Summary

The Adventures of a Solitary Soul - H. J. Sharp

l

This brings us to the next centre of gravity, Si

Myers in the 1890's in contradistinction to his contemporaries such as Freud and Janet, took the view that the personal unconscious, or as he termed it, the subliminal - secondary personalities revealed in trance states, dreaming and automatic writing - potentially possessed a higher intelligence than one's waking or supraliminal personality, and often served to convey messages of guidance. Myers work paved the way for Flournoy who probably made the most significant advance. This was in 1899, when he published "From India to the Planet Mars" . This was the result of his investigations on a spiritualist medium who exhibited multiple personalities and "speaking in tongues". Flournoy's analysis and conclusions laid the foundations for the present day ideas on the significance of the Collective Unconscious and its superior intelligence. It would appear to be the reservoir of the total wisdom of humanity, influencing us unbeknown to us. Since Flournoy's work appeared to explain the abilities of good mediums and clairvoyants, popular at the time, as being the result not of the spirits of the dead, but rather of a higher entity within the individual, his work was ignored for some 20 years until taken up by Jung in 1902-5.

An important aspect of the working of Higher Mind is known as cryptamnesia. Once recognised and admitted this phenomenon explains much. There is now overwhelming evidence that in all of us, forgotten memories as well as material from the collective psyche is taken by some entity within or beyond us and rearranged to form a teaching scenario and reinjected into consciousness, thus providing us with a more creative and constructive apparent memory and experience. Is this the working of Higher Mind?