R. Osgood Mason

“ It will be seen, then, how marvellously the action of certain senses may be exalted by long and careful training on the one hand, and suddenly by disease on the other. We have seen, moreover, how some persons known as sensitives are able to receive impressions by thought-transference so as to name cards, repeat words and fictitious names, both of persons and places, merely thought of but not spoken by another person known as the agent or operator, and to draw diagrams unmistakably like those formed in the mind or intently looked upon by the agent. ”

“ It acts sometimes while the primary self is fully conscious—better and most frequently in reverie, in dreams, in somnambulism, but best of all when the ordinary self is altogether subjective and the body silent, inactive, and insensible, as in that strange condition which accompanies the higher phases of trance and lucidity, into which few enter, either spontaneously or by the aid of hypnotism. Then still retaining its attenuated vital connection, it goes forth and sees with extended vision and gathers truth from a thousand various and hidden sources. ”

“ But telepathy can no longer be classed with fads and fancies; if not already an accepted fact, it has certainly attained to the dignity of a theory supported by both facts and experiments; a theory which has attracted to its study a large company of competent men in every civilized country.
A theory, no matter in what department of investigation it may be found, whether relating to matter or mind, is strong in proportion to the number of facts which it will bring into line, harmonize and reduce to system. ”

“ Having become to a certain degree familiarized with the idea that in some persons, at least, and under some peculiar circumstances, a second personality may come to the surface and take the place for a longer or shorter time of the primary self, it may be asked whether, after all, these comparatively few persons in which this unusual phenomena has been observed are essentially different in their mental constitution from other people. ”

“ Yet, when one reflects on the vast number of dreams which night after night pass through our brains, the number of coincidences between the vision and the event are perhaps fewer and less remarkable than a fair calculation of chances would warrant us to expect. Nor is it surprising, considering the variety of thoughts in sleep, and that they all bear some analogy to the affairs of life, that a dream should sometimes coincide with a contemporaneous, or even with a future, event. ”

“ If there be any one thing in the empirical psychology of the past which has been considered settled past all controversy, it is the unity and continuity of human personality. Whatever might be believed or doubted concerning the after life, for this life at least believers and skeptics alike are united in the full assurance of a true, permanent, and unmistakable self. ”

“ It is remarkable to notice how prevalent this mode of divination or second-sight has been in all ages. Traces of the same procedure have been found in Egypt, Persia, China, India, Greece, and Rome, and notably in Europe generally, from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries. A lady who withholds her name from the public, but who is perfectly well known to Mr. Myers, of the Society for Psychical Research, and who chooses to be known as Miss X., has been at great pains to collect curious information upon this subject and has added her own very interesting experience in crystal-gazing. ”

“ No one notices the danger. X. is asleep, but his subliminal self is on the alert—like the second self of the somnambulist or subject in the hypnotic trance—it sees that unless checked there will be a destructive conflagration. It impresses upon X. a dream of fire so vivid that he wakes in alarm, discovers the mischief and averts the danger. Or suppose X. to be awake and sitting [Pg 185] in his office in a distant part of the house, quite unconscious of anything unusual. All at once he becomes restless, unable to pursue his work ”

“ Automatism, therefore, does not necessarily take the form of written messages, but may take any form by which the subliminal self can best transmit its message to the primary self—or in the same way from one person to another, whether by words written or spoken automatically—by voices heard, by action influenced, as when X. is influenced to leave his office and walk, or the mischievous Léontine unties the apron of Léonie, or by vision or vivid mental picture, as when Peter [Pg 186] sees a “sheet let down by the four corners,” from which he learns an important lesson. ”

“ In physical science, whenever some new fact or law or principle has been discovered, it is at once seen that many things which before were obscure, or perhaps could only be accounted for by a theory of chance, or of direct interference by an omnipotent Deity, are now illuminated by a new light, and order reigns where before only confusion and darkness were visible. ”

“ To such objectors, cumulative evidence regarding facts out of their own mental horizon is useless. Their motto is: “No amount of evidence can establish a miracle;” and their definition of a miracle is something done, or alleged to have been done, contrary to the laws of nature. But the objector who refuses credence to well-attested facts on that ground alone, simply assumes that he is acquainted with all the laws of nature. ”

“ It needed no deity nor angel to tell it—it was there—and the subliminal self of the seer whose special faculty it was to see, perceived the scene in all its grandeur. He also was the one best fitted to perceive the laws which should make his people great, and describe the forms and ceremonies which should captivate their senses and lead them on to higher intellectual, moral, and ethical development. ”

“ The outlying fields of psychology, which are now the subject of psychical research, are comparatively a new and unexplored region, and until within a few years it has been considered a barren and unproductive one, into which it was silly, disreputable, and even dangerous to enter; the region was infested with dream-mongers, spiritualists, clairvoyants, mesmerists, and cranks, and the more vigorously it was shunned the safer would he be who had a reputation of any kind to lose. ”

“ CHAPTER VII. AUTOMATISM—PLANCHETTE.
Our ordinary actions, both physical and mental, are, for the most part, subject to our own voluntary guidance and choice. Of this, at least, we feel sure. We work, walk, talk, play upon an instrument, read a book, or write a letter, because we choose to do these things; and ordinarily they are done under the full guidance of our will and intelligence. Sometimes, however, actions are performed by us without our choice or guidance, and even without our consciousness, and such actions are called automatic. ”

“ Again, it has been demonstrated that some persons can voluntarily project the mind—some mind—some centre of intelligence or independent mental activity, clothed in a recognizable form, a distance of one, a hundred, or a thousand miles, and that it can there make itself known and recognized, perform acts, and even carry on a conversation with the person to whom it was sent. That is, mind can act at a distance from, and independent of, the physical body and the organs through which it usually manifests itself. ”

“ Here are presented two prominent examples of supranormal mental activity—one in the early ages of man’s development, when everything was supernatural, the immediate work of a god—the other in man’s later development when natural law is found intervening between phenomena and their cause, and when it is found possible for men to comprehend the fact that truth, extraordinary and even that which had previously been unknown or was beyond the reach of the senses in their ordinary state, may nevertheless be discovered or revealed by other means than direct communications from Deity. ”

“ As before remarked the phenomena of hypnotism may be viewed from two distinct standpoints—one, that from which the physical and especially the therapeutic features are most prominent, the standpoint from which we have already viewed the subject; the other is the psychical or mental aspect, which presents phenomena no less striking, and is the one which is especially attractive to the most earnest students of psychology. ”

“ The emergence and dominance of a secondary personality, therefore, does not by any means imply that the general standing of the individual dominated by this second personality, as judged by disinterested observers, is in any way inferior to the same individual dominated by the primary self, but, on the contrary, a superior personality is rather to be expected, and especially is this true when the secondary personality is intelligently sought and brought to view by means of hypnotism. ”

“ Concerning the truth or falsity of the revelations beyond what was already known or has since been confirmed by science, I do not assume to pronounce judgment; but that this also, as well as the first chapter of Genesis, from either a literary or scientific standpoint, is one of the most remarkable productions of this or of any age, will not be denied by any competent and candid examiner; while the remarkable character of the book will be still better appreciated when the [Pg 331] status of the theory of evolution and of the science of geology fifty years ago is taken into the account. ”

“ Nor is it likening great things to small when we compare the nebular hypothesis, or the theory of evolution, conceptions which have educated an age and vastly enlarged the boundary of human thought, to the theory of telepathy and the fact and power of the subliminal self. For if it was important that men should know the laws governing inanimate matter, to comprehend the orbits and motions of the planets ”

“ For instance, the machinery at present in operation is best adapted to turning out goods of a decidedly egoistic style, for self-preservation, persistence in the struggle for life, and for self-gratification; but a style is beginning to be called for of the altruistic pattern. For this kind of goods the machinery is not well adapted. It is old-fashioned, and changes are necessary. If there are any looms in the establishment unknown and unused which can be turned to account, or any way of modifying such as we have to meet the demand, it is for our interest to know it. ”

“ The opinion of a majority of scientific persons has been altogether averse to the theory of thought-transference from one mind to another without the aid of the senses and the ordinary means of communication; and they have maintained that intimations of the thing to be done by the sensitive were conveyed by slight muscular movements unconsciously made by the agent and perhaps unconsciously received by the sensitive. ”

“ To thinking men of all classes this bold declaration opened up the grand thought, not new, but newly formulated and endorsed, that as the seed contained all the possibilities of the future plant—the ovum all the possibilities of the future animal, so matter, which had been thought so lightly of, contained within itself the germ, potency, and promise of nature in all her subsequent developments—of the vast universe of suns and systems, planets and satellites, and of every form [Pg 314] of life, sensation, and intelligence which in due process of evolution has appeared upon their surfaces. ”

“ In the investigation of these subjects some new and unfamiliar terms have come into more or less common use. We hear of mind-reading, telepathy, hypnotism, clairvoyance, and psychical research, some of which terms still stand for something mysterious, uncanny, perhaps even supernatural, but they have at least excited interest and inquiry. The subjects which they represent have even permeated general literature; the novelist has made use of this widespread interest in occult subjects and has introduced many of the strange and weird features which they present into his department of literature. ”

“ It is no transient visitor which may have made its appearance by chance—a concatenation of coincidences, fortunate or unfortunate, but it is the intelligent tenant and master of a singularly beautiful and complicated house, a house which has been millions upon millions of years in the building, and yet which will be lightly laid aside when it ceases to accommodate and fulfil the needs of its tenant. ”