Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/536

 522 CRITICAL NOTICES : In considering the bearing of these supernormal phenomena upon the hypothesis of the "subliminal self " it is necessary for the purpose of discussion to assume with Myers, without further question, that their occurrence is now proved. Let us take first experimental telepathy. In some cases, as in that of Mr. and Mrs. Newnham, the " supraliminal " idea of the agent seems to affect a secondary consciousness of the percipient who makes intelligent replies to his questions by automatic writing ; in other cases, as in Mr. Guthrie's experiments (and these would seem to be among the most satisfactory), the " supraliminal " idea of the agent repro- duces itself in the " supraliminal " consciousness of the percipient ; in other cases again, as in that of Mr. H. S. B., the agent deliberately sets himself in full self-consciousness to make his image appear in the ordinary consciousness of a friend at a distance and apparently succeeds. But I cannot find any instance of the communication of an idea from a secondary consciousness of the agent to that of the percipient. Why then must we believe that telepathy is inter- action between two "subliminal selves"; the evidence seems rather to point the other way, and to indicate that the agent's con- sciousness at least must be "supraliminal". But however that may be, the hypothesis immediately suggested by the facts, and the one that involves fewest elements of mystery, is that a state of one consciousness can by some direct, though entirely obscure, action at a distance induce a similar state in another consciousness ; whereas the application of the " subliminal self" to the explana- tion of the cases in which both inducing and induced states are states of an ordinary consciousness involves the same assumption of action at a distance and two additional mysterious processes, the sinking of the inducing state of consciousness through the diaphragm into the " subliminal self " of the agent, and the uprising of the induced subliminal state into the supraliminal consciousness of the percipient. Myers' grounds for thus complicating the process seem to be given at the end of chapter vi., when, after describing such cases, he exclaims, " What can be a more central action more manifestly the outcome of whatsoever is deepest and most unitary in man's whole being?" Then, since the "subliminal self " is ex hypothesi the deepest part of man's being, it follows that it must somehow be at work in such cases. Phantasms appearing simultaneously to a number of independent witnesses and seen by all in the same spot seemed to Myers, rightly enough, to demand some other explanation than simple telepathy. Let us take as typical the case of Captain Towns. In this case, some weeks after a man's death, eight members of his household, relatives and servants, enter a room in his house in turn, and each one sees as he enters (nothing having been sug- gested to him) a half-length picture of the deceased householder mirrored as it were upon the polished surface of a wardrobe. The widow then makes a movement as though to touch this picture and ' ' as she passed her hands over the panel of the wardrobe the figure-