WCP1569

[1]¹

Frith Hill, Godalming.

April 18th. 1886

Dear Mr. Myers.²

I have been reading your papers on the "Unconscious Self" with the greatest interest, & I especially enjoy your most amusing skirmishes with Mr. Noel; but though he gets the worst of it dialectially[sic] I am inclined to think that he is nearer the truth than are y your present suggestions — for that they embody your full beliefs I doubt.

As you ask for criticism I venture to call your attention to the two c cases, one a dream, the other a case of madmen — described discussed in my "Miracles & Modern Spiritualism". For the dream see p.226. Here I cannot see where the "second self" got more knowledge and mathematical insight than the waking self. For the madmen see p.19B. I can see no flaw in my criticism of these cases. In both I presume the authorit.[sic] is good. Will you therefore discuss them both from your point of view? I think they are only fairly explicable on Mr. Noel’s view.

Now for another point. I have long been wishing to call the attention of the Psychical Research Society to the great importance of instituting a thorough investigation into the phenomena of Spirit Photography. It affords the most absolute of all tests (& the most easily applied) of the objectivity of spectral appearances, & even even[sic] of those which apppear to one person only while invisible to all others present. The evidence that such photographs have been taken is overwhelming, & though it may be difficult and expensive to obtain the necessary conditions for reproducing them yet the question is such a vital one that it is worth and triuble[sic] & any expense to arrive at definite results.

If the evidence was obtained by you or a committee of the society it w would afford a new and sure basis for your work. You are now assuming t that spectra or ghosts are not objective, & therefore requiring ten times as much evidence to prove them objectively, as would be required if you established by photography the objectivity in any one case.

It is far the most important experimental investigation the Society can undertake.

Believe me | Yours faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace

(To F.W.H. Myers)