Archive for history
The subliminal messages written about in this article refers to psychic phenomenon. Again this is very different than today’s definition but it is interesting nonetheless how often we are finding these references in our subliminal messages research.
HOW IT CAME INTO MY HEAD.—THE MACHINERY OF INTUITIONS
The following pages are the substance of an address given to the Society for Psychical Research, under the title, more congenial to its nomenclature, of ” The possible Sources of Subliminal Messages!’
The word “message” is used in the sense specialised in psychic vocabulary, as signifying the perception, by one’s ordinary consciousness, of some memory, sensation, or deduction, of which one has been previously only sub-consciously aware, and which is externalised as a message from one part to another of one’s personality. The former title, not of my own invention, is one which I reject for two reasons. First, the word “subliminal” does not, to my own mind at least, convey the intended image. I can understand a perception being below the floor of my consciousness, but the notion of its being below the threshold, seems as a symbol, unnecessarily imperfect. The word ” message,” though otherwise unobjectionable, has been adopted by the spiritualists, and suggests an association with “Mediums,” and “Controls,” and “Stances,” all entirely remote from my present consideration.”
Interesting use of the term subliminal messages don’t you think?
In our continued subliminal messages research, we found this article. Again this is not what is considered subliminal messages today but it is interesting how this terminology has evolved.
Our Continued Subliminal Messages Research
“Mn. F. W. H. Myers then concluded his address (begun May 29th), on “Problems of Personality,” the substance of which will, it is hoped, appear in our Proceedings. The speaker reviewed the various classes of automatic and subliminal messages in their relation to the primary memory of the automatist.
In the first place, some of these messages, like the “inspirations of genius,” or the brief apparitions which showed no purposive action of their own, seemed to be assumed without any perceptible break iato the superficial chain of memory.
Secondly, in certain cases, a subsidiary or concurrent chain of memory was manifested, as, for instance, in ordinary automatic writing, where the messages written exhibited an intelligence involving memory, but not necessarily interfering with the automatist’s primary intelligence and memory, which might be occupied with other matters while the message was being written.
In the third place, the secondary chain of memory sometimes became sufficiently dominant to alternate with the primary,—as in such cases as those of Mme. B., Felida X., Ansel Bourne, ic.
In the fourth place, there were sometimes indications that a fusion of memories had occurred, or at any rate that the subliminal memory was’ wider in its scope, and represented the individuality more completely than the superliminal.
The question of the various origins of automatic messages was then once more discussed. It was concluded that, while at our present stage of knowledge it was very difficult to distinguish what the subliminal self might have itself acquired through the exercise of clairvoyant or similar powers from what it might have acquired by telepathic impact from other intelligences, yet there was reason to suppose that both these factors must be taken into account. Indeed, the very existence of the clairvoyant powers of the subliminal self indicated a realm of laws under which even direct communication from disearnate intelligences lost much of its antecedent improbability.”
And that concludes the subliminal messages research that was done at that time.
