A PSYCHOLOGIST AND PERSONAL SURVIVAL.* THE general reader of scientific
books has to a certain extent come into his own. There is probably no person who reads a variety of such books from the point of view of general interest rather than that of the expert who has not something of the Roman in him. It was the delight of the Roman populace to see combats between strange beasts. A young bear might be pitted against an eagle with clipped wings ; seals and walruses were occasionally caught and set to fight a wolf or a lion. This is what we long to do with men of science whose activities in some degree overlap one another, and this is what at the moment Science herself seems particularly inter- ested in. To drop the metaphor—the need is now felt for the collation of the many new facts that solitary research has produced. Professor Einstein is a physicist and an astronomer, but the discoveries he has made take him over the border into metaphysics, both of the old-fashioned kind and of the mathematical variety of which Professor Whitehead is perhaps the best-known exponent. No sooner is the physicist on the ground of the metaphysician than he becomes involved, too, with the psychologist, who to some extent claims the whole world of knowledge as his province—the known probably implying a knower who can be studied. Science is in fact, as it were, stepping back into the auditorium and taking a general look round with a view to a more effective " joining- up " of her "flats." Professor Lay's book on spiritualism is a good example of this effort at scientific synthesis. His book is an attack from the point of view of a psycho-analyst upon the claims of spiritualists who say they have proved personal survival after death. Professor Lay's position is an interesting one, for he says that he himself believes firmly in a future life, but this, he says, is only a belief, and he holds strongly that matters have not progressed nearly far enough for spiritual- ists to say that their case is in any way proved. Further, he does not in the least accuse either mediums or investigators of fraud, but attributes the phenomena of the séance room to the subconscious functioning of tho people there assembled. He points out how like are the circumstances of a seance to those of a psycho-analytical consultation of a year or two ago when more use was made of partial hypnosis. The quiet and the subdued light, the presence of a number of people in the room, all of whom should be in a more or less sympathetic frame of mind, the suspense at the beginning—there is generally an interval before any phenomena are manifested—these are all circumstances which would allow to develop to the full repressed memories even to the degree of a secondary personality—i.e., a complete system of such independent memories. In the question of control of the medium by a particular departed person, the evidence is very often that the medium appears to have knowledge of some fact which she had no apparent means of ascerta:ning, of some fact which in all human probability would only be known to one man and his immediate family. This, Professor Lay believes, can in many cases be accounted for by the fact that the subconsciousness knows nothing of "selective attention." That is to say, in walking down a crowded street the conscious attention of a painter may have been directed only to certain facts of light and shade, to a beautiful face, or to the remarkable colours in the dress of passers-by. His subconsciousness, however, will have registered all the facts that his physical eye has taken in—the 'buses, the fact that such a horse was lame, the words on a newspaper poster. There are therefore probably ten times as many facts in the subconscious memory as there are in the conscious memory. This increases the medium's chance of " knowing " a given fact by natural means tenfold. Another of Professor Lay's points is that mediums and those under hypnosis very frequently speak in parables. Now it appears to be a fact • (1) lfan's Unconscious Spirit. By Wilfrid Lay, Ph.D. London : Xenon Pau!. [10a. 6d. net.]—(2) Psychemalysis in the Classroom. By C. 11. Green. London : at the University Press. (7e. 6d. net.)—(3) The Psychology ot Dor Dreams. By Dr. J. Varcadonck. London ueorse Allen and 1:111011. I18s.
net.] that the symbolism used by the subconscious—ia dreams, for example—is loosely the same in most people, the dream symbol of the precipice or overwhelming waters standing for personal danger, the hurrying to catch a train or being unable to pack or dress standing for the crowding cares of this world, in most people's dreams. It will therefore be seen that where com- munications are indirect or symbolic the medium's statements might really be symbolic of memories or her own, but might typify equally somebody else's recollections. Of. his first point --the great content of the subconscious memory—he gives a very good example, unfortunately too long to quote here, in which this factor did account completely for an otherwise extra- ordinarily convincing psychic experience.
While we are by no means as sure as Professor Lay seems to be that his two explanations will be found to cover the whole ground and account for all the phenomena of the séance, we cannot help thinking that his theories will prove very valuable as an extra sieve through which we may further test and refine the facts. One considerable fault his book has. He insists, he tells us, on having a proof for everything, and apparently believes that it is only in the world of alleged spiritual phenomena that such proof is denied him. He seems to forget that we all live in an intellectual Laputa—a kind of floating island of knowledge built on the airy substances of a priori assumptions and " self-evident " truths. As Mr. Bertrand Russell has said, "All knowledge must be built upon our instinctive beliefs." Again, Professor Lay seems to be trying to throw discredit on the spiritualists by talking as though their interest in death was abnormal. Is there not plenty, he says, in this unequivocal world around us to interest us that-we must always be thinking of death ? The interest is abnormal, the proof of a warped character. Surely in those who must inevitably die an interest in death is pretty natural ? Metaphysicians tell us that the only thing that can be predicted of any man is that he will die; all other prophecies must have an " if " before them, this alone is certain.
Mr. George Green's Psychanolysis in the Classroom2 (we wish that writers would not juggle with words to which we of the public are just beginning to get used) is an excellent little book whose perusal would prove particularly interesting to elementary school teachers, whose large classes make their work so difficult It is interesting to see in what a great measure the new study sf mind reinforces the old practices of our public schools on the one hand—with their delegation of authority, team games Ind so forth—and the newer doctrines of Mme. Montessori on the other. What the child must have, psychologists all seem to agree, are "opportunities for virtuous conduct." If that virtuous conduct can be rather in the public eye, so much the better. The child is a dynamic, growing thing for whose intense activities we must above all provide an outlet.
Dr. Varendonek's book, The Psychology of Day-Dreants,3 is of too technical a character to be dealt with here. It must suffice us to say that he has made an interesting contribution to the science of psychology. His book is prefaced by an intro- duction by Professor Sigmund Freud.
Previous page
