Research source

We thus experience in ourselves a strange conflict between moral responsibility and molecular affinities;--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 147
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

We thus experience in ourselves a strange conflict between moral responsibility and molecular affinities;--the central will overborne by dumb unnumbered elements of our being

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

We thus experience in ourselves a strange conflict between moral responsibility and molecular affinities;--the central will overborne by dumb unnumbered elements of our being. With this condition of things hypnotic suggestion deals often in a curious way. The suggestion is not generally felt as a strengthening of the central will. It resembles rather a molecular redisposition; it leaves the patient indifferent to the stimulus, or even disgusted with it. The man for whom alcohol has combined the extremes of delight and terror now lives as though in a world in which alcohol did not exist at all.[68]

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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