" I think we really agree but use different terms.
There _is_ a hidden directive power, which works in conjunction with,
and is temporarily part of, our own conscious self; but it is below the
threshold of consciousness, or is a subliminal part of our self.
I should like to have come over to Broadstone expressly to ask your
views on the parts you queried. For I have an immense faith in the
soundness of your judgment, and in the accuracy of your views _in the
long run_.
I should like also immensely to see you again and in your lovely
home....--Yours ever sincerely,
W.F. BARRETT.
* * * * *
TO PROF. BARRETT
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. February 20, 1911._
My dear Barrett,--I wrote you yesterday on quite another matter, but
having yours this morning in reply to my criticisms of your Address, I
send a few lines of explanation. Most of my queries to your statements
apply solely to your expressing them so positively, as if they were
absolute certainties which no psychical researcher doubted. My main
objection to the term "subliminal self" and its various synonyms is,
that it is so dreadfully vague, and is an excuse for the assumption that
a whole series of the most mysterious of psychical phenomena are held to
be actually explained by it. Thus it is applied to explain all cases of
apparent "possession," when the alleged "secondary self" has a totally
different character, and uses the dialect of another social grade, from
the normal self, sometimes even possesses knowledge that the real self
could not have acquired, speaks a language that the normal self never
learnt.
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