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BY this time, have I not made it clear that human consciousness is a tricky deceiver? Have I not shown how one's wishes and desires may lead directly to the juggling of consciousness and to the sinister manipulation of its elements? Let us take another and parting glimpse of the methods whereby one thus comes to practice deception upon one's own self.
Just as concentration of the mind will serve to focus the attention and thus narrow the consciousness, so will other environmental influences serve to widen or broaden the stream of consciousness. It may be that the peculiar and highly suggestive environment of the séance room, with its dimmed lights, soft music, etc., is of real psychological value; first, to help the medium to broaden the stream of her consciousness, thus facilitating communication between the conscious and the unconscious; and second, to prepare the sitters more easily to draw upon their imagination and thus more readily and sympathetically to interpret and receive the purported spirit messages.
It has always seemed to me that the séance is most admirably planned and conducted for the purpose of encouraging, in every way possible, the free association of ideas and the favorable reception and recognition of the slightest impressions on the part of all in attendance. From a psychological viewpoint it is well understood how important it is to facilitate free association, when it comes to the encouragement of imagination, fantasy, and experimental hallucinations. The ideal environment and psychic state on the part of both medium and believers would be that which would favor and facilitate the free and easy transference of the "feeling of reality" from one idea or emotion to other ideas and emotions. Thus we are able to recognize the monotonous quietude of the séance as being in every way favorable to dissociating the "feeling of reality" from the ideas in the forefront of the mind, and to re-associating it with the slightest sound or the faintest image that may pass through the mind, or which may be suggested by the medium as passing through her mind.
Unquestionably the séance room, as conventionally conducted, is in every way calculated to encourage the emergence of visual or auditory hallucinations from the realms of the unconscious. These no sooner appear than the expectant attitude of both medium and spectator disposes them early to transfer to these children of subconscious creation that "feeling of reality" which justifies the consciousness in its reception of these phenomena as a bona fide experience. Images become more real as external influences are decreased in intensity. The less the outside is allowed to intrude, the more will come from the inner consciousness, and vice versa. These hallucinations will not appear to all sitters at a séance as images. Many persons do not think pictorially - they think verbally.
Under hypnosis we can resurrect in the patient's mind two distinct sorts of experiences:
1. Those of which he has at one time been conscious, and which in the waking state he will recall as being his experiences; that is, he will remember events, images, episodes, etc.
2. Those experiences of which he was never consciously aware, but which - as in the case of a recent happening - can be proved to have occurred, and thus to have been resurrected from his unconscious centers. I have in mind a case in which, under hypnosis, we secured the account of an experience in which the subject had heard a friend of his make a certain statement to a third person. This statement was very clearly and completely recovered from his subconscious mind during hypnosis. In the waking state he denied all knowledge or memory of it. In fact, he expressed a doubt that friend No. 1 had ever made such a statement to friend No. 2; but investigation proved that such a statement was made by friend No. 1 to friend No. 2, and made at a time when the subject was engaged in a telephone conversation a few feet away.
I could cite many cases similar to this, which prove that we not only conserve, in the realms of the unconscious, things which we once knew and have forgotten; but that we also hold there a great deal of material of which we have never been aware - it has dropped into the subconscious reservoir without ever attracting our attention. And how easy to understand that just such material as this could be brought up from the subconscious mind of the medium, and, further, that the medium would be sincere and thoroughly honest in regarding such strange material as a spirit communication!
"We have also seen that co-conscious processes may exhibit intelligence 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.) We have seen how, by the use of experimental method of `tapping', and by hypnotic and other procedures, that this same autonomy can be demonstrated, manifesting itself by impulsive phenomena (writing, speech, gestures, and all sorts of motor automatisms) on the one hand, and sensory automatism (hallucinations) on the other."
It has been scientifically demonstrated that the subconscious mind can hold, formulate, and subsequently give forth for expression, ideas, images, emotions, and associations of ideas, which have never been consciously recognized or entertained for one instant - even in the fringe of the personal consciousness. Never have these things been brought to the attention of the individual, so that in their subsequent upbringing from the subconscious depths they seem wholly foreign to the very mind that has just given them birth. That this is true is conclusively shown in the case of Mrs. Holland, who, both by automatic writing and in hypnosis, described things in her environment of which she was wholly unaware at the time.
In experiments of this sort, I have known subjects to recall events which had been read in newspapers, but read without sufficient attention to enable the critical consciousness to be aware of the fact. I have also known them to trace out, in the very depths of the subconscious mind, experiences which had been long forgotten, and which were produced as new creations in automatic writing or in trance speaking.
Again, in crystal vision, people see things as a new apparition which are but a resurrection, or a rehash, of images and ideas buried in the unconscious. Likewise, in dreams these buried and forgotten complexes are reproduced, and it is just such scientific facts as are being brought forth in profusion at the present time that enable us to offer, at last, a rational and scientific explanation for the so-called psychic phenomena of spiritualism and the endless vagaries of the psychoneuroses.
We are now in position to prove that the bulk of the information divulged by mediums as emanations from the spirit world are but an up-to-date translation of their own buried and forgotten experiences. And, strange as it may appear, we are using the very same methods every day in our medical offices to determine the secret origin of nervous disorders, worries, fears, hysterical paralyses, and a host of other neurotic disturbances.
The subconscious can also be tapped in some persons by means of automatic writing. Thus, if I hypnotize a susceptible subject, and suggest to her that after waking she will write certain phrases from the Bible, a certain poem, or a thesis on a given subject; and if, after coming out from the hypnotic state, her attention be diverted, and then we put a pencil in her hand, she will write exactly as she has been instructed to write; and yet a thorough examination will show that her conscious mind knows nothing of the instructions given to her while hypnotized; in executing her automatic writing she has no thought that she is doing so in obedience to a command. Here again we have the scientific evidence - actual proof - of the conservation of our experiences in the unconscious mind, and of their ability subsequently to escape in an intelligent and orderly fashion.
In the cataleptic state, consciousness is diffused; it seems to be pushed far out toward the periphery and to be at a dead level of intensity. The mental life is largely in the dim marginal state. The physiological processes of the body are slowed down; in fact, they come to assume conditions very much like those which prevail in the hibernating animal. The body may become stiff - absolutely rigid.
It is in this condition that the great trance mediums of history and of the present time usually are found when they receive their extraordinary revelations and see their wonderful visions. It is not uncommon for persons in a cataleptic trance to imagine themselves taking trips to other worlds. In fact, the accounts of their experiences, which they write out afterward, are so marvelous as to serve as the basis for new sects, cults, and religions. Many strange religious movements have thus been founded and built up. It is interesting to note that these trance mediums always see visions in harmony with their own theological beliefs. For instance, a medium who believed in the natural immortality of the soul, was always led around on her celestial travels by some of her departed friends. One day she changed her religious views - became a "soul-sleeper" - and ever after that, when having trances, she was piloted about from world to world on her numerous heavenly trips by the angels; no dead friends ever made their appearance in her visions after this change in her belief.
Nearly all these victims of trances and nervous catalepsy, sooner or later come to believe themselves to be messengers of God and prophets of Heaven; and no doubt most of them are sincere in their belief. Not understanding the physiology and psychology of their afflictions, they naturally come to look upon their peculiar mental experiences as something supernatural, while their followers blindly believe anything they teach because of the supposed divine character of these so-called revelations.
For more than twenty-five years, I have been a careful observer of many different persons who were trance mediums, and who exhibited these peculiar psychic and physical phenomena in connection with dreams and visions. More than four-fifths of the individuals studied - they have numbered more than a score - have been women. It seems that both the nervous system and the endocrine or ductless gland system of the female lend themselves more readily to these phenomena. I am slow to believe that the spiritual forces of the universe visit the female of the species more frequently because she happens to be a more highly spiritualized creature; I am inclined toward the belief that the phenomena in question are due to the posterior pituitary body and other factors of an endocrine or chemical nature, which directly serve in subjecting the nervous system of the female to periodic upheavals and disturbances of both a psychological and physiologic nature. I have never yet observed these phenomena to survive the menopause.
I desire to make it distinctly clear that I am not, in this discussion, calling in question or challenging belief in the validity of true prophets, either of ancient or of modern times, who may have been in actual contact with the spiritual forces of their day and generation. I am not desirous of either raising or discussing that question at all in this thesis. I, for one, am perfectly willing to admit that such divinely taught persons may have lived, or may even now live; but I am equally desirous of making it plain that it is my opinion that the vast majority of those who have made such supernatural claims were either out-and-out frauds or self-deceived individuals, who, in their ignorance of things psychical, actually believed their spells, visions, or visitations to be of divine origin. As far as my actual experience goes - as far as I have personally been able to test and observe those who have seizures or experiences of this sort - I have not yet met with a case in which I could not, after a thoroughgoing examination, discover certain psychic, chemical, and physical influences which quite fully accounted - at least to my own satisfaction - for their extraordinary behavior.
Perhaps this statement should be qualified by adding that there are possibly one or two exceptions to this general classification of so-called psychics and trance medium s. Many years ago I was made acquainted with a very extraordinary phenomenon of this sort, which it has been my privilege to observe periodically from that time to this, and some day I hope to report more fully upon this unique case; but I hasten to say that in none of my observations of this individual and the peculiar associated experiences of the night period was there ever anything that pointed toward spiritualism. In fact, the contacts of this individual with the alleged forces which dominated at such times, whatever they were, were always in a most positive manner antagonistic to, and condemnatory of, all beliefs or tendencies associated with the idea of the return of the dead to participate in the affairs of the world of the living8.
But what is the actual influence, the net result, upon the popular mind, of these visions, trances, and other similar manifestations? It must be evident that in the main they are bound to contribute to increasing credulity on the part of the common people, and to lead to a deep-rooted belief in the idea that spiritual forces hovering over us are able to set aside certain suitable and favorable types of individuals to use as mediums and thus to communicate with the living.
Upon persons untrained in the methods of the laboratory, these trances and visions cannot help but make a profound impression. To such minds they constitute conclusive evidence of the existence of spiritual forces operating upon, and through, physical beings; and when these phenomena become associated with the propaganda of the belief in the ability of the spirits of departed humans to communicate with the friends they have left behind among the living, the cause of spiritualism has gained its most powerful ally. And even in cases where such manifestations are not directly allied with spiritualism, their real influence upon the public mind is naturally in that direction.
Among the psychic delusions of the recent past which persist even to the present hour are to be found the practices of crystal-gazing and shell-hearing. Certain persons with unstable nervous systems, when they have long gazed intently into a crystal, become, in a measure, auto-hypnotized. In such a state, groups of thoughts may be transmitted from the marginal consciousness to the central consciousness, with such a suddenness and vividness as to impress the crystal-gazer with the idea that they originated in the external world. These thoughts are suddenly projected outward and take hold of the semi-hypnotized inquirer after the fashion of an ordinary hallucination. That is, the crystal-gazer has his subconscious images apparently projected into the crystal, so that he sees pictures and other things, which, in his ignorance, he believes originated and actually exist in the crystal.
The old practice of shell-hearing is an instance of this same sort of reversion of psychic behavior. In this case voices originate in the marginal consciousness (the subconscious mind) and are projected outward into the shell, and thus the listener experiences auditory hallucinations. Crystal-gazing and shell-hearing are analogous to automatic writing and speaking, which have already been considered.
In crystal-gazing we may also have transference of sensory impressions; that is, something once heard may be transferred in the memory centers from the auditory group to the visual. This is well illustrated by a case reported by Dr. Morton Prince. On looking into a crystal, the subject read some printed words - a cable-gram which she had previously, but unconsciously, overheard being read. The words were, if I recall correctly, "Best wishes and a happy New Year". Now, this woman actually saw those words while gazing intently into a crystal globe. The words, as such, in the cablegram , had never been seen by her; but she had recently heard them, and in explaining what actually occurred, psychologically speaking, Dr. Prince offers the following suggestion:
The antecedent auditory perception manifested itself in consciousness after an interval of time as a visual hallucination of the words. There was a reproduction of the original experience but not in its original form. It had undergone a secondary alteration by which the visual perception replaced the auditory perception. As a memory it was a conversion or translation of an auditory experience into terms of another sense. Now the conversion must have been effected by some mechanism outside of consciousness; that is to say, it was not an ordinary visualization, i.e., intensely vivid secondary images pertaining to a conscious memory, as when one thinks of the morning's breakfast table and visualizes it; for there was no conscious memory of the words or knowledge that there ever had been such an experience. The visualization therefore must have been induced by something not in the content of consciousness - something which we have called a secondary process, of which the individual is unaware.
Like automatic writing, the crystal vision can be cultivated by certain individuals with unstable minds and nervous systems. Sitting down before the crystal encourages the shifting of the border consciousness, and facilitates the transference of its content into symbols of vision. This whole practice is nothing more nor less than visual hallucination; other psychic souls can indulge such experiences without the aid of the glass ball. They are able to turn the mind adrift and see these visions at will. And in the case of certain forms of insanity, of course, it is this very sort of hallucinatory vision that has taken possession of the brain and goes on grinding out these hallucinations without end.
In crystal vision, the subconscious is being more or less deeply tapped - at least it is being superficially drawn upon - and the crystal or other object used is an artificial aid to the concentration of the attention. It also probably serves, indirectly, as a suggestive influence.
Animals without an associative memory are not given to worry, for worry is chronic fear; and it is highly probable that the defective functioning of memory is sometimes more or less responsible for the initiation and accumulation of our neurotic fears.
The psychologists are in the habit of recognizing four different kinds of abnormalities which characterize memory, and they are:
1. Imperfect impression - This occurs when the sensory stimuli are very slight or when the attention is distracted. Anything which tends to lessen the intensification of the sensory impressions or their emotional accompaniments has to do with lessening memory.
2. Imperfect retention - It is well known that even our most profound sensory impressions are sometimes imperfectly retained. This is more especially shown in those cases of accidents in which, after recovery, an individual is unable to recall things which happened immediately before the accident.
3. Abnormal reproduction - In other cases, although the content of the memory is normal, the patient is unable properly to recall past events. This amnesia may be more or less complete. The entire past life of the patient may be for the time wiped out. In other cases there appears to be a local dissociation, so that memory is lost only for a certain time and for certain things. This is well illustrated in the case of hysterical paralysis. The patient for the time being has lost the memory of how to move the supposedly paralyzed arm.
4. Defective memory due to disturbance of recognition - We have four groups of memory disturbance belonging to this class:
a. Those cases characterized by complete failure of memory of the illusion of "never having seen".
b. The illusion of having already seen. I have had this experience a number of times in viewing natural scenery or upon first visiting a town, experiencing very definitely the impression that I had seen these places before.
c. Distortion of memory - getting the imagination mixed up with the factual details, as is so commonly illustrated by the tendency to make agreements between telepathic experiences, spiritualistic séances, etc. There is a very definite tendency to get fictitious details woven into the narrative of facts.
d. Retroactive memory. Hearing about things that happened before you were born, and then attaching them to your memory complex, so that later on you actually think you remember these events. I very well remember recalling a flood experience in my youth; but in adult life investigation proved it happened a year before I was born; it had been so vividly related during my babyhood that it became confused with my memory of real events. It is also highly probable that we indulge in fantasy and then subsequently get these images scrambled with the realities of living, all of which tends to confuse us afterward when we attempt to recall these memories.