THE INTERPRETATIONS OF AUTOMATISM. ^15 



entity, akin in its nature to the physical substratum of light and 

 electricity. The doctrine of the "astral body" belongs to this 

 type. Or, the third entity may be conceived as akin to conscious- 

 ness in its essential nature, although capable of separation from 

 it. It may, for example, be identified with the life of sensation 

 and sensuous desires which common sense discriminates from the 

 " more spiritual " elements of thought, reason, and will. 



If the third alternative be adopted, we must regard the prin- 

 ciple which lies at the foundation of such phenomena as purely 

 mental. The oldest form of this theory is the doctrine of posses- 

 sion, which ascribes all automatism to the agency of some adven- 

 titious mind, as that of a demon or spirit, entering into the body 

 of the patient and assuming control, to the total or partial exclu- 

 sion of its rightful owner. 



In modern times the doctrine has assumed the form of "du- 

 plex personality." This theory maintains that in every man 

 there are two minds, one known to us and one usually unknown.* 

 To the latter are ascribed all the phenomena of suggestibility and 

 automatism, sometimes also telepathy, clairvoyance, and the like, 

 and even the power of moving furniture, of objectifying and 

 " materializing " its ideas, and of performing the other tricks which 

 " mediums " ascribe to spirits. 



A similar theory has been developed by Mr. F. W. H. Myers 

 in a series of papers in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychi- 

 cal Research. Mr. Myers avoids the words soul, spirit, and the 

 like in stating his theory, on account of their crude associations, 

 but I shall in this popular sketch make use of these familiar 

 words, even at the risk of misrepresenting him a little. 



Mr. Myers agrees with the other representatives of the soul 

 theory in acknowledging the existence of a spiritual entity of 

 some sort, although he does not define it or attempt to fix its re- 

 lation to matter. Its essence is consciousness ; but and this is 

 the point characteristic of the theory the consciousness of which 

 my soul consists is not identical with what I call my conscious- 

 ness. Every soul is the basis or ground of existence of many 

 wholly distinct consciousnesses of which the consciousness I call 

 mine is but one. It is not even the most important of them, al- 

 though it also is not the least important. It has been evolved by 

 a process of selection out of an infinity of possible elements solely 

 on the ground of utility. Its function is the preservation of the 

 body ; those mental elements which were found most directly to 



* Some writers who hold to the doctrine of dependence have embraced a similar view, 

 and regard the two minds as produced by the right and the left hemispheres of the brain 

 respectively, and other duplex theories have been stated from the purely psychological 

 point of view. 



