Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/278



HE different kinds of memory levels described by Swedenborg could roughly be said to resemble a pyramid in shape. This would then have the corporeal memory at the thin top and the others progressively spreading wider and going deeper, not only in accumulation of impressions but in understanding and in sympathy. They tend to correspond to the different levels of consciousness, with which psychic research is familiar. It will be remembered that in order to account for the facts of so-called "psi" phenomena, the supposition has been made that some deeper level (or levels) of the mind can enter into communication with other minds either directly without the aid of the senses or through a common subconscious of mankind.

The cross-correspondence cases (see page 197) seemed to furnish evidence that there could be interaction between the minds and memories of men and those of "spirits," at any rate they furnished the "subconscious" with powers akin to the miraculous. "Mrs. Willett" was one of the principals in this experiment, and Lord Balfour's report on her mediumship1 contains interesting parallels with some of Swedenborg's descriptions.

Like Swedenborg this lady did not ordinarily go into complete trance; no "control" alleged that it took possession of her faculties. Like Swedenborg she remained fairly well in control herself, more or less conscious of the voices she heard and at whose dictation she felt she wrote.

Of especial value are the explanations given by her "communicators" of the process by which they telepathized the information to the mind of the automatist.

They admitted that remembering was difficult. "Wonderfully similar is our condition in regard to knowledge of reaching back, as yours of reaching up . . ." 2

The quotations which were used by the "communicators" to hint at the information to be conveyed were such as were known to