9. Distinction Between Objective Psychic Attack And Subjective Psychic Disturbance-e

He cannot be expected to recognise insanity when he sees it, but his own common sense ought to be sufficient to enable him to recognise sanity. In other words, let him suspend judgment upon the alleged facts and concentrate upon the question of motive. It is here he will find his best indication. If a person can offer no valid explanation as to the reasons for the attack that is being made upon him, nor as to its cause or origin, we can probably rest assured that it originates in his own imagination. In one case which came into my hands for help, the victim declared that he was being persecuted by telepathic suggestion. I enquired as to the origin of this persecution, and he said that some people who lived in the next flat used to sit in a circle and concentrate upon him. I asked him why they did this. He did not know. I asked him how he knew they did it, and he could not tell me. He merely reiterated that they did it, although he admitted that he had never been inside their flat, never, in fact, even spoken to them except to exchange a good morning on the stairs. It was immediately apparent that there was no conceivable motive that could cause these people to go to the trouble of persecuting him. If anyone has ever tried any experiments with telepathic suggestion, they will know what intense concentration it requires, and, in fact, what hard work it is, and one cannot possibly imagine anybody putting them selves to the trouble of doing it over long periods of time without a very definite motive. I have, however, heard of a well-authenticated case of a woman who had a liaison with a married man attacking his wife in this way. I have also myself known of two cases in which a certain individual, at one time prominent in transcendental circles, in connection with what the newspapers impolitely called his “Prayer Shop,” and equally well known in the City in connection with his efforts to obtain gold from sea-water, used telepathic suggestion in order to induce the signing of cheques and documents. Before a visitor was expected for an interview, he would sit down and concentrate upon him. So strong was the influence thus exerted that a man of my acquaintance threw up a post he held under him because of the undue mental influence he felt was being exerted over himself, and another resigned off the board of one of his companies for the same reason. In both these cases an adequate motive for the mental attack is not far to seek. Compare these two cases with the previous one, and the difference can readily be perceived. We should, however, be just as cautious in deciding there is nothing wrong as in accepting at their face value any statements that may be made to us. Moreover, we should always bear in mind when dealing with a person who is obviously mentally unbalanced and who alleges a psychic attack, that the mental unbalance may have been induced by the psychic attack. Life is a strange thing at best, and many things that are stranger than usual can happen to those who move in occult circles.