Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ... say that all such experiences must be hallucinatory. The logical implication of a thorough-going theory of hallucination is that only sense impressions are possible to men, although these may be either true or false. By definition a hallucination is a "perception of objects with no reality, or experience of sensations with no external cause." To explain all experiences in which men have felt that they have come into immediate contact with God as hallucinations is equivalent to saying either that there is no God who can come into immediate contact with men, or that if there is a God he does not come into immediate contact with men. In other words, if there is a God who comes into immediate contact with men, then some of these experiences are not hallucinations. It may be pointed out in this connection that the conclusion arrived at by very careful and critical treatment of the results of the only extensive census of hallucinations ever made was that hallucinations of the presence of human beings were "veridical," i. e., correspond to some demonstrable fact, 440 times as often as they might be expected to do on the laws of chance. This should be kept in mind in forming a final judgment as to the explanation of the phenomena we are investigating.29 B. Psychological Theories. 1. Automatisms: Self-hypnosis: Extatic Intoxication. The consideration of the theory of hallucination leads by a natural and easy transition to the consideration of the first of the definitely psychological theories in explanation of such experiences as we are studying, the theory of automatisms. The theory of automatisms underlies most of the other psychological explanations and itself leads easily to, and to some extent implies, theories of the subconscious. Coe gives...
