Subliminal Self

An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)

A term much used in psychical research to denote that part of the personality which is normally beneath the "threshold" (limen) separating consciousness from unconsciousness. The phrase owed its popularity largely to the late Mr. Myers, who made use of it to explain the psychic phenomena which he had observed. Mr. Myer's view was that only a fraction of the human personality, or soul, finds adequate expression through the ordinary cerebral processes, because of the fact that the brain and physical organism have not yet reached a very advanced stage of evolution. The soul, in short, is like an iceberg, with a fraction of its bulk above water, but having much the greater part submerged. The subliminal self, again according to Mr. Myers, was in touch with a reservoir of psychical energy, from which it drew forces which influenced the physical organism. Thus the inspiration of genius, the exaltation of the perceptive and intellectual faculties in hypnosis, and such exercises as automatic writing and talking and table-tilting, were referred to great influxes of these psychical forces rather than to any morbid tendencies in the agent. Indeed, abnormal manifestations were, and still are, regarded by some authorities as foreshadowing a new type in the progress of evolution whose faculties shall transcend those of man just as our human faculties transcend those of the lower animals. The soul, thus dependent for a very inadequate expression on a nervous system of limited scope, is at death freed from its limitations and comes into its heritage of full consciousness. These hypotheses have been pressed into service to explain telepathy and communication between the living and the dead, as well as hallucination, automatism, and all the hypnotic phenomena. But the two former, even if they could be demonstrated, would require to be explained on other grounds, while the others, whose existence is undisputed, are more generally regarded as resultant from cerebral dissociation-i.e., the temporary dislocation of the connecting links between the various neural systems.