From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



The phenomena of stigmatisation and affections of 

 the skin effected by suggestion or auto-suggestion, are 

 but elementary ideoplastic effects much more simple 

 than materialisations, though of the same order. 



Miraculous healing, so called, is a result of the same 

 ideoplasticity directed by suggestion or auto-suggestion 

 in a sense favourable to organic repair, and concentrating 

 for this purpose all the energies of the vital dynamism. 

 It is to be remarked that this subconscious and recupera- 

 tive ideoplastic force is much more active in the lower 

 animals than in man; no doubt because with him cerebral 

 activity engrosses the greater part of his vital activity. 

 There is no miracle in ascribing to the human organism 

 some part of the dynamic and ideoplastic action which 

 is the rule in the lower grades of the animal scale. 



The phenomena of mimetism so frequent in animal 

 forms and so mysterious in their mechanism, may also be 



no contact was made with the legs of the table. . . . We must also 

 remember the complete levitations of tables at the end of seances when 

 every one was standing up, under conditions of control of which precise 

 and circumstantial stenographic notes were taken. 



4 The tables were then raised to greater heights than during the seances, 

 as much as 80 centimetres to a metre from the floor, the hands and feet 

 of the subject being rigorously controlled. 



2. Movements of the small table towards and away from the medium. 

 'This table advances and retreats . . . when it advances towards her 

 it might be imagined that in spite of stringent precautions against fraud, 

 she uses a thread fine enough to be invisible and draws the table by 

 this means. . . . But how can its retreat be explained ? Let us suppose 

 that one of those present should take Eusapia's place and act by ordinary 

 means. Only one procedure can be imagined to hold a rigid rod and 

 push and pull the table by its means. But a rigid rod, however thin, 

 could not escape the sight of closely attentive observers. There 

 could be no question of retreat obtained by passing the thread over a 

 pulley or some projection from the wall, which would involve prepara- 

 tion. The recording apparatus was, of course, entirely motionless; and 

 on the other hand any supposition of collective hallucination must be 

 set aside, as the Marey's cylinder recorded the displacements of the table. 

 Further, it is to be observed that this is no question of attractions and 

 repulsions like those of a magnet, always, quick and in a fixed direction. 

 The table is moved relatively slowly, and its path is curved and irregular. 

 It avoids obstacles to reach a final position.' 



I have cited these observations of the skilled experimenters of the 

 Psychological Institute, not for their special value, which is inconsiderable 

 in view of the great variety and complexity of the phenomena of tele- 

 kinesis; but only in order to give one undeniable and irrefutable instance. 



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