Metapsychical Phenomena: Methods and Observations — John Shaqi
Metapsychical Phenomena: Methods and ObservationsMaxwell, J. (Joseph)
Philosophy
Metapsychical Phenomena: Methods and Observations
Maxwell, J. (Joseph)
Parapsychology -- Investigation
But supposing it to be solved, the problem still remains almost intact.
If the knowledge of a positive fact, certainly unknown to the medium,
appears in his automatic communications, we must not thereupon conclude
that this knowledge is due to the intervention of a disincarnated
spirit. Telepathy may be able to explain it. Telepathy is, as we know,
the transmission of an idea, an impression, a psychical condition
of some kind or other from one person to another. We are altogether
ignorant of its laws, and nothing warrants the assertion, that if
telepathy is a fact—as appears most probable—it is therefore necessary
that any particular motive condition should exist in the agent. We may
suppose with just as much reason, that the existence of a souvenir in
one mind can be discovered and recognised by another, under conditions
solely depending on the mental state of the percipient. This is,
properly speaking, telesthesia. Now it is very difficult to prove
that the fact, of which automatism marks the knowledge, is unknown to
everybody. It is even impossible to prove it. But supposing this were
done, there would always remain the possibility of attributing the
communication to some being other than human: by admitting even the
existence of spiritual or immaterial beings distinct from ourselves,
nothing warrants us to affirm that such beings are our deceased
relatives or friends and not some facetious Kobolds.
Prediction and precognition, of which I have had proof, raise just
as complicated questions as the preceding ones. I confine myself to
recording without trying to explain these facts.
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