Adventurings in the PsychicalBruce, H. Addington (Henry Addington)
Science
Adventurings in the Psychical
Bruce, H. Addington (Henry Addington)
Parapsychology
"One day," B writes, "it was raining and she did not want to go out, but
I felt that I could not stay in the house another minute. So I willed
that she should go to walk, and she changed her clothes and went out.
She thought: 'What nonsense this is to go out in this rain! I wish I
knew what I wanted to do five minutes at a time.' She would think: 'I
guess I will go to walk.' And then she would think: 'No, I don't want to
go out in all this rain.' Then, in a few minutes: 'I believe I _will_
go to walk,' etc. And finally she went, more for peace of mind than
anything else."
Frequently, moreover, the subconscious willing to affect A's conduct,
resulted in completely effacing A, and allowing B to reëmerge
spontaneously, in full control.
Thus, there was a dinner party which B was anxious to attend, but while
A was dressing she--A--decided she would not go, and started across
the room to telephone and say she would not be present. At once B
subconsciously began to think: "I want to go," "You must go." And poor
A first became very much confused, then faded away entirely, with the
result that the telephone message was not sent, and B was free to
attend the party, and enjoy another of the "good times" that meant so
much to her.
Where A suffered most of all by reason of this subtle power of B to
influence her actions, lay in the difficulty she had in communicating
with Doctor Prince, and in going to him for treatment. B well knew that
her career would come to an end the moment Doctor Prince succeeded in
reassociating his patient's disintegrated personality, and she fought
desperately to preserve her existence, repeatedly preventing A, as
mentioned in the extracts quoted from the diary, from telephoning to
Doctor Prince, writing to him, or visiting him; all of which greatly
increased A's confusion, misery, and unhappiness.
But, as it chanced, although Doctor Prince was earnestly desirous of
effectually and forever suppressing B, he was not at all desirous of
doing this for A's sake; and was, in fact, as anxious to get rid of A
as he was to get rid of B.
For, to inject a new complication into this most complicated affair, he
had by this time discovered that A had no more right to consideration
than B, since A no more than B represented the patient's normal
personality. His searching study of the case--the duel between A and
B lasted a year or more--had convinced him that there had been not a
single, but a double, dissociation of personality; and that the normal
self, in consequence first of the shock occasioned by the husband's
illness and death, and afterward of the shock that brought the B
personality to the fore, had been violently relegated to some obscure
department of the patient's subconsciousness, where, however, it
assuredly was existent, and where it was an intensely interested, if
helpless, spectator of the struggle being waged for control by the two
usurping selves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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