THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 393 



out. In most similar cases, the attacks recur, and the sensibilities and 

 conduct markedly change. * 



3. In * medw.msMps ' or 'possessions ' the invasion and the 

 passing away of the secondary state are both relatively 

 abrupt, and the duration of the state is usually short — i.e., 

 from a few minutes to a few hours. Whenever the second- 

 ary state is well developed no memory for aught that hap- 

 pened during it remains after the primary consciousness 

 comes back. The subject during the secondary conscious- 

 ness speaks, writes, or acts as if animated by a foreign jjer- 

 son, and often names this foreign person and gives his 

 history. In old times the foreign ' control ' was usually a 

 demon, and iz so now in communities which favor that be- 

 lief. With us ho gives himself out at the worst for an 

 Indian or other grotesquely sj^eaking but harmless person- 

 age. Usually ho iDurports to be the spirit of a dead per- 

 son known or unknown to tnose present, and the subject is 

 then what we call a 'medium.' Mediumistic possession in 

 all its grades seems to form a perfectly natural special type 

 of alternate personality, and the susceptibility to it in some 

 form is by no means an uncommon gift, in persons who have 

 no other obvious nervous anomaly. The phenomena are 

 Yery intricate, and are only jus'^ beginning to be studied 

 in a proper scientific way. The lowest phase of medium- 

 ship is automatic writing, and the lowest grade of that is 

 where the Subject knows what words are coming, but feels 

 impelled to write them as if from without. Then comes 

 writing unconsciously, even whilst engaged i:. reading or 

 talk. Inspirational speaking, playing on musical instru- 

 ments, etc., also belong to the relatively lower phases of 

 possession, in which the normal self is not excluded from 

 conscious participation in the performance, though their 

 initiative seems to come from elsewhere. In the highest 

 phase the trance is complete, the voice, language, and 



* The details of the case, it will be seen, are all compatible with slmula- 

 lioQ. I can only say cf that, that no one who has examined Mr. Bourne 

 (iucluding Dr Read, Dr. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Guy Hinsdale, and Mr, R. 

 Hodgson) practically doubts his ingrained honesty, nor, so far a.'^ I c;iu 

 discover, do auy of his personal acquaintances indulge in a sceptical viev^^ 



