ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The names 'Pluralism' and 'Monism' are usually confined to different views about the nature of the existent; but a prior question arises, for some philosophers have held that the difference between abstracta and existents is not ultimate, since in their view there are no abstracta. Many of the phenomena dealt with by society of psychical research may be fairly regarded as supernormal, i.e., as instances in which a mind shows powers which no mind was suspected of having. And, even in the merely pathological abnormalities which the psycho-analyst and the student of multiple personality treat, people are concerned with derangements which can happen only to a mind of a fairly high order. All finite bodies have spatial relations to each other, and all physical events are causally interconnected by gravitation and other forces which bridge the spatio-temporal gaps between them.
