Superior Index Go to the next: Chapter 19
Print Files: A4 Size.
DOUBLE or multiple personality (for sometimes there are more than two) is one of the most interesting psychic phenomena of modern times. That an individual may actually possess a dual psychic nature, may actually be one person one day, another the following, and still a third a few days subsequently, is a fact now well established in the study of abnormal psychology. Interesting as it would be further to go into this question here, space will not permit, and I can only touch upon it as an illustration of the manner in which some types of psychic phenomena may be adequately explained.
In cases of double personality, individuals may wander off and be under the guidance of the subordinate personality, and then return, after days or weeks, not knowing where they have been or what has occurred. Under the influence of one personality, a girl will go into the woods, gather garter-snakes, and bring them home in boxes addressed to her other personality, just to witness the consternation of the other individual when the wriggling reptiles crawl out of the box when it is opened. One personality is afraid of snakes, the other is not. Again, one personality may be able to write shorthand, the other cannot; one may speak French fluently, while the other knows not a word of the language. These are but a few illustrations of how one personality may know absolutely nothing of what the other personality, dwelling in the same mind, may say or do.
We should not overlook the fact that most cases of transient amnesia, loss of memory, wandering away from home, etc., are not exhibitions of double or multiple personality, but rather belong to the group of hysterical fugues. They are but transient dissociations, psychic mix-ups, which cause people to wander off and do these strange things. However, in this connection we must remember that many people know about this psychic state, and when they go off on some wild and disgraceful escapade they are wont to fall back on the idea of these transient fugues as an alibi.
While a great many cases of double personality have come to notice in this country and Europe, multiple personality is very rare. Up to the present time there are only slightly over fifty cases of undoubted multiple personality which have been reported in medical and psychological literature.
Many of our cases of supposed double personality, especially in the younger individuals, are merely exhibitions of the common pre-adolescent phenomenon of "living on the inside". These cases are very common and merely represent an exaggerated case of introspection, or better, perhaps, introversion. Again we must not confuse with double personality the fact that some of us are many-sided in our inner character and have a tendency to experience mood-swings - shifting violently from one temperamental mood to another.
A little more as to what is embraced in the term personality: In medical psychology the term is used to cover the sum-total of the neuropsychic organization. It is therefore apparent that transient amnesias, somnambulisms, and hysterical fugues are not manifestations of double personality.
The outstanding characteristic of the hysterical fugue is the desire to run away. It is a convenient arrangement on the part of the subconscious to enable its owner to get off the job and out of an unpleasant situation; just to pick up and move on, and then come back with an alibi - generally speaking, a truthful alibi - that he knows nothing about what happened after a certain date; in fact, such patients often do not have a very clear memory of what happened just preceding their leaving home.
In most cases the victims of fugue suffer from dissociation of impulses and emotions, with no memory of events happening during the period of amnesia; and I think there is little doubt that the whole performance is a subtle and ingenious subconscious defense reaction to enable these neurotic individuals to flee from reality, and then subsequently to justify the desertion of duty by denying, and truthfully, all memory of everything connected with the escapade.
We must remember that the subconscious, as shown in former chapters, is capable of fairly sound reasoning. Its judgment is more or less logical and its procedure is all but uncanny. That this is true is shown by the fact that when we go to sleep with many unsolved problems on our minds, we often wake up in the morning with these things solved, and solved wisely and efficiently. There is certainly a process of reasoning which goes on in the depths of the subconscious. This subtle subconscious behavior is well illustrated also by the fact that we sometimes like or dislike people against our judgment. In fact, what we call intuition is nothing more nor less than the process of spontaneous association of ideas coupled with subconscious reasoning. Probably the only reason that women appear to have more intuition than men is that they are less trained in logical reasoning and therefore depend more upon these spontaneous subconscious deductions.
A short time ago I came across a typical case of hysteric fugue, and it will be instructive - as illustrating the difference between fugue and double personality - if we give space to a rather full recital of the behavior of this fugue victim. The history of the case is as follows:
The patient is a man of thirty-six, very strong physically, and equally strong mentally. He has had a fine education, both classical and technical, and has been acting as consultant on industrial building problems. He has done considerable writing and lecturing on these matters, and has a national reputation for knowledge along his particular lines. He has taught in a technical college; his tastes are quiet and intellectual. He is high minded and seems to like only the better things of life. Morally, he has always borne the finest of reputations. He has been brought up in the Catholic faith, and while not fanatical, has a deep religious experience. He has been happily married for seven years. During the last couple of years he has had a great deal of financial trouble, which has bothered and harassed him very much. He is not a good business man, as he is overgenerous, and is gullible in matters of investment.
This man came to Chicago in September to attend a business conference, bringing his wife with him; the wife planned to visit her home in an adjoining State, while her husband was to attend to his business affairs, later joining her where she was visiting, and they were to return home together. She went on to the home of her relatives and he left Chicago to visit three near-by towns.
Just one week later he telephoned his wife from one of these towns, saying he would be with her that night. The only peculiar feature up to this time was that his wife had not heard from him during the week, which was very unusual. It was his custom to write every day. On the day that he telephoned he said he would drive over to meet her. This he did, and his wife noticed nothing at all unusual in his actions except that he seemed frightfully fatigued and slept several hours after getting there, an unusual procedure for him.
He mentioned to his wife that a young woman associated with one of the plants he had visited, had ridden home with him. He said she had asked him if he was married. Nothing further happened until Christmas time, when this young woman began calling him up wherever she could reach him, declaring that he was married to her and that he must meet her at different places which she designated. He was working in and about Chicago at the time.
According to his story, he was completely bewildered by this onslaught, but thought she was either laboring under a delusion or trying to blackmail him. He told his wife about it, and she felt it was a serious matter and suggested that they see a lawyer at once, which they did. The husband insisted, and still does, that he knows nothing of this woman, in fact never saw her until the day she rode that short distance with him.
In January he entered upon new work and continued to ignore this woman. But as time passed her attacks became more violent and threatening, and his company put a detective on the case. She had threatened legal action and told him he would find the marriage records to substantiate her claims at a certain town in Indiana. The company, considering him a valuable man, and feeling that this affair was blackmail, sent an investigator to this town - and found such records.
On going back, date by date, in an effort to have him account for this period in September, he was utterly unable to explain where he had been after he left his wife. He remembers nothing. His firm, of course, discharged him. Nobody believed his story - except his wife. The other woman has done everything possible to harass him, torment him, and discredit him. She has gone to all his friends and relatives; has threatened criminal action, etc. Since he has found out that there is this blank space in his life and that there are such marriage records, he has gone to pieces and is overcome with the horror of the situation.
The summer preceding the affair he worked very hard during the extremely hot weather; was under great strain, as he was worried about financial matters; and as his wife was away on account of illness in her family, he was much alone. During that time he went to a certain factory every day for ten days and repeated so much of his work that the man in charge noticed the repetition and finally spoke to him about it. He then realized that he had no recollection of having been there on previous occasions. A doctor at the plant who examined him said he thought he had a temporary loss of memory due to the bursting of a small blood-vessel. He had frightful headaches and still has them. He has always been absentminded.
This is a typical case of hysteric fugue. It is not a case of double personality. It is indeed pathetic to contemplate an otherwise perfectly decent and well-meaning man wandering off absent-mindedly and entering into a bigamous marriage, while his trusting wife waited at home for his return; and then to have him come back to his family without the slightest memory of what he had done during this period of ten days' lapse of memory - this hysteric period of partial dissociation or fugue.
It is evident that a mild double personality - an incipient attack of this disorder - would furnish the ideal mental mechanics for the making of a high-class medium . If we could conceive that all the conditions were present for the manifestation of double personality, but that there remained some deep subconscious connection between these personalities, so that one could communicate with the other after some sort of psychic clandestine fashion, then we should have the stage ideally set for the self-deception of the medium herself, to begin with, as well as for the magnificent deception of those who would seek to investigate such a phenomenon by ordinary methods of observation.
It is my opinion that about 75 per cent. of common place spiritualistic manifestations are frauds - conscious, deliberate, commercial frauds - and that about 25 per cent. belong to the order described in this chapter, and include the possible cases of actual spiritual or supernatural phenomena which, it will be observed all the way along, I admit may exist, tho I have personally come in contact with but one or two cases that could lay even remote claim to falling into this last-named group5.
Thus it will be seen that it is indeed difficult to draw the line between the sphere of mediumship or clairvoyance - where detached complexes, double personality, etc., would act in a sane person to produce these queer psychic phenomena - and those cases in which the mental equilibrium has been upset to the point where we would be justified in diagnosing insanity. In other words, it is difficult, as we start down the incline of abnormal psychology, to know where clairvoyance ends and insanity begins. How preposterous, then, to form the habit of getting one's inspiration and life-guidance from such abnormal fountains of pseudo-wisdom! What a calamity that the uncertain cerebrations of abnormal minds should be regarded by tens of thousands of persons as communications from departed friends and relatives! The time has certainly come to apply common-sense methods of reasoning to our investigation of psychic phenomena, and to apply rigid, sober-minded, scientific tests to all men and women who claim to be channels through which disembodied spirits manifest themselves to the living.
Undoubtedly, much of the psychology of mediums is explainable, not only on the hypothesis of hysteric dissociation, but also on the ground that many of them closely approach double personality - at least so far as mental complexes are involved in the production of the peculiar psychic phenomena having to do with their hearing spirit voices and seeing materialized spirit forms.
I have a patient who is very much disturbed in his psychic life by what he terms "a part of his mind constantly talking to the rest of him". He is not of the hysterical or neurotic order. He is a hard-working individual, whose family history is quite free from evidences of insanity or other serious mental disorders. A careful study of this man leads one into the belief that he is the victim of systematized dissociation - a dissociation which has been carried so far, and is so consistently sustained, that it amounts, in a limited way, to a double personality. I have had him under observation for a number of years. He does not seem to grow either better or worse. He has had neither the time nor the inclination to attempt a thoroughgoing course of treatment to correct his dissociation. It should be noted here that when he first came to consult me he had these voices definitely linked up in his mind with spiritualistic phenomena, and it is very interesting to record that under painstaking instruction he not only continues to keep away from the séance room, but that these voices which speak to him have come almost entirely to represent themselves as personalities other than discarnate spirits. Slowly but surely the process of training which he has undergone is changing the philosophic background and the theological basis of both the personality and content of the messages delivered by his "inner voices".
I have not the slightest doubt that, had he not fallen into medical hands, this man would have turned out to be a high-class and successful medium. As it is, he is quite disposed to accept the explanation which we have so persistently reiterated, namely, that his peculiar psychic phenomena are entirely due to complex dissociation. Of course, economically considered, it seems a pity that I should have spoiled such a good medium and deprived him of the easy affluence that would have been his portion had he been allowed to develop his psychic powers along spiritualistic lines; but, on the other hand, I console myself in the belief that I have thus indirectly been the means of saving many hundreds of unsophisticated mortals from further deception and delusion.
When we get down to practical, every-day life, we are forced to the conclusion that most of us carry around two or more personalities in our workaday psychology. We are, at least many of us, in the situation of the apostle Paul, who had a constant fight going on in his mind, being unable to do the things which he wanted to do while all the time doing those things which he did not want to do. Perhaps it is on moral grounds and in connection with our sex fears that we most commonly detect these dual personalities, which exist alongside each other in the domain of the human mind.
In fact, we might come to consider that, as our memory life is laid down, decade by decade and layer after layer, these separate layers, together with the sentiments and emotions of the preceding decades, constitute a series of psychic personalities which coalesce and interlace themselves into a whole which is represented by a systematic personality, on the one hand, and a unified consciousness, on the other. At least, it seems proper that the normal individual should regard his mental life as having existed in a number of epochs or definite periods. For instance, suppose a German peasant to have married in the Fatherland and raised a number of children. His wife has died and the children have been distributed among the relatives. He has emigrated to America, where he has married another woman, raised another family of children, learned a new trade and a new language. This man certainly has lived a double life; in more ways than one has had a dual existence. The memories of these two families can well be understood to live along-side each other in the storehouse of memory, and yet they are diverse. Likewise in fantasy and imagination, entirely separate lines of thought and reverie may be pursued; diverse complexes may be built up which, later on, may be utilized by the subconscious in the vagaries of the various neuroses and by the spirit medium as a source of obtaining spirit messages and hearing spirit voices, so that one section of the intellect will thus be able to communicate in a most mysterious and impressive manner with the other.
Suppose we imagine an individual having had half a dozen such lives on earth. Further let us suppose that each one of his wives was of an entirely different sort - one allowing him much personal liberty, another forcing him to lead the life of a henpecked husband. Still others might have been natural-born flirts and have produced no end of jealousy in his mind. In the case of death, of which one of these lives would his spirit be the counterpart? Which would he be if he returned to earth to rap on our bedsteads? Someone has suggested that possibly this sort of thing accounts for the dazed condition apparently manifested by many spirits newly arrived on the other side when they undertake to communicate with the world of their recent departure. It is suggested that they may be more or less "bewildered by the problem of finding out who they really are".
We are forced to the conclusion that many of the honest mediums are examples of double or multiple personality in some phase or other. In the case of multiple dissociation, the medium can well have a systematized, orderly group of complexes in the mind, which becomes the home of the various controls and guides under whose direction he seems to operate. It is very evident that the method of conducting the modern séance lends itself very favorably to permitting the medium to be now under the control of one dissociated complex and now under the control of another. In this way the numerous secondary complex personalities, which these nervously unstable individuals have allowed to be built up in their minds, function at the séance, as guides, controls, and discarnate spirits.
As to the physical contortions and other gymnastic maneuvers in which mediums so constantly indulge, it is difficult to say what their true nature may be. Undoubtedly much of this "horse play" is used first to divert attention from some of the tricks of the medium, in the case of those who are fraudulent, while in the case of the true psychic performers it may merely represent the muscular contractions which are a part of hysteric manifestations; and, too, the medium may discover that these things serve to attract attention and otherwise constitute good psychology in furthering the ends of the séance, so that he is tempted to exaggerate his natural tendencies in this direction.
The normal person is able effectually to repress into the subconscious the performances of his secondary complexes, but the neurotic individual fails in his efforts directed to this end, and these secondary complexes intrude themselves into the stream of consciousness, in the one case, as the relatively harmless conceptions, phobias, fears, and other silly idiosyncrasies of the neurasthenic and psychasthenic individual; while, in the case of those having a more substantial nervous system and better control, they sometimes become systematized, not as the vagaries of the neurotic, but as the mysterious voices and performances of the spirit medium.
Janet would have us believe that hysteria and somnambulism are not far apart. Perhaps there is little difference between the performance of the sleep walker and the phenomena of the trance medium. Each is in a more or less unnatural and artificial state of mind, and both are more or less automatically executing their various actions. The authority just named says:
"In this view things become somewhat clearer; the essential phenomenon that, in my opinion, is at the basis of these double existences, is a kind of oscillation of mental activity, which falls and rises suddenly. These sudden changes, without sufficient transition, bring about two different states of activity; the one higher, with a particular exercise of all the senses and functions; the other lower, with a great reduction of all the cerebral functions. These two states separate from each other; they cease to be connected together, as with normal individuals, through gradations and remembrances. They become isolated from each other, and form these two separate existences."
When these alterations of behavior are very slight, we commonly speak of them as being simply moods of the individual - a temperamental fluctuation; thus much of this sort of behavior passes for every-day experience. It is only when a subordinate complex asserts a transient independence and begins to function as a separate entity that we take cognizance of it as a manifestation of double or multiple personality. In other cases, when these subordinate personalities or constellations of complexes start on a rampage, they exceed the limits of a mere mood, although they fall short of carrying their insurrection to the point of an independent existence such as would be exemplified by trances, cataleptic hysteria, or spirit voices; and then such an individual experiences that keen suffering which accompanies the vagaries of neurasthenia, brain fag, nervous exhaustion, psychasthenia, etc.
We are all more or less familiar with the somnambulistic phenomena of the "sleepwalker"; how he automatically performs marvelously intricate pedestrian feats while oblivious to all surroundings, and utterly unconscious of the things he does on these nocturnal strolls. I merely wish here to emphasize the fact that sleep-walkers are unconscious of what they are doing, and that they continue to do it exceedingly well as long as they are not aroused from their slumbers or molested in their performances.
Now, in the case of numerous phenomena connected with abnormal psychology in general and with mediumistic performances in particular, we have conditions that are identical with, or analogous to, the sleep-walker's automatic performances. In the case of the sleep-walker, the subconscious mind is directing the leg: - the feet are made to execute the mandates of the great unconscious - while in the case of automatic writing it is the hands that have fallen under the control of the subconscious centers. In automatic talking, the tongue and speaking centers of the minds are dominated by the unconscious. In the case of hearing voices and seeing images of supposed spirits, we have the same general condition prevailing, only in these cases it is the sense of hearing and the sense of sight that have become in their turn the victims of subconscious domination - the subject of this outward projection of subconscious machinations.
In this way we come to see that these widely diverse phenomena are, after all, rooted in quite the same general principle as regards their ultimate psychological explanation, and that the sleep-walking of the somnambulist sheds light on the whole gamut of mediumistic performances, embracing automatic writing, automatic speaking, crystal gazing, and the rest.
Dr. W. F. Prince has reported a case of dissociation, or multiple personality, which is very interesting when studied in the light of medium ship. It should be borne in mind that in cases of multiple personality the mind is split up, or "fissured", after the fashion of a tree with many branches which in turn are connected with numerous sub-branches. In the case of multiple personality, as a rule, there is a primary personality which represents the original mental life, or stream of consciousness, to which the others must gradually be united or fused. These multiple personalities, it must be clearly understood, are not moods or temperamental fancies of the individual, but real, mental, working, unit-thinking entities.
There are really several distinct consciousnesses which irregularly take turns in being in evidence. To the uninitiated spectator there indeed appear to be strange and extreme changes of mood and behavior, accompanied by a "play-acting" ability to alter the voice, facial expression, etc., to suit, and a disregard for truth evidenced by contradicting stories and claims. But it is a fact that each personality has a different consciousness, will-memory, range of ideas and tastes, and a different set of bodily reactions in the form of individual facial and vocal expression and individual peculiarities of sensation, hearing, vision, etc.
An interesting individual was Doris Fisher, who had five personalities including the primary one. Before the death of her mother she had at least two or three personalities, the uncertainty being due to the fact that she claimed one of her personalities was a spirit. Here is a case which directly proves the psychic origin of much that appears in the performances of modern spirit mediumship. Further describing this case, Doctor Prince says:
"These were the primary personality afterwards known as the Real Doris, and the secondary personality, who came to be called `Margaret'. By turns during the day these came `out' and conducted affairs. But `Margaret' had the advantage that when she was subliminal or `in' she was co-conscious, so that when she came `out' with a snap of the neck, she knew just what to do or say in order to carry things along smoothly, while poor `Real Doris' was unconscious when `in' and if suddenly summoned into consciousness by the disappearance of `Margaret' often had to `fish', to `mark time' and to employ devices to orient herself, making blunders at that and incurring blame for her supposed willfulness or falsity. `Margaret' never developed beyond the mentality of a very sagacious child of ten. So that in the last year of the mother's life, she was used to seeing her daughter at times behaving after the fashion of a young lady of seventeen and at other times like a romping child given to dolls and sports, always fond yet at times disobedient and at other times roguishly heedless; now showing a comprehension suitable to her age, but again betraying an almost infantile belief in fairies and in the advent of babies in a doctor's satchel."
This case, complicated by a third or "spirit" personality, by a fourth personality acquired at the shock of the mother's death, and by a fifth a year later, was taken in hand in 1911, and by stages, through a course of treatment of three and a half years, was finally restored to normality. Not only was a daily diary of the progress of the case kept during the three and a half years, but a large number of facts and incidents, gathered from the conversations of the several personalities, were recorded; so that there was a written record of many facts utterly unknown to the reconstructed Doris, since none of the memories of "Margaret", who consumed what would amount to several years of her life, ever have emerged in her consciousness. Doris was adopted by Doctor and M rs. Prince, and still makes her home with them.
The cure of this disorder could hardly be undertaken by the layman. Aside from the milder and more common phases, as exhibited in the transient lapses of consciousness associated with hysterical seizures, these psychic difficulties call for the most expert attention of experienced medical psychologists.
The treatment, of course, consists in thoroughly explaining to the victims of this disorder the nature of their ailment and enlisting their hearty cooperation in an effort to improve the psychic tension and emotional reaction. This is the one psychological difficulty in which hypnotism, wisely utilized, may be of real benefit, especially in the matter of perfecting the diagnosis, isolating the dominant personality, and in the hands of an experienced practitioner may be of some help in the treatment.