The psychology of the future ("L'avenir des sciences psychiques");

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

THE BOIK \( Mil HOD

This is a variation of the Moulin Process for determining the
sensitiveness of a person to magnetic influence. As the subject does
not ki,--\s the operator's intention, theie can be no possibility of
fraud.— I'a^e SS.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
THE FUTURE

("L'AVENIR DES SCIENCES PSYCHIQUES")

BY

EMILE BOIRAC

LATB RECTOR OF THE ACADEMY OF DIJON

Author of "Our Hidden Forces" ("La Psychologic inconnue")
TRANSLATED AND EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

W. DE KERLOR

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E. C.

r

PRINTED IN U. S. A. BY
THE BURR PRINTING HOUSE, NEW YORK

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

THE immediate success which the translation of La
psychologic inconnue (Our Hidden Forces) received,
and the sympathetic response it created in all sections
of the American public, justly encouraged me to trans-
late the present work. Its title, " The Psychology of
the Future," seems to me fully justified; for the mat-
ter contained in its pages constitutes an entirely new
departure in the field of psychological study and ex-
perimentation.

Hitherto, psychological experimentation has been
limited to the investigation of mental processes, to the
principles of appeal and response as applied to business
and everyday life, to the relieving of mental and nerv-
ous ills, to self-analysis with a view to determining vo-
cational aptitudes, the qualities and defects of the psy-
cho-physiological organism of man. In a word, the
psychology of the present day has limited itself to the
field of man's conscious and unconscious, objective
and subjective, activities; but it has not as systematic-
ally devoted itself to the investigation and experimen-
tation of his hyperconscious activities.

In the world of learning, there are always two as-
pects: the academic and the pioneer. As a rule, the
academic aspect is years behind the true facts which
constitute human knowledge. For years it lingers in
reticence, routine, and scepticism. It abhors the birth
of new things which tend to alter or change its funda-

vi TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

mental concepts of life and man. Its organism is like
that of an old man : made up of habits, opinions and no-
tions, content in routine.

But, as in the scheme of the universe new things
always supersede the old, and are revolutionary
in their process of evolution, so we may trace, in
the habits of the old man or of the old system, the ap-
parent resistance to their adoption. Conventional
thought and conventional habits form, therefore, the
primary obstacles to the speedy evolution of human
progress, in society as well as in knowledge. And if
we could only remove the beam of conventional-think-
ing from our eye, we would at once see clearly and
justly into the realm of the mysterious subconscious
and hyperconscious self.

Although the subjects dealt with in this book have
been known to exist by a few scientific pioneers of
thought, and have been practised by a still greater
number of unscientific enthusiasts, it is but very recently
that the academic bodies of learning have been willing
— though reluctantly so — to lend their ear to the
overwhelming accumulation of facts. The mass of
evidence, now gathered, of the phenomena of thought-
transmission, divination, prophecy, psychic and mental
healing, and transcendental manifestions, has opened
wide the breach into the citadel of conservatism.
These facts are at last about to conquer " their place
in the sun " in the world of academic thought. They
have crossed their Rubicon.

Do we not already see experiments of thought-trans-
mission in certain psychological laboratories? Are
there not many large business houses employing the

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE vii

services of psychologists and psychics as advisers,
whether in the selection of " the right peg for the right
hole," or in the counseling of future policies? Are
there not to be found, daily, advertising men and
" knights of the pen " who are consciously alive to the
fact that their thoughts are flying about and are " being
caught " ? And where are the employers who are not
conscious of the " harmonious atmosphere " of their
secretaries and managers; and do they not reject those
whose " personal atmospheres " they find not to har-
monize with their own mental and personal atmos-
pheres?

I feel that it would not be too presumptuous to say
that when political, military, and business heads will
have found the method whereby they can select their
co-workers by their " personal atmospheres " uner-
ringly, there will be fewer cabinet changes, fewer blun-
ders made, and less time and energy lost, not to men-
tion the friction and the life enmities often created.
But theirs is not the business to find the method. It is
for science to make haste and find it, and give it to the
world. It is for scientists trained in the conventional
schools of learning to divest themselves of their en-
cumbering mental baggage, to take their coats off, and
go energetically to work in their laboratories, with new
methods of research and newer ideals.

With the advent of radium, X-rays, wireless teleg-
raphy, and telephony, new problems have been created
to which new solutions have had to be found. With
the coming of psycho-therapy and psycho-analysis —
which have laid bare the soul of man, to himself and
to others — new problems, also, have developed; new

viii TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

faculties have been found in activity. Within himself,
man — the microcosm — has the potentialities of a
universe : his will, his thoughts, his " radiations," his
presentiments, his visions.

Man : body, soul, and spirit. A carnal self, a mental
self, an unconscious and a superconscious self. A
higher self and a beastly-brutal self. Man's conscious-
ness is the go-between that links the higher and the
lower realms of his own universe. In the life of the
poet, the artist, the mystic, consciousness of the higher,
super-normal activities is of daily occurrence. Not so,
however, with the materialist; for his mind is too en-
grossed with material concepts: dollars and cents and
power and possession. They obscure his consciousness
of the higher, the better, the truer things of life.

The democratic-consciousness which is sweeping the
world to-day, hurling crowns and princes into the abyss
of dark oblivion, heralds the coming of a new age. It
speaks of the beginning of a new cycle in the evolution
of man. It brings in its trail: freedom of thought,
freedom of action, equality, and the emancipation from
the old order of things. The old is making place for
the new. A new sense is being born. It is the " sense
of life."

But on the battlefields of the old world many are
they, also, who are developing a new sense : " the sense
of death " — that inward sense, the sense of premoni-
tion which tells the conscious self that the old must
make place for the new. A new life in a new world; a
new humanity in place of the old.

The eighteenth century was the age of rationalist
reaction. The nineteenth that of science and of me-

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ix

chanical inventions, material withal. The twentieth is
the age of psychology, the age of the " science of man."
Vocational and applied psychology together with
psycho-therapy already pave the way. Another step
forward will bring us nearer to the realization of the
Soul in man, then the God in man.

May this work, therefore, help to hasten the making
of the science of man. May it find a sympathetic re-
sponse at the hands of young and new pioneers : makers
of the new race where men shall judge their brothers,
not in the light of their worldly, weighty possessions,
but in the light of their souls, and with the " single eye "
of their spirit.

W. DE KERLOR.

New York, January, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE v

INTRODUCTION i

I How THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES STAND TO-DAY 19

II THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG METHODS . . 32

III OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 41

IV How TO EXPERIMENT 52

V THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 64

VI OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES .... 76
VII HYPNOTISM, OR ARTIFICIAL HYPNOSIS ... 94

VIII SUGGESTION: As A FACT AND AS AN HYPOTH-
ESIS 107

IX AN UNKNOWN FORCE: ANIMAL MAGNETISM \ 145

X THE COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT, OR " DIA-

PSYCHISM " 175

XI CLAIRVOYANCE, OR " METAGNOMY " . . . . 232

XII SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 264

APPENDICES

NOTE I SCIENCE AND MAGIC . . . .291

NOTE II THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM AND

THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES . . 296

NOTE III THE RADIATION OF THE HUMAN

BRAIN 311

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE BOIRAC METHOD Frontispiece

FACING
PAGX

THE PENDULUM 28

AUTOMATIC WRITING 60

THE MOUTIN PROCESS 86

INDUCING SOMNAMBULISM 158

EXTERIORIZATION OF THE SENSITIVENESS 214

CRYSTAL GAZING 258

INTRODUCTION

CAN the study of psychical phenomena really become
a science?

A science, according to the general conception, con-
sists in a systematized ensemble of knowledge of facts,
each clearly defined yet all so closely related as to form
a veritable system in which each supports and explains
the other in logical sequence: as, for example, mathe-
matics. This was the idea of the ancient philosophers,
and it has become the classical conception.

Science as thus understood acquires a dogmatic
authority. It is opposed absolutely not only to igno-
rance, but also to more or less probable opinion or
belief. When once established, it becomes as immu-
table as Truth itself. It is transmitted through teach-
ing; and the disciple or pupil can but accept it docilely
from the hands of those who have received and treas-
ured it. It is in this sense that the libraries, schools,
universities, and academies have become the sanctu-
aries of science.

But it is evident that all those who hold this concep-
tion find it difficult to think of psychical matters as a
science. Vainly might one search for a series of doc-
trines, solidly established and rigorously related, that
would correspond to that title. But does such a con-
ception of science actually conform to reality? Does
it not represent an ideal toward which all the sciences
lean, which might not be entirely realized in any of

i

2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

them, not even in mathematics, the closest of all?

If science were to fall from heaven, ready-made by
some supra-terrestrial genius, it no doubt would verify
the definition just given; as it is left in the hands of
men to make, and as men must make it slowly, pro-
gressively, not without hesitation and error, the result
is that two periods are obtained : ( i ) that in which
science is in the process of being made; (2) that in
which it is made, at least to some extent. This cor-
responds to the period in-fieri of the scholastics, and to
that of science in-facto. Perhaps these are not two
successive periods, but rather two points of view which
coexist and from which all science can and must be
judged : the point of view of the researcher who creates
it and that of the professor who teaches it. There is
always, in it, on the one hand a knowledge acquired and
integral, and on the other hand a knowledge in the
process of acquisition and integration, a static in-facto
and dynamic in-fieri. It can be demonstrated through
numerous examples that the proportion of the in-facto
and of the in-fieri varies from one science to another,
and even in a particular science according to the period
of its history in which it is being considered.

Mathematics appears to many the perfect type of
established science, forever immobilized in the posses-
sion of eternal truths. Yet do we not behold, with
each successive generation, a host of new thinkers, con-
quering new fields in the domain of thought? For a
mathematician of genius, such as Descartes, Liebnitz,
Cauchy, Poincare, for example, is not the real science
that which he invents and to which he gives life ?

INTRODUCTION 3

The history of physics shows, it would seem, succes-
sive periods in which the static and the dynamic view-
points alternately predominate. Take the first half of
the past century, for instance: the physicists were not
far from considering that their science had been com-
pleted, at least in its essential parts. Each chapter of
which it was composed — weight, sound, light, heat,
electricity — undoubtedly might be capable of new de-
velopments; but it was not believed possible that any
new chapters could be opened. Nature, as a whole,
it was thought, was virtually understood in all her
phases, and the task of the future would lie solely in
depth and not in width. Yet, one after the other, the
successive discoveries of the " X-rays " and of the ra-
diating properties of matter, radium, etc., came to de-
throne the limits too hastily fixed. And it would not
be an exaggeration to assert that what we know of
physics to-day is practically nothing in comparison with
what yet remains to be discovered.

This is true also of chemistry and biology. For in
these sciences too we can distinguish, on the one hand,
an ensemble of acquired knowledge ready to be used
for the purpose of education, while on the other hand
we see an ensemble of researches being made, or still
in the stage of project, awaiting the moment of being
taken out of the laboratories then to be handed to the
schools.

Should we, then, reserve the name " science " ex-
clusively for that of the two which turns its attention to
the past, and refuse it to that which is directed toward
the future? Is not the researcher entitled to the name

4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

of scientist at least as much as, if not more than, the
professor?

Let us say that the more complex a science is, the
more difficult, the more recent its constitution, the
greater is the part played by researches than that by
knowledge. And this is just the position of the psy-
chical sciences. As yet they are hardly organized, but
this makes them all the more attractive for the student
bent on research, for the unknown quantities are full of
promises and of hopes.

In order to justify the existence of these sciences,
therefore, it is sufficient to show the existence of the
object of their researches, and that it really belongs to
the world of realities.

That, precisely, is the aim of this book.

Perhaps it would be well to trace the principal
reason for the defiant objections leveled against psy-
chical sciences. At first they were called occult sci-
ences. They belonged in the beginning to that en-
semble of empiric observations and traditions known
as astrology, alchemy, chiromancy, magic, and other
such pseudo-sciences of the Medieval and Renaissance
periods. It is only since barely two centuries ago that
they have emerged from this chaos, although we may
still see the mystic attitude of mind of the ancient
adepts in those who conduct their investigations to-day.
This should form a stronger reason, therefore, for
scientists to introduce, with all the concentrated efforts
of their energies, the real scientific spirit of the experi-
mental method.

INTRODUCTION 5

And, with this attitude of mind, just as astronomy
emerged from astrology and chemistry from alchemy,
so will the psychical sciences emerge from magic and
sorcery.

One might say that all the sciences, without excep-
tion, and including mathematics, pass successively
through two phases in their history : a mystic phase, to
which occultism corresponds; and a positive phase,
which is that of positive science.

The sole difference between them is that some passed
rapidly from the first phase to the second; in certain
others this passage was effected slowly and gradually;
and in still others, it occurred after a greater lapse of
time and the transition was sudden and quick. In this
we find a sort of verification of the celebrated law of
the three states formulated by the founder of the posi-
tivist school, Auguste Comte, according to which all
human knowledge passes necessarily through the theo-
logical state (or mystical) to the positive state (or sci-
entific), passing through the metaphysical state (or
philosophical) as intermediary by its position and na-
ture between the other two.

It is true that it might be objected that this trans-
formation has not been quite complete and that in cer-
tain of the sciences, and particularly in the psychical,
the old or occult form remains side by side with the
modern or positive form. At the present time there
are still believers in animal magnetism and in spiritism
whose state of mind does not differ to any appreciable
extent from that of the occultists of the Middle Ages
and of the Renaissance period. Similarly it may be
said that alchemy and astrology still retain a host of

6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

firmly convinced partisans and believers. This may be
a regrettable fact, but is it astronomy and chemistry
that suffer? The loss is wholly for those who persist
in confounding doctrines built on mere faith and imag-
ination with researches which depend exclusively upon
experimentation and reasoning.

Hitherto, we have spoken of the psychical sciences,
as if the study of psychical phenomena must necessarily
be divided into several distinct sciences. But would it
not be more legitimate to say that there is but one
psychical science: that which we ourselves have called
unknown psychology (psychologie inconnue) ?

We have attempted to show that there is no con-
tradiction in admitting certain particular psychical
sciences side by side with a general psychical science,
according to one's position: analytical or synthetical.
On the one hand, the phenomena which are the object
of these sciences can be classified in groups sufficiently
distinct so that each of them may become a special
science; on the other hand, they have in common such
important characteristics, they are related to one an-
other by such close and numerous ties, that, in order
to study them profitably, one must necessarily take into
consideration the keen affinity and the intimate solidar-
ity which unites them.

To designate these different sciences and their own
particular orders of phenomena it has seemed to us
indispensable to devise new names. This is done con-
stantly in the case of all sciences which encompass new
objects and new relations as they grow. In Our Hid-
den Forces we found it necessary to introduce such

INTRODUCTION 7

new words as hypnology, cryptopsychism, psychody-
namy, telepsychism, hyloscopy, etc. ; and in the present
work we are using metagnomy, biactinism, diapsychism,
etc.

We have been reproached for the creation of these
neologisms taken from the Greek, and which appear
somewhat barbarous and pretentious. Yet the im-
portance of the language and vocabulary in the gen-
eral economy of science is generally recognized. Con-
dillac's aphorism, " All errors, without exaggeration,
proceed from our habit of using certain words before
determining their proper signification, or even before
having felt the need of determining it," is especially
applicable to the psychical sciences.

Unfortunately, the students of these sciences have
not always been aware of the importance of having a
really appropriate language. They were satisfied with
the use of current words to designate new facts or to
express new ideas ; and it is those very words which now
are an obstacle to the formation of a rational vocabu-
lary. For many of the difficulties which have impeded
the progress of the psychical sciences have been due to
the insufficiency of their verbal equipment.

Take, for instance, the controversies between the
School of Nancy and the School of the Salpetriere upon
the nature of suggestion and hypnotism. In current
language, the word suggestion designates a very simple
and banal fact which, from the psychological point of
view, is reduced to an association of ideas. To use it
to designate an entirely different and less ordinary fact,
in which the customary laws of thought and action ap-
pear momentarily upset, — does this not give the im-

8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

pression, prior to all examination, that the two facts arc
identical in reality? Similarly, when Braid coined the
word hypnotism to designate a certain state in which
human beings can be placed by means of certain proc-
esses, he asserted that this state was of the same
nature as sleep. It is wholly a theory which is insin-
uated by this word, no less misleading than the word
suggestion; and unless we were put on our guard we
should be dragged into endless discussions such as were
instigated by the Schools of Charcot, Liebeault, and
Bernheim.

We cannot propose the substitution of ideoplasty and
hypotaxy, created by Durand de Gros, for the words
suggestion and hypnotism, although the phenomena are
rendered less equivocal by their use. It is too difficult
to swim against the current of acquired habits !

In the same way, the term animal magnetism, intro-
duced by Mesmer and his disciples to designate a whole
ensemble of parapsychical facts, irreducible by hypoth-
esis to the facts of suggestion and hypnotism notwith-
standing their analogies, is responsible for a great
part of the repugnance which scientists still manifest
toward it. This term not only designates a certain
order of facts : it implies at the same time an hypothe-
sis, it prejudges the explanation of these facts. And
as a result, all those to whom this hypothesis is repug-
nant, all those who find the explanation inadmissible,
reject the facts themselves and refuse to study them.

For this reason we have found it desirable to sub-
stitute a new term for the old. The word blactlnlsm,
without allusion to any hypothesis, to any explanation,
serves to designate merely " the action which the nerv-

INTRODUCTION 9

ous systems of two individuals may exert, one upon the
other; any communication whatsoever that is estab-
lished between them," with the ensemble of the result-
ing effects.

A similar contention might be made as to the word
spiritism, which is as equivocal and misleading as the
others. For it is now applied to a certain philosophi-
cal, if not religious, doctrine which admits of the inter-
vention of the dead, — souls or spirits, — in the affairs
of this world. And it is applied equally to a certain
ensemble of enigmatical facts which some pretend to ex-
plain by an intervention of this nature, but for which
a totally different explanation may be conceived — facts
that can and should become the objects of systematical
study. Here, again, it would be necessary to find a new
denomination, foreign to all the old associated ideas,
one which would not implicate a sort of tacit faith in
" discarnated spirits." But such a denomination has
yet to be found.

A third disadvantage in terms borrowed from or-
dinary language is that they are difficult to handle and
do not lend themselves well to the formation of deriva-
tives and compound names, which science needs con-
stantly. If, for instance, physics had to limit itself to
the words warmth and heat it would be most embar-
rassed, in speaking of all that relates to heat and
warmth, in dealing with the measure of heat and the
instruments pertaining to it, with the theory of the rap-
ports existing between mechanical work and heat quan-
tities, etc. All the difficulty is eliminated, however,
by the use of such words as thermic, thermometer, ther-
mometry, thermodynamic, and others.

io THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

This is precisely what the psychical sciences will need
in the process of their evolution: a vocabulary that is
at once supple and easy of manipulation. We easily
can see, in this connection, that the term hypnotism is
preferable to nervous sleep or artificial somnambulism,
which it has replaced; for how could one obtain with
those words the equivalent of such derivatives as hyp-
notic, hypnotizable, to hypnotize, hypnotist, hypnotizer,
etc.?

For the same reason, instead of the terms lucidity,
clairvoyance, second-sight, double-sight, etc., we would
prefer the word metagnomy; for this, besides the
greater generalization of its meaning, has the advan-
tage of giving the derivative metagnomic, and of per-
mitting such expressions as metagnomic perception,
metagnomic memory, metagnomic rays, metagnomic
negatives, etc. And similar neologisms, in connection
with other popular expressions, would be more than
justifiable in replacing mental suggestions, transmission
or penetration of thought, transfer of the personality,
dissociation of consciousness, and even exteriorization
of the sensibility, motricity, etc.

But the constitution of a technical vocabulary for the
psychical sciences will not be made without resistance
and slow progress. The great number of people to
whom the coining of new words is repugnant and even
those who believe in their necessity will not always be
in accord as to their choice. All sciences, however,
have encountered similar difficulties, until in the course
of time the objections have been met. This, we may
believe, will be equally true with the psychical sciences.

INTRODUCTION 11

Although psychical phenomena have aroused the
curiosity of men for a long time past, the sciences which
have these phenomena for their object have not yet
been given a place in the ensemble of the sciences. Yet
it is clear enough, as the name itself indicates, that they
are linked to psychology, not as a part of philosophy,
but as an experimental science.

If it be established that the phenomena are not only
abnormal or super-normal, but essentially pathological,
it could be said that they constitute a special branch of
morbid psychology or psychopathology. But such a
thesis is not yet proved. It would be more exact to
say that they constitute a sort of side psychology, or
parapsychology, recognizing, at the same time, that the
relations between this and psychopathology are numer-
ous and most important.

It should not be forgotten that the divisions which
we imagine in our classifications of the many different
orders of natural phenomena are all more or less ar-
bitrary and artificial. Thus psychology, in its en-
semble, is inseparable from physiology; and physiology
is inseparable from the physical sciences. The soul is
non-existent without life; and life is not existent with-
out matter. It should not be surprising, therefore, if
the psychical sciences go even beyond psychology and
penetrate physiology, especially the physiology of the
brain and of the nervous system ; or perhaps they may
go even farther, in the regions of physics, where the
theory of the most subtle and imponderable forces of
nature are elaborated. This is one of the reasons why
these sciences can progress only slowly; for their prog-

12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

ress is conditioned to a large extent by that of those
more general sciences upon which they depend and to
which they contribute.1

To conduct experimentation satisfactorily, researches
specializing in the psychical sciences should be assured
the constant collaboration of psychologists, physiolo-
gists, and physicists thoroughly acquainted with the
methods and results of their respective sciences. Or
else each of the specialists in psychical research should
be a combined physicist-physiologist-psychologist.
That, however, is a difficult combination to realize.
In fact, all those who hitherto have studied these phe-
nomena have been recruited from among medical men
and physiologists — Mesmer, Charcot, Dumontpallier,
Bernheim, Richet, Joire, Janet, etc. ; from among physi-
cists and chemists — Reichenbach, Gregory, William
Crookes, Oliver Lodge, etc. ; or from among the ranks
of philosophers, moralists, litterateurs — many were
mere " amateurs " — Flournoy, William James, Fred-
eric Myers, and most of the members of the S. P. R.
of London ancj New York. It is perhaps the psycholo-
gists who have been least numerous, although it would
seem that psychology, more than any other branch of
science, should be able to dissipate the heavy mist that
still surrounds the psychical sciences.

A frequent objection leveled against psychical re-
search is that one cannot see what practical value it may
have, even if it were to be brought to a satisfactory

1 It cannot be believed otherwise than that the experimental re-
searches conducted by William Crookes in certain parapsychical phe-
nomena influenced him in his conceptions of the radio-activity of
matter and of the discoveries which followed.

INTRODUCTION 13

conclusion. No science, we are taught, has as its goal
the mere satisfaction of a purely speculative curiosity.
Scientific theories are fully justified only when their
application and the power they confer upon man assures
him the ability to enslave the forces of nature at will.
The difference between science and philosophy, or the
ancient conception and the modern, is that to-day we
expect from science not only a knowledge of reality,
but also a knowledge of the means to modify and
transform it for our own use. Said Auguste Comte:
" Know, so that you may foresee and provide."

If the psychical sciences do not meet this condition,
they will not merit the name of science.

Although we recognize the fact that science cannot
consist in a sort of intellectual dilettantism which would
have no interest in the aims of practical life, we must
also appreciate that its proper and immediate object
is, above all things, the real, and not merely the useful
or proper; and that in the interest of its own task it
should impose upon itself a provisional, relative, and
apparent disinterestedness in regard to every other ob-
ject. It is impossible for any one to anticipate what
useful applications may result from the discovery of a
truth which, at first sight, may appear thoroughly ster-
ile in practical possibilities. The scientist who would
aim systematically at the practical instead of first aim-
ing at the real, would inevitably miss the real and the
useful.

In the psychical sciences, the first group — which
includes all the hypnotic and suggestive facts — already
has been advanced sufficiently far to permit of practi-
cal applications. We do not refer to the useful con-

14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

tribution to psychology in general for the experimental
study of the various human faculties: consciousness,
memory, will, etc. This usefulness might appear more
theoretical than practical. We do not refer even to
the services which this first group — hypnology — will
render in obtaining knowledge, in a practical way, of
the character of individuals, or in their education when
the processes of ordinary pedagogy have failed, not-
withstanding the interesting indications of Durand de
Gros and Berillon. We refer especially to medicine;
for it is here that hypnology has its most important
applications. Every one knows the remarkable results
obtained by the practitioners of the School of Nancy,
whose method is now in current use in the practise of
psycho-therapy, especially in the treatment of nervous
affections.

The other branches of psychical science are not as
yet sufficiently advanced to be capable of being util-
ized unerringly in practical ways. When, however, the
day arrives when the study of animal magnetism, sys-
tematically pursued in a scientific spirit, will confirm all
that is expected of it, it will then positively bring a
contribution to the science of therapeutics no less im-
portant than that of hypnology. For whatever exag-
gerations may be found in the stories of the marvelous
cures reported by the chroniclers of the old mesmerists,
it is perfectly evident that the facts described by them
show that the biactinic force emanating from the human
body produces some singular and powerful curative
effects. The question would be to determine with
sufficient precision the conditions in which these effects
operate.

INTRODUCTION 15

Shall we ever be able to establish scientifically the
reality, and so be able to formulate the laws, of the
seemingly incomprehensible phenomenon of clairvoy-
ance? If in the future the reply should be in the affirm-
ative, it would not be too daring to say that there will
be found in man an organ of communication which can
be compared with telegraphy, telephony, and telepho-
tography. Already there are many who have been
asking whether it would not be possible to utilize the
clairvoyant faculty in helping the police in their investi-
gations; and particularly whether this could not be
used in time of war, to foresee the means of attack and
of defense of the enemy. But our present knowledge
of the mechanism of clairvoyance is too imperfect to
justify our risking an instrument of which we are not
quite sure. Hyloscopy, on the other hand, under the
form of actual prospecting for water and mineral de-
posits, has already entered the field of practical appli-
cations. Have not the French already used the divin-
ing-rod and the pendulum to find water wells in Al-
geria? Did not the English find, by the same means,
wells of water during the Gallipoli expedition in re-
gions thoroughly deficient in drinkable water? And
it is said that the Germans found mines in their colonial
possessions in Africa by means of the divining-rod.
If, as is asserted, the special sensitiveness which is re-
vealed by the movements of the rod or the pendulum
is to be found existent, in a latent state, in the majority
of people, it perhaps may be through this branch of
the psychical sciences that the breach will be opened
through which all the others shall pass, thereby making
it impossible to doubt the reality of influences which to

16 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

our material senses are imperceptible, yet which are
capable of being revealed to us by reactions sui generis
of our nervous system.

To go a step farther, it is not premature to conceive
the day when even the spiritoidal phenomena will be
possible of practical applications. And when that is
realized, it will mean in the affairs of men a revolution
as considerable as that produced by the applications
of steam or of electricity.

Let us suppose for one moment that it can be proved
experimentally that the strange phenomena of levita-
tion, materialization, or of distant action, such as pro-
duced by mediums like Daniel D. Home or Eusapia
Palladino, are phenomena as real as the fall of a stone,
an electrical discharge, or a chemical combination.
Let us suppose still farther that we shall be able to
prove experimentally that the cause of these effects re-
sides in a particular condensation or transformation
of a force emanating from the nervous system, and
that we shall discover the laws according to which this
force, latent in every human being, acts, develops, and
transforms itself. What then would we need in order
to derive from these theoretical constatations certain
practical consequences of extraordinary value? It
would be necessary that the laws should be such as to
enable our own will to use them for the purpose of
manipulating this force, as it already can utilize the
laws that govern steam and electricity.

It is evident that we do not know, to-day, whether
such a condition can be realized. It may be that the
productive energy of the Palladinian phenomena, owing
to its nature, escapes the control of the will, exactly as

INTRODUCTION 17

that which produces storms and lightning, and which,
in spite of our knowledge of the laws of electricity, we
cannot and perhaps never shall be able to control at
will.

But it might also be otherwise. In this case it would
be sufficient to condense this force artificially in order
to obtain, through the sole resources of human organ-
isms, certain mechanical, calorific, luminous, electrical
and other effects, of which it is impossible to limit a
priori the diversity and the power.

Utopia, you will say?

Perhaps! But when Galvani studied the contrac-
tions of the legs of the frogs he had suspended from
his balcony, who could foresee that the force which
manifested itself under his very eyes, in effects so
puerile, would one day, in the hands of man, circulate
ceaselessly thought, light, and motion around the globe ?

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
THE FUTURE

CHAPTER I

HOW THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES STAND TO-DAY

BEFORE entering upon the many special subjects
which this book will cover, it may be well to give a
general — and as exact as possible — idea of the actual
state of the psychical sciences at the present time. In
order to do this, we must first try to determine, on the
one hand, those results that may be considered as hav-
ing been acquired, and, on the other, the problems that
are still unsolved, the researches that still remain to 'be
undertaken.

It is this balance of the psychical sciences that we
shall endeavor to establish in the present chapter.

I

First of all, by far the most important result — ob-
tained little by little, and not without much struggle
and great effort, during the second half of the past
century — is the recognition of the existence of the psy-
chical sciences.

Just how far the domain of psychical phenomena ex-
tends, and where in that domain the field of reality
ends and that of illusion begins, are questions that still

19

20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

are being debated, and will continue to be debated for
many years to come. But there are at least two points
upon which, we believe, all those capable of understand-
ing the terms fully agree :

First, the reality of psychical phenomena,1 constitut-
ing in nature an order sui generis, undoubtedly related
to the ensemble of psychological phenomena but having
their own particular characteristics and their own pe-
culiar laws.

Second, that these phenomena can and must be ob-
jects of science; and, as such, the psychical sciences are
legitimate, as worthy of being studied as are physical,
biological, or social sciences.

Those who devote their time and labor to this study
are no longer necessarily considered as charlatans or
fools. There is in the attitude of the public — and par-
ticularly of the scientific public — regarding psychical
phenomena and the psychical sciences, a change that is
becoming more and more pronounced; and this change,
in a more or less distant future, will enable these now
imperfectly defined sciences to be definitely organized.

All the honor of this change, which is nearly a revo-
lution, must be credited to the work of the Schools of
the Salpetriere and Nancy, and to that of the English
Society, and its young sister, the American Society, for
Psychical Research — in a word, to such men as Colo-
nel de Rochas and Professors Charles Richet and
Flournoy.

The very fact that the Academic des Sciences has ac-
cepted the foundation of a prize 2 destined to encour-

1 Called occult by Grasset, metapsychic by Charles Richet, and
parapsychlc by Flournoy and the author of this book.

z Publisher's Note: The Fanny Emden Prize. In a competitive

THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 21

age psychical research concerning " suggestion, hypno-
tism, and physiological actions likely to be exerted from
a distance upon the human organism in general " is
sufficient to measure the road traversed since the com-
paratively recent time when the same Academic refused
to receive any communication relative to animal mag-
netism, relegating it to the ranks of the fourth dimen-
sion and perpetual motion. And is it not a significant
fact that such savants as d'Arsonval, Branly, and the
late Pierre Curie participated in the whole series of
experiments made in 1906 with the medium Eusapia
Palladino at the Institut General Psychologique?

II

A second result which appears equally to have been
acquired is the recognition that the only method that
can adequately be applied to the study of psychical
phenomena is the experimental method, such as that
used by the precise and practical Claude Bernard and
Pasteur, with the modifications of detail necessary to
adapt it to the particular conditions of this class of
phenomena.

Nearly all scientists agree that it is no longer a ques-
tion of forming, a priori, systematic theories as to the
universal or life fluid, or the constitution of matter or
of spirit, and from them deducing, without either ex-
periment or control, the explanation of more or less ex-
traordinary facts. It is these facts themselves which

contest, two thousand francs of this prize was awarded to Prof. Boirac
for the best work submitted to the Academie des Sciences on these
subjects. His contribution, La Psychologle inconnue, was translated
into English by Dr. W. de Kcrlor, and published in America under
the title, Our Hidden Forces,

22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

it is necessary first of all to verify, to observe, to
analyze, to classify, and then to submit to repeated and
varied experiments before patiently deducing the laws
which control them — laws always subject to revision.
That the hypothesis has its place and its role in this
method is fully recognized ; but under the express con-
dition that, suggested by phenomena already known,
its object is not to give us an ingenious though sterile
explanation, but to help us in the discovery of phe-
nomena still unknown, and to enable us to produce
these phenomena by new experiments.

That which at the present time remains to be deter-
mined, and which the development of the psychical
sciences will gradually establish, is (i) the particular
method to be used in the study of these sciences — the
manner of observation and of experimentation espe-
cially adapted to the nature of the phenomena to be
studied — and (2) the hypotheses that will permit
experimenters to see their way clearly in their re-
searches and to advance to the point where they will
discover facts still unknown and laws still unformu-
lated.

ill

It is necessary to review briefly the different branches
of the psychical sciences in order to show the extent
of the progress each has made. For this purpose we
may use the classification suggested in Our Hidden
Forces* as it seems both practical and convenient.

zOur Hidden Forces (La Psychologic inconnue), Emile Boirac.
Translated by Dr. W. de Kerlor. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes
Company.)

THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 23

The two Congresses of Experimental Psychology held
in Paris in the years 1911 and 1913 adopted it in ar-
ranging the program of their work; and most of the
terms comprised in it are entering more and more
into current usage among authors whose works lie in
the field of psychical sciences.

In this classification the psychical phenomena — or
parapsychic, according to the definition we have given :
" the phenomena which, produced in animate beings or
as an effect of their action, do not seem to be entirely
explicable by the laws and forces of nature already
known " — are divided into three great classes, super-
imposed one upon the other in the order of their in-
creasing complexity and difficulty, and in such way that
knowledge of the first is an indispensable condition and
an efficacious instrument in the study of those that fol-
low.

The first of these three classes is that of hypnoidal
phenomena. These apparently may be explained1 by
forces already known, supposing only that these forces,
under certain conditions, operate according to laws of
which we are still ignorant, or which are known to us
only imperfectly — laws more or less different from
those which are now known. To this class belong the
phenomena of hypnotism and suggestion, especially
studied by the Schools of the Salpetriere and Nancy, and
the phenomena of dissociation of the personality which
Dr. Pierre Janet submitted to a methodical investigation
for the first time in his book, Automatisme psycholo-
gique, and carried farther in another work, Nevroses et
idees fxes. The general term hypnology may be given
to this first class of phenomena, thus reserving the term

24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

cryptopsychism 4 for the special study of the phenomena
of subconsciousness.

The second class is that of magnetoidal phenomena.
These appear to involve the intervention of forces still
unknown, distinct from those that science has so far
discovered and studied, but of a physical nature and
more or less analogous to the radiating forces of
physics: light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc. In
this class there are three distinct groups of phenomena,
which nevertheless are imperceptibly related to one an-
other. They are :

(1) Animal magnetism; or, as the English aptly
call it, mesmerism.

(2) Telepsychic phenomena, comprising numerous
varieties, such as the transmission or penetration of
thought, the exteriorization of the sensitiveness, psy-
chometry, telepathy, clairvoyance or lucidity, etc.

(3) Hyloscopic phenomena, where physical mat-
ter appears to exert over animate beings, especially
human beings, an action that does not seem to be ex-
plicable by any physical or chemical properties already
known and that seems, consequently, to reveal in it a
force irreducible to any that science has studied up to
the present time. To this third group of magnetoidal
phenomena belong the effects obtained by seekers of
subterranean sources of water and metals, as demon-
strated by the rod- and pendulum-diviners who so
strongly aroused public interest during the Congress
of Experimental Psychology held in Paris in 1913.

The third and last class is that of spiritoidal phe-

4 This term has been adopted by Prof. Flournoy in his book, Espritt
tt mediums.

THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 25

nomena. These also seem to imply the hypothesis of
agents as yet unknown; but in this case they are agents
of a psychological nature, more or less analogous to
human intelligence, situated, perhaps, outside of our
ordinary world, in a plane of reality exterior to that in
which we live. This class embraces all the phenomena
of spiritism or mediumism when it does not seem that
they may properly be included in either of the preceding
classes — disregarding, of course, the dogmatic asser-
tion as to their real causes.

It is in the psychical sciences of the first degree, hyp-
nology and cryptopsychism, that we find the greatest
number of results acquired — results that now are in-
contestably established. In this field we are on nearly
firm ground. More than one question of detail still
remains obscure and uncertain, but it can be said that,
on broad lines at least, these sciences are definitely con-
stituted.

In spite of a few isolated cases of the old skepticism,5
there exists no doubt as to the fact that a human being
may, under certain conditions, sink into a particular
state of torpor and automatism, where certain of his
faculties are more or less annihilated while others are
singularly exalted, and that the characteristics of this
state, called hypnotic, are more or less variable, and
are known as catalepsy, lethargy, somnambulism, etc.
There exists no doubt that suggestion — that is to say,
the human word, or, to go back to its origin, the
thought, as a species of imagination and faith — can
exercise a quasi-magical action upon not only the facul-
ties of our moral being, but also the functions of our

5 Prof. Babinski, for instance, declares that it is impossible to know
if hypnosis is not always a case of simulation.

26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

organism. Nor can there exist any doubt that such
action is able, without our knowledge, to produce in
us beneath our conscious personality another person-
ality that is still ourselves yet appears to be some one
else : a personality that feels, thinks, and acts, entirely
without our being conscious of it except for its exterior
manifestations.

All these points are firmly and incontestably estab-
lished. There now remains the necessity for knowing
more precisely the determining conditions of the dif-
ferent phenomena, the study of their effects, the prac-
tical applications that may be drawn from them.

In passing to the psychical sciences of the second class
— magnetoidal phenomena — we enter a region little
explored by scientists, who have been unwilling to risk
themselves there, for fear of compromising their pro-
fessional dignity or their reputation as prudent and
serious persons. The number of results acquired in
this class, therefore, is much less considerable than in
the preceding class. Here all is more or less doubtful,
or at least invariably contested. The facts are either
denied or ignored, or else they are treated as effects of
the imagination, or attributed to fraud. In the most
favorable hypothesis they are credited to will, or to
some force that, temporarily, it is impossible to analyze
from facts of the first class.

It well seems, however, that the day may not be
very far off when science will end by recognizing the
existence of a force emanating from the human organ-
ism, really of the nerves and of the brain, and capable
of acting at a distance. That force is now almost uni-

THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 2;

vcrsally admitted to explain the phenomena of trant-
mission of thought and telepathy.

Owing to a frequent confusion of terms, due to their
similarity, suggestion, which is no longer contested,
permits us to admit the phenomenon of transmission of
thought christened mental suggestion. And this latter
apparently does not differ essentially from the other,
in that it implies, above all, an influence exerted by one
brain upon another through a field imperceptible to our
senses. Strange to say, however, animal magnetism,
which seems to be the more general phenomenon — the
condition for mental suggestion — is denied its right
of existence, when mental suggestion is but one of its
particular consequences.

But sooner or later, no doubt, when logic recovers
its right, it will be recognized that animal magnetism
conceals in reality the key to psychical phenomena under
all their forms. This is one of the truths that we espe-
cially endeavored to establish in Our Hidden Forces;
and we hope that our example may encourage other
researchers to labor in this field, so that there may be
acquired to science one more definite result.

The recent scientific discovery of X-rays and of
emanations from radium has disposed savants to admit
more easily the existence in nature of a multitude of
radiations and influences too subtle to be observed or-
dinarily by our senses ; and it is perhaps this which ex-
plains the reception — rather than the encouragement
— given by the scientific world to the recent experiments
of water-diviners.

There, too, a result seems to have been acquired.

28 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

However, it has not been definitely decided that the
movements of the divining-rod or of the pendulum are
caused, as Chevreul claimed, solely by the unconscious
thought of the operator, to the exclusion of all objective
influences. And one is not obliged to believe that such
thought is not under some secret influence of an un-
known though real force.

Hyloscopy now is merely at the threshold of science;
but it will not be long before it will have crossed over.

The phenomenon of clairvoyance, whose mysterious
mechanism passes all human understanding, occupies,
as it were, the middle position between hyloscopy and
telepsychism, since it supposes an action exerted by
objects, in spite of sometimes enormous distances, upon
the sensibility of the subject; and in the same subject a
faculty of perception susceptible of being brought into
play by this remote and incomprehensible action.

Science is far from admitting the reality of this phe-
nomenon, but it is beginning to submit it to scientific
study; and such works as those of Edmond Duchatel
on Psychometry and Dr. Osty on Lucidity and Intuition
undoubtedly hasten the moment when the phenomenon,
being recognized as real, will enable us to discover
experimentally the laws that regulate it.

At the present time we may see in those who study the
phenomenon of clairvoyance a tendency to place it on
the same level as that of penetration of thought — that
is to say, to believe that the visions of clairvoyants
are not connected directly with the objects themselves
but with the human brains in which the objects are rep-
resented. In other words, clairvoyance might be
essentially not a rapport of brain with object, but a rap-

THE PENDULUM

Any one susceptible to magnetic influence will follow, involun-
tarily, the movements of the operator's hand, even when it is not
in contact with the shoulder.

THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 29

port of brain with brain. Thus would be effaced the
distinction which early magnetizers established between
real clairvoyance or lucidity and the transmission of
thought.

It is left to future researches to solve the question
definitely and finally.

There remains the science of the third class, which
has for its object the troublesome and baffling phe-
nomena of spiritism. The farther we advance in our
inquiries in this field, the more rare become the results
acquired. Let us not believe, however, with the or-
dinary public, that these phenomena have nothing of
truth in them. For it is certain, it has been proved be-
yond all doubt, that tables turn and rap, that they make,
by means of certain codes, intelligible answers to ques-
tions that are asked them. And it is incontestably
proved that certain individuals, called mediums, do
write, speak, and act, without being conscious of what
they are doing, exactly as if they were the instruments
of foreign personalities. All these facts are amply
established ; it is only the ignorant who deny them.

Now, to what cause must they be attributed? Are
they, as their appearances suggest, as the mediums in- t
sist, the effects and the proofs of the intervention of
spirits ? Is it really the souls of the dead who come
from the other world to cause the tables to move and
who inhabit momentarily the bodies of the living?

In this there is a wholly different problem.

That which is acquired is the reality of the spiritoidal
phenomena, at least of a certain number of them ; that
which is far from being acquired in the manner in which
they may be explained.

30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

To admit these phenomena does not necessarily mean
admitting such or such explanation that may be pro-
posed. From the viewpoint of the scientist, the ex-
planation, whatever it may be, is of secondary import-
ance; the essential thing is the methodical study of the
facts, their establishment and their analysis. To prove
or to refute a certain philosophic or religious doctrine
is not sufficient; it is necessary to know whether certain
facts actually occur, and, if so, how they occur.

The most important results will be acquired in re-
searches of this order only when all those whose ex-
periments lie in this field are persuaded that it is with
that attitude of mind that they must labor. The ex-
perimental method only, loyally and patiently practised,
will enable the researcher to ascertain if certain phe-
nomena generally considered unbelievable — levitation,
apports, materialization — are actually real or if they
are but " tricks " and fraud. This method alone will
permit him to arrive at interpretations — tentative
without doubt and hypothetical, but useful nevertheless
to guide the experimenter through obscurities more im-
penetrable than those of the forest of Dante's Inferno.

IV

However imperfect may be the actual state of the
psychical sciences at the present time, this brief review
shows that they are sufficiently organized to live and to
be developed regularly; that experimenters may be
assured of the reality of their object, each being in
the firm possession of his method, a certain number of
essential results already having been acquired.

What is it that is necessary for the hastening of their

THE PSYCHICAL SCIENCES TO-DAY 31

evolution, that the number of results may be increased
steadily from day to day ?

First of all, that public opinion, better informed, may
understand the interest and the utility of the researches
and may become accustomed to considering them as
real sciences, and not as playthings, oracles, or pastimes
for society. No less important is the necessity for
establishing " numerous centers of research through-
out the civilized world — institutes and laboratories
where researchers who are specially trained into scien-
tific and philosophical discipline, and accorded the
same respect by other scientists as is given to physicians,
chemists, and physiologists, could devote themselves ex-
clusively to the exploration of the psychical field in its
widest sense, and where they could check each other
constantly." 6

6 Our Hidden Forces.

CHAPTER II

THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG METHODS

THE question of the method to be adopted in the
study of the psychical sciences is of great importance
when considering that at the present time these sciences
are still in the form of an enormous mass of infinitely
diverse, complex, mysterious, sometimes contradictory,
facts, regarding which there arise the most enigmatic
problems.

Is it possible to establish order in all this confusion?
If so, let us see how.

One fact imposes itself upon our attention. The
different phenomena comprised in the psychical sciences
are divided naturally into groups sufficiently distinct
that each of these groups can and should become a
special science in itself. Yet they have in common such
important characteristics, and they are connected by
relations so numerous and so closely woven, that it is
impossible to study them satisfactorily if we do not
take into account their deep affinities and their intimate
solidarity. It is because of having disregarded this
twofold circumstance that the greater part of the re-
searchers have hitherto erred au hasard or their
methods have remained unimproved.

In the prescientific epoch of their history, the psy-

32

RIGHT AND WRONG METHODS 33

chical sciences were found, pell-mell with astrology,
alchemy, and magic, in the obscure chaos of occultism ;
and this state of confusion began to be cleared up only
toward the end of the eighteenth century, when Mes-
mer and his disciples aroused public curiosity about the
phenomena of animal magnetism which they produced.

It is then that analysis was introduced into the study
of psychical facts, and it resulted, at one and the same
time, in the necessary precisions and the inevitable con-
tradictions.

Braid recognized the reality of a certain state of the
nervous system provoked by physical actions — such
as the prolonged fixation of gaze upon a brilliant point
— and he fully described the principal effects. How-
ever, outside of hypnotism thus defined, he did not ad-
mit as real anything more from among all the strange
and wonderful facts reported by the early observers.
The School of the Salpetriere confined its doctrine
within these same limits. And so, also, simila^ to
Abbe Faria and General Noiset, the School of Nancy,
with Liebeault, Liegeois, and Bernheim, studied the
power of thought and idea, allied to belief and emotion,
upon the mind and the human organism, and proclaimed
that suggestion is in itself " the key to all the phe-
nomena of hypnosis." All so-called psychical facts,
when real, are caused by suggestion; all facts not so
caused are purely imaginary.

Thus, under the exclusive influence of analysis, each
searcher specializes in the study of a certain order of
phenomena, and systematically ignores or denies all
those that may exist outside of his own field of study
and experimentation. The same narrowness is shown

34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

by the disciples of Mesmer, who, for the greater part,
refused to recognize hypnotism and suggestion as being
side by side with and quite distinct from animal mag-
netism.

With the study of spiritistic phenomena and those of
mental suggestion and telepathy, two new branches of
researches spring from the main trunk of psychism.
But here still we find the same tendency to believe that
each of these studies can suffice entirely in itself, and
constitute alone the totality of the psychical sciences.

The true method is to give to analysis and to syn-
thesis the part that legitimately belongs to each of them.

It is absolutely necessary that the multitude of
psychical phenomena be divided into a certain number
of groups, and that these groups be studied separately.
For the human mind, study is not possible, science is not
possible, without division, order, classification. An-
alysis is in itself the very condition of synthesis; every
synthesis that is not preceded by analysis is necessarily
confused. That is why, in Our Hidden Forces, we
were compelled to classify the different psychical
sciences according to three great divisions : hypnoidal,
magnetoidal, and spiritoldal. And under these heads
we arranged the different groups of phenomena cov-
ered by them, giving to each a special name — hypnol-
ogy, cryptopsychism, psychodynamy, teiepsychism, hy-
loscopy, etc. — thus recognizing, as it were, their dis-
tinct individuality.

But any such classification, in drawing the many and
varied psychical sciences together into unity, compels
the mind to consider them as necessarily coordinated
among themselves. They are independent, though at

RIGHT AND WRONG METHODS 35

the same time solidary, parts of one and the same
whole.

Therefore, in the pursuit of any one of these partic-
ular sciences — for example, hypnotism or suggestion
— it may be well, in order to advance the analysis as
far as possible, to consider the psychical facts from a
certain angle only, disregarding all the facts and all
the elements of facts that are not visible from that
angle. It must not be forgotten, however, that this
is but an artifice of the method; that, if one's special
branch of pursuit succeeds in realizing, in its concep-
tions or in its experimentations, that isolation of one of
the essential elements of psychism, it does not follow
that in reality that element may not often be inseparably
united to other elements equally essential, objects of
some other branch of science.

Thus the point of view of the synthesis must always,
in psychical sciences, complete and correct the point of
view of the analysis.

II

However, it must be acknowledged that although the
different psychical sciences are connected with and de-
pendent upon one another, they are not all on the
same plane. There exists between them a certain
order, a certain hierarchy of connections and dependen-
cies. Thus the simplest, the most elementary phenom-
ena, the easiest to isolate and to reproduce experiment-
ally, come logically first, before those that are on a
higher plane, that are more complex, more difficultly
controlled by the experimenter, and consequently are
relatively more independent.

36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

This is, we believe, a point of extreme importance,
one upon which it is necessary to insist.

It determines the general direction of the method in
psychical research, if it be true that the human brain
must, according to the precept of Descartes, u conduct
one's thoughts in order, by beginning with the simplest
and the most easily understood objects and climbing
little by little, by degrees as it were, to the knowledge
of the most complex. . . ."

Let us apply this particular rule to the study of the
psychical sciences. The result is that the science of
hypnoidal phenomena must be considered as the pre-
liminary condition of the study of magnetoidal phe-
nomena; and that these two must be advanced suffi-
ciently far before it will be possible to begin, with any
hope of success, the scientific exploration of spiritoidal
phenomena.

Up to the present time those savants who have ven-
tured into this field have attempted to study only the
most extraordinary phenomena, those that most excite
the curiosity and stir the imagination: in other words,
the spiritoidal phenomena which assume the strangest
forms, such as are reported by William Crookes, de
Rochas, Richet, etc. In a similar way, in studying the
phenomena of telepathy — of which the English and
American Societies for Psychical Research have col-
lected numerous examples — the savants have confined
themselves to those magnetoidal phenomena in which
the mechanism is the most obscure and the most com-
plex.

Is not such a method directly contrary to the principle
that we have laid down?

RIGHT AND WRONG METHODS 37

But that principle has already been contested. Dr.
Gustave Geley, in a remarkable study on " a special
experimental method in metapsychism," after having
remarked, with ourselves, that " all the metapsychic
phenomena, from the simplest and most elementary to
the highest and most complex, are absolutely con-
nected," affirms that " the scientific method, fully ade-
quate to the new science, resides entirely in this for-
mula: to consider as temporarily negligible all the
elementary phenomena and to attack immediately and
systematically the most complex phenomena that are
known to us." He is fully aware that " such a
methodological principle is revolutionary." It con-
flicts, he says, with the teachings of the most eminent
psychists. " It breaks away from the standard, classi-
cal method, admitted by all the other sciences, in which
it is necessary always to proceed from the known to
the unknown and from the simple to the complex."

But this savant does not stop there ; for, according to
him, " in metapsychism the simplest is found to be the
most difficult to recognize." Consequently, it is by
the study of physical phenomena, in preference to in-
tellectual, that we are asked to begin the systematic in-
vestigation of metapsychism. And from among the
physical phenomena, that of materialization should be
the first.

It is apparent that this author understands by " met-
apsychism " not the ensemble of the psychical phe-
nomena (or par apsy chic, to use our own term) — with
its three relatively distinct branches and the whole in-
separably connected and hierarchically superposed —
but exclusively a section of that ensemble, the third and

38 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

last, the spiritoidal phenomena, commonly called spir-
itism.

If the word psychical be kept to designate, as usage
has established it, all phenomena whatsover of the
unknown in psychology, it will enable us to distinguish,
on the one hand, the phenomena properly called para-
psychic, and, on the other hand, the metapsychic phe-
nomena, which it seems very difficult to strip of their
supernatural or extra-natural appearances.

It is not a question, therefore, with this author, of
the general method of parapsychism, including at the
same time parapsychism properly called and meta-
psychism, but uniquely, exclusively, of the special
method of metapsychism, which he seems to consider
as absolutely independent, separable by right and in
fact from the rest of parapsychism; susceptible conse-
quently to be approached de piano, without previous re-
course to the study of the antecedent disciplines.

We should not be willing, on our part, to admit any
such viewpoint.

As we shall show later in detail, when considered in
themselves, all hypotheses as to their origin being dis-
regarded, the metapsychic (or spiritoidal) phenomena
do not differ essentially from the others: there can
always be found in each of them a correspondent of
the same kind in the series of phenomena that are
really parapsychic (hypnoidal and magnetoidal).
Thus the state of trance of a medium is a fact wholly
analogous to the state of hypnosis of a subject placed
in catalepsy or somnambulism; the spiritistic messages
obtained by means of the table, automatic writing, etc.,
singularly resemble the facts of dissociation of the

RIGHT AND WRONG METHODS 39

personality experimentally provoked ; the phenomena of
thought-reading or of clairvoyance, frequently men-
tioned in the reports of spiritistic seances, are analogous
to those of perceptive telepsychism or of psychometry,
observed outside of all spiritistic ambient, etc.1

Spiritism thus appears, as we have said, a " spon-
taneous synthesis of all or nearly all the parapsychic
facts determined by a certain nervous and mental state "
— to which perhaps may be given, with Professor
Flournoy, the name spiritogene. This is why science,
faithful to the principle of economy, prefers, until
the contrary be proved, to consider spiritoidal (or
metapsychic) facts as reducible to facts of the preced-
ing orders, or at least attempts that reduction as far
as possible.

Even if admitting the hypothesis of spirits and their
effective participation in the production of spiritoidal
phenomena, it is necessary to note that " the whole
action of these spirits consists in arousing in certain
susceptible subjects (mediums) the greater part of the
hypnoidal and magnetoidal phenomena (hypnotism,
suggestion, dissociation of the personality, telepathy,
clairvoyance, etc.) constated in ordinary subjects, either
spontaneously or as the effect of the experimenter's
action. It can be said that spirits operate exactly as
do hypnotists and mesmerists."

Is it not right, then, to conclude that " from the point
of view of the method, the study of spiritoidal phe-

1 For this reason we cannot well agree with Dr. Geley that the
study of the "supernormal and subconscious faculties of vision at a
distance without the aid of the senses, of telepathy, of thought-reading,
of lucidity," appertains essentially to metapsychism. Its place seems
to us to be incontestably marked in parapsychism properly called.

40 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

nomena must be strictly subordinated to that of phe-
nomena of the two preceding orders, and that it is
only when these have been advanced sufficiently far
that the experimenter can begin to see his way a little
more clearly in the study of the third order " — in
other words, that parapsychism is the necessary intro-
duction, the inevitable pathway to metapsychism?

Hence, to begin the study of the ensemble of para-
psychic phenomena, or metapsychic, by attacking first
and exclusively a phenomenon as complex and as diffi-
cult to manage as that of materialization, seems to
us to be comparable to physicists who would regret that
the study of electricity or of physics in general had not
begun with the study of globe lightning — a problem
certainly highly interesting, but the solution of which
will be found only in a more or less distant future, and
because of the increasing extent of our knowledge in
electricity and other branches of physics.

CHAPTER III

OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP
I

IT is not enough to show the general direction of the
method in the psychical sciences; it is necessary also to
determine the nature and the rapports of the different
processes of which the method is composed.

Whatever may be the particular nature of the facts
under study, all sciences based upon facts are necessarily
and exclusively amenable to the experimental method.
Those — as certain theosophists or certain occultists —
who would pretend to build up the science of psychical
facts upon the foundation of authority or of reasoning
would succeed only in excluding psychical facts from
science.

The experimental method, as we have shown else-
where,1 consists essentially of four processes, disposed
in the following order:

1 i ) Observation

(2) Hypothesis

( 3 ) Experimentation

(4) Induction

The order has in this case such great importance that
if, keeping the same elements, we dispose them in any

i-Our Hidden Forces.

41

42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

other manner, the ensemble obtained is not the experi-
mental method, but a method wholly different.

Thus observation in the experimental method has
but one aim — to make possible the hypothesis ; the
hypothesis has but one aim — to make possible the
experimentation; just as the experimentation has but
one aim — to make possible the induction. From ob-
servation to supposition; from supposition to experi-
mentation; from experimentation to induction — that
is the succession, the necessary subordination of the
proceedings in the experimental method.

Of these four operations, the first and the third —
observation and experimentation — are processes of
information, of constatation of the particular facts.
The second and the fourth — hypothesis and induc-
tion— are processes of interpretation, of reasoning re-
lating to general laws. The originality of the experi-
mental method consists in the fact that it counterchecks
the two kinds of operations in such a way that they
provoke and complete or control each other.

The entire method can be summarized in the fol-
lowing formula :

First period: Preparatory constatation (obser-
vation).

Second period: Temporary interpretation (hy-
pothesis) .

Third period: Decisive constatation (experi-
mentation).

Fourth period: Definitive interpretation (induc-
tion).

It is by the persevering and scrupulous application of
the experimental method, as it is thus comprised, that

OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 43

the study of psychical phenomena will be progressively
transformed into a real science.

But the processes of this method, owing to the pecu-
liar conditions in which psychical phenomena present
themselves, assume in their study particular character-
istics which it is important to note.

II

In natural science — physics, chemistry, physiology,
etc. — observation is made or can always be made di-
rectly: the savants themselves, by means of their own
senses, constate the phenomena they study. In psychi-
cal sciences the observation is often indirect and medi-
ate, owing to the fact that scientists know of the nature
of the phenomena only through the testimony of un'
scientific observers — persons not trained in science — •
who witnessed them by chance and described them,
orally or in writing.

This manner of observation by testimony is not con-
fined exclusively to psychical sciences ; it is found in all
the moral and social sciences, in all sciences which have
man for their object. It is the indispensable instru-
ment of history, where these sciences find their principal
support. As a result, psychical sciences partake at the
same time of the nature of physical sciences and of that
of moral sciences; and this, perhaps, as Prof. Bergson
aptly showed in his masterly address of May 28, 19 13,*
is one of the reasons why many savants — who con-
ceive all sciences as in the light of natural sciences only

2 Annales des sciences psychiques (November and December, 1913).
Address delivered by Prof. Bergson at the time of his election to the
presidency of the Society for Psychical Research, of London.

44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

— refuse " to consider as real, certain facts that can be
known only through a method of observation founded
upon testimony, too similar to the historical method or
to that of a magistrate gathering testimony."

Yet in natural science there are a great number of
facts that can be known by this method only: for in-
stance, the rare and accidental facts in astronomy and
pathology, such as the falling of meteorites, diseases
peculiar to certain climates or observed in a small num-
ber of individuals, etc.

It is true that in such sciences we take into account
only observations reported by witnesses who can be con-
sidered as scientists; but we should singularly restrict
the means of obtaining information for the psychical
sciences were we to reject, even for the sake of inven-
tory, all observation presented by non-professionals.
Where, moreover, does the category of people accept-
able for testimony begin and where does it end?
Should we, for instance, reject wholly and without ex-
amination all the accounts in which the early magneti-
zers — de Puysegur, Deleuze, Lafontaine, du Potet,
etc. — report the facts observed by them, under the
pretext that none of them was a professional scientist
and that the interpretation that they proposed does not
seem to be in accordance with the ideas held in the
sciences of to-day? Should we grant the quality of
scientist to naturalists, to physicians, to physicists, to
chemists, to physiologists — such as Antoine Laurent
de Jussieu, Dr. Husson, Reichenbach, W. Gregory,
Charles Richet, W. Crookes, Oliver Lodge, etc. — and
consent to give credit to their testimony when they tell
us of facts which they affirm that they themselves con-

OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 45

stated and controlled? If we were to answer in the
negative, how could we justify such intransigence?

The psychical sciences are perfectly in their right
in seeking in indirect observation the first elements of
their study; providing, of course, that the information
thus gathered be submitted to the most severe criticism
(as has been done, for instance, by the Society for
Psychical Research with telepathic facts). Then they
should be completed and controlled as far as possible by
direct observation, especially by provoked observation
(frequently and wrongly confused with experimenta-
tion).

By provoked observation is meant an observation in
which the observer himself intervenes actively in the
production of the phenomenon, but only in order to
establish it in the best possible conditions of certainty
and accuracy, without any previous hypothesis as to the
mechanism of its production. An observation of this
kind is commonly called an experiment; and it is in this
sense that it is said that " to put a subject to sleep,"
" to make the table move," etc., is to " conduct an ex-
periment."

But this, we believe, is a wrong use of the word.

Real experimentation exists only in the verification of
an hypothesis. The experiment, thus understood, must
be prepared in such a way that it may be a question
asked of Nature, forcing her to answer in the affirma-
tive or the negative.

The so-called experiments independent of all hy-
potheses and previous analyses have, without doubt, a
superiority over ordinary observation that permits
them to repeat and multiply the facts; but, from tb"

46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

point of view of their position and their role in the
ensemble of the experimental method, it is impossible
to see in them anything but a particular form of obser-
vation.3

An example will better explain the difference and
the rapports of these three forms of observation in
psychical sciences:

First: One of my friends wrote me that he had
witnessed a fact which had impressed him. He saw
a man, who called himself a mesmerist, suddenly attract
another man, several inches away, by presenting his
hands at the height of the latter's shoulder-blades.
As I have the greatest confidence in the judgment and
character of my friend, I consider this fact real, inter-
esting, and worthy of being related. When I study the
magnetoidal phenomena I shall not hesitate to give it a
place among the elements of the problems to be solved.
This is what may be called indirect or mediate obser-
vation.

Second: But I would not stop there. Desiring to
be able to confirm for myself the testimony of my
friend, I went to the town where he lives, and there
made arrangements to observe with my own eyes the
phenomenon which he described. This enabled me to
understand more exactly all the circumstances and even
to note some which had escaped the first observer.
This is a direct observation of the first degree, in

3 These are those groping experiments, those "trying to see" ex-
periments, which Bacon called " hazards of the experiment (sortes
cxperimenii)" and which he justified by saying it is necessary some-
times "to lift every stone in Nature." They are especially useful in
the still too-little-advanced sciences where, as Claude Bernard says,
the savant must " try to fish in troubled waters."

OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 47

which I act personally but simply in the role of specta-
tor.

Third: I then placed myself in the conditions in
which I had seen the mesmerist operate, in order to
produce the phenomenon myself; or I engaged different
people to place themselves in these conditions, and I
verified each time the results obtained. This consti-
tutes a direct observation of the second degree, which
I have previously called a " provoked " observation.

It can be said that these three forms or degrees of
observation attract and complete one another naturally,
although, in certain cases, we may unfortunately be
compelled to stop either at the first or at the second
degree of the scale, without being able to pass from the
first to the second, and from the second to the third.

in

Let us see now in what spirit and with what precau-
tions the observation of psychical phenomena must t>e
conducted in order to make possible a correct and
efficacious application of the subsequent processes of the
experimental method.

In all sciences based upon facts, observation is pro-
posed, first and above all, to constate the facts in the
best conditions of certainty and authenticity and to
permit a description as exact and complete as possible.
When it is a question of facts so obscure, so capricious,
as psychical facts (understood in their broadest sense)
the first aim of observation is very difficult to attain.

On one hand, the observer is constantly grappling
with a first cause of error: Illusion. This not only
must be guarded against in the observation actually

48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

before the experimenter, but it must be hunted out in
the preceding observations, too often reported by testi-
mony foreign to all scientific discipline but which it is
impossible not to take into account.

On the other hand, a second cause of error, no less
formidable, and from which physical and natural
sciences are generally exempt, is simulation — decep-
tion, conscious or unconscious, which subjects frequently
use toward their observers.

To what extent do these two causes of error inter-
vene in the different branches of psychical sciences, and
by what means can their effects be prevented?

That question is too complex for us to treat of it
here. It is sufficient to know that these causes do exist ;
and in order to give a reliable account, every observer
must also play the part of critic.

But in an experimental science, observation is not in
itself its real end. Beyond the constatation and the
description of the fact, it aims at another object: to
gain a tentative interpretation of the fact, an anticipated
idea, an hypothesis that will permit of the substitution,
in place of the simple observation, of that other process,
called experimentation.

" All experimental initiative," says Claude Bernard,
" is in the Idea, for it is that which provokes the experi-
ment. Reason or reasoning serves only to deduce the
consequences of that idea and to submit them to experi-
ment. An anticipated idea or an hypothesis is there-
fore the point of departure necessary for all experi-
mental reasoning. Without that it will not be possible
to make any instructive investigation; one will accu-
muluate only sterile observations. An experiment

OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 49

without a preconceived idea is but an experiment made
at random."

Unfortunately — and it is Claude Bernard himself
who makes the statement — there do not exist precise
and certain rules that enable us to sort out from the
observation of facts the directing idea that alone war-
rants real experimentation. ' The nature of the idea,"
said this great French savant, who practised, better
than all others, the experimental method, " is wholly
individual: it is a particular statement, a quid pro-
prium, which constitutes the originality, the invention,
or the genius of each."

This, perhaps, is a repetition of the words that are
attributed to Buffon : " Genius resides in great pa-
tience " ; and Newton's response to those who asked him
how he had discovered universal gravitation : " By
always thinking."

He who, in observing phenomena, is being constantly
dominated by the idea and desire to extract from th«m
certain circumstances and relations which will enable
him to divine their hidden mechanism — has he not a
greater chance to behold, some day, the long-sought-
for hypothesis, than the one who confines himself solely
to producing the phenomena and then describing them
as real facts ?

We cannot, therefore, too emphatically recommend
to all students of psychical phenomena that interroga-
tive attitude of mind which is not satisfied merely in
the knowledge that a fact is real, but which intends to
know how it is possible, and which imagines, supposes,
that it is the effect of such cause or is the outcome of
such law.

50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

We well appreciate, however, the nature and role
of the hypothesis thus understood.

There is not here an hypothesis that is in any way
theoretical, general, having for its aim the integration
and the coordination of an ensemble of truths already
acquired — such as, for example, in physics the hy-
pothesis of ether as a vehicle for heat, light, and elec-
tricity; in chemistry the atomic hypothesis; in astronomy
the hypothesis of Laplace; in natural science the hy-
potheses of Lamarck and Darwin, etc. It is an experi-
mental hypothesis, special and precise, bearing upon
the probable cause or the probable effect of such de-
termined phenomenon as the savant may be observing,
and suggested by that same observation. It has for
its aim not the explanation of the results, but the direc-
tion of future researches, destined consequently to be
submitted immediately to the control of experimenta-
tion, to be either verified or contradicted by it.

From this point of view, it could be said that there
are two kinds of hypotheses :

1 i ) The inert, idle, in the sense that, whatever sat-
isfaction they may give by their simplicity, their co-
herence, their reality, etc., they do not suggest action,
they do not open the field for experimentation by which
any research can be made in the attempt to discover
other facts beyond those of which they pretend to fur-
nish the explanation.

(2) Those hypotheses which, on the contrary, are
active, laborious, in the sense that they have to be
realized immediately in effective experiments. Their
purpose is less to explain the facts already known than

OBSERVATION, THE FIRST STEP 51

to discover new facts, and after those facts, still others,
a d infinitum.

One of the principal means of advancing psychical
sciences will be to substitute more and more the experi-
mental and active hypotheses for the theoretical and
inert hypotheses with which these sciences are still en-
cumbered. Among these latter, moreover, several
seem to us to be susceptible of reflecting, in a certain
measure, the form of the first — such, for example, as
the hypothesis of animal magnetism, as we have en-
deavored to show in Our Hidden Forces. On the other
hand, we do not see how any such transformation
would be possible in the case of hypotheses such as
that of the astral plane proposed by theosophists to
explain clairvoyance. Hypotheses of that kind seem
to us to be irremediably Inert.

There now remains the determination of the particu-
lar conditions of experimentation and of induction in
the psychical sciences.

CHAPTER IV

HOW TO EXPERIMENT

ALL future progress in psychical research depends
upon the measure in which it will be possible to apply to
that research the four processes of the experimental
method, especially that one from which the method
derives its name and which alone characterizes it:
experimentation.

But, as has been indicated in a preceding chapter,
current language assembles under the one name, ex-
perimentation (or experiment), two operations which,
while they resemble each other in their exterior appear-
ances, are notably different if the place and the role
of each in the ensemble of the experimental method be
considered.

They have this in common : that they necessitate the
active intervention of the savant in the production of the
phenomena which he wishes to observe; and they both
combat observation proper, where the savant is more
or less the passive spectator of the phenomena which
present themselves to him in the ordinary course of
nature, without his making any effort to arouse or to
modify them.

But there is between the two operations this capital
difference : that one aims merely to establish the fact to

52

HOW TO EXPERIMENT 53

which it is applied and to permit as exact and complete
a description of it as possible, while the purpose of the
other is to verify a preconceived idea, an hypothesis
relative to the mechanism of the production of the
fact.

The first has, then, absolutely the same object and
the same role as observation; it is a provoked observa-
tion. The second, on the contrary, differs from obser-
vation in giving, not the fact itself, but the idea that
enables one to comprehend it, while connecting it with
the universal determinism of cause and effect, and in
having as its role the transformation of that anticipated
idea into a law, henceforth acquired to science.

Really, the first of these two operations is inter-
mediary between observation and experiment; it forms
the passage from one to the other. It may, therefore,
be called observation or it may be called experiment,
according to the angle from which it is viewed.

It is only the latter which gives to the experimental
method its proper character and real importance, for
it is this only which permits induction to be made with
certainty, as Claude Bernard so deftly demonstrated in
his Introduction a I' etude experimental de la medecine.
Separated from it, all the other processes of the method
constitute no more than an empiricism to which science
might resign itself temporarily, for want of a better
method.

II

Here are the first questions which arise regarding the
subject of experimentation in the psychical sciences :
Is it possible to provoke artificially, experimentally,

54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

the diverse phenomena studied in these sciences?
Does this possibility not exist for some of the phenom-
ena and not for all? Can it be supposed that eventu-
ally it will exist for all?

In order to answer these questions, it is necessary for
us to consider first the nature of psychical facts (or
parapsychic) in general; then that of the different
branches into which they are divided — hypnoidal
facts, magnetoidal facts, and spiritoidal facts.

The parapsychic facts are all human facts, they are
produced in human beings, and for this reason they
oppose difficulties that are often insurmountable. Ex-
periments cannot be made with human beings in the
same way that they can with things or even with ani-
mals.

In the first place, experimentation may encounter
obstacles of a moral nature. Is it permissible to subject
an individual, even with his consent, to experiments
which — as those of hypnotism, magnetism, or spirit-
ism — are susceptible of temporarily upsetting the
equilibrium of his physical forces and his intellectual
and moral faculties?

This is a cas de conscience regarding which scientists
are far from being in accord.

Let us, however, suppose this first obstacle to be
removed. We encounter a second in the often unfa-
vorable attitude of the individual upon whom we wish to
experiment. For instance, a certain subject, who at
first is willing to be successfully experimented upon, re-
sists the influence or refuses to submit himself to further
experimentation, owing to some inexplicable caprice.

HOW TO EXPERIMENT 55

At other times his complaisant attitude is but a sham,
its aim being to deceive through the production of a sim-
ulated phenomenon.

These, it may be said, are the inherent drawbacks
to all studies bearing upon human facts. And they are
especially pronounced in the parapsychic facts, because
these facts are special, accidental, abnormal: that is to
say, observable only in certain individuals of the human
race, in certain comparatively rare and exceptional cir-
cumstances. It follows that the same experiment,
made in what seem to be the same conditions, succeeds
with some individuals and does^not succeed with others;
it succeeds with one individual on a certain day and does
not succeed with the same individual another day.
And it is impossible for us — at the present time — to
anticipate or to explain these disconcerting variations.

Let us add that a characteristic common to all these
individuals — subjects or mediums — is their extreme
propensity to autosuggestion, or to the influence* of
either conscious or unconscious suggestion of others.
This is a propensity in nature to alter, to a greater or
less extent, the results of the experiment, by introduc-
ing surreptitiously among the causes admitted by the
experimenter a cause capable of neutralizing or of coun-
teracting the effects.

The case would be still more serious were we to
admit, as some pretend, that a second characteristic
common to all subjects and mediums is an ineradicable
tendency to simulation, in all its forms: falsehood,
fraud, mystification, etc. However true it may be that
the experimenter must also be on his guard, no less

56 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

than the observer, against this possible cause of error,
it seems, nevertheless, that simulation may not be so
constant nor so general as has been pretended.

These — autosuggestion, conscious or unconscious
suggestion by others, and simulation — independently
of the complexity and the polyetism l of parapsychic
phenomena (and common also to biological and socio-
logical phenomena) are the principal difficulties which
the experimenter encounters in all this order of re-
search. He will conquer them, however, through the
constant exertion of prudence, vigilance, and tenacity.

in

If we review the different branches of the psychical
sciences, we shall find that each of them presents cer-
tain difficulties more or less peculiar to itself; and that
the difficulties in their ensemble increase in proportion
to their rank in the hierarchy of the sciences, from
hypnotism to animal magnetism, and from animal mag-
netism to spiritism.

The study of hypnoidal phenomena is certainly the
one which best adapts itself to experiments of the first
order (experiments to see) and in which, consequently,
experiments of the second order (experiments to know)
have a greater chance to be introduced with success.
We have at our call a certain number of practical means
to produce at will the different varieties of these phe-
nomena — somnambulism, catalepsy, lethargy, etc. —
and at the same time the means to discover, by suffi-

1This word — coined, we believe, by Durand de Gros — means the
particularity that certain phenomena present of being able to be pro-
duced indifferently, by many different causes — at least those which
science cannot in any way unify.

HOW TO EXPERIMENT 57

ciently precise and constant signs, the persons in whom
susceptibility to these phenomena exists.

What is the action of the agents and processes used
by the experimenter in provoking the hypnotic state?
He himself ignores the question ; it is one of those which
his later investigations will have to solve. For the mo-
ment, it is sufficient for him to know that these agents
are effective, and to have the necessary technical ability
to use them advantageously. Here, as in many other
fields of science, our power, whatever Bacon may have
said, exceeds our knowledge.

Let us therefore confine ourselves, in the present state
of the psychical sciences, to the fact that suggestion, the
gaze, the passes, the fixation of a brilliant point, etc.,
produce hypnosis; and that, similarly, suggestion, the
breath, the passes, etc., arrest it. We must use these
different means — perhaps separate, perhaps united —
in our experiments, just as the physicist and the chemist
use light, heat, electricity, the catalytic force, .etc.,
without necessarily knowing the nature of the diverse
agents or how they produce their effects.

Of the different processes which we have enumerated
— suggestion, the gaze, passes, etc. — it is the first
which, the School of Nancy pretends, forms in reality
the basis of all the others, and it is to this alone that
they owe their whole efficiency. Consequently, the
experimenters whose doctrines are inspired by this
School have a tendency to reduce all their technical
operations practically to suggestion alone.

But, as we shall show later in detail, even though
the question may be extremely interesting and important
from the theoretical point of view, we must not over-

58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

look the fact that it is not solved at all. It would
be necessary, for its solution, to conduct a long series of
experiments of the second order, patiently and method-
ically carried out and tabulated; and this, so far as
we know, has never been done. On the other hand,
from the practical point of view, it is not necessary that
it be solved if we are sure that the processes other than
suggestion (no matter what these others may be in
reality or in appearance) produce identical, or equiva-
lent, effects — so long as our object is to provoke hyp-
notic states.

From this point of view, it can be said that each
experimenter has his own habits and his preferences,
which respond, undoubtedly, to his particular aptitudes,
natural or acquired; and it would be wrong to try to
impose them upon other experimenters in virtue of
some such reasoning as this : " I employ in my experi-
ments only one process (for example, suggestion), and
it always succeeds. Therefore, no other process exists,
and this is the only one which can succeed."

Yet the great majority of those who employed these
different processes rarely had a scientific aim. Many
sought, rather, a therapeutic result. They endeavored
to exploit provoked sleep, or the power of suggestion,
in order to facilitate surgical operations, or to aid
certain treatments for the cure of nervous affections
and other maladies. Or often, also, they wished to
entertain or strike the imagination of the participants
in their spectacular experiments. They have accumu-
lated a great quantity of facts of which indirect obser-
vation can and should make the fullest use. But per-
haps it is not exaggerating to say that the real experi-

HOW TO EXPERIMENT 59

mental study of hypnoidal phenomena yet remains to
be made.

However, we except a certain category of hypnoidal
phenomena — that which may be designated by the
name of cryptopsychism, and which Dr. Pierre Janet
has exhaustively studied under the name of dissociation
of the personality. Here we find ourselves in the
presence of a systematic investigation, carried as far as
can be possible, by means of the processes and accord-
ing to the spirit of the true experimental method.

There exists a whole ensemble of special means for
the provocation of cryptopsychic phenomena: subse-
quent somnambulism, suggestion by distraction, auto-
matic writing, and vision in the crystal. By these
means it is possible to institute preordained experi-
ments, as Dr. Pierre Janet has done, so as to solve such
particular problems as are relative to parapsychic phe-
nomena.

IV

The study of magnetoidal phenomena, also, lends it-
self to experimentation, especially if the experimenter
possess, in a sufficient degree, the force or special apti-
tude necessary to produce them.

Perhaps, it is quite true, subjects capable of present-
ing these phenomena and of reacting under the influence
of this force — subjects really magnetic — are more
rare than hypnotizable or auggestionable subjects. On
the other hand, phenomena of animal magnetism are
much less easy to simulate than phenomena of sugges-
tion.

Unfortunately, in almost all experiments up to the

60 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

present time, little effort has been made to dissociate
these two orders of phenomena, which accompany each
other almost inevitably, and are, moreover, capable of
counterfeiting and substituting each other. Sugges-
tion, in particular, tends to slip surreptitiously into
all the parapsychic phenomena. This is why it is nec-
essary to have a special technique which shall rigorously
exclude suggestion from all experiments having for
their real object the study of the magnetic force and
its diverse manifestations.

In Our Hidden Forces we indicated the essential
principles of that technique. They can be summarized
by saying that they consist in the complete isolation of
the subject upon whom the experiment is being made:

First, by removing all possibility of his seeing what
happens about him.

Second, by observing, and having others observe,
before, during, and after the experiment, an absolute
silence.

Third, by acting only at a distance, without con-
tact, through the supposed radiation of some organ of
the operator, principally the hand.

And if vital-radiation does exist, nothing can prove
that human beings alone are sensible to it. It is possi-
ble that it acts also — in an objective, therefore observ-
able, manner — upon animals, upon plants, and upon
certain material objects. Thus there arises the possi-
bility of a new series of experiments, either to estab-
lish the reality of this force, or to determine its effects
and conditions.

What a vast field this study of magnetoidal phe-
nomena offers to the experimenter !

AUTOMATIC WRITING

The subject shown here is in the waking state, writing under the
influence of the magnetic radiation from the operator's hand.

HOW TO EXPERIMENT 61

There is, however, in this field of research, a part to
which access seems almost entirely closed. It is that
of telepsychism, or at least of its most characteristic
forms : clairvoyance, mental suggestion, and telepathy.

What position can the experimenter take in regard
to clairvoyance? Once having provoked it by his sug-
gestions, his role becomes nothing more than that of
an observer. As yet we cannot see how he could in-
tervene in the phenomenon so as to take its mechanism
apart and place it together again.

In the same way it would appear that, as mental
suggestion usually works between the subconsciousness
of the operator and the subconsciousness of the sub-
ject, the will of the experimenter, in making an effort
to provoke the phenomenon, thereby hinders its produc-
tion. The old saying: " Seek it, it runs away from
you ; run from it, it will seek you ! " may be applied to
this case. If this is actually its nature, as those who
suspect its latent presence in almost all the parapsychic
phenomena affirm, then mental suggestion (thus im-
properly named) not only refuses to lend itself to ex-
perimentation, but introduces an element of uncertainty
in all parapsychic experimentation in general. It still
remains to be known, it is true, if this conception of
mental suggestion entirely conforms to reality.

As to the facts of telepathy, we are compelled to
register them as they occur. There does not seem to
exist, as yet, in spite of numerous attempts made, posi-
tive and reliable means which experimenters can use
for the provocation of telepathy at will.

It is easy to understand, however, that experimenta-
tion has a marked place in hyloscopy; for it is a ques-

62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

tion there of studying the effects produced by material
agents upon the nervous system of subjects apt to re-
veal them because of their exceptionally fine sensibility.

The spiritoidal phenomena, in spite of their con-
trary appearances, do not lend themselves well to ex-
perimentation. They are, above all, spontaneous phe-
nomena— which, it is true, we can try to provoke at
will in certain conditions: for example, in assembling
a number of persons about a table upon which they put
their hands in a state of expectation. But they are
merely waiting for the phenomenon, without knowing
if it will be produced or how it will be produced. Is
this really the way to experiment? Is it not rather to
observe, or simply to seek to observe? This is the
staging of almost all the pretended experiments in
spiritism.

It is precisely this spontaneity of the spiritoidal phe-
nomena — spontaneite irreductible — which causes
spiritists to attribute them to the action of intelligent
entities, of invisible operators residing in the world of
the Beyond. If this hypothesis be admitted, is it not
evident that the role of experimenter belongs effectively
to these entities, in which case our role must be con-
fined to that of simple observer?

Perhaps this situation is only temporary. It may
be that future discoveries will reverse these roles. In
the present state of our knowledge, however, it must
be admitted that our experimental capacity in the mat-
ter of spiritism is singularly limited. In the case of
" haunting " phenomena it is reduced to zero. In

HOW TO EXPERIMENT 63

mediumistic phenomena it is limited to placing the
mediums in the conditions supposed to be the most fa-
vorable for the manifestation of their powers, noting
and observing the phenomena, more especially when
they are of an intellectual order. Experimentation
can then be of positive value when considering phe-
nomena of a physical order, especially if, as is probable,
these phenomena obey the great law of psychic conduct-
ibility.

To summarize : It is possible to experiment in the
fields of hypnotism, cryptopsychism, animal magnetism,
and hyloscopy. Experimentation is impossible, or
extremely difficult, in the domains of metagnomy, men-
tal suggestion, telepathy, and spiritism, where indirect
observation plays too great a part.

And we shall remain in this position until some prac-
tical means of producing these phenomena at will shall
be discovered.

CHAPTER V

THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS

I

THE hypothesis, as Claude Bernard has definitely
established, is the great pivot of the experimental
method. All real experimentation is brought into be-
ing and directed by an hypothesis, the aim of which is
to verify it. In natural science, however, the hypothe-
sis is legitimate only when its purpose is primarily to
arouse and direct experimentation.

This is the modern conception of the experimental
method, so essentially different from that which Bacon
and even Stuart Mill had previously elaborated.

We have shown, in the preceding chapter, that the
application of this method is not possible — at least
at the present time — in all branches of the psychical
sciences, inasmuch as a general condition of it is the
possibility for the savant to intervene actively in the
production of the phenomena which he studies — either
in order to create them, or to modify them, from the
point of view of quantity as well as from that of qual-
ity. Now, this condition is not actually fulfilled in
many branches of psychical research, where the savant
is reduced to mere observation, and often, indeed, to
indirect observation.

Where this condition does exist, however, let us
examine the connections between the four processes of

64

THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 65

the experimental method in the psychical sciences.
And especially let us note the place and the role which
should be assigned to the hypothesis.

II

To illustrate our point, we shall give an example
which we already have used :

We have seen a man place his hands, for several
moments, against the shoulder-blades of another per-
son, then withdraw them slowly; and this latter has
appeared to be attracted backward more or less vio-
lently.

This is an observation. We have repeated it many
times ; we have tried to apperceive the different partic-
ularities as exactly and completely as possible; and we
have given a full and faithful description of it. We
might easily multiply ad infinitum observations of this
kind ; but in so doing we could not go beyond the limits
of pure empiricism.

Wishing to ascertain if we too can produce this phe-
nomenon, we apply our hands to the shoulder-blades of
another, and establish the fact that it determines a sort
of attraction.

Strictly speaking, this might be called an experiment;
but this experiment has, in reality, the same signification
and the same value as an observation ; it is what we may
call a provoked observation. Nevertheless, it has a
very great importance. For it is this which makes
possible the application of the experimental method to
the study of this phenomenon ; it is this which leads the
way to true experimentation.

What must we do, in order to pass from this first

66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

stage — the stage of observation — to the second, and
enter effectively the domain of the experimental
method ?

First of all, it is necessary that a question be formed
in our mind, and then that we imagine an answer to
that question.

That one person attracts, or appears to attract, an-
other by the imposition of the hands upon the shoulder-
blades is a fact that we have proved, or, better, that we
ourselves have provoked. But if this fact is not
changed by us into a problem, it remains sterile, use-
less, from the point of view of scientific and experi-
mental research.

How is this attraction possible? On what condi-
tions does it depend? By what mechanism is it pro-
duced?

This problem, in its turn, must suggest to us a pos-
sible solution; and it is this possible solution which is
really the experimental hypothesis.

For example, we can suppose that the attraction, real
or apparent, is caused ( i ) by the fatigue of the indi-
vidual, resulting from the more or less prolonged
standing — that he unconsciously leans against the
hands of the operator; or (2) by the loss of equilibrium
which the withdrawing of the hands determines; or
(3) by the involuntary suggestion which results from
the conditions of the experiment; or (4) by an effec-
tive action, of a nature yet unknown, but really radiant,
which the hands have the property of projecting.

If we hesitate to compare these hypotheses among
themselves, to enumerate them, to weigh the reality

THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 67

and the unreality of each of them, or even if, in choos-
ing one to the exclusion of all the others, we endeavor,
by reasoning only, constructing and complicating it by
additional hypotheses, to demonstrate that this is the
sole possible solution to the problem, we shall only
turn our back upon the real experimental method, and
we shall not arrive at any positive result.

How, then, shall we proceed?

First of all, it is evident that, among the diverse
solutions or hypotheses possible, we must choose one,
at least tentatively. This once chosen, we must de-
termine by deductive reasoning, the consequences which
we may be able then to submit to the control of the
experiment. This phase — of capital importance —
is what Claude Bernard called experimental reasoning.
It is at this moment that the mind decides upon the
plan of future experiments: (i) If the phenomenon
depends upon certain supposed conditions, it cannot be
produced if these conditions be suppressed. (2) The
phenomenon can be produced if these specified condi-
tions be realized, regardless of all other circumstances.
(3) If the conditions be modified in a given way, the
phenomenon will be found modified correspondingly.

The savant can at the beginning write down on
paper an outline of the combinations, and then try to
realize them, one by one. These, according to the
extent of his success, will either confirm or refute the
hypothesis being put to the test.

There is here wholly an intellectual work, where
the imagination plays as great a part as, and sometimes
greater than, reasoning; as is the case also in mathe-

68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

matics, where the solution of the problem is often a
matter of imaginative ingenuity as much as, or more
than, of deductive rigor.

This ingenuity, this sagacity of the savant, is mani-
fested in the choice, among a more or less large num-
ber of hypotheses, of that one which will lead him
most directly and surely to some important and de-
cisive discovery. " It is," said Claude Bernard, " a
particular sentiment, a quid proprium, which consti-
tutes the originality, the invention, or the genius of
each experimenter."

Thus, in the example cited a moment ago, an ex-
perienced researcher will not waste much time in con-
sidering the hypotheses of fatigue or of the loss of
equilibrium; he will devote his attention immediately
to the hypothesis of suggestion or that of magnetoidal
action, and all his effort will be bent upon deciding,
by a series of appropriate experiments, which of these
two accord, to the exclusion of the other, with all the
particularities of the fact.

in

According to Claude Bernard, there are no rules
that will enable us to create in the brain, apropos of an
observation made, a just and fruitful idea which may
be for the experimenter a sort of intuitive anticipation
of the mind toward a successful research. When the
idea is once gained, we can show how it is necessary to
submit it to definite precepts and precise and logical
rules. But its conception has been wholly spontaneous
and its nature wholly individual.

Although it is not possible to anticipate the details

THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 69

of the hypotheses that will cause the savant to observe
a certain particular fact, it seems possible to us, at least
in psychical research, to determine the order in which
these hypotheses will range themselves; and conse-
quently the foreknowledge of this order will itself serve
to guide the researcher through the labyrinth of the
phenomena.

They constitute, in effect, the general hypotheses im-
plicitly included in the particular hypotheses which up
to this point have been the only ones regarded. They
are, it might be said, the abstract and schematic for-
mulae to which these latter can be reduced and which
are found again in them, but clothed in concrete cir-
cumstances which complicate and diversify them.

We shall not consider here these general hypotheses
in their rapport with the experimental method; but it
is certain that they have been and are still considered
by many from a wholly different point of view — as
theories subsisting and having value of themselves,
without necessary relation to the experimental method,
as explanations permitting the rational coordination of
a whole ensemble of phenomena which otherwise would
remain an enigma incomprehensible to the human mind.

Is it necessary to state once more that such a point
of view, although admissible when it is a question of
sciences relatively far advanced in experimental knowl-
edge of the facts being studied, seems absolutely un-
tenable in an order of researches as imperfect, as rudi-
mentary, as that which has for its object the para-
psychic phenomena ?

Theories of this nature can find a place only at the
point of arrival of investigations patiently and success-

70 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

fully conducted. In the parapsychic sciences we have
scarcely left the point of departure.

Let us guard, then, against theorizing, and not take
these general hypotheses for more than they really are
— simple tools to be employed in the field of experi-
mentation, and utterly valueless if put to any other

IV

It will not be without interest to review these differ-
ent hypotheses, as they are encountered at each step,
immediately the domain of the psychical sciences is
entered. It is comparatively easy to recognize each of
them under the modifications brought about by the
diversity of uses to which each is susceptible.

Most often, these hypotheses consist in an extension
to new facts of a general law or proposition of which
the truth has already been recognized by other facts.
It may be, for example, the hypotheses of illusion and
simulation, which are frequently invoked by a number
of savants in order to produce the most marvelous, the
most improbable, phenomena. There are numerous
and circumstantiated narrations of these in the litera-
ture of mesmerists, occultists, and spiritists. That in a
given case there may be illusion or simulation is not
an hypothesis; it is a fact already proved. But that
in other cases, in all cases, there may be nothing more
than illusion or simulation — this cannot be affirmed
without forming in itself an hypothesis ; and it is justly
this hypothesis which it will be well to prove, not
merely by the logic of reasoning, but, if possible, by
experimental verification.

THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 71

Similarly, suggestion, cryptopsychism, and even, al-
though less surely, the transmission of thought (com-
monly called mental suggestion) are not, when taken in
themselves, hypotheses. They are facts, in the sense
that it has been positively established, in definite cases,
that suggestion, cryptopsychism, the transmission of
thought, really exist. But they become hypotheses
when one supposes their intervention in other cases
where their existence is not at all manifest and where
it can only be believed that it is possible.

At other times, the hypothesis consists in the intro-
duction of a new general law or proposition, of which
the truth is entirely problematic, but which is more or
less analogous to some general law or proposition of
which the truth is incontestably known in another order
of knowledge. Thus we know, in physics, that the
magnet attracts iron ; but we have no proof in physiol-
ogy that a human organism can similarly exert an at-
tractive action upon another organism. If, then, in
order to explain the process of Moutin, we suppose a
magnetic action emanating from the operator and influ-
encing the nervous system of the subject, we shall have
an hypothesis bearing not only upon the existence of
a law already known but upon the introduction of a
law still unknown.

In a similar way, we know that the human intelli-
gence and the human will produce, through the medium
of human organs, certain effects directly observable;
but we have no proof that these same effects can be
produced by other intelligences and other wills, with-
out organs or through the medium of other organs.
To suppose that this happens in certain cases is to in-

72 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

troduce a new law, and not simply to extend an old
law to these new cases.

There can, then, it seems, be distinguished in this
order of researches two categories of hypotheses :

(1) Inductive hypotheses. Those that lead hypo-
thetically from certain facts to other facts which ap-
pear to be of the same kind.

(2) Analogical hypotheses. Those that consist in
applying by analogy to a certain order of facts a law
similar to that which governs another order of facts.

Looked at from the point of view of strict logic, it is
evident that the inductive hypotheses must be pre-
ferred to the hypotheses by analogy. Recourse to the
latter, a logician would readily say, is not permissible
except when it is absolutely impossible to make the
facts agree with the inductive hypotheses. And with-
out doubt the experimenter would be wrong in dis-
regarding the logician's indication. But from the
point of view of the experimental method, which is
necessarily his own, the fecundity of the hypotheses is
a quality as valuable as their truth. The discovery of
new facts and of new rapports is much more important
in the experimenter's eyes than the explanation of the
facts and the rapports already known.

It would seem, therefore, that analogical hypotheses,
which permit us to open new chapters in the book of
Nature, are from this point of view — all things being
equal — more favorable to the enlargement of science
than inductive hypotheses, which permit us merely to
add new paragraphs, new " items," to the chapters al-
ready open.

THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 73

These hypotheses, however, appear to us to be
purely logical, and to lend themselves badly to the reg-
ular applications of the experimental method. In their
relation to this method they are, it might be said, re-
strictive and negative hypotheses : such, for example, as
those hypotheses which ally all the parapsychic phe-
nomena to illusion or simulation.

Certainly the experimenter must always have in
mind the possibility of one or the other of these hypoth-
eses; but they must be excluded after control, as it is
only after this exclusion that he can effectively experi-
ment under the direction of positive hypotheses. If he
undertook his researches with the intention of reduc-
ing systematically to illusion or to simulation all the
facts which he will study, he would close to himself the
road to experimentation. Would not such disposition
of mind be equivalent, in effect, to declaring that, inas-
much as the parapsychic phenomena are all illusory
and simulated, these pretended phenomena do not
really exist, and that consequently it is useless and even
impossible to make them the object of scientific inves-
tigation?

This appears evident to us regarding the hypothesis
of illusion.

As to the hypothesis of simulation, it is true that
the experimenter could aim to see if it is not possible
to simulate experimentally the different hypnoidal,
magnetoidal and spiritoidal phenomena, reported by
other observers or experimenters as authentic. Here,

74 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

certainly, is a whole series of attempts which it will
well be worth the trouble to undertake, especially in
order to be able to determine precisely which are, in
the ensemble of these phenomena, those which can be
simulated and those which cannot; and also in what
conditions and to what extent this simulation is pos-
sible, when it is present. It is certain, for example,
that the greater part of the phenomena of hypnotism
and of suggestion can be simulated with the utmost
ease; although there exist, perhaps, means (of which
it would be interesting to make a special study) to dis-
tinguish the " paste " from the " diamond." But the
conclusions which could be drawn from this work, even
in supposing them favorable to the hypothesis, would
advance the question but little; for the fact that a
certain phenomenon can be simulated does not neces-
sarily mean that it cannot equally exist also in an
authentic form.

Yet the partizans of the hypotheses of illusion and
simulation refrain ordinarily from entering the experi-
mental field, being content to reason in the abstract and
a priori; they treat the problem not as experimenters
but as dlalectitians. Their argumentation consists first
in showing, by the analysis of a certain number of cases
reported by other observers, the presence of illusion or
fraud; and then in inferring, without any further infor-
mation, that all other cases of the same kind could be
analyzed in the same way, that an identical result would
be arrived at infallibly in all cases similar to the one
under discussion. According to this stereotyped-reas-
oning, the troublesome obligation to examine the enig-
mas raised by the parapsychic phenomena is removed

THE ROLE OF THE HYPOTHESIS 75

once for all. This " simple previous question " is all
that is required to bring these phenomena en bloc to the
door of science.

But those who employ this convenient artifice of pro-
cedure must fully realize that it has nothing to do with
the experimental method.

VI

It is necessary that we review the principal positive
hypotheses to which the psychical sciences can and do
have effective recourse, in order to apply to the diverse
orders of phenomena the processes of the experimental
method.

These hypotheses, which are indissolubly linked to
experimentation, in place of being, as the preceding,
mere matter for argumentation, require a certain pre-
vious knowledge, both theoretical and practical, not
only of the most general difficulties opposed to experi-
mentation by the very nature of the phenomena, 4but
also, and above all, a knowledge of the best means to
overcome these difficulties.

Before beginning the study of the positive hypoth-
eses, we shall discuss this necessary preliminary knowl-
edge of the difficulties and of the means of overcoming
them.

CHAPTER VI

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES

I

THE first, and not the least, of the difficulties pre-
sented by the study of the parapsychic phenomena is
that these phenomena are not produced in an ordinary
way, but allow themselves to be perceived only rarely
and in. exceptional and abnormal circumstances. The
truth is that, in order to study them, it usually is neces-
sary for us to provoke them ourselves, artificially. But
here experimentation encounters a new difficulty. The
same processes do not succeed with all subjects, nor in
all circumstances.

The most disconcerting character of these phenom-
ena is their irregularity. One may well endeavor to
observe, each time, identical conditions; but sometimes
the phenomena manifest themselves at the least effort,
while at other times they obstinately remain invisible,
to the extent that we almost doubt their possibility.
We are here, it seems, in the domain of the unexpected
and the indeterminate.

If we consider, in particular, the simplest phenomena,
those which are as the first links of the parapsychic
series — the phenomena of hypnotism and suggestion
— we establish the fact that, although they are more
frequent and in some ways more accessible than the

76

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 77

others, they are themselves also subject to the most
incoherent exceptions and inexplicable caprices.1

The School of Nancy claims, it is true, that all human
beings are suggestionable and hypnotizable. But that
assertion remains purely theoretical; practise shows us
that the same maneuvers, applied to different individ-
uals, with the aim of suggestioning or hypnotizing
them, produce immediate and surprising results with
some, while with others they fail miserably.

Let us remember, however, that electrical phenomena
presented the same appearance at the beginning. The
laws which regulated them could be ascertained only
when they could be produced experimentally: that is,
when the savants could distinguish among natural
bodies those which conserve and condense electricity,
once produced, and those which conduct it and disperse
it instantaneously.

So, among human beings, it is an incontestable al-
though still inexplicable fact that some are naturally
apt to present the phenomena of hypnotism and sug-
gestion immediately they are submitted to the influ-
ence, while others are, or appear to be, incapable of
this mode of reaction.

How can we explain this difference in the effects of
causes apparently identical?

Undoubtedly, it is due to some profound difference
in the physical and moral constitution of the human
beings submitted to the experiment; but its nature is

1 Charles Richet, in L'homme et I'intelligence, says: "All that is
observed is inconstant, irregular, mobile. There is no fixed rule; the
phenomena observed vary with each observer and with each subject.
That which is announced is not produced, and that which is not an-
nounced is produced."

78 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

absolutely unknown to us, and the words hysteria, nerv-
ousness, weakness of temperament or of will, often
heard in popular phraseology, serve only to mask our
ignorance. Not until we shall know precisely in what
this difference consists, until we shall know in an ac-
curate and positive manner the necessary and sufficient
conditions which determine the special sensibility of
certain individuals and the apparent insensibility of
others — not until then will the science of psychical
phenomena be definitely established. It will then
cease to be in great part empirical and become really
experimental.

But while waiting for this decisive evolution, it
would be very useful to be able to distinguish at once,
from among a certain number of individuals, those
who are susceptible of presenting the parapsychic phe-
nomena, at least in its elementary forms, and those who
are not. Really, these phenomena exist in many more
people than is ordinarily believed. But we do not
know, or we know only imperfectly, how to discern
that potentiality when it does exist; and it is this
which hinders us from actualizing it at will.

The first question, then, which arises when the ex-
perimental study of the psychical sciences is begun, is
this:

How shall we discover, from among human beings,
those who are capable of manifesting the parapsychic
phenomena, — those who are " subjects "?

In other words, the first point to be considered is the
finding of the subjects themselves.

There is no special term to designate the quality of
the subjects: that is, the condition or the ensemble of

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 79

conditions which makes them subjects. In spiritoidal
phenomena, we have the word mediumistic, which cor-
responds to the word medium; but usage does not per-
mit us to employ the word subjectivity (used in philos-
ophy with a wholly different meaning) to correspond to
the word subject. As a special term seems to us abso-
lutely indispensable, and as the most general charac-
teristic that the subjects present is their more or less
great obedience to suggestion, we shall employ, for
want of a better term, the word suggestibility, to desig-
nate in a general manner the aptitude to manifest the
parapsychic phenomena — the most complex as well as
the most elementary.

Two objections can be made to the choice of this
word : one of a simple form, another which goes much
deeper.

First of all, it can be observed, with Durand de
Gros, that the word suggestible cannot be applied cor-
rectly to persons. An act — flight, for example, > or
murder — can be suggested, and is therefore suggesti-
ble; but when it is a question of a person, it must be
said that he can be suggestioned or that he is sugges-
tionable. The correct term, then, would be sugges-
tionability. But this word seems too ponderous, too
cumbersome; and, moreover, the question has less in-
terest for us than for grammarians and lexicographers.

The second and more serious objection is that any
such denomination seems to belong to the three or
four great theories which have been proposed by the
interpretation the phenomena present in the subjects,
and about which opinion is still divided among the
savants engaged in this study. These theories are:

8o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

suggestion, hypnotism, animal magnetism, and telep-
athy or mental suggestion.

We believe that each of these four interpretations
has its share of reality. Each of them responds more
particularly to a certain category of phenomena.
There are subjects, perhaps the most numerous, in
whom all happens in conformity with the theory of sug-
gestion as professed by the School of Nancy. There
are others who verify the assertions of the School of
the Salpetriere, which has especially defended the the-
ory of hypnotism. There are still others in whom are
observed certain phenomena inexplicable by the hypoth-
eses of these two Schools and which seem to justify
those of the partizans of animal magnetism and telep-
athy.

From this, at least four types of subjects would be
possible :

1. The suggestible (or suggestionable).

2. The hypnotic (or hypnotizable).

3. The magnetic or mesmeric (magnetizable or

mesmerizable).

4. The telepathic subject.

But in practise, let us hasten to say, it is very rare
to find subjects who offer each of these types in a state
of absolute purity: almost always a suggestible subject
is also hynotizable, and vice versa; in an experiment
where the operator believes he is employing nothing
but suggestion or hypnotism, very often animal mag-
netism or telepathy intervenes unconsciously. Unless
special measures of extraordinary precision and deli-
cacy be employed, it is almost impossible to determine

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 81

in each particular case the exact part of each of these
agents.

In employing the word suggestibility to designate the
quality of the subjects, we shall use the word in the
most general sense; it will signify for us susceptibility
to hypnotic, magnetic (mesmeric), or telepathic influ-
ences, as well as to suggestive influences, except to dis-
tinguish, in its place, the different specific modalities
of that general susceptibility.

II

Are there any signs or processes, any reactives,
which enable us to discover suggestibility thus under-
stood : that is to say, the general aptitude to present the
parapsychic phenomena?

First, let us consider the easily observable physiog-
nomic signs.

1 i) Subjects, it is sometimes said, are individuals of
nervous or lymphatic temperament. In admitting .that
this may be true, it would be necessary to know by what
indications these two temperaments may be recognized.
The question thus is carried back a step, not solved.
Then, if subjects are most often nervous or lymphatic,
does it follow that all people who are nervous or lym-
phatic may be subjects?

(2) The magnetizer, Charles Lafontaine, claims to
have discovered that all persons who have bulging eyes
are subjects; but, lacking necessary proof to the con-
trary, it is very difficult to know that this generaliza-
tion is true.

(3) The impression is received, in the presence of

82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

many subjects, that there is a particular characteristic
in the look in their eyes. But it is more easy to feel
this peculiar characteristic, this something, than it is
to define it; it is, it might be said, a humid and cloudy
eclal, a light shining behind a darkened glass. But
how could we make practical use of an indication so
vague?

(4) It is claimed that any one whose ear, deprived
of the lobe, is directly fastened to the cheek, is infal-
libly a subject. It does not appear, however, that an
extended observation would verify this generaliza-
tion.

(5) There is a similar pretension regarding a cer-
tain form of thumb : thick, short, and rounded.

(6) It is often claimed that subjects have moist
hands; or have the habit of biting their nails. But can
it be concluded that all those who have the habit of
biting their nails are subjects?

" Certain favorable conditions,*' says Charles Richet
in L'homme et I' intelligence, " can be determined with
sufficient precision. Women are more sensitive than
men. Regarding the age, I believe that children can
be put to sleep; but I have never attempted the ex-
periment with very young subjects, as I did not wish
to create in them a nervous state that would not be
without inconvenience. ... I have put to sleep young
girls of seventeen to eighteen. But that age would not
seem to be the most favorable. It appears that the
best age would be from twenty-five to forty years. As
to the very old, I believe that they are extremely re-
bellious to magnetism. I have succeeded in putting
to sleep a woman sixty years old; but in her the sleep

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 83

has never been complete, and the symptoms have had
little interest. Nervous temperaments are, as will
easily be concluded, more susceptible than others. In
general, small women, brunettes, with black eyes, black
hair, heavy eyebrows, are the most favorable subjects.
However, experiments have succeeded very well with
pale and lymphatic women, and have failed with very
nervous persons. In sleep, the delicate women, nerv-
ous, languid, afflicted with a chronic malady or con-
valescent, are certainly, more than all others, apt to
react to the influence of magnetism."

It can be seen that these indications, although given
by one of the leading scientists in this field, are never-
theless vague, and difficult to utilize in practise. Be-
sides, it does not seem to us absolutely sure that women
may be, as is affirmed, more sensitive than men. Ex-
periments which have been made up to the present time
have been, in the great majority, with women, and it is
consequently very natural that those who made, the
experiments have considered women more sensitive
than men. To obtain certainty in this matter, it would
be necessary to have experiments and comparative sta-
tistics infinitely more numerous and more precise than
all those which have existed thus far.

In view of the lack of easily observable signs, vari-
ous kinds of apparatus have been devised to reveal sug-
gestibility, as the thermometer reveals temperature.

Dr. Ochorowicz has proposed his hypnoscope, a
magnetic steel tube which is put on the finger like a
ring. Any one who feels marked sensations of chill,
of numbness, etc., is, it is said, suggestible and hypno-
tizable. But Dr. Crocq, Jr., of Brussels, declares

84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

that he has never observed any constant action with
this apparatus, and that everything has always de-
pended upon autosuggestion.

The sensitivometer of Durville, a curved magnetic
steel bar which is placed round the wrist, the negative
pole being put beside the thumb, does not appear to
give many very sure indications.

Dr. Gaston Durville has conceived an ingenious em-
ployment of a dynamometer to reveal, and at the same
time measure, the suggestibility. Under the name of
suggestometer, he describes an ordinary medical dyna-
mometer, a simple ellipsoidal steel spring, provided on
one side with a needle, on tne other with a " scale of
sensibility." This scale was established after numer-
ous experiments (560), and permitted the classification
of people into five categories, according as their sensibil-
ity is neuropathic, very great, great, medium, or nil.
The subject takes the apparatus in his strongest hand
and squeezes it with his maximum effort. After a few
moments of rest, the suggestion is given him, during
almost a minute or two, that his arm becomes weak,
numb; and he is then asked to squeeze the apparatus
again. According as the muscular force sinks to zero,
decreases three-fourths, one-half, one-quarter, or re-
mains constant, he is placed in one of the five categories
indicated.

Unfortunately, the employment of this apparatus is
not always practical, because it is hardly possible to
have recourse to it without the subject's being aware of
the proof to which he is to be submitted, and without
his giving his consent It would be necessary for us to

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 85

have a method which would permit us to recognize
subjects without their knowledge.

ill

What we need, then, is a reactive which can be ap-
plied easily, without the subject's knowledge, almost
without attracting his attention, and which will reveal
his latent susceptibility, positive or negative, with re-
gard to psychical influences.

We should be able thus to divide individuals into
good and bad conductors of these influences, just as in
physics material bodies have been divided into good
and bad conductors of electricity.

This reactive has been found to exist. It was dis-
covered by Dr. Moutin (of Boulogne-sur-Seine), a
well-known observer and experimenter of the highest
order. Scientists, however, are not sufficiently famil-
iar with it; and physicians, in particular, who should
employ it constantly, are wholly ignorant of its exist-
ence, or know it only vaguely and attach no importance
to it.

Here, briefly, is the process of Moutin:

The experimenter stands behind the person in whom
he wishes to determine the sensibility, and applies
against his back, on a level with the shoulder-blades,
the palms of his two hands, fully extended, the two
thumbs meeting over one of the vertebrae of the spinal
column. After a few seconds of application, the hands
are slowly drawn backward. If the person follows the
movement of the hands, to which his back seems to
adhere, or which appear to attract it with an irresist-

86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

ible force, he can be considered as " presenting the sign
of Moutin," at least in the first degree. In a greater
degree, he is drawn and forced backward, even when
the hands do not touch the shoulder-blades and are
separated by a distance of 10, 20, 30, or 40 centimeters.
If this application of the hands be prolonged, a sensa-
tion of intense heat, almost of burning, will be experi-
enced by some individuals. Also, if instead of apply-
ing the two hands, only the palm of the right hand
be applied at the nape of the neck, the effect produced
will be essentially the same.

Dr. Moutin has related, in his thesis, Le diagnostic
de la suggestibility how he discovered his process :

One day, in 1878, he was walking with a friend in
the outskirts of the town of Orange. The two stopped
at the edge of a field, and, in leaning over to watch
an insect, Dr. Moutin unconsciously put his hand on
the back of his friend's neck. Suddenly the friend ex-
claimed :

" Take your hand away ! You are burning my neck
with your cigarette."

Surprised, Dr. Moutin answered: " But I have no
cigarette."

And after showing his empty hand, he placed it once
again on his friend's neck.

" This," said he, " is the position in which we were
a moment ago."

" It is strange," replied the friend, " but I still feel
your hand burning me."

Removing his hand, Dr. Moutin, with increasing sur-
prise, saw his friend totter, as if he had lost his equi-
librium, and almost fall backward.

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 87

Being already acquainted with hypnotism and ani-
mal magnetism, he suspected the probable signification
of this singular phenomenon, and asked the brother of
his friend, the director of a large paper factory, to let
him try some experiments upon a number of the work-
ers. Two hundred subjects, men and women, were
put at his disposal. Out of about fifty upon whom he
experimented, thirty presented, in varying degrees, the
same symptoms of attraction, of sensations more or
less abnormal, etc., and were thus revealed to be sug-
gestible or hypnotizable in different degrees. Dr.
Moutin was able also to note the opposition, the
strongly characterized duality, of the individual reac-
tions provoked by his process, and the relation existing
between a distinctly positive reaction and the real sus-
ceptibility to suggestion or hypnotic influence.

An objection to the current employment of this
method might be that, when the person in whom the
research is made knows in advance the object of the ex-
perimenter, it is possible for him either to simulate or at
least to exaggerate the action, or, on the contrary, to
suppress it by voluntary resistance. And how can he
be prevented from knowing the purpose of the opera-
tion, when he sees that the observer stands behind him
and places his hands upon his shoulder-blades?

This objection loses its value when the process of
Moutin, which should be called the neurocritic process,
is applied by a physician. For he can always combine,
without informing the patient, the application of this
process with that of the classical and customary proc-
esses of auscultation, percussion, palpation, etc. Not
seeing in the neurocritic process anything more than a

88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

phase of a general examination to which he is sub-
mitted, and not having any reason to distinguish it
especially from the others, the patient will react with
entire spontaneity and good faith.

A variation of this process, which I recently discov-
ered, escapes this objection entirely. It may be ap-
plied not only to patients by physicians, but, to some
extent, to every one and by any one. It is this :

Standing face to face with the person with whom you
are conversing, place your right hand on his left shoul-
der (or inversely), either as a gesture of friendly fa-
miliarity or under the pretext of examining more closely
some part of his features. Think, then, as strongly as
possible that he will lean forward or backward. In
the well-known experiment of the pendulum of Chev-
reul, it suffices to " think " the movement of the pen-
dulum in a certain direction; and so, in order to move
the subject unconsciously in the direction thought, an
infinitesimal push given to the body of an individual
whose nervous system is particularly sensitive becomes
immediately intensified a hundredfold and determines
in the subject an irresistible movement of attraction or
of repulsion, as if he were a veritable living pendulum.
This experiment will be still more convincing if the
attraction or the repulsion continues to be produced
even without contact, following the movements of the
hands of the operator held some centimeters above the
shoulder.

Can it be concluded from this that there exist in
human beings, from the particular point of view of par-
apsychic susceptibility, two opposed types of tempera-
ment: (i) the moutinien or pendular type, which is

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 89

that of subjects suggestible and hynotizable in varying
degrees; and (2) the non-moutinien or rigid type, that
of individuals more or less completely refractory to all
hypnotic or suggestive influence ?

IV

The discovery of Dr. Moutin has been very little
utilized, except by professional hypnotists and mesmer-
ists, whom it served to show quickly in a mass of spec-
tators the subjects susceptible of experimentation.

But it has a much greater importance, if we con-
sider the part that it may play in psychical research;
not to mention other manifold applications that could
be made of it, whether to ordinary psychology, to his-
tory, pedagogy, to the diverse moral sciences, or to
psycho-therapeutics and medicine in general.

Viewed as an instrument of research, the process of
Moutin opens to those who employ it methodically an
unlimited field of experimentation, as it permits, them
to find an indefinite number of subjects in a manner ex-
tremely simple and rapid. A few seconds of light
pressure of the hand upon the back or upon the shoul-
der suffices to reveal the parapsychic potentialities, pos-
itive or negative, of any person whatsoever, thus pre-
venting delay in the preliminary attempts at hypnotiza-
tion, which are of:en unfruitful, and are fatiguing for
the operator as well as for the subject.

One of the most interesting problems that arises at
the beginning of psychical research is this :

In what proportion are individuals apt to present
the parapsychic phenomena — at least under the most
elementary forms, suggestion and hypnotism — en-

90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

countered in the human race? And how is this apti-
tude apportioned among them according to sex, age,
temperament, state of health or illness, etc. ?

It is, we believe, through the general and systematic
employment of the process of Moutin, onty, that the
establishment of statistics bearing upon a great num-
ber of individuals will give us an exact solution to the
problem.

Even, however, at the same time tha^ this process
constitutes for researchers a valuable Instrument of
study, it can and must itself be for them the object of
a special study; for it opens up a whole /series of prob-
lems to which the experimental methoq appears to be
directly applicable.

What causes this singular phenomenon of the ap-
parent attraction of one individual for another?

If it is the sign of suggestibility, in what measure is
it also the effect?

Is it exclusively a function of the individuality of the
subject, or does it depend equally uyon that of the
operator?

Is it capable of undergoing variations; and, if so,
under the influence of what causes?

Besides the indications which it ghis of parapsychic
susceptibility, does it produce in the/ nervous state or
in the mental state of the individuals, modifications
more or less profound, more or less durable, although
perhaps latent, that it would be possible to bring into
evidence by the employment of appropriate means?

It cannot be doubted that the solution of these dif-
ferent problems would throw a brirht light upon the
question, even if controversed, of me nature and the

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 91

rapports of suggestion, hypnotism, and animal mag-
netism.

On the other hand, it will be understood that knowl-
edge of the different degrees of suggestibility presents
considerable interest for ordinary psychology, history,
and in general for all the moral sciences, if it be re-
flected that, contrary to common opinion, suggestibility
is not an exceptional attribute of some rare subjects,
but exists in a very great number, perhaps even in the
greater number, of human beings.

Its importance is no less from the point of view of
pedagogy. " Logical education," said Dr. Berillon,
" would consist in utilizing the best part of the mental
malleability — that is to say, of the suggestibility;
and in order to obtain that result it would be well to
exercise over the minds only such pressure as is strictly
necessary. We should take into account the interest
that educators would have in knowing of processes per-
mitting them to appreciate precisely the mental malle-
ability of each of their pupils. The result would be,
certainly, the proportioning of the pressure upon the
mind of the child in accordance with the extent of his
resistance. What sterile efforts, what erroneous judg-
ments, and also what inconsiderate chastisements would
thus be averted ! "

Similarly, from the social and juridical points of
view, the question of criminal responsibility, and that
of human testimony, change their aspects singularly
according to the extent that one knows or ignores
suggestibility in human beings.

From the medical point of view, we have only to
consider the enormous part played by suggestion and

92 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

autosuggestion in both the production and the curing of
ills, to understand how much it means to the physician
to have a practical method for diagnosing the suggesti-
bility of patients. If there is an exaggeration to pre-
tend, as the School of Nancy was inclined to do, that
suggestion is the sole agent, or even the principal
agent, of all therapeutic efficacy, it must no less be
recognized, with Charcot, that in a great number of
patients " the faith that cures " is the best of remedies.
The question, then, that all physicians must raise each
time they find themselves in the presence of a new
patient is this:

14 Does he belong to the class of individuals capable
of being cured or helped by psychical treatment; or is
he, on the contrary, of those with whom medicine or
diet is the only efficient remedy? "

Knowledge of the process of Moutin will permit that
question to be answered immediately. According as
to whether the patient is, or is not, a moutinien, the
diagnosis and the treatment of his affection must be
undertaken in a wholly different fashion.

For the same reason, therefore, that it is helpful or
necessary to examine a patient to learn the state of his
lungs, his heart, his liver, etc., by the classical processes
of auscultation, percussion, etc., it would be equally
helpful and necessary to examine him by the neurocritic
process to learn the state of his nervous sensibility.
And, as we have previously stated, the two examina-
tions should be made at the same time.

The process of Moutin must be viewed as a valuable
acquisition to medical science. It deserves to have a
place in semeiology beside the classical signs, the sign

OUR LATENT PSYCHIC FACULTIES 93

of Sheyne-Stockes, of Romberg, of Lasegue, of Kernig,
etc., which have immortalized the names of those who
discovered them.

CHAPTER VII

HYPNOTISM, OR ARTIFICIAL HYPNOSIS

THE importance that Charcot and the School of the
Salpetriere attributed to knowledge of the different
hypnotic states is well known. The increasing pre-
dominance of the adverse doctrines of the School of
Nancy singularly weakened it in the opinion of the con-
temporaneous medical world, it is true ; but it may be
asked whether this knowledge, duly proved and gen-
eralized, does not remain, after all, one of the guiding
principles to which all those who are endeavoring to
place the study of parapsychic phenomena in the field
of positive science must necessarily have recourse.

Charcot seemed to be a partizan of the idea that
hypnotism — or hypnosis, as it should be called —
constitutes a particular state, sui generis, of the nervous
system and of the entire human organism, provoked by
certain agents or processes and defined by a certain
number of characteristics more or less closely connected
among themselves. This state differs from the state
of wakefulness — called the normal state — and also
from the state of sleep, although it partakes in certain
respects of the characteristics of both. It is itself sus-
ceptible of assuming different forms, which may be con-
sidered as secondary hypnotic states, each having its
special excitator and its special characteristics, but de-

94

HYPNOTISM 95

pending evidently upon common conditions and sub-
stituting one another with a certain facility.

The principal secondary forms are three in number :
(i) catalepsy, (2) somnambulism, and (3) lethargy.
They can present themselves spontaneously during cer-
tain forms of illness, or under the influence of certain
physical agents, or they can be made to appear artifi-
cially. It is for hypnosis thus produced — artificial or
experimental hypnosis — that usage seems especially
to reserve the name hypnotism.

Reduced to these terms, the theory of the School of
the Salpetriere seems to be a simple exposition of the
facts, and the objections which are ordinarily made do
not weaken it. Charcot's mistake was to claim that
provoked hypnosis manifests itself always under one of
these three clearly defined forms: catalepsy, somnam-
bulism, or lethargy. It is palpably evident that it is
often found also under intermediary forms, which do
not enter completely into any of these three classical
forms.

A still graver mistake has been to believe that the
determining conditions of the various hypnotic states
and the invariable order of their succession proceeded
from quasi-mathematical laws. Over this point the
critic of the School of Nancy seems to us to have well
established the error of the School of the Salpetriere.
But it is no less true that hypnosis constitutes a special
state, as distinct from the state of normal waking as
that state is distinct from sleep ; and that catalepsy, som-
nambulism, and lethargy, in whatever way they may be
produced, present to us three distinct modalities of hyp-
nosis, responding to three types sufficiently definite and

96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

constant. For there is an essential difference between
the rigid attitude of the cataleptic, the independent
motions of the somnambulist, and the complete mus-
cular inertia of the lethargic.

It is true that from the philosophic, or scientific,
point of view, it can be claimed that all things in nature
are continued and mingle with one another, in such
a way that all the separations, all the distinctions that
we place between them are necessarily more or less
relative, arbitrary, artificial. Who could say exactly
where, in the solar spectrum, any one color — violet,
blue, green, yellow, orange, red, indigo — ends, and
where the following color begins?

Even the ancients knew this method of reasoning;
they called it " bald-headed argument " or " quantitive
argument." For instance: Here is a thick head of
hair ; one hair is pulled out, then another, then still an-
other ; at that moment could it be said that the head has
become bald? One grain of wheat certainly does not
make a pile, nor two grains of wheat, nor three, nor
four. How many grains are necessary to make a pile ?

Similarly, when a man goes to sleep, it is impossible
to indicate at what precise moment the sleep has re-
placed the waking state ; between the two extreme states
there can always be imagined an infinity of intermedi-
ary states by which the passage is made from one of
these extremes to the other.

But all this specious reasoning — which perhaps
could be qualified as sophism — does not abolish the
fact that there are, in nature, decided differences and
irreducible oppositions of which we must take account
if we would see clearly in our minds, and more so still

HYPNOTISM 97

if we would adapt our practise to the real world with-
out.

This question apropos of hypnotism is, moreover, of
a very general order, and is found, under other forms,
in all or almost all branches of science. It is thus that
physics recognizes three different states of matter : the
solid state, the liquid state, and the gaseous state,
each of which is characterized by a definite number of
properties. To these three states scientific researchers
have added, perhaps, a fourth : Sir William Crookes
has, indeed, spoken of a fourth state of matter, which
he has called the radiant state. And it can well be sup-
posed that the list of possible states of matter contains
even others. There is also, very assuredly, between
the solid state and the liquid state, and between the
liquid state and the gaseous state, a certain intermediary
margin where they meet, are continued and mingled.
However, it must be recognized that the distinction of
the three states — solid, liquid, gaseous — is one o£ the
indispensable bases of physics. And chemistry, biol-
ogy, etc., would present considerations of an analogous
nature.

II

So far we have considered only the knowledge of the
state as in its rapport with hypnosis. Hypnosis, how-
ever, is itself but a species of a more extensive genus
— the genus of parapsychic phenomena. It will be
well, then, to generalize this knowledge by applying it
to all these phenomena. In other words, we must ad-
mit that in the nervous system and the organism of
human beings there exist a certain number of states
more or less distinctly characterized, which, once

98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

brought into being, render parapsychic phenomena of
many sorts possible. It is these different states that
should first be determined and studied if we would
place the psychical sciences henceforward on a solid
basis.

We can indicate here only a few of these states.

Can the phenomena observed during seances of
spiritism be fully identified with the phenomena of hyp-
notism?

This is a very obscure problem, which is still far
from being solved. Without affirming the identity of
the two states, however, we can at least show the
strong analogies between the trance of mediums and
the hypnosis of subjects. Just as the different hypnotic
phenomena do not appear in subjects until they have
been put, by appropriate means, into a particular state,
so, it would seem, the special faculties of mediums are
not manifested until they also are put into a state that
is certainly not their normal state — by normal is
meant their customary state outside of spiritistic
seances. In many of them this state is distinctly ap-
parent, and resembles strongly the state of somnam-
bulism. In others it is latent or, so to speak larve; but
we know that this is sometimes true also of somnam-
bulistic hypnosis. A subject may have all the appear-
ances of being fully awake, in an entirely normal state;
but if he be studied closely, it can be recognized that
he is in reality in that condition which sometimes is
called a " second state."

Similarly, under the influence of very strong physical
and mental excitations, there are produced in certain
individuals singular states which well seem to belong to

HYPNOTISM 99

the category of those we are now considering. By
movements and cries indefinitely repeated, the Ai's-
saouas manage, it is said, to put their nervous system
in such a state of insensibility that they can support with
impunity burns and wounds which, in ordinary condi-
tions, would be mortal. And it is claimed that the
fakirs of India owe to the employment of a system of
ascetic means — fasting, respiratory exercises, etc. —
the development of supernormal faculties evidently
connected with a special state of their nerves and their
organism. The history of the Camisards of Cevennes,
of the Convulsionaries of the Cemetery of St. Medard,
shows us also that religious exaltation can produce in
crowds a state generating the most extraordinary and
varied parapsychic phenomena. It would be interest-
ing, from this point of view, to -investigate to what ex-
tent the ecstasy, the prophetic inspiration, etc. — phe-
nomena very frequent in the history of all religions —
can be compared to the states previously enumerated.

Certain morbid causes provoke the apparition of
similar states. The visions of Mohammed are ex-
plained, at least in part perhaps, by epilepsy, of which
he often had attacks. It is known that in epilepsy,
and perhaps also in some other nervous affections, the
patients are subject to fits which can last for weeks
and even months, and return periodically; and during
these fits they talk and act with all the appearances of
the normal state, but without any consciousness of their
usual personality — as if another self had taken, in
them, the place of the old.

Dr. Azam, of Bordeaux, has described in detail the
singular alternation of two distinct personalities in one

ioo THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

of his patients, Felida, famous in the annals of morbid
psychology. It is impossible to understand this alter-
nation unless we suppose that each of these two person-
alities is linked to a particular nervous and organic
state which makes it appear or disappear according
to its own vicissitudes. .

Dr. Pierre Janet reports the adventure of a young
man who, without apparent consciousness, suddenly
abandoned his family, having completely forgotten all
his past. He walked from Paris to Melun, following
many different trades, and finally recovered his normal
state three months later in Auvergne, in the company
of an old plate-mender, wholly incapable of remember-
ing how he had got there, or anything that had hap-
pened during the interval.

These examples are. sufficient to give an idea of the
multiplicity and the diversity of the parapsychic states ;
for it is not our intention here to give a complete list of
them, nor even to attempt their classification. Our
sole object is to show that such states do exist, and
to make the reader understand how interesting and
necessary it would be to submit them to systematic
study.

This study should begin with the hypnotic states, in-
asmuch as they are unquestionably those which we can
most easily produce and modify at will, and those
which, consequently, lend themselves best to the appli-
cation of the experimental method.

ill

First of all, it is important to forestall a misunder-
standing which may be due largely to the imperfection
of our technical vocabulary.

HYPNOTISM 101

As waking and sleeping are the two normal states
which in the life of man succeed each other, so it is that
these two states have become for us the means, or gage,
by which we instinctively endeavor to describe other
states. Thus, instead of considering all those states
which are different from ordinary waking and sleeping,
as constituting a third state, susceptible of assuming
several and various forms, we connect them with sleep
in giving them the terms hypnosis, hypnotism, somnam-
bulism, etc., which imply the idea of sleep because of
their Greek and Latin roots.

Of a man in the hypnotic state it is commonly said
that " he is asleep "; and that " he wakes " when he
comes out of the hypnotic state. To " hypnotize "
some one, and to " put him to sleep," are two expres-
sions which are used indifferently, one for the other.
For this reason there is a general tendency to regard
hypnosis as a kind of sleep, and therefore to attach
undue importance to the characteristics in whiah it
resembles sleep.

For this same reason, and especially among the par-
tizans of the School of Nancy — by whom suggestion,
or rather suggestibility, is considered a natural, funda-
mental, permanent property of all human beings, the
key to all hypnotic, and undoubtedly also parapsychic,
phenomena — there is a tendency to disregard all sig-
nification and all value of the hypnoidal characteristics
of hypnosis, these being considered but the accidental
effects of suggestion. For those who have this point
of view, hypnotic sleep is in reality nothing but natural
sleep provoked by suggestion : if the operator had not
this preconceived idea that his subject must sleep, and

102 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

had not imposed it upon him, or caused him to incul-
cate the idea in himself, all the phenomena called hyp-
notic could be just as well produced in the waking state.

Many unnecessary words and controversies would
be avoided if it could be realized that the hypnotic state
is neither a waking state nor a sleeping state, but a
third state and of multiform expressions. This third
state blends in various proportions the characteristics
of sleep and of waking, adding other characteristics
which belong exclusively to it, the principal of these
being an abnormal suggestibility, certainly very differ-
ent, whatever the School of Nancy may say, from the
normal suggestibility common to all human beings.

Thus, in conclusion, the different states through
which the nervous system passes may constitute a sort
of spectrum, of which the two end colors are the wak-
ing and sleeping states, corresponding to the red and
the violet of the solar spectrum; and our mental life is
colored alternately by one or the other of these two
extremities. But there exists in the interval, and per-
haps also beyond the extremities of this spectrum, a
multitude of other colors, of other shades, with which
our life is sometimes tinted in an accidental and more
or less transitory way, under the action of causes still
undetermined. The hypnotic and magnetic processes
disengage and firmly establish certain of these colors,
normally latent or fugitive, and permit us to study them
experimentally.

We already have indicated the three hypnotic states
generally admitted: catalepsy, somnambulism, and
lethargy; but there exists also a fourth. It is that

HYPNOTISM 103

which certain scientific writers have called the state of
fascination or the state of credulity.

The subject in this state presents all the appearances
of being awake. His eyes are open ; he has complete
liberty of his movements; if his arm is raised it falls
again of its own accord; and his sensibility usually re-
mains normal. But he does not use his mental facul-
ties in a normal way. He is incapable of evoking
voluntarily any recollection : ask him his name, his ad-
dress, what he did the previous day, he cannot answer.
And he becomes extremely suggestible : he does not con-
trol either his sensations or his acts, but believes or
does blindly all that he is commanded to believe or to
do. Often, but not always, once brought out of this
state, he retains no memory of it.

We believe, however, that beyond these four states
there exists a state still more superficial, so slight, so
little characterized, that we have long doubted its real-
ity. It might be called the state of torpor of the
state of passivity.

The subjects who exhibit this state are incapable of
being led farther. When submitted to the hypnotic
processes of the fixation of the gaze, passes, verbal sug-
gestion, they appear not to feel any effect whatsoever.
Their eyes remain open indefinitely; they can move
their limbs at will. Sensations or acts may be sug-
gested to them; but they appear to feel none of the
sensations, and they do none of the acts. Yet they are
not in their normal state. In the first place, their
thought is arrested, so to speak. If they are asked of
what they are thinking, they invariably answer:

104 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

"Nothing." And this state of mental farniente is,
they claim, most agreeable. Close their eyelids, and
they remain closed, as if they had lost all power to open
them. Their limbs obey the slightest impulsion im-
parted to them, and remain motionless in the most un-
comfortable or the most ridiculous of attitudes, with-
out the subject's seeming to have any idea of changing
them. For hours at a time, the subjects lend them-
selves to all the manipulations that it pleases the opera-
tor to devise; and they apparently resent nothing.

This state of torpor is dissipated with extreme rapid-
ity, leaving behind it quite faithful recollections. Be-
cause of its wholly negative character, however, it is
not strange that it has remained unperceived by the
majority of observers.

IV

One can realize the extent and the complexity of the
field of study offered to scientists by the parapsychic
phenomena. After having enumerated and defined
the principal species, each of them should be analyzed
according to three successive periods :

1. Its preparation.

2. Its constitution.

3. Its completion.

The preparation or incubation of a psychical state
can be extremely rapid, it can appear to be even in-
stantaneous, and it also can last a long time. As an
effect of repetition or habit, this initial period tends
always to shorten itself. In many cases it might be
said that, in order to produce the state, a certain quan-
tum of energy of a special nature may be necessary,

HYPNOTISM 105

just as zero (Centigrade) or one hundred degrees of
heat are necessary to freeze water or to make it boil.
When this quantum is attained, and only then, the state
is wholly constituted.

It is only after a certain number of passes that the
subject enters into the somnambulistic state. The in-
sensibility of the ATssaoua does not reach its climax un-
til he excites himself a sufficiently long time and with
sufficient intensity. Usually, at the moment when the
state begins to appear, the observer is informed by
some apparent sign — the eyes of the subject entering
into hypnosis close, his chest heaves, he sighs deeply,
etc. But sometimes the state is produced insensibly,
and already exists without anything having occurred
to make its presence suspected. The operator, be-
lieving that he has not yet produced any result, pro-
longs the fixation of gaze, increases the passes, until
some accidental circumstance shows him that the sub-
ject has already been for some time in the hypnotic
state.

In what does it consist, this constitution of the para-
psychic state — sometimes slow, sometimes instantane-
ous and unexpected?

That is an extremely difficult problem to solve.
When the state is once existent, we can easily estab-
lish and describe its exterior manifestations (although
many of them escape us if we do not know or do not
possess the proper reactives to arouse them) ; but we
do not penetrate its intimate nature.

When a subject is somnambulistic, for example, that
which is of the greatest importance is not the different
phenomena by which this state is revealed — the clos-

io6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

ing of the eyelids, insensibility of the teguments, extreme
suggestibility, etc. It is something we do not see,
something we cannot see: the particular state of the
brain and of the nerves, from the point of view of the
distribution and the tension of the nerve force, of the
chemical and vital activity, of the circulation of the
blood, etc. It is all these internal and unknown fac-
tors which constitute, properly speaking, the parapsy-
chic state, which are the effective substratum; and not
a certain more or less impressive external phenomenon,
such as suggestion, that " choice-bit " of the School of
Nancy, which imagines that all questions can be an-
swered by this abstract word, just as the scholastics
imagined that all things could be explained by their
entities and their occult powers.

As long as this substratum subsists without notable
change, the state continues; immediately that the sub-
stratum ceases to be, or is modified in its essential ele-
ments, the state vanishes, is resolved into a different
state.

How many patient and minute researches still re-
main to be undertaken in the psychical sciences in order
to elucidate these problems !

CHAPTER VIII

SUGGESTION: AS A FACT AND AS AN HYPOTHESIS

i

THE work of the School of Nancy has definitely put
beyond all doubt the important role that suggestion
plays in the greater part of the parapsychic phenomena.

That suggestion is a fact, is a point already acquired
to science; but we have yet to understand, in an abso-
lutely definite and precise way, the nature and the con-
ditions of this fact. We have yet to determine, with
sufficient rigor, the cases in which suggestion intervenes,
without any possible doubt as to its effective presence,
and the cases in which this presence is simply supposed
as the more or less true explanation or interpretation.
In other words, we must determine when suggestion is
really a fact, immediately proved by its very consta-
tation, and when it is simply an hypothesis, of which
the proof remains to be made.

II

It is important, first of all, to specify precisely what
must be understood by suggestion, in the particular
order of researches which we are now considering ; for
the term can be understood in many ways.

As we have shown in Our Hidden Forces, there is
suggestion each time that one individual evokes —
usually by word — in the mind of another individual, an

107

io8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

idea that would not have occurred to him in the natural
course of his thoughts, an idea capable of influencing
his sentiments or his conduct.

But in this sense one cannot by any means foresee
the final effect of the idea thus evoked. It may be
that it will determine sentiments and actions conform-
ing to it. It may be, also, that it will be deflected,
either immediately or after examination, by the person
to whom it is suggested. But in either of these cases
the word does not imply necessarily the idea of an
irresistible influence.

On the contrary, the word suggestion implies an in-
voluntary or automatic obedience of the person to the
idea which has been suggested to him; and the re-
markable part of the phenomenon is precisely this im-
possibility when the person is found not to do or not to
believe what is said to him.

From this comes the name subject, generally given to
the individual thus suggestioned, to indicate the state
of subjection in which he is actually placed toward
the one who gives him a suggestion of this nature.
Also, we have the name hypotaxy (literally: subordina-
tion, submission) given by Durand de Gros to the sup-
posed state of the nervous system which permits of
this forced obedience of the subject to the suggestion.

There would be suggestion in this sense if I were to
say to a person, for instance : " In five minutes your
legs will not be able to support you; you will fall to
your knees," and he would fall, in spite of his incredu-
lity and his resistance. Or, " That chair attracts you;
you will be forced to go to it and sit down," and he
would go. Or, " You have forgotten your name* vour

SUGGESTION 109

profession, your address,'* and he could not remember
them. Or, " You are very warm, very cold; you are
about to laugh, to cry, to run," and he experienced all
these sensations. Or, " You are going to sleep — to
sleep ! " and he fell asleep.

However singular these phenomena may appear to
those who have never witnessed them, it is not possible
to doubt their reality. Of course, in some particular
cases, it can evidently be asked if the individual is really
suggestioned or if he is not simulating suggestion; but
this would be to advance skepticism sa far as to pre-
tend, with a certain contemporary neurologist, that one
cannot be sure that there was ever any case of authentic
suggestion.

In order to distinguish suggestion thus comprised
from ordinary suggestion, it is often called hypnotic
suggestion.

Ordinary suggestion — that which the individual
can normally resist, or else which he obeys because of
a more or less deliberate consent or as an effect of his
credulity and his natural docility — is produced in the
waking state, while he is fully conscious and has com-
plete use of all his faculties.

Hypnotic suggestion, on the contrary, — that which
the subject cannot resist, even if he should have the
desire to do so, and which he obeys outside of all delib-
erate consent, as the effect of a credulity and a docility
in some way artificial and abnormal — is produced dur-
ing hypnosis, or during an apparent waking state more
or less fundamentally analogous to hypnosis.

From this point of view, the characteristic of the
second kind of suggestion would be its liaison with a

no THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

state or disposition sui generis of the nervous system,
a hypnotic state or disposition. In other words, sug-
gestion thus comprised would be a function of hypno-
tism, which could then be defined, at least partially:
" A state which develops a special and an absolutely
automatic and irresistible suggestibility."

In order to define hypnotism more completely, it
would be necessary to be able to characterize it in itself,
disregarding all relation with suggestion and suggesti-
bility; but in the actual state of our researches, we do
not yet possess a sufficiently complete knowledge of its
characteristics and its effects to be able to establish this
definition.

The name given to it, and which likens it to sleep,
shows that it is generally conceived as " a state of tor-
por or of cerebral stupor, when the greater part of the
superior functions are suspended or inhibitive," while
an exceptional dynamogenic state is produced in the in-
ferior centers of the cephalo-rachidian axis.

This seems to us to be the conception of hypnotic
suggestion resulting from the simple description of facts
such as all the world can observe. Yet it conflicts
with a conception wholly different, which pretends to
come from observation, but which seems to be the
product of a systematic spirit, and in which it is diffi-
cult for us to see anything but pure construction a priori.
This conception is that of the School of Nancy.

According to Professor Bernheim, who is the theo-
rist of that School, hypnotic suggestion does not differ, in
reality, from ordinary suggestion; or, more properly
speaking, there is only one kind of suggestion, which is

SUGGESTION ill

defined : " The act by which an idea is introduced into
the brain and accepted by it." Then, there is sugges-
tion whenever an idea, being introduced into the mind
of an individual, is accepted by him, believed and
obeyed, and he feels and acts accordingly. From that,
suggestion is everywhere in human life — example,
education, eloquence, moral authority, so many forms
of suggestion which do not differ essentially from hyp-
notic suggestion.

This, wholly as the other, depends directly and exclu-
sively upon a general and normal property of the human
brain — suggestibility ; that is to say, upon that credu-
lity and natural docility, common to all human beings,
which causes them to believe and to do what is told
them, under the immediate impression of all idea that
is presented to them with sufficient force or insistence.

It is, then, useless, from this point of view, to sup-
pose that suggestion has for a preliminary condition a
certain state of the nervous system, more or less analo-
gous to sleep, and named hypnotism. Far from sugges-
tion being a function of hypnotism, it is hypnotism
which is a function of suggestion. " Suggestion," said
Dr. Bernheim, " is the key to all the phenomena of
hypnotism." In other words, there is no hypnotism,
there is only suggestion. The so-called hypnotic sleep
is no more than suggested sleep, identical in essence
with ordinary sleep. In the same way that laughing,
dancing, nausea, etc., can be produced by suggestion,
so sleep can be produced; but there is no reason for
according a preponderant importance to this particu-
lar effect of suggestion and for considering it more

112 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

characteristic than any other. Once more, let us re-
peat, it is suggestion which explains all, while suggestion
itself is self-explanatory.

From the very opposition of these two conceptions, it
can be concluded that if suggestion is, in certain re-
spects, a fact, it is in certain other respects an enigma
which presents a problem, or many problems, to be
solved. Consequently, before employing it, or in
order to be able to employ it with some certainty as an
hypothesis, it must be minutely studied in its different
forms, and analyzed by all the processes of the experi-
mental method.

It does not seem to us that, up to the present time,
this preliminary work has been done, or at least that it
has been carried sufficiently far.

Whatever the School of Nancy may say, the differ-
ences which separate hypnotic suggestion from ordinary
suggestion are too striking for it to be possible to make
them disappear by a pure and simple negation. Will-
ingly or unwillingly, this problem presents itself to the
mind : How does it happen that in the case of hypnotic
suggestion the subject loses all control over his sen-
sations, his ideas, even his acts, and becomes an autom-
aton in the hands of the one who suggestioned him?

The artifice to which the School of Nancy has re-
course in order to suppress the difficulty consists, on
the whole, in abusing the principle of continuity. As
we have shown in the preceding chapter, it is always
possible, from the philosophic or scientific point of
view, to claim that all things in nature continue insensi-
bly and are mingled one in another. Between two ex-

SUGGESTION 113

treme states, such as the abnormal state and the state of
hypnotic suggestibility, there can be imagined an infinity
of intermediary states by which the passage is made
from one extreme to the other. But this is true also in
all the orders of natural facts, and nevertheless this
universal continuity does not prevent science from estab-
lishing in all these facts the distinctions and the opposi-
tions without which it would not be possible for us to
submit them to the influence of our thought and our
action.

On the other hand, the doctrine of the School of
Nancy, if we understand it correctly, sees in sugges-
tion nothing but an exclusively psychological phenom-
enon. In any case, if it does not deny that there may
be in suggestion extra-psychological elements, it disre-
gards it completely. The definition given by Bernheim,
which we have mentioned above, speaks, it is true, of
the brain, and that gives it a physiological appearance.
But it is nothing more than an appearance.

This formula : " Suggestion is the act by which an
idea is introduced into the brain and accepted by it,"
should not be taken literally. From a strictly physio-
logical point of view, there is no idea in the brain, but
cells, fibers, blood, diverse humors, perhaps also cur-
rents and discharges more or less analogous to elec-
trical currents and discharges. Therefore, it cannot
be seen how the brain could accept or reject an idea, in
the same way that the stomach accepts or rejects food.
The word " brain " is used here improperly instead of
the word " mind," and the definition that it gives us is,
in reality, purely psychological. It does not contain

H4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

any indication, it does not throw any light upon what
can happen simultaneously in the brain when an idea is
introduced into the mind and accepted by it.

The analyses — too rare and too superficial, more-
over — which the School of Nancy has made of sugges-
tion, remain always confined within the psychological
field. It is a question of belief, of persuasion, of ex-
pectant attention, of imagination, etc. — all terms which
are connected exclusively with the states of conscious-
ness. Also, the processes employed habitually by the
School of Nancy to produce suggestion are, or at least
pretend to be, of purely moral order. It peremptorily
states that the subject is gazed at more or less fixedly,
that his forehead, his eyelids, etc., are touched lightly;
but all these gestures have no importance: they are
simply to fix the attention of the subject and to strike his
imagination. The true agent, the only one which is
really efficacious, is the word of the operator, which in-
culcates or imposes the idea ; and suggestion is realized
finally when the mind believes.

The essential thing would be, then, to induce the sub-
ject to believe; belief once installed in his mind dis-
penses with all the rest.

Let us note that the theory of the masters of the
School of Nancy is the expression of their personal
practise and technique. They are not scientists who
experiment in laboratories in entirely disinterested re-
searches ; they are physicians who work in clinics for the
purpose of curing or relieving patients. The patients
themselves come to them knowing that they come to be
treated by suggestion, being already convinced of the

SUGGESTION 115

efficacy of the treatment, and impressed by the mysteri-
ous power which they attribute to these physicians.

One can understand that, in these conditions, not em-
ploying — or not believing that they employ — any-
thing but persuasion, the School of Nancy actually
imagines that there is no other process. Looking else-
where, however, we will find that their formula is really
too restricted to agree with all the ensemble of facts
observed.

First of all, a large number of operators claim that,
by purely physical processes, without the intervention
of any idea, they obtain a particular condition called the
hypnotic state, which is usually accompanied by an ab-
normal suggestibility. It is thus that Braid claimed to
have provoked hypnosis by the prolonged fixation of a
brilliant point, independently of all suggestion. He
says :

I called one of my domestic servants who knew nothing of
mesmerism, and in the instructions which I gave him I made
him believe that his fixed attention was necessary in order to
watch a chemical experiment dealing with the preparation of a
medicine. As I had frequently asked him to do this, he ex-
pressed no surprise.

Two minutes and a half later his eyelids closed slowly, with
a vibratory movement; his head fell forward on his chest; he
heaved a sigh, and was instantly plunged into a deep sleep.

However this fact may be explained, it is wholly
impossible to discover in it the elements of true sugges-
tion; for Braid had not suggested to his servant that he
should go»to sleep but, quite the contrary, he had told

ii6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

him to pay strict attention in order to watch a chemical
experiment.

Here is another instance, reported by Dr. Lajoie, of
Nashua, New Hampshire :

I was called to a twelve-year-old child who had slept for
twenty hours. Greatly alarmed, the parents asked me what
this meant. I woke the child, but not easily, by suggesting to
him the idea of waking. And this boy showed me a shining
crystal bowl on the table. " I was amusing myself watching
the sun shine on that bowl," he said ; " I felt tired ; and I
do not remember anything else."

It is true that Dr. Lajoie added: " There is no evi-
dence there of any suggestion other than that due to
fatigue." He may have said this, however, to be in
accord with the doctrine of suggestion.

And this does not explain how the sensation of
fatigue was able to suggest to the child the idea that he
must go into a sleep that would last twenty hours and
be so deep that his parents could not wake him — a
sleep which, however, was able to cease merely by the
suggestion of waking.

Another case of the same kind has been observed by
Dr. Auguste Voisin. It is that of a young girl,
twenty years old, affected with convulsive attacks, whom
he hypnotized by means of Dr. Luys' rotative mirror,
without any suggestion whatsoever.

Similarly, Dr. Crocq asserts that he has hypnotized
an hysterical patient in the hospital of Molenbeek by
the simple fixation of the gaze. No one knew at the
time that Dr. Crocq studied these questions, and previ-
ous to this experiment none of the kind had ever been

SUGGESTION 117

made there. This patient presented, after the first
seance, true somnambulism, with complete insensibility.

" In these conditions unconscious suggestion is not
possible," says Dr. Crocq. And he adds: "Since
then, at any instant, I have succeeded in putting to
sleep, by the fixation of a brilliant object, subjects abso-
lutely ignorant of what was required of them."

Finally, hypnotization in animals is scarcely ex-
plained by the hypothesis of suggestion. When a
cockerel is hypnotized by the process of Father Kircher
— in having his beak fixed for several minutes over a
white line drawn on the ground — it is easy to under-
stand that there is no suggestion there: that is, no
effect produced by an idea, as if the cockerel understood
that it was intended that he should go to sleep, and
persuaded himself ipso facto that it was impossible not
to go to sleep.

It would be better to be resigned to establishing the
fact, and to confess that the mechanism is not "yet
known. But nothing is harder for certain minds, even
though trained by scientific culture, than to acknowl-
edge, ingenuously, their ignorance.

It seems to us, then, extremely probable that there
exists a particular state of the nervous system — hyp-
notism — undoubtedly connected by close rapports
with suggestion, but which cannot be made to coin-
cide with it completely.

This state resembles sleep, and appears to be accom-
panied, as sleep also is, by a sort of stupor or torpor
of the psychological activity of the individual, a dimi-
nution of his mental energy, a contraction of his con-
sciousness, a more or less complete paralysis of his

ii8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

will — all of this being perhaps originally produced
by purely physical causes. It possesses, as an ordinary
though not constant effect, the apparition of an abnor-
mal and excessive suggestibility, which, once deter-
mined, can react on its own cause and produce the
hypnotic state, or can strengthen it.

The School of Nancy pretends, it is true, that hyp-
notic sleep — meaning hypnosis under the classical
form of somnambulism — does not differ from ordi-
nary sleep ; that it is no more than a sleep provoked by
suggestion.

But this assertion is absolutely contradicted by the
facts.

In ordinary sleep the individual does not understand
what is said to him, or, if he understands, he wakes;
his tactile sensibility may be lessened, but it remains,
and if he is touched roughly, pinched, or pricked, he
reacts in his sleep.

How is it that in hypnotic sleep the subject continues
to understand his hypnotizer, to answer him, and espe-
cially to obey him by executing all his suggestions, even
the most absurd and extravagant? How is it that he
often presents complete insensibility, to such an extent
that he can be touched, pinched, pricked, etc., without
appearing to feel anything? How is it that he wakes
only when ordered to do so by his hypnotizer, and
that, as a general rule, he has, after waking, no rec-
ollection of anything that has happened during his
sleep, and even sometimes of anything that has immedi-
ately preceded it? It is true, also, — and we have
many times observed this — that when once awakened
the subject cannot even remember having been asleep,

SUGGESTION 119

and declares, in perfectly good faith, that he has victo-
riously resisted the processes of the hypnotizer. In
order to convince him, it is necessary to put him to
sleep again, and to produce, either in him or about him,
some visible change which will prove to him, when he
is again awakened, that he has actually been asleep.

Let us note, moreover, one prominent characteristic
of hypnotic sleep which is foreign to ordinary sleep.
It is that there is present sometimes, in certain sub-
jects, the phenomenon called rapport. By this is meant
that the subject hypnotized seems to be in relation with
no one but his hypnotizer : it is his hypnotizer only that
he understands, and it is to him only that he responds.
All other individuals are, for the subject, as if they
did not exist, at least unless they put themselves en
rapport with the hypnotizer by touching him; but the
instant the contact ceases, they cease to be en rapport
with the subject.

The situation is, then, entirely different fronV that
which would be observed if the subject were to sleep
as the effect of his own conviction that he was going to
fall into an ordinary sleep; for, in this case, he could
not hear the one who suggested that he go to sleep, or
else he could hear all other persons as well. He would
dream spontaneously; he would snore — if he had that
habit; he would, in a word, present in this state all the
symptoms of his ordinary sleep. It is well authenti-
cated that subjects in the hypnotic state are not con-
scious of being asleep. We have found that a large
number who, while in a deep hypnotic state, were asked :
" Are you asleep? " have answered us with an expres-
sion of astonishment: " Why, no; I am not asleep ! "

120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

The partizans of suggestion will endeavor to meet
the question by alleging that all the differences which
apparently distinguish hypnotic sleep from ordinary
sleep are, in reality, the effects of suggestion. If the
subject, so-called hypnotized, continues to understand
his hypnotizer, to answer him, to obey him, it is because
he has suggested this to himself. If, on waking, he
remembers nothing of his sleep, it is because this
amnesia has been suggested to him. In the same way,
the phenomenon of rapport, if it really exists ( for sug-
gestionists would prefer on the whole to deny it rather
than give an explanation even conforming to their
theory) can be only the effect of previous suggestion.

Unfortunately, all the assertions are, we repeat,
wholly contradicted by the facts.

The first case of authentic somnambulism constated
and described by mesmerists is, it seems, that of the
famous Victor Vielet, who went to sleep spontaneously
under the passes made by the Marquis de Puysegur, and
who at the very beginning, to the great surprise of de
Puysegur, presented all the symptoms of hypnotic sleep.

I have more than once operated upon subjects who
were wholly ignorant of hypnotism, not in the least sus-
pecting the purpose of the processes I practised upon
them (passes, contact of the hands upon the shoulder-
blades, etc.), and who, moreover, have fallen immedi-
ately into a deep sleep, with anesthesia, amnesia, ex-
clusive rapport, etc. On the other hand, I have very
frequently operated upon subjects who were well
versed in hypnotism and were very desirous of being
hypnotized, but who remained completely refractory
to all my attempts at hypnotization and suggestion, or

SUGGESTION 121

who would go only into an incomplete hypnotic sleep.

One subject conserves his sensibility intact, and does
not lose it even if he is suggestioned to do so. Another
subject, although in appearance also easily suggestible,
continues to feel the contacts, pinches, pricks, etc.,
executed upon him, even if it is suggestioned to him
that he will not feel them. Almost all, once awakened,
have no recollection of what happened during their
sleep, even though amnesia had not in any way been
suggested to them. Certain others, who are told:
" You do not remember anything! " have very faithful
and clear recollections. Many are en rapport not only
with the operator but also with all the assistants;
some, on the other hand, communicate only with the
operator or with persons in contact with him, without
any suggestion intervening. It is often due to chance
that the operator himself discovers this fact, one of the
assistants having taken the initiative to speak to the
subject, who, by his immobility and his silence, brings
them to recognize, then to verify, that he has not under-
stood.

What causes these inequalities, these differences be-
tween different individuals in the manner of reacting
to hypnotic or suggestive processes and of realizing
hypnosis?

It would be playing with words to invoke suggestion
here, even under the form — easy to suppose but diffi-
cult to prove — of autosuggestion.

The School of Nancy would say that if a subject, in
spite of his desire to be put to sleep, in spite of the
willingness with which he lends himself to the attempts
to hypnotize him, remains rebellious to all suggestion,

122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

it is undoubtedly because he is suggestioned uncon-
sciously that he will not sleep, that he will not be sug-
gestioned. If a certain other subject, even though put
to sleep, retains his sensibility, it is because he has un-
consciously suggested to himself that he will remain
sensitive. And so forth.

With this manner of reasoning, anything can be ex-
plained and proved, without the trouble of observing
and experimenting.

Let us, however, place ourselves in the position in
which the School of Nancy is fortified, and try to follow
the consequences of its theory to the end. Sugges-
tion, we claim, owes its power to the natural suggesti-
bility of the brain, or, more properly speaking, of the
human mind. It is a normal consequence of the credu-
lity and the docility natural to the entire human race.
It is a consequence of that psychological law in virtue
of which all ideas tend to be affirmed and realized, un-
less hindered by the equal tendency of other contradic-
tory ideas — a law which Spinoza seems first to have
stated, and which has been repeated since by many au-
thors, such as Herbart, Dugald-Stewart, and Taine,
and which might be called, with the French philosopher
Fouillee, the law of idea-forces.

However, we must not disregard the fact that this
law, which renders suggestion possible, renders auto-
suggestion equally possible ; and the latter can — must,
even, in many circumstances — be in oppositior to the
former.

Every human individual is, it might be said, autosug-
gestioned in a great many ways : by his innate or hered-
itary inclinations, his habits, his recollections, the

SUGGESTION 123

education he has received, the experiences he has had in
the course of his past life; and all these autosugges-
tions can constitute so many countersuggestions with
regard to some particular suggestion coming from an-
other individual.

Among these permanent autosuggestions, should
be included faith in the testimony of our senses and
our memory, confidence in the constancy of the order
of nature, at least in a broad sense, the instinct of con-
servation and of self-preservation, which forms the
basis of all that which we call, in practise, our will and
our liberty.

If a suggestion coming from the outside does not
contradict, does not clash with, these fundamental
autosuggestions, it has a chance of being accepted by
us, of prevailing upon our belief, our consent, or even
our obedience. For all suggestion of this kind we
would propose the term plausible suggestion.

A suggestion to which might be applied the term
paradoxical suggestion is that, for example, which
would be able to make us believe it is night when it is
midday ; or that some one we know has been dead for
a long time has come to pay us a visit; or that a
candle is lighted simply by blowing upon it; or that we
cannot open nor shut our eyes, fold our arms, move our
legs, etc., merely because we have been told that we
cannot do so. Any such suggestion cannot fail to wake
in us an immediate and energetic countersuggestion re-
sulting from our fundamental autosuggestions.

Normally, to any one who gave me a suggestion of
this kind, I should respond either by laughing at him, or
by demanding if he were not mocking me, or if he had

124 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

not lost his reason. But in the case of a hypnotized
subject, normal countersuggestion does not apply. The
fundamental autosuggestions are, as it were, inert, the
subject believing the improbable, the impossible.

The problem of hypnotic suggestion lies in knowing
precisely why this suggestion does not encounter the
opposition of the habitual reducteurs of all paradoxical
suggestion: and it is very evident that this " why " is
not to be found in suggestion. All happens as if an
unknown influence had momentarily made a void in the
mind, so as to give free rein to the idea suggested and
enable it thus to be developed without obstacle. It is
this unknown influence, without which suggestion could
not exist, that Durand de Gros called hypotaxy, and
that is known more generally as hypnotism. Thus, we
have had only to follow the doctrine of suggestion far
enough in order to go beyond it and become convinced
that suggestion itself presupposes another principle.

This appears more evident still if we consider the
cases where the habitual reducteurs of paradoxical sug-
gestion, even though awake and active, find themselves
powerless to reduce it. In the practise of the School
of Nancy these reductions are, so to speak, out of play :
the patients are informed of the power of the sugges-
tioner, and disposed in advance to submit to the effects;
the suggestions which will be given them — knowing,
as they do, that they are for the curing or relieving of
their ailment — are, in their eyes, not paradoxical
but plausible. It happens wholly otherwise with an
operator acting upon the first persons who come to him,
and who lend themselves to his action out of simple

SUGGESTION 125

curiosity, but with the idea well determined that he
will not obtain any effect.

How may we explain the elements of suggestion, as
defined by the School of Nancy, in such a case as that
of " Laverdant," curiously analyzed by Durand de
Gros in his Cours de Braidisme? 1

The subject assisted for the first time at a seance of hypno-
tism; and in placing himself at the disposition of the experi-
menter, he did so in order to " fill a gap " and nothing more.
He was not actually under the influence of any idea of sug-
gestion; he did not expect in any way to be suggestioned ; he
did not know, even, precisely what the experiment would be;
his whole thought was to take advantage of the occasion to get
his customary short nap. An instant after gazing intently upon
the object placed in his hand, he became hypnotized. Not hav-
ing ceased to be fully awake, he did not believe possible the
realization of the hypnotizer's affirmations. It was almost
with indignation that he resented the latter's suggestion Jthat
he did not know one of the letters of his name. And when
this fact was realized, he showed stupefaction and consternation
no less than any of the assistants.

Durand de Gros believes it can be concluded that, in
a like case, the subject who obeys suggestion is not the
same as one who, receiving it, struggles against it with
all his power.

" On the one hand," he says, " the real will of the
subject, the will of which he has consciousness, remains
intact, since he intends to resist the mysterious experi-
ment, and he wills it energetically to the end. On the

1 Cours theorique et pratique de Braidisme, published under the
pseudonym of Dr. Philips.

126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

other hand, that which causes an act of faith and obedi-
ence in the subject is not the subject himself, properly
speaking; it is another ego than his ego."

In other words, suggestion, in facts of this kind, re-
veals to us a mechanism much more complicated than
the simplistic doctrine which the School of Nancy builds
and pulls to pieces with such assurance. There are
more mysteries in suggestion than dreamed of by that
School. We have shown in Our Hidden Forces the
very important role played by crytopsychism in sug-
gestion ; and it does not seem to us that the partisans of
suggestion, as understood by Bernheim, could doubt
this.

But what conclusion can we draw from all this dis-
cussion ?

First of all, the method which consists in explaining
concrete facts by abstract terms, such as suggestion and
suggestibility, seems to us antiscientific in the highest
degree; it is an old remnant of the scholastic method,
a recourse to entities, to qualities, and occult virtues.

There is a subject to whom I give, at will, hallucina-
tions of the most impossible order, whose organs I
paralyze at pleasure. What can be the cause of effects
so extraordinary? It is very simple: it is all sugges-
tion. But this suggestion, how is it explained? From
whence comes its power? That is very simple also: it
is a consequence of suggestibility, a natural property of
the human brain.

Thus it is believed that facts are explained in muffling
them in a name, just as the scholastics believed that they
explained sleep produced by opium in saying that opium
has a sleep-producing virtue !

SUGGESTION 127

According to this reasoning, it would be useless to
seek the particular cause of each of the maladies from
which humanity suffers; it would be sufficient to say,
" It is a malady," or, upon insistence, to evoke morbid-
ity, that is to say, the natural property which every
human organism possesses to become diseased.

In this question, as in all others, the true scientific
method consists in seeking the cause of a phenomenon
in its material conditions, in its physical antecedents or
concomitants. Suggestion and suggestibility are not
real causes; they are simply names to designate the
facts themselves of which we must seek the causes. In
other words, they are the verbal causes, provisional,
conventional, behind which are hidden the real causes,
which remain to be discovered, and which, when we
know them, will permit us not only to understand their
effects but even to foresee them, and to control them at
our will.

Inasmuch as experience shows us that all human in-
dividuals are not suggestible, or all at least are 'sug-
gestible in different degrees, and also that an individual
suggestible to-day in certain circumstances will not be
suggestible later in apparently identical circumstances,2
it is very necessary to admit that suggestion is not a
fact subsisting in itself, an absolute fact, of which it is
useless to seek the cause, and which can only itself be
evoked as the cause of all the particular suggestions;
but it is, on the contrary, an effect depending upon con-
ditions still unknown, the knowledge of which is pre-
cisely the aim of scientific research.

2 There are some subjects who might be called intermittent*.
(Charles Richet: De quelques phtnomenes de suggestion sans hypnot-
isme.)

128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

However, we are sufficiently well acquainted with the
general laws of the physiological life to know that this
life has, at least in part, its conditions in the organism,
notably in the nervous system and the brain.

There are certain cases where psychological phe-
nomena appear to complement one another, and it is
not necessary, in order to render them intelligible, to
separate them from their series. Such is, for example,
a long algebraic or geometric demonstration, in which
the mind seems to be concerned only with itself and to
obey exclusively its own laws.

But this appears not to be the case with hypnotic sug-
gestion. In order that the idea introduced into the
subject's consciousness by means of the spoken word
may produce automatically the hallucinations, amnesia,
paralysis, etc., it is necessary to seek the cause of these
effects outside of the mind itself, in some modification
— the nature of which is still unknown — of the circu-
latory and nervous state of the brain centers and of all
the cerebro-spinal system.

So long as this modification is not produced, if I were
to say to a subject : " You cannot open your eyes ; you
cannot fold your arms, nor bend your knees," he would
ridicule my suggestions. When, however, this modifi-
cation is produced, in spite of his credulity, in spite of
his efforts to resist me, he is forced to obey (as was
shown in the case of Laverdant).

In this nervous and cerebral modification, in this
hypotaxic state of the subject's organism, resides the
true cause of the phenomena of which the sugges-
tion of the operator is but the occasion, the determi-
nant condition.

SUGGESTION 129

There is, however, no reason to suppose a priori
that this modification, of a physical or physiological
nature, can be produced only by suggestion, which is
of a psychological order. Where suggestion is possi-
ble, it seems that it can be produced by a large number
of different causes — as is shown in the case of the
numerous and diverse processes of hypnotization; by all
those causes, at least, which sufficiently disturb the cus-
tomary equilibrium of the system.

On the other hand, as we have already shown, ex-
perience proves that purely physical processes — such
as the prolonged fixation of the gaze upon a certain
spot (experiments of Braid, Grimm, and Dr. Philips),
not to mention passes — produce the state very rapidly
in a large number of subjects, and prepare them for
the effects of suggestion.

Therefore, it is not true that hypnotism, which is
confused with the hypotaxic state, is nothing but sug-
gestion. Quite the contrary, suggestion, in the great
majority of cases, has hypnotism for a preliminary con-
dition.

Hypnotism and suggestion are two connected but dis-
tinct facts, not necessarily existing in the aame propor-
tion. There are subjects who are suggestible in the
highest degree, and in whom the hypnotic state is pro-
duced only with great difficulty and remains more or
less superficial. On the other hand, there exist certain
individuals who can be hypnotized with the utmost ease,
and upon whom suggestion has but little influence.3

3 We readily believe that the apparition of suggestibility is a char-
acteristic of hypnotism, but only in its initial or middle phase, and
that, in the measure that suggestion becomes stronger, hypnotism
grows weaker and tends finally to disappear. This is only an hypoth-

130 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

It would be interesting to study all these anomalies,
not at random from observations made in a clinic, but
by experimental researches methodically pursued in a
laboratory.

In the absence of this study, suggestion will remain,
for a long time to come, a certain but enigmatical fact;
and its use as an hypothesis must be accompanied by
many precautions and reservations.

in

We have distinguished two different uses of the hy-
pothesis: one theoretical, the other experimental, ac-
cording to whether we make it serve to explain facts
already known, or to experiment in order to discover
new facts or to prove a new law.

Suggestion also can play this double role in the
parapsychic sciences, and we must look upon it first as
a theoretical hypothesis, and then as an experimental
hypothesis.

It is especially, and perhaps even exclusively, with
the first of these two points of view that the School
of Nancy has ranged itself. Suggestion has been in its
hands, above all else, a process of explanation by means
of which it has tried to account for the various hyp-
notic phenomena and their different characteristics. In
other words, it has tried to systematize these phenom-
ena by having them all derived from a sole principle;
and to accomplish this it resorted much more to reason-
ing than to experimentation.

esis; but it would be worth the trouble, we think, to verify it, and,
in any case, it could serve as the fil conducteur of experimental re-
searches.

SUGGESTION 131

One may be surprised at this assertion, and may
contest its exactness by observing that the partizans of
this School use suggestion constantly in their practise.
It is by means of suggestion that they put their subjects
to sleep ; it is by this means that they obtain all kinds of
phenomena — of a physical or physiological order as
well as of a mental order; and by this means they de-
vise treatments for all the most varied affections.

This practical use of suggestion has nothing to do
with the experimental hypothesis, which is quite a dif-
ferent thing from a simple operative process.

Knowing that suggestion produces certain specific
effects, it is quite natural for it to be employed when
these effects are desired. There does not enter into
that any kind of hypothesis — at least so long as the
operator does not try to obtain, by means of sugges-
tion, some effect which he does not know that it is really
capable of producing.

However, for the clarity of this study, it will be
helpful to look upon suggestion as an operative process
before regarding it as an hypothesis, either theoretical
or experimental. This preliminary consideration will
have the advantage of clearing up the field for the dis-
cussion which will follow.

The first and principal use of suggestion made by the
School of Nancy — especially by Dr. Liebeault, the
founder of the School — had for its aim the curing or
the alleviation of pain. When Dr. Liebeault asked his
patients why they came to him, each of them invariably
answered : " I came to be cured." Similarly, in the
clinic of Bernheim it was, above all else, a question of
treatment.

132 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

From this it seems that the Nancian operative tech-
nique contains two successive processes, the first serving
simply to prepare and, so to speak, induce the second.
It is always necessary to put the patient to sleep, or at
least to influence him, in order to put him in a state in
which he will be able to receive the suggestion and
realize it. Then, once the way is open, the idea is im-
pressed upon his mind ; and this idea itself, by means of
a mysterious process, will provoke in the organism the
reactions which will result in the recovery of health.

It is evident that in this second operation, suggestion
alone is used, in its more authentic form — verbal and
direct. " Your fever will decrease," the patient is told.
" You will no longer have excessive perspiration."
" You will have a good appetite," etc.

In the first operation, suggestion can be reinforced by
aids which sometimes completely disguise it. This is
what is called reinforced suggestion.

Upon a patient who is already influenced by his repu-
tation, the environment, etc., the operator acts not only
by means of words, but still more so by means of the
gaze, the slight touches upon the eyelids and temples,
and even by the passes. In his own mind all this is
nothing more than suggestion, indirect and tacit, whose
purpose is to complete the direct suggestion — that
which is made by word and consists in the enumeration
of the symptoms the operator wishes to produce:
" You are thinking only of sleep — your eyelids are
heavy — they are about to close — they are closing
already," etc.

Therefore, when it is a question of obtaining a prac-
tical result, the nature of the process employed — theo-

SUGGESTION 133

retically known or unknown — is of little importance ;
the essential thing is that it be efficacious. In order to
use suggestion, it is not necessary to know what it is,
after all — no more than in the case of electricity.
Often, even, if one process does not succeed, it can be
replaced by another; according to the popular expres-
sion, " An arrow can be made of any wood."

It is thus that Liebeault and Bernheim, having vainly
tried to cure a patient of pain by means of direct sug-
gestion, did not hesitate to take recourse to passes, at-
tributing their success, however, to suggestion.

Similarly, the exclusive partisans of animal magnet-
ism or of hypnotism use suggestion in many cases when
they try, not to prove a certain theory, but merely to
obtain a result; the important thing with them then is
to succeed.

However, if the School of Nancy has employed sug-
gestion especially for therapeutic or medical purposes,
it has employed it also, although less frequently/ for
experimental purposes ; for instance, in its controversies
with the School of Paris. But this second use, as well
as the first, is possible only because it gives informa-
tion, in advance, by means of sufficiently repeated and
varied observations, of the list of principal effects that
it is capable of producing.

It is useless to have recourse to suggestion to pro-
duce in a subject a certain physical or mental modifica-
tion, if it is known in advance that suggestion is inca-
pable of provoking it. On the other hand, it will be
deliberately employed if it is a question of an effect
that comes within its field of action. It is, then,
extremely interesting for the operator to know exactly

134 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

how far the power of suggestion extends, and where it
stops; for, evidently, however extensive it may be, it
must have its limits.

Suggestion undoubtedly is limited by the possibilities
and the necessities resulting from natural laws; cer-
tainly it cannot perform miracles. For instance, if I
suggest to a subject that he will never die, I can make
him believe absolutely in his own immortality and
imagine that in the future he will be safe from death;
but shall I be able to make him actually immortal? If
I suggest to a subject that he is very cold, or very warm,
he will really feel, subjectively, these sensations; but it
is not certain that the temperature of his body will
become higher or lower in proportion, and that a ther-
mometer put in contact with his skin will indicate forty
degrees (Centigrade) or zero; with greater reason, it
cannot be supposed that the temperature of the room
is raised or lowered in accordance with the imaginations
and beliefs of the subject.

Perhaps the question will be made clearer by dis-
tinguishing two great classes of effects of suggestion,
even though in practise they are inseparably linked to-
gether. These are :

(1) The effects of a subjective order.

(2) The effects of an objective order.

Being given the nature of suggestion, such as we
have defined it after the School of Nancy, for instance
in a state of conviction, persuasion, absolute faith, there
is nothing surprising, it seems, in that it may have sub-
jective effects of a power in some ways illimited; but its
objective effects are not equally easy to understand.

Thus, if I suggest to a subject that he feels an in-

SUGGESTION 135

tense cold, a cold ten degrees below zero, it seems nat-
ural that the subject would believe what I say to him,
and that he would feel, or imagine he feels, a sensa-
tion of cold so intense as to cause him to shiver, his
teeth to chatter, etc.4 But there is in that only a
subjective effect: that is, a belief and a sensation, or
rather an hallucination involved in the belief. It is
true that the chill, the chattering of teeth, etc., are ob-
jective phenomena; but are these phenomena the direct
effects of suggestion ? Are they not immediately linked
to sensation and consequently also to the hallucinatory
image, in a way that causes this to appear in the mind
with or without suggestion?

It would, on the contrary, be an incontestable objec-
tive effect if the thermometer, put in contact with the
subject's body, registered a noticeable lowering of the
temperature, especially a lowering to ten degrees below
zero. As no such effect is observed ordinarily, it would
be very necessary in this case to attribute it to sugges-
tion. But then it would be necessary to admit at the
same time that suggestion develops in the human being
new powers really extraordinary by which the custom-
ary relations of the subjective and the objective are
greatly modified.

In fact, it is really this that we establish in the major-
ity of cases of suggestive therapeutics. We do not
seem to have, in the normal state, the faculty of regulat-
ing at will our different physiological functions; or, in

4 We must note, however, that one subject who, under the effect of
such a suggestion, could not avoid shivering, chattering his teeth,
etc., declared all the while that he did not subjectively feel a cold
sensation; this remaining in the state of a simple idea. (Charles
Richet: De quelques phenomenes de suggestion sans hypnottsme.)

136 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

any case, this faculty remains latent and inactive in us.
But when an individual is put into the hypnotic state —
or, if you prefer, into the state of effective suggestibility
— he then becomes capable of determining at will, upon
a simple word of the hypnotizer or the suggestioner,
the complete anesthesia of certain of his organs, or of
his entire organism — unless this be a hyperesthesia
akin to the miraculous — the paralysis of all his muscu-
lar forces or their paroxysmic exaltation, bringing into
play all the vital energies, for the struggle against mi-
crobes or the reparation of tissues impaired by morbid
causes, etc.

Here too we border upon mystery, or, more exactly,
upon the enigma of suggestion. For one cannot help
but believe that behind what is seen in suggestion —
the word of him who suggested the idea and the faith of
him who accepts it — there is also that which is not
seen: that is to say, the unknown state of the subcon-
sciousness and of the nervous system of the subject,
perhaps even some unknown influence emanating from
the operator which he himself does not doubt.

It is true, as we have remarked above, that it is
not important, for the practical use of suggestion, that
we know or that we ignore its real nature. If, how-
ever, it be once admitted — and a great number of facts
appear to authorize this — that suggestion brings to
light in human beings unsuspected powers, we cannot see
why there should be imposed a priori a limit to that
which it is possible to expect of suggestion, and why,
consequently, the savants do not try to obtain by it the
most improbable effects. Experiment alone can teach

SUGGESTION 137

us a posteriori that of which suggestion is or is not
capable.

Undoubtedly it is for this reason that the early mes-
merists suggested to their subjects to perceive things
situated outside of the normal field of action of their
senses, claiming thus to produce the state of second
sight in them; without, however, affirming that their
suggestion did anything but reveal a natural, preexist-
ent faculty, in itself independent of suggestion.

Whatever the opinion of the different schools may
be upon this particular point it does not seem to us
justifiable to confine in practise the use of suggestion
to a certain category of effects. Experimentation
alone can reveal its true limits.

IV

It is necessary for us, meanwhile, to examine the
value of suggestion as a principle of explanation for all
this ensemble of phenomena which we designate as
parapsychic. For, in saying that suggestion is trie key
to all these phenomena, the exclusive partisans of sug-
gestion mean, in our opinion, that all of the phenomena
of this order which are real must be able to be explained
by suggestion, and, inversely, all those that suggestion
does not explain must be considered as inexistent and
apocryphal.

We wish to oppose to this assertion three objections:

First : In an order of researches so difficult and so

little advanced, the pretension to explain, to theorize,

to carry everything back to a unique principle, is in n< i

wa) scientific.

138 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

A more urgent task imposes itself: to observe a con-
tinually increasing number of facts, in conditions of
certainty and exactitude as rigorous as possible; to
compare, classify, analyze, and submit them, in a word,
to all the processes of the scientific method, in an en-
deavor to discover their laws.

It is not a paradox but a simple statement of the
truth to claim that the real scientific attitude consists
in being indifferent to the desire for explanation, while
confining one's energies to determining the phenomena.

It is true that the hypothesis intervenes necessarily
in this research; but it is then the experimental hypothe-
sis, whose aim is not to explain the facts and rapports
already known, but rather to discover new facts and
new rapports. The theoretical hypothesis, on the con-
trary — that which has for its aim the coordination and
integration of the results acquired — is placed at the
end of the operations of the method, not in the course
of the experiment being made but when the researches
are at an end. Can we truly believe that the study of
the parapsychic phenomena has reached this point,
already?

Second: Any attempt to explain an ensemble of
facts as numerous and as varied as those we are now
discussing strikes itself against the difficulty resulting
from the plurality of the inter-substitution of the causes.
The exclusive partizans of suggestion reason invariably
as if the same phenomenon were always produced by
the same cause. " It is not true," said Stuart Mill,
" that the same phenomenon is invariably produced by
the same cause : the effect may come sometimes from A,

SUGGESTION 139

sometimes from B. There are often many independent
ways in which the same phenomenon may have origi-
nated. Many causes may produce mechanical mo-
tion; many causes may produce certain species of sen-
sations; and many others produce death. A given
effect can really be produced by a certain cause, and
nevertheless be perfectly capable of being produced
without it."

Thus, while suggestion produces certain parapsychic
phenomena — as, for example, somnambulism — it
does not follow ipso facto that these same phenomena
cannot be produced by any other cause than suggestion.

Third: It is admitted unquestionably that a prin-
ciple of explanation is all the more satisfactory, all the
more sure, the clearer it is, the more luminous, or, to
speak without metaphor, the less of the unknown it
contains. Now, the analysis of suggestion as made
above, either as a fact or as an operative process, dem-
onstrates that there exist few facts so obscure and in
which the part of the unknown is so great. To explain
a certain parapsychic fact by suggestion is usually to
explain obscurum per obscurum, if not per obscurius.

All these objections, which appear to be very great if
applied to the theoretical suggestion-hypothesis, would
singularly lose their force were they to aim at the ex-
perimental suggestion-hypothesis; for, in this case, it
no longer would be a question of an explanation which
is given to complete and define a whole order of phe-
nomena, but of a simple temporary interpretation of a
certain particular phenomenon or a certain particular
group of phenomena. Even if false, it carries its cor-

140 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

rective, for it contains in itself the project and the plan
of an experimentation by which it can immediately be
confirmed or disproved.

It does not seem to us that, up to the present time,
suggestionists have thought — with rare exceptions —
of supporting their affirmations and their deductions by
proofs, and especially by experimental counterproofs.
Their method consists, in general, in showing that sug-
gestion can produce — and consequently explain —
all the parapsychic phenomena. They conclude that it
is suggestion which produces and explains the phenom-
ena in every case, even where it is impossible to prove
that it may be present and active. When it can be
proved that suggestion is certainly absent and has not
been able to act in any way, then it must be concluded,
according to them, that the phenomena are in reality
imaginary, illusory — in a word, unscientific.

First of all, let us consider suggestion in itself:
Does it carry its own explanation?

" Yes," says the suggestionists; " for it is explained
by suggestibility, which is natural to every human brain.
On the one hand, every human being is made to believe
what is said to him, and, on the other hand, it is suffi-
cient for him to believe in order to be made to realize
his belief, either in the field of perception or in that of

action."

Thus suggestion is explained theoretically; and in
order to verify the theory experimentally, the sugges-
tionists are content to show that, by using the word to
bring the credulity of a subject into play, he is effectively
made to see or to do the most improbable things. This
manner of reasoning and experimenting is that which

SUGGESTION 141

Bacon called an induction " per enumerationem sim-
plicem, ubi non reperitur instantia contradictoria " —
induction by simple enumeration, where they do not give
themselves the trouble to seek contradictory facts.

It is true that there are people who are suggestioned
with the greatest ease by the word of others. But
does this signify that they are always and necessarily
people of a credulous nature? Are there not also
people — as in the case of Laverdant — who are in
no way credulous, and upon whom, however, suggestion
acts in spite of their incredulity ? Inversely, are there
not people who, believing in the all-power of sugges-
tion, ardently desirous of being suggestioned, do not
succeed, nevertheless, in realizing the suggestions that
are made upon them?

It is these negative cases — which savants too often
believe themselves able to be rid of by qualifying as
exceptional — which are the really significant and in-
structive cases; for, in preventing us from stopping at
the apparent causes, they orient our- researches toward
the determination of the real causes.

We have already shown that the hypothesis of sug-
gestion is not sufficient to explain all the characteristics
of hypnotism. It explains neither the exclusive rap-
port of the subject with the hypnotizer, nor the trans-
missibility of this rapport to an assistant placed in con-
tact with the hypnotizer. It explains neither the spon-
taneous anesthesia of the subject, nor the consecutive
amnesia. Nor does it explain the bringing into play
of curative powers of the organism, and perhaps other
still more mysterious powers. And there are many
other circumstances it does not explain. These may

142 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

not be encountered in all cases, but they are observed
frequently enough to demand an explanation of any
hypothesis which pretends to give us " the key to all
the phenomena of hypnosis."

There is no question that, with these characteristics
once known, it is always possible to try to reproduce
them, to imitate them, we would unhesitatingly say to
simulate them, by means of suggestion. One must
necessarily recognize that suggestion is quite an extraor-
dinary principle of imitation and of simulation. For
example, it can be suggested to a subject that, once
asleep, he will be en rapport with his hypnotizer only;
and in this case the exclusive rapport — the work of
suggestion — will imitate, simulate this same rapport
as it is produced spontaneously in other cases quite
apart from suggestion. Similarly, it can be suggested
to a subject that all his sensitiveness will be abolished
when he is asleep; and in this case the total anesthesia
— the work of suggestion — will imitate, simulate the
same anesthesia that is produced spontaneously in
other cases without suggestion. And so on. But,
we say, in the same way, the purgative effects of castor-
oil can be imitated, simulated in a subject by making
him swallow clear water : can it be concluded that any
one who takes castor-oil outside of all expressed sug-
gestion is in reality purged only by virtue of a tacit
suggestion?

It is this kind of reasoning, or rather sophism, that
is the basis of all the pretended experimental demon-
strations of the exclusive suggestionists.

On one hand, however great this power of imita-
tion and simulation may be, it is not without weakness

SUGGESTION 143

and limitations. We have more than once impera-
tively assured a subject that when he was asleep he
would be en rapport with no one but the operator; or
that he would lose all tactile sensibility; or that when
awakened he would have no recollection of what had
happened during his sleep. Yet, in spite of our sug-
gestions, the subject would continue to be en rapport
with all the assistants; to feel all the contacts; to re-
member all that we had said or done to him.

It is these characteristics of deep somnambulism, such
as the transmissibility of the rapport by contact or con-
duction, or such as the exteriorization of the sensitive-
ness, that suggestion alone, without recourse to fraud,
will remain always powerless to imitate.

The great tactic of the pure suggestionists consists
in denying all the phenomena which cannot be explained
or produced by suggestion alone.

" We have never constated," they say, " the ex-
teriorization of the sensitiveness, the transmissibility
of the rapport by contact or conduction, clairvoyance,
etc.; therefore these phenomena cannot exist. Those
who believed they observed them have been duped by
the fraud of the subjects or by their own illusion."

We should like to know if the suggestionists have
ever tried to be placed in the conditions which would
permit them to constate these phenomena. Having
systematically decided never to employ in their experi-
ments anything but suggestion, they are thus condemned
never to see anything but suggestion, and it is with
entire good faith that they declare that there is not,
and cannot be, anything else.

It is thus that Dr. Bernheim held as valueless Dr.

144 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

Liebeault's curious work upon Zoomagnetisme, in which
he admitted the existence of a principle analogous in
its effects to suggestion, but different in its nature, and
which was no other than the old animal magnetism of
Mesmer, Puysegur, Deleuze, du Potet, etc.

It is thus, also, that all the domain of cryptopsy-
chism, of telepathy, of mental suggestion, and, more
especially, of spiritism, is closed to the partizans of a
school which considers that the boundaries of its doc-
trine are those of science and of reality.

CHAPTER IX

AN UNKNOWN FORCE
ANIMAL MAGNETISM, OR " BIACTINISM "

I

DOES the human organism really possess the prop-
erty of radiating a magnetic influence capable of acting
at a distance upon another human organism?

This is a question upon which the savants cannot
agree.

The problem, therefore, is an interesting one, and
it presents such great importance — from the point of
view of the general orientation of the psychical sci-
ences — that it is necessary to examine it here in detail.

Mesmer seems to have been the first to affirm the
existence of this radiation of the human organism,
which he compared to that of the magnet, or rather he
considered it as being — as is the radiation of the mag-
net — a particular case, a particular form of a uni-
versal energy. In any event, the usage of calling this
radiation animal magnetism, sometimes modified to
vital magnetism, began with Mesmer.

Perhaps a part of the disfavor which official scien-
tists still attach to all affirmation or even to all study
of human radiation comes really from this name. It
is not the only case in which the words are inappro-
priate to the ideas. The expression animal magnetism

145

146 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

not only designates a certain ensemble of facts; it in-
volves at the same time an hypothesis; it anticipates
the explanation of these facts. Consequently, all those
to whom this hypothesis is repugnant, or who consider
this explanation inadmissible, will reject in toto the
facts themselves, refusing to examine them, or declar-
ing them a priori impossible, illusory, inexistent.

Is this not what happened to the king's commission-
ers who were charged with officially controlling the as-
sertions of Mesmer?

We find at the present time a similar confusion, with
the same regrettable consequences, regarding spiritism.
This word, also, is used wrongly to designate two very
different things, wholly distinct from each other: (i)
a certain ensemble of facts, which we have called spirit-
istic or spiritoidal; (2) a doctrine proposed by a par-
ticular group of people in order to explain these facts.

To admit the existence of spiritoidal facts, at least
as objects of possible study, is not by any means to
affirm the truth of this doctrine. Nevertheless, those
who reject the doctrine believe themselves ipso facto
authorized to deny the facts.

Similarly, the term animal magnetism is wrongly
used to designate, at one and the same time: (i) the
facts in which a sort of action of the human organism
at a distance seems to be manifested, and which we
have named magnetoidal without pretending in any
way to prejudge their nature; (2) a theory, that of
Mesmer and his disciples, which is presented to us as a
systematic explanation of these facts, more or less
assimilated to the phenomena of physical magnetism.

Could not the facts of animal magnetism be ad*

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 147

mitted, at least as objects of possible study, without
being obliged at the same time to profess the doctrine
of animal magnetism, either under the form that Mes-
mer gave it, or under any other particular form?

Perhaps the best way to remedy this confusion would
be to renounce absolutely this traditional term animal
magnetism and to employ wholly new words, neolog-
isms taken from the Greek or the Latin. Braid and
Bernheim did this in grouping under the names hypno-
tism and suggestion the phenomena described by them
and which they considered — rightly or wrongly — as
really different from those of animal magnetism.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to overcome usage
and tradition; and, indeed, few efforts have been made
in this connection. The only ones that, to our knowl-
edge, can be cited are those of Reichenbach, calling od
or odyle the supposed agent of human radiation (ca-
pable, moreover, of producing effects of the same kind
outside of man and in all nature) ; and that of Profes-
sor Thury (of Geneva) giving this same agent the
name psychode. But these denominations remain con-
fined to the works of their inventors. This is true,
also, of the term ecteneique 1 (ectenic state, ectenic
force) by which this same Professor Thury designated
the state in which a human being can extend the limits
of his action beyond his own organism, and the force
which is developed in this state.

Even though these words may have the advantage

1From the Greek word extension. An abbreviated form of the
word, ecten, has been proposed, we believe — but without much more
success — to designate the force itself, and ectenic to qualify all that is
connected with this force.

148 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

of not involving any hypothesis as to the essential
nature and the deep cause of the facts being considered,
none of them has succeeded in supplanting in common
usage the old name of animal magnetism. We have
a proof of this in the title given by Barety to his great
work: Le magnetisme animal etudie sous le nom de
force neurique, where the new name, neuric force dares
to introduce itself only under the shelter and patronage
of animal magnetism, in spite of all the discredit
attached to it in scientific circles.

It seems very necessary, however, to break with all
associations of ideas which this expression animal
magnetism carries.

It is not doubted that the facts called animal mag-
netism present, at first sight, singular analogies with
the facts of physical magnetism. But these analogies
can be only apparent and superficial; it is very possible
that a more, thorough study would cause us to con-
clude that there is no essential resemblance between
these two orders of facts. Moreover, the conception
that we form of physical magnetism is itself pro-
visional and largely hypothetical. It already has
changed many times, and undoubtedly will continue to
change as science progresses.

Is it rational to link thus, by giving them the same
denomination, two orders of phenomena which cannot
have in reality anything in common, as if it were pre-
tended to explain each of them by one and the same
principle?

We would suggest replacing, or at least adding to,
the term animal magnetism, by a new expression.
This should be free from all preconceived idea, by a

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 149

neologism taken from the Greek, alas! (but how can
we do otherwise?) and which means nothing more than
" human radiation " or " vital radiation."

In these conditions, the word biactinism is presented
to our mind; for it means exactly " radiation of life,"
from two Greek words, /8to? life, and a*™? ray.2

" Biactinism " could be used, then, to define the
ensemble of facts when there is manifested in living
beings, and particularly in human beings, a radiating
influence, a radio-active energy, susceptible of being
exercised at a distance over other animate beings, or
even upon inanimate objects.

Observation and experimentation alone can enable
us to know by progressive steps the different properties
of this energy, the different effects of this influence.
Meanwhile, however, it can be said now that they
present close analogies to those of the natural radiating
forces already known: heat, light, electricity, magnet-
ism.

Until further researches are made, biactinism must
be considered as constituting a special order of facts,
to be studied in itself, and of which the rapports with
the other orders of natural facts must not be prejudged
in virtue of a priori conceptions, but determined experi-
mentally, in proportion to the progress of their
study.

2 Perhaps the word zoactinism might be more correct; for, as has
been remarked, the Greek plos means, rather, moral and social life;
organic life, an attribute common to animals and vegetables, would
be rather designated by the word ?«fo|. But usage has already pre-
vailed, in all modern languages, in employing the root bio in the
second sense — as proved by the words biology, aerobia, microbe, etc.,
which incontestably refer to organic life.

150 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

ii

The first question that arises regarding biactinism is,
very evidently, the following:

Does biactinism exist? Is it really true that a living
organism generates — in conditions which permit it to
be established with certainty — a radiating force ca-
pable of acting even at a distance upon another organ-
ism?

We have indicated elsewhere 8 the reasons which
necessitate an affirmative answer to this question, at the
same time showing the processes and the methods by
which the effects and the conditions of biactinism can
be studied scientifically. We shall review these, how-
ever, in the present chapter.

Let us consider, for a moment, that the question is
answered in the affirmative. What shall we under-
stand by " radiation of an organism operating at a
distance " ? For biactinism, or animal magnetism,
would consist in that, according to the definition we
have given.

From the strictly metaphysical point of view, it can
undoubtedly be claimed, with Leibnitz and the author
of a recent work,4 that the notions of radiation and of
action at a distance are illusory, entirely relative to
false appearances, and that, in reality, there is neither
action nor radiation.

" Every time," says the author of L'univers-organ-
isme, " that a body seems to act at a distance, it is
because there exists, between the body which acts and
the body which reacts, an intermediary agent which

8 Our Hidden Forces.

*L'univers-organisme, Bardonnet. (Revue philosophique > 1914.)

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 151

transmits the excitation, having first undergone it itself.
This intermediary, in acoustic phenomena, we know, is
the atmospheric air ; but it exists also in all other orders
of phenomena ; and it is, then, cosmic matter."

Properly speaking, the force does not radiate, is not
transmitted; or, as Leibnitz said, there is no really
transitive action, no action which passes from one sub-
ject to another as a rider would jump from one horse
to another because " force is the act, and the act is
necessarily inherent to its agent. An act cannot go
far from its agent."

Let us note that what is said here of " force " can
equally be said of " motion," of " excitation," of " sen-
sation," of " thought." Taken literally, such as ex-
pression as this : " motion is transmitted from one body
to another," is nonsensical, an absurdity. The motion
of a body is not separated, cannot be separated, from
that body itself : it is a state of the body, it is the body
itself in the state of motion. Thus the motion* of a
first body A cannot become the motion of a second
body B ; but B can be brought to move as A, and because
A is already in a state of motion.

There is not, in that, a single movement passing from
one subject to another, but two movements produced
successively, one because of the other, in two different
subjects. If it be understood otherwise, the movement
then becomes a third body, a sort of invisible sub-
stance.

In the same way, it is erroneous to speak of an ex-
citation as being transmitted. Following and because
of a first excitation in the subject A, a second excitation,
more or less similar, is produced in B; and so forth.

152 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

But it is not one excitation, abstract, impersonal, anony-
mous, which the subjects pass to each other in some
way from hand to hand.

Similarly, also, when we say that a nerve transmits a
sensation, we must no more take this expression liter-
ally than when we say that the telegraph transmits a
despatch or that a letter transmits to us the thought of
its author. The sensation of pricking is not an un-
known something starting from the needle-point, pro-
ceeding along a nerve, entering the brain and then the
consciousness of the individual. It is a series of dis-
tinct states, specifically different from one another,
which follow in a certain order and of which each is,
so to speak, the promoter, the excitator of the one that
follows it.

All this is very true; but it is true also that in prac-
tise there is no serious disadvantage in employing the
language of appearances, so long as one is not led
astray by so doing. Astronomy itself, which well
knows that the sun does not rotate round the earth,
does not hesitate to speak, in everyday language, of the
rising and the setting of the sun.

Therefore those very savants who raise objections
against the radiation of a force and its action at a dis-
tance, end by declaring that " evidently, on the whole,
things happen more or less as if cosmic matter does not
exist and as if the force radiates at a distance." This
is why, undoubtedly, led by the force of habit, they
themselves employ expressions which they denounce,
and speak freely of transmitted excitation.*

5 " Our peripheric nerves end at the nerve centers, and every time
they are excited they have nothing so urgent as the transmission of their

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 153

These expressions, precisely because they present
things en gros, have the advantage of a brevity and a
convenience that would be difficult to obtain with more
precise and exact words.

Let us say, however, that the objection which we
oppose here is less against the conception of biactinism
or animal magnetism in particular than against all the
actual conceptions of physics, or rather against the
vocabulary which serves to express them.6 It appears
very doubtful to us that the great majority of physicists,
when they speak of action at a distance, of force which
radiates or is disseminated or transmitted from one
body to another, etc., understand all these expressions
in a literal sense and see in them anything but short-
ened forms, more or less metaphoric and in any case
convenient practically, to represent realities that they
know to be appreciably different from that representa-
tion.

A precedent is created when saying to a contem-
porary physicist that there is no action at a distance in
the proper meaning of the term; for he knows very
well that all action between two bodies distant from
each other, whether it be a question of heat, light, or
electricity, suppose an intermediary; and it is this inter-
mediary which is designated by the name of etheric
ambient or cosmic ether.

To call it cosmic matter is but to add one more name
to all those it has received since the time of Descartes,

excitation to the center to which they are bound; this, in its turn,
transmits it to the others and in particular to the ' self.' " — Bardonnet.
6 " This conception of an animal magnetism which frees itself from
the individual and radiates imitates the classical conceptions of force;
but it is false here as in physics." — Bardonnet.

154 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

who appears to have had the first idea of it when he
called it subtle matter.1

It would be absurd to pretend that, when certain of
our contemporaries speak of heat, light, electricity, or
animal magnetism as circulating and radiating forces,
they really conceive each of these forces as being " a
quintesssence, a fluid, an imponderable element, capable
of circulating, of being discharged, and arrested " as
" a changeable principle, conductible, freed, radiating,
rarefied or accumulated; stored, concentrated, trans-
formed," etc.

We should then distinguish in all description or ex-
pression of natural facts, that which is essential and
that which is accessory: the true rapports of the phe-
nomena and the more or less imperfect images by which
we represent them in our minds. And we should un-
derstand that there is not an irremediable inconvenience
in employing this language of images, provided we can
always interpret it in the language of true rapports,
when necessary to do so.

It is the same conclusion which is reached by Bardon-
net when he says :

7 It is by the movement of subtle matter that Descartes explains not
only all the particularities of fire (light and heat) and of the magnet,
but also " an infinity of effects altogether rare and marvelous," and
especially those which are designated to-day under the name of psy-
chical phenomena, " as the wounds of a dead person can be made to
bleed when the murderer is approaching; to stir the imagination of
those who sleep, or even also of those who are awake, and to give them
thoughts which inform them of things happening far from them and
make them feel the great afflictions or the great joys of an intimate
friend, the bad designs of an assassin, and similar things." This curi-
ous passage from Prindpes de la philosophic shows well that Descartes
had not disdained initiation in the sciences called occult, as he reveals
in the first part of Discours de la methode.

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 155

" The doctrine of animal magnetism is, then, false in
that it affirms a magnetism, that is to say a principle
which is freed and propagated outside of the individ-
ual; but true in that it affirms an exterior action, a
physical influence, of the operator.1' Farther on he
says: "The dispute among suggestionists, mesmer-
ists, and hypnotists, can be understood. In reality, it
is the mesmerists who are right; at least in that which
they affirm a physical influence out of the ordinary.
This physical influence consists not in animal magnet-
ism but in another method of excitation."

One can well see, from this last passage, that the
whole difficulty here comes from the associations of
ideas inseparably attached to the traditional term
" animal magnetism," even though this term essen-
tially designates for us only a " method of excitation "
which, instead of employing, as do suggestion and hyp-
notism, the ordinary senses, employs those of a special
sensibility, the sensibility to certain excitations of .ether-
ic or cosmic matter.

The difference between our doctrine and that which
we oppose is but that of a word.

It is necessary for us to recognize that a doctrine or
an hypothesis, such as that of animal magnetism, can be
defined only by comparison with other doctrines or
hypotheses which are found, so to speak, in concurrence
with it and contradict it upon certain points where re-
ciprocally it contradicts them.

Perhaps this was not so in the time of Mesmer and
Puysegur, or even of Deleuze and Du Potet. But ac-
tually that which is essential, uniquely essential, in the
hypothesis of animal magnetism is that by which this

ij6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

hypothesis is opposed to those of suggestion and hyp-
notism; all the rest is accessory and negligible.

The doctrines of suggestion and of hypnotism agree
in placing exclusively in the physical and psychological
state of the subject the necessary and sufficient reason
of all the parapsychic phenomena and in refusing to
acknowledge all real and direct action of the operator.
The doctrine of animal magnetism or biactinism con-
sists, above all, in attributing to the operator, to his
personality, to his own action, an importance at least
equal to that of the subject in the production of a cer-
tain number of parapsychic phenomena: viz., all those
which rightfully would not appear to be explicable by
the sole indications of hypnotism and suggestion.

The partizans of suggestion could claim, it is true,
that they recognize this action of the operator; for it is
the word or the gesture of the suggestioner which is,
according to them, the cause of all effects observed.
But any such action is of a moral or social order : it has
nothing to do with physiology, nothing to do with
physics. It is, moreover indirect, in that it is created
to arouse an idea in the mind of the subject, and it is
the idea which is the true cause. Suppress the inter-
vention of the operator and create the idea in any
other way whatsoever: the phenomenon will not con-
tinue, much less be produced.

Entirely on the contrary, in the hypothesis of biac-
tinism, the operator influences the subject by a special
action, wholly independent of the word and the gesture,
an action of a physiological and physical order, al-
though all psychological element may not necessarily
be excluded.

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 157

Evidently, this hypothesis has the disadvantage of
introducing an unknown quantity in the problem: i.e.,
the nature, not yet fully determined, of this special
action attributed to the operator. But it is not a ques-
tion, at the moment, of criticizing it, of weighing it.
The question is merely that of an exact conception and
understanding of it. True or false, it consists in be-
lieving that certain parapsychic phenomena are a func-
tion not only of a special physical and psychological
state of the subject, but also of a special physical and
psychological state of the operator.

To affirm this is to affirm animal magnetism, by
whatever name it may be called, and in whatever way it
may be imagined in detail ; to deny it is to deny animal
magnetism. Nothing that is added to this funda-
mental postulate can, at least for the moment, be con-
sidered as essential.

in

Does this mean that it is useless to try to obtain a
less vague and less abstract idea of this action sui
generis that the operator is supposed to exert upon the
subject, where it determines certain parapsychic effects?

On the contrary, the advantage of this hypothesis is
that it opens to us a vast field of researches, whose aim
is precisely to determine more and more the unknown
which surrounds it.

But this progressive determination must be made
by observation and experimentation, not by imagina-
tion and reasoning only; and the results thus obtained
gradually must always remain subject to revision and
correction, as all that which comes under the experi-
mental method.

158 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

It is, then, natural and inevitable that those who ad-
mit of a biomagnetic or biactinic action because of cer-
tain facts observed by them, endeavor to represent it
more or less concretely from what they know of these
facts, without concealing the fact that this representa-
tion really comprises the artificial and provisional. It
is thus that they are brought to seek the analogies that
any such action can present with other actions or forces
already known : on the one hand with the nerve force,
on the other hand with the forces called radiating and
circulating — heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc.

// does not seem possible to deny the existence of the
nerve force; but it is very necessary to acknowledge
that its nature is thoroughly unknown to us. We know
its principal effects; we know that it is the agent which
transmits to the nerve centers the excitations coming
from the periphery and gives birth to the sensations.
It is this also which transmits to the muscles the or-
ders of the Will, and determines the movements of the
exterior organs. It is this, too, which excites and
regulates the different vital functions : respiration, cir-
culation, assimilation, and catabolism. But we do not
know what constitutes it. The greater part of the time
it is believed to be like galvanic electricity, as a force
which circulates in its conductors between the centers or
focuses where it would be accumulated and condensed ;
but one must appreciate that this is only a rough sup-
position, and that it may be very far from the reality.

Be this as it may, if this force be supposed capable,
under certain conditions, of acting beyond the limits of
the organism in which it is, and of working thus a sort
of transfusion or of communication of sensitiveness, of

INDUCING SOMNAMBULISM

At the time of the experiment, when this photograph was taken,
one or the assistants went into an even deeper state of sleep, en-
tirely through sympathy.

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 159

will, of vitality, between two different organisms, a con-
ception of the biactinic force can be gained, which sums
up the principal facts upon which is based the affirma-
tion of those who believe in its reality.

This force would be, then, the nerve force radiating
from one organism to another, circulating from one
organism to another.

But our conception of the nerve force is itself very
vague, very indeterminate, and the only means we have
of making it more precise is to compare it to physical
forces to which it presents certain analogies, princi-
pally electricity. Hence there is not, perhaps, great
inconvenience — there may even be some advantage —
in trying to conceive the biactinic force in the light of
what we know of its analogies to physical forces, dis-
regarding all speculation upon nerve energy or nerve
force.

Considered from this viewpoint — which brings to
mind that of the early partizans of animal magnetism
— the biactinic force can be regarded, if not as a form
of electricity or of magnetism, at least as an electroidal
or magnetoidal force, the effects and laws of which
are comparable, mutatis mutandis, to those of the
modes of universal energy. One will then be justified
in speaking to his subject of conductibility, of polarity,
wholly as if it were a question of electrical or magnetic
phenomena.

It goes without saying that the idea which will be
gained of the biactinic force will itself undergo varia-
tions corresponding to those of the general conception
of electricity and magnetism ; and it is this which takes
place historically. For example, from the time when

160 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

physicists compared electricity to a fluid, the mesmer-
ists attributed equally to a fluid the effects produced by
passes, the gaze, etc. At the present time it is not a
question of fluid but of vibrations, undulations, etc. It
is, therefore, a phraseology, or, if we may be per-
mitted this expression, an idealogy, of the same kind,
that tends more and more to be applied to biactinic
phenomena. If in the future a new and wholly differ-
ent conception of electricity must be imposed upon the
generality of scientists, it will not fail to model to its
image the conception of this particular order of phe-
nomena.

IV

The questions we have examined in this chapter up
to the present point are relative to words and ideas
rather than to the things themselves. They ask us
how we shall name and represent action at a 'distance,
the radiation of one nervous system upon another nerv-
ous system, supposing any such action to be possible
(and we have shown that there is not, a priori, any
impossibility in conceiving such an action). But the
fundamental question remains :

Does biactinism exist?

And this question can be answered only by facts.
It is a question of proving — not by definitions and
reasonings, but by observations and especially by ex-
perimentation— the reality of nervous radiations, in
conditions which leave no room for doubt.

In Our Hidden Forces we described the facts which
convinced us of this reality. We do not hesitate to
say that any one earnestly bent on experimentation,

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 161

while observing the precautions indicated, possessing
all the patience to conduct his researches to finality,
even if his first results appears to be negative, will
inevitably be convinced.

The great difficulty lies in the possibility of confusing
the effects of suggestion with those of animal magnet-
ism. This, it will be remembered, was the objection
which the king's commissioners made to Mesmer and
his partizans when they attributed to imagination all
the phenomena they had witnessed.

However, this difficulty is not insurmountable. It
may be overcome, in experimenting, by following rigor-
ously some very simple rules.8

Even in the time of Mesmer certain observers —
among them, Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu — had been
able to constate cases of biactinic action entirely free
from all suggestive or imaginative element. In a book
written at that time we have found the description of
a case of this kind which perhaps is worthy of .being
quoted here :

Toward the end of November, 1778, I invited Dr. Mesmer
to dinner with me in a house where all, including myself, im-
patiently awaited his productions of magnetic phenomena. . . .
But here is what happened after dinner. I attest it as a fact
which I followed with the utmost care, and which the witnesses
studied with all the distrust imaginable.

The company assembled in the drawing-room. Dr. Mesmer
touched successively many persons. Some of them, especially,
had extremely irritable nerves; but none proved sufficiently sen-
sitive to be susceptible to animal magnetism.

8 See Our Hidden Forces, Chapter VI, " New Experimental Method
in Hypnology."

162 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

The tutor of the children in this house — a man of strong
temperament, robust, well constituted, not in the least credulous,
and strengthened in his incredulity by the unsuccessful attempts
which he had witnessed — complained after a while of a pain
in his shoulders. He offered himself to Dr. Mesmer as the
subject for a last attempt, though strongly persuaded that the
magnetism would not act any more upon him than it did upon
those whom Mesmer had touched. To tell the truth, it must
be admitted that it was not a new proof that he desired, but a
new occasion to deride this practise.

This last attempt, however, turned wholly to the glory of
Dr. Mesmer.

Perceiving, undoubtedly, the motive which brought this new
actor upon the scene, and wishing to give him the most con-
vincing proof of his skill, Mesmer refused to touch him but
instead directed his magnetic power against the subject without
contact and at a certain distance.

The experiment at once became more unusual and more inter-
esting. The subject stood with his back toward Mesmer, who
presented his finger at a distance of eight feet. As long as the
ringer remained fixed and motionless, pointing in the direction
and held at the height of the subject's shoulders, he did not
feel any effect; and the questions which Mesmer reiterated for
the space of about two minutes only strengthened the subject
more and more in his incredulity.

Things were at this stage when Mesmer signaled to the assist-
ants to fix their attention more closely upon the subject of this
singular experiment.

Then he moved his finger up and down, giving it at the
same time a slight circulatory motion. Instantly the subject
said that he felt a shivering sensation in the upper part of
his back.

Dr. Mesmer suspended his operation. The subject turned
around, and attributed the effect which he had felt to the
action of the heat-register before which he had been standing.

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 163

The experiment was begun again, with the subject this time
far away from the register. Standing firmly upon his feet, he
presented his back to Mesmer. The same movements, but
more energetic, more determined, on the part of Dr. Mesmer,
took place; and immediately the same sensations in the subject's
back, but less equivocal, more appreciable, were noted.

The subject was now thoroughly convinced of the reality
of these effects, and said that he could describe them no better
than by comparing them to a stream of hot water circulating in
the veins of his shoulders and all the upper part of his back.

This experiment was repeated two or three times, with the
same success ; until the effect became so strong that the subject
refused to lend himself to further experimentation. Once
more, however, the experiment was performed. The master of
the house seized the tutor by one arm and I by the other, and
Dr. Mesmer proceeded with his passes. But the subject broke
violently from our hands, protesting that the heat which he felt
was unbearable. A moment afterward he exclaimed that he
was covered with perspiration over the part that had been
experimented upon. Placing my hand there — as did all the
company — I found that his shirt actually was soaking wet at
the back near the shoulders.

After a few minutes of rest, Mesmer faced the subject and
presented two fingers, one of each hand, to the two lateral parts
of his chest. The subject felt in these places, and even in the
whole extent of his chest, a similar sensation but not quite so
strong as before. Soon an uncomfortable heat rose to his
face and we saw his forehead entirely covered with perspiration.

Being impressed more and more by these phenomena, the
subject was very willing to lend himself to any new experiment
which Mesmer wished to make upon him. He presented the
index finger and thumb of each hand, the other fingers remain-
ing folded in his palm ; and Mesmer presented to him the same
fingers, very close to his own but without touching them. The

1&4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

subject first began to feel a slight vibration, a tickling sensation,
in the palms of his hands. This tickling was followed by a
numbness. Heat succeeded immediately, and his hands were
covered with perspiration — not, however, as abundant as that
which we had seen on his forehead, and also less than that which
had been on his shoulders.

Such are the effects which I myself have witnessed, without
having perceived or having been able to suspect any mechanical
cause which had produced them.

His incredulity being wholly vanquished by these phenomena,
and having recovered from the surprise which they had caused
him, the new convert went the following morning to Dr. Mes-
mer. There he experienced again the same sensations. He
assures me of this in a letter dated December 2, in which he says :

My pain in the shoulder increased considerably until
Mesmer directed upon me the action of his / know not
what. I have felt a heat comparable to that of steam from
boiling water; prompt and rapid twitchings in the mem-
bers ; slight spasms and shivering in the fingers. When he
withdrew his hand, it seemed to me that a very cold air
blew into mine. I have repeated this experiment more
than twenty times.

The author of this account concludes with these very
sensible words :

In the meantime do not let us be so skeptical as to reject
the phenomena that we cannot undersand, but let us be more
circumspect about the cause of a multitude of effects, the appar-
ent marvels of which are due wholly to our ignorance.

We ourselves have observed, more than once, facts
similar to those just related. A certain number of
them are described in Our Hidden Forces. More re-

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 165

cently still, we have been able to ascertain that the re-
ceptivity of subjects, in respect to the biactinic action,
is not necessarily proportioned to their suggestibility or
their hypnotic sensibility.

Take, for example, the case of a boy of sixteen, who
was employed in a factory. He had never seen any
experiments of the kind, and was almost completely
ignorant of matters of this nature. He consented, out
of mere curiosity, to lend himself to an experiment of
hypnotization. He reacted quickly and with much
force to the process of Moutin, and to that test which
we have indicated as a variation of Moutin's method.9
Submitted to the action of the passes and the gaze, he
fell into a state of torpor, or, rather, of manifest pas-
sivity. But this state was evidently very superficial,
for he suddenly opened his eyes and returned to his
ordinary state. His cutaneous sensibility remained
intact; although he was suggested that he felt nothing,
he continued to feel all contacts. Suggestions of heat
and cold, even though repeated with insistence, pro-
duced no effect. In short, he appeared very little sug-
gestible. Hypnotism (the process of Braid) gave no
appreciable result. There was no amnesia on waking
— if it can be called waking, from a state which had
no resemblance to sleep.

However, certain signs made me suspect that the sub-
ject was particularly sensible to biactinic action.
Therefore, in a second seance, after he was placed in a
state of torpor, with his eyes closed, I tried to verify
my conjecture. Seated in front of the subject, and
talking all the while to a friend who accompanied me,

8 Page 88.

166 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

I slid my right foot slowly over the carpet, the toe
pointing toward the subject's left foot. I noticed im-
mediately a slight movement, a sort of tremor, in his
foot. Again I slid my right foot, very slowly and
without noise; this time th"e subject's foot glided visibly
toward mine. Then the gliding — which responded
each time to that of my foot — became so marked that
my friend's attention was attracted to it. Until then
he had noticed nothing, but now he regarded with sur-
prise this foot which was advanced by jerks over the
carpet and ended by leaving the ground and raising
itself in the air, as if it were linked to mine — which
was raised at the same time — by an invisible thread.

When the subject was questioned, he declared that
he had felt in his foot a sort of attraction which had
forced him to move it.

I then placed my right hand at eight or ten centi-
meters from his left hand while it lay, relaxed and mo-
tionless, over the arm of the chair. After a few sec-
onds of presentation I drew my hand slowly away from
his, repeating this movement several times. I ob-
served, first, a slight tremor of the subject's hand, which
gradually left its original position, reproducing each
time the movements of my hand. I then made —
always at a distance — the reverse movements ; his
hand returned slowly to its former position over the
arm of the chair. Quickly I transferred my action
from the left side to the right; the subject's right hand
responded to the silent appeals of my hand exactly
as his left hand had done.

In brief, this subject, suggestible and hypnotizable to
a very small degree only, behaved as if his nervous sys-

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 167

tern were, so far as voluntary movements are con-
cerned, in communication with my own.

It is evident that all these experiments should be
repeated in conditions which would permit of their
being rendered more precise and more varied. But
they do not depend always upon the desire of the experi-
menter, for he cannot dispose of persons as he may
dispose of material objects in experiments in physics
or chemistry, or even of animals in experiments in
physiology.

It would be interesting, if the occasion should present
itself, to find if a subject sensitive to the biactinic action
of a certain operator is equally sensitive to that of all
other individuals ; to ascertain the circumstances which
increase or diminish the efficacy of this action; to learn
if it can be exercised through intermediaries, etc.

All these researches have been undertaken by us ; and
if we have not been able to continue them, as we should
have wished to do, others undoubtedly will succeed,
when scientists become thoroughly convinced that it is
a question of real facts, submitted, as all other facts of
nature are, to general and constant laws, and entirely
amenable to the experimental method.

Up to the present time, however, those among our
contemporaries who have had the courage to pursue
this study have been only too rare. Outside of the
school of the early mesmerists — who, however, ignore
or deny the disturbing and simulating intervention of
suggestion in the greater part of the parapsychic phe-
nomena — we see few among the more recent observ-
ers, beyond Dr. Barety, who submitted biactinism to a
systematic investigation, the results of which were pub-

168 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

lished by him in 1887. But even though Dr. Pierre
Janet, speaking of Dr. Barety's book in the Revue
philosophique (1888), commended it as a useful work
in " calling attention to important phenomena which
we have been too disposed to neglect," no scientist, to
our knowledge, has thought it worth while to undertake
the experiments, although their control was very easy;
and so these " important phenomena " have continued
to be neglected as before.

We must make an exception, however, of a Swedish
scientist, M. Sydney Alrutz, professor at the University
of Epsal, who published (1914) in his reports of the
Sixth Congress of Experimental Psychology, of Got-
tingen, an interesting article entitled " Contribution to
the Dynamism of the Nervous System," in which he
gave the results of his personal researches.

The problem which he proposed to solve experi-
mentally was the same as that which we announced at
the beginning of this chapter :

Does the human organism really possess the prop-
erty of radiating a magnetic influence capable of acting
at a distance upon another human organism?

" It is a question, above all else, of knowing," said
Professor Alrutz, " if one nervous system can exert
upon another nervous system a direct influence; and if
nervous systems are such that, even if isolated from
each other, there can be established between them, in
special conditions, any action at a distance."

To solve this problem, Professor Alrutz employed
the following method — which, it will be noticed, is
analogous to that we have employed.10

10 Described in Our Hidden Forces, Chapter VI, " New Experimental
Method in Hypnology."

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 169

The operator assures himself that it is impossible
for the subject, placed in a light state of hypnosis, either
to see anything or to know what happens about him.
For this purpose a heavy cloth is thrown over the sub-
ject's head, and if judged necessary his ears are
stopped up. It is understood, of course, that no verbal
suggestion is made. There is then placed above the
subject's bare hand and forearm a glass plate of about
five millimeters thickness, supported a few inches above
the skin. The experimenter now makes with his right
hand, as silently as possible, slow and regular passes
(about twenty passes a minute) a short distance above
the glass plate and without contact. *These " descend-
ing " passes are in a centrifugal direction — that is to
say, they go from the articulation of the subject's elbow
to the tips of his fingers.

In this experiment the following phenomena are ob-
served :

The cutaneous sensibility is completely abolished,11
although prior to this experiment — the subject being,
however, in a state of hypnosis — his sensitiveness was
a little above normal (hyperalgesia and light hyperes-
thesia). As if by a sort of compensation, the sensi-
tiveness is distinctly augmented upon the parts corre-
sponding to that experimented upon.

The same effects are produced if the plate of glass be
replaced by a plate of zinc, of copper, of lead, and of
other metals, or by an alloy such as brass. On the
contrary, with a sheet of cardboard, or a piece of wool,
these substances have the effect of an isolator, the plate
acting more or less as a protector.

11 The author omits, unfortunately, to say for how long a time.

170 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

If, now, above the skin rendered insensible by de-
scending passes, ascending passes be made — that is, in
the centripetal direction — whether with a glass or
metal plate, the sensibility is reestablished, and its re-
turn is accompanied by an uncomfortable sensation : the
subject rubs the spot with his other hand and declares,
spontaneously or upon interrogation, that " it pricks,"
and also, although later, that it feels hot or cold.

These sensations correspond often to the excitations
made during the preceding period of analgesia. For
example, if during this period the anterior part of the
phalanges be pricked with a needle, the subject does not
feel the pricking sensation until later when his sensi-
bility is restored.

In a general way, the ascending passes have a posi-
tive action upon the sensibility: they reestablish the sen-
sibility when this has been abolished by a previous ac-
tion, or augment it to the point of hyperesthesia when
it was originally normal. The descending passes, on
the contrary, have a negative action: they abolish the
sensibility or bring it back to the normal state when it
has been rendered hyperesthetic by a previous action.

Certain substances, such as glass and different
metals, are good conductors of the influence emanating
from the passes; certain others, such as cardboard,
wool, etc., intercept its passage.

The presentation of the hand, motionless, above a
part of the subject's body, always through a glass plate,
produces, according to Professor Alrutz, different
effects, depending upon whether the subject is in a
state of superficial or deep hypnosis.

In superficial hypnosis, at the end of a few seconds

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 171

the subject will feel heat, pricking, he will " feel electri-
fied " ; and if it is above the closed hand that the oper-
ator is holding his extended hand, the subject stretches
out his fingers, or at least shows strong tendency to
do so.

In deep hypnosis, the sensibility which was abolished
is awakened in the place aimed at, and reacts to differ-
ent cutaneous excitations; but in this place only, es-
pecially if the time of the presentation be exactly
measured.

Exploration in motricity gives results analogous to
those of researches in sensibility.

If the operator directs his finger, at a few centi-
meters* distance, toward the motor points — for ex-
ample, toward the palmar region of the forearm — it
determines an excitation of these points which cause
a flection in the articulation of the phalanges, precisely
as if they had been faintly excited by electric currents
of induction.

Finally, Professor Alrutz notes that other people
than the hypnotizer can provoke the same effects if
operating with the same subject, at least during the
continuance of the hypnotic state; for "about twenty
persons, psychologists, physiologists, physicians, physi-
cists, etc., who have reproduced these experiments have
completely succeeded and have obtained the same re-
sults."

I myself, in my personal experiments, have observed
that other operators can influence my subjects in vari-
ous degrees; but I have observed also that certain
operators did not possess this power, and succeeded in
exerting it only by conduction : that is to say, only after

172 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

being put in contact with myself. It seems that this
fact has escaped the Swedish experimenter, perhaps
because his attention has not been attracted in this
direction.

Besides, the details of the effects produced have not,
perhaps, the importance that the author attributes to
them; for, really, these effects vary to a great extent
with the individuality or the state of the operator. It
is necessary, therefore, to avoid the postulation into so
many laws of the particularities observed in these di-
verse experiments. It is only after long and patient
researches that it will be possible to generalize with any
certainty.

But what is really important — since on this point
all the results obtained by the different observers and
experimenters coincide — is the fact that a human or-
ganism radiated upon another organism, at a distance,
and without the possible intervention of suggestion, an
influence susceptible of provoking in this organism sen-
sitive and motor reactions — and perhaps those of
some other order, the modalities and the conditions of
which remain to be determined by a series of later
studies.

And this fact itself is nothing more nor less than the
reality of biactinism, or animal magnetism.

v

It would, however, be premature to consider this
fact as definitely established for science, so long as the
experiments which prove it have not been verified and
repeated by a very great number of researches. Until
then biactinism will remain, not a fact, but an hypothe-

AN UNKNOWN FORCE 173

sis, partaking of the fate of a great many scientific
truths, which, before being universally accepted as such,
were first recognized by a small number of men only,
having undergone a somewhat prolonged period of
negation and doubt.

Yet a philosopher would undoubtedly have little
trouble in demonstrating to us that in what most lay-
men as well as scientists call a fact there enters an in-
evitable part of interpretation and hypothesis. It is a
fact, it will be said, that the earth turns round the sun,
that heat expands material bodies, that the magnet
attracts iron, etc. But if each of these facts be an-
alyzed, it will be seen that it may be resolved into two
very different kinds of elements : ( i ) phenomena di-
rectly perceived by our senses, or, to go deeper, sensa-
tions of which we are directly conscious; (2) concep-
tions of our mind, conceptions of time, of space, of
number, and especially of causality, by the aid of which
we make the synthesis of these phenomena and give
an objective signification and value to our sensations.

Strictly speaking, only our sensations are facts; all
the rest are interpretations, in which we believe because
they have succeeded for us; having been more or less
conjectural at the beginning, they have ended by becom-
ing certainties.

The distinction between the fact and the hypothesis
has, then, theoretically, nothing absolute, and it is often
by an indefinite series of imperceptible transitions that
the former hypothesis is finally transformed into a fact.

In any case, the partizans of biactinism may tem-
porarily make the following conclusions :

There exist a great number of facts in which a

174 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

human organism appears to exert upon another or-
ganism an influence where suggestion is certainly ex-
cluded and which strongly resembles a radiation at a
distance. These facts would become still more numer-
ous if researchers would take the trouble to experiment.
It is these facts of apparent biactinism which science
must not reject a priori with derision) but should sub-
mit to an impartial and methodical investigation.

In this investigation the hypothesis of " vital or
nervous radiation " will certainly play a considerable
part, as it is impossible to experiment usefully without
the aid of a directing hypothesis ; but we do not claim
any privilege for it, and all other hypotheses can and
must be in concurrence with it. Of these adverse hy-
potheses, the one that is most in favor at the present
time is that of mental suggestion, or telepathy, which
would better be named communication of thought.

The English Society for Psychical Research has sys-
tematically opposed to this the hypothesis of animal
magnetism, of which it is, however, only a particular
form.12

But it is very necessary to repeat that the compara-
tive discussion of the different hypotheses must be ex-
perimental and not simply dialectic. In other words,
it will be a question of combining experiments in such
way that all telepathic suggestion will be rigorously ex-
cluded, leaving place for biactinic action solely.

We shall return to this question in the following
chapter, regarding the rapports of the communication
of thought, or " diapsychism," with animal magnetism.

"See Our Hidden Forces, Chapter X, "The Relation of Telepathy
to Human Magnetism."

CHAPTER X

THE COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT, OR
" DIAPSYCHISM "

WHEN we come to designate the phenomenon to be
studied in this chapter, it is difficult to find a word that
is free from all objection. For want of a better term,
we shall for the moment employ the expression, " com-
munication of thought. " It is called also, " transmis-
sion of thought," " thought-transference," " thought-
reading," " divination or penetration of thought."
But the term which the majority of our contemporaries
seem to favor is " mental suggestion " — even though
this has the disadvantage of implying an interpretation
preconceived, and consequently hypothetical, of the
phenomenon, thus comparing it without proof to or-
dinary suggestion.

At the risk of incurring the reproaches of all those
who do not approve of neologisms, I propose to coin a
word free from all connection with previous ideas : such
as the word diapsychism, which means, literally, " the
passage from soul to soul," and so will suffice to desig-
nate the transmission of a psychological state from one
consciousness to another.

The Marquis de Puysegur was one of the first to ob-
serve a phenomenon of this nature. Having for the
first time provoked artificial somnambulism in his sub-

i7S

176 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

ject, Victor Vielet, he noticed that in that state the
subject appeared to divine his thoughts even though
unexpressed. " I do not have to speak," he wrote; " I
think near him; he understands and answers." From
that time during all the period that followed, and which
may be called the period of the magnetizers or of ani-
mal magnetism, allusions and descriptions in support
of this fact are encountered very frequently.

In a book too little known, Letters to a Candid In-
quirer on Animal Magnetism, William Gregory speaks
explicitly of " thought-reading " and " sympathetic
clairvoyance," and enumerates the different forms, of
which he gives many interesting examples. He claims
that he can sometimes produce the phenomenon spon-
taneously, as in the case of the Swiss novelist, Zschokke,
" who possessed at moments, spontaneously, the power
to read in the minds of others the whole of their past
history."

Diapsychism is an essentially diverse and multiform
phenomenon; and in order to gain a just idea of it, it
is indispensable that it be studied under all its different
aspects. Almost all those who have studied it have
wrongfully limited their consideration to only one of
its many forms, and have been satisfied in the mean-
time to give a general theory. This is true, in par-
ticular, of our contemporary savants, who, not being
able to consider diapsychism as a series of experiments
systematically and exclusively oriented by the hypothesis
of suggestion, obstinately refuse to see in it more than
that one particular form of suggestion called " mental
suggestion."

In reality, mental suggestion is but a particular form

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 177

of a much more general phenomenon — diapsychism.
Cuvier, in his Leqons d'anatomie, defined animal mag-
netism as " any communication whatsoever established
between two nervous systems/' We might slightly
modify this to define diapsychism : " Any communica-
tion whatsoever established between two brains."

II

Perhaps the form of intercerebral communication
which is at the same time the most simple and the most
complex is that of sensorial sympathy. This, under
certain conditions yet unknown, reflects upon the sub-
ject in one of several ways the sensations experienced
by the hypnotizer.

Dr. Pierre Janet says :

Madame B. seems to feel the majority of sensations felt by
the person who put her to sleep. She believed she herself was
drinking and her throat went through the operation of swal-
lowing when the operator drank. She always recognized ex-
actly the substance I put in my mouth, and distinguished
perfectly if I tasted salt or sugar.

The phenomenon happened just the same if I was in another
room. If, while I was in the other room, I pinched my arm
or leg, she screamed and believed indignantly that the pinch was
inflicted upon her own arm or leg.

My brother, who assisted at these experiments and who
exerted a singular influence over her, even so much that she
thought he was I, tried something still more curious. While
Madam B. was in that phase of lethargic somnambulism where
she was susceptible to mental suggestion, he went into another
room and burnt his arm. Madame B. screamed frightfully.
She held her right arm just above the wrist, and complained
of suffering intensely. I did not know at all the place where

178 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

my brother meant to burn himself; but it was just there, above
the wrist.

These identical facts already had been observed by
the early mesmerists. W. Gregory, in his Letters on
Animal Magnetism shows that " communication of the
sensations " can be produced by the senses of taste,
smell, and touch. He says:

If the operator, or another person en rapport with the subject,
puts into his mouth any food or drink whatsoever, the subject —
in most cases — instantly goes through the pantomime of eating
or drinking whatever the substance may be. If he is ques-
tioned he declares that he is eating bread, or an orange, or
candy, or that he is drinking water, or wine, or milk, or beer,
or syrup, or lemonade, or an infusion of absynthe, or eau-de-vie
— according to the substance which the operator at that mo-
ment is tasting. When the thing tasted is bitter or disagree-
able, the physiognomy of the subject shows it immediately.
His eyes are closed, and as the mesmerist is behind him, he
cannot see what is being tasted. I have seen and verified this
fact in cases so numerous that I regard it as solidly es-
tablished. . . .

If a person en rapport with the subject smells a rose, the
subject at once begins to inhale the delicious perfume; if he
smells assafoetida, the subject expresses displeasure. . . .

Whoever touches the person en rapport with the subject, is
felt by the subject at exactly the same place. If the operator
shakes the hand of any one, the subject instantly clasps an
imaginary hand. If a pin-prick is inflicted upon the back of
the mesmerist's hand, the subject withdraws his hand hastily,
rubs the place, and complains vigorously of the pain he feels.

Permit me to say that I myself have many times
observed, under absolutely satisfactory conditions of

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 179

control, that singular sympathy of the subject for the
sensations of his hypnotizer, principally the tactile sen-
sations, in the course of experiments made with my
subject, Ludovig S., whether in a hypnotic condition or
in the waking state.

It does not seem that this sympathy extends to the
senses of sight and hearing. At least, we are not
aware of the existence of any case thus far.

It is well known that certain psychologists admit,
independently of the five senses — which may be called
the exterior senses — the existence of a sixth sense, the
interior sense, or vital sense, which informs us of the
state of our organism. It is by this sense, they say,
that we are conscious of our body and are able to locate
our various sensations; it is by this sense that we are
more or less conscious of the action of our lungs, the
circulation of our blood, the beating of our heart, the
digestion in our stomach, etc. The sensations of hun-
ger and thirst, the muscular sensations, those associated
with the genital sense, those which accompany differ-
ent maladies, and still many others belong to this sixth
sense. One can see how extensive are its domains.
But it matters little whether it be considered a special
sense or a simple dependence of touch, as an inner
touch; for these questions of denomination and classi-
fication are of small importance. It is sufficient that
the existence of this special group of sensations be
recognized.

But now we ask whether the sensations of this group
admit also of diapsychism — that is to say, their com-
munication from one consciousness to another. One
cannot doubt the answer.

i8o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

" Sympathy/' says Gregory, who means by that word
sensorial diapsychism, " extends often to the corporal
state of the operator or of another person en rapport
with the subject. The subject will feel and describe
all pain or other ill experienced by the operator; and
in some cases he will even feel or perceive intuitively
a diseased state of certain organs in the operator's body
— such as a headache, or a pain in his side, or difficult
breathing; he will assert that the brain, or the kidneys,
or the liver, or the stomach, or the heart, is deranged
in a certain way — and only too often he is right."

Gregory remarks that he is not speaking here of a
view of the state of these organs, which is a phenom-
enon of another order — clairvoyance — but of an in-
tuitive perception of the state of health or disease.

The facts of this category, of which there are many
examples, do not appear to have been studied except
very incidentally. They should be subjected to me-
thodical investigation.

If it be asked by what mechanism sensorial diapsy-
chism — the communication of sensations — is pro-
duced, it seems that we must hesitate between two
different conceptions or interpretations. Those who
see in suggestion the essential type of all the parapsy-
chic facts confuse, undoubtedly, the communication of
sensation with the communication of thought; or,
rather, it is by the former that they are forced to ex-
plain the latter. In appearance, it may be said, it is
the sensation of the hypnotizer which, by a sort of
nervous repercussion, is transmitted directly to the
hypnotized.

For this it would be necessary that between the

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 181

nervous systems of the operator and the subject there
be a communication the possibility of which seems to
us, in the actual state of our physiological knowledge,
very difficult to admit. The phenomenon is in reality
much more complex. This is how it may be analyzed :

First stage: The nervous system of the hypnotizer,
under the influence of an exterior excitation, sends to
his brain a sensation which is immediately transformed
into an idea.

Second stage: That idea is transmitted by mental
suggestion to the brain of the hypnotized.

Third stage: The idea thus suggested (to the un-
conscious or subconscious state) influences the nervous
system of the hypnotized, which puts itself in the state
of reproducing the first sensation.

All happens as if the subject, divining the impres-
sions and the thoughts which took place in the mind
of the operator, said : " In that moment my hypno-
tizer experienced a sensation of pricking, of burriing,
etc. ; then suggested to me, or I suggested to myself, to
experience an identical sensation."

From that conception sensorial diapsychism goes
back to the basis of intellectual diapsychism: the com-
munication of sensations is resolved into the communica-
tion of ideas. There remains then only the explana-
tion of this communication between two brains; at least,
if this be not admitted as a fact, even though inexplic-
able.

It goes without saying that the partizans of biactin-
ism, or animal magnetism, will suggest an entirely
different interpretation. According to them, the first
and general fact is the reciprocal communication of

182 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

the nervous systems; the reciprocal communication of
the brains being but a secondary fact, derived from
the first. The subject is directly sensible to all the
influences which come to him, not only from the brain
but from all parts of the nervous system of the oper-
ator; and the transmission of the sensations is a phe-
nomenon as direct as the transmission of the thoughts.
It is then futile to suppose a mechanism as complicated
as that of mental suggestion : in the subject as well as
in the operator the brain plays but a secondary part: it
receives, it does not act; the real actor is the nervous
system, which, in both the operator and the subject,
carries to the brain the necessary excitation.

A schematic resume of the difference between the two
conceptions would appear to be as follows :

The first is a centrifugal phenomenon, since the
initial cause of the sensation sympathetically felt by the
subject starts from the brain of the operator, to be then
carried through the brain of the subject to his nervous
system.

The second is a centripetal phenomenon, since, in
both the operator and the subject, the point of de-
parture of the sensation is in the nervous system and
its point of arrival in the brain.

Which of these two conceptions is closer to reality?

This is impossible to determine by analyses and rea-
sonings made in the abstract. It would be necessary,
in solving the problem, to institute experiments of a pre-
cise and delicate nature: real laboratory experiments,
which, owing to the actual state of psychical researches,
are practically unrealizable because of their lack of
organization. We shall return to this problem later.

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 183

Can there exist also a communication of the senti-
ments, or of the emotions?

W. Gregory says : " There is also, but perhaps in
a less degree than that of the senses, a community of
emotions. In cases of this kind, all mental emotion
experienced by the operator, or by other persons en
rapport with the subject, is also experienced by him.
I have not yet examined this phenomenon as minutely
or as completely as the others, because of the difficulty
of provoking at will a strong and decided emotion.
In this case the observations are ordinarily accidental.
Thus I have seen some subjects smile and laugh when
they reached the magnetic state; and I have seen also
— what very often has been described by others — •
subjects painfully affected by the nervousness or dis-
traction of the operator."

It is also to this cause that Gregory attributes the
accidental phenomena which are sometimes produced
in the seances where " persons who have no experience
or knowledge of animal magnetism try, for amusement
or for curiosity, to produce magnetic effects."

The principal objection against the existence of an
emotional diapsychism is that emotion, however slight
it may be, is manifested by very easily perceptible signs,
and the sympathy of the subject for the operator would
naturally belong in the realm of normal sympathy.

In order to witness a diapsychic phenomenon it
would be necessary that the subject — either because of
the removal of the operator to another room or be-
cause of the interposition of a screen — be absolutely
incapable of being informed as to the emotional state
of the operator ; or the operator himself may be capable

184 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

of suppressing all exterior manifestations of the senti-
ment he experiences, or of simulating the manifesta-
tions of a contrary sentiment.

There can be conceived still a third form of diapsy-
chism, related to the two preceding. This is motor
diapsychism, and consists in the communication of
movements from one individual to another. I do not
know, however, that this form has been effectively
realized in the cases that have been observed. Per-
sonally, I do not know of an example ; at least, those of
which I have knowledge appear very ambiguous and
very difficult to interpret. Even in the case of the fol-
lowing experiment, which I have conducted more than
once, it would be rash to draw any definite conclusions :

Some one places his hand on the table, with fingers
outstretched. The one who wishes to influence it
stretches his hand in the same way, facing the first hand
and about three or four centimeters from it, so that the
thumb is opposite the thumb of the first hand and each
of the fingers pointing at the other fingers. After a
few minutes the operator slowly raises a finger and
lets it drop, then raises it again and drops it again. If
the subject is a sensitive, his corresponding finger will
rise gradually and will reproduce precisely the move-
ments of the operator. However, as the subject, who
is not blindfolded and who moreover is in the waking
state, sees all that happens, it would seem that this is
no more than a phenomenon of ordinary suggestion
— suggestion by gesture, which is similar to sugges-
tion by word.

Is it the same thing that happens as in that other ex-
periment, described in the preceding chapter, where the

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 185

subject reproduced, without seeing, the movements of
the foot or the hand of the operator ? I have witnessed
the phenomenon in very singular conditions.

In a drawing-room filled with guests, while the others
danced and amused themselves, two people were talk-
ing together in the doorway. One of the two sus-
pected that the other was a subject. Without letting
him know his intentions, and while keeping up a lively
conversation, he placed the toe of his foot directly
opposite and about four or five centimeters from the
toe of his companion's foot; then he slid his foot several
times over the floor, to and fro. Soon the foot of the
other began to slide also, at first imperceptibly, then
with a rapidity increasing to the point of compromising
the equilibrium of the man thus being experimented
upon without his knowledge, for he was unconscious of
what he was doing.

Must we see there a case of magnetic attraction or
of mental suggestion? The answer remains uncertain.
It would be less certain, perhaps, if the attraction had
been involuntary and unconscious on the part of the
operator as well as the subject; as, for example, if there
were observed a motor communication of that nature
produced spontaneously without their knowledge be-
tween two individuals placed in two rooms sufficiently
far apart. But really such a case, were it actually ob-
served, would show us that diapsychism is related in-
sensibly to biactinism and to a degree where it is im-
possible to differentiate precisely the one from the
other.

i86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

in

The most frequent form of diapsychism — that
which is generally studied and referred to — is what
we may call intellectual diapsychism.

In intellectual diapsychism it is ideas, or thoughts,
which are transmitted from one individual to another,
and not simply sensations, emotions, or movements;
consequently, the preponderant role, from the physio-
logical point of view, seems to belong not to a given
nerve, or to the nervous system in general, but to the
superior centers of the brain. It is this chiefly that is
called " mental suggestion " and " thought-reading " ;
and under these two names, and principally the former,
it holds an important place in the theories of con-
temporary psychists.

Let us remark, first of all, that these two denomina-
tions are not absolutely equivalent; for they represent
two ensembles of facts sufficiently different to enable
us to distinguish them.

(i) In the communication of thought, or "mental
suggestion," the active pole, so to speak, is in the brain
of the hypnotizer or magnetizer — the operator, in a
word; and the passive pole is in that of the subject.
The first, more or less voluntarily, transmits to and im-
poses upon the second an idea. The phenomenon in
this case is entirely similar to ordinary suggestion : the
sole apparent difference — which is an important one
— is that in ordinary suggestion the. transmission is
made by normal and known means of word or gesture,
whereas here it is made in ways unknown and really
abnormal.

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 187

(2) In "thought-reading," on the contrary, it
would seem as if the operator were exclusively engaged
in thinking on his own account, without directing any
action upon the subject; and that the subject himself, by
an action sui generis, penetrates the operator's con-
sciousness, divines its contents, and grasps his thoughts.

Certainly, cases of a mixed nature may be encoun-
tered wherein the effects proceed from the combined
actions of operator and subject: the former endeavor-
ing to project his thought, while the latter tries to
attract and receive it. More often than not, however,
each one of these two forms of intellectual diapsychism
presents itself alone to the observation, and it would
be well to consider them separately. To the first the
name mental suggestion is especially applicable; to the
second, thought-reading or thought-penetration would
appear to apply more exactly.

Whereas the early mesmerists saw in this second
form a sort of clairvoyance which might be called psy-
chological clairvoyance, in opposition to ordinary
clairvoyance although related to one physical world, it
is through the persistent and progressive study of sug-
gestion that the modern disciples of the Schools of the
Salpetriere and Nancy have been led first to suspect
and then to admit the reality of the first form, which,
consequently, they invariably conceive as in the light
of suggestion. A proof of this is found in the follow-
ing case reported by M. H. Beaunis and observed by
him with Dr. Liebeault :

The subject is a young man, a good somnambulist, in good
health, somewhat timid. He accompanied his cousin to the

i88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

clinic of Dr. Liebeault, who was then treating her by hypnotism
for certain nervous affections.

Dr. Liebeault put the subject to sleep, saying during the
comatic sleep : " When you wake, you will do the things
which you will be ordered mentally to do by the persons
present."

I then wrote on a piece of paper these words: "Kiss your
cousin/' This paper I showed to Dr. Liebeault and to the
other persons present, telling them to read it with their eyes
only, without pronouncing a single word or making any motion
with their lips. Then I added : " When he wakes, think
intensely of the act which he must execute ; but don't speak and
don't make any sign that may suggest the action to him."

The subject was awakened then, and we awaited the result
of the experiment.

Very soon after he woke we saw him laugh and hide his face
in his hands; and that continued for some time without other
result.

I then asked him : " What is the matter ? "

" Nothing."

" Of whom are you thinking? "

" You know," he answered.

" Then," said I, " you must do something to the one we
think of. If you do not wish to do it, at least tell us of what
we are thinking."

" No."

Then I said to him : " If you do not like to tell it aloud,
whisper it in my ear."

On going closer to him, he whispered to me : " To kiss my
cousin."

And so our first experiment in mental suggestion was a
success.

The experiments reported by Dr. Ochorowicz were
of a similar nature:

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 189

First Experiment

The operator, seated about four meters from the subject and
out of his sight, pretending to take notes, the head bent over,
thinks:

" Raise your right hand! "

Nothing happens the first minute ; at the second, agitation in
the right hand; at the third, the agitation increases, the brows
are puckered, the right hand is raised, then dropped.

Second Experiment

" Get up and come to me! "

First minute, agitation and puckering of brows. Second
minute, the subject gets up slowly, with difficulty, and comes,
the arms outstretched.

Third Experiment

" Get up, go to the piano f take the box of matches^ bring me
one of them lighted, then return to your place!"

The subject gets up and approaches the operator.

"Go back!"

He returns to his place.

"Still farther back!"

He goes forward toward the door. He stops and goes back
to the middle of the room, from where he had started. He
goes to the piano.

"Lower! Lower!"

His hand goes lower.

"Take the box!"

He takes it.

"Come to me!"

He comes.

"Light one!"

He takes out a match.

"Light it!"

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

He lights it and gives it to me.
" Return to your place ! "
He returns.

Fourth Experiment

" Go to your brother and kiss him! "

The subject gets up, advances toward the experimenter, then
toward his brother. He feels for his brother's head but he does
not touch it. He stops in front of him, hesitating; then he
slowly approaches and kisses him warmly on the forehead.

The idea to transmit or suggest in these different
examples was that of an act relatively complex in spite
of its apparent simplicity; and that act, in sleep, con-
sisted of a series of movements and muscular efforts.
It was, in one way, a motor mental suggestion. That
which in England is called the " willing game " — and
sometimes " cumberlandism," from the name of the
man who was first to conduct public exhibitions of these
phenomena — is based on mental suggestion of this
nature.

A subject or medium, with eyes bandaged, executes a
series of acts under the influence of the will of one of
the assistants, who thinks constantly and intensely of
what the subject must do, analyzing in his thoughts the
different movements of which the series is composed.
It is true that if the experimenter holds the hand of the
medium he may guide him unconsciously in many ways,
and in this case the phenomenon cannot be considered
one of a genuine communication of thought. But the
interpretation becomes more difficult when the experi-
ment is made without any contact between the operator
and the subject.

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 191

The idea to suggest mentally can also be that of a
state which can be a sensation or an emotion. For ex-
ample, it can be suggested mentally to a subject that he
is very warm, very cold, that he feels pain in a certain
part of his body, that he is frightened, that he is going
to laugh, to cry, etc.; but in general the state which
experimenters most often try to produce in this way
by mental suggestion is sleep — meaning magnetic or
hypnotic sleep.

The most interesting and most demonstrative ex-
periments in this field are those which were made at
Le Havre in 1885 by Dr. Gibert and Dr. Pierre Janet
with the famous subject Leonie. The following de-
tailed account of them was presented by Dr. Pierre
Janet to the Society of Psycho-physiology and pub-
lished in the Revue philosophique (1886) in two suc-
cessive articles, the first bearing the modest title, u Note
on Some Phenomena of Somnambulism " ; the next,
" Second Note on Sleep Provoked at a Distance ,and
Mental Suggestion while in the State of Somnambu-
lism."

Leonie, or Madame B., subjected to hypnotic influ-
ence in the ordinary way, falls first into a state very
near to lethargy: flaccidity of the members, which, if
raised, fall back with all their weight and without any
movement; complete insensibility to all excitations, ex-
cept only one: the person who put her to sleep can,
to the exclusion of all other persons, provoke at will a
partial or entire contraction by placing his extended
hand a little distance from the subject's body; the con-
traction ceases when he touches lightly the part affected.
(This is a characteristic sign which will serve, in case

1Q2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

of necessity, to distinguish the person who put the sub-
ject to sleep.)

At the end of ten minutes, sometimes more, the
sleep seems to become lighter, and somnambulism suc-
ceeds the lethargic state. The subject is now very
sensitive to all impressions : she understands all that is
said to her and answers intelligently, but she remains
more strongly en rapport with the one who put her to
sleep and who alone can wake her.

Then again lethargy replaces the somnambulistic
state. And these two states succeed each other thus
alternately about every fifteen minutes as long as the
sleep lasts.

The process usually employed to put Leonie to sleep
was the pressure of the hand, especially of the thumb.
Nevertheless, " Dr. Gibert, while holding her hand one
day to put her to sleep, being visibly distracted and
thinking of other things, failed to obtain the desired
results." Dr. Pierre Janet repeated this many times,
but always with the same result, for sleep was not
produced. Therefore, " to put Madame B. to sleep
it was necessary to concentrate the thoughts strongly
on that one act; and the more the thoughts of the
operator were distracted, the more difficult the provo-
cation of sleep."

This influence of the operator's thoughts is so effi-
cient that it can replace all others.

41 We left Leonie sitting at the end of the room,"
says Dr. Janet; '* then, without touching her and with-
out speaking, Dr. Gibert, standing at the other end,
concentrated his thoughts on making her go to sleep.
After three minutes the lethargic sleep was produced."

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 193

And the same experiment was repeated many times by
Dr. Janet.

But, it may be said, could not the presence of the
experimenters, their attitude, their silence, provoke in
the subject the idea of sleep and consequently sleep
itself?

4 There were many times," says Dr. Janet, " when
Dr. Gibert stood close to Leonie, in the same medita-
tive attitude, in the same silence, but without thinking
of sleep; and sleep was not produced. On the other
hand, as soon as, without changing my attitude, I men-
tally ordered sleep, the eyes of the subject became fixed,
and the lethargy began immediately." Furthermore,
how can one explain that only that one of the two ex-
perimenters who has provoked the sleep can provoke
during the lethargy the characteristic phenomenon of
contraction ?

In the preceding experiments the operator was in
the same room with the subject. Now, however: *

Leaving Dr. Janet near Leonie, but without any knowledge
of his intention, Dr. Gibert shut himself up in a nearby room,
at a distance of six or seven meters, and there he mentally
ordered her to sleep. At the end of a few moments, Dr. Janet
verified the fact that the subject's eyes were closed and that
she had entered the sleeping state. He did not have any in-
fluence over her, whereas she obeyed readily and entirely Dr.
Gibert, who alone could cause the contraction and who himself
had to wake her — manifest proof that it was he who put her
to sleep.

Another experiment, still more conclusive from the
standpoint of true suggestion, is the following:

194 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

Dr. Janet suddenly asked Dr. Gibert, who was in his study,
to put Leonie to sleep. She was then in another house, about
five hundred meters away, and she had never been to sleep at
that hour of the day. He then went to Madame B. and, to
his disappointment, found her wide awake. He himself put her
to sleep in the usual way.

" I know very well," Leonie said to Dr. Janet, " that Dr.
Gibert has wished to put me to sleep ; but when I felt him, I at
once put my hands in cold water. . . . / know that he cannot
put me to sleep thus."

The truth was that she had actually put her hands in cold
water before the arrival of Dr. Janet.

What shows very well that in this case, and in all
cases of this nature, the essential element is the trans-
mission of thought — diapsychism and not suggestion
— is that when the subject enters spontaneously into
the state of somnambulism she does not obey the will of
the operator, and much less does she feel his influence
or receive the communication of his thought.

Can it be said, therefore, that this experiment failed,
as Dr. Janet claimed? On the contrary, it seems to us
that it succeeded even better than if the sleep had effec-
tively been produced; for that which is important is not
the obedience of the subject to the order given him
(obedience which is merely the banal fact of ordinary
suggestion), but it is the transmission of this order to
the subject, in conditions where it is impossible for him
to receive it by means of normal perception.

The same experiment was undertaken in somewhat
different conditions.

Dr. Janet asked Dr. Gibert to put Leonie to sleep, not at
that moment, but a quarter of an hour later. He then started

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 195

to go to her immediately, to watch the effects upon her and to
prevent her from putting her hands in cold water; but Leonie
had shut herself up in her room.

At the moment agreed upon with Dr. Gibert, Dr. Janet
went up to her, and found her lying across a chair, in a most
uncomfortable position, and sound asleep. Her first words, as
soon as she entered into the somnambulistic state, were a pro-
test against the surprise which had been given her: "Why
does Dr. Gibert put me to sleep from his house ? I did not have
time to put my hands in the basin of water. I will not. . . ."

Neither Dr. Janet nor any of the assistants had the least
influence over her, and none of them could provoke muscular
contraction. In order to wake the subject, they were obliged
to find Dr. Gibert.

The experiment of October 14 is perhaps even more
astonishing.

That day Dr. Gibert was in Granville, about two kilometers
from Leonie. Dr. Janet suggested that Dr. Gibert put
Madame B. to sleep at any hour whatever of the day — *the
hour to be designated by a third person, so that he personally
should not know it. He went to Leonie at about half-past
four, and found that she had been sleeping soundly for a quarter
of an hour.

At five o'clock, still asleep, she began to moan, to tremble,
and to murmur : " Enough . . . enough ... do not do
that." She stood up, she took a few steps; then, bursting into
laughter, she threw herself backward into the chair, and was
instantly in deep sleep.

At five minutes past five, the same scene was repeated: the
trembling, the moaning, the efforts to get up, to walk, the
laughter, with these words: "You cannot ... if a little, if
only a little you are distracted, I shall wake. . . ." Then deep
sleep again.

196 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

At ten minutes past five, the same actions were repeated.

When Dr. Gibert arrived at half-past five, he showed Dr.
Janet a note which had been given to him by a third person,
M. D., and which asked him to command Leonie mentally
to perform different complicated acts every five minutes be-
ginning with five o'clock.

This time, also, true suggestion had failed, but
diapsychism — the communication of thought — had
fully taken place. No example could better show the
radical distinction between these two phenomena, which
the one appellation mental suggestion tends to confuse.

However, it was quite possible to succeed with Leonie
in experiments of true mental suggestion, provided that
instead of commanding her to execute the order im-
mediately, during the sleep, she was mentally com-
manded to execute an action sometime later, after she
woke. Dr. Janet cites three experiments made in these
conditions :

First Experiment

Dr. Gibert, without speaking a word, held his forehead near
Leonie's and mentally ordered her to come between eleven in
the morning and noon, and " to offer a glass of water to each
of these gentlemen." He did not tell this order to any one, but
merely wrote it on a piece of paper, which he put in an
envelope.

At half-past eleven Leonie manifested the greatest agitation.
She left the kitchen, got a drinking-glass, and, carrying it,
entered the room and asked Dr. Janet if he had not called her.

At last she fell asleep, through the efforts of Dr. Gibert, who
was some distance away. And in her sleep she excused herself
for not having carried out the suggestion fully. "... I was
all a-tremble when I came to ask you if I had been called . . .

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 197

it was not easy to carry the tray . . . why am I wanted to carry
those glasses? ..."

Second Experiment

Dr. Gibert and Dr. Janet at first thought of commanding
the subject to pluck a rose and visit the letter-box near the
entrance gate; but they then decided upon the following sug-
gestion instead : " To-morrow at noon lock the doors of the
house." The suggestion was written by Dr. Janet upon a piece
of paper, which he himself carefully guarded, and it was not
told to a single person.

The following day, when Dr. Janet arrived at fifteen min-
utes before noon, he found the house barricaded and the doors
locked. It was Leonie who had locked them. On being ques-
tioned, she explained her actions thus : " I felt very tired, and
I did not want you to get in and put me to sleep."

At that moment she was greatly agitated. She began to
wander about the garden, and presently she plucked a rose and
went to the letter-box.

Third Experiment

(In this experiment we once more are in the presence of the
possible disjunction of the suggestive element from the dia-
psychic element in the pretended mental suggestion.)

Dr. Gibert ordered Leonie, by thought, to open an umbrella
the following day at noon and walk twice round the garden.

At noon the next day she again became greatly agitated.
She walked round the garden twice, but did not open the
umbrella.

When put to sleep by Dr. Janet, who wished to end her
increasing state of agitation, she complained that she had been
" made to walk all about the garden. ... I felt silly ... if
only the weather was like yesterday's, but to-day I should have
looked perfectly ridiculous." That day the weather was beau-
tiful, but the preceding day it had rained hard. Therefore, the

198 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

order, incompletely executed, had at least been perfectly under-
stood.

It can be asked, apropos of these experiments, if the
mechanism of sleep provoked at a distance by mental
action is assimilable to that of true mental suggestion
— that which consists in the transmission of an idea.
In other words, is it really the Idea of sleep, present in
the mind of the operator, which is perceived, more or
less consciously, by the mind of the subject, and which
itself produces the sleep, in accordance with the well-
known laws of suggestion; or is it an indefinable influ-
ence, emanating from the operator, which is felt by
the subject and which produces sleep in him, without
the intervention of any idea?

In this second hypothesis, the phenomenon would be
allied more closely with animal magnetism than with
mental suggestion ; and one then could understand why
it is often difficult to influence by mental suggestion cer-
tain subjects in whom sleep at a distance can be pro-
voked with comparative ease.

In Our Hidden Forces l we have shown the necessity

1 " Thought-transmission really consists in having the brain of A
when acting upon the brain of B create in the consciousness of B the
appearance of an idea or of a series of ideas, identical in nature to
those which occupy the consciousness of A. What was sent from my
physical brain to that of my subject G. P., during the hundreds of
experiments with him, was not the idea of sleep nor the idea of wak-
ing up; it was purely a physical influence which produced sleeping
and waking, independently of any idea." — Our Hidden Forces, p. 283.

" The observation of M. J. Hericourt, relative to a woman in whom
he had never been able to provoke mental suggestion distinctly, but
who had gone to sleep merely when he willed her to sleep, and who
felt a painful sensation in the precordial region when he thought this
pain." — Revue philosophique, 1886.

Dr. Albert Ruault, who reported other similar facts (Revue philo-

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 199

for distinguishing these two hypotheses. If this dis-
tinction may appear filmy, it is because in reality — as
we shall try to show farther on — biactinism (animal
magnetism) and diapsychism (communication of
thought) are extremely closely connected with each
other, or, more properly speaking, diapsychism is but a
particular derivative of biactinism.

IV

Perhaps in examining the question more closely it
may be doubted that the facts we are now considering
— and in which ideas suggested mentally are related
wholly to acts or states — are, strictly speaking, sug-
gestions of an intellectual order, true suggestions of
ideas; for it well seems that the idea of the act or state
may be here only the means of suggestion, of which the
end is this very act or state.

What the operator seeks to obtain is not that the
subject shall think of the action of " getting up " orx>f
" sleeping "; but that he shall actually get up or sleep.
To obtain this result, is not his will the essential factor
even more than his intelligence ?

The real type of true mental suggestion, or at least
that of purely intellectual diapsychism, would consist,
therefore, in the communication of an idea, which

sophique, 1886), insisted upon the difference between phenomena of
this order and true mental suggestion. Speaking of a young man, in
whom he could himself provoke sleep by a simple effort of will, he
said : " It was a case of mental suggestion, for I soon recognized that
he was put to sleep solely by the intensity and the duration of the
sensation that he felt when I made an effort of will in thinking of
him. I mean, by this, that he did not sleep because I willed that he
sleep, but wholly because he felt strongly that my mind was concen-
trated upon him."

200 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

would be realized in the mind of the subject solely as
an idea, or in the state of representation, of thought,
and not as an excitation tending to provoke in him, out-
side of his mind, a certain state or a certain act.

True mental suggestion, or intellectual diapsychism,
is sometimes produced spontaneously when, for ex-
ample, a certain name comes suddenly to the mind of a
person — without being a result of his preceding
thoughts — at the precise moment when another per-
son thinks this name and is on the point of pronouncing
it. Nearly always, however, one may question
whether this is not a chance coincidence. Attempts
have been made to produce the phenomenon experi-
mentally, especially in England, in the Society for
Psychical Research. In France, M. Charles Richet
also has made experiments along this line.

One individual, A, thinks successively of different
numbers. Another individual, B, who is placed as far
as possible in a state of special receptivity, indicates the
number each time, the idea of it having surged sud-
denly into his mind.

Better still, A takes some playing-cards, which only
he can see, and concentrates his attention upon one at
a time: B names successively the cards of which he
thinks. A record is kept of the number of times the
ideas of A and B correspond ; and from the calculation
of probabilities, the number of these agreements is
greater than it could possibly be in the hypothesis of
chance coincidences.

The experiment appears a little more complicated
when it is a question of transmitting mentally the idea
of a somewhat familiar object: a watch, key, ring, vase,

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 201

lamp, or even a house, tree, animal, etc. In experi-
ments of this order instituted by the Society for Psy-
chical Research of London, the transmitter A was in
onetroom, having before his eyes a picture of the object;
the receptor B was in another room, nearby, trying to
draw this picture upon paper with a pencil — or at least
the picture which came to his mind, and this was often
found to conform, in its characteristic traits, to the pic-
ture which A was thinking of and gazing upon in-
tensely.

The early mesmerists already had observed this
form of thought-reading, without, however, sufficiently
distinguishing it from the form in which the communi-
cation of ideas is made involuntarily, unconsciously,
from the operator to the subject, the latter appearing
rather to divine the idea, himself, without the opera-
tor's having made any effort to transmit an idea to
him.

" The sleeper" says W. Gregory, " being put en
rapport with any one at all, can often describe, with the
greatest exactitude, the thoughts of this person. These
thoughts may be of an absent friend, or his house, or
that of another, or his dining-room, his bedroom, his
study, etc. All these things are perceived by the
sleeper in proportion to the extent that they occupy the
mind of the experimenter. He describes them very
minutely and very exactly, to the point of really aston-
ishing us."

W. Gregory remarks, moreover, that this form of
thought-reading often simulates clairvoyance, with
which it risks being confused, as we shall show in the
following chapter.

202 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

v

Let us consider now the true reading or penetration
of thought. This differs, it must be remembered, from
mental suggestion, in that it is produced independently
of the will of and unknown to the operator, the active
role appearing this time to belong wholly to the sub-
ject. Because of this very circumstance the phenom-
enon is difficult to constate with certainty.

However, according to certain contemporary psy-
chists, especially those who are members of societies
for psychical research or inspired by their doctrines,
there is in all the order of parapsychic facts no phe-
nomenon more frequent than the penetration of
thought. It mingles, according to them, with almost
all the others, and renders them incomprehensible to
those who do not suspect its presence, while it is suffi-
cient to admit its latent intervention in order to have
all the obscurities made clear.

We can apply here to the penetration of thought a
distinction that we already have applied to suggestion :
that of fact and of hypothesis. It is one thing to con-
state directly the penetration of thought as a fact that
we observe outside of all reasoning; and quite an-
other thing to suppose that it must have been produced
on a certain occasion, because this supposition alone
permits us, we think, to give a plausible solution to the
enigma which is raised by some particular case.

I am obliged to confess, however, that I myself have
never been able to constate the penetration of thought,
thus understood, in conditions which would leave no
room for doubt, even though my attention has always

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 203

been turned in this direction. With the exception of
one subject, Ludovig S., who on four different occa-
sions succeeded in enouncing aloud a name I had each
time thought of silently,2 I have never found any one
who might be in a state, either to obey my suggestions
not manifested by word or gesture, or to divine spon-
taneously my thoughts, my unexpressed intentions.
But it may be that chance has served me badly, or
that I lack the special aptitude which perhaps is indis-
pensable to produce this sort of phenomenon.

A young member of my family, who would appear
to be particularly gifted in this connection, has told
of an experiment made by him, where it is impossible
not to see an absolutely genuine case of penetration of
thought.

Having finished his military service in a regiment of in-
fantry at Bordeaux, and returned to Dijon, he had found in
the wife of one of his friends a hypnotic subject of rare sensi-
tiveness. After putting her to sleep, he suggested to her 'that,
when she woke, she would change personality and would be
identified with him as he was during his military service. " You
will be Corporal B. You will have the men of your squad
in front of you, and you will instruct them."

The subject, passing from sleep to a state of apparent wak-
ing, began to call the assistants in a military manner; she ques-
tioned them about the different grades, the insignia by which
each is recognized, etc. But this, of course, was knowledge
that any one could have, without necessarily being connected
with the army.

Suddenly, however, when addressing one of the friends of
her husband — mentally transformed by her into a soldier —

2 These experiments are described in detail in Our Hidden Forces,
Chapter XII.

204 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

the young woman demanded: "What is the name of the
Colonel of your regiment? "

The hypnotist quickly spoke the name, as he knew that the
man questioned did not know it.

"Be silent!" the subject said promptly. "I am not ques-
tioning you."

Therefore he, as well as the man interrogated, remained
silent when she asked the next question:

"What is the name of the Captain of your regiment?"

What was the hypnotist's surprise when the subject herself
spoke the name, which he thought of silently and which he
was the only one in the room who knew! His surprise was
even greater when the improvised Corporal added:

" You must be as stupid as cruchade not to know the name
of your Captain! "

Cruchade is the popular name in Bordelais (the dialect
spoken in the country around Bordeaux) for corn-pap, and the
expression, " stupid as cruchade," is currently employed among
the people of Bordeaux to express extreme stupidity. The ex-
pression is wholly unknown in Burgundy. Certainly, however,
the hypnotist had often heard it; perhaps he himself had used
it in speaking to men of his squad; but surely he was not
thinking of it at that moment. Not only, therefore, did the
subject — momentarily identified with the one who had put her
to sleep — read into his actual and conscious thoughts, but she
also penetrated even beyond his consciousness, to the very depths
of his past remembrances.

It is in the realm of the subconscious that certain sub-
jects are able to clarify this ensemble of latent, affec-
tive, intellectual, and active virtualities which compose
the character of an individual, when they make of this
character, in a few minutes, without preliminary indi-
cations, without apparent effort of reflection, a psy-

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 205

chological analysis such as a professional psychologist
operating with all the resources known to science, and
with the most minute information, would certainly be
incapable of making.

" I could not doubt," wrote Dr. Vaschide, " the sur-
prise of my friend, Dr. von Schrenk-Notzing, the well-
known Munich psychologist, when Madame F. wrote
his psychological portrait with a richness of exuberant
details. I myself was ignorant of these details, and it
was absolutely impossible for Madame F. to have
known them before my consultation, or even to have
thought to obtain prior information in any way whatso-
ever; for I had asked her to come, in a note sent by
messenger. Examples of this kind are numerous."

Undoubtedly, the experimental study of lucidity, in
the popular meaning of the word, of cartomancy, of
chiromancy, of psychometry, and of other occult prac-
tises of this nature — a study evidently very daring and
in its present form not apt to tempt savants — w,ould
nevertheless reveal to us, in the midst of much illusion
and fraud, unquestionable and interesting cases of the
communication of thought.

Here is a quotation from Dr. Osty which proves in-
contestably the reality of intellectual diapsychism and,
at the same time, the falsity of the " cartomantic doc-
trine." Madame K., a card-reader, consulted her
cards for some one of whom Dr. Osty thought. He,
after cutting the pack and choosing a certain number of
cards, pictured mentally the person who must serve as
the object of the divination.

When she had disposed the cards, Madame K. began to speak
to me of this person, very clearly and very exactly. After a

206 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

few minutes I stopped thinking of the person in question.
Madame K., however, was still speaking to me when, suddenly,
I regretted not having exercised this prophetic science in behalf
of one of my friends whose present life was so active that he
would yield far richer material for experimentation. Scarcely
had this thought entered my mind when the card-reader abruptly
began making revelations which exclusively concerned this sec-
ond person. The lives of these two were so different that the
subject soon expressed her astonishment at the odd dissocia-
tion which seemed to exist in the one individuality which she
believed she was interpreting.

Since then I have observed in card-readers, as many times
as I have wished, this influence of the thought of the consult-
ant upon the direction of their lucidity.

In spiritistic seances it is not unusual to establish the
fact that the responses given by the table, the plan-
chette, or the pencil, reflect not the thoughts of the
medium but those of some one of the assistants, who is
wholly surprised to see thus revealed publicly what
he believed to be hidden deep within his own heart. It
is true that believers in the spiritistic doctrine probably
would refuse to recognize, in this, diapsychism as an
evident fact, and would consider it merely an hypothe-
sis, which they have the right to oppose and to displace
by some other. But if the choice must be determined
by exclusively scientific reasons, the hypothesis of di-
apsychism, in conditions such as those we have indi-
cated, imposes itself to the exclusion of all others.

VI

Meanwhile, we come to the facts for which di-
apsychism is offered to us as a more or less plausible

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 207

explanation, and which, if this interpretation were
definitely adopted, would prove not only that the com-
munication of thought is a reality, but also that it is a
very frequent reality; and that it is necessary to see in
diapsychism as much as, or even more than, in sugges-
tion, the key to the greater part of the parapsychic phe-
nomena.

First of all, there is phreno-magnetism, which re-
mains a still unsolved enigma.

" In some magnetic subjects," says W. Gregory, " if
we touch a given part of their head — such as, for ex-
ample, the organ of musical sound, or of self-esteem —
we obtain instantly a corresponding manifestation
without a word of suggestion. It is really, in many
cases, as if we were to touch the key of a pipe-organ
when the bellows are full of wind, thus producing the
sound instantly. If the musical sound is the organ
touched, the subject soon begins to sing. If it is self-
esteem, he throws his head back, is filled with an im-
mense dignity, and declares himself superior to the rest
of humanity. If the organ of the love of children be
touched, the subject cradles an imaginary baby with a
realistic paternal affection."

Gregory thus follows the series of effects produced
by touching different parts of the cranium: benevolence,
acquisitiveness, prudence, hope, etc.

" I have spoken," said he, " of only a small part
of what I have often seen and often produced. It is
needless to say that I have experimented only in cases
where fraud was not and could not have been prac-
tised. The question is, rather : How are these effects
produced?"

208 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

To this question he replies that in certain cases " the
suggestion or the will of the operator, or the sympathy
between the operator and the subject, is sufficient to
explain the facts." This is to recognize the possible
intervention of diapsychism in phreno-magnetism.
" But," he adds, u there are other cases where this
explanation is valueless," and he enumerates the proofs
of this assertion.

First, the subject is often ignorant of even the name
of phrenology, and does not know the situation of any
organ. This does not hinder him from reacting in-
stantly to the contact, at whatever moment it may be
produced, exactly as if the will or the thought of the
operator were the agent. But, it may be said, it mat-
ters not that the subject may be ignorant of what is ex-
pected, if the operator knows it.

A second and stronger argument is that when the
operator, as often happens, is as ignorant of phrenol-
ogy as is the subject, he is surprised and confused by
the result; for, in touching a certain part, he did not
know the function and consequently had no will what-
ever in this respect. However, there also, asserts W.
Gregory, the manifestation is just as easily produced.
Better still, the pressure of a chair, or a wall, upon any
part of the head, even though it may be accidental, or
the accidental contact of a hand or an arm, whether of
the operator or some one else, will produce the same
effects. Also, it often happens that when an operator,
acquainted with phrenology, intends to touch a certain
organ and, turning to speak to some one, touches by
mistake another organ while thinking of the first, he is
surprised by what he believes to be the wrong result,

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 209

until he discovers the cause. This happens in cases
where the subject has no knowledge of phrenology.

It is necessary to state that although these facts have
been closely studied, they are absolutely incomprehensi-
ble to us. And we cannot agree with Gregory's conclu-
sion that in all cases where sympathy or the will — in
other words, mental suggestion, or diapsychism — is
not a sufficient explanation, " the results obtained can
be explained only by admitting the phrenological cen-
ters and the influence of the operator upon these organs
by contact." Undoubtedly, there slips into these ex-
periments, unknown to the observers, a cause of error
which it is very difficult to discover. It would be
interesting, therefore, to institute new researches in
an effort to solve so baffling a problem.

The same point arises regarding many other para-
psychic facts. We shall cite here only the most salient.

The importance attributed by the School of the Sal-
petriere to the phenomenon of transference is ^yell
known. This phenomenon consists in the fact that
" under the influence of metals — or, better still, of the
magnet — when there appear in certain subjects mani-
festations of hysteria — such as sensitive and sensorial
anesthesia, paralysis, contractions, and arthralgia —
which are limited to one side of the body, they dis-
appear from this side and appear on the opposite side."

But the phenomenon of transference is not confined
to that. Two subjects en rapport with each other can
play a role analogous to that which in a single subject
one side of the body plays en rapport with the other
side. Often this transference from one side to the
other, or from one subject to another, appears again

210 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

spontaneously without a new metallic application and is
repeated a certain number of times in succession, as if
by consecutive oscillations. The anesthesia, paralysis,
contractions, etc., can be thus transferred not only when
they exist naturally in the patient but even when they
have been produced artificially by suggestion.

The School of Nancy naturally attributes these curi-
ous effects to suggestion. Those who have obtained
the phenomenon, however, declare that " the conditions
are such that all idea of simulation or of suggestion
must be absolutely eliminated."

" Engaged in new researches," said Binet, " we
were, in the majority of cases, incapable of foreseeing
the result. We have hidden the magnet under a cloth,
and the same effects were produced ; we have made the
magnet invisible by suggestion, and the effect has con-
tinued to be produced ; we have used a magnet made of
wood, and the effects have been the same; we have
experimented upon entirely new patients, and have
obtained identical results."

All these assertions effectively exclude ordinary sug-
gestion. But, with the exception of the first, do they
equally exclude mental suggestion under the form of in-
voluntary diapsychism?

In order to answer this question satisfactorily, it
would be necessary to undertake experiments in condi-
tions that would prevent the operator, as well as the
subject, from being able to form in advance any idea of
the results.

It is not only with regard to transference that the
opponents of the School of Salpetriere might resort

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 211

profitably to the hypothesis of diapsychism ; it is with
regard to almost all the particularities attributed to
hypnotism by the doctrines of this School. It is true
that it would be necessary for them to go beyond the
narrow circle of suggestion proper, where they believe
themselves on firm ground, and to venture upon the
quicksands of mental suggestion; but, sooner or later,
they will be forced to do so. We do not believe that
they can indefinitely claim, without giving precise
proofs, that all observers and experimenters who do
not agree with them upon a given detail of hypnotic
phenomena have owed to their suggestions the effects
they have related.

Although the phenomenon has been produced some-
times, often even, it does not necessarily follow that
it can be produced always. In some cases these savants
declare that they have scrupulously abstained from sug-
gesting anything to their subjects; and we have no rea-
son for doubting their word. But if they have sug-
gested nothing voluntarily, knowingly, it is possible — *
if diapsychism exists — that their subjects have never-
theless divined their thought and that this thought may
be manifested in the phenomena observed.

It may be, for example, the phenomenon of neuro-
muscular hyperexcitability, which according to the
School of Charcot, characterizes one of the phases
of hypnotism: i. e., lethargy. The School of Nancy
asserts that it has never constated this phenomenon,
and it concludes, therefore, that it must be a simple
effect of suggestion. However, it is very difficult to
believe — so long as they have furnished no proof —

212 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

that all those who have observed it have begun by an-
nouncing it and describing it aloud in the presence of
their subjects. But if diapsychism actually exists, it is
possible that their thought, in the absence of their word,
has been sufficient to provoke the phenomenon.

We can say as much of the zones and the hypnogenic
points, and in general of the hysterical stigmata ad-
mitted by the School of the Salpetriere, as facts exist-
ing in themselves, previous to observation, which is
made only to reveal them, and considered by the School
of Nancy as illusions, created by the suggestions of
those who observe them.

If the intervention of diapsychism be admitted in all
these cases, one must believe that the idea alone is not
sufficient for the success of mental suggestion, but that
it is necessary to have, in addition, the belief (even
though in many other cases — and this is not the least
of the obscurities of the question — the idea, without
the belief, would appear sufficient).

Let us imagine that two observers experiment suc-
cessively with the same subject, one imbued with the
doctrines of the School of Salpetriere, and the other
with those of the School of Nancy. The first seeks
to verify the neuro-muscular hyperexcitability, and he
succeeds ; the second, proceeding by hypothesis in exactly
the same way, constates a negative result. The second,
as well as the first, has in his mind the idea of the phe-
nomenon and of its diverse particularities. But the
first believes that the phenomenon is possible and that
he will produce it; the second, on the contrary, believes
that the phenomenon will not be produced. The sub-
ject is, therefore, capable of perceiving the difference

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 213

between these two ideas ; one accompanied by belief, the
other by unbelief, and this is why he reacts differently
to each of them.

What would happen if the two operators were to act
upon the subject at the same time, and one of them
were to have a preponderating influence upon him?
While one tends unconsciously to arouse the phenome-
non, the other tends unconsciously to hinder it. Does
the first prevail over the second? The partizan of
the School of Nancy will be astonished to see the sub-
ject realize — without apparent suggestion — what he
was assured could be realized only through suggestion.
The partizan of the School of the Salpetriere will be
equally astonished to see that the expected effect, often
obtained by him, is suddenly incapable of being pro-
duced.

Let us remark, however, that the inhibitory action of
mental suggestion, even also as that of ordinary sug-
gestion, is not necessarily confined to phenomena sus-
ceptible to be provoked by suggestion, and that conse-
quently the suppression of a phenomenon by an inhibi-
tory suggestion does not prove that in the absence of
this suggestion the phenomenon would not be produced
naturally. I could, by suggestion, suppress in a pa-
tient certain symptoms of his illness; is this a reason
for pretending that these symptoms in him were only
the effects of a counter-suggestion? Let us admit, for
hypothesis, that signs of hysteria exist effectively; if
we admit at the same time, the possibility of a dia-
psychic inhibition, an observer capable of exerting this
inhibition unconsciously upon hysterical subjects will
never constate these signs, because by his very presence

214 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

he will hinder their manifestation. Yet it cannot logi-
cally be concluded that other observers, who have con-
stated them, have been the playthings of illusion. Per-
haps certain operators may be particularly apt to in-
fluence the parapsychic phenomena thus negatively.

Certainly, this is only an hypothesis, but it is not
devoid of truth, and it would be well worth while
to control it experimentally.

It is especially in the realm of magnetoidal facts that
diapsychism is called upon to explain all that which
would appear to contradict the opinions of official
science, as if diapsychism were not itself in positive con-
tradiction to these opinions.

When M. de Rochas explained, under the name of
exteriorization of the sensitiveness, the singular phe-
nomena which he had discovered, they were at once
attributed to the suggestions that he had involunta-
rily made to his subjects; and when this explanation
appeared decidedly insufficient, it was claimed that the
silent thought of the experimenter had in some way
suggested to the subjects the manifestations of which
they had given him testimony.

Permit me here to cite a few personal experiments.

I happened to read in a prominent Parisian period-
ical an article upon M. de Rochas's discovery, which
explained the processes employed by him to "exterior-
ize the sensitiveness " of a hypnotized subject, and the
results which he thus obtained. This account had
aroused my curiosity, but at the same time had left me
very skeptical. I decided to learn how much reality
there was in all this. I had then at my disposal a large

EXTERIORIZATION OF THE SENSITIVENESS

After ihe hypnotized subject holds the glass a few moments, the
operator takes it and pinches the air above the water. Every pinch
thus inflicted — some distance away from the subject — is felt by
her keenly in the hand she has held above the glass.

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 215

number of subjects: all young people who would lend
themselves well to these experiments.

My first three attempts gave me only a negative re-
sult, although at least one of my subjects was of ex-
ceptional sensibility. It goes without saying that I be-
gan first by scrupulously imitating the operative method
of M. de Rochas. Then, seeing that it did not result
in any of the desired phenomena, I added verbal sug-
gestion, thus intentionally inciting the subjects to fraud.
It is necessary to believe that simulation, in the condi-
tions in which the subjects were placed, was not easy
for them; for, even thus, I obtained nothing. I was,
therefore, almost convinced that M. de Rochas had
either deceived himself or been deceived, that either
he had been more able than I to suggest the subjects un-
consciously, or that they had been more clever at simu-
lating than my subjects.

A short time afterward, being in a meeting of young
Parisian workmen, and having put one of them to sleep
— Auguste M., aged sixteen or seventeen — I suddenly
conceived the idea of trying once more to produce the
exteriorization of the sensitiveness.

" Get me," I said, " a glass and a bottle of water."

The assistants believed that I intended to produce
a state of intoxication by suggestion. At least, that is
what they whispered among themselves.

The subject stood facing me, blindfolded. Having
filled the glass three-quarters full of water, I put it
upon the palm of his left hand, placing his right hand
above the glass, a few centimeters from the water.
After a few minutes I withdrew the glass and, without

216 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

speaking a word, bruskly pinched the air it contained.
Instantly, to my great surprise, the subject cried:
" Ouch! You are hurting me! " and quickly clasped
his right hand with his left.

" I have hurt you ? " I said to him. " How ? "

He took between the thumb and the index finger of
his left hand the skin of the back of his right hand
and twisted it, exactly as I had taken and twisted the
air.

I then pricked the surface of the water with a pin.

4 You are pricking me now! Will you soon stop
tormenting me? "

Going quickly behind him, I repeated the same oper-
ations ; and the subject again protested about my pinches
and pin-pricks.

Suddenly I held the glass to my lips and blew upon
the water. Instantly the subject raised his hands to
his eyes and awoke, exactly as if I had blown upon his
eyes to wake him.

I was thenceforth convinced that the exteriorization
of the sensitiveness, whatever its real nature may be,
was not in every case pure illusion, and I was more
than ever desirous of studying it. I asked young Au-
guste, therefore, to come again, with as many of his
friends as he wished to bring with him, but this time
to my clinic, where it would be easier for me to experi-
ment.

He came the following day; but what was my sur-
prise when, after placing myself in the same conditions
with him as before, I could not find in him any of the
expected reactions! Had I, then, dreamed when I
had believed that I observed them the preceding day?

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 217

Upon the remark of one of the assistants that this
lack of success was due perhaps to the fact that im-
mediately before coming to me, Auguste M. had been
the object of attempts at hypnotization on the part of
his comrades, I woke him, then plunged him into a
deeper sleep. I then had the satisfaction of provoking
in him again all the phenomena previously observed,
and this time with a more severe control, the eyes of
the subject being hermetically bandaged.

Since then I have been able to constate the exteriori-
zation of the sensitiveness, not, of course, in all sub-
jects upon whom I have experimented, but in a suffi-
ciently large number of them to convince me that it is
a real phenomenon, of which the cause, whatever it
may be, is certainly something other than ordinary sug-
gestion. Among these subjects I could mention Gus-
tave P., Jean M., and Ludovig S., of whom I have had
frequent occasion to speak elsewhere.3

In the absence of ordinary suggestion, is it mental
suggestion that causes the exteriorization of the sen-
sitiveness ?

It is possible that it intervenes, in certain cases, as a
perturbant or stimulant cause; for if it exists — and its
existence cannot be doubted — it is certainly capable of
playing this role. But it does not follow that it may
be taken for granted — a priori and without further
proof than this simple possibility — that it is the sole
and sufficient cause of every case observed.

Especially in my experiments with Auguste M., it
could not well have been my thought which provoked

3 Many interesting experiments with these subjects are described in
Our Hidden Forces.

218 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

the phenomenon. Because of the failure of all of
my preceding attempts, and now having a compara-
tively new subject, my thought was rather that I should
not succeed in obtaining any effect. And in the second
seance, because of the success I already had obtained,
my thought expected the exteriorization of the sensi-
tiveness, and solicited it intensely; yet, in spite of this,
the phenomenon refused to appear to me again.

Here, therefore, is a problem which one should not
be in haste to declare solved; for its solution must be
sought patiently, and by the application of the only
method which can enable us to discover it — the ex-
perimental method.

This is true, also, of the phenomenon of polarity.
The majority of early mesmerists believed that the
force known as magnetic, more aptly called " biactinic,"
is polarized — that is to say, is at the same time posi-
tive and negative, precisely as electricity and physical
magnetism. For example, the right side of the human
body, they believed, was positive, and the left side
negative. This would entail a whole series of conse-
quences as to the actions, isonomic and heteronomic,
exerted by one individual upon another.

I have made too few researches upon this subject
for my opinion — were I to risk forming one — to
have any value. If I speak only of my own personal
observations, I must say that I have encountered po-
larity in one subject only, Gustave P., in conditions
which I have given in detail in Our Hidden Forces.
To repeat them briefly:

The right hand held opposite the subject's forehead
for a few minutes made him pass successively through

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 219

three different and distinctly characterized states : fas-
cination, catalepsy, and somnambulism. The left
hand, inversely, destroyed the effect of the right hand,
causing the subject to pass successively from somnam-
bulism to catalepsy, from catalepsy to the state of
fascination, and from the state of fascination to the
waking state. Also, the operator's right hand, di-
rected toward the subject's hand, his elbow, his foot,
his knee, etc., determined movements of attraction; the
left hand produced, in the member aimed at, trembling,
agitation accompanied by a tingling sensation. And
this double action, positive and negative, was con-
ducted by means of a metal wire, according as the
operator held the wire in his right hand or his left
hand.

Certainly, verbal suggestion, as practised by the
School of Nancy, had no place in these manifestations,
since the experimenter operated in the most absolute
silence, after having thoroughly blindfolded the sub-
ject.

But cannot the effects be attributed to the communi-
cation of thought?

This hypothesis is seductive. It does not, however,
take into account a certain number of circumstances
which concur with it badly.

First: The operator, who had assisted previously
in experiments of polarity in a circle of mesmerists
with very restricted ideas on the subject, had seen four
states succeed one another in subjects submitted to the
actions of both hands; the state of fascination, cata-
lepsy, somnambulism, and lethargy; and among the
characteristics of the first state was total anesthesia.

220 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

If, therefore, the phenomena must be aroused and
formed by his thoughts, he should find the same phases
and the same characteristics. However, in spite of all
his efforts, he never found that lethargy succeeded the
somnambulistic state in Gustave P., nor anesthesia ac-
company the state of fascination.

Second: It was wholly by chance that the opera-
tor's right hand was placed near the subject's elbow,
when this appeared attracted in his direction. At
that moment the operator had no intention of making
any experiment whatever. When, however, he tried
the action of his left hand, he expected to obtain a re-
pulsion, and was thoroughly astonished to constate
trembling and tingling. The combined action of the
two hands must, he then supposed, produce a null
effect, one neutralizing the other; but, wholly on the
contrary, he found that there was a coexistence of their
effects.

Here again, we should not hasten to reach any con-
clusion, but should understand that the question must
remain open.

And there is greater reason why we should not con-
sider the reduction of biactinism (animal magnetism)
to diapsychlsm as definitely established. In France the
partizans of this theory are all those whom the study
of true suggestion, carried sufficiently far, has finally
induced to admit the reality of mental suggestion, and
who believe that by retaining the word " suggestion "
they keep also the fact and remain faithful to the
official doctrine. In England its partizans are those
whom the study of telepathy has convinced of the possi-
bility of an action exerted by one individual upon the

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 221

brain of another individual, in spite of the often con-
siderable distance which separates them.

While the partizans of animal magnetism attrib-
ute the effects produced by passes, the gaze, and also
the thought and the will of the operator, to a force sui
generis emanating from his organism and especially
from his nervous system, their opponents assert that
these effects are due exclusively to a mental action which
has for its starting-point the brain of the operator and
for its point of arrival the brain of the subject.
When my hand appears to anesthetize, contract, or at-
tract, etc., any part of the subject's body, it does not,
in reality, exert any action ; behind this screen is hidden
the true agent, which is my thought, unconsciously
divined by the subject and making him obey, wholly as
if I were to give him the command aloud. I believe
that his arm will be contracted under my passes, but
only because of my belief. In order that the contrac-
tion may cease, it will be sufficient for me to make
further passes upon his arm, believing that they will
stop the contraction. This is not magnetism ; it is men-
tal suggestion or telepathy, according to the name you
prefer to give it.

If this theory be admitted, one must at the same
time admit that the communication of thought is a phe-
nomenon much more frequent than is ordinarily be-
lieved, and that it is produced much more easily than
one might think possible. This insidious character is
due to the fact that this happens especially in the
region of the subconsciousness : the conscious effort of
will to transmit its thought to other people, or to re-
ceive the thought of others, far from aiding diapsy-

222 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

chism, paralyzes it. This explains the reason why
those facts which prove it directly are relatively scarce
while those which prove it indirectly are frequent.

We already have shown, apropos of polarity, the
difficulties of this theory, and we should be able to make
the same objections to magnetism. They can be
summed up in the following:

The effects which we have observed in experiment-
ing upon the radiating action of the human body, and
especially of the human hand, are often produced ( i )
in the absence of all thought and of all will on our part

— as, for example, when Gustave P.'s elbow was at-
tracted by a hand placed accidentally in its direction;
(2) contrary to our will and our thought — as when
the left hand, instead of exercising, as we expected, a
repulsive action, produced an entirely different effect.

Moreover, in supposing that magnetism may be only
a form of diapsychism, it would still be necessary to ex-
plain diapsychism itself, which, as we shall see, is scien-
tifically as inexplicable as magnetism.

VII

It will be objected, undoubtedly, that as suggestion
is now an incontestable scientific truth, science must
equally recognize the communication of thought, which,
taken all in all, is but a particular form of suggestion

— as indicated by the name " mental suggestion,"
usually applied to it. If the former is explicable by
scientific laws actually known, then the latter also
must be thus explicable.

To reason in this manner is to take advantage of an
ambiguity.

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 223

The pretended mental suggestion — badly named —
has nothing in common with true suggestion, at least
if we consider its essential components. I verbally
order a person to stand up, and in spite of his will to
the contrary he is forced to obey me. That is true
suggestion. I mentally send the same order to a per-
son who cannot see nor hear me ; he does not obey my
order, but he tells those near him that at that very
moment I am commanding him to stand up. There
the communication of thought fully succeeds, but, at
the same time, suggestion completely fails.

There are, therefore, in the so-called mental sug-
gestion, two different phenomena :

1 i ) The transmission of thought or of will, which
is made from one brain to another — and it is this that
it is necessary to explain, if mental suggestion can be
explained ; in the present state of science, unfortunately,
it is inexplicable.4

(2) Suggestion proper, which consists in the influ-
ence of an idea upon the brain which has received it
(however it may have entered this brain: by hearing,
sight, or in any other way) .

In order to connect mental suggestion with ordinary
suggestion, it would be necessary to prove that there
is no real difference in the way in which the subject
perceives the word or the gesture of the suggestioner

4 We are reminded of the words of Professor Pouchet (in Le Temps,
August 12, 1893) : "To show that one brain, by a sort of gravitation,
acts at a distance upon another brain, as the magnet upon a magnet,
the sun upon planets, the earth upon falling bodies, is to discover an
influence, a nervous vibration, diffusing itself without a material con-
ductor! . . . But find this for us, good people, show it to us, and your
name shall be greater in immortality than that of Newton. . . ."

224 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

and that in which he perceives his unexpressed thought.
This is what the author of an ingenious study upon " the
mechanism of mental hypnotic suggestion " 5 en-
deavored to do.

After having defined this suggestion from the idea
commonly admitted : " The influence that the thought
of the hypnotist exerts, in a determined sense, either
upon the thought of the hypnotized, or upon the appari-
tion in the hypnotized of somatic phenomena of hyp-
notic nature, without having the thought of the hypno-
tist accompanied by phenomena perceptible to the hyp~
notlzed and serving him as signs or Indications" he
modifies thus the latter part of the definition, " without
having the thought of the hypnotist accompanied by
exterior signs of which he had consciousness and which
were perceptible to the assistants"

That which permits one to suppose that the influence
may be accompanied by signs perceptible to the subject
is, in fact, the very hypothesis which Dr. Ruault de-
velops.

In ordinary suggestion the hypnotist manifests his
thought by the aid of words; in mental suggestion he
does not speak. But Dr. Ruault assures us that " as,
according to all the experimenters, It Is necessary that
the thought be distinct In order that the suggestion may
fully succeed" he gives to his thought the necessary dis-
tinctness by formulating it with the aid of the word
within. It is this interior word which the hypnotized
receives, thanks to his sensorial hyperacuteness.

Dr. Ruault recognizes, however, that this hyper-
acuteness is not one of the constant characteristics of

* Dr. Albert Ruault, Revue philosophlque.

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 225

somnambulism, and that physiologists who have at-
tempted to measure the sensorial acuteness of hypno-
tized subjects have found, sometimes an augmentation,
sometimes a diminution, in comparing it with that of
the same subject in the normal state.

It does not matter, this scientist affirms, that the
attentive somnambulist has a special aptitude to seize
upon and understand the signs of the hypnotist, viz.,
" the very faint muscular sounds of the interior words,
and the visible movements of the extremely weak artic-
ulation provoked by the motor images of the words."
In this latter case, however, it would be necessary to
suppose in the subject the exercise of the sense of sight.
If his eyes are closed, and if the hypnotist turns his
back to him, he must then content himself .with the
sounds which inevitably accompany the muscular move-
ments necessary for interior words.

How can the facts be explained?

Dr. Ruault first disposes of all the cases where >the
subject is in contact, however slight this may be, with
the hypnotist, in declaring that " they have already been
rejected, as not being mental suggestion," and even of
those cases where the hypnotist is in the presence of the
subject, for " they are not considered fully proved."
Now remains " the supreme argument, mental sug-
gestion at a great distance."

But first " it is by no means demonstrated that facts
of this kind may be safe from all criticism," since the
author does not find them in absolute contradiction to
the interpretation that he proposed ; " so long as they
remain isolated, exceptional, and more or less doubt-
ful, one must be confined to registering them with the

226 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

utmost possible detail until the state of science per-
mits the explanation to be found."

It is evident that with similar processes of dialectic
one would be able to demonstrate or to refute anything
that one wished. The reader has only to review all
the facts that we have enumerated, in order to see that
the proposed interpretation falls short for the greater
part of them. It does not seem applicable even to the
experiments made by Dr. Ruault. He recognizes that
his two subjects " sometimes felt the influence strongly
from one room to another of the same apartment,"
and that he had been able to put them to sleep thus,
even though really they did not suspect his presence.
He says:

One of these persons felt me, sometimes very forcibly, when
I willed it strongly, although I was in the street and he in the
mezzanine of the Rue Cujas. One evening when, accompanied
by a friend, I left the house of one of these subjects, a medical
student, upon whom I had made some experiments in hypno-
tism, I tried, from the staircase of the lower floor, to suggest
to him mentally complete paraplegia; and it seemed to me
that my mental suggestion had reached him. I had not in any
way thought of attempting the experiment when I was near
him ; the idea did not come to me until the very moment I put
it into execution. Immediately after my attempt was made, I
went up to my somnambulist to see if the suggestion had suc-
ceeded. I found him seated in an arm-chair, complaining that
his legs were numb and he could not raise them.

Undoubtedly, Dr. Ruault himself was persuaded that
his subject had understood, through the doors of his
apartment and from one floor to another, " the very

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 227

faint muscular sounds of the interior word " which
accompanied this thought, "/ will that you present
the symptoms of complete paraplegia." But it would
be difficult to persuade others of this.

For those who, as the members of the Society for
Psychical Research, consider the facts of mental sug-
gestion as being of the same order as the facts of telep-
athy, it is not possible to explain them by the sole
hyperacuteness of the ordinary instruments of sensible
perception. We are here in the presence of an orig-
inal phenomenon, a sort of wireless telegraphy or
telephony which puts two brains into communication,
in conditions still unknown. Even these comparisons,
these expressions borrowed from physics and physiol-
ogy, are repugnant to the partizans of the telepathic
interpretation : the phenomenon, as we know it, belongs
to pure psychology.

A certain thought is in the mind of one person, A.
A thought identical to that, and certainly provoked by
it, is born at the same moment in the mind of another
person, B, even though these two persons had not been
able to exchange their thoughts by ordinary means.
All of this has many times been established, and all of
it we must admit.

What is It that happens in the brains of the two peo-
ple, and in the space which separates them?

We do not know, say the partizans of the telepathic
interpretation, and furthermore we need not trouble
about it. We must consider the fact of the communi-
cation of thought a primary fact, certain although in-
explicable, and use it boldly as a principle of explanation
for all the facts it is possible to ally with it.

228 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

Any such position appears to us to be scientifically un-
tenable. If it is the soul, as such, which, independently
of the brain and nervous system, independently of all
physiological and physical mechanism, can thus make
its action felt at a distance, we can easily establish the
fact; but this fact, without analogy to the rest of nature,
escapes all scientific explanation, all experimental re-
search. For explanation and experimentation are pos-
sible, according to Claude Bernard, only where the
phenomena are absolutely determined in their natural
conditions. To attribute to thought and will the mys-
tic property of communication from one mind to an-
other without any physical connection between the
brains where they have their natural conditions, is to
place ourselves definitely beyond the realm of science.

But any such conception is no more defendable philo-
sophically. In fact, if we regard it from the philosoph-
ical point of view, there is absolutely nothing in the
nature of the soul which can justify it.

From the fact that a certain thought is in me — for
instance, the principle of a reasoning — it can be con-
ceived that another thought must follow — for in-
stance, the conclusion of this reasoning; for there is
here no interval, no space. But from the fact that a
certain thought is produced in my brain, how does it
follow that another thought (identical or not in nature)
is produced in some other brain, separated from mine
by all sorts of intermediaries? Since it is a question
of space, we leave the immaterial sphere of conscious-
ness to fall into the realm of matter and movement; the
mechanical explanation of the phenomena, and their

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 229

experimental determination, become immediately pos-
sible and necessary.

It is, in fact, a postulate of the scientific method uni-
versally admitted by all modern scientists and philos-
ophers, since Descartes, that if we wish to study
scientifically any phenomenon whatsoever — physical
or mental — we must endeavor to connect it with
physical conditions: that is to say, to its physical ante-
cedents or concomitants. This postulate, purely scien-
tific, does not imply any hypothesis, any metaphysical
system, materialism, monism, or other. It is possible,
however, that our effort to connect certain phenomena
with physical conditions may be condemned never to
end practically; but it is experimentation which will
prove this to us, and we must not suppose it a priori,
for this would be to shut out from ourselves in advance
all possibility of scientific investigation.

Therefore, we cannot stop at the mere affirmation of
the communication of two minds, in the phenomenon of
the transmission of thought. Willingly or unwillingly,
it is necessary to admit also the intercommunication of
two brains. But, once entering upon this path, is it
possible for us not to keep on to the end: to the inter-
communication of two nervous systems — in other
words, to animal magnetism?

A characteristic of all the diapsychic phenomena is
that they imply the possibility for a brain to radiate at
a distance, not, unquestionably, the will or the thought,
but an influence capable of transmitting or reproducing
the will and the thought, as electric currents sent along
the telegraphic wires transmit — or, rather, reproduce

230 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

— the despatch at the other end. If the brain of the
operator sends nothing to the brain of the subject, and
if the intermediary space contains nothing which puts
them into relation with each other, this communication
of two consciousnesses is a supernatural, superscientific
phenomenon, which is not connected with any other in
our entire experience, and of which it would be neces-
sary to abandon all efforts to find an explanation.

But when the members of the Society for Psychical
Research oppose among themselves the two hypotheses
of effluence and thought-transference — that is to say,
animal magnetism and telepathy — are they not
blinded by an illusion produced by the words? Is it
not evident that thought-transference is only a partic-
ular form of effluence — a cerebral and mental efflu-
ence, necessarily more complicated and obscure than
the simple nervous and vital effluence?

There is no serious reason for believing that the
power to influence at a distance appertains exclusively,
in the organism, to the brain considered in its functional
unity as the organ of will and thought. Undoubtedly,
the brain has, in man, a preponderating and unique role.
It is the organ of conscious life, of intellectual and
moral life. However, its psychological functions (if
they may be called this) have evidently for their basis
and their condition the physiological properties of the
elements which compose it.

Neither will nor sensations could exist if the nerve
fibers did not possess the property of conducting move-
ment, if the nerve centers did not possess that of re-
ceiving it and of reflecting it by transforming it.

These properties, however, are not peculiar to a few

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT 231

elements of the brain ; they are common to all the ele-
ments of the brain ; they are the general properties of
the neurons.

Therefore, if the will and the thought can be com-
municated from one brain to another, all the analogies
not only authorize us but even oblige us to see in this
phenomenon only a particular consequence of some
general property of the cerebral and nervous cells ante-
cedent, so to speak, to the will and the thought. And
in what could this property consist, if not in a sort of
radiation or expansion of the nervous force, which the
phenomena of heat, light, and electricity render it com-
paratively easy for us to conceive?

The hypothesis which links diapsychism to animal
magnetism appears to us, therefore, to be more favor-
able than the hypothesis contrary to the investigations
of science, and to be more in conformity with the
scientific method.

But when it is a question to know, in each particular
case, whether we have to deal with a fact of animal
magnetism (nervous biactinism) or of diapsychism
(c£r£&r0/biactinism), we should not theorize, however
ingenious and seductively easy this may be; it is ex-
perimentation alone which can lead us to the truth.

CHAPTER XI

CLAIRVOYANCE, OR " METAGNOMY

UNDER the denomination of clairvoyance a large
number of facts may be brought together. They might
be different in nature, but all would be extremely ob-
scure, not to say incomprehensible, and of an appear-
ance even more marvelous than those which we studied
in the preceding chapter and with which they have so
great an affinity that it is sometimes very difficult to
distinguish one from the other.

These facts, which were known long ago, especially
by the early adepts in animal magnetism, are to-day
attracting the world-wide attention of the savants.
They have been too long denied a hearing, owing to
their unscrupulous exploitation by charlatans at the
expense of the credulous public.

Perhaps the name clairvoyance (as also the term
double sight or second sight) is not very aptly chosen,
to apply equally well to all the forms of the phenome-
non ; for it is not always a question of vision. In some
cases it would appear to be analogous to a perception
of hearing (from which we have the name clairaudience
to designate one of its forms) ; in others, to that of
touch.

To overcome this difficulty we should have a word
that would signify, in a general way: "Knowledge

232

CLAIRVOYANCE 233

obtained by certain individuals, in certain particular
states, which does not seem to be explicable by the exer-
cise of our normal senses and intellectual faculties'9

If I did not fear to incur once more the double re-
proach of barbarism and pedantism, to which every
inventor of technical words drawn from the Greek ex-
poses himself, I should propose, in order to designate
the phenomenon in the most general way, the word
metagnomy (from beyond, and knowledge). This
word, therefore, signifies approximately: "Knowl-
edge of things situated beyond those we can normally
know; supernormal knowledge."

The first question to arise in the study of clairvoy-
ance, or " metagnomy," is this:

Does a supernormal knowledge of this kind really
exist?

That is a question of fact, which can be answered
only by enumerating the facts. But as these facts are
so numerous and, in appearance at least, so diverse,
so different from one another, our first question must
be changed into another question :

What are the different forms of this supernormal
knowledge?

II

Our normal knowledge may bear ( i ) upon facts or
objects actually existing (perception) ; (2) upon past
events (memory) ; (3) upon future events (previ-
sion) ; or (4) upon the rapports, the general truths,
independent of time, such as, for example, scientific
laws (generalization, reasoning, reason proper).

If we apply this classification to supernormal knowl-

234 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

edge, it seems that we can, at least temporarily, well
omit the last of these categories, because the facts that
could be classified under this fourth heading are exceed-
ingly rare, and especially because it is very difficult to
distinguish them from normal facts of the same kind.
On the one hand, mediums, even those with exceptional
powers of clairvoyance, have never or seldom revealed
to humanity any scientific truths of importance. On
the other hand, who can say where the normal and
the supernormal begin and where they end, in the intui-
tions of men of genius? In studying the metagnomic
phenomena, therefore, we can limit ourselves to the
first three kinds of knowledge: perception, memory,
and prevision.

With regard to perception, it seems that a special
sense — which might be called a sixth sense — would
appear to be developed in certain individuals, in certain
particular circumstances, in order to put them en rap-
port with the radiations or emanations of things in-
accessible to our ordinary senses, and to permit the
intelligence of these subjects or mediums thus to have
information sui generis, the origin of which is entirely
unknown to us.

Is there not something analogous to this in the
extraordinary acuteness of the dog's sense of smell,
or in its sense of locality or orientation? We are
forced to believe the existence of this sense in a large
number of animals, without in any way being able to
understand its nature.

It is exceedingly difficult to classify the many and
varied forms of metagnomic perception; for the differ-
ences between them are often imperceptible, and we are

CLAIRVOYANCE 235

not unaware of the strongly arbitrary and artificial
divisions which we are obliged to introduce in the midst
of facts really indivisible, in order to facilitate their
study.

All psychological treatises teach the distinction be-
tween perception by consciousness (inner perception or
intimate sense, having for its object the psychological
life of the "self") and perception by the senses (ex-
terior perception, having for its object the world of
material things) ; in other words, subjective perception
and objective perception.

Similarly, although not so precisely, we could distin-
guish two varieties of clairvoyant or metagnomic per-
ception, the first being exercised especially in the inner
world of consciousness, the second belonging rather to
the exterior world of objects and physical events.

It is undoubtedly necessary to attribute to the former
that strange faculty which certain subjects possess of
being able to perceive the condition of their internal
organs, with such distinctness as to enable them to de-
scribe this condition precisely. This faculty was recog-
nized by the early mesmerists, and afterward admitted
and studied by Dr. Sollier under the name of autoscopy.
It was demonstrated in the case of a patient who, hav-
ing swallowed a pin two months previously, was able,
in a state of hypnosis, to follow it in all the stages of
its voyage through the intestines.

The field of vision of this faculty is not necessarily
limited to the organism of the one who possesses it; it
can be exercised also upon the organism of another
person. Many somnambulists, according to the early
mesmerists, perceived the condition of the organs of

236 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

persons who were put en rapport with them, and ex-
perienced, by a sort of inexplicable sympathy, the same
internal organic sensations. There was a co-penetra-
tion of two sensibilities and of two consciousnesses.
We studied it in the preceding chapter under the name
of diapsychism. It could better be said that diapsy-
chism is a particular form of metagnomy, since it also
is " a knowledge obtained by certain individuals, in cer-
tain particular states, which is not explicable by the
exercise of our normal senses and intellectual faculties."

It is a fact of the same kind which must really con-
stitute what has been called the magnetic rapport.
The hypnotized subject, who is insensible to all other
persons, is particularly sensible to the influence of his
hypnotizer. When any one else speaks to him, he
does not understand nor answer. He understands and
answers when the hypnotizer speaks to him; and he
understands and answers equally well all other persons
who are put en rapport with the hypnotizer by contact.
He perceives, then, in some way unknown to us, the
contacts felt by the hypnotizer.

It is not only the inner sensations which may thus be
perceived : one may perceive also phenomena of a more
purely psychological or subjective nature — ideas, in-
tellectual operations, acts of will, of taste, of habits,
the disposition, innate or acquired, the temperament,
the character. The medium reads the thought, the
soul, of some one else, as he would read himself.
Sometimes it is at the request or with the permission
of the other person that he penetrates into the inner self
thus opened to his gaze. But sometimes, also, it is
spontaneously, and unknown to the other persons, that

CLAIRVOYANCE 237

his gaze penetrates them and discovers secrets hidden
in the very depths of their consciousness. It is then a
true divination of thought.

Those beings who are gifted with such powers of
divination are, in the eyes of Dr. Osty, prodigies in
whom " the brain has reached a higher degree of sen-
sibility, when it becomes the reactive capable of disclos-
ing what is in the brains of other men. They are the
interpreters that nature has created between our whole
mind and our consciousness. They are the mirrors be-
fore which our otherwise unconscious thoughts are seen
and comprehended."

in

The objective or physical form of metagnomic per-
ception, whose affinities with diapsychism (thought-
transference) are less visible, also presents a large num-
ber of varieties.

First, let us set aside those which correspond to, the
phenomena we have brought together under the name
of hyloscopy, the most common of which are the influ-
ences exercised by springs, currents of water, metals,
etc., upon the special sensibility of pendulum- and rod-
diviners.

If we consider rather the perceptions relevant to the
general sensibility common to the entire human race,
the first fact to note is that of the exteriorization of the
sensitiveness, discovered by Colonel de Rochas, but the
interpretation of which is still generally contested.
Instead of perceiving upon his own body the contacts,
pricks, pinches, etc., that are made, the subject feels
them at various distances, or even in objects which

238 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

have been for a certain length of time in contact with
him.

Related to this fact is that of reading through the
tips of the fingers. We have analyzed in detail an
example of this kind in Our Hidden Forces* The
series of experiments related there was, unfortunately,
interrupted by the departure of the subject, Ludovig S.,
for the north of France, where he remained from 1907
until 1914. It was only in 1914 that he returned to
Dijon, where the mobilization had called him, and
where he remained but a very short time. During his
stay, however, I managed to conduct some interesting
experiments.

On December 9, 1914, Ludovig S. came to my clinic at about
6 145 in the evening, and was very quickly put to sleep by verbal
suggestion. I then blindfolded him, and turned on the electric
light in a room near my clinic (my secretary's office). I closed
the door of this room, and left half open that leading from my
clinic into a small passage which separated the two rooms. The
only illumination that I had, then, was the light which came
through the glass door of my secretary's office into the clinic.
The subject, blindfolded, was seated in the farthest and darkest
corner of the room.

I put into his hands a folded copy of a newspaper, " I'Inde-
pendant, de VAuxois et du Morvan" the first line of the title,
V I nde pendant, being printed in very large characters.

He passed his fingers over the title; but it seemed that his
special sensibility had disappeared, or perhaps was singularly
dulled during the very long interruption of our experiments, for
he declared that he could " see " nothing.

I gave him then a volume bound in red morocco, which had,

1 Chapter XI, " Apparent Transposition of the Senses."

CLAIRVOYANCE 239

printed in relief, in the center of its cover the arms of the second
empire, and around this the words : " Concours general des
departements." I urged the subject to persist, and to have con-
fidence in himself, telling him that this time the letters were
raised.

I heard him murmur the syllable " Con " ; and then he
stopped.

" That is right," I encouraged him.

" Conseil" said he.

" No ! Pay attention ! " I commanded.

ff Conference" he said.

I told him that there were two words, one following the
other ; and he then deciphered the second, " general'' syllable by
syllable. Next came the inscription below : " des departe-
ments." He then returned to " Concours " and read it at last,
but not without hesitation and much effort.

The title of a novel by Frometin, Dominique, was then read
very easily; and the subject himself recognized that there was
something above the title : " Eugene Fromentin," he read.

Similarly, he read upon another volume: " L'hysterie et
la neurasthenic chez le paysan"

Then followed : " Serotheraple antltetanique." For the last
word there was hesitation upon the " antite" the subject saying
at many attempts, " antitera'' before he read it correctly.

The newspaper was again put into his hands. This time he
read without difficulty: " I'lndependant " ; but he went no
farther, declaring that there was nothing more there. I saw
then that, the paper being folded, the second line of the title,
" de I'Auxois et du Morvan," was under the fold. But, al-
though printed in very small characters, he read it as easily as
the rest when it was put under his fingers.

An old photograph, of somewhat large size, was then given
to him ; and he asked me if it was necessary for him to " see "
it. When I answered in the affirmative, he told me that it

240 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

was my portrait, and I was shown in profile — which was quite
correct.

A second photograph, smaller in size, and in medallion form,
was given to him. Once more he asked if it was necessary for
him to see it ; and when I answered as before, he said : " It is
you, but in another pose: turned almost full-face, and taken
from the other side." This equally was true.

Proceeding always in the same direction, we find the
fact of sight through opaque bodies, many times de-
scribed by the early mesmerists, especially by W. Greg-
ory. Certain of our contemporaries believe they ex-
plain this phenomenon by connecting it with X-rays.
At least, the following despatch from New York to the
Daily Chronicle appeared in Le Matin, in March,
1913:

A little girl, ten years old, named Beulah Miller, possesses,
according to Dr. John Quackenbos, a member of the Academy
of Medicine who examined her thoroughly, an X-ray vision.
She can see through opaque bodies ; and had no difficulty, during
the experiments, in telling what the assistants had in their
pockets, in reading a certain page of a closed book, and in de-
scribing objects placed in closed boxes.

Here are some details upon these facts reported by
W. Gregory:

The experiments were made by Major Buckley, with
persons whom he had put into a state of clairvoyance,
and who could, in this state, decipher written mottoes
enclosed in nutshells. The statistics upon this subject
are very curious. Out of eighty-nine persons made
clairvoyant in the waking state, forty-four were capable
of reading in this way. In a state of hypnotic sleep,

CLAIRVOYANCE 241

the number of readers was raised to one hundred and
forty-eight. The written mottoes contained in four
thousand eight hundred and sixty nutshells have been
read; and about thirty-six thousand words understood.

In a small number of cases they were deciphered by
thought-reading, the persons who had put them in the
shells being present; but in the majority of cases the
words were not known to any of the assistants, and,
consequently, they had to be read by direct clairvoy-
ance. Every precaution was taken. The nuts enclos-
ing the written mottoes had been purchased in forty
different stores, and had been sealed until the moment
of the reading.

The following case will give a more precise idea of
this experiment :

Sir Wiltshire had carried away with him a " nest of boxes "
belonging to Major Buckley, and he had placed in the innermost
box a small piece of paper upon which he had written a word.
A few days later he brought back the boxes, with the paper
sealed inside, and asked one of Major Buckley's clairvoyants to
read the word. The Major made a few passes over the boxes ;
and the clairvoyant said that she saw the word " Concert."

Sir Wiltshire declared that the first and last letters were
right, but that the word was different.

She persisted, however, that the word was " Concert " ; and
then he told her that the word was " Correct."

In opening the boxes, it was found that the word actually was
" Concert."

' This case," said W. Gregory, " is very remark-
able; for if the clairvoyant had read the word by
thought-reading, she would have read it according to

242 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

Sir Wiltshire's belief. He either had had the inten-
tion of writing * Correct,' or else in the interval had
forgotten that he had written * Concert,' for he cer-
tainly believed that the word was * Correct.' '

Let us go a step farther and we find ourselves in the
presence of the phenomenon of vision at a distance,
which is generally called second sight or lucidity.
With this, it seems that space does not exist, and that
one can perceive in an instant what is happening in
places very far distant: a sort of teleopsy, natural even
though inexplicable, a phenomenon comparable in its
nature to wireless telegraphy or telephony. The
books of the early mesmerists abound in descriptions
of facts of this order.

We quote from an article in the Revue philosophique
(1889) upon the observations of Dr. Dufay, of Blois,
in his experiments with a young servant, who presented
the phenomenon of second sight in the highest degree.

When Dr. Dufay' s friend, Dr. Girault, was invited
by a relative, Madame D., to witness the phenomena
of clairvoyance exhibited by her young servant Marie,
Dr. Dufay had asked to be permitted to arrange the
program of the seance, by wrapping up many small ob-
jects, in a way that would conceal their nature, and so
that he might not be able to know one from the other
himself. These small packages were to be given to
the somnambulist, and she had to discover by clairvoy-
ance what each contained. The matter was arranged,
and the day fixed.

This is Dr. Dufay's description of the seance:

I laid aside a few objects that were not in ordinary usage,

CLAIRVOYANCE 243

so that chance guessing might be eliminated, when there reached
me from Algeria a letter from the chief of a battalion of in-
fantry, whom I had known in the garrison at Blois. The
commandant told me many episodes of his life in the desert,
and spoke especially of his health, which had become very poor.
He had slept in a tent during the rainy season, and that had
developed in him, as in most of his comrades, violent dysentery.

I placed this letter in an old envelope, without address or
postmark, and carefully sealed it. Then I put this into a second
envelope, of a dark color, and sealed it as the first one.

On the appointed day I arrived at Madame D.'s a little late.
Marie was already asleep; therefore she was ignorant of my
presence, knowing only that I was expected. The ten or twelve
persons gathered in Madame D.'s salon were astonished by the
somnambulist having recognized, without mistake, the contents
of several packages prepared by them. I also had prepared
some small packages, but I left mine in my pocket; and, in order
to break the monotony of the experiment, it occurred to me to
slip my letter into the hand of one of the assistants, motioning
to him to pass it to Dr. Girault. The doctor received it with-
out knowing that it had come from me, and put it into the
hands of Marie.

I did not notice whether her eyes were open or closed ; but,
in a case of this sort, it was of little importance.

" What is it that you have in your hand? " Dr. Girault asked
the subject.

" A letter."

"To whom is it addressed?"

"To Dr. Dufay."

"By whom?"

" By a military man whom I do not know."

" Of what does this military man speak in his letter? "

" He is ill. He speaks of his illness."

" Can you tell what the illness is? "

244 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

"Oh, yes! Very easily. It is the same as that of the old
man of Mesland, who is not yet cured."

" Very good ... I understand . . . dysentery. Listen,
Marie ! I believe that you would give Dr. Duf ay great pleas-
ure if you were to go to see his friend, the military man, so that
you might bring back with you some news of him."

" Oh, it is too far! It would be a long trip! "

" Never mind ! Leave at once. We will wait for you."

(After a long silence.) " I cannot continue my journey.
. . . There is water, a great deal of water."

" And you cannot cross the bridge ? "

" But there is no bridge! "

" There is perhaps a boat that will take you across, as be-
tween Onzain and Chaumont."

(The Chaumont bridge over the Loire had not then been
built.)

" Boats ... yes ; but this Loire frightens me ... a real
flood!"

" Go on. Take courage and embark."

(A prolonged silence, agitation, pallor of the face, a little
nausea.)

" Will you soon arrive? "

" I have arrived ; but I have been very tired, and I do not
see any one on shore."

" Disembark, and you will find some one."

" Voila, volla! I see many people . . . nothing but women
in white. But, no ! On the contrary, they all have beards."

" All right ! Go up to them and ask them to show you
where you will find the military man."

(After a silence.) "They do not speak as we do. I have
had to wait until they called a little boy with red trousers, who
has been able to understand me. He has conducted me him-
self, and with very quick steps, because we walk in the sand."

" And the military man ? "

CLAIRVOYANCE 245

" There he is. He has on red trousers and an officer's cap.
But he looks ill, and is thin! "

" Does he tell you what caused his illness? "

" Yes; he shows me his bed — three planks upon some stakes,
above damp sand."

" All right. Thank you. Tell him to go to the hospital,
where he will have a better bed, and you return to Blois."

I then asked my confrere to open the letter and read it. And
he was not the least satisfied among those in the salon ; for the
success of the seance had surpassed all his expectations.

Dr. Dufay had a new proof of the clairvoyant pow-
ers of this young somnambulist a few days later. He
says:

Marie, in a state of natural somnambulism, had put her mis-
tress's jewels out of their customary place, and had been accused
of stealing them. I called at the prison in Blois, where she was
detained, and, by inducing her into artificial somnambulism,
awakened her memory and thus proved her innocence >• but,
because of judiciary formalities, she was not immediately per-
mitted to leave the prison.

Early on the following day I was called to investigate a sui-
cide which had taken place. A prisoner, accused of murder,
had strangled himself with his necktie, by attaching one end of
it to the foot of his bed, which was fastened to the floor. Lying
flat on his stomach, on the floor of the cell, he had had the
courage to push himself backward with his hands until the slip-
knot of the tie had produced the strangulation. The body was
already cold when I arrived, simultaneously with the attorney
and the magistrate.

The attorney, to whom the magistrate had related the scene
with the somnambulist the preceding day, wished to see Marie.
I then suggested that I question this young girl about the crim-

246 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

inal who had taken justice into his own hands; and the magis-
trate accepted my proposition eagerly. Accordingly, I cut off
a small piece of the necktie, and wrapped it in several sheets of
paper, which I tied up securely.

Arriving at the women's quarters, we went to the dormitories,
and asked the woman in charge to let us use her room.

I then, without speaking a single word to Marie, beckoned
her to follow us. After putting her to sleep by a simple appli-
cation of the hand against her forehead, I took from my pocket
the package I had prepared, and put it into her hands. In-
stantly, she jumped out of her chair, and threw the package
away from her with horror, crying angrily that she did not want
" to touch that."

Now, it is well known that in prisons, suicides are kept secret
as long as possible. Nothing had been said in the prison, about
the suicide of the criminal, even the attendant being ignorant
of it.

" What do you think this package contains? " I asked Marie,
when she had calmed somewhat.

" It is something that has been used to kill a man ! "

" A knife, perhaps? Or a pistol? "

" No, no ! A core! ... I see. ... It is a necktie ... he
has hanged himself. But tell that man who is behind me to sit
down, for he is trembling so much that his legs cannot support
him." (It was the magistrate, who was so strongly affected by
what he was witnessing that, actually, he was trembling vio-
lently.)

" Can you tell me where this has taken place ? "

" Right here . . . you know very well. It is a pris-
oner . . ."

" And why was he in prison ? "

" For having killed a man who had asked him to get into
his cart."

"How did he kill him?"

" With a

CLAIRVOYANCE 247

Gouet is the name of a sort of hatchet, with a short handle,
and a broad and long blade curved at the end like the beak of
a parrakeet. It is an instrument in common use in the country,
especially by coopers and woodcutters. And it was, actually, a
gouet that I had mentioned in my medico-legal report as being
probably the weapon with which the murder had been com-
mitted.

Up to this point Marie's answers had told us nothing that we
did not already know. But just then the magistrate drew me
aside and whispered in my ear that the gouet had not been
found.

" And what has he done with his gouet? " I asked the subject.

"What has he done? . . . Listen! . . . He has thrown it
into a pool. ... I see it very clearly at the bottom of the
water."

And she indicated the location of this pool exactly enough
to enable the authorities to go to it that same day, accompanied
by the chief of police, and to find the instrument of the crime.
We did not know of this result until that evening; but already
the skepticism of the magistrates was greatly shaken.

To satisfy their curiosity, I asked the woman in charge of
the prisoners to borrow from them some small articles that
belonged intimately to them, such as a ring, an earring, etc.,
and tie them up into little packages, entirely disguising the
nature and shape of the article. Marie told us exactly what
had caused the imprisonment of each of the women to whom the
objects belonged." 2

Second sight is a phenomenon so extraordinary,
which so violently shakes all admitted beliefs, that I
may be pardoned if I cite many examples.

2 In the same issue of the Revue phllosophique appears an article
by the director of the Normal School of Gueret, upon a young student
of his school who presented marked phenomena of clairvoyance during
Deriods of natural somnambulism.

248 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

Here is one that has been told to me recently, by the
man who experimented, and who, at my request, has
written down the incident. He is Mr. Jean B., school-
master in one of the principal schools of Perpignan. I
shall give his version without changing anything except
the proper names, of which I shall give only the initials.

In the month of August, 1892, when I was schoolmaster at
Ceret, a professional hypnotist gave a performance of hypnotism
in a cafe of that village. The subject was a young boy of
eighteen, Raymond S., employed in the barber-shop of Antoine R.

A few days afterward, when I went to this shop for a shave,
the conversation turned upon the experiments to which young
Raymond had been submitted. He then suggested that I put
him to sleep. We were all alone, his employer being away on
military duty for a period of thirteen days at Perpignan.

I did as the boy requested, and I had the satisfaction of suc-
ceeding — a satisfaction all the greater because it was th* first
time I had ever tried to put any one to sleep. Young Raymond
was, however, a remarkable subject, gifted with extreme sensi-
bility and suggestibility. I had no trouble in repeating with
him all the experiments which I had seen the professional
hypnotist make.

I went then very often to the barber-shop, for I was en-
thusiastic about these experiments.

One day it occurred to me to try the phenomenon of second
sight. I had read articles about it, but they had left me very
skeptical. It was on a Thursday, at about five o'clock in the
afternoon. The owner of the shop, Antoine R., had not yet
finished his period of thirteen days, having been gone only about
a week ; he was, therefore, still in Perpignan.

I told Raymond what I intended to try; and he agreed read-
ily, being as curious as myself to know the result of these experi-
ments. I at once put him to sleep, and ordered him to " see "

CLAIRVOYANCE 249

his employer. It must have been, then, about quarter past five.
After a few moments of silence, the subject said :

" I see him."

"Where?" I asked.

" He is in a cafe."

"Which one?"

" In the Cafe de la Mairie."

"What is he doing?"

" He is drinking absinthe."

"Is he all alone?"

" No ; he is with two other comrades."

" Do you know them ? "

" No ; I do not know them." Then, changing his mind :
"Ah, yes! One of them I have seen here, for Saint-Ferreol."

Having exhausted the questions I had to ask him concerning
Mr. R., I told the subject to go to his home; and he said that
he saw his mother attending to household matters, his brother
sitting in the kitchen, etc. — in brief, mere banalities. I did
not insist further; for I did not know how I could verify his
statements. I woke him then, and told him all that he had said
to me. He was greatly astonished ; for he remembered nothing
of it.

A few minutes afterward, I put him to sleep again, and sent
him once more to look for his employer.

" Do you still see Mr. R.? " I asked.

" He is no longer in the cafe," the subject answered.

" Where is he, then?"

" He is walking."

" Is he still with his two comrades ? "

" One of them has left him."

"Which one?"

M The one who was here for Saint-Ferreol."

" Follow them as they walk. Where are they going? "

" I do not know."

** Very well. Tell me as soon as you know."

250 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

There followed a silence of about one minute. Then, sud-
denly, the subject exclaimed:

" They are going to have supper ! n

" How do you know ? "

" They are entering the Boule d'Or."

I did not persist any further, but woke my subject, who
appeared to be very tired.

There now remained for me to verify the exactness of the
facts which he had revealed. I knew that Mr. R. would re-
turn two days later for a twenty-four-hour permission. I
decided to wait for him at the railway-station, and to ask him,
as diplomatically as I could, how he had spent the time between
five and six o'clock that Thursday afternoon. And that I did.
On the way, I said to him :

" Last Thursday, at about quarter past five, I saw you at
Perpignan. You were in the Cafe de la Mairie, drinking ab-
sinthe with two of your friends."

Mr. R., looking at me, said simply: "Why did you not
come over to speak to me ? We should have been glad to have
you with us."

" I feared that I might intrude," I answered him. " Besides,
I was in a hurry; I did not have time."

" I am sorry. It would have pleased me to have you at least
speak to me."

" By the way," I asked him, "who were your two friends?
Has not one of them been here in Ceret? "

" My comrades were F., who comes from here, but no longer
lives here, and Charles M., a pastry-cook in Perpignan."

" Which of the two was here for Saint-Ferreol ? "

" Oh, that was my friend Charles. I had invited him for the
fete."

II Then it was he who had left you when you went for supper
with F. at the Boule JOr?"

At this question, Mr. R. looked at me in astonishment, ex-
claiming :

CLAIRVOYANCE 251

"How do you know? You followed me, then? A few
moments ago you told me that you were in a hurry ! "

I could not keep from laughing, and so was obliged to tell
him how I had obtained the information.

There was no doubt of the fact that Mr. R. had no idea
whatever of hypnotic phenomena, for he did not believe me.

" You are joking! " said he. " You are making fun of me! "

I tried very hard to convince him that I had learned in no
other way how he had passed his time ; but I could not succeed.

" Well," I then said to him, " the essential thing for me to
do now is to make you believe that what I have told you is true.
As for the rest, since you are incredulous, I shall make you see,
one of these days. I hope, then, that you will be convinced."

"Oh, if I see it, I shall believe it," he replied; and we
separated.

The following Saturday, Mr. R. returned definitely to Ceret,
his term of thirteen days having expired. When I went to his
shop that day, he himself reminded me of my promise, and we
made an appointment for Monday evening, after eight o'clock.

I was careful not to miss the appointment. At eight .o'clock
I arrived at the barber-shop, and found, besides himself and
his employee Raymond, three other persons.

I put Raymond to sleep, and made him carry out different
suggestions, to the astonishment of the assistants, who had
never witnessed anything of the sort. Then I woke him.

In the meantime, Madame R. appeared in the doorway of
the shop. She stood for a moment, amazed, and then, address-
ing her husband, without coming farther into the room, she

" Antoine, you know where I am going."
And without another word she left us.
Then an inspiration came to me.

" Does Raymond know where your wife is going? " I asked
Mr. R. " Or what she is going to do ? "

252 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

" Certainly not. He knows nothing about it, for it is a
matter between my wife and myself."

" Very well," I said to him then ; " if your employee tells
you where your wife is going and what she intends to do, will
you believe that he was able to tell me what you did at Per-
pignan ? "

" Oh, then I shall no longer doubt you."

I put the subject to sleep immediately, and made him sit in
an armchair.

" Follow Madame R.," I ordered him. " Do you see her? "

" I see her. She is going down the Rue Saint-Ferreol."

" Good! Follow her. Tell me what she does."

After an instant's silence, he said : " She has stopped."

"Where?" I asked.

" At the foot of the street."

"What is she doing?"

" She is speaking."

"With whom?"

" With a woman."

" Do you know this woman ? "

" No ; I do not know her."

" Do you not know, then, what her occupation is ? "

" Yes. She sells wine."

" And where does she live? "

" On the left-hand side, in going down."

Then the idea came to me, since he saw the two women talk-
ing, to make him understand what they were saying.

" Very well," I said to him. " Since they are talking, listen
to what they are saying, and repeat it to me."

" I cannot hear them," he replied.

" Listen ! " I insisted. " You will hear."

" I hear nothing! " he repeated, this time raising his voice,
and with a note of irritation.

" I will you to hear ! " I ordered.

Immediately, the subject's face changed expression. We saw

CLAIRVOYANCE 253

that a violent effort of his will was being made, the veins on
his forehead swelled up; then, suddenly, with his whole body
tense, in a strange, jerking voice, he uttered these two words:

"Argent . . . Espagne!" ("Money . . . Spain!")

At that he dropped back in the chair, as if utterly exhausted.

I woke him immediately, a little frightened; and as he re-
mained as if prostrated, I had to moisten his temples with a
towel — something I had never had to do before.

In the meantime, Madame R. returned, and came into the
shop. I went to her immediately, before any one had a chance
to speak a word to her.

" Madame," I said, " is it true that you have just come from
the foot of the Rue Saint-Ferreol, where you found a wine
merchant with whom you have talked — of money . . .
Spain. . . ."

Madame R. smiled, and explained to me at once :

" Yes ; I have just been with Madame T. As I know that
her husband must go to Spain this week, I went to ask him if
he would take some Spanish coins that I have at home."

(The circulation of Spanish copper money had for some time
been prohibited in the department of the Pyrenees-Orientales,
which was literally flooded with it.)

Telepathy, so thoroughly and patiently studied by
the English Society for Psychical Research, has cer-
tainly an affinity with all the preceding phenomena, and
notably with second sight, from which it differs, how-
ever, in two main characteristics: (i) It is always
produced spontaneously; while second sight is nearly
always provoked by an experimenter. (2) It empha-
sizes rather the action of the object perceived; while
second sight causes us to consider rather the knowl-
edge manifested by the subject who perceives it. It
seems that in telepathy the object goes to find the seer;

254 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

while in second sight the seer goes to find the object.
But it can well be understood that in many cases the
shade of difference between telepathy and second sight
is hard to perceive.

Memory, or at least knowledge of the past, can also
assume a supernormal appearance. The name psy~
chometry has been given, wholly improperly, to this
faculty which certain mediums possess of retracing a
sometimes long series of past events, of which they
have no personal knowledge. This may be done in
the presence of the individuals whom the events con-
cern in a more or less direct way; or it may be at the
contact of objects having played some role in the events.
Part of these effects may, it seems, be linked to divina-
tion of thought, whenever the medium can read in the
memory of the individuals, where the recollection of
the events is retained in a latent state. But the case
would appear entirely different, and comparable rather
to a sort of second sight into space or temporal telep*
athy, when the medium, under the sole influence of an
object, or of the place in which he may be, is mentally
transported into the past and takes part in events which
happened long before. This was the experience of
two English women who, visiting Versailles in 1901,
" saw " the Petit Trianon as it was in the time of
Marie- Antoinette.

The future appears undetermined to us, at least so
far as it depends upon our will ; but can it, also, be the
object of a sort of immediate vision? Can the future
become the present in the mind of the medium?

That is a formidable question, from the philosophi-
cal and moral viewpoints; for the question of our free

CLAIRVOYANCE 255

will and our moral responsibility are themselves in-
volved.

One may find many examples of prevision and pre-
monition, which are inexplicable by the normal faculties
of induction and are verified by later events. It will
be sufficient to cite two cases :

One is that of Dr. Geley, of Annecy, who in 1894
was a medical student at Lyon. On the 2yth of June,
at nine o'clock in the morning, while working in his
room with a comrade, he was suddenly distracted from
his work by this obsessing thought: " M. Casimir-
Perier is elected President of the Republic by 451
votes." (The electoral Congress assembled at mid-
day, and the news was not known in Lyon until that
evening.)

The other case is that which Dr. Osty reports thus
in his book, Lucidity and Intuition, as related by the
seer herself:

A year ago I made this prediction to a man who came to
consult me for the first time: " I see you upon the point of
departing for a voyage across the seas ... to America, prob-
ably. I see you in the steamer, sad and alone; but you will
not leave until later, after many boats have left for the same
destination the port where you will embark."

The gentleman answered me as follows : " I actually am on
the point of leaving France for America; so I admire your
clairvoyant powers. But you have told me two things that are
altogether improbable. One is that I do not take the first
steamer. I have my ticket in my pocket, and everything is
arranged that I leave the day after to-morrow. The second is
that you see me sad and alone. I shall have my wife with me ;
and if anything should possibly occur to keep her in France, my
trip would be canceled."

256 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

Yesterday this gentleman returned to me. " Your prophecy
was only too well fulfilled," he said. " The day after I came
here to consult you, my wife was taken ill with pneumonia, and
died a few days later. Then, left alone, I quitted France ; and
I was, as you said, a passenger on the steamer, sad and alone."

IV

Let us review the principal circumstances or condi-
tions in which clairvoyance, or metagnomy, is mani-
fested under one or the other of its different forms.

Even though it appears sometimes, abruptly and
spontaneously, in the waking state, without the ordinary
equilibrium of the mental and physiological faculties
appearing in the least changed (especially in the case
of telepathy) , it seems to have some special liaison with
particular states of the nervous system more or less
analogous to sleep, hypnosis, ecstasy, trance, etc., or
even with ordinary sleep.

Popular belief attributes a prophetic significance to
certain dreams. In Cicero, for instance, there is the
dream of that Arcadian who saw his friend first men-
aced with death, then assassinated, and reached the
gates of the town in time to stop the cart in which the
murderers carried the body hidden under a heap of
dung.

But it is especially in the somnambulistic state, nat-
ural or provoked, that metagnomic manifestations
occur most often. Very often clairvoyance is revealed
during an access of natural somnambulism ; and the in-
dividual in whom this faculty appears spontaneously
is then brought to develop it by means of artificial som-
nambulistic processes.

CLAIRVOYANCE 257

This, we believe, was the case of the famous som-
nambulist Alexis, who was worth being studied with the
greatest care, without the unfortunate prejudiced atti-
tude which scientists manifest in considering all phe-
nomena of this kind as being unworthy of their atten-
tion.

A more recent case was that observed by Dr. Ter-
rien and presented by him in a communication made to
the Society of Medicine, of Nantes, during 1914. A
young girl, fourteen years old, while doing some sew-
ing for him, went to sleep spontaneously and began
to recount all the doctor's actions at that moment. He
had left with the intention of visiting one patient only,
and had been delayed by three other, wholly unex-
pected, visits. " She gave," said a witness, " the rea-
sons for the departure from his original intention, the
supplementary visits, the names of the patients, etc.,
without omitting the detail that a cultivator obstructed
the doctor's way, and he had to stop on the road, thus
delaying his return."

Often, also, it is the mesmerist or hypnotist who in
some way evokes the metagnomic faculty, in giving to
the sleeping subject the imperative suggestion to see a
certain person or a certain object. But in order to
have the idea of making a suggestion of this kind, it is
evidently necessary to know, or at least to believe, that
metagnomy is possible. It is for want of this knowl-
edge or this belief that experimenters imbued with the
doctrines of official science pass right by the side of this
phenomenon without seeing it. Very often it exists in
their subjects, in a state of latent possibility, waiting
only to be called upon. Although exclusive partizans

258 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

of suggestion, they ignore one of its most remarkable
powers — the genesial power of metagnomy; or else
they deny it, as being inexplicable by science, forget-
ting that science is no more in a position to explain
the curative power of suggestion, which none of them
doubts for a minute.

Let us remark, moreover, that suggestive action
nearly always has to be completed by that of certain
objects, which can even sometimes replace it. In order
to direct his clairvoyant powers upon a given person,
the subject must be en rapport with this person by
direct contact with him or with an object which has
belonged to him and is, so to speak, impregnated with
his personality — a piece of his hair, or of his clothing,
a letter written by him, etc.

Also, the subject can, without the aid of any outside
suggestion, place himself in a state of clairvoyance,
either by gazing fixedly into a crystal globe (known as
crystal gazing) ; or into a simple decanter of water —
which, it is claimed, Cagliostro used ; or into a " magic
mirror "; or by any other process that may be desired.
Is it not natural to suppose that the divining-rod and
the pendulum play almost the same role in the develop-
ment of the special metagnomy of water-diviners?
And, if the lines of the hand, the cards, coffee-grounds,
etc., have really any virtue, does it not consist in the
property which these objects have to provoke in the
medium the apparition of her natural second sight?

In a word, the apparition of clairvoyance would ap-
pear to be linked, in a way that is still mysterious to
us, to certain ensembles of beliefs and practises which
undoubtedly determine in their adepts a particular

Globe and Stand lent by Dee & Fukushima, Inc., N. Y.
CRYSTAL GAZING

The subject, placing herself in a state of clairvoyance by gazing
fixedly into the crystal globe, brings into play remarkable powers of
second sight, prophecy, etc., which normally are latent.

CLAIRVOYANCE 259

mental and nervous state, provocative of the metagno-
mic faculties.

The history of religions offers us numerous examples
of clairvoyance, under all its forms — penetration of
thought, second sight, telepathy, prophecy, etc.

Similarly, metagnomy is produced very frequently
in the course of spiritistic seances. Facts unknown to
the medium, occasionally also to the assistants, and
relative sometimes to objects and events of the present,
sometimes of the past, and sometimes even of the fu-
ture, are revealed, by the intermediary of the table or
the planchette, by means of automatic writing, or by
the word of the medium in a trance. And these reve-
lations appear to proceed from a personality distinct
from all those of the participants of the seance, from
a spirit capable of perceiving, in conditions absolutely
different from those of this life, the material organiza-
tion of their senses and their brain, consequently as
manifesting what might be called " transcendental me-
tagnomy."

IV

In the presence of a mass of facts so extraordinary
as these, the first inclination of our intelligence is to
deny or to doubt; and when it seems forced upon us
to recognize the reality, at least of some among them,
we immediately demand the explanation.

How are such phenomena possible?

That is the question that our intelligence asks insist-
ently ; and we are surprised, impatient, not to receive an
answer; at least we are not satisfied to accept precipi-
tately the first apparent solution that is offered to us.

260 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

But the true scientific spirit consists in being disinter-
ested, at least temporarily, in the need for an explana-
tion, and in being reduced voluntarily to a sole research
— slow, persevering, obstinate — of the determinism
of the phenomena.

In the eyes of the scientist, the most ingenious, the
most intrinsically coherent, theory is, by itself, without
value and without interest; it constitutes even an
obstacle and a danger to science, if it merely aids the
mind to represent to itself facts already known, in a
way that pleases it and so, satisfying its curiosity, dis-
penses with all further investigation. The sole reason
for existence, we do not say of theories but of hypothe-
ses, in all experimental study, is to make possible the dis-
covery of facts still unknown, in permitting us to insti-
tute a series of new experiments ; and these hypotheses
must always conserve the character, not of explana-
tions, in the real sense of the word, but of simple
interpretations, always subject to revision and to con-
trol.

In general, the explanations or interpretations which
are given of the metagnomic phenomena consist in
linking all the forms of clairvoyance to one among them
(that which the author of the explanation or interpre-
tation has more particularly, if not exclusively, stud-
ied), and in considering this, sometimes as a primary
fact, as an incontestable law established by experimen-
tation; sometimes as an extremely probable induction,
which imposes itself by its analogy with other laws
already acquired to science; and sometimes as a neces-
sary deduction of a theory dogmatically affirmed.

CLAIRVOYANCE 261

This last case is that of a certain number of spiritists
who, admitting the existence of spirits and their inter-
vention in things of this world as a certain truth, attrib-
ute to spirits not only the facts of " transcendental or
spiritoidal metagnomy," but all the facts of supernor-
mal knowledge, under whatever forms and in whatever
circumstances they may be produced. The clairvoyance
of the subjects and mediums would come to them always
from an exterior and super-terrestrial source ; it would
be always a revelation emanating from the Beyond.

More in favor with the majority of contemporary
psychists is the explanation which links all the forms
of metagnomy with the fact of thought-penetration or
mental suggestion. This fact would appear henceforth
sufficiently proved by observation and experimentation,
and it is believed that it may be established as a law,
capable of explaining completely the diversity of the
particular cases.

It would be sufficient, therefore, to admit that there
exists a possibility of intercommunication of minds,
which would itself undoubtedly have as a necessary con-
dition an intercommunication of brains. And thus not
only psychometry would be explained, but also telepathy
and vision at a distance.

Expressed in terms of a physical order, the hypothe-
sis may be said to admit that each human brain emits
special radiations, correlative to its thoughts, conscious
or unconscious, of rays susceptible of being arrested in
transition by another brain, and of reproducing the
thoughts of the first brain. The rays are capable also,

262 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

perhaps, of making impressions of material objects and
of storing them, as sound vibrations are stored in the
discs of a gramophone. But there is not in this hypoth-
esis direct metagnomic vision of material objects.

" Lucidity," said Dr. Osty, " is not a monopsychic
phenomenon. Its production necessitates the har-
monious working of two brains : the one furnishing the
psychic force, the other its exceptional sensibility, react-
ing to the excitation received and reconstituting it into
its original form of thought."

The early mesmerists admitted, on the contrary, two
distinct forms of metagnomy: one subjective, the pene-
tration of thought; the other objective, vision at a dis-
tance.

It is not only human brains which emit metagnomic
radiations; all the objects of nature do so. To the
" C-rays " which link brain to brain it is necessary to
add the " O-rays " which link object to brain, these
two being twin forms of the same energy, whose na-
ture is still unknown to us, and which Reichenbach
named od or odyle.

Thus each human brain would act as a center to
which all the rays from other brains and from all points
of the universe would arrive, when it would have the
possibility, thanks to this universal intercommunica-
tion, of perceiving what happens in every mind and in
every place. For want of the necessary conditions,
this possibility remains latent. But let these conditions
be realized, and metagnomy becomes apparent.

This natural mechanism is no less marvelous than
that which makes possible wireless telegraphy and
telephony.

CLAIRVOYANCE 263

What good, however, does it do for us to linger upon
these views?

For all those who desire to hasten the accession of
psychical studies in the domain of science, there is a
more urgent task: that of collecting such a mass of
authentic and concordant facts that the most opinion-
ated skepticism cannot fail to give way before the evi-
dence; and that of deducing the elements, from which
our posterity may find perhaps, some day, the definite
explanation.

CHAPTER XII

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM

ARE there actually real facts, capable of being con-
trolled and scientifically studied, which come under the
heading of spiritism?

This question is answered in the negative only by
those who are wholly ignorant of the matter.

The researches of such observers as Professor
Thury of Geneva, the Count de Gasparin, the members
of the Dialectic Society of London — among whom
must be mentioned the mathematician De Morgan and
the naturalist Wallace — the researches of the great
physician and chemist, William Crookes, of Professor
Charles Richet and Professor Flournoy, and of still
many others, have definitely placed beyond all possible
contestation the reality of spiritistic phenomena.

Inasmuch as the word spiritism, although generally
employed, is nevertheless equivocal, we have proposed
for this order of phenomena the name spiritoidal, for
this has the advantage of eliminating any prejudging
of the intimate nature or the causes of the phenomena.

Contrary to the prejudices which still exist, we con-
sider that not only respect but encouragement should
be given to those scientists who devote their energy to
bringing a little light into this still dark and mysterious

264

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 265

corner of nature. Instead of deriding their enterprise,
it would be better to recognize their courage and disin-
terestedness, for they conduct these difficult studies in
the hope of making new discoveries of great importance
to the widening of science and the progress of the hu-
man mind.

The scientific study of spiritism, or spiritoidal phe-
nomena, should be conducted ( i ) by observing the
greatest number of spiritistic facts, while taking all
possible precautions to guarantee their authenticity;
(2) by classifying them in series, in order to bring out
the relations which may exist between them; (3) by
deducing, from these relations, the formulas to express
them.

In a word, we must apply to spiritistic facts that
scientific method, with the necessary modifications of
detail, to which the natural and physical sciences have
owed their success. The real scientific spirit, we can-
not too often repeat, consists in the elimination pf the
need for an explanation, and in limiting one's efforts to
determining the phenomena. The object of the sci-
entist is not to learn why certain phenomena exist, and
why they are thus and not otherwise ; it is to learn how
it is possible for him to influence them, to provoke them,
to prevent or modify them, as well as to foresee them,
and ultimately to utilize them in possible applications
to the needs of human activities.

This does not mean that the scientist should not try
to understand the facts that he witnesses. On the con-
trary, if he would discover their determinism, if,
through appropriate experimentation, he would inter-
rogate Nature and compel her to answer, it is indis-

266 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

pensable that he use reasoning and imagination.
Hence the inevitable intervention of directing ideas in
experimental research; hence the constant use of the
hypothesis, not to explain but to interpret the phenom-
ena as the knowledge acquired upon certain of their
rapports may enable us, as it were, to anticipate future
knowledge of certain others.

In the field of spiritoidal facts the seeker finds him-
self brought, more or less rapidly, before two possible
interpretations, both suggested by the facts themselves.
These are the spiritistic interpretations and the crypto-
psychic interpretation.

II

The principal characteristic of spiritoidal facts is
that they seem to imply the intervention, in things of
this world, of intelligent, invisible beings who are not
normally part of our world.

Because of this appearance, it could be said that the
first interpretation suggested is the spiritistic. This is
the interpretation that was adopted by the first observ-
ers; and it is also that given by casual observers who
have no scientific training, and by those who, consciously
or unconsciously, consider these facts as having no pos-
sible relation to science.

The cryptopsychic interpretation, on the contrary,
supposes doubt of the reality of the appearance pre-
sented by spiritoidal facts. It is an idea of the second
period, a reflection provoked by the comparison of
this order of facts to all the rest of our experience.
The facts which we have known hitherto — astronomy,
physics, chemistry, physiology — are the result of nat-

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 267

ural causes, forming, together, a closed and coherent
system, belonging to a same world. And those which
imply intelligences, consciousnesses, are linked, in a
constant order, to that system of matter and motion
wherein all reality appears to be enclosed.

It is, therefore, more in keeping with the tendencies
and the general method of science to suppose, until
proof to the contrary, that these special, spiritoidal
facts, in appearance the outcome of intelligent causes,
unknown and outside of nature, are in reality pro-
duced by known and intelligent causes belonging to na-
ture, although acting in a hidden manner, as if screened
from direct observation.

This is but an application of the great principle
which, since Descartes, has dominated and directed all
modern science : i. e., the supposition that the unknown
can always be made known ; that in the realm of things
certain, already demonstrated and verified, the reason
of things still uncertain can be sought and found.

Yet intelligent causes, absolutely natural and visible,
certainly intervene in spiritoidal facts. They are the
human beings in whose presence these facts are mani-
fested. Hence, instead of attributing to spiritoidal
facts the intervention of hypothetical beings — spirits
of the dead, elementals, angels, demons, etc., the reality
of whom we have no proof — science, if she would be
faithful to her principles, must first of all connect them
with the forces and faculties of the human beings —
the sitters, and the mediums in particular. It is true
that mediums are thoroughly unconscious of interven-
ing actively in the production of these phenomena ; for
they believe that spiritistic phenomena are produced in

268 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

or through them, unknown to themselves and without
their participation, through forces foreign to their con-
sciousness, and often contrary to their own will. But is
this an illusion with them?

The study of hypnoidal facts, similar to the spirit-
oidal although not presenting their characteristic ap-
pearance, proves that, in certain circumstances human
beings may think and act and manifest aptitudes hith-
erto unsuspected, unknown to themselves, and without
the possibility of their attributing the facts to them-
selves.

It is, therefore, quite natural that those who study
spiritism, or spiritoidal phenomena, in a scientific way
should first of all apply the cryptopsychic interpreta-
tion, and should reject it only when its application has
been proved incontestably false. It must also be ad-
mitted, however, that in the majority of cases this in-
terpretation agrees perfectly with all the particu-
larities of the phenomenon to which it is applied.

The following, quoted from Esprits et mediums, by
Professor Flournoy, is a typical example:

Madame Dupond, a well-bred and cultured lady from Ge-
neva, of literary taste and philosophical and religious leanings,
took up the study of spiritism at the age of forty-five. She
tried automatic writing, and, at the end of eight days, was
able to get the names of dead relatives and friends, who gave
her messages of a philosophico-religious nature. About three
days later, after having received various communications, her
pencil wrote suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the name of a
young Frenchman she knew — Rodolphe X., who had recently
entered a religious order in Italy. As she did not know that
he was dead, she was surprised and shocked; but her hand

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 269

continued to write, confirming the sad news in the following
circumstantial details :

" I am Rodolphe. I died last night at eleven o'clock, the
23rd. I had been ill for several days, and I was not able to
write. I had an inflammation of the lungs, caused by a sudden
change in the weather. I died without pain, and I have been
thinking of you. ... I am in space. ... I see your parents,
and I like them also. Good-by. ... I am going to pray for
you. ... I am no longer a Catholic, I am a Christian."

After her first astonishment, Madame Dupont believed more
and more in the authenticity of this message, because for almost
a week she continued to receive communications from Rodolphe,
making numerous allusions to their past relations. She had
met Rodolphe, who was then a priest, during a stay in the
South the preceding spring. He had returned from Italy, where
he had spent the winter on account of his poor health, and had
stopped a few days at the same hotel. Between this Genevese,
a confirmed Protestant and republican, and this man from the
north of France, an ardent legitimist and Catholic, in spite of
the difference in their ages (he was scarcely twenty), a real
moral and intellectual intimacy was formed, as a natural con-
sequence of the analogy of their temperaments and the unity of
their idealistic aspirations. Each of them had tried, without
success, to convert the other to his own ideas; and when they
were separated, they had continued this discourse by corre-
spondence, even after Rodolphe had entered the religious order,
pouring out their souls to each other in full confidence. At
the moment of Madame Dupond's automatic writing, it was
Rodolphe who owed a letter to his friend.

Do we not see there an excellent case of the apparent
intervention of a " discarnated spirit " — to use the
expression familiar to the partizans of the spiritistic
doctrine — in the affairs of this world? Unfortu*

270 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

nately, six days after the first communication from the
supposed dead man:

. . . there reached her by post a letter from Rodolphe, who,
far from being dead, was in perfect health. It shook Madame
Dupond's recent spiritistic convictions so thoroughly that she
was discouraged from pursuing further such disconcerting ex-
periments.

It is necessary to read in Professor Flournoy's book
the detailed and penetrating analysis to which he has
submitted all the circumstances of this interesting case,
and which fully justifies, we think, the conclusion he has
reached: viz., that all the communications received by
Madame Dupond reflected her own dispositions, con-
scious or not, and corresponded exactly to those which
could not fail to be in her. " She alone, in other words,
and not Rodolphe, was dead at that moment, and can
be considered as the real source of the communica-
tions."

in

One would be inclined to generalize this conclusion,
in order to extend it to all spiritoidal phenomena, by ex-
amining one after the other the many different kinds,
and not stopping to explain the manifest analogies
which link them to the ensemble of other parapsychic
phenomena.

From the classification which we have given in Our
Hidden Forces, the parapsychic phenomena can be
divided into three great classes, which follow one after
the other, in the order of their increasing complexity
and difficulty:

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 271

1 i ) Hypnoidal phenomena.

(2) Magnetoidal phenomena.

(3) Spiritoidal phenomena.

Spiritoidal phenomena, when disregarding all hy-
potheses as to their origin, do not differ essentially from
the others; for there can always be found, for each of
them, a correspondent of the same kind in the series
of hypnoidal or magnetoidal phenomena.

For example, the state of trance in a medium is en-
tirely analogous to the state of hypnosis of a subject put
in catalepsy or somnambulism; it presents almost the
same physiological and psychological elements. There
is between them little difference except this: The
trance is produced and developed spontaneously, with-
out the intervention of any visible operator, under the
sole effect of the nervous and mental conditions in which
the medium is placed, and among which the belief in
spirits and the expectation of their intervention would
appear to play a considerable part. The hypnotic state
is produced experimentally, artificially, by a visible oper-
ator, a hypnotizer, who undoubtedly utilizes the men-
tal and nervous dispositions of the subject; for mani-
festly the subject's voluntary action is the cause which
unlocks the phenomenon and directs the successive de-
velopments— without its necessarily being a question
of spirits here any more than in an experiment in physics
or chemistry.

It is true that, in many cases, the medium does not
appear to have undergone any change, either physically
or mentally, and neither he himself nor any of the
assistants doubts the role that he plays in the phenome-
non. This is established by the disappearance of the

272 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

phenomenon immediately that the medium is absent,
and his presence is sufficient, on the contrary, to pro-
duce it, in spite of all the variations which can have
place in the entourage.

But any one who is at all familiar with the experi-
mental study of hypnoidal phenomena well knows that,
if these phenomena are usually manifested in a special
state, analogous to sleep, there is nevertheless an in-
finity of degrees between this state and that of waking,
and that the greater part of those that are observed in
the state of hypnosis can equally be observed in a state
which cannot by any apparent sign be distinguished
from the waking state. In particular, it is always
possible, after having put a subject to sleep, to make
him open his eyes merely by suggesting to him the con-
tinuation of sleep, and to put him thus in a state which,
to the uninformed onlookers, will present all the char-
acteristics of the waking state.

Similarly, the messages obtained from supposed dead
people — whether by means of the table, by automatic
writing, or by any other process — singularly resemble,
if we omit their spontaneity and separate them from
the spiritistic atmosphere which surrounds them, the
facts of dissociation of the personality, artificially pro-
voked by such experimenters as Professor Pierre Janet,
and of which we have given numerous examples in
Our Hidden Forces.

Also, the facts of thought-reading and clairvoyance,
so frequently found in the reports of spiritistic seances,
have their analogies in the facts of perceptive tele-
psychism, or, as it is sometimes called, psychometry.

If perhaps we are still incapable of producing experi-

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSY.CHISM 273

mentally the phenomena which compose what may be
called the physical side of spiritism — movements of
levitation, of translation, etc., produced by mediums
upon material objects, apparitions of light and of form,
materializations, which are observed, or believed to be
observed, in certain spiritistic seances — we have never-
theless reports of phenomena of the same kind, which,
although equally spontaneous, are at least produced in
circumstances from which all spiritistic element is com-
pletely absent.

From this comparison between ( i ) spiritoidal facts
and (2) hypnoidal and magnetoidal facts, a double con-
sequence would seem to proceed :

First: All the facts which constitute spiritism may
be resolved by analysis into hypnoidal and magnetoidal
facts, differing from these in that they are produced
spontaneously instead of being evoked by the experi-
menter, and also in that they appear linked to certain
ideas and beliefs: viz., spiritistic ideas and beliefs,* con-
scious or unconscious, in the individuals or the sur-
roundings where they are observed. Spiritism ap-
pears, therefore, as a spontaneous synthesis of all, or
almost all, the parapsychic facts, determined by a cer-
tain particular nervous and mental state, to which,
perhaps, might be given the name spiritogene, first used,
I believe, by Professor Flournoy in Esprits et mediums.

From this it is seen that science, faithful to the prin-
ciple of economy, prefers — until proof to the contrary
-. — to consider the spiritoidal facts as reducible to facts
of the preceding orders, or at least that it is forced to
recognize their reduction as far as possible. It is that
which explains, and in a large measure justifies, the atti-

274 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

tude of the majority of scientists interested in this
study, and their visible partiality for the cryptopsychic
interpretation.

Second: Even in admitting the hypothesis of the
existence of spirits and their effective participation in
the genesis of the spiritoidal phenomena, it would be
very necessary to assert that the whole action of these
spirits consists only in arousing in certain susceptible
subjects (mediums) the majority of the hypnoidal and
magnetoidal phenomena (hypnotism, suggestion, disso-
ciation of the personality, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.)

— phenomena that are constated in ordinary subjects,
and produced either spontaneously or as the effect of the
action of an experimenter.

It can thus be said that spirits operate in exactly the
same way that human hypnotizers and magnetizers do.

Therefore, those scientists specialized in the study
of the parapsychic phenomena, who do not exclude a
priori the hypothesis of spirits but recognize that the
existence of such agents, however improbable it may be,
is not necessarily impossible, affirm that, from the point
of view of the method, the study of spiritoidal phe-
nomena must be strictly subordinated to that of the
phenomena of the two preceding orders (hypnoidal
and magnetoidal), and that it is only when these have
been carried sufficiently far that one begins to see the
way a little clearly in the phenomena of the third order

— spiritoidal.

IV

It is true that there remains an unsolved problem the
force of which increases in proportion to the number of

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 275

spiritoidal facts over which the cryptopsychic interpre-
tation extends its influence. This problem might be
formulated thus:

How is it that spiritistic practises — undoubtedly
with the aid of the beliefs which accompany them — are
sufficient to cause the appearance in a large number of
persons, often with extraordinary rapidity, of an abund'
ant production of par apsy chic phenomena, varied and
really marvelous, while the most able experimenters
have trouble in provoking even a feeble part of these
phenomena by the most efficacious of their processes?

It is not unusual, in a spiritistic seance that is even a
little successful, to observe the facts of thought-read-
ing, of clairvoyance, of the exteriorization of the mo-
tricity, of materialization, etc., assembled all together
in one spontaneous synthesis, the secret of which wholly
escapes us.

It is, perhaps, the realization of this enigma which,
in these last few years, has brought a certain number of
scientists — such as William James, Sidgwick, Frederic
Myers, Hodgson, and many other members of the So-
ciety for Psychical Research of London — to look
favorably upon the spiritistic interpretation. There
is a very curious evolution in that; and the proof of it
is shown in a book by the great English scientist, Sir
Oliver Lodge, The Survival of Man.1

It is known that the Society for Psychical Research,
after a long investigation of telepathy and other para-
psychic phenomena, which was begun in a strictly scien-
tific spirit and without any particular leaning toward the

1 The Survival of Man, by Sir Oliver Lodge (New York: Moffat,
Yard and Company).

276 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

spiritistic doctrine, has seemed to advance by degrees
toward conclusions conforming to this doctrine. This
is shown in the writings of its members, and especially
in the important work of Frederic Myers, Human Per-
sonality.

But Frederic Myers and his colleagues, it might be
said, were not real scientists, and their assertions had
not, could not have, in the eyes of the public, that
authority which now is necessary in science and in those
who act as its representatives; they were philosophers
and litterateurs who, it might be believed, merely
skirted rather than penetrated the true scientific spirit.

Sir Oliver Lodge is purely a physicist, whose re-
searches have been in electricity and wireless teleg-
raphy, and his works in this special field have given
him a world-wide scientific reputation.

But this physicist does not hesitate to declare his
conviction that " man survives death " — a conviction
founded, according to him, upon the observation of a
long series of natural facts; and he considers that " in
the future, the hour will come when this belief will be
scientifically established."

What are these natural facts which can determine in
a scientist like Sir Oliver Lodge a conviction which
appears so contrary to that held by the great majority
of his confreres?

First of all, the facts of thought-transmission and
telepathy. His book contains numerous and signifi-
cant examples, drawn often from his own experience.
He says :

I am prepared to confess that the weight of testimony is

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 277

sufficient to satisfy my own mind that such things do un-
doubtedly occur; that the distance between England and India
is no barrier to the sympathetic communication of intelligence
in some way of which we are at present ignorant; that, just
as a signaling key in London causes a telegraphic instrument to
respond instantaneously in Teheran, so the danger or death of
a distant child, or brother, or husband, may be signaled, with-
out wire or telegraph clerk, to the heart of a human being
fitted to be the recipient of such a message.

There follow certain facts of automatic writing, as,
for example, those that the medium, Madame Newn-
ham, exhibited in the waking state. Sir Oliver Lodge
says:

The instructive feature about this case was that the minds
apparently influencing the hand were not so much those of
dead as of living people. The advantage of this was that they
could be catechized afterward about their share in the trans-
action; and it then appeared that they either knew nothing
about it or were surprised at it ; for though the communications
did correspond to something in their minds, it did not repre-
sent anything of which they were consciously thinking, and
was only a very approximate rendering of what they might
be wishing to convey.

The author concludes that this action, by which one
intelligence communicates with another, does not ema-
nate from conscious regions of the mind, but from those
of the subconsciousness of dreams, whether it be the
action of the living or of the dead.

" Since," says he, " the living communicant is not
aware of what is being dictated, so the dead person need
not be consciously operative."

278 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

But, then, can it not also well be supposed that the
impression received, instead of coming, as pretended,
from a dead person, emanates from a third person,
or even that it had for its origin — according to Sir
Oliver Lodge's own expression — a central intelligence,
some anlma mundi, to which would be connected all the
intelligences that we know, and by which they would be
influenced, a " sort of universal receptacle in which all
thoughts and all intelligences, past and present, would
be represented and conserved " ?

Sir Oliver Lodge confesses, however, very loyally,
the failure of an experiment from which he hoped to
prove the possibility of communication between the
living and the dead. Frederic Myers had sent him
in January, 1891, a sealed envelope in the hope that
after his death the communication contained in the
envelope would be able to be given by means of a
medium. Many different messages obtained by a well-
known medium, Madame Verrall, and coming sup-
posedly from Frederic Myers, led them to believe that
they represented this communication. The envelope
was opened in December, 1904, and " it was found that
there was no resemblance between its actual contents
and what was alleged by the script to be contained in

it."

Even had the experiment itself succeeded, it would
have proved nothing; for the success might well have
been due to clairvoyance — which was probably the
solution, also, of a case described by Kant in Dreams
of a Spirit Seer:

Madame Herteville (Marteville), the widow of the Dutch

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 279

Ambassador in Stockholm, some time after the death of her
husband, was called upon by Croon, a goldsmith, to pay for a
silver service which her husband had purchased from him.
The widow was convinced that her late husband had been much
too precise and orderly not to have paid this debt, yet she was
unable to find the receipt. In her sorrow, and because the
amount was considerable, she requested Mr. Swedenborg to
call at her house. After apologizing to him for troubling him,
she said that if, as people claimed, he possessed the extraordi-
nary gift of conversing with the souls of the departed, he
would perhaps have the kindness to ask her husband about
the silver service. Swedenborg was quite willing to comply
with her request. Three days later this lady was serving
coffee to some callers, when Swedenborg arrived and informed
her, with his usual sang-froid, that he had conversed with her
husband. The debt had been paid several months before his
decease, and the receipt would be found in a bureau in the
room upstairs. The lady replied that the bureau had been
thoroughly searched, and the receipt had not been found
among all the papers. Swedenborg then said that her hus-
band had told him that if the lefthand drawer were pulled out
a board would be seen, and if this were raised it would dis-
close a secret compartment, containing his private Dutch
correspondence, as well as the receipt. Upon hearing this de-
scription, the whole company went with the lady to the room
upstairs. The bureau was opened; the board was raised, dis-
closing the hidden compartment, the existence of which no one
had ever suspected; and, to the great astonishment of all, the
papers were discovered there, just as Swedenborg had described.

It may be worth while, perhaps, to cite a strange and
really enigmatic fact, reported and analyzed in Sir
Oliver Lodge's book under the caption of " The Mar-
montel Case " :

280 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

On December n, 1901 — toward the end of the first year
in which Mrs. Verrall had developed the power of automatic
writing — her hand wrote as follows :

Nothing too mean, the trivial helps, gives confi-
dence. Hence this. Frost and a candle in the dim
light. Marmontel, he was reading on a sofa or in
bed — there was only a candle's light. She will
surely remember this. The book was lent, not his
own — he talked about it.

Then there appeared a fanciful but unmistakable attempt at
the name Sidgwick.

Mrs. Sidgwick, widow of a well-known member of the
Society for Psychical Research, questioned by letter, replied
that she knew nothing about the matter but would report if
she came across the name Marmontel.

The same day that this reply was received, Mrs. Verrall
felt obsessed by the desire to write. She obtained a second
message :

I wanted to write. Marmontel is right. It was a
French book, a Memoir, I think. Passy may help,
Souvenirs de Passy, or Fleury. Marmontel was not
on the cover — the book was bound and was lent —
two volumes in old-fashioned binding and print. It
is not in any papers — it is an attempt to make some
one remember — an incident.

In January, 1902, Mrs. Verrall happened to write to a
friend of hers named Mr. Marsh, asking him to come for a
week-end visit; and he replied fixing March 1st.

Mrs. Verrall then reports as follows:

On March 1st Mr. Marsh arrived, and that evening at din-
ner he mentioned that he had been reading Marmontel. I

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 281

asked if he had read the Moral Tales, and he replied that it was
the Memoirs. I was interested in this reference to Marmon-
tel, and asked Mr. Marsh for particulars about his reading,
at the same time explaining the reasons for my curiosity. He
then told me that he had got the book from the London Library,
and took the first volume only to Paris with him, where he read
it on the evening of February 2Oth, and again on February
2 1 st. On each occasion he read by the light of a candle; on the
aoth he was in bed, on the 2ist lying on two chairs. The
weather was cold, but there was, he said, no frost. The London
Library copy is bound, as most of their books are, not in modern
binding; but the name " Marmontel " was on the back of the
volume. The edition has three volumes; in Paris Mr. Marsh
had only one volume, but at the time of this dinner he had read
the second also.

As to the words " Passy or Fleury," Mr. Marsh, on
his return to London three days later, verified the fact
that in the chapter of the Memoirs he had read on
February 2ist, while lying on two chairs, there was a
description of the finding at Passy of a panel, connected
with a story in which Fleury plays an important part.

The most remarkable thing in this case is that the
fact recounted in the past in the medium's message of
December 1 1, 1901, had not at that date taken place, as
it was not produced until February 20, 1902 — two
months later.

Sir Oliver Lodge is not mistaken in seeing, not a case
of prevision, testifying to the remarkable parapsychic
faculties of the medium, but a case of hypnotic sugges-
tion, executed automatically under the influence of a de-
ceased person who was desirous of giving to his col-
leagues of the Society for Psychical Research a proof

282 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

of survival ; and he proposes to us, hesitatingly enough,
it is true, the following hypothesis:

An outside or, let us say, a subliminal intelligence gets the
record made by Mrs. Verrall that an unspecified man will read
Marmontel on a frosty night lying on a sofa by candle light,
etc., and then sets to work to try and secure that within the
next two or three months some man shall do it — some one
who is sufficiently a friend of Mrs. Verrall to make it rea-
sonably likely that in subsequent conversation she may sooner
or later hear of the circumstance.

A difficulty here is that one might have to admit the
possibility of an anticipated vision of future events —
a possibility energetically denied by certain contem-
porary philosophers. But there would be greater diffi-
culty in admitting the reality of supernatural interven-
tions such as those of so-called spirits. On the other
hand, cases of " distant vision into space " are less
scarce than usually supposed. Myers, in his Human
Personality y cites a very significant fact :

Madame MacAlpine, on the shore of a lake, suddenly be-
came chilled and cramped. At this moment she saw before
her a dark cloud, in the midst of which was a tall man, who fell
into the lake and disappeared. Several days later she learned
that a Mr. Espy, tall and clothed identically as in her vision,
had fallen into the lake and been drowned. His drowning
occurred several days after Madame MacAlpine's vision; but
it appeared that Mr. Espy had, some time ago, conceived the
idea of committing suicide by drowning in the lake.

It is not rare, moreover, to find in the visions of cer-
tain psychometrists transpositions of time and space,

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 283

quite similar to that of the " Case of Marmontel."
The following is quoted from the work of Edmond
Duchatel:

On July 31, 1909, we placed in the hands of Madame L. F.,
when in the state of somnambulism, a certain object belonging
to a person whom we knew to be in London. This is what
the psychometrist said : " I see this person in the country, and
in the mountains. She is reading as she walks, but in the depths
of her heart she is sorrowful. I see another lady, who would
like to call her Bichette (she always calls her so), and ask her
why she sighs. The lady who is called Bichette is neither tall
nor strong; she is French, and is about forty years old."

We undertook to verify these statements. They were in-
exact at the time of the experiment, July 31, 1909. They
were, however, found to be exact thirty-five days later. The
descriptions were precisely as they occurred, even to the name
of the person, which, by the way, was the means of identifying
the conditions of this prophetic scene.

The author adds that Madame L. F. also made the
following statement : " Many people have come back
to me again to say that what I had described to them,
although not exact at the time, invariably became true
about two months afterward."

Sir Oliver Lodge makes use of such facts as the
preceding merely to conclude by analogy — as did
Frederic Myers — that telepathy (the action of the
mind of a living individual upon another mind, without
the intermediary of the organs) leads to spiritism
(more or less an identical action from the mind of a
person deceased).

Unfortunately, of all the reasonings the least demon-

284 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

strative is that by analogy which, left to itself, can only
give birth to hypotheses.

It is, therefore, very difficult to see anything but the
expression of an hypothesis, the proof of which remains
to be made, in this passage from Sir Oliver Lodge in
which he explains the motive an operator situated in
the Beyond, such as Sidgwick, has in using the " scrip-
tural mechanism " of another person:

It may be a scientific interest surviving from the time in this
life when he was a keen and active member of the S. P. R. ; so
that he desires above all things to convey to his friends, engaged
on the same quest, some assurance, not only of his continued
individual existence . . . but of his retention of a power to
communicate indirectly and occasionally with them, and to pro-
duce movements even in the material world — by kind per-
mission of an organism, or part of an organism, the temporary
use or possession of which has been allowed him for that purpose.

Can one say that Sir Oliver Lodge has obtained, in
conditions really satisfactory to himself, a proof that
the deceased members of the Society for Psychical Re-
search have endeavored to collaborate with their living
colleagues in order to find a solution to the mystifying
problem of the survival of the personality after death?

This proof certainly cannot be found in the pages
where he describes and analyzes the mediumship of
Mrs. Piper; although there is to be found there an im-
portant and extraordinary contribution to the study of
spiritoidal phenomena. The author still hesitates,
however, between many different hypotheses:

There is no doubt that Mrs. Piper in a state of trance reaches
certain sources of information. She finds knowledge of events

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 285

which have taken place a long time ago or at a distance. But
the question is to know how she acquires this knowledge. Is
it in going back into time and space, and in witnessing these
events as they occur? Or is it by means of information re-
ceived from the actors still in existence? They themselves,
however, do not remember them, or else only imperfectly so.
Is it through the influence of contemporaneous intelligences,
absorbed as they are by other thoughts, and keeping in reserve
in their brain a mass of forgotten information which they
offer unconsciously to the perception of the person in a state
of trance? Or is it that as long as the state of trance exists
they are receptors of a sole, universal intelligence, of which
all ordinary consciousnesses, past and present, are but a part ?

Opinions may differ upon the point of knowing which is
the least extravagant supposition. It is possible to invent a
simpler hypothesis, but actually my feelings are that no explana-
tion can be given to all the facts. We are, it seems, at the
beginning of what is, in reality, a new branch of science. To
psetend to forge explanations, except to try to relate the facts
among them and to open a new field of experimentation) is as
premature as it would have been for Galvani to explain the
nature of electricity, or for Copernicus to attempt an explana-
tion of the laws of comets and meteors.

It is especially in the last chapters of his book that
Sir Oliver Lodge speaks of the supposed communica-
tions between his deceased colleagues and himself,
obtained through Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Piper, and
Mrs. Grove. But these communications, nearly al-
ways confused, reveal the intimate details of a character
which easily causes a conviction in the minds of those
who, having known the communicators when living,
believe that they recognize them by these very details.
For those who simply read the accounts of them, they

286 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

remain almost incomprehensible and in any case un-
convincing. Sir Oliver Lodge says:

It is an error to believe that there exists anything sensational
or particularly moving in these communications. The conver-
sation resembles that over a telephone; it is subject to the same
disagreeable interruptions, to the same periods of surprising
clarity, such as a happy expression, an intonation, an unexpected
detail revealing without possible error an identity — real or
manufactured — as, for instance, an appropriated surname, a
banal remembrance. Similarly, the parents of the communi-
cator, if they are present, may really be moved.

This undoubtedly is true. But it is equally true that
others may remain unmoved.

We shall not insist upon the ingenious theory of
" cross-correspondences," whose principal characteris-
tic is that a sole communicator, or control, is supposed
to manifest himself through several different mediums,
writing automatically, quite independent of one an-
other, distant from one another and often strangers;
they also may be kept ignorant of the nature of the
correspondence sought. In many cases the messages
thus obtained, isolatedly, are unintelligible and do not
reveal any sense until later, when combined. Thus a
full message does not exist in any living intelligence, for
not until the different parts of the communication have
been collected does their meaning appear.

The aim of these efforts, according to Sir Oliver
Lodge, is to prove clearly that these phenomena are the
work of some well-defined intelligence that is distinct
from that of any of the mediums, excluding the possi-
bility of a mutual telepathic communication between

SPIRITISM AND CRYPTOPSYCHISM 287

them and establishing, as far as possible, by the sub-
stance and quality of the messages, that they really
are characteristic of the particular personality from
whom the communication appears to emanate, and of
none other.

But has this aim been attained?

' The question," says the author, " can be definitely
and conclusively settled only with time and much
effort."

In spite of all these cautious reservations, Sir Oliver
Lodge remains personally convinced that " as the best
working hypothesis at the present time it is legitimate
to grant that lucid moments of intercourse with de-
ceased persons may in the best cases supervene." He
considers, for his own part, as entirely established
although formulated as an hypothesis, the reasoning
which he enounces as follows : " Intelligent inter-
course between minds other than those of incarnated
human beings and ourselves has become possible."
And he expresses his belief in this startling compari-
son:

The boundary between the two states — the known and the
unknown — is still substantial, but it is wearing thin in places ;
and like excavators engaged in boring a tunnel from opposite
ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we are begin-
ning to hear now and again the strokes of the pickaxes of our
comrades on the other side.

Will all these hopes be confirmed by later researches
of science? Will the spiritistic interpretation of phe-
nomena so strange and hardly believable for all those
who have not observed them directly, supplant finally

288 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

the cryptopsychic interpretation, contrary to the opin-
ion hitherto prevalent among the majority of scientists?
This is a secret which the future alone will reveal.

APPENDICES

NOTE I

SCIENCE AND MAGIC
(From La Magie science naturelle, by Carl du Prel)

BELIEF in magic is as old as humanity.

Religious and profane history, during all the cen-
turies and among all the nations, shows us that some
men distinguished themselves among their contem-
poraries by certain incomprehensible methods of reas-
oning, by the domination of nature's forces and of
other men. According to the very different applica-
tion of their faculties in the moral order of things,
these men were called saints, prophets, magicians, sor-
cerers, miracle workers, etc. In a general way4 they
might be called magi. Because, however, of the great
number of these stories and the unquestionable testi-
mony of many cases, we refuse to qualify them as fa-
bles. If, in our own times, we have shrunk from a
belief in magic, it is owing to the progress of modern
sciences, the increasing tendency of which has been to
develop themselves into closed systems; and unfortu-
nately such systems reject all facts which cannot enter
into them.

Taking into consideration the universal law of cau-
sality, it is perfectly clear that the word magic is for the
scientific researcher but the provisional denomination
of certain human faculties which have not hitherto

291

292 APPENDICES

been sounded, and that magical phenomena cannot be
otherwise than based upon a natural science as yet un-
known to us. It is logical, therefore, to think that, on
account of its spontaneous development, modern science
will eventually end in magic, and become magic itself,
in so far as it will pass from the position of examining
that which is visible, tangible, and weighable, to that
which is invisible, intangible, and unweighable. For,
the more that matter is found in a refined state — as,
for instance, radiant matter — the more it will be
found to possess remarkable powers. It is easy for
us to be convinced of this fact, in physics as well as in
psychology, for have we not hypnotism at our disposal
to show us the points of contact between science and
magic — in other words, between natural science as
we know it and natural science that we do not know?

Progress in this direction cannot fail to be rapid, for
magic is but a line of projection in science. Especially
when feeling the necessity for widening their system
scientists will undertake the study of magic, which pos-
sesses certain laws that are still entirely ignored. The
man who limits his vision to the study of natural phe-
nomena explained by known laws of nature obtains but
a superficial progress; whereas the one who directs his
energies toward the clarification of problems still ob-
scure will enable others to reach the hidden center of
things, thereby compelling the widening and transform-
ing of existing systems of thought.

Those, therefore, who exclude magic from their in-
vestigations remain walled in a system which is but
provisional and which limits the horizon of progress.
For this reason it is very regrettable that science and

APPENDICES 293

magic are regarded as being opposed to each other,
whereas in truth they complete each other advantag-
eously. It is by working in the two directions that one
can be convinced of this; for on the one side the reg-
ularity of the magical phenomena will be recognized,
while on the other will be seen the progressive magical
advancement of natural science.

Without retracting anything that has been said be-
fore, and without expecting too much from those read-
ers whose starting-point has been in natural science, it is
possible to meet their doubts and skepticisms. I do
not attribute to man the gift of certain magical powers
as understood in the Middle Ages, when every marvel
and sorcery, every magical practise — legitimate or
illegitimate — was explained by the supernatural help
of an angel or a demon. It is not necessary to have
recourse to this solution. The possession of magical
faculties is a natural endowment of man. Agrippa
of Nettesheim recognized this fact long ago : Spiritus
in nobis, qui viget, ilia facit. And they have a physical
basis : they are not supernatural but supersensible ; and
their investigation should be our principal object.

These magical faculties are latent in us; conse-
quently, they must have manifested themselves before
their discovery and scientific examination. To allay all
hesitation in this direction, I have laid less stress upon
practical magic — as yet a premature undertaking —
than upon examples of an involuntary, natural, and
spontaneous nature, which demonstrate the regularity
of their production in conditions always similar. I
also hope that I have established the principal bases of
magic, once and for always : Magnetism is the key to

294 APPENDICES

physical magic; mono-ideism, or the exercise of
thought joined to volition, is the key to psychological
magic.

The only way to reach an understanding of practical
magic is to study the natural examples of magic, to ob-
serve the conditions of their manifestation, and to
adapt them artificially afterward. Superstition, it is
true, has unfortunately given a wrong aspect to prac-
tical magic, for it did not take into consideration the
natural reality and regularity of its manifestations.
But we discover their germ of truth and their natural
scientific regularity when, comparing them with nature
— cum mundi codice primario, originali et autographo,
said Campanella — we recognize the concordance of
the artificial product with the natural and spontaneous
manifestation.

The reader's first doubts will vanish when he sees
innumerable examples of natural magic being produced
by experimentation, and realizes that natural science
has reached a degree where magical phenomena are
explained — as, for instance, clairvoyance through the
Roentgen rays, telepathy through wireless telegraphy,
fascination through the power of suggestion, and sor-
cery through the exteriorization of the sensitiveness.
He will finally reach the conclusion that if modern
science were in a state of perfection there would be
no more room for magic; and that it is by the study of
these same facts, called magical because they are con-
trary to our theories, that we shall be in a position to
reach our goal all the sooner.

If the reader believes that our system of nature
has uttered its last word, it would be better that he

APPENDICES 295

should lay my book on one side ; for in spite of all our
discoveries and inventions, however wonderful these
may be, we are, I believe, but at the beginning of sci-
ence, and the more we shall dig into the secrets of
nature the more marvelous we shall find her. Let us
recognize that the forces hitherto unknown seldom are
latent forces which are never manifested; rather are
they active forces constantly manifesting themselves
according to certain well determined conditions.

Apples fell from the tree long before Newton dis-
covered the law of gravitation. Therefore it must be
equally true that natural examples of magic existed
long before any one believed in them. It must be
recognized that phenomena in contradiction to natural
laws already known are constantly produced, though
they are nevertheless submitted to the law of causality
because they correspond to certain unknown laws of
nature.

This brief review, I hope, may reconcile medieval
superstition, which was mistaken only when interpreting
the explanation of the facts, with modern science, which
to-day, as in former times, makes the mistake of deny-
ing a priori certain facts that it will be forced to accept
finally, after having found the explanation in spite
of itself.

NOTE II

THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM AND THE PSYCHICAL

SCIENCES

(Extract from the Revue philosophique, April i, 1915)

TO-DAY we are witnessing an attempt at the creation,
or at least the organization, of a new order of sciences
— the psychical sciences. Being en rapport with psy-
chology on the one hand, and the historical and socio-
logical sciences on the other, they have as their object
certain more or less extraordinary and apparently mar-
velous and mysterious phenomena which are spon-
taneously produced in our midst and are visibly re-
lated to unknown, or imperfectly known, forces and
faculties of man's moral and physical nature. Al-
though in some respects they appear to be more fre-
quent to-day, under the particular forms in which they
manifest themselves, they have nevertheless always
been present and have ever played an important and
more or less considerable role in the history of hu-
manity.

Religious life at all times and in all countries has
been replete with examples. For this reason it is quite
natural to ask whether the sciences which have as their
object the study of these phenomena, should not be
called upon to furnish, sooner or later, the indispensa-
ble elements necessary for the solution of the religious
problem of the present time.

296

APPENDICES 297

First of all, what idea must we form of these sci-
ences which most savants refuse to consider seriously,
and which have to dispute their very existence to char-
latanism, superstition and incredulity?

Let us try to orientate our steps in the path obscured
by a pell-mell ensemble of psychical phenomena. It
would seem that we might distinguish three orders of
phenomena, which are superposed one upon the other
as they advance farther into the realms of mystery.
Some are already known and defined by laws; others
are still uncertain and contested, but at least not outside
of the circle of nature; while still others appear to
draw us out of this circle, upon a plane ordinarily sepa-
rated from that in which our life and activities are man-
ifested. This classification may be summarized in
three names: hypnotism, animal magnetism, spirit-
ism. Or, to use terms which we have proposed else-
where, we may call them: hypnoidal phenomena,
magnetoidal phenomena, spiritoidal phenomena.

Unfortunately, current opinion too often confounds
these distinct branches of psychical sciences, and it is
not infrequent to hear that spiritism is the study of the
phenomena of hypnotism or animal magnetism. One
might as well say that an astronomer is a physicist or a
zoologist.

The phenomena of the first order — hypnoidal phe-
nomena— comprise the following: (i) Suggestion,
as practised by the School of Nancy, in which the action
of the spoken word or of the gesture induces in certain
individuals, perhaps in all, a state of credulity or do-
cility more or less abnormal. (2) Hypnotism, as de-
scribed by the School of the Salpetriere : that is, a state

2g8 APPENDICES

of torpor or of automatism provoked in certain subjects
by means of special physical processes — the fixation
of the gaze upon a brilliant object, pressure exerted
upon a given part of the body, etc. (3) Dissociation
of consciousness or cryptopsychism, so masterly de-
scribed by the eminent Dr. Pierre Janet, where one sees
the consciousness of an individual being projected, or
two or several " selves " are coexistent or succeed each
other in one and the same individual. All these phe-
nomena, however marvelous and baffling in nature,
do not compel us to suppose the existence of other
causes or faculties than those we already know, and
which appear possible of explanation by these very
causes or faculties, in supposing only that, in certain
particular conditions, they operate according to given
laws which are as yet unknown, laws more or less dif-
ferent from those we already know.

The phenomena of the second order — magnetoidal
phenomena — appear, on the contrary, to imply the
intervention of forces still unknown, unclassified, but
physical in nature and more or less analogous to the
radiating forces known in physics, such as light, heat,
electricity, magnetism, etc. They may be classified as
animal magnetism on the one hand, and telepsychism on
the other, according to whether the action of these
forces is being exerted in proximity through the in-
termediary of the entire nervous system, or at a great
distance, without intermediary, by the sole action of
thought.

Although the majority of scientists admit the reality
of the phenomena of the first order there are few who
are willing to consider magnetoidal phenomena as real

APPENDICES 299

or at least as distinct from hypnoidal phenomena.
Hypnotic suggestion, it is true, may produce effects simi-
lar to those produced by magnetism; but when taken
separately and closely examined they will be found to
be specifically different and distinct. Thus animal mag-
netism can produce certain movements of attraction,
repulsion, anesthesia, contraction, etc., in a blindfolded
subject without the use of speech by the sole pres-
entation of the hand from a distance. The passes,
by which the mesmerist awakes or induces sleep in a
subject, owe their efficacy to this same psycho-magnetic
force, which appears to be polarised, as is electricity,
and which is also capable of effecting appreciable cures.

Not only are human beings susceptible to this action,
but also animals and plants. Quite recently it has
been proved that certain organic matter can be pre-
served from putrefaction by the sole action of the
passes or by the imposition of the hands. The proper-
ties of this psycho-magnetic force have also been1 com-
municated to material objects; this would explain, for
example, the curative action of magnetized water.

It is especially under the form of telepathy and sug-
gestion that the scientists of to-day have unconsciously
brought back the much-disputed question of mesmerism
and animal magnetism. The English and American
Societies for Psychical Research have gathered a great
number of authentic cases where the " image " of a
person, more often when on the verge of death, has
appeared to a relative or friend in spite of the enormous
distances separating them. It is as if an immediate
and spontaneous communication were established be-
tween them — in conditions as yet unknown, and an-

300 APPENDICES

alogous to conditions in which wireless telegraphy and
telephony take place.

The phenomena of the third order — spiritoidal 'phe-
nomena — take us into a region still more obscure and
mysterious. They present themselves to us with an
appearance that is often illusory, always enigmatic
and disturbing, implying the intervention of intelligent
forces, not supernatural but extra-natural, which do not
belong to our world in a normal way, but which seem
suddenly to make an irruption on a plane of nature
foreign to that in which we move and have our being.

Whatever interpretation we may give to these phe-
nomena, however, our first duty is to make sure of
their reality. Let us beware of subordinating the ac-
ceptation of these facts to any theory brought for-
ward in explanation of them.

With the exception of certain phenomena — such as
hauntingSy which should be the object of special investi-
gation — the spiritoidal phenomena seem always to
have as their necessary condition the action or the pres-
ence of individuals called mediums. There are two
kinds of mediums, although these may belong alter-
nately to one or the other category : the mediums who
produce effects of an intellectual nature, and those who
produce effects of a physical nature. Both physical and
intellectual effects are found in the ordinary table lift-
ing or table turning: movements of rotation, nutation,
translation, etc., and the words, phrases, and speeches
which are dictated by these movements. These effects
appear distinctly separated when considering, on the
one hand, those obtained by Mrs. Piper, which are
remarkable for the exactness of the information given

APPENDICES 301

upon the relatives and antecedents of utter strangers
who visit her; and, on the other hand, the extraor-
dinary phenomena produced by Eusapia Palladino, who
causes heavy objects to move from a distance, the pro-
duction of phosphorescent lights in utter darkness, and
projections from her body of various materialized
forms, etc.

It must be observed, furthermore, that intellectual
mediumism presents the same phenomena as those ob-
tained by hypnotism and animal magnetism — disso-
ciation of the personality or cryptopsychism, thought-
reading, clairvoyance, etc. — though different in their
character of apparent spontaneity, and by their rela-
tion to certain spiritistic practises and beliefs. But
whatever interpretation may be adopted for this third
order of facts, it cannot be denied that they are ex-
tremely closely related to those of the two preceding
orders and that they come under the direction of similar
or communal laws.

From the ensemble of these facts two hypotheses
suggest themselves, the first of psychological or mental
order, the second of physiological or physical order.
The important thing is to know that there exist in the
human soul certain faculties of perception and of super-
normal action. These faculties are usually subcon-
scious, or cryptoidal, active under conditions as yet im-
perfectly defined; nevertheless they are real and are
active in all beings. There also exist in the human
organism certain unknown forces which are, as it were,
the physical agents of these faculties, and which, in
the ordinary state of things, are equally cryptoidal.

Shall we go farther still ? Shall we admit the exist-

302 APPENDICES

ence, outside of ourselves, of one or several intelligent
entities, capable of collaborating with us in the pro-
duction of certain psychical phenomena mainly through
the bringing into play of our faculties and supernormal
forces ?

How shall we conceive these entities? Are they the
souls of the dead? Are they cosmic intelligences, or,
as in the conception of the Greeks, demons? Are they
elementals, larvae, astral microbes as the occultists call
them? Or are they that universal intelligence which
humanity calls God?

The psychical sciences, which hardly dare to ask the
questions, are still very far from replying to them.
Are these sciences, however, capable of bringing a use-
ful and practical solution to the religious problem?
This is the point upon which we shall particularly in-
sist.

It is necessary to distinguish, for the facility of study,
two inseparable questions. One corresponds to the
viewpoint of the savant or the philosopher; the other
to that of the believer, or of man in general: according
to whether one considers the exterior phenomenology of
religions, or the intimate and profound cause of the
religious sentiment.

From the first point of view there is not the slightest
doubt that the sciences of religion will find in the
psychical sciences a most appreciable help for the orien-
tation and advancement of their own researches.

The history of religions abounds in strange and
marvelous phenomena which the historian at first shirks
from mentioning, as being incredible and impossible,

APPENDICES 303

or if he must admit them, he explains them as being a
result of misunderstandings and frauds — as the ra-
tional critics of the eighteenth century explained them.
The knowledge of psychical phenomena, as a direct
result, will have the effect of widening the conception of
thaumaturgical religious facts, in showing that they
may have a certain reality without attributing to them
a supernatural character.

William James has said that the recent study of hyp-
notic phenomena has enabled scientific men to admit of
the possibility of miraculous healing, so far as being
considered a result of suggestion. The stigmata of
hysterical patients has made it possible to accept those
of St. Francis of Assisi. And stories of " possessions "
are now credible since we have cases of demonomania.

Similarly, on studying closely the life and character
of the men who have founded or renovated certain
religious movements, it is seen that, according to Wil-
liam James, " the manifestations of the religious life
often possess a close rapport with the subliminal life.
The temperament of the nevropath appears in the
various religious biographies. It would be difficult
to enumerate the names of religious initiators without
mentioning phenomena of automatism which they mani-
fested. I do not speak of the prophets and the der-
vishes only. ... I speak of those of superior mind,
the creators of ideas. Saint Paul had visions, ecstasies.
He was gifted with the power of glossolalia, although
he attached but little importance to it. All the great
reformers, the great saints, the great heretics — Saint
Bernard, Fox, Wesley, Luther, Ignatius of Loyola —

304 APPENDICES

had visions, voices, ecstasies, fiery revelations, etc."

Thus we can trace in the history of religions all the
psychic phenomena, clothed, as it were, under a religious
cloak, although preserving under this form evident
analogies to phenomena of hypnotism, cryptopsychism,
animal magnetism, telepathy, and spiritism.

Who cannot but be struck by the similarity between
ecstasis and hypnosis? We find in both of them the
same state of mono-ideism, anesthesia, transfiguration.
Does not religious faith engender, as does hypnotic sug-
gestion, visions, stigmata, seemingly miraculous cures?
And does not divine inspiration, as well as diabolical
possession, present singular similarities with the crypto-
psychic phenomena or those of the dissociation of the
personality?

William James, in speaking of the similarity of con-
version and hypnotic suggestions, says that if you place
under the influence of suggestion, as Professor Coe did,
a subject who combines in him the following three fac-
tors: (i) a profound sensibility; (2) a tendency to
automatism; (3) the capacity to submit passively to
suggestion, you may be sure that you will obtain a sud-
den conversion.

Magnetoidal facts, also, can be traced in the history
of religions. Can we not recognize them in the atti-
tudes and gestures of certain Egyptian rites, as also in
the great importance attributed by Christian liturgy
to the imposition of the hands and to the breath?

In the healing of the hemorrhoidal woman, as re-
lated in the Gospels, Jesus acts and speaks not only as
would a modern hypnotist, but also as would a profes-
sional magnetizer. In the words of St. Luke :

APPENDICES 305

And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which
had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed
of any,

Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment:
and immediately her issue of blood stanched.

And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter
and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng
thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me ?

And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive
that virtue is gone out of me.

And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came
trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him
before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and
how she was healed immediately.

And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy
faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.

The cure, according to Jesus, was therefore the effect
of two concurrent causes: on the one hand, the virtue
emanating from him ; and on the other, the faith of the
patient. In other words, it was animal magnetism
(Mesmer's doctrine) and suggestion (the doctrine of
the School of Nancy).

Similarly, in the order of telepsychism, such facts
as those of thought-penetration, prevision, distant-
seeing — of which there are too many authenticated
accounts to doubt their existence indefinitely — help us
to understand the phenomena of prophetism, the gift
of tongues, etc., of which every religion is replete with
examples.

Even the singular facts observed with spiritistic
mediums of physical phenomena are to be traced in the
lives of certain religious personalities. Apparitions,

306 APPENDICES

bilocations, levitation, and hauntings are facts which
belong in common to religious sciences and to psychical
sciences; and it is to be hoped that the latter may help
the former to determine their real signification.

We are not yet in a position to state that the psychical
sciences, in their present state, are capable of throwing
much light upon the essential basis of religion. The
religious idea and the religious sentiment, taken in them-
selves, seem to be independent of all these more or less
pathological phenomena. It is, we believe, in the
higher aspirations of the normal faculties of human
nature that religion has its deep and perhaps inde-
structible roots.

Let us see, however, whether we cannot find an hy-
pothesis by which the psychical sciences may give us
some useful information regarding the origin and des-
tiny of religion in humanity. It is in the realm of
spiritoidal phenomena that this hypothesis should be
sought.

In the actual state of our knowledge, those who have
tried to understand these phenomena hesitate between
two interpretations: (i) that which would explain
them by the sole faculties of the medium who operates
subconsciously; (2) that which believes they are mani-
festations of intelligences external to our world — in
other words, the animistic or cryptopsychic interpreta-
tion and the spiritistic interpretation. On the one side
are Drs. Pierre Janet, Flournoy, and Richet; on the
other side, Frederic Myers, Sidgwick, Hodgson, and
Oliver Lodge.

Up to the present time the scale has seemed to incline
in favor of the first interpretation, the only one that

APPENDICES 307

might a priori be acceptable, as it is the only one in
accord with the fundamental postulates of the scientific
method. But we might well suppose that in the
course of time the second interpretation will be found
to be the right one. Were its partisans to establish
definitely and unquestionably that we are in relation
with a spirit from the Beyond, really distinct from our
own spirit and not the creation of our subconsciousness
this would undoubtedly be an immense step forward in
the solution of these problems.

There would still remain, however, many other
problems to be solved.

First of all, the identity of the spirit should be
established. Usually they give the names of deceased
persons; but are they to be believed? May they not
assume the mask of some one known to us in order to
enter into relationship with us? Many facts seem to
justify this hypothesis. Who would be so bold as to
maintain the identity of controls giving the names of
Stanton Moses, Rector, Imperator, Victor Hugo, etc. ?
Often, also, they take the ideas and emotions of those
to whom they are supposed to communicate them.

And this is exactly the point in favor of the crypto-
psychic interpretation. But our reasoning is in line
with the hypothesis, where this hypothesis were aban-
doned as insufficient to give an account of certain par-
ticularities of the facts already observed. From this,
who could fail to suppose, for the explanation of cer-
tain religious facts, that there exist several cosmic in-
telligences capable of interesting themselves in the lives
of humans and of intervening, during certain epochs, in
order to direct religious evolution? Hence the mir-

3o8 APPENDICES

acles and the revelations, which take different forms
according to their different milieux: Buddhist, Mo-
hammedan, Roman Catholic, Protestant, etc. They
would be, for instance, those unknown entities trans-
forming themselves into St. Michael and Ste. Catherine
with Joan of Arc; into the Holy Virgin with Berna-
dette, etc. One might thus reach an explanation of
certain facts belonging to the history of religion. But
this hypothesis would not in any way bring us nearer
to true religion, to the ideal religion: that which con-
sists in adoring God, praying to him in spirit and in
truth.

Let us suppose it possible to prove that it is really
the souls of the dead which come back to assure us of
their existence. What would be the consequence of
such a certainty, from the religious point of view?

Perhaps it would be the justification of the doctrine
which places the origin of all religions in the worship
of the dead, in what might be called primitive spirit-
ism, that of the savages, ancestral worship as in China,
etc. Perhaps it would mean, also, the restoration of
such beliefs and practises in our own times. Thus reli-
gious evolution would complete its circle and come back
to its starting point.

To many, in fact, spiritism forms a veritable reli-
gion. Are there not to be found in America, England,
and elsewhere, spiritualistic churches which count their
followers by the thousands? In France this movement
seems less intense and is not so widely spread. But if
a new form of religion were to appear in the midst of
present-day humanity, and were to develop sufficient
power and influence to compete seriously with existing

APPENDICES 309

forms of religion, it would seem that this new religion
would spring from the very heart of spiritism.

Modern spiritism will undoubtedly differ from the
ancient in its scientific and moral character. Neverthe-
less it will be founded upon the belief of the survival
of the dead, and upon the possibility of communicating
with them by the intermediary of quasi-magical proc-
esses.

But can religion reduce itself to the sole dogma of
a future life and the immortality of the soul? Is not
the dogma of the existence of God more essential,
solely essential, as William James puts it?

The spiritistic hypothesis offers, in itself, a means to
find the very existence of God. If the spirits are in
accord in teaching us, in proving to us, such an exist-
ence, it must be the revelation of God through the
spirits. There is indeed something quite startling in
this community of belief between the living and the
dead; yet one should know what kind of God it is that
the spirits reveal, and more especially what kind of
proofs they bring us of the truth of their beliefs.
They may come back from the Beyond, but their knowl-
edge, which may be more extended than ours, is never-
theless just as relative as our own.

Yet, if our spirit can, in its subliminal expression,
enter into communication with other spirits, can it not
also feel the presence of some Greater Spirit? Can it
not have, at certain moments, the intuition of a Su-
preme Presence, the presence of the Supreme Being,
Absolute and Infinite, Source of all Truth, of all Good
and Beauty? This would appear to be the thought of
William James : " Although he may be beyond the

310 APPENDICES

limits of the individual being who is en rapport with
him in religious experience, * the Greater ' is a part of
his subconscious life within his own limits."

Even if we identify the phenomenon of religion
with a phenomenon of telepathy between God and the
soul of the believer, the religious problem remains as
tantalizing as heretofore, and its solution, quite apart
from science, is a matter of sentiment and of faith.
Every intuition is, in essence, ineffable and incommuni-
cable. Where the objective verification is lacking, it
will remain forever impossible, according to Alfred
Fouillee, to distinguish the seer from the visionary.

But whatever progress may be accomplished in the
psychical sciences, and whatever may become of the
various forms of religion which actuate humanity, for a
long time yet and perhaps always, in the heart of man
shall remain the supreme Ideal of Justice and of
Sanctity. And side by side with this will be the enig-
matic inscription found by the apostles of early Chris-
tian times, which perhaps neither time nor space will
efface: " To God Unknown."

NOTE III

THE RADIATION OF THE HUMAN BRAIN
(From La realite du monde sensible t by Jean Jaures)

As the brain is enclosed in an organic envelope, solid
and in appearance closed, the imagination has a tend-
ency to picture it as being isolated from the exterior
world. But, in reality it may be that what we call the
brain is perpetually mixed and confounded with the
world, through a subtle and constant exchange of secret
activities.

We already have seen that for the man who would
look from without upon the brain perceiving the light,
the brain would extend, physiologically speaking, to the
focus of light lost in the mysterious depths of the. night.
It would be, as it were, like a comet with condensed
nucleus, its tail sweeping into space.

When we look at another human being, we send to-
ward him a ray of light from our soul, heavy with
anger, or soft with tenderness. Evidently, then, our
cerebral activity is spread into space; it widens, yet it
loses none of its precision, none of its organization.
Those who imagine that our brain is entirely contained
in the cranium are much mistaken.

With this point of view, all the phenomena — still
obscure and imperfectly controlled — of magnetism,
distant vision, and suggestion would contribute to
give us a better idea of our brain.

3"

312 APPENDICES

If it be true, as has been affirmed by reliable experi-
menters, that the human organism is capable of de-
veloping a magnetism sufficient to lift a table from the
ground, that it is especially through the exercise of
the will that such phenomena are obtained, and that
it is unconsciously that these persons are capable of
generating a motor-force of unknown nature upon ex-
terior objects, it would be quite true also that this cere-
bral energy is capable of radiating far out of its focus.
It appears, too, that the " self " is capable of exerting
an action upon ordinary matter without having re-
course, at least consciously, to the intermediary of the
organism, which would act, then, not as an active in-
strument but as a passive conductor.

The phenomenon of second-sight has been demon-
strated without any doubt in certain hypnotic cases.
Subjects can see and read through a barrier which for
others remains opaque. Therefore the opacity of mat-
ter is but relative. And, as in the case of our imagina-
tion, that which most separates our brain from the sur-
rounding world, is the opacity of our organism. When
this opacity is removed it leaves our cerebral focus and
the universe in immediate contact.

Thus the brain can radiate and act far beyond the
limits of the human organism. It does not appear any
longer as an organ shut off and enclosed in a bony cav-
ity. We now behold, in the order of physiology even,
the individual " self " widening out and, without losing
its ordinary connections with a particular organism,
creating for itself, outside of this organism, an indefi-
nite sphere of action.

Specialists have not yet been able to control the trans-

APPENDICES 313

mission of thought from one subject to another, with-
out the intermediary of speech; but this fact has been
attested by a great number of serious experimenters.
In itself it constitutes a prodigious achievement which
must be separated and distinguished absolutely from
spoken suggestion ; for the latter resorts to well known
physiological and psychological processes.

When, however, a subject transmits, without the use
of speech, an idea, a thought, an impression, or a
volition to another subject, there must evidently exist a
radiation of thought into space; for two brains are
thus placed in immediate relation, through this very
radiation. Thus the precise form of our thought is
propagated through space without alteration, as are the
forms of light, color, shade. In a word, our brain is,
as it were, a focus of thought; and even as the sun fills
all the spheres which its light occupies, and it would
be futile to reduce the sun to being but a globe from
which its light emanates, so the brain's sphere 'where
the action of its thoughts may extend, is of an ampli-
tude unknown to us.

It does not seem to me that all these phenomena
are studied with a sufficiently philosophical attitude of
mind, or, more exactly, metaphysical; one is occupied
only with the moral and social consequences which the
practise of suggestion entails; and it is certain that
the problem of " free-will " is again foremost, in view
of these facts.

But apart from this, these phenomena are of greater
import: they attest that there exist in man certain ex-
traordinary and unknown forces which are nil, or al-
most so, in his normal state, but which are manifested

3H APPENDICES

in certain cases that we may call abnormal. There
exists in us an " unknown self " capable of exerting a
direct action upon matter, of lifting a foreign body
with an energetic will, just as if it were its own body,
of piercing by a look the opacity of walls, and of gath-
ering from afar and through space the unexpressed
thought of another " self."

We may ask whether we may not have here the
elements of a new progress in the consciousness and
the life of humanity. Why should evolution, for the
actual and normal man, have reached its ultimate term?

It would suffice to incorporate in man's normal be-
ing the prodigious forces which hypnotism places at his
disposal, for him to become a new being. He should
acquire magnetic action upon exterior objects, the deep
penetration of the look, and the immediate perception
of the thoughts of others through his own thoughts,
without losing possession of himself and with the con-
tinuity of memory which alone preserves one's in-
dividuality. It would mean that instead of keeping in
himself two distinct personalities — his normal self and
the abnormal self which hypnotism develops — he
would be able to fuse these two personalities into
one, thereby uniting their diverse potentialities.

Perhaps the universal and regulated practise of hyp-
notism, the methodical alternation of the normal and
the hypnotic states, habit and heredity, will bring about
this fusion of selves and so the creation of a new
humanity.

Vainly will it be objected that these new powers
which man must assimilate manifest themselves during

APPENDICES 315

states of coma or pain, and that, thus, they are repug-
nant to the healthy normal being. It is exactly here
that the human being is lacking: in those elements of
coordination and fusion between the normal state and
the new powers.

Who can say that throughout the immense evolu-
tion from amphibia to man, all progress has not been
linked with periods of crises and suffering? When the
first fish transformed its fins into wings to fly in the air,
who knows that its respiratory organs did not suffer as
a result? The unrest and anxiety which children mani-
fest at the approach of sleep are thoroughly character-
istic. The state of sleeping and that of waking are
two radically different states, and the passage from
one to the other constitutes in itself a veritable revolu-
tion. We are accustomed to it now, and are uncon-
scious of it; but the little child is not accustomed to
it, and suffers from it. Perhaps, even, it is afraid?

Little by little, we are able to assimilate out-selves
to sleep, which is, in spite of appearance, a violent
state of being, since it is the suppression of the definite
personality which we govern, to be replaced by an
obscure personality which governs itself, and which
often feeds upon monstrous sentiments and frightful
visions.

And when man shall have assimilated the potentiali-
ties of the magnetic and hypnotic states, can we not
realize how, in the current of everyday life, the human
organism may then become an accessory? No doubt it
would remain present in his consciousness, as the nee-

316 APPENDICES

essary root of his individuality; but the " ego," the
" self," would be capable of moving, by direct voli-
tion, other bodies than his own.

It would no longer be, then, the exclusive soul of a
particular organism, but rather the soul of all things as
far as its action could extend. And if it could apply
itself to the whole universe, it would then become the
soul of the world.

INDEX

INDEX

Academic des Sciences, 20, 21
Active hypotheses, 50
Agrippa, 293
Alrutz, Sydney, 168-171
Analogical hypotheses, 72
Animal magnetism, 8, 16, 24, etc.
Auguste M. (subject), 215-217
Automatic writing, 59, 259
Automatisme psychologigue, 23
Autoscopy, 235
Autosuggestion, 54, 56
Azam, Dr., 99

BABINSKI, Prof., 25
Bacon, 46, 57, 64, 141
Bardonnet, 150, 153, 154
Barety, Dr., 148, 167, 168
Beaunis, M. H., 187-190
Belief, importance of, 212, 221,

257, 271

Bergson, Prof., 43
Berillon, 14, 91
Bernard, Claude, 21, 46, 48, 49,

S3, 64, 67, 68, 228
Bernheim, Dr., 8, 12, 33, 110-114,

133, 143, '47

Biactinic force, 26, 60, etc.
Biactinism, 8, 26, etc.
Binet, Dr., 210
Biomagnetic action, 158
Boirac Method, 88, 165
Braid, 115, 129, 147, 165
Branly, 21
Buckley, Major, 240, 241

CAGLIOSTRO, 258
Camisards of Cevennes, 99
Campanella, 294
Catalepsy, 95

Charcot, 8, 12, 92, 94, 95, 211
Chevreul, 28
Clairvoyance, 28, 61, etc.

psychological, 187
Coe, Prof., 302
Communication of emotions, 183

of movement, 184

of thought, 27, 28, etc.
Comte, Auguste, 5, 13
Convulsionaries of St. Medard,

99
Cours theoretique et pratique de

Braidisme, 125
Credulity, state of, 103
Crocq, Dr., 83, 116, 117
Crookes, William, 12, 36, 44, 97,

264

Cross-correspondences, 286
Cryptopsychism, 24, 25, etc.
Crystal gazing, 59, 258
Cumberlandism, 190
Curie, Pierre, 21
Cuvier, 177

DELEUZE, 44, 144, 155
Descartes, 36, 153, 154, 229, 267
Dissociation of the personality,

23, 59

Divining-rod, cause of movement
of, 28, 258

319

320

INDEX

Dreams of a Spirit Seer, 278
Duchatel, Edmond, 28, 283
Dufay, Dr., 242-247
Dumontpallier, 12
Dupond, Madame, case of, 268-

270

Du Potet, 44, 144, 155
Du Prel, Carl, 297
Durand de Gros, 8, 14, 56, 79,

108, 124, 125
Durville, Gaston, 84

EMDEN Prize, Fanny, 20
Emotional diapsychism, 183
Esprits et mediums, 23, 268-270,

273

Eusapia Palladino, see Palladino
Experimental Method, 21, 41, etc.

reasoning, 67

Exteriorization of the sensitive-
ness, 24, 214-218, 237

FARIA, Abbe", 33
Fascination, state of, 103
Flournoy, Prof., 12, 20, 39, 264,

268-270, 273, 305
Fouillee, Alfred, 122, 308

GALVANI, 17

Gasparin, Count de, 264

Geley, Gustave, 37, 39, *55

Gibert, Dr., 191-198

Girault, Dr., 242-245

Gr asset, 20

Gregory, William, 12, 44, 176,

178, 180, 183, 201, 207-209,

240

Grove, Mrs. (medium), 285
Gustave P. (subject), 198, 217-

220

HERICOURT, M. J., 198
Herteville, Madame, case of, 278,

279

Hodgson, Dr. Richard, 275, 305
Home, D. D., 16
Human Personality, 276, 282
Husson, Dr., 44
Hyloscopy, 15, 24, etc.
Hypnoidal phenomena, 23, 34, etc.
Hypnoscope, 83
Hypnotism, 8, 23, etc.
Hypotaxy, 108, 124, 129

IDEA-FORCES, law of, 122
Illusion, 47, 70, 73, 74
Inert hypotheses, 50
Inductive hypotheses, 72
Intellectual diapsychism, 181, 186
Intermittent subjects, 127
Introduction a I'etude experimen-
tale de la medicine, 53

JAMES, William, 12, 275, 301, 302,

307, 308
Janet, Dr. Pierre, 12, 23, 59, 100,

168, 177, 191-198, 272, 296,

305

Jaures, Jean, 309
Jean B., case of, 248-253
Jean M. (subject), 217
Joire, Paul, 12
Jussieu, Antoine-Laurent de, 44,

161

KANT, 278
Kernig, 93
Kircher, Father, 117

LAFONTAINE, Charles, 44, 81
Lajoie, Dr., 116

INDEX

321

La Magie science naturelle, 291

La realite du monde sensible, 309

Lasegue, 93

Laverdant, case of, 125, 128, 141

Lemons d' anatomic, 177

Le diagnostic de la suggestibilite,

86

Leibnitz, 151
Leonie (Madame B.), 177, 191-

198

Lethargy, 56, 95, etc.
Letters to a Candid Inquirer on

Animal Magnetism, 176, 178
L'homme et ^intelligence, 77, 82
Liebeault, Dr., 8, 33, 131, 133, 144,

187-190

Liegeois, Dr., 33
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 12, 44, 275-288,

305

Lucidity, 242-253, 262
Lucidity and Intuition, 28, 255
Ludovig S. (subject), 179, 203,

217, 238-240
Luys, Dr., 116

MACALPINE, Madame, case of,
282

Magnetic rapport, 142, 236, 258

Magnetoidal phenomena, 24, 26,
etc.

Marie (subject), 242-247

Marmontel Case, The, 279-282

Memory, 233, 234, 254

Mental suggestion, 27, 34

Mesmer, 8, 12, 34, 35, 144, 145-
147, 155, 161-164

Mesmerism, see Animal Magnet-
ism

Metagnomy, 10, 63, etc.

Metapsychic phenomena, defined,

38

Mill, Stuart, 64, 138
Mohammed, 99
Motor diapsychism, 184
Moutin Process, 70, 85-93, 165
Myers, Frederic, 12, 275, 276, 278,

282, 283, 305

NEURIC force, 148
Neurocritic process, 87, 92
Neuromuscular hyperexcitability,

211

Nevroses et idees fixes, 23
Newnham, Madame (medium),

277
Noiset, General, 33

OCHOROWICZ, Dr., 83, 188
Osty, Dr., 205, 237, 255, 262
Our Hidden Forces, 6, 21, 22, 27,
etc.

PALLADINO, Eusapia, 16, 21", 299
Paradoxical suggestion, 123
Parapsychic phenomena, defined,

38

Passivity, state of, 103, 104
Pasteur, 21

Pendulum of Chevreul, 28, 88, 258
Perception, 233
Perceptive telepsychism, 272
Philips, Dr., 125, 129
Phreno-magnetism, 207-209
Piper, Mrs., 284, 285, 298
Plausible suggestion, 123
Polarity, phenomenon of, 218, 219
Polyetism, 56
Pouchet, Prof., 223
Prevision, 233, 234

322

INDEX

Psychical sciences, classification

of, 22, 34
Psychodynamy, 34
Psychometry, 28, 254, 272
Puysegur, Marquis de, 44, 120,

144, 155, 175

QUACKENBOS, Dr. John, 240

RADIANT state, 97

Raymond S. (subject), 248-253

Reading through the finger-tips,

238-240

Reichenbach, 12, 147
Reinforced suggestion, 132
Richet, Charles, 12, 20, 36, 44, 77,

82, 127, 135, 200, 264, 305
Rochas, Colonel de, 20, 36, 214,

215, 237
Romberg, 93
Ruault, Albert, 198, 224-227

SCHOOL of Charcot, 211
of Nancy, 7, 14, 20, etc.
of Paris, 133
of the Salpetriere, 7, 20, 23, etc

Schrenk-Notzing, Dr. von, 205

Second sight, 242-253

Sensitivometer, 84

Sensorial diapsychism, 180, 181

Sheyne-Stockes, 93

Sidgwick, Prof. Henry, 275, 284,

3<>5

Simulation, 48, 55, 56, 70, 73
Sollier, Dr., 235

Somnambulism, 56, 59, etc.

Spiritism, 9, 29-31, etc.

Spiritoidal phenomena, 24, 34, etc.

Subconsciousness, phenomena of,
24

Suggestibility, methods of deter-
mining, 81-93

Suggestion, 7, 23, etc.

Suggestometer, 84

Survival of Man, The, 275

Swedenborg, 279

TELEOPSY, 242
Telepathy, 24, 27, etc.
Telepsychism, 24, 34, etc.
Terrien, Dr., 257
Thompson, Mrs. (medium), 285
Thury, Prof., 147, 264
Torpor, state of, 103, 104
Transference, phenomenon of,

209-212
Transmission of thought, 24, 27,

etc.

VASCHIDE, Dr., 205

Verrall, Madame (medium), 278,

280-282

Vielet, Victor, 120, 176
Vision at a distance, 242
Voisin, Auguste, 116

WILTSHIRE, Sir, 241, 242

Zoomagnetisme, 144
Zschokke, 176

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