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 CHAPTER XII MESSAGES RECEIVED THROUGH TRANCE OR AUTOMATISM

MONGST the subjects of investigation set out in the original prospectus of the Society, as already indicated, was the study of hypnotism and the phenomena of the induced trance. In the Society’s early years some valuable experimental work in this direction was done by the late Edmund Gurney, especially in investigating the relations of the hypnotic to the normal consciousness. And up to the present time we have let pass no opportunity for studying any case of automatism, abnormal lapse of memory, or secondary consciousness. Again, F. W. H. Myers has done the work of a pioneer in his wide survey of the whole field of these perplexing and obscure phenomena, and has shown how order can be evolved out of chaos. But the subject is now recognised as legitimate for scientific enquiry. Even English medical men have at length reluctantly admitted the existence of the hypnotic state, and are beginning to discern in it profitable material for study. On the Continent hypnotism has been incorporated in medical practice 275