Research source

There is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that telepathy is the agency primarily concerned in these…

Date of account: Published 1908
Source: Occultism and common-sense
Reference: Occultism and common-sense · selected passage 62
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

There is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that telepathy is the agency primarily concerned in these manifestations

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 only

There is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that telepathy is the agency primarily concerned in these manifestations. The idea having been received, a hallucination is built up, so to speak, by the percipient. A truly hallucinable person can suggest to himself his own hallucinations with no external aid, but a non-hallucinable personage cannot induce these hallucinations at all. Dr Hugh Wingfield stated to the Society for Psychical Research that the case of one of his patients proved that hallucinations could be produced by self-suggestion. "He could, by a simple effort of the mind, himself believe almost any delusion--_e.g._ that he was riding on horseback, that he was a dog, or anything else, or that he saw snakes--if left to himself the delusion vanished slowly. Anyone else could remove it at once by a counter-suggestion.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This 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 only

The 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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