ABSTRACT
The paper ‘The Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena’, written in 1900 and published two years later, though giving attention to lesser manifestations such as table-turning and automatic writing, is concerned chiefly with the development of a case of multiple personality during spiritualistic seances in which Jung as a student had been not only a participant but also a prime mover. The table-turning of the semi-somnambulic state is accounted for in terms of unconscious sensitivity to movement. The situation is similar in automatic writing, but there the mental processes concerned with the content of the messages, as well as those controlling the hand, are dissociated from the main stream of consciousness. The stimulus word might be misinterpreted or the instructions to respond with a single word neglected and some other word form, sentence or ejaculation, substituted. The clinical value of the test, therefore, lies in its overall survey, rather than exhaustive analysis of the patient’s problems.
