From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



of them appears the admirably modelled features of a 

 woman. The eyes especially have an intensely living 

 expression. At the end of a few moments, the phenom- 

 enon fades, diminishes in visibility, and disappears.' I 

 have also seen, on several occasions, a hand presented 

 wrapped in a membrane closely resembling the placental 

 membrance. The impression produced, both as to 

 sight and touch, was precisely that of a hand presenta- 

 tion in childbirth, when the amnion is unbroken. 



Another analogy with childbirth is that of pain. 

 The moans and movements of the entranced medium 

 remind one strangely of a woman in travail. 



The proposed assimilation of normal to supernormal 

 physiology is therefore legitimate, for it results from 

 the examination of facts. It raises, however, some serious 

 objections, which we shall briefly examine. 



In the first place, it may be objected, that if normal 

 and supernormal physiology both result from the same 

 biologic process, whence comes their apparent diversity ? 

 Why is the one regular, and the other exceptional, cut 

 off from the usual accessories of time, space, generative 

 conditions, etc. ? We reply that normal physiology is 

 the product of organic activity such as evolution has 

 made it. The creative and directing idea normally 

 works in a given sense, that of the evolution of the 

 species, and conforms to the manner of that evolution. 

 Supernormal physiology, on the other hand, is the 

 product of ideoplastic activity directed in a divergent 

 manner by an abnormal effort of the directing idea. 



To explain this activity, divergent from the usual 

 conditions, there is no need to invoke a miraculous or 

 supernormal agency. Science and philosophy are logi- 

 cally harmonised by an explanation at once more simple 

 and more satisfying. These abnormal ideoplastic possi- 

 bilities, these apparently mysterious powers over Matter, 

 simply prove ihat the laws which preside over the 

 material world have not the absolute and inflexible 



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