CONCLUSIONS.
In gathering up the results of these investigations, it must be stated
that in showing their relation to science there is no thought of any
detraction from the nobility and greatness of scientific labor and
achievement in the material world--that is grand almost beyond expression.
The attitude of science is conservative, and it is right; but sooner or
later it must awake to the fact that here is a new field for investigation
which comes strictly within the limits of its aims, and even of its
methods. Many individual members of the great body of scientific workers
see and know this; gradually the majority will see it.
On the other hand, it must be stated that there is no intention of
covering the whole ground of alleged occult psychic phenomena, but only a
portion, even of such as relate to our present life. The subject of the
return of spirits is untouched; it is only shown that the domain of
alleged spiritualistic manifestations is deeply trenched upon by the
action of the subliminal self of living people; what lies beyond that is
neither affirmed nor denied; it rests upon ground yet to be cleared up and
considered; and any facts open to satisfactory investigation are always
welcomed by any of the many persons and societies interested in
discovering what is true relating to it.
Confining ourselves within the limits assigned, if the series of alleged
facts which has been presented in the preceding chapters be true, then we
are in the presence of a momentous reality which, for importance and
value, has not been exceeded, if, indeed, it has been approached by any of
the discoveries of modern times.
But, it may be said, your alleged facts are not new; they are coeval with
history, with mythology, with folk-lore, with religion. Granted that the
facts are old, that similar ones have been known from very early times,
how have these facts been treated by the leaders of thought in the
nineteenth century?
That the earth goes round the sun is an old fact, yet it was not made
patent and credible, even to the cultivated, much less to the average
mind, till recent times. Evolution has been going on since millions of
years before the human race came into existence--it is a very ancient
fact, yet it is only within the memory of men still living that it has
been found out and accepted. So telepathy has existed ever since the race
was young, yet few even now know the facts, observations, and experiments
upon which its existence is predicated or comprehend either its theories
or its importance. The subliminal self has been active in every age of
which we have any record. Yet it has never been recognized as forming a
part of each and every individual's mental outfit, but its wonderful
action has either been discredited altogether, or else has been credited
to foreign or supernatural agencies.
But telepathy can no longer be classed with fads and fancies; if not
already an accepted fact, it has certainly attained to the dignity of a
theory supported by both facts and experiments; a theory which has
attracted to its study a large company of competent men in every civilized
country.
A theory, no matter in what department of investigation it may be found,
whether relating to matter or mind, is strong in proportion to the number
of facts which it will bring into line, harmonize and reduce to system. It
is that which makes the Nebular Theory of the formation of the planetary
system so wonderfully strong; it harmonizes and reduces to system so many
known but otherwise unrelated and unsystematized facts; and it is easier
to find excuses or form minor theories to account for isolated and
apparently erratic facts, like the retrograde motions of the satellites of
Uranus and Neptune, than to give up a theory, at once so grand in itself
and at the same time harmonizing so many important astronomical phenomena.
The same is true of the undulatory theory of light, and again of the
theory of evolution, which forty years ago was looked upon as a flimsy
hypothesis, but which is now universally accepted as an established truth.
Some of the facts are still unclassified and unexplained, yet it so
harmonizes in general the facts of the visible world, that instead of a
mass of disjointed and heterogeneous objects and phenomena, such as men
beheld in nature only a hundred years ago, the arbitrary work of a blind
chance or a capricious Creator, we now behold a beautiful and orderly
sequence, progression, and unfolding of the natural world according to
laws which command our admiration and stimulate our reverence.
Apart from recent studies, exactly the same condition of chaos and
confusion exists regarding psychical phenomena as existed concerning the
facts in the physical world only a hundred years ago. Nor is it likening
great things to small when we compare the nebular hypothesis, or the
theory of evolution, conceptions which have educated an age and vastly
enlarged the boundary of human thought, to the theory of telepathy and the
fact and power of the subliminal self. For if it was important that men
should know the laws governing inanimate matter, to comprehend the orbits
and motions of the planets; if it developed the understanding to
contemplate the grandeur of their movements, the vast spaces which they
traverse, and the wonderful speed with which they accomplish their various
journeys--if such knowledge has enlarged the capacity of men's minds,
given them truer notions of the magnitude of the universe, and grander
conceptions of nature and the infinite power and intelligence which
pervades and is exhibited in it, is it not equally important and equally
improving and practical to study the subtler forces which pervade living
organisms, the still finer laws and adjustments which govern the action of
mind?
It has been contended by a large and intelligent class of writers, and
those who most pride themselves on scientific methods and the
infallibility of scientific inductions, that mind is only the product of
organization and ceases to have any activity or even existence when the
organs through which it usually manifests itself have perished. The
general consensus of mankind is a sharp protest against this
conclusion--but the experimental proofs have, to many, seemed in favor of
this scientific denial;--the healthy brain in general exhibits a healthy
mental activity, the diseased or imperfect brain shows impaired mental
action, and the disorganized brain simply exhibits no mental activity nor
any evidence whatever of the existence of mind. Nevertheless, it is a lame
argument; it is simply an attempt to prove a negative.
The healthy rose emits an agreeable odor which our senses appreciate. You
may destroy the rose--it does not prove that the fragrance which it
emitted does not still exist even though our senses fail to appreciate it.
But experiment and scientific methods have also somewhat to say upon this
subject. And first, in August, 1874, twenty-two years ago, at the moment
when the materialistic school was at the height of its influence, both the
scientific and religious world were brought to a momentary
standstill--like a ship under full headway suddenly struck by a tidal
wave--when one of the most eminent scientific men of his time, or of any
time, standing in his place as president of the foremost scientific
association in the world, spoke as follows: "Abandoning all disguise, the
confession which I feel bound to make before you is that I prolong the
vision backward across the boundary of experimental evidence and discover
in matter, which we, in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed
reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the
promise and potency of every form of life."[2]
[2] Prof. Tyndall's address before the British Association at Belfast,
August, 1874.
On that day the tap-root of materialism was wounded, and materialism
itself has been an invalid of increasing languor and desuetude ever since.
On the other hand, supernaturalism in every form was left in little better
plight.
To thinking men of all classes this bold declaration opened up the grand
thought, not new, but newly formulated and endorsed, that as the seed
contained all the possibilities of the future plant--the ovum all the
possibilities of the future animal, so matter, which had been thought so
lightly of, contained within itself the germ, potency, and promise of
nature in all her subsequent developments--of the vast universe of suns
and systems, planets and satellites, and of every form of life,
sensation, and intelligence which in due process of evolution has appeared
upon their surfaces. It pointed the way to the thought of an infinite
causal energy and intelligence pervading matter and working through nature
in all its various grades of life from the first organized cell up to the
grandest man. It gave a new meaning to mind in man, as being an
individualized portion of that divine potency which ever existed in
matter, and which acting through constantly improving and developing
organisms, amidst constantly improving environments, at length appeared a
differentiated, individualized, seeing, reasoning, knowing, loving spirit.
The mind, then, is of importance. It is no transient visitor which may
have made its appearance by chance--a concatenation of coincidences,
fortunate or unfortunate, but it is the intelligent tenant and master of a
singularly beautiful and complicated house, a house which has been
millions upon millions of years in the building, and yet which will be
lightly laid aside when it ceases to accommodate and fulfil the needs of
its tenant.
Who and what, then, is this lordly tenant whose germ was coeval with
matter, whose birth was in the first living cell which appeared upon the
planet, whose apprenticeship has been served through every grade of
existence from the humble polyp upwards, whose education has been carried
on through the brain and organs of every grade of animal life with its
countless expedients for existence and enjoyment, until now, as lord of
its domain, it looks back upon its long course of development and
education, looks about upon its environments and wonders at itself, at
what it sees, and at what it prophesies. Truly what is this tenant, what
are its powers, and why is it here at all?
These are the questions which it has been the business of the strongest
and wisest to discuss, from the time men began to think and record their
thoughts until the present time; but how various and unsatisfactory have
been the conclusions. The mental philosophers, psychologists, and
encyclopedists simply present a chaos of conflicting definitions,
principles, and premises, upon none of which are they in full agreement
amongst themselves; they are not even agreed regarding the nature of
mind--whether it is material or immaterial--how it should be studied, how
it is related to the body, indeed whether it is an entity at all, or
simply "a series of feelings or possibilities of them"; whether it
possesses innate ideas or is simply an accretion of experiences. In
short, the stock of generally received facts relating to mind has always
remained exceedingly small. Psychologists have busied themselves chiefly
about its usual and obvious actions, and when in full relation to the
body, ignoring all other mental action or arbitrarily excluding it as
abnormal and not to be taken into account in the study of normal mind; so
with only half the subject under consideration true results could hardly
be attained.
Since the organization of the Society for Psychical Research, in 1882, new
fields of investigation have been undertaken and the _unusual_ phenomena
connected with the operations of mind have been systematically studied. A
very hasty and imperfect sketch of this study and of the results obtained
has been given in the preceding chapters, but for the use here made of
these studies in connection with his own observations the writer alone is
responsible. In these studies the field of investigation has been greatly
extended beyond that examined by the old philosophers and physiologists.
Beyond the usual activities in which we constantly see the mind
engaged--observation of surroundings made by the senses, memory of them,
reasoning about them, and putting them in new combinations in science,
literature, or art--new activities have been observed, activities lying
entirely outside the old lines, in new and hitherto unexplored fields.
It has been demonstrated by experiment after experiment carefully made by
competent persons that sensations, ideas, information, and mental pictures
can be transferred from one mind to another without the aid of speech,
sight, hearing, touch, or any of the ordinary methods of communicating
such information or impressions. That is, Telepathy is a fact, and mind
communicates with mind through channels other than the ordinary use of the
senses.
It has been demonstrated that in the hypnotic condition, in ordinary
somnambulism, in the dreams and vision of ordinary sleep, in reverie, and
in various other subjective conditions the mind may perceive scenes and
events at the moment transpiring at such a distance away or under such
physical conditions as to render it impossible that knowledge of these
scenes and events could be obtained by means of the senses acting in their
usual manner. That is, mind under some circumstances _sees_ without the
use of the physical organ of sight.
Again, it has been demonstrated that some persons can voluntarily project
the mind--some mind--some centre of intelligence or independent mental
activity, clothed in a recognizable form, a distance of one, a hundred, or
a thousand miles, and that it can there make itself known and recognized,
perform acts, and even carry on a conversation with the person to whom it
was sent. That is, mind can _act_ at a distance from, and independent of,
the physical body and the organs through which it usually manifests
itself.
These propositions present an aspect of mind which the authorities in the
old fields of psychology have failed to observe or to recognize; or if
they have at times caught a glimpse of it they have rather chosen to close
their eyes and deny altogether the phenomena which these propositions
imply, because they found it was impossible to classify them in their
system. It has been to a degree a repetition of the folly exhibited by
Galileo's contemporaries and critics, who refused to look through his
telescope lest their favorite theories of the universe should be damaged.
Nevertheless, this newly studied aspect exists, and is adding greatly to
our knowledge of the nature and action of mind.
Still another class of unusual mental phenomena found in this outlying
field of psychology is that known under the general name of automatism;
and by this is meant something more than the "unconscious cerebration" and
"unconscious muscular action" of the physiologists, and something quite
different from that.
There is, first, the class of motor automatisms, including
Planchette-writing and other methods of automatic writing, drawing,
painting, and kindred performances, also poetical or metrical
improvisations, and trance, and so-called inspirational speaking:--Second,
there are the sensory automatisms; or such as are manifested by
impressions made upon the senses and which are reckoned as hallucinations.
The impression of hearing a voice, of feeling a touch, or seeing a vision
may be reckoned as examples of this kind of automatism.
No other division of this newly cultivated field presents so many unusual
and debatable phenomena. Not only do those modern mysteries,
Planchette-writing, trance-speaking, and mediumistic utterances come
easily under this class of mental phenomena, but all that vast array of
alleged supernatural phenomena which pervades the literature of every
nation since the time when men first began to record their experiences.
The oracles of the Greeks and Romans, the daemon of Socrates, the voices
of Joan of Arc, and the widespread custom of divination by means of
crystal-gazing in some of its many forms have already been referred to and
their relation to automatism or the action of the subliminal self has been
noted.
There is still one important class of persons who have wielded an enormous
influence upon mankind, an influence in the main wholesome, elevating, and
developing, whose relation to automatism demands a passing consideration.
I refer to the religious chiefs of the world.
As prominent examples of those founders of religions we will briefly
notice Moses, Zoroaster, Mahomet, and Swedenborg. Each either professed
himself to be, or his followers have credited him with being, the inspired
mouthpiece of the Deity. There can be no doubt in the minds of candid
students that each one of these religious leaders was perfectly honest,
both as regards his conception of the character and importance of his
doctrines and also regarding the method by which he professed to receive
them. Each believed that what he taught was ultimate and infallible truth,
and was received directly from the Deity. It is evident, however, that
from whatever source they were derived the doctrines could not all be
ultimate truth, since they were not in harmony amongst themselves; but
the authors of them all present their claim to inspiration, and whose
claim to accept and whose to reject it is difficult to decide. But
accepting the theory that each promulgated the doctrines, theological,
cosmological, and ethical, that came to him automatically through the
superior perception of the subliminal self, all the phenomena fall into
line with the well ascertained action of that subliminal self.
The truth which Moses saw was such as was adapted to his age and the
people with whom he had to deal. So there came to his perception not only
the sublime laws received at Sinai, but also the particulars regarding the
tabernacle and its furnishing--the rings and the curtains, the dishes and
spoons and bowls and covers, the rams' skins dyed red, the badgers' skins,
and the staves of shittim wood. The same also is true regarding the
teachings of Zoroaster.
The splendid results which followed the promulgation of Mahomet's
revelation to a few insignificant Arab tribes are proof of its vital germ
of truth and of its adaptability to the soil into which it fell. It
developed into a civilization from which, at a later period, a benighted
and debased Christianity relighted its torch.
Also the teachings of Swedenborg, notwithstanding the apparent egotism of
the man and the tiresome verbiage of many of his communications, are
elevating and refining in character and useful to those who are attracted
to them. That in either case an infinite Deity spoke the commonplace which
is attributed to Him in these communications is incredible, but to suppose
it all, both the grand and the trivial, the work of the subconscious self
of the respective authors is in accordance with what we know of automatism
and of the wonderful work of the subliminal self when left free to
exercise its highest activities.
Let us examine with some care the history of two examples of unusual or
supranormal mental action, the first found in one of the earliest of human
records, and reckoned as fully inspired; the other equally unusual
occurring within the last half century and making no claim to any
supernatural assistance.
The first example is presented in the first chapter of Genesis, and is a
clear, connected, and in the main correct, though by no means complete,
account of the changing conditions of the earth in the earliest geological
periods, and of the appearance in their proper order of the different
grades of life upon its surface. That such a written account should have
existed three thousand years before any scientifically constructed
schedule even of the order in which plants and animals succeeded each
other, much less of the manner in which the earth was prepared for their
reception and nurture, is a most remarkable circumstance, regarded either
from a literary or a scientific standpoint. It has been criticised for its
lack of scientific exactness, and the supposed error of representing light
as created before the sun, ignoring the early existence of aquatic life,
and similar points. But let us take our stand with the grand old seer,
whoever he may have been, whom we know as Moses, who gave to the world
this graphic account of the order of creation so many centuries before
science had thrown its light upon the condition of the earth in those
far-off ages, and let us endeavor to see what his quickened vision enabled
him to behold.
The panorama opens and discloses in an hour the grand progressive action
of millions upon millions of years.
The first picture represents the created earth covered with water and
enveloped in a thick mantle of steaming mist, causing a condition of
absolute and impenetrable darkness upon its surface. In the language of
the seer, "The earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep." For ages the unbroken ocean which covered the earth was
heated by internal fires; the rising vapor as it met the cooler atmosphere
above was condensed and fell in one constant downpour of rain. Unceasing,
steaming mist, vapor, and rain, wholly impenetrable to light: such were
the conditions.
At length, as the cooling process went on, the density of the mists was
diminished;--the wonderful fiat went forth, "Let light be"--and light was.
But still the mantle hung close upon the unbroken ocean.
The second picture appears. Not only was there light but a firmament--an
arch with a clear space underneath it; and it divided the waters which
were above it from the waters which were beneath it.
Picture the third. The waters were gathered together and the continents
appeared; and the land was covered with verdure--plants and trees, each
bearing seed after its kind. Of the inhabitants of the sea the seer had
taken no account. It was simply a picture that he saw--a natural,
phenomenal representation.
Picture the fourth. The mists and clouds are altogether dispelled. The
clear sky appears. The sun comes forth to rule the day--the moon to rule
the night. The stars also appear.
Picture the fifth. The lower orders of animals are in full possession of
the earth and sea--fish, fowl, and sea-monsters.
Picture the sixth. The higher orders of creation, mammals and man.
Such was the phenomenal aspect of the various epochs of creation roughly
outlined, strong, distinct, and in the main true. Not even the scientific
critic with his present knowledge could combine more strength and truth,
with so few strokes of the brush.
Relieved of the burden of inspiration and the necessity for presenting
absolute and unchangeable truth, and presenting the seer as simply telling
what he saw, the picture is wonderful, and the telling is most graphic. It
needed no deity nor angel to tell it--it was there--and the subliminal
self of the seer whose special faculty it was to see, perceived the scene
in all its grandeur. He also was the one best fitted to perceive the laws
which should make his people great, and describe the forms and ceremonies
which should captivate their senses and lead them on to higher
intellectual, moral, and ethical development.
Next take the other example. Fifty years ago a young man, not yet twenty
years of age, uneducated, a grocer's boy and shoemaker's apprentice, was
hypnotized; and it was found that he had a most remarkable mental or
psychical constitution. He had most unusual experiences, and presented
unusual psychical phenomena which need not be recounted here.
At length it was impressed upon him as it might have been upon Socrates or
Joan of Arc, or Swedenborg or Mahomet, that he had a mission and had a
message to give to the world. He came from the rural town where he had
spent his boyhood to the city of New York and hired a room on a prominent
thoroughfare. He then, in his abnormal condition, proceeded to choose
those who should be specially associated with him in his work--men of
character and ability whom he did not even know in his normal state.
First: Three witnesses were chosen who should be fully cognizant of
everything relating to the method by which the message or book was
produced. Of these one was a clergyman, one a physician, and one an
intelligent layman. Second: A scribe qualified to write out the messages
as he dictated them, to edit and publish them. Third: A physician to put
him into the hypnotic, or as it was then called, the magnetic condition,
in which he was to dictate his messages.
The first lecture was given November 28th, 1845, and the last June 21st,
1847. During this time 157 lectures were given, varying in length from
forty minutes to four hours, and they were all carefully written out by
the scribe. To 140 of these manuscripts were attached 267 names of persons
who listened to them and subscribed their names as witnesses at the end of
each lecture--to some a single signature was affixed, to some, many. Any
person really desirous of knowing the purport of these lectures and the
manner of their delivery could be admitted by making application
beforehand.
At each sitting the speaker was first put into the deep hypnotic trance in
which he was rigid and unconscious; but his sub-conscious or second self
was active and lucid, and associated with the principles and knowledge
which he needed and which he was to communicate. From this condition he
came back to the somnambulic state in which he dictated that which he had
acquired in the deep trance, or what he called the "superior condition";
and the transition from one of these states to the other took place many
times during each lecture. Such were the conditions under which Andrew
Jackson Davis produced the _Principles of Nature--Her Divine
Revelation_--a book of nearly 800 pages, divided into three parts:--First,
a setting forth of first principles, which served as a philosophical
explanation or key to the main work. Second, a cosmogony or description of
the method by which the universe came to its present state of development,
and third, a statement of the ethical principles upon which society should
be based and the practical working of these principles. It assumes to be
thoroughly scientific and philosophical. It has literary faults, and there
is plenty of opportunity for cavil and scientific fault-finding; but these
remarkable facts remain.
A poor boy, thoroughly well known and vouched for by his neighbors for his
strict integrity, having had only five months of ordinary district school
instruction for his education, having never read a scientific or
philosophical book, and not a dozen all told of every kind, having never
associated with people of education except in the most casual way, yet in
the manner just described he dictated a book containing the outlines of a
thoroughly sound and reasonable system of philosophy, theology, and
ethics, and a complete system of cosmogony representing the most advanced
views in geology, which was then in its infancy--astronomy, chemistry, and
other departments of physical science, criticising current scientific
opinions, and in points where he differed from these opinions giving full
and cogent reason for that difference.
On March 16th, 17th, and 20th, 1846, he announced the fact of the motion
of our sun and solar system about a still greater centre, in harmony with
the Nebular Hypothesis by which he explained the formation of the whole
vast system. He also announced the existence of an eighth and ninth
planet, and the apparently abnormal revolution of the satellites of
Uranus. Neptune, the eighth planet, had not then been discovered and was
not found until six months later. On the 29th of April he announced the
discovery and application of diamagnetism by Faraday, concerning which
none of his associates had any knowledge, and which I believe had not then
been noticed in this country. He gave a distinct and vivid description of
the formation of the different bodies constituting the solar system, of
the introduction of life upon our planet, and of its evolution from grade
to grade from the lowest to the highest--all in minute detail, in general
accord with established scientific deduction and in scientific and
technical language. In several particulars he differed from the received
opinions, and gave his reasons for so doing. No claim was made to
inspiration nor to the presentation of absolute or infallible truth, but
when hypnotized and in what he termed the "superior condition," his
perceptive faculties were vastly increased, and that which he then
perceived he made known. He simply gave the truth as he saw it, and he
commended it to the judgment and reason of mankind for reception or
rejection. In other words, the subliminal self was brought into action by
hypnotism, and then by means of its greatly increased perceptive powers he
gathered knowledge from various sources quite inaccessible to him in his
ordinary state, and seemingly inaccessible also to others.
Concerning the truth or falsity of the revelations beyond what was already
known or has since been confirmed by science, I do not assume to pronounce
judgment; but that this also, as well as the first chapter of Genesis,
from either a literary or scientific standpoint, is one of the most
remarkable productions of this or of any age, will not be denied by any
competent and candid examiner; while the remarkable character of the book
will be still better appreciated when the status of the theory of
evolution and of the science of geology fifty years ago is taken into the
account.
Here are presented two prominent examples of supranormal mental
activity--one in the early ages of man's development, when _everything_
was supernatural, the immediate work of a god--the other in man's later
development when natural law is found intervening between phenomena and
their cause, and when it is found possible for men to comprehend the fact
that truth, extraordinary and even that which had previously been unknown
or was beyond the reach of the senses in their ordinary state, may
nevertheless be discovered or revealed by other means than direct
communications from Deity.
It is seen, then, how various and how wonderfully important are the mental
phenomena grouped under the general designation of automatism.
Many examples of this and other classes of unusual mental action have been
given in previous chapters, not as cumulative evidence of their
verity--that would require volumes, but simply to illustrate the subject
and give some degree of definiteness to our reasoning regarding them. Not
even all the _classes_ of facts properly belonging to our subject have
here been represented; but taking them as they have been enumerated and
hastily described, they constitute a body of well observed and well
authenticated facts and phenomena of undeniable interest, and if received
as true their importance is certainly to be compared with the greatest
discoveries of modern science. They are, however, the very facts which the
science and philosophy of to-day hesitates to accept. The only exception
to this statement is found in the treatment lately accorded to hypnotism,
which after a hundred years of hesitation, rejection and even ridicule,
has at length been definitely received as regards its main facts. It is
true, however, that in numerous other instances the evidence regarding
unusual mental states and phenomena is equally weighty and unimpeachable;
but because these phenomena are unusual, marvelous or seemingly
miraculous, belonging to no recognized class of mental action, therefore
it is argued, they cannot be genuine; there _must be_ some flaw in the
evidence and they cannot be accepted.
It is tedious going over the arguments which reduce this mode of reasoning
to an absurdity. The same reasoning has been applied to every important
discovery in physical science for the past three hundred years; and if it
were carried out to its logical conclusions no substantial advance in
human knowledge could ever take place, since every discovery or
observation of phenomena outside of known laws must on that ground be
rejected. And the history of scientific discoveries shows that this has
actually been the case. The announcement of the discovery of the movements
of the planets around the sun, of the attraction of gravitation, of the
identity of lightning with electricity, of the relation and derivation of
species in the world of living forms--of the discovery of living toads in
geological strata of untold antiquity, and scores of other now accepted
facts, were accounted visionary and were received with scoffs and jeers by
the accredited leaders of science, because they were outside of any known
natural laws; and it was only after the study and contemplation of the new
discoveries had educated and enlarged the minds of a new generation of men
to a better understanding of the extent and magnitude of nature and her
laws that the scoffs subsided and the new facts quietly took their places
as accredited science.
The same process is going on regarding mental phenomena to-day. It may
require a generation for men unused to think in this direction to become
familiarized with the thought that telepathy, clairvoyance, and the
subliminal self, with its augmented powers, are facts in nature; but
thousands of intelligent people, and many accustomed to examine facts
critically and according to approved methods, are already so interpreting
nature, and their number is constantly increasing.
Such are some of the facts discovered by the pioneers in this outlying
field of psychology. In attempting to explain or account for them it is
useless to take refuge in the hazy definitions of the old psychologists,
or to imagine that the secret is bound up in the vital processes which
occupy the biologist and physiologist, interesting and important as those
studies are; even the neurologist can help us comparatively little--he can
tell us all about diseases of the nervous system and how they manifest
themselves, and his labor has earned for him the gratitude of mankind; but
he cannot tell us how thinking is accomplished, nor what thought is; he
cannot tell the cause of so normal and easily observed a phenomenon as
ordinary sleep, much less of the new faculties which are developed in
somnambulism. In all these related departments of science, in considering
mental phenomena it is found convenient to deny the existence of that for
which they cannot account. Nature's processes, however, are simple when
once we comprehend them, so much so that we wonder at their simplicity,
and wonder that we ever could have failed to understand them; and we learn
to distrust explanations which are involved and complicated, knowing that
error often lies that way. And of this kind for the most part, the
attempted explanations of mental processes in terms of physiology have
proved to be; they are complicated, inapplicable, and unsatisfactory; and
they give no aid in the generalizations which have hitherto been so much
needed.
The phenomena in this new field at first sight seem heterogeneous, without
system or any common bond; they seem each to demand a separate origin and
field. But let the idea of the subliminal self, intelligent, and endowed
with its higher perceptive faculties, be presented, and lo! all these
refractory phenomena fall into place in one harmonious system. The
subliminal self is the active and efficient agent in telepathy--it is that
which sees and hears and acts far away from the body, and reports the
knowledge which it gains to the ordinary senses, sometimes by motor and
sometimes by sensory automatism--by automatic writing, speaking, audition,
the vision, the phantasm. It acts sometimes while the primary self is
fully conscious--better and most frequently in reverie, in dreams, in
somnambulism, but best of all when the ordinary self is altogether
subjective and the body silent, inactive, and insensible, as in that
strange condition which accompanies the higher phases of trance and
lucidity, into which few enter, either spontaneously or by the aid of
hypnotism. Then still retaining its attenuated vital connection, it goes
forth and sees with extended vision and gathers truth from a thousand
various and hidden sources.
Will it act less freely, less intelligently, with less consciousness and
individuality when that attenuated vital connection is severed, and the
body lies--untenanted?
THE END.
INDEX.
A.
A., Miss, Perceives an induced phantom, 236
A., Miss, Her journey automatically described, 188
A. B., Clairvoyance of, 102-105
Alexis, " , 86-87
Anaesthesia, local, produced by hypnotism, 67
Apollonius, Clairvoyance of, 80
Apparitions or Phantasms, Collective Cases, 293, 294, 295, 299
Automatism, 151
" Ancient and modern, 331
" Grades or kinds of, 151-154
" Motor and sensory, 198, 319
Automatisms, Sensory, considered as hallucinations, 219
" " manifested by hearing, 220
" The daemon of Socrates, 220
" Voices and visions of Joan of Arc, 221
Automatic writing, by Planchette, 158, 180
" " Mr. W. T. Stead, 186-193
" drawing and painting by Mrs. Burton, 194
Aylesbury, Commander T. W., Case by, 289
B.
B., Madame, Hypnotic subject, 58-61, 131-135, 183
Barrett, Prof. W. T., and the S. P. R., 5
Bernheim, Prof., His theories of hypnotism, 36
" " Post hypnotic suggestions, cases, 63-67
Bishop, The mind-reader, 8
Bourne, Ansel, Double personality of, 119, 182
Borderland cases. Between sleeping and waking, 269
" " --visions, 269, 271, 273
Braid, His theory of hypnotism, 31
Brettany, Mrs., Vision, percipient awake, 304
Brittan, Dr. S. B., Cases reported by, 99-101
Brown, A. J., A second personality, 119, 182
Brougham, Lord, Borderland case, 273-279
Buchanan, Dr. W. B., Case by, collective, 295
Burton, Mrs. Julietta T., Automatic writing, 194
" " " Drawing and painting by, 195
" " " Portrait, by (Frontispiece), 196
" " " Psychometric powers, 199
C.
Carpenter, Dr. Wm. B., His theory, 9
Charcot, Prof., His theory of hypnotism, 33
Chiefs, Religious, 320
" " Moses, Zoroaster, Mahomet, Swedenborg, 320
Clairvoyance, 74
" Instances of, 78-109
" Ancient and modern, 81
" Nature of, 109
Cleave, Mr. A. H. W., and Mr. H. P. Sparks, Phantasm produced by, 234
Clerke, May, Case reported by, 296
Collyer, Dr. R. H., Case, vision, reported by, 285, 288
Coues, Dr. E., Case reported by, 88-90
Crystal-gazing, Used for producing visions, 200
" " Cases reported by Mr. E. W. Lane, 201
" " Practised in all ages, 203
" " Amongst the Hebrews, 204
" " " " Greeks, 205
" " In the Opera of Parsifal, 206
" " The Shew-stone of Dr. Dee, 204
" " What it really is, 208
" " Experiments of Miss X., 209-214
" " Col. Wickham's pouch-belt found by, 214
" " Springs and wells used for, 216
Cumberland, Mind-reader, 8
D.
Davis, A. J., Production of _Principles of Nature, Her Divine
Revelation_, by, 328
Deyer, Col. J. J., His well, in relation to Crystal-gazing, 216
Diagrams, Illustrating thought-transference, 19
Dreams, Definite impressions during, 263
" Veridical, cases of, 263, 266
Dufay, Dr., Case reported by, 95
E.
Elliotson, Dr., Mesmeric treatment by, 43
F.
Fenton, Mr, F. D., Vision, case reported by, 284
Fitzgerald, John, Clairvoyance of, 101
G.
Gerault, Dr., Clairvoyance, case reported by, 95
Gibert, Dr., Experiments, hypnotizing at a distance, 59
Ghost-stories, Status of, 1
Glissoid, Mr. E. M., Hypnotic experiments by, 231
Gurney, Mr. E., Experiments, 21
" " Cases reported, 263-266, 284-289, 291-294, 295, 299
Gurwood, John, His supposed spirit, 170
" " His crest, 171
" " In the Peninsular War, 173
Guthrie, Malcolm, Experiments in Thought-Transference, 18
H.
Hammond, Dr. Wm. A., Experiments reported by, 56
Harris, Surgeon, A child's vision, case reported, 282
Hauffe, Madame, The Seeress of Proverst, 83-86
Hodgson, Dr. Richard, Case reported by, 122
Hosmer, Harriet, Borderland case, 271
Hypnotism, In literature, 2
" Historical sketch of, 28
" Braid's theory of, 31
" Mesmer's theory of, 29
" Charcot's theory of, 33
" Bernheim's theory of, 36-39
" Stages of, 41, 51, 52
" Therapeutic effects of, 42-50
" Psychic aspect of, 51-71
" Rapport in, 54
" Suggestion in, 61-67
Hypnotizing at a distance, 57
" " " Experiments by Prof. Janet and Dr. Gibert, 58
" " " Experiments by Prof Richet and Dr. Hericourt, 60
I.
Individual, The, Conception of, 149
J.
James, Prof., Case examined by, 122
Jane, Clairvoyance of, 90-94
Janet, Prof., Hypnotizing at a distance, 60
" " Hypnotic experiments by, 131
Joan of Arc, Her voices and visions, 221
Joy, Mr. A., Case hallucination affecting sight, hearing and touch, 291
L.
L. A. W., Remarkable dream or vision, 263
Leonie, Leontine, Leonore, 131-135
Liebeault, Dr., Suggestion fulfilled after many days, 63
" " Suggests a disappearance, 66
Lucidity, See Clairvoyance.
M.
"Marie," Clairvoyance of, 95-99
Mesmer, Anton, 29
Mesmerists, The early, 31
Mesmerization of inanimate objects, 69
Magnetized water, Detection of, 71, 215
M. L., Clairvoyance of, 105-108
Moses, The vision of, 323
Mouat, Mr. R., Narrates a case, phantasms, 299
Myers, Mr. F. W. H., His important work, 145
" " " Cases examined and reported by, 91, 124, 164, 214
N.
Newnham, Rev. Mr. and Mrs., Planchette writing, 164-168
O.
Oracles, Greek, 79
P.
Perception, Definition of, 225
Perceptions, which are reckoned as hallucinations, 226
Personality, Double or multiplex, 116
" " " cases of, 117, 124-128
" " in dreaming, 141
_Phantasms of the Living_, Cases from, 231, 263, 289
" Produced at a distance, case, 234-238
" Collective cases, 293, 294, 295-299
Phenomena, Psychical, Compared with physical, 311
Planchette, 154-180
Podmore, Mr. F., Case by, 288
Psychical Research, Eng. Society for, established, 3
Puysegur, Marquis de, 30
R.
R., Miss, and Miss V., Planchette writing, 168
Rapport, Hypnotic, Example, 56
" " Experiments by Mr. Gurney and Dr. Myers, 56
" " Experiments by Dr. Hammond, 56
" " At a distance, 57
Reed, On Personality, 116
Revelation, A modern, 327
Richardson, Mrs. M. A., Borderland case reported by, 269
Russell, Mrs. J. M., Case by, 246-248
Ruth, Mrs. Wickham's servant, Crystal-gazing, 214
S.
Sidgwick, Prof. H., Vice-Pres. S. P. R., 5
" Mrs. H., Cases reported by, 88-94
Society for Psychical Research, formation of, 3-5, 316
Socrates, Daemon of, 220
Somnambulism, 129
" Hypnotic, 131
Stainton, Moses, Rev. W., Phantoms perceived by, 237, 238
Stead, W. T., His automatic writing, 186
" " Miss A.'s journey automatically described by, 188
" " Needs of a stranger written out by, 189
" " His correspondent in a railway car, 192
Stewart, Prof. Balfour, 5
Subliminal self, The key to many psychical phenomena, 260
" " Sources of information of, 177
" " Theory of, 257
Suggestion, Post-hypnotic, 61
Smith, J. W., and Kate, Experiments, 22
Swedenborg, Clairvoyance of, 81-83
T.
Telepathy, Theories regarding, 250-261
" Explained by the action of the subliminal self, 257-261
" No longer a mere fancy, 309
Thought-transference, First report on, 6
" " Classification, 11
" " Experiments by diagrams, 18
" " Tested by taste, 21
" " " objects, 13
" " " cards, 13
" " " fictitious names, 14
" " " two percipients, 23, 24
Tyndall, Prof., His Belfast address, effect of, 312-313
U.
Urim and Thummim, A method of Crystal-gazing, 204
V.
V., Louis, Case of, 124
V., Miss, Planchette writing by, 159-164
Verity, The Misses, perceive induced phantasms, 239-244
Visions, Percipient being awake, 282
" Cases, 282, 284-286, 289-291, 304
Voisin, Dr., Cases reported by, 124, 148
W.
Water, magnetized, detected by patients, 71, 77
Wedgwood, Mr. H., Planchette-writing, 168-174
Willing game, 6
Wyld, Dr., Case reported by, 294
X.
X., Case illustrating sensory automatism, 184
X., Felida, Case, double personality, 117-119
X. Miss., On Crystal-gazing, 209
Y.
Young, Dr. A. K., Remarkable dream or vision, 266
Z.
Z., Alma, Case of, 125
_Zoist, The_, Report of cases in, 42
_January, 1897._
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