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DIVINATION & AUGURY IN A MODERN LIGHT 189 even unconsciously observed and a rapid 'sympathy with the feelings of others, but in some ways it is sillier than the reasoning consciousness. The latest publications of the Society are now admitting that this sub-consciousness under abnormal circumstances. is able to automatically control the action of the body and thoughts, and herein Mr. Myers finds an explanation of all the augury in our second and third classes. He would explain, we may presume, divination by the augur's staff, sybilline books, openings of Bibles, drawing of lots, geomancy, dreams and such kind, as he would the modern planchette, clairvoyance and card-telling, viz., by the superior powers of the “subliminal consciousness” to cause automatic actions and choice, and to read other people's desires. But the augury of other classes, such as that by the action of birds and animals, direct voices, appearances in the flesh of Divine Beings, his theory cannot explain. He must either deny their possibility or wait for further enlargement of his views.
Now, let us pass on to the Mesmerists and their modern cousins, the Hypnotists among the French medical savants. These derive their light on this subject by experiments on the powers of the human mind when thrown into a somnolent or automatic state of consciousness by means of passes and suggestions. The fourth of our classes of augury would naturally be best explained by them. A Delphic Priestess, or a Sybil, or a dancing Dervish, has no mystery for them. Hypnotism or Statuvolism (self-hypnotisation) explains
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