Phantasms of the Living - Volume I.. Frank Podmore

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СКАЧАТЬ § 7. Hope of aid from the progress of “psycho-physical” inquiries

       § 8. Reasons for psychical research drawn from the lacunæ of anthropology

       § 9. Reasons drawn from the study of history, and especially of the comparative history of religions. Instance from the S.P.R.’s investigation of so-called “Theosophy”

       § 10. In considering the relation of our studies to religion generally, we observe that, since they oblige us to conceive the psychical element in man as having relations which cannot be expressed in terms of matter, a possibility is suggested of obtaining scientific evidence of a supersensory relation between man’s mind and a mind or minds above his own

       § 11. While, on the other hand, if our evidence to recent supernormal occurrences be discredited, a retrospective improbability will be thrown on much of the content of religious tradition

       § 12. Furthermore, in the region of ethical and æsthetic emotion, telepathy indicates a possible scientific basis for much to which men now cling without definite justification

       § 13. Investigations such as ours are important, moreover, for the purpose of checking error and fraud, as well as of eliciting truth

       II.

       § 14. Place of the present book in the field of psychical research. Indications of experimental thought-transference in the normal state. 1876-1882

       § 15. Foundation of the Society for Psychical Research, 1882. Telepathy selected as our first subject for detailed treatment on account of the mass of evidence for it received by us

       § 16. There is also a theoretic fitness in treating of the direct action of mind upon mind before dealing with other supernormal phenomena

       § 17. Reasons for classing apparitions occurring about the moment of death as phantoms of the living, rather than of the dead

       § 18. This book, then, claims to show (1) that experimental telepathy exists, and (2) that apparitions at death, &c., are a result of something beyond chance; whence it follows (3) that these experimental and these spontaneous cases of the action of mind on mind are in some way allied

       § 18. As to the nature and degree of this alliance different views may be taken, and in a “Note on a Suggested Mode of Psychical Interaction,” in Vol. II., a theory somewhat different from Mr. Gurney’s is set forth.

       § 20. This book, however, consists much more largely of evidence than of theories. This evidence has been almost entirely collected by ourselves

       § 21. Inquiries like these, though they may appear at first to degrade great truths or solemn conceptions, are likely to end by exalting and affirming them

       ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS

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       CHAPTER I.

       PRELIMINARY REMARKS: GROUNDS OF CAUTION.

       § 1. The great test of scientific achievement is often held to be the power to predict natural phenomena; but the test, though an authoritative one in the sciences of inorganic nature, has but a limited application to the sciences that deal with life, and especially to the department of mental phenomena

       § 2. In dealing with the implications of life and the developments of human faculty, caution needs to be exercised in two directions. The scientist is in danger of forgetting the unstable and unmechanical nature of the material, and of closing the door too dogmatically on phenomena whose relations with established knowledge he cannot trace; while others take advantage of the fact that the limits of possibility cannot here be scientifically stated, to gratify an uncritical taste for marvels, and to invest their own hasty assumptions with the dignity of laws

       § 3. This state of things subjects the study of “psychical” phenomena to peculiar disadvantages, and imposes on the student peculiar obligations

       § 4. And this should be well recognised by those who advance a conception so new to psychological science as the central conception of this book—to wit, Telepathy, or the ability of one mind to impress or to be impressed by another mind otherwise than through the recognised channels of sense. (Of the two persons concerned, the one whose mind impresses the other will be called the agent, and the one whose mind is impressed the percipient)

       § 5. Telepathy will be here studied chiefly as a system of facts, theoretical discussion being subordinated to the presentation of evidence. The evidence will be of two sorts—spontaneous occurrences, and the results of direct experiment; which latter will have to be carefully distinguished from spurious “thought-reading” exhibitions

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       CHAPTER II.

       THE EXPERIMENTAL BASIS: THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE.

       § 1. The term thought-transference has been adopted in preference to thought-reading, the latter term (1) having become identified with exhibitions of muscle-reading, and (2) suggesting a power of reading a person’s thoughts against his will

       § 2. The phenomena of thought-transference first attracted the attention of competent witnesses in connection with “mesmerism,” СКАЧАТЬ