TELEPATHY AND THE
SUBLIMINAL SELF
NATHAN EARLY
Phototype from an Automatic Painting. (See page 196.)
TELEPATHY
AND
THE SUBLIMINAL SELF
AN ACCOUNT OF RECENT INVESTIGATIONS REGARDING
HYPNOTISM, AUTOMATISM, DREAMS, PHANTASMS,
AND RELATED PHENOMENA
BY
R. OSGOOD MASON, A.M., M.D.
Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1897
Copyright, 1897,
BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.
PREFACE.
To whatever conclusions it may lead us, there is no mistaking the factthat now more than ever before is the public interested in mattersrelating to the “New Psychology.” Scarcely a day passes that notice ofsome unusual psychical experience or startling phenomenon does not appearin popular literature. The newspaper, the magazine, and the novel vie witheach other in their efforts to excite interest and attract attention bythe display of these strange incidents, presented sometimes withintelligence and taste, but oftener with a culpable disregard of bothtaste and truth.
The general reader is not yet critical regarding these matters, but he isat least interested, and desires to know what can be relied upon asestablished truth amongst these various reports. There is inquiryconcerning Telepathy or Thought-Transference—is it a fact or is it adelusion? Has Hypnotism any actual standing either in science[Pg iv] or commonsense? What of Clairvoyance, Planchette, Trance and Trance utterances,Crystal-Gazing and Apparitions?
In the following papers intelligent readers, both in and out of themedical profession, will find these subjects fairly stated and discussed,and to some of the questions asked, fair and reasonable answers given. Itis with the hope of aiding somewhat in the efforts now being made torescue from an uncertain and unreasoning supernaturalism some of the mostvaluable facts in nature, and some of the most interesting and beautifulpsychical phenomena in human experience, that this book is offered to thepublic.
To such studies, however, it is objected by some that the principlesinvolved in these unusual mental actions are too vague and the facts toonew and unsubstantiated to be deserving of serious consideration; but itshould be remembered that all our knowledge, even that which is nowreckoned as science, was once vague and tentative; it is absurd,therefore, to ignore newly-found facts simply because they are new andtheir laws unknown; nevertheless, in psychical matters especially, this isthe tendency of the age.
But even if upon the practical side these studies should be deemedunsatisfactory, it would not[Pg v] follow that they are without use orinterest. It is a truism that our western civilization is over-intense andpractical; it is materialistic, hard, mechanica