U.S. journal ist, lecturer, and amateur psychologist. Hudson developed a two-level theory of mind that not only opposed spiritualist claims, but later provided theoretical underpinnings of a rival religious movement, New Thought. Hudson was born on February 22, 1835, in Windham, Ohio. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in his home state, but after a brief career gave up law for journalism, becoming editor of the Detroit Evening News. He left journalism around 1880 and took a job with the U.S. Patent Office, eventually becoming principal examiner. During his years looking at patent applications, he had become interested in experimental psychology, a field then very much in its infancy. In 1893 he quit his job and wrote his first book, The Law of Psychic Phenomena, which became popular and for which he was awarded an honorary degree by St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland.
Hudson argued that human beings have two distinct minds: the objective, the one which operates in their daily waking life, and the subjective, that most visible during the hypnotic state. The key to understanding humanity is greater knowledge of the subjective mind, which is commonly dormant but which records every experience of life. The objective mind is distinguished by its ability to reason both inductively and deductively. The subjective mind can reason only deductively with the material fed into it (thus, the off-behavior of a hypnotized person).