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
Another prolific source of error which besets the pathway of the Paris
school consists in its disbelief in, and consequent disregard of,
the possibility that its subjects may be possessed of clairvoyant or
telepathic powers. That this frequently happens, especially in subjects
of the character employed by Charcot and his coadjutors, admits of no
possible doubt in the minds of those who have studied the higher phases
of hypnotic science. The London Society for Psychical Research has
demonstrated beyond all question the fact that telepathy is a power
possessed by many; and the early mesmerists have shown conclusively
that the hypnotic condition is the one of all others the most favorable
for the development and exhibition of that power. This subject will be
dwelt upon more at length in its proper place. It is sufficient for
present purposes to remark that no line of experiments in hypnotism,
in which telepathy and clairvoyance are ignored as possible factors,
can be held to be demonstrative of any proposition or theory whatever.
But whatever of pathological value or interest may be attached to the
physical phenomena evoked by the Paris school, they certainly shed no
light upon psychological science, nor do they properly belong to that
domain.
And just here I wish to suggest a reform in the nomenclature of the
science under consideration. The word "hypnotism" was adopted by Braid
at a time when he regarded himself as the discoverer of a principle
which embraced the whole science of induced sleep. It is from the
Greek word "hypnos," which broadly signifies sleep. But, without some
qualifying word, it is too broad, inasmuch as the system to which Braid
applied it is now known to be but one of many processes of inducing
sleep. He imagined that he had discovered a full explanation of all
psychic phenomena of the class then known as mesmeric; whereas he
had only discovered the one fact that the sleep could be induced by
producing an abnormal physical condition of certain nerve-centres. It
was a very important discovery, for psychic science would be incomplete
without it; but it does not constitute the whole science. It does,
however, explain many phenomena otherwise inexplicable, and marks a
line of distinction which could not otherwise be drawn. The methods of
the Charcot school are essentially Braidian, and hence its results are
limited largely to physical phenomena, and its conclusions necessarily
pertain to physical science.
The Nancy school, on the other hand, produces all its phenomena by
oral suggestion, and ignores the fact that the sleep can be induced in
the absence of any form of suggestion. It repudiates Braid's method of
inducing it as unnecessary, and also as injurious, in that the physical
disturbance of the nerve-centres unduly excites the patient.
The mesmeric school differs from both the others in methods and theory,
as we shall see further on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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