Research source

T place one may say that of the anti-mesmeric schools of opinion, the "purely physiological" school has on 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 198
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

t place one may say that of the anti-mesmeric schools of opinion, the "purely physiological" school has on the whole failed, the "purely suggestive" school has triumphantly succeeded

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

t place one may say that of the anti-mesmeric schools of opinion, the "purely physiological" school has on the whole failed, the "purely suggestive" school has triumphantly succeeded. The school of Nancy, reinforced by hypnotists all over Europe, has abundantly proved that "pure suggestion" (whatever that be) is the determining cause of a very large proportion of hypnotic phenomena. That is beyond dispute; and the two other schools, the "pure physiologists" and the "mesmerists" alike, must now manage to prove as best they can that their favourite methods play any real part in the induction of any case of hypnosis. For to the pure suggestionist, monotonous stimulation and mesmeric passes are alike in themselves inert, are alike mere facilitations of suggestion, acting not directly on the patient's organism, but rather on his state of mental expectation.

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.

Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.