394 PSYCHOLOGY. 



everything are changed, and there is no after-memory 

 whatever nutil the next trance ccmies. One curious thing 

 about trance-utterances is their generic similarity in ditier- 

 ent individuals. The * control ' here in America is either a 

 grotesque, slangy, and flippant personage (' Indian ' con- 

 trols, calling the ladies ' squaws,' the men ' braves,' the 

 house a 'wigwam,' etc., etc., are excessively common); or, 

 if he ventures on higher intellectual flights, he abounds m a 

 curiously vague optimistic philosophy-and-water, in which 

 phrases about spirit, harmony, beauty, law, progression, 

 develoj^ment, etc., keep recurring. It seems exactly as if 

 one author composed more than half of the trance-mes- 

 sages, no matter by whom they are uttered. Whether all 

 sub-conscious selves are peculiarly susceptible to a certain 

 stratum of the Zeitgeist, and get tlioir inspiration from it, I 

 know not : but this is obviously the case with the second- 

 ary selves which become ' developed ' in spiritualist circles. 

 There the beginnings of the medium trance are indistin- 

 guishable from effects of hypnotic suggestion. The sub- 

 ject assumes the rule of a medium simply because opinion 

 expects it of him under the conditions which are present ; 

 and carries it out with a feebleness or a vivacity propor- 

 tionate to his histrionic gifts. But the odd thing is that 

 persons unexposed to spiritualist traditions will so often act 

 in the same way Avhen they become entranced, speak in the 

 name of the departed, go through the motions of their 

 several death-agonies, send messages about their happy 

 home in the summer-land, and describe the ailments of 

 those present. I have no theory to publish of these cases, 

 several of which I have personally seen. 



As an example of the automatic writing performances I 

 will quote from an account of his own case kindly furnished 

 me by Mr. Sidney Dean of Warren, R. I., member of Con- 

 gress from Connecticut from 1855 to 1859, who has been all 

 his life a robust and active journalist, author, and man of 

 affairs. He has for many years been a writing subject, and 

 has a large collection of manuscript automatically pro- 

 duced. 



" Some of it," he writes us, " is in hieroglyi^h, or strange compouiul- 

 ed arbitrary characters, each series possessing a seeming unity in general 



