From India to the Planet Mars

About this book

A woman in Geneva begins describing an existence on Mars. Under trance she speaks in invented languages, recalls an Indian life and produces detailed accounts of places she has never visited. Psychologist Théodore Flournoy sets out to understand what is happening.

His study of the medium known as Hélène Smith became a landmark in the psychology of spiritualism. Drawings, scripts and long records of sittings make the imagined Martian world surprisingly tangible. Flournoy takes the experiences seriously as psychological events while questioning their claimed supernatural origin. The long records reveal how an imagined identity can acquire the detail and conviction of a second life.