TISM) ; the more adventurous, concentrating their attention on the more extreme instances, regard all such manifestations as in stances of the possession and control (partial or complete) of the organism of one person by the spirit or soul of another, generally a deceased person. Myers's hypothesis of the subliminal self was a brilliant attempt to follow a middle way in the explanation of these strange cases, to reconcile the two kinds of explanation with one another, and at the same time to bring into line with these other alleged facts of perplexing character, especially veridi cal hallucinations (q.v.), various types of communication at a distance (see TELEPATHY), and all the more striking instances of the operation of suggestion and of hypnosis, including the ex altation of the powers of the senses, of the memory and of con trol over the organic processes.
Myers conceived the soul of man as capable of existing inde pendently of the body in some super-terrestrial or extra-terrene realm. He regarded our normal mental life a3 only a very partial expression of the capacities of the soul, so much only as can manifest itself through the human brain. He regarded the brain as still at a comparatively early stage of its evolution as an instrument through which the soul operates in the material world. So much of the life of the soul as fails to find expression in our conscious and organic life through its interactions with this very inadequate material mechanism remains beneath the threshold of consciousness and is said to constitute the subliminal self. It is held to be in touch with a realm of psychical forces from which it is able to draw supplies of energy which it infuses into the organism, normally in limited quantities, but, in exceptionally favourable circumstances, in great floods, which for the time being raise the mental operations and the powers of the mind over the body to an abnormally high level.
Abnormal mental manifestations that have commonly been regarded as symptoms of mental or nervous disease or degenera tion are by its aid brought into line with mental processes that are by common consent of an unusually high type, the intuitions of genius, the outbursts of inspired poesy, the emotional fervour or the ecstasy that carries the martyr triumphantly through the severest trials, the enthusiasm that enables the human organism to carry through incredible labours. Myers's hypothesis thus boldly inverts the dominant view, which sees in all departures from the normal symptoms of weakness and degeneracy and which seeks to bring genius and ecstasy down to the level of mad ness and hysteria; the hypothesis of the subliminal self seeks to level up, rather than to level down and to display many de partures from normal mental life as being of the same order as the operations of genius.
This bold and far-reaching hypothesis has not up to the present time been accepted by any considerable number of professional psychologists, though its author's great literary power has secured for him a respectful hearing.