![]() Immortality cannot be proved any more than can the existence of God, either philosophically or empirically. That is a question which strictly speaking has nothing to do with psychology. If everybody eats salt, then that is the normal thing to do, and it is abnormal not to.īut this tells us nothing about the “rightness” of eating salt or of the idea of immortality. It is normal to think about immortality, and abnormal not to do so or not to bother about it. This state of things already bears some resemblance to a neurotic disturbance. The fewer of these universal ideas are found in consciousness, the more of them there will be in the unconscious, and the greater will be their influence on the conscious mind. ![]() If they are universal, they belong to the natural constituents and normal structure of the psyche.Īnd if by any chance they are not encountered in the conscious mind of a given individual, then they are present in the unconscious and the case is an abnormal one. The only question we can profitably discuss is whether they are universal or not. In so far as such ideas are universal, they are symptoms or characteristics or normal exponents of psychic life, which are naturally present and need no proof of their “truth.” Like our knowledge of physical nature, they were originally perceptions and experiences. The scientific method consists in the description of nature.Īll mythological ideas are essentially real, and far older than any philosophy. The idea of immortality is a psychic phenomenon that is disseminated over the whole earth.Įvery “idea” is, from the psychological point of view, a phenomenon, just as is “philosophy” or “theology.”įor modern psychology, ideas are entities, like animals and plants. It is concerned solely with the phenomenology of the psyche. Psychology cannot establish any metaphysical “truths,” nor does it try to. ![]() The point of view I have adopted is that of modern empirical psychology and the scientific method.Īlthough these essays deal with subjects which usually fall within the province of philosophy or theology, it would be a mistake to suppose that psychology is concerned with the metaphysical nature of the problem of immortality. The third discusses the psychology of the belief in immortality and the possibility of the continued existence of the soul after death. The second essay deals with the problem of dissociation and “part-souls” (or splinter-personalities). ![]() The first essay gives an account of a young somnambulistic girl who claimed to be in communication with the spirits of the departed. The reason why I am bringing them out together is that all three are concerned with certain borderline problems of the human psyche, the question of the soul’s existence after death. The essays collected together in this little volume were written over a period of thirty years, the first in 1902 and the last in 1932. ![]()
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