INTRODUCTION BY G. S. H. By a general consensus of psychologists, consciousness is now regarded as a matter of degrees. Of these there are very many, from the focus of most intense apperception down toward, if not to, complete unconsciousness. It is probably not too much to say that most psychic operations are not only in the indirect field of attention, but are to a greater or less extent unconscious, and the most interesting and promising lines of research in recent years have been in exploring the latter. One need not agree with the philosophy of Hartmann or even with that of Fechner, with its innumerable thresholds, one above the other, in order to understand the sense in which very much of our conduct, our feelings, and our intuitive processes are not explicable by the old consciousness psychologies and in which subliminal activities make up a large part of those processes that determine interest, affection, conduct, and many forms of health and disease. From the days of Charcot down to those of Janet, Freud, and his associates there has been great progress in understanding many phenomena that were formerly regarded as weird and mystic and perhaps due to the activity of demons, spirits, telepathy, or other mysterious agencies. In the opinion of the writer of this introductory note, enough already has been done utterly to discredit every form of the old belief that either disembodied spirits or telepathic agencies have anything to do in this field. He is convinced that all forms of belief in these must now be abandoned and that scientific psychology must take its stand squarely upon the conviction that nothing whatever occurs in the world of mind that has not its sufficient and adequate natural causation - a view long accepted in the realm of physical, but long discredited in that of psychic, phenomena. It is these new insights and convictions that have given a great and new zest the world over to the study of all kinds of borderline phenomena, have brought to the foreground of interest such formerly discredited topics as sleight-ofhand performances, table tipping, rapping, witchcraft, mind and faith cures, Eddyism, Emmanuelism, Dowieism, Christian Science, mental, divine, and metaphysical healing, and have suggested new relations between psychology, medicine, and religion. The author of this book has devoted years of patient study to the various phenomena in these fields and has attempted to give a rational and coherent explanation of them according to the principles of modern science. He has sought to maintain a sympathetic attitude towards all those who believe in the power of the mind over the body, and he seeks to show that those who discredit this, as certain medical writers are still prone to do, omit a fact of human nature of profound theoretical and practical significance. This critique, on the other hand, is no less searching and impartial as to those who maintain the sufficiency of purely psychic agencies to effect cures or to explain a large class of phenomena that illustrate relations between the mind and body. It is thus the comprehensiveness of his studies and the attempted judiciousness of his point of view that in my opinion give this volume its own place and value and that will serve, I hope, to diffuse a more sane, wholesome, and impartial viewpoint in this field. With many recent books, precisely this breadth and harmonizing tendency have generally been wanting. The writer sees the profound significance of the new psycho-analytic methods and results in their bearing upon the manifold and complex facts in his domain. One need not, and indeed perhaps no one would, entirely agree with all the conclusions of any author on all the topics treated here, but I see no reason why religion, which in past ages has always exerted such a profound influence upon all matters of health and disease, cannot rehabilitate for itself from the material herein described its old function of healing, which, when it is complete, will have profound significance on the future fate and function of the Church. |