Psychic phenomena

“ The examination of the mental characteristics of the intelligence which controls the different manifestations is our only purpose, and we have shown that the same laws prevail in all. It is believed that enough has been said to enable the conscientious investigator, who wishes to test the correctness of our hypothesis, to apply its fundamental propositions to all psychic phenomena. ”

“ There is another psychic phenomenon which deserves a passing notice at our hands, not only because it is governed by the same laws which have been discussed, but because it is a matter of transcendent practical interest and importance. ”

“ There can be but two hypotheses for the phenomena— (1) The intelligence exhibited by the medium is “ultra-mundane,” in other words, is the effect of spirit control, or, (2) it is the result of the conscious or unconscious exercise of psychic powers on the part of the medium. ”

“ The general propositions applicable to all phases of psychological phenomena are here only briefly stated, leaving the minor, or subsidiary, propositions necessary for the elucidation of particular classes and sub-classes of phenomena to be stated under their appropriate heads.
The first proposition relates to the dual character of man's mental organization. That is to say, man has, or appears to have, two minds, each endowed with separate and distinct attributes and powers; each capable, under certain conditions, of independent action. ”

“ These facts are sufficient to prove, however, that when in a condition of special psychical concentration, the brain can influence even the organic functions, which in the normal state seem but slightly amenable to the will. ”

“ Double and Psychic Consciousness, Clairvoyance, natural and induced; Psychometry, its natural and leading features as a spiritual faculty; Thought-Transference, visions, dreams, and their portents, are in turn briefly dealt with, in order to extract therefrom some evidence of soul.
Modern Spiritualism is referred to, in so far as Thought-Reading is likely to throw any light upon its psychological phases, as well as on its physical phenomena. ”

“ For instance, we can prescribe a conflict between the subconsciousness and the personal consciousness, between a subconscious wish and a conscious wish, or volition, and observe the resultant mental and physical behavior, which may be inhibition of thought, hallucinations, amnesia, motor phenomena, etc. The possibilities and limitations of subconscious influences can in this way be experimentally studied. Subconscious personalities, therefore, afford a valuable means for studying the mechanism of the mind. ”

“ Psychological pertains to the empirical data of consciousness, (thoughts, ideas, sensations, etc.) while psychical pertains to the inner or ultimate nature of these data. Though the data as given in consciousness are psychical, that which is psychical may not be solely manifested as psychological phenomena. It may be manifested as physical phenomena and perhaps be identified with the energy of the universe. ”

“ Thought moreover is simple, whilst the activities of the brain are compounded of the elementary activities of each of its parts. Furthermore, thought is spontaneous or free, whilst all material activity is determined ab extra; and the will can turn itself against all corporeal goods and appetites, which would be impossible were it a corporeal function. For these objective reasons the principle of psychic life must be both immaterial and simple as well as substantial, must be what is called a Soul. ”

“ Consciousness and Will, enter into all psychological phenomena such as Hypnotism and Mediumship, and into every form of mental alienation, insanity, obsession and the like.
Moreover, by building out of mental phenomena a distinct entity—largely independent of the self-conscious Intelligence, and almost equally so with consciousness—our “philosophies,” “metaphysics,” and explanations have become as confused and unreliable as the psychical phenomenon itself. ”

“ But the psychological method has obvious and inherent limitations. Like any other natural science, psychology is limited to description and causal explanation of the phenomena of its special field, which in this case is states of consciousness. ”

“ Through the conception of the subconscious as resolvable, on the one hand, into the unconscious, passive or active physiological dispositions, and, on the other hand, into coactive conscious states, the subconscious becomes simplified and intelligible. It offers a basis on which may be constructed comprehensible theories of memory, suggestibility, post-hypnotic phenomena, dreams, automatic writing and similar phenomena, artificial hallucinations, the protean phenomena of hysteria, and the psycho-neuroses, as well as the mechanism of thought. ”

“ Mental synthesis of psychic content in the unity of a moment-consciousness is a fundamental principle of psychology. ”

“ And to-day, though none of us has any knowledge of the end of psychical phenomena in his own case, yet from all the marks by which we recognize such phenomena in our fellow-creatures, whether brute or human, we are taught that when certain material processes have been gradually or suddenly brought to an end, psychical phenomena are no longer manifested. From first to last, therefore, our appeal to experience gets but one response. ”

“ It is the task of the epistemologist and metaphysician to inquire into the nature of that physical world whether it really exists independent of consciousness. Without, therefore, going into metaphysical considerations, I think it is best to define the physical phenomenon as the object or process conceived as being independent of consciousness, while the psychic object or process is one that is conceived as being directly dependent on consciousness. ”

“ Nor may we be able to determine the intrinsic nature of a subconscious process—whether it is a conscious or unconscious one, but only the actuality of the process, the conditions of its activity, and the phenomena which it induces.
A subconscious process may be provisionally defined as one of which the personality is unaware, which, therefore, is outside the personal consciousness, and which is a factor in the determination of conscious and bodily phenomena, or produces effects analogous to those which might be directly or indirectly induced by consciousness. ”

“ It is sufficient for our purpose to show the bearing of the facts of localization of function upon the problem of psychogenesis. The first proposition derived from these facts is, that psychosis and neurosis are phenomena having common space-relations. ”

“ The represented object floats so to say in a stream of consciousness. The subject matter which the psychologist investigates is not the objective reality itself, but objective states of consciousness. ”

“ That ideas and feelings, thus indirectly and mechanically transmitted or stored, can affect the sensitive soul in unmistakable fashion, is a fact of experience; but that deposits in matter are competent to produce so purely psychic an effect can surely only be explained in terms of the potentialities and previous experience of the mind or soul itself. No emotional influence can be expressed, or rendered intelligible, in terms of matter. Matter is an indirect medium of communication between mind and mind. ”

“ No material agent could thus turn round and grasp itself—material activities always grasp something else than the agent. And if a brain could grasp itself and be self-conscious, it would be conscious of itself as a brain and not as something of an altogether different kind. The Soul then exists as a simple spiritual substance in which the various psychic faculties, operations, and affections inhere. ”

“ We have also seen that coconscious processes may exhibit 639intelligence of a high order, and the same thing is possibly true in a less degree of unconscious processes. We found evidence showing that a conserved idea may undergo subconscious incubation and elaboration, and that subconscious processes may acquire a marked degree of autonomy, may determine or inhibit conscious processes of thought, solve problems, enter into conflicts, and in various modes produce all sorts of psychological phenomena (hallucinations, impulsive phenomena, aboulia, amnesia, dissociation of personality, etc.) ”

“ Indeed, a subconscious process may become very complex and constellated with any one or many of the psycho-physiological mechanisms of the organism. In special artificial and pathological conditions where such processes reach their highest development, as manifested through their phenomena, they may exhibit that which when consciously performed is understood to be intelligence, comprising reasoning, constructive imagination, volition, and feeling ”

“ All sight, all hearing, all function is in this psychic body, not in the physical one. What many of the psychologists call the subconscious mind is only the registered intelligence of the psychic self. This psychic self is in direct communication with the cosmic self and with the physical self, and it is through this we become cosmic in our human consciousness. ”

“ The four intuitions of passive sensibility, active sensibility, intelligence, and will, may be reduced to two: [89] extension and consciousness; including in extension all its modifications, and in consciousness all the internal phenomena of a sensitive or intellectual being; in so far as they have the common ground of consciousness. We therefore know intuitively two modes of being: consciousness and extension; consciousness is within us, it is a subjective fact; extension is external, its existence is revealed by sensations, particularly those of sight and touch. ”

“ But the species of mental equilibration to be more especially noted, is that shown in the establishment of a correspondence between relations among our states of consciousness and relations in the external world. Each outer connection of phenomena which we are capable of perceiving, generates, through accumulated experiences, an inner connection of mental states ”

“ We have sensations and we have ideas, which are 'copies of sensations.' We may then consider how far these facts will enable us to explain the whole series of mental phenomena. 'Ideation,' which he suggests as a new word—the process by which a continuous series of thoughts goes on in our minds—is the general phenomenon to be considered. Without, as yet, pronouncing that sensations and copies of sensations will turn out to form the whole contents of our consciousness, he tries to show for what part of those contents they will account. ”

“ So that the powerful subjectivity of the unconscious, where the self is all-in-all unto itself, active in strong desirous psychic assimilation or in direct repudiation of the contiguous universe; this first plane of psychic activity, polarized in the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion of each individual but established in a circuit with the corresponding poles of another individual: this is the first scope of life and being for every human individual, and is beyond question. ”

“ And this philosopher's well-known formula assumed: there exists a spiritual, non-extended, indivisible substance, an objective, immortal entity, superadded to and independent of brain, which thinks, feels, and wills—a substance cognizable by self-consciousness alone, and which is in fact the "thinking principle" or proper "soul." Mind thus becomes absolutely and wholly an extra-cerebral product, and the possible offspring of activity on the part of the "soul" alone. ”

“ Besides the affection of our bodily organs from without, and the sensation thereby produced in our minds, many writers admit a third link in the chain of phenomena, which they call a Perception, and which consists in the recognition of an external object as the exciting cause of the sensation. This perception, they say, is an act of the mind, proceeding from its own spontaneous activity; while in sensation the mind is passive, being merely acted upon by the outward object. ”

“ In short, a consistent spiritualistic theory of the relations of mind and body is simply impossible, and we therefore turn to the only hypothesis which remains — the hypothesis according to which the physical series is the condition of the mental. This means that physical events take place independently, according to laws of their own, and that a few of them — namely, certain events in the cortex — are the indispensable condition for the occurrence of mental events. ”

“ To explore the most sacred depths of the unconscious, to labor in what I have just called the subsoil of consciousness, that will be the principal task of psychology in the century which is opening. I do not doubt that wonderful discoveries await it there, as important perhaps as have been in the preceding centuries the discoveries of the physical and natural sciences. ”

“ I have dwelt upon the facts of color-contrast at such great length because they form so good a text to comment on in my struggle against the view that sensations are immutable psychic things which coexist with higher mental functions. Both sensationalists and intellectualists agree that such sensations exist. They fuse, say the pure sensationalists, and make the higher mental function; they are combined by activity of the Thinking Principle, say the intellectualists. I myself have contended that they do not exist in or alongside of the higher mental function when that exists. ”

“ The psychic process is the highest stage in the evolution of life, and as such should be studied not by the instruments of mechanics and chemistry, but by the methods of biology. In addition to the concept of efficient causation, psychology even more than biology, should also work with the concepts of unity, synthesis, and purpose. ”

“ One might also conclude that whereas Psychology is concerned with the phenomena commonly associated with mental activities and their variation under normal as also under unusual and pathological circumstances, Psychical Research is interested in the demonstration of supernormal faculties, and in the establishment of forms of mentality that diverge from and transcend those with which every-day humanity is permitted to become familiar ”