their beliefs to the ordinary course of reality and show that they develop so much practical value that they must be reckoned with, they cannot in practice be treated as false. If, for example, secrets were regularly discovered, and information transmitted, by " telepathy," if fortune-tellers frequently told their clients how to make fortunes, and business " clairvoyants " were employed by financial houses, this pragmatic proof would be irresistible, and would suffice to convince the world. Actually, however, the pragmatic test rather tells against belief in the supernormal: for the supernormal knowledge believed in is not taken to be trustworthy normally; nor do believers in it act on it, thus betraying the fact, which they may not realize themselves, that they do not take their beliefs quite seriously. In this respect they are like very many other people. For, as Prof. Carveth Read (The Origin of Man, ch. viii., London, 1920) has shown, even among the most benighted savages believers in " magic " have always to behave sensibly, for all the extravagance of their beliefs. They pray, but they also keep their powder dry, and thus their action reveals which of their beliefs are only half-beliefs or make-believe.
In ultimate analysis the question becomes one of the place, function and significance of beliefs which are not quite matter-of- fact about what are not quite matters of fact. To appreciate these, we have to discard the illusion, traditionally fostered by logic, that there is no alternative to firm belief but whole-hearted disbelief. Actually the gradations and fluctuations of beliefs are infinite, and in many departments of life such unstable beliefs are normal and dominant. They can easily coexist with others, abstractly inconsistent with them, in a mind unwilling to abandon cither, or perhaps unaware that it is entertaining them. Thus even Herbert Spencer showed that he had some belief in ghosts by his comical indignation when his hostess told him she hoped that so stalwart a disbeliever would not mind sleeping in the haunted room of a country house (A utobiography, i., p. 480) . The only way of redeeming from this region of incomplete beliefs that are below proof a subject of general human interest and no others ever fall into it is to make it part of the ordinary routine of life, which every one accepts in practice (whatever the theoretic reason he may give to himself and others), simply because no one can ignore it and live. But if ever the objects of psychical research should be effectively subjected to such a transfer, this would clearly mean a spiritual revolution of the most far-reaching kind.
LITERATURE. This is still largely contained in periodicals. In England those of the Society for Psychical Research must be men- tioned in the first place. Both the Proceedings and the Journal maintain a high scientific and literary level, and contribute, record or review all the important developments of the subject. The addresses which are delivered by presidents of the society on coming into office form an interesting record of the attitude taken up towards the subject by a number of eminent thinkers (e.g. Henri Bergson, 1913; Gilbert Murray, 1916; L. P. Jacks, 1917; Lord Rayleigh, 1919; W. McDougall, 1920). But the society's publications do not notice all the tittle-tattle of the movement, for which it is necessary to consult the weekly Light and the monthly Occult Review. The former is the official organ of British spiritualism, and the latter is not sufficiently critical of the material it publishes, which, though entertaining enough, appears to be often (almost avowed) fiction. In July 1920 The Psychic Research Quarterly began to appear, which promises to be a high-class periodical, and in its Oct. number published the first photographs of Miss Goligher's " materializations." In America the Proceedings and Journal of the American S.P.R. have the same standards as the English society. But they were long edited by the late Prof. J. H. Hyslop (d. 1920), who soon became a convinced (though critical) spiritist, and reflect his work and his views in a very voluminous and somewhat one-sided way. They are now edited by his successor, Dr. VV. F. Prince, the brilliant investigator of the Doris Fischer case, and the acute critic of sundry cases of fraud. In France the Annales des Sciences Psychiques have published some good material and continue to give a good idea of the move- ment in the Latin countries. The Bulletin of the Institut General Psychologique used not infrequently to contain articles on psychical research, but now that an Institut Melapsychique has been founded in Paris, with an ambitious programme, it is probable that in future these will appear in its Bulletin (no. I, Oct. 1920). In Germany Psychische Studien continue. In Switzerland the Archives de Psycho- logic used often to publish valuable studies bearing on psychical research, while it was edited by the late Prof. Theodore Flournoy (d. 1920), the author of the famous study on the automatisms of
" Helene Schmidt," Des Indes a la planete Mars (1900), Esprits et Mediums (10,11), and of the very remarkable study of a modern mystic " Cecile Ve " (in no. 57, 1915).
As regards books, many have been referred to above. The out- standing importance of Sir Oliver Lodge's Raymond and of VV. J. Crawford's works on the Goligher case has been already explained under " Trance " and " Physical Phenomena." William James's " Final Impressions of a Psychical Researcher " was reprinted from the American Magazine in Memories and Studies (1911) and should be consulted for the conclusions left in the great psychologist's mind by his prolonged interest in psychical research. As books of a general character taking a favourable view of the phenomena, there may be mentioned Sir W. Barrett's On the Threshold of the Unseen (1917); J. A. Hill's Spiritualism, its History, Phenomena and Doctrine (London, 1918); J. H. Hyslop's Psychical Research and Survival (1913), Life after Death (1919), Contact with the Other World (1919); H. Carrington's Problems of Psychical Research (London, 1914), Modern Psychical Phenomena (1919), Psychical Phenomena and the War (1919). Among hostile accounts the best are I. L. Tuckett's The Evidence for the Supernatural (1912); E. Clodd's The Question, If a Man Die shall he Live Again? (London, 1917) and J. McCabe's Is Spiritualism based on Fraud ? and Spiritualism: a Popular History (both London, 1920). Prof. M. Dessoir's Vom Jenseits der Seele (1917, 4th ed. 1920) is also unfavourable in the main, though appreciative of the attitude and work of the S.P.R., and interesting as coming from an academic psychologist who has not disdained to investigate the phenomena alleged. Dr. A. von Schrenck-Notzing's works are important (Materialisations-phaenomene, Munich, 1914, 2nd. ed. announced for 1921, Eng. translation by Dr. Fournier d'Albe, London, 1920; Der Kampf um die Materialisations-Phaeno- mene, 1914; Physika'ische Phaenomene des Mediumismus, 1920). Dr. G. Geley's De I'Inconscient au Conscient (Paris, 1919) is an attempt to form a theory of the supernormal physiology of " Eva C." A translation by S. de Brath cams out in 1920 (London). Lastly A. J. Phil;x>tt s Quest for Dean Bridgman Conner (London, 1915) may be instanced as an instructive investigation of an auto- matic romance (communicated through Mrs. Piper), which, though plausible and partially correct, turned out to be essentially false, and to illustrate how untrustworthy information obtained, through supernormal channels at present is. As medical works dealing with psychotherapy and dissociations of personality, those of Dr. Boris iclis, who made his mark by narrating the strange case of the Rev. Mr. Hanna (cf. Si-Jis and Gooclhart, Multiple Personality, New York, 1905), The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology (Lon- don, 1914), Symptomatology, Psycliognosis and Diagnosis of Psycho- pathic Diseases (Boston, 1914) and The Causation and Treatment of Psychopathic Diseases (Boston, 1916), may be mentioned; also VV. H. R. Rivers' Instinct and the Unconscious (London, 1920) and VV. Brown's Psychology and Psychotherapy (London, 1920).
(F. C. S. S.)
PSYCHOTHERAPY. The modern branch of medicine to
which has been given the name of "psychotherapy" may be regarded as covering all attempts made to mitigate or remove such symptoms as may be attributed to the operations of an unhealthy mind. These symptoms may be mental, for instance confusion of mind, or delusions, or obsessions, and may not be associated with any bodily symptoms or only with such as are trifling. On the other hand the symptoms may be bodily, for instance paralysis, or some form of loss of sensation, or indigestion, and may not be associated, with any but trifling mental
symptoms. The treatment of symptoms due to mental ill-
health by physical agents such as rest, exercise, change of climate, baths, electricity or drugs is not psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy has been practised in all ages, sometimes upon those patently suffering from mental or moral disorders, but perhaps even more often upon those whose symptoms in fact depended upon mental or moral weakness or disorder but in whom the affection appeared, from the superficial character of the medical knowledge of the moment, to be due to organic disease of the body. In such cases psychotherapy has enjoyed considerable success, whether practised in connexion with religion and philosophy or with superstition and charlatanism (see FAITH HEALING, 10.135). Under circumstances such as these there has always been, and indeed still is, a formidable admixture of the miraculous, and it is not intended here to examine systems like that of Christian Science or the miracles of Lourdes. The term " psychotherapy " is of comparatively recent origin and has received wide acceptance in that it usefully stands for treatment based upon scientific psychology, normal and morbid. Three methods of psychotherapy will here be considered, from the purely medical point of view: those of Moral Suasion, Suggestion and Psycho-analysis.
