It has seemed to me necessary to describe with some detail this seance, at which the Martian language made its…
- Date of account
- English edition published 1900
- Source
- From India to the planet Mars: A study of a case of somnambulism with glossolalia
- Reference
- From India to the planet Mars: A study of a case of somnambulism with glossolalia · selected passage 135
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English translation from French
- Translation
- English translation of Théodore Flournoy
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
It has seemed to me necessary to describe with some detail this seance, at which the Martian language made its first appearance, in order to place before the reader all the fragments which we have been able to gather, without, of course, any guarantee of absolute accuracy, since every one knows how difficult it is to n…
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 onlyIt has seemed to me necessary to describe with some detail this seance, at which the Martian language made its first appearance, in order to place before the reader all the fragments which we have been able to gather, without, of course, any guarantee of absolute accuracy, since every one knows how difficult it is to note the sounds of unknown words. A curious difference is to be noticed between the words picked up in the course of the seance and the four words several times repeated by Hélène, the meaning and pronunciation of which have been determined with complete accuracy in the post-hypnotic return of the somnambulistic dream. Judged by these latter, the Martian language is only a puerile counterfeit of French, of which she preserves in each word a number of syllables and certain conspicuous letters. In the other phrases, on the contrary, also making use of later texts which have been translated, as we shall see hereafter, it cannot be discovered what it is.
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.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.