SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM

manifestations. Do not the phenomena of mental transmission original: "mental transmission"; here meaning telepathy or the transfer of thoughts, of seeing at a distance without eyes, of seeing things yet to come—do not these bear the same testimony?

Mental transmission is beyond doubt, notably between a hypnotist original: "hypnotiser" and his subject. I could recall a thousand examples. Here is one, surely free from sentiment, but very characteristic, cited by Dr. Bertrand Alexandre Bertrand (1795–1831) was a French physician and a pioneer in the study of somnambulism and animal magnetism., a most competent experimenter in this field:

A hypnotist, much filled with mystical ideas, had a somnambulist original: "somnambulist"; in 19th-century terminology, this referred to a person in a deep hypnotic trance who could perform actions or experience visions. who during his sleep only saw angels and spirits of every kind. These visions confirmed the hypnotist more and more in his religious belief. As he always quoted the dreams of his somnambulist in favor of his system, another hypnotist of his acquaintance undertook to disillusion him by proving to him that his somnambulist had the visions described solely because their prototype original: "prototype"; the mental image or model existed in his own head. In proof of this, he undertook to let the somnambulist witness a gathering of the angels of paradise sitting at a table and eating a turkey!

He therefore hypnotized the somnambulist, and after a time asked him whether he did not see anything extraordinary. He replied that he saw a great assembly of angels. "And what are they doing?" asked the hypnotist. "They are sitting round a table eating." But he could not tell the dish of which they were partaking.

That is an example of mental suggestion, of which you know many cases. The will of the hypnotist acts upon the subject without the aid of words. We can, of course, call it the action of one brain upon another, but does it not seem as if the brain were only an instrument of the will? I should not congratulate the brain upon its thought any more than I should congratulate a telescope upon its view of Saturn. Is not the brain the organ of thought just as the eye is the organ of sight?

And what about seeing at a distance, or in dreams?