Study Notes – Dual and Multiple Personality (William J. Fielding
Chapter I – Background of Multiple Personality
- Dual personality has shaped religion, folklore, and superstition.
- Dreams free the subconscious from time and space, inspiring belief in immortality.
- Witchcraft persecutions in Europe and America were mass hysteria rooted in subconscious duality.
- Fear and crowd psychology drove witch‑hunts, pogroms, and mob violence.
Quote: “Our subconscious mind, which is in the ascendancy during sleep, has invested itself with the attributes of the supernatural. Perhaps it has invented the supernatural.”
Hysterical Hallucinations
- Hallucinations (visions of saints, angels, etc.) stem from subconscious suggestibility.
- Medieval visions were seen as divine; modern psychiatry views them as pathology.
- Thomson Jay Hudson: humans appear to have “two minds” with distinct powers.
- Modern psychology reframes this as conscious vs. unconscious processes.
Suggestibility
- The unconscious mind accepts suggestions without reasoning.
- Hypnosis shows extreme suggestibility; crowds act under collective impulses.
- Boris Sidis: “Not sociality, not rationality, but suggestibility, is what characterizes the average specimen of humanity.”
- Society itself depends on suggestibility, leading to epidemics of belief, manias, and mob violence.
Physiology of the Subconscious
- Mind inseparable from body; disturbances in organs affect mentality.
- Nerve cells connect functionally, not anatomically.
- Complex constellations of nerve cells are unstable and dissolve under stress.
- Dissociation explains hysteria, amnesia, hypnosis.
- When stimuli are removed, cells re‑associate and restore normal function.
Chapter II – Normal Duality
- The unconscious mind is a reservoir of memory and creativity.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes: “We all have a double, who is wiser and better than we are…”
- Fielding qualifies: the inner double is energetic and resourceful, but unmoral.
- Everyday examples: sudden recall of forgotten information, flashes of inspiration.
- Abnormal states (hysteria, somnambulism, insanity) magnify normal unconscious processes.
Key Themes
- Duality of mind explains religion, superstition, and creativity.
- Fear and suggestibility override rational thought, fueling hysteria and mob behavior.
- Physiology of nerve cells provides a scientific basis for dissociation.
- The unconscious mind is both a source of genius and of pathology.
Fear and the Unconscious Mind
- Fear belongs to the primitive unconscious, which reacts instinctively rather than logically.
- The unconscious is “closely bound up with the emotional manifestations—love, fear, hate, etc.”
- Because it bypasses rational thought, fear can overwhelm judgment and lead to irrational behavior.
Fear and Dissociation
- Strong emotions like fear destabilize the brain’s nerve‑cell constellations.
- Fielding explains that under intense stimuli (trauma, shock, fear), these networks dissolve, producing dissociation, amnesia, or hysteria.
- Quote: “With the increase in intensity of stimuli…such unstable systems or constellations lose their equilibrium, dissolve and form new systems.”
Fear in Social Behavior
- Fear spreads collectively, fueling mob violence, witch hunts, and pogroms.
- In crowds, fear overrides individuality, reverting people to primitive instincts.
- Witchcraft persecutions and war hysteria are examples of fear driving mass irrationality.
Key Takeaways
- Fear overrides rational thought and magnifies suggestibility.
- It destabilizes mental organization, sometimes producing dissociation or multiple personality states.
- Socially, fear spreads through groups, leading to hysteria, violence, and suppression of dissent.
William J. Fielding’s Dual and Multiple Personality that illustrate how fear affects the mind and behavior:
📌 Example 1 – Witchcraft Persecutions
Fielding explains that witch‑hunts in Europe and America were driven by fear and subconscious duality:
> “In the witch‑hunter…the comparatively social‑minded individual reverts to a primitive stage of barbarism. It is a reversion to the sway of animal instincts.”
Fear transformed ordinary people into persecutors, fueling mass hysteria and violence.
📌 Example 2 – Mob Violence
He compares witch‑hunts to modern mob outbreaks:
“We still have our mob‑outbreaks, lynching parties, pogroms in some parts of the world, and other manifestations of the vindictiveness of the mob.”
Fear spreads collectively, overriding rational thought and producing destructive crowd behavior.
📌 Example 3 – Dissociation Under Fear
On the physiological level, Fielding notes that strong emotions like fear destabilize nerve‑cell constellations:
“With the increase in intensity of stimuli…such unstable systems or constellations lose their equilibrium, dissolve and form new systems.”
This explains how fear can lead to dissociation, amnesia, or hysteria.
📌 Example 4 – Fear and Suggestibility
Boris Sidis, quoted in the book, emphasizes how fear magnifies suggestibility:
“Not sociality, not rationality, but suggestibility, is what characterizes the average specimen of humanity, for man is a suggestible animal.”
Fear makes individuals more vulnerable to propaganda, superstition, and crowd influence.
