(3) Physical Expenditure Modified By Subliminal Control. (A) Mechanical Work Modified By Psychical Integration Or Disintegration; Hysteria

And next as to the effect of subliminal control upon the organism's expenditure; in the first place upon its expenditure in muscular energy. The amount of muscular energy which the supraliminal self can control may at first sight be regarded as a compromise, achieved in the struggle for existence, between present and future convenience. It can put forth, that is to say, just so much energy as is generally compatible with avoiding any serious risk of injury to the organism. But this explanation will not take into account all the elements of the problem. The human organism is an imperfectly unified colony of cells; and there is nothing to show us that the precise degree of integration to which we attain in ordinary life is such as to enable our organism to exert its maximum of energy without risk of injury.

We find, in fact, that a capacity of greater effort may be the result or the concomitant either of disintegration or of further integration. The great increase of muscular power which sometimes accompanies mania is an instance of the first, and the manner in which the increased energy in such cases becomes apparent throws some light on subliminal operation generally. This subject has been fully discussed in Chapters II. and III. I have shown that the same increase of energy may follow on increased integration, of which I regard Genius as the palmary instance. In short, and as might have been expected, the katabolic as well as the anabolic forces, the output as well as the intake of the bodily frame, are amenable, in more ways than we can suppose ourselves to have yet discovered, to subliminal control.

(B) Production Of Heat, And Other Specific Effects Upon Matter, Sub-Liminally Modified

Turning now to effects other than mechanical produced upon the material world, we find rather suggestions for experimentation than records of experiment adequately performed. The subjective sensation of heat can, of course, readily be produced by hypnotic suggestion, and in a sensitive subject perspiration may follow, - si dixeris, Aestuo, sudat:- but I know of no experiment which has compared the total heat emitted by the organism in a normal state and under suggestion. Suggestions involving bodily odour and chemical conditions have thus far been confined to psycho-therapeutics, although here also there might well be experiments with a purely scientific aim. But the most important effect of a supernormal kind alleged to have been produced upon matter in the course of experiment on subliminal faculty is the old-fashioned mesmeric effluence, which, in the opinion of Elliotson, Esdaile, etc, was proved to affect not only the human organism, but water and other inanimate matter (see 541 E and K). This view is entirely out of fashion now, and we ourselves have wholly failed to con-firm it by experiment; but the history of hypnotism has consisted so largely in the confident disavowal, followed by the gradual re-discovery, - though often with a new interpretation, - of phenomena alleged by the earlier mesmerists, that it would, I think, hardly be safe to set aside this "mesmerisation of objects" as due merely to suggestion, until it shall have been tested by many more experiments, performed with modern exactitude and care.

(C) Emission Of Light, And Generation Of Electrical Energy Modified

A like need for experiment exists with regard to phenomena of luminosity, alleged from time to time to accompany abnormal conditions of the human frame. "Some startling but apparently well-authenticated cases," says the writer of the article on "Phosphorescence" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "are on record of human beings having been luminous owing to certain states of disease." Of such cases I shall have more to say presently. This phenomenon has been frequently noted both in and by persons in a trance condition; but usually under circumstances where one cannot be sure that the effect was not a merely subjective one. With Mr. Moses, however, it was repeatedly observed during seances, being generally visible to Mrs. Speer, and sometimes to all the sitters. Mrs. Speer writes: "I have often seen Mr. Moses enveloped in a luminous cloud or white mist, and when he rubbed his hands phosphorescent light seemed to be emitted from his fingers. This light enabled him to see his own hands in the dark." I find an entry in Mr. Moses' notebooks to the effect that on one occasion at least he saw his hands luminous when he had returned to his own rooms after a seance.

I shall return to this subject hereafter when dealing with "Spirit-Lights"; but this phosphorescence of the sensitive himself seems to belong rather to the category of subliminal control. It seems not improbable that such manifestations may be made more intelligible by further discoveries on the lines of those recently made by physicists as to the luminescent effects produced by obscure radia-tions whose existence was previously unsuspected.