Real Ghost Stories by William Thomas Stead (best non fiction books to read txt) 📖

Madame B. has been so often hypnotised, and during so many years (for she was hypnotised by other physicians as long ago as 1860), that Léonie II. has by this time acquired a considerable stock of memories which Madame B. does not share. Léonie II., therefore, counts as properly belonging to her own history and not to Madame B.'s all the events which have taken place while Madame B.'s normal self was hypnotised into unconsciousness. It was not always easy at first to understand this partition of past experiences.

"Madame B. in the normal state," says Professor Janet, "has a husband and children. Léonie II., speaking in the somnambulistic trance, attributes the husband to the 'other' (Madame B.), but attributes the children to herself.... At last I learnt that her former mesmerisers, as bold in their practice as certain hypnotisers of to-day, had induced somnambulism at the time of her accouchements. Léonie II., therefore, was quite right in attributing the children to herself; the rule of partition was unbroken, and the somnambulism was characterised by a duplication of the subject's existence" (p. 391).

Still more extraordinary are Léonie II.'s attempts to make use of Léonie I.'s limbs without her knowledge or against her will. She will write postscripts to Léonie I.'s letters, of the nature of which poor Léonie I. is unconscious.

It seems, however, that when once set up this new personality can occasionally assume the initiative, and can say what it wants to say without any prompting. This is curiously illustrated by what may be termed a conjoint epistle addressed to Professor Janet by Madame B. and her secondary self, Léonie II. "She had," he says, "left Havre more than two months when I received from her a very curious letter. On the first page was a short note written in a serious and respectful style. She was unwell, she said—worse on some days than on others—and she signed her true name, Madame B. But over the page began another letter in quite a different style, and which I may quote as a curiosity:—'My dear good sir,—I must tell you that B. really makes me suffer very much; she cannot sleep, she spits blood, she hurts me. I am going to demolish her, she bores me. I am ill also. This is from your devoted Leontine' (the name first given to Léonie II).

"When Madame B. returned to Havre I naturally questioned her concerning this curious missive. She remembered the first letter very distinctly, but she had not the slightest recollection of the second. I at first thought there must have been an attack of spontaneous somnambulism between the moment when she finished the first letter and the moment when she closed the envelope. But afterwards these unconscious, spontaneous letters became common, and I was better able to study the mode of their production. I was fortunately able to watch Madame B. on one occasion while she went through this curious performance. She was seated at a table, and held in the left hand the piece of knitting at which she had been working. Her face was calm, her eyes looked into space with a certain fixity, but she was not cataleptic, for she was humming a rustic tune; her right hand wrote quickly, and, as it were, surreptitiously. I removed the paper without her noticing me, and then spoke to her; she turned round wide-awake but was surprised to see me, for in her state of distraction she had not noticed my approach. Of the letter which she was writing she knew nothing whatever.

"Léonie II.'s independent action is not entirely confined to writing letters. She observed (apparently) that when her primary self, Léonie I., discovered these letters she (Léonie I.) tore them up. So Léonie II. hit upon a plan of placing them in a photographic album into which Léonie I. could not look without falling into catalepsy (on account of an association of ideas with Dr. Gibert, whose portrait had been in the album). In order to accomplish an act like this Léonie II. has to wait for a moment when Léonie I. is distracted, or, as we say, absent-minded. If she can catch her in this state Léonie II. can direct Léonie I.'s walks, for instance, or start on a long railway journey without baggage, in order to get to Havre as quickly as possible."

In the whole realm of imaginative literature, is there anything to compare to this actual fact of three selves in one body, each struggling to get possession of it? Léonie I., or the Conscious Personality, is in possession normally, but is constantly being ousted by Léonie II., or the Subconscious Personality. It is the old, old case of the wife trying to wear the breeches. But there is a fresh terror beyond. For behind both Léonie I. and Léonie II. stands the mysterious Léonie III.

"The spontaneous acts of the Unconscious Self," says M. Janet, here meaning by l'inconscient the entity to which he has given the name of Léonie III., "may also assume a very reasonable form—a form which, were it better understood, might perhaps serve to explain certain cases of insanity. Mme. B., during her somnambulism (i.e. Léonie II.) had had a sort of hysterical crisis; she was restless and noisy and I could not quiet her. Suddenly she stopped and said to me with terror. 'Oh, who is talking to me like that? It frightens me.' 'No one is talking to you.' 'Yes! there on the left!' And she got up and tried to open a wardrobe on her left hand, to see if some one was hidden there. 'What is that you hear?' I asked. 'I hear on the left a voice which repeats, "Enough, enough, be quiet, you are a nuisance."' Assuredly the voice which thus spoke was a reasonable one, for Léonie II. was insupportable; but I had suggested nothing of the kind, and had no idea of inspiring a hallucination of hearing. Another day Léonie II. was quite calm, but obstinately refused to answer a question which I asked. Again she heard with terror the same voice to the left, saying, 'Come, be sensible, you must answer.' Thus the Unconscious sometimes gave her excellent advice."

And in effect, as soon as Léonie III. was summoned into communication, she accepted the responsibility of this counsel. "What was it that happened?" asked M. Janet, "when Léonie II. was so frightened?" "Oh! nothing. It was I who told her to keep quiet; I saw she was annoying you; I don't know why she was so frightened."

Note the significance of this incident. Here we have got at the root of a hallucination. We have not merely inferential but direct evidence that the imaginary voice which terrified Léonie II. proceeded from a profounder stratum of consciousness in the same individual. In what way, by the aid of what nervous mechanism, was the startling monition conveyed?

Just as Mme. B. was sent, by means of passes, into a state of lethargy, from which she emerged as Léonie II., so Léonie II., in her turn, was reduced by renewed passes to a state of lethargy from which she emerged no longer as Léonie II. but as Léonie III. This second waking is slow and gradual, but the personality which emerges is, in one important point, superior to either Léonie I. or Léonie II. Although one among the subject's phases, this phase possesses the memory of every phase. Léonie III., like Léonie II., knows the normal life of Léonie I., but distinguishes herself from Léonie I., in whom, it must be said, these subjacent personalities appear to take little interest. But Léonie III. also remembers the life of Léonie II.—condemns her as noisy and frivolous, and is anxious not to be confounded with her either. "Vous voyez bien que je ne suis pas cette bavarde, cette folle; nous ne nous ressemblons pas du tout."

We ask, in amazement, how many more personalities may there not be hidden in the human frame? Here is simple Madame B., who is not one person but three—first her commonplace self; secondly, the clever, chattering Léonie II., who is bored by B., and who therefore wants to demolish her; and thirdly, the lordly Léonie III., who issues commands that strike terror into Léonie II., and disdains to be identified with either of the partners in Madame B.'s body.

It is evident, if the hypnotists are right, that the human body is more like a tenement house than a single cell, and that the inmates love each other no more than the ordinary occupants of tenemented property. But how many are there of us within each skin who can say?

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1891.

Chapter IV.

Some Suggested Theories.

Of theories to account for these strange phenomena there are enough and to spare. I do not for a moment venture to claim for the man and wife illustration the slightest scientific value. It is only a figure of speech which brings out very clearly one aspect of the problem of personality. The theory that there are two independent personalities within the human skin is condemned by all orthodox psychologists. There is one personality manifesting itself, usually consciously, but occasionally unconsciously, and the different method of manifestation differs so widely as to give the impression that there could not be the same personality behind both. A man who is ambidextrous will sign his name differently with his right or left hand, but it is the same signature. Mr. Myers thinks that the Secondary Personality of Subliminal Consciousness is merely a phase of the essential Unity of the Ego. Some time ago he expressed himself on this subject as follows:—

"I hold that hypnotism (itself a word covering a vast variety of different states) may be regarded as constituting one special case which falls under a far wider category—the category, namely, of developments of a Secondary Personality. I hold that we each of us contain the potentialities of many different arrangements of the elements of our personality, each arrangement being distinguishable from the rest by differences in the chain of memories which pertain to it. The arrangement with which we habitually identify ourselves—what we call the normal or primary self—consists, in my view, of elements selected for us in the struggle for existence with special reference to the maintenance of ordinary physical needs, and is not necessarily superior in any other respect to the latent personalities which lie alongside of it—the fresh combinations of our personal elements which may be evoked by accident or design, in a variety to which we at present can assign no limit. I consider that dreams, with natural somnambulism, automatic writing, with so-called mediumistic trance, as well as certain intoxications, epilepsies, hysterias, and recurrent insanities, afford examples of the development of what I have called secondary mnemonic chains; fresh personalities, more or less complete, alongside the normal state. And I would add that hypnotism is only the name given to a group of empirical methods of inducing these fresh personalities."

A doctor in philosophy, to whom I submitted these pages, writes me as follows:—"There can be no doubt that every man lives a sub-conscious as well as a conscious life. One side of him is closed against examination by himself (i.e. unconscious); the other is conscious of itself. The former carries on processes of separation, combination, and distribution, of the thought-stuff handed over to it, corresponding almost exactly to the processes carried on by the stomach, which, as compared with those of eating, etc., go on in the dark automatically."

Another doctor, not of philosophy but of medicine, who has devoted special attention to the phenomenon of sleep, suggests a new illustration which is graphic and suggestive. He writes:—

"With regard to dual or multiple consciousness, my own feeling has always been that the individuals stand one behind the other in the chambers of the mind, or else, as it were, in concentric circles. You may compare it to the Jewish tabernacle.