A; CONTRIBU LION LO TEE VESYCHOLOGY OF “SLATAH,’? 143 
But when alone, much of his leisure is spent in day-dreaming 
or abstraction, really a subconscious state. It is difficult to con- 
ceive more favourable conditions for such a state than in a quiet 
village, with its warmth, its stillness and the absence of any dis- 
turbing element. So long as these moods of abstraction are in- 
termittent and occasional, they are quite within the normal hmit 
but when they are prolonged, as in the “fakir,” they pass that mit 
and may then be looked on as an auto-hypnosis, or in any case, a 
hypnoidal state. 
The condition of abstraction is difficult of comprehension by 
the twentieth century mind which has little opportunity for any 
but conscious thought, but it is a well recognised state in psycho- 
logy. It is a temporary dissociation of conscious thought, during 
which we sink into the subconscious, and most people are aware of 
such a state, although they probably cannot define it. It is the 
“shadowy representation ” of Kant, the “ perceptions insensibles ”” 
of Liebnitz, the “‘ subconscious ” of Myer, the “ unconscious ” of 
Freud, the “ subliminal” of Yung, and it has been defined as “ the 
sum of all psychical processes which do not reach the level of con- 
sciousness.” ‘To illustrate my meaning is a little difficult. There 
are a considerable series of thoughts and memories which it is im- 
possible to recall by any effort of volition, but which are readily 
brought into consciousness when a suitable stimulus, usually in the 
form of a similar association, presents itself. Thus it is, possibly 
within the experience of most, that some train of events arises 
which causes us to remark, “I have been through all this before, 
but when or where I do not recollect,” the fact being that a similar 
train of events had been experienced and been registered in the 
subconscious, and it required the stimulus of a similar train to 
bring the recollection within the grasp of the conscious mind. 
The question arises “ What has this to do with “latah” ? 
In the condition of abstraction (i.e. when the subconscious 
holds sway) so indulged in by the country Malay, the individual is 
readily influenced by suggestions or stimuli, and suggestions or 
stimuli which would be rejected by the conscious mind would exert 
their full influence, and, following the usual rule, their passage 
would, by repetition, become more rapid and easy. The subcons- 
cious, even in the educated, is but little removed from the reflex 
or automatic, and a further factor in the equation is that we are 
dealing with a primitive mind, in which many of the processes are 
reflex or instinctive and have not yet, or only recently, been sub- 
jected to the influence of education, the greater part of which 
consists in the development of the power of inhibition of our pri- 
mary instincts and their adjustment to the surroundings. So far, 
I have been dealing with the predisposing factors to the “ Jatah ” 
state but the determining factor, the “ X ” in the equation, is the 
neuropathic inheritance or, what I believe to be of equal potency, 
early neuropathic association. 
R. A. Soc., No. 85, 1922. 
