SEANCE MADNESS

Waikato Times, Volume 93, Issue 14536, 7 December 1920, Page 9

SEANCE MADNESS

THE HIGH ROAD TO INSANITY. VOICES FROM MAN-HOLES. People who follow Spiritualism are on the high road to madness. Such was the warning given by Dr. Haydn Brown, a London neurologist, in a lecture to the members of the Magic Circle in London. Many of his patients, said Dr. Brown, received their first mental shock at Spiritualistic seances. They were risky things for the human mind, and would-be believers attended at their peril. The disorder was progressive. It started with illusion, emotional interest in the proceedings, followed by a mild form of neurosis, caused by the anxiety of the subject, to believe. Then come delusions, and finally hallucinations. One Spiritualistic enthusiast ended up by hearing voices coming from every man-hole in the street until he was terrilled to leave his house. "In my profession I have searched into'the minds of tens of thousands ol' persons in order and disorder and have found no evidence that there is communication with the spirit world. "Spiritualism is going to be explained and smashed to atoms in a i very few years. Much of the phenomena can be explained by the fact that the brain of a person in a trance is very much more active than in the normal slate. The faculties are enormously exalted, and the medium can call to mind things which have been forgotten even since childhood." Dr. Brown said a clever hypnotist could get a medium's brain working in three directions at once, and it was the uses of this advanced psychology I hat had deceived many eminent men where the rattling of tambourines and the rapping of tables had failed. Touching upon the difference between illusion, delusion, and hallucination, Dr. Brown said:— "If you see a cat sitting on the hearthrug and can trick yourself into thinking that it is a dog—that is an illusion. "If you are looking at a cat and believe you are looking at a dog—that is a delusion. "If you think you are looking at a cat when there is no eat there at all —then that is hallucination."