"From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



characteristics and properties are factitious and unreal, the 

 mystery and the impossibility disappear; or become 

 merely correlatives of our ignorance and weakness. 

 The changes presented by both normal and supernormal 

 physiology have no other philosophical meaning than 

 changes in the external appearance of things. The 

 causality which makes them what they are, and the 

 explanation by which they are understood, lie in the 

 dynamo-psychism which conditions them. 



What is true in this matter from the physiological 

 point of view, is even more decisively true from the 

 psychological standpoint : the supernormal only becomes 

 comprehensible when we distinguish the essential 

 dynamo-psychism from its representations. In order 

 to conceive of the possibility of action from mind to 

 mind it is necessary first to admit the reality of a superior 

 psychic mechanism (psychism) detached from the usual 

 contingencies which pertain to psychological representa- 

 tions. 



In order that vision at a distance beyond the range 

 of the senses, or the lucidity which presents the past, 

 the present, or the future, may no longer seem incredible 

 miracles, it is indispensable that we should first under- 

 stand that time and space are but the means of our 

 representations and are as artificial and illusory as the 

 representations themselves. 



Thus the concept, which has found its best expression 

 in the works of Schopenhauer, 1 must henceforth quit 

 the realm of metaphysics for that of science. 



That which is real and permanent in the individual, 

 which Schopenhauer called Will, we designate as 

 essential dynamo-psychism, and the distinction between 

 this and its temporary representations is founded on 

 facts. At least everything occurs as if this were so. 



1 Schopenhauer had already seen the importance of the phenomena 

 known as supernormal to his metaphysical scheme. (Parerga and 

 Paralipomena.) 



3Z3 Q 



