ric way, by 'spirits[8].' Till this lady examined the
subject, nobody had thought of remarking that a belief so universal had
probably some basis of facts, or nobody if we except two professors of
chemistry and physiology, Drs. Gregory and Mayo. Miss X made experiments,
beginning by accident, like George Sand, when a child.
The hallucinations which appear to her eyes in ink, or crystal, are:
1. Revived memories 'arising thus, and thus only, from the subconscious
strata;'
'2. Objectivation of ideas or images--(a) consciously or (b)
unconsciously--in the mind of the percipient;
'3. Visions, possibly telepathic or clairvoyant, implying acquirement of
knowledge by supernormal means.'[9]
The examples given of the last class, the class which would be so useful
to a priest or medicine-man asked to discover things lost, are of very
slight interest.[10]
Since Miss X drew attention to this subject, experiments have proved
beyond doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and healthy, can see
vivid landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, in glass balls and
other vehicles. This faculty Dr. Parish attributes to 'dissociation,'
practically to drowsiness. But he speaks by conjecture, and without
having witnessed experiments, as will be shown later. I now offer a series
of experiments with a glass ball, coming under my own observation, in
which knowledge was apparently acquired in no ordinary way. Of the absence
of fraud I am personally convinced, not only by the characters of all
concerned, but by the nature of the circumstances. That adaptive memory
did not later alter the narratives, as originally told, I feel certain,
because they were reported to me, when I was not present, within less than
a week, precisely as they are now given, except in cases specially noted.
Early in the present year (1897) I met a young lady who told me of three
or four curious hallucinatory experiences of her own, which were
sufficiently corroborated. She was innocent of psychical studies, and
personally was, and is, in perfect health; the pale cast of thought being
remote from her. I got a glass ball, and was present when she first looked
into it. She saw, I remember, the interior of a house, with a full-length
portrait of a person unknown. There were, I think, one or two other fancy
pictures of the familiar kind. But she presently (living as she was, among
strangers) developed a power of 'seeing' persons and places unknown
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