Spiritualism and the New Psychology: An Explanation of Spiritualist Phenomena and Beliefs in Terms of Modern Knowledge — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Spiritualism and the New Psychology: An Explanation of Spiritualist Phenomena and Beliefs in Terms of Modern Knowledge
John Stuart Mill · en
A few extracts from _How to Speak with the Dead_[36] will illustrate
these pernicious attempts.
[Footnote 36: By Sciens: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co.]
(Page 88) 'By sitting in some place quite alone and free from
interruption, and by adopting a mental attitude of passive
receptivity and expectancy, the soul becomes ready to perceive and
be affected by any spirits that may be in its vicinity and that may
attempt to open up communications.... The manifestations ... may
vary from thought-suggestion to positive physical phenomena ...
such as the hearing of a voice or even the visual appearance of
some supernormal object. All depends upon whether the sitter is or
is not susceptible to psychical influence, and also upon whether
the locality or the sitter personally is or is not haunted.'
Then (page 91) when the Dissociation has developed:--
'In cases where the sitter is markedly "psychic" it frequently happens
that normal control over the body is lost. A condition of trance
supervenes, and while this continues the spirit--which may be either a
"second personality" or a soul from the outside--that has gained the
upper hand makes use to a greater or less extent of the brain and other
organs subject to its mastery. The hand may write: the mouth may speak:
the whole body may be engaged in some impersonation; and all this may
take place beyond the scope of the sitter's normal consciousness.'
Lest the hysterical dissociation is not yet enough developed, the victim
receives, on page 98, another thrust along the road to disease:--
'If it be found on trial that psychic powers exist to an
appreciable extent it may be taken for granted that they are
capable of very great increase by persevering effort and systematic
employment.'
A warning is both given and stultified on page 107:--
'Self-deception and the imaginations bred of wishes and emotions
are to be guarded against;' ... 'in solitary Expectancy fraud and
trickery are completely absent, and all manifestations are matters
of the most simple personal observation, the accuracy of which can
be confirmed--as in an ordinary scientific laboratory--by the test
of repetition.'