Telepathy and the Subliminal Self

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
NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1897
Copyright, 1897, BY HENRY HOLT & CO.

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.