Telepathy and the Subliminal Self; an account of recent investigations regarding hypnotism, automatism, dreams, phantasm

Excerpt: ... have described and illustrated a somewhat unusual mental phenomenon, to which the name thought-transference, or telepathy, has been given; and in another I have endeavored to demonstrate the existence of a secondary or subliminal self or personality. If I mistake not, it is here, in these two comparatively little known and, until recently, little studied, psychical conditions, that we shall find the key to message-bearing automatism, as well as other manifestations of intelligence which have heretofore been considered mysterious and occult. Applying this key to the Newnham Planchette-writing, the secondary personality or subliminal self of Mrs. Newnham took immediate cognizance of the questions silently and secretly written out by her husband, although they were utterly unknown to her ordinary or primary self, and made use of her hands to communicate the answer. The answer, also, was of course unknown to her primary self, but her subliminal self, in addition to its own private and constant stock of knowledge and opinions, had the advantage of more subtle means of securing other knowledge Pg 177 necessary for a proper answer, and so sought it in her husband’s mind, or wherever it could be obtained. The sources of information accessible to the subliminal self, through means analogous to those which have been named-thought-transference and telepathy-are certainly various, and their limit is not yet known. We may mention, however, in this connection, besides the mind of the automatic writer-the mind of the questioner, and also the minds of other persons present, in any or all of which may be stored up knowledge or impressions of which the ordinary consciousness or memory retains no trace; it may be a scene witnessed in childhood; a newspaper paragraph read many years ago; a casual remark overheard, but not even noticed-all these and many more are sources of information upon which the subliminal self may draw for answers,...