MR. MYERS ON SELF-MULTIPLICATION.
IN Mr. Myers's elaborate essay on what he calls (rather grandiosely, we think) "Subliminal Consciousness," which opens the February number of the Proceedings Of the Society for Psychical Research, he begins the exposition of a theory intended to generalise the many remarkable phenomena of what is now called " Hypnotism." His view is, if we may put it in a plain way, that human personality admits of a certain self-multiplication like some of the lower forms of animal life, which, simply by disintegrating themselves, multiply themselves. Moreover, this process may apparently be artificially performed. Just as it is said that each fragment of a worm that is cut in two by a gardener's spade will shortly become a complete worm, so the fragments of an individuality which is somehow divided by the hypnotist into separate states of consciousness, will result in more or less permanently dis- tinct personalities, one of which (assumed to be the deeper and more fundamental and the least recognisable by the individual's human acquaintances) Mr. Myers calls the " sub- liminal consciousness " or the " subliminal self ;" while the character which we human beings ordinarily identify with the man is regarded by Mr. Myers as a rather superficial phase of his being, which he terms the " supraliminal self." He does not tell us how he would regard the two opposite characters elicited in one of the most famous French cases, by the use of a magnet on a paralysed girl. When one side was paralysed, the girl was a violent, disreputable, coarse, idle girl. When the application of a magnet effected the revivification of the paralysed side, and the loss of power on the opposite side, the character was suddenly transformed into that of an industrious, modest, dutiful young woman. Which of the two in that case was the subliminal and which the supraliminal self P Mr. Myers's theory would apparently throw no light at all on that question. " We all know," says Mr. Myers, " that the hypno- tised subject, as a rule, remembers waking life, but that the awakened subject, as a rule, has wholly forgotten the events of his hypnotic trance." And he suggests that " the stream of consciousness in which we habitually live, is not the only consciousness which exists, in connection with our organism. Our habitual or empirical consciousness may consist of a mere selection from a multitude of thoughts and sensations, of which some at least are equally conscious with those that we empirically know. I accord no primacy to my ordinary waking self, except that among my potential selves this one has shown itself the fittest to meet the needs of common life. I hold that it has established no farther claim." Indeed, as we have seen, he thinks that the " subliminal self " revealed in the hypnotic state has usually this advantage over the waking
or empirical self, that it has a complete command of the memories of the waking self, while the waking self has no command of the memories of the subliminal self. In other words, our ordinary self-knowledge is knowledge of a frag-
ment only of the individuality, while the self-knowledge of the hypnotic trance is a self-knowledge which usually extends to more than one of the fragments, perhaps to all the frag- ments, of the broken-up individuality. So that, in Mr. Myers's view, the fragmentary personalities into which the hypnotic state divides men, are thus far unlike the self-multiplied frag- ments of the lower orders of animals,—that no one supposes that one of the fragments of a polyp or a worm commands a view of the life of the other fragments after they have set up for themselves, whereas the " subliminal self " is supposed to have some knowledge and memory of all the subordinate personalities into which the human individuality is broken up, and, indeed, not a little control over them.
Is this to be called a generalisation or theory at all, or rather a very arbitrary hypothesis which hardly even pretends to cover the ground of the various strange facts of the admitted phenomena P We cannot help thinking that it is the latter rather than the former, and we will proceed to give some of our reasons. In the first place, Mr. Myers has evidently not in the least made up his mind between two inconsistent views of what he calls the " subliminal " self. As we have seen, he rather inclines throughout the main part of the essay to the view that the hypnotic self, the subliminal self, or at least the deepest of the subliminal selves (for there are various cases in which there appear to be at least two supraliminal selves above that which is revealed by the deepest hypnotic trance), commands a fall view of the super- ficial selves, but is not commanded by them, and, indeed, controls the actions of the superficial selves without being subject to their control. He puts this very strongly in one passage :—" You may say to a good hypnotic subject : After you are awakened, you will not see Mr. A, nor hear his voice, nor feel his touch;' and in fact the subject, awakened and apparently normal, will be irresponsive to these special stimuli—will seem, and in a sense will be, absolutely incapable of seeing, hearing, or feeling Mr. A. But nevertheless,—and this result, which experiment has in many cases actually detected, is, from our standpoint, pro- bable enough,—the sights, sounds, and touches which are unperceived by the subject's supraliminal, are habitually per- ceived by his subliminal consciousness ; and, in fact, he must somehow or other hear and distinguish Mr. A's voice in order to know when not to hear him,—feel and distinguish Mr. A's touches in order to know what touches are not to be felt." Now, here we have Mr. Myers regarding the " subliminal" self as clearly understanding, overlooking, and superintending the whole machinery, as it were, of our ordinary sensa- tions and perceptions, sealing up some of the avenues of sense, and leaving others open, so that the ordinary consciousness shall not admit any sound of Mr. A's voice, or any vision of his person, or any touch of his hand, though it admits freely all other sights, sounds, and feelings. This " subliminal " consciousness lends itself, in fact, to an elaborate and masterly manipulation of the ordinary processes of sensation and perception undertaken at the suggestion of the hypnotist, and apparently for no other reason whatever. Yet, in other cases, Mr. Myers evidently treats the " subliminal " consciousness as itself deceived and misled, as in the case of the lady who was persuaded that the mere presence of a rose in the room brought on violent catarrh and floods of tears. Her doctor suddenly presented to her an artificial rose, when the symptoms at once began ; but when he showed her that there was no scent and no real rose, she was not only restored for that time, but cured of the habit of suffering from the presence even of real roses. To use Mr. Myers's expression, " the sanity of her nasal self " was restored. In this case, then, the " subliminal" self was certainly at the root of the hysteria. It did not set to work to impose on the ordinary consciousness, but was itself the dupe. If it set the catarrh going, it was not done deliberately, but because it had either been hoaxed by some other agency, or had hoaxed itself. Now, if the " subliminal " self of the other patient had, as Mr. Myers thinks, a good view of Mr. A, but set itself to shut off that view from the " supraliminal" self, the former self was not in the least deceived. But in the other case, apparently, it was the " subliminal " self which was deceived, and which required illumination. Yet if the " subliminal " self really commands all the avenues of sense and perception sufficiently to shut off those which would give the hypnotic patient in his waking state knowledge of the presence of Mr. A, it surely must com- mand those avenues of sense which tell of the presence and scent of a rose, and which inform it whether that scent really causes tears and catarrh, or not. It appears to us that Mr. Myers's view of the powers and faculties of the " sub- liminal " self varies so much as to be quite worthless for the purposes of any theory.
In the next place, his view assumes that this divisibility of the individuality into a number of layers of personality, is not a disease at all, but is proper to the healthy no less than the hysterical ; but he gives no kind of proof of this. Surely the great majority of men do not show any sign at all of being breakable into subliminal and supraliminal selves. Is there one in a thousand ordinary human beings who shows the least sign of it ?
But the most serious objection of all to Mr. Myers's theory is, that at bottom it requires us to resolve hypnotism into the voluntary action of the supposed subliminal self, and makes the mesmerist, or hypnotist, or medical conductor of the process of the hypnotic sleep, a mere accident who might easily be dispensed with. Now, the only evidence for this is, that patients- who have been repeatedly sent into this sleep by others, can be taught eventually to send themselves into it for the purposes of self-cure. That surely is no argument at all. The very essence of these morbid phenomena (as we regard them) is the unreasonable and even ludicrous pliancy of the subliminal self to all sorts of capricious suggestion or hoaxing. Either it deliberately abets the hypnotist's caprices and fibs, or it is taken in by him and executes his commands in a spirit of gross credulity. A man is told that he is going to burn himself by touching a cold stove, and he does produce all the blisters and other painful consequences of a burn by touching this cold stove. A man is told that he is going to have a glass of delicious champagne, and is given a dose of paraffin-oil, and he enjoys it as much as if it were really delicious champagne. Now, would or could a rational being have made these sug- gestions to himself ? And if he had, would he not have known perfectly well that he was fibbing to himself, and therefore would he not have failed to effect his purpose ? Mr. Myers sees all this perfectly well, but he fails to see that it is alto- gether inconsistent with his view that the " subliminal" self is the real source of the hypnotic trance, and that there is nothing of true alienation of mind in this extreme pliancy to irrational suggestion. He says truly enough that the puzzle as to this morbid pliancy is none of his making. Certainly it is not of his making. But a theory is supposed to harmonise the phenomena to which it applies ; and what we complain of is, that his theory does not harmonise them. As it seems to us, " morbid " is the true word for this horrible liability to be influenced by irrational external suggestion. A true alienation of mind is implied in it ; and we do not believe that Mr. Myers can explain any of the facts which are con- nected with this pliancy to external suggestion without assuming the suppression or alienation of reasoning power.
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