29/08/2021
Location and date: Liverpool, UK, 1890
At the request of Mr. Myers [of the SPR] I (WILLIAM JAMES) undertook a share in the investigation of a case of apparent clairvoyance. It is the case of a lady who appears to go off into a trance when she pleases to will it under favorable surroundings, and in that trance to talk volubly, with a manner and voice quite different from her ordinary manner and voice, on details concerning which she has had no information given her.
In this abnormal state her speech has reference mainly to people’s relatives and friends, living or deceased, about whom she is able to hold a conversation, and with whom she appears more or less familiar.
By introducing anonymous strangers, and by catechizing her myself in various ways, I have satisfied myself that much of the information she possesses in the trance state is not acquired by ordinary commonplace methods, but that she has some unusual means of acquiring information. The facts on which she discourses are usually within the knowledge of some person present, though they are often entirely out of his conscious thought at the time. Occasionally facts have been narrated which have only been verified afterwards, and which are in good faith asserted never to have been known; meaning thereby that they have left no trace on the conscious memory of any person present or in the neighborhood, and that it is highly improbable that they were ever known to such persons.
She is also in the trance state able to diagnose diseases, and to specify the owners or late owners of portable property, under circumstances which preclude the application of ordinary methods. In the midst of this lucidity a number of mistaken and confused statements are frequently made, having little or no apparent meaning or application.
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