CHAPTER I.

Somnambulism and Psychic Phenomena. Before entering upon the subject of “How to Thought Read”--or rather, range of interesting subjects grouped under this title--it is proposed to deal briefly with the key to the whole, which is to be found in the revelations of man’s inner life, soul-life and character, presented by somnambulism and trance, whether natural or induced. The use of a few simple terms having a well-defined meaning will help the reader and prepare him for the more careful study of the psychic side of human life. The somnambulistic and trance states may be divided, for the convenience of examination, into the Hypnotic, or state of hypnosis; the Mesmeric, or somnambulistic; and the Psychic, or lucid somnambulistic--or briefly, the Hypnotic, Mesmeric, and Psychic states. The operator is the controlling agent, hypnotist, or mesmerist; in spiritualism, the guide or control. The sensitive is the subject, the percipient, psychic, patient, or person who passes into the hypnotic, mesmeric, or trance states, etc. Hypnosis is the term used for the hypnotic state artificially induced by the agent. Hypnosis is the lowest rung of the ladder; the psychic or soul state the highest. The intermediate phases, as indicated in conscious or sub-conscious conditions of life, are innumerable and not readily classified. Still, the states mentioned will give a favourable insight to the whole. In hypnosis, physical rather than mental phenomena are evolved; _anæsthesia_, or non-sensitiveness to pain, is more or less present. The senses of smell and hearing are partially exalted, and the sensitive may be partially or wholly unconscious. The mesmeric state is the term frequently used to denote ordinary artificial somnambulism. It is actually the higher or more perfect form of hypnosis. The senses in this state are more fully submerged, and the mental faculties are more fully exalted, than in hypnosis. The psychic state, as the mesmeric, relates to the mental, and hypnosis to the more physical, so does the psychic state refer to that class of extraordinary somnambulism in which the mental and the spiritual gifts transcend in character and power those of the foregoing states. In this state the higher phenomena of lucid somnambulism, clairvoyance, and thought-transference are manifested more perfectly than in any other. The hypnotic, the mesmeric, and the psychic states indicated are frequently interlinked in manifestation. The sensitive may pass from the first to the last without apparent gradation. It is well to keep these divisions in thought, so that in practice no one will be content with the _lower_ where it is possible, by wise and judicious observations and operations, to induce the higher. To make the matter still more clear, in hypnosis and in the mesmeric state all phenomena may be said to be induced through and by the influence and the direction of the operator. Not that he produces the effects as they are exhibited by the sensitive, but they are brought about through the agency of his suggestions or operations. In the psychic state this is not always the case. The influence of the operator may at times be almost _nil_. The operator will find it best--when the sensitive is in a high lucid state--to become an observer and a learner, and no longer continue the _rôle_ of director. In the psychic state, the soul-powers, so often submerged in ordinary life, transcend in a remarkable manner. The senses are completely suspended and the mind exalted to such a degree, a clearly defined super-sensuous condition is reached. Whether this stage or condition is induced by fasting, prayer, disease, or by mesmeric agencies, matters little. In it we find the key to the seership, and the clairvoyance, and the prophetic utterance, and the mystic powers attributed to and exercised by prophet, and seer, and sybil in the past. By the investigation of the phenomena evolved by the psychic state we are enabled to understand something of man’s soul or spiritual nature, apart from the phenomena induced by pathological conditions of brain and body. The foregoing view presented of mesmeric conditions may be very different from that which medical men may glean from hypnotic practice with hysterical and lobsided patients, and certainly not the views which the general public are likely to gather from seeing a number of paid “subjects” knocked about a music hall stage by an ignorant showman. From the roughest to the finest, from matter to spirit, from hypnosis to the psychic state, we find enough to arrest attention and give a high degree of seriousness and earnestness to our investigation. We stand on the threshold of soul, and the place where we stand is holy ground. We find, as is the physical, mental, and spiritual characteristics of the operator, _plus_ those of the sensitive or sensitives, so will be the nature of the phenomena evolved. It will be observed some subjects never get beyond the first state, or hypnosis; others that of the second, or mesmeric. All sensitives, in keeping with their temperamental and mental developments (as revealed by phrenology and psychometry), are better adapted for one class of phenomena than that of others. It may be further observed that the foregoing states may be self-induced or, directly and indirectly, the product of “spirit-control,” drugs, or bodily disease. Hypnosis, we must bear in mind, although not unlike the mesmeric state, has no more relation to that condition than sleep produced by an exhaustive walk or a dose of laudanum is like natural or healthy sleep. Indeed, hypnosis is not properly a condition of sleep. In the majority of cases the sensitive is never wholly unconscious. It is rather a state in which there is a temporary perversion or subordination between brain impressions and consciousness. The sensitive in hypnosis is often less intelligent than in the normal or waking state. For various reasons the state of hypnosis may be recognised as that state in which the mind is subjected to certain abnormal conditions of the body, notably of the brain, spinal cord, and indirectly of the circulation, induced by certain means determined upon by the operator. The mental condition in this state is one of almost pure automatism, in which hallucination or sense illusions are more or less present. Great and serious are the responsibilities of those who bring about the state of hypnosis. Every thought and feeling, of whatever kind, infused in this state, like seed, will take root and germinate, and finally bud into action in the daily or waking consciousness, and determine unconsciously for the sensitive the character of his life. Hypnotism is neither for indiscriminate use, nor is hypnosis to be induced as a plaything for the thoughtless--medical or lay. At the same time, in the hands of the thoughtful, its educative value is most important, for, if the operator is well poised, and feels that, he can impart higher thoughts and strengthen the will[A] of the sensitives by the twofold agencies of impressionability and suggestion. This is something not to be despised. It is surely no degradation to be saved from evils one cannot overcome or resist, unless assisted by external aid, even though that help can only come by submitting to hypnotism. In hypnosis the outer brain of convoluted grey matter is most affected, being more or less denuded of arterial and nervous stimuli. The power of conscious, intellectual, and abstract thought is reduced to a minimum. The organs of the central brain are differently influenced, as in inverse ratio the stimulation is increased. The eye is more susceptible to light, or the pupils may become dilated and fixed. The auditory sense is rendered more keen. The olfactory powers are intensified, and there is more or less insensibility of feeling. The powers of co-ordination and locomotion are preserved up to a certain stage, when these functions are disturbed, all power of voluntary movement ceases, lethargic and cataleptic symptoms supervene. It was by observing, more particularly, hypnosis, Professor Heidenhain was led to aver “inhibition” actually accounted for all phases of hypnotism. This opinion has evidently been based on a limited number of cases. “No inhibition,” says Dr. Drayton, “however ingeniously applied, will explain all the phenomena of magnetism. If the personal consciousness, the individuality, of the subject has been lost, and his state is that of automatism, or rather that of an involuntary actor, certainly his cerebral functions operate in a manner entirely distinct from that which is characteristic in his ordinary state. The inhibition relates to his common order of conduct mentally, while the super-sensitivity and extraordinary play of faculty that he may exhibit, indicate a higher phase of sensory activity, more free or harmonious co-ordination of the cerebral functions. The brakes are off, hence the phenomena that are frequently observed in the somnambulist, and awaken wonder, because so much out of keeping with what is known of his common life.” Here we find doctors--experts in hypnotism or mesmerism--agree to differ. They agree in this, albeit not expressly stated, they are alike positive and decided in their views, and certainly _without being positive, there is no possible success as an operator_. The mistake they make evidently arises in confounding the two states (hypnosis and the mesmeric), one with the other. There is no super-sensitivity, or extraordinary play of faculty in hypnosis, whatever there may be in the mesmeric state. They are similar, in that they may be both induced by the reduction of the activity of the cerebral cortex. In hypnosis the mind slumbers and dreams. The dream-life appears as substantial to the sensitive as the waking life. The life creations, thus dreamed of, are acted upon, whether they arise from suggestion or other causes. In the mesmeric state the senses slumber, and the mind awakens to a fuller enfranchisement of existence, and to the exhibition of mental and spiritual powers not hitherto suspected. In the lower stages the increased power of the senses is to be found in the _intense concentration_ of effort, brought about from the fact that the subject’s attention is, and his whole energies are, directed in one line of action or thought, to the exclusion of mind or brain activity in other directions. Hence all efforts are centred in the direction suggested by the operator, or self-induced, as suggested by the “dominant idea.” The sensitive exhibits powers of mind and ability of thought which were not noticeable in the ordinary waking condition. Not because he really possesses greater powers of mind or body, but because of the lack of concentration in the waking state. By this concentration of direction, so called abnormal feats of strength are performed, rigidity of structure brought about, and other characteristics not peculiar to common life. In a higher sense, we see the sensitive passing from this condition of concentration of one-idea-ism to a spiritual state, in which the phenomena exhibited are no longer the product of self-dethronement and of suggestion. Higher still, we see the soul reign supreme. The sensitive possesses a clear consciousness of what is transpiring at home and abroad, according to the direction of his psychic powers. In the psychic state--the more perfect trance state or control--the whole mind becomes illumined; past, present, and future become presentable to the mind of the lucid somnambulist as one great whole. This higher stage may be reached through the simple processes of manipulation, and passes as suggested in my little work, “How to Mesmerise.” In the mesmeric state the sensitive passes from the mere automatism of the earlier stages of hypnosis to the distinct individuality indicated above, although still more or less influenced or directed by his controller or operator into the line of thought and train of actions most desired. The difference between the hypnotic and mesmeric states should now be very clear. In the former the sensitive has no identity, in the latter his identity is preserved in a clearly individualised form throughout the whole series of abnormal acts. Whenever the sensitive enters this condition his personal consciousness is most apparent in the middle and higher stages. In fact, in the mesmeric state, it is very stupid for some operators to ask the sensitive, “Are you asleep?” It may be understood what is meant, yet the question is absurd from the standpoint of an intelligent observer. The sensitive is never more awake. The higher the state the greater the wakefulness and lucidity of the inner or soul life. THE SIXTH SENSE. In the mesmeric state we see developed what Lord Kelvin (Professor Thomson, of Glasgow University), Drs. Baird, Hammond, and Drayton call the magnetic sense--or “sixth sense.” It is a gift of super-sensitiveness. To my mind it is something more, the enfranchisement of the soul, the human ego--in proportion as the dominance of the senses is arrested. In blindness, it has been noticed how keen the sense of touch becomes. I have also noticed the keen sensitiveness of facial perception enjoyed by some of the blind, by which they are enabled to perceive objects in the absence of physical sight. In the mesmeric state we see a somewhat analogous mental condition. As the peculiar sense of the blind is developed by extra concentration of the mind in the direction of facial perception, so is “the sixth sense” developed by concentration of direction, as well as by the condition of sensitiveness induced by the mesmeric state. This newly recognised sense, “the sixth sense,” not only answers the purpose of sight and hearing, but transcends all senses in vividness and power. Materialists, no longer able to ignore the phenomena of somnambulism and trance, and compelled to admit man’s avenues of knowledge in this life were not confined to the recognised five senses, are good enough to give him a “sixth sense,” even while they deny him a soul. In the same way, no longer able to deny the existence of mesmerism, they now admit it to consideration--re-baptised as hypnotism. The phenomena being admitted, we will not quarrel over the names by which they are called. PSYCHIC-CONSCIOUSNESS. As we advance in our investigations we find in the higher conditions of these states a double or treble consciousness or memory. The higher including and overlapping the lower. Thus the consciousness of the hypnotic state includes that of the waking state, while the memory of the waking state possesses no conscious recollection of what has taken place in hypnosis, and so on, each stage has its own phases of consciousness. The memory of the sensitive, under influence, overlapping and including the memory of ordinary or normal life. Strange as it may appear, there are no phenomena which have been evolved in any of these abnormal conditions of life, which have not been observed again and again in ordinary or normal life, as well authenticated instances of dreams, warnings, and telepathy testify. Dr. Richardson notwithstanding, “in dreams and visions of the night” God has manifested himself to man in all ages. In other words, the soul (in sleep and analogous states to somnambulism and trance) comes more in touch with the sub-conscious or soul sphere of thought and existence. At times there is an inrush from that sphere into our present conscious state, by which we know of things which could not otherwise be known. Of dreams, our space will not admit more than occasional reference, we may mention as a case in point the dream of Mrs. Donan, wife of the livery stableman from whom Dr. Cronin hired his horse in Chicago. A week before Dr. Cronin was murdered this lady had a dream-vision, and dreamt he was barbarously murdered, and saw in a vision the whole terrible scene. This dream was a means, first, of forewarning the doctor, and second, of leading to the detection of the miscreants. Of premonitions, an incident reported in the _Register_ of Adelaide, will suffice:--“Constable J. C. H. Williams has reported to headquarters that he had an unpleasant experience at about midnight on Monday. He was on duty at the government offices in King William Street, and while standing at the main entrance he had a presentiment that he was in danger, and walked away a few steps. Scarcely had he moved from the spot, when a portion of the cornice work at the top of the building fell with a crash on the place where he had been standing. The piece of plaster must have weighed fully a stone, and had it struck Williams the result would doubtless have been fatal. A passer-by saw the constable a few minutes after, and his scared looks and agitated manner clearly showed that his story was true.” Concerning telepathy, Mrs. Andrew Crosse, the distinguished widow of the famous electrician, relates in _Temple Bar_ an anecdote about the late Bishop Wilberforce, to the effect, the Bishop was writing a dry business letter one day, when a feeling of acute mental agony overcame him and he felt that some evil had befallen his favourite son, a midshipman in the navy. The impression was correct. On that very day the lad, who was with his ship in the Pacific, had been wounded and nearly bled to death. When this was told Hallam, the historian, he replied that a very similar thing had happened to himself. A few cases are noted further on. Some persons would repudiate _all_ such incidents as accidents or coincidences; while others would fly to the extreme, and declare all such are the result of “spirit control”--that is, some disembodied but friendly spirit projected the dream, conveyed the warning, or telepathically despatched the news. But we must never forget news has to be received as well as despatched. Consequently, we, as embodied spirits, must possess psychic consciousness. I believe that _much_ of the phenomena, directly and indirectly attributed to disincarnate spirit control, are traceable to _no other source_ than the powers of our own embodied spirits, as revealed by the facts of somnambulism and trance, and this is the opinion of all intelligent spiritualists. “Because,” says Mr. G. H. Stebbins, a prominent investigator of modern spiritualism in the United States “a person quotes from books he never saw, or _tells of what he never knew_ in any external way, that is not final proof that he is under an external spirit control. Psychometry and clairvoyance may sometimes solve it all.” “I hold,” says Mr. Myers, “that telepathy and clairvoyance do, in fact, exist--telepathy, a communication between incarnate mind and incarnate mind, and perhaps between incarnate minds and minds unembodied; clairvoyance, a knowledge of things terrene which over-passes the limits of ordinary perception, and which, perhaps, achieves an insight with some other than terrene world.” These are the cautious admissions of eminent investigators in psychical research. DOUBLE OR SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS. “There are two sets,” says Dr. Brown-Sequard, “a double state of mental powers in the human organism, essentially differing from each other. The one may be designated as ordinary conscious intelligence; the other, a superior power, which controls our better nature.” J. Balfour Brown, in his “Medical Jurisprudence,” says:--“In no case of pure somnambulism, waking consciousness of the individual knows anything of the sleeping consciousness. It is as if there were two distinct memories.” This double-consciousness, memory, or sub-state of mental powers, is another but lower phase of psychic-consciousness, and is sometimes exhibited by accidents, and also by disease. Dr. Abercromby relates the case of a boy, four years old who was trepanned for a fracture of the skull. He was in a _complete stupor_ during the operation, and was not conscious of what took place. At fifteen he became seriously ill of fever. In the delirium occasioned by the fever, he gave a correct description of the operation, _and of all the persons present, their dress_, manners, and actions, to the minutest particulars. The “superior power” must have obtained this knowledge in some other way than through the ordinary channels of the outward senses. In cases of apparent drowning, where the person has been saved from death by active, external help, we have been informed that the human mind has worked with a rapidity of action not thought possible in the waking state, the intensity of menial action being increased in adverse ratio to the inaction of the external senses and consciousness. In this state the career of a lifetime has been reviewed, conversations, actions, persons seen and places visited, all vividly brought to mind--in possibly less time than it takes to pen this paragraph. These phenomena suggest the reflection that the daily waking life--sensuous and worldly-minded--is possibly, to many, the least real and effective. How much our external life is influenced by our unconscious (to us in the waking state) sub-life, is an interesting problem. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes says:--“The more we examine the mechanism of thought, the more we shall see that the automatic and unconscious action of the mind enters largely into all its processes. We _all_ have a _double_ who is wiser and better than we, who puts thoughts into our heads and words into our mouths.” A commercial gentleman of my acquaintance, who was rather sceptical on the subject of double-consciousness--although, “notwithstanding,” he said, “Mr. Stead, in the _Review of Reviews_, had turned an honest penny out of ghosts, double-consciousness, and that sort of rubbish”--admitted to me, he had a maid, who had an awkward habit of rising in her sleep, carefully setting the fires, cleaning and dusting out the rooms, setting the breakfast table, and doing many other things which appeared important to the servant-mind. Her movements were watched. She slipped about with eyes closed, avoiding obstacles, and doing her work systematically and neatly, and without fuss, when done, she would go to bed. In the morning she had no recollection of what she had said or done. It was a curious thing, he had to admit. The girl was honest enough. He was certain this habit had not been simulated. Threats of discharge, and possible loss of wages, did not cure her of this habit. There was a certain form of “double consciousness” in this case. “The subliminal consciousness” of Mr. Myers, by which he accounts for the phenomena of genius, is but another way of expressing the concept of an “identity underlying all consciousness,” the psyche, the real “I, me,” “the superior power which directs and controls our better nature,” the “double who is wiser and better than we,” the reality of which is so much hidden from our ordinary experience, because our soul-life is so much buried out of sight by the _débris_ of the “things of this life,” which, fortunately or otherwise, pre-occupy so much of our attention. It is this “subliminal consciousness” we see manifested in the psychic state, and natural somnambulism. Clairvoyance, psychometry, thought transference, etc., are as so many spectrum rays of the one soul light. Call them “subliminal” if you will. These rays flow out from the soul, and are many-hued, distinct or blurred, according to the degree of pureness or super-sensitivity of the external corporeal prism through which they are projected. Persons have lived for years, we are credibly informed, who have spent half their lives entranced, _in the alternation of two distinct individualities_ or two distinct states of consciousness, in one of which they forget all they had learned or did in the other. Professor Huxley described (British Association of Science, Belfast, 1874) a case in which two separate lives, a normal, and abnormal one, seemed to be lived at intervals by the same individual during the greater portion of her life. The conclusion to the whole matter is--the psychic, or soul-powers in some persons are less entrammelled by the senses than in others; that a high degree of organic sensitiveness always accompanies those who are recognised as psychics or sensitives; that this state of sensitiveness is natural to some, and in others may be developed by accident, disease, or induced by somnambulism and trance. I will endeavour to show these psychic characteristics, or soul gifts, underlie, and enter into the varied phenomena--clairvoyance, psychometry, thought transference, thought-reading, and what not, which are collated under the title of, “HOW TO THOUGHT-READ.”