organic modifications. Cases of: 817 A. Dr. N. 817 B and C. Mrs. Hadselle. 817 D. Lady de Vesci.

818. The inhibitory impulses may sometimes relate to exceedingly trivial matters. Cases of: 818 A. Mrs. Verrall. 818 B. Mrs. Elliott.

819. Or a sudden inhibition may be combined with a corresponding impulse; case of Dr. Hodgson finding five-leaved clover. 819 A. Case of Dr. Guebhard finding bifid fern.

820. Sometimes the impulse may conceivably be explained by a subconscious perception or interpretation.-Case of Mr. Wyman.

821. A similar case where the sense of smell may have played a part.Case of Mr. C. W. Moses. 821 A. Case of Mrs. Gray.

822. Another case, possibly due to smell or sense of varying resistance in the air.-Mr. Wait.

823. A similar case, perhaps attributable to excessive tactile sensibility.Mr. W.

824. A case of inhibition which seems beyond explanation by hyperæsthesia, and suggests telæsthesia or spirit guardianship.-Dr. Parsons.

825. We next come to cases involving massive motor impulses to various actions. Case of Mr. Garrison. 825 A. Case of Mr. Skirving.

826. Innate predisposition to motor automatisms of various kinds. Scheme of increasingly specialised motor phenomena. Rise of automatic writing.Edmund Gurney and W. Stainton Moses. My own experience.

827. Automatic writing a mode of experiment harmless in itself.

828. Classification of contents of messages.

829. Most automatic script originates in the automatist's own brain.—Mr. H. A. Smith's cases.

830.

case.

Reference to anagrams in the "Clelia" case. 830 A. The "Clelia "

831. Case of Professor Sidgwick's friend.

832. Mr. Schiller's case (832 A);-appearance of fictitious personalities, although neither invited nor credited by the automatist. 832 B. Case of Sœur Jeanne.

833. Case of Madame X. An unusual combination of various motor automatisms.

834. The cases just described lead up to Professor Flournoy's case of "Hélène Smith."

835. Mlle. Smith an example of continuous and complex subliminal mentation going on in a perfectly healthy and normal organism.

836. Her alleged reincarnations.

837. The Martian language.

838.

839.

840.

841.

842.

Reversion to previous epochs of life.

Possible sport of spirits.

Mlle. Smith's "teleological " automatisms.

Indications of supernormal faculty.

Possible telepathy from the dead. The Chessenaz case.

843. We now pass on to cases of phenomena much more clearly supernormal. Telepathy obtained through table-tilting. Cases of: 843 A. Professor Richet. 843 B. Mr. G. M. Smith.

844. I give next cases of automatic writing, the first of which (Mrs. Moberley's) shows indications of telepathy.

845. Telepathic cases simulating prophecy; e.g., that of Miss Summerbell. 846. Answers to questions written correctly, although not as the agent supraliminally intended; case of Mr. Allbright.

847. Another telepathic case, involving the agent's subliminal thoughts.Mr. Riddell.

848.

Our most striking case is a long series of telepathic communications between Mr. and Mrs. Newnham.

849.

Mrs. Newnham writes automatically answers to unspoken questions by Mr. Newnham. 849 A. Case of Mrs. Newnham.

850. A similar but shorter series is given in the next Appendix. 850 A. Case of Mr. Buttemer.

851. The next case shows occasional telepathy, mingled with fragments of apparent clairvoyance and premonition. 851 A. Case of Lady Mabel Howard. 852. A case of communication through table-tilting from a distant agent.Mrs. Kirby. 852 A. Case of M. Auguez;-prediction of death. 852 B. Signor Bonatti's automatic writing; telepathy from a distant living agent. 853. Transitional cases ;-information purporting to come from deceased persons, but more probably derived telepathically from the living; case of Mr. Lewis.

854.

Message purporting to come from a deceased person who was found to be living; case of Mr. Long.

855. Case of automatic writing reproducing experimentally the thoughts of the persons present.

856. Statement through table-tilting of incident occurring at the time in a neighbouring house.-Professor Alexander's case.

857. Telepathy may produce erroneous statements through the agent's thoughts being reproduced as matters of fact. 857 A. Case of Professor H.

858. Dr. Ermacora's experiments with a sensitive,-Maria Manzini. 858 A. Her automatic writing gives the contents of a letter which reached her next morning.

859. The information may be derived from discarnate spirits--though not necessarily from those alleged in the communications. The communicators may deliberately veil their identity, and may also have access to sources of knowledge remote even to themselves. 859 A. These problems are exemplified in the automatic writings of Miss A.

860. In these and other retrocognitive cases, it is difficult to decide between the hypotheses of "cryptomnesia" and spirit-control.

861. Mr. Wedgwood's experiments with Mrs. R.;-case of communications purporting to come from Colonel Gurwood (who died in 1845).

862. Another retrocognitive case of the same kind through Mrs. R., namely:-862 A. The "David Brainerd" case.

863. But retrocognitive messages referring to matters easily accessible in print (e.g. Mr. Moses' case of musical composers, giving dates of their lives), even if genuine, may be attributed to clairvoyance on the part of the automatist. 864. A resemblance of the handwriting to that of the deceased person is sometimes alleged, but must be received with caution. 864 A. Professor RossiPagnoni's experiments at Pesaro.

865. Another case of alleged resemblances of handwriting, which also illustrates the spontaneous recurrence of the same problems with automatists of many different types, namely:-865 A. Case of Mrs. Underwood.

866. Cases where the writing announces a death unknown to the persons present ;-instance reported by Dr. Liébeault.

867. In another case, partially correct details about the death are added. 867 A. Case of Mdlle. Stramm.

868. Sometimes telekinetic phenomena seem to be associated with the announcement of a death. 868 A. The Péréliguine case. 868 B. Case of Mr. F. Hodgson. 868 C. Ref. to Woodd knockings."

869. Cases where correct details unknown to the automatist are given regarding a death which is known to him. 869 A. Case of Mrs. Fitzgerald. 869 B. The Skrytnikoff case.

870. A communication corresponding, not to the knowledge of the sitters, but to what was known to the alleged communicator before death. 870 A. Case of Signor Cavalli.

871. Automatic writing by a child, showing faculties superior to those she normally possessed, with some writing in languages unknown to her. 871 A. Mr. Junor Browne's case.

872. Writing by a young child who had no knowledge of her letters. 872 A. Mr. Hempstead's case.

873. A series of writings by Mr. W., with indications of subliminal telæsthesia, and telepathy both from the living and from the dead. 873 A. Another experience of Mr. W.'s.

874. A prediction given through table-tilting of the precise date of a death. 874 A. Dr. Suddick's case.

875. Example pointing to continued terrene knowledge on the part of a deceased person; case of Mrs. von Wieseler.

876. A test message planned before death and communicated afterwards; case of Mrs. Finney. 876 A. Case of Prince Emile Wittgenstein; message about missing will. 876 B. Dr. Knorr's case; message about missing note.

877. Desirability of planning beforehand communications to be made after death as a test of personal identity. 877 A. Note on posthumous letters.

878. The evidence as to motor phenomena here set forth confirms and extends the conceptions to which the cognate sensory phenomena pointed ;— the expansion of normal leading on to the development of supernormal faculties. The motor phenomena suggest more strongly than the sensory the hypothesis of "psychical invasion," which, if sufficiently prolonged, becomes a persistent "control" or "possession."

879. When the subliminal self is affected by a telepathic impact which works itself out by automatic movements, it becomes a question whether the movements are executed by the subliminal self or by the external agent.

880. This leads us on to the problem to be discussed in the next chapter; —in what ways may two spirits co-operate in the possession and control of the same organism?

CHAPTER IX

TRANCE, POSSESSION, AND ECSTASY

900. Possession may be defined as a development of Motor Automatism, resulting at last in a substitution of personality; there has recently been a great advance in the evidence for this theory.

901. Further, it coheres with modern notions of personality,-of the control of organism by spirit. It implies that the spirit of the entranced automatist partially quits his organism, and allows an invading spirit to occupy and use it.

902. The conception-similar as it is to primitive beliefs-will be found to co-ordinate and explain many of our earlier groups of phenomena.

903. First, the alternating use of brain-centres by alternate personalities 'seems to form a link in the series which ends in possession.

904. Genius suggests a possession of the brain-centres by the subliminal self.

905. In sleep it appears that the spirit may sometimes travel away from the body and perceive distant scenes clairvoyantly.

906. In the hypnotic trance or in spontaneous somnambulism, we often find a quasi-personality occupying the organism, while the sensitive's own spirit often claims to have been absent elsewhere, and sometimes exhibits real clairvoyant power. Telepathic intercourse, if carried far enough, corresponds to possession or to ecstasy.

907. In telepathy we encounter an influence which suggests an intelligent and responsive external presence, and telepathy between the living leads on to telepathy from the dead; which implies that the communication does not depend on vibrations from a material brain.

908. When motor automatism develops into possession, there is apparently no communication between the discarnate mind and the mind of the automatist, but rather with the latter's brain.

909. Even in ordinary cases of telepathy, the percipient's brain may sometimes be influenced by his own mind, and sometimes directly by the agent's; in the latter case, the influence may be termed telergic. Veridical apparitions also show traces of the spiritual and the physical elements mingling in various degrees as we pass from clairvoyant visions to collective apparitions.

910. The same stages are to be seen in the case of apparitions of the dead -leading up to complete possession of the automatist's brain by an extraneous spirit.

911. Possession by spirits is difficult to distinguish from cases of secondary personality, where the organism is controlled by another synthesis of its own spirit. We must not ascribe to spirit-control cases where no new knowledge is shown in the trance state.

912. In reputed savage cases of possession, the hostility of the control to the automatist is no proof of its being other than a secondary personality. 912 A. Dr. Nevius on demon possession in China.

913. It is sometimes claimed that these controls show supernormal knowledge, but the cases recorded may generally be explained by heightened memory, with possible traces of telepathy. In cases where there is good evidence of supernormal knowledge, the controls have always been both human and friendly.

914. We should expect spirit-control to be subject to the same limits that we find in controls by secondary personalities; e.g. the external spirit is not likely to be able to produce utterance in a language unknown to the automatist.

915. In both cases, and also in dreams, memory seems to fail and change in a capricious way.

916. Again, it is hard to get into continuous colloquy with a somnambulist,

who generally follows his own train of ideas, and similar difficulties seem occur in conversing with spirit-controls.

to

917. Our expectations will thus be very different from the commonplace or even the poetic notion of what communication with the dead is likely to be.

918. The actual phenomena fail to comply either with the orthodox or traditional line of expectation, or with romantic anticipations, or with the notion that they should subserve some practical purpose.

919. The problems of possession, on the other hand, form the natural sequence of our earlier problems; the actions of the possessed organism show the furthest stage of motor automatism; the incursion of the possessing spirit is the completest form of telepathic invasion.

920. We must now briefly consider the relation of spiritual influences to the world of matter. In some telergic cases, it appears that the agent's spirit acts directly on the percipient's brain.

921. In cases of possession, it is possible that the controlling spirit may impel the organism to more forcible movements than its usual ones.

922. It may also be able to use the organism more skilfully and emit from it an energy which can move objects not in contact with it; this phenomenon is termed by Aksakoff telekinesis.

г 923. The interest excited in the ordinary public by the "physical phenomena of spiritualism," or telekinesis, has, as is well known, fostered much fraud, to expose and guard against which has been one of the main tasks of the S.P.R. 923 A. References to exposures of Madame Blavatsky. 923 B. References to exposures of other spiritualistic frauds.

924. In this work, telekinesis is only dealt with where it appears as an element in spirit-possession, especially in the cases of D. D. Home and Stainton Moses.

925. Telekinesis may begin as a form of automatism, initiated by the subliminal self, and there may occasionally, though not provably, be an element of it in table-tilting or automatic writing. This may develop into raps or into movements of distant objects. 925 A. Case of Mr. Vaughan.

926. The right comprehension of telekinetic phenomena must depend on a knowledge greater than we at present possess of the relations between matter and ether. A tentative sketch of what may be done by future inquiries is given in a "Scheme of Vital Faculty" (926 A). 926 B. References to accounts of telekinetic cases.

927. Sporadic cases of ecstasy or possession seem not infrequent in some private circles. 927 A. Mr. O.'s case. Cases of 927 B. Miss White;

927 C. Miss Lottie Fowler. 928. All such cases are difficult to classify precisely, but the more developed forms of possession throw light on the more rudimentary ones.

929. The most rudimentary form seems to be a momentary possession by the subliminal self: e.g. case of Mrs. Luther.

930. Or there may be a brief psychical excursion in which some knowledge is gained and uttered automatically by the subliminal self: e.g. case of Professor Thoulet.

931. The next case-that of Mr. Goodall-suggests a kind of telepathic conversation between the subliminal self, controlling the utterance of the sleeper, and some perhaps discarnate spirit.

932.

The next-Mr. Wilkie's-is a miniature case of possession.