ON THE CONTENTION THAT ALL PSYCHIC COMMUNICATIONS ARE OF A TRIVIAL NATURE AND DEAL WITH INSIGNIFICAN
- Date of account
- Published 1916
- Source
- Raymond; or, Life and Death With examples of the evidence for survival of memory and affection after death.
- Reference
- Raymond; or, Life and Death With examples of the evidence for survival of memory and affection after death. · selected passage 145
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The process of regular communication--apart from the exceptional more direct privilege occasionally vouchsafed to people in extreme sorrow--thus seems to involve normally a double medium of communication, and the activity of several people
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 onlyThe process of regular communication--apart from the exceptional more direct privilege occasionally vouchsafed to people in extreme sorrow--thus seems to involve normally a double medium of communication, and the activity of several people. First there is the 'Communicator' or originator of ideas and messages on the other side. Then there is the 'control' who accepts and transmits the messages by setting into operation a physical organism lent for the occasion. Then there is the 'Medium' or person whose normal consciousness is in abeyance but whose physiological mechanism is being used. And finally there is the 'Sitter'--a rather absurd name--the recipient of the messages, who reads or hears and answers them, and for whose benefit all this trouble is taken.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis 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 onlyThe 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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