Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men

Produced by Clare Boothby, Mary Meehan and the PG Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
1901
Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men
The lack of interest in so-called psychical matters is somewhat surprising.
There is, however, more hope of the clearing up of the scientific aspects of these phenomena than ever before.
Sir William Crookes, late President of the British Association, has no doubt that thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognised organs of sense, and that knowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in any hitherto known or recognised ways! The word recognised is important; perhaps not by the recognised action of the organs of sense, would be a better expression.
In the Alleged Haunting of B—— House, p. 33, Miss Freer says: Apparitions are really hallucinations or false impressions upon the senses, created so far as originated by any external cause, by other minds either in the body or out of the body, which are themselves invisible in the ordinary and physical sense of the term, and really acting through some means at present very imperfectly known. This would include hypnotism at a distance, but also perhaps spirits.
Dr. Gowers has recently (reported in the Lancet ), in a speech at University College, pointed out the close connection of the optic and auditory nerves with regard to cases of deafness.
To connect apparitions with hypnotism.
In continuous slight hypnotism, chills on part of the scalp, part of the shoulder, part of the face, or the ribs, etc., may be experienced; they are possibly signs of slackening hypnotic power.
There is another symptom, hyperaesthesia of the eye, which Binet and Féré omit; this is extremely rare among men, and with women results from local affection. The symptom probably appears in hypnotic cases from the cutaneous lesser sciatic nerve, which is connected with the nerves of the sexual system, being affected.