286 MAN AND THE WORLD. 



respondence has been recorded even In the case of 

 dreams/ but for a frequent and normal occurrence 

 of such parallelism we must go to the nascent science 

 of hypnotism. 



Not only are hypnotized subjects easily subjected 

 to hallucinations at the will of their operator, both 

 while hypnotized and when they have apparently 

 returned to their normal condition, but it Is quite 

 possible to make several subjects share in the same 

 hallucination. 



Now as yet our knowledge of these phenomena 

 Is too rudimentary for us to assign limits to the 

 extent and complexity of the hallucinations which 

 may be in this way induced, but even now their 

 consistency Is quite astounding. The subject to 

 whom it has been suggested that he will at such 

 and such a time have audience of the President of 

 the French Republic, Is not disillusioned by any 

 incongruity in the appearance and demeanour of his 

 phantom president : a hallucinatory photograph on 

 a spotless piece of paper obeys all the laws of optics ; 

 it is reflected in a mirror, doubled by a prism, 

 magnified by a lens, etc.^ 



And if such effects are possible to us, if we can 

 experimentally create subjective worlds of objective 

 reality (i.e., valid for several persons), even though 

 of comparatively limited extent and variety, in a 

 human consciousness, what may not be achieved by 

 an operator of vastly greater knowledge and power } 

 Shall we assert that this hallucinatory cosmos would 

 fall short even of the almost infinite complexity and 

 variety of our world ? 



1 Vide Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 380 fF., 590 ff. 

 '^Proceedings of the Psychical Society, vol. iv. p. 11, vol. iii. 

 p. 167. 



