^lS PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 



the hypotheses suggested by psychic occurrences of various 

 kinds, and shall then add one or two reflections on the general 

 interpretation that is to be put upon the phenomena. 



The simplest and least dubitable of such supernormal 

 phenomena lare afiforded in what is known as thought-reading. 

 Here the result" is simply due to unconscious muscular guidance 

 of the subject or percipient by the agent. That is, the percipient 

 or thought-reader consciously or unconsciously interprets muscu- 

 lar movements imperceptible to the ordinary senses that are 

 made unwittingly by the agent as the expression of what he has 

 in mind. There is no reason to doubt that such motor auto- 

 matism is sufficient to account for the facts. Thought-reading 

 of this kind is therefore, as it is aptly called, muscle-reading. It 

 has been shown by the well-known psychologist, Professor 

 Jastrow — following up early suggestions and experiments of 

 James Braid and Faraday — that there is a constant tendency to 

 make slight automatic movements of the hand, the head, the 

 body in the direction of, or in accordance with, the object of 

 which one is thinking. This is the physiological basis not only 

 of thought-reading, but of table-turning, of rappings, of auto- 

 matic drawing and writing. Whatever else there is in psychic 

 phenomena, there is unquestionable evidence that the normal 

 course of consciousness may be accompanied or even interrupted 

 by unconscious processes expressing themselves in movements 

 (including utterance) that seem to the agent, when he is made 

 aware of them, to be independent of his own " self " altogether. 

 The more such automatism is developed by neuropathic condi- 

 tions, by habit, or by training, the more there is a dissociatioTi 

 of oneself into different strains that may become relatively inde- 

 pendent of each other. In normal individuals under ordinary 

 circumstances automatic action of this kind is habitually con- 

 trolled or even suppressed, and therefore cannot develop beyond 

 certain limits. But there seems no doubt that mediumship, for 

 example, is, in one aspect at least, interpretable as merely an ex- 

 aggerated form of automatism with its attendant disunion of 

 personality. 



A step further than thoiight-reading under unconscious 

 muscular guidance is thought-transference in which muscular 

 guidance cannot be the only factor involved. This may occur 

 either with or without contact between the percipient and the 

 agent. Colours, drawings, imaginary objects or scenes, num- 

 bers, tastes, pains, etc., can be transferred to a subject who is 

 susceptib-e enough to receive them. It has long been known 

 that the susceptibility to suggestion is especially great when the 

 subject is in a hypnotic state. Hypnotism as an art, or as an 

 aid in medical practice, is the deliberate and methodical use of 

 the fact that in a condition of unconsciousness a person is open 

 to suggestion in a way that the ordinary consciousness makes im- 

 possible. This treatment by suggestion is due, firstly, to the fact 



