Real Ghost Stories

and Her Th

and apparently superior to both. The possibilities which this case opens up are bewildering indeed. But it is better to state the case first and discuss it afterwards. Madame B., who is still under Prof. Richet's observations,[3] is one of the favourite subjects of the French hypnotiser. She can be put to sleep at almost any distance, and

ly is she entranced when she is metamorphosed; her face is no longer the same; her eyes, indeed, remain closed, but the acuteness of the other senses compensates for the loss of sight. She becomes gay, noisy, and restless to an insupportab

a considerable stock of memories which Madame B. does not share. Léonie II., therefore, counts as properly belonging to her own history and not to Madame B.'s all the even

the children to herself.... At last I learnt that her former mesmerisers, as bold in their practice as certain hypnotisers of to-day, had induced somnambulism at the time of her accouchements. Léonie

limbs without her knowledge or against her will. She will write postscripts

," he says, "left Havre more than two months when I received from her a very curious letter. On the first page was a short note written in a serious and respectful style. She was unwell, she said-worse on some days than on others-and she signed her true name, Madame B. But over the page began another letter in qu

rds these unconscious, spontaneous letters became common, and I was better able to study the mode of their production. I was fortunately able to watch Madame B. on one occasion while she went through this curious performance. She was seated at a table, and held in the left hand the piece of knitting at which she had been working. Her face was calm, her eyes looked into space with a cert

tographic album into which Léonie I. could not look without falling into catalepsy (on account of an association of ideas with Dr. Gibert, whose portrait had been in the album). In order to accomplish an act like this Léonie II. has to wait for a momen

t? Léonie I., or the Conscious Personality, is in possession normally, but is constantly being ousted by Léonie II., or the Subconscious Personality. It is the ol

quiet her. Suddenly she stopped and said to me with terror. 'Oh, who is talking to me like that? It frightens me.' 'No one is talking to you.' 'Yes! there on the left!' And she got up and tried to open a wardrobe on her left hand, to see if some one was hidden there. 'What is that you hear?' I asked. 'I hear on the left a voice which repeats, "Enough, enough, be quiet, you are a nuisance."' Assuredly the voice which t

his counsel. "What was it that happened?" asked M. Janet, "when Léonie II. was so frightened?" "Oh! nothing

l but direct evidence that the imaginary voice which terrified Léonie II. proceeded from a profounder stratum of consc

ality which emerges is, in one important point, superior to either Léonie I. or Léonie II. Although one among the subject's phases, this phase possesses the memory of every phase. Léonie III., like Léonie II., knows the normal life of Léonie I., but distinguishes herself from Léonie I., in whom, it must be sai

first her commonplace self; secondly, the clever, chattering Léonie II., who is bored by B., and who therefore wants to demolish her; and thirdly, the l

ouse than a single cell, and that the inmates love each other no more than the ordinary o

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