple or soul (if soul there be) in man, considered as manifesting\nthrough corporeal limitations, will thus resemble the difference between\nthe older and newer conceptions of the way in which the sun reveals\nhimself to our senses. Night and storm-cloud and eclipse men have known\nfrom the earliest ages; but now they know that even at noonday the\nsunbeam which reaches them, when fanned out into a spectrum, is barred\nwith belts and lines of varying darkness;--while they have learnt also\nthat where at either end the spectrum fades out into what for us is\nblackness, there stretches onwards in reality an undiscovered\nillimitable ray.\n\nIt will be convenient for future reference if I draw out this parallel\nsomewhat more fully. I compare, then, man's gradual progress in\nself-knowledge to his gradual decipherment of the nature and meaning of\nthe sunshine which reaches him as light and heat indiscernibly\nintermingled. So also Life and Consciousness--the sense of a world\nwithin him and a world without--come to the child indiscernibly\nintermingled in a pervading glow. Optical analysis splits up the white\nray into the various coloured rays which compose it. Philosophical\nanalysis in like manner splits up the vague consciousness of the child\ninto many faculties;--into the various external senses, the various\nmodes of thought within. This has been the task of descriptive and\nintrospective psychology. Experimental psychology is adding a further\nrefinement. In the sun's spectrum, and in stellar spectra, are many dark\nlines or bands, due to the absorption of certain rays by certain vapours\nin the atmosphere of sun or stars or earth. And similarly in the range\nof spectrum of our own sensation and faculty there are many\ninequalities--permanent and temporary--of brightness and definition. Our\nmental atmosphere is clouded by vapours and illumined by fires, and is\nclouded and illumined differently at different times. The psychologist\nwho observes, say, how his reaction-times are modified by alcohol is\nlike the physicist who observes what lines are darkened by the\ninterposition of a special gas. Our knowledge of our conscious spectrum\nis thus becoming continually more accurate and detailed.\n\nBut turning back once more to the physical side of our simile, we\nobserve that our knowledge of the visible solar spectrum, however\nminute, is but an introduction to the knowledge which we hope ultimately\nto attain of the sun's rays. The limits of our spectrum do not inhere in\nthe sun that shines, but in the eye that marks his shining. Beyond each\nend of that prismatic ribbon are ether-waves of which our retina takes\nno cognisance. Beyond the red end come waves whose potency we still\nrecognise, but as heat and not as light. Beyond the violet end are waves\nstill more mysterious; whose very existence man for ages never\nsuspected, and whose ultimate potencies are still but obscurely known.\nEven thus, I venture to affirm, beyond each end of our conscious\nspectrum extends a range of faculty and perception, exceeding the known\nrange, but as yet indistinctly guessed. The artifices of the modern\nphysicist have extended far in each direction the visible spectrum known\nto Newton. It is for the modern psychologist to discover artifices which\nmay extend in each direction the conscious spectrum as known to Plato or\nto Kant. The phenomena cited in this work carry us, one may say, as far\nonwards as fluorescence carries us beyond the violet end. The \"X rays\"\nof the psychical spectrum remain for a later age to discover.\n\nOur simile, indeed--be it once for all noted--is a most imperfect one.\nThe range of human faculty cannot be truly expressed in any linear form.\nEven a three-dimensional scheme,--a radiation of faculties from a centre\nof life,--would ill render its complexity. Yet something of clearness\nwill be gained by even this rudimentary mental picture;--representing\nconscious human faculty as a linear spectrum whose red rays begin where\nvoluntary muscular control and organic sensation begin, and whose violet\nrays fade away at the point at which man's highest strain of thought or\nimagination merges into reverie or ecstasy.\n\nAt both ends of this spectrum I believe that our evidence indicates a\nmomentous prolongation. Beyond the _red_ end, of course, we already know\nthat vital faculty of some kind must needs extend. We know that organic\nprocesses are constantly taking place within us which are not subject to\nour control, but which make the very foundation of our physical being.\nWe know that the habitual limits of our voluntary action can be far\nextended under the influence of strong excitement. It need not surprise\nus to find that appropriate artifices--hypnotism or self-suggestion--can\ncarry the power of our will over our organism to a yet further point.\n\nThe faculties that lie beyond the _violet_ end of our psychological\nspectrum will need more delicate exhibition and will command a less\nready belief. The actinic energy which lies beyond the violet end of the\nsolar spectrum is less obviously influential in our material world than\nis the dark heat which lies beyond the red end. Even so, one may say,\nthe influence of the ultra-intellectual or supernormal faculties upon\nour welfare as terrene organisms is less marked in common life than the\ninfluence of the organic or subnormal faculties. Yet it is _that_\nprolongation of our spectrum upon which our gaze will need to be most\nstrenuously fixed. It is _there_ that we shall find our inquiry opening\nupon a cosmic prospect, and inciting us upon an endless way.\n\nEven the first stages of this progress are long and labyrinthine; and it\nmay be useful to conclude this introductory chapter by a brief summary\nof the main tracts across which our winding road must lie. It will be my\nobject to lead by transitions as varied and as gradual as possible from\nphenomena held as normal to phenomena held as supernormal, but which\nlike the rest are simply and solely the inevitable results and\nmanifestations of universal Law.\n\nFollowing then on this first or introductory chapter is one containing\na discussion of the ways in which human personality disintegrates and\ndecays. _Alternations of personality_ and hysterical phenomena generally\nare in this connection the most instructive to us.\n\nIn the third chapter we utilize the insight thus gained and discuss the\nline of evolution which enables man to maintain and intensify his true\nnormality. What type of man is he to whom the epithet of _normal_,--an\nepithet often obscure and misleading,--may be most fitly applied? I\nclaim that that man shall be regarded as normal who has the fullest\ngrasp of faculties which inhere in the whole race. Among these faculties\nI count subliminal as well as supraliminal powers;--the mental processes\nwhich take place below the conscious threshold as well as those which\ntake place above it; and I attempt to show that those who reap most\nadvantage from this submerged mentation are men of _genius_.\n\nThe fourth chapter deals with the alternating phase through which man's\npersonality is constructed habitually to pass. I speak of _sleep_; which\nI regard as a phase of personality, adapted to maintain our existence in\nthe spiritual environment, and to draw from thence the vitality of our\nphysical organisms. In this chapter I also discuss certain supernormal\nphenomena which sometimes occur in the state of sleep.\n\nThe fifth chapter treats of _hypnotism_, considered as an _empirical\ndevelopment of sleep_. It will be seen that hypnotic suggestion\nintensifies the physical recuperation of sleep, and aids the emergence\nof those supernormal phenomena which ordinary sleep and spontaneous\nsomnambulism sometimes exhibit.\n\nFrom hypnotism we pass on in the sixth chapter to experiments, less\nfamiliar to the public than those classed as hypnotic, but which give a\nstill further insight into our subliminal faculty. With these\nexperiments are intermingled many spontaneous phenomena; and the chapter\nwill take up and continue the spontaneous phenomena of Chapters III. and\nIV. as well as the experiments of Chapter V. Its theme will be the\nmessages which the subliminal self sends up to the supraliminal in the\nform of sensory hallucinations:--the visions fashioned internally, but\nmanifested not to the inward eye alone; the voices which repeat as\nthough in audible tones the utterance of the self within.\n\nThese _sensory automatisms_, as I have termed them, are very often\n_telepathic_--involve, that is to say, the transmission of ideas and\nsensations from one mind to another without the agency of the recognised\norgans of sense. Nor would it seem that such transmission need\nnecessarily cease with the bodily death of the transmitting agent. In\nthe seventh chapter evidence is brought forward to show that those who\ncommunicated with us telepathically in this world may communicate with\nus telepathically from the other. Thus _phantasms of the dead_ receive a\nnew meaning from observations of the phenomena occurring between living\nmen.\n\nBut besides the hallucinatory hearing or picture-seeing which we have\nclassed as sensory automatisms, there is another method by which the\nsubliminal may communicate with the supraliminal self.\n\nIn Chapter VIII., we consider in what ways _motor automatism_--the\nunwilled activity of hand or voice--may be used as a means of such\ncommunication. Unwilled writings and utterances furnish the opportunity\nfor experiment more prolonged and continuous than the phantasms or\npictures of sensory automatism can often give, and, like them, may\nsometimes originate in telepathic impressions received by the subliminal\nself from another mind. These motor automatisms, moreover, as the ninth\nchapter shows, are apt to become more complete, more controlling, than\nsensory automatisms. They may lead on, in some cases, to the apparent\n_possession_ of the sensitive by some extraneous spirit, who seems to\nwrite and talk through the sensitive's organism, giving evidence of his\nown surviving identity.\n\nThe reader who may feel disposed to give his adhesion to this\nculminating group of the long series of evidences which have pointed\nwith more and more clearness to the survival of human personality, and\nto the possibility for men on earth of actual commerce with a world\nbeyond, may feel perhaps that the _desiderium orbis catholici_, the\nintimate and universal hope of every generation of men, has never till\nthis day approached so near to fulfilment. There has never been so fair\na prospect for Life and Love. But the goal to which we tend is not an\nideal of personal happiness alone. The anticipation of our own future is\nbut one element in the prospect which opens to us now. Our inquiry has\nbroadened into a wider scope. The point from which we started was an\nanalysis of the latent faculties of man. The point towards which our\nargument has carried us is the existence of a spiritual environment in\nwhich those faculties operate, and of unseen neighbours who speak to us\nthence with slowly gathering power. Deep in this spiritual environment\nthe cosmic secret lies. It is our business to collect the smallest\nindications; to carry out from this treasury of Rhampsinitus so much as\nour bare hands can steal away. We have won our scraps of spiritual\nexperience, our messages from behind the veil; we can try them in their\nconnection with certain enigmas which philosophy hardly hoped to be able\nto put to proof. Can we, for instance, learn anything,--to begin with\nfundamental problems,--of the relation of spiritual phenomena to Space,\nto Time, to the material world?\n\nAs to the idea of Space, the evidence which will have been presented\nwill enable us to speak with perhaps more clearness than could have been\nhoped for in such a matter. Spiritual life, we infer, is not bound and\nconfined by space-considerations in the same way as the life of earth.\nBut in what way is that greater freedom attained? It appears to be\nattained by the mere extension of certain licenses (so to call them)\npermitted to ourselves. We on earth submit to two familiar laws of the\nordinary material universe. A body can only act where it is. Only one\nbody can occupy the same part of space at the same moment. Applied to\ncommon affairs these rules are of plain construction. But once get\nbeyond ponderable matter,--once bring life and ether into play, and\ndefinitions become difficult indeed. The orator, the poet, we say, can\nonly act where he is;--but where is he? He has transformed the sheet of\npaper into a spiritual agency;--nay, the mere memory of him persists as\na source of energy in other minds. Again, we may say that no other body\ncan be in the same place as this writing-table; but what of the ether?\nWhat we have thus far learnt of spiritual operation seems merely to\nextend these two possibilities. Telepathy indefinitely extends the range\nof an unembodied spirit's potential presence. The interpenetration of\nthe spiritual with the material environment leaves this ponderable\nplanet unable to check or to hamper spiritual presence or operation.\nStrange and new though our evidence may be, it needs at present in its\nrelation to space nothing more than an immense extension of conceptions\nwhich the disappearance of earthly limitations was certain immensely to\nextend.\n\nHow, then, does the matter stand with regard to our relation to Time? Do\nwe find that our new phenomena point to any mode of understanding or of\ntranscending Time fundamentally different from those modes which we have\nat our command?\n\nIn dealing with Time Past we have memory and written record; in dealing\nwith Time Future we have forethought, drawing inferences from the past.\n\nCan, then, the spiritual knowledge of Past and Future which our evidence\nshows be explained by assuming that these existing means of knowledge\nare raised to a higher power? Or are we driven to postulate something in\nthe nature of Time which is to us inconceivable;--some co-existence of\nPast and Future in an eternal Now? It is plainly with Time Past that we\nmust begin the inquiry.\n\nThe knowledge of the past which automatic communications manifest is in\nmost cases apparently referable to the actual memory of persons still\nexisting beyond the tomb. It reaches us telepathically, as from a mind\nin which remote scenes are still imprinted. But there are certain scenes\nwhich are not easily assigned to the individual memory of any given\nspirit. And if it be possible for us to learn of present facts by\ntel\u00e6sthesia as well as by telepathy;--by some direct supernormal\npercipience without the intervention of any other mind to which the\nfacts are already known,--may there not be also a retrocognitive\ntel\u00e6sthesia by which we may attain a direct knowledge of facts in the\npast?\n\nSome conception of this kind may possibly come nearest to the truth. It\nmay even be that some World-Soul is perennially conscious of all its\npast; and that individual souls, as they enter into deeper\nconsciousness, enter into something which is at once reminiscence and\nactuality. But nevertheless a narrower hypothesis will cover the actual\ncases with which we have to deal. Past facts are known to men on earth\nnot from memory only, but by written record; and there may be records,\nof what kind we know not, which persist in the spiritual world. Our\nretrocognitions seem often a recovery of isolated fragments of thought\nand feeling, pebbles still hard and rounded amid the indecipherable\nsands over which the mighty waters are \"rolling evermore.\"\n\nWhen we look from Time Past to Time Future we are confronted with\nessentially the same problems, though in a still more perplexing form,\nand with the world-old mystery of Free Will _versus_ Necessity looming\nin the background. Again we find that, just as individual memory would\nserve to explain a large proportion of Retrocognition, so individual\nforethought--a subliminal forethought, based often on profound organic\nfacts not normally known to us--will explain a large proportion of\nPrecognition. But here again we find also precognitions which transcend\nwhat seems explicable by the foresight of any mind such as we know; and\nwe are tempted to dream of a World-Soul whose Future is as present to it\nas its Past. But in this speculation also, so vast and vague an\nexplanation seems for the present beyond our needs; and it is safer--if\naught be safe in this region which only actual evidence could have\nemboldened us to approach--to take refuge in the conception of\nintelligences not infinite, yet gifted with a foresight which strangely\ntranscends our own.\n\nClosely allied to speculations such as these is another speculation,\nmore capable of subjection to experimental test, yet which remains still\ninconclusively tested, and which has become for many reasons a\nstumbling-block rather than a corroboration in the spiritual inquiry. I\nrefer to the question whether any influence is exercised by spirits upon\nthe gross material world otherwise than through ordinary organic\nstructures. We know that the spirit of a living man controls his own\norganism, and we shall see reason to conclude that discarnate spirits\nmay also control, by some form of \"possession,\" the organisms of living\npersons,--may affect directly, that is to say, some portions of matter\nwhich we call living, namely, the brain of the entranced sensitive.\nThere seems to me, then, no paradox in the supposition that some effect\nshould be produced by spiritual agency--possibly through the mediation\nof some kind of energy derived from living human beings--upon inanimate\nmatter as well. And I believe that as a fact such effects have been\nobserved and recorded in a trustworthy manner by Sir W. Crookes, the\nlate Dr. Speer, and others, in the cases especially of D. D. Home and of\nW. Stainton Moses. If, indeed, I call these and certain other records\nstill inconclusive, it is mainly on account of the mass of worthless\nnarratives with which they have been in some sense smothered; the long\nhistory of so-called investigations which have consisted merely in an\ninterchange of credulity and fraud. For the present the evidence of this\nkind which has real value is better presented, I think, in separate\nrecords than collected or discussed in any generalised form. All that I\npurpose in this work, therefore, is briefly to indicate the relation\nwhich these \"physical phenomena\" hold to the psychical phenomena with\nwhich my book is concerned. Alongside of the faculty or achievement of\nman's ordinary or supraliminal self I shall demarcate the faculty or\nachievement which I ascribe to his subliminal self; and alongside of\nthis again I shall arrange such few well-attested phenomena as seem\n_prim\u00e2 facie_ to demand the physical intervention of discarnate\nintelligences.\n\nI have traced the utmost limits to which any claim to a scientific basis\nfor these inquiries can at present be pushed. Yet the subject-matter has\nnot yet been exhausted of half its significance. The conclusions to\nwhich our evidence points are not such as can be discussed or dismissed\nas a mere matter of speculative curiosity. They affect every belief,\nevery faculty, every hope and aim of man; and they affect him the more\nintimately as his interests grow more profound. Whatever meaning be\napplied to ethics, to philosophy, to religion, the concern of all these\nis here.\n\nIt would have been inconsistent with my main purpose had I interpolated\nconsiderations of this kind into the body of this work. For that purpose\nwas above all to show that realms left thus far to philosophy or to\nreligion,--too often to mere superstition and idle dream,--might in the\nend be brought under steady scientific rule. I contend that Religion and\nScience are no separable or independent provinces of thought or action;\nbut rather that each name implies a different aspect of the same\nideal;--that ideal being the completely normal reaction of the\nindividual spirit to the whole of cosmic law.\n\nAssuredly this deepening response of man's spirit to the Cosmos\ndeepening round him must be affected by all the signals which now are\nglimmering out of night to tell him of his inmost nature and his endless\nfate. Who can think that either Science or Revelation has spoken as yet\nmore than a first half-comprehended word? But if in truth souls departed\ncall to us, it is to them that we shall listen most of all. We shall\nweigh their undesigned concordances, we shall analyse the congruity of\ntheir message with the facts which such a message should explain. To\nsome thoughts which may thus be generated I shall try to give expression\nin an Epilogue to the present work.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nDISINTEGRATIONS OF PERSONALITY\n\n  [Greek: Thanatos estin okosa egerthentes oreomen,\n   okosa de eudontes, upnos.]\n\n  --HERACLITUS.\n\n\nOf the race of man we know for certain that it has been evolved through\nmany ages and through countless forms of change. We know for certain\nthat its changes continue still; nay, that more causes of change act\nupon us in \"fifty years of Europe\" than in \"a cycle of Cathay.\" We may\nreasonably conjecture that the race will continue to change with\nincreasing rapidity, and through a period in comparison with which our\nrange of recorded history shrinks into a moment.\n\nThe actual nature of these coming changes, indeed, lies beyond our\nimagination. Many of them are probably as inconceivable to us now as\neyesight would have been to our eyeless ancestors. All that we can do is\nto note so far as possible the structural laws of our personality as\ndeduced from its changes thus far; inferring that for some time to come,\nat any rate, its further changes will proceed upon similar lines.\n\nI have already (Chapter I) indicated the general view as to the nature\nof human personality which is maintained in this work. I regard each man\nas at once profoundly unitary and almost infinitely composite, as\ninheriting from earthly ancestors a multiplex and \"colonial\"\norganism--polyzoic and perhaps polypsychic in an extreme degree; but\nalso as ruling and unifying that organism by a soul or spirit absolutely\nbeyond our present analysis--a soul which has originated in a spiritual\nor metetherial environment; which even while embodied subsists in that\nenvironment; and which will still subsist therein after the body's\ndecay.\n\nIt is, of course, impossible for us to picture to ourselves the way in\nwhich the individual life of each cell of the body is reconciled with\nthe unity of the central life which controls the body as a whole. But\nthis difficulty is not created or intensified by the hypothesis of a\nseparate and persistent soul. On no hypothesis can we really understand\nthe collaboration and subordination of the cell-lives of any\nmulticellular animal. It is as mysterious in the starfish as it is in\nPlato; and the \"eight brains of Aurelia,\" with their individual and\ntheir common life, are as inconceivable as the life of the phagocytes in\nthe philosopher's veins, in their relation to his central thought.[7]\n\nI claim, in fact, that the ancient hypothesis of an indwelling soul,\npossessing and using the body as a whole, yet bearing a real, though\nobscure relation to the various more or less apparently disparate\nconscious groupings manifested in connection with the organism and in\nconnection with more or less localised groups of nerve-matter, is a\nhypothesis not more perplexing, not more cumbrous, than any other\nhypothesis yet suggested. I claim also that it is conceivably\nprovable,--I myself hold it as actually proved,--by direct observation.\nI hold that certain manifestations of central individualities,\nassociated now or formerly with certain definite organisms, have been\nobserved in operation apart from those organisms, both while the\norganisms were still living, and after they had decayed. Whether or no\nthis thesis be as yet sufficiently proved, it is at least at variance\nwith no scientific principle nor established fact whatever; and it is of\na nature which continued observation may conceivably establish to the\nsatisfaction of all. The negative thesis, on the other hand, is a thesis\nin unstable equilibrium. It cannot be absolutely proved by any number of\nnegative instances; and it may be absolutely disproved by a single\npositive instance. It may have at present a greater scientific\n_currency_, but it can have no real scientific authority as against the\nview defended in these pages.\n\nLeaving these questions, however, aside for the present, we may agree\nthat in the organism as we can observe it in common life we have no\ncomplete or unchanging unity, but rather a complex hierarchy of groups\nof cells exercising vaguely limited functions, and working together with\nrough precision, tolerable harmony, fair success. That these powers ever\nwork _perfectly_ together we have no evidence. Our feeling of health is\nbut a rough haphazard register of what is passing within us. Nor would\nit ever be possible to define a permanently ideal status in an organism\nin moving equilibrium,--an organism which lives by exploding unstable\ncompounds, and which is constantly aiming at new ends at the expense of\nthe old.\n\nMany disturbances and disintegrations of the personality must presently\nfall to be discussed. But the reader who may follow me must remember the\npoint of view from which I am writing. The aim of my analysis is not to\ndestroy but to fulfil;--or say, rather, my hope is that observation of\nthe ways in which the personality tends to disintegrate may suggest\nmethods which may tend on the other hand to its more complete\nintegration.\n\nSuch improvements upon the natural conditions of the organism are not\nunknown. Just as the study of hysteria deals mainly with instabilities\nin the threshold of consciousness, so does the study of zymotic disease\ndeal mainly with instabilities in the constitution of the blood. The\nordinary object of the physician is to check these instabilities when\nthey occur; to restore healthy blood in the place of vitiated. The\nexperimental biologist has a further aim. He wishes to provide men with\n_better_ blood than nature has bestowed; to elicit from virus and decay\nsome element whose infusion into the veins may give immunity against\nmicrobic invasion. As the adult is safer against such attacks than the\nchild by dint of his more advanced development, so is the immunised\nadult safer than the common man. The change of his blood which healthy\nmaturity has induced has made him safe against whooping-cough. The\nchange in his blood which we effect by injecting antitoxin makes him\ntemporarily safe against diphtheria. We have improved upon nature;--and\nour artifice has been _prophylactic_ by virtue of being in a certain\nsense _developmental_.\n\nEven such, I trust, may be the achievement of experimental psychology in\na later day. I shall be well content if in this chapter I can give hints\nfor some future colligation of such evolutive phenomena as may lurk amid\na mass of phenomena mainly dissolutive--phenomena whose records are\nscattered and imperfect, and have as yet only in some few directions,\nand by quite recent writers, been collated or systematised on any\ndefinite plan.\n\nThe discussion of these disintegrations of personality needs, I think,\nsome little clearing of the ground beforehand, if it is to avoid\nconfusion. It will be needful to speak of concurrent and alternating\nstreams of consciousness,--of subliminal and supraliminal strata of\npersonality and the like;--phrases which save much trouble when used\nwith care, but which need some words of preliminary explanation. It is\nnot easy to realise that anything which deserves the name of\nconsciousness can be going on within us, apart from that central stream\nof thought and feeling with which we identify ourselves in common life.\nSomething of definition is needed;--not indeed of any formal or dogmatic\nkind;--but enough to make clear the sense given to such words as\nconsciousness, memory, personality, in the ensuing pages.\n\nI begin, then, with the obvious remark that when we conceive any act\nother than our own as a conscious act, we do so either because we\nregard it as _complex_, and therefore _purposive_, or because we\nperceive that it has been _remembered_. Thus we call the fencer or the\nchess-player fully conscious; or, again, we say, \"The man who seemed\nstunned after that blow on the head must really have been conscious all\nthe time; for he afterwards recalled every incident.\" The _memorability_\nof an act is, in fact, a better proof of consciousness than its\ncomplexity. Thus consciousness has been denied both to hypnotised\nsubjects and to dogs; but it is easier to prove that the hypnotised\nsubject is conscious than that the dog is conscious. For the hypnotised\nsubject, though he may forget the incidents of the trance when he\nawakes, will remember them in the next trance; or he may be trained to\nremember them in the waking state also; while with regard to the dog we\ncannot decide from the mere complexity of his actions how far he is\nconscious of their performance. With him, too, the best line of proof\nlies in his obvious memory of past acts. And yet, although all agree\nthat our own memory, broadly speaking, proves our past consciousness,\nsome persons would not admit that a dog's memory does so too. The dog's\norganism, they would say, responds, no doubt, in a new manner to a\nsecond repetition of a previous stimulus; but this is more or less true\nof all living organisms, or parts of organisms, even far below what we\ngenerally regard as a conscious level.\n\nReflections of this kind naturally lead to a wider conception of\nconsciousness. It is gradually seen that the earlier inquiries which men\nhave made about consciousness have been of a merely ethical or legal\ncharacter;--have simply aimed at deciding whether at a given moment a\nman was _responsible_ for his acts, either to a human or to a divine\ntribunal. Commonsense has seemed to encourage this method of definite\ndemarcation; we judge practically either that a man is conscious or that\nhe is not; in the experience of life intermediate states are of little\nimportance.\n\nAs soon, however, as the problem is regarded as a psychological one, to\nbe decided by observation and experiment, these hard and fast lines grow\nfainter and fainter. We come to regard consciousness as an attribute\nwhich may possibly be present in all kinds of varying degrees in\nconnection with the animal and vegetable worlds; as the psychical\ncounterpart of life; as conceivably the psychical counterpart of all\nphenomenal existence. Or, rather, we may say this of _mind_, to which,\nin its more elementary forms, consciousness bears somewhat the same\nrelation as self-consciousness bears to consciousness, or some higher\nevolution may bear to self-consciousness.\n\nThis being so, I cannot see how we can phrase our definition more simply\nthan by saying that any act or condition must be regarded as conscious\nif it is _potentially memorable_;--if it can be recollected, under any\ncircumstances, by the subject concerned. It does not seem needful that\nthe circumstances under which such recollection may occur should arise\nwhile the subject is still incarnated on this planet. We shall never on\nthis planet remember the great majority of our dreams; but those dreams\nwere presumably no less conscious than the dreams which a sudden\nawakening allowed us to keep in memory. Certain hypnotic subjects,\nindeed, who can be made to remember their dreams by suggestion,\napparently remember dreams previously latent just as easily as dreams\npreviously remembered. And we shall have various other examples of the\nunexpected recollection of experiences supposed to have been entirely\ndevoid of consciousness.\n\nWe are bound, I think, to draw at least this negative conclusion: that\nwe must not take for granted that our apparently central consciousness\nis something wholly different in kind from the minor consciousnesses out\nof which it is in some sense elaborated. I do indeed believe it to be in\nan important sense different; but this difference must not be assumed on\nthe basis of our subjective sensations alone. We must approach the whole\nsubject of split or duplicated personalities with no prepossession\nagainst the possibility of any given arrangement or division of the\ntotal mass of consciousness which exists within us.\n\nBefore we can picture to ourselves how that mass of consciousness may\n_disintegrate_, we ought, were it possible, to picture to ourselves how\nit is in the first instance _integrated_. That, however, is a difficulty\nwhich does not begin with the constitution of man. It begins when\nunicellular develop into multicellular organisms. It is, of course, a\nmystery how a single cell can hold together, and what kind of unity it\ncan possess. But it is a fresh mystery when several cells cohere in a\nconjoint and independent life. In the collective unity of certain\n\"colonial animals\" we have a kind of sketch or parody of our own complex\nbeing. Higher intelligences may possibly see us as we see the\nhydrozoon--a creature split up into different \"persons,\" a \"hydriform\nperson\" who feeds, a \"medusiform person\" who propagates, and so\non--elements of the animal differentiated for different\nends--interconnected from one point of view as closely as our stomach\nand brain, yet from another point of view separable existences, capable\nof detachment and of independent regeneration in all kinds of different\nways. Still more composite, though less conspicuously composite, is\nevery animal that we meet as we rise through the scale; and in man we\nreach the summit both of colonial complexity and of centralised control.\n\nI need hardly say that as regards the inner nature of this close\nco-ordination, this central government, science can at present tell us\nlittle or nothing. The growth of the nervous mechanism may be to some\nextent deciphered; but how this mechanism is centrally governed; what is\nthe tendency which makes for unity; where precisely this unity resides,\nand what is its exact relation to the various parts of the multicellular\norganism--all these are problems in the nature of _life_, to which as\nyet no solution is known.\n\nThe needed clue, as I believe, can be afforded only by the discovery of\nlaws affecting primarily that unseen or spiritual plane of being where I\nimagine the origin of life to lie. If we can suppose telepathy to be a\nfirst indication of a law of this type, and to occupy in the spiritual\nworld some such place as gravitation occupies in the material world, we\nmight imagine something analogous to the force of cohesion as operating\nin the psychical contexture of a human personality. Such a personality,\nat any rate, as the development of higher from lower organisms shows,\ninvolves the aggregation of countless minor psychical entities, whose\ncharacteristics still persist, although in a manner consistent with the\npossibility that one larger psychical entity, whether pre-existent or\notherwise, is the unifying continuum of which those smaller entities are\nfragments, and exercises over them a pervading, though an incomplete,\ncontrol.\n\nIt is plainly impossible to say beforehand what will be the relation to\nthe ordinary stream of consciousness of a personality thus composed. We\nhave no right to assume that all our psychical operations will fall at\nthe same time, or at any time, into the same central current of\nperception, or rise above what we have called the ordinary conscious\nthreshold. We can be sure, in fact, that there will be much which will\nnot so rise; can we predict what _will_ rise?\n\nWe can only reply that the perception of stimuli by the supraliminal\nconsciousness is a kind of exercise of function; and that here, as in\nother cases where a function is exercised, part of its range will\nconsist of such operation as the primary structure of the organism\nobliges it to perform, and part will consist of such operation as\nnatural selection (after the structure has come into being) has trained\nit to perform. There will be something which is structurally inevitable,\nand something which was not structurally inevitable, but which has\nproved itself practically advantageous.\n\nThus it may be inevitable--a necessary result of nervous structure--that\nconsciousness should accompany unfamiliar cerebral combinations;--that\nthe \"fraying of fresh channels\" should carry with it a perceptible\ntingle of novelty. Or it is possible, again, that this vivid\nconsciousness of new cerebral combinations may be a later acquisition,\nand merely due to the obvious advantage of preventing new achievements\nfrom stereotyping themselves before they have been thoroughly\npractised;--as a musician will keep his attention fixed on a difficult\nnovelty, lest his execution should become automatic before he has learnt\nto render the piece as he desires. It seems likely, at any rate, that\nthe greater part of the contents of our supraliminal consciousness may\nbe determined in some such fashion as this, by natural selection so\noperating as to keep ready to hand those perceptions which are most\nneeded for the conduct of life.\n\nThe notion of the upbuilding of the personality here briefly given is of\nuse, I think, in suggesting its practical tendencies to dissolution.\nSubjected continually to both internal and external stress and strain,\nits ways of yielding indicate the grain of its texture.\n\nIt is possible that if we could discern the minute psychology of this\nlong series of changes, ranging from modifications too minute to be\nnoted as abnormal to absolute revolutions of the whole character and\nintelligence, we might find no definite break in all the series; but\nrather a slow, continuous detachment of one psychical unit or element of\nconsciousness after another from the primary synthesis. It is possible,\non the other hand, that there may be a real break at a point where there\nappears to our external observation to be a break, namely, where the\npersonality passes into its new phase through an interval of sleep or\ntrance. And I believe that there is another break, at a point much\nfurther advanced, and not to be reached in this chapter, where some\nexternal intelligence begins in some way to possess the organism and to\nreplace for a time the ordinary intellectual activity by an activity of\nits own. Setting, however, this last possibility for the present aside,\nwe must adopt some arrangement on which to hang our cases. For this\npurpose the appearance of sleep or trance will make a useful, although\nnot a definite, line of demarcation.\n\nWe may begin with localised psychical hypertrophies and\nisolations,--terms which I shall explain as we proceed; and then pass on\nthrough hysterical instabilities (where intermediate periods of trance\nmay or may not be present) to those more advanced sleep-wakings and\ndimorphisms which a barrier of trance seems always to separate from the\nprimary stream of conscious life. All such changes, of course, are\ngenerally noxious to the psychical organism; and it will be simpler to\nbegin by dwelling on their noxious aspect, and regarding them as steps\non the road--on one of the many roads--to mental overthrow.\n\nThe process begins, then, with something which is to the psychical\norganism no more than a boil or a corn is to the physical. In\nconsequence of some suggestion from without, or of some inherited\ntendency, a small group of psychical units set up a process of\nexaggerated growth which shuts them off from free and healthy\ninterchange with the rest of the personality.\n\nThe first symptom of disaggregation is thus the _id\u00e9e fixe_, that is to\nsay, the persistence of an uncontrolled and unmodifiable group of\nthoughts or emotions, which from their brooding isolation,--from the\nvery fact of deficient interchange with the general current of\nthought,--become alien and intrusive, so that some special idea or image\npresses into consciousness with undue and painful frequency.\n\nThe fixed idea, thus originating, may develop in different ways. It may\nbecome a centre of explosion, or a nucleus of separation, or a beginning\nof death. It may induce an access of hysterical convulsions, thus acting\nlike a material foreign body which presses on a sensitive part of the\norganism. Or it may draw to its new parasitic centre so many psychical\nelements that it forms a kind of secondary personality, co-existing\nsecretly with the primary one, or even able at times (as in some\nwell-known cases) to carry the whole organism by a _coup-de-main_. (Such\nchanges, it may be noted in passing, are not always for the _worse_.)\nOr, again, the new quasi-independent centres may be merely _anarchical_;\nthe revolt may spread to every cell; and the forces of the environment,\never making war upon the organism, may thus effect its total decay.\n\nLet us dwell for a few moments on the nature of these fixed or insistent\nideas. They are not generally or at the first outset extravagant\nfancies,--as that one is made of glass or the like. Rather will \"fixed\nideas\" come to seem a mere expression for something in a minor degree\ncommon to most of us. Hardly any mind, I suppose, is wholly free from\ntendencies to certain types of thought or emotion for which we cannot\nsummon any adequate check--useless recurrent broodings over the past or\nanxieties for the future, perhaps traces of old childish experience\nwhich have become too firmly fixed wholly to disappear. Nay, it may well\nbe that we must look even further back than our own childhood for the\norigin of many haunting troubles. Inherited tendencies to terror,\nespecially, seem to reach far back into a prehistoric past. In a recent\n\"Study of Fears,\" which Professor Stanley Hall has based on a wide\nstatistical collection,[8] it would seem that the fears of childhood\noften correspond to no existing cause for uneasiness, but rather to the\nvanished perils of primitive man. The fear of darkness, for instance,\nthe fear of solitude, the fear of thunder-storms, the fear of the loss\nof orientation, speak of primitive helplessness, just as the fear of\nanimals, the fear of strangers, suggest the fierce and hazardous life of\nearly man. To all such instinctive feelings as these a morbid\ndevelopment is easily given.\n\nOf what nature must we suppose this morbid development to be? Does it\nfall properly within our present discussion? or is it not simply a\nbeginning of brain-disease, which concerns the physician rather than the\npsychologist? The psychologist's best answer to this question will be to\nshow cases of fixed ideas _cured_ by psychological means.[9] And indeed\nthere are few cases to show which have been cured by any methods\n_except_ the psychological; if hypnotic suggestion does not succeed with\nan _id\u00e9e fixe_, it is seldom that any other treatment will cure it. We\nmay, of course, say that the brain troubles thus cured were functional,\nand that those which went on inevitably into insanity were organic,\nalthough the distinction between functional and organic is not easily\ndemonstrable in this ultra-microscopic realm.\n\nAt any rate, we have actually on record,--and that is what our argument\nneeds,--a great series of _id\u00e9es fixes_, of various degrees of\nintensity, cured by suggestion;--cured, that is to say, by a subliminal\nsetting in action of minute nervous movements which our supraliminal\nconsciousness cannot in even the blindest manner manage to set to work.\nSome such difference as exists on a gross scale between striped and\nunstriped muscle seems to exist on a minute scale among these smallest\ninvolved cells and fibres, or whatever they be. Some of them obey our\nconscious will, but most of them are capable of being governed only by\nsubliminal strata of the self.\n\nIf, however, it be the subliminal self which can reduce these elements\nto order, it is often probably the subliminal self to which their\ndisorder is originally due. If a fixed idea, say agoraphobia, grows up\nin me, this may probably be because the proper controlling\nco-ordinations of thought, which I ought to be able to summon up at\nwill, have sunk below the level at which will can reach them. I am no\nlonger able, that is to say, to convince myself by reasoning that there\nis no danger in crossing the open square. And this may be the fault of\nmy subliminal self, whose business it is to keep the ideas which I need\nfor common life easily within my reach, and which has failed to do this,\nowing to some enfeeblement of its grasp of my organism.\n\nIf we imagine these obscure operations under some such form as this, we\nget the advantage of being able to connect these insistent ideas in a\ncoherent sequence with the more advanced phenomena of hysteria. We have\nseen that the presence of insistent ideas implies an instability of the\nconscious threshold; and this, in its turn, indicates a disorderly or\ndiseased condition of the hypnotic stratum,--of that region of the\npersonality which, as we shall see, is best known to us through the fact\nthat it is reached by hypnotic suggestion.\n\nNow we shall find, I think, that all the phenomena of hysteria are\nreducible to the same general conception. To understand their many\npuzzles we have to keep our eyes fixed upon just these psychological\nnotions--upon a threshold of ordinary consciousness above which certain\nperceptions and faculties ought to be, but are not always, maintained,\nand upon a \"hypnotic stratum\" or region of the personality to which\nhypnotic suggestion appeals; and which includes faculty and perception\nwhich surpass the supraliminal, but whose operation is capricious and\ndreamlike, inasmuch as they lie, so to say, in a debateable region\nbetween two rules--the known rule of the supraliminal self, adapted to\nthis life's experience and uses, and the conjectured rule of a fuller\nand profounder self, rarely reached by any artifice which our present\nskill suggests. Some of these conscious groupings have got separated\nfrom the ordinary stream of consciousness. These may still be unified in\nthe subliminal, but they need to be unified in the supraliminal also.\nThe normal relation between the supraliminal and the subliminal may be\ndisturbed by the action of _either_.\n\nLet us now see how far this view, which I suggested in the S.P.R.\n_Proceedings_ as far back as 1892,[10] fits in with those modern\nobservations of hysteria, in Paris and Vienna especially, which are\ntransforming all that group of troubles from the mere opprobrium of\nmedicine into one of the most fertile sources of new knowledge of body\nand mind.\n\nFirst, then, let us briefly consider what is the general type of\nhysterical troubles. Speaking broadly, we may say that the symptoms of\nhysteria form, in the first place, a series of phantom copies of real\nmaladies of the nervous system; and, in the second place, a series of\nfantasies played upon that system--of unreal, dreamlike ailments, often\nsuch as no physiological mechanism can be shown to have determined.\nThese latter cases are often due, as we shall see, not to purely\nphysiological, but rather to intellectual causes; they represent, not a\nparticular pattern in which the nervous system tends of itself to\ndisintegrate, but a particular pattern which has been imposed upon it by\nsome intellectual process;--in short, by some form of self-suggestion.\n\nLet us briefly review some common types of hysterical\ndisability,--taking as our first guide Dr. Pierre Janet's admirable\nwork, _L'Etat Mental des Hyst\u00e9riques_ (Paris, 1893).\n\nWhat, then, to begin with, is Dr. Janet's general conception of the\npsychological states of the advanced hysteric? \"In the expression _I\nfeel_,\" he says (_L'Etat Mental_, p. 39), \"we have two elements: a small\nnew psychological fact, 'feel,' and an enormous mass of thoughts already\nformed into a system 'I.' These two things mix and combine, and to say\n_I feel_ is to say that the personality, already enormous, has seized\nand absorbed this small new sensation; ... as though the _I_ were an\namoeba which sent out a prolongation to suck in this little sensation\nwhich has come into existence beside it.\" Now it is in the assimilation\nof these elementary sensations or affective states with the _perception\npersonnelle_, as Janet terms it, that the advanced hysteric fails. His\nfield of consciousness is so far narrowed that it can only take in the\nminimum of sensations necessary for the support of life. \"One must needs\nhave consciousness of what one sees and hears, and so the patient\nneglects to perceive the tactile and muscular sensations with which he\nthinks that he can manage to dispense. At first he could perhaps turn\nhis attention to them, and recover them at least momentarily within the\nfield of personal perception. But the occasion does not present itself,\nand the _psychological bad habit_ is formed.... One day the patient--for\nhe is now veritably a patient--is examined by the doctor. His left arm\nis pinched, and he is asked whether he feels the pinch. To his surprise\nthe patient realises that he can no longer feel consciously, can no\nlonger bring back into his personal perception sensations which he has\nneglected too long--he has become an\u00e6sthetic.... Hysterical an\u00e6sthesia\nis thus a fixed and perpetual distraction, which renders its subjects\nincapable of attaching certain sensations to their personality; it is a\nrestriction of the conscious field.\"\n\nThe proof of these assertions depends on a number of observations, all\nof which point in the same direction, and show that hysterical\nan\u00e6sthesia does not descend so deep into the personality, so to say, as\ntrue an\u00e6sthesia caused by nervous decay, or by the section of a nerve.\n\nThus the hysteric is often _unconscious_ of the an\u00e6sthesia, which is\nonly discovered by the physician. There is none of the distress caused\nby true an\u00e6sthesia, as, for instance, by the \"tabetic mask,\" or\ninsensibility of part of the face, which sometimes occurs in _tabes\ndorsalis_.\n\nAn incident reported by Dr. Jules Janet illustrates this peculiarity. A\nyoung woman cut her right hand severely with broken glass, and\ncomplained of insensibility in the palm. The physician who examined her\nfound that the sensibility of the right palm was, in fact, diminished\nby the section of certain nerves. But he discovered at the same time\nthat the girl was hysterically an\u00e6sthetic over the whole left side of\nher body. She had never even found out this disability, and the doctor\ntwitted her with complaining of the small patch of an\u00e6sthesia, while she\nsaid nothing of that which covered half her body. But, as Dr. Pierre\nJanet remarks, she might well have retorted that these were the facts,\nand that it was for the man of science to say why the small patch\nannoyed her while the large one gave her no trouble at all.\n\nOf similar import is the ingenious observation that hysterical\nan\u00e6sthesia rarely leads to any accident to the limb;--differing in this\nrespect, for instance, from the true and profound an\u00e6sthesia of\nsyringomyelitis, in which burns and bruises frequently result from the\npatient's forgetfulness of the part affected. There is usually, in fact,\na supervision--a _subliminal_ supervision--exercised over the hysteric's\nlimbs. Part of her personality is still alive to the danger, and\nmodifies her movements, unknown to her supraliminal self.\n\nThis curious point, I may remark in passing, well illustrates the kind\nof action which I attribute to the subliminal self in many phases of\nlife. Thus it is that the hypnotised subject is prevented (as I hold)\nfrom committing a real as opposed to a fictitious crime; thus it is that\nfresh ideas are suggested to the man of genius; thus it is--I will even\nsay--that in some cases monitory hallucinations are generated, which\nsave the supraliminal self from some sudden danger.\n\nI pass on to another peculiarity of hysterical an\u00e6sthesi\u00e6;--also in my\neyes of deep significance. The an\u00e6sthetic belts or patches do not\nalways, or even generally, correspond with true anatomical areas, such\nas would be affected by the actual lesion of any given nerve. They\nfollow arbitrary arrangements;--sometimes corresponding to rough popular\nnotions of divisions of the body,--sometimes seeming to reflect a merely\nchildish caprice.\n\nIn these cases what is only a silly fancy seems to produce an effect\nwhich is not merely fanciful;--which is objective, measurable, and\ncapable of causing long and serious disablement. This result, however,\nis quite accordant with my view of what I have termed the _hypnotic\nstratum_ of the personality. I hold, as our coming discussion of\nhypnotism will more fully explain, that the region into which the\nhypnotic suggestion gives us access is one of strangely mingled strength\nand weakness;--of a faculty at once more potent and less coherent than\nthat of waking hours. I think that in these cases we get at the\nsubliminal self only somewhat in the same sense as we get at the\nsupraliminal self when the \"highest-level centres\" are for the time\ninoperative (as in a dream) and only \"middle-level centres\" are left to\nfollow their own devices without inhibition or co-ordination. I hold\nthat this is the explanation of the strange contrasts which hypnosis\nmakes familiar to us--the combination of profound power over the\norganism with childish readiness to obey the merest whims of the\nhypnotiser. The intelligence which thus responds is in my view only a\nfragmentary intelligence; it is a dreamlike scrap of the subliminal\nself, functioning apart from that self's central and profounder control.\n\nWhat happens in hypnotism in obedience to the hypnotiser's caprice\nhappens in hysteria in obedience to the caprice of the hypnotic stratum\nitself. Some middle-level centre of the subliminal self (to express a\ndifficult idea by the nearest phrase I can find) gets the notion that\nthere is an \"an\u00e6sthetic bracelet,\" say, round the left wrist;--and lo,\nthis straight-way is so; and the hysteric loses supraliminal sensation\nin this fantastic belt. That the notion does not originate in the\nhysteric's supraliminal self is proved by the fact that the patient is\ngenerally unaware of the existence of the bracelet until the physician\ndiscovers it. Nor is it a chance combination;--even were there such a\nthing as chance. It is a dream of the hypnotic stratum;--an incoherent\nself-suggestion starting from and affecting a region below the reach of\nconscious will. Such cases are most instructive; for they begin to show\nus divisions of the human body based not upon local innervation but upon\nideation (however incoherent);--upon intellectual conceptions like \"a\nbracelet,\" \"a cross,\"--applied though these conceptions may be with\ndreamlike futility.\n\nIn this view, then, we regard the fragments of perceptive power over\nwhich the hysteric has lost control as being by no means really\nextinguished, but rather as existing immediately beneath the threshold,\nin the custody, so to say, of a dreamlike or hypnotic stratum of the\nsubliminal self, which has selected them for reasons sometimes\nexplicable as the result of past suggestions, sometimes to us\ninexplicable. If this be so, we may expect that the same kind of\nsuggestions which originally cut off these perceptions from the main\nbody of perception may stimulate them again to action either below or\nabove the conscious threshold.\n\nWe have already, indeed, seen reason to suppose that the submerged\nperceptions are still at work, when Dr. Janet pointed out how rare a\nthing it was that any accident or injury followed upon hysterical loss\nof feeling in the limbs. A still more curious illustration is afforded\nby the condition of the field of vision in a hysteric. It often happens\nthat the field of vision is much reduced, so that the hysteric, when\ntested with the perimeter, can discern only objects almost directly in\nfront of the eye. But if an object which happens to be particularly\nexciting to the hypnotic stratum--for instance the hypnotiser's finger,\nused often as a signal for trance--is advanced into that part of the\nhysteric's normal visual field of which she has apparently lost all\nconsciousness, there will often be an instant subliminal\nperception,--shown by the fact that the subject promptly falls into\ntrance.\n\nIn such cases the action of the submerged perceptions, while provoked by\nvery shallow artifices, continues definitely _subliminal_. The patient\n_herself_, as we say, does not know why she does not burn her an\u00e6sthetic\nlimbs, or why she suddenly falls into a trance while being subjected to\noptical tests.\n\nBut it is equally easy to devise experiments which shall call these\nsubmerged sensations up again into supraliminal consciousness. A\nhysteric has lost sensation in one arm: Dr. Janet tells her that there\nis a caterpillar on that arm, and the reinforcement of attention thus\ngenerated brings back the sensibility.\n\nThese hysterical an\u00e6sthesi\u00e6, it may be added here, may be not only very\ndefinite but very profound. Just as the reality,--though also the\nimpermanence,--of the hysterical retrenchment of field of vision of\nwhich I have been speaking can be shown by optical experiments beyond\nthe patient's comprehension, so the reality of some profound organic\nhysterical insensibilities is sometimes shown by the progress of\nindependent disease. A certain patient feels no hunger or thirst: this\nindifference might be simulated for a time, but her ignorance of severe\ninflammation of the bladder is easily recognisable as real. Throw her\ninto hypnosis and her sensibilities return. The disease is for the first\ntime felt, and the patient screams with pain. This result well\nillustrates one main effect of hypnosis, viz., to bring the organism\ninto a more normal state. The deep organic an\u00e6sthesia of this patient\nwas dangerously abnormal; the missing sensibility had first to be\nrestored, although it might be desirable afterwards to remove the\npainful elements in that sensibility again, under, so to say, a wiser\nand deeper control.\n\nWhat has been said of hysterical defects of sensation might be repeated\nfor motor defects. There, too, the powers of which the supraliminal self\nhas lost control continue to act in obedience to subliminal promptings.\nThe hysteric who squeezes the dynamometer like a weak child can exert\ngreat muscular force under the influence of emotion.\n\nVery numerous are the cases which might be cited to give a notion of\ndissolutive hysterical processes, as now observed with closer insight\nthan formerly, in certain great hospitals. But, nevertheless, these\nhospital observations do not exhaust what has recently been learnt of\nhysteria. Dealing almost exclusively with a certain class of patients,\nthey leave almost untouched another group, smaller, indeed, but equally\ninstructive for our study.\n\nHysteria is no doubt a disease, but it is by no means on that account an\nindication of initial weakness of mind, any more than an Arctic\nexplorer's frost-bite is an indication of bad circulation. Disease is a\nfunction of two variables: power of resistance and strength of injurious\nstimulus. In the case of hysteria, as in the case of frost-bite, the\ninborn power of resistance may be unusually great, and yet the stimulus\nmay be so excessive that that power may be overcome. Arctic explorers\nhave generally, of course, been among the most robust of men. And with\nsome hysterics there is an even closer connection between initial\nstrength and destructive malady. For it has often happened that the very\nfeelings which we regard as characteristically civilised,\ncharacteristically honourable, have reached a pitch of vividness and\ndelicacy which exposes their owners to shocks such as the selfish clown\ncan never know. It would be a great mistake to suppose that all\npsychical upsets are due to vanity, to anger, to terror, to sexual\npassion. The instincts of personal cleanliness and of feminine modesty\nare responsible for many a breakdown of a sensitive, but not a\nrelatively _feeble_ organisation. The love of one's fellow-creatures and\nthe love of God are responsible for many more. And why should it not be\nso? There exist for many men and women stimuli far stronger than\nself-esteem or bodily desires. Human life rests more and more upon ideas\nand emotions whose relation to the conservation of the race or of the\nindividual is indirect and obscure. Feelings which may once have been\nutilitarian have developed wholly out of proportion to any advantage\nwhich they can gain for their possessor in the struggle for life. The\ndangers which are now most shudderingly felt are often no real risks to\nlife or fortune. The aims most ardently pursued are often worse than\nuseless for man regarded as a mere over-runner of the earth.\n\nThere is thus real psychological danger in fixing our conception of\nhuman character too low. Some essential lessons of a complex\nperturbation of personality are apt to be missed if we begin with the\nconviction that there is nothing before us but a study of decay. As I\nhave more than once found need to maintain, it is his steady advance,\nand not his occasional regression, which makes the chief concern of man.\n\nTo this side of the study of hysteria Drs. Breuer and Freud have made\nvaluable contribution. Drawing their patients not from hospital wards,\nbut from private practice, they have had the good fortune to encounter,\nand the penetration to understand, some remarkable cases where unselfish\nbut powerful passions have proved too much for the equilibrium of minds\npreviously well-fortified both by principle and by education.[11]\n\n\"Wax to receive and marble to retain\"; such, as we all have felt, is the\nhuman mind in moments of excitement which transcend its resistant\npowers. This may be for good or for evil, may tend to that radical\nchange in ethical standpoint which is called _conversion_, or to the\nmere setting-up of some hysterical disability. Who shall say how far we\ndesire to be susceptible to stimulus? Most rash would it be to assign\nany fixed limit, or to class as inferior those whose main difference\nfrom ourselves may be that they feel sincerely and passionately what we\nfeel torpidly, or perhaps only affect to feel. \"The term degenerate,\"\nsays Dr. Milne Bramwell, \"is applied so freely and widely by some modern\nauthors that one cannot help concluding that they rank as such all who\ndo not conform to some primitive, savage type, possessing an imperfectly\ndeveloped nervous system.\" Our \"degenerates\" may sometimes be in truth\n_progenerate_; and their perturbation may mask an evolution which we or\nour children needs must traverse when they have shown the way.\n\nLet us pause for a moment and consider what is here implied. We are\ngetting here among the _hyst\u00e9riques qui m\u00e8nent le monde_. We have\nadvanced, that is to say, from the region of _id\u00e9es fixes_ of a paltry\nor morbid type to the region of _id\u00e9es fixes_ which in themselves are\nreasonable and honourable, and which become morbid only on account of\ntheir relative intensity. Here is the debateable ground between hysteria\nand genius. The kind of genius which we approach here is not, indeed,\nthe purely intellectual form. Rather it is the \"moral genius,\" the\n\"genius of sanctity,\" or that \"possession\" by some altruistic idea which\nlies at the root of so many heroic lives.\n\nThe hagiology of all religions offers endless examples of this type.\nThat man would hardly be regarded as a great saint whose conduct seemed\ncompletely reasonable to the mass of mankind. The saint in consequence\nis apt to be set unduly apart, whether for veneration or for ridicule.\nHe is regarded either as inspired or as morbid; when in reality all that\nhis mode of life shows is that certain _id\u00e9es fixes_, in themselves of\nno unworthy kind, have obtained such dominance that their impulsive\naction may take and retake, as accident wills, the step between the\nsublime and the ridiculous.\n\nMartyrs, missionaries, crusaders, nihilists,--enthusiasts of any kind\nwho are swayed by impulses largely below the threshold of ordinary\nconsciousness,--these men bring to bear on human affairs a force more\nconcentrated and at higher tension than deliberate reason can generate.\nThey are virtually carrying out self-suggestions which have acquired the\npermanence of _id\u00e9es fixes_. Their fixed ideas, however, are not so\nisolated, so encysted as those of true hysterics. Although more deeply\nand immutably rooted than their ideas on other matters, these subliminal\nconvictions are worked in with the products of supraliminal reason, and\nof course can only thus be made effective over other minds. A deep\nsubliminal horror, generated, say, by the sight of some loathsome\ncruelty, must not only prompt hallucinations,--as it might do in the\nhysteric and has often done in the reformer as well,--it must also, if\nit is to work out its mission of reform, be held clearly before the\nsupraliminal reason, and must learn to express itself in writing or\nspeech adapted to influence ordinary minds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe may now pass from the first to the second of the categories of\ndisintegration of personality suggested at the beginning of this\nchapter. The cases which I have thus far discussed have been mainly\ncases of _isolation_ of elements of personality. We have not dealt as\nyet with _secondary personalities_ as such. There is, however, a close\nconnection between these two classes. There are cases, for example,\nwhere a kind of secondary state at times intervenes--a sort of\nbewilderment arising from confluent _id\u00e9es fixes_ and overrunning the\nwhole personality. This new state is often preceded or accompanied by\nsomething of somnambulic change. It is this new feature of which we have\nhere a first hint which seems to me of sufficient importance for the\ndiagnosis of my second class of psychical disintegrations. This second\nclass starts from sleep-wakings of all kinds, and includes all stages of\nalternation of personality, from brief somnambulisms up to those\npermanent and thorough changes which deserve the name of dimorphisms.\n\nWe are making here a transition somewhat resembling the transition from\nisolated bodily injuries to those subtler changes of diathesis which\nchange of climate or of nutrition may induce. Something has happened\nwhich makes the organism react to all stimuli in a new way. Our best\nstarting-point for the study of these secondary states lies among the\nphenomena of _dream_.\n\nWe shall in a later chapter discuss certain rare characteristics of\ndreams; occasional manifestations in sleep of waking faculty heightened,\nor of faculty altogether new. We have now to consider ordinary dreams\nin their aspect as indications of the structure of our personality, and\nas agencies which tend to its modification.\n\nIn the first place, it should be borne in mind that the dreaming state,\nthough I will not call it the normal form of mentation, is nevertheless\nthe form which our mentation most readily and habitually assumes. Dreams\nof a kind are probably going on within us both by night and by day,\nunchecked by any degree of tension of waking thought. This\nview--theoretically probable--seems to me to be supported by one's own\nactual experience in momentary dozes or even momentary lapses of\nattention. The condition of which one then becomes conscious is that of\nswarming fragments of thought or imagery, which have apparently been\ngoing on continuously, though one may become aware of them and then\nunaware at momentary intervals;--while one tries, for instance, to\nlisten to a speech or to read a book aloud between sleep and waking.\n\nThis, then, is the kind of mentation from which our clearer and more\ncoherent states may be supposed to develop. Waking life implies a\nfixation of attention on one thread of thought running through a tangled\nskein. In hysterical patients we see some cases where no such fixation\nis possible, and other cases where the fixation is involuntary, or\nfollows a thread which it is not desirable to pursue.\n\nThere is, moreover, another peculiarity of dreams which has hardly\nattracted sufficient notice from psychologists, but which it is\nessential to review when we are dealing with fractionations of\npersonality.[12] I allude to their _dramatic_ character. In dream, to\nbegin with, we have an environment, a surrounding scene which we have\nnot wittingly invented, but which we find, as it were, awaiting our\nentry. And in many cases our dream contains a _conversation_ in which we\nawait with eagerness and hear with surprise the remarks of our\ninterlocutor, who must, of course, all the time represent only another\nsegment or stratum of ourselves. This duplication may become either\npainful or pleasant. A feverish dream may simulate the confusions of\ninsanity--cases where the patient believes himself to be two persons at\nonce, and the like. [See R. L. Stevenson's dream, given in Appendix II.\nA] These complications rarely cause the dreamer any surprise. One may\neven say that with the first touch of sleep the superficial unity of\nconsciousness disappears, and that the dream world gives a truer\nrepresentation than the waking world of the real fractionation or\nmultiplicity existing beneath that delusive simplicity which the glare\nof waking consciousness imposes upon the mental field of view.\n\nBearing these analogies in mind, we shall see that the development of\nsomnambulism out of ordinary dream is no isolated oddity. It is parallel\nto the development of a secondary state from _id\u00e9es fixes_ when these\nhave passed a certain pitch of intensity. The sleep-waking states which\ndevelop from sleep have the characteristics which we should expect from\ntheir largely subliminal origin. They are less coherent than waking\nsecondary personalities, but richer in supernormal faculty. It is in\nconnection with displays of such faculty--hyper\u00e6sthesia or\ntel\u00e6sthesia--that they have been mainly observed, and that I shall, in a\nfuture chapter, have most need to deal with them. But there is also\ngreat interest simply in observing what fraction of the sleep-waker's\npersonality is able to hold intercourse with other minds. A trivial\ninstance of such intercourse reduced to its lowest point has often\nrecurred to me. When I was a boy another boy sleeping in the same room\nbegan to talk in his sleep. To some slight extent he could answer me;\nand the names and other words uttered--_Harry, the boat_, etc.--were\nappropriate to the day's incidents, and would have been enough to prove\nto me, had I not otherwise known, who the boy was. But his few coherent\nremarks represented not facts but dreaming fancies--_the boat is\nwaiting_, and so forth. This trivial jumble, I say, has since recurred\nto me as precisely parallel to many communications professing to come\nfrom disembodied spirits. There are other explanations, no doubt, but\none explanation of such incoherent utterances would be that the spirit\nwas speaking under conditions resembling those in which this sleeping\nboy spoke.\n\nThere are, of course, many stages above this. Spontaneous somnambulistic\nstates become longer in duration, more coherent in content, and may\ngradually merge, as in the well-known case of F\u00e9lida X. (see Appendix\nII. C) into a continuous or dimorphic new personality.\n\nThe transition which has now to be made is a very decided one. We have\nbeen dealing with a class of secondary personalities consisting of\nelements _emotionally selected_ from the total or primary personality.\nWe have seen some special group of feelings grow to morbid intensity,\nuntil at last it dominates the sufferer's mental being, either fitfully\nor continuously, but to such an extent that he is \"a changed person,\"\nnot precisely insane, but quite other than he was when in normal mental\nhealth. In such cases the new personality is of course dyed in the\nmorbid emotion. It is a kind of dramatic impersonation, say, of\njealousy, or of fear, like the case of \"demoniacal possession,\" quoted\nfrom Dr. Janet in Appendix II. B. In other respects the severance\nbetween the new and the old self is not very profound. Dissociations of\nmemory, for instance, are seldom beyond the reach of hypnotic\nsuggestion. The cleavage has not gone down to the depths of the\npsychical being.\n\nWe must now go on to cases where the origin of the cleavage seems to us\nquite arbitrary, but where the cleavage itself seems even for that very\nreason to be more profound. It is no longer a question of some one\nmorbidly exaggerated emotion, but rather of a scrap of the personality\ntaken at random and developing apart from the rest.\n\nThe commonest mode of origin for such secondary personalities is from\nsome access of sleep-waking, which, instead of merging into sleep again,\nrepeats and consolidates itself, until it acquires a chain of memories\nof its own, alternating with the primary chain.[13]\n\nAnd now, as an illustration of a secondary condition purely\ndegenerative, I may first mention _post-epileptic_ states, although they\nbelong too definitely to pathology for full discussion here.\nPost-epileptic conditions may run parallel to almost all the secondary\nphases which we have described. They may to all outward semblance\nclosely resemble normality,--differing mainly by a lack of rational\n_purpose_, and perhaps by a recurrence to the habits and ideas of some\nearlier moment in the patient's history. Such a condition resembles some\nhypnotic trances, and some factitious personalities as developed by\nautomatic writing. Or, again, the post-epileptic state may resemble a\nsuddenly developed _id\u00e9e fixe_ triumphing over all restraint, and may\nprompt to serious crime, abhorrent to the normal, but premeditated in\nthe morbid state. There could not, in fact, be a better example of the\nunchecked rule of middle-level centres;--no longer secretly controlled,\nas in hypnotic trance, by the higher-level centres,--which centres in\nthe epileptic are in a state not merely of psychological abeyance, but\nof physiological exhaustion.[14]\n\nThe case of Ansel Bourne is interesting in this connection.[15] Subject\nfrom childhood to fits of deep depression, and presenting in later life\nsymptoms suggestive of epilepsy, Ansel Bourne was struck down in his\nthirty-first year by what was supposed to be a severe sunstroke.\nConnected with this event were circumstances which led to a profound\nreligious conversion. At sixty-one years of age, being at that time an\nitinerant preacher, and living in the small town of Greene, in the State\nof Rhode Island, Ansel Bourne disappeared one morning, whilst apparently\nin his usual state of health, and remained undiscovered for a period of\ntwo months. At the end of this time he turned up at Norristown,\nPennsylvania, where for the previous six weeks he had been keeping a\nsmall variety store under the name of A. J. Brown, appearing to his\nneighbours and customers as an ordinary normal person, but being, as it\nwould seem, in a somnambulistic condition all the while. When he\nregained his ordinary waking consciousness, Ansel Bourne lost all memory\nof his actions while in his secondary state. In the year 1890, however,\nhaving been hypnotised by Professor James, he was able while in the\ntrance state to give an account of his doings during the eight weeks\nthat the Brown personality lasted.\n\nIn this case it is perhaps safest to regard the change of personality as\n_post-epileptic_, although I know of no recorded parallel to the length\nof time during which the influence of the attack must have continued.\nThe effect on mind and character would suit well enough with this\nhypothesis. The \"Brown\" personality showed the narrowness of interests\nand the uninquiring indifference which is common in such states. But on\nthis theory the case shows one striking novelty, namely, the recall by\nthe aid of hypnotism of the memory of the post-epileptic state. It is\ndoubtful, I think, whether any definite post-epileptic memory had ever\npreviously been recovered. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether\nserious recourse had ever been had at such times to hypnotic methods,\nwhose increasing employment certainly differentiates the latter from the\nearlier cases of split personality in a very favourable way. And this\napplication of hypnotism to post-epileptic states affords us possibly\nour best chance--I do not say of directly checking epilepsy, but of\ngetting down to the obscure conditions which predispose to each attack.\n\nNext we may mention two cases reported by Dr. Proust and M. Boeteau. Dr.\nProust's patient,[16] Emile X., aged thirty-three, was a barrister in\nParis. Although of good ability and education in classical studies, both\nas a boy and at the university he was always nervous and over sensitive,\nshowing signs, in fact, of _la grande hyst\u00e9rie_. During his attacks he\napparently underwent no loss of consciousness, but would lose the\nmemory of all his past life during a few minutes or a few days, and in\nthis condition of secondary consciousness would lead an active and\napparently normal life. From such a state he woke suddenly, and was\nentirely without memory of what had happened to him in this secondary\nstate. This memory was, however, restored by hypnotism.\n\nM. Boeteau's patient, Marie M.,[17] had been subject to hysterical\nattacks since she was twelve years old. She became an out-patient at the\nH\u00f4pital Andral for these attacks: and on April 24, 1891, being then\ntwenty-two years old, the house physician there advised her to enter the\nsurgical ward at the H\u00f4tel-Dieu, as she would probably need an operation\nfor an internal trouble. Greatly shocked by this news, she left the\nhospital at ten A.M., and lost consciousness. When she recovered\nconsciousness she found herself in quite another hospital--that of Ste.\nAnne--at six A.M. on April 27. She had been found wandering in the\nstreets of Paris, in the evening of the day on which she left the\nH\u00f4pital Andral. On returning to herself, she could recollect absolutely\nnothing of what had passed in the interval. While she was thus perplexed\nat her unexplained fatigue and footsoreness, and at the gap in her\nmemory, M. Boeteau hypnotised her. She passed with ease into the\nhypnotic state, and at once remembered the events which filled at least\nthe earlier part of the gap in her primary consciousness.\n\nThese two cases belong to the same general type as Ansel Bourne's. There\ndoes not seem, however, to be any definite evidence that the secondary\nstate was connected with epileptic attacks. It was referred rather by\nthe physicians who witnessed it to a functional derangement analogous to\nhysteria, though it must be remembered that there are various forms of\nepilepsy which are not completely understood, and some of which may be\noverlooked by persons who are not familiar with the symptoms.\n\nAnother remarkable case is that of the Rev. Thomas C. Hanna,[18] in whom\ncomplete amnesia followed an accident. By means of a method which Dr.\nSidis (who studied the case) calls \"hypnoidisation,\" he was able to\nprove that the patient had all his lost memories stored in his\nsubliminal consciousness, and could temporarily recall them to the\nsupraliminal. By degrees the two personalities which had developed\nsince the accident were thus fused into one and the patient was\ncompletely cured.\n\nFor another case of the ambulatory type, like Ansel Bourne's, but\nremarkable in that it was associated with a definite physical lesion--an\nabscess in the ear--the cure of which was followed by the rapid return\nof the patient to his normal condition, see Dr. Drewry's article in the\n_Medico-Legal Journal_ for June 1896 [228 A].\n\nAgain, in a case reported by Dr. David Skae,[19] the secondary state\nseems to owe its origin to a kind of tidal exhaustion of vitality, as\nthough the repose of sleep were not enough to sustain the weakened\npersonality, which lapsed on alternate days into exhaustion and\nincoherence.\n\nThe secondary personalities thus far dealt with have been the\nspontaneous results of some form of _mis\u00e8re psychologique_, of defective\nintegration of the psychical being. But there are also cases where, the\ncohesion being thus released, a slight touch from without can effect\ndissociations which, however shallow and almost playful in their first\ninception, may stiffen by repetition into phases as marked and definite\nas those secondary states which spring up of themselves, that is to say,\nfrom self-suggestions which we cannot trace. In Professor Janet's\n_L'Automatisme Psychologique_ the reader will find some instructive\nexamples of these fictitious secondary personalities [230 A and B].\n\nUp to this point the secondary states which we have considered; however\nstartling to old-fashioned ideas of personality, may, at any rate, be\nregarded as forms of mental derangement or decay--varieties on a theme\nalready known. Now, however, we approach a group of cases to which it is\ndifficult to make any such definition apply. They are cases where the\nsecondary state is _not_ obviously a degeneration;--where it may even\nappear to be in some ways an _improvement_ on the primary; so that one\nis left wondering how it came about that the man either originally was\nwhat he was, or--being what he was--suddenly became something so very\ndifferent. There has been a shake given to the kaleidoscope, and no one\ncan say why either arrangement of the component pieces should have had\nthe priority.\n\nIn the classical case of F\u00e9lida X. the second state is, as regards\nhealth and happiness, markedly superior to the first. (See Appendix II.\nC.)\n\nThe old case of Mary Reynolds[20] is again remarkable in respect of the\nchange of character involved. The deliverance from gloomy\npreoccupations--the childish insouciance of the secondary state--again\nillustrates the difference between these _allotropic_ changes or\nreconstructions of personality and that mere predominance of a morbid\nfactor which marked the cases of _id\u00e9e fixe_ and hysteria. Observe,\nalso, in Mary Reynolds's case the tendency of the two states gradually\nto _coalesce_ apparently in a third phase likely to be preferable to\neither of the two already known.\n\nWe now come to spontaneous cases of multiple personality, of which Louis\nViv\u00e9's is one of the best known. Louis Viv\u00e9 exhibited an extraordinary\nnumber and variety of phases of personality, affording an extreme\nexample of dissociations dependent on _time-relations_, on the special\nepoch of life in which the subject was ordered to find himself.[21]\nAmong various conditions of his organism--all but one of them implying,\nor at least simulating, some grave central lesion--any given condition\ncould be revived in a moment, and the whole gamut of changes rung on his\nnervous system as easily as if one were setting back or forward a\ncontinuous cinematograph. It is hard to frame a theory of memory which\nshall admit of these sudden reversions,--of playing fast and loose in\nthis manner with the accumulated impressions of years.\n\nYet if Louis Viv\u00e9's case thus strangely intensifies the already puzzling\nnotion of _ecmnesia_--as though the whole organism could be tricked into\nforgetting the events which had most deeply stamped it--what are we to\nsay to Dr. Morton Prince's case of \"Sally Beauchamp,\"[22] with its\ngrotesque exaggeration of a subliminal self--a kind of hostile bedfellow\nwhich knows everything and remembers everything--which mocks the\nemotions and thwarts the projects of the ordinary reasonable self which\ncan be seen and known? The case must be studied in full as it stands;\nits later developments may help to unravel the mysteries which its\nearlier stages have already woven.[23]\n\nI quote in full in the text the next case, reported by Dr. R. Osgood\nMason (in a paper entitled \"Duplex Personality: its Relation to\nHypnotism and to Lucidity,\" in the _Journal of the American Medical\nAssociation_, November 30th, 1895). Dr. Mason writes:--\n\n     Alma Z. was an unusually healthy and intellectual girl, a strong\n     and attractive character, a leading spirit in whatever she\n     undertook, whether in study, sport, or society. From overwork in\n     school, and overtaxed strength in a case of sickness at home, her\n     health was completely broken down, and after two years of great\n     suffering suddenly a second personality appeared. In a peculiar\n     child-like and Indian-like dialect she announced herself as\n     \"Twoey,\" and that she had come to help \"Number One\" in her\n     suffering. The condition of \"Number One\" was at this time most\n     deplorable; there was great pain, extreme debility, frequent\n     attacks of syncope, insomnia, and a mercurial stomatitis which had\n     been kept up for months by way of medical treatment and which\n     rendered it nearly impossible to take nourishment in any form.\n     \"Twoey\" was vivacious and cheerful, full of quaint and witty talk,\n     never lost consciousness, and could take abundant nourishment,\n     which she declared she _must_ do for the sake of \"Number One.\" Her\n     talk was most quaint and fascinating, but without a trace of the\n     acquired knowledge of the primary personality. She gave frequent\n     evidence of supranormal intelligence regarding events transpiring\n     in the neighbourhood. It was at this time that the case came under\n     my observation, and has remained so for the past ten years. Four\n     years later, under depressing circumstances, a third personality\n     made its appearance and announced itself as \"The Boy.\" This\n     personality was entirely distinct and different from either of the\n     others. It remained the chief alternating personality for four\n     years, when \"Twoey\" again returned.\n\n     All these personalities, though absolutely different and\n     characteristic, were delightful each in its own way, and \"Twoey\"\n     especially was, and still is, the delight of the friends who are\n     permitted to know her, whenever she makes her appearance; and this\n     is always at times of unusual fatigue, mental excitement, or\n     prostration; then she comes and remains days at a time. The\n     original self retains her superiority when she is present, and the\n     others are always perfectly devoted to her interest and comfort.\n     \"Number One\" has no personal knowledge of either of the other\n     personalities, but she knows them well, and especially \"Twoey,\"\n     from the report of others and from characteristic letters which are\n     often received from her; and \"Number One\" greatly enjoys the spicy,\n     witty, and often useful messages which come to her through these\n     letters and the report of friends.\n\nDr. Mason goes on to say:--\n\n     Here are three cases [the one just given, that of another patient\n     of his own, and that of F\u00e9lida X.] in which a second\n     personality--perfectly sane, thoroughly practical, and perfectly in\n     touch and harmony with its surroundings--came to the surface, so to\n     speak, and assumed absolute control of the physical organisation\n     for long periods of time together. During the stay of the second\n     personality the primary or original self was entirely blotted out,\n     and the time so occupied was a blank. In neither of the cases\n     described had the primary self any knowledge of the second\n     personality, except from the report of others or letters from the\n     second self, left where they could be found on the return of the\n     primary self to consciousness. The second personality, on the other\n     hand, in each case, knew of the primary self, but only as another\n     person--never as forming a part of, or in any way belonging to\n     their own personalities. In the case of both F\u00e9lida X. and Alma Z.,\n     there was always immediate and marked improvement in the physical\n     condition when the second personality made its appearance.\n\nThe case of Mollie Fancher,[24] which, had it been observed and recorded\nwith scientific accuracy, might have been one of the most instructive of\nall, seems to stand midway between the transformations of Louis\nViv\u00e9--each of them frankly himself at a different epoch of life--and the\n\"pseudo-possessions\" of imaginary spirits with which we shall in a later\nchapter have to deal.\n\nThe case of Anna Winsor[25] goes so far further in its suggestion of\ninterference from without that it presents to us, at any rate, a\ncontrast and even conflict between positive insanity on the part of the\norganism generally with wise and watchful sanity on the part of a single\nlimb, with which that organism professes to have no longer any concern.\n\nThe last case[26] that I shall mention is that of Miss Mary Lurancy\nVennum, the \"Watseka Wonder.\"\n\nThe case briefly is one of alleged \"possession,\" or \"spirit-control.\"\nThe subject of the account, a girl nearly fourteen years old, living at\nWatseka, Illinois, became apparently controlled by the spirit of Mary\nRoff, a neighbour's daughter, who had died at the age of eighteen years\nand nine months, when Lurancy Vennum was a child of about fifteen months\nold. The most extraordinary feature in the case was that the control by\nMary Roff lasted almost continuously for a period of four months.\n\nFor the present we must consider this case as a duplication of\npersonality--a pseudo-possession, if you will--determined in a\nhysterical child by the suggestion of friends, but at a later stage, and\nwhen some other wonders have become more familiar than now, we may find\nthat this singular narrative has further lessons to teach us.\n\nWe have now briefly surveyed a series of disintegrations of personality\nranging from the most trifling _id\u00e9e fixe_ to actual alternations or\npermanent changes of the whole type of character. All these form a kind\nof continuous series, and illustrate the structure of the personality in\nconcordant ways. There do exist, it must be added, other forms of\nmodified personality with which I shall not at present deal. Those are\ncases where some telepathic influence from outside has been at work, so\nthat there is not merely dissociation of existing elements, but apparent\nintroduction of a novel element. Such cases also pass through a long\nseries, from small phenomena of motor automatism up to trance and\nso-called possession. But all this group I mention here merely in order\nto defer their discussion to later chapters.\n\nThe brief review already made will suffice to indicate the complex and\nseparable nature of the elements of human personality. Of course a far\nfuller list might have been given; many phenomena of actual insanity\nwould need to be cited in any complete conspectus. But hysteria is in\nsome ways a better dissecting agent than any other where delicate\npsychical dissociations are concerned. Just as the microscopist stains a\nparticular tissue for observation, so does hysteria stain with\ndefiniteness, as it were, particular synergies--definite complexes of\nthought and action--more manifestly than any grosser lesion, any more\nprofound or persistent injury could do. Hysterical mutism, for instance\n(the observation is Charcot's[27]), supplies almost the only cases where\nthe faculty of vocal utterance is attacked in a quite isolated way. In\naphasia dependent upon organic injury we generally find other\nword-memories attacked also,--elements of agraphy, of word-blindness, of\nword-deafness appear. In the hysteric the incapacity to speak may be the\nsingle symptom. So with an\u00e6sthesi\u00e6; we find in hysteria a separation of\nsensibility to heat and to pain, possibly even a separate subsistence of\nelectrical sensibility. It is worth remarking here that it was during\nthe hypnotic trance, which in delicacy of discriminating power resembles\nhysteria, that (so far as I can make out) the distinctness of the\ntemperature-sense from the pain-sense was first observed. Esdaile, when\nremoving tumours under mesmerism in Calcutta, noticed that patients, who\nwere actually undergoing capital operations without a murmur, complained\nif a draught blew in upon them from an open window.\n\nNor is it only as a dissecting agent that hysteria can aid our research.\nThere are in hysteria frequent _acquisitions_ as well as _losses_ of\nfaculty. It is not unusual to find great hyper\u00e6sthesia in certain\nspecial directions--of touch, hearing, perception of light,\netc.--combined with hysterical loss of sensation of other kinds. This\nsubject will be more conveniently treated along with the hyper\u00e6sthesia\nof the hypnotic trance. But I may note here that just such occasional\nquickenings of faculty were, in my view, almost certain to accompany\nthat instability of psychical threshold which is the distinguishing\ncharacteristic of hysteria, since I hold that subliminal faculty\nhabitually overpasses supraliminal. These also are a kind of capricious\n_id\u00e9es fixes_; only the caprice in such cases raises what was previously\nsubmerged instead of exaggerating what was previously emergent.\n\nAnd from this point it is that our inquiries must now take their fresh\ndeparture. We in this work are concerned with changes which are the\n_converse_ of hysterical changes. We are looking for integrations in\nlieu of disintegrations; for intensifications of control, widenings of\nfaculty, instead of relaxation, scattering, or decay.\n\nSuppose, then, that in a case of instability of the psychical\nthreshold,--ready _permeability_, if you will, of the psychical\ndiaphragm separating the supraliminal from the subliminal self,--the\nelements of emergence tend to increase and the elements of submergence\nto diminish. Suppose that the permeability depends upon the force of the\nuprushes from below the diaphragm rather than on the tendency to sink\ndownwards from above it. We shall then reach the point where the vague\nname of _hysteria_ must give place to the vague name of _genius_. The\nuprushes from the subliminal self will now be the important feature; the\ndown-draught from the supraliminal, if it still exists, will be trivial\nin comparison. The content of the uprush will be congruous with the\ntrain of voluntary thought; and the man of genius will be a man more\ncapable than others of utilising for his waking purposes the subliminal\nregion of his being.\n\nNext in order to the uprushes of genius will come the uprushes of dream.\nAll men pass normally and healthily into a second phase of personality,\nalternating with the first. That is _sleep_, and sleep is characterised\nby those incoherent forms of subliminal uprush which we know as dreams.\nIt is here that our evidence for telepathy and tel\u00e6sthesia will first\npresent itself for discussion. Sleep will indicate the existence of\nsubmerged faculty of a rarer type than even that to which genius has\nalready testified.\n\nThere are, moreover, other states, both spontaneous and induced,\nanalogous to sleep, and these will form the subject of the fifth\nchapter, that on Hypnotism. Hypnotism, however, does not mean trance or\nsomnambulism only. It is a name, if not for the whole _ensemble_, yet\nfor a large group of those artifices which we have as yet discovered for\nthe purpose of eliciting and utilising subliminal faculty. The results\nof hypnotic suggestion will be found to imitate sometimes the subliminal\nuprushes of genius, and sometimes the visions of spontaneous\nsomnambulism; while they also open to us fresh and characteristic\naccesses into subliminal knowledge and power.\n\nFurther than this point our immediate forecast need not go. But when we\nhave completed the survey here indicated, we shall see, I think, how\nsignificant are the phenomena of hysteria in any psychological scheme\nwhich aims at including the hidden powers of man. For much as the\nhysteric stands in comparison to us ordinary men, so perhaps do we\nordinary men stand in comparison with a not impossible ideal of faculty\nand of self-control.\n\nBut apart from these broader speculations, it has become evident that\ndisturbances of personality are not mere empty marvels, but\npsycho-pathological problems of the utmost interest:--no one of them\nexactly like another, and no one of them without some possible _aper\u00e7u_\ninto the intimate structure of man.\n\nThe purpose of this book, of course, is not primarily practical. It aims\nrather at the satisfaction of scientific curiosity as to man's psychical\nstructure; esteeming _that_ as a form of experimental research which the\nmore urgent needs of therapeutics have kept in the background too long.\nYet it may not have been amiss to realise thus, on the threshold of our\ndiscussion, that already even the most delicate speculations in this\nline have found their justification in helpful act; that strange\nbewilderments, paralysing perturbations, which no treatment could\nalleviate, no drug control, have been soothed and stablished into sanity\nby some appropriate and sagacious mode of appeal to a _natura\nmedicatrix_ deep-hidden in the labouring breast.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nGENIUS\n\n    Igneus est ollis vigor et coelestis origo\n    Seminibus, quantum non noxia corpora tardant\n    Terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra.\n\n    --VIRGIL.\n\n\nIn my second chapter I made no formal attempt to define that human\npersonality which is to form the main subject of this book. I was\ncontent to take the conception roughly for granted, and to enter at once\non the study of the lapses of personality into abnormal\nconditions,--short of the lowest depths of idiocy or madness. From that\nsurvey it appeared that these degenerations could be traced to some\ndefect in that central control which ought to clasp and integrate into\nsteady manhood the hierarchies of living cells which compose the human\norganism. This insight into the Self's decay was the needed prerequisite\nto our present task--that of apprehending its true normality, and\nthereafter of analysing certain obscurer faculties which indicate the\nline of its evolution during and after the life of earth.\n\nStrength and concentration of the inward unifying control--_that_ must\nbe the true normality which we seek; and in seeking it we must remember\nhow much of psychical operation goes on below the conscious threshold,\nimperfectly obedient to any supraliminal appeal. What advance can we\nmake in inward mastery? how far extend our grasp over the whole range of\nfaculty with which we are obscurely endowed?\n\n\"Human perfectibility\" has been the theme of many enthusiasts; and many\nutopian schemes of society have been and still are suggested, which\npostulate in the men and women of the future an increase in moral and\nphysical health and vigour. And it is plain that in a broad and general\nway natural selection, sexual selection, and the advance of science are\nworking together towards improvements of these kinds. But it is plain\nalso that these onward tendencies, at least in comparison with our\ndesires and ideals, are slow and uncertain; and it is possible to argue\nthat the apparent advance in our race is due merely to the improvement\nwhich science has affected in its material environment, and not to any\nreal development, during the historical period, in the character or\nfaculties of man himself. Nay, since we have no means of knowing to what\nextent any genus has an inward potentiality of improvement, it is\npossible for the pessimist to argue that the _genus homo_ has reached\nits fore-ordained evolutionary limit; so that it cannot be pushed\nfurther in any direction without risk of nervous instability, sterility,\nand ultimate extinction. Some dim apprehension of this kind lends\nplausibility to many popular diatribes. Dr. Max Nordau's works afford a\nwell-known example of this line of protest against the present age as an\nage of overwork and of nervous exhaustion. And narrowing the vague\ndiscussion to a somewhat more definite test, Professor Lombroso and\nother anthropologists have discussed the characteristics of the \"man of\ngenius\"; with the result of showing (as they believe) that this\napparently highest product of the race is in reality not a culminant but\nan aberrant manifestation; and that men of genius must be classed with\ncriminals and lunatics, as persons in whom a want of balance or\ncompleteness of organisation has led on to an over-development of one\nside of the nature;--helpful or injurious to other men as accident may\ndecide.\n\nOn this point I shall join issue; and I shall suggest, on the other\nhand, that Genius--if that vaguely used word is to receive anything like\na psychological definition--should rather be regarded as a power of\nutilising a wider range than other men can utilise of faculties in some\ndegree innate in all;--a power of appropriating the results of\nsubliminal mentation to subserve the supraliminal stream of thought;--so\nthat an \"inspiration of Genius\" will be in truth a _subliminal uprush_,\nan emergence into the current of ideas which the man is consciously\nmanipulating of other ideas which he has not consciously originated, but\nwhich have shaped themselves beyond his will, in profounder regions of\nhis being. I shall urge that there is here no real departure from\nnormality; no abnormality, at least in the sense of degeneration; but\nrather a fulfilment of the true norm of man, with suggestions, it may\nbe, of something _supernormal_;--of something which transcends existing\nnormality as an advanced stage of evolutionary progress transcends an\nearlier stage.\n\nBut before proceeding further I wish to guard against a possible\nmisapprehension. I shall be obliged in this chapter to dwell on valuable\naid rendered by subliminal mentation; but I do not mean to imply that\nsuch mentation is _ipso facto superior_ to supraliminal, or even that it\ncovers a large proportion of practically useful human achievement. When\nI say \"The differentia of genius lies in an increased control over\nsubliminal mentation,\" I express, I think, a well-evidenced thesis, and\nI suggest an important inference,--namely, that the man of genius is for\nus the best type of the normal man, in so far as he effects a successful\nco-operation of an unusually large number of elements of his\npersonality--reaching a stage of integration slightly in advance of our\nown. Thus much I wish to say: but my thesis is not to be pushed\nfurther:--as though I claimed that all our best thought was subliminal,\nor that all that was subliminal was potentially \"inspiration.\"\n\nIt is true, however, that the range of our subliminal mentation is more\nextended than the range of our supraliminal. At one end of the scale we\nfind _dreams_,--a normal subliminal product, but of less practical value\nthan any form of sane supraliminal thought. At the other end of the\nscale we find that the rarest, most precious knowledge comes to us from\noutside the ordinary field,--through the eminently subliminal processes\nof telepathy, tel\u00e6sthesia, ecstasy. And between these two extremes lie\nmany subliminal products, varying in value according to the dignity and\ntrustworthiness of the subliminal mentation concerned.\n\nThis last phrase--inevitably obscure--may be illustrated by reference to\nthat hierarchical arrangement of _supraliminal_ action and perception\nwhich Dr. Hughlings Jackson has so used as to clear up much previous\nconfusion of thought. Following him, we now speak of highest-level\nnerve-centres, governing our highest, most complex thought and will; of\nmiddle-level centres, governing movements of voluntary muscles, and the\nlike; and of lowest-level centres (which from my point of view are\npurely subliminal), governing those automatic processes, as respiration\nand circulation, which are independent of conscious rule, but necessary\nto the maintenance of life. We can roughly judge from the nature of any\nobserved action whether the highest-level centres are directing it, or\nwhether they are for the time inhibited, so that middle-level centres\noperate uncontrolled.\n\nThus ordinary speech and writing are ruled by highest-level centres. But\nwhen an epileptic discharge of nervous energy has exhausted the\nhighest-level centres, we see the middle-level centres operating\nunchecked, and producing the convulsive movements of arms and legs in\nthe \"fit.\" As these centres in their turn become exhausted, the patient\nis left to the guidance of lowest-level centres alone;--that is to say,\nhe becomes comatose, though he continues to breathe as regularly as\nusual.\n\nNow this series of phenomena,--_descending_ in coherence and\ncoordination from an active consensus of the whole organism to a mere\nautomatic maintenance of its most stably organised processes,--may be\npretty closely paralleled by the series of subliminal phenomena also.\n\nSometimes we seem to see our subliminal perceptions and faculties acting\ntruly in unity, truly as a Self;--co-ordinated into some harmonious\n\"inspiration of genius,\" or some profound and reasonable hypnotic\nself-reformation, or some far-reaching supernormal achievement of\nclairvoyant vision or of self-projection into a spiritual world.\nWhatever of subliminal personality is thus acting corresponds with the\nhighest-level centres of supraliminal life. At such moments the\n_subliminal_ represents (as I believe) most nearly what will become the\n_surviving_ Self.\n\nBut it seems that this degree of clarity, of integration, cannot be long\npreserved. Much oftener we find the subliminal perceptions and faculties\nacting in less co-ordinated, less coherent ways. We have products which,\nwhile containing traces of some faculty beyond our common scope,\ninvolve, nevertheless, something as random and meaningless as the\ndischarge of the uncontrolled middle-level centres of arms and legs in\nthe epileptic fit. We get, in short, a series of phenomena which the\nterm _dream-like_ seems best to describe.\n\nIn the realm of genius,--of uprushes of thought and feeling fused\nbeneath the conscious threshold into artistic shape,--we get no longer\nmasterpieces but half-insanities,--not the Sistine Madonna, but Wiertz's\nVision of the Guillotined Head; not _Kubla Khan_, but the disordered\nopium dream. Throughout all the work of William Blake (I should say) we\nsee the subliminal self flashing for moments into unity, then\nsmouldering again in a lurid and scattered glow.\n\nIn the realm of hypnotism, again, we sink from the reasonable\nself-suggestion to the \"platform experiments,\"--the smelling of ammonia,\nthe eating of tallow candles;--all the tricks which show a _profound_\ncontrol, but not a _wise_ control, over the arcana of organic life. I\nspeak, of course, of the subject's _own_ control over his organism; for\nin the last resort it is _he_ and not his hypnotiser who really\nexercises that directive power. And I compare these tricks of\nmiddle-level subliminal centres to the powerful yet irrational control\nwhich the middle-level centres ruling the epileptic's arms and legs\nexercise over his muscles in the violence of the epileptic attack.\n\nAnd so again with the _automatisms_ which are, one may say, the\nsubliminal self's peculiar province. Automatic script, for instance, may\nrepresent highest-level subliminal centres, even when no extraneous\nspirit, but the automatist's own mind alone, is concerned. It will then\ngive us true telepathic messages, or perhaps messages of high moral\nimport, surpassing the automatist's conscious powers. But much oftener\nthe automatic script is regulated by what I have called middle-level\nsubliminal centres only;--and then, though we may have scraps of\nsupernormal intelligence, we have confusion and incoherence as well. We\nhave the falsity which the disgusted automatist is sometimes fain to\nascribe to a devil; though it is in reality not a devil, but a dream.\n\nAnd hence again, just as the epileptic sinks lower and lower in the\nfit,--from the incoordinated movements of the limbs down to the mere\nstertorous breathing of coma,--so do these incoherent automatisms sink\ndown at last, through the utterances and drawings of the degenerate and\nthe paranoiac,--through mere fragmentary dreams, or vague impersonal\nbewilderment,--into the minimum psychical concomitant, whatever that be,\nwhich must coexist with brain-circulation.\n\nSuch is the apparent parallelism; but of course no knowledge of a\nhierarchy of the familiar forms of nervous action can really explain to\nus the mysterious fluctuations of subliminal power.\n\nWhen we speak of the highest-level and other centres which govern our\nsupraliminal being, and which are fitted to direct this planetary life\nin a material world, we can to some extent point out actual\nbrain-centres whose action enables us to meet those needs. What are the\nneeds of our cosmic life we do not know; nor can we indicate any point\nin our organism (as in the \"solar plexus,\" or the like), which is\nadapted to meet them. We cannot even either affirm or deny that such\nspiritual life as we maintain while incarnated in this material envelope\ninvolves any physical concomitants at all.\n\nFor my part, I feel forced to fall back upon the old-world conception of\na _soul_ which exercises an imperfect and fluctuating control over the\norganism; and exercises that control, I would add, along two main\nchannels, only partly coincident--that of ordinary consciousness,\nadapted to the maintenance and guidance of earth-life; and that of\nsubliminal consciousness, adapted to the maintenance of our larger\nspiritual life during our confinement in the flesh.\n\nWe men, therefore, _clausi tenebris et carcere c\u00e6co_, can sometimes\nwiden, as we must sometimes narrow, our outlook on the reality of\nthings. In mania or epilepsy we lose control even of those highest-level\nsupraliminal centres on which our rational earth-life depends. But\nthrough automatism and in trance and allied states we draw into\nsupraliminal life some rivulet from the undercurrent stream. If the\nsubliminal centres which we thus impress into our waking service\ncorrespond to the _middle-level_ only, they may bring to us merely error\nand confusion; if they correspond to the highest-level, they may\nintroduce us to previously unimagined truth.\n\nIt is to work done by the aid of some such subliminal uprush, I say once\nmore, that the word \"genius\" may be most fitly applied. \"A work of\ngenius,\" indeed, in common parlance, means a work which satisfies two\nquite distinct requirements. It must involve something original,\nspontaneous, unteachable, unexpected; and it must also in some way win\nfor itself the admiration of mankind. Now, psychologically speaking, the\nfirst of these requirements corresponds to a real class, the second to a\npurely accidental one. What the poet feels while he writes his poem is\nthe psychological fact in _his_ history; what his friends feel while\nthey read it may be a psychological fact in _their_ history, but does\nnot alter the poet's creative effort, which was what it was, whether any\none but himself ever reads his poem or no.\n\nAnd popular phraseology justifies our insistence upon this subjective\nside of genius. Thus it is common to say that \"Hartley Coleridge\" (for\nexample) \"was a genius, although he never produced anything worth\nspeaking of.\" Men recognise, that is to say, from descriptions of\nHartley Coleridge, and from the fragments which he has left, that ideas\ncame to him with what I have termed a sense of subliminal uprush,--with\nan authentic, although not to us an instructive, inspiration.\n\nAs psychologists, I maintain, we are bound to base our definition of\ngenius upon some criterion of this strictly psychological kind, rather\nthan on the external tests which as artists or men of letters we should\nemploy;--and which consider mainly the degree of delight which any given\nachievement can bestow upon other men. The artist will speak of the\npictorial genius of Raphael, but not of Haydon; of the dramatic genius\nof Corneille, but not of Voltaire. Yet Haydon's Autobiography--a record\nof tragic intensity, and closing in suicide--shows that the tame yet\ncontorted figures of his \"Raising of Lazarus\" flashed upon him with an\novermastering sense of direct inspiration. Voltaire, again, writes to\nthe president H\u00e9nault of his unreadable tragedy _Catilina_: \"Five acts\nin a week! I know that this sounds ridiculous; but if men could guess\nwhat enthusiasm can do,--how a poet in spite of himself, idolising his\nsubject, devoured by his genius, can accomplish in a few days a task for\nwhich without that genius a year would not suffice;--in a word, _si\nscirent donum Dei_,--_if they knew the gift of God_,--their astonishment\nmight be less than it must be now.\" I do not shrink from these extreme\ninstances. It would be absurd, of course, to place Haydon's \"Raising of\nLazarus\" in the same _artistic_ class as Raphael's \"Madonna di San\nSisto.\" But in the same _psychological_ class I maintain that both\nworks must be placed. For each painter, after his several kind, there\nwas the same inward process,--the same sense of subliminal uprush;--that\nextension, in other words, of mental concentration which draws into\nimmediate cognisance some workings or elements of the hidden self.\n\nLet me illustrate this conception by a return to the metaphor of the\n\"conscious spectrum\" to which I introduced my reader in the first\nchapter. I there described our conscious spectrum as representing but a\nsmall fraction of the _aurai simplicis ignis_, or individual psychical\nray;--just as our visible solar spectrum represents but a small fraction\nof the solar ray. And even as many waves of ether lie beyond the red\nend, and many beyond the violet end, of that visible spectrum, so have I\nurged that much of unrecognised or subliminal faculty lies beyond the\nred (or organic) end, and much beyond the violet (or intellectual) end\nof my imaginary spectrum. My main task in this book will be to prolong\nthe psychical spectrum beyond either limit, by collecting traces of\nlatent faculties, organic or transcendental:--just as by the bolometer,\nby fluorescence, by other artifices, physicists have prolonged the solar\nspectrum far beyond either limit of ordinary visibility.\n\nBut at present, and before entering on that task of rendering manifest\nsupernormal faculty, I am considering what we ought to regard as the\nnormal range of faculty from which we start;--what, in relation to man,\nthe words _norm_ and _normal_ should most reasonably mean.\n\nThe word _normal_ in common speech is used almost indifferently to imply\neither of two things, which may be very different from each\nother--conformity to a standard and position as an average between\nextremes. Often indeed the average constitutes the standard--as when a\ngas is of normal density; or is practically equivalent to the\nstandard--as when a sovereign is of normal weight. But when we come to\nliving organisms a new factor is introduced. Life is change; each living\norganism changes; each generation differs from its predecessor. To\nassign a fixed norm to a changing species is to shoot point-blank at a\nflying bird. The actual average at any given moment is no ideal\nstandard; rather, the furthest evolutionary stage now reached is\ntending, given stability in the environment, to become the average of\nthe future. Human evolution is not so simple or so conspicuous a thing\nas the evolution of the pouter pigeon. But it would be rash to affirm\nthat it is not even swifter than any variation among domesticated\nanimals. Not a hundred generations separate us from the dawn of\nhistory;--about as many generations as some microbes can traverse in a\nmonth;--about as many as separate the modern Derby-winner from the\nwar-horse of Gustavus Adolphus. Man's change has been less than the\nhorse's change in physical contour,--probably only because man has not\nbeen specially bred with that view;--but taking as a test the power of\nself-adaptation to environment, man has traversed in these thirty\ncenturies a wider arc of evolution than separates the racehorse from the\neohippus. Or if we go back further, and to the primal germ, we see that\nman's ancestors must have varied faster than any animal's, since they\nhave travelled farthest in the same time. They have varied also in the\ngreatest number of directions; they have evoked in greatest multiplicity\nthe unnumbered faculties latent in the irritability of a speck of slime.\nOf all creatures man has gone furthest both in differentiation and in\nintegration; he has called into activity the greatest number of those\nfaculties which lay potential in the primal germ,--and he has\nestablished over those faculties the strongest central control. The\nprocess still continues. Civilisation adds to the complexity of his\nfaculties; education helps him to their concentration. It is in the\ndirection of a still wider range, a still firmer hold, that his\nevolution now must lie. I shall maintain that this ideal is best\nattained by the man of genius.\n\nLet us consider the way in which the maximum of faculty is habitually\nmanifested; the circumstances in which a man does what he has never\nsupposed himself able to do before. We may take an instance where the\nfaculty drawn upon lies only a little way beneath the surface. A man, we\nsay, outdoes himself in a great emergency. If his house is on fire, let\nus suppose, he carries his children out over the roof with a strength\nand agility which seem beyond his own. That effective impulse seems more\nakin to instinct than to calculation. We hardly know whether to call the\nact reflex or voluntary. It is performed with almost no conscious\nintervention of thought or judgment, but it involves a new and complex\nadaptation of voluntary muscles such as would need habitually the man's\nmost careful thought to plan and execute. From the point of view here\ntaken the action will appear to have been neither reflex nor voluntary\nin the ordinary sense, but _subliminal_;--a subliminal uprush, an\nemergence of hidden faculty,--of nerve co-ordinations potential in his\norganism but till now unused,--which takes command of the man and guides\nhis action at the moment when his being is deeply stirred.\n\nThis stock instance of a man's possible behaviour in moments of great\nphysical risk does but illustrate in a gross and obvious manner, and in\nthe motor region, a phenomenon which, as I hold, is constantly occurring\non a smaller scale in the inner life of most of us. We identify\nourselves for the most part with a stream of voluntary, fully conscious\nideas,--cerebral movements connected and purposive as the movement of\nthe hand which records them. Meantime we are aware also of a substratum\nof fragmentary automatic, _liminal_ ideas, of which we take small\naccount. These are bubbles that break on the surface; but every now and\nthen there is a stir among them. There is a rush upwards as of a\nsubaqueous spring; an inspiration flashes into the mind for which our\nconscious effort has not prepared us. This so-called inspiration may in\nitself be trivial or worthless; but it is the initial stage of a\nphenomenon to which, when certain rare attributes are also present, the\nname of genius will be naturally given.\n\nI am urging, then, that where life is concerned, and where, therefore,\nchange is normality, we ought to place our norm somewhat ahead of the\naverage man, though on the evolutionary track which our race is\npursuing. I have suggested that that evolutionary track is at present\nleading him in the direction of greater complexity in the perceptions\nwhich he forms of things without, and of greater concentration in his\nown will and thought,--in that response to perceptions which he makes\nfrom within. Lastly I have argued that men of genius, whose perceptions\nare presumably more vivid and complex than those of average men, are\nalso the men who carry the power of concentration furthest;--reaching\ndownwards, by some self-suggestion which they no more than we can\nexplain, to treasures of latent faculty in the hidden Self.\n\nI am not indeed here assuming that the faculty which is at the service\nof the man of genius is of a kind different from that of common men, in\nsuch a sense that it would need to be represented by a prolongation of\neither end of the conscious spectrum. Rather it will be represented by\nsuch a brightening of the familiar spectrum as may follow upon an\nintensification of the central light. For the spectrum of man's\nconscious faculty, like the solar spectrum, is not continuous but\nbanded. There are groups of the dark lines of obstruction and\nincapacity, and even in the best of us a dim unequal glow.\n\nIt will, then, be the special characteristic of genius that its uprushes\nof subliminal faculty will make the bright parts of the habitual\nspectrum more brilliant, will kindle the dim absorption-bands to fuller\nbrightness, and will even raise quite dark lines into an occasional\nglimmer.\n\nBut, if, as I believe, we can best give to the idea of genius some\nuseful distinctness by regarding it in some such way as this, we shall\nfind also that genius will fall into line with many other sensory and\nmotor automatisms to which the word could not naturally be applied.\nGenius represents a narrow selection among a great many cognate\nphenomena;--among a great many uprushes or emergences of subliminal\nfaculty both within and beyond the limits of the ordinary conscious\nspectrum.\n\nIt will be more convenient to study all these together, under the\nheading of sensory or of motor automatism. It will then be seen that\nthere is no kind of perception which may not emerge from beneath the\nthreshold in an indefinitely heightened form, with just that convincing\nsuddenness of impression which is described by men of genius as\ncharacteristic of their highest flights. Even with so simple a range of\nsensation as that which records the lapse of time there are subliminal\nuprushes of this type, and we shall see that a man may have a sudden and\naccurate inspiration of what o'clock it is, in just the same way as\nVirgil might have an inspiration of the second half of a difficult\nhexameter.\n\nFor the purpose of present illustration of the workings of genius it\nseems well to choose a kind of ability which is quite indisputable, and\nwhich also admits of some degree of quantitative measurement. I would\nchoose the higher mathematical processes, were data available; and I may\nsay in passing how grateful I should be to receive from mathematicians\nany account of the mental processes of which they are conscious during\nthe attainment of their highest results. Meantime there is a lower class\nof mathematical gift which by its very specialisation and isolation\nseems likely to throw light on our present inquiry.\n\nDuring the course of the present century,--and alas! the scientific\nobservation of unusual specimens of humanity hardly runs back further,\nor so far,--the public of great cities has been from time to time\nsurprised and diverted by some so-called \"calculating boy,\" or\n\"arithmetical prodigy,\" generally of tender years, and capable of\nperforming \"in his head,\" and almost instantaneously, problems for which\nordinary workers would require pencil and paper and a much longer time.\nIn some few cases, indeed, the ordinary student would have no means\nwhatever of solving the problem which the calculating boy unriddled with\nease and exactness.\n\nThe especial advantage of the study of arithmetical prodigies is that in\ntheir case the subjective impression coincides closely with the\nobjective result. The subliminal computator feels that the sum is right,\nand it _is_ right. Forms of real or supposed genius which are more\ninteresting are apt to be less undeniable.\n\nAn American and a French psychologist[28] have collected such hints and\nexplanations as these prodigies have given of their methods of working;\nmethods which one might naturally hope to find useful in ordinary\neducation. The result, however, has been very meagre, and the records\nleft to us, imperfect as they are, are enough to show that the main and\nprimary achievement has in fact been subliminal, while conscious or\nsupraliminal effort has sometimes been wholly absent, sometimes has\nsupervened only after the gift has been so long exercised that the\naccesses between different strata have become easy by frequent\ntraversing. The prodigy grown to manhood, who now recognises the\narithmetical artifices which he used unconsciously as a boy, resembles\nthe hypnotic subject trained by suggestion to remember in waking hours\nthe events of the trance.\n\nIn almost every point, indeed, where comparison is possible, we shall\nfind this computative gift resembling other manifestations of subliminal\nfaculty,--such as the power of seeing hallucinatory figures,--rather\nthan the results of steady supraliminal effort, such as the power of\nlogical analysis. In the first place, this faculty, in spite of its\nobvious connection with general mathematical grasp and insight, is found\nalmost at random,--among non-mathematical and even quite stupid persons,\nas well as among mathematicians of mark. In the second place, it shows\nitself mostly in early childhood, and tends to disappear in later\nlife;--in this resembling visualising power in general, and the power of\nseeing hallucinatory figures in particular; which powers, as both Mr.\nGalton's inquiries and our own tend to show, are habitually stronger in\nchildhood and youth than in later years. Again, it is noticeable that\nwhen the power disappears early in life it is apt to leave behind it no\nmemory whatever of the processes involved. And even when, by long\npersistence in a reflective mind, the power has become, so to say,\nadopted into the supraliminal consciousness, there nevertheless may\nstill be flashes of pure \"inspiration,\" when the answer \"comes into the\nmind\" with absolutely no perception of intermediate steps.\n\nI subjoin a table, compiled by the help of Dr. Scripture's collection,\nwhich will broadly illustrate the main points above mentioned. Some more\ndetailed remarks may then follow.\n\n  TABLE OF PRINCIPAL ARITHMETICAL PRODIGIES.\n\n  +-----------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+\n  |        Name           | Age when gift |  Duration of  |               |\n  |  (alphabetically).    | was observed. |     gift.     | Intelligence. |\n  +-----------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+\n  |Amp\u00e8re                 |      4        |       ?       |    eminent    |\n  |Bidder                 |     10        |  through life |      good     |\n  |Buxton                 |      ?        |       ?       |      low      |\n  |Colburn                |      6        |   few years   |    average    |\n  |Dase [or Dahse]        |   boyhood     |  through life |    very low   |\n  |Fuller                 |   boyhood     |       ?       |      low      |\n  |Gauss                  |      3        |       ?       |    eminent    |\n  |Mangiamele             |     10        |   few years   |    average?   |\n  |Mondeux                |     10        |   few years   |      low      |\n  |Prolongeau             |      6        |   few years   |      low      |\n  |Safford                |      6        |   few years   |      good     |\n  |\"Mr. Van R., of Utica\" |      6        |   few years   |    average?   |\n  |Whately                |      3        |   few years   |      good     |\n  +-----------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+\n\nNow among these thirteen names we have two men of transcendent, and\nthree of high ability. What accounts have they given us of their\nmethods?\n\nOf the gift of Gauss and Amp\u00e8re we know nothing except a few striking\nanecdotes. After manifesting itself at an age when there is usually no\ncontinuous supraliminal mental effort worth speaking of, it appears to\nhave been soon merged in the general blaze of their genius. With Bidder\nthe gift persisted through life, but grew weaker as he grew older. His\npaper in Vol. XV. of the _Proceedings of the Institute of Civil\nEngineers_, while furnishing a number of practical hints to the\ncalculator, indicates also a singular readiness of communication between\ndifferent mental strata. \"Whenever,\" he says (p. 255) \"I feel called\nupon to make use of the stores of my mind, they seem to rise with the\nrapidity of lightning.\" And in Vol. CIII. of the same _Proceedings_, Mr.\nW. Pole, F.R.S., in describing how Mr. Bidder could determine mentally\nthe logarithm of any number to 7 or 8 places, says (p. 252): \"He had an\nalmost miraculous power of seeing, as it were, intuitively what factors\nwould divide any large number, not a prime. Thus, if he were given the\nnumber 17,861, he would instantly remark it was 337\u00d753.... He could not,\nhe said, explain how he did this; it seemed a natural instinct to him.\"\n\nPassing on to the two other men of high ability known to have possessed\nthis gift, Professor Safford and Archbishop Whately, we are struck with\nthe evanescence of the power after early youth,--or even before the end\nof childhood. I quote from Dr. Scripture Archbishop Whately's account of\nhis powers.\n\n     There was certainly something peculiar in my calculating faculty.\n     It began to show itself at between five and six, and lasted about\n     three years.... I soon got to do the most difficult sums, always in\n     my head, for I knew nothing of figures beyond numeration. I did\n     these sums much quicker than any one could upon paper, and I never\n     remember committing the smallest error. _When I went to school, at\n     which time the passion wore off, I was a perfect dunce at\n     ciphering, and have continued so ever since._\n\nStill more remarkable, perhaps, was Professor Safford's loss of power.\nProfessor Safford's whole bent was mathematical; his boyish gift of\ncalculation raised him into notice; and he is now a Professor of\nAstronomy. He had therefore every motive and every opportunity to retain\nthe gift, if thought and practice could have retained it. But whereas at\nten years old he worked correctly in his head, in one minute, a\nmultiplication sum whose answer consisted of 36 figures, he is now, I\nbelieve, neither more nor less capable of such calculation than his\nneighbours.\n\nSimilar was the fate of a personage who never rises above initials, and\nof whose general capacity we know nothing.\n\n\"Mr. Van R., of Utica,\" says Dr. Scripture on the authority of Gall, \"at\nthe age of six years distinguished himself by a singular faculty for\ncalculating in his head. At eight he entirely lost this faculty, and\nafter that time he could calculate neither better nor faster than any\nother person. _He did not retain the slightest idea of the manner in\nwhich he performed his calculations in childhood._\"\n\nTurning now to the stupid or uneducated prodigies, Dase alone seems to\nhave retained his power through life. Colburn and Mondeux, and\napparently Prolongeau and Mangiamele, lost their gift after childhood.\n\nOn the whole the ignorant prodigies seldom appear to have been conscious\nof any continuous logical process, while in some cases the separation of\nthe supraliminal and subliminal trains of thought must have been very\ncomplete. \"Buxton would talk freely whilst doing his questions, that\nbeing no molestation or hindrance to him.\"[29] Fixity and clearness of\ninward visualisation seems to have been the leading necessity in all\nthese achievements; and it apparently mattered little whether the mental\nblackboard (so to say) on which the steps of the calculation were\nrecorded were or were not visible to the mind's eye of the supraliminal\nself.\n\nI have been speaking only of visualisation; but it would be interesting\nif we could discover how much actual mathematical insight or\ninventiveness can be subliminally exercised. Here, however, our\nmaterials are very imperfect. From Gauss and Amp\u00e8re we have, so far as I\nknow, no record. At the other end of the scale, we know that Dase\n(perhaps the most successful of all these prodigies) was singularly\ndevoid of mathematical grasp. \"On one occasion Petersen tried in vain\nfor six weeks to get the first elements of mathematics into his head.\"\n\"He could not be made to have the least idea of a proposition in Euclid.\nOf any language but his own he could never master a word.\" Yet Dase\nreceived a grant from the Academy of Sciences at Hamburg, on the\nrecommendation of Gauss, for mathematical work; and actually in twelve\nyears made tables of factors and prime numbers for the seventh and\nnearly the whole of the eighth million,--a task which probably few men\ncould have accomplished, without mechanical aid, in an ordinary\nlifetime. He may thus be ranked as the only man who has ever done\nvaluable service to Mathematics without being able to cross the Ass's\nBridge.\n\nNo support is given by what we know of this group to the theory which\nregards subliminal mentation as necessarily a sign of some morbid\ndissociation of physical elements. Is there, on the other hand, anything\nto confirm a suggestion which will occur in some similar cases, namely,\nthat,--inasmuch as the addition of subliminal to supraliminal mentation\nmay often be a completion and integration rather than a fractionation or\ndisintegration of the total individuality,--we are likely sometimes to\nfind traces of a more than common activity of the _right_ or less used\ncerebral hemisphere? Finding no mention of ambidexterity in the meagre\nnotices which have come down to us of the greater \"prodigies,\" I begged\nthe late Mr. Bidder, Q.C., and Mr. Blyth, of Edinburgh (the well-known\ncivil engineer and perhaps the best living English representative of\nwhat we may call the calculating diathesis), to tell me whether their\nleft hands possessed more than usual power. And I find that in\nthese--the only two cases in which I have been able to make\ninquiry--there is somewhat more of dextro-cerebral capacity than in the\nmass of mankind.\n\nWe may now pass on to review some further instances of subliminal\nco-operation with conscious thought;--first looking about us for any\ncases comparable in _definiteness_ with the preceding; and then\nextending our view over the wider and vaguer realm of creative and\nartistic work.\n\nBut before we proceed to the highly-specialised senses of hearing and\nsight, we must note the fact that there are cases of subliminal\nintensification of those perceptions of a less specialised kind which\nunderlie our more elaborate modes of cognising the world around us. The\nsense of the _efflux of time_, and the sense of _weight_, or of\nmuscular resistance, are amongst the profoundest elements in our organic\nbeing. And the sense of time is indicated in several ways as a largely\nsubliminal faculty. There is much evidence to show that it is often more\nexact in men sleeping than in men awake, and in men hypnotised than in\nmen sleeping. The records of spontaneous somnambulism are full of\npredictions made by the subject as to his own case, and accomplished,\npresumably by self-suggestion, but without help from clocks, at the\nprecise minute foretold. Or this hidden knowledge may take shape in the\nimagery of dream, as in a case published by Professor Royce, of\nHarvard,[30] where his correspondent describes \"a dream in which I saw\nan enormous flaming clock-dial with the hands standing at 2.20. Awaking\nimmediately, I struck a match, and upon looking at my watch found it was\na few seconds past 2.20.\"\n\nSimilarly we find cases where the uprush of subliminal faculty is\nconcerned with the deep organic sensation of muscular resistance. We\nneed not postulate any direct or supernormal knowledge,--but merely a\nsubliminal calculation, such as we see in the case of \"arithmetical\nprodigies,\" expressing itself supraliminally, sometimes in a phantasmal\npicture, sometimes as a mere \"conviction,\" without sensory clothing.[31]\n\nPassing on here to subliminal products of _visual_ type, I am glad to be\nable to quote the following passage which seems to me to give in germ\nthe very theory for which I am now contending on the authority of one of\nthe most lucid thinkers of the last generation.\n\nThe passage occurs in an article by Sir John Herschel on \"Sensorial\nVision,\" in his _Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects_, 1816. Sir\nJohn describes some experiences of his own, \"which consist in the\ninvoluntary production of visual impressions, into which geometrical\nregularity of form enters as the leading character, and that, under\ncircumstances which altogether preclude any explanation drawn from a\npossible regularity of structure in the retina or the optic nerve.\"[32]\nTwice these patterns appeared in waking daylight hours,--with no illness\nor discomfort at the time or afterwards. More frequently they appeared\nin darkness; but still while Sir John was fully awake. They appeared\nalso twice when he was placed under chloroform; \"and I should observe\nthat I never lost my consciousness of being awake and in full\npossession of my mind, though quite insensible to what was going on....\nNow the question at once presents itself--What _are_ these Geometrical\nSpectres? and how, and in what department of the bodily or mental\neconomy do they originate? They are evidently not dreams. The mind is\nnot dormant, but active and conscious of the direction of its thoughts;\nwhile these things obtrude themselves on notice, and by calling\nattention to them, _direct_ the train of thought into a channel it would\nnot have taken of itself.... If it be true that the conception of a\nregular geometrical pattern implies the exercise of thought and\nintelligence, it would almost seem that in such cases as those above\nadduced we have evidence of a _thought_, an intelligence, working within\nour own organisation distinct from that of our own personality.\" And Sir\nJohn further suggests that these complex figures, entering the mind in\nthis apparently arbitrary fashion, throw light upon \"the suggestive\nprinciple\" to which \"we must look for much that is determinant and\ndecisive of our volition when carried into action.\" \"It strikes me as\nnot by any means devoid of interest to contemplate cases where, in a\nmatter so entirely abstract, so completely devoid of any moral or\nemotional bearing, as the production of a geometrical figure, we, as it\nwere, seize upon that principle in the very act, and in the performance\nof its office.\"\n\nFrom my point of view, of course, I can but admire the acumen which\nenabled this great thinker to pierce to the root of the matter by the\naid of so few observations. He does not seem to have perceived the\nconnection between these \"schematic phantasms,\" to borrow a phrase from\nProfessor Ladd,[33] and the hallucinatory figures of men or animals seen\nin health or in disease. But even from his scanty data his inference\nseems to me irresistible;--\"we have evidence of a _thought_, an\nintelligence, working within our own organisation, distinct from that of\nour own personality.\" I shall venture to claim him as the first\noriginator of the theory to which the far fuller evidence now accessible\nhad independently led myself.\n\nCases observed as definitely as those just quoted are few in number; and\nI must pass on into a much trodden--even a confusedly\ntrampled--field;--the records, namely, left by eminent men as to the\nelement of subconscious mentation, which was involved in their best\nwork. Most of these stories have been again and again repeated;--and\nthey have been collected on a large scale in a celebrated work,--to me\nespecially distasteful, as containing what seems to me the loose and\nextravagant parody of important truth. It is not my business here to\ncriticise Dr. Von Hartmann's _Philosophy of the Unconscious_ in detail;\nbut I prefer to direct my readers' attention to a much more modest\nvolume, in which a young physician has put together the results of a\ndirect inquiry addressed to some Frenchmen of distinction as to their\nmethods especially of imaginative work.[34] I quote a few of the replies\naddressed to him, beginning with some words from M. Sully Prudhomme,--at\nonce psychologist and poet,--who is here speaking of the subconscious\nclarification of a chain of abstract reasoning. \"I have sometimes\nsuddenly understood a geometrical demonstration made to me a year\npreviously without having in any way directed thereto my attention or\nwill. It seemed that the mere spontaneous ripening of the conceptions\nwhich the lectures had implanted in my brain had brought about within me\nthis novel grasp of the proof.\"\n\nWith this we may compare a statement of Arago's--\"Instead of obstinately\nendeavouring to understand a proposition at once, I would admit its\ntruth provisionally;--and next day I would be astonished at\nunderstanding thoroughly that which seemed all dark before.\"\n\nCondillac similarly speaks of finding an incomplete piece of work\nfinished next day in his head.\n\nSomewhat similarly, though in another field, M. Rett\u00e9, a poet, tells Dr.\nChabaneix that he falls asleep in the middle of an unfinished stanza,\nand when thinking of it again in the morning finds it completed. And M.\nVincent d'Indy, a musical composer, says that he often has on waking a\nfugitive glimpse of a musical effect which (like the memory of a dream)\nneeds a strong immediate concentration of mind to keep it from\nvanishing.\n\nDe Musset writes, \"On ne travaille pas, on \u00e9coute, c'est comme un\ninconnu qui vous parle \u00e0 l'oreille.\"\n\nLamartine says, \"Ce n'est pas moi qui pense; ce sont mes id\u00e9es qui\npensent pour moi.\"\n\nR\u00e9my de Gourmont: \"My conceptions rise into the field of consciousness\nlike a flash of lightning or like the flight of a bird.\"\n\nM. S. writes: \"In writing these dramas I seemed to be a spectator at the\nplay; I gazed at what was passing on the scene in an eager, wondering\nexpectation of what was to follow. And yet I felt that all this came\nfrom the depth of my own being.\"\n\nSaint-Saens had only to listen, as Socrates to his D\u00e6mon; and M. Ribot,\nsumming up a number of similar cases, says: \"It is the unconscious which\nproduces what is vulgarly called inspiration. This condition is a\npositive fact, accompanied with physical and psychical characteristics\npeculiar to itself. Above all, it is impersonal and involuntary, it acts\nlike an instinct, when and how it chooses; it may be wooed, but cannot\nbe compelled. Neither reflection nor will can supply its place in\noriginal creation.... The bizarre habits of artists when composing tend\nto create a special physiological condition,--to augment the cerebral\ncirculation in order to provoke or to maintain the unconscious\nactivity.\"\n\nIn what precise way the cerebral circulation is altered we can hardly at\npresent hope to know. Meantime a few psychological remarks fall more\neasily within our reach.\n\nIn the first place, we note that a very brief and shallow submergence\nbeneath the conscious level is enough to infuse fresh vigour into\nsupraliminal trains of thought. Ideas left to mature unnoticed for a few\ndays, or for a single night, seem to pass but a very little way beneath\nthe threshold. They represent, one may say, the first stage of a process\nwhich, although often inconspicuous, is not likely to be\ndiscontinuous,--the sustenance, namely, of the supraliminal life by\nimpulse or guidance from below.\n\nIn the second place, we see in some of these cases of deep and fruitful\n_abstraction_ a slight approach to duplication of personality. John\nStuart Mill, intent on his _Principles of Logic_, as he threaded the\ncrowds of Leadenhall Street, recalls certain morbid cases of hysterical\n_distraction_;--only that with Mill the process was an integrative one\nand not a dissolutive one--a gain and not a loss of power over the\norganism.\n\nAnd thirdly, in some of these instances we see the man of genius\nachieving spontaneously, and unawares, much the same result as that\nwhich is achieved for the hypnotic subject by deliberate artifice. For\nhe is in fact co-ordinating the waking and the sleeping phases of his\nexistence. He is carrying into sleep the knowledge and the purpose of\nwaking hours;--and he is carrying back into waking hours again the\nbenefit of those profound assimilations which are the privilege of\nsleep. Hypnotic suggestion aims at co-operations of just this kind\nbetween the waking state in which the suggestion, say, of some\nfunctional change, is planned and the sleeping state in which that\nchange is carried out,--with benefit persisting anew into waking life.\nThe hypnotic trance, which is a _developed_ sleep, thus accomplishes for\nthe ordinary man what ordinary sleep accomplishes for the man of genius.\n\nThe coming chapters on Sleep and Hypnotism will illustrate this point\nmore fully. But I may here anticipate my discussion of _dreams_ by\nquoting one instance where dreams, self-suggested by waking will,\nformed, as one may say, an integral element in distinguished genius.\n\nThe late Robert Louis Stevenson, being in many ways a typical man of\ngenius, was in no way more markedly gifted with that integrating\nfaculty--that increased power over all strata of the personality--which\nI have ascribed to genius, than in his relation to his dreams (see \"A\nChapter on Dreams\" in his volume _Across the Plains_). Seldom has the\nessential analogy between dreams and inspiration been exhibited in such\na striking way. His dreams had always (he tells us) been of great\nvividness, and often of markedly _recurrent_ type. But the point of\ninterest is that, when he began to write stories for publication, the\n\"little people who managed man's internal theatre\" understood the change\nas well as he.\n\n     When he lay down to prepare himself for sleep, he no longer sought\n     amusement, but printable and profitable tales; and after he had\n     dozed off in his box-seat, his little people continued their\n     evolutions with the same mercantile designs.... For the most part,\n     whether awake or asleep, he is simply occupied--he or his little\n     people--in consciously making stories for the market....\n\n     The more I think of it, the more I am moved to press upon the world\n     my question: \"Who are the Little People?\" They are near connections\n     of the dreamer's, beyond doubt; they share in his financial worries\n     and have an eye to the bank book; they share plainly in his\n     training; ... they have plainly learned like him to build the\n     scheme of a considerate story and to arrange emotion in progressive\n     order; only I think they have more talent; and one thing is beyond\n     doubt,--they can tell him a story piece by piece, like a serial,\n     and keep him all the while in ignorance of where they aim....\n\n     That part [of my work] which is done while I am sleeping is the\n     Brownies' part beyond contention; but that which is done when I am\n     up and about is by no means necessarily mine, since all goes to\n     show the Brownies have a hand in it even then.\n\nSlight and imperfect as the above statistics and observations admittedly\nare, they seem to me to point in a more useful direction than do some of\nthe facts collected by that modern group of anthropologists who hold\nthat genius is in itself a kind of nervous malady, a disturbance of\nmental balance, akin to criminality or even to madness.\n\nIt is certainly not true, as I hold, either that the human race in\ngeneral is nervously degenerating, or that nervous degeneration tends to\na maximum in its most eminent members. But it can be plausibly\nmaintained that the proportion of nervous to other disorders tends to\nincrease. And it is certain that not nervous degeneration but nervous\nchange or development is now proceeding among civilised peoples more\nrapidly than ever before, and that this self-adaptation to wider\nenvironments must inevitably be accompanied in the more marked cases by\nsomething of nervous instability. And it is true also that from one\npoint of view these changes might form matter for regret; and that in\norder to discern what I take to be their true meaning we have to regard\nthe problem of human evolution from a somewhat unfamiliar standpoint.\n\nThe nervous system is probably tending in each generation to become more\ncomplex and more delicately ramified. As is usual when any part of an\norganism is undergoing rapid evolutive changes, this nervous progress is\naccompanied with some instability. Those individuals in whom the\nhereditary or the acquired change is the most rapid are likely also to\nsuffer most from a _perturbation which masks evolution_--an occasional\nappearance of what may be termed \"nervous sports\" of a useless or even\ninjurious type. Such are the fancies and fanaticisms, the bizarre likes\nand dislikes, the excessive or aberrant sensibilities, which have been\nobserved in some of the eminent men whom Lombroso discusses in his book\non the Man of Genius. Their truest analogue, as we shall presently see\nmore fully, lies in the oddities or morbidities of sentiment or\nsensation which so often accompany the development of the human organism\ninto its full potencies, or precede the crowning effort by which a fresh\norganism is introduced into the world.\n\nSuch at least is my view; but the full acceptance of this view must\ndepend upon some very remote and very speculative considerations bearing\nupon the nature and purport of the whole existence and evolution of man.\nYet however remote and speculative the thesis which I defend may be, it\nis not one whit remoter or more speculative than the view which, _faute\nde mieux_, is often tacitly assumed by scientific writers.\n\nIn our absolute ignorance of the source from whence life came, we have\nno ground for assuming that it was a purely planetary product, or that\nits unknown potentialities are concerned with purely planetary ends. It\nwould be as rash for the biologist to assume that life on earth can only\npoint to generations of further life on earth as it would have been for\nsome cosmic geologist to assume--before the appearance of life on\nearth--that geological forces must needs constitute all the activity\nwhich could take place on this planet.\n\nSince the germ of life appeared on earth, its history has been a history\nnot only of gradual _self-adaptation_ to a known environment, but of\ngradual _discovery_ of an environment, always there, but unknown. What\nwe call its primitive simple irritability was in fact a dim pan\u00e6sthesia;\na potential faculty, as yet unconscious of all the stimuli to which it\nhad not yet learnt to respond. As these powers of sensation and of\nresponse have developed, they have gradually revealed to the living germ\nenvironments of which at first it could have no conception.\n\nIt is probable, to begin with, that the only environment which the vast\nmajority of our ancestors knew was simply hot water. For the greater\npart of the time during which life has existed on earth it would have\nbeen thought chimerical to suggest that we could live in anything else.\nIt was a great day for us when an ancestor crawled up out of the\nslowly-cooling sea;--or say rather when a previously unsuspected\ncapacity for directly breathing air gradually revealed the fact that we\nhad for long been breathing air in the water;--and that we were living\nin the midst of a vastly extended environment,--the atmosphere of the\nearth. It was a great day again when another ancestor felt on his\npigment-spot the solar ray;--or say rather when a previously unsuspected\ncapacity for perceiving light revealed the fact that we had for long\nbeen acted upon by light as well as by heat; and that we were living in\nthe midst of a vastly extended environment,--namely, the illumined\nUniverse that stretches to the Milky Way. It was a great day when the\nfirst skate (if skate he were) felt an unknown virtue go out from him\ntowards some worm or mudfish;--or say rather when a previously\nunsuspected capacity for electrical excitation demonstrated the fact\nthat we had long been acted upon by electricity as well as by heat and\nby light; and that we were living in an inconceivable and limitless\nenvironment,--namely, an ether charged with infinite energy, overpassing\nand interpenetrating alike the last gulf of darkness and the extremest\nstar. All this,--phrased perhaps in some other fashion,--all men admit\nas true. May we not then suppose that there are yet other environments,\nother interpretations, which a further awakening of faculty still\nsubliminal is yet fated by its own nascent response to discover? Will it\nbe alien to the past history of evolution if I add: It was a great day\nwhen the first thought or feeling flashed into some mind of beast or man\nfrom a mind distant from his own?--when a previously unsuspected\ncapacity of telepathic percipience revealed the fact that we had long\nbeen acted upon by telepathic as well as by sensory stimuli; and that we\nwere living in an inconceivable and limitless environment,--a\nthought-world or spiritual universe charged with infinite life, and\ninterpenetrating and overpassing all human spirits,--up to what some\nhave called World-Soul, and some God?\n\nAnd now it will be easily understood that one of the corollaries from\nthe conception of a constantly widening and deepening perception of an\nenvironment infinite in infinite ways, will be that the faculties which\nbefit the material environment have absolutely no primacy, unless it be\nof the merely chronological kind, over those faculties which science has\noften called _by-products_, because they have no manifest tendency to\naid their possessor in the struggle for existence in a material world.\nThe higher gifts of genius--poetry, the plastic arts, music, philosophy,\npure mathematics--all of these are precisely as much in the central\nstream of evolution--are perceptions of new truth and powers of new\naction just as decisively predestined for the race of man--as the\naboriginal Australian's faculty for throwing a boomerang or for swarming\nup a tree for grubs. There is, then, about those loftier interests\nnothing exotic, nothing accidental; they are an intrinsic part of that\never-evolving response to our surroundings which forms not only the\nplanetary but the cosmic history of all our race.\n\nWhat inconsistencies, what absurdities, underlie that assumption that\nevolution means nothing more than the survival of animals fittest to\nconquer enemies and to overrun the earth. On that bare hypothesis the\ngenus _homo_ is impossible to explain. No one really attempts to explain\nhim except on the tacit supposition that Nature somehow tended to evolve\nintelligence--somehow needed to evolve joy; was not satisfied with such\nan earth-over-runner as the rabbit, or such an invincible conqueror as\nthe influenza microbe. But _how much_ intelligence, _what_ kind of joy\nNature aimed at--is this to be left to be settled by the instinct of\n_l'homme sensuel moyen?_ or ought we not rather to ask of the best\nspecimens of our race what it is that they live for?--whether they\nlabour for the meat that perisheth, or for Love and Wisdom? To more and\nmore among mankind the need of food is supplied with as little conscious\neffort as the need of air; yet these are often the very men through whom\nevolution is going on most unmistakably--who are becoming the typical\nfigures of the swiftly-changing race.\n\nOnce more. If this point of view be steadily maintained, we shall gain\nfurther light on some of those strangenesses and irregularities of\ngenius which have led to its paradoxical juxtaposition with insanity as\na divergence from the accepted human type. The distinctive\ncharacteristic of genius is the large infusion of the subliminal in its\nmental output; and one characteristic of the subliminal in my view is\nthat it is in closer relation than the supraliminal to the spiritual\nworld, and is thus nearer to the primitive source and extra-terrene\ninitiation of life. And earthly Life itself--embodied as it is in\npsycho-physically individualised forms--is, on the theory advanced in\nthese pages, a product or characteristic of the etherial or metetherial\nand not of the gross material world. Thence in some unknown fashion it\ncame; there in some unknown fashion it subsists even throughout its\nearthly manifestation; thither in some unknown fashion it must after\nearthly death return. If indeed the inspirations of genius spring from\na source one step nearer to primitive reality than is that specialised\nconsensus of faculties which natural selection has lifted above the\nthreshold for the purposes of working-day existence, then surely we need\nnot wonder if the mind and frame of man should not always suffice for\nsmooth and complete amalgamation; if some prefiguration of faculties\nadapted to a later stage of being should mar the symmetry of the life of\nearth.\n\nAnd thus there may really be something at times _incommensurable_\nbetween the inspirations of genius and the results of conscious logical\nthought. Just as the calculating boy solves his problems by methods\nwhich differ from the methods of the trained mathematician, so in\nartistic matters also that \"something of strangeness\" which is in \"all\nexcellent beauty,\" may be the expression of a real difference between\nsubliminal and supraliminal modes of perception. I cannot help thinking\nthat such a difference is perceptible in subliminal relations to speech;\nthat the subliminal self will sometimes surpass conscious effort, if it\nis treating speech as a branch of Art, in Poetry;--or else in some sense\nwill fall short of conscious effort, when it is merely using words as an\nunavoidable medium to express ideas which common speech was hardly\ndesigned to convey.\n\nThus, on the one hand, when in presence of one of the great verbal\nachievements of the race--say the _Agamemnon_ of \u00c6schylus--it is hard to\nresist the obscure impression that some form of intelligence other than\nsupraliminal reason or conscious selection has been at work. The result\nless resembles the perfection of rational choice among known data than\nthe imperfect presentation of some scheme based on perceptions which we\ncannot entirely follow.\n\nBut, on the other hand, even though words may thus be used by genius\nwith something of the mysterious remoteness of music itself, it seems to\nme that our subliminal mentation is less closely bound to the faculty of\nspeech than is our supraliminal. There is a phrase in common use which\ninvolves perhaps more of psychological significance than has yet been\nbrought out. Of all which we can call genius, or which we can ally with\ngenius--of art, of love, of religious emotion--it is common to hear men\nsay that they _transcend the scope of speech_. Nor have we any reason\nfor regarding this as a mere vague sentimental expression.\n\nThere is no _a priori_ ground for supposing that language will have the\npower to express all the thoughts and emotions of man. It may indeed be\nmaintained that the inevitable course of its development tends to\nexhibit more and more clearly its inherent limitations. \"Every\nlanguage,\" it has been said, \"begins as poetry and ends as algebra.\" To\nuse the terms employed in this work, every language begins as a\nsubliminal uprush and ends as a supraliminal artifice. Organic instincts\nimpel to primitive ejaculation; unconscious laws of mind shape early\ngrammar. But even in our own day--and we are still in the earth's\ninfancy--this na\u00efvet\u00e9 of language is fast disappearing. The needs of\nscience and of commerce have become dominant, and although our\nvocabulary, based as it is on concrete objects and direct sensations, is\nrefined for the expression of philosophic thought, still we cannot\nwonder if our supraliminal manipulation leaves us with an instrument\nless and less capable of expressing the growing complexity of our whole\npsychical being.\n\nWhat then, we may ask, is the attitude and habit of the subliminal self\nlikely to be with regard to language? Is it not probable that other\nforms of symbolism may retain a greater proportional importance among\nthose submerged mental operations which have not been systematised for\nthe convenience of communication with other men?\n\nI think that an intelligent study of visual and motor automatism will\nafford us sufficient proof that symbolism, at any rate pictorial\nsymbolism, becomes increasingly important as we get at the contents of\nthose hidden strata. Telepathic messages, especially, which form, as we\nshall see, the special prerogative or characteristic of subliminal\ncommunication, seem to be conveyed by vague impression or by inward or\nexternalised picture oftener than by articulate speech. And I may so far\nanticipate later discussion of _automatic writings_ (whether\nself-inspired or telepathic) as to point out a curious linguistic\nquality which almost all such writings share. The \"messages\" of a number\nof automatists, taken at random, will be sure to resemble each other\nmuch more closely than do the supraliminal writings of the same persons.\nQuite apart from their general correspondence in _ideas_--which belongs\nto another branch of our subject--there is among the automatic writings\nof quite independent automatists a remarkable correspondence of literary\nstyle. There is a certain quality which reminds one of a _translation_,\nor of the compositions of a person writing in a language which he is not\naccustomed to talk. These characteristics appear at once in automatic\nscript, even of the incoherent kind; they persist when there is no\nlonger any dream-like incoherence; they are equally marked, even when,\nas often happens, the automatic script surpasses in intelligence, and\neven in its own kind of eloquence, the products of the waking or\nsupraliminal mind.\n\nAnd side by side and intercurrent with these written messages come those\nstrange meaningless arabesques which have been baptized as\n\"spirit-drawings\"--though they rarely show any clear trace of the\noperation of an external intelligence.[35] These complex and fanciful\ncompositions--often absolutely automatic--appear to me like a stammering\nor rudimentary symbolism; as though the subliminal intelligence were\nstriving to express itself through a vehicle perhaps more congenial to\nits habits than articulate language.\n\nReturning, then, from these illustrations drawn from actual _automatism_\nto our proper subject of _genius_,--that happy mixture of subliminal\nwith supraliminal faculty,--we may ask ourselves in what kind of\nsubliminal uprush this hidden habit of wider symbolism, of\nself-communion beyond the limits of speech, will be likely to manifest\nitself above the conscious threshold.\n\nThe obvious answer to this question lies in the one word Art. The\ninspiration of Art of all kinds consists in the invention of precisely\nsuch a wider symbolism as has been above adumbrated. I am not speaking,\nof course, of symbolism of a forced and mechanical kind--symbolism\ndesigned and elaborated as such--but rather of that pre-existent but\nhidden concordance between visible and invisible things, between matter\nand thought, between thought and emotion, which the plastic arts, and\nmusic, and poetry, do each in their own special field discover and\nmanifest for human wisdom and joy.\n\nIn using these words, I must repeat, I am far from adopting the formul\u00e6\nof any special school. The symbolism of which I speak implies nothing of\nmysticism. Nor indeed, in my view, can there be any real gulf or deep\ndivision between so-called realistic and idealistic schools. All that\nexists is continuous; nor can Art symbolise any one aspect of the\nuniverse without also implicitly symbolising aspects which lie beyond.\n\nAnd thus in the Arts we have symbolism at every stage of transparency\nand obscurity; from symbolisms which merely summarise speech to\nsymbolisms which transcend it. Sometimes, as with Music, it is worse\nthan useless to press for too close an interpretation. Music marches,\nand will march for ever, through an ideal and unimaginable world. Her\nmelody may be a mighty symbolism, but it is a symbolism to which man has\nlost the key. Poetry's material, on the other hand, is the very language\nwhich she would fain transcend. But her utterance must be subliminal and\nsymbolic, if it is to be poetry indeed; it must rise (as has been\nalready hinted) from a realm profounder than deliberate speech; it must\ncome charged, as Tennyson has it, with that \"charm in words, a charm no\nwords can give.\"\n\nHere, too, we must dwell for a moment upon another and higher kind of\ninternal visualisation. I have spoken of the arithmetical prodigy as\npossessing a kind of internal blackboard, on which he inscribes with\nease and permanence his imaginary memoranda. But blackboards are not the\nonly surfaces on which inscriptions can be made. There are other\nmen--prodigies of a different order--whose internal _tabula_ is not of\nblackened wood, but of canvas or of marble; whose inscriptions are not\nrows of Arabic numerals but living lines of colour, or curves of\nbreathing stone. Even the most realistic art is something more than\ntranscript and calculation; and for art's higher imaginative\nachievements there must needs be moments of inward idealisation when\nvisible beauty seems but the token and symbol of beauty unrevealed; when\nPraxiteles must \"draw from his own heart the archetype of the Eros that\nhe made;\" when Tintoret must feel with Heraclitus that \"whatsoever we\nsee waking is but deadness, and whatsoever sleeping, is but dream.\"\n\nBut when we reach this point we have begun (as I say) to transcend the\nspecial province to which, in Chapter I, I assigned the title of\n_genius_. I there pointed out that the influence of the subliminal on\nthe supraliminal might conveniently be divided under three main heads.\nWhen the subliminal mentation co-operates with and supplements the\nsupraliminal, without changing the apparent phase of personality, we\nhave _genius_. When subliminal operations change the apparent phase of\npersonality from the state of waking in the direction of trance, we have\n_hypnotism_. When the subliminal mentation forces itself up through the\nsupraliminal, without amalgamation, as in crystal-vision, automatic\nwriting, etc., we have _sensory or motor automatism_. In accordance with\nthis definition, the _content_ of the inspirations of genius is supposed\nto be of the same general type as the content of ordinary thought. We\nhave regarded genius as crystallising fluid ideas; or, if you will, as\nconcentrating and throwing upwards in its clear fountain a maze of\nsubterranean streams. But we have not regarded it as modifying, in such\noperation, the ordinary alert wakefulness of the thinker, nor as\nproviding bun with any fresh knowledge, obtainable by supernormal\nmethods alone.\n\nIt is plain, however, that such distinctions as those which I have drawn\nbetween genius, trance, automatism, cannot possibly be rigid or\nabsolute. They are distinctions made for convenience between different\nphases of what must really be a continuous process--namely, the\ninfluence of the Self below the threshold upon the Self above it.\nBetween each of these definite phases all kinds of connections and\nintermediate stages must surely exist.\n\nConnections between _trance_ and _automatism_, indeed, are obvious\nenough. The difficulty has rather lain in their clear separation.\nTrance, when habitual, is pretty sure to lead to automatic speech or\nwriting. Automatism, when prolonged, is similarly apt to induce a state\nof trance.\n\nThe links between _Genius_ and these cognate states are of a less\nconspicuous kind. They do, however, exist in such variety as to confirm\nin marked fashion the analogies suggested above.\n\nAnd first, as to the connection between genius and automatism, one may\nsay that just as anger is a brief madness, so the flash of Genius is\nessentially a brief automatism.\n\nWordsworth's moments of inspiration, when, as he says,\n\n    \"Some lovely image in the song rose up\n     Full-formed, like Venus rising from the sea,\"\n\nwere in effect moments of automatic utterance; albeit of utterance held\nfast in immediate co-operation with the simultaneous workings of the\nsupraliminal self. Such a sudden poetic creation, like the calculating\nboy's announcement of the product of two numbers, resembles the sudden\nrush of planchette or pencil, in haste to scrawl some long-wished-for\nword.\n\nNow extend this momentary automatism a little further. We come then to\nwhat is called the faculty of improvisation. How much is meant by this\nterm? Is the extempore oration, \"the unpremeditated lay,\" in truth a\nsubliminal product? or have we to do merely with the rapid exercise of\nordinary powers?\n\nIn the first place, it is clear that much of what is called\nimprovisation is a matter of memory. The so-called secondary automatism\nwhich enables the pianist to play a known piece without conscious\nattention passes easily into improvisations which the player himself may\ngenuinely accept as original; but which really consist of remembered\nfragments united by conventional links of connection. Thus also the\norator, \"thinking on his legs,\" trusts himself at first to the automatic\nrepetition of a few stock phrases, but gradually finds that long periods\nflow unforeseen and unremembered from his tongue.\n\nWe thus get beyond the range of stereotyped synergies, of habituations\nof particular groups of nerve-centres to common action. There is some\nadaptability and invention; some new paths are traversed; adjustments\nare made for which no mere recurrence to old precedents will suffice.\n\nThe problem here resembles that well-known difficulty of explaining what\ngoes on during the restoration or \"substitution\" of function after an\ninjury to the brain. In that case, the brain-elements which remain\nuninjured slowly assume functions which they apparently never exercised\nbefore,--rearranging paths of cerebral communication in order to get the\nold efficiency out of the damaged and diminished brain-material. This\nrecovery is not rapid like an extemporisation, but gradual, like a\nhealing or re-growth, and it therefore does not suggest an intelligent\ncontrol so much as a physiological process, like the re-budding on a\ncertain pre-ordained pattern of the severed claw of a crab. Of course\nthis restoration of brain-functions is inexplicable, as all growth is at\npresent inexplicable. We may call it indeed with some reason the highest\nprocess of human growth. So viewed, it forms a kind of middle term\nbetween ordinary growth of bone or muscle, always on a predetermined\nplan, and that sudden creation of new cerebral connections or pathways\nwhich is implied in an inspiration of genius. Such a juxtaposition need\nnot weaken my claim that the inspirations of genius represent a\nco-operant stream of submerged mentation, fully as developed in its own\nway as the mentation of which we are conscious above the threshold. The\nnature and degree of subliminal faculty must of course be judged by its\nhighest manifestations. And this analogy between the hidden operations\nof _genius_ and of _growth_ would rather support me in regarding organic\ngrowth also as controlled by something of intelligence or memory, which\nunder fitting conditions--as in the hypnotic trance--may be induced to\nco-operate with the waking will.\n\nMoreover, the talent of improvisation, which suggested these analogies,\nwill sometimes act much more persistently than in the case of the orator\nor the musician. There is reason to believe (both from internal style\nand from actual statements) that it plays a large part in imaginative\nliterature. Various passages from George Sand's life-history,\ncorroborated by the statements of other persons familiar with her\nmethods of working, reveal in her an unusual vigour and fertility of\nliterary outflow going on in an almost dream-like condition; a condition\nmidway between the actual inventive dreams of R. L. Stevenson and the\nconscious labour of an ordinary man's composition.\n\nWhat George Sand felt in the act of writing was a continuous and\neffortless flow of ideas, sometimes with and sometimes without an\napparent _externalisation_ of the characters who spoke in her romances.\nAnd turning to another author, as sane and almost as potent as George\nSand herself, we find a phenomenon which would have suggested to us\nactual insanity if observed in a mind less robust and efficient. If the\nallusions to the apparent independence of Dickens's characters which are\nscattered through his letters be read with our related facts in view, it\nwill no longer be thought that they are intended as a mystification.\nMrs. Gamp, his greatest creation, spoke to him, he tells us (generally\nin church) as with an inward monitory voice.\n\nAnd note further that as scientific introspection develops we are likely\nto receive fuller accounts of these concurrent mental processes, these\npartial externalisations of the creatures of the romancer's brain. One\nsuch account, both definite and elaborate, has been published by M.\nBinet in _L'Ann\u00e9e Psychologique_ for 1894.[36]\n\nThis account,--contributed as serious evidence, as M. Binet's long\narticle shows,--is thoroughly concordant with several other cases\nalready known to us. It comes midway between Stevenson's dreams and the\nhysteric's _id\u00e9es fixes_.\n\nI have thus far endeavoured to show that Genius represents not only the\ncrystallisation of ideas already existing in floating form in the\nsupraliminal intelligence, but also an independent, although concurrent,\nstream of mentation, spreading often to wider range, although still\nconcerned with matters in themselves cognisable by the normal\nintelligence.\n\nLet us proceed to push the inquiry a step further. It has been claimed\nin this work for subliminal uprushes generally that they often contain\nknowledge which no ordinary method of research could acquire. Is this\nsupernormal knowledge--we ought now to ask--ever represented in the\nuprushes to which we give the name of Genius?\n\nWhat is the relation, in short, of the man of Genius to the sensitive?\n\nIf the man of Genius be, as I have urged, on the whole the completest\ntype of humanity, and if the sensitive's special gift be in itself one\nof the most advanced forms of human faculty, ought not the inspirations\nof genius to bring with them flashes of supernormal knowledge as\nintimate as those which the sensitive--perhaps in other respects a\ncommonplace person--from time to time is privileged to receive?\n\nSome remarkable instances of this kind undoubtedly do exist. The most\nconspicuous and most important of all cannot, from motives of reverence,\nbe here discussed. Nor will I dwell upon other founders of religions, or\non certain traditional saints or sages. But among historical characters\nof the first mark the names of Socrates and of Joan of Arc are enough to\ncite. I believe that the monitions of the D\u00e6mon of Socrates--the\nsubliminal self of a man of transcendent genius--have in all probability\nbeen described to us with literal truth: and did in fact convey to that\ngreat philosopher precisely the kind of tel\u00e6sthetic or precognitive\ninformation which forms the sensitive's privilege to-day. We have thus\nin Socrates the ideal unification of human powers.\n\nIt must, however, be admitted that such complete unification is not the\ngeneral rule for men of genius; that their inspirations generally stop\nshort of telepathy or of tel\u00e6sthesia. I think we may explain this\nlimitation somewhat as follows. The man of genius is what he is by\nvirtue of possessing a readier communication than most men possess\nbetween his supraliminal and his subliminal self. From his subliminal\nself, he can only draw what it already possesses; and we must not assume\nas a matter of course that the subliminal region of any one of us\npossesses that particular sensitivity--that specific transparency--which\ncan receive and register _definite facts_ from the unseen. _That_ may be\na gift which stands as much alone--in independence of other gifts or\nfaculties--in the subliminal region as, say, a perfect musical ear in\nthe supraliminal. The man of genius may draw much from those hidden\nwells of being without seeing reflected therein any actual physical\nscene in the universe beyond his ordinary ken.\n\nAnd yet neither must we hastily assume that because the man of genius\ngets no _definite_ impression of a world beyond our senses he does not\ntherefore get any _true_ impression, which is all his own.\n\nI believe, on the contrary, that true, though vague, impressions of a\nworld beyond the range of sense are actually received--I do not say by\nall men of genius, but by men of genius of certain types.[37]\n\nA dim but genuine consciousness of the spiritual environment; that (it\nseems) is the degree of revelation which artistic or philosophic genius\nis capable of conferring. Subliminal uprushes, in other words, so far as\nthey are intellectual, tend to become _tel\u00e6sthetic_. They bring with\nthem indefinite intimations of what I hold to be the great truth that\nthe human spirit is essentially capable of a deeper than sensorial\nperception, of a direct knowledge of facts of the universe outside the\nrange of any specialised organ or of any planetary view.\n\nBut this conclusion points the way to a speculation more important\nstill. Tel\u00e6sthesia is not the only spiritual law, nor are subliminal\nuprushes affairs of the intellect alone. Beyond and above man's innate\npower of world-wide perception, there exists also that universal link of\nspirit with spirit which in its minor earthly manifestations we call\ntelepathy. Our submerged faculty--the subliminal uprushes of genius--can\nexpand in that direction as well as in the direction of tel\u00e6sthesia.\nThe emotional content, indeed, of those uprushes is even profounder and\nmore important than the intellectual;--in proportion as Love and\nReligion are profounder and more important than Science or Art.\n\nThat primary passion, I repeat, which binds life to life, which links us\nboth to life near and visible and to life imagined but unseen;--_that_\nis no mere organic, no mere planetary impulse, but the inward aspect of\nthe telepathic law. Love and religion are thus _continuous_; they\nrepresent different phases of one all-pervading mutual gravitation of\nsouls. The flesh does not conjoin, but dissever; although through its\nvery severance it suggests a shadow of the union which it cannot bestow.\nWe have to do here neither with a corporeal nor with a purely human\nemotion. Love is the energy of integration which makes a Cosmos of the\nSum of Things.\n\nBut here there is something of controversy to traverse before a revived\nPlatonic conception of love can hope to be treated by the physiologist\nas more than a pedantic jest. And naturally so; since there is no\nemotion subliminal over so wide a range of origin,--fed so obscurely by\n\"all thoughts, all passions, all delights,\"--and consequently so\nmysterious even to the percipient himself. At one end of its scale love\nis based upon an instinct as primitive as the need of nutrition; even if\nat the other end it becomes, as Plato has it, the [Greek: herm\u00eaneuon\nkai] \"the Interpreter and Mediator between God and Man.\" The controversy\nas to the planetary or cosmical scope of the passion of Love is in fact\ncentral to our whole subject.\n\nIt will give clearness to the question in dispute if I quote here a\nstrong expression of each view in turn. For the physiological or\nmaterialist conception of the passion of love,--where love's subliminal\nelement is held to be of the organic type,--set forth in no light or\ncynical spirit, but with the moral earnestness of a modern Lucretius, I\ncan turn to no better authority than Professor Pierre Janet. The passage\nwhich follows is no mere _boutade_ or paradox; it is a kind of\nculminating expression of the theory which regards the supraliminal man\nas the normal man, and distrusts all deep disturbance of his accustomed\npsychical routine.\n\n     It is commonly said that love is a passion to which man is always\n     liable, and which may surprise him at any moment of his life from\n     15 to 75. This does not seem to me accurate; and a man is not\n     throughout all his life and at every moment susceptible of falling\n     in love (_de devenir amoureux_). When a man is in good physical and\n     moral health, when he has easy and complete command of all his\n     ideas, he may expose himself to circumstances the most capable of\n     giving rise to a passion, but he will not feel it. His desires will\n     be reasonable and obedient to his will, leading the man only so far\n     as he wishes to go, and disappearing when he wishes to be rid of\n     them. On the other hand, if a man is morally below the mark\n     (_malade au moral_),--if in consequence of physical fatigue or\n     excessive intellectual work, or of violent shocks and prolonged\n     sorrow, he is exhausted, melancholy, distracted, timid, incapable\n     of controlling his ideas,--in a word, _depressed_,--then he will\n     fall in love, or receive the germ of some kind of passion, on the\n     first and most trivial occasion.... The least thing is then enough;\n     the sight of some face, a gesture, a word, which previously would\n     have left us altogether indifferent, strikes us, and becomes the\n     starting point of a long amorous malady. Or more than this, an\n     object which had made no impression on us, at a moment when our\n     mind was healthier and not capable of inoculation, may have left in\n     us some insignificant memory which reappears in a moment of morbid\n     receptivity. That is enough; the germ is sown in a favourable soil;\n     it will develop itself and grow.\n\n     There is at first, as in every virulent malady, a period of\n     incubation; the new idea passes and repasses in the vague reveries\n     of the enfeebled consciousness; then seems for a few days to have\n     disappeared and to leave the mind to recover from its passing\n     trouble. But the idea has done its work below the surface; it has\n     become strong enough to shake the body; and to provoke movements\n     whose origin lies outside the primary consciousness. What is the\n     surprise of a sensible man when he finds himself piteously\n     returning beneath the windows of his charmer, whither his wandering\n     feet have taken him without his knowledge;--or when in the midst of\n     his daily work he hears his lips murmuring perpetually the\n     well-known name!... Such is passion in its reality; not as\n     idealised by fantastic description, but reduced to its essential\n     psychological characteristics. (_L'Automatisme Psychologique_, p.\n     466.)\n\nOn the other side I will appeal to Plato himself, giving a brief sketch\nmerely of one of the leading passages (_Symposium_, 192-212) where the\nPlatonic conception of love is set forth.[38]\n\nPlato begins by recognising, as fully as pessimist or cynic could do,\nthe absolute inadequacy of what is called on earth the satisfaction of\nthis profound desire. Lovers who love aright will feel that no physical\nnearness can content them, but what _will_ content them they cannot say.\n\"Their soul,\" says Plato, \"is manifestly desiring something else; and\nwhat it is she cannot tell, only she darkly prophesies thereof and\nguesses it from afar. But if Heph\u00e6stus with his forging fire were to\nstand beside that pair and say: 'Is this what ye desire--to be wholly\none? to be together by night and day?--for I am ready to melt you\ntogether and to make you grow in one, so that from two ye shall become\none only, and in this life shall be undivided, and dying shall die\ntogether, and in the underworld shall be a single soul';--there is no\nlover who would not eagerly accept the offer, and acknowledge it as the\nexpression of the unknown yearning and the fulfilment of the ancient\nneed.\" And through the mouth of Diotima, Plato insists that it is an\nunfailing sign of true love that its desires are _for ever_; nay, that\nlove may be even defined as the desire of the _everlasting_ possession\nof the good. And in all love's acts he finds the impress of man's\ncraving for immortality,--for immortality whose only visible image for\nus on earth is the birth of children to us as we ourselves decay,--so\nthat when the slow self-renewal of our own everchanging bodies has worn\nout and ceased, we may be renewed in brighter, younger bodies which we\ndesire to be born to us from whomsoever we find most fair. \"And then,\"\nsays Plato, rising, as ever, from visible to invisible things, \"if\nactive _bodies_ have so strong a yearning that an endless series of\nlovely images of themselves may constitute, as it were, an earthly\nimmortality for them when they have worn away, how greatly must creative\n_souls_ desire that partnership and close communion with other souls as\nfair as they may bring to birth a brood of lofty thoughts, poems,\nstatues, institutions, laws,--the fitting progeny of the soul?\n\n\"And he who in his youth hath the need of these things in him, and grows\nto be a godlike man, wanders about in search of a noble and\nwell-nurtured soul; and finding it, and in presence of that beauty which\nhe forgets not night or day, brings forth the beautiful which he\nconceived long ago; and the twain together tend that which he hath\nbrought forth, and are bound by a far closer bond than that of earthly\nchildren, since the children which are born to them are fairer and more\nimmortal far. Who would not choose to have Homer's offspring rather than\nany sons or daughters of men? Who would not choose the offspring which\nLycurgus left behind him, to be the very salvation of Laced\u00e6mon and of\nGreece? or the children of Solon, whom we call Father of our Laws? or of\nother men like these, whether Greeks or barbarians, who by great deeds\nthat they have done have become the begetters of every kind of\nvirtue?--ay, and to these men's children have temples been set up, and\nnever to any other progeny of man....\"\n\n\"He, then, who to this end would strive aright, must begin in youth to\nseek fair forms, and should learn first to love one fair form only, and\ntherein to engender noble thoughts. And then he will perceive that the\nbeauty of one fair form is to the beauty of another near akin; and that\nif it be Beauty's self he seek, it were madness not to account the\nbeauty of all forms as one same thing; and considering this, he will be\nthe lover of all lovely shapes, and will abate his passion for one shape\nalone, despising and deeming it but a little thing. And this will lead\nhim on to see that the beauty of the soul is far more precious than any\nbeauty of outward form, so that if he find a fair soul, though it be in\na body which hath but little charm, he will be constant thereunto, and\nbring to birth such thoughts as teach and strengthen, till he lead that\nsoul on to see the beauty of actions and of laws, and how all beauty is\nin truth akin, and the body's beauty is but a little matter; and from\nactions he will lead him on to sciences, that he may see how sciences\nare fair; and looking on the abundance of beauty may no longer be as the\nslave or bondman of one beauty or of one law; but setting sail into the\nocean of beauty, and creating and beholding many fair and glorious\nthoughts and images in a philosophy without stint or stay, he may thus\nat last wax strong and grow, and may perceive that there is one science\nonly, the science of infinite beauty.\n\n\"For he who hath thus far had intelligence of love, and hath beheld all\nfair things in order and aright,--he drawing near to the end of things\nlovable shall behold a BEING marvellously fair; for whose sake in truth\nit is that all the previous labours have been undergone: One who is from\neverlasting, and neither is born nor perisheth, nor can wax nor wane,\nnor hath change or turning or alteration of foul and fair; nor can that\nbeauty be imagined after the fashion of face or hands or bodily parts\nand members, nor in any form of speech or knowledge, nor as dwelling in\naught but in itself; neither in beast nor man nor earth nor heaven nor\nany other creature; but Beauty only and alone and separate and eternal,\nwhich, albeit all other fair things partake thereof and grow and perish,\nitself without change or increase or diminution endures for everlasting.\nAnd whoso being led on and upward by human loves begins to see that\nBeauty, he is not far, I say, from reaching the end of all. And surely\nthen, O Socrates (said that guest from Mantinea), man's life is worth\nthe living, when he beholds that Primal Fair; which when thou seest it\nshall not seem to thee to be made after the fashion of gold or raiment\nor those forms of earth,--whom now beholding thou art stricken dumb, and\nfain, if it were possible, without thought of meat or drink, wouldst\nlook and love for ever. What would it be, then, were it granted to any\nman to see Very Beauty clear;--incorruptible and undefiled, not mingled\nwith colour or flesh of man, or with aught that can consume away, but\nsingle and divine? Could man's life, in that vision and beatitude, be\npoor or low? or deemest thou not (said she), that then alone it will be\npossible for this man, discerning spiritual beauty with those eyes by\nwhich it is spiritually discerned, to beget no shadows of virtue, since\nthat is no shadow to which he clings, but virtue in very truth, since he\nhath the very Truth in his embrace? and begetting and rearing Virtue as\nhis child, he must needs become the friend of God; and if there be any\nman who is immortal, that man is he.\"\n\nBetween the aspects of love here expressed in extreme terms,--the\nplanetary aspect, if I may so term it, and the cosmical,--the choice is\nmomentous. I do not indeed say that in our estimate of love is involved\nour estimate of Religion; for Religion should mean the sane response of\nthe spirit to all that is known of Cosmic Law. But Religion in the sense\nin which it is often used,--our emotional and ethical attitude towards\nLife Unseen;--this is in reality too closely parallel to Platonic Love\nto allow the psychologist who denies reality in the one to assume\nreality in the other. For the Platonic lover the image of the Beloved\none--no longer a matter of conscious summons and imagination--has become\nthe indwelling and instinctive impulse to noble thought and deed. Even\nsuch to a Francis or to a Theresa is the image of the Divinity whom they\nadore; and if they claim that sometimes in moments of crisis they feel a\nsway, a guidance, a _communicatio idiomatum_ with the Divine, we may\npoint in reply to the humbler, but more tangible, evidence which assures\nus that even between souls still inhabiting and souls who have quitted\nthe flesh there may exist a telepathic intercommunication and an\nimpalpable confluence from afar.\n\nBrief as this survey has been, it has served to indicate that the\npsychical type to which we have applied the name of genius may be\nrecognized in every region of thought and emotion, as in each direction\na man's every-day self may be more or less permeable to subliminal\nimpulses. Coming, then, to the question, \"What is the origin of genius?\"\nI cannot accept the ordinary explanation that it is a mere \"sport\" or\nmental by-product, occurring as physical \"sports\" do in the course of\nevolution. The view which I hold,--the view which I am here suggesting,\nis in some sort a renewal of the old Platonic \"reminiscence,\" in the\nlight of that fuller knowledge which is common property to-day. I hold\nthat in the protoplasm or primary basis of all organic life there must\nhave been an inherent adaptability to the manifestation of all faculties\nwhich organic life has in fact manifested. I hold, of course, that\n\"sports\" or variations occur, which are at present unpredictable, and\nwhich reveal in occasional offspring faculties which their parents\nshowed no signs of possessing. But I differ from those who hold that the\nfaculty itself thus manifested is now for the first time initiated in\nthat stock by some chance combination of hereditary elements. I hold\nthat it is not initiated, but only revealed; that the \"sport\" has not\ncalled a new faculty into being, but has merely raised an existing\nfaculty above the threshold of supraliminal consciousness.\n\nThis view, if pushed back far enough, is no doubt inconsistent with the\nway in which evolution is generally conceived. For it denies that all\nhuman faculties must have been evoked by terrene experience. It assumes\na subliminal self, with unknown faculties, originated in some unknown\nway, and not merely by contact with the needs which the terrene organism\nhas had to meet. It thus seems at first sight to be introducing a new\nmystery, and to be introducing it in a gratuitous way.\n\nTo this I reply in the first place that so far as the origin of man's\nknown powers is concerned, no fresh mystery is in fact introduced. All\nhuman powers, to put the thing broadly, have somehow or other to be got\ninto protoplasm and then got out again. You have to explain first how\nthey became implicit in the earliest and lowest living thing, and then\nhow they have become thus far explicit in the latest and highest. All\nthe faculties of that highest being, I repeat, existed _virtually_ in\nthe lowest, and in so far as the admitted faculties are concerned, the\ndifference between my view and the ordinary view may be said to be\nlittle more than a difference as to the sense which that word\n_virtually_ is here to assume.\n\nThe real difference between the two views appears when the faculties\nwhich I have called unknown come to be considered. If they are held to\nbe real, my view is certainly the better able to embrace them. I hold\nthat telepathy and tel\u00e6sthesia do in fact exist--telepathy, a\ncommunication between incarnate mind and incarnate mind, and perhaps\nbetween incarnate minds and minds unembodied; tel\u00e6sthesia, a knowledge\nof things terrene which overpasses the limits of ordinary perception,\nand which perhaps also achieves an insight into some other than terrene\nworld. And these faculties, I say, cannot have been acquired by natural\nselection, for the preservation of the race, during the process of\nterrene evolution; they were (as we may phrase it) the products of\nextra-terrene evolution. And if they were so, man's other powers may\nwell have been so also. The specialised forms of terrene perception were\nnot real novelties in the universe, but imperfect adaptations of\nprotoplasm to the manifestation of the indwelling general perceptive\npower. The mathematical faculty, for instance (we may, perhaps, say\nwith Plato), pre-existed. When Dase solved all those sums in his head,\nhis power of solving them was not a fresh development in his ancestral\nstock, but depended on the accidental adaptation of his organism to the\nmanifestation of the indwelling computative power. I do not indeed\nventure to follow Plato in his ontogenetic argument--his claim that the\nindividual computator has had already an individual training in\ncomputation. I do not say that Dase himself learnt or divined the\nmultiplication-table in some ideal world. I only say that Dase and all\nthe rest of us are the spawn or output of some unseen world in which the\nmultiplication-table is, so to speak, in the air. Dase trailed it after\nhim, as the poet says of the clouds of glory, when he \"descended into\ngeneration\" in a humble position at Hamburg.\n\nIn him and in his ancestors were many faculties which were called out by\nthe struggle for existence, and became supraliminal. But there were many\nfaculties also which were not thus called out, and which consequently\nremained subliminal. To these faculties, as a rule, his supraliminal\nself could get no access. But by some chance of evolution--some sport--a\nvent-hole was opened at this one point between the different strata of\nhis being, and a subliminal uprush carried his computative faculty into\nthe open day.\n\nTwo things, of course, are assumed in this argument for which Science\noffers no guarantee. I assume in the man a soul which can draw strength\nand grace from a spiritual Universe, and conversely I assume in the\nUniverse a Spirit accessible and responsive to the soul of man. These\nare familiar postulates. Every religion has claimed them in turn;\nalthough every religion in turn has so narrowed their application as\ngrievously to narrow the evidence available for their support. But that\nwhich religions have claimed for their Founders or for their Saints--and\nwhat is sanctity but the genius of the ethical realm?--Psychology must\nclaim for every form of spiritual indrawing, every form of spiritual\nresponse; for sleeping vision, for hypnotic rejuvenation, for sensory\nand motor automatisms, for trance, for ecstasy. The philosopher who has\ncried with Marcus Aurelius \"Either Providence or atoms!\"--who has\ndeclared that without this basis in the Unseen, \"the moral Cosmos would\nbe reduced to a Chaos\";--should he not welcome even the humblest line of\nresearch which fain would gather from every unsolved problem some hint\nas to the spiritual law unknown which in time may give the solution of\nall?\n\nWe know not in what directions--directions how definitely\npredetermined--even physical organisms can vary from the common type. We\nknow not what amount of energy any given plant or animal can absorb and\nincorporate from earth and air and sun. Still less can we predict or\nlimit the possible variations of the soul, the fulness which it may\nreceive from the World-Soul, its possible heritage of grace and truth.\nBut in genius we can watch at each stage the processes of this celestial\nnurture. We can imagine the outlook of joyous trustfulness; we can\nalmost seem, with Wordsworth, to remember the child's soul entering into\nthe Kingdom of Heaven. Childhood is genius without capacity; it makes\nfor most of us our best memory of inspiration, and our truest outlook\nupon the real, which is the ideal, world.\n\nFrom a greater distance we can watch the inward stir of mighty thought,\nthe same for \u00c6schylus, for Newton, for Virgil;--a stir independent of\nworldly agitation; like the swing and libration of the tide-wave across\nthe ocean, which takes no note of billow or of storm.\n\nNay, we can see against the sun \"the eagle soaring above the tomb of\nPlato,\" and in Paul, as in Plotinus, we can catch that sense of\nself-fulfilment in self-absorption, of rapture, of deliverance, which\nthe highest minds have bequeathed to us as the heritage of their highest\nhours.\n\nThese our spiritual ancestors are no eccentrics nor degenerates; they\nhave made for us the sanest and most fruitful experiment yet made by\nman; they have endeavoured to exalt the human race in a way in which it\ncan in truth be exalted; they have drawn on forces which exist, and on a\nSoul which answers; they have dwelt on those things \"by dwelling on\nwhich it is,\" as Plato has it, \"that even God is divine.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nSLEEP\n\n  [Greek: olbia d' hapantes aisa lysiponon metanissontai teleutan.\n  kai s\u00f4ma men pant\u00f4n hepetai thanat\u00f4 peristhenei,\n  z\u00f4on d' eti leipetai ai\u00f4nos eid\u00f4lon; to gar esti monon\n  ek the\u00f4n; heudei de prassont\u00f4n mele\u00f4n, atar heudontessin en pollois oneirois\n  deiknysi terpn\u00f4n epserpoisan chalep\u00f4n te krisin.]\n\n  --PINDAR.\n\n\nThe preceding chapters have carried us two steps upon our way. In\nChapter II. we gained some insight into the structure of human\npersonality by analysing some of the accidents to which it is subject;\nin the third chapter we viewed this personality in its normal waking\nstate, and considered how that norm should be defined, and in what\nmanner certain fortunate persons had integrated the personality still\nfurther by utilising uprushes of subliminal faculty to supplement or to\ncrystallise the products of supraliminal thought.\n\nThe review of these two chapters indicates clearly enough what my next\nstep must be. It is obvious that in my review of phases or alternations\nof personality I have left out of sight the most constant, the most\nimportant alternation of all. I have thus far said nothing of _sleep_.\nYet _that_ change of personality, at least, has been borne in on every\none's notice;--not, certainly, as a morbid curiosity, but as an\nessential part of life.\n\nLet us then consider the specific characteristics of sleep. The\ndefinition of sleep is an acknowledged _crux_ in physiology. And I would\npoint out that the increased experience of hypnotic sleep which recent\nyears have afforded has made this difficulty even more striking than\nbefore. A physiological explanation must needs assume that some special\nbodily condition,--such, for instance, as the clogging of the brain by\nwaste-products,--is at least the usual antecedent of sound sleep. But it\nis certain, on the other hand, that with a large percentage of persons\nprofound and prolonged sleep can be induced, in _any_ bodily condition,\nby simple suggestion. Hypnosis, indeed (as Wetterstrand and others have\nshown) may be prolonged, with actual benefit to the sleeper, far beyond\nthe point which the spontaneous sleep of a healthy subject ever reaches.\nA good subject can be awakened and thrown into hypnosis again almost at\npleasure, and independently of any state either of nutrition or of\nfatigue. Such sleep belongs to those phenomena which we may call nervous\nif we will, but which we can observe or influence from the psychological\nside alone.\n\nWe can hardly hope, from the ordinary data, to arrive at a definition of\nsleep more satisfactory than others have reached. We must defer that\nattempt until we have collected something more than the ordinary\nevidence as to what occurs or does not occur during the abeyance of\nwaking life. One point, however, is plain at once. We cannot treat\nsleep,--as it has generally been treated,--in its purely _negative_\naspect. We cannot be content merely to dwell, with the common\ntext-books, on the mere _absence_ of waking faculties;--on the\ndiminution of external perception, the absence of controlling\nintelligence. We must treat sleep _positively_, so far as we can, as a\ndefinite phase of our personality, co-ordinate with the waking phase.\nEach phase, as I believe, has been differentiated alike from a primitive\nindifference;--from a condition of lowly organisms which merited the\nname neither of sleep nor of waking. Nay, if there were to be a contest\nas to which state should be deemed primary and which secondary, sleep\nmight put forward its claim to be regarded as the more primitive phase.\nIt is sleep rather than vigilance which prenatal and infantile life\nsuggest; and even for us adults, however much we may associate ourselves\nin thought with the waking state alone, that state has at least thus\nmuch of secondary and adventitious that it is maintained for short\nperiods only, which we cannot artificially lengthen, being plainly\nunable to sustain itself without frequent recourse to that fuller influx\nof vitality which slumber brings.\n\nOut of slumber proceeds each fresh arousal and initiation of waking\nactivities. What other activities may in slumber be aroused and\ninitiated the evidence to be set forth in this chapter should help us to\nsay. To some extent at least the abeyance of the supraliminal life must\nbe the liberation of the subliminal. To some extent the obscuration of\nthe noonday glare of man's waking consciousness must reveal the\nfar-reaching faint corona of his unsuspected and impalpable powers.\n\nEntering, then, upon a review of sleeping faculty, thus inevitably\nimperfect, we may best begin from the red end of our spectrum of\nconsciousness;--the red end which represents the deepest power which\nwaking effort can exert upon our physical organism.\n\nOur survey of the efficacy of sleep, indeed, must make its beginning\n_beyond_ that limit. For assuredly in sleep some agency is at work which\nfar surpasses waking efficacy in this respect. It is a fully admitted,\nalthough an absolutely unexplained fact, that the regenerative quality\nof healthy sleep is something _sui generis_, which no completeness of\nwaking quiescence can rival or approach. A few moments of sleep--a mere\nblur across the field of consciousness--will sometimes bring a\nrenovation which hours of lying down in darkness and silence would not\nyield. A mere bowing of the head on the breast, if consciousness ceases\nfor a second or two, may change a man's outlook on the world. At such\nmoments,--and many persons, like myself, can fully vouch for their\nreality,--one feels that what has occurred in one's\norganism,--alteration of blood-pressure, or whatever it be,--has been in\nsome sense discontinuous; that there has been a break in the inward\n_r\u00e9gime_, amounting to much more than a mere brief ignoring of stimuli\nfrom without. The break of consciousness is associated in some way with\na potent physiological change. That is to say, even in the case of a\nmoment of ordinary sleep we already note the appearance of that special\nrecuperative energy which is familiar in longer periods of sleep, and\nwhich, as we shall presently see, reaches a still higher level in\nhypnotic trance.\n\nThis recuperative power, then, lies just beyond the red end of our\nspectrum of waking faculty. In that obscure region we note only added\npower; an increased control over organic functions at the foundation of\nbodily life. But when we pass on within the limits of our spectrum of\nwaking consciousness;--when we come to control over voluntary muscles,\nor to sensory capacity, we find that our comparison between sleeping and\nwaking faculty is no longer a simple one. On the one hand, there is of\ncourse a general blank and abeyance of control over the realm of waking\nenergies;--or in partial sleep a mere fantastic parody of those energies\nin incoherent dream. On the other hand, we find that sleep is capable of\nstrange developments,--and that night can sometimes suddenly outdo the\nmost complex achievements of day.\n\nTake first the degree of control over the voluntary muscles. In ordinary\nsleep this is neither possessed nor desired; in nightmare its loss is\nexaggerated, in quasi-hysterical fashion, into an appalling fear; while\nin somnambulism,--a kind of new personality developed _ad hoc_,--the\nsleeper (as we shall see later on) walks on perilous ridges with steady\nfeet. I have already said that morbid somnambulism bears to sound sleep\na relation something like that which hysteria bears to normal life. But\nbetween the healthy somnambulist and the subject of nightmare we find\nfrom another point of view a contrast resembling that between the man\nof genius and the hysteric. The somnambulist, like the man of genius,\nbrings into play resources which are beyond ordinary reach. On the other\nhand, just as in many hysterics certain ordinary powers of movement have\nlapsed below voluntary control, so also the dreamer who dimly wishes to\nmove a constrained limb is often unable to send thither a sufficient\ncurrent of motor energy to effect the desired change of position. That\nnightmare inability to move, which we thus feel in dream,--\"when neither\nhe that fleeth can flee, nor he that pursueth pursue,\"--that sensation\nwhich both Homer and Virgil have selected as the type of paralysing\nbewilderment,[39]--this is just the _aboulia_ of the hysteric;--the\ncondition when it takes a man half an hour to put on his hat, or when a\nwoman sits all the morning looking at her knitting, but unable to add a\nstitch.\n\n\"Somnambulism,\" however, is too vague and undefined a term for our\npresent discussion. It will only be by a comparison with hypnotism, in\nthe next chapter, that we can hope to get some clearer notion of\n\"sleep-waking\" states.\n\nLet us pass on to consider _entencephalic sensory faculty_,--\"mind's\neye\" faculty,--as shown in sleep or dream. Here too we shall find the\nsame rule to prevail as with motor faculty. That is to say, on the whole\nthe sensory faculty is of course dimmed and inhibited by sleep; but\nthere are nevertheless indications of a power subsisting as vividly as\never, or with even added acuteness.\n\nBaillarger in France and Griesinger in Germany (both about 1845) were\namong the first to call attention to the vivid images which rise before\nthe internal vision of many persons, between sleep and waking. M. Alfred\nMaury, the well-known Greek scholar and antiquary, gave to these images\na few years later the title of _illusions hypnagogiques_, and published\na remarkable series of observations upon himself. Mr. Galton has further\ntreated of them in his _Inquiry into Human Faculty_; and cases will be\nfound in _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i, pp. 390, 473, etc.\n\nThese visions may be _hypnopompic_ as well as _hypnagogic_;--may appear,\nthat is to say, at the moment when slumber is departing as well as at\nthe moment when it is coming on;--and in either case they are closely\nrelated to dreams; the \"hypnagogic illusions\" or pictures being\nsometimes repeated in dream (as with Maury), and the hypnopompic\npictures consisting generally in the persistence of some dream-image\ninto the first moments of waking. In either case they testify to an\nintensified power of inward visualisation at a very significant\nmoment;--a moment which is actually or virtually one of sleep, but which\nyet admits of definite comparison with adjacent moments of waking. We\nmay call the condition one of cerebral or \"mind's eye\"\nhyper\u00e6sthesia,--an exalted sensibility of special brain-centres in\nresponse to those unknown internal stimuli which are always giving rise\nto similar but fainter inward visions even in broadly waking hours.\n\nFor those who are already good visualisers such phenomena as these,\nthough striking enough, present no quite unique experience. For bad\nvisualisers, on the other hand, the vividness of these hypnagogic\npictures may be absolutely a revelation.\n\nThe degree of acuteness, not of the visualising faculty alone, but of\nall the senses in dream, is a subject for direct observation, and\neven--for persons who can at all control their dreams--for direct\nexperiment. Some correspondents report a considerable apparent accession\nof sensory power in dream. Others again speak of the increased vividness\nof dramatic conception, or of what has been called in a hypnotic subject\n\"objectivation of types.\" \"In each of these dreams,\" writes one lady, \"I\nwas a man;--in one of them a low brute, in the other a dipsomaniac. I\nnever had the slightest conception of how such persons felt or thought\nuntil these experiences.\" Another correspondent speaks of dreaming two\ndisconnected dreams,--one emotional and one\ngeometrical,--simultaneously, and of consequent sense of confusion and\nfatigue.\n\nThe \"Chapter on Dreams,\" in R. L. Stevenson's volume, _Across the\nPlains_ (already referred to in the last chapter), contains a\ndescription of the most successful dream-experiments thus far recorded.\nBy self-suggestion before sleep Stevenson could secure a visual and\ndramatic intensity of dream-representation which furnished him with the\nmotives for some of his most striking romances. His account, written\nwith admirable psychological insight, is indispensable to students of\nthis subject. I am mentioning these well-known phenomena, as the reader\nwill understand, with a somewhat novel purpose--to show, namely, that\nthe internal sensory perceptions or imaginative faculty of sleep may\nexceed that of vigilance in something the same way as the recuperative\nagency of sleep surpasses the _vis medicatrix_ of waking hours.\n\nI pass on to a less frequent phenomenon, which shows us at once intense\nimagination during sleep, and a lasting imprint left by these\nimaginations upon the waking organism;--an unintended self-suggestion\nwhich we may compare with Stevenson's voluntary self-suggestion\nmentioned just above.\n\nThe permanent result of a dream, I say, is sometimes such as to show\nthat the dream has not been a mere superficial confusion of past waking\nexperiences, but has had an unexplained potency of its own,--drawn, like\nthe potency of hypnotic suggestion, from some depth in our being which\nthe waking self cannot reach. Two main classes of this kind are\nconspicuous enough to be easily recognised--those, namely, where the\ndream has led to a \"conversion\" or marked religious change, and those\nwhere it has been the starting-point of an \"insistent idea\" or of a fit\nof actual insanity.[40] The dreams which convert, reform, change\ncharacter and creed, have of course a _prim\u00e2 facie_ claim to be\nconsidered as something other than ordinary dreams; and their discussion\nmay be deferred till a later stage of our inquiry. Those, on the other\nhand, which suddenly generate an insistent idea of an irrational type\nare closely and obviously analogous to post-hypnotic self-suggestions,\nwhich the self that inspired them cannot be induced to countermand. Such\nis the dream related by M. Taine,[41] where a gendarme, impressed by an\nexecution at which he has assisted, dreams that he himself is to be\nguillotined, and is afterwards so influenced by the dream that he\nattempts suicide. Several cases of this kind have been collected by Dr.\nFaure;[42] and Dr. Tissi\u00e9, in his interesting little work, _Les R\u00eaves_,\nhas added some curious instances from his own observation.\n\nA striking illustration may be drawn from the following incident in the\nstory of Krafft-Ebing's patient,[43] Ilma S., the genuineness of whose\nstigmata seems proved by that physician's care in observation, and by\nthe painfulness of certain experiments performed upon her by students as\npractical jokes and against her will:--\n\n     _May 6th, 1888._--The patient is disturbed to-day. She complains to\n     the sister of severe pain under the left breast, thinks that the\n     professor has burnt her in the night, and begs the sister to obtain\n     a retreat for her in a convent, where she will be secure against\n     such attacks. The sister's refusal causes a hystero-epileptic\n     attack. [At length, in the hypnotic trance] the patient gives the\n     following explanation of the origin of the pain: \"Last night an old\n     man came to me; he looked like a priest and came in company with a\n     Sister of Charity, on whose collet there was a large golden B. I\n     was afraid of her. The old man was amiable and friendly. He dipped\n     a pen in the sister's pocket, and with it wrote a W and B on my\n     skin under the left breast. Once he dipped his pen badly and made a\n     blot in the middle of the figure. This spot and the B pain me\n     severely, but the W does not. The man explained the W as meaning\n     that I should go to the M church and confess at the W\n     confessional.\"\n\n     After this account the patient cried out and said, \"There stands\n     the man again. Now he has chains on his hands.\"\n\n     When the patient woke into ordinary life she was suffering pain in\n     the place indicated, where there were \"superficial losses of\n     substance, penetrating to the corium, which have a resemblance to a\n     reversed W and B,\" with \"a hyper\u00e6mic raised spot between the two.\"\n     Nowhere in this peculiar neurotrophic alteration of the skin, which\n     is identical with those previously produced experimentally, are\n     there traces of inflammation. The pain and the memory of the dream\n     were removed by the doctor's suggestion; but the dream\n     self-suggestion to confess at the M church persisted; and the\n     patient, without knowing why, did actually go and confess to the\n     priest of her vision.\n\nIn this last case we have a dream playing the part of a powerful\npost-hypnotic suggestion. The meaning of this vague term \"suggestion\" we\nshall have to discuss in a later chapter. It is enough to notice here\nthe great power of a subliminal suggestion which can make an impression\nso much stronger not only than the usual evanescent touch of dream, but\nthan the actual experiences of waking day.\n\nBut this case may also serve to lead us on to further reflections as to\nthe connection between dream-memory and hypnotic memory, a connection\nwhich points, as we shall presently see, towards the existence of some\nsubliminal continuity of memory, lying deeper down than the evocable\nmemory of common life--the stock of conscious reminiscences on which we\ncan draw at will.\n\nWith regard to memory, as with regard to sensation, we seem in waking\nlife to be dealing with a selection made for purposes of earthly use.\nFrom the pre-conscious unselective memory which depends on the mere\norganisation of living matter, it is the task of consciousness, as it\ndawns in each higher organism, to make its own appropriate selection and\nto develop into distinctness certain helpful lines of reminiscence. The\nquestion of self-preservation--What must I needs be aware of in order to\nescape my foes?--involves the question, What must I needs remember in\norder to act upon the facts of which I am aware? The selected currents\nof memory follow the selected avenues of sensation; what by disuse I\nlose the power of noticing at the time, I also lose the power of\nrecalling afterwards.\n\nFor simpler organisms this rule may perhaps suffice. Man needs a more\ncomplex formula. For it may happen, as we have already seen, that two or\nmore phases of personality in one man may each select from the mass of\npotential reminiscences a special group of memories of its own. These\nspecial groups, moreover, may bear to one another all kinds of\nrelations; one may include another, or they may alternate and may be\napparently co-exclusive.\n\nFrom these dissociations and alternations of memory there will be many\nlessons to learn. The lesson which here presents itself is not the least\nimportant. What is the relation of the sleeping state to these\ndissociated, these parallel or concentric memories? Is it the case that\nwhen one memory includes another it is the waking memory--as one might\nexpect from that state's apparently superior vividness--which shows\nitself the deeper, the more comprehensive record?\n\nThe answer of actual experience to these questions is unexpectedly\ndirect and clear. In every recorded instance--so far at least as my\nmemory serves me, where there has been any _unification_ between\nalternating states, so as to make comparison possible--it is the memory\nfurthest from waking life whose span is the widest, whose grasp of the\norganism's upstored impressions is the most profound. Inexplicable as\nthis phenomenon has been to observers who have encountered it without\nthe needed key, the independent observations of hundreds of physicians\nand hypnotists have united in affirming its reality. The commonest\ninstance, of course, is furnished by the ordinary hypnotic trance. The\ndegree of intelligence, indeed, which finds its way to expression in\nthat trance or slumber varies greatly in different subjects and at\ndifferent times. But whensoever there is enough of alertness to admit of\nour forming a judgment, we find that in the hypnotic state there is a\nconsiderable memory--though not necessarily a complete or a reasoned\nmemory--of the waking state; whereas with most subjects in the waking\nstate--unless some special command be imposed upon the hypnotic\nself--there is no memory whatever of the hypnotic state. In many\nhysterical conditions also the same general rule subsists; namely, that\nthe further we get from the surface the wider is the expanse of memory\nwhich we encounter.\n\nIf all this be true, there are several points on which we may form\nexpectations definite enough to suggest inquiry. Ordinary sleep is\nroughly intermediate between waking life and deep hypnotic trance; and\nit seems _a priori_ probable that its memory will have links of almost\nequal strength with the memory which belongs to waking life and the\nmemory which belongs to the hypnotic trance. And this is in fact the\ncase; the fragments of dream-memory are interlinked with both these\nother chains. Thus, for example, without any suggestion to that effect,\nacts accomplished in the hypnotic trance may be remembered in dream; and\nremembered under the illusion which was thrown round them by the\nhypnotiser. Thus Dr. Auguste Voisin suggested to a hypnotised subject\nto stab a patient--really a stuffed figure--in the neighbouring bed.[44]\nThe subject did so; and of course knew nothing of it on waking. But\nthree days afterwards he returned to the hospital complaining that his\ndreams were haunted by the figure of a woman, who accused him of having\nstabbed and killed her. Appropriate suggestion laid this ghost of a\ndoll.\n\nConversely, dreams forgotten in waking life may be remembered in the\nhypnotic trance. Thus Dr. Tissi\u00e9's patient, Albert, dreamt that he was\nabout to set out on one of his somnambulic \"fugues,\" or aimless\njourneys, and when hypnotised mentioned to the physician this dream,\nwhich in his waking state he had forgotten.[45] The probable truth of\nthis statement was shown by the fact that he did actually set out on the\njourney thus dreamt of, and that his journeys were usually preceded and\nincited by remembered dreams.\n\nI need not dwell on the existence, but at the same time the\nincompleteness, of our dream-memory of waking life; nor on the\noccasional formation of a separate chain of memory, constructed from\nsuccessive and cohering dreams. It should be added that we do not really\nknow how far our memory in dream of waking life may have extended; since\nwe can only _infer_ this from our notoriously imperfect waking memory of\npast dreams.\n\nA cognate anticipation to which our theory will point will be that\ndream-memory will occasionally be found to fill up gaps in waking\nmemory, other than those due to hypnotic trance; such so-called\n\"ecmnesic\" periods, for instance, as sometimes succeed a violent shock\nto the system, and may even embrace some space of time _anterior_ to the\nshock. These periods themselves resemble prolonged and unremembered\ndreams. Such accidents, however, are so rare, and such dream-memory so\nhard to detect, that I mention the point mainly for the sake of\ntheoretical completeness; and must think myself fortunate in being able\nto refer the reader to a recent case of M. Charcot's which affords an\ninteresting confirmation of the suggested view.[46]\n\nI pass on to the still more novel and curious questions involved in the\napparent existence of a dream-memory which, while accompanying the\nmemory of ordinary life, seems also to have a wider purview, and to\nindicate that the record of external events which is kept within us is\nfar fuller than we know.\n\nLet us consider what stages such a memory may show.\n\nI. It may include events once known to the waking self, but now\ndefinitely forgotten.\n\nII. It may include facts which have fallen within the sensory field, but\nwhich have never been supraliminally \"apperceived\" or cognised in any\nway. And thus also it may indicate that from this wider range of\nremembered facts dream-_inferences_ have been drawn;--which inferences\nmay be _retrospective_, _prospective_, or,--if I may use a word of\nPope's with a new meaning, _circumspective_,--that is to say, relating\nnot to the past or to the future, but to the present condition of\nmatters beyond the range of ordinary perception. It is plain that\ninferences of this kind (if they exist) will be liable to be mistaken\nfor direct retrocognition, direct premonition, direct clairvoyance;\nwhile yet they need not actually prove anything more than a perception\non the part of the subliminal self more far-reaching,--a memory more\nstable,--than is the perception or the memory of the supraliminal self\nwhich we know.\n\nThese hypermnesic dreams, then, may afford a means of drawing our lines\nof evidence more exactly; of relegating some marvellous narratives to a\nrealm of lesser marvel, and at the same time of realising more clearly\nwhat it is in the most advanced cases which ordinary theories are really\npowerless to explain.\n\nAs to the _first_ of the above-mentioned categories no one will raise\nany doubt. It is a familiar fact--or a fact only sufficiently unfamiliar\nto be noted with slight surprise--that we occasionally recover in sleep\na memory which has wholly dropped out of waking consciousness.\n\nIn such cases the original piece of knowledge has at the time made a\ndefinite impress on the mind,--has come well within the span of\napprehension of the supraliminal consciousness. Its reappearance after\nhowever long an interval is a fact to which there are already plenty of\nparallels. But the conclusion to which some cases seem to me to point is\none of a much stranger character. I think that there is evidence to show\nthat many facts or pictures which have never even for a moment come\nwithin the apprehension of the supraliminal consciousness are\nnevertheless retained by the subliminal memory, and are occasionally\npresented in dreams with what seems a definite purpose. I quote an\ninteresting case in Appendix IV. A.[47]\n\nThe same point, as we shall hereafter see, is illustrated by the\nphenomena of crystal-vision. Miss Goodrich-Freer,[48] for example, saw\nin the crystal the announcement of the death of a friend;--a piece of\nnews which certainly had never been apprehended by her ordinary\nconscious self. On referring to the _Times_, it was found that an\nannouncement of the death of some one of the same unusual name was\ncontained in a sheet with which she had screened her face from the\nfire;--so that the words may have fallen within her range of vision,\nalthough they had not reached what we broadly call her waking mind.\n\nThis instance was of value from the strong probability that the news\ncould never have been supraliminally known at all;--since it was too\nimportant to have been merely glanced at and forgotten.\n\nIn these cases the dream-self has presented a significant scene,--has\nchosen, so to say, from its gallery of photographs the special picture\nwhich the waking mind desired,--but has not needed to draw any more\ncomplex inference from the facts presumably at its disposal. I have now\nto deal with a small group of dreams which reason as well as\nremember;--if indeed in some of them there be not something more than\nmere reasoning on facts already in some way acquired,--something which\noverpasses the scheme prescribed for the present chapter.\n\nIn the first place we cannot doubt that definite data already known may\nsometimes be treated in somnambulism or ordinary dream with more than\nwaking intelligence. Such are the cases of mathematical problems solved\nin somnambulism, or of the skeletal arrangement discovered by Agassiz in\ncommon sleep for scattered bones which had baffled his waking skill. I\ngive in Appendix IV. B. the striking case of Professor Hilprecht where\ndream-intelligence is carried to its highest point. Professor Romaine\nNewbold (who records the case) is well versed in the analysis of\nevidence making for supernormal powers, and his explanation of the\nvision as the result of \"processes of associative reasoning analogous to\nthose of the upper consciousness\" must, I think, be taken as correct.\nBut had the incident occurred in a less critical age of the world,--in\nany generation, one may say, but _this_,--how majestic a proof would the\nphantasmal Babylonian's message be held to have afforded of his\nveritable co-operation with the modern _savant_ in the reconstruction of\nhis remote past!\n\nI repeat that with this case of Professor Hilprecht's we seem to have\nreached the utmost intensity of sleep faculty within the limits of our\nordinary spectrum. In almost every region of that spectrum we have\nfound that the sleeper's faculty, under its narrow conditions, shows\nscattered signs of at least a potential equality with the faculty of\nwaking hours.\n\nWe have already seen this as regards muscular movements, as regards\ninward vision and audition, and as regards memory; and these last\nrecords complete the series by showing us the achievement in sleep of\nintellectual work of the severest order. Coleridge's _Kubla Khan_ had\nlong ago shown the world that a great poet might owe his masterpiece to\nthe obscuration of waking sense.[49] And the very imperfection of _Kubla\nKhan_--the memory truncated by an interruption--may again remind us how\npartial must ever be our waking knowledge of the achievements of sleep.\n\nMay I not, then, claim a real analogy between certain of the\nachievements of _sleep_ and the achievements of _genius_? In both there\nis the same triumphant spontaneity, the same sense of drawing no longer\nupon the narrow and brief endurance of nerves and brain, but upon some\nunknown source exempt from those limitations.\n\nThus far, indeed, the sleep-faculties which we have been considering,\nhowever strangely intensified, have belonged to the same class as the\nnormal faculties of waking life. We have now to consider whether we can\ndetect in sleep any manifestation of _supernormal_ faculty--any\nexperience which seems to suggest that man is a cosmical spirit as well\nas a terrestrial organism, and is in some way in relation with a\nspiritual as well as with a material world. It will seem, in this view,\nto be natural that this commerce with a spiritual environment should be\nmore perceptible in sleep than in waking. The dogma which my point of\nview thus renders probable is perhaps, as a mere matter of history, the\ndogma of all dogmas which has been most universally believed by mankind.\n\n\"_Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_\"--for how many narrow\ntheological propositions have we not heard this proud claim--that they\nhave been believed everywhere, and by everybody, and in every age? Yet\nwhat can approach the antiquity, the ubiquity, the unanimity of man's\nbelief in the wanderings of the spirit in dream? In the Stone Age, the\nsceptic would have been rash indeed who ventured to contradict it. And\nthough I grant that this \"pal\u00e6olithic psychology\" has gone out of\nfashion for the last few centuries, I do not think that (in view of the\ntel\u00e6sthetic evidence now collected) we can any longer dismiss as a mere\n_bizarrerie_ of dream-imagery the constant recurrence of the idea of\nvisiting in sleep some distant scene,--with the acquisition thereby of\nnew facts not otherwise accessible.\n\nStarting, then, not from savage authority, but from the evidential\nscrutiny of modern facts, we shall find, I think, that there are\ncoincidences of dream with truth which neither pure chance nor any\nsubconscious mentation of an ordinary kind will adequately explain. We\nshall find that there is a perception of concealed material objects or\nof distant scenes and also a perception of a communion with the thoughts\nand emotions of other minds. Both these phenomena have been noted\nsporadically in many ages and countries, and were observed with serious\nattention especially by the early French mesmerists. The first group of\nphenomena was called _clairvoyance_ or _lucidit\u00e9_, and the second\n_communication de pens\u00e9es_, or in English, _thought-transference_. These\nterms are scarcely comprehensive enough to satisfy a more systematic\nstudy. The distant perception is not _optical_, nor is it confined even\nto the apparent sense of sight alone. It extends to all the senses, and\nincludes also impressions hardly referable to any special sense.\nSimilarly the communication between distant persons is not a\ntransference of thought alone, but of emotion, of motor impulses, and of\nmany impressions not easy to define. I ventured in 1882 to suggest the\nwider terms _tel\u00e6sthesia_, sensation at a distance, and _telepathy_,\nfellow-feeling at a distance, and shall use these words in the present\nwork. But I am far from assuming that these terms correspond with\ndefinite and dearly separated groups of phenomena, or comprise the whole\nfield of supernormal faculty. On the contrary, I think it probable that\nthe facts of the metetherial world are far more complex than the facts\nof the material world; and the ways in which spirits perceive and\ncommunicate, apart from fleshly organisms, are subtler and more varied\nthan any perception or communication which we know.\n\nI have halted above at another line of demarcation which the dreamer's\nown sensations suggest,--the distinction between active psychical\nexcursion or invasion and the passive reception of psychical invasion\nfrom without. But even here, as was also hinted, a clear line of\ndivision is hard to draw. For whether we are dealing with\ndream-perceptions of distant material scenes, or of distant living\npersons, or of discarnate spirits, it is often impossible for the\ndreamer himself to say either from what point he is himself observing,\nor where the scene of the vision is laid.\n\nFor the present I must confine myself to a brief sketch of some of the\nmain types of supernormal dreams, arranged in a kind of ascending order.\nI shall begin with such dreams as primarily suggest a kind of\nheightening or extension of the dreamer's own innate perceptive powers,\nas exercised on the world around him. And I shall end with dreams which\nsuggest his entrance into a spiritual world, where commerce with\nincarnate or discarnate spirits is subject no longer to the conditions\nof earthly thought.\n\nI begin, then, with some dreams which seem to carry perceptive faculty\nbeyond the point at which some unusual form of common vision can be\nplausibly suggested in explanation. Mr. Lewis's dream of the\nlanding-order (Appendix IV. A) may be taken as an instance of such a\ndream.[50]\n\nI will next refer to certain cases where the sleeper by clairvoyant\nvision discerns a scene of direct interest to a mind other than his\nown;--as the danger or death of some near friend. Sometimes there is a\nflash of vision, which seems to represent correctly the critical scene.\nSometimes there is what seems like a longer gaze, accompanied, perhaps\nby some sense of _communion_ with the invaded person. And in some few\ncases--the most interesting of all--the circumstances of a death seem to\nbe symbolically _shown_ to a dreamer, as though by the deceased person,\nor by some intelligence connected with him. (See Mrs. Storie's narrative\np. 109.)\n\nOne of the best instances of the flash of vision is Canon Warburton's,\nwhich I quote from _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 338--a case\nwhose remoteness is rendered less of a drawback than usual by the\ncharacter of the narrator and the simplicity and definiteness of the\nfact attested.\n\nThe following is his account:--\n\n\nTHE CLOSE, WINCHESTER, _July 16th, 1883_.\n\n     Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to stay a day\n     or two with my brother, Acton Warburton, then a barrister, living\n     at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln's Inn. When I got to his chambers I\n     found a note on the table apologising for his absence, and saying\n     that he had gone to a dance somewhere in the West End, and intended\n     to be home soon after one o'clock. Instead of going to bed, I dozed\n     in an arm-chair, but started up wide awake exactly at one,\n     ejaculating \"By Jove! he's down!\" and seeing him coming out of a\n     drawing-room into a brightly illuminated landing, catching his foot\n     in the edge of the top stair, and falling headlong, just saving\n     himself by his elbows and hands. (The house was one which I had\n     never seen, nor did I know where it was.) Thinking very little of\n     the matter, I fell a-doze again for half an hour, and was awakened\n     by my brother suddenly coming in and saying, \"Oh, there you are! I\n     have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck as I ever had\n     in my life. Coming out of the ballroom, I caught my foot, and\n     tumbled full length down the stairs.\"\n\n     That is all. It may have been \"only a dream,\" but I always thought\n     it must have been something more.\n\nW. WARBURTON.\n\nIn a second letter Canon Warburton adds:--\n\n\n  _July 20th, 1883._\n\n     My brother was hurrying home from his dance, with some little\n     self-reproach in his mind for not having been at his chambers to\n     receive his guest, so the chances are that he was thinking of me.\n     The whole scene was vividly present to me at the moment, but I did\n     not note particulars any more than one would in real life. The\n     general impression was of a narrow landing brilliantly illuminated,\n     and I remember verifying the correctness of this by questions at\n     the time.\n\n     This is my sole experience of the kind.\n\n     [The last words are in answer to the question whether he had had\n     similar vivid visions which had _not_ corresponded with any real\n     event.]\n\nThe impression here produced is as though a jerk were given to some\ndelicate link connecting the two brothers. The brother suffering the\ncrisis thinks vividly of the other; and one can of course explain the\nincident, as we did on its first publication, as the endangered man's\nprojection of the scene upon his brother's mind. The passive dozing\nbrother, on the other hand, feels as though he were suddenly _present_\nin the scene,--say in response to some sudden call from the brother in\ndanger,--and I am here bringing into relief _that_ aspect of the\nincident, on account of its analogy with cases soon to be quoted. But\nthe main lesson no doubt may be that no hard and fast line can be drawn\nbetween the two explanations.[51]\n\nAnd here I feel bound to introduce a sample of a certain class of\ndreams,--more interesting, perhaps, and certainly more perplexing than\nany;--but belonging to a category of phenomena which at present I can\nmake no attempt to explain. I mean precognitive dreams;--pictures or\nvisions in which future events are foretold or depicted, generally with\nmore or less of symbolism,--and generally also in a mode so remote from\nthe previsions of our earthly sagacity that we shall find ourselves\ndriven, in a later discussion, to speak in vague terms of glimpses into\na cosmic picture-gallery;--or of scenic representations composed and\noffered to us by intelligences higher and more distant than any spirit\nwhom we have known. I give in Appendix IV. C, a thoroughly\ncharacteristic example;--characteristic alike in its definiteness, its\npurposelessness, its isolated unintelligibility.\n\nDr. Bruce's narrative, which I next give in Appendix IV. D, written by\nan intelligent man, while the facts were yet fresh, seems to me of high\nimportance. If we accept the rest of his story, we must, I think,\nsuppose that the sense of spiritual presence with which the incident\nbegan was more than a mere subjective fancy. Shall we refer it to the\nmurdered man's wife;--with whom the dreamer seemed afterwards to be in\ntelepathic relation? Or shall we interpret it as a kind of summons from\nthe dying man, drawing on, as it were, his friend's spirit to witness\nthe actual murder and the subsequent scene? The fact that another\nfriend, in another locality apparently, had a vision of similar nature,\ntells somewhat in favour of the supposition that the decedent's spirit\nwas operative in both cases; since we very seldom--if ever--find an\nagent producing an impression in two separate places at once--or nearly\nso--except at or just after the moment of death.\n\nIn this view, the incident resembles a scene passing in a spiritual\nworld. The dying man summons his brother-in-law; the brother-in-law\nvisits the scene of murder, and there spiritually communicates with his\nsister, the widow, who is corporeally in that scene, and then sees\nfurther details of the scene after death, which he does not understand,\nand which are not explained to him.\n\nFantastic though this explanation seems, it is not easy to hit on a\nsimpler one which will cover the facts as stated. Could we accept it, we\nshould have a kind of transition between two groups of cases, which\nalthough apparently so different may form parts of a continuous series.\nI mean the cases where the dreamer visits a distant scene, and the cases\nwhere another spirit visits the dreamer.\n\nTaking, then, Dr. Bruce's case to bridge the interval between these two\ngroups, I go on to a case which properly belongs to the _second_, though\nit still has much in common with the _first_. I shall quote Mrs.\nStorie's narrative at full length in the text; because the case is, in\nmy judgment, both evidentially very strong, and also, in the naivet\u00e9 of\nits confusion, extremely suggestive of the way in which these psychical\ncommunications are made. Mrs. Storie, who is now dead, was, by the\ntestimony of Edmund Gurney, Professor Sidgwick, and others, a witness\neminently deserving of trust; and, besides a corroboration from her\nhusband of the manifestation of a troubled dream, before the event was\nknown, we have the actual notes written down by her, as she informed us,\nthe day, or the day after, the news of the fatal accident arrived,\nsolely for her own use, and unmistakably reflecting the incoherent\nimpressiveness of the broken vision. These notes form the narrative\ngiven in _Phantasms of the Living_ (vol. i. p. 370) which I reproduce\nhere. The fact that the deceased brother was a _twin_ of Mrs. Storie's\nadds interest to the case, since one clue (a vague one as yet) to the\ncauses directing and determining telepathic communications lies in what\nseems their exceptional frequency between _twins_;--the closest of all\nrelations.\n\n\nHOBART TOWN, _July 1874_.\n\n     On the evening of the 18th July, I felt unusually nervous. This\n     seemed to begin [with the occurrence of a small domestic annoyance]\n     about half past eight o'clock. When I went to my room I even felt\n     as if some one was there. I fancied, as I stepped into bed, that\n     some one _in thought_ tried to stop me. At 2 o'clock I woke from\n     the following dream. It seemed like in dissolving views. In a\n     twinkle of light I saw a railway, and the puff of the engine. I\n     thought, \"What's going on up there? Travelling? I wonder if any of\n     us are travelling and I dreaming of it.\" _Some one_ unseen by me\n     answered, \"No; something quite different--something wrong.\" \"I\n     don't like to look at these things,\" I said. Then I saw behind and\n     above my head William's upper half reclining, eyes and mouth half\n     shut; his chest moved forward convulsively, and he raised his right\n     arm. Then he bent forward, saying, \"I suppose I should move out of\n     this.\" Then I saw him lying, eyes shut, on the ground, flat. The\n     chimney of an engine at his head. I called in excitement, \"That\n     will strike him!\" The _some one_ answered \"Yes--well, here's what\n     it was\"; and immediately I saw William sitting in the open\n     air--faint moonlight--on a raised place sideways. He raised his\n     right arm, shuddered, and said, \"I can't go on, or back, _No_.\"\n     Then he seemed lying flat. I cried out, \"Oh! Oh!\" and others seemed\n     to echo, \"Oh! Oh!\" He seemed then upon his elbow, saying, \"Now it\n     comes.\" Then as if struggling to rise, turned twice round quickly,\n     saying, \"Is it the train? _the train, the train_,\" his right\n     shoulder reverberating as if struck from behind. He fell back like\n     fainting; his eyes rolled. A large dark object came between us like\n     panelling of wood, and rather in the dark something rolled over,\n     and like an arm was thrown up, and the whole thing went away with a\n     _swish_. Close beside me on the ground there seemed a long dark\n     object. I called out, \"They've left something behind; it's like a\n     man.\" It then raised its shoulders and head, and fell down again.\n     The same _some one_ answered, \"_Yes, sadly_.\" [? \"_Yes_,\" sadly.]\n     After a moment I seemed called on to look up, and said, \"Is that\n     _thing_ not away yet?\" Answered, \"_No_.\" And in front, in light,\n     there was a railway compartment in which sat Rev. Mr. Johnstone, of\n     Echuca. I said, \"What's he doing there?\" Answered, \"He's there.\" A\n     railway porter went up to the window asking, \"Have you seen any\n     of----.\" I caught no more, but I _thought_ he referred to the\n     _thing_ left behind. Mr. Johnstone seemed to answer \"_No_\"; and the\n     man went quickly away--I thought to look for it. After all this the\n     _some one_ said close to me, \"Now I'm going.\" I started, and at\n     once saw\n     {a tall dark figure at my head}\n     {William's back at my side. } He put his right hand (in grief) over\n     his face, and the other almost touching my shoulder, he crossed in front,\n     looking stern and solemn. There was a flash from the eyes, and I\n     caught a glimpse of a fine pale face like ushering him along, and\n     indistinctly another. I felt frightened, and called out, \"Is he angry?\"\n     \"Oh, no.\" \"Is he going away?\" Answered, \"_Yes_,\" by the same _some one_,\n     and I woke with a loud sigh, which woke my husband, who said, \"What is\n     it?\" I told him I had been dreaming \"something unpleasant\"--named a\n     \"railway,\" and dismissed it all from my mind as a dream. As I fell\n     asleep again I fancied the _some one_ said, \"It's all gone,\" and another\n     answered, \"I'll come and remind her.\"\n\n     The news reached me one week afterwards. The accident had happened\n     to my brother on the same night about half past 9 o'clock. Rev. Mr.\n     Johnstone and his wife were actually in the train which struck him.\n     He was walking along the line which is raised two feet on a level\n     country. He seemed to have gone 16 miles--must have been tired and\n     sat down to take off his boot, which was beside him, dozed off and\n     was very likely roused by the sound of the train; 76 sheep-trucks\n     had passed without touching him, but some wooden projection, likely\n     the step, had touched the _right_ side of his head, bruised his\n     right shoulder, and killed him instantaneously. The night was very\n     dark. I believe now that the _some one_ was (from something in the\n     _way_ he spoke) William _himself_. The face with him was white as\n     alabaster and something like this [a small sketch pasted on] in\n     profile. There were many other thoughts or words seemed to pass,\n     but they are too many to write down here.\n\n     The voice of the _some one_ unseen seemed _always above_ the figure\n     of William which I saw. And when I was shown the compartment of the\n     carriage with Mr. Johnstone, the _some one_ seemed on a line\n     between me and it--_above_ me.\n\n     [In an account-book of Mrs. Storie's, on a page, headed July 1874,\n     we find the 18th day marked, and the words, \"Dear Willie died,\" and\n     \"Dreamed, dreamed of it all,\" appended.\n\n     The first letter, from the Rev. J. C. Johnstone to the Rev. John\n     Storie, announcing the news of the accident, is lost. The following\n     are extracts from his second and third letters on the subject:--]\n\n\nECHUCA, _10th August 1874_.\n\n     The place where Hunter was killed is on an open plain, and there\n     was consequently plenty of room for him to escape the train had he\n     been conscious; but I think Meldrum's theory is the correct one,\n     that he had sat down to adjust some bandages on his leg and had\n     thoughtlessly gone off to sleep. There is only one line of rails,\n     and the ground is raised about 2 feet--the ground on which the\n     rails rest. He had probably sat down on the edge, and lain down\n     backwards so as to be within reach of some part of the train. It\n     was not known at the time that an accident had occurred. Mrs.\n     Johnstone and myself were in the train. Meldrum says he was not\n     very much crushed. The top of the skull was struck off, and some\n     ribs were broken under the armpit on one side. His body was found\n     on the Sunday morning by a herd-boy from the adjoining station.\n\n\n_August 29th, 1874._\n\n     The exact time at which the train struck poor Hunter must have been\n     about 9.55 P.M., and his death must have been instantaneous.\n\n     [The above corresponds with the account of the inquest in the\n     _Riverine Herald_ for July 22nd. The _Melbourne Argus_ also\n     describes the accident as having taken place on the night of\n     Saturday, the 18th.\n\n     The following remarks are taken from notes made by Professor\n     Sidgwick, during an interview with Mrs. Storie, in April 1884, and\n     by Mrs. Sidgwick after another interview in September 1885:--]\n\n     Mrs. Storie cannot regard the experience exactly as a dream, though\n     she woke up from it. She is sure that it did not grow more definite\n     in recollection afterwards. She never had a series of scenes in a\n     dream at any other time; and she has never had anything like a\n     hallucination. They were introduced by a voice in a whisper, not\n     recognised as her brother's. He had sat on the bank as he appeared\n     in the dream. The engine she saw behind him had a chimney of\n     peculiar shape, such as she had not at that time seen; and she\n     remembers that Mr. Storie thought her foolish about insisting on\n     the chimney--unlike (he said) any which existed; but he informed\n     her when he came back from Victoria, where her brother was, that\n     engines of this kind had just been introduced there. She had no\n     reason to think that any conversation between the porter and the\n     clergyman actually occurred. The persons who seemed to lead her\n     brother away were not recognised by her, and she only saw the face\n     of one of them.\n\n     Mr. Storie confirms his wife having said to him at the time of the\n     dream, \"What is that light?\" Before writing the account first\n     quoted, she had just mentioned the dream to her husband, but had\n     not described it. She desired not to think of it, and also was\n     unwilling to worry him about it because of his Sunday's work. This\n     last point, it will be observed, is a confirmation of the fact that\n     the dream took place on the Saturday night; and \"it came out\n     clearly\" (Mrs. Sidgwick says) \"that her recollection about the\n     Saturday night was an independent recollection, and not read back\n     after the accident was known.\" The strongly nervous state that\n     preceded the dream was quite unique in Mrs. S.'s experience. But as\n     it appeared that, according to her recollection, it commenced at\n     least an hour before the accident took place, it must be regarded\n     as of no importance evidentially. The feeling of a presence in the\n     room was also quite unique.\n\n\"Here,\" says Gurney, \"the difficulty of referring the true elements of\nthe dream to the agent's mind [is very great]. For Mr. Hunter was\nasleep; and even if we can conceive that the image of the advancing\nengine may have had some place in his mind, the presence of Mr.\nJohnstone could not have been perceived by him. But it is possible, of\ncourse, to regard this last item of correspondence as accidental, even\nthough the dream was telepathic. It will be observed that the dream\nfollowed the accident by about four hours; such _deferment_ is, I\nthink, a strong point in favour of telepathic, as opposed to\nindependent, clairvoyance.\"\n\nI propose as an alternative explanation,--for reasons which I endeavour\nto justify in later chapters,--that the deceased brother, aided by some\nother dimly discerned spirit, was endeavouring to present to Mrs. Storie\na series of pictures representing his death--as realised _after_ his\ndeath. I add this last clause, because one of the marked points in the\ndream was the presence in the train of Mr. Johnstone of Echuca--a fact\nwhich (as Gurney remarks) the dying man could not possibly know.\n\nI have dwelt on these two cases of Dr. Bruce and Mrs. Storie, because\nthe reader will, I think, come to feel, as our evidence unrolls itself,\nthat he has here complex experiences which are confirmed at various\npoints by simpler experiences, in such a way as to make these stories\nseem a confused but an intimate transcript of what other narratives show\nin hints and glimpses alone.\n\nIn Mrs. Storie's case the whole experience, as we have seen, presented\nitself as a _dream_; yet as a dream of quite unusual type, like a series\nof pictures presented to the sleeper who was still conscious that she\nwas lying in bed. In other cases the \"psychical invasion\" of the spirit\neither of a living or of a deceased person seems to set up a variety of\nsleep-waking states--both in agent and percipient. In one bizarre\nnarrative a man dreaming that he has returned home is _heard_ in his\nhome calling for hot water--and has himself a singular sense of\n\"bilocation\" between the railway carriage and his bedroom.[52] In\nanother curious case is recorded a kind of _encounter_ in dreamland,\napparently more or less remembered by both persons.[53]\n\nAn invasion of this type coming upon a sleeping person is apt to induce\nsome change in the sleeper's state, which, even if he regards it as a\ncomplete awakening, is generally shown not to be so in fact by the\ndreamlike character of his own recorded feelings and utterances. Gurney\ncalled these \"Borderland Cases,\" and the whole collection in _Phantasms\nof the Living_ will repay perusal. I introduce one such case in Appendix\nIV. E, as being at once very perplexing and, I think, very strongly\nattested. I knew Mr. and Mrs. T., who certainly were seriously anxious\nfor complete accuracy, and who had (as the narrative shows) made a\nbrief memorandum and consulted various persons on the incident at the\ntime.\n\nThese cases of invasion by the spirits of living persons pass on into\ncases of invasion by the dying, the impression being generally that of\nthe presence of the visitant in the percipient's surroundings.[54]\nSometimes the phantasm is seen as nearly as can be ascertained at the\ntime of death. But there is no perceptible break in the series at this\npoint. Some appear shortly after death, but before the death is known to\nthe percipient. [See Appendix IV. F]. Finally, there are cases when the\nappearance takes place some time after death, but presents features\nunknown to the percipient.[55]\n\nWe have now briefly reviewed certain phenomena of sleep from a\nstandpoint somewhat differing from that which is commonly taken. We have\nnot (as is usual) fixed our attention primarily on the _negative_\ncharacteristics of sleep, or the extent to which it lacks the capacities\nof waking hours. On the contrary, we have regarded sleep as an\nindependent phase of personality, existing with as good a right as the\nwaking phase, and dowered with imperfectly expressed faculties of its\nown. In investigating those faculties we have been in no wise deterred\nby the fact of the apparent uselessness of some of them for our waking\nends. _Useless_ is a pre-scientific, even an anti-scientific term, which\nhas perhaps proved a greater stumbling-block to research in psychology\nthan in any other science. In science the _use_ of phenomena is to prove\nlaws, and the more bizarre and trivial the phenomena, the greater the\nchance of their directing us to some law which has been overlooked till\nnow. In reviewing the phenomena of sleep, then, we found in the first\nplace that it possesses a specific recuperative energy which the\ncommonly accepted data of physiology and psychology cannot explain. We\nsaw that in sleep there may be an increased co-ordination or\ncentralisation of muscular control, and also an increased vividness of\nentencephalic perception, indicating a more intimate appreciation of\nintra-peripheral changes than is manifest in waking life. In accordance\nwith this view, we found that the dreaming self may undergo sensory and\nemotional experiences apparently more intense than those of vigilance,\nand may produce thereby lasting effects upon the waking body and mind.\nSimilarly again, we saw that that specific impress on body and mind\nwhich we term memory may in sleeping or hypnotic states be both wider in\nrange and fuller in content than the evocable memory of the waking day.\nNay, not memory only, but power of inference, of argument, may be thus\nintensified, as is shown by the solution in sleep of problems which have\nbaffled waking effort.\n\nAll these are fragmentary indications,--useless for practical purposes\nif you will,--of sleeping faculty exercised on the same order of things\nas waking faculty, and with comparable or even superior power. But we\nwere bound to push our inquiry further still--we were bound to ask\nwhether the self of sleep showed any faculty of a quite different order\nfrom that by which waking consciousness maintains the activity of man.\nWe found that this was so indeed; that there was evidence that the\nsleeping spirit was susceptible of relations unfettered by spatial\nbonds; of tel\u00e6sthetic perception of distant scenes; of telepathic\ncommunication with distant persons, or even with spirits of whom we can\npredicate neither distance nor nearness, since they are released from\nthe prison of the flesh.\n\nThe inference which all this evidence suggests is entirely in accordance\nwith the hypothesis on which my whole work is based.\n\nI have assumed that man is an organism informed or possessed by a soul.\nThis view obviously involves the hypothesis that we are living a life in\ntwo worlds at once; a planetary life in this material world, to which\nthe organism is intended to react; and also a cosmic life in that\nspiritual or metetherial world, which is the native environment of the\nsoul. From that unseen world the energy of the organism needs to be\nperpetually replenished. That replenishment we cannot understand: we may\nfigure it to ourselves as a protoplasmic process;--as some relation\nbetween protoplasm, ether, and whatever is beyond ether, on which it is\nat present useless to speculate.\n\nAdmitting, for the sake of argument, these vast assumptions, it will be\neasy to draw the further inference that it may be needful that the\nsoul's attention should be frequently withdrawn from the business of\nearthly life, so as to pursue with greater intensity what we may call\nits protoplasmic task,--the maintenance of the fundamental, pervading\nconnection between the organism and the spiritual world. Nay, this\nprofounder condition, as responding to more primitive, more fundamental\nneeds, will itself be more primitive than the waking state. And this is\nso: sleep is the infant's dominant phase: the pre-natal state resembles\nsleep rather than waking; and so does the whole life-condition of our\nlowly ancestors. And as the sleeping state is the more _primitive_, so\nalso is it the more _generalised_, and the more _plastic_. Out of this\ndreamy abeyance between two worlds, the needs of the material world are\nconstantly developing some form of alert activity, some faculty which\nwas _potential_ only until search for food and the defence against\nenemies compelled a closer heed to \"the life of relation,\" lest the\nrelation should become only that of victim to devourer.\n\nWe shall thus have two phases of personality developing into separate\npurposes and in separate directions from a parent stem. The waking\npersonality will develop external sense organs and will fit itself\nprogressively for the life of relation to the external world. It will\nendeavour to attain an ever completer control over the resources of the\npersonality, and it will culminate in what we term _genius_ when it has\nunified the subliminal as far as possible with the supraliminal in its\npursuit of deliberate waking ends.\n\nThe sleeping personality will develop in ways less easy to foresee.\nWhat, on any theory, will it aim at, beyond the familiar intensification\nof recuperative power? We can only guess, on my theory, that its\ndevelopment will show some increasing trace of the soul's less exclusive\nabsorption in the activity of the organism. The soul has withdrawn from\nthe specialised material surface of things (to use such poor metaphor as\nwe can) into a realm where the nature of the connection between matter\nand spirit--whether through the intermediacy of the ether or\notherwise--is more profoundly discerned. That same withdrawal from the\nsurface which, while it diminishes power over complex muscular\nprocesses, increases power over profound organic processes, may at the\nsame time increase the soul's power of operating in that spiritual world\nto which sleep has drawn it nearer.\n\nOn this view of sleep, be it observed, there will be nothing to surprise\nus in the possibility of increasing the proportion of the sleeping to\nthe waking phase of life by hypnotic suggestion. All we can say is that,\nwhile the soul must insist on at least the minimum quantity of sleep\nneedful to keep the body alive, we can see no superior limit to the\nquantity of sleep which it may choose to take,--the quantity of\nattention, that is, which it may choose to give to the special\noperations of sleep as compared with those of waking life.\n\nAt this point we must for the present pause. The suggested hypothesis\nwill indeed cover the actual facts as to sleep adduced in this chapter.\nBut it covers them by virtue of assumptions too vast to be accepted\nwithout further confirmation. It must necessarily be our duty in later\nchapters to trace the development of the sleeping personality in both\nthe directions indicated above;--in the direction of organic\nrecuperation through the hypnotic trance, and in the direction of the\nsoul's independent operation through that form of trance which leads to\npossession and to ecstasy. We shall begin at once in the next chapter to\ntrace out that great experimental modification of sleep, from which,\nunder the names of mesmerism or of hypnotism, results of such\nconspicuous practical value have already been won.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nHYPNOTISM\n\n    [Greek: eileto de rhabdon, tu t' andr\u00f4n dmmata thelgei,\n    On ethelei, tout d aute ka\u00ec upn\u00f4ontas ege\u00edrei.]\n\n    --HOMER.\n\n\nIn the last chapter we were led on to adopt a conception of sleep which,\nwhether or not it prove ultimately in any form acceptable by science, is\nat any rate in deep congruity with the evidence brought forward in this\nwork. Our human life, in this view, exists and energises, at the present\nmoment, both in the material and in the spiritual world. Human\npersonality, as it has developed from lowly ancestors, has become\ndifferentiated into two phases; one of them mainly adapted to material\nor planetary, the other to spiritual or cosmic operation. The subliminal\nself, mainly directing the sleeping phase, is able either to rejuvenate\nthe organism by energy drawn in from the spiritual world;--or, on the\nother hand, temporarily and partially to relax its connection with that\norganism, in order to expatiate in the exercise of supernormal\npowers;--telepathy, telesth\u00e6sia, ecstasy.\n\nSuch were the suggestions of the evidence as to dream and vision; such,\nI may add, will be seen to be the suggestions of _spontaneous\nsomnambulism_, which has not yet fallen under our discussion. Yet claims\nso large as these demand corroboration from observation and experiment\nalong many different lines of approach. Some such corroboration we have,\nin anticipatory fashion, already acquired. Discussing in Chapter II. the\nvarious forms of disintegration of personality, we had frequent glimpses\nof beneficent subliminal powers. We saw the deepest stratum of the self\nintervening from time to time with a therapeutic object, or we caught it\nin the act of exercising, even if aimlessly or sporadically, some\nfaculty beyond supraliminal reach. And we observed, moreover, that the\nagency by which these subliminal powers were invoked was generally the\n_hypnotic trance_. Of the nature of that trance I then said nothing; it\nwas manifest only that here was some kind of induced or artificial\nsomnambulism, which seemed to systematise that beneficial control of\nthe organism which spontaneous sleep-waking states had exercised in a\nfitful way. It must plainly be our business to understand _ab initio_\nthese hypnotic phenomena; to push as far as may be what seems like an\nexperimental evolution of the sleeping phase of personality.\n\nLet us suppose, then, that we are standing at our present point, but\nwith no more knowledge of hypnotic phenomena than existed in the boyhood\nof Mesmer. We shall know well enough what, as experimental\npsychologists, we desire to do; but we shall have little notion of how\nto set about it. We desire to summon at our will, and to subdue to our\nuse, these rarely emergent sleep-waking faculties. On their physical\nside, we desire to develop their inhibition of pain and their\nreinforcement of energy; on their intellectual side, their concentration\nof attention; on their emotional side, their sense of freedom,\nexpansion, joy. Above all, we desire to get hold of those supernormal\nfaculties--telepathy and tel\u00e6sthesia--of which we have caught fitful\nglimpses in somnambulism and in dream.\n\nYet to such hopes as these the so-called \"experience of ages\" (generally\na very short and scrappy induction!) will seem altogether to refuse any\npractical outcome. History, indeed,--with the wonted vagueness of\nhistory,--will offer us a long series of stories of the strange sanative\nsuggestion or influence of man on man;--beginning, say, with David and\nSaul, or with David and Abishag, and ending with Valentine\nGreatrakes,--or with the Stuarts' last touch for the King's evil. But in\nknowledge of how actually to set about it, we should still be just on\nthe level of the Seven Sages.[56]\n\nAnd now let the reader note this lesson on the unexhausted possibilities\nof human organisms and human life. Let him take his stand at one of the\nmodern centres of hypnotic practice,--in Professor Bernheim's\nhospital-ward, or Dr. van Renterghem's _clinique_; let him see the\nhundreds of patients thrown daily into hypnotic trance, in a few\nmoments, and as a matter of course; and let him then remember that this\nprocess, which now seems as obvious and easy as giving a pill, was\nabsolutely unknown not only to Galen and to Celsus, but to Hunter and to\nHarvey; and when at last discovered was commonly denounced as a\nfraudulent fiction, almost up to the present day. Nay, if one chances to\nhave watched as a boy some cure effected in Dr. Elliotson's Mesmeric\nHospital, before neglect and calumny had closed that too early effort\nfor human good;--if one has seen popular indifference and professional\nprejudice check the new healing art for a generation;--is not one likely\nto have imbibed a deep distrust of all _a priori_ negations in the\nmatter of human faculty;--of all _obiter dicta_ of eminent men on\nsubjects with which they do not happen to be acquainted? Would not one,\nafter such an experience, rather choose (with Darwin) \"the fool's\nexperiment\" than any immemorial ignorance which has stiffened into an\nunreasoning incredulity?\n\nMesmer's experiment was almost a \"fool's experiment,\" and Mesmer himself\nwas almost a charlatan. Yet Mesmer and his successors,--working from\nmany different points of view, and following many divergent\ntheories,--have opened an ever-widening way, and have brought us now to\na position where we can fairly hope, by experiments made no longer at\nrandom, to reproduce and systematise most of those phenomena of\nspontaneous somnambulism which once seemed to lie so tantalisingly\nbeyond our grasp.\n\nThat promise is great indeed; yet it is well to begin by considering\nprecisely how far it extends. We must not suppose that we shall at once\nbe subduing to our experiment a central, integrated, reasonable Self.\n\nWe must be content (at first at any rate) if we can affect the\npersonality in the same limited way as hysteria and somnambulism have\naffected it; but yet can act deliberately and usefully where these have\nacted hurtfully and at random. It is enough to hope that we may inhibit\npain, as it is inhibited for the hysteric; or concentrate attention, as\nit is concentrated for the somnambulist; or change the tastes and\npassions, as these are changed in alternating personalities; or (best of\nall) recover and fix something of that supernormal faculty of which we\nhave caught fugitive glimpses in vision and dream. Our proof of the\norigination of any phenomenon in the deeper strata of our being must lie\nin the intrinsic nature of the faculty exhibited;--not in the wisdom of\nits actual direction. _That_ must often depend on the order given from\nabove the threshold; just as the magic mill of the fable continues\nmagical, although, for lack of the proper formula to stop it, it be\nstill grinding out superfluous salt at the bottom of the sea.\n\nThis brief introduction will, I hope, show that hypnotism is no\ndisconnected or extraneous insertion into experimental psychology, but\nrather a summary name for a group of necessary, though empirical and\nisolated, attempts to bring under control that range of submerged\nfaculty which has already from time to time risen into our observation.\nThe inquiry has been mainly the work of a few distinguished men, who\nhave each of them pushed some useful ideas as far as they could, but\nwhose work has not been adequately supported by successors.\n\nI should much doubt whether there have been a hundred men in all\ncountries together, at the ordinary level of professional intelligence,\nwho during the century since Mesmer have treated hypnotism as the\nserious study of their lives. Some few of the men who have so treated it\nhave been men of great force and strong convictions; and it will be\nfound that there has consequently been a series of sudden developments\nof groups of phenomena, differing much from each other, but\ncorresponding with the special beliefs and desires of the person who\nheaded each movement in turn. I will mention some of the chief examples,\nso as to show the sporadic nature of the efforts made, and the great\nvariety of the phenomena elicited.\n\nThe first name that must be mentioned is, of course, that of Mesmer\nhimself. He believed primarily in a sanative effluence, and his method\nseems to have been a combination of passes, suggestion, and a supposed\n\"metallotherapy\" or \"magneto-therapy\"--the celebrated _baquet_--which no\ndoubt was merely a form of suggestion. His results, though very\nimperfectly described, seem to have been peculiar to himself. The\n_crise_ which many of his patients underwent sounds like a hysterical\nattack; but there can be no doubt that rapid improvement in symptoms\noften followed it, or he would not have made so great an impression on\n_savants_ as well as on the fashionable world of Paris. To Mesmer, then,\nwe owe the first conception of the therapeutic power of a sudden and\nprofound nervous change. To Mesmer, still more markedly, we owe the\ndoctrine of a nervous influence or effluence passing from man to man,--a\ndoctrine which, though it must assume a less exclusive importance than\nhe assigned to it, cannot, in my view, be altogether ignored or denied.\n\nThe leading figure among his immediate successors, the Marquis de\nPuys\u00e9gur, seems from his writings[57] to have been one of the ablest and\nmost candid men who have practised mesmerism; and he was one of the very\nfew who have conducted experiments, other than therapeutic, on a large\nscale. The somnambulic state may also be said to have been his\ndiscovery; and he obtained clairvoyance or tel\u00e6sthesia in so many\ninstances, and recorded them with so much of detail, that it is hard to\nattribute all to mal-observation, or even to telepathy from persons\npresent. Other observers, as Bertrand, a physician of great promise,\nfollowed in the same track, and this brief period was perhaps the most\nfertile in disinterested experiments that our subject has yet known.\nMuch was then done in Germany also; and there, too, there is scattered\ntestimony to supernormal powers.[58]\n\nNext came the era of Elliotson in England, and of Esdaile in his\nhospital at Calcutta. Their method lay in mesmeric passes, Elliotson's\nobject being mostly the direct cure of maladies, Esdaile's a deep\nan\u00e6sthesia, under which he performed hundreds of serious operations. His\nsuccess in this direction was absolutely unique;--was certainly (setting\naside supernormal phenomena) the most extraordinary performance in\nmesmeric history. Had not his achievements been matters of official\nrecord, the apparent impossibility of repeating them would probably by\nthis time have been held to have disproved them altogether.\n\nThe next great step which hypnotism made was actually regarded by\nElliotson and his group as a hostile demonstration. When Braid\ndiscovered that hypnosis could be induced without passes, the mesmerists\nfelt that their theory of a sanative effluence was dangerously attacked.\nAnd this was true; for that theory has in fact been thrown into the\nshade,--too completely so, in my opinion,--first by the method used in\nBraid's earlier work of the production of hypnotic phenomena by means of\nthe upward and inward squint, and secondly, by the much wider and more\nimportant discovery of the efficacy of mere _suggestion_, set forth in\nhis later writings. Braid's hypnotic experience differed much from that\nof hypnotists before and after him. His early method of the convergent\nsquint produced results which no one else has been able to produce; and\nthe state which it induced appeared in his view to arrest and dissipate\neven maladies of which neither hypnotist nor patient had thought as\ncapable of cure. But he afterwards abandoned this method in favour of\nsimple verbal suggestion, as he found that what was required was merely\nto influence the ideas of his patients. He showed further that all\nso-called phrenological phenomena and the supposed effects of magnets,\nmetals, etc., could be produced equally well by suggestion.[59] He also\nlaid stress on the subject's power both of resisting the commands of the\noperator and of inducing hypnotic effects in himself without the aid of\nan operator. To my mind the most important novelty brought out by Braid\nwas the possibility of self-hypnotisation by concentration of will. This\ninlet into human faculty, in some ways the most important of all, has\nbeen as yet but slackly followed. But it is along with Braid's group of\nideas that I should place those of an able but much inferior\ninvestigator, Dr. Fahnestock, although it is not clear that the latter\nknew of Braid's work. His book, _Statuvolism, or Artificial\nSomnambulism_ (Chicago, 1871), has received less attention than it\nmerits;--partly perhaps from its barbarous title, partly from the\ncrudities with which it is encumbered, and partly from the fact of its\npublication at what was at that date a town on the outskirts of\ncivilisation. Fahnestock seems to have obtained by self-suggestion with\nhealthy persons results in some ways surpassing anything since recorded.\n\nThere is no reason to doubt these results, except the fact that they\nhave not yet been repeated with equal success; and my present purpose is\nto show how little importance can as yet be attached in the history of\nhypnotic experiment to the mere absence thus far of successful\nrepetition.\n\nThe next great stage was again strikingly different. It was mainly\nFrench; the impulse was given largely by Professor Charles Richet, whose\nwork has proved singularly free from narrowness or misconception; but\nthe movement was developed in a special and a very unfortunate direction\nby Charcot and his school. It is a remarkable fact that although Charcot\nwas perhaps the only man of eminence whose professional reputation has\never been raised by his dealings with hypnotism, most of his work\nthereon is now seen to have been mistaken and aberrant,--a mere\nfollowing of a blind alley, from which his disciples are now gradually\nreturning. Charcot's leading phenomena (as with several of his\npredecessors above mentioned) were of a type which has seldom since been\nobtained. The once celebrated \"three stages\" of the _grand hypnotisme_\nare hardly anywhere now to be seen. But in this case the reason is not\nthat other hypnotists could not obtain the phenomena if they would; it\nis rather (as I have already indicated) that experience has convinced\nthem that the sequences and symptoms on which Charcot laid stress were\nmerely very elaborate products of the long-continued, and, so to say,\nendemic suggestions of the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re.\n\nWe come next to the movement which is now on the whole dominant, and to\nwhich the greatest number of cures may at present be credited. The\nschool of Nancy--which originated with Li\u00e9beault, and which is now\ngradually merging into a general consensus of hypnotic practice--threw\naside more and more decisively the supposed \"somatic signs\" of\nCharcot,--the phenomena of neuro-muscular irritability and the like,\nwhich he regarded as the requisite proof of hypnosis;--until Bernheim\nboldly affirmed that hypnotic trance was no more than sleep, and that\nhypnotic suggestion was at once the sole cause of hypnotic\nresponsiveness and yet was undifferentiated from mere ordinary advisory\nspeech. This was unfortunately too good to be true. Not one sleep in a\nmillion is really hypnosis; not one suggestion in a million reaches or\ninfluences the subliminal self. If Bernheim's theories, in their extreme\nform, were true, there would by this time have been no sufferers left to\nheal.\n\nWhat Bernheim has done is to cure a number of people without mesmeric\npasses, and without any special predisposing belief on either\nside,--beyond a trust in his own power. And this is a most valuable\nachievement, especially as showing how much may be _dispensed with_ in\nhypnotic practice--to how simple elements it may be reduced.\n\n\"Hypnotic trance,\" says Bernheim, in effect, \"is ordinary sleep;\nhypnotic suggestion is ordinary command. You tell the patient to go to\nsleep, and he goes to sleep; you tell him to get well, and he gets well\nimmediately.\" Even thus (one thinks) has one heard the conjuror\nexplaining \"how it's done,\"--with little resulting hope of emulating his\nbrilliant performance. An ordinary command does _not_ enable an ordinary\nman to get rid of his rheumatism, or to detest the previously too\nacceptable taste of brandy. In suggestion, in short, there must needs be\nsomething more than a name; a profound nervous change must needs be\nstarted by some powerful nervous stimulus from without or from within.\nBefore contenting ourselves with Bernheim's formula, we must consider\nyet again what change we want to effect, and whether hypnotists have\nactually used any form of stimulus which was likely to effect it.\n\nAccording to Bernheim we are all naturally suggestible, and what we want\nto effect through suggestion is increased suggestibility. But let us get\nrid for the moment of that oracular word. What it seems to mean here is\nmainly a readier obedience of the organism to what we wish it to do. The\nsleep or trance with which hypnotism is popularly identified is not\nessential to our object, for the subliminal modifications are sometimes\nattained without any trace of somnolence. Let us consider, then, whether\nany known nervous stimuli, either massive or specialised, tend to\ninduce--not mere sleep or catalepsy--but that kind of ready\nmodifiability,--of _responsiveness_ both in visible gesture and in\ninvisible nutritive processes,--for the sake of which hypnosis is in\nserious practice induced.\n\nNow of the external stimuli which influence the whole nervous system the\nmost conspicuous are narcotic drugs. Opium, alcohol, chloroform,\ncannabis indica, etc., affect the nerves in so many strange ways that\none might hope that they would be of use as hypnotic agents. And some\nobservers have found that slight chloroformisation rendered subjects\nmore suggestible. Janet has cited one case where suggestibility was\ndeveloped during recovery from delirium tremens. Other hypnotisers (as\nBramwell) have found chloroform fail to render patients hypnotisable;\nand alcohol is generally regarded as a positive hindrance to hypnotic\nsusceptibility. More experiment with various narcotics is much needed;\nbut thus far the scantiness of proof that narcotics help towards\nhypnosis goes rather against the view that hypnosis is a direct\nphysiological sequence from any form of external stimulus.\n\nThe apparent resemblance, indeed, between narcosis and hypnosis\ndiminishes on a closer analysis. A stage may occur both in narcotised\nand in hypnotised subjects where there is incoherent, dream-like\nmentation; but in the narcotised subject this is a step towards\ninhibition of the whole nervous energy--the highest centres being\nparalysed first; whereas in hypnosis the inhibition of supraliminal\nfaculty seems often at least to be merely a necessary preliminary to the\nliberation of fresh faculty which presently manifests itself from a\nprofounder region of the self.\n\nNext take another group of massive effects produced on the nervous\nsystem by external stimuli;--those forms, namely, of trance and\ncataplexy which are due to sudden shock. With human beings this\nphenomenon varies from actual death from failure of heart-action, or\nparalysis, or _stupor attonitus_ (a recognised form of insanity), any of\nwhich may result from a mere alarming sight or unwelcome announcement,\ndown to the cataleptic immobility of a Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re patient, when she\nhears a sudden stroke on the gong.\n\nSimilar phenomena in certain animals, as frogs, beetles, etc., are well\nknown. It is doubtful, however, whether any of these sudden disablements\nshould be classed as true hypnoses. It has not, I think, been shown that\nin any case they have induced any real responsiveness to control, or\npower of obeying suggestion; unless it be (as in some Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re cases)\na form of suggestion so obvious and habitual that the obedience thereto\nmay be called part of the actual cataplexy itself. Thus the \"wax-like\nflexibility\" of the cataleptic, whose arms remain in the position where\nyou place them, must not be regarded as a readier obedience to control,\nbut rather as a state which involves not a more but a less alert and\ncapable responsiveness of the organism to either external or internal\nstimuli.\n\nSo with regard to animals--crocodiles, frogs, and the like. I hold\ntheoretically that animals are probably hypnotisable and suggestible;\nand the records of Rarey's horse-taming, etc., seem to point in that\ndirection.[60] But in the commoner experiments with frogs, where mere\npassivity is produced, the resemblance seems to extend only to the\nlethargic stage in human beings,[61] and what relation that lethargy\nbears to suggestibility is not, I think, really known; although I shall\nlater on suggest some explanation on psychological grounds.\n\nIt seems plain, at any rate, that it must be from stimuli applied to men\nand not to animals, and from stimuli of a special and localised rather\nthan of a massive kind, that we shall have to learn whatever can be\nlearnt as to the genesis of the true hypnotic control.\n\nNow there exists a way of inducing hypnosis in some hysterical persons\nwhich seems intermediate between massive and localised stimulations. It\nis indeed a local stimulation; but there seems no reason beyond some\ndeep-seated caprice of the organism why the special tract which is thus\nsensitive should have become developed in that direction.\n\nI speak of the induction of trance in certain subjects by pressure upon\nso-called _hypnogenous zones_. These zones form a curious development of\nhysterical _cliniques_. Their starting-point is the well-known\nphenomenon of patches of an\u00e6sthesia found upon hysterical subjects--the\n\"witch-marks\" of our ancestors.\n\nSo far as we at present know, the situation of these \"marks\" is\naltogether capricious. It does not apparently depend, that is to say,\nupon any central lesion, in the same way as do the \"referred pains,\"\nfamiliar in deep-seated organic complaints, which manifest themselves by\nsuperficial patches of tenderness, explicable by the distribution of\nnerve-trunks. The an\u00e6sthetic patches are an example of what I have\ncalled the irrational self-suggestions of the hypnotic\nstratum;--determined by dream-like fancies rather than necessitated by\npurely physiological antecedents.\n\nQuite in accordance with this view, we find that under favourable\nconditions--especially in a hospital of hysterics--these anomalous\npatches or zones develop and specialise themselves in various ways.\nUnder Dr. Pitres at Bordeaux (for example), we have _zones\nhyst\u00e9rog\u00e8nes_, _zones hypnog\u00e8nes_, _zones hypnofr\u00e9natrices_, etc.; that\nis to say, he finds that pressure on certain spots in certain subjects\nwill bring on or will check hysterical accesses, or accesses of what is\nranked as hypnotic sleep. There is no doubt that this sleep does in\ncertain subjects follow instantly upon the pressure of certain\nspots,--constant for each subject, but different for one subject and for\nanother;--and this without any conscious co-operation, or even\nforeknowledge, on the patient's part. Stated thus nakedly, this seems\nthe strongest possible instance of the induction of hypnosis by\nlocalised stimulus. The reader, however, will at once understand that in\nmy view there is here no simple physiological sequence of cause and\neffect. I must regard the local pressure as a mere _signal_--an appeal\nto the pre-formed capacities of lawlessly acting centres in the hypnotic\nstratum. A scrap of the self has decided, in dreamlike fashion, that\npressure on a certain point of the body's surface shall produce\nsleep;--just as it has decided that pressure on that same point or on\nsome other point shall _not_ produce pain. Self-suggestion, and no mere\nphysiological nexus, is responsible for the sleep or the hysterical\naccess which follows the touch. The an\u00e6sthetic patches are here a\ndirect, but a capriciously chosen avenue to the subliminal being, and\nthe same random self-suggestiveness which is responsible for frequent\ndeterminations that hysterical subjects shall _not_ be hypnotised has in\nthis case decided that they _shall_ be hypnotised, if you go about it in\nexactly the right way.\n\nNext in order among forms of localised stimulus used for inducing\nhypnosis may be placed _monotonous stimulation_,--to whatever part of\nthe body it be applied. It was at one time the fashion to attribute\nalmost all hypnotic phenomena to this cause, and Edmund Gurney and I\nendeavoured to point out the exaggeration.[62] Of this presently; but\nfirst let us consider the few cases where the monotonous stimulation has\nundoubtedly been of a kind to affect the organism strongly. The late Dr.\nAuguste Voisin, of Paris, was perhaps more markedly successful than any\nphysician in producing hypnosis in extreme cases;--in maniacal persons\nespecially, whose attention it seemed impossible to fix. He often\naccomplished this by holding their eyes open with the blepharostat, and\ncompelling them to gaze, sometimes for hours together, at a brilliant\nelectric light. Exhaustion produces tranquillity and an almost comatose\nsleep--in which the physician has often managed to give suggestions of\ngreat value. This seems practically the only class of cases where a\ndirectly physiological antecedent for the sleep can be proved; and even\nhere the provable effect is rather the exhaustion of morbid excitability\nthan any direct induction of suggestibility. This dazzling process is\ngenerally accompanied with vigorous verbal suggestion; and it is, of\ncourse, quite possible that the patients might have been thrown into\nhypnosis by that suggestion alone, had their minds been capable at first\nof sufficient attention to receive it.\n\nBraid's upward and inward squint has an effect of the same deadening\nkind as the long gazing at a light, and helps in controlling wandering\nattention; but Braid himself in later years (as mentioned above)\nattributed his hypnotic successes wholly to _suggestion_.\n\nFrom monotonous excitations which, whatever their part in inducing\nhypnosis, are, at any rate, such as can sensibly affect the organism, I\ncome down to the trivial monotonies of watch-tickings, \"passes,\" etc.,\nwhich are still by a certain school regarded as capable of producing a\nprofound change in the nervous condition of the person before whose face\nthe hypnotiser's hands are slowly waved for ten or twenty minutes. I\nregard this as a much exaggerated view. The clock's ticking, for\ninstance, if it is marked at all, is at least as likely to irritate as\nto soothe; and the constant experience of life shows that continued\nmonotonous stimuli, say the throbbing of the screw at sea, soon escape\nnotice and produce no hypnotic effect at all. It is true, indeed, that\nmonotonous rocking sends some babies to sleep; but other babies are\nmerely irritated by the process, and such soporific effect as rocking\nmay possess is probably an effect on spinal centres or on the\nsemicircular canals. It depends less on mere monotony than on massive\nmovement of the whole organism.\n\nI think, then, that there is no real ground for supposing that the\ntrivial degree of monotonous stimulation produced by passes often\nrepeated can induce in any ordinary physiological manner that \"profound\nnervous change\" which is recognised as the prerequisite condition of any\nhypnotic results. I think that passes are effectual generally as mere\nsuggestions, and must _prim\u00e2 facie_ be regarded in that light, as they\nare, in fact, regarded by many experienced hypnotisers (as Milne\nBramwell) who have employed them with good effect. Afterwards, when\nreason is given for believing in a telepathic influence or impact\noccasionally transmitted from the operator to the subject at a distance,\nwe shall consider whether passes may represent some other form of the\nsame influence, operating in close physical contiguity.\n\nFirst, however, let us consider the point which we have now reached. We\nhave successively dismissed various supposed modes of physiologically\ninducing hypnotic trance. We stand at present in the position of the\nNancy school;--we have found nothing but _suggestion_ which really\ninduces the phenomena.\n\nBut on the other hand we cannot possibly regard the word suggestion as\nany real answer to the important question _how_ the hypnotic\nresponsiveness is induced, on _what_ conditions it depends.[63]\n\nIt must be remembered that many of the results which follow upon\nsuggestion are of a type which no amount of willingness to follow the\nsuggestion could induce, since they lie quite outside the voluntary\nrealm. However disposed a man may be to believe me, however anxious to\nplease me, one does not see how that should enable him, for instance, to\ngovern the morbidly-secreting cells in an eruption of erysipelas. He\nalready fruitlessly wishes them to stop their inflammation; the mere\nfact of my expressing the same wish can hardly alter his cellular\ntissue.\n\nHere, then, we come to an important conclusion which cannot well be\ndenied, yet is seldom looked fully in the face. Suggestion from without\nmust for the most part resolve itself into suggestion from within.\nUnless there be some telepathic or other supernormal influence at work\nbetween hypnotiser and patient (which I shall presently show ground for\nbelieving to be sometimes, though not often, the case), the hypnotiser\ncan plainly do nothing by his word of command beyond starting a train of\nthought which the patient has in most cases started many times for\nhimself with no result; the difference being that now at last the\npatient starts it again, and it _has_ a result. But _why_ it thus\nsucceeds on this particular occasion, we simply do not know. We cannot\npredict when the result will occur; still less can we bring it about at\npleasure.\n\nNay, we do not even know whether it might not be possible to dispense\naltogether with suggestion from outside in most of the cases now treated\nin this way, and merely to teach the patient to make the suggestions for\nhimself. If there be no \"mesmeric effluence\" passing from hypnotiser to\npatient, the hypnotiser seems little more than a mere _objet de\nluxe_;--a personage provided simply to impress the imagination, who must\nneeds become even absurdly useless so soon as it is understood that he\nhas no other function or power.\n\nSelf-suggestion, whatever this may really mean, is thus in most cases,\nwhether avowedly or not, at the bottom of the effect produced. It has\nalready been used most successfully, and it will probably become much\ncommoner than it now is;--or, I should rather say (since every one no\ndoubt suggests to himself when he is in pain that he would like the pain\nto cease), I anticipate that self-suggestion, by being in some way\nbetter directed, will become more _effective_, and that the average of\nvoluntary power over the organism will rise to a far higher level than\nit at present reaches. I believe that this is taking place even now; and\nthat certain _schemes of self-suggestion_, so to call them, are coming\ninto vogue, where patients in large masses are supplied with effective\nconceptions, which they thus impress repeatedly upon themselves without\nthe need of a hypnotiser's attendance on each occasion. The \"Miracles\nof Lourdes\" and the cures effected by \"Christian Science\" fall, in my\nview, under this category. We have here suggestions given to a quantity\nof more or less suitable people _en masse_, much as a platform\nhypnotiser gives suggestions to a mixed audience, some of whom may then\nbe affected without individual attention from himself. The suggestion of\nthe curative power of the Lourdes water, for instance, is thus thrown\nout, partly in books, partly by oral addresses; and a certain percentage\nof persons succeed in so persuading themselves of that curative efficacy\nthat when they bathe in the water they are actually cured.\n\nThese _schemes of self-suggestion_, as I have termed them, constitute\none of the most interesting parts of my subject, but space forbids that\nI should enter into a discussion of them here. It is sufficient to point\nout that in order to make self-suggestion operative, no strong belief or\nenthusiasm, such as those schemes imply, is really necessary. No\nrecorded cases of self-suggestion, I think, are more instructive than\nthose published by Dr. Hugh Wingfield in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v.\np. 279. (The paper was printed anonymously.) Dr. Wingfield was a\nDemonstrator in Physiology in the University of Cambridge, and his\nsubjects were mainly candidates for the Natural Sciences Tripos. In\nthese cases there was no excitement of any kind, and no previous belief.\nThe phenomena occurred incidentally during a series of experiments on\nother points, and were a surprise to every one concerned. The results\nachieved were partly automatic writing and partly phenomena of\nneuro-muscular excitability;--stiffening of the arms, and so forth. \"It\nseems probable,\" says Dr. Wingfield, \"that all phenomena capable of\nbeing produced by the suggestion of the hypnotiser can also be produced\nby self-suggestion in a self-suggestive subject.\"\n\nExperiments like these--confirming with modern care the conclusions\nreached by Fahnestock and others at various points in hypnotic\nhistory--seem to me to open a new inlet into human faculty, as\nsurprising in its way as those first wild experiments of Mesmer himself.\nWho would have supposed that a healthy undergraduate could \"by an effort\nof mind\" throw his whole body into a state of cataleptic rigidity, so\nthat he could rest with his heels on one chair and his head on another?\nor that other healthy young men could \"close their own eyes so that they\nwere unable to open them,\" and the like? The trivial character of these\nlaboratory experiments makes them physiologically the more remarkable.\nThere is the very minimum of predisposing conditions, of excited\nexpectation, or of external motive prompting to extraordinary effort.\nAnd the results are not subjective merely--relief of pain and so\non--but are definite neuro-muscular changes, capable (as in the case of\nthe head and heels on separate chairs) of unmistakable test.\n\nYet, important though these and similar experiments in self-suggestion\nmay be, they do not solve our problem as to the ultimate origin and\ndistribution of the faculty thus displayed. We know no better with\nself-suggestion than with suggestion from outside _why_ it is that one\nman succeeds where others fail, or why a man who succeeds once fails in\nhis next attempt. Within the ordinary range of physiological\nexplanations nothing (I repeat) has as yet been discovered which can\nguide us to the true nature or exciting causes of this characteristic\nresponsiveness of hypnosis. If we are to find any light, it must be in\nsome direction which has as yet been little explored.\n\nThe hint which I have to offer here involves, I hope, something more\nthan a mere change of appellation. I define suggestion as \"successful\nappeal to the subliminal self\";--not necessarily to that self in its\nmost central, most unitary aspect; but to some one at least of those\nstrata of subliminal faculty which I have in an earlier chapter\ndescribed. I do not indeed pretend that my explanation can enable us to\nreduce hypnotic success to a certainty. I cannot say why the process\nshould be so irregular and capricious; but I can show that this puzzle\nis part and parcel of a wider mystery;--of the obscure relationships and\ninterdependencies of the supraliminal and the subliminal self. In split\npersonalities, in genius, in dreams, in sensory and motor automatisms,\nwe find the same fitfulness, the same apparent caprice.\n\nLeaving perforce this problem for the present unsolved, let us consider\nthe various ways in which this conception of subliminal operation may\nthrow light on the actual phenomena of hypnotism;--phenomena at present\nscattered in bewildering confusion.\n\nThe word _hypnotism_ itself implies that some kind of _sleep_ or trance\nis regarded as its leading characteristic. And although so-called\nhypnotic suggestions do often take effect in the waking state,[64] our\nusual test of the hypnotiser's success lies in the slumber--light or\ndeep--into which his subject is thrown. It is, indeed, a slumber which\nadmits at times of strange wakings and activities; but it is also\nmanifestly profounder than the sleep which we habitually enjoy.\n\nIf sleep, then, be the phase of personality specially consecrated to\nsubliminal operation, it follows that any successful appeal to the\nsubliminal self will be likely to induce some form of sleep. And\nfurther, if that form of sleep be in fact not an inevitable result of\nphysiological needs, but a response to a psychological appeal, it seems\nnot unlikely that we should be able to communicate with it without\ninterrupting it;--and should thus be able to guide or supplement\nsubliminal operations, just as in genius the subliminal self guided or\nsupplemented supraliminal operations.\n\nNow I hold that in all the varied trances, lethargies, sleep-waking\nstates, to which hypnotism introduces us, we see the subliminal self\ncoming to the surface in ways already familiar, and displacing just so\nmuch of the supraliminal as may from time to time be needful for the\nperformance of its own work. That work, I say, will be of a character\nwhich we know already; the difference is that what we have seen done\nspontaneously we now see done in response to our appeal.\n\nArmed with this simplifying conception,--simplifying in spite of its\nfrank admission of an underlying mystery,--we shall find no added\ndifficulty in several points which have been the subjects of eager\ncontroversy. The _sequence_ of hypnotic phenomena, the question of the\n_stages_ of hypnotism, is one of these. I have already briefly described\nhow Charcot propounded his three stages--lethargy, catalepsy,\nsomnambulism--as though they formed the inevitable development of a\nphysiological law;--and how completely this claim has now had to be\nwithdrawn. Other schemes have been drawn out, by Li\u00e9beault, etc., but\nnone of them seems to do more than reflect the experience of some one\nhypnotist's practice. The simplest arrangement is that of Edmund Gurney,\nwho spoke only of an \"alert stage\" and a \"deep stage\" of hypnosis; and\neven here we cannot say that either stage invariably precedes the other.\nThe alert stage, which often came first with Gurney's subjects, comes\nlast in Charcot's scheme; and it is hardly safe to say more than that\nhypnotism is apt to show a series of changes from sleep-waking to\nlethargy and back again, and that the advanced stages show more of\nsubliminal faculty than the earlier ones. There is much significance in\nan experiment of Dr. Jules Janet, who, by continued \"passes,\" carried on\nWittman, Charcot's leading subject, beyond her usual somnambulic state\ninto a new lethargic state, and out again from thence into a new\nsleep-waking state markedly superior to the old.\n\nGurney held the view that the main distinction of kind between his\n\"alert\" and his \"deep\" stage of hypnosis was to be found in the domain\nof memory, while memory also afforded the means for distinguishing the\nhypnotic state as a whole from the normal one. As a general rule (though\nwith numerous exceptions), the events of ordinary life are remembered\nin the trance, while the trance events are forgotten on waking, but tend\nto recur to the memory on rehypnotisation. But the most interesting part\nof his observations consisted in showing alternations of memory in the\nalert and deep stages of the trance itself;--the ideas impressed in the\none sort of state being almost always forgotten in the other, and as\ninvariably again remembered when the former state recurs. (_Proceedings_\nS.P.R. vol. ii., pp. 61 _et seq._ [523 A].) On experimenting further, he\nmet with a stage in which there was a distinct third train of memory,\nindependent of the others;--and this, of course, suggests a further\ndoubt as to there being any fixed number of stages in the trance. The\nlater experiments of Mrs. Sidgwick [523 B] on the same subject, in which\neight or nine distinct trains of memory were found--each recurring when\nthe corresponding stage of depth of the trance was reached--seem to show\nconclusively that the number, may vary almost indefinitely. We have\nalready seen that in cases of alternating personalities the number of\npersonalities similarly varies, and the student who now follows or\nrepeats Gurney's experiments, with the increased knowledge of split\npersonalities which recent years have brought, cannot fail to be struck\nwith the analogies between Gurney's artificial light and deep\nstates,--with their separate chains of memory,--and those morbid\nalternating personalities, with their complex mnemonic cleavages and\nlacun\u00e6, with which we dealt in Chapter II. The hypnotic stages are in\nfact secondary or alternating personalities of very shallow type, but\nfor that very reason all the better adapted for teaching us from what\nkinds of subliminal disaggregation the more serious splits in\npersonality take their rise.\n\nAnd beneath and between these awakenings into limited, partial alertness\nlies that profound hypnotic trance which one can best describe as a\nscientific or purposive rearrangement of the elements of sleep;--a\nrearrangement in which what is helpful is intensified, what is merely\nhindering or isolating is removed or reduced. A man's ordinary sleep is\nat once unstable and irresponsive. You can wake him with a pin-prick,\nbut if you talk to him he will not hear or answer you, until you rouse\nhim with the mere noise. That is sleep as the needs of our timorous\nancestors determined that it should be.\n\nHypnotic sleep, on the contrary, is at once stable and responsive;\nstrong in its resistance to such stimuli as it chooses to ignore; ready\nin its accessibility to such appeals as it chooses to answer.\n\nPrick or pinch the hypnotised subject, and although some stratum of his\npersonality may be aware, in some fashion, of your act, the sleep will\ngenerally remain unbroken. But if you speak to him,--or even speak\nbefore him,--then, however profound his apparent lethargy, there is\nsomething in him which will hear.[65]\n\nAll this is true even of earlier stages of trance. Deeper still lies the\nstage of highest interest;--that sleep-waking in which the subliminal\nself is at last set free,--is at last able not only to receive but to\nrespond: when it begins to tell us the secrets of the sleeping phase of\npersonality, beginning with directions as to the conduct of the trance\nor of the cure, and going on to who knows what insight into who knows\nwhat world afar?\n\nWithout, then, entering into more detail as to the varying forms which\nhypnosis at different stages may assume, I have here traced its central\ncharacteristic;--the development, namely, of the sleeping phase of\npersonality in such fashion as to allow of some supraliminal guidance of\nthe subliminal self.\n\nWe have here a definition of much wider purview than any which has been\nhabitually applied to the process of hypnotisation or to the state of\nhypnosis. To test its validity, to explain its scope, we need a survey\nof hypnotic results much wider in range than any enumeration of the kind\nat present usual in text-books. Regarding hypnotic achievements mainly\nin their _mental_ aspects, I must seek for some broad principle of\nclassification which on the one hand may not be so exclusively moral as\nto be physiologically untranslatable,--like the distinction between vice\nand virtue;--or on the other hand so exclusively physiological as to be\nmorally untranslatable,--like the distinction between cerebral an\u00e6mia\nand hyper\u00e6mia.\n\nPerhaps the broadest contrast which is expressible in both moral and\nphysiological terms is the contrast between check and stimulus,--between\n_inhibition_ and _dynamogeny_. Not, indeed, that such terms as _check_\nand _stimulus_ can be pressed in detail. The central power,--the ruling\nagency within the man which gives the command,--is no doubt the same in\nboth cases. But the common contrast between negative and positive\nexhortations,--\"this you shall _not_ do,\" \"this you _shall_ do,\"--will\nhelp to give clearness to our review of the influences of hypnotism in\nits bearings on intelligence and character,--its psychological efficacy.\n\nThe most rudimentary form of restraint or inhibition lies in our effort\nto preserve the infant or young child from acquiring what we call \"bad\ntricks.\" These morbid affections of motor centres, trifling in their\ninception, will sometimes grow until they are incurable by any r\u00e9gime or\nmedicament;--nay, till an action so insignificant as sucking the thumb\nmay work the ruin of a life.\n\nIn no direction, perhaps, do the results of suggestion appear more\ninexplicable than here. Nowhere have we a more conspicuous touching of a\nspring;--a more complete achievement, almost in a single moment, of the\ndeliverance which years of painful effort have failed to effect.[66]\n\nThese cases stand midway between ordinary therapeutics and moral\nsuasion. No one can here doubt the importance of finding the shortest\nand swiftest path to cure. Nor is there any reason to think that cures\nthus obtained are less complete or permanent than if they had been\nachieved by gradual moral effort. These facts should be borne in mind\nthroughout the whole series of the higher hypnotic effects, and should\nserve to dispel any anxiety as to the possible loss of moral training\nwhen cure is thus magically swift. Each of these effects consists, as we\nmust suppose, in the modification of some group of nervous centres; and,\nso far as we can tell, that is just the same result which moral effort\nmade above the conscious threshold more slowly and painfully attains.\nThis difference, in fact, is like the difference between results\nachieved by diligence and results achieved by genius. Something valuable\nin the way of training,--some exercise in patience and resolve,--no\ndoubt may be missed by the man who is \"suggested\" into sobriety;--in the\nsame way as it was missed by the schoolboy Gauss,--writing down the\nanswers to problems as soon as set, instead of spending on them a\ndiligent hour. But moral progress is in its essence as limitless as\nmathematical; and the man who is thus carried over rudimentary struggles\nmay still find plenty of moral effort in life to train his character and\ntax his resolution.\n\nAmong these morbid tricks _kleptomania_ has an interest of its own, on\naccount of the frequent doubt whether it is not put forward as a mere\nexcuse for pilfering. It may thus happen that the cure is the best proof\nof the existence of the disease; and certain cures indicate that the\nimpulse has veritably involved a morbid excitability of motor centres,\nacted on by special stimuli,--an _id\u00e9e fixe_ with an immediate outcome\nin act.[67]\n\nMany words and acts of _violence_ fall under the same category, in cases\nwhere the impulse to swear or to strike has acquired the unreasoning\nautomatic promptness of a _tic_, and yet may be at once inhibited by\nsuggestion. Many undesirable impulses in the realm of _sex_ are also\ncapable of being thus corrected or removed.\n\nThe stimulants and narcotics, to which our review next leads us, form a\nstanding menace to human virtue. By some strange accident of our\ndevelopment, the impulse of our organisms towards certain\ndrugs--alcohol, opium, and the like--is strong enough to overpower, in a\nlarge proportion of mankind, not only the late-acquired altruistic\nimpulses, but even the primary impulses of self-regard and\nself-preservation. We are brought back, one may almost say, to the\n\"chimiotaxy\" of the lowest organisms, which arrange themselves\ninevitably in specific relation to oxygen, malic acid, or whatever the\nstimulus may be. We thus experience in ourselves a strange conflict\nbetween moral responsibility and molecular affinities;--the central will\noverborne by dumb unnumbered elements of our being. With this condition\nof things hypnotic suggestion deals often in a curious way. The\nsuggestion is not generally felt as a strengthening of the central will.\nIt resembles rather a molecular redisposition; it leaves the patient\nindifferent to the stimulus, or even disgusted with it. The man for whom\nalcohol has combined the extremes of delight and terror now lives as\nthough in a world in which alcohol did not exist at all.[68]\n\nEven for the slave of morphia the same sudden freedom is sometimes\nachieved. It has been said of victims to morphia-injection that a cure\nmeans death;--so often has suicide followed on the distress caused by\ngiving up the drug. But in certain cases cured by suggestion it seems\nthat no craving whatsoever has persisted after the sudden disuse of the\ndrug. There is something here which is in one sense profounder than\nmoral reform. There is something which suggests a spirit within us less\ninjured than we might have feared by the body's degradation. The\nmorphinomaniac _character_--the lowest type of subjection to a ruling\nvice--disappears from the personality in proportion as the drug is\neliminated from the system. The shrinking outcast turns at once into the\nrespectable man.[69]\n\nBut apart from troubles consequent on any intelligible instinct, any\ndiscoverable stimulus of pleasure, there are a multitude of impulses,\nfears, imaginations, one or more of which may take possession of persons\nnot otherwise apparently unhealthy or hysterical, sometimes to an extent\nso distressing as to impel to suicide.\n\nSome of these \"phobies\" have been often described of late years,--as,\nfor instance, _agoraphobia_, which makes a man dread to cross an open\nspace; and its converse _claustrophobia_, which makes him shrink from\nsitting in a room with closed doors; or the still more distressing\n_mysophobia_, which makes him constantly uneasy lest he should have\nbecome dirty or defiled.\n\nAll these disorders involve a kind of displacement or cramp of the\nattention; and for all of them, one may broadly say, hypnotic suggestion\nis the best and often the only cure. Suggestion seems to stimulate\nantagonistic centres; to open clogged channels; to produce, in short,\nhowever we imagine the process, a rapid disappearance of the insistent\nnotion.\n\nI have spoken of this effect as though it were mainly to be valued\nintellectually, as a readjustment of the dislocated attention. But I\nmust note also that the moral results may be as important here as in the\ncases of inhibition of dipsomania and the like, already mentioned. These\nmorbid fears which suggestion relieves may be ruinously degrading to a\nman's character. The ingredients of antipathy, of jealousy, which they\nsometimes contain, may make him dangerous to his fellows as well as\nloathsome to himself. One or two cases of the cure of morbid jealousy\nare to my mind among the best records which hypnotism has to show.[70]\n\nBut this is not all. The treasure of memory is mixed with rubbish; the\ncaution which experience has taught has often been taught too well;\nphilosophic calm has often frozen into apathy. Plato would have the old\nmen in his republic plied well with wine on festal days, that their\ntongues might be unloosed to communicate their wisdom without reserve.\n\"Accumulated experience,\" it has been said with much truth in more\nmodern language,[71] \"hampers action, disturbs the logical reaction of\nthe individual to his environment. The want of control which marks the\ndecadence of mental power is [sometimes] itself undue control, a\npreponderance of the secondary over the primary influences.\"\n\nNow the removal of shyness, or _mauvaise honte_, which hypnotic\nsuggestion can effect, is in fact a _purgation of memory_,--inhibiting\nthe recollection of previous failures, and setting free whatever group\nof aptitudes is for the moment required. Thus, for the boy called on to\nmake an oration in a platform exhibition, hypnotisation sets free the\n_primary_ instinct of garrulity without the restraining fear of\nridicule. For the musical executant, on the other hand, a similar\nsuggestion will set free the _secondary_ instinct which the fingers have\nacquired, without the interference of the learner's puzzled, hesitating\nthoughts.\n\nI may remark here (following Gurney and Bramwell) how misleading a term\nis _mono-ideism_ for almost any hypnotic state. There is a _selection_\nof ideas to which the hypnotic subject will attend, and there is a\n_concentration_ upon the idea thus selected; but those ideas themselves\nmay be both complex and constantly shifting, and indeed this is just one\nof the ways in which the hypnotic trance differs from the\nsomnambulic--in which it may happen that only a relatively small group\nof brain-centres are awake enough to act. The somnambulic servant-girl,\nfor instance, may persist in laying the tea-table, whatever you say to\nher, and this may fairly be called mono-ideism; but the hypnotic subject\n(as Bramwell has justly insisted) can be made to obey simultaneously a\ngreater number of separate commands than he could possibly attend to in\nwaking life.\n\nFrom these inhibitions of memory,--of attention as directed to the\nexperiences of the past,--we pass on to attention as directed to the\nexperiences of the present. And here we are reaching a central point; we\nare affecting the _macula lutea_ (as it has been well called) of the\nmental field. Many of the most important of hypnotic results will be\nbest described as modifications of _attention_.\n\nAny modification of attention is of course likely to be at once a check\nand a stimulus;--a check to certain thoughts and emotions, a stimulus to\nothers. And in many cases it will be the _dynamogenic_ aspect of the\nchange--the new vigour supplied in needed directions--which will be for\nus of greatest interest. Yet from the _inhibitive_ side also we have\nalready had important achievements to record. All these arrests and\ndestructions of _id\u00e9es fixes_, of which so much has been said, were\npowerful modifications of attention, although the limited field which\nthey covered made it simpler to introduce them under a separate heading.\n\nAnd even now it may not be without surprise that the reader finds\ndescribed under the heading of _inhibition of attention_ a phenomenon so\nconsiderable and so apparently independent as _hypnotic suppression of\npain_. This induced _analgesia_ has from the first been one of the main\ntriumphs of mesmerism or hypnotism. All have heard that mesmerism will\nstop headaches;--that you can have a tooth out \"under mesmerism\" without\nfeeling it. The rivalry between mesmerism and ether, as an\u00e6sthetic\nagents in capital operations, was a conspicuous fact in the medical\nhistory of early Victorian times. But the ordinary talk, at any rate of\nthat day, seemed to assume that if mesmerism produced an effect at all\nit was an effect _resembling_ that produced by narcotics--a modification\nof the intimate structure of the nerve or of the brain which rendered\nthem for the time incapable of transmitting or of feeling painful\nsensations. The state of a man's nervous system, in fact, when he is\npoisoned by chloroform, or stunned by a blow, or almost frozen to death,\nor nearly drowned, etc., is such that a great part of it is no longer\nfit for its usual work,--is no longer capable of those prolongations of\nneurons, or whatever they be, which constitute its specific nervous\nactivity. We thus get rid of pain by getting rid for the time of a great\ndeal of other nervous action as well; and we have to take care lest by\npushing the experiment too far we get rid of life into the bargain. But\non the other hand, a man's nervous system, when hypnotic suggestion has\nrendered him incapable of pain, is quite as active and vigorous as\never,--quite as capable of transmitting and feeling pain,--although\ncapable also of inhibiting it altogether. In a word, the hypnotic\nsubject is _above_ instead of _below_ pain.\n\nTo understand this apparent paradox we must remind ourselves that pain\nprobably originated as a warning of danger,--a warning which, while\nuseful to active creatures with miscellaneous risks, has become only a\nmixed advantage to beings of more advanced intelligence and\nsensitivity. There are many occasions when, knowing it to be useless, we\nwish to shut off pain, to rise as definitely _above_ it as our earliest\nancestors were _below_ it, or as the drunken or narcotised man is below\nit. This is just what hypnotic suggestion enables us to do.\n\nHypnotism attacks the real _origo mali_;--not, indeed, the pressure on\nthe tooth-nerve, which can only be removed by extraction, but the\nrepresentative power of the central sensorium which converts that\npressure for us into pain. It _diverts attention_ from the pain, as the\nexcitement of battle might do; but diverts it without any competing\nexcitement whatever. To this topic of _influence on attention_ we shall\nhave to recur again and again. For the present it may suffice if I refer\nthe reader to a few cases--chosen from among some thousands where\nhypnotic practice has removed or obviated the distress or anguish till\nnow unmistakably associated with various bodily incidents--from the\nextraction of a tooth to the great pain and peril of childbirth.[72]\n\nThis suppression of pain has naturally been treated from the therapeutic\npoint of view, as an end in itself; and neither physician nor patient\nhas been inclined to inquire exactly _what_ has occurred;--what\nphysiological or psychological condition has underlain this great\nsubjective relief. Yet in the eye of experimental psychology the matter\nis far from a simple one. We are bound to ask _what_ has been altered.\nHas there been a total _ablation_, or some mere _translation_ of pain?\nWhat objective change on the bodily side has occurred in nerve or\ntissue? and, on the mental side, how far does the change in\nconsciousness extend? How deep does it go? Does any subliminal knowledge\nof the pain persist?\n\nThe very imperfect answers which can at present be given to these\nquestions may, at any rate, suggest directions for further inquiry.\n\n(1) In the first place, it seems clear that when pain is inhibited in\nany but the most simple cases, a certain group of changes is produced\nwhose _nexus_ is psychological rather than physiological. That is to\nsay, one suggestion seems to relieve at once all the symptoms which form\none idea of pain or distress in the patient's mind; while another\nsuggestion is often needed to remove some remaining symptom, which the\npatient regards as a different trouble altogether. The suggestion thus\ndiffers both from a specific remedy, which might relieve a specific\nsymptom, and from a general narcotisation, which would relieve all\nsymptoms equally. In making suggestions, moreover, the hypnotiser finds\nthat he has to consider and meet the patient's own subjective feelings,\ndescribing the intended relief as the patient wishes it to be described,\nand not attempting technical language which the patient could not\nfollow. In a word, it is plain that in this class, as in other classes\nof suggestion, we are addressing ourselves to a _mind_, an\n_intelligence_, which can of itself select and combine, and not merely\nto a tissue or a gland responsive in a merely automatic way.\n\n(2) It will not then surprise us if,--pain being thus treated as a\npsychological entity,--there shall prove to be a certain psychological\ncomplexity in the response to analgesic suggestion.\n\nBy this I mean that there are occasional indications that some memory of\nthe pain, say, of an operation has persisted in some stratum of the\npersonality;--thus apparently indicating that there was somewhere an\nactual consciousness of the pain when the operation was performed.[73]\nWe find accounts of the revival of pain in dreams after operations\nperformed under chloroform.[74]\n\n(3) Such experiences, if more frequent, might tempt us to suppose that\nthe pain is not wholly abrogated, but merely translated to some stratum\nof consciousness whose experiences do not enter into our habitual chain\nof memories. Yet we possess (strangely enough) what seems direct\nevidence that the profoundest organic substratum of our being is by\nsuggestion wholly freed from pain. It had long been observed that\nrecoveries from operations performed in hypnotic trance were unusually\nbenign;--there being less tendency to inflammation than when the patient\nhad felt the knife. The same observation--perhaps in a less marked\ndegree--has since been made as to operations under chemical an\u00e6sthesia.\nThe shock to the system, and the irritation to the special parts\naffected, are greatly diminished by chloroform. And more recently\nProfessor Delboeuf, by an experiment of great delicacy on two\nsymmetrical wounds, of which one was rendered painless by suggestion,\nhas distinctly demonstrated that pain tends to induce and keep up\ninflammation.[75]\n\nThus it seems that pain is abrogated at once on the highest and on the\nlowest level of consciousness; yet possibly in some cases (though not\nusually[76]) persists obscurely in some stratum of our personality into\nwhich we gain only occasional and indirect glimpses. And if indeed this\nbe so, it need in no way surprise us. We need to remember at every point\nthat we have no reason whatever to suppose that we are cognisant of all\nthe trains of consciousness, or chains of memory, which are weaving\nthemselves within us. I shall never attain on earth--perhaps I never\nshall in any world attain--to any complete conspectus of the variously\ninterwoven streams of vitality which are, in fact, obscurely present in\nmy conception of myself.\n\nIt is to hypnotism in the first place that we may look for an increased\npower of analysis of these intercurrent streams, these irregularly\nsuper-posed strata of our psychical being. In the meantime, this power\nof _inhibiting_ almost any fraction of our habitual consciousness at\npleasure gives for the first time to the ordinary man--if only he be a\nsuggestible subject--a power of concentration, of _choice_ in the\nexercise of faculty, such as up till now only the most powerful\nspirits--a Newton or an Archimedes--have been able to exert.\n\nThe man who sits down in his study to write or read,--in perfect safety\nand intent on his work,--continues nevertheless to be involuntarily and\ninevitably armed with all that alertness to external sights and sounds,\nand all that sensibility to pain, which protected his lowly ancestors at\ndifferent stages of even pre-human development. It is much as though he\nwere forced to carry about with him all the external defences which his\nforefathers have invented for their defence;--to sit at his\nwriting-table clad in chain-mail and a respirator, and grasping an\numbrella and a boomerang. Let him learn, if he can, inwardly as well as\noutwardly, to get rid of all that, to keep at his command only the half\nof his faculties which for his purpose is worth more than the whole.\nDissociation and choice;--dissociation between elements which have\nalways hitherto seemed inextricably knit;--choice between faculties\nwhich till now we have had to use all together or not at all;--such is\nthe promise, such is the incipient performance of hypnotic plasticity in\nits aspect of _inhibitive suggestion_.\n\nI come now to the division of hypnotic achievement with which I next\nproposed to deal, namely, the _dynamogenic_ results of hypnotic\nsuggestion. These I shall arrange in an order resembling that which we\ntry to follow in education:--proceeding from external senses to internal\nsensory and other central operations; and thence again to attention and\nwill, and so to character which is a kind of resultant of all these.\n\nI will begin, then, with what seems the most external and measurable of\nthese different influences--the influence, namely, of suggestion upon\nman's _perceptive_ faculties;--its power to educate his external organs\nof sense.\n\nThis wide subject is almost untouched as yet; and there is no direction\nin which one could be more confident of interesting results from further\nexperiment.\n\nThe exposition falls naturally into three parts, as suggestion effects\none or other of the three following objects:\n\n    (1) Restoration of ordinary senses from some deficient condition.\n    (2) Verification of ordinary senses;--hyper\u00e6sthesi\u00e6.\n    (3) Development of new senses;--heter\u00e6sthesi\u00e6.\n\n(1) The first of these three headings seems at first sight to belong to\ntherapeutics rather than to psychology. It is, however, indispensable as\na preliminary to the other two heads; since by learning how and to what\nextent suggestion can repair _defective_ senses we have the best chance\nof guessing at its _modus operandi_ when it seems to excite the\n_healthy_ senses to a point beyond their normal powers.[77]\n\nTwo points may be mentioned here. Improvement of _vision_ seems\nsometimes to result from relaxation of an involuntary ciliary spasm,\nwhich habitually over-corrects some defect of the lens. This is\ninteresting, from the analogy thus shown in quite healthy persons to the\nfixed ideas, the subliminal errors and fancies characteristics of\nhysteria. The stratum of self whose business it is to correct the\nmechanical defect of the eye has in these instances done so amiss, and\ncannot set itself right. The corrected form of vision is as defective as\nthe form of vision which it replaced. But if the state of trance be\ninduced, or if it occur spontaneously, it sometimes happens that the\nerror is suddenly righted; the patient lays aside spectacles; and since\nwe must assume that the original defect of mechanism remains, it seems\nthat that defect is now perfectly instead of imperfectly met. This shows\na subliminal adjusting power operating during trance more intelligently\nthan the supraliminal intelligence had been able to operate during\nwaking life.\n\nAnother point of interest lies in the effect of increased attention, as\nstimulated by suggestion, upon the power of hearing. Dr. Li\u00e9beault[78]\nrecords two cases which are among the most significant that I know. If\nsuch susceptibility to self-suggestion could be reached by patients\ngenerally, there might be, with no miracle at all, a removal of perhaps\nhalf the annoyance which deafness inflicts on mankind.\n\nI pass on to cases of the production by suggestion or self-suggestion of\nhyper\u00e6sthesia,--of a degree of sensory delicacy which overpasses the\nordinary level, and the previous level of the subject himself.\n\nThe rudimentary state of our study of hypnotism is somewhat strangely\nillustrated by the fact that most of the experiments which show\nhyper\u00e6sthesia most delicately have been undertaken with a view of\nproving something else--namely, mesmeric _rapport_, or the mesmerisation\nof objects, or telepathy. In these cases the proof of _rapport_,\ntelepathy, etc., generally just falls short,--because one cannot say\nthat the action of the ordinary senses might not have reached the point\nnecessary for the achievement, though there is often good reason to\nbelieve that the subject was supraliminally ignorant of the way in which\nhe was, in fact, attaining the knowledge in question.\n\nIn these extreme cases, indeed, the explanation by hyper\u00e6sthesia is not\nalways proved. There _may_ have been telepathy, although one has not the\nright to assume telepathy, in view of certain slighter, but still\nremarkable, hyper\u00e6sthetic achievements, which are common subjects of\ndemonstration. The ready recognition of _points de rep\u00e8re_, on the back\nof a card or the like, which are hardly perceptible to ordinary eyes, is\none of the most usual of these performances.\n\nIn this connection the question arises as to the existence of\nphysiological limits to the exercise of the ordinary senses. In the case\nof the eye a _minimum visibile_ is generally assumed; and there is\nspecial interest in a case of clairvoyance versus cornea-reading, where,\nif the words were read (as appears most probable) from their reflection\nupon the cornea of the hypnotiser, the common view as to the _minimum\nvisibile_ is greatly stretched.[79]\n\nWith regard to the other senses, whose mechanism is less capable of\nminute dissection, one meets problems of a rather different kind. What\nare the definitions of smell and touch? Touch is already split up into\nvarious factors--tactile, algesic, thermal; and thermal touch is itself\na duplicate sense, depending apparently on one set of nerve-terminations\nadapted to perceive heat, and another set adapted to perceive cold.\nTaste is similarly split up; and we do not call anything taste which is\nnot definitely referred to the mouth and adjacent regions. Smell is\nvaguer; and there are cognate sensations (like that of the presence of a\ncat) which are not referred by their subject to the nose. The study of\nhyper\u00e6sthesia does in this sense prepare the way for what I have termed\nheter\u00e6sthesia; in that it leaves us more cautious in definition as to\nwhat the senses are, it accustoms us to the notion that people become\naware of things in many ways which they cannot definitely realise.\n\nLet us now consider the evidence for heter\u00e6sthesia;--for the existence,\nthat is to say, under hypnotic suggestion, of any form of sensibility\ndecidedly different from those with which we are familiar. It would\nsound more accurate if one could say \"demanding some end-organ different\nfrom those which we know that we possess.\" But we know too little of the\nrange of perceptivity of these end-organs in the skin which we are\ngradually learning to distinguish--of the heat-feeling spots,\ncold-feeling spots, and the like--to be able to say for what purposes a\nnew organ would be needed. For certain heter\u00e6sthetic sensations, indeed,\nas the perception of a magnetic field, one can hardly assume that any\nend-organ would be necessary. It is better, therefore, to speak only of\nmodes of sensibility.\n\nLooking at the matter from the evolutionary point of view, the question\namong sensations was one of the development of the fittest; that is to\nsay that, as the organism became more complex and needed sensations more\ndefinite than sufficed for the protozoon, certain sensibilities got\nthemselves defined and stereotyped upon the organism by the evolution of\nend-organs.[80] Others failed to get thus externalised; but may, for\naught we know, persist nevertheless in the central organs;--say, for\ninstance, in what for man are the optic or olfactory tracts of the\nbrain. There will then be no apparent reason why these latent powers\nshould not from time to time receive sufficient stimulus, either from\nwithin or from without, to make them perceptible to the waking\nintelligence, or perceptible at least in states (like trance) of narrow\nconcentration.\n\nAs the result of these considerations, I approach alleged heter\u00e6sthesi\u00e6\nof various kinds with no presumption whatever against their real\noccurrence. Yet on the other hand, my belief in the extent of possible\n_hyper\u00e6sthesia_ continually suggests to me that the apparently new\nperceptions may only consist of a mixture of familiar forms of\nperception, pushed to a new extreme, and centrally interpreted with a\nnew acumen, while there is no doubt that many experiments supposed to\nfurnish evidence of such new perceptions merely illustrate the effect of\nsuggestion or self-suggestion.\n\nWithout, however, presuming to criticise past evidence wholesale, I yet\nhope that the experience now attained may lead to a much greater number\nof well-guarded experiments in the near future. In Appendix V.A, I very\nbriefly present the actual state of this inquiry. In default of any\nlogical principle, I shall there divide these alleged forms of\nsensibility according as they are excited by inorganic objects on the\none hand, or by organisms (dead or living) on the other.\n\nIn the meantime I pass on to that group of the dynamogenic effects of\nsuggestion which affect the more central vital operations--either the\nvaso-motor system, or the neuro-muscular system, or the central sensory\ntracts. The effects of suggestion on character--induced changes to which\nwe can hardly guess the nervous concomitant--will remain to be dealt\nwith later.\n\nFirst, then, as to the effects of suggestion on the vaso-motor system.\nSimple effects of this type form the commonest of \"platform\nexperiments.\" The mesmerist holds ammonia under his subject's nose, and\ntells him it is rose-water. The subject smells it eagerly, and his eyes\ndo not water. The suggestion, that is to say, that the stinging vapour\nis inert has inhibited the vaso-motor reflexes which would ordinarily\nfollow, and which no ordinary effort of will could restrain. _Vice\nvers\u00e2_, when the subject smells rose-water, described as ammonia, he\nsneezes and his eyes water. These results, which his own will could not\nproduce, follow on the mesmerist's word. No one who sees these simple\ntests applied can doubt the genuineness of the influence at work. We\nfind then, as might be expected, that action on glands and secretions\nconstitutes a large element in hypnotic therapeutics. The literature of\nsuggestion is full of instances where a suppressed secretion has been\nrestored at a previously arranged moment, almost with \"astronomical\npunctuality.\" And yet to what memory is that command retained? by what\nsignal is it announced? or by what agency obeyed?\n\nIn spite of this underlying obscurity, common to every branch of\nsuggestion, these vaso-motor phenomena are by this time so familiar that\nno further description of them is necessary.\n\nThis delicate responsiveness of the vaso-motor system has given rise to\nsome curious spontaneous phenomena, and has suggested some experiments,\nwhich are probably as yet in their infancy. The main point of interest\nis that at this point spontaneous self-suggestion, and subsequently\nsuggestion from without, have made a kind of first attempt at the\nmodification of the human organism in what may be called fancy\ndirections,--at the production of a change which has no therapeutic aim,\nand so to say, no physiological unity; but which is guided by an\nintellectual caprice along lines with which the organism is not\npreviously familiar. I speak of the phenomenon commonly known as\n\"stigmatisation,\" from the fact that its earliest spontaneous\nmanifestations were suggested by imaginations brooding on the stigmata\nof Christ's passion;--the marks of wounds in hands and feet and side.\nThis phenomenon, which was long treated both by _savants_ and by\ndevotees as though it must be either fraudulent or miraculous,--_ou\nsupercherie, ou miracle_,--is now found (like a good many other\nphenomena previously deemed subject to that dilemma) to enter readily\nwithin the widening circuit of natural law. Stigmatisation is, in fact,\na form of vesication; and suggested vesication--with the quasi-burns and\nreal blisters which obediently appear in any place and pattern that is\nordered--is a high development of that same vaso-motor plasticity of\nwhich the ammonia-rose-water experiment was an early example.[81]\n\nThe group of suggestive effects which we reach next in order is a wide\nand important one. The education of the _central sensory faculties_,--of\nour power of inwardly representing to ourselves sights and sounds,\netc.,--is not less important than the education of the external senses.\nThe powers of construction and combination which our central organs\npossess differ more widely in degree in different healthy individuals\nthan the degrees of external perception itself. And the stimulating\ninfluence of hypnotism on _imagination_ is perhaps the most conspicuous\nphenomenon which the whole subject offers; yet it has been little dwelt\nupon, save from one quite superficial point of view.\n\nEvery one knows that a hypnotised subject is easily hallucinated;--that\nif he is told to see a non-existent dog, he sees a dog,--that if he is\ntold _not_ to see Mr. A., he sees everything in the room, Mr. A.\nexcepted. Common and conspicuous, I say, as this experiment is, even the\nscientific observer has too often dealt with it with the shallowness of\nthe platform lecturer. The lecturer represents this induced\nhallucinability simply as an odd illustration of his own power over the\nsubject. \"I tell him to forget his name, and he forgets his name; I tell\nhim that he has a baby on his lap, and he sees and feels and dandles\nit.\" At the best, such a hallucination is quoted as an instance of\n\"mono-ideism.\" But the real kernel of the phenomenon is not the\ninhibition but the dynamogeny;--not the abstraction of attention or\nimagination from other topics, but the increased power which imagination\ngains under suggestion;--the development of faculty, useless, if you\nwill, in that special form of imagining the baby, but faculty mentally\nof a high order--faculty in one shape or another essential to the\nproduction of almost all the most admired forms of human achievement.\n\nOn this theme I shall have much to say; yet here again it will be\nconvenient to defer fuller discussion until I review what I have termed\n\"sensory automatism\" in a more general way. We shall then see that this\nquickened imaginative faculty is not educed by hypnosis alone; that it\nis a part of the equipment of the subliminal self, and will be better\ntreated at length in connection with other spontaneous manifestations.\nEnough here to have pointed out the main fact; for when pointed out it\ncan hardly be disputed, although its significance for the true\ncomprehension of hypnotic phenomena has been too often overlooked.\n\nYet here, and in direct connection with hypnotism, certain special\nfeatures of hallucinations need to be insisted upon, both as partly\nexplaining certain more advanced hypnotic phenomena, and also as\nsuggesting lines of important experiment. The first point is this.\n\nPost-hypnotic hallucinations can be _postponed_ at will. That is to say,\na constant watchfulness is exercised by the subject, so that if, for\nexample, the hypnotiser tells him that he will (when awakened) poke the\nfire when the hypnotiser has coughed three times, the awakened subject,\nalthough knowing nothing of the order in his waking state, will be on\nthe look-out for the coughs, amid all other disturbances, and will poke\nthe fire at the fore-ordained signal.[82] Moreover, when the\npost-hypnotic suggestion is executed there will often be a slight\nmomentary relapse into the hypnotic state, and the subject will not\nafterwards be aware that he _has_ (for instance) poked the fire at all.\nThis means that the suggested act belongs properly to the hypnotic, not\nto the normal chain of memory; so that its performance involves a brief\nreappearance of the subliminal self which received the order.\n\nAnother characteristic of these suggested hallucinations tells in\nexactly the same direction. It is possible to suggest no mere isolated\npicture,--a black cat on the table, or the like,--but a whole complex\nseries of responses to circumstances not at the time predictable. This\npoint is well illustrated by what are called \"negative hallucinations\"\nor \"systematised an\u00e6sthesi\u00e6.\" Suppose, for instance, that I tell a\nhypnotised subject that when he awakes there will be no one in the room\nwith him but myself. He awakes and remembers nothing of this order, but\nsees me alone in the room. Other persons present endeavour to attract\nhis attention in various ways. Sometimes he will be quite unconscious of\ntheir noises and movements; sometimes he will perceive them, but will\nexplain them away, as due to other causes, in the same irrational manner\nas one might do in a dream. Or he may perceive them, be unable to\nexplain them, and feel considerable terror until the \"negative\nhallucination\" is dissolved by a fresh word of command. It is plain, in\nfact, throughout, that some element in him is at work all the time in\nobedience to the suggestion given,--is keeping him by ever fresh\nmodifications of his illusion from discovering its unreality. Nothing\ncould be more characteristic of what I have called a \"middle-level\ncentre\" of the subliminal self--of some element in his nature which is\npotent and persistent without being completely intelligent;--a kind of\ndream-producer, ready at any moment to vary and defend the dream.\n\nAnother indication of the subliminal power at work to produce these\nhallucinations is their remarkable _range_--a range as wide, perhaps, as\nthat over which therapeutic effects are obtainable by suggestion. The\npost-hypnotic hallucination may affect not sight and hearing alone (to\nwhich spontaneous hallucinations are in most cases confined), but all\nkinds of vaso-motor responses and organic sensations--cardiac,\nstomachic, and the like--which no artifice can affect in a waking\nperson. The legendary flow of perspiration with which the flatterer\nsympathises with his patron's complaint of heat--_si dixeris \"\u00c6stuo,\"\nsudat_--is no exaggeration if applied to the hypnotic subject, who will\noften sweat and shiver at your bidding as you transplant him from the\nEquator to frosty Caucasus.\n\nWell, then, given this strength and vigour of hallucination, one sees a\npossible extension of knowledge in more than one direction. To begin\nwith, by suggestion to the subject that he is feeling or doing something\nwhich is beyond his normal range of faculties, we may perhaps enable him\nto perceive or to act as thus suggested.\n\nWhat we need is to address to a sensitive subject a series of strong\nsuggestions of the increase of his sensory range and power. We must\nneeds begin by suggesting hallucinatory sensations:--the subject should\nbe told that he perceives some stimulus which is, in fact, too feeble\nfor ordinary perception. If you can make him _think_ that he perceives\nit, he probably will after a time perceive it; the direction given to\nhis attention heightening either peripheral or central sensory faculty.\nYou may then be able to attack the question as to how far his\nspecialised end-organs are really concerned in the perception;--and it\nmay then be possible to deal in a more fruitful way with those alleged\ncases of _transposition of senses_ which have so great a theoretical\ninterest as being apparently intermediate between hyper\u00e6sthesia and\ntel\u00e6sthesia or clairvoyance. If we once admit (as I, of course, admit)\nthe reality of tel\u00e6sthesia, it is just in some such way as this that we\nshould expect to find it beginning.\n\nI start from the thesis that the perceptive power within us precedes and\nis independent of the specialised sense-organs, which it has developed\nfor earthly use.\n\n[Greek: nous ora kai nous akouei talla k\u00f4pha kai typhla.]\n\nI conceive further that under certain circumstances this primary\ntel\u00e6sthetic faculty resumes direct operations, in spite of the fleshly\nbarriers which are constructed so as to allow it to operate through\ncertain channels alone. And I conceive that in thus resuming exercise of\nthe wider faculty, the incarnate spirit will be influenced or hampered\nby the habits or self-suggestions of the more specialised faculty; so\nthat there may be apparent _compromises_ of different kinds between\ntel\u00e6sthetic and hyper\u00e6sthetic perception,--as the specialised senses\nendeavour, as it were, to retain credit for the perception which is in\nreality widening beyond their scope.\n\nIn this attitude of mind, then, I approach the recorded cases of\ntransposition of special sense.[83]\n\nTwo main hypotheses have been put forward as a general explanation of\nsuch cases, neither of which seems to me quite satisfactory. (1) The\ncommon theory would be that these are merely cases of erroneous\nself-suggestion;--that the subject really sees with the eye, but thinks\nthat he sees with the knee, or the stomach, or the finger-tips. This may\nprobably have been so in many, but not, I think, in all instances. (2)\nDr. Prosper Despine and others suppose that, while the accustomed\ncerebral centres are still concerned in the act of sight, the finger-end\n(for example) acts for the nonce as the end-organ required to carry the\nvisual sensation to the brain. I cannot here get over the mechanical\ndifficulty of the absence of a lens. However hyper\u00e6sthetic the\nfinger-end might be (say) to light and darkness, I can hardly imagine\nits acting as an organ of definite sight.\n\nMy own suggestion (which, for aught I know, may have been made before)\nis that the finger-end is no more a true organ of sight than the\narbitrary \"hypnogenous zone\" is a true organ for inducing trance. I\nthink it possible that there may be actual tel\u00e6sthesia,--not necessarily\ninvolving any perception by the bodily organism;--and that the spirit\nwhich thus perceives in wholly supernormal fashion may be under the\nimpression that it is perceiving through some bizarre corporeal\nchannel--as the knee or the stomach. I think, therefore, that the\nperception may not be _optical_ sight at all, but rather some\ngeneralised tel\u00e6sthetic perception represented as visual, but\n_incoherently_ so represented; so that it may be referred to the knee\ninstead of the retina. And here again, as at several previous points in\nmy argument, I must refer the reader to what will be said in my chapter\non _Possession_ by external spirits (Chapter IX.) to illustrate the\noperation even of the subject's own spirit acting without external aid.\n\nAnd now I come to the third main type of the dynamogenic efficacy of\nsuggestion: its influence, namely, on _attention_, on _will_, and on\n_character_--character, indeed, being largely a resultant of the\ndirection and persistence of voluntary attention.\n\nIt will be remembered that for convenience' sake I have discussed the\ndynamogenic effect of suggestion first upon the external senses, then\nupon the internal sensibility,--the mind's eye, the mind's ear, and the\nimagination generally;--and now I am turning to similar effects\nexercised upon that central power which reasons upon the ideas and\nimages which external and internal senses supply, which chooses between\nthem, and which reacts according to its choice. These are \"highest-level\ncentres,\" which I began by saying that the hypnotist could rarely hope\nto reach;--since those spontaneous somnambulisms which the hypnotic\ntrance imitates and develops do so seldom reach them. We have, however,\nalready found a good deal of intelligence of a certain kind in hypnotic\nphenomena; what we do here is to pass from one stage to another and\nhigher stage of consciousness of intelligent action.\n\nTo explain this statement, let us dwell for a moment upon the degree of\nintelligence which is sometimes displayed in those modifications of the\norganism which suggestion effects. Take, for instance, the formation of\na cruciform blister, as recorded by Dr. Biggs, of Lima.[84] In this\nexperiment the hypnotised subject was told that a red cross would appear\non her chest every Friday during a period of four months. For the\ncarrying out of this suggestion an unusual combination of capacities was\nneeded;--the capacity of directing physiological changes in a new way,\nand also, and combined therewith, the capacity of recognising and\nimitating an abstract, arbitrary, non-physiological idea, such as that\nof _cruciformity_.\n\nAll this, in my view, is the expression of _subliminal_ control over the\norganism--more potent and profound than _supraliminal_, and exercised\nneither blindly nor wisely, but with intelligent caprice.\n\nBearing this in mind as we go on to suggestions more directly affecting\ncentral faculty, in which _highest-level_ centres begin to be involved,\nwe need not be surprised to find an intermediate stage in which high\nfaculties are used in obedience to suggestion, for purely capricious\nends.\n\nI speak of _calculations_ subliminally performed in the carrying out of\npost-hypnotic suggestions.\n\nThese suggestions _\u00e0 \u00e9ch\u00e9ance_--commands, given in the trance, to do\nsomething under certain contingent circumstances, or after a certain\ntime has elapsed--form a very convenient mode of testing the amount of\nmentation which can be started and carried out without the intervention\nof the supraliminal consciousness. Experiments have been made in this\ndirection by three men especially who have in recent times done some of\nthe best work on the psychological side of hypnotism, namely, Edmund\nGurney, Delboeuf, and Milne Bramwell.\n\nDr. Milne Bramwell's experiments[85] (to mention these as a sample of\nthe rest) were post-hypnotic suggestions involving arithmetical\ncalculations; the entranced subject, for instance, being told to make a\ncross when 20,180 minutes had elapsed from the moment of the order.\nTheir primary importance lay in showing that a subliminal or hypnotic\nmemory persisted across the intervening gulf of time,--days and nights\nof ordinary life,--and prompted obedience to the order when at last it\nfell due. But incidentally, as I say, it became clear that the subject,\nwhose arithmetical capacity in common life was small, worked out these\nsums subliminally a good deal better than she could work them out by her\nnormal waking intelligence.\n\nOf course, all that was needed for such simple calculations was close\nattention to easy rules; but this was just what the waking mind was\nunable to give, at least without the help of pencil and paper. If we lay\nthis long and careful experiment side by side with the accounts already\ngiven of the solution of problems in somnambulic states, it seems clear\nthat there is yet much to be done in the education of subliminal memory\nand acumen as a help to supraliminal work.\n\nImportant in this connection is Dr. Dufay's account of help given to an\nactress in the representation of her _r\u00f4les_ by hypnotisation.[86] It\nseems obvious that stage-fright is just the kind of nervous annoyance\nfrom which hypnotisation should give relief. Somewhat similarly I\nbelieve some persons can secure a cheap substitute for genius on stage\nor platform, evoking by suggestion or self-suggestion a helpful\nsubliminal uprush. Here again, the hypnotisation is a kind of extension\nof \"secondary automatism,\"--of the familiar lapse from ordinary\nconsciousness of movements (walking, pianoforte-playing, etc.), which\nhave been very frequently performed. The possibilities thus opened up\nare very great: no less than the combination by mankind of the stability\nof instinct with the plasticity of reason. There seems no reason why\nman's range of automatism should not thus be largely increased in two\nmain ways: many things now unpleasant to do might be done with\nindifference, and many things now difficult to do might be done with\nease.\n\nAnd now let us pass on from these specialised influences of suggestion\non certain kinds of attention to its influence on attention generally,\nas needed, for instance, in education. If we can arrest the shifting of\nthe mental focus to undesired ideational centres in at all the same way\nas we can arrest the choreic or fidgety shiftings of motor impulse to\nundesired motor centres, we shall have done perhaps as much for the\nworld's ordinary work as if we had raised the average man's actual\nintelligence a step higher in the scale. We shall have checked waste,\nalthough we may not have improved quality. The well-known case of Dr.\nForel's warders,[87] who were enabled by hypnotic suggestion to sleep\nsoundly by the side of the patients they had to watch, and wake only\nwhen the patients required to be restrained, shows us how by this means\nthe attention may be concentrated on selected impressions and waste of\nenergy be avoided in a way that could hardly be compassed by any\nordinary exercise of the will.\n\nHow far, indeed, we can go in actually _heightening_ intelligence by\nsuggestion we have yet to learn. We must not expect to add a cubit to\nintellectual any more than to physical stature. Limitations at birth\nmust prevent our developing the common man into a Newton; but there\nseems no reason why we should not bring up his practical achievements\nmuch nearer than at present to the maximum of his innate capacity.[88]\n\nIn passing on from the influence of suggestion on _attention_ to its\ninfluence on _will_, I am not meaning to draw any but the most every-day\ndistinction between these two forms of inward concentration. The point,\nin fact, which I wish now to notice is rather a matter of common\nobservation than a provable and measurable phenomenon. I speak of the\nenergy and resolution with which a hypnotic suggestion is carried\nout;--the _ferocity_, even, with which the entranced subject pushes\naside the opposition of much more powerful men. I do not, indeed, assert\nthat he would thus risk very serious injury; for I believe (with\nBramwell and others) that there does exist somewhere within him a\nknowledge that the whole proceeding is a mere experiment. But,\nnevertheless, he actually risks something; he behaves, in short, as a\nconfident, resolute man would behave, and this however timid and\nunaggressive his habitual character may be. I believe that much\nadvantage may yet be drawn from this confident temper. We can thus\ninhibit the acquired self-distrust and shyness of the supraliminal self,\nand get the subliminal self concentrated upon some task which may be as\ndifficult as we please;--which may, if we can adjust it rightly, draw\nout to the uttermost the innate powers of man.\n\nIt has been supposed that the mere fact of being hypnotised tended to\nweaken the will; that the hypnotised person fell inevitably more and\nmore under the control of the hypnotiser, and even that he could at last\nbe induced to commit crimes by suggestion. In his article \"What is\nHypnotism?\"[89] Dr. Milne Bramwell shows on how small a foundation of\nfact these fanciful theories have been erected. It may suffice to say\nhere that nothing is easier, either for subject or for hypnotiser, than\nto _avert_ undue influence. A trusted friend has only to suggest to the\nhypnotised subject that _no one else_ will be able to affect him, and\nthe thing is done. As to the crimes supposed to be committed by\nhypnotised persons under the influence of suggestion, the evidence for\nsuch crimes, in spite of great efforts made to collect it and set it\nforth, remains, I think, practically _nil_.\n\nThis fact, I must add, is quite in harmony with the views expressed in\nthe present chapter. For it implies that the higher subliminal centres\n(so to term them) never really abdicate their rule; that they may indeed\nremain passive while the middle centres obey the experimenter's caprice,\nbut are still ready to resume their control if such experiment should\nbecome really dangerous to the individual. And this runs parallel with\ncommon experience in the spontaneous somnambulisms. The sleeper may\nperform apparently rash exploits; but yet, unless he be suddenly\nawakened, serious accidents are very rare. Nevertheless, both in\nspontaneous and in induced somnambulism, accidents _may_ occur; nor\nshould any experiment be undertaken in a careless or jesting spirit.\n\nBut the r\u00f4le of the hypnotiser, as our command over hypnotic artifice\nincreases, is likely to become continually smaller in proportion to the\nr\u00f4le played by the subject himself. Especially must this be so where the\nobject is to strengthen the subject's own power of will. All that can be\ndone from _without_ in such a case is to imbue the man's spirit with the\nsense of its unexhausted prerogatives,--the strength which he may then\nemploy, not only to avert pain or anxiety, but in any active direction\nwhich his original nature itself admits.\n\nThese last words may naturally lead us on to our next topic: the\ninfluence of suggestion on _character_,--on that function of combined\nattention and will, which is, of course, also ultimately a function of\nthe possibilities latent in the individual germ.\n\nFirst of all, then, and going back to the evidence already given as to\nthe cure of the victims of morphia, we may say with truth that _there_\nwe have seen as tremendous a moral _lift_--as sudden an elevation from\nutter baseness to at least normal living--as can be anywhere presented\nto us.\n\nHere, then, the question arises as to the possible range of such sudden\nreformations. Did we succeed with the morphinomaniac only because his\nwas a _functional_, and not an _organic_, degradation?\n\nAnd may it not be a much harder task to create honesty, purity,\nunselfishness in a brain whose very conformation must keep the spirit\nthat thinks through it nearly on the level of the brute? The question is\nof the highest psychological interest; the answer, though as yet\nrudimentary, is unexpectedly encouraging. The examples given in Appendix\nV. B show that if the subject is hypnotisable, and if hypnotic\nsuggestion be applied with sufficient persistency and skill, no depth of\nprevious baseness and foulness need prevent the man or woman whom we\ncharge with \"moral insanity,\" or stamp as a \"criminal-born,\" from rising\ninto a state where he or she can work steadily, and render services\nuseful to the community.[90]\n\nI purposely limit my assertion to these words. We must still work within\nthe bounds of natural capacity. Just as we cannot improvise a genius, we\ncannot improvise a saint. But what experience seems to show is that we\ncan _select_ from the lowest and poorest range of feelings and faculties\nenough of sound feeling, enough of helpful faculty, to keep the man in a\nposition of moral stability, and capable of falling in with the common\nlabours of his kind.\n\nAnd here we approach a point of much interest. Hypnotic suggestion or\nself-suggestion is not an agency which stands wholly alone. It melts\ninto the suasion of ordinary life. Ministers of religion as well as\nphysicians have always wielded with authority the suasive power. From\nthe crude animistic dances and ceremonies of the savage up to the\n\"missions\" and \"revivals\" in English and American churches and chapels,\nwe find sudden and exciting impressions on mind and sense called into\nplay for the purpose of producing religious and moral change.[91] Among\nthe lower races especially these exciting reunions often involve both\nhysterical and hypnotic phenomena. There are sometimes convulsive\naccesses and there is sometimes the milder phenomenon of a deep\nrestorative sleep. The influence exerted upon the convert is\nintermediate between hypnotic artifice, dependent on trance-states for\naccess to subliminal plasticity, and ordinary moral suasion, addressed\nprimarily to ordinary waking reason.\n\nLet us pause here to consider the point which we have already reached.\nWe began by defining hypnotism as the empirical development of the\nsleeping phase of man's personality. In that sleeping phase the most\nconspicuous element--the most obvious function of the subliminal\nself--is the repair of wasted tissues, the physical, and therefore also\nlargely the moral, refreshment and rejuvenation of the tired organism.\n\nBut we found reason to believe that the subliminal self has other\nfunctions to fulfil during sleep. Those other functions are concerned in\nsome unknown way with the spiritual world; and the indication of their\nexercise is given by the sporadic occurrence, in the sleeping phase, of\nsupernormal phenomena. Such phenomena, as we shall presently see, occur\nalso at various points in hypnotic practice. To them we must now turn,\nif our account of the phenomena of induced somnambulism is to be\ncomplete.\n\nYet here, in order to give completeness to our intended review, we shall\nneed a certain apparent extension of the scope of this chapter. We shall\nneed to consider a group of cases which might have been introduced at\nvarious points in our scheme, but which are perhaps richest in their\nillustrations of the supernormal phenomena of hypnotism.\n\n_Spontaneous somnambulisms_,--those crude uprushes of incoherent\nsubliminal faculty which sometimes break through the surface of\nsleep,--seem to occupy a kind of midway position among the various\nphenomena through which our inquiry has thus far carried us.\n\nThe somnambulism often _starts_ as an exaggerated dream; it _develops_\ninto a kind of secondary personality. The thoughts and impulses which\nthe upheaval raises into manifestations--the psychical output--resemble\nsometimes the inspirations of genius, sometimes the follies of hysteria.\nAnd, finally, the spontaneous sleep-waking state itself is manifestly\nakin to hypnosis,--is sometimes actually interchangeable with the\ninduced somnambulisms of the hypnotic trance. The _chain of memory_\nwhich repeated spontaneous somnambulisms gradually form,--while lying\nquite outside the primary or waking memory,--will often be found to form\na part of the _hypnotic_ memory, which gradually accretes in similar\nfashion from repeated hypnosis.\n\nFor one form of sleep-waking capacity we are already prepared by what\nhas been said in Chapter IV. of the solution of problems in sleep. This\nis one of the ways in which we can watch the gradual merging of a vivid\ndream into a definite somnambulic act. The solution of a problem (as we\nhave seen) may present itself merely as a sentence or a diagram,\nconstructed in dream and remembered on waking. Or the sleeper (as in\nvarious cases familiar in text-books) may rise from bed and _write out_\nthe chain of reasoning, or the sermon, or whatever it may be. Or again,\nin rarer cases the somnambulic output may take the form of oratory, and\nedifying discourses may be delivered by a preacher whom no amount of\nshaking or pinching will silence or, generally, even interrupt. This, so\nto speak, is genius with a vengeance; this is a too persistent uprush of\nsubliminal zeal, co-operating even out of season with the hortatory\ninstincts of the waking self.\n\nThe group of sleep-waking cases which we may next discuss illustrates a\nnatural evolution of the faculty of the sleeping phase of personality.\nThe subliminal self, exercising in sleep a profounder _influence_ over\nthe organism than the supraliminal can exert, may also be presumed to\npossess a profounder _knowledge_ of the organism--of its present, and\ntherefore of its future--than the supraliminal self enjoys.\n\nThere are cases[92] in which the somnambulic personality is discerned\nthroughout as a wiser self--advising a treatment, or at least foreseeing\nfuture developments of the disease with great particularity. Of course,\nin such a case prediction is often simply a form of suggestion; the\nsymptom occurs simply because it has been ordained beforehand. In the\ncase of cures of long-standing disease the sagacity which foresees\nprobably co-operates with the control which directs the changes in the\norganism.\n\nThe next stage is a very important one. We come to the manifestation in\nspontaneous sleep-waking states of manifestly supernormal\npowers,--sometimes of telepathy, but more commonly of clairvoyance or\ntel\u00e6sthesia. Unfortunately, these cases have been, as a rule, very\ninsufficiently observed. Still, it appears that in spontaneous\nsomnambulism there is frequently some indication of supernormal powers,\nthough the observers--even if competent in other ways--have generally\nneglected to take account of the hyper\u00e6sthesia and heightening of memory\nand of general intelligence that often accompany the state.\n\nBefore leaving this subject of spontaneous sleep-waking states I ought\nbriefly to mention a form of trance with which we shall have to deal\nmore at length in a later chapter. I speak of trance ascribed to\n_spirit-possession_. As will be seen, I myself fully adopt this\nexplanation in a small number of the cases where it is put forward. Yet\nI do not think that spirit-agency is necessarily present in all the\ntrances even of a true subject of possession. With all the leading\nsensitives--with D. D. Home, with Stainton Moses, with Mrs. Piper and\nwith others--I think that the depth of the trance has varied greatly on\ndifferent occasions, and that sometimes the subliminal self of the\nsensitive is vaguely simulating, probably in an unconscious dream-like\nway, an external intelligence. This hypothesis suggested itself to\nseveral observers in the case especially of D. D. Home, with whom the\nmoments of strong characterisation of a departed personality, though far\nfrom rare, were yet scattered among tracts of dreamy improvisation which\nsuggested only the utterance of Home's subliminal self. However we\nchoose to interpret these trances, they should be mentioned in\ncomparison with all the other sleep-waking states. They probably form\nthe best transition between those shallow somnambulisms, on the one\nhand, which are little more than a vivid dream, and those profound\ntrances, on the other hand, in which the native spirit quits, as nearly\nas may be, the sensitive's organism, and is for the time replaced, as\nnearly as may be, by an invading spirit from that unseen world.\n\nThis brief review of non-hypnotic somnambulisms has not been without its\nlessons. It has shown us that the supernormal powers which we have\ntraced in each of the preceding chapters in turn do also show\nthemselves, in much the same fashion, in spontaneous sleep-waking states\nof various types. We must now inquire how far they occur in sleep-waking\nstates experimentally induced.\n\nAnd here the very fact of _induction_ suggests to us a question\nspecially applicable to the hypnotic state itself. Is hypnosis ever\nsupernormally induced? Can any one, that is to say, be thrown into\nhypnotic trance by a telepathic impact? or, to phrase it more generally,\nby any influence, inexplicable by existing science, which may pass from\nman to man?\n\nIn the first place one may say that of the anti-mesmeric schools of\nopinion, the \"purely physiological\" school has on the whole failed, the\n\"purely suggestive\" school has triumphantly succeeded. The school of\nNancy, reinforced by hypnotists all over Europe, has abundantly proved\nthat \"pure suggestion\" (whatever that be) is the determining cause of a\nvery large proportion of hypnotic phenomena. That is beyond dispute; and\nthe two other schools, the \"pure physiologists\" and the \"mesmerists\"\nalike, must now manage to prove as best they can that their favourite\nmethods play any real part in the induction of any case of hypnosis. For\nto the pure suggestionist, monotonous stimulation and mesmeric passes\nare alike in themselves inert, are alike mere facilitations of\nsuggestion, acting not directly on the patient's organism, but rather\non his state of mental expectation.\n\nI reply that there is absolutely no need to go as far as this. In\nadmitting suggestion as a _vera causa_ of hypnosis, we are recognising a\ncause which, if we really try to grasp it, resolves itself into\n_subliminal operation, brought about we know not how_. So far,\ntherefore, from negativing and excluding any obscure and perhaps\nsupernormal agency, the suggestion theory leaves the way for any such\nagency broadly open. Some unknown cause or other must determine whether\neach suggestion is to \"take\" or no; and that unknown cause must\npresumably act somehow upon the subliminal self. We should have\nsomething like a real explanation of suggestion, if we could show that a\nsuggestion's success or failure was linked with some telepathic impact\nfrom the suggester's mind, or with some mesmeric effluence from his\nperson.\n\nI know well that in many cases we can establish no link of this kind. In\nBernheim's rapid hospital practice there seems no opportunity to bring\nthe hypnotist's will, or the hypnotiser's organism, into any effective\n_rapport_ with the subject. Rather, the subject seems to do all that is\nwanted for himself almost instantaneously. He often falls into the\nsuggested slumber almost before the word \"_Dormez!_\" has left the\nphysician's mouth. But on the other hand, this is by no means the only\ntype of hypnotic success. Just as in the mesmeric days, so also now\nthere are continual instances where much more than the mere command has\nbeen needed for effective hypnotisation. Persistence, proximity,\npasses--all these prove needful still in the practice even of physicians\nwho place no faith at all in the old mesmeric theory.\n\nThe fact is, that since the days of those old controversies between\nmesmerists proper and hypnotists proper, the conditions of the\ncontroversy have greatly changed. The supposed mesmeric effluence was\nthen treated as an entirely isolated, yet an entirely physiological\nphenomenon. There was supposed to be a kind of radiation or infection\npassing from one nervous system to another. It was of this that Cuvier\n(for instance) was convinced; it was this theory which Elliotson\ndefended in the _Zoist_ with a wealth of illustration and argument to\nwhich little justice has even yet been done. Yet it was hard to prove\n_effluence_ as opposed to _suggestion_, because where there was\nproximity enough for effluence to be effective there was also proximity\nenough for suggestion to be possible. Only in some few\ncircumstances,--such as Esdaile's mesmerisation of a blind man over a\nwall,[93]--was it possible to claim that the mesmeric trance had been\ninduced without any suspicion whatever on the subject's part that the\nmesmerist was trying to entrance him.\n\nSince those days, however, the evidence for _telepathy_--for psychical\ninfluence from a distance--has grown to goodly proportions. A new form\nof experiment has been found possible, from which the influence of\nsuggestion can be entirely excluded. It has now, as I shall presently\ntry to show, been actually proved that the hypnotic trance can be\ninduced from a distance so great, and with precautions so complete, that\ntelepathy or some similar supernormal influence is the only efficient\ncause which can be conceived.\n\nI subjoin one of a series of experiments in this \"telepathic hypnotism.\"\n(See Appendix V. C.) These experiments are not easy to manage, since it\nis essential at once to prevent the subject from suspecting that the\nexperiment is being tried, and also to provide for his safety in the\nevent of its success. In Dr. Gibert's experiment, for instance, it was a\nresponsible matter to bring this elderly woman in her dream-like state\nthrough the streets of Havre. It was needful to provide her with an\nunnoticed escort; and, in fact, several persons had to devote themselves\nfor some hours to a single experiment.\n\nI have cited first this experiment at a distance, without attempting to\nanalyse the nature of the suggestion given or power employed by the\nhypnotist. Of course it is plain that if one can thus influence\nunexpectant persons from a distance there must be sometimes some kind of\npower actually exercised by the hypnotiser;--something beyond the mere\ntact and impressiveness of address, which is all that Bernheim and his\nfollowers admit or claim. Evidence of this has been afforded by the\noccasional production of organic and other effects in hypnotised\nsubjects by the unuttered will of the operator when near them. The\ningenious experiments of Gurney[94] in the production of local rigidity\nand an\u00e6sthesia were undertaken to test whether the agency employed were\nmore in the nature of an effort of will or,--as the early mesmerists\nclaimed,--of an emission of actual \"mesmeric fluid\" or physical\neffluence of some sort. Gurney was inclined to think that his results\ncould not be explained solely by mental suggestion or telepathy, because\nthe physical proximity of the operator's hand seemed necessary to\nproduce them, and he thought it probable that they were due to a direct\nnervous influence, exercised through the hand of the operator, but not\nperceptible through the ordinary sensory channels. Mrs. Sidgwick's\nexperiments[95] of the same kind, however, in which success was obtained\nwhen the operator was standing with folded arms several feet away from\nthe subject, removed Gurney's main objection to the telepathic\nexplanation. The fact that a thick sheet of glass over the subject's\nhands did not interfere with the results also afforded some presumption\nagainst the hypothesis of a physical influence; and Mrs. Sidgwick\npointed out that the delicate discrimination involved in the specific\nlimitations of the effects is much more easily attributable to mental\nsuggestion, through the action of the operator's mind on that of the\nsubject, than to any direct physical influence on the latter's nerves.\n\nIt is, however, in my view, by no means improbable that effluences, as\nyet unknown to science, but perceptible by sensitive persons as the\ntelepathic impulse is perceptible, should radiate from living human\norganisms. I see no reason to assume that the varied and concordant\nstatements made by patients in the _Zoist_ and early mesmeric works\nmerely reflect subjective fancies. I have myself performed and witnessed\nexperiments on intelligent persons expressly designed to test whether or\nno the sensation following the hand was a mere fancy. It seems to me\nhardly likely that persons who have never experienced other purely\nsubjective sensations, and who are expressly alive to the question here\nat issue, should nevertheless again and again feel the classical\ntingling, etc., along the track of the hypnotiser's passes without any\nreal external cause. To assume that all which they feel is a mere result\nof suggestion, may be a premature attempt at simplifying modes of\nsupernormal communication which, in fact, are probably not simpler but\nmore complex than any idea which we have as yet formed of them.\n\nAnd here at last we arrive at what is in reality the most interesting\ngroup of inquiries connected with the hypnotic trance.\n\nWe have just seen that the subliminal state of the hypnotised subject\nmay be approached by ways subtler than mere verbal suggestion--by\ntelepathic impacts and perhaps by some effluence of kindred supernormal\ntype. We have now to trace the supernormal elements in the hypnotic\n_response_. Whether those elements are most readily excited by a\ndirectly subliminal appeal, or whether they depend mainly on the special\npowers innate in the hypnotised person, we can as yet but imperfectly\nguess. We can be pretty sure, at any rate, that they are not often\nevoked in answer to any rapid and, so to say, perfunctory hypnotic\nsuggestion; they do not spring up in miscellaneous hospital practice;\nthey need an education and a development which is hardly bestowed on\none hypnotised subject in a hundred. The first stage of this response\nlies in a subliminal relation established between the subject and his\nhypnotiser, and manifesting itself in what is called _rapport_, or in\n_community of sensation_. The earlier stages of _rapport_--conditions\nwhen the subject apparently bears or feels the hypnotiser only, and so\nforth--arise probably from mere self-suggestion or from the suggestions\nof the operator, causing the conscious attention of the subject to be\nexclusively directed to him. Indications of the possible development of\na real link between the two persons may rather be found in the cases\nwhere there is provable community of sensation,--the hypnotised subject\ntasting or feeling what the hypnotiser (unknown to the subject) does\nactually at that moment taste or feel.\n\nWe have thus brought the hypnotised subject up to the point of knowing\nsupernormally, at any rate, the superficial sensations of his\nhypnotiser. From that starting-point,--or, at any rate, from some\nsupernormal perception of narrow range,--his cognition widens and\ndeepens. He may seem to discern some picture of the past, and may\nretrace the history of some object which he holds in his hand, or he may\nseem to wander in spirit over the habitable globe, and to bring back\nknowledge of present facts discernible by no other means. Perhaps he\nseems to behold the future, predicting oftenest the organic history of\nsome person near him; but sometimes discerning, as it were pictorially,\nscattered events to which we can guess at no attainable due. For all\nthis there is already more of positive evidence than is generally\nrealised; nor (I must repeat) is there any _negative_ evidence which\nmight lead us to doubt that further care in developing hypnotic subjects\nmay not at any moment be rewarded in the same way. We have here, in\nfact, a successful branch of investigation which has of late years been\npractically dropped from mere inattention to what has been done\nalready,--mere diversion of effort to the easier and more practical\ntriumphs of suggestive therapeutics.[96]\n\nThe next group of cases to which I pass relate chiefly to knowledge of\npresent facts. I may first refer to some experiments in\nthought-transference with hypnotised persons[97] analogous to the\nexperiments with persons in a normal condition recorded in my next\nchapter. Here the subject seems simply to become aware telepathically\nof the thoughts of his hypnotiser, the hypnotic condition perhaps\nfacilitating the transfer of the impression. Next come the cases of what\nused to be called \"travelling clairvoyance\" in the hypnotic state. These\nare more like the partially retrocognitive cases in that they cannot be\ntraced with certainty to the contemporary thoughts of any particular\nperson. In travelling clairvoyance we seem to have a development of\n\"invasive dreams,\"--of those visions of the night in which the sleeper\nseems to visit distant scenes and to bring back intelligence otherwise\nunattainable. These distant hypnotic visions seem to develop out of\nthought-transference; thus the subject may discern an imaginary picture\nas it is conceived in the hypnotiser's mind. Thence he may pass on and\ndiscern a true contemporaneous scene,[98] unknown to any one present,\nand in some few cases there is an element of apparent prevision in the\nimpression.[99]\n\nOur survey of that important, though inchoate, appeal to the subliminal\nself which passes under the name of hypnotism is now nearly as\ncomplete--in its brief sketchy form--as the present state of knowledge\npermits.\n\nI have attempted to trace the inevitable _rise_ of hypnotism--its\nnecessary development out of the spontaneous phenomena which preceded\nand which might so naturally have suggested it. I have shown,\nnevertheless, its almost accidental initiation, and then its rapid\ndevelopment in ways which no single experimenter has ever been able to\ncorrelate or to foresee. I am bound to say something further as to its\nprospect in the future. A systematic appeal to the deeper powers in\nman--conceived with the generality with which I have here conceived\nit--cannot remain a mere appanage of medical practice. It must be fitted\non in some way to the whole serious life of man; it must present itself\nto him as a development of faiths and instincts which lie already deep\nin his heart. In other words, there must needs be some _scheme of\nself-suggestion_,--some general theory which can give the individual a\nbasis for his appeal, whether he regards that appeal as directed to an\nintelligence outside himself or to his own inherent faculties and\ninforming soul. These helps to the power of generalisation--to the\nfeeling of confidence--we must consider now.\n\nThe schemes of self-suggestion which have actually been found effective\nhave covered, not unnaturally, a range as wide as all the superstition\nand all the religion of men. That is to say that each form of\nsupernatural belief in turn has been utilised as a means of securing\nthat urgently-needed temporal blessing--relief from physical pain. We\nsee the same tendency running through fetichistic, polytheistic,\nmonotheistic forms of belief. Beginning with fetichistic peoples, we\nobserve that _charms_ of various kinds,--inert objects, arbitrary\ngestures, meaningless words,--have probably been actually the most\ngeneral means which our race has employed for the cure of disease. We\nknow how long some forms of primitive belief persisted in medicine,--as,\nfor example, the doctrine of _likenesses_, or the cure of a disease by\nsome object supposed to resemble its leading symptom. What is, however,\neven more remarkable is the efficacy which charms still continue in some\ncases to possess, even when they are worn merely as an experiment in\nself-suggestion by a person who is perfectly well aware of their\nintrinsic futility. Experiments on this subject seem to show that the\nmere continual contact of some small unfamiliar object will often act as\na reminder to the subliminal self, and keep, at any rate, some nervous\ndisturbances in check. Until one reads these modern examples, one can\nhardly realise how veritably potent for good may have been the savage\namulet, the savage incantation.\n\nThe transition from fetichistic to polytheistic conceptions of cure is,\nof course, a gradual one. It may be said to begin when curative\nproperties are ascribed to objects not arbitrarily, nor on account of\nthe _look_ of the objects themselves, but on account of their having\nbeen blessed or handled by some divine or semi-divine personage, or\nhaving formed part of his body or surroundings during some incarnation.\nThus Lourdes water, bottled and exported, is still held to possess\ncurative virtue on account of the Virgin's original blessing bestowed\nupon the Lourdes spring. But generally the influence of the divine or\ndivinised being is more directly exercised, as in oracles, dreams,\ninvisible touches, or actual _theophanies_, or appearances of the gods\nto the adoring patient. It will be seen as we proceed how amply the\ntradition of Lourdes has incorporated these ancient aids to faith.\n\nBut at this point our modern experience suggests to us a remarkable\ninterpolation in the antique chain of ideas. It is now alleged that\ndeparted persons need not exert influence through their dead bones\nalone, nor yet only by their supposed intermediacy with higher powers.\nThere intervenes, in fact, the whole topic of _spirit-healing_,--which\ncannot, however, be treated fully here.\n\nNext in the ascending scale from polytheism to monotheism we come to the\n\"Miracles of Lourdes,\" to which I have just alluded, where the supposed\nhealer is the Virgin Mary, reverenced as semi-divine. This form of\nbelief, however, retains (as has been said) some affinity with\nfetichism, since the actual _water_ from the Lourdes spring, supposed to\nhave been blessed by the Virgin, is an important factor in the\ncures.[100]\n\nMuch further removed from primitive belief is the appeal made by\nChristian scientists to the aid of Jesus Christ;--either as directly\nanswering prayer, or as enabling the worshippers to comprehend the\ninfinite love on which the universe is based, and in face of which pain\nand sickness become a vain imagination or even a sheer nonentity. To the\nreaders of this chapter, however, there will be nothing surprising in my\nown inclination to include all these efforts at health under the general\ncategory of schemes of self-suggestion.\n\nIn my view they are but crude attempts at a practical realisation of the\nessential truth that it is possible by a right disposition of our own\nminds to draw energy from an environing world of spiritual life.\n\nIt seems, at least, that no real explanation of hypnotic vitalisation\ncan, in fact, be given except upon the general theory supported in this\nwork--the theory that a world of spiritual life exists, an environment\nprofounder than those environments of matter and ether which in a sense\nwe know. Let us look at this hypothesis a little more closely. When we\nsay that an organism exists in a certain environment, we mean that its\nenergy, or some part thereof, forms an element in a certain system of\ncosmic forces, which represents some special modification of the\nultimate energy. The life of the organism consists in its power of\ninterchanging energy with its environment,--of appropriating by its own\naction some fragment of that pre-existent and limitless Power. We human\nbeings exist in the first place in a world of matter, whence we draw the\nobvious sustenance of our bodily functions.\n\nWe exist also in a world of ether;--that is to say, we are constructed\nto respond to a system of laws,--ultimately continuous, no doubt, with\nthe laws of matter, but affording a new, a generalised, a profounder\nconception of the Cosmos. So widely different, indeed, is this new\naspect of things from the old, that it is common to speak of the ether\nas a newly-known environment. On this environment our organic existence\ndepends as absolutely as on the material environment, although less\nobviously. In ways which we cannot fathom, the ether is at the\nfoundation of our physical being. Perceiving heat, light, electricity,\nwe do but recognise in certain conspicuous ways,--as in perceiving the\n\"X rays\" we recognise in a way less conspicuous,--the pervading\ninfluence of etherial vibrations which in range and variety far\ntranscend our capacity of response.\n\nWithin, beyond, the world of ether,--as a still profounder, still more\ngeneralised aspect of the Cosmos,--must lie, as I believe, the world of\nspiritual life. That the world of spiritual life does not depend upon\nthe existence of the material world I hold as now proved by actual\nevidence. That it is in some way continuous with the world of ether I\ncan well suppose. But for our minds there must needs be a \"critical\npoint\" in any such imagined continuity; so that the world where life and\nthought are carried on apart from matter, must certainly rank again as a\nnew, a _metetherial_ environment. In giving it this name I expressly\nimply only that from our human point of view it lies after or beyond the\nether, as metaphysic lies after or beyond physics. I say only that what\ndoes not originate in matter or in ether originates _there_; but I well\nbelieve that beyond the ether there must be not one stage only, but\ncountless stages in the infinity of things.\n\nOn this hypothesis there will be an essential concordance between all\nviews--spiritual or materialistic--which ascribe to any direction of\nattention or will any practical effect upon the human organism. \"The\nprayer of faith shall save the sick,\" says St. James. \"There is nothing\nin hypnotism but suggestion,\" says Bernheim. In my clumsier language\nthese two statements (setting aside a possible telepathic element in St.\nJames' words) will be expressible in identical terms. \"There will be\neffective therapeutical or ethical self-suggestion whenever by any\nartifice subliminal attention to a bodily function or to a moral purpose\nis carried to some unknown pitch of intensity which draws energy from\nthe metetherial world.\"\n\nA great practical question remains, to which St. James' words supply a\ndirect, though perhaps an inadequate answer, while Bernheim's words\nsupply no answer at all.\n\nWhat is this saving faith to be, and how is it to be attained? Can we\nfind any sure way of touching the spring which moves us so potently, at\nonce from without and from within? Can we propose any form of\nself-suggestion effective for all the human race? any controlling\nthought on which all alike can fix that long-sought mountain-moving\nfaith?\n\nAssuredly no man can extemporise such a faith as this. Whatever form it\nmay ultimately take, it must begin as the purification, the\nintensification, of the purest, the intensest beliefs to which human\nminds have yet attained. It must invoke the whole strength of all\nphilosophies, of all religions;--not indeed the special arguments or\nevidence adduced for each, which lie outside my present theme, but all\nthe spiritual energy by which in truth they live. And so far as this\npurpose goes, of drawing strength from the unseen, if one faith is true,\nall faiths are true; in so far at least as human mind can grasp or human\nprayer appropriate the unknown metetherial energy, the inscrutable Grace\nof God.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nSENSORY AUTOMATISM\n\n     [Greek: Blepomen gar arti di' esuptrou en ainigmati.]\n\n\nEach of the several lines of inquiry pursued in the foregoing chapters\nhas brought indications of something transcending sensory experience in\nthe reserves of human faculty; and we have come to a point where we need\nsome further colligating generalisation--some conception under which\nthese scattered phenomena may be gathered in their true kinship.\n\nSome steps at least towards such a generalisation the evidence to be\npresented in these next chapters may allow us to take. Considering\ntogether, under the heading of sensory and motor _automatism_, the whole\nrange of that subliminal action of which we have as yet discussed\nfragments only, we shall gradually come to see that its distinctive\nfaculty of telepathy or tel\u00e6sthesia is in fact an introduction into a\nrealm where the limitations of organic life can no longer be assumed to\npersist. Considering, again, the evidence which shows that that portion\nof the personality which exercises these powers during our earthly\nexistence does actually continue to exercise them after our bodily\ndecay, _we shall recognise a relation--obscure but indisputable--between\nthe subliminal and the surviving self_.\n\nI begin, then, with my definition of _automatism_, as the widest term\nunder which to include the range of subliminal emergences into ordinary\nlife. The turbulent uprush and downdraught of hysteria; the helpful\nuprushes of genius, co-operating with supraliminal thought; the profound\nand recuperative changes which follow on hypnotic suggestion; these have\nbeen described under their separate headings. But the main mass of\nsubliminal manifestations remains undescribed. I have dealt little with\nveridical hallucinations, not at all with automatic writing, nor with\nthe utterances of spontaneous trance. The products of inner vision or\ninner audition externalised into quasi-percepts,--these form what I term\n_sensory automatisms_. The messages conveyed by movement of limbs or\nhand or tongue, initiated by an inner motor impulse beyond the\nconscious will--these are what I term _motor automatisms_. And I claim\nthat when all these are surveyed together their essential analogy will\nbe recognised beneath much diversity of form. They will be seen to be\n_messages_ from the subliminal to the supraliminal self;\nendeavours--conscious or unconscious--of submerged tracts of our\npersonality to present to ordinary waking thought fragments of a\nknowledge which no ordinary waking thought could attain.\n\nI regard supraliminal life merely as a _privileged case_ of personality;\na special phase of our personality, which is easiest for us to study,\nbecause it is simplified for us by our ready consciousness of what is\ngoing on in it; yet which is by no means necessarily either central or\nprepotent, could we see our whole being in comprehensive view.\n\nNow if we thus regard the whole supraliminal personality as a special\ncase of something much more extensive, it follows that we must similarly\nregard all human faculty, and each sense severally, as mere special or\nprivileged cases of some more general power.\n\nAll human terrene faculty will be in this view simply a selection from\nfaculty existing in the metetherial world; such part of that antecedent,\neven if not individualised, faculty as may be expressible through each\nseveral human organism.\n\nEach of our special senses, therefore, may be conceived as straining\ntowards development of a wider kind than earthly experience has as yet\nallowed. And each special sense is both an internal and an external\nsense; involves a tract of the brain, of unknown capacity, as well as an\nend-organ, whose capacity is more nearly measurable. The relation of\nthis internal, mental, mind's-eye vision to non-sensory psychological\nperception on the one hand, and to ocular vision on the other hand, is\nexactly one of the points on which some profounder observation will be\nseen to be necessary. One must at least speak of \"mind's eye\" perception\nin these sensory terms, if one is to discuss it at all.\n\nBut ordinary experience at any rate assumes that the end-organ alone can\nacquire fresh information, and that the central tract can but combine\nthis new information already sent in to it. This must plainly be the\ncase, for instance, with optical or acoustic knowledge;--with such\nknowledge as is borne on waves of ether or of air, and is caught by a\nterminal apparatus, evolved for the purpose. But observe that it is by\nno means necessary that all seeing and all hearing should be through eye\nor ear.\n\nThe vision of our dreams--to keep to vision alone for greater\nsimplicity--is non-optical vision. It is usually generated in the\ncentral brain, not sent up thither from an excited retina. Optical laws\ncan only by a stretch of terms be said to apply to it at all.\n\nLet us attempt some rough conspectus, which may show something of the\nrelation in which central and peripheral vision stand to each other.\n\nWe start from a region below the specialisation of visual faculty. The\nstudy of the successive dermal and nervous modifications which have led\nup to that faculty belongs to Biology, and all that our argument needs\nhere is to point out that the very fact that this faculty has been\ndeveloped in a germ, animated by metetherial life, indicates that some\nperceptivity from which sight could take its origin pre-existed in the\noriginating, the unseen world. We know vaguely how vision differentiated\nitself peripherally, with the growing sensibility of the pigment-spot to\nlight and shadow. But there must have been a cerebral differentiation\nalso, and also a psychological differentiation, namely, a gradual\nshaping of a distinct feeling from obscure feelings, whose history we\ncannot recover.\n\nYet I believe that we have still persistent in our brain-structure some\ndim vestige of the transition from that early undifferentiated\ncontinuous sensitivity to our existing specialisation of sense. Probably\nin all of us, though in some men much more distinctly than in others,\nthere exist certain _syn\u00e6sthesi\u00e6_ or concomitances of sense-impression,\nwhich are at any rate not dependent on any recognisable link of\nassociation.[101] My present point is that such syn\u00e6sthesi\u00e6 stand on the\ndividing line between percepts externally and internally originated.\nThese irradiations of sensitivity, sometimes apparently congenital,\ncannot, on the one hand, be called a purely mental phenomenon. Nor again\ncan they be definitely classed under external vision; since they do\nsometimes follow upon a mental process of association. It seems safer to\nterm them _entencephalic_, on the analogy of _entoptic_, since they seem\nto be due to something in brain-structure, much as entoptic percepts are\ndue to something in the structure of the eye.\n\nI will, then, start with the syn\u00e6sthesi\u00e6 as the most generalised form of\ninward perception, and will pass on to other classes which approach more\nnearly to ordinary external vision.\n\nFrom these entencephalic photisms we seem to proceed by an easy\ntransition to the most inward form of unmistakable entoptic\nvision--which is therefore the most inward form of all external\nvision--the flash of light consequent on electrisation of the optic\nnerve. Next on our outward road we may place the phosphenes caused by\npressure on the optic nerve or irritation of the retina. Next Purkinje's\nfigures, or shadows cast by the blood-vessels of the middle layer upon\nthe bacillary layer of the retina. Then _musc\u00e6 volitantes_, or shadows\ncast by motes in the vitreous humour upon the fibrous layer of the\nretina.\n\nMidway, again, between entoptic and ordinary external vision we may\nplace _after-images_; which, although themselves perceptible with shut\neyes, presuppose a previous retinal stimulation from without;--forming,\nin fact, the entoptic sequel\u00e6 of ordinary external vision.\n\nNext comes our ordinary vision of the external world--and this, again,\nis pushed to its highest degree of externality by the employment of\nartificial aids to sight. He who gazes through a telescope at the stars\nhas mechanically improved his end-organs to the furthest point now\npossible to man.\n\nAnd now, standing once more upon our watershed of entencephalic vision,\nlet us trace the advancing capacities of internal vision. The forms of\nvision now to be considered are virtually independent of the eye; they\ncan persist, that is to say, after the destruction of the eye, if only\nthe eye has worked for a few years, so as to give visual education to\nthe brain. We do not, in fact, fully know the limits of this\nindependence, which can only be learnt by a fuller examination of\nintelligent blind persons than has yet been made. Nor can we say with\ncertainty how far in a seeing person the eye is in its turn influenced\nby the brain. I shall avoid postulating any \"retropulsive current\" from\nbrain to retina, just as I have avoided any expression more specific\nthan \"the brain\" to indicate the primary seat of sight. The arrangement\nhere presented, as already explained, is a psychological one, and can\nbe set forth without trespassing on controverted physiological ground.\n\nWe may take _memory-images_ as the simplest type of internal vision.\nThese images, as commonly understood, introduce us to no fresh\nknowledge; they preserve the knowledge gained by conscious gaze upon the\nouter world. In their simplest spontaneous form they are the _cerebral_\nsequel\u00e6 of external vision, just as after-images are its _entoptic_\nsequel\u00e6. These two classes of vision have been sometimes confounded,\nalthough the distinction is a marked one. Into the cerebral storage of\nimpressions one element habitually enters which is totally absent from\nthe mere retinal storage, namely, a psychical element--a rearrangement\nor generalisation of the impressions retinally received.\n\nNext we come to a common class of memory-images, in which the subliminal\nrearrangement is particularly marked. I speak of _dreams_--which lead us\non in two directions from memory-images; in the direction of\n_imagination-images_, and in the direction of _hallucinations_. Certain\nindividual dreams, indeed, of rare types point also in other directions\nwhich later on we shall have to follow. But dreams as a class consist of\nconfused memory-images, reaching a kind of low hallucinatory intensity,\na glow, so to say, sufficient to be perceptible in darkness.\n\nI will give the name of _imagination-images_ to those conscious\nrecombinations of our store of visual imagery which we compose either\nfor our mere enjoyment, as \"waking dreams,\" or as artifices to help us\nto the better understanding of facts of nature confusedly discerned.\nSuch, for instance, are imagined geometrical diagrams; and Watt, lying\nin bed in a dark room and conceiving the steam-engine, illustrates the\nutmost limit to which voluntary internal visualisation can go.\n\nHere at any rate the commonly admitted category of stages of inward\nvision will close. Thus far and no farther the brain's capacity for\npresenting visual images can be pushed on under the guidance of the\nconscious will of man. It is now my business to show, on the contrary,\nthat we have here reached a mere intermediate point in the development\nof _internal_ vision. These imagination-images, valuable as they are,\nare merely attempts to control supraliminally a form of vision which--as\nspontaneous memory-images have already shown us--is predominantly\nsubliminal. The memory-images welled up from a just-submerged stratum;\nwe must now consider what other images also well upward from the same\nhidden source.\n\nTo begin with, it is by no means certain that some of Watt's images of\nsteam-engines did not well up from that source,--did not emerge\nready-made into the supraliminal mind while it rested in that merely\n_expectant_ state which forms generally a great part of invention. We\nhave seen in Chapter III. that there is reason to believe in such a\nconveyance in the much inferior mental processes of calculating boys,\netc., and also in the mental processes of the painter. In short, without\npretending to judge of the proportion of voluntary to involuntary\nimagery in each several creative mind, we must undoubtedly rank the\nspontaneously emergent visual images of genius as a further stage of\ninternal vision.\n\nAnd now we have reached, by a triple road, the verge of a most important\ndevelopment of inward vision--namely, that vast range of phenomena which\nwe call _hallucination_. Each of our last three classes had led up to\nhallucination in a different way. _Dreams_ actually _are_\nhallucinations; but they are usually hallucinations of low intensity;\nand are only rarely capable of maintaining themselves for a few seconds\n(as hypnopompic illusions) when the dreamer wakes to the stimuli of the\nmaterial world. _Imagination-images_ may be carried to a hallucinatory\npitch by good visualisers.[102] And the _inspirations of\ngenius_--Raphael's San Sisto is the classical instance--may present\nthemselves in hallucinatory vividness to the astonished artist.\n\nA hallucination, one may say boldly, is in fact a _hyper\u00e6sthesia_; and\ngenerally a _central_ hyper\u00e6sthesia. That is to say, the hallucination\nis in some cases due indirectly to peripheral stimulation; but often\nalso it is the result of a stimulus to \"mind's-eye vision,\" which sweeps\nthe idea onwards into visual form, regardless of ordinary checks.\n\nHere, then, is a comprehensive and reasonable way of regarding these\nmultifarious hallucinations or sensory automatisms. They are phenomena\nwhich must neither be feared nor ignored, but rather controlled and\ninterpreted. Nor will that interpretation be an easy matter. The\ninterpretation of the symbols by which the retina represents the\nexternal world has been, whether for the race or for the individual, no\nshort or simple process. Yet ocular vision is in my view a simple, easy,\nprivileged case of vision generally; and the symbols which represent our\ninternal percepts of an immaterial world are likely to be far more\ncomplex than any impressions from the material world on the retina.\n\nAll inward visions are like symbols abridged from a picture-alphabet. In\norder to understand any one class of hallucinations we ought to have all\nclasses before us. At the lower limit of the series, indeed, the\nanalysis of the physician should precede that of the psychologist. We\nalready know to some extent, and may hope soon to know more accurately,\nwhat sensory disturbance corresponds to what nervous lesion. Yet these\nviolent disturbances of inward perception--the snakes of the drunkard,\nthe scarlet fire of the epileptic, the jeering voices of the\nparanoiac--these are perhaps of too gross a kind to afford more than a\nkind of neurological introduction to the subtler points which arise when\nhallucination is unaccompanied by any observable defect or malady.\n\nIt is, indeed, obvious enough that the more idiognomonic the\nhallucination is, the more isolated from any other disturbance of\nnormality, the greater will be its psychological interest. _An\napparently spontaneous modification of central percepts_--what\nphenomenon could promise to take us deeper into the mystery of the mind?\n\nYet until quite recently--until, in short, Edmund Gurney took up the\ninquiry in 1882--this wide, important subject was treated, even in\nserious text-books, in a superficial and perfunctory way. Few statistics\nwere collected; hardly anything was really known; rather there was a\nfacile assumption that all hallucinations or sensory automatisms _must_\nsomehow be due to physical malady, even when there was no evidence\nwhatever for such a connection. I must refer my readers to Gurney's\nr\u00e9sum\u00e9 in his chapter on \"Hallucinations\" in _Phantasms of the Living_,\nif they would realise the gradual confused fashion in which men's minds\nhad been prepared for the wider view soon to be opened, largely by\nGurney's own statistical and analytical work. The wide collection of\nfirst-hand experiences of sensory automatisms of every kind which he\ninitiated, and which the S.P.R. \"Census of Hallucinations\" continued\nafter his death, has for the first time made it possible to treat these\nphenomena with some surety of hand.[103]\n\nThe results of these inquiries show that a great number of sensory\nautomatisms occur among sane and healthy persons, and that for many of\nthese we can at present offer no explanation whatever. For some of them,\nhowever, we can offer a kind of explanation, or at least an indication\nof a probable determining cause, whose mode of working remains wholly\nobscure.\n\nThus, in some few instances, although there is no disturbance of health,\nthere seems to be a predisposition to the externalisation of figures or\nsounds. Since this in no way interferes with comfort, we must simply\nclass it as an idiosyncratic central hyper\u00e6sthesia--much like the\ntendency to extremely vivid dreams, which by no means always implies a\npoor quality of sleep.\n\nIn a few instances, again, we can trace moral predisposing\ncauses--expectation, grief, anxiety.\n\nThese causes, however, turn out to be much less often effective than\nmight have been expected from the popular readiness to invoke them. In\ntwo ways especially the weakness of this predisposing cause is impressed\nupon us. In the first place, the bulk of our percipients experience\ntheir hallucinations at ordinary unexciting moments; traversing their\nmore anxious crises without any such phenomenon. In the second place,\nthose of our percipients whose hallucination is in fact more or less\ncoincident with some distressing external event, seldom seem to have\nbeen predisposed to the hallucination by a knowledge of the event. For\nthe event was generally unknown to them when the corresponding\nhallucination occurred.\n\nThis last remark, it will be seen, introduces us to the most interesting\nand important group of percipients and of percepts; the percipients\nwhose gift constitutes a fresh faculty rather than a degeneration; the\npercepts which are _veridical_--which are (as we shall see cause to\ninfer) in some way generated by some event outside the percipient's\nmind, so that their correspondence with that event conveys some new\nfact, in however obscure a form. It is this group, of course, which\ngives high importance to the whole inquiry; which makes the study of\ninward vision no mere curiosity, but rather the opening of an inlet into\nforms of knowledge to which we can assign no bound.\n\nNow these telepathic hallucinations will introduce us to very varying\nforms of inward vision. It will be well to begin their study by\nrecalling and somewhat expanding the thesis already advanced: that man's\n_ocular_ vision is but a special or privileged case of visual power, of\nwhich power his _inner_ vision affords a more extensive example.\n\nOcular vision is the perception of material objects, in accordance with\noptical laws, from a definite point in space. Our review of\nhallucinations has already removed two of these limitations. If I see a\nhallucinatory figure--and figures seen in _dreams_ come under this\ncategory--I see something which is not a material object, and I see it\nin a manner not determined by optical laws. A dream-figure may indeed\nseem to _conform_ to optical laws; but that will be the result of\nself-suggestion, or of organised memories, and will vary according to\nthe dreamer's visualising power. While a portrait-painter may see a face\nin dream which he can paint from memory when he wakes, the ordinary\nman's dream-percept will be vague, shifting, and unrememberable.\n\nSimilarly, if I see a subjective hallucinatory figure \"out in the room,\"\nits aspect is not _determined_ by optical laws (it may even seem to\nstand _behind_ the observer, or otherwise _outside_ his visual field),\nbut it will more or less _conform_--by my mere self-suggestion, if by\nnothing else--to optical laws; and, moreover, it will still seem to be\nseen from a fixed point in space, namely, from the stationary observer's\neyes or brain.\n\nAll this seems fairly plain, so long as we are admittedly dealing with\nhallucinatory figures whose origin must be in the percipient's own mind.\nBut so soon as we come to quasi-percepts which we believe to exist or to\noriginate somewhere outside the percipient's mind, our difficulties come\nthick and fast.\n\nIf there be some external origin for our inward vision (which thereby\nbecomes _veridical_) we must not any longer assume that all veridical\ninward vision starts or is exercised from the same point. If it gets\nhold of _facts_ (veridical impressions or pictures, not mere subjective\nfancies), we cannot be sure _a priori_ whether it somehow goes to find\nthe facts, or the facts come to find it. Again, we cannot any longer\ntake for granted that it will be cognisant only of phantasmal or\nimmaterial percepts. If it can get at phantasmal percepts outside the\norganism, may it not get at _material_ percepts also? May it not see\ndistant houses, as well as the images of distant souls?\n\nHazardous as these speculations may seem, they nevertheless represent an\nattempt to get our notions of supersensory things as near down to our\nnotions of sensory things as we fairly can. Whatever may be our ultimate\nconception of an ideal world, we must not for the present attempt to\nstart from any standpoint too far removed from the temporal and spatial\nexistence which alone we know.\n\nAs telepathy is a conception intermediate between the apparent isolation\nof minds here communicating only as a rule through material organs, and\nthe ultimate conception of the unity of all mind, so the conception\nwhich I am about to propose, of a recognition of space without our\nconcomitant subjection to laws of matter, is strictly intermediate\nbetween man's incarnate condition and the condition which we may imagine\nhim ultimately to attain. We cannot possibly infer _a priori_ that all\nrecognition of space must needs disappear with the disappearance of the\nparticular bodily sensations by means of which our conception of space\nhas been developed. But we can imagine that a spirit should be\nessentially _independent_ of space, and yet capable of recognising it.\n\nProvisionally admitting this view, let us consider what range we are now\nled to assign to inner vision, when it is no longer merely subjective\nbut veridical; bringing news to the percipient of actual fact outside\nhis own organism.\n\nWe infer that it may represent to us (1) material objects; or (2)\nsymbols of immaterial things; (3) in ways not necessarily accordant with\noptical laws; and (4) from a point of view not necessarily located\nwithin the organism, by means of what I have called a _psychical\nexcursion_. I will take an illustration from a case which is recorded in\ndetail in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 41 [666 C].\n\nA Mrs. Wilmot has a vision of her husband in a cabin in a distant\nsteamer. Besides her husband, she sees in the cabin a stranger (who was\nin fact present there), with certain material details. Now here I should\nsay that Mrs. Wilmot's inner vision discerned material objects, from a\npoint of view outside her own organism. But, on the other hand, although\nthe perception came to her in visual terms, I do not suppose that it was\nreally _optical_, that it came through the eye.\n\nMrs. Wilmot might believe, say, that her husband's head concealed from\nher some part of the berth in which he lay; but this would not mean a\nreal optical concealment, but only a special direction of her attention,\nguided by preconceived notions of what would be optically visible from a\ngiven point.\n\nAs we proceed further we shall see, I think, in many ways how needful is\nthis _excursive_ theory to explain _many_ telepathic and _all_\ntel\u00e6sthetic experiences; _many_, I mean, of the cases where two minds\nare in communication, and _all_ the cases where the percipient learns\nmaterial facts (as words in a closed book, etc.) with which no other\nknown mind is concerned.\n\nAnother most important corollary of this excursive theory must just be\nmentioned here. If there be spiritual excursion to a particular point of\nspace, it is conceivable that this should involve not only the migrant\nspirit's perception _from_ that point, but also perception of that point\nby persons materially present near it. That point may become a\n_phantasmogenetic centre_, as well as a centre of outlook. In plain\nwords, if A has spiritually invaded B's room, and there sees B, B on his\npart may see A symbolically standing there; and C and D if present may\nsee A as well.\n\nThis hint, here thrown out as an additional argument for the excursive\ntheory, will fall to be developed later on. For the present we must\nconfine our attention to our immediate subject: the range of man's inner\nvision, and the means which he must take to understand, to foster, and\nto control it.\n\nThe first and simplest step in the control of inner vision is the\nrepression by hypnotic suggestion of degenerative hallucinations. It is\na noteworthy fact that such of these as are at all curable are much more\noften curable by hypnotism than in any other way.\n\nThe next step is one to which, as the reader of my chapter on hypnotism\nalready knows, I attribute an importance much greater than is generally\naccorded to it. I refer to the hypnotiser's power not only of\ncontrolling but of _inducing_ hallucinations in his subject.\n\nAs I have already said, the evocation of hallucinations is commonly\nspoken of as a mere example of the subject's _obedience_ to the\nhypnotiser. \"I tell my subject to raise his arm, and he raises it; I\ntell him to see a tiger in the room, and he sees one accordingly.\" But\nmanifestly these two incidents are not on the same level, and only\nappear to be so through a certain laxity of language. The usage of\nspeech allows me to say, \"I will make my subject lift his arm,\" although\nI am of course unable to affect the motor centres in his brain which\nstart that motion. But it is so easy for a man to lift his arm that my\nspeech takes that familiar power for granted, and notes, only his\nreadiness to lift it when I tell him--the hypnotic complaisance which\nprompts him to obey me if I suggest this trivial action. But when I say,\n\"I will make him see a tiger,\" I take for granted a power on his part\nwhich is _not_ familiar, which I have no longer a right to assume. For\nunder ordinary circumstances my subject simply _cannot_ see a tiger at\nwill; nor can I affect the visual centres which might enable him to do\nso. All that I can ask him to do, therefore, is to choose this\nparticular way of indicating that in his hypnotic condition he has\nbecome able to stimulate his central sensory tracts more powerfully than\never before.\n\nAnd not only this. His hallucinations are in most cases elaborate\nproducts--complex images which must have needed intelligence to fashion\nthem--although the process of their fashioning is hidden from our view.\nIn this respect they resemble the inspirations of genius. For here we\nfind again just what we found in those inspirations--the uprush of a\ncomplex intellectual product, performed beneath the threshold, and\nprojected ready-made into ordinary consciousness. The uprushing stream\nof intelligence, indeed, in the man of genius flowed habitually in\nconformity with the superficial stream. Only rarely does the great\nconception intrude itself upon him with such vigour and such\nuntimeliness as to bring confusion and incoherence into his ordinary\nlife. But in the case of these induced hallucinations the incongruity\nbetween the two streams of intelligence is much more marked. When a\nsubject, for instance, is trying to keep down some post-hypnotic\nhallucinatory suggestion, one can watch the smooth surface of the\nsupraliminal river disturbed by that suggestion as though by jets of\nsteam from below, which sometimes merely break in bubbles, but sometimes\nforce themselves up bodily through the superficial film.\n\nIt is by considering hallucinations in this generalised manner and among\nthese analogies, that we can best realise their absence of necessary\nconnection with any bodily degeneration or disease. Often, of course,\nthey accompany disease; but that is only to say that the central sensory\ntracts, like any other part of the organism, are capable of morbid as\nwell as of healthful stimulus. Taken in itself, the mere fact of the\nquasi-externalisation of a centrally initiated image indicates strong\ncentral stimulation, and absolutely nothing more. There is no\nphysiological law whatever which can tell us what degree of vividness\nour central pictures may assume consistently with health--short of the\npoint where they get to be so indistinguishable from external\npreceptions that, as in madness, they interfere with the rational\nconduct of life. That point no well-attested case of veridical\nhallucinations, so far as my knowledge goes, has yet approached.\n\nIt was, of course, natural that in the study of these phantasms, as\nelsewhere, the therapeutic interest should have preceded the\npsychological, but in the newer practical study of _eugenics_--the study\nwhich aims at improving the human organism, instead of merely conserving\nit--experimental psychology is indispensable, and one branch of this is\nthe experimental study of mental visions.\n\nLet us consider whether, apart from such a rare and startling incident\nas an actual hallucination, there is any previous indication of a habit\nof receiving, or a power of summoning, pictures from a subliminal\nstore-house? Any self-suggestion, conscious or unconscious, which places\nbefore the supraliminal intelligence visual images apparently matured\nelsewhere?\n\nSuch indications have not been wanting. In the chapter on Genius, and in\nthe chapter on Sleep, we have traced the existence of many classes of\nthese pictures; all of them ready, as it would seem, to manifest\nthemselves on slight inducement. _Dream-figures_ will rise in any\nmomentary blur of consciousness; _inspirations_ will respond to the\nconcentrated desire or the mere passing emotion of the man of genius;\n_after-images_ will recur, under unknown conditions, long after the\noriginal stimulus has been withdrawn; _memory-images_ will surge up into\nour minds with even unwished-for vividness; the brilliant exactness of\n_illusions hypnagogiques_ will astonish us in the revealing transition\nfrom waking to sleep.\n\nAll is prepared, so to say, for some empirical short-cut to a fuller\ncontrol of these subjacent pictures; just as before Mesmer and Puys\u00e9gur\nall was prepared for an empirical short-cut to trance, somnambulism,\nsuggestibility.\n\nAll that we want is to hit on some simple empirical way of bringing out\nthe correlation between all these types of subjacent vision, just as\nmesmerism was a simple empirical way of bringing out the correlation\nbetween various trances and sleep-waking states.\n\n_Crystal-vision_, then, like hypnotic trance, might have been gradually\nevolved by a series of reasoned experiments, along an unexceptionable\nscientific road.\n\nIn reality, of course, this prehistoric practice must have been reached\nin some quite different way. It does not fall within the scope of this\nbook to trace the various streams of divination which converge into Dr.\nDee's magic, and \"the attracting of spirits into the ball.\" But it is\nreally to the Elizabethan Dr. Dee--one of the leading _savants_ of his\ntime--that the credit must be given of the first systematic attempt to\ndescribe, analyse, and utilise these externalised pictures.[104]\n\nI will describe briefly the general type of the experiment, and we shall\nsee how near we can get to a psychological explanation.\n\nLet the observer gaze, steadily but not fatiguingly, into some speculum,\nor clear depth, so arranged as to return as little reflection as\npossible. A good example of what is meant will be a glass ball enveloped\nin a black shawl, or placed in the back part of a half-opened drawer; so\narranged, in short, that the observer can gaze into it with as little\ndistraction as may be from the reflection of his own face or of\nsurrounding objects. After he has tried (say) three or four times, for\nten minutes or so at a time--preferably in solitude, and in a state of\nmental passivity--he will perhaps begin to see the glass ball or crystal\n_clouding_, or to see some figure or picture apparently _in_ the ball.\nPerhaps one man or woman in twenty will have some slight occasional\nexperience of this kind; and perhaps one in twenty of these seers (the\npercentages must as yet be mainly guess-work) will be able by practice\nto develop this faculty of inward vision up to a point where it will\nsometimes convey to him information not attainable by ordinary means.\n\nHow comes it, in the first place, that he sees any figure in the crystal\nat all? Common hypnotic experiments supply two obvious answers, each of\nwhich no doubt explains some part of the phenomena.\n\nIn the first place, we know that the hypnotic trance is often induced by\ngazing at some small bright object. This may or may not be a mere effect\nof suggestion; but it certainly sometimes occurs, and the \"scryer\"\nconsequently may be partially hypnotised, and in a state which\nfacilitates hallucinations.\n\nIn the second place, a hypnotised subject--hypnotised but in a fully\nalert state--can often be caused by suggestion to see (say) a portrait\nupon a blank card; and will continue to see that portrait on that card,\nafter the card has been shuffled with others; thus showing that he\ndiscerns with unusual acuteness such _points de rep\u00e8re_, or little\nguiding marks, as may exist on the surface of even an apparently blank\ncard.\n\nCorrespondently with the _first_ of these observations, we find that\ncrystal-vision is sometimes accompanied by a state of partial\nhypnotisation, perhaps merging into trance. This has been the case with\nvarious French hysterical subjects; and not only with them but with that\nexceptionally sound and vigorous observer, Mr. J. G. Keulemans. His\nevidence (in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 516-521) is just what\none would have expected _a priori_ on such a matter.\n\nCorrespondently with the _second_ of the above observations, we find\nthat _points de rep\u00e8re_ do occasionally seem to determine crystal\nvisions.\n\nThis, again, has been noticed among the French hysterical subjects; and\nnot only with them, but with another among our best observers, Mrs.\nVerrall.\n\nThese things being so--both these causes being apparently operative\nalong the whole series of \"scryers,\" or crystal-gazers, from the most\nunstable to the most scientific--one might be tempted to assume that\nthese two clues, if we could follow them far enough, would explain the\nwhole group of phenomena. Persons who have not _seen_ the phenomena,\nindeed, can hardly be persuaded to the contrary. But the real fact is,\nas even those who have seen much less of crystal-gazing than I have will\nvery well know, that these explanations cannot be stretched to cover a\nquarter--perhaps not even a tenth--of the phenomena which actually\noccur.\n\nJudging both from the testimony of scryers themselves, and from the\nobservations of Dr. Hodgson and others (myself included), who have had\nmany opportunities of watching them, it is very seldom that the gaze\ninto the glass ball induces any hypnotic symptoms whatever. It does not\ninduce such symptoms with successful scryers any more than with\nunsuccessful. Furthermore, there is no proof that the gift of\ncrystal-vision goes along with hypnotic sensibility. The most that one\ncan say is that the gift often goes along with _telepathic_ sensibility;\nbut although telepathic sensibility may sometimes be quickened by\nhypnotism, we have no proof that those two forms of sensitiveness\nhabitually go together.\n\nThe ordinary attitude of the scryer, I repeat, is one of complete\ndetachment; an interested and often puzzled scrutiny and analysis of the\nfigures which display themselves in swift or slow succession in the\ncrystal ball.\n\nThis last sentence applies to the theory of _points de rep\u00e8re_ as well.\nAs a general rule, the crystal vision, however meaningless and\nfantastic, is a thing which changes and develops somewhat as a dream\ndoes; following, it may be, some trivial chain of associations, but not\nmaintaining, any more than a dream maintains, any continuous scheme of\nline or colour. At the most, the scraps of reflection in the crystal\ncould only _start_ such a series of pictures as this. And the start, the\ninitiation of one of these series, is often accompanied by an odd\nphenomenon mentioned above--a _milky clouding_ of the crystal, which\nobscures any fragments of reflected images, and from out of which the\nimages of the vision gradually grow clear. I cannot explain this\nclouding. It occurs too often and too independently to be a mere effect\nof suggestion. It does not seem to depend on any optical condition--to\nbe, for instance, a result of change of focus of the eye, or of\nprolonged gazing. It is a picture like other pictures; it may come when\nthe eyes are quite fresh (nor ought they ever to be strained); and it\nmay persist for some time, so that the scryer looks away and back again,\nand sees it still. It comes at the beginning of a first series of\npictures, or as a kind of drop scene between one series of pictures and\nanother. Its closest parallel, perhaps, is the mist or cloud out of\nwhich phantasmal figures, \"out in the room,\" sometimes seem to form\nthemselves.\n\nMoreover, the connection, if one can so call it, between the crystal and\nthe vision is a very variable one. Sometimes the figures seem clearly\ndefined within the crystal and limited thereby; sometimes all perception\nof the crystal or other speculum disappears, and the scryer seems\nclairvoyantly introduced into some group of life-sized figures. Nay,\nfurther, when the habit of gazing is fully acquired, some scryers can\ndispense with any speculum whatever, and can see pictures in mere\nblackness; thus approximating to the seers of \"faces in the dark,\" or of\n_illusions hypnagogiques_.\n\nOn the whole it seems safest to attempt at present no further\nexplanation of crystal-gazing than to say that it is an empirical method\nof developing internal vision; of externalising pictures which are\nassociated with changes in the sensorial tracts of the brain, due partly\nto internal stimuli, and partly to stimuli which may come from minds\nexternal to the scryer's own. The hallucinations thus induced appear to\nbe absolutely harmless. I at least know of no kind of injury resulting\nfrom them; and I have probably heard of most of the experiments made in\nEngland, with any scientific aim or care, during the somewhat limited\nrevival of crystal-gazing which has proceeded for the last few years.\n\nThe crystal picture is what we must call (for want of knowledge of\ndetermining causes) a _random_ glimpse into inner vision, a reflection\ncaught at some odd angle from the universe as it shines through the\nperturbing medium of that special soul. Normal and supernormal knowledge\nand imaginings are blended in strangely mingled rays. Memory, dream,\ntelepathy, tel\u00e6sthesia, retrocognition, precognition, all are there.\nNay, there are indications of spiritual communications and of a kind of\necstasy.[105]\n\nWe cannot pursue all these phenomena at once. In turning, as we must now\nturn, to the _spontaneous_ cases of sensory automatism--of every type of\nwhich the _induced_ visions of the crystal afford us a foretaste--we\nmust needs single out first some fundamental phenomenon, illustrating\nsome principle from which the rarer or more complex phenomena may be in\npart at least derived. Nor will there be difficulty in such a choice.\nTheory and actual experience point here in the same direction. If this\ninward vision, this inward audition, on whose importance I have been\ninsisting, are to have any such importance--if they are to have any\nvalidity at all--if their contents are to represent anything more than\ndream or meditation--they must receive knowledge from other minds or\nfrom distant objects;--knowledge which is _not_ received by the external\norgans of sense. Communication must exist from the subliminal to the\nsubliminal as well as from the supraliminal to the supraliminal parts of\nthe being of different individual men. Telepathy, in short, must be the\nprerequisite of all these supernormal phenomena.\n\nActual experience, as we shall presently see, confirms this view of the\nplace of telepathy. For when we pass from the induced to the spontaneous\nphenomena we shall find that these illustrate before all else this\ntransmission of thought and emotion directly from mind to mind.\n\nNow as to telepathy, there is in the first place this to be said, that\nsuch a faculty must absolutely exist somewhere in the universe, if the\nuniverse contains any unembodied intelligences at all. If there be any\nlife less rooted in flesh than ours--any life more spiritual (as men\nhave supposed that a higher life would be), then either it must not be\n_social_ life--there can be no exchange of thought in it at all--or else\nthere must exist some method of exchanging thought which does not\ndepend upon either tongue or brain.\n\nThus much, one may say, has been evident since man first speculated on\nsuch subjects at all. But the advance of knowledge has added a new\npresumption--it can be no more than a presumption--to all such cosmic\nspeculations. I mean the presumption of _continuity_. Learning how close\na tie in reality unites man with inferior lives,--once treated as\nsomething wholly alien, impassably separated from the human race--we are\nled to conceive that a close tie may unite him also with superior\nlives,--that the series may be fundamentally unbroken, the essential\nqualities of life the same throughout. It used to be asked whether man\nwas akin to the ape or to the angel. I reply that the very fact of his\nkinship with the ape is proof presumptive of his kinship with the angel.\n\nIt is natural enough that man's instinctive feeling should have\nanticipated any argument of this speculative type. Men have in most ages\nbelieved, and do still widely believe, in the reality of prayer; that\nis, in the possibility of telepathic communication between our human\nminds and minds above our own, which are supposed not only to understand\nour wish or aspiration, but to impress or influence us inwardly in\nreturn.\n\nSo widely spread has been this belief in prayer that it is somewhat\nstrange that men should not have more commonly made what seems the\nnatural deduction--namely, that if our spirits can communicate with\nhigher spirits in a way transcending sense, they may also perhaps be\nable in like manner to communicate with each other. The idea, indeed,\nhas been thrown out at intervals by leading thinkers--from Augustine to\nBacon, from Bacon to Goethe, from Goethe to Tennyson.\n\nIsolated experiments from time to time indicated its practical truth.\nYet it is only within the last few years that the vague and floating\nnotion has been developed into definite theory by systematic experiment.\n\nTo make such experiment possible has indeed been no easy matter. It has\nbeen needful to elicit and to isolate from the complex emotions and\ninteractions of common life a certain psychical element of whose nature\nand working we have beforehand but a very obscure idea.\n\nIf indeed we possessed any certain method of detecting the action of\ntelepathy,--of distinguishing it from chance coincidence or from\nunconscious suggestion,--we should probably find that its action was\nwidely diffused and mingled with other more commonplace causes in many\nincidents of life. We should find telepathy, perhaps, at the base of\nmany sympathies and antipathies, of many wide communities of feeling;\noperating, it may be, in cases as different as the quasi-recognition of\nsome friend in a stranger seen at a distance just before the friend\nhimself unexpectedly appears, and the _Ph\u00eam\u00ea_ or Rumour which in\nHindostan or in ancient Greece is said to have often spread far an\ninexplicable knowledge of victory or disaster.\n\nBut we are obliged, for the sake of clearness of evidence, to set aside,\nwhen dealing with experimentation, all these mixed emotional cases, and\nto start from telepathic communications intentionally planned to be so\ntrivial, so devoid of associations or emotions, that it shall be\nimpossible to refer them to any common memory or sympathy; to anything\nsave a direct transmission of idea, or impulse, or sensation, or image,\nfrom one to another mind.\n\nThe reader who has studied the evidence originally set forth in Chapters\nII. and III. of _Phantasms of the Living_ will, I trust, carry away a\npretty clear notion of what can at present actually be done in the way\nof experimental transferences of small definite ideas or pictures from\none or more persons--the \"agent\" or \"agents\"--to one or more\npersons--the \"percipient\" or \"percipients.\"[106] In these experiments\nactual _contact_ has been forbidden, to avoid the risk of unconscious\nindications by pressure. It is at present still doubtful how far close\nproximity really operates in aid of telepathy, or how far its advantage\nis a mere effect of self-suggestion--on the part either of agent or of\npercipient. Some few pairs of experimenters have obtained results of\njust the same type at distances of half a mile or more.[107] Similarly,\nin the case of induction of hypnotic trance, Dr. Gibert attained at the\ndistance of nearly a mile results which are usually supposed to require\nclose and actual presence. [See Appendix V. C.]\n\nWe must clearly realise that in telepathic experiment we encounter just\nthe same difficulty which makes our results in hypnotic therapeutics so\nunpredictable and irregular. We do not know how to get our suggestions\nto _take hold_ of the subliminal self. They are liable to fail for two\nmain reasons. Either they somehow never _reach_ the subliminal centres\nwhich we wish to affect, or they find those centres preoccupied with\nsome self-suggestion hostile to our behest. This source of uncertainty\ncan only be removed by a far greater number of experiments than have yet\nbeen made--experiments repeated until we have oftener struck upon the\nhappy veins which make up for an immense amount of sterile exploration.\nMeantime we must record, but can hardly interpret. Yet there is one\nprovisional interpretation of telepathic experiment which must be\nnoticed thus early in our discussion, because, if true, it may\nconceivably connect our groping work with more advanced departments of\nscience, while, if seen to be inadequate, it may bid us turn our inquiry\nin some other direction. I refer to the suggestion that telepathy is\npropagated by \"brain-waves\"; or, as Sir W. Crookes has more exactly\nexpressed it, by ether-waves of even smaller amplitude and greater\nfrequency than those which carry the X rays. These waves are conceived\nas passing from one brain to another, and arousing in the _second_ brain\nan excitation or image similar to the excitation or image from which\nthey start in the _first_. The hypothesis is an attractive one; because\nit fits an agency which certainly exists, but whose effect is unknown,\nto an effect which certainly exists, but whose agency is unknown.\n\nIn this world of vibrations it may seem at first the simplest plan to\ninvoke a vibration the more. It would be rash, indeed, to affirm that\nany phenomenon perceptible by men may not be expressible, in part at\nleast, in terms of ethereal undulations. But in the case of telepathy\nthe analogy which suggests this explanation, the obvious likeness\nbetween the picture emitted (so to say) by the agent and the picture\nreceived by the percipient--as when I fix my mind on the two of\ndiamonds, and he sees a mental picture of that card--goes but a very\nshort way. One has very soon to begin assuming that the percipient's\nmind _modifies_ the picture despatched from the agent: until the\nlikeness between the two pictures becomes a quite symbolical affair. We\nhave seen that there is a continuous transition from experimental to\nspontaneous telepathy; from our transferred pictures of cards to\nmonitions of a friend's death at a distance. These monitions may indeed\nbe pictures of the dying friend, but they are seldom such pictures as\nthe decedent's brain seems likely to project in the form in which they\nreach the percipient. Mr. L.--to take a well-known case in our\ncollection (_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 210)--dies of heart\ndisease when in the act of lying down undressed, in bed. At or about\nthe same moment Mr. N. J. S. sees Mr. L. standing beside him with a\ncheerful air, dressed for walking and with a cane in his hand. One does\nnot see how a system of undulations could have transmuted the physical\nfacts in this way.\n\nA still greater difficulty for the vibration-theory is presented by\n_collective_ telepathic hallucinations. It is hard to understand how A\ncan emit a pattern of vibrations which, radiating equally in all\ndirections, shall affect not only his distant friend B, but also the\nstrangers C and D, who happen to be standing near B;--and affect no\nother persons, so far as we know, in the world.\n\nThe above points have been fair matter of argument almost since our\nresearch began. But as our evidence has developed, our conception of\ntelepathy has needed to be more and more generalised in other and new\ndirections,--still less compatible with the vibration theory. Three such\ndirections may be briefly specified here--namely, the relation of\ntelepathy (_a_) to tel\u00e6sthesia or clairvoyance, (_b_) to time, and (_c_)\nto disembodied spirits. (_a_) It is increasingly hard to refer all the\nscenes of which percipients become aware to the action of any given mind\nwhich is perceiving those distant scenes. This is especially noticeable\nin crystal-gazing experiments. (_b_) And these crystal visions also show\nwhat, from the strict telepathic point of view, we should call a great\nlaxity of time relations. The scryer chooses his own time to look in the\nball;--and though sometimes he sees events which are taking place at the\nmoment, he may also see past events,--and even, as it seems, future\nevents. I at least cannot deny _precognition_, nor can I draw a definite\nline amid these complex visions which may separate precognition from\ntelepathy (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 408-593). (_c_)\nPrecognition itself may be explained, if you will, as telepathy from\ndisembodied spirits;--and this would at any rate bring it under a class\nof phenomena which I think all students of our subject must before long\nadmit. Admitting here, for argument's sake, that we do receive\ncommunications from the dead which we should term telepathic if we\nreceived them from the living, it is of course open to us to conjecture\nthat these messages also are conveyed on ether-waves. But since those\nwaves do not at any rate emanate from material brains, we shall by this\ntime have got so far from the original brain-wave hypothesis that few\nwill care still to defend it.\n\nI doubt, indeed, whether we can safely say of telepathy anything more\ndefinite than this: _Life has the power of manifesting itself to life._\nThe laws of life, as we have thus far known them, have been only laws of\nlife when already associated with matter. Thus limited, we have learnt\nlittle as to Life's true nature. We know not even whether Life be only\na directive Force, or, on the other hand, an effective Energy. We know\nnot in what way it operates on matter. We can in no way define the\nconnection between our own consciousness and our organisms. Just here it\nis, I should say, that telepathic observations ought to supply us with\nsome hint. From the mode in which some element of one individual\nlife,--apart from material impact,--gets hold of another organism, we\nmay in time learn something of the way in which our own life gets hold\nof our own organism,--and maintains, intermits, or abandons its organic\nsway.[108]\n\nThe hypothesis which I suggested in _Phantasms of the Living_ itself, in\nmy \"Note on a possible mode of psychical interaction,\" seems to me to\nhave been rendered increasingly plausible by evidence of many kinds\nsince received; evidence of which the larger part falls outside the\nlimits of this present work. I still believe--and more confidently than\nin 1886--that a \"psychical invasion\" does take place; that a\n\"phantasmogenetic centre\" is actually established in the percipient's\nsurroundings; that some movement bearing some relation to space as we\nknow it is actually accomplished; and some presence is transferred, and\nmay or may not be discerned by the invaded person; some perception of\nthe distant scene in itself is acquired, and may or may not be\nremembered by the invader.\n\nBut the words which I am here beginning to use carry with them\nassociations from which the scientific reader may well shrink. Fully\nrealising the offence which such expressions may give, I see no better\nline of excuse than simply to recount the way in which the gradual\naccretion of evidence has obliged me, for the mere sake of covering all\nthe phenomena, to use phrases and assumptions which go far beyond those\nwhich Edmund Gurney and I employed in our first papers on this inquiry\nin 1883.\n\nWhen in 1882 our small group began the collection of evidence bearing\nupon \"veridical hallucinations\"--or apparitions which coincided with\nother events in such a way as to suggest a causal connection--we found\nscattered among the cases from the first certain types which were with\ndifficulty reducible under the conception of telepathy pure and\nsimple--even if such a conception could be distinctly formed. Sometimes\nthe apparition was seen by more than one percipient at once--a result\nwhich we could hardly have expected if all that had passed were the\ntransference of an impression from the agent's mind to another mind,\nwhich then bodied forth that impression in externalised shape according\nto laws of its own structure. There were instances, too, where the\npercipient seemed to be the agent also--in so far that it was he who had\nan impression of having somehow visited and noted a distant scene, whose\noccupant was not necessarily conscious of any immediate relation with\nhim. Or sometimes this \"telepathic clairvoyance\" developed into\n\"reciprocity,\" and each of the two persons concerned was conscious of\nthe other;--the _scene_ of their encounter being the same in the vision\nof each, or at least the experience being in some way common to both.\nThese and cognate difficulties were present to my mind from the first;\nand in the above-mentioned \"Note on a suggested mode of psychical\ninteraction,\" included in vol. ii of _Phantasms of the Living_, I\nindicated briefly the extension of the telepathic theory to which they\nseemed to me to point.\n\nMeantime cases of certain other definite types continued to come\nsteadily to hand, although in lesser numbers than the cases of\napparition at death. To mention two important types only--there were\napparitions of the so-called _dead_, and there were cases of\n_precognition_. With regard to each of these classes, it seemed\nreasonable to defer belief until time should have shown whether the\ninflux of first-hand cases was likely to be permanent; whether\nindependent witnesses continued to testify to incidents which could be\nbetter explained on these hypotheses than on any other. Before Edmund\nGurney's death in 1888 our cases of apparitions and other manifestations\nof the dead had reached a degree of weight and consistency which, as his\nlast paper showed, was beginning to convince him of their veridical\ncharacter; and since that date these have been much further increased;\nand especially have drawn from Mrs. Piper's and other trance-phenomena\nan unexpected enlargement and corroboration. The evidence for\ncommunication from the departed is now in my personal estimate quite as\nstrong as that for telepathic communication between the living; and it\nis moreover evidence which inevitably alters and widens our conception\nof telepathy between living men.\n\nThe evidence for precognition, again, was from the first scantier, and\nhas advanced at a slower rate. It has increased steadily enough to lead\nme to feel confident that it will have to be seriously reckoned with;\nbut I cannot yet say--as I do say with reference to the evidence for\nmessages from the departed--that almost every one who accepts our\nevidence for telepathy at all, must ultimately accept this evidence\nalso. It must run on at any rate for some years longer before it shall\nhave accreted a convincing weight.\n\nBut at whatever point one or another inquirer may happen at present to\nstand, I urge that this is the reasonable course for conviction to\nfollow. First analyse the miscellaneous stream of evidence into definite\ntypes; then observe the frequency with which these types recur, and let\nyour sense of their importance gradually grow, if the evidence grows\nalso.\n\nNow this mode of procedure evidently excludes all definite _a priori_\nviews, and compels one's conceptions to be little more than the mere\ngrouping to which the facts thus far known have to be subjected in order\nthat they may be realised in their _ensemble_.\n\n\"What definite reason do I know why this should _not_ be true?\"--this is\nthe question which needs to be pushed home again and again if one is to\nrealise--and not in the ordinary paths of scientific speculation\nalone--how profound our ignorance of the Universe really is.\n\nMy own ignorance, at any rate, I recognise to be such that my notions of\nthe probable or improbable in the Universe are not of weight enough to\nlead me to set aside any facts which seem to me well attested, and which\nare not shown by experts actually to conflict with any\nbetter-established facts or generalisations. Wide though the range of\nestablished science may be, it represents, as its most far-sighted\nprophets are the first to admit, a narrow glance only into the unknown\nand infinite realm of law.\n\nThe evidence, then, leading me thus unresisting along, has led me to\nthis main difference from our early treatment of veridical phantasms.\nInstead of starting from a root-conception of a telepathic impulse\nmerely passing from mind to mind, I now start from a root-conception of\nthe dissociability of the self, of the possibility that different\nfractions of the personality can act so far independently of each other\nthat the one is not conscious of the other's action.\n\nNaturally the two conceptions coincide over much of the ground. Where\nexperimental thought-transference is concerned--even where the commoner\ntypes of coincidental phantasms are concerned--the second formula seems\na needless and unprovable variation on the first. But as soon as we get\namong the difficult types--reciprocal cases, clairvoyant cases,\ncollective cases, above all, manifestations of the dead--we find that\nthe conception of a telepathic impulse as a message despatched and then\nleft alone, as it were, to effect its purpose needs more and more of\nstraining, of manipulation, to fit it to the evidence. On the other\nhand, it is just in those difficult regions that the analogies of other\nsplits of personality recur, and that phantasmal or automatic behaviour\nrecalls to us the behaviour of segments of personality detached from\nprimary personality, but operating through the organism which is common\nto both.\n\nThe innovation which we are here called upon to make is to suppose that\nsegments of the personality can operate in apparent separation from the\norganism. Such a supposition, of course, could not have been started\nwithout proof of telepathy, and could with difficulty be sustained\nwithout proof of survival of death. But, given telepathy, we have _some_\npsychical agency connected with man operating apart from his organism.\nGiven survival, we have an element of his personality--to say the least\nof it--operating when his organism is destroyed. There is therefore no\nvery great additional burden in supposing that an element of his\npersonality may operate apart from his organism, while that organism\nstill exists.\n\n_Ce n'est que le premier pas qui co\u00fbte._ If we have once got a man's\n_thought_ operating apart from his body--if my fixation of attention on\nthe two of diamonds does somehow so modify another man's brain a few\nyards off that he seems to see the two of diamonds floating before\nhim--there is no obvious halting-place on _his_ side till we come to\n\"possession\" by a departed spirit, and there is no obvious halting-place\non _my_ side till we come to \"travelling clairvoyance,\" with a\ncorresponding visibility of my own phantasm to other persons in the\nscenes which I spiritually visit. No obvious halting-place, I say; for\nthe point which at first seems abruptly transitional has been already\nshown to be only the critical point of a continuous curve. I mean, of\ncourse, the point where consciousness is duplicated--where each segment\nof the personality begins to possess a separate and definite, but\ncontemporaneous stream of memory and perception. That these can exist\nconcurrently in the same organism our study of hypnotism has already\nshown, and our study of motor automatisms will still further prove to\nus.\n\n_Dissociation of personality, combined with activity in the metetherial\nenvironment_; such, in the phraseology used in this book, will be the\nformula which will most easily cover those actually observed facts of\nveridical apparition on which we must now enter at considerable length.\nAnd after this preliminary explanation I shall ask leave to use for\nclearness in my argument such words as are simplest and shortest,\nhowever vague or disputable their connotation may be. I must needs, for\ninstance, use the word \"spirit,\" when I speak of that unknown fraction\nof a man's personality--not the supraliminal fraction--which we discern\nas operating before or after death in the metetherial environment. For\nthis conception I can find no other term, but by the word _spirit_ I\nwish to imply nothing more definite than this. Of the spirit's relation\nto space, or (which is a part of the same problem) to its own spatial\nmanifestation in definite form, something has already been said, and\nthere will be more to say hereafter. And similarly those terms,\n_invader_ or _invaded_, from whose strangeness and barbarity our\nimmediate discussion began, will depend for their meaning upon\nconceptions which the evidence itself must gradually supply.\n\nThat evidence, as it now lies before us, is perplexingly various both in\ncontent and quality. For some of the canons needed in its analysis I\nhave already referred the reader to extracts from Edmund Gurney's\nwritings. Certain points must still be mentioned here before the\nnarrative begins.\n\nIt must be remembered, in the first place, that all these veridical or\ncoincidental cases stand out together as a single group from a\nbackground of hallucinations which involve no coincidence, which have no\nclaim to veridicality. If purely subjective hallucinations of the senses\naffected insane or disordered brains alone,--as was pretty generally the\nassumption, even in scientific circles, when our inquiry began,--our\ntask would have been much easier than it is. But while there can be no\nquestion as to the sound and healthy condition of the great majority of\nour percipients, Edmund Gurney's \"Census of Hallucinations\" of 1884,\nconfirmed and extended by the wider inquiry of 1889-1892, showed a\nfrequency, previously unsuspected, of scattered hallucinations among\nsane and healthy persons, the experience being often unique in a\nlifetime, and in no apparent connection with any other circumstance\nwhatever.[109]\n\nSince casual hallucinations of the sane, then, are thus _frequent_, we\ncan hardly venture to assume that they are all _veridical_. And the\nexistence of all these perhaps merely subjective hallucinations greatly\ncomplicates our investigation of veridical hallucinations. It prevents\nthe mere existence of the hallucinations, however strangely interposed\nin ordinary life, from having any evidential value, and throws us upon\nevidence afforded by external coincidence;--on the mere fact, to put\nsuch a coincidence in its simplest form, that I see a phantom of my\nfriend Smith at the moment when Smith is unexpectedly dying at a\ndistance. A coincidence of this general type, if it occurs, need not be\ndifficult to substantiate, and we have in fact substantiated it with\nmore or less completeness in several hundred cases.\n\nThe _prim\u00e2 facie_ conclusion will obviously be that there is a causal\nconnection between the death and the apparition. To overcome this\npresumption it would be necessary either to impugn the accuracy of the\ninformant's testimony, or to show that chance alone might have brought\nabout the observed coincidences.\n\nOn both of these questions there have been full and repeated discussions\nelsewhere. I need not re-argue them at length here, but will refer the\nreader to the \"Report on the Census of Hallucinations,\" _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. x., where every source of error as yet discovered has been\npretty fully considered.\n\nTo that volume also I must refer him for a thorough discussion of the\narguments for and against chance-coincidence. The conclusion to which\nthe Committee unanimously came is expressed in the closing words:\n\"Between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connection exists\nwhich is not due to chance alone.\"\n\nWe have a right, I think, to say that only by another census of\nhallucinations, equally careful, more extensive, and yielding absolutely\ndifferent results, could this conclusion be overthrown.\n\nIn forming this conclusion, apparitions at death are of course selected,\nbecause, death being an unique event in man's earthly existence, the\ncoincidences between death and apparitions afford a favourable case for\nstatistical treatment. But the coincidences between apparitions and\ncrises other than death, although not susceptible of the same\narithmetical precision of estimate, are, as will be seen, quite equally\nconvincing. To this great mass of spontaneous cases we must now turn.\n\nThe arrangement of these cases is not easy; nor are they capable of\nbeing presented in one logically consequent series.\n\nBut the conception of _psychical invasion or excursion_ on which I have\nalready dwelt has at any rate this advantage, that it is sufficiently\nfundamental to allow of our arrangement of all our recorded\ncases--perhaps of all possible cases of apparition--in accordance with\nits own lines.\n\nOur scheme will include all observable telepathic action, from the faint\ncurrents which we may imagine to be continually passing between man and\nman, up to the point--reserved for the following chapter--where one of\nthe parties to the telepathic intercourse has definitely quitted the\nflesh. The _first_ term in our series must be conveniently vague: the\n_last_ must lead us to the threshold of the spiritual world.\n\nI must begin with cases where the action of the excursive fragment of\nthe personality is of the weakest kind--the least capable of affecting\nother observers, or of being recalled into the agent's own waking\nmemory.\n\nSuch cases, naturally enough, will be hard to bring up to evidential\nlevel. It must depend on mere chance whether these weak and aimless\npsychical excursions are observed at all; or are observed in such a way\nas to lead us to attribute them to anything more than the subjective\nfancy of the observers.\n\nHow can a casual vision--say, of a lady sitting in her\ndrawing-room,--of a man returning home at six o'clock--be distinguished\nfrom memory-images on the one hand and from what I may term\n\"expectation-images\" on the other? The picture of the lady may be a\nslightly modified and externalised reminiscence; the picture of the man\nwalking up to the door may be a mere projection of what the observer was\nhoping to see.\n\nI have assumed that these phantoms coincided with no marked event. The\nlady may have been thinking of going to her drawing-room; the man may\nhave been in the act of walking home;--but these are trivial\ncircumstances which might be repeated any day.\n\nYet, however trivial, almost any set of human circumstances are\nsufficiently complex to leave room for coincidence. If the sitter in the\ndrawing-room is wearing a distinctive article of dress, never seen by\nthe percipient until it is seen in the hallucination;--if the phantasmal\nhomeward traveller is carrying a parcel of unusual shape, which the real\nman does afterwards unexpectedly bring home with him;--there may be\nreason to think that there is a causal connection between the apparent\nagent's condition at the moment, and the apparition.\n\nIn Appendix VI. A, I quote one of these \"arrival-cases,\" so to term\nthem, where the peculiarity of dress was such as to make the coincidence\nbetween vision and reality well worth attention. The case is interesting\nalso as one of our earliest examples of a psychical incident carefully\nrecorded at the time; so that after the lapse of nearly forty years it\nwas possible to correct the percipient's surviving recollection by his\ncontemporary written statement.\n\nIn these _arrival_ cases, there is, I say, a certain likelihood that the\nman's mind may be fixed on his return home, so that his phantasm is seen\nin what might seem both to himself and to others the most probable\nplace.[110] But there are other cases where a man's phantasm is seen, in\na place where there is no special reason for his appearing, although\nthese places seem always to lie within the beat and circuit of his\nhabitual thought.\n\nIn such cases there are still possible circumstances which may give\nreason to think that the apparition is causally connected with the\napparent agent. The phantasm of a given person may be seen _repeatedly_\nby different percipients, or it may be seen _collectively_ by several\npersons at a time; or it may combine both these evidential\ncharacteristics, and may be seen several times and by several persons\ntogether.\n\nNow considering the rarity of phantasmal appearances, considering that\nnot one person in (say) five thousand is ever phantasmally seen at all;\nthe mere fact that a given person's phantasm is seen even _twice_, by\ndifferent percipients (for we cannot count a second appearance to the\n_same_ percipient as of equal value), is in itself a remarkable fact;\nwhile if this happens _three or four times_ (as in the case of Mrs.\nHawkins)[111] we can hardly ascribe such a sequence of rare occurrences\nto chance alone.\n\nAgain, impressive as is the _repetition_ of the apparition in these\ncases, it is yet less so to my mind than the _collective_ character of\nsome of the perceptions. In Mrs. Hawkins's first case there were two\nsimultaneous percipients, and in Canon Bourne's first case (given in\nAppendix VI. B) there were three.\n\nAnd we now come to other cases, where the percipience has been\ncollective, although it has not been repeated. There is a case[112]\nwhere two persons at one moment--a moment of no stress or excitement\nwhatever--see the phantasm of a third; that third person being perhaps\noccupied with some supraliminal or subliminal thought of the scene in\nthe midst of which she is phantasmally discerned. Both the percipients\nsupposed at the moment that it was their actual sister whom they saw;\nand one can hardly fancy that a mere act of tranquil recognition of the\nfigure by one percipient would communicate to the other percipient a\ntelepathic shock such as would make _her_ see the same figure as well.\n\nThe question of the true import of collectivity of percipience renews in\nanother form that problem of _invasion_ to which our evidence so often\nbrings us back. When two or three persons see what seems to be the same\nphantom in the same place and at the same time, does that mean that that\nspecial part of space is somehow modified? or does it mean that a mental\nimpression, conveyed by the distant agent--the phantom-begetter--to one\nof the percipients is reflected telepathically from that percipient's\nmind to the minds of the other--as it were secondary--percipients? The\nreader already knows that I prefer the former of these views. And I\nobserve--as telling against that other view, of psychical\ncontagion--that in certain collective cases we discern no probable link\nbetween any one of the percipient minds and the distant agent.\n\nIn some of that group of collective cases which we are at this moment\nconsidering, this absence of link is noticeable in a special way. There\nis nothing to show that any thought or emotion was passing from agent to\npercipients at the moment of the apparition. On the contrary, the\nindication is that there is no necessary connection whatever between the\nagent's condition of mind at the moment and the fact that such and such\npersons observed his phantasm. The projection of the phantasm, if I may\nso term it, seems a matter wholly automatic on the agent's part, as\nautomatic and meaningless as a dream.\n\nAssuming, then, that this is so--that these _bilocations_ or\nself-projections to a point apparently remote from one's body do occur\nwithout any appreciable stimulus from without, and in moments of\napparent calm and indifference--in what way will this fact tend to\nmodify previous conceptions?\n\nIt suggests that the continuous dream-life which we must suppose to run\nconcurrently with our waking life is potent enough to effect from time\nto time enough of dissociation to enable some element of the personality\nto be perceived at a distance from the organism. How much of\nconsciousness, if any, may be felt at the point where the excursive\nphantasm is seen, we cannot say. But the notion that a mere incoherent\nquasi-dream should thus become perceptible to others is fully in\naccordance with the theories suggested in this work. For I regard\nsubliminal operation as _continuously_ going on, and I hold that the\ndegree of dissociation which can generate a perceptible phantasm is not\nnecessarily a profound change, since that perceptibility depends so\nlargely upon idiosyncrasies of agent and percipient as yet wholly\nunexplained.\n\nThat special idiosyncracy on the part of the agent which tends to make\nhis phantasm easily visible has never yet, so far as I know, received a\nname, although for convenience' sake it certainly needs one. I propose\nto use the Greek word [Greek: psuchorrag\u00f4], which means strictly \"to let\nthe soul break loose,\" and from which I form the words _psychorrhagy_\nand _psychorrhagic_, on obvious analogies. When I say that the agents in\nthese cases were born with the _psychorrhagic diathesis_, I express what\nI believe to be an important fact, physiological as well as\npsychological, in terms which seem pedantic, but which are the only ones\nwhich mean exactly what the facts oblige me to say. That which \"breaks\nloose\" on my hypothesis is not (as in the Greek use of the word) the\nwhole principle of life in the organism; rather it is some psychical\nelement probably of very varying character, and definable mainly by its\npower of producing a phantasm, perceptible by one or more persons, in\nsome portion or other of space. I hold that this phantasmogenetic effect\nmay be produced either on the mind, and consequently on the brain of\nanother person--in which case he may discern the phantasm somewhere in\nhis vicinity, according to his own mental habit or prepossession--or\nelse directly on a portion of space, \"out in the open,\" in which case\nseveral persons may simultaneously discern the phantasm in that actual\nspot.\n\nLet us apply this view to one of our most bizarre and puzzling\ncases--that of Canon Bourne (see Appendix VI. B). Here I conceive that\nCanon Bourne, while riding in the hunting-field, was also subliminally\ndreaming of himself (imagining himself with some part of his submerged\nconsciousness) as having had a fall, and as beckoning to his\ndaughters--an incoherent dream indeed, but of a quite ordinary type. I\ngo on to suppose that, Canon Bourne being born with the psychorrhagic\ndiathesis, a certain psychical element so far detached itself from his\norganism as to affect a certain portion of space--near the daughters of\nwhom he was thinking--to effect it, I say, not materially nor even\noptically, but yet in such a manner that to a certain kind of immaterial\nand non-optical sensitivity a phantasm of himself and his horse became\ndiscernible. His horse was of course as purely a part of the phantasmal\npicture as his hat. The non-optical distinctness with which the words\nprinted inside his hat were seen indicates that it was some inner\nnon-retinal vision which received the impression from the\nphantasmogenetic centre. The other phantasmal appearance of Canon Bourne\nchanced to affect only one percipient, but was of precisely the same\ncharacter; and of course adds, so far as it goes, to the plausibility of\nthe above explanation.\n\nThat explanation, indeed, suffers from the complexity and apparent\nabsurdity inevitable in dealing with phenomena which greatly transcend\nknown laws; but on the other hand it does in its way colligate Canon\nBourne's case with a good many others of odd and varying types. Thus\nappearances such as Canon Bourne's are in my view exactly parallel to\nthe _hauntings_ ascribed to departed spirits. There also we find a\npsychorrhagic diathesis--a habit or capacity on the part of certain\nspirits of detaching some psychical element in such a manner as to form\na phantasmal picture, which represents the spirit as going through some\ndream-like action in a given place.\n\nThe phantasmogenetic centre may thus, in my view, be equally well\nproduced by an incarnate or by a discarnate spirit.\n\nAgain, my hypothesis of a real modification of a part of space,\ntransforming it into a phantasmogenetic centre, applies to a phantasmal\nvoice just as well as to a phantasmal figure. The voice is not heard\nacoustically any more than the figure is seen optically. Yet a\nphantasmal voice may in a true sense \"come from\" a given spot.\n\nThese psychorrhagic cases are, I think, important as showing us the\nearliest or feeblest stages of self-projection--where the dissociation\nbelongs to the dream-stratum--implicating neither the supraliminal will\nnor the profounder subliminal strata.\n\nAnd now let us pass on from these, which hardly concern anybody beyond\nthe phantom-begetter himself--and do not even add anything to his own\nknowledge--to cases where there is some sort of communication from one\nmind to another, or some knowledge gained by the excursive spirit.\n\nIt is impossible to arrange these groups in one continuous logical\nseries. But, roughly speaking, the degree in which the psychical\ncollision is _recollected_ on either side may in some degree indicate\nits _intensity_, and may serve as a guide to our provisional\narrangement.\n\nFollowing this scheme I shall begin with a group of cases which seem to\npromise but little information,--cases, namely, where A, the agent, in\nsome way impresses or invades P, the percipient,--but nevertheless\nneither A nor P retains in supraliminal memory any knowledge of what has\noccurred.\n\nNow to begin with we shall have no difficulty in admitting that cases of\nthis type are likely often to occur. The psychical _rapprochement_ of\ntelepathy takes place, _ex hypothesi_, in a region which is subliminal\nfor both agent and percipient, and from whence but few and scattered\nimpressions rise for either of them above the conscious threshold.\nTelepathy will thus probably operate far more continuously than our\nscattered glimpses would in themselves suggest.\n\nBut how can we outside inquirers know anything of telepathic incidents\nwhich the principals themselves fail altogether to remember?\n\nIn ordinary life we may sometimes learn from bystanders incidents which\nwe cannot learn from the principals themselves. Can there be bystanders\nwho look on at a psychical invasion?\n\nThe question is of much theoretical import. On my view that there is a\nreal transference of something from the agent, involving an alteration\nof some kind in a particular part of space, there might theoretically be\nsome bystander who might discern that alteration in space more clearly\nthan the person for whose benefit, so to say, the alteration was made.\nIf, on the other hand, what has happened is merely a transference of\nsome impulse \"from mind to mind\";--then one can hardly understand how\nany mind except the mind aimed at could perceive the telepathic\nimpression. Yet, in _collective_ cases, persons in whom the agent feels\nno interest, nay, of whose presence along with the intended percipient\nhe is not aware, do in fact receive the impression in just the same way\nas that intended percipient himself. This was explained by Gurney as\nprobably due to a fresh telepathic transmission,--this time from the\ndue or original percipient's mind to the minds of his neighbours of the\nmoment.\n\nSuch a supposition, however, in itself a difficult one, becomes much\nmore difficult when the telepathic impulse has never, so far as we know,\npenetrated into the due or intended percipient's mind at all. If in such\na case a bystander perceives the invading figure, I must think that he\nperceives it merely as a bystander,--not as a person telepathically\ninfluenced by the intended percipient, who does not in fact perceive\nanything whatsoever. I quote in illustration a bizarre but well-attested\ncase (see Appendix VI. C) which this explanation seems to fit better\nthan any other.\n\nIn a somewhat similar case[113] there is strong attestation that a\nsailor, watching by a dying comrade, saw figures around his hammock,\napparently representing the dying man's family, in mourning garb. The\nfamily, although they had no ordinary knowledge of the sailor's illness,\nhad been alarmed by noises, etc., which rightly or wrongly they took as\nindications of some danger to him. I conceive, then, that the wife paid\na psychical visit to her husband; and I take the mourning garb and the\naccompanying children's figures to be symbolical accompaniments,\nrepresenting her thought, \"My children will be orphans.\" I think this\nmore likely than that the sailor's children also should have possessed\nthis rare peculiarity of becoming perceptible at a distant point in\nspace. And secondary figures, as we shall see later on, are not uncommon\nin such telepathic presentations. One may picture oneself as though\nholding a child by the hand, or even driving in a carriage and pair, as\nvividly as though carrying an umbrella or walking across a room; and one\nmay be thus pictured to others.\n\nAnd here I note a gradual transition to the next large class of cases on\nwhich I am about to enter. I am about to deal with _tel\u00e6sthesia_;--with\ncases where an agent-percipient--for he is both in one--makes a\nclairvoyant excursion (of a more serious type than the mere\npsychorrhagies already described), and brings back some memory of the\nscene which he has psychically visited. Now, of course, it may happen\nthat he fails to bring back any such memory, or that if he _does_ bring\nit back, he tells no one about it. In such cases, just as in the\ntelepathic cases of which I have just spoken, the excursive phantom may\npossibly be observed by a bystander, and the circumstances may be such\nas to involve some coincidence which negatives the supposition of the\nbystander's mere subjective fancy. Such, I think, is the case which I\ngive in Appendix VI. D.\n\nThere is a similar case in _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 541,\nwhere a girl, who is corporeally present in a certain drawing-room, is\nseen phantasmally in a neighbouring grove, whither she herself presently\ngoes and hangs herself.\n\nPonderings on projected suicide form perhaps the strongest instance of\nmental preoccupation with a particular spot. But of course, in our\nignorance of the precise quality of thought or emotion needed to prompt\na psychical excursion, we need not be surprised to find such an\nexcursion observed on some occasions as trivial as the \"arrival-case\" of\nCol. Reed, with which I prefaced the mere psychorrhagic cases.\n\nAgain, there is a strange case,[114] which comes to us on good\nauthority, where we must suppose one man's subliminal impulse to have\ncreated a picture of himself, his wife, a carriage and a horse,\npersistent enough to have been watched for some seconds at least by\nthree observers in one place, and by a fourth and independent observer\nat another point in the moving picture's career. The only alternative,\nif the narrative be accepted as substantially true, will be the\nhypothesis before alluded to of the flashing of an impending scene, as\nin crystal-vision, from some source external to any of the human minds\nconcerned. I need hardly at this point repeat that in my view the wife\nand the horse will be as purely a part of the man's conception of his\nown aspect or environment as the coat on his back.\n\nAnd here, for purposes of comparison, I must refer to one of the most\nbizarre cases in our collection.[115] Four credible persons, to some\nextent independently, see a carriage and pair, with two men on the box\nand an inside occupant, under circumstances which make it impossible\nthat the carriage was real. Now this vision cannot have been\n_precognitive_; nothing of the kind occurred for years after it, nor\nwell _could_ occur; and I am forced to regard it as the externalisation\nof some dream, whether of an incarnate or of a discarnate mind. The\nparallel between this case and the one mentioned above tends therefore\nto show that the first, in spite of the paraphernalia of wife, horse,\nand dog-cart, may have been the outcome of a single waking dream;--of\nthe phantasmogenetic dissociation of elements of one sole personality.\n\nIn the cases which I have just been discussing there has been a\npsychical excursion, with its possibilities of clairvoyance; but the\nexcursive element has not brought home any assignable knowledge to the\nsupraliminal personality. I go on now to cases where such knowledge\n_has_ thus been garnered. But here there is need of some further pause,\nto consider a little in how many ways we can imagine that knowledge to\nbe reached.\n\nFirstly, the distant knowledge may, it would seem, be reached through\nhyper\u00e6sthesia,--an extended power of the ordinary senses. Secondly, it\nsometimes seems to come through crystal-gazing or its correlative\nshell-hearing,--artifices which seem to utilise the ordinary senses in a\nnew way. And besides these two avenues to distant knowledge there is a\n_third_, the telepathic avenue, which, as we have already surmised,\nsometimes shades off into the purely tel\u00e6sthetic; when no distant\n_mind_, but only the distant _scene_, seems to be attracting the\nexcursive spirit. And in the _fourth_ place we must remember that it is\nmainly in the form of _dream or vision_ that the most striking instances\nof tel\u00e6sthesia which I have as yet recorded have come. Can we in any way\nharmonise these various modes of perception? Can we discover any\ncondition of the percipient which is common to all?\n\nTo a certain limited extent such co-ordination is possible. In each\napproach to tel\u00e6sthesia in turn we find a tendency to something like a\ndream-excursion. Hyper\u00e6sthesia, in the first place, although it exists\nsometimes in persons wide awake, is characteristically an attribute of\nsleep-waking states.\n\nWe have seen in discussing hypnotic experiments that it is sometimes\npossible to extend the subject's perceptive faculty by gradual\nsuggestion, so far as to transform a hyper\u00e6sthesia which can still be\nreferred to the action of the sense-organs into a tel\u00e6sthesia which\ncannot be so referred. It is observable that percipients in such cases\nsometimes describe their sensation as that of receiving an impression,\nor seeing a picture placed before them; sometimes as that of\n_travelling_ and visiting the distant scene or person. Or the feeling\nmay oscillate between these two sensations, just as the sense of\n_time-relation_ in the picture shown may oscillate between past,\npresent, and future.\n\nTo all these complex sensations the phenomena of crystal-gazing offer\nclose analogies. I have already remarked on the curious fact that the\nsimple artifice of gazing into a speculum should prove the avenue to\nphenomena of such various types. There may be very different origins\neven for pictures which in the crystal present very similar aspects; and\ncertain sensations do also accompany these pictures; sensations not\nmerely of _gazing_ but sometimes (though rarely) of partial _trance_;\nand oftener of _bilocation_;--of psychical _presence_ among the scenes\nwhich the crystal has indeed initiated, but no longer seems to limit or\nto contain.\n\nThe idea of psychical excursion thus suggested must, however, be\nsomehow reconciled with the frequently _symbolic_ character of these\nvisions. The features of a crystal-vision seem often to be no mere\ntranscription of material facts, but an abbreviated selection from such\nfacts, or even a bold modification of such facts with a view of telling\nsome story more quickly and clearly. We are familiar with the same kind\nof succession of symbolical scenes in dream, or in waking reverie. And\nof course if an intelligence outside the crystal-gazer's mind is\nendeavouring to impress him, this might well be the chosen way.\n\nAnd moreover through all tel\u00e6sthetic vision some element of similar\ncharacter is wont to run--some indication that _mind_ has been at work\nupon the picture--that the scene has not been presented, so to say, in\ncrude objectivity, but that there has been some _choice_ as to the\ndetails discerned; and some _symbolism_ in the way in which they are\npresented.\n\nLet us consider how these characteristics affect different theories of\nthe mechanism of clairvoyance. Let us suppose first that there is some\nkind of transition from hyper\u00e6sthesia to tel\u00e6sthesia, so that when\nperipheral sensation is no longer possible, central perception may be\nstill operating across obstacles otherwise insurmountable.\n\nIf this be the case, it seems likely that central perception will shape\nitself on the types of perception to which the central tracts of the\nbrain are accustomed; and that the _connaissance sup\u00e9rieure_, the\ntel\u00e6sthetic knowledge, however it may really be acquired, will present\nitself mainly as clairvoyance or clairaudience--as some form of sight or\nsound. Yet these tel\u00e6sthetic sights and sounds may be expected to show\nsome trace of their unusual origin. They may, for instance, be\n_imperfectly co-ordinated_ with sights and sounds arriving through\nexternal channels; and, since they must in some way be a translation of\nsupernormal impressions into sensory terms, they are likely to show\nsomething _symbolic_ in character.\n\nThis tendency to subliminal symbolism, indeed, meets us at each point of\nour inquiry. As an instance of it in its simplest form, I may mention a\ncase where a botanical student passing inattentively in front of the\nglass door of a restaurant thought that he had seen _Verbascum Thapsus_\nprinted thereon. The real word was _Bouillon_; and that happens to be\nthe trivial name in French for the plant Verbascum Thapsus. The actual\noptical perception had thus been subliminally transformed; the words\nVerbascum Thapsus were the report to the inattentive supraliminal self\nby a subliminal self more interested in botany than in dinner.\n\nNay, we know that our own optical perception is in its own way highly\nsymbolic. The scene which the baby sees instinctively,--which the\nimpressionist painter manages to see by a sort of deliberate\nself-simplification,--is very different from the highly elaborate\ninterpretation and selection of blotches of colour by which the ordinary\nadult figures to himself the visible world.\n\nNow we adults stand towards this subliminal symbolism in much the same\nattitude as the baby stands towards our educated optical symbolism. Just\nas the baby fails to grasp the third dimension, so may we still be\nfailing to grasp a fourth;--or whatever be the law of that higher\ncognisance which begins to report fragmentarily to man that which his\nordinary senses cannot discern.\n\nAssuredly then we must not take the fact that any knowledge comes to us\nsymbolically as a proof that it comes to us from a mind outside our own.\nThe symbolism may be the inevitable language in which one stratum of our\npersonality makes its report to another. The symbolism, in short, may be\neither the easiest, or the only possible psychical record of actual\nobjective fact; whether that fact be in the first instance discerned by\nour deeper selves, or be conveyed to us from other minds in this\nform;--elaborated for our mind's digestion, as animal food has been\nelaborated for our body's digestion, from a primitive crudity of things.\n\nBut again one must question, on general idealistic principles, whether\nthere be in such cases any real distinction between symbolism and\nreality,--between subjective and objective as we commonly use those\nterms. The resisting matter which we see and touch has \"solid\" reality\nfor minds so constituted as to have the same subjective feeling awakened\nby it. But to other minds, endowed with other forms of\nsensibility--minds possibly both higher and more numerous than our\nown--this solid matter may seem disputable and unreal, while thought and\nemotion, perceived in ways unknown to us, may be the only reality.\n\nThis material world constitutes, in fact, a \"privileged case\"--a\nsimplified example--among all discernible worlds, so far as the\nperception of incarnate spirits is concerned. For discarnate spirits it\nis no longer a privileged case; to _them_ it is apparently easier to\ndiscern thoughts and emotions by non-material signs.[116] But they need\nnot therefore be wholly cut off from discerning material things, any\nmore than incarnate spirits are wholly cut off from discerning\nimmaterial things--thoughts and emotions symbolised in phantasmal form.\n\"The ghost in man, the ghost that once was man,\" to use Tennyson's\nwords, have each of them to overcome by empirical artifices certain\ndifficulties which are of different type for each, but are not\ninsurmountable by either.\n\nThese reflections, applicable at various points in our argument, have\nseemed specially needed when we had first to attack the meaning of the\nso-called \"travelling clairvoyance,\" of which instances were given in\nthe chapter on hypnotism. It was needful to consider how far there was a\ncontinuous transition between these excursions and directer\ntransferences between mind and mind,--between tel\u00e6sthesia and telepathy.\nIt now seems to me that such a continuous transition may well exist, and\nthat there is no absolute gulf between the supernormal perception of\nideas as existing in other minds, and the supernormal perception of what\nwe know as matter. All matter may, for aught we know, exist as an idea\nin some cosmic mind, with which mind each individual spirit may be in\nrelation, as fully as with individual minds. The difference perhaps lies\nrather in the fact that there may be generally a _summons_ from a\ncognate mind which starts the so-called agent's mind into action; his\ninvasion may be in some way _invited_; while a spiritual excursion among\ninanimate objects only may often lack an impulse to start it. If this be\nso, it would explain the fact that such excursions have mainly succeeded\nunder the influence of hypnotic suggestion.\n\nWe see in travelling clairvoyance,[117] just as we see in\ncrystal-visions, a kind of fusion of all our forms of supernormal\nfaculty. There is telepathy, tel\u00e6sthesia, retrocognition, precognition;\nand in the cases reported by Cahagnet, which will be referred to in\nChapter IX., there is apparently something more besides. We see, in\nshort, that any empirical inlet into the metetherial world is apt to\nshow us those powers, which we try to distinguish, coexisting in some\nsynthesis by us incomprehensible. Here, therefore, just as with the\ncrystal-visions, we have artificially to separate out the special class\nof phenomena with which we wish first to deal.\n\nIn these experiments, then, there seems to be an independent power of\nvisiting almost any desired place, its position having been perhaps\nfirst explained by reference to some landmark already known. The\nclairvoyante (I use the female word, but in several cases a man or boy\nhas shown this power) will frequently miss her way, and describe houses\nor scenes adjacent to those desired. Then if she--almost literally--gets\non the scent,--if she finds some place which the man whom she is sent\nto seek has some time traversed,--she follows up his track with greater\nease, apparently recognising past events in his life as well as present\ncircumstances.\n\nIn these prolonged experimental cases there is thus time enough to allow\nof the clairvoyante's traversing certain places, such as empty rooms,\nfactories, and the like, whither no assignable link from any living\nperson could draw her. The evidence to prove tel\u00e6sthesia, unmixed with\ntelepathy, has thus generally come _incidentally_ in the course of some\nexperiment mainly telepathic in character.\n\nThese long clairvoyant wanderings are more nearly paralleled by _dreams_\nthan by waking hallucinations.\n\nIn a case which I will here quote a physician is impressed, probably in\ndream, with a picture of a special place in a street, where something is\nhappening, which, though in itself unemotional--merely that a man is\nstanding and talking in the street--is of moment to the physician, who\nwants to get unobtrusively into the man's house.\n\nFrom _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 267. The case is there\ndescribed as coming \"from a Fellow of the College of Physicians, who\nfears professional injury if he were 'supposed to defend opinions at\nvariance with general scientific belief,' and does not therefore allow\nhis name to appear.\"\n\n\n_May 20th, 1884._\n\n     Twenty years ago [abroad] I had a patient, wife of a parson. She\n     had a peculiar kind of delirium which did not belong to her\n     disease, and perplexed me. The house in which she lived was closed\n     at midnight, that is--the outer door had no bell. One night I saw\n     her at nine. When I came home I said to my wife, \"I don't\n     understand that case; I wish I could get into the house late.\" We\n     went to bed rather early. At about one o'clock I got up. She said,\n     \"What are you about? are you not well?\" I said, \"Perfectly so.\"\n     \"Then why get up?\" \"Because I can get into that house.\" \"How, if it\n     is shut up?\" \"I see the proprietor standing under the lamp-post\n     this side of the bridge, with another man.\" \"You have been\n     dreaming.\" \"No, I have been wide awake; but dreaming or waking, I\n     mean to try.\" I started with the firm conviction that I should find\n     the individual in question. Sure enough there he was under the\n     lamp-post, talking to a friend. I asked him if he was going home.\n     (I knew him very well.) He said he was, so I told him I was going\n     to see a patient, and would accompany him. I was positively ashamed\n     to explain matters; it seemed so absurd that I knew he would not\n     believe me. On arriving at the house I said, \"Now I am here, I will\n     drop in and see my patient.\" On entering the room I found the maid\n     giving her a tumbler of strong grog. The case was clear; it was as\n     I suspected--delirium from drink. The next day I delicately spoke\n     to the husband about it. He denied it, and in the afternoon I\n     received a note requesting me not to repeat the visits. Three weeks\n     ago I was recounting the story and mentioned the name. A lady\n     present said: \"That is the name of the clergyman in my parish, at\n     B., and his wife is in a lunatic asylum from drink!\"\n\nIn conversation with Gurney, the narrator explained that the\nvision--though giving an impression of externality and seen, as he\nbelieves, with open eyes--was not definably located in space. He had\nnever encountered the proprietor in the spot where he saw him, and it\nwas not a likely thing that he should be standing talking in the streets\nat so late an hour.\n\nIn this case we cannot consider either the drunken patient or the\nindifferent proprietor as in any sense the _agent_. Somehow or other the\nphysician's own persistent wish to get some such opportunity induced a\ncollaboration of his subliminal with his supraliminal self, akin to the\ninspirations of genius. Genius, however, operates within ordinary\nsensory limits; while in this physician's case the subliminal self\nexercised its farthest-reaching supernormal powers.\n\nWith this again may be compared a case in _Phantasms of the Living_\n(vol. ii. p. 368), where a dreamer seems to himself to be present in the\nThames Tunnel during a fatal accident, which did in fact occur during\nthat night. Here again the drowned workman--who was quite unknown to the\ndistant dreamer--can hardly be called an _agent_; yet it may have been\nthe excitement surrounding his death which attracted the dreamer's\nspirit to that scene, as a conflagration might attract a waking\nnight-wanderer.\n\nThere are, on the other hand, a good many cases where a scene thus\ndiscerned in a flash is one of special interest to the percipient,\nalthough no one in the scene may have actually wished to transfer it to\nhim.\n\nA case again of a somewhat different type is the sudden waking vision of\nMr. Gottschalk,[118] who sees in a circle of light the chalked hands and\nruffled wrists of Mr. Courtenay Thorpe--a well-known actor--who was\nopening a letter of Mr. Gottschalk's in that costume at the time.\nTrivial in itself, this incident illustrates an interesting class of\ncases, where a picture very much like a crystal-vision suddenly appears\non a wall or even in the air with no apparent background.\n\nI know one or two persons who have had in their lives one single round\nor oval hallucinatory picture of this kind, of which no interpretation\nwas apparent,--a curious indication of some subliminal predisposition\ntowards this somewhat elaborate form of message.\n\nSomewhat like Mr. Gottschalk's projection of his picture upon a\nbackground of dark air is the experience of Mrs. Taunton.[119] In this\ncase the phantasm was perfectly external; yet it certainly did not hold\nto the real objects around the same relation as a figure of flesh and\nblood would have held; it was in a peculiar way transparent. Gurney\nregards this transparency as indicating _imperfect externalisation_ of\nthe hallucinatory image.\n\nMy own phrase, \"imperfect _co-ordination_ of inner with outward vision,\"\ncomes to much the same thing, and seems specially applicable to Mrs.\nTaunton's words: \"The appearance was not transparent or filmy, but\nperfectly solid-looking; _and yet I could somehow see the orchestra, not\nthrough, but behind it_.\" There are a few cases where the percipient\nseems to see a hallucinatory figure _behind_ him, out of the range of\noptical vision.[120] There is of course no reason why this should not be\nso,--even if a part of space external to the percipient's brain should\nbe actually affected.\n\nMr. Searle's case also is very interesting.[121] Here Mrs. Searle faints\nwhen visiting a house a few miles from Mr. Searle's chambers in the\nTemple. At or about the same time, he sees as though in a looking-glass,\nupon a window opposite him, his wife's head and face, white and\nbloodless.\n\nGurney suggests that this was a transference from Mrs. Searle's mind\nsimply of \"the _idea_ of fainting,\" which then worked itself out into\nperception in an appropriate fashion.\n\nWas it thus? Or did Mr. Searle in the Temple see with inner vision his\nwife's head as she lay back faint and pallid in Gloucester Gardens? Our\nnearest analogy here is plainly crystal-vision; and crystal-visions, as\nwe have observed, point both ways. Sometimes the picture in the crystal\nis conspicuously symbolical; sometimes it seems a transcript of an\nactual distant scene.\n\nThere are two further problems which occur as we deal with each class of\ncases in turn,--the problem of time-relations and the problem of\nspirit-agency. Can an incident be said to be seen clairvoyantly if it is\nseen some hours after it occurred? Ought we to say that a scene is\nclairvoyantly visited, or that it is spiritually shown, if it represents\na still chamber of death,[122] where no emotion is any longer stirring;\nbut to which the freed spirit might desire to attract the friend's\nattention and sympathy?\n\nSuch problems cannot at present be solved; nor, as I have said, can any\none class of these psychical interchanges be clearly demarcated from\nother classes. Recognising this, we must explain the central\ncharacteristics of each group in turn, and show at what points that\ngroup appears to merge into the next.\n\nAnd now we come to that class of cases where B invades A, and A\nperceives the invasion; but B retains no memory of it in supraliminal\nlife. From one point of view, as will be seen, this is just the reverse\nof the class last discussed--where the invader remembered an invasion\nwhich the invaded person (when there was one) did not perceive.\n\nWe have already discussed some cases of this sort which seemed to be\n_psychorrhagic_--to have occurred without will or purpose on the part of\nthe invader. What we must now do is to collect cases where there may\nprobably have been some real projection of will or desire on the\ninvader's part, leading to the projection of his phantasm in a manner\nrecognisable by the distant friend whom he thus invades--yet without\nsubsequent memory of his own. These cases will be intermediate between\nthe _psychorrhagic_ cases already described and the _experimental_ cases\non which we shall presently enter.\n\nIn the case of Canon Warburton--in Chapter IV.--the person undergoing\nthe accident did recollect having had a vivid thought of his brother at\nthe moment;--while his brother on the other hand was startled from a\nslight doze by the vision of the scene of danger as then taking\nplace;--the steep stairs and the falling figure. This is an acute\ncrisis, much resembling impending death by drowning, etc.; and the\napparition may be construed either way--either as a scene clairvoyantly\ndiscerned by Canon Warburton, owing, as I say, to a spasmodic tightening\nof his psychical link with his brother, or as a sudden _invasion_ on\nthat brother's part, whose very rapidity perhaps helped to prevent his\nremembering it.\n\nThe case given in Appendix VI. E is interesting, both evidentially and\nfrom its intrinsic character. The narrative, printed in _Phantasms of\nthe Living_, on the authority of one only of the witnesses concerned,\nled to the discovery of the _second_ witness--whom we had no other means\nof finding--and has been amply corroborated by her independent account.\n\nThe case stands about midway between psychorrhagic cases and intentional\nself-projections, and is clearly of the nature of an _invasion_, since\nthe phantasm was seen by a stranger as well as by the friend, and seemed\nto both to be moving about the room. The figure, that is to say, was\nadapted to the percipient's environment.\n\nCases of this general character, both visual and auditory, occupy a\ngreat part of _Phantasms of the Living_, and others have been frequently\nquoted in the S.P.R. _Journal_ during recent years.[123]\n\nOf still greater interest is the class which comes next in order in my\nascending scale of apparent _intensity_; the cases, namely, where there\nis recollection on both sides, so that the experience is\n_reciprocal_.[124] These deserve study, for it is by noting under what\ncircumstances these spontaneously reciprocal cases occur that we have\nthe best chance of learning how to produce them experimentally. It will\nbe seen that there have been various degrees of tension of thought on\nthe agent's part.\n\nAnd here comes in a small but important group--the group of what I may\ncall death-compacts prematurely fulfilled. We shall see in the next\nchapter that the exchange of a solemn promise between two friends to\nappear to one another, if possible, after death is far from being a\nuseless piece of sentiment. Such posthumous appearances, it is true, may\nbe in most cases impossible, but nevertheless there is real ground to\nbelieve that the previous tension of the will in that direction makes it\nmore likely that the longed-for meeting shall be accomplished. If so,\nthis is a kind of _experiment_, and an experiment which all can make.\n\nNow we have two or three cases where this compact has been made, and\nwhere an apparition has followed--but before and not after the agent's\ndeath--at the moment, that is to say, of some dangerous accident, when\nthe sufferer was perhaps all but drowned, or was stunned, or otherwise\ninsensible.[125]\n\nLastly, the lessons of these spontaneous apparitions have been confirmed\nand widened by actual experiment. It is plain that just as we are not\nconfined to noting small spontaneous telepathic transferences when they\noccur, but can also endeavour to reproduce them by experiment, so also\nwe can endeavour to reproduce experimentally these more advanced\ntelepathic phenomena of the invasion of the presence of the percipient\nby the agent. It is to be hoped, indeed, that such experiment may become\none of the most important features of our inquiry. The type of the\nexperiment is somewhat as follows. The intending agent endeavours by an\neffort at self-concentration, made either in waking hours or just before\nsleep, to render himself perceptible to a given person at a distance,\nwho, of course, must have no reason to expect a phantasmal visit at that\nhour. Independent records must be made on each side, of all attempts\nmade, and of all phantoms seen. The evidential point is, of course, the\ncoincidence between the _attempt_ and the _phantom_, whether or not the\nagent can afterwards remember his own success.[126]\n\nNow the _experimental_ element here is obviously very incomplete. It\nconsists in little more than in a concentrated desire to produce an\neffect which one can never explain, and seldom fully remember. I have\nseen no evidence to show that any one can claim to be an adept in such\nmatters--has learned a method of thus appearing at will.[127] We are\nacting in the dark. Yet nevertheless the mere fact that on some few\noccasions this strong desire has actually been followed by a result of\nthis extremely interesting kind is one of the most encouraging phenomena\nin our whole research. The successes indeed have borne a higher\nproportion to the failures than I should have ventured to hope. But\nnowhere is there more need of persistent and careful\nexperimentation;--nowhere, I may add, have emotions quite alien from\nScience--mere groundless fears of seeing anything unusual--interfered\nwith more disastrous effect. Such fears, one hopes, will pass away, and\nthe friend's visible image will be recognised as a welcome proof of the\nlink that binds the two spirits together.\n\nThe case which I quote in Appendix VI. F illustrates both the essential\nharmlessness--nay, naturalness--of such an experiment, and the causeless\nfear which it may engender even in rational and serious minds.\n\nIn these experimental apparitions, which form, as it were, the _spolia\nopima_ of the collector, we naturally wish to know all that we can about\neach detail in the experience. Two important points are the _amount of\neffort_ made by the experimenter, and the degree of his _consciousness\nof success_. The amount of effort in Mr. S. H. B.'s case (for instance)\nseems to have been great; and this is encouraging, since what we want is\nto be assured that the tension of will has really some power. It seems\nto act in much the same way as a therapeutic suggestion from the\nconscious self; one can never make sure that any given self-suggestion\nwill \"take\"; but, on the whole, the stronger the self-suggestions, the\nbetter the result. It is therefore quite in accordance with analogy that\na suggestion from without, given to a hypnotised person, should be the\nmost promising way of inducing these self-projections. It should be\nstrongly impressed on hypnotised subjects that they can and must\ntemporarily \"leave the body,\" as they call it, and manifest themselves\nto distant persons--the consent, of course, of both parties to the\nexperiment having been previously secured.\n\nOf this type were Dr. Backman's experiments with his subject\n\"Alma,\"[128] and although that series of efforts was prematurely broken\noff, it was full of promise. There were some slight indications that\nAlma's clairvoyant excursions were sometimes perceptible to persons in\nthe scenes psychically invaded; and there was considerable and growing\nevidence to her own retention in subsequent memory of some details of\nthose distant scenes.\n\nBy all analogy, indeed, that subsequent memory should be an eminently\n_educable_ thing. The carrying over of recollections from one stratum of\npersonality into another--as hypnotic experiment shows us--is largely a\nmatter of patient suggestion. It would be very desirable to hypnotise\nthe person who had succeeded in producing an experimental apparition, of\nMr. S. H. B.'s type, and to see if he could then recall the psychical\nexcursion. Hypnotic states should be far more carefully utilised in\nconnection with all these forms of self-projection.\n\nIn these self-projections we have before us, I do not say the most\nuseful, but the most extraordinary achievement of the human will. What\ncan lie further outside any known capacity than the power to cause a\nsemblance of oneself to appear at a distance? What can be a more\n_central_ action--more manifestly the outcome of whatsoever is deepest\nand most unitary in man's whole being? Here, indeed, begins the\njustification of the conception expressed at the beginning of this\nchapter;--that we should now see the subliminal self no longer as a mere\nchain of eddies or backwaters, in some way secluded from the main stream\nof man's being, but rather as itself the central and potent current, the\nmost truly identifiable with the man himself. Other achievements have\ntheir manifest limit; where is the limit here? The spirit has shown\nitself in part dissociated from the organism; to what point may its\ndissociation go? It has shown some independence, some intelligence, some\npermanence. To what degree of intelligence, independence, permanence,\nmay it conceivably attain? Of all vital phenomena, I say, this is the\nmost significant; this self-projection is the one definite act which it\nseems as though a man might perform equally well before and after bodily\ndeath.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nPHANTASMS OF THE DEAD\n\n                             [Greek: ouketi prhos\u00f4\n    ebhatas ela kidn\u00f4u hyper Hrakleos perhas eumares\n    ... thume, tiua prhos dllodapas\n    xkras emos plsou paramelbeai];\n\n    --PINDAR\n\n\nThe course of our argument has gradually conducted us to a point of\ncapital importance. A profound and central question, approached in\nirregular fashion from time to time in previous chapters, must now be\ndirectly faced. From the actions and perceptions of spirits still in the\nflesh, and concerned with one another, we must pass on to inquire into\nthe actions of spirits no longer in the flesh, and into the forms of\nperception with which men still in the flesh respond to that unfamiliar\nand mysterious agency.\n\nThere need, I hope, be no real break here in my previous line of\nargument. The subliminal self, which we have already traced through\nvarious phases of growing sensitivity, growing independence of organic\nbonds, will now be studied as sensitive to yet remoter influences;--as\nmaintaining an independent existence even when the organism is\ndestroyed. Our subject will divide itself conveniently under three main\nheads. _First_, it will be well to discuss briefly the nature of the\nevidence to man's survival of death which may theoretically be\nobtainable, and its possible connections with evidence set forth in\nprevious chapters. _Secondly_,--and this must form the bulk of the\npresent chapter,--we need a classified exposition of the main evidence\nto survival thus far obtained;--so far, that is to say, as sensory\nautomatism--audition or apparition--is concerned; for motor\nautomatism--automatic writing and trance-utterance--must be left for\nlater discussion. _Thirdly_, there will be need of some consideration of\nthe meaning of this evidence as a whole, and of its implications alike\nfor the scientific and for the ethical future of mankind. Much more,\nindeed, of discussion (as well as of evidence) than I can furnish will\nbe needed before this great conception can be realised or argued from\nwith the scientific thoroughness due to its position among fundamental\ncosmical laws. Considering how familiar the notion--the vague shadowy\nnotion--of \"immortality\" has always been, it is strange indeed that so\nlittle should have been done in these modern days to grasp or to\ncriticise it;--so little, one might almost say, since the _Ph\u00e6do_ of\nPlato.\n\nBeginning, then, with the inquiry as to what kind of evidence ought to\nbe demanded for human survival, we are met first by the bluff statement\nwhich is still often uttered even by intelligent men, that _no_ evidence\nwould convince them of such a fact; \"neither would they be persuaded\nthough one rose from the dead.\"\n\nExtravagant as such a profession sounds, it has a meaning which we shall\ndo well to note. These resolute antagonists mean that no new evidence\ncan carry conviction to them unless it be _continuous_ with old\nevidence; and that they cannot conceive that evidence to a world of\nspirit can possibly be continuous with evidence based upon our\nexperience of a world of matter. I agree with this demand for\ncontinuity; and I agree also that the claims usually advanced for a\nspiritual world have not only made no attempt at continuity with known\nfact, but have even ostentatiously thrown such continuity to the winds.\nThe popular mind has expressly desired something startling, something\noutside Law and above Nature. It has loved, if not a _Credo quia\nabsurdum_, at least a _Credo quia non probatum_. But the inevitable\nretribution is a deep insecurity in the conviction thus attained.\nUnsupported by the general fabric of knowledge, the act of faith seems\nto shrink into the background as that great fabric stands and grows.\n\nI can hardly too often repeat that my object in these pages is of a\nquite opposite character. Believing that all cognisable Mind is as\ncontinuous as all cognisable Matter, my ideal would be to attempt for\nthe realm of mind what the spectroscope and the law of gravitation have\neffected for the realm of matter, and to carry that known cosmic\nuniformity of substance and interaction upwards among the essences and\noperations of an unknown spiritual world. And in order to explore these\nunreachable altitudes I would not ask to stand with the theologian on\nthe summit of a \"cloud-capt tower,\" but rather on plain earth at the\nmeasured base of a trigonometrical survey.\n\nIf we would measure such a base, the jungle must be cleared to begin\nwith. Let us move for a while among first definitions; trying to make\nclear to ourselves what kind of thing it is that we are endeavouring to\ntrace or discover. In popular parlance, we are looking out for _ghosts_.\nWhat connotation, then, are we to give to the word \"ghost\"--a word\nwhich has embodied so many unfounded theories and causeless fears? It\nwould be more satisfactory, in the present state of our knowledge,\nsimply to collect facts without offering speculative comment. But it\nseems safer to begin by briefly pointing out the manifest errors of the\ntraditional view; since that tradition, if left unnoticed, would remain\nlodged in the background even of many minds which have never really\naccepted it.\n\nBriefly, then, the popular view regards a \"ghost\" as a _deceased person\npermitted by Providence to hold communication with survivors_. And this\nshort definition contains, I think, at least three unwarrantable\nassumptions.\n\nIn the first place, such words as _permission_ and _Providence_ are\nsimply neither more nor less applicable to this phenomenon than to any\nother. We conceive that all phenomena alike take place in accordance\nwith the laws of the universe, and consequently by permission of the\nSupreme Power in the universe. Undoubtedly the phenomena with which we\nare dealing are in this sense permitted to occur. But there is no _a\npriori_ reason whatever for assuming that they are permitted in any\nespecial sense of their own, or that they form exceptions to law,\ninstead of being exemplifications of law. Nor is there any _a\nposteriori_ reason for supposing any such inference to be deducible from\na study of the phenomena themselves. If we attempt to find in these\nphenomena any poetical justice or manifest adaptation to human cravings,\nwe shall be just as much disappointed as if we endeavoured to find a\nsimilar satisfaction in the ordinary course of terrene history.\n\nIn the second place, we have no warrant for the assumption that the\nphantom seen, even though it be somehow _caused_ by a deceased person,\n_is_ that deceased person, in any ordinary sense of the word. Instead of\nappealing to the crude analogy of the living friend who, when he has\nwalked into the room, _is_ in the room, we shall find for the ghost a\nmuch closer parallel in those hallucinatory figures or phantasms which\nliving persons can sometimes project at a distance.\n\nBut experience shows that when--as with these _post-mortem_\nphantoms--the deceased person has gone well out of sight or reach there\nis a tendency, so to say, to _anthropomorphose_ the apparition; to\nsuppose that, as the deceased person is not provably anywhere else, he\nis probably here; and that the apparition is bound to behave\naccordingly. All such assumptions must be dismissed, and the phantom\nmust be taken on its merits, as indicating merely a certain connection\nwith the deceased, the precise nature of that connection being a part of\nthe problem to be solved.\n\nAnd in the third place, just as we must cease to say that the phantom\n_is_ the deceased, so also must we cease to ascribe to the phantom the\nmotives by which we imagine that the deceased might be swayed. We must\ntherefore exclude from our definition of a ghost any words which assume\nits intention to communicate with the living. It may bear such a\nrelation to the deceased that it can reflect or represent his presumed\nwish to communicate, or it may not. If, for instance, its relation to\nhis _post-mortem_ life be like the relation of my dreams to my earthly\nlife, it may represent little that is truly his, save such vague\nmemories and instincts as give a dim individuality to each man's trivial\ndreams.\n\nLet us attempt, then, a truer definition. Instead of describing a\n\"ghost\" as a dead person permitted to communicate with the living, let\nus define it as _a manifestation of persistent personal energy_, or as\nan indication that some kind of force is being exercised after death\nwhich is in some way connected with a person previously known on earth.\nIn this definition we have eliminated, as will be seen, a great mass of\npopular assumptions. Yet we must introduce a further proviso, lest our\ndefinition still seem to imply an assumption which we have no right to\nmake. It is theoretically possible that this force or influence, which\nafter a man's death creates a phantasmal impression of him, may indicate\nno continuing action on his part, but may be some residue of the force\nor energy which he generated while yet alive. There may be _veridical\nafter-images_--such as Gurney hints at (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p.\n417) when in his comments on the recurring figure of an old woman--seen\non the bed where she was murdered--he remarks that this figure suggests\nnot so much \"any continuing local interest on the part of the deceased\nperson, as the survival of a mere image, impressed, we cannot guess how,\non we cannot guess what, by that person's physical organism, and\nperceptible at times to those endowed with some cognate form of\nsensitiveness.\"\n\nStrange as this notion may seem, it is strongly suggested by many of the\ncases of _haunting_ which do not fall within the scope of the present\nchapter. We shall presently find that there is strong evidence for the\nrecurrence of the same hallucinatory figures in the same localities, but\nweak evidence to indicate any purpose in most of these figures, or any\nconnection with bygone individuals, or with such tragedies as are\npopularly supposed to start a ghost on its career. In some of these\ncases of frequent, meaningless recurrence of a figure in a given spot,\nwe are driven to wonder whether it can be some deceased person's past\nfrequentation of that spot, rather than any fresh action of his after\ndeath, which has generated what I have termed the veridical\nafter-image--veridical in the sense that it communicates information,\npreviously unknown to the percipient, as to a former inhabitant of the\nhaunted locality.\n\nSuch are some of the questions which our evidence suggests. And I may\npoint out that the very fact that such bizarre problems should present\nthemselves at every turn does in a certain sense tend to show that these\napparitions are not purely subjective things,--do not originate merely\nin the percipient's imagination. For they are not like what any man\nwould have imagined. What man's mind does tend to fancy on such topics\nmay be seen in the endless crop of fictitious ghost stories, which\nfurnish, indeed, a curious proof of the persistence of preconceived\nnotions. For they go on being framed according to canons of their own,\nand deal with a set of imaginary phenomena quite different from those\nwhich actually occur. The actual phenomena, I may add, could scarcely be\nmade romantic. One true \"ghost story\" is apt to be very like another,\nand most of them to be fragmentary and apparently meaningless. Their\nmeaning, that is to say, lies in their conformity, not to the\nmythopoeic instinct of mankind, which fabricates and enjoys the\nfictitious tales, but to some unknown law, not based on human sentiment\nor convenience at all.\n\nAnd thus, absurdly enough, we sometimes hear men ridicule the phenomena\nwhich actually do happen, simply because those phenomena do not suit\ntheir preconceived notions of what ghostly phenomena ought to be;--not\nperceiving that this very divergence, this very unexpectedness, is in\nitself no slight indication of an origin _outside_ the minds which\nobviously were so far from anticipating anything of the kind.\n\nAnd in fact the very qualities which are most apt to raise derision are\nsuch as the evidence set forth in the earlier chapters of this work\nmight reasonably lead us to expect. For I hold that now for the first\ntime can we form a conception of ghostly communications which shall in\nany way consist or cohere with more established conceptions; which can\nbe presented as in any way a development of facts which are already\nexperimentally known. Two preliminary conceptions were\nneeded--conceptions in one sense ancient enough; but yet the first of\nwhich has only in this generation found its place in science, while the\nsecond is as yet awaiting its brevet of orthodoxy. The first conception\nis that with which hypnotism and various automatisms have familiarised\nus,--the conception of multiplex personality, of the potential\ncoexistence of many states and many memories in the same individual. The\nsecond is the conception of telepathy; of the action of mind on mind\napart from the ordinary organs of sense; and especially of its action by\nmeans of hallucinations; by the generation of veridical phantasms which\nform, as it were, messages from men still in the flesh. And I believe\nthat these two conceptions are in this way connected, that the\ntelepathic message generally starts from, and generally impinges upon, a\nsubconscious or submerged stratum in both agent and percipient.[129]\nWherever there is hallucination, whether delusive or veridical, I hold\nthat a message of some sort is forcing its way upwards from one stratum\nof personality to another,--a message which may be merely dreamlike and\nincoherent, or which may symbolise a fact otherwise unreachable by the\npercipient personality. And the mechanism seems much the same whether\nthe message's path be continued within one individual or pass between\ntwo; whether A's own submerged self be signalling to his emergent self,\nor B be telepathically stimulating the hidden fountains of perception in\nA. If anything like this be true, it seems plainly needful that all that\nwe know of abnormal or supernormal communications between minds, or\nstates of the same mind, still embodied in flesh, should be searched for\nanalogies which may throw light on this strangest mode of intercourse\nbetween embodied and disembodied minds.\n\nA communication (if such a thing exists) from a departed person to a\nperson still on earth is, at any rate, a communication from a mind in\none state of existence to a mind in a very different state of existence.\nAnd it is, moreover, a communication from one mind to another which\npasses through some channel other than the ordinary channels of sense,\nsince on one side of the gulf no material sense-organs exist. It will\napparently be an extreme instance of both these classes--of\ncommunications between state and state,[130] and of telepathic\ncommunications; and we ought, therefore, to approach it by considering\nthe less advanced cases of both these types.\n\nOn what occasions do we commonly find a mind conversing with another\nmind not on the same plane with itself?--with a mind inhabiting in some\nsense a different world, and viewing the environment with a difference\nof outlook greater than the mere difference of character of the two\npersonages will account for?\n\nThe first instance of this sort which will occur to us lies in\nspontaneous somnambulism, or colloquy between a person asleep and a\nperson awake. And observe here how slight an accident allows us to\nenter into converse with a state which at first sight seems a type of\nincommunicable isolation. \"Awake, we share our world,\" runs the old\nsaying, \"but each dreamer inhabits a world of his own.\" Yet the dreamer,\napparently so self-enclosed, may be gently led, or will spontaneously\nenter, into converse with waking men.\n\nThe somnambulist, or rather the somniloquist--for it is the talking\nrather than the walking which is the gist of the matter--is thus our\nfirst natural type of the _revenant_.\n\nAnd observing the habits of somnambulists, we note that the degree in\nwhich they can communicate with other minds varies greatly in different\ncases. One sleep-waker will go about his customary avocations without\nrecognising the presence of any other person whatever; another will\nrecognise certain persons only, or will answer when addressed, but only\non certain subjects, his mind coming into contact with other minds only\non a very few points. Rarely or never will a somnambulist spontaneously\nnotice what other persons are doing, and adapt his own actions thereto.\n\nNext let us turn from natural to induced sleep-waking, from idiopathic\nsomnambulism to the hypnotic trance. Here, too, throughout the different\nstages of the trance, we find a varying and partial (or elective) power\nof communication. Sometimes the entranced subject makes no sign\nwhatever; sometimes he seems able to hear and answer one person, or\ncertain persons, and not others; sometimes he will talk freely to all;\nbut, however freely he may talk, he is not exactly his waking self, and\nas a rule he has no recollection, or a very imperfect recollection, in\nwaking life of what he has said or done in his trance.\n\nJudging, then, from such analogy as communications from one living state\nto another can suggest to us, we shall expect that the communication of\na disembodied or discarnate person with an incarnate, if such exist,\nwill be subject to narrow limitations, and very possibly will not form a\npart of the main current of the supposed discarnate consciousness.\n\nThese preliminary considerations are applicable to any kind of alleged\ncommunication from the departed--whether well or ill evidenced; whether\nconveyed in sensory or in motor form.\n\nLet us next consider what types of communication from the dead our\nexisting evidence of communications among the living suggests to us as\nanalogically possible. It appears to me that there is an important\nparallelism running through each class of our experiments in automatism\nand each class of our spontaneous phenomena. Roughly speaking, we may\nsay that our experiment and observation up to this point have comprised\nfive different stages of phenomena, viz., (I.) hypnotic suggestion;\n(II.) telepathic experiments; (III.) spontaneous telepathy during life;\n(IV.) phantasms at death; (V.) phantasms after death. And we find, I\nthink, that the same types of communication meet us at each stage; so\nthat this recurrent similarity of types raises a presumption that the\nunderlying mechanism of manifestation at each stage may be in some way\nsimilar.\n\nAgain using a mere rough form of division, we shall find three main\nforms of manifestation at each stage: (1) hallucinations of the senses;\n(2) emotional and motor impulses; (3) definite intellectual messages.\n\n(I.) And first let us start from a class of experiments into which\ntelepathy does not enter, but which exhibit in its simplest form the\nmechanism of the automatic transfer of messages from one stratum to\nanother of the same personality. I speak, of course, of post-hypnotic\nsuggestions. Here the agent is a living man, operating in an ordinary\nway, by direct speech. The unusual feature lies in the condition of the\npercipient, who is hypnotised at the time, and is thus undergoing a kind\nof dislocation of personality, or temporary upheaval of a habitually\nsubjacent stratum of the self. This hypnotic personality, being for the\ntime at the surface, receives the agent's verbal suggestion, of which\nthe percipient's waking self is unaware. Then afterwards, when the\nwaking self has resumed its usual upper position, the hypnotic self\ncarries out at the stated time the given suggestion,--an act whose\norigin the upper stratum of consciousness does not know, but which is in\neffect a message communicated to the upper stratum from the now\nsubmerged or subconscious stratum on which the suggestion was originally\nimpressed.\n\nAnd this message may take any one of the three leading forms mentioned\nabove;--say a hallucinatory image of the hypnotiser or of some other\nperson; or an impulse to perform some action; or a definite word or\nsentence to be written automatically by the waking self, which thus\nlearns what order has been laid upon the hypnotic self while the waking\nconsciousness was in abeyance.\n\n(II.) Now turn to our experiments in thought-transference. Here again\nthe agent is a living man; but he is no longer operating by ordinary\nmeans,--by spoken words or visible gestures. He is operating on the\npercipient's subconscious self by means of a telepathic impulse, which\nhe desires, indeed, to project from himself, and which the percipient\nmay desire to receive, but of whose _modus operandi_ the ordinary waking\nselves of agent and percipient alike are entirely unaware.\n\nHere again we may divide the messages sent into the same three main\nclasses. First come the hallucinatory figures--always or almost always\nof himself--which the agent causes the percipient to see. Secondly come\nimpulses to act, telepathically impressed; as when the hypnotiser\ndesires his subject to come to him at an hour not previously notified.\nAnd thirdly, we have a parallel to the post-hypnotic writing of definite\nwords or figures in our own experiments on the direct telepathic\ntransmission of words, figures, cards, etc., from the agent, using no\nnormal means of communication, to the percipient, either in the\nhypnotised or in the waking state.\n\n(III.) We come next to the spontaneous phantasms occurring during life.\nHere we find the same three broad classes of messages, with this\ndifference, that the actual apparitions, which in our telepathic\nexperimentation are thus far unfortunately rare, become now the most\nimportant class. I need not recall the instances given in Chapters IV.\nand VI., etc., where an agent undergoing some sudden crisis seems in\nsome way to generate an apparition of himself seen by a distant\npercipient. Important also in this connection are those apparitions of\nthe _double_, where some one agent is seen repeatedly in phantasmal form\nby different percipients at times when that agent is undergoing no\nspecial crisis.\n\nAgain, among our telepathic impressions generated (spontaneously, not\nexperimentally) by living agents, we have cases, which I need not here\nrecapitulate, of pervading sensations of distress; or impulses to return\nhome, which are parallel to the hypnotised subject's impulse to approach\nhis distant hypnotiser, at a moment when that hypnotiser is willing him\nto do so.\n\nAnd thirdly, among these telepathic communications from the living to\nthe living, we have definite sentences automatically written,\ncommunicating facts which the distant person knows, but is not\nconsciously endeavouring to transmit.\n\n(IV.) Passing on to phantasms which cluster about the moment of death,\nwe find our three main classes of cases still meeting us. Our readers\nare familiar with the _visual_ cases, where there is an actual\napparition of the dying man, seen by one or more persons; and also with\nthe _emotional and motor_ cases, where the impression, although\npowerful, is not definitely sensory in character. And various cases also\nhave been published where the message has consisted of definite words,\nnot always externalised as an auditory hallucination, but sometimes\nautomatically _uttered_ or automatically _written_ by the percipient\nhimself, as in the case communicated by Dr. Li\u00e9beault (see Appendix\nVIII. C), where a girl writes the message announcing her friend's death\nat the time when that friend is, in fact, dying in a distant city.\n\n(V.) And now I maintain that in these post-mortem cases also we find the\nsame general classes persisting, and in somewhat the same proportion.\nMost conspicuous are the actual _apparitions_, with which, indeed, the\nfollowing pages will mainly deal. It is very rare to find an apparition\nwhich seems to impart any verbal message; but a case of this kind has\nbeen given in Appendix IV. F. As a rule, however, the apparition is of\nthe apparently automatic, purposeless character, already so fully\ndescribed. We have also the _emotional and motor_ class of post-mortem\ncases;[131] and these may, perhaps, be more numerous in proportion than\nour collection would indicate; for it is obvious that impressions which\nare so much less definite than a visual hallucination (although they may\nbe even more impressive to the percipient himself) can rarely be used as\nevidence of communication with the departed.\n\nBut now I wish to point out that, besides these two classes of\npost-mortem manifestations, we have our _third_ class also still\npersisting; we have definite verbal messages which at least purport, and\nsometimes, I think, with strong probability, to come from the departed.\n\nI have, indeed, for the reader's convenience, postponed these motor\ncases to a subsequent chapter, so that the evidence here and now\npresented for survival will be very incomplete. Yet, at any rate, we are\ngradually getting before us a fairly definite task. We have in this\nchapter to record and analyse such sensory experiences of living men as\nseem referable to the action of some human individuality persisting\nafter death. We have also obtained some preliminary notion as to the\nkind of phenomena for which we can hope, especially as to what their\nprobable limitations must be, considering how great a gulf between\npsychical states any communication must overpass.\n\nLet us now press the actual evidential question somewhat closer. Let us\nconsider, for it is by no means evident at first sight, what conditions\na visual or auditory phantasm is bound to fulfil before it can be\nregarded as indicating _prim\u00e2 facie_ the influence of a discarnate mind.\nThe discussion may be best introduced by quoting the words in which\nEdmund Gurney opened it in 1888.[132] The main evidential lines as there\nlaid down retain their validity, although the years which have since\npassed have greatly augmented the testimony, and in so doing have\nillustrated yet other tests of true post-mortem communication,--to which\nwe shall presently come.\n\n     \"It is evident that in alleged cases of apparitions of the dead,\n     the point which we have held to distinguish certain apparitions of\n     _living_ persons from purely subjective hallucinations is\n     necessarily lacking. That point is _coincidence_ between the\n     apparition and some critical or exceptional condition of the person\n     who seems to appear; but with regard to the dead, we have no\n     independent knowledge of their condition, and therefore never have\n     the opportunity of observing any such coincidences.\n\n     \"There remain three, and I think only three, conditions which might\n     establish a presumption that an apparition or other immediate\n     manifestation of a dead person is something more than a mere\n     subjective hallucination of the percipient's senses. Either (1)\n     more persons than one might be independently affected by the\n     phenomenon; or (2) the phantasm might convey information,\n     afterwards discovered to be true, of something which the percipient\n     had never known; or (3) the appearance might be that of a person\n     whom the percipient himself had never seen, and of whose aspect he\n     was ignorant, and yet his description of it might be sufficiently\n     definite for identification. But though one or more of these\n     conditions would have to be fully satisfied before we could be\n     convinced that any particular apparition of the dead had some cause\n     external to the percipient's own mind, there is one more general\n     characteristic of the class which is sufficiently suggestive of\n     such a cause to be worth considering. I mean the disproportionate\n     number of cases which occur _shortly after_ the death of the person\n     represented. Such a time-relation, if frequently enough\n     encountered, might enable us to argue for the objective origin of\n     the phenomenon in a manner analogous to that which leads us to\n     conclude that many phantasms of the living have an objective (a\n     telepathic) origin. For, according to the doctrines of\n     probabilities, a hallucination representing a known person would\n     not _by chance_ present a definite time-relation to a special\n     cognate event--viz., the death of that person--in more than a\n     certain percentage of the whole number of similar hallucinations\n     that occur; and if that percentage is decidedly exceeded, there is\n     reason to surmise that some other cause than chance--in other\n     words, some objective origin for the phantasm--is present.\"\n\nBut on the other hand, a phantasm representing a person whose death is\nrecent is specially likely to arouse interest and, in cases where the\ndeath is previously known to the percipient, his emotional state may be\nconsidered a sufficient cause of the hallucination.\n\n     \"If, then,\" Gurney continues, \"we are to draw any probable\n     conclusion as to the objective nature of _post-mortem_ appearances\n     and communications (or of some of them) from the fact of their\n     special frequency soon after death, we must confine ourselves to\n     cases where the fact of death has been unknown to the percipient at\n     the time of his experience. Now, in these days of letters and\n     telegrams, people for the most part hear of the deaths of friends\n     and relatives within a very few days, sometimes within a very few\n     hours, after the death occurs; so that appearances of the sort\n     required would, as a rule, have to follow very closely indeed on\n     the death. Have we evidence of any considerable number of such\n     cases?\n\n     \"Readers of _Phantasms of the Living_ will know that we have. In a\n     number of cases which were treated in that book as examples of\n     telepathic transference from a dying person, the person was\n     actually dead at the time that the percipient's experience\n     occurred; and the inclusion of such cases under the title of\n     _Phantasms of the Living_ naturally occasioned a certain amount of\n     adverse criticism. Their inclusion, it will be remembered, required\n     an assumption which cannot by any means be regarded as certain. We\n     had to suppose that the telepathic transfer took place just before,\n     or exactly at, the moment of death; but that the impression\n     remained latent in the percipient's mind, and only after an\n     interval emerged into his consciousness, whether as waking vision\n     or as dream or in some other form. Now, as a provisional\n     hypothesis, I think that this assumption was justified. For in the\n     first place, the moment of death is, in time, the central point of\n     a cluster of abnormal experiences occurring to percipients at a\n     distance, of which some _precede_, while others follow, the death;\n     it is natural, therefore, to surmise that the same explanation will\n     cover the whole group, and that the motive force in each of its\n     divisions lies in a state of the 'agent' prior to bodily death. In\n     the second place, some of the facts of experimental\n     thought-transference countenance the view that 'transferred\n     impressions' may be latent for a time before the recipient becomes\n     aware of them; and recent discoveries with respect to the whole\n     subject of automatism and 'secondary intelligence' make it seem far\n     less improbable than it would otherwise have seemed that telepathy\n     may take effect first on the 'unconscious' part of the mind.[133]\n     And in the third place, the period of supposed latency has in a\n     good many instances been a period when the person affected was in\n     activity, and when his mind and senses were being solicited by\n     other things; and in such cases it is specially easy to suppose\n     that the telepathic impression did not get the right conditions for\n     rising into consciousness until a season of silence and\n     _recueillement_ arrived.[134] But though the theory of latency has\n     thus a good deal to be said for it, my colleagues and I are most\n     anxious not to be supposed to be putting forward as a dogma what\n     must be regarded at present merely as a working hypothesis.\n     Psychical research is of all subjects the one where it is most\n     important to avoid this error, and to keep the mind open for new\n     interpretations of the facts. And in the present instance there are\n     certain definite objections which may fairly be made to the\n     hypothesis that a telepathic impression derived from a dying person\n     may emerge after hours of latency. The experimental cases to which\n     I have referred as analogous are few and uncertain, and, moreover,\n     in them the period of latency has been measured by seconds or\n     minutes, not by hours. And though, as I have said, some of the\n     instances of apparent delay among the death-cases might be\n     accounted for by the fact that the percipient's mind or senses\n     needed to be withdrawn from other occupations before the\n     manifestation could take place, there are other instances where\n     this is not so, and where no ground at all appears for connecting\n     the delay with the percipient's condition. On the whole, then, the\n     alternative hypothesis--that the condition of the phenomenon on the\n     'agent's' side (be it psychical or be it physical) is one which\n     only comes into existence at a distinct interval after death, and\n     that the percipient really is impressed at the moment, and not\n     before the moment, when he is conscious of the impression--is one\n     which must be steadily kept in view.\n\n     \"So far I have been speaking of cases where the interval between\n     the death and the manifestation was so short as to make the theory\n     of latency possible. The rule adopted in _Phantasms of the Living_\n     was that this interval must not exceed twelve hours. But we have\n     records of a few cases where this interval has been greatly\n     exceeded, and yet where the fact of the death was still unknown to\n     the percipient at the time of his experience. The theory of latency\n     cannot reasonably be applied to cases where weeks or months divide\n     the vision (or whatever it may be) from the moment of death, which\n     is the latest at which an ordinary[135] telepathically transferred\n     idea could have obtained access to the percipient. And the\n     existence of such cases--so far as it tends to establish the\n     reality of objectively-caused apparitions of the dead--diminishes\n     the objection to conceiving that the appearances, etc., which have\n     very shortly _followed_ death have had a different causation from\n     those which have coincided with or very shortly _preceded_ it. For\n     we shall not be inventing a wholly new class for the former cases,\n     but only provisionally shifting them from one class to another--to\n     a much smaller and much less well-evidenced class, it is true, but\n     one nevertheless for which we have evidence enough to justify us in\n     expecting more.\"\n\nThis, as I conceive, is a sound method of proceeding from ground made\nsecure in _Phantasms of the Living_--and traversed in my own just\nprevious chapter--to cases closely analogous, save for that little\ndifference in _time-relations_, that occurrence in the hours which\nfollow, instead of the hours which precede, bodily dissolution, which\ncounts for so much in our insight into cosmic law.[136]\n\nThe hypothesis of _latency_ which thus meets us _in limine_ in this\ninquiry will soon be found inadequate to cover the facts. Yet it will be\nwell to dwell somewhat more fully upon its possible range.\n\nIf we examine the proportionate number of apparitions observed at\nvarious periods before and after death, we find that they increase very\nrapidly for the few hours which precede death, and decrease gradually\nduring the hours and days which follow, until after about a year's time\nthey become merely sporadic.\n\nYet one more point must be touched on, to avoid misconception of the\nphrase cited above, that \"the moment of death is the centre of a cluster\nof abnormal experiences, of which some precede, while others follow, the\ndeath.\" Gurney, of course, did not mean to assume that the act of death\nitself was the cause of all these experiences. Those which occur before\ndeath may be caused or conditioned, not by the death itself, but by the\nabnormal state, as of coma, delirium, etc., which preceded the death.\nThis we say because we have many instances where veridical phantasms\nhave coincided with moments of _crisis_--carriage-accidents and the\nlike--occurring to distant agents, but not followed by death.\nAccordingly we find that in almost all cases where a phantasm,\napparently veridical, has _preceded_ the agent's death, that death was\nthe result of disease and not of accident. To this rule there are very\nfew exceptions. There is a case given in _Phantasms of the Living_ (vol.\nii. p. 52), where the phantasm seems on the evidence to have preceded by\nabout half an hour (longitude allowed for) a sudden death by drowning.\nIn this case the percipient was in a Norfolk farmhouse, the drowning\nman--or agent--was in a storm off the island of Tristan d'Acunha; and we\nhave suggested that an error of clocks or of observation may account for\nthe discrepancy. In another case the death was in a sense a violent one,\nfor it was a suicide; but the morbidly excited state of the girl a few\nhours before death--when her phantasm was seen--was in itself a state\nof crisis. But there are also a few recorded cases (none of which were\ncited in _Phantasms of the Living_) where a phantasm or double of some\nperson has been observed some days previous to that person's accidental\ndeath. The evidence obtained in the Census of Hallucinations, however,\ntended to show that cases of this sort are too few to suggest even\n_prim\u00e2 facie_ a causal connection between the death and the apparition\n(see _Proceedings_ S.P.R. vol. x. p. 331).\n\nI now proceed briefly to review some of the cases where the interval\nbetween death and phantasm has been measurable by minutes or hours.\n\nIt is not easy to get definite cases where the interval has been\nmeasurable by _minutes_; for if the percipient is at a distance from the\nagent we can seldom be sure that the clocks at both places have been\ncorrect, and correctly observed; while if he is _present_ with the agent\nwe can rarely be sure that the phantasm observed is more than a mere\nsubjective hallucination. Thus we have several accounts of a rushing\nsound heard by the watcher of a dying man just after his apparent death,\nor of some kind of luminosity observed near his person; but this is just\nthe moment when we may suppose some subjective hallucination likely to\noccur, and if one person's senses alone are affected we cannot allow\nmuch evidential weight to the occurrence.[137]\n\nThere are some circumstances, however, in which, in spite of the fact\nthat the death is already known, a hallucination occurring shortly\nafterwards may have some slight evidential value. Thus we have a case\nwhere a lady who knew that her sister had died a few hours previously,\nbut who was not herself in any morbidly excited condition, seemed to see\nsome one enter her own dining-room, opening and shutting the door. The\npercipient (who had never had any other hallucination) was much\nastonished when she found no one in the dining-room; but it did not till\nsome time afterwards occur to her that the incident could be in any way\nconnected with her recent loss. This reminds us of a case (ii. p.\n694[138]) where the Rev. R. M. Hill sees a tall figure rush into the\nroom, which alarms and surprises him, then vanishes before he has time\nto recognise it. An uncle, a tall man, dies about that moment, and it is\nremarked that although Mr. Hill knew his uncle to be ill, the anxiety\nwhich he may have felt would hardly have given rise to an unrecognised\nand formidable apparition.\n\nThere are cases also where a percipient who has had an apparition of a\nfriend shortly after that friend's known death has had _veridical_\nhallucinations at other times, and has never had any hallucination of\npurely subjective origin. Such a percipient may naturally suppose that\nhis apparition of the departed friend possessed the same veridical\ncharacter which was common to the rest, although it was not _per se_\nevidential, since the fact of the death was already known.\n\nFor the present, however, it will be better to return to the cases which\nare free from this important _prim\u00e2 facie_ drawback--cases where the\npercipient was, at any rate, unaware that the death, which the phantasm\nseemed to indicate, had in fact taken place.\n\nIn the first place, there are a few cases where a percipient is informed\nof a death by a veridical phantasm, and then some hours afterwards a\nsimilar phantasm differing perhaps in detail, recurs.\n\nSuch was the case of Archdeacon Farler (i. p. 414), who _twice_ during\none night saw the dripping figure of a friend who, as it turned out, had\nbeen drowned during the previous day. Even the first appearance was\nseveral hours after the death, but this we might explain by the latency\nof the impression till a season of quiet. The second appearance may have\nbeen a kind of recrudescence of the first; but if the theory of latency\nbe discarded, so that the _first_ appearance (if more than a mere chance\ncoincidence) is held to depend upon some energy excited by the deceased\nperson after death, it would afford some ground for regarding the\n_second_ appearance as also veridical. The figure in this case was once\nmore seen a fortnight later, and on this occasion, as Archdeacon Farler\ninforms me, in ordinary garb, with no special trace of accident.\n\nA similar repetition occurs in seven other cases recorded in _Phantasms\nof the Living_.[139]\n\nTurning now to the cases where the phantasm is not repeated, but occurs\nsome hours after death, let us take a few narratives where the interval\nof time is pretty certain, and consider how far the hypothesis of\n_latency_ looks probable in each instance.\n\nWhere there is no actual hallucination, but only a feeling of unique\n_malaise_ or distress following at a few hours' interval on a friend's\ndeath at a distance, as in Archdeacon Wilson's case (i. p. 280), it is\nvery hard to picture to ourselves what has taken place. Some injurious\nshock communicated to the percipient's brain at the moment of the\nagent's death may conceivably have slowly worked itself into\nconsciousness. The delay may have been due, so to say, to physiological\nrather than to psychical causes.\n\nNext take a case like that of Mrs. Wheatcroft (i. p. 420), or of Mrs.\nEvens (ii. p. 690), or Sister Bertha (quoted below in Appendix VII. F),\nwhere a definite hallucination of sight or sound occurs some hours after\nthe death, but in the middle of the night. It is in a case of this sort\nthat we can most readily suppose that a \"telepathic impact\" received\nduring the day has lain dormant until other excitations were hushed, and\nhas externalised itself as a hallucination after the first sleep, just\nas when we wake from a first sleep some subject of interest or anxiety,\nwhich has been thrust out of our thoughts during the day, will often\nwell upwards into consciousness with quite a new distinctness and force.\nBut on the other hand, in the case (for instance) of Mrs. Teale (ii. p.\n693), there is a deferment of some eight hours, and then the\nhallucination occurs while the percipient is sitting wide awake in the\nmiddle of her family. And in one of the most remarkable dream-cases in\nour collection (given in Chapter IV.), Mrs. Storie's experience does not\nresemble the mere emergence of a latent impression. It is long and\ncomplex, and suggests some sort of clairvoyance; but if it be\n\"telepathic clairvoyance,\" that is, a picture transferred from the\ndecedent's mind, then it almost requires us to suppose that a\n_post-mortem_ picture was thus transferred, a view of the accident and\nits consequences _fuller_ than any which could have flashed through the\ndying man's mind during his moment of sudden and violent death from \"the\nstriking off of the top of the skull\" by a railway train.\n\nIf once we assume that the deceased person's mind could continue to act\non living persons after his bodily death, then the confused horror of\nthe series of pictures which were presented to Mrs. Storie's\nview--mixed, it should be said, with an element of _fresh departure_\nwhich there was nothing in the accident itself to suggest--would\ncorrespond well enough to what one can imagine a man's feelings a few\nhours after such a death to be. This is trespassing, no doubt, on\nhazardous ground; but if once we admit communication from the other side\nof death as a working hypothesis, we must allow ourselves to imagine\nsomething as to the attitude of the communicating mind, and the least\nviolent supposition will be that that mind is still in part at least\noccupied with the same thoughts which last occupied it on earth. It is\npossible that there may be some interpretation of this kind for some of\nthe cases where a funeral scene, or a dead body, is what the phantasm\npresents. There is a remarkable case (i. p. 265) [\u00a7 664] where a lady\nsees the body of a well-known London physician--about ten hours after\ndeath--lying in a bare unfurnished room (a cottage hospital abroad).\nHere the description, as we have it, would certainly fit best with some\nkind of telepathic clairvoyance prolonged after death--some power on the\ndeceased person's part to cause the percipient to share the picture\nwhich might at that moment be occupying his own mind.\n\nIt will be seen that these phenomena are not of so simple a type as to\nadmit of our considering them from the point of view of _time-relations_\nalone. Whatever else, indeed, a \"ghost\" may be, it is probably one of\nthe most complex phenomena in nature. It is a function of two unknown\nvariables--the incarnate spirit's sensitivity and the discarnate\nspirit's capacity of self-manifestation. Our attempt, therefore, to\nstudy such intercourse may begin at either end of the\ncommunication--with the percipient or with the agent. We shall have to\nask, How does the incarnate mind receive the message? and we shall have\nto ask also, How does the discarnate mind originate and convey it?\n\nNow it is by pressing the _former_ of these two questions that we have,\nI think, the best chance at present of gaining fresh light. So long as\nwe are considering the incarnate mind we are, to some extent at least,\non known ground; and we may hope to discern analogies in some other\namong that mind's operations to that possibly most perplexing of all its\noperations, which consists in taking cognisance of messages from\nunembodied minds, and from an unseen world. I think, therefore, that\n\"the surest way, though most about,\" as Bacon would say, to the\ncomprehension of this sudden and startling phenomenon lies in the study\nof other rare mental phenomena which can be observed more at leisure,\njust as \"the surest way, though most about,\" to the comprehension of\nsome blazing inaccessible star has lain in the patient study of the\nspectra of the incandescence of terrestrial substances which lie about\nour feet. I am in hopes that by the study of various forms of subliminal\nconsciousness, subliminal faculty, subliminal perception, we may\nultimately obtain a conception of our own total being and operation\nwhich may show us the incarnate mind's perception of the discarnate\nmind's message as no isolated anomaly, but an orderly exercise of\nnatural and innate powers, frequently observed in action in somewhat\nsimilar ways.\n\nIt is, I say, from this human or terrene side that I should prefer, were\nit possible, to study in the first instance all our cases. Could we not\nonly share but interpret the percipient's subjective feelings, could we\ncompare those feelings with the feelings evoked by ordinary vision or\ntelepathy among living men, we might get at a more intimate knowledge of\nwhat is happening than any observation from outside of the details of an\napparition can supply. But this, of course, is not possible in any\nsystematic way; occasional glimpses, inferences, comparisons, are all\nthat we can attain to as yet. On the other hand, it is comparatively\neasy to arrange the whole group of our cases in some series depending on\ntheir observed external character and details. They can, indeed, be\narranged in more than one series of this kind--the difficulty is in\nselecting the most instructive. That which I shall here select is in\nsome points arbitrary, but it has the advantage of bringing out the wide\nrange of variation in the clearness and content of these apparitional\ncommunications, here arranged mainly in a descending series, beginning\nwith those cases where fullest knowledge or purpose is shown, and ending\nwith those where the indication of intelligence becomes feeblest, dying\naway at last into vague sounds and sights without recognisable\nsignificance.\n\nBut I shall begin by referring to a small group of cases,[140] which I\nadmit to be anomalous and non-evidential--for we cannot prove that they\nwere more than subjective experiences--yet which certainly should not be\nlost, filling as they do, in all their grotesqueness, a niche in our\nseries otherwise as yet vacant. If man's spirit is separated at death\nfrom his organism, there must needs be cases where that separation,\nalthough apparently, is not really complete. There must be subjective\nsensations corresponding to the objective external facts of apparent\ndeath and subsequent resuscitation. Nor need it surprise those who may\nhave followed my general argument, if those subjective sensations should\nprove to be dreamlike and fantastic. Here, as so often in our inquiries,\nthe very oddity and unexpectedness of the details--the absence of that\nsolemnity which one would think the dying man's own mind would have\ninfused into the occasion--may point to the existence of some reality\nbeneath the grotesque symbolism of the transitional dream.\n\nThe transitional dream, I call it, for it seems to me not\nimprobable--remote though such a view may be from current notions--that\nthe passage from one state to another may sometimes be accompanied with\nsome temporary lack of adjustment between experiences taking place in\nsuch different environments--between the systems of symbolism belonging\nto the one and to the other state. But the reason why I refer to the\ncases in this place is that here we have perhaps our nearest possible\napproach to the sensations of the spirit which is endeavouring to\nmanifest itself;--an inside view of a would-be apparition. The\nnarratives suggest, moreover, that spirits recently freed from the body\nmay enjoy a fuller perception of earthly scenes than it is afterwards\npossible to retain, and that thus the predominance of apparitions of the\n_recently_ dead may be to some extent explained.\n\nWe have, indeed, very few cases where actual apparitions give evidence\nof any _continuity_ in the knowledge possessed by a spirit of friends on\nearth. Such evidence is, naturally enough, more often furnished by\nautomatic script or utterance. But there is one case (which I give in\nAppendix VII. A) where a spirit is recorded as appearing repeatedly--in\nguardian-angel fashion--and especially as foreseeing and sympathising\nwith the survivor's future marriage.\n\nAmong repeated apparitions this case at present stands almost alone; its\nparallels will be found when we come to deal with the persistent\n\"controls,\" or alleged communicating spirits, which influence\ntrance-utterance or automatic script. A case bearing some resemblance to\nit, however, is given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 233, the\nmain difference being that the repeated communications are there made in\n_dream_, and in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 450, [714 A], is\nrecorded another case, where the deceased person seems to make repeated\nefforts to impress on survivors a wish prompted by continued affection.\n\nLess uncommon are the cases where an apparition, occurring singly and\nnot repeated, indicates a continued knowledge of the affairs of earth.\nThat knowledge, indeed, runs mainly, as we shall presently see, in two\ndirections. There is often knowledge of some circumstance connected with\nthe deceased person's own death, as the appearance of his body after\ndissolution, or the place of its temporary deposit or final burial. And\nthere is often knowledge of the impending or actual death of some friend\nof the deceased person's. On the view here taken of the gradual passage\nfrom the one environment into the other, both these kinds of knowledge\nseem probable enough. I think it likely that some part of the\nconsciousness after death may for some time be dreamily occupied with\nthe physical scene. And similarly, when some surviving friend is\ngradually verging towards the same dissolution, the fact may be readily\nperceptible in the spiritual world. When the friend has actually died,\nthe knowledge which his predecessor may have of his transition is\nknowledge appertaining to events of the next world as much as of this.\n\nBut apart from this information, acquired perhaps on the borderland\nbetween two states, apparitions do sometimes imply a perception of more\ndefinitely terrene events, such as the moral crises (as marriage, grave\nquarrels, or impending crimes) of friends left behind on earth. In\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 25 [716 A], is a case of impressive\nwarning, in which the phantom was seen by two persons, one of whom had\nalready had a less evidential experience.\n\nIn another case of similar type,[141] the message, while felt by the\npercipient to be convincing and satisfactory, was held too private to be\ncommunicated in detail. It is plain that just in the cases where the\nmessage is most ultimately veracious, the greatest difficulty is likely\nto be felt as to making it known to strangers.\n\nI have already given a case (Appendix VII. A) where a departed spirit\nseems to show a sympathetic anticipation of a marriage some time before\nit is contemplated. In another case (_Journal_ S.P.R., vol v. p. 10),\nthe percipient, Mrs. V., describes a vision of a mother's form\nsuspended, as it were, in a church where her son is undergoing the rite\nof confirmation. That vision, indeed, might have been purely subjective,\nas Mrs. V. was familiar with the departed mother's aspect; though value\nis given to it by the fact that Mrs. V. has had other experiences which\nincluded evidential coincidences.\n\nFrom these instances of knowledge shown by the departed of events which\nseem wholly terrene, I pass to knowledge of events which seem in some\nsense more nearly concerned with the spirit-world. We have, as already\nhinted, a considerable group of cases where a spirit seems to be aware\nof the _impending death_ of a survivor.[142] In some few of those cases\nthe foreknowledge is entirely inexplicable by any such foresight as we\nmortals can imagine, but in the case given in Appendix VII. B, though\nthe family did not foresee the death, a physician might, for aught we\nknow, have been able to anticipate it. However explained, the case is\none of the best-attested, and in itself one of the most remarkable, that\nwe possess.\n\nI place next by themselves a small group of cases which have the\ninterest of uniting the group just recounted, where the spirit\nanticipates the friend's departure, with the group next to be\nconsidered, where the spirit welcomes the friend already departed from\nearth. This class forms at the same time a natural extension of the\nclairvoyance of the dying exemplified in some \"reciprocal\" cases (_e.g._\nin the case of Miss W., where a dying aunt has a vision of her little\nniece who sees an apparition of her at the same time; see _Phantasms of\nthe Living_, vol. ii. p. 253). Just as the approaching severance of\nspirit from body there aided the spirit to project its observation among\nincarnate spirits at a distance upon this earth, so here does that same\napproaching severance enable the dying person to see spirits who are\nalready in the next world. It is not very uncommon for dying persons to\nsay, or to indicate when beyond speech, that they see spirit friends\napparently near them. But, of course, such vision becomes evidential\nonly when the dying person is unaware that the friend whose spirit he\nsees has actually departed, or is just about to depart, from earth. Such\na conjuncture must plainly be rare; it is even rather surprising that\nthese \"Peak in Darien\" cases, as Miss Cobbe has termed them in a small\ncollection which she made some years ago, should be found at all. We can\nadd to Miss Cobbe's cases two of fair attestation. (_Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. iii. p. 93, and vol. xiv. p. 288 [718 A and B]).\n\nFrom this last group, then, there is scarcely a noticeable transition to\nthe group where departed spirits manifest their knowledge that some\nfriend who survived them has now passed on into their world. That such\nrecognition and welcome does in fact take place, later evidence, drawn\nespecially from trance-utterances, will give good ground to believe.\nOnly rarely, however, will such welcome--taking place as it does in the\nspiritual world--be reflected by apparitions in _this_. When so\nreflected, it may take different forms, from an actual utterance of\nsympathy, as from a known departed friend, down to a mere silent\npresence, perhaps inexplicable except to those who happen to have known\nsome long predeceased friend of the decedent's.\n\nI quote in Appendix VII. C one of the most complete cases of this type,\nwhich was brought to us by the Census of Hallucinations.\n\nThere are other cases more or less analogous to this. In one[143] the\napparition of a dying mother brings the news of her own death and that\nher baby is living. In another[144] a mother sees a vision of her son\nbeing drowned and also an apparition of her own dead mother, who tells\nher of the drowning. In this case, the question may be raised as to\nwhether the second figure seen may not have been, so to say,\n_substitutive_--a symbol in which the percipient's own mind clothed a\ntelepathic impression of the actual decedent's passage from earth. Such\na view might perhaps be supported by some anomalous cases where news of\nthe death is brought by the apparition of a person still living, who,\nnevertheless, is not by any normal means aware of the death. (See the\ncase of Mrs. T., already given in Appendix IV. E.)\n\nBut such an explanation is not always possible. In the case of Mrs.\nBacchus,[145] for instance, both the deceased person and the phantasmal\nfigure were previously unknown to the percipient. This case--the last\nwhich Edmund Gurney published--comes from an excellent witness. The\npsychical incident which it seems to imply, while very remote from\npopular notions, would be quite in accordance with the rest of our\npresent series. A lady dies; her husband in the spirit-world is moved by\nher arrival; and the direction thus given to his thought projects a\npicture of him, clothed as in the days when he lived with her, into\nvisibility in the house where her body is lying. We have thus a\ndream-like recurrence to earthly memories, prompted by a revival of\nthose memories which had taken place in the spiritual world. The case is\nmidway between a case of _welcome_ and a case of _haunting_.\n\nI now come to a considerable group of cases where the departed spirit\nshows a definite knowledge of some fact connected with his own\nearth-life, his death, or subsequent events connected with that death.\nThe knowledge of subsequent events, as of the spread of the news of his\ndeath, or as to the place of his burial, is, of course, a greater\nachievement (so to term it) than a mere recollection of facts known to\nhim in life, and ought strictly, on the plan of this series, to be first\nillustrated. But it will be seen that all these stages of knowledge\ncohere together; and their connection can better be shown if I begin at\nthe lower stage,--of mere earth-memory. Now here again, as so often\nalready, we shall have to wait for automatic script and the like to\nillustrate the full extent of the deceased person's possible memory.\nReaders of the utterances, for instance, of \"George Pelham\" (see\nChapter IX.) will know how full and accurate may be these recollections\nfrom beyond the grave. Mere apparitions, such as those with which we are\nnow dealing, can rarely give more than one brief message, probably felt\nby the deceased to be of urgent importance.\n\nA well-attested case where the information communicated in a vision\nproved to be definite, accurate, and important to the survivors is given\nin Appendix VII. D. In the same Appendix another case in this group is\nalso quoted. It illustrates the fact that the cases of deepest interest\nare often the hardest for the inquirer to get hold of.\n\nIn this connection I may refer again to Mrs. Storie's dream of the death\nof her brother in a railway accident, given in Chapter IV. While I think\nthat Gurney was right--in the state of the evidence at the time\n_Phantasms of the Living_ was written--in doing his best to bring this\nincident under the head of telepathic clairvoyance, I yet feel that the\nknowledge since gained makes it impossible for me to adhere to that\nview. I cannot regard the visionary scene as wholly reflected from the\nmind of the dying man. I cannot think, in the first place, that the\nvision of Mr. Johnstone--interpolated with seeming irrelevance among the\ndetails of the disaster--did only by accident coincide with the fact\nthat that gentleman really _was_ in the train, and with the further fact\nthat it was _he_ who communicated the fact of Mr. Hunter's death to Mr.\nand Mrs. Stone. I must suppose that the communicating intelligence was\naware of Mr. Johnstone's presence, and at least guessed that upon him\n(as a clergyman) that task would naturally fall. Nor can I pass over as\npurely symbolic so important a part of the vision as the _second\nfigure_, and the scrap of conversation, which seemed to be half heard. I\ntherefore consider that the case falls among those where a friend\nrecently departed appears in company of some other friend, dead some\ntime before.\n\nWe have thus seen the spirit occupied shortly after death with various\nduties or engagements, small or great, which it has incurred during life\non earth. Such ties seem to prompt or aid its action upon its old\nsurroundings. And here an important reflection occurs. Can we _prepare_\nsuch a tie for the departing spirit? Can we create for it some welcome\nand helpful train of association which may facilitate the\nself-manifestation which many souls appear to desire? I believe that we\ncan to some extent do this. At an early stage of our collection, Edmund\nGurney was struck by the unexpectedly large proportion of cases where\nthe percipient informed us that there had been a _compact_ between\nhimself and the deceased person that whichever passed away first should\ntry to appear to the other. \"Considering,\" he adds, \"what an extremely\nsmall number of persons make such a compact, compared with those who do\nnot, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that its existence has a\ncertain efficacy.\"\n\nLet us now review the compact-cases given in _Phantasms of the Living_\nand consider how far they seem to indicate _ante-mortem_ or\n_post-mortem_ communication. The twelve cases there recorded are such as\nfell, or may have fallen, within twelve hours of the death. In three of\nthese cases, the agent whose phantasm appeared was certainly still\nalive. In most of the other cases the exact time relation is obscure; in\na few of them there is strong probability that the agent was already\ndead. The inference will be that the existence of a promise or compact\nmay act effectively both on the subliminal self before death and also\nprobably on the spirit after death.\n\nThis conclusion is confirmed by several other cases, one of which is\ngiven in Appendix VII. E. This case suggests an important practical\nreflection. When a compact to appear, if possible, after death is made,\nit should be understood that the appearance need not be to the special\npartner in the compact, but to any one whom the agent can succeed in\nimpressing. It is likely enough that many such attempts, which have\nfaded on account of the surviving friend's lack of appropriate\nsensitivity, might have succeeded if the agent had tried to influence\nsome one already known to be capable of receiving these\nimpressions.[146] There is a case given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v.\np. 440, in which a lady, having made a compact with her husband and also\nwith a friend, her phantom is seen after her death by her husband and\ndaughter and the latter's nurse, collectively; but not by the friend,\nwho was living elsewhere.\n\nAgain, we cannot tell how long the spirit may continue the effort, or,\nso to say, renew the experiment. In a case recorded in _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. x. p. 378, the compact is fulfilled after a space of five\nyears. In another case,[147] there had been no formal compact; but there\nis an attempt to express gratitude on an anniversary of death; and this\nimplies the same kind of mindful effort as the fulfilment of a definite\npromise.\n\nI have now traced certain _post-mortem_ manifestations which reveal a\nrecollection of events known at death, and also a persistence of purpose\nin carrying out intentions formed before death. In this next group I\nshall trace the knowledge of the departed a little further, and shall\ndiscuss some cases where they appear cognisant of the aspect of their\nbodies after death, or of the scenes in which those bodies are\ntemporarily deposited or finally laid. Such knowledge may appear\ntrivial,--unworthy the attention of spirits transported into a higher\nworld. But it is in accordance with the view of a gradual transference\nof interests and perceptions,--a period of intermediate confusion, such\nas may follow especially upon a death of a sudden or violent kind, or\nperhaps upon a death which interrupts very strong affections.\n\nThus we have already (Appendix VII. B) encountered one striking case of\nthis type,--the _scratch on the cheek_, perceived by the departed\ndaughter, as we may conjecture, by reason of the close sympathy which\nunited her to the mother who was caring for her remains.\n\nThere are also two cases closely resembling each other, though from\npercipients in widely different parts of the world, where a clairvoyant\nvision seems to be presented of a tranquil death-chamber. In that of Mr.\nHector of Valencia, South Australia (see _Phantasms of the Living_, vol.\ni. p. 353), the percipient sees in a dream his father dying in the room\nhe usually occupied, with a candle burning on a chair by his bed; and\nthe father is found dead in the morning, with a candle by his bedside in\nthe position seen in the dream. There is not, however, in this case any\nsure indication that the dead or dying person was cognisant of his own\nbody's aspect or surroundings. There may have been a clairvoyant\nexcursion on the percipient's part, evoked by some impulse from the\nagent which did not itself develop into distinctness.[148]\n\nBut in certain cases of violent death there seems to have been an\nintention on the deceased person's part to show the condition in which\nhis body is left. Such was Mrs. Storie's dream, or rather series of\nvisions referred to earlier in this chapter. Such are the cases given in\n_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 365 [429 A], and _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. iii. (1885) p. 95 [\u00a7 730]. Here, too, may be placed two\ncases--those of Dr. Bruce (in Appendix IV. D) and Miss Hall (_Journal_\nS.P.R., vol. vii. p. 173 [731 A])--where there are _successive_ pictures\nof a death and the subsequent arrangement of the body. The _milieux_ of\nthe percipients, the nature of the deaths, are here again totally\ndisparate; yet we seem to see the same unknown laws producing effects\nclosely similar.\n\nIn Dr. Bruce's case one might interpret the visions as coming to the\npercipient through the mind of his wife, who was present at the scene of\nthe murder. But this explanation would be impossible in Miss Hall's\ncase. Rather it seems as though some telepathic link, set up between the\ndying brother and the sister, had been maintained after death until all\nduties had been fulfilled to the departed. The case reminds one of the\nold Homeric notions of the restless appeal of unburied comrades.\n\nIn the case of Mrs. Green (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 420 [429\nD]), we come across an interesting problem. Two women are drowned under\nvery peculiar circumstances. A friend has apparently a clairvoyant\nvision of the scene, yet not at the moment when it occurred, but many\nhours afterwards, and about the time when another person, deeply\ninterested, heard of the death. It is therefore possible to suppose that\nthe apparently clairvoyant scene was in reality impressed telepathically\non the percipient by another living mind. I think, however, that both\nthe nature of the vision and certain analogies, which will appear later\nin our argument, point to a different view, involving an agency both of\nthe dead and of the living. I conjecture that a current of influence may\nbe started by a deceased person, which, however, only becomes strong\nenough to be perceptible to its object when reinforced by some vivid\ncurrent of emotion arising in living minds. I do not say that this is\nyet provable; yet the hint may be of value when the far-reaching\ninterdependencies of telepathy between the two worlds come to be better\nunderstood.\n\nTwo singular cases in this group remain, where the departed spirit, long\nafter death, seems preoccupied with the spot where his bones are laid.\nThe first of these cases (_Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 230 [733 A])\napproaches farce; the second (in which the skeleton of a man who had\nprobably been murdered about forty years before was discovered by means\nof a dream; see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 35), stands alone\namong our narratives in the tragedy which follows on the communication.\nMr. Podmore in an article in the same volume (p. 303) suggests other\ntheories to account for this case without invoking the agency of the\ndead; but to me the least impossible explanation is still the notion\nthat the murdered man's dreams harked back after all those years to his\nremote unconsecrated grave. I may refer further to another case (in\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 155, footnote) where feelings of\nhorror and depression were constantly experienced in a room over which a\nbaby's body was afterwards found. This case makes, perhaps, for another\nexplanation--depending not so much on any _continued_ influence of the\ndeparted spirit as on some _persistent_ influence inhering in the bones\nthemselves--deposited under circumstances of terror or anguish, and\npossibly in some way still radiating a malignant memory. Bizarre as this\ninterpretation looks, we shall find some confirmation of such a\npossibility in our chapter on Possession. Yet another case belonging to\nthe same group (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 418) supplies a variant\non this view; suggesting, as Edward Gurney has remarked, the local\nimprintation of a tragic picture, by _whom_ and upon _what_ we cannot\ntell.\n\nI think it well to suggest even these wild conjectures; so long as they\nare understood to be conjectures and nothing more. I hold it probable\nthat those communications, of which telepathy from one spirit to another\nforms the most easily traceable variety, are in reality infinitely\nvaried and complex, and show themselves from time to time in forms which\nmust for long remain quite beyond our comprehension.\n\nThe next class of cases in this series well illustrates this\nunexpectedness. It has only been as the result of a gradual accumulation\nof concordant cases that I have come to believe there is some reality in\nthe bizarre supposition that the departed spirit is sometimes specially\naware of the tune at which news of his death is about to reach some\ngiven friend.[149] Proof of such knowledge on his part is rendered\nharder by the alternative possibility that the friend may by\nclairvoyance become aware of a letter in his own proximity. As was shown\nin _Phantasms of the Living_, there is some evidence for such\nclairvoyance even in cases where the letter seen is quite unimportant.\n\nAgain, there are cases where the percipient states that a cloud of\nunreasonable depression fell upon him about the time of his friend's\ndeath at a distance, and continued until the actual news arrived; when,\ninstead of becoming intensified, it lifted suddenly. In one or two such\ncases there was an actual presence or apparition, which seemed to hang\nabout until the news arrived, and then disappeared. Or, on the other\nhand, there is sometimes a happy vision of the departed preluding the\nnews, as though to prepare the percipient's mind for the shock\n(_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 90 [735 A]). The suggested inference\nis that in such cases the spirit's attention is more or less\ncontinuously directed to the survivor until the news reaches him. This\ndoes not, of course, explain how the spirit learns as to the arrival of\nthe news; yet it makes that piece of knowledge seem a less isolated\nthing.\n\nHaving thus referred to a number of cases where the apparition shows\nvarying degrees of knowledge or memory, I pass on to the somewhat\ncommoner type, where the apparition lacks the power or the impulse to\ncommunicate any message much more definite than that all-important\none--of his own continued life and love. These cases, nevertheless,\nmight be subdivided on many lines. Each apparition, even though it be\nmomentary, is a phenomenon complex in more ways than our minds can\nfollow. We must look for some broad line of demarcation, which may apply\nto a great many different incidents, while continuing to some extent\nthe series which we have already been descending--from knowledge and\npurpose on the deceased person's part down to vagueness and apparent\nautomatism.\n\nSuch a division--gradual, indeed, but for that very reason the more\ninstructive--exists between _personal_ and _local_ apparitions; between\nmanifestations plainly intended to impress the minds of certain definite\nsurvivors and manifestations in accustomed haunts, some of which,\nindeed, may be destined to impress survivors, but which degenerate and\ndisintegrate into sights and sounds too meaningless to prove either\npurpose or intelligence.\n\nLet us look, then, for these characteristics, not expecting, of course,\nthat our series will be logically simple; for it must often happen that\nthe personal and local impulses will be indistinguishable, as when the\ndesired percipient is inhabiting the familiar home. But we may begin\nwith some cases where the apparition has shown itself in some scene\naltogether strange to the deceased person.\n\nWe have had, of course, some cases of this type already. Such was the\ncase of the apparition with the _red scratch_ (Appendix VII. B); such\ntoo was the apparition in the Countess Kapnist's carriage (Appendix VII.\nE). Such cases, indeed, occur most frequently--and this fact is itself\nsignificant--among the higher and more developed forms of manifestation.\nAmong the briefer, less-developed apparitions with which we have now to\ndeal, invasions by the phantasm of quite unknown territory are\nrelatively few. I will begin by referring to a curious case, where the\nimpression given is that of a spiritual presence which seeks and finds\nthe percipient, but is itself too confused for coherent communication\n(Mrs. Lightfoot's case, _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 453 [429\nB]). It will be seen that this narrative is thoroughly in accordance\nwith previous indications of a state of posthumous _bewilderment_\nsupervening before the spirit has adjusted its perceptions to the new\nenvironment.\n\nIn cases like Mrs. Lightfoot's, where the percipient's surroundings are\nunknown to the deceased person, and especially in cases where the\nintimation of a death reaches the percipient when _at sea_, there is\nplainly nothing except the percipient's own personality to guide the\nspirit in his search. We have several narratives of this type. In one of\nthese--Archdeacon Farler's, already referred to (p. 227), the apparition\nappears _twice_, the second appearance at least being subsequent to the\ndeath. It is plain that if in such a case the _second_ apparition\nconveys no fresh intelligence, we cannot prove that it is more than a\nsubjective recrudescence of the _first_. Yet analogy is in favour of\nits veridical character, since we have cases where successive\nmanifestations _do_ bring fresh knowledge, and seem to show a continued\neffort to communicate.[150]\n\nThen, again, there are _auditory_ cases where the phantasmal speech has\noccurred in places not known to the deceased person. (_Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. iii. p. 90, and vol. v. p. 455.)\n\nOne specially impressive characteristic of apparitions (as has been\nalready remarked) is their occasional _collectivity_--the fact that more\npercipients than one sometimes see or hear the phantasmal figure or\nvoice simultaneously. When one is considering the gradual decline in\ndefiniteness and apparent purpose from one group of apparitions to\nanother, it is natural to ask whether this characteristic--in my view so\nimportant--is found to accompany especially the higher, more intelligent\nmanifestations.\n\nI cannot find that this is so. On the contrary, it is, I think, in cases\nof mere _haunting_ that we oftenest find that the figure is seen by\nseveral persons at once, or else (a cognate phenomenon) by several\npersons successively. I know not how to explain this apparent tendency.\nCould we admit the underlying assumptions, it would suit the view that\nthe \"haunting\" spirits are \"earthbound,\" and thus somehow nearer to\nmatter than spirits more exalted. Yet instances of collectivity are\nscattered through all classes of apparitions; and the irregular\nappearance of a characteristic which seems to us so fundamental affords\nanother lesson how great may be the variety of inward mechanism in cases\nwhich to us might seem constructed on much the same type.\n\nI pass on to a group of cases which are both personal and local;\nalthough the personal element in most of them--the desire to manifest to\nthe friend--may seem more important than the local element--the impulse\nto revisit some accustomed haunt.\n\nIn the case which I shall now cite the deceased person's image is seen\nsimultaneously by several members of his own household, in his own\nhouse. Note the analogy to a collective crystal vision.[151]\n\nThe account is taken from _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 213. It\nis given by Mr. Charles A. W. Lett, of the Military and Royal Naval\nClub, Albemarle Street, W.\n\n\n_December 3rd, 1885._\n\n     On the 5th April 1873 my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at his\n     residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sidney, N. S. Wales. About six\n     weeks after his death my wife had occasion, one evening about nine\n     o'clock, to go to one of the bedrooms in the house. She was\n     accompanied by a young lady, Miss Berthon, and as they entered the\n     room--the gas was burning all the time--they were amazed to see,\n     reflected as it were on the polished surface of the wardrobe, the\n     image of Captain Towns. It was barely half figure, the head,\n     shoulders, and part of the arms only showing--in fact, it was like\n     an ordinary medallion portrait, but life-size. The face appeared\n     wan and pale, as it did before his death, and he wore a kind of\n     grey flannel jacket, in which he had been accustomed to sleep.\n     Surprised and half alarmed at what they saw, their first idea was\n     that a portrait had been hung in the room, and that what they saw\n     was its reflection; but there was no picture of the kind.\n\n     Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss\n     Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had time\n     to speak she exclaimed, \"Good gracious! Do you see papa?\" One of\n     the housemaids happened to be passing downstairs at the moment, and\n     she was called in, and asked if she saw anything, and her reply\n     was, \"Oh, miss! the master.\" Graham--Captain Towns' old body\n     servant--was then sent for, and he also immediately exclaimed, \"Oh,\n     Lord save us! Mrs. Lett, it's the Captain!\" The butler was called,\n     and then Mrs. Crane, my wife's nurse, and they both said what they\n     saw. Finally, Mrs. Towns was sent for, and, seeing the apparition,\n     she advanced towards it with her arm extended as if to touch it,\n     and as she passed her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the\n     figure gradually faded away, and never again appeared, though the\n     room was regularly occupied for a long time after.\n\n     These are the simple facts of the case, and they admit of no doubt;\n     no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses; the same\n     question was put to each one as they came into the room, and the\n     reply was given without hesitation by each. It was by the merest\n     accident that I did not see the apparition. I was in the house at\n     the time, but did not hear when I was called.\n\nC. A. W. LETT.\n\n     We, the undersigned, having read the above statement, certify that\n     it is strictly accurate, as we both were witnesses of the\n     apparition.\n\nSARA LETT.\nSIBBIE SMYTH (_nee_ TOWNS).\n\nGurney writes:--\n\n     Mrs. Lett assures me that neither she nor her sister ever\n     experienced a hallucination of the senses on any other occasion.\n     She is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part\n     of each of the later witnesses was _independent_, and not due to\n     any suggestion from the persons already in the room.\n\nThere is another collective case which is noticeable from the fact that\nthe departed spirit appears to influence two persons at a distance from\neach other in a concordant way, so that one of them becomes conscious of\nthe appearance to the other.[152] Compare with this the incident given\nat the end of Appendix VII. G, when Miss Campbell has a vision of her\nfriend seeing an apparition at a time when this is actually\noccurring.[153]\n\nThe case given in Appendix VII. F--which comes from excellent\ninformants--is one of those which correspond most nearly to what one\nwould _desire_ in a posthumous message. I may refer also to General\nCampbell's case (in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 476) in which a\nlong continued series of unaccountable noises and an apparition twice\nseen by a child in the house suggested to the narrator the agency of his\ndead wife. The case, which depends for its evidential force on a great\nmass of detail, is too long for me to quote; but it is worth study, as\nis any case where there seems evidence of persistent effort to manifest,\nmeeting with one knows not what difficulty. It may be that in such a\nstory there is nothing but strange coincidence, or it may be that from\nrecords of partially successful effort, renewed often and in ambiguous\nways, we shall hereafter learn something of the nature of that curtain\nof obstruction which now seems so arbitrary in its sudden lifting, its\nsudden fall.\n\nI will conclude this group by referring the reader to three cases\nclosely similar, all well attested, and all of them capable of\nexplanation either on local or personal grounds. In the first\n(_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 619 [744 A]) an apparition is\nseen by two persons in a house in Edinburgh, a few hours before the\ndeath of a lady who had lived there, and whose body was to be brought\nback to it. In the second (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 57 [744 B])\nthe dead librarian haunts his library, but in the library are members of\nhis old staff. In the third (_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 212\n[\u00a7 744]), the dead wife loiters round her husband's tomb, but near it\npasses a gardener who had been in her employ.\n\nIn this last case the apparition was seen about seven and a half hours\nafter the death. This, as Gurney remarked, makes it still more difficult\nto regard the case as a telepathic impression transmitted at the moment\nof death, and remaining latent in the mind of the percipient. The\nincident suggests rather that Bard, the gardener, had come upon Mrs. de\nFr\u00e9ville's spirit, so to say, unawares. One cannot imagine that she\nspecially wished him to see her, and to see her engaged in what seems so\nneedless and undignified a retracing of currents of earthly thought.\nRather this seems a rudimentary _haunting_--an incipient lapse into\nthose aimless, perhaps unconscious, reappearances in familiar spots\nwhich may persist (as it would seem) for many years after death.\n\nA somewhat similar case is that of Colonel Crealock (in _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. v. p. 432) where a soldier who had been dead some hours was\nseen by his superior officer in camp at night rolling up and taking away\nhis bed.\n\nIt is, indeed, mainly by dwelling on these intermediate cases, between a\nmessage-bringing apparition and a purposeless haunt, that we have most\nhope of understanding the typical haunt which, while it has been in a\nsense the most popular of all our phenomena, is yet to the careful\ninquirer one of the least satisfactory. One main evidential difficulty\ngenerally lies in identifying the haunting figure, in finding anything\nto connect the history of the house with the vague and often various\nsights and sounds which perplex or terrify its flesh and blood\ninhabitants. We must, at any rate, rid ourselves of the notion that some\ngreat crime or catastrophe is always to be sought as the groundwork of a\nhaunt of this kind. To that negative conclusion our cases concordantly\npoint us.[154] The apparition is most often seen by a stranger, several\nmonths after the death, with no apparent reason for its appearance at\nthat special time. This last point is of interest in considering the\nquestion whether the hallucinatory picture could have been projected\nfrom any still incarnate mind. In one case--the vision of the Bishop of\nSt. Brieuc (given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 460), there _was_\nsuch a special reason--the Bishop's body, unknown to the percipient, was\nat that moment being buried at the distance of a few miles. Mr. Podmore\nsuggests (_op. cit._, vol. vi. p. 301) that it was from the minds of the\nliving mourners that the Bishop's phantasm was generated. That\nhypothesis may have its portion of truth; the surrounding emotion may\nhave been one of the factors which made the apparition possible. But the\nassumption that it was the only admissible factor--that the departed\nBishop's own possible agency must be set aside altogether--lands us, I\nthink, in difficulties greater than those which we should thus escape.\nThe reader who tries to apply it to the apparitions quoted in my earlier\ngroups will find himself in a labyrinth of complexity. Still more will\nthis be the case in dealing with the far fuller and more explicit\n_motor___ communications, by automatic writing or speech, which we shall\nhave to discuss in the two next chapters. Unless the actual evidence be\ndisallowed in a wholesale manner, we shall be forced, I think, to admit\nthe continued action of the departed as a main element in these\napparitions.\n\nI do not say as the _only_ element. I myself hold, as already implied,\nthat the thought and emotion of living persons does largely intervene,\nas aiding or conditioning the independent action of the departed. I even\nbelieve that it is possible that, say, an intense fixation of my own\nmind on a departed spirit may aid that spirit to manifest at a special\nmoment--and not even to me, but to a percipient more sensitive than\nmyself. In the boundless ocean of mind innumerable currents and tides\nshift with the shifting emotion of each several soul.\n\nBut now we are confronted by another possible element in these vaguer\nclasses of apparitions, harder to evaluate even than the possible action\nof incarnate minds. I mean the possible _results_ of past mental action,\nwhich, for aught we know, may persist in some perceptible manner,\nwithout fresh reinforcement, just as the results of past bodily action\npersist. This question leads to the still wider question of\n_retrocognition_, and of the relation of psychical phenomena to _time_\ngenerally--a problem whose discussion cannot be attempted here.[155] Yet\nwe must remember that such possibilities exist; they may explain certain\nphenomena into which little of fresh intelligence seems to enter, as,\nfor instance, the alleged persistence, perhaps for years, of meaningless\nsounds in a particular room or house.\n\nAnd since we are coming now to cases into which this element of\nmeaningless sound will enter largely, it seems right to begin their\ndiscussion with a small group of cases where there is evidence for the\ndefinite agency of some dying or deceased person in connection with\ninarticulate sounds, or I should rather say of the _connection_ of some\ndeceased person with the sounds; since the best explanation may perhaps\nbe that they are _sounds of welcome_--before or after actual\ndeath--corresponding to those _apparitions of welcome_ of which we have\nalready had specimens. One of our cases (see _Phantasms of the Living_,\nvol. ii. p. 639 [\u00a7 747]) is remarkable in that the auditory\nhallucination--a sound as of female voices gently singing--was heard by\nfive persons, by four of them, as it seems, independently, and in two\nplaces, on different sides of the house. At the same time, one\nperson--the Eton master whose mother had just died, and who was\ntherefore presumably in a frame of mind more prone to hallucination than\nthe physician, matron, friend, or servants who actually did hear the\nsinging--himself heard nothing at all. In this case the physician felt\nno doubt that Mrs. L. was actually dead; and in fact it was during the\nlaying out of the body that the sounds occurred.\n\nI have already discussed (Chapter VI.) the nature of these phantasmal\nsounds;--nor is it contrary to our analogies that the person most deeply\nconcerned in the death should in this case fail to hear them. But the\npoint on which I would here lay stress is that phantasmal sounds--even\nnon-articulate sounds--may be as clear a manifestation of personality as\nphantasmal figures. Among non-articulate noises music is, of course, the\nmost pleasing; but sounds, for instance, which imitate the work of a\ncarpenter's shop, may be equally human and intelligent. In some of the\ncases of this class we see apparent attempts of various kinds to\nsimulate sounds such as men and women--or manufactured, as opposed to\nnatural, objects--are accustomed to produce. To claim this humanity, to\nindicate this intelligence, seems the only motive of sounds of this\nkind.[156]\n\nThese sounds, in their rudimentary attempt at showing intelligence, are\nabout on a level with the exploits of the \"Poltergeist,\" where coals are\nthrown about, water spilt, and so forth. Poltergeist phenomena, however,\nseldom coincide with the ordinary phenomena of a haunt. We have one\nremarkable case (_Journal_ S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 280-84 [868 B]) where\nPoltergeist phenomena coincide with a death, and a few cases where they\nare supposed to follow on a death; but, as a rule, where figures appear\nthere are no movements; and where there are movements no apparition is\nseen. If alleged Poltergeist phenomena are always fraudulent, there\nwould be nothing to be surprised at here. If, as I suspect, they are\nsometimes genuine, their dissociation from visual hallucinations may\nsometimes afford us a hint of value.\n\nBut after Poltergeists have been set aside,--after a severe line has\nbeen drawn excluding all those cases (in themselves singular enough)\nwhere the main phenomena observed consist of non-articulate\nsounds,--there remains a great mass of evidence to haunting,--that is,\nbroadly speaking, to the fact that there are many houses in which more\nthan one person has independently seen phantasmal figures, which\nusually, though not always, bear at least some resemblance to each\nother.[157] The facts thus baldly stated are beyond dispute. Their true\ninterpretation is a very difficult matter. Mrs. Sidgwick gives four\nhypotheses, which I must quote at length as the first serious attempt\never made (so far as I know) to collect and face the difficulties of\nthis problem, so often, but so loosely, discussed through all historical\ntimes. (From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 146-8.)\n\n\"I will, therefore, proceed briefly to state and discuss the only four\ntheories that have occurred to me.\n\n\"The two which I will take first in order assume that the apparitions\nare due to the agency or presence of the spirits of deceased men.\n\n\"There is first the popular view, that the apparition is something\nbelonging to the external world--that, like ordinary matter, it occupies\nand moves through space, and would be in the room whether the percipient\nwere there to see it or not. This hypothesis involves us in many\ndifficulties, of which one serious one--that of accounting for the\nclothes of the ghost--has often been urged, and never, I think,\nsatisfactorily answered. Nevertheless, I am bound to admit that there is\nsome little evidence tending to suggest this theory. For instance, in\nthe account,[158] of which I have given an abstract, of the weeping lady\nwho has appeared so frequently in a certain house, the following passage\noccurs:--'They went after it (the figure) together into the\ndrawing-room; it then came out, and went down the aforesaid passage\n(leading to the kitchen), but was the next minute seen by another Miss\n[M.] ... come up the outside steps from the kitchen. On this particular\nday, Captain [M.'s] married daughter happened to be at an upstairs\nwindow ... and independently saw the figure continue her course across\nthe lawn and into the orchard.' A considerable amount of clear evidence\nto the appearance of ghosts to independent observers in successive\npoints in space would certainly afford a strong argument for their\nhaving a definite relation to space; but in estimating evidence of this\nkind it would be necessary to know how far the observer's attention had\nbeen drawn to the point in question. If it had been a real woman whom\nthe Miss [M.'s] were observing, we should have inferred, with perfect\ncertainty, from our knowledge that she could not be in two places at\nonce, that she had been successively, in a certain order, in the places\nwhere she was seen by the three observers. If they had noted the moments\nat which they saw her, and comparing notes afterwards, found that\naccording to these notes they had all seen her at the same time, or in\nsome other order to that inferred, we should still feel absolute\nconfidence in our inference, and should conclude that there must be\nsomething wrong about the watches or the notes. From association of\nideas, it would be perfectly natural to make the same inference in the\ncase of a ghost which looks exactly like a woman. But in the case of the\nghost the inference would not be legitimate, because, unless the\nparticular theory of ghosts which we are discussing be true, there is no\nreason, so far as we know, why it should not appear in two or more\nplaces at once. Hence, in the case of the ghost, a well-founded\nassurance that the appearances were successive would require a careful\nobservation of the times, which, so far as I know, has never been made.\nOn the whole, therefore, I must dismiss the popular theory as not\nhaving, in my opinion, even a _prim\u00e2 facie_ ground for serious\nconsideration.\n\n\"The theory that I will next examine seems to me decidedly more\nplausible, from its analogy to the conclusion to which I am brought by\nthe examination of the evidence for phantasms of the living. This theory\nis that the apparition has no real relation to the external world, but\nis a hallucination caused in some way by some communication, without the\nintervention of the senses, between the disembodied spirit and the\npercipient, its form depending on the mind either of the spirit or of\nthe percipient, or of both. In the case of haunted houses, however, a\ndifficulty meets us that we do not encounter, or at least rarely\nencounter, in applying a similar hypothesis to explain phantasms of the\nliving, or phantasms of the dead other than fixed local ghosts. In these\ncases we have generally to suppose a simple _rapport_ between mind and\nmind, but in a haunted house we have a _rapport_ complicated by its\napparent dependence on locality. It seems necessary to make the\nimprobable assumption, that the spirit is interested in an entirely\nspecial way in a particular house (though possibly this interest may be\nof a subconscious kind), and that his interest in it puts him into\nconnection with another mind, occupied with it in the way that that of a\nliving person actually there must consciously or unconsciously be, while\nhe does not get into similar communication with the same, or with other\npersons elsewhere.\n\n\"If, notwithstanding these difficulties, it be true that haunting is due\nin any way to the agency of deceased persons, and conveys a definite\nidea of them to the percipients through the resemblance to them of the\napparition, then, by patiently continuing our investigations, we may\nexpect, sooner or later, to obtain a sufficient amount of evidence to\nconnect clearly the commencement of hauntings with the death of\nparticular persons, and to establish clearly the likeness of the\napparition to those persons. The fact that almost everybody is now\nphotographed ought to be of material assistance in obtaining evidence of\nthis latter kind.\n\n\"My third theory dispenses with the agency of disembodied spirits, but\ninvolves us in other and perhaps equally great improbabilities. It is\nthat the first appearance is a purely subjective hallucination, and that\nthe subsequent similar appearances, both to the original percipient and\nto others, are the result of the first appearance; unconscious\nexpectancy causing them in the case of the original percipient, and some\nsort of telepathic communication from the original percipient in the\ncase of others. In fact, it assumes that a tendency to a particular\nhallucination is in a way infectious. If this theory be true, I should\nexpect to find that the apparently independent appearances after the\nfirst depended on the percipient's having had some sort of intercourse\nwith some one who had seen the ghost before, and that any decided\ndiscontinuity of occupancy would stop the haunting. I should also expect\nto find, as we do in one of the cases I have quoted, that sometimes the\nsupposed ghost would follow the family from one abode to another,\nappearing to haunt them rather than any particular house.\n\n\"The fourth theory that I shall mention is one which I can hardly expect\nto appear plausible, and which, therefore, I only introduce because I\nthink that it corresponds best to a certain part of the evidence;--and,\nas I have already said, considering the altogether tentative way in\nwhich we are inevitably dealing with this obscure subject, it is as well\nto express definitely every hypothesis which an impartial consideration\nof the facts suggests. It is that there is something in the actual\nbuilding itself--some subtle physical influence--which produces in the\nbrain that effect which, in its turn, becomes the cause of a\nhallucination. It is certainly difficult on this hypothesis alone to\nsuppose that the hallucinations of different people would be similar,\nbut we might account for this by a combination of this hypothesis and\nthe last. The idea is suggested by the case, of which I have given an\nabstract, where the haunting continued through more than one occupancy,\nbut changed its character; and if there be any truth in the theory, I\nshould expect in time to obtain a good deal more evidence of this kind,\ncombined with evidence that the same persons do not as a rule encounter\nghosts elsewhere. I should also expect evidence to be forthcoming\nsupporting the popular idea that repairs and alterations of the building\nsometimes cause the haunting to cease.\"[159]\n\nThese hypotheses--none of which, as Mrs. Sidgwick expressly states (_op.\ncit._, p. 145), seemed to herself satisfactory--did nevertheless, I\nthink, comprise all the deductions which could reasonably be made from\nthe evidence as it at that time stood. A few modifications, which the\nexperience of subsequent years has led me to introduce, can hardly be\nsaid to afford further _explanation_, although they state the\ndifficulties in what now seems to me a more hopeful way.\n\nIn the first place then--as already explained in Chapter VI.--I in some\nsense fuse into one Mrs. Sidgwick's two first hypotheses by my own\nhypothesis of actual presence, actual spatial changes induced in the\nmetetherial, but not in the material world. I hold that when the\nphantasm is discerned by more than one person at once (and on some\nother, but not all other occasions) it is actually effecting a change in\nthat portion of space where it is perceived, although not, as a rule, in\nthe matter which occupies that place. It is, therefore, not optically\nnor acoustically perceived; perhaps no rays of light are reflected nor\nwaves of air set in motion; but an unknown form of supernormal\nperception, not necessarily acting through the sensory end-organs, comes\ninto play. In the next place, I am inclined to lay stress on the\nparallel between these narratives of haunting and those phantasms of the\nliving which I have already classed as _psychorrhagic_. In each case,\nas it seems to me, there is an involuntary detachment of some element of\nthe spirit, probably with no knowledge thereof at the main centre of\nconsciousness. Those \"haunts by the living,\" as they may be called,\nwhere, for instance, a man is seen phantasmally standing before his own\nfireplace, seem to me to be repeated, perhaps more readily, after the\nspirit is freed from the flesh.\n\nAgain, I think that the curious question as to the influence of certain\n_houses_ in generating apparitions may be included under the broader\nheading of Retrocognition. That is to say, we are not here dealing with\na special condition of certain houses, but with a branch of the wide\nproblem as to the relation of supernormal phenomena to _time_.\nManifestations which occur in haunted houses depend, let us say, on\nsomething which has taken place a long time ago. In what way do they\ndepend on that past event? Are they a sequel, or only a residue? Is\nthere fresh operation going on, or only fresh perception of something\nalready accomplished? Or can we in such a case draw any real distinction\nbetween a continued action and a continued perception of a past action?\nThe closest parallel, as it seems to me, although not at first sight an\nobvious one, lies between these phenomena of haunting, these persistent\nsights and sounds, and certain phenomena of crystal-vision and of\nautomatic script, which also seem to depend somehow upon long-past\nevents,--to be their sequel or their residue. One specimen case I give\nin Appendix (VII. G), where the connection of the haunting apparition\nwith a certain person long deceased may be maintained with more than\nusual plausibility. From that level the traceable connections get weaker\nand weaker, until we come to phantasmal scenes where there is no longer\nany even apparent claim to the contemporary agency of human spirits.\nSuch a vision, for instance, as that of a line of spectral deer crossing\na ford, may indeed, if seen in the same place by several independent\nobservers, be held to be something more than a mere subjective fancy;\nbut what in reality such a picture signifies is a question which brings\nus at once to theories of the permanence or simultaneity of all\nphenomena in a timeless Universal Soul.\n\nSuch conceptions, however difficult, are among the highest to which our\nmind can reach. Could we approach them more nearly, they might deeply\ninfluence our view, even of our own remote individual destiny. So,\nperhaps, shall it some day be; at present we may be well satisfied if we\ncan push our knowledge of that destiny one step further than of old,\neven just behind that veil which has so long hung impenetrably before\nthe eyes of men.\n\nHere, then, is a natural place of pause in our inquiry.\n\nThe discussion of the ethical aspect of these questions I have postponed\nto my concluding chapter. But one point already stands out from the\nevidence--at once so important and so manifest that it seems well to\ncall attention to it at once--as a solvent more potent than any\nLucretius could apply to human superstition and human fears.\n\nIn this long string of narratives, complex and bizarre though their\ndetails may be, we yet observe that the character of the appearance\nvaries in a definite manner with their distinctness and individuality.\nHaunting phantoms, incoherent and unintelligent, may seem restless and\nunhappy. But as they rise into definiteness, intelligence,\nindividuality, the phantoms rise also into love and joy. I cannot recall\none single case of a proved posthumous combination of intelligence with\nwickedness. Such evil as our evidence will show us--we have as yet\nhardly come across it in this book--is scarcely more than monkeyish\nmischief, childish folly. In dealing with automatic script, for\ninstance, we shall have to wonder whence come the occasional vulgar\njokes or silly mystifications. We shall discuss whether they are a kind\nof dream of the automatist's own, or whether they indicate the existence\nof unembodied intelligences on the level of the dog or the ape. But, on\nthe other hand, all that world-old conception of Evil Spirits, of\nmalevolent Powers, which has been the basis of so much of actual\ndevil-worship and of so much more of vague supernatural fear;--all this\ninsensibly melts from the mind as we study the evidence before us.\n\n    Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest\n    Non radii solis, neque lucida tela diei\n    Discutiant sed, natur\u00e6 species ratioque.\n\nHere surely is a fact of no little meaning. Our narratives have been\ncollected from men and women of many types, holding all varieties of\nordinary opinion. Yet the upshot of all these narratives is to emphasise\na point which profoundly differentiates the scientific from the\nsuperstitious view of spiritual phenomena. The terror which shaped\nprimitive theologies still tinges for the populace every hint of\nintercourse with disembodied souls. The transmutation of savage fear\ninto scientific curiosity is of the essence of civilisation. Towards\nthat transmutation each separate fragment of our evidence, with\nundesigned concordance, indisputably tends. In that faintly opening\nworld of spirit I can find nothing worse than living men; I seem to\ndiscern not an intensification but a disintegration of selfishness,\nmalevolence, pride. And is not this a natural result of any cosmic moral\nevolution? If the selfish man (as Marcus Antoninus has it) \"is a kind of\nboil or imposthume upon the universe,\" must not his egoistic impulses\nsuffer in that wider world a sure, even if a painful, decay; finding no\nsupport or sustenance among those permanent forces which maintain the\nstream of things?\n\nI have thus indicated one point of primary importance on which the\nundesignedly coincident testimony of hundreds of first-hand narratives\nsupports a conclusion, not yet popularly accepted, but in harmony with\nthe evolutionary conceptions which rule our modern thought. Nor does\nthis point stand alone. I can find, indeed, no guarantee of absolute and\nidle bliss; no triumph in any exclusive salvation. But the student of\nthese narratives will, I think, discover throughout them uncontradicted\nindications of the persistence of Love, the growth of Joy, the willing\nsubmission to Law.\n\nThese indications, no doubt, may seem weak and scattered la comparison\nwith the wholesale, thorough-going assertions of philosophical or\nreligious creeds. Their advantage is that they occur incidentally in the\ncourse of our independent and cumulative demonstration of the\nprofoundest cosmical thesis which we can at present conceive as\nsusceptible of any kind of scientific proof. Cosmical questions, indeed,\nthere may be which are in themselves of deeper import than our own\nsurvival of bodily death. The nature of the First Cause; the blind or\nthe providential ordering of the sum of things;--these are problems\nvaster than any which affect only the destinies of men. But to whatever\nmoral certainty we may attain on those mightiest questions, we can\ndevise no way whatever of bringing them to scientific test. They deal\nwith infinity; and our modes of investigation have grasp only on finite\nthings.\n\nBut the question of man's survival of death stands in a position\nuniquely intermediate between matters capable and matters incapable of\nproof. It is in itself a definite problem, admitting of conceivable\nproof which, even if not technically rigorous, might amply satisfy the\nscientific mind. And at the same time the conception which it involves\nis in itself a kind of avenue and inlet into infinity. Could a proof of\nour survival be obtained, it would carry us deeper into the true nature\nof the universe than we should be carried by an even perfect knowledge\nof the material scheme of things. It would carry us deeper both by\nachievement and by promise. The discovery that there was a life in man\nindependent of blood and brain would be a cardinal, a dominating fact in\nall science and in all philosophy. And the prospect thus opened to human\nknowledge, in this or in other worlds, would be limitless indeed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nMOTOR AUTOMATISM\n\n    [Greek: M\u00eaketi\n    monon sumpnein t\u00f4 periechonti aeri, all' h\u00ead\u00ea kai sumphronoin\n    t\u00f4 periechonti panta noer\u00f4.]\n\n    --MARCUS AURELIUS.\n\n\nAt this point, one may broadly say, we reach the end of the phenomena\nwhose existence is vaguely familiar to popular talk. And here, too, I\nmight fairly claim, the evidence for my primary thesis,--namely, that\nthe analysis of man's personality reveals him as a spirit, surviving\ndeath,--has attained an amplitude which would justify the reader in\naccepting that view as the provisional hypothesis which comes nearest to\na comprehensive co-ordination of the actual facts. What we have already\nrecounted seems, indeed, impossible to explain except by supposing that\nour inner vision has widened or deepened its purview so far as to attain\nsome glimpses of a spiritual world in which the individualities of our\ndeparted friends still actually subsist.\n\nThe reader, however, who has followed me thus far must be well aware\nthat a large class of phenomena, of high importance, is still awaiting\ndiscussion. _Motor_ automatisms,--though less familiar to the general\npublic than the phantasms which I have classed as _sensory_\nautomatisms,--are in fact even commoner, and even more significant.\n\nMotor automatisms, as I define them, are phenomena of very wide range.\nWe have encountered them already many times in this book. We met them in\nthe first place in a highly developed form in connection with multiplex\npersonality in Chapter II. Numerous instances were there given of motor\neffects, initiated by secondary selves without the knowledge of the\nprimary selves, or sometimes in spite of their actual resistance. All\nmotor action of a secondary self is an automatism in this sense, in\nrelation to the primary self. And of course we might by analogy extend\nthe use of the word still further, and might call not only\npost-epileptic acts, but also maniacal acts, automatic; since they are\nperformed without the initiation of the presumedly sane primary\npersonality. Those degenerative phenomena, indeed, are not to be\ndiscussed in this chapter. Yet it will be well to pause here long enough\nto make it clear to the reader just what motor automatisms I am about to\ndiscuss as _evolutive_ phenomena, and as therefore falling within the\nscope of this treatise;--and what kind of relation they bear to the\ndissolutive motor phenomena which occupy so much larger a place in\npopular knowledge.\n\nIn order to meet this last question, I must here give more distinct\nformulation to a thesis which has already suggested itself more than\nonce in dealing with special groups of our phenomena.\n\n_It may be expected that supernormal vital phenomena will manifest\nthemselves as far as possible through the same channels as abnormal or\nmorbid vital phenomena, when the same centres or the same synergies are\ninvolved._\n\nTo illustrate the meaning of this theorem, I may refer to a remark long\nago made by Edmund Gurney and myself in dealing with \"Phantasms of the\nLiving,\" or veridical hallucinations, generated (as we maintained), not\nby a morbid state of the percipient's brain, but by a telepathic impact\nfrom an agent at a distance. We observed that if a hallucination--a\nsubjective image--is to be excited by this distant energy, it will\nprobably be most readily excited in somewhat the same manner as the\nmorbid hallucination which follows on a cerebral injury. We urged that\nthis is _likely_ to be the case--we showed ground for supposing that it\n_is_ the case--both as regards the mode of evolution of the phantasm in\nthe percipient's brain, and the mode in which it seems to present itself\nto his senses.\n\nAnd here I should wish to give a much wider generality to this\nprinciple, and to argue that if there be within us a secondary self\naiming at manifestation by physiological means, it seems probable that\nits readiest _path of externalisation_--its readiest outlet of visible\naction--may often lie along some track which has already been shown to\nbe a line of low resistance by the disintegrating processes of disease.\nOr, varying the metaphor, we may anticipate that the partition of the\nprimary and the secondary self will lie along some plane of cleavage\nwhich the _morbid_ dissociations of our psychical synergies have already\nshown themselves disposed to follow. If epilepsy, madness, etc., tend to\n_split up_ our faculties in certain ways, automatism is likely to split\nthem up in ways somewhat resembling these.\n\nBut in what way then, it will be asked, do you distinguish the\nsupernormal from the merely abnormal? Why assume that in these aberrant\nstates there is anything besides hysteria, besides epilepsy, besides\ninsanity?\n\nThe answer to this question has virtually been given in previous\nchapters of this book. The reader is already accustomed to the point of\nview which regards all psychical as well as all physiological activities\nas necessarily either developmental or degenerative, tending to\nevolution or to dissolution. And now, whilst altogether waiving any\nteleological speculation, I will ask him hypothetically to suppose that\nan evolutionary _nisus_, something which we may represent as an effort\ntowards self-development, self-adaptation, self-renewal, is discernible\nespecially on the psychical side of at any rate the higher forms of\nlife. Our question, Supernormal or abnormal?--may then be phrased,\nEvolutive or dissolutive? And in studying each psychical phenomenon in\nturn we shall have to inquire whether it indicates a mere degeneration\nof powers already acquired, or, on the other hand, the \"promise and\npotency,\" if not the actual possession, of powers as yet unrecognised or\nunknown.\n\nThus, for instance, Telepathy is surely a step in _evolution_.[160] To\nlearn the thoughts of other minds without the mediation of the special\nsenses, manifestly indicates the possibility of a vast extension of\npsychical powers. And any knowledge which we can amass as to the\nconditions under which telepathic action takes place will form a\nvaluable starting-point for an inquiry as to the evolutive or\ndissolutive character of unfamiliar psychical states.[161]\n\nFor example, we may learn from our knowledge of telepathy that the\nsuperficial aspect of certain stages of psychical evolution, like the\nsuperficial aspect of certain stages of physiological evolution, may\nresemble mere _inhibition_, or mere _perturbation_. But the inhibition\nmay involve latent dynamogeny, and the perturbation may mask evolution.\nThe hypnotised subject may pass through a lethargic stage before he\nwakes into a state in which he has gained _community of sensation_ with\nthe operator; somewhat as the silkworm (to use the oldest and the most\nsuggestive of all illustrations) passes through the apparent torpor of\nthe cocoon-stage before evolving into the moth. Again, the automatist's\nhand (as we shall presently see) is apt to pass through a stage of\ninco-ordinated movements, which might almost be taken for choreic,\nbefore it acquires the power of ready and intelligent writing. Similarly\nthe development, for instance, of a tooth may be preceded by a stage of\nindefinite aching, which might be ascribed to the formation of an\nabscess, did not the new tooth ultimately show itself. And still more\nstriking cases of a _perturbation which masks evolution_ might be drawn\nfrom the history of the human organism as it develops into its own\nmaturity, or prepares for the appearance of the fresh human organism\nwhich is to succeed it.\n\nAnalogy, therefore, both physiological and psychical, warns us not to\nconclude that any given psychosis is merely degenerative until we have\nexamined its results closely enough to satisfy ourselves whether they\ntend to bring about any enlargement of human powers, to open any new\ninlet to the reception of objective truth. If such there prove to be,\nthen, with whatever morbid activities the psychosis may have been\nintertwined, it contains indications of an evolutionary _nisus_ as well.\n\nThese remarks, I hope, may have sufficiently cleared the ground to admit\nof our starting afresh on the consideration of such motor automatisms as\nare at any rate not morbid in their effect on the organism, and which I\nnow have to show to be _evolutive_ in character. I maintain that we have\nno valid ground for assuming that the movements which are _not_ due to\nour conscious will must be less important, and less significant, than\nthose that _are_. We observe, of course, that in the organic region the\nmovements which are _not_ due to conscious will are really the most\nimportant of all, though the voluntary movements by which a man seeks\nfood and protects himself against enemies are also of great practical\nimportance--he must first live and multiply if he is to learn and know.\nBut we must guard against confusing importance for immediate practical\nlife with importance for science--on which even practical life\nultimately depends. As soon as the task of living and multiplying is no\nlonger all-engrossing, we begin to change our relative estimate of\nvalues, and to find that it is not the broad and obvious phenomena, but\nthe residual and elusive phenomena, which are oftenest likely to\nintroduce us to new avenues of knowledge. I wish to persuade my readers\nthat this is quite as truly the case in psychology as in physics.\n\nAs a first step in our analysis, we may point out certain main\ncharacters which unite in a true class all the automatisms which we are\nhere considering--greatly though these may differ among themselves in\nexternal form.\n\nIn the first place, then, our automatisms are _independent_ phenomena;\nthey are what the physician calls _idiognomonic_. That is to say, they\nare not merely symptomatic of some other affection, or incidental to\nsome profounder change. The mere fact, for instance, that a man writes\nmessages which he does not consciously originate will not, when taken\nalone, prove anything beyond this fact itself as to the writer's\ncondition. He may be perfectly sane, in normal health, and with nothing\nunusual observable about him. This characteristic--provable by actual\nobservation and experiment--distinguishes our automatisms from various\nseemingly kindred phenomena. Thus we may have to include in our class\nthe occasional automatic utterance of words or sentences. But the\ncontinuous exhausting vociferation of acute mania does not fall within\nour province; for those shouts are merely _symptomatic_; nor, again,\ndoes the _cri hydroc\u00e9phalique_ (or spontaneous meaningless noise which\nsometimes accompanies water on the brain); for that, too, is no\nindependent phenomenon, but the direct consequence of a definite lesion.\nFurthermore, we shall have to include in our class certain simple\nmovements of the hands, co-ordinated into the act of writing. But here,\nalso, our definition will lead us to exclude _choreic_ movements, which\nare merely symptomatic of nervous malnutrition; or which we may, if we\nchoose, call _idiopathic_, as constituting an independent malady. But\nour automatisms are not _idiopathic_ but _idiognomonic_; they may indeed\nbe associated with or facilitated by certain states of the organism, but\nthey are neither a symptom of any other malady, nor are they a malady in\nthemselves.\n\nAgreeing, then, that our peculiar class consists of automatisms which\nare idiognomonic,--whose existence does not necessarily imply the\nexistence of some profounder affection already known as producing\nthem,--we have still to look for some more positive bond of connection\nbetween them, some quality common to all of them, and which makes them\nworth our prolonged investigation.\n\nThis we shall find in the fact that they are all of them\n_message-bearing_ or _nunciative_ automatisms. I do not, of course, mean\nthat they all of them bring messages from sources external to the\nautomatist's own mind. In some cases they probably do this; but as a\nrule the so-called messages seem more probably to originate within the\nautomatist's own personality. Why, then, it may be asked, do I call them\n_messages_? We do not usually speak of a man as sending a message to\nhimself. The answer to this question involves, as we shall presently\nsee, the profoundest conception of these automatisms to which we can as\nyet attain. They present themselves to us as messages communicated from\none stratum to another stratum of the same personality. Originating in\nsome deeper zone of a man's being, they float up into superficial\nconsciousness, as deeds, visions, words, ready-made and full-blown,\nwithout any accompanying perception of the elaborative process which has\nmade them what they are.\n\nCan we then (we may next ask) in any way predict the possible _range_ of\nthese motor automatisms? Have we any limit assignable _a priori_,\noutside which it would be useless to look for any externalisation of an\nimpulse emanating from sub-conscious strata of our being?\n\nThe answer to this must be that no such limit can be with any confidence\nsuggested. We have not yet learnt with any distinctness even how far the\nwave from a _consciously_-perceived stimulus will spread, or what\nchanges its motion will assume. Still less can we predict the\nlimitations which the resistance of the organism will impose on the\nradiation of a stimulus originated within itself. We are learning to\nconsider the human organism as a practically infinite complex of\ninteracting vibrations; and each year adds many new facts to our\nknowledge of the various transformations which these vibrations may\nundergo, and of the unexpected artifices by which we may learn to\ncognise some stimulus which is not directly felt.\n\nA few concrete instances will make my meaning plainer. And my first\nexample shall be taken from those experiments in _muscle-reading_--less\ncorrectly termed mind-reading--with which the readers of the\n_Proceedings_ of the S.P.R. are already familiar. Let us suppose that I\nam to hide a pin, and that some accomplished muscle-reader is to take my\nhand and find the pin by noting my muscular indications.[162] I first\nhide the pin in the hearth-rug; then I change my mind and hide it in the\nbookshelf. I fix my mind on the bookshelf, but resolve to make no\nguiding movement. The muscle-reader takes my hand, leads me first to the\nrug, then to the bookshelf, and finds the pin. Now, what has happened in\nthis case? What movements have I made?\n\nFirstly, I have made no _voluntary_ movement; and secondly, I have made\nno _conscious involuntary_ movement. But, thirdly, I have made an\n_unconscious involuntary_ movement which directly depended on conscious\nideation. I strongly thought of the bookshelf, and when the bookshelf\nwas reached in our vague career about the room I made a movement--say\nrather a tremor occurred--in my hand, which, although beyond both my\nknowledge and my control, was enough to supply to the muscle-reader's\ndelicate sensibility all the indication required. All this is now\nadmitted, and, in a sense, understood; we formulate it by saying that my\nconscious ideation contained a motor element; and that this motor\nelement, though inhibited from any conscious manifestation, did yet\ninevitably externalise itself in a peripheral tremor.\n\nBut, fourthly, something more than this has clearly taken place. Before\nthe muscle-reader stopped at the bookshelf he stopped at the rug. I was\nno longer consciously thinking of the rug; but the idea of the pin in\nthe rug must still have been reverberating, so to say, in my\nsub-conscious region; and this unconscious memory, this unnoted\nreverberation, revealed itself in a peripheral tremor nearly as distinct\nas that which (when the bookshelf was reached) corresponded to the\nstrain of conscious thought.\n\nThis tremor, then, was in a certain sense a message-bearing automatism.\nIt was the externalisation of an idea which, once conscious, had become\nunconscious, though in the slightest conceivable degree--namely, by a\nmere slight escape from the field of direct attention.\n\nHaving, then, considered an instance where the automatic message passes\nonly between two closely-adjacent strata of consciousness, externalising\nan impulse derived from an idea which has only recently sunk out of\nconsciousness and which could easily be summoned back again;--let us\nfind our next illustration in a case where the line of demarcation\nbetween the strata of consciousness through which the automatic message\npierces is distinct and impassable by any effort of will.\n\nLet us take a case of _post-hypnotic suggestion_;--say, for instance, an\nexperiment of Edmund Gurney's (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p.\n319). The subject had been trained to write with planchette, after he\nhad been awakened, the statements which had been made to him when in the\nhypnotic trance. He wrote the desired words, or something like them, but\nwhile he wrote them his waking self was entirely unaware of what his\nhand was writing. Thus, having been told in the trance, \"It has begun\nsnowing again,\" he wrote, after waking, \"It begun snowing,\" while he\nread aloud, with waking intelligence, from a book of stories, and was\nquite unconscious of what his hand (placed on a planchette behind a\nscreen) was at the same time writing.\n\nHere we have an automatic message of traceable origin; a message\nimplanted in the hypnotic stratum of the subject's self, and cropping\nup--like a fault--in the waking stratum,--externalised in automatic\nmovements which the waking self could neither predict nor guide.\n\nYet once more. In the discussion which will follow we shall have various\ninstances of the transformation (as I shall regard it) of psychical\nshock into definite muscular energy of apparently a quite alien kind.\nSuch transformations of so-called psychical into physical force--of will\ninto motion--do of course perpetually occur within us.\n\nFor example, I take a child to a circus; he sits by me holding my hand;\nthere is a discharge of musketry and his grip tightens. Now in this case\nwe should call the child's tightened grip automatic. But suppose that,\ninstead of merely holding my hand, he is trying with all his might to\nsqueeze the dynamometer, and that the sudden excitation enables him to\nsqueeze it harder--are we then to describe that extra squeeze as\nautomatic? or as voluntary?\n\nHowever phrased, it is the fact (as amply established by M. F\u00e9r\u00e9 and\nothers[163]) that excitations of almost any kind--whether sudden and\nstartling or agreeable and prolonged--do tend to increase the subject's\ndynamometrical power. In the first place, and this is in itself an\nimportant fact, the average of squeezing-power is found to be greater\namong educated students than among robust labouring men, thus showing\nthat it is not so much developed muscle as active brain which renders\npossible a sudden concentration of muscular force. But more than this;\nM. F\u00e9r\u00e9 finds that with himself and his friends the mere listening to an\ninteresting lecture, or the mere stress of thought in solitude, or still\nmore the act of writing or of speech, produces a decided increase of\nstrength in the grip, especially of the right hand. The same effect of\ndynamogeny is produced with hypnotic subjects, by musical sounds, by\ncoloured light, especially red light, and even by a hallucinatory\nsuggestion of red light. \"All our sensations,\" says M. F\u00e9r\u00e9 in\nconclusion, \"are accompanied by a development of potential energy, which\npasses into a kinetic state, and externalises itself in motor\nmanifestations which even so rough a method as dynamometry is able to\nobserve and record.\"\n\nI would beg the reader to keep these words in mind. We shall presently\nfind that a method apparently even rougher than dynamographic tracings\nmay be able to interpret, with far greater delicacy, the automatic\ntremors which are coursing to and fro within us. If once we can get a\nspy into the citadel of our own being, his rudest signalling will tell\nus more than our subtlest inferences from outside of what is being\nplanned and done within.\n\nAnd now having to deal with what I define as messages conveyed by one\nstratum in man to another stratum, I must first consider in what general\nways human messages can be conveyed. Writing and speech have become\npredominant in the intercourse of civilised men, and it is to writing\nand speech that we look with most interest among the communications of\nthe subliminal self. But it does not follow that the subliminal self\nwill always have such complex methods at its command. We have seen\nalready that it often finds it hard to manage the delicate\nco-ordinations of muscular movement required for writing,--that the\nattempt at automatic script ends in a thump and a scrawl.\n\nThe subliminal self like the telegraphist begins its effort with full\nknowledge, indeed, of the alphabet, but with only weak and rude command\nover our muscular adjustments. It is therefore _a priori_ likely that\nits easiest mode of communication will be through a repetition of simple\nmovements, so arranged as to correspond to letters of the alphabet.\n\nAnd here, I think, we have attained to a conception of the mysterious\nand much-derided phenomenon of \"table-tilting\" which enables us to\ncorrelate it with known phenomena, and to start at least from an\nintelligible basis, and on a definite line of inquiry.\n\nA few words are needed to explain what are the verifiable phenomena, and\nthe less verifiable hypotheses, connoted by such words as\n\"table-turning,\" \"spirit-rapping,\" and the like.\n\nIf one or more persons of a special type--at present definable only by\nthe question-begging and barbarous term \"mediumistic\"--remain quietly\nfor some time with hands in contact with some easily movable object, and\ndesiring its movement, that object will sometimes begin to move. If,\nfurther, they desire it to indicate letters of the alphabet by its\nmovements,--as by tilting once for _a_, twice for _b_, etc., it will\noften do so, and answers unexpected by any one present will be obtained.\n\nThus far, whatever our interpretation, we are in the region of easily\nreproducible facts, which many of my readers may confirm for themselves\nif they please.\n\nBut beyond the simple movements--or table-turning--and the intelligible\nresponses--or table-tilting--both of which are at least _prim\u00e2 facie_\nphysically explicable by the sitters' unconscious pressure, without\npostulating any unknown physical force at all,--it is alleged by many\npersons that further physical phenomena occur; namely, that the table\nmoves in a direction, or with a violence, which no unconscious pressure\ncan explain; and also that percussive sounds or \"raps\" occur, which no\nunconscious action, or indeed no agency known to us, could produce.\nThese raps communicate messages like the tilts, and it is to them that\nthe name of \"spirit-rapping\" is properly given. But spiritualists\ngenerally draw little distinction between these four phenomena--mere\ntable-turning, responsive table-tilting, movements of inexplicable\nvehemence, and responsive raps--attributing all alike to the agency of\ndeparted spirits of men and women, or at any rate to disembodied\nintelligences of some kind or other.\n\nI am not at present discussing the physical phenomena of Spiritualism,\nand I shall therefore leave on one side all the alleged movements and\nnoises of this kind for which unconscious pressure will not account. I\ndo not prejudge the question as to their real occurrence; but assuming\nthat such disturbances of the physical order do occur, there is at least\nno _prim\u00e2 facie_ need to refer them to disembodied spirits. If a table\nmoves when no one is touching it; this is not obviously more likely to\nhave been effected by my deceased grandfather than by myself. We cannot\ntell how _I_ could move it; but then we cannot tell how _he_ could move\nit either. The question must be argued on its merits in each case; and\nour present argument is not therefore vitiated by our postponement of\nthis further problem.\n\nM. Richet[164] was, I believe, the first writer, outside the\nSpiritualistic group, who so much as showed any practical knowledge of\nthis phenomenon, still less endeavoured to explain it. Faraday's\nwell-known explanation of table-turning as the result of the summation\nof many unconscious movements--obviously true as it is for some of the\nsimplest cases of table-movement--does not touch this far more difficult\nquestion of the origination of these intelligent messages, conveyed by\ndistinct and repeated movements of some object admitting of ready\ndisplacement. The ordinary explanation--I am speaking, of course, of\ncases where fraud is not in question--is that the sitter unconsciously\nsets going and stops the movements so as to shape the word in accordance\nwith his expectation. Now that he unconsciously sets going and stops the\nmovements is part of my own present contention, but that the word is\nthereby shaped in accordance with his expectation is often far indeed\nfrom being the case. To those indeed who are familiar with automatic\n_written_ messages, this question as to the unexpectedness of the\n_tilted_ messages will present itself in a new light. If the written\nmessages originate in a source beyond the automatist's supraliminal\nself, so too may the tilted messages;--even though we admit that the\ntilts are caused by his hand's pressure of the table just as directly as\nthe script by his hand's manipulation of the pen.\n\nOne piece of evidence showing that _written_ messages are not always the\nmere echo of expectation is a case[165] where _anagrams_ were\nautomatically written, which their writer was not at once able to\ndecipher. Following this hint, I have occasionally succeeded in getting\nanagrams tilted out for myself by movements of a small table which I\nalone touched.\n\nThis is a kind of experiment which might with advantage be oftener\nrepeated; for the extreme incoherence and silliness of the responses\nthus obtained does not prevent the process itself from being in a high\ndegree instructive. Here, again (as in automatic writing), a man may\nhold colloquy with his own dream--may note in actual juxtaposition two\nseparate strata of his own intelligence.\n\nI shall not at present pursue the discussion of these tilted responses\nbeyond this their very lowest and most rudimentary stage. They almost\nimmediately suggest another problem, for which our discussion is hardly\nripe, the participation, namely, of several minds in the production of\nthe same automatic message. There is something of this difficulty even\nin the explanation of messages given when the hands of two persons are\ntouching a planchette; but when the instrument of response is large, and\nthe method of response simple, as with table-tilting, we find this\nquestion of the influence of more minds than one imperatively recurring.\n\nOur immediate object, however, is rather to correlate the different\nattainable modes of automatic response in some intelligible scheme than\nto pursue any one of them through all its phases. We regarded the\ntable-tilting process as in one sense the simplest, the least\ndifferentiated form of motor response. It is a kind of _gesture_ merely,\nthough a gesture implying knowledge of the alphabet. Let us see in what\ndirections the movement of response becomes more specialised,--as\ngesture parts into pictorial art and articulate speech. We find, in\nfact, that a just similar divergence of impulses takes place in\nautomatic response. On the one hand the motor impulse specialises itself\ninto _drawing_; on the other hand it specialises itself into _speech_.\nOf automatic drawing I have already said something (Chapter III.).\nAutomatic speech will receive detailed treatment in Chapter IX. At\npresent I shall only briefly indicate the position of each form of\nmovement among cognate automatisms.\n\nSome of my readers may have seen these so-called\n\"spirit-drawings,\"--designs, sometimes in colour, whose author asserts\nthat he drew them without any plan, or even knowledge of what his hand\nwas going to do. This assertion may be quite true, and the person making\nit may be perfectly sane.[166] The drawings so made will be found\ncuriously accordant with what the view which I am explaining would lead\nus to expect. For they exhibit a fusion of arabesque with ideography;\nthat is to say, they partly resemble the forms of ornamentation into\nwhich the artistic hand strays when, as it were, dreaming on the paper\nwithout definite plan; and partly they afford a parallel to the early\nattempts at symbolic self-expression of savages who have not yet learnt\nan alphabet. Like savage writing, they pass by insensible transitions\nfrom direct pictorial symbolism to an abbreviated ideography, mingled in\nits turn with writing of a fantastic or of an ordinary kind.\n\nAnd here, before we enter on the study of automatic writing, I must\nrefer to two great historic cases of automatism, which may serve as a\nkind of prologue to what is to follow. One case, that of Socrates, is a\ncase of monitory _inhibition_; the other, that of Jeanne d'Arc, of\nmonitory _impulse_.\n\nThe Founder of Science himself--the permanent type of sanity,\nshrewdness, physical robustness, and moral balance--was guided in all\nthe affairs of life by a monitory Voice,--by \"the D\u00e6mon of Socrates.\"\nThis is a case which can never lose its interest, a case which has been\nvouched for by the most practical, and discussed by the loftiest\nintellect of Greece,--both of them intimate friends of the illustrious\nsubject;--a case, therefore, which one who endeavours to throw new light\non hallucination and automatism is bound, even at this distance of time,\nto endeavour to explain.[167] And this is the more needful, since a\ntreatise was actually written, a generation ago, as \"a specimen of the\napplication of the science of psychology to the science of history,\"\narguing from the records of the [Greek: daim\u00f3nion] in Xenophon\nand Plato that Socrates was in fact insane.[168]\n\nI believe that it is now possible to give a truer explanation; to place\nthese old records in juxtaposition with more instructive parallels; and\nto show that the messages which Socrates received were only advanced\nexamples of a process which, if supernormal, is not abnormal, and which\ncharacterises that form of intelligence which we describe as _genius_.\n\nThe story of Socrates I take as a signal example of _wise automatism_;\nof the possibility that the messages which are conveyed to the\nsupraliminal mind from subliminal strata of the personality,--whether as\nsounds, as sights, or as movements,--may sometimes come from far beneath\nthe realm of dream and confusion,--from some self whose monitions convey\nto us a wisdom profounder than we know.\n\nSimilarly in the case of Joan of Arc, I believe that only now, with the\ncomprehension which we are gradually gaining of the possibility of an\nimpulse from the mind's deeper strata which is so far from madness that\nit is wiser than our sanity itself,--only now, I repeat, can we\nunderstand aright that familiar story.\n\nJoan's condemnation was based on her own admissions; and the Latin\n_proc\u00e8s-verbal_ still exists, and was published from the MS. by M.\nQuicherat, 1841-9, for the French Historical Society.[169] Joan, like\nSocrates, was condemned mainly on the ground, or at least on the pretext\nof her monitory voices: and her Apology remarkably resembles his, in its\nresolute insistence on the truth of the very phenomena which were being\nused to destroy her. Her answers are clear and self-consistent, and seem\nto have been little, if at all, distorted by the recorder. Few pieces of\nhistory so remote as this can be so accurately known.\n\nFortunately for our purpose, her inquisitors asked her many questions as\nto her voices and visions; and her answers enable us to give a pretty\nfull analysis of the phenomena which concern us.\n\nI. The voices do not begin with the summons to fight for France. Joan\nheard them first at thirteen years of age,--as with Socrates also the\nvoice began in childhood. The first command consisted of nothing more\nsurprising than that \"she was to be a good girl, and go often to\nchurch.\" After this the voice--as in the case of Socrates--intervened\nfrequently, and on trivial occasions.\n\nII. The voice was accompanied at first by a light, and sometimes\nafterwards by figures of saints, who appeared to speak, and whom Joan\nappears to have both seen and felt as dearly as though they had been\nliving persons. But here there is some obscurity; and Michelet thinks\nthat on one occasion the Maid was tricked by the courtiers for political\nends. For she asserted (apparently without contradiction) that several\npersons, including the Archbishop of Rheims, as well as herself, had\nseen an angel bringing to the King a material crown.[170]\n\nIII. The voices came mainly when she was awake, but also sometimes\nroused her from sleep; a phenomenon often observed in our cases of\n\"veridical hallucination.\" \"Ipsa dormiebat, et vox excitabat eam.\"\n(Quicherat, i., p. 62.)\n\nIV. The voice was not always fully intelligible (especially if she was\nhalf awake);--in this respect again resembling some of our recorded\ncases, both visual and auditory, where, on the view taken in _Phantasms\nof the Living_, the externalisation has been incomplete. \"Vox dixit\naliqua, sed non omnia intellexit.\" (Quicherat, i., p. 62.)\n\nV. The predictions of the voice, so far as stated, were mainly\nfulfilled; viz., that the siege of Orleans would be raised; that Charles\nVII. would be crowned at Rheims; that she herself would be wounded; but\nthe prediction that there would be a great victory over the English\nwithin seven years was not fulfilled in any exact way, although the\nEnglish continued to lose ground. In short, about so much was fulfilled\nas an ardent self-devoted mind might have anticipated; much indeed that\nmight have seemed irrational to ordinary observers, but nothing which\nactually needed a definite prophetic power. Here, again, we are reminded\nof the general character of the monitions of Socrates. And yet in Joan's\ncase, more probably than in the case of Socrates, there may have been\none singular exception to this general rule. She knew by monition that\nthere was a sword \"retro altare\"--somewhere behind the altar--in the\nChurch of St. Catherine of Fierbois. \"Scivit ipsum ibi esse per\nvoces\":--she sent for it, nothing doubting, and it was found and given\nto her. This was a unique incident in her career. Her judges asked\nwhether she had not once found a cup, and a missing priest, by help of\nsimilar monitions, but this she denied; and it is remarkable that no\nserious attempt was made either to show that she had claimed this\nclairvoyant power habitually, or, on the other hand, to invalidate the\none instance of it which she did in effect claim. It would be absurd to\ncite the alleged discovery of the sword as in itself affording a proof\nof clairvoyance, any more than Socrates' alleged intimation of the\napproaching herd of swine.[171] But when we are considering monitions\ngiven in more recent times it will be well to remember that it is in\nthis direction that some supernormal extension of knowledge seems\npossibly traceable.\n\nThe cases of Socrates and of Joan of Arc, on which I have just dwelt,\nmight with almost equal fitness have been introduced at certain other\npoints of my discussion. At first sight, at any rate, they appear rather\nlike sensory than like motor automatisms,--like hallucinations of\nhearing rather than like the motor impulses which we are now about to\nstudy. Each case, however, approaches motor automatism in a special way.\n\nIn the case of Socrates the \"sign\" seems to have been not so much a\ndefinite voice as a sense of _inhibition_. In the case of Joan of Arc\nthe voices were definite enough, but they were accompanied--as such\nvoices sometimes are, but sometimes are _not_--with an overmastering\nimpulse to _act_ in obedience to them. These are, I may say, palmary\ncases of inhibition and of impulse: and inhibition and impulse are at\nthe very root of motor phenomena.\n\nThey show moreover the furthest extent of the claim that can be made for\nthe agency of the subliminal self, apart from any external\ninfluence,--apart from telepathy from the living, or possession by the\ndeparted. Each of those other hypotheses will claim its own group of\ncases; but we must not invoke them until the resources of subliminal\nwisdom are manifestly overtaxed.\n\nThese two famous cases, then, have launched us on our subject in the\nstress of a twofold difficulty in logical arrangement. We cannot always\nanswer these primary questions, Is the subliminal impulse sensory or\nmotor? is it originated in the automatist's own mind, or in some mind\nexternal to him?\n\nIn the first place, we must reflect that, if the subliminal self really\npossesses that profound power over the organism with which I have\ncredited it, we may expect that its \"messages\" will sometimes express\nthemselves in the form of deep organic modifications--of changes in the\nvaso-motor, the circulatory, the respiratory systems. Such phenomena are\nlikely to be less noted or remembered as _coincidental_, from their very\nindefiniteness, as compared, for instance, with a phantasmal appearance;\nbut we have, nevertheless, records of various telepathic cases of deep\ncoenesthetic disturbance, of a profound _malaise_ which must, one\nwould think, have involved some unusual condition of the viscera.[172]\n\nIn cases, too, where the telepathic impression has ultimately assumed a\ndefinite sensory form, some organic or emotional phenomena have been\nnoted, being perhaps the _first_ effects of the telepathic impact,\nwhether from the living or from the dead.[173]\n\nAnd here I may mention an experience of Lady de Vesci's, who described\nto me in conversation a feeling of _malaise_, defining itself into the\nurgent need of definite action--namely, the despatch of a telegram to a\nfriend who was in fact then dying at the other side of the world.[174]\nSuch an impulse had one only parallel in her experience, which also was\ntelepathic in a similar way.\n\nSimilar sensory disturbances are sometimes reported in connection with\nan important form of motor automatism,--that of \"dowsing\" or discovering\nwater by means of the movement of a rod held in the hands of the\nautomatist,--already treated of in Appendix V. A.\n\nA small group of cases may naturally be mentioned here. From two\ndifferent points of view they stand for the most part at the entrance of\nour subject. I speak of motor inhibitions, prompted at first by\nsubliminal memory, or by subliminal hyper\u00e6sthesia, but merging into\ntel\u00e6sthesia or telepathy. Inhibitions--sudden arrests or incapacities of\naction--(more or less of the Socratic type)--form a simple, almost\nrudimentary, type of motor automatisms. And an inhibition--a sudden\ncheck on action of this kind--will be a natural way in which a strong\nbut obscure impression will work itself out. Such an impression, for\ninstance, is that of _alarm_, suggested by some vague sound or odour\nwhich is only subliminally perceived. And thus in this series of motor\nautomatisms, just as in our series of dreams, or in our series of\nsensory automatisms, we find ourselves beginning with cases where the\nsubliminal self merely shows some slight extension of memory or of\nsensory perception,--and thence pass insensibly to cases where no\n\"cryptomnesia\" will explain the facts known in the past, and no\nhyper\u00e6sthesia will explain the facts discerned in the present.\n\nWe may most of us have observed that if we perform any small action to\nwhich there are objections, which we have once known but which have\naltogether passed from our minds, we are apt to perform it in a\nhesitating, inefficient way.\n\nSimilarly there are cases where some sudden muscular impulse or\ninhibition has probably depended on a subliminal perception or\ninterpretation of a sound which had not reached the supraliminal\nattention. For instance, two friends walking together along a street in\na storm just evade by sudden movements a falling mass of masonry. Each\nthinks that he has received some _monition_ of the fall; each asserting\nthat he heard no noise whatever to warn him. Here is an instance where\nsubliminal perception may have been slightly quicker and more delicate\nthan supraliminal, and may have warned them just in time.\n\nIn the case which I now quote (from _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p.\n416) there may have been some subliminal hyper\u00e6sthesia of hearing which\ndimly warned Mr. Wyman of the approach of the extra train.[175]\n\nMr. Wm. H. Wyman writes to the Editor of the _Arena_ as follows:--\n\n\nDUNKIRK, N. Y., _June 26th, 1891_.\n\n     Some years ago my brother was employed and had charge as conductor\n     and engineer of a working train on the Lake Shore and Michigan\n     Southern Railway, running between Buffalo and Erie, which passes\n     through this city (Dunkirk, N. Y.). I often went with him to the\n     Grave Bank, where he had his headquarters, and returned on his\n     train with him. On one occasion I was with him, and after the train\n     of cars was loaded, we went together to the telegraph office to see\n     if there were any orders, and to find out if the trains were on\n     time, as he had to keep out of the way of all regular trains. After\n     looking over the train reports and finding them all on time, we\n     started for Buffalo. As we approached near Westfield Station,\n     running about 12 miles per hour, and when within about one mile of\n     a long curve in the line, my brother all of a sudden shut off the\n     steam, and quickly stepping over to the fireman's side of the\n     engine, he looked out of the cab window, and then to the rear of\n     his train to see if there was anything the matter with either. Not\n     discovering anything wrong, he stopped and put on steam, but almost\n     immediately again shut it off and gave the signal for breaks and\n     stopped. After inspecting the engine and train and finding nothing\n     wrong, he seemed very much excited, and for a short time he acted\n     as if he did not know where he was or what to do. I asked what was\n     the matter. He replied that he did not know, when, after looking at\n     his watch and orders, he said that he felt that there was some\n     trouble on the line of the road. I suggested that he had better run\n     his train to the station and find out. He then ordered his flagman\n     with his flag to go ahead around the curve, which was just ahead of\n     us, and he would follow with the train. The flagman started and had\n     just time to flag an extra express train, with the General\n     Superintendent and others on board, coming full 40 [forty] miles\n     per hour. The Superintendent inquired what he was doing there, and\n     if he did not receive orders to keep out of the way of the extra.\n     My brother told him that he had not received orders and did not\n     know of any extra train coming; that we had both examined the train\n     reports before leaving the station. The train then backed to the\n     station, where it was found that no orders had been given. The\n     train despatcher was at once discharged from the road, and from\n     that time to this both my brother and myself are unable to account\n     for his stopping the train as he did. I consider it quite a\n     mystery, and cannot give or find any intelligent reason for it. Can\n     you suggest any?\n\n     The above is true and correct in every particular.\n\nIn other cases again some subliminal sense of smell may be\nconjectured.[176]\n\n_Tactile sensibility_, too, must be carefully allowed for. The sense of\nvarying resistance in the air may reach in some seeing persons, as well\nas in the blind, a high degree of acuteness.[177]\n\nBut there are cases of sudden motor inhibition where no warning can well\nhave been received from hyper\u00e6sthetic sensation, where we come, as it\nseems, to tel\u00e6sthesia or to spirit guardianship.\n\n(From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 459.)\n\n     Four years ago, I made arrangements with my nephew, John W.\n     Parsons, to go to my office after supper to investigate a case. We\n     walked along together, both fully determined to go up into the\n     office, but just as I stepped upon the door sill of the drug store,\n     in which my office was situated, some invisible influence stopped\n     me instantly. I was much surprised, felt like I was almost dazed,\n     the influence was so strong, almost like a blow, I felt like I\n     could not make another step. I said to my nephew, \"John, I do not\n     feel like going into the office now; you go and read Flint and\n     Aitken on the subject.\" He went, lighted the lamp, took off his\n     hat, and just as he was reaching for a book the report of a large\n     pistol was heard. The ball entered the window near where he was\n     standing, passed near to and over his head, struck the wall and\n     fell to the floor. Had I been standing where he was, I would have\n     been killed, as I am much taller than he. The pistol was fired by a\n     man who had an old grudge against me, and had secreted himself in a\n     vacant house near by to assassinate me.\n\n     This impression was unlike any that I ever had before. All my\n     former impressions were slow in their development, grew stronger\n     and stronger, until the maximum was reached. I did not feel that I\n     was in any danger, and could not understand what the strong\n     impression meant. The fellow was drunk, had been drinking for two\n     weeks. If my system had been in a different condition--I had just\n     eaten supper--I think I would have received along with the\n     impression some knowledge of the character of the danger, and would\n     have prevented my nephew from going into the office.\n\n     I am fully satisfied that the invisible and unknown intelligence\n     did the best that could have been done, under the circumstances, to\n     save us from harm.\n\nD. J. PARSONS, M.D., Sweet Springs, Mo.\n\n     (The above account was received in a letter from Dr. D. J. Parsons,\n     dated _December 15th, 1891_.)\n\n     Statement of Dr. J. W. PARSONS.\n\n     About four years ago my uncle, Dr. D. J. Parsons, and I were going\n     to supper, when a man halted us and expressed a desire for medical\n     advice. My uncle requested him to call the next morning, and as we\n     walked along he said the case was a bad one and that we would come\n     back after supper and go to the office and examine the authorities\n     on the subject. After supper we returned, walked along together on\n     our way to the office, but just as we reached the door of the drug\n     store he very unexpectedly, to me, stopped suddenly, which caused\n     me to stop too; we stood there together a few seconds, and he\n     remarked to me that he did not feel like going into the office\n     then, or words to that effect, and told me to go and examine Flint\n     and Aitken. I went, lit the lamp, and just as I was getting a book,\n     a pistol was fired into the office, the ball passing close to my\n     head, struck the east wall, then the north, and fell to the floor.\n\n     This 5th day of July, 1891.\n\nJOHN W. PARSONS [Ladonia, Texas.]\n\nIn the next group of cases, we reach a class of massive motor impulses\nwhich are almost entirely free from any sensory admixture.\n\nTake for instance the case of Mr. Garrison, who left a religious meeting\nin the evening, and walked eighteen miles under the strong impulse to\nsee his mother, and found her dead. The account is given in the\n_Journal_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 125 [\u00a7 825].\n\nIn another case, that of Major Kobb\u00e9 (given in _Phantasms of the\nLiving_, vol. i. p. 288), the percipient was prompted to visit a distant\ncemetery, without any conscious reason, and there found his father, who\nhad, in fact, for certain unexpected reasons, sent to his son, Major\nKobb\u00e9, a request (accidentally _not received_) to meet him at that place\nand hour.\n\nIn a third case, Mr. Skirving (see _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p.\n285 [825 A]) was irresistibly compelled to leave his work and go\nhome--_why_, he knew not--at the moment when his wife was in fact\ncalling for him in the distress of a serious accident. See also a case\ngiven in _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 377, where a bricklayer\nhas a sudden impulse to run home, and arrives just in time to save the\nlife of his little boy, who had set himself on fire.\n\nThis special sensibility to the _motor_ element in an impulse recalls to\nus the special susceptibilities to different forms of hallucination or\nsuggestion shown by different hypnotic subjects. Some can be made to\nsee, some to hear, some to act out the conception proposed to them. Dr.\nB\u00e9rillon[178] has even shown that certain subjects who seem at first\nquite refractory to hypnotisation are nevertheless at once obedient,\neven in the waking state, to a motor suggestion. This was the case both\nwith a very strong man, with weak men and women, and with at least one\nsubject actually suffering from locomotor ataxy. Thus the loss of\nsupraliminal motor control over certain muscular combinations may\nactually lead to _motor suggestibility_ as regards those combinations;\njust as the loss of supraliminal sensation in some an\u00e6sthetic patch may\nlead to a special subliminal sensitiveness in the very directions where\nthe superficial sensibility has sunk away. On the other hand, a\nspecially well-developed motor control may predispose in a similar\nway;--as for instance, the subject who can sing already is more easily\nmade to sing by suggestion. We must, then, await further observations\nbefore we can pretend to say beforehand with which automatist the\nmessages will take a sensory, and with which a motor form.\n\nStill less can we explain the special predisposition of each\nexperimenter to one or more of the common kinds of motor automatism--as\nautomatic speech, automatic writing, table movements, raps, and so\nforth. These forms of messages may themselves be variously combined; and\nthe contents of a message of any one of these kinds may be purely\ndream-like and fantastic, or may be veridical in various ways.\n\nLet us enumerate the modes of subliminal motor message as nearly as we\ncan in order of their increasing specialisation.\n\n1. We may place first the massive motor impulses (like Mr. Garrison's)\nwhich mark a kind of transition between coenesthetic affections and\nmotor impulses proper. There was here no impulse to special movement of\nany limb; but an impulse to reach a certain place by ordinary methods.\n\n2. Next, perhaps, in order of specialisation come the simple subliminal\nmuscular impulses which give rise to table-tilting and similar\nphenomena.\n\n3. Musical execution, subliminally initiated, might theoretically be\nplaced next; although definite evidence of this is hard to obtain, since\nthe threshold of consciousness with musical performers is notoriously\napt to be shifting and indefinite. (\"When in doubt, play with your\nfingers, and not with your head.\")\n\n4. Next we may place automatic drawing and painting. This curious group\nof messages has but seldom a telepathic content, and, as was suggested\nin Chapter III., is more akin to _genius_ and similar non-telepathic\nforms of subliminal faculty.[179]\n\n5. Next comes automatic writing, on which much remains to be said in\nthis chapter.\n\n6. Automatic _speech_, which would not seem to be _per se_ a more\ndeveloped form of motor message than automatic script, is often\naccompanied by profound changes of memory or of personality which raise\nthe question of \"inspiration\" or \"possession\";--for the two words,\nhowever different their theological import, mean much the same thing\nfrom the standpoint of experimental psychology.\n\n7. I must conclude my list with a class of motor phenomena which I shall\nhere merely record in passing, without attempting any explanation. I\nallude to raps, and to those telekinetic movements of objects whose real\nexistence is still matter of controversy.\n\nComparing this list of motor automatisms with the sensory automatisms\nenumerated in Chapter VI., we shall find a certain general tendency\nrunning through each alike. The sensory automatisms began with vague\nunspecialised sensations. They then passed through a phase of\ndefinition, of specialisation on the lines of the known senses. And\nfinally they reached a stage beyond these habitual forms of\nspecialisation: beyond them, as of wider reach, and including in an\napparently unanalysable act of perception a completer truth than any of\nour specialised forms of perception could by itself convey. With motor\nmessages, too, we begin with something of similar vagueness. They, too,\ndevelop from modifications of the percipient's general organic\ncondition, or coenesthesia; and the first dim telepathic impulse\napparently hesitates between several channels of expression. They then\npass through various definitely specialised forms; and finally, as we\nshall see when automatic script is considered, they, too, merge into an\nunanalysable act of cognition in which the motor element of the message\nhas disappeared. But these motor messages point also in another even\nmore perplexing direction. They lead, as I have said above, towards the\nold idea of _possession_;--using the word simply as an expression for\nsome form of temporary manifestation of some veritably distinct and\nalien personality through the physical organism of some man or woman, as\nis well exemplified in many cases of automatic writing. In Europe and\nAmerica the phenomenon of automatic writing first came into notice as an\nelement in so-called \"modern spiritualism\" about the middle of the\nnineteenth century; but the writings of W. Stainton Moses--about\n1870-80--were perhaps the first continuous series of such messages which\ncould be regarded as worthy of serious attention. Mr. Moses--a man whose\nstatements could not be lightly set aside--claimed for them that they\nwere the direct utterances of departed persons, some of them lately\ndead, some dead long ago. However they were really to be explained, they\nstrongly impressed Edmund Gurney and myself and added to our desire to\nwork at the subject in as many ways as we could.\n\nIt was plain that these writings could not be judged aright without a\nwide analysis of similar scripts,--without an experimental inquiry into\nwhat the human mind, in states of somnambulism or the like, could\nfurnish of written messages, apart from the main stream of\nconsciousness. By his experiments on writing obtained in different\nstages of hypnotic trance, Gurney acted as the pioneer of a long series\nof researches which, independently set on foot by Professor Pierre Janet\nin France, have become of high psychological, and even medical,\nimportance. What is here of prime interest is the indubitable fact that\nfresh personalities can be artificially and temporarily created, which\nwill write down matter quite alien from the first personality's\ncharacter, and even matter which the first personality never knew. That\nmatter may consist merely of reminiscences of previous periods when the\nsecond personality has been in control. But, nevertheless, if these\nwritings are shown to the primary personality, he will absolutely\nrepudiate their authorship--alleging not only that he has no\nrecollection of writing them, but also that they contain allusions to\nfacts which he never knew. Some of these messages, indeed, although\ntheir source is so perfectly well defined--although we know the very\nmoment when the secondary personality which wrote them was called into\nexistence--do certainly look more alien from the automatist in his\nnormal state than many of the messages which claim to come from spirits\nof lofty type. It is noticeable, moreover, that these manufactured\npersonalities sometimes cling obstinately to their fictitious names, and\nrefuse to admit that they are in reality only aspects or portions of the\nautomatist himself. This must be remembered when the persistent _claim_\nto some spiritual identity--say Napoleon--is urged as an argument for\nattributing a series of messages to that special person.\n\nWhat has now been said may suffice as regards the varieties of\nmechanism--the different forms of motor automatism--which the messages\nemploy. I shall pass on to consider the _contents_ of the messages, and\nshall endeavour to classify them according to their apparent sources.\n\n_A._ In the first place, the message may come from the percipient's own\nmind; its contents being supplied from the resources of his ordinary\nmemory, or of his more extensive subliminal memory; while the\n_dramatisation_ of the message--its assumption of some other mind as its\nsource--will resemble the dramatisations of dream or of hypnotic trance.\n\nOf course the absence of facts unknown to the writer is not in itself a\nproof that the message does not come from some other mind. We cannot be\nsure that other minds, if they can communicate, will always be at the\npains to fill their messages with evidential facts. But, equally of\ncourse, a message devoid of such facts must not, on the strength of its\nmere assertions, be claimed as the product of any but the writer's own\nmind.\n\n_B._ Next above the motor messages whose content the automatist's own\nmental resources might supply, we may place the messages whose content\nseems to be derived telepathically from the mind of some other person\nstill living on earth; that person being either conscious or unconscious\nof transmitting the suggestion.\n\n_C._ Next comes the possibility that the message may emanate from some\nunembodied intelligence of unknown type--other, at any rate, than the\nintelligence of the alleged agent. Under this heading come the views\nwhich ascribe the messages on the one hand to \"elementaries,\" or even\ndevils, and on the other hand to \"guides\" or \"guardians\" of superhuman\ngoodness and wisdom.\n\n_D._ Finally we have the possibility that the message may be derived, in\na more or less direct manner, from the mind of the agent--the departed\nfriend--from whom the communication does actually claim to come.\n\nMy main effort has naturally been thus far directed to the proof that\nthere are messages which do _not_ fall into the lowest class, _A_--in\nwhich class most psychologists would still place them all. And I\nmyself--while reserving a certain small portion of the messages for my\nother classes--do not only admit but assert that the great majority of\nsuch communications represent the subliminal workings of the\nautomatist's mind alone. It does not, however, follow that such messages\nhave for us no interest or novelty. On the contrary, they form an\ninstructive, an indispensable transition from psychological\nintrospection of the old-fashioned kind to the bolder methods on whose\nvalidity I am anxious to insist. The mind's subliminal action, as thus\nrevealed, differs from the supraliminal in ways which no one\nanticipated, and which no one can explain. There seem to be subliminal\ntendencies setting steadily in certain obscure directions, and bearing\nas little relation to the individual characteristics of the person to\nthe deeps of whose being we have somehow penetrated as profound\nocean-currents bear to waves and winds on the surface of the sea.[180]\n\nAnother point also, of fundamental importance, connected with the powers\nof the subliminal self, will be better deferred until a later chapter. I\nhave said that a message containing only facts normally known to the\nautomatist must not, on the strength of its mere assertions, be regarded\nas proceeding from any mind but his own. This seems evident; but the\nconverse proposition is not equally indisputable. We must not take for\ngranted that a message which _does_ contain facts not normally known to\nthe automatist must therefore come from some mind other than his own. If\nthe subliminal self can acquire supernormal knowledge at all, it may\nobtain such knowledge by means other than telepathic impressions from\nother minds. It may assimilate its supernormal nutriment also by a\ndirecter process--it may devour it not only cooked but raw. Parallel\nwith the possibilities of reception of such knowledge from the influence\nof other embodied or disembodied minds lies the possibility of its own\nclairvoyant perception, or active absorption of some kind, of facts\nlying indefinitely beyond its supraliminal purview.\n\nNow, as I have said, the great majority of the nunciative or\nmessage-bearing motor automatisms originate in the automatist's own\nmind, and do not involve the exercise of telepathy or tel\u00e6sthesia, or\nany other supernormal faculty; but they illustrate in various ways the\ncoexistence of the subliminal with the supraliminal self, its wider\nmemory, and its independent intelligence.\n\nI need not here multiply instances of the simpler and commoner forms of\nthis type, and I will merely quote in illustration one short case\nrecounted by Mr. H. Arthur Smith (author of _The Principles of Equity_,\nand a member of the Council of the Society for Psychical Research) who\nhas had the patience to analyse many communications through\n\"Planchette.\"\n\n(From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ii. p. 233.)[181] Mr. Smith and his\nnephew placed their hands on the Planchette, and a purely fantastic\nname was given as that of the communicating agency.\n\n     Q. \"Where did you live?\" A. \"Wem.\" This name was quite unknown to\n     any of us. I am sure it was to myself, and as sure of the word of\n     the others as of that of any one I know.\n\n     Q. \"Is it decided who is to be Archbishop of Canterbury?\" A. \"Yes.\"\n\n     Q. \"Who?\" A. \"Durham.\" As none of us remembered his name, we asked.\n\n     \"What is his name?\" A. \"Lightfoot.\" Of course, how far the main\n     statement is correct, I don't know. The curiosity at the time\n     rested in the fact that the name was given which none of us could\n     recall, but was found, to be right.\n\nNow, this is just one of the cases which a less wary observer might have\nbrought forward as evidence of spirit agency. An identity, it would be\nsaid, manifested itself, and gave an address which none present had ever\nheard. But I venture to say that there cannot be any real proof that an\neducated person has never heard of Wem. A permanent recorded fact, like\nthe name of a town which is to be found (for instance) in Bradshaw's\nGuide, may at any moment have been presented to Mr. Smith's eye, and\nhave found a lodgment in his subliminal memory.\n\nSimilarly in the answers \"Durham\" and \"Lightfoot\" we are reminded of\ncases where in a dream we ask a question with vivid curiosity, and are\nastonished at the reply; which nevertheless proceeds from _ourselves_ as\nundoubtedly as does the inquiry. The prediction in this case was wrong.\n\nWhat we have been shown is an independent activity of the subliminal\nself holding colloquies with the supraliminal, and nothing more. Yet we\nshall find, if we go on accumulating instances of the same general type,\nthat traces of tel\u00e6sthesia and telepathy begin insensibly to show\nthemselves; not at first with a distinctness or a persistence sufficient\nfor actual proof, but just in the same gradual way in which indications\nof supernormal faculty stole in amid the disintegration of split\npersonalities; or in which indications of some clairvoyant outlook stole\nin amid the incoherence of dream. Many of these faint indications,\nvalueless, as I have said, for purely evidential purposes, are\nnevertheless of much theoretical interest, as showing how near is the\nsubliminal self to that region of supernormal knowledge which for the\nsupraliminal is so definitely closed.[182]\n\nMr. Schiller's case (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iv. pp. 216-224)\n[832 A] is a good example of these obscure transitions between normal\nand supernormal, and introduces us to several phenomena which we shall\nafterwards find recurring again and again in independent quarters.\nDramatisation of fictitious personalities, for instance, which forms so\nmarked a feature in Professor Flournoy's celebrated case (to be\ndiscussed later), begins in this series of experiments, conducted\nthroughout with a purely scientific aim, and with no sort of belief in\nthe imaginary \"Irktomar\" and the rest. It seems as though this\n\"objectivation of types\" were part of a romance which some inscrutable\nbut childish humorist was bent on making up. The \"cryptomnesia\" shown in\nthis case through the reproduction of scraps of old French with which\nthe automatist had no conscious acquaintance, reached a point at which\n(as again in Professor Flournoy's case) one is almost driven to suspect\nthat it was aided by some slight clairvoyance on the part of the\nsubliminal self.\n\nIndeed as the cases become increasingly complex, one wonders to what\nextent this strange manufacture of inward romances can be carried. There\nis, I may say, a great deal more of it in the world than is commonly\nsuspected. I have myself received so many cases of these dramatised\nutterances--as though a number of different spirits were writing in turn\nthrough some automatist's hand--that I have come to recognise the\noperation of some law of dreams, so to call it, as yet but obscurely\nunderstood. The alleged personalities are for the most part not only\nunidentified, but purposely unidentifiable; they give themselves\nromantic or ludicrous names, and they are produced and disappear as\nlightly as puppets on a mimic stage. The main curiosity of such cases\nlies in their very persistence and complexity; it would be a waste of\nspace to quote any of the longer ones in such a way as to do them\njustice. And, fortunately, there is no need for me to give any of my own\ncases; since a specially good case has been specially well observed and\nreported in a book with which many of my readers are probably already\nacquainted,--Professor Flournoy's _Des Indes \u00e0 la plan\u00e8te Mars: Etude\nsur un cas de Somnambulisme avec Glossolalie_ (Paris and Geneva, 1900).\nI shall here make some comments on that striking record, which all\nstudents of these subjects ought to study in detail.\n\nIt happens, no doubt, to any group which pursues for many years a\nsomewhat unfamiliar line of inquiry, that those of their points which\nare first assailed get gradually admitted, so that as they become\ninterested in new points they may scarcely observe what change has taken\nplace in the reception of the old. The reader of early volumes of the\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R. will often observe this kind of progress of\nopinion. And now Professor Flournoy's book indicates in a remarkable way\nhow things have moved in the psychology of the last twenty years. The\nbook--a model of fairness throughout--is indeed, for the most part,\ncritically _destructive_ in its treatment of the quasi-supernormal\nphenomena with which it deals. But what a mass of conceptions a\ncompetent psychologist now takes for granted in this realm, which the\nofficial science of twenty years ago would scarcely stomach our hinting\nat!\n\nOne important point may be noticed at once as decisively corroborating a\ncontention of my own made long ago, and at a time when it probably\nseemed fantastic to many readers. Arguing for the potential _continuity_\nof subliminal mentation (as against those who urged that there were only\noccasional flashes of submerged thought, like scattered dreams), I said\nthat it would soon be found needful to press this notion of a continuous\nsubliminal self to the utmost, if we were not prepared to admit a\ncontinuous spiritual guidance or possession. Now, in fact, with\nProfessor Flournoy's subject the whole discussion turns on this very\npoint. There is unquestionably a continuous and complex series of\nthoughts and feelings going on beneath the threshold of consciousness of\nMlle. \"H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Smith.\" Is this submerged mentation due in any degree or\nin any manner to the operation of spirits other than Mlle. Smith's own?\nThat is the broad question; but it is complicated here by a subsidiary\nquestion: whether, namely, any previous incarnations of Mlle.\nSmith's--other phases of her own spiritual history, now involving\ncomplex relationship with the past--have any part in the crowd of\npersonalities which seem struggling to express themselves through her\nquite healthy organism.\n\nMlle. Smith, I should at once say, is not,[183] and never has been, a\npaid medium. At the date of M. Flournoy's book, she occupied a leading\npost on the staff of a large _maison de commerce_ at Geneva, and gave\ns\u00e9ances to her friends simply because she enjoyed the exercise of her\nmediumistic faculties, and was herself interested in their explanation.\n\nHer organism, I repeat, is regarded, both by herself and by others, as a\nquite healthy one. Mlle. Smith, says Professor Flournoy, declares\ndistinctly that she is perfectly sound in body and mind--in no way\nlacking in equilibrium--and indignantly repudiates the idea that there\nis any hurtful anomaly or the slightest danger in mediumship as she\npractises it.\n\n\"It is far from being demonstrated,\" he continues, \"that mediumship is a\npathological phenomenon. It is abnormal, no doubt, in the sense of being\n_rare_, _exceptional_; but rarity is not morbidity. The few years during\nwhich these phenomena have been seriously and scientifically studied\nhave not been enough to allow us to pronounce on their true nature. It\nis interesting to note that in the countries where these studies have\nbeen pushed the furthest, in England and America, the dominant view\namong the _savants_ who have gone deepest into the matter is not at all\nunfavourable to mediumship; and that, far from regarding it as a special\ncase of hysteria, they see in it a faculty superior, advantageous,\nhealthy, of which hysteria is a form of degenerescence, a pathological\nparody, a morbid caricature.\"\n\nThe phenomena which this sensitive presents (H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Smith is Professor\nFlournoy's pseudonym for her) cover a range which looks at first very\nwide, although a clearer analysis shows that these varieties are more\napparent than real, and that self-suggestion will perhaps account for\nall of them.\n\nThere is, to begin with, every kind of automatic irruption of subliminal\ninto supraliminal life. As Professor Flournoy says (p. 45): \"Phenomena\nof hypermnesia, divinations, mysterious findings of lost objects, happy\ninspirations, exact presentiments, just intuitions, teleological\n(purposive or helpful) automatisms, in short, of every kind; she\npossesses in a high degree this small change of genius--which\nconstitutes a more than sufficient compensation for the inconvenience\nresulting from those distractions and moments of absence of mind which\naccompany her visions; and which, moreover, generally pass unobserved.\"\n\nAt s\u00e9ances--where the deeper change has no inconveniences--H\u00e9l\u00e8ne\nundergoes a sort of self-hypnotisation which produces various lethargic\nand somnambulistic states. And when she is alone and safe from\ninterruption she has spontaneous visions, during which there may be some\napproach to ecstasy. At the s\u00e9ances she experiences positive\nhallucinations, and also negative hallucinations, or systematised\nan\u00e6sthesi\u00e6, so that, for instance, she will cease to see some person\npresent, especially one who is to be the recipient of messages in the\ncourse of the s\u00e9ance. \"It seems as though a dream-like incoherence\npresided over this preliminary work of disaggregation, in which the\nnormal perceptions are arbitrarily split up or absorbed by the\nsubconscious personality--eager for materials with which to compose the\nhallucinations which it is preparing.\" Then, when the s\u00e9ance begins, the\nmain actor is H\u00e9l\u00e8ne's guide _L\u00e9opold_ (a pseudonym for Cagliostro) who\nspeaks and writes through her, and is, in fact, either her leading\nspirit-control or (much more probably) her most developed form of\nsecondary personality.\n\n\"Leopold,\" says Professor Flournoy (p. 134), \"certainly manifests a very\nhonourable and amiable side of Mlle. Smith's character, and in taking\nhim as her 'guide' she has followed inspirations which are doubtless\namong the highest in her nature.\"\n\nThe high moral quality of these automatic communications, on which\nProfessor Flournoy thus insists, is a phenomenon worth consideration.\n\nI do not mean that it is specially strange in the case of Mlle. Smith.\nBut the almost universally high moral tone of genuinely automatic\nutterances has not, I think, been sufficiently noticed or adequately\nexplained.\n\nIn evidential messages--where there is real reason to believe that an\nidentified spirit is communicating--there is a marked and independent\nconsensus on such matters as these spirits profess themselves able to\ndiscuss.\n\nAnd again in non-evidential messages--in communications which probably\nproceed from the automatist's subliminal self--I hold that there is a\nremarkable and undesigned concordance in high moral tone, and also in\navoidance of certain prevalent tenets, which many of the automatists do\nsupraliminally hold as true. But I also insist that these subliminal\nmessages, even when not incoherent, are generally dream-like, and often\ninvolve tenets which (though never in my experience base or immoral) are\nunsupported by evidence, and are probably to be referred to mere\nself-suggestion.\n\nProminent among such tenets is one which forms a large part of Mlle.\nSmith's communications; namely, the doctrine of _reincarnation_, or of\nsuccessive lives spent by each soul upon this planet.\n\nThe simple fact that such was probably the opinion both of Plato and of\nVirgil shows that there is nothing here which is alien to the best\nreason or to the highest instincts of men. Nor, indeed, is it easy to\nrealise any theory of the _direct creation_ of spirits at such different\nstages of advancement as those which enter upon the earth in the guise\nof mortal man. There _must_, one feels, be some kind of continuity--some\nform of spiritual Past. Yet for reincarnation there is at present no\nvalid evidence; and it must be my duty to show how its assertion in any\ngiven instance--Mlle. Smith's included--constitutes in itself a strong\nargument in favour of self-suggestion rather than extraneous inspiration\nas the source of the messages in which it appears.\n\nWhenever civilised men have received what they have regarded as a\nrevelation (which has generally been somewhat fragmentary in its first\ndelivery) they have naturally endeavoured to complete and systematise it\nas well as they could. In so doing they have mostly aimed at three\nobjects: (1) to _understand_ as much as possible of the secrets of the\nuniverse; (2) to _justify_ as far as possible Heaven's dealings with\nmen; and (3) to _appropriate_ as far as possible the favour or benefit\nwhich the revelation may show as possibly accruing to believers. For all\nthese purposes the doctrine of reincarnation has proved useful in many\ncountries and times. But in no case could it seem more appropriate than\nin this last revelation (so to term it) through automatic messages and\nthe like. And as a matter of history, a certain vigorous preacher of the\nnew faith, known under the name of Allan Kardec, took up\nreincarnationist tenets, enforced them (as there is reason to believe)\nby strong suggestion upon the minds of various automatic writers, and\nset them forth in dogmatic works which have had much influence,\nespecially among Latin nations, from their clarity, symmetry, and\nintrinsic reasonableness. Yet the data thus collected were absolutely\ninsufficient, and the _Livre des Esprits_ must simply rank as the\npremature formulation of a new religion--the premature systematisation\nof a nascent science.\n\nI follow Professor Flournoy in believing that the teaching of that work\nmust have directly or indirectly influenced the mind of Mlle. Smith, and\nis therefore responsible for her claim to these incarnations previous to\nthat which she now undergoes or enjoys.\n\nOn the general scheme here followed, each incarnation, if the last has\nbeen used aright, ought to represent some advance in the scale of being.\nIf one earth-life has been misused, the next earth-life ought to afford\nopportunity for expiation--or for further practice in the special virtue\nwhich has been imperfectly acquired. Thus Mlle. Smith's present life in\na humble position may be thought to atone for her overmuch pride in her\nlast incarnation--as Marie Antoinette.\n\nBut the mention of Marie Antoinette suggests the risk which this theory\nfosters--of assuming that one is the issue of a distinguished line of\nspiritual progenitors; insomuch that, with whatever temporary sets-back,\none is sure in the end to find oneself in a leading position.\n\nPythagoras, indeed, was content with the secondary hero Euphorbus as his\nbygone self. But in our days Dr. Anna Kingsford and Mr. Edward Maitland\nmust needs have been the Virgin Mary and St. John the Divine. And Victor\nHugo, who was naturally well to the front in these self-multiplications,\ntook possession of most of the leading personages of antiquity whom he\ncould manage to string together in chronological sequence. It is obvious\nthat any number of re-born souls can play at this game; but where no one\nadduces any evidence it seems hardly worth while to go on. Even\nPythagoras does not appear to have adduced any evidence beyond his _ipse\ndixit_ for his assertion that the alleged shield of Euphorbus had in\nreality been borne by that mythical hero. Meantime the question as to\nreincarnation has actually been put to a very few spirits who have given\nsome real evidence of their identity. So far as I know, no one of these\nhas claimed to know anything personally of such an incident; although\nall have united in saying that their knowledge was too limited to allow\nthem to generalise on the matter.\n\nH\u00e9l\u00e8ne's controls and previous incarnations--to return to our\nsubject--do perhaps suffer from the general fault of aiming too high.\nShe has to her credit a control from the planet Mars; one\npre-incarnation as an Indian Princess; and a second (as I have said) as\nMarie Antoinette.\n\nIn each case there are certain impressive features in the impersonation;\nbut in each case also careful analysis negatives the idea that we can be\ndealing with a personality really revived from a former epoch, or from a\ndistant planet;--and leaves us inclined to explain everything by\n\"cryptomnesia\" (as Professor Flournoy calls submerged memory), and that\nsubliminal inventiveness of which we already know so much.\n\nThe _Martian_ control was naturally the most striking at first sight.\nIts reality was supported by a Martian language, written in a Martian\nalphabet, spoken with fluency, and sufficiently interpreted into French\nto show that such part of it, at any rate, as could be committed to\nwriting was actually a grammatical and coherent form of speech.\n\nAnd here I reach an appropriate point at which to remark that this book\nof Professor Flournoy's is not the first account which has been\npublished of Mlle. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. Professor Lema\u00eetre, of Geneva, printed two\npapers about her in the _Annales des Sciences Psychiques_: first, a long\narticle in the number for March-April, 1897--then a reply to M. Lef\u00e9bure\nin the number for May-June, 1897. In these papers he distinctly claims\nsupernormal powers for Mlle. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, implying a belief in her genuine\npossession by spirits, and even in her previous incarnations, and in the\nextra-terrene or ostensibly Martian language. I read these papers at the\ntime, but put them aside as inconclusive, mainly because that very\nlanguage, on which M. Lema\u00eetre seemed most to rely, appeared to me so\nobviously factitious as to throw doubt on all the evidence presented by\nan observer who could believe that denizens of another planet talked to\neach other in a language corresponding in every particular with simple\nFrench idioms, and including such words as _quisa_ for _quel_, _quis\u00e9_\nfor _quelle_, _v\u00e9t\u00e8che_ for _voir_, _v\u00e8che_ for _vu_;--the fantastic\nlocutions of the nursery. M. Lema\u00eetre remarks, as a proof of the\nconsistency and reality of the extra-terrene tongue, \"L'un des premiers\nmots que nous ayons eus, _m\u00e9tiche_, signifiant _monsieur_, se retrouve\nplus tard avec le sens de _homme_.\" That is to say, having\ntransmogrified _monsieur_ into _m\u00e9tiche_, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne further transmutes\n_les messieurs_ into _c\u00e9e m\u00e9tich\u00e9_;--in na\u00efve imitation of ordinary\nFrench usage. And this tongue is supposed to have sprung up\nindependently of all the influences which have shaped terrene grammar in\ngeneral or the French idiom in particular! And even after Professor\nFlournoy's analysis of this absurdity I see newspapers speaking of this\nMartian language as an impressive phenomenon! They seem willing to\nbelieve that the evolution of another planet, if it has culminated in\nconscious life at all, can have culminated in a conscious life into\nwhich we could all of us enter affably, with a suitable Ollendorff's\nphrase-book under our arms;--\"_eni c\u00e9e m\u00e9tich\u00e9 on\u00e9 qud\u00e9_,\"--\"ici les\nhommes (messieurs) sont bons,\"--\"here the men are good\";--and the rest\nof it.\n\nTo the student of automatisms, of course, all this irresistibly suggests\nthe automatist's own subliminal handiwork. It is a case of \"glossolaly,\"\nor \"speaking with tongues\"; and we have no modern case--no case later\nthan the half-mythical Miracles of the Cevennes--where such utterance\nhas proved to be other than gibberish. I have had various automatic\nhieroglyphics shown to me, with the suggestion that they may be cursive\nJapanese, or perhaps an old dialect of Northern China; but I confess\nthat I have grown tired of showing these fragments to the irresponsive\nexpert, who suggests that they may also be vague reminiscences of the\nscrolls in an Oriental tea-tray.\n\nIt seems indeed to be a most difficult thing to get telepathically into\nany brain even fragments of a language which it has not learnt. A few\nsimple Italian, and even Hawaiian, words occur in Mrs. Piper's\nutterances, coming apparently from departed spirits (_Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 337 and 384 [960 A and \u00a7 961]), but these, with\nsome Kaffir and Chinese words given through Miss Browne (_Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. ix. pp. 124-127 [871 A]), form, I think, almost the only\ninstances which I know. And, speaking generally, whatever is elaborate,\nfinished, pretentious, is likely to be of subliminal facture; while only\nthings scrappy, perplexed, and tentative, have floated to us veritably\nfrom afar.\n\nI need not here go into the details of the Hindow preincarnation or of\nthe more modern and accessible characterisation of Marie Antoinette, but\nwill pass on to certain minor, but interesting phenomena, which\nProfessor Flournoy calls _teleological automatisms_. These are small\nacts of helpfulness--_beneficent synergies_, as we might term them, in\ncontrast with the _injurious synergies_, or combined groups of _hurtful_\nactions, with which hysteria has made us familiar.[184]\n\n\"One day,\" says Professor Flournoy (p. 35), \"Miss Smith, when desiring\nto lift down a large and heavy object which lay on a high shelf, was\nprevented from doing so because her raised arm remained for some seconds\nas though petrified in the air and incapable of movement. She took this\nas a warning, and gave up the attempt. At a subsequent s\u00e9ance Leopold\nstated that it was he who had thus fixed H\u00e9l\u00e8ne's arm to prevent her\nfrom grasping this object, which was much too heavy for her and would\nhave caused her some accident.\n\n\"Another time, a shopman, who had been looking in vain for a certain\npattern, asked H\u00e9l\u00e8ne if by chance she knew what had become of it.\nH\u00e9l\u00e8ne answered mechanically and without reflection--'Yes, it has been\nsent to Mr. J.' (a client of the house). At the same time she saw before\nher the number 18 in large black figures a few feet from the ground, and\nadded instinctively, 'It was sent eighteen days ago.' [This was in the\nhighest degree improbable, but was found to be absolutely correct.]\nLeopold had no recollection of this, and does not seem to have been the\nauthor of this cryptomnesic automatism.\"\n\nA similar phenomenon has also been noted (p. 87) when warning is\nconveyed by an actual phantasmal figure. Mlle. Smith has seen an\n_apparition_ of Leopold, barring a particular road, under circumstances\nwhich make it probable that Mlle. Smith would on that day have had cause\nto regret taking that route.\n\nThis case of Professor Flournoy's, then--this classical case, as it may\nalready be fairly termed--may serve here as our culminant example of the\nfree scope and dominant activity of the unassisted subliminal self. The\ntelepathic element in this case, if it exists, is relatively small; what\nwe are watching in Mlle. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Smith resembles, as I have said, a kind\nof exaggeration of the submerged constructive faculty,--a hypertrophy of\ngenius--without the innate originality of mind which made even the\ndreams of R. L. Stevenson a source of pleasure to thousands of readers.\n\nIn reference to the main purpose of this work, such cases as these,\nhowever curious, can be only introductory to automatisms of deeper\nmoment. In our attempt to trace an evolutive series of phenomena\nindicating ever higher human faculty, the smallest telepathic\nincident,--the most trivial proof, if proof it be, of communication\nreceived without sensory intermediation from either an incarnate or a\ndiscarnate mind outweighs in importance the most complex ramifications\nand burgeonings of the automatist's own submerged intelligence.\n\nI pass on, then, to evidence which points, through motor automatisms, to\nsupernormal faculty; and I shall begin by referring the reader to\ncertain experiments (due to Professor Richet) in the simplest of all\nforms of motor automatism, viz., table-tilting, with results which only\ntelepathy can explain. (See Appendix VIII. A.)\n\nTrivial though they seem, such experiments may with a little care be\nmade absolutely conclusive. Had Professor Richet's friends, for example,\nbeen willing to prolong this series, we might have had a standing\ndemonstration of telepathy, reproducible at will.[185]\n\nAnd now I pass on to some experiments with Planchette, in which an\nelement of telepathy was shown. The following account from Mrs. Alfred\nMoberly, Tynwald, Hythe, Kent, is corroborated, with some additional\nexamples, by two other ladies present at the time.\n\n(From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ii. p. 235.)\n\n\n_May 9th, 1884._\n\n     The operators were placed out of sight of the rest of the company,\n     who selected--in silence--a photograph, one of an albumful, and\n     fixed their attention on it. We--the operators--were requested to\n     keep our minds a blank as far as possible and follow the first\n     involuntary motion of the Planchette. In three out of five cases it\n     wrote the name or initial or some word descriptive of the selected\n     portrait. We also obtained the signatures to letters selected in\n     the same manner. We both knew perfectly well that _we_ were\n     writing--not the spirits, as the rest of the company persist to\n     this day in believing--but had only the slightest idea what the\n     words might prove to be.\n\n     We have tried it since, and generally with some curious result. A\n     crucial test was offered by two gentlemen in the form of a question\n     to which we couldn't possibly guess the answer. \"Where's Toosey?\"\n     The answer came, \"In Vauxhall Road.\" \"Toosey,\" they explained, was\n     a pet terrier who had disappeared; suspicion attaching to a plumber\n     living in the road mentioned, who had been working at the house and\n     whose departure coincided with Toosey's.\n\nOf course, in the case of the inquiry after the lost dog, we may suppose\nthat the answer given came from the questioner's own mind. Mrs. Moberly\nand her friends seem to have been quite aware of this; and were little\nlikely to fall into the not uncommon error of asking Planchette, for\ninstance, what horse will win the Derby, and staking, perhaps, some\npecuniary consideration on the extremely illusory reply.[186]\n\nAnd now we come to the palmary case of the late Rev. P. H. Newnham,\nVicar of Maker, Devonport, who was personally known to Edmund Gurney and\nmyself, and was a man in all ways worthy of high respect. The long\nseries of communications between Mr. Newnham and his wife, which date\nback to 1871, and whose contemporaneous written record is preserved in\nthe archives of the S.P.R., must, I think, always retain their primacy\nas early and trustworthy examples of a telepathic transference where the\npercipient's automatic script answers questions penned by the agent in\nsuch a position that the percipient could not in any normal manner\ndiscern what those questions were. No part of our evidence seems to me\nmore worthy of study than this.[187]\n\nIt must be distinctly understood that Mrs. Newnham did not see or hear\nthe questions which Mr. Newnham wrote down.[188] The fact, therefore,\nthat her answers bore any relation to the questions shows that the sense\nof the questions was telepathically conveyed to her. This is the leading\nand important fact. The _substance_ of the replies written is also\ninteresting, and Mr. Newnham has some good comments thereon. But even\nhad the replies contained no facts which Mrs. Newnham could not have\nknown, this would not detract from the main value of the evidence, which\nconsists in the fact that _Mrs. Newnham's hand wrote replies clearly and\nrepeatedly answering questions which she neither heard nor saw_.\n\nIn this case we have the advantage of seeing before us the entire series\nof questions and answers, and thus of satisfying ourselves that the\nmisses (which in that case are very few) are marked as well as the hits,\nand consequently that the coincidences between question and answer are\nat any rate not the result of chance. In several other cases which I\nhave known, where the good faith of the informants has been equally\nabove question, the possibility of an explanation by chance alone has\nbeen a more important element in the problem. All our evidence has\ntended to show that the telepathic power itself is a variable thing;\nthat it shows itself in flashes, for the most part spontaneously, and\nseldom persists through a series of deliberate experiments. And if an\nautomatist possessing power of this uncertain kind has exercised it at\nirregular moments and with no scientific aim;--and has kept, moreover,\nno steady record of success and failure;--then it becomes difficult to\nsay that even some brilliant coincidences afford cogent proof of\ntelepathic action.[189]\n\nI pass on to a small group of cases which form a curious transition from\nthese communications _inter vivos_ to communications which I shall class\nas coming from the dead. These are cases where the message professes to\ncome from a deceased person, but shows internal evidence of having come,\ntelepathically, from the mind of some one present, or, indeed, from some\nliving person at a distance. (See the case given in Appendix VIII. B.)\n\nBut this, although a real risk, is by no means the only risk of\ndeception which such messages involve. The communication may conceivably\ncome from some unembodied spirit indeed, but not from the spirit who is\nclaimed as its author.\n\nThe reader who wishes to acquaint himself with this new range of\nproblems cannot do better than study the record of the varied\nexperiences of automatic writing which have been intermingled with Miss\nA.'s crystal-visions, etc.[190]\n\nThere is no case that I have watched longer than Miss A.'s;--none where\nI have more absolute assurance of the scrupulous probity of the\nprincipal sensitive herself and of the group who share the\nexperiments;--but none also which leaves me more often baffled as to the\nunseen source of the information given. There is a knowledge both of the\npast and of the future, which seems capriciously limited, and is mingled\nwith mistakes, yet on the other hand is of a nature which it is\ndifficult to refer to any individual human mind, incarnate or\ndiscarnate. We meet here some of the first indications of a possibility\nthat discarnate spirits communicating with us have occasional access to\ncertain sources of knowledge which even to themselves are inscrutably\nremote and obscure.\n\nThe written diagnoses and prognoses given by the so-called \"Semirus,\"\noften without Miss A.'s even seeing the patient or hearing the nature of\nhis malady, have become more and more remarkable. Miss A. and her\nfriends do not wish these private matters to be printed, and I cannot\ntherefore insist upon the phenomena here. Yet in view of the amount of\ntel\u00e6sthesia which Miss A.'s various automatisms reveal, it should first\nbe noted that human organisms seem especially pervious to such _vue \u00e0\ndistance_. \"Semirus,\" \"Gelalius,\" etc., are obvious pseudonyms; and\nneither Semirus' prescriptions nor Gelalius' cosmogony contain enough of\nindication to enable us to grasp their origin.[191]\n\nFrom the communications of these remote personages I go on to certain\nmessages avowedly coming from persons more recently departed, and into\nwhich something more of definite personality seems to enter. One element\nof this kind is _handwriting_; there are many cases where resemblance of\nhandwriting is one of the evidential points alleged. Now proof of\nidentity from resemblance of handwriting may conceivably be very strong.\nBut in estimating it we must bear two points in mind. The first is that\n(like the resemblances of so-called \"spirit-photographs\" to deceased\nfriends) it is often very loosely asserted. One needs, if not an\nexpert's opinion, at least a careful personal scrutiny of the three\nscripts--the automatist's voluntary and his automatic script, and the\ndeceased person's script--before one can feel sure that the resemblance\nis in more than some general scrawliness. This refers to the cases where\nthe automatist has provably never seen the deceased person's\nhandwriting. Where he _has_ seen that handwriting, we have to remember\n(in the second place) that a hypnotised subject can frequently imitate\nany known handwriting far more closely than in his waking state; and\nthat consequently we are bound to credit the subliminal self with a\nmimetic faculty which may come out in these messages without any\nsupraliminal guidance whatever on the automatist's part. In\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 549-65 [864 A], is an account of a\nseries of experiments by Professor Rossi-Pagnoni at Pesaro, into which\nthe question of handwriting enters. The account illustrates automatic\nutterance as well as other forms of motor automatism, and possibly also\ntelekinetic phenomena. The critical discussion of the evidence by Mr.\nH. Babington Smith, to whom we are indebted for the account, shows with\nwhat complex considerations we have to deal in the questions now before\nus.\n\nI now cite a few cases where the point of central interest is the\nannouncement of a death unknown to the sitters.[192]\n\nIn Appendix VIII. C is given a case which we received from Dr.\nLi\u00e9beault, of Nancy, and which was first published in _Phantasms of the\nLiving_ (vol. i. p. 293), where it was regarded as an example of a\nspontaneous telepathic impulse proceeding directly from a dying person.\nI now regard it as more probably due to the action of the spirit after\nbodily death.\n\nI shall next give a _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of a case of curious complexity received\nfrom M. Aksakof;--an automatic message written by a Mdlle. Stramm,\ninforming her of the death of a M. Duvanel. The principal incidents may\nhere be disentangled as follows:--\n\n     Duvanel dies by his own hand on January 15th, 1887, in a Swiss\n     village, where he lives alone, having no relations except a brother\n     living at a distance, whom Mdlle. Stramm had never seen (as the\n     principal witness, M. Kaigorodoff, informs us in a letter of May\n     1890).\n\n     Mdlle. Stramm's father does not hear of Duvanel's death till two\n     days later, and sends her the news in a letter dated January 18th,\n     1887.\n\n     Five hours after Duvanel's death an automatic message announcing it\n     is written at the house of M. Kaigorodoff, at Wilna in Russia, by\n     Mdlle. Stramm, who had certainly at that time received no news of\n     the event.\n\n     From what mind are we to suppose that this information came?\n\n     (1) We may first attempt to account for Mdlle. Stramm's message on\n     the theory of _latency_. We may suppose that the telepathic message\n     came from the dying man, but did not rise into consciousness until\n     an opportunity was afforded by Mdlle. Stramm's sitting down to\n     write automatically.\n\n     But to this interpretation there is an objection of a very curious\n     kind. The message written by Mdlle. Stramm was not precisely\n     accurate. Instead of ascribing Duvanel's death to suicide, it\n     ascribed it to a stoppage of blood, \"un engorgement de sang.\"\n\n     And when M. Stramm, three days after the death, wrote to his\n     daughter in Russia to tell her of it, he also used the same\n     expression, \"un engorgement de sang,\" thus disguising the actual\n     truth in order to spare the feelings of his daughter, who had\n     formerly refused to marry Duvanel, and who (as her father feared)\n     might receive a painful shock if she learnt the tragic nature of\n     his end. There was, therefore, a singular coincidence between the\n     automatic and the normally-written message as to the death;--a\n     coincidence which looks as though the same mind had been at work\n     in each instance. But that mind cannot have been M. Stramm's\n     ordinary mind, as he was not supraliminally aware of Duvanel's\n     death at the time when the first message was written. It may,\n     however, be supposed that his subliminal self had received the\n     information of the death telepathically, had transmitted it in a\n     deliberately modified form to his daughter, while it remained\n     latent in himself, and had afterwards influenced his supraliminal\n     self to modify the information in the same way when writing to her.\n\n     (2) But we must also consider the explanation of the coincidence\n     given by the intelligence which controlled the automatic writing.\n     That intelligence asserted itself to be a brother of Mdlle.\n     Stramm's, who died some years before. And this \"Louis\" further\n     asserted that he had himself influenced M. Stramm to make use of\n     the same euphemistic phrase, with the object of avoiding a shock to\n     Mdlle. Stramm; for which purpose it was needful that the two\n     messages should agree in ascribing the death to the same form of\n     sudden illness.\n\n     Now if this be true, and the message did indeed come from the\n     deceased \"Louis,\" we have an indication of continued existence, and\n     continued knowledge of earthly affairs, on the part of a person\n     long dead.\n\n     But if we consider that the case, as presented to us, contains no\n     proof of \"Louis'\" identity, so that \"Louis\" may be merely one of\n     those arbitrary names which the automatist's subliminal\n     intelligence seems so prone to assume; then we must suppose that\n     Duvanel was actually operative on two occasions after death, first\n     inspiring in Mdlle. Stramm the automatic message, and then\n     modifying in M. Stramm the message which the father might otherwise\n     have sent.\n\nI next quote a case in Appendix VIII. D which illustrates the continued\nterrene knowledge on the part of the dead of which other instances were\ngiven in the last chapter.\n\nAnd lastly, I give in Appendix VIII. E a case which in one respect\nstands alone. It narrates the success of a direct experiment,--a\ntest-message planned before death, and communicated after death, by a\nman who held that the hope of an assurance of continued existence was\nworth at least a resolute effort, whatever its result might be. His\ntests, indeed, were two, and both were successful. One was the revealing\nof the place where, before death, he hid a piece of brick marked and\nbroken for special recognition, and the other was the communication of\nthe contents of a short letter which he wrote and sealed before death.\nWe may say that the information was certainly not possessed\nsupraliminally by any living person. There are two other cases\n(_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 353-355, and _op. cit._ vol viii.\npp. 238-242 [876 A and B]) where information given through automatists\nmay hypothetically be explicable by telepathy from the living, although,\nindeed, in my own view, it probably emanated from the deceased as\nalleged. In one of these cases the place where a missing will had been\nhidden was revealed to the automatist, but it is not clear whether the\nwill was actually discovered or not before the automatic writing was\nobtained (although the automatist was unaware of its discovery), and in\nany case, apparently, its whereabouts was known to some living person\nwho had hidden it, and may not have been known to the deceased before\ndeath.\n\nIn the other case the whereabouts of a missing note of hand was revealed\nto the automatists, and even if this could be regarded as absolutely\nunknown supraliminally to any living person, it is not by any means\ncertain that the fact was known before death to the deceased person from\nwhom the message purported to come.\n\nThese cases, therefore, are not such strong evidence for personal\nidentity as the one to which I have referred above, and which I have\ngiven, as recording what purports to be the successful accomplishment of\nan experiment which every one may make;--which every one _ought_ to\nmake;--for, small as may be the chances of success, a few score of\ndistinct successes would establish a presumption of man's survival which\nthe common sense of mankind would refuse to explain away.\n\nHere, then, let us pause and consider to what point the evidence\ncontained in this chapter has gradually led us. We shall perceive that\nthe motor phenomena have confirmed, and have also greatly extended, the\nresults to which the cognate sensory phenomena had already pointed. We\nhave already noted, in each of the two states of sleep and of waking,\nthe variously expanding capacities of the subliminal self. We have\nwatched a hyper\u00e6sthetic intensification of ordinary faculty,--leading up\nto tel\u00e6sthesia, and to telepathy, from the living and from the departed.\nAlong with these powers, which, on the hypothesis of the soul's\nindependent existence, are at least within our range of analogical\nconception, we have noted also a precognitive capacity of a type which\nno fact as yet known to science will help us to explain.\n\nProceeding to the study of motor automatisms, we have found a _third_\ngroup of cases which independently confirm in each of these lines in\nturn the results of our analysis of sensory automatisms both in sleep\nand in waking. Evidence thus convergent will already need no ordinary\nboldness of negative assumption if it is to be set aside. But motor\nautomatisms have taught us much more than this. At once more energetic\nand more persistent than the sensory, they oblige us to face certain\nproblems which the lightness and fugitiveness of sensory impressions\nallowed us in some measure to evade. Thus when we discussed the\nmechanism (so to call it) of visual and auditory phantasms, two\ncompeting conceptions presented themselves for our choice,--the\nconception of _telepathic impact_, and the conception of _psychical\ninvasion_. Either (we said) there was an influence exerted by the agent\non the percipient's mind, which so stimulated the sensory tracts of his\nbrain that he externalised that impression as a quasi-percept, or else\nthe agent in some way modified an actual portion of space where (say) an\napparition was discerned, perhaps by several percipients at once.\n\nPhrased in this manner, the telepathic impact seemed the less startling,\nthe less extreme hypothesis of the two,--mainly, perhaps, because the\npicture which it called up was left so vague and obscure. But now\ninstead of a fleeting hallucination we have to deal with a strong and\nlasting impulse--such, for instance, as the girl's impulse to _write_,\nin Dr. Li\u00e9beault's case (Appendix VIII. C):--an impulse which seems to\ncome from the depths of the being, and which (like a post-hypnotic\nsuggestion) may override even strong disinclination, and keep the\nautomatist uncomfortable until it has worked itself out. We may still\ncall this a _telepathic impact_, if we will, but we shall find it hard\nto distinguish that term from a _psychical invasion_. This strong, yet\napparently alien, motor innervation corresponds in fact as closely as\npossible to our idea of an _invasion_--an invasion no longer of the room\nonly in which the percipient is sitting, but of his own body and his own\npowers. It is an invasion which, if sufficiently prolonged, would become\na _possession_; and it both unites and intensifies those two earlier\nconjectures;--of telepathic impact on the percipient's mind, and of\n\"phantasmogenetic presence\" in the percipient's surroundings. What\nseemed at first a mere impact is tending to become a persistent control;\nwhat seemed an incursion merely into the percipient's environment has\nbecome an incursion into his organism itself.\n\nAs has been usual in this inquiry, this slight forward step from\nvagueness to comparative clearness of conception introduces us at once\nto a whole series of novel problems. Yet, as we have also learnt to\nexpect, some of our earlier phenomena may have to be called in with\nadvantage to illustrate phenomena more advanced.\n\nIn cases of split personality, to begin with, we have seen just the same\nphenomena occurring where certainly no personality was concerned save\nthe percipient's own. We have seen a section of the subliminal self\npartially or temporarily dominating the organism; perhaps controlling\npermanently one arm alone;[193] or perhaps controlling intermittently\nthe whole nervous system;--and all this with varying degrees of\ndisplacement of the primary personality.\n\nSimilarly with post-hypnotic suggestion. We have seen the subliminal\nself ordered to write (say) \"It has left off raining\"--and thereupon\nwriting the words without the conscious will of the automatist--and\nagain with varying degrees of displacement of the waking self. The step\nhence to such a case as Mrs. Newnham's is thus not a very long one. Mrs.\nNewnham's subliminal self, exercising supernormal faculty, and by some\neffort of its own, acquires certain facts from Mr. Newnham's mind, and\nuses her hand to write them down automatically. The great problem here\nintroduced is how the subliminal self acquires the facts, rather than\nhow it succeeds in writing them down when it has once acquired them.\n\nBut as we go further we can no longer limit the problem in this way,--to\nthe activities of the automatist's subliminal self. We cannot always\nassume that some portion of the automatist's personality gets at the\nsupernormal knowledge by some effort of its own. Our evidence, as we\nknow, has pointed decisively to telepathic impacts or influences from\nwithout. What, then, is the mechanism here? Are we still to suppose that\nthe automatist's subliminal self executes the movements--obeying somehow\nthe bidding of the impulse from without? or does the external agent, who\nsends the telepathic message, himself execute the movements also,\ndirectly using the automatist's arm? And if telekinetic movements\naccompany the message (a subject thus far deferred, but of prime\nimportance), are we to suppose that these also are effected by the\npercipient's subliminal self, under the guidance of some external\nspirit, incarnate or discarnate? or are they effected directly by that\nexternal spirit?\n\nWe cannot really say which of these two is the easier hypothesis.\n\nFrom one point of view it may seem simpler to keep as long as we can to\nthat acknowledged _vera causa_, the automatist's subliminal self; and to\ncollect such observations as may indicate any power on its part of\nproducing physical effects outside the organism. Such scattered\nobservations occur at every stage, and even Mrs. Newnham (I may briefly\nobserve in passing) thought that her pencil, when writing down the\nmessages telepathically derived from her husband, was moved by something\nother than the ordinary muscular action of the fingers which held it. On\nthe other hand, there seems something very forced in attributing to an\nexternal spirit's agency impulses and impressions which seem intimately\nthe automatist's own, and at the same time refusing to ascribe to that\nexternal agency phenomena which take place outside the automatist's\norganism, and which present themselves to him as objective facts, as\nmuch outside his own being as the fall of the apple to the ground.\n\nReflecting on such points--and once admitting this kind of interaction\nbetween the automatist's own spirit and an external spirit, incarnate or\ndiscarnate--we find the possible combinations presenting themselves in\nperplexing variety;--a variety both of agencies on the part of the\ninvading spirit, and of effects on the part of the invaded spirit and\norganism.\n\nWhat is that which invades? and what is that which is displaced or\nsuperseded by this invasion? In what ways may two spirits co-operate in\nthe possession and control of the same organism?\n\nThese last words--control and possession--remind us of the great mass of\nvague tradition and belief to the effect that spirits of the departed\nmay exercise such possession or control over the living. To those\nancient and vague beliefs it will be our task in the next chapter to\ngive a form as exact and stable as we can. And observe with how entirely\nnovel a preparation of mind we now enter on that task. The examination\nof \"possession\" is no longer to us, as to the ordinary civilised\ninquirer, a merely antiquarian or anthropological research into forms of\nsuperstition lying wholly apart from any valid or systematic thought. On\nthe contrary, it is an inquiry directly growing out of previous\nevidence; directly needed for the full comprehension of known facts as\nwell as for the discovery of facts unknown. We need, (so to say), to\nanalyse the spectrum of helium, as detected in the sun, in order to\ncheck and correct our spectrum of helium as detected in the Bath waters.\nWe are obliged to seek for certain definite phenomena in the spiritual\nworld in order to explain certain definite phenomena of the world of\nmatter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTRANCE, POSSESSION, AND ECSTASY\n\n    Vicit iter durum pietas.\n\n    --VIRGIL.\n\n\n_Possession_, to define it for the moment in the narrowest way, is a\nmore developed form of Motor Automatism. The difference broadly is, that\nin Possession the automatist's own personality does for the time\naltogether disappear, while there is a more or less complete\n_substitution_ of personality; writing or speech being given by a spirit\nthrough the entranced organism. The change which has come over this\nbranch of evidence since the present work was first projected, in 1888,\nis most significant. There existed indeed, at that date, a good deal of\nevidence which pointed in this direction,[194] but for various reasons\nmost of that evidence was still possibly explicable in other ways. Even\nthe phenomena of Mr. W. S. Moses left it possible to argue that the main\n\"controls\" under which he wrote or spoke when entranced were\nself-suggestions of his own mind, or phases of his own deeper\npersonality. I had not then had the opportunity, which the kindness of\nhis executors after his death afforded to me, of studying the whole\nseries of his original note-books, and forming at first-hand my present\nconviction that spiritual agency was an actual and important element in\nthat long sequence of communications. On the whole, I did not then\nanticipate that the theory of possession could be presented as more than\na plausible speculation, or as a supplement to other lines of proof of\nman's survival of death.\n\nThe position of things, as the reader of the S.P.R. _Proceedings_ knows,\nhas since that time undergone a complete change. The trance-phenomena of\nMrs. Piper--so long and so carefully watched by Dr. Hodgson and\nothers--formed, I think, by far the most remarkable mass of psychical\nevidence till then adduced in any quarter. And more recently other\nseries of trance-phenomena with other \"mediums\"--though still\nincomplete--have added materially to the evidence obtained through Mrs.\nPiper. The result broadly is that these phenomena of possession are now\nthe most amply attested, as well as intrinsically the most advanced, in\nour whole repertory.\n\nNor, again, is the mere increment of direct evidence, important though\nthat is, the sole factor in the changed situation. Not only has direct\nevidence grown, but indirect evidence, so to say, has moved to meet it.\nThe notion of personality--of the control of organism by spirit--has\ngradually been so modified that Possession, which passed till the other\nday as a mere survival of savage thought, is now seen to be the\nconsummation, the furthest development of many lines of experiment,\nobservation, reflection, which the preceding chapters have opened to our\nview.\n\nLet us then at once consider what the notion of possession does actually\nclaim. It will be better to face that claim in its full extent at once,\nas it will be seen that the evidence, while rising through various\nstages, does in the end insist on all that the ancient term implies. The\nleading modern cases, of which Stainton Moses and Mrs. Piper may be\ntaken as types, are closely analogous, presenting many undesigned\ncoincidences, some of which come out only on close examination.\n\nThe claim, then, is that the automatist, in the first place, falls into\na trance, during which his spirit partially \"quits his body:\" enters at\nany rate into a state in which the spiritual world is more or less open\nto its perception; and in which also--and this is the novelty--it so far\nceases to occupy the organism as to leave room for an invading spirit to\nuse it in somewhat the same fashion as its owner is accustomed to use\nit.\n\nThe brain being thus left temporarily and partially uncontrolled, a\ndisembodied spirit sometimes, but not always, succeeds in occupying it;\nand occupies it with varying degrees of control. In some cases (Mrs.\nPiper) two or more spirits may simultaneously control different portions\nof the same organism.\n\nThe controlling spirit proves his identity mainly by reproducing, in\nspeech or writing, facts which belong to his memory and not to the\nautomatist's memory. He may also give evidence of supernormal perception\nof other kinds.\n\nHis manifestations may differ very considerably from the automatist's\nnormal personality. Yet in one sense it is a process of selection rather\nthan of addition; the spirit selects what parts of the brain-machinery\nhe will use, but he cannot get out of that machinery more than it is\nconstructed to perform. The spirit can indeed produce facts and names\nunknown to the automatist; but they must be, as a rule, such facts and\nnames as the automatist could easily have repeated, had they been known\nto him:--not, for instance, mathematical formul\u00e6 or Chinese sentences,\nif the automatist is ignorant of mathematics or of Chinese.\n\nAfter a time the control gives way, and the automatist's spirit returns.\nThe automatist, awaking, may or may not remember his experiences in the\nspiritual world during the trance. In some cases (Swedenborg) there is\nthis memory of the spiritual world, but no possession of the organism by\nan external spirit. In others (Cahagnet's subject) there is utterance\nduring the trance as to what is being discerned by the automatist, yet\nno memory thereof on waking. In others (Mrs. Piper) there is neither\nutterance as a rule, or at least no prolonged utterance, by the\nautomatist's own spirit, nor subsequent memory; but there is writing or\nutterance during the trance by controlling spirits.\n\nNow this seems a strange doctrine to have reached after so much\ndisputation. For it simply brings us back to the creeds of the Stone\nAge. We have come round again to the primitive practices of the shaman\nand the medicine-man;--to a doctrine of spiritual intercourse which was\nonce oecumenical, but has now taken refuge in African swamps and\nSiberian tundras and the snow-clad wastes of the Red Indian and the\nEsquimaux. If, as is sometimes advised, we judge of the worth of ideas\nby tracing their _origins_, no conception could start from a lower level\nof humanity. It might be put out of court at once as unworthy of\ncivilised men.\n\nFortunately, however, our previous discussions have supplied us with a\nsomewhat more searching criterion. Instead of asking in what age a\ndoctrine originated--with the implied assumption that the more recent it\nis, the better--we can now ask how far it is in accord or in discord\nwith a great mass of actual recent evidence which comes into contact, in\none way or another, with nearly every belief as to an unseen world which\nhas been held at least by western men. Submitted to this test, the\ntheory of possession gives a remarkable result. It cannot be said to be\ninconsistent with any of our proved facts. We know absolutely nothing\nwhich negatives its possibility.\n\nNay, more than this. The theory of possession actually supplies us with\na powerful method of co-ordinating and explaining many earlier groups of\nphenomena, if only we will consent to explain them in a way which at\nfirst sight seemed extreme in its assumptions--seemed unduly prodigal of\nthe marvellous. Yet as to that difficulty we have learnt by this time\nthat no explanation of psychical phenomena is really simple, and that\nour best clue is to get hold of some group which seems to admit of one\ninterpretation only, and then to use that group as a _point de rep\u00e8re_\nfrom which to attack more complex problems.\n\nNow I think that the Moses-Piper group of trance-phenomena cannot be\nintelligently explained on any theory except that of possession. And I\ntherefore think it important to consider in what way earlier phenomena\nhave led up to possession, and in what way the facts of possession, in\ntheir turn, affect our view of these earlier phenomena.\n\nIf we analyse our observations of possession, we find two main\nfactors--the central operation, which is the control by a spirit of the\nsensitive's organism; and the indispensable prerequisite, which is the\npartial and temporary desertion of that organism by the percipient's own\nspirit.\n\nLet us consider first how far this withdrawal of the living man's spirit\nfrom his organism has been rendered conceivable by evidence already\nobtained.\n\nFirst of all, the splits, and substitutions of phases of personality\nwith which our second chapter made us familiar have great significance\nfor _possession_ also.\n\nWe have there seen some secondary personality, beginning with slight and\nisolated sensory and motor manifestations, yet going on gradually to\ncomplete predominance,--complete control of all supraliminal\nmanifestation.\n\nThe mere collection and description of such phenomena has up till now\nsavoured of a certain boldness. The idea of tracing the possible\nmechanism involved in these transitions has scarcely arisen.\n\nYet it is manifest that there must be a complex set of laws concerned\nwith such alternating use of brain-centres;--developments, one may\nsuppose, of those unknown physical laws underlying ordinary memory, of\nwhich no one has formed as yet even a first rough conception.\n\nAn ordinary case of ecmnesia may present problems as insoluble in their\nway as those offered by spirit-possession itself. There may be in\necmnesia periods of life absolutely and permanently extruded from\nmemory; and there may be also periods which are only temporarily thus\nextruded. Thus on Wednesday and Thursday I may be unaware of what I\nlearnt and did on Monday and Tuesday; and then on Friday I may recover\nMonday's and Tuesday's knowledge, as well as retaining Wednesday's and\nThursday's, so that my brain-cells have taken on, so to say, two\nseparate lines of education since Sunday--that which began on Monday,\nand that which began on Wednesday. These intercurrent educations may\nhave been naturally discordant, and may be fused in all kinds of ways in\nthe ultimate synthesis.\n\nThese processes are completely obscure; and all that can be said is that\ntheir mechanism probably belongs to the same unknown series of\noperations which ultimately lead to that completest break in the history\nof the brain-cells which consists in their intercalary occupation by an\nexternal spirit.\n\nPassing on to _genius_, which I discussed in my third chapter, it is\nnoticeable that there also there is a certain degree of temporary\nsubstitution of one control for another over important brain-centres. We\nmust here regard the subliminal self as an entity partially distinct\nfrom the supraliminal, and its occupation of these brain-centres\nhabitually devoted to supraliminal work is a kind of possession, which\nillustrates in yet another way the rapid metastasis of psychical product\n(so to term it) of which these highest centres are capable. The highest\ngenius would thus be the completest _self-possession_,--the occupation\nand dominance of the whole organism by those profoundest elements of the\nself which act from the fullest knowledge, and in the wisest way.\n\nThe next main subject which fell under our description was _sleep_. And\nthis state--the normal state which most resembles trance--has long ago\nsuggested the question which first hints at the possibility of ecstasy,\nnamely, What becomes of the soul during sleep? I think that our evidence\nhas shown that sometimes during apparent ordinary sleep the spirit may\ntravel away from the body, and may bring back a memory, more or less\nconfused, of what it has seen in this clairvoyant excursion. This may\nindeed happen for brief flashes during waking moments also. But ordinary\nsleep seems to help the process; and deeper states of sleep--spontaneous\nor induced--seem still further to facilitate it. In the coma preceding\ndeath, or during that \"suspended animation\" which is sometimes taken for\ndeath, this travelling faculty has seemed to reach its highest point.\n\nI have spoken of deeper states of sleep, \"spontaneous or induced,\" and\nhere the reader will naturally recall much that has been said of\nordinary somnambulism, much that has been said of hypnotic trance.\nHypnotic trance has created for us, with perfect facility, situations\nexternally indistinguishable from what I shall presently claim as true\npossession. A quasi-personality, arbitrarily created, may occupy the\norganism, responding to speech or sign in some characteristic fashion,\nalthough without producing any fresh verifiable facts as evidence to the\nalleged identity. Nay, sometimes, as in a few of the Pesaro experiments\n(see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 563-565), there may be\nindications that something of a new personality is there. And on the\nother hand, the sensitive's own spirit often claims to have been absent\nelsewhere,--much in the fashion in which it sometimes imagines itself to\nhave been absent during ordinary sleep, but with greater persistence and\nlucidity.\n\nOur inquiry into the nature of what is thus alleged to be seen in sleep\nand cognate states has proved instructive. Sometimes known earthly\nscenes appear to be revisited--with only such alteration as may have\ntaken place since the sleeper last visited them in waking hours. But\nsometimes also there is an admixture of an apparently _symbolical_\nelement. The earthly scene includes some element of human action, which\nis presented in a selected or abbreviated fashion, as though some mind\nhad been concerned to bring out a special significance from the complex\nstory. Sometimes this element becomes quite dominant; phantasmal figures\nare seen; or there may be a prolonged symbolical representation of an\nentry into the spiritual world.\n\nCases like these do of course apparently support that primitive doctrine\nof the spirit's actual wandering in space. On the other hand, this\nnotion has become unwelcome to modern thought, which is less unwilling\nto believe in some telepathic intercourse between mind and mind in which\nspace is not involved. For my own part, I have already explained that I\nthink that the evidence to an at least apparent movement of some kind in\nspace must outweigh any mere speculative presumption against it. And I\nhold that these new experiences of possession fall on this controversy\nwith decisive force. It is so strongly claimed, in every instance of\npossession, that the sensitive's own spirit must in some sense _vacate_\nthe organism, in order to allow another spirit to enter,--and the\nevidence for the reality of possession is at the same time so\nstrong,--that I think that we must argue back from this spatial change\nas a relatively certain fact, and must place a corresponding\ninterpretation on earlier phenomena. Such an interpretation, if once\nadmitted, does certainly meet the phenomena in the way most accordant\nwith the subjective impressions of the various percipients.\n\nAs we have already repeatedly found, it is the bold evolutionary\nhypothesis which best fixes and colligates the scattered facts. We\nencounter in these studies phenomena of degeneration and phenomena of\nevolution. The degenerative phenomena are explicable singly and in\ndetail as declensions in divergent directions from an existing level.\nThe evolutive phenomena point, on the other hand, to new\ngeneralisations;--to powers previously unrecognised towards which our\nevidence _converges_ along constantly multiplying lines.\n\nThis matter of psychical excursion from the organism ultimately involves\nthe extremest claim to novel faculty which has ever been advanced for\nmen. For it involves, as we shall see, the claim to _ecstasy_:--to a\nwandering vision which is not confined to this earth or this material\nworld alone, but introduces the seer into the spiritual world and among\ncommunities higher than any which this planet knows. The discussion of\nthis transportation, however, will be better deferred until after the\nevidence for possession has been laid before the reader at some length.\n\nContinuing, then, for the present our analysis of the idea of\npossession, we come now to its specific feature,--the occupation by a\nspiritual agency of the entranced and partially vacated organism. Here\nit is that our previous studies will do most to clear our conceptions.\nInstead of at once leaping to the question of what spirits in their\nessence are,--of what they can do and cannot do,--of the antecedent\npossibility of their re-entry into matter, and the like,--we must begin\nby simply carrying the idea of telepathy to its furthest point. We must\nimagine telepathy becoming as central and as intense as possible;--and\nwe shall find that of two diverging types of telepathic intercourse\nwhich will thus present themselves, the one will gradually correspond to\npossession, and the other to ecstasy.\n\nBut here let us pause, and consider what is the truest conception which\nwe are by this time able to form of telepathy. The _word_ has been a\nconvenient one; the _central notion_--of communication beyond this range\nof sense--can at any rate thus be expressed in simple terms. But\nnevertheless there has been nothing to assure us that our real\ncomprehension of telepathic processes has got much deeper than that\nverbal definition. Our conception of telepathy, indeed, to say nothing\nof tel\u00e6sthesia, has needed to be broadened with each fresh stage of our\nevidence. That evidence at first revealed to us certain transmissions of\nthoughts and images which suggested the passage of actual etherial\nvibrations from brain to brain. Nor indeed can any one say at any point\nof our evidence that etherial vibrations are demonstrably _not_\nconcerned in the phenomena. We cannot tell how far from the material\nworld (to use a crude phrase) some etherial agency may possibly extend.\nBut telepathic phenomena are in fact soon seen to overpass any\ndevelopment which imaginative analogy can give to the conception of\netherial radiation from one material point to another.\n\nFor from the mere transmission of isolated ideas or pictures there is,\nas my readers know, a continuous progression to impressions and\napparitions far more persistent and complex. We encounter an influence\nwhich suggests no mere impact of etherial waves, but an intelligent and\nresponsive _presence_, resembling nothing so much as the ordinary human\nintercourse of persons in bodily nearness. Such visions or auditions,\ninward or externalised, are indeed sometimes felt to involve an even\ncloser contact of spirits than the common intercourse of earth allows.\nOne could hardly assign etherial undulations as their cause without\nassigning that same mechanism to all our emotions felt towards each\nother, or even to our control over our own organisms.\n\nNay, more. There is--as I have striven to show--a further progression\nfrom these telepathic intercommunications between living men to\nintercommunications between living men and discarnate spirits. And this\nnew thesis,--in every way of vital importance,--while practically\nsolving one problem on which I have already dwelt, opens also a\npossibility of the determination of another problem, nowise accessible\nuntil now. In the first place, we may now rest assured that telepathic\ncommunication is not necessarily propagated by vibrations proceeding\nfrom an ordinary material _brain_. For the discarnate spirit at any rate\nhas no such brain from which to start them.\n\nSo much, in the first place, for the _agent's_ end of the communication.\n\nAnd in the second place, we now discern a possibility of getting at the\n_percipient's_ end; of determining whether the telepathic impact is\nreceived by the _brain_ or by the _spirit_ of the living man, or by both\ninseparably, or sometimes by one and sometimes by the other.\n\nOn this problem, I say, the phenomena of automatic script, of\ntrance-utterance, of spirit-possession, throw more of light than we\ncould have ventured to hope.\n\nStated broadly, our trance-phenomena show us to begin with that several\ncurrents of communication can pass at once from discarnate spirits to a\nliving man;--and can pass in very varying ways. For clearness' sake I\nwill put aside for the present all cases where the telepathic impact\ntakes an externalised or sensory form, and will speak only of\nintellectual impressions and motor automatisms.\n\nNow these may pass through all grades of apparent _centrality_. If a\nman, awake and in other respects fully self-controlled, feels his hand\nimpelled to scrawl words on a piece of paper, without consciousness of\nmotor effort of _his own_, the impulse does not seem to him a _central_\none, although some part of his brain is presumably involved. On the\nother hand, a much less conspicuous invasion of his personality may feel\nmuch more central;--as, for instance, a premonition of evil,--an inward\nheaviness which he can scarcely define. And so the motor automatism\ngoes on until it reaches the point of _possession_;--that is to say,\nuntil the man's own consciousness is absolutely in abeyance, and every\npart of his body is utilised by the invading spirit or spirits. What\nhappens in such conditions to the man's ruling principle--to his own\nspirit--we must consider presently. But so far as his organism is\nconcerned, the invasion seems complete: and it indicates a power which\nis indeed telepathic in a true sense;--yet not quite in the sense which\nwe originally attached to the word. We first thought of telepathy as of\na communication between two minds, whereas what we have here looks more\nlike a communication between a mind and a body,--an external mind, in\nplace of the mind which is accustomed to rule that particular body.\n\nThere is in such a case no apparent communication between the discarnate\nmind and the _mind_ of the automatist. Rather there is a kind of contact\nbetween the discarnate mind and the _brain_ of the automatist, in so far\nthat the discarnate mind, pursuing its own ends, is helped up to a\ncertain point by the accumulated capacities of the automatist's\nbrain;--and similarly is hindered by its incapacities.\n\nYet here the most characteristic element of telepathy, I repeat, seems\nto have dropped out altogether. There is no perceptible communion\nbetween the mind of the entranced person and any other mind whatever. He\nis _possessed_, but is kept in unconsciousness, and never regains memory\nof what his lips have uttered during his trance.\n\nBut let us see whether we have thus grasped all the\ntrance-phenomena;--whether something else may not be going on, which is\nmore truly, more centrally telepathic.\n\nTo go back to the earliest stage of telepathic experience, we can see\nwell enough that the experimental process might quite possibly involve\ntwo different factors. The percipient's mind must somehow receive the\ntelepathic impression;--and to this reception we can assign no definite\nphysical correlative;--and also the percipient's motor or sensory\ncentres must receive an excitation;--which excitation may be\ncommunicated, for aught we know, either by his own mind in the ordinary\nway, or by the agent's mind in some direct way,--which I may call\n_telergic_, thus giving a more precise sense to a word which I long ago\nsuggested as a kind of correlative to _telepathic_. That is to say,\nthere may even in these apparently simple cases be first a transmission\nfrom agent to percipient in the spiritual world, and then an action on\nthe percipient's physical brain, of the same type as spirit-possession.\nThis action on the physical brain may be due either to the percipient's\nown spirit, or subliminal self, or else directly to the agent's spirit.\nFor I must repeat that the phenomena of possession seem to indicate\nthat the extraneous spirit acts on a man's organism in very much the\nsame way as the man's own spirit habitually acts on it. One must thus\npractically regard the body as an instrument upon which a spirit\nplays;--an ancient metaphor which now seems actually our nearest\napproximation to truth.\n\nProceeding to the case of telepathic or veridical apparitions, we see\nthe same hints of a double nature in the process;--traces of two\nelements mingling in various degrees. At the spiritual end there may be\nwhat we have called \"clairvoyant visions,\"--pictures manifestly\nsymbolical, and not located by the observer in ordinary\nthree-dimensional space. These seem analogous to the views of the\nspiritual world which the sensitive enjoys during entrancement. Then\ncomes that larger class of veridical apparitions where the figure seems\nto be externalised from the percipient's mind, some stimulus having\nactually been applied,--whether by agent's or percipient's spirit,--to\nthe appropriate brain-centre. These cases of \"sensory automatism\"\nresemble those experimental transferences of pictures of cards, etc. And\nbeyond these again, on the physical or rather the ultra-physical side,\ncome those _collective_ apparitions which in my view involve some\nunknown kind of modification of a certain portion of space not occupied\nby any organism,--as opposed to a modification of centres in one special\nbrain. Here comes in, as I hold, the gradual transition from subjective\nto objective, as the portion of space in question is modified in a\nmanner to affect a larger and larger number of percipient minds.\n\nNow when we proceed from these apparitions of the living to apparitions\nof the departed, we find very much the same types persisting still. We\nfind symbolical _visions_ of departed persons, and of scenes among which\nthey seem to dwell. We find externalised _apparitions_ or phantasms of\ndeparted persons,--indicating that some point in the percipient's brain\nhas been stimulated by his own or by some other spirit. And finally, as\nhas already been said, we find that in certain cases of possession these\ntwo kinds of influence are simultaneously carried to an extreme. The\npercipient automatist of earlier stages becomes no longer a percipient\nbut an automatist pure and simple,--so far as his body is\nconcerned,--for his whole brain--not one point alone--seems now to be\nstimulated and controlled by an extraneous spirit, and he is not himself\naware of what his body writes or utters. And meantime his spirit,\npartially set free from the body, may be purely percipient;--may be\nenjoying that other spiritual form of communication more completely than\nin any type of vision which our description had hitherto reached.\n\nThis point attained, another analogy, already mentioned, will be at once\nrecalled. There is another class of phenomena, besides telepathy, of\nwhich this definition of possession at once reminds us. We have dealt\nmuch with _secondary personalities_,--with severances and alternations\naffecting a man's own spirit, in varying relation with his organism.\nF\u00e9lida X.'s developed secondary personality, for instance (Appendix II.\nC), might be defined as another fragment--or another synthesis--of\nF\u00e9lida's spirit acting upon her organism in much the same way as the\noriginal fragment--or the primary synthesis--of her spirit was wont to\nact upon it.\n\nPlainly, this analogy is close enough to be likely to lead to practical\nconfusion. On what grounds can we base our distinctions? What justifies\nus in saying that F\u00e9lida X.'s organism was controlled only by another\nmodification of her own personality, but that Mrs. Piper's is controlled\nby George Pelham (see page 330 _et seq._)? May there not be any amount\nof self-suggestion, colouring with the fictitious hue of all kinds of\nidentities what is in reality no more than an allotropic form of the\nentranced person himself? Is even the possession by the new personality\nof some fragments of fresh knowledge any proof of spirit-control? May\nnot that knowledge be gained clairvoyantly or telepathically, with no\nintervention of any spirit other than of living men?\n\nYes, indeed, we must reply, there _is_ here a danger of confusion, there\n_is_ a lack of any well-defined dividing line. While we must decide on\ngeneral rules, we must also keep our minds open to possible exceptions.\n\nOn the negative side, indeed, general rules will carry us a good way. We\nmust _not_ allow ourselves to ascribe to spirit-control cases where no\nnew knowledge is shown in the trance state. And this rule has at once an\nimportant consequence,--a consequence which profoundly modifies the\nantique idea of possession. I know of no evidence,--reaching in any way\nour habitual standard,--either for angelic, for diabolical, or for\nhostile possession.\n\nAnd here comes the question: What attitude are we to assume to savage\ncases of possession? Are we to accept as genuine the possession of the\nEsquimaux, the Chinaman,--nay, of the Hebrew of old days?\n\nChinese possession is a good example, as described in Dr. Nevius' book\n(on _Demon Possession and Allied Themes_, an account of which by\nProfessor Newbold is given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 602\n[912 A]). I agree with Professor Newbold in holding that no proof has\nbeen shown that there is more in the Chinese cases than that hysterical\nduplication of personality with which we are so familiar in France and\nelsewhere.\n\nA devil is not a creature whose existence is independently known to\nscience; and from the accounts the behaviour of the invading devils\nseems due to mere self-suggestion. With uncivilised races, even more\nthan among our own friends, we are bound to insist on the rule that\nthere must be some supernormal knowledge shown before we may assume an\nexternal influence. It may of course be replied that the character shown\nby the \"devils\" was fiendish and actually _hostile_ to the possessed\nperson. Can we suppose that the tormentor was actually a fraction of the\ntormented?\n\nI reply that such a supposition, so far from being absurd, is supported\nby well-known phenomena both in insanity and in mere hysteria.\n\nEspecially in the Middle Ages,--amid powerful self-suggestions of evil\nand terror,--did these quasi-possessions reach an intensity and violence\nwhich the calm and sceptical atmosphere of the modern hospital checks\nand discredits. The devils with terrifying names which possessed Soeur\nAng\u00e9lique of Loudun[195] would at the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re under Charcot in our\ndays have figured merely as stages of \"clounisme\" and \"attitudes\npassionelles.\"\n\nAnd even now these splits of personality seem occasionally to destroy\nall sympathy between the normal individual and a divergent fraction. No\ngreat sympathy was felt by L\u00e9onie II. for L\u00e9onie I.[196] And Dr. Morton\nPrince's case[197] shows us the deepest and ablest of the personalities\nof his \"Miss Beauchamp\" positively spiteful in its relation to her main\nidentity.\n\nBizarre though a house thus divided against itself may seem, the moral\ndissidence is merely an exaggeration of the moral discontinuity\nobservable in the typical case of Mrs. Newnham.[198] _There_ the\nsecondary intelligence was merely tricky, not malevolent. But its\ntrickiness was wholly alien from Mrs. Newnham's character,--was\nsomething, indeed, which she would have energetically repudiated.\n\nIt seems, therefore,--and the analogy of dreams points in this direction\nalso,--that our moral nature is as easily split up as our intellectual\nnature, and that we cannot be any more certain that the minor current of\npersonality which is diverted into some new channel will retain _moral_\nthan that it will retain _intellectual_ coherence.\n\nTo return once more to the Chinese devil-possessions. Dr. Nevius\nasserts, though without adducing definite proof, that the possessing\ndevils sometimes showed supernormal knowledge. This is a better argument\nfor their separate existence than their fiendish temper is; but it is\nnot in itself enough. The knowledge does not seem to have been specially\nappropriate to the supposed informing spirit. It seems as though it may\nhave depended upon heightened memory, with possibly some slight\ntelepathic or tel\u00e6sthetic perception. Heightened memory is thoroughly\ncharacteristic of some hysterical phases; and even the possible traces\nof telepathy (although far the most important feature of the phenomena,\nif they really occurred) are, as we have seen, not unknown in trance\nstates (like L\u00e9onie's) where there is no indication of an invading\nspirit.\n\nTemporary control of the organism by a widely divergent fragment of the\npersonality, self-suggested in some dream-like manner into hostility to\nthe main mass of the personality, and perhaps better able than that\nnormal personality to reach and manipulate certain stored\nimpressions,--or even certain supernormal influences,--such will be the\nformula to which we shall reduce the invading Chinese devil, as\ndescribed by Dr. Nevius,--and _probably_ the great majority of supposed\ndevil-possessions of similar type.\n\nThe great majority, no doubt, but perhaps not _all_. It would indeed be\nmatter for surprise if such trance-phenomena as those of Mrs. Piper and\nother modern cases had appeared in the world without previous parallel.\nMuch more probable is it that similar phenomena have occurred\nsporadically from the earliest times,--although men have not had enough\nof training to analyse them.\n\nAnd, in fact, among the endless descriptions of trance-phenomena with\nwhich travellers furnish us, there are many which include points so\nconcordant with our recent observations that we cannot but attach some\nweight to coincidences so wholly undesigned.[199] But although this may\nbe admitted, I still maintain that the only invaders of the organism\nwho have as yet made good their title have been human, and have been\nfriendly; and with this clearance should, I think, vanish the somewhat\ngrim associations which have gathered around the word _possession_.\n\nAssuming, then, as I think we at present may assume, that we have to\ndeal only with spirits who have been men like ourselves, and who are\nstill animated by much the same motives as those which influence us, we\nmay briefly consider, on similar analogical grounds, what range of\nspirits are likely to be able to affect us, and what difficulties they\nare likely to find in doing so. Of course, actual experience alone can\ndecide this; but nevertheless our expectations may be usefully modified\nif we reflect beforehand how far such changes of personality as we\nalready know can suggest to us the limits of these profounder\nsubstitutions.\n\nWhat, to begin with, do we find to be the case as to addition of faculty\nin alternating states? How far do such changes bring with them\nunfamiliar powers?\n\nReference to the recorded cases will show us that existing faculty may\nbe greatly quickened and exalted. There may be an increase both in\nactual perception and in power of remembering or reproducing what has\nonce been perceived. There may be increased control over muscular\naction,--as shown, for instance, in improved billiard-playing,--in the\nsecondary state. But there is little evidence of the\nacquisition--telepathy apart--of any actual mass of fresh\nknowledge,--such as a new language, or a stage of mathematical knowledge\nunreached before. We shall not therefore be justified by analogy in\nexpecting that an external spirit controlling an organism will be able\neasily to modify it in such a way as to produce speech in a language\npreviously unknown. The brain is used as something between a typewriter\nand a calculating machine. German words, for instance, are not mere\ncombinations of letters, but specific formul\u00e6; they can only seldom and\nwith great difficulty be got out of a machine which has not been\npreviously fashioned for their production.\n\nConsider, again, the analogies as to _memory_. In the case of\nalternations of personality, memory fails and changes in what seems a\nquite capricious way. The gaps which then occur recall (as I have said)\nthe _ecmnesia_ or blank unrecollected spaces which follow upon accidents\nto the head, or upon crises of fever, when all memories that belong to a\nparticular person or to a particular period of life are clean wiped out,\nother memories remaining intact. Compare, again, the memory of waking\nlife which we retain in _dream_. This too is absolutely capricious;--I\nmay forget my own name in a dream, and yet remember perfectly the kind\nof chairs in my dining-room. Or I may remember the chairs, but locate\nthem in some one else's house. No one can predict the kind of confusion\nwhich may occur.\n\nWe have also the parallel of _somnambulic utterance_. In talking with a\nsomnambulist, be the somnambulism natural or induced, we find it hard to\nget into continuous colloquy on our own subjects. To begin with, he\nprobably will not speak continuously for long together. He drops back\ninto a state in which he cannot express himself at all. And when he does\ntalk, he is apt to talk only on his own subjects;--to follow out his own\ntrain of ideas,--interrupted rather than influenced by what _we_ say to\n_him_. The difference of _state_ between waking and sleep is in many\nways hard to bridge over.\n\nWe have thus three parallelisms which may guide and limit our\nexpectations. From the parallelism of possession with split\npersonalities we may infer that a possessing spirit is not likely to be\nable to inspire into the recipient brain ideas or words of very\nunfamiliar type. From the parallelism of possession with dream we may\ninfer that the memory of the possessing spirit may be subject to strange\nomissions and confusions. From the parallelism with somnambulism we may\ninfer that colloquy between a human observer and the possessing spirit\nis not likely to be full or free, but rather to be hampered by\ndifference of state, and abbreviated by the difficulty of maintaining\npsychical contact for long together.\n\nThese remarks will, I hope, prepare the reader to consider the problems\nof possession with the same open-mindedness which has been needed for\nthe study of previous problems attacked in the present work.\n\nBut before we can proceed to the actual evidence there is another aspect\nof possession which must be explained. A group of phenomena are involved\nwhich have in various ways done much to confuse and even to retard our\nmain inquiry, but which, when properly placed and understood, are seen\nto form an inevitable part of any scheme which strives to discover the\ninfluence of unseen agencies in the world we know.\n\nIn our discussion of all telepathic and other supernormal influence I\nhave thus far regarded it mainly from the psychological and not from the\nphysical side. I have spoken as though the field of supernormal action\nhas been always the metetherial world. Yet true as this dictum may be in\nits deepest sense, it cannot represent the _whole_ truth \"for beings\nsuch as we are, in a world like the present.\" For us every psychological\nfact has (so far as we know) a physical side; and metetherial events, to\nbe perceptible to us, must somehow affect the world of matter.\n\nIn sensory and motor automatisms, then, we see effects, supernormally\ninitiated, upon the world of matter.\n\n_Imprimis_, of course, and in ordinary life our own spirits (their\nexistence once granted) affect our own bodies and are our standing\nexamples of spirit affecting matter. Next, if a man receives a\ntelepathic impact from another incarnate spirit which causes him to see\na phantasmal figure, that man's brain has, we may suppose, been directly\naffected by his own spirit rather than by the spirit of the distant\nfriend. But it may not always be true even in the case of sensory\nautomatisms that the distant spirit has made a suggestion merely to the\npercipient's spirit which the percipient's own spirit carries out; and\nin motor automatisms, as they develop into _possession_, there are\nindications, as I have already pointed out, that the influence of the\nagent's spirit is _telergic_ rather than telepathic, and that we have\nextraneous spirits influencing the human brain or organism. That is to\nsay, they are producing movements in matter;--even though that matter be\norganised matter and those movements molecular.\n\nSo soon as this fact is grasped,--and it has not always been grasped by\nthose who have striven to establish a fundamental difference between\nspiritual influence on our spirits and spiritual influence on the\nmaterial world,--we shall naturally be prompted to inquire whether\ninorganic matter as well as organic ever shows the agency of extraneous\nspirits upon it. The reply which first suggests itself is, of course, in\nthe negative. We are constantly dealing with inorganic matter, and no\nhypothesis of spiritual influence exerted on such matter is needed to\nexplain our experiments. But this is a rough general statement, hardly\nlikely to cover phenomena so rare and fugitive as many of those with\nwhich in this inquiry we deal. Let us begin, so to say, at the other\nend; not with the broad experience of life, but with the delicate and\nexceptional cases of _possession_ of which we have lately been speaking.\n\nSuppose that a discarnate spirit, in temporary possession of a living\norganism, is impelling it to motor automatisms. Can we say _a priori_\nwhat the limits of such automatic movements of that organism are likely\nto be, in the same way as we can say what the limits of any of its\nvoluntary movements are likely to be? May not this extraneous spirit get\nmore motor power out of the organism than the waking man himself can get\nout of it? It would not surprise us, for example, if the movements in\ntrance showed increased _concentration_; if a dynamometer (for instance)\nwas more forcibly squeezed by the spirit acting through the man than by\nthe man himself. Is there any other way in which one would imagine that\na spirit possessing me could use my vital force more skilfully than I\ncould use it myself?\n\nI do not know how my will moves my arm; but I know by experience that my\nwill generally moves only my arm and what my arm can touch;--whatever\nobjects are actually in contact with the \"protoplasmic skeleton\" which\nrepresents the life of my organism. Yet I can sometimes move objects not\nin actual contact, as by melting them with the heat or (in the dry air\nof Colorado) kindling them with the electricity, which my fingers emit.\nI see no very definite limit to this power. I do not know all the forms\nof energy which my fingers might, under suitable training, emit.\n\nAnd now suppose that a possessing spirit can use my organism more\nskilfully than I can. May he not manage to emit from that organism some\nenergy which can visibly move ponderable objects not actually in contact\nwith my flesh? That would be a phenomenon of possession not very unlike\nits other phenomena;--and it would be _telekinesis_.\n\nBy that word (due to M. Aksakoff) it is convenient to describe what have\nbeen called \"the physical phenomena of spiritualism,\" as to whose\nexistence as a reality, and not as a system of fraudulent pretences,\nfierce controversy has raged for half a century, and is still raging.\n\nThe interest excited in the ordinary public by these phenomena has, as\nis well known, fostered much fraud, to expose and guard against which\nhas been one of the main tasks of the S.P.R.[200]\n\nIndeed, the persistent simulation of telekinesis has, naturally enough,\ninspired persistent doubt as to its genuine occurrence even in cases\nwhere simulation has been carefully guarded against, or is antecedently\nimprobable. And thus while believing absolutely in the occurrence of\ntelekinetic phenomena, I yet hold that it would be premature to press\nthem upon my readers' belief, or to introduce them as an integral part\nof my general expository scheme. From one point of view, their detailed\nestablishment, as against the theory of fraud, demands an expert\nknowledge of conjuring and other arts which I cannot claim to possess.\nFrom another point of view, their right comprehension must depend upon a\nknowledge of the relations between matter and ether such as is now only\ndimly adumbrated by the most recent discoveries;--for instance,\ndiscoveries as to previously unsuspected forms of radiation.\n\nIn a long Appendix, viz., \"Scheme of Vital Faculty\"[201]--originally\nwritten with reference to the manifestations through Mr. Stainton\nMoses--I have tried to prepare the way for future inquiries; to indicate\nin what directions a better equipped exploration may hereafter reap rich\nreward. Even that tentative sketch, perhaps, may have been too ambitious\nfor my powers in the present state not only of my own, but of human\nknowledge; and in this chapter I shall allude to telekinetic phenomena\nonly where unavoidable,--owing to their inmixture into phenomena more\ndirectly psychological,--and in the tone of the historian rather than of\nthe scientific critic.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *[202]\n\nThe way has now been so far cleared for our cases of Possession that at\nleast the principal phenomena claimed have been (I hope) made\nintelligible, and shown to be concordant with other phenomena already\ndescribed and attested. It will be best, however, to consider first some\nof the more rudimentary cases before going on to our own special\ninstances of possession,--those of Mr. Stainton Moses or Mrs. Piper.\n\nWe have already seen that there is no great gulf between the sudden\nincursions, the rapid messages of the dead, with which we are already\nfamiliar, and incursions so intimate, messages so prolonged, as to lay\nclaim to a name more descriptive than that of motor automatisms.\n\nAnd similarly no line of absolute separation can be drawn between the\nbrief psychical _excursions_ previously described, and those more\nprolonged excursions of the spirit which I would group under the name of\necstasy.\n\nIn the earlier part of this book I have naturally dwelt rather on the\nevidence for supernormal acquisition of knowledge than on the methods of\nsuch acquisition, and my present discussion must needs be restricted to\na certain extent in the same way. We must, however, attempt some\nprovisional scheme of classification, though recognising that the\ndifficulties of interpretation which I pointed out in Chapter IV., when\nendeavouring to distinguish between telepathy and tel\u00e6sthesia, meet us\nagain in dealing with possession and ecstasy. We may not, that is, be\nable to say, as regards a particular manifestation, whether it is an\ninstance of incipient possession, or incipient ecstasy, or even whether\nthe organism is being \"controlled\" directly by some extraneous spirit or\nby its own incarnate spirit. It is from the extreme cases that we form\nour categories. But now that we have reached some conception of what is\ninvolved in ecstasy and possession, we can interpret some earlier cases\nin this new light. Such experiences, for instance, as those of Mr.\nMamtchitch (Appendix VII. A) and Miss Conley (Appendix VII. D), suggest\na close kinship to the more developed cases of Mr. Moses and Mrs. Piper.\n\nIn other cases it may be clear that no control of any discarnate spirit\nis involved, but there seems to be something like incipient possession\nby the subliminal self or incarnate spirit. From this point of view the\nfirst case given in Appendix IX. B is of undoubted psychological\ninterest. If it is not a case of thought-transference from Miss C. to\nMrs. Luther (possibly between their subliminal selves during sleep), we\nmust assume that a very remarkable recrudescence of latent memory\noccurred to the latter independently, at the same time that a similar\nthough less remarkable revival of memory occurred to the former. But I\nintroduce the case here simply as suggestive of the momentary domination\nof the subliminal over the supraliminal self.\n\nIn Professor Thoulet's case[203] we find a fuller control by the\nsubliminal self, with a manifestation of knowledge suggesting some\nspiritual excursion; in Mr. Goodall's case there seems to be a\ntelepathic conversation between his subliminal self controlling his\nutterance and some perhaps discarnate spirit; and finally, in Mr.\nWilkie's case, there is the definite superposition, as it were, of a\ndiscarnate spirit's message upon the automatist in such a way that we\nare led to wonder whether it was the _mind_ or the _brain_ of the\nautomatist that received the message. The first step apparently is the\nabeyance of the supraliminal self and the dominance of the subliminal\nself, which may lead in rare cases to a form of trance (or of what we\nhave hitherto called secondary personality) where the whole body of the\nautomatist is controlled by his own subliminal self, or incarnate\nspirit, but where there is no indication of any relation with discarnate\nspirits. The next form of trance is where the incarnate spirit, whether\nor not maintaining control of the whole body, makes excursions into or\nholds telepathic intercourse with the spiritual world. And, lastly,\nthere is the trance of possession by another, a discarnate spirit. We\ncannot, of course, always distinguish between these three main types of\ntrance--which, as we shall see later, themselves admit of different\ndegrees and varieties.\n\nThe most striking case known to me of the first form of\ntrance--possession by the subliminal self--is that of the Rev. C. B.\nSanders,[204] whose trance-personality has always called itself by the\nname of \"X + Y = Z.\" The life of the normal Mr. Sanders has apparently\nbeen passed in the environment of a special form of Presbyterian\ndoctrine, and there seems to have been a fear on the part of Mr. Sanders\nhimself lest the trance manifestations of which he was the subject\nshould conflict with the theological position which he held as a\nminister; and indeed for several years of his early suffering \"he was\ninclined to regard his peculiar case of affliction as the result of\nSatanic agency.\" On the part of some of his friends also there seems to\nbe a special desire to show that \"X + Y = Z\" was not heterodox. Under\nthese circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that we find so much\nreticence in \"X + Y = Z\" concerning his own relations to the normal Mr.\nSanders, whom he calls \"his casket.\" What little explanation is offered\nseems to be in singular harmony with one of the main tenets advanced in\nthis book, since the claim made by \"X + Y = Z\" is obviously that he\nrepresents the incarnate spirit of Mr. Sanders exercising the higher\nfaculties which naturally pertain to it, but which can be manifested to\nthe full only when it is freed from its fleshly barriers. This\nfrequently occurs, he says, in dying persons, who describe scenes in the\nspiritual world, and in his own experience when \"his casket\" is\nsimilarly affected, and the bodily obstructions to spiritual vision are\nremoved.\n\nIn this case, then, the subliminal self seems to take complete control\nof the organism, exercising its own powers of telepathy and tel\u00e6sthesia,\nbut showing no evidence of direct communication with discarnate spirits.\nWe must now pass on to the most notable recent case where such\ncommunication has been claimed,--that of Swedenborg,--to whose\nexceptional trance-history and attempt to give some scientific system to\nhis experiences of ecstasy I referred in Chapter I.\n\nThe _evidential_ matter which Swedenborg has left behind him is\nsingularly scanty in comparison with his pretensions to a communion of\nmany years with so many spirits of the departed. But I think that the\nhalf-dozen \"evidential cases\" scattered through his memoirs are stamped\nwith the impress of truth,--and I think, also, that without some true\nexperience of the spiritual world Swedenborg could not have entered into\nthat atmosphere of truth in which even his worst errors are held in\nsolution. Swedenborg's writings on the world of spirits fall in the\nmain into two classes,--albeit classes not easily divided. There are\n_experiential_ writings and there are _dogmatic_ writings. The first of\nthese classes contains accounts of what he saw and felt in that world,\nand of such inferences with regard to its laws as his actual experience\nsuggested. Now, speaking broadly, all this mass of matter, covering some\nhundreds of propositions, is in substantial accord with what has been\ngiven through the most trustworthy sensitives since Swedenborg's time.\nIt is indeed usual to suppose that they have all been influenced by\nSwedenborg; and although I feel sure that this was not so in any direct\nmanner in the case of the sensitives best known to myself, it is\nprobable that Swedenborg's alleged experiences have affected modern\nthought more deeply than most modern thinkers know.\n\nOn the other hand, the _second_ or purely _dogmatic_ class of\nSwedenborg's writings,--the records of instruction alleged to have been\ngiven to him by spirits on the inner meaning of the Scriptures,\netc.,--these have more and more appeared to be mere arbitrary\nfancies;--mere projections and repercussions of his own preconceived\nideas.\n\nOn the whole, then,--with some stretching, yet no contravention, of\nconclusions independently reached,--I may say that Swedenborg's\nstory,--one of the strangest lives yet lived by mortal men,--is\ncorroborative rather than destructive of the slowly rising fabric of\nknowledge of which he was the uniquely gifted, but uniquely dangerous,\nprecursor.\n\nIt seemed desirable here to refer thus briefly to the doctrinal\nteachings of Swedenborg, but I shall deal later with the general\nquestion how much or how little of the statements of \"sensitives\" about\nthe spiritual world--whether based on their own visions or on the\nallegations of their \"controlling spirits\"--are worthy of credence. In\nthe case of Swedenborg there was at least some evidence, of the kind to\nwhich we can here appeal, of his actual communication with discarnate\nspirits;[205] but in most other cases of alleged ecstasy there is little\nor nothing to show that the supposed revelations are not purely\nsubjective. (See, _e.g._, the revelations of Alphonse Cahagnet's\nsensitives, described in his _Arcanes de la vie future d\u00e9voil\u00e9es_.)[206]\nAt most, these visions must be regarded as a kind of symbolical\nrepresentation of the unseen world.[207]\n\nAmong Cahagnet's subjects, however, there was one young woman, Ad\u00e8le\nMaginot, who not only saw heavenly visions of the usual\npost-Swedenborgian kind, but also obtained evidential\ncommunications--not unlike those of Mrs. Piper--purporting to come from\ndiscarnate spirits. Fortunately these were recorded with unusual care\nand thoroughness by Cahagnet, and the case thus becomes one of\nconsiderable importance for our inquiries. A general account of\nCahagnet's work has recently been given in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R.\n(vol. xiv. p. 50) by Mr. Podmore, who, though finding it \"almost\nimpossible to doubt that Ad\u00e8le's success was due to some kind of\nsupernormal faculty,\" thinks it might be accounted for by telepathy from\nliving persons. It appears that in all her trances Ad\u00e8le--like Mr.\nSanders--was controlled by her own subliminal self--that is to say, her\nsupraliminal self became dormant, under \"magnetism\" by Cahagnet, while\nher subliminal self in trance-utterance manifested a knowledge which\nwas, as I incline to think from its analogies with more developed cases,\nobtained from the spiritual world. That this knowledge should be mixed\nwith much that was erroneous or unverifiable is not surprising.\n\nIt is also interesting to note the occurrence in this case of\ncircumstances which in their general character have become so habitual\nin trances of \"mediumistic\" type that they are not only found in genuine\nsubjects, but are continually being simulated by the fraudulent. I refer\nto the so-called \"taking on of the death conditions\" of a communicating\nspirit, who, as Ad\u00e8le stated, died of suffocation. \"Ad\u00e8le chokes as this\nman choked, and coughed as he did.... I was obliged to release her by\npasses; she suffered terribly.\"\n\nI need scarcely say that this suggests incipient possession. There were\noccasional analogous instances in the early trances of Mrs. Piper, when\nPhinuit was the controlling influence (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol.\nviii. p. 98, Professor Barrett Wendell's account; and vol. xiii. p.\n384). Other points of similarity between the accounts of the entranced\nAd\u00e8le and the utterances of Phinuit will be apparent to the student of\nthe records.\n\nThe next case to be considered, and so far one of the most important, is\nthat of D. D. Home.\n\nThe study of such records as are available of Home's psychical phenomena\nleaves me with the conviction that,--apart altogether from the\ntelekinetic phenomena with which they were associated,--his\ntrance-utterances belong to the same natural order as those, for\ninstance, of Mr. Moses and Mrs. Piper. There are, however, important\ndifferences between these cases,--differences which should be of special\ninstruction to us in endeavouring to comprehend the possession that\ncompletely excludes the subliminal self, and to appreciate the\ndifficulty of obtaining this complete possession.\n\nThus in Home's case the subliminal self seems, throughout the longest\nseries of s\u00e9ances of which we have a record, to have been the spirit\nchiefly controlling him during the trance and acting as intermediary for\nother spirits, who occasionally, however, took complete possession.\n\nIn Mrs. Piper's case, as we shall see, the subliminal self is very\nlittle in direct evidence; its manifestations form a fleeting interlude\nbetween her waking state and her possession by a discarnate spirit. In\nMr. Moses' case, the subliminal self was rarely in direct evidence at\nall when he was entranced; but we infer from these other cases that it\nwas probably dominant at some stage of his trance, even if at other\ntimes it was excluded or became completely dormant.\n\nAnd if, in Home's case, as there seems reason to suppose, the subliminal\nself may have participated with discarnate spirits in the production of\ntelekinetic phenomena, as well as in the communication of tests of\npersonal identity, it is not improbable that the subliminal self of Mr.\nMoses may also have been actively concerned in both these classes of\nphenomena.\n\nBut, although I attribute much value to what evidence exists in the case\nof Home, it cannot but be deplored that the inestimable chance for\nexperiment and record which this case afforded was almost entirely\nthrown away by the scientific world. Unfortunately the record is\nespecially inadequate in reference to Home's trances and the evidence\nfor the personal identity of the communicating spirits. His name is\nknown to the world chiefly in connection with the telekinetic phenomena\nwhich are said to have occurred in his presence, and the best accounts\nof which we owe to Sir William Crookes. It is not my intention, as I\nhave already explained, to deal with these, but it must be understood\nthat they form an integral part of the manifestations in this case, as\nin the case of Stainton Moses. For detailed accounts of them the reader\nshould consult the history of Home's life and experiences.[208]\n\nTo the history of William Stainton Moses I now turn. Here the evidence\nfor the telekinetic phenomena is comparatively slight, since they\noccurred almost exclusively in the presence of a small group of intimate\npersonal friends, and were never scrutinised and examined by outside\nwitnesses as were Home's manifestations. On the other hand, we have\ndetailed records of Mr. Moses' whole series of experiences, while in the\ncase of Home, as I have said, the record is very imperfect. As to the\ntelekinetic phenomena, Mr. Moses himself regarded them as a mere means\nto an end, in accordance with the view urged on him by his\n\"controls,\"--that they were intended as proofs of the power and\nauthority of these latter, while the real message lay in the religious\nteaching imparted to him.\n\nIt was on May 9th, 1874, that Edmund Gurney and I met Stainton Moses for\nthe first time, through the kindness of Mrs. Cowper-Temple (afterwards\nLady Mount-Temple), who knew that we had become interested in\n\"psychical\" problems, and wished to introduce us to a man of honour who\nhad recently experienced phenomena, due wholly to some gift of his own,\nwhich had profoundly changed his conception of life.\n\nHere was a man of University education, of manifest sanity and probity,\nwho vouched to us for a series of phenomena,--occurring to himself, and\nwith no doubtful or venal aid,--which seemed at least to prove, in\nconfusedly intermingled form, three main theses unknown to Science.\nThese were (1) the existence in the human spirit of hidden powers of\ninsight and of communication; (2) the personal survival and near\npresence of the departed; and (3) interference, due to unknown agencies,\nwith the ponderable world. He spoke frankly and fully; he showed his\nnote-books; he referred us to his friends; he inspired a belief which\nwas at once sufficient, and which is still sufficient, to prompt to\naction.\n\nThe experiences which Stainton Moses had undergone had changed his\nviews, but not his character. He was already set in the mould of the\nhard-working, conscientious, dogmatic clergyman, with a strong desire to\ndo good, and a strong belief in preaching as the best way to do it. For\nhimself the essential part of what I have called his \"message\" lay in\nthe actual words automatically uttered or written,--not in the\naccompanying phenomena which really gave their uniqueness and importance\nto the automatic processes. In a book called _Spirit Teachings_ he\ncollected what he regarded as the real fruits of those years of\nmysterious listening in the vestibule of a world unknown.\n\nMy original impressions as regards Mr. Moses were strengthened by the\nopportunity which I had of examining his unpublished MSS. after his\ndeath on September 5th, 1892. These consist of thirty-one\nnote-books--twenty-four of automatic script, four of records of physical\nphenomena, and three of retrospect and summary. In addition to these,\nthe material available for a knowledge of Mr. Moses' experiences\nconsists of his own printed works, and the written and printed\nstatements of witnesses to his phenomena.\n\nOf this available material a detailed account will be found in\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. pp. 245-352, and vol. xi. pp. 24-113,\ntogether with a brief record of Mr. Moses' life.\n\nWith the even tenor of this straightforward and reputable life was\ninwoven a chain of mysteries which, as I think, in what way soever they\nbe explained, make it one of the most extraordinary which our century\nhas seen. For its true history lies in that series of physical\nmanifestations which began in 1872 and lasted for some eight years, and\nthat series of automatic writings and trance-utterances which began in\n1873, received a record for some ten years, and did not, as is believed,\ncease altogether until the earthly end was near.\n\nThese two series were intimately connected; the physical phenomena being\navowedly designed to give authority to the speeches and writings which\nprofessed to emanate from the same source. There is no ground for\nseparating the two groups, except the obvious one that the automatic\nphenomena are less difficult of credence than the physical; but, for\nreasons already stated, it has seemed to me desirable to exclude the\nlatter from detailed treatment in this work. They included the apparent\nproduction of such phenomena as intelligent raps, movements of objects\nuntouched, levitation, disappearance and reappearance of objects,\npassage of matter through matter, direct writing, sounds supernormally\nmade on instruments, direct sounds, scents, lights, objects\nmaterialised, hands materialised (touched or seen). Mr. Moses was\nsometimes, but not always, entranced while these physical phenomena were\noccurring. Sometimes he was entranced and the trance-utterance purported\nto be that of a discarnate spirit. At other times, especially when\nalone, he wrote automatically, retaining his own ordinary consciousness\nmeanwhile, and carrying on lengthy discussions with the \"spirit\ninfluence\" controlling his hand and answering his questions, etc. As a\ngeneral rule the same alleged spirits both manifested themselves by\nraps, etc., at Mr. Moses' sittings with his friends, and also wrote\nthrough his hand when he was alone. In this, as in other respects, Mr.\nMoses' two series of writings--when alone and in company--were\nconcordant, and, so to say, complementary;--explanations being given by\nthe writing of what had happened at the s\u00e9ances. When \"direct writing\"\nwas given at the s\u00e9ances the handwriting of each alleged spirit was the\nsame as that which the same spirit was in the habit of employing in the\nautomatic script. The claim to individuality was thus in all cases\ndecisively made.\n\nNow the personages thus claiming to appear may be divided roughly into\nthree classes:--\n\nA.--First and most important are a group of persons recently deceased,\nand sometimes manifesting themselves at the s\u00e9ances before their decease\nwas known through any ordinary channel to any of the persons present.\nThese spirits in many instances give tests of identity, mentioning facts\nconnected with their earth-lives which are afterwards found to be\ncorrect.\n\nB.--Next comes a group of personages belonging to generations more\nremote, and generally of some distinction in their day. Grocyn, the\nfriend of Erasmus, may be taken as a type of these. Many of these also\ncontribute facts as a proof of identity, which facts are sometimes more\ncorrect than the conscious or admitted knowledge of any of the sitters\ncould supply. In such cases, however, the difficulty of proving identity\nis increased by the fact that most of the correct statements are readily\naccessible in print, and may conceivably have either been read and\nforgotten by Mr. Moses, or have become known to him by some kind of\nclairvoyance.\n\nC.--A third group consists of spirits who give such names as Rector,\nDoctor, Theophilus, and, above all, Imperator. These from time to time\nreveal the names which they assert to have been theirs in earth-life.\nThese concealed names are for the most part both more illustrious, and\nmore remote, than the names in Class B,--and were withheld by Mr. Moses\nhimself, who justly felt that the assumption of great names is likely\nto diminish rather than to increase the weight of the communication.\n\nI now pass on to consider briefly the nature of the evidence that the\nalleged spirits were what they purported to be, as described, in the\nfirst place, in Mr. Moses' books of automatic writing. The contents of\nthese books consist partly of messages tending to prove the identity of\ncommunicating spirits; partly of discussions or explanations of the\nphysical phenomena; and partly of religious and moral disquisitions.\n\nThese automatic messages were almost wholly written by Mr. Moses' own\nhand, while he was in a normal waking state. The exceptions are of two\nkinds. (1) There is one long passage, alleged by Mr. Moses to have been\nwritten by himself while in a state of trance. (2) There are, here and\nthere, a few words alleged to be in \"direct writing\";--written, that is\nto say, by invisible hands, but in Mr. Moses' presence; as several times\ndescribed in the notes of s\u00e9ances where other persons were present.\n\nPutting these exceptional instances aside, we find that the writings\ngenerally take the form of a dialogue, Mr. Moses proposing a question in\nhis ordinary thick, black handwriting. An answer is then generally,\nthough not always, given; written also by Mr. Moses, and with the same\npen, but in some one of various scripts which differ more or less widely\nfrom his own. Mr. Moses' own description of the process, as given in the\npreface to _Spirit Teachings_, may be studied with advantage.\n\nA prolonged study of the MS. books has revealed nothing inconsistent\nwith this description. I have myself, of course, searched them carefully\nfor any sign of confusion or alteration, but without finding any; and I\nhave shown parts of them to various friends, who have seen no points of\nsuspicion. It seems plain, moreover, that the various entries were made\nat or about the dates to which they are ascribed. They contain constant\nreferences to the s\u00e9ances which went on concurrently, and whose dates\nare independently known; and in the later books, records of some of\nthese s\u00e9ances are interspersed in their due places amongst other matter.\nThe MSS. contain also a number of allusions to other contemporaneous\nfacts, many of which are independently known to myself.\n\nI think, moreover, that no one who had studied these entries throughout\nwould doubt the originally private and intimate character of many of\nthem. The tone of the spirits towards Mr. Moses himself is habitually\ncourteous and respectful. But occasionally they have some criticism\nwhich pierces to the quick, and which goes far to explain to me Mr.\nMoses' unwillingness to have the books fully inspected during his\nlifetime. He did, no doubt, contemplate their being at least read by\nfriends after his death; and there are indications that there may have\nbeen a still more private book, now doubtless destroyed, to which\nmessages of an intimate character were sometimes consigned.\n\nIndeed, the questions at issue, as to these messages, refer not so much\nto their _genuineness_ as to their _authenticity_, in the proper sense\nof those words. That they were written down in good faith by Mr. Moses\nas proceeding from the personages whose names are signed to them, there\ncan be little doubt. But as to whether they did really proceed from\nthose personages or no there may in many cases be very great doubt;--a\ndoubt which I, at least, shall be quite unable to remove. By the very\nconditions of the communication they cannot show commanding intellect,\nor teach entirely new truths, since their manifestations are _ex\nhypothesi_ limited by the capacity--not by the previous _knowledge_, but\nby the previous _capacity_--of the medium. And if they give facts not\nconsciously known to the medium--facts however elaborate--it may, of\ncourse, be suggested that these facts have been _subliminally acquired_\nby the medium through some unconscious passage of the eye over a printed\npage, or else that they are _clairvoyantly learnt_, without the agency\nof any but the medium's own mind, though acting in a supernormal\nfashion.\n\nThe case of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Smith has shown us how far-reaching may be the\nfaculties of hyper\u00e6sthesia and hypermnesia in the subliminal self; but\nin view of the then general ignorance of the scientific world on this\nsubject, it is not surprising that both Mr. Moses and his friends\nabsolutely rejected this explanation of his phenomena, and that the\nevidence appeared to them more conclusive than it possibly can to us.\nWhether or not the alleged spirits were concerned,--as may sometimes, of\ncourse, have been the case,--we can hardly avoid thinking that the\nsubliminal self of the medium played at least a considerable part in the\ncommunications.\n\nIn two cases the announcement of a death was made to Mr. Moses, when the\nnews was apparently not known to him by any normal means. One of these\nis the case of President Garfield (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p.\n100). The other (see my article in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 96\n_et seq._) is in some ways the most remarkable of all, from the series\nof chances which have been needful in order to establish its veracity.\nSpecially noticeable in this case is the resemblance of the handwriting\nof the script to that of the alleged control, a lady whose writing was\nalmost certainly unknown to Mr. Moses. Both to the lady's son and to\nmyself the resemblance appeared incontestable, and our opinion was\nconfirmed by Dr. Hodgson, who was an expert in such matters.\n\nAnd now we must briefly go through the points which make such messages\nas were received by Mr. Moses _prim\u00e2 facie_ evidential, which indicate,\nthat is to say, that they actually do come in some way from their\nalleged source. A brief recapitulation of the main stages of evidential\nquality in messages given by automatic writing or by trance-utterances\nis all that will be needed here.\n\n(1) Evidentially lowest comes the class of messages which is by far the\nmost common; messages, namely, in which, although some special identity\nmay be claimed, all the facts given have been consciously known to the\nautomatist. Here we may well suppose that his own personality alone is\nconcerned, and that the messages have a _subliminal_, but not an\n_external_ source.\n\n(2) Next above these come messages containing facts likely to be known\nto the alleged spirit, and not consciously known to the automatist; but\nwhich facts may nevertheless have some time been noted by the\nautomatist, even unwittingly, and may have thus obtained lodgment in his\nsubliminal memory.\n\n(3) Next come facts which can be proved,--with such varying degrees of\ncertainty as such negative proof allows,--never to have been in any way\nknown to the automatist; but which nevertheless are easily to be found\nin books; so that they may have been learnt clairvoyantly by the\nautomatist himself, or learnt and communicated to him by some mind other\nthan that of the alleged spirit.\n\n(4) Next come facts which can be proved, with similar varying degrees of\ncertainty according to the circumstances, never to have been known to\nthe automatist, or recorded in print; but which were known to the\nalleged spirit and can be verified by the memories of living persons.\n\n(5) Above this again would come that class of _experimental_ messages,\nor posthumous letters, of which we have as yet very few good examples,\nwhere the departed person has before death arranged some special\ntest--some fact or sentence known only to himself, which he is to\ntransmit after death, if possible, as a token of his return.\n\n(6) Thus much for the various kinds of verbal messages, which can be\nkept and analysed at leisure. We must now turn to evidence of a\ndifferent and not precisely comparable kind. In point of fact it is not\nthese inferences from written matter which have commonly been most\nefficacious in compelling the survivor's belief in the reality of the\nfriend's return. Whether logically or no, it is not so much the written\nmessage that he trusts, but some phantom of face and voice that he knew\nso well. It is this familiar convincing presence,--[Greek: eikto de\ntheskelon aut\u00f4],--on which the percipient has always insisted, since\nAchilles strove in vain to embrace Patroclus' shade.\n\nHow far such a phantasm is in fact a proof of any real action on the\npart of the spirit thus recognised is a problem which has been dealt\nwith already in Chapter VII. The upshot of our evidence to my mind is\nthat although the apparition of a departed person cannot _per se_ rank\nas evidence of his presence, yet this is not a shape which purely\nhallucinatory phantasms seem often to assume; and if there be any\ncorroborative evidence, as, for instance, writing which claims to come\nfrom the same person, the chance that he is really operative is\nconsiderable. In Mr. Moses' case almost all the figures which he saw\nbrought with them some corroboration by writing, trance-utterance,\ngesture-messages (as where a figure makes signs of assent or dissent),\nor raps.\n\n(7) And this brings us to a class largely represented in Mr. Moses'\nseries, where writings professing to come from a certain spirit are\nsupported by physical phenomena of which that spirit claims also to be\nthe author. Whether such a line of proof can ever be made logically\ncomplete or no, one can imagine many cases where it would be practically\nconvincing to almost all minds. Materialisations of hands, or direct\nwriting in the script of the departed, have much of actual cogency; and\nthese methods, with others like them, are employed by Mr. Moses'\n\"controls\" in their efforts to establish their own identities. Physical\nphenomena in themselves, however, carry no proof of an intelligence\noutside that of the sensitive himself, and, as I have said, may in many\ncases be a mere extension of his own ordinary muscular powers, and not\ndue to any external agency at all.\n\nIf we confine ourselves to the verbal messages, we find that the cases\nmost fully represented in the records of Mr. Moses are limited to the\nfirst three classes mentioned above, and those which come under the\nfourth class--verifiable facts of which there is no printed record and\nwhich it is practically certain that the medium could never have\nknown--are comparatively few. This may partly be accounted for by the\nsmall number of sitters with Mr. Moses and the fact that they were his\npersonal friends. The records of Mrs. Piper, on the other hand, to which\nwe now turn, are especially rich in incidents that fall under the fourth\nheading, and the evidential value of the verbal messages in this case\nis, therefore, much greater than in the case of Mr. Moses. Whereas for\nMr. Moses the identity of many of his communicators rested largely upon\ntheir being guaranteed by Imperator and his group of helpers,--in the\ncase of Mrs. Piper the spirits of some recently-departed friends who\nhave given much evidence of their identity appear to maintain the\nindependent reality and guiding control over Mrs. Piper of these same\nintelligences--Imperator, Rector, Doctor, and others--that Mr. Moses\nclaimed as ruling in his own experience.\n\nThe case of Mrs. Piper differs in two important respects from that of W.\nStainton Moses or D. D. Home. In the first place no telekinetic\nphenomena have occurred in connection with her trance-manifestations;\nand in the second place her supraliminal self shows no traces of any\nsupernormal faculty whatsoever. She presents an instance of automatism\nof the extreme type where the \"possession\" is not merely local or\npartial, but affects, so to say, the whole psychical area,--where the\nsupraliminal self is for a time completely displaced, and the whole\npersonality appears to suffer intermittent change. In other words, she\npasses into a trance, during which her organs of speech or writing are\n\"controlled\" by other personalities than the normal waking one.\nOccasionally, either just before or just after the trance, the\nsubliminal self appears to take some control of the organism for a brief\ninterval; but with this exception the personalities that speak or write\nduring her trance claim to be discarnate spirits.\n\nMrs. Piper's trances may be divided into three stages: (1) Where the\ndominant controlling personality was known as \"Dr. Phinuit\" and used the\nvocal organs almost exclusively, communicating by _trance-utterance_,\n1884-91.\n\n(2) Where the communications were made chiefly by automatic writing in\nthe trance under the supervision more particularly of the control known\nas \"George Pelham,\" or \"G. P.,\" although \"Dr. Phinuit\" usually\ncommunicated also by speech during this period, 1892-96.\n\n(3) Where supervision is alleged to be exercised by Imperator, Doctor,\nRector, and others already mentioned in connection with the experiences\nof Mr. Moses, and where the communications have been mainly by writing,\nbut occasionally also by speech. This last stage, which began early in\n1897, still continues, and the final outcome remains to be seen.\n\nI proceed now to indicate in further detail the nature of the evidence\nand the character of the manifestations themselves, and begin by quoting\nfrom Dr. Hodgson (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 367-68) a brief\nstatement of some of the historical facts of the case.\n\n     Mrs. Piper has been giving sittings for a period extending over\n     thirteen [now, 1901, seventeen] years. Very early in her trance\n     history she came under the attention of Professor James, who sent\n     many persons to her as strangers, in most cases making the\n     appointments himself, and in no case giving their names. She came\n     to some extent under my own supervision in 1887, and I also sent\n     many persons to her, in many cases accompanying them and recording\n     the statements made at their sittings, and taking all the care that\n     I could to prevent Mrs. Piper's obtaining any knowledge beforehand\n     of who the sitters were to be. In 1889-90 Mrs. Piper gave a series\n     of sittings in England under the supervision of Dr. Walter Leaf and\n     Mr. Myers and Professor Lodge, where also the most careful\n     precautions possible were taken to ensure that the sitters went as\n     strangers to Mrs. Piper. Further sittings were supervised by myself\n     in 1890-91 after Mrs. Piper's return to America. Many persons who\n     had sittings in the course of these earlier investigations were\n     convinced that they were actually receiving communications from\n     their \"deceased\" friends through Mrs. Piper's trance, but although\n     the special investigators were satisfied, from their study of the\n     trance-phenomena themselves and a careful analysis of the detailed\n     records of the sittings, that some supernormal power was involved,\n     there was no definite agreement as to their precise significance.\n     And to myself it seemed that any hypothesis that was offered\n     presented formidable difficulties in the way of its acceptance. In\n     the course of these earlier investigations the communications were\n     given almost entirely through the speech-utterance of the\n     trance-personality known as Phinuit, and even the best of them were\n     apt to include much matter that was irrelevant and unlike the\n     alleged communicators, while there were many indications that\n     Phinuit himself was far from being the kind of person in whom we\n     should be disposed to place implicit credence.\n\n     During the years 1892-96 inclusive, I exercised a yet closer\n     supervision of Mrs. Piper's trances than I had done in previous\n     years, continuing to take all the precautions that I could as\n     regards the introduction of persons as strangers. This period was\n     marked by a notable evolution in the quality of the trance results,\n     beginning early in 1892. The character of the manifestations\n     changed with the development of automatic writing in the trance,\n     and with what was alleged to be the continual rendering of active\n     assistance by the communicator whom I have called G. P. [George\n     Pelham]. As a result of this it appeared that communicators were\n     able to express their thoughts directly through the writing by Mrs.\n     Piper's hand, instead of conveying them more dimly and partially\n     through Phinuit as intermediary; and the advice and guidance which\n     they, apparently, received from G. P. enabled them to avoid much of\n     the confusion and irrelevancy so characteristic of the earlier\n     manifestations.\n\nI do not propose here to discuss the hypothesis of fraud in this case,\nsince it has been fully discussed by Dr. Hodgson, Professor William\nJames, Professor Newbold of Pennsylvania University, Dr. Walter Leaf,\nand Sir Oliver Lodge.[209] I merely quote, as a summary of the argument,\na few words of Professor James, from _The Psychological Review_, July,\n1898, pp. 421-22:--\n\n     Dr. Hodgson considers that the hypothesis of fraud cannot be\n     seriously maintained. I agree with him absolutely. The medium has\n     been under observation, much of the time under close observation,\n     as to most of the conditions of her life, by a large number of\n     persons, eager, many of them, to pounce upon any suspicious\n     circumstance for [nearly] fifteen years. During that time, not only\n     has there not been one single suspicious circumstance remarked, but\n     not one suggestion has ever been made from any quarter which might\n     tend positively to explain how the medium, living the apparent life\n     she leads, could possibly collect information about so many sitters\n     by natural means. The scientist who is confident of \"fraud\" here,\n     must remember that in science as much as in common life a\n     hypothesis must receive some positive specification and\n     determination before it can be profitably discussed, and a fraud\n     which is no assigned kind of fraud, but simply \"fraud\" at large,\n     fraud _in abstracto_, can hardly be regarded as a specially\n     scientific explanation of concrete facts.\n\nUnfortunately we have no contemporary records of what occurred during\nMrs. Piper's earliest trances; nor practically any information as to the\nfirst manifestations of the Phinuit personality. It seems clear at least\nthat the _name_ Phinuit was the result of suggestion at these earliest\ntrances (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 46-58), and many may\nthink it most probable that the Phinuit \"control\" was nothing more than\na secondary personality of Mrs. Piper. But, according to the statements\n(for which there is of course no evidence) made by \"Imperator,\" Phinuit\nwas an \"earth-bound\" or inferior spirit, who had become confused and\nbewildered in his first attempts at communication, and had, as we say,\n\"lost his consciousness of personal identity.\" That such an occurrence\nis not uncommon in this life is plain from the cases to which I have\ndrawn attention in Chapter II. of this book, and we cannot prove it to\nbe impossible that profound memory disturbances should be produced in an\ninexperienced discarnate spirit when first attempting to communicate\nwith us through a material organism. Be that as it may, the Phinuit\npersonality has not manifested either directly or indirectly since\nJanuary 1897, when \"Imperator\" claimed the supervision of Mrs. Piper's\ntrances.\n\nThere were various cases of alleged direct \"control\" by spirits other\nthan Phinuit during the first stage of Mrs. Piper's trance history. But\nsuch cases were not usual, and on the whole, although there seemed to be\nabundant proof of some supernormal faculty which demanded at least the\nhypothesis of thought-transference from living persons both near and\ndistant, and suggested occasionally some power of tel\u00e6sthesia or\nperhaps even of premonition, yet the main question with which we are now\nconcerned,--whether Mrs. Piper's organism was controlled, directly or\nindirectly, by discarnate spirits who could give satisfactory evidence\nof their identity,--remained undecided.\n\nMore important, as regards this question of personal identity, is the\nseries of sittings which formed the second stage of Mrs. Piper's trance\nhistory, in the years 1892-96, (of which a detailed account is given in\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 284-582, and vol. xiv. pp. 6-49),\nwhere the chief communicator or intermediary was G. P. This G. P., whose\nname (although, of course, well known to many persons) has been altered\nfor publication into \"George Pelham,\" was a young man of great ability,\nmainly occupied in literary pursuits. Although born an American citizen,\nhe was a member of a noble English family. I never met him, but I have\nthe good fortune to include a number of his friends among my own, and\nwith several of these I have been privileged to hold intimate\nconversation on the nature of the communications which they received. I\nhave thus heard of many significant utterances of G. P.'s, which are\nheld too private for print; and I have myself been present at sittings\nwhere G. P. manifested. For the full discussion of the evidence tending\nto prove the identity of G. P., I refer my readers to the original\nreport in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R. I quote here a general summary, given\nby Dr. Hodgson several years later, of the whole series of his\nmanifestations. (From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 328-330.)\n\n     On the first appearance of the communicating G. P. to Mr. Hart in\n     March 1892, he gave not only his own name and that of the sitter,\n     but also the names of several of their most intimate common\n     friends, and referred specifically to the most important private\n     matters connected with them. At the same sitting reference was made\n     to other incidents unknown to the sitters, such as the account of\n     Mrs. Pelham's taking the studs from the body of G. P. and giving\n     them to Mr. Pelham to be sent to Mr. Hart, and the reproduction of\n     a notable remembrance of a conversation which G. P. living had with\n     Katharine, the daughter of his most intimate friends, the Howards.\n     These were primary examples of two kinds of knowledge concerning\n     matters unknown to the sitters, of which various other instances\n     were afterwards given; knowledge of events connected with G. P.\n     which had occurred since his death, and knowledge of special\n     memories pertaining to the G. P. personality before death. A week\n     later, at the sitting of Mr. Vance, he made an appropriate inquiry\n     after the sitter's son, and in reply to inquiries rightly specified\n     that the sitter's son had been at college with him, and further\n     correctly gave a correct description of the sitter's summer home as\n     the place of a special visit. This, again, was paralleled by many\n     later instances where appropriate inquiries were made and\n     remembrances recalled concerning other personal friends of G. P.\n     Nearly two weeks later came his most intimate friends, the Howards,\n     and to these, using the voice directly, he showed such a fulness of\n     private remembrance and specific knowledge and characteristic\n     intellectual and emotional quality pertaining to G. P. that, though\n     they had previously taken no interest in any branch of psychical\n     research, they were unable to resist the conviction that they were\n     actually conversing with their old friend G. P. And this conviction\n     was strengthened by their later experiences. Not least important,\n     at that time, was his anxiety about the disposal of a certain book\n     and about certain specified letters which concern matters too\n     private for publication. He was particularly desirous of convincing\n     his father, who lived in Washington, that it was indeed G. P. who\n     was communicating, and he soon afterwards stated that his father\n     had taken his photograph to be copied, as was the case, though Mr.\n     Pelham had not informed even his wife of this fact. Later on he\n     reproduced a series of incidents, unknown to the sitters, in which\n     Mrs. Howard had been engaged in her own home. Later still, at a\n     sitting with his father and mother in New York, a further intimate\n     knowledge was shown of private family circumstances, and at the\n     following sitting, at which his father and mother were not present,\n     he gave the details of certain private actions which they had done\n     in the interim. At their sitting, and at various sittings of the\n     Howards, appropriate comments were made concerning different\n     articles presented which had belonged to G. P. living, or had been\n     familiar to him; he inquired after other personal articles which\n     were not presented at the sittings, and showed intimate and\n     detailed recollections of incidents in connection with them. In\n     points connected with the recognition of articles with their\n     related associations of a personal sort, the G. P. communicating,\n     so far as I know, has never failed. Nor has he failed in the\n     recognition of personal friends. I may say generally that out of a\n     large number of sitters who went as strangers to Mrs. Piper, the\n     communicating G. P. has picked out the friends of G. P. living,\n     precisely as the G. P. living might have been expected to do\n     [thirty cases of recognition out of at least one hundred and fifty\n     persons who have had sittings with Mrs. Piper since the first\n     appearance of G. P., and no case of false recognition], and has\n     exhibited memories in connection with these and other friends which\n     are such as would naturally be associated as part of the G. P.\n     personality, which certainly do not suggest in themselves that they\n     originate otherwise, and which are accompanied by the emotional\n     relations which were connected with such friends in the mind of G.\n     P. living. At one of his early communications G. P. expressly\n     undertook the task of rendering all the assistance in his power\n     towards establishing the continued existence of himself and other\n     communicators, in pursuance of a promise of which he himself\n     reminded me, made some two years or more before his death, that if\n     he died before me and found himself \"still existing,\" he would\n     devote himself to prove the fact; and in the persistence of his\n     endeavour to overcome the difficulties in communicating as far as\n     possible, in his constant readiness to act as amanuensis at the\n     sittings, in the effect which he has produced by his counsels,--to\n     myself as investigator, and to numerous other sitters and\n     communicators,--he has, in so far as I can form a judgment in a\n     problem so complex and still presenting so much obscurity,\n     displayed all the keenness and pertinacity which were eminently\n     characteristic of G. P. living.\n\n     Finally the manifestations of this G. P. communicating have not\n     been of a fitful and spasmodic nature, they have exhibited the\n     marks of a continuous living and persistent personality,\n     manifesting itself through a course of years, and showing the same\n     characteristics of an independent intelligence whether friends of\n     G. P. were present at the sittings or not. I learned of various\n     cases where in my absence active assistance was rendered by G. P.\n     to sitters who had never previously heard of him, and from time to\n     time he would make brief pertinent reference to matters with which\n     G. P. living was acquainted, though I was not, and sometimes in\n     ways which indicated that he could to some extent see what was\n     happening in our world to persons in whose welfare G. P. living\n     would have been specially interested.\n\nThe sitter called Mr. Hart, to whom G. P. first manifested, died at\nNaples three years afterwards, and communicated, with the help of G. P.,\non the second day after his death. An account of his communications is\ngiven in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 353-57.\n\nThere are numerous instances in the reports in the _Proceedings_ (see\nvol. vi. pp. 647-50; vol. viii. pp. 15-26; vol. xiii., _passim_; and\nvol. xvi. pp. 131-3), of the giving of information unknown to the\nsitters and afterwards verified. A striking illustration of this\noccurred in the case of the lady called \"Elisa Mannors,\" whose near\nrelatives and friends concerned in the communications were known to\nmyself. On the morning after the death of her uncle, called F. in the\nreport, she described an incident in connection with the appearance of\nherself to her uncle on his death-bed. I quote Dr. Hodgson's account of\nthis (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 378, footnote).\n\n     The notice of his [F.'s] death was in a Boston morning paper, and I\n     happened to see it on my way to the sitting. The first writing of\n     the sitting came from Madame Elisa, without my expecting it. She\n     wrote clearly and strongly, explaining that F. was there with her,\n     but unable to speak directly, that she wished to give me an account\n     of how she had helped F. to reach her. She said that she had been\n     present at his death-bed, and had spoken to him, and she repeated\n     what she had said, an unusual form of expression, and indicated\n     that he had heard and recognised her. This was confirmed in detail\n     in the only way possible at that time, by a very intimate friend of\n     Madame Elisa and myself, and also of the nearest surviving relative\n     of F. I showed my friend the account of the sitting, and to this\n     friend, a day or two later, the relative, who was present at the\n     death-bed, stated spontaneously that F. when dying said that he saw\n     Madame Elisa who was speaking to him, and he repeated what she was\n     saying. The expression so repeated, which the relative quoted to my\n     friend, was that which I had received from Madame Elisa through\n     Mrs. Piper's trance, when the death-bed incident was of course\n     entirely unknown to me.\n\nRare are the \"Peak in Darien\" cases (see page 233), but cases like this\nare rarer still.\n\nWith regard to the last of the three periods of Mrs. Piper's\ntrance-history, the only detailed published accounts are contained in\nProfessor Hyslop's report of his sittings in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol.\nxvi.[210] But neither his records nor the manuscript records which I\nhave seen contain any proof of the personal identity of the alleged\nspirits called \"Imperator,\" \"Doctor,\" \"Rector,\" etc., or any proof of\nthe identity of these intelligences with those claimed by Mr. Moses.\n(See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 408-9.) Whether any such proof\nwill be forthcoming in the future remains to be seen,--or indeed,\nwhether proof or disproof for us at present is even possible.\n\nWe must now try to form some more definite idea--based not on\npreconceived theories but on our actual observation of trances--of the\nprocesses of possession.\n\nLet us try to realise what kind of feat it is which we are expecting the\ndisembodied spirit to achieve. Such language, I know, again suggests the\nmedicine-man's wigwam rather than the study of the white philosopher.\nYet can we feel sure that the process in our own minds which has (as we\nthink) refined and spiritualised man's early conceptions of an unseen\nworld has been based upon any observed facts?\n\nIn dealing with matters which lie outside human experience, our only\nclue is some attempt at _continuity_ with what we already know. We\ncannot, for instance, form independently a reliable conception of life\nin an unseen world. That conception has never yet been fairly faced from\nthe standpoint of our modern ideas of continuity, conservation,\nevolution. The main notions that have been framed of such survival have\nbeen framed first by savages and then by _a priori_ philosophers.\n\nThe savage made his own picture first. And he at any rate dimly felt\nafter a principle of continuity; although he applied it in the crudest\nfashion. Yet the happy hunting-ground and the faithful dog were\nconceptions not more arbitrary and unscientific than that eternal and\nunimaginable worship _in vacuo_ which more accredited teachers have\nproclaimed. And, passing on to modern philosophic conceptions, one may\nsay that where the savage assumed _too little_ difference between the\nmaterial and the spiritual world the philosopher has assumed _too much_.\nHe has regarded the gulf as too unbridgeable; he has taken for granted\ntoo clean a sweep of earthly modes of thought. Trying to shake off time,\nspace, and definite form, he has attempted to transport himself too\nmagically to what may be in reality an immensely distant goal.\n\nWhat, then, is to be our conception of identity prolonged beyond the\ntomb? In earth-life the actual body, in itself but a subordinate element\nin our thought of our friend, did yet by its physical continuity\noverride as a symbol of identity all lapses of memory, all changes of\nthe character within. Yet it was memory and character,--the stored\nimpressions upon which he reacted, and his specific mode of\nreaction,--which made our veritable friend. How much of memory, how much\nof character, must he preserve for our recognition?\n\nDo we ask that either he or we should remember always, or should\nremember all? Do we ask that his memory should be expanded into\nomniscience and his character elevated into divinity? And, whatever\nheights he may attain, do we demand that he should reveal to us? Are the\nlimitations of our material world no barrier to him?\n\nIt is safest to fall back for the present upon the few points which\nthese communications do seem to indicate. The spirit, then, is holding\nconverse with a living man, located in a certain place at a certain\nmoment, and animated by certain thoughts and emotions. The spirit (to\nwhich I must give a neuter pronoun for greater clearness) in some cases\ncan find and follow the man as it pleases. It is therefore in some way\ncognizant of space, although not conditioned by space. Its mastery of\nspace may perhaps bear somewhat the same relation to our eyesight as our\neyesight bears to the gropings of the blind. Similarly, the spirit\nappears to be partly cognizant of our _time_, although not wholly\nconditioned thereby. It is apt to see as _present_ both certain things\nwhich appear to us as past and certain things which appear to us as\nfuture.\n\nOnce more, the spirit is at least partly conscious of the thought and\nemotions of its earthly friend, so far as directed towards itself; and\nthis not only when the friend is in the presence of the sensitive, but\nalso (as G. P. has repeatedly shown) when the friend is at home and\nliving his ordinary life.\n\nLastly, it seems as though the spirit had some occasional glimpses of\nmaterial fact upon the earth (as the contents of drawers and the like),\nnot manifestly proceeding through any living mind. I do not, however,\nrecall any clear evidence of a spirit's perception of material facts\nwhich provably have never been known to any incarnate mind whatever.\n\nAccepting this, then, for argument's sake, as the normal condition of a\nspirit in reference to human things, what process must it attempt if it\nwishes to communicate with living men? That it _will_ wish to\ncommunicate seems probable enough, if it retains not only memory of the\nloves of earth, but actual fresh consciousness of loving emotion\ndirected towards it after death.\n\nSeeking then for some open avenue, it discerns something which\ncorresponds (in G. P.'s phrase) to a _light_--a glimmer of translucency\nin the confused darkness of our material world. This \"light\" indicates a\n_sensitive_--a human organism so constituted that a spirit can\ntemporarily _inform_ or _control_ it, not necessarily interrupting the\nstream of the sensitive's ordinary consciousness; perhaps using a hand\nonly, or perhaps, as in Mrs. Piper's case, using voice as well as hand,\nand occupying all the sensitive's channels of self-manifestation. The\ndifficulties which must be inherent in such an act of control are thus\ndescribed by Dr. Hodgson:--\n\n\"If, indeed, each one of us is a 'spirit' that survives the death of the\nfleshly organism, there are certain suppositions that I think we may not\nunreasonably make concerning the ability of the discarnate 'spirit' to\ncommunicate with those yet incarnate. Even under the best of conditions\nfor communication--which I am supposing for the nonce to be possible--it\nmay well be that the aptitude for communicating clearly may be as rare\nas the gifts that make a great artist, or a great mathematician, or a\ngreat philosopher. Again, it may well be that, owing to the change\nconnected with death itself, the 'spirit' may at first be much confused,\nand such confusion may last for a long time; and even after the 'spirit'\nhas become accustomed to its new environment, it is not an unreasonable\nsupposition that if it came into some such relation to another living\nhuman organism as it once maintained with its own former organism, it\nwould find itself confused by that relation. The state might be like\nthat of awaking from a prolonged period of unconsciousness into strange\nsurroundings. If my own ordinary body could be preserved in its present\nstate, and I could absent myself from it for days or months or years,\nand continue my existence under another set of conditions altogether,\nand if I could then return to my own body, it might well be that I\nshould be very confused and incoherent at first in my manifestations by\nmeans of it. How much more would this be the case were I to return to\n_another_ human body. I might be troubled with various forms of aphasia\nand agraphia, might be particularly liable to failures of inhibition,\nmight find the conditions oppressive and exhausting, and my state of\nmind would probably be of an automatic and dreamlike character. Now, the\ncommunicators through Mrs. Piper's trance exhibit precisely the kind of\nconfusion and incoherence which it seems to me we have some reason _a\npriori_ to expect if they are actually what they claim to be.\"\n\nAt the outset of this chapter I compared the phenomena of possession\nwith those of alternating personalities, of dreams, and of somnambulism.\nNow it seems probable that the thesis of multiplex personality--namely,\nthat no known current of man's consciousness exhausts his whole\nconsciousness, and no known self-manifestation expresses man's whole\npotential being--may hold good both for embodied and for unembodied men,\nand this would lead us to expect that the manifestations of the\ndeparted,--through the sensory automatisms dealt with in Chapter VII.,\nand the motor automatisms considered in Chapter VIII., up to the\ncompleter form of possession illustrated in the present chapter,--would\nresemble those fugitive and unstable communications between widely\ndifferent strata of personality of which embodied minds offer us\nexamples. G. P. himself appears to be well aware of the dreamlike\ncharacter of the communications, which, indeed, his own style often\nexemplifies. Thus he wrote on February 15th, 1894:--\n\n\"Remember we share and always shall have our friends in the dream-life,\n_i.e._ your life so to speak, which will attract us for ever and ever,\nand so long as we have any friends _sleeping_ in the material world; you\nto us are more like as we understand sleep, you look shut up as one in\nprison, and in order for us to get into communication with you, we have\nto enter into your sphere, as one like yourself, asleep. This is just\nwhy we make mistakes, as you call them, or get confused and muddled.\"\n\nYet even this very difficulty and fragmentariness of communication ought\nin the end to be for us full of an instruction of its own. We are here\nactually witnessing the central mystery of human life, unrolling itself\nunder novel conditions, and open to closer observation than ever before.\nWe are seeing a mind use a brain. The human brain is in its last\nanalysis an arrangement of matter expressly adapted to being acted upon\nby a spirit; but so long as the accustomed spirit acts upon it the\nworking is generally too smooth to allow us a glimpse of the mechanism.\n_Now_, however, we can watch an unaccustomed spirit, new to the\ninstrument, installing itself and feeling its way. The lessons thus\nlearnt are likely to be more penetrating than any which mere morbid\ninterruptions of the accustomed spirit's work can teach us. In aphasia,\nfor instance, we can watch with instruction special difficulties of\nutterance, supervening on special injuries to the brain. But in\n_possession_ we perceive the controlling spirit actually engaged in\novercoming somewhat similar difficulties--writing or uttering the wrong\nword, and then getting hold of the right one--and sometimes even finding\npower to explain to us something of the minute verbal mechanism (so to\nterm it) through whose blocking or dislocation the mistake has arisen.\n\nAnd we may hope, indeed, that as our investigations proceed, and as we\non this side of the fateful gulf, and the discarnate spirits on the\nother, learn more of the conditions necessary for perfect control of the\nbrain and nervous system of intermediaries,--the communications will\ngrow fuller and more coherent, and reach a higher level of unitary\nconsciousness.\n\nAmong the cases of trance discussed in this chapter, we have found\nintimately interwoven with the phenomena of possession many instances of\nits correlative,--ecstasy. Mrs. Piper's fragmentary utterances and\nvisions during her passage from trance to waking life,--utterances and\nvisions that fade away and leave no remembrance in her waking self;\nStainton Moses' occasional visions, his journeys in the \"spirit world\"\nwhich he recorded on returning to his ordinary consciousness; Home's\nentrancement and converse with the various controls whose messages he\ngave;--all these suggest actual excursions of the incarnate spirit from\nits organism. The theoretical importance of these spiritual excursions\nis, of course, very great. It is, indeed, so great that most men will\nhesitate to accept a thesis which carries us straight into the inmost\nsanctuary of mysticism; which preaches \"a precursory entrance into the\nmost holy place, as by divine transportation.\"\n\nYet I think that this belief, although extreme, is not, at the point to\nwhich our evidence has carried us, in any real way improbable. To put\nthe matter briefly, if a spirit from outside can enter the organism, the\nspirit from inside can go out, can change its centre of perception and\naction, in a way less complete and irrevocable than the change of death.\nEcstasy would thus be simply the complementary or correlative aspect of\nspirit-control. Such a change need not be a _spatial_ change, any more\nthan there need be any _spatial_ change for the spirit which invades the\ndeserted organism. Nay, further: if the incarnate spirit can in this\nmanner change its centre of perception in response (so to say) to a\ndiscarnate spirit's invasion of the organism, there is no obvious reason\nwhy it should not do so on other occasions as well. We are already\nfamiliar with \"travelling clairvoyance,\" a spirit's change of centre of\nperception among the scenes of the material world. May there not be an\nextension of travelling clairvoyance to the spiritual world? a\nspontaneous transfer of the centre of perception into that region from\nwhence discarnate spirits seem now to be able, on their side, to\ncommunicate with growing freedom?\n\nThe conception of _ecstasy_--at once in its most literal and in its most\nlofty sense--has thus developed itself, almost insensibly, from several\nconcurrent lines of actual modern evidence. It must still, of course, be\nlong before we can at all adequately separate,--I can hardly say the\nobjective from the subjective element in the experience, for we have got\nbeyond the region where the meaning of those words is clear,--but the\nelement in the experience which is recognised and responded to by\nspirits other than the ecstatic's, from the element which belongs to his\nown spirit alone.\n\nIn the meantime, however, the fact that this kind of communion of\necstasy has been, in preliminary fashion, rendered probable is of the\nhighest importance for our whole inquiry. We thus come directly into\nrelation with the highest form which the various religions known to men\nhave assumed in the past.\n\nIt is hardly a paradox to say that the evidence for ecstasy is stronger\nthan the evidence for any other religious belief. Of all the subjective\nexperiences of religion, ecstasy is that which has been most urgently,\nperhaps to the psychologist most convincingly, asserted; and it is not\nconfined to any one religion. From a psychological point of view, one\nmain indication of the importance of a subjective phenomenon found in\nreligious experience will be the fact that it is common to all\nreligions. I doubt whether there is any phenomenon, except ecstasy, of\nwhich this can be said. From the medicine-man of the lowest savages up\nto St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, with Buddha, Mahomet and Swedenborg on\nthe way, we find records which, though morally and intellectually much\ndiffering, are in psychological essence the same.\n\nAt all stages alike we find that the spirit is conceived as quitting the\nbody; or, if not quitting it, at least as greatly expanding its range of\nperception in some state resembling trance. Observe, moreover, that on\nthis view all genuine recorded forms of ecstasy are akin, and all of\nthem represent a real fact.\n\nTo our embodied souls the matter round us seems real and self-existent;\nto souls emancipated it is but the sign of the degree which we have\nreached, and thus the highest task of science must be to link and\nco-ordinate the symbols appropriate to our terrene state with the\nsymbols appropriate to the state immediately above us. Nay, one might\npush this truth to paradox, and maintain that of all earth's inspired\nspirits it has been the least divinised, the least lovable, who has\nopened the surest path for men. Religions have risen and die again;\nphilosophy, poetry, heroism, answer only indirectly the prime need of\nmen. Plotinus, \"the eagle soaring above the tomb of Plato,\" is lost to\nsight in the heavens. Conquering and to conquer, the Maid rides on\nthrough other worlds than ours. Virgil himself, \"light among the\nvanished ages, star that gildest yet this earthly shore,\" sustains our\nspirit, as I have said, but indirectly, by filling still our fountain of\npurest intellectual joy. But the prosaic Swede,--his stiff mind prickly\nwith dogma,--the opaque cell-walls of his intelligence flooded cloudily\nby the irradiant day,--this man as by the very limitations of his\nfaculty, by the practical humility of a spirit trained to acquire but\nnot to generate truth,--has awkwardly laid the corner-stone, grotesquely\nsketched the elevation of a temple which our remotest posterity will be\nupbuilding and adorning still. For he dimly felt that man's true passage\nand intuition from state to state depends not upon individual ecstasy,\nbut upon comprehensive law; while yet all law is in fact but symbol;\nadaptation of truth timeless and infinite to intelligences of lower or\nhigher range.\n\nBeyond us still is mystery; but it is mystery lit and mellowed with an\ninfinite hope. We ride in darkness at the haven's mouth; but sometimes\nthrough rifted clouds we see the desires and needs of many generations\nfloating and melting upwards into a distant glow, \"up through the light\nof the seas by the moon's long-silvering ray.\"\n\nThe high possibilities that lie before us should be grasped once for\nall, in order that the dignity of the quest may help to carry the\ninquirer through many disappointments, deceptions, delays. But he must\nremember that this inquiry must be extended over many generations; nor\nmust he allow himself to be persuaded that there are byways to mastery.\nI will not say that there cannot possibly be any such thing as occult\nwisdom, or dominion over the secrets of nature ascetically or magically\nacquired. But I will say that every claim of this kind which my\ncolleagues or I have been able to examine has proved deserving of\ncomplete mistrust; and that we have no confidence here any more than\nelsewhere in any methods except the open, candid, straightforward\nmethods which the spirit of modern science demands.\n\nAll omens point towards the steady continuance of just such labour as\nhas already taught us all we know. Perhaps, indeed, in this complex of\ninterpenetrating spirits our own effort is no individual, no transitory\nthing. That which lies at the root of each of us lies at the root of the\nCosmos too. Our struggle is the struggle of the Universe itself; and the\nvery Godhead finds fulfilment through our upward-striving souls.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nEPILOGUE\n\n[Greek: Edokei tis moi gyn\u00ea proselthousa kale kai eueid\u00eas, leuka imatia\nechousa, kalesei me kai eipein, H\u00f4 S\u00f4krates, h\u00eamati ken tretat\u00f4 Phthi\u00ean\neriv\u00f4lon ikoio.--Plat\u00f4nos Krit\u00f4n.]\n\n\nThe task which I proposed to myself at the beginning of this work is\nnow, after a fashion, accomplished. Following the successive steps of my\nprogramme, I have presented,--not indeed all the evidence which I\npossess, and which I would willingly present,--but enough at least to\nillustrate a continuous exposition, and as much as can be compressed\ninto two volumes, with any hope that these volumes will be read at\nall.[211] I have indicated also the principal inferences which that\nevidence immediately suggests. Such wider generalisations as I may now\nadd must needs be dangerously speculative; they must run the risk of\nalienating still further from this research many of the scientific minds\nwhich I am most anxious to influence.\n\nThis risk, nevertheless, I feel bound to face. For two reasons,--or, I\nshould perhaps say, for one main reason seen under two aspects,--I\ncannot leave this obscure and unfamiliar mass of observation and\nexperiment without some words of wider generalisation, some epilogue\nwhich may place these new discoveries in clearer relation to the\nexisting schemes of civilised thought and belief.\n\nIn the first place, I feel that some such attempt at synthesis is\nneedful for the practical purpose of enlisting help in our long inquiry.\nAs has been hinted more than once, the real drag upon its progress has\nbeen not opposition but indifference. Or if indifference be too strong a\nword, at any rate the interest evoked has not been such as to inspire to\nsteady independent work anything like the number of coadjutors who would\nhave responded to a new departure in one of the sciences which all men\nhave learnt to respect. The inquiry falls between the two stools of\nreligion and science; it cannot claim support either from the \"religious\nworld\" or from the Royal Society. Yet even apart from the instinct of\npure scientific curiosity (which surely has seldom seen such a field\nopening before it), the mighty issues depending on these phenomena\nought, I think, to constitute in themselves a strong, an exceptional\nappeal. I desire in this book to emphasise that appeal;--not only to\nproduce conviction, but also to attract co-operation. And actual\nconverse with many persons has led me to believe that in order to\nattract such help, even from scientific men, some general view of the\nmoral upshot of all the phenomena is needed;--speculative and uncertain\nthough such a general view must be.\n\nAgain,--and here the practical reason already given expands into a wider\nscope,--it would be unfair to the evidence itself were I to close this\nwork without touching more directly than hitherto on some of the deepest\nfaiths of men. The influence of the evidence set forth in this book\nshould not be limited to the conclusions, however weighty, which that\nevidence may be thought to establish. Rather these discoveries should\nprompt, as nothing else could have prompted, towards the ultimate\nachievement of that programme of scientific dominance which the\n_Instauratio Magna_ proclaimed for mankind. Bacon foresaw the gradual\nvictory of observation and experiment--the triumph of actual analysed\nfact--in every department of human study;--in every department save one.\nThe realm of \"Divine things\" he left to Authority and Faith. I here urge\nthat that great exemption need be no longer made. I claim that there now\nexists an incipient method of getting at this Divine knowledge also,\nwith the same certainty, the same calm assurance, with which we make our\nsteady progress in the knowledge of terrene things. The authority of\ncreeds and Churches will thus be replaced by the authority of\nobservation and experiment. The impulse of faith will resolve itself\ninto a reasoned and resolute imagination, bent upon raising even higher\nthan now the highest ideals of man.\n\nMost readers of the preceding pages will have been prepared for the\npoint of view thus frankly avowed. Yet to few readers can that point of\nview at first present itself otherwise than as alien and repellent.\nPhilosophy and orthodoxy will alike resent it as presumptuous; nor will\nscience readily accept the unauthorised transfer to herself of regions\nof which she has long been wont either to deny the existence, or at any\nrate to disclaim the rule. Nevertheless, I think that it will appear on\nreflection that some such change of standpoint as this was urgently\nneeded,--nay, was ultimately inevitable.\n\nI need not here describe at length the deep disquiet of our time. Never,\nperhaps, did man's spiritual satisfaction bear a smaller proportion to\nhis needs. The old-world sustenance, however earnestly administered, is\ntoo unsubstantial for the modern cravings. And thus through our\ncivilised societies two conflicting currents run. On the one hand\nhealth, intelligence, morality,--all such boons as the steady progress\nof planetary evolution can win for man,--are being achieved in\nincreasing measure. On the other hand this very sanity, this very\nprosperity, do but bring out in stronger relief the underlying\n_Welt-Schmers_, the decline of any real belief in the dignity, the\nmeaning, the endlessness of life.\n\nThere are many, of course, who readily accept this limitation of view;\nwho are willing to let earthly activities and pleasures gradually\ndissipate and obscure the larger hope. But others cannot thus be easily\nsatisfied. They rather resemble children who are growing too old for\ntheir games;--whose amusement sinks into an indifference and discontent\nfor which the fitting remedy is an initiation into the serious work of\nmen.\n\nA similar crisis has passed over Europe once before. There came a time\nwhen the joyful na\u00efvet\u00e9, the unquestioning impulse of the early world\nhad passed away; when the worship of Greeks no more was beauty, nor the\nreligion of Romans Rome. Alexandrian decadence, Byzantine despair, found\nutterance in many an epigram which might have been written to-day. Then\ncame a great uprush or incursion from the spiritual world, and with new\nraces and new ideals Europe regained its youth.\n\nThe unique effect of that great Christian impulse begins, perhaps, to\nwear away. But more grace may yet be attainable from the region whence\nthat grace came. Our age's restlessness, as I believe, is the\nrestlessness not of senility but of adolescence; it resembles the\napproach of puberty rather than the approach of death.\n\nWhat the age needs is not an abandonment of effort, but an increase; the\ntime is ripe for a study of unseen things as strenuous and sincere as\nthat which Science has made familiar for the problems of earth. For now\nthe scientific instinct,--so newly developed in mankind,--seems likely\nto spread until it becomes as dominant as was in time past the\nreligious; and if there be even the narrowest chink through which man\ncan look forth from his planetary cage, our descendants will not leave\nthat chink neglected or unwidened. The scheme of knowledge which can\ncommend itself to such seekers must be a scheme which, while it\n_transcends_ our present knowledge, steadily _continues_ it;--a scheme\nnot catastrophic, but evolutionary; not promulgated and closed in a\nmoment, but gradually unfolding itself to progressive inquiry.\n\nMust there not also be a continuous change, an unending advance in the\nhuman ideal itself? so that Faith must shift her standpoint from the\nbrief Past to the endless Future, not so much caring to supply the\nlacun\u00e6 of tradition as to intensify the conviction that there is still a\nhigher life to work for, a holiness which may be some day reached by\ngrace and effort as yet unknown.\n\nIt may be that for some generations to come the truest faith will lie in\nthe patient attempt to unravel from confused phenomena some trace of the\nsupernal world;--to find thus at last \"the substance of things hoped\nfor, the evidence of things not seen.\" I confess, indeed, that I have\noften felt as though this present age were even unduly favoured;--as\nthough no future revelation and calm could equal the joy of this great\nstruggle from doubt into certainty;--from the materialism or agnosticism\nwhich accompany the first advance of Science into the deeper scientific\nconviction that there is a deathless soul in man. I can imagine no other\ncrisis of such deep delight. But after all this is but like the starving\nchild's inability to imagine anything sweeter than his first bite at the\ncrust. Give him but _that_, and he can hardly care for the moment\nwhether he is fated to be Prime Minister or ploughboy.\n\nEqually transitory, equally dependent on our special place in the story\nof man's upward effort, is another shade of feeling which many men have\nknown. They have felt that uncertainty gave scope to faith and courage\nin a way which scientific assurance could never do. There has been a\nstern delight in the choice of virtue,--even though virtue might bring\nno reward. This joy, like the joy of Columbus sailing westward from\nHierro, can hardly recur in precisely the same form. But neither (to\ndescend to a humbler comparison) can we grown men again give ourselves\nup to learning in the same spirit of pure faith, without prefigurement\nof result, as when we learnt the alphabet at our mother's knees. Have we\ntherefore relaxed since then our intellectual effort? Have we felt that\nthere was no longer need to struggle against idleness when once we knew\nthat knowledge brought a sure reward?\n\nEndless are the varieties of lofty joy. In the age of Thales, Greece\nknew the delight of the first dim notion of cosmic unity and law. In the\nage of Christ, Europe felt the first high authentic message from a world\nbeyond our own. In our own age we reach the perception that such\nmessages may become continuous and progressive;--that between seen and\nunseen there is a channel and fairway which future generations may learn\nto widen and to clarify. Our own age may seem the best to us; so will\ntheir mightier ages seem to them.\n\n    \"'Talia saecla' suis dixerunt 'currite' fusis\n      Concordes stabili Fatorum numine Parcae.\"\n\n_Spiritual evolution_:--that, then, is our destiny, in this and other\nworlds;--an evolution gradual with many gradations, and rising to no\nassignable close. And the passion for Life is no selfish weakness, it is\na factor in the universal energy. It should keep its strength unbroken\neven when our weariness longs to fold the hands in endless slumber; it\nshould outlast and annihilate the \"pangs that conquer trust.\" If to the\nGreeks it seemed a [Greek: lipotax\u00eda]--a desertion of one's\npost in battle--to quit by suicide the life of earth, how much more\ncraven were the desire to desert the Cosmos,--the despair, not of this\nplanet only, but of the Sum of Things!\n\nNay, in the infinite Universe man may now feel, for the first time, at\nhome. The worst fear is over; the true security is won. The worst fear\nwas the fear of spiritual extinction or spiritual solitude; the true\nsecurity is in the telepathic law.\n\nLet me draw out my meaning at somewhat greater length.\n\nAs we have dwelt successively on various aspects of telepathy, we have\ngradually felt the conception enlarge and deepen under our study. It\nbegan as a quasi-mechanical transference of ideas and images from one to\nanother brain. Presently we found it assuming a more varied and potent\nform, as though it were the veritable ingruence or invasion of a distant\nmind. Again, its action was traced across a gulf greater than any space\nof earth or ocean, and it bridged the interval between spirits incarnate\nand discarnate, between the visible and the invisible world. There\nseemed no limit to the distance of its operation, or to the intimacy of\nits appeal.\n\n    [Greek: hen thh\u00earsin hen brotohisin hen theohis han\u00f4.]\n\nThis Love, then, which (as Sophocles has it) rules \"beasts and men and\ngods\" with equal sway, is no matter of carnal impulse or of emotional\ncaprice. Rather it is now possible to define Love (as we have already\ndefined Genius) in terms which convey for us some new meaning in\nconnection with phenomena described in this work. Genius, as has been\nalready said, is a kind of exalted but undeveloped clairvoyance. The\nsubliminal uprush which inspires the poet or the musician presents to\nhim a deep, but vague perception of that world unseen, through which the\nseer or the sensitive projects a narrower but an exacter gaze. Somewhat\nsimilarly, Love is a kind of exalted but unspecialised telepathy;--the\nsimplest and most universal expression of that mutual gravitation or\nkinship of spirits which is the foundation of the telepathic law.\n\nThis is the answer to the ancient fear; the fear lest man's fellowships\nbe the outward and his solitude the inward thing; the fear lest all\nclose linking with our fellows be the mere product of the struggle for\nexistence,--of the tribal need of strength and cohesion;--the fear that\nif love and virtue thus arose, love and virtue may thus likewise perish.\nIt is an answer to the dread that separate centres of conscious life\nmust be always strangers, and often foes; their leagues and fellowships\ninterested and illusory; their love the truce of a moment amid infinite\ninevitable war.\n\nSuch fears, I say, vanish when we learn that it is the soul in man which\nlinks him with other souls; the body which dissevers even while it seems\nto unite; so that \"no man liveth to himself nor dieth to himself,\" but\nin a sense which goes deeper than metaphor, \"We are every one members\none of another.\" Like atoms, like suns, like galaxies, our spirits are\nsystems of forces which vibrate continually to each other's attractive\npower.\n\nAll this as yet is dimly adumbrated; it is a first hint of a scheme of\nthought which it may well take centuries to develop. But can we suppose\nthat, when once this conception of the bond between all souls has taken\nroot, men will turn back from it to the old exclusiveness, the old\ncontroversy? Will they not see that this world-widening knowledge is\nboth old and new, that _die Geisterwelt ist nicht verschlossen_? that\nalways have such revelations been given, but develop now into a mightier\nmeaning,--with the growth of wisdom in those who send them, and in us\nwho receive?\n\nSurely we have here a conception, at once wider and exacter than ever\nbefore, of that \"religious education of the world\" on which theologians\nhave been fain to dwell. We need assume no \"supernatural interference\"\nno \"plan of redemption.\" We need suppose only that the same process\nwhich we observe to-day has been operating for ages between this world\nand the next.\n\nLet us suppose that whilst incarnate men have risen from savagery into\nintelligence, discarnate men have made on their part a like advance. Let\nus suppose that they have become more eager and more able to use, for\ncommunication with earth, the standing laws of relation between the\nspiritual and the material Universe.\n\nAt first, on such a hypothesis, certain automatic phenomena will occur,\nbut will not be purposely modified by spirit power. Already and always\nthere must have been points of contact where unseen things impinged upon\nthe seen. Always there would be \"clairvoyant wanderings,\" where the\nspirit of _shaman_ or of medicine-man discerned things distant upon\nearth by the spirit's excursive power. Always there would be apparitions\nat death,--conscious or unconscious effects of the shock which separated\nsoul from body; and always \"hauntings,\"--where the spirit, already\ndiscarnate, revisited, as in a dream perceptible by others, the scenes\nwhich once he knew.\n\nFrom this groundwork of phenomena developed (to take civilised Europe\nalone) the oracular religion first, the Christian later. The golden\ngifts of Croesus to Delphi attested the clairvoyance of the Pythia as\nstrongly, perhaps, as can be expected of any tradition which comes to us\nfrom the morning of history.\n\nAnd furthermore, do we not better understand at once the uniqueness and\nthe reality of the Christian revelation itself, when we regard it as a\nculmination rather than an exception,--as destined not to destroy the\ncosmic law, but to fulfil it? Then first in human history came from the\nunseen a message such as the whole heart desired;--a message adequate in\nits response to fundamental emotional needs not in that age only, but in\nall ages that should follow. _Intellectually_ adequate for all coming\nages that revelation could not be;--given the laws of mind, incarnate\nalike and discarnate,--the evolution, on either side of the gulf of\ndeath, of knowledge and power.\n\nNo one at the date of that revelation suspected that uniformity, that\ncontinuity of the Universe which long experience has now made for us\nalmost axiomatic. No one foresaw the day when the demand for miracle\nwould be merged in the demand for higher law.\n\nThis newer scientific temper is not confined, as I believe, to the\ndenizens of this earth alone. The spiritual world meets it, as I think\nour evidence has shown, with eager and strenuous response. But that\nresponse is made, and must be made, along the lines of our normal\nevolution. It must rest upon the education, the disentanglement, of\n_that_ within us mortals which exists in the Invisible, a partaker of\nthe undying world. And on our side and on theirs alike, the process must\nbe steady and continuous. We have no longer to deal with some isolated\nseries of events in the past,--interpretable this way or that, but in no\nway renewable,--but rather with a world-wide and actual condition of\nthings, recognisable every year in greater clearness, and changing in\ndirections which we can better and better foresee. This new aspect of\nthings needs something of new generalisation, of new forecast,--it\npoints to a provisional synthesis of religious belief which may fitly\nconclude the present work.\n\n    PROVISIONAL SKETCH OF A RELIGIOUS SYNTHESIS\n\n    [Greek: holbios hostis id\u00f4n ekeina koilan\n    eisin upd ch\u00eadna oiden men bion keinos teleutdn,\n    oiden de dibodoton drchdn.]\n\n    --PINDAR.\n\nI see ground for hoping that we are within sight of a religious\nsynthesis, which, although as yet provisional and rudimentary, may in\nthe end meet more adequately than any previous synthesis the reasonable\nneeds of men. Such a synthesis cannot, I think, be reached by a mere\npredominance of any one existing creed, nor by any eclectic or syncretic\nprocess. Its prerequisite is the actual acquisition of new knowledge\nwhether by discovery or by revelation--knowledge discerned from without\nthe veil or from within--yet so realised that the main forms of\nreligious thought, by harmonious expansion and development, shall find\nplace severally as elements in a more comprehensive whole. And enough of\nsuch knowledge has, I think, been now attained to make it desirable to\nsubmit to my readers the religious results which seem likely to follow.\n\nWith such a purpose, our conception of religion should be both profound\nand comprehensive. I will use here the definition already adopted of\nreligion as the sane and normal response of the human spirit to all that\nwe know of cosmic law; that is, to the known phenomena of the universe,\nregarded as an intelligible whole. For on the one hand I cannot confine\nthe term to any single definite view or tradition of things unseen. On\nthe other hand, I am not content to define religion as \"morality tinged\nwith emotion,\" lest morality _per se_ should seem to hang in air, so\nthat we should be merely gilding the tortoise which supports the earth.\nYet my definition needs some further guarding if it is to correspond\nwith our habitual use of language. Most men's subjective response to\ntheir environment falls below the level of true religious thought. It is\nscattered into cravings, or embittered by resentment, or distorted by\nsuperstitious fear. But of such men I do not speak; rather of men in\nwhom the great pageant has inspired at least some vague out-reaching\ntoward the Source of All; men for whom knowledge has ripened into\nmeditation, and has prompted high desire. I would have Science first\nsublimed into Philosophy, and then kindled by Religion into a burning\nflame. For, from my point of view, man cannot be too religious. I desire\nthat the environing, the interpenetrating universe,--its energy, its\nlife, its love,--should illume in us, in our low degree, that which we\nascribe to the World-Soul, saying, \"God is Love,\" \"God is Light.\" The\nWorld-Soul's infinite energy of omniscient benevolence should become in\nus an enthusiasm of adoring co-operation,--an eager obedience to\nwhatsoever with our best pains we can discern as the justly ruling\nprinciple--[Greek: to h\u00eagemonikon]--without us and within.\n\nYet if we form so high an ideal of religion,--raising it so far above\nany blind obedience or self-seeking fear that its submission is wholly\nwilling, and its demand is for spiritual response alone,--we are bound\nto ask ourselves whether it is right and reasonable to be religious, to\nregard with this full devotion a universe apparently imperfect and\nirresponsive, and a Ruling Principle which so many men have doubted or\nignored.\n\nThe pessimist holds the view that sentient existence has been a\ndeplorable blunder in the scheme of things. The egotist at least _acts_\nupon the view that the universe has no moral coherence, and that \"each\nfor himself\" is the only indisputable law. I am sanguine enough to think\nthat the answer to the pessimist and the egotist has by our new\nknowledge been made complete. There remains, indeed, a difficulty of\nsubtler type, but instinctive in generous souls. \"The world,\" such an\none may say, \"is a mixed place, and I am plainly bound to do my best to\nimprove it. But am I bound to feel--can any bribe of personal happiness\njustify me in feeling--_religious enthusiasm_ for a universe in which\neven one being may have been summoned into a sentiency destined to\ninescapable pain?\"\n\nThe answer to this ethical scruple must be a matter largely of faith. If\nindeed we knew that this earthly life was all, or (far worse) that it\nwas followed for any one soul by endless pain, we could not without some\nmoral jugglery ascribe perfection of both power and goodness to a\npersonal or impersonal First Cause of such a doom. But if we believe\nthat endless life exists for all, with infinite possibilities of human\nredress and of divine justification, then it seems right to assume that\nthe universe is either already (in some inscrutable fashion) wholly\ngood, or is at least in course of becoming so; since it may be becoming\nso in part through the very ardour of our own faith and hope.\n\nI do but mention these initial difficulties; I shall not dwell on them\nhere. I speak to men who have determined, whether at the bidding of\ninstinct or of reason, that it is well to be religious; well to approach\nin self-devoted reverence an infinite Power and Love. Our desire is\nsimply to find the least unworthy way of thinking of matters which\ninevitably transcend and baffle our finite thought.\n\nAnd here, for the broad purpose of our present survey, we may divide\nthe best religious emotion of the world in triple fashion; tracing three\nmain streams of thought,--streams which on the whole run parallel, and\nwhich all rise, as I believe, from some source in the reality of things.\n\nFirst, then, I place that obscure consensus of independent thinkers in\nmany ages and countries which, to avoid any disputable title, I will\nhere call simply the Religion of the Ancient Sage. Under that title\n(though Lao Tz[)u] is hardly more than a name) it has been set forth to\nus in brief summary by the great sage and poet of our own time; and such\nwords as Natural Religion, Pantheism, Platonism, Mysticism, do but\nexpress or intensify varying aspects of its main underlying conception.\nThat conception is the coexistence and interpenetration of a real or\nspiritual with this material or phenomenal world; a belief driven home\nto many minds by experiences both more weighty and more concordant than\nthe percipients themselves have always known. More weighty, I say, for\nthey have implied the veritable nascency and operation of a \"last and\nlargest sense\"; a faculty for apprehending, not God, indeed (for what\nfinite faculty can apprehend the Infinite?), but at least some dim and\nscattered tokens and prefigurements of a true world of Life and Love.\nMore _concordant_ also; and this for a reason which till recently would\nhave seemed a paradox. For the mutual corroboration of these signs and\nmessages lies not only in their fundamental agreement up to a certain\npoint, but in their inevitable divergence beyond it;--as they pass from\nthings felt into things imagined; from actual experience into dogmatic\ncreed.\n\nThe Religion of the Ancient Sage is of unknown antiquity. Of unknown\nantiquity also are various Oriental types of religion, culminating in\nhistorical times in the Religion of Buddha. For Buddhism all\ninterpenetrating universes make the steps upon man's upward way; until\ndeliverance from illusion leaves the spirit merged ineffably in the\nimpersonal All. But the teaching of Buddha has lost touch with reality;\nit rests on no basis of observed or of reproducible fact.\n\nOn a basis of observed facts, on the other hand, Christianity, the\nyoungest of the great types of religion, does assuredly rest. Assuredly\nthose facts, so far as tradition has made them known to us, do tend to\nprove the superhuman character of its Founder, and His triumph over\ndeath; and thus the existence and influence of a spiritual world, where\nmen's true citizenship lies. These ideas, by common consent, lay at the\norigin of the Faith. Since those first days, however, Christianity has\nbeen elaborated into codes of ethic and ritual adapted to Western\ncivilisation;--has gained (some think) as a rule of life what it has\nlost as a simplicity of spirit.\n\nFrom the unfettered standpoint of the Ancient Sage the deep concordance\nof these and other schemes of religious thought may well outweigh their\nformal oppositions. And yet I repeat that it is not from any mere\nwelding of these schemes together, nor from any choice of the best\npoints in existing syntheses, that the new synthesis for which I hope\nmust be born. It must be born from new-dawning knowledge; and in that\nnew knowledge I believe that each great form of religious thought will\nfind its indispensable--I may almost say its predicted--development. Our\nrace from its very infancy has stumbled along a guarded way; and now the\nfirst lessons of its early childhood reveal the root in reality of much\nthat it has instinctively believed.\n\nWhat I think I know, therefore, I am bound to tell; I must give the\nreligious upshot of observation and experiment in such brief\nannouncement as an audience like this[212] has a right to hear, even\nbefore our discoveries can be laid in full before the courts of science\nfor definite approval.\n\nThe _religious upshot_, I repeat:--for I cannot here reproduce the mass\nof evidence which has been published in full elsewhere. Its general\ncharacter is by this time widely known. Observation, experiment,\ninference, have led many inquirers, of whom I am one, to a belief in\ndirect or telepathic intercommunication, not only between the minds of\nmen still on earth, but between minds or spirits still on earth and\nspirits departed. Such a _discovery_ opens the door also to\n_revelation_. By discovery and by revelation--by observation from\nwithout the veil, and by utterance from within--certain theses have been\nprovisionally established with regard to such departed souls as we have\nbeen able to encounter. First and chiefly, I at least see ground to\nbelieve that their state is one of endless evolution in wisdom and in\nlove. Their loves of earth persist; and most of all those highest loves\nwhich seek their outlet in adoration and worship. We do not find,\nindeed, that support is given by souls in bliss to any special scheme of\nterrene theology. Thereon they know less than we mortal men have often\nfancied that we knew. Yet from their step of vantage-ground in the\nUniverse, at least, they see that it is good. I do not mean that they\nknow either of an end or of an explanation of evil. Yet evil to them\nseems less a terrible than a slavish thing. It is embodied in no mighty\nPotentate; rather it forms an isolating madness from which higher\nspirits strive to free the distorted soul. There needs no chastisement\nof fire; self-knowledge is man's punishment and his reward;\nself-knowledge, and the nearness or the aloofness of companion souls.\nFor in that world love is actually self-preservation; the Communion of\nSaints not only adorns but constitutes the Life Everlasting. Nay, from\nthe law of telepathy it follows that that communion is valid for us here\nand now. Even now the love of souls departed makes answer to our\ninvocations. Even now our loving memory--love is itself a\nprayer--supports and strengthens those delivered spirits upon their\nupward way. No wonder; since we are to them but as fellow-travellers\nshrouded in a mist; \"neither death, nor life, nor height, nor depth, nor\nany other creature,\" can bar us from the hearth-fire of the universe, or\nhide for more than a moment the inconceivable oneness of souls.\n\nAnd is not this a fresh instalment, or a precursory adumbration, of that\nTruth into which the Paraclete should lead? Has any world-scheme yet\nbeen suggested so profoundly corroborative of the very core of the\nChristian revelation? Jesus Christ \"brought life and immortality to\nlight.\" By His appearance after bodily death He proved the deathlessness\nof the spirit. By His character and His teaching He testified to the\nFatherhood of God. So far, then, as His unique message admitted of\nevidential support, it is here supported. So far as He promised things\nunprovable, that promise is here renewed.\n\nI venture now on a bold saying; for I predict that, in consequence of\nthe new evidence, all reasonable men, a century hence, will believe the\nResurrection of Christ, whereas, in default of the new evidence, no\nreasonable men, a century hence, would have believed it. The ground of\nthis forecast is plain enough. Our ever-growing recognition of the\ncontinuity, the uniformity of cosmic law has gradually made of the\nalleged _uniqueness_ of any incident its almost inevitable refutation.\nEver more clearly must our age of science realise that any relation\nbetween a material and a spiritual world cannot be an ethical or\nemotional relation alone; that it must needs be a great structural fact\nof the Universe, involving laws at least as persistent, as identical\nfrom age to age, as our known laws of Energy or of Motion. And\nespecially as to that central claim, of the soul's life manifested after\nthe body's death, it is plain that this can less and less be supported\nby remote tradition alone; that it must more and more be tested by\nmodern experience and inquiry. Suppose, for instance, that we collect\nmany such histories, recorded on first-hand evidence in our critical\nage; and suppose that all these narratives break down on analysis; that\nthey can all be traced to hallucination, misdescription, and other\npersistent sources of error;--can we then expect reasonable men to\nbelieve that this marvellous phenomenon, always vanishing into\nnothingness when closely scrutinised in a modern English scene, must yet\ncompel adoring credence when alleged to have occurred in an Oriental\ncountry, and in a remote and superstitious age? Had the results (in\nshort) of \"psychical research\" been purely negative, would not Christian\nevidence--I do not say Christian _emotion_, but Christian\n_evidence_--have received an overwhelming blow?\n\nAs a matter of fact,--or, if you prefer the phrase, in my own personal\nopinion,--our research has led us to results of a quite different type.\nThey have not been negative only, but largely positive. We have shown\nthat amid much deception and self-deception, fraud and illusion,\nveritable manifestations do reach us from beyond the grave. The central\nclaim of Christianity is thus confirmed, as never before. If our own\nfriends, men like ourselves, can sometimes return to tell us of love and\nhope, a mightier Spirit may well have used the eternal laws with a more\ncommanding power. There is nothing to hinder the reverent faith that,\nthough we be all \"the Children of the Most Highest,\" He came nearer than\nwe, by some space by us immeasurable, to That which is infinitely far.\nThere is nothing to hinder the devout conviction that He of His own act\n\"took upon Him the form of a servant,\" and was made flesh for our\nsalvation, foreseeing the earthly travail and the eternal crown. \"Surely\nbefore this descent into generation,\" says Plotinus,[213] \"we existed in\nthe intelligible world; being other men than now we are, and some of us\nGods; clear souls, and minds unmixed with all existence; parts of the\nIntelligible, nor severed thence; nor are we severed even now.\"\n\nIt is not thus to less of reverence that man is summoned, but to more.\nLet him keep hold of early sanctities; but let him remember also that\nonce again \"a great sheet has been let down out of heaven\"; and lo!\nneither Buddha nor Plato is found common or unclean.\n\nNay, as to our own soul's future, when that first shock of death is\npast, it is in Buddhism that we find the more inspiring, the truer view.\nThat Western conception of an instant and unchangeable bliss or woe--a\nbliss or woe determined largely by a man's beliefs, in this earthly\nignorance, on matters which \"the angels desire to look into\"--is the\nbequest of a pre-Copernican era of speculative thought. In its Mahomedan\ntravesty, we see the same scheme with outlines coarsened into\ngrotesqueness;--we see it degrade the cosmic march and profluence into a\nmanner of children's play.\n\nMeantime the immemorial musings of unnumbered men have dreamt of a\nconsummation so far removed that he who gazed has scarcely known whether\nit were Nothingness or Deity. With profoundest fantasy, the East has\npondered on the vastness of the world that now is, of the worlds that\nare to be. What rest or pasture for the mind in the seven days of\nCreation, the four rivers of Paradise, the stars \"made also\"? The\nfarther East has reached blindly forth towards astronomical epochs,\nsidereal spaces, galactic congregations of inconceivable Being. Pressed\nby the incumbency of ancestral gods (as the Chinese legend tells us), it\nhas \"created by one sweep of the imagination a thousand Universes, to be\nthe Buddha's realm.\"\n\nThe sacred tale of Buddha, developed from its earlier simplicity by the\nshaping stress of many generations, opens to us the whole range and\nmajesty of human fate. \"The destined Buddha has desired to be a Buddha\nthrough an almost unimaginable series of worlds.\" No soul need ever be\nwithout that hope. \"The spirit-worlds are even now announcing the advent\nof future Buddhas, in epochs too remote for the computation of men.\" No\nobstacles without us can arrest our way. \"The rocks that were thrown at\nBuddha were changed into flowers.\" Not our own worst misdoings need\nbeget despair. \"Buddha, too, had often been to hell for his sins.\" The\nvast complexity of the Sum of Things need not appal us. \"Beneath the\nbottomless whirlpool of existences, behind the illusion of Form and\nName,\" we, too, like Buddha, may discover and reveal \"the perfection of\nthe Eternal Law.\" Us, too, like Buddha, the cosmic welcome may await; as\nwhen \"Earth itself and the laws of all worlds\" trembled with joy \"as\nBuddha attained the Supreme Intelligence, and entered into the Endless\nCalm.\"\n\nI believe that some of those who once were near to us are already\nmounting swiftly upon this heavenly way. And when from that cloud\nencompassing of unforgetful souls some voice is heard,--as long\nago,--there needs no heroism, no sanctity, to inspire the apostle's\n[Greek: epithumia eis to analuoai], the desire to lift our anchor, and\nto sail out beyond the bar. What fitter summons for man than the wish to\nlive in the memory of the highest soul that he has known, now risen\nhigher;--to lift into an immortal security the yearning passion of his\nlove? \"As the soul hasteneth,\" says Plotinus,[214] \"to the things that\nare above, she will ever forget the more; unless all her life on earth\nleave a memory of things done well. For even here may man do well, if he\nstand clear of the cares of earth. And he must stand clear of their\nmemories too; so that one may rightly speak of a noble soul as\nforgetting those things that are behind. And the shade of H\u00earakl\u00eas,\nindeed, may talk of his own valour to the shades, but the true H\u00earakl\u00eas\nin the true world will deem all that of little worth; being transported\ninto a more sacred place, and strenuously engaging, even above his\nstrength, in those battles in which the wise engage.\" Can we men now on\nearth claim more of sustainment than lies in the incipient communion\nwith those enfranchised souls? What day of hope, of exaltation, has\ndawned like this, since the message of Pentecost?\n\nYet a durable religious synthesis should do more than satisfy man's\nimmediate aspiration. It should be in itself progressive and\nevolutionary; it should bear a promise of ever deeper holiness, to\nanswer to the long ages of heightening wisdom during which our race may\nbe destined to inhabit the earth. This condition has never yet been met.\nNo scheme, indeed, could meet it which was not based upon recurrent and\ndeveloping facts. To such facts we now appeal. We look, not backward to\nfading tradition, but onward to dawning experience. We hope that the\nintercourse, now at last consciously begun--although as through the\nmouth of babes and sucklings, and in confused and stammering\nspeech--between discarnate and incarnate souls, may through long effort\nclarify into a director communion, so that they shall teach us all they\nwill.\n\nScience, then, need be no longer fettered by the limitations of this\nplanetary standpoint; nor ethics by the narrow experience of a single\nlife. Evolution will no longer appear as a truncated process, an\never-arrested movement upon an unknown goal. Rather we may gain a\nglimpse of an ultimate incandescence where science and religion fuse in\none; a cosmic evolution of Energy into Life, and of Life into Love,\nwhich is Joy. Love, which is Joy at once and Wisdom;--we can do no more\nthan ring the changes on terms like these, whether we imagine the\ntransfigurement and apotheosis of conquering souls, or the lower, but\nstill sacred, destiny which may be some day possible for souls still\ntarrying here. We picture the perfected soul as the Buddha, the Saviour,\nthe _aurai simplicis ignem_, dwelling on one or other aspect of that\ntrinal conception of Wisdom, Love, and Joy. For souls not yet perfected\nbut still held on earth I have foretold a growth in _holiness_. By this\nI mean no unreal opposition or forced divorcement of sacred and secular,\nof flesh and spirit. Rather I define holiness as the joy too high as yet\nfor our enjoyment; the wisdom just beyond our learning; the rapture of\nlove which we still strive to attain. Inevitably, as our link with other\nspirits strengthens, as the life of the organism pours more fully\nthrough the individual cell, we shall feel love more ardent, wider\nwisdom, higher joy; perceiving that this organic unity of Soul, which\nforms the inward aspect of the telepathic law, is in itself the Order of\nthe Cosmos, the Summation of Things. And such devotion may find its\nflower in no vain self-martyrdom, no cloistered resignation, but rather\nin such pervading ecstasy as already the elect have known; the Vision\nwhich dissolves for a moment the corporeal prison-house; \"the flight of\nthe One to the One.\"\n\n\"So let the soul that is not unworthy of that vision contemplate the\nGreat Soul; freed from deceit and every witchery, and collected into\ncalm. Calmed be the body for her in that hour, and the tumult of the\nflesh; ay, all that is about her, calm; calm be the earth, the sea, the\nair, and let Heaven itself be still. Then let her feel how into that\nsilent heaven the Great Soul floweth in.... And so may man's soul be\nsure of Vision, when suddenly she is filled with light; for this light\nis from Him and is He; and then surely shall one know His presence when,\nlike a god of old time, He entered into the house of one that calleth\nHim, and maketh it full of light.\" \"And how,\" concludes Plotinus, \"may\nthis thing be for us? Let all else go.\"[215]\n\nThese heights, I confess, are above the stature of my spirit. Yet for\neach of us is a fit ingress into the Unseen; and for some lesser man the\nmemory of one vanished soul may be beatific as of old for Plotinus the\nflooding immensity of Heaven. And albeit no historical religion can\npersist as a logical halting-place upon the endless mounting way--that\nway which leads unbroken from the first germ of love in the heart to an\ninconceivable union with the Divine--yet many a creed in turn may well\nbe close inwrought and inwoven with our eternal hope. What wonder, if in\nthe soul's long battle, some Captain of our Salvation shall sometimes\nseem to tower unrivalled and alone?--[Greek: oios gar erueto Ilion\nHekt\u00f4r]. And yet in no single act or passion can that salvation stand;\nfar hence, beyond Orion and Andromeda, the cosmic process works and\nshall work for ever through unbegotten souls. And even as it was not in\ntruth the great ghost of Hector only, but the whole nascent race of\nRome, which bore from the Trojan altar the hallowing fire, so is it not\none Saviour only, but the whole nascent race of man--nay, all the\nimmeasurable progeny and population of the heavens--which issues\ncontinually from behind the veil of Being, and forth from the Sanctuary\nof the Universe carries the ever-burning flame: _A eternumque adytis\neffert penetralibus ignem_.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\nTO\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nII. A. It is well known that a great variety of slight causes--hunger,\nfatigue, slight poisoning by impure air, a small degree of fever,\netc.--are sometimes enough to produce a transient perturbation of\npersonality of the most violent kind. I give as an instance the\nfollowing account of a feverish experience, sent to me by the late\nRobert Louis Stevenson, from Samoa, in 1892 (and published in\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 9). In Stevenson's paper on his own\ndreams, alluded to in Chapter III, we have one of the most striking\nexamples known to me of that helpful and productive subliminal uprush\nwhich I have characterised as the mechanism of genius. It is therefore,\ninteresting to observe how, under morbid conditions, this temperament of\ngenius--this ready permeability of the psychical diaphragm--transforms\nwhat might in others be a mere vague and massive discomfort into a vivid\nthough incoherent message from the subliminal storm and fire. The result\nis a kind of supraliminal duality, the perception at the same time of\ntwo personalities--the one rational and moral, the other belonging to\nthe stratum of dreams and nightmare.\n\n\nVAILIMA PLANTATION, UPOHO, SAMOAN ISLANDS,\n_July 14th, 1892_.\n\n     DEAR MR. MYERS,--I am tempted to communicate to you some\n     experiences of mine which seem to me (ignorant as I am) of a high\n     psychological interest.\n\n     I had infamous bad health when I was a child and suffered much from\n     night fears; but from the age of about thirteen until I was past\n     thirty I did not know what it was to have a high fever or to wander\n     in my mind. So that these experiences, when they were renewed, came\n     upon me with entire freshness; and either I am a peculiar subject,\n     or I was thus enabled to observe them with unusual closeness.\n\n     Experience A. During an illness at Nice I lay awake a whole night\n     in extreme pain. From the beginning of the evening _one part of my\n     mind_ became possessed of a notion so grotesque and shapeless that\n     it may best be described as a form of words. I thought the pain\n     was, or was connected with, a wisp or coil of some sort; I knew\n     not of what it consisted nor yet where it was, and cared not; only\n     I thought, if the two ends were brought together, the pain would\n     cease. Now all the time, with _another part of my mind_, which I\n     venture to think was _myself_, I was fully alive to the absurdity\n     of this idea, knew it to be a mark of impaired sanity, and was\n     engaged with _my other self_ in a perpetual conflict. _Myself_ had\n     nothing more at heart than to keep from my wife, who was nursing\n     me, any hint of this ridiculous hallucination; the _other_ was\n     bound that she should be told of it and ordered to effect the cure.\n     I believe it must have been well on in the morning before the fever\n     (or _the other fellow_) triumphed, and I called my wife to my\n     bedside, seized her savagely by the wrist, and looking on her with\n     a face of fury, cried: \"Why do you not put the two ends together\n     and put me out of pain?\"\n\n     Experience B. The other day in Sydney I was seized on a Saturday\n     with a high fever. Early in the afternoon I began to repeat\n     mechanically the sound usually written \"mhn,\" caught myself in the\n     act, instantly stopped it, and explained to my mother, who was in\n     the room, my reasons for so doing. \"That is the beginning of the\n     mind to wander,\" I said, \"and has to be resisted at the outset.\" I\n     fell asleep and woke, and for the rest of the night repeated to\n     myself mentally a nonsense word which I could not recall next\n     morning. I had been reading the day before the life of Swift, and\n     all night long one part of my mind (_the other fellow_) kept\n     informing me that I was not repeating the word myself, but was only\n     reading in a book that Swift had so repeated it in his last\n     sickness. The temptation to communicate this nonsense was again\n     strongly felt by _myself_, but was on this occasion triumphantly\n     resisted, and my watcher heard from me all night nothing of Dean\n     Swift or the word, nothing but what was rational and to the point.\n     So much for the two consciousnesses when I can disentangle them;\n     but there is a part of my thoughts that I have more difficulty in\n     attributing. One part of my mind continually bid me remark the\n     transrational felicity of the word, examined all the syllables,\n     showed me that not one was in itself significant, and yet the whole\n     expressed to a nicety the voluminous distress of one in a high\n     fever and his annoyance at and recoil from the attentions of his\n     nurses. It was probably the same part (and for a guess _the other\n     fellow_) who bid me compare it with the nonsense words of Lewis\n     Carroll as the invention of a lunatic with those of a sane man. But\n     surely it was _myself_ (and myself in a perfectly clear-headed\n     state) that kept me trying all night to get the word by heart, on\n     the ground that it would afterwards be useful in literature if I\n     wanted to deal with mad folk. It must have been myself, I say,\n     because _the other fellow_ believed (or pretended to believe) he\n     was reading the passage in a book where it could always be found\n     again when wanted.\n\n     Experience C. The next night _the other fellow_ had an explanation\n     ready for my sufferings, of which I can only say that it had\n     something to do with the navy, that it was sheer undiluted\n     nonsense, had neither end nor beginning, and was insusceptible of\n     being expressed in words. _Myself_ knew this; yet I gave way, and\n     my watcher was favoured with some references to the navy. Nor only\n     that; _the other fellow_ was annoyed--or _I_ was annoyed--on two\n     inconsistent accounts: first, because he had failed to make his\n     meaning comprehensible; and second, because the nurse displayed no\n     interest. _The other fellow_ would have liked to explain further;\n     but _myself_ was much hurt at having been got into this false\n     position, and would be led no further.\n\n     In cases A and C the illusion was amorphous. I knew it to be so,\n     and yet succumbed to the temptation of trying to communicate it. In\n     case B the idea was coherent, and I managed to hold my peace. Both\n     consciousnesses, in other words, were less affected in case B, and\n     both more affected in cases A and C. It is perhaps not always so:\n     the illusion might be coherent, even practical, and the rational\n     authority of the mind quite in abeyance. Would not that be lunacy?\n\n     In case A I had an absolute knowledge that I was out of my mind,\n     and that there was no meaning in my words; these were the very\n     facts that I was anxious to conceal; and yet when I succumbed to\n     the temptation of speaking my face was convulsed with anger, and I\n     wrung my watcher's wrist with cruelty. Here is action, unnatural\n     and uncharacteristic action, flowing from an idea in which I had no\n     belief, and which I had been concealing for hours as a plain mark\n     of aberration. Is it not so with lunatics?\n\n     I have called the one person _myself_, and the other _the other\n     fellow_. It was myself who spoke and acted; the other fellow seemed\n     to have no control of the body or the tongue; he could only act\n     through myself, on whom he brought to bear a heavy strain, resisted\n     in one case, triumphant in the two others. Yet I am tempted to\n     think that I know the other fellow; I am tempted to think he is the\n     dreamer described in my Chapter on Dreams to which you refer. Here\n     at least is a dream belonging to the same period, but this time a\n     pure dream, an illusion, I mean, that disappeared with the return\n     of the sense of sight, not one that persevered during waking\n     moments, and while I was able to speak and take my medicine. It\n     occurred the day after case B and before case C.\n\n     Case D. In the afternoon there sprang up a storm of wind with\n     monstrous clouds of dust; my room looked on a steep hill of trees\n     whose boughs were all blowing in the same direction; the world\n     seemed to pass by my windows like a mill-race. By this turmoil and\n     movement I was confused, but not distressed, and surprised not to\n     be distressed; for even in good health a high wind has often a\n     painful influence on my nerves. In the midst of this I dozed off\n     asleep. I had just been reading Scott's \"Life of Dryden,\" and been\n     struck with the fact that Dryden had translated some of the Latin\n     hymns, and had wondered that I had never remarked them in his\n     works. As soon as I was asleep I dreamed a reason why the sound of\n     the wind and the sight of the flying dust had not distressed me.\n     There was no wind, it seemed, no dust; it was only Dryden singing\n     his translated hymns in _one direction_, and all those who had\n     blamed and attacked him after the Revolution singing them in\n     _another_. This point of the two directions is very singular and\n     insane. In part it meant that Dryden was continuously flying past\n     yet never passing my window in the direction of the wind and dust,\n     and all his detractors similarly flying past yet not passing\n     towards the other side. But it applied, besides this, both to the\n     words and to the music in a manner wholly insusceptible of\n     expression.\n\n     That was a dream; and yet how exactly it reproduces the method of\n     _my other fellow_ while I was awake. Here is an explanation for a\n     state of mind or body sought, and found, in a tissue of rabid,\n     complicated, and inexpressible folly.--Yours very sincerely.\n\nROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.\n\n\n\nII. B. A good example of the application of true scientific method to\nproblems which doctors of the old school did not think worth their\nscience is Dr. Janet's treatment of a singular problem which the\nmistakes of brutal ignorance turned in old times into a veritable\nscourge of our race. I speak of _demoniacal possession_, in which\naffliction Dr. Janet has shown himself a better than ecclesiastical\nexorcist.\n\nI give here a typical case of pseudo-possession from _N\u00e9vroses et Id\u00e9es\nfixes_ (vol. i. pp. 377-389): Achille, as Professor Janet calls him, was\na timid and rather morbid young man, but he was married to a good wife,\nand nothing went specially wrong with him until his return from a\nbusiness journey in 1890. He then became sombre and taciturn--sometimes\neven seemed unable to speak--then took to his bed and lay murmuring\nincomprehensible words, and at last said farewell to his wife and\nchildren, and stretched himself out motionless for a couple of days,\nwhile his family waited for his last breath.\n\n\"Suddenly one morning, after two days of apparent death, Achille sat up\nin bed with his eyes wide open, and burst into a terrible laugh. It was\na convulsive laugh which shook all his limbs; an exaggerated laugh which\ntwisted his mouth; a lugubrious, satanic laugh which went on for more\nthan two hours.\n\n\"From this moment everything was changed. Achille leapt from his bed and\nrefused all attentions. To every question he answered, 'There's nothing\nto be done! let's have some champagne; it's the end of the world!' Then\nhe uttered piercing cries, 'They are burning me--they are cutting me to\npieces!'\"\n\nAfter an agitated sleep, Achille woke up with the conviction that he was\npossessed with a devil. And in fact his mouth now uttered blasphemies,\nhis limbs were contorted, and he repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts at\nsuicide. Ultimately he was taken to the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re, and placed under\nProfessor Janet, who recognised at once the classic signs of possession.\nThe poor man kept protesting against the odious outrages on religion,\nwhich he attributed to a devil inside him, moving his tongue against\nhis will. \"Achille could say, like a celebrated victim of possession,\nP\u00e8re Surin, 'It is as though I had two souls; one of which has been\ndispossessed of its body and the use of its organs, and is frantic at\nthe sight of the other soul which has crept in.'\"\n\nIt was by no means easy to get either at Achille or at his possessing\ndevil. Attempts to hypnotise him failed, and any remonstrance was met\nwith insult. But the wily psychologist was accustomed to such\ndifficulties, and had resort to a plan too insidious for a common devil\nto suspect. He gently moved the hand of Achille in such a way as to\nsuggest the act of writing, and having thus succeeded in starting\nautomatic script, he got the devil thus to answer questions quietly put\nwhile the raving was going on as usual. \"I will not believe in your\npower,\" said Professor Janet to the malignant intruder, \"unless you give\nme a proof.\" \"What proof?\" \"Raise the poor man's left arm without his\nknowing it.\" This was done--to the astonishment of poor Achille--and a\nseries of suggestions followed, all of which the demon triumphantly and\nunsuspectingly carried out, to show his power. Then came the suggestion\nto which Professor Janet had been leading up. It was like getting the\ndjinn into the bottle. \"You cannot put Achille soundly to sleep in that\narm-chair!\" \"Yes, I can!\" No sooner said than done, and no sooner done\nthan Achille was delivered from his tormentor--from his own tormenting\nself.\n\nFor there in that hypnotic sleep he was gently led on to tell all his\nstory; and such stories, when told to a skilled and kindly auditor, are\napt to come to an end in the very act of being told.\n\nAchille had been living in a day-dream; it was a day-dream which had\nswollen to these nightmare proportions, and had, as it were, ousted his\nrational being; and in the deeper self-knowledge which the somnambulic\nstate brings with it the dream and the interpretation thereof became\npresent to his bewildered mind.\n\nThe fact was that on that fateful journey when Achille's troubles began\nhe had committed an act of unfaithfulness to his wife. A gloomy anxiety\nto conceal this action prompted him to an increasing taciturnity, and\nmorbid fancies as to his health grew on him until at last his day-dream\nled him to imagine himself as actually dead. \"His two days' lethargy was\nbut an episode, a chapter in the long dream.\"\n\nWhat then was the natural next stage of the dream's development? \"He\ndreamt that, now that he was dead indeed, the devil rose from the abyss\nand came to take him. The poor man, as in his somnambulic state he\nretraced the series of his dreams, remembered the precise instant when\nthis lamentable event took place. It was about 11 A.M.: a dog barked in\nthe court at the moment, incommoded, no doubt, by the smell of\nbrimstone; flames filled the room; numbers of little fiends scourged the\nunhappy man, or drove nails into his eyes, and through the wounds in his\nbody Satan entered in to take possession of head and heart.\"\n\nFrom this point the pseudo-possession may be said to have begun. The\nfixed idea developed itself into sensory and motor automatisms--visions\nof devils, uncontrollable utterances, automatic script--ascribed by the\nautomatist to the possessing devil within.\n\nAnd now came the moment when the veracity, the utility, of this new type\nof psychological analysis was to be submitted to yet another test. From\nthe point of view of the ordinary physician Achille's condition was\nalmost hopeless. Physical treatment had failed, and death from\nexhaustion and misery seemed near at hand. Nor could any appeal have\nbeen effective which did not go to the hidden root of the evil, which\ndid not lighten the load of morbid remorse from which the whole series\nof troubles had developed. Fortunately for Achille, he was in the hands\nof an unsurpassed minister to minds thus diseased. Professor Janet\nadopted his usual tactics--what he terms the _dissociation_ and the\ngradual _substitution_ of ideas. The incidents of the miserable memory\nwere modified, were explained away, were slowly dissolved from the\nbrooding brain, and the hallucinatory image of the offended wife was\npresented to the sufferer at what novelists call the psychological\nmoment, with pardon in her eyes. \"Such stuff as dreams are made\nof!\"--but even by such means was Achille restored to physical and moral\nhealth; he leads now the life of normal man; he no longer \"walketh in a\nvain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain.\"\n\n\nII. C. I give here the case of Dr. Azam's often quoted patient, F\u00e9lida\nX.[216] In this case the somnambulic life finally became the normal\nlife; as the \"second state,\" which appeared at first only in short,\ndreamlike accesses, gradually replaced the \"first state,\" which finally\nrecurred but for a few hours at long intervals. But the point on which I\nwish to dwell is this: that F\u00e9lida's second state was altogether\n_superior_ to the first--physically superior, since the nervous pains\nwhich had troubled her from childhood disappeared: and mentally\nsuperior, inasmuch as her morose, self-centred disposition was exchanged\nfor a cheerful activity which enabled her to attend to her children and\nher shop much more effectively than when she was in the \"\u00e9tat b\u00eate,\" as\nshe called what was once the only personality that she knew. In this\ncase, then, which at the time Dr. Azam wrote--1887--was of nearly thirty\nyears' standing, the spontaneous readjustment of nervous activities--the\nsecond state, no memory of which remained in the first state--resulted\nin an improvement profounder than could have been anticipated from any\nmoral or medical treatment that we know. The case shows us how often the\nword \"normal\" means nothing more than \"what happens to exist.\" For\nF\u00e9lida's _normal_ state was in fact her _morbid_ state: and the new\ncondition, which seemed at first a mere hysterical abnormality, brought\nher at last to a life of bodily and mental sanity which made her fully\nthe equal of average women of her class.\n\nA very complete account of the case, reproducing in full almost the\nwhole of Dr. Azam's report, is given in Dr. A. Binet's _Alt\u00e9rations de\nla Personnalit\u00e9_ (pp. 6-20), and I briefly summarise this here:--\n\n     F\u00e9lida was born at Bordeaux, in 1843, of healthy parents. Towards\n     the age of thirteen years she began to exhibit symptoms of\n     hysteria. When about fourteen and a half she used suddenly to feel\n     a pain in her forehead, and then to fall into a profound sleep for\n     some ten minutes, after which she woke spontaneously in her\n     secondary condition. This lasted an hour or two; then the sleep\n     came on again, and she awoke in her normal state. The change at\n     first occurred every five or six days. As the hysterical symptoms\n     increased, Dr. Azam was called in to attend her in 1858.\n\n     His report of that time states that in the primary state she\n     appears very intelligent and fairly well educated; of a melancholy\n     disposition, talking little, very industrious; constantly thinking\n     of her maladies and suffering acute pains in various parts of the\n     body, especially the head--the _clou hyst\u00e9rique_ being very marked;\n     all her actions, ideas, and words perfectly rational. Almost every\n     day what she calls her _crise_ comes on spontaneously--often while\n     she is sitting at her needlework--preceded by a brief interval of\n     the profound sleep, from which no external stimulus can rouse her.\n     On waking into the secondary state, she appears like an entirely\n     different person, smiling and gay; she continues her work\n     cheerfully or walks about briskly, no longer feeling all the pains\n     she has just before been complaining of. She looks after her\n     ordinary domestic duties, goes out, walks about the town, and pays\n     calls; behaves in every way like an ordinary healthy girl.\n\n     In this condition she remembers perfectly all that has happened on\n     previous occasions when she was in the same state, and also all the\n     events of her normal life; whereas during her normal life she\n     forgets absolutely the occurrences of the secondary state. She\n     declares constantly that whatever state she is in at the moment is\n     the normal one--her _raison_--while the other one is always her\n     _crise_.\n\n     The change of character in the secondary state is strongly marked;\n     she becomes gay and vivacious--almost noisy; instead of being\n     indifferent to everything, her sensibilities--both imaginative and\n     emotional--become excessive. All her faculties appear more\n     developed and more complete. The condition, in fact, is much\n     superior to her ordinary one, as shown by the disappearance of her\n     physical pains, and especially by the state of her memory.\n\n     She married early, and her _crises_ became more frequent, though\n     there were occasionally long intervals when they never came at all.\n     But the secondary state, which in 1858 and 1859 only occupied about\n     a tenth part of her life, gradually encroached more and more on the\n     primary state, till the latter began to appear only at intervals\n     and for a brief space of time.\n\n     In 1875 Dr. Azam, having for long lost sight of her, found her a\n     mother of a family, keeping a shop. Now and then, but more and more\n     rarely, occurred what she called her _crises_--really relapses into\n     her _primary_ condition. These were excessively inconvenient, since\n     she forgot in them all the events of what was now her ordinary\n     life, all the arrangements of her business, etc.; for instance, in\n     going to a funeral, she had a _crise_, and consequently found it\n     impossible to remember who the deceased person was. She had a great\n     dread of these occurrences, though, by long practice, she had\n     become very skilful at concealing them from every one but her\n     husband; and the transition periods in passing from one state to\n     another, during which she was completely unconscious, were now so\n     short as to escape general notice. A peculiar feeling of pressure\n     in the head warned her that the _crise_ was coming, and she would\n     then, for fear of making mistakes in her business, hastily write\n     down whatever facts she most needed to keep in mind.\n\n     While the primary state lasted, she relapsed into the extreme\n     melancholy and depression that characterised her early life, these\n     being, in fact, now aggravated by her troublesome amnesia. She also\n     lost her affection for her husband and children, and suffered from\n     many hysterical pains and other symptoms which were much less acute\n     in the secondary state. By 1887, however, the primary state only\n     occurred every month or two, lasting only for a few hours at a\n     time.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\nTO\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nIV. A. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 389; related by Mr.\nHerbert J. Lewis, 19 Park Place, Cardiff.\n\n     In September 1880, I lost the landing order of a large steamer\n     containing a cargo of iron ore, which had arrived in the port of\n     Cardiff. She had to commence discharging at six o'clock the next\n     morning. I received the landing order at four o'clock in the\n     afternoon, and when I arrived at the office at six I found that I\n     had lost it. During all the evening I was doing my utmost to find\n     the officials of the Custom House to get a permit, as the loss was\n     of the greatest importance, preventing the ship from discharging. I\n     came home in a great degree of trouble about the matter, as I\n     feared that I should lose my situation in consequence.\n\n     That night I dreamed that I saw the lost landing order lying in a\n     crack in the wall under a desk in the Long Room of the Custom\n     House.\n\n     At five the next morning I went down to the Custom House and got\n     the keeper to get up and open it. I went to the spot of which I had\n     dreamed, and found the paper in the very place. The ship was not\n     ready to discharge at her proper time, and I went on board at seven\n     and delivered the landing order, saving her from all delay.\n\nHERBERT J. LEWIS.\n\n     I can certify to the truth of the above statement.\n\nTHOMAS LEWIS\n\n(Herbert Lewis's father),\n\nH. WALLIS.\n\n  _July 14th, 1884_.\n\n[Mr. E. J. Newell, of the George and Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, adds the\nfollowing corroborative note:--]\n\n\n_August 14th, 1884._\n\n     I made some inquiries about Mr. Herbert Lewis's dream before I left\n     Cardiff. He had been searching throughout the room in which the\n     order was found. His theory as to how the order got in the place in\n     which it was found, is that it was probably put there by some one\n     (perhaps with malicious intent), as he does not see how it could\n     have fallen so.\n\n     The fact that Mr. H. Lewis is exceedingly short-sighted adds to the\n     probability of the thing which you suggest, that the dream was\n     simply an unconscious act of memory in sleep. On the other hand he\n     does not believe it was there when he searched.\n\nE. J. NEWELL.\n\nCan there have been a momentary unnoticed spasm of the ciliary muscle,\nwith the result of extending the range of vision? It may suffice here to\nquote--that my suggestion may not seem too fantastic--a few lines from a\npersonal observation of a somnambule by Dr. Dufay.[217]\n\n\"It is eight o'clock: several workwomen are busy around a table, on\nwhich a lamp is placed. Mdlle. R. L. directs and shares in the work,\nchatting cheerfully meantime. Suddenly a noise is heard; it is her head\nwhich has fallen sharply on the edge of the table. This is the beginning\nof the access. She picks herself up in a few seconds, pulls off her\nspectacles with disgust, and continues the work which she had\nbegun;--having no further need of the concave glasses which a pronounced\nmyopia renders needful to her in ordinary life;--and even placing\nherself so that her work is less exposed to the light of the lamp.\"\nSimilarly, and yet differently, Miss Goodrich-Freer has had an\nexperience where the title of a book quite unknown to her, which she had\nvainly endeavoured to read where it lay at some distance from her,\npresented itself in the crystal. In such a case we can hardly suppose\nany such spasmodic alteration in ocular conditions as may perhaps occur\nin trance.\n\n\nIV. B. This case was recorded by Professor W. Romaine Newbold of the\nUniversity of Pennsylvania, in a paper entitled \"Subconscious\nReasoning,\" in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii. pp. 11-20.\n\n     I give the following extracts:--\n\n     For [these] cases I am indebted to another friend and colleague,\n     Dr. Herman V. Hilprecht, Professor of Assyrian in the University of\n     Pennsylvania. Both occurred in his own experience, and I write the\n     account of the first from notes made by me upon his narrative.\n\n     During the winter, 1882-1883, he was working with Professor\n     Friedrich Delitzsch, and was preparing to publish, as his\n     dissertation, a text, transliteration, and translation of a stone\n     of Nebuchadnezzar I. with notes. He accepted at that time the\n     explanation given by Professor Delitzsch of the name\n     Nebuchadnezzar--\"_Nab\u00fb-kud\u00fbrru-usur_,\" \"Nebo protect my mason's\n     pad, or mortar board,\" _i.e._, \"my work as a builder.\" One night,\n     after working late, he went to bed about two o'clock in the\n     morning. After a somewhat restless sleep, he awoke with his mind\n     full of the thought that the name should be translated \"Nebo\n     protect my boundary.\" He had a dim consciousness of having been\n     working at his table in a dream, but could never recall the details\n     of the process by which he arrived at this conclusion. Reflecting\n     upon it when awake, however, he at once saw that _kud\u00fbrru_,\n     \"boundary,\" could be derived from the verb _kad\u00e2ru_, to enclose.\n     Shortly afterwards he published this translation in his\n     dissertation, and it has since been universally adopted.\n\n     I quote this experience, in itself of a familiar type, on account\n     of its interest when viewed in connection with the more curious\n     dream next to be related. I was told of the latter shortly after it\n     happened, and here translate an account written in German by\n     Professor Hilprecht, August 8th, 1893, before the more complete\n     confirmation was received.\n\n     \"One Saturday evening, about the middle of March, 1893, I had been\n     wearying myself, as I had done so often in the weeks preceding, in\n     the vain attempt to decipher two small fragments of agate which\n     were supposed to belong to the finger-rings of some Babylonian. The\n     labour was much increased by the fact that the fragments presented\n     remnants only of characters and lines, that dozens of similar small\n     fragments had been found in the ruins of the temple of Bel at\n     Nippur with which nothing could be done, that in this case\n     furthermore I had never had the originals before me, but only a\n     hasty sketch made by one of the members of the expedition sent by\n     the University of Pennsylvania to Babylonia. I could not say more\n     than that the fragments, taking into consideration the place in\n     which they were found and the peculiar characteristics of the\n     cuneiform characters preserved upon them, sprang from the Cassite\n     period of Babylonian history (_circa_ 1700-1140 B.C.); moreover, as\n     the first character of the third line of the first fragment seemed\n     to be KU, I ascribed this fragment, with an interrogation point, to\n     King Kurigalzu, while I placed the other fragment, as\n     unclassifiable, with other Cassite fragments upon a page of my book\n     where I published the unclassifiable fragments. The proofs already\n     lay before me, but I was far from satisfied. The whole problem\n     passed yet again through my mind that March evening before I placed\n     my mark of approval under the last correction in the book. Even\n     then I had come to no conclusion. About midnight, weary and\n     exhausted, I went to bed and was soon in deep sleep. Then I dreamed\n     the following remarkable dream. A tall, thin priest of the old\n     pre-Christian Nippur, about forty years of age and clad in a simple\n     abba, led me to the treasure chamber of the temple, on its\n     south-east side. He went with me into a small, low-ceiled room\n     without windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, while\n     scraps of agate and lapis-lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here\n     he addressed me as follows: 'The two fragments which you have\n     published separately upon pages 22 and 26, belong together, are not\n     finger-rings, and their history is as follows. King Kurigalzu\n     (_circa_ 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel, among other\n     articles of agate and lapis lazuli, an inscribed votive cylinder of\n     agate. Then we priests suddenly received the command to make for\n     the statue of the god Ninib a pair of earrings of agate. We were in\n     great dismay, since there was no agate as raw material at hand. In\n     order to execute the command there was nothing for us to do but cut\n     the votive cylinder into three parts, thus making three rings, each\n     of which contained a portion of the original inscription. The first\n     two rings served as earrings for the statue of the god; the two\n     fragments which have given you so much trouble are portions of\n     them. If you will put the two together you will have confirmation\n     of my words. But the third ring you have not yet found in the\n     course of your excavations, and you never will find it.' With this,\n     the priest disappeared. I awoke at once and immediately told my\n     wife the dream that I might not forget it. Next morning--Sunday--I\n     examined the fragments once more in the light of these disclosures,\n     and to my astonishment found all the details of the dream precisely\n     verified in so far as the means of verification were in my hands.\n     The original inscription on the votive cylinder read: 'To the god\n     Ninib, son of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, pontifex of Bel,\n     presented this.'\n\n     \"The problem was thus at last solved. I stated in the preface that\n     I had unfortunately discovered too late that the two fragments\n     belonged together, made the corresponding changes in the Table of\n     Contents, pp. 50 and 52, and, it being not possible to transpose\n     the fragments, as the plates were already made, I put in each plate\n     a brief reference to the other. (Cf. Hilprecht, 'The Babylonian\n     Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania,' Series A, Cuneiform\n     Texts, Vol. I., Part I, 'Old Babylonian Inscriptions, chiefly from\n     Nippur.')\n\n\"H. V. HILPRECHT.\"\n\nUpon the priest's statement that the fragments were those of a votive\ncylinder, Professor Hilprecht makes the following comment:--\n\n\"There are not many of these votive cylinders. I had seen, all told, up\nto that evening, not more than two. They very much resemble the\nso-called seal cylinders, but usually have no pictorial representations\nupon them, and the inscription is not reversed, not being intended for\nuse in sealing, but is written as it is read.\"\n\nThe following transliteration of the inscription, in the Sumerian\nlanguage, will serve to give those of us who are unlearned in cuneiform\nlanguages an idea of the material which suggested the dream. The\nstraight vertical lines represent the cuts by which the stone-cutter\ndivided the original cylinder into three sections. The bracketed words\nare entirely lost, and have been supplied by analogy from the many\nsimilar inscriptions.\n\n    Line 1.    Dingir N    inib du    (mu)      To the god Ninib, child\n     \"   2.    dingir      En-        (lil)     of the god Bel\n     \"   3.    luga        l-a-ni     (ir)      his lord\n     \"   4.    Ku-r        (i- galzu)           Kurigalzu\n     \"   5.    pa-         (tesi dingir Enlil)  pontifex of the god Bel\n     \"   6.    (in- na-    ba)                  has presented it.\n\nI translate also the following statement which Mrs. Hilprecht kindly\nmade at my request.\n\n\"I was awakened from sleep by a sigh, immediately thereafter heard a\nspring from the bed, and at the same moment saw Professor Hilprecht\nhurrying into his study. Thence came the cry, 'It is so, it is so.'\nGrasping the situation, I followed him and satisfied myself in the\nmidnight hour as to the outcome of his most interesting dream.[218]\n\n\"J. C. HILPRECHT.\"\n\n\n\nAt the time Professor Hilprecht told me of this curious dream, which was\na few weeks after its occurrence, there remained a serious difficulty\nwhich he was not able to explain. According to the memoranda in our\npossession, the fragments were of different colours, and therefore could\nhave scarcely belonged to the same object. The original fragments were\nin Constantinople, and it was with no little interest that I awaited\nProfessor Hilprecht's return from the trip which he made thither in the\nsummer of 1893. I translate again his own account of what he then\nascertained.\n\n\n\"_November 10th_, 1895.\n\n     \"In August 1893, I was sent by the Committee on the Babylonian\n     Expedition to Constantinople, to catalogue and study the objects\n     got from Nippur and preserved there in the Imperial Museum. It was\n     to me a matter of the greatest interest to see for myself the\n     objects which, according to my dream, belonged together, in order\n     to satisfy myself that they had both originally been parts of the\n     same votive cylinder. Halil Bey, the director of the museum, to\n     whom I told my dream, and of whom I asked permission to see the\n     objects, was so interested in the matter, that he at once opened\n     all the cases of the Babylonian section, and requested me to\n     search. Father Scheil, an Assyriologist from Paris, who had\n     examined and arranged the articles excavated by us before me, had\n     not recognised the fact that these fragments belonged together, and\n     consequently I found one fragment in one case, and the other in a\n     case far away from it. As soon as I found the fragments and put\n     them together, the truth of the dream was demonstrated _ad\n     oculos_--they had, in fact, once belonged to one and the same\n     votive cylinder. As it had been originally of finely veined agate,\n     the stone-cutter's saw had accidentally divided the object in such\n     a way that the whitish vein of the stone appeared only upon the one\n     fragment and the larger grey surface upon the other. Thus I was\n     able to explain Dr. Peters's discordant description of the two\n     fragments.\"\n\nProfessor Hilprecht is unable to say what language the old priest used\nin addressing him. He is quite certain that it was not Assyrian, and\nthinks it was either English or German.\n\nThere are two especial points of interest in this case, the character of\nthe information conveyed, and the dramatic form in which it was put. The\napparently novel points of information given were:--\n\n    1. That the fragments belonged together.\n    2. That they were fragments of a votive cylinder.\n    3. That the cylinder was presented by King Kurigalzu.\n    4. That it was dedicated to Ninib.\n    5. That it had been made into a pair of earrings.\n\n6. That the \"treasure chamber\" was located upon the south-east side of\nthe temple.\n\nA careful analysis reveals the fact that not one of these items was\nbeyond the reach of the processes of associative reasoning which\nProfessor Hilprecht daily employs. Among the possible associative\nconsequents of the writing upon the one fragment, some of the\nassociative consequents of the writing on the other were sub-consciously\ninvolved; the attraction of these identical elements brings the separate\npieces into mental juxtaposition, precisely as the pieces of a\n\"dissected map\" find one another in thought. In waking life the\ndissimilarity of colour inhibited any tendency on the part of the\nassociative processes to bring them together, but in sleep this\ndifference of colour seems to have been forgotten--there being no\nmention made of it--and the assimilation took place. The second point is\nmore curious, but is not inexplicable. For as soon as the fragments were\nbrought into juxtaposition mentally, enough of the inscription became\nlegible to suggest the original character of the object. This is true\nalso of the third and fourth points. The source of the fifth is not so\nclear. Upon examining the originals, Professor Hilprecht felt convinced\nfrom the size of the hole still to be seen through the fragments that\nthey could not have been used as finger-rings, and that they had been\nused as earrings, but the written description which he had before him at\nthe time of his dream did not bring these points to view. Still, such\nearrings are by no means uncommon objects. Such a supposition might well\nhave occurred to Professor Hilprecht in his waking state and, in view of\nthe lack of positive confirmation, it would be rash to ascribe it to any\nsupernormal power. The last point is most interesting. When he told me\nthis story, Professor Hilprecht remembered that he had heard from Dr.\nJohn P. Peters, before he had the dream, of the discovery of a room in\nwhich were remnants of a wooden box, while the floor was strewn with\nfragments of agate and lapis-lazuli. The walls, of course, and ceiling\nhave long since perished. The location, however, of the room he did not\nknow, and suggested I should write to Dr. Peters and find out whether it\nwas correctly given in his dream, and whether Dr. Peters had told him of\nit. Dr. Peters replied that the location given was correct, but, he\nadds, he told Professor Hilprecht all these facts as long ago as 1891,\nand thinks he provided him with a drawing of the room's relation to the\ntemple. Of this Professor Hilprecht has no recollection. He thinks it\nprobable that Dr. Peters told him orally of the location of the room,\nbut feels sure that if any such plan was given him it would now be found\namong his papers. This is a point of no importance, however. We\ncertainly cannot regard the location as ascertained by supernormal\nmeans.\n\n\nIV. C. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 505.\n\nFrom Mr. Alfred Cooper, of 9 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, W.\n\n[This account was orally confirmed by him to Mr. E. Gurney, June 6th,\n1888. It is written by Mr. Cooper, but attested also by the Duchess of\nHamilton.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L----, in 1882, I\ncalled upon the Duke of Hamilton, in Hill Street, to see him\nprofessionally. After I had finished seeing him we went into the\ndrawing-room, where the Duchess was, and the Duke said to me, \"Oh,\nCooper; how is the Earl?\"\n\nThe Duchess said, \"What Earl?\" and on my answering, \"Lord L----,\" she\nreplied, \"That is very odd. I have had a most extraordinary vision. I\nwent to bed, but after being in bed a short time, I was not exactly\nasleep, but thought I saw a scene as if from a play before me. The\nactors in it were Lord L----, in a chair, as if in a fit, with a man\nstanding over him with a red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over\nwhich bath a red lamp was distinctly shown.\"\n\nI then said, \"I am attending Lord L---- at present; there is very little\nthe matter with him; he is not going to die; he will be all right very\nsoon.\"\n\nWell, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the end of\nsix or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. He had\ninflammation of both lungs.\n\nI called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man. There\nwere two male nurses attending on him; one had been taken ill. But when\nI saw the other the dream of the Duchess was exactly represented. He was\nstanding near a bath over the Earl and, strange to say, his beard was\nred. There was the bath with the red lamp over it. It is rather rare to\nfind a bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my\nmind.\n\nThe vision seen by the Duchess was told two weeks before the death of\nLord L----. It is a most remarkable thing.\n\nThis account, written in 1888, has been revised by the [late] Duke of\nManchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the vision from\nhis daughter on the morning after she had seen it.\n\n(Signed)     MARY HAMILTON.\n             ALFRED COOPER.\n\n     Her Grace had been reading and had just blown out the candle. Her\n     Grace has had many dreams which have come true years after.\n\nALFRED COOPER.\n\n[The Duchess only knew Lord L---- by sight, and had not heard that he\nwas ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes to get rid\nof the vision and, shutting them, saw the same thing again.]\n\nAn independent and concordant account has been given to me (F. W. H. M.)\norally by a gentleman to whom the Duchess related the dream on the\nmorning after its occurrence.\n\n\nIV. D. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 383. The following\naccount, which first appeared in a letter in the _Religio-Philosophical\nJournal_, is from Dr. Bruce, of Micanopy, Fla., U.S.A. The case might be\ncalled \"collective,\" but for the fact that one of the dreams, though\nvivid and alarming, was probably not so distinctive as was afterwards\nimagined, and, moreover, was possibly dreamt on the night _preceding_\nthat on which the tragic event took place.\n\n\n_February 17th, 1884._\n\n     On Thursday, the 27th of December last, I returned from Gainesville\n     (twelve miles from here) to my orange grove, near Micanopy. I have\n     only a small plank house of three rooms at my grove, where I spend\n     most of my time when the grove is being cultivated. There was no\n     one in the house but myself at the time, and being somewhat\n     fatigued with my ride, I retired to my bed very early, probably 6\n     o'clock; and, as I am frequently in the habit of doing, I lit my\n     lamp on a stand by the bed for the purpose of reading. After\n     reading a short time, I began to feel a little drowsy, put out the\n     light, and soon fell asleep. Quite early in the night I was\n     awakened. I could not have been asleep very long, I am sure. I felt\n     as if I had been aroused intentionally, and at first thought some\n     one was breaking into the house. I looked from where I lay into the\n     other two rooms (the doors of both being open), and at once\n     recognised where I was, and that there was no ground for the\n     burglar theory; there being nothing in the house to make it worth a\n     burglar's time to come after.\n\n     I then turned on my side to go to sleep again, and immediately felt\n     a consciousness of a presence in the room, and, singular to state,\n     it was not the consciousness of a live person, but of a spiritual\n     presence. This may provoke a smile, but I can only tell you the\n     facts as they occurred to me. I do not know how to better describe\n     my sensations than by simply stating that I felt a consciousness of\n     a spiritual presence. This may have been a part of the dream, for I\n     felt as if I were dozing off again to sleep; but it was unlike any\n     dream I ever had. I felt also at the same time a strong feeling of\n     superstitious dread, as if something strange and fearful were about\n     to happen. I was soon asleep again, or unconscious, at any rate, to\n     my surroundings. Then I saw two men engaged in a slight scuffle:\n     one fell fatally wounded--the other immediately disappeared. I did\n     not see the gash in the wounded man's throat, but knew that his\n     throat was cut. I did not recognise him, either, as my\n     brother-in-law. I saw him lying with his hands under him, his head\n     turned slightly to the left, his feet close together. I could, from\n     the position in which I stood, see but a small portion of his face;\n     his coat, collar, hair, or something partly obscured it. I looked\n     at him the second time a little closer to see it I could make out\n     who it was. I was aware it was some one I knew, but still could not\n     recognise him. I turned, and then saw my wife sitting not far from\n     him. She told me she could not leave until he was attended to. (I\n     had got a letter a few days previously from my wife, telling me she\n     would leave in a day or two, and was expecting every day a letter\n     or telegram telling me when to meet her at the dep\u00f4t.) My attention\n     was struck by the surroundings of the dead man. He appeared to be\n     lying on an elevated platform of some kind, surrounded by chairs,\n     benches, and desks, reminding me somewhat of a schoolroom. Outside\n     of the room in which he was lying was a crowd of people, mostly\n     females, some of whom I thought I knew. Here my dream terminated. I\n     awoke again about midnight; got up and went to the door to see if\n     there were any prospect of rain; returned to my bed again, and lay\n     there until nearly daylight before falling asleep again. I thought\n     of my dream, and was strongly impressed by it. All strange,\n     superstitious feelings had passed off.\n\n     It was not until a week or ten days after this that I got a letter\n     from my wife, giving me an account of her brother's death. Her\n     letter, which was written the day after his death, was mis-sent.\n     The account she gave me of his death tallies most remarkably with\n     my dream. Her brother was with a wedding party at the dep\u00f4t at\n     Markham station, Fauquier Co., Va. He went into a store near by to\n     see a young man who kept a bar-room near the dep\u00f4t, and with whom\n     he had some words. He turned and left the man, and walked out of\n     the store. The bar-room keeper followed him out, and without\n     further words deliberately cut his throat. It was a most brutal and\n     unprovoked murder. My brother-in-law had on his overcoat, with the\n     collar turned up. The knife went through the collar and clear to\n     the bone. He was carried into the store and laid on the counter,\n     near a desk and show case. He swooned from loss of blood soon after\n     being cut. The cutting occurred early Thursday night, December\n     27th. He did not die, however, until almost daylight, Saturday\n     morning.\n\n     I have not had a complete account of my sister-in-law's dream. She\n     was visiting a young lady, a cousin, in Kentucky. They slept\n     together Friday night, I think, the night of her brother's death.\n     She dreamed of seeing a man with his throat cut, and awoke very\n     much alarmed. She awoke her cousin, and they got up and lighted the\n     lamp and sat up until daylight. That day she received a telegram\n     announcing her brother's death.\n\n     I cannot give you any certain explanation of these dreams. I do not\n     believe that they are due to ordinary causes, but to causes of\n     which science does not at present take cognisance.\n\nWALTER BRUCE.\n\nIn reply to inquiries, Dr. Bruce says:--\n\n\n_July 9th, 1884._\n\n     I have never had another dream similar to the one related in the\n     letter. I have at times had dreams that were vivid, or from some\n     cause impressed themselves upon my mind for a time, such as any one\n     would be likely to have. I cannot call to mind, though, any of\n     special importance, or with any bearing upon the dream in question.\n\n     I did not mention the dream to any one before receiving the letter\n     confirming it. I live in rather a retired place in the country, and\n     if I saw any one during that time to whom I would care to relate\n     the dream, it did not occur to me to do so.\n\n     You ask me how my wife knew of the circumstances of her brother's\n     death. She was visiting her relatives in Va. at the time, and was\n     present when her brother died.\n\nThe following account is from Dr. Bruce's sister-in-law, Mrs.\nStubbing:--\n\n\n_March 28th, 1885._\n\n     Whilst in Kentucky on a visit in the year 1883, I had a dream, in\n     which I saw two persons--one with his throat cut. I could not tell\n     who it was, though I knew it was somebody that I knew, and as soon\n     as I heard of my brother's death, I said at once that I knew it was\n     he that I had seen murdered in my dream; and though I did not hear\n     how my brother died, I told my cousin, whom I was staying with,\n     that I knew he had been murdered. This dream took place on Thursday\n     or Friday night, I do not remember which. I saw the exact spot\n     where he was murdered, and just as it happened.\n\nANNIE S. STUBBING.\n\n     The Thursday and Friday night mentioned in this account are\n     December 26th and 27th [27th and 28th], 1883. It was upon the\n     Thursday night my dream occurred.\n\nWALTER BRUCE.\n\nIn reply to questions, Mrs. Stubbing says:--\n\n     Yes, I saw one man cut the other. The wound was told to me to be\n     just like what I had seen in my dream. I received a telegram\n     announcing the death of my brother on Saturday morning. No, I never\n     had any such dream as that before.\n\nIV. E. I quote the following case from _Phantasms of the Living_, vol.\ni. p. 425. The account was written by Mrs. T---- in 1883.\n\n     On November 18th, 1863, I was living near Adelaide, and not long\n     recovered from a severe illness at the birth of an infant, who was\n     then five months old. My husband had also suffered from neuralgia,\n     and had gone to stay with friends at the seaside for the benefit of\n     bathing. One night during his absence the child woke me about\n     midnight; having hushed him off to sleep, I said, \"Now, sir, I hope\n     you will let me rest!\" I lay down, and instantly became conscious\n     of two figures standing at the door of my room. One, M. N. (these\n     are not the real initials), whom I recognised at once, was that of\n     a former lover, whose misconduct and neglect had compelled me to\n     renounce him. Of this I am sure, that if ever I saw him in my life,\n     it was then. I was not in the least frightened; but said to myself,\n     as it were, \"You never used to wear that kind of waistcoat.\" The\n     door close to which he stood was in a deep recess close to the\n     fireplace, for there was no grate; we burnt logs only. In that\n     recess stood a man in a tweed suit. I saw the whole figure\n     distinctly, but not the face, and for this reason: on the edge of\n     the mantelshelf always stood a morocco leather medicine chest,\n     which concealed the face from me. (On this being stated to our\n     friends, the Singletons, they asked to go into the room and judge\n     for themselves. They expressed themselves satisfied that would be\n     the case to any one on the bed where I was.) I had an impression\n     that this other was a cousin of M. N.'s, who had been the means of\n     leading him astray while in the North of England. I never saw him\n     in my life; he died in India.\n\n     M. N. was in deep mourning; he had a look of unutterable sorrow\n     upon his face, and was deadly pale. He never opened his lips, but I\n     read his heart as if it were an open book, and it said, \"My father\n     is dead, and I have come into his property.\" I answered, \"How much\n     you have grown like your father!\" Then in a moment, _without\n     appearing to walk_, he stood at the foot of the child's cot, and I\n     saw _distinctly_ the blueness of his eyes as he gazed on my boy,\n     and then raised them to Heaven as if in prayer.\n\n     All vanished. I looked round and remarked a trivial circumstance,\n     viz., that the brass handles of my chest of drawers had been rubbed\n     very bright. Not till then was I conscious of having seen a spirit,\n     but a feeling of awe (not fear) came over me, and I prayed to be\n     kept from harm, although there was no reason to dread it. I slept\n     tranquilly, and in the morning I went across to the parsonage and\n     told the clergyman's wife what I had seen. She, of course, thought\n     it was merely a dream. But no--if it were a dream should I not have\n     seen him _as I had known him_, a young man of twenty-two, without\n     beard or whiskers? But there was all the difference that sixteen\n     years would make in a man's aspect.\n\n     On Saturday my husband returned, and my brother having ridden out\n     to see us on Sunday afternoon, I told them both my vision as we sat\n     together on the verandah. They treated it so lightly that I\n     determined to write it down in my diary and see if the news were\n     verified. And from that diary I am now quoting. Also I mentioned it\n     to at least twelve or fourteen other people, and bid them await the\n     result.\n\n     And surely enough, at the end of several weeks, my sister-in-law\n     wrote that M. N.'s father died at C---- Common on November 18th,\n     1863, which exactly tallied with the date of the vision. He left\n     \u00a345,000 to be divided between his son and daughter, but the son has\n     never been found.\n\n     Many people in Adelaide heard the story before the confirmation\n     came, and I wrote and told M. N.'s mother. She was much distressed\n     about it, fearing he was unhappy. She is now dead. My husband was\n     profoundly struck when he saw my diary corresponding _exactly_ to\n     the news in the letter I had that moment received in his presence.\n\nGurney adds the following note:--\n\n     Mr. T. has confirmed to us the accuracy of this narrative, and Mrs.\n     T. has shown to one of us a memorandum of the appearance of two\n     figures, under date November 18th, in her diary of the year 1863,\n     and a newspaper obituary confirms this as the date of the death. We\n     learn from a gentleman who is a near relative of M. N.'s, that M.\n     N., though long lost sight of, was afterwards heard of, and\n     outlived his father.\n\nI should not now take it for granted (as we did at the time when\n_Phantasms of the Living_ was compiled) that the agent here \"can\napparently only have been the dying man.\" I think it possible, in the\nlight of our now somewhat fuller knowledge, that M. N.'s spirit was\naware of his father's death,--even though possibly M. N.'s supraliminal\nself may not have heard of it;--so that the invading presence in this\ncase may have been the discarded lover himself,--dreaming on his own\naccount at a distance from Mrs. T. The second figure I regard as having\nbeen an object in M. N.'s dream;--symbolical of his own alienation from\nMrs. T. All this sounds fanciful; but I may remark here (as often\nelsewhere), that I think that we gain little by attempting to enforce\nour own ideas of simplicity upon narratives of this bizarre type.\n\n\nIV. F. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 341.\n\nCommunicated by Fr\u00e4ulein Schneller, sister-in-law of the percipient, and\nknown to F. W. H. M., January 1890.\n\n\nDOBER UND PAUSE, SCHLESIEN, _December 12th, 1889_.\n\n     About a year ago there died in a neighbouring village a brewer\n     called W\u00fcnscher, with whom I stood in friendly relations. His death\n     ensued after a short illness, and as I seldom had an opportunity of\n     visiting him, I knew nothing of his illness nor of his death. On\n     the day of his death I went to bed at nine o'clock, tired with the\n     labours which my calling as a farmer demands of me. Here I must\n     observe that my diet is of a frugal kind; beer and wine are rare\n     things in my house, and water, as usual, had been my drink that\n     night. Being of a very healthy constitution, I fell asleep as soon\n     as I lay down. In my dream I heard the deceased call out with a\n     loud voice, \"Boy, make haste and give me my boots.\" This awoke me,\n     and I noticed that, for the sake of our child, my wife had left the\n     light burning. I pondered with pleasure over my dream, thinking in\n     my mind how W\u00fcnscher, who was a good-natured, humorous man, would\n     laugh when I told him of this dream. Still thinking on it, I hear\n     W\u00fcnscher's voice scolding outside, just under my window. I sit up\n     in my bed at once and listen, but cannot understand his words. What\n     can the brewer want? I thought, and I know for certain that I was\n     much vexed with him, that he should make a disturbance in the\n     night, as I felt convinced that his affairs might surely have\n     waited till the morrow. Suddenly he comes into the room from behind\n     the linen press, steps with long strides past the bed of my wife\n     and the child's bed; wildly gesticulating with his arms all the\n     time, as his habit was, he called out, \"What do you say to this,\n     Herr Oberamtmann? This afternoon at five o'clock I have died.\"\n     Startled by this information, I exclaim, \"Oh, that is not true!\" He\n     replied: \"Truly, as I tell you; and, what do you think? They want\n     to bury me already on Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock,\"\n     accentuating his assertions all the while by his gesticulations.\n     During this long speech of my visitor I examined myself as to\n     whether I was really awake and not dreaming.\n\n     I asked myself: Is this a hallucination? Is my mind in full\n     possession of its faculties? Yes, there is the light, there the\n     jug, this is the mirror, and this the brewer; and I came to the\n     conclusion: I am awake. Then the thought occurred to me, What will\n     my wife think if she awakes and sees the brewer in our bedroom? In\n     this fear of her waking up I turn round to my wife, and to my great\n     relief I see from her face, which is turned towards me, that she is\n     still asleep; but she looks very pale. I say to the brewer, \"Herr\n     W\u00fcnscher, we will speak softly, so that my wife may not wake up, it\n     would be very disagreeable to her to find you here.\" To which\n     W\u00fcnscher answered in a lower and calmer tone: \"Don't be afraid, I\n     will do no harm to your wife.\" Things do happen indeed for which we\n     find no explanation--I thought to myself, and said to W\u00fcnscher: \"If\n     this be true, that you have died, I am sincerely sorry for it; I\n     will look after your children.\" W\u00fcnscher stepped towards me,\n     stretched out his arms and moved his lips as though he would\n     embrace me; therefore I said in a threatening tone, and looking\n     steadfastly at him with a frowning brow: \"Don't come so near, it is\n     disagreeable to me,\" and lifted my right arm to ward him off, but\n     before my arm reached him the apparition had vanished. My first\n     look was to my wife to see if she were still asleep. She was. I got\n     up and looked at my watch, it was seven minutes past twelve. My\n     wife woke up and asked me: \"To whom did you speak so loud just\n     now?\" \"Have you understood anything?\" I said. \"No,\" she answered,\n     and went to sleep again.\n\n     I impart this experience to the Society for Psychical Research, in\n     the belief that it may serve as a new proof for the real existence\n     of telepathy. I must further remark that the brewer _had_ died that\n     afternoon at five o'clock, and was buried on the following Tuesday\n     at two.--With great respect,\n\nKARL DIGNOWTTY\n(Landed Proprietor).\n\nThe usual time for burial in Germany, adds Fr\u00e4ulein Schneller, is three\ndays after death. This time may be prolonged, however, on application.\nThere are no special _hours_ fixed.\n\nIn conversation Fr\u00e4ulein S. described her brother-in-law as a man of\nstrong practical sense and of extremely active habits.\n\nWe have received the \"Sterbeurkunde\" from the \"Standesbeamte\"\nSiegismund, Kreis Sagan, certifying that Karl W\u00fcnscher died Saturday,\nSeptember 15th, 1888, at 4.30 P.M., and was buried Tuesday, September\n18th, 1888, at 2 P.M.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHerr Dignowity writes again, January 18th, 1890:--\n\n     Frau W\u00fcnscher told me that the time of the burial was settled in\n     the death-room immediately after W\u00fcnscher's death, because\n     relations at a distance had to be summoned by telegram. W\u00fcnscher\n     had suffered from inflammation of the lungs, which ended in spasm\n     of the heart. During his illness his thoughts had been much\n     occupied with me, and he often wondered what I should say if I knew\n     how ill he was.\n\nFinally, Frau Dignowity (born Schneller) writes from Pause, January\n18th, 1890:--\n\n     I confirm that my husband told me on the morning of September 16th,\n     1888, that the brewer W\u00fcnscher had given him intimation of his\n     death.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\nTO\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nV.A.[219] The principal inorganic objects alleged to have elicited novel\nsensations are running water, metals, crystals and magnets;--including\nunder this last heading the magnetism of the earth, as claimed to be\nfelt differently by sleepers according as they lie in the north-south or\nin the east-west positions.\n\n(1) The faculty of finding _running water_ has the interest of being the\nfirst subliminal faculty which has been so habitually utilised for\npublic ends as to form for its possessors a recognised and lucrative\noccupation.\n\nAn exhaustive and impartial survey of the existing evidence for the\nfaculty of \"dowsing\" is given in Professor W. F. Barrett's two articles\n\"On the so-called Divining Rod\" in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii.\npp. 2-282, and vol. xv. pp. 130-383.\n\nFrom this it seems clear that this power of discovery is genuine, and is\nnot dependent on the dowser's conscious knowledge or observation. It\nforms a subliminal uprush; but whether it is akin to _genius_, as being\na subconscious manipulation of facts accessible through normal sensory\nchannels, or to _heter\u00e6sthesia_ (as resting on a specific sensibility to\nthe proximity of running water), is a question which will be variously\ndecided in each special case. The dowser, I should add, is not\nhypnotised before he finds the water. But (as Professor Barrett has\nshown) he is often thrown, presumably by self-suggestion, into a state\nmuch resembling light hypnotic trance. The perceptivity (we may say) of\ncentral organs, in an unfamiliar direction, is stimulated by\nconcentrated attention, involving a certain disturbance or abeyance of\nperceptivity in other directions.\n\n(2) I next take the case of metall\u00e6sthesia,--that alleged reaction to\nspecial metals which has often been asserted both in hypnotic and in\nhysterical cases. As a definite instance I will take the statement made\nby certain physicians attending Louis Viv\u00e9,[220] that while they\nsupported him during a hysterical attack a gold ring on the finger of\none of them touched him for some time and left a red mark, as of a burn,\nof whose origin the patient knew nothing. It is further alleged--and\nthis is a quite separate point, although often confused with the\nfirst--that gold is distinguished by some subjects under conditions\nwhere no degree of sensitiveness to weight or temperature could have\nshown them that gold was near.\n\nNow, as to the first point, _e.g._ the Louis Viv\u00e9 incident, I can\nreadily believe that the touch of gold, unknown to the subject's\nsupraliminal consciousness, may produce a redness, subsequent pain, etc.\nAll that is needed for this is a capricious self-suggestion, like any\nother hysterical idea. This self-suggestion might remain completely\nunknown to the waking self, which might be puzzled as to the cause of\nthe redness and pain. The second claim, however, involves much more than\nthis. If gold is recognised through a covering, for instance, or heated\nto the same point as other metals, so that no sensation of weight or\ntemperature can help observation, this might possibly be by virtue of\nsome sensibility more resembling the attraction of low organisms to\nspecific substances whose chemical action on them we cannot determine,\nor to particular rays in the spectrum. I am not convinced that this has\nyet been proved; but I should not regard it as _a priori_ impossible.\n\nMedicamentous substances have also been claimed by many different\nhypnotists as exerting from a little distance, or when in sealed tubes,\nspecific influences on patients. The phenomenon is of the same nature as\nthe alleged specific influences of metals,--all being very possibly\nexplicable as the mere freak of self-suggestion.\n\n(3) Considering in the next place the alleged sensibility of certain\npersons to crystals and magnets,--known to be absolutely inert in\nrelation to ordinary men,--we should note the alleged connection between\nthe perception of magnets and that of running water.\n\nSome experiments intended to test the reality of the \"magnetic sense,\"\nand especially of the so-called \"magnetic light\"--luminous appearances\ndescribed by Baron Reichenbach as being seen by his sensitives in the\nneighbourhood of magnets--were carried out by a Committee of the S.P.R.,\nin 1883. After careful and repeated trials with forty-five \"subjects\" of\nboth sexes and of ages between sixteen and sixty, only three of these\nprofessed to see luminous appearances.\n\nThe value of these experiments as evidence of a magnetic sense of\ncourse depends primarily on whether the subjects had any means, direct\nor indirect, of knowing when the current was made or broken. The\nprecautions taken to avoid this and the other conditions of the\nexperiments are described in detail in the report of them in the\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. i. pp. 230-37. See also a further note by the\nChairman of the Committee, Professor W. F. Barrett, vol. ii. pp. 56-60.\n\n(4) And next as to the heter\u00e6sthesi\u00e6 alleged to be evoked by dead\norganic substances, or by living organisms. We may begin by observing\nthat some of our senses, at any rate, form the subjective expression of\ncertain chemical reactions. But many kinds of chemical reactions go on\nin us besides those which, for example, form the basis of our sense of\ntaste. And some persons are much more affected than others by certain\nspecial reactions, which from a purely chemical point of view may or may\nnot be precisely the same for all. Some persons have a specific\nsensibility to certain foods, or to certain drugs;--the presence of\nwhich their stomach detects, and to which it responds with extraordinary\ndelicacy. Now, if it were an important object to discover the presence\nof a certain drug, such a sensibility would be regarded as a precious\ngift, and the discovery might be quite as valuable when made by the\nstomach as it would have been if made by the nose. These are nascent\nheter\u00e6sthesi\u00e6, which, however, are not fostered either by natural\nselection or by human care.\n\nOf similar type are the specific sensibilities to the presence of\ncertain plants or animals,--familiar in certain cases of \"rose-asthma,\"\n\"horse-asthma,\" and discomfort felt if a cat is in the room. These\nfeelings have many causes. At one end there is ordinary mechanical\nirritation by solid particles. At the other end of the scale there is,\nof course, mere self-suggestion. But between the two there seems to be a\nkind of sensibility which is not purely self-suggestive, and not exactly\nolfactory, but resembles rather the instincts by which insects or other\nanimals discern each other's neighbourhood.\n\n(5) It is perhaps through some such power of discrimination that effects\nare produced on sensitive subjects by \"mesmerised objects,\"--assuming,\nof course, that sufficient care has been taken to avoid their\ndiscovering by ordinary means that the objects have been specially\nmanipulated in any way. See some experiments recorded in the\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. i. pp. 260-262, and a description of\nEsdaile's experiments with mesmerised water in vol. iii. p. 409; also\ncases in the _Zoist_, _e.g._ vol. v. p. 129, and vol. v. p. 99.\n\n(6) And now I pass on to medical clairvoyance, or the power of\ndiagnosing the present or past state of a living organism either from\nactual contact or even in the absence of the invalid, and from contact\nwith some object which he has himself touched.\n\nThe early mesmerists, _e.g._ Puys\u00e9gur, P\u00e9t\u00e9tin, Despine, and Teste, all\nhad the utmost faith in the faculty of their subjects to see their own\ndisease and prescribe the right remedy. The same attitude of mind can be\ntraced all through the _Zoist_. Fahnestock was perhaps the first to\npoint out the ambiguity of this alleged introvision. \"It is well known\nto me,\" he says, \"that when a resolution is taken, a belief cherished,\nor a determination formed by persons while in the somnambulic state,\nthat, when they awake, although they may know nothing about it or\nrelative to it, they always do what has been so resolved or determined\nupon at the time appointed or specified\" (_Statuvolism_, p. 203), and he\nquotes experiments to prove his point. With the knowledge we now possess\nof the extraordinary power of self-suggestion in producing all kinds of\nbodily symptoms, it is obvious that these cases cannot be adduced as\nevidence of anything more. A typical instance of one of these early\nobservations is to be found in the _Zoist_, vol. x. p. 347. See also\nPuys\u00e9gur, _Recherches sur l'Homme dans le Somnambulisme_ (Paris, 1811),\npp. 140 _et seq._ and 214 _et seq._; P\u00e9t\u00e9tin, _Electricit\u00e9 Animale_\n(Paris, 1808); Despine, _Observations de M\u00e9decine Pratique_\n(1838)--\"Estelle nous a indiqu\u00e9 tous les soirs, dans sa crise, ce qu'il\ny avait \u00e0 faire pour le lendemain, tant pour le r\u00e9gime alimentaire que\npour les moyens m\u00e9dicamentaires\" (p. 38).\n\n\nV. B. Some of the most striking cases of moral reforms produced by\nhypnotic suggestion are those recorded by Dr. Auguste Voisin. For\ninstance:--\n\n     In the summer of 1884, there was at the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re a young woman\n     of a deplorable type.[221] Jeanne Sch---- was a criminal lunatic,\n     filthy in habits, violent in demeanour, and with a lifelong\n     history, of impurity and theft. M. Voisin, who was one of the\n     physicians on the staff, undertook to hypnotise her on May 31st, at\n     a time when she could only be kept quiet by the strait jacket and\n     _bonnet d'irrigation_, or perpetual cold douche to the head. She\n     would not--indeed, she could not--look steadily at the operator,\n     but raved and spat at him. M. Voisin kept his face close to hers,\n     and followed her eyes wherever she moved them. In about ten minutes\n     a stertorous sleep ensued, and in five minutes more she passed into\n     a sleep-waking state, and began to talk incoherently. The process\n     was repeated on many days, and gradually she became sane when in\n     the trance, though she still raved when awake. Gradually, too, she\n     became able to obey in waking hours commands impressed on her in\n     the trance--first trivial orders (to sweep the room and so forth),\n     then orders involving a marked change of behaviour. Nay more; in\n     the hypnotic state she voluntarily expressed repentance for her\n     past life, made a confession which involved more evil than the\n     police were cognisant of (though it agreed with facts otherwise\n     known), and finally of her own impulse made good resolves for the\n     future. Two years later, M. Voisin wrote to me (July 31st, 1886)\n     that she was then a nurse in a Paris hospital, and that her conduct\n     was irreproachable. It appeared, then, that this poor woman, whose\n     history since the age of thirteen had been one of reckless folly\n     and vice, had become capable of the steady, self-controlled work of\n     a nurse at a hospital, the reformed character having first\n     manifested itself in the hypnotic state, partly in obedience to\n     suggestion, and partly as the natural result of the\n     tranquillisation of morbid passions.\n\n     M. Dufour, the medical head of another asylum,[222] has adopted\n     hypnotic suggestion as a regular element in his treatment. \"D\u00e8s \u00e0\n     pr\u00e9sent,\" he says, \"notre opinion est faite: sans crainte de nous\n     tromper, nous affirmons que l'hypnotisme peut rendre service dans\n     le traitement des maladies mentales.\" As was to be expected, he\n     finds that only a small proportion of lunatics are hypnotisable;\n     but the effect produced on these, whether by entrancement or\n     suggestion, is uniformly good. His best subject is a depraved young\n     man, who after many convictions for crimes (including attempted\n     murder) has become a violent lunatic. \"T.,\" says Dr. Dufour, \"a \u00e9t\u00e9\n     un assez mauvais sujet. Nous n'avons plus \u00e0 parler au pr\u00e9sent,\n     tellement ses sentiments moraux ont \u00e9t\u00e9 am\u00e9lior\u00e9s par\n     l'hypnotisme.\" This change and amelioration of character (over and\n     above the simple recovery of sanity) has been a marked feature in\n     some of Dr. Voisin's cases as well.\n\nSee also a case given by Dr. Voisin in the _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, vol.\niii., 1889, p. 130.\n\n\nV. C. The subject of these experiments in telepathic hypnotisation was\nProfessor Pierre Janet's well-known subject, Madame B. The experiments\nwere carried out with her at Havre, by Professer Janet and Dr. Gibert, a\nleading physician there, and described in the _Bulletins de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9\nde Psychologie Physiologique_, Tome I., p. 24, and in the _Revue\nPhilosophique_, August 1886.\n\nI give the following extract from my own notes of experiments, April\n20th to 24th, 1886, taken at the time in conjunction with Dr. A. T.\nMyers, and forming the bulk of a paper presented to the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de\nPsychologie Physiologique on May 24th (also published in _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. iv. pp. 131-37.)\n\n     In the evening (22nd) we all dined at M. Gibert's, and in the\n     evening M. Gibert made another attempt to put her to sleep at a\n     distance from his house in the Rue S\u00e9ry--she being at the Pavillon,\n     Rue de la Ferme--and to bring her to his house by an effort of\n     will. At 8.55 he retired to his study, and MM. Ochorowicz,\n     Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers went to the Pavilion, and waited\n     outside in the street, out of sight of the house. At 9.22 Dr. Myers\n     observed Madame B. coming half-way out of the garden-gate, and\n     again retreating. Those who saw her more closely observed that she\n     was plainly in the somnambulic state, and was wandering about and\n     muttering. At 9.25 she came out (with eyes persistently closed, so\n     far as could be seen), walked quickly past MM. Janet and Marillier,\n     without noticing them, and made for M. Gibert's house, though not\n     by the usual or shortest route. (It appeared afterwards that the\n     bonne had seen her go into the _salon_ at 8.45, and issue thence\n     asleep at 9.15; had not looked in between those times.[223]) She\n     avoided lamp-posts, vehicles, etc., but crossed and recrossed the\n     street repeatedly. No one went in front of her or spoke to her.\n     After eight or ten minutes she grew much more uncertain in gait,\n     and paused as though she would fall. Dr. Myers noted the moment in\n     the Rue Faure; it was 9.35. At about 9.40 she grew bolder, and at\n     9.45 reached the street in front of M. Gibert's house. There she\n     met him, but did not notice him, and walked into his house, where\n     she rushed hurriedly from room to room on the ground-floor. M.\n     Gibert had to take her hand before she recognised him. She then\n     grew calm.\n\n     M. Gibert said that from 8.55 to 9.20 he thought intently about\n     her, from 9.20 to 9.35 he thought more feebly; at 9.35 he gave the\n     experiment up, and began to play billiards; but in a few minutes\n     began to will her again. It appeared that his visit to the\n     billiard-room had coincided with her hesitation and stumbling in\n     the street. But this coincidence may of course have been\n     accidental....\n\nOut of a series of twenty-five similar experiments nineteen were\nsuccessful. The experiments were made at different times in the day and\nat varying intervals, in order to avoid the effects of expectancy in the\nsubject.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\nTO\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nVI. A. This case is taken from _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p.\n94, having been contributed by Colonel Bigge, of 2 Morpeth Terrace,\nS.W., who took the account out of a sealed envelope, in Gurney's\npresence, for the first time since it was written on the day of the\noccurrence.\n\n     An account of a circumstance which occurred to me when quartered at\n     Templemore, Co. Tipperary, on 20th February 1847.\n\n     This afternoon, about 3 o'clock P.M., I was walking from my\n     quarters towards the mess-room to put some letters into the\n     letter-box, when I distinctly saw Lieut.-Colonel Reed, 70th\n     Regiment, walking from the corner of the range of buildings\n     occupied by the officers towards the mess-room door; and I saw him\n     go into the passage. He was dressed in a brown shooting-jacket,\n     with grey summer regulation tweed trousers, and had a fishing-rod\n     and a landing-net in his hand. Although at the time I saw him he\n     was about 15 or 20 yards from me, and although anxious to speak to\n     him at the moment, I did not do so, but followed him into the\n     passage and turned into the ante-room on the left-hand side, where\n     I expected to find him. On opening the door, to my great surprise,\n     he was not there; the only person in the room was Quartermaster\n     Nolan, 70th Regiment, and I immediately asked him if he had seen\n     the colonel, and he replied he had not; upon which I said, \"I\n     suppose he has gone upstairs,\" and I immediately left the room.\n     Thinking he might have gone upstairs to one of the officers' rooms,\n     I listened at the bottom of the stairs and then went up to the\n     first landing-place; but not hearing anything I went downstairs\n     again and tried to open the bedroom door, which is opposite to the\n     ante-room, thinking he might have gone there; but I found the door\n     locked, as it usually is in the middle of the day. I was very much\n     surprised at not finding the colonel, and I walked into the\n     barrack-yard and joined Lieutenant Caulfield, 66th Regiment, who\n     was walking there; and I told the story to him, and particularly\n     described the dress in which I had seen the colonel. We walked up\n     and down the barrack-yard talking about it for about ten minutes,\n     when, to my great surprise, never having kept my eye from the door\n     leading to the mess-room (there is only one outlet from it), I saw\n     the colonel walk into the barracks through the gate--which is in\n     the opposite direction--accompanied by Ensign Willington, 70th\n     Regiment, in precisely the same dress in which I had seen him, and\n     with a fishing-rod and a landing-net in his hand. Lieutenant\n     Caulfield and I immediately walked to them, and we were joined by\n     Lieut.-Colonel Goldie, 66th Regiment, and Captain Hartford, and I\n     asked Colonel Reed if he had not gone into the mess-room about ten\n     minutes before. He replied that he certainly had not, for that he\n     had been out fishing for more than two hours at some ponds about a\n     mile from the barracks, and that he had not been near the mess-room\n     at all since the morning.\n\n     At the time I saw Colonel Reed going into the mess-room I was not\n     aware that he had gone out fishing--a very unusual thing to do at\n     this time of the year; neither had I seen him before in the dress I\n     have described during that day. I had seen him in uniform in the\n     morning at parade, but not afterwards at all until 3\n     o'clock--having been engaged in my room writing letters, and upon\n     other business. My eyesight being very good, and the colonel's\n     figure and general appearance somewhat remarkable, it is morally\n     impossible that I could have mistaken any other person in the world\n     for him. That I _did_ see him I shall continue to believe until the\n     last day of my existence.\n\nWILLIAM MATTHEW BIGGE,\nMajor, 70th Regiment.\n\n     [On July 17th, 1885, after Colonel Bigge had described the\n     occurrence but before the account was taken from the envelope and\n     read, he dictated the following remarks to Gurney:--]\n\n     When Colonel R. got off the car about a couple of hours afterwards,\n     Colonel Goldie and other officers said to me, \"Why, that's the very\n     dress you described.\" They had not known where he was or how he was\n     engaged. The month, February, was a most unlikely one to be fishing\n     in. Colonel Reed was much alarmed when told what I had seen.\n\n     The quartermaster, sitting at the window, would have been bound to\n     see a real figure; he denied having seen anything.\n\n     I have never had the slightest hallucination of the senses on any\n     other occasion.\n\n     [It will be seen that these recent remarks exhibit two slips of\n     memory. It is quite unimportant whether Colonel Reed was seen\n     walking in at the gate or getting off a car. But in making the\n     interval between the vision and the return two hours instead of ten\n     minutes, the later account unduly diminishes the force of the case.\n     If there is any justification at all for the provisional hypothesis\n     that the sense of impending arrival is a condition favourable for\n     the emission of a telepathic influence, it is of importance that,\n     at the time when the phantasmal form was seen, Colonel Reed was not\n     busy with his fishing, but was rapidly approaching his destination;\n     for thus the incident, at any rate, gets the benefit of analogy\n     with other cases.]\n\n\nVI. B. From the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 129. The case is recorded\nby the Misses H. M. and L. Bourne.\n\nAdditional evidence of the hallucinatory character of the figure seen is\nafforded by the details having been more clearly discernible than those\nof a real figure at the same distance would have been, and also by the\nsecond appearance, where the percipient had the impression of being\ntransported to a different scene.\n\nMiss L. Bourne writes:--\n\n     On February 5th, 1887, my father, sister, and I went out hunting.\n     About the middle of the day my sister and I decided to return home\n     with the coachman, while my father went on. Somebody came and spoke\n     to us, and delayed us for a few moments. As we were turning to go\n     home, we distinctly saw my father, waving his hat to us and signing\n     us to follow him. He was on the side of a small hill, and there was\n     a dip between him and us. My sister, the coachman, and myself all\n     recognised my father, and also the horse. The horse looked so dirty\n     and shaken that the coachman remarked he thought there had been a\n     nasty accident. As my father waved his hat I clearly saw the\n     Lincoln and Bennett mark inside, though from the distance we were\n     apart it ought to have been utterly impossible for me to have seen\n     it. At the time I mentioned seeing the mark in the hat, though the\n     strangeness of seeing it did not strike me till afterwards.\n\n     Fearing an accident, we hurried down the hill. From the nature of\n     the ground we had to lose sight of my father, but it took us very\n     few seconds to reach the place where we had seen him. When we got\n     there, there was no sign of him anywhere, nor could we see anyone\n     in sight at all. We rode about for some time looking for him, but\n     could not see or hear anything of him. We all reached home within a\n     quarter of an hour of each other. My father then told us he had\n     never been in the field, nor near the field, in which we thought we\n     saw him, the whole of that day. He had never waved to us, and had\n     met with no accident.\n\n     My father was riding the only white horse that was out that day.\n\nLOUISA BOURNE.\nH. M. Bourne.\n\nThe second signature was added later, with the words: \"This was written\nby my sister and me together.\"\n\nMiss H. M. Bourne enclosed the above in the following letter to Mrs.\nDent, to whom we are indebted for the case:--\n\n\nWESTON SUBEDGE, BROADWAY, WORCESTERSHIRE, _May 21st, 1891_.\n\n     MY DEAR MRS. DENT,--Louisa has asked me send you the enclosed\n     account of the impression she, the coachman, and I had of seeing\n     papa on Paddy in the hunting-field. It was on the 5th February 1887\n     it happened, and in March the same year, when I was out walking\n     alone, I thought I saw papa and Paddy stop at a little plantation\n     of his close to, and look at the wall, which had fallen in [in] one\n     part. He then appeared to ride a few yards towards me, but\n     afterwards turned round and went back past the plantation and out\n     of sight. When I went in I asked him if he had not seen me, and why\n     he turned back, when it transpired he had not been past that\n     plantation all day, but had ridden home another way. He said it\n     must have been some one else on a white horse, and asked where I\n     was when I saw him, and then, not before, it dawned on me that it\n     was utterly impossible to see either plantation or wall from where\n     I was. Since then I have often been along the same road, and stood,\n     and looked, and wondered how it was I so distinctly saw the broken\n     wall and papa on the white horse; a turn in the road makes my\n     having really done so quite impossible. I am sorry I cannot give\n     you the exact date of this: I know it was in March 1887, but cannot\n     remember the day, except that it was _not_ on the 5th. The other\n     \"experience\" is, I always think, far more interesting, as having\n     been seen by three, and also from the fact that Paddy was the only\n     white or grey horse in the hunting-field that day; so that\n     unbelievers could not say it was some one else on a white horse\n     that we had mistaken....\n\nNINA M. BOURNE.\n\nMrs. Sidgwick writes:--\n\n\n_February 25th, 1892._\n\n     I saw Miss H. Bourne and her father this afternoon. Miss Bourne\n     told me the stories of her seeing her father, first with her\n     sister, and later by herself, and signed the account which she and\n     her sister had, she says, made out together about it. The groom who\n     saw the figure at the same time has since been dismissed, and\n     cannot be asked for his evidence. Canon Bourne remembers hearing of\n     the matter the day it happened. The groom rode up to the ladies as\n     they were looking, and said: \"The Canon is beckoning, Miss, and I\n     think you had better go to him; his horse looks as if he had had a\n     fall\" (that is, muddy). The figure was beckoning to them with their\n     father's usual (and peculiar) gesture. He is a heavy man, and his\n     white horse, adapted to carry weight, was quite unlike any other\n     horse in the neighbourhood. Every one agrees as to the\n     impossibility of mistaking the horse. The horses of the\n     neighbourhood were well known to the neighbourhood in general and\n     to the Miss Bournes in particular, as they were at that time\n     constantly out with the hounds. The incident seems quite\n     unaccountable.\n\n\nVI. C. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 214. We received the\nfirst account of this case--the percipient's evidence--through the\nkindness of Mrs. Martin, of Ham Court, Upton-on-Severn, Worcester.\n\n\nANTONY, TORPOINT, _December 14th, 1882_.\n\n     Helen Alexander (maid to Lady Waldegrave) was lying here very ill\n     with typhoid fever, and was attended by me. I was standing at the\n     table by her bedside, pouring out her medicine, at about 4 o'clock\n     in the morning of the 4th October 1880. I heard the call-bell ring\n     (this had been heard twice before during the night in that same\n     week), and was attracted by the door of the room opening, and by\n     seeing a person entering the room whom I instantly felt to be the\n     mother of the sick woman. She had a brass candlestick in her hand,\n     a red shawl over her shoulders, and a flannel petticoat on which\n     had a hole in the front. I looked at her as much as to say, \"I am\n     glad you have come,\" but the woman looked at me sternly, as much as\n     to say, \"Why wasn't I sent for before?\" I gave the medicine to\n     Helen Alexander, and then turned round to speak to the vision, but\n     no one was there. She had gone. She was a short, dark person, and\n     very stout. At about 6 o'clock that morning Helen Alexander died.\n     Two days after her parents and a sister came to Antony, and arrived\n     between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning; I and another maid let them\n     in, and it gave me a great turn when I saw the living likeness of\n     the vision I had seen two nights before. I told the sister about\n     the vision, and she said that the description of the dress exactly\n     answered to her mother's, and that they had brass candlesticks at\n     home exactly like the one described. There was not the slightest\n     resemblance between the mother and daughter.\n\nFRANCES REDDELL.\n\nThis at first sight might be taken for a mere delusion of an excitable\nor over-tired servant, modified and exaggerated by the subsequent sight\nof the real mother. If such a case is to have evidential force, we must\nascertain beyond doubt that the description of the experience was given\nin detail before any knowledge of the reality can have affected the\npercipient's memory or imagination. This necessary corroboration has\nbeen kindly supplied by Mrs. Pole-Carew, of Antony, Torpoint, Devonport.\n\n\n_December 31st, 1883._\n\n     In October, 1880, Lord and Lady Waldegrave came with their Scotch\n     maid, Helen Alexander, to stay with us. [The account then describes\n     how Helen was discovered to have caught typhoid fever.] She did not\n     seem to be very ill in spite of it, and as there seemed no fear of\n     danger, and Lord and Lady Waldegrave had to go a long journey the\n     following day (Thursday), they decided to leave her, as they were\n     advised to do, under their friend's care.\n\n     The illness ran its usual course, and she seemed to be going on\n     perfectly well till the Sunday week following, when the doctor told\n     me that the fever had left her, but the state of weakness which had\n     supervened was such as to make him extremely anxious. I immediately\n     engaged a regular nurse, greatly against the wish of Reddell, my\n     maid, who had been her chief nurse all through the illness, and who\n     was quite devoted to her. However, as the nurse could not\n     conveniently come till the following day, I allowed Reddell to sit\n     up with Helen again that night, to give her the medicine and food,\n     which were to be taken constantly.\n\n     At about 4.30 that night, or rather Monday morning, Reddell looked\n     at her watch, poured out the medicine, and was bending over the bed\n     to give it to Helen, when the call-bell in the passage rang. She\n     said to herself, \"There's that tiresome bell with the wire caught\n     again.\" (It seems it did occasionally ring of itself in this\n     manner.) At that moment, however, she heard the door open and,\n     looking round, saw a very stout old woman walk in. She was dressed\n     in a night-gown and red flannel petticoat, and carried an\n     old-fashioned brass candlestick in her hand. The petticoat had a\n     hole rubbed in it. She walked into the room, and appeared to be\n     going towards the dressing-table to put her candle down. She was a\n     perfect stranger to Reddell, who, however, merely thought, \"This is\n     her mother come to see after her,\" and she felt quite glad it was\n     so, accepting the idea without reasoning upon it, as one would in a\n     dream. She thought the mother looked annoyed, possibly at not\n     having been sent for before. She then gave Helen the medicine, and\n     turning round, found that the apparition had disappeared, and that\n     the door was shut. A great change, meanwhile, had taken place in\n     Helen, and Reddell fetched me, who sent off for the doctor, and\n     meanwhile applied hot poultices, etc., but Helen died a little\n     before the doctor came. She was quite conscious up to about half an\n     hour before she died, when she seemed to be going to sleep.\n\n     During the early days of her illness, Helen had written to a\n     sister, mentioning her being unwell, but making nothing of it, and\n     as she never mentioned any one but this sister, it was supposed by\n     the household, to whom she was a perfect stranger, that she had no\n     other relation alive. Reddell was always offering to write for her,\n     but she always declined, saying there was no need, she would write\n     herself in a day or two. No one at home, therefore, knew anything\n     of her being so ill, and it is, therefore, remarkable, that her\n     mother, a far from nervous person, should have said that evening\n     going up to bed, \"I am sure Helen is very ill.\"\n\n     Reddell told me and my daughter of the apparition, about an hour\n     after Helen's death, prefacing with, \"I am not superstitious, or\n     nervous, and I wasn't the least frightened, but her mother came\n     last night,\" and she then told the story, giving a careful\n     description of the figure she had seen. The relations were asked to\n     come to the funeral, and the father, mother, and sister came, and\n     in the mother Reddell recognised the apparition, as I did also, for\n     Reddell's description had been most accurate, even to the\n     expression, which she had ascribed to annoyance, but which was due\n     to deafness. It was judged best not to speak about it to the\n     mother, but Reddell told the sister, who said the description of\n     the figure corresponded exactly with the probable appearance of her\n     mother if roused in the night; that they had exactly such a\n     candlestick at home, and that there was a hole in her mother's\n     petticoat produced by the way she always wore it. It seems curious\n     that neither Helen nor her mother appeared to be aware of the\n     visit. Neither of them, at any rate, ever spoke of having seen the\n     other, nor even of having dreamt of having done so.\n\nF. A. POLE-CAREW.\n\n     [Frances Reddell states that she has never had any hallucination,\n     or any odd experience of any kind, except on this one occasion. The\n     Hon. Mrs. Lyttelton, formerly of Selwyn College, Cambridge, who\n     knows her, tells us that \"she appears to be a most matter-of-fact\n     person, and was apparently most impressed by the fact that she saw\n     a hole in the mother's flannel petticoat, made by the busk of her\n     stays, reproduced in the apparition.\"]\n\nNow what I imagine to have happened here is this. The mother, anxious\nabout her daughter, paid her a psychical visit during the sleep of both.\nIn so doing she actually modified a certain portion of space, not\nmaterially nor optically, but in such a manner that persons perceptive\nin a certain fashion would discern in that part of space an image\napproximately corresponding to the conception of her own aspect latent\nin the invading mother's mind. A person thus susceptible happened to be\nin the room, and thus, as a bystander, witnessed a psychical invasion\nwhose memory the invader apparently did not retain, while the invaded\nperson--the due percipient--may or may not have perceived it in a dream,\nbut died and left no sign of having done so.\n\n\nVI. D. From the \"Report on the Census of Hallucinations,\" _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. x. p. 332. The account is given by Mrs. McAlpine.\n\n\nGARSCADDEN, BEARDSDEN, GLASGOW, _April 20th, 1892_.\n\n     I remember in the June of 1889, I drove to Castleblaney, a little\n     town in the county Monaghan, to meet my sister, who was coming by\n     train from Longford. I expected her at three o'clock, but as she\n     did not come with that train, I got the horse put up, and went for\n     a walk in the demesne. The day was very warm and bright, and I\n     wandered on under the shade of the trees to the side of a lake,\n     which is in the demesne. Being at length tired, I sat down to rest\n     upon a rock, at the edge of the water. My attention was quite taken\n     up with the extreme beauty of the scene before me. There was not a\n     sound or movement, except the soft ripple of the water on the sand\n     at my feet. Presently I felt a cold chill creep through me, and a\n     curious stiffness of my limbs, as if I _could_ not move, though\n     wishing to do so. I felt frightened, yet chained to the spot, and\n     as if impelled to stare at the water straight in front of me.\n     Gradually a black cloud seemed to rise, and in the midst of it I\n     saw a tall man, in a suit of tweed, jump into the water and sink.\n\n     In a moment the darkness was gone, and I again became sensible of\n     the heat and sunshine, but I was awed and felt \"eerie\"--it was then\n     about four o'clock or so--I cannot remember either the exact time\n     or date. On my sister's arrival I told her of the occurrence; she\n     was surprised, but inclined to laugh at it. When we got home I told\n     my brother; he treated the subject much in the same manner.\n     However, about a week afterwards, Mr. Espie, a bank clerk (unknown\n     to me), committed suicide by drowning in that very spot. He left a\n     letter for his wife, indicating that he had for some time\n     contemplated his death. My sister's memory of the event is the only\n     evidence I can give. I did not see the account of the inquest at\n     the time, and did not mention my strange experience to any one,\n     saving my sister and brother.\n\nF. C. MCALPINE.\n\nMrs. McAlpine's sister writes:--\n\n\nROXBORO', _February 15th, 1892_.\n\n     I remember perfectly you meeting me in Castleblaney, on my way home\n     from Longford, and telling me of the strange thing which happened\n     in the demesne. You know you were always hearing or seeing\n     something and I paid little attention; but I remember it\n     distinctly--your troubled expression more than the story. You said\n     a tall gentleman, dressed in tweed, walked past you, and went into\n     a little inlet or creek. I think, but am not sure, that you said he\n     had a beard. You were troubled about it, or looked so; and I talked\n     of other things. You told me while we were driving home. I think,\n     but I am not sure, that it was about the 25th or 27th of June 1889\n     that I left Longford. I am sure of that being the day, but cannot\n     remember the date. _It was in June_, and on the 3rd of July, 1889,\n     a Mr. Espie, a bank clerk, drowned himself in the lake in the\n     demesne in 'Blaney. I have no doubt that the day I came home you\n     saw Mr. Espie's \"fetch.\"\n\nThe following account is taken from a local paper, the _Northern\nStandard_, Saturday, July 6th, 1889:--\n\n     _Sad Case of Suicide._--The town of Castleblaney was put into a\n     fearful state of excitement when it became known on Wednesday last\n     that Mr. Espy had committed suicide by drowning himself in the lake\n     in the demesne. Latterly, he was noticed to be rather dull and low\n     in spirits, but no serious notice was taken of his conduct, nor had\n     any one the most remote idea that he contemplated suicide. On\n     Wednesday morning he seemed in his usual health, and, as was\n     customary with him, walked down to get his newspaper on the arrival\n     of the 9.45 train from Dublin. He met Mr. Fox (in whose office he\n     has been for years) at the station, and having procured his paper\n     walked up to the office, wrote a note in which he stated what he\n     was going to do, and indicating where his body would be found. This\n     seemed to concern him a good deal, for he seemed very anxious that\n     his body should be recovered without any delay. He had\n     fishing-tackle in his pocket, and having tied one end of a\n     pike-line to a tree, and the other end round one of his legs, he\n     threw himself into about three feet deep of water, where he was\n     found shortly afterwards quite dead, and before the note that he\n     had left in the office had been opened.\n\nIt would be possible, no doubt, to explain this appearance as simply\nprecognitive--as a picture from the future impressed in some unknown way\nupon the percipient's inner vision. There are certain cases which\nstrongly suggest this extreme hypothesis. But it seems here simpler to\nassume that the unhappy man was already imagining his plunge into the\nlake when Mrs. McAlpine visited the shore, and that his intense thought\neffected a self-projection, conscious or unconscious, of some element of\nhis being.\n\n\nVI. E. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 239. Mrs. Elgee, of\n18 Woburn Road, Bedford, gave the following account:--\n\n\n_March 1st, 1885._\n\n     In the month of November 1864, being detained in Cairo, on my way\n     out to India, the following curious circumstance occurred to me:--\n\n     Owing to an unusual influx of travellers, I, with the young lady\n     under my charge (whom we will call D.) and some other passengers of\n     the outward-bound mail to India, had to take up our abode in a\n     somewhat unfrequented hotel. The room shared by Miss D. and myself\n     was large, lofty, and gloomy; the furniture of the scantiest,\n     consisting of two small beds, placed nearly in the middle of the\n     room and not touching the walls at all, two or three rush-bottomed\n     chairs, a very small washing stand, and a large old-fashioned sofa\n     of the settee sort, which was placed against one half of the large\n     folding doors which gave entrance to the room. This settee was far\n     too heavy to be removed, unless by two or three people. The other\n     half of the door was used for entrance, and faced the two beds.\n     Feeling rather desolate and strange, and Miss D. being a nervous\n     person, I locked the door, and, taking out the key, put it under my\n     pillow; but on Miss D. remarking that there might be a duplicate\n     which could open the door from outside, I put a chair against the\n     door, with my travelling bag on it, so arranged that, on any\n     pressure outside, one or both must fall on the bare floor, and make\n     noise enough to rouse me. We then proceeded to retire to bed, the\n     one I had chosen being near the only window in the room, which\n     opened with two glazed doors, almost to the floor. These doors, on\n     account of the heat, I left open, first assuring myself that no\n     communication from the outside could be obtained. The window led on\n     to a small balcony, which was isolated, and was three stories above\n     the ground.\n\n     I suddenly woke from a sound sleep with the impression that\n     somebody had called me, and, sitting up in bed, to my unbounded\n     astonishment, by the clear light of early dawn coming in through\n     the large window before mentioned, I beheld the figure of an old\n     and very valued friend whom I knew to be in England. He appeared as\n     if most eager to speak to me, and I addressed him with, \"Good\n     gracious! how did you come here?\" So clear was the figure, that I\n     noted every detail of his dress, even to three onyx shirt-studs\n     which he always wore. He seemed to come a step nearer to me, when\n     he suddenly pointed across the room, and on my looking round, I saw\n     Miss D. sitting up in her bed, gazing at the figure with every\n     expression of terror. On looking back, my friend seemed to shake\n     his head, and retreated step by step, slowly, till he seemed to\n     sink through that portion of the door where the settee stood. I\n     never knew what happened to me after this; but my next remembrance\n     is of bright sunshine pouring through the window. Gradually the\n     remembrance of what had happened came back to me, and the question\n     arose in my mind, had I been dreaming, or had I seen a visitant\n     from another world?--the bodily presence of my friend being utterly\n     impossible. Remembering that Miss D. had seemed aware of the figure\n     as well as myself, I determined to allow the test of my dream or\n     vision to be whatever she said to me upon the subject, I intending\n     to say nothing to her unless she spoke to me. As she seemed still\n     asleep, I got out of bed, examined the door carefully, and found\n     the chair and my bag untouched, and the key under my pillow; the\n     settee had not been touched nor had that portion of the door\n     against which it was placed any appearance of being opened for\n     years.\n\n     Presently, on Miss D. waking up, she looked about the room, and,\n     noticing the chair and bag, made some remark as to their not having\n     been much use. I said, \"What do you mean?\" and then she said, \"Why,\n     that man who was in the room this morning must have got in\n     somehow.\" She then proceeded to describe to me exactly what I\n     myself had seen. Without giving any satisfactory answer as to what\n     I had seen, I made her rather angry by affecting to treat the\n     matter as a fancy on her part, and showed her the key still under\n     my pillow, and the chair and bag untouched. I then asked her, if\n     she was so sure that she had seen somebody in the room, did not she\n     know who it was? \"No,\" said she, \"I have never seen him before, nor\n     any one like him.\" I said, \"Have you ever seen a photograph of\n     him?\" She said, \"No.\" This lady never was told what I saw, and yet\n     described exactly to a third person what we both had seen.\n\n     Of course, I was under the impression my friend was dead. Such,\n     however, was not the case; and I met him some four years later,\n     when, without telling him anything of my experience in Cairo, I\n     asked him, in a joking way, could he remember what he was doing on\n     a certain night in November 1864. \"Well,\" he said, \"you require me\n     to have a good memory;\" but after a little reflection he replied,\n     \"Why, that was the time I was so harassed with trying to decide for\n     or against the appointment which was offered me, and I so much\n     wished you could have been with me to talk the matter over. I sat\n     over the fire quite late, trying to think what you would have\n     advised me to do.\" A little cross-questioning and comparing of\n     dates brought out the curious fact that, allowing for the\n     difference of time between England and Cairo, his meditations over\n     the fire and my experience were simultaneous. Having told him the\n     circumstances above narrated, I asked him had he been aware of any\n     peculiar or unusual sensation. He said none, only that he had\n     wanted to see me very much.\n\nE. H. ELGEE.\n\nIn answer to inquiries, Mrs. Elgee says:--\n\n     I fear it is quite impossible to get any information from Miss D.\n     She married soon after we reached India, and I never met her since,\n     nor do I know where she is, if alive. I quite understand the value\n     of her corroboration; and at the time she told the whole\n     circumstance to a fellow-traveller, who repeated it to me, and her\n     story and mine agreed in every particular, save that to her the\n     visitant was a complete stranger; and her tale was quite unbiassed\n     by mine, as I always treated hers as a fancy, and _never_\n     acknowledged I had been aware of anything unusual having taken\n     place in our room at Cairo. I never have seen, or fancied I saw,\n     any one before or since.\n\n     My visitant, also, is dead, or he would, I know, have added his\n     testimony, small as it was, to mine. He was a very calm, quiet,\n     clever, scientific man, not given to vain fancies on any subject,\n     and certainly was not aware of any desire of appearing to me.\n\nThe publication of _Phantasms of the Living_ led fortunately to our\nobtaining the testimony of the second percipient, now Mrs. Ramsay, of\nClevelands, Bassett, Southampton, whose account follows:--\n\n\n_July 1891._\n\n     I have been asked by a leading member of the Psychical Society to\n     write down what I can remember of a strange experience that\n     occurred no less than twenty-seven years ago. I now do so as simply\n     as I can, and to the best of my recollection.\n\n     In October 1864, I was travelling to India, going to rejoin my\n     parents, from whom I had been separated twelve years, a kind\n     friend--a Mrs. E.--having undertaken to chaperon me as far as\n     Calcutta. She was going out to join her husband, Major E., of the\n     23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. We started by a P. & O steamer--the\n     _Ceylon_--from Southampton, and travelled by the overland route,\n     _via_ Alexandria and Cairo, to Suez.\n\n     We landed at Alexandria, and went by rail across the desert to\n     Cairo. There all passengers had to sleep the night before\n     proceeding on to Suez. Shepherd's Hotel was the best hotel then,\n     and there was consequently a great rush to try and get rooms in it;\n     but Mrs. E. and I, finding we could get no corner, decided, with\n     two or three other passengers, to get accommodation in the H\u00f4tel de\n     l'Europe. We felt somewhat nervous at the swarthy visages of the\n     Arabs all round us, and for this reason selected our quarters on\n     the very highest storey, thinking we should be more out of reach of\n     robbers and thieves than if we were on the ground floor. This is an\n     important point to remember, as no one could have effected an\n     entrance into our room from outside. It was a bright moonlight\n     night when we went to bed, and I can recollect as if it were\n     yesterday this fact, that the shadow of a \"pepul\" tree was\n     reflected on the wall opposite our beds--the leaves of the tree\n     were trembling and shaking, as the leaves of a \"pepul\" always do,\n     making the shadows dance about the wall.\n\n     Before we finally retired to rest we made the grandest arrangements\n     for personal security! The window looking out on to the street\n     below was much too high up to be at all unsafe. So we left that\n     open (I think) but we closed our door very firmly indeed! It was a\n     large folding door, and opened _inwards_. We locked it carefully,\n     leaving the key in the lock; pushed an arm-chair against the middle\n     of the door; and, to crown all, we balanced a hand-bag on one of\n     the arms, with a bunch of keys in the lock thereof! so that if any\n     intruder should venture to open that door, we should _know_ of it\n     at any rate!! (But no one did venture, and we found everything in\n     the morning exactly as we had left it.) I remember that Mrs. E. was\n     very careful about tucking her mosquito curtains all round, but I\n     disliked the feeling of suffocation they gave, and put mine up; not\n     realising, of course, in my inexperience, what the consequences\n     would be for myself; for these small plagues of Egypt (!) soon\n     descended upon me, nearly eating me up, and absolutely prevented\n     sleep. This is another important fact to remember, for had I slept\n     I might have dreamed, but, as it happened, I was wide awake. I was\n     looking at the shadows of the tree shaking on the wall when\n     gradually they seemed to merge into a form, which form took the\n     shape of a man, not of an Arab, but of an English gentleman. Then\n     this form glided into the room, advancing towards my chaperon,\n     stretching out his hands as if in blessing, turned round, looked at\n     me, sadly and sorrowfully (so I thought), and then vanished again\n     into the shadows as it came. I do not remember feeling terrified,\n     only awed--the face was so kind and human, only the moonlight made\n     it look very white. I did not wake Mrs. E., as she appeared to me\n     to be asleep. I felt sure I had seen a vision, and something that\n     had to do with her.\n\n     The next morning, while we were dressing, she remarked how odd I\n     looked, and quite apart from the mosquito bites, I know I did. We\n     had a good laugh over my comical appearance, for I had not scrupled\n     to scratch the bites, until my forehead and face resembled a plum\n     bun! I believe I then told her it was not strange that I should\n     look odd, for I \"had seen a ghost.\" She started violently, and\n     asked me to tell her what I saw. I described it as best I could,\n     and _she said she had seen \"it\" too_, and that she knew it to be\n     the form and face of a valued friend. She was much disturbed about\n     it--as, indeed, so was I, for I had never indulged in\n     \"hallucinations\" and was not given to seeing visions.\n\n     We proceeded next day to join our ship at Suez, and when on board,\n     it was a great relief to us to be able to tell it to a kind\n     fellow-passenger. He was an absolute sceptic in all matters\n     relating to the invisible world, but he was obliged to admit that\n     it was the most extraordinary thing he had ever heard.... I should\n     like to add that I have never, before or since, had any kind of\n     vision.\n\n     Our experience at Cairo had this sequel, that Mrs. E.'s\n     spirit-friend happened to be, at that very time, in great\n     perplexity of mind--most anxious about some very important event in\n     his life. He was sitting in his room one night in the month of\n     October 1864, and a most intense yearning came over him for her\n     advice and assistance--so great was it, that he felt as if an\n     invisible power had drawn him into some spirit-state, in which he\n     could and did see her.[224]\n\nFor a somewhat similar case, that of the apparition of General Fr\u00e9mont\n(too lengthy to quote here), I may refer the reader to the _Journal_\nS.P.R., vol. v. p. 54. The crisis there is the removal of long and\nwearing anxiety; the self-projection into the home-scene which now at\nlast the General felt assured of being able to reach alive.\n\n\nVI. F. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. pp. 104-109. The\nfollowing case was especially remarkable in that there were two\npercipients. The narrative was copied by Gurney from a MS. book of Mr.\nS. H. B.'s, to which he transferred it from an almanac diary, since\nlost.\n\n     On a certain Sunday evening in November 1881, having been reading\n     of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I\n     determined with the whole force of my being, that I would be\n     present in spirit in the front bed-room on the second floor of a\n     house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept\n     two ladies of my acquaintance, viz., Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C.\n     V., aged respectively 25 and 11 years. I was living at this time at\n     23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles from Hogarth\n     Road, and I had not mentioned in any way my intention of trying\n     this experiment to either of the above ladies, for the simple\n     reason that it was only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night\n     that I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I\n     would be there was 1 o'clock in the morning, and I also had a\n     strong intention of making my presence perceptible.\n\n     On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and\n     in the course of conversation (without any allusion to the subject\n     on my part) the elder one told me, that on the previous Sunday\n     night she had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her\n     bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition advanced towards\n     her, and awoke her little sister, who saw me also.\n\n     I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most\n     decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of the\n     occurrence, she replied, about 1 o'clock in the morning.\n\n     This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event and\n     signed it.\n\n     This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment of\n     this kind, and its complete success startled me very much.\n\n     Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put forth\n     an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was conscious of\n     a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had\n     a distinct impression that I was exercising some force with which I\n     had been hitherto unacquainted, but which I can now at certain\n     times set in motion at will.\n\nS. H. B.\n\nOf the original entry in the almanac diary, Mr. B. says: \"I recollect\nhaving made it within a week or so of the occurrence of the experiment,\nand whilst it was perfectly fresh in my memory.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMiss Verity's account is as follows:--\n\n\n_January 18th, 1883._\n\n     On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our\n     house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr. B. in my\n     room, about 1 o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much\n     terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the\n     apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr. B., I told him\n     what had happened, but it was some time before I could recover from\n     the shock I had received; and the remembrance is too vivid to be\n     ever erased from my memory.\n\nL. S. VERITY.\n\nIn answer to inquiries, Miss Verity adds: \"I had never had any\nhallucination of the senses of any sort whatever.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMiss E. C. Verity says:--\n\n     I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister in\n     the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct. I saw\n     the apparition which she saw, at the same time and under the same\n     circumstances.\n\nE. C. VERITY.\n\nMiss A. S. Verity says:--\n\n     I remember quite clearly the evening my eldest sister awoke me by\n     calling to me from an adjoining room; and upon my going to her\n     bedside, where she slept with my youngest sister, they both told me\n     they had seen S. H. B. standing in the room. The time was about 1\n     o'clock. S. H. B. was in evening dress, they told me.\n\nA. S. VERITY.\n\nMr. B. does not remember how he was dressed on the night of the\noccurrence.\n\nMiss E. C. Verity was asleep when her sister caught sight of the figure,\nand was awoke by her sister's exclaiming, \"There is S.\" The name had\ntherefore met her ear before she herself saw the figure; and the\nhallucination on her part might thus be attributed to suggestion. But it\nis against this view that she has never had any other hallucination, and\ncannot therefore be considered as predisposed to such experiences. The\nsisters are both equally certain that the figure was in evening dress,\nand that it stood in one particular spot in the room. The gas was\nburning low, and the phantasmal figure was seen with far more clearness\nthan a real figure would have been.\n\n\"The witnesses\" (says Gurney) \"have been very carefully cross-examined\nby the present writer. There is not the slightest doubt that their\nmention of the occurrence to S. H. B. was spontaneous. They had not at\nfirst intended to mention it; but when they saw him, their sense of its\noddness overcame their resolution. Miss Verity is a perfectly\nsober-minded and sensible witness, with no love of marvels, and with a\nconsiderable dread and dislike of this particular form of marvel.\"\n\n[I omit here for want of space the next case, in which Mr. S. H. B.\nattempted to appear in Miss Verity's house at two different hours on the\nsame evening, and was seen there, at both the times fixed, by a married\nsister who was visiting in the house.]\n\nGurney requested Mr. B. to send him a note on the night that he intended\nto make his next experiment of the kind, and received the following note\nby the first post on Monday, March 24th, 1884.\n\n\n_March 22nd, 1884._\n\n     DEAR MR. GURNEY,--I am going to try the experiment to-night of\n     making my presence perceptible at 44 Norland Square, at 12 P.M. I\n     will let you know the result in a few days.--Yours very sincerely,\n\nS. H. B.\n\nThe next letter was received in the course of the following week:--\n\n\n_April 3rd, 1884._\n\n     DEAR MR. GURNEY,--I have a strange statement to show you,\n     respecting my experiment, which was tried at your suggestion, and\n     under the test conditions which you imposed.\n\n     Having quite forgotten which night it was on which I attempted the\n     projection, I cannot say whether the result is a brilliant success,\n     or only a slight one, until I see the letter which I posted you on\n     the evening of the experiment.\n\n     Having sent you that letter, I did not deem it necessary to make a\n     note in my diary, and consequently have let the exact date slip my\n     memory.\n\n     If the dates correspond, the success is complete in every detail,\n     and I have an account signed and witnessed to show you.\n\n     I saw the lady (who was the subject) for the first time last night,\n     since the experiment, and she made a voluntary statement to me,\n     which I wrote down at her dictation, and to which she has attached\n     her signature. The date and time of the apparition are specified in\n     this statement, and it will be for you to decide whether they are\n     identical with those given in my letter to you. I have completely\n     forgotten, but yet I fancy that they are the same.\n\nS. H. B.\n\nThis is the statement:--\n\n\n44 NORLAND SQUARE, W.\n\n     On Saturday night, March 22nd, 1884, at about midnight, I had a\n     distinct impression that Mr. S. H. B. was present in my room, and I\n     distinctly saw him whilst I was quite widely awake. He came towards\n     me, and stroked my hair. I _voluntarily_ gave him this information,\n     when he called to see me on Wednesday, April 2nd, telling him the\n     time and the circumstances of the apparition, without any\n     suggestion on his part. The appearance in my room was most vivid,\n     and quite unmistakable.\n\nL. S. VERITY.\n\nMiss A. S. Verity corroborates as follows:--\n\n     I remember my sister telling me that she had seen S. H. B., and\n     that he had touched her hair, _before_ he came to see us on April\n     2nd.\n\nA. S. V.\n\nMr. B.'s own account is as follows:--\n\n     On Saturday, March 22nd, I determined to make my presence\n     perceptible to Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, Notting Hill, at 12\n     midnight, and as I had previously arranged with Mr. Gurney that I\n     should post him a letter on the evening on which I tried my next\n     experiment (stating the time and other particulars), I sent a note\n     to acquaint him with the above facts.\n\n     About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she\n     voluntarily told me, that on March 22nd, at 12 o'clock midnight,\n     she had seen me so vividly in her room (whilst widely awake) that\n     her nerves had been much shaken, and she had been obliged to send\n     for a doctor in the morning.\n\nS. H. B.\n\nUnfortunately Mr. B.'s intention to produce the impression of touching\nthe percipient's hair is not included in his written account. On August\n21st, 1885, he wrote to Gurney, \"I remember that I had this intention\";\nand Gurney remembered that, very soon after the occurrence, he mentioned\nthis as one of the points which made the success \"complete in every\ndetail\"; and that he recommended him in any future trial to endeavour\ninstead to produce the impression of some spoken phrase.\n\nOn this case, Gurney observes:--\n\n     It will be observed that in all these instances the conditions were\n     the same--the agent concentrating his thoughts on the object in\n     view before going to sleep. Mr. B. has never succeeded in producing\n     a similar effect when he has been awake. And this restriction as to\n     time has made it difficult to devise a plan by which the phenomenon\n     could be tested by independent observers, one of whom might arrange\n     to be in the company of the agent at a given time, and the other in\n     that of the percipient. Nor is it easy to press for repetitions of\n     the experiment, which is not an agreeable one to the percipient,\n     and is followed by a considerable amount of nervous prostration.\n     Moreover, if trials were frequently made with the same percipient,\n     the value of success would diminish; for any latent expectation on\n     the percipient's part might be argued to be itself productive of\n     the delusion, and the coincidence with the agent's resolve might be\n     explained as accidental. We have, of course, requested Mr. B. to\n     try to produce the effect on ourselves; but though he has more than\n     once made the attempt, it has not succeeded.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\nTO\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nVII. A. The account of this case, given by Mr. E. Mamtchitch, is taken\nfrom the \"Report on the Census of Hallucinations\" in the _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. x. pp. 387-91.\n\n\nST. PETERSBURG, _April 29th, 1891_.\n\n     Comme il s'agira des apparitions de Palladia, je dois dire\n     auparavant quelques mots sur sa personne. Elle \u00e9tait la fille d'un\n     riche propri\u00e9taire russe, mort un mois avant sa naissance. Sa m\u00e8re,\n     dans son d\u00e9sespoir, voua son enfant futur au couvent. De l\u00e0 son\n     nom, usit\u00e9 parmi les religieuses. Deux ans apr\u00e8s, sa m\u00e8re mourut,\n     et l'orpheline, jusqu'\u00e0 l'\u00e2ge de 14 ans, fut \u00e9lev\u00e9e dans un couvent\n     de Moscou par sa tante, qui en \u00e9tait la sup\u00e9rieure.\n\n     En 1870, \u00e9tant encore \u00e9tudiant \u00e0 l'universit\u00e9 de Moscou, je fis la\n     connaissance du fr\u00e8re de Palladia, \u00e9tudiant comme moi, et il fut\n     souvent question entre nous de rendre \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 la nonne malgr\u00e9\n     soi; mais ce plan ne fut r\u00e9alis\u00e9 qu'en 1872. J'\u00e9tais venu en \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0\n     Moscou, pour voir l'exposition, et j'y rencontrai par hasard le\n     fr\u00e8re de Palladia. J'appris qu'il \u00e9tait en train de l'envoyer en\n     Crim\u00e9e pour cause de sant\u00e9, et je le secondai de mon mieux. C'est\n     alors que je vis Palladia pour la premi\u00e8re fois; elle avait 14 ans;\n     quoique haute de taille, elle \u00e9tait fort ch\u00e9tive et d\u00e9j\u00e0\n     poitrinaire. A la pri\u00e8re de son fr\u00e8re, j'accompagnai Palladia et sa\n     soeur, Mme. P. S., en Crim\u00e9e, o\u00f9 elles rest\u00e8rent pour passer\n     l'hiver et moi, deux semaines apr\u00e8s, je revins \u00e0 Kieff.\n\n     En \u00e9t\u00e9 1873 je rencontrai par hasard Palladia et sa soeur \u00e0\n     Odessa, o\u00f9 elles \u00e9taient venues pour consulter les m\u00e9decins,\n     quoique Palladia avait l'air de se porter assez bien. Le 27 Ao\u00fbt,\n     pendant que je faisais la lecture aux deux dames, Palladia mourut\n     subitement d'un an\u00e9vrisme, \u00e0 l'\u00e2ge de 15 ans.\n\n     Deux ans apr\u00e8s la mort de Palladia, en 1875, me trouvant \u00e0 Kieff,\n     il m'arriva, par une soir\u00e9e du mois de D\u00e9cembre, d'assister pour la\n     premi\u00e8re fois \u00e0 une s\u00e9ance spiritique; j'entendis des coups dans la\n     table; cela ne m'\u00e9tonna nullement, car j'\u00e9tait s\u00fbr que c'\u00e9tait une\n     plaisanterie. De retour chez moi, je voulus voir si les m\u00eames coups\n     se produiraient chez moi; je me mis dans la m\u00eame pose, les mains\n     sur la table. Bient\u00f4t des coups se firent entendre. Imitant le\n     proc\u00e9d\u00e9 dont j'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 le t\u00e9moin, je commen\u00e7ai \u00e0 r\u00e9citer\n     l'alphabet; le nom de Palladia me fut indiqu\u00e9. Je fus \u00e9tonn\u00e9,\n     presque effray\u00e9; ne pouvant me tranquilliser, je me mis de nouveau\n     \u00e0 la table, et je demandai \u00e0 Palladia, qu'avait-elle \u00e0 me dire? La\n     r\u00e9ponse fut: \"_Replacer l'ange, il tombe._\" Je ne compris pas de\n     suite de quoi il s'agissait. Le fait est qu'elle est enterr\u00e9e \u00e0\n     Kieff, et j'avais entendu dire qu'on voulait mettre un monument sur\n     sa tombe, mais je n'y avais jamais \u00e9t\u00e9, et je ne savais pas de quel\n     genre \u00e9tait le monument. Apr\u00e8s cette r\u00e9ponse, je ne me couchai\n     plus, et d\u00e8s que le jour parut je me rendis au cimeti\u00e8re. Non sans\n     peine, avec l'aide du gardien, je d\u00e9couvris enfin la tombe enfouie\n     sous la neige. Je m'arr\u00eatai stup\u00e9fi\u00e9: la statue en marbre de l'ange\n     avec une croix \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait de c\u00f4t\u00e9.\n\n     Depuis ce moment, il me fut prouv\u00e9 \u00e0 l'\u00e9vidence qu'il y a un autre\n     monde avec lequel, je ne sais comment, nous pouvons entrer en\n     rapport, et dont les habitants peuvent nous donner de telles\n     preuves de leur existence qu'elles d\u00e9sarment le scepticisme le plus\n     tenace.\n\n     En Octobre, 1876, je me trouvais \u00e0 Kieff, et j'\u00e9tais en train de\n     m'installer dans un nouveau logement (rue Pror\u00e9snaya) avec mon\n     camarade de service au Minist\u00e8re de la Justice, M. Potolof. On\n     venait de m'apporter un pianino. Il fut plac\u00e9 dans la salle, et je\n     me mis \u00e0 jouer; il \u00e9tait \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s 8 h. du soir; la salle o\u00f9 je\n     jouais \u00e9tait \u00e9clair\u00e9e par une lampe pendue au mur. A c\u00f4t\u00e9 se\n     trouvait mon cabinet de travail, \u00e9clair\u00e9 aussi par une lampe. Je me\n     rappelle tr\u00e8s bien que j'\u00e9tais de fort bonne humeur. Mon camarade,\n     M. Potolof, \u00e9tait occup\u00e9 \u00e0 sa table, \u00e0 l'autre bout du logis.\n     Toutes les portes \u00e9taient ouvertes, et de sa place il pouvait voir\n     tr\u00e8s bien le cabinet et la salle o\u00f9 je jouais.[225] Jetant un\n     regard vers la porte de mon cabinet de travail, je vis tout \u00e0 coup\n     Palladia. Elle se tenait au milieu de la porte, un peu de c\u00f4t\u00e9,\n     avec le visage tourn\u00e9 vers moi. Elle me regardait tranquillement.\n     Elle avait la m\u00eame robe fonc\u00e9e qu'elle portait lorsqu'elle mourut\n     en ma pr\u00e9sence. Sa main droite pendait librement. Je voyais\n     distinctement ses \u00e9paules et sa taille, mais ne me rappelle pas du\n     bas de son habit, et avais-je vu les pieds?--peut-\u00eatre, parce que\n     tout le temps je lui regardais dans les yeux. En la voyant, j'avais\n     tout \u00e0 fait oubli\u00e9 que je voyais devant moi non une personne\n     vivante, mais morte, tellement je la voyais distinctement; elle\n     \u00e9tait \u00e9clair\u00e9e de deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s; et d'autant plus j'ai la vue tr\u00e8s\n     bonne. Ma premi\u00e8re sensation fut un frisson dans le dos. Je fus\n     comme p\u00e9trifi\u00e9 et ma respiration fut suspendue; mais ce n'\u00e9tait pas\n     un effet caus\u00e9 par le frayeur ou l'excitation,--c'\u00e9tait quelque\n     chose d'autre. Je puis comparer cela \u00e0 la sensation que j'\u00e9prouve\n     quand je regarde en bas d'une grande hauteur; je sens alors une\n     terrible anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 et en m\u00eame temps je ne puis me retenir de\n     regarder, quelque chose m'attire invinciblement. Combien de temps\n     Palladia resta devant moi, je ne saurais le dire, mais je me\n     rappelle qu'elle fit un mouvement \u00e0 droite et disparut derri\u00e8re la\n     porte du cabinet du travail. Je me pr\u00e9cipitai vers elle, mais dans\n     la porte je m'arr\u00eatai, car alors seulement je me rappelai qu'elle\n     \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 morte, et je craignai d'entrer, \u00e9tant s\u00fbr de la revoir.\n     Dans ce moment mon camarade vint \u00e0 moi et me demanda qu'est-ce que\n     j'avais? Je lui dis ce qui venait de se passer; alors nous entr\u00e2mes\n     au cabinet o\u00f9 nous ne trouv\u00e2mes personne. Mon camarade, ayant\n     entendu la brusque interruption de mon jeu, avait lev\u00e9 la t\u00eate et,\n     tant que je me rappelle, disait avoir vu aussi quelqu'un passer\n     devant la porte de mon cabinet; mais, voyant mon excitation, il me\n     dit, pour me tranquilliser, que probablement c'\u00e9tait Nikita, mon\n     domestique, qui \u00e9tait venu arranger la lampe. Nous all\u00e2mes\n     imm\u00e9diatement dans sa chambre, il n'y \u00e9tait pas; il \u00e9tait en bas,\n     dans la cuisine, o\u00fa il pr\u00e9parait le samovar. Voil\u00e0 comment je vis\n     Palladia pour la premi\u00e8re fois, trois ans apr\u00e8s sa mort.\n\n     Apr\u00e8s la premi\u00e8re apparition de Palladia, en Octobre, 1876, et\n     jusqu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, je la vois souvent. Il arrive que je la vois trois\n     fois par semaine, ou deux fois le m\u00eame jour, ou bien un mois se\n     passe sans la voir. En r\u00e9sum\u00e9, voil\u00e0 les traits principaux de ces\n     apparitions.\n\n     (1) Palladia apparait toujours d'une fa\u00e7on inattendue, me prenant\n     comme par surprise, juste au moment quand j'y pense le moins.\n\n     (2) Quand je veux la voir moi-m\u00eame, j'ai beau y penser ou le\n     vouloir--elle n'apparait pas.\n\n     (3) A de rares exceptions, son apparition n'a aucun rapport avec le\n     courant de ma vie, comme pr\u00e9sage ou avertissement de\n     quelqu'\u00e9v\u00e9nement insolite.\n\n     (4) Jamais je ne la vois en songe.\n\n     (5) Je la vois \u00e9galement quand je suis seul, ou en grande\n     compagnie.\n\n     (6) Elle m'apparait toujours avec la m\u00eame expression sereine des\n     yeux; quelque fois avec un faible sourire. Elle ne m'a jamais\n     parl\u00e9, \u00e0 l'exception de deux fois, que je vais raconter plus loin.\n\n     (7) Je la vois toujours dans la robe fonc\u00e9e qu'elle portait\n     lorsqu'elle mourut sous mes yeux. Je vois distinctement son visage,\n     sa t\u00eate, les \u00e9paules et les bras, mais je ne vois pas ses pieds, ou\n     plut\u00f4t je n'ai pas le temps de les examiner.\n\n     (8) Chaque fois, en voyant Palladia inopin\u00e9ment, je perds la\n     parole, je sens du froid dans le dos, je p\u00e2lis, je m'\u00e9crie\n     faiblement, et ma respiration s'arr\u00eate (c'est ce que me disent ceux\n     qui par hasard m'ont observ\u00e9 pendant ce moment).\n\n     (9) L'apparition de Palladia se prolonge une, deux, trois minutes,\n     puis graduellement elle s'efface et se dissout dans l'espace.\n\n     A pr\u00e9sent je vais d\u00e9crire trois cas d'apparitions de Palladia dont\n     je me souviens bien.\n\n     (1) En 1879, \u00e0 la fin de Novembre, \u00e0 Kieff, j'\u00e9tais assis \u00e0 mon\n     bureau \u00e0 \u00e9crire un acte d'accusation; il \u00e9tait 8-1/4 du soir, la\n     montre \u00e9tait devant moi sur la table. Je me h\u00e2tais de finir mon\n     travail, car \u00e0 9 h. je devais me rendre \u00e0 une soir\u00e9e. Tout \u00e0 coup,\n     en face de moi, assise sur un fauteuil, je vis Palladia; elle avait\n     le coude du bras droit sur la table et la t\u00eate appuy\u00e9e sur la main.\n     M'\u00e9tant remis de mon saisissement, je regardai la montre et je\n     suivis le mouvement de l'aiguille \u00e0 seconde, puis je relevai les\n     yeux sur Palladia; je vis qu'elle n'avait pas chang\u00e9 de pose et son\n     coude se dessinait clairement sur la table. Ses yeux me regardaient\n     avec joie et s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9; alors pour la premi\u00e8re fois je me d\u00e9cidai de\n     lui parler: \"Que sentez-vous \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent?\" lui demandai-je. Son\n     visage resta impassible, ses l\u00e8vres, tant que je me rappelle,\n     rest\u00e8rent immobiles, mais j'entendis distinctement sa voix\n     prononcer le mot \"Qui\u00e9tude.\" \"Je comprends,\" lui r\u00e9pondis-je, et\n     effectivement, en ce moment, je comprenais toute la signification\n     qu'elle avait mise dans ce mot. Encore une fois, pour \u00eatre s\u00fbr que\n     je ne r\u00eavai pas, je regardai de nouveau la montre et je suivis les\n     mouvements de l'aiguille \u00e0 seconde; je voyais clairement comme elle\n     se mouvait. Ayant rapport\u00e9 mon regard sur Palladia, je remarquai\n     qu'elle commen\u00e7ait d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e0 s'effacer et dispara\u00eetre. Si je m'\u00e9tais\n     avis\u00e9 de noter imm\u00e9diatement la signification du mot \"Qui\u00e9tude,\" ma\n     m\u00e9moire aurait retenu tout ce qu'il y avait de nouveau et\n     d'\u00e9trange. Mais \u00e0 peine avais-je quitt\u00e9 la table pour monter en\n     haut, chez mon camarade Apouktine, avec lequel nous devions aller\n     ensemble, que je ne pus lui dire autre chose que ce que je viens\n     d'\u00e9crire.\n\n     (2) En 1885, je demeurais chez mes parents, \u00e0 une campagne du\n     gouvernement de Poltava. Une dame de notre connaissance \u00e9tait venue\n     passer chez nous quelques jours avec ses deux demoiselles. Quelque\n     temps apr\u00e8s leur arriv\u00e9e, m'\u00e9tant r\u00e9veill\u00e9 \u00e0 l'aube du jour, je vis\n     Palladia (je dormais dans une aile s\u00e9par\u00e9e o\u00f9 j'\u00e9tais tout seul).\n     Elle se tenait devant moi, \u00e0 cinq pas \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s, et me regardait\n     avec un sourire joyeux. S'\u00e9tant approch\u00e9e de moi, elle me dit deux\n     mots: \"J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9, j'ai vu,\" et tout en souriant disparut. Que\n     voulaient dire ces mots, je ne pus le comprendre. Dans ma chambre\n     dormait avec moi mon setter. D\u00e8s que j'aper\u00e7us Palladia, le chien\n     h\u00e9rissa le poil et avec glapissement sauta sur mon lit; se pressant\n     vers moi, il regardait dans la direction o\u00f9 je voyais Palladia. Le\n     chien n'aboyait pas, tandis que, ordinairement, il ne laissait\n     personne entrer dans la chambre sans aboyer et grogner. Et toutes\n     les fois, quand mon chien voyait Palladia, il se pressait aupr\u00e8s de\n     moi, comme cherchant un refuge. Quand Palladia disparut et je vins\n     dans la maison, je ne dis rien \u00e0 personne de cette incident. Le\n     soir de m\u00eame jour, la fille a\u00een\u00e9e de la dame qui se trouvait chez\n     nous me raconta qu'une chose \u00e9trange lui \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9e ce matin:\n     \"M'\u00e9tant r\u00e9veill\u00e9e de grand matin,\" me dit-elle, \"j'ai senti comme\n     si quelqu'un se tenait au chevet de mon lit, et j'entendis\n     distinctement une voix me disant: 'Ne me crains pas, je suis bonne\n     et aimante.' Je tournai la t\u00eate, mais je ne vis rien; ma m\u00e8re et ma\n     soeur dormaient tranquillement; cela m'a fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, car jamais\n     rien de pareil ne m'est arriv\u00e9.\" Sur quoi je r\u00e9pondis que bien des\n     choses inexplicables nous arrivent; mais je ne lui dit rien de ce\n     que j'avais vu le matin. Seulement un an plus tard, quand j'\u00e9tais\n     d\u00e9j\u00e0 son fianc\u00e9, je lui fis part de l'apparition et des paroles de\n     Palladia le m\u00eame jour. N'\u00e9tait-ce pas elle qui \u00e9tait venue la voir\n     aussi? Je dois ajouter que j'avais vu alors cette demoiselle pour\n     la premi\u00e8re fois et que je ne pensais pas du tout que j'allais\n     l'\u00e9pouser.\n\n     (3) En Octobre, 1890, je me trouvais avec ma femme et mon fils, \u00e2g\u00e9\n     de deux ans, chez mes anciens amis, les Strijewsky, \u00e0 leur\n     campagne du gouvernement de Woron\u00e8je. Un jour, vers les 7 h. du\n     soir, rentrant de la chasse, je passai dans l'aile que nous\n     habitons pour changer de toilette; j'\u00e9tais assis dans une chambre\n     \u00e9clair\u00e9e par une grande lampe. La porte s'ouvrit et mon fils Ol\u00e9g\n     accourut; il se tenait aupr\u00e8s de mon fauteuil, quand Palladia\n     apparut tout \u00e0 coup devant moi. Jetant sur lui un coup d'oeil, je\n     remarquai qu'il ne d\u00e9tachait pas les yeux de Palladia; se tournant\n     vers moi et montrant Palladia du doigt, il pronon\u00e7a: \"La tante.\" Je\n     le pris sur les genoux et jetai un regard sur Palladia, mais elle\n     n'\u00e9tait plus. Le visage d'Ol\u00e9g \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait tranquil et\n     joyeux; il commen\u00e7ait seulement \u00e0 parler, ce qui explique la\n     d\u00e9nomination qu'il donna \u00e0 Palladia.\n\nEUG\u00c8NE MAMTCHITCH.\n\nMrs. Mamtchitch writes:--\n\n\n_5 Mai, 1891._\n\n     Je me rappelle tr\u00e8s bien que le 10 Juillet 1885, lorsque nous\n     \u00e9tions en visite chez les parents de M. E. Mamtchitch, je m'\u00e9tais\n     r\u00e9veill\u00e9e \u00e0 l'aube du jour, car il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 convenu entre moi et\n     ma soeur que nous irions faire une promenade matinale. M'\u00e9tant\n     soulev\u00e9e sur le lit, je vis que maman et ma soeur dormaient, et\n     en ce moment je sentis comme si quelqu'un se tenait \u00e0 mon chevet.\n     M'\u00e9tant tourn\u00e9e \u00e0 demi--car je craignais de bien regarder--je ne\n     vis personne; m'\u00e9tant recouch\u00e9e, j'entendis imm\u00e9diatement, derri\u00e8re\n     et au dessus de ma t\u00eate, une voix de femme me disant doucement,\n     mais distinctement: \"Ne me crains pas, je suis bonne et aimante,\"\n     et encore toute une phrase que j'oubliai \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame.\n     Imm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s je m'habillai et j'allai me promener. C'est\n     \u00e9trange que ces paroles ne m'effray\u00e8rent pas du tout. De retour, je\n     n'en dis rien ni \u00e0 ma m\u00e8re, ni \u00e0 ma soeur, car elles n'aimaient\n     pas de telles choses et n'y croyaient pas; mais le soir du m\u00eame\n     jour, comme la conversation tourna sur le spiritisme, je racontai \u00e0\n     M. M. ce qui venait de m'arriver le matin; il ne me r\u00e9pondit rien\n     de particulier.\n\n     Je n'ai jamais eu aucune hallucination, ni avant, ni apr\u00e8s cet\n     incident, \u00e0 l'exception d'un cas tout r\u00e9cent, quand je me suis vue\n     moi-m\u00eame, de quoi je parlerai une autre fois.\n\nSOPHIE MAMTCHITCH.\n\nMr. Potolof writes to Mr. Aksakoff, through whom the case was sent:--\n\n\nRUE SCHPALERNAYA, 26. S. P\u00c9TERSBOURG, _le 10 Mai, 1891_.\n\n     MONSIEUR,--En r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 votre lettre du 8 Mai et les questions que\n     vous me posez relativement \u00e0 l'incident avec M. E. Mamtchitch,\n     lorsque dans les ann\u00e9es 1876-77 nous habitions ensemble Kieff, rue\n     Proresnaya, maison Barsky, je puis vous communiquer ce qui suit.\n     Effectivement, je fus alors t\u00e9moin comme M. M., pendant qu'il\n     jouait un soir du piano quelque air m\u00e9lancolique, s'interrompait\n     brusquement (comme si apr\u00e8s avoir fortement attaqu\u00e9 le clavier, ses\n     mains s'\u00e9taient subitement affaiss\u00e9es), et lorsque je vins lui\n     demander ce qui lui \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9, il me r\u00e9pondit qu'il venait de\n     voir appara\u00eetre le fant\u00f4me de Palladia, se tenant derri\u00e8re la\n     draperie de la porte de la chambre contigue \u00e0 celle o\u00f9 se trouvait\n     le piano. Je dois ajouter que notre appartement commun formait une\n     enfilade de trois chambres, sans compter celle de l'entr\u00e9e, qui\n     occupait le milieu; je travaillais dans ma chambre, qui \u00e9tait \u00e0\n     droite de celle de l'entr\u00e9e, et je pouvais voir toute l'enfilade\n     bien \u00e9clair\u00e9e. Ce qui me regarde personnellement, je ne vis en ce\n     moment aucune figure humaine passer par les chambres de M. M., mais\n     je ne nie pas que pour le tranquilliser j'essayai d'expliquer cet\n     incident par l'entr\u00e9e de notre domestique Nikita; il se peut aussi\n     que, ne l'ayant pas trouv\u00e9 dans nos appartements, nous all\u00e2mes le\n     chercher en bas, dans la cuisine. Voil\u00e0 tout ce que je puis vous\n     dire relativement \u00e0 cet incident.\n\nW. POTOLOF.\n\nNote by Mr. Aksakoff:--\n\n\nS. P\u00c9TERSBOURG, _Le 16|28 Mai, 1891_.\n\n     Traduit des manuscrits russes de M. et Madame Mamtchitch, et de M.\n     Potolof. La premi\u00e8re partie du manuscrit de M. Mamtchitch, jusqu'\u00e0\n     la premi\u00e8re apparition de Palladia, est abr\u00e9g\u00e9.\n\n     J'avais rencontr\u00e9 M. Mamtchitch plusieurs fois, mais je n'avais\n     aucune id\u00e9e de ces apparitions constantes de Palladia. M.\n     Mamtchitch a vu aussi d'autres figures que celle de Palladia, mais\n     je n'ai pas eu le temps d'en faire un m\u00e9morandum circonstantiel.\n\nA. AKSAKOFF.\n\n\nVII. B. The account, which I quote from _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi.\np. 17, was sent in 1887 to the American Society for Psychical Research\nby Mr. F. G., of Boston. Professor Royce and Dr. Hodgson vouch for the\nhigh character and good position of the informants; and it will be seen\nthat, besides the percipient himself, his father and brother are\nfirst-hand witnesses as regards the most important point,--the effect\nproduced by a certain symbolic item in the phantom's aspect. Mr. G.\nwrites:--\n\n\n_January 11th, 1888._\n\n     SIR,--Replying to the recently published request of your Society\n     for actual occurrences of psychical phenomena, I respectfully\n     submit the following remarkable occurrence to the consideration of\n     your distinguished Society, with the assurance that the event made\n     a more powerful impression on my mind than the combined incidents\n     of my whole life. I have never mentioned it outside of my family\n     and a few intimate friends, knowing well that few would believe it,\n     or else ascribe it to some disordered state of my mind at the time;\n     but I well know I never was in better health or possessed a clearer\n     head and mind than at the time it occurred.\n\n     In 1867 my only sister, a young lady of eighteen years, died\n     suddenly of cholera in St. Louis, Mo. My attachment for her was\n     very strong, and the blow a severe one to me. A year or so after\n     her death the writer became a commercial traveller, and it was in\n     1876, while on one of my Western trips, that the event occurred.\n\n     I had \"drummed\" the city of St. Joseph, Mo., and had gone to my\n     room at the Pacific House to send in my orders, which were\n     unusually large ones, so that I was in a very happy frame of mind\n     indeed. My thoughts, of course, were about these orders, knowing\n     how pleased my house would be at my success. I had not been\n     thinking of my late sister, or in any manner reflecting on the\n     past. The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining cheerfully\n     into my room. While busily smoking a cigar and writing out my\n     orders, I suddenly became conscious that some one was sitting on my\n     left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I turned\n     and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for a brief\n     second or so looked her squarely in the face; and so sure was I\n     that it was she, that I sprang forward in delight, calling her by\n     name, and, as I did so, the apparition instantly vanished.\n     Naturally I was startled and dumbfounded, almost doubting my\n     senses; but the cigar in my mouth, and pen in hand, with the ink\n     still moist on my letter, I satisfied myself I had not been\n     dreaming and was wide awake. I was near enough to touch her, had it\n     been a physical possibility, and noted her features, expression,\n     and details of dress, etc. She appeared as if alive. Her eyes\n     looked kindly and perfectly natural into mine. Her skin was so\n     life-like that I could see the glow or moisture on its surface,\n     and, on the whole, there was no change in her appearance, otherwise\n     than when alive.\n\n     Now comes the most remarkable _confirmation_ of my statement, which\n     cannot be doubted by those who know what I state actually occurred.\n     This visitation, or whatever you may call it, so impressed me that\n     I took the next train home, and in the presence of my parents and\n     others I related what had occurred. My father, a man of rare good\n     sense and very practical, was inclined to ridicule me, as he saw\n     how earnestly I believed what I stated; but he, too, was amazed\n     when later on I told them of a bright red line or _scratch_ on the\n     right-hand side of my sister's face, which I distinctly had seen.\n     When I mentioned this my mother rose trembling to her feet and\n     nearly fainted away, and as soon as she sufficiently recovered her\n     self-possession, with tears streaming down her face, she exclaimed\n     that I had indeed seen my sister, as no living mortal but herself\n     was aware of that scratch, which she had accidentally made while\n     doing some little act of kindness after my sister's death. She said\n     she well remembered how pained she was to think she should have,\n     unintentionally, marred the features of her dead daughter, and\n     that, unknown to all, how she had carefully obliterated all traces\n     of the slight scratch with the aid of powder, etc., and that she\n     had never mentioned it to a human being from that day to this. In\n     proof, neither my father nor any of our family had detected it, and\n     positively were unaware of the incident, yet _I saw the scratch as\n     bright as if just made_. So strangely impressed was my mother, that\n     even after she had retired to rest she got up and dressed, came to\n     me and told me _she knew_ at least that I had seen my sister. A few\n     weeks later my mother died, happy in her belief she would rejoin\n     her favourite daughter in a better world.\n\nIn a further letter Mr. F. G. adds:--\n\n     There was nothing of a spiritual or ghostly nature in either the\n     form or dress of my sister, she appearing perfectly natural, and\n     dressed in clothing that she usually wore in life, and which was\n     familiar to me. From her position at the table, I could only see\n     her _from the waist up_, and her appearance and everything she wore\n     is indelibly photographed in my mind. I even had time to notice the\n     collar and little breastpin she wore, as well as the comb in her\n     hair, after the style then worn by young ladies. The dress had no\n     particular association for me or my mother, no more so than others\n     she was in the habit of wearing; but _to-day, while I have\n     forgotten all her other dresses, pins, and combs_, I could go to\n     her trunk (which we have just as she left it) and pick out the very\n     dress and ornaments she wore when she appeared to me, so well do I\n     remember it.\n\n     You are correct in understanding that I returned home earlier than\n     I had intended, as it had such an effect on me that I could hardly\n     think of any other matter; in fact, I abandoned a trip that I had\n     barely commenced, and, ordinarily, would have remained on the road\n     a month longer.\n\nMr. F. G. again writes to Dr. Hodgson, January 23rd, 1888:--\n\n     As per your request, I enclose a letter from my father which is\n     indorsed by my brother, confirming the statement I made to them of\n     the apparition I had seen. I will add that my father is one of the\n     oldest and most respected citizens of St. Louis, Mo., a retired\n     merchant, whose winter residence is at----, Ills., a few miles out\n     by rail. He is now seventy years of age, but a remarkably\n     well-preserved gentleman in body and mind, and a very learned man\n     as well. As I informed you, he is slow to believe things that\n     reason cannot explain. My brother, who indorses the statement, has\n     resided in Boston for twelve years, doing business on---- Street,\n     as per letter-head above, and the last man in the world to take\n     stock in statements without good proof. The others who were present\n     (including my mother) are now dead, or were then so young as to now\n     have but a dim remembrance of the matter.\n\n     You will note that my father refers to the \"scratch,\" and it was\n     this that puzzled all, even himself, and which we have never been\n     able to account for, further than that in some mysterious way I had\n     actually seen my sister _nine years after death_, and had\n     particularly noticed and described to my parents and family this\n     bright red scratch, and which, beyond all doubt in our minds, was\n     unknown to a soul save my mother, who had accidentally caused it.\n\n     When I made my statement, all, of course, listened and were\n     interested; but the matter would probably have passed with comments\n     that it was a freak of memory had not I asked about the scratch,\n     and the instant I mentioned it my mother was aroused as if she had\n     received an electric shock, as she had kept it secret from all, and\n     _she alone_ was able to explain it. My mother was a sincere\n     Christian lady, who was for twenty-five years superintendent of a\n     large infant class in her church, the Southern Methodist, and a\n     directress in many charitable institutions, and was highly\n     educated. No lady at the time stood higher in the city of St.\n     Louis, and she was, besides, a woman of rare good sense.\n\n     I mention these points to give you an insight into the character\n     and standing of those whose testimony, in such a case, is\n     necessary.\n\n(Signed)      F. G.\n\nFrom Mr. H. G.:--\n\n\n-----, ILLS., _January 20th, 1888_.\n\n     DEAR F.,--Yours of 16th inst. is received. In reply to your\n     questions relating to your having seen our Annie, while at St.\n     Joseph, Mo., I will state that I well remember the statement you\n     made to family on your return home. I remember your stating how she\n     looked in ordinary home dress, and particularly about the scratch\n     (or red spot) on her face, which you could not account for, but\n     which was fully explained by your mother. The spot was made while\n     adjusting something about her head while in the casket, and covered\n     with powder. All who heard you relate the phenomenal sight thought\n     it was true. You well know how sceptical I am about things which\n     reason cannot explain.\n\n(Signed)      H. G. (father).\n\n     I was present at the time and indorse the above.\n\n(Signed)      K. G. (brother).\n\nThe apparent _redness_ of the scratch on the face of the apparition goes\nnaturally enough with the look of life in the face. The phantom did not\nappear as a corpse, but as a blooming girl, and the scratch showed as it\nwould have shown if made during life.\n\nDr. Hodgson visited Mr. F. G. later, and sent us the following notes of\nhis interview:--\n\n\nST. LOUIS, MO., _April 16th, 1890_.\n\n     In conversation with Mr. F. G., now forty-three years of age, he\n     says that there was a very special sympathy between his mother,\n     sister, and himself.\n\n     When he saw the apparition he was seated at a small table, about\n     two feet in diameter, and had his left elbow on the table. The\n     scratch which he saw was on the right side of his sister's nose,\n     about three fourths of an inch long, and was a somewhat ragged\n     mark. His home at the time of the incident was in St. Louis. His\n     mother died within two weeks after the incident. His sister's face\n     was hardly a foot away from his own. The sun was shining upon it\n     through the open window. The figure disappeared like an\n     instantaneous evaporation.\n\n     Mr. G. has had another experience, but of a somewhat different\n     character. Last fall the impression persisted for some time of a\n     lady friend of his, and he could not rid himself for some time of\n     thoughts of her. He found afterwards that she died at the time of\n     the curious persistence of his impression.\n\n     Mr. G. appears to be a first-class witness.\n\nR. HODGSON.\n\nI have ranked this case _prim\u00e2 facie_ as a perception by the spirit of\nher mother's approaching death. That coincidence is too marked to be\nexplained away: the son is brought home in time to see his mother once\nmore by perhaps the only means which would have succeeded; and the\nmother herself is sustained by the knowledge that her daughter loves and\nawaits her. Mr. Podmore[226] has suggested, on the other hand, that the\ndaughter's figure was a mere projection from the mother's mind: a\nconception which has scarcely any analogy to support it; for the one\nancient case of Wesermann's projection of a female figure to a distance\n(_Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 217) remains, I think, the sole instance\nwhere an agent has generated a hallucinatory figure or group of figures\nwhich did not, at any rate, _include_ his own. I mean that he may\nspontaneously project a picture of himself as he is or dreams himself to\nbe situated, perhaps with other figures round him, but not, so far as\nour evidence goes, the single figure of some one other than himself.\nWhilst not assuming that this rule can have no exceptions, I see no\nreason for supposing that it has been transgressed in the present case.\nNay, I think that the very fact that the figure was not that of the\ncorpse with the dull mark on which the mother's regretful thoughts might\ndwell, but was that of the girl in health and happiness, with the\nsymbolic _red_ mark worn simply as a test of identity, goes far to show\nthat it was not the _mother's_ mind from whence that image came. As to\nthe spirit's own knowledge of the fate of the body after death, there\nare other cases which show, I think, that this specific form of\n_post-mortem_ perception is not unusual.\n\n\nVII. C. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. pp. 380-82.\n\nFrom Miss L. Dodson:--\n\n\n_September 14th, 1891._\n\n     On June 5th, 1887, a Sunday evening,[227] between eleven and twelve\n     at night, being awake, my name was called three times. I answered\n     twice, thinking it was my uncle, \"Come in, Uncle George, I am\n     awake,\" but the third time I recognised the voice as that of my\n     mother, who had been dead sixteen years. I said, \"Mamma!\" She then\n     came round a screen near my bedside with two children in her arms,\n     and placed them in my arms and put the bedclothes over them and\n     said, \"Lucy, promise me to take care of them, for their mother is\n     just dead.\" I said, \"Yes, mamma.\" She repeated, \"_Promise_ me to\n     take care of them.\" I replied, \"Yes, I promise you\"; and I added,\n     \"Oh, mamma, stay and speak to me, I am so wretched.\" She replied,\n     \"Not yet, my child,\" then she seemed to go round the screen again,\n     and I remained, feeling the children to be still in my arms, and\n     fell asleep. When I awoke there was nothing. Tuesday morning, June\n     7th, I received the news of my sister-in-law's death. She had given\n     birth to a child three weeks before, which I did not know till\n     after her death.\n\n     I was in bed, but not asleep, and the room was lighted by a\n     gaslight in the street outside. I was out of health, and in anxiety\n     about family troubles. My age was forty-two. I was quite alone. I\n     mentioned the circumstance to my uncle the next morning. He thought\n     I was sickening for brain fever. [I have had other experiences,\n     but] only to the extent of having felt a hand laid on my head, and\n     sometimes on my hands, at times of great trouble.\n\nLUCY DODSON.\n\nMr. C. H. Cope, who sent the case, wrote in answer to our questions:--\n\n\nBRUSSELS, _October 17th, 1891_.\n\n     I have received replies from Miss Dodson to your inquiries.\n\n     (1) \"Yes [I was] perfectly awake [at the time].\"\n\n     (2) \"Was she in anxiety about her sister-in-law?\" \"None whatever; I\n     did not know a second baby had been born; in fact, had not the\n     remotest idea of my sister-in-law's illness.\"\n\n     (3) \"Did she think at the time that the words about the children's\n     mother having just died referred to her sister-in-law? Had she two\n     children?\" \"No, I was at a total loss to imagine whose children\n     they were.\"\n\n     (4) \"I was living in Albany Street, Regent's Park, at the time. My\n     sister-in-law, as I heard afterwards, was confined at St. Andr\u00e9\n     (near Bruges), and removed to Bruges three days prior to her death.\n     (_N.B._--She had two children including the new-born baby.)\"\n\n     (5) \"My late uncle only saw business connections, and having no\n     relations or personal friends in London, save myself, would not\n     have been likely to mention the occurrence to any one.\"\n\nMr. Cope also sent us a copy of the printed announcement of the death,\nwhich Miss Dodson had received. It was dated, \"Bruges, June 7th, 1887,\"\nand gave the date of death as June 5th. He quotes from Miss Dodson's\nletter to him, enclosing it, as follows: \"[My friend], Mrs. Grange,\ntells me she saw [my sister-in-law] a couple of hours prior to her\ndeath, which took place about nine o'clock on the evening of June 5th,\nand it was between eleven and twelve o'clock the same night my mother\nbrought me the two little children.\"\n\nProfessor Sidgwick writes:--\n\n\n_November 23rd, 1892._\n\n     I have just had an interesting conversation with Miss Dodson and\n     her friend, Mrs. Grange.\n\n     Miss Dodson told me that she was not thinking of her brother or his\n     wife at this time, as her mind was absorbed by certain other\n     matters. But the brother was an object of special concern to her,\n     as her mother on her deathbed, in 1871, had specially charged\n     her--and she had promised--to take care of the other children,\n     especially this brother, who was then five years old. He had\n     married in April, 1885, and she had not seen him since, though she\n     had heard of the birth of his first child, a little girl, in\n     January, 1886; and she had never seen his wife nor heard of the\n     birth of the second child.\n\n     She is as sure as she can be that she was awake at the time of the\n     experience. She knew the time by a clock in the room and also a\n     clock outside. She heard this latter strike twelve afterwards, and\n     the apparition must have occurred after eleven, because lights were\n     out in front of the public-house. The children seemed to be with\n     her a long time; indeed, they seemed to be still with her when the\n     clock struck twelve. The room was usually light enough to see\n     things in--_e.g._ to get a glass of water, etc.--owing to the lamp\n     in the street, but the distinctness with which the vision was seen\n     is not explicable by the real light. The children were of ages\n     corresponding to those of her sister-in-law's children, _i.e._ they\n     seemed to be a little girl and a baby newly born; the sex was not\n     distinguished. She was not at all alarmed.\n\n     She heard from Mrs. Grange by letter, and afterwards orally from\n     her brother, that her sister-in-law died between eight and nine the\n     same night.\n\n     She never had any experience of the kind, or any hallucination at\n     all before: but _since_ she has occasionally felt a hand on her\n     head in trouble.\n\n     Mrs. Grange told me that she was with the sister-in-law about an\n     hour and a half before her death. She left her about seven o'clock,\n     without any particular alarm about her; though she was suffering\n     from inflammation after childbirth, and Mrs. Grange did not quite\n     like her look; still her state was not considered alarming by those\n     who were attending on her. Then about 8.30 news came to Mrs. Grange\n     in her own house that something had happened at the\n     sister-in-law's. As it was only in the next street, Mrs. Grange put\n     on her bonnet and went round to the house, and found she was dead.\n     She then wrote and told Miss Dodson.\n\n\nVII. D. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 200-205.[228]\n\nThe first report of the case appeared in _The Herald_ (Dubuque, Iowa),\nFebruary 11th, 1891, as follows:--\n\n     It will be remembered that on February 2nd, Michael Conley, a\n     farmer living near Ionia, Chickasaw County, was found dead in an\n     outhouse at the Jefferson house. He was carried to Coroner\n     Hoffmann's morgue, where, after the inquest, his body was prepared\n     for shipment to his late home. The old clothes which he wore were\n     covered with filth from the place where he was found, and they were\n     thrown outside the morgue on the ground.\n\n     His son came from Ionia, and took the corpse home. When he reached\n     there, and one of the daughters was told that her father was dead,\n     she fell into a swoon, in which she remained for several hours.\n     When at last she was brought from the swoon, she said, \"Where are\n     father's old clothes? He has just appeared to me dressed in a white\n     shirt, black clothes, and felt [mis-reported for _satin_]\n     slippers, and told me that after leaving home he sewed a large roll\n     of bills inside his grey shirt with a piece of my red dress, and\n     the money is still there.\" In a short time she fell into another\n     swoon, and when out of it demanded that somebody go to Dubuque and\n     get the clothes. She was deathly sick, and is so yet.\n\n     The entire family considered it only a hallucination, but the\n     physician advised them to get the clothes, as it might set her mind\n     at rest. The son telephoned Coroner Hoffmann, asking if the clothes\n     were still in his possession. He looked and found them in the\n     backyard, although he had supposed they were thrown in the vault,\n     as he had intended. He answered that he still had them, and on\n     being told that the son would come to get them, they were wrapped\n     in a bundle.\n\n     The young man arrived last Monday afternoon, and told Coroner\n     Hoffmann what his sister had said. Mr. Hoffmann admitted that the\n     lady had described the identical burial garb in which her father\n     was clad, even to the slippers, although she never saw him after\n     death, and none of the family had seen more than his face through\n     the coffin lid. Curiosity being fully aroused, they took the grey\n     shirt from the bundle, and within the bosom found a large roll of\n     bills sewed with a piece of red cloth. The young man said his\n     sister had a red dress exactly like it. The stitches were large and\n     irregular, and looked to be those of a man. The son wrapped up the\n     garments and took them home with him yesterday morning, filled with\n     wonder at the supernatural revelation made to his sister, who is at\n     present lingering between life and death.\n\nDr. Hodgson communicated with the proprietors of _The Herald_, and both\nthey and their reporter who had written the account stated that it was\nstrictly accurate. The coroner, Mr. Hoffmann, wrote to Dr. Hodgson on\nMarch 18th, 1891, as follows:--\n\n     In regard to the statements in the Dubuque _Herald_, about February\n     19th, about the Conley matter is more than true by my\n     investigation. I laughed and did not believe in the matter when I\n     first heard of it, until I satisfied myself by investigating and\n     seeing what I did.\n\nM. M. HOFFMANN, _County Coroner_.\n\nFurther evidence was obtained through Mr. Amos Crum, pastor of a church\nat Dubuque. The following statement was made by Mr. Brown, whom Mr. Crum\ndescribed as \"an intelligent and reliable farmer, residing about one\nmile from the Conleys.\"\n\n\nIONIA, _July 20th, 1891_.\n\n     Elizabeth Conley, the subject of so much comment in the various\n     papers, was born in Chickasaw township, Chickasaw County, Iowa, in\n     March, 1863. Her mother died the same year. Is of Irish parentage;\n     brought up, and is, a Roman Catholic; has been keeping house for\n     her father for ten years.\n\n     On the 1st day of February, 1891, her father went to Dubuque, Iowa,\n     for medical treatment, and died on the 3rd of the same month very\n     suddenly. His son was notified by telegraph the same day, and he\n     and I started the next morning after the remains, which we found in\n     charge of Coroner Hoffmann.\n\n     He had 9 dollars 75 cents, which he had taken from his pocket-book.\n     I think it was about two days after our return she had the dream or\n     vision. She claimed her father had appeared to her, and told her\n     there was a sum of money in an inside pocket of his undershirt. Her\n     brother started for Dubuque a few days afterwards, and found the\n     clothes as we had left them, and in the pocket referred to found 30\n     dollars in currency. These are the facts of the matter as near as I\n     can give them.\n\nGEORGE BROWN.\n\nMr. Crum wrote later:--\n\n\nDUBUQUE, IOWA, _August 15th, 1891_.\n\n     DEAR MR. HODGSON,--I send you in another cover a detailed account\n     of interview with the Conleys. I could not get the doctor.\n\n     I have had a long talk with Mr. Hoffmann about the Conley incident,\n     and think you have all the facts--and they are _facts_.\n\n     The girl Lizzie Conley swooned. She saw her dead father; she heard\n     from him of the money left in his old shirt; she returned to bodily\n     consciousness; she described her father's burial dress, robe,\n     shirt, and slippers exactly, though she had never seen them. She\n     described the pocket in the shirt that had been left for days in\n     the shed at the undertaker's. It was a ragged-edged piece of red\n     cloth clumsily sewn, and in this pocket was found a roll of\n     bill--35 dollars in amount--as taken out by Mr. Hoffmann in\n     presence of Pat Conley, son of the deceased, and brother of the\n     Lizzie Conley whose remarkable dream or vision is the subject of\n     inquiry.\n\nAMOS CRUM, _Past. Univ. Ch._\n\n...I herewith transcribe my questions addressed to Miss Elizabeth\n     Conley, and her replies to the same concerning her alleged dream or\n     vision....\n\n     On July 17th, about noon, I called at the Conley home near Ionia,\n     Chickasaw County, Iowa, and inquired for Elizabeth Conley. She was\n     present, and engaged in her domestic labours. When I stated the\n     object of my call, she seemed quite reluctant for a moment to\n     engage in conversation. Then she directed a lad who was present to\n     leave the room. She said she would converse with me upon the matter\n     pertaining to her father.\n\n     Q. What is your age? A. Twenty-eight.\n\n     Q. What is the state of your health? A. Not good since my father's\n     death.\n\n     Q. What was the state of your health previous to his death? A. It\n     was good. I was a healthy girl.\n\n     Q. Did you have dreams, visions, or swoons previous to your\n     father's death? A. Why, I had _dreams_. Everybody has dreams.\n\n     Q. Have you ever made discoveries or received other information\n     during your dreams or visions previous to your father's death? A.\n     No.\n\n     Q. Had there been anything unusual in your dreams or visions\n     previous to your father's death? A. No, not that I know of.\n\n     Q. Was your father in the habit of carrying considerable sums of\n     money about his person? A. Not that I knew of.\n\n     Q. Did you know _before his death_ of the pocket in the breast of\n     the shirt worn by him to Dubuque? A. No.\n\n     Q. Did you wash or prepare that shirt for him to wear on his trip\n     to Dubuque? A. No. It was a heavy woollen undershirt, and the\n     pocket was stitched inside of the breast of it.\n\n     Q. Will you recite the circumstances connected with the recovery of\n     money from clothing worn by your father at the time of his death?\n     A. (after some hesitation) When they told me that father was dead I\n     felt very sick and bad; I did not know anything. Then father came\n     to me. He had on a white shirt and black clothes and slippers. When\n     I came to, I told Pat [her brother] I had seen father. I asked him\n     (Pat) if he had brought back father's old clothes. He said, \"No,\"\n     and asked me why I wanted them. I told him father said to me he had\n     sewed a roll of bills inside of his grey shirt, in a pocket made of\n     a piece of my old red dress. I went to sleep, and father came to me\n     again. When I awoke I told Pat he must go and get the clothes.\n\n     Q. While in these swoons did you hear the ordinary conversations or\n     noises in the house about you? A. No.\n\n     Q. Did you see your father's body after it was placed in its\n     coffin? A. No; I did not see him after he left the house to go to\n     Dubuque.\n\n     Q. Have you an education? A. No.\n\n     Q. Can you read and write? A. Oh yes, I can read and write; but\n     I've not been to school much.\n\n     Q. Are you willing to write out what you have told me of this\n     strange affair? A. Why, I've told you all I know about it.\n\n     She was averse to writing or to signing a written statement. During\n     the conversation she was quite emotional, and manifested much\n     effort to suppress her feelings. She is a little more than medium\n     size, of Irish parentage, of Catholic faith, and shows by her\n     conversation that her education is limited.\n\n     Her brother, Pat Conley, corroborates all that she has recited. He\n     is a sincere and substantial man, and has no theory upon which to\n     account for the strange facts that have come to his knowledge. In\n     his presence Coroner Hoffmann, in Dubuque, found the shirt with its\n     pocket of red cloth stitched on the inside with long, straggling,\n     and awkward stitches, just as a dim-sighted old man or an awkward\n     boy might sew it there. The pocket was about 7 [seven] inches deep,\n     and in the pocket of that dirty old shirt that had lain in\n     Hoffmann's back room was a roll of bills amounting to 35 dollars.\n     When the shirt was found with the pocket, as described by his\n     sister after her swoon, and the money as told her by the old man\n     _after his death_, Pat Conley seemed dazed and overcome by the\n     mystery. Hoffmann says the girl, after her swoon, described\n     exactly the burial suit, shirt, coat or robe, and satin slippers\n     in which the body was prepared for burial. She even described\n     minutely the slippers, which were of a new pattern that had not\n     been in the market here, and which the girl could never have seen a\n     sample of; and she had not seen, and never saw, the body of her\n     father after it was placed in the coffin, and if she had seen it\n     she could not have seen his feet \"in the nice black satin slippers\"\n     which she described....\n\nAMOS CRUM, _Pastor Univ. Church_.\n\nIf we may accept the details of this narrative, which seems to have been\ncarefully and promptly investigated, we find that the phantasm\ncommunicates two sets of facts: one of them known only to strangers (the\ndress in which he was buried), and one of them known only to himself\n(the existence of the inside pocket and the money therein). In\ndiscussing from what mind these images originate it is, of course,\nimportant to note whether any living minds, known or unknown to the\npercipient, were aware of the facts thus conveyed.\n\nThere are few cases where the communication between the percipient and\nthe deceased seems to have been more direct than here. The hard, prosaic\nreality of the details of the message need not, of course, surprise us.\nOn the contrary, the father's sudden death in the midst of earthly\nbusiness would at once retain his attention on money matters and\nfacilitate his impressing them on the daughter's mind. One wishes that\nmore could be learned of the daughter's condition when receiving the\nmessage. It seems to have resembled trance rather than dream.[229]\n\nOne other case in this group I must quote at length. It illustrates the\nfact that the cases of deepest interest are often the hardest for the\ninquirer to get hold of.\n\nFrom the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. pp. 385-86.\n\nThe account of the percipient, Baron B. von Driesen, was written in\nNovember, 1890, and has been translated from the Russian by Mr. M.\nPetrovo-Solovovo, who sent us the case.\n\n     [Baron von Driesen begins by saying that he has never believed and\n     does not believe in the supernatural, and that he is more inclined\n     to attribute the apparition he saw to his \"excited fancy\" than to\n     anything else. After these preliminary remarks he proceeds as\n     follows:--]\n\n     I must tell you that my father-in-law, M. N. J. Ponomareff, died in\n     the country. This did not happen at once, but after a long and\n     painful illness, whose sharp phases had obliged my wife and myself\n     to join him long before his death. I had not been on good terms\n     with M. Ponomareff. Different circumstances, which are out of place\n     in this narrative, had estranged us from each other, and these\n     relations did not change until his death. He died very quietly,\n     after having given his blessing to all his family, including\n     myself. A liturgy for the rest of his soul was to be celebrated on\n     the ninth day. I remember very well how I went to bed between one\n     and two o'clock on the eve of that day, and how I read the Gospel\n     before falling asleep. My wife was sleeping in the same room. It\n     was perfectly quiet. I had just put out the candle when footsteps\n     were heard in the adjacent room--a sound of slippers shuffling, I\n     might say--which ceased before the door of our bedroom. I called\n     out, \"Who is there?\" No answer. I struck one match, then another,\n     and when after the stifling smell of the sulphur the fire had\n     lighted up the room, I saw M. Ponomareff standing before the closed\n     door. Yes, it was he, in his blue dressing-gown, lined with\n     squirrel furs and only half-buttoned, so that I could see his white\n     waistcoat and his black trousers. It was he undoubtedly. I was not\n     frightened. They say that, as a rule, one is _not_ frightened when\n     seeing a ghost, as ghosts possess the quality of paralysing fear.\n\n     \"What do you want?\" I asked my father-in-law. M. Ponomareff made\n     two steps forward, stopped before my bed, and said, \"Basil\n     Feodorovitch, I have acted wrongly towards you. Forgive me! Without\n     this I do not feel at rest there.\" He was pointing to the ceiling\n     with his left hand, whilst holding out his right to me. I seized\n     this hand, which was long and cold, shook it, and answered,\n     \"Nicholas Ivanovitch, God is my witness that I have never had\n     anything against you.\"\n\n     [The ghost of] my father-in-law bowed [or bent down], moved away,\n     and went through the opposite door into the billiard-room, where he\n     disappeared. I looked after him for a moment, crossed myself, put\n     out the candle, and fell asleep with the sense of joy which a man\n     who has done his duty must feel. The morning came. My wife's\n     brothers, as well as our neighbours and the peasants, assembled,\n     and the liturgy was celebrated by our confessor, the Rev. Father\n     Basil. But when all was over, the same Father Basil led me aside,\n     and said to me mysteriously, \"Basil Feodorovitch, I have got\n     something to say to you in private.\" My wife having come near us at\n     this moment, the clergyman repeated his wish. I answered, \"Father\n     Basil, I have no secrets from my wife; please tell us what you\n     wished to tell me alone.\"\n\n     Then Father Basil, who is living till now in the Koi parish of the\n     district of Kashin [Gov. of Tver], said to me in a rather solemn\n     voice, \"This night at three o'clock Nicholas Ivanovitch\n     [Ponomareff] appeared to me and begged of me to reconcile him to\n     you.\"\n\n(Signed)      BARON BASIL DRIESEN.\n\nMr. Solovovo adds:--\n\n     The Baroness von Driesen is now dead, so that her evidence cannot\n     be obtained....\n\n     I also saw Baron Basil von Driesen himself, and spoke with him\n     about M. Ponomareff's ghost. He stated to me that if he were going\n     to die to-morrow, he should still be ready to swear to the fact of\n     his having seen the apparition, or something to this effect. I\n     asked him to obtain for me the clergyman's account, to whom I had\n     already written before seeing Baron von Driesen (though not knowing\n     him), but without receiving an answer--which is but natural, after\n     all. Baron von Driesen kindly promised to procure for me the\n     account in question, as it was then his intention to visit\n     different estates in Central Russia, including the one that had\n     belonged to M. Ponomareff.\n\n     Baron Nicholas von Driesen--Baron Basil's son--called on me a few\n     days ago. He stated, with regard to the case in question, that it\n     was necessary to see the clergyman in order to induce him to write\n     an account of what had happened to him.\n\nBaron N. von Driesen afterwards sent a note to Mr. Solovovo, stating\nthat his grandfather (M. Ponomareff) died on November 21st, 1860; and\nthe testimony of the priest was obtained later. Mr. Solovovo, who had\nalready ascertained independently that the Rev. Basil Bajenoff had been\na priest at Koi in the year 1861, and was there still, writes:--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe following is the translation of the Rev. Basil Bajenoff's\nstatement:--\n\n\n\"KOI, _July 23rd [August 4th], 1891_.\n\n     \"To the account I heard from Baron B. F. Driesen in the presence of\n     his wife's brothers, MM. N. N., A. N., and I. N. Ponomareff, as to\n     how M. Nicholas I. Ponomareff appeared to him in the night of\n     November 29-30th, 1860, having died nine days before, and begged of\n     the Baron to be reconciled to him, I may add that to me also did he\n     appear _at the same time_ and with the same request, which fact,\n     before hearing the Baron's narrative, I communicated to all those\n     present at the liturgy for the rest of the soul of the late M. N.\n     I. Ponomareff.\n\n\"(Signed)      BASIL BAJENOFF,\n\"Priest of Trinity Church, at Koi, District of Kashin,\nGovernment of Tver.\"\n\n\nVII. E. The following is quoted from the \"Report on the Census of\nHallucinations\" in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. p. 284.\n\nFrom Countess Eug\u00e9nie Kapnist:--\n\n\n_June 24th, 1891._\n\n     A Talta, en F\u00e9vrier, 1889, nous f\u00eemes la connaissance de M. P. et\n     de sa femme, passant la soir\u00e9e chez des amis communs qui avaient\n     tenu \u00e0 nous r\u00e9unir. A cette \u00e9poque, M. P. souffrait d\u00e9j\u00e0 d'une\n     phthisie assez avanc\u00e9e; il venait de perdre, \u00e0 P\u00e9tersbourg, son\n     fr\u00e8re, atteint de la m\u00eame maladie. On pria ma soeur de faire un\n     peu de musique, et elle choisit au hasard le Pr\u00e9lude de\n     Mendelssohn. A mon \u00e9tonnement je vis M. P. que nous ne connaissions\n     que de ce soir, aller, tr\u00e8s \u00e9motionn\u00e9, prendre place aupr\u00e8s du\n     piano, et suivre avec une esp\u00e8ce d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 le jeu de ma soeur.\n     Lorsqu'elle eut fini, il dit que pour quelques instants elle venait\n     de faire ressusciter son fr\u00e8re, ex\u00e9cutant absolument de la m\u00eame\n     mani\u00e8re ce morceau, qu'il jouait fr\u00e9quemment. Depuis, en voyant ma\n     soeur, il aimait particuli\u00e8rement \u00e0 causer avec elle. Je puis\n     certifier ainsi qu'elle une conversation que nous e\u00fbmes \u00e0 une\n     soir\u00e9e, au mois de Mars. Nous parlions de la mort, chose fr\u00e9quente\n     \u00e0 Talta, toujours peupl\u00e9e de malades:--\"Savez-vous,\" disait-il \u00e0 ma\n     soeur, \"il me semble toujours que mon esprit est tr\u00e8s proche du\n     v\u00f4tre; j'ai la certitude de vous avoir d\u00e9j\u00e0 connue; nous avons dans\n     la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 une preuve que ce n'est pas en ce monde--ce sera que je\n     vous aurais vue durant quelqu'autre vie pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente\" (il \u00e9tait un\n     peu spirite). \"Ainsi donc, si je meurs avant vous, ce qui est bien\n     probable, vu ma maladie, je reviendrai vers vous, si cela m'est\n     possible, et je vous appara\u00eetrai de fa\u00e7on \u00e0 ne pas vous effrayer\n     d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ablement.\" Ma soeur lui r\u00e9pondit, prenant la chose tr\u00e8s au\n     s\u00e9rieux, qu'elle lui rendrait la pareille si elle mourait la\n     premi\u00e8re, et j'\u00e9tais t\u00e9moin de cette promesse mutuelle.\n\n     N\u00e9anmoins nous f\u00eemes \u00e0 peine connaissance de maison; nous nous\n     rencontrions parfois chez des amis communs, et nous le voyions\n     souvent se promener sur le quai dans un paletot couleur noisette\n     qui excitait notre hilarit\u00e9 et qui nous resta dans la m\u00e9moire je ne\n     sais plus pourquoi. Au mois de Mai, nous partions de Talta, et\n     depuis nous e\u00fbmes tant d'impressions diverses, nous v\u00eemes tant de\n     monde, que jusqu'\u00e0 l'hiver suivant nous oubli\u00e2mes compl\u00e9tement M.\n     P. et sa femme, qui repr\u00e9sentaient pour nous des connaissances\n     comme on en a par centaines dans la vie.\n\n     Nous \u00e9tions \u00e0 P\u00e9tersbourg. Le 11 Mars, c'\u00e9tait un lundi de Car\u00eame\n     en 1890, nous all\u00e2mes au th\u00e9\u00e2tre voir une repr\u00e9sentation de la\n     troupe des Meiningner. Je crois qu'on donnait _Le Marchand de\n     Venise_. Mlle. B. \u00e9tait avec nous, venue de Tsarsko\u00e9 \u00e0 cette\n     occasion. La pi\u00e8ce termin\u00e9e, nous n'e\u00fbmes que le temps de rentrer \u00e0\n     la maison changer de toilette, apr\u00e8s quoi nous accompagn\u00e2mes Mlle.\n     B. \u00e0 la gare. Elle partait avec le dernier train, qui quitte pour\n     Tsarsko\u00e9 S\u00e9lo \u00e0 1 heure de la nuit. Nous l'install\u00e2mes en wagon, et\n     ne l'y laiss\u00e2mes qu'apr\u00e8s la seconde cloche de d\u00e9part.\n\n     Notre domestique allait bien en avant de nous, afin de retrouver\n     notre voiture, de mani\u00e8re que, gagnant le perron, nous la trouv\u00e2mes\n     avanc\u00e9e qui nous attendait. Ma soeur s'assit la premi\u00e8re; moi je\n     la fis attendre, descendant plus doucement les marches de\n     l'escalier; le domestique tenait la porti\u00e8re du landau ouverte. Je\n     montai \u00e0 demi, sur le marchepied, et soudain je m'arr\u00eatai dans\n     cette pose, tellement surprise que je ne compris plus ce qui\n     m'arrivait. Il faisait sombre dans la voiture, et pourtant en face\n     de ma soeur, la regardant, je vis dans un petit jour gris qu'on\n     e\u00fbt dit factice, s'\u00e9claircissant vers le point qui attachait le\n     plus mes yeux, une figure \u00e0 la silhouette \u00e9mouss\u00e9e, diaphane,\n     plut\u00f4t qu'ind\u00e9cise. Cette vision dura un instant, pendant lequel,\n     pourtant, mes yeux prirent connaissance des moindres d\u00e9tails de ce\n     visage, qui me sembla connu: des traits assez pointus, une raie un\n     peu de c\u00f4t\u00e9, un nez prononc\u00e9, un menton tr\u00e8s maigre \u00e0 barbe rare et\n     d'un blond fonc\u00e9. Ce qui me frappe, lorsque j'y pense \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent,\n     c'est d'avoir vu les diff\u00e9rentes couleurs, malgr\u00e9 que la lueur\n     gris\u00e2tre, qui \u00e9clairait \u00e0 peine l'inconnu, e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 insuffisante\n     pour les distinguer dans un cas normal. Il \u00e9tait sans chapeau, et\n     en m\u00eame temps dans un paletot comme on en porte au sud--de couleur\n     plut\u00f4t claire--noisette. Toute sa personne avait un cachet de\n     grande fatigue et de maigreur.\n\n     Le domestique, tr\u00e8s \u00e9tonn\u00e9 de ne pas me voir monter, arr\u00eat\u00e9e ainsi\n     sur le marchepied, crut que j'avais march\u00e9 dans ma robe et m'aida \u00e0\n     m'asseoir, pendant que je demandais \u00e0 ma soeur, en prenant place\n     \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'elle, si c'\u00e9tait bien notre voiture? A tel point j'avais\n     perdu la t\u00eate, ayant senti un vrai engourdissement de cerveau en\n     voyant cet \u00e9tranger install\u00e9 en face d'elle, je ne m'\u00e9tais pas\n     rendu compte que, dans le cas d'une pr\u00e9sence r\u00e9elle d'un semblable\n     vis-\u00e0-vis, ni ma soeur, ni le valet de pied ne resteraient si\n     calmement \u00e0 l'envisager. Lorsque je fus assise, je ne vis plus\n     rien, et je demandais \u00e0 ma soeur:--\"N'as-tu rien vu en face de\n     toi?\" \"Rien du tout, et quelle id\u00e9e as-tu eue de demander, en\n     entrant dans la voiture, si c'\u00e9tait bien la n\u00f4tre?\" r\u00e9pondit-elle\n     en riant. Alors, je lui racontais tout ce qui pr\u00e9c\u00e9de, d\u00e9crivant\n     minutieusement ma vision. \"Quelle figure connue,\" disait-elle, \"et\n     \u00e0 paletot noisette, cette raie de c\u00f4t\u00e9, o\u00f9 donc l'avons nous vue?\n     Pourtant nul ne ressemble ici \u00e0 ta description\"; et nous nous\n     creusions la t\u00eate sans rien trouver. Rentr\u00e9es \u00e0 la maison, nous\n     racont\u00e2mes ce fait \u00e0 notre m\u00e8re; ma description la fit aussi\n     souvenir vaguement d'un visage analogue. Le lendemain soir (12\n     Mars) un jeune homme de notre connaissance, M. M. S., vint nous\n     voir. Je lui r\u00e9p\u00e9tais aussi l'incident qui nous \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9. Nous\n     en parl\u00e2mes beaucoup, mais inutilement; je ne pouvais toujours pas\n     appliquer le nom voulu \u00e0 la personnalit\u00e9 de ma vision, tout en me\n     souvenant fort bien avoir vu un visage tout pareil parmi mes\n     nombreuses connaissances; mais o\u00f9 et \u00e0 quelle \u00e9poque? Je ne me\n     souvenais de rien, avec ma mauvaise m\u00e9moire qui me fait souvent\n     d\u00e9faut, \u00e0 ce sujet. Quelques jours plus tard, nous \u00e9tions chez la\n     grandm\u00e8re de M. M. S.:--\"Savez-vous,\" nous dit-elle, \"quelle triste\n     nouvelle je viens de recevoir de Talta? M. P. vient de mourir, mais\n     on ne me donne pas de d\u00e9tails.\" Ma soeur et moi, nous nous\n     regard\u00e2mes. A ce nom, la figure pointue et le paletot noisette\n     retrouv\u00e8rent leur possesseur. Ma soeur reconnut en m\u00eame temps que\n     moi, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 ma description pr\u00e9cise. Lorsque M. M. S. entra, je le\n     priai de chercher dans les vieux journaux la date exacte de cette\n     mort. Le d\u00e9c\u00e8s \u00e9tait marqu\u00e9 au 14 du mois de Mars, donc, deux jours\n     _apr\u00e8s_ la vision que j'avais eue. J'\u00e9crivis \u00e0 Talta pour avoir des\n     renseignements. On me r\u00e9pondit qu'il gardait le lit depuis le 24\n     Novembre et qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 depuis dans un \u00e9tat de faiblesse\n     extr\u00eame, mais le sommeil ne l'avait point quitt\u00e9; il dormait si\n     longtemps et si profond\u00e9ment, m\u00eame durant les derni\u00e8res nuits de\n     son existence, que cela faisait esp\u00e9rer une am\u00e9lioration. Nous nous\n     \u00e9tonnions de ce que j'aie vu M. P., malgr\u00e9 sa promesse de se\n     montrer \u00e0 ma soeur. Mais je dois ajouter ici qu'avant le fait\n     d\u00e9crit ci-dessus, j'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 voyante un certain nombre de fois,\n     mais cette vision est bien celle que j'ai distingu\u00e9e le plus\n     nettement, avec des d\u00e9tails minutieux, et avec les teintes diverses\n     du visage humain, et m\u00eame du v\u00eatement.\n\nCOMTESSE EUG\u00c9NIE KAPNIST.\nCOMTESSE INA KAPNIST.\n\nThe second signature is that of the sister who was present at the time.\n\nMr. Michael Petrovo-Solovovo, who sent us the case, writes:--\n\n     I have much pleasure in certifying that the fact of Countess\n     Kapnist's vision was mentioned, among others, to myself before the\n     news of Mr. P.'s death came to Petersburg. I well remember seeing\n     an announcement of his demise in the papers.\n\n\nVII. F. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 522, footnote. The\naccount was written down, a few months after the occurrence, from the\ndictation of the percipient--Sister Bertha, Superior of the House of\nMercy at Bovey Tracy, Newton Abbot--who read it through on December\n29th, 1885, pronounced it correct, and signed it.\n\n     On the night of the 10th of November, 1861 (I do not know the exact\n     hour), I was up in my bed watching, because there was a person not\n     quite well in the next room. I heard a voice, which I recognised at\n     once as familiar to me, and at first thought of my sister. It said,\n     in the brightest and most cheerful tone, \"I am here with you.\" I\n     answered, looking and seeing nothing, \"Who are you?\" The voice\n     said, \"You mustn't know yet.\" I heard nothing more, and saw\n     nothing, and am certain that the door was not opened or shut. I was\n     not in the least frightened, and felt convinced that it was Lucy's\n     [Miss Lucy Gambier Parry's] voice. I have never doubted it from\n     that moment. I had not heard of her being worse; the last account\n     had been good, and I was expecting to hear that she was at Torquay.\n     In the course of the next day (the 11th), mother told me that she\n     had died on the morning of the 10th, rather more than twelve hours\n     before I heard her voice.\n\nThe narrator informs us that she has never in her life experienced any\nother hallucination of the senses. Mrs. Gambier Parry, of Highnam Court,\nGloucester, step-mother and cousin of the \"Lucy\" of the narrative,\nwrites:--\n\n     Sister Bertha (her name is Bertha Foertsch) had been living for\n     many years as German governess to Lucy Anna Gambier Parry, and was\n     her dearest friend. She came to us at once on hearing of Lucy's\n     death, and told me of the mysterious occurrence of the night\n     before.\n\n\nVII. G. The following case is in some respects one of the most\nremarkable and best authenticated instances of \"haunting\" on record,\nalthough, as will be seen, the evidence for the identity of the\napparition is inconclusive. The case was fully described in a paper\nentitled \"Record of a Haunted House,\" by Miss R. C. Morton, in\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 311-332. Besides the account of the\nprincipal percipient, Miss R. C. Morton, the paper contains independent\nfirst-hand statements from six other witnesses,--a friend, Miss\nCampbell, a sister and brother of Miss Morton's who lived in the house,\na married sister who visited there, and two former servants; also plans\nof the whole house. For the full details I must refer the reader to the\noriginal paper; I have space here only for abbreviated extracts from\nMiss Morton's account.\n\nAn account of the case first came into my hands in December, 1884, and\nthis with Miss Morton's letters to her friend, Miss Campbell, are the\nearliest written records. On May 1st, 1886, I called upon Captain Morton\nat the \"haunted house,\" and afterwards visited him at intervals, and\ntook notes of what he told me. I also saw Miss Morton and Miss E.\nMorton, and the two former servants whose accounts are given in Miss\nMorton's paper. The phenomena as seen or heard by all the witnesses were\nvery uniform in character, even in the numerous instances where there\nhad been no previous communication between the percipients. Miss Morton\nis a lady of scientific training, and was at the time her account was\nwritten (in April, 1892) preparing to be a physician. The name \"Morton\"\nis substituted for the real family name. With that exception the names\nand initials are the true ones.\n\nAfter describing the house and garden, Miss Morton proceeds:--\n\n     It was built about the year 1860; the first occupant was Mr. S., an\n     Anglo-Indian, who lived in it for about sixteen years. During this\n     time, in the month of August, year uncertain, he lost his wife, to\n     whom he was passionately attached, and to drown his grief took to\n     drinking. About two years later, Mr. S. married again. His second\n     wife, a Miss I. H., was in hopes of curing him of his intemperate\n     habits, but instead she also took to drinking, and their married\n     life was embittered by constant quarrels, frequently resulting in\n     violent scenes. The chief subjects of dispute were the management\n     of the children (two girls, and either one or two boys, all quite\n     young) of the first Mrs. S., and the possession of her jewellery,\n     to preserve which for her children, Mr. S. had some of the boards\n     in the small front sitting-room taken up by a local carpenter and\n     the jewels inserted in the receptacle so formed. Finally, a few\n     months before Mr. S.'s death, on July 14th, 1876, his wife\n     separated from him and went to live in Clifton. She was not present\n     at the time of his death, nor, as far as is known, was she ever at\n     the house afterwards. She died on September 23rd, 1878.\n\n     After Mr. S.'s death the house was bought by Mr. L., an elderly\n     gentleman, who died rather suddenly within six months of going into\n     it. The house then remained empty for some years--probably four.\n\n     During this time there is no direct evidence of haunting, but when\n     inquiry was made later on much hearsay evidence was brought\n     forward. In April 1882, the house was let by the representatives of\n     the late Mr. L. to Captain Morton, and it is during his tenancy\n     (not yet terminated) that the appearances recorded have taken\n     place.\n\n     The family consists of Captain M. himself; his wife, who is a great\n     invalid; neither of whom saw anything; a married daughter, Mrs. K.,\n     then about twenty-six, who was only a visitor from time to time,\n     sometimes with, but more often without, her husband; four unmarried\n     daughters, myself, then aged nineteen, who was the chief percipient\n     and now give the chief account of the apparition; E. Morton, then\n     aged eighteen; L. and M. Morton, then fifteen and thirteen; two\n     sons, one of sixteen, who was absent during the greater part of the\n     time when the apparition was seen; the other, then six years old.\n\n     My father took the house in March 1882, none of us having then\n     heard of anything unusual about the house. We moved in towards the\n     end of April, and it was not until the following June that I first\n     saw the apparition.\n\n     I had gone up to my room, but was not yet in bed, when I heard some\n     one at the door, and went to it, thinking it might be my mother. On\n     opening the door, I saw no one; but on going a few steps along the\n     passage, I saw the figure of a tall lady, dressed in black,\n     standing at the head of the stairs. After a few moments she\n     descended the stairs, and I followed for a short distance, feeling\n     curious what it could be. I had only a small piece of candle, and\n     it suddenly burnt itself out; and being unable to see more, I went\n     back to my room.\n\n     The figure was that of a tall lady, dressed in black of a soft\n     woollen material, judging from the slight sound in moving. The face\n     was hidden in a handkerchief held in the right hand. This is all I\n     noticed then; but on further occasions, when I was able to observe\n     her more closely, I saw the upper part of the left side of the\n     forehead, and a little of the hair above. Her left hand was nearly\n     hidden by her sleeve and a fold of her dress. As she held it down a\n     portion of a widow's cuff was visible on both wrists, so that the\n     whole impression was that of a lady in widow's weeds. There was no\n     cap on the head but a general effect of blackness suggests a\n     bonnet, with a long veil or a hood.\n\n     During the next two years--from 1882 to 1884--I saw the figure\n     about half-a-dozen times; at first at long intervals, and\n     afterwards at shorter, but I only mentioned these appearances to\n     one friend, who did not speak of them to any one. During this\n     period, as far as we know, there were only three appearances to any\n     one else.\n\n     1. In the summer of 1882 to my sister, Mrs. K., when the figure was\n     thought to be that of a Sister of Mercy who had called at the\n     house, and no further curiosity was aroused. She was coming down\n     the stairs rather late for dinner at 6.30, it being then quite\n     light, when she saw the figure cross the hall in front of her, and\n     pass into the drawing-room. She then asked the rest of us, already\n     seated at dinner, \"Who was that Sister of Mercy whom I have just\n     seen going into the drawing-room?\" She was told there was no such\n     person, and a servant was sent to look; but the drawing-room was\n     empty, and she was sure no one had come in. Mrs. K. persisted that\n     she had seen a tall figure in black, with some white about it; but\n     nothing further was thought of the matter.\n\n     2. In the autumn of 1883 it was seen by the housemaid about 10\n     P.M., she declaring that some one had got into the house, her\n     description agreeing fairly with what I had seen; but as on\n     searching no one was found, her story received no credit.\n\n     3. On or about December 18th, 1883, it was seen in the drawing-room\n     by my brother and another little boy. They were playing outside on\n     the terrace when they saw the figure in the drawing-room close to\n     the window, and ran in to see who it could be that was crying so\n     bitterly. They found no one in the drawing-room, and the\n     parlour-maid told them that no one had come into the house.\n\n     After the first time, I followed the figure several times\n     downstairs into the drawing-room, where she remained a variable\n     time, generally standing to the right hand side of the bow window.\n     From the drawing-room she went along the passage towards the garden\n     door, where she always disappeared.\n\n     The first time I spoke to her was on January 29th, 1884. \"I opened\n     the drawing-room door softly and went in, standing just by it. She\n     came in past me and walked to the sofa and stood still there, so I\n     went up to her and asked her if I could help her. She moved, and I\n     thought she was going to speak, but she only gave a slight gasp and\n     moved towards the door. Just by the door I spoke to her again, but\n     she seemed as if she were quite unable to speak. She walked into\n     the hall, then by the side door she seemed to disappear as before.\"\n     (Quoted from a letter written on January 31st.) In May and June,\n     1884, I tried some experiments, fastening strings with marine glue\n     across the stairs at different heights from the ground--of which I\n     give a more detailed account later on.\n\n     I also attempted to touch her, but she always eluded me. It was not\n     that there was nothing there to touch, but that she always seemed\n     to be _beyond_ me, and if followed into a corner, simply\n     disappeared.\n\n     During these two years the only _noises_ I heard were those of\n     slight pushes against my bedroom door, accompanied by footsteps;\n     and if I looked out on hearing these sounds, I invariably saw the\n     figure. \"Her footstep is very light, you can hardly hear it, except\n     on the linoleum, and then only like a person walking softly with\n     thin boots on.\" (Letter on January 31st, 1884.) The appearances\n     during the next two months--July and August, 1884--became much more\n     frequent; indeed they were then at their maximum, from which time\n     they seem gradually to have decreased, until now they seem to have\n     ceased.\n\n     Of these two months I have a short record in a set of journal\n     letters written at the time to a friend. On July 21st I find the\n     following account. \"I went into the drawing-room, where my father\n     and sisters were sitting about nine in the evening, and sat down on\n     a couch close to the bow window. A few minutes after, as I sat\n     reading, I saw the figure come in at the open door, cross the room\n     and take up a position close behind the couch where I was. I was\n     astonished that no one else in the room saw her, as she was so very\n     distinct to me. My youngest brother, who had before seen her, was\n     not in the room. She stood behind the couch for about half-an-hour,\n     and then as usual walked to the door. I went after her, on the\n     excuse of getting a book, and saw her pass along the hall, until\n     she came to the garden door, where she disappeared. I spoke to her\n     as she passed the foot of the stairs, but she did not answer,\n     although as before she stopped and seemed as though _about_ to\n     speak.\" On July 31st, some time after I had gone up to bed, my\n     second sister E., who had remained downstairs talking in another\n     sister's room, came to me saying that some one had passed her on\n     the stairs. I tried then to persuade her that it was one of the\n     servants, but next morning found it could not have been so, as none\n     of them had been out of their rooms at that hour, and E.'s more\n     detailed description tallied with what I had already seen.\n\n     On the night of August 1st, I again saw the figure. I heard the\n     footsteps outside on the landing about 2 A.M. I got up at once, and\n     went outside. She was then at the end of the landing at the top of\n     the stairs, with her side view towards me. She stood there some\n     minutes, then went downstairs, stopping again when she reached the\n     hall below. I opened the drawing-room door and she went in, walked\n     across the room to the couch in the bow window, stayed there a\n     little, then came out of the room, went along the passage, and\n     disappeared by the garden door. I spoke to her again, but she did\n     not answer.\n\n     On the night of August 2nd the footsteps were heard by my three\n     sisters and by the cook, all of whom slept on the top landing--also\n     by my married sister, Mrs. K., who was sleeping on the floor below.\n     They all said the next morning that they had heard them very\n     plainly pass and repass their doors. The cook was a middle-aged and\n     very sensible person; on my asking her the following morning if any\n     of the servants had been out of their rooms the night before, after\n     coming up to bed, she told me that she had heard these footsteps\n     before, and that she had seen the figure on the stairs one night\n     when going down to the kitchen to fetch hot water after the\n     servants had come up to bed. She described it as a lady in widow's\n     dress, tall and slight, with her face hidden in a handkerchief held\n     in her right hand. Unfortunately we have since lost sight of this\n     servant; she left us about a year afterwards on her mother's death,\n     and we cannot now trace her. She also saw the figure outside the\n     kitchen windows on the terrace-walk, she herself being in the\n     kitchen; it was then about eleven in the morning, but having no\n     note of the occurrence, I cannot now remember whether this\n     appearance was subsequent to the one above mentioned.\n\n     These footsteps are very characteristic, and are not at all like\n     those of any of the people in the house; they are soft and rather\n     slow, though decided and even. My sisters would not go out on the\n     landing after hearing them pass, nor would the servants, but each\n     time when I have gone out after hearing them, I have seen the\n     figure there.\n\n     On August 5th I told my father about her and what we had seen and\n     heard. He was much astonished, not having seen or heard anything\n     himself at that time--neither then had my mother, but she is\n     slightly deaf, and is an invalid. He made inquiries of the landlord\n     (who then lived close by) as to whether he knew of anything unusual\n     about the house, as he had himself lived in it for a short time,\n     but he replied that he had only been there for three months, and\n     had never seen anything unusual....\n\n     On the evening of August 11th we were sitting in the drawing-room\n     with the gas lit but the shutters not shut, the light outside\n     getting dusk, my brothers and a friend having just given up tennis,\n     finding it too dark; my eldest sister, Mrs. K., and myself both saw\n     the figure on the balcony outside, looking in at the window. She\n     stood there some minutes, then walked to the end and back again,\n     after which she seemed to disappear. She soon after came into the\n     drawing-room, when I saw her, but my sister did not. The same\n     evening my sister E. saw her on the stairs as she came out of a\n     room on the upper landing.\n\n     The following evening, August 12th, while coming up the garden, I\n     walked towards the orchard, when I saw the figure cross the\n     orchard, go along the carriage drive in front of the house, and in\n     at the open side door, across the hall and into the drawing-room, I\n     following. She crossed the drawing-room and took up her usual\n     position behind the couch in the bow window. My father came in soon\n     after, and I told him she was there. He could not see the figure,\n     but went up to where I showed him she was. She then went swiftly\n     round behind him, across the room, out of the door, and along the\n     hall, disappearing as usual near the garden door, we both following\n     her. We looked out into the garden, having first to unlock the\n     garden door, which my father had locked as he came through, but saw\n     nothing of her.\n\n     On August 12th, about 8 P.M., and still quite light, my sister E.\n     was singing in the back drawing-room. I heard her stop abruptly,\n     come out into the hall, and call me. She said she had seen the\n     figure in the drawing-room close behind her as she sat at the\n     piano. I went back into the room with her and saw the figure in the\n     bow window in her usual place. I spoke to her several times, but\n     had no answer. She stood there for about ten minutes or a quarter\n     of an hour; then went across the room to the door, and along the\n     passage, disappearing in the same place by the garden door.\n\n     My sister M. then came in from the garden, saying she had seen her\n     coming up the kitchen steps outside. We all three then went out\n     into the garden, when Mrs. K. called out from a window on the first\n     storey that she had just seen her pass across the lawn in front and\n     along the carriage drive towards the orchard. This evening, then,\n     altogether four people saw her. My father was then away, and my\n     youngest brother was out.\n\n     On the morning of August 14th the parlour-maid saw her in the\n     dining-room, about 8.30 A.M., having gone into the room to open the\n     shutters. The room is very sunny, and even with all the shutters\n     closed it is quite light, the shutters not fitting well, and\n     letting sunlight through the cracks. She had opened one shutter,\n     when, on turning round, she saw the figure cross the room. We were\n     all on the look-out for her that evening, but saw nothing; in fact,\n     whenever we had made arrangements to watch, and were especially\n     expecting her, we never saw anything. This servant, who afterwards\n     married, was interviewed by Mr Myers at her own house....\n\n     On August 19th we all went to the seaside, and were away a month,\n     leaving three servants in the house.\n\n     When we came back they said that they had heard footsteps and\n     noises frequently, but as the stair-carpets were up part of the\n     time and the house was empty, many of these noises were doubtless\n     due to natural causes, though by them attributed to the figure.\n\n     The cook also spoke of seeing the figure in the garden, standing by\n     a stone vase on the lawn behind the house.\n\n     During the rest of that year and the following, 1885, the\n     apparition was frequently seen through each year, especially during\n     July, August, and September. In these months the three deaths took\n     place, viz.:--Mr. S., on July 14th, 1876; the first Mrs. S. in\n     August, and the second Mrs. S. on September 23rd.\n\n     The apparitions were of exactly the same type, seen in the same\n     places and by the same people, at varying intervals.\n\n     The footsteps continued, and were heard by several visitors and new\n     servants who had taken the places of those who had left, as well as\n     by myself, four sisters and brother; in all by about twenty people,\n     many of them not having previously heard of the apparitions or\n     sounds.\n\n     Other sounds were also heard in addition which seemed gradually to\n     increase in intensity. They consisted of walking up and down on the\n     second-floor landing, of bumps against the doors of the bedrooms,\n     and of the handles of the doors turning....\n\n     During this year, at Mr. Myers's suggestion, I kept a photographic\n     camera constantly ready to try to photograph the figure, but on the\n     few occasions I was able to do so, I got no result; at night,\n     usually only by candle-light, a long exposure would be necessary\n     for so dark a figure, and this I could not obtain. I also tried to\n     communicate with the figure, constantly speaking to it and asking\n     it to make signs, if not able to speak, but with no result. I also\n     tried especially to _touch_ her, but did not succeed. On cornering\n     her, as I did once or twice, she disappeared.\n\n     Some time in the summer of this year (1886), Mrs. Twining, our\n     regular charwoman, saw the figure, while waiting in the hall at the\n     door leading to the kitchen stairs, for her payment. Until it\n     suddenly vanished from her sight, as no real figure could have\n     done, she thought it was a lady visitor who had mistaken her way.\n     Mr. Myers interviewed her on December 29th, 1889, and has her\n     separate account.\n\n     On one night in July 1886 (my father and I being away from home),\n     my mother and her maid heard a loud noise in an unoccupied room\n     over their heads. They went up, but seeing nothing and the noise\n     ceasing, they went back to my mother's room on the first storey.\n     They then heard loud noises from the morning-room on the ground\n     floor. They then went half-way downstairs, when they saw a bright\n     light in the hall beneath. Being alarmed, they went up to my sister\n     E., who then came down, and they all three examined the doors,\n     windows, etc., and found them all fastened as usual. My mother and\n     her maid then went to bed. My sister E. went up to her room on the\n     second storey, but as she passed the room where my two sisters L.\n     and M. were sleeping, they opened their door to say that they had\n     heard noises, and also seen what they described as the _flame_ of a\n     candle, without candle or hand visible, cross the room diagonally\n     from corner to door. Two of the maids opened the doors of their two\n     bedrooms, and said that they had also heard noises; they all five\n     stood at their doors with their lighted candles for some little\n     time. They all heard steps walking up and down the landing between\n     them; as they passed they felt a sensation which they described as\n     \"a cold wind,\" though their candles were not blown about. They\n     _saw_ nothing. The steps then descended the stairs, re-ascended,\n     again descended, and did not return.\n\n     In the course of the following autumn we heard traditions of\n     earlier haunting, though, unfortunately, in no case were we able to\n     get a first-hand account....\n\n     We also now heard from a carpenter who had done jobs in the house\n     in Mrs. S.'s time, that Mrs. S. had wished to possess herself of\n     the first Mrs. S.'s jewels. Her husband had called him in to make a\n     receptacle under the boards in the morning-room on the\n     ground-floor, in which receptacle he placed the jewels, and then\n     had it nailed down and the carpet replaced. The carpenter showed us\n     the place. My father made him take up the boards; the receptacle\n     was there, but empty....\n\n     During the next two years, 1887 to 1889, the figure was very seldom\n     seen, though footsteps were heard; the louder noises had gradually\n     ceased. From 1889 to the present, 1892, so far as I know, the\n     figure has not been seen at all; the lighter footsteps lasted a\n     little longer, but even they have now ceased. The figure became\n     much less substantial on its later appearances. Up to about 1886 it\n     was so solid and life-like that it was often mistaken for a real\n     person. It gradually became less distinct. At all times it\n     intercepted the light; we have not been able to ascertain if it\n     cast a shadow.\n\n    _Proofs of Immateriality._\n\n     1. I have several times fastened fine strings across the stairs at\n     various heights before going to bed, but after all others have gone\n     up to their rooms. These were fastened in the following way: I made\n     small pellets of marine glue, into which I inserted the ends of the\n     cord, then stuck one pellet lightly against the wall and the other\n     to the banister, the string being thus stretched across the stairs.\n     They were knocked down by a very slight touch, and yet would not be\n     felt by any one passing up or down the stairs, and by candle-light\n     could not be seen from below. They were put at various heights from\n     the ground from six inches to the height of the banisters, about\n     three feet. I have twice at least seen the figure pass through the\n     cords, leaving them intact.\n\n     2. The sudden and complete disappearance of the figure, while still\n     in full view.\n\n     3. The impossibility of touching the figure. I have repeatedly\n     followed it into a corner, when it disappeared, and have tried to\n     suddenly pounce upon it, but have never succeeded in touching it or\n     getting my hand up to it, the figure eluding my touch.\n\n     4. It has appeared in a room with the doors shut.\n\n     On the other hand, the figure was not called up by a desire to see\n     it, for on every occasion when we had made special arrangements to\n     watch for it, we never saw it. On several occasions we have sat up\n     at night hoping to see it, but in vain,--my father, with my\n     brother-in-law, myself with a friend three or four times, an aunt\n     and myself twice, and my sisters with friends more than once; but\n     on none of these occasions was anything seen. Nor have the\n     appearances been seen after we have been talking or thinking much\n     of the figure.\n\n     The figure has been connected with the second Mrs. S.; the grounds\n     for which are:--\n\n     1. The complete history of the house is known, and if we are to\n     connect the figure with any of the previous occupants, she is the\n     only person who in any way resembled the figure.\n\n     2. The widow's garb excludes the first Mrs. S.\n\n     3. Although none of us had ever seen the second Mrs. S., several\n     people who _had_ known her identified her from our description. On\n     being shown a photo-album containing a number of portraits, I\n     picked out one of her sister as being most like that of the figure,\n     and was afterwards told that the sisters were much alike.\n\n     4. Her step-daughter and others told us that she especially used\n     the front drawing-room in which she continually appeared, and that\n     her habitual seat was on a couch placed in similar position to\n     ours.\n\n     5. The figure is undoubtedly connected with the house, none of the\n     percipients having seen it anywhere else, nor had any other\n     hallucination.\n\n     In writing the above account, my memory of the occurrences has been\n     largely assisted by reference to a set of journal letters written\n     [to Miss Campbell] at the time, and by notes of interviews held by\n     Mr. Myers with my father and various members of our family.\n\nR. C. MORTON.\n\nOf the accounts given by the other witnesses, I quote only part of Miss\nCampbell's statement, as follows:--\n\n\n77 CHESTERTON ROAD, NORTH KENSINGTON, W., _March 31st, 1892_.\n\n...On the night on which Miss Morton first spoke to the figure, as\n     stated in her account, I myself saw her telepathically. I was in my\n     room (I was then residing in the North of England, quite one\n     hundred miles away from Miss Morton's home), preparing for bed,\n     between twelve and half-past, when I seemed suddenly to be standing\n     close by the door of the housemaid's cupboard, so facing the short\n     flight of stairs leading to the top landing. Coming down these\n     stairs, I saw the figure, exactly as described, and about two steps\n     behind Miss Morton herself, with a dressing-gown thrown loosely\n     round her, and carrying a candle in her hand. A loud noise in the\n     room overhead recalled me to my surroundings, and although I tried\n     for some time I could not resume the impression. The black dress,\n     dark head-gear, widow's cuffs and handkerchief were plainly\n     visible, though the details of them were not given me by Miss\n     Morton till afterwards, when I asked her whether she had not seen\n     the apparition on that night.\n\n(Signed)      CATHERINE M. CAMPBELL.\n\nTo this account Miss Morton adds:--\n\n     Miss Campbell was the friend to whom I first spoke of the\n     apparition. She suggested to me that when next I saw her I should\n     speak; but of course she had no idea when this would be. She wrote\n     an account to me the next day of what she had seen, and asked me if\n     I had not seen the figure that night; but naturally did not know\n     that I _had_ done so, until she received my reply. Miss Campbell\n     asks me to say that this is the only vision she has had, veridical\n     or otherwise.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\nTO\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nVIII. A. Some early experiments in thought-transference through\ntable-tilting were published by Professor Richet in the _Revue\nPhilosophique_ for December 1884. A critical discussion of these by\nGurney appeared in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ii. pp. 239-64, and a\nbriefer report in _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. pp. 72-81. I quote\nfrom the latter a description of the method used:--\n\n     The place of a planchette was taken by a table, and M. Richet\n     prefaces his account by a succinct statement of the orthodox view\n     as to \"table-turning.\" Rejecting altogether the three theories\n     which attribute the phenomena to wholesale fraud, to spirits, and\n     to an unknown force, he regards the gyrations and oscillations of\n     s\u00e9ance-tables as due wholly to the unconscious muscular\n     contractions of the sitters. It thus occurred to him to employ a\n     table as an indicator of the movements that might be produced by\n     \"mental suggestion.\" The plan of the experiments was as follows.\n     Three persons (C, D, and E) took their seats in a semi-circle, at a\n     little table on which their hands rested. One of these three was\n     always a \"medium\"--a term used by M. Richet to denote a person\n     liable to exhibit intelligent movements in which consciousness and\n     will apparently take no part. Attached to the table was a simple\n     electrical apparatus, the effect of which was to ring a bell\n     whenever the current was broken by the tilting of the table. Behind\n     the backs of the sitters at the table was another table, on which\n     was a large alphabet, completely screened from the view of C, D,\n     and E, even had they turned round and endeavoured to see it. In\n     front of this alphabet sat A, whose duty was to follow the letters\n     slowly and steadily with a pen, returning at once to the beginning\n     as soon as he arrived at the end. At A's side sat B, with a\n     note-book; his duty was to write down the letter at which A's pen\n     happened to be pointing whenever the bell rang. This happened\n     whenever one of the sitters at the table made the simple movement\n     necessary to tilt it. Under these conditions, A and B are\n     apparently mere automata. C, D, and E are little more, being\n     unconscious of tilting the table, which appears to them to tilt\n     itself; but even if they tilted it consciously, and with a\n     conscious desire to dictate words, they have no means of\n     ascertaining at what letter A's pen is pointing at any particular\n     moment; and they might tilt for ever without producing more than\n     an endless series of incoherent letters. Things being arranged\n     thus, a sixth operator, F, stationed himself apart both from the\n     tilting table and from the alphabet, and concentrated his thought\n     on some word of his own choosing, which he had not communicated to\n     the others. The three sitters at the first table engaged in\n     conversation, sang, or told stories; but at intervals the table\n     tilted, the bell rang, and B wrote down the letter which A's pen\n     was opposite to at that moment. Now, to the astonishment of all\n     concerned, these letters, when arranged in a series, turned out to\n     produce a more or less close approximation to the word of which F\n     was thinking.\n\n\nVIII. B. The correspondent, Mr. G. E. Long, was known to Dr. Hodgson.\n\nFrom _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 65.\n\n\nJERSEY CITY, N. J., _October 22nd, 1888_.\n\n...I think I wrote you once that about two years ago I had received\n     what was said to be a most convincing test of spirit-return,\n     convincing to all except myself. A young lady, a Spiritualist and\n     medium, though not a professional, nor one that ever received one\n     cent in pay, by means of a lettered board and toy chair, she\n     holding one leg of the chair and I another, while a third leg of\n     the chair served as a pointer, gave the following by means of the\n     chair:--\n\n     First the chair spelt out my name and showed a disposition to get\n     in my lap; then it spelled out \"CARY,\" and when I asked for the\n     name of the \"spirit\" it spelt out \"George (my name), you ought to\n     know me as I am Jim.\" But I didn't, and said so. Then, without my\n     looking at the board, it spelt out \"Long Island, Jim Rowe,\" and\n     \"Don't you remember I used to carry you when you were a little\n     fellow,\" or words to that effect. I had to acknowledge the truth of\n     it and also to say that as he was an ignorant man he possibly\n     intended \"Cary\" for carry. I must own I was puzzled for the moment.\n     To make sure of his power I asked that he count the pickets in the\n     fence outside of the house and I would go out and confirm his\n     statement. Somehow he couldn't agree to this, and even the medium\n     objected. As a last resort I asked how long he had been in the\n     spirit land and the answer came, between thirteen and fourteen\n     years.\n\n     Now to the sequel. First it occurred to me a day or two after, that\n     while all the incidents given were correct, the name should have\n     been given as ROE instead of ROWE. Second, I was upon Long Island\n     this summer, and the matter coming to my mind I inquired how long\n     Jim Roe had been dead, and was informed he died last winter; so\n     when I received this test so convincing to the believers _the man\n     was not dead_.\n\n     Yours truly,\n\nGEO. E. LONG.\n\nOn October 26th, 1888, Mr. Long adds:--\n\n     I do not think that the medium was fraudulent. Her family consists\n     of Mr. S. and three daughters, she being the youngest. I have found\n     all to be hypnotic subjects, with the exception of the eldest\n     daughter. They are all believers in Spiritualism, the youngest\n     having been the medium. They do not sit now, as it is claimed that\n     the sittings, while rich in spiritualistic satisfaction, were\n     productive of a state of poor health in the medium.\n\n     As I myself have obtained information supposed to have been\n     impossible for me to have reached, I cannot say for certainty that\n     she had not obtained information about Jim, but I don't believe she\n     had. As the name Rowe was being spelled I sat with my eyes turned\n     from the board and had in mind the name Scudder, and mentally\n     followed the taps of the chair to S C U D--when the medium said,\n     \"The name Rowe is given,\" etc. This would seem to leave out any\n     involuntary muscular action. Why Rowe should have been given\n     instead of Roe is still another phase. I wonder whether, if any\n     question of the Roe family had arisen, I would have had in mind the\n     name of Rowe? If so, then she produced that which I had long while\n     before been conscious of, but was at the time unconscious of, and\n     had it coupled with an error in spelling that I might have been\n     guilty of had I myself been called upon at that moment to spell it.\n     Had she been fraudulent the probability is she would have spelt it\n     correctly.\n\n     It seems to me that the basis of Spiritualism rests mainly upon\n     this phenomenon which men and women in a supernormal condition\n     produce, without understanding it, and credit it to spiritual\n     agencies.\n\n     [A general corroboration of Mr. Long's memory of the incident is\n     added from a lady present at the time, who does not now recall the\n     details.]\n\n\nVIII. C. The following case, received from Dr. Li\u00e9beault, is quoted from\n_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 293:--\n\n\nNANCY, _September 4th, 1885_.\n\n     I hasten to write to you as to that case of thought-transference of\n     which I spoke to you when you were present at my hypnotic s\u00e9ances\n     at Nancy. The incident occurred in a French family from New\n     Orleans, who had come to stay for some time at Nancy for business\n     reasons. I had become acquainted with this family from the fact\n     that M. G., its head, had brought to me his niece, Mlle. B., to be\n     treated by hypnotism. She suffered from slight an\u00e6mia and from a\n     nervous cough, contracted at Coblentz, in a High School where she\n     was a teacher. I easily induced somnambulism, and she was cured in\n     two sittings. The production of this hypnotic state suggested to\n     the G. family (Mrs. G. was a spirit medium) and to Mlle. B. herself\n     that she might easily become a medium. She set herself to the\n     evocation of spirits (in which she firmly believed) by the aid of\n     her pen, and at the end of two months she had become a remarkable\n     writing medium. I have myself seen her rapidly writing page after\n     page of what she called \"messages,\"--all in well-chosen language\n     and with no erasures,--while at the same time she maintained\n     conversation with the people near her. An odd thing was that she\n     had no knowledge whatever of what she was writing. \"It must be a\n     spirit,\" she would say, \"which guides my hand; it is certainly not\n     I.\"\n\n     One day,--it was, I think, February 7th, 1868, about 8 A.M., when\n     just about to seat herself at table for breakfast, she felt a kind\n     of need, an impulse which prompted her to write;--it was what she\n     called a _trance_,--and she rushed off at once to her large\n     note-book, where she wrote in pencil, with feverish haste, certain\n     undecipherable words. She wrote the same words again and again on\n     the pages which followed, and at last, as her agitation diminished,\n     it was possible to read that a person called Margu\u00e9rite was thus\n     announcing her death. The family at once assumed that a young lady\n     of that name, a friend of Mlle. B.'s and her companion and\n     colleague in the Coblentz High School, must have just expired. They\n     all came immediately to me, Mlle. B. among them, and we decided to\n     verify the announcement of death that very day. Mlle. B. wrote to a\n     young English lady who was also a teacher in that same school. She\n     gave some other reason for writing;--taking care not to reveal the\n     true motive of the letter. By return of post we received an answer\n     in English, of which they copied for me the essential part. I found\n     this answer in a portfolio hardly a fortnight ago, and have mislaid\n     it again. It expressed the surprise of the English lady at the\n     receipt of Mlle. B.'s unexpected and apparently motiveless letter.\n     But at the same time the English correspondent made haste to\n     announce to Mlle. B. that their common friend, Margu\u00e9rite, had died\n     on February 7th, at about 8 A.M. Moreover, the letter contained a\n     little square piece of printed paper;--the announcement of death\n     sent round to friends.\n\n     I need not say that I examined the envelope, and that the letter\n     appeared to me to have veritably come from Coblentz. Yet I have\n     since felt a certain regret. In the interests of science I ought to\n     have asked the G. family to allow me to go with them to the\n     telegraph office to inquire whether they had received a telegram\n     early on February 7th. Science should feel no shame; truth does not\n     dread exposure. My proof of the fact is ultimately a moral one: the\n     honour of the G. family,--which has always appeared to me to be\n     absolutely above suspicion.\n\nA. A. LI\u00c9BEAULT.\n\nUpon these last sentences Gurney remarks that, apart from the\nimprobability that the whole family would join in a conspiracy to\ndeceive their friend, the nature of the answer received from Coblentz\nshows that the writer of it cannot have been aware that any telegraphic\nannouncement had been sent. And it is in itself unlikely that the\nauthorities of the school would have felt it necessary instantly to\ncommunicate the news to Mdlle. B.\n\n\nVIII. D. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 349-53. The narrative\nis a translation from an article in _Psychische Studien_, December 1889,\npp. 572-77, by the Editor, the Hon. Alexander Aksakoff.\n\n     The case belongs not to the category of _facts which are known only\n     to the deceased_, but to the category of those which _could only be\n     imparted by the deceased_, for it relates to a political secret\n     concerning a living person, which was revealed by an intimate\n     friend of that living person for the purpose of saving him. I\n     shall set forth this case in all possible detail, because I\n     consider it a most convincing one in support of the Spiritualistic\n     hypothesis. I will even express myself still more strongly. I\n     consider that it affords as absolute a proof of identity as it is\n     possible for evidence of this kind to present.\n\n     My readers are already acquainted with my sister-in-law, Mrs. A.\n     von Wiesler, from the part she took in the family s\u00e9ances held with\n     me in the years 1880-1883, after the decease of my wife. She has an\n     only daughter, Sophie, who at the time of those s\u00e9ances was\n     completing her studies. She had taken no part, either at our\n     s\u00e9ances or at any others, and she had not read anything about\n     Spiritualism. Her mother also had not joined in any s\u00e9ances except\n     our own. One evening in October 1884, during the visit of a distant\n     relative, the conversation turned upon Spiritualism, and in order\n     to please him a trial with the table was arranged. This s\u00e9ance,\n     however, gave no satisfactory result. It only showed that the two\n     ladies were able to get something. On Tuesday evening, January 1st,\n     1885, Mrs. von Wiesler being alone with her daughter, in order to\n     divert her mind from some matters which made her anxious, proposed\n     to hold a little s\u00e9ance. An alphabet was written out on a sheet of\n     paper, a saucer with a black line as pointer served as a\n     planchette, and, behold, the name Andreas was indicated. This was\n     quite natural, for Andreas was the name of Sophie's father, the\n     deceased husband of Mrs. von Wiesler. The communication presented\n     nothing remarkable, but it was nevertheless resolved to continue\n     the s\u00e9ances once a week, on every Tuesday. For three weeks the\n     character of the communications remained unchanged. The name\n     Andreas was continually repeated.\n\n     But on the fourth Tuesday--January 22nd--in place of the customary\n     name, Andreas, the name \"Schura\" was spelt out, to the great\n     astonishment of both sitters. Then, by quick and precise movements\n     of the pointer, these words were added:--\n\n     \"It is given to thee to save Nikolaus.\"\n\n     \"What does this mean?\" asked the astonished ladies.\n\n     \"He is compromised as Michael was, and will like him go to ruin. A\n     band of good-for-nothing fellows are leading him astray.\"\n\n     \"What can be done to counteract it?\"\n\n     \"Thou must go to the Technological Institute before three o'clock,\n     let Nikolaus be called out, and make an appointment with him at his\n     house.\"\n\n     This being all addressed to the young lady, Sophie, she replied\n     that it would be difficult for her to carry out these directions on\n     account of the slight acquaintanceship which existed between her\n     and Nikolaus's family.\n\n     \"Absurd ideas of propriety!\" was \"Schura's\" indignant reply.\n\n     \"But in what way shall I be able to influence him?\" asked Sophie.\n\n     \"Thou wilt speak to him in my name.\"\n\n     \"Then your convictions no longer remain the same?\"\n\n     \"Revolting error!\" was the reply.\n\n     I must now explain the meaning of this mysterious communication.\n     \"Schura\" is the Russian pet name for Alexandrine. Nikolaus and\n     Michael were her cousins. Michael, quite a young man, had\n     unfortunately allowed himself to become entangled by the\n     revolutionary ideas of our Anarchists or Socialists. He was\n     arrested, tried, and condemned to imprisonment at a distance from\n     St. Petersburg, where he lost his life in an attempt to escape.\n     \"Schura\" loved him dearly, and fully sympathised with his political\n     convictions, making no secret of it. After his death, which\n     occurred in September 1884, she was discouraged in her\n     revolutionary aspirations, and ended her life by poison, at the age\n     of seventeen, on the 15th of January 1885, just one week before the\n     s\u00e9ance above described. Nikolaus, Michael's brother, was then a\n     student at the Technological Institute.\n\n     Mrs. von Wiesler and her daughter were aware of these\n     circumstances, for they had long been acquainted with \"Schura's\"\n     parents, and with those of her cousins, who belong to the best\n     society of St. Petersburg. It will be obvious that I cannot publish\n     the names of these families. I have also changed those of the young\n     people. The acquaintanceship was, however, far from being ultimate.\n     They saw each other occasionally, but nothing more. Later I will\n     give further details. We will now continue our narrative.\n\n     Naturally, neither Mrs. von Wiesler nor her daughter knew anything\n     as to the views or secret conduct of Nikolaus. The communication\n     was just as unexpected as it was important. It involved a great\n     responsibility. Sophie's position was a very difficult one. The\n     literal carrying out of \"Schura's\" demands was, for a young lady,\n     simply impossible, merely from considerations of social propriety.\n     What right could she have, on the ground of simple\n     acquaintanceship, to interfere in family affairs of so delicate a\n     character? Besides, it might not be true; or, quite simply and most\n     probably, Nikolaus might deny it. What position would she then find\n     herself in? Mrs. von Wiesler knew only too well, from the s\u00e9ances\n     she had taken part in with me, how little dependence can be placed\n     on Spiritualistic communications. She counselled her daughter, in\n     the first place, to convince herself of \"Schura's\" identity. This\n     advice was followed without any hesitation as one way out of the\n     difficulty.\n\n     On the following Tuesday \"Schura\" manifested at once, and Sophie\n     asked for a proof of her identity, to which \"Schura\" forthwith\n     replied:--\n\n     \"Invite Nikolaus, arrange a s\u00e9ance, and I will come.\"\n\n     It will be seen from this reply that \"Schura,\" who during her life\n     had learnt to despise the conventionalities of society, as is the\n     custom among the Socialists, remained true to her character, and\n     again demanded what was an impossibility. Nikolaus had never been\n     in Mrs. von Wiesler's house. Sophie then asked for another proof of\n     her identity, without Nikolaus being brought in at all, and\n     requested that it might be a convincing one.\n\n     \"I will appear to thee,\" was the reply.\n\n     \"How?\"\n\n     \"Thou wilt see.\"\n\n     A few days later Sophie was returning home from a soir\u00e9e; it was\n     nearly 4 A.M. She was just retiring, and was at the door between\n     her bedroom and the dining-room, there being no lights in the\n     latter, when she saw on the wall of the dining-room, in sight of\n     the door at which she stood, a luminous round spot, with, as it\n     were, shoulders. This lasted for two or three seconds, and\n     disappeared, ascending towards the ceiling. Sophie immediately\n     assured herself that it was not the reflection of any light coming\n     from the street.\n\n     At the s\u00e9ance on the following Tuesday, an explanation of this\n     appearance being asked for, \"Schura\" replied:--\n\n     \"It was the outline of a head with shoulders. I cannot appear more\n     distinctly. I am still weak.\"\n\n     Many other details, which I have passed over, tended to convince\n     Sophie of the reality of \"Schura's\" identity, yet she could not\n     bring herself to carry out that which \"Schura\" desired her to do.\n     She therefore proposed as a suitable compromise that she should\n     acquaint Nikolaus's parents with what had occurred.\n\n     This proposal aroused \"Schura's\" strongest displeasure, expressed\n     by violent movements of the saucer, and by the sentence:--\n\n     \"That will lead to nothing\";--after which disparaging epithets\n     followed, impossible to repeat here, especially applicable to\n     persons of weak and irresolute character, with whom the energetic\n     and decisive \"Schura\" had no patience--epithets which are not found\n     in dictionaries, but which were expressions used by \"Schura\" in her\n     lifetime, and characteristic of her. This was confirmed in the\n     sequel.\n\n     Nevertheless Sophie continued to hesitate, and at each successive\n     s\u00e9ance \"Schura\" insisted more and more imperatively that Sophie\n     must act at once. This is very important to notice, as we shall see\n     later. This want of resolution on the part of Sophie was ascribed\n     by \"Schura\" to the influence of Mrs. von Wiesler. From the\n     beginning \"Schura\" had seemed to bear a grudge against Mrs. von\n     Wiesler. From the first s\u00e9ance she addressed Sophie only. She never\n     permitted Mrs. von Wiesler to ask a question. Whenever she\n     attempted to do so, she met with a--\"Be silent--be silent!\" Whereas\n     in addressing Sophie she overwhelmed her with the tenderest\n     expressions.\n\n     How great was the astonishment and consternation of the ladies,\n     when at the s\u00e9ance on the 26th of February the first words were:--\n\n     \"It is too late. Thou wilt repent it bitterly. The pangs of remorse\n     will follow thee. Expect his arrest!\"\n\n     These were \"Schura's\" last words. From this time she was silent. A\n     s\u00e9ance was attempted on the following Tuesday, but there was no\n     result. The s\u00e9ances of Mrs. von Wiesler and her daughter were from\n     that time entirely given up.\n\n     While these s\u00e9ances were being held, Mrs. von Wiesler naturally\n     kept me informed of what transpired, and consulted with me as to\n     what was to be done in view of the extraordinary character of\n     \"Schura's\" requests. Some time after they had ceased, Mrs. von\n     Wiesler, to satisfy her own conscience and to comfort her daughter,\n     resolved to communicate the whole episode to the parents of\n     Nikolaus. They paid no attention to it. Nothing was elicited that\n     any fault could be found with. The family were quite satisfied in\n     regard to Nikolaus's conduct. But it is important to bear in mind\n     the fact that these Spiritualistic communications were made known\n     to the parents before the final issue. When during the remainder of\n     the year everything went on happily, Sophie became fully convinced\n     that all the communications were only lies, and formed a resolution\n     that she would never again occupy herself with Spiritualistic\n     s\u00e9ances.\n\n     Another year passed without any special event. But on the 9th of\n     March, 1887, the secret police suddenly searched Nikolaus's rooms.\n     He was arrested in his own house, and within twenty-four hours was\n     exiled from St. Petersburg. It came out later that his crime was\n     taking part in anarchical assemblies--assemblies which were held in\n     the months of January and February 1885, exactly corresponding with\n     the time when \"Schura\" was insisting that steps should _then_ be\n     taken to dissuade Nikolaus from taking part in such meetings. Only\n     now were the communications of \"Schura\" estimated at their true\n     value. The notes which Mrs. von Wiesler had made were read again\n     and again by the families both of \"Schura\" and of Nikolaus.\n     \"Schura's\" identity in all those manifestations was recognised as\n     incontestably demonstrated, in the first place, by the main fact in\n     relation to Nikolaus, by other intimate particulars, and also by\n     the totality of the features which characterised her personality.\n     This mournful occurrence fell like a fresh thunderclap on\n     Nikolaus's family, and they had only to thank God that the errors\n     of the young man were not followed by more fatal results.\n\n     In order to estimate this incident aright, it is of great\n     importance to establish the relations which existed between the two\n     young ladies. I have requested Madame and Mdlle. von Wiesler to\n     give me on this, as on the previous points, a written memorandum in\n     full detail; and from that memorandum I extract what follows\n     [somewhat abridged here]:--\n\n     In December 1880 Madame von Wiesler and her daughter paid a\n     Christmas visit to \"Schura's\" grandfather, Senator N., where Sophie\n     saw \"Schura\" for the first time. Sophie was then about thirteen\n     years old, and \"Schura\" even younger. Sophie was astonished to see\n     \"Schura's\" writing-table covered with books [and had a talk with\n     her about favourite authors]. The two girls often saw each other at\n     a distance in the recreation-room of their school during the\n     winter, but \"Schura\" was soon transferred to another school. [They\n     met once at a country-house without exchanging a word, and saw each\n     other once across a theatre. Sophie, in fact, had had one childish\n     talk with \"Schura\"; Madame von Wiesler had never had any real talk\n     with her.] Hence it is clear that the relations of these ladies\n     with \"Schura\" were of the most distant kind, and that they could\n     not know anything of her political secrets.\n\n\nVIII. E. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 248-51.[230]\n\nThe following letters were received from the principal witness, Mrs.\nFinney:--\n\n\nROCKLAND, MASS., _April 19th, 1891_.\n\n     MR. HODGSON,--DEAR SIR,--Some weeks ago I received from you a few\n     lines asking me to give you an account of the communication\n     received from Cousin Benja in spirit-life, some twenty-five years\n     ago.\n\n     For weeks and months before my brother left the form we conversed\n     freely on the subject of spirit communion and such matters, and one\n     morning he requested me to bring him a small piece of brick, also\n     pen and ink; he then made two marks on one side, and one on the\n     other with the ink, then breaking the brick in two, gave me one\n     piece, telling me at the time to take care of it, and some day he\n     would hide the other piece away where no one but himself would\n     know, and after leaving the form, if possible, would return in some\n     way and tell me where it was. I could then compare them together,\n     and it would be a test that he could return and communicate, and\n     _my mind_ could not have any influence over it, as I did not know\n     where he put it.\n\n     After he left the form our anxiety was _very great_ to hear and\n     learn all we could of communicating with spirits, and for months we\n     got nothing satisfactory.\n\n     We then commenced sitting at the table at home (mother and myself),\n     which we did for some little time; at last it commenced tipping,\n     and by calling the alphabet spelled out where we could find the\n     piece of brick that he put away,--that was the way we got the test.\n     To us that was truth that spirits can and do communicate with us,\n     and nothing but the influence and power of Benja could tell us that\n     test.--Truly yours,\n\nMRS. WM. A. FINNEY.\n\nROCKLAND, _May 3rd, 1891_.\n\n     MR. R. HODGSON,--DEAR SIR,--Yours of April 21st received, and I\n     will add a few more lines as to statement of brother Benja's\n     communication.\n\n     By calling the alphabet we spelled out:--\n\n     \"You will find that piece of brick in the cabinet under the\n     tomahawk.--BENJA.\"\n\n     I went to that room and took the key, unlocked the cabinet, which\n     had not been touched by any one after he locked it and put away the\n     key. There I found that piece of brick just as it had spelled out,\n     and it corresponded with the piece I had retained, fitting on\n     exactly where he broke it off the piece I had. It was wrapped in a\n     bit of paper and tucked into a shell, and placed in the bottom of\n     the cabinet _exactly under_ the tomahawk, as was spelled out by the\n     alphabet.\n\n     This is truth, and no power but Benja's could tell that.\n\n     Mother is not living; I am the only one of the family that is\n     living.--Yours respectfully,\n\nMRS. WM. A. FINNEY.\n\nROCKLAND, _May 11th, 1891_.\n\n     MR. R. HODGSON,--DEAR SIR,--Yours of 6th received. I will continue\n     to say, in answer to your questions, that the piece of brick was\n     entirely concealed in the shell, so that it could not be seen from\n     outside of cabinet. It was wrapped in a piece of paper stuck\n     together with mucilage and tucked into the end of the shell, then a\n     piece of paper gummed over that, so that nothing was visible from\n     the shell. The shell was on the lower shelf of the cabinet, and\n     only the top of the shell was visible outside the cabinet.\n\n     One more little incident I will mention, for to me it is as\n     valuable as the other. He wrote me a letter (about the time he gave\n     me the piece of brick) and sealed it, saying at the time it was not\n     to be answered, but the contents of the letter to be told. I got\n     that in the same way I did the other, by calling the alphabet and\n     the table tipping. It was these words:--\n\n     \"Julia! do right and be happy.--BENJA.\"\n\n     That was correct. Just the contents of my letter. I have no\n     particular objection as to giving my name, for I have stated\n     nothing but the truth.\n\n     At my home in Kingston I have that little shell with the piece of\n     brick, and if you would like them I will send them to you. Will\n     place the brick into the shell as it was when I found it. Of\n     course, the paper that was around it then is worn out years ago.\n     The cabinet is disposed of.\n\nJULIA A. FINNEY.\n\nMrs. Finney further writes:--\n\n\nROCKLAND, _June 26th, 1891_.\n\n     I send you by express a box containing the letter and shell with\n     the piece of brick. I have placed one piece in the shell just as it\n     was when I found it, so you can see how nicely it was concealed in\n     the shell. The papers that were around it then are worn out. You\n     can retain them if you like, as I do not care for them now.\n\n     To me it is a positive truth that he did communicate to us, and our\n     minds could have nothing to do with it.\n\nJ. A. FINNEY.\n\nROCKLAND, _July 19th, 1891_.\n\n...The shell was placed on the same shelf with the tomahawk, and no\n     other shells on that shelf. It was placed with the open side down,\n     and the tomahawk stood directly over it. I cannot say why he did\n     not tell us to look inside of the shell. We started to look as soon\n     as he told us. It was in the cabinet under the tomahawk. We did not\n     wait for any more to be said.\n\n     I am not intimately acquainted with many public people. As to my\n     integrity, will refer you to Rev. C. Y. de Normandie, of Kingston.\n\nJ. A. FINNEY.\n\nDr. Hodgson writes:--\n\n     The shell is a large Triton, about ten inches long. The piece of\n     brick was wrapped in folds of soft paper and tucked deeply into the\n     recess. Another piece of paper was then gummed around the sides of\n     the shell in the interior, so as absolutely to prevent the piece of\n     brick from falling out. When I received the shell from Mrs. Finney\n     and looked into the interior and shook the shell violently, there\n     was nothing to indicate that the shell contained anything but the\n     piece of gummed paper.\n\n     The piece of brick in the shell weighs one and a half ounces, and\n     the piece of brick retained by Mrs. Finney weighs about two and a\n     quarter ounces. The shell with the piece of brick and paper\n     wrapping weighs about eleven and a half ounces.\n\n     Mrs. Finney also forwarded me the letter written by her brother.\n     The shell and the pieces of brick and the letter are now all in my\n     possession.\n\nR. HODGSON.\n\n     We have a letter (in original) from the Rev. C. Y. de Normandie, of\n     Kingston, Canada, to Mrs. Finney. \"I expressed then,\" he says,\n     speaking of a former note to Dr. Hodgson, which accidentally went\n     astray, \"that to the best knowledge I had of you and to my firm\n     belief your word could be implicitly relied on. I felt confident\n     that you would state a matter as you understood it, as you regarded\n     it, without reference to the consequences; and that you would not\n     be any more likely to be misled and deceived about a matter of that\n     kind than others similarly situated.\"\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES\n\nTO\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nSCHEME OF VITAL FACULTY.\n\n\nIX. A. The following scheme[231] is not put forth as expressing\ndeliberate convictions, supported by adequate evidence. Its speculative\ncharacter has, in fact, excluded it from my text, yet I hope that it may\nnot be without its use. For many men the difficulty of belief is not so\nmuch in defect of trustworthy evidence as in the unintelligibility, the\n_incoherence_ of the phenomena described, which prevents them from being\nretained in the mind or assimilated with previous knowledge.\n\nI have felt myself the full force of this objection, and I believe that\nsome effort to meet it has become absolutely needful. Undoubtedly a\nrecord of facts without theories is the first essential. But the facts\nindividually are like \"stones that fall down from Jupiter,\"--isolated\nmarvels, each of which seems incredible until we have made shift to\ncolligate them all.\n\nLet us begin, then, by taking the most generalised view possible of all\nthese phenomena. They appear, at any rate, to depend upon the presence\nof living human beings; and they are therefore in some sense phenomena\nof _life_. If, then, they are phenomena of life, they must be in some\nway derived from, or must bear some analogy to, the vital phenomena, the\nfaculties and functions with which we are familiar in the experience of\nevery day. Yet to say this brings us little nearer to our aim. Spirits\nmay have ruled Mr. Moses' mind and body just as truly as our own\nconscious will rules our mind and body.[232] But the results which they\nproduced were so different from any results which we can produce that it\nis hard to know where to begin the comparison. Is there not some middle\nterm, some intermediate series, with which both these extreme series may\nhave points of resemblance?\n\nIt is here that we ought to feel the advantage of previous discussions\non man's own supernormal faculties,--on the powers of the Self below the\nthreshold of ordinary consciousness. We have traced these powers in\ndetail; we have noted the extension of the normal spectrum of\nconsciousness beyond both red and violet ends, in response to subliminal\ncontrol. Perhaps the profounder conception of the Self thus gained may\nhelp us to bridge over that gulf between the performances of the\nordinary man and those of the so-called medium which heretofore has\ninvolved so difficult a leap. We may find that the spirit's power over\nthe organism which it controls or \"possesses,\"--while possibly going\nmuch further than any subliminal power in the organism itself, as known\nto us,--may yet advance along similar lines, and receive explanation\nfrom hypnotic or telepathic phenomena. I will endeavour, then, to set\nside by side, in tabular form, the main heads of vital process or\nfaculty as exercised (1) under normal or supraliminal control; (2) under\nsubliminal and telepathic control; (3) under what is claimed as\ndisembodied or spiritual control.\n\nIn arranging this scheme my first object is to bring all such phenomena\nas we actually have before us into intelligible connection; introducing\nby the way a few of the explanations given to Mr. Moses by his guides.\nThose explanations, however, are for the most part slight and vague, and\nour experimental knowledge of the phenomena is, of course, merely\nnascent and fragmentary. My scheme, therefore, cannot aim at complete\nlogical arrangement. It must involve both repetitions and lacun\u00e6; nor\ncan it be such as the physiologist would care to sanction. But it will,\nat least, be a first attempt at a connected schedule or rational index\nof phenomena apparently so disparate that the very possibility of their\ninterdependence b even now constantly denied.\n\n\nSYNOPSIS OF VITAL FACULTY\n\nI.\n\nFIRST SERIES:--PHENOMENA SUPRALIMINALLY CONTROLLED, OR OCCURRING IN\nORDINARY LIFE.\n\n     1. Supraliminal or empirical consciousness; aware only of the\n     material world through sensory impressions.\n\n     2. Physical nutrition, including respiration.\n\n     (_a_) Physiological and pathological processes and products.\n\n     3. Physical expenditure; action on material and etherial\n     environment.\n\n     (_a_) Mechanical work done at the expense of food assimilated.\n\n     (_b_) Production of heat, odour, sound, chemical changes, as the\n     result of protoplasmic metabolism.\n\n     (_c_) Production of etherial disturbances; as emission of light and\n     generation of electrical energy.\n\n     4. Action on the incarnation of life on the planet.\n\n     (_a_) Reproduction, as physiological division.\n\n     5. Mental nutrition; sensory receptivity.\n\n     (_a_) Ordinary sense-perception.\n\n     (_b_) Memory.\n\n     6. Mental expenditure; response to stimuli.\n\n     (_a_) Intra-cerebral response; ideation.\n\n     (_b_) Emotion; will; voluntary innervation.\n\n     7. Modifications of supraliminal personality.\n\n     (_a_) Birth; as physiological individuation.\n\n     (_b_) Sleep; with dreams, as oscillations of the conscious\n     threshold.\n\n     (_c_) Metamorphoses; as of insects and amphibians; and\n     polymorphism, as of hydrozoa; multiplex personality.\n\n     (_d_) Death; as physiological dissolution.\n\n\nII.\n\nSECOND SERIES:--PHENOMENA SUBLIMINALLY CONTROLLED.\n\n     1. Subliminal consciousness; obscurely aware of the transcendental\n     world, through telepathic and tel\u00e6sthetic impressions.\n\n     2. Physical nutrition modified by subliminal control.\n\n     (_a_) Suggestion, self-suggestion, psycho-therapeutics.\n\n     (_b_) Stigmatisation.\n\n     3. Physical expenditure modified by subliminal control.\n\n     (_a_) Mechanical work modified by psychical integration or\n     disintegration; hysteria.\n\n     (_b_) Production of heat, and other specific effects upon matter,\n     subliminally modified.\n\n     (_c_) Emission of light, and generation of electrical energy\n     modified.\n\n     4. Action on the incarnation of life on the planet.\n\n     (_a_) Prenatal suggestion through intermediate organism of parent.\n\n     5. Mental nutrition (sensory and supersensory receptivity)\n     subliminally controlled.\n\n     (_a_) Hyper\u00e6sthesia; an\u00e6sthesia; analgesia.\n\n     (_b_) Hypermnesia, manifested in dreams or automatisms.\n\n     (_c_) Telepathy; veridical hallucinations; sensory automatism.\n\n     (_d_) Tel\u00e6sthesia or clairvoyance; perception of distant scenes;\n     retrocognition; precognition.\n\n     6. Mental expenditure; response to stimuli modified by subliminal\n     control.\n\n     (_a_) Subliminal ideation; the inspirations of genius.\n\n     (_b_) Motor automatism; concurrent consciousness; hyperboulia.\n\n     (_c_) Extradition of will-power beyond the organism; telergy;\n     self-projection.\n\n     7. Modifications of subliminal personality.\n\n     (_a_) Birth; as spiritual individuation.\n\n     (_b_) Sleep and trance; self-suggested or telepathically suggested;\n     with clairvoyant visions.\n\n     (_c_) Ecstasy.\n\n     (_d_) Death; as irrevocable self-projection of the spirit.\n\n\nIII.\n\nTHIRD SERIES:--PHENOMENA CLAIMED AS SPIRITUALLY CONTROLLED.\n\n     1. Subliminal consciousness, discerning and influenced by\n     disembodied spirits in a spiritual world, who co-operate in\n     producing objective phenomena.\n\n     2. Physical nutrition modified by spirit-control.\n\n     (_a_) Spirit-suggestion; psycho-therapeutics.\n\n     (_b_) Stigmatisation.\n\n     (_c_) Novel and purposive metastasis of secretion.\n\n     3. Physical expenditure modified by spirit-control.\n\n     (_a_) Mechanical efficiency increased and fulcrum displaced.\n\n     (_b_) Control over individual material molecules; resulting in\n     abrogation of ordinary thermal laws, and in aggregation and\n     disaggregation of matter.\n\n     (_c_) Control over etherial manifestations; with possible effects\n     in the domains of light, electricity, gravitation, and cohesion.\n\n     4. Action on the incarnation of life on the planet.\n\n     (_a_) Pre-conceptual suggestion or self-suggestion.\n\n     (_b_) Ectoplasy or Materialisation; temporary extradition or\n     concentration of vital energy.\n\n     5. Mental nutrition modified by spirit-control.\n\n     (_a_) Ordinary sensory perception spiritually controlled.\n\n     (_b_) Memory controlled; retrocognition spiritually given.\n\n     (_c_) Sensory automatism spiritually controlled; phantasms of the\n     dead, etc.\n\n     (_d_) Tel\u00e6sthesia developed into perception of spiritual\n     environment; precognition.\n\n     6. Response to stimuli spiritually controlled.\n\n     (_a_) Ideation inspired by spirits.\n\n     (_b_) Motor automatism spiritually controlled; possession.\n\n     (_c_) Extension of will-power into the spiritual world; prayer.\n\n     7. Modifications of personality from spiritual standpoint.\n\n     (_a_) Birth; as descent into generation.\n\n     (_b_) Sleep and trance induced, and visions inspired, by spirits.\n\n     (_c_) Precursory emergence into completer personality; ecstasy with\n     perception of spiritual world.\n\n     (_d_) Death; as birth into completer personality.\n\n     (_e_) Vital faculty fully exercised in spiritual world.\n\nIX. B. (1) The following case is quoted from the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol.\nv. p. 253. Professor Luther writes:--\n\n\nHARTFORD, CONN., _March 2nd, 1892_.\n\n...Miss C. is often in my study and consults my books freely, so\n     that her dream was not remarkable. The dream of Mrs. L. (my wife)\n     was also ordinary in character. The coincidence in time of the\n     dreams may have been merely a coincidence. But that after these\n     occurrences Mrs. L. should suddenly, without the least\n     premeditation and without hesitation, take the right book and open\n     it at the right page with the certainty of a somnambulist, seems to\n     me strange....\n\n     These events took place yesterday, last night, and this morning.\n\nF. S. LUTHER\n(Prof. Math., Trinity College).\n\nMrs. L. and Miss C. live at the same hotel and meet daily. Miss C. is\nengaged in writing an essay upon Emerson, and expresses to Mrs. L. her\nwish to obtain some particulars as to Emerson's private life. Mrs. L.\nregrets that she has no book treating of the subject. During the night\nfollowing this conversation Mrs. L. dreams of handing Miss C. a book\ncontaining an article such as is desired, and Miss C. dreams of telling\nMrs. L. that she had procured just the information which she had been\nlooking for. Each lady relates to the other her dream when they meet at\nbreakfast the next morning. Mrs. L. returns to her room, and, while\ncertainly not consciously thinking of Emerson, suddenly finds in her\nmind the thought, \"There is the book which Miss C. needs.\" She goes\ndirectly to a bookcase, takes down vol. xvii. of the _Century Magazine_,\nand opens _immediately_ at the article, \"The Homes and Haunts of\nEmerson.\" Mrs. L. had undoubtedly read this article in 1879, but she had\nnever studied Emerson or his works, nor had she made any special effort\nto assist Miss C. in her search, though feeling a friend's interest in\nthe proposed essay.\n\n     After receiving the book and hearing how it was selected, Miss C.\n     relates her dream more fully, it appearing that she had seemed to\n     be standing in front of Mrs. L.'s shelves with a large, illustrated\n     book in her hands, and that in the book was something about\n     Emerson.\n\n     Still later it is found that Miss C. had actually noticed the\n     article in question while actually in the position reproduced in\n     her dream. This, however, had happened about a month previous to\n     the events just narrated, and before she had thought of looking up\n     authorities as to Emerson, so that she had entirely forgotten the\n     occurrence and the article. Neither did she, at that time, call\n     Mrs. L.'s attention to the article, or mention Emerson.\n\n     According to the best information attainable, Miss C. was not\n     thinking of her essay at the time when Mrs. L. felt the sudden\n     impulse to take down a certain book. And perhaps it should be added\n     that the volume is one of a complete set of the _Century_ variously\n     disposed upon Mrs. L.'s shelves.\n\n     [This account is signed by Professor Luther, Mrs. L., and Miss C.]\n\nOf special interest are a few cases where the actual mechanism of some\nbrief communication from the spiritual world seems to suggest and lead\nup to the mechanism which we shall afterwards describe either as ecstasy\nor as possession.\n\n(2) I give here a case which suggests such knowledge as may be learnt in\necstasy;--as though a message had been communicated to a sleeper during\nsome brief excursion into the spiritual world,--which message was\nremembered for a few moments, in symbolic form, and then rapidly\nforgotten, as the sleeper returned fully into the normal waking state.\nWhat is to be noted is that the personality of sleep, to which I\nattribute the spiritual excursion, seems at first to have been\n\"controlling\" the awakened organism. In other words, Professor Thoulet\nwas partially entranced or _possessed_ by his own spirit or subliminal\nself.\n\nI quote from _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 503-5, a translation of\nthe original account of the case in the _Annales des Sciences\nPsychiques_ (September-October, 1891).\n\nProfessor Thoulet writes to Professor Richet as follows:--\n\n\n_April 17th, 1891._\n\n...During the summer of 1867, I was officially the assistant, but\n     in reality the friend, in spite of difference in age, of M. F., a\n     former officer in the navy, who had gone into business. We were\n     trying to set on foot again the exploitation of an old sulphur mine\n     at Rivanazzaro, near Voghera, in Piedmont, which had been long\n     abandoned on account of a falling in.\n\n     We occupied the same rooms, and our relations were those of father\n     and son, or of elder and younger brother....\n\n     I knew that Madame F., who lived at Toulon, and with whom I was\n     slightly acquainted, would soon be confined. I cannot say I was\n     indifferent about this fact, for it concerned M. F.; but it\n     certainly caused me no profound emotion; it was a second child, all\n     was going well, and M. F. was not anxious. I myself was well and\n     calm. It is true that a few days before, in Burgundy, my mother had\n     fallen out of a carriage; but the fall had no bad consequences, and\n     the letter which informed me of it also told me there was no harm\n     done.\n\n     M. F. and I slept in adjoining rooms, and as it was hot we left the\n     door between them open. One morning I sprang suddenly out of bed,\n     crossed my room, entered that of M. F., and awakened him by crying\n     out, \"You have just got a little girl; the telegram says ...\" Upon\n     this I began to read the telegram. M. F. sat up and listened; but\n     all at once I understood that I had been asleep, and that\n     consequently my telegram was only a dream, not to be believed; and\n     then, at the same time, this telegram, which was somehow in my hand\n     and of which I had read about three lines aloud, word for word,\n     seemed to withdraw from my eyes as if some one were carrying it off\n     open; the words disappeared, though their image still remained;\n     those which I had _pronounced_ remained in my memory, while the\n     rest of the telegram was only a _form_.\n\n     I stammered something; M. F. got up and led me into the\n     dining-room, and made me write down the words I had pronounced;\n     when I came to the lines which, though they had disappeared from my\n     memory, still remained pictured in my eye, I replaced them by dots,\n     making a sort of drawing of them. Remark that the telegram was not\n     written in common terms; there were about six lines of it, and I\n     had read more than two of them. Then, becoming aware of our rather\n     incorrect costume, M. F. and I began to laugh, and went back to our\n     beds.\n\n     Two or three days after I left for Tor\u00e9e; I tried in vain to\n     remember the rest of the telegram; I went on to Turin, and eight or\n     ten days after my dream I received the following telegram from M.\n     F., \"Come directly, you were right.\"\n\n     I returned to Rivanazzaro and M. F. showed me a telegram which he\n     had received the evening before; I recognised it as the one I had\n     seen in my dream; the beginning was exactly what I had written, and\n     the end, which was exactly like my drawing, enabled me to read\n     _again_ the words which I saw _again_. Please remark that the\n     confinement had taken place the evening before, and therefore the\n     fact was not that I, being in Italy, had seen a telegram which\n     already existed in France--this I might with some difficulty have\n     understood--but that I had seen it ten days before it existed or\n     could have existed; since the event it announced had not yet taken\n     place. I have turned this phenomenon over in my memory and reasoned\n     about it many times, trying to explain it, to connect it with\n     something, with a previous conversation, with some mental tension,\n     with an analogy, a wish,--and all in vain. M. F. is dead, and the\n     paper I wrote has disappeared. If I were called before a court of\n     justice about it, I could not furnish the shadow of a material\n     proof, and again the two personalities which exist in me, the\n     animal and the _savant_, have disputed on this subject so often\n     that sometimes I doubt it myself. However, the animal, obstinate\n     as an animal usually is, repeats incessantly that I have seen, and\n     I have read, and it is useless for me to tell myself that if any\n     one else told me such a story I should not believe it. I am obliged\n     to admit that it happened.\n\nJ. THOULET,\n_Professor at the Facult\u00e9 des Sciences at Nancy_.\n\nProfessor Richet adds:--\n\n     M. Thoulet has lately confirmed all the details contained in his\n     letter. He has no longer any written trace of this old story, but\n     the recollection of it is perfectly clear. He assured me that he\n     had _seen_ and _read_ the telegram like a real object....\n\n(3) And now I quote a case where a kind of conversation is indicated\nbetween the sleeper and some communicating spirit;--recalling the scraps\nof conversation sometimes overheard (as it were) between Mrs. Piper and\nsome \"control\" when she is in the act of awaking from trance. These\nmoments \"between two worlds\" are often, as will be seen, of high\nsignificance. In the case here cited we seem to see Mr. Goodall at first\nmisapprehending a message, and himself automatically uttering the\nmisapprehension, and then receiving the needed correction from his\ninvisible interlocutor.\n\nFrom _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 453-5. The following narrative\nwas communicated by Mr. Edward A. Goodall, of the Royal Society of\nPainters in Water Colours, London:--\n\n\n_May 1888._\n\n     At Midsummer, 1869, I left London for Naples. The heat being\n     excessive, people were leaving for Ischia, and I thought it best to\n     go there myself.\n\n     Crossing by steamer, I slept one night at Casamicciola, on the\n     coast, and walked next morning into the town of Ischia.\n\n     Liking the hotel there better than my quarters of the previous\n     night, I fetched my small amount of luggage by help of a man, who\n     returned with me on foot beside an animal which I rode--one of the\n     fine, sure-footed, big donkeys of the country. Arrived at the\n     hotel, and while sitting perfectly still in my saddle talking to\n     the landlady, the donkey went down upon his knees as if he had been\n     shot or struck by lightning, throwing me over his head upon the\n     lava pavement. In endeavouring to save myself my right hand was\n     badly injured. It soon became much swollen and very painful. A\n     Neapolitan doctor on the spot said no bones were broken, but\n     perfect rest would be needful, with my arm in a sling. Sketching,\n     of course, was impossible, and with neither books, newspapers, nor\n     letters I felt my inactivity keenly.\n\n     It must have been on my third or fourth night, and about the middle\n     of it, when I awoke, as it seemed at the sound of my own voice,\n     saying, \"I know I have lost my dearest little May.\" Another voice,\n     which I in no way recognised, answered, \"_No_, not May, but your\n     _youngest boy_.\"\n\n     The distinctness and solemnity of the voice made such a distressing\n     impression upon me that I slept no more. I got up at daybreak, and\n     went out, noticing for the first time telegraph-poles and wires.\n\n     Without delay I communicated with the postmaster at Naples, and by\n     next boat received two letters from home. I opened them according\n     to dates outside. The first told me that my youngest boy was taken\n     suddenly ill; the second, that he was dead.\n\n     Neither on his account nor on that of any of my family had I any\n     cause for uneasiness. All were quite well on my taking leave of\n     them so lately. My impression ever since has been that the time of\n     the death coincided as nearly as we could judge with the time of my\n     accident.[233]\n\n     In writing to Mrs. Goodall, I called the incident of the voice a\n     dream, as less likely perhaps to disturb her than the details which\n     I gave on reaching home, and which I have now repeated.\n\n     My letters happen to have been preserved.\n\n     I have never had any hallucination of any kind, nor am I in the\n     habit of talking in my sleep. I do remember once waking with some\n     words of mere nonsense upon my lips, but the experience of the\n     voice speaking to me was absolutely unique.\n\nEDWARD A. GOODALL.\n\nExtracts from letters to Mrs. E. A. Goodall from Ischia:--\n\n\n_Wednesday, August 11th, 1869._\n\n     The postman brought me two letters containing sad news indeed. Poor\n     little Percy. I dreamt some nights since the poor little fellow was\n     taken from us....\n\n_August 14th._\n\n     I did not tell you, dear, the particulars of my dream about poor\n     little Percy.\n\n     I had been for several days very fidgety and wretched at getting no\n     letters from home, and had gone to bed in worse spirits than usual,\n     and in my dream I fancied I said: \"I have lost my dearest little\n     May.\" A strange voice seemed to say: \"No, _not_ May but your\n     youngest boy,\" not mentioning his name....\n\nMr. Goodall gave me verbally a concordant account of the affair, and\nseveral members of his family, who were present at our interview,\nrecollected the strong impression made on him and them at the time.\n\n(4) The next case is precisely a miniature case of possession.\n\nFrom the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 278-280.\n\n\"The following account\" (writes Dr. Hodgson) \"was sent to me by Mr. John\nE. Wilkie at the suggestion of one of our American members who is well\nknown to me, and who speaks in the highest terms of Mr. Wilkie as a\nwitness:\"--\n\n\nWASHINGTON, D. C., _April 11th, 1898_.\n\n     In October 1895, while living in London, England, I was attacked by\n     bronchitis in rather a severe form, and on the advice of my\n     physician, Dr. Oscar C. De Wolf, went to his residence in 6\n     Grenville Place, Cromwell Road, where I could be under his\n     immediate care. For two days I was confined to my bed, and about\n     five o'clock in the afternoon of the third day, feeling somewhat\n     better, I partially dressed myself, slipped on a heavy bath robe,\n     and went down to the sitting-room on the main floor, where my\n     friend, the doctor, usually spent a part of the afternoon in\n     reading. A steamer chair was placed before the fire by one of the\n     servants, and I was made comfortable with pillows. The doctor was\n     present, and sat immediately behind me reading. I dropped off into\n     a light doze, and slept for perhaps thirty minutes. Suddenly I\n     became conscious of the fact that I was about to awaken; I was in a\n     condition where I was neither awake nor asleep. I realised fully\n     that I had been asleep, and I was equally conscious of the fact\n     that I was not wide awake. While in this peculiar mental condition\n     I suddenly said to myself: \"Wait a minute. Here is a message for\n     the doctor.\" At the moment I fancied that I had upon my lap a pad\n     of paper, and I thought I wrote upon this pad with a pencil the\n     following words:--\n\n     \"DEAR DOCTOR,--Do you remember Katy McGuire, who used to live with\n     you in Chester? She died in 1872. She hopes you are having a good\n     time in London.\"\n\n     Instantly thereafter I found myself wide awake, felt no surprise at\n     not finding the pad of paper on my knees, bcause I then realised\n     that that was but the hallucination of a dream, but impressed with\n     that feature of my thought which related to the message, I partly\n     turned my head, and, speaking over my shoulder to the doctor, said:\n     \"Doctor, I have a message for you.\"\n\n     The doctor looked up from the _British Medical Journal_ which he\n     was reading, and said: \"What's that?\"\n\n     \"I have a message for you,\" I repeated. \"It is this: 'Dear Doctor:\n     Do you remember Katy McGuire, who used to live with you in Chester?\n     She died in 1872. She hopes you are having a good time in London.'\"\n\n     The doctor looked at me with amazement written all over his face,\n     and said: \"Why,---- what the devil do you mean?\"\n\n     \"I don't know anything about it except that just before I woke up I\n     was impelled to receive this message which I have just delivered to\n     you.\"\n\n     \"Did you ever hear of Katy McGuire?\" asked the doctor.\n\n     \"Never in my life.\"\n\n     \"Well,\" said the doctor, \"that's one of the most remarkable things\n     I ever heard of. My father for a great many years lived at Chester,\n     Mass. There was a neighbouring family named McGuire, and Katy\n     McGuire, a daughter of this neighbour, frequently came over to our\n     house, as the younger people in a country village will visit their\n     neighbours, and used to assist my mother in the lighter duties\n     about the house. I was absent from Chester from about 1869 to about\n     1873. I had known Katy, however, as a daughter of our neighbour and\n     knew that she used to visit the house. She died some time during\n     the absence I speak of, but as to the exact date of her death I am\n     not informed.\"\n\n     That closed the incident, and although the doctor told me that he\n     would write to his old home to ascertain the exact date of Katy's\n     death, I have never heard from him further in the matter. I\n     questioned him at the time as to whether he had recently thought of\n     Katy McGuire, and he told me that her name had not occurred to him\n     for twenty years, and that he might never have recalled it had it\n     not been for the rather curious incident which had occurred. In my\n     own mind I could only explain the occurrence as a rather unusual\n     coincidence. I was personally aware of the fact that the doctor's\n     old home had been Chester, Mass., and had frequently talked with\n     him of his earlier experiences in life when he began practice in\n     that city, but never at any time during these conversations had the\n     name of this neighbour's daughter been mentioned, nor had the name\n     of the neighbour been mentioned, our conversation relating entirely\n     to the immediate members of the family, particularly the doctor's\n     father, who was a noted practitioner in that district.\n\nJOHN E. WILKIE.\n\nDr. De Wolf, in reply to Dr. Hodgson's first inquiry, wrote:--\n\n\n6 GRENVILLE PLACE, CROMWELL ROAD, S.W., _April 29th, 1898_.\n\n     DEAR SIR,--In reply to your letter of the 27th inst., I regret that\n     I cannot recall with any definite recollection the incident to\n     which Mr. Wilkie refers.\n\n     I _do_ remember that he told me one morning he had had a remarkable\n     dream--or conference with some one who knew me when a young\n     lad.--Very truly yours,\n\nOSCAR C. DE WOLF.\n\nDr. Hodgson then sent Mr. Wilkie's account to Dr. De Wolf, with further\ninquiries, to which Dr. De Wolf replied as follows:--\n\n\n6 GRENVILLE PLACE, CROMWELL ROAD, S.W., _May 4th, 1898_.\n\n     DEAR SIR,--Mr. Wilkie's statement is correct except as to\n     unimportant detail. My father practised his profession of medicine,\n     in Chester, Mass., for sixty years--dying in 1890. I was born in\n     Chester and lived there until 1857, when I was in Paris studying\n     medicine for four years. In 1861 I returned to America and\n     immediately entered the army as surgeon and served until the close\n     of the war in 1865. In 1866 I located in Northampton, Mass., where\n     I practised my profession until 1873, when I removed to Chicago.\n\n     Chester is a hill town in Western Mass., and Northampton is\n     seventeen miles distant. While in Northampton I was often at my\n     father's house--probably every week--and during some of the years\n     from 1866 to 1873 I knew Katy McGuire as a servant assisting my\n     mother.\n\n     She was an obliging and pleasant girl and always glad to see me.\n     She had no family in Chester (as Mr. Wilkie says) and I do not know\n     where she came from. Neither do I know where or when she died--but\n     I know she is dead. There is nothing left of my family in Chester.\n     The old homestead still remains with me, and I visit it every year.\n\n     The strange feature (to me) of this incident is the fact that I had\n     not thought of this girl for many years, and Mr. Wilkie was never\n     within 500 miles of Chester.\n\n     We had been warm friends since soon after my location in Chicago,\n     where he was connected with a department of the Chicago _Tribune_.\n     I came to London in 1892 and Mr. Wilkie followed the next year as\n     the manager of Low's _American Exchange_, 3 Northumberland Avenue.\n     His family did not join him until 1895, which explains his being in\n     my house when ill.\n\n     Mr. Wilkie is a very straightforward man and not given to illusions\n     of any kind. He is now the chief of the Secret Service Department\n     of the U.S. Government, Washington, D. C.\n\n     Neither of us were believers in spiritual manifestations of this\n     character, and this event so impressed us that we did not like to\n     talk about it, and it has been very seldom referred to when we\n     met.--Very truly yours,\n\nOSCAR C. DE WOLF.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nA., Miss, automatic writing, and crystal visions of, 276 _note_, 289-290.\n\nAbnormal and supernormal vital phenomena, 255-257.\n\nAccidents, apparitions at time of, 106-107, 208.\n\nAchille, case of, 359-361.\n\n_Across the Plains_, _cited_, 97.\n\nAfter-images--\n  Ghosts described as, 215.\n  Veridical, 215.\n\nAgassiz, dream intelligence exercised by, case of, 103.\n\n_Ages of Faith_, _cited_, 277 _note_.\n\nAgoraphobia, 34;\n  cured by hypnotism, 136.\n\nAid\u00e9, Mr. Hamilton, _cited_, 320 _note_.\n\nAksakof, Hon. Alexander, case reported by, 291-292, 405;\n  _cited_, 313;\n  _quoted_, 433-437.\n\nAlcohol in relation to hypnotism, 123, 135.\n\nAlexander, Helen, case of, 388-390.\n\n\"Alma,\" case of, 211.\n\nAlternating Personalities--\n  Addition of faculty in, 310.\n  Memory in, 131, 310-311.\n  \"Possession\" compared with, 308-309, 336.\n  X., F\u00e9lida, case of, 361-363.\n\n_Alterations de la Personalit\u00e9_, _cited_, 362.\n\nAmbidexterity, relation of, to subliminal mentation, 68.\n\n_American Journal of Psychology_, _cited_, 33 _and note_, 64 _note_,\n   170 _note_, 265 _note_, 270 _note_.\n\nAmerican Society for Psychical Research, _see under_ Society\n   for Psychical Research.\n\nAmnesia, case of, 47.\n\nAmp\u00e8re, case of, 66, 68.\n\nAn\u00e6sthesia--\n  Hypnotic, 138-141.\n  Hysterical, unconsciousness of patient in, 36-37;\n    injury not resulting from, 37-39;\n    patches of, 37, 124.\n  Witches, patches on, 124.\n\nAnagrams automatically written, 264.\n\nAnalgesia induced by hypnotism, 138-141.\n\n_Anatomy of Sleep_, _cited_, 416 _note_.\n\nAng\u00e9lique, Soeur, 308.\n\nAnimals--\n  Apparition possibly seen by, 456, 457 _note_.\n  Hypnotisability and suggestibility of, 123-124.\n  Proximity of, sensibility to, 380.\n  Shock, effects of, on, 123.\n  Telepathy between, 188 _note_.\n\n_Annales des Sciences Psychiques_, _cited_, 284, 446.\n\n_Annales M\u00e9dico-Psychologiques_, _cited_, 47 _note_{1}, 49 _note_{1},\n   379 _note_, 381 _note_, 382 _note_.\n\n_Ann\u00e9e Psychologique, L'_, _cited_, 83 _and note_.\n\nApparitions, _see_ Hallucinations.\n\n_Apparitions and Thought-transference_, _cited_, 185 _note_{2}.\n\nArago, _quoted_, 71.\n\n_Arcanes de la vie future d\u00e9voil\u00e9es_, _cited_, 317.\n\n_Archives de M\u00e9decine_, _cited_, 98 _note_{3}.\n\n_Archives de Nevrologie_, _cited_, 49 _note_{1}.\n\nArithmetical calculations done under hypnotism, 152.\n\n---- prodigies, 64-67.\n\nArt, symbolism of, 79-80.\n\nAttention, hypnotic influence on, 153.\n\nAudition--\n  Coloured, 170 _note_.\n  Defects of, removed by hypnotism, 143.\n  Hyper\u00e6sthesia of, 270.\n  Shell-hearing, 201.\n\nAutomatic writing, _see under_ Motor Automatism.\n\nAutomatism--\n  Definition of, 168.\n  Motor, _see_ Motor Automatism.\n  Sensory, _see_ Sensory Automatism.\n\n_Automatisme Psychologique, L'_, _cited_, 48, 146 _note_, 308 _note_{2};\n  _quoted_, 85-86.\n\nAyre, Captain, case of, _cited_, 228 _note_.\n\nAzam, Dr., case of patient of, _quoted_, 361-363.\n\n\nB., Madame, telepathic hypnotisation of, 382-383.\n\n--, S. H., apparition of, 210-211, 396-399.\n\nBabylonian inscriptions deciphered in dream, 366-369.\n\nBacchus, Mrs., case of, 234.\n\nBackman, Dr., case of patient of, 211.\n\nBacon, Francis, _cited_, 184, 341.\n\nBaillarger, _cited_, 96.\n\nBajenoff, Rev. Basil, case attested by, 417.\n\nBarnes, Mary, case of, 49 _note_{3}.\n\nBarrett, Prof. W. F., _cited_, 320 _note_, 378, 380;\n  S.P.R. promoted by, 9 _note_{1}.\n\nBarrows, Dr. Ira, _cited_, 295.\n\nBeauchamp, Sally, case of, 49, 308.\n\nBeaumis, Prof., _cited_, 147 _note_.\n\nBeecher, Sir Arthur, case of, _cited_, 244 _note_.\n\nB\u00e9rillon, Dr. Edgar, _cited_, 133 _note_, 135 _note_{1}, 139 _note_,\n   153, 155 _note_, 272.\n\nBerjon, Dr., _cited_, 49 _note_{1}, 379 _note_.\n\nBernheim, Professor, hypnotic cures by, 117;\n  work of, 121-122;\n  _cited_, 133 _note_, 134 _note_, 135 _note_{2}, 155 _note_, 159, 160, 166.\n\nBertha, Sister (Bertha Foertsch), apparition seen by, 228, 420.\n\nBertrand, Dr., work of, 119.\n\n----, Rev. L. J., trance of, 400.\n\n_Biblioth\u00e8que Diabolique_, _cited_, 277 _note_, 308 _note_{1}.\n\nBidder, Mr., case of, 66, 68.\n\nBigge, Wm. Matthew, case of, 384-385.\n\nBiggs, Dr., _cited_, 146 _note_, 151 and _note_.\n\nBinet, Professor, _cited_, 64 _note_, 83, 362.\n\nBinns, Dr., _cited_, 416 _note_.\n\nBlake, William, work of, 58.\n\nBlindness, tactile hyper\u00e6sthesia with, 271.\n\nBlyth, Mr., case of, 68.\n\nBoeteau, M., case of patient of, 47.\n\nBouff\u00e9, _cited_, 133 _note_.\n\nBourdon, Dr., _cited_, 133 _note_, 134 _note_, 137 _note_{1}.\n\nBourne, Ansel, case of, 45-46.\n\n----, Canon, apparition of, 195, 197.\n\n----, the Misses, apparition seen by, 386-387.\n\nBourru, Dr., _cited_, 49 _note_{1}, 146 _note_.\n\nBoyle, Mr., case of, _cited_, 107 _note_.\n\nBraid, work of, 120 _and note_{2}-121;\n  squint of, 125-126.\n\nBrain--\n  Possession, functions in, 190, 201.\n  Recovery of, from injury, 81-82.\n  Spirit's action on, 305.\n  Telepathic communications in relation to, 304-305.\n\n_Brain_, _cited_, 49 _note_{3}, 98 _note_{1}, 153 _note_{2}.\n\nBramwell, Dr. J. Milne, _cited_, 49 _note_{3}, 120 _note_{2},\n   123, 124 _note_, 126 _note_, 129 _note_, 135 _note_{2},\n    137, 152, 153, 154;\n  _quoted_, 41.\n\nBreuer, Dr., _cited_, 40-41 _and note_.\n\n_British Medical Journal_, _cited_, 137 _note_{3}, 139 _note_.\n\nBrown, George, evidence given by, 413.\n\nBrowne, Miss, 285.\n\nBruce, Dr., case of, 107-108, 237;\n  _quoted_, 371-373.\n\nBuddhism, 349, 352-353.\n\n_Bulletins de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Psychologie Physiologique_, _cited_, 382.\n\nBurot, Dr., _cited_, 49 _note_{1}, 146 _note_.\n\nBuxton, case of, 66, 67.\n\n\nC., Miss, dream of, 315, 445-446.\n\nC\u00e6dmon's poem, _cited_, 104 _note_.\n\nCahagnet, Alphonse, cases of subjects of, 299, 317-318;\n  _cited_, 204.\n\nCalculating boys, 64-67.\n\nCalculations under hypnotism, 152.\n\nCampbell, General, case of, _cited_, 243.\n\n----, Miss Catherine M., apparition seen by, 243, 429.\n\nCamuset, Dr., _cited_, 49 _note_{1}.\n\nCataplexy produced by shock, 123.\n\nCevennes, miracles of the, 285.\n\nChabaneix, Paul, _cited_, 71 and _note_.\n\nChaddock, Dr. C. G., _cited_, 98 _note_{4}.\n\nCharacter, hypnotic influence on, 133-135 _and notes_, 155, 381-382.\n\nCharcot, Prof.--\n  _Cited_, 52 _note_, 103 _and note_[3], 132 _note_.\n  Hypnotic school of, 121.\n  Stages in hypnotism, theory as to, 130.\n\nCharms, potency of, 164.\n\nChildhood, 92.\n\nChildren--\n  Education and training of, value of hypnotism in, 133 _and\n   note_--134 _and note_.\n  Phantasms of, 456, 457 _note_.\n  Terrors of, 33-34.\n\nChinese devil-possession, 307-309.\n\nChloroform, influence of, on suggestibility, 122-123.\n\nChristian Science, 128, 165.\n\nChristianity, 3-4, 342, 346, 349-352.\n\nClairvoyance--\n  Automatic messages due to, 325.\n  Definition of term, 6 _note_{1};\n    inadequacy of term, 105.\n  Dying, of the, 233.\n  Genius a kind of, 344.\n  Joan of Arc, case of, 267.\n  Medical, 380-381.\n  Telepathy, relation to, 187.\n  Travelling--\n    Cases of, 205-206, 400.\n    Dreams, likeness to, 205.\n    Ecstasy and extension of, 337-338.\n    Hypnotic, 163.\n    Nature of, 204-205.\n    Savages, among, 345.\n    Sleep, during, 301.\n\nClaustrophobia cured by hypnotism, 136.\n\n\"Clelia\" case, _cited_, 277 _note_.\n\nCobbe, Miss, cases of, _cited_, 233.\n\nColburn, case of, 66, 67.\n\nColeridge, Hartley considered as a genius, 60.\n\n----, S. T.--inspiration of _Kubla Khan_, 104.\n\nColonial animals, analogy from, 30.\n\n_Comptes Rendus de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Biologie_, _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\nCondillac, _cited_, 71.\n\nConley, Elizabeth, vision seen by, 315, 412-415.\n\nConsciousness--\n  Central, in relation to minor consciousness, 30.\n  Complexity and memory the test of, 28-30.\n  Dogs, of, 29.\n  Double, _see_ Secondary Personality.\n  Ethical and legal view of, 29.\n  Mind, relation to, 29.\n  Spectrum of, solar spectrum analogous to, 18-19.\n  Subliminal, 14-16.\n  Unreliability of, 14.\n\nContinuity--\n  Doctrine of, 346.\n  Evidence, in, demand for, 213.\n  Life, of, presumptive proof of, 184.\n  Subliminal mentation, of, 280.\n\n_Contribution \u00e0 l'\u00e9tude de l'hypnotisme_, _cited_, 382 _note_.\n\nCoomes, Dr. M. F., _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\nCooper, Alfred, _quoted_, 370.\n\nCope, C. H., case collected by, 410-411.\n\nCosmic and Planetary--\n  Evolution, 342, 354.\n  Phases of personality developed simultaneously, 114-115, 165-166.\n\nCosmic Law--\n  Christianity the fulfilment of, 346.\n  Continuity of, 351.\n\n_Courier-Journal_, _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\nCox, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 228 _note_.\n\nCrawford and Balcarres, Earl of, _cited_, 320 _note_.\n\nCrealock, Colonel, apparition seen by, 244.\n\nCrimes committed under hypnotism, no evidence for, 37, 154.\n\nCrookes, Sir W., _cited_, 24, 186, 319, 320 _note_;\n  work of, 7.\n\nCrowe, Mrs., _cited_, 317 _note_{2}.\n\nCrum, Amos, evidence obtained by, 413-415.\n\nCrystal Visions--\n  Collective, analogy of, with collective apparitions, 241.\n  Distant knowledge acquired by, 201.\n  Goodrich-Freer, Miss, experience of, 365.\n  Hypnotisation accompanying, 181.\n  Method and nature of, 180, 182-183.\n  Supraliminally unapprehended facts, of, 103.\n  Symbolic character of, 202.\n  Tel\u00e6sthesia in, 201-202.\n  Telepathic sensibility accompanying gift of, 181-182, 187.\n\nCrystals, sensibility to, 379.\n\nCryptomnesia, 279, 284, 286.\n\nCuvier, _cited_, 159.\n\n\nD., Mrs., case of, _cited_, 228 _note_.\n\n_D. D. Home; His Life and Mission_, _cited_, 319 _note_, 320 _note_.\n\nDase, case of, 66, 67, 68, 91.\n\nDe Fr\u00e9ville, Mrs., apparition of, 243-244.\n\n_De Genio Socratis_, _cited_, 267 _note_{2}.\n\nDe Gourmont R\u00e9my, _quoted_, 71.\n\nD'Indy, M. Vincent, _cited_, 71.\n\nDe Jong, _cited_, 134 _note_, 135 _note_{1}.\n\n_De l'Intelligence_, _cited_, 98 _note_{2}.\n\n_De la Suggestion et de ses Applications \u00e0 la p\u00e9dagogie_, _cited_, 133\n  _note_, 134 _note_, 153 _note_.\n\nDe Musset, _quoted_, 71.\n\nDe Normandie, Rev. C. Y., _quoted_, 440.\n\nDe Puys\u00e9gur, Marquis, work of, 119 _and note_;\n  _cited_, 157 _note_, 381.\n\nDe Vesci, Lady, case of, 269.\n\nDe Wolf, O. C., _quoted_, 451-452.\n\nDead, the, _see_ Discarnate Spirits.\n\nDeafness removed by hypnotic suggestion, 143.\n\nDean, Sidney, _cited_, 276 note.\n\nDeath--\n  Apparitions at or near time of, 9, 193, 225-226;\n    causes conditioning, 225;\n    time relations in, 224 _note_{2}, 225;\n    three main types of, 220.\n  Clairvoyance at time of, 233.\n  Conditions of, taken on, in mediumistic trance, 318.\n  Dream of, 228 _note_.\n  Premonitory vision of, 370.\n  Prevision of, by discarnate spirits, 232.\n  Transitional stage immediately following, 230-232, 237, 240.\n\nDee, Dr., magic of, 180.\n\nDelboeuf, _cited_, 139 _note_{1}, 141, 152.\n\nDelirium tremens, suggestibility developed during recovery from, 123.\n\nDelitzsch, Prof. Friedrich, 365.\n\nDemoniacal possession, 307-309.\n\nDent, Mrs., 386.\n\n_Des Indes \u00e0 la plan\u00e8te Mars_, _cited_, 265 _note_, 279.\n\nDespine, Dr. Prosper, 150 _and note_, 157 _note_, 381.\n\nDessoir, Herr Max, _cited_, 185.\n\nDevils, possession by, 307-309.\n\nDiamanti, case of, 64 _note_.\n\nDickens, Charles, _cited_, 82-83.\n\nDignowity, Karl, dream and vision of, 375-377.\n\nDiscarnate spirits--\n  Apparitions of--\n    Animals, possibly seen by, 456, 457 _note_.\n    Automatic character of, 215, 221.\n    Cases of, 226-229, 231-236, 366, 371-373, 375-376, 406-409,\n      410-411, 416-417, 420-429.\n    Collective, 241-243.\n    Compacts, in answer to, 235-236.\n    Dying, seen by the, 233.\n    Evidence for, Gurney _quoted_ on, 222.\n    Evidence of presence, not always to be considered as, 326.\n    Ghosts, popular theories as to, 214-216.\n    Nature of, 305-306.\n    News of death, bringing, 234-235;\n      coincident with, 239.\n    Personal and local, 240-243 _and note_[2].\n    Premonitory, 406-411.\n    Projected from incarnate minds, 234, 244-245, 249, 250 _note_.\n    Repeated, 227, 231, 240-241, 401-404.\n    Results of past mental action as a factor in, 245.\n    Retrocognition in relation to, 245, 251.\n    Spatial phenomena in relation to, 250.\n    Twofold nature of, 306.\n    Veridical after-images, 215-216.\n  Attitude of, probable, towards earthly things, 229.\n  Bewilderment of, immediately after death, 237, 240, 335.\n  Communications from, 189, 217;\n    difficulties of spirits in establishing, 335-337;\n    case of Swedenborg, 317;\n    types of, 218-219, 221.\n  Corpse, knowledge regarding, indicated by, 236-238, 406-409.\n  Death conditions of, reproduced in mediumistic trance, 318.\n  Evolution amongst, theory as to, 345, 346.\n  Ghosts, definitions of, 214-215.\n  Identity, conception of, 334.\n  Knowledge of, sources of, 289-290.\n  Material perception of, 203.\n  Physical intervention of, question as to, 24.\n  Spacial relations of, 334.\n  State of, 252-253, 350-351.\n  Study of problems as to, method of, 229-230.\n  Surviving friends, thought for, indicated by, 239.\n  Telekinesis by, 312-314.\n  Telepathy from, 16, 187, 238, 304.\n  Terrene affairs--\n    Knowledge of present and future, evidence as to, 231-233, 292-293, 334.\n    Memory of, evidence as to, 234-235, 412-415.\n  Theology, knowledge of, 350.\n  Time, relation to, 334.\n  Welcome of friends into spirit world by, 233.\n\n_Dissociation of a Personality_, _cited_, 49 _note_{2}.\n\nDissociation of ideas, 361.\n\nDissolution and evolution contrasted, 254-257.\n\nDivining rod, 269, 378.\n\nDistant knowledge, avenues to, 201.\n\nDodson, Miss L., apparition seen by, 410-411.\n\nDorez, Dr. A., _cited_, 137 _note_{1}.\n\nDowsing, 269, 378.\n\nDrawing, automatic, 273 _and note_.\n\nDreams--\n  Acuteness of senses in, 97.\n  Babylonian inscriptions deciphered in, 366-369.\n  Death, of, 228 _note_.\n  Hallucinations, defined as, 173.\n  Hypermnesic, 102.\n  Hypnotic memory of, 30.\n  Inferences drawn in, 102.\n  Life of, concurrent with waking life, 196.\n  Lost objects, of, 364.\n  Memory in--\n    Capricious nature of, 310-311.\n    Ecmnesic periods of, 101.\n    Hypnotic memory, relation to, 99-101.\n    Pain, of, after operations under chloroform, 140.\n    Scope of, as compared with that of waking memory, 102-104, 113.\n    Supraliminally known but forgotten facts, of, 102.\n    Supraliminally unapprehended facts, of, 102-103.\n  Nature of, 43-44, 53.\n  Permanent effect of certain, 97-98.\n  Precognitive, 107-112, 371-373.\n  Questions asked and replied to in, 278.\n  Reasoning intelligence of, 103-104, 113-114, 365-366.\n  Self-suggestion in, 98-99.\n  Stevenson, R. L., of, 72-73.\n  Storie, Mrs., case of, _see_ Storie.\n  Supernormal faculties exercised in, 104-112, 114, 366-375.\n  Transitional, 231.\n  Vision in, 172, 175-176.\n  Visualisation in, 179.\n\n_Dreams of a Spirit Seer_, _cited_, 317 _note_{1}.\n\nDrewry, Dr., _cited_, 48.\n\nDriesen, Baron Basil, apparition seen by, 416-417.\n\nDrugs--\n  Hypnotic cure of impulse to, 135.\n  Suggestibility, relation to, 122-123.\n\n_Du Magnetisme Animal_, _cited_, 119 _note_.\n\nDu Prel, _cited_, 43 _note_.\n\nDual existence in cosmic and planetary worlds, 114-115, 165-166.\n\nDufay, Dr., _cited_, 152; _quoted_, 365.\n\nDufour, M., hypnotic treatment by, 382 _and note_.\n\nDunraven, Lord, _cited_, 320 _note_.\n\nDurand, _cited_, 139 _note_, 150 _note_.\n\nDyce, Dr., case of patient of, _cited_, 45 _note_.\n\nDynamometrical power and brain energy, 261.\n\n\nE., Mlle. A., case of, _cited_, 147 _note_.\n\nEcmnesia--\n  Nature of, 310.\n  Temporary and permanent, 300-301.\n  Viv\u00e9, Louis, case of, 49.\n\nEcstasy--\n  Cases of, 337.\n  Definition of, 303.\n  Evidence for, 338.\n  Possession merging into, 314-315.\n  Revelations of, probably subjective, 317.\n  Sleep, relation with, 116.\n\nEducation and training, value of hypnotism in, 133-134 _and notes_, 153.\n\nEeden, Van, _cited_, 133 _note_, 134 _note_, 135 _note_{2}, 139 _note_.\n\nEgotistical view of life, 348.\n\n_Einige therapeutische Versuche mit dem Hypnotismus bei Geisteskranken_,\n   _cited_, 135 _note_.\n\n_Electricit\u00e9 Animale_, _cited_, 381.\n\nElgee, Mrs., apparition seen by, 392-395.\n\nElliotson, Dr., _cited_, 159 _note_;\n  mesmeric hospital of, 117-118, 120.\n\nEllis, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 228 _note_.\n\n_Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_, _cited_, 125 _note_.\n\nEnd-organs--\n  Evolution of, 144.\n  Knowledge acquired without aid of, 169-170.\n\nEnergy, ghost defined as persistent personal, 214-215.\n\nEnthusiasts, self-suggestion in relation to, 42.\n\nEnvironment, man's evolution a perception of, 74-76.\n\nEpilepsy--\n  Hypnotism applied to, 46.\n  Nerve-centres functioning in, 57.\n  _Post-epileptic_ states, 45-46.\n\n_Erfolge des therapeutischen Hypnotismus in der Landpraxis_,\n   _cited_, 135 _note_{2}.\n\nEsdaile, hypnotic hospital of, at Calcutta, 52, 120; _cited_,\n   52, 139 _note_, 159-160, 380.\n\n_Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man_, _quoted_, 11.\n\n_\u00c9tat Mental des Hyst\u00e9riques, L'_, _quoted_, 36.\n\nEther, matter in relation to, 313.\n\n_\u00c9tude Scientifique sur Somnambulisme_, _cited_, 150 _note_.\n\nEugenics, study of, 179.\n\nEvens, Mr., case of, _cited_, 228.\n\nEvil, view of discarnate spirits as to, 350-351.\n\nEvolution--\n  _By-products_ of, so-called, 75-76.\n  Cosmic, 354.\n  Dissolutive phenomena contrasted with that of, 254-257.\n  Environment, a perception of, 74-76.\n  Path of, 76.\n  Perturbation masking, 257.\n  Spiritual, 340-346.\n  Subliminal faculties, problem of origin of, 90-91.\n\n_Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr. D. D. Home_, _cited_, 320 _note_.\n\n_Experimental Study in Hypnotism, An_, _cited_, 98 _note_{4}, 146 _note_.\n\n\nFahnestock, Dr., _cited_, 163 _note_; _quoted_, 381;\n  work of, 121.\n\nFairman, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 228 _note_.\n\nFaith--\n  Aims of, 342-343.\n  Impulse given to, by spiritualistic knowledge, 341.\n  Need for, 348.\n  Self-suggestion in relation to, 166-167.\n  Uncertainty as an aid to, 343.\n\n_Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subject_, _quoted_, 69.\n\nFancher, Mollie, case of, 51 _and note_[1].\n\nFaraday, _cited_, 263.\n\nFarez, Paul, _cited_, 134 _note_.\n\nFarler, Archdeacon, case of, 227; _cited_, 240.\n\nFaure, Dr., _cited_, 98 _and note_[3].\n\nF\u00e9r\u00e9, Dr., _cited_, 98 _note_{1}, 261 _and note_.\n\nFetichism, cures in relation to, 164-165.\n\nFinney, Mrs. W. A., _quoted_, 438-440.\n\nFlournoy, Prof., _cited_, 170, 265 _note_{1};\n  case of patient of, discussed, 279-286.\n\nFoissac, _cited_, 150 _note_.\n\nFontan, Prof., _cited_, 150 _note_.\n\nForel, Dr. Auguste, _cited_, 135 _note_{2};\n  cases of, _cited_, 153.\n\n_Forum_, _cited_, 210 _note_.\n\nFraud in connection with spiritualism, 313, 329.\n\nFr\u00e9mont, General, apparition of, 395.\n\nFreud, Dr., _cited_, 40-41 _and note_.\n\nFryer, Mr., _cited_, 155 _note_.\n\nFuller, case of, 66.\n\n\nG., Mr. F., apparition seen by, 406-409.\n\n--, H., _quoted_, 408.\n\n--, K., _quoted_, 408.\n\nGalton, Mr., _cited_, 65, 96.\n\nGarrison, Mr., case of, 272.\n\nGauss, case of, 66, 68.\n\nGenius--\n  Aberrant manifestation, considered as, 56.\n  Definition of, 20, 56, 60-61.\n  Growth, analogy with, 82.\n  Hallucinations resembling inspirations of, 178.\n  Hypnotism and automatism in relation to, 72, 80-81.\n  Hysteria in relation to, 41, 53.\n  Inspirations of, 63-73, 80, 173, 179.\n  Internal vision of, 173.\n  Irregularities of, 76-77.\n  Lombroso's theories as to, 56, 74.\n  Nature of, 20, 63-64.\n  Normal, the best type of, 57, 61-63.\n  Origin of, 89-90.\n  Potential in all men, 63.\n  Scope of term, 56-57.\n  Sensitive's faculties, relation to, 83-84.\n  Sleep and, analogy between, 104.\n  Socrates, case of, 83-34, 266.\n  Stevenson, R. L., case of, 356.\n  Subjective rather than objective effects the real test of, 60-61.\n  Subliminal perceptions, the co-ordinated effect of, 58, 63-73, 80.\n  Substitution of control in, 301.\n  Telepathy and tel\u00e6sthesia, relation to, 84-85.\n  Visual images of, 179.\n\nGeometrical patterns and subliminal mentation, 69-70.\n\nGermany, work on hypnotism in, 120.\n\nGhosts, _see_ Discarnate Spirits.\n\nGibert, Dr., experiments by, 160, 185, 382-383.\n\n_Gift of D. D. Home_, The, _cited_, 319 _note_, 320 _note_.\n\nGlanvil, Richard, _cited_, 7 _note_{1}.\n\nGoerwitz, E. F., _cited_, 317 _note_{1}.\n\nGoethe, _cited_, 184.\n\nGoodall, Edward A., case of, 315, 448-449.\n\nGoodhart, S. P., _cited_, 47 _note_{2}.\n\nGoodrich-Freer, Miss, _cited_, 180 _note_;\n  crystal-gazing experiments of, 103, 365.\n\nGottschalk, Mr., case of, 206.\n\n_Grande Hysterie chez l'Homme, La_, _cited_, 49 _note_{1}, 379 _note_.\n\nGrant, Mr. Cameron, case of, _cited_, 221 _note_{1}, 273 _note_.\n\nGreen, Mrs., case of, 238.\n\nGriesinger, _cited_, 96.\n\nGurney, Edmund--\n  Cases investigated by, 108, 320, 369.\n  _Cited_, 5, 9 _and note_[1], 107 _note_, 111, 112, 125, 130-131,\n   137, 147 _note_, 152, 160-161, 174, 188, 189, 192, 198, 206,\n   207, 215, 225, 235, 238, 242, 243, 255, 260, 274-275, 396, 433.\n  _Quoted_, 222-224, 397, 398, 399, 430.\n\nGuthrie, Malcolm, _cited_, 185 _note_{1}.\n\n\nHall, Miss, case of, _cited_, 237.\n\n----, Prof. Stanley, _cited_, 33 _and note_.\n\nHallucinations--\n  Accidents, at time of, 106-107, 208.\n  Arrival cases, 194, 384-385.\n  Auditory, 245-246.\n  Bystander the percipient of, 387-390.\n  Collective cases, 187, 194-196, 198-199, 200, 306.\n  Crises other than death, connected with, 193, 208, 390-391.\n  Death, at or near time of, _see_ Death--Apparitions.\n  Death-compacts prematurely fulfilled, 209.\n  Discarnate spirits, of, _see_ Discarnate Spirits--Apparitions.\n  Experimental production of, 209-211.\n  Genius, resembling inspirations of, 178.\n  Healthy subjects, of, 192 _and note_.\n  Hyper\u00e6sthesi\u00e6, defined as, 173.\n  Hypnotism in relation to, 148, 178.\n  Living, of the--\n    Cases of, 390-399.\n    Continuous series from, to those of the dead, 9-10.\n  Morbid, 179.\n  Optical laws not followed in, case of, 386-387.\n  Premonitory dream, 106-109, 371-373.\n  Projection of figures by agent, 409.\n  Promises, in fulfilment of, 418-420.\n  Psychorrhagic cases, 193-198.\n  Repetition of, 194-195.\n  Report of Census of, _cited_, 174 _and note_, 192, 193, 226, 233;\n    _quoted_, 390-391, 400-405, 418-420.\n  Spirit excursion in relation to, 177-178.\n  Threefold classification of, 220.\n  Veridical--\n    Nature of, 175-177, 216-217;\n      two-fold nature of, 306.\n    Types of, apparently outside scope of telepathy, 188-189.\n  Waking, 206-207.\n\nHamilton, Duchess of, vision of, 370.\n\nHandwriting, automatic, _see_ Motor Automatism--Writing.\n\nHanna, Rev. Thos. C., case of, 47-48.\n\nHarriss, Miss, case of, _cited_, 228 _note_.\n\nHart, Mr., communication from, after death, 332.\n\nHartmann, Dr. Von, _cited_, 70-71.\n\nHaunting--\n  Cases of, 244, 421-429.\n  Earth-bound spirits, by, 241.\n  Theories as to, 215-216, 247-251.\n  Unconscious, possibility of, 244.\n  Veridical after-images, 215-216.\n\nHawkins, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 195 _and note_[1].\n\nHaydon, genius of, 60.\n\nHearing, _see_ Audition.\n\nHector, Mr., case of, 237.\n\n_Herald, The_ (Dubuque, Iowa), case reported in, 412.\n\nHernaman, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 227 _note_{2}.\n\nHerschel, Sir John, _quoted_, 69.\n\nHeter\u00e6sthesi\u00e6--\n  Hypnotism, produced by, 142, 144-145.\n  Organic substances, evoked by, 378, 380.\n\nHighest-level nerve-centres, function of, 57.\n\nHill, Dr., _cited_, 137 _note_{2}.\n\n----, Rev. R. M., case of, 227.\n\nHilprecht, Dr. Herman V., cases of, 103, 365-369.\n\n----, J. C., _quoted_, 367.\n\n_History of Rationalism_, _cited_, 4.\n\nHodgson, Dr. Richard--\n  Cases: attested by, 405-409;\n    investigated by, 438-440, 449-451.\n  _Cited_, 181, 297, 324, 328.\n  _Quoted_, 327-328, 332-333, 335-336, 409.\n\nHoffmann, M. M., case attested by, 421.\n\nHoliness, definition of, 354.\n\nHome. D. D.--\n  Case of, 24, 158, 318-319, 327, 337.\n  Literature concerning, 319 _note_--320.\n\n----, Madame Dunglas, _cited_, 319 _note_, 320 _note_.\n\nHomer, _cited_, 96 _and note_.\n\nHorse-asthma, 380.\n\nHugo, Victor, 283.\n\nHydrozoon, analogy from, 30.\n\nHyper\u00e6sthesia--\n  Auditory, 270.\n  Cases of, 270, 324.\n  Hypnotism, produced by, 142-145.\n  Tactile, 271.\n  Tel\u00e6sthesia in relation to, 201, 202.\n\nHypermnesia, 324.\n\nHypnagogic visions, 96, 97.\n\nHypnogenous zones, hypnotic trance induced by pressure on, 124.\n\nHypnopompic visions, 96-97.\n\nHypnosis--\n  External stimuli, place of, in producing, 120, 122-125.\n  Highest level centres active in, 37-38, 151, 154.\n  Middle level centres: active in, 148-149:\n    under control of higher centres if necessary, 154.\n  Mono-ideism a misleading term for, 137.\n  Narcosis contrasted with, 123.\n  Nature of, 116-117.\n  Normal state of organism the effect of, 39.\n  Prolonged, effects of, 93-94.\n  Sleep, relation to, 122.\n\nHypnotism--\n  Agoraphobia cured by, 136.\n  An\u00e6sthetic agent, as, 138-141.\n  Analgesia induced by, 138-141.\n  Animals, sensibility of, to, 123-124.\n  Attention, influence on, 137-142, 153.\n  Charcot's school of, 121.\n  Children susceptible to, 133-134 _and notes_.\n  Claustrophobia cured by, 136.\n  Community of sensation between hypnotiser and subject, 162.\n  Consciousness under, 131-132 _and note_.\n  Crimes not committed under, 37, 154.\n  Crystal-visions, as a factor in seeing of, 181.\n  Cures effected by, 122;\n    classes of cases treated by, 133 _note_--134 _and note_.\n  Definition of term, 53-54, 156.\n  Delirium tremens, suggestibility developed during recovery from, 123, 135.\n  Development of, 5.\n  Distance no bar to, 160, 185.\n  Dreams remembered under, 30.\n  Dynamogenic effects of--\n    Attention and character, on, 151-155.\n    Imagination, on, 147.\n    Perceptive faculties, on, 142-145.\n    Vaso-motor system, on, 145-146.\n  Education, value in, 133-134 _and notes_, 153.\n  Effluence theory, 127, 159, 160-161.\n  Empirical development of sleep, considered as, 20.\n  Epilepsy, applied to, 46.\n  Faith cures in relation to, 166-167.\n  Future of, 163.\n  Genius and automatism in relation to, 80-81.\n  ---- ---- sleep in relation to, 72.\n  Hallucinations in relation to, 148, 178.\n  Heter\u00e6sthesi\u00e6 produced by, 142, 144-145.\n  Hyper\u00e6sthesi\u00e6 produced by, 142-145.\n  Hysterical hypnogenous zones, trance induced by pressure on, 124.\n  _Id\u00e9es fixes_, cured by, 34, 138.\n  Inhibition by--\n    Choice in exercise of faculty made possible by, 141-142.\n    Education and training of children, value in, 133 _and\n      note_--134 _and note_.\n    Memory, as applied to, 137.\n    Moral results of, 133-136.\n    Pain, effect on, 139-141.\n  Intellectual work done under, 152.\n  Jealousy, influence on, 136-137.\n  Kleptomania cured by, 134-135.\n  Maladies cured by aid of, 120.\n  Maniacs, in cases of, 125.\n  Memory in--\n    Alternations in, 131.\n    Exactness of, 152.\n    Post-epileptic state of, 46.\n    Purgation of, 137.\n    Relation to dream memory, 99-101.\n    Secondary restored, 47.\n    Somnambulistic memory a part of, 156.\n    Wider scope of, than of waking memory, 130-131.\n  Monotonous stimulation, by, 125-126.\n  Moral training and reform by, 133-135 _and notes_, 155, 381-382.\n  Morphia habit cured by, 135-136 _and note_[1].\n  Music and, 261.\n  Mysophobia cured by, 136.\n  Nancy school of, 158.\n  Narcotic drugs in relation to, 122-123.\n  Operations performed under, 120.\n  Pain treated by, 138-141.\n  Passes, procured by means of, 119-120, 126, 158-159.\n  \"Phobies\" cured by, 136.\n  Pioneer work in study of, 117-122.\n  Possession externally indistinguishable from, 301.\n  Post-hypnotic suggestions, three main types of, 219.\n  _Rapport_ in, 162.\n  Red light in relation to, 261.\n  Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re school of, 121, 123, 132 _note_, 147 _note_, 308, 381.\n  Self-suggestion in--\n    Braid's discovery of, 120.\n    Fahnestock's results in, 121.\n    Nature of, 129.\n    Neuro-muscular changes produced by, 128-129.\n    Schemes of, 127-128, 163-165.\n    Stimuli, external, merely signals for action of, 125.\n    Subliminal self, defined as appeal to, 129.\n  Sexual disorders cured by, 135.\n  Sleep in relation to, 72, 121-122, 123.\n  Somatic signs of, 121.\n  Somnambulic state contrasted with, 137.\n  Squint, convergent, produced by, 120, 125-126.\n  Stages of--\n    Charcot's three stages, 130;\n    depth of, 131;\n    Gurney's two stages, 130-131.\n  Stigmatisation due to self-suggestion, 146 _and notes_.\n  Subliminal operation in, 129-130, 132, 143, 147-149.\n  Suggestion in--\n    Braid's discovery, 120.\n    Nature of, 126-127.\n    Mode of action unknown, 159.\n    Responsiveness to, requisite, 122-123.\n  Tel\u00e6sthesia in relation to, 149-150.\n  Telepathic, 158-163, 382-383.\n  Telepathic _v._ physical influence, 160-161.\n  Travelling clairvoyance under, 163.\n  Will-power, effect on, 153-154.\n\n_Hypnotism_ (Dr. Bramwell), _cited_, 120 _note_{2}, 126 _note_, 129 _note_.\n\n_Hypnotisme, Double Conscience, etc._, _cited_, 361 _note_.\n\n_Hypnotisme et l'Orthop\u00e9die morale, L'_, _cited_, 134 _note_.\n\n_Hypnotismus und seine Anwendung in der praktischen Medicin, Der_,\n   _cited_, 135 _note_{2}.\n\nHyslop, Prof., _cited_, 333 _and note_.\n\nHysteria--\n  An\u00e6sthesia in--\n    Accidents avoided in, 37, 38.\n    Fanciful areas of, 37, 38.\n    Organic disease unnoticed in, 39.\n    Patches of (witch marks), 124.\n    Sensibilities, separation of, 52.\n    Unconscious, 36-39.\n  Aphasia in, 52.\n  Genius in relation to, 41, 53.\n  Hyper\u00e6sthesia in, 52-53.\n  Nature, of 40.\n  Predisposition to, causes of, 40-42.\n  Types of, 35.\n  Visual area reduced in, 38-39.\n  Witches, of, 5.\n\n\n_Id\u00e9es fixes_--\n  Disaggregation, first symptom of, 33.\n  Enthusiasts of, 41-42.\n  Hypnotic cure of, 34, 138.\n  Nature of, 33-34.\n\nIdentity of discarnate spirits, cases offering proofs of, 433-439.\n\n_Illusions hypnagogiques_, 96, 179, 182.\n\nImagination, effect of hypnotism on, 147.\n\nImprovisation, 81, 82.\n\nInaudi, Jacques, case of, 64 _note_.\n\n_Incidents in my Life_ (D. D. Home), _cited_, 319 _note_.\n\nInhibition--\n  Hypnotic, _see under_ Hypnotism.\n  Socrates, case of, 268.\n\nInorganic matter, spiritual influence exerted on, 312-314.\n\n_Inquiry into Human Faculty_, _cited_, 96.\n\nInsane, drawings of the, 265 _note_{1}.\n\nInspiration the effect of subliminal uprush, 56, 65.\n\n_Instauratio magna_, _cited_, 341.\n\n_Introduction of Mesmerism with sanction of Government\n   into the Public Hospitals of India, The_, _cited_, 139 _note_.\n\n\nJackson, Dr. Hughlings, _cited_, 57.\n\nJames, Prof. W., _cited_, 46, 48 _note_, 69\n   _note_{3}, 295 _note_, 327, 328 _and note_;\n  _quoted_, 276 _note_, 329.\n\nJanet, Dr. Jules, cases of patients of, 36-37;\n  experiment by, 130.\n\n----, Dr. Pierre, cases of patients of, 359-361, 382;\n  _cited_, 36-37, 34 _and note_[1], 38-39, 48, 101\n   _note_{3}, 123, 146 _note_, 147 _note_, 275, 308 _note_{2};\n  _quoted_, 36, 85-86.\n\nJealousy cured by hypnotism, 136-137.\n\nJeanne des Anges, Soeur, _cited_, 277 _note_.\n\nJesus Christ, resurrection and teachings of, 351.\n\nJoan of Arc, case of, 266-268.\n\nJohnson, Miss A., _cited_, 174 _note_.\n\n----, Samuel, 7 _note_{1}.\n\nJohnstone, Rev. J. C., _quoted_, 110-111.\n\nJones, Mr. F. J., case of, _cited_, 228 _note_.\n\nJowett, Prof., _cited_, 86 _note_.\n\n\nKant, Immanuel, _cited_, 6, 317 _note_{1}.\n\nKapnist, Countess Eug\u00e9nie, apparition seen by, 240, 418-420.\n\nKardec, Allan, _cited_, 283.\n\nKeulemans, Mr., case of, _cited_, 181, 227 _note_{2}.\n\nKingsford, Dr. Anna, 283.\n\nKleptomania cured by hypnotism, 134-135.\n\nKobb\u00e9, Major, case of, 272.\n\nKrafft, Ebing, Dr. R. von, case of patient of, 98-99;\n  _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\nKubla Khan, inspiration of, 104.\n\n\nL., Mr., case of, 186-187.\n\n--, Mrs., dream of, 445-446.\n\nLadame, _cited_, 134 _note_, 135 _note_{2}.\n\nLadd, Prof., _cited_, 70 _and note_.\n\nLamartine, _quoted_, 71.\n\nLang, Andrew, _cited_, 180 _note_, 232 _note_{2}, 266 _note_, 267 _note_{1}.\n\nLanguage, inadequacy of, in expressing needs of the psychical being, 77-78.\n\nLao Tzu, religion of, 349.\n\nLateau, Louise, case of, _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\nLeaf, Dr. Walter, _cited_, 328 _and note_.\n\nLecky, Mr., _cited_, 4.\n\nLef\u00e9bure, M., _cited_, 284.\n\nLema\u00eetre, Prof., _cited_, 284.\n\nL\u00e9onie, case of, 308, 309.\n\nLett, Charles A. W., case reported by, 241-242.\n\n----, Sara, apparition seen by, 242.\n\nLewis, Mr., dream of, _cited_, 106.\n\n----, H. J., _quoted_, 364.\n\nLi\u00e9beault, Dr. A. A.--\n  Cases of patients of, 220, 291, 294.\n  _Cited_, 123 _note_, 130, 133 _note_, 134\n   _note_, 135 _note_{2}, 142 _note_, 143 _and note_[1], 155 _note_.\n  Hypnotic school originated by, 121.\n  _Quoted_, 432-433.\n\nLife--\n  Continuity of, presumptive proof of, 184.\n  Dual existence in material and spiritual world, 114-116.\n  Etherial world, a product of, 76.\n  Nature of, human ignorance of, 187-188.\n  Passion for, a factor in universal energy, 344.\n  Planetary origin of, an unproven theory, 74.\n\nLight--\n  Magnetic, 379.\n  Red, dynamometrical power increased by, 261.\n\nLightfoot, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 240.\n\n_Livre des Esprits_, _cited_, 283.\n\nLodge, Sir Oliver, _cited_, 185 _note_{1}, 328 _and note_.\n\nLombroso, Prof., _cited_, 56.\n\nLong, Geo. E., _quoted_, 431-432.\n\nLourdes, miracles of, 128, 164-165.\n\nLove--\n  Definition of, 85, 344-345.\n  Earth-loves, persistence of, in spirit world, 350-351.\n  Planetary conception of, 85-86.\n  Platonic conception of, 85-89.\n  Underlying Power of the Universe, as, 347-349.\n\nLowest level nerve-centres, function of, 57.\n\nLucidit\u00e9, _see_ Clairvoyance _and_ Tel\u00e6sthesia.\n\nLuther, Prof., _quoted_, 445-446.\n\n----, Mrs. case of, 315.\n\nLyttelton, Hon. Mrs., 389.\n\n\nM., Mrs., case of, _cited_, 244 _note_.\n\n--, Marie, case of, 47.\n\n--, S., _quoted_, 71.\n\nMabille, Dr., _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\nMabire, M. Etienne, _cited_, 185 _note_{1}.\n\nMcAlpine, Mrs., apparition seen by, 390-391.\n\nM'Kendrick, Prof., _cited_, 125.\n\n_Macmillan's Magazine_, _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\nMaginot, Ad\u00e8le, case of, 318.\n\nMagnetic sense, 379.\n\nMagnetism of the earth, 378.\n\nMagnets, sensibility to, 379.\n\nMahomedanism, 352.\n\nMaitland, Edward, 283.\n\n_Making of Religion_, _cited_, 180 _note_.\n\n_Maladies de la Personnalit\u00e9, Les_, _quoted_, 11-12.\n\nMamtchitch, Eug\u00e8ne, apparition seen by, 315, 400-405.\n\n----, Sophie, apparition seen by, 404-405.\n\nMangiamele, case of, 66, 67.\n\nManiacs, hypnotisation of, 125.\n\nManning, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 112 _note_.\n\nMannors, Elisa, automatic writings by, 332-333.\n\nMarot, Dr., _cited_, 136 _note_.\n\nMartian control of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Smith, 284-285.\n\nMartin, Mrs., case contributed by, 387-388.\n\nMason, Dr. R. Osgood, case of patient of, 50-51.\n\nMassive motor impulses, 272-273.\n\nMaury, M. Alfred, _cited_, 96.\n\n_Mauvaise honte_ cured by hypnotism, 137.\n\nMedical clairvoyance, _see under_ Clairvoyance.\n\n_Medico-Legal Journal_, _cited_, 48.\n\nMediumship--a healthy faculty, 280-281;\n  communications possibly affected by character of medium, 324.\n\n_Melbourne Argus_, _cited_, 111.\n\n_M\u00e9moires pour servir \u00e0 l'Histoire et \u00e0 l'Etablissement du\n   magnetism Animal_, _cited_, 119 _note_.\n\nMemory--\n  Alternating personalities, in, 131, 310-311.\n  Crystal-vision, subliminal memory reproduced by, 103.\n  Dream--\n    Capricious nature of, 310-311.\n    Relation to waking and hypnotic memories, 99-100.\n  Ecmnesia, _see that title_.\n  Hypnotism, in, _see under_ Hypnotism.\n  Hysteria, heightened in, 309.\n  Multiple personality, in, 51.\n  Possession, memory of controlling spirit evident in, 298-299.\n  Post-epileptic, 46, 47.\n  Secondary personality, of, 46-48.\n  Somnambulistic, 156.\n  Subliminal continuous, 15.\n  Trance memory of spiritual world, 299.\n\nMesmer, work of, 5, 117, 118, 119.\n\nMesmerism--\n  Nervous effluence theory of, 119.\n  Sensibility to objects treated by, 380.\n\n_Mesmerism in India_, _cited_, 139 _note_.\n\nMesnet, Dr., case of, _cited_, 45 _note_.\n\nMetetherial environment, 9 _and note_{2}, 166.\n\n\"Methectic,\" 217 _note_{2}.\n\nMettal\u00e6sthesia, 378-379.\n\nMiddle-level nerve centres--\n  Function of, 57.\n  Unchecked rule of, in post-epileptic states, 45.\n\nMill, John Stuart, _cited_, 72.\n\nMind-reading, _see_ Muscle-reading.\n\n_Mind_, _cited_, 143 _note_{2}.\n\n_Mind-cure, Faith-cure, and the Miracles of Lourdes_, _cited_, 165 _note_.\n\nMitchell, Rev. G. W., _cited_, 316 _note_.\n\nMoberly, Mrs. Alfred, planchette experiments by, 287.\n\n_Modern spiritualism; a History and a criticism_, _cited_, 313 _note_{1}.\n\nMoncrieff, Major, case of, _cited_, 227 _note_{2}.\n\nMondeux, case of, 66, 67.\n\nMono-ideism, 137, 147.\n\nMoral nature, splits in, 308.\n\nMoral training and reform, hypnotism in, 133-135.\n\nMorphia habit cured by hypnotism, 135-136 _and note_.\n\nMorton, Miss R. C., apparition seen by, 421-429.\n\nMoses, W. Stainton--\n  Case of, 24, 158, 274, 297, 298, 300, 314, 315, 319-327 337, 441-445.\n  _Spirit Teachings_ by, 321, 323.\n\nMotor automatism--\n  Anagrams automatically written, 264.\n  Definition of term, 168-169.\n  Dissolutive and evolutive, 254-255.\n  Dowsing, 269.\n\n  Drawing, 264-265 _and note_[1].\n  Genius and hypnotism, relation to, 80-81.\n  Idiognomonic, 258.\n  Inhibitions, 269-272.\n  Modes of, 273-274.\n  Nunciative character of, 258-268.\n  Possession, _see that title_.\n  Range of, 259.\n  Scope of, 21.\n  Sensibility to motor impulses, 272-273.\n  Sensory automatism: connected with, 268;\n    compared with, 274.\n  Speech, 274.\n  Spirit drawings, 78-79.\n  Spirit rapping, 262-264.\n  Table-tilting, 262-264, 400-401.\n  Teleological, 285-286.\n  Writing (hand-)--\n    Cases of, 291-292, 360.\n    Moses, W. S., case of, _see_ Moses.\n    Spirit control, considered as proof of, 290.\n  Writing (planchette-), cases of, 287-289, 433-437.\n  Writing (hand- and planchette-),--\n    Contents of messages, classification of, 275-276.\n    Early investigations of, 274-275.\n    Knowledge evidenced in, sources of, 291-296.\n    Literary style of, 78.\n    Secondary personality, by, 275.\n    Sources of, 275-276.\n    Subliminal centres regulating, 58-59.\n    Subliminal self, messages from, 276-278.\n\nMount-Temple, Lady, 320.\n\nMultiple Personality, cases of, 49-51;\n  memory in, 51.\n\n_Multiple Personality_, _cited_, 47 _note_{2}.\n\n_Murray's Magazine_, _cited_, 395 _note_.\n\nMuscle-reading, 259-260.\n\nMuscular resistance, sense of, in relation to subliminal mentation, 69.\n\nMusic, symbolism of, 79.\n\nMusical execution, subliminally initiated, 273.\n\nMusset, De, _quoted_, 71.\n\nMyers, Dr. A. T., _cited_, 165 _note_, 174 _note_, 382.\n\n----, F. W. H., 328; _cited_, 165 _note_.\n\nMysophobia cured by hypnotism, 136.\n\n_Myth, Ritual and Religion_, _cited_, 232 _note_.\n\n\nNagel, _cited_, 144 _note_.\n\nNancy School of Hypnotism, 121, 158.\n\nNarcosis, hypnosis contrasted with, 123.\n\nNarcotics, _see_ Drugs.\n\nNasse, _cited_, 120 _note_{1}.\n\n_Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance_, _cited_, 139 _note_, 160 _note_{1}.\n\nNeilson, _cited_, 135 _note_{2}.\n\nNerve cells, controlled by subliminal self, 34.\n\nNervous development, modern, rapidity of, 73-74.\n\nNevius, Dr., _cited_, 307, 309.\n\n_Nevroses et Id\u00e9es Fixes_, _cited_, 45 _note_{1}, 101 _note_{3};\n  case _quoted_ from, 359-361.\n\nNewbold, Prof. W. Romaine, case recorded by, 365;\n  _cited_, 307, 328 _and note_;\n  _quoted_, 103.\n\nNewell, E. J., _quoted_, 364-365.\n\nNewnham, Mr., case of, _cited_, 112 _note_.\n\n----, Mrs., case of, 287-288, 295-296, 308.\n\n----, Rev. P. H., case of, 287-989, 295-296.\n\n_Nineteenth Century_, _cited_, 320 _note_.\n\nNordau, Dr. Max, _cited_, 56.\n\nNormal--\n  Genius the best type of, 20, 57, 61-63.\n  Misuse of word, 61.\n\nNormandie, Rev. C. Y., de, _quoted_, 440.\n\n_Northern Standard_, _quoted_, 391.\n\n_Notes of S\u00e9ances with D. D. Home_, _cited_, 320 _note_.\n\n\n_Observations de M\u00e9decine Pratique_, _cited_, 150 _note_, 157 _note_, 381.\n\nOccult Wisdom, 339.\n\n_On the so-called Divining Rod_, _cited_, 378.\n\n\nPain--\n  Dream memory of, 140.\n  Hypnotic suppression of, 138-141.\n  Memory of, 140-141.\n  Psychological entity, treated as, 140.\n  Sense of, distinguished from temperature sense in hysteria, 52.\n  Suggestion in removing, 140.\n\nPainting, automatic, 273.\n\nPalladia, apparitions of, 400-405.\n\nParsons, Dr. D. J., case of, _quoted_, 271.\n\n----, Dr. J. W., _quoted_, 272.\n\nParry, Mrs. Gambier, _quoted_, 421.\n\n\"Peak in Darien\" cases, 233.\n\nPelham, George, control of, 235.\n\nPenn\u00e9e, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 244 _note_.\n\nPercipient, definition of term, 9 _note_{3}.\n\nPerception--\n  Distant, 201.\n  Power of, 149-150.\n\nPersonality--\n  Common-sense view of, 11, 13.\n  Co-ordination theory, 11-13, 26-27, 31.\n  Cosmic and planetary, simultaneous development of, 114-115, 165-166.\n  Dissociation of, 190-191, 196-197.\n  Dual, 356-359.\n  Hypnotic stratum of, 35, 37.\n  Knowledge, new, not evidenced in changes of, 310, 311.\n  Multiplex, 216.\n  Psychological view of, 11-12.\n  Secondary, _see_ Secondary personality.\n  Supraliminal life regarded as privileged case of, 169.\n  Upbuilding of, notion of, 32.\n\nPerturbation masking evolution, 357.\n\nPesaro, experiments of, 301.\n\nPessimistic views of life, 348.\n\nP\u00e9t\u00e9tin, _cited_, 150 _note_, 381.\n\nPetrovo-Solovovo, Mr. M., case collected by, 416-417.\n\n_Ph\u00e6do_, _cited_, 213.\n\nPhantasmogenetic centres, 177, 188, 196, 197.\n\nPhantasms--\n  Discarnate spirits, of, _see_ Discarnate Spirits--Apparitions.\n  Living, of the, 193-198, 205-207, 209-210.\n\n_Phantasms of the Dead from another point of view_, _cited_, 409 _note_.\n\n_Phantasms of the Living_, _cited_, 5, 9, 96, 108, 112 _and note_, 113\n    _note_{1}, 160 _note_{1}, 174, 185 _and note_[1], 188, 195 _notes_, 199\n    _and note_, 200 _notes_, 206, 207 _notes_, 208, 209 _and notes_, 210\n    _note_{1}, 217 _note_{1}, 223 _and note_[2], 224 _and note_, 225, 226,\n    227 _and note_[1], 233, 234 _note_{2}, 236 _and note_, 237, 240, 241,\n    243, 272, 291;\n  _quoted_, 106-107, 205-206, 370-374, 384-385, 387-388, 392-396, 420, 430.\n\n_Ph\u00eame_, _cited_, 185.\n\n_Philosophy of Mysticism_, _cited_, 43 _note_.\n\n_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, _cited_, 71.\n\nPierce, A. H., _cited_, 14 _note_.\n\nPiper, Mrs.--\n  Case of, 158, 189, 285, 297-300, 307, 309, 314,\n   315, 318, 319, 326-333, 337, 448.\n  \"George Pelham\" control of, _quoted_, 336.\n\nPitres, Dr., 124.\n\nPlanchette, _see_ Motor Automatism--Writing.\n\nPlants, sensibility to presence of certain, 380.\n\nPlato--\n  _Cited_, 137, 213, 217, _note_{2}, 282.\n  Love, conception of, 85, 86-89.\n  Pre-terrene training, theory as to, 91.\n\nPlotinus, _quoted_, 352-355.\n\nPlutarch, _cited_, 267 _note_{2}.\n\nPodmore, Frank, _cited_, 9, 14 _note_, 174\n   _note_, 185 _note_{2}, 238, 244, 313 _note_{1}, 318, 409.\n\n_Points de rep\u00e8re_, 181, 182.\n\nPole, W., _quoted_, 66.\n\nPole-Carew, Mrs., case attested by, 388-389.\n\nPoltergeist phenomena, 246.\n\nPossession--\n  Analogies for, 300-302, 307, 310-311.\n  Angelic, diabolical or hostile, no evidence for, 307-310.\n  Brain function in, 305.\n  Cases of, 446-451.\n  Chinese, 307, 309.\n  Definition of term, 274, 298, 300.\n  Demoniacal, 307-310, 359.\n  Ecstasy, merging into, 314-315.\n  Evidence for, 297-298.\n  Home, D. D., case of, 318-319.\n  Janet's treatment of, 361.\n  Memory in, 298-299.\n  Moses case, _see_ Moses.\n  Motor automatism contrasted with, 297.\n  Nature of, 300-303, 311.\n  Piper, Mrs., case of, _see_ Piper.\n  Place of, in psychical phenomena, 299-300.\n  Pseudo-, 51, 359-361.\n  Simulation of, in somnambulistic state, 157-158.\n  Spirit possession--\n    Difficulties of controlling spirit in, 335-337.\n    Home, D. D., case of, 319.\n    Piper, Mrs., case of, discussed, 330-333.\n  Subliminal self, as the domination of, 315-316, 318, 324, 325.\n  Two or more spirits, by, 298.\n\nPotolof, W., case attested by, 405.\n\nPrayer, relation of, to telepathy, 184.\n\nPrecognition--\n  Death, of, 232, 370.\n  Dreams, in, 107-112.\n  Telepathy from discarnate spirits, defined as, 187.\n\nPrince, Dr. Morton, case of patient of, 49 _and note_[2], 308.\n\n_Principles of Psychology_, _cited_, 48 _note_, 69 _note_{3}.\n\nProlongeau, case of, 66, 67.\n\nProust, Dr., case of patient of, 46-47.\n\nProximity of plants and animals, sensibility to, 380.\n\nPrudhomme, M. Sully, _quoted_, 71.\n\nPsychical invasion--\n  Cases of, 193-198, 337;\n    where agent has no memory of circumstance, 208;\n    where agent and percipient retain memory of, 199-200, 209;\n    where neither agent nor percipient retain memory of, 198-199.\n  Dreams, in, 105, 112.\n  Dying, by, 113.\n  Ecstasy in relation to, 314.\n  Evidence for, 302, 337-338.\n  Living persons, of, 112-113.\n  Telepathy almost indistinguishable from, 294.\n\nPsychical Research, Christian evidence supported by, 352.\n\n_Psychische Studien_, _cited_, 433.\n\n_Psychological Review, The_, _quoted_, 329.\n\nPsychology, advance in, during last twenty years, 279-280.\n\n_Psychology of Suggestion_, _cited_, 47 _note_{2}.\n\nPsychorrhagic diathesis, 196-197.\n\n_Psycho-Th\u00e9rapie_, _cited_, 133 _note_, 134 _note_, 135 _note_{2}, 139 _note_.\n\nPsycho-therapeutics, development of, 5.\n\nPythagoras, 283.\n\n\n_Quarterly Journal of Science_, _cited_, 320 _note_.\n\nQuicherat, M., _cited_, 266, 267.\n\n\nR., Mr. Van, of Utica, case of, 66, 67.\n\nRamsay, Mrs., apparition seen by, 394-395.\n\nRaphael's San Sisto, inspiration of, 173.\n\nRarey, _cited_, 123.\n\nRawson, Henry G., _cited_, 185 _note_{1}.\n\n_Recent Experiments in Crystal Vision_, _cited_, 180 _note_.\n\n_Recherches Physiologiques sur l'Homme_, _cited_, 119 _note_.\n\n_Recherches sur l'Homme dans le Somnambulisme_, _cited_, 157 _note_, 381.\n\n_Record of a Haunted House_, _cited_, 421.\n\nRed Light in hypnotism, 261.\n\nReddell, Frances, apparition seen by, 387-388.\n\nReed, Colonel, case of, _cited_, 200.\n\n----, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 228 _note_.\n\nRegis, _cited_, 135 _note_{1}.\n\nReichenbach, Baron, 379.\n\nReid, _quoted_, 11.\n\nReincarnation, doctrine of, 282-285.\n\n_Religio-Philosophical Journal_, _cited_, 51 _note_{3}, 370-371, 437 _note_.\n\nReligion--\n  Ancient Sage, of, 349-50.\n  Buddha, of, 349, 352-353.\n  Christianity, 342, 346, 349-350.\n  Definition of, 85, 89, 347.\n  Ideals of, 347-348.\n  Natural, 349-350.\n  Old-world beliefs not adapted to modern needs, 342.\n  Oracular, development of, 346.\n  Science, complementary to, 25, 354;\n    scientific methods applied to truths of, 341.\n  Synthesis of, provisional sketch for, 347-355.\n\nRenterghem, Dr. van, hypnotic cures by, 117;\n  _cited_, 133 _note_, 134 _note_, 135 _note_{2}, 139 _note_.\n\n_Report of the International Congress of Experimental\n   Psychology_, _cited_, 170 note.\n\n_Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the London\n   Dialectical Society_, _cited_, 319 _note_.\n\n_Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism_, _cited_, 320 _note_.\n\n_Retrocognition and Precognition_, _cited_, 245 _note_.\n\nRett\u00e9, M., _cited_, 71.\n\nRevelation, telepathy a means for continuous, 350.\n\n_R\u00eaves, Les_, _cited_, 98, 101 _note_{2}.\n\n_Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, _cited_, 46 _note_, 52 _note_, 101 _note_{1},\n   133 _note_, 134 _note_, 135 _notes_[1] _and_ [2], 136 _note,_ 137\n   _note_{1}, 139, 140 _note_{1}, 142 _note_, 146 _note_, 147 _note_, 153\n   _note_{1}, 155 _note_, 170 _note_, 272 _note_, 382.\n\n_Revue de M\u00e9decine_, _cited_, 101 _note_{3}.\n\n_Revue Philosophique_, _cited_, 64 _note_, 139 _note_{1}, 143 _note_{2},\n   150 _note_, 152 _note_{2}, 308 _note_{2}, 382, 430.\n\n_Revue Scientifique_, _quoted_, 365 _and note_.\n\nReynolds, Mary, case of, 48-49.\n\nRibot, Mr., _quoted_, 11-12, 71-72.\n\nRichet, Prof., work of, 121;\n  table-tilting experiments of, 430;\n  _cited_, 185 _note_{1}, 263, 287, 446;\n  _quoted_, 448.\n\nRingier, Georg, _cited_, 133 _note_, 135 _note_{2}.\n\n_Riverine Herald_, _cited_, 111.\n\nRomances, inward, 279.\n\nRose-asthma, 380.\n\nRossi-Pagnoni, Prof., experiments by, 290.\n\nRoyce, Prof., _cited_, 69 _and note_[1];\n  case attested by, 405-406.\n\nRybalkin, Dr. J., _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\n\nSafford, Prof., case of, 66-67.\n\nS. Augustine, _cited_, 184.\n\nS. Brieux, Bishop of, vision of, 244-245.\n\nS. Ilma, case of, _cited_, 146 _note_.\n\nSaint-Saens, _cited_, 71.\n\nS. Theresa, 5-6.\n\nSalp\u00eatri\u00e8re School of Hypnotism, 121, 123, 132 _note_, 147 _note_, 308, 381.\n\nSand, George, method of work of, 82.\n\nSanders, Rev. C. B. (X + Y = Z), case of, 316 _and note_.\n\n\"Scheme of Vital Faculty,\" 313-314.\n\nSchiller, Mr., case of, 278-279.\n\nSchmoll, Herr Anton, _cited_, 185 _note_{1}.\n\nSchneller, Fr\u00e4ulein, case communicated by, 375-376.\n\nSchrenck-Notzing, _cited_, 133 _note_, 185 _note_{1}.\n\nScience--\n  Methods of, applied to psychology, 1-3.\n  Religion, complementary to, 25, 354.\n\nScripture, Dr., _cited_, 64 _note_, 65;\n  _quoted_, 67.\n\nSearle, Mr., case of, 207.\n\nSecondary personality--\n  Defective integration of psychical being, cases due to, 45-48.\n  Diabolical possession a phase of, 308.\n  Emotionally selected, 44.\n  Fictitious, 48.\n  Improvement on primary, 48-49, 51.\n  Memory of, lost to primary, 46, 47;\n    recovered under hypnotism, 46-48.\n  Motor automatisms by, 295.\n  Possession, possible confusion with, 307.\n  _Post-epileptic states_, 45-46.\n  Primary superseded by, 48-49, 51.\n  Somnambulic, 45, 156-157.\n  Stevenson, R. L., case of, 356-359.\n  X., F\u00e9lida, case of, 361-363.\n\n\"Seeress of Prevorst,\" _cited_, 317 _note_{2}.\n\nSelf-projection, 210-211.\n\nSelf-suggestion--\n  Automatisms, range of, increased by, 152.\n  Charms as means to, efficacy of, 164.\n  Pain suppressed by, 140.\n  Schemes of, 127-128.\n  Stigmatisation due to, 146 _and notes_.\n  Subliminal self, defined as appeal to, 129.\n  Witchcraft explained as, 5.\n\n_Sensation et Mouvement_, _cited_, 261 _note_.\n\nSense Organs--\n  Perceptive power independent of, 149-150.\n  Specialised, 169-171.\n  Transposition of faculties of, 149-150.\n\nSensibility--\n  Drugs, to, 122-123.\n  Magnets, to, 379.\n\n  Syn\u00e6sthesi\u00e6 of, 170 _and notes_, 171.\n  Transition from undifferentiated, to specialisation of sense, 170-171.\n\nSensitives, spirit perception of, 335.\n\nSensory automatism--\n  Causes predisposing to, in healthy persons, 174-175.\n  Genius and hypnotism, relation to, 80-81.\n  Hallucinations, _see that title_.\n  Motor automatism: connected with, 268;\n    compared with, 274.\n  Nature of, 20-21.\n  Scope of term, 168.\n  Telepathy the prerequisite for, 183.\n\nSewall, Frank, _cited_, 317 _note_{1}.\n\nShell-hearing, 201.\n\nShock, effects of, on human beings and animals, 123.\n\nSidgwick, Mrs., experiments of, 131;\n  case attested by, 387;\n  _cited_, 161, 162 _note_{2}, 174 _note_, 185 _note_{1}, 246 _note_;\n  _quoted_, 111, 247 _and note_-250 _and note_.\n\nSidgwick, Professor, case of, _cited_, 277 _note_;\n  case investigated by, 411;\n  _cited_, 9 _note_{1}, 108, 162 _note_{2}, 174 _note_, 185 _note_{1};\n  _quoted_, 111.\n\nSidis, Dr. Boris, 47 _and note_[2].\n\nSkae, Dr. David, case of patient of, 48.\n\nSkirving, Mr., case of, 272.\n\nSleep--\n  Characteristics of, 93-94, 113-114.\n  Clairvoyant excursions during, 301.\n  Cosmic personality developed during, 114-115.\n  Definition of, 20.\n  Ecstasy, connection with, 116.\n  Faculties of, analogy between those of Genius and, 104.\n  Hyper\u00e6sthesia of, 97.\n  Hypnotism in relation to, 72, 121-122, 131.\n  Imagination, intense, during, 97.\n  Psychical excursion during, 302.\n  Recuperative powers of, 94-95, 97, 113.\n  Rocking, induced by, 126.\n  Somnambulism, relation to, 95.\n  Spiritual functions of subliminal self during, 156.\n  Subliminal self directing, 116.\n  Submerged faculty, indicating existence of, 53.\n  Telepathy and tel\u00e6sthesia in, 105, 114, 116.\n\nSmell, subliminal sense of, 271.\n\nSmith, G. M., _cited_, 287 _and note_[1].\n\n----, H. Babington, _cited_, 291.\n\n----, H. Arthur, cases of, 277 _and note_--278.\n\n----, Mlle. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne--\n  Case of, discussed, 280-286; _cited_, 324.\n  Martian landscapes of, 265 _note_{1}\n\n----, J. W., _cited_, 185 _note_{1}.\n\nSmyth, Sibbie (n\u00e9e Towns), apparition seen by, 242.\n\nSnow, Herman, _cited_, 437 _note_.\n\n_Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Psychologie Physiologique_, paper presented to, _cited_, 382.\n\nSociety for Psychical Research--\n  Address of Secretary, 293 _note_.\n  American, _Proceedings of_, case from, 226 _note_, _cited_, 51\n   _note_{2}, 69 _note_{1}, 102 _note_, 243 _note_{1}, 244 _note_,\n    246 _note_, 295 _note_, 405.\n  Census of Hallucinations undertaken by, 174 _and note_;\n    Report of, _see under_ Hallucinations.\n  Founding of, 9 _note_{1}.\n  Journal of--\n    Cases _quoted_ from, 385-386, 445, 449-451.\n    _Cited_, 51 _note_{3}, 102 _note_, 106 _note_, 107 _note_, 112\n   _note_, 113 _note_{2} 140 _note_{2}, 146 _note_, 151 _note_, 157\n   _note_, 185 _note_{2}, 188 _note_, 207 _note_{2}, 209 _and note_[1],\n    210 _note_{1}, 237, 238, 241 _notes_, 272, 285 _note_, 287 _note_{1}, 290\n   _note_, 320 _note_, 395, 409, 416 _note_.\n  Object of, 313.\n  _Proceedings of_, _cited_, 35 _and note_, 45 _note_{3}, 49 _notes_[2]\n   _and_[3], 51 _note_{1}, 69 _note_{2}, 103 _note_, 106 _note_, 112\n   _note_, 120 _note_{2}, 124 _note_, 126 _note_, 128, 139 _note_, 141\n   _note_{2}, 142 _note_, 147 _note_, 148 _and note_, 152 _note_{1}, 155\n   _note_, 160 _note_{2}, 162 _notes_, 163 _note_{1}, 165 _note_, 173\n   _note_, 180 _note_, 181, 185 _note_{1}, 187, 192 _note_, 193, 195\n   _note_{2}, 209 _note_{2}, 210 _note_{1}, 215, 221 _notes_[1] _and_[2],\n   226, 231, 232 _and_ _note_{1}, 233, 234 _notes_[1] _and_[2], 236 _and\n   note_, 237, 238, 239 _and note_, 241, 243 _and note_[2], 244, 245\n   _note_, 247 _and note_[1], 259 _and note_, 260, 263 _note_, 266\n   _note_{1}, 271 _notes_, 277 _and note_, 278 _and note_, 279, 285 _and\n   note_, 287 _note_{2}, 288 _note_{1}, 289 _notes_, 290 _and note_, 292,\n   297, 301, 317 _note_{3}, 318, 320 _note_, 321, 324, 328 _note_, 329,\n   330, 332, 333 _and note_, 356, 378, 380, 382, 400, 409 _note_, 430;\n   _quoted_, 177, 270, 271, 287, 327-328, 330-333, 364-366, 369-370,\n   375-376, 390-391, 405, 410, 412, 416, 418-420, 421, 433-437, 446-449.\n  Test letters to be sent to, suggestions regarding, 293 _note_.\n\nSocrates--\n  D\u00e6mon of, 265-268.\n  Science originated by, 6.\n\nSolon, _quoted_, 117 _note_.\n\nSolovovo, Michael Petrovo, _quoted_, 420.\n\nSomnambulism--\n  Analogy from, for ghostly communications, 217-218.\n  Characteristics of state of, 44.\n  Hypnosis in relation to, 137, 156.\n  Intellectual work done in state of, 156-157.\n  Possession, parallelism with, 311.\n  Secondary personality starting from, 44, 45.\n  Sleep, relation to, 95.\n  Spontaneous, 156.\n  Supernormal powers evidenced in, 157\n\nSpace--\n  Phantasmogenetic centre, modification of part into, 195, 197.\n  Spirit attitude towards, 176.\n  Spiritual phenomena in relation to, 22.\n  Telepathy, relation to, 22.\n\nSpeech, phantasmal, 241.\n\nSpeer, Dr., _cited_, 24.\n\nSpirit--\n  Conception of, 59.\n  Existence of, postulated, 27, 91-92.\n\nSpirit drawings, 78-79.\n\n_Spirit Drawings_, _cited_, 79 _note_, 265 _note_{1}.\n\nSpirit guardianship, case of, 271-272.\n\nSpirit healing, 164.\n\nSpirit intervention, telepathy explained by theory of, 16-17.\n\nSpirit possession, _see_ Possession.\n\nSpirit rapping, 262-264.\n\n_Spirit Teachings_, _cited_, 321, 323.\n\nSpiritual environment, 165-166.\n\n---- evolution, 340-346.\n\nSpiritualism--\n  Fraud in connection with, 313, 329.\n  Home, D. D., case of, _see_ Home.\n  Methods of, 8.\n  Moses, W. S., case of, _see_ Moses.\n  Physical phenomena of, 313-314.\n  Pioneer work in, 4 _et seq._\n  Piper, Mrs., case of, _see_ Piper.\n  Support of, by subliminal-self theory, 16-17.\n\nStage-fright cured by hypnotism, 152.\n\n_Statuvolism, or Artificial Somnambulism_, _cited_, 121, 163 _note_{1};\n  _quoted_, 381.\n\nStevenson, R. L.--\n  Dreams of, 72-73, 82-83, 97.\n  Dual personality experiences of, 356-359.\n  Genius of, 356.\n\nStigmatisation, 146 _and notes_.\n\nStone Age, 104, 299.\n\nStorie, Mrs., case of, 108-112, 228-229, 235, 237.\n\nStramm, Mdlle., automatic message written by, 291-292.\n\nStubbing, Mrs. Annie S., _quoted_, 373.\n\n_Studien \u00fcber Hysterie_, _cited_, 41 _and note_[1].\n\n_Study of Fears_, _cited_, 33 _and note_.\n\nSturgis, Dr. Russell, _cited_, 33 _note_.\n\n_Subconscient chez les Artistes, les Savantes et les\n   Ecrivains, Les_, _cited_, 71 _and note_.\n\nSubliminal, definition of term, 15.\n\nSubliminal power--\n  Functioning of, referred to control centres, 57-60.\n  Potential, in every organism, 63.\n\nSubliminal self--\n  Control of organism by, 151, 157.\n  Cognisance of fragment of, 15.\n  Definition of term, 15.\n  Dominance of, over supraliminal self, 315.\n  Functions of, 37.\n  Imaginative faculty of, 147-149.\n  Methods of communication with supraliminal self, 20-21.\n  Nerve cells controlled by, 34.\n  Powers of, compared with supraliminal, 277-278.\n  Suggestion in relation to, 129.\n  Surviving self, related to, 168.\n  Telepathy explained by theory of, 16, 17.\n\n_Subliminal Self or Unconscious Cerebration_, _cited_, 14 _note_.\n\nSubstitution of ideas, 361.\n\nSuggestion--\n  Attention, effect on, 153.\n  Character, influence on, 154-155.\n  Cures effected by, 34.\n  Delirium tremens, suggestibility developed during recovery from, 123, 135.\n  Dynamogenic effect of, on attention and character, 151-155.\n  Post-hypnotic, 260-261.\n  Responsiveness to, requisite, 122-123.\n  Subliminal self, defined as appeal to, 129.\n  Will-power, influence on, 153-154.\n\n_Suggestion Mentale, La_, _cited_, 263 _note_.\n\n_Suggestions-Therapie bei krankhaften Erscheinungen des\n   Geschlechissinnes, Die_, _cited_, 133 _note_.\n\nSuicide--\n  Greek view of, 344.\n  Phantasms in connection with, 200.\n\nSupernormal, definition of term, 6 _note_{1}.\n\nSurvival--\n  Continuity, theory as to, 333-334.\n  Evidence for, 9-10; nature of, 213.\n  Scientific method not applied to problem of, 3.\n  Telepathy the security of, 344.\n  Tests of, 292-293 _and note_.\n\nSwedenborg, Emmanuel--\n  Case of, 299.\n  Debt of posterity to, 339.\n  Evidential cases of, 316.\n  Experiential and dogmatic writings of, 317.\n  Psychical science originated by, 6-7, 9.\n  Teachings of, corroborative of recent investigations, 317.\n\nSymbolism, subliminal tendency to, 202-203.\n\nSyn\u00e6sthesia, 170 _and notes_--171.\n\nSynthetic Society, papers read before, 350 _note_.\n\nSyringomyelitis, an\u00e6sthesia of, 37.\n\n\nT., case of, 382.\n\n--, Mrs., case of, 373-375. _cited_, 234.\n\n--, Mr. and Mrs., case of, _cited_, 112-113.\n\nTable-tilting, 262-264, 400-401, 430-433, 438.\n\nTactile sensibility, hyper\u00e6sthesia of, 271.\n\nTaine, M., _cited_, 98 _and note_[2].\n\nTaunton, Mrs., case of, 207 _and note_[1].\n\nTeale Mrs., case of, _cited_, 228.\n\nTel\u00e6sthesia--\n  Cases of, 289-290.\n  Crystal gazing or shell hearing, in, 201.\n  Definition of term, 6 _note_{1}, 90, 105.\n  Dreams in, 104-112, 114, 366-375.\n  Genius, relation to, 84-85.\n  Hyper\u00e6sthesia in relation to, 201, 202.\n  Hypotheses explaining, 16.\n  Parsons, Dr. D. J., case of, 271-272.\n  Psychical invasion in relation to, 177, 199-205.\n  Telepathy, relation to, 187.\n\nTelekinesis, 313-314. 326;\n  case of W. S. Moses, 320-322.\n\nTelepathy--\n  Animals, between, 188 _note_.\n  Brain vibrations in, theory of, 304.\n  Collective cases, 187, 198-199.\n  Conception of, 303-306.\n  Crystal-vision, gift of, accompanied by sensibility to, 181-182.\n  Definition of, 90, 105.\n  Discarnate spirits, relation to, 187, 350.\n  Distance, from, 160, 185.\n  Evidence for, 183-189, 191.\n  Evolutive nature of, 256 _and notes_.\n  Experiments to prove, 185 _and notes_-186.\n  Genius, relation to, 84-85.\n  Ghostly communications in relation to, 216-217.\n  Hypnosis induced by, 160, 162 _and note_[2], 382-383.\n  Hypotheses explaining, 16-17.\n  Inadequacy of term, 105.\n  Language difficulties in, 285.\n  Latency of impacts, 223-224, 228, 291.\n  Law, fundamental, of spiritual world, as, 31.\n  Newnham, Rev. P. H., case of, 287-289.\n  Prayer in relation to, 184.\n  Precognitive, 187, 189.\n  Prerequisite for supernormal phenomena, as the, 183.\n  Psychical invasion indistinguishable from, in motor automatism, 294.\n  Savages, among, 256 _note_{1}.\n  Sleep, relation to, 116.\n  Spiritual excursion in relation to, 177.\n  Split personality in relation to, 190-191.\n  Subliminal selves, between, during sleep, 315.\n  Survival, the security for, 9, 344.\n  Table-tilting, by, 430-433, 438.\n  Tel\u00e6sthesia in relation to, 187.\n  Three main types of communications in, 219-220.\n  Time relations in, 187.\n  Vibration theory of, 186-187.\n\nTemperature sense distinguished from pain sense, 52.\n\nTennyson, _cited_, 184.\n\nTeste, _cited_, 381.\n\nThaw, Dr. A. Blair, _cited_, 185 _note_{1}.\n\nTheology, reason for avoiding, 10.\n\n_Th\u00e9rapeutique Suggestive_, _cited_, 123 _note_, 142 _note_, 143 _note_{1}.\n\nThorpe, Mr. Courtenay, 206.\n\nThought-transference, _see_ Telepathy.\n\nThoulet, Professor, case of, 315, 446-448.\n\nTime--\n  Spiritual phenomena, in relation to, 22-23, 251.\n  Subliminal mentation, in relation to, 68-69.\n  Telepathy, in relation to, 187.\n\nTissi\u00e9, Dr., _cited_, 98;\n  case of patient of, 101.\n\nTrance (_see also_ Home--Moses--Piper)--\n  Messages, generic similarity of, in different individuals, 276 _note_.\n  Three main types of, 315.\n\nTransposition of senses, 149.\n\nTuckey, Lloyd, _cited_, 135 _note_.\n\nTwins, telepathic communications between, 108-109.\n\n\nUnity, central, in multicellular organisms, 30-31.\n\n_Use of Hypnotism in the First Degree_, _cited_, 33 _note_.\n\n\nV., Mrs., vision of, 232.\n\nVaso-motor system, dynamogenic hypnotic effects on, 145-146.\n\nVennum, Miss Mary Lurancy, case of, 51.\n\nVerity, A. S., case attested by, 397, 398.\n\n----, L. S. and E. C., apparition appearing to, 396-399.\n\nVerrall, Mrs., 181.\n\nVirgil, _cited_, 96 _and note_, 282.\n\nVision--\n  After-images, 171, 179.\n  Defects of, removed by suggestion, 142-143.\n  Entoptic, 171.\n  Evolution of, 169-173.\n  Imagination images, 172-173.\n  Inward, 171-174;\n    control of, 178;\n    veridical, 175-177.\n  Memory-images, 172, 179.\n  Non-optical, in dreams, 169-170.\n  Ocular, a privileged case of general vision, 173, 175.\n  Subliminal mentation in relation to, 69 _and note_-70.\n\nVital faculty, scheme of, 441 _et seq._\n\nViv\u00e9, Louis, case of, 49 _and note_[1], 146 _note_, 379.\n\nVlavianos, Dr., _cited_, 134 _note_, 135 _note_{2}.\n\nVoisin, Dr. Auguste, _cited_, 49 _note_{1}, 101 _and note_,\n   133 _note_, 134 _note_, 135 _notes_[1] _and_ [2], 136 _note_, 155 _note_;\n  _quoted_, 381-382.\n\nVoltaire, genius of, 60.\n\n\nW., Miss, case of, _cited_, 233.\n\nWallace, Alfred Russel, _cited_, 7 _and note_, 16.\n\nWarburton, Canon, dream of, 106-107, 208.\n\nWater--\n  Mesmerised, experiments with, 380.\n  Running, finding of, 378.\n\nWendell, Prof. Barrett, _cited_, 318.\n\nWesermann, experiments of, 409.\n\nWesley, John, 7 _note_{1}.\n\nWetterstrand, Otto, _cited_, 93, 135 _note_{2}, 136 _note_.\n\nWhately, Archbishop, case of, 66-67.\n\nWheatcroft, Mrs., case of, _cited_, 228.\n\nWilkie, J. E., dream of, 315, 450-451.\n\nWilkinson, W. M., _cited_, 79 _note_, 265 _note_{1}.\n\nWill power--\n  Hypnotic influence on, 153-154.\n  Self-projection by means of, 210-211, 396-399.\n\nWilmot, Mrs., case of, 177.\n\nWilson, Archdeacon, case of, 228.\n\n----, Dr. Albert, case of patient of, 49 _note_{3}.\n\nWingfield, Dr. Hugh, _quoted_, 128.\n\nWinsor, Miss Anna, case of, 51 _and note_[2], 295 _note_.\n\nWitchcraft, 4-5.\n\nWitches, an\u00e6sthetic patches on, 124.\n\nWittman, 130.\n\nWordsworth, _cited_, 81, 84 _note_, 92.\n\nWorld-soul, 355 _note_.\n\nWyman, W. H., case of, _quoted_, 270.\n\n\nX., Emile, case of, 46-47.\n\n--, F\u00e9lida, case of, 44, 48, 50-51, 307, 361-363.\n\n\"X + Y = Z,\" case of, 316 _and note_.\n\n_X + Y = Z_ or _The Sleeping Preacher of North Alabama_, _cited_, 316 _note_.\n\n\nZ., Alma, case of, 50-51.\n\n_Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Hypnotismus_, _passim_, _cited_, 120 _note_{1}.\n\n_Zoist, the_, _cited_, 123 _note_, 139 _note_{1}, 159,\n   161, 162 _note_, 163 _note_{2}, 177 _note_, 380, 381.\n\nZones, an\u00e6sthetic, occurrence of, in witchcraft, 124.\n\n_Zones analg\u00e9sique_ in witches, 5.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe following typographical errors were corrected by the etext\ntranscriber:\n\nand of communciation with=>and of communication with\n\nHis field of consciousness is so far=> His field of typo consciousness\nis so far\n\nphysiolgical explanations=>physiological explanations\n\nchoreic or fidgetty shiftings of motor impulse=>choreic or fidgety\nshiftings of motor impulse\n\nthese types of subacent vision=>these types of subjacent vision\n\nwill sometimes express themseves=>will sometimes express themselves\n\nBibliot\u00e8que Diabolique=>Biblioth\u00e8que Diabolique\n\nomniscent benevolence=>omniscient benevolence\n\nchildhood dissappeared=>childhood disappeared\n\not January and February 1885=>of January and February 1885\n\ncommitted siucide by drowning himself in the lake=>committed suicide by\ndrowning himself in the lake\n\ntemps apr\u00e9s leur arriv\u00e9e=>temps apr\u00e8s leur arriv\u00e9e\n\nsoon as he told ns.=>soon as he told us.\n\nnot finding the pad of paper on my kneee=>not finding the pad of paper\non my knees\n\nTelepathy almost intistinguishable=>Telepathy almost indistinguishable\n\nou il pr\u00e9parait le samovar=>o\u00f9 il pr\u00e9parait le samovar\n\ncabinet ou nous ne trouv\u00e2mes personne=>cabinet o\u00f9 nous ne trouv\u00e2mes\npersonne\n\ns\u00e9par\u00e9e ou j'\u00e9tais tout seul=>s\u00e9par\u00e9e o\u00f9 j'\u00e9tais tout seul\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] See glossary.\n\n[2] I have ventured to coin the word \"supernormal\" to be applied to\nphenomena which are _beyond what usually happens_--_beyond_, that is, in\nthe sense of suggesting unknown psychical laws. It is thus formed on the\nanalogy of _abnormal_. When we speak of an abnormal phenomenon we do not\nmean one which _contravenes_ natural laws, but one which exhibits them\nin an unusual or inexplicable form. Similarly by a supernormal\nphenomenon I mean, not one which _overrides_ natural laws, for I believe\nno such phenomenon to exist, but one which exhibits the action of laws\nhigher, in a psychical aspect, than are discerned in action in everyday\nlife. By _higher_ (either in a psychical or physiological sense) I mean\n\"apparently belonging to a more advanced stage of evolution.\"\n\n[3] Other _savants_ of eminence--the great name of Alfred Russel Wallace\nwill occur to all--had also satisfied themselves of the reality of these\nstrange phenomena; but they had not tested or demonstrated that reality\nwith equal care. I am not able in this brief sketch to allude to\ndistinguished men of earlier date--Richard Glanvil, John Wesley, Samuel\nJohnson, etc., who discerned the importance of phenomena which they had\nno adequate means of investigating.\n\n[4] The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882, Professor W.\nF. Barrett taking a leading part in its promotion. Henry Sidgwick was\nits first President, and Edmund Gurney was its first Honorary\nSecretary--he and I being joint Honorary Secretaries of its Literary\nCommittee, whose business was the collection of evidence.\n\n[5] See, for instance, _Proceedings_ of the Society for Psychical\nResearch (henceforth in this book referred to as the S.P.R.), vol. iv.\np. 256, Jan. 1887.\n\n[6] See, however, an article in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 317\nto 325, entitled \"Subliminal Self or Unconscious Cerebration,\" by Mr. A.\nH. Pierce, of Harvard University, with a reply by Mr. F. Podmore.\n\n[7] The difficulty of conceiving any cellular focus, either fixed or\nshifting, has actually led some psychologists to demand a unifying\nprinciple which is not cellular, and yet is not a soul.\n\n[8] Stanley Hall's \"Study of Fears,\" _American Journal of Psychology_,\nvol. viii., No. 2, January, 1897. See also \"The Use of Hypnotism in the\nFirst Degree,\" by Dr. Russell Sturgis (Boston, 1894).\n\n[9] For instances of such cures see Drs. Raymond and Janet's _N\u00e9vroses\net Id\u00e9es fixes_.\n\n[10] See vol. vii. p. 309.\n\n[11] See \"Studien \u00fcber Hysterie\" (Leipsic, 1895), by Drs. Breuer and\nFreud. An account of two of these cases is given in the original\nedition. Vol. i. pp. 51-6.\n\n[12] On this subject see Du Prel, _Philosophy of Mysticism_, Eng.\ntrans., vol. i., passim.\n\n[13] An old case of Dr. Dyce's (see _The Zoist_, vol. iv. p. 158) forms\na simple example of this type. Dr. Mesnet's case (_De l'Automatisme de\nla M\u00e9moire_, _etc._ Par le Dr. Ernest Mesnet, Paris, 1874, p. 18, seq.)\nshould also be referred to here. In these instances the secondary state\nis manifestly a degeneration of the primary state, even when certain\ntraces of supernormal faculty are discernible in the narrowed psychical\nfield.\n\n[14] See _The Zoist_, vol. iv. pp. 172-79, for a case showing the\ninevitable accomplishment of a post-epileptic crime in such a way as to\nbring out its analogy with the inevitable working out of a post-hypnotic\nsuggestion.\n\n[15] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 221-258 [225 A].\n\n[16] See _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, March 1890, p. 267 [226 A].\n\n[17] See the _Annales M\u00e9dico-Psychologiques_ for January 1892 [226 B].\n\n[18] For full details of this, see Dr. Boris Sidis's work, _The\nPsychology of Suggestion: a Research into the Subconscious Nature of Man\nand Society_ (New York, 1898), and _Multiple Personality_ by Drs. Boris\nSidis and S. P. Goodhart. London, 1905.\n\n[19] Zoist vol. iv. p. 185 [229 A].\n\n[20] See Professor W. James's _Principles of Psychology_, vol. I. pp.\n381-84 [232 A].\n\n[21] For Dr. Camuset's account see _Annales M\u00e9dico-Psychologiques_,\n1882, p. 75; for Dr. Voisin's, _Archives de Neurologie_, September 1885.\nThe observations at Rochefort have been carefully recorded by Dr.\nBerjon, _La Grande Hyst\u00e9rie chez l'Homme_, Paris, 1886, and by Drs.\nBourru and Burot in a treatise, _De la suggestion mentale_, &c. (_Bibl.\nscientifique contemporaine_), Paris, 1887 [233 A].\n\n[22] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xv. pp. 466-483 [234 A] and the more\ncomplete account given in Dr. Morton Prince's _Dissociation of a\nPersonality_. New York and London, 1906.\n\n[23] Besides the cases mentioned above see a remarkable recent case\nrecorded by Dr. Bramwell in _Brain_, Summer Number, 1900, on the\nauthority of Dr. Albert Wilson, of Leytonstone. Dr. Wilson has given a\ndetailed account of his patient, Mary Barnes, in _Proceedings_ S.P.R.,\nvol. xviii. pp. 352-416, where a full discussion of the case will also\nbe found. Mary Barnes developed sixteen different personalities with\ndistinct memories and different characteristics.\n\n[24] _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiv. 396-398 [236 A].\n\n[25] _Proceedings of American_ S.P.R., vol. i. p. 552 [237 A].\n\n[26] For a detailed record of this case see the _Religio-Philosophical\nJournal_ for 1879. An abridgment is given in [238 A]. See also _Journal_\nS.P.R., vol. x. p. 99.\n\n[27] _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, July 1889.\n\n[28] Professor Scripture in the _American Journal of Psychology_, vol.\niv., No. 1, April 1891; Professor Binet in the _Revue Philosophique_,\n1895. Professor Binet's article deals largely with Jacques Inaudi, the\nmost recent prodigy, who appears to differ from the rest in that his\ngift is auditile rather than visual. His gift was first observed in\nchildhood. His general intelligence is below the average. Another recent\nprodigy, Diamanti, seems, on the other hand, to be in other ways\nquick-witted.\n\n[29] Scripture, _op. cit._, p. 54.\n\n[30] _Proceedings_ of American S.P.R., vol. i. No. 4, p. 360.\n\n[31] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 337 [\u00a7 311].\n\n[32] On this point see Professor James's _Principles of Psychology_,\nvol. ii. p. 84, note. Goethe's well-known phantasmal flower was clearly\nno mere representation of retinal structure. A near analogy to these\npatterns lies in the so-called \"spirit-drawings,\" or automatic\narabesques, discussed elsewhere in this chapter.\n\n[33] See Professor Ladd's paper on this subject in _Mind_, April 1892.\n\n[34] \"Le Subconscient chez les Artistes, les Savantes, et les\nEcrivains,\" par le Dr. Paul Chabaneix, Paris, 1897.\n\n[35] Instances of this form of automatism are described in a book called\n_Spirit Drawings: a Personal Narrative_, by W. M. Wilkinson, some\naccount of which is given in Appendix 811 A (Vol. II.) of the unabridged\nedition.\n\n[36] _L'Ann\u00e9e Psychologique_, i. 1894, p. 124, F. de Curel, par A. Binet\n[\u00a7 330].\n\n[37] In Wordsworth's _Prelude_ we find introspective passages of extreme\npsychological interest as being deliberate attempts to tell the truth\nabout exactly those emotions and intuitions which differentiate the poet\nfrom common men.\n\n[38] In the passage which follows some use has been made of Jowett's\ntranslation. It is noticeable that this utterance, unsurpassed among the\nutterances of antiquity, has been placed by Plato in the mouth of a\nwoman--the prophetess Diotima--with the express intention, as I think,\nof generalising it, and of raising it above the region of sexual\npassion. There is nothing else in antiquity resembling the position thus\nascribed to Diotima in reference to Socrates,--the woman being\nrepresented as capable of raising the highest and of illumining the\nwisest soul.\n\n[39] _Iliad_, xxii. 199; _\u00c6neid_, xii. 908.\n\n[40] See Dr. F\u00e9r\u00e9 in _Brain_ for January 1887.\n\n[41] _De l'Intelligence_, vol. i. p. 119.\n\n[42] _Archives de M\u00e9decine_, vol. i. 1876, p. 554.\n\n[43] _An Experimental Study in Hypnotism_, by Dr. R. von Krafft-Ebing,\ntranslated by Dr. C. G. Chaddock, p. 91.\n\n[44] _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, June 1891, p. 302.\n\n[45] _Les R\u00eaves_, p. 135. This remarkable patient afforded examples of\nmany forms of communication of memory between different states of\npersonality. See pp. 192-200 for a conspectus of these complex\nrecollections.\n\n[46] _Revue de M\u00e9decine_, February 1892. A full account and discussion\nof the same case is contained in Dr. P. Janet's _N\u00e9vroses et Id\u00e9es\nfixes_, vol. i. pp. 116 _et seq._ [\u00a7413].\n\n[47] See also _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 142 (October 1889), and\n_Proceedings_ of the American S.P.R., vol. i. No. 4, p. 363 [415 A and\nB].\n\n[48] _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 507.\n\n[49] C\u00e6dmon's poem was traditionally said to have come to him in like\nfashion.\n\n[50] The reader will find many similar cases in the _Journal_ and\n_Proceedings_ of the S.P.R. Several are quoted in Appendices to Section\n421 in the unabridged edition.\n\n[51] The case of Mr. Boyle, investigated by Edmund Gurney and printed in\nS.P.R. _Journal_, vol. iii. pp. 265, 266 [\u00a7423], is interesting in this\nconnection. In this case the vision, which recurred twice, was of a\nsimple kind, and might be interpreted as an impression transferred from\nthe mind of one waking to the mind of one asleep.\n\nAgain, the single dream which a man has noted down in all his life\nstands evidentially in almost as good a position as a single waking\nhallucination. For cases of this kind see _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iii. p.\n267 [\u00a7424]; _ibid._ vol. v. p. 61 [424 A]; _ibid._ vol. v. p. 252 [424\nC]; and _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 443 [424 B].\n\n[52] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 105 [428 A].\n\n[53] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 154 [428 D].\n\nThe cases of Mrs. Manning (_Journal_ S.P.R., vol. xii. p. 100 [428 B])\nand Mr. Newnham (_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 225 [428 C]) are\nsomewhat similar. See also _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 444 [428 E]\nand _Journal_ S.P.R., vol viii. p. 128 [428 F].\n\n[54] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 365; _ibid._, p. 453 [429 A\nand B].\n\n[55] See, for example, _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 123 [429 F].\n\n[56] Long ago Solon had said, apparently of mesmeric cure--\n\n        [Greek: Ton de kakais nousoisi kyk\u00f4menon argaleais te\n        aphamenos cheiroin aipha tith\u00eas hygi\u00ea.]\n\n\n[57] _Recherches Physiologiques sur l'Homme_ (Paris, 1811); _M\u00e9moires\npour servir \u00e0 l'Histoire et \u00e0 l'Establissement du Magn\u00e9tisme Animal_;\n_Du Magn\u00e9tisme Animal consid\u00e9r\u00e9 dans ses Rapports avec diverses branches\nde la Physique G\u00e9n\u00e9rale_; etc.\n\n[58] See Nasse's _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Hypnoitsmus_, _passim_.\n\n[59] This later work of Braid's has been generally overlooked, and his\ntheories were stated again as new discoveries by recent observers who\nignored what he had already accomplished. See Dr. Bramwell's paper on\n\"James Braid, his Work and Writings,\" in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii.\npp. 127-166. This contains a complete list of Braid's writings, and\nreferences to his work by other writers. See also the references to\nBraid's work and theories in Dr. Bramwell's _Hypnotism_.\n\n[60] See also the _Zoist_ (Vol. viii. pp. 156, 297-299) for cases of\nmesmerisation of animals. In his _Th\u00e9rapeutique Suggestive_, 1891 (pp.\n246-68), Dr. Li\u00e9beault gives an account of his experiments with infants\n[513 B and C].\n\n[61] See Dr. Bramwell's discussion of the subject. (_Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. xii. p. 213) [513 A].\n\n[62] This view unfortunately dominates Professor M'Kendrick's article on\n\"Hypnotism\" in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_.\n\n[63] See Dr. Bramwell's discussion of the inadequacy of this explanation\nin his article \"What is Hypnotism?\" in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii.\np. 224, also in his book on _Hypnotism_ pp. 337-8.\n\n[64] See Dr. Bramwell's _Hypnotism_, p. 274.\n\n[65] I am inclined to think that this is always the case. For a long\ntime the lethargic state was supposed at the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re to preclude all\nknowledge of what was going on; and I have heard Charcot speak before a\ndeeply-entranced subject as if there were no danger of her gathering\nhints as to what he expected her to do. I believe that his patients did\nsubliminally receive such hints, and work them out in their own hypnotic\nbehaviour. On the other hand, I have heard the late Dr. Auguste Voisin,\none of the most persistent and successful of hypnotisers, make\nsuggestion after suggestion to a subject apparently almost\ncomatose,--which suggestions, nevertheless, she obeyed as soon as she\nawoke.\n\n[66] According to Dr. Edgar B\u00e9rillon, who was the first systematically\nto apply the hypnotic method to the education of children (see his\npaper, \"De la Suggestion envisag\u00e9e au point de vue p\u00e9dagogique\" in the\n_Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, vol. i. (1887), p. 84), the percentage of those\nwho can be hypnotised is more than 80, and he asserts that\nsuggestibility varies directly as the intellectual development of the\nsubject. He classes under four heads the affections which can be\nsuccessfully treated by hypnotic suggestion. (See the _Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, July 1895.)\n\n(1) Psychical derangements caused by acute diseases; in particular,\ninsomnia, restlessness, nocturnal delirium, incontrollable vomiting,\nincontinence of urine and of f\u00e6ces.\n\n(2) Functional affections connected with nervous disease: chorea, tics,\nconvulsions, an\u00e6sthesi\u00e6, contractures and hysterical paresis, hysterical\nhiccough, blepharospasm.\n\n(3) Psychical derangements, such as habit of biting nails, precocious\nimpulsive tendencies, nocturnal terrors, speaking in sleep, kleptomania,\nnervousness, shyness.\n\n(4) Chorea, hysteria, epilepsy, or mental derangements considered as\nresulting from the combination of several nervous diseases.\n\nScattered about in the _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_ the reader will find\nnumerous illustrative cases. Specially characteristic are those recorded\nin the number for July 1893, p. 11, and April 1895, p. 306.\n\nFor reports of hypnotic cure of onychophagy, see B\u00e9rillon, the articles\nalready quoted; Bourdon, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, November 1895, p. 134;\nBouff\u00e9, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, September 1898, p. 76.\n\nFor reports of hypnotic cure of even graver habits, see Van Renterghem\nand Van Eeden, _Psycho-Th\u00e9rapie_, p. 250; Bernheim, _Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, December 1891, a case in which the habit had become quite\nautomatic and irresistible, and where every other method of treatment\nhad failed; also _De la Suggestion_; Schrenck-Notzing, _Die\nSuggestions-Therapie bei krankhaften Erscheinungen des\nGeschlechtssinnes_; B\u00e9rillon, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, July 1893, pp.\n12, 14, 15; Bourdon, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, November 1895, pp. 136,\n139, 140; Auguste Voisin, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, November 1887, p.\n151.\n\nFor cures of _enuresis nocturna_, see Li\u00e9beault, _Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, September 1886, p. 71; B\u00e9rillon, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_,\nJune 1894, p. 359; Van Renterghem and Van Eeden, _Psycho-th\u00e9rapie_; Paul\nFarez, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, August 1899, p. 53. This author\nrecommends the method of suggestion in normal sleep.\n\nLi\u00e9beault, in the _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_ for January 1889, gives\ntwenty-two cases in which hypnotic suggestion was used in the moral\neducation of children from the age of fourteen months upwards, with the\naim of curing, _e.g._ the habit of lying, excessive developments of\nemotions, such as fear and anger, and precocious or depraved appetites;\nand of improving the normal faculties of attention and memory. He\nreports ten cures, eight improvements, and four failures.\n\nFor other cases of moral education, see B\u00e9rillon, _De la suggestion et\nde ses applications \u00e0 la p\u00e9dagogie_ (1887); _L'Hypnotisme et\nl'Orthop\u00e9die morale_ (1898); _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, December 1887, pp.\n169-180, and December 1897, p. 162; Bernheim, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_,\nNovember 1886, p. 129; Ladame, the same, June and July 1887; Voisin, the\nsame, November 1888; De Jong, the same, September 1891; Bourdon, the\nsame, August 1896; Van Renterghem and Van Eeden, _Psycho-th\u00e9rapie_, p.\n215. Nervous troubles in adults have often been cured by the same means.\nThus, in the _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, September 1899, p. 73, Dr.\nVlavianos records a case of _tic convulsif_ cured by hypnotic\nsuggestion. Wetterstrand has used the same method with success (_loc.\ncit._, p. 76). See also Janet, _N\u00e9vroses et Id\u00e9es Fixes_, vol. ii., part\nii., chapter iii., \"Les. Tics.\"\n\n[67] See B\u00e9rillon, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, September 1890, p. 75, and\nFebruary 1896, p. 237; Regis, the same, May 1896; De Jong, the same,\nSeptember 1891, p. 82; and Auguste Voisin, the same, November 1888, p.\n130.\n\n[68] See Otto Wetterstrand, _Der Hypnotismus und seine Anwendung in der\npraktischen Medicin_; Georg Ringier, _Erfolge des therapeutischen\nHypnotismus in der Landpraxis_; Van Renterghem and Van Eeden,\n_Psycho-th\u00e9rapie_; Auguste Forel, _Einige therapeutische Versuche mit\ndem Hypnotismus bei Geisteskranken_; Lloyd Tuckey, _Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, January 1897, p. 207; Ladame, Revue de l'Hypnotisme,\nNovember 1887, p. 131, and December 1887, p. 165; A. Voisin, _Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, vol. ii. (1888), p. 69, and vol. iii. (1889), p. 353;\nVlavianos, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, June 1899, p. 361; Neilson, _Revue\nde l'Hypnotisme_, vol. vi. (1892), p. 17. B\u00e9rillon, _Le traitement\npsychologique de L'Alcoolisme_. Paris 1906. See also the works of\nLi\u00e9beault, Bernheim, and Milne Bramwell.\n\n[69] There are many instances of the cure of morphinomania. See\nespecially the case recorded by Dr. Marot in the _Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, February 1893, on account of the psychological interest\nof the patient's own remarks.\n\nWetterstrand, out of fourteen cases, records eleven cures of\nmorphinomania. In a paper in the _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, November 1890,\nhe discusses the benefit of prolonged hypnosis--causing the patient to\nsleep for a week or more at a time--which he tried in one case. See also\nVoisin, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, December 1886, p. 163.\n\n[70] See Dr. A. Dorez, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, May 1899, p. 345; and\nDr. Bourdon, the same, November 1893, p. 141 [557 A].\n\n[71] Dr. Hill, _British Medical Journal_, July 4th, 1891.\n\n[72] In some articles in the _Revue Philosophique_, published in 1886\nand 1887, Delboeuf describes some experiments which suggest that in\nmany of the remarkable hypnotic cures recorded in the _Zoist_ (as well\nas in modern cases) the removal of pain was probably an important\nelement in the cure; see _e.g._ cures of inflammation (_Zoist_, vol. x.\np. 347); of neuralgia and chronic rheumatism (vol. ix. pp. 76-79); of\nabdominal pains (vol. ix. p. 155); of tic douloureux (vol. viii. p.\n186); of severe headaches (vol. x. p. 369); of eczema impetiginodes\n(vol. x. p. 96).\n\nThe general subject of hypnotic analgesia is strikingly illustrated by\nEsdaile's well-known work in the Indian hospitals; see his books,\n_Mesmerism in India_ (London, 1846); _The Introduction of Mesmerism with\nSanction of Government into the Public Hospitals of India_ (2nd edit.\nLondon, 1856); _Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance_ (London, 1852); and\nconstant references to him in the _Zoist_.\n\nFor later cases see _British Medical Journal_, April 5th, 1890, p. 801;\nthe same, February 28th, 1891, pp. 460-468.\n\nSee also Van Renterghem and Van Eeden's _Psycho-th\u00e9rapie_, pp. 262-280.\n\nSee also the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii. p. 21, and the _Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, November 1891, p. 132; the same, 1895, p. 300; and for\nthe discussion of a very interesting recent case of the cure of _sycosis\nmenti_, see B\u00e9rillon, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, January 1896, p. 195;\nDelboeuf, _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, February 1896, p. 225; Durand (de\nGros), _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, 1896, p. 37. It was also quoted in the\n_British Medical Journal_ for November 16th, 1895.\n\n[73] See the _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, August 1887.\n\n[74] See the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 209 [535 A].\n\n[75] See the _Revue Philosophique_, 1886.\n\n[76] See the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii. p. 193 [535 B].\n\n[77] For cases bearing on this subject see Dr. Li\u00e9beault's\n_Th\u00e9rapeutique Suggestive_, pp. 64 _et seq._; the _Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, January 1893; and _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii. p. 177\n[538 A and B].\n\n[78] _Th\u00e9rapeutique Suggestive_, pp. 64 _et seq._\n\n[79] See the _Revue Philosophique_, November 1886. The same case is\ndiscussed in _Mind_ for January 1887 [539 A].\n\n[80] Nagel suggests that there may have been at a certain stage _mixed\nsense-organs_, by means of which two or three sensations were perceived\nsimultaneously.\n\n[81] For a circumstantial English account of the well-known case of\nLouise Lateau, see _Macmillan's Magazine_, vol. xxiii. p. 488 _et seq._\n\nThree cases of the production of cruciform marks reported by Dr. Biggs,\nof Lima, appeared in the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 100.\n\nAnother remarkable American case of stigmatisation was reported in the\n_Courier-Journal_, Louisville, Ky., December 7th, 1891, on the authority\nof Dr. M. F. Coomes and several other physicians.\n\nSee also the case of Ilma S. recorded in Dr. R. von Krafft-Ebing's\n_Experimental Study in Hypnotism_.\n\nDr. P. Janet describes somewhat similar experiments in _L'Automatisme\nPsychologique_ (see p. 166 _et seq._).\n\nAgain, somewhat similar is a case recorded by Dr. J. Rybalkin in the\n_Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, June 1890 (p. 361), in which a post-hypnotic\nsuggestion to the subject to burn his arm at a stove--really\nunlighted--produced blisters as of a burn.\n\nH\u00e6morrhage and bleeding stigmata were several times produced in the\nfamous subject, Louis Viv\u00e9, by verbal suggestion alone. (Drs. Bourru and\nBurot, _Comptes Rendus de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Biologie_, July 12th, 1885; and\nDr. Mabille, _Progr\u00e8s M\u00e9dical_, August 29th, 1885.)\n\nProfessor Beaunis (_Recherches Exp\u00e9rimentales_, etc., Paris, 1886, p.\n29) produced redness and cutaneous congestion in his subject, Mlle. A.\nE., by suggestion, and the experiment was repeated on the same subject\nby the present writer and Edmund Gurney in September 1885 (see\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 167).\n\nIt appears that there is at present at the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re a _stigmatis\u00e9e_,\nthe development of whose stigmata has been watched by Dr. Janet under\ncopper shields with glass windows inserted in them (_Revue de\nl'Hypnotisme_, December 1900, p. 190).\n\nOther cases are recorded in the _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, June 1890, p.\n353; the same February 1892, p. 251 [543 A to H].\n\n[82] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iv. pp. 268-323 [551 A].\n\n[83] Professor Fontan's experiments described in the _Revue\nPhilosophique_, August 1887, cannot lightly be set aside. An account of\nhis experiments is given in _Proceedings_ S. P. R. vol. ii. p. 263-268.\n[549 D]. See also the works of P\u00e9t\u00e9tin, Durand, Foissac, and Despine,\nespecially _Observations de M\u00e9decine Pratique_, pp. 45, 62, and _\u00c9tude\nScientifique sur Somnambulisme_, p. 167.\n\n[84] See _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 100 [543 B].\n\n[85] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii. pp. 176-203 [551 C].\n\n[86] _Revue Philosophique_, September 1888 [552 A].\n\n[87] _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, vol. vi. p. 357 [553 A].\n\n[88] For illustrative instances see _Brain_, Summer Number 1900, p. 207,\n_Revue de l' Hypnotisme_, January 1889, and B\u00e9rillon, _De la suggestion\net de ses applications \u00e0 la p\u00e9dagogie_ (1887) [553 B]. See also\nB\u00e9rillon, _La Psychologie du Courage et l'\u00c9ducation du Caract\u00e8re_. Paris\n1905.\n\n[89] _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii. pp. 204-58 [555 B]. See also his\nbook on _Hypnotism_, pp. 425-32.\n\n[90] See also the _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, January 1889, September 1890,\nNovember 1886, November 1888, for cases reported by Li\u00e9beault, B\u00e9rillon,\nBernheim, and Voisin.\n\n[91] See Mr. Fryer's paper on \"The Welsh Revival of 1904-5,\" in\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xix. p. 80.\n\n[92] See Puys\u00e9gur, _Recherches sur l'Homme dans le Somnambulisme_\n(Paris, 1811); P\u00e9t\u00e9tin, _Electricit\u00e9 Animale_ (Paris, 1808); Despine,\n_Observations de M\u00e9decine Pratique_ (1838), and _Journal_ S.P.R., vol.\nix. p. 333.\n\n[93] _Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance_, pp. 227-28; quoted in\n_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 88.\n\n[94] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. (1888), pp. 14-17. [569 A.]\n\n[95] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 536-596. [569 B.]\n\n[96] Beginning with cases partly retrocognitive, the leader is referred\nto _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 30-99; _Zoist_, vol. vii. pp.\n95-101 [572 A and B].\n\n[97] The longest and most important series of experiments in\nthought-transference with hypnotised subjects, carried out by members of\nthe S.P.R., are those of Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick. _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 128-70; and vol. viii. pp. 536-96 [573 A].\n\n[98] _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 199-220; Dr. Fahnestock's\n_Statuvolism_, pp. 117-35, 221-32 [573 B, C and D].\n\n[99] _Zoist_, vol. xii. pp. 249-52 [573 F].\n\n[100] See \"Mind-Cure, Faith-Cure, and the Miracles of Lourdes,\" by A. T.\nMyers, M.D., F.R.C.P., and F. W. H. Myers, _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol.\nix. pp. 160-210.\n\n[101] For a true syn\u00e6sthetic or \"sound-seer,\"--to take the commonest\nform of these central repercussions of sensory shock,--there is a\nconnection between sight and sound which is instinctive, complex, and\nyet for our intelligence altogether arbitrary.\n\nBut sound-seeing is only a conspicuous example of syn\u00e6sthesi\u00e6 which\nexist in as yet unexplored variety. When we find that there are\ngradated, peremptory, inexplicable associations connecting sensations of\nlight and colour with sensations of temperature, smell, taste, muscular\nresistance, etc., we are led to conclude that we are dealing, not with\nthe casual associations of childish experience, but with some reflection\nor irradiation of specialised sensations which must depend upon the\nconnate structure of the brain itself.\n\nThis view is consistent with the results of an _Enqu\u00eate sur l'audition\ncolor\u00e9e_ recently conducted by Professor Flournoy, from which it appears\nthat of 213 persons presenting these associations only 48 could assign\nthe date of their origin; and is supported by a case described in the\n_Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, December 1892, p. 185, where a man who had long\nexhibited a limited form of _audition color\u00e9e_ developed _gustation\ncolor\u00e9e_ in addition when in a low state of health.\n\nSee also the \"Report of the International Congress of Experimental\nPsychology, Second Session, London, 1892,\" pp. 10-20 (Williams &\nNorgate, London, 1892), and the _American Journal of Psychology_ for\nApril 1900 (vol. xi. pp. 377-404).\n\n[102] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 480 [610 A].\n\n[103] The \"Census of Hallucinations\" was undertaken in 1889, by a\nCommittee of the S.P.R., under the direction of Professor Sidgwick, and\nconsisting of himself and Mrs. Sidgwick, Dr. A. T. Myers, Mr. F.\nPodmore, Miss A. Johnson, and the present writer. The full report of the\ncommittee was published in 1894. (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. pp.\n25-422.) A summary of the report is given in the original edition. [612\nA.]\n\n[104] For prehistoric and historic crystal-gazing see Mr. Andrew Lang's\n_Making of Religion_, and Miss Goodrich-Freer's \"Recent Experiments in\nCrystal-Vision,\" _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 486 [620 A].\n\n[105] It is right also to state, although I cannot here discuss the\nproblems involved, that I believe these visions to be sometimes seen by\nmore than one person, simultaneously or successively.\n\n[106] See also _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. i. pp. 263-283; vol. ii. pp.\n1-5, 24-42, 189-200; vol. iii. pp. 424-452, where a full record will be\nfound of Mr. Malcolm Guthrie's experiments [630 B]. Also _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 2-17 [630 C], for Mr. Henry G. Rawson's\nexperiments. Others are recorded in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. i.\npp. 161-167 and 174-215. See also those of Herr Max Dessoir\n(_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 111, and vol. v. p. 355); Herr Anton\nSchmoll and M. Etienne Mabire (_ibid._ vol. iv. p. 324 and vol. v. p.\n169); Mr. J. W. Smith (_ibid._ vol. ii. p. 207); Sir Oliver Lodge\n(_ibid._ vol. vii. p. 374); Dr. A. Blair Thaw (_ibid._ vol. viii. p.\n422); Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing (_ibid._ vol. vii. p. 3); Professor\nRichet (_ibid._ vol. v. p. 18). See also _Phantasms of the Living_, vol.\ni. pp. 32-34, and vol. ii. pp. 653-654. Also the experiments of\nProfessor and Mrs. Sidgwick (_Proceedings_, vol. vi. and vol. viii.)\nalready referred to in Chapter V.\n\n[107] See Mr. F. Podmore's _Apparitions and Thought-transference_,\nChapter V. [630 D, etc.]; also _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 455\n[630 F]; and _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 325-329 [630 E]: _ibid._\npp. 234-237, pp. 299-306 and pp. 311-319; and vol. xii. p. 223 (March\n1906).\n\n[108] It is plain that on this view there is no theoretical reason for\nlimiting telepathy to human beings. For aught we can say, the impulse\nmay pass between man and the lower animals, or between the lower animals\nthemselves. See _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 278-290 and pp. 323-4;\nthe same, vol. xii. pp. 21-3; the same, vol. iv. p. 289; and\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiv. p. 285.\n\n[109] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. pp. 25-422.\n\n[110] See also _Phantasms of the Living_ vol. ii. p. 96 [\u00a7 653], and for\nan auditory case, _ibid._ p. 100 [\u00a7 655].\n\n[111] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 78 [\u00a7 645]. See also _op.\ncit._, p. 82 _et seq._\n\n[112] _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. p. 306 [\u00a7 646]. See also the case in\n_Phantasms of the Living_ (vol. ii. p. 217) [\u00a7 647], where an apparition\nwas seen _by its original_ and by others _at the same time_.\n\n[113] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 144 [651 A] and _ibid._\np. 61 [\u00a7 651].\n\n[114] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 97 [654 A].\n\n[115] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 194 [654 B].\n\n[116] See Chapter IX., _passim_.\n\n[117] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 30-99 [572 A and 573 B];\n_op. cit._, 199-220 [573 C]; _Zoist_, vol. vii. pp. 95-101, vol. ix. p.\n234, vol. xii. pp. 249-52; and Dr. Fahnestock's _Statuvolism_,\nespecially pp. 127-35 and 221-32.\n\n[118] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 31 [662 B].\n\n[119] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 37 [662 D].\n\n[120] See _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 25 [665 A].\n\n[121] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 35 [662 C].\n\n[122] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 265 [\u00a7 664].\n\n[123] For examples of various types see _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vii. p.\n25; vol. v. p. 68, and _op. cit._, p. 147 [665 A, B and C].\n\n[124] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 162; _op. cit._, p.\n164; _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 41 [666 A, B and C].\n\n[125] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 527, for example [667\nA].\n\n[126] For cases see the second edition of _Phantasms of the Living_,\nvol. i. p. lxxxi; _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. pp. 270, 273, and 418;\n_Forum_, March 1900; _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 217; vol. vii. p. 99\n[668 A to G]. See also _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 103 and\nvol. ii. p. 675; and the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 307.\n\n[127] Some such power as this is frequently claimed in oriental books as\nattainable by mystic practices. We have not thus far been fortunate\nenough to discover any performances corresponding to these promises.\n\n[128] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 199-220 [573 C].\n\n[129] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 231.\n\n[130] Some word is much needed to express communications between one\nstate and another, _e.g._ between the somnambulic and the waking state,\nor, in hypnotism, the cataleptic and the somnambulic, etc. The word\n\"methectic\" ([Greek: methektikhos]) seems to me the most\nsuitable, especially since [Greek: methexis] happens to be the\nword used by Plato (Parm. 132 D.) for participation between ideas and\nconcrete objects. Or the word \"inter-state\" might be pressed into this\nnew duty.\n\n[131] See for example Mr. Cameron Grant's case. (_Proceedings_ S.P.R.,\nvol. viii. p. 202.)\n\n[132] _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 404-408.\n\n[133] In some experimental cases, it will be remembered, the impression\ntakes effect through the _motor_, not the _sensory_, system of the\nrecipient, as by automatic writing, so that he is never directly aware\nof it at all.\n\n[134] See, for instance, case 500, _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii.\np. 462.\n\n[135] I mean by \"ordinary\" the classes which are recognised and treated\nof in _Phantasms of the Living_. But if the departed survive, the\npossibility of thought-transference between them and those who remain is\nof course a perfectly tenable hypothesis. \"As our telepathic theory is a\npsychical one, and makes no physical assumptions, it would be perfectly\napplicable (though the _name_ perhaps would be inappropriate) to the\nconditions of disembodied existence.\"--_Phantasms_, vol. i. p. 512.\n\n[136] Certain statistics as to these time-relations are given by Edmund\nGurney as follows (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 408): \"The\nstatistics drawn from the first-hand records in _Phantasms of the\nLiving_ as to the time-relation of appearances, etc., occurring in close\nproximity to deaths, are as follows:--In 134 cases the coincidence is\nrepresented as having been exact, or, when times are specifically\nstated, close to within an hour. In 104 cases it is not known whether\nthe percipient's experience preceded or followed the death; such cases\ncannot be taken account of for our present purpose. There remain 78\ncases where it appears that there was an interval of more than an hour;\nand of these 38 preceded and 40 followed the death. Of the 38 cases\nwhere the percipient's experience preceded the death (all of which, of\ncourse, took place during a time when the \"agent\" was seriously ill), 19\nfell within twenty-four hours of the death. Of the 40 cases where the\npercipient's experience followed the death, all followed within an\ninterval of twenty-four hours, and in only one (included by mistake) was\nthe twelve hours' interval certainly exceeded, though there are one or\ntwo others where it is possible that it was slightly exceeded.\"\n\n[137] The _Proceedings_ of the American Society for Psychical Research\n(vol. i. p. 405) contain a case where a physician and his wife, sleeping\nin separate but adjoining rooms, are both of them awakened by a bright\nlight. The physician sees a figure standing in the light; his wife, who\ngets up to see what the light in her husband's room may be, does not\nreach that room till the figure has disappeared. The figure is not\nclearly identified, but has some resemblance to a patient of the\nphysician's, who has died suddenly (from hemorrhage) about three hours\nbefore, calling for her doctor, who did not anticipate this sudden end.\nEven this resemblance did not strike the percipient until after he knew\nof the death, and the defect in _recognition_ weakens the case\nevidentially.\n\n[138] The references in this and the two following pages are to\n_Phantasms of the Living_.\n\n[139] See the cases of Major Moncrieff (i. p. 415); of Mr. Keulemans (i.\np. 444), where the second phantasm was held by the percipient to convey\na fresh veridical picture; of Mr. Hernaman (i. p. 561), where, however,\nthe agent was alive, though dying, at the time of the appearance; see\nalso the cases of Mrs. Ellis (ii. p. 59); of Mrs. D. (ii. p. 467); of\nMrs. Fairman (ii. p. 482), and of Mr. F. J. Jones (ii. p. 500), where\nthe death was again due to drowning, and the act of dying cannot,\ntherefore, have been very prolonged. We may note also Mrs. Reed's case\n(ii. p. 237), Captain Ayre's (ii. p. 256) and Mrs. Cox's (ii. p. 235).\nIn the case of Miss Harriss (ii. p. 117) a hallucinatory _voice_, about\nthe time of the death, but not suggesting the decedent, is followed by a\ndream the next night, which presents the dead person as in the act of\ndying. One or two other cases might be added to this list, and it is\nplain that the matter is one towards which observation should be\nspecially directed.\n\n[140] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 305; _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. viii. p. 180; _ibid._ p. 194.\n\n[141] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii p. 236 [716 B].\n\n[142] See for instance _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 20; the same,\nvol. xi p. 429 and _Phantasms of the Living_, vol ii. p. 208 [717 A, B\nand C].\n\n[143] _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. p. 214 [719 A].\n\n[144] _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 449 [719 B].\n\n[145] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 422-26 [\u00a7 720].\n\n[146] The cases recorded in _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 216,\nand _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. p. 263 [727 A and B] may be regarded\nas deflected fulfilments.\n\n[147] _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. p. 383. See also _ibid._ p. 371 and\nvol. viii. p. 214 [728 A and B and \u00a7 726].\n\n[148] For the other case see _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 265.\n\n[149] For cases illustrating this, see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p.\n409 [\u00a7 734]; also _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 220; _ibid._ p.\n218; _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 690; and _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. x. p. 373 [\u00a7 736 and 736 A, B and C].\n\n[150] See for instance _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 173.\n\n[151] This analogy suggests itself still more forcibly in the remarkable\ncase recorded in _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. xii. p. 17. Here the visions,\nseen in a mirror, were perceived simultaneously, though not quite in the\nsame way, by four witnesses, and lasted for an appreciable length of\ntime.\n\n[152] See the _Proceedings_ of the American Society for Psychical\nResearch, vol. i. p. 446 [741 A].\n\n[153] In the case recorded in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 173 [\u00a7\n742], the decedent would appear to be satisfying both a local and a\npersonal attraction. See also the cases given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R.,\nvol. iii. p. 93, and vol. v. p. 437 [742 A], which are somewhat similar.\n\n[154] See, however, Sir Arthur Beecher's case (_Proceedings_ S.P.R.,\nvol. iii. p. 110) where there was at least a rumour of some crime. In\nMrs. M.'s case, too (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 178) and Mrs.\nPenn\u00e9e's (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 60) there is some indication\nof past troubles in which the percipients, of course, were in no way\nconcerned. But in no other cases has there been anything, as far as we\nknow, which could trouble the departed spirit with importunate memories\nof his earthly home.\n\n[155] For a discussion of this problem, illustrated by a large number of\ncases, see my article on \"Retrocognition and Precognition\" in the\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 334-593.\n\n[156] See, however, Mrs. Sidgwick's remarks (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol.\niii. pp. 79-80), as to the rarity of any indication of intelligence in\nsuch sounds, and the possibility of reading more intelligence into them\nthan they really possess. There is now, of course, more evidence as to\nthese sounds than there was at the date of Mrs. Sidgwick's paper (1885).\n\n[157] Thus Mrs. Sidgwick, even as far back as 1885 (_Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. iii. p. 142), writes: \"I can only say that having made\nevery effort--as my paper will, I hope, have shown--to exercise a\nreasonable scepticism, I yet do not feel equal to the degree of unbelief\nin human testimony necessary to avoid accepting, at least provisionally,\nthe conclusion that there are, in a certain sense, haunted houses, i.e.,\nthat there are houses in which similar quasi-human apparitions have\noccurred at different times to different inhabitants, under\ncircumstances which exclude the hypothesis of suggestion or\nexpectation.\"\n\n[158] This case is given in Appendix VII. G.\n\n[159] In an earlier part of this paper, I mentioned cases of haunted\nhouses where the apparitions are various, and might therefore all of\nthem be merely subjective hallucinations, sometimes, perhaps, caused by\nexpectancy. It is, of course, also possible to explain these cases by\nthe hypothesis we are now discussing. Another class of cases is,\nperhaps, worth mentioning in this connection. We have in the collection\ntwo cases of what was believed by the narrators to be a quite peculiar\nfeeling of discomfort, in houses where concealed and long since\ndecomposed bodies were subsequently found. Such feelings are seldom\ndearly defined enough to have much evidential value, for others, at any\nrate, than the percipient; even though mentioned beforehand, and\ndefinitely connected with the place where the skeleton was. But if there\nbe really any connection between the skeleton and the feeling, it may\npossibly be a subtle physical influence such as I am suggesting.--E. M.\nS.\n\n[160] To avoid misconception, I may point out that this view in no way\nnegatives the possibility that telepathy (or its correlative telergy)\nmay be in some of its aspects commoner, or more powerful, among savages\nthan among ourselves. Evolutionary processes are not necessarily\n_continuous_. The acquirement by our lowly-organised ancestors of the\nsense of _smell_ (for instance) was a step in evolution. But the sense\nof smell probably reached its highest energy in races earlier than man;\nand it has perceptibly declined even in the short space which separates\ncivilised man from existing savages. Yet if, with some change in our\nenvironment, the sense of smell again became useful, and we reacquired\nit, this would be none the less an evolutionary process because the\nevolution had been interrupted.\n\n[161] I do not wish to assert that _all_ unfamiliar psychical states are\nnecessarily evolutive or dissolutive in any assignable manner. I should\nprefer to suppose that there are states which may better be styled\n_allotropic_;--modifications of the arrangements of nervous elements on\nwhich our conscious identity depends, but with no more conspicuous\n_superiority_ of the one state over the other than (for instance)\ncharcoal possesses over graphite or graphite over charcoal. But there\nmay also be states in which the (metaphorical) carbon becomes\n_diamond_;--with so much at least of _advance_ on previous states as is\ninvolved in the substitution of the crystalline for the amorphous\nstructure.\n\n[162] See, for instance, _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. i. p. 291.\n\n[163] _Sensation et Mouvement_, par Ch. F\u00e9r\u00e9. Paris: Alcan, 1887.\n\n[164] _La Suggestion Mentale_ (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ii. pp.\n239 _sqq._).\n\n[165] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ii. pp. 226-31 [830 A].\n\n[166] See Mr. Wilkinson's book _Spirit Drawings: a Personal Narrative_.\nBut, of course, like other automatic impulses, this impulse to\ndecorative or symbolical drawing is sometimes seen at its maximum in\ninsane patients. Some drawings of an insane patient, reproduced in the\n_American Journal of Psychology_, June 1888, show a noticeable analogy\n(in my view a _predictable_ analogy) with some of the \"spirit-drawings\"\nabove discussed. See also the Martian landscapes of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Smith, in\nProfessor Flournoy's _Des Indes \u00e0 la plan\u00e8te Mars_.\n\n[167] An account of recorded instances of Socratic monitions and some\ndiscussion of them is given in the original edition [\u00a7 813, 814].\n\n[168] _Du D\u00e9mon de Socrate_, etc., by L. F. L\u00e9lut, Membre de l'Institut.\nNouvelle \u00e9dition, 1856.\n\n[169] For other authorities see Mr. Andrew Lang's paper in _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 198-212.\n\n[170] On this point, see Mr. Lang's paper referred to above.\n\n[171] See Plutarch's _De genio Socratis_.\n\n[172] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i., Chapter VII, _passim_.\n\n[173] See _Proceedings_ of the American S.P.R., vol. i. p. 397;\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. pp. 33 and 35 [817 A, B, and C].\n\n[174] The case is recorded in _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 136 [817 D].\n\n[175] For a somewhat similar case, possibly due to hyper\u00e6sthesia of\nhearing, see _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. iii. p. 435\n(September 1890).\n\n[176] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 419 and 421 [821 A].\n\n[177] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 422 and 423 [\u00a7\u00a7 822 and\n823]; also a case given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 345,\nwhere a lady hurrying up to the door of a lift, is stopped by seeing a\nfigure of a man standing in front of it, and then finds that the door is\nopen, leaving the well exposed, so that she would probably have fallen\ndown it, if she had not been checked by the apparition.\n\n[178] _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, March 1893, p. 268.\n\n[179] When the automatic drawings have any telepathic or other\nsupernormal content, they are usually associated with automatic writing.\nCompare the case of Mr. Cameron Grant (_Phantasms of the Living_, vol.\nii. p. 690).\n\n[180] See James's _Psychology_, vol. i. p. 394: \"One curious thing about\ntrance utterances is their generic similarity in different\nindividuals.... It seems exactly as if one author composed more than\nhalf of the trance messages, no matter by whom they are uttered. Whether\nall sub-conscious selves are peculiarly susceptible to a certain stratum\nof the _Zeitgeist_, and get their inspiration from it, I know not.\" See\nthe account of automatic and impressional script, by Mr. Sidney Dean,\nwhich Professor James goes on to quote, and which is closely parallel to\n(for instance) Miss A.'s case, to be referred to below, although the one\nseries of messages comes from the hand of a late member of Congress,\n\"all his life a robust and active journalist, author, and man of\naffairs,\" and the other from a young lady with so different a history\nand _entourage_.\n\n[181] Some other cases of Mr. Smith's will be found in this volume. See\nalso _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 25 [\u00a7 831] for a case of Prof.\nSidgwick's, and _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ii. pp. 226-231 for the\ncomplex \"Clelia\" case. Other cases of imaginary personalities are to be\nfound in the accounts of possession which have come down to us from the\n\"Ages of Faith.\" See for example the autobiography of Soeur Jeanne des\nAnges (_Biblioth\u00e8que Diabolique_ [collection Bourneville] Paris, 1886).\n\n[182] For the description of a curious case combining various motor\nautomatisms in a very unusual way, see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. p.\n182 [\u00a7 833].\n\n[183] For Mlle. Smith's later history, see Professor Flournoy's\n_Nouvelles Observations sur un cas de Somnambulisme_, Geneva, 1902.\n\n[184] We have already printed several incidents of this type in our\n_Proceedings_ and _Journal_. (See, for instance, _Proceedings_ S.P.R.,\nvol. viii. p. 344 [818 A].)\n\n[185] A somewhat similar but less complex set of experiments by Mr. G.\nM. Smith is given in the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 318-320 [843 B].\n\n[186] For further cases see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 2 and 5\n[\u00a7\u00a7 845 and 847].\n\n[187] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 8-23 [849 A]. For a series\nof experiments on a smaller scale but analogous to these see\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. (1893), pp. 61-64.\n\n[188] Mr. Newnham procured for me two autograph letters from\neye-witnesses of some of the experiments, who do not, however, wish\ntheir names to be published. One writer says: \"You wrote the question on\na slip of paper and put it under one of the ornaments of the\nchimney-piece--no one seeing what you had written. Mrs. Newnham sat\napart at a small table. I recollect you kept a book of the questions\nasked and answers given, as you thought some new power might be\ndiscovered, and you read me from it some of the results. I remember\nparticularly questions and answers relating to the selection of a curate\nfor B. My wife and her sister saw experiments conducted in this manner.\nMrs. Newnham and you were sitting at different tables.\" Another\neye-witness writes: \"I and my sister were staying at----, and were\npresent at many of the Planchette experiments of Mr. and Mrs. Newnham.\nMr. and Mrs. Newnham sat at different tables some distance apart, and in\nsuch a position that it was quite impossible Mrs. Newnham could see what\nquestion was written down. The subject of the questions was never\nmentioned even in a whisper. Mr. Newnham wrote them down in pencil and\nsometimes passed them to me and my sister to see, but not often. Mrs.\nNewnham immediately answered the questions. Though not always correct,\nthey (the answers) always referred to the questions. Mr. Newnham copied\nout the pencil questions and answers verbatim each day into a diary.\"\n\n[189] For further cases see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 44 [851\nA]; _ibid._ p. 48 [\u00a7 852]; _ibid._ p. 64 [\u00a7 853]; _ibid._ p. 65 [\u00a7 854].\nAlso _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ii. p. 236; vol. vi. pp. 112-115 [\u00a7 855\nand 856]; vol. xi. pp. 477-481 [852 B]; vol. ix. pp. 67-70 [857 A and\n858 A].\n\n[190] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. (1893) pp. 73-92 [839 A and 625\nC].\n\n[191] For another series of messages which afford an interesting field\nfor the discussion of the rival hypotheses of \"cryptomnesia\" and\nspirit-control, see _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 319; _op. cit._ p.\n174; and _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 92 [\u00a7\u00a7 860, 861 and 862 A].\n\n[192] For further examples see the cases given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R.,\nvol. vi. pp. 355-57; vol. viii. pp. 242-48; _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iii.\npp. 216-19; vol. ix. pp. 65-8; vol. ix. pp. 280-84 [868 A and B, 869 A\nand B, \u00a7 873].\n\n[193] See the \"Report of Dr. Ira Barrows on the case of Miss Anna\nWinsor.\" An account of Professor James' inquiry into the case will be\nfound in _Proceedings_ of the American S.P.R., vol. i. p. 552 [237 A].\n\n[194] The cases of Swedenborg, Cahagnet's subject, D. D. Home, and\nStainton Moses will be discussed in the course of this chapter.\n\n[195] _Biblioth\u00e8que Diabolique_ (Collection Bourneville). Paris: Aux\nBureaux du Progr\u00e8s Medical, 1886 [832 B].\n\n[196] See Professor Janet's paper in the _Revue Philosophique_, March,\n1888. The case is also constantly referred to in his _L'Automatisme\nPsychologique_.\n\n[197] See page 49.\n\n[198] See page 288.\n\n[199] One important point of similarity is the concurrence in some\nsavage ceremonies of utterance through an invading spirit and travelling\nclairvoyance exercised meantime by the man whose organism is thus\ninvaded. The uncouth spirit shouts and bellows, presumably with the\nlungs of the medicine-man, hidden from view in profound slumber. Then\nthe medicine-man awakes,--and tells the listening tribe the news which\nhis sleep-wanderings, among gods or men, have won.\n\nIf this indeed be thus, it fits in strangely with the experience of our\nmodern seers,--with the spiritual interchange which takes place when a\ndiscarnate intelligence occupies the organism and meantime the incarnate\nintelligence, temporarily freed, awakes to wider percipience,--in this\nor in another world.\n\n[200] See _Modern Spiritualism; a History and a Criticism_, by Frank\nPodmore (Methuen and Co., London, 1902).\n\n[201] In this edition the Synopsis alone is given. See Appendix IX. A.\n\n[202] The asterisks indicate the end of the part of this chapter which\nwas consecutively composed by the author. The rest of the chapter\nconsists chiefly of fragments written by him at different times.\n\n[203] This as well as the next two cases mentioned are given in Appendix\nIX. B.\n\n[204] See _X + Y = Z; or, The Sleeping Preacher of North Alabama.\nContaining an account of most wonderful mysterious mental phenomena,\nfully authenticated by living witnesses._ By the Rev. G. W. Mitchell.\n(New York: W. C. Smith, 67 John Street, 1876) [934 A].\n\n[205] For Kant's evidence in regard to the supernormal powers of\nSwedenborg, see \"Dreams of a Spirit Seer,\" by Immanuel Kant, translated\nby E. F. Goerwitz; edited by Frank Sewall (London: Swan Sonnenschein &\nCo.; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1900) [936 A].\n\n[206] See also an account of the \"Seeress of Prevorst,\" translated from\nthe German by Mrs. Crowe, and published in London in 1845 [936 B].\n\n[207] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 560 [936 C].\n\n[208] The chief sources of information as to D. D. Home's life and\nexperiences are the following works:--\n\n_Incidents in my Life_, by D. D. Home (1st edition, London, 1863; 2nd\nedition, 1864; second series, 1872).\n\n_D. D. Home: His Life and Mission_, by Madame Dunglas Home (London,\n1888).\n\n_The Gift of D. D. Home_, by Madame Dunglas Home (London, 1890).\n\n_Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the London Dialectical\nSociety_ (London, 1871). This contains the evidence of the Master of\nLindsay,--now Earl of Crawford and Balcarres,--and others.\n\n_Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr. D. D. Home_, by Viscount Adare\n(now Lord Dunraven; privately printed).\n\n_Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism_, by William Crookes,\nF.R.S. Reprinted from the _Quarterly Journal of Science_ (London, 1874).\n\n_Notes of S\u00e9ances with D. D. Home_, by William Crookes, F.R.S.\n(_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 98.)\n\nSee also a review by Professor Barrett and the present writer of Madame\nHome's first book, _D. D. Home: His Life and Mission_, in the _Journal_\nS.P.R., vol. iv. pp. 101-136; a briefer review of her second book, _The\nGift of D. D. Home_, in the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 249; and a\nnote on \"The Character of D. D. Home\" in the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vi.\np. 176; also an article by Mr. Hamilton Aid\u00e9, \"Was I hypnotised?\" in the\n_Nineteenth Century_ for April 1890.\n\n[209] See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 436-659; vol. viii. pp.\n1-167; vol. xiii. pp. 284-582; vol. xiv. pp. 6-78; vol. xv. pp. 16-52;\nvol. xvi. pp. 1-649.\n\n[210] For a discussion of Professor Hyslop's report see _Proceedings_\nS.P.R., vol. xvii. pp. 331-388.\n\n[211] The original unabridged edition was published in two volumes.\n\n[212] The Synthetic Society, before which these pages were first read as\na paper in March 1899.\n\n[213] _Enn._ vi. 4, 14.\n\n[214] _Enn._ iv. 3, 27.\n\n[215] _Enn._ v. 2-3. The World-Soul is _supra grammaticam_; and Plotinus\nsometimes uses a personal, sometimes an impersonal, locution to express\nwhat is infinitely beyond the conception of personality, as it is\ninfinitely beyond any human conception whatsoever.\n\n[216] For the fullest account of F\u00e9lida, see _Hypnotisme_, _Double\nConscience_, etc., par le Dr. Azam. Paris, 1887.\n\n[217] _Revue Scientifique_, 3e s\u00e9rie, xxxii. p. 167.\n\n[218] An apparent discrepancy between Professor Hilprecht's account and\nthat of Mrs. Hilprecht calls for explanation. Professor Hilprecht states\nthat he verified his dream on Sunday morning at the University; Mrs.\nHilprecht that he verified it immediately upon awaking, in his library.\nBoth statements are correct. He had a working copy in his library which\nhe examined at once, but hurried to the University next morning to\nverify it by comparison with the authorised copy made from the\noriginals.--W. R. N.\n\n[219] This appendix has been greatly abridged.\n\n[220] See _Annales M\u00e9dico-Psychologiques_, 1882, p. 75, and Dr. Berjon,\n_La grande Hyst\u00e9ric chez l'Homme_, Paris, 1886.\n\n[221] _Annales M\u00e9dico-Psychologiques_, 1884, vol. ii. p. 289 _seqq._\n\n[222] Dr. E. Dufour, m\u00e9decin en chef de l'asile Saint-Robert (Is\u00e8re).\nSee _Annales M\u00e9dico-Psychologiques_, September 1886, p. 238, and\n_Contribution \u00e0 l'\u00e9tude de l'hypnotisme_, par le Dr. Dufour, Grenoble,\n1887.\n\n[223] It was not unusual for her to sit in the _salon_ in the evening,\nafter the day's occupations were over.\n\n[224] I noted on this narrative at the time I received it: \"This account\nis entirely concordant with the account written by Mrs. Ramsay before\nreading Mrs. Elgee's account in 1888, and abstracted by me for an\narticle in _Murray's Magazine_. There was this discrepancy between Mrs.\nElgee and Mrs. Ramsay,--that Mrs. Ramsay thought that the figure wore a\nbeard, whereas Mrs. Elgee saw him as she knew him--with whiskers only.\nHe certainly had no beard at the time.\"\n\n[225] A plan enclosed shows a suite of four rooms, M. Potolof's study,\nthe ante-room, the drawing-room, and M. Mamtchitch's study, all opening\ninto one another, the three doors between them being in one straight\nline.\n\n[226] See \"Phantasms of the Dead from another point of view,\"\n_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 291.\n\n[227] We have ascertained that this date was a Sunday.\n\n[228] Some of the correspondence about the case given in the\n_Proceedings_ is omitted here for want of space.\n\n[229] A dream in which a message of somewhat the same kind is given is\nrecorded in the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 188. See also the old\ncase of Dr. Binns, given in his _Anatomy of Sleep_, p. 462.\n\n[230] An account of this case appeared in an article by Herman Snow in\nthe _Religio-Philosophical Journal_ for January 31st, 1891, and Mr. Snow\nalso sent us an earlier article on the subject which he had written in\n1881, and of which his second account was a mere repetition. The facts\nwere related to him by the Unitarian minister of the place where Mrs.\nFinney lived; and this third-hand account recorded by Mr. Snow fifteen\nyears after the event closely coincides with Mrs. Finney's first-hand\none, recorded twenty-five years after the event.\n\n[231] In this edition the synopsis of the scheme alone is given.\n\n[232] This appendix was written originally with a special view to the\nphenomena alleged to occur in the case of Mr. W. Stainton Moses.\n\n[233] Mr. Goodall thinks that the mule's sudden fall, otherwise\nunexplainable, may have been due to terror at some apparition of the\ndying child.\n\n\n\nou il pr\u00e9parait le samovar","title":"Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":220158}