Chapter VI

In this review of the types of deception I have made no mention of such devices as the gaining of one's confidence for selfish ends, preying upon ignorance or fear, acting the friend while at heart the enemy, planned connivance and skilful plotting, together with the whole outfit of insincerity, villainy, and crime. It is not that these are without interest or are unrelated to the several types of deception above considered, but that they are too complex and too heterogeneous to be capable of ready or rigid analysis. When deception becomes an art of life, consciously planned and craftily executed, there must be acting and subterfuge and evasion to maintain the appearance of sincerity. The psychology of the processes therein concerned is almost coincident with the range of social, intellectual, and emotional influences. Complex as these operations may be, they have, in common with the less intricate forms of deception, the attempt to parallel the conditions underlying the logical inferences which it is desired to induce. If we add this great class of deceptions to those already enumerated, we may perhaps realize how vast is its domain, and how long and sad must be the chapter that records the history of human error.

Ethics is so closely related to psychology--right knowing to right doing--that a brief _hæc fabula docet_ by way of summary may not be out of place. We find, first, a class of sense-deceptions which are due to the nature of our sense-endowment, and deceive only so long as their true character remains unknown. These are neither pernicious nor difficult to correct. Next comes a class of deceptions that deceive because we are ignorant of the possibilities of technical devices, such as those used in legerdemain, and pronounce upon the possibility or impossibility of a certain explanation in advance of complete knowledge. But still another class, and that the most dangerous and insidious, are the deceptions in which self-deception plays the leading rôle. The only safeguard here is a preventive; the thorough infusion of sound habits of thought, a full recognition of the conditions under which the testimony of consciousness becomes dubious, an appreciation of the true value of objective scientific evidence, and an inoculation against the evils of contagion by an independent, unprejudiced, logical schooling. When once the evil spirit of self-deception, fed by the fire of contagion and emotional excitement, begins to spread, reason has little control. As Tyndall tells us, such "victims like to believe, and they do not like to be undeceived. Science is perfectly powerless in the presence of this frame of mind.... It [science] keeps down the weed of superstition, not by logic, but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for cultivation." With the spread of an education that fosters independence and self-reliance, with the growth of the capacity to profit by the experiences of others, with the recognition of the technical requisites that alone qualify one for a judgment in this or that field, with a knowledge of the possibilities of deception and of the psychological processes by which error is propagated, the soil upon which superstitions, psychic delusions, mental epidemics, or senseless fads are likely to flourish will gradually be rendered unfit.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] By Norman Triplett, "The Psychology of Conjuring Deceptions," _American Journal of Psychology_, xi. 4, July, 1900. This most recent and extensive treatment of this topic furnishes a well-selected storehouse of fact, together with suggestive and able interpretations of the material of conjuring deceptions. I shall draw from this material in several portions of this essay, without further detailed acknowledgment.

[4] Mr. Triplett went through a similar performance with a ball in the presence of school children; and of 165 children, 78 described how they saw the ball go up and disappear; of those who were thus hallucinated 40 per cent. were boys and 60 per cent. were girls. Hallucinations of perfumes in children were obtained by another experimenter when water was sprayed from bottles labeled as perfumes; 76 per cent. of 381 pupils saw a toy camel move when a crank attached to the camel by a string was turned, although the camel remained quite motionless. The experimental tests, though rather cold and lifeless when compared with the dramatic stage deceptions, illustrate the same process, and make possible a comparative study of the degree of deception in different individuals and under different circumstances.

[5] "Again, a mere tap with the wand on any spot, at the same time looking at it attentively, will infallibly draw the eyes of a whole company in the same direction."--_Houdin._

Robert Houdin, often termed "the king of the conjurers," was a man of remarkable ingenuity and insight. His autobiography is throughout interesting and psychologically valuable, and his conjuring precepts abound in points of importance to the psychologist.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM