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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
of sealed envelopes and closed books. In short, it is the subjective mind which possesses what is popularly designated as clairvoyant power, and the ability to apprehend the thoughts of others without the aid of the ordinary means of communication. In point of fact, that which for convenience I have chosen to designate as the subjective mind appears to be a separate and distinct entity and the real distinctive difference between the two minds seems to consist in the fact that the objective mind is merely the function of the brain, while the subjective mind is a distinct entity, possessing independent powers and functions, having a mental organization of its own, and being capable of sustaining an existence independently of the body. In other words, it is the soul."
The subjective mind also possesses the power to move ponderable objects without any visible physical contact, but its power and activities are inversely proportionate to the vigour of the objective mind. It controls the functions, sensations, and conditions of the body, and is itself amenable to control by suggestion.
"Science teaches us," says Hudson, " that the whole body is made up of a confederation of intelligent entities, each of which performs its functions with an intelligence exactly adapted to the performance of its special duties as a member of the confederacy. There is indeed no life without mind, from the lowest unicellular organism up to man. It is, therefore, a mental energy that actuates every fibre of the body under all its conditions."
The physiology of the action of the two minds, the subjective and the objective, is thus explained by the author of the Medical Hypnotism :
“ Under normal conditions, our concepts of ideas and actions are derived from two sources ; one from the automatic instinctive or sub-conscious department, the acts which are done without any reasoning, without our consciousness of the acts; the other from the so-called conscious department, the acts which are reasoned and controlled by the sensory facclties. The former are the crude, natural, unchecked automatism of the brain of the child and savage, which is governed by fictitious conception of imaginative impulse of the
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