• Original: Théodore Flournoy, Des Indes à la planète Mars: étude sur un cas de somnambulisme avec glossolalie (1900).
• This paper includes a preface and postscript written by the author himself.
• Background: This book is a study by the psychologist Théodore Flournoy of Geneva, examining a series of phenomena related to sleepwalking, glossolalia, Mars, India, etc., experienced by a medium referred to as "Hélène Smith." In this preface, the author explains the origins of the research, collaborators, consent from the subject, analytical perspectives, and key terms used in the main text.
• Note: Descriptions regarding psychic phenomena are intended to convey the content of the original research and the author's views, and do not represent an endorsement by the translator of any paranormal claims as factual.

Preface

The double title of this work indicates its mixed and poorly executed nature. Originally, it was intended to be a short monograph titled "A Study on an Example of Somnambulism," aiming only for accuracy and limited to a few facts that would interest psychologists and physiologists. However, circumstances led me to deviate from the purely scientific plan and direct the research towards a more general audience due to local controversies surrounding a particular example that had already attracted the curiosity of a wider readership, as well as other factors.

At least, if I had completely abandoned the rigor of the method from the beginning and boldly accepted it as such. If I had dedicated myself to extracting everything contained within a complex case: the anecdotal interest, the moral considerations, the historical precedents, and the literary techniques – constantly shifting from India to Mars, and other unexpected places. But I could not do that. Torn between conflicting directions that I should have chosen, I remained indecisive, a slave to them both. I tried to chase two rabbits at once, but everyone knows what happens as a result.

This is the origin of this book. It's a disproportionately long book compared to its content's importance. While it's covered in specialized terminology and crude interpretations that convey nothing to the general public, at the same time, there are too many basic and commonplace explanations for experts who deserve attention. This book lacks both the format necessary for initial readers and the content that later people would demand as a right. Nevertheless, I am publishing it so that I can avoid thinking about this book any further – as an example of something not to follow. And ultimately, no one is obligated to buy or read it, I tell myself.

Having said this in order to ease my conscience as an author, there remains a much more pleasant task: to express my gratitude to the people who helped me with my work.

First of all, I would like to mention the name of my excellent colleague, Professor Auguste Lemaître. This research is a product of our joint work in many ways, so it could be said that I should have mentioned his name next to mine at the beginning of this study. Mr. Lemaître introduced me to a remarkable medium who exhibits phenomena that fill an entire page. He has observed and followed her with almost as much enthusiasm as I have for nearly six years. And he generously allowed me to use not only records and materials, but also what is even more valuable: his personal impressions as a keen observer and insightful psychologist, without any restrictions. He also reviewed most of the proofs of this book. However, my laziness or stubbornness has not always led me to accept his corrections, so I should not hold him responsible for the spelling errors and stylistic flaws that still remain in my prose.

Regarding ideas, although we frequently exchanged opinions, we did not reach complete agreement on every detail – which is not surprising in this kind of matter – but I believe that our general approaches to understanding and interpreting these cases are almost identical. Therefore, Mr. Lemaître had absolutely nothing to do with what I said to the people around the mediums and their spiritualist friends here and there. This should be stated clearly at least once.

[Footnote 1] Regarding this case, Mr. Lemaître published two papers in Dr. Dariex's "Annales des Sciences psychiques," Volume VII (1897, pages 65 and 181), and I will often refer readers to those publications. These papers by Mr. Lemaître, along with my report on the Martian language given at the Geneva Physical and Natural History Society (April 6, 1899, "Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles," Volume VIII, page 90), are all that have been publicly published concerning this case so far.

Monsieur Eugène Demol, a doctor of science and an excellent numismatist, who was also the editor of "Revue suisse de Photographie," kindly attended many of our séances and provided us with a considerable number of photographs depicting somnambulistic postures and scenes. However, we had no choice but to comply with his request not to publish them, due to his modesty and humility. Monsieur Charles Roch undertook the unenviable task of taking minutes at most of our meetings. Professor Quendé, Vice-President of the Geneva Society for Psychical Research, provided us with several documents and observations based on sound common sense. Although there were unavoidable differences in opinion, our relationship with him was always filled with the utmost sincerity. My brother, Edmond Flournoy, greatly assisted us through extensive literature research. Furthermore, I regret that I cannot mention everyone's names here, but there are many people who provided valuable information about facts that I myself did not witness directly.

In Chapter VIII, in order to study the Arabic and Indian materials, I consulted with several Oriental scholars in Japan. They include Mr. Léopold Favre of Geneva, Professor Luc Gautier, Mr. Auguste Grelot who was a former missionary in India and is an honorary member of the London Society for Psychical Research, residing in Vosges, La-Tour-de-Pe, and my colleagues at the University of Geneva: Professor Édouard Montet of Arabic language, Professor Paul Otremarch of religious history, and Professor Ferdinand de Saussure of Sanskrit. Through these individuals, I was also able to obtain opinions from two prominent Indian scholars abroad: Mr. Alfred Bart of Paris and Mr. Charles Michel of Liège. I would like to express my gratitude to all of these scholars. Furthermore, I would like permission to quote excerpts from letters that I believe shed light on the issues at hand. In particular, I am deeply grateful to Professor de Saussure for his patience and tireless kindness in reviewing our "Indian" text.

And finally, above all else, I would like to express my gratitude, and the gratitude of the readers, to Ms. Helene Smith, the medium who is the protagonist of this book. She kindly gave us permission to print this work. Here, it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that I was faced with a delicate issue related to professional ethics.

Doctors do not hesitate to publish interesting cases encountered during hospital practice or private consultations in professional journals, concealing proper names. This right of scientific ownership is recognized as belonging to the doctor, in addition to compensation—and sometimes instead of it—and does not cause any uproar among ordinary people. Researchers who work with subjects who receive compensation also feel that they are free owners of the observations they collect and are given the freedom to publish them without considering the personal circumstances from which they originate.

However, for psychologists who deal with people living normal lives rather than those suffering from illness, the situation is different. Such individuals offer their unusual phenomena out of pure goodwill. And because these phenomena are often very impressive and praised by many around them, it would be unthinkable to publish even a small part of such information without revealing the identity of the subject, making it difficult for numerous readers to recognize them.

In such cases, what should one do? Should those who have witnessed something beneficial to science and truth completely abandon it, and remain in cautious silence, allowing uninformed onlookers to hold even more assertive opinions due to their lack of knowledge, regarding facts that they are hesitant to express? On the other hand, do individuals have the right to present facts that were previously confined to a limited circle of friends and acquaintances to an unlimited public audience, under circumstances that may not be exactly as they had become accustomed to? This is indeed a perplexing issue.

Regarding this point, until a clear rule is established by convention, I chose the simplest path. That is, to show the manuscript or proofreading copy to the medium themselves and only proceed with printing after obtaining their consent.

Of course, I did not think of doing such a thing for anyone. On the one hand, it was not a problem to abandon even a little bit of freedom in thinking and writing according to my own ideas. On the other hand, how many mediums are there who can accept that their phenomena are presented and explained in almost a scientific way, which is quite different from the generally prevalent ways in spiritualist environments where mediumistic abilities develop?

Fortunately, in this case, the difficulties seemed small thanks to the noble and refined character of the medium I was dealing with. Miss Smith appeared to be extremely intelligent and talented, far beyond ordinary prejudices, and possessed a broad and independent way of thinking. Therefore, she seemed like someone who could agree to have her psychic phenomena studied psychologically out of a simple love for truth and a desire for progress in research, even if the results might not align with her own impressions or the opinions of those around her.

My expectations were not disappointed. Of course, Miss Smith repeatedly showed a certain degree of surprise at the way I interpreted what she considered to be the most peculiar phenomena in her psychic abilities. Not only did she disagree with my conclusions, but she severely criticized my methods of analysis, believing that I was often "distorting" facts in an attempt to bring them back to the usual explanations of a mundane psychologist. In short, on important points, her judgments were sharply opposed to mine in many places. This was predictable.

However, what I want to emphasize here is that she never tried to hinder my research or restrict my freedom, even due to unavoidable differences of opinion. Even when disagreements were the most difficult for her, she demonstrated a scientific tolerance, breadth of vision, and something akin to selflessness. In this way, she not only made this work possible but also relatively easy. I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude for that.

I would like to add one more word about the fact that there are few author citations. The vast amount of literature on hypnosis and psychopathology, even if we exclude psychology, the history of spiritualism, and the history of occult sciences, could easily provide many examples in relation to cases that touch upon all these fields. It was possible to include references to hundreds of books and papers at the bottom of each page without straying from the subject. However, I refrained from this pleasure – or perhaps this hardship – in order not to make an already large volume even heavier, and limited myself to only a few bibliographic indications that naturally came to mind.

Nevertheless, there are several theories that are closely related to each other and partially overlap, which I would like to recall here. Although I have not explicitly cited them, I have constantly borrowed their expressions, perspectives, and metaphors. They actually fall within the realm of common property to a considerable extent, and it is difficult to do without them. In particular, I would like to mention P. Janet's dissociation of mind, M. Desoille's "double self," Breuer and Freud's hypnotic state, and above all, Myers' subliminal consciousness.

It was not necessary to explain these theories here, nor to discuss their relationships or relative values. In particular, Mr. Myers' theory goes far beyond the usual level of scientific thought and has a somewhat mystical quality that sometimes resembles true metaphysics – I am not criticizing it – so I cannot evaluate individual examples on an ad hoc basis, and indeed, it would be extremely difficult for me to do so. However, in order to express my gratitude for the valuable insights and useful formulations offered by these theories, I wanted to at least mention their names in this introduction.

Florissant, near Geneva, November 1899. T.F.

[Footnote 2] P. Janet, L'Automatisme psychologique, Paris, 1889; État mental des hystériques and others. M. Dessoir, Das Doppel-Ich, Berlin, 1890. Breuer and Freud, Studien über Hysterie, Wien, 1895. F. W. H. Myers, “The Subliminal Consciousness,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. VII, p. 298 and subsequent volumes.

Addendum

I do not place much importance on definitions in name only – perhaps I don't place enough importance. This is because, within my own vocabulary, I often find inconsistencies and a lack of fixedness. Nevertheless, it seems worthwhile to provide brief explanations for some terms that frequently appear in my writing, especially for readers who are not experts.

In the context of spiritualism, the term médium is applied to any individual who is believed to be able to act as an intermediary between the living and the dead or other spirits. When presenting facts scientifically, it is inconvenient to use terms that include debatable doctrinal assertions. Therefore, practical psychologists in English-speaking countries prefer to use the term automatiste instead of médium, a term that does not presuppose anything. This term simply refers to individuals who exhibit phenomena such as automatic writing, which are often involuntary and may not even be consciously known by the person themselves, but demonstrate intelligence. These include meaningful dreams, truthful hallucinations, mechanical writing, and table-tapping, all of which spiritualists believe indicate the intervention of spirits that have left their physical bodies.

I have decided to retain the word "médium" until it is accepted in French, but only as a convenient term for referring to people who exhibit the phenomena described above, separate from its etymological meaning and any hypothetical assumptions related to spiritualism. Whatever the true explanation of these phenomena may be.

The terms médianimique and médianimisme are associated with médium. These suggest an even stronger concept of intermediate souls (media anima) that have the ability to connect with inhabitants of other worlds. Furthermore, terms like médiumnité and médiumnisme, even in their endings, retain traces of this same etymological origin of the doctrine. Since I am using the term médium outside of its doctrinal meaning, rather than introducing this "n" which carries spiritualistic implications, it would be better to follow the example of how Germans use Mediumität, and directly create derivative words from there, such as médiumique and médiumité. However, I do not exclude using terms like médianimique and médiumnité occasionally when it is particularly important to evoke the theory of spiritualism.

The terms subliminal (sub limen, below the threshold) and subconscient or sous-conscient are, in practice, essentially synonymous. They refer to phenomena and processes that occur below the normal level of consciousness, even though they are unknown to the individual, for reasons that suggest they might be considered conscious. Of course, in each case, whether these hidden processes truly involve consciousness, or can be reduced to a purely mechanistic "unconscious brain activity," and to what extent, remains an open question. In the latter case, the expression "subliminal consciousness" can only be applied metaphorically. However, this does not provide a reason to reject the term.

The adjective onirique (from the Greek oneiron, meaning dream) is now accepted in French. It may be unfortunate that a more academic, but clearer word like rêverique was sometimes used, but it never became established.

Finally, by cryptomnésie, I mean the fact that forgotten memories reappear to the person without them being recognized as such, and the person believes they are seeing something new there. When mediums communicate messages or claim to be in contact with spirits who have left their bodies or some other supernatural cause, the first question – although not the only one – is whether this is simply cryptomnesia, that is, a resurgence of the medium's latent memories. Moreover, these memories are sometimes greatly altered by processes at the threshold of imagination and inference, as often happens in our ordinary dreams.

Square brackets [ ] contain quotations or personal notes that I have inserted into external contexts.