The solution
presents itself authoritatively and spontaneously; it is a
vision, an impression, an inspiration, an intuition coming one
knows not whence, suddenly and indubitably. As a role, they do
not even try to calculate. Contrary to the general belief, they
have no peculiar methods; or, if method there be, it is more a
practical way of subdividing the intuition. One would think that
the solution springs suddenly from the very enunciation of the
problem, in the same way as a veridical hallucination. It appears
to rise, infallible and ready-done, from a sort of eternal and
cosmic reservoir wherein the answers to every question lie
dormant. It must, therefore, be admitted that we have here a
phenomenon that occurs above or below the brain, by the side of
the consciousness and the mind, outside all the intellectual
methods and habits; and it is precisely for phenomena of this
kind that Myers invented the word "subliminal."[1]
[1] I have no need to recall the derivation of the term
subliminal: beneath (sub) the threshold (limen) of consciousness.
Let us add, as M. de Vesme very rightly remarks, that the
subliminal is not exactly what classical psychology calls the
subconsciousness, which latter records only notions that are
normally perceived and possesses only normal faculties, that is
to say, faculties recognized to-day by orthodox science.
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