Once again I will emphasise the difficulty of drawing a line between normal and abnormal. My boy guide referred to in Chapter I was as near normal as could be, though the means by which he kept his course might be described as a product of dissociation. If he had been imaginative and I credulous he could have foisted upon me a supernatural explanation of his powers and taken his place with clairvoyants and water-diviners. But there are manifestations of distinctly abnormal character to explain which is the object of this book, and for the people producing these manifestations I propose the name of Dissociates, since dissociation is the key to the understanding of the phenomena they present.
The logic-tight compartments previously described are to be regarded as partial dissociations to which we are all liable, the partitions being unrecognised by their owner and the contents kept apart from the modifying influences of the main personality. Hence when the onlooker becomes aware of the presence of such a dissociation he does not judge the contents of the compartment by the same standard that he applies to the person as a whole.
There is nothing fresh in this point of view, which is admitted when virulent political opponents can be good friends by each ignoring the dissociated prejudices of the other, or in everyday life when in some circles the discussion of political or religious subjects is avoided for the sake of good fellowship.
Extreme dissociation by reason of a logic-tight compartment is shown in that kind of insanity in which the sufferer behaves as an ordinary being with ordinary actions and ideas except for the influence of a systematised delusion (generally persecutory or grandiose) of most irrational type which is impregnable to explanation or argument. On all other points the man is sane, and the purely mental origin of the disease is suggested by his remaining in good health and without mental deterioration apart from the delusional system, in this respect differing greatly from the sufferers from most other forms of insanity. Some psychiatrists claim to have traced the delusions back to repressions that took place in early life.[6]
CHAPTER V
WATER-DIVINING
Water-divining, or dowsing, is accepted in many parts of the world and used as a practical method of locating underground water. Official bodies as well as private individuals employ practitioners of the art, and among people generally there is a strong belief in its genuineness.