Metapsychical Phenomena: Methods and Observations

by J. Maxwell

But the facts I have summarily exposed already reveal an important truth, which curable, transitory amnesia clearly demonstrates: this is, that souvenirs can exist in a latent state in the general consciousness, and be inaccessible to the personal consciousness. Let us suppose that A forgets the ten previous years of his life—the result of a fall or nervous crisis. This amnesia will perhaps last for six months, during which period he will believe himself to have returned to the age of fifteen, when he is really twenty-five. All the events of his life between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five will have entirely disappeared from his memory for six months; then they will, more or less abruptly, reappear. Their temporary disappearance clearly shows that these souvenirs have been preserved somewhere, and that they were not really lost. We cannot affirm that they were accessible to the general and impersonal consciousness in every case; but nevertheless we can affirm it for hysteria, according to the observations of Pitres, Janet, and others; and, according to Régis, for certain poisons. The facts studied by these savants show, that souvenirs inaccessible to the normal personality were known to the general consciousness. For example, an amnesic patient can recover all his souvenirs when he is put to sleep; this is what Régis has demonstrated even in certain cases of amnesia from blood-poisoning. Janet, on his side, has established that these souvenirs, forgotten by the personal consciousness, can be evoked by certain automatisms (notably automatic writing), and are therefore at the disposition of the impersonal consciousness, that is to say, of that general consciousness of which personal consciousness seems to be only a part.

This fact, which the study of nervous pathology has demonstrated, is certainly general. The troubles of hysteria and other nervous diseases only exaggerate a normal phenomenon. Our personality does not burden itself with all the souvenirs, which our general consciousness appears to possess: the greater part of the things we have seen, learned, heard, etc., are forgotten; but this forgetfulness is probably relative, and only extends to the personal consciousness. It is also variable, and, according to circumstances, the souvenirs accumulated in the general consciousness are at one time more accessible to the personal consciousness, and less so at another time. If the personal memory be over-excited, exalté, we have hypermnesia. The facts which spring up in the personal consciousness have been so completely forgotten by it that they sometimes appear to be new; souvenirs present themselves to the consciousness without being identified by it, and we commit errors on the localisation of the mnesic image in time and space; this is what we call paramnesia.

The variations of the personal consciousness relative to memory, whose rôle in the constitution of the personality of the self is preponderant, are therefore translated clinically by amnesiæ, hypermnesiæ, paramnesiæ; but the variations pointed out are not limited to memory, they extend to other operations of the mind. I indicated just now, that the personal consciousness was only a facet of that more general consciousness existing in us, a consciousness where all antecedent experiences are piled up, where all our sensations are registered, be our personal consciousness aware or unaware of them. This general consciousness is in itself impersonal, at least in relation to our normal personality. This latter is only one of the currents which circulate in that consciousness, its preponderance, as Myers has indicated, is probably only a consequence of its greater practical utility in daily life, and not an indication of its absolute superiority; but there is one thing to point out, this is that we are accustomed to connect with that personal consciousness all the operations of our usual intelligence. Our reasonings, volitions, judgments, whatever they may be, are grouped around our conscious personality, or rather are founded upon its apparent activity. The consequence is, that every time the sentiment of personality in the consciousness varies, our reasonings, volitions, and judgments will vary in the same proportion. Thoughts which come to us will cease to be chosen by us, and will apparently come of their own accord; their associations will escape all logic, their succession will be rapid and incoherent for our personality, which will look on at their evolution powerless to direct it. The weakening of the sentiment of personal participation, in the acts of the psychical life, is then translated by the diminution of our faculty to choose the images evoked in the consciousness, by the diminution of our power of control over their evolution, by the helplessness in which we are, not only to judge them according to the rules of reason, but also to reject the most illogical interpretations, which offer themselves to us or impose themselves upon us. In a word, the weakening of the will, of the judgment, is associated with that of the personal consciousness.

We also observe a corresponding attenuation in the faculty of abstraction. Ideas are accompanied by their pictured or motor representations. Sometimes they are only expressed by pictures, and are presented in a symbolical form, or are dramatised; e.g. the idea of the death of a relative will not be expressed with precision, as is sometimes the case in verbal or written hallucinations, but by a picture representing the relation in a coffin, or depicting his burial.

Such are the psychological expressions of the weakening of the personal element in the consciousness.

We must not conclude, therefrom, that the impersonal consciousness is incapable of intelligent operation. No such thing; and events prove that the impersonal or subliminal consciousness is capable of accomplishing, with great perfection, the most complicated intellectual acts, without the personal consciousness being aware of it. In these cases, when the result of the operation is transmitted to the personal consciousness, this latter perceives it under the symbolical or dramatical form I pointed out.

Observation shows, that all the features I have just described as being met with in cases where participation of the personal consciousness with our mental or physical activity is diminished, are to be found in hallucination and in dreams.[10]

I beg to be excused for this digression; it was indispensable in order to develop, in a comprehensive manner, the analogies which are presented between dreams and hallucinations provoked by crystal-gazing, and the transcendental character which these visions can present, without being, however, supernatural. These considerations set forth, I arrive at the recital of some facts I have observed.

The way in which imagination-images or hallucinations are induced, with most of the sensitives I have examined, is nearly always the same. I will describe it, pointing out at the same time that the formation of the hallucinatory image is the same in nearly every case, be the visual impression imaginary, or be it the expression of a true fact, past, present, or future.

I have shown how to hold the crystal, and how to look at it. The sensitive, having fixed his eyes on the crystal for a few seconds or minutes—the time varies according to individuals—sees an opalescent, milky tint come over the crystal. I know a sensitive,—an intelligent and well-educated lady—who compares this impression, to that produced on the eye by rising mists and fleeting clouds. For her, the milky tint in the crystal is in movement. It breaks away like a cloud or mist, to disclose the hallucinatory image completely formed. To another sensitive, the cloud appears first of all immobile, and then becomes condensed into grey forms, which gradually become coloured and mobile. This sensitive enters so completely into the hallucination, that, as a rule, he thinks he is transported to the landscape he is gazing at; he has not only a hallucination of sight, but a hallucination of all the senses. Most people see the image in the crystal, but believe they see it life-size. The dimension of the crystal has no influence on the apparent dimension of the image;—at least, this is what I have nearly always remarked.