Contact With the Other World: The Latest Evidence as to Communication With the Dead

By James H. Hyslop

The facts that led to the conception Of psychic research were a set of phenomena which, at least superficially, appeared to be in explicable by the ordinary theories of science. They were taboo to normal psychology and psychologists, for no scientific man was prepared to reinstate the traditional idea Of the supernatural. The Opposition between the natural and the supernatural was so fixed that it was necessary to avoid misunderstanding Of the latter term in order to pacify the orthodox psychologist. Hence the terms psychic research and psychic phenomena were Chosen to denominate a border-land set Of phenomena that might possibly be resolved into recognized types Of events which, though unusual, would not necessitate a revision of orthodox beliefs. Abnormal psychology had come to accept many extraordinary things, but only as exhibitions Of acute sensibility or as phenomena of CO incidence. It was therefore necessary to make one's peace with this attitude and not to rush Off prematurely into the regions of the miraculous. Psychic research thus became a compromise Offered by one school Of recognized scientists to another in the hope that some means might be found to extend tolerance to certain persistent facts that would not disappear at the command Of conjurer or skeptic. The three types of phenomena which gave most Offense were telepathy, apparitions, and mediumship. Hypnotism had won recognition, though only after meeting opposition hardly less bitter than that which these more inexplicable facts encountered. Muscle — reading and phenomena due to hyperaesthesia, or acute sen sibility, lay on the border-land, and offered to the conservative mind a natural explanation Of the facts to which they were relevant. Fraud, coincidence, and suggestion were explanations which fur ther limited or refuted the claims Of the supernormal and the supernatural.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Release date: Nov 6, 2017