Sergei Soloviev writes:

 

Dear Jerry, dear Matt -

 

- the story of Sally Beauchamp is very much influenced by
the "atmosphere" of the end of 19 century: mediums, belief in ghosts
etc., psychiatry/psychology being emerging sciences
with doubtful criteria (what can we say about
these sciences now?); credulity of some prominent people
at this time is amazing (cf. sir Conan-Doyle); the use of
hypnosis and its acceptability as a proof was criticized
later (even) by Freud; what I want to say, is that
the story has in its presentation some hints of
this credulity and "desire to believe" (with respect
to split personality) as some stories about ghosts
and supernatural;

 

- while the interest of VN to ghosts, supernatural etc.
is difficult to deny, he never was one of these "true believers"
and in his work, if a possibility of some "supernatural"
explanation could be part of the plot, it never was the
explanatory principle;

 

- as far as I rememeber, he was alvays very critical,
even sarcastic with respect to "true believers" (for
example, the parents of Tchernyshevsky - a student -
in "The Gift");

 

- I think the wonderful find of Matt confirms rather my
own (meta)theory that VN very carefully set traps for
future university researchers, and in particular did very carefully
his own research and reading (it's a real pleasure to
read such stories as the story of Sally B., I think VN
enjoyed it), in order
to provide them half-convincing (but never definitive)
proofs for their own theories... He probably knew and
even planned which theories will emerge.

 

Best

 

Sergei Soloviev