Psychotherapy

We human beings are "infinitely repellent particles," to use the phrase, of Matthew Arnold. We never get close enough to one another to have a real glimpse into the depths of other minds. The information that is supposed to pass by telepathy from one person to another is so often just the kind that we would most sedulously conceal. There is extreme unlikelihood then that any such passage of information takes place. The cases cited, as proof of this transference of thought, are much more likely to be coincidences than any evidence of true telepathy.

Supposed Examples of Telepathy.—In the first place, though there are opportunities for the exhibition of the phenomena of telepathy every day and every hour of existence, the cases in which it is supposed to occur are extremely rare and are distant from one another, both in time and place. Even the people who claim to have had the phenomena of telepathy happen to them once or twice, do not pretend that it is at all a common occurrence with them, and as for the supposed exhibitions of telepathy upon the stage, these have been exposed over and over again as the simplest fakes.

As to the cases of telepathy that have been reported, with careful collection of evidence, to the psychic research societies, and which are few in number, though some of them are very difficult to explain, there is no reason why they should not be striking coincidences rather than startling examples of telepathy. An example will illustrate what I mean:

A few years ago what seemed to be a complete case of telepathy was reported in connection with a railroad accident. A Western man about to take an express train for the East was the object of a good deal of solicitude. There had previously been a series of accidents to this very fast train which he was to take. This fact had been discussed in the family, and did not tend to allay the fears of those who remained at home. During the night the train actually left the track, and the car in which the subject of the story was asleep rolled down the bank.

At the moment his train went down the bank the thought of his wife and daughter came very vividly to his mind. For a moment the awful position in which they would be placed if anything serious happened to him occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other thoughts. As soon as he could, he telegraphed home that he was unhurt, with the understanding that the telegram should not be delivered before the following morning.

During the night mother and daughter sleeping in adjoining rooms were wakened at the same moment, and very seriously disturbed, by something, they knew not quite what. They rose at once to go to each other and met at the door. They felt vaguely that father was in some way connected with their awakening and disturbance of mind. After they received his telegram they were sure that what disturbed them during the night was the telepathic communication of father's danger. Each had, however, deliberately kept from speaking of her impression. When they found that he had passed through the danger unhurt, they were sure that it was a call from him that each had heard.

This bears most of the ear-marks of a genuine case of telepathy. Here are minds whose cells by custom and inheritance are finely attuned to those of a distant mind that is suddenly very much disturbed. If the perturbations of that first mind were carried through the ether by a sort of wireless telegraphy, it would apparently not be very surprising. So carried, they woke the receptive cells of similar minds at a long distance, and mother and daughter felt the thrill at the same instant. Vague though it was, there was a telepathic message.

But there were other passengers in this train who had near and dear relatives, yet none of them received communications. There have been literally hundreds of thousands of other accidents in the past fifty years of railroading in which passengers who have been put in very serious danger, have thought intensely of their loved ones, and yet, there has been at most only a dozen or so examples of vague telepathy of this class. Similar cases to this are extremely rare, though accidents in America are very frequent. At most, then, we are in the presence of a very exceptional case. Such cases would mean nothing as evidence for a scientific law, since they occur so rarely as to aptly exemplify the old adage that the exception proves the rule. The rule evidently is that there is no communication at a distance, hence the surprise when there seems to be some reason for thinking that a communication has actually taken place. Instead of proving that telepathy occurs, such cases make it clear, to the limit of demonstration, that telepathy does not occur unless some extremely special conditions intervene to make it possible.

How much more easy it is to explain such a case on the score of coincidence! Of course, mother and daughter, with father absent, and absent in the midst of what they thought was danger, would go to bed anxiously thinking of him. They would sleep lightly because of the worry. Any slight unusual noise would wake them, and at once the thought of father and his danger would occur to them. If the noise was sudden, and not repeated, and therefore inexplicable to one awakened out of sleep, they would probably be so disturbed that it is easy to understand that they would arise at once and seek each other's company. Their meeting, therefore, in the doorway between their rooms would be readily explicable. Neither would say much about the subject uppermost in her thoughts in order to shield the other. The telegram in the morning would throw a glow of retrospective light on the events and seem to give an entirely new significance to their thoughts. The whole affair, though only a coincidence, would seem to be a demonstration of telepathy.

Even more marvelous instances of coincidence, in which there was no question of anything more than coincidence, have been related. The English Psychical Research Society reported the case of a young man sent to find some trace of his brother who had disappeared mysteriously from a steamer sailing from Plymouth to Lisbon. On board the steamer late at night he stood by the rail thinking of his lost brother and wondering what could possibly have become of him. Suddenly as he looked down into the ocean a body came bobbing up out of the waves almost directly under his gaze. He reported it to the officers of the vessel and it was grappled for and lifted aboard. It proved to be the body of his brother. Is this an example of telepathy, that is, of the mental influence of the perturbed spirit of the live brother upon the dead brother's body floating below the surface? No one would stretch supposed telepathy to that extent. The steamer disturbed the body which had been floating below the surface, as bodies do, gradually developing within themselves the gases of decomposition. After a time any slight disturbance, as, for instance, the booming of a cannon or the passage of even a small boat, will bring a body up. It so happened that the brother was on the spot, and actually thinking of the body, but that was the merest coincidence. There was no connection of cause and effect.

Most of the cases of so-called telepathy can be explained in this way. As we have said, no source of error is so copious as that of concluding that because one thing happens after another therefore the second is caused by the first. People who are so inclined will still continue to accept such a notion of connection of cause and effect, however, and we shall have many cases of supposed telepathy exploited for us on no better grounds than this.

Twins and Telepathy.—There is a definite popular impression that twins are gifted with the power of telepathic communication much more than others. Accepting Sir Wm. Crookes' theory, the possibility of mental reciprocal influence, even at a distance, is greater for them, since their brain cells must be considered as having corresponding moments of vibration. Twins of the same sex, especially those who resemble one another closely, are usually born from a single ovum. The intimate relations of two such beings to each other can be readily understood, so that we have many stories of mental communication at long distances and curious warnings, forebodings and communications of danger, and especially of sickness and death.

Especially does one find stories of wraith-like appearances of one to the other of such persons at the moment of death. A series of these stories, apparently well authenticated, is published by the Psychic Research Society. There are also a number of tales, seemingly well attested, of cloud-like shapes of other persons at the moment of death. As a consequence, there has been developed an idea that there is some evidence of the distinct possibility of such appearances when the soul leaves the body. It, however, seems very doubtful whether these are anything more than a very striking coincidence. Twins are likely to be almost constantly in one another's minds, so there is abundant room for coincidences. But any number of twins have died at a distance from each other without there being any such warning. Occasionally such startling appearances occur in connection with people who are so slightly related, or whose existence bears such slight importance to each other, that it is hard to understand why the appearance may have come. Whether they are anything more than the figment of an excited imagination remains to be seen, for, while we have a little positive evidence, this only emphasizes the possibility of coincidental day-dreaming in nervous persons.

Negative Tests.—We hear much of the possibility of reading minds at a distance, or of getting definite information from sealed documents and the like, but it must not be forgotten that whenever definite conditions have been set down, so that all the actions of the supposed clairvoyant could be controlled, then telepathy has always failed to be manifested. Sir James Simpson, for instance, publicly offered to give a five-hundred-pound note, which he had placed in a safe deposit vault, to anyone who could read its number which he had carefully impressed on his own mind. Needless to say, no one got it. In the days when Bishop, the exhibiting mind reader, was creating such a furore in New York and London by supposedly reading people's minds, Labouchère, the editor of London Truth, offered a similar opportunity to Bishop, but advantage of it was not taken. Bishop's power was entirely due to muscle reading. People make involuntary movements of muscles that are very slight, but sufficient for a trained observer to notice, especially if his hand is on the individual experiencing the emotions, and the consequent muscle reflexes.18 About the middle of the last century, the French Academy made a labored investigation of telepathy and found that whatever there seemed to be in it, when control was not properly kept, it at once was demonstrated to be impossible when conditions were planned so as to prevent deception.

If patients are worried over disturbing influences from others or the reading of their thoughts or telepathic suggestions, a calm review with them of the practical side of this subject, as we have come to know it in the modern time from actual investigation, will do more than anything else to relieve their apprehensions. Most of these patients are unfortunately insane, but the reasoning will help even some of these. There are some quite rational believers in such manifestations who will be greatly benefitted.

CHAPTER VIII

SECONDARY PERSONALITY

So much attention has recently been directed to the subject of secondary personality by the startling phenomena described in numerous books and articles on the subject, that a certain class of "nervous" patients have permitted themselves to be influenced by the auto-suggestion, flattering the vanity, that they, too, have a secondary personality. They even do not hesitate to hint that this condition is responsible for many of the failures on their part to do what they ought to do, or at least what they think they would like to do; but self-control and self-discipline require such constant attention and effort that they fail. Even when these patients have not quite reached the persuasion of a complete secondary personality, they at least think that the subconscious (or their subliminal self) plays a large role in their conduct. As a consequence, they assert, it is more or less beyond their power to control themselves, and their responsibility for certain acts is surely somewhat impaired. This is a rather satisfying doctrine for those who do not feel quite equal to the effort of conquering vicious or unfortunate tendencies. Those who like to have some excuse for self-indulgence take refuge in this supposedly scientific explanation to absolve them from blame, and from the necessity of self-control. The drug habitué, the inebriate, the victim of other habits, sometimes hug this flattering invention to their souls, especially when they are of the class who delight in the study of the abnormal. Reform becomes well-nigh impossible as long as such an auto-suggestion of inherent weakness and lack of will-power is at work.

The Other Self.—From the beginning of written history, man has always been inclined to find some scapegoat for his failings. The story of Adam blaming the first fault on the woman and the woman blaming it on the serpent, is a lively symbol of what their descendants have been doing ever since. The less personal the blame is, the better, and the more it can be foisted over on some inevitable condition of human nature, the more generally satisfying it is. A secondary personality can scarcely resent being blamed for its acts by the primary personality to which it is attached, and so the field of auto-suggestion as to the blameless inevitability of certain acts is likely to widen if it is given a quasi-scientific basis. Long ago St. Paul spoke of the law in his members opposed to the higher authority, and declared that the things he would do he did not, while what he would not do he sometimes did. There is no doubt that there are two natures in the curious personality of man. Everyone at times has the uncanny feeling that there is something within almost apart from himself, leading him in ways that he does not quite understand. Usually the leading is away from what is considered best in us. But those who have dwelt much on the better side of man and have tried to climb above mere selfish aims, have realized that there is also a power within them leading to higher paths. Indeed, some of the greatest thoughts that men think, and the resolves that lift them up to heroic heights, are apparently so far beyond ordinary human powers, that the hero and the poet and even the more ordinary literary man, is quite ready to proclaim inspiration as the source of his best ideas—as if they were breathed into him from without and above.

Personal Responsibility.—For ordinary normal individuals, this question of secondary personality has scant interest. Normal persons go about their work realizing that what they want to do, they may do, and what they do not want to do they can keep from doing, unless some contrary physical force intervenes. There are many metaphysical arguments for free will, but none of them is so convincing as the observation that every sane man, with regard to his own actions, has the power to choose between two things that attract him. He may be much drawn to one thing, yet choose another. He may allow himself to be ruled by baser motives; he may sternly follow the dictates of reason, or he may do neither and hold himself inactive. In any case, he realizes his power to choose. While this power may be impaired by many external conditions, his consciousness of its actuality makes him appreciate his responsibility. He realizes that punishment for wrong done is not only a part of the law, but it is also a proper vindication of that consciousness of free will which all men have, and which does not deceive them. The question has been obscured by much talk, but the reality is there, and the common-sense of mankind has proclaimed its truth. All our laws are founded on it. Without it punishment as meted out is an awful injustice and crime is a misnomer.

Hysterical Phenomena.—Most of the cases of secondary personality that have been discussed at greatest length have been in persons who were as desirous of attracting attention, and as pleased over being the subject of special study as were the hysterical patients who used to delight in investigation two generations ago. That most of the phenomena of so-called dual personalities are mainly hysterical seems now to be clear. In a few cases, where the patient has found that the existence of a double personality was of special interest, a definite tendency to the formation of further personalities has been noted. Some triple personalities have been discussed and, in a few cases, a group of personalities, even up to five or more, began to assert themselves. This reductio ad absurdum, of the hypothesis of supernumerary personality has revealed the real hysteric character of the phenomena.

The whole story of secondary personality in recent years vividly recalls commonplaces in the older medical literature that gathered around the study of hysteria, and that afford a striking confirmation of the conclusion as to the relation of the conditions ascribed to hysteria. Physicians of a generation or two ago who found their hysterical patients interesting, because of certain marvelous symptoms which they presented, were usually astonished to learn that their patients could, under suggestion, develop still further and more surprising symptoms. Each new visit, especially when other physicians were brought to see the patient, showed the existence of still further symptoms and revealed new depths of interesting disease. Indeed, the soil was found to be inexhaustible in its power to produce ever new and interesting crops of symptoms.

When the real significance of hysteria as a mental condition in which patients devoted themselves to the task of furnishing new symptoms for the physician began to be realized, one of the most potent objections against this explanation was that it would have been impossible for the patients to have studied out their symptoms enough to furnish the new material for study which physicians found so interesting. The patients were supposed to be mentally incapable of fooling the physicians. When, however, a person devotes entire attention to the one subject of making phenomena in themselves appear interesting to others, some very startling results are usually produced.

After having attracted the sensational attention so common with any novel observation and having been exaggerated out of all proportion to its due significance, the phenomenon is now settling down to its proper place—a rather obscure neurotic phenomenon of memory in hysteric individuals.

Other Neurotic Symptoms .—Janet's studies at the Salpetriêre seem to show that the alterations of memory which bring about what we call secondary personality (the forgetting of certain phases of existence and the maintenance for a time of a small portion of consciousness and memory quite apart from the rest) correspond with alterations in the physical basis of memory, that is, in the circulation to certain portions of the brain, and probably also in the modes of association of brain cells. They occur, particularly, in connection with certain phenomena of hystero-epilepsy so-called, or with the deeper forms of epilepsy in which there are various paresthesias, hyperesthesias and anesthesias as a consequence of a disturbance of the circulation in the central nervous system; and probably also of the connections made by neurons and the movements of neuroglia cells in making and breaking these connections. These alterations of memory are represented physically by such cases as those in which patients so lose their consciousness of sensation that they are unable to tell even where their feet are. As they themselves say, "they have lost their legs." In these cases, patients are often very deaf or have a limited auditory power, and their fields of vision are extremely narrowed. In most of these cases, recovery of the original personality takes place after hypnosis. This probably represents a relaxation of that short-circuiting, within the nervous system, which brought about the curious phenomenon studied as secondary personality.

Dual Dispositions.—The studies of secondary personality that we have had seem to show us persons under the influence of some strong suggestion, in what is practically a hypnotic condition. There are many similarities between the actions and the mentality of hypnotics and of those in secondary-personality conditions. The individuals are, for the moment, unable to recall what happened in other states. They may be very different in disposition, gentle and tractable in one state, but morose and difficult to get along with in another. Such differences are, however, only exaggerations of the variations of normal personality. There are times when, under the stress of circumstances, even the mildest of men and women become querulous and difficult. It is often noted that people are much more gentle and careful in their relations with some people than with others. Men who are known in their business relations to be quiet, easy to get along with, are at times bears in their homes. This is a matter of the exercise of inhibition for certain mental qualities, and this inhibition is neglected for some places and persons. An American humorist said not long since that a young girl passing a weekend at the house of a friend, should remember that she is expected to be unselfish, thoughtful for others, and ready to help her hostess to make it pleasant for others, so that the party may be successful. He adds that, of course, as soon as she returns home she should be perfectly natural again.

At least in a limited sense, all of us have buried in us secondary personalities that are due to a lack of control of ourselves, or occasionally to a lack of such initiative as makes possible the best that is in us. The secondary personality of some people, that side of their characters that their friends see only rarely, is the best side of them. Many people, under the demand of some great purpose, rise up to be really heroic in quality, yet in the commonplace relations of life they are quite ordinary. The secondary personality in either of these cases is not something abnormal. It is due to a tapping of deeper levels in personality than most people realize that they possess. When taken in connection with hypnotism and the power of suggestion over susceptible individuals, these adumbrations of the deeper problem of secondary personality as the psychologists have discussed it, furnish the best data for its fuller explanation. Excuses for actions founded on secondary personality must either rest ultimately on insanity, or else on that lack of inhibition which constitutes the source of so many of our actions that we regret.

People who are susceptible to hypnotism may remember absolutely nothing of what occurs to them in the hypnotic condition, though they will recall it without any difficulty if during hypnosis it is suggested to them that they should remember it. This represents the most prominent feature of secondary personality; the individuals who are affected by it do not recall in one state of personality what happens to them in the other. In the two states they are very different in character. These differences have been much emphasized with regard to a few cases that are especially abnormal and have not attracted much attention in cases where the differences are slight. Indeed, in a number of the cases where secondary personality asserted itself, the differences in the character of the individual in the two states were practically nil. The only difference was a lapse of memory for certain important events. Considerations such as these help in the understanding and psychotherapy of what are sometimes puzzling cases of apparent dualism of disposition.

What we have to do with here are the suggestions of secondary personality which neurotic patients have been inclined to make to themselves as a consequence of the interest in the subject in recent years. The investigations of Head and of Gordon Holmes have undoubtedly shown, however, that there are true pathological conditions associated with certain definite and very marked manifestations of dualism of disposition consequent upon lesions in the optic thalamus. These cases so far as can be judged at the present time, at least, are quite rare and at most would account for duality and not for the plurality of personality that has come to be discussed by certain enthusiastic neurologists in recent years. The magnificent work done on this shows how much may yet be accomplished in the elucidation of nervous diseases by faithful study and investigation of selected cases.