The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
In other cases the adoption of the name by the secondary self is more
spontaneous. I have seen a number of incipient automatic writers
and mediums as yet imperfectly 'developed,' who immediately and of
their own accord write and speak in the name of departed spirits.
These may be public characters, as Mozart, Faraday, or real persons
formerly known to the subject, or altogether imaginary beings.
Without prejudicing the question of real 'spirit-control' in the more
developed sorts of trance-utterance, I incline to think that these
(often deplorably unintelligent) rudimentary utterances are the work
of an inferior fraction of the subject's own natural mind, set free
from control by the rest, and working after a set pattern fixed by the
prejudices of the social environment. In a spiritualistic community we
get optimistic messages, whilst in an ignorant Catholic village the
secondary personage calls itself by the name of a demon, and proffers
blasphemies and obscenities, instead of telling us how happy it is in
the summer-land.[218]
Beneath these tracts of thought, which, however rudimentary, are
still organized selves with a memory, habits, and sense of their own
identity, M. Janet thinks that the facts of catalepsy in hysteric
patients drive us to suppose that there are thoughts quite unorganized
and impersonal. A patient in cataleptic trance (which can be produced
artificially in certain hypnotized subjects) is without memory on
waking, and seems insensible and unconscious as long as the cataleptic
condition lasts. If, however, one raises the arm of such a subject it
stays in that position, and the whole body can thus be moulded like
wax under the hands of the operator, retaining for a considerable
time whatever attitude he communicates to it. In hysterics whose arm,
for example, is anæsthetic, the same thing may happen. The anæsthetic
arm may remain passively in positions which it is made to assume; or
if the hand be taken and made to hold a pencil and trace a certain
letter, it will continue tracing that letter indefinitely on the
paper. These acts, until recently, were supposed to be accompanied by
no consciousness at all: they were physiological reflexes. M. Janet
considers with much more plausibility that feeling escorts them.
The feeling is probably merely that of the position or movement of
the limb, and it produces no more than its natural effects when it
discharges into the motor centres which keep the position maintained,
or the movement incessantly renewed.[219] Such thoughts as these, says
M. Janet, "are known by _no one_, for disaggregated sensations reduced
to a state of mental dust are not synthetized in any personality."[220]
He admits, however, that these very same unutterably stupid thoughts
tend to develop memory,--the cataleptic ere long moves her arm at a
bare hint; so that they form no important exception to the law that all
thought tends to assume the form of personal consciousness.
2) _Thought is in Constant Change._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account