Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/242

 FUETHEE PEOBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. (l.) 229 consciousness should involve radically different processes. But if we look a little deeper, this special point the effec- tiveness of an idea which does not make any separate and distinct impression in consciousness will probably not be felt as an objection to the theory of telepathic suggestion by anyone familiar with the phenomena of telepathy in branches unconnected with hypnotism ; I might almost say, to any- one familiar with the phenomena of mere automatism since the production by automatic writing of words and intelligent sentences, which the writer himself has afterwards to read in order to learn what they are, is a sufficiently well-recog- nised phenomenon. But in sach cases it can scarcely ever be proved that what is written is originated, at the moment, by any specially directed mental activity ; the ideas belong, perhaps, to the vast crowd which have had a previous exist- ence in the mind, and have left their impression on the brain, and it is merely owing to some accident of cerebral circulation or chemistry that the impressions belonging to the particular ideas which appear in the writing were re- vivified at that particular minute ; a minute later, and it might be the turn of others to be similarly revivified. We must have recourse, therefore, to telepathic experiments where the idea is then and there transferred from another mind for the requisite proof that a new idea, conditioned by something other than the spontaneous workings of the brain, may produce marked effects without making any appearance in its receiver's consciousness. Experiments yielding this proof have not, so far, been numerous it must be remembered that deliberate telepathic experimentation is in its veriest infancy ; but I am content to rely on those recorded in Phantasms of the Living ; l and especially on the remarkable series carried out by the Hev. P. H. Newnham and his wife, where a very large number of questions men- tally put by him were relevantly answered in writing, pro- duced by a planchette on which Mrs. Newnham's hand was laid, without her having an idea, in any case, what the ques- tion or the answer was. The production of hypnotic trance by an unconscious idea 2 can scarcely be held to be a more extreme instance of "underground" mental activity than this. 1 See vol. i., pp. 63-79, 84, and vol. ii., pp. 670-1. 2 It is difficult to avoid this expression, but I of course do not mean l>y it mere ' unconscious cerebration '. My whole view of telepathic trans- ference is that it is a psychical event with a physical side possibly, but psychical certainly ; consequently the idea transferred, in this as in every other case, must have complete psychical reality. In calling it unconscious,