Research source

And now let us pass on from these specialised influences of suggestion on certain kinds of attention to its…

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 186
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

And now let us pass on from these specialised influences of suggestion on certain kinds of attention to its influence on attention generally, as needed, for instance, in education

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

And now let us pass on from these specialised influences of suggestion on certain kinds of attention to its influence on attention generally, as needed, for instance, in education. If we can arrest the shifting of the mental focus to undesired ideational centres in at all the same way as we can arrest the choreic or fidgety shiftings of motor impulse to undesired motor centres, we shall have done perhaps as much for the world's ordinary work as if we had raised the average man's actual intelligence a step higher in the scale. We shall have checked waste, although we may not have improved quality. The well-known case of Dr. Forel's warders,[87] who were enabled by hypnotic suggestion to sleep soundly by the side of the patients they had to watch, and wake only when the patients required to be restrained, shows us how by this means the attention may be concentrated on selected impressions and waste of energy be avoided in a way that could hardly be compassed by any ordinary exercise of the will.

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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