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A classic in the field of psychology, From India to the Planet Mars (1900) depicts the remarkable multiple existence of the medium Hılıne Smith, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette, of a Hindu princess from fifteenth-century India, and of a regular visitor to Mars, whose landscapes she painted and whose language she appeared to speak fluently. Through a psychological interpretation of these fantasies, which consisted in the subliminal elaboration of forgotten memories, Thıodore Flournoy vastly extended the scope and understanding of the unconscious, and in particular, of its creative and mythopoetic capacities. In a new introduction to this work, Sonu Shamdasani evokes the rich cultural and intellectual setting in which Flournoy published his findings, and discusses their impact on Freud, Jung, Saussure, and other pioneers of psychology and linguistics.

"...[In his Introduction] Sonu Shamdasani, historian of psychoanalysis and editor of several works by Jung, presents the story of Flournoy and Helen Smith as a kind of Post-Modern allegory of a fascinating yet ultimately malign encounter between mental science and spiritualism at the turn of the century....After reading 'From India to the Planet Mars' William James told its author that 'you and Delboeuf are the only worthy successors to Voltaire.' The compliment is apt, for Flournoy's book is fundamentally a work of satire--an ironic assault on human pretension in the great enlightenment tradition of 'Candide' or 'Micromegas'."

Terry Castle, London Review of Books, 05/23/1996