ccepted principles of explanation as far as one can. The subliminal
region, whatever else it may be, is at any rate a place now admitted by
psychologists to exist for the accumulation of vestiges of sensible
experience (whether inattentively or attentively registered), and for
their elaboration according to ordinary psychological or logical laws
into results that end by attaining such a "tension"that they may at
times enter consciousness with something like a burst. It thus is
"scientific" to interpret all otherwise unaccountable invasive
alterations of consciousness as results of the tension of subliminal
memories reaching the bursting-point. But candor obliges me to confess
that there are occasional bursts into consciousness of results of which
it is not easy to demonstrate any prolonged subconscious incubation.
Some of the cases I used to illustrate the sense of presence of the
unseen in Lecture III were of this order (compare pages 59, 60, 61,
66); and we shall see other experiences of the kind when we come to the
subject of mysticism. The case of Mr. Bradley, that of M. Ratisbonne,
possibly that of Colonel Gardiner, possibly that of saint Paul, might
not be so easily explained in this simple way. The result, then, would
have to be ascribed either to a merely physiological nerve storm, a
"discharging lesion" like that of epilepsy; or, in case it were useful
and rational, as in the two latter cases named, to some more mystical
or theological hypothesis. I make this remark in order that the reader
may realize that the subject is really complex. But I shall keep
myself as far as possible at present to the more "scientific" view; and
only as the plot thickens in subsequent lectures shall I consider the
question of its absolute sufficiency as an explanation of all the
facts. That subconscious incubation explains a great number of them,
there can be no doubt.

And thus I return to our own specific subject of instantaneous
conversions. You remember the cases of Alline, Bradley, Brainerd, and
the graduate of Oxford converted at three in the afternoon. Similar
occurrences abound, some with and some without luminous visions, all
with a sense of astonished happiness, and of being wrought on by a
higher control. If, abstracting altogether from the question of their
value for the future spiritual life of the individual, we take them on
their psychological side exclusively, so many peculiarities in them
remind us o