FOOTNOTES:
[5] The theory of the subconscious was first developed by me in my volume “The Psychology of Suggestion,” 1898.
[6] I object to the term “Subliminal,” because it is understood in a cosmic, or metaphysical sense. The term “co-conscious” is limited and refers to independently functioning, contemporaneous personalities, or mental systems. The term “Unconscious” is misleading, because it may refer to the metaphysics of Hartmann. At best it simply means nervous processes which, as such, belong to neurology, physiology, but not to the domain of abnormal psychology.
The term “subconscious,” used by me in “The Psychology of Suggestion,” means tracts of mental states which may or may not function in the total mental reaction of the individual.
[CHAPTER XI]
THE CONDITIONS AND LAWS OF SUGGESTION
In order to bring to the fore subconscious activities with their reflex, automatic psycho-motor reactions by removal of the upper consciousness I have found requisite, in my investigations, the following conditions:
Normal Suggestibility,—Suggestibility in the Normal, Waking State.
(1) Fixation of the Attention.
(2) Distraction of the Attention.
(3) Monotony.
(4) Limitation of Voluntary Activity.
(5) Limitation of the Field of Consciousness.
(6) Inhibition.
(7) Immediate Execution of the Suggestion.
Abnormal Suggestibility,—Suggestibility in Hypnotic and Trance States:
(1) Fixation of the Attention.
(2) Monotony.
(3) Limitation of Voluntary Activity.
(4) Limitation of the Field of Consciousness.
(5) Inhibition.
The nature of abnormal suggestibility, the result of my investigations, is a disaggregation of consciousness, a cleavage of the mind, a cleft that may become ever deeper and wider, ending in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling guardian-consciousness from the automatic, reflex, subconscious consciousness....
Normal suggestibility is of like nature,—it is a cleft in the mind. Only here the cleft is not so deep, not so lasting as in hypnosis or in the other subconscious trance states. The split is but momentary. The mental cleavage, or the psycho-physiological disaggregation of the superior from the inferior centers with their concomitant psychic activities is evanescent, fleeting, often disappearing at the moment of its appearance.
The following laws of suggestibility were formulated by me:
I. Normal suggestibility varies as indirect suggestion and inversely as direct suggestion.
II. Abnormal suggestibility varies as direct suggestion and inversely as indirect suggestion.
A comparison of the conditions of normal and abnormal suggestibility is valuable, since it reveals the nature of suggestibility, and discloses its fundamental law. An examination of the two sets of conditions shows that in abnormal suggestibility two conditions, distraction of attention and immediate execution are absent, otherwise the conditions are the same. This sameness of conditions clearly indicates the fact that both normal and abnormal suggestibility flow from some one common source, that they are of like nature, and due to similar causes.
Now a previous study led us to the conclusion that the nature of abnormal suggestibility is a disaggregation of consciousness, a slit produced in the mind, a crack that may become wider and deeper, ending in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling consciousness from the reflex consciousness. Normal suggestibility is of a like nature. It is a cleft in the mind. The cleft is not so deep, not so lasting as it is in hypnosis, or in the state of abnormal suggestibility. The split is but momentary, disappearing almost at the very moment of its appearance.
This fleeting, evanescent character of the split explains why suggestion in the normal state, why normal suggestibility requires immediate execution as one of its indispensable conditions. We must take the opportunity of the momentary ebb of the controlling consciousness and hastily plant our suggestion in the soil of reflex consciousness. We must watch for this favorable moment, not let it slip by, otherwise the suggestion is a failure. Furthermore, we must be careful to keep in abeyance, for the moment, the ever active waves of the controlling consciousness. We must find for them work in some other direction, we must divert, we must distract them. That is why normal suggestibility requires the additional conditions of distraction and immediate execution. For in the waking state the waking, controlling consciousness is always on its guard, and when enticed away, leaves its ground only for a moment.
In normal suggestibility the psychic split is but faint; the lesion, effected in the body consciousness, is superficial, transitory, fleeting. In abnormal suggestibility, on the contrary, the slit is deep and lasting,—it is a severe gash. In both cases, however, we have a removal, a dissociation of the waking from the subwaking, reflex consciousness, suggestion becoming effected only through the latter. For suggestibility is the attribute of the subwaking, reflex consciousness.
A comparison of the two laws discloses the same relation. The two laws are the reverse of each other, thus clearly indicating the presence of a controlling, inhibiting, conscious element in one case, and its absence in the other. In the normal state we must guard against the inhibitory, waking consciousness, and we have to make our suggestion as indirect as possible. In the abnormal state, on the contrary, no circumspection is needed; the controlling, inhibitory, waking consciousness is more or less absent. The subwaking, reflex consciousness is exposed to external stimuli, and our suggestions are therefore the more effective, the more direct we make them.
Suggestibility is a function of disaggregation of consciousness, a disaggregation in which the subwaking, reflex consciousness enters into direct communication with the external world. The general law of suggestibility is:
Suggestibility varies as the amount of disaggregation, and inversely as the unification of consciousness.
[CHAPTER XII]
IS THE SUBCONSCIOUS A PERSONALITY?
The problem that interested me most was to come into close contact with the subwaking self. What is its fundamental nature? What are the main traits of its character? Since in hypnosis the subwaking self is freed from its chains, is untrammeled by the shackles of the upper, controlling self, since in hypnosis the underground self is more or less exposed to our view, it is plain that experimentation on the hypnotic self will introduce us into the secret life of the subwaking self. For, as we pointed out, the two are identical.
I have made all kinds of experiments, bringing subjects into catalepsy, somnambulism, giving illusions, hallucinations, post-hypnotic suggestions, etc. As a result of my work one central truth stands out clear, and that is the extraordinary plasticity of the subwaking self.
If you can only in some way or other succeed in separating the primary controlling consciousness from the lower one, the waking from the subwaking self, so that they should no longer keep company, you can do anything you please with the subwaking self. You can make its legs, its hands, any limb you like perfectly rigid; you can make it eat pepper for sugar; you can make it drink water for wine; feel cold or warm; hear delightful stories in the absence of all sounds; feel pain or pleasure, see oranges where there is nothing; you can make it eat them and enjoy their taste. In short, you can do with the subwaking self anything you like. The subwaking consciousness is in your power, like clay in the hands of the potter. The plasticity of the subconscious is revealed by its extreme suggestibility.
I wanted to get an insight into the very nature of the subwaking self; I wished to make a personal acquaintance with it. “What is its personal character?” I asked. How surprised I was when, after a close interrogation, the answer came to me that there cannot possibly be any personal acquaintance with it,—for the subwaking self lacks personality.
Under certain conditions a cleavage may occur between the two selves, and then the subwaking self may rapidly grow, develop, and attain, apparently, the plane of self-consciousness, get crystallized into a person, and give itself a name, imaginary, or borrowed from history. This accounts for the spiritualistic phenomena of personality, guides, controls, and communications by dead personalities, or spirits coming from another world, such as have been observed in the case of Mrs. Piper and other mediums of like types; it accounts for all the phenomena of multiple personality, simulating the dead or the living, or formed anew out of the matrix of the subconscious.
All such personality metamorphoses can be easily developed, under favorable conditions in any psychopathological laboratory. They can be easily formed, by suggestion in trance, hypnotic, and waking states. The newly crystallized personality is, as a rule, extremely unstable, ephemeral, shadowy in its outlines, spirit-like, ghost-like, tends to become amorphous, being formed again and again under the influence of favorable conditions and suggestions, rising to the surface of consciousness, then sinking into the subconsciousness, and disappearing, only to give rise to new personality-metamorphoses, bursting like so many bubbles on the surface of the upper stream of consciousness.
There are cases when the personality of the individual is changed, or more personalities are formed. This metamorphosis may be brought about artificially, by suggestion, either direct or indirect. This is often brought about in a state of hypnosis when any number of personalities may be formed at the will of the hypnotizer who may create them deliberately; or they may become formed by subtle indirect suggestion, coming from the hypnotizer, of which he himself is not fully conscious; or the personalities may be formed by auto-suggestions. Such phenomena may be regarded as the artefacts of Psychopathology.
There are again cases which are no play-personalities depending on hypnotic suggestion, or suggestion in waking life, but which are really due to pathological agencies. The former, due to suggestion, are suggestion-personalities, the latter, due to pathological agencies, are pathological personalities. The formation of multiple personality by means of suggestion does not belong to our present subject.
I have discussed these facts of suggestion personalities in my volume, “The Psychology of Suggestion,” and other works. The pathological multiple personalities are of immense interest from many standpoints which we need not go into just at present, since our object is rather the causation, not the nature and character of the personalities themselves.[7]
The subwaking self is extremely credulous; it lacks all sense of the true and rational. “Two and two make five.” “Yes.” Anything is accepted, if sufficiently emphasized by the hypnotizer. The suggestibility and imitativeness of the subwaking self were discussed by me at great length. What I should like to point out here is the extreme servility and cowardliness of that self. Show hesitation, and it will show fight; command authoritatively, and it will obey slavishly.
The subwaking self is devoid of all morality. It will steal without the least scruple; it will poison; it will stab; it will assassinate its best friends unhesitatingly. When completely cut off from the waking person, it is precluded from conscience.