Chapter V · PSYCHO-SENSORY AND INTELLECTUAL PHENOMENA (continued 2)

There are yet other means for inducing muscular automatism. I will point out, as an example, the very ancient method of divination by the ring. A metal, or better still an ivory ring, is suspended to a hair or silken thread. The end of the hair or thread is held in the fingers; the ring is held, thus suspended, in the centre of a small circle of three or four inches in diameter on which the alphabet is written.

At the end of a certain time, the ring sways about, then strikes the letters, sometimes spelling out words. By placing the ring in a glass, it will strike against it, giving indications in this way. I have only used this method once or twice, for it seemed to me to present very little interest. This is in reality Chevreul’s exploring pendulum.

2. Automatic script.—Automatic writing is, I think, one of the most interesting of all phenomena; I have no need to bring to mind the important studies which Myers, Hodgson, Hyslop, Sidgwick, and others have made on this phenomena. I have been able to make some observations of great interest, but the limits of this book do not permit me to give a detailed report of them. The thorough examination I made of one particular case of automatic writing—a rather rudimentary case, it is true—clearly revealed to me the play of the unconscious souvenirs of the medium.

The methods for obtaining automatic writing are numerous. We can even make a table write by fixing a pencil to one of its feet; the same with a hat or basket, etc. More perfect methods exist, of which the following are the best:—

First of all the planchette; an instrument in the shape of an oval piece of wood, resting on three movable tiny ivory rollers, with a small copper setting at one end, in which a lead-pencil may be screwed. With the planchette two or three persons may write at the same time.

Another equally good method is the following: Fix two, three or four handles on to a large wooden ball, of about seven inches in diameter. Fix the pencil in a hole bored through the ball, each handle of which is held by an experimenter. Place a sheet of paper underneath the pencil, the latter will then often move and write words and phrases.

Finally, the best method of all is to write naturally, without any instrument at all. The sensitive sits down with a pencil, as though to write, and waits.

Whatever the method adopted may be, it is seldom that automatic writing is manifested at the outset. Generally one or several seances are passed in illegible scribblings, in making strokes, zigzags, in endless repetitions of the same letter. But we must not be discouraged; on the contrary, we must continue experimenting for a certain time, before concluding to the impossibility of success. Whether we be trying to obtain collective or ordinary automatic writing, it is a good plan to consecrate ten or fifteen minutes every day, always at the same hour, to these trials. The phenomenon takes a long time to evolve, and people, who have obtained most curious results with automatic writing, have passed months in developing their faculty.

As I said before, I have chiefly directed my experiments towards the observation of movements without contact; therefore, I have not sought very assiduously to obtain automatic writing with my mediums. The greater number of cases I have observed offer little interest, if we compare them to the curious visual hallucinations which I related a little while ago. I will make an exception though for one which I am in the act of studying, and which makes me conceive some hopes, the sensitive having written in English, a language which I am positive he does not know. This medium, like many I have met with, submits grudgingly to these experiments, and has not yet consented to sit regularly for automatic writing. I hope I may succeed in persuading him to do so.

Though my observations present very little relative interest, I will give some examples of the results I have obtained personally. I will give them simply as indications, for, none of the facts I have observed present, so far, any real interest, except the one I was able to analyse, and even this contains nothing of a transcendental nature.

I myself have often tried to write with the planchette. I obtained words and incoherent phrases, all extremely commonplace. I wrote alone or with others; alone, I obtained it with the left as well as with the right hand. The left hand sometimes gives mirror-writing, Spiegelschrift; with the planchette, the left hand generally writes in the usual manner from left to right. One point to be noted with planchette-writing, is the dissociation of the graphic elements. The letters are as a rule fairly large, varying from an eighth of an inch to nearly an inch. It is chiefly in capital letters we find the dissociation curious. The characteristics of my hand-writing are not altered. I will add that this manifestation does not present much interest, for I am perfectly conscious of what I write when alone, and when I write with another person, the movements of the planchette indicate to me what letters are being formed.

With the ball and handles, of which I gave a description, I once observed a curious fact. I was experimenting with a lady and her husband; the former is a medium whose faculties are above the average. The writing announced the reception of a letter from Hendaye on the morrow. The letter came; but to demonstrate the premonitory feature of this fact, I have only the affirmation of my co-experimenters, and although they are people of unimpeachable probity, their affirmation alone would be insufficient to establish the reality of the premonition in a positive manner. Therefore, I only give it as a specimen of the facts which may be obtained with automatic writing.

I have often observed ordinary writing, but I have never obtained a veridic paranormal fact in this way. I have, as I said, studied a case of semi-automatic writing, and was able to analyse its psychological features thoroughly. The writer was what spiritualists call an intuitive medium, that is to say, he was conscious of what he wrote. He was thirty-five years of age, and had never indulged in spiritistic practices before, though he knew the literature, especially Allan Kardac’s works. At the time the phenomenon manifested itself with him, he was mentally overdone through excess of brain work. He occupied an important official position. Apparently he has no nervous defect, and, except for frequent headaches, his health is good. I have not been able to study his reflex movements, nor examine him from a somatic point of view.

He commenced writing with the planchette; he had a sensation of being guided, but knew what he wrote and what he was going to write. There was, therefore, a beginning of dissociation between the mental images, properly so called, and their motor action. This fact should be noted, because it seems to me to have an interesting signification, in so far as it demonstrates that the ideomotor image is not simple, but has complex elements, and, notably, that elements which are purely ideal and motor elements can become dissociated. In the example cited, the sensitive was fully conscious of the ideas which were formed in, or which presented themselves to, his consciousness. On the contrary, he was not fully conscious of the movements his hand made. The stereognostic perception and the muscular sense were intact; only the consciousness of the origin of the accomplished movement was obscure; therefore, it was only the sphere of voluntary motor power in the personal consciousness which was touched.

The first manifestations of pseudo-automatic writing claimed to emanate from a deceased relation. This relation was quite disposed to communicate facts known to the sensitive, but manifested very little eagerness to answer questions which the sensitive’s consciousness could not answer. Invited to justify his identity, the personality showed itself incapable of giving the slightest proof.

Meanwhile, the sensitive tried ordinary writing, and obtained it. It presented the same features as planchette-writing. A new personification came and assisted the deceased relation—he was nothing less than a Mahatma from India! At this time the sensitive was reading the works of Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Sinnett, especially the latter’s Occult World. The communications were signed Hymaladar. This Mahatma presented nothing of transcendental interest, and was lavish with his promises. He declared he was ready to undertake the exoteric education of the sensitive, who, in his naïveté, yielded to the Mahatma’s advice. The Mahatma promised to transport him actually over to India, to precipitate letters, etc. The promises were never fulfilled.

Other personifications manifested; the sensitive tried to obtain some proofs of identity, but without success. On the other hand the personifications were verbose on general topics, and gave proof of a lively imagination. Here are some specimens of their style and ideas.

A guide, signing himself Memnon, expressed the following opinion upon a certain mystic book:—

‘... Do not allow yourself to be led away by its descriptions: they apply to all those who, in no matter what religion, devote themselves to a contemplative life, which is, assuredly, a blessing, but one which must be won by patience and effort. When the duties common to every man born of the flesh have been fulfilled, abstention from the imperious duty of procreation can, and really does, favour the faculty for projection of the soul, and renders ecstasy easier; but not only is such a development artificial, it is also reprehensible to arrive at that contemplative life, without having founded a family in compliance with the imprescriptible law of nature. Herein lies the original vice of all religious communities which offend creation’s views; it would suffice to generalise the doctrine to discover its falseness immediately. Man has physical as well as moral duties to accomplish: he is composed of a body and a soul; he is culpable when he subordinates one of his composing parts to the other. The senses have no more the right to command the body than the soul has of making the body suffer in its physical functions. The suppression of any natural function is criminal, and every religious order does this. This is their capital error. He who has raised children and satisfied the physical evolution, he alone has the right to withdraw from the world, to lead a contemplative life, when the body, worn out by old age, has finished its active rôle here below. It is only then that preparation is useful.’

The pencil was verbose every time general subjects were broached. Whenever the sensitive pressed the personification on some given point, the latter was silent—he disappeared. The questions were written as well as the replies. There are some amusing conversations, where the ‘spirit’ plays a rôle other than that of simple interlocutor. By way of specimen, I note the following dialogue:—

Q. Do you see me?

A. Yes, but badly; we do not see matter clearly; a long apprenticeship is necessary, and we have not been working long with matter.

Q. Is it long since you left your sphere?

A. Eight years.

Q. Who are you?

A. Monsieur A.

Q. And?

A. And Mamie Beaupuyat.

Q. You have known me?

A. Yes, I was one of your college friends.

Q. Where?

A. At N.

Q. What college?

A. Z. College.

Q. Will you write your name again?

A. Maurice B. (here the name of a street).

Q. I do not remember having known you my friend. Remark this, you have given me two different names, Beaupuyat and B.

A. Many details are forgotten in Paradise (sic).

Q. Ah! strange ambassador! You come to see me without letters of credit!

A. Good-bye.

Q. Good-night.

The subconscious excuse for the contradiction pointed out is not wanting in humour.

Here is another example:—

Q. Are my guides here?

A. We are always at hand to help you, always.

Q. Will you show yourselves to me?

A. Ought you to ask us for anything before giving us tokens?

......

Q. Is it X. who is influencing me?

A. Yes.

Q. But he is dead?

A. Yes.

Q. But you forbid me to evoke the dead?

A. We are the spirits of dead people.

Q. But you told me you were Mahatmas?

A. We are Mahatmas, but Mahatmas are not living.

Q. Is it again a trick of my subliminal?

A. Yes, your subliminal is the will.

Q. Yes, it is true, but the will is chiefly superliminal.

A. You are right.

Q. Why do you always make fun of me?

A. We do so to please the Lord.

Q. This is cruel. I am in earnest, and your lord, if he be just, will punish you severely for your farces.

A. Yes, he will give us the whip.

Q. I do not like this joking, leave me.

A. Always ... (illegible).

Q. What?

A. Magician.

Q. Am I a magician?

A. Yes.

Q. I did not know it.

A. Always do good, and you will be happy.

Q. Happiness is not so easy to obtain.

A. Good-bye.

Q. Who are you?

A. A friend.

This is simply nonsense. I have quoted these three examples in order to show the growing analogy found therein with the delirium of dream. It is scarcely visible in the first quotation, which is coherent, logical and of fairly elegant form. But the ideas which are expressed have their sources in subconscious souvenirs: they will be found in Spirit Teachings, Higher Aspects of Spiritualism, Occult World, and Esoteric Buddhism.

The second quotation reveals decided oneiroscopic associations. The name Beaupuyat awakens no souvenir; the name of a street having nearly the same assonance is then substituted for it; this is an illogical association, formed by phonetic elements. The explanation of the contradiction between the names given successively is very illogical, but it is what might be called ‘a good hit.’ This is one of our ways of reasoning with ourselves in dreams.

The third quotation shows a still more marked degree of incoherence. The first replies are attempts at conciliation of contradictions impossible to do away with: they are affirmations which are but echoes of the questions asked. I do not quite understand the association between subliminal and will; but the emergence of the idea of will gives place to a curious phenomenon: the evolution of a parasitical association of ideas bringing to mind the psychological phenomenon which A. Pick describes under the name of Vorbeidenken. We have non-expressed stages, from will to ‘God’s will,’ words which are often associated together in religious language: ‘to do the will of God, to be agreeable to God.’ The incoherent reply, which consists in saying that the Mahatmas make fun of the subject in order to be agreeable to God, is then the last link of a chain of latent associations; this last link is the only one shown. Also, the incongruous idea of beings who call themselves spirits and wise men, and declare they must be whipped, is the result of an evident association between the idea of being severe consciously expressed, and the idea of severity, chastisement, whip, average latent terms. The psychological analysis, therefore, reveals to us mental processes which are known and classed. It shows us, that the dream character of subconscious messages does not differ from that observed in the mental operations of the consciousness, as soon as the latter’s personal and voluntary activity becomes weakened or gradually gives place to spontaneous ideation. I think the three examples I have chosen show this progressive debilitation very well, and also the corresponding accentuation of the characteristics of dream in the messages obtained. The case I examined is at the limit of paranormal facts, but the inquisitive reader has at his disposal the weighty analysis of the transcendental cases published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, epitomised by M. Sage in his book Mrs. Piper et la Société Anglo-Américaine des Recherches Psychiques, to verify the accuracy of my conclusion, viz. that the mental processes in simple cases, as well as in the more complex cases, are identical.

I return to the case observed by me. The obstinacy of even the best and most moral of these personalities in refusing to expose themselves to any control whatsoever, the falsehoods they were imprudent enough to overlook, and the critical attitude of mind of the sensitive himself, awakened a spirit of distrust in the latter. He began to observe himself, and the first result of his observation of the conditions under which the writing was produced, was the gradual disappearance of the sensation of impulse which he had felt: his pencil, he told me, had seemed to follow a magnet. As this sensation weakened and disappeared, so the personifications affected to be either grievously pained, or cold and dignified, or frankly insolent; they all deplored the sensitive’s incredulity. The relation bade him adieu and appeared no more; Hymaladar himself ceased to be interested in his chela. The sensitive soon saw the futility of his efforts, and the writing ceased completely to present the peculiarity it had offered during several weeks.

This case is instructive, because it is on the borderline between conscious and unconscious phenomena. Thanks to the clear and complete indications on the part of the sensitive, I was able to reconstitute the genesis of every personality. That of the relation is easily explained, but Hymaladar was more rebellious to analysis. Upon investigation it appeared to me to be the synthesis of the words Hymalaya and Damodar. The one, which quite naturally evokes the thought of India, is the dwelling-place of the sages who, it appears, preside in a very secret manner at the evolution of the theosophical movement; the disciple or chela of one of them was the guru, the master of Madame Blavatsky. His name was Damodar. The associated ideas—Blavatsky, India, Hymalaya, Damodar—lead up to the word Hymala (ya Damo) dar; the genesis of the word is thus quite comprehensible.

At present I am observing a more complex case, in which paranormal phenomena accompany automatic writing. The sensitive, who is in the act of developing his medianity, unfortunately gives himself up rather unwillingly to observation. He does not know English, yet he has automatically written certain phrases in English. However, we must not conclude therefrom, that these messages are of transcendental origin. This sensitive is a well-educated person, and most probably English words and phrases have fallen under his eyes from time to time; thus the irruption of English in messages he obtains may be explained by the emergence of subconscious souvenirs. The tenor of the messages is still vague; the writing is often difficult to read; no precise fact capable of being analysed and verified has so far been given. It appears to me useless, in these circumstances, to give examples of these messages, but I will point out an interesting peculiarity which I have observed only with this sensitive. This is the concomitancy of raps and automatic writing. I have most carefully studied these raps; they appear to me to occur on a level with the point of the pencil. The phenomenon is forthcoming in broad daylight, and under excellent conditions of observation. An attentive examination shows that the point of the pencil does not leave the paper. The raps are forthcoming even when I put my finger on the upper end of the pencil, and when I press the point on the paper. The pencil vibrates, but it is not displaced. As these raps are very sonorous, I have calculated that it would be necessary to give rather a strong knock in order to reproduce them artificially: the necessary movement would require raising the pencil from the twentieth to the eighth of an inch, according to the intensity of the raps. Now, the pencil does not appear to be displaced. Further, when the writing runs quickly the raps succeed one another with great rapidity, and the close examination of the writing reveals no stops; the text is unbroken, no trace of pencil dots is perceptible, there is no thickening of the characters. The conditions of observation appear to me to exclude the possibility of a trick. I will add that during this automatic writing the arm and hand of the sensitive are in a state of anæsthesia.

3. Phonetic and mixed automatisms. I combine these two categories of automatisms because the automatism is seldom purely phonetic. The sensitive makes gestures appropriate to the personage he represents, and the automatism is complicated; the muscles which regulate the emission of the voice are not the only ones in activity.

This kind of automatism is very easy to observe. It is the basis of ordinary spiritistic seances; it is called ‘incarnation’ or ‘control,’ and the sensitive, who produces this kind of phenomena, is called a ‘trance medium.’

Its necessary condition is the trance or somnambulistic state. The sensitive falls asleep spontaneously, or is put to sleep artificially by passes. After a certain time, more or less long, and after diverse movements, the most usual of which seem to be muscular contractions of the face and pharynx, the sensitive enters into somnambulism and passes into the secondary state. Some subjects fall asleep very quickly. It is not a rare thing in spiritistic seances, for two or three persons to enter into a state of somnambulism at the same time. The perfection of the sensitive’s acting, when personifying diverse individualities, is most striking when they have known the persons they are imitating. Observation is extremely interesting. In spiritistic seances these personalities, naturally, always represent spirits.

I have seen nothing in this order of phenomenon which appeared to me worth noting. Everything is easily explained by the play of impersonal memory and by imitation. Many transcendental facts have been related to me: personally I have observed none. But I have very rarely tried to provoke trance phenomena. They do not present the same interest to me as physical phenomena do. The most interesting I have seen, were given me by Madame Agullana, in private seances. This sensitive’s most curious personality is that of a doctor, who died about eighty or a hundred years ago: he has always refused to give any information concerning his identity; the reason he advances for maintaining his incognito—the existence of his family, members of whom are living in the south of France—does not satisfy me; I imagine he is withholding the best. His medical language is archaic. He calls plants by their ancient medical names; his diagnosis, accompanied with extra-ordinary explanations, is generally correct, but the description of the internal symptoms which he perceives is such as would astound a doctor of the twentieth century. Matters, fluids, molecules, dance a strange saraband. Nevertheless, my colleague from beyond the tomb—not at all loquacious, by the way—retains a serenity, which is proof against everything, and humbly recognises that there are many things he does not know. During the ten years I have been observing him, he has not changed, and presents a logical continuity which is most striking. Persons, who are not au courant with the features of secondary personalities, might easily be deceived and believe in his objective reality. Be he what he says he is, or be he what I suspect him to be, that is to say, one of the sensitive’s secondary personalities, my confrère Hippolytus is an interesting interlocutor, and, with his conversation, one could write a work on clinical medicine which would be rather out of the common. This is not the place to study him, for his examination only raises problems of psychological interest. In these phenomena of mixed automatism, of ‘incarnation,’ we observe the complete development of personifications. These personifications are the feature common to all psychical phenomena. Raps claim to emanate from a given personality, paranormal movements have the same pretension, automatic script assures us of a like origin: ‘incarnation’ or ‘control’ puts forth the claim of being the personality himself, in full possession of the sensitive’s body, directing and using it as he pleases.

The problem which these personifications set before us is, perhaps, the most interesting of all those which are to be met with, in the kind of study to which this book is consecrated. I have pointed out, that the general feature of these personifications is to present themselves as living—or more usually deceased human beings. My observations do not tend to make me think that this claim is well founded. It does not come within the scheme of my work to analyse the different hypotheses, which have been emitted by the different mystic schools. Occultists profess to see astral shells, in these personifications, debris—still organised—of the body’s astral double, which the superior principles have abandoned. Theosophists have about the same theory, designating these debris by the name of elementals. Spiritists attribute their phenomena to the spirits of the dead. Roman Catholics see the intervention of the devil therein, while the greater number of savants only see fraud or chimera. All these opinions are too absolute. There is, certainly, something; but I think this something is neither spirit, shell, elemental nor demon. It is not my province to formulate in detail my theory: properly speaking, I have not any. I observe without bias of any kind, and the only indication I can give is the following:—in almost every case I have studied, I believe I recognised the mentality of the medium and the sitters in the personification. It is true, there are certain cases which I cannot explain in this way; but the spirit hypothesis explains them still less satisfactorily. We must continue seeking.

The examples I have given of intellectual phenomena show that in every case of which I have been able to make a thorough analysis, we discover the action of the impersonal consciousness. This explains itself naturally, since the personal and voluntary consciousness excludes by definition the co-existence of a second personality. Nevertheless, this is not absolutely true. The medium, of whom I have already spoken, he who produces raps when writing, writes automatically while he speaks, in quite a natural way, of other things. In fact, he only writes well when his attention is drawn away from his hand. As soon as he is conscious of the movement, the writing ceases. Things happen with him, as though the normal consciousness lost all contact with the motor centres of the arm and hand. A special consciousness appears to be developed in these centres.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AUTOMATISM

The difficulty, which is raised by the interpretation of facts of the kind exposed above, is considerable. It is to be remembered, that the sensitive of whom I have just spoken, does not appear to suffer any diminution of his normal personality; he converses with facility, his normal personal souvenirs and his intelligence remain intact. His arm and hand alone, especially the latter, are withdrawn from consciousness, and this in the sensitive as well as in the motor spheres. Janet sees in these facts psychological disaggregation, and in many cases his explication is the correct one. But it cannot be applied to the case I am speaking of, for no diminution in the memory, intelligence or mental activity is perceptible. However, Janet seems to have only seen one of the phases of these curious phenomena. I attach so much importance to the establishing of the point de fait that, before all analysis thereof, I desire to state it precisely, successively with the discussion.

The first circumstance of fact which observation of the case I am examining reveals, is the one I have just pointed out: an apparent dissociation of the normal personality, from the cenesthesic consciousness of which a portion of the body is withdrawn. The second circumstance is the relative knowledge of English—with correct orthography excepting one mistake only—which is shown by the apparently self-governed limb. Note also that I feel sure that this knowledge of English is probably subconscious, and that I have supposed, although this has not been proved, that the writer has now and then come across a few English sentences, containing the phrases written by him. These two circumstances are, for me, observed facts.

From these facts there results a third fact, the consequence of the first two: the consciousness, which directs the limb withdrawn from the personality, appears to have more considerable resources—at least from a memory point of view—than the normal consciousness. If it be correct to speak of apparent disaggregation in that which concerns the conscious normal personality, it seems to me that this expression ceases to represent the facts, as soon as it can be demonstrated, that the consciousness manifested by the automatism is more extensive than the normal consciousness. If we are to attach a precise meaning to language—and Janet’s language is so clear and simple that we may not accuse this elegant and remarkable writer of want of precision—the idea of disaggregation implies the division of the personal consciousness into elementary parts, according to definition, lesser than the whole. This phenomenon is frequently observed, e.g. when automatic writing shows itself to be incapable of logical co-ordination, of which I have given examples; sometimes there is no trace of thought, properly so called, e.g. when the sensitive confines himself to repeating sine die the same letter, or traces nothing but lines, and strokes, etc. But can we consider the case as one of veritable disaggregation where the hand, withdrawn from normal consciousness, appears to dispose of a greater mass of souvenirs than the normal consciousness does?

Janet himself has verified the fact, and gives some examples of it in his work, Névroses et idées fixes, vol i. After that, is it not contradictory to say (Automatisme psychologique, p. 452): ‘The result of our studies has been to bring back the diverse phenomena of automatism to their essential conditions—most of these phenomena depend upon a state of anæsthesia or abstraction. This state is connected with the narrowing of the field of consciousness, and this narrowing itself is due to the feebleness of synthesis and the disaggregation of the mental compound into diverse groups smaller than they should normally be. These diverse points are easy to verify; the state of abstraction, incoherence, of disaggregation, in a word, of suggestible individuals has often been pointed out.’ How can a group, smaller than the mental compound of which it forms one of the parts, be more considerable than that compound? How can a part be greater than its whole? This is, nevertheless, a fact easily verifiable in the domain of memory and sometimes in that of intelligence. Janet’s theory explains only some of the observable facts; it is only partially true. It suffices to compare the quotation I have just given with what he says in his work, Névroses et idées fixes, vol. i. p. 137: ‘The souvenir even in somnambulism only exists if the patient be oblivious to everything and replies automatically to questions, by the mechanical association of ideas without reflection, without the personal perception of what he is doing.

‘... The souvenir, in a word, is only manifested unknown to the person: it disappears when the person has to speak or write in his own name, conscious of what he is doing.’ For Janet this is the sign of mental disaggregation.

The quotations I have just given define sharply Janet’s opinion, and show up his mistake and his contradiction. That which becomes disaggregated is the personality, the personal consciousness. But it does not become resolved into groups smaller than they ought normally to be, since these groups often show themselves to be more comprehensive than the mental compound. It is, therefore, illogical to consider them as a part which has become dissociated from the whole.

I have already had occasion to express my manner of thinking in other writings: nevertheless, perhaps I may be permitted to indicate the direction which psychological interpretation should take in order to avoid an encounter with facts.

The personal consciousness is only one of the modalities of the general consciousness. Clinical observation reveals that, in a great many cases, it has been proved, that the souvenirs stored up in the general consciousness are infinitely more numerous, than those which the personal consciousness has at its free disposition. Myers has expressed these ideas most happily in the following words (‘The Subliminal Consciousness,’ Proceedings, S. P. R., vii. p. 301):—

‘I suggest, then, that the stream of consciousness in which we habitually live is not the only consciousness which exists in connection with our organism. Our habitual or empirical consciousness may consist of a mere selection from a multitude of thoughts and sensations, of which some at least are equally conscious with those that we empirically know. I accord no primacy to my ordinary waking self, except that among my potential selves this one has shown itself the fittest to meet the needs of common life. I hold that it has established no further claim, and that it is perfectly possible that other thoughts, feelings, and memories, either isolated or in continuous connection, may now be actively conscious, as we say, ‘within me’—in some kind of co-ordination with my organism, and forming some part of my total individuality. I conceive it possible that at some future time, and under changed conditions, I may recollect all; I may assume these various personalities under one single consciousness, in which ultimate and complete consciousness the empirical consciousness which at this moment directs my hand may be only one element out of many.’

He appears to me to be nearer the truth than Janet is: I do not know if we shall ever arrive at that complete consciousness which Myers hopes for, but it seems to me probable, that our personal consciousness is only one element of our general consciousness. This latter becomes concrete and definite, but also grows less by becoming personal. The apparent supremacy of the personal consciousness may be only an effect of the circumstances in which we are evolving; if Darwin’s ideas are true, we can understand that the necessities of life may have favoured the development of the active, voluntary, personal consciousness; we can imagine other conditions—which the monastic life sometimes realises—where the active and voluntary phases of the general consciousness may be less evolved than its receptive and passive phases. Therefore, the psychologist finds the study of hagiography teeming with information.

Janet’s disaggregation is but the weakening of the sentiment of the conscious and voluntary personal activity, of what I called the sentiment of the personal participation in intercurrent psychological phenomena. It is no veritable disaggregation; it is a disappearance of one modality of the consciousness, of one of its limited expressions, so to speak. However, I recognise, with Janet, that this mode of expression of the consciousness is the necessary basis of our activity in ordinary life, and that it is legitimate to consider as invalids, those persons in whom it is normally wanting. But the fact itself of its disappearance has more the features of an integration than of a disintegration, since upon an attentive examination, the personal consciousness is revealed as a limitation and a special determination of the general consciousness of which it is, in a way, a dismemberment. If I dared to use metaphysical language, I would say that rational and voluntary activity is in reality a disaggregation; personality is only a contingent and limited manifestation of the being, or rather of individuality. This latter, to use the expression of an eminent philosopher, would be superior to reason itself, and of irrational essence, an idea which contains the first principles of a new philosophy. I make this incursion into metaphysics merely to show how narrow Janet’s theories are, and what different consequences result from such a professional manner of thinking as his is, and from a more general conception of that, of which his manner of thinking only concerns one particular case.

The facts, moreover, condemn Janet’s theory. I have too high an opinion of the distinguished man whose ideas I criticise, but whose works I admire sincerely, not to be convinced that he has only observed undeveloped subjects. What demonstrates this in my eyes is his timid affirmation, that ‘nearly always (I do not say always in order not to prejudice an important question) these mediums are neurotics, when they are not downright hysterics.’ It is difficult to discuss an opinion expressed with so much reserve, and I can only commend him for his circumspection, for my personal observations contradict his. I have seen many mediums: the best were not neurotics in the medical sense of the word. The finest experiments I have made have been with persons appearing to present none of the stigmæ of hysteria. Up to the present Janet seems to have operated with invalids only, and I am not surprised, therefore, that he should assimilate the automatic phenomena of sensitives with those of his hysterical patients. It would be surprising were it otherwise. I am not going to defend spiritistic mediums; they appear to me to present very poor interest—at least in ordinary seances—but my duty is to protest against the generality of the judgment which Janet brings to bear upon automatic phenomena. Those facts, which are worthy of careful observation, differ essentially from those which ordinary hysterics present. They indicate no misère psychologique—quite the contrary, and I will state the reasons why.

The discussion, in order to be clear, must be divided:

1. The phenomena observable with good mediums are not those we observe in hysterical patients. I said I had obtained raps and movements without contact under conditions of control, which appeared to me to be convincing. I added that I had obtained by raps, or by the rappings of a table without contact, words and phrases which were extremely coherent. This is not quite the kind of phenomena to which hospital patients have accustomed us. What does Janet say on this point?

‘The essential point of spiritism is indeed, we believe, the disaggregation of psychological phenomena, and the formation beyond the personal perception of a second series of thoughts detached from the first. As for the means which the second personality employs to manifest itself unknown to the first—movements of tables, automatic writing or speaking, etc....—this is a secondary question (sic). Where do those sounds come from which are heard on tables and walls in answer to questions? Is it from a movement of the toes, of that contraction of the tendon supposed by Jobert de Lamballe...? Is it from a contraction of the stomach and from a veritable ventriloquism as Gros. Jean supposes, or from some other physical action yet unknown? Are they produced by the automatic movements of the medium himself, or, indeed, as appears to me most likely in some cases, in the obscurity demanded by the spirits(!) by the subconscious actions of one of the assistants, who deceives others and himself at the same time, and who becomes an accomplice without knowing it? It does not matter very much.’

That is not my opinion. I think, on the contrary, it matters a great deal. I am positive that every sincere and patient experimenter will observe, as I have done, in broad daylight, and not in obscurity, sounds and movements which will not appear to be explicable by any known cause. Those who, like myself, have verified these facts, will not dream of attributing them to unconscious or involuntary movements, to the cracking of a tendon, to ventriloquism. The cases observed by me will not admit of this explanation. Things happen as though some force or other were produced by the medium and the assistants, and could act beyond the limits of the body. If this fact be correct, can we consider it as secondary and without importance? On the contrary, does it not open to the psychology of the future the road of direct observation and experimentation, if, as I have tried to show, this force preserves certain relations with our general consciousness? Does this not make one think of those words of Proclus when speaking of souls:—

Τρίτη δὲ αὐταῖς πάρεστιν ἡ κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν ὕπαρξιν ἐνέργεια, κινητικὴ μὲν ὕπάρχουσα τῶν φύσει ἑτεροκινήτων. Souls have a third force inherent to their essence, that of moving things which by their very nature are put into movement by an energy foreign to themselves.

Has not Janet a singular way of reasoning? He makes a reserve on the existence of another ‘physical action yet unknown,’ but quickly forgets it, and reasons as though that action were perfectly well known. ‘That action, whatever it may be, is always an involuntary and unconscious action of some one or other: the involuntary word from the intestines(!) is not more miraculous than is the involuntary word from the mouth; it is the psychological side of the problem which is the most interesting, and which ought to be the most studied.’

I am sure that those of my readers, whose patience has not been too severely tested by my long analysis of facts observed, will not consider my distinguished colleague’s conclusion as acceptable. The most interesting side of the phenomenon is, I think, the one which reveals to us an apparently new mode of action of the nervous influx upon matter.

2. These phenomena, again, are not the indication of a misère psychologique, as Janet thinks.

Let us discuss the cases observed by me. To follow my reasoning, it will be necessary to be familiar with the works of Gurney, Podmore, Sidgwick, Myers, Barrett, Hodgson, Lodge, Hyslop, du Prel, Perty, Hellenbach, Aksakow, Richet, de Rochas. To-day, it is no longer possible to shun the work of such savants, (when dealing with a question of such a nature as that which engrossed Janet) by simply saying as he did ‘that he had not had occasion to read the Philosophie der Mystik of a man like du Prel.’ He should have read that book ... and many more.

It seems to me to be now quite an established fact, that the impersonal consciousness is capable of perceiving accurate impressions independently of the senses. It translates these impressions in diverse ways in order to transmit them to the personal consciousness, but these translations are concrete and symbolical. It is a hallucination visual, auditory, or tactile. The form of subliminal messages, to use one of Myers’ expressions, is always the same, be the fact thus transmitted true or false, be it a reminiscence or a premonition. This is already a psychological ascertainment of great importance, for it puts us on the road we must follow, in order to discover the mental process of this psychological phenomenon. But there is something else. The hysteric who automatically simulates a drunkard, a general, a child, offers us a very different spectacle to the one offered us by the sensitive who telepathically sees an event happening afar off, or who predicts the future, or reveals facts unknown to himself and the assistants. There are thousands of examples of these facts; I have given a few which were observed by myself or related to me first-hand.

Is it possible to consider this extraordinary faculty as a ‘disaggregation’? Is it possible to class phenomena of this kind with the commonplace phenomena of somnambulism and ‘incarnation,’ the only ones Janet has observed? It suffices to put the question to receive the answer immediately. The psychological mechanism of these facts, so unlike one to the other, is probably the same, but the cause of the apparent automatism, motor or sensory, is certainly not the same. The sensitive, of whom I spoke, who sees in the mirror twenty-four hours beforehand, the very scenes she actually sees the next day, presents to us a phenomenon of considerable importance. It intimates that time and space are forms of the personal thought and consciousness, but that probably they have not the same signification for the impersonal consciousness. It is a phenomenon which, if it be true, demonstrates experimentally that Kant’s theory upon the contingency of these ‘categories’ necessary to all conscious and personal perception is exact.

I am quite aware of the nature of the reply I shall meet with: my observations have been defective; and all those who before me affirmed the existence of the same facts were also deceived. This simplifies the discussion. The history of science offers us many an example of the manner in which facts are received, when they contradict current ideas. Kant said more than a hundred years ago, in his Traüme eines Geistersehers, 1, i.: ‘Das methodische Geschwätz der hohen Schulen ist oftmals nur ein Einverständniss durch veränderliche Wortbedeutungen eine schwer zu lösenden Frage auszuweichen, weil das bequeme und mehrentheils vernünftige, “Ich weiss nicht,” auf Akademien nicht leichtlich gehört wird.’[14]

The discussion on Janet recalled to my mind these words of Kant’s. His expression, misère psychologique is one of those words of double meaning, true, if we consider only a part of the facts and one aspect only of the phenomenon, that which concerns the personal consciousness; inexact, if we study the facts in their totality and the phenomenon they reveal in its generality. The being who would be capable of perceiving at a distance, by looking into space and into time, would have faculties superior to the normal; he would not be the inferior being imagined by Janet.

An attentive and patient observation will show him, I am sure, the reality of the facts which I point out; may he not deny this possibility without putting himself under the requisite conditions for observing these facts.

It belongs to the future to decide the question, and I have no doubt whatever upon the nature of the verdict.[15]

To sum up, an attentive observation of the facts shows, that in psychical phenomena we observe the emergence of personifications which may be secondary personalities, but which in really clear cases present particular features, and seem to possess information which is inaccessible to the normal personality. They may co-exist with the latter, without any disorder manifesting itself in the sensitive or motor spheres; in other cases, they encroach upon the normal personality, which may either lose the use and sensation of one member, or be deprived of several members. Finally, the personification can invade the whole of the organism and end in incarnation or ‘control,’ a phenomenon of apparent possession. When it reaches this maximum development, the personification manifests a remarkable autonomy, and appears to be much less suggestible than in the intermediate stages of its evolution.

What are these personifications? I do not know. The problem they raise in some cases is extremely difficult to solve. I can only say that they do not appear to me to be what they claim to be. Is it collective consciousness? Is it self-deception? Is it a spirit? Everything is possible, to me nothing is certain save one thing, namely, that we must not put our trust in them.

I say this for the benefit of spiritists, who have a tendency to believe blindly everything their good spirits tell them. These ‘spirits’ may make mistakes, though they may not wish to deceive you. Never abandon yourself or submit the conduct of your life and affairs to their guidance: submit only to the rule of reason and sound judgment. Be not over-credulous.[16]