The Law of Psychic Phenomena
	A New System Of Mental Therapeutics <  Previous Contents Next  >

THE science of psycho-therapeutics is yet in its infancy. Thus far just enough has been learned to stimulate research. It has been demonstrated that there is a psychic power inherent in man which can be employed for the amelioration of his own physical condition, as well as that of his fellows. When this is said, nearly all the ground covered by present knowledge has been embraced. It is true that many wonderful cures have been effected, many marvelous phenomena developed. Nevertheless, all are groping in the dark, with only an occasional glimmering of distant light shed upon the subject; and this light serves principally to show how little is now known, compared with what there is yet to learn.

In one view of the situation, however, it may be said that much has already been accomplished. In the conflict of theoretical discussion, and by means of the various and seemingly conflicting methods of operation, certain laws have been discovered which may serve as a basis for new experiments and new discoveries. It is the province of science to collate those laws and to classify the facts where ever found, and from them to try to reason up to the general principles involved. When this is done, fearlessly and conscientiously, a decided step in advance will have been made. Some new law may then be discovered, or at least some new method of operation may be developed, which shall add to the general stock of knowledge of the science, and enlarge its field of usefulness.

It is the object of the writer to offer a few observations in this chapter, in a direction believed to be substantially new, and briefly to present some conclusions at which he has arrived from a careful examination of premises which seem to have been well established by the experiments of others. Before doing so it will be necessary first to state the premises upon which the conclusions are based; and in doing this, care will be taken not to travel outside of well-authenticated experiments.

The first proposition is, that there is inherent in mankind the power to communicate thoughts to others independently of objective means of communication. The truth of this general proposition has been so thoroughly demonstrated by the experiments of members of the London Society for Psychical Research that time and space will not be wasted in its further elucidation. For a full treatment of the subject the reader is referred to "Phantasms of the Living," in which the results of the researches of that Society are ably set forth by Messrs. Edmund Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore. It is hardly necessary to remind the intelligent reader that the methods of investigation employed by these able and indefatigable laborers in the field of psychical research are purely scientific, and their works are singularly free from manifestations of prejudice or of unreasoning skepticism on the one hand, and of credulity on the other. It is confidently assumed, therefore, that the power of telepathic communication is as thoroughly established as any fact in nature.

Now, telepathy is primarily the communion of subjective minds, or rather it is the normal means of communication between subjective minds. The reason of the apparent rarity of its manifestation is that it requires exceptional conditions to bring its results above the threshold of consciousness. There is every reason to believe that the souls, or subjective minds, of men can and do habitually hold communion with one another when not the remotest perception of the fact is communicated to the objective intelligence.

It may be that such communion is not general among men; but it is certain that it is held between those who, from any cause, are en rapport. The facts recorded by the Society for Psychical Research demonstrate that proposition. Thus, near relatives are oftenest found to be in communion, as is shown by the comparative frequency of telepathic communications between relatives, giving warning of sickness or of death. Next in frequency are communications between intimate friends. Communications of this character between comparative strangers are apparently rare. Of course the only means we have of judging of these things is by the record of those cases in which the communications have been brought to the objective consciousness of the percipients. From these cases it seems fair to infer that the subjective minds of those who are deeply interested in one another are in habitual communion, especially when the personal interest or welfare of either agent or percipient is at stake. Be this as it may, it is certain that telepathic communication can be established at will by the conscious effort of one or both of the parties, even between strangers.

The experiments of the Society above named have demonstrated this fact. It will be assumed, therefore, for the purposes of this argument that telepathic communion can be established between two subjective minds at the will of either. The fact may not be perceived by the subject, for it may not rise above the threshold of his objective consciousness. But for therapeutic purposes it is not necessary that the patient should know, objectively, that anything is being done for him. Indeed, it is often better that he should not know it, for reasons set forth in a former chapter. The second proposition is that a state of perfect passivity on the part of the percipient is the most favorable condition for the reception of telepathic impressions or communications. It needs no argument to establish the truth of this proposition. It is universally known to be true, by all who have given the slightest attention to psychological science, that passivity on the part of the subject is the primary condition necessary for the production of any psychic phenomenon.

Passivity simply means the suspension of the functions of the objective mind for the time being, for the purpose of allowing the subjective mind to receive impressions and to act upon them. The more perfectly the objective intelligence can be held in abeyance, the more perfectly will the subjective mind perform its functions. This is why a state of profound hypnotism is the most favorable for the reception of suggestions, either oral or mental. That this is more especially true of mental suggestions is shown by all experiments in mesmerism. It may, therefore, be safely assumed that the most favorable condition in which a patient can be placed for the reception of telepathic suggestions for therapeutic purposes is the condition wherein the functions of his objective intelligence are, for the time being, entirely suspended.

The third proposition is that there is nothing to differentiate hypnotic sleep from natural sleep. Startling as this proposition may appear to the superficial observer, it is fully concurred in both by M. Liébault and Professor Bernheim.

"There is no fundamental difference," says the latter,* "between spontaneous and induced sleep. M. Liébault has very wisely established this fact. The spontaneous sleeper is in relationship with himself alone; the idea which occupies his mind just before going to sleep, the impressions which the sensitive and sensorial nerves of the periphery continue to transmit to the brain, and the stimuli coming from the viscera, become the point of departure for the incoherent images and impressions which constitute dreams.

Have those who deny the psychical phenomena of hypnotism, or who only admit them in cases of diseased nervous temperament, ever reflected upon what occurs in normal sleep, in which the best-balanced mind is carried by the current, in which the faculties are dissociated, in which the most singular ideas and the most fantastic conceptions obtrude ? Poor human reason is carried away, the proudest mind yields to hallucinations, and during this sleep —that is to say, during a quarter of its existence — becomes the plaything of the dreams which imagination calls forth.

"In induced sleep the subject's mind retains the memory of the person who has put him to sleep, whence the hypnotizer's power of playing upon his imagination, of suggesting dreams, and of directing the acts which are no longer controlled by the weakened or absent will."

There are, in fact, many analogies between the phenomena of normal sleep and the phenomena of hypnotism. For instance, it is well known that the recollection of what occurred during hypnotic sleep is in exact inverse proportion to the depth of the sleep. If the sleep is light, the remembrance of the subject is perfect. If the sleep is profound, he remembers nothing, no matter what the character of the scenes he may have passed through. The same is true of dreams. We remember only those dreams which occur during the period when we are just going to sleep or are just awakening. Profound sleep is dreamless, so far as the recollection of the sleeper informs him.

Nevertheless, it is certain that we dream continuously during sleep. The subjective mind is ever awake during the sleep of the body, and always active. Our dreams are often incoherent and absurd, for the reason that they are generally invoked by peripheral impressions. These impressions constitute suggestions which the subjective mind, in obedience to the universal law, accepts as true; and it always deduces the legitimate conclusions therefrom. For instance, it is probably within the experience of every reader that an accidental removal of the bed-clothing during a cold night will cause the sleeper to dream of wading through snow, or of sleigh-riding. And the dream will be pleasant or otherwise just in accordance with the character of the other attendant peripheral impressions. If the dreamer is in good health he will dream of pleasant winter scenes and experiences. If his stomach is out of order, or overloaded, he will have a. nightmare, with a winter setting of ice and snow and all that is disagreeable, dank, and dismal.

As we have seen in the preceding chapters, the subjective mind reasons deductively only from premises that are suggested to it, whether the suggestions are imparted to it by its physical environment, as in sleep, or by oral suggestion, as in hypnotism, or telepathically, as in the higher forms of mesmerism. Its deductions are always logical, whether the premises are true or false. Hence the absurdity of many of our dreams; they are merely deductions from false premises.

The suggestions or impressions imparted to us during sleep being the result of accidental surroundings and stimuli, modified by the state of our health, our mental work during the day, and a thousand other things of which we can have no knowledge, and which are beyond our control, are necessarily of a heterogeneous character; and the deductions from such premises must of necessity be incoherent and fantastic to the last degree.

It is obvious, therefore, that the subjective mind is amenable to control by suggestion during natural sleep just the same as it is during hypnotic, or induced, sleep. It might not be unprofitable in this connection to enter into a general inquiry as to how far it would be possible to control our dreams by auto-suggestion, and thus obviate the discomforts incident to unpleasant nocturnal hallucinations. But as we are now engaged in a specific inquiry into the question of how far the subjective mind can be influenced for therapeutic purposes, the general field of speculation must be left for others. It is sufficient for present purposes to establish the proposition that the subjective mind is controllable by the power of suggestion during natural sleep.

Recurring in this connection to the preceding proposition, that "a state of perfect passivity on the part of the patient is the most favorable condition for the reception of telepathic impressions or communications for therapeutic purposes," the conclusion is obvious that the condition of natural sleep, being the most perfectly passive condition imaginable, must of necessity be the most favorable condition for the reception of telepathic suggestions for therapeutic purposes. It is especially adapted for the conveyance of therapeutic suggestions, for the reason that for such purposes it is not necessary that the suggestions or impressions should rise above the threshold of the patient's consciousness. Indeed, as we have before observed, it is better that they should not. The object being merely the restoration of health, it is not necessary that the objective mind should feel, or be conscious of, the impressions or suggestions made. It is precisely as it is in hypnotism; the suggestions, whether oral or telepathic, are made to the subjective intelligence; and, in case of profound hypnotic sleep, the objective mind retains no recollection of the suggestions. In either case the subjective mind is the one addressed; and that, being the central power in control of the functions and conditions of the body, accepts the suggestions and acts accordingly.

There are not wanting facts which show clearly that the power exists to convey telepathic messages to sleeping persons, causing them to dream of the things that the agent desires. As long ago as 1819, Councillor H. M. Wesermann, of Düsseldorf, recorded, in the "Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus," a few experiments of his own which show this to be true. The following items are reproduced in "Phantasms of the Living," from the original article above mentioned:

"First Experiment, at a Distance of Five Miles. — I endeavored to acquaint my friend, the Hofkammerrath G. (whom I had not seen, with whom I had not spoken, and to whom I had not written for thirteen years), with the fact of my intended visit, by presenting my form to him in his sleep, through the force of my will. When I unexpectedly went to him on the following evening, he evinced his astonishment at having seen me in a dream on the preceding night.

"Second Experiment, at a Distance of Three Miles. — Madame W., in her sleep, was to hear a conversation between me and two other persons, relating to a certain secret; and when I visited her on the third day, she told me all that had been said, and showed her astonishment at this remarkable dream.

"Third Experiment, at a Distance of One Mile. — An aged person in G——— was to see in a dream the funeral procession of my deceased friend S.; and when I visited her on the next day, her first words were that she had in her sleep seen a funeral procession, and on inquiry had learned that I was the corpse. Here there was a slight error.

"Fourth Experiment, at a Distance of One-Eighth of a Mile. — Herr Doctor B. desired a trial to convince him, whereupon I represented to him a nocturnal street-brawl. He saw it in a dream, to his great astonishment. (This means, presumably, that he was astonished when he found that the actual subject of his dream was what Wesermann had been endeavoring to impress on him,)''

It would thus seem to be reasonably well established that the state of natural sleep is the best possible condition for the reception of telepathic suggestions for therapeutic purposes.

The next inquiry in order is, therefore, as to what is the best means of conveying telepathic suggestion to the sleeping patient. In a previous chapter it has been shown that a successful mesmerizer must necessarily be in a partially subjective condition himself in order to produce the higher phenomena of mesmerism. It may, it is thought, be safely assumed that the phenomenon of thought-transference cannot be produced under any other conditions. Indeed, it stands to reason that, inasmuch as it is the subjective mind of the percipient that is impressed, the message must proceed from the subjective mind of the agent. In other words, it is reasonable to suppose that, the subjective or passive condition being a necessity on the part of the percipient or subject, an analogous condition is a necessity on the part of the agent or operator. This fact is shown, not only in mesmerism, but in the methods of Christian scientists.

The mesmerist, as we have seen, quietly fixes his gaze upon the subject and concentrates his mind and will upon the work in hand, and thus, unknowingly, it may be, partially hypnotizes himself. The Christian scientist sits quietly by the patient and concentrates his mind, in like manner, upon the central idea of curing the patient. And, in either case, just in proportion to the ability of the operator to get himself into the subjective condition will he succeed in accomplishing his object, whether it is the production of the higher phenomena of mesmerism, or the healing of the sick by telepathic suggestion.

If, then, the passive, or subjective, condition of the agent is necessary for the successful transmission of telepathic suggestions or communications, or if it is the best condition for such a purpose, it follows that the more perfectly that condition is attained, the more successful will be the experiment. As before observed, the condition of natural sleep is manifestly the most perfectly passive condition attainable. It is necessarily perfect, for all the objective senses are locked in slumber, and the subjective mind is free to act in accordance with the laws which govern it. Those laws are, it is true, at present but little understood; but this much has been demonstrated, namely, that the subjective mind is controllable by the mysterious power of suggestion, and is always most active during sleep.

Theoretically, then, we find that the most perfect condition either for the conveyance or the reception of telepathic impressions or communications is that of natural sleep. The only question that remains to be settled is whether it is possible for the agent or operator so to control his own subjective mind during his bodily sleep as to compel or induce it to convey the desired message to the sub-consciousness of the patient. To settle this question, we must again have recourse to the record of the labors and researches of the London Society for Psychical Research. It might well be inferred that this power must necessarily be possessed, when we take into consideration the general law of suggestion, coupled with the fact that the subjective mind is perfectly amenable to control by auto-suggestion.

If the law of suggestion is valid and universal, the conclusion is irresistible that this power is inherent in man, even without one experimental fact to sustain it. Fortunately, we are not left to conjecture in regard to this important question. The literature of psychical experiment is full of facts which are demonstrative. Some of the experiments recorded in "Phantasms of the Living" show that a vastly greater power exists in this direction than would be required to convey a simple therapeutic suggestion to a sleeping patient. The following experiments are recorded in "Phantasms of the Living." In the first case, the Rev. W. Stainton Moses was the percipient, and he corroborates the following account, written by the agent:

"One evening I resolved to appear to Z at some miles' distance. I did not inform him beforehand of the intended experiment, but retired to rest shortly before midnight with thoughts intently fixed on Z, with whose room and surroundings I was quite unacquainted. I soon fell asleep, and awoke next morning unconscious of anything having taken place. On seeing Z, a few days afterwards, I inquired, 'Did anything happen at your rooms on Saturday night?' 'Yes,' replied he, 'a great deal happened. I had been sitting over the fire with M, smoking and chatting. About 12.30 he rose to leave, and I let him out myself. I returned to the fire to finish my pipe, when I saw you sitting in the chair just vacated by him. I looked intently at you, and then took up a newspaper to assure myself I was not dreaming; but on laying it down I saw you still there. While I gazed, without speaking, you faded away.' "

The next case was recorded by the agent, Mr. S. H. B., at the time of the occurrence, and his account of it is duly verified by the percipients. It is as follows:

"On a certain Sunday evening in November, 1881, having been reading of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I determined, with the whole force of my being, that I would be present in spirit in the front bed-room on the second floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance,— namely, Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively twenty-five and eleven years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road; and I had not mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be there was one o'clock in the morning; and I also had a strong intention of making my presence perceptible.

On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and, in the course of conversation (without any allusion to the subject on my part), the elder one told me that on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little sister, who saw me also.

"I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most decidedly in the affirmative; and upon my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied, 'About one o'clock in the morning.'

"This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event, and signed it.

"This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment of this kind, and its complete success startled me very much. Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which I can now at certain times set in motion at will." —S. H. B.

The next case of Mr. S. H. B.'s is different in this respect, that the percipient was not consciously present to the agent's mind on the night that he made his attempt:

"On Friday, Dec. 1, 1882, at 9.30 P.M., I went into a room alone and sat by the fireside, and endeavored so strongly to fix my mind upon the interior of a house at Kew (namely, Clarence Road), in which resided Miss V. and her two sisters, that I seemed to be actually in the house.

"During this experiment I must have fallen into a mesmeric sleep, for although I was conscious, I could not move my limbs. I did not seem to have lost the power of moving them, but 1 could not make the effort to do so; and my hands, which lay loosely on my knees, about six inches apart, felt involuntarily drawn together, and seemed to meet, although I was conscious that they did not move.

"At 10 P.M. I regained my normal state by an effort of the will, and then took a pencil and wrote down on a sheet of note-paper the foregoing statements.

When I went to bed on this same night I determined that I would be in the front bedroom of the above mentioned house at 12 P.M., and remain there until I had made my spiritual presence perceptible to the inmates of that room.

"On the next day (Saturday) I went to Kew to spend the evening, and met there a married sister of Miss V. (namely, Mrs. L.). This lady I had only met once before, and then, it was at a ball two years previous to the above date. We were both in fancy dress at the time, and as we did not exchange more than half-a-dozen words, this lady would naturally have lost any vivid recollection of my appearance, even if she had remarked it.

In the course of conversation (although I did not think for a moment of asking her any questions on such a subject) she told me that on the previous night she had seen me distinctly upon two occasions. She had spent the night at Clarence Road, and had slept in the front bedroom. At about 9.30 she had seen me in the passage, going from one room to another; and at 12 P.M., when she was wide awake, she had seen me enter the bedroom and walk round to where she was sleeping, and take her hair (which is very long) into my hand. She also told me that the apparition took hold of her hand and gazed intently into it, whereupon she spoke, saying, 'You need not look at the lines, for I have never had any trouble.' She then awoke her sister, Miss V., who was sleeping with her, and told her about it. After hearing this account, I took the statement which I had written down on the previous evening from my pocket and showed it to some of the persons present, who were much astonished, although incredulous.

I asked Mrs. L. if she was not dreaming at the time of the latter experience; but this she stoutly denied, and stated that she had forgotten what I was like, but seeing me so distinctly, she recognized me at once.

"Mrs. L. is a lady of highly imaginative temperament, and told me that she had been subject since childhood to psychological fancies, etc.; but the wonderful coincidence of the time (which was exact) convinced me that what she told me was more than a flight of the imagination. At my request she wrote a brief account of her impressions, and signed it." — S. H. B.

One of the authors of "Phantasms of the Living" (Mr. Gurney) on one occasion requested Mr. B. to send him a note on the night that he intended to make his next experiment of the kind, whereupon the following correspondence ensued:

March 22, 1884.

DEAR MR. GURNEY,— I am going to try the experiment tonight of making my presence perceptible at 44 Morland Square, at 12 P.M. I will let you know the result in a few days.

Yours very sincerely, S. H. B.

The next letter was received in the course of the following week:

April 3, 1884.

DEAR MR. GURNEY,— I have a strange statement to show you respecting my experiment, which was tried at your suggestion, and under the test conditions which you imposed. Having quite forgotten which night it was on which I attempted the projection, I cannot say whether the result is a brilliant success, or only a slight one, until I see the letter which I posted you on the evening of the experiment. Having sent you that letter, I did not deem it necessary to make a note in my diary, and consequently have let the exact date slip my memory. If the dates correspond, the success is complete in every detail, and I have an account signed and witnessed to show you.

I saw the lady (who was the subject) for the first time last night, since the experiment, and she made a voluntary statement to me, which I wrote down at her dictation, and to which she has attached her signature. The date and time of the apparition are specified in this statement, and it will be for you to decide whether they are identical with those given in my letter to you. I have completely forgotten, but yet I fancy that they are the same. —S. H. B.

This is the statement:

44 Morland Square, W.

On Saturday night, March 22, 1884, at about midnight, I had a distinct impression that Mr. S. H. B. was present in my room, and I distinctly saw him whilst I was quite wide awake. He came towards me and stroked my hair. I voluntarily gave him this information when he called to see me on Wednesday, April 2, telling him the time and the circumstances of the apparition, without any suggestion on his part. The appearance in my room was most vivid, and quite unmistakable. —L. S. VERITY

Miss A. S. Verity corroborates as follows:

I remember my sister telling me that she had seen S. H. B., and that he had touched her hair, before he came to see us on April 2. —A. S. V.

Mr. B.'s own account is as follows:

On Saturday, March 22, I determined to make my presence perceptible to Miss V. at 44 Morland Square, Netting Hill, at twelve, midnight; and as I had previously arranged with Mr. Gurney that 1 should post him a letter on the evening on which I tried my next experiment (stating the time and other particulars), I sent a note to acquaint him with the above facts.

About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she voluntarily told me that on March 22, at twelve o'clock, midnight, she had seen me so vividly in her room (whilst widely awake) that her nerves had been much shaken, and she had been obliged to send for a doctor in the morning. —S. H. B.

Mr. Gurney adds:

"It will be observed that in all these instances the conditions were the same, — the agent concentrating his thoughts on the object in view before going to sleep. Mr. B. has never succeeded in producing a similar effect when he has been awake."

The foregoing instances have been quoted merely for the purpose of showing that the power exists in mankind to cause telepathic impressions to be conveyed from one to another, not only when the percipient is awake and the agent is asleep, but when both are asleep. It is true that they do not demonstrate the proposition that the power can be employed for therapeutic purposes when both are asleep; but the inference is irresistible that such is the case. They do, however, demonstrate the existence of a power far greater than one would naturally suppose would be required to convey a therapeutic suggestion. In the cases cited, the impressions were brought above the threshold of the consciousness of the percipients. It may well be inferred that a power sufficiently great to cause the percipient, in his waking moments, to see the image or apparition of the agent, or even to dream of him when asleep so vividly as to remember the dream, must be easily capable of imparting any thought, impression, or suggestion which is not required to be raised above the threshold of consciousness.

All that would seem to be required is that the agent, before going to sleep, should strongly will, desire, and direct his subjective entity to convey the necessary therapeutic suggestions, influence, or impressions to the sleeping patient.