arruuf " HUMAN PERSONALITY AND ITS SURVIVAL OF BODILY DEATH BT FREDERIC W. H. MYERS Cessas in vota frecesque. Trcs, ait, Aenea. cessasf Neque tnim ante dehiscent Adtonittt magna ora damns. VIRGIL. "Nay."' quoth the Sybil, " Trojan! wilt thou sfare The impassioned effort and the conquering prayer ? Nay ' not save thus those doors shall open roll, That Power within them burst upon the soul," IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK LONDON AND BOMBAY 1904 COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO- All right* reserved. First Edition, February, 1903 Reprinted, March and June, 1903 September, 1904 UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON AMD SON CAMBRIDOB, U. S. A. Annex I DEDICA TED TO HENRY SIDGWICK AND EDMUND GURNEY C PREFACE THE book which is now at last given to the world is but a partial presentation of an ever-growing subject which I have long hoped to become able to treat in more adequate fashion. But as knowledge increases life rolls by, and I have thought it well to bring out while I can even this most imperfect text-book to a branch of research whose novelty and strangeness call urgently for some provisional systematisation, which, by suggesting fresh inquiries, further ac- cumulation of evidence may tend as speedily as possible to its own supersession. Few critics of this book can, I think, be more fully conscious than its author of its defects and its lacunae ; but also few critics, I think, have yet realised the im- portance of the new facts which in some fashion the book does actually present. Many of these facts have already appeared in Phantasms of the Living ; many more in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research ; but they are far indeed from having yet entered into the scientific consciousness of the age. In future years the wonder, I think, will be that their announcement was so largely left to a writer with leisure so scanty, and with scientific equipment so in- complete. Whatever value this book may possess is in great measure due to other minds than its actual author's. Its very existence, in the first place, probably depends upon the existence of the two beloved friends and invaluable coadjutors to whose memory I dedicate it now. vi viii PREFACE The help derived from these departed colleagues, Henry Sidg- wick and Edmund Gurney, although of a kind and quantity absolutely essential to the existence of this work, is not easy to define in all its fulness under the changed circumstances of to-day. There was indeed much which is measurable ; much of revision of previous work of my own, of collaborative experiments, of original thought and discovery. Large quotations purposely introduced from Edmund Gurney indicate, although imperfectly, how closely interwoven our work on all these subjects continued to be until his death. But the benefit which I drew from the association went deeper still. The conditions under which this inquiry was undertaken were such as to emphasise the need of some intimate moral support. A recluse, perhaps, or an eccentric, or a man living mainly with his intellectual inferiors, may find it easy to work steadily and confidently at a task which he knows that the bulk of educated men will ignore or despise. But this is more difficult for a man who feels manifold links with his kind, a man whose desire it is to live among minds equal or superior to his own. It is hard, I say, for such a man to dis- regard altogether the expressed or implied disapproval of those groups of weighty personages to whom in other matters he is accustomed to look up. I need not say that the attitude of the scientific world of all the intellectual world then was very much more marked than now. Even now I write in full consciousness of the low value commonly attached to inquiries of the kind which I pursue. Even now a book on such a subject must still expect to evoke, not only legitimate criticism of many kinds, but also much of that disgust and resent- ment which novelty and heterodoxy naturally excite. But I have no wish to exalt into a deed of daring an enterprise which to the next generation must seem the most obvious thing in the world. Nihil ausi nisi vana contemnere will certainly be the highest compliment which what seemed to us our bold independence of men PREFACE ix will receive. Yet gratitude bids me to say that however I might in the privacy of my own bosom have ' dared to contemn things con- temptible,' I should never have ventured my amateurish acquire- ments on a publication of this scale were it not for that slow growth of confidence which my respect for the judgment of these two friends inspired. Their countenance and fellowship, which at once trans- formed my own share in the work into a delight, has made its presentation to the world appear as a duty. My thanks are due also to another colleague who has passed away, my brother, Dr. A. T. Myers, F.R.C.P., who helped me for many years in all medical points arising in the work. To the original furnishers of the evidence my obligations are great and manifest, and to the Council of the S.P.R. I also owe thanks for permission to use that evidence freely. But I must leave it to the book itself to indicate in fuller detail how much is owing to how many men and women : how widely diffused are the work and the interest which have found in this book their temporary outcome and exposition. The book, indeed, is an exposition rather than a proof. I cannot summarise within my modest limits the mass of evidence already gathered together in the sixteen volumes of Proceedings and the nine volumes of the Journal vl the S.P.R. , in Phantasms of the Living and other books hereafter referred to, and in MS. collections. The attempt indeed would be quite out of place. This branch of know- ledge, like others, must be studied carefully and in detail by those who care to understand or to advance it. What I have tried to do here is to render that knowledge more assimilable by co-ordinating it in a form as clear and intelligible as my own limited skill and the nature of the facts themselves have permitted. I have tried to give, in text and in Appendices, enough of actual evidence to illustrate each step in my argument: and I have constantly referred the reader to places where further evidence will be found. x PREFACE In minor matters I have aimed above all things at clearness and readiness in reference. The division of the book into sections, with Appendices bearing the same numbers, will, it is hoped, facilitate the use both of syllabus and of references in general. I have even risked the appearance of pedantry in adding a glossary. Where many unfamiliar facts and ideas have to be dealt with, time is saved in the end if the writer explains precisely what his terms mean. F. W. H. MYERS. EDITORIAL NOTE This unfinished preface consists of several passages written at different times by the author, who died on January I7th, 1901. In 1896, he arranged that the completion of his book should be in the hands of Dr. Richard Hodgson in case of his death before its publication. In the meantime he had entrusted the general supervision of the press work and much of the detail in marshalling the Appendices to Miss Alice Johnson of Newnham College, Cambridge, who has therefore been associated with Dr. Hodgson also in the editorial work needed for the completion of the book, and much the greater part of the labour involved has fallen to her share. At the time of the author's death, Chapters I. -VI., part of Chapter VII., and the whole of Chapter VIII. were in the first proof, the rest of Chapter VII. and Chapter X. were ready for printing. Most of the Appendices were in type, but required much revision and re-arrangement. The substance of nearly all Chapter IX. had been written, in one form or another, but had to be pieced together. The asterisks on p. 209 (Vol. II.) mark the end of the part which had been consecutively composed by the author. Some of the questions involved in that chapter would doubtless have been treated much more fully by him had he lived to complete it. Mr. Myers left on record his wish to express gratitude to Mr. F. N. Hales, of Trinity College, Cambridge, for help in the preparation of some Appendices, especially in Chapters II. and V. RICHARD HODGSON. ALICE JOHNSON. CONTENTS PAGR PREFACE . . . vii EDITORIAL NOTE x GLOSSARY xiii EXPLANATION OF PLAN OF ARRANGEMENT AND SYSTEM OF REFERENCES xxiii SYLLABUSES xxiv CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION . ..... i II. DISINTEGRATIONS OF PERSONALITY . . .34 III. GENIUS . . . . . .70 IV. SLEEP . ..... 121 V. HYPNOTISM 153 VI. SENSORY AUTOMATISM 220 APPENDICES TO CHAPTER II . .' . .298 APPENDICES TO CHAPTER IV ... .369 APPENDICES TO CHAPTER V ... 437 APPENDICES TO CHAPTER VI ... .565 GLOSSARY [NOTE. The words and phrases here included fall under three main heads : 1 i ) Words in common philosophical or medical use, to which no new shade of meaning is given in this inquiry, eg. ecmnesia. Introducing a few of these words for the ordinary reader's convenience, I have generally taken the definition from Hack Tuke's Dictionary of Psychological Medicine (London: Churchill, 1892), which is the most authoritative almost the only English work of its kind. (2) Words or phrases in themselves not new, but used in psychical research with some special significance ; as, for instance, " systematised anaesthesia," " negative hallucination." These two phrases are constantly used by writers on hypnotism : but mere familiarity with the words themselves would not explain their meaning in that context to a reader fresh to hypnotic discussions. (3) A few words, distinguished by an asterisk, for which I am myself responsible. I must leave it to my readers to judge how far these words are likely to be useful. But I would suggest that when a subject so novel as ours is made the subject of discussion in many countries, there is a convenience in using words of Greek or Latin derivation, which can be adapted to all languages, and can be made to bear a clearly defined signification.] Aboulia. Loss of power of willing. I have used the word hyperboulia to express that increased power over the organism, resembling the power which we call will when it is exercised over the voluntary muscles, which is seen in the bodily changes effected by self-suggestion. After-image. The picture of an object seen after removing the gaze from the object. It is called positive when it reproduces, negative when it reverses the true illumination or colours of the actual object. After-images are regarded as retinal or entoptic, belonging to the interior of the eye. After-images must be distinguished from memory-images, which may appear spontaneously, or may be summoned by an effort of will, long after the original sight of the object. Agent. The person on whose condition a telepathic impression seems to be dependent ; who seems to initiate the telepathic transmission. Agraphia. See Aphasia. Alexia. See Aphasia. Alternation of personality . See Disintegration of personality. Anasthesia, or the loss of sensation generally, must be distinguished from analgesia, or the loss of the sense of pain alone. Many hypnotic subjects are xiv GLOSSARY analgesic but not anaesthetic. Systematized anaesthesia or negative hallucination signifies the condition of an entranced subject who has been told (for instance) that Mr. A. is not in the room, while he is in reality present. The subject may thus be said to have a negative hallucination, or to have been deprived of a certain group or system of perceptions, in that he fails to see Mr. A. Other words descriptive of the general sensory condition are dyscesthesia, impaired or painful sensation ; parcesthesia, erroneous or morbid sensation ; hypercesthesia, unusually keen sensation, which may or may not be a morbid symptom. Hyperaesthesia may be peripheral, when it affects nerve-endings near the surface of the body, or central, when the excessive sensitiveness belongs to the central sensorium; such parts, namely, of the brain as are concerned in receiv- ing or generating sensory images and impressions. Hemi-ancesthesia means anaesthesia of half the body, the median line (down the middle of the body) separating normal sensation from absence of sensation. Anaesthetic zones or patches (formerly deemed characteristic of witches) are common in hysteria. Caenesthesia means that consensus or agreement of many organic sensations which is a fundamental element in our conception of personal identity. Finally, I have suggested the word * pantzsthesia to express the undifferentiated sensory capacity of the supposed primal germ. Analgesia. Insensibility to pain. Aphasia. Incapacity of coherent utterance, not caused by structural impairment of the vocal organs, but by lesion of the cerebral centres for speech. Distinguished from congenital or acquired aphonia, due to paralysis or imperfect approximation of the vocal cords, and also from hysterical mutism, when the patient is obstinately and involuntarily silent, although the vocal organs are uninjured and the cerebral centres of speech are only functionally affected, with no visible lesion. All the four forms of verbalisation are subject to separate disorders of the type of aphasia. Lack of power to write words is called agraphia or agraphy ; lack of power to understand words written, alexia or word-blindness ; lack of power to understand words uttered, word-deafness. In each case the trouble may lie in the brain and not in the organ of sense or other organs. For instance, a man's sight even for printed musical notes may be unimpaired, while yet he is unable to understand printed words. Aphonia. Incapacity of uttering sounds. Attaque de sommeil. This French term is more correct than the word " trance," to express those spontaneous lapses into prolonged and profound sleep which sometimes occur in hysterical subjects. Automatism. The words automatism and automatic are used in somewhat different senses by physiologists and psychologists. Thus Sir M. Foster says (Foster's Physiology, fth edition, p. 920), " We speak of an action of an organ or of a living body as being spontaneous or automatic when it appears to be not immediately due to any changes in the circumstances in which the organ or body is placed, but to be the result of changes arising in the organ or body itself and determined by causes other than the influences of the circumstances of the moment. The most striking automatic actions of the living body [are] those which we attribute to the working of the will and which we call voluntary or volitional." That is to say, to the physiologist an action is " self-moved " when it is determined, not by the environment, but by the organism itself. The word thus becomes hardly more than a synonym for spontaneous. The psycho- logist, on the other hand, regards an action as " self-moved " when it is deter- GLOSSARY xv mined in an organism apart from the central will or control of that organism. Thus when an act at first needing voluntary guidance, by practice comes to need such guidance no longer, it is called "secondarily automatic." I have used the word in a wider sense, as expressing such images as arise, as well as such movements as are made, without the initiation, and generally without the concurrence, of conscious thought and will. Sensory automatism will thus in- clude visual and auditory hallucinations ; motor automatism will include messages written without intention (automatic script) or words uttered without intention (as in "speaking with tongues," trance-utterances, &c.). I ascribe these processes to the action of submerged or subliminal elements in the man's being. Such phrases as " reflex cerebral action," or " unconscious cerebration," give therefore, in my view, a very imperfect conception of the facts. Automnesia. Spontaneous revival of memories of an earlier condition of life. Autoscope. Any instrument which reveals a subliminal motor impulse or sensory impression ; e.g. a divining rod, a tilting table, or a planchette reveals by its visible motion the imperceptible, involuntary, and unconscious muscular action of the person holding or touching it ; a crystal or other speculum externalises the subliminal impressions of the person who sees visions in it. Bilocation. The sensation of being in two different places at once, namely, where one's organism is, and a place distant from it, involving some degree of perception (whether veridical or falsidical) of the distant scene. Catalepsy. "An intermittent neurosis, characterised by the patient's inability to change the position of a limb, while another person can place the muscles in a state of flexion or contraction as he will." (Tuke's Diet.) Catalepsy may also be induced as a stage of hypnotism ; although Charcot's view, which erected catalepsy, lethargy, somnambulism (their relative positions sometimes varied) into three typical or necessary stages in a hypnotic trance, is now commonly considered to have been a too hasty generalisation from the habits largely imitative of the group of hypnotic patients at the Salpetriere (a hospital in Paris). Census of Hallucinations. An inquiry undertaken to determine the frequency of hallucinations in sane and healthy persons ; described in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. x. (See 612 A.) Centre of Consciousness. The place where a percipient imagines himself to be. The point from which he seems to himself to be surveying some phan- tasmal scene. Chromatism. See Secondary Sensations. Clairaudience. See Clairvoyance. Clairvoyance (Lucidite). The faculty or act of perceiving, as though visually, with some coincidental truth, some distant scene; used sometimes, but hardly properly, for transcendental vision, or the perception of beings regarded as on another plane of existence. Clairaudience is generally used of the sensation of hearing an internal (but in some way veridical) voice. I have preferred to use the term *telcesthesia for distant perception. For the faculty has seldom any close analogy with an extension of sight; the perception of distant scenes being often more or less symbolical and in other ways out of accord with what actual sight would show in the locality of the vision. On the other hand, telasthesia merges into telepathy, since we cannot say how far the perception of a dis- tant scene may in essential be the perception of the content of a distant mind. VOL. I. b xvi GLOSSARY Ccfnesthesia. See Ancesthesia. Coincidental. This word is used when there is some degree of coincidence in time of occurrence between a supernormal incident and an event at a dis- tance, which makes it seem probable that some causal connection exists between the two. An apparition, for instance, seen at or about the time when the person whose phantasm is seen dies, is a coincidental apparition. Collective. Applied to cases where two or more persons together perceive a hallucination or phantasm. Control. This word is used of the intelligence which purports to communi- cate messages which are written or uttered by the automatist, sensitive, or medium. The word is used for convenience' sake, but should not imply that the source of the messages need be other than the automatist's own subliminal intelligence. *Cosmopathic. Open to the access of supernormal knowledge or emotion, apparently from the transcendental world, but whose precise source we have no means of defining. Cryptomnesia. Submerged or subliminal memory of events forgotten by the supraliminal self. Crystal-gazing, The act of looking into a crystal, glass ball, or other speculum, or reflecting surface, with the object of inducing hallucinatory pictures. The person doing this is called a seer or scryer. The pictures, of course, exist in the mind and not in the crystal. See Shell-hearing. Delusion and Delusive. Applied generally to all cases whether of hallucina- tion or illusion, when there is no corresponding reality whatever ; i.e. when the case is not coincidental or in any other way veridical. *Dextro-cerebral (opposed to *Sinistro-cerebral)\ of left-handed persons, as employing preferentially the right hemisphere of the brain. Diathesis. Habit, capacity, or disposition. (In Medicine, a permanent con- dition of the body which renders it liable to certain special diseases or affections ; a constitutional predisposition or tendency.) See Psychorrhagic diathesis. Dimorphism. In crystals, the property of assuming two incompatible forms ; in plants and animals, difference of form between members of the same species. Used of a condition of alternating personalities ; a kind of psychical dimorphism in which memory, character, faculty, &c., present themselves at different times in different forms in the same person. Similarly, polymorphism is the property of assuming many forms. Discarnate. Disembodied, opposed to incarnate. Used of that part of man which still subsists after bodily death. Disintegration of personality. Used of any condition where the sense of personality is not unitary and continuous; especially when secondary and transi- tory personalities intervene; as, for instance, when a hysterical subject calls herself at one time Rose, at another Adrienne, &c., with separate chains of memory for each condition. Dissolutive. Opposed to Evolutive; of changes which tend not towards progress but towards decay. Dynamogeny. The increase of nervous energy by appropriate stimuli ; often opposed to inhibition. Dyscesthesia. See Ancesthesia. Ecmnesia. A gap in memory : " a form of amnesia [forgetfulness] in which there is a normal memory of occurrences prior to a given date, with loss of GLOSSARY xvii memory of what happened for a certain time after that date." (Tuke's Diet.). It should be added that the gap of memory may include some period of time previous to the shock or accident which caused it. Ecstasy. A trance during which the spirit of the automatist partially quits his body, entering into a state in which the spiritual world is more or less open to its perception, and in which it so far ceases to occupy its organism as to leave room for an invading spirit to use it in somewhat the same fashion as its owner is accustomed to use it. See Possession. * Entencephalic. On the analogy of entoptic ; of sensations, &c., which have their origin within the brain, not in the external world. Eugenics. The science of improving the race. Externalise. This word is used to represent the process by which an idea or impression on the percipient's mind is transformed into a phantasm appar- ently outside him. Falsidical. See Hallucination . Glossolaly. " Speaking with tongues," i.e. automatic utterance of words not belonging to any real language. Hallucination. Any supposed sensory perception which has no objective counterpart within the field of vision, hearing, &c., is termed a hallucination. Hallucinations may be delusive or falsidical, when there is nothing whatever to which they correspond ; or -veridical, when they correspond (as those of which we treat generally correspond) to real events happening elsewhere. A pseudo- hallucination is a quasi-percept not sufficiently externalised to rank as a "full- blown " hallucination. Contrast with illusion and delusion. Hemi-ancesthesia . S ee A ncesthesia. Hetercesthesia. A form of sensibility decidedly different from any of those which can be referred to the action of the known senses e.g. the perception of a magnetic field, specific sensibilities to running water, crystals, metals (see Afetallcesthesia), &c. Hyperboulia. See Aboulia. HypercEsthesia. See Anasthesia. Hypermnesia. Defined in Tuke's Diet, as " over-activity of the memory, a condition in which past acts, feelings, or ideas are brought vividly to the mind, which, in its natural condition, has wholly lost the remembrance of them." In my view the subliminal memory retains these remembrances throughout, and their supraliminal evocation implies an increased grasp of natural faculty. *Panmnesia would imply a potential recollection of all impressions. *Hyperpromethia. Supernormal power of foresight ; attributed to the sub- liminal self as a hypothesis by which to explain premonitions without assuming either that the future scene is shown to the percipient by any mind external to his own, or that circumstances which we regard as future are in any sense already existent. Hypnagogic. Illusions hypnagogiques (Maury) are the vivid illusions of sight or sound " faces in the dark," &c. which sometimes accompany the oncoming of sleep. To similar illusions accompanying the departure of sleep, as when a dream-figure persists for a few moments into waking life, I have given the name *hypnopompic. Hypnogenous. See Hysterogenous. *Hypnopompic. See Hypnagogic. Hypnotism. See Mesmerism. xviii GLOSSARY Hysteria. " A disordered condition of the nervous system, the anatomical seat and nature of which are unknown to medical science, but of which the symptoms consist in well-marked and very varied disturbances of nerve- function " (Ency. Brit.). For further definition and discussion, see below, Chapter II. Hysterical blindness, contractures, mutism, oedema, paralysis, &c., signify affections not dependent on any discoverable lesion, but on the defects of nervous co-ordination characteristic of hysteria. Such affections, even when of long standing, may quite suddenly disappear. Hysterogenous zones. Points or tracts on the skin of a hysterical person pressure on which will induce a hysterical attack. Hypnogenous zones are regions by pressure on which hypnosis is induced in a hysterical person, by a similar process of self-suggestion. Ideational. Used of impressions which convey some distinct notion, but not of sensory nature. 1 Idiognomonic. Not symptomatic of any other condition; indicative only of itself. Idiopathic. Symptomatic of some special morbid state or condition, which exhibits no other symptom e.g. idiopathic somnambulism is sleep-walking not associated with any other disease. Illusion. The misinterpretation of some object actually present to sight, hearing, &c., as when a hanging coat is taken for a man, a ringing in the ears for the sound of a bell, &c. Imaginal. A word used of characteristics belonging to the perfect insect or imago ; and thus opposed to larval; metaphorically applied to transcen- dental faculties shown in rudiment in ordinary life. Induced. Of phantasms, &c., intentionally produced. Levitation. A raising of objects from the ground by supposed supernormal means: especially of living persons; asserted in the case of St. Joseph of Copertino, and many other saints; of D. D. Home, and of W. Stainton Moses. Medium. A person through whom communication is deemed to be carried on between living men and spirits of the departed. As commonly used in spiritist literature, this word is liable to the objection that it assumes a particular theory for phenomena which admit of explanation in various ways. It is often better replaced by automatist or sensitive. Mesmerism. This is the oldest widely-recognised word for a large group of phenomena discussed below in Chapter V. The name need imply nothing more than the fact that Mesmer was the conspicuous introducer of many of the phenomena to the European public. But it is also specially used to imply something of his theory of their production, by a vital effluence from the mesmeriser, conveyed partly by mesmeric passes, or wavings of the hands. The term Animal Magnetism implies a somewhat different theory. The term Hypnotism, when first started by Braid, was again meant to imply a theory of the genesis of these phenomena, but it is now generally used with no theoretical implication. Message. Used for any communication, not necessarily verbal, from one to another stratum of the automatist's personality, or from an external intelligence to one or other stratum of the automatist. Thus any automatic script may be called a message, even if incoherent GLOSSARY xix MetallcEsthesia. A form of sensibility alleged to exist which enables some hypnotised or hysterical subjects to discriminate between the contacts of various metals by sensations not derived from their ordinary properties of weight, &c. Metastasis. Change of the seat of a bodily function from one place (e.g. a brain-centre) to another. *Metetherial. That which appears to lie after or beyond the ether; the metetherial environment denotes the spiritual or transcendental world in which the soul exists. *Methectic. Of communications between one stratum of a man's intelligence and another; as when he writes messages whose origin is in his own subliminal self. Some word is needed to express this novel conception; and Plato's use of the word /*&, participation (Farm. 132 D), suggests methectic as the most appropriate term of Greek origin. Mirror-writing (ecriture renverse'e, Spiegel-schriff) . Writing so inverted, or, more exactly, perverted, as to resemble writing reflected in a mirror, or blotted off on to a sheet of blotting paper. This form of writing is natural to some left-handed persons. It also frequently appears in automatic script. Mnemonic chain. A continuous series of memories, especially when the continuity persists after an interruption. See Disintegration of personality. Monition. A message involving counsel or warning, when that counsel is based upon facts already in existence, but not normally known to the person who receives the monition. Motor. Used of an impulse to action not carrying with it any definite idea or sensory impression. Negative hallucination. See Anaesthesia. Number forms. See Secondary Sensations. Objectify. To externalise a phantom in three dimensions; to see it as a solid object fitted into the waking world. *Pan