Research source

This result, however, is quite accordant with my view of what I have termed the hypnotic stratum of the…

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 40
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

This result, however, is quite accordant with my view of what I have termed the hypnotic stratum of the personality

Published source text

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Source passage

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This result, however, is quite accordant with my view of what I have termed the _hypnotic stratum_ of the personality. I hold, as our coming discussion of hypnotism will more fully explain, that the region into which the hypnotic suggestion gives us access is one of strangely mingled strength and weakness;--of a faculty at once more potent and less coherent than that of waking hours. I think that in these cases we get at the subliminal self only somewhat in the same sense as we get at the supraliminal self when the "highest-level centres" are for the time inoperative (as in a dream) and only "middle-level centres" are left to follow their own devices without inhibition or co-ordination. I hold that this is the explanation of the strange contrasts which hypnosis makes familiar to us--the combination of profound power over the organism with childish readiness to obey the merest whims of the hypnotiser.

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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