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 86
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

and although verbal accounts must always be weak and lack the realistic touch of the mise en scène, yet this account makes possible a kinetoscopic reproduction, as it were, of the original sitting; we may observe the point at which the several sitters committed their faults of defective observation or report; we may ex…

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Source passage

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and although verbal accounts must always be weak and lack the realistic touch of the _mise en scène_, yet this account makes possible a kinetoscopic reproduction, as it were, of the original sitting; we may observe the point at which the several sitters committed their faults of defective observation or report; we may examine at leisure the several steps in the performance which the eyes overlooked in the hasty single glimpse afforded by the sitting itself; we may attend to details which in the original sitting reached only the outlying and evanescent phases of consciousness. But, on the whole, the psychological comprehension of the "séance" was sufficiently manifest without this disclosure of the _modus operandi_; the disclosure has its value, however, in removing the possibility of certain forms of criticism of the results, in presenting data by which the specific nature of mal-observation may be more concretely studied, and in convincing the more obstinate and skeptical of how natural it is to err in matters beyond the range of one's intimate experience.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

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