There is evidence to show that other forms of symbolism are adopted also—applying to the auditory as well as to the visual presentation of the messages. Names afford some of the best evidence for this; e.g. in the sitting of Mrs. Verrall with Mrs. Thompson, November 2, 1899 (Proceedings, xvii. pp. 240-41), "Nelly," the control, gave the names "Merrifield, Merriman, Merrythought, Merrifield," and later went on: "I am muddled. I will tell you how names come to us. It's like a picture; I see school-children enjoying themselves; you can't say Merrimans, because that's not a name, nor merry people...." (Mrs. Verrall's maiden name was Merrifield.) If I remember correctly, there was similar symbolism with regard to the name Greenfield at another sitting.
18. Here, then, we see the full play of symbolism and its possible extension to cover proper names. But there is another and a very simple reason why names should be hard to recall and give clearly by "spirits." Names are proverbially hard to remember, even in this life—and we know that some persons naturally remember names far better than others. (This may account, to a certain extent, for the differences in the ability of communicators to give proper names.) But, with all of us, names are hard to recall. We all resort to "what's-his-names," and "thing-o'-my-jigs," on occasion, in our efforts to discover within us the name in question. And there are good physiological reasons for this. We learn names only after many other parts of speech—which means that the brain-cells corresponding thereto are laid down or brought into conscious activity last; they are therefore more ephemeral and less fundamental than others—hence the first to "go." This accounts for the increasing difficulty in the aged for remembering names—theirs is a physiological rather than a psychological defect. By analogy, therefore, there is every reason to believe that proper names are hard to recall—every reason for thinking that they should be—by "spirits" after the shock and wrench of death. The necessary psychical mechanism would be so shaken and disturbed that it would be impossible to recall names and events, which seem quite straightforward and simple to the sitter. The possibly pictorial method of presentation of proper names would greatly add to the difficulty, as we have seen, and would be liable to lead to misrepresentation and error.
19. Dr. Hyslop, in his second report on Mrs. Piper, (Proceedings, Amer. S.P.R., pp. 1-812), calls attention to certain analogies which may be drawn from everyday psychology, rendering the process of communication far more intelligible, and the difficulties within the process far clearer to our perception and appreciation. For example, he calls attention to certain analogies with aphasia, which are most instructive. He says, in part:
"The two traditional types of aphasia are motor and sensory. Sensory aphasia is the inability to interpret the meaning of a sensation ... motor aphasia is the inability to speak a word or language, though the ideas and meaning of sensations may be as clear as in normal life.... This latter difficulty is apparent in several types of phenomena purporting to be associated with communications from spirits. I have found them illustrated in four different cases of mediumship, and they may be represented in three types. They are: (a) The difficulties with proper names; (b) The difficulties with unfamiliar words; and (c) The inability to immediately answer a pertinent question....
"The analogies with aphasia, of which we are speaking, may comprise various conditions affecting both medium and communicator. Thus the abnormal physical and mental conditions involved in the trance may affect the integrity of the normal motor action. Then the new situation in which death places a communicator, in relation to any nervous system, may establish conditions very much like aphasia. Then there may be difficulties in the communicator's representing his thoughts in the form necessary to transmit them to and through a foreign organism."
Dr. Hyslop then offers the following diagram as a possible solution of certain difficulties involved:
A B C represents the normal consciousness; A B D the subliminal consciousness. They intersect at E, which point represents the "equilibrium of the controls." "The area A E B shows the condition in which all sorts of confusion may occur, incidental to the infusion of controls, and this confusion will vary with the relation with the supraliminal and subliminal action of the mind." As one advances, the other recedes. As one gains a greater control over the organism, the other loses it, and vice versa.
Extending this conception to cover the cases of spirit "possession," in which this varying and fluctuating control is also manifested, we might represent this by the above diagram, in which normal consciousness is left out of account, for the sake of clearness, and the trance condition (subliminal) only represented. The spirit control of the organism takes its place in the diagram.