Research source

VI. Other forms of involuntary indications; "involuntary whispering;" the subconscious 334

Date of account: Published 1900
Source: Fact and Fable in Psychology
Reference: Fact and Fable in Psychology · selected passage 80
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

There is a very broadspread notion that anybody can go to a spiritualistic séance and give a reliable opinion as to whether what he or she may chance to see is explicable as conjuring or not

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

There is a very broadspread notion that anybody can go to a spiritualistic séance and give a reliable opinion as to whether what he or she may chance to see is explicable as conjuring or not. Especially where the right to one's opinion is regarded as a corollary to the right of liberty, does this notion prevail. It is probably not an exaggeration to maintain that most such claimants are about as competent to form a trustworthy opinion on such a subject as they are to pronounce upon the genuineness of a Syriac manuscript. The matter is in some aspects as much a technical acquisition as is the diagnosticating of a disease. It is not at all to the discredit of any one's powers of observation or intellectual acumen to be deceived by the performances of a conjurer; and the same holds true of the professional part of mediumistic phenomena. Until this homely but salutary truth is impressed with all its importance upon all intending investigators, there is little hope of bringing about a proper attitude towards these and kindred phenomena.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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