Note 8 — THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM

I desire not to seem to overlook the fact that there are manifestations presented by Spiritualism of a different character from those above considered. There are, for example, the inspirational messages revealed through the medium when in a trance-like condition, and which are supposed to rest for their proof of supernatural origin on the testimony of the medium or upon their internal content. The psychological status of these and similar mediumistic phenomena must be interpreted in the light of our knowledge of hypnotic and allied conditions, of automatic writing, of modifications of conscious and subconscious personality. I do not consider that the evidence which these phenomena contribute towards the establishment of the probability of the truth of the spiritualistic hypothesis at all affects the estimate arrived at in the main discussion. That there are other than the physical phenomena of Spiritualism should, however, not be overlooked.