Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-12-20
DUAL PERSONALITY.
a essry Told by Professor James Of the
fsychscai Research. Society.

ErOI90mOr
fsychscai Research. Society.
From the Boston Herald
A meeting Of the American branch Of the
Society for Psychical Research-the firs, meet
ing since last March-was held last night i'm An.
amphitheater Of the society of Natural History.
Prof. William James described a case
Of double personality Of tho so-called ambula-
tory type, the investigation of which he has
Just concluded.
The subject is q man, now about sixty years
OF age, residing In q small place near Paw
tucket, r. I. This person was . carpentsr un-
til 1857. when, by strange visitation Of Prov
idence, he was induced 10 adopt altogether DIFF
ferent habits Of life. He had been an atheist
One day while walking in the open country.
he thought he heard voice. saving:
go to the chapel, go 10 the chapel
ITO what chapelY" he inquired Of his invisi-
bic monitor.
ITO the Christian chapel, was the reply.
with the minister of the Christian chapel and he
exclaimed aloud:
before go to that place hope God may
strike me deaf, dumb and blind"
Instantly he fell to the earth. enveloped in
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 frequent in religious history. Suffice
mans restoration TO his senses. in his converse
ton and In his adoption Of the vocation of an
| itinerant preacher
For thirty years he followed this calling. do
ing great deal of missionary work. and be-
coming well known over a large area of New
York state and western New England
Early in 1887 he had abandoned his preach
ing, being advanced in years and desirous OF
living more quietly, and had taken MP again
his old trade of carpentering His health was
10
hours day in preference 20 nine or ten
In what follows il IL well to remember Prof
James assurance Of his conviction that the
man in question is sincere. free from decep-
uon ana genuine subject Of strange psychical
One day, while living at Greene. RI. he
suddenly disappeared from home. Every
effort was made to find him, but 10 no avail.
He was completely lost.
Two months later. in Norristown, Pa, a man
named Brown, who kept a little candy store,
woke up in the middle Of the night and found
himself in 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 be became thoroughly
alarmed. Fearing he would be taken for a
burglar, he cried for help. The neighbors
rushed out in the night and discovered Brown.
the candy merchant. in an unaccountable state
where am l! Who am l? Who are your he
cried, in great perturbation.
They thought their neighbor must be sud-
denly gone crazy. When told that his name
was Brown he denied il, and gave as his name
that of the erstwhile preacher and carpenter
of Rhode Island.
The village doctor was called upon for ad
vice. He saw in the case something different
from ordinary mania, but still he thought il
was mania. However. he communicated with
Browns alleged relatives in Rhode Island. and,
10 De sure, Browns assertions concerning him.
self were found to be true.
But Brown now had no recollection OF his ex-
perience in the candy store, nor did he know
how he got there or how he left Rhode Island.
The case became noised abroad, and was in
vestigated by Philadelphia physician, 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 Norristown. but the re-
manning fortnight was blank to him and could
be explained by nobody else.
In the course of time the circumstances
reached the notice of Prof. James. The man
was now again at home. peaceably pursuing his
| trade OF carpenter. The professor visited him
and found him to be hard-headed. matter-of-
| fact Yankee. After considerable persuasion he
was persuaded 10 come 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 psychical point of view.
He was very readily hypnotized, and. as soon
as he passed into the trance, began to talk of
Norristown and the candy store. He also ex-
planned those two weeks that had been up to
this time mystery TO everybody. While
| prosaic enough. his account was perfectly cir
cumstantial. Having conceived a notion that
some trouble was in store for him at home he
got on q horse car one day and rode to Paw
tucket, proceeded thence to New York. stopped
one night at the Grand Union Hotel went on
TO Philadelphia, put up couple of nights at a
hotel, and then took a room at a boarding
house. The location of this house he gave as
| Ills Filbert street.
While there, seeing an advertisement Of a
small business for sale in Eorristown he went
| to that place. which he had never visited be-
| fore, and set himself up in trade.
Such was his story when he was in the hvp-
| motto state, and in that state he could remem-
Der nothing OF his former or normal condition.
On the other hand while in his waking state
| he had no recollection of his Brown experience
| subsequent to his boarding the horse car TO
ride to Pawtucket. nor could he tell why he
started on this trip.
His Brown personality vas, as Prof James
put it, a weak, insipid, diluted extract of his
normal personality. IN the two states he was
| two entirely different men.
He was hypnotized many times, and attempts
were made by all sorts of articles to effect at
least 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 recollect only the
barest outlines of his Brown experience.
His statements concerning that experience
were, OF course, verified as far as possible. 1t
was rot until last week, however that the
boarding house at No. Ills Filbert street was
| found TO have existed otherwise than in his
imagination. When Professor James wrencbed
his hypnotic narrative from him that house had
been torn down and replaced by mercantile
establishment, and all traces Of its former oc-
cupants were lost. And only a few dau ago
did Professor James receive word that they
| had been discovered
They perfectly remembered the man, with
| the circumstances of his arrival at their house
and his departure to 60 into business at Norris
town.