and began an
entirely new existence as a shopkeeper in a small country town.
Similarly with Dr. R. Osgood Mason's patient, Alma Z., in whom the
secondary personality assumed the odd name of "Twoey," spoke, as Dr.
Mason phrased it, "in a peculiar child-like and Indianlike dialect," and
announced that her mission was to cure the broken down physical organism
of the original self, which remained completely in abeyance so long as
"Twoey" was in evidence. Here, as is apparent, we have a case almost
identical with that of Lurancy Vennum, the sole difference being that
"Twoey"--who, by the way, is credited with having exercised seemingly
supernormal powers--did not pose as a returned visitant from the world
of spirits.

Thus far, then, depending on the argument from analogy, the presumption
is strong that Lurancy's case belongs to the same category as the cases
just mentioned. In the one, as in the others, we have loss of the
original self, development of a new self, and the enactment by the
latter of a role conspicuously alien from that played by the former. The
one difficulty in the way of unreserved acceptance of this view is the
character of the secondary personality which replaced Lurancy's original
personality. Here the positive claim was made that the secondary
personality was in reality the personality of a girl long dead, and by
way of proof vivid knowledge of the life, circumstances, and conduct of
that girl was offered. But on this point considerable light is shed by
the discovery that in a number of instances of secondary personality in
which no supernatural pretensions are advanced there is a notable
sharpening of the faculties, knowledge being obtained telepathically or
clairvoyantly; and by the further discovery that it is quite possible to
create experimentally secondary selves assuming the characteristics of
real persons who have died.

In this the creative force is nothing more or less than suggestion.
There is on record, indeed, an instance of mediumship in which the
medium, an amateur investigator of the phenomena of spiritism, clearly
recognized that his various impersonations were suggested to him by the
spectators. This gentleman, Mr. Charles H. Tout, of Vancouver, records
that after attending a few seances with some friends he felt a strong
impulse to turn medium himself, and assume a foreign personality.
Yielding to the impulse, he discovered, much to his amazement, that
without losing complete cont