TELEPATHY AND THE SUBLIMINAL /COMPLETE
TELEPATHY AND THE
SUBLIMINAL SELF
NATHAN
EARLY
Phototype from an Automatic
Painting.
TELEPATHY
AND
THE
SUBLIMINAL SELF
AN
ACCOUNT OF RECENT INVESTIGATIONS REGARDING
HYPNOTISM, AUTOMATISM, DREAMS, PHANTASMS,
AND RELATED PHENOMENA
BY
R. OSGOOD MASON, A.M., M.D.
Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine
PREFACE.
To whatever conclusions it
may lead us, there is no mistaking the fact that now more than ever before is
the public interested in matters relating to the “New Psychology.” Scarcely a
day passes that notice of some unusual psychical experience or startling
phenomenon does not appear in popular literature. The newspaper, the magazine,
and the novel vie with each other in their efforts to excite interest and
attract attention by the display of these strange incidents, presented
sometimes with intelligence and taste, but oftener with a culpable disregard of
both taste and truth.
The general reader is not
yet critical regarding these matters, but he is at least interested, and
desires to know what can be relied upon as established truth amongst these
various reports. There is inquiry concerning Telepathy or
Thought-Transference—is it a fact or is it a delusion? Has Hypnotism any actual
standing either in science or common sense? What of Clairvoyance,
Planchette, Trance and Trance utterances, Crystal-Gazing and Apparitions?
In the following papers
intelligent readers, both in and out of the medical profession, will find these
subjects fairly stated and discussed, and to some of the questions asked, fair
and reasonable answers given. It is with the hope of aiding somewhat in the
efforts now being made to rescue from an uncertain and unreasoning
supernaturalism some of the most valuable facts in nature, and some of the most
interesting and beautiful psychical phenomena in human experience, that this
book is offered to the public.
To such studies, however,
it is objected by some that the principles involved in these unusual mental
actions are too vague and the facts too new and unsubstantiated to be deserving
of serious consideration; but it should be remembered that all our knowledge,
even that which is now reckoned as science, was once vague and tentative; it is
absurd, therefore, to ignore newly-found facts simply because they are new and
their laws unknown; nevertheless, in psychical matters especially, this is the
tendency of the age.
But even if upon the
practical side these studies should be deemed unsatisfactory, it would
not follow that they are without use or interest. It is a truism that our
western civilization is over-intense and practical; it is materialistic, hard,
mechanical; it values nothing, it believes in nothing that cannot be weighed,
measured, analyzed, labelled and appraised;—feeling, intuition, aspiration,
monitions, glimpses of knowledge that are from within—not external nor
distinctly cognizable,—these are all slighted, despised, trampled upon by a
supercilious dilettanteism on the one hand and an uninstructed philistinism on
the other, and the result has been a development that is abnormal,
unsymmetrical, deformed, and tending to disintegration.
To a few, oriental
mysticism, to others the hasty deductions of spiritualism, and to many more the
supernaturalism of the various religious systems, offer at least a partial,
though often exaggerated, antidote to this inherent vice, because they all
contemplate a spiritual or at least a transcendental aspect of man’s nature in
contrast to that which is purely material. But even these partial remedies are
not available to all, and they are unsatisfactory to many.
As a basis to a more
symmetrical and permanent development, some generally recognized facts relative
to the constitution and action of these more subtle forces in our being
must be certified; and as an introduction to that work, it is hoped that these
studies in the outlying fields of psychology will not be found valueless.
A portion of the papers
here presented are republished, much revised, by courtesy of The New
York Times.
New York, October,
1896.
CONTENTS.
Psychical Research—Telepathy or
Thought-Transference
Mesmerism and Hypnotism—History and
Therapeutic Effects
Double or Multiplex Personality
Natural Somnambulism—Hypnotic
Somnambulism—Dreams
Automatic Writing, Drawing and Painting
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