Research source

Such a condition resembles some hypnotic trances, and some factitious personalities as developed by automatic…

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 46
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Such a condition resembles some hypnotic trances, and some factitious personalities as developed by automatic writing

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

Such a condition resembles some hypnotic trances, and some factitious personalities as developed by automatic writing. Or, again, the post-epileptic state may resemble a suddenly developed _idée fixe_ triumphing over all restraint, and may prompt to serious crime, abhorrent to the normal, but premeditated in the morbid state. There could not, in fact, be a better example of the unchecked rule of middle-level centres;--no longer secretly controlled, as in hypnotic trance, by the higher-level centres,--which centres in the epileptic are in a state not merely of psychological abeyance, but of physiological exhaustion.[14]

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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