Research source

Nay, it may well be that we must look even further back than our own childhood for the origin of many haunting…

Date of account: Published 1903
Source: Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death
Reference: Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death · selected passage 34
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Nay, it may well be that we must look even further back than our own childhood for the origin of many haunting troubles

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

Nay, it may well be that we must look even further back than our own childhood for the origin of many haunting troubles. Inherited tendencies to terror, especially, seem to reach far back into a prehistoric past. In a recent "Study of Fears," which Professor Stanley Hall has based on a wide statistical collection,[8] it would seem that the fears of childhood often correspond to no existing cause for uneasiness, but rather to the vanished perils of primitive man. The fear of darkness, for instance, the fear of solitude, the fear of thunder-storms, the fear of the loss of orientation, speak of primitive helplessness, just as the fear of animals, the fear of strangers, suggest the fierce and hazardous life of early man.

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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