The Law of Psychic Phenomena: A working hypothesis for the systematic study of hypnotism, spiritism, mental therapeutics, etc.Hudson, Thomson Jay
Philosophy
The Law of Psychic Phenomena: A working hypothesis for the systematic study of hypnotism, spiritism, mental therapeutics, etc.
Hudson, Thomson Jay
Parapsychology
custom for years to walk up and down a passage of his house into
which the kitchen-door opened, and to read to himself, with a loud
voice, out of his favorite books. A considerable number of these
were still in the niece's possession. She added that he was a very
learned man and a great Hebraist. Among the books were found a
collection of Rabbinical writings, together with several of the
Greek and Latin Fathers; and the physician succeeded in identifying
so many passages with those taken down at the young woman's bedside
that no doubt could remain in any rational mind concerning the true
origin of the impressions made on her nervous system."
The reader will not fail to observe that in all these cases the
subjects reproduced simply what they had seen, heard, or read. The
impressions upon the objective mind, particularly in the case related
by Coleridge, must have been superficial to the last degree; but the
result demonstrated that the record upon the tablets of the subjective
mind was ineffaceable.
These are not isolated cases. Thousands of similar phenomena have been
recorded by the most trustworthy of observers. Their significance
cannot be mistaken. In their light the wonderful mental feats of
trance-speakers are easily explicable, without invoking the aid of
a supernatural agency. Speaking "in unknown tongues" is seen to be
merely a feat of subjective memory.
When we consider what a prodigy of learning the average man would be if
he could have at his command all that he had ever seen, heard, or read;
when we remember that the subjective mind does record, and does have
at its command, all the experiences of the individual, and that, under
certain abnormal conditions, in obedience to the initial impulse of
suggestion, all its treasures are instantly available,--we may marvel
at the wonderful gifts with which the human mind is endowed; but we
may rest assured that the phenomena displayed are the results of the
operations of natural law.
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