But even if upon the practical side these studies should be deemed unsatisfactory, it would not follow that they are without use or interest. It is a truism that our western civilization is over-intense and practical; it is materialistic, hard, mechanical; it values nothing, it believes in nothing that cannot be weighed, measured, analyzed, labelled and appraised;--feeling, intuition, aspiration, monitions, glimpses of knowledge that are from within--not external nor distinctly cognizable,--these are all slighted, despised, trampled upon by a supercilious dilettanteism on the one hand and an uninstructed philistinism on the other, and the result has been a development that is abnormal, unsymmetrical, deformed, and tending to disintegration. To a few, oriental mysticism, to others the hasty deductions of spiritualism, and to many more the supernaturalism of the various religious systems, offer at least a partial, though often exaggerated, antidote to this inherent vice, because they all contemplate a spiritual or at least a transcendental aspect of man's nature in contrast to that which is purely material. But even these partial remedies are not available to all, and they are unsatisfactory to many. As a basis to a more symmetrical and permanent development, some generally recognized facts relative to the constitution and action of these more subtle forces in our being must be certified; and as an introduction to that work, it is hoped that these studies in the outlying fields of psychology will not be found valueless. A portion of the papers here presented are republished, much revised, by courtesy of _The New York Times_. NEW YORK, _October, 1896_. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. Psychical Research--Telepathy or Thought-Transference 1 CHAPTER II. Mesmerism and Hypnotism--History and Therapeutic Effects 28 CHAPTER III. Hypnotism--Psychical Aspect 51 CHAPTER IV. Lucidity or Clairvoyance 74 CHAPTER V. Double or Multiplex Personality 116 CHAPTER VI. Natural Somnambulism--Hypnotic Somnambulism--Dreams 129 CHAPTER VII. Automatism--Planchette 151 CHAPTER VIII. Automatic Writing, Drawing and Painting 181 CHAPTER IX. Crystal-gazing 198 CHAPTER X. Phantasms 224 CHAPTER XI. Phantasms, Continued 262 CHAPTER XII. Conclusions 307 CHAPTER I. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH--TELEPATHY OR THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE.