The Saint Paul globe., 1900-06-11
SMbeomSeioMsmess.


In the department Of psychology in Co
lumbia college young man has been ex-
perimenting along the line of what he
calls auto-suggestion, and believes that
in it he has found the explanation of
many forms of hypnotism, trance medi-
umship, dual personality and other phe-
nomena of subconsciousness.
He began his investigation of this sub
Ject when he was student in Western
college few years ago. One of his fell
low students was remarkable for his de-
Velopment of subconsciousness Viii e
he was studying or reading aloud an act
of direct consciousness of which he had a
perfect recollection afterward, his hand
would write answers to questions of
which he apparently took no notice and
of which he had no remembrance when
told Of later. This quality, possessed by
him in a high degree, belongs to every
one in more or less developed state
Walking along the street intent upon
some absorbing train of thought, we sud
denly became aware that a man or
woman of a certain appearance had pass
ed US some time before or that an ac-
quaintance had bowed to US without re-
ceiving recognition.
If this subconscious faculty could be
developed so as to take more frequent
and more definite cogniZance of what
passed about us, we should gain a great
advantage, practically doubling our abil-
ity to see, to hear and to assimilate
That this is done in certain cases there is
abundant proof. An instance of it is
given In the case of German servant
girl, who, falling violently i'll, was taken
to hospital on the border of France
where she raved in a tongue which none
nf Inio
French nor German nor any dialect ever
heard in that region of the country. A
learned doctor came and listened and
pronounced it Greek, not modern Greek,
but the classical language. The girl had
been a servant in the house of a professor
of Greek and, without knowledge or in
tention, had picked 1t up and stored 1t
away in the recesses of her mind whence
it had found 1t way out during her ILL
ness.
What a beautiful scheme it would be If,
while following our various vocatiOns we
could be assimilating at the same time
stores of useful knowledge simply by liv-
ing where 1t was. We do acquire many
facts in that way and have a knowledge
of things that we never definitely set
ourselves to learn.
That this ability may be cultivated the
Columbia college instructor thinks he
has proved. He selected several subjects
who did not know what his purpose was
for this experiment.
The falling of a drop slide exposed a
word through slit just large enough to
show the word clearly for brief mo-
ment. Off at one side was disclosed SIM
ultaneously a bit of color in such way
that 1t could be caught by the tail of
the eye,' but not in position to make
q dira0t cy1.,,.
ness of the subject, whose attention was
fixed upon the word in the slide.
When the subject was asked to name
the word he would say House or what
ever word happened to be shown. Then
ne would be asked to tell what color it
was. AT first about three out of twelve
would name the color, red or whatever it
was, which had been shown at the Same
tlme as the word, although they had not
neeq aware Of seeing the color, After a
little practice the eXperimenter was able
to get more responses to the color sug-
gestlon, and after time to get it right
along from the best subjects, PROVING that
this power can be cultivated; but when
ne got this far the subjects took fright
They thought that they were being hvp-
Noticed or that there was something m
canny about their seeing purple cow
or a green pig or a yellow table simply
because the investigator willed It, When
the scheme of flashing the color OBJ
scurely, to suggest 1t to them uncon-
sclously, was explained, of course thev
no longer were of use as subjects.
One bright young fellow, a student in
the psychological department, who was
pressed into service discovered what the
game was, but held his counsel and had
fun with the instructor until he was in
his turn, found out and dismissed.
But enough data were obtained to es-
tabllsh the existence OF auto-suggestion
and the possibility of cuitivating it and
OF getting better results than have been
recognized heretofore