Research source

I asked the meaning of this bizarre and portentous conglomeration of letters. The reply was

Date of account: English edition published 1907
Source: Mysterious Psychic Forces An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants
Reference: Mysterious Psychic Forces An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants · selected passage 70
Rights: public_domain
Language: English translation from French
Translation: English translation from Camille Flammarion
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

It is applicable to a great number of cases, but not in all

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

It is applicable to a great number of cases, but not in all. It explains automatic writing. But, as it stands, it is necessary to stretch it considerably to make it explain the rappings (for who raps?), and it does not explain at all the levitations of the table, nor the displacement of objects of which I have spoken in the first chapter, and I do not very well see how it can even explain phrases rapped out backwards or by the strange combinations described above. This hypothesis is admitted and developed in a more unqualified way by Dr. Pierre Janet in his work _Psychological Automatism_. This author is one of those who have created a narrow circle of observation and study, and who not only never emerge from it, but imagine that they have got the whole universe in their circle. In going over this kind of reasoning, one thinks involuntarily of that old quarrel of the two round eyes who saw everything round and of the two square eyes who saw everything square, and of the history of the Big-endians and of the Little-endians of _Gulliver's Travels_. An hypothesis is worthy of attention when it explains something.

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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