Meanwhile the first thing that anyone learns who attends seriously to
these phenomena is that their causation is far too complex for our
feelings about what is or is not romantic enough to be spiritual to
throw any light upon it. The causal factors must be carefully
distinguished and traced through series, from their simplest to their
strongest forms, before we can begin to understand the various
resultants in which they issue. Myers and Gurney began this work, the
one by his serial study of the various sorts of "automatism," sensory
and motor, the other by his experimental proofs that a split-off
consciousness may abide after a post-hypnotic suggestion has been
given. Here we have subjective factors; but are not transsubjective or
objective forces also at work? Veridical messages, apparitions,
movements without contact, seem _prima facie_ to be such. It was a
good stroke on Gurney's part to construct a theory of apparitions which
brought the subjective and the objective factors into harmonious
co-operation. I doubt whether this telepathic theory of Gurney's will
hold along the whole line of apparitions to which he applied it, but it
is unquestionable that some theory of that mixed type is required for
the explanation of all mediumistic phenomena; and that when all the
psychological factors and elements involved have been told off--and
they are many--the question still forces itself upon us: Are these all,
or are there indications of any residual forces acting on the subject
from beyond, or of any "meta-psychic" faculty (to use Richet's useful
term) exerted by him? This is the problem that requires real
expertness, and this is where the simple sentimentalisms of the
spiritist and scientist leave us in the lurch completely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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