Full download test bank at ebookmeta.

com

The Déjà Vu Experience 2nd Edition Anne M Cleary

Alan S Brown

For dowload this book click LINK or Button below

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-deja-vu-
experience-2nd-edition-anne-m-cleary-alan-s-brown/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Download More ebooks from https://ebookmeta.com

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The American Revolution 1774 83 2nd Edition Daniel

Marston

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-american-
revolution-1774-83-2nd-edition-daniel-marston/

Chess Explained The c3 Sicilian 1st Edition Sam Collins

https://ebookmeta.com/product/chess-explained-
the-c3-sicilian-1st-edition-sam-collins/

Starting Out The c3 Sicilian 1st Edition John Emms

https://ebookmeta.com/product/starting-out-the-c3-sicilian-1st-
edition-john-emms/

The Paper Issue 83 1st Edition Origamiusa

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-paper-issue-83-1st-edition-
origamiusa/
BNF 83 (British National Formulary) March 2022 Joint
Formulary Committee

https://ebookmeta.com/product/bnf-83-british-national-formulary-
march-2022-joint-formulary-committee/

English Grammar Exercises with answers Part 4 Your

quest towards C2 1st Edition Daniel B. Smith

https://ebookmeta.com/product/english-grammar-exercises-with-
answers-part-4-your-quest-towards-c2-1st-edition-daniel-b-smith/

Patriot vs Loyalist American Revolution 1775 83 Combat

1st Edition Si Sheppard

https://ebookmeta.com/product/patriot-vs-loyalist-american-
revolution-1775-83-combat-1st-edition-si-sheppard/

British Light Infantryman vs Patriot Rifleman American

Revolution 1775 83 1st Edition Robbie Macniven

https://ebookmeta.com/product/british-light-infantryman-vs-
patriot-rifleman-american-revolution-1775-83-1st-edition-robbie-
macniven/

Secrecy Public Relations and the British Nuclear Debate

How the UK Government Learned to Talk about the Bomb
1970 83 Cold War History 1st Edition Daniel Salisbury

https://ebookmeta.com/product/secrecy-public-relations-and-the-
british-nuclear-debate-how-the-uk-government-learned-to-talk-
about-the-bomb-1970-83-cold-war-history-1st-edition-daniel-
THE DÉJÀ VU EXPERIENCE

The Déjà vu Experience, Second Edition covers the latest scientific discoveries regarding the
strange sense of familiarity most of us have felt at one time or another when doing
something for the first time. The book sheds light on this mysterious phenomenon,
considering the latest neurophysiological investigations and research on possible reasons
why déjà vu is often associated with a sense of predicting the future or knowing what
happens next.
In addition to summarizing the major historical and contemporary theoretical approaches
to the déjà vu experience, this book aspires to stimulate additional research on this curious
subjective phenomenon. Drawing on research from a range of fields including psychology,
philosophy, and religion, it aims to demystify some of the more unsettling, spooky-seeming
aspects of the déjà vu experience, elucidating possible mechanisms and underlying reasons for
its occurrence. This edition has been thoroughly updated throughout to include over 200
new professional articles and book chapters related to déjà vu that have been published in the
18 years since the original book.
By placing the scientific study of déjà vu within its historical context and covering a
broad range of perspectives on the subject, this title will be invaluable to upper-level
undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers of Cognitive Psychology, specifically
those focusing on Memory Phenomena.

Anne M. Cleary is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Colorado State University.

She received her BS from John Carroll University in Ohio, and her PhD from Case
Western Reserve University in Ohio. Dr. Cleary has published 63 professional articles
and book chapters, as well as two previous books.

Alan S. Brown retired as an Emeritus Professor in the Psychology Department at

Southern Methodist University, after teaching there for 44 years. He received his BA from
the College of Wooster in Ohio, and PhD from Northwestern University in Illinois.
Dr. Brown has published 87 professional articles and book chapters, as well as eight books,
covering various theoretical and applied aspects of human memory and cognition.
Essays in Cognitive Psychology

Series Editors:
Henry L. Roediger, III, Washington University, USA
James R. Pomerantz, Rice University, USA
Alan Baddeley, The University of York, UK
Jonathan Grainger, Université de Provence, France
Daniel Baker, University of York, UK

Essays in Cognitive Psychology is designed to meet the need for rapid publication of brief
volumes in cognitive psychology. Primary topics will include perception, movement
and action, attention, memory, mental representation, language, and problem-solving.
Furthermore, the series seeks to define cognitive psychology in its broadest sense,
encompassing all topics either informed by, or informing, the study of mental processes.
As such, it covers a wide range of subjects including computational approaches to
cognition, cognitive neuroscience, social cognition, and cognitive development, as well
as areas more traditionally defined as cognitive psychology. Each volume in the series
will make a conceptual contribution to the topic by reviewing and synthesizing the
existing research literature, by advancing theory in the area, or by some combination of
these missions. The principal aim is that the authors will provide an overview of their
own highly successful research program in an area. It is also expected that volumes will,
to some extent, include an assessment of current knowledge and identification of
possible future trends in research. Each book will be a self-contained unit supplying the
advanced reader with a well-structured review of the work described and evaluated.

Published

Garnham
Mental Models and the Interpretations of Anaphora

Cleary and Brown

The Déjà Vu Experience, Second Edition

For updated information about published and forthcoming titles in the Essays
in Cognitive Psychology series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Essays-in-
Cognitive-Psychology/book-series/SE0548
THE DÉJÀ VU
EXPERIENCE
Second Edition

Anne M. Cleary and Alan S. Brown

Second edition published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Taylor & Francis
The right of Anne M. Cleary and Alan S. Brown to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Psychology Press 2004

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cleary, Anne (Anne M.), author. | Brown, Alan S., 1948- author.
Title: The déjà vu experience / Anne M. Cleary and Alan S. Brown.
Description: Second edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021001049 (print) | LCCN 2021001050 (ebook)
| ISBN 9780367273194 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367273200 (paperback)
| ISBN 9780429296116 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Déjà vu.
Classification: LCC BF378.D45 B76 2021 (print) | LCC BF378.D45
(ebook) | DDC 153.7‐‐dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001049
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001050

ISBN: 978-0-367-27319-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-27320-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-29611-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
CONTENTS

List of Figures vii

Preface viii
Acknowledgments x

PART I
The Study of Déjà Vu 1

1 Introduction 3
2 Methods of Investigating Déjà Vu 20
3 Incidence of Déjà Vu 44
4 Nature of the Déjà Vu Experience 58

PART II
Factors Related to Déjà Vu 73

5 Physical and Psychological Variables Related to Déjà Vu 75

6 Epilepsy and Déjà Vu 98
7 Are Certain Brain Regions Associated with Déjà Vu? 116
8 Schizophrenia and Déjà Vu 127
vi Contents

PART III
Theory 139

9 Familiarity Explanations of Déjà Vu 141

10 Processing Disruption Explanations of Déjà Vu 165
11 Other Related Experiences 188
12 Association of Déjà Vu with the Paranormal 212

PART IV
Summary and Future Directions 227

13 Future Directions 229

References 240
Author Index 274
Subject Index 277
FIGURES

2.1 An example of a set of images sharing a Gestalt (from Cleary

et al., 2009). On the left is a prison image that served as a test
scene; on the right is a locker room image with a similar
Gestalt that was potentially shown earlier in the experiment 33
2.2 Examples of configurally similar virtual reality scenes from
Cleary et al. (2012) 34
3.1 Incidence of déjà vu across studies 50
5.1 Lifetime déjà vu incidence in 5-year age groups 76
5.2 Yearly incidence for déjà vu experience in 10-year age groups 78
5.3 Frequency of déjà vu among experients 79
5.4 Lifetime déjà vu incidence as a function of years of education 84
5.5 Incidence of déjà vu across age, comparing males and females 87
5.6 Frequency of déjà vu across age, comparing male and female
experients 88
5.7 Lifetime déjà vu incidence as a function of travel frequency 90
9.1 Gestalt interpretation of déjà vu (from Dashiell, 1937, pp. 433) 146
9.2 Example of configurally similar line drawings from Cleary
et al. (2009) 147
9.3 Examples of identically configured virtual reality scenes used
by Cleary et al. (2012) 149
9.4 Support for the single-element hypothesis found by Klein
et al. (2012) 153
12.1 A bird’s eye view of two configurally related scenes: an
aquarium (left) was studied, and a doctor’s office reception
(right) at test; from Cleary and Claxton (2018) 220
PREFACE

The déjà vu phenomenon has established a strong presence in our popular

culture. A recent Google search using the search term “déjà vu” brought up
nearly 200 million results. This profound infusion of the term in our everyday
experience stands in marked contrast to the relative paucity of attention given to
the phenomenon in the scientific literature. At the time of the first edition of this
book, there were some published articles (Burnham, 1889; Kohn, 1983; Sno,
2000; Sno & Linszen, 1990), book chapters (Ellis, 1911; MacCurdy, 1925), and a
book (Neppe, 1983e) on déjà vu, but there was little literature attempting to
make a serious connection with the scientific research on human perception,
cognition, and neurophysiology. That has since dramatically changed.
Following the first edition of this book and a coinciding condensed review
article (Brown, 2003), there has been a healthy emergence of scientific literature
on the déjà vu phenomenon. As the primary purpose of the first edition of this
book was to open avenues of research on déjà vu, this is a welcome change.
Although the realm of publications on déjà vu is still comprised of an unusually
broad range of findings from an eclectic mix of survey instruments, anecdotal
reports, and personal reflections, it now also contains many rigorous scientific
studies. The new scientific investigations have emerged on two primary fronts:
(1) laboratory research in cognitive psychology, and (2) neurophysiological
research in clinical patient populations.
While the study of déjà vu continues to derive from a variety of professional
orientations and backgrounds, including philosophy, religion, neurology,
sociology, mysticism, and psychology, both of the present authors have
discovered ways to demystify the experience by connecting it to a number of
existing cognitive psychology research findings. Although mystery still surrounds
the subjective experience, we are fast developing ways in which an objective and
 Preface ix

rigorous examination of déjà vu can help us shine a light on the mysteries of

the mind.
A goal of the current edition of this book is to integrate new cross-disciplinary
developments in understanding déjà vu with the scientific findings that have
emerged. It is our hope that, as with the first edition of this book, this new
edition will stimulate researchers to explore additional connections and inroads
into understanding this very curious cognitive phenomenon.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to Dr. Nigel Pedersen for providing invaluable feedback
on the chapter on epilepsy and déjà vu and on brain regions associated with déjà
vu, and to Dr. Elaine Walker for her insights on the complex relationship
between schizophrenia and déjà vu.
PART I

The Study of Déjà Vu

1
INTRODUCTION

“Last Wednesday, I was at home with both my parents around. I was revising a
term paper, around 1 am. I felt a sensation that told me that I had revised that paper
before. I felt strange because the minute I highlighted the word ‘wander,’ I got a sense
that it had happened already. I even said out loud the word ‘déjà vu’ when I received
that sensation.”

“Last summer, I was in a program at Galveston. I was sitting with my roommate

and we were talking about our problems. After a few minutes of talking, I
experienced déjà vu. I don’t know if I had dreamed that experience or what, but it
felt as if it was recurring.”

“We visited a discothèque in Downtown Disney, and were dancing with two girls from
Brazil. Neither one of us had been there before, or had met the girls before. However,
when a song played I felt as if I had lived the moment before. I couldn’t remember
exactly when or where, but I knew it wasn’t my first time there and with them.”

Research suggests that most of us have had a déjà vu experience at some point in
our lives. As illustrated in the above stories, you are suddenly and inexplicably
overcome with a feeling that you have done this exact same thing once before –
been in this place, engaged in this activity, said that phrase. However, it is im-
possible because to the best of your recollection, you have never been in this
place before, been with these particular people, or engaged in this particular
activity at any time in your past. Reduced to the simplest form, the déjà vu
experience represents the clash between two simultaneous and opposing mental
evaluations: an objective assessment of unfamiliarity juxtaposed with a subjective
evaluation of familiarity.
4 The Study of Déjà Vu

From moment to moment in our routine lives, we are accustomed to our

cognitive impressions matching our objective evaluations. When we enter our
own bedroom, it feels familiar; when we visit the Bronx Zoo for the first time, it
feels unfamiliar. The sense of familiarity is so automatic, and consistently in sync
with objective reality that we pay little attention to it until the two dimensions
fail to correspond with each other.
Déjà vu is widely experienced by the general public and oft-cited in the
popular literature (Sno et al., 1992a). As Searleman and Herrmann (1994) point
out, déjà vu is “…the most well-known anomaly of memory” (p. 326). Few
memory phenomena are referenced by the general public, and this short list
includes forgetting, memory blocks (tip-of-the-tongue state) and the déjà vu
experience. One can personally verify the general infusion of the concept of déjà
vu into our culture by the millions of hits from a web search using that term.
While many of these sites do not refer directly to the memory anomaly, it
nonetheless illustrates how the concept has become a mainstay of popular ver-
nacular. Further confirmation of this widespread usage can be found in
Microsoft’s Word software program. It will automatically add the appropriate
accents if one simply types in the phrase “déjà vu.”
Although popular attention and usage alone do not justify doing research on
a topic, it would also be ill-advised to ignore such a phenomenon. Neisser
(1982) expressed a concern that “if X is an interesting or socially significant
aspect of memory, then psychologists have hardly ever studied X” (p. 4).
While there has been some response to this criticism by the field as a whole,
reflected in the appearance of new journal outlets for accommodating applied
research topics (e.g., Applied Cognitive Psychology, Journal of Applied Research in
Memory and Cognition), there is still an unfortunate tendency for memory re-
searchers to sidestep common experiences that may seem less amenable to
experimental control.

A Brief Historical Context for the Study of Déjà Vu

Writings about the déjà vu experience are many centuries old, and one can find
references to the phenomenon (if not by that name) as far back as the mid-1800s.
There was a notable flurry of attention during the late 1800s in the areas of
philosophy and medicine. French scholars engaged in a lively debate concerning
whether the déjà vu experience reflected mental pathology or the temporary
memory dysfunction of normal individuals (Berrios, 1995; Moulin, 2018). This
intellectual conversation culminated in a special issue of Revue Philosophique in
1893 (Schacter, 2001). This topic became so “hot” and professionally important
that some strange interpretations were proposed (e.g., Dugas, 1894) just so that
scholars could participate in a zeitgeist of theoretical speculation and avoid the
“humiliation” of being caught without one’s unique hypothesis about déjà vu
(cf. Allin, 1896a).
 Introduction 5

As interest in déjà vu was beginning to work its way into the domain of
psychology in the late 1800s and early 1900s, behaviorism was establishing a firm
hold over psychological investigation. The déjà vu experience did not fit within
this behavioristic empirical framework because there were no consistently ob-
servable behaviors or clearly identifiable eliciting stimuli associated with it. Thus,
it was bypassed by the mainstream of psychological research in America, Britain,
and Germany where the behaviorist influence was clearly dominant. Even with
the emergence of cognitive psychology in the 1950s/1960s and its renewed in-
terest in studying internal mental processes and subjective experiences such as
imagery (e.g., Kosslyn et al., 1978; Kosslyn et al., 1979; Kosslyn & Pomerantz,
1977; Neisser, 1967; Pylyshyn, 1981; Shepard, 1978), déjà vu never made a
successful inroad into mainstream cognitive psychology research until the 2000s.
Prior to that, it seemed to be viewed as a “symptom without a psychological
function” (Berrios, 1995, p. 123).
Research on human memory and cognitive function grew dramatically during
the 1900s, but throughout the Behaviorist era, most investigations focused on the
panoply of variables that affect routine encoding and retention of information.
Although memory errors were extensively examined by Bartlett (1932), most
research followed the Ebbinghaus (1885) tradition where memory errors were
viewed as nuisance variance to be controlled or eliminated (cf. Slamecka, 1985).
Thus, although early research on perception focused on errors and illusions,
memory investigators had essentially ignored such phenomena until the later
decades of the 20th century (Roediger & McDermott, 2000). In his review of the
then limited literature on memory illusions, Roediger (1996) lamented how little
progress we had made over the past century of research toward clarifying the
nature of memory illusions such as déjà vu. Furthermore, in his book The Seven
Sins of Memory, Schacter (2001, p. 91) stated, “we know little more about déjà vu
today than we did back in the days of Arnaud over a century ago.”
Following the first edition of the present book in 2004, that began to change.
In the years following that publication, research studies reporting experiments
that investigated hypotheses of déjà vu began appearing in the scientific literature
(see Chapters 2, 9, 10, 11, and 12 of the present book). The 2016 International
Conference on Memory (ICOM) in Budapest held the first ever symposium
dedicated solely to the topic of déjà vu. In his role as moderator of that session,
Daniel Schacter noted that the comment regarding the lack of progress in un-
derstanding déjà vu that he made in his 2001 book fifteen years earlier (above) no
longer held – that it was clear at the time of that symposium that great strides had
been made. They continue to be made today.

The Present Book

The purpose of this second edition of the book is to incorporate overviews of
new scientific findings and theoretical developments on déjà vu that have taken
6 The Study of Déjà Vu

place since the previous edition. The first portion of this book describes the ways
in which the déjà vu experience is investigated, including new methods that have
emerged since the last edition (Chapter 2), followed by details on the incidence of
déjà vu (Chapter 3) and its nature (Chapter 4). The second portion of the book
focuses on factors that appear to relate to the déjà vu experience. This includes
various demographic and physical variables (Chapter 5), and the connection
between déjà vu and both epilepsy (Chapter 6) and schizophrenia (Chapter 8), as
well as the brain regions associated with déjà vu in clinical and non-clinical
populations (Chapter 7).
The third portion of the book focuses on scientific explanations of déjà vu and
related phenomena. These chapters cover familiarity explanations (Chapter 9) and
explanations involving disruptions to ongoing cognitive processing (Chapter 10),
as well as scientific explanations for related experiences to déjà vu (Chapter 11),
such as jamais vu (the momentary sense of unfamiliarity in a familiar environ-
ment), presque vu (feeling on the verge of an epiphany), déjà entendu (the au-
ditory version of déjà vu) and déjà vecu (a dynamic version of static déjà vu).
Finally, Chapter 12 covers scientific alternatives to paranormal interpretations of
déjà vu and provides some potential clues as to why an association between déjà
vu and the paranormal exists in the first place.
In the first edition of this book, a chapter was devoted to psychodynamic
interpretations, but these are given briefer coverage in the context of historical
approaches to déjà vu in the present chapter. The final chapter of the book
involves a recap of research and suggestions for future scientific exploration of
déjà vu (Chapter 13).

What Is Déjà Vu?

It took nearly a century to settle on a common term for the déjà vu experience, a
difficulty understandable given the strange nature of the experience. The dia-
metrical opposition of one’s objective (new) and subjective (old) evaluations of a
personal experience has no cognitive parallel, and leaves an individual searching
for a succinct label for this baffling experience. One of the primary reasons for the
continued use of a French term introduced in the late 1800s is that there is no
adequate English descriptor (Fortier & Moulin, 2015; Neppe, 1983e). A number
of English terms have been put forth (see below), but they are generally cum-
bersome alternatives that tend to be more confusing than clarifying.

A Phenomenon in Search of a Term

From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, researchers used a variety of different
words and phrases in different languages to describe the déjà vu experience, and a
collection of English terms is presented in Table 1.1. Sno and Linszen (1990)
provide an additional five German and four French terms (other than déjà vu) to
 Introduction 7

TABLE 1.1 English terms used to describe the déjà vu experience

“been-here-before feeling” Burnham (1889); Calkins (1916)

“double memory” Ribot (1882); Burnham (1889); Smith (1913)
“double perceptions” Jensen (1868) cited in Marková & Berrios (2000)
“feeling of familiarity in a strange place” (Tiffin et al., 1946)
“feeling of familiarity in strange situations” (Morgan, 1936)
“feeling of having been there before” (Humphrey (1923))
“has-been-experienced-before-illusion” Warren and Carmichael (1930)
“identifying fallacy” Kraepelin (1887) cited in Parish (1897)
“illusion of having been there before” Woodworth (1940)
“illusion of having already seen” Conklin (1935)
“illusion of the already seen” Gordon (1921)
“illusion of memory” Osborn (1884)
“identifying paramnesia” Burnham (1889); Geldard (1963)
“inexplicable sense of familiarity and recognition” Hodgson (1865)
“known againness” Allin (1896a)
“mental mirage” Neumann (cited in Burnham, 1889)
“memory beforehand” Myers (1895)
“memory deception” Sander (1874) cited in Marková and Berrios (2000)
“mental diplopia” Taylor (1931)
“paradoxical recognition” Wingfield (1979)
“paramnesia” Drever (1952); Pillsbury (1915); Titchener (1928)
“phantasms of memory” Feuchtersleben (1847)
“perplexity psychosis” MacCurdy (1925)
“promnesia” Myers (1895)
“sentiment of pre-existence” Scott (in Berrios, 1995); Wigan (1844)
“sense of pre-existence” James (1890)
“sense of prescience” Crichton-Browne (1895)
“sensation of reminiscence” Jackson (1888)
“sentiment of pre-existence” Wigan (1844)
“recognition of the immemorially known” Jung (1963) cited in White (1973)
“reduplicative paramnesia” Arnaud (1896)
“wrong recognition” Titchener (1928)

describe the phenomenon, and Neppe (1983e) gives a chronology of the evo-
lution of various words and phrases used to label the experience. An extensive
debate by French researchers and philosophers concerning the appropriate label
for the experience (and different subtypes) appeared in the journal Revue
Philosophique in the late 1890s. Marková and Berrios (2000) present a detailed
account of this lively debate, which incidentally did not end up resolving the issue
(cf. Moulin, 2018; Neppe, 1983e; Schacter, 2001).
One problem with the early use of terms such as “false memory,” “false recogni-
tion,” “reminiscence” and “paramnesia,” was that these assumed that the phenomenon
was a memory dysfunction, as opposed to a neurological, perceptual, or attentional
problem (Stern, 1938; Ward, 1918), or a fairly normal aspect of human memory
8 The Study of Déjà Vu

occurring in an unusual way (e.g., Cleary et al., 2012; Cleary & Claxton, 2018; Cleary
et al., 2018). Another problem is that one of the more popular English terms, para-
mnesia (Burnham, 1889), was used inconsistently (Funkhouser, 1983a; Smith, 1913).
Some saw paramnesia as directly and exclusively referring to déjà vu (Dashiell, 1928,
1937; Gordon, 1921; Murphy, 1951; Pillsbury, 1915). Others interpreted paramnesia
as a general term for a wide range of memory dysfunctions and pathologies, among
which was déjà vu (Breese, 1921; Calkins, 1916; Myers, 1895; Phillips, 1913) (cf.
Berrios, 1995). For example, paramnesia was defined as perversion of memory, facts
and fantasies being confused (Chari, 1962, 1964; Ellis, 1911), or a collection of
memory errors of both omission and commission (Simmons, 1895).
To further add to the confusion, Pickford (1942a) suggested that paramnesia
describes a recognition failure for a specific item (object, picture) whereas déjà vu
consists of an amorphous familiarity for an entire setting. Myers (1895) pushed
“promnesia” as a more precise substitute for paramnesia, but his suggestion lost
out to déjà vu probably because considerable early research was done by French
researchers and the term déjà vu was more theoretically neutral (Arnaud, 1896;
Berrios, 1995).
Kraepelin’s (1887) distinction between total and partial paramnesias (cf. Sno,
2000) was used by some scholars to differentiate déjà vu from related phenomena
(Berrios, 1995; Burnham, 1889). While partial paramnesia is a distortion of
present reality, a total paramnesia refers to an experience independent of present
reality and can be divided into three subtypes (Sno, 2000): simple (spontaneous
image that appears as memory), associating (present stimuli evoke memories by
association), and identifying (new experience appears to duplicate a previous
one). Thus, déjà vu is a total paramnesia of the identifying type. A thorough
discussion of the various ways that the term paramnesia has been applied, and
how déjà vu fits with each perspective, can be found in Sno (2000).
Typical of the intellectual combat related to the emergence of the term déjà vu
is the lack of consensus among scholars concerning the first use of that term (cf.
Moulin, 2018). Berrios (1995) and Findler (1998) suggest that déjà vu was ori-
ginally used in the late 1890s in a statement by Arnaud (1896), while Cutting and
Silzer (1990) point to the first use by Jackson (1888). Sno (1994), Neppe (1983e),
and Funkhouser (1983a) claim that Boirac (1876) was the first person to use the
term déjà vu (“le sentiment du déjà vu”) in a letter to the editor, while Krijgers
Janzen (1958) suggests that Wigan (1844) was the first to write about the déjà vu
experience. Finally, Dugas (1894) argues that the first occurrence of the term was
in Lalande’s (1893) article about paramnesias. While the origin is unclear, we can
be sure that the first use of the term déjà vu was in the late 19th century, and that
a consensus regarding the use of the term déjà vu did not evolve until the middle
of the 20th century (see Table 1.1).
The difficulty in coming to grips with the nature of the déjà vu experience is
reflected in the definitional diversity found in text and trade books published
from the late 1800s through the mid 1900s. The quotes presented in Table 1.2
 Introduction 9

TABLE 1.2 Definitions of the déjà vu experience

“…conviction of having been before in the same place or in the same circumstances as
those of the present presentation, but, nevertheless, can recall no other circumstances
that confirm the conviction. The places or circumstances appear perfectly familiar,
though we know we have never seen them before.” Allin (1896b, p. 245)
“…an impression that we have previously been in the place where we are at the moment,
or a conviction that we have previously said the words we are now saying, while as a
matter of fact we know that we cannot possibly have been in a given situation, nor have
spoken the words.” Angell (1908, p. 235)
“The curious feeling of familiarity that we sometimes experience in the midst of
surroundings really quite new…” Baldwin (1889, p. 263)
“The situation is vaguely felt to have been experienced before although one is also certain
that it has not. It is probably that parts of the situation are similar or identical with
situations previously encountered and that these parts call out motor imagery associated
with the previous experience.” Boring et al. (1935, p. 364)
“….the feeling of familiarity often accompanies experiences, that are not reproductions or
repetitions of the past. Its commonest form is the ‘been-here-before’ feeling that
sometimes overwhelms us when we enter places that are strange to us and scenes that are
new.” Calkins (1916, p. 260)
“…a novel experience carries with it a false feeling of familiarity…The report, ‘It seems to
me that I have been here before,’ given when an individual is visiting a new place is an
example of this phenomenon.” Carmichael (1957, p. 123)
“….the experience of suddenly feeling that he has lived through the present moment
before – that he has seen the same sights, heard the same words, performed the same
actions, etc., that everything is somehow familiar to him, and that he can almost tell just
what is about to happen next.” Carrington (1931, p. 301)
“… a person as he is doing something or seeing something has the strange feeling that
somehow he has done or seen this before, when really it seems impossible that he has
done it or seen it before.” Chapman and Mensh (1951, p. 165); Richardson and
Winokur (1967, p. 622-623)
“…an impression suddenly taking possession of the mind that the passing moment of life
has been once lived before or must be once lived again – that surrounding objects have
been seen once before exactly in the relations in that they at the instant present
themselves.” Crichton-Browne (1895, p. 1)
“an illusion of recognition…when one experiences a new experience as if it had all
happened before.” Drever (1952, p. 62)
“…the illusion that the event that is at the moment happening to us has happened to us
before.” Ellis (1911, p. 230)
“the inexplicable feeling of familiarity conjured up by something that is met for the first
time, as if it had been known already for a long time or previously experienced in
exactly similar fashion…” Ferenczi (1969, p. 422)
“…when a person feels as if a situation in which he actually finds himself had already
existed at some former time….” Feuchtersleben (1847)
“we must include in the category of the miraculous and ‘uncanny’ the peculiar feeling we
have, in certain moments and situations, of having had exactly the same experience once
before or of having once before been in the same place, though our efforts never
(Continued)
10 The Study of Déjà Vu

TABLE 1.2 (Continued)

succeed in clearly remembering the previous occasion that announces itself in this
way.” Freud (1901, pp. 265–266)
“the sensation that an event had been experienced, or a place had been visited,
before” Gaynard (1992)
“a person comes across a place or situation that seems familiar, but which the person has
never encountered before.” Glass et al. (1979, p. 63)
“the illusion of having previously seen something that, actually has never been
encountered before.” Harriman (1947, p. 98)
“…the feeling of having already seen a place really visited for the first time. Some strange
air of familiarity about the streets of a foreign town or the forms of a foreign landscape
comes to mind with a sort of a soft, weird shock.” “Hearn (1927, pp. 492–493) cited in
Neppe (1983e, p. 1)
“a state, with equal sudden onset and disappearance, during which we have the feeling that
we have experienced the present situation on some occasion in a distant past in precisely
the same manner down to the very last detail.” Heymans (1904) cited in Sno and
Draaisma (1993)
“all at once a conviction flashes through us that we have been in the same precise
circumstances as at the present instant, once or many times before.” Holmes
(1891, p. 73)
“this is one of the baffling and elusive experiences of everyday life. We are in a strange
place, perhaps on holiday for the first time at a hotel. Suddenly, without warning, a
certain feeling of familiarity seems to create itself. At once we seem to know the whole
scene, windows, doors, pictures, and view from the windows. We recognize the person
with whom we are speaking, although…we have never seen him to this minute. We
even recognize the words he is saying, though it is impossible to know what he is going
to say. We have the feeling of having been through everything before! Then, in a flash,
the illusion vanishes.” Humphrey (1923, p. 137)
“On the one hand, a present event is recognized as having been witnessed before. On the
other hand, there is certainty that this event has not been witnessed before.” Hunter
(1957, p. 39)
“the experiment has the conviction that a given place has been seen before yet knows that
this could not possibly have been the case.” Irwin (1996, p. 159)
“…the feeling that the present moment in its completeness has been experienced before –
we were saying just this thing, in just this place, to just these people, etc. This ‘sense of
pre-existence’ has been treated as a great mystery and occasioned much
speculation.” James (1890, p. 675)
“occasionally, generally only fleetingly, there arises in us a vague awareness that this or
other situation as it is occurring at present, has been experienced in exactly the same
way before. We recall that our friend took exactly that stance, held his hands in that
particular way, had the same expression, spoke the same words, etc. We are almost
convinced that we can predict what he will do next, say next and how we ourselves will
respond.” Jensen (1868, p. 48)
“…the feeling…of the particular set of circumstances or environment in that we find
ourselves at the moment having occurred before or been experienced before, on a long
previous occasion.” Kinnier Wilson (1929, p. 61)
(Continued)
 Introduction 11

TABLE 1.2 (Continued)

“…an inappropriate feeling of familiarity with new events or with new

surroundings” Kohn (1983, p. 70)
“…qualitative disturbance of reproduction, that causes a whole situation to appear as the
exact repetition of a previous experience…” Kraepelin (1887) cited in Parish
(1897, p. 280)
“some actual perception, usually visual or auditory, is suddenly felt to have been
experienced before, although its previous occurrence cannot be explicitly
remembered.” MacCurdy (1925, p. 425)
“…a feeling of familiarity attaching to some bit of cognitive experience without being able
to recall the antecedent experience of which the present one seems to be an identical
reproduction.” MacCurdy (1928, p. 113)
“…a man who finds himself in an unfamiliar country, in a city, a palace, a church, a house,
or a garden, that he is visiting for the first time, is conscious of a strange and very definite
impression that he ‘has seen it before.’ It suddenly seems to him that this landscape, these
vaulted ceilings, these rooms and the very furniture and pictures that he finds in them
are quite well-known to him and that he recollects every nook and corner and every
detail.” Maeterlinck (1919, p. 293)
“the experience of feeling ‘I have been here before’ or ‘I have lived through this before’,
together with intellectual awareness that this is not so.” McKellar (1957, p. 200)
“Do we not often find ourselves in a strange town, yet overcome with that curious feeling:
‘I have been here before’? Do we not in the midst of a conversation suddenly have the
eerie feeling that the whole conversation has run the same course at some indefinable
time in the past?” Murphy (1951, p. 268)
“the feeling…‘I have lived through all this before, and I know what will happen this next
minute.’” Myers (1895, p. 341)
“…a person has the feeling that he has seen a part or the whole of a certain setting
before…or that he has said something before…” Oberndorf (1941, p. 316)
“have you come suddenly upon an entirely new scene, and while certain of its novelty felt
inwardly that you had seen it before – with a conviction that you were revisiting a dimly
familiar locality?” Osborn (1884, p. 478)
“…a very odd sentiment that sometimes comes over us in the ordinary run of thought and
action, – that the entire present situation is not new, but merely the repetition of a
former one.” Osborn (1884, p. 476)
“…the strong feeling or impression that you had been some place or in the same situation
before, even though you had never actually been there before or were experiencing the
event for the first time in ‘real life’” Palmer (1979, p. 233) (in survey; reused by
Kohr, 1980)
“…subject feels strongly that he has seen or done something before, but usually remains
logically convinced that he has not.” Pickford (1940, p. 152)
“One occasionally feels, when in a new place, that one has been there before. The whole
setting and many of the details of the place are familiar, yet one is certain that this is the
first visit.” Pillsbury (1915, p. 210)
“…the feeling of recognition accompanying perception of a scene or event that in fact has
not been experienced previously.” Reed (1974, p. 106)
“ I have found myself in a new position with a distinct sense that I had been there or
experienced it before.” Riley (1988, p. 449)
(Continued)
12 The Study of Déjà Vu

TABLE 1.2 (Continued)

“…a feeling of already having lived through an event that is occurring ostensibly for the
first time.” Schacter (1996, p. 172)
“People…report feeling subjectively that they have already experienced a situation, while
objectively they know that they have never encountered this particular situation
before.”Searleman and Herrmann (1994, p. 326)
“a feeling, usually eerie, of familiarity, when in fact the experience is new and has never
previously occurred.” Sutherland (1989, p. 110)
“…a definite ‘feeling that all this has happened before,’ sometimes connected with a
‘feeling that we know exactly what is coming,’ – a ‘feeling’ that persists for a few
seconds and carries positive conviction, in spite of the fact and the knowledge that the
experience is novel.” Titchener (1928, p. 187)
“…in certain so-called illusions of memory, we may suddenly find ourselves reminded by
what is happening at the moment of a preceding experience exactly like it – some even
feel that they know from what is thus recalled what will happen next. And yet, because
we are wholly unable to assign such representation a place in the past, instead of a belief
that it happened, there arises a most distressing sense of bewilderment, as if one were
haunted and had lost one's personal bearings.” Ward (1918, p. 208)
“an illusion of recognition in which a new situation is incorrectly regarded as a repetition
of a previous experience” Warren (1934, p. 71)
“…the individual, although doing something for the first time, feels that he has done the
act before” Warren and Carmichael (1930, p. 221)
“…one feels in the middle of a situation that what is happening has all happened before,
even though one knows full well, on other grounds, that this could not possibly be so.
This strong feeling of false familiarity occurs for places and, more strikingly, for
events.” Wickelgren (1977, p. 396)
“sudden feeling, as if the scene we have just witnessed (although, from the very nature of
things it could never have been seen before) had been present to our eyes on a former
occasion, when the very same speakers, seated in the very same positions, uttered the
same sentiments, in the same words – the postures, the expression of countenance, the
gestures, the tone of voice, all seem to be remembered, and to be now attracting
attention for the second time.” Wigan (1844, p. 84)
“…a weird feeling that one has been through all this before, as if time had slipped a cog
and were now repeating itself.” Woodworth (1940, p. 357)

illustrate the difficulty that well-trained behavioral scholars had in describing this
amorphous experience. Perhaps this underscores why research on déjà vu has
been so slow to evolve – simply arriving at a clear and consistent operational
definition of the experience has been a struggle.
This set of descriptions illustrates several consistencies in how the déjà vu
experience is informally described and defined. First, many include some re-
ference to feeling, suggesting an affective component. Of 53 definitions, nearly
two-thirds (34) mention feelings while cognitive terms such as conviction,
 Introduction 13

impression, appearance, sensation, or awareness appear in only 10. Second, a

number of definitions make reference to the suddenness of the onset and demise
of the experience (Humphrey, 1923; Maeterlinck, 1919; Murphy, 1951; Osborn,
1884; Ward, 1918; Wigan, 1844), and similar characterizations include
“overwhelm” (Calkins (1916), take “possession of the mind” (Crichton-Browne,
1895), “shock” (Hearn, 1927) and “all at once…flashes through us” (Holmes,
1891). Third, the concept of strange also occurs repeatedly (Chapman &
Mensh, 1951; Hearn, 1927; Maeterlinck, 1919), reflected in such terms as weird
(Hearn, 1927; Woodworth, 1940), mysterious (James, 1890), uncanny (Freud,
1901), baffling (Humphrey, 1923), inexplicable (Ferenczi, 1969), eerie (Murphy,
1951; Sutherland, 1989) and distressing sense of bewilderment (Ward, 1918).
Finally, a few incorporate precognition into their definition, describing the sense
that one appears to be able to anticipate what will happen next (Carrington,
1931; Jensen, 1868; Myers, 1895; Titchener, 1928; Ward, 1918). Many of the
researchers classify déjà vu as a disorder, illusion (Burnham, 1889; Osborn, 1884;
Pillsbury, 1915; Ellis, 1911; Drever, 1952; Harriman, 1947; Warren, 1934) or
hallucination (Burnham, 1889; Sully, 1887) of memory (Walter, 1960). Sno
(1994) even suggests a statistical analogy, that the déjà vu experience is “…a type
I error based on the incorrect rejection of the null hypothesis” (p. 145).
A definition proposed by Neppe (1983b, 1983e) has become the standard in
research on déjà vu: “any subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of a
present experience with an undefined past” (Neppe, 1983e, p. 3). Neppe (1983b,
1983e) presents an exhaustive analysis of this particular definition and why it is
superior to other alternatives. He explains each word of the definition and the
importance of clearly ruling out other memory phenomena that could be con-
fused with déjà vu, such as flashback, cryptomnesia, pseudopresentiment, vivid
memory, precognition, and hallucination.
There are various subtypes of déjà vu referred to in the literature. In the
narrow, technical sense, déjà vu means “already seen.” However, general usage
has expanded the phrase’s connotation to the more general “already experi-
enced.” This leaves open a wide variety of possible experiences that can appear to
be duplicated, and déjà vu has become an umbrella for all of these (cf. Moulin,
2018). Table 1.3 presents these variations (cf. Neppe, 1983b, pp. 79–82) and in
each case, the term “already” is implied by “déjà.”
Neppe (1983e) includes ten separate (rather than one) déjà vu questions in his
survey instrument: place, situation, doing, happening, meeting, saying, hearing,
thinking, reading, dreaming (and other). His concern is that an individual may
have experienced only one subtype of “déjà,” and this may be missed by using a
single generic and all-inclusive question. Thus, a respondent is considered to have
experienced déjà vu if he/she gives a positive response to any variety of the déjà
vu experience.
Neppe (1983d) further argues that a better technique would be to allow the
participant to describe their experience in an open-ended question that is later
14 The Study of Déjà Vu

TABLE 1.3 Sub-types of déjà vu experience

Déjà arrivé: happened Déjà pressenti: sensed

Déjà connu: known (personal) Déjà raconté: told
Déjà dit: said (spoken) Déjà recontré: encountered
Déjà entendu: heard Déjà rêvé: dreamed
Déjà eprouvé: experienced Déjà senti: felt, smelt
Déjà gôuté: tasted Déjà su: known (intellectually)
Déjà fait: done Déjà trouvé: found (met)
Déjà lu: read Déjà vécu: lived
Déjà parlé: spoken Déjà visité: visited
Déjà pensé: thought Déjà voulu: desired

coded by the researcher. However, given the amorphous nature of déjà vu,
Neppe’s (1983e) definitional segmentation may be problematic. An individual
often experiences déjà vu as a global reaction to an experience that is an amalgam
of multiple stimulus dimensions (place, persons, verbal exchange), and it may be
challenging for a person to identify precisely what they are responding to (see
Chapter 4).
The segmentation of déjà vu into subtypes has been historically rare (Buck,
1970; Buck & Geers, 1967; Chari, 1962, 1964; Gaynard, 1992; Zangwill, 1945),
with most investigators simply inquiring about an apparently unitary experience.
Interest in several specific variants of the general déjà vu experience has grown
since the publication of the first edition. One example is the recent differentiation
between déjà vu and déjà vecu (Illman et al., 2012; Martin et al., 2019; Moulin,
2018; Moulin et al., 2005; O’Connor & Moulin, 2010), with the latter refer-
encing a sense that the ongoing event is a replay of a prior one, in contrast to déjà
vu’s brief, momentary sense of inappropriate familiarity. This distinction is
especially relevant to individuals suffering from various psychological pathologies
(see Chapters 6 through 8).

Historical Perspective on Causes of Déjà Vu

The amorphous nature of the déjà vu experience is in part responsible for the
difficulty in settling on a specific label, and the varied manner in which the
experience is defined reflects this problem. Pinning down the cause of déjà vu has
been similarly difficult, probably in part due to the perplexing inexplicability of
the experience. The inherent difficulty and possible challenge to one’s sanity
involved in reconciling a sense of re-experiencing something that you are certain
is new has perhaps contributed to why déjà vu has historically lent itself readily to
paranormal and psychodynamic interpretations. These types of explanations can
be personally useful if they help make sense of what otherwise might disrupt one’s
sense of self and sanity.
 Introduction 15

Associations with the Paranormal

In his review of the déjà vu experience, Neppe (1983e) covered a vast literature
containing paranormal explanations for the phenomenon. For more than a century,
famous authors such Aristotle, Plato, Jung, and Pythagoras, have discussed the déjà
vu experience in a paranormal light, and a formidable body of literature on the
topic (over 60 articles) has existed for years in the parapsychological domain.
Articles on déjà vu have appeared in parapsychological journals such as The
Australian Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of Parapsychology, Parapsychological Journal of
South Africa, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, and Journal of the American
Society of Psychical Research. Also, many of the survey instruments on déjà vu embed
the item with ones on paranormal experiences (see Chapter 2).
Some of the more common parapsychological interpretations of déjà vu re-
viewed by Neppe (1983e) are that it reflects a reminder of an experience from a
past life (e.g., Chari, 1964; Claparède, 1951; Crichton-Browne, 1895;
Maeterlinck, 1919; Myers, 1895; Ouspensky, 1931; Stevenson, 1960) and that it
involves precognition, or seeing into the future (Chapter 12). Past-life explana-
tions have a long history. Plato used the déjà vu experience to justify his theory of
the transmigration of souls (Platonic reminiscence; Funkhouser, 1983a), while
Aristotle held it up as evidence for previous lifetimes (Neppe, 1983a; Pillsbury,
1915). Freud (1914; 1955) suggests that the idea that déjà vu is evidence of an
individual having a former life originated with Pythagoras (cf. Funkhouser,
1983a), and some even refer to déjà vu as pre-existence (Chari, 1964), the
sentiment of pre-existence (Berrios, 1995), and prenatal reminiscences
(Maeterlinck, 1919). Feuchtersleben (1845, translated by Funkhouser, 1983a)
suggests that the reincarnation explanation of déjà vu strains credibility because
the change in fashion and customs would make it highly unlikely to find oneself
in an identical circumstance (cf. Holmes, 1891):

“…when one has the feeling that a situation in which one finds oneself has
already once existed just as it is now….then scarcely were we in a previous
life in coattails, lace clothes, kid gloves, sitting with each other in salons at
tea and crumpets.”
(Funkhouser, 1983a, p. 255–256)

The relationship between déjà vu and so-called precognition also has a long
history. As discussed in Chapter 12, reports of the subjective experience of déjà
vu are commonly accompanied by a sense of knowing what will happen next
(Burnham, 1889; Chari, 1964; Dugas, 1894; Holmes, 1891; Jensen, 1868, cited in
Marková & Berrios, 2000; Kraepelin, 1887; McKellar, 1957; Osborn, 1884;
Reed, 1979; Sanders, 1874, cited in Marková & Berrios, 2000; Sno & Linszen,
1990; Titchener, 1924; Ward, 1918), and some even incorporate this dimension
into their definition of déjà vu (Carrington, 1931; Dugas, 1894; Jensen, 1868;
16 The Study of Déjà Vu

Krijgers Janzen, 1958; Lalande, 1893; Myers, 1895; Ward, 1918; Sno, 2000;
Titchener, 1924) (see Table 1.2). Given that this is a common feature of the déjà
vu experience, one potential way for an experiencer to psychologically resolve
the bizarreness of this (and the perhaps ensuing sense of losing touch with reality)
is to attribute the sense of prediction to a paranormal cause, such as believing that
one is being assisted by spirits or exhibiting psychic ability.
Another is to assume that one is reliving a situation that had been experienced
in a past life; if the current situation is something that was already experienced,
even if in a past life, it follows that some sense of prediction might also be lo-
gically possible. As déjà vu involves no conscious recollection of having already
experienced the situation at hand, conjuring up a theory that it must have been
lived through before in a past life might help the experiencer to resolve this lack
of conscious memory alongside a strong sense of re-experiencing the situation
and predicting what will happen next. Along these lines, Stein (1953) suggested
that the sense of precognition might be a defense mechanism to help resolve the
existential threat of the bizarre sensation by allowing the person to believe that
the whole situation really had been previously experienced by the fact that what
happens next is already known. Even among déjà vu experiences that are not
accompanied by a sense of prediction, it may still be bizarre and unnerving to feel
like one is re-experiencing something that is new. This may be why appeals to
past lives are so commonly associated with déjà vu throughout history. Such
explanations help the experiencer resolve an otherwise seemingly inexplicable
experience that can derail one’s sense of reality.
In fact, some have even suggested that the entire concept of paranormal
experiences might have come from the shared human experience of déjà vu.
Carmichael (1957) suggests that “it may be that the idea of reincarnation so
common in Eastern religions may be based in part on the déjà vu experience”
(p. 123), and Stern (1938) similarly asserts that déjà vu embodies one of the
psychological experiences from which “the doctrines of pre-existence,
transmigration of souls, and reincarnation drew their inspiration” (p. 210).
Walter (1960) vividly alludes to the power of the illusion to lead one to
believe in the supernatural:

“…the déjà vu phenomenon, the feeling that ‘all this has happened before’ –
a sensation vivid enough to convince some people of the transcendental
nature of personality by demonstrating how to sidestep the inexorable flood
of time.”
(p. 7)

Association with Psychodynamic Interpretations

The psychodynamic umbrella subsumes a broad diversity of interpretations of the
déjà vu experience (see Arlow, 1959, for a thorough summary). Many of these
 Introduction 17

interpretations assume that the déjà vu experience is an effort to relieve the

anxiety resulting from the sudden and unexpected confrontation of an emo-
tionally arousing situation (ego defense), while some interpret déjà vu as re-
flecting a wish that has been unfulfilled, or the dissolving of boundaries between
self and environment or between parts of the psyche. The evolution of Sigmund
Freud’s views on the déjà vu experience exemplifies the challenge of nailing
down a reasonable explanation of the phenomenon with psychodynamic the-
ories. Freud first speculated that déjà vu represented a recollection of an un-
conscious fantasy coupled with a desire to improve the present situation (Freud,
1901). He subsequently proposed that déjà vu reflected castration fantasies and
the accompanying anxiety associated with this unpleasant perception (Freud,
1914). Still later, Freud suggested that déjà vu is associated with depersonalization
and derealization, and reflects a positive counterpart of these phenomena (Freud,
1936). Most interesting is Freud’s final assessment of the déjà vu experience – that
it is just too complex and confusing a topic to pursue any further (cf. Pacella,
1975). With the emerging interface among cognitive, clinical and neurobiology
domains of science, simpler and more testable clinical perspectives have begun to
emerge (Mayer & Merckelbach, 1999).

Déjà Vu Enters the Scientific Realm

An unfortunate side effect of a déjà vu literature dominated for so long by
paranormal and psychodynamic explanations is that empirical research on the
phenomenon was impeded because serious scientists kept their distance (cf. Cleary
et al., 2020; Funkhouser, 1983a). Indeed, even though subjective phenomena
such as imagery became acceptable topics of scientific investigation following the
cognitive revolution of the 1950s and 1960s (e.g., Gardiner, 1985), and even
though Roediger (1996) suggested that “two of the most famous illusions of
memory – déjà vu and jamais vu – are illusions of metacognition” (p. 95), déjà vu
did not begin to receive serious scientific attention until the mid-2000s.
Another likely contributing factor to déjà vu’s delayed entry into the scientific
realm is the lack of any obvious path regarding an appropriate research design. At
first glance, déjà vu seems to have no clearly identifiable cause, and no eliciting
stimuli or objective behaviors against which it can be verified. In other words, the
experience seems to be purely a mental conflagration between diametrically op-
posed evaluations of a momentary experience, with seemingly no obvious way to
objectively resolve or evaluate the accuracy of this conflict. Up until the mid-
2000s, more well-studied metamemory phenomena already had established con-
nections to objective reality, both in the identification of the triggering stimuli and
in a behavioral resolution, or an avenue to evaluate the accuracy of one’s assessment
of their own learning or memory performance (cf. Metcalfe, 2000).
18 The Study of Déjà Vu

For example, in the well-established judgments of learning (JOL) research,

participants make evaluations of their ability to remember the material that they
are presently learning, and these subjective assessments can be compared later to
objective indices of memory performance such as recall or recognition (Nelson &
Dunlosky, 1991; Simon & Bjork, 2001). Similarly, both feeling of knowing
(FOK) ratings on the likelihood of later remembering unrecallable material
(Blake, 1973), and tip of the tongue (TOT) judgments on imminently recallable
but momentarily inaccessible words (Brown, 1991, 2012; Schwartz, 2001), are
clearly connected with the eliciting cues, and the accuracy of cognitive evalua-
tions can be objectively evaluated against the later likelihood of retrieving or
identifying this information. It was unclear up to the mid-2000s what, if any,
identifiable eliciting stimulus for déjà vu would be, or what verifiable behavioral
response could potentially corroborate the subjective state. Thus, déjà vu was
seen as a “pure” metamemory experience unconnected with the empirical world,
which most likely hampered déjà vu’s entry into the realm of scientific con-
sideration (Cleary et al., 2020).
However, as described next in Chapter 2, researchers have begun to identify
some of the conditions that consistently trigger a déjà vu report, and which may
be key to eventually understanding the phenomenon (e.g., Brown & Marsh,
2008, 2010; Cleary et al., 2009; Cleary et al., 2012; Cleary & Claxton, 2018;
Cleary et al., 2018; Urquhart et al., 2018). Cleary et al., (2020) suggest that
catalysts for these empirical investigations were Brown’s (2003) review article on
the déjà vu experience and the previous 2004 edition of this book. Prior to these
two developments, the scientific community had no clear starting point. That is,
there were no available testable hypotheses regarding what an eliciting stimulus
for déjà vu might be. In their view, once Brown (2003, 2004) summarized the
historical literature and theories about déjà vu in an organized form, scientists
were able to cite testable hypotheses regarding potential causes of the experience
(see Chapters 2, 9, 10, 11 and 12) rather than being left to generate them on
their own.
Now that some eliciting stimuli have been identified (e.g., Cleary et al., 2012;
Cleary & Claxton, 2018; Cleary et al., 2018), a next step is to develop objective
criteria against which to evaluate déjà vu reports. For example, if the déjà vu
experience results from an unrecalled memory (see Chapters 2 and 9), then
perhaps some time after experiencing a sense of déjà vu one should be better able
to recognize the unrecalled memory that elicited it. Similar to this, following a tip
of the tongue experience an individual often shows an enhanced ability to recall
or identify the associated word (see Schwartz, 2001, and Brown, 2012, for re-
views). In short, now that scientific investigations of déjà vu are becoming es-
tablished, devising an independent criterion against which to evaluate déjà vu
reports might emerge in future research.
 Introduction 19

Summary
While research on the déjà vu experience has a long history reaching back into
the mid-1800s, it has struggled for serious consideration by the scientific com-
munity. Its emergence as a legitimate topic in the late 1800s was summarily halted
by the behaviorist movement, and the abundance of parapsychological and
psychodynamic interpretations of déjà vu made the topic a “hot potato” for
scientists. Prior to the 2004 edition of this book, much of the literature on the
déjà vu experience was published in journals and books disconnected from
mainstream scientific research. However, since the 2004 edition, déjà vu has
begun to emerge as a recognized research topic among cognitive psychologists
and neuroscientists, allowing greater clarity concerning the experience from
biological and information processing perspectives. A goal of this book is to
clearly summarize the research to date while also positioning it within a historical
context, and to stimulate constructive ideas from researchers in the cognitive,
clinical, and neurological sciences.
2
METHODS OF INVESTIGATING
DÉJÀ VU

A variety of different techniques have been used to gather information on the nature
of the déjà vu experience. Prior to the 2004 edition of this book, the primary
methods involved retrospective and prospective questionnaires, with a couple of
exceptions: 1) case studies for detailed exploration of psychodynamic interpretations
(see Chapter 1), and 2) group comparisons to determine if the incidence and nature
of déjà vu varies as a function of brain pathology and psychological maladjustment
(see Chapter 8). Since the previous edition, the methods of studying déjà vu have
expanded to include methods of scientific experimentation within cognitive psy­
chology (Chapters 9 and 10) and neurological investigation (Chapters 6 and 7).

Survey Approaches

Retrospective Reports
The research on déjà vu using retrospective evaluations involves two different
varieties: short surveys assessing the incidence of déjà vu, and longer questionnaires
evaluating multiple dimensions of the déjà vu experience. The short surveys involve
either a single yes/no question concerning whether the respondent has ever ex­
perienced déjà vu (Gallup & Newport, 1991; Green, 1966; Greyson, 1977; Leeds,
1944; McKellar, 1957; McKellar & Simpson, 1954; Myers & Grant, 1972; van
Paesschen et al., 2001; Zuger, 1966) or a multi-point scale addressing déjà vu fre­
quency (with one option response option being “never”) (Adachi et al., 2008;
Ardila et al., 1993; Brauer et al., 1970; Buck, 1970; Buck & Geers, 1967; Fortier &
Moulin, 2015; Harper, 1969; Kohr, 1980; McClenon, 1988; McCready & Greeley,
1976; NORC, 1984, 1988, 1989; Palmer, 1979; Roberts et al., 1990; Shaw et al.,
2016; Silberman et al., 1985; Zuger, 1966).
 Methods of Investigating Déjà Vu 21

Both Chapman and Mensh (1951) and Richardson and Winokur (1967) used
similar two-tier question sets, with a yes/no initial question followed by addi­
tional queries on the frequency/recency of déjà vu. These short surveys have
been administered orally in person (Chapman & Mensh, 1951; Greyson, 1977;
Harper, 1969; Leeds, 1944; Richardson & Winokur, 1967; van Paesschen et al.,
2001; Zuger, 1966), orally over the telephone (Gallup & Newport, 1991),
written through the mail (Kohr, 1980; Palmer, 1979; Palmer & Dennis, 1975),
written in a group setting (Gaynard, 1992; Green, 1966), or online (Zingrone
et al., 2009). Examples of short survey questions appear in Table 2.1 (also see
Table 2.2 for Chapman & Mensh, 1951; Heymans, 1904, 1906; Richardson &
Winokur, 1967).

TABLE 2.1 Wording of questionnaire items concerning déjà vu

“Do you sometimes get the feeling that you have experienced something or been some
place before even though you know you have not?” (Ardila et al., 1993, p. 138)
“Have you ever had the feeling of déjà vu and felt you had been somewhere or done
something before.” Gallup and Newport (1991, p. 141)
“Have you ever had the feeling – 'I have experienced this before'?” (Green, 1966, p. 357)
“Have you ever had an experience that seemed to have happened exactly the same way,
once before?” (or) ”have you ever been to a place for the first time, yet something about
it made you feel that you had been there once before?” (Leeds, 1944, p. 40)
“Have you ever thought you were somewhere you had been before, but knowing that it
was impossible” (NORC, 1973, 1984, 1988, 1989)
“Have you ever come suddenly upon an entirely new scene, and while certain of its
novelty felt inwardly that you had seen it before – with a conviction that you were
revisiting a dimly familiar locality?” (Osborn, 1884, p. 478)
“Have you thought you were somewhere you had been before but knew that it was
impossible?” (McClenon, 1988, p. 425)
“Have you ever been in a new place and felt as if you have been there before?” (Neppe,
1983e, p. 225)
“Have you ever had the strong feeling or impression that you had been some place or in
the same situation before, even though you had never actually been there before or
were experiencing the event for the first time in ‘real life’?” (Palmer, 1979, p. 233; cf.
Kohr, 1980)
“Do you sometimes get the feeling that you have experienced something or been
someplace before even though you know you have not?” (Roberts et al., 1990, p. 83)
“the feeling that what is happening to you has happened before.” (Ross & Joshi,
1992, p. 145)
“have you ever had the feeling of having experienced a sensation or situation before in
exactly the same way when in fact you are experiencing it for the first time?” (Sno et al.,
1994, p. 28)
“…having been in a place for the first time and experiencing the strange feeling of having
been there before, or of doing something for the first time and experiencing the strange
feeling of having done it before.” (Zuger, 1966, p. 193)
22 The Study of Déjà Vu

TABLE 2.2 Questions accompanying the déjà vu item in surveys

Apparitions – Gaynard (1992), Greyson (1977), Zingrone et al. (2009)

Clairvoyance – Gallup and Newport (1991), Greyson (1977), McCready and Greeley
(1976), NORC (1984, 1988, 1989), Sobal & Emmons (1982)
Contact with dead – Gallup and Newport (1991), Kohr (1980), McClenon (1988, 1994),
McCready and Greeley (1976), NORC (1984, 1988, 1989), Palmer (1979), Ross and
Joshi (1992), Ross et al. (1989)
ESP – Green (1966), Kohr (1980), Palmer (1979), McClenon (1988, 1994), McCready
and Greeley (1976), NORC (1984, 1988, 1989), Parra (2015a), Sobal and Emmons
(1982), Zingrone et al. (2009)
Ghosts – Gallup and Newport (1991), Gaynard (1992), Parra (2015a), Ross and Joshi
(1992); Ross et al. (1989), Sobal and Emmons (1982)
Hallucinations – Green (1966)
Haunting – Kohr (1980), Palmer (1979)
Lucid dreaming – Green (1966), Greyson (1977), Kohr (1980), Palmer (1979), Zahran
(2018), Zingrone et al. (2009)
Mystical experience – Kohr (1980), McCready and Greeley (1976), NORC (1984, 1988,
1989), Palmer (1979), Parra (2015a), Zingrone et al. (2009)
Nightparalysis – McClenon (1994)
OBE – Kohr (1980), Gaynard (1992), Green (1966), Greyson (1977), Irwin (1993),
McClenon (1988, 1994), Myers and Austrin (1985), Palmer (1979), Parra (2015a),
Zingrone et al. (2009)
Past-life memory – Kohr (1980), Palmer (1979), Parra (2015a), Ross and Joshi (1992),
Ross et al. (1989), Zahran (2018)
Poltergeists – Gaynard (1992), Kohr (1980), Palmer (1979), Ross and Joshi (1992), Ross
et al. (1989)
Precognition – Adachi et al. (2008), Gaynard (1992), Greyson (1977), Ross and Joshi
(1992), Ross et al. (1989), Shiah et al. (2014), Sobal and Emmons (1982), Zahran (2018)
Psychic healing – Gallup and Newport (1991), Zahran (2018)
Psychokinesis – Gallup and Newport (1991), Gaynard (1992), Ross and Joshi (1992), Ross
et al. (1989)
Reincarnation – Gallup and Newport (1991), Kohr (1980), Palmer (1979)
Spirit possession – Greyson (1977), Ross and Joshi (1992), Ross et al. (1989)
Telepathy – Gaynard (1992), Parra (2015a), Ross and Joshi (1992), Ross et al. (1989),
Zahran (2018)
UFOs – Gaynard (1992)

Several researchers have developed longer retrospective questionnaires, aimed at

assessing physical and psychological circumstances surrounding the déjà vu ex­
perience. Neppe (1983e) developed both quantitative (frequency; duration) and
qualitative (emotional intensity; clarity of experience) questionnaires to be ad­
ministered in an interview format. Sno et al. (1994) later refined and extended
Neppe’s (1983e) questionnaires, and included additional questions from Heymans
(1904) and Chapman and Mensh (1952), resulting in their own 23-item ques­
tionnaire. Both instruments focused on defining the content (setting, your actions,
words spoken), frequency (how often, first experience), personal circumstances
 Methods of Investigating Déjà Vu 23

(where, when, doing what), physical state (fatigued, angry, intoxicated), and psy­
chological reaction (emotions, time sense, body awareness) related to the déjà vu
experience, as well as auxiliary psychological dimensions (dream memory) and
personal habits (travel frequency).

Problems with Survey Design and Administration

While many instruments have been used to evaluate déjà vu, the research is
plagued with numerous problems. One is a failure to report some of the basic
details of the research, such as the actual survey question (Brauer et al., 1970;
Buck, 1970; Buck & Geers, 1967; Dixon, 1963; Gaynard, 1992; Greyson, 1977;
Harper, 1969; Kohr, 1980; McKellar, 1957; McKellar & Simpson, 1954; Myers
& Grant, 1972; Palmer, 1979), the exact nature of the response scale(s) (Brauer
et al., 1970; Buck, 1970; Buck & Geers, 1967; Green, 1966; Harper, 1969;
McKellar, 1957; Myers & Grant, 1972; Osborn, 1884) or the déjà vu incidence
found through this query (Chervyakov et al., 2013; Dixon, 1963; Osborn, 1884;
Sno et al., 1994). It is also not uncommon for the details of the sample, such as the
mean age (Buck, 1970; Buck & Geers, 1967; Brauer et al., 1970) or sex dis­
tribution (Brauer et al., 1970), to be missing from the report.
Leeds (1944) even admits to his lack of survey precision: “In interviewing, I
made no attempt to standardize my method of approach. I tried to work on a
personal basis and encouraged the individual to talk informally on the subject”
(p. 40). One of the more thorough déjà vu questionnaires, the Inventory for Deja
vu Experiences Assessment (IDEA) developed by Sno et al. (1994), provided
considerable detail on the test-retest and inter-item reliability, as well as face and
construct validity. Surprisingly, they did not publish the actual questionnaire or
any descriptive statistics on the déjà vu responses derived from four subgroups of
individuals (people with schizophrenia, depression, proneness to complex sei­
zures, and non-clinical individuals).

Unrepresentative Samples
The samples used in déjà vu survey research are frequently unrepresentative. In a
review of 16 prior déjà vu survey studies, Neppe (1983d) stated that only one
(McCready & Greeley, 1976) used adequate sampling. While this situation has
improved since then, methodological problems still pervade this literature. Often, a
sample of “convenience” is used, with researchers selecting a group of individuals
from the place where they work or do research. Leeds (1944) sampled individuals
in a shop where he was employed. Osborn (1884) contacted people “at Princeton
and elsewhere” (without further clarification), while Harper (1969) selected
workers in a public health department, but admitted that “no attempt was made to
make this a representative sample of the normal population…” (p. 69). Kohr (1980)
polled members of a paranormal society to which he belonged (Association for
24 The Study of Déjà Vu

Research and Enlightenment), but admits that his “…respondents represent an

atypical population of individuals, who are attracted to an organization like the A.
R. E. because of their own psi experiences…” (Kohr, 1980, p. 396; cf. Parra,
2015b). Many of the studies were conducted by psychotherapists who surveyed
their own patients (Auger, 1966; Zuger, 1966), or physicians who used inpatients at
their hospitals (Chapman & Mensh, 1951; Labate et al., 2018; Perucca et al., 2017;
Richardson & Winokur, 1967), or university professors who used students in their
classes (Gaynard, 1992; Gorham & Persinger, 2012; Gow et al., 2009). In some
cases, a further bias is introduced because students are aware of a professor’s opi­
nions on the topic. For example, Gaynard (1992) queried students at the university
who were aware of his course on “Aspects of the Paranormal” and his personal bias
toward such phenomena. Gaynard also gave questionnaires to 40 tutors to pass out
during their 1-hour sessions to “any ten pupils willing to complete them” (p. 167).
That most previous surveys “…involved preselected samples that might be
atypical of a broadly representative population” troubled Palmer (1979, p. 221)
who attempted to rectify this by using a broader sample of community dwellers in
a university town (Charlottesville, Virginia) to compare with his university stu­
dent sample. Palmer’s (1979) detailed efforts to construct a representative sample
are included in his report, but Neppe (1983d) takes issue with the adequacy of his
sample, arguing that the small university town is over-represented with in­
tellectually and culturally superior individuals and that the university, itself, is
internationally known for parapsychological research.
Samples are sometimes made unrepresentative in the way respondents are
interviewed. Leeds (1944) was convinced that déjà vu is essentially universal, so
he “pressed” those individuals who originally claimed that they had not ex­
perienced déjà vu into changing their mind and was successful with half. In fact, it
is quite likely that respondents in many studies could become confused about
exactly what is being asked, as reflected in the wide diversity in the wording of
déjà vu questionnaire items in those examples presented in Table 2.1.
This problem of an inadequate and restricted sample is particularly dis­
appointing in Neppe’s (1983e) study, one of the most extensively documented
survey projects on déjà vu. He included five groups: people with schizophrenia,
people with temporal lobe epilepsy, people with non-temporal lobe epilepsy,
paranormal experients, and paranormal non-experients. The latter two groups
were comprised of those who have, and have not (respectively), had a paranormal
experience. His “normal” control group, the paranormal non-experients, con­
sisted of only ten people, five of whom had experienced déjà vu (and five of
whom had not). Thus, dozens of pages of descriptive statistics and analyses in his
book are based on these five persons. Neppe (1983e) repeatedly bemoans the lack
of statistical power and the limits this placed on comparisons across his groups,
and admits throughout this book (Neppe, 1983e) and elsewhere (Neppe, 1983d)
that his results are not conclusive or generalizable and should serve only as a
guideline for future research. It is also problematic that important details of his
 Methods of Investigating Déjà Vu 25

research are missing from the book, and the reader is directed to his unpublished
dissertation for clarification. To make matters worse, the specific composition of
the various samples is unclear and confusing, and the number of individuals in his
“normal” sample appears to change at different points throughout the book
without clear explanation. There is also reference to a pilot and main study, but
these are not clearly differentiated.

Association with the Paranormal

Another bias in many surveys is that the déjà vu item is embedded among items
evaluating paranormal experiences (Gow et al., 2009; Parra, 2015a, 2015b; Parra
& Argibay, 2018; Sen & Yesilyurt, 2014) as illustrated in Table 2.2.
The information presented in this table clearly indicates that many of those
conducting déjà vu surveys assume that the experience falls outside of the realm
of normal cognitive experience. Typical of such thinking, one of Palmer’s (1979)
primary objectives was to estimate the proportion of Americans having psychic
experiences, and defined déjà vu as paranormal. Interestingly, Ross and Joshi
(1992) removed the déjà vu question from their analyses of 15 paranormal
questions because the déjà vu incidence was much higher than for other ex­
periences, making it difficult for them to view déjà vu as comparable to the other
(much rarer) paranormal experiences. A particularly unfortunate example of this
bias is in the General Social Survey (GSS) done by the National Opinion
Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. The NORC uses ex­
ceptionally good sampling procedures, yet embed the déjà vu question with four
questions evaluating parapsychological phenomena: ESP, OBE, clairvoyance, and
contact with the dead. Similarly, a Gallup Poll (Gallup & Newport, 1991) placed
the déjà vu item among questions about ESP, astrology, ghosts, clairvoyance,
witches, and devils.
Respondents in both of these large national surveys are given the clear message
that déjà vu is paranormal. Gallup and Newport (1991) even acknowledge that
most psychologists do not consider déjà vu as psychic or paranormal, yet their
survey format implies this to respondents. Similarly, Gaynard (1992) opines that
déjà vu may have a perfectly acceptable physiological explanation, but he (un­
convincingly) rationalizes including déjà vu among paranormal questions in order
to allow respondents to differentiate between precognition and déjà vu. Gaynard
(1992) even suggests that respondents may be embarrassed to admit to paranormal
beliefs, and thus exhibit a lower response rate for such topics. Irwin (1993) even
speculates that having paranormal questions may lower the overall questionnaire
return rate because respondents are unwilling to disclose details of the “anom­
alous phenomenon” (e.g., OBE) accompanying the déjà vu question.
Similarly, Palmer (1979) was concerned that those who answer surveys that in­
clude paranormal items are unrepresentative of the general population, and the in­
cidence of déjà vu (and other “paranormal experiences”) would likely be higher in
26 The Study of Déjà Vu

such respondents. To evaluate this, he compared incidence rates in those who re­
sponded to his initial mailing (N = 183) with those who responded after one
(N = 112) and then two (N = 59) reminders. He was comforted that the incidence
rate for all survey items, including déjà vu, did not vary across these sub-samples.
However, his definition of “nonresponders” as later-responders (or nagged re­
sponders) may not provide the cleanest control group to address this bias.

Association with Anomalous or Pathological Phenomena

Aside from an association with parapsychological phenomena, other ques­
tionnaires imply a relationship between déjà vu and various types of anomalous
behaviors and mild forms of psychopathology (Gow et al., 2009). Several surveys
have included questions on depersonalization, a sense of unreality about one’s
personal existence (Adachi et al., 2008; Aranda-Moreno and Jauregui-Renaud,
2016; Buck, 1970; Buck & Geers, 1967; Brauer et al., 1970; Harper & Roth,
1962; Myers & Grant, 1972; Shiah et al., 2014; Sno et al., 1994) and on de­
realization, a sense of unreality about the environment (Adachi et al., 2008;
Aranda-Moreno and Jauregui-Renaud, 2016; Brauer et al., 1970; Harper, 1969;
Harper & Roth, 1962; Shiah et al., 2014; Sno et al., 1994). Both psychological
disturbances have a superficial resemblance to déjà vu, but their inclusion in a
questionnaire could imply that déjà vu might consistently be connected with a
global and serious disturbance of reality perception.
Questionnaires surveying the déjà vu experience have also contained items on
belief in the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot (Sobal & Emmons, 1982), parti­
cipation in cult activities (Ross & Joshi, 1992), experiencing crystal/pyramid
healing and channeling (Gallup & Newport, 1991), astrology (Sobal & Emmons,
1982) and visits to a psychic, astrologer, and haunted house (Gallup & Newport,
1991). Also accompanying déjà vu items are ones on agoraphobia, an all-
encompassing fear of the outside world (Myers & Grant (1972), synesthesia, the
experience of one sensory dimension in another (tasting the color red; smelling a
musical note) (Buck, 1970; Buck & Geers, 1967; McKellar, 1957; Zingrone
et al., 2009), and hypnogogic and hypnopompic imagery, those dreamy periods
preceding and following (respectively) sleep (Buck, 1970; Buck & Geers, 1967;
McKellar, 1957; McKellar & Simpson, 1954). While some dimensions, such as
hypnogogic and hypnopompic imagery, do not connote psychological problems,
they may appear exotic and frame déjà vu as anomalous or bizarre by association.
As McKellar and Simpson (1954, p. 268) so cogently point out,

it was thought justifiable to inform subjects that what was being

investigated was an experience undergone by a large number of people
who were not apparently maladjusted or psychotic. Despite this, it seems
likely that superficial investigation by questionnaire is more likely to
underestimate than to overestimate the incidence of such experiences.
 Methods of Investigating Déjà Vu 27

The disclaimer concerning the dissociation between déjà vu and psycho­

pathology is limpid, at best, but at least it is brought up in the report (unlike other
such surveys). It is ironic that McKellar and Simpson’s (1954) disclaimer may bias
the results in the high direction because of their assertion that déjà vu is ex­
perienced by a “large number of people.”

Reliability of Self-Reports
A final concern in survey research on déjà vu is the potential unreliability of self-
report data. Aitken and O’Connor (2020) point out that because long-term
memory is known to be constructive and to contain biases, the self-report data on
déjà vu obtained from survey research may be flawed. Harper (1969) suggests that
the incidence of déjà vu may simply be “…an artefact of the interview situation
and measures only the willingness of an individual to admit to an experience that
may be universal…” (p. 70) (cf. Chapman & Mensh, 1951). Somewhat troubling
is Harper’s (1969) comparison of oral versus card sort techniques for assessing the
incidence of déjà vu. Following an initial face-to-face interview about déjà vu, he
asked the same respondents to sort cards containing an assortment of personal
experiences (including déjà vu) into two piles – true or false – with respect to
their own experience. Harper (1969) discovered that over a fifth of his re­
spondents (22%) gave different answers in the two formats, with the interview
yielding a higher incidence than the card sort. The oral interviewer may have
positively biased the respondents, or the card sort may have been confusing, but it
is troubling that substantially different estimates of déjà vu are derived from the
same people in the same session with these different query formats.
Another way that bias can manifest in retrospective survey research is in the
reluctance of some individuals to admit to having déjà vu. While there is no direct
evidence that the general public views déjà vu with suspicion, Crichton-Browne
(1895) suggested that individuals who had déjà vu were reticent to talk about it
because they believed the experience to be “somehow morbid,” and Harper (1969)
notes that patients may be reluctant to volunteer reports of this experience for fear of
being labeled as “abnormal.” Harper advises that providing respondents with the
description first, rather than requesting personal descriptions, is a better technique.
Taking the opposite perspective concerning survey report bias, Neppe (1983d)
suggests that the typical survey may underestimate déjà vu incidence because such
experiences “…may have become so routinized that they are not recalled”
(p. 96). He suggests that we may have become so jaded by the common-place
memory illusion of déjà vu that we tend to underreport it. Leeds (1944) concurs
that déjà vu is much more frequent than commonly reported because it is “…
quickly lost in the welter of normal waking experience” (p. 31). Such specula­
tion, however, seems unlikely. From all other indicators in the published re­
search, the experience of déjà vu is very attention-grabbing.
28 The Study of Déjà Vu

Also problematic are the questionable skills that the typical person brings to
their own self-monitoring processes, aside from faulty memory. While most of us
have experienced a variety of memory problems in general and recognition
problems in particular, the precise assessment of the déjà vu experience may be
especially problematic because it involves the simultaneous monitoring of two
opposing cognitions: an objective evaluation of newness and a subjective eva­
luation of oldness. Given that individuals are less than impressive in monitoring
their personal cognitive/emotional states (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977), the si­
multaneous monitoring of two different cognitive evaluations may be even more
problematic.
Another self-evaluation difficulty is that the lack of an objective criterion
against which to validate the existence of a déjà vu experience (see Chapter 1)
may cause different individuals to judge the same identical subjective experience
differently. As Neppe (1983d) proposes, if you walk into a new room and have a
familiarity response, one person might rationalize it as a resemblance to another
friend’s apartment and another might interpret it as déjà vu.

Other Retrospective Surveys with Déjà Vu Items

There exist longer surveys which contain a déjà vu item, and these include the
Questionnaire for Episodic Psychic Symptoms (Ardila et al., 1993), Epileptic
Spectrum Disorder Inventory (Roberts et al., 1990), Anomalous Experiences
Inventory (Gallagher et al., 1994), Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule
(Ross et al., 1989), Depersonalization/Derealization Inventory (Cox & Swinson,
2002), Silberman-Post Psychosensory Rating Scale (Silberman et al., 1985),
Inventory for Déjà vu Experiences Assessment (IDEA, Sno et al., 1994),
Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ, Loewy et al., 2005; Kotzalidis, 2017) and shor­
tened version of the PQ (PQ-16, de Jong et al., 2018; Loewy et al., 2011).
Published survey reports often fail to provide separate data on the déjà vu
question (Ross et al., 1989; Gallagher et al., 1994), with the déjà vu item
combined with others into a total score, or correlated with a particular scale or
other measurement instruments (Gallagher et al., 1994). In most of these in­
struments, the implication is that déjà vu is a type of psychic, anomalous, or
dissociative experience, rather than a more mundane cognitive dysfunction. It
should be noted that many inventories on anomalous and paranormal experiences
designed by psychologists do not include an item on déjà vu (Davis et al., 1974;
Grimmer & White, 1990; Tobacyk & Milford, 1983).

Prospective Surveys
Retrospective estimates of déjà vu frequency are problematic primarily because it
is a relatively rare event (Adachi et al., 2003). One could argue that infrequency is
likely to create a distinctive mnemonic impression, similar to a flashbulb memory
 Methods of Investigating Déjà Vu 29

which occurs with a surprising event (Columbia disaster; death of Princess Diana;
9/11 attacks) (Brown & Kulik, 1977). However, a déjà vu episode is often ex­
perienced in a mundane context, which would make remembering specific
physical and psychological details surrounding the experience difficult. As
Holmes (1891, p. 94) suggests, “…the impression is very evanescent, and that it is
rarely…recalled by any voluntary effort, at least after any time has elapsed.”
This problem can be addressed by prospective evaluations, but only Heymans
(1904, 1906) has used this methodology extensively with groups of respondents.
The rarity of such research is probably due to the time span required to collect an
adequate behavioral sample. While a month may be enough to collect an ade­
quate behavioral sample of other memory dysfunctions, like the tip of the tongue
experience (Burke et al., 1991; Reason & Lucas, 1984), a year (or more) may be
required for déjà vu (cf. Chervyakov et al., 2013).
In two separate studies, Heymans (1904, 1906) had college students record the
details of each déjà vu episode they experienced during an entire academic year. In
the original reports, written in Dutch and translated into English by Sno and
Draaisma (1993), Heymans’ primary goal was to determine the relationship between
déjà vu and depersonalization, as well as a variety of physical (sleeping pattern,
diurnal rhythm, working rhythm, activity pattern), emotional (emotional sensitivity,
mood fluctuations), social, and cognitive (imaginative facility, absent-mindedness,
math, and language aptitude) dimensions. In Heymans’ study, whenever a partici­
pant had a déjà vu, they documented the circumstances at the time of the ex­
perience and immediately prior to it, including time of day, environmental
familiarity, social setting (alone/with others), speaking or listening activities, physical
(fatigued/relaxed) and mental state, recent consumption of food or alcohol, etc.
In the first investigation (Heymans, 1904), 6 of 42 students (14%) had a total of
13 déjà vu experiences during the year. The prospective incidence of déjà vu is
more difficult to extract from his second study (Heymans, 1906) because déjà vu
and depersonalization experiences are unfortunately reported in combination.
However, it appears that 55 of 88 respondents (62%) had a déjà vu episode during
the year, with a total of 59 déjà vu episodes among these individuals. The
discrepancy in the prospective incidence between the two investigations is
troubling, and an explanation for this difference is not readily apparent.
This combined reporting of déjà vu and depersonalization experiences in
Heymans (1906) highlights a consistent theme in early investigations of déjà vu.
Many researchers assumed that déjà vu was a symptom of a mood or personality
disorder, rather than a cognitive dysfunction in its own right. Thus, they were
primarily interested in documenting the relationship between déjà vu and other
moderate to severe psychological disturbances (depersonalization), psycho­
pathology (schizophrenia) and ongoing personal dispositions (mood fluctuations,
working rhythms, emotional sensitivity), and relatively uninterested in gathering
systematic and objective information on the details of the déjà vu experience
(where, when, how long, personal reaction).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
and benevolence a virtue. The innkeepers of Palermo obey their
church and spite heretics by selling meat in June, but not in March;
The innkeepers of El Medina spite unbelievers and honor the Koran
by selling meat in March, but not in June. The Buddhist innkeepers
of Lassa sell only salt meat, imported from China, and spite Infidels
by refusing to kill a cow under any circumstances. But Sicilians,
Thibetans, and Arabs would agree that no innkeeper should be
permitted to spite a personal enemy by salting his meat with arsenic.
Nations that totally disagree in their notions of propriety, in matters of
taste, and in their bias of religious prejudice, will nevertheless be
found to agree on the essential standards of humanity and justice.
The “instinct of equity,” as Leibnitz calls the sense of natural justice,
has been still better defined as the “instinct of keeping contracts.” A
state of Nature is not always a state of equal rights. Skill, strength,
and knowledge enjoy the advantage of superior power in the form of
manifold privileges, but the expediency of “keeping contracts”
naturally recommends itself as the only safe basis of social
intercourse. Those contracts need not always be [139]specified by
written laws. They need not even be formulated in articulate speech.
Their obligations are tacitly recognized as a preliminary of any sort of
social coöperation, of any sort of social concomitance. “Give every
man his due;” “Pay your debts;” “Give if you would receive,” are
international maxims, founded on the earliest impressions of social
instinct, rather than on the lessons of social science or of
preternatural revelation. The first discoverers of the South Sea
Islands were amazed by a license of sexual intercourse that seemed
to exceed the grossest burlesques of French fiction; but they were
almost equally surprised by the scrupulous exactness of commercial
fair-dealing observed by those incontinent children of Nature. An
islander, who had agreed to pay three bagfuls of yam-roots for a
common pocket-knife, delivered two bagfuls (all his canoe would
hold) before the evening of the next day, and received his knife, as
the sailors had about all the provisions they could use. But the next
morning, in trying to leave the coast by tacking against a fitful
breeze, they were overtaken by a canoe, containing a desperately-
rowing savage and that third bag of yam-roots. The traveler
Chamisso mentions a tribe of Siberian fishermen who boarded his
ship to deliver a harpoon which former visitors had forgotten in their
winter-camp. Theft, according to the testimony even of their Roman
adversaries, was almost unknown among the hunting-tribes of the
primitive German woodlands. The natives of San Salvador received
their Spanish invaders with respectful hospitality, and scrupulously
abstained from purloining, or even [140]touching, any article of their
ship-stores; and a similar reception welcomed their arrival in Cuba
and San Domingo, the natives being apparently unable to conceive
the idea that their guests could repay good with evil. “Fair play” is the
motto of boyish sports in the kraals of Kaffir-land, not less than on
the recess-ground of Eton College. A rudimentary sense of justice
manifests itself even among social animals. A baboon who wantonly
attacks an inoffensive fellow-ape is liable to get mobbed by the
whole troop. A nest-robbing hawk has to beat an immediate retreat
under penalty of being attacked by all the winged neighbors and
relatives of his victims. Dogs that will endure the most inhuman
methods of training are not apt to forgive an act of gratuitous cruelty.
They may resign themselves to a system of consistent severity, but
refuse to submit to evident injustice.

[Contents]

B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.

Justice is the royal attribute of noble souls; the most inalienable

crown of their prestige. Men who would defy the power of superior
strength, or envy and depreciate the superior gifts of genius, will do
unbidden homage to the majesty of superior justice. “Mars is a
tyrant,” says Plutarch, in the epilogue of “Demetrius,” “but justice is
the rightful sovereign of the world.” “The things which kings receive
from heaven are not machines for taking towns, or ships with brazen
beaks, but law and justice; these they are to guard and cultivate. And
it is not the most warlike, the most violent and sanguinary, but the
[141]justest of princes, whom Homer calls the disciple of Jupiter.”
History has more than once confirmed that test of supremacy. The
reputation of incorruptible integrity alone has made poor princes, and
even private citizens, the arbiters of nations.

King Hieron of Syracuse thus arbitrated the disputes of his warlike

neighbors. Plato, Phocion, Philopoemen, Cato, and Abencerrage
(Ibn Zerrag) settled international quarrels which the sword had failed
to decide. The prestige of uprightness has made honor almost a
synonyme of an “honorable,” i.e., honest, reputation. The
commercial integrity of Hebrew merchants has overcome race-
jealousies and religious prejudices, and in America the worship of
wealth does not prevent an upright judge from ranking high above a
wealthier, but less scrupulous, attorney.

The consciousness of a just cause is an advantage which, more than

once, has outweighed a grievous disadvantage in wealth and power.
It biased the fortune of war in the battles of Leuctra and Lodi; it
enabled the Scythian herdsmen to annihilate the veterans of King
Cyrus, and the Swiss peasants to rout the chivalry of Austria and
Burgundy. A just cause enlists sympathy, and, as a bond of union,
surpasses the value of common interests, which a slight change of
circumstances is apt to turn into conflicting interests and
disagreement. Strict adherence to the principles of political equity
has preserved small states in the midst of powerful neighbors,
whose greed of conquest is restrained by their hesitation to incur the
odium of wanton aggression. Belgium, [142]Holland, and Denmark
have thus preserved their national independence in Europe, as
Japan and Acheen in the East. In Central Africa the honesty and
simplicity of the agricultural Ethiopians has proved a match for the
cunning of the predatory Moors, who constantly pillage their
neighbors, but as constantly quarrel about the division of their spoils,
and, in the vicissitudes of their civil wars, have again and again been
obliged to purchase the alliance of the despised “heathen.”

The practical advantages of integrity have been recognized in the

proverbial wisdom of all nations, but are not confined to the affairs of
commercial intercourse. In the long run, honesty is the “best policy,”
even in avocations where the perversion of justice may seem to
promise a temporary advantage. A lawyer who refuses to defend a
wealthy knave against a poor plaintiff will gain in self-respect, and
ultimately also in professional reputation, more than he has lost in
direct emoluments. A politician who refuses to resort to chicanes
may miss the chance of a short-lived triumph, but will sow a seed of
prestige sure to ripen its eventual harvest.

[Contents]

C.—PERVERSION.

Justice, in the pristine pagan sense of the word, was too natural and
too manly a virtue to find much favor with the whining moralists of
Antinaturalism. The truth which a modern philosopher has
condensed in the sarcasm that “an honest god is the noblest work of
man,” was recognized already by the ancient historian who observed
that “every nation makes its [143]gods the embodiments of its own
ideals,” though, happily, it is not always true that “no worshiper is
better than the object of his worship.” To some degree, however, the
moral standards of the Mediterranean pagans were undoubtedly
prejudiced by the lewd propensities of their Olympians, and it is
equally certain that the extravagant injustice of Christian fanatics can
be partly explained, as well as condoned, by the moral
characteristics of their dogma-God. According to the accepted
doctrine of the Middle Ages, the administrative principles of that God
seemed to imply a degree of moral perversity which even the poetic
license of a saner age would have hesitated to ascribe to a fiend.
The same deity whom the creed of the Galilean church makes the
omniscient creator of all the physical and moral instincts of human
nature, nevertheless was supposed to punish with endless torture
nearly every free gratification of those instincts, and demand a
voluntary renunciation of a world which his own bounty had filled with
every blessing, and adorned with every charm of loveliness. The
God who endowed us with faculties of reason, of which a moderate
share is sufficient to perceive the absurdities of the Christian dogma,
nevertheless avenges the repudiation of that dogma as an
“unpardonable sin against the authority of his sacred word.” The
most natural action, the eating of an apple, is made the pretext of the
supposed fall of man, and of penalties affecting not only his progeny,
but all his fellow-creatures, and even the lower products of organic
Nature; while the greatest of all imaginable crimes, a Deicide, the
cruel murder of a [144]god, is accepted as a basis of redemption. The
doctrine of salvation by grace made the distribution of punishments
and rewards a matter of mere caprice. The dogmatists of
predestination distinctly taught that the “elect” were not saved by
their own merits, but by an inscrutable, incalculable, and gratuitous
act of divine favor, while others were as inevitably foredoomed to an
eternity of woe. By faith alone, or by faith and the ceremony of
immersion, the guilt of a sinful life could, withal, be cancelled in the
eleventh hour, while the omission of that ceremony doomed even
children, nay, newborn babes, to the abyss of hellfire. “There is no
doubt,” the Solomon of the Patristic Age assures us, “that infants,
only a few spans in length, are crawling on the bottom of hell,” a
doctrine which the historian of Rationalism justly stigmatizes as “so
atrocious, and at the same time so extravagantly absurd, that it
would be simply impossible for the imagination to surpass its
insanity.” Yet for more than twelve hundred years Christians were in
danger of being burnt at the stake for refusing to attribute such
infamies to their creator.

[Contents]

D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.

Need we wonder that the converts of that creed believed in the merit
of passive submission to the caprices of earthly despots, and
scorned the appeals of justice in their dealings with pagans and
Freethinkers? Why should men try to be better than their God? The
worshiper of a God who doomed the souls of unbaptized children
and honest dissenters, naturally had no hesitation in assailing the
[145]bodies of their unbelieving fellow-men, and princes who loaded
fawning sycophants with favors which they denied to honest patriots
could appeal to the sanction of a divine precedent. Every petty
“sovereign of six faithful square miles” accordingly became a law to
himself. A man’s might was the only measure of his right; the Faust-
Recht, the “first law” of iron-clad bullies, reigned supreme from the
Baltic to the Mediterranean, and the judges of (the only independent)
ecclesiastic courts confined their attention to ferocious punishments
of neglect in the payment of tithes, and the performance of socage
duties and ceremonies. The belief in the divine right of potentates,
and passive submission to even the most outrageous abuse of that
power, were assiduously inculcated as primary duties of a Christian
citizen. Natural justice, civil rights, and the laws of humanity had no
place in that code of revealed ethics.

Such teachings bore their fruit in the horrors of insurrection. In the

Peasants’ War thousands of convents and castles were rent as by
the outburst of a hurricane, and their dwellers had to learn the
inconvenience of having to submit to the powers that happened to
be, by being torn limb from limb, or flayed and roasted alive.

“Si no se obedecen los leyes, es ley que todo se pierde,” is the

Spanish translation of an old Arabian proverb: “If justice is
disregarded, it is just that everything perish”—a doom which the
intolerable outrages against human rights and humanity at last
experienced in the cataclysm of the French Revolution. [146]There,
too, the despisers of natural justice had to eat their own doctrine, the
strongholds of absolutism that had withstood the tears of so many
generations were swept away by a torrent of blood, and the priests
and princes whose inhumanity had turned their serfs into wild beasts
learned the significance of their mistake when their own throats were
mangled by the fangs of those beasts.

The doctrine of salvation by grace had substituted favor and caprice

for the rights of natural justice, and for a series of centuries the
consequences of its teachings were seen in the treatment of nearly
every benefactor of mankind. The prince who devoted the fruits of
his conquests to the feeding of countless convent drones, let
scholars starve and loaded the discoverer of a New World with
chains. His successors who lavished the treasures of their vast
empire on pimps and clerical mountebanks, let Cervantes perish in
penury. The sovereign protector of a thousand stall-fed prelates
refused to relieve the last distress of John Kepler. The moralists who
thought it a grievance that the church should be denied the right of
tithing the lands of southern Spain, had no pity for the sufferings of
the men whose labor had made those lands blossom like the
gardens of paradise, and who were exiled by thousands for the
crime of preferring the unitary God of the Koran to the trinitary gods
of the New Testament.

[Contents]

E.—REFORM.

The perversion of our moral standards by the dogmas of an

antinatural creed is still glaringly evident [147]in the prevailing notions
of natural justice and the precedence of social duties. The modern
Crœsus who deems it incumbent on his duties as a citizen and a
Christian to contribute an ample subvention to the support of an
orthodox seminary, has no hesitation in swelling his already bloated
income by reducing the wages of a hundred starving factory children
and taking every sordid advantage in coining gain from the loss of
helpless tenants and dependants. The pious Sabbatarians who
doom their poor neighbors to an earthly Gehenna and premature
death by depriving them of every chance for healthful recreation,
lavish their luxuries and their endearments on the caged cutthroat
who edifies his jailer by renouncing the vanities of this worldly sphere
and ranting about the bliss of the New Jerusalem. The bank cashier
who would never be pardoned for kicking the hind-parts of a
mendicant missionary is readily absolved from the sin of such
secular indiscretions as embezzling the savings of a few hundred
widows and orphans.
Before resuming the rant about our solicitude for the interests of
departed souls, we should learn to practice a little more common
honesty in our dealings with the interests of our living fellow-men.
Natural justice would be less frequently outraged if our moral
reformers would distinctly repudiate the doctrines of vicarious
atonement and salvation by faith, and hold every man responsible
for his own actions, irrespective of his belief or disbelief in the claims
of an Asiatic miracle-monger. And moreover, the exponents of
Secularism should insist on a truth not [148]unknown to the moralists
of antiquity, that habitual submission to injustice is a vice instead of a
virtue, and that he who thinks it a merit to signalize his unworldliness
by failing to assert his own rights encourages oppression and fraud
and endangers the rights of his honest fellow-men.

[Contents]
CHAPTER XII.
 TRUTH.

[Contents]

A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.

The enemies of Nature have for ages based the favorite arguments
of their creed on the doctrine of Natural Depravity. According to the
theories of that tenet the natural instincts of the human heart are
wholly evil, and its every nobler impulse is due to the redeeming
influence of theological education. The baseness of the
“unregenerate soul” is their favorite antithesis of “holiness by grace;”
and the best test of that dogma would be a comparison of the moral
characteristics of a young child of Nature with the moral results of
theological training. We need not adduce the extreme case of a child
like Kaspar Hauser or the ape-nursed foundling of Baroda, whose
propensities had been modeled in communion with solitude or the
dumb denizens of the wilderness. For, even in the midst of “Christian
civilization,” thousands of peasants and mechanics are practically
pure Agnostics, and ignore the absurdities of the New Testament as
persistently as their deer-hunting ancestors ignored the absurdities
[149]of pagan mythology. At the end of his sixth or seventh year the
offspring of such parents would still represent a fair specimen-child
of unregenerate Nature, and the normal bias of that Nature is
revealed in the honesty, the trusting innocence, the purity, and the
cheerfulness of the young Agnostic, and the absence of every
appreciable germ of the secret vices, the rancorous spites, and the
joy-hating bigotries of the representative Christian convent-slave.

But the most characteristic features of that contrast would perhaps

be the double-tongued hypocrisy of the old Jesuit and the artless
candor of the young peasant boy. The truthfulness of young children
antedates all moral instruction. Its motives are wholly independent of
theological, or even abstract-ethical, influences, and are based
merely on a natural preference for the simplest way of dealing with
the problems of intellectual communication. Truth is uniform,
falsehood is complex. Truth is persistent and safe; falsehood is
unstable, fragile, and precarious. Children instinctively recognize the
difficulties of plausibly maintaining the fictions of deceit, and dread
the risk of incurring the suspicion of habitual insincerity. Hence their
uncompromising loyalty to facts; their innocence of artifice and
mental reservation; hence also their extreme reluctance in
conforming to the conventional customs of social hypocrisy and
polite prevarication.

“Are you not glad Mrs. D. is gone?” Master Frank once asked his
mother in my presence. “Well, yes, I am.” “Then what’s the use
asking her to call [150]again and stay for supper? She could not help
seeing that we were tired of her gabble.” “Well, it wouldn’t do to insult
her, you know.” “Oh, no, but what’s the use telling her something she
cannot believe?”

That last remark, especially, recurs to my memory whenever the

expedience of hypocrisy is defended by the conventional sophisms
of Christian civilization. That prevarications are unprofitable as well
as unpardonable is a truth which Jesuitry has shrouded with a veil of
its choicest cant, but the clear vision of childhood penetrates that
cant, and the “natural depravity” of unregenerate souls may reach
the degree of doubting the merit of simulation even in the interest of
an orthodox creed, as the reverend dogmatist might ascertain by
happening to overhear the recess comments of our American
Sabbath-school youngsters.
[Contents]

B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.

The Utilitarians hold that motives of enlightened self-interest would

be sufficient to make a man perfectly virtuous. With the conventional
definition of “virtue,” that tenet might require certain qualifications;
but it is more than probable that perfect prudence would insure a
voluntary devotion to perfect truthfulness. In its most aggressive form
the hatred of falsehood may imperil the temporary interests of the
aggressor, but in every other sense the path of truth is the path of
safety. All the ultimate tendencies of the moral and physical universe
conspire to vindicate truth and discredit fraud. [151]

Assertions based on fact stand erect, upheld by the evidence of

experience as an upright building by the law of gravity; deception,
with all its props of plausible sophisms, is tottering like a wall out of
plumb, or a rotten tree upheld by artificial supports which in their turn
must yield to the test of time.

Even from a standpoint of purely secular considerations, truth, like

honesty, is in the long run the best policy. Abstinence from insidious
poisons is easier than temperance, and the lessons of experience
have at all times convinced the most clear-sighted of our fellow-men
that consistent abstinence from the vice of hypocrisy is preferable to
any compromise with the interests of imposture. The non-clerical,
and almost Agnostic, education of the American wilderness seems to
favor that type of moral teetotalism, and among the hardy hill-
farmers of our New England highlands, and Southern mountain
states, one may find men almost constitutionally incapable of
conscious deceit in deed or word, and practicing veracity without the
least pretense to superior saintliness, in a quite untheological and
often, indeed, decidedly profane medium of speech. They stick to
truth from habit, rather than from moral principles, yet among their
simple-hearted neighbors they enjoy a respect withheld from
unctuous hypocrisy, and in emergencies can always rely on the
practical value of a life-long reputation for candor. Their word is
sufficient security; their denial of slanderous imputations is accepted
without the aid of compurgators.

The simple religion of Mohammed has favored the development of a

similar disposition, and on the [152]Austrian-Turkish frontier the word
of a Mussulman generally carries the weight of a casting vote. On
the Indian ocean, too, the verdict of international opinion favors a
preference for Unitarian testimony. “Wish to heaven we could fall in
with some Acheen fishermen,” Captain Baudissin heard his pilot
mutter among the reefs of the Sunda Islands, “it’s no use asking
such d—— liars as those Hindoos and Chinese.”

The love of truth compels the respect even of impostors and of

professional hypocrites, as in the case of that curate mentioned by
the German Freethinker, Weber (author of the philosophical
cyclopedia, “Democritus”). Professor Weber passed his last years in
the retirement of a small south-German mountain village, where his
undisguised skepticism made him the bugbear of the local
pharisees; yet on moonless evenings he was more than once
honored by the visits of a neighboring village priest, who risked
censure, and, perhaps, excommunication, for the sake of enjoying
the luxury of a respite from the sickening cant of his colleagues, and
devoting a few hours to intellectual communion with a champion of
Secular science.

Lessing’s allegory of “Nathan” is founded on something more than

fiction, and there is no doubt that even in the midnight of the Middle
Ages the gloomy misery of the Hebrew pariahs was often cheered by
the secret visits of some intelligent Christian whom the thirst for truth
impelled to defy the vigilance of the heretic-hunter, and to prefer an
intellectual symposium in the garret of a Jewish slum [153]alley to a
feast in the banquet hall of a Christian prelate.

“It is lucky for you that your opponents have not learned to utilize the
advantage of truth,” Mirabeau replied to the taunt of an insolent
Jesuit; and in logic that advantage can, indeed, hardly be overrated.
“They find believers who themselves believe,” and, as the
philosopher Colton observes, a sort of instinct often enables the
simplest countryman to distinguish the language of honest conviction
from the language of artful sophistry. “Our jurymen seem to
appreciate a first-class lie only from an artistic standpoint,”
confessed a lawyer of my acquaintance, “for some of them privately
hinted that they could tell it every time.”

Others, no doubt, lack that degree of acumen; but first-class orators,

as well as first-class authors, have always recognized the wisdom of
not relying on such mental defects of the public. Charles Darwin’s
works, for instance, owe their popularity to their erudition and their
grace of style, hardly more than to the absolute candor of the author,
who reviews the evidence for and against his theories with the
fairness of a conscientious judge, and by that very impartiality has
succeeded in prevailing against the partisan arguments of his
adversaries. For similar reasons our “Christian” temperance
societies can date their triumphs only from the time when they
frankly repudiated the sophisms of their predecessors, who hoped to
reconcile the lessons of science with the teachings of the alcohol-
brewing Galilean. For truth [154]prevails against half-truth, as well as
against absolute untruth.

[Contents]
C.—PERVERSION.

Since the dawn of rationalism perhaps no other literary product of

Freethought has provoked the enemies of Nature to that degree of
rancorous fury excited by the appearance of Moliere’s “Tartuffe.” The
hero of that famous drama is an old pharisee whose resolve to
renounce the “vanities of earth” is constantly tripped by the
promptings of his physical instincts, and who resorts to all kinds of
ludicrous sophisms to palliate the antagonism of two ever
irreconcilable principles:

Le ciel défend, de vrai, certain contentements,

Mais on trouve avec lui des accommodements—

and the drama never failed to attract a jubilant audience; but the
French priesthood moved heaven and earth to stop the performance,
and can, indeed, hardly be blamed for rejecting the apologies of the
author’s friends; for the irony of Tartuffe ridicules the shams, not only
of the Catholic clergy, but of their creed and the creed of their
Protestant colleagues: it is, in fact, a scathing satire on the
absurdities of Christian Antinaturalism. The impossibility of
reconciling the demands of Nature with the precepts of a world-
renouncing fanatic has, indeed, made the worship of that fanatic a
systematic school of hypocrisy and subverted the moral health of its
victims as effectually as the unnatural restraints of convent life
subverted the basis of physical health. [155]

God is paid when man receiveth;

To enjoy is to obey;

says Nature with the poet of reason. “God delights in the self-torture
of his creatures—crucify your flesh, despise your body, disown the
world; renounce! renounce!” croaks the chorus of Christian
dogmatists, and can silence protest only by turning health into
disease or candor into hypocrisy.

The dogma of salvation by faith offers an additional premium on

mental prostitution. By punishing honest doubt as a crime and
inculcating the merit of blind submission to the authority of reason-
insulting doctrines, the defenders of those doctrines struck a deadly
blow at the instinct of free inquiry, and for a series of generations
actually succeeded in eradicating that instinct from the mental
constitution of their victims.

“The persecutor,” says W. H. Lecky, “can never be certain that he is

not persecuting truth rather than error, but he may be quite certain
that he is suppressing the spirit of truth. And, indeed, it is no
exaggeration to say that the doctrines I have reviewed represent the
most skilful and at the same time most successful conspiracy against
that spirit that has ever existed among mankind. Until the
seventeenth century, every mental disposition which philosophy
pronounces to be essential to a legitimate research was almost
uniformly branded as a sin, and a large proportion of the most deadly
intellectual vices were deliberately inculcated as virtues.… In a word,
there is scarcely a disposition that marks the love of abstract truth
and scarcely a rule which [156]reason teaches as essential for its
attainment that theologians did not for ages stigmatize as offensive
to the Almighty.”

And those perversions culminated in the miracle-mongery of the

wretched superstition. If the material universe was at the mercy of
witches and tricksy demons, no man could for a moment trust the
evidence of his own senses and was naturally driven to complete his
mental degradation by an absolute surrender of common sense to
dogma. The history of Christian dogmatism is the history of an
eighteen hundred years’ war against Nature and Truth.
[Contents]

D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.

The drift sand of the deserts covering the site of once fertile empires
still attests the physical consequences of a thousand years’ reign of
Antinaturalism, but, happily, the time has already come when many
of our fellow-men almost fail to credit the degree of mental
abasement realized during the most orthodox centuries of that reign.
It would be no overstatement to say that for nearly six hundred years
the priests of the Galilean miracle-monger persuaded a plurality of
the Caucasian nations to risk their lives in defense of dogmas the
mere profession of which would start a modern Christian on a
galloping trip to the next lunatic asylum.

Decapitated saints were believed to have emerged from their tombs

and paid their respects to a newly appointed bishop; flying dragons
descended through the air to snatch the bodies of unbelievers and
disappeared with screams that frightened orthodox [157]neighbors to
take refuge in their cellar-holes; swarms of angels carried bones,
crosses, and whole buildings from Bethlehem to Loretto; King Philip
the Second paid a thousand doubloons for a skeleton of St.
Laurentius, and having been informed that a complete skeleton of
the same saint was for sale in the south of Italy, he at once ratified
the bargain and blessed heaven for having favored him with a
duplicate of the precious relic. Thousands of unfortunates were tried
and executed on a charge of having taken an aerial excursion on a
broomstick or a black he-goat; of having caused a gale by churning a
potful of froth and water; of having turned themselves into foxes,
wolves, and tomcats.

The instinct of recognizing the absurdity of even the most glaring

superstitions seems to have become wholly extinct in the minds of
the forty generations from the middle of the tenth to the end of the
fourteenth century; and during that millennium of madness the
suppression of free inquiry encouraged thousands of pious tract-
mongers to devote their lives to the wholesale forgery of saintly
biographies and miracle legends, and disseminate under the name
of historical records insanities too extravagant even for the readers
of a modern nursery-tale.

The war against Truth was carried to the length of suppressing not
only the skeptical inferences of science, but science itself; chemists,
astronomers, physiologists, mathematicians, and bona fide
historians could pursue their inquiries only at the risk of an
inquisitorial indictment; and a cloud of ignorance, which in the days
of Horace and Pliny would [158]have been thought disgraceful to the
obscurest hamlet of the Roman empire, brooded for ages over the
face of the entire Christian world.

For a series of centuries the encouragement of credulity and

imposture almost annulled the value of contemporary records.
Travelers and chroniclers, as well as biographers, accommodated
the popular taste by dealing, not in marvels only, but in miracles;
witchcraft anecdotes, preternatural resurrections, prodigies of skill
and physical prowess, giants, dragons, were-wolves, and no end of
spectral manifestations. It is no exaggeration to say that for a period
of more than nine hundred years the dogma of the Galilean
antinaturalist systematically favored the survival of the unfit, by
offering a premium on mental prostitution and making common
sense a capital crime.

[Contents]
E.—REFORM.

The triumph of the Protestant revolt has ushered in a dawn which, in

comparison with the preceding night, may justly vaunt its era as an
Age of Reason; but the thousand years’ perversion of our moral
instincts has not been wholly redeemed by the educational
influences of a short century. For even eighty years ago the
educational reforms of the Protestant nations attempted little more
than a compromise between reason and dogma, while their southern
neighbors revolted against the political influence, rather than against
the dogmatical arrogance, of their priesthood. Nay, even at present
the fallacies of the compromise plan still hamper the [159]progress of
reform in manifold directions. As an American Freethinker aptly
expresses it: “Truth is no longer kept under lock and key, but is kindly
turned loose to roam at large—after being chained to a certain
number of theological cannon-balls.” Evolution may pursue its
inquiries into specific phases of organic development, but must not
question the correctness of the Mosaic traditions; rationalists may
inveigh against the insanities of the Middle Ages, but must pretend to
overlook the fact that the doctrine of the New Testament contains the
germs of all those insanities; the science of health may denounce
modern fallacies, but must beware to mention the anti-physical
precepts of the body-despising Galilean; Materialists must attack the
hobgoblins of the Davenport brothers, but ignore the hog-goblins of
Gadara; historical critics may call attention to the inconsistencies of
Livy and Plutarch, but must not mention the self-contradictions of the
New Testament.

Yet logic and philosophy will be little more than a farce till the axiom
of a great biologist can be applied to the pursuit of every human
science. “Inquiries of that sort” (the “Descent of Man”), he says,
“have nothing whatever to do with personal tastes or vested