The Arousing of Thought

I decided to do this without fail so that this initial chapter of mine, predetermined as I have already said to awaken your consciousness, should fully justify its purpose, and reaching not only your, in my opinion, as yet only fictitious “consciousness,” but also your real consciousness, that is to say, what you call your subconscious, might, for the first time, compel you to reflect actively.

In the entirety of every man, irrespective of his heredity and education, there are formed two independent consciousnesses, which in their functioning as well as in their manifestations have almost nothing in common. One consciousness is formed from the perception of all kinds of accidental, or on the part of others intentionally produced, mechanical impressions, among which must also be counted the “consonances” of various words which are indeed as is said empty; and the other consciousness is formed from the so to say, “already previously formed material results” transmitted to him by heredity, which have become blended with the corresponding parts of the entirety of a man, as well as from the data arising from his intentional evoking of the associative confrontations of these “materialized data” already in him.

The whole totality of the formation as well as the manifestation of this second human consciousness, which is none other than what is called the “subconscious,” and which is formed from the “materialized results” of heredity and the confrontations actualized by one’s own intentions, should in my opinion, formed by many years of my experimental elucidations during exceptionally favorably arranged conditions, predominate in the common presence of a man.

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