Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death

by F. W. H. Myers

I think that an intelligent study of visual and motor automatism will afford us sufficient proof that symbolism, at any rate pictorial symbolism, becomes increasingly important as we get at the contents of those hidden strata. Telepathic messages, especially, which form, as we shall see, the special prerogative or characteristic of subliminal communication, seem to be conveyed by vague impression or by inward or externalised picture oftener than by articulate speech. And I may so far anticipate later discussion of automatic writings (whether self-inspired or telepathic) as to point out a curious linguistic quality which almost all such writings share. The "messages" of a number of automatists, taken at random, will be sure to resemble each other much more closely than do the supraliminal writings of the same persons. Quite apart from their general correspondence in ideas—which belongs to another branch of our subject—there is among the automatic writings of quite independent automatists a remarkable correspondence of literary style. There is a certain quality which reminds one of a translation, or of the compositions of a person writing in a language which he is not accustomed to talk. These characteristics appear at once in automatic script, even of the incoherent kind; they persist when there is no longer any dream-like incoherence; they are equally marked, even when, as often happens, the automatic script surpasses in intelligence, and even in its own kind of eloquence, the products of the waking or supraliminal mind.

And side by side and intercurrent with these written messages come those strange meaningless arabesques which have been baptized as "spirit-drawings"—though they rarely show any clear trace of the operation of an external intelligence.[35] These complex and fanciful compositions—often absolutely automatic—appear to me like a stammering or rudimentary symbolism; as though the subliminal intelligence were striving to express itself through a vehicle perhaps more congenial to its habits than articulate language.

Returning, then, from these illustrations drawn from actual automatism to our proper subject of genius,—that happy mixture of subliminal with supraliminal faculty,—we may ask ourselves in what kind of subliminal uprush this hidden habit of wider symbolism, of self-communion beyond the limits of speech, will be likely to manifest itself above the conscious threshold.

The obvious answer to this question lies in the one word Art. The inspiration of Art of all kinds consists in the invention of precisely such a wider symbolism as has been above adumbrated. I am not speaking, of course, of symbolism of a forced and mechanical kind—symbolism designed and elaborated as such—but rather of that pre-existent but hidden concordance between visible and invisible things, between matter and thought, between thought and emotion, which the plastic arts, and music, and poetry, do each in their own special field discover and manifest for human wisdom and joy.

In using these words, I must repeat, I am far from adopting the formulæ of any special school. The symbolism of which I speak implies nothing of mysticism. Nor indeed, in my view, can there be any real gulf or deep division between so-called realistic and idealistic schools. All that exists is continuous; nor can Art symbolise any one aspect of the universe without also implicitly symbolising aspects which lie beyond.

And thus in the Arts we have symbolism at every stage of transparency and obscurity; from symbolisms which merely summarise speech to symbolisms which transcend it. Sometimes, as with Music, it is worse than useless to press for too close an interpretation. Music marches, and will march for ever, through an ideal and unimaginable world. Her melody may be a mighty symbolism, but it is a symbolism to which man has lost the key. Poetry's material, on the other hand, is the very language which she would fain transcend. But her utterance must be subliminal and symbolic, if it is to be poetry indeed; it must rise (as has been already hinted) from a realm profounder than deliberate speech; it must come charged, as Tennyson has it, with that "charm in words, a charm no words can give."

Here, too, we must dwell for a moment upon another and higher kind of internal visualisation. I have spoken of the arithmetical prodigy as possessing a kind of internal blackboard, on which he inscribes with ease and permanence his imaginary memoranda. But blackboards are not the only surfaces on which inscriptions can be made. There are other men—prodigies of a different order—whose internal tabula is not of blackened wood, but of canvas or of marble; whose inscriptions are not rows of Arabic numerals but living lines of colour, or curves of breathing stone. Even the most realistic art is something more than transcript and calculation; and for art's higher imaginative achievements there must needs be moments of inward idealisation when visible beauty seems but the token and symbol of beauty unrevealed; when Praxiteles must "draw from his own heart the archetype of the Eros that he made;" when Tintoret must feel with Heraclitus that "whatsoever we see waking is but deadness, and whatsoever sleeping, is but dream."

But when we reach this point we have begun (as I say) to transcend the special province to which, in Chapter I, I assigned the title of genius. I there pointed out that the influence of the subliminal on the supraliminal might conveniently be divided under three main heads. When the subliminal mentation co-operates with and supplements the supraliminal, without changing the apparent phase of personality, we have genius. When subliminal operations change the apparent phase of personality from the state of waking in the direction of trance, we have hypnotism. When the subliminal mentation forces itself up through the supraliminal, without amalgamation, as in crystal-vision, automatic writing, etc., we have sensory or motor automatism. In accordance with this definition, the content of the inspirations of genius is supposed to be of the same general type as the content of ordinary thought. We have regarded genius as crystallising fluid ideas; or, if you will, as concentrating and throwing upwards in its clear fountain a maze of subterranean streams. But we have not regarded it as modifying, in such operation, the ordinary alert wakefulness of the thinker, nor as providing bun with any fresh knowledge, obtainable by supernormal methods alone.

It is plain, however, that such distinctions as those which I have drawn between genius, trance, automatism, cannot possibly be rigid or absolute. They are distinctions made for convenience between different phases of what must really be a continuous process—namely, the influence of the Self below the threshold upon the Self above it. Between each of these definite phases all kinds of connections and intermediate stages must surely exist.

Connections between trance and automatism, indeed, are obvious enough. The difficulty has rather lain in their clear separation. Trance, when habitual, is pretty sure to lead to automatic speech or writing. Automatism, when prolonged, is similarly apt to induce a state of trance.