https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X17734782
History of Psychiatry
2018, Vol. 29(1) 110–125
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0957154X17734782
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Classic Text No. 113
Final chapter, From India to the
Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of
Somnambulism with Glossolalia, by
Théodore Flournoy (1900)
With an introduction by
Everton de Oliveira Maraldi
University of São Paulo, Brazil
Carlos S Alvarado
Parapsychology Foundation, USA
Abstract
Among the many attempts to explain mediumship psychologically at the turn of the century were the efforts
of Swiss psychologist Théodore Flournoy (1854–1920). In his well-known book Des Indes à la Planète Mars
(1900), translated as From India to the Planet Mars (1900), Flournoy analysed the mediumistic productions
of medium Hélène Smith (1861–1929), consisting of accounts of previous lives in France and in India, and
material about planet Mars. Flournoy explained the phenomena as a function of cryptomnesia, suggestive
influences, and subconscious creativity, analyses that influenced both psychology and psychical research. The
purpose of this Classic Text is to reprint the conclusion of Flournoy’s study, whose ideas were developed in
the context of psychological attention to mediumship and secondary personalities.
Keywords
Dissociation, Hélène Smith, mediumship, psychical research, subconscious creativity, Théodore Flournoy
Introduction: Théodore Flournoy and the construction of
mediumistic romances
Writing in his influential book The Discovery of the Unconscious, Henri F. Ellenberger (1905–
1993) identified four major activities in which the unconscious mind was involved (Ellenberger,
1970: 317–18). These were those concerned with dissolution (interfering with functions), as well
as with the preservation of mental content (such as precepts and recollections), and those
Corresponding author:
Everton de Oliveira Maraldi, University of São Paulo, 1721 Prof. Mello Moraes Avenue, 05508-030, Brazil.
Email: evertonom@usp.br
734782HPY 0 0 10.1177/0957154X17734782History of PsychiatryMaraldi and Alvarado
earch-article 2017