Trances

Trance : An abnormal state, either spontaneous or induced, "bearing some analogy to the ordinary sleep-state, but differing from it in certain marked particulars. The term is loosely applied to many varied pathologic conditions— e.g., hypnosis, ecstasy, catalepsy, somnambulism, certain forms of hysteria, and the mediumistic trance. Sometimes, as in catalepsy, there is a partial suspension of the vita! functions ; generally, there is insensibility to pain and to any stimulus applied to the sense-organs ; while the distinguishing feature of the trance is that the subject retains consciousness and gives evidence of intelligence, either his own normal intelligence or, as in cases of possession and impersonation, some foreign intelligence. In hypnosis the subject, though indifferent to sensory stimuli applied to his own person, has been known to exhibit a curious sensitiveness to such stimuli applied to the person of the hypnotist. (See Community of Sensation.) In Ecstasy, which is frequently allied with hallucination, the subject remains in rapt contemplation of some transcendental vision, deaf and blind to the outside world. It was formerly considered to indicate that the soul of the-ecstatic was viewing some great event distant in time or place or some person or scene from the celestial sphere. Now-a-days such a state is believed to be brought about by intense and sustained emotional, concentration on some particular mental image, by means of which hallucination may be induced.
The mediumistic trance is recognised as having an affinity with hypnosis, for the hypnotic trance, frequently induced, may gradually become spontaneous, when it exhibits strong resemblances to the trance of the medium. This latter is, among spiritualists, " The Trance " par excellence, and they object to the term being applied in any case where there is no sign of spirit " possession." The entranced medium—who seems able to produce this state at will—frequently displays an exaltation of memory (hypermesia), of the special senses (hypersesthesia), and even of the intellectual faculties. Automatic writing and utterances are generally produced in the trance state, and often display knowledge of which the medium normally knows nothing, or which, according to some authorities, gives evidence of telepathy. Such are the trance utterances of Mrs. Piper, whose automatic phenomena have in recent years provided a wide field for research for many men of science both in Britain and on the Continent. Naturally these phenomena, and those of all trance mediums, are referred by spiritualists to the agency of disembodied intelligences—the spirits of the dead^acting through the medium's physical organism, a notion which is akin to the old idea of demoniac possession, to which spontaneous trance was referred. Moreover, the trance messages themselves purported to come from the spirits of deceased persons and there are many who see no reason to disbelieve the emphatic assertion of the " intelligence," especially when that assertion is supplemented by an exact representation of the voice, appearance, and known opinions of the deceased friend or relative whose spirit it claims to be. Such trance impersonations supply a large part of the evidence on which the structure of spiritualism rests. There is, however, nothing to show that the information concerning the deceased, thus reproduced, may not have been obtained by normal means, or, at the most, telepathically from the minds of the sitters.

 

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