Is there any similarity between the two cases?
- Date of account
- Published 1921
- Source
- The Problems of Psychical Research Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal
- Reference
- The Problems of Psychical Research Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal · selected passage 157
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Is there any similarity between the two cases?
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyDoes this look like suggestion? Is there any similarity between the two cases? Their differences are too obvious to dwell upon. And, apart from the performances of the Hindu fakirs (which I have discussed elsewhere,[33] and which Count Solovovo himself thinks too few and too weak evidentially to require serious consideration), there is no similarity between an hallucination induced in a hypnotized subject by constant verbal suggestion, and one supposedly induced instantaneously in a large number of persons, not hypnotized, without any suggestion. The cases cannot be considered similar, or even as resembling one another in the slightest degree; while the improbability is heightened a thousandfold by the fact that these hands apparently performed physical actions and moved physical objects at the same time.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThe passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.
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