The thought put on oneself is a self-created illusion, a sort of auto-suggestion which incites hallucination. As a result of dwelling too much upon the devil, one ends by causing him to appear.

But it should be well understood that all of this may be explained by telepathy. We must not forget that there are within us unknown psychic centers, which under the stress of emotion become creators of images. These psychic centers are qualified to perceive telepathic sensations, whether they be conveyed from our own brain or from an outside brain, and the difference is non-essential.

Ordinarily these centers communicate telepathic-ally with us or at least we are only conscious of those images which we transmit to them, and of those to which we make a telepathic appeal in the operations of memory. The new phenomenon, which to-day is verified, is that these secondary centers can be reached from external sources without our being conscious of the fact.

Since telepathic action is a universal phenomenon, there is no smallest physiological center which has not of its own consciousness and sensitiveness, and which does not perceive the effects of our thought. Consequently, a man tormented by a fixed idea, by remorse or fear, for instance, deeply affects these tiny organs, impressing thereon the creations of his thought. In them is produced an image or, rather, a sensation, analogous to that which exists when the individual is in the presence of a real image.

By reason of the intensity or persistence of the image created under force of a strong emotion, the secondary center holds this deeply cut image, and it only requires an occasion to arouse it, as a memory, in order to produce the appearance of reality.

Thus one would understand the psychologic automatism obedient to its own activities, reviving the image when the emotion recalls it, and sending it back in the manner of a cinematographic projection, to the brain of its creator.

It is thus that we might accept the theory of the overheated brain as an explanation of certain phenomena. But how may we apply the hallucination theory to images which are transmitted by others and arise from realities? They act but feebly upon the organs which are not habitually influenced at a distance. Few subjects are capable of receiving them and usually it is an accident which happens but once in the lifetime of a percipient. These images are true, because the emotions which aroused them are not feigned. However, some mesmerists boast of having thus transmitted fictitious images. From this they have drawn absurd conclusions which to their minds explain the illusion of spirits. But these experiences, if they could be taken up again experimentally, would prove only one thing: that thought-transference is perfectly true: if the mesmerist succeeded in deceiving the medium with a fictitious image, he would have been equally able to transmit a true one. From this the proof follows that minds can communicate, and whether they be of the living or the dead is of no importance. We have before us a fact - there is a psychic element, and we should study this unknown element.

Organic disorders affect not only the sensory organs; far more extraordinary are the disturbances manifested in the motive centers. Without doubt, from the moment we admit there is no smallest physiologic center without its own consciousness and activity, it is easy to understand the spontaneous psychic action of the lower strata. Conceive a sort of psychic traumatism, some cause, physiological or otherwise, intercepting the communication between the little souls below and the unity that rules above; telepathic transmission being once interrupted, each physiological center regains its independence.

It is these abnormal states which initiate automatic actions, and particularly the phenomenon known under the name of "automatic writing."

When we produce writing, the motive centers which receive our suggestions remain perfectly unaware of the current of our thought: they execute only movements, and the motion they produce is outside of our personal consciousness. Thus I do not need to know the special locations of the motive centers, to act upon them. I dictate the succession of letters, without being cognizant of the manner in which my organism obeys me. If this organism is left to itself, and receives no further suggestion from without, since it is living it itself, it has a tendency to activity. It is reduced to its sole consciousness, that of movement, and produces the only movements known to its feeble memory - down strokes, letters in incoherent succession - and physiologists refuse to admit phenomena of a higher order.

It is true that organic disorders produce incoherent, childish or cryptic effects. But side by side with these are stupefying results, necessitating the active intervention of an understanding, inquiring intelligence that informs us of facts concerning which we had no knowledge. Therefore, here as before, we are obliged to admit two different motive powers for the same phenomenon.

We are then obliged through empiric demonstration to establish two classes of phenomena: 1. Those which are due to awakening of unconscious activities. 2. Those due to intelligences awake of themselves, but remaining unconscious for the subject who produces them.

Or better: 1. Incoherent movements from an internal source. 2. Coordinated movements from an external source.

This, as may be seen, is the distinction that we have already stated between hallucinations and telepathic phenomena which reach the sense organs, and it applies equally well to the same phenomenon capable of reading the motive organs.

If we now pass from handwriting to the observations of general disorders, we will fall into such an abyss of complications. I do not wish to treat the subject here, but solely to indicate its nature. It is a question of manifestations of different personalities which are sometimes present in the same organism and appear now as a division of personality, now as the true possession of all the organs, fallen under the power of a foreign influence.