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 THE RIDDLE OF PERSONALITY 
 
THE RIDDLE OF 
 PERSONALITY 
 
 BY 
 H. ADDINGTON BRUCE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
 
 1908 
 
Copyright, 1908, by 
 MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Published March, 1908 
 
 
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 Two Copies rtecciin:;.: 
 
 FEB 24Si^0B 
 
 The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 
 
WILLIAM JAMES AND BORIS SIDIS 
 
 AS A SLIGHT APPRECIATION OF THEIR EFFORTS 
 
 TOWARDS THE CLEARER UNDERSTANDING 
 
 OF HUMAN PERSONALITY 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Early Phases of the Problem 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 The Subliminal Self 25 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 " Pioneers of France in the New World " . . . . 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 American Explorers of the SuBcoNsaous 80 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Evidence for Survival 107 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Nemesis of Spiritism 136 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 D. D. Home and Eusapia Paladino 163 
 
 APPENDIX n 
 
 The Census of Hallucinations 177 
 
 vii 
 
viii Contents 
 
 APPENDIX m 
 
 Hypnotism and the Drink Habit 186 
 
 APPENDIX IV 
 Hypnoidization 191 
 
 APPENDIX V 
 
 Spiritism vs. Telepathy 200 
 
 APPENDIX VI 
 Hints for Further Reading 220 
 
 Index 241 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A LARGE part of the present work 
 appeared originally in the pages of 
 Appleton's Magazine, the editors of 
 which shared with the writer the belief that 
 there was a lively desire for information con- 
 cerning the discoveries made by those whose 
 special endeavor has been to throw a scien- 
 tific light on the nature and possibilities of 
 human personality. In confirmation of this 
 belief letters of inquiry and commendation 
 were received from widely separated points; 
 and, significantly enough, the majority of 
 these related to the papers dealing more 
 particularly with the curative results attained 
 by investigators who would put their dis- 
 coveries to practical use for the benefit of 
 humanity. 
 
 This was especially gratifying to the writer, 
 because it has long been his conviction that 
 lack of knowledge is the only real obstacle 
 to general acceptance of the gifts which 
 
 ix 
 
X Preface 
 
 scientific exploration of personality holds out 
 \ to mankind. The growth of Christian 
 Science, which may perhaps be defined as 
 unscientific utilization of the powers latent in 
 every human being, is itself indicative of 
 the popular readiness to throw down the 
 bars, as it were, and advance boldly into the 
 unknown region of subconscious force and 
 activity now being scientifically opened up. 
 But, unlike the voluminous literature pertain- 
 ing to the question of the survival of persona- 
 ality after bodily death, little has been written 
 to illumine, for the non-scientific reader, the 
 question of the hidden resources of per- 
 sonality and the possibility of employing 
 them to heal the individual and strengthen 
 the race. Most of the works dealing with 
 this subject, being addressed primarily to 
 the psychologist and the physician, are 
 couched in technical and difficult phraseology, 
 and make such arid reading that, unless their 
 importance be impressed upon the public 
 mind, they are unlikely to meet with the 
 wide-spread and attentive consideration which 
 they merit. 
 
 The following chapters, therefore, have 
 been prepared for the purpose of indicating 
 
Preface xi 
 
 first what has been accomplished thus far 
 by scientific students of the self, and of assist- 
 ing the reader to prosecute study on his own 
 account with the aid of the technical works 
 which he will find enumerated in the biblio- 
 graphical essay at the close of the book — an 
 essay purposely confined so far as possible 
 to works of recent publication. To the 
 writer's way of thinking it is impossible to 
 overestimate the value, to mankind in the 
 large and to the sick and suffering in particu- 
 lar, of the discoveries already made by such 
 savants as Liebeault, Charcot, Bernheim, and 
 Janet, of France; and Sidis and Prince, of 
 the United States. Their work seems to 
 mark the opening of a new era for the human 
 race, and in especial to point the way for the 
 better equipment of the great mass of hu- 
 manity to withstand the added dangers and 
 strain incidental to the increasing complexi- 
 ties of civilization. 
 
 At the same time, it has not been deemed 
 proper to devote this introductory volume 
 entirely to the work of the psychopathologists 
 
 — to give them their technical designation. 
 The labors of another group of investigators 
 
 — the much abused *' psychical researchers" 
 
xii Preface 
 
 — had also to be taken into the reckoning, 
 and for two reasons. In the first place, 
 while pressing earnestly towards the goal of 
 scientific demonstration that the life of man 
 does not end with the grave, they have in- 
 cidentally broken much new ground in the 
 study of man. And, what is most important, 
 they provide the necessary corrective for the 
 materialistic conclusions towards which the 
 investigations of the psychopathologists tend. 
 The attempt has consequently been made, 
 and for the first time so far as the writer is 
 aware, to correlate the discoveries of the 
 psychical researchers and the psychopatholo- 
 gists with a view to showing that instead of 
 undermining the long-cherished faith in the 
 immortality of man the results of their in- 
 quiries and experiments confirm and buttress 
 it. 
 
 For assistance in the preparation of his 
 pages, the writer has numerous acknowledg- 
 ments to make. Besides the authorities from 
 w^hom he has freely quoted, he has received 
 personal counsel and aid from Prof. William 
 James, of Harvard University; Prof. James 
 H. Hyslop, of the recently organized Ameri- 
 can Institute for Scientific Research, which 
 
Preface xiii 
 
 has taken the place of the American branch 
 of the Society for Psychical Research; Dr. 
 Boris Sidis, of Brookline, Mass.; Dr. Morton 
 Prince, of Boston; Prof. Pierre Janet, of the 
 College de France, and Dr. William A. White, 
 superintendent of the government Hospital 
 for the Insane, Washington, D. C. But 
 most of all is he indebted to his wife, Lau- 
 retta A. Bruce, who has given him many 
 valuable suggestions, and whose critical read- 
 ing of the manuscript has largely contributed 
 whatever literary merit his book may possess. 
 
 H. Addington Bruce. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass., September, 1907 
 
The Riddle of Personality 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Early Phases of the Problem 
 
 THERE is no more absorbing and im- 
 portant subject of inquiry than the 
 nature and destiny of human per- 
 sonaHty. From those early moments when 
 the dawn of inteUigence heralded the birth 
 of curiosity, what, whence, and whither have 
 been the uppermost thoughts in the mind of 
 man whenever, in the dim twilight of the stone 
 age as in the noonday glare of the twentieth 
 century, he has cast aside the preoccupations 
 of every-day life and surrendered to self-com- 
 muning. There is none but finds himself 
 confronted with the riddle of personality and 
 in some fashion seeks to give it answer. At 
 the one end looms the mystery of death, mask- 
 ing the vision of the future; at the other, the 
 no less inscrutable mystery of birth, recapitu- 
 lating in the individual the history of the 
 race. And in between, from the cradle to 
 the grave, the riddle of personality presses 
 for reply. What is the nature of the self? 
 
2 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 Whence its faculties, its capacity for pain 
 and pleasure? Whence, indeed, its self- 
 awareness? To such questions as these, it 
 must be acknowledged, primitive man paid 
 scant attention. For him the future, rather 
 than the past or present, held interest, and 
 peopling the universe with unseen spirits of 
 good and of evil, his chief concern was to 
 assure his future welfare by propitiation 
 and sacrifice. But with the process of time 
 man has come to realize that the question of 
 the survival of personality involves the ques- 
 tion of the nature of personality, and that 
 whatever may be the answer to the former, 
 it is in the highest degree essential to his well- 
 being in bodily life that he arrive at a correct 
 solution of the latter. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the realization 
 of this truth marks the greatest advance in 
 the thought of man since he emerged from 
 his state of savagery and ignorance. At first, 
 to be sure, the problem of the nature of per- 
 sonality was attacked from standpoints little 
 calculated to give satisfactory results. The 
 earliest appreciation of the necessity of solv- 
 ing it came at a time when the human mind 
 was completely dominated by the religious 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 3 
 
 impulse, and in consequence the main avenue 
 of approach was philosophical; a philosophy 
 strongly tinged by mysticism. This condi- 
 tion, with recurrent but futile waves of skep- 
 ticism, prevailed until a recent day when, 
 with the growth of the scientific spirit, a sin- 
 gular volte face was ultimately effected. The 
 nature of man, we were assured, must be 
 sought in his physical composition. The 
 apotheosis of this point of view came with 
 the discoveries of Darwin and Wallace and 
 the formulation of the evolutionary theory. 
 Forthwith the tree of materialism extended 
 its roots, put forth new branches, and blos- 
 somed with unprecedented brilliance. Even 
 to-day its foliage, at first sight, seems fresh 
 and green as ever. But closer scrutiny re- 
 veals the fact that it is already invaded by 
 the yellows and browns of decay. In truth, 
 the evolutionary theory is fated to bring 
 about the passing of materialism as an ex- 
 planation of the nature of human personality. 
 Hardly had the evolutionists compelled accept- 
 ance of their views, when the question rose: 
 Why may there not be psychical as well as 
 physical evolution.^ Only a few years have 
 elapsed since this question was seriously pro- 
 
4 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 pounded, but the inquiries which it set on 
 foot have been productive of truly remark- 
 able results. Acknowledging their debt to 
 Darwin and Wallace, recognizing more clearly 
 than before the close interrelation between 
 mind and body, the latest investigators into 
 the nature of personality have opened up 
 broader vistas for mankind, have cleared 
 the ground for freer views of the destiny of 
 the race, and have pointed out new means 
 of rescuing the individual from many of the 
 ills that afflict his bodily existence. 
 
 It will be the purpose of the following 
 chapters to tell the story of what these 
 searchers have accomplished, with especial 
 reference to the bearing of their discoveries 
 not only on the nature of personality "per se 
 but also on the physical well-being of man. 
 And in the pursuit of the latter object, it will 
 be necessary to deal with the work of savants 
 who would not only be the first to disclaim 
 acceptance of the views adopted by certain 
 of their colaborers, but would even be inclined 
 to repudiate them as colaborers. The reasons 
 for disclaimer and repudiation will become 
 obvious as the narrative proceeds, as, I trust, 
 will become also the ties that in the last analy- 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 5 
 
 sis unite the several groups and warrant 
 their inclusion in the present study. The 
 situation is here referred to for the purpose 
 of avoiding future misunderstandings. Men- 
 tion of it is in fact unavoidable at this point, 
 for the reason that our quest must begin with 
 a glance at sundry still debatable phenomena 
 which have proved the starting point for the 
 modern investigators of the nature of the self, 
 phenomena long neglected by science, but 
 now, when at last subjected to scientific scru- 
 tiny, found not devoid of significance and 
 value. 
 
 Roughly speaking, these phenomena may 
 be divided into two groups, the spiritistic 
 and the hypnotic. The basic idea under- 
 lying all of the many subdivisions of the 
 former is the ancient belief in '"spirits." It 
 is not necessary to follow the evolution of 
 this belief from the time when the philosophy, 
 such as it was, of untutored man was wholly 
 controlled and colored by his childlike con- 
 fidence in the presence and intervention of 
 supermundane beings. Our point of de- 
 parture is rather at the moment when the 
 spiritistic idea began to assume the com- 
 plexion of an organized religious system. 
 
6 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 This need take us back only to the second 
 quarter of the nineteenth century, to the days 
 of Andrew Jackson Davis and the Fox sisters. 
 It is quite true that long before their time, 
 thanks to the teachings of Swedenborg, and 
 the trance phenomena of ^"mesmerized" sub- 
 jects, the idea that the spirits of the dead can 
 and do communicate with the living had 
 been established as a popular concept. But 
 the founder of modern spiritism ^ was not 
 Swedenborg (whose views, as a matter of 
 fact, are at variance from those of the spirit- 
 ists) but Davis. The latter was born in 1826 
 in a rural district of the State of New York. 
 When he was twelve years old his parents 
 removed to Poughkeepsie, whence he derived 
 the name of the '* Poughkeepsie Seer,'' by 
 which he was known in after years. He 
 seems to have been a delicate lad, to have 
 been backward as a child, and to have re- 
 ceived little education. At the age of fifteen 
 he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. In 1843 
 
 1 Throughout I purpose using the term "spiritism" in preference 
 to "spiritualism" when referring to the religious system that has 
 been constructed about the central idea of communication with the 
 dead. I do this for the reason that, strictly speaking, the terra 
 "spiritualism" should be applied only to the philosophical system 
 opposed to materialism. 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 7 
 
 a series of lectures on "" animal magnetism" 
 were delivered in Poughkeepsie, and an en- 
 thusiastic tailor undertook to mesmerize young 
 Davis. So well did he succeed that the two 
 formed a partnership, Davis serving as a 
 professional medical clairvoyant; that is to 
 say, while in an entranced condition pre- 
 scribing for diseases. In 1844, according to 
 his own account, he was, while entranced, 
 visited by the spirits of Galen and Sweden- 
 borg, who assured him that the world was 
 about to receive through him messages of 
 the highest moment. Thereafter he began 
 to deliver a course of clairvovant lectures, 
 which were ultimately published in book 
 form under the title of ""The Principles of 
 Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and A Voice 
 to Mankind.'' This, regarded from any point 
 of view, was a remarkable production. It 
 consisted of some eight hundred closely 
 printed pages containing an elaborate dis- 
 quisition on the philosophy of the universe. 
 To many of his contemporaries, and to not a 
 few of the present generation, it seemed in- 
 credible that a work of this kind could have 
 been written by the unaided intellect of a 
 half-educated shoemaker, and consequently 
 
8 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 wide credence was found for the claim that 
 it was of ''inspirational'' origin. Here, it 
 was argued, was a man who undoubtedly 
 held converse with the spirits of the illustrious 
 dead, and by them was instructed in the 
 secrets of the universe. 
 
 The excitement created by the appearance 
 of ''The Principles of Nature'' had not sub- 
 sided when fresh fuel was found for the spir- 
 itistic fire. On the evening of the 31st of 
 March, 1848, a Mrs. Fox, the wife of a farmer 
 living in the small village of Hydesville, N. Y., 
 astounded her neighbors by the information 
 that her two young daughters had estab- 
 lished communication with the dead. In 
 their case the claim was made that the mes- 
 sages were received not"inspirationally" but 
 by means of loud knockings, the "spirits" 
 giving evidence of intelligence by repeatedly 
 making the exact number of raps requested 
 by one of the daughters. The Fox home- 
 stead instantly became the Mecca of a dozen 
 or more inquisitive villagers, who were re- 
 warded by receiving from the "spirits" 
 accurate information respecting the number, 
 ages, and characteristics of families resident 
 in the vicinity. A few evenings later it was 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 9 
 
 declared, through the same uncanny rap- 
 pings, that a murder had been committed in 
 the Fox house some years before, and that 
 the body of the victim had been buried in the 
 cellar. Investigation was made, and at a 
 depth of several feet below the cellar ifloor 
 teeth, bones, and hair supposed to be human 
 were found. 
 
 The fame of Margaretta and Catherine 
 Fox now became more than local, and was 
 the more increased when Margaretta went 
 to Rochester to visit a married sister, a Mrs. 
 Fish, and Catherine journeyed to Auburn to 
 stay with friends. Forthwith the raps fol- 
 lowed them, and not only this but manifested 
 a willingness to be produced through the 
 instrumentality of other than the Fox sisters. 
 Mrs. Fish herself became a medium for the 
 mysterious sounds, as did many other per- 
 sons in Rochester, and the same result fol- 
 lowed Catherine Fox's sojourn in Auburn. 
 Modern spiritism had been fairly launched. 
 As one of the sanest writers on the subject 
 says : 
 
 ^'Sometimes the contagion was conveyed 
 by a casual visit. Thus Miss Harriet Bebee, 
 a young lady of sixteen, had an interview of 
 
10 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 a few hours with Mrs. TamKn, a medium of 
 Auburn, and on her return to her own home, 
 twenty miles distant, the raps forthwith broke 
 out in her presence. In the course of the 
 next two or three years, indeed, the rappings 
 had spread throughout the greater part of 
 the Eastern States. Thus a writer in the 
 New Haven Journal in October, 1850, refers 
 to knockings and other phenomena in seven 
 different famihes in Bridgeport, forty famiHes 
 in Rochester, in Auburn, in Syracuse, 'some 
 two hundred' in Ohio, in New Jersey, and 
 places more distant, as well as in Hartford, 
 Springfield, Charlestown, and elsewhere. A 
 year later a correspondent of the Spiritual 
 World estimated that there were a hundred 
 mediums in New York City, and fifty or sixty 
 'private circles' were reported in Philadel- 
 phia.''^ 
 
 In vain clergymen fulminated, and scien- 
 tists demonstrated that the rappings could be 
 produced by rapid movements of the toe- or 
 knee- joints. Spiritism spread with an alac- 
 rity only paralleled in later days by the growth 
 of Christian Science. Sometimes the zeal 
 of the converts led to the most bizarre happen- 
 
 1 "Modem Spiritualism," by Frank Podmore, Vol. I, p. 182. 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 11 
 
 ings. Take, for instance, the case of Jonathan 
 Koons, a farmer who lived in a remote and 
 mountainous district in Ohio. In 1852 he 
 chanced to attend a spiritistic seance, and it 
 was revealed to him that he and his eight 
 children were superabundantly gifted with 
 mediumistic ability. On returning home 
 Koons proceeded, under the direction of spirit 
 guides, to build a seance house, a log struc- 
 ture intended for spiritistic purposes exclu- 
 sively. This he equipped with a 'spirit table' 
 and a great variety of musical instruments. 
 Benches were provided for the sitters. On 
 seance evenings the log cabin became a ver- 
 itable concert hall, the music being provided 
 by a spirit orchestra. There were other 
 startling physical manifestations. We read 
 of tambourines flying through the air as 
 though provided with wings, and of the 
 materiahzation of spirit hands. Oddly 
 enough, all these performances were attrib- 
 uted to the spirits of a large band of pre- 
 Adamite men and women. 
 
 At first physical phenomena dominated the 
 spiritistic movement, increasing in variety 
 and strangeness as the novelty of the earlier 
 manifestations wore away. So long ago as 
 
12 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 1849 the raps were supplemented by the mov- 
 ing about of tables and chairs. A little later 
 the phenomenon of ^^apports'' was witnessed 
 in the production, apparently from the air, 
 of ribbons, flowers, and so forth. Nature's 
 laws were soon afterwards set further at 
 naught by the feats of a young Scotch me- 
 dium, Daniel Dunglas Home, who, both in 
 the Old World and the New, produced phe- 
 nomena which must have caused less gifted 
 mediums to turn green with envy. His 
 crowning triumphs were "levitation,'' in which 
 he seemed to be lifted bodily and transported 
 about the seance room without visible sup- 
 port, and ^'elongation,'' in which the spirits 
 caused him to grow temporarily several inches 
 beyond his normal height. The assurance 
 is gravely given that on at least one occasion 
 Home actuallv floated out of a window of one 
 room and returned by floating in through the 
 window of another.^ Slate writing and table 
 tipping were other less sensational but ex- 
 tremely popular diversions of the spirits. 
 But in point of bearing upon the inquiry into 
 the nature of human personality, none of 
 these physical phenomena have the signifi- 
 
 1 See Appendix I. 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 13 
 
 cance of the later ^'psychicar' phenomena, 
 the alleged interworld communications through 
 trance mediums of the type of which Mrs. 
 Leonora E. Piper, of Boston, is the most 
 celebrated representative to-day. Andrew 
 Jackson Davis, of course, belonged to this 
 class, but inspirational, or ''automatic,'' speak- 
 ing and writing did not become a distinctive 
 feature of the spiritistic movement until the 
 physical phase had had its innings, so to speak. 
 In addition to inspirational speaking and 
 writing, the more salient psychical phenomena 
 include clairvoyance, the faculty of perceiv- 
 ing, as if visually, scenes transpiring at a dis- 
 tance; clairaudience, the sensation of hearing 
 a distant voice, and crystal-gazing, the act 
 of looking into a crystal, or other body with 
 a reflecting surface, and seeing therein hal- 
 lucinatory pictures. It is important to ob- 
 serve that instances of all these phenomena 
 were reported centuries before the appearance 
 of spiritism as a religion. For instance, 
 many of the deliverances of the ancient Greek 
 oracles were supposed to be derived through 
 dreams and clairvoyance of some kind. The 
 practice of crystal-gazing. Professor Hyslop 
 has found, w^as known in some form three 
 
14 The Riddle of Personality , 
 
 thousand years ago, reaching its highest 
 development in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, when its exponents included "'the 
 learned physicians and mathematicians of 
 the courts of Elizabeth, the Italian princes, the 
 Regent Catherine de Medici, and the Em- 
 perors Maximilian and Rudolph."^ But in 
 those bygone, superstitious times psychical 
 phenomena of a seemingly supernormal type 
 were regarded as being, in a sense, part of the 
 natural order of things. There was little or 
 no inclination to hold them suspect, although 
 there was every inclination to ill use the 
 hapless "'mediums,'' particularly if they 
 acquired the reputation of being sorcerers. 
 With the growth of science came a new stand- 
 point, a cursory dismissal of the phenomena 
 as either fraudulent or unworthy of investiga- 
 tion. It was this tendency, which still per- 
 sists but with diminished vigor, that was 
 responsible for the long delay in subjecting the 
 claims of organized spiritism to really search- 
 ing scrutiny; it was this tendency that caused 
 a deaf ear to be turned to those who claimed 
 to have experienced the kindred phenomenon 
 
 * For an informing survey of crystal-gazing, see Professor Hyslop's 
 "Enigmas of Psychical Research," pp. 40-91. 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 15 
 
 of seeing apparitions of the dead or dying; it 
 was this tendency, again, that prevented 
 earher recognition of the truths underlying 
 the marvels of hypnotism. 
 
 With this we approach our second great 
 group of phenomena rich in significance to 
 the modern student of personality. And, 
 once more, although the annals of hypnotism 
 extend back to the days when Egypt and 
 Babylon were in their prime, our introductory 
 survey may begin at a recent date, may begin 
 with the closing years of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury when Franz Anton Mesmer introduced 
 many of its striking phenomena to the Euro- 
 pean world. Charlatan though he was, man- 
 kind owes a greater debt to him than has 
 generally been acknowledged. As the present 
 writer has elsewhere said: ^^When Mesmer 
 published in 1773 his account of the mar- 
 velous cures effected by what he was pleased 
 to term animal magnetism, he sowed seed 
 w^hich was to render inevitable the diligent 
 husbandry of to-day.''^ Grant that hypno- 
 tism had still to be clarified by the researches 
 of an Esdaile, an EUiotson, a Braid, a Char- 
 
 1 "Mysteries of the Human Mind." Pvblic Opinion, Vol. 
 XXXIX, p. 355. 
 
16 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 cot, a Liebeault, a Gurney, before it became 
 what it is to-day — a wonderful curative 
 instrument and aid to psychological experi- 
 mentation; grant all this, and Mesmer remains 
 the first of a line of psychotherapeutists and 
 psychopathologists whose fame, if belated, is 
 steadily growing. That he should have been 
 rebufi'ed by the orthodox practitioners of his 
 day is not surprising. When, in 1778, he 
 came to Paris, he came with a well developed 
 sense of the value of advertising. The cam- 
 paign he inaugurated was of a character to 
 disgust the conservative and thoughtful, but 
 to take a sensation-loving populace by storm. 
 Most extravagant tales of cures he had accom- 
 plished in Berlin, Vienna, and elsewhere were 
 noised abroad. Through a convert he chal- 
 lenged the physicians of Paris to enter into a 
 contest with him, they to treat twelve patients 
 by the orthodox methods, he to treat twelve 
 by his. Of course this challenge was re- 
 jected, and equally, of course, its rejection 
 was interpreted by the thoughtless as an 
 acknowledgment of the superiority of Mes- 
 mer's treatment. His rooms were thronged; 
 his purse waxed constantly heavier. 
 
 The treatment he gave was such as to 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 17 
 
 appeal vividly to the imagination of the 
 patient; in a word, to increase his suggesti- 
 bility. Suggestion, indeed, was its root ele- 
 ment, although Mesmer failed or pretended 
 to fail to recognize this, and taught that its 
 eflBcacy depended upon the effluence of a 
 mysterious fluid. In a room dimly lighted 
 and hung with mirrors, the patients were 
 seated about a circular vat of considerable 
 size, covered with a lid and containing various 
 chemicals. A long cord connected the patients 
 with one another, while in the lid of the tub 
 were several holes, through each of which 
 passed an iron rod bent in such a way that 
 its point could be applied to any part of a 
 patient's body. The patients were requested 
 not to speak, the only sound in the room being 
 strains of soft music. When expectancy was 
 at its flood, Mesmer would enter, clad in the 
 robe of a magician and carrying an iron 
 wand. At one patient he would gaze in- 
 tently, another he would stroke gently with 
 his wand. Soon some would burst into 
 laughter, others into tears, while still others 
 would fall into convulsions, finally passing 
 into a lethargic state, out of which, it is 
 claimed, they emerged cured or on the high- 
 
18 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 road to a cure. Occasionally the treatment 
 was given outdoors, a tree being "magnet- 
 ized'' and the patient collapsing in a swoon 
 so soon as he approached it. 
 
 In such wise were Europeans first made 
 acquainted with the phenomenon of the 
 ''induced trance." It was speedily discovered 
 that the magnetized patients, although to all 
 appearance in a completely unconscious con- 
 dition, could hear and reply to the magnetizer, 
 and could even diagnose their own maladies 
 with a skill sometimes exceeding that of the 
 physician, and prescribe remedies with con- 
 fidence and excellent results. It was also 
 learned that upon recovering their normal 
 sensibility they were oblivious to all that had 
 transpired during the period of trance. 
 Further, if the contemporary records are to 
 be accepted, they sometimes displayed clair- 
 voyant and clairaudient ability. What might 
 be the cause of such manifestations was a 
 subject of the most acrimonious dispute. 
 Those who had fallen under the influence of 
 Swedenborg's teachings maintained that here 
 was direct evidence of spirit manifestation.^ 
 
 * Thus, in support of this view, a member of a Swedish society 
 founded in Stockholm for the purpose of propagating Swedenborg's 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 19 
 
 The magnetizers, however, clung obstinately 
 to the fluidic idea, stating the case thus: In 
 obeying the will of the operator the patient 
 simply acted as an ^'animated magnet,'' 
 and the magnetic fluid being universal, it 
 necessarily followed that the patient could 
 apprehend much inaccessible to his or her 
 knowledge when unmagnetized. But long be- 
 fore this question became acute the excitement 
 created by Mesmer had caused the Govern- 
 ment to take official cognizance of his exploits. 
 A commission of investigation was appointed, 
 among its members being none other than 
 Benjamin Franklin, then almost an octogena- 
 rian but interested as ever in scientific re- 
 search. For some reason the commissioners 
 did not inquire into the curative merits of the 
 new treatment, confining their labors to the 
 problem of the magnetic fluid. Naturally, 
 
 doctrines, published a number of extracts from journals of trance 
 experiments. These indicated that, in the presence of several 
 Swedish noblemen, the wife of a gardener, while in the magnetic 
 trance, was "controlled" by two spirits, one of whom was declared 
 to have been her own infant daughter. Both, according to the 
 extracts, in reply to questions put by the bystanders, gave an account 
 of their lives while on earth, and, in true Swedenborgian fashion, 
 described the state of intermediate or probationary existence through 
 T\'hich the spirits of the dead had to pass after leaving the body. 
 See also Podmore's "Modem Spirituahsm," Vol. I, pp. 76 and 77. 
 
20 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 they had Httle difficulty in demonstrating that 
 it was impossible to procure evidential proof 
 of the fluid, and in their report affirmed that 
 '^the effects actually produced were produced 
 purely by the imagination/' 
 
 The commissioners had stated the truth, 
 but years were to pass before it was refined 
 from the dross of fluidistic and spiritistic 
 philosophy. The history of hypnotism dur- 
 ing the period intervening between Mesmer 
 and Braid makes dreary reading, being il- 
 lumined by only occasional flashes rendered 
 the brighter by the dark background of mys- 
 ticism and charlatanism against which they 
 shone. In this period three names stand pre- 
 eminent, Bertrand, Esdaile, and Elliotson. 
 Bertrand was a young French physician who, 
 in 1823, published a ''Traite du Somnam- 
 bulism'' in which, and in another work issued 
 three years later, he reviewed the achieve- 
 ments and theories of the magnetists, and 
 expressed the view that suggestion pure and 
 simple explained all the phenomena, the 
 patient being preternormally sensitive to the 
 least suggestion from the operator. Death, 
 however, removed Bertrand before he had 
 the time to elaborate his doctrine of sugges- 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 21 
 
 tion and persuade the scientific world of its 
 validity. Esdaile was less of a theorizer, but 
 by his remarkable operations upon hypno- 
 tized Hindoos in the Presidency Hospital at 
 Calcutta, of which he was long surgeon- 
 general, he did much to demonstrate the use- 
 fulness of hypnotism as an aid to surgery. 
 Incidentally, he also demonstrated the pos- 
 sibility of ''community of sensation'' between 
 the operator and his subject. This he did 
 through a young Hindoo who had previously 
 been operated on painlessly while in the hyp- 
 notic trance. In turn Dr. Esdaile took in 
 his mouth salt, a slice of lime, a piece of 
 gentian, and some brandy, and the Hindoo, 
 who was reported to have been mesmerized 
 until he could not open his eyes, in every case 
 identified the taste. This, it may be noted, 
 is one of the earliest recorded instances of a 
 telepathic experiment. To Elliotson belongs 
 the distinction of having made mesmerism 
 popular in England as a curative instrument. 
 But he was a man "born out of due time," 
 hasty and reckless, and did not confine himself 
 to using the mesmeric sleep as a therapeutic 
 agent or auxiliary, claiming to demonstrate 
 many other phenomena of a dubious kind. 
 
22 The Riddle of Personaltiy 
 
 Thus, he asserted that the mesmeric influ- 
 ence was greatly heightened or lessened by 
 the use of different metals and other sub- 
 stances. According to him, gold, nickel, silver, 
 platinum, and water were excellent conduc- 
 tors, particularly gold and nickel, although 
 the ^'eflBuence'' from the latter was of a vio- 
 lent and dangerous nature; copper, zinc, tin, 
 and pewter, unless wet, were non-conductors. 
 As a natural consequence there resulted from 
 his admixture of sense and nonsense, a general 
 discrediting alike of his views and his prac- 
 tices, and a postponement of the acceptance 
 of any of the mesmeric phenomena until the 
 situation was clarified by the genius of Braid. 
 Braid, who was a Manchester physician 
 of standing, may justly be described as the 
 first really scientific student of mesmerism. 
 It was he who gave it the name of hypnotism, 
 and it was he, too, who discovered that the 
 trance condition could be induced without 
 the intervention of any operator, by the mere 
 fixation of the subject's eyes on a bright ob- 
 ject. The results of his independent obser- 
 vations and experiments were made public 
 in a book in which he corroborated the con- 
 clusions of Bertrand respecting the source of 
 
Early Phases of the Problem 23 
 
 the phenomena, averring that they were not 
 due to any power passing from one individ- 
 ual to another, through disks, ''passes,'' or 
 other mechanical agency, but to the action 
 of suggestion. In support of this view he 
 described a number of experiments made 
 not on professional but private subjects, 
 some wide awake, some hypnotized, in which 
 all the characteristic phenomena described 
 by the mesmerists were obtained without the 
 use of any magnet. Elliotson and the other 
 English mesmerists hastened to deride Braid's 
 ''coarse methods," and although the latter 
 lived until 1860, he did not live to witness the 
 general recognition that his theory of sug- 
 gestion has obtained through the researches 
 of Gurney, Liebeault, Charcot, and their dis- 
 ciples, whose work we shall need to examine 
 in some detail. 
 
 Here, then, in brief outline are the phe- 
 nomena which, long neglected by men of 
 scientific training and attainment, have latterly 
 been found to constitute a fruitful field for 
 cultivation. The harvest began when a little 
 coterie of Cambridge men, impressed with 
 the irrationality of attempting to solve psychi- 
 cal problems by physical processes alone, 
 
24 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 with the marvelous growth of spiritistic ideas, 
 and with the fact that the phenomena of spirit- 
 ism had received no adequate investigation, 
 resolved that they would do all that in their 
 power lay to promote a sentiment of scientific 
 inquiry into whatever was deemed to transcend 
 the bounds of normal experience. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The Subliminal Self 
 
 THE movement to institute a far- 
 reaching, systematic, and scientific 
 inquiry into the nature and destiny 
 of human personality originated, as has just 
 been said, in England at the University of 
 Cambridge. It owed its inception chiefly to 
 the efforts of two friends, Henry Sidgwick 
 and Frederic W. H. Myers, both of whom 
 w^ere cut down by the relentless hand of death 
 when at the zenith of their powers. Pro- 
 fessor Sidgwick was a philosopher of the best 
 type. His was a philosophy not of the cloister 
 but of the world. Catholic in his interests and 
 sanguine and enthusiastic by temperament, 
 he was saved from rash judgments by his 
 acutely analytical frame of mind. So pene- 
 trating indeed was his insight that the slightest 
 distinction or qualification seldom escaped 
 him, and in his generation he was, perhaps, 
 without a peer in the nice balancing of facts. 
 
 25 
 
26 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 Alike in philosophy, in psychology, in political 
 economy, and in literary criticism he oc- 
 cupied a notable place. Myers was poet 
 rather than philosopher. Artist and idealist, 
 he radiated an unfailing sympathy for the 
 aspirations and sufferings of mankind, and if, 
 as many think, he passed to unwarranted 
 extremes in the conclusions he ultimately 
 voiced, to him not the less belongs the credit 
 of having thrown a flood of helpful light on 
 the workings of the human mind. "Myers,'" 
 Prof. William James has well said, "endowed 
 psychology with a new problem — the ex- 
 ploration of the subliminal region being des- 
 tined to figure thereafter in that branch of 
 learning as Myers's problem." Of this, more 
 again. 
 
 At first, as may be imagined, the two friends 
 and those who with misgivings embarked 
 with them on what must have seemed a hope- 
 less voyage, were somewhat at a loss whither 
 to point prow. " Our methods,'' Myers wrote, 
 in recalling that period of young endeavor, 
 "our canons, were all to make. In those 
 early days we were more devoid of precedents, 
 of guidance, even of criticism that went be- 
 yond mere expressions of contempt, than is 
 
The Subliminal Self 27 
 
 now readily conceived/'^ This was in the 
 seventies. Before the decade was at an end, 
 it was possible for him to recall: ''Seeking 
 evidence as best we could — collecting round 
 us a small group of persons willing to help in 
 that quest for residual phenomena in the na- 
 ture and experience of man — we were at last 
 fortunate enough to discover a convergence 
 of experimental and of spontaneous evidence 
 upon one definite and important point. We 
 were led to believe that there was truth in a 
 thesis which, at least since Swedenborg and 
 the early mesmerists, had been repeatedly 
 but cursorily and ineffectually presented to 
 mankind — the thesis that a communication 
 can take place from mind to mind by some 
 agency not that of the recognized organs of 
 sense. We found that this agency, discerni- 
 ble even on trivial occasions by suitable ex- 
 periment, seemed to connect itself with an 
 agency more intense, or at any rate more 
 recognizable, which operated at moments of 
 crisis or at the hour of death.'' ^ 
 
 In this way was evidence in support of the 
 theory of telepathy first experimentally and 
 
 1 Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death." By 
 F. W. H. Myers. Vol. I, p. 7. ^ Ibid., Vol. I, p. 8. 
 
28 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 cumulatively secured. Further proof was not 
 long in forthcoming after the little group of 
 investigators had expanded into the Society 
 for Psychical Research, which was founded 
 in 1882 with Professor Sidgwick as its first 
 president and until the day of his death per- 
 haps its most influential member, exercising 
 at once a stimulating and restraining influence 
 on its activities and conclusions. The leading 
 spirit in organizing the society was, however, 
 neither Professor Sidgwick nor Mr. Myers, 
 but Prof. W. F. Barrett, of Dublin, who in 
 1876 had read a paper before the British 
 Association expressing his belief in telepathy 
 and urging the formation of a committee to 
 undertake experiments in thought-transfer- 
 ence. No action was taken on his sugges- 
 tion, but the formation of the Society for 
 Psychical Research was the outcome of re- 
 newed agitation by him in 1881. Its object 
 was to investigate not only the possibility of 
 the transmission of thought from mind to 
 mind without the intervention of known 
 means of communication, ''but all that large 
 group of phenomena outside the boundaries 
 of orthodox science." Thus its scope of in- 
 quiry embraced on the one hand, apparitions, 
 
The Subliminal Self 29 
 
 hauntings, clairvoyance, clairaudience, rap- 
 pings, and like problems of mediumship ; and 
 on the other, the phenomena of hypnotism. 
 It was determined that, as scientific ends 
 were sought, strictly scientific methods must 
 be followed, a determination that had the 
 fortunate result of soon severing from the 
 society sundry confessed spiritists who had 
 hastened to identify themselves with it. From 
 the outset and up to the present, moreover, it 
 has included in its membership men promi- 
 nent in public and professional life (its list 
 of presidents comprising, among others, the 
 names of Professor Sidgwick, Arthur Balfour, 
 Professor James, Sir William Crookes, Sir 
 Oliver Lodge, and Professor Richet), and 
 while it has latterly concerned itself princi- 
 pally with the ever-baffling question of the 
 survival of personality after the death of the 
 body, and in the opinion of some observers 
 seems to have developed into an organization 
 for the propagation of spiritism, it assuredly 
 has rendered yeoman's service both in the 
 direction of protecting the public against 
 fraudulent mediums and by way of making 
 clearer the constitution and functioning of 
 the mind of normal as well as abnormal man. 
 
30 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 To resume. With the organization of the 
 society, telepathic experiments were attempted 
 on an extensive scale, and in addition to this 
 the task of collecting evidence for spontane- 
 ous telepathy was vigorously prosecuted. In 
 both directions no one, during the early years 
 of the society, was more energetic and success- 
 ful than one of its youngest members, Edmund 
 Gurney. Gurney was just thirty-five when, 
 in 1882, he undertook the work of psychical 
 research, and before his death, which occurred 
 only six years later, he had accomplished 
 much, particularly in the simplification of the 
 facts of hypnotism, the psychological side of 
 which he was the first Englishman to study 
 with scientific discernment. From the begin- 
 ning of the society's labors, hypnotism, as 
 utilized by Gurney, Myers, Barrett, and Pro- 
 fessor and Mrs. Sidgwick, played a prominent 
 part in experimental telepathy, it being found 
 that the chances for success were greatly 
 increased when the *' percipient'' (the one 
 who was to receive the mental communication, 
 the sender being technically known as the 
 '"agent") was in the hypnotic state. For the 
 details of the successive experiments I must 
 refer the reader to the society's oflScial records 
 
The Subliminal Self 31 
 
 as published in its ^'Proceedings/' and espe- 
 cially to the first ten volumes of the ''Pro- 
 ceedings.'' For our present purpose it is 
 sufficient to observe that the society's Literary 
 Committee, then consisting of W. F. Barrett, 
 Charles C. Massey, Rev. W. Stainton Moses, 
 Frank Podmore, Edmund Gurney, and F. W. 
 H. Myers, felt justified in affirming, so early 
 as 1884; "Our society claims to have proved 
 the reality of thought-transference — of the 
 transmission of thoughts, feelings, and images 
 from one mind to another by no recognized 
 channel of sense." ^ And, a little later in the 
 same year, as the result of a prolonged inquiry 
 into the rationale of apparitions, we find the 
 same committee proffering a telepathic ex- 
 planation in these words: 
 
 "Our aim is to trace the connection between 
 the most trivial phenomena of thought-trans- 
 ference, or confused inklings of disaster, and 
 the full-blown 'apparition' of popular belief. 
 And, once on the track, we find group after 
 group of transitional experiences illustrating 
 the degrees by which a stimulus, falling or 
 fallen from afar upon some obscure subcon- 
 
 1 "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," Vol. II, 
 p. 44. 
 
32 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 scious region of the percipient's mind, may 
 seem to disengage itself from his subjectivity 
 and emerge into the waking world/' ^ 
 
 At this point it is not necessary to discuss 
 the question of the validity of the application 
 of the telepathic theory as affording a natural- 
 istic explanation of apparitions. Of imme- 
 diate importance in the above quotation is the 
 reference to subconscious regions of the mind. 
 Already it had dawned upon the investigators 
 that varied as were the phenomena of hypno- 
 tism, trance mediumship, and apparitions, 
 they had this in common that they seemed 
 to hint at the existence of mental faculties pre- 
 viously unsuspected. With this the inquiry 
 entered upon a new phase. The obvious 
 question rose: If under certain conditions, 
 still to be exactly ascertained, the range of 
 human consciousness may be immeasurably 
 extended, is it not possible, nay probable, 
 that the prevailing ideas of the nature of con- 
 sciousness, or rather of the nature of the self, 
 are erroneous } 
 
 To the solution of the problem thus pre- 
 sented, none pressed more earnestly than 
 
 1 "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," Vol. II, 
 p. 164. 
 
The Subliminal Self 33 
 
 Frederic Myers. For starting point he had 
 the popular concept of the nature of per- 
 sonahty as best expressed in the philosopher 
 Reid's ''Essays on the Intellectual Powers of 
 Man:'' 
 
 "My personal identity, therefore, implies 
 the continued existence of that indivisible 
 thing which I call myself. Whatever this self 
 may be, it is something which thinks and 
 deliberates and resolves and acts and suffers. 
 I am not thought, I am not action, I am not 
 feeling; I am something that thinks and acts 
 and suffers. My thoughts and actions and 
 feelings change every moment; they have no 
 continued, but a successive, existence; but 
 that self, or I, to which they belong, is per- 
 manent, and has the same relation to all the 
 succeeding thoughts, actions, and feelings 
 which I call mine. . . . The identity of a per- 
 son is a perfect identity; wherever it is real 
 it admits of no degrees; and it is impossible 
 that a person should be in part the same and 
 in part different, because a person is a monad 
 and is not divisible into parts. Identity, 
 when applied to persons, has no ambiguity, 
 and admits not of degrees, or of more and 
 less. It is the foundation of all rights and 
 
34 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 obligations, and of all accountableness; and 
 the notion of it is fixed and precise."^ 
 
 Nothing could be clearer or more exact, 
 and as a statement of the nature of person- 
 ality it had gone unchallenged since its for- 
 mulation a century and more before. But to 
 Myers, as to the Frenchmen who were now 
 attacking the same problem from another 
 standpoint and whose work will shortly be 
 reviewed, it seemed to have lost much of its 
 force by reason of the discoveries made since 
 spiritism and hypnotism had become subjects 
 for serious study. If unity and continuity 
 be prime facts of the ego, what becomes 
 of the ego in the disintegrations affecting 
 it during bodily life.^ Where locate it in 
 insanity, in hysteria, in somnambulism, spon- 
 taneous or induced, in the trance states of 
 mediums apparently surrendering their or- 
 ganism to the control of some extraneous 
 self } Still more perplexing becomes the prob- 
 lem, on the basis of the "common sense" 
 view of personality, when there is involved 
 complete, or seemingly complete, disintegra- 
 tions such as those revealed in the experiences 
 of Mary Reynolds and Ansel Bourne. 
 
 1 Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man," By Thomas Reid, 
 pp. 318-321. 
 
The Subliminal Self 35 
 
 Both of these cases are worth relating, not 
 only from their scientific significance but by 
 reason of their intrinsic interest. The former 
 dates back to the opening years of the nine- 
 teenth century. One morning Mary, the 
 daughter of a Pennsylvania pioneer named 
 Reynolds, was found in a deep sleep from 
 which it was impossible to arouse her. 
 Awakening some twenty hours later, she 
 awoke as a new-born child. Memory had 
 vanished, and with it all knowledge of the 
 acquisitions of experience and education. 
 Parents, brothers, sisters, friends were un- 
 recognized. To her, reading, writing, even 
 talking, were unknown arts, and had to be 
 relearned. It was noticed, too, that her tem- 
 perament had undergone a marked change. 
 Formerly melancholy, dull, and taciturn, she 
 now was cheerful, alert, and social. Thus she 
 continued for five weeks when, after a long 
 sleep, she suddenly awoke her natural, or 
 at any rate her former, self, and without any 
 remembrance of the events of the intervening 
 period. Only a few weeks more and she had 
 relapsed into the secondary state, and thus, 
 alternating between the two phases, she 
 passed her life from the age of twenty to that 
 
36 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 of thirty-five, when she remained perma- 
 nently in the secondary condition, not once 
 recovering her normal personality to the day 
 of her death, which did not occur until a 
 quarter of a century later. 
 
 The case of Ansel Bourne presents a differ- 
 ent aspect. Early in 1887, Mr. Bourne, an 
 itinerant preacher, then aged sixty-one and 
 residing in the town of Greene, R. I., went to 
 Providence in order to procure money to pay 
 for a farm. After drawing the money from 
 the bank, he visited the store of a nephew, 
 Andrew Harris, and then started for his sister's 
 house, also in Providence. That was the last 
 known of his movements for eight weeks, 
 when he was discovered, under most sensa- 
 tional circumstances, at Norristown, Pa. It 
 seems that about a fortnight after the disap- 
 pearance of Mr. Bourne a stranger arrived 
 in Norristown and, under the name of A. J. 
 Brown, rented from a Mr. Earle a store which 
 he stocked with notions, toys, confectionery, 
 etc. The store was part of the dwelling- 
 place of the Earle family, and as Mr. Brown 
 lived with them they saw him frequently, but 
 at no time observed anything peculiar in his 
 demeanor. On the contrary, it was remarked 
 
The Subliminal Self 37 
 
 that he was exceptionally steady-going, me- 
 thodical, and precise. Nobody, in a word, 
 suspected that he might be laboring under 
 some form of mental vagary. About five 
 o'clock on the morning of March 14th, how- 
 ever, he aroused the Earles and excitedly de- 
 manded information as to his whereabouts. 
 He denied that his name was Brown, and 
 asserted that his landlord and his landlord's 
 family were entire strangers to him. Think- 
 ing that he had suddenly become insane, Mr. 
 Earle summoned a physician who at Mr. 
 "Brown's" request telegraphed Andrew 
 Harris: '^Do you know Ansel Bourne ? Please 
 answer." Soon the reply came: ''He is my 
 uncle. Wire me where he is, and if well. 
 Write particulars." Subsequently Mr. Harris 
 visited Norristown, disposed of his uncle's 
 stock of goods, and took the extremely be- 
 wildered Mr. Bourne home with him. Later 
 Professor James and Dr. Richard Hodgson 
 hypnotized the aged preacher and succeeded 
 in eliciting from him a detailed account of his 
 doings during the eight weeks of his disap- 
 pearance, securing facts which he had been 
 utterly unable to give previous to hypnotiza- 
 tion. To quote from Dr. Hodgson's report 
 on the case: 
 
38 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 "He said [while in the hypnotic state] that 
 his name was Albert John Brown, that on 
 January 17, 1887, he went from Providence 
 to Pawtucket in a horse-car, thence by train 
 to Boston, and thence to New York, where 
 he arrived at 9 p.m., and went to the Grand 
 Union Hotel, registering as A. J. Brown. He 
 left New York on the following morning and 
 went to Newark, N. J., thence to Philadel- 
 phia, where he arrived in the evening, and 
 stayed for three or four days in a hotel near 
 the depot. It was kept by two ladies, but he 
 could not remember their names. He thought 
 of taking a store in a small tow^n, and after 
 looking round at several places, among them 
 Germantown, chose Norristown, about twenty 
 miles from Philadelphia, where he started a 
 little business of five-cent goods, confectionery, 
 stationery, etc. 
 
 ''He stated that he was born in Newton, 
 New Hampshire, July 8, 1826 (he was born 
 in New York City, July 8, 1826), had passed 
 through a great deal of trouble, losses of 
 friends and property; loss of his wife was one 
 trouble — she died in 1881; three children 
 living — but everything was confused prior 
 to his finding himself in the horse-car on the 
 
The Subliminal Self 39 
 
 way to Pawtucket; he wanted to get away 
 somewhere — he didn't know where — and 
 have rest. He had six or seven hundred dol- 
 lars with him when he went into the store. 
 He Hved very closely, boarded by himself, 
 and did his own cooking. He went to church, 
 and also to one prayer-meeting. At one of 
 these meetings he spoke about a boy who had 
 kneeled down and prayed in the midst of the 
 passengers on a steamboat from Albany to 
 New York [an incident of which he was well 
 aware in the Ansel Bourne personality]. 
 
 "He had heard of the singular experience 
 of Ansel Bourne, but did not know whether 
 he had ever met Ansel Bourne or not. He 
 had been a professor of religion himself for 
 many years, belonged to the 'Christian' de- 
 nomination, but 'back there' everything was 
 mixed up. He used to keep a store in New- 
 ton, New Hampshire, and was engaged in 
 lumber and trading business [Ansel Bourne 
 had at one time been a carpenter]; had never 
 previously dealt in the business which he 
 took up at Norristown. He kept the Norris- 
 town store for six or eight weeks; how he got 
 away from there was all confused; since then 
 it has been a blank. The last thing he re- 
 
40 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 membered about the store was going to bed 
 on Sunday night, March 13, 1887. He 
 went to the Methodist Church in the morning, 
 walked out in the afternoon, stayed in his 
 room in the evening and read a book. He 
 did not feel 'anything out of the way.' Went 
 to bed at eight or nine o'clock, and remem- 
 bered lying in bed, but nothing further. 
 
 "The statements made by Mr. Bourne in 
 trance concerning his doings in Norristown 
 agree with those made by his landlord there 
 and other persons; but since Mr. Bourne, in 
 his normal state, has heard of these, they 
 afforded no presumption in favor of the cor- 
 rectness of his statements concerning the first 
 two weeks of his absence, those which imme- 
 diately preceded his arrival in Norristown. 
 The register-books of the hotels had been 
 destroyed, so that we were unable to trace 
 his travels in detail by finding the name 'A. J. 
 Brown' at the hotels which he described him- 
 self as having visited. We have, however, 
 through the kindness of Mr. William Romaine 
 Newbold, lecturer on psychology in the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania, ascertained that he 
 boarded for a week or more at the Kellogg 
 House, Nos. 1605-7 Filbert Street, Phila- 
 
The Subliminal Self 41 
 
 delphia. Mr. Newbold's report seeras to 
 establish the general trustworthiness of Mr. 
 Bourne's account (in trance) of his doings 
 before going to Norristovvn.'' 
 
 Bearing in mind a peculiar incident that 
 had occurred in Mr. Bourne's life thirty years 
 before — when he was stricken deaf, dumb, 
 and blind, after declaring that he would 
 rather lose his speech and hearing than go to 
 church — Dr. Hodgson came to the conclusion 
 that Mr. Bourne had been subject to some 
 form of epilepsy, and that during his Brown 
 experience he was suffering from a post- 
 epileptic loss of memory. This conclusion 
 found further corroboration from the fact that 
 he had had several ''fainting jfits'' in the course 
 of his life. But it was impossible to indicate 
 the exact source of the creation of the singular 
 "Brown" personality.^ 
 
 Recalling cases such as these, and com- 
 paring them with the minor disintegrations of 
 
 ^ For detailed accounts of the Reynolds case the reader is referred 
 to Dr. Weir Mitchell's report in the "Transactions of the College 
 of Physicians of Philadelphia," April 4, 1888; "The Principles of 
 Psychology," by WiUiam James, Vol. I, pp. 381-384; or "Mary 
 Reynolds," by the Rev. W. S. Plummer, an article in Harper's Maga- 
 zine for May, 1860. The Bourne case is discussed at considerable 
 length in the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," 
 Vol. VII, pp. 221-258, from which the above extract was taken. 
 
42 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 trance and hypnotic phenomena, Myers also 
 approached the problem of the self from the 
 vantage ground afforded by the telepathic ex- 
 periments and by the society's long record of 
 hallucinatory visions of the dying or the dead, 
 or of those in moments of crisis not neces- 
 sarily fatal.^ The more he studied, the deeper 
 grew his conviction that the self is both a 
 unity and a coordination, and further, that it 
 possesses faculties and powers unexercised and 
 unexercisable by the consciousness that finds 
 employment in the direction of the affairs of 
 every-day life. It was in 1887 that he first 
 tentatively put forth his hypothesis of the 
 "'subliminal self,'' but it was not until 1903 
 that his final elaboration of it was given to the 
 world in the posthumously published "'Hu- 
 man Personality and Its Survival of Bodily 
 Death," which will prove an enduring monu- 
 ment to its author's long and useful labors, 
 and which, whatever opinion be formed con- 
 cerning its conclusions on the evidence for 
 ""survival," must be accounted one of the 
 generation's most searching contributions to 
 the study of personality. There has been a 
 vast deal of needless controversy concerning 
 
 1 See Appendix 11. 
 
The Subliminal Self 43 
 
 what Myers exactly meant by the ^^ subliminal 
 self." At the outset of his magnum opus, we 
 find his theory stated in language that could 
 not well be more explicit: 
 
 ''The idea of a threshold {limen, Schwelle) 
 of consciousness — of a level above which 
 sensation or thought must rise before it can 
 enter into our conscious life — is a simple and 
 familiar one. The word subliminal — mean- 
 ing 'beneath the threshold' — has already 
 been used to define those sensations which are 
 too feeble to be individually recognized. I 
 propose to extend the meaning of the term, 
 so as to make it cover all that takes place 
 beneath the ordinary threshold, or say, if 
 preferred, the ordinary margin of conscious- 
 ness — not only those faint stimulations whose 
 very faintness keeps them submerged, but 
 much else which psychology as yet scarcely 
 recognizes : sensations, thoughts, emotions, 
 which may be strong, definite, and independ- 
 ent, but which, by the original constitution of 
 our being, seldom merge into that supra- 
 liminal current of consciousness which we 
 habitually identify with ourselves. Perceiving 
 . . . that these submerged thoughts and emo- 
 tions possess the characteristics which we 
 
44 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 associate with conscious life, I feel bound to 
 speak of a subliminal, or ultra-marginal, con- 
 sciousness — a consciousness which we shall 
 see, for instance, uttering or writing sen- 
 tences quite as complex and coherent as the 
 supraliminal consciousness could make them. 
 Perceiving further that this conscious life be- 
 neath the threshold or beyond the margin 
 seems to be no discontinuous or intermittent 
 thing; that not only are these isolated sub- 
 liminal processes comparable with isolated 
 supraliminal processes (as when a problem 
 is solved by some unknown procedure in a 
 dream), but that there also is a continuous 
 subliminal chain of memory (or more chains 
 than one) involving just that kind of in- 
 dividual and persistent revival of old injpres- 
 sions and response to new ones, which we 
 commonly call a Self — I find it permissible 
 and convenient to speak of subliminal Selves, 
 or more briefly of a subliminal Self. I do not 
 indeed by using this term assume that there 
 are two correlative and parallel selves existing 
 always within each of us. Rather I mean by 
 the subliminal Self that part of the Self which 
 is commonly subliminal; and I conceive that 
 there may be — not only cooperations between 
 
The Subliminal Self 45 
 
 these quasi-independent trains of thought — 
 but also upheavals and alternations of per- 
 sonality of many kinds, so that what was 
 once below the surface may for a time, or 
 permanently, rise above it. And I conceive 
 also that no Self of which we can here have 
 cognizance is in reality more than a fragment 
 of a larger Self — revealed in a fashion at 
 once shifting and limited through an organism 
 not so framed as to afford it full manifesta- 
 tion." ^ 
 
 Here, in a paragraph, is Myers's famous 
 theory of the subliminal self. Daring in con- 
 ception, it was applied by him with even 
 greater boldness. It was not enough to 
 utilize it as an excellent working hypothesis 
 to explain on a naturalistic basis phenomena 
 which he and his associates in the Society for 
 Psychical Research had made it impossible 
 for science longer to ignore. If on the one 
 hand it could be plausibly maintained by him 
 that, for example, men of genius owe their 
 fame to a capacity for utilizing powers which 
 lie too deep below the threshold of con- 
 sciousness for the ordinary man's control; 
 
 1 "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death," Vol. I, 
 p. 14. 
 
46 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 that the appeal of the hypnotist is to the sub- 
 hminal not the supraliminal self, and that it is 
 the subliminal self that sends and receives 
 telepathic messages, he could on the other 
 hand see every reason for affirming that the 
 indwelling principle, unifying the subliminal 
 and supraliminal, persists after the death and 
 decay of the bodily organism, and that this 
 indwelling principle, call it ''soul,'' ''spirit,'' 
 or what one will, has been actually observed 
 in operation apart from the bodily organism 
 and after the destruction of that organism. 
 More than this, he did not hesitate to launch 
 into speculation, formulating a cosmic philos- 
 ophy resting on what was to him the proved 
 existence and influence of a spiritual world 
 and the proved interchange of thought be- 
 tween that world and the world of earth life. 
 Accordingly, it is not surprising to find that 
 his views and the theory out of which they 
 grew have been subjected to the most caustic 
 criticism ; and that there has been, as an in- 
 evitable consequence of this criticism, a tend- 
 ency to lose sight of the immediate benefits to 
 be derived by conscientious exploration of the 
 border land region invaded by this intrepid 
 adventurer into the unknown. 
 
The Subliminal Self 47 
 
 Undoubtedly one reason why the theory of 
 the subliminal self has been received with in- 
 credulity lies in the fact that it owes existence 
 largely to another theory not yet generally 
 accepted by the scientific world. The refer- 
 ence is to telepathy. In the face of the re- 
 peatedly successful experiments by independ- 
 ent investigators, such as the late Thomson 
 Jay Hudson, as well as by the Society for 
 Psychical Research, and notwithstanding the 
 great mass of well-authenticated evidence 
 pointing to the operation of spontaneous 
 telepathy, there is a strong disposition in 
 scientific circles to deem the case for telepathy 
 "'not proven.'' Nor do those scientists, the 
 psychologists, who should be to the fore in 
 testing the validity of the telepathic hypothe- 
 sis, show any inclination as a body to prosecute 
 a vigorous inquest. Here and there are to be 
 found individual psychologists who, with the 
 intellectual fearlessness of a William James, 
 strike boldly from the primrose path of easy- 
 going skepticism. But the lamentable truth 
 remains that most psychologists are still so 
 completely under the domination of the con- 
 cepts of the ^' classical' ' school as to prefer, 
 if possible, to explain away rather than in- 
 
48 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 vestigate. Before them ever looms the bogy 
 of ''spiritism/' and they shudder at the 
 thought of being identified in the popular 
 consciousness with the "psychical researchers/' 
 They fail to realize that it may not be neces- 
 sary to accept the supernatural implications 
 that enthusiasts have read into telepathy, the 
 subliminal self, and the like. They fail, too, 
 to realize that unless they would see them- 
 selves utterly discredited they must widen 
 the range of their activities to include not 
 only the lecture-room, the library, and the 
 laboratory where, year after year, routine 
 experiments are faithfully performed, but 
 also the prison, the hospital, the asylum, 
 the street; every place, in fine, where ab- 
 normal man jostles normal and the multifold 
 vagaries of the human mind are to be en- 
 countered- 
 
 Indeed, nothing could make clearer the 
 limited point of view of the orthodox psychol- 
 ogist than the criticisms he has leveled against 
 the theory of the subliminal self. When the 
 advocate of that theory, in deference to his 
 critic's strenuous protest, discards the argu- 
 ment from telepathy and advances, say, the 
 argument from cases of the Bourne and Rey- 
 
The Subliminal Self 49 
 
 nolds type, he is met with the contemptuous 
 retort that, in all likelihood, both the changes 
 in ideas and trains of thought and the changes 
 in character and temperament are due alto- 
 gether to physical causes, to changes in the 
 supply of blood to the brain. Satisfactory as 
 this reply may seem to him who makes it, he 
 completely overlooks the fact that it takes no 
 account of the psychical significance of the 
 phenomena involved; that, in other words, 
 while the problem of causation may be quite 
 correctly given a physiological explanation, 
 the deeper problem of why the resultant 
 changes take the particular forms they mani- 
 fest remains untouched. Or when the expo- 
 nent of the subliminal cites as evidence of 
 subliminal action the marvels accomplished by 
 the so-called lightning calculators, the Dases, 
 the Mangiameles, it is hardly to the point to 
 plead that the peculiar gifts of the arith- 
 metical prodigies are merely *' automatic. '^ 
 This, however, is the favorite explanation 
 of the orthodox psychologist, a figurative 
 shrug of the shoulders, delightfully easy, but — 
 explaining nothing. And thus every argu- 
 ment in behalf of the subliminal self is met 
 by denial, by evasion, or when neither denial 
 
50 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 or evasion is possible, by a half-hearted 
 acceptance. 
 
 It is only fair to the psychologist to say that 
 had not extremists, following the lead of 
 Myers, pushed the hypothesis to unwarranted 
 lengths, he might long ere this have met the 
 advocate of the subliminal more than half- 
 way. Thus, the latest pronouncement on the 
 subject from a writer of the orthodox school 
 is not merely significant as a faint-hearted, 
 last-trench defense of a position even now 
 untenable; it also indicates plainly the dread 
 that has inspired the defenders to delay 
 capitulation. "' The very latitude of the theory 
 of the subliminal self,'' writes Professor Jas- 
 trow, '"makes it hospitable to a wide range of 
 considerations — many of them supported by 
 questionable data and strained interpretations 
 — and renders it liable to aflSliation with 
 * occult' conceptions of every shade and grade 
 of extravagance."^ Yet Professor Jastrow him- 
 self is forced to the admission that, barring 
 the supernatural implications of the theory, 
 it closely accords with the view he entertains. 
 We find him writing : 
 
 "'It is proper to point out that in the in- 
 
 1 "The Subconscious." By Joseph Jastrow, p. 535. 
 
The Subliminal Self 51 
 
 trinsic worth and to a considerable measure 
 the mutual relations assigned to the several 
 groups of phenomena, the two views have a 
 common interest, even common points of 
 emphasis. Both find a place, though a differ- 
 ent one, in the mental economv, for modes of 
 achievement or for participation therein, that 
 are preponderantly not of the fully conscious 
 order : both recognize the disordering of mental 
 impairment and the significance of variations 
 in mental endowment, though with but modest 
 agreement upon their interpretation; for the 
 one view ever holds aloof from the super- 
 natural implications of the other, and looks^ 
 upon all the achievements of mind as brought 
 about, not by any release of cramping limita- 
 tions, but by favoring development of the 
 highest natural potentialities/' ^ 
 
 The surrender of the psychologists cannot 
 be long delayed, and with their surrender 
 must come a notable enlargement of our 
 knowledge of the nature and capacities of 
 human personality. Fortunately, practical re- 
 sults of the highest order have already fol- 
 lowed the discovery of the subliminal powers 
 of man. To ascertain these it is necessary, 
 
 1 " The Subconscious." By Joseph Jastrow, p. 540. 
 
52 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 for the moment, to pause in our contempla- 
 tion of the labors of the Society for Psychical 
 Research, and, crossing the English Channel, 
 set foot once more in the land where Mesmer 
 won fame and fortune. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ^'Pioneers of France in the New 
 World" 
 
 FRANCE may well be called the cradle 
 of the scientific study of personality. 
 It was there, as will be remembered, 
 that Mesmer first drew popular attention to 
 the phenomena of hypnotism, and thus raised 
 doubts as to the correctness of the habitual 
 view of the nature of the self; it was there that 
 Bertrand discerned the great fact of sugges- 
 tion underlying and animating all hypnotic 
 manifestations; and if, with the researches of 
 Esdaile, Elliotson, and Braid, England for 
 the time assumed leadership in this field of 
 research, France since Braid's day has re- 
 gained and continues to hold premier place. 
 It is unquestionably true that, from the the- 
 oretical and philosophical standpoint, Eng- 
 land is to-day in a unique position, thanks to 
 the labors of Sidgwick, Myers, Gurney, and 
 their associates in the Society for Psychical 
 
 53 
 
54 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 Research. But in respect to practicality, to 
 the appHcation of the new knowledge to pur- 
 poses immediately beneficial to mankind, 
 there is no country that has achieved as much 
 as France. Since, therefore, any survey of 
 the subject would be incomplete without mak- 
 ing clear the concrete as well as abstract gains 
 effected, it is not only desirable but necessary 
 to review the work of those who may with 
 peculiar fitness be termed pioneers of France 
 in a new world. 
 
 A Frenchman, indeed, was the legitimate 
 inheriter of the mantle of Braid. This was 
 Dr. A. A. Liebeault, now famous the world 
 over as the founder of psychotherapeutics, 
 or the science of healing by suggestion. Lie- 
 beault, who was born in 1823, began to study 
 mesmerism in a desultory way as early as 
 1848. But it was not until 1860, the year of 
 Braid's death, that he undertook systematic 
 research with a view to ascertaining its effi- 
 cacy as an adjunct to medicine. A poverty- 
 stricken country doctor, always hard pressed 
 to earn a livelihood, he did not hesitate to 
 make great sacrifices to attain his object. 
 To his thriftily inclined peasant clientele he 
 announced: "If you wish to be treated by 
 
 talk 
 
''Pioneers of France in New World'' 55 
 
 drugs as of old, I will so treat you, but you 
 will have to pay my fees ; if, however, you allow 
 me to treat you by mesmerism, I will do so 
 free of charge/' In this way he secured 
 many patients suffering from the most varied 
 ailments, and the cures he effected brought 
 him fame throughout the countryside. Soon 
 he removed to the town of Nancv, where he 
 based his practice entirely on mesmerism — 
 or hypnotism, to use the term then being 
 generally adopted — and devoted himself to 
 the relief of the aflBicted poor. In his view, 
 as in that of the ''school'' of which he later 
 became the head, the induction of hypnosis 
 and all the phenomena of hypnotism are due 
 to nothing but suggestion, and the hypnotic 
 trance itself is of the nature of sleep. These 
 opinions he set forth in a book which he pub- 
 lished in 1866, but which attracted so little 
 attention that, it is said, only one copy was 
 sold. The time was not yet ripe for wide 
 acceptance of the marvels of hypnotism, and 
 if the peasantry, rid of their ills, blessed him 
 as ''the good father Liebeault," his medical 
 colleagues deemed him a fanatic if not a mad- 
 man. 
 
 In fact, general appreciation of the services 
 
56 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 Liebeault was rendering did not come until 
 1882, when a case of sciatica of six years' 
 standing was reported as having been cured 
 by him. It happened that the patient had 
 been treated by the celebrated Dr. Bernheim 
 of the College of Nancy, and the latter, de- 
 sirous of meeting the man who had succeeded 
 where he had failed, paid a visit to Liebeault's 
 clinic. He came as a skeptic, but what he 
 saw shook his skepticism to its foundations. 
 A small outer room was crowded with patients, 
 victims of all manner of maladies, but singu- 
 larly hopeful and cheerful, chatting together 
 with a vivacity unknown in the mournful 
 waiting room of the orthodox physician. In 
 an inner chamber Liebeault, of unimposing 
 presence but of a countenance that radiated 
 kindness and strength, hypnotized each in 
 turn and with wonderful rapidity. It was 
 seldom that more than ten minutes elapsed 
 between the entry and departure of a patient. 
 *'Sit down, think of nothing, absolutely 
 nothing. Look at me. There, you are going 
 to sleep already, your eyes are heavy, you can- 
 not open them. No, there is no use of trying. 
 My voice seems distant to you. You are 
 asleep, asleep, asleep. Sleep then, my friend.'' 
 
"Pioneers of France in New World'' 57 
 
 Thus, with variations, ran his formula. 
 Sometimes he had but to pronounce the word 
 "Sleep!" and the patient was entranced. 
 Then would follow curative suggestions, im- 
 pressing upon the sleeper's mind the fact that 
 the painful symptoms would be ameliorated 
 and finally disappear, that he would be free 
 from insomnia, enjoy good digestion, et cetera. 
 
 "But do you mean,'' cried Bernheim, as 
 he watched the patients come and go, "do 
 you mean that by telling these people that 
 they will regain health they actually regain 
 it.?" 
 
 "Not always, but often." 
 
 "How, then, do you do it.?" 
 
 "As yet I do not know. Come and help 
 me learn." 
 
 And Bernheim came, not once but many 
 times; in the end to associate himself with 
 Liebeault's labors, and to bring as coworkers 
 two other scientists of wide reputation. Dr. 
 Liegeois and Professor Beaunis, the first to 
 study hypnotism in its legal aspects, the sec- 
 ond to explore it from the physiological stand- 
 point. Now Liebeault's reputation advanced 
 by leaps and bounds, became national, even 
 international; now the first edition of his long- 
 
58 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 neglected book was speedily exhausted; and 
 now savants of all countries turned their steps 
 to Nancy. 
 
 Meanwhile another Frenchman, Dr. Char- 
 cot, had been working vigorously in the eflFort 
 to arouse the scientific as well as the general 
 public to the importance of hypnotism. Char- 
 cot, however, was handicapped from the out- 
 set by theories which from their very nature 
 tended to retard his progress. Unlike Lie- 
 beault he afiirmed that hypnosis was essen- 
 tially a pathological condition akin to hysteria, 
 and unlike Liebeault again he confined his 
 experiments to one class of subjects, hysterical 
 patients, and principally to the patients in 
 the Salpetriere, the great Parisian asylum with 
 which he was connected. ''There were two 
 reasons for this,'' he once explained, ''first, 
 because the practice of hypnotization is by 
 no means free from danger to whoever may 
 be subjected to it; and, secondly, because not 
 infrequently we see hysteric symptoms mani- 
 fest themselves at the first attempt of this 
 kind, which may thus be the occasional cause 
 of this neurosis. One avoids this danger, and 
 consequently a heavy responsibility, by operat- 
 ing, as I have ever done, only upon subjects 
 
''Pioneers of France in New World'' 59 
 
 that are manifestly hysterical. The second 
 reason why I have always preferred to act 
 in this way ... is that hysterical subjects 
 are as a rule much more sensitive than persons 
 reputed to be in sound health.'' ^ 
 
 Charcot stoutly denied that suggestion 
 played any important role in hypnotism, and 
 he employed purely physical means to induce 
 the hypnotic state. Sometimes he would fol- 
 low the Braidian method of having the patient 
 gaze steadily at a small bright object; some- 
 times he would substitute for protracted gaz- 
 ing suddenness and intensity of impression 
 by unexpectedly exposing before the patient's 
 eyes a powerful electric or magnesium light, 
 or by clanging a gong. "'The instrument 
 being struck, the patient not expecting it, she 
 is seen to become suddenly motionless, as 
 though frozen where she stands, fixed in the 
 gesture she may have been making when the 
 gong was sounded."^ But this last method 
 not infrequently brought on attacks of hys- 
 teria instead of the hypnotic trance, and even 
 Charcot admitted that it was "'a rather brutal 
 expedient." For our present purpose it is 
 not necessary to inquire into the merits of 
 
 1 The Forum, Vol. VIII, p. 5Q6 et seq. 
 
60 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 the controversy provoked by his theories and 
 methods, and which is still in progress. Our 
 concern is with results, and however much 
 the Salpetriere school of hypnotism may be 
 in error, its founder and his disciples, notably 
 Pierre Janet and Alfred Binet, have in no 
 small measure advanced our knowledge of 
 the true nature of man. This, though, must 
 be said, that had not Bernheim, Beaunis, and 
 Liegeois associated themselves with Liebeault 
 when they did, hypnotism must have lan- 
 guished longer in disrepute, for Charcot was 
 far from persuading the scientific world of its 
 rationality.^ 
 
 1 The essential points of difference between the tenets of the 
 two schools were well indicated a few years ago by Dr. Babinski, a 
 well-known pupil of Charcot's. Addressing the International Con- 
 gress of Experimental Psychology, Dr. Babinski stated that while 
 the Paris school did not deny that the hypnotic condition might be 
 induced in other than hysterical patients, it insisted that they were 
 pre-eminently the best subjects. And although it admitted that 
 suggestion must be taken into account, it held that suggestion should 
 by no means be considered the great source of hypnotic phenomena. 
 If, as was characteristic, a patient unacquainted with medical facts 
 and entirely ignorant of hypnotism showed, when hypnotized, the 
 characteristics which belonged to the first of the three consecutive 
 hypnotic stages described by Charcot, Dr. Babinski deemed it 
 impossible to believe that suggestion was the cause. Why, he 
 demanded, should the characteristic muscular state be contracture 
 rather than paralysis, tremor, or any other symptom.? And after 
 M. Bernheim had produced hypnotic sleep, as he claimed, by sug- 
 
"Pioneers of France in New World'' 61 
 
 From the standpoint of personality the re- 
 searches of both schools have been significant 
 in two important ways — first, in proving 
 the complexity and divisibility of the self, and, 
 second, in focusing attention on the possi- 
 bility of manipulating this complexity and 
 divisibility to repair the ravages of disease in 
 the bodily organism, as also to provide the 
 individual with means of better adjusting 
 himself, morally and intellectually, to his en- 
 vironment. Almost from the first the French 
 investigators were forced to recognize the 
 fact that under the hypnotic influence per- 
 sonality is subject to strange alterations. 
 Indeed, even before they began to gain any 
 
 gestion alone, why did he find anaesthesia, or loss of feeling, which 
 he had not suggested? Dr. Babinski acknowledged that it had 
 been claimed by the Nancy school that Charcot's three stages — 
 the lethargic, the cataleptic, and the somnambuhc — were themselves 
 the result of suggestion. But even if that were possible, which he 
 denied, it would not explain their occurrence in the first cases where 
 they were observed. It should be pointed out, however, that this 
 able defense of the Paris school fails to meet the chief criticism, so 
 finely expressed by Myers: "One feels that the Salpetriere has, in a 
 sense, been smothered in its own abundance. The richest collection 
 of hysterics which the world has ever seen, it has also (one fears) 
 become a kind of unconscious school of these unconscious prophets 
 — a milieu where the new arrival learns insensibly, from the very 
 atmosphere of experiment around her, to adopt her own reflexes or 
 responses to the subtly divined expectations of the operator." — 
 "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," Vol. VI, p. 200. 
 
62 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 insight into the mechanism of these altera- 
 tions there was suggested to them, by the 
 peculiar case of Felida X., the possibility that 
 every human being is born with at least the 
 germ of a secondary personality latent within 
 him.^ 
 
 Felida was a native of Bordeaux, the 
 daughter of a sea captain, and until her 
 thirteenth year seemed like any normal child. 
 Then, however, she manifested tendencies to 
 hysteria, and a little later fell periodically 
 
 1 The great importance of this case in the development of the 
 scientific study of personahty is well stated by Professor Pierre Janet 
 in a recent work giving permanent form to the lectures given by him 
 at the Harvard Medical School in the autumn of 1906. "Allow me," 
 observes Professor Janet, "to make you acquainted with Felida. 
 She is a very remarkable personage who has played a rather im- 
 portant part in the history of ideas. Do not forget that this humble 
 person was the educator of Taine and Ribot. Her history was the 
 great argument of which the positivist psychologists made use at the 
 time of the heroic struggles against the spiritualistic dogmatism of 
 Cousin's school. But for Felida it is not certain that there would 
 be a professorship of psychology at the College de France, and that 
 I should be here, speaking to you of the mental state of hystericals. 
 It is a physician of Bordeaux who has attached his name to the 
 history of Felida: Azam reported this astonishing history, first at the 
 Society of Surgery, then at the Academy of Medicine, in January, 
 1860. He entitled his communication, *Note on Nervous Sleep or 
 Hypnotism,' and spoke of this case in connection with the discussion 
 of the existence of an abnormal sleep during which it would be pos- 
 sible to operate without pain. And this communication, thus in- 
 cidentally made, was to revolutionize psychology in fifty years." — 
 "The Major Symptoms of Hysteria," pp. 78-79. 
 
'' Pioneers of France in New World'' 63 
 
 and quite spontaneously into a trancelike 
 condition, out of which she would emerge 
 the possessor of characteristics radically dif- 
 ferent from those of her normal self. Oddly 
 enough, the secondary Felida was a con- 
 spicuous improvement over the primary Fe- 
 lida, who was of a melancholy, fretful, and 
 taciturn disposition, whereas the trances left 
 her buoyant, vivacious, and social. What 
 was still more striking, when in the secondary 
 state she had a clear memory for all the 
 events of both states, but when her normal 
 self knew nothing of the happenings of the 
 secondary condition. Before she was fifteen 
 the alterations of personality occurred so often 
 that her parents called in a physician. Dr. 
 Azam, of Bordeaux, who has left a graphic 
 account of her mysterious history. Every 
 means was tried in vain to check the recur- 
 rence of her ''crises,'' but, happily, her malady 
 ultimately worked its own cure. Little by 
 little the secondary state gained command 
 over the primary, until the latter finally ap- 
 peared only at rare intervals, and the patient 
 thus became a new woman in the strictest 
 sense of the term. In no way did she suffer 
 inconvenience save when lapsing into her 
 
64 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 primary self, for each such lapse meant a loss 
 of memory for the occurrences of a now 
 lengthy period. ''She then/' we are told, 
 ^'knew nothing of the dog that played at her 
 feet, or of the acquaintance of yesterday. She 
 knew nothing of her household arrangements, 
 her business undertakings, her social duties.'' 
 Making a virtue of necessity, Felida accus- 
 tomed herself, whenever she felt the premoni- 
 tory symptoms of an attack, to write letters 
 to her other self, giving full directions as to the 
 conduct of her domestic and social aflFairs, 
 and in this way she was enabled to bridge 
 the gap in memory to some extent. It was in 
 1858 that Dr. Azam first studied her, and 
 when he last reported on her case, in 1887, 
 she was married, was the happy mother of a 
 family, and was constantly in the secondary 
 state excepting for lapses of but a few hours' 
 duration occurring only six or seven times a 
 year. 
 
 Once scientific experimentation with hys- 
 terical subjects began in earnest, it was seen 
 that Felida's, while an exceptional, was by no 
 means an isolated case. From Paris, from 
 Havre, from La Rochelle, from other parts 
 of France, came reports of instances of alter- 
 
"Pioneers of France in New World"' 65 
 
 nate and even multiple personality. It would 
 be tedious to recite the details of these cases, 
 accounts of which are accessible in numerous 
 publications. But something must be said 
 of at least one, remarkable both for its phe- 
 nomena and the care with which it has been 
 studied. Of the subject, the peasant wife of 
 a charcoal burner, F. W. H. Myers could at 
 one time justly write: ^^ There is perhaps no 
 one in France whose personal history is 
 watched with so keen an interest by such a 
 group of scientific men.'' In her normal 
 state Madame B. was a timid, dull, unedu- 
 cated woman. When hypnotized she at once 
 became bright, vivacious, quick-witted, even 
 mischievous, and when cast into a still deeper 
 state of hypnosis a third personality emerged, 
 a personality with characteristics superior to 
 those of both the others and regarding both 
 with considerable disfavor. To these per- 
 sonalities Professor Janet, who has observed 
 the case more closely than any other inves- 
 tigator, gave the names of, respectively, 
 Leonie, Leontine, and Leonore. Leonie, it 
 seems, knew nothing of the thoughts and 
 actions of Leontine and Leonore; Leontine 
 had knowledge of Leonie but none of Leonore; 
 
66 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 and Leonore was cognizant of all that occurred 
 in the Leonie and Leontine states. Thus 
 there existed in the single individual three 
 distinct personalities of which the normal, 
 wake-a-day self was the least gifted. How 
 sharp the line of demarcation was may clearly 
 be seen from an incident reported by Pro- 
 fessor Janet in the Revue Philosophique for 
 March, 1888, and illustrating at once the 
 cleavage between the several selves and the 
 possibility of one of the latent selves appear- 
 ing spontaneously, that is to say without the 
 aid of hypnotism. 
 
 "She had left Havre more than two 
 months,'' writes M. Janet, "'when I received 
 from her a very curious letter. On the first 
 page was a short note, written in a serious and 
 respectful style. She was unwell, she said, 
 worse on some days than on others, and she 
 signed her true name, Madame B. But over 
 the page began another letter in a quite dif- 
 ferent style, and which I may quote as a 
 curiosity. ' My dear good sir, I must tell you 
 that B. really, really makes me suffer very 
 much; she cannot sleep, she spits blood, she 
 hurts me. I am going to demolish her; she 
 bores me. I am ill also. This is from your 
 
"Pioneers of France in New World'' 67 
 
 devoted Leontine/ When Madame B. re- 
 turned to Havre I naturally questioned her 
 about this singular missive. She remem- 
 bered the first letter very distinctly, but 
 had not the slightest recollection of the 
 second. I at first thought that there must 
 have been an attack of spontaneous som- 
 nambulism between the moment when she 
 finished the first letter and the moment when 
 she closed the envelope . . . But afterwards 
 these unconscious, spontaneous letters be- 
 came common, and I was better able to 
 study their mode of production. I was for- 
 tunately able to watch Madame B. on one 
 occasion while she went through this curious 
 performance. She was seated at a table, 
 and held in her left hand the piece of knit- 
 ting at which she had been working. Her 
 face was calm, her eyes looked into space 
 with a certain fixity, but she was not cata- 
 leptic for she was humming a rustic air; her 
 right hand wrote quickly and, as it were, sur- 
 reptitiously. I removed the paper without 
 her noticing me and then spoke to her; she 
 turned round, wide awake, but surprised to 
 see me, for in her state of distraction she 
 had not noticed my approach. Of the let- 
 
68 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 ter which she was writing she knew nothing 
 whatever." ^ 
 
 The phenomenon of "automatic writing'' 
 will require attention later. For the present 
 let us continue our survey of the hypnotic 
 evidence emphasizing the instability and divisi- 
 bility of personality. It was soon discovered 
 not only that the hypnotized subject would 
 assume, with almost preternatural dramatic 
 fidelity, any role suggested to him by the 
 operator, but that with the aid of hypnotism 
 a subject might be carried back to any pre- 
 vious period of his life, losing all memory of 
 events subsequent to that period but regain- 
 ing in most exact detail the early memories 
 long forgotten by the waking self. Here, it 
 was at once suggested, was a therapeutic hint 
 of first-rate importance, for thus the physician 
 might be able to learn both the cause and the 
 nature of some obscure malady baffling his 
 best powers of diagnosis. It was also found 
 that, although the waking self is seemingly 
 not cognizant of the events of the hypnotic 
 state, any command given in the hypnotic 
 state will infallibly — unless it be a command 
 
 1 Translation by F. W. H. Myers in "Human Personality and Its 
 Survival of Bodily Death," Vol. I, p. 323. 
 
^^ Pioneers of France in New World'' 69 
 
 repugnant to the moral sense of the subject — 
 be obeyed, even in the waking state, no matter 
 what the lapse in time between the moment 
 of giving the command and the moment set 
 for its performance. Thus, A. hypnotizes 
 B. and orders him to go to the pubHc library, 
 exactly a week later, and call for a certain 
 volume of poetry. B. is then awakened. 
 Next week, to the hour, impelled by some 
 uncontrollable impulse, he obeys A.'s com- 
 mand. 
 
 Here, however, we are brought face to face 
 with a fact fully demonstrated in the opening 
 years of Nancy and Salpetriere experimenta- 
 tion, but too often overlooked in recent dis- 
 cussion of the nature of personality. The 
 very persistence of a subconscious memory for 
 post-hypnotic suggestions such as that just 
 described, bears out F. W. H. Myers's theory 
 that personality is at once extremely complex 
 and profoundly unitary. Indeed, it has been 
 definitely shown that the waking self is not so 
 oblivious to conditions imposed during hyp- 
 nosis as circumstances would indicate. Lie- 
 beault, Bernheim, Liegeois, Binet proved this 
 by experiments in the hypnotic production 
 of so-called negative hallucinations. For in- 
 
70 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 stance, Elsie B., eighteen years old, a servant 
 girl of a shy, modest disposition, was hypno- 
 tized and told that upon awakening she would 
 see every one in the room with the single 
 exception of the operator. When she was 
 aroused the latter did all in his power to 
 attract her attention — even to making un- 
 pleasant remarks concerning her and rudely 
 handling her person — but she placidly con- 
 versed with those about her and gave no sign 
 of being aware of his presence. He then 
 requested a colleague to rehypnotize her and 
 to suggest that she would now see him. Re- 
 awakened, she at once replied to his saluta- 
 tion, but persisted in denying that he had 
 been in the room during the preceding inter- 
 val. But when, placing his hand on her 
 forehead, he commanded: ''You remember 
 everything, absolutely everything. Speak out! 
 What did I say to you ?" she blushed deeply 
 and, although with reluctance, rehearsed all 
 that had taken place, insisting meanwhile 
 that she "'must have dreamed it.'' 
 
 Thus, we find the hypnotists of France, like 
 the psychical researchers of England, pointing 
 the way to wiser conceptions of the self; and, 
 as was said above, we also find them turning 
 
'' Pioneers of France in New WorW^ 71 
 
 the new knowledge to practical account in 
 the betterment of the individual and the race. 
 This is particularly true of the Nancy school, 
 which from Liebeault's time has recognized 
 the influence of suggestion on the bodily 
 organism and has steadfastly employed hyp- 
 notism for therapeutic rather than experi- 
 mental purposes. Of course, at the outset 
 of their labors the representatives of this 
 school did not possess the information since 
 gained of the subtle interactions between the 
 physical and the psychical in the human 
 body; but they saw clearly enough that in 
 some mysterious way suggestions made to a 
 hypnotized patient set in motion forces mighty 
 to heal and upbuild. Undeniably, their en- 
 thusiasm led them to indulge in extravagant 
 hopes, and to much futile effort. Neverthe- 
 less, the experience of years has shown an 
 ever-widening sphere of usefulness for thera- 
 peutic hypnotism. Among the first discov- 
 eries was the fact that hypnotic suggestion 
 radically affects the power of digestion, nu- 
 trition, circulation, and the like; also that it 
 could be utilized to strengthen the intellect 
 and the will and thus be made to serve edu- 
 cational and morally corrective ends. Lie- 
 
72 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 beault, to cite a few examples, took in hand 
 a group of weak-minded children and by 
 hypnotism alone expanded their intelligence 
 to a really marvelous extent. One boy, who 
 was actually an idiot and deemed incapable 
 of learning to read or write, he so stimulated 
 that in less than three months he had mas- 
 tered the alphabet and could make simple 
 arithmetical calculations. In the checking 
 of bad habits in children conspicuous success 
 was achieved, more particularly by Dr. Be- 
 rillon, who was perhaps the first systematically 
 to apply the hypnotic method to education. 
 Similarly, adults were cured of alcoholism, 
 excessive smoking, and kindred vices. This 
 last use of hypnotism, as is well known, has 
 since secured wide application, and with the 
 most encouraging results.^ 
 
 With the passage of time, too, it was realized 
 that if, from the therapeutic standpoint, 
 hypnotism were unavailing in the treatment 
 of most physical ills, it might be utilized to 
 alleviate the pain accompanying such ills, 
 and in some cases to effect cures indirectly; 
 and was of positive curative value in connec- 
 tion w4th all maladies having a psychical 
 
 1 See Appendix III. 
 
^'Pioneers of France in New World'' 73 
 
 basis, unless these maladies had progressed 
 from the functional to the organic stage. 
 Just what this means to mankind may best 
 be shown by citing illustrative cases, some 
 taken from the earlier and some from recent 
 records of French hypnotic practice. Men- 
 tion has been made of Liebeault's sciatica 
 cure which was the means of interesting 
 Bernheim in hypnotism. Here, as in similar 
 cures of neuralgia, rheumatism, inflammation, 
 etc., the important element in effecting the 
 cure was most likely the removal of pain by 
 hypnotic suggestion, nature thus being en- 
 abled to vindicate herself more readily. For 
 this reason, moreover, the use of hypnotism 
 may well be recommended to lessen the 
 sufferings of those attacked by painful in- 
 curable diseases, such as cancer; and by some 
 it is even claimed that a painless death may 
 be assured by impressing upon the dying the 
 suggestion that they shall feel no pain. In 
 this connection it is interesting to recall a 
 case in which death itself would seem to have 
 been met face to face and conquered by 
 hypnotism. I quote from the abridged account 
 given by Myers: 
 
 "From the age of thirteen the patient, 
 
74 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 Marceline R., had been subject to a miser- 
 able series of hysterical troubles — chorea, 
 crises, anaesthesia, et cetera. In January, 
 1886, the hysterical tendency took its most 
 serious form — of insuperable vomiting, which 
 became so bad that the very sight of a spoon- 
 ful of soup produced distressing spasms. 
 Artificial means of feeding were tried, with 
 diminishing success, and in June, 1887, she 
 was paralytic and so emaciated that (in spite 
 of the rarity of deaths from any form of 
 hysteria) her death from exhaustion appeared 
 imminent. 
 
 "'M. Janet [Jules Janet, the brother of 
 Prof. Pierre Janet] was then asked to hypno- 
 tize her. Almost at once he succeeded in in- 
 ducing a somnambulic state in which she 
 could eat readily and digest well. Her weight 
 increased rapidly, and there was no longer 
 any anxiety as to a fatal result. But the 
 grave inconvenience remained that she could 
 eat only when hypnotized. M. Janet tried 
 to overcome this difiiculty; for a time he suc- 
 ceeded; and she left the hospital for a few 
 months. She soon, however, returned in her 
 old state of starvation. M. Janet now changed 
 his tactics. Instead of trying to enable her 
 
"Pioneers of France in New World'' 75 
 
 to eat in her first or so-called normal state, 
 he resolved to try to enable her to live com- 
 fortably in her secondary state. In this he 
 gradually succeeded, and sent her out in 
 October, 1888, established in her new per- 
 sonality. . . . When he took me to see her 
 . . . she had been in the hypnotic state con- 
 tinuously for three months and ten days, 
 during which time she had successfully passed 
 a written examination for the office of hospi- 
 tal nurse, which she had failed to pass in her 
 normal state.'' ^ 
 
 In this instance we see hypnotism benefit- 
 ing the subject both physically and mentally. 
 Unquestionably, of course, mental malady 
 lay at the root of Marceline's affliction, and 
 it is precisely in the treatment of such disor- 
 ders that hypnotism is most successful. Fre- 
 quently, as recent research is making very 
 evident, physical ills are but the outward 
 manifestation of some deep-seated psychical 
 disturbance, and whenever this is the case, 
 resort may be had to hypnotism with con- 
 siderable expectation of a cure. To illustrate: 
 There was once brought to Pierre Janet a 
 
 1 " Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death," Vol I., 
 p. 331. 
 
76 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 young woman suffering from periodical and 
 prolonged attacks of hysteria, violent head- 
 aches, and total loss of the sense of contact 
 and of the sense of pain. She could not walk, 
 she felt no injury however severe. By hyp- 
 notism alone this unfortunate was restored 
 to her family in complete health, her hysteria 
 and her headaches gone, her sensibility nor- 
 mal. Another patient was the victim of a 
 persistent hemorrhage of the eyes, no physical 
 cause for which could be found. Hypnotism 
 checked this when all else failed.^ 
 
 As in the cure of hysteria so does hypnotism 
 find a wide field of usefulness in the removal 
 of hallucinations and those phobies, or irra- 
 tional fears, which so often end in the com- 
 mitment of the victim to an asylum, or in his 
 despairing death by suicide. Few people are 
 aware of the extent and variety of this form 
 of mental disease. There is, in truth, no 
 predicting the strange obsessions that may 
 invade the human mind, haunting it with 
 vampire-like insistence. One man, terrified 
 by he knows not what, may find himself un- 
 able to cross an open space; another be 
 afraid to venture outdoors alone; another to 
 
 ^ See the Revue de VHypnotisme for February, 1892, p. 251. 
 
''Pioneers of France in New World'' 77 
 
 sit in a room with closed doors; another may 
 feel that everyone he meets is eying and criti- 
 cising him; another asserts that he is made 
 of glass and must exercise the greatest care 
 to prevent himself being smashed to frag- 
 ments. Such fears would be ludicrous were 
 they not so tragic. Particularly pathetic is 
 a case that came to Professor Janet's notice 
 some years ago. Madame P., a dyspeptic, 
 had been put on a diet of toast and water, and, 
 rebelling, was wont to indulge in secret in 
 coffee and rolls. These she found did her 
 little harm, and gradually the habit grew 
 upon her until finally she passed her entire 
 time wandering from one Parisian restaurant 
 to another, drinking from twenty to thirty 
 cups of coffee a day and consuming incredible 
 quantities of rolls. At night, if she chanced 
 to wake and could find no coffee and rolls in 
 the house, she would pace her room in feverish 
 anxiety until the restaurants opened in the 
 morning. Somewhat similar is a case re- 
 ported a few months ago by the same au- 
 thority: 
 
 "Here is a young woman. Que, twenty-six 
 years of age; in coming to see us she brings 
 with her a large bag, and her pockets are filled 
 
78 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 to overflowing. What is she bringing with 
 her in coming to us for a consultation ? It is 
 simply provisions for the journey. She has 
 in her bag and in her pockets several pieces 
 of bread, a few slices of ham, some chocolate 
 tablets, and some sugar. One would say 
 that she was going to cross a desert, when it is 
 simply a question of crossing a few streets. 
 The provisions are indispensable to her, for, 
 especially in the open air and in squares, it is 
 absolutely necessary that she should take 
 something to strengthen her. At the end of 
 several steps she feels dazed, becomes dizzy, 
 chokes, and is covered with cold sweats. The 
 danger would be great if she did not know 
 the remedy. All she needs is to strengthen 
 herself. She eats a piece of ham, puts a piece 
 of sugar in her mouth, and is thus able to take 
 a few more steps. But very soon it all begins 
 again, and it is only with the aid of rolls and 
 chocolates that she is able to cross a square. 
 One can, therefore, understand her miserable 
 plight when her provisions run short. She is 
 obliged at all costs, with unheard-of efforts, 
 to cross the desert to reach an oasis — that is, 
 a bakery. During this terrible journey she 
 gets along as best she can. What do unfor- 
 
"Pioneers of France in New World'' 79 
 
 tunate travelers not eat ? She may pick up a 
 raw potato, capture an onion, or a few green 
 leaves; this hardly sustains her, but gives her 
 enough strength to reach a bakery. In gen- 
 eral, she prefers to remain at home; that is 
 less dangerous, and so she does nothing else 
 but prepare and eat food all day long." ^ 
 
 For such unfortunates there is little hope 
 unless they place themselves under the care 
 of the skilled psychopathologist, the savant 
 accustomed to explore the vagaries of the 
 mind and able to touch the hidden springs of 
 thought and feeling and action. Then and 
 only then will the evil spirits of obsession be 
 exorcised, and the stricken mind find itself 
 once more in harmony with its environment. 
 Whence the secret of the cure.^ As yet none 
 can say with certitude. But, as we are now 
 about to learn, the key to unlock this mystery 
 would at last seem to be fairly in the hands 
 of science. 
 
 1 The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 3. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 American Explorers of the Subconscious 
 
 AFTER what has been said of the de- 
 velopment of hypnotism as a thera- 
 peutic agency, it will be evident that 
 its widest sphere of usefulness is in the treat- 
 ment of nervous and mental disease. This 
 constitutes a fact of the highest social sig- 
 nificance. Under the stress of modern civi- 
 lization, and more particularly in countries 
 of great economic activity, neurasthenia, hys- 
 teria, and kindred disorders have increased 
 with appalling rapidity. Convincing proof 
 of this is furnished by the recently published 
 statistics of the United States Census Bureau 
 relating to insanity, that dread culmination 
 of nervous and mental breakdown. These 
 we may well contemplate for a moment, in 
 order to bring clearly before our mind's eye 
 the ravages of insanity and the necessity for 
 utilizing all the means at our command to 
 combat it. The figures to be quoted refer 
 usually to the year 1903, and in most cases 
 
 80 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 81 
 
 only to the insane confined in public and 
 private asylums. 
 
 It appears, then, that as regards the coun- 
 tries of the European continent, the minimum 
 is found in Hungary with a total of 2,716 in- 
 sane, or 14.1 per 100,000 of population, and 
 the maximum is reached in Switzerland with 
 a total of 7,434 insane, or 224.2 per 100,000. 
 Germany has 108,004 insane, or 191.6; France, 
 69,190, or 177.5, and Italy, 34,802, or 109.2. 
 In the British Empire the ratios are far 
 higher: Ireland, 22,138, or 490.9; Scotland, 
 16,658, or 363.7; England and Wales, 113,964, 
 or 340.1, and Canada, 12,819, or 238.6. 
 Turning to the United States we find a total 
 of no fewer than 150,151 insane, and while 
 this is a ratio of only 186.2 per 100,000 of 
 population, there is good reason to suspect 
 that insanity is increasing in the United States 
 more rapidly than in any other country. In 
 any event, it is increasing so rapidly as to 
 assume the aspect of an urgent social problem 
 which must be solved if the best interests of 
 the nation are to be conserved. 
 
 Investigation shows that though the present 
 ratio of 186.2 per 100,000 refers only to the 
 insane immured in asylums, it exceeds by 
 
82 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 16.2 the ratio of 1890 for all the insane in the 
 United States, whether in or out of asylums, 
 and exceeds by 68.0 the ratio of the same 
 year for the asylum insane. Doubtless, as 
 has been suggested, the increase is in part 
 attributable to kinder and more rational 
 methods of treatment whereby the lives of 
 the insane are prolonged. But this can ex- 
 plain only a small part of the increase, when 
 the fact is borne in mind that during the 
 decade 1880-1890 the population of Ameri- 
 can asylums increased from 40,942 to 74,028, 
 and by 1903 had leaped to 150,151, or more 
 than double the total for 1890. Obviously, 
 the census officials have warrant for their 
 belief that in the United States the growth of 
 insanity is outdistancing that of the popula- 
 tion; and consequently there is good ground 
 for the assertion that the lesser mental ills are 
 increasing with even greater rapidity. The 
 need of a remedy is plainly urged both by 
 humanitarian and economic considerations. 
 The maintenance bill for American asylums 
 already amounts to more than $20,000,000 
 annually, over ninety per cent of the insane 
 in the United States being wholly or partially 
 dependent on public support. And no nation 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 83 
 
 thus constantly and increasingly weakened 
 may hope to retain political, industrial, or 
 commercial headship. 
 
 Under such circumstances, and in view of 
 the enterprising spirit of the American people, 
 it would naturally be thought that they would 
 be among the first to seize, develop, and 
 utilize the results of the new science of psy- 
 chopathology. But the contrary has been the 
 case, and to such a degree that, as concerns 
 the investigation of mental vagaries, America 
 to-day lags far behind France, Germany, 
 Holland, Italy, and other countries of the Old 
 World. She has no institution similar to the 
 Salpetriere; the psychopathic laboratories and 
 clinics so numerous in Europe are practically 
 unknown within her borders. For this con- 
 dition of affairs there have been several 
 causes, into which it is not necessary to enter. 
 Far more important and agreeable is it to be 
 able to record that a new era is dawning, and 
 that the time seems near when, in point both 
 of theoretical and practical achievement in 
 psychopathological research, the United States 
 will be outranked by no other country, not 
 even by France. When this time shall have 
 arrived, the names of a little group of pioneers 
 
84 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 will be held in grateful and enduring remem- 
 brance. 
 
 Foremost among these are Boris Sidis and 
 Morton Prince. Years ago Dr. Prince, who 
 is a Boston physician of international repu- 
 tation as a specialist in nervous and mental 
 disease, became persuaded that the labors of 
 Charcot, Liebeault, Bernheim, and Janet had 
 yielded truths of great moment to both the 
 psychologist and the physician, and it is safe 
 to say that no one has done more than he to 
 overcome the overt and covert opposition of 
 the American scientific world to the employ- 
 ment of suggestion as a curative and experi- 
 mental -agent. Recognizing, as few of his 
 colaborers have recognized, the need of tak- 
 ing psychotherapeutics out of the control of 
 ''wonder workers,'' and of placing it on a 
 strictly scientific basis, he has largely devoted 
 his energies to experimentation and observa- 
 tion, and (especially since the launching of 
 his periodical, the Journal of Abnormal Psy- 
 chology) to the task of giving publicity to the 
 discoveries of such savants as Janet and 
 Bernheim, and in this way furthering knowl- 
 edge of the progress achieved and of the 
 problems still baffling the psychopathologists. 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 85 
 
 But he is also a practitioner and has to his 
 credit many cures; notably the much-dis- 
 cussed ''Miss Beauchamp" case of multiple 
 personality. 
 
 The facts in this case, as reported by Dr. 
 Prince himself, are as follows: In the spring 
 of 1898 there was brought to him a young 
 woman twenty-three years old, a student in a 
 New England College, and a ''neurasthenic" 
 of an extreme type, suffering from headaches, 
 insomnia, bodily pains, and persistent fatigue. 
 The customary methods of treatment having 
 failed to afford relief. Dr. Prince resorted to 
 hypnotism, and the young woman whose 
 identity has been veiled by the pseudonym 
 "Christine L. Beauchamp,'' seemed to be on 
 the highroad to recovery, when there suddenly 
 developed in her, in the hypnotic trance, an 
 apparently secondary personality. This was 
 utterly alien from the normal Miss Beau- 
 champ, who was dignified and reserved, 
 whereas the newcomer, if the term be per- 
 missible, manifested a gay, mischievous, fun- 
 loving, talkative disposition. Moreover, she 
 absolutely denied identity with Miss Beau- 
 champ, while claiming and revealing knowl- 
 edge of her most secret thoughts and feelings. 
 
86 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 At first Dr. Prince suspected deception, 
 but, try as he might, he could not trap the new 
 personaHty into statements that would con- 
 firm this suspicion. Finally, a day came when 
 ''Sally,'' as the secondary being called herself, 
 succeeded in asserting her individuahty while 
 Miss Beauchamp was in the waking, not the 
 hypnotic state; and thereafter became not 
 merely a ''subconscious'' but also an "alter- 
 nating" personality, replacing the primary 
 personality at frequent intervals and during 
 these intervals so behaving as to cause her 
 other self much trouble, embarrassment, and 
 even suffering. Soon the conviction took 
 root in Miss Beauchamp's mind that she was 
 literally possessed of a demon. The periods 
 when "Sally" was in control were described 
 by Miss Beauchamp as trances ; but sometimes 
 in her waking moments "Sally" impelled her 
 to do much against her will. 
 
 The two personalities were, in fact, of radi- 
 cally different traits and inclinations. Miss 
 Beauchamp, who was in straitened circum- 
 stances financially, was by nature cautious 
 and thrifty. "Sally" frittered away her care- 
 fully hoarded earnings. Miss Beauchamp was 
 deeply religious and guarded in her actions. 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 87 
 
 ''Sally'' was irreligious, coquettish, and ad- 
 dicted to smoking cigarettes. Miss Beau- 
 champ wearied easily. ''Sally'' never felt 
 tired, and would frequently take her other 
 self, all unconsciously, on long walks, allowing 
 Miss Beauchamp to awake from the trance 
 state in some distant suburb, penniless and 
 worn out. For a time, Dr. Prince gave her 
 some relief by hypnotizing "Sally" into 
 quiescence, but before long "Sally" became 
 unmanageable even with the aid of hypnotism. 
 She had her good qualities, however. Once, 
 according to Dr. Prince, when Miss Beau- 
 champ despairingly gave up the struggle and 
 essayed suicide by gas, "Sally" assumed con- 
 trol, turned off the gas, and opened the win- 
 dow. But the situation seemed hopeless, and 
 Miss Beauchamp marked for the insane 
 asylum. 
 
 Then, suddenly and spontaneously, a new 
 personality appeared, a personality remem- 
 bering nothing that had occurred in Miss 
 Beauchamp's life since 1893, but with a full 
 knowledge of the events in her earlier career. 
 Unlike "Sally," this personality was well 
 developed mentally, and unlike Miss Beau- 
 champ was strong-willed, stubborn, and some- 
 
88 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 what deceitful. Making inquiry. Dr. Prince 
 learned that in 1893 Miss Beauchamp had 
 experienced a severe shock, and that her ills 
 had dated from that time. At once the 
 thought occurred to him: Is this new per- 
 sonality the real Miss Beauchamp, and is the 
 Miss Beauchamp I have known, like'' Sally'' 
 herself, nothing more than a secondary per- 
 sonality.^ But before he could answer this 
 inevitable query a new phase developed, 
 "Sally'' and the latest personality entering 
 upon a life-and-death struggle for possession 
 of Miss Beauchamp 's bodily faculties. 
 
 Dr. Prince realized that he must act, and 
 act quickly. But the problem was how to 
 act. Only one personality could be left in 
 "'control," and which should it be.^ Which, 
 in other words, was the real Miss Beauchamp ? 
 What if none of the three were the real Miss 
 Beauchamp.^ Such were the questions that 
 hurled themselves at the perplexed physician. 
 Then, quite unexpectedly, he made the dis- 
 covery that, under hypnotism, the primary 
 personality and the latest personality became 
 identical. Here, it seemed to him, was the 
 correct solution — a fusion of both personali- 
 ties into a single, well-rounded whole. But, 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 89 
 
 brought out of the hypnotic state, disintegra- 
 tion immediately took place, either the pri- 
 mary or the latest personality "controlling" the 
 unhappy organism. Once there was no dis- 
 integration, but then the patient acted as one 
 demented. Not until many months later, 
 and full seven years from the time the case 
 had first come under his observation, did Dr. 
 Prince find that he had actually hit upon the 
 proper method of procedure, but had been 
 baffled by the cunning of ''Sally,'' who had 
 compelled the disintegration and the dementia 
 because she feared that, fusion accomplished, 
 her own existence would be terminated. Then 
 it did indeed come to an end, and ever since 
 Miss Beauchamp, a normal, healthy woman, 
 has led a life of tranquil happiness.^ 
 
 Equally impressive, as testifying to the 
 value to the new methods of treating mental 
 alienation, is the work of Boris Sidis, the 
 Janet of the United States. And first a few 
 words as to Dr. Sidis's career, in itself most 
 interesting. Of Russian birth, he came to 
 this country when still extremely young, 
 and entered Harvard. It was not long be- 
 
 1 For the detailed account of this strange tale from real life, con- 
 sult Dr. Prince's " The Dissociation of a PersonaHty." 
 
90 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 fore his industry, his alertness, and, above 
 all, his originality, attracted the attention of 
 Professor James, who conceived a hearty 
 admiration for the young Russian and prophe- 
 sied that he would be heard from after leaving 
 Harvard. This prophecy was speedily ful- 
 filled with the publication of his ''The Psy- 
 chology of Suggestion,'' which made it 
 evident that a remarkably gifted investigator 
 and thinker had entered the scientific field. 
 About this time, too, opportunity knocked at 
 Dr. Sidis's door in most unexpected fashion. 
 Acting on the recommendation of Dr. Carlos 
 F. MacDonald, president of the State Lunacy 
 Commission, the New York Legislature had 
 created a novel department of governmental 
 activity, a "^^ pathological institute.'' This was 
 intended to be, so to speak, an educational 
 annex to the State hospital system, its chief 
 legal raison d'etre being that it might ''pro- 
 vide instruction in brain pathology and other 
 subjects for the medical oflBcers of the State 
 hospitals." But, as luck would have it, a 
 progressive and liberal-minded physician. Dr. 
 Ira van Gieson, was appointed director, and 
 the institute speedily developed into some- 
 thing more than a mere hospital appanage. 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 91 
 
 Dr. van Gieson, who deserves to be ranked 
 among American pathfinders of the subcon- 
 scious, saw clearly that as then constituted 
 psychiatry (the study of insanity) was in a 
 dismal slough of despond and could make 
 little progress until the problems of insanity 
 were approached from other than the purely 
 medical standpoint. To this end he gathered 
 about him a staff of specialists in allied sci- 
 ences, and as associate in psychology and 
 psychopathology he selected Dr. Sidis. It 
 was in 1896 that the institute began work in 
 earnest, and by 1899 Dr. van Gieson could 
 report to the State Commission that "'much 
 material has been accumulated by the director 
 and his associates, and many scientific gen- 
 eralizations of theoretical and practical im- 
 portance have been worked out.'' Among 
 these generalizations was Dr. Sidis's now 
 famous ''law of dissociation" which has 
 thrown a flood of light on the mechanism 
 both of insanity and of suggestion, and which 
 we shall presently survey in brief. 
 
 But if Dr. van Gieson might justly feel 
 proud of the results obtained in so short a 
 time, it was none the less certain that the 
 commission was dissatisfied with his conduct 
 
92 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 of the institute. Criticism hinged on the fact 
 that he was subordinating the educational 
 to the experimental phase, and he was urged 
 to pay more attention to the work of instruct- 
 ing the asylum physicians. In vain he pro- 
 tested that "the main function of the institute 
 is the investigation of the principles and laws 
 of abnormal mental life.'' He was reminded 
 that the act creating the institute contem- 
 plated other objects. A bitter controversy 
 developed, and in the end he and his asso- 
 ciates were swept from oflfice with their work 
 unfinished, and the institute was reorganized 
 on a "^practical" basis. For a time the little 
 band of investigators found refuge in a pri- 
 vate laboratory, but ere long lack of funds 
 caused their dispersal, Dr. Sidis removing to 
 Brookline, Mass., where he has since con- 
 tinued his therapeutic and experimental work, 
 now independently, now in cooperation with 
 Dr. Prince and others, to no small extent cen- 
 tering his efforts on the elaboration of the law 
 of dissociation. 
 
 This law or principle is connected with a 
 novel conception in biology — the much- 
 debated theory of neuron motility, itself a 
 product of recent investigation. According to 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 93 
 
 it the neuron (that is to say, the nerve cell and 
 its prolongations) is held to be an anatomical 
 unity, possessing the power of independent 
 movement and securing concerted functional 
 activity with other neurons by means of a 
 connection simply of contact. Having regard 
 to this theory — and appreciating the ease with 
 which, under such conditions, contact might be 
 broken, neuron energy interfered with, and 
 the detached neurons either be utterly de- 
 stroyed or form themselves into new clusters 
 — it seemed possible to Dr. Sidis to view 
 mental disorders as the accompanying psychi- 
 cal manifestations of neuron disaggregation. 
 For example, the individual. A, suffers from 
 a severe illness, a blow, a mental shock, and 
 subsequently exhibits, it may be loss of 
 memory, it may be a proneness to hallucina- 
 tions, it may be even a completely changed 
 personality. Dr. Sidis would explain all such 
 phenomena on the ground that the initial 
 trouble, whatever its nature, whether physical 
 or psychical, had brought about a neuron 
 disturbance with accompanying ''dissociation'' 
 of consciousness. More than this, he would 
 apply the law of dissociation to explain sundry 
 physical disorders (as certain headaches, 
 
94 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 hystero-epilepsy, etc.) on the assumption that 
 in such cases the physical phenomena, the 
 headaches, the fits, were the external indica- 
 tions of a deep-seated psychical malady. In 
 either instance a cure is deemed possible, 
 once it is ascertained that the dissociation 
 has not proceeded so far as to involve destruc- 
 tion of the nerve cell. At firsts of course, the 
 law of dissociation was utilized by Dr. Sidis 
 as a working hypothesis merely; to-day, how- 
 ever, it has been, in his opinion and in the 
 opinion of many other investigators, so firmly 
 established that its validity is no longer de- 
 pendent on the validity of the neuron theory, 
 which, I may add, is still regarded by most 
 scientists as lacking adequate demonstration. 
 The operation and significance of this law 
 may be made plain by a review of a few of 
 the human problems that have been worked 
 out by Dr. Sidis; problems, moreover, of 
 direct bearing on our present inquiry into the 
 nature of human personality. Let us begin 
 with the case of D. F., a young girl treated 
 by Dr. Sidis in cooperation with another 
 really scientific American psychopathologist. 
 Dr. William A. White, now superintendent of 
 the Government hospital for the insane at 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 95 
 
 Washington, but then (1897) connected with 
 the State hospital at Binghamton, N. Y. It 
 was there that D. F. came under observation, 
 having been committed as insane when only 
 thirteen years of age. Until this time, it 
 appears, nothing abnormal had been noticed 
 in her conduct, and the circumstances attend- 
 ing the onset of the attack were such that Drs. 
 Sidis and White immediately suspected that 
 she might be a victim not of insanity but dis- 
 sociation. To determine the verity of their 
 suspicion they subjected her to some curious 
 tests. Psychopathological examination had re- 
 vealed the fact that there was a decided con- 
 traction of her field of vision, and that many 
 parts of her body were insensible to pain or 
 sensation of any kind. With this knowledge, 
 objects were introduced midway between her 
 field and the normal field of vision and she 
 was asked to guess their nature; the non- 
 sensitive parts were pricked with a pin and 
 she was asked to guess the number of pricks. 
 Almost invariably her guess was correct, and 
 this satisfied the investigators that she had 
 a subconscious perception of the test stimuli. 
 What this meant was that they had before 
 them a clear case of dissociation, and that 
 
96 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 dissociation had not progressed from the 
 functional to the fatal organic stage. Hyp- 
 notic experiments confirmed this view, and 
 the attempt was now made to raise the fugi- 
 tive, subconscious perceptions above the 
 threshold of consciousness, and thus obtain 
 a complete reassociation. D. F. was hyp- 
 notized and the suggestion was made to her 
 that she should pass from the hypnotic into a 
 state of normal sleep. While in this state of 
 normal sleep pencil and paper were given her 
 and she wrote, from Dr. Sidis's dictation, a 
 letter in which she informed her mother that 
 she was determined "to try not to be sick 
 any more." As the technical report on her 
 case says: 
 
 "It was the awakening of the patient's 
 spontaneous energy coming from the depths 
 of her own being. That this energy was really 
 awakened and the synthesis voluntarily formed 
 by the spontaneous activity of the patient her- 
 self, are well shown in the interesting and 
 highly suggestive lines which she herself 
 volunteered after the letter was finished, as if 
 to emphasize distinctly that what she had 
 just written by dictation was not a matter of a 
 passively accepted suggestion, but of a spon- 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 97 
 
 taneous, voluntary, active, energetic resolu- 
 tion. The resolution was especially well seen 
 in the way she wrote it. The pencil was 
 firmly grasped in the hand, and she wrote 
 quickly and with determination the following 
 sentence: '/ mean what I have just written^' 
 and signed her name.''^ 
 
 Later she was again hypnotized, and in 
 order to re-enforce her resolution and complete 
 the synthesis of the dissociated states it was 
 suggested to her that her eyesight would be 
 ^'as good as anyone's," that sensation would 
 be restored to her, and that she would recol- 
 lect everything that had transpired in the 
 natural sleep. Astounding as it may seem, 
 the results suggested actually followed. *'The 
 field of vision,'' we read, ^' taken immediately 
 after attempts to run the dissociated systems 
 into one, was markedly enlarged. The field 
 of vision kept on expanding." Similarly, the 
 non-sensitive parts recovered sensation, and 
 she regained a sound memory. But what was 
 most important of all, D. F. became what she 
 had originally been — a quiet, modest, normal 
 girl, rescued from the asylum to develop into a 
 useful member of society. "" Since the dis- 
 
 1 "Psychopathological Researches." By Boris Sidis, p. 93. 
 
98 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 charge from the hospital she had had no re- 
 turn of any of the symptoms which led to her 
 committal. The patient's mental condition 
 remains normal, and there has been no recur- 
 rence for the period of five years of the con- 
 traction of the field of vision/'* 
 
 In this case the immediate cause of dissocia- 
 tion does not seem to have been ascertained, 
 but it was speedily learned in another, and 
 in its way more difiicult, case recorded by 
 Dr. Sidis. J. F., a Russian Jew, intelligent, 
 of good physique and temperate habits, had 
 occasion in 1900 to consult a physician for 
 some slight abdominal trouble, and was jok- 
 ingly told that he had *' lumps" in his stomach. 
 The temporary suggestibility of the patient 
 was such that this statement formed the 
 nucleus of a highly systematized delusion. 
 Into his mind came the idea that a vast 
 quantity of waste materials had accumulated 
 in his intestines in the shape of lumps, and 
 presently he imagined that the lumps were 
 constantly shifting in position, passing and 
 repassing between different organs of his 
 body. Soon more bizarre conceptions took 
 possession of him. He "believed he had 
 
 1 "Psychopathological Researches." By Boris Sidis, p. 102. 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 99 
 
 worms in his intestines; it was these worms 
 working on the great amount of lumps that 
 broke the big hard lumps and ate them; at 
 the same time, being stupid and careless, they 
 sprinkled tiny lumps all about them. In 
 this process of sprinkling, due to the careless 
 mode of 'feasting,' the worms themselves be- 
 came besprinkled with tiny lumps and were 
 very uncomfortable, but they could not free 
 themselves from the lumps which stuck fast 
 to their slimy, sticky bodies. . . . Fortunately 
 for himself as well as for the worms, three 
 agencies came to the rescue of this intolerable 
 state of affairs — the spleen, the soul, and the 
 veins. . . . The spleen and the soul were the 
 two active agents in this purifying process. 
 The soul was the scavenger and the spleen 
 the director. ... A whole system of signs was 
 established between . . . the soul and the 
 spleen, signs which the patient could hear 
 distinctly. He would hear the spleen grunt 
 in reply to the signals given to it in a sort of 
 deaf and mute fashion by the ever-working, 
 never- tiring soul. The spleen would grunt 
 when the soul worked well, but its grunt did 
 not resemble that of man,''^ and so on, ad 
 
 * "Psychopathological Researches." By Boris Sidis, pp. 160-163. 
 
 LOFC 
 
100 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 infinitum. Manifestly, here was a man who 
 ordinarily would have ended his days in the 
 madhouse. And, in fact, he proved a most 
 troublesome patient, his delusions persisting 
 even when he was put into deep hypnosis. 
 But Dr. Sidis did not despair, and by a long 
 course of hypnotic treatment gradually suc- 
 ceeded in suggesting the imaginary lumps 
 away, through impressing on the patient's 
 subconsciousness the idea that the delusion 
 was a past experience. 
 
 Under hypnosis, it is worth noting, J. F. 
 manifested a personality quite distinct from 
 that of his waking self. In this respect his 
 case was similar to that of another of Dr. 
 Sidis's patients, Mr. R., a business man of 
 phlegmatic temperament who was unaccount- 
 ably afflicted by a trembling of the hands so 
 pronounced as to prevent his carrying a glass 
 of water to his mouth. For eight years this 
 malady had slowly grown worse, until he 
 finally consulted Dr. Sidis in much the spirit 
 of the drowning man who clutches at the 
 proverbial straw. Hypnotizing him. Dr. Sidis 
 discovered that the Mr. R. of the hypnotic 
 state was a vastly different person from the 
 Mr. R. of every-day life. "" We no longer have 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 101 
 
 before us a business man of fifty. We see 
 before us a childlike soul, displaying a most 
 intense human emotion. . . . All business is 
 completely forgotten; not a mention is made 
 of money.'' ^ No time was lost in demanding 
 of the hypnotized Mr. R.: ''Can you tell us 
 the exact conditions and the time when you 
 first perceived the tremor in your hands .^" 
 ''Yes; it was on the day my wife died." "Do 
 you have any dreams.^" "Yes." "What 
 are they.^" And now followed a long series 
 of dreams, all relating to the dead wife and 
 revealing the existence of a constant sub- 
 conscious yearning and sorrow for the lost 
 companion of his earlier years. Here, clearly, 
 was a secondary self of more attractive 
 characteristics than the waking self of the 
 cold, calculating man of affairs. But it was 
 a dissociated self, influencing adversely the 
 physical well-being of the waking self. Dr. 
 Sidis's duty was plain, and the means of per- 
 forming it in his power. A few treatments 
 and Mr. R.'s hands had ceased to tremble. 
 More impressive than any of the foregoing, 
 and indeed unique in the annals of psycho- 
 
 1 Multiple Personality." By Boris Sidis and Simon P. Goodhart, 
 p. 318. 
 
102 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 pathology, is the strange case of the Rev, 
 Thomas C, Hanna* Like the case of Miss 
 Christine L. Beauchamp, this has aheady 
 received considerable pubHcity, but it is neces- 
 sary that at least an outline of it be given 
 here, while readers desiring the details may 
 consult Dr. Sidis's ''Multiple Personality.'' 
 To be brief, Mr. Hanna, in the spring of 1897, 
 was plunged into a state of complete amnesia 
 as the result of a fall from a carriage. He 
 lost all sense of identity, forgot the events of 
 his past life, had no sign of recognition for 
 relatives and friends. More, he had to be 
 taught to read, to write, even to talk and walk 
 and eat. It was at first thought that his future 
 home would have to be in an asylum, but as 
 time progressed and he displayed the posses- 
 sion of a keen, vigorous, intelligent personality, 
 his case was referred to Drs. Sidis and Good- 
 hart in the hope that they might succeed in 
 recovering the lost contents of his conscious- 
 ness. Their immediate concern was to learn 
 whether any memory of events antedating 
 the accident persisted in a subconscious, dis- 
 sociated state. As has been seen, resort is 
 usually had to hypnotism for this purpose, 
 but it was found impossible to hypnotize Mr. 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 103 
 
 Hanna. However, the employment of a 
 method known as hypnoidization finally 
 yielded results. 
 
 We must dwell for a moment on hypnoidi- 
 zation since it involves one of the most re- 
 markable discoveries made by the modern 
 students of the self. It is based on the theory 
 that if the waking consciousness be subjected 
 to a monotonous stimulus the contents of the 
 subconsciousness will rise above the threshold. 
 It is applied in different ways. Sometimes 
 the patient is simply requested to close his 
 eyes, keep as quiet as possible, and then re- 
 late the thoughts that flit through his mind. 
 Sometimes he is given pencil and paper and 
 asked to set down in writing whatever thoughts 
 may occur to him while listening to another 
 person reading, or playing on the piano. 
 Childish as this process sounds, it often brings 
 to the surface ideas submerged beneath the 
 threshold of consciousness and essential to the 
 knowledge and treatment of the case.^ 
 
 So far as concerns Mr. Hanna, hypnoidi- 
 zation convinced Drs. Sidis and Goodhart 
 that the lost memories survived, and the 
 effort was now made to bring them perma- 
 
 1 See Appendix IV. 
 
104 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 nently into the field of waking consciousness. 
 The experiment was tried of conducting the 
 patient to theaters, saloons, and other places 
 of entertainment to which, in his normal state, 
 he would not think of resorting. It was 
 hoped that there might result a reintegrating, 
 reassociating shock, and this hope was actu- 
 ally realized. One night there developed a 
 spontaneous but brief recurrence of the orig- 
 inal personality. The experimenters perse- 
 vered, and soon witnessed the phenomenon 
 of alternating personality. One moment the 
 patient would be the Mr. Hanna of old, the 
 next the secondary Mr. Hanna. He was 
 ceaselessly urged to try to remember in each 
 personality, the thoughts, feelings, actions of 
 the other. Memory was to be the bridge 
 across the chasm separating the two person- 
 alities. Ultimately, complete fusion was 
 effected and the clergyman restored to his 
 family a normal, healthy man. This was 
 some years ago, and as up to the present 
 (September, 1907) there has been no relapse, 
 a lasting cure has apparently been obtained. 
 What results from the scrutiny of such 
 cases as these ? For one thing, or so it seems 
 to me, the knowledge that an unfailing in- 
 
American Explorers of the Subconscious 105 
 
 strument is available to readjust the mental 
 equilibrium of the individual and the race 
 tottering under the strain and hurry of mod- 
 ern conditions of life. The psychopatholo- 
 gists, it is true, confess that they are helpless 
 in the presence of actual insanity; but actual 
 insanity is often preceded by stages in which 
 it is possible to avert the impending doom. 
 Moreover, other nervous and mental ills, not 
 necessarily culminating in insanity, lend them- 
 selves readily to treatment by the skilled 
 psychopathologist, while obstinately refusing 
 to yield to the methods of the orthodox 
 schools. All of which should carry home to 
 the unprejudiced observer the great desira- 
 bility of furthering by every means possible 
 the investigations already so rich in results 
 despite the heavy handicaps imposed on the 
 explorers. Europe has its Salpetriere and its 
 psychopathic laboratories. The United States, 
 with its 150,000 lunatics, can no longer afford 
 to ignore the example of Europe. 
 
 And now that we have gained, in large 
 measure, thanks to the labors of such men as 
 Liebeault and Bernheim and Janet and Sidis, 
 clearer insight into the nature and faculties 
 of personality, one monumental question re- 
 
106 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 mains — the question of the survival of per- 
 sonaKty after the death of the body. As my 
 readers are aware, a systematized inquiry has 
 been set on foot to determine the vaHdity of 
 the traditional belief that personality persists 
 beyond the grave, and we must now turn to 
 examine the progress of this inquiry, not only 
 on account of its inherent interest and im- 
 portance, but because it has been the means 
 of bringing to light many informing facts 
 overlooked by the psychopathologists, whose 
 concern has been with the obviously abnor- 
 mal rather than the seemingly supernormal 
 in human life. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Evidence for Survival 
 
 IN the opening chapter it was shown that 
 the phenomena alleged to have eviden- 
 tial value in support of the belief that 
 human personality survives the death of the 
 body fall into two great classes. The first 
 comprises such ^'physical'' manifestations as 
 rappings, apports, and the so-called materiali- 
 zation of spirit forms ; the second includes the 
 ''psychical'' phenomena of auditions, appari- 
 tions, crystal visions, automatic writing, and 
 automatic speaking. The phenomena of both 
 classes have been subjected to rigid scrutiny 
 by the Society for Psychical Research. As 
 regards the first the conclusion has been 
 reached that, save when the public interests 
 require protection, it is practically a waste of 
 time and energy to investigate the perform- 
 ances of those who claim thus concretely to 
 demonstrate interworld communication. This 
 conclusion is based on several considerations, 
 
 107 
 
108 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 not the least important of which is the fact 
 that the "controls'' of the ''physical'' me- 
 diums have not once met the conditions of 
 tests of such a character as to dispense with 
 the necessity for close and continuous obser- 
 vation by the experimenters. 
 
 ''The Spiritualist," wrote Sir William 
 Crookes, a generation ago, "tells of rooms 
 and houses being shaken even to injury by 
 superhuman power. The man of science 
 merely asks for a pendulum to be set vibrat- 
 ing when it is in a glass case and supported 
 on solid masonry. 
 
 "The Spiritualist tells of heavy articles of 
 furniture moving from one room to another 
 without human agency. But the man of 
 science has made instruments which will 
 divide an inch into a million parts, and he is 
 justified in doubting the accuracy of the 
 former observations if the same force is 
 powerless to move the index of his instrument 
 one poor degree. 
 
 "The Spiritualist tells of flowers with the 
 fresh dew on them, of fruit, and living ob- 
 jects, being carried through closed windows 
 and even solid brick walls. The scientific 
 investigator naturally asks that an additional 
 
The Evidence for Survival 109 
 
 weight (if it be only the thousandth part of a 
 grain) be deposited on one pan of his balance, 
 when the case is locked. And the chemist 
 asks for the thousandth of a grain of arsenic 
 to be carried through the sides of a glass tube 
 in which pure water is hermetically sealed/'^ 
 This indictment is as valid to-day as the 
 day it was drawn, and until some such re- 
 quirement be fulfilled the ^* physical'' medi- 
 ums must not complain if the thoughtful 
 deem their feats suspect. Experience has 
 demonstrated that even the best trained ob- 
 servers fail to perceive all that transpires in 
 the seance room; and that, consequently, the 
 quick-witted medium of fraudulent tendencies 
 has ample opportunity to effect his triumphs 
 by trick and device. Conclusive proof of this 
 was afforded by the late S. J. Davey, a member 
 of the Society for Psychical Research, who, 
 after a little practice, succeeded in duplicat- 
 ing the most sensational performances of the 
 ^^slate-writing'' medium Eglinton. So suc- 
 cessful was he that the English spiritists de- 
 nounced him as a renegade medium. But he 
 frankly operated throughout on the conjurer's 
 principle that the hand is quicker than the 
 
 1 "Researches in Spiritualism." By William Crookes, p. 6. 
 
110 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 eye. One evening, to cite an illustration of 
 his methods and his success, Mr. Davey 
 visited the brothers Podmore, also members 
 of the society, and, with Frank Podmore an 
 interested observer, gave Austin a slate- 
 writing seance. The latter afterwards wrote 
 the following account of what took place: 
 
 "A few weeks ago Mr. D. gave me a seance, 
 and, to the best of my recollection, the follow- 
 ing was the result: Mr. D. gave me an ordinary 
 school slate, which I held at one end, he at 
 the other, with our left hands; he then pro- 
 duced a double slate, hinged and locked. 
 Without removing my left hand, I unlocked 
 the slate, and at Mr. D.'s direction placed 
 three small pieces of chalk — red, green, and 
 gray — inside. I then relocked the slate, 
 placed the key in my pocket, and the slate on 
 the table in such a position that I could easily 
 watch both the slate in my left hand and the 
 other on the table. After some few minutes, 
 during which, to the best of my belief, I was 
 attentively regarding both slates, Mr. D. 
 whisked the first away, and showed me on 
 the reverse a message written to myself. 
 Almost immediately afterwards he asked me 
 to unlock the second slate, and on doing so 
 
The Evidence for Survival 111 
 
 I found to my intense astonishment another 
 message written on both the insides of the 
 slate — the Hnes in alternate colors and the 
 chalks apparently much worn by usage. My 
 brother tells me that there was an interval 
 of some two or three minutes, during which 
 my attention was called away, but I can only 
 believe it on his word." 
 
 Obviously, had Mr. Davey posed as a 
 medium he would have won wide repute. 
 But now read Frank Podmore's instructive 
 comment : 
 
 "'Mr. Davey allowed me to see exactly 
 what was done, and this is what I saw: The 
 * almost immediately' in the above account 
 covered an interval of some minutes. Dur- 
 ing this interval, and, indeed, throughout the 
 seance, Davey kept up a constant stream of 
 chatter, on matters more or less germane to 
 the business in hand. Mr. A. Podmore, 
 absorbed by the conjurer's patter, fixed his 
 eyes on Davey's face, and the latter took ad- 
 vantage of the opportunity to remove the 
 locked slate, under cover of a duster, from 
 under my brother's nose to the far end of the 
 room, and there exchange it for a similar 
 slate, with a previously prepared message, 
 
112 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 which was then placed by means of the same 
 maneuver with the duster in the position 
 originally occupied by the first slate. Then, 
 and only then, the stream of talk slackened, 
 and Mr. A. Podmore's attention became 
 concentrated upon the slate from which the 
 sound of spirit writing was now heard to 
 proceed. To me the most surprising thing 
 in the whole episode was Mr. A. Podmore's 
 incredulity when told that his attention had 
 been diverted from the slate for an appre- 
 ciable period.''^ 
 
 As a matter of fact, the records of the 
 Society for Psychical Research, so far as 
 concerns the physical phenomena, form an 
 exhaustive and dismal commentary on the 
 gullibility of human nature and the devious 
 ways of fraud. Did space permit it would 
 be instructive to rehearse the exposures 
 obtained through the society's efforts. Refer- 
 ence may be made only to two cases of 
 exceptional importance, the case of Madame 
 Blavatsky and the case of Eusapia Paladino. 
 Madame Blavatsky will be remembered as 
 the founder of the Theosophical Society, 
 which was organized in New York early in 
 
 1 "Modem SpirituaUsm," Vol. II, pp. 217--8. 
 
The Evidence for Survival 113 
 
 the seventies, and which, despite the proved 
 imposture of its originator, still numbers its 
 membership among the thousands. Accord- 
 ing to Madame Blavatsky there existed in 
 far-away Tibet a brotherhood of "'Mahat- 
 mas" who had acquired powers enabling 
 them to transcend the laws of nature and 
 work marvels and miracles of all sorts. It 
 was her claim to be a "'chela,'' or disciple, of 
 the Mahatmas, and she also asserted that they 
 were particularly interested in the fortunes 
 of all owning allegiance to the Theosophical 
 Society. In 1878 the headquarters of the 
 society were removed from New York to 
 Adyar, India, and now the outside world was 
 regaled with most sensational stories. The 
 Mahatmas, it was said, were accustomed to 
 cause "'apparitions of themselves in places 
 where their bodies are not," to hold converse 
 with those to whom they so appeared, and to 
 be aware of "what is going on where their 
 phantasm appears.'' Such was the influence 
 of these stories that in 1884 the Society for 
 Psychical Research determined to investigate 
 Madame Blavatsky 's claims. A committee 
 was appointed consisting of Edmund Gurney, 
 F. W, H. Myers, Frank Podmore, Professor 
 
114 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 and Mrs. Sidgwick, J. H. Stack, and Richard 
 Hodgson, and the last-named gentleman was 
 commissioned to visit the Theosophical head- 
 quarters and make a personal inquiry there. 
 Thus we meet for the first time one of the 
 most striking figures in the annals of psychical 
 research. Thereafter, until his sudden death 
 in Boston in the winter of 1905-06, not even 
 F. W. H. Myers excelled Richard Hodgson 
 in single-minded devotion to the task of 
 endeavoring to determine scientifically the 
 validity of the belief in the immortality of the 
 soul. In the end, as will appear, Hodgson 
 was, like Myers, converted to the spiritistic 
 hypothesis. But Madame Blavatsky was not 
 to be the means of his conversion. On the 
 contrary, he succeeded in convicting her of 
 the grossest frauds. He found that the letters 
 on which she based her teachings were written, 
 not, as she claimed, by the leader of the alleged 
 saints of the Himalayas, but by herself or at 
 her dictation. He also ascertained that the 
 headquarters shrine at Adyar was equipped 
 with a slide opening into Madame Blavatsky 's 
 bedroom, and that she was thus enabled to 
 extract from the shrine letters addressed to 
 the Mahatmas by votaries, and in their stead 
 
The Evidence for Survival 115 
 
 insert replies purporting to come direct from 
 the rocky fastnesses of the Brotherhood. He 
 even records that a clumsy attempt was made 
 to persuade him of the genuineness of the 
 phenomena, by causing to fall at his feet a 
 letter addressed to him and seemingly mate- 
 rializing out of the air. The mechanism of 
 this pleasing performance, it subsequently 
 developed, was a convenient crevice in the 
 ceiling, a thread, and a crafty operator. In 
 fine, the exposure was complete and Dr. 
 Hodgson returned to England with laurels 
 well won. 
 
 Eusapia Paladino's history is quite different 
 from that of Madame Blavatsky. She may 
 be accepted as typical of the physical side of 
 mediumship at its best. Materialization, levi- 
 tation, all the more salient phenomena are 
 in her repertoire. She was born in Italy in 
 1854 and, judging from a reference in a 
 spiritistic publication, displayed her medium- 
 istic abilities before she was eighteen. But 
 her fame remained local until 1892, when she 
 was investigated by some Italian scientists 
 whom she so completely mystified that they 
 entered a verdict received with acclaim by 
 spiritists the world over. In their report they 
 
116 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 mentioned, with much else, that while she was 
 seated, seemingly immovable, on the plat- 
 form of a weighing machine the scales in- 
 dicated a weight variation of some twenty 
 pounds. The Society for Psychical Research 
 became interested and a committee journeyed 
 to France to meet the new celebrity, who gave 
 them several seances at the home of Prof. 
 Charles Richet. Although the sittings took 
 place in a darkened room and were marked 
 by some suspicious circumstances, the con- 
 sensus of opinion was that Eusapia possessed 
 supernormal gifts. Stay-at-home members of 
 the society criticised this finding and, it being 
 agreed that further inquiry was desirable, the 
 medium was invited to England. Thither 
 she went in the summer of 1895, and at first 
 duplicated her former triumphs. But when 
 Dr. Hodgson became one of the investigators 
 another story was soon told. At his sugges- 
 tion the precautions that had been taken were 
 seemingly relaxed, and it was then found that 
 Eusapia, with misplaced confidence, boldly 
 utilized her hands and feet to obtain the 
 phenomena that had previously amazed the 
 beholders. The society at once lost all in- 
 terest in her and she betook herself again to 
 
The Evidence for Survival 117 
 
 the Continent, there, unfortunately, to per- 
 suade many sympathizers that she had been 
 badly used in England and that, even if 
 she had to a certain extent indulged in de- 
 ception, the bulk of her phenomena were 
 genuine.^ 
 
 Quite apart from the fact that physical 
 mediumship has failed to meet any really ex- 
 acting test and has been shown to be perme- 
 ated with fraud, there is one all-sufficient 
 reason why investigation should chiefly be 
 directed to the purely psychical phenomena. 
 In order to be able to say positively that hu- 
 man personality persists beyond the grave, 
 it is obviously necessary to establish the 
 identity of the alleged communicating spirit. 
 For this purpose the physical phenomena, 
 or at any rate the vast majority of them, are 
 valueless. To be sure, evidential significance 
 may attach to such manifestations as rappings 
 which profess to convey a coherent message 
 from the world beyond, but such feats as levi- 
 tation, elongation, and the production of 
 apports, difficult though it may be to explain 
 them, are manifestly impossible of citation as 
 proof of personal identity. This objection 
 
 1 See Appendix I. 
 
118 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 does not apply to the psychical phenomena, 
 which further differ from the physical in the 
 important respect that patient and pains- 
 taking inquiry by the Society for Psychical 
 Research into collected instances of appari- 
 tions, auditions, automatically written or 
 uttered messages, etc., has led the investigators 
 to believe that, making all possible allowance 
 for fraud, illusion, chance coincidence, and 
 similar sources of error, a large residue re- 
 mains requiring explanation on some other 
 hypothesis. 
 
 In order to appreciate the nature of the 
 evidence accumulated, let us glance at a few 
 typical instances, each drawn from the society's 
 records and thus suflSciently authenticated to 
 merit serious consideration. We may begin 
 with an old-fashioned "ghost" story of the 
 simpler sort. In this instance the percipient, 
 a Mr. J., was a personal acquaintance of 
 F. W. H. Myers, who obtained a first-hand ac- 
 count of the experience. In 1880, it appears, 
 Mr. Q., the librarian of X. library, died and 
 Mr. J. was appointed his successor. Mr. J. had 
 not known Mr. Q. nor had he, to his know- 
 ledge, seen any portrait of him when, in 1884, 
 or four years after his death, he made the old 
 
The Evidence for Survival 119 
 
 librarian's acquaintance under these circum- 
 stances : 
 
 "I was sitting alone in the library one 
 evening late in March, 1884, finishing some 
 work after hours, when it suddenly occurred 
 to me that I should miss the last train to H., 
 where I was then living, if I did not make 
 haste. ... I gathered up some books in one 
 hand, took the lamp in the other, and pre- 
 pared to leave the librarian's room, which 
 communicated by a passage with the main 
 room of the library. As my lamp illumined 
 the passage I saw apparently at the end of it a 
 man's face. I instantly thought a thief had 
 got into the library. ... I turned back into 
 my room, put down the books, and took a 
 revolver from the safe, and, holding the lamp 
 cautiously behind me, I made my way along 
 the passage . . . into the main room. Here 
 I saw no one, but the room was large and 
 encumbered with bookcases. I called out 
 loudly to the intruder to show himself several 
 times, more with the hope of attracting a 
 passing policeman than of drawing the in- 
 truder. Then I saw a face looking round one 
 of the bookcases. I say round, but it had an 
 odd appearance as if the body were in the 
 
120 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 bookcase, as the face came so closely to the 
 edge and I could see no body. The face was 
 pallid and hairless, and the orbits of the eyes 
 were very deep. I advanced toward it, and 
 as I did so I saw an old man with high 
 shoulders seem to rotate out of the end of the 
 bookcase, and with his back toward me, and 
 with a shuffling gait, walk rather quickly 
 from the bookcase to the door of a small 
 lavatory, which opened from the library and 
 had no other access. I heard no noise. I 
 followed the man at once into the lavatory; 
 and to my extreme surprise found no one 
 there. . . . Completely mystified, I even looked 
 into the little cupboard under the fixed basin. 
 There was nowhere hiding for a child, and I 
 confess I began to experience for the first 
 time what novelists describe as an ^ eerie' 
 feeling. I left the library, and found I had 
 missed my train. 
 
 *^Next morning I mentioned what I had 
 seen to a local clergyman who, on hearing my 
 description, said, 'Why, that's old Q. !' Soon 
 after I saw a photograph (from a drawing) of 
 Q., and the resemblance was certainly strik- 
 iiig- Q- had lost all his hair, eyebrows and 
 all, from (I believe) a gunpowder accident. 
 
The Evidence for Survival 121 
 
 His walk was a peculiar, rapid, high-shoul- 
 dered shuffle. Later inquiry proved he had 
 died at about the time of year at which I saw 
 the figure/'^ 
 
 This is a capital illustration of the revenant 
 type of apparition, the ''ghost" that visits a 
 locality with which it was familiar in life. 
 Somewhat similar, but having a coincidental 
 significance, is the story of the ''ghost'' seen 
 by the Essex gardener, who one morning be- 
 held, as he thought, a lady whom he knew 
 standing by a family tomb. The lady in 
 question was then supposed to be in London, 
 but as she had an almost morbid habit of 
 visiting the tomb, the gardener supposed that 
 she had returned from the city. Later it was 
 learned that at the time he imagined he saw 
 her she was lying dead in London. Most 
 apparitions, by the way, or at any rate most 
 of those recorded by the society, are reported 
 as appearing either at the moment of, or 
 shortly after, the death of the bodily or- 
 ganism, and usually the percipients are the 
 immediate relatives or close personal friends 
 of the deceased. Sometimes, it would seem, 
 
 1 "Human PersonaKty and its Survival of Bodily Death," Vol. 11, 
 pp. 380-1. 
 
122 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 '* ghosts" reveal themselves only to persons 
 in extremis. Thus, an unnamed but *' well- 
 known Irish gentleman'' relates that when 
 his wife was dying she aflBrmed that she saw 
 in a corner of the room a certain Julia Z., 
 who had once sung at a house party given 
 by the dying woman and whose apparition, 
 according to the unhappy percipient, was 
 even then singing. Since Julia Z. was, to 
 the best of his knowledge, alive and well, her 
 husband suspected all this to be "nothing 
 but the fantasies of a dying person." The 
 day after his wife's death, however, he was 
 astounded to learn that Julia Z. had herself 
 died a fortnight earlier, and on writing to the 
 latter's husband was told that "on the day 
 she died she began singing in the morning, 
 and sang and sang until she died." 
 
 Then there is the "ghost" that appears to 
 warn a living person of impending misfor- 
 tune. Take the strange case of Mr. F. G., 
 of Boston, who writes: 
 
 "In 1867 my only sister, a young lady of 
 eighteen years, died suddenly of cholera in 
 St. Louis, Mo. My attachment for her was 
 very strong, and the blow a severe one to me. 
 A year or so after her death the writer became 
 
The Evidence for Survival 123 
 
 a commercial traveler, and it was in 1876, 
 while on one of my Western trips, that the 
 event occurred. 
 
 ''I had 'drummed' the city of St. Joseph, 
 Mo., and had gone to my room at the Pacific 
 House to send in my orders, which were 
 unusually large ones, so that I was in a very 
 happy frame of mind indeed. . . . The hour 
 was high noon, and the sun was shining 
 cheerfully into my room. While busily smok- 
 ing a cigar and writing out my orders, I sud- 
 denly became conscious that some one was 
 sitting on my left, with one arm resting on 
 the table. Quick as a flash I turned and 
 distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, 
 and for a brief second or so looked her squarely 
 in the face; and so sure was I that it was she, 
 that I sprang forward in delight, calling her 
 by name, and, as I did so, the apparition 
 instantly vanished. Naturally I was startled 
 and dumfounded, almost doubting my senses; 
 but the cigar in my mouth, and pen in hand, 
 with the ink still moist on my letter, I satis- 
 fied myself I had not been dreaming and was 
 wide awake 
 
 ''Now comes the most remarkable confirma- 
 Hon of my statement, which cannot be doubted 
 
124 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 by those who know what I state actually 
 occurred. This visitation, or whatever you 
 may call it, so impressed me that I took the 
 next train home, and in the presence of my 
 parents and others I related what had occurred. 
 My father, a man of rare good sense and very 
 practical, was inclined to ridicule me, as he 
 saw how earnestly I believed what I stated; 
 but he, too, was amazed when later on I told 
 them of a bright red line or scratch on the 
 right-hand side of my sister's face, which I 
 distinctly had seen. When I mentioned this 
 my mother rose trembling to her feet and 
 nearly fainted away, and as soon as she 
 sufficiently recovered her self-possession, with 
 tears streaming down her face, she exclaimed 
 that I had indeed seen my sister, as no living 
 mortal but herself was aware of that scratch, 
 which she had accidentally made while doing 
 some little act of kindness after my sister's 
 death. She said she well remembered how 
 pained she was to think she should have, un- 
 intentionally, marred the features of her dead 
 daughter, and that unknown to all, how she 
 had carefully obliterated all traces of the 
 slight scratch with the aid of powder, etc., 
 and that she had never mentioned it to a 
 
The Evidence for Survival 125 
 
 human being from that day to this. In proof, 
 neither my father nor any of our family had 
 detected it, and positively were unaware of 
 the incident, yet / saw the scratch as bright 
 
 as if just made . " ^ ^^^^^ ^-— __^I^ 
 
 Whatever the explanation of the apparition 
 it was the means of bringing the son home to 
 take a long, last farewell of his mother, for 
 she died within a fortnight of his return, 
 "'happy in her belief she would rejoin her 
 favorite daughter in another world/' And 
 now to turn to psychical phenomena of an- 
 other type, the auditory hallucinations by 
 which knowledge seems to be conveyed of 
 deaths occurring far outside the normal ken 
 of the percipient. The experience of a Mr. 
 Wambey is typical. Once, when planning a 
 congratulatory letter to a friend, the words, 
 "" What! write to a dead man ? write to a dead 
 man?'' rang in his ears, and he later found 
 that his friend had been dead for some days. 
 Far more bizarre was an incident related to 
 Mr. Myers by a Mrs. Davies. An acquaint- 
 ance of hers had changed her abode unex- 
 pectedly, and it was arranged that Mrs. 
 
 1 "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death," Vol. II, 
 pp. 27-28. 
 
126 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 Davies should receive her mail until she 
 could communicate her new address to her 
 friends, and particularly to her husband, who 
 was in India. One evening a letter arrived 
 bearing the India postmark, and Mrs. Davies 
 placed it on the chimney-piece intending to 
 ask her brother to hand it next day to the 
 addressee. Suddenly she became aware of 
 a strange ticking sound that seemed to pro- 
 ceed from the letter itself. Her brother, too, 
 heard it and, yielding to superstition, they 
 imagined that the sound meant, "Important. 
 To be delivered at once.'' The brother 
 thereupon put on his hat and carried the 
 letter to their friend, who found it to be a 
 communication from an unknown correspond- 
 ent, some servant, or companion, notifying 
 her of her husband's death. 
 
 Taken singly, such incidents as the above 
 are not without impressiveness. Considered 
 in the aggregate, and as massed by the thou- 
 sand with corroborative data carefully pre- 
 served in the society's archives, they may well 
 give one pause. ^ There remains to be men- 
 tioned the evidence derivable from those 
 automatisms of hand and tongue in which 
 
 1 See Appendix II. 
 
The Evidence for Survival 127 
 
 the medium, seemingly surrendering her facul- 
 ties to the control of some external intelli- 
 gence, writes or utters messages ostensibly 
 coming from discarnate spirits, and some- 
 times conveying such private personal in- 
 formation as to convince many of the identity 
 of the alleged communicant and, consequently, 
 of the validity of the belief in spirit communi- 
 cation. In their day Moses and Home, in 
 addition to being mediums for physical phe- 
 nomena, were automatic mediums of no small 
 renown. But in this respect they and all 
 other mediums have been outshone by a New 
 England woman, the celebrated Mrs. Leonora 
 F. Piper, of Arlington, Mass., whose history 
 may advantageously be reviewed as represent- 
 ing psychical mediumship at its zenith. 
 
 What makes the case of Mrs. Piper doubly 
 interesting is the circumstance that for fully 
 twenty years she has been under the close 
 observation of members of the Society for 
 Psychical Research and has not once been 
 detected in fraudulent practices. She was 
 brought to the notice of the society in 1885 
 by Professor James, who wrote that he was 
 ^'persuaded of the medium's honesty and of 
 the genuineness of her trance, and although 
 
128 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 at first disposed to think that the 'hits' she 
 made were either lucky coincidences, or the 
 result of knowledge on her part of who the 
 sitter was and of his or her family affairs, I 
 now believe her to be in possession of a power 
 as yet unexplained." At that time Mrs. 
 Piper was supposed to be "'controlled'' by 
 the spirit of a French physician with the 
 peculiar name of ''Phinuit," through whose 
 instrumentality various sitters, including men 
 prominent in the scientific life of the United 
 States, received more or less intimate mes- 
 sages purporting to come from deceased 
 friends. 
 
 Such was the impression made on the 
 society by Professor James's report that in 
 1887 Dr. Hodgson was commissioned to go 
 to America and conduct an inquiry. His first 
 step was to employ detectives to shadow both 
 Mr. and Mrs. Piper, but nothing suspicious 
 was discovered in the conduct of either, and, 
 satisfied that, whatever their source, the 
 phenomena manifested through her were not 
 to be explained on the basis of fraud. Dr. 
 Hodgson recommended that she be invited 
 to England for further investigation. Upon 
 her arrival elaborate precautions were taken 
 
The Evidence for Survival 129 
 
 to prevent her securing any information con- 
 cerning prospective sitters. She was met at 
 Liverpool by Sir Oliver Lodge and conducted 
 to a hotel, whence Mr. Myers took her to his 
 home at Cambridge. There she was attended 
 by a servant — a young woman from a coun- 
 try village — selected by Mr. Myers and quite 
 ignorant of his and his friends' affairs. Her 
 baggage was carefully overhauled for any 
 data she might have brought with her, and 
 her daily mail was closely examined. But no 
 evidence was forthcoming to show that she 
 secured her trance information by normal 
 means. 
 
 Numerous sittings were held, not all of 
 which were successful and some of which 
 were marked by distinctly suspicious failures. 
 But when success was achieved it was con- 
 spicuous and startling. To give an instance, 
 Sir Oliver Lodge handed to the entranced 
 Mrs. Piper a watch he had procured from an 
 uncle who in turn had inherited it from a 
 twin brother, then dead for some twenty years. 
 Immediately "Phinuit,'' claiming to speak in 
 behalf of the deceased uncle, recited several 
 incidents of the latter's youth, and these were 
 subsequently corroborated by the living uncle. 
 
130 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 Striking success was likewise obtained in the 
 case of a Mr. Thompson. I quote from Sir 
 OHver Lodge : 
 
 ''One of the best sitters was my next-door 
 neighbor, Isaac C. Thompson, F.L.S., to 
 whose name indeed, before he had been in 
 any way introduced, Phinuit sent a message 
 purporting to come from his father. Three 
 generations of his and of his wife's family, 
 living and dead (small and compact Quaker 
 families), were, in the course of two or three 
 sittings, conspicuously mentioned, with identi- 
 fying detail; the main informant representing 
 himself as his deceased brother, a young 
 Edinburgh doctor, whose loss had been 
 mourned some twenty years ago. The fa- 
 miliarity and touchingness of the messages 
 communicated in this particular instance were 
 very remarkable, and can by no means be 
 reproduced in any printed report of the sitting. 
 Their case is one in which very few mistakes 
 were made, the details standing out vividly 
 correct, so that in fact they found it impos- 
 sible not to believe that their relatives were 
 actually speaking to them.''^ 
 
 1 "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," Vol. VI, 
 p. 455. 
 
The Evidence for Survival 131 
 
 Puzzled, but not wholly persuaded that the 
 messages delivered through Mrs. Piper actu- 
 ally came from the dead, the society directed 
 Dr. Hodgson to continue investigation in the 
 United States. This mission, it may be added 
 in passing, occupied him to the day of his 
 death and was ultimately the means of con- 
 verting him to the spiritistic hypothesis. 
 
 Shortly after Mrs. Piper's return to America 
 her "" control'' changed under most extraor- 
 dinary circumstances. There had been liv- 
 ing in Boston a young lawyer and author, 
 known in the society's records under the 
 pseudonym of George Pelham, between whom 
 and Dr. Hodgson a warm friendship had 
 arisen. Naturally, they discussed at times 
 the subject of Dr. Hodgson's labors, and Pel- 
 ham, who was a thoroughgoing skeptic, on 
 one occasion laughingly promised Dr. Hodg- 
 son that should he die before the latter and 
 find himself *' still existing" he would "make 
 things lively" in the effort to reveal the fact 
 of his continued existence. In February, 
 1892, he was killed accidentally, and probably 
 instantaneously, by a fall. About a month 
 later, at a sitting attended by Dr. Hodgson 
 and a Mr. Hart, another friend of the dead 
 
132 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 lawyer, ^'Phinuit" suddenly announced that 
 ''George Pelham'' was present and wished 
 to communicate. Then followed a series of 
 statements tending to prove that the com- 
 municant was none other than Pelham him- 
 self. Pelham's real name was given in full, 
 also the names of several of his most intimate 
 friends, and reference was made to incidents 
 unknown to either of the sitters but subse- 
 quently verified by them. 
 
 Further proof of identify was offered at 
 later seances, and it soon became evident 
 that ''George Pelham" intended to oust 
 "Phinuit'" from control. With the substi- 
 tution, which was gradual, the mechanism 
 of Mrs. Piper's mediumship was likewise 
 strangely altered. During the "Phinuit'' 
 regime the messages had been delivered 
 orally; now they were transmitted by means 
 of automatic writing, a feature which per- 
 sisted with the subsequent appearance of new 
 "controls,'' none other than the "Impera- 
 tor," "Rector," "Doctor," "Mentor," and 
 "Prudens" group that had in bygone years 
 claimed to "control" the trance utterances of 
 the Rev. Stainton Moses. It was also notice- 
 able that with the change in method of de- 
 
The Evidence for Survival 133 
 
 livery the messages assumed a finer tone of 
 reality, and so striking did they become that 
 by 1898 Dr. Hodgson, who had previously 
 issued a report dismissing alike the theory of 
 fraud and the spiritistic hypothesis, felt im- 
 pelled to adopt the latter unreservedly. 
 
 Now appeared a new investigator in the 
 person of Dr. James H. Hyslop, at that time 
 professor of logic and ethics in Columbia 
 University. With the cooperation of Dr. 
 Hodgson he held seventeen sittings with Mrs. 
 Piper during 1898 and 1899, and in each took 
 extraordinary precautions to make sure that 
 she would not recognize him. Driving to her 
 residence in a closed carriage, he donned a 
 mask before entering her presence, was in- 
 troduced to her as ''Mr. Smith,'' and while 
 she was in her normal state maintained com- 
 plete silence. From the outset he obtained 
 messages that left him in a state of bewilder- 
 ment, relating as they did to occurrences 
 transpiring years earlier in connection with 
 the careers of dead relatives and friends. 
 Frequently the alleged communicator was the 
 ''spirit" of his father, who recounted many 
 incidents unknown to Professor Hyslop, but 
 afterwards learned to be true. In the end the 
 
134 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 professor, like Dr. Hodgson before him, 
 adopted the spiritistic hypothesis as the only 
 theory adequate to meet all facts in the case. 
 And in this view he has been further con- 
 firmed by a development of quite recent ori- 
 gin, the displacement of the old ''controls'' — 
 ''George Pelham,'' "Imperator,'' and the 
 rest — by the "spirit'' of none other than 
 the veteran psychical researcher. Dr. Hodgson 
 himself. 
 
 As things stand, it is asserted, Dr. Hodgson 
 dead directs the investigation of Mrs. Piper 
 even more effectively that did Dr. Hodgson 
 alive. Taking possession of her entranced 
 organism, he has attempted, at sittings 
 attended by Professors Hyslop and James 
 among others, to give absolute and unques- 
 tionable proof of his continued existence. 
 Professor Hyslop seems persuaded that he 
 has actually been in communication with his 
 dead colleague; and Professor James, who is 
 preparing a report on the "Hodgson" mani- 
 festations, deems "it all extremely baffling." 
 
 In point of fact, altogether apart from what 
 may have developed since Dr. Hodgson's 
 death, the conclusion from the cumulative 
 evidence of the Piper case and the cases of 
 
The Evidence for Survival 135 
 
 apparition, etc., collected by the Society for 
 Psychical Research, would naturally seem to 
 be that spirit communication has been defi- 
 nitely proved and that, therefore, we now know 
 for certain that human personality survives 
 the death of the body. Nevertheless, before 
 finally accepting the spiritistic hypothesis 
 as proved it is imperative to endeavor to 
 ascertain whether there may not be some 
 other hypothesis, devoid of supernatural impli- 
 cations, which will account for the phenomena 
 in question. The hypothesis of wholesale 
 fraud and delusion is — or so it seems to me — 
 quite out of question, although still main- 
 tained by many who would thus summarily 
 dismiss the facts so laboriously assembled. 
 But there remains another hypothesis, a 
 hypothesis rendered available by the society's 
 researches into the possibility of the trans- 
 mission of thought from mind to mind with- 
 out the intervention of the ordinary means of 
 communication. Let us look into the sub- 
 ject more closely. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Nemesis of Spiritism 
 
 IN indicating the reasons for proffering 
 the suggestion that in telepathy may be 
 found an adequate explanation of all 
 phenomena like those recorded in the pre- 
 ceding chapter, it is only fair to begin by re- 
 minding the reader that, as stated on an earlier 
 page, telepathy is itself held suspect by many 
 of intellectual and scientific eminence. In 
 the face of the evidence accumulated by the 
 Society for Psychical Research and by in- 
 dependent inquirers during the past quarter 
 of a century, these skeptics do not hesitate to 
 deny that thought can be transmitted from 
 mind to mind without passing through the 
 ordinary, known channels of communication. 
 They lay much stress on the obvious fact that 
 telepathy is not demonstrable at will, and, too 
 often without undertaking any personal in- 
 quiry, they brush aside as resting on chance 
 or collusion or imagination the enormous mass 
 
 136 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 137 
 
 of evidence already garnered from every 
 quarter of the world. To the present writer, 
 as to other and more competent students of 
 the subject, this position is wholly untenable. 
 It is quite true that we are sadly ignorant of 
 the laws of telepathy ; but it would seem equally 
 certain that telepathy itself is an established 
 fact — established by the experiments of the 
 psychical researchers and by the thousands 
 upon thousands of spontaneous instances re- 
 corded by individuals. 
 
 Nor are we wholly in the dark as to the 
 nature and mechanism of telepathy. From 
 the labors of Myers, Sidgwick, Gurney, et al., 
 we know, for example, that telepathy is dis- 
 tinctly a faculty of that hidden portion of our 
 being which Myers so happily termed the 
 subliminal self. We know, further, that while 
 telepathic messages are of most frequent 
 occurrence between those allied by ties of 
 blood or friendship, they are possible between 
 mere acquaintances, even between strangers. 
 And investigation has likewise shown that 
 such messages are often conveyed not in the 
 form of an idea but as hallucinations, audi- 
 tory or visual, and not infrequently as sym- 
 bolical hallucinations. To quote from the 
 
138 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 experience of the late Thomson Jay Hudson, 
 one of the best-known students of telepathy : 
 
 "'I determined, if possible, to develop the 
 faculty [of telepathy] in my own mind, at 
 least far enough to resolve any lingering 
 doubt that might be unconsciously enter- 
 tained. Accordingly, I caused myself to be 
 securely blindfolded in presence of my family 
 and two or three trustworthy friends, and in- 
 structed them to draw a card from the pack, 
 place it upon a table, face up, and in full view 
 of all but myself. I enjoined absolute silence, 
 and requested them to gaze steadily upon the 
 card and patiently await results. I deter- 
 mined not to yield to any mere mental im- 
 pression, but to watch for a vision of the card 
 itself. I endeavored to become as passive 
 as possible, and to shut out all objective 
 thoughts. In fact, I tried to go to sleep. I 
 soon found that the moment I approached a 
 state of somnolence I began to see visions of 
 self-illuminated objects floating in the dark- 
 ness before me. If, however, one seemed to 
 be taking definite shape it would instantly 
 rouse me, and the vision would vanish. At 
 length I mastered my curiosity suflSciently 
 to enable me to hold the vision long enough 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 139 
 
 to perceive its import. When that was accom- 
 pHshed, I saw — not a card with its spots 
 clearly defined, but a number of objects 
 arranged in rows and resembling real dia- 
 monds. I was finally able to count them, 
 and finding that there were ten, I ventured 
 to name the ten of diamonds. The applause 
 which followed told me that I was right, and 
 I removed the bandage and found the ten of 
 diamonds lying on the table. The vision was 
 symbolical merely, but no other possible 
 symbol could have conveyed a clearer idea 
 of the fact as it existed.''^ 
 
 In further experiments Dr. Hudson ob- 
 tained similar results, confirmation of which 
 has been repeatedly given by other investi- 
 gators who have also demonstrated the occur- 
 rence of hallucinations exactly corresponding 
 to the object in the mind of the agent, or 
 sender, and have in addition made certain 
 the possibility of what is technically known 
 as deferred percipience. In deferred percipi- 
 ence the telepathic message, after its receipt 
 by the subliminal self, lies submerged beneath 
 the threshold of consciousness until favor- 
 ing conditions (e,g., hypnosis, normal sleep, 
 
 1 "The Evolution of the Soul," by T. J. Hudson, p. 188. 
 
140 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 fatigue, or other causes inhibiting the action 
 of the suprahminal self) permit its appearance 
 above the threshold. A striking illustration, 
 both of veridical hallucination and deferred 
 percipience, is afforded by an experiment 
 tried more than twenty years ago by an Eng- 
 lish clergyman, the Rev. Clarence Godfrey, 
 who undertook to cause a distant friend, a 
 lady whose identity is not revealed in the 
 records of the case, to see a telepathic appari- 
 tion of him. Accordingly, when he retired 
 one evening (at 10.45 p.m., on November 15, 
 1886), he began intently to "'wiir' that she 
 should see him. His ^^ willing'' lasted for 
 less than ten minutes, when he fell asleep. 
 Some hours later his friend had the following 
 uncanny experience: 
 
 *' Yesterday — viz., the morning of Novem- 
 ber 16, 1886 — about half -past three o'clock, 
 I woke up with a start and an idea that some 
 one had come into the room. I heard a curi- 
 ous sound, but fancied it might be the birds 
 in the ivy outside. Next I experienced a 
 strange, restless longing to leave the room 
 and go down stairs. This feeling became so 
 overpowering that at last I arose and lit a 
 candle and went down, thinking that if I 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 141 
 
 could get some soda water it might have a 
 quieting effect. On returning to my room 
 I saw Mr. Godfrey standing under the large 
 window on the staircase. He was dressed in 
 his usual style, and with an expression on his 
 face that I have noticed when he has been 
 looking earnestly at anything. He stood 
 there, and I held up the candle and gazed at 
 him for three or four seconds in utter amaze- 
 ment, and then, as I passed up the staircase, 
 he disappeared. The impression left on my 
 mind was so vivid that I fully intended wak- 
 ing a friend who occupied the same room as 
 myself, but remembering that I should only 
 be laughed at as romantic and imaginative, 
 I refrained from doing so."^ 
 
 Nor does this case stand alone, the records 
 of the Society for Psychical Research con- 
 taining a number of similar experiments 
 successfully carried out. Thus, a Mr. Kirk 
 from a distance of several miles caused a 
 telepathic phantasm to appear to a Miss G., 
 and this in broad daylight. Miss G.'s re- 
 
 ^This account was written by the percipient at Mr. Godfrey's 
 request, and by him was transmitted to Frank Podmore. For de- 
 tails consult Mr. Podmore's "Apparitions and Thought Trans- 
 ference," or the second edition of "Phantasms of the Living," by 
 Edmund Gurney and others. 
 
142 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 port, published in the society's *' Proceed- 
 ings/' informs us: 
 
 ''A peculiar occurrence happened to me on 
 the Wednesday of the week before last. In 
 the afternoon (being tired by a morning walk) 
 while sitting in an easy chair near the window 
 of my own room, I fell asleep. At any time I 
 happen to sleep during the day (which is but 
 seldom) I invariably awake with tired, un- 
 comfortable sensations which take some little 
 time to pass off, but that afternoon, on the 
 contrary, I was suddenly quite wide awake, 
 seeing Mr. Kirk standing near my chair, 
 dressed in a dark-brown coat, which I had 
 frequently seen him wear. His back was 
 toward the window, his right hand toward 
 me; he passed across the room toward the 
 door . . . but when he got about four feet from 
 the door, which was closed, he disappeared.'' 
 
 The significance of this phenomenon to our 
 present subject of inquiry may be emphasized 
 by yet another illustration — the experimental 
 production, by means of telepathy, of an 
 apparition not of the living but of the dead. 
 The experimenter, a certain Herr Wesermann, 
 determined to cause a Lieutenant N. to see in 
 a dream a vision of a lady who had been dead 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 143 
 
 for some years, his purpose being to incite 
 Lieutenant N. thereby to '"a good action/' 
 Eleven o'clock was selected by him as the 
 hour for the experiment, nothing of which, of 
 course, was know to N. But at eleven the 
 latter, instead of being in bed and asleep, was 
 conversing with a fellow officer in his room at 
 the barracks. Nevertheless, the experiment, 
 if Herr Wesermann's narrative is to be ac- 
 cepted, was a complete and sensational suc- 
 cess. The door of the chamber seemed to 
 open and the *' ghost'' of the dead lady to 
 walk in. Both of the astounded warriors 
 claimed to have seen her distinctly, and both, 
 upon her disappearance, excitedly summoned 
 the sentinel, who assured them that no one 
 had entered the room. 
 
 It thus would seem possible to explain at 
 least one of the two great divisions of psychi- 
 cal phenomena — the apparitions and audi- 
 tions — on a telepathic basis, and thereby 
 completely avoid recourse to a spiritistic, 
 supermundane hypothesis. Undoubtedly, had 
 Mr. Godfrey or Mr. Kirk died at the moment 
 of attempting their experiments, the percipi- 
 ents would have believed to their last days 
 that they had seen a ghost. But, nobody 
 
144 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 being dead, "'spirits" were quite out of the 
 question. Similarly, it is the writer's jQrm 
 belief, even when the dead are involved there 
 is no necessity of raising the cry of "spirits/' 
 To put it otherwise, it is his conviction that 
 whenever an apparition is seen, or a ghostly 
 voice or sound heard (always excepting, of 
 course, the effects of illusion pure and simple), 
 we have to do with a telepathic hallucination 
 proceeding not from the dead but from the 
 living, if, it may be, the living about to be 
 numbered with the dead. By way of illus- 
 tration, let us glance again at the cases cited 
 in the preceding chapter. 
 
 There is, first, the ghost of the old librarian. 
 On the telepathic hypothesis all that it is 
 needful to assume is that the percipient, Mr. 
 J., had at some time or other seen a portrait 
 of his predecessor, Mr. Q., and had heard 
 his characteristics mentioned. Mr. J. himself 
 denied any knowledge thus gained, and his 
 denial might well have been made in good 
 faith, for such incidents could easily fade from 
 his waking memory. They could not, how- 
 ever, escape the memory of his subconscious, 
 subjective, subliminal self, the self that never 
 sleeps and never forgets, as hypnotic experi- 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 145 
 
 ment has abundantly shown. We may readily 
 imagine him, therefore, equipped subcon- 
 sciously with an excellent mental portrait of 
 Mr. Q., of whom his waking self is in com- 
 plete ignorance. Thus equipped he is seated 
 at his desk, late at night, and in a solitude 
 that might easily breed "'nervousness.'' In 
 fine, his environment and his occupation are 
 admirably united to create a condition of sub- 
 jective activity and to weaken his objective 
 faculties. He rises to start for home, and as 
 he rises his eye glimpses something. ''What's 
 that.^" is his mental query, and "A face" is 
 his mental reply. Instantly he begins to 
 wonder, subconsciously, whose face it may 
 be, and forthwith as a result of subconscious 
 association of ideas there wells up, as it were, 
 a full-length portrait of "old Q.," which pre- 
 sents itself to the waking consciousness in 
 the form of a visual hallucination. 
 
 The ghost seen by the Essex gardener is at 
 first sight far more difficult of explanation on 
 the telepathic hypothesis, for the reason, as 
 Messrs. Gurney and Myers were quick to 
 point out,^ that it seems hard to imagine how 
 
 1 "Proceedings of the Society of Psychical Research," Vol. V, 
 p. 415. 
 
146 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 a state of "rapport'' could have been created 
 between the gardener and the lady whose 
 figure he thought he saw standing by the 
 tomb. But a little analysis will make the 
 matter plain. We know that the gardener 
 frequently saw the lady, while alive, visiting 
 this particular tomb; and we are consequently 
 warranted in assuming that the lady likewise 
 saw the gardener, and, it being a somewhat 
 solitary spot, while in that vicinity was un- 
 likely to see any one else. Thus, if for no 
 other reason, the thought of the gardener 
 would be firmly implanted in her subjective 
 mind. As she lay dying, our hypothesis 
 would run, her subliminal, if not her supra- 
 liminal, consciousness winged its way in 
 imagination to the locality she delighted to 
 visit, and in imagination beheld the tomb 
 once more and with the tomb the gardener. 
 Then, and not till then, would her subjective 
 mind flash its message to his, to remain below 
 the threshold of his consciousness until, in the 
 morning and seven hours after her death, he 
 approached the tomb. The sight of this 
 might then cause him to think, consciously 
 or subconsciously, of the familiar figure, and 
 at once the telepathic message would be ex- 
 ternalized as a "ghost.'' 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 147 
 
 Similarly in the case of the vision of the 
 singing Julia Z., seen and heard by the dying 
 wife of the ^'well-known Irish gentleman." 
 The published details, as given in the third 
 volume of the ''Proceedings of the Society 
 for Psychical Research/' show that there 
 were excellent reasons why Julia Z. should 
 associate her musical gift with the name of 
 the Irish gentleman's wife, and consequently 
 why, when on her deathbed, her subjective 
 mind should transmit news of the impending 
 tragedy to the subjective mind of the wife, 
 to lie submerged there until the numbing of 
 the latter's faculties and then appearing in the 
 dual form of an auditory and visual hallucina- 
 tion. In this, as in the instance of the ghost 
 seen by the gardener, seems clearly exempli- 
 fied the truth of what may be called a sub- 
 theory of the telepathic theory — namely, that 
 the subjective mind is most active at the 
 moment of some crisis, it may be death, an 
 accident, or the strain of an intense emotion. 
 
 Next we have the apparition with the red 
 scratch, seen by Mr. F. G., of Boston. This, 
 the confirmed spiritist would hasten to assure 
 us, is absolutely inexplicable by telepathy. 
 But let us not lose heart too soon. The main 
 
148 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 facts to be explained are the apparition itself, 
 the perception of the scratch on the face of 
 the apparition, and the death of Mr. F. G/s 
 mother so soon after the apparition was seen. 
 If the reader will refer to the fourth chapter 
 he will there find in the portion descriptive 
 of the work of Dr. Sidis a case throwing not 
 a little light on the present problem. It is 
 the case of Mr. R., the business man afflicted 
 with a tremor. Upon hypnotization Dr. Sidis 
 discovered that the subliminal self of Mr. II . 
 was actively and constantly occupied with 
 thoughts of the wife who had died some years 
 before. Now, Mr. F. G. explicitly states 
 that he was particularly fond of his deceased 
 sister, and, arguing by analogy from the 
 case of Mr. R. and other similar cases, we 
 are warranted in the assumption that her 
 image was frequently present in his subcon- 
 sciousness. But, bearing in mind the scratch 
 and the coincidental aspect of the apparition 
 with respect to the speedy death of Mr. F. G.'s 
 mother, we are not warranted in assuming 
 that the hallucination was generated spon- 
 taneously from Mr. F. G.'s subconsciousness. 
 We must seek its origin elsewhere. 
 
 We find it, the writer believes, in the sub- 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 149 
 
 consciousness of the mother. It is a fact, 
 though not generally known, that physical 
 disorders frequently manifest themselves sub- 
 consciously long before the patient becomes 
 consciously aware of the action of the malady. 
 Thus, to give an example from personal ex- 
 perience, the writer some little time ago was 
 obliged to submit to a surgical operation, the 
 necessity for which was only accidentally dis- 
 covered by his physician. He had consciously 
 suffered no pain, not even any inconvenience. 
 But, singularly enough, for weeks previous 
 to the operation he had had a recurring sym- 
 bolical dream of a cat tearing at the part 
 ultimately found to be affected; and, once the 
 surgeon's knife was used, this dream came 
 no more. Quite possibly, therefore, the 
 mother's subconsciousness possessed knowl- 
 edge, denied to her waking self, of the disease 
 that was so soon to terminate fatally. Thence 
 might easily arise a subconscious yearning to 
 see her son once more, and a subconscious 
 determination to send him a message that 
 would summon him home. In ''rapport'' as 
 the mother and son doubtless were, the sub- 
 liminal self of the former was well aware of 
 the image constantly present to the sub- 
 
150 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 liminal self of the latter, and it was this image, 
 the image of the dead sister, that was utilized 
 to express the mother's subconscious desire; 
 but necessarily utilized, be it noted, not in the 
 form present in the son's subconsciousness, 
 but in that present in the mother's; that is to 
 say, with the well-remembered scratch stand- 
 ing out vividly. Possibly, too, the telepathic 
 message had lain latent in his subconscious- 
 ness for days, only appearing as a visual hal- 
 lucination at the moment when, absorbed in 
 the task of writing out his orders, he had 
 temporarily lapsed into a state of ''distraction" 
 similar to that of Dr. Sidis's patients, and was 
 thus in a condition in which the contents of 
 his subconsciousness could emerge most dis- 
 tinctly into his waking field of vision. 
 
 The writer is well aware that this explana- 
 tion is hypothetical — as, indeed, all such 
 explanations must be until the laws of tele- 
 pathic action are known with greater certitude. 
 But he submits that we already know enough 
 to warrant the application of the telepathic 
 hypothesis to all cases of this kind, and that 
 such a course is more rational and logical 
 than to attempt an explanation by the crude 
 method of denying the facts, or to refer the 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 151 
 
 phenomena to the action of ^^ spirits/' con- 
 cerning which, in the very nature of things, 
 we can know nothing at all. Very frequently 
 the telepathic connection is difficult to trace 
 — as in the above instance, and in the case of 
 the ticking heard by Mrs. Davies and her 
 brother — and sometimes it may well seem 
 impossible to establish a casual nexus by 
 telepathy. But it is the writer's conviction 
 that once the psychologists, as a body, seri- 
 ously attack the problem of apparitions and 
 auditions, the case for telepathy as against 
 spiritism will be definitely proved. 
 
 Similarly with the mediumistic messages. 
 These naturally divide into three classes, 
 comprising statements of fact known to the 
 medium, statements of fact not know^n to the 
 medium but known to some other person 
 present, and statements of fact known neither 
 to the medium nor any other person present. 
 As regards the first two classes even such a 
 spiritistic advocate as Myers would admit the 
 possibility of a telepathic explanation. The 
 issue thus narrows to the ''statements of fact 
 known neither to the medium nor any other 
 person present." On the one side, we find 
 the spiritist unreservedly declining to accept 
 
152 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 telepathy as a possible factor if no one present 
 have knowledge of the facts related by the 
 soi-disant spirit; on the other, the telepathist 
 aflSrming that if knowledge of the facts be 
 possessed by any living person in ''rapport" 
 with any person present at the seance we 
 are logically bound to accept the telepathic 
 hypothesis as affording a complete and natural- 
 istic explanation. This at once raises the ques- 
 tion: Is telepathy possible between more than 
 two persons, the original agent and the origi- 
 nal percipient? 
 
 In other words, as stated by Dr. Hudson, 
 who, if not the first to formulate it, was in his 
 day the most ardent champion of the doctrine 
 of telepathie a trois, or multiple telepathy: If 
 A. can, by any means of communication, con- 
 vey information to B., can B., by the same 
 means, convey the same information to C, 
 and C. likewise to D. .^ So far as concerns 
 physical means of communicating intelligence 
 the reply must obviously be in the afiirmative, 
 and the argument by analogy would logically 
 indicate a similar reply in the case of tele- 
 pathy. Fortunately, we need not rely solely 
 on the argument by analogy, for the actuality 
 of multiple telepathy has — at any rate in the 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 153 
 
 writer's opinion — been amply demonstrated 
 by experiment. Space permits only two illus- 
 trations, one from Dr. Hudson, the other 
 from that versatile Scotchman, Andrew Lang, 
 whose multifarious interests include psychical 
 research. 
 
 ''I once hypnotized a lady," writes Dr. 
 Hudson, ''and asked her to describe my home, 
 which she knew nothing of. She described 
 everything correctly, even a huge mastiff lying 
 on a bearskin rug on the library floor. But 
 doubt was thrown upon her lucidity when she 
 described the library desk as being covered 
 with a white cloth, and said that a lady was 
 sitting at the desk 'doing something' which 
 she could not clearly make out. As my desk 
 is covered with black cloth, and as ladies 
 seldom work at it, I regarded the description 
 as an effort at guessing. But on my return 
 home I learned that my wife had been 'doing 
 something' with pulverized sugar, and had 
 covered the table with newspapers to prevent 
 accidents to the black cloth. As that was the 
 only time in the long history of my library 
 desk that it had been so covered or so em- 
 ployed, I cannot ascribe the phenomenon to 
 coincidence. Nor can I think of any other 
 
154 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 way of explaining it than on the theory of 
 telepathie a troisJ^^ 
 
 It may be suggested, as Dr. Hudson 
 promptly observes, that this was a case not of 
 multiple telepathy but of clairvoyance. In 
 point of fact, however, clairvoyance is itself 
 explicable only on the telepathic hypothesis. 
 And, in any event, clairvoyance could not 
 possibly account for the singular circum- 
 stances narrated by Mr. Lang: 
 
 "'Again and again Miss Angus [a crystal 
 gazer who is well known in England], sitting 
 with man or woman, described acquaintances 
 of theirs, but not of hers, in situations not 
 known to the sitters, but proved to be true 
 to fact. ... In one instance Miss Angus de- 
 scribed doings, from three weeks to a fort- 
 night old, of people in India, people whom 
 she had never seen or heard of, but who were 
 known to her sitter. Her account, given on 
 a Saturday, was corroborated by a letter from 
 India, which arrived next day, Sunday. In 
 another case she described (about 10 p. m.) 
 what a lady, not known to her, but the 
 daughter of a matron present (who was not 
 the sitter), had been doing about 4 p.m. on 
 
 1 "The Evolution of the Soul," p. 140. 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 155 
 
 the same day. . . . Again, sitting with the 
 lady. Miss Angus described a singular set of 
 scenes much in the mind, not of her sitter, 
 but of a very unsympathetic stranger, who 
 was reading a book at the other end of the 
 room. I have tried every hypothesis, normal 
 and not so normal, to account for these and 
 analogous performances of Miss Angus. There 
 was, in the Indian and other cases, no physi- 
 cal possibility of collusion; chance coincidence 
 did not seem adequate; ghosts were out of the 
 question, so was direct clairvoyance. . . . 
 Nothing remained for the speculative theo- 
 rizer but the idea of cross currents of telepathy 
 between Miss Angus, a casual stranger, the sit- 
 ters, and people far away, known to the sitters 
 or the stranger, but unknown to Miss Angus." 
 
 Mr. Lang pertinently adds: 
 
 "Now, suppose that Miss Angus, instead 
 of dealing with living people by way of crystal 
 visions, had dealt by way of voice, or auto- 
 matic handwriting, and had introduced a dead 
 'communicator.' Then she would have been 
 on a par with Mrs. Piper, yet with no aid 
 from the dead.''^ 
 
 1 "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," Vol. XV, 
 pp. 48-49. 
 
156 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 In Mrs. Piper's case, as in that of all 
 spiritistic mediums, a dead communicator is 
 invariably introduced. But it does not neces- 
 sarily follow that the medium is dishonest 
 and on the same plane as those mediums who 
 cause household furniture to indulge in ex- 
 travagant antics. Hers is a pathological con- 
 dition, the ^'trance'' being in reality a state 
 of autohypnotization, in which the subliminal 
 self for the time being has complete control 
 of the bodily organism and, in accordance 
 with the principles revealed by hypnotic ex- 
 periment, adopts and enacts any personality 
 suggested to it.^ Thus, accepting as valid 
 the hypothesis of multiple telepathy, all of 
 Mrs. Piper's "controls," past and present, 
 are to be regarded as mere subliminal imper- 
 sonations, and the facts transmitted by them 
 as having been extracted telepathically from 
 the sitter's subconsciousness.^ Exactly how 
 these facts were originally lodged in the sitters' 
 subconsciousness is a matter of comparative 
 indifference, and is, it may readily be granted, 
 often impossible of ascertainment. The im- 
 
 1 The reader will find this phase of the subject well elaborated 
 in the writings of Dr. Hudson and Mr. Podmore. 
 
 2 For a detailed discussion of spiritistic objections to the telepathic 
 hypothesis see Appendix V. 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 157 
 
 portant point is that it is no longer necessary 
 to maintain an attitude of sneering incredulity 
 or of wide-eyed, open-mouthed amazement. 
 The ''ghost'' of Sir Oliver Lodge's uncle, 
 for example, vanishes into the depths from 
 which it came, once it be realized that the 
 incidents cited as proof of personal identity 
 may be derived from the subliminal conscious- 
 ness of Sir Oliver, telepathically conveyed 
 thither, perchance by the subliminal self of 
 the surviving uncle, perchance by the sub- 
 liminal self of the deceased during his earthly 
 career, and for the first time revealed to Sir 
 Oliver's waking self by the mediumship, the 
 telepathic not spiritistic mediumship, of Mrs. 
 Piper. In the same way may we account for 
 all the other facts of her mediumship as set 
 forth in the voluminous reports of her in- 
 vestigators. And as with Mrs. Piper, so with 
 all mediums. 
 
 From the view here set forth a most im- 
 portant conclusion arises — that not only does 
 the survival of personality after bodily death 
 remain unproved, but that it can never be 
 definitely proved by evidence scientifically 
 acceptable. Even the supreme test proposed 
 by Myers is nullified by the unescapable 
 
158 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 operation of telepathy. This test consists in 
 the writing of a message, which is then sealed, 
 intrusted to the keeping of a responsible per- 
 son, and left unopened until, after the writer's 
 death, a mediumistic communication be re- 
 ceived purporting to give, from the world 
 beyond, the contents of the sealed paper. 
 Who can prove that, during the writer's life- 
 time, his subliminal self did not transmit the 
 message telepathically to other subliminal 
 selves .P Always telepathy confronts spiritism 
 and in confronting conquers. 
 
 It does not follow, however, that the Society 
 for Psychical Research has expended its 
 efforts in vain and should cease from endeavor. 
 On the contrary, as the writer trusts these 
 chapters have shown, its labors have been 
 profitable in many unexpected ways. And if 
 it has not proved survival, it has most as- 
 suredly given mankind new and forceful 
 reasons for clinging to the ancient faith. This 
 it has done by enlarging and ennobling the 
 conception of personality — a magnificent task 
 in prosecuting which it has received invalu- 
 able, if unwitting, assistance from the psy- 
 chopathologists. Unwitting, because besides 
 usually eying the psychical researcher askance 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 159 
 
 the psychopathologist's idea of the self, as 
 the reader has already discovered, differs con- 
 spicuously from the idea entertained by the 
 adventurer into the supernormal. Both recog- 
 nize the existence and operation of subcon- 
 scious states of the mind, but they speedily 
 part company when it becomes a question of 
 interpretation. As in most controversies, not 
 all the right is with one side and all the wrong 
 with the other. Further, it is possible, unless 
 the writer greatly err, to reconcile their seem- 
 ingly irreconcilable differences which, it may 
 safely be affirmed, have their origin chiefly 
 in the varying interests of the investigators. 
 
 The self, as conceived by the psycho- 
 pathologist, is a complex, unstable, and won- 
 derfully responsive coordination of systems 
 of ideas, with a physiological basis in the 
 nervous system. Unity and continuity of 
 memory and consciousness are its prime 
 characteristics, and these are readily broken 
 by neuron disturbances. Thence results a 
 dissociation of greater or less violence, having 
 its outward manifestations in, it may be, some 
 criminal or vicious act or tendency, it may be 
 in hysteria, it may even be in the utter dis- 
 appearance of the old personality and the 
 
160 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 formation of a new one. But, having defi- 
 nitely ascertained that the neuron disturbance 
 is purely functional and has not reached the 
 organic stage involving cellular destruction, 
 it is deemed quite possible to utilize the re- 
 sponsivity of the self to effect a reaggregation 
 and a consequent inhibition of the baneful 
 phenomena. This theory — which, as we 
 have seen, has resulted in discoveries of im- 
 mediate curative value — manifestly regards 
 the self of which we are normally conscious 
 as, so to speak, the crowning triumph of 
 neuron aggregation. But in thus stating his 
 theoretical position the psychopathologist over- 
 looks an all-important fact which in practice 
 he constantly recognizes. 
 
 This is the fact that when effecting a re- 
 association he directs his appeal, in the last 
 resort, not to the old and vanished per- 
 sonality, nor to the dissociated, secondary 
 personality, but to a self that persists beneath 
 all the changing phenomena of consciousness. 
 The truth of this will appear from the most 
 cursory survey of the cases described in the 
 chapters dealing with the work of the French 
 and American psychopathologists. To put it 
 otherwise, there are subconscious states and a 
 
The Nemesis of Spiritism 161 
 
 subconscious state, deeper than all others and 
 embracing all others, its content extending 
 even to a conscious state of wake-a-day life. 
 This sovereign state, need it be said, is the 
 ^'subliminal self of the psychical researcher 
 who, for his part, has erred by neglecting to 
 discriminate closely between it and the psycho- 
 pathologist's "secondary self.'' 
 
 At once we are confronted by the problem 
 of the place of the self of which we are nor- 
 mally conscious in the scheme of personality. 
 Shocking as it may at first thought sound, 
 everything would indicate that it is but a dis- 
 sociation from the subliminal self, an incom- 
 plete aggregation even as the dissociated states 
 of neuron disturbance are incomplete aggre- 
 gations. To the writer it seems impossible 
 to evade this conclusion when we review the 
 proved potentialities of our being as revealed 
 in the phenomena of hypnotism and telepathy. 
 Yet a moment's consideration should suflSce 
 to inspire within us a lively hope — the hope 
 that somehow, somewhere, at some time, these 
 potentialities, realizable now only under ab- 
 normal conditions, will become enduring 
 actualities. The conditions of our environ- 
 ment here on earth are such that it is impos- 
 
162 The Riddle of Personality 
 
 sible to expect their development in this life 
 to any but a limited extent. Yet it is incon- 
 ceivable that they, any more than the faculties 
 of which we daily avail ourselves in our com- 
 merce with our fellows, are given to us for no 
 purpose. Logic, therefore, unites with faith 
 to buttress the conviction that there must be 
 a life beyond, a hereafter in which we shall 
 at last come into our complete heritage, at 
 last be veritably as men grown to full stature. 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 D, D. Home and Eusapia Paladino 
 
 Daniel Dunglas Home and Eusapia Pala- 
 dino are undoubtedly the most impressive 
 figures in the annals of physical medium- 
 ship. Home, who died in France some twenty 
 years ago, enjoyed the really unique distinc- 
 tion of not once having had a charge of fraud 
 proved against him. He was born in Scot- 
 land in 1833, but as a child was taken by 
 relatives to the United States, locating in a 
 small Connecticut town. Not long after the 
 outbreak of the Hydesville rappings, when the 
 Fox sisters first entered upon their notoriety 
 winning career, he displayed mediumistic 
 abilities, and by 1852 had acquired a con- 
 siderable reputation among the spiritists of 
 the Atlantic States. In 1855, partly for the 
 sake of his health, which was never robust, and 
 partly as a missionary of spiritism, he went 
 abroad, visiting in turn the principal cities 
 of England and the continent, and exhibiting 
 before many of the crowned heads of Europe. 
 
 163 
 
164 Appendix I 
 
 Everywhere he went he scored distinct 
 triumphs, both as a medium and as a social 
 favorite. He seems to have been a man 
 of a fascinating personaKty, gaining with 
 ease the friendship and confidence of all who 
 came to know him. Belief in the genuineness 
 of his pretensions was further strengthened 
 by his persistent refusal to accept payment for 
 his mediumistic performances — a fact which, 
 it may incidentally be said, caused most 
 people to overlook the equally obvious cir- 
 cumstance that he none the less owed his 
 livelihood almost entirely to his mediumship, 
 admirers showering gifts upon him and fre- 
 quently entertaining him as their guest for 
 months at a time. In this, too, may be 
 found a reason for his immunity from expo- 
 sure. Given private seances, such as his usually 
 were, among friends of a more or less lofty 
 social position but untrained for exact ob- 
 servation, and probability of trickery being 
 detected would indeed become remote. 
 
 Still, it must be said that the more striking 
 of Home's feats are not easily explained on 
 the hypothesis of sheer fraud. Pre-eminent 
 among these is the phenomenon of levitation, 
 numerous instances of which are recorded in 
 
D. D. Home and Eusapia Paladino 165 
 
 his career, and notably on the occasion to 
 which reference was made in the opening 
 chapter. At that time (1868) Home was in 
 London giving seances to a select coterie of 
 patrons, including the Earl of Dunraven and 
 the Earl of Crawford, who were then respec- 
 tively known as Viscount Adare and the 
 Master of Lindsay. These two gentlemen, 
 together with a cousin of the former's, a Cap- 
 tain Wynne, were the witnesses of the sensa- 
 tional levitation, which Lord Crawford thus 
 described in a statement to the London 
 Dialectical Society: 
 
 "'I saw the levitation in Victoria Street when 
 Home floated out of the window. He first 
 went into a trance and walked about uneasily; 
 he then went into the hall. While he was 
 away I heard a voice whisper in my ear, 'He 
 will go out of one window and in at another.' 
 I was alarmed and shocked at the idea of so 
 dangerous an experiment. I told the com- 
 pany what I had heard, and we then waited 
 for Home's return. Shortly after he entered 
 the room. I heard the window go up, but 
 I could not see it, for I sat with my back to it. 
 I, however, saw his shadow on the opposite 
 wall; he went out of the window in a horizontal 
 
166 Appendix I 
 
 position, and I saw him outside the other 
 window (that is, the next room) floating in the 
 air. It was eighty-five feet from the ground/' 
 
 Later, Lord Crawford corrected this state- 
 ment by a letter in which he explained that 
 the window out of which Home claimed to 
 have floated was not that of the seance-room 
 but of the chamber adjoining it, while the 
 window of his entry was that opening into 
 the seance-room. Lord Dunraven gave simi- 
 lar testimony, declaring that '"we heard Home 
 go into the next room, heard the window 
 thrown up, and presently Home appeared 
 standing upright outside our window; he 
 opened the window and walked in quite 
 coolly.'' It also seems that after his return 
 in this seemingly miraculous manner. Home 
 asked Lord Dunraven to close the window 
 in the other room, and thereby led up to a 
 second sensational ingident, of which Lord 
 Dunraven was the only witness. To quote 
 from the latter again: 
 
 ""I remarked [after closing the window and 
 rejoining the others] that the window was not 
 raised a foot, and that I could not think how 
 he [Home] had managed to squeeze through. 
 He arose and said, 'Come and see.' I went 
 
D. D. Home and Eusapia Paladino 167 
 
 with him; he told me to open the window as 
 it was before; I did so; he told me to stand 
 a little distance off; he then went through 
 the open space, head first, quite rapidly, his 
 body being nearly horizontal and apparently 
 rigid. He came in again feet foremost, and 
 we returned to the other room. It was so 
 dark I could not see clearly how he was sup- 
 ported outside. He did not appear to grasp, or 
 rest upon the balustrade, but rather to be swung 
 out and in. Outside each window is a small 
 balcony or ledge nineteen inches deep, bounded 
 by stone balustrades eighteen inches high." 
 
 Home's own belief was that the spirits had 
 lifted him out and in, and held him supported 
 in the air; and on the same theory he would 
 also explain the phenomenon of elongation, 
 to the verity of which Lords Dunraven and 
 Crawford strongly testified. ''On one occa- 
 sion,'' Lord Crawford asserted, in a Dialectical 
 Society paper, ''I saw Mr. Home, in a trance, 
 elongated eleven inches. I measured him 
 standing up against the wall, and marked 
 the place; not being satisfied with that, I put 
 him in the middle of the room and placed a 
 candle in front of him, so as to throw a shadow 
 on the wall, which I also marked. When he 
 
168 Appendix I 
 
 awoke I measured him again in his natural 
 size, both directly and by the shadow, and 
 the results were equal. I can swear that he 
 was not off the ground or standing on tip-toe, 
 as I had full view of his feet, and, moreover, 
 a gentleman present had one of his feet placed 
 over Home's insteps, one hand on his shoulder, 
 and the other on his side where the false ribs 
 come near the hipbone. . . . There was no 
 separation of the vertebrae of the spine; nor 
 were the elongations at all like those resulting 
 from expanding the chest with air; the 
 shoulders did not move. Home looked as if 
 he was pulled up by the neck; the muscles 
 seemed in a state of tension. He stood firmly 
 upright in the middle of the room, and before 
 the elongation commenced I placed my foot 
 on his instep. I will swear he never moved 
 his heels from the ground. ... I once saw 
 him elongated horizontally on the ground; 
 Lord Adare was present. Home seemed to 
 grow at both ends, and pushed myself and 
 Adare away." 
 
 Another phenomenon for which Home be- 
 came especially noted was that known as the 
 fire ordeal. This, as its name indicates, in- 
 volved his ability to handle blazing substances 
 
D. D. Home and Eusapia Paladino 169 
 
 without injury to his person, and that he 
 could do so is testified by numerous wit- 
 nesses, including, besides Lords Crawford and 
 Dunraven, the famous scientist Sir William 
 Crookes. Early in 1871, his interest having 
 been aroused by the many stories then afloat 
 regarding Home's alleged supernormal powers. 
 Sir William undertook an investigation of 
 his mediumship, employing for the purpose 
 specially designed apparatus which, unfor- 
 tunately, did not exactly fulfil the require- 
 ments laid down by Sir William himself and 
 quoted in the fifth chapter of the present 
 work. The results obtained, however, were 
 so startling that Sir William, in reporting the 
 seances held with Home, did not hesitate to 
 afiirm that the existence of a hitherto unknown 
 physical force had been amply demonstrated. 
 Among much else, and perhaps chiefly im- 
 pressing him, were several exhibitions of the 
 fire ordeal. On one occasion. Sir William 
 stated. Home deliberately drew from a grate 
 fire several lumps of hot coal, including one 
 that was *^ bright red,'' without sustaining any 
 injury. On another he took a piece of ** red- 
 hot" charcoal and placed it on a folded cam- 
 bric handkerchief, fanning the charcoal to a 
 
170 Appendix I 
 
 "white heat" with his breath, but doing no 
 injury to the handkerchief beyond burning a 
 minute hole in it. Afterwards Sir WiUiam 
 tested the handkerchief in his laboratory and 
 found that it had not been chemically treated 
 to withstand the action of fire. And, imme- 
 diately following this handkerchief feat, the 
 medium indulged in another astonishing ex- 
 hibition of his peculiar gift. 
 
 "Mr. Home,'' Sir William Crookes declared, 
 "again went to the fire, and after stirring the 
 hot coal about with his hand, took out a red- 
 hot piece nearly as big as an orange, and 
 putting it on his right hand covered it over 
 with his left hand, so as to almost completely 
 enclose it, and then blew into the small fur- 
 nace thus extemporized until the lump of char- 
 coal was nearly white hot, and then drew my 
 attention to the lambent flame which was flick- 
 ering over the coal and licking round his fingers ; 
 he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent man- 
 ner, held up the coal in front, and said, 'Is not 
 God good ? Are not His laws wonderful ?^^'^ 
 
 The only rational explanation of such per- 
 formances as these, aside from unreserved 
 
 ^ "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," Vol. VI, 
 p. 103. 
 
D. D. Home and Eusapia Paladino 171 
 
 acceptance of the theory that they were ren- 
 dered possible by the action either of dis- 
 carnate spirits or of an unknown natural 
 force, is that the spectators unconsciously 
 gave totally erroneous accounts of what oc- 
 curred. It is out of the question to cast 
 doubts on the good faith of men like Lords 
 Crawford and Dunraven and Sir William 
 Crookes; but it is not unreasonable to as- 
 sume that, under the influence of the at- 
 mosphere of suggestion with which Home, 
 like all other physical mediums, constantly 
 surrounded his sitters, they were misled into 
 believing that they had seen things which 
 actually they had not seen at all. Certainly, 
 there are indications that at least one of the 
 three, the Earl of Crawford, was exceedingly 
 suggestible; and every one who has attended a 
 spiritistic seance is aware of the fact that the 
 very manner of the medium, and his every 
 word and look, are calculated to awaken and 
 intensify whatever latent suggestibility there 
 may be in the sitter. 
 
 In fact, in Home's case it does not seem at 
 all unlikely that the use of hypnotism was a 
 contributing factor in the production of the 
 astounding phenomena with which he is 
 
172 Appendix I 
 
 credited. It is at least significant that at one 
 stage in his career he was the recipient, from 
 an aged and wealthy widow who had con- 
 ceived a warm attachment for him, of gifts 
 of money amounting to the enormous sum 
 of $300,000, a benefaction which an English 
 judge compelled him to relinquish on the 
 ground that while no definite charge of undue 
 influence had been brought home to him, it 
 had not been clearly shown that the lady's 
 acts were those of '^pure volition unin- 
 fluenced/' At the same time, it will not do 
 to class Home with the vulgar impostors and 
 adventurers who have done so much to dis- 
 credit spiritism among the thoughtful. All 
 accounts agree in testifying to the evident 
 sincerity of his belief that he was really in- 
 vested with supernormal powers. And it is 
 inconceivable that he could so easily have 
 gained, and so tenaciously held, the confi- 
 dence of men of the Dunraven-Crawford- 
 Crookes stamp, had he been a mere trickster. 
 The probability is that he deceived himself 
 quite as much as he deceived others — that 
 the frauds which we must believe he perpe- 
 trated were committed bv him while in a 
 dissociated state. Such a state, as the reader 
 
D. D. Home and Eusapia Paladino 173 
 
 of the foregoing pages will understand, may 
 easily become habitual; and the mere fact that 
 he gave his whole life to the monotonous 
 repetition of practically purposeless wonder 
 workings is suflficient proof that he deviated 
 widely from normal men. It is, then, not 
 fair to hold him strictly accountable for his 
 conduct; but neither is it wise to accept his 
 performances at their face value and find in 
 them proof of the existence either of super- 
 natural or previously unknown but perfectly 
 natural agencies. 
 
 Precisely the same may be said of Eusapia 
 Paladino, who has recently been once more 
 thrust upon the attention of the public by 
 reason of a series of seances given in the 
 presence of a number of eminent Italian 
 scientists, one of whom, the psychiatrist Henry 
 Morselli, has reached the same conclusion 
 at which Sir William Crookes arrived after 
 his investigation of Home. In Eusapia's case, 
 however, the investigators had as a starting- 
 point the unpleasant knowledge that she had 
 been repeatedly detected in fraud — even the 
 credulous continental enthusiasts who lionized 
 her after the English fiasco being forced to 
 admit that she often showed an undue desire 
 
174 Appendix I 
 
 to help out the spirits. Nevertheless, it is 
 insisted by Professor Morselli, as by . other 
 savants who have had seances with her in her 
 native land during the past two years (1906 
 and 1907), that fraud will not explain all the 
 phenomena produced in her presence. 
 
 Reading the evidence, however, as given 
 by Professor Morselli and his associates in 
 recent issues of the Annates des Sciences 
 Psychiques, it is hard to understand just why 
 this judgment should have been reached. 
 The old, old story is told — a dimly lighted 
 room, a curtained cabinet, dancing chairs 
 and tables, and the flight of sundry articles 
 of furniture through the air, with knockings 
 and pinchings and occasional fugitive glimpses 
 of spirit faces and heads and hands. Once 
 in a while, but comparatively seldom, a novel 
 manifestation would be vouchsafed. Thus, at 
 one seance a metronome was set in motion 
 while the spectators — who, it is asserted, 
 could see the medium distinctly in the "semi- 
 obscurity'' to which their eyes had become 
 accustomed — failed to perceive a hand in 
 contact with the instrument. Yet, as one 
 of the onlookers naively remarked — "Met- 
 ronomes do not have the habit of starting and 
 stopping themselves." 
 
D. D. Home and Eusapia Paladino 175 
 
 At the same seance, or rather after it was 
 oflficially at an end, a ''large and heavy" stool 
 paraded across the room towards Eusapia, 
 and cleverly dodged an inquisitive investi- 
 gator who sought to intercept it. At another 
 seance an invisible hand grasped a dyna- 
 mometer, carried it into the cabinet, and re- 
 turned it with the index indicating a pressure 
 "such as only the hand of a strong man could 
 make/' Again, the curtain of the cabinet 
 bulged out, outlining in its folds the form of a 
 human being, and when a sitter placed his 
 hand at the spot where the mouth of the hid- 
 den spirit would presumably be, he received a 
 very material bite on his thumb. As before, 
 the medium was as plainly visible outside the 
 cabinet as the "semi-obscurity'' would per- 
 mit. Suspiciously enough, however. Professor 
 Morselli at a later seance caught her in the 
 act of furtively stretching out her hand to 
 pick up a trumpet which, the next instant, 
 flew from the table and disappeared into the 
 cabinet amid universal amazement. 
 
 The further one reads the greater becomes 
 one's astonishment that the genuineness of 
 the majority of the phenomena is vouched 
 for by such really reputable men of science 
 
176 Appendix I 
 
 as Professor Morselli and his fellow investi- 
 gators. They do not, it is true, accept the 
 spiritistic interpretation. But they do incline 
 openly to the belief that in Eusapia Paladino 
 the world possesses a medium for the operation 
 of a secret force capable of overcoming the 
 laws of nature so far as they are understood 
 to-day. They would explain away her fraud 
 and chicanery on the ground that while in the 
 trance state she is not really herself, but is 
 at the mercy of an irresponsible secondary 
 personality — an explanation with which the 
 present writer is in agreement, and which is 
 quite satisfactory if the logical addendum be 
 made, viz., that while in this secondary state 
 it is altogether probable Eusapia cheats all 
 the time, and that her successful phenomena 
 are nothing more than tricks performed with 
 a cunning which defies detection. In such 
 matters the attitude assumed by the Society 
 for Psychical Research is the only safe one. 
 When the evidence proffered is of such a 
 nature that its verity depends on the close and 
 unfailing scrutiny of the human eye, a single 
 conviction of fraud should be suflScient to 
 deprive the offending medium of all right to 
 further scientific investigation. 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 The Census of Hallucinations 
 
 In addition to collecting from all parts of 
 the world information that might throw light 
 on the more obscure operations of the human 
 mind and the possibility of discarnate spirits 
 communicating with spirits still in the flesh, 
 the Society for Psychical Research undertook 
 in 1889 a statistical inquiry into hallucinations. 
 This was begun with only modest expectations 
 of securing data that would warrant definite 
 statements regarding the extent and cause of 
 sensory deceptions; and when, after several 
 years' labor, the statistics were analyzed, it 
 was found that results of far-reaching impor- 
 tance had been obtained. 
 
 The inquiry, which may fairly be described 
 as a census, was under the direction of a 
 special committee consisting of Professor and 
 Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, F. W. H. Myers and 
 his brother Dr. A. T. Myers, Frank Podmore, 
 and Miss Alice Johnson. These enlisted the 
 
 177 
 
178 Appendix II 
 
 assistance of over four hundred collectors, or 
 enumerators, each of whom was instructed 
 to put the following question to twenty-five 
 adults, chosen without reference to the proba- 
 bility of receiving an affirmative answer: 
 
 ^'Have you ever, when believing yourself 
 to be completely awake, had a vivid impression 
 of seeing or being touched by a living being 
 or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice; 
 which impression, so far as you could dis- 
 cover, was not due to any external physical 
 cause .^ 
 
 The enumerators were further directed to 
 record the answer "'No" and the answer 
 ^'Yes" with equal scrupulousness, and to 
 obtain if possible a written account of the 
 hallucination whenever an affirmative answer 
 had to be recorded. They were also instructed 
 to exclude from consideration all hallucina- 
 tions obviously connected with insanity, de- 
 lirium, or sleep. 
 
 Under these conditions some 17,000 per- 
 sons were questioned, mostly acquaintances 
 of the collectors but for all practical purposes 
 chosen at random; and after deducting hal- 
 lucinations of the character just mentioned 
 there remained 1684 affirmative answers, rep- 
 
The Census of Hallucinations 179 
 
 resenting almost ten per cent of the whole. 
 To make sure that this corresponded to a 
 true proportion, the committee instituted a 
 comparison between the collectors' statistics 
 and figures derived from inquiries made by 
 the committee themselves among various unse- 
 lected groups of persons. Curiously enough, 
 the percentage of affirmative answers received 
 from these groups exceeded those of the main 
 investigation, and the warrantable inference 
 was made that the latter had not exaggerated 
 the situation. 
 
 What this meant was a complete overthrow 
 of the long-standing belief that hallucinations 
 were inevitably associated with some malady 
 — a belief which found its extreme expression 
 in, for instance. Lord Brougham's endeavor 
 to establish a law making the existence of a 
 hallucination proof positive of insanity. So 
 far from being of rare occurrence hallucina- 
 tions, as the report on the society's census 
 made very clear, are frequently experienced, 
 and by persons of an entirely normal type. 
 Even more important, from the standpoint of 
 psychical research proper, was the discovery 
 that many hallucinatory visions of absent 
 friends and relatives were said to have been 
 
180 Appendix II 
 
 experienced within one to twelve hours after 
 the death of the person seen. Out of a 
 total of 350 recognized apparitions of living 
 persons no fewer than 65 were reported as 
 being thus coincidental. For various reasons, 
 fully stated in the report which will be found 
 in the tenth volume of the society's "'Proceed- 
 ings/' 33 of the alleged death coincidences 
 were rejected, however, leaving a total of 
 32 cases deemed beyond suspicion. 
 
 At the same time, it was appreciated that 
 the percipient of a hallucination was quite 
 liable to forget all about it in the lapse of time, 
 and that it was therefore not unlikely that the 
 total of 350 recognized apparitions of living 
 persons did not represent the actual number 
 of such apparitions seen. Indeed, tabular 
 arrangement of the reported hallucinations 
 showed that while the number was compara- 
 tively large for the most recent years, it de- 
 creased rapidly as the years became remote 
 — at ten years' distance being only half what 
 it was for the nearest year. This, and other 
 considerations, led to the conclusion that in 
 order to arrive at the true number of hal- 
 lucinations experienced the number reported 
 must be multiplied by four. On the other 
 
The Census of Hallucinations 181 
 
 hand, there was far less probability that a 
 hallucinatory death coincidence would be for- 
 gotten. Leaving the total number of death 
 coincidences untouched, therefore, the com- 
 mittee increased the total number of recog- 
 nized apparitions by making the necessary 
 correction for forgetfulness, and obtained as 
 a final result a proportion of one death coin- 
 cidence in every 43 cases. 
 
 Taking the annual death rate for England 
 and Wales at 19.15 per 1000, as given by the 
 registrar-general's report for the year 1890, 
 it was calculated that the probability that a 
 given person would die on a given day was 
 about one in 19,000 — or that, in other words, 
 out of every 19,000 apparitions of living per- 
 sons there should be, by chance alone, one 
 death coincidence. But the actual proportion 
 established by the figures of the census was 
 equivalent to about 440 in 19,000, or 440 times 
 the probable number, and this when the cal- 
 culation was based only on death coincidences 
 occurring within from one to twelve hours 
 of the time of death. Actually, a large frac- 
 tion of the 32 cases accepted as sufficiently 
 authenticated represented hallucinations ex- 
 perienced within an hour of the time of 
 
182 Appendix II 
 
 death, and for these the improbability of 
 chance occurrence was obviously 12 times 
 greater. With such a wide margin of differ- 
 ence the committee felt justified in declaring: 
 ^^ Between deaths and the apparition of the 
 dying person a connection exists which is not 
 due to chance/' 
 
 What, then, is the connection? To quote 
 from F. W. H. Myers's explanatory comment 
 on the report: 
 
 "The explanation of chance coincidence 
 being thus put out of court, the opponent of a 
 telepathic or other supernormal explanation 
 must maintain one of three other hypotheses. 
 (1) He may assert that the coincidences have 
 been exaggerated to a much greater extent 
 than the committee allowed for; which argu- 
 ment can only be met by reference to the 
 evidence — given fully in the report — for 
 the various cases. (2) He may suppose that 
 they were specially sought after by the col- 
 lectors and illegitimately introduced into the 
 collection to a much larger extent in propor- 
 tion to non-coincidental cases than was al- 
 allowed for. Our reply would be that in 26 
 of the total number of death coincidences, 
 the collectors reported that they did not know 
 
The Census of Hallucinations 183 
 
 of the case beforehand, and therefore could 
 not have selected it to include. Sixteen of 
 these cases are printed in the report, so that 
 the evidence for them can be studied. (3) 
 Admitting that death coincidences really exist, 
 and are too frequent to be attributed to 
 chance, it may be argued that the causal 
 connection between hallucination and death 
 is not telepathic, but consists in a condition 
 favorable to hallucination being produced in 
 the percipient in some normal way by the cir- 
 cumstances of the case; for instance, by 
 anxiety about the dying person. There is 
 some evidence in the report that mental 
 tension, anxiety, or other emotional causes 
 are to some extent favorable to hallucinations, 
 and if a hallucination occurs, its form is likely 
 to be determined by whatever subject the 
 percipient is thinking of. But such a cause 
 could only produce a death coincidence if the 
 percipient were aware of the dying person's 
 condition, and in many of the cases reported 
 (ten of which are printed in the report) the 
 percipient had not even heard of the dying 
 person's illness. It was therefore impossible 
 that anxiety should have caused the halluci- 
 nation in those cases, and even in cases where 
 
184 Appendix II 
 
 some degree of anxiety existed, the closeness 
 of the coincidence is inadequately accounted 
 for by it. . . . 
 
 *'I must add that while this argument from 
 statistics and percentages — capable as it is 
 at once of accurate estimation and indefinite 
 extension — constitutes technically the strong- 
 est support of the thesis of causal connection 
 between deaths and apparitions, it is yet by 
 no means the only support, nor even the most 
 practically convincing. Those deaths and 
 those apparitions are not mere simple momen- 
 tary facts — as though we were dealing with 
 two clocks which struck simultaneously. Each 
 is a complex occurrence, and the correspond- 
 ence is often much more than a mere coin- 
 cidence of time alone. Sometimes, indeed, 
 the alleged coincidence is so detailed and 
 intimate that, if the evidence for a single case 
 is fully believed, that case is enough to carry 
 conviction.'' ^ 
 
 Myers himself, like all others who see in the 
 spiritistic hypothesis the only satisfactory ex- 
 planation of the data thus laboriously gathered, 
 would insist that the hallucinations reported 
 
 1 " Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death," Vol. I, 
 pp. 573-4. 
 
The Census of Hallucinations 185 
 
 were proof of the survival of personality. 
 But, as the writer hopes he has made suffi- 
 ciently clear in the sixth chapter of this book, 
 the impossibility of adducing evidence that 
 the hallucinations were not telepathically pro- 
 duced from the subconscious mind of the dying 
 persons before they passed from earth, and 
 remained submerged in the subconscious mind 
 of the percipients, practically vitiates the 
 argument from spirit influence. Whatever 
 the causal connection, however, it may hardly 
 be doubted that the statistics of this unique 
 census have a momentous bearing on the 
 question of the existence and operation of 
 mental faculties other than those employed 
 in the routine of life. 
 
APPENDIX III 
 
 Hypnotism and the Drink Habit 
 
 Perhaps no more urgent problem confronts 
 the medical world than the cure of alcoholism, 
 its importance lying in the preponderating 
 role played by the drink habit in the weaken- 
 ing of the race as well as the destruction of the 
 afflicted individual. All authorities unite in 
 declaring that alcoholism holds a foremost 
 place among the direct causes of insanity. 
 The psychiatrist Morel rated it next to he- 
 redity in this respect; and indirectly it still 
 further extends its baneful influence by trans- 
 mitting to the posterity of drunkards an in- 
 herited taint which may find expression in one 
 or more of many forms — true insanity, idiocy, 
 epilepsy, hysteria, future inebriety, criminality, 
 etc. Added to this is the economic loss, to 
 say nothing of the personal suffering entailed 
 on the dipsomaniac himself and his relatives. 
 It is, of course, out of the question to expect 
 that a means will be found for the total eradi- 
 
 186 
 
Hypnotism and the Drink Habit 187 
 
 cation of drunkenness; but it is imperative 
 to check drink's ravages so far as is humanly 
 possible, and for this purpose no method of 
 treatment as yet discovered seems to hold 
 such promise as the hypnotic. 
 
 For some reason, not definitely ascertained, 
 dipsomaniacs are peculiarly susceptible to 
 hypnotism, at times responding to the cura- 
 tive suggestions of the operator with almost 
 incredible readiness. Such has been the ex- 
 perience of all psychopathologists, from the 
 founders of the Paris and Nancy schools of 
 hypnotism to the most recent practitioners. 
 In this, it may incidentally be noted, dipso- 
 maniacs differ markedly from victims of the 
 morphine and cocaine habit. The cure of 
 the latter is very difficult and often impossible, 
 their entire system having seemingly become 
 so demoralized as to extinguish even the 
 recuperative energy of the subliminal self. 
 But in the case of dipsomaniacs, given a fair 
 family history and a habit of not too long a 
 standing, the hypnotic method holds out every 
 promise of a cure. 
 
 There is hope, in fact, for even the con- 
 firmed drunkard, with a black heredity and a 
 record of years of indulgence. One of Dr. 
 
188 Appendix III 
 
 Sidis's most striking cures was that of a man 
 deriving an alcoholic tendency from both his 
 father's and his mother's side, and so besotted 
 that Dr. Sidis considered the case almost 
 hopeless. But, to his amazement, he found 
 a subliminal responsiveness of such vigor that 
 this drunkard by inheritance was enabled to 
 take his proper place in society sooner than 
 many others on whom the vice apparently 
 had a weaker hold. Similarly, Dr. J. Milne 
 Bramwell, a pioneer English practitioner, re- 
 ports a complete cure in the case of a man 
 who, with a bad family history, averaged a 
 spree a week for several years; also of one 
 patient who had had three attacks of delirium 
 tremens and seven of epilepsy — probably, 
 however, not true epilepsy but hystero-epi- 
 lepsy. Another case of Dr. BramwelFs, re- 
 ported by him in the June, 1900, issue of the 
 *' Proceedings of the Society for the Study of 
 Inebriety," may advantageously be described 
 in his own words : 
 
 "Mrs. C, aged forty-four, November 23, 
 1894. Family history of alcoholism. At the 
 age of twenty the patient began to have 
 frequent hysterical attacks, and for these 
 stimulants were prescribed in rather large 
 
Hypnotism and the Drink Habit 189 
 
 quantities. Two years later she began to 
 take stimulants in excess, but did not do so 
 frequently, and rarely became intoxicated. 
 From thirty-two to thirty-six she was an 
 abstainer; then commenced taking stimulants 
 again, and attacks of genuine dipsomania 
 soon appeared. The patient suffered from 
 an almost constant craving for alcohol. She 
 was, however, a woman of culture, refine- 
 ment, and high principle, devoted to her 
 husband and children, and the idea of giving 
 way to drink was in every way abhorrent to 
 her. She therefore struggled with all her 
 might against the temptation; resisted it suc- 
 cessfully for a week or two, then the craving 
 became irresistible, and a drinking bout fol- 
 lowed. I hypnotized Mrs. C. thirty times, 
 from November 23, 1894, to February 14, 
 1895. From the very beginning of the treat- 
 ment she abstained from stimulants, but the 
 craving, although much diminished, did not 
 entirely disappear for some months. Up to 
 the present date there has been absolutely 
 no relapse." 
 
 Thus, no matter what the condition of 
 the dipsomaniac, it seems ^' never too late to 
 mend"; although the conservative psycho- 
 
1 90 Appendix III 
 
 pathologist does not pretend that in every 
 case a permanent cure can be effected. Still, 
 the percentage of permanent cures, as derived 
 from the records of the cases treated by 
 Drs. Sidis, Bramwell, and others, is astonish- 
 ingly high. And, what is of no small im- 
 portance to most people, the treatment may 
 be given without interruption to the patient's 
 business. 
 
APPENDIX IV 
 
 Hypnoidization 
 
 In an interesting series of articles contributed 
 to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 
 (issues of March 14 to April 11, 1907), Dr. 
 Boris Sidis gives an outline account of his 
 latest psychopathological investigations, and 
 incidentally explains the method of hypnoidi- 
 zation developed and utilized by him. It is 
 quoted here for the purpose of affording the 
 reader an understanding of the nature of the 
 hypnoidic state and the means by which it is 
 produced. 
 
 ''In order to get at the dissociated subcon- 
 scious states," writes Dr. Sidis, ''I have for 
 many years employed a method which gives 
 uniformly excellent results. I wish to attract 
 the attention of the medical profession to 
 this method of hypnoidization, as it is not only 
 of theoretical importance for the purposes of 
 psychopathological analysis, but it is possibly 
 of still greater value for practical therapeutic 
 
 191 
 
192 Appendix IV 
 
 purposes. This is all the more requisite, as 
 recently some medical men have confused 
 the method of hypnoidization with that of 
 Breuer and Freud on the one hand and with 
 Janet's method of distraction on the other. 
 The three methods are radically different and 
 are based on widely different principles. The 
 nature of the states obtained by the method 
 of hypnoidization, as well as the character of 
 the results, differ fundamentally from those 
 of the other two methods. . . . 
 
 "It is on [the] general laws and nature of 
 relation of the personal consciousness to the 
 subconscious that I have based my method 
 of hypnoidization. In order to reach the 
 dissociated mental states we have to lay bare 
 the subconscious, and this can be effected by 
 the conditions requisite for the induction of 
 normal or abnormal suggestibility, conditions 
 which bring about a disaggregation of con- 
 sciousness. In cases, therefore, where hypno- 
 sis is not practicable and the subconscious 
 has to be reached, we can effect a disaggrega- 
 tion of consciousness and thus produce an 
 allied subconscious state by putting the patient 
 under the conditions of normal suggestibility: 
 fixation of attention, distraction, monotony. 
 
Hypnoidization 193 
 
 limitation of the voluntary movements, limita- 
 tion of the field of vision, inhibition, and im- 
 mediate execution. 
 
 "'This is precisely what the method of hyp- 
 noidization consists in. The patient is asked 
 to close his eyes and keep as quiet as possible, 
 without, however, making any special effort 
 to put himself in such a state. He is then 
 asked to attend to some stimulus such as read- 
 ing or singing (or to the monotonous beats 
 of a metronome). When the reading is over, 
 the patient, with his eyes shut, is asked to 
 repeat it and tell what comes into his mind 
 during the reading, or during the repetition, 
 or immediately after it. Sometimes the pa- 
 tient is simply asked to tell the nature of 
 ideas and images that have entered his mind. 
 This should be carried out in a very quiet 
 place, and the room, if possible, should be 
 darkened so as not to disturb the patient and 
 bring him out of the state in which he has 
 been put. 
 
 "As modifications of the same method, 
 the patient is asked to fixate his attention on 
 some object while at the same time listening 
 to the beats of a metronome; the patient's 
 eyes are then closed; he is to keep very quiet. 
 
194 Appendix IV 
 
 while the metronome or some other monoto- 
 nous stimulus is kept on going. After some 
 time, when his respirations and pulse are 
 found somewhat lowered, and he declares 
 that he thinks of nothing in particular, he is 
 asked to concentrate his attention on a sub- 
 ject closely relating to the symptoms of the 
 malady or to the submerged subconscious 
 states. 
 
 "The patient, again, may be asked to keep 
 very quiet, to move or change position as 
 little as possible, and is then required to look 
 steadily into a glass of water on a white back- 
 ground, with a light shining through the con- 
 tents of the glass; a mechanism producing 
 monotonous sounds is set going, and after a 
 time, when the patient is observed to have 
 become unusually quiet, he is asked to tell 
 what he thinks in regard to a subject relating 
 to his symptoms. He may be asked to write 
 the stray ideas down, if speaking aloud dis- 
 turbs the induced states favorable to the 
 emergence of the dissociated mental states. 
 
 "In some cases it is suflBcient to put the 
 patient in a very quiet condition; have his 
 eyes shut and command him to think hard of 
 the particular dissociated states. This mostly 
 
Hypnoidization 195 
 
 succeeds in the case of patients who are also 
 somnambulists. 
 
 *'In short, the method of hypnoidization is 
 not necessarily fixed, it admits of many modi- 
 fications; it is highly pliable and can be ad- 
 justed to the type of case as ,well as adapted 
 to the idiosyncrasies of the patient's individu- 
 ality. This method of hypnoidization has 
 nothing in common with Freud's method, nor 
 with Janet's method of distraction. Freud's 
 method is based on the course of normal 
 associative activity, while the method of 
 hypnoidization is based essentially on the 
 production of dissociation by inducing a 
 slight state of disaggregation of consciousness. 
 From Janet's method of distraction, that of 
 hypnoidization differs fundamentally in that 
 it is not at all based on distraction, but on the 
 conditions of monotony, and sensori-motor 
 limitations. In contrast to Janet's method 
 of distraction, hypnoidization may be charac- 
 terized as the method of monotony. 
 
 "What do we produce by the method of 
 hypnoidization ? We produce a peculiar state 
 which, for the lack of a better term, I desig- 
 nate as 'hypnoidal.' What is the hypnoidal 
 state? The hypnoidal state is essentially a 
 
196 Appendix IV 
 
 borderland state. The subject is apparently 
 awake and seems to be in full possession of 
 all his powers, and still he is more closely in 
 touch with the dissociated experiences than 
 he is otherwise in the full waking state. Per- 
 haps the subwaking state would possibly be 
 an apt term for the hypnoidal condition. 
 The subject seems to hover between the con- 
 scious and the subconscious, somewhat in the 
 same way as in the half -drowsy condition we 
 hover between wakefulness and sleep. The 
 hypnoidal state is not a stable condition; it 
 keeps on fluctuating from moment to moment; 
 now falling more deeply into a subconscious 
 condition in which outlived experiences are 
 easily aroused, or again rising to the level of 
 waking states. In such conditions the patient 
 often tells you, ^something has come — but 
 it is gone.' The hypnoidal state has changed, 
 it has become lighter, and the dissociated 
 moments have become again submerged. 
 There is a constant struggle going on in the 
 hunting out of the stray dissociated systems. 
 The state brought about by hypnoidization is 
 essentially a transient, evanescent, mental 
 disaggregation of the personal consciousness 
 from the reflex subconsciousness. The hypnoi- 
 
Hypnoidization 197 
 
 dal state borders closely on light hypnosis; 
 and still it is not exactly a hypnotic state and 
 may be regarded as an intermediate state. 
 In a series of experiments on the nature of 
 sleep of lower animals as well as of infants 
 and adults, now being carried on by me at 
 the physiological laboratory of Harvard Medi- 
 cal School and in my own laboratory, the 
 facts tend to indicate that the hypnoidal state 
 is intermediary between hypnosis and sleep 
 on the one hand and the waking state on the 
 other. ... 
 
 "The hypnoidal state may either lead to 
 sleep or to hypnosis. The close relationship 
 of the hypnoidal state and of hypnosis is some- 
 times forcibly brought to the attention of the 
 experimenter. Some patients while in the 
 hypnoidal state are observed to become un- 
 usually quiet, less talkative, become relaxed, 
 and after a time a distinctly cataleptic con- 
 dition of the extremities may be observed. 
 The patient has apparently passed into hyp- 
 nosis. In most of the cases the hypnosis 
 is of very brief duration, while in a few cases 
 the hypnosis may become lasting [Dr. Sidis 
 means lasting throughout that particular treat- 
 ment] and deep. On the other hand, in many 
 
198 Appendix IV 
 
 cases the subject falls into a sleeping state 
 without as much as touching on hypnosis. . . . 
 The subwaking hypnoidal state, like sleep 
 and hypnosis, may be of various depth and 
 duration; it may range from the fully awaking 
 consciousness and again may closely approach 
 and even merge into sleep or hypnosis. The 
 same patient may at various times reach dif- 
 ferent levels, and hence subconscious experi- 
 ences which are inaccessible at one time may 
 become revealed at some subsequent time, 
 when the patient happens to go into a deeper 
 level of the hypnoidal state. 
 
 ''On account of the instability of the hyp- 
 noidal state, and because of the continous 
 fluctuation and variation of the depth of its 
 level, the subconscious dissociated experiences 
 come up in bits and scraps, and often may 
 lack the sense of familiarity and recognition. 
 The patient often loses the train of subcon- 
 scious associations ; there is a constant struggle 
 to maintain this highly unstable hypnoidal 
 state, and one has again and again to return 
 to the same subconscious train started into 
 activity for a brief interval of time. One 
 must pick his way among streams of disturb- 
 ing associations before the dissociated sub- 
 
Hypnoidization 199 
 
 conscious experiences can be synthetized into 
 a whole, reproducing representatively the 
 original experience [for example, the shock 
 which caused Mr. R's hands to tremble] 
 that has given rise to the whole train of symp- 
 toms. The hypnoidal state may sometimes 
 reproduce the original experience which, at 
 first struggling up in a broken, distorted form 
 and finally becoming synthetized, gives rise 
 to a full attack. The symptoms of the 
 malady turn out to be portions, bits, and chips 
 of past experiences which have become dis- 
 sociated, subconscious, giving rise to a dis- 
 aggregated subconsciousness. The method of 
 hypnoidization and the hypnoidal states in- 
 duced by it enable us to trace the history and 
 etiology of the symptoms and also to effect 
 a synthesis and a cure/' 
 
APPENDIX V 
 
 Spiritism vs. Telepathy 
 
 In rejecting the telepathic and accepting 
 the spiritistic hypothesis as the only one which 
 adequately explains the case of Mrs. Piper, 
 both Dr. Hodgson and Professor Hyslop have 
 stated in detail the considerations influencing 
 them to adopt this view. Their statements 
 constitute a most searching criticism of the 
 telepathic hypothesis, but the writer per- 
 sonally deems it by no means convincing. 
 
 It is summed up concisely and clearly in 
 Professor Hyslop's book *' Science and a 
 Future Life." To begin with. Professor Hyslop 
 raises some general objections against falling 
 back on telepathy as a means of explaining 
 phenomena of the Piper type. It is improper, 
 he asserts, to apply it as an explanatory 
 hypothesis, because its validity is not uni- 
 versally accepted by scientists, and because 
 even those who regard telepathy as proved 
 have no knowledge of its laws and conditions. 
 
 200 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 201 
 
 "The scientific world generally/' he says, 
 *'has not accepted it with any assurance as 
 yet, and even where it is accepted there is 
 no knowledge whatever of its laws and con- 
 ditions. The scientific man will insist that 
 these laws and conditions must be definitely 
 ascertained before applying the hypothesis 
 upon any large scale/' Obviously, if this 
 objection were sound, it would bar out the 
 spiritistic as well as the telepathic hypothesis 
 as a means of explaining psychical phenomena. 
 For certainly, the ''scientific world generally" 
 does not accept spirit action as proved, and 
 "even where it is accepted" there is, to put it 
 mildly, far less knowledge of the laws and 
 conditions of spirit action than of the laws 
 and conditions of telepathy. As a matter of 
 fact, some sort of a hypothesis is necessary 
 to arrive at an understanding of the Piper 
 and kindred phenomena; just as some sort 
 of a hypothesis is always necessary to appre- 
 hend the truth with regard to any facts 
 whatsoever that have not been definitely cata- 
 logued, as it were. And the hypotheses of 
 fraud, guessing, and chance coincidence hav- 
 ing been proved inadequate to explain all 
 the facts of the Piper case, there would seem 
 
202 Appendix V 
 
 to be left, as Professor Hyslop himself stoutly 
 maintains, only the alternative hypotheses of 
 telepathy or spirit action. "'The man who 
 does not admit telepathy, at least has no way 
 of evading the spiritistic hypothesis." 
 
 But, he proceeds, conceding that telepathy 
 has been proved, it is inadequate to explain 
 many of the Piper phenomena, because ^'so 
 far as it is scientifically supported'' it repre- 
 sents only ""what the person communicating 
 is thinking about at the time the thought is 
 received by another.'' That is to say. Pro- 
 fessor Hyslop would limit telepathic action 
 to present, active mental states; albeit he 
 guardedly admits that there are facts which 
 "suggest" its extension to include subcon- 
 scious mental states. Here the writer would 
 directly take issue with Professor Hyslop ; for, 
 as has been stated on an earlier page, it seems 
 to him that if the labors of Myers, Sidgwick, 
 Gurney, and Professor Hyslop himself, prove 
 anything with regard to telepathy, they prove 
 that it is a faculty not of the waking con- 
 sciousness but of the subconsciousness, and 
 that its operation is far from being limited to 
 *' present, active mental states." Among much 
 else that points unmistakably in this direc- 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 203 
 
 tion, it is sufficient to cite the many instances 
 of ''deferred percipience'' on record in the 
 archives of the Society for Psychical Research, 
 cases Hke those of the Rev. Clarence Godfrey 
 and like some of the achievements of Miss 
 Angus as reported by Andrew Lang. 
 
 Admitting, however, for the sake of argu- 
 ment, that this broader view of telepathy is 
 justified by the facts. Professor Hyslop further 
 contends that it is still insufficient to explain 
 the Piper phenomena, unless the advocate 
 of the telepathic hypothesis is prepared to 
 assert that telepathy has an omniscient quality. 
 ''No telepathy,'' he declares, "which does 
 not extend in some way to all living minds 
 and memories, can even approach an explana- 
 tion of such cases [as that of Mrs. Piper]. 
 So far as I know such a telepathy may be 
 possible, but there is no adequate scientific 
 evidence for it. I do not know even one iota 
 of evidence for it that can be scientifically 
 accepted. Moreover, it represents a process 
 far more incredible than spirits, and no in- 
 telligent man will resort to the belief in it in 
 any haste. Only a superstitious prejudice 
 against the possibility of spirits will induce a 
 man to betray such credulity as the acceptance 
 
204 Appendix V 
 
 of such a universal telepathy. A man that 
 can believe it in the present state of human 
 knowledge can believe anything, and ought to 
 be tolerant of those who have a lurking sus- 
 picion that there might be such a thing as a 
 discarnate spirit/' 
 
 Now, this argument from omniscience has 
 long been a favorite weapon with opponents 
 of the telepathic hypothesis. But it rests 
 altogether on an assumption which the advo- 
 cate of telepathy does not regard as justifiable. 
 It is the assumption that omniscience is a 
 necessary factor in the case, if telepathy is 
 to be invoked to explain such seemingly 
 supernormal manifestations as are vouch- 
 safed through the mediumship of Mrs. Piper. 
 Let us look into the matter more closely, 
 taking for our point of approach some of 
 Professor Hyslop's own experiences with the 
 celebrated New England medium. 
 
 ''In one question,'' Professor Hyslop reports, 
 in his ''Science and a Future Life," "the 
 ' communicator,' purporting to be my father, 
 asked 'Where is George.^' and said, 'I often 
 think of him, but I do not worry any more 
 about him,' and in a moment came, as if 
 struck by a sudden recollection, 'Do you 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 205 
 
 remember Tom, and what has he done with 
 him? I mean the horse.' My father had 
 worried about this brother, George, in con- 
 nection with business matters, and we had 
 an excitable horse by the name of Tom that 
 father would not sell because of this tempera- 
 ment, and hence pensioned him, so to speak, 
 on the farm, and when the horse died my 
 brother George buried him. This last fact I 
 did not know. 
 
 "At one sitting I asked about Robert 
 Cooper, a living cousin of mine, the object 
 being to test some false statements made 
 about another Cooper referred to by myself 
 at an earlier experiment. The answer came 
 that he intended to mention him, and the 
 demand, 'Tell me about the mortgage.' This 
 cousin at the time of my father's death had 
 a heavy mortgage on his farm and my father 
 knew nothing about it. But my cousin, 
 Robert McClellan, helped Mr. Cooper out of 
 his difficulty, and a year later died, and was 
 one of the 'communicators' at this series of 
 sittings. 
 
 ''I also asked about a Harper Crawford, 
 who was an old neighbor of father's, and the 
 reply was a statement that he had frequently 
 
206 Appendix V 
 
 tried to mention him, and the question whether 
 'they were doing anything about the church/ 
 I asked what church was referred to, and the 
 reply was that 'they have put an organ in it/ 
 I asked if he meant a certain church, knowing 
 that this Harper Crawford was a member of 
 it, and the reply in italics was, 'Yes, I do/ 
 
 "I made inquiries in the West and found 
 that an organ had been put in this church and 
 that Harper Crawford, being opposed to 
 instrumental music in religious worship, had 
 left the church on account of this act. I did 
 not know this latter fact, and do not recall 
 any knowledge that the organ had been put 
 in the church/' 
 
 For our purpose, these four paragraphs 
 illustrate sufficiently well the characteristics of 
 Mrs. Piper's mediumship. They show that, 
 while entranced, it is her custom — or, more 
 strictly, the custom of her "controls'' — to 
 cite as proof of the personal identity of the 
 alleged communicator facts of which her sitter 
 has no conscious personal knowledge as well as 
 facts of which he is consciously aware. In 
 view of this, and bearing in mind that this 
 has been his experience in not simply one or 
 two, but in many seances with Mrs. Piper, 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 207 
 
 and has also been the experience of many 
 other sitters, Professor Hyslop feels justified 
 in claiming that if telepathy be the explana- 
 tion, then telepathy must be able to have 
 knowledge of the contents of all living minds. 
 He is indeed justified in adding that there is 
 ^'no adequate scientific evidence'' for such 
 telepathy. But the fact of the matter is that 
 there is no need to postulate such a quality 
 of omniscience in order to explain the Piper 
 case on a telepathic basis. The relationship 
 is merely between the medium and her sitter, 
 not between the medium and "'all living 
 minds." All that it is necessary to assume is 
 that in some way, telepathically or otherwise, 
 the facts which the medium adduces have 
 become lodged in her sitter's subconscious- 
 ness, where the medium gets at them telepath- 
 ically. The ease and correctness with which 
 she gets at them will, of course, vary accord- 
 ing as the conditions for the exercise of her 
 telepathic powers are favorable or otherwise. 
 What are favorable, and what unfavorable, 
 conditions is not as yet known, or even con- 
 jectured, with any definiteness; but, judging 
 from Mrs. Piper's career, it seems certain that 
 at least one favoring condition is the sys- 
 
208 Appendix V 
 
 tematic cultivation of the telepathic faculty. 
 The reports of those who have investigated her 
 show that the quality of her mediumship is 
 to-day far more impressive than it was only 
 a few years ago, and it then showed a marked 
 improvement over the mediumship of the 
 early, the "'Phinuit,'' regime. 
 
 To come back, however, to Professor Hys- 
 lop's criticism of the telepathic hypothesis. 
 Following the argument from omniscience, 
 he ventures the startling suggestion that if 
 telepathy be a fact it may itself be due to 
 spirit action, and that, quite possibly, there 
 may be telepathy between the living and the 
 dead as well as between the living and the 
 living. In other words, that telepathy may 
 be the very process by which discarnate spirits 
 communicate with spirits still in the iflesh. 
 Thus he would make telepathy subserve, 
 instead of harass, spiritism. But this is not 
 really an objection to the telepathic hypothesis, 
 save so far as it would invest it with a super- 
 natural significance and thus damage its 
 credibility as a fact in nature. Before assum- 
 ing that telepathy is either operated by spirit 
 agency, or is the process by which discarnate 
 spirits communicate with their living friends. 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 209 
 
 it is obviously necessary to prove that there 
 are discarnate spirits. Accordingly Professor 
 Hyslop, as a critic of the telepathic hypothesis, 
 is on sounder ground when he turns from this 
 last general consideration to sundry specific 
 objections against believing that telepathy 
 between living minds is an adequate explana- 
 tion of the phenomena in question. 
 
 Certain of these specific objections may con- 
 veniently be considered together. One turns on 
 the circumstance that the *^ communicators'' 
 in the Piper seances show a happy knack in 
 selecting such facts as are best calculated to 
 prove personal identity. If this be due to 
 telepathy alone, exclaims Professor Hyslop, 
 then telepathy ^'has to possess the same 
 selectiveness, and in fact, a far larger selective- 
 ness in securing the facts than any selectiveness 
 supposed of discarnate spirits. What is notice- 
 able in the facts presented is their definite 
 relevancy to the proof of the personal iden- 
 tity of the deceased. Whether the deceased 
 continue to exist or not, there can be no doubt 
 as to who is meant by the facts, and if telepathy 
 acquires them it certainly has an amazing 
 power to select the right ones.'' 
 
 Next, Professor Hyslop lays emphasis on 
 
210 Appendix V 
 
 the fact that the statements made by , 
 ** communicators'' are frequently incorrecL 
 This, he feels, would imply a singular limita- 
 tion of the telepathic faculty. But ''the 
 assumption simultaneously of limited and 
 unlimited powers is not to be made hastily. 
 We would expect such limitations of dis- 
 carnate spirits, but hardly of a telepathy which 
 is apparently omniscient and unlimited in its 
 powers.'' Also, he calls attention to the fact 
 that during a seance there frequently are 
 changes of "communicators," changes which 
 he thinks are only what is to be expected on 
 the spiritistic hypothesis, but which are quite 
 incompatible with the telepathic. Another 
 objection, akin to this, arises from the varying 
 ability of the different ''communicators" to 
 give proof of personal identity. Some send 
 good evidential messages, others can do so 
 only imperfectly. "This simulation of what 
 we should most naturally expect of spirits 
 ought not to characterize telepathy." 
 
 To these four objections Professor Hyslop 
 adds a fifth of similar character, one which 
 he evidently considers the most deadly shaft 
 in his critical quiver. And, indeed, not a few 
 regard it as an insuperable obstacle to the 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 211 
 
 telepathic hypothesis. Its basis is the trivial- 
 ity of the facts communicated through the 
 medium. "I must insist/' says Professor 
 Hyslop, in a statement which presents the 
 argument as clearly as could be desired, "'that 
 the triviality of the facts is absolutely incom- 
 patible with the assumption of the enormous 
 powers of access to living memories which the 
 advocate of telepathy makes and must make. 
 If the medium can reach out into the whole 
 world of living consciousness and memory and 
 select from this infinite mass of experiences just 
 the right ones to represent the personality of the 
 deceased, it ought to get with ease all the impor- 
 tant and elevated features of these person- 
 alities, and not limit its access to the trivial. 
 Personal characteristics ought to be produced 
 in their perfection, and the moral, religious or 
 irreligious, political, literary, philosophical 
 characteristics of any one ought to be pro- 
 ducible at will, instead of this distorted and 
 confused mass of trivial incidents which we 
 find." 
 
 As Professor Hyslop frankly admits, this 
 argument from triviality may be utilized to 
 attack the spiritistic no less than the telepathic 
 hypothesis. But he cleverly wards it off from 
 
212 Appendix V 
 
 the spiritistic hypothesis by alleging that 
 trivial facts are given because it is precisely 
 by trivial facts that personal identity may best 
 be established. ''If any one will stop long 
 enough to think and to ask what incidents he 
 would choose to prove his own identity over 
 a telephone or telegraph wire he will readily 
 discover that his spontaneous choice would 
 be the most trivial incidents possible/' And 
 "'we must not forget that the ostensible char- 
 acter of the experiments is the proof of per- 
 sonal identity. The 'Imperator' group of 
 trance personalities, claiming to be spirits, 
 manage their side of the work with definite 
 reference to this proof of personal identity, 
 and exhibit the same understanding of the 
 problem that we insist upon. We cannot 
 interest ourselves in any side issues of intelli- 
 gence and spirit life until we have proved the 
 personal identity of deceased persons, and, as 
 nothing but trivial incidents in sufficient quan- 
 tity will prove this, we must recognize that 
 the data professing to be spiritistic in their 
 origin, represent the most rational and scien- 
 tific conception of the problem.'' 
 
 In this last quotation, unfortunately for 
 Professor Hyslop and for those who agree with 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 213 
 
 his view of the Piper case, lurks the clue to 
 the solution of the difficulties he has just raised. 
 The alleged discarnate spirits, he says, recog- 
 nize the necessity of proving their identity, 
 and hence supply the sort of facts commonly 
 utilized by living persons as proof of identity. 
 Exactly. And they would do precisely the 
 same thing on the supposition that they were 
 not discarnate spirits at all but, as the tele- 
 pathist believes the evidence goes to show, 
 were simply secondary personalities that had 
 taken form and character in Mrs. Piper's 
 organism, just as secondary personalities take 
 form and character in the organism of a per- 
 son who is hypnotized. In the last analysis, 
 there is no difference between the trance state 
 into which Mrs. Piper goes during a seance, 
 and the trance state of any hypnotic subject. 
 The distinction simply is that she seems to be 
 constitutionally so nervously unstable that 
 she falls spontaneously into the hypnotic con- 
 dition. Now a hypnotized person, as was 
 pointed out on a previous page, will enact 
 with seemingly preternatural fidelity any role 
 suggested to him by the hypnotist. By so 
 much the more should Mrs. Piper, with her 
 exceptional autohypnotic gift, be able to re- 
 
214 Appendix V 
 
 spond to suggestion and in her varying secon- 
 dary personalities fill roles suggested to her, 
 however unconsciously or subconsciously, by 
 those who have so long been experimenting 
 with her. Remember F, W. H. Myers's 
 criticism of the hypnotized patients of the 
 Salpetriere: "'One feels that the Salpetriere 
 has, in a sense, been smothered in its own 
 abundance. The richest collection of hyster- 
 ics which the world has ever seen, it has 
 also (one fears) become a kind of unconscious 
 school of these unconscious prophets — a 
 milieu where the new arrival learns insensibly 
 from the very atmosphere of experiment 
 around her to adopt her own reflexes or re- 
 sponses to the subtly divined expectations of 
 the operator/' 
 
 The case seems to be identical with respect 
 to Mrs. Piper. When Professor James dis- 
 covered her, nearly a quarter of a century ago, 
 she was simply one of numerous mediums 
 operating in and about the city of Boston. 
 There were features in her mediumship, how- 
 ever, which appeared to him to merit in- 
 vestigation; and accordingly the Society for 
 Psychical Research, through Dr. Hodgson, 
 took her in hand. The results, at first, were 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 215 
 
 comparatively meager and often disappointing. 
 It was noticed that her ''control/' the so- 
 called ''Dr. Phinuit/' was given to asking 
 leading questions and to making glaringly false 
 statements. With the arrival of "George 
 Pelham" there was a marked improvement 
 in the mediumship, and a greater improve- 
 ment from the day the "Imperator'' group of 
 "controls'' took a hand in affairs. All this 
 time Mrs. Piper had been the subject of 
 scientific investigation, had been in the com- 
 pany of zealous experimenters. Is it not pos- 
 sible, nay, is it not probable, that like the new 
 arrivals at the Salpetriere she "learned insen- 
 sibly from the very atmosphere of experiment 
 around her, to adopt her responses to the 
 subtly divined expectations of the operator.?" 
 In her case, the operators felt that the great 
 thing to be established was proof of personal 
 identity, and that it was therefore necessary 
 for alleged communicating discarnate spirits 
 to cite trivial incidents connected with their 
 earthly career. In response, the secondary 
 personality which had assumed the character 
 of George Pelham, Professor Hyslop's father, 
 or whoever it might be, would flash at the 
 operators trivial facts extracted telepathically 
 
216 Appendix V 
 
 from the depths of their own minds. There 
 would thus be the very selectiveness which 
 Professor Hyslop maintains is incredible on 
 the telepathic hypothesis; and there would 
 also be the changes in '"communicators" 
 which he similarly deems destructive of an 
 explanation on the basis of telepathy between 
 living minds. It might be, too, that expecta- 
 tion on the part of the operators is the explana- 
 tion of the '"mistakes and confusion'' which 
 Professor Hyslop insists are only what is to 
 be expected on the spiritistic hypothesis. If 
 Mrs. Piper's secondary personalities are posing 
 as discarnate spirits, and have had all these 
 years to learn what is and what is not expected 
 of them as spirits, surely they should be able 
 to fill the bill. The chances are, however, that, 
 as was suggested a moment ago, the mistakes 
 and confusions are more likely due to the, as 
 yet unascertained, limitations under which 
 telepathy operates. 
 
 This view of the case finds strong corrobora- 
 tion in the actions of the '" controls" of mediums 
 who have not been subjected to the experi- 
 mental environment with which Mrs. Piper 
 is familiar. If you go to a seance conducted 
 by a trance medium who is at large, so to 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 217 
 
 speak, you will witness phenomena conspicu- 
 ously different from those reported by Dr. 
 Hodgson and Professor Hyslop. There is no 
 desperate endeavor to prove personal identity, 
 no harping on petty incidents in the life-time 
 of the alleged communicating spirit. Instead 
 of statements like ''Do you remember Tom, 
 and what has he done with him ? I mean the 
 horse," or '^Tell me about the mortgage," 
 or ''They have put an organ in the church," 
 the sitters are given an abundance of comfort- 
 ing and inspiring sentiments, such as "Do not 
 mourn for me, I am happier here," "It is all 
 sunshine and brightness, I never dreamed that 
 the future would be as glorious as this," "I 
 am always near you, and your interests are 
 very dear to me." Unlike the scientifically 
 educated secondary personalities of Mrs. Piper, 
 the "controls" of these mediums at large do 
 not properly appreciate the supreme impor- 
 tance of proving their identity. They are con- 
 fronted not by scientific investigators but by 
 anxious men and women, mourning their be- 
 loved and longing to get into touch with the 
 spirit world to which they hope and believe 
 that their beloved have gone. In accordance 
 with the laws of suggestion, what they expect 
 
218 Appendix V 
 
 they receive; together, not infrequently, with 
 just enough in the way of personal references 
 to disabuse them of any lingering idea that 
 they may after all not be hearing from the 
 dead. 
 
 On this view of the case, again, disappears 
 Professor Hyslop's final objection to the tele- 
 pathic hypothesis . Since the phenomena under 
 discussion point so unmistakably to the sur- 
 vival of human personality after bodily death, 
 he affirms that "'we cannot well escape belief 
 in spirits unless we suppose that subconscious 
 actions are rather fiendish in their simulation 
 of spirits after acquiring information that so 
 evidently points to the persons represented. 
 The psychological complications involved in a 
 telepathic hypothesis that completely simulates 
 spirits, must make any man pause when try- 
 ing to estimate the nature of unconscious 
 mental action. It would have to be regarded 
 as supremely devilish in its character.'' But 
 what about the fiendishness and the devilish- 
 ness if the complete and, to Professor Hyslop, 
 convincing simulation of discarnate spirits is 
 ultimately ascribable to suggestion on the 
 part of those with whom the medium comes 
 into contact.^ There is no occasion to hurl 
 
Spiritism vs. Telepathy 219 
 
 epithets at ** unconscious mental action." All 
 that is necessary is to recognize that, like 
 "conscious mental action/' it can bring about 
 baneful or beneficial results — can develop to 
 a phenomenal degree, on the one hand medi- 
 ums like Mrs. Piper who invest their telepathic 
 performances with a spiritistic setting, and on 
 the other hand mediums like Miss Angus who 
 exhibit powers on a par with those of Mrs. 
 Piper, but as Mr. Lang tersely puts it, ^^with 
 no aid from the dead/' 
 
APPENDIX VI 
 
 Hints for Further Reading 
 
 For the general subject of personality no 
 book can be studied to better advantage 
 than F. W. H. Myers's ''Human Person- 
 ality and Its Survival of Bodily Death/' 
 mention of which has so frequently been 
 made in the preceding pages. As originally 
 published (1903) it consists of two large vol- 
 umes, but an abridged edition (1907) con- 
 taining the essentials is now available in a 
 single volume. Whenever possible, however, 
 the original edition should be consulted. It 
 treats in a graphic and luminous way all 
 phases of the abnormal and seemingly super- 
 normal in human life — disintegrations of 
 personality, the nature of genius, the phe- 
 nomena of sleep and hypnotism, sensory and 
 motor automatisms, hallucinations, possession, 
 etc. — and affords at once a panoramic and 
 acutely analytical view of its important sub- 
 ject. At the same time it needs to be read 
 
Hints for Further Reading 221 
 
 with great critical caution, for Myers was a 
 mystic and poet fully as much as a man of 
 science, and his treatment throughout is 
 colored by a distinct leaning towards the 
 supernatural implications so easily connected 
 with the more "mysterious" phenomena he 
 discusses. Especially is this evident in the 
 concluding chapters, where he marshals the 
 proof supporting the theory that spirit com- 
 munication is an established fact, and that 
 the question of survival is therefore definitely 
 settled. Still, as has already been said, what- 
 ever opinion be formed of the author's con- 
 clusions there can be no doubt that he has 
 made a most — one is tempted to write, the 
 most — searching examination. An extremely 
 valuable feature of his work is the glossary in 
 which he defines, in language intelligible to 
 a tyro, the technical terms that he finds it 
 necessary to use. 
 
 Like all writers on the subject of personality 
 Myers himself is dependent, in large measure, 
 on the material to be found in the "' Journal" 
 and the "Proceedings" of the Society for 
 Psychical Research. These constitute a mine 
 of information in which, just as in a veritable 
 mine, not all the ore is of equal quality. It 
 
222 Appendix VI 
 
 has been the hope of the present writer, how- 
 ever, to assist the student in acquiring the 
 correct view point for scrutinizing the contents 
 of this vast repository, which holds, it must be 
 said, far more data relating to the super- 
 normal than to the abnormal. Especially 
 deserving of careful consideration are the 
 volumes of the "Proceedings'' containing the 
 reports on the telepathic experiments con- 
 ducted under the society's auspices, the re- 
 port on the census of hallucinations, the 
 reports on the production of hallucinatory 
 images by crystal-gazing and other means, 
 the Hodgson and Hyslop reports on the Piper 
 case, and the various articles on hypnotic 
 phenomena. It might also be mentioned that 
 the student will find, scattered through dif- 
 ferent volumes of the "Proceedings," a clear 
 presentation of the ideas which Myers after- 
 wards elaborated in his great book. Those 
 who cannot obtain access to the "Proceed- 
 ings" may gain at least a partial view of their 
 contents from the writings of James H. 
 Hyslop, notably his "Science and a Future 
 Life" (1905), "Enigmas of Psychical Re- 
 search" (1906), and "The Borderland of 
 Psychical Research" (1906). These consist 
 
Hints for Further Reading 223 
 
 in large part of quotations from the "Pro- 
 ceedings/' form as it were a psychical trilogy, 
 and conduct the reader in an interesting way 
 through the tortuous paths of the survival 
 maze. They are written in a distinctly popu- 
 lar vein, which is of course greatly in their 
 favor from the standpoint of the general 
 reader; but, as in the case of Myers's work, 
 it is all too evident that their author inclines 
 to the spiritistic hypothesis. None the less 
 they convey an intelligent idea of the progress 
 already achieved by psychical research, and 
 the problems still challenging solution; and 
 are valuable as dissipating erroneous ideas 
 respecting the nature of the self. 
 
 It would, in fact, be well to give them 
 a thoughtful reading before attempting the 
 perusal of ''Human Personality,'' the "Pro- 
 ceedings," and the "Phantasms of the Living" 
 -—a work which, produced in 1886 by Ed- 
 mund Gurney and several collaborators, is 
 still of prime importance. In the way of 
 introductory literature attention should also 
 be called to the writings of the late Thomson 
 Jay Hudson, who approaches the subject 
 from the standpoint of the avowed telepathist, 
 and to whose criticisms of the spiritistic 
 
224 Appendix VI 
 
 hypothesis the present writer feels himself 
 greatly indebted. In especial the student is 
 advised to consult ''The Law of Psychic 
 Phenomena'' (1893), "A Scientific Demon- 
 stration of the Future Life'' (1895), and ''The 
 Evolution of the Soul" (1904). The last is a 
 posthumous volume of essays giving in com- 
 pact form the evidence in support of the 
 telepathic as against the spiritistic hypothesis, 
 and also dealing more generally with the chief 
 problem of personality, which is also the con- 
 cern of "The Law of Psychic Phenomena" 
 and "A Scientific Demonstration of the Future 
 Life." Dr. Hudson's other works include 
 an original little treatise on "The Law of 
 Mental Medicine," which, besides discussing 
 more specifically the therapeutic possibilities 
 latent in man himself, gives in a clear way its 
 author's views on the nature of man. 
 
 In quite another category, but still neces- 
 sary to the student who would look at all sides 
 of a question, are Joseph Jastrow's two books, 
 "Fact and Fable in Psychology" (1901) and 
 "The Subconscious" (1906). So far from 
 accepting the conclusions set forth by the 
 writers named above, and differing on essen- 
 tial points from the psychopathologists whose 
 
Hints for Further Reading 225 
 
 contributions have yet to be indicated. Pro- 
 fessor Jastrow may be accepted as a repre- 
 sentative champion of the orthodox concept 
 of the self — admitting, in the Kght of the dis- 
 coveries made by Liebeault, Charcot, Janet, 
 Sidis, et al., that the subconscious Hfe is far 
 richer and more varied than has hitherto been 
 supposed, but denying that this involves any 
 radical readjustment of belief respecting the 
 nature of personality. More particularly in 
 ''The Subconscious'' does he seek to explain 
 along conservative lines the weird eccentrici- 
 ties of personality under the influence of 
 sudden shocks, hysteria, hypnotism, etc. Un- 
 fortunately, Professor Jastrow adopts such 
 an indirect and technical diction that it is 
 by no means easy for even the advanced 
 student of psychology to follow him; and 
 though the beginner ought to make an effort 
 to grasp the views presented, he will likely 
 turn with relief to the earlier and more read- 
 able ''Fact and Fable in Psychology,'' or 
 to another, but less imposing book, which 
 may be recommended for introductory read- 
 ing. This is Frank Sargent Hoffman's *^ Psy- 
 chology and Common Life" (1903), in which 
 the results of psychical research are simi- 
 
226 Appendix VI 
 
 larly reviewed from the orthodox stand-point, 
 but in a far easier vein than is the case with 
 "The Subconscious.'' Among the psycholo- 
 gists, however, no one has so brilKantly illu- 
 minated the study of the self as William 
 James, whose conclusions and the grounds 
 on which they rest are fully and lucidly set 
 down in his "Principles of Psychology" (1890), 
 a work so well known that comment here 
 would be superfluous. 
 
 Turning to treatises by savants who have 
 attacked the problems of personality chiefly 
 from the standpoint of abnormal mental life, 
 a twofold difiiculty immediately confronts 
 the student. There are very few books deal- 
 ing with the subject as a whole, and most of 
 the existing literature, being addressed pri- 
 marily to psychologists, psychiatrists, and 
 physicians, is written in technical and diflScult 
 terms. A clear and ample statement of the 
 views of the psychopathologists, written on 
 the scale and with the ease of "Human Per- 
 sonality and Its Survival of Bodily Death," 
 is in fact greatly needed. However, there are 
 certain works which may fairly be regarded 
 as introductory in character, and acquaintance 
 with which will facilitate correct compre- 
 
Hints for Further Reading 227 
 
 hension of the more elaborate and special 
 studies. One of these is Boris Sidis's "'The 
 Psychology of Suggestion" (1898), aptly de- 
 scribed in its sub-title as ^^a research into the 
 subconscious nature of man and society." 
 This contains the first published account 
 (barring articles in the Archives of Neurology 
 and Psychopathology) of Dr. Sidis's investi- 
 gations into human personality, and of his 
 law of dissociation; and though not wholly 
 adapted to the lay reader, it still is not unduly 
 technical. Another introductory study, more 
 readable but covering the ground less fully, 
 is Morton Prince's "The Dissociation of a 
 Personality" (1906). Concerned principally 
 with the strange story of Miss Christine L. 
 Beauchamp, Dr. Prince nevertheless affords 
 a vivid glimpse of the psychopathological pic- 
 ture of personality, doing this preparatory 
 to a larger work which he purposes issuing 
 under the title of "Problems in Abnormal 
 Psychology," and which may possibly meet 
 the need indicated above. Alfred Binet's 
 "Alterations of Personality" (1896), as trans- 
 lated by Helen Green Baldwin with notes 
 by J. Mark Baldwin, is also to be recom- 
 mended to beginners. Dealing mainly with 
 
228 Appendix VI 
 
 the dissociations of hysterical patients, as 
 observed in the Salpetriere, Dr. Binet at the 
 same time gives a succinct review of the 
 evidence tending to prove the instabihty and 
 divisibiHty of the ego, so far as such evidence 
 had been obtained up to the time his book 
 was written. Incidentally, also, he makes an 
 interesting application of the results of scien- 
 tific research to explain, on a naturalistic 
 basis, the phenomena of spiritistic medium- 
 ship. 
 
 The student should next master the con- 
 tents of standard books on hypnotism — that 
 wonderful instrument by which the phenomena 
 of subconsciousness are laid bare. Some 
 would recommend this as the initial step in 
 the textual study of the psychopathologicai 
 analysis of personality; but in the writer's 
 judgment it may better be taken after an out- 
 line view of the field of observation has been 
 secured. J. Milne BramwelFs "'Hypnotism'' 
 (1903) is a recent treatise by an authoritative 
 writer, and embraces a capital survey of the 
 history, theory, and practical application of 
 this branch of the science of healing. With 
 Dr. BramwelFs book may advantageously be 
 read such other works as Albert Moll's 
 
Hints for Further Reading 229 
 
 '^ Hypnotism'' (1890), Otto Wetterstrand's 
 "Hypnotism and Its Application to Practical 
 Medicine'' (1897), Charles Lloyd Tuckey's 
 "Psycho-Therapeutics" (1889), H. Bernheim's 
 ''Suggestion and Its Applications to Thera- 
 peutics" (1890), translation by C. A. Herter; 
 and, if the reader be acquainted with the 
 French language, A. A. Liebeault's "Thera- 
 peutique Suggestive" (1891), the last word 
 on the subject by the founder of the Nancy 
 school, and E. Berillon's "'Histoire de I'Hyp- 
 notisme Experimentale" (1902). 
 
 All of these books are by followers of Lie- 
 beault, and are valuable as giving a graphic 
 presentation not merely of the nature and 
 mechanism of hypnotism but of its practical 
 therapeutic utility. For the views of the 
 Paris school the student should consult, if 
 possible, J. M. Charcot's "Oeuvres Com- 
 pletes" (1886-90), published in nine volumes; 
 or, if for any reason this be out of the question, 
 Binet's already mentioned ''Alterations of 
 Personality," and the more special studies by 
 Pierre Janet, to be cited shortly. Charcot 
 himself contributed to The Forum (1890) a 
 brief account in English of his theories, 
 methods, and results. If the reader desires 
 
230 Appendix VI 
 
 to make a still more exhaustive study of 
 hypnotism from the historical point of view, 
 he can readily trace its evolution by ex- 
 amining, in the order named, the following 
 books: Franz Anton Mesmer's "'Memoire 
 sur la Decouverte du Magnetisme'' (1779), 
 the Marquis de Puysegur's ''Du Magnetisme 
 Animal" (1807), and " Researches Physio- 
 logiques sur I'Homme" (1811), Alexandre 
 Bertrand's ''Du Magnetisme Animal en 
 France'' (1826), J. C. Colquhoun's "Isis 
 Revelata: An Inquiry into the Origin, 
 Progress, and Present State of Animal Mag- 
 netism'' (1833), John Elliotson's "Surgical 
 Operations in the Mesmeric Trance" (1843), 
 James Braid's "Neurypnology" (1843) and 
 "Observations on Trance" (1850), James 
 Esdaile's "Mesmerism in India" (1846) and 
 "Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance" (1852), 
 and A. A. Liebeault's "Du Sommeil et des 
 Etats Analogues" (1866), containing the first 
 statement of the views of the great psycho- 
 pathologist of Nancy. The subsequent de- 
 velopment of hypnotism is fully shown in the 
 works already enumerated. 
 
 With the ground thus cleared, the student 
 may with some measure of confidence ap- 
 
Hints for Further Reading 231 
 
 proach the difficult special studies of such 
 psychopathologists as Janet, Breuer, Freud, 
 and Sidis. Of these the most important, in 
 the present connection, is ''Multiple Personal- 
 ity" (1905), written by Dr. Sidis in collabora- 
 tion with Dr. Simon P. Goodhart. Like Dr. 
 Prince's "The Dissociation of a Personality," 
 this work has for its central theme an account 
 of one of the strangest cases of personality 
 disintegration on record; but Drs. Sidis and 
 Goodhart — or, to be exact. Dr. Sidis, for 
 Dr. Goodhart's connection is only with that 
 part of the book dealing strictly with the case 
 under review — utilize the opportunity to 
 make an elaborate explanation of the psycho- 
 pathological concept of the ego. Beginning 
 with a biological analysis, in which emphasis 
 is placed on the neuron theory, the student is 
 conducted by a series of logical steps through 
 practically the whole range of psychopatho- 
 logical theory and practice, the concluding 
 chapters being rich in illustrative experiments 
 and cures made by Dr. Sidis. Unfortunately, 
 so far as concerns the theoretical aspects, 
 ''Multiple Personality" bears a close re- 
 semblance to Professor Jastrow's "The Sub- 
 conscious" in the difficulties it presents on 
 
232 Appendix VI 
 
 account of the use of technical language and 
 an extremely complicated terminology. And 
 in this respect it is outdone by Dr. Sidis's 
 "Psychopathological Researches" (1907), de- 
 tailing the results of the treatment of a num- 
 ber of most interesting cases of dissociational 
 mimicking of insanity, epilepsy, etc. Both 
 these books, however, should be given a care- 
 ful reading, and more particularly "Multiple 
 Personality," which affords as does no other 
 single volume a thorough presentation of the 
 evidence supporting the psychopathological 
 definition of personality. 
 
 Less technical, though none too easy read- 
 ing, and distinctly of the nature of special 
 treatises, are the writings of Pierre Janet. 
 Professor Janet, who holds the chair of psy- 
 chology at the College de France and is also 
 director of the psychological laboratory in the 
 clinic of the Salpetriere, is a pupil of Charcot's, 
 and his chief interest has naturally been in the 
 study of victims of hysteria, that insidious 
 dissociational malady of multiform manifesta- 
 tions. There is probably no greater authority 
 on the subject to-day; and Janet's works, 
 while intended chiefly for medical men, are 
 of a lively interest to the lay reader because 
 
Hints for Further Reading 233 
 
 of the extent to which hysteria prevails in all 
 countries and the dangers to which hysterical 
 patients are exposed unless the real nature 
 of their trouble be recognized. Hysteria does 
 not consist, as is popularly thought, merely in 
 nervous outbreaks ranging from fits of un- 
 controllable weeping or laughing to some 
 form of insanity; it also has peculiar physical 
 characteristics, which not unfrequently de- 
 ceive physicians as well as untrained observers 
 into thinking that relief and cure can be ob- 
 tained only through the performance of a 
 surgical operation. And even when this is 
 not the case, hysteria is productive of phe- 
 nomena that may lead to the permanent but 
 wholly unnecessary incarceration of its un- 
 happy subject in some institution. Further, 
 the study of hysteria throws a flood of light on 
 the activities of subconsciousness, and is thus 
 important if only from the view-point of gain- 
 ing a clearer knowledge of personality. Most 
 of the standard works in which it is discussed 
 necessitate, however, acquaintance with a 
 foreign language, and this is in large measure 
 true of Janet's treatises, only two or three 
 of which have been translated into English. 
 Luckily, these include the most recent and 
 
234 Appendix VI 
 
 the most informative, particularly his "The 
 Mental State of Hystericals'' (1901) and 
 "The Major Symptoms of Hysteria" (1907). 
 The former is an excellent book with which to 
 begin the study of the special literature bear- 
 ing on the phenomena of dissociation in 
 hysteria; the latter contains the lectures de- 
 livered by Professor Janet at Harvard Medical 
 School in the autumn of 1906, and is a lumi- 
 nous review of the characteristic indications 
 of the presence of this dread disease. In- 
 cidentally, it includes a succinct survey of the 
 progress made in the knowledge and treat- 
 ment of hysteria from the earliest times to 
 the present day. Students having the gift 
 of tongues are advised to read also Professor 
 Janet's "Nervoses et Idees Fixes" (1898), 
 ^ ^ L' Automatisme Psy chologique ' ' (new edi- 
 tion 1899), and "Les Obsessions et la 
 Psychasthenic" (1903); and "Studien uber 
 Hysteric" (1895), by the Austrian specialists 
 J. Breuer and S. Freud, who utilize for the 
 treatment of dissociation a method distinct 
 from hypnotism and not unlike Dr. Sidis's 
 hypnoidization. In this connection it may 
 not be amiss to mention Paul Dubois's *^The 
 Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders" 
 
Hints for Further Reading 235 
 
 (1905), in which a method is described of 
 scientifically applying the principle of sugges- 
 tion without the intervention of hypnotism, 
 hypnoidization, or any other indirect means. 
 It only remains to indicate briefly the 
 books which may advantageously be read to 
 acquire a fuller understanding of spiritism 
 and telepathy. For spiritism the great work, 
 in fact the one work which it is absolutely 
 necessary for the student to procure, is Frank 
 Podmore's " Modern Spiritualism '' (1902) . 
 This, though written on a more modest scale, 
 is for its subject fairly comparable with 
 Myer's "Human Personality,'' and is charac- 
 terized by fulness of presentation, ease of 
 style, and sanity of view-point. Spiritism, as 
 Mr. Podmore sees it, is the product of a 
 mysticism which traces its origin to the 
 witchcraft of the Middle Ages, and includes 
 in its pedigree the early superstitions attach- 
 ing to the so-called animal magnetism of the 
 days of Mesmer, de Puysegur, and Bertrand. 
 Coming down to the question of spiritism 
 proper, Mr. Podmore gives a realistic account 
 of the first period of the movement — the 
 period of Andrew Jackson Davis, the Fox 
 sisters, etc. — and follows its development 
 
236 Appendix VI 
 
 to recent times, with a critical analysis of the 
 methods of the most celebrated physical and 
 psychical mediums from Daniel Dunglas 
 Home to Leonora Piper. Should the reader 
 be desirous of investigating the subject further 
 he may read, among others which he will find 
 cited in Mr. Podmore's pages, the following 
 books : 
 
 Catharine Crowe's ^^The Night Side of 
 Nature" (1848) and "Spiritualism" (1859), 
 C. W. Elliott's ''Mysteries, or Glimpses of 
 the Supernatural" (1852), E. W. Capron's 
 "'Modern Spiritualism: Its Facts and Fa- 
 naticisms" (1855), valuable for a detailed 
 account of the first phases of the movement; 
 Robert Hare's "Experimental Investigation: 
 The Spirit Manifestations, etc." (1855), giving 
 the results of the first inquiry by a scientist 
 into the truth of the phenomena of spiritism, 
 but a book which may by no means be taken 
 at its face value; Alfred Russel Wallace's 
 "The Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural" 
 (1866), D. D. Home's "Incidents in My Life" 
 (First Series, 1863, Second Series, 1872), 
 autobiographical fragments which may be 
 supplemented by Mrs. Home's "D. D. Home, 
 His Life and Mission" (1888) and "The Gift 
 
Hints for Further Reading 237 
 
 of D. D. Home'' (1890); R. D, Owen's "The 
 Debatable Land" (1871), "Report of the 
 London Dialectical Society" (1871), detailing 
 the evidence obtained in an inquiry conducted 
 for scientific purposes; William Crookes's 
 "Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritual- 
 ism" (1874), Serjeant Coxs "The Mechanism 
 of Man" (1876), J. W. TruesdelFs "The 
 Bottom Facts Concerning the Science of 
 Spiritualism" (1883), giving the story of a 
 number of exposures of fraudulent mediums 
 by a shrewd investigator; "The Preliminary 
 Report of the Seybert Commission" (1887), 
 narrating the results of the labors of a scien- 
 tific committee appointed by the University of 
 Pennsylvania for the purpose of investigating 
 the claims of spiritism; R. B. Davenport's 
 "The Death Blow to Spiritualism: Being the 
 True Story of the Fox Sisters" (1888); W. 
 Stainton Moses's "Works," as found in the 
 "Memorial Edition" (1894) with a bio- 
 graphical notice of this celebrated English 
 medium; Frank Podmore's *' Studies in Psy- 
 chical Research" (1897), and W. E. Robin- 
 son's "Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred 
 Phenomena" (1899), giving the best account 
 yet written of the various fraudulent devices 
 
238 Appendix VI 
 
 used by professional slate-writing mediums. 
 The reader who will struggle through these 
 works — some of which are uncommonly 
 tedious — and supplement them by perusal 
 of the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychi- 
 cal Research," may rest assured that he has 
 obtained full information concerning the rise 
 and progress and shortcomings of spiritism, 
 at any rate so far as respects the spiritistic 
 movement in Anglo-Saxon countries. 
 
 The literature of telepathy, although of far 
 more recent origin, promises to become almost 
 as voluminous as that of spiritism. Of capi- 
 tal importance are the numerous articles and 
 reports in the '" Journal'' and ''Proceedings" 
 of the Society for Psychical Research, Myers's 
 '"Human Personality," and the writings of 
 Thomson Jay Hudson, who was perhaps the 
 most indefatigable of independent investiga- 
 tors. The cooperative production "Phan- 
 tasms of the Living," and Frank Podmore's 
 "Studies in Psychical Research" and "Appari- 
 tions and Thought Transference" (1896), 
 should also be carefully examined. For a 
 survey of the historical evolution of the 
 telepathic hypothesis Mr. Podmore's "Modern 
 Spiritualism" will be found useful, particu- 
 
Hints for Further Reading 239 
 
 larly in the chapters on Mesmer and his 
 disciples, spiritism in France and Germany, 
 and the EngHsh mesmerists. Dr. R. Osgood 
 Mason's "Telepathy and the Subliminal Self 
 (1897) may also be commended for informa- 
 tiveness. Professor Jastrow's ''Fact and Fable 
 in Psychology'' contains a compact criticism 
 of the telepathic hypothesis from the ultra- 
 scientific standpoint. For a criticism of it 
 from the spiritistic standpoint one cannot 
 do better than consult Professor Hyslop's 
 " Science and a Future Life." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Alcoholism, cured by hypnotism, 
 
 72, 186-190. 
 Angus, Miss, crystal-gazer, 154- 
 
 155, 203, 219. 
 Apparitions, telepathic explana- 
 tion of, 31, 143-150; cases of, 
 
 118-125. 
 Apports, 12, 117. 
 Auditions, cases of, 125-126; 
 
 telepathic explanation of, 143, 
 
 151. 
 Automatic speaking and writing, 
 
 13, 66-68, 107, 127-134. 
 Azam, Dr., and case of Felida X., 
 
 62, 63, 64. 
 
 B., case of Elsie, 70. 
 
 B., case of Madame, 65-68. 
 
 Babinski, Dr., defends Paris 
 school of hypnotism, 60-61. 
 
 Baldwin, H. M., 227. 
 
 Baldwin, J. M., 227. 
 
 Balfour, A., 29. 
 
 Barrett, W. F., proposes or- 
 ganization of a society for 
 psychical research, 28; other- 
 wise mentioned, 30, 31. 
 
 Beauchamp, C. L., case of, 85- 
 89, 227. 
 
 Beaunis, Dr., 57, 60. 
 
 Bebee, H., spiritistic medium, 9. 
 
 Berillon, E., 72, 229. 
 
 Bernheim, H., associates himself 
 with Liebeault, 5Q; otherwise 
 mentioned, VII, 60, 69, 84, 105, 
 229. 
 
 Bertrand, A., recognizes the im- 
 portance of suggestion, 20; 
 otherwise mentioned, 230, 235. 
 
 Binet, A., 60, 69, 227, 229. 
 
 Blavatsky, Madame, case of, 
 112-115. 
 
 Bourne, A., case of, 36-41. 
 
 Braid, J., gives hypnotism its 
 name, 22; his method of in- 
 ducing the hypnotic state, 59; 
 otherwise mentioned, 15, 20, 
 53, 54, 230. 
 
 Bramwell, J. M., cases of al- 
 coholism cured by, 188-189; 
 writings of, 228. 
 
 Breuer, J., 192, 231, 234. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, 179. 
 
 C, case of Mrs., 188-189. 
 
 Capron, E. W., 236. 
 
 Census of hallucinations, 177- 
 
 185. 
 Charcot, J. M., his work in 
 
 hypnotism, 58-60; writings of, 
 
 229; otherwise mentioned, VII, 
 
 15, 23, 84, 225, 232. 
 
 241 
 
242 
 
 Index 
 
 Christian Science, definition of, 
 VI; remarkable growth of, 10. 
 
 Clairaudience, 13. 
 
 Clairvoyance, 13, 154. 
 
 Colquhoun, J. C, 230. 
 
 Cox, S., 237. 
 
 Crawford, Lord, and D. D. 
 Home, 165-171. 
 
 Crookes, W., on requirements in 
 psychical research, 108-109; 
 investigates D. D. Home, 169- 
 171; otherwise mentioned, 29, 
 172, 173, 237. 
 
 Crowe, C, 236. 
 
 Crystal-gazing, 13, 107, 154-155. 
 
 D. F., case of, 94-98. 
 Darwin, C, 3, 4. 
 Davenport, R. B., 237. 
 Davey, S. J., duplicates feats of 
 
 slate-writing mediums, 109- 
 
 112. 
 Davies, case of Mrs., 125-126, 
 
 151. 
 Davis, A. J., career of, 6-8; 
 
 otherwise mentioned, 13, 235. 
 Dissociation, cases of, 35-41, 62- 
 
 79, 94-104; curability of, 79, 
 
 94, 105; physical disorders 
 
 caused by, 93; law of, 92-94; 
 
 writings on, 227, 228, 231- 
 
 235. 
 Drink habit, hypnotic treatment 
 
 of, 72, 186-190. 
 Dubois, P., 234. 
 Dunraven, Lord, and D. D. 
 
 Home, 165-171. 
 
 EUiotson, J., pioneer student of 
 hypnotism, 15, 20, 22, 23, 53, 
 230. 
 
 Elliott, C. W., 236. 
 
 Elongation, 12, 117, 167, 168. 
 
 Esdaile, J., uses hypnotism as 
 anesthetic, 21; telepathic ex- 
 periments of, 21; otherwise 
 mentioned, 15, 20, 53, 230. 
 
 Evolutionary theory, early effects 
 of, 3. 
 
 F. G., apparition seen by, 122- 
 
 125, 147-150. 
 Fire ordeal, 168-170. 
 Fox sisters, 8-9, 163, 235. 
 Franklin, B., investigates Mes- 
 
 mer, 19. 
 Freud, S., 192, 195, 231, 234. 
 
 Gieson, I. van, head of New York 
 Pathological Institute, 90-91. 
 
 Godfrey, C, telepathic appari- 
 tion produced by, 140-141, 
 143, 203. 
 
 Goodhart, S. P., and the Hanna 
 case, 101-104, 231. 
 
 Gurney, E., advances knowledge 
 of hypnotism and telepathy, 
 30; writings of, 223; otherwise 
 mentioned, 16, 23, 31, 53, 113, 
 137, 145, 202. 
 
 Hallucinations, produced by hyp- 
 notism, 69-70; removed by 
 hypnotism, 76; telepathic, 137- 
 143; census of, 177-185; fre- 
 quency of, 179. 
 
Index 
 
 243 
 
 Hanna, T. C, case oF, 102-104. 
 
 Hare, R., 236. 
 
 Harvard Medical School, Janet's 
 lectures at, 62, 234; Sidis's 
 experiments at, 197, 
 
 Herter, C. A., 229. 
 
 Hodgson, R., and case of A. 
 Bourne, 37-41; and case of 
 Madame Blavatsky, 114-115; 
 and case of Eusapia Paladino, 
 116-117; and case of Mrs. 
 Piper, 128, 131-134; converted 
 to spiritism, 133; becomes a 
 "control" of Mrs. Piper's, 134; 
 criticises telepathy, 200. 
 
 Hoffman, F. S., 225. 
 
 Home, D. D., mediumship of, 12, 
 162-173; otherwise mentioned, 
 127, 236. 
 
 Home, Mrs. D. D., 236. 
 
 Hudson, T. J., telepathic experi- 
 ments of, 138-139, 152-154; 
 writings of, 223-224, 238; 
 otherwise mentioned, 47, 156. 
 
 Hydesville rappings, 8-9, 163. 
 
 Hypnoidization, 103, 191-199. 
 
 Hypnotism, as practised by Mes- 
 mer, 17-19; Esdaile's work in, 
 21; EUiotson's theories of, 22; 
 Liebeault's work in, 54-58; 
 the Nancy school of, 55 ; Char- 
 cot's work in, 58-60; conflict- 
 ing views of the Nancy and 
 Paris schools of, 60-61; lost 
 memories recalled by, 68; 
 some therapeutic uses of, 71- 
 79; importance of, in treat- 
 
 Hypnotism — continued 
 
 ment of mental and nervous 
 disease, 80, 85-89, 96-100; as 
 an explanation of certain 
 spiritistic phenomena, 171- 
 173; as a cure of alcoholism, 
 186-190; writings on, 228- 
 230. 
 
 Hyslop, J. H., investigates Mrs. 
 Piper, 133-134; criticises tele- 
 pathy, 200-219; writings of, 
 222-223; otherwise mentioned, 
 Vni, 13, 239. 
 
 Hysteria, cured by hypnotism, 
 76; nature of, 233. 
 
 Insanity, statistics showing in- 
 crease of, 80-82; and psy- 
 chopathology, 105. 
 
 J. F., case of, 98-100. 
 
 James W., and case of A. Bourne, 
 37, 41 ; and case of Mrs. Piper, 
 127-128, 134; otherwise men- 
 tioned, VIH, 26, 29, 47, 90, 
 226. 
 
 Janet, J., 74. 
 
 Janet, P., and case of Felida X., 
 62; and case of Madame B., 
 65-68; writings of, 232-234; 
 otherwise mentioned, VII, IX, 
 60, 75, 84, 105, 192, 195, 225, 
 229. 
 
 Jastrow, J., on the subliminal 
 self, 50-51; writings of, 224- 
 225, 231, 239. 
 
 Johnson, A., 177. 
 
 
 4 
 
244 
 
 Index 
 
 Kirk, telepathic apparition pro- 
 duced by Mr., 141-142, 143. 
 Koons, J., spiritistic medium, 11. 
 
 Lang, A., 153, 154-155, 203, 
 
 219. 
 Levitation, 12, 117, 164-167. 
 Liebeault, A. A., career of, 54- 
 
 58; otherwise mentioned, VII, 
 
 16, 23, 60, 69, 71, 84, 105, 225, 
 
 229, 230. 
 Liegeois, Dr., 57, 60, 69. 
 Lodge, O., and case of Mrs. 
 
 Piper, 129-130, 157; otherwise 
 
 mentioned, 29. 
 London Dialectical Society, 165, 
 
 167, 237. 
 
 Mason, R. O., 239. 
 
 Massey, C. C, 31. 
 
 Memories recalled by hypnotism, 
 68; recalled by hypnoidization, 
 103. 
 
 Mental faculties improved by 
 hypnotism, 72. 
 
 Mesmer, F. A., career of, 15-20; 
 fluidic theory of, 17, 19; other- 
 wise mentioned, 20, 53, 230, 
 235, 239. 
 
 Mesmerism. See Hypnotism. 
 
 Mitchell, W., 41. 
 
 Moll, A., 229. 
 
 Morselli, H., and Eusapia Pala- 
 dino, 173-176. 
 
 Moses, W. S., spiritistic medium, 
 31, 127, 237. 
 
 Myers, A. T., 177. 
 
 Myers, F. W. H., characteristics 
 of, 26; his theory of the sub- 
 liminal self, 42-46; importance 
 of his "Human PersonaHty," 
 42, 220-221; criticises Paris 
 school of hypnotism, 61, 214; 
 on case of Madame B., 65; on 
 case of Marceline R., 73-75; 
 on the census of hallucina- 
 tions, 182-184; otherwise men- 
 tioned, 28, 29, 30, 31, 53, 113, 
 118, 129, 137, 145, 151, 157, 
 177, 202, 238. 
 
 Nancy school of hypnotism, 55y 
 
 61, 71. 
 Neuralgia, cured by hypnotism, 
 
 73. 
 Neuron theory, 92-94. 
 
 Owen, R. D., 237. 
 
 P., case of Madame, 77. 
 
 Paladino, E., spiritistic medium, 
 112, 115-117, 163, 173-176. 
 
 Paris school of hj^notism, 60-61. 
 
 Pathological Institute of New 
 York, 90-92. 
 
 Pelham, G., one of Mrs. Piper's 
 "controls," 131-132, 215. 
 
 Personality, orthodox view of, 
 33; view held by Myers and 
 other psychical researchers, 
 42 - 46 ; psychopathological 
 view of, 159-160; cases of dis- 
 integration of, 35-41, 62-68, 
 85-89, 100-104; divisibility of. 
 
Index 
 
 245 
 
 Personality — continued 
 proved, 61; ultimate unity of, 
 proved, 69; evidence for sur- 
 vival of, 107-135; impossible 
 to obtain scientifically accept- 
 able proof of survival, 157; but 
 valid reasons for believing in 
 survival, 161-162; writings on, 
 220-239. 
 
 Phobies, cured by hypnotism, 76- 
 79. 
 
 Piper, L. E., spiritistic medium, 
 13, 127-134, 155, 156-157, 
 200-219, 236. 
 
 Plummer, W. S., 41. 
 
 Podmore, A., experiences with 
 S. J. Davey, 110-112. 
 
 Podmore, F., experiences with 
 S. J. Davey, 110-112; writings 
 of, 235, 238; otherwise men- 
 tioned, 19, 31, 113, 141, 156, 
 177. 
 
 Prince, M., advances psycho- 
 pathological knowledge, 84; 
 and the Beauchamp case, 85- 
 89; writings of, 227, 231 ; other- 
 wise mentioned, VII, IX, 92. 
 
 Psychical research, beginnings of, 
 25-32; results of, VIII, 29, 
 158-160. See also Society for 
 Psychical Research. 
 
 Psychopathology, originated in 
 France, 16, 54; cures by 
 French practitioners, 54-79; 
 cures by American practition- 
 ers, 84-104. 
 
 Puysegur, Marquis de, 230, 235. 
 
 Q., apparition of Mr., 118-121, 
 
 144-145. 
 Que, case of, 77-79. 
 
 R., case of Marceline, 73-75. 
 
 R., case of Mr., 100-101, 148, 
 199. 
 
 Reid, T., on the nature of per- 
 sonality, 33. 
 
 Reynolds, case of M., 34-36. 
 
 Rheumatism, cured by hyp- 
 notism, 73. 
 
 Richet, C, 29, 166. 
 
 Robinson, W. E., 237. 
 
 Salpetriere, 58, 83, 105, 214, 215, 
 228, 232. 
 
 Sciatica, cured by h5^notism, 5Qy 
 73. 
 
 Sidgwick, H., characteristics of, 
 25; otherwise mentioned, 28, 
 29, 30, 53, 114, 137, 177, 
 202. 
 
 Sidgwick, Mrs. H., 30, 114, 177. 
 
 Sidis, B., career of, 89; and law 
 of dissociation, 92-94; and 
 cases of D. F., J. F., Mr. R., 
 and T. C. Hanna, 94-104; 
 method of hypnoidization, 103, 
 191-199; writings of, 227, 
 231-232; otherwise mentioned, 
 VII, IX, 91, 105, 148, 188, 
 225. 
 
 Slate writing, 12, 109-112. 
 
 Society for Psychical Research, 
 organized, 28; aims and 
 methods of, 28-29; telepathic 
 
246 
 
 Index 
 
 Society for Psychical Research — 
 continiied 
 experiments by, 30-32; reports 
 favorably on telepathy, 31; 
 attitude towards the physical 
 phenomena of spiritism, 107; 
 investigates Madame Blavat- 
 sky, 113-115; investigates 
 Eusapia Paladino, 1 1 6-1 1 7 ; 
 cases of apparitions collected 
 by, 118-125; investigates Mrs. 
 Piper, 128-134; importance of 
 records of, 221-222, 238. 
 
 Spiritism, as a reHgious system, 
 5; contrasted with spiritual- 
 ism, 6; beginnings of, 6-15; 
 the phenomena of, 12, 13, 107, 
 117; Crookes's criticism of, 
 108-109; writings on, 235-238. 
 See also Apparitions, Audi- 
 tions, Crystal-gazing, Halluci- 
 nations, Home, Hypnotism, 
 Myers, Paladino, Personality, 
 Piper, Psychical Research, So- 
 ciety for Psychical Research, 
 Suggestion, and Telepathy. 
 
 Stack, J. H., 114. 
 
 Subliminal self, Myers's theory 
 of, 42-46; combatted by ortho- 
 dox psychologists, 48-52; but 
 vindicated by the evidence 
 obtained through psychical 
 research and psychopathology, 
 160-161. See also Person- 
 ality. 
 
 Suggestion, root element in mes- 
 merism, 17; importance of. 
 
 Suggestion — continued 
 
 first emphasized by Bertrand, 
 20; further developed by Braid, 
 22-23; as utilized by Liebeault, 
 54-58; impoi-tance in hypno- 
 tism denied by Charcot, 59; 
 influence on bodily organism 
 recognized by Nancy school, 
 71; a factor in the production 
 of spiritistic phenomena, 171- 
 173, 213-218. 
 
 Swedenborg, E., 6, 18. 
 
 Tamlin, Mrs., spiritistic me- 
 dium, 10. 
 
 Telepathy, Esdaile's experiments 
 in, 21; evidence for, 27, 137- 
 143, 152, 155 177,185; experi- 
 ments of Society for Psychical 
 Research, 30-32; denied by 
 many scientists, 47, 136; as an 
 explanation of the psychical 
 phenomena of spiritism, 136, 
 144-157; criticised by Hyslop, 
 200-219; writings on, 238- 
 239. 
 
 Theosophical Society, 112-115. 
 
 Thompson, I. C, and Mrs. Piper, 
 130. 
 
 Thought transference. See 
 Telepathy. 
 
 Truesdell, J. W., 237. 
 
 Tuckey, C. L., 229. 
 
 Wallace, A. R., 3, 4, 236. 
 Wambey, audition heard by Mr., 
 125. 
 
Index 
 
 247 
 
 Wesermann, telepathic appa- 
 rition produced by Herr, 142- 
 143. 
 
 Wetterstrand, O., 229. 
 
 White, W. A., IX., 94-98. 
 
 Wynne, Captain, and D. D. 
 Home, 165. 
 
 X., case of Felida, 62-64. 
 
 Z., apparition of Julia, 122, 147. 
 
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