St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-12-26
DUAL
A Story Told by Prof. James Of the
Psychicaf Research Society.

1870 ~ W 49,
Psychicai Research Society.
Boston Herald.
A meeting Of the American branch of
the Society for Psychical Research-the
first meeting since last March-was held
last night in the amphitheater Of the So
ciety of Natural History y -" Prof. Will
liam James described a case of double
personality of the so-called ambulatory
type, the investigation Of which lie has
just concluded.
The subject is a man, now about sixty
years of age, residing in a small place
near P~awtucket. II. l.. This person was
a carpenter until 1857, when, by a
strange visitation of Providence, he was
induced to adopt altogether different
habits of life. He had been an atheist.
One day, while walking in the open
country, he thought he heard a voice,
saying:
"Go to the chapel. go to the chapel"
"To what chapel?" he inquired of his
invisible monitor.
"To the Christian chapel" was the
reply.
Now the carpenter was ON unfriendly
terms with the minister of the Christian
chapel and he exclaimed aloud:
before l go to that place | hope God
may strike me deaf, dumb and blind"
Instantly he fell to the earth. envel-
oped in darkness and silence and with
out the power of speech.
The events which followed. as Prof.
James said in telling this part of the
story, were such as generally occur in
cases of the same sort, which are fire.
quent in religious history. Suffice it to
say that the events eliminated i'll the
manic conformation, 10 HE A,oO - h11
conversion and in his adoption of the
vocation of IN itinerant preacher.
For thirty years he followed this call
ing, doing a great deal of missionary
work, and becoming well known over 4
large area of New York state and West
ern New England.
Early in 1887 he had abandoned his
preaching, being advanced in years and
DESTROYS of living more quietly, and had
taken up again his old trade of carpen-
teIing. His health was still good, and
he worked twelve or thirteen hours a
day in preference to nine or ten.
In what follows it is we'll to remember
Prof. James assurance of his convic-
ton that the man III question is sincere.
free from deception and a genuine sub
One day, while living at Greene, r.
l., he suddenly disappeared from home.
Every effort wa made to find him out,
but to no avail. He was completely lost.
Two months later, in NOrriStoWn, Pa,
a man named Brown, who kept a little
candy store, woke up i'll the middle of
the night and found himself in a strange
place. His bed was strange. the room
in which he lay was strange and the
shop into which he CROPPED his way was
SO unfamiliar that he became thoroughly
alarmed. Fearing he would be taken
for a burglar, he cried for help. The
neishbOrs rushed out in the night and
discovered Brown, the candy merchant,
in an unaccountable state.
"Where am l? Who am l? Who are
you?' he cried, in great perturbation.
They thought their neighbor must be
suddenly gone crazy. When told that
his name was Brown he denied it, and
gave as his name that of the erstwhile
preacher and carpenter of Rhode Island.
The village doctor Vas called upon
for a1vice. He saw in the case some
thing different from ordinary mania,
but still he thought it was mania. How
ever, he communicated with Browns
alleged relatives in Rhode Island, and,
to be sure, Browns assertions concern
ing himself were found to be true.
But Brown 10Y had no recollection of
lie CApCllCuCC Ill JIC Cdlluy SlOic, uOI
did he know how he got there Oh how
he left Rhode Island.
The case became noised abroad, and
was investigated bya Philadelphia ply
stefan, but with no results.
All that was known was that the man
had been away from home two months.
six weeks of which he had spent at Nor
riStOWR, but the remaining fortnight
was a blank to him, and could be ex-
planned 10y nobody else.
In the course of time the circum-
stances reached the notice of Prot.
James. The man was now again at
home. peaceably pursuing his trade of
carpenter. The professor visited him
and found him to be a h~ard-headed mat
ter-of-fact Yankee. After considerable
to Cambridge and be hypnotiZed. The
professor thought that in a hypnotic
trance the man might remember his
Brown experience. And so he did.
This is the most valuable phase of the
phenomenon from a psychical point of
view.
He was very readily hynotized, and.
as o on as he passed into the trance, be-
gan to talk of Norristown and the candy
store. He also explained those two
weeks that had been up to this time a
mystery to everybody. While prosaic
enough his account was perfectly cir
tion that some trouble was in store for
him at home, he got on a horse car one
day and rode to Pawtucket. pro-
ceeded thence to New York, stopped
one night at the Grand Union hotel,
went on to Philadelphia, put up a
couple of nights at a hotel, and then
took a room at a boarding house. The
location of this house he gave as Ills
Hilbert street.
While there, seeing an advertisement
of q small business for sale in Norris
town, he went to that place, which he
had never visited before, and set him
self UP in trade.
Such was his story when he was in
the hypnotic state, and in that state he
could remember nothing of his former
or normal condition. On the other
hand, while in his waking state he had
no recollection of his Brown expert
ence subsequent to his boarding the
horse car to ride to Pawtucket, nor
could he tell why he started on this trip.
Ills Brown personality was, as Prof.
James put 1t, a weak, insipid, diluted
extract of his normal personality. In
the two states he was two entirely diff
ferent men.
ITO Wdo uy pllUtiZcO ulduy llilGS, dllQ
attempts were made by all sorts of arti-
fees to effect at least a partial fusion of
his Brown condition and his normal
condition, but these efforts were quite
unsuccessful. The only result was that
his hypnotic memory grew more and
more feeble, until finally he could recol-
lect only the barest outlines of his
Brown experience.
His statements concerning that ex-
perlence were, of course. verified as far
as possible. 1t was not until last week.
however, that the boarding house at
Ills Filbert street vas found to have
existed otherwise than in his imagina-
ton. When Prof. James wrenched his
hypnotic narrative from him that house
had been torn down and replaced by a
mercantile establishment, and all traces
of its former occupants were lost. And
only a few days ago did Prof. James re-
ceive word that they had been discov-
cred.
Thev perfectly remembered the man,
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