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책소개

정신과 환자중에서 혼자 중얼거리면서 걸어다니는 몽유병환자의 사례의 연구.From India to the planet Mars, A study of a case of somnambulism with glossolalia ,by Theodore Flournoy

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
The translation into English of From India to the Planet Mars has been
undertaken in response to the demand created by the widespread and increasing
interest which is manifesting itself both in Great Britain and the United States in
the phenomena exhibited by its heroine―an interest which marks a new era in
the progress of human knowledge.
Twenty―even ten―years ago the phenomena which Prof. Flournoy here
describes in detail, and of which he offers a keen, skilful, psychological analysis,
would have met with the sneers of popular science and the contempt of
obscurantist orthodoxy; the book would have found few readers.
Times have greatly changed since the Society for Psychical Research was
founded, eighteen years ago, by a few thoughtful men (included among them
were those whose names would have conferred honor upon any body of men)
interested in the investigation of abnormal mental or psychic phenomena.
In explaining their reasons for organizing that[ Pg viii] society, its founders made
the following statement:
“ From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses, past and present,
including observations accurately made by scientific men of eminence of various
countries, there appears to be, among much illusion and deception, an important
body of remarkable phenomena which are prima facie inexplicable on any
generally recognized hypothesis, and which, if incontestably established, would
be of the highest possible value.”
The organization of this society constituted the first attempt in the world’s
history to investigate the phenomena of clairvoyance, automatic writing and
speaking, trance conditions, second sight, apparitions of persons at the point of
death, alleged spirit messages, etc., by a scientific body formed upon a broad
basis.

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