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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism, by A. Alpheus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism
+       How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and Use
+
+Author: A. Alpheus
+
+Release Date: September 20, 2006 [eBook #19342]
+[Most recently updated: March 14, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Jerry Kuntz
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE HYPNOTISM: MESMERISM, MIND-READING AND SPIRITUALISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Complete Hypnotism
+Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism
+
+How to Hypnotize:
+Being an Exhaustive and Practical System
+of Method, Application, and Use
+
+by A. Alpheus
+
+1903
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+History of hypnotism—Mesmer—Puysegur—Braid—What is hypnotism?—Theories
+of hypnotism: 1. Animal magnetism; 2. The Neurosis Theory; 3.
+Suggestion Theory
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+How to Hypnotize—Dr. Cocke’s method-Dr. Flint’s method—The French
+method at Paris—At Nancy—The Hindoo silent method—How to wake a subject
+from hypnotic sleep—Frauds of public hypnotic entertainments.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+Amusing experiments—Hypnotizing on the stage—“You can’t pull your hands
+apart!”—Post-hypnotic suggestion—The newsboy, the hunter, and the young
+man with the rag doll—A whip becomes hot iron—Courting a broom
+stick—The side-show
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+The stages of hypnotism—Lethargy-Catalepsy—The somnambulistic
+stage—Fascination
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+How the subject feels under hypnotization—Dr. Cocke’s experience—Effect
+of music—Dr. Alfred Warthin’s experiments
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+Self hypnotization—How it may be done—An experience—Accountable for
+children’s crusade—Oriental prophets self-hypnotized
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+Simulation—Deception in hypnotism very common—Examples of Neuropathic
+deceit—Detecting simulation—Professional subjects—How Dr. Luys of the
+Charity Hospital at Paris was deceived—Impossibility of detecting
+deception in all cases—Confessions of a professional hypnotic subject
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+Criminal suggestion—Laboratory crimes—Dr. Cocke’s experiments showing
+criminal suggestion is not possible—Dr. William James’ theory—A bad man
+cannot be made good, why expect to make a good man bad?
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+Dangers in being hypnotized Condemnation of public performances—A
+commonsense view—Evidence furnished by Lafontaine; by Dr. Courmelles;
+by Dr. Hart; by Dr. Cocke—No danger in hypnotism if rightly used by
+physicians or scientists
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+Hypnotism in medicine—Anesthesia—Restoring the use of
+muscles—Hallucination—Bad habits
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+Hypnotism of animals—Snake charming
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+A scientific explanation of hypnotism—Dr. Hart’s theory
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+Telepathy and Clairvoyance—Peculiar power in hypnotic
+state—Experiments—“Phantasms of the living” explained by telepathy
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+The Confessions of a Medium—Spiritualistic phenomena explained on
+theory of telepathy—Interesting statement of Mrs. Piper, the famous
+medium of the Psychical Research Society
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+There is no doubt that hypnotism is a very old subject, though the name
+was not invented till 1850. In it was wrapped up the “mysteries of
+Isis” in Egypt thousands of years ago, and probably it was one of the
+weapons, if not the chief instrument of operation, of the magi
+mentioned in the Bible and of the “wise men” of Babylon and Egypt.
+“Laying on of hands” must have been a form of mesmerism, and Greek
+oracles of Delphi and other places seem to have been delivered by
+priests or priestesses who went into trances of self-induced hypnotism.
+It is suspected that the fakirs of India who make trees grow from dry
+twigs in a few minutes, or transform a rod into a serpent (as Aaron did
+in Bible history), operate by some form of hypnotism. The people of the
+East are much more subject to influences of this kind than Western
+peoples are, and there can be no question that the religious orgies of
+heathendom were merely a form of that hysteria which is so closely
+related to the modern phenomenon of hypnotism. Though various
+scientific men spoke of magnetism, and understood that there was a
+power of a peculiar kind which one man could exercise over another, it
+was not until Frederick Anton Mesmer (a doctor of Vienna) appeared in
+1775 that the general public gave any special attention to the subject.
+In the year mentioned, Mesmer sent out a circular letter to various
+scientific societies or “Academies” as they are called in Europe,
+stating his belief that “animal magnetism” existed, and that through it
+one man could influence another. No attention was given his letter,
+except by the Academy of Berlin, which sent him an unfavorable reply.
+
+In 1778 Mesmer was obliged for some unknown reason to leave Vienna, and
+went to Paris, where he was fortunate in converting to his ideas
+d’Eslon, the Comte d’Artois’s physician, and one of the medical
+professors at the Faculty of Medicine. His success was very great;
+everybody was anxious to be magnetized, and the lucky Viennese doctor
+was soon obliged to call in assistants. Deleuze, the librarian at the
+Jardin des Plantes, who has been called the Hippocrates of magnetism,
+has left the following account of Mesmer’s experiments:
+
+“In the middle of a large room stood an oak tub, four or five feet in
+diameter and one foot deep. It was closed by a lid made in two pieces,
+and encased in another tub or bucket. At the bottom of the tub a number
+of bottles were laid in convergent rows, so that the neck of each
+bottle turned towards the centre. Other bottles filled with magnetized
+water tightly corked up were laid in divergent rows with their necks
+turned outwards. Several rows were thus piled up, and the apparatus was
+then pronounced to be at ‘high pressure’. The tub was filled with
+water, to which were sometimes added powdered glass and iron filings.
+There were also some dry tubs, that is, prepared in the same manner,
+but without any additional water. The lid was perforated to admit of
+the passage of movable bent rods, which could be applied to the
+different parts of the patient’s body. A long rope was also fastened to
+a ring in the lid, and this the patients placed loosely round their
+limbs. No disease offensive to the sight was treated, such as sores, or
+deformities.
+
+“A large number of patients were commonly treated at one time. They
+drew near to each other, touching hands, arms, knees, or feet. The
+handsomest, youngest, and most robust magnetizers held also an iron rod
+with which they touched the dilatory or stubborn patients. The rods and
+ropes had all undergone a ‘preparation’ and in a very short space of
+time the patients felt the magnetic influence. The women, being the
+most easily affected, were almost at once seized with fits of yawning
+and stretching; their eyes closed, their legs gave way and they seemed
+to suffocate. In vain did musical glasses and harmonicas resound, the
+piano and voices re-echo; these supposed aids only seemed to increase
+the patients’ convulsive movements. Sardonic laughter, piteous moans
+and torrents of tears burst forth on all sides. The bodies were thrown
+back in spasmodic jerks, the respirations sounded like death rattles,
+the most terrifying symptoms were exhibited. Then suddenly the actors
+of this strange scene would frantically or rapturously rush towards
+each other, either rejoicing and embracing or thrusting away their
+neighbors with every appearance of horror.
+
+“Another room was padded and presented another spectacle. There women
+beat their heads against wadded walls or rolled on the cushion-covered
+floor, in fits of suffocation. In the midst of this panting, quivering
+throng, Mesmer, dressed in a lilac coat, moved about, extending a magic
+wand toward the least suffering, halting in front of the most violently
+excited and gazing steadily into their eyes, while he held both their
+hands in his, bringing the middle fingers in immediate contact to
+establish communication. At another moment he would, by a motion of
+open hands and extended fingers, operate with the great current,
+crossing and uncrossing his arms with wonderful rapidity to make the
+final passes.”
+
+Hysterical women and nervous young boys, many of them from the highest
+ranks of Society, flocked around this wonderful wizard, and
+incidentally he made a great deal of money. There is little doubt that
+he started out as a genuine and sincere student of the scientific
+character of the new power he had indeed discovered; there is also no
+doubt that he ultimately became little more than a charlatan. There
+was, of course, no virtue in his “prepared” rods, nor in his magnetic
+tubs. At the same time the belief of the people that there was virtue
+in them was one of the chief means by which he was able to induce
+hypnotism, as we shall see later. Faith, imagination, and willingness
+to be hypnotized on the part of the subject are all indispensable to
+entire success in the practice of this strange art.
+
+In 1779 Mesmer published a pamphlet entitled “Memoire sur la decouverte
+du magnetisme animal”, of which Doctor Cocke gives the following
+summary (his chief claim was that he had discovered a principle which
+would cure every disease):
+
+“He sets forth his conclusions in twenty-seven propositions, of which
+the substance is as follows:— There is a reciprocal action and reaction
+between the planets, the earth and animate nature by means of a
+constant universal fluid, subject to mechanical laws yet unknown. The
+animal body is directly affected by the insinuation of this agent into
+the substance of the nerves. It causes in human bodies properties
+analogous to those of the magnet, for which reason it is called ‘Animal
+Magnetism’. This magnetism may be communicated to other bodies, may be
+increased and reflected by mirrors, communicated, propagated, and
+accumulated, by sound. It may be accumulated, concentrated, and
+transported. The same rules apply to the opposite virtue. The magnet is
+susceptible of magnetism and the opposite virtue. The magnet and
+artificial electricity have, with respect to disease, properties common
+to a host of other agents presented to us by nature, and if the use of
+these has been attended by useful results, they are due to animal
+magnetism. By the aid of magnetism, then, the physician enlightened as
+to the use of medicine may render its action more perfect, and can
+provoke and direct salutary crises so as to have them completely under
+his control.”
+
+The Faculty of Medicine investigated Mesmer’s claims, but reported
+unfavorably, and threatened d’Eslon with expulsion from the society
+unless he gave Mesmer up. Nevertheless the government favored the
+discoverer, and when the medical fraternity attacked him with such
+vigor that he felt obliged to leave Paris, it offered him a pension of
+20,000 francs if he would remain. He went away, but later came back at
+the request of his pupils. In 1784 the government appointed two
+commissions to investigate the claims that had been made. On one of
+these commissions was Benjamin Franklin, then American Ambassador to
+France as well as the great French scientist Lavoisier. The other was
+drawn from the Royal Academy of Medicine, and included Laurent de
+Jussieu, the only man who declared in favor of Mesmer.
+
+There is no doubt that Mesmer had returned to Paris for the purpose of
+making money, and these commissions were promoted in part by persons
+desirous of driving him out. “It is interesting,” says a French writer,
+“to peruse the reports of these commissions: they read like a debate on
+some obscure subject of which the future has partly revealed the
+secret.” Says another French writer (Courmelles): “They sought the
+fluid, not by the study of the cures affected, which was considered too
+complicated a task, but in the phases of mesmeric sleep. These were
+considered indispensable and easily regulated by the experimentalist.
+When submitted to close investigation, it was, however, found that they
+could only be induced when the subjects knew they were being
+magnetized, and that they differed according as they were conducted in
+public or in private. In short—whether it be a coincidence or the
+truth—imagination was considered the sole active agent. Whereupon
+d’Eslon remarked, ‘If imagination is the best cure, why should we not
+use the imagination as a curative means?’ Did he, who had so vaunted
+the existence of the fluid, mean by this to deny its existence, or was
+it rather a satirical way of saying. ‘You choose to call it
+imagination; be it so. But after all, as it cures, let us make the most
+of it’?
+
+“The two commissions came to the conclusion that the phenomena were due
+to imitation, and contact, that they were dangerous and must be
+prohibited. Strange to relate, seventy years later, Arago pronounced
+the same verdict!”
+
+Daurent Jussieu was the only one who believed in anything more than
+this. He saw a new and important truth, which he set forth in a
+personal report upon withdrawing from the commission, which showed
+itself so hostile to Mesmer and his pretensions.
+
+Time and scientific progress have largely overthrown Mesmer’s theories
+of the fluid; yet Mesmer had made a discovery that was in the course of
+a hundred years to develop into an important scientific study. Says
+Vincent: “It seems ever the habit of the shallow scientist to plume
+himself on the more accurate theories which have been provided for him
+by the progress of knowledge and of science, and then, having been fed
+with a limited historical pabulum, to turn and talk lightly, and with
+an air of the most superior condescension, of the weakness and follies
+of those but for whose patient labors our modern theories would
+probably be non-existent.” If it had not been for Mesmer and his
+“Animal Magnetism”, we would never have had “hypnotism” and all our
+learned societies for the study of it.
+
+Mesmer, though his pretensions were discredited, was quickly followed
+by Puysegur, who drew all the world to Buzancy, near Soissons, France.
+“Doctor Cloquet related that he saw there, patients no longer the
+victims of hysterical fits, but enjoying a calm, peaceful, restorative
+slumber. It may be said that from this moment really efficacious and
+useful magnetism became known.” Every one rushed once more to be
+magnetized, and Puysegur had so many patients that to care for them all
+he was obliged to magnetize a tree (as he said), which was touched by
+hundreds who came to be cured, and was long known as “Puysegur’s tree”.
+As a result of Puysegur’s success, a number of societies were formed in
+France for the study of the new phenomena.
+
+In the meantime, the subject had attracted considerable interest in
+Germany, and in 1812 Wolfart was sent to Mesmer at Frauenfeld by the
+Prussian government to investigate Mesmerism. He became an enthusiast,
+and introduced its practice into the hospital at Berlin.
+
+In 1814 Deleuze published a book on the subject, and Abbe Faria, who
+had come from India, demonstrated that there was no fluid, but that the
+phenomena were subjective, or within the mind of the patient. He first
+introduced what is now called the “method of suggestion” in producing
+magnetism or hypnotism. In 1815 Mesmer died.
+
+Experimentation continued, and in the 20’s Foissac persuaded the
+Academy of Medicine to appoint a commission to investigate the subject.
+After five years they presented a report. This report gave a good
+statement of the practical operation of magnetism, mentioning the
+phenomena of somnambulism, anesthesia, loss of memory, and the various
+other symptoms of the hypnotic state as we know it. It was thought that
+magnetism had a right to be considered as a therapeutic agent, and that
+it might be used by physicians, though others should not be allowed to
+practice it. In 1837 another commission made a decidedly unfavorable
+report.
+
+Soon after this Burdin, a member of the Academy, offered a prize of
+3,000 francs to any one who would read the number of a bank-note or the
+like with his eyes bandaged (under certain fixed conditions), but it
+was never awarded, though many claimed it, and there has been
+considerable evidence that persons in the hypnotic state have
+(sometimes) remarkable clairvoyant powers.
+
+Soon after this, magnetism fell into very low repute throughout France
+and Germany, and scientific men became loath to have their names
+connected with the study of it in any way. The study had not yet been
+seriously taken up in England, and two physicians who gave some
+attention to it suffered decidedly in professional reputation.
+
+It is to an English physician, however, that we owe the scientific
+character of modern hypnotism. Indeed he invented the name of
+hypnotism, formed from the Greek word meaning ‘sleep’, and designating
+‘artificially produced sleep’. His name is James Braid, and so
+important were the results of his study that hypnotism has sometimes
+been called “Braidism”. Doctor Courmelles gives the following
+interesting summary of Braid’s experiences:
+
+“November, 1841, he witnessed a public experiment made by Monsieur
+Lafontaine, a Swiss magnetizer. He thought the whole thing a comedy; a
+week after, he attended a second exhibition, saw that the patient could
+not open his eyes, and concluded that this was ascribable to some
+physical cause. The fixity of gaze must, according to him, exhaust the
+nerve centers of the eyes and their surroundings. He made a friend look
+steadily at the neck of a bottle, and his own wife look at an
+ornamentation on the top of a china sugar bowl: sleep was the
+consequence. Here hypnotism had its origin, and the fact was
+established that sleep could be induced by physical agents. This, it
+must be remembered, is the essential difference between these two
+classes of phenomena (magnetism and hypnotism): for magnetism supposes
+a direct action of the magnetizer on the magnetized subject, an action
+which does not exist in hypnotism.”
+
+It may be stated that most English and American operators fail to see
+any distinction between magnetism and hypnotism, and suppose that the
+effect of passes, etc., as used by Mesmer, is in its way as much
+physical as the method of producing hypnotism by concentrating the gaze
+of the subject on a bright object, or the like.
+
+Braid had discovered a new science—as far as the theoretical view of it
+was concerned—for he showed that hypnotism is largely, if not purely,
+mechanical and physical. He noted that during one phase of hypnotism,
+known as catalepsy, the arms, limbs, etc., might be placed in any
+position and would remain there; he also noted that a puff of breath
+would usually awaken a subject, and that by talking to a subject and
+telling him to do this or do that, even after he awakes from the sleep,
+he can be made to do those things. Braid thought he might affect a
+certain part of the brain during hypnotic sleep, and if he could find
+the seat of the thieving disposition, or the like, he could cure the
+patient of desire to commit crime, simply by suggestion, or command.
+
+Braid’s conclusions were, in brief, that there was no fluid, or other
+exterior agent, but that hypnotism was due to a physiological condition
+of the nerves. It was his belief that hypnotic sleep was brought about
+by fatigue of the eyelids, or by other influences wholly within the
+subject. In this he was supported by Carpenter, the great physiologist;
+but neither Braid nor Carpenter could get the medical organizations to
+give the matter any attention, even to investigate it. In 1848 an
+American named Grimes succeeded in obtaining all the phenomena of
+hypnotism, and created a school of writers who made use of the word
+“electro-biology.”
+
+In 1850 Braid’s ideas were introduced into France, and Dr. Azam, of
+Bordeaux, published an account of them in the “Archives de Medicine.”
+From this time on the subject was widely studied by scientific men in
+France and Germany, and it was more slowly taken up in England. It may
+be stated here that the French and other Latin races are much more
+easily hypnotized than the northern races, Americans perhaps being
+least subject to the hypnotic influence, and next to them the English.
+On the other hand, the Orientals are influenced to a degree we can
+hardly comprehend.
+
+WHAT IS HYPNOTISM?
+
+We have seen that so far the history of hypnotism has given us two
+manifestations, or methods, that of passes and playing upon the
+imagination in various ways, used by Mesmer, and that of physical
+means, such as looking at a bright object, used by Braid. Both of these
+methods are still in use, and though hundreds of scientific men,
+including many physicians, have studied the subject for years, no
+essentially new principle has been discovered, though the details of
+hypnotic operation have been thoroughly classified and many minor
+elements of interest have been developed. All these make a body of
+evidence which will assist us in answering the question, What is
+hypnotism?
+
+Modern scientific study has pretty conclusively established the
+following facts:
+
+1. Idiots, babies under three years old, and hopelessly insane people
+cannot be hypnotized.
+
+2. No one can be hypnotized unless the operator can make him
+concentrate his attention for a reasonable length of time.
+Concentration of attention, whatever the method of producing hypnotism,
+is absolutely necessary.
+
+3. The persons not easily hypnotized are those said to be neurotic (or
+those affected with hysteria). By “hysteria” is not meant nervous
+excitability, necessarily. Some very phlegmatic persons may be affected
+with hysteria. In medical science “hysteria” is an irregular action of
+the nervous system. It will sometimes show itself by severe pains in
+the arm, when in reality there is nothing whatever to cause pain; or it
+will raise a swelling on the head quite without cause. It is a tendency
+to nervous disease which in severe cases may lead to insanity. The word
+neurotic is a general term covering affection of the nervous system. It
+includes hysteria and much else beside.
+
+On all these points practically every student of hypnotism is agreed.
+On the question as to whether any one can produce hypnotism by pursuing
+the right methods there is some disagreement, but not much. Dr. Ernest
+Hart in an article in the British Medical Journal makes the following
+very definite statement, representing the side of the case that
+maintains that any one can produce hypnotism. Says he:
+
+“It is a common delusion that the mesmerist or hypnotizer counts for
+anything in the experiment. The operator, whether priest, physician,
+charlatan, self-deluded enthusiast, or conscious imposter, is not the
+source of any occult influence, does not possess any mysterious power,
+and plays only a very secondary and insignificant part in the chain of
+phenomena observed. There exist at the present time many individuals
+who claim for themselves, and some who make a living by so doing, a
+peculiar property or power as potent mesmerizers, hypnotizers,
+magnetizers, or electro-biologists. One even often hears it said in
+society (for I am sorry to say that these mischievous practices and
+pranks are sometimes made a society game) that such a person is a
+clever hypnotist or has great mesmeric or healing power. I hope to be
+able to prove, what I firmly hold, both from my own personal experience
+and experiment, as I have already related in the Nineteenth Century,
+that there is no such thing as a potent mesmeric influence, no such
+power resident in any one person more than another; that a glass of
+water, a tree, a stick, a penny-post letter, or a lime-light can
+mesmerize as effectually as can any individual. A clever hypnotizer
+means only a person who is acquainted with the physical or mental
+tricks by which the hypnotic condition is produced; or sometimes an
+unconscious imposter who is unaware of the very trifling part for which
+he is cast in the play, and who supposes himself really to possess a
+mysterious power which in fact he does not possess at all, or which, to
+speak more accurately, is equally possessed by every stock or stone.”
+
+Against this we may place the statement of Dr. Foveau de Courmelles,
+who speaks authoritatively for the whole modern French school. He says:
+
+“Every magnetizer is aware that certain individuals never can induce
+sleep even in the most easily hypnotizable subjects. They admit that
+the sympathetic fluid is necessary, and that each person may eventually
+find his or her hypnotizer, even when numerous attempts at inducing
+sleep have failed. However this may be, the impossibility some
+individuals find in inducing sleep in trained subjects, proves at least
+the existence of a negative force.”
+
+If you would ask the present writer’s opinion, gathered from all the
+evidence before him, he would say that while he has no belief in the
+existence of any magnetic fluid, or anything that corresponds to it, he
+thinks there can be no doubt that some people will succeed as
+hypnotists while some will fail, just as some fail as carpenters while
+others succeed. This is true in every walk of life. It is also true
+that some people attract, others repel, the people they meet. This is
+not very easily explained, but we have all had opportunity to observe
+it. Again, since concentration is the prerequisite for producing
+hypnotism, one who has not the power of concentration himself, and
+concentration which he can perfectly control, is not likely to be able
+to secure it in others. Also, since faith is a strong element, a person
+who has not perfect self-confidence could not expect to create
+confidence in others. While many successful hypnotizers can themselves
+be hypnotized, it is probable that most all who have power of this kind
+are themselves exempt from the exercise of it. It is certainly true
+that while a person easily hypnotized is by no means weak-minded
+(indeed, it is probable that most geniuses would be good hypnotic
+subjects), still such persons have not a well balanced constitution and
+their nerves are high-strung if not unbalanced. They would be most
+likely to be subject to a person who had such a strong and
+well-balanced nervous constitution that it would be hard to hypnotize.
+And it is always safe to say that the strong may control the weak, but
+it is not likely that the weak will control the strong.
+
+There is also another thing that must be taken into account. Science
+teaches that all matter is in vibration. Indeed, philosophy points to
+the theory that matter itself is nothing more than centers of force in
+vibration. The lowest vibration we know is that of sound. Then comes,
+at an enormously higher rate, heat, light (beginning at dark red and
+passing through the prismatic colors to violet which has a high
+vibration), to the chemical rays, and then the so-called X or unknown
+rays which have a much higher vibration still. Electricity is a form of
+vibration, and according to the belief of many scientists, life is a
+species of vibration so high that we have no possible means of
+measuring it. As every student of science knows, air appears to be the
+chief medium for conveying vibration of sound, metal is the chief
+medium for conveying electric vibrations, while to account for the
+vibrations of heat and light we have to assume (or imagine) an
+invisible, imponderable ether which fills all space and has no property
+of matter that we can distinguish except that of conveying vibrations
+of light in its various forms. When we pass on to human life, we have
+to theorize chiefly by analogy. (It must not be forgotten, however,
+that the existence of the ether and many assumed facts in science are
+only theories which have come to be generally adopted because they
+explain phenomena of all kinds better than any other theories which
+have been offered.)
+
+Now, in life, as in physical science, any one who can get, or has by
+nature, the key-note of another nature, has a tremendous power over
+that other nature. The following story illustrates what this power is
+in the physical world. While we cannot vouch for the exact truth of the
+details of the story, there can be no doubt of the accuracy of the
+principle on which it is based:
+
+“A musical genius came to the Suspension Bridge at Niagara Falls, and
+asked permission to cross; but as he had no money, his request was
+contemptuously refused. He stepped away from the entrance, and, drawing
+his violin from his case, began sounding notes up and down the scale.
+He finally discovered, by the thrill that sent a tremor through the
+mighty structure, that he had found the note on which the great cable
+that upheld the mass, was keyed. He drew his bow across the string of
+the violin again, and the colossal wire, as if under the spell of a
+magician, responded with a throb that sent a wave through its enormous
+length. He sounded the note again and again, and the cable that was
+dormant under the strain of loaded teams and monster engines—the cable
+that remained stolid under the pressure of human traffic, and the heavy
+tread of commerce, thrilled and surged and shook itself, as mad waves
+of vibration coursed over its length, and it tore at its slack, until
+like a foam-crested wave of the sea, it shook the towers at either end,
+or, like some sentient animal, it tugged at its fetters and longed to
+be free.
+
+“The officers in charge, apprehensive of danger, hurried the poor
+musician across, and bade him begone and trouble them no more. The
+ragged genius, putting his well-worn instrument back in its case,
+muttered to himself, ‘I’d either crossed free or torn down the
+bridge.’”
+
+“So the hypnotist,” goes on the writer from which the above is quoted,
+“finds the note on which the subjective side of the person is attuned,
+and by playing upon it awakens into activity emotions and sensibilities
+that otherwise would have remained dormant, unused and even
+unsuspected.”
+
+No student of science will deny the truth of these statements. At the
+same time it has been demonstrated again and again that persons can and
+do frequently hypnotize themselves. This is what Mr. Hart means when he
+says that any stick or stone may produce hypnotism. If a person will
+gaze steadily at a bright fire, or a glass of water, for instance, he
+can throw himself into a hypnotic trance exactly similar to the
+condition produced by a professional or trained hypnotist. Such people,
+however, must be possessed of imagination.
+
+THEORIES OF HYPNOTISM.
+
+We have now learned some facts in regard to hypnotism; but they leave
+the subject still a mystery. Other facts which will be developed in the
+course of this book will only deepen the mystery. We will therefore
+state some of the best known theories.
+
+Before doing so, however, it would be well to state concisely just what
+seems to happen in a case of hypnotism. The word hypnotism means sleep,
+and the definition of hypnotism implies artificially produced sleep.
+Sometimes this sleep is deep and lasting, and the patient is totally
+insensible; but the interesting phase of the condition is that in
+certain stages the patient is only partially asleep, while the other
+part of his brain is awake and very active.
+
+It is well known that one part of the brain may be affected without
+affecting the other parts. In hemiplegia, for instance, one half of the
+nervous system is paralyzed, while the other half is all right. In the
+stages of hypnotism we will now consider, the will portion of the brain
+or mind seems to be put to sleep, while the other faculties are,
+abnormally awake. Some explain this by supposing that the blood is
+driven out of one portion of the brain and driven into other portions.
+In any case, it is as though the human engine were uncoupled, and the
+patient becomes an automaton. If he is told to do this, that, or the
+other, he does it, simply because his will is asleep and “suggestion”,
+as it is called, from without makes him act just as he starts up
+unconsciously in his ordinary sleep if tickled with a straw.
+
+Now for the theories. There are three leading theories, known as that
+of 1. Animal Magnetism; 2. Neurosis; and 3. Suggestion. We will simply
+state them briefly in order without discussion.
+
+Animal Magnetism. This is the theory offered by Mesmer, and those who
+hold it assume that “the hypnotizer exercises a force, independently of
+suggestion, over the subject. They believe one part of the body to be
+charged separately, or that the whole body may be filled with
+magnetism. They recognize the power, of suggestion, but they do not
+believe it to be the principal factor in the production of the hypnotic
+state.” Those who hold this theory today distinguish between the
+phenomena produced by magnetism and those produced by physical means or
+simple suggestion.
+
+The Neurosis Theory. We have already explained the word neurosis, but
+we repeat here the definition given by Dr. J. R. Cocke. “A neurosis is
+any affection of the nervous centers occurring without any material
+agent producing it, without inflammation or any other constant
+structural change which can be detected in the nervous centers. As will
+be seen from the definition, any abnormal manifestation of the nervous
+system of whose cause we know practically nothing, is, for convenience,
+termed a neurosis. If a man has a certain habit or trick, it is termed
+a neurosis or neuropathic habit. One man of my acquaintance, who is a
+professor in a college, always begins his lecture by first sneezing and
+then pulling at his nose. Many forms of tremor are called neurosis. Now
+to say that hypnotism is the result of a neurosis, simply means that a
+person’s nervous system is susceptible to this condition, which, by M.
+Charcot and his followers, is regarded as abnormal.” In short, M.
+Charcot places hypnotism in the same category of nervous affections in
+which hysteria and finally hallucination (medically considered) are to
+be classed, that is to say, as a nervous weakness, not to say a
+disease. According to this theory, a person whose nervous system is
+perfectly healthy could not be hypnotized. So many people can be
+hypnotized because nearly all the world is more or less insane, as a
+certain great writer has observed.
+
+Suggestion. This theory is based on the power of mind over the body as
+we observe it in everyday life. Again let me quote from Dr. Cooke. “If
+we can direct the subject’s whole attention to the belief that such an
+effect as before mentioned—that his arm will be paralyzed, for
+instance—will take place, that effect will gradually occur. Such a
+result having been once produced, the subject’s will-power and power of
+resistance are considerably weakened, because he is much more inclined
+than at first to believe the hypnotizer’s assertion. This is generally
+the first step in the process of hypnosis. The method pursued at the
+school of Nancy is to convince the subject that his eyes are closing by
+directing his attention to that effect as strongly as possible.
+However, it is not necessary that we begin with the eyes. According to
+M. Dessoir, any member of the body will answer as well.” The theory of
+Suggestion is maintained by the medical school attached to the hospital
+at Nancy. The theory of Neurosis was originally put forth as the result
+of experiments by Dr. Charcot at the Salpetriere hospital in Paris,
+which is now the co-called Salpetriere school—that is the medical,
+school connected with the Salpetriere hospital.
+
+There is also another theory put forth, or rather a modification of
+Professor Charcot’s theory, and maintained by the school of the Charity
+hospital in Paris, headed by Dr. Luys, to the effect that the physical
+magnet and electricity may affect persons in the hypnotic state, and
+that certain drugs in sealed tubes placed upon the patient’s neck
+during the condition of hypnosis will produce the same effects which
+those drugs would produce if taken internally, or as the nature of the
+drugs would seem to call for if imbibed in a more complete fashion.
+This school, however, has been considerably discredited, and Dr. Luys’
+conclusions are not received by scientific students of hypnotism. It is
+also stated, and the present writer has seen no effective denial, that
+hypnotism may be produced by pressing with the fingers upon certain
+points in the body, known as hypnogenic spots.
+
+It will be seen that these three theories stated above are greatly at
+variance with each other. The student of hypnotism will have to form a
+conclusion for himself as he investigates the facts. Possibly it will
+be found that the true theory is a combination of all three of those
+described above. Hypnotism is certainly a complicated phenomena, and he
+would be a rash man who should try to explain it in a sentence or in a
+paragraph. An entire book proves a very limited space for doing it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+HOW TO HYPNOTIZE.
+
+
+Dr. Cocke’s Method—Dr. Flint’s Method—The French Method at Paris—at
+Nancy—The Hindoo Silent Method—How to Wake a Subject from Hypnotic
+Sleep—Frauds of Public Hypnotic Entertainers.
+
+
+First let us quote what is said of hypnotism in Foster’s Encyclopedic
+Medical Dictionary. The dictionary states the derivation of the word
+from the Greek word meaning sleep, and gives as synonym “Braidism”.
+This definition follows: “An abnormal state into which some persons may
+be thrown, either by a voluntary act of their own, such as gazing
+continuously with fixed attention on some bright object held close to
+the eyes, or by the exercise of another person’s will; characterized by
+suspension of the will and consequent obedience to the promptings of
+suggestions from without. The activity of the organs of special sense,
+except the eye, may be heightened, and the power of the muscles
+increased. Complete insensibility to pain may be induced by hypnotism,
+and it has been used as an anaesthetic. It is apt to be followed by a
+severe headache of long continuance, and by various nervous
+disturbances. On emerging from the hypnotic state, the person
+hypnotized usually has no remembrance of what happened during its
+continuance, but in many persons such remembrance may be induced by
+‘suggestion’. About one person in three is susceptible to hypnotism,
+and those of the hysterical or neurotic tendency (but rarely the
+insane) are the most readily hypnotized.”
+
+First we will quote the directions for producing hypnotism given by Dr.
+James R. Cocke, one of the most scientific experimenters in hypnotism
+in America. His directions of are special value, since they are more
+applicable to American subjects than the directions given by French
+writers. Says Dr. Cocke:
+
+“The hypnotic state can be produced in one of the following ways:
+First, command the subject to close his eyes. Tell him his mind is a
+blank. Command him to think of nothing. Leave him a few minutes; return
+and tell him he cannot open his eyes. If he fails to do so, then begin
+to make any suggestion which may be desired. This is the so-called
+mental method of hypnotization.
+
+“Secondly, give the subject a coin or other bright object. Tell him to
+look steadfastly at it and not take his eyes away from it. Suggest that
+his eyelids are growing heavy, that he cannot keep them open. Now close
+the lids. They cannot be opened. This is the usual method employed by
+public exhibitors. A similar method is by looking into a mirror, or
+into a glass of water, or by rapidly revolving polished disks, which
+should be looked at steadfastly in the same way as is the coin, and I
+think tires the eyes less.
+
+“Another method is by simply commanding the subject to close his eyes,
+while the operator makes passes over his head and hands without coming
+in contact with them. Suggestions may be made during these passes.
+
+“Fascination, as it is called, is one of the hypnotic states. The
+operator fixes his eyes on those of the subject. Holding his attention
+for a few minutes, the operator begins to walk backward; the subject
+follows. The operator raises the arm; the subject does likewise.
+Briefly, the subject will imitate any movement of the hypnotist, or
+will obey any suggestion made by word, look or gesture, suggested by
+the one with whom he is en rapport.
+
+“A very effective method of hypnotizing a person is by commanding him
+to sleep, and having some very soft music played upon the piano, or
+other stringed instrument. Firm pressure over the orbits, or over the
+finger-ends and root of the nail for some minutes may also induce the
+condition of hypnosis in very sensitive persons.
+
+“Also hypnosis can frequently be induced by giving the subject a glass
+of water, and telling him at the same time that it has been magnetized.
+The wearing of belts around the body, and rings round the fingers, will
+also, sometimes, induce a degree of hypnosis, if the subject has been
+told that they have previously been magnetized or are electric. The
+latter descriptions are the so-called physical methods described by Dr.
+Moll.”
+
+Dr. Herbert L. Flint, a stage hypnotizer, describes his methods as
+follows:
+
+“To induce hypnotism, I begin by friendly conversation to place my
+patient in a condition of absolute calmness and quiescence. I also try
+to win his confidence by appealing to his own volitional effort to aid
+me in obtaining the desired clad. I impress upon him that hypnosis in
+his condition is a benign agency, and far from subjugating his
+mentality, it becomes intensified to so great an extent as to act as a
+remedial agent.
+
+“Having assured myself that he is in a passive condition, I suggest to
+him, either with or without passes, that after looking intently at an
+object for a few moments, he will experience a feeling of lassitude. I
+steadily gaze at his eyes, and in a monotonous tone I continue to
+suggest the various stages of sleep. As for instance, I say, ‘Your
+breathing is heavy. Your whole body is relaxed.’ I raise his arm,
+holding it in a horizontal position for a second or two, and suggest to
+him that it is getting heavier and heavier. I let my hand go and his
+arm falls to his side.
+
+“‘Your eyes,’ I continue, ‘feel tired and sleepy. They are fast
+closing’ repeating in a soothing tone the words ‘sleepy, sleepy,
+sleep.’ Then in a self-assertive tone, I emphasize the suggestion by
+saying in an unhesitating and positive tone, ‘sleep.’
+
+“I do not, however, use this method with all patients. It is an error
+to state, as some specialists do, that from their formula there can be
+no deviation; because, as no two minds are constituted alike, so they
+cannot be affected alike. While one will yield by intense will exerted
+through my eyes, another may, by the same means, become fretful, timid,
+nervous, and more wakeful than he was before. The same rule applies to
+gesture, tones of the voice, and mesmeric passes. That which has a
+soothing and lulling effect on one, may have an opposite effect on
+another. There can be no unvarying rule applicable to all patients. The
+means must be left to the judgment of the operator, who by a long
+course of psychological training should be able to judge what measures
+are necessary to obtain control of his subject. Just as in drugs, one
+person may take a dose without injury that will kill another, so in
+hypnosis, one person can be put into a deep sleep by means that would
+be totally ineffectual in another, and even then the mental states
+differ in each individual—that which in one induces a gentle slumber
+may plunge his neighbor into a deep cataleptic state.”
+
+That hypnotism may be produced by purely physical or mechanical means
+seems to have been demonstrated by an incident which started Doctor
+Burq, a Frenchman, upon a scientific inquiry which lasted many years.
+“While practising as a young doctor, he had one day been obliged to go
+out and had deemed it advisable to lock up a patient in his absence.
+Just as he was leaving the house he heard the sound as of a body
+suddenly falling. He hurried back into the room and found his patient
+in a state of catalepsy. Monsieur Burq was at that time studying
+magnetism, and he at once sought for the cause of this phenomenon. He
+noticed that the door-handle was of copper. The next day he wrapped a
+glove around the handle, again shut the patient in, and this time
+nothing occurred. He interrogated the patient, but she could give him
+no explanation. He then tried the effect of copper on all the subjects
+at the Salpetriere and the Cochin hospitals, and found that a great
+number were affected by it.”
+
+At the Charity hospital in Paris, Doctor Luys used an apparatus moved
+by clockwork. Doctor Foveau, one of his pupils, thus describes it:
+
+“The hypnotic state, generally produced by the contemplation of a
+bright spot, a lamp, or the human eye, is in his case induced by a
+peculiar kind of mirror. The mirrors are made of pieces of wood cut
+prismatically in which fragments of mirrors are incrusted. They are
+generally double and placed crosswise, and by means of clockwork
+revolve automatically. They are the same as sportsmen use to attract
+larks, the rays of the sun being caught and reflected on every side and
+from all points of the horizon. If the little mirrors in each branch
+are placed in parallel lines in front of a patient, and the rotation is
+rapid, the optic organ soon becomes fatigued, and a calming soothing
+somnolence ensues. At first it is not a deep sleep, the eye-lids are
+scarcely heavy, the drowsiness slight and restorative. By degrees, by a
+species of training, the hypnotic sleep differs more and more from
+natural sleep, the individual abandons himself more and more
+completely, and falls into one of the regular phases of hypnotic sleep.
+Without a word, without a suggestion or any other action, Dr. Luys has
+made wonderful cures. Wecker, the occulist, has by the same means
+entirely cured spasms of the eye-lids.”
+
+Professor Delboeuf gives the following account of how the famous
+Liebault produced hypnotism at the hospital at Nancy. We would
+especially ask the reader to note what he says of Dr. Liebault’s manner
+and general bearing, for without doubt much of his success was due to
+his own personality. Says Professor Delboeuf:
+
+“His modus faciendi has something ingenious and simple about it,
+enhanced by a tone and air of profound conviction; and his voice has
+such fervor and warmth that he carries away his clients with him.
+
+“After having inquired of the patient what he is suffering from,
+without any further or closer examination, he places his hand on the
+patient’s forehead and, scarcely looking at him, says, ‘You are going
+to sleep.’ Then, almost immediately, he closes the eyelids, telling him
+that he is asleep. After that he raises the patient’s arm, and says,
+‘You cannot put your arm down.’ If he does, Dr. Liebault appears hardly
+to notice it. He then turns the patient’s arm around, confidently
+affirming that the movement cannot be stopped, and saying this he turns
+his own arms rapidly around, the patient remaining all the time with
+his eyes shut; then the doctor talks on without ceasing in a loud and
+commanding voice. The suggestions begin:
+
+“‘You are going to be cured; your digestion will be good, your sleep
+quiet, your cough will stop, your circulation will become free and
+regular; you are going to feel very strong and well, you will be able
+to walk about,’ etc., etc. He hardly ever varies the speech. Thus he
+fires away at every kind of disease at once, leaving it to the client
+to find out his own. No doubt he gives some special directions,
+according to the disease the patient is suffering from, but general
+instructions are the chief thing.
+
+“The same suggestions are repeated a great many times to the same
+person, and, strange to say, notwithstanding the inevitable monotony of
+the speeches, and the uniformity of both style and voice, the master’s
+tone is so ardent, so penetrating, so sympathetic, that I have never
+once listened to it without a feeling of intense admiration.”
+
+The Hindoos produce sleep simply by sitting on the ground and, fixing
+their eyes steadily on the subject, swaying the body in a sort of
+writhing motion above the hips. By continuing this steadily and in
+perfect silence for ten or fifteen minutes before a large audience,
+dozens can be put to sleep at one time. In all cases, freedom from
+noise or distractive incidents is essential to success in hypnotism,
+for concentration must be produced.
+
+Certain French operators maintain that hypnotism may be produced by
+pressure on certain hypnogenic points or regions of the body. Among
+these are the eye-balls, the crown of the head, the back of the neck
+and the upper bones of the spine between the shoulder glades. Some
+persons may be hypnotized by gently pressing on the skin at the base of
+the finger-nails, and at the root of the nose; also by gently
+scratching the neck over the great nerve center.
+
+Hypnotism is also produced by sudden noise, as if by a Chinese gong,
+etc.
+
+HOW TO WAKE A SUBJECT FROM HYPNOTIC SLEEP.
+
+This is comparatively easy in moot cases. Most persons will awake
+naturally at the end of a few minutes, or will fall into a natural
+sleep from which in an hour or two they will awake refreshed. Usually
+the operator simply says to the subject, “All right, wake up now,” and
+claps his hands or makes some other decided noise. In some cases it is
+sufficient to say, “You will wake up in five minutes”; or tell a
+subject to count twelve and when he gets to ten say, “Wake up.”
+
+Persons in the lethargic state are not susceptible to verbal
+suggestions, but may be awakened by lifting both eyelids.
+
+It is said that pressure on certain regions will wake the subject, just
+as pressure in certain other places will put the subject to sleep.
+Among these places for awakening are the ovarian regions.
+
+Some writers recommend the application of cold water to awaken
+subjects, but this is rarely necessary. In olden times a burning coal
+was brought near.
+
+If hypnotism was produced by passes, then wakening may be brought about
+by passes in the opposite direction, or with the back of the hand
+toward the subject.
+
+The only danger is likely to be found in hysterical persons. They will,
+if aroused, often fall off again into a helpless state, and continue to
+do so for some time to come. It is dangerous to hypnotize such
+subjects.
+
+Care should be taken to awaken the subject very thoroughly before
+leaving him, else headache, nausea, or the like may follow, with other
+unpleasant effects. In all cases subjects should be treated gently and
+with the utmost consideration, as if the subject and operator were the
+most intimate friends.
+
+It is better that the person who induces hypnotic sleep should awaken
+the subject. Others cannot do it so easily, though as we have said,
+subjects usually awaken themselves after a short time.
+
+Further description of the method of producing hypnotism need not be
+given; but it is proper to add that in addition to the fact that not
+more than one person out of three can be hypnotized at all, even by an
+experienced operator, to effect hypnotization except in a few cases
+requires a great deal of patience, both on the part of the operator and
+of the subject. It may require half a dozen or more trials before any
+effect at all can be produced, although in some cases the effect will
+come within a minute or two. After a person has been once hypnotized,
+hypnotization is much easier. The most startling results are to be
+obtained only after a long process of training on the part of the
+subject. Public hypnotic entertainments, and even those given at the
+hospitals in Paris, would be quite impossible if trained subjects were
+not at hand; and in the case of the public hypnotizer, the proper
+subjects are hired and placed in the audience for the express purpose
+of coming forward when called for. The success of such an entertainment
+could not otherwise be guaranteed. In many cases, also, this training
+of subjects makes them deceivers. They learn to imitate what they see,
+and since their living depends upon it, they must prove hypnotic
+subjects who can always be depended upon to do just what is wanted. We
+may add, however, that what they do is no more than an imitation of the
+real thing. There is no grotesque manifestation on the stage, even if
+it is a pure fake, which could not be matched by more startling facts
+taken from undoubted scientific experience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+AMUSING EXPERIMENTS.
+
+
+Hypnotizing on the Stage—“You Can’t Pull Your Hands Apart”—Post
+Hypnotic Suggestion—The News boy, the Hunter, and the Young Man with
+the Rag Doll—A Whip Becomes Hot Iron—Courting a Broomstick—The Side
+Show.
+
+
+Let us now describe some of the manifestations of hypnotism, to see
+just how it operates and how it exhibits itself. The following is a
+description of a public performance given by Dr. Herbert L. Flint, a
+very successful public operator. It is in the language of an
+eye-witness—a New York lawyer.
+
+In response to a call for volunteers, twenty young and middle-aged men
+came upon the stage. They evidently belonged to the great middle-class.
+The entertainment commenced by Dr. Flint passing around the group, who
+were seated on the stage in a semicircle facing the audience, and
+stroking each one’s head and forehead, repeating the phrases, “Close
+your eyes. Think of nothing but sleep. You are very tired. You are
+drowsy. You feel very sleepy.” As he did this, several of the
+volunteers closed their eyes at once, and one fell asleep immediately.
+One or two remained awake, and these did not give themselves up to the
+influence, but rather resisted it.
+
+When the doctor had completed his round and had manipulated all the
+volunteers, some of those influenced were nodding, some were sound
+asleep, while a few were wide awake and smiling at the rest. These
+latter were dismissed as unlikely subjects.
+
+When the stage had been cleared of all those who were not responsive,
+the doctor passed around, and, snapping his finger at each individual,
+awoke him. One of the subjects when questioned afterward as to what
+sensation he experienced at the snapping of the fingers, replied that
+it seemed to him as if something inside of his head responded, and with
+this sensation he regained self-consciousness. (This is to be doubted.
+As a rule, subjects in this stage of hypnotism do not feel any
+sensation that they can remember, and do not become self-conscious.)
+
+The class was now apparently wide awake, and did not differ in
+appearance from their ordinary state. The doctor then took each one and
+subjected him to a separate physical test, such as sealing the eyes,
+fastening the hands, stiffening the fingers, arms, and legs, producing
+partial catalepsy and causing stuttering and inability to speak. In
+those possessing strong imaginations, he was able to produce
+hallucinations, such as feeling mosquito bites, suffering from
+toothache, finding the pockets filled and the hands covered with
+molasses, changing identity, and many similar tests.
+
+The doctor now asked each one to clasp his hands in front of him, and
+when all had complied with the request, he repeated the phrase, “Think
+your hands so fast that you can’t pull them apart. They are fast. You
+cannot pull them apart. Try. You can’t.” The whole class made frantic
+efforts to unclasp their hands, but were unable to do so. The doctor’s
+explanation of this is, that what they were really doing was to force
+their hands closer together, thus obeying the counter suggestion. That
+they thought they were trying to unclasp their hands was evident from
+their endeavors.
+
+The moment he made them desist, by snapping his fingers, the spell was
+broken. It was most astonishing to see that as each one awoke, he
+seemed to be fully cognizant of the ridiculous position in which his
+comrades were placed, and to enjoy their confusion and ludicrous
+attitudes. The moment, however, he was commanded to do things equally
+absurd, he obeyed. While, therefore, the class appeared to be free
+agents, they are under hypnotic control.
+
+One young fellow, aged about eighteen, said that he was addicted to the
+cigarette habit. The suggestion was made to him that he would not be
+able to smoke a cigarette for twenty-four hours. After the
+entertainment he was asked to smoke, as was his usual habit. He was
+then away from any one who could influence him. He replied that the
+very idea was repugnant. However, he was induced to take a cigarette in
+his mouth, but it made him ill and he flung it away with every
+expression of disgust. *This is an instance of what is called
+post-hypnotic suggestion. Dr. Cocke tells of suggesting to a drinker
+whom he was trying to cure of the habit that for the next three days
+anything he took would make him vomit; the result followed as
+suggested.
+
+The same phenomena that was shown in unclasping the hands, was next
+exhibited in commanding the subjects to rotate them. They immediately
+began and twirled them faster and faster, in spite of their efforts to
+stop. One of the subjects said he thought of nothing but the strange
+action of his hands, and sometimes it puzzled him to know why they
+whirled.
+
+At this point Dr. Flint’s daughter took charge of the class. She
+pointed her finger at one of them, and the subject began to look
+steadily before him, at which the rest of the class were highly amused.
+Presently the subject’s head leaned forward, the pupils of his eyes
+dilated and assumed a peculiar glassy stare. He arose with a steady,
+gliding gait and walked up to the lady until his nose touched her hand.
+Then he stopped. Miss Flint led him to the front of the stage and left
+him standing in profound slumber. He stood there, stooping, eyes set,
+and vacant, fast asleep. In the meantime the act had caused great
+laughter among the rest of the class. One young fellow in particular,
+laughed so uproariously that tears coursed down his cheeks, and he took
+out his handkerchief to wipe his eyes. Just as he was returning it to
+his pocket, the lady suddenly pointed a finger at him. She was in the
+center of the stage, fully fifteen feet away from the subject, but the
+moment the gesture was made, his countenance fell, his mirth stopped,
+while that of his companions redoubled, and the change was so obvious
+that the audience shared in the laughter—but the subject neither saw
+nor heard. His eyes assumed the same expression that had been noticed
+in his companion’s. He, too, arose in the same attitude, as if his head
+were pulling the body along, and following the finger in the same way
+as his predecessor, was conducted to the front of the stage by the side
+of the first subject. This was repeated on half a dozen subjects, and
+the manifestations were the same in each case. Those selected were now
+drawn up in an irregular line in front of the stage, their eyes fixed
+on vacancy, their heads bent forward, perfectly motionless. Each was
+then given a suggestion. One was to be a newsboy, and sell papers.
+Another was given a broomstick and told to hunt game in the woods
+before him. Another was given a large rag doll and told that it was an
+infant, and that he must look among the audience and discover the
+father. He was informed that he could tell who the father was by the
+similarity and the color of the eyes.
+
+These suggestions were made in a loud tone, Miss Flint being no nearer
+one subject than another. The bare suggestion was given, as, “Now,
+think that you are a newsboy, and are selling papers,” or, “Now think
+that you are hunting and are going into the woods to shoot birds.”
+
+So the party was started at the same time into the audience. The one
+who was impersonating a newsboy went about crying his edition in a loud
+voice; while the hunter crawled along stealthily and carefully. The
+newsboy even adopted the well-worn device of asking those whom he
+solicited to buy to help him get rid of his stock. One man offered him
+a cent, when the price was two cents. The newsboy chaffed the would-be
+purchaser. He sarcastically asked him if he “didn’t want the earth.”
+
+The others did what they had been told to do in the same earnest,
+characteristic way.
+
+After this performance, the class was again seated in a semicircle, and
+Miss Flint selected one of them, and, taking him into the center of the
+stage, showed him a small riding whip. He looked at it indifferently
+enough. He was told it was a hot bar of iron, but he shook his head,
+still incredulous. The suggestion was repeated, and as the glazed look
+came into his eyes, the incredulous look died out. Every member of the
+class was following the suggestion made to the subject in hand. All of
+them had the same expression in their eyes. The doctor said that his
+daughter was hypnotizing the whole class through this one individual.
+
+As she spoke she lightly touched the subject with the end of the whip.
+The moment the subject felt the whip he jumped and shrieked as if it
+really were a hot iron. She touched each one of the class in
+succession, and every one manifested the utmost pain and fear. One
+subject sat down on the floor and cried in dire distress. Others, when
+touched, would tear off their clothing or roll up their sleeves. One
+young man was examined by a physician present just after the whip had
+been laid across his shoulders, and a long red mark was found, just
+such a one as would have been made by a real hot iron. The doctor said
+that, had the suggestion been continued, it would undoubtedly have
+raised a blister.
+
+One of the amusing experiments tried at a later time was that of a tall
+young man, diffident, pale and modest, being given a broom carefully
+wrapped in a sheet, and told that it was his sweetheart. He accepted
+the situation and sat down by the broom. He was a little sheepish at
+first, but eventually he grew bolder, and smiled upon her such a smile
+as Malvolio casts upon Olivia. The manner in which, little by little,
+he ventured upon a familiar footing, was exceedingly funny; but when,
+in a moment of confident response to his wooing, he clasped her round
+the waist and imprinted a chaste kiss upon the brushy part of the
+broom, disguised by the sheet, the house resounded with roars of
+laughter. The subject, however, was deaf to all of the noise. He was
+absorbed in his courtship, and he continued to hug the broom, and
+exhibit in his features that idiotic smile that one sees only upon the
+faces of lovers and bridegrooms. “All the world loves a lover,” as the
+saying is, and all the world loves to laugh at him.
+
+One of the subjects was told that the head of a man in the audience was
+on fire. He looked for a moment, and then dashed down the platform into
+the audience, and, seizing the man’s head, vigorously rubbed it. As
+this did not extinguish the flames, he took off his coat and put the
+fire out. In doing this, he set his coat on fire, when he trampled it
+under foot. Then he calmly resumed his garment and walked back to the
+stage.
+
+The “side-show” closed the evening’s entertainment. A young man was
+told to think of himself as managing a side-show at a circus. When his
+mind had absorbed this idea he was ordered to open his exhibition. He
+at once mounted a table, and, in the voice of the traditional side-show
+fakir, began to dilate upon the fat woman and the snakes, upon the wild
+man from Borneo, upon the learned pig, and all the other accessories of
+side-shows. He went over the usual characteristic “patter,” getting
+more and more in earnest, assuring his hearers that for the small sum
+of ten cents they could see more wonders than ever before had been
+crowded under one canvas tent. He harangued the crowd as they surged
+about the tent door. He pointed to a suppositious canvas picture. He
+“chaffed” the boys. He flattered the vanity of the young fellows with
+their girls, telling them that they could not afford, for the small sum
+of ten cents, to miss this great show. He made change for his patrons.
+He indulged in side remarks, such as “This is hot work.” He rolled up
+his sleeves and took off his collar and necktie, all of the time
+expatiating upon the merits of the freaks inside of his tent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+THE STAGES OF HYPNOTISM.
+
+
+Lethargy—Catalepsy—The Somnambulistic Stage—Fascination.
+
+
+We have just given some of the amusing experiments that may be
+performed with subjects in one of the minor stages of hypnotism. But
+there are other stages which give entirely different manifestations.
+For a scientific classification of these we are indebted to Professor
+Charcot, of the Salpetriere hospital in Paris, to whom, next to Mesmer
+and Braid, we are indebted for the present science of hypnotism. He
+recognized three distinct stages—lethargy, catalepsy and somnambulism.
+There is also a condition of extreme lethargy, a sort of trance state,
+that lasts for days and even weeks, and, indeed, has been known to last
+for years. There is also a lighter phase than somnambulism, that is
+called fascination. Some doctors, however, place it between catalepsy
+and somnambulism. Each of these stages is marked by quite distinct
+phenomena. We give them as described by a pupil of Dr. Charcot.
+
+LETHARGY.
+
+This is a state of absolute inert sleep. If the method of Braid is
+used, and a bright object is held quite near the eyes, and the eyes are
+fixed upon it, the subject squints, the eyes become moist and bright,
+the look fixed, and the pupils dilated. This is the cataleptic stage.
+If the object is left before the eyes, lethargy is produced. There are
+also many other ways of producing lethargy, as we have seen in the
+chapter “How to Hypnotize.”
+
+One of the marked characteristics of this stage of hypnotism is the
+tendency of the muscles to contract, under the influence of the
+slightest touch, friction, pressure or massage, or even that of a
+magnet placed at a distance. The contraction disappears only by the
+repetition of that identical means that called it into action. Dr.
+Courmelles gives the following illustration:
+
+“If the forearm is rubbed a little above the palm of the hand, this
+latter yields and bends at an acute angle. The subject may be suspended
+by the hand, and the body will be held up without relaxation, that is,
+without returning to the normal condition. To return to the normal
+state, it suffices to rub the antagonistic muscles, or, in ordinary
+terms, the part diametrically opposed to that which produced the
+phenomenon; in this case, the forearm a little above the hands. It is
+the same for any other part of the body.”
+
+The subject appears to be in a deep sleep, the eyes are either closed
+or half closed, and the face is without expression. The body appears to
+be in a state of complete collapse, the head is thrown back, and the
+arms and legs hang loose, dropping heavily down. In this stage
+insensibility is so complete that needles can be run into any part of
+the body without producing pain, and surgical operations may be
+performed without the slightest unpleasant effect.
+
+This stage lasts usually but a short time, and the patient, under
+ordinary conditions, will pass upward into the stage of catalepsy, in
+which he opens his eyes. If the hypnotism is spontaneous, that is, if
+it is due to a condition of the nervous organism which has produced it
+without any outside aid, we have the condition of prolonged trance, of
+which many cases have been reported. Until the discovery of hypnotism
+these strange trances were little understood, and people were even
+buried alive in them. A few instances reported by medical men will be
+interesting. There is one reported in 1889 by a noted French physician.
+Said he:
+
+“There is at this moment in the hospital at Mulhouse a most interesting
+case. A young girl twenty-two years of age has been asleep here for the
+last twelve days. Her complexion is fresh and rosy, her breathing quite
+normal, and her features unaltered.
+
+“No organ seems attacked; all the vital functions are performed as in
+the waking state. She is fed with milk, broth and wine, which is given
+her in a spoon. Her mouth even sometimes opens of itself at the contact
+of the spoon, and she swallows without the slightest difficulty. At
+other times the gullet remains inert.
+
+“The whole body is insensible. The forehead alone presents, under the
+action of touch or of pricks, some reflex phenomena. However, by a
+peculiarity, which is extremely interesting, she seems, by the intense
+horror she shows for ether, to retain a certain amount of consciousness
+and sensibility. If a drop of ether is put into her mouth her face
+contracts and assumes an expression of disgust. At the same moment her
+arms and legs are violently agitated, with the kind of impatient motion
+that a child displays when made to swallow some hated dose of medicine.
+
+“In the intellectual relations the brain is not absolutely obscure, for
+on her mother’s coming to see her the subject’s face became highly
+colored, and tears appeared on the tips of her eyelashes, without,
+however, in any other way disturbing her lethargy.
+
+“Nothing has yet been able to rouse her from this torpor, which will,
+no doubt, naturally disappear at a given moment. She will then return
+to conscious life as she quitted it. It is probable that she will not
+retain any recollection of her present condition, that all notion of
+time will fail her, and that she will fancy it is only the day
+following her usual nightly slumber, a slumber which, in this case, has
+been transformed into a lethargic sleep, without any rigidity of limbs
+or convulsions.
+
+“Physically, the sleeper is of a middle size, slender, strong and
+pretty, without distinctive characteristic. Mentally, she is lively,
+industrious, sometimes whimsical, and subject to slight nervous
+attacks.”
+
+There is a pretty well-authenticated report of a young girl who, on May
+30, 1883, after an intense fright, fell into a lethargic condition
+which lasted for four years. Her parents were poor and ignorant, but,
+as the fame of the case spread abroad, some physicians went to
+investigate it in March, 1887. Her sleep had never been interrupted. On
+raising the eyelids, the doctors found the eyes turned convulsively
+upward, but, blowing upon them, produced no reflex movement of the
+lids. Her jaws were closed tightly, and the attempt to open her mouth
+had broken off some of the teeth level with the gums. The muscles
+contracted at the least breath or touch, and the arms remained in
+position when uplifted. The contraction of the muscles is a sign of the
+lethargic state, but the arm, remaining in position, indicates the
+cataleptic state. The girl was kept alive by liquid nourishment poured
+into her mouth.
+
+There are on record a large number of cases of persons who have slept
+for several months.
+
+CATALEPSY.
+
+The next higher stage of hypnotism is that of catalepsy. Patients may
+be thrown into it directly, or patients in the lethargic state may be
+brought into it by lifting the eyelids. It seems that the light
+penetrating the eyes, and affecting the brain, awakens new powers, for
+the cataleptic state has phenomena quite peculiar to itself.
+
+Nearly all the means for producing hypnotism will, if carried to just
+the right degree, produce catalepsy. For instance, besides the fixing
+of the eye on a bright object, catalepsy may be produced by a sudden
+sound, as of a Chinese gong, a tom-tom or a whistle, the vibration of a
+tuning-fork, or thunder. If a solar spectrum is suddenly brought into a
+dark room it may produce catalepsy, which is also produced by looking
+at the sun, or a lime light, or an electric light.
+
+In this state the patient has become perfectly rigidly fixed in the
+position in which he happens to be when the effect is produced, whether
+sitting, standing, kneeling, or the like; and this face has an
+expression of fear. The arms or legs may be raised, but if left to
+themselves will not drop, as in lethargy. The eyes are wide open, but
+the look is fixed and impassive. The fixed position lasts only a few
+minutes, however, when the subject returns to a position of relaxation,
+or drops back into the lethargic state.
+
+If the muscles, nerves or tendons are rubbed or pressed, paralysis may
+be produced, which, however, is quickly removed by the use of
+electricity, when the patient awakes. By manipulating the muscles the
+most rigid contraction may be produced, until the entire body is in
+such a state of corpse-like rigidity that a most startling experiment
+is possible. The subject may be placed with his head upon the back of
+one chair and his heels on the back of another, and a heavy man may sit
+upon him without seemingly producing any effect, or even heavy rock may
+be broken on the subject’s body.
+
+Messieurs Binet and Fere, pupils of the Salpetriere school, describe
+the action of magnets on cataleptic subjects, as follows:
+
+“The patient is seated near a table, on which a magnet has been placed,
+the left elbow rests on the arm of the chair, the forearm and hand
+vertically upraised with thumb and index finger extended, while the
+other fingers remain half bent. On the right side the forearm and hand
+are stretched on the table, and the magnet is placed under a linen
+cloth at a distance of about two inches. After a couple of minutes the
+right index begins to tremble and rise up; on the left side the
+extended fingers bend down, and the hand remains limp for an instant.
+The right hand and forearm rise up and assume the primitive position of
+the left hand, which is now stretched out on the arm of the chair, with
+the waxen pliability that pertains to the cataleptic state.”
+
+An interesting experiment may be tried by throwing a patient into
+lethargy on one side and catalepsy on the other. To induce what is
+called hemi-lethargy and hemi-catalepsy is not difficult. First, the
+lethargic stage is induced, then one eyelid is raised, and that side
+alone becomes cataleptic, and may be operated on in various interesting
+ways. The arm on that side, for instance, will remain raised when
+lifted, while the arm on the other side will fall heavily.
+
+Still more interesting is the intellectual condition of the subject.
+Some great man has remarked that if he wished to know what a person was
+thinking of, he assumed the exact position and expression of that
+person, and soon he would begin to feel and think just as the other was
+thinking and feeling. Look a part and you will soon begin to feel it.
+
+In the cataleptic subject there is a close relation between the
+attitude the subject assumes and the intellectual manifestation. In the
+somnambulistic stage patients are manipulated by speaking to them; in
+the cataleptic stage they are equally under the will of the operator;
+but now he controls them by gesture. Says Dr. Courmelles, from his own
+observation: “The emotions in this stage are made at command, in the
+true acceptation of the word, for they are produced, not by orders
+verbally expressed, but by expressive movements. If the hands are
+opened and drawn close to the mouth, as when a kiss is wafted, the
+mouth smiles. If the arms are extended and half bent at the elbows, the
+countenance assumes an expression of astonishment. The slightest
+variation of movement is reflected in the emotions. If the fists are
+closed, the brow contracts and the face expresses anger. If a lively or
+sad tune is played, if amusing or depressing pictures are shown, the
+subject, like a faithful mirror, at once reflects these impressions. If
+a smile is produced it can be seen to diminish and disappear at the
+same time as the hand is moved away, and again to reappear and increase
+when it is once more brought near. Better still, a double expression
+can be imparted to the physiognomy, by approaching the left hand to the
+left side of the mouth, the left side of the physiognomy will smile,
+while at the same time, by closing the right hand, the right eyebrow
+will frown. The subject can be made to send kisses, or to turn his
+hands round each other indefinitely. If the hand is brought near the
+nose it will blow; if the arms are stretched out they will remain
+extended, while the head will be bowed with a marked expression of
+pain.”
+
+Heidenhain was able to take possession of the subject’s gaze and
+control him by sight, through producing mimicry. He looks fixedly at
+the patient till the patient is unable to take his eyes away. Then the
+patient will copy every movement he makes. If he rises and goes
+backward the patient will follow, and with his right hand he will
+imitate the movements of the operator’s left, as if he were a mirror.
+The attitudes of prayer, melancholy, pain, disdain, anger or fear, may
+be produced in this manner.
+
+The experiments of Donato, a stage hypnotizer, are thus described:
+“After throwing the subjects into catalepsy he causes soft music to be
+played, which produces a rapturous expression. If the sound is
+heightened or increased, the subjects seem to receive a shock and a
+feeling of disappointment. The artistic sense developed by hypnotism is
+disturbed; the faces express astonishment, stupefaction and pain. If
+the same soft melody be again resumed, the same expression of rapturous
+bliss reappears in the countenance. The faces become seraphic and
+celestial when the subjects are by nature handsome, and when the
+subjects are ordinary looking, even ugly, they are idealized as by a
+special kind of beauty.”
+
+The strange part of all this is, that on awaking, the patient has no
+recollection of what has taken place, and careful tests have shown that
+what appear to be violent emotions, such as in an ordinary state would
+produce a quickened pulse and heavy breathing, create no disturbance
+whatever in the cataleptic subject; only the outer mask is in motion.
+
+“Sometimes the subjects lean backward with all the grace of a perfect
+equilibrist, freeing themselves from the ordinary mechanical laws. The
+curvature will, indeed, at times be so complete that the head will
+touch the floor and the body describe a regular arc.
+
+“When a female subject assumes an attitude of devotion, clasps her
+hands, turns her eyes upward and lisps out a prayer, she presents an
+admirably artistic picture, and her features and expression seem worthy
+of being reproduced on canvas.”
+
+We thus see what a perfect automaton the human body may become. There
+appears, however, to be a sort of unconscious memory, for a familiar
+object will seem to suggest spontaneously its ordinary use. Thus, if a
+piece of soap is put into a cataleptic patient’s hands; he will move it
+around as though he thought he were washing them, and if there is any
+water near he will actually wash them. The sight of an umbrella makes
+him shiver as if he were in a storm. Handing such a person a pen will
+not make him write, but if a letter is dictated to him out loud he will
+write in an irregular hand. The subject may also be made to sing,
+scream or speak different languages with which he is entirely
+unfamiliar. This is, however, a verging toward the somnambulistic
+stage, for in deep catalepsy the patient does not speak or hear. The
+state is produced by placing the hands on the head, the forehead, or
+nape of the neck.
+
+THE SOMNAMBULISTIC STAGE.
+
+This is the stage or phase of hypnotism nearest the waking, and is the
+only one that can be produced in some subjects. Patients in the
+cataleptic state can be brought into the somnambulistic by rubbing the
+top of the head. To all appearances, the patient is fully awake, his
+eyes are open, and he answers when spoken to, but his voice does not
+have the same sound as when awake. Yet, in this state the patient is
+susceptible of all the hallucinations of insanity which may be induced
+at the verbal command of the operator.
+
+One of the most curious features of this stage of hypnotism is the
+effect on the memory. Says Monsieur Richet: “I send V——— to sleep. I
+recite some verses to her, and then I awake her. She remembers nothing.
+I again send her to sleep, and she remembers perfectly the verses I
+recited. I awake her, and she has again forgotten everything.”
+
+It appears, however, that if commanded to remember on awaking, a
+patient may remember.
+
+The active sense, and the memory as well, appears to be in an exalted
+state of activity during this phase of hypnotism. Says M. Richet: “M——
+-, who will sing the air of the second act of the Africaine in her
+sleep, is incapable of remembering a single note of it when awake.”
+Another patient, while under this hypnotic influence, could remember
+all he had eaten for several days past, but when awake could remember
+very little. Binet and Fere caused one of their subjects to remember
+the whole of his repasts for eight days past, though when awake he
+could remember nothing beyond two or three days. A patient of Dr.
+Charcot, who when she was two years old had seen Dr. Parrot in the
+children’s hospital, but had not seen him since, and when awake could
+not remember him, named him at once when he entered during her hypnotic
+sleep. M. Delboeuf tells of an experiment he tried, in which the
+patient did remember what had taken place during the hypnotic
+condition, when he suddenly awakened her in the midst of the
+hallucination; as, for instance, he told her the ashes from the cigar
+he was smoking had fallen on her handkerchief and had set it on fire,
+whereupon she at once rose and threw the handkerchief into the water.
+Then, suddenly awakened, she remembered the whole performance.
+
+In the somnambulistic stage the patient is no longer an automaton
+merely, but a real personality, “an individual with his own character,
+his likes and dislikes.” The tone of the voice of the operator seems to
+have quite as much effect as his words. If he speaks in a grave and
+solemn tone, for instance, even if what he utters is nonsense, the
+effect is that of a deeply tragic story.
+
+The will of another is not so easily implanted as has been claimed.
+While a patient will follow almost any suggestion that may be offered,
+he readily obeys only commands which are in keeping with his character.
+If he is commanded to do something he dislikes or which in the waking
+state would be very repugnant to him, he hesitates, does it very
+reluctantly, and in extreme cases refuses altogether, often going into
+hysterics. It was found at the Charity hospital that one patient
+absolutely refused to accept a cassock and become a priest. One of
+Monsieur Richet’s patients screamed with pain the moment an amputation
+was suggested, but almost immediately recognized that it was only a
+suggestion, and laughed in the midst of her tears. Probably, however,
+this patient was not completely hypnotized.
+
+Dr. Dumontpallier was able to produce a very curious phenomenon. He
+suggested to a female patient that with the right eye she could see a
+picture on a blank card. On awakening she could, indeed, see the
+picture with the right eye, but the left eye told her the card was
+blank. While she was in the somnambulistic state he told her in her
+right ear that the weather was very fine, and at the same time another
+person whispered in her left ear that it was raining. On the right side
+of her face she had a smile, while the left angle of her lip dropped as
+if she were depressed by the thought of the rain. Again, he describes a
+dance and gay party in one ear, and another person mimics the barking
+of a dog in the other. One side of her face in that case wears an
+amused expression, while the other shows signs of alarm.
+
+Dr. Charcot thus describes a curious experiment: “A portrait is
+suggested to a subject as existing on a blank card, which is then mixed
+with a dozen others; to all appearance they are similar cards. The
+subject, being awakened, is requested to look over the packet, and does
+so without knowing the reason of the request, but when he perceives the
+card on which the portrait was suggested, he at once recognizes the
+imaginary portrait. It is probable that some insignificant mark has,
+owing to his visual hyperacuity, fixed the image in the subject’s
+brain.”
+
+FASCINATION.
+
+Says a recent French writer: “Dr. Bremand, a naval doctor, has obtained
+in men supposed to be perfectly healthy a new condition, which he calls
+fascination. The inventor considers that this is hypnotism in its
+mildest form, which, after repeated experiments, might become
+catalepsy. The subject fascinated by Dr. Bremaud—fascination being
+induced by the contemplation of a bright spot—falls into a state of
+stupor. He follows the operator and servilely imitates his movements,
+gestures and words; he obeys suggestions, and a stimulation of the
+nerves induces contraction, but the cataleptic pliability does not
+exist.”
+
+A noted public hypnotizer in Paris some years ago produced fascination
+in the following manner: He would cause the subject to lean on his
+hands, thus fatiguing the muscles. The excitement produced by the
+concentrated gaze of a large audience also assisted in weakening the
+nervous resistance. At last the operator would suddenly call out: “Look
+at me!” The subject would look up and gaze steadily into the operator’s
+eyes, who would stare steadily back with round, glaring eyes, and in
+most cases subdue his victim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+How the Subject Feels Under Hypnotization.—Dr. Cooper’s
+Experience.—Effect of Music.—Dr. Alfred Marthieu’s Experiments.
+
+
+The sensations produced during a state of hypnosis are very
+interesting. As may be supposed, they differ greatly in different
+persons. One of the most interesting accounts ever given is that of Dr.
+James R. Cocke, a hypnotist himself, who submitted to being operated
+upon by a professional magnetizer. He was at that time a firm believer
+in the theory of personal magnetism (a delusion from which he afterward
+escaped).
+
+On the occasion which he describes, the operator commanded him to close
+his eyes and told him he could not open them, but he did open them at
+once. Again he told him to close the eyes, and at the same time he
+gently stroked his head and face and eyelids with his hand. Dr. Cocke
+fancied he felt a tingling sensation in his forehead and eyes, which he
+supposed came from the hand of the operator. (Afterward he came to
+believe that this sensation was purely imaginary on his part.)
+
+Then he says: “A sensation akin to fear came over me. The operator
+said: ‘You are going to sleep, you are getting sleepy. You cannot open
+your eyes.’ I was conscious that my heart was beating rapidly, and I
+felt a sensation of terror. He continued to tell me I was going to
+sleep, and could not open my eyes. He then made passes over my head,
+down over my hands and body, but did not touch me. He then said to me,
+‘You cannot open your eyes.’ The motor apparatus of my lids would not
+seemingly respond to my will, yet I was conscious that while one part
+of my mind wanted to open my eyes, another part did not want to, so I
+was in a paradoxical state. I believed that I could open my eyes, and
+yet could not. The feeling of not wishing to open my eyes was not based
+upon any desire to please the operator. I had no personal interest in
+him in any way, but, be it understood, I firmly believed in his power
+to control me. He continued to suggest to me that I was going to sleep,
+and the suggestion of terror previously mentioned continued to
+increase.”
+
+The next step was to put the doctor’s hand over his head, and tell him
+he could not put it down. Then he stroked the arm and said it was
+growing numb. He said: “You have no feeling in it, have you?” Dr. Cocke
+goes on: “I said ‘No,’ and I knew that I said ‘No,’ yet I knew that I
+had a feeling in it.” The operator went on, pricking the arm with a
+pin, and though Dr. Cocke felt the pain he said he did not feel it, and
+at the same time the sensation of terror increased. “I was not
+conscious of my body at all,” he says further on, “but I was painfully
+conscious of the two contradictory elements within me. I knew that my
+body existed, but could not prove it to myself. I knew that the
+statements made by the operator were in a measure untrue. I obeyed them
+voluntarily and involuntarily. This is the last remembrance that I have
+of that hypnotic experience.”
+
+After this, however, the operator caused the doctor to do a number of
+things which he learned of from his friends after the performance was
+over. “It seemed to me that the hypnotist commanded me to awake as soon
+as I dropped my arm,” and yet ten minutes of unconsciousness had
+passed.
+
+On a subsequent occasion Dr. Cocke, who was blind, was put into a deep
+hypnotic sleep by fixing his mind on the number 26 and holding up his
+hand. This time he experienced a still greater degree of terror, and
+incidentally learned that he could hypnotize himself. The matter of
+self-hypnotism we shall consider in another chapter.
+
+In this connection we find great interest in an article in the Medical
+News, July 28, 1894, by Dr. Alfred Warthin, of Ann Arbor, Mich., in
+which he describes the effects of music upon hypnotic subjects. While
+in Vienna he took occasion to observe closely the enthusiastic musical
+devotees as they sat in the audience at the performance of one of
+Wagner’s operas. He believed they were in a condition of self-induced
+hypnotism, in which their subjective faculties were so exalted as to
+supersede their objective perceptions. Music was no longer to them a
+succession of pleasing sounds, but the embodiment of a drama in which
+they became so wrapped up that they forgot all about the mechanical and
+external features of the music and lived completely in a fairy world of
+dream.
+
+This observation suggested to him an interesting series of experiments.
+His first subject was easily hypnotized, and of an emotional nature.
+Wagner’s “Ride of Walkure” was played from the piano score. The pulse
+of the subject became more rapid and at first of higher tension,
+increasing from a normal rate of 60 beats a minute to 120. Then, as the
+music progressed, the tension diminished. The respiration increased
+from 18 to 30 per minute. Great excitement in the subject was evident.
+His whole body was thrown into motion, his legs were drawn up, his arms
+tossed into the air, and a profuse sweat appeared. When the subject had
+been awakened, he said that he did not remember the music as music, but
+had an impression of intense, excitement, brought on by “riding
+furiously through the air.” The state of mind brought up before him in
+the most realistic and vivid manner possible the picture of the ride of
+Tam O’Shanter, which he had seen years before. The picture soon became
+real to him, and he found himself taking part in a wild chase, not as
+witch, devil, or Tam even; but in some way his consciousness was spread
+through every part of the scene, being of it, and yet playing the part
+of spectator, as is often the case in dreams.
+
+Dr. Warthin tried the same experiment again, this time on a young man
+who was not so emotional, and was hypnotized with much more difficulty.
+This subject did not pass into such a deep state of hypnotism, but the
+result was practically the same. The pulse rate rose from 70 to 120.
+The sensation remembered was that of riding furiously through the air.
+
+The experiment was repeated on other subjects, in all cases with the
+same result. Only one knew that the music was the “Ride of Walkure.”
+“To him it always expressed the pictured wild ride of the daughters of
+Wotan, the subject taking part in the ride.” It was noticeable in each
+case that the same music played to them in the waking state produced no
+special impression. Here is incontestable evidence that in the hypnotic
+state the perception of the special senses is enormously heightened.
+
+A slow movement was tried (the Valhalla motif). At first it seemed to
+produce the opposite effect, for the pulse was lowered. Later it rose
+to a rate double the normal, and the tension was diminished. The
+impression described by the subject afterward was a feeling of “lofty
+grandeur and calmness.” A mountain climbing experience of years before
+was recalled, and the subject seemed to contemplate a landscape of
+“lofty grandeur.” A different sort of music was played (the intense and
+ghastly scene in which Brunhilde appears to summon Sigmund to
+Valhalla). Immediately a marked change took place in the pulse. It
+became slow and irregular, and very small. The respiration decreased
+almost to gasping, the face grew pale, and a cold perspiration broke
+out.
+
+Readers who are especially interested in this subject will find
+descriptions of many other interesting experiments in the same article.
+
+Dr. Cocke describes a peculiar trick he played upon the sight of a
+subject. Says he: “I once hypnotized a man and made him read all of his
+a’s as w’s, his u’s as v’s, and his b’s as x’s. I added suggestion
+after suggestion so rapidly that it would have been impossible for him
+to have remembered simply what I said and call the letters as I
+directed. Stimulation was, in this case impossible, as I made him read
+fifteen or twenty pages, he calling the letters as suggested each time
+they occurred.”
+
+The extraordinary heightening of the sense perceptions has an important
+bearing on the question of spiritualism and clairvoyance. If the powers
+of the mind are so enormously increased, all that is required of a very
+sensitive and easily hypnotized person is to hypnotize him or herself,
+when he will be able to read thoughts and remember or perceive facts
+hidden to the ordinary perception. In this connection the reader is
+referred to the confession of Mrs. Piper, the famous medium of the
+American branch of the Psychical Research Society. The confession will
+be found printed in full at the close of this book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Self-Hypnotization.—How It may Be Done.—An Experience.—Accountable for
+Children’s Crusade.—Oriental Prophets Self-Hypnotized.
+
+
+If self-hypnotism is possible (and it is true that a person can
+deliberately hypnotize himself when he wishes to till he has become
+accustomed to it and is expert in it, so to speak), it does away at a
+stroke with the claims of all professional hypnotists and magnetic
+healers that they have any peculiar power in themselves which they
+exert over their fellows. One of these professionals gives an account
+in his book of what he calls “The Wonderful Lock Method.” He says that
+though he is locked up in a separate room he can make the psychic power
+work through the walls. All that he does is to put his subjects in the
+way of hypnotizing themselves. He shows his inconsistency when he
+states that under certain circumstances the hypnotizer is in danger of
+becoming hypnotized himself. In this he makes no claim that the subject
+is using any psychic power; but, of course, if the hypnotizer looks
+steadily into the eyes of his subject, and the subject looks into his
+eyes, the steady gaze on a bright object will produce hypnotism in one
+quite as readily as in the other.
+
+Hypnotism is an established scientific fact; but the claim that the
+hypnotizer has any mysterious psychic power is the invariable mark of
+the charlatan. Probably no scientific phenomenon was ever so grossly
+prostituted to base ends as that of hypnotism. Later we shall see some
+of the outrageous forms this charlatanism assumes, and how it extends
+to the professional subjects as well as to the professional operators,
+till those subjects even impose upon scientific men who ought to be
+proof against such deception. Moreover, the possibility of
+self-hypnotization, carefully concealed and called by another name,
+opens another great field of humbug and charlatanism, of which the
+advertising columns of the newspapers are constantly filled—namely,
+that of the clairvoyant and medium. We may conceive how such a
+profession might become perfectly legitimate and highly useful; but at
+present it seems as if any person who went into it, however honest he
+might be at the start, soon began to deceive himself as well as others,
+until he lost his power entirely to distinguish between fact and
+imagination.
+
+Before discussing the matter further, let us quote Dr. Cocke’s
+experiment in hypnotizing himself. It will be remembered that a
+professional hypnotizer or magnetizer had hypnotized him by telling him
+to fix his mind on the number twenty-six and holding up his hand. Says
+the doctor:
+
+“In my room that evening it occurred to me to try the same experiment.
+I did so. I kept the number twenty-six in my mind. In a few minutes I
+felt the sensation of terror, but in a different way. I was intensely
+cold. My heart seemed to stand still. I had ringing in my ears. My hair
+seemed to rise upon my scalp. I persisted in the effort, and the
+previously mentioned noise in my ears grew louder and louder. The roar
+became deafening. It crackled like a mighty fire. I was fearfully
+conscious of myself. Having read vivid accounts of dreams, visions,
+etc., it occurred to me that I would experience them. I felt in a vague
+way that there were beings all about me but could not hear their
+voices. I felt as though every muscle in my body was fixed and rigid.
+The roar in my ears grew louder still, and I heard, above the roar,
+reports which sounded like artillery and musketry. Then above the din
+of the noise a musical chord. I seemed to be absorbed in this chord. I
+knew nothing else. The world existed for me only in the tones of the
+mighty chord. Then I had a sensation as though I were expanding. The
+sound in my ears died away, and yet I was not conscious of silence.
+Then all consciousness was lost. The next thing I experienced was a
+sensation of intense cold, and of someone roughly shaking me. Then I
+heard the voice of my jolly landlord calling me by name.”
+
+The landlord had found the doctor “as white as a ghost and as limp as a
+rag,” and thought he was dead. He says it took him ten minutes to
+arouse the sleeper. During the time a physician had been summoned.
+
+As to the causes of this condition as produced Dr. Cocke says: “I
+firmly believed that something would happen when the attempt was made
+to hypnotize me. Secondly, I wished to be hypnotized. These, together
+with a vivid imagination and strained attention, brought on the states
+which occurred.”
+
+It is interesting to compare the effects of hypnotization with those of
+opium or other narcotic. Dr. Cocke asserts that there is a difference.
+His descriptions of dreams bear a wonderful likeness to De Quincey’s
+dreams, such as those described in “The English Mail-Coach,” “De
+Profundis,” and “The Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” all of
+which were presumably due to opium.
+
+The causes which Dr. Cocke thinks produced the hypnotic condition in
+his case, namely, belief, desire to be hypnotized, and strained
+attention, united with a vivid imagination, are causes which are often
+found in conjunction and produce effects which we may reasonably
+explain on the theory of self-hypnotization.
+
+For instance, the effects of an exciting religious revival are very
+like those produced by Mesmer’s operations in Paris. The subjects
+become hysterical, and are ready to believe anything or do anything. By
+prolonging the operation, a whole community becomes more or less
+hypnotized. In all such cases, however, unusual excitement is commonly
+followed by unusual lethargy. It is much like a wild spree of
+intoxication—in fact, it is a sort of intoxication.
+
+The same phenomena are probably accountable for many of the strange
+records of history. The wonderful cures at Lourdes (of which we have
+read in Zola’s novel of that name) are no doubt the effect of
+hypnotization by the priests. Some of the strange movements of whole
+communities during the Crusades are to be explained either on the
+theory of hypnotization or of contagion, and possibly these two things
+will turn out to be much the same in fact. On no other ground can we
+explain the so-called “Children’s Crusade,” in which over thirty
+thousand children from Germany, from all classes of the community,
+tried to cross the Alps in winter, and in their struggles were all lost
+or sold into slavery without even reaching the Holy Land.
+
+Again, hypnotism is accountable for many of the poet’s dreams. Gazing
+steadily at a bed of bright coals or a stream of running water will
+invariably throw a sensitive subject into a hypnotic sleep that will
+last sometimes for several hours. Dr. Cocke says that he has
+experimented in this direction with patients of his. Says he: “They
+have the ability to resist the state or to bring it at will. Many of
+them describe beautiful scenes from nature, or some mighty cathedral
+with its lofty dome, or the faces of imaginary beings, beautiful or
+demoniacal, according to the will and temper of the subject.”
+
+Perhaps the most wonderful example of self-hypnotism which we have in
+history is that of the mystic Swedenborg, who saw, such strange things
+in his visions, and at last came to believe in them as real.
+
+The same explanation may be given of the manifestations of Oriental
+prophets—for in the Orient hypnotism is much easier and more
+systematically developed than with us of the West. The performances of
+the dervishes, and also of the fakirs, who wound themselves and perform
+many wonderful feats which would be difficult for an ordinary person,
+are no doubt in part feats of hypnotism.
+
+While in a condition of auto-hypnotization a person may imagine that he
+is some other personality. Says Dr. Cocke: “A curious thing about those
+self-hypnotized subjects is that they carry out perfectly their own
+ideals of the personality with whom they believe themselves to be
+possessed. If their own ideals of the part they are playing are
+imperfect, their impersonations are ridiculous in the extreme. One man
+I remember believed himself to be controlled by the spirit of Charles
+Sumner. Being uneducated, he used the most wretched English, and his
+language was utterly devoid of sense. While, on the other hand, a very
+intelligent lady who believed herself to be controlled by the spirit of
+Charlotte Cushman personated the part very well.”
+
+Dr. Cooke says of himself: “I can hypnotize myself to such an extent
+that I will become wholly unconscious of events taking place around me,
+and a long interval of time, say from one-half to two hours, will be a
+complete blank. During this condition of auto-hypnotization I will obey
+suggestions made to me by another, talking rationally, and not knowing
+any event that has occurred after the condition has passed off.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Simulation.—Deception in Hypnotism Very Common.—Examples of Neuropathic
+Deceit.—Detecting Simulation.—Professional Subjects.—How Dr. Luys of
+the Charity Hospital at Paris Was Deceived.—Impossibility of Detecting
+Deception in All Cases.—Confessions of a Professional Hypnotic Subject.
+
+
+It has already been remarked that hypnotism and hysteria are conditions
+very nearly allied, and that hysterical neuropathic individuals make
+the best hypnotic subjects. Now persons of this character are in most
+cases morally as well as physically degenerate, and it is a curious
+fact that deception seems to be an inherent element in nearly all such
+characters. Expert doctors have been thoroughly deceived. And again,
+persons who have been trying to expose frauds have also been deceived
+by the positive statements of such persons that they were deceiving the
+doctors when they were not. A diseased vanity seems to operate in such
+cases and the subjects take any method which promises for the time
+being to bring them into prominence. Merely to attract attention is a
+mania with some people.
+
+There is also something about the study of hypnotism, and similar
+subjects in which delusions constitute half the existence, that seems
+to destroy the faculty for distinguishing between truth and delusion.
+Undoubtedly we must look on such manifestations as a species of
+insanity.
+
+There is also a point at which the unconscious deceiver, for the sake
+of gain, passes into the conscious deceiver. At the close of this
+chapter we will give some cases illustrating the fact that persons may
+learn by practice to do seemingly impossible things, such as holding
+themselves perfectly rigid (as in the cataleptic state) while their
+head rests on one chair and their heels on another, and a heavy person
+sits upon them.
+
+First, let us cite a few cases of what may be called neuropathic
+deceit—a kind of insanity which shows itself in deceiving. The
+newspapers record similar cases from time to time. The first two of the
+following are quoted by Dr. Courmelles from the French courts, etc.
+
+1. The Comtesse de W— accused her maid of having attempted to poison
+her. The case was a celebrated one, and the court-room was thronged
+with women who sympathized with the supposed victim. The maid was
+condemned to death; but a second trial was granted, at which it was
+conclusively proved that the Comtesse had herself bound herself on her
+bed, and had herself poured out the poison which was found still
+blackening her breast and lips.
+
+2. In 1886 a man called Ulysse broke into the shop of a second-hand
+dealer, facing his own house in Paris, and there began deliberately to
+take away the goods, just as if he were removing his own furniture.
+This he did without hurrying himself in any way, and transported the
+property to his own premises. Being caught in the very act of the
+theft, he seemed at first to be flurried and bewildered. When arrested
+and taken to the lock-up, he seemed to be in a state of abstraction;
+when spoken to he made no reply, seemed ready to fall asleep, and when
+brought before the examining magistrate actually fell asleep. Dr.
+Garnier, the medical man attached to the infirmary of the police
+establishment, had no doubt of his irresponsibility and he was released
+from custody.
+
+3. While engaged as police-court reporter for a Boston newspaper, the
+present writer saw a number of strange cases of the same kind. One was
+that of a quiet, refined, well educated lady, who was brought in for
+shop-lifting. Though her husband was well to do, and she did not sell
+or even use the things she took, she had made a regular business of
+stealing whenever she could. She had begun it about seven months before
+by taking a lace handkerchief, which she slipped under her shawl: Soon
+after she accomplished another theft. “I felt so encouraged,” she said,
+“that I got a large bag, which I fastened under my dress, and into this
+I slipped whatever I could take when the clerks were not looking. I do
+not know what made me do it. My success seemed to lead me on.”
+
+Other cases of kleptomania could easily be cited.
+
+“Simulation,” say Messieurs Binet and Fere, “which is already a
+stumbling block in the study of hysterical cases, becomes far more
+formidable in such studies as we are now occupied with. It is only when
+he has to deal with physical phenomena that the operator feels himself
+on firm ground.”
+
+Yet even here we can by no means feel certain. Physicians have invented
+various ingenious pieces of apparatus for testing the circulation and
+other physiological conditions; but even these things are not sure
+tests. The writer knows of the case of a man who has such control over
+his heart and lungs that he can actually throw himself into a profound
+sleep in which the breathing is so absolutely stopped for an hour that
+a mirror is not moistened in the least by the breath, nor can the
+pulses be felt. To all intents and purposes the man appears to be dead;
+but in due time he comes to life again, apparently no whit the worse
+for his experiment.
+
+If an ordinary person were asked to hold out his arms at full length
+for five minutes he would soon become exhausted, his breathing would
+quicken, his pulse-rate increase. It might be supposed that if these
+conditions did not follow the subject was in a hypnotic trance; but it
+is well known that persons may easily train themselves to hold out the
+arms for any length of time without increasing the respiration by one
+breath or raising the pulse rate at all. We all remember Montaigne’s
+famous illustration in which he said that if a woman began by carrying
+a calf about every day she would still be able to carry it when it
+became an ox.
+
+In the Paris hospitals, where the greater number of regular scientific
+experiments have been conducted, it is found that “trained subjects”
+are required for all of the more difficult demonstrations. That some of
+these famous scientists have been deceived, there is no doubt. They
+know it themselves. A case which will serve as an illustration is that
+of Dr. Luys, some of whose operations were “exposed” by Dr. Ernest
+Hart, an English student of hypnotism of a skeptical turn of mind. One
+of Dr. Luys’s pupils in a book he has published makes the following
+statement, which helps to explain the circumstances which we will give
+a little later. Says he:
+
+“We know that many hospital patients who are subjected to the higher or
+greater treatment of hypnotism are of very doubtful reputations; we
+know also the effects of a temperament which in them is peculiarly
+addicted to simulation, and which is exaggerated by the vicinity of
+maladies similar to their own. To judge of this, it is necessary to
+have seen them encourage each other in simulation, rehearsing among
+themselves, or even before the medical students of the establishment,
+the experiments to which they have been subjected; and going through
+their different contortions and attitudes to exercise themselves in
+them. And then, again, in the present day, has not the designation of
+an ‘hypnotical subject’ become almost a social position? To be fed, to
+be paid, admired, exhibited in public, run after, and all the rest of
+it—all this is enough to make the most impartial looker-on skeptical.
+But is it enough to enable us to produce an a priori negation?
+Certainly not; but it is sufficient to justify legitimate doubt. And
+when we come to moral phenomena, where we have to put faith in the
+subject, the difficulty becomes still greater. Supposing suggestion and
+hallucination to be granted, can they be demonstrated? Can we by
+plunging the subject in hypnotical sleep, feel sure of what he may
+affirm? That is impossible, for simulation and somnambulism are not
+reciprocally exclusive terms, and Monsieur Pitres has established the
+fact that a subject who sleeps may still simulate.” Messieurs Binet and
+Fere in their book speak of “the honest Hublier, whom his somnambulist
+Emelie cheated for four years consecutively.”
+
+Let us now quote Mr. Hart’s investigations.
+
+Dr. Luys is an often quoted authority on hypnotism in Paris, and is at
+the head of what is called the Charity Hospital school of hypnotical
+experiments. In 1892 he announced some startling results, in which some
+people still have faith (more or less). What he was supposed to
+accomplish was stated thus in the London Pall Mall Gazette, issue of
+December 2: “Dr. Luys then showed us how a similar artificial state of
+suffering could be created without suggestion—in fact, by the mere
+proximity of certain substances. A pinch of coal dust, for example,
+corked and sealed in a small phial and placed by the side of the neck
+of a hypnotized person, produces symptoms of suffocation by smoke; a
+tube of distilled water, similarly placed, provokes signs of incipient
+hydrophobia; while another very simple concoction put in contact with
+the flesh brings on symptoms of suffocation by drowning.”
+
+Signs of drunkenness were said to be caused by a small corked bottle of
+brandy, and the nature of a cat by a corked bottle of valerian.
+Patients also saw beautiful blue flames about the north pole of a
+magnet and distasteful red flames about the south pole; while by means
+of a magnet it was said that the symptoms of illness of a sick patient
+might be transferred to a well person also in the hypnotic state, but
+of course on awaking the well person at once threw off sickness that
+had been transferred, but the sick person was permanently relieved.
+These experiments are cited in some recent books on hypnotism,
+apparently with faith. The following counter experiments will therefore
+be read with interest.
+
+Dr. Hart gives a full account of his investigations in the Nineteenth
+Century. Dr. Luys gave Dr. Hart some demonstrations, which the latter
+describes as follows: “A tube containing ten drachms of cognac were
+placed at a certain point on the subject’s neck, which Dr. Luys said
+was the seat of the great nerve plexuses. The effect on Marguerite was
+very rapid and marked; she began to move her lips and to swallow; the
+expression of her face changed, and she asked, ‘What have you been
+giving me to drink? I am quite giddy.’ At first she had a stupid and
+troubled look; then she began to get gay. ‘I am ashamed of myself,’ she
+said; ‘I feel quite tipsy,’ and after passing through some of the
+phases of lively inebriety she began to fall from the chair, and was
+with difficulty prevented from sprawling on the floor. She was
+uncomfortable, and seemed on the point of vomiting, but this was
+stopped, and she was calmed.”
+
+Another patient gave all the signs of imagining himself transformed
+into a cat when a small corked bottle of valerian was placed on his
+neck.
+
+In the presence of a number of distinguished doctors in Paris, Dr. Hart
+tried a series of experiments in which by his conversation he gave the
+patient no clue to exactly what drug he was using, in order that if the
+patient was simulating he would not know what to simulate. Marguerite
+was the subject of several of these experiments, one of which is
+described as follows:
+
+“I took a tube which was supposed to contain alcohol, but which did
+contain cherry laurel water. Marguerite immediately began, to use the
+words of M. Sajous’s note, to smile agreeably and then to laugh; she
+became gay. ‘It makes me laugh,’ she said, and then, ‘I’m not tipsy, I
+want to sing,’ and so on through the whole performance of a not
+ungraceful giserie, which we stopped at that stage, for I was loth to
+have the degrading performance of drunkenness carried to the extreme I
+had seen her go through at the Charite. I now applied a tube of
+alcohol, asking the assistant, however, to give me valerian, which no
+doubt this profoundly hypnotized subject perfectly well heard, for she
+immediately went through the whole cat performance. She spat, she
+scratched, she mewed, she leapt about on all fours, and she was as
+thoroughly cat-like as had been Dr. Luys’s subjects.”
+
+Similar experiments as to the effect of magnets and electric currents
+were tried. A note taken by Dr. Sajous runs thus: “She found the north
+pole, notwithstanding there was no current, very pretty; she was as if
+she were fascinated by it; she caressed the blue flames, and showed
+every sign of delight. Then came the phenomena of attraction. She
+followed the magnet with delight across the room, as though fascinated
+by it; the bar was turned so as to present the other end or what would
+be called, in the language of La Charite, the south pole. Then she fell
+into an attitude, of repulsion and horror, with clenched fists, and as
+it approached her she fell backward into the arms of M. Cremiere, and
+was carried, still showing all the signs of terror and repulsion, back
+to her chair. The bar was again turned until what should have been the
+north pole was presented to her. She again resumed the same attitudes
+of attraction, and tears bedewed her cheeks. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘it is
+blue, the flame mounts,’ and she rose from her seat, following the
+magnet around the room. Similar but false phenomena were obtained in
+succession with all the different forms of magnet and non-magnet;
+Marguerite was never once right, but throughout her acting was perfect;
+she was utterly unable at any time really to distinguish between a
+plain bar of iron, demagnetized magnet or a horseshoe magnet carrying a
+full current and one from which the current was wholly cut off.”
+
+Five different patients were tested in the same way, through a long
+series of experiments, with the same results, a practical proof that
+Dr. Luys had been totally deceived and his new and wonderful
+discoveries amounted to nothing.
+
+There is, however, another possible explanation, namely, telepathy, in
+a real hypnotic condition. Even if Dr. Luys’s experiments were genuine
+this would be the rational explanation. They were a case of suggestion
+of some sort, without doubt.
+
+Nearly every book on hypnotism gives various rules for detecting
+simulation of the hypnotic state. One of the commonest tests is that of
+anaesthesia. A pin or pen-knife is stuck into a subject to see if he is
+insensible to pain; but as we shall see in a latter chapter, this
+insensibility also may be simulated, for by long training some persons
+learn to control their facial expressions perfectly. We have already
+seen that the pulse and respiration tests are not sufficient. Hypnotic
+persons often flush slightly in the face; but it is true that there are
+persons who can flush on any part of the body at will.
+
+Mr. Ernest Hart had an article in the Century Magazine on “The Eternal
+Gullible,” in which he gives the confessions of a professional hypnotic
+subject. This person, whom he calls L., he brought to his house, where
+some experiments were tried in the presence of a number of doctors,
+whose names are quoted. The quotation of a paragraph or two from Mr.
+Hart’s article will be of interest. Says he:
+
+“The ‘catalepsy business’ had more artistic merit. So rigid did L. make
+his muscles that he could be lifted in one piece like an Egyptian
+mummy. He lay with his head on the back of one chair, and his heels on
+another, and allowed a fairly heavy man to sit on his stomach; it
+seemed to me, however, that he was here within a ‘straw’ or two of the
+limit of his endurance. The ‘blister trick,’ spoken of by Truth as
+having deceived some medical men, was done by rapidly biting and
+sucking the skin of the wrist. L. did manage with some difficulty to
+raise a slight swelling, but the marks of the teeth were plainly
+visible.” (Possibly L. had made his skin so tough by repeated biting
+that he could no longer raise the blister!)
+
+“One point in L.’s exhibition which was undoubtedly genuine was his
+remarkable and stoical endurance of pain. He stood before us smiling
+and open-eyed while he ran long needles into the fleshy part of his
+arms and legs without flinching, and he allowed one of the gentlemen
+present to pinch his skin in different parts with strong crenated
+pincers in a manner which bruised it, and which to most people would
+have caused intense pain. L. allowed no sign of suffering or discomfort
+to appear; he did not set his teeth or wince; his pulse was not
+quickened, and the pupil of his eye did not dilate as physiologists
+tell us it does when pain passes a certain limit. It may be said that
+this merely shows that in L. the limit of endurance was beyond the
+normal standard; or, in other words, that his sensitiveness was less
+than that of the average man. At any rate his performance in this
+respect was so remarkable that some of the gentlemen present were fain
+to explain it by supposed ‘post-hypnotic suggestion,’ the theory
+apparently being that L. and his comrades hypnotized one another, and
+thus made themselves insensible to pain.
+
+“As surgeons have reason to know, persons vary widely in their
+sensitiveness to pain. I have seen a man chat quietly with bystanders
+while his carotid artery was being tied without the use of chloroform.
+During the Russo-Turkish war wounded Turks often astonished English
+doctors by undergoing the most formidable amputations with no other
+anaesthetic than a cigarette. Hysterical women will inflict very severe
+pain on themselves—merely for wantonness or in order to excite
+sympathy. The fakirs who allow themselves to be hung up by hooks
+beneath their shoulder-blades seem to think little of it and, as a
+matter of fact, I believe are not much inconvenienced by the process.”
+
+The fact is, the amateur can always be deceived, and there are no
+special tests that can be relied on. If a person is well accustomed to
+hypnotic manifestations, and also a good judge of human nature, and
+will keep constantly on guard, using every precaution to avoid
+deception, it is altogether likely that it can be entirely obviated.
+But one must use his good judgment in every possible way. In the case
+of fresh subjects, or persons well known, of course there is little
+possibility of deception. And the fact that deception exists does not
+in any way invalidate the truth of hypnotism as a scientific
+phenomenon. We cite it merely as one of the physiological peculiarities
+connected with the mental condition of which it is a manifestation. The
+fact that a tendency to deception exists is interesting in itself, and
+may have an influence upon our judgment of our fellow beings. There is,
+to be sure, a tendency on the part of scientific writers to find
+lunatics instead of criminals; but knowledge of the well demonstrated
+fact that many criminals are insane helps to make us charitable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Criminal Suggestion.—Laboratory Crimes.—Dr. Cocke’s Experiments Showing
+Criminal Suggestion Is not Possible.—Dr. William James’ Theory.—A Bad
+Man Cannot Be Made Good, Why Expect to Make a Good Man Bad?
+
+
+One of the most interesting phases of hypnotism is that of
+post-hypnotic suggestion, to which reference has already been made. It
+is true that a suggestion made during the hypnotic condition as to what
+a person will do after coming out of the hypnotic sleep may be carried
+out. A certain professional hypnotizer claims that once he has
+hypnotized a person he can keep that person forever after under his
+influence by means of post-hypnotic suggestion. He says to him while in
+the hypnotic sleep: “Whenever I look at you, or point at you, you will
+fall asleep. No one can hypnotize you but me. Whenever I try to
+hypnotize you, you will fall asleep.” He says further: “Suggest to a
+subject while he is sound asleep that in eight weeks he will mail you a
+letter with a blank piece of note paper inside, and during the
+intervening period you may yourself forget the occurrence, but in
+exactly eight weeks he will carry out the suggestion. Suggestions of
+this nature are always carried out, especially when the suggestion is
+to take effect on some certain day or date named. Suggest to a subject
+that in ninety days from a given date he will come to your house with
+his coat on inside out, and he will most certainly do so.”
+
+The same writer also definitely claims that he can hypnotize people
+against their wills. If this were true, what a terrible power would a
+shrewd, evil-minded criminal have to compel the execution of any of his
+plans! We hope to show that it is not true; but we must admit that many
+scientific men have tried experiments which they believe demonstrate
+beyond a doubt that criminal use can be and is made of hypnotic
+influence. If it were possible to make a person follow out any line of
+conduct while actually under hypnotic influence it would be bad enough;
+but the use of posthypnotic suggestion opens a yet more far-reaching
+and dangerous avenue.
+
+Among the most definite claims of the evil deeds that may be compelled
+during hypnotic sleep is that of Dr. Luys, whom we have already seen as
+being himself deceived by professional hypnotic subjects. Says he: “You
+cannot only oblige this defenseless being, who is incapable of opposing
+the slightest resistance, to give from hand to hand anything you may
+choose, but you can also make him sign a promise, draw up a bill of
+exchange, or any other kind of agreement. You may make him write an
+holographic will (which according to French law would be valid), which
+he will hand over to you, and of which he will never know the
+existence. He is ready to fulfill the minutest legal formalities, and
+will do so with a calm, serene and natural manner calculated to deceive
+the most expert law officers. These somnambulists will not hesitate
+either, you may be sure, to make a denunciation, or to bear false
+witness; they are, I repeat, the passive instruments of your will. For
+instance, take E. She will at my bidding write out and sign a donation
+of forty pounds in my favor. In a criminal point of view the subject
+under certain suggestions will make false denunciations, accuse this or
+that person, and maintain with the greatest assurance that he has
+assisted at an imaginary crime. I will recall to your mind those scenes
+of fictitious assassination, which have exhibited before you. I was
+careful to place in the subject’s hands a piece of paper instead of a
+dagger or a revolver; but it is evident, that if they had held
+veritable murderous instruments, the scene might have had a tragic
+ending.”
+
+Many experiments along this line have been tried, such as suggesting
+the theft of a watch or a spoon, which afterward was actually carried
+out.
+
+It may be said at once that “these laboratory crimes” are in most cases
+successful: A person who has nothing will give away any amount if told
+to do so; but quite different is the case of a wealthy merchant who
+really has money to sign away.
+
+Dr. Cocke describes one or two experiments of his own which have an
+important bearing on the question of criminal suggestion. Says he: “A
+girl who was hypnotized deeply was given a glass of water and was told
+that it was a lighted lamp. A broomstick was placed across the room and
+she was told that it was a man who intended to injure her. I suggested
+to her that she throw the glass of water (she supposing it was a
+lighted lamp) at the broomstick, her enemy, and she immediately threw
+it with much violence. Then a man was placed across the room, and she
+was given instead of a glass of water a lighted lamp. I told her that
+the lamp was a glass of water, and that the man across the room was her
+brother. It was suggested to her that his clothing was on fire and she
+was commanded to extinguish the fire by throwing the lighted lamp at
+the individual, she having been told, as was previously mentioned, that
+it was a glass of water. Without her knowledge a person was placed
+behind her for the purpose of quickly checking her movements, if
+desired. I then commanded her to throw the lamp at the man. She raised
+the lamp, hesitated, wavered, and then became very hysterical, laughing
+and crying alternately. This condition was so profound that she came
+very near dropping the lamp. Immediately after she was quieted I made a
+number of tests to prove that she was deeply hypnotized. Standing in
+front of her I gave her a piece of card-board, telling her that it was
+a dagger, and commanded her to stab me. She immediately struck at me
+with the piece of card-board. I then gave her an open pocketknife and
+commanded her to strike at me with it. Again she raised it to execute
+my command, again hesitated, and had another hysterical attack. I have
+tried similar experiments with thirty or forty people with similar
+results. Some of them would have injured themselves severely, I am
+convinced, at command, but to what extent I of course cannot say. That
+they could have been induced to harm others, or to set fire to houses,
+etc., I do not believe. I say this after very careful reading and a
+large amount of experimentation.”
+
+Dr. Cocke also declares his belief that no person can be hypnotized
+against his will by a person who is repugnant to him.
+
+The facts in the case are probably those that might be indicated by a
+common-sense consideration of the conditions. If a person is
+weak-minded and susceptible to temptation, to theft, for instance, no
+doubt a familiar acquaintance of a similar character might hypnotize
+that person and cause him to commit the crime to which his moral nature
+is by no means averse. If, on the other hand, the personality of the
+hypnotizer and the crime itself are repugnant to the hypnotic subject,
+he will absolutely refuse to do as he is bidden, even while in the
+deepest hypnotic sleep. On this point nearly all authorities agree.
+
+Again, there is absolutely no well authenticated case of crime
+committed by a person under hypnotic influence. There have been several
+cases reported, and one woman in Paris who aided in a murder was
+released on her plea of irresponsibility because she had been
+hypnotized. In none of these cases, however, was there any really
+satisfactory evidence that hypnotism existed. In all the cases reported
+there seemed to be no doubt of the weak character and predisposition to
+crime. In another class of cases, namely those of criminal assault upon
+girls and women, the only evidence ever adduced that the injured person
+was hypnotized was the statement of that person, which cannot really be
+called evidence at all.
+
+The fact is, a weak character can be tempted and brought under virtual
+control much more easily by ordinary means than by hypnotism. The man
+who “overpersuades” a business man to endorse a note uses no hypnotic
+influence. He is merely making a clever play upon the man’s vanity,
+egotism, or good nature.
+
+A profound study of the hypnotic state, such as has been made by Prof.
+William James, of Harvard College, the great authority on psychical
+phenomena and president of the Psychic Research Society, leads to the
+conviction that in the hypnotic sleep the will is only in abeyance, as
+it is in natural slumber or in sleepwalking, and any unusual or
+especially exciting occurrence, especially anything that runs against
+the grain of the nature, reawakens that will, and it soon becomes as
+active as ever. This is ten times more true in the matter of
+post-hypnotic suggestion, which is very much weaker than suggestion
+that takes effect during the actual hypnotic sleep. We shall see,
+furthermore, that while acting under a delusion at the suggestion of
+the operator, the patient is really conscious all the time of the real
+facts in the case—indeed, much more keenly so, oftentimes, than the
+operator himself. For instance, if a line is drawn on a sheet of paper
+and the subject is told there is no line, he will maintain there is no
+line; but he has to see it in order to ignore it. Moreover, persons
+trained to obey, instinctively do obey even in their waking state. It
+requires a special faculty to resist obedience, even during our
+ordinary waking condition. Says a recent writer: “It is certain that we
+are naturally inclined to obey, conflicts and resistance are the
+characteristics of some rare individuals; but between admitting this
+and saying that we are doomed to obey—even the least of us—lies a
+gulf.” The same writer says further: “Hypnotic suggestion is an order
+given for a few seconds, at most a few minutes, to an individual in a
+state of induced sleep. The suggestion may be repeated; but it is
+absolutely powerless to transform a criminal into an honest man, or
+vice versa.” Here is an excellent argument. If it is possible to make
+criminals it should be quite as easy to make honest men. It is true
+that the weak are sometimes helped for good; but there is no case on
+record in which a person who really wished to be bad was ever made
+good; and the history of hypnotism is full of attempts in that
+direction. A good illustration is an experiment tried by Colonel de
+Rochas:
+
+“An excellent subject * * * had been left alone for a few minutes in an
+apartment, and had stolen a valuable article. After he had left, the
+theft was discovered. A few days after it was suggested to the subject,
+while asleep, that he should restore the stolen object; the command was
+energetically and imperatively reiterated, but in vain. The theft had
+been committed by the subject, who had sold the article to an old
+curiosity dealer, as it was eventually found on information received
+from a third party. Yet this subject would execute all the imaginary
+crimes he was ordered.”
+
+As to the value of the so-called “laboratory crimes,” the statement of
+Dr. Courmelles is of interest: “I have heard a subject say,” he states,
+“‘If I were ordered to throw myself out of the window I should do it,
+so certain am I either that there would be somebody under the window to
+catch me or that I should be stopped in time. The experimentalist’s own
+interests and the consequences of such an act are a sure guarantee.’”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Dangers in Being Hypnotized.—Condemnation of Public Performances.—A.
+Common Sense View.—Evidence Furnished by Lafontaine.—By Dr.
+Courmelles.—By. Dr. Hart.—By Dr. Cocke.—No Danger in Hypnotism if
+Rightly Used by Physicians or Scientists.
+
+
+Having considered the dangers to society through criminal hypnotic
+suggestion, let us now consider what dangers there may be to the
+individual who is hypnotized.
+
+Before citing evidence, let us consider the subject from a rational
+point of view. Several things have already been established. We know
+that hypnotism is akin to hysteria and other forms of insanity—it is,
+in short, a kind of experimental insanity. Really good hypnotic
+subjects have not a perfect mental balance. We have also seen that
+repetition of the process increases the susceptibility, and in some
+cases persons frequently hypnotized are thrown into the hypnotic state
+by very slight physical agencies, such as looking at a bright doorknob.
+Furthermore, we know that the hypnotic patient is in a very sensitive
+condition, easily impressed. Moreover, it is well known that exertions
+required of hypnotic subjects are nervously very exhausting, so much so
+that headache frequently follows.
+
+From these facts any reasonable person may make a few clear deductions.
+First, repeated strain of excitement in hypnotic seances will wear out
+the constitution just as certainly as repeated strain of excitement in
+social life, or the like, which, as we know, frequently produces
+nervous exhaustion. Second, it is always dangerous to submit oneself to
+the influence of an inferior or untrustworthy person. This is just as
+true in hypnotism as it is in the moral realm. Bad companions corrupt.
+And since the hypnotic subject is in a condition especially
+susceptible, a little association of this kind, a little submission to
+the inferior or immoral, will produce correspondingly more detrimental
+consequences. Third, since hypnotism is an abnormal condition, just as
+drunkenness is, one should not allow a public hypnotizer to experiment
+upon one and make one do ridiculous things merely for amusement, any
+more than one would allow a really insane person to be exhibited for
+money; or than one would allow himself to be made drunk, merely that by
+his absurd antics he might amuse somebody. It takes little reflection
+to convince any one that hypnotism for amusement, either on the public
+stage or in the home, is highly obnoxious, even if it is not highly
+dangerous. If the hypnotizer is an honest man, and a man of character,
+little injury may follow. But we can never know that, and the risk of
+getting into bad hands should prevent every one from submitting to
+influence at all. The fact is, however, that we should strongly doubt
+the good character of any one who hypnotizes for amusement, regarding
+him in the same light as we would one who intoxicated people on the
+stage for amusement, or gave them chloroform, or went about with a
+troup of insane people that he might exhibit their idiosyncrasies.
+Honest, right-minded people do not do those things.
+
+At the same time, there is nothing wiser that a man can do than to
+submit himself fully to a stronger and wiser nature than his own. A
+physician in whom you have confidence may do a thousand times more for
+you by hypnotism than by the use of drugs. It is a safe rule to place
+hypnotism in exactly the same category as drugs. Rightly used, drugs
+are invaluable; wrongly used, they become the instruments of the
+murderer. At all times should they be used with great caution. The same
+is true of hypnotism.
+
+Now let us cite some evidence. Lafontaine, a professional hypnotist,
+gives some interesting facts. He says that public hypnotic
+entertainments usually induce a great many of the audience to become
+amateur hypnotists, and these experiments may cause suffocation. Fear
+often results in congestion, or a rush of blood to the brain. “If the
+digestion is not completed, more especially if the repast has been more
+abundant than usual, congestion may be produced and death be
+instantaneous. The most violent convulsions may result from too
+complete magnetization of the brain. A convulsive movement may be so
+powerful that the body will suddenly describe a circle, the head
+touching the heels and seem to adhere to them. In this latter case
+there is torpor without sleep. Sometimes it has been impossible to
+awake the subject.”
+
+A waiter at Nantes, who was magnetized by a commercial traveler,
+remained for two days in a state of lethargy, and for three hours Dr.
+Foure and numerous spectators were able to verify that “the extremities
+were icy cold, the pulse no longer throbbed, the heart had no
+pulsations, respiration had ceased, and there was not sufficient breath
+to dim a glass held before the mouth. Moreover, the patient was stiff,
+his eyes were dull and glassy.” Nevertheless, Lafontaine was able to
+recall this man to life.
+
+Dr. Courmelles says: “Paralysis of one or more members, or of the
+tongue, may follow the awakening. These are the effects of the
+contractions of the internal muscles, due often to almost imperceptible
+touches. The diaphragm—and therefore the respiration—may be stopped in
+the same manner. Catalepsy and more especially lethargy, produce these
+phenomena.”
+
+There are on record a number of cases of idiocy, madness, and epilepsy
+caused by the unskillful provoking of hypnotic sleep. One case is
+sufficiently interesting, for it is almost exactly similar to a case
+that occurred at one of the American colleges. The subject was a young
+professor at a boys’ school. “One evening he was present at some public
+experiments that were being performed in a tavern; he was in no way
+upset at the sight, but the next day one of his pupils, looking at him
+fixedly, sent him to sleep. The boys soon got into the habit of amusing
+themselves by sending him to sleep, and the unhappy professor had to
+leave the school, and place himself under the care of a doctor.”
+
+Dr. Ernest Hart gives an experience of his own which carries with it
+its own warning. Says he:
+
+“Staying at the well known country house in Kent of a distinguished
+London banker, formerly member of Parliament for Greenwich, I had been
+called upon to set to sleep, and to arrest a continuous barking cough
+from which a young lady who was staying in the house was suffering, and
+who, consequently, was a torment to herself and her friends. I thought
+this a good opportunity for a control experiment, and I sat her down in
+front of a lighted candle which I assured her that I had previously
+mesmerized. Presently her cough ceased and she fell into a profound
+sleep, which lasted until twelve o’clock the next day. When I returned
+from shooting, I was informed that she was still asleep and could not
+be awoke, and I had great difficulty in awaking her. That night there
+was a large dinner party, and, unluckily, I sat opposite to her.
+Presently she again became drowsy, and had to be led from the table,
+alleging, to my confusion, that I was again mesmerizing her. So
+susceptible did she become to my supposed mesmeric influence, which I
+vainly assured her, as was the case, that I was very far from
+exercising or attempting to exercise, that it was found expedient to
+take her up to London. I was out riding in the afternoon that she left,
+and as we passed the railway station, my host, who was riding with me,
+suggested that, as his friends were just leaving by that train, he
+would like to alight and take leave of them. I dismounted with him and
+went on to the platform, and avoided any leave-taking; but
+unfortunately in walking up and down it seems that I twice passed the
+window of the young lady’s carriage. She was again self-mesmerized, and
+fell into a sleep which lasted throughout the journey, and recurred at
+intervals for some days afterward.”
+
+In commenting on this, Dr. Hart notes that in reality mesmerism is
+self-produced, and the will of the operator, even when exercised
+directly against it, has no effect if the subject believes that the
+will is being operated in favor of it. Says he: “So long as the person
+operated on believed that my will was that she should sleep, sleep
+followed. The most energetic willing in my internal consciousness that
+there should be no sleep, failed to prevent it, where the usual
+physical methods of hypnotization, stillness, repose, a fixed gaze, or
+the verbal expression of an order to sleep, were employed.”
+
+The dangers of hypnotism have been recognized by the law of every
+civilized country except the United States, where alone public
+performances are permitted.
+
+Dr. Cocke says: “I have occasionally seen subjects who complained of
+headache, vertigo, nausea, and other similar symptoms after having been
+hypnotized, but these conditions were at a future hypnotic sitting
+easily remedied by suggestion.” Speaking of the use of hypnotism by
+doctors under conditions of reasonable care, Dr. Cocke says further:
+“There is one contraindication greater than all the rest. It applies
+more to the physician than to the patient, more to the masses than to
+any single individual. It is not confined to hypnotism alone; it has
+blocked the wheels of human progress through the ages which have gone.
+It is undue enthusiasm. It is the danger that certain individuals will
+become so enamored with its charms that other equally valuable means of
+cure will be ignored. Mental therapeutics has come to stay. It is yet
+in its infancy and will grow, but, if it were possible to kill it, it
+would be strangled by the fanaticism and prejudice of its devotees. The
+whole field is fascinating and alluring. It promises so much that it is
+in danger of being missed by the ignorant to such an extent that great
+harm may result. This is true, not only of mental therapeutics and
+hypnotism, but of every other blessing we possess. Hypnotism has
+nothing to fear from the senseless skepticism and contempt of those who
+have no knowledge of the subject.” He adds pertinently enough: “While
+hypnotism can be used in a greater or less degree by every one, it can
+only be used intelligently by those who understand, not only hypnotism
+itself, but disease as well.”
+
+Dr. Cocke is a firm believer that the right use of hypnotism by
+intelligent persons does not weaken the will. Says he: “I do not
+believe there is any danger whatever in this. I have no evidence (and I
+have studied a large number of hypnotized subjects) that hypnotism will
+render a subject less capable of exercising his will when he is
+relieved from the hypnotic trance. I do not believe that it increases
+in any way his susceptibility to ordinary suggestion.”
+
+However, in regard to the dangers of public performances by
+professional hypnotizers, Dr. Cocke is equally positive. Says he:
+
+“The dangers of public exhibitions, made ludicrous as they are by the
+operators, should be condemned by all intelligent men and women, not
+from the danger of hypnotism itself so much as from the liability of
+the performers to disturb the mental poise of that large mass of
+ill-balanced individuals which makes up no inconsiderable part of
+society.” In conclusion he says: “Patients have been injured by the
+misuse of hypnotism. * * * This is true of every remedial agent ever
+employed for the relief of man. Every article we eat, if wrongly
+prepared, if stale, or if too much is taken, will be harmful. Every
+act, every duty of our lives, may, if overdone, become an injury.
+
+“Then, for the sake of clearness, let me state in closing that
+hypnotism is dangerous only when it is misused, or when it is applied
+to that large class of persons who are inherently unsound; especially
+if that mysterious thing we call credulity predominates to a very great
+extent over the reason and over other faculties of the mind.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Hypnotism in Medicine.—Anesthesia.—Restoring the Use of
+Muscles.—Hallucination.—Bad Habits.
+
+
+Anaesthesia—It is well known that hypnotism may be used to render
+subjects insensible to pain. Thus numerous startling experiments are
+performed in public, such as running hatpins through the cheeks or
+arms, sewing the tongue to the ear, etc. The curious part of it is that
+the insensibility may be confined to one spot only. Even persons who
+are not wholly under hypnotic influence may have an arm or a leg, or
+any smaller part rendered insensible by suggestion, so that no pain
+will be felt. This has suggested the use of hypnotism in surgery in the
+place of chloroform, ether, etc.
+
+About the year 1860 some of the medical profession hoped that hypnotism
+might come into general use for producing insensibility during surgical
+operations. Dr. Guerineau in Paris reported the following successful
+operation: The thigh of a patient was amputated. “After the operation,”
+says the doctor, “I spoke to the patient and asked him how he felt. He
+replied that he felt as if he were in heaven, and he seized hold of my
+hand and kissed it. Turning to a medical student, he added: ‘I was
+aware of all that was being done to me, and the proof is that I knew my
+thigh was cut off at the moment when you asked me if I felt any pain.’”
+
+The writer who records this case continues: “This, however, was but a
+transitory stage. It was soon recognized that a considerable time and a
+good deal of preparation were necessary to induce the patients to
+sleep, and medical men had recourse to a more rapid and certain method;
+that is, chloroform. Thus the year 1860 saw the rise and fall of
+Braidism as a means of surgical anaesthesia.”
+
+One of the most detailed cases of successful use of hypnotism as an
+anaesthetic was presented to the Hypnotic Congress which met in 1889,
+by Dr. Fort, professor of anatomy:
+
+“On the 21st of October, 1887, a young Italian tradesman, aged twenty,
+Jean M—. came to me and asked me to take off a wen he had on his
+forehead, a little above the right eyebrow. The tumor was about the
+size of a walnut.
+
+“I was reluctant to make use of chloroform, although the patient wished
+it, and I tried a short hypnotic experiment. Finding that my patient
+was easily hypnotizable, I promised to extract the tumor in a painless
+manner and without the use of chloroform.
+
+“The next day I placed him in a chair and induced sleep, by a fixed
+gaze, in less than a minute. Two Italian physicians, Drs. Triani and
+Colombo who were present during the operation, declared that the
+subject lost all sensibility and that his muscles retained all the
+different positions in which they were put exactly as in the cataleptic
+state. The patient saw nothing, felt nothing, and heard nothing, his
+brain remaining in communication only with me.
+
+“As soon as we had ascertained that the patient was completely under
+the influence of the hypnotic slumber, I said to him: ‘You will sleep
+for a quarter of an hour,’ knowing that the operation would not last
+longer than that; and he remained seated and perfectly motionless.
+
+“I made a transversal incision two and a half inches long and removed
+the tumor, which I took out whole. I then pinched the blood vessels
+with a pair of Dr. Pean’s hemostatic pincers, washed the wound and
+applied a dressing, without making a single ligature. The patient was
+still sleeping. To maintain the dressing in proper position, I fastened
+a bandage around his head. While going through the operation I said to
+the patient, ‘Lower your head, raise your head, turn to the right, to
+the left,’ etc., and he obeyed like an automaton. When everything was
+finished, I said to him, ‘Now, wake up.’
+
+“He then awoke, declared that he had felt nothing and did not suffer,
+and he went away on foot, as if nothing had been done to him.
+
+“Five days after the dressing was removed and the cicatrix was found
+completely healed.”
+
+Hypnotism has been tried extensively for painless dentistry, but with
+many cases of failure, which got into the courts and thoroughly
+discredited the attempt except in very special cases.
+
+Restoring the Use of Muscles.—There is no doubt that hypnotism may be
+extremely useful in curing many disorders that are essentially nervous,
+especially such cases as those in which a patient has a fixed idea that
+something is the matter with him when he is not really affected. Cases
+of that description are often extremely obstinate, and entirely
+unaffected by the ordinary therapeutic means. Ordinary doctors abandon
+the cases in despair, but some person who understands “mental
+suggestion” (for instance, the Christian Science doctors) easily
+effects a cure. If the regular physician were a student of hypnotism he
+would know how to manage cases like that.
+
+By way of illustration, we quote reports of two cases, one successful
+and one unsuccessful. The following is from a report by one of the
+physicians of the Charity hospital in Paris:
+
+“Gabrielle C——— became a patient of mine toward the end of 1886. She
+entered the Charity hospital to be under treatment for some accident
+arising from pulmonary congestion, and while there was suddenly seized
+with violent attacks of hystero-epilepsy, which first contracted both
+legs, and finally reduced them to complete immobility.
+
+“She had been in this state of absolute immobility for seven months and
+I had vainly tried every therapeutic remedy usual in such cases. My
+intention was first to restore the general constitution of the subject,
+who was greatly weakened by her protracted stay in bed, and then, at
+the end of a certain time, to have recourse to hypnotism, and at the
+opportune moment suggest to her the idea of walking.
+
+“The patient was hypnotized every morning, and the first degree (that
+of lethargy), then the cataleptic, and finally the somnambulistic
+states were produced. After a certain period of somnambulism she began
+to move, and unconsciously took a few steps across the ward. Soon after
+it was suggested—the locomotor powers having recovered their physical
+functions—that she should walk when awake. This she was able to do, and
+in some weeks the cure was complete. In this case, however, we had the
+ingenious idea of changing her personality at the moment when we
+induced her to walk. The patient fancied she was somebody else, and as
+such, and in this roundabout manner, we satisfactorily attained the
+object proposed.”
+
+The following is Professor Delboeuf’s account of Dr. Bernheim’s mode of
+suggestion at the hospital at Nancy. A robust old man of about
+seventy-five years of age, paralyzed by sciatica, which caused him
+intense pain, was brought in. “He could not put a foot to the ground
+without screaming with pain. ‘Lie down, my poor friend; I will soon
+relieve you.’ Dr. Bernheim says. ‘That is impossible, doctor.’ ‘You
+will see.’ ‘Yes, we shall see, but I tell you, we shall see nothing!’
+On hearing this answer I thought suggestion will be of no use in this
+case. The old man looked sullen and stubborn. Strangely enough, he soon
+went off to sleep, fell into a state of catalepsy, and was insensible
+when pricked. But when Monsieur Bernheim said to him, ‘Now you can
+walk, he replied, ‘No, I cannot; you are telling me to do an impossible
+thing.’ Although Monsieur Bernheim failed in this instance, I could not
+but admire his skill. After using every means of persuasion,
+insinuation and coaxing, he suddenly took up an imperative tone, and in
+a sharp, abrupt voice that did not admit a refusal, said: ‘I tell you
+you can walk; get up.’ ‘Very well,’ replied the old follow; ‘I must if
+you insist upon it.’ And he got out of bed. No sooner, however, had his
+foot touched the floor than he screamed even louder than before.
+Monsieur Bernheim ordered him to step out. ‘You tell me to do what is
+impossible,’ he again replied, and he did not move. He had to be
+allowed to go to bed again, and the whole time the experiment lasted he
+maintained an obstinate and ill-tempered air.”
+
+These two cases give an admirable picture of the cases that can be and
+those that cannot be cured by hypnotism, or any other method of mental
+suggestion.
+
+Hallucination.—“Hallucinations,” says a medical authority, “are very
+common among those who are partially insane. They occur as a result of
+fever and frequently accompany delirium. They result from an
+impoverished condition of the blood, especially if it is due to
+starvation, indigestion, and the use of drugs like belladonna,
+hyoscyarnus, stramonium, opium, chloral, cannabis indica, and many more
+that might be mentioned.”
+
+Large numbers of cases of attempted cure by hypnotism, successful and
+unsuccessful, might be quoted. There is no doubt that in the lighter
+forms of partial insanity, hypnotism may help many patients, though not
+all; but when the disease of the brain has gone farther, especially
+when a well developed lesion exists in the brain, mental treatment is
+of little avail, even if it can be practiced at all.
+
+A few general remarks by Dr. Bernheim will be interesting. Says he:
+
+“The mode of suggestion should be varied and adapted to the special
+suggestibility of the subject. A simple word does not always suffice in
+impressing the idea upon the mind. It is sometimes necessary to reason,
+to prove, to convince; in some cases to affirm decidedly, in others to
+insinuate gently; for in the condition of sleep, just as in the waking
+condition, the moral individuality of each subject persists according
+to his character, his inclinations, his impressionability, etc.
+Hypnosis does not run all subjects into a uniform mold, and make pure
+and simple automatons out of them, moved solely by the will of the
+hypnotist; it increases cerebral docility; it makes the automatic
+activity preponderate over the will. But the latter persists to a
+certain degree; the subject thinks, reasons, discusses, accepts more
+readily than in the waking condition, but does not always accept,
+especially in the light degrees of sleep. In these cases we must know
+the patient’s character, his particular psychical condition, in order
+to make an impression upon him.”
+
+Bad Habits.—The habit of the excessive use of alcoholic drinks,
+morphine, tobacco, or the like, may often be decidedly helped by
+hypnotism, if the patient wants to be helped. The method of operation
+is simple. The operator hypnotizes the subject, and when he is in deep
+sleep suggests that on awaking he will feel a deep disgust for the
+article he is in the habit of taking, and if he takes it will be
+affected by nausea, or other unpleasant symptoms. In most cases the
+suggested result takes place, provided the subject can be hypnotized al
+all; but unless the patient is himself anxious to break the habit fixed
+upon him, the unpleasant effects soon wear off and he is as bad as
+ever.
+
+Dr. Cocke treated a large number of cases, which he reports in detail
+in his book on hypnotism. In a fair proportion of the cases he was
+successful; in some cases completely so. In other cases he failed
+entirely, owing to lack of moral stamina in the patient himself. His
+conclusions seem to be that hypnotism may be made a very effective aid
+to moral suasion, but after all, character is the chief force which
+throws off such habits once they are fixed. The morphine habit is
+usually the result of a doctor’s prescription at some time, and it is
+practiced more or less involuntarily. Such cases are often materially
+helped by the proper suggestions.
+
+The same is true of bad habits in children. The weak may be
+strengthened by the stronger nature, and hypnotism may come in as an
+effective aid to moral influence. Here again character is the deciding
+factor.
+
+Dr. James R. Cocke devotes a considerable part of his book on
+“Hypnotism” to the use of hypnotism in medical practice, and for
+further interesting details the reader is referred to that able work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Hypnotism of Animals.—Snake Charming.
+
+
+We are all familiar with the snake charmer, and the charming of birds
+by snakes. How much hypnotism there is in these performances it would
+be hard to say. It is probable that a bird is fascinated to some extent
+by the steady gaze of a serpent’s eyes, but fear will certainly
+paralyze a bird as effectively as hypnotism.
+
+Father Kircher was the first to try a familiar experiment with hens and
+cocks. If you hold a hen’s head with the beak upon a piece of board,
+and then draw a chalk line from the beak to the edge of the board, the
+hen when released will continue to hold her head in the same position
+for some time, finally walking slowly away, as if roused from a stupor.
+Farmers’ wives often try a sort of hypnotic experiment on hens they
+wish to transfer from one nest to another when sitting. They put the
+hen’s head under her wing and gently rock her to and fro till she
+apparently goes to sleep, when she may be carried to another nest and
+will remain there afterward.
+
+Horses are frequently managed by a steady gaze into their eyes. Dr.
+Moll states that a method of hypnotizing horses named after its
+inventor as Balassiren has been introduced into Austria by law for the
+shoeing of horses in the army.
+
+We have all heard of the snake charmers of India, who make the snakes
+imitate all their movements. Some suppose this is by hypnotization. It
+may be the result of training, however. Certainly real charmers of wild
+beasts usually end by being bitten or injured in some other way, which
+would seem to show that the hypnotization does not always work, or else
+it does not exist at all.
+
+We have some fairly well known instances of hypnotism produced in
+animals. Lafontaine, the magnetizer, some thirty years ago held public
+exhibitions in Paris in which he reduced cats, dogs, squirrels and
+lions to such complete insensibility that they felt neither pricks nor
+blows.
+
+The Harvys or Psylles of Egypt impart to the ringed snake the
+appearance of a stick by pressure on the head, which induces a species
+of tetanus, says E. W. Lane.
+
+The following description of serpent charming by the Aissouans of the
+province of Sous, Morocco, will be of interest:
+
+“The principal charmer began by whirling with astonishing rapidity in a
+kind of frenzied dance around the wicker basket that contained the
+serpents, which were covered by a goatskin. Suddenly he stopped,
+plunged his naked arm into the basket, and drew out a cobra de capello,
+or else a haje, a fearful reptile which is able to swell its head by
+spreading out the scales which cover it, and which is thought to be
+Cleopatra’s asp, the serpent of Egypt. In Morocco it is known as the
+buska. The charmer folded and unfolded the greenish-black viper, as if
+it were a piece of muslin; he rolled it like a turban round his head,
+and continued his dance while the serpent maintained its position, and
+seemed to follow every movement and wish of the dancer.
+
+“The buska was then placed on the ground, and raising itself straight
+on end, in the attitude it assumes on desert roads to attract
+travelers, began to sway from right to left, following the rhythm of
+the music. The Aissoua, whirling more and more rapidly in constantly
+narrowing circles, plunged his hand once more into the basket, and
+pulled out two of the most venomous reptiles of the desert of Sous;
+serpents thicker than a man’s arm, two or three feet long, whose
+shining scales are spotted black or yellow, and whose bite sends, as it
+were, a burning fire through the veins. This reptile is probably the
+torrida dipsas of antiquity. Europeans now call it the leffah.
+
+“The two leffahs, more vigorous and less docile than the buska, lay
+half curled up, their heads on one side, ready to dart forward, and
+followed with glittering eyes the movements of the dancer. * * * Hindoo
+charmers are still more wonderful; they juggle with a dozen different
+species of reptiles at the same time, making them come and go, leap,
+dance, and lie down at the sound of the charmer’s whistle, like the
+gentlest of tame animals. These serpents have never been known to bite
+their charmers.”
+
+It is well known that some animals, like the opossum, feign death when
+caught. Whether this is to be compared to hypnotism is doubtful. Other
+animals, called hibernating, sleep for months with no other food than
+their fat, but this, again, can hardly be called hypnotism.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+A Scientific Explanation of Hypnotism.—Dr. Hart’s Theory.
+
+
+In the introduction to this book the reader will find a summary of the
+theories of hypnotism. There is no doubt that hypnotism is a complex
+state which cannot be explained in an offhand way in a sentence or two.
+There are, however, certain aspects of hypnotism which we may suppose
+sufficiently explained by certain scientific writers on the subject.
+
+First, what is the character of the delusions apparently created in the
+mind of a person in the hypnotic condition by a simple word of mouth
+statement, as when a physician says, “Now, I am going to cut your leg
+off, but it will not hurt you in the least,” and the patient suffers
+nothing?
+
+In answer to this question, Professor William James of Harvard College,
+one of the leading authorities on the scientific aspects of psychical
+phenomena in this country, reports the following experiments:
+
+“Make a stroke on a paper or blackboard, and tell the subject it is not
+there, and he will see nothing but the clean paper or board. Next, he
+not looking, surround the original stroke with other strokes exactly
+like it, and ask him what he sees. He will point out one by one the new
+strokes and omit the original one every time, no matter how numerous
+the next strokes may be, or in what order they are arranged. Similarly,
+if the original single line, to which he is blind, be doubled by a
+prism of sixteen degrees placed before one of his eyes (both being kept
+open), he will say that he now sees one stroke, and point in the
+direction in which lies the image seen through the prism.
+
+“Another experiment proves that he must see it in order to ignore it.
+Make a red cross, invisible to the hypnotic subject, on a sheet of
+white paper, and yet cause him to look fixedly at a dot on the paper on
+or near the red cross; he wills on transferring his eye to the blank
+sheet, see a bluish-green after image of the cross. This proves that it
+has impressed his sensibility. He has felt but not perceived it. He had
+actually ignored it; refused to recognize it, as it were.”
+
+Dr. Ernest Hart, an English writer, in an article in the British
+Medical Journal, gives a general explanation of the phenomena of
+hypnotism which we may accept as true so far as it goes, but which is
+evidently incomplete. He seems to minimize personal influence too
+much—that personal influence which we all exert at various times, and
+which he ignores, not because he would deny it, but because he fears
+lending countenance to the magnetic fluid and other similar theories.
+Says he:
+
+“We have arrived at the point at which it will be plain that the
+condition produced in these cases, and known under a varied jargon
+invented either to conceal ignorance, to express hypotheses, or to mask
+the design of impressing the imagination and possibly prey upon the
+pockets of a credulous and wonder-loving public—such names as mesmeric
+condition, magnetic sleep, clairvoyance, electro-biology, animal
+magnetism, faith trance, and many other aliases—such a condition, I
+say, is always subjective. It is independent of passes or gestures; it
+has no relation to any fluid emanating from the operator; it has no
+relation to his will, or to any influence which he exercises upon
+inanimate objects; distance does not affect it, nor proximity, nor the
+intervention of any conductors or non-conductors, whether silk or glass
+or stone, or even a brick wall. We can transmit the order to sleep by
+telephone or by telegraph. We can practically get the same results
+while eliminating even the operator, if we can contrive to influence
+the imagination or to affect the physical condition of the subject by
+any one of a great number of contrivances.
+
+“What does all this mean? I will refer to one or two facts in relation
+to the structure and function of the brain, and show one or two simple
+experiments of very ancient parentage and date, which will, I think,
+help to an explanation. First, let us recall something of what we know
+of the anatomy and localization of function in the brain, and of the
+nature of ordinary sleep. The brain, as you know, is a complicated
+organ, made up internally of nerve masses, or ganglia, of which the
+central and underlying masses are connected with the automatic
+functions and involuntary actions of the body (such as the action of
+the heart, lungs, stomach, bowels, etc.), while the investing surface
+shows a system of complicated convolutions rich in gray matter, thickly
+sown with microscopic cells, in which the nerve ends terminate. At the
+base of the brain is a complete circle of arteries, from which spring
+great numbers of small arterial vessels, carrying a profuse blood
+supply throughout the whole mass, and capable of contraction in small
+tracts, so that small areas of the brain may, at any given moment,
+become bloodless, while other parts of the brain may simultaneously
+become highly congested. Now, if the brain or any part of it be
+deprived of the circulation of blood through it, or be rendered
+partially bloodless, or if it be excessively congested and overloaded
+with blood, or if it be subjected to local pressure, the part of the
+brain so acted upon ceases to be capable of exercising its functions.
+The regularity of the action of the brain and the sanity and
+completeness of the thought which is one of the functions of its
+activity depend upon the healthy regularity of the quantity of blood
+passing through all its parts, and upon the healthy quality of the
+blood so circulating. If we press upon the carotid arteries which pass
+up through the neck to form the arterial circle of Willis, at the base
+of the brain, within the skull—of which I have already spoken, and
+which supplies the brain with blood—we quickly, as every one knows,
+produce insensibility. Thought is abolished, consciousness lost. And if
+we continue the pressure, all those automatic actions of the body, such
+as the beating of the heart, the breathing motions of the lungs, which
+maintain life and are controlled by the lower brain centers of ganglia,
+are quickly stopped and death ensues.
+
+“We know by observation in cases where portions of the skull have been
+removed, either in men or in animals, that during natural sleep the
+upper part of the brain—its convoluted surface, which in health and in
+the waking state is faintly pink, like a blushing cheek, from the color
+of the blood circulating through the network of capillary
+arteries—becomes white and almost bloodless. It is in these upper
+convolutions of the brain, as we also know, that the will and the
+directing power are resident; so that in sleep the will is abolished
+and consciousness fades gradually away, as the blood is pressed out by
+the contraction of the arteries. So, also, the consciousness and the
+directing will may be abolished by altering the quality of the blood
+passing through the convolutions of the brain. We may introduce a
+volatile substance, such as chloroform, and its first effect will be to
+abolish consciousness and induce profound slumber and a blessed
+insensibility to pain. The like effects will follow more slowly upon
+the absorption of a drug, such as opium; or we may induce
+hallucinations by introducing into the blood other toxic substances,
+such as Indian hemp or stramonium. We are not conscious of the
+mechanism producing the arterial contraction and the bloodlessness of
+those convolutions related to natural sleep. But we are not altogether
+without control over them. We can, we know, help to compose ourselves
+to sleep, as we say in ordinary language. We retire into a darkened
+room, we relieve ourselves from the stimulus of the special senses, we
+free ourselves from the influence of noises, of strong light, of
+powerful colors, or of tactile impressions. We lie down and endeavor to
+soothe brain activity by driving away disturbing thoughts, or, as
+people sometimes say, ‘try to think of nothing.’ And, happily, we
+generally succeed more or less well. Some people possess an even more
+marked control over this mechanism of sleep. I can generally succeed in
+putting myself to sleep at any hour of the day, either in the library
+chair or in the brougham. This is, so to speak, a process of
+self-hypnotization, and I have often practiced it when going from house
+to house, when in the midst of a busy practice, and I sometimes have
+amused my friends and family by exercising this faculty, which I do not
+think it very difficult to acquire. (We also know that many persons can
+wake at a fixed hour in the morning by setting their minds upon it just
+before going to sleep.) Now, there is something here which deserves a
+little further examination, but which it would take too much time to
+develop fully at present. Most people know something of what is meant
+by reflex action. The nerves which pass from the various organs to the
+brain convey with, great rapidity messages to its various parts, which
+are answered by reflected waves of impulse. If the soles of the feet be
+tickled, contraction of the toes, or involuntary laughter, will be
+excited, or perhaps only a shuddering and skin contraction, known as
+goose-skin. The irritation of the nerve-end in the skin has carried a
+message to the involuntary or voluntary ganglia of the brain which has
+responded by reflecting back again nerve impulses which have contracted
+the muscles of the feet or skin muscles, or have given rise to
+associated ideas and explosion of laughter. In the same way, if during
+sleep heat be applied to the soles of the feet, dreams of walking over
+hot surfaces—Vesuvius or Fusiyama, or still hotter places—may be
+produced, or dreams of adventure on frozen surfaces or in arctic
+regions may be created by applying ice to the feet of the sleeper.
+
+“Here, then, it is seen that we have a mechanism in the body, known to
+physiologists as the ideo-motor, or sensory motor system of nerves,
+which can produce, without the consciousness of the individual and
+automatically, a series of muscular contractions. And remember that the
+coats of the arteries are muscular and contractile under the influence
+of external stimuli, acting without the help of the consciousness, or
+when the consciousness is in abeyance. I will give another example of
+this, which completes the chain of phenomena in the natural brain and
+the natural body I wish to bring under notice in explanation of the
+true as distinguished from the false, or falsely interpreted, phenomena
+of hypnotism, mesmerism and electro-biology. I will take the excellent
+illustration quoted by Dr. B. W. Carpenter in his old-time, but
+valuable, book on ‘The Physiology of the Brain.’ When a hungry man sees
+food, or when, let us say, a hungry boy looks into a cookshop, he
+becomes aware of a watering of the mouth and a gnawing sensation at the
+stomach. What does this mean? It means that the mental impression made
+upon him by the welcome and appetizing spectacle has caused a secretion
+of saliva and of gastric juice; that is to say, the brain has, through
+the ideo-motor set of nerves, sent a message which has dilated the
+vessels around the salivary and gastric glands, increased the flow of
+blood through them and quickened their secretion. Here we have, then, a
+purely subjective mental activity acting through a mechanism of which
+the boy is quite ignorant, and which he is unable to control, and
+producing that action on the vessels of dilation or contraction which,
+as we have seen, is the essential condition of brain activity and the
+evolution of thought, and is related to the quickening or the abolition
+of consciousness, and to the activity or abeyance of function in the
+will centers and upper convolutions of the brain, as in its other
+centers of localization.
+
+“Here, then, we have something like a clue to the phenomena—phenomena
+which, as I have pointed out, are similar to and have much in common
+with mesmeric sleep, hypnotism or electro-biology. We have already, I
+hope, succeeded in eliminating from our minds the false theory—the
+theory, that is to say, experimentally proved to be false—that the
+will, or the gestures, or the magnetic or vital fluid of the operator
+are necessary for the abolition of the consciousness and the abeyance
+of the will of the subject. We now see that ideas arising in the mind
+of the subject are sufficient to influence the circulation in the brain
+of the person operated on, and such variations of the blood supply of
+the brain as are adequate to produce sleep in the natural state, or
+artificial slumber, either by total deprivation or by excessive
+increase or local aberration in the quantity or quality of blood. In a
+like manner it is possible to produce coma and prolonged insensibility
+by pressure of the thumbs on the carotid; or hallucination, dreams and
+visions by drugs, or by external stimulation of the nerves. Here again
+the consciousness may be only partially affected, and the person in
+whom sleep, coma or hallucination is produced, whether by physical
+means or by the influence of suggestion, may remain subject to the will
+of others and incapable of exercising his own volition.”
+
+In short, Dr. Hart’s theory is that hypnotism comes from controlling
+the blood supply of the brain, cutting off the supply from parts or
+increasing it in other parts. This theory is borne out by the
+well-known fact that some persons can blush or turn pale at will; that
+some people always blush on the mention of certain things, or calling
+up certain ideas. Certain other ideas will make them turn pale. Now, if
+certain parts of the brain are made to blush or turn pale, there is no
+doubt that hypnotism will follow, since blushing and turning pale are
+known to be due to the opening and closing of the blood-vessels. We may
+say that the subject is induced by some means to shut the blood out of
+certain portions of the brain, and keep it out until he is told to let
+it in again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Telepathy and Clairvoyance.—Peculiar Power in Hypnotic
+State.—Experiments.—“Phantasms of the Living” Explained by Telepathy
+
+
+It has already been noticed that persons in the hypnotic state seem to
+have certain of their senses greatly heightened in power. They can
+remember, see and hear things that ordinary persons would be entirely
+ignorant of. There is abundant evidence that a supersensory perception
+is also developed, entirely beyond the most highly developed condition
+of the ordinary senses, such as being able to tell clearly what some
+other person is doing at a great distance. In view of the discovery of
+the X or Roentgen ray, the ability to see through a stone wall does not
+seem so strange as it did before that discovery.
+
+It is on power of supersensory, or extra-sensory perception that what
+is known as telepathy and clairvoyance are based. That such things
+really exist, and are not wholly a matter of superstition has been
+thoroughly demonstrated in a scientific way by the British Society for
+Psychical Research, and kindred societies in various parts of the
+world. Strictly speaking, such phenomena as these are not a part of
+hypnotism, but our study of hypnotism will enable us to understand them
+to some extent, and the investigation of them is a natural corollary to
+the study of hypnotism, for the reason that it has been found that
+these extraordinary powers are often possessed by persons under
+hypnotic influence. Until the discovery of hypnotism there was little
+to go on in conducting a scientific investigation, because clairvoyance
+could not be produced by any artificial means, and so could not be
+studied under proper restrictive conditions.
+
+We will first quote two experiments performed by Dr. Cocke which the
+writer heard him describe with his own lips.
+
+The first case was that of a girl suffering from hysterical tremor. The
+doctor had hypnotized her for the cure of it, and accidentally stumbled
+on an example of thought transference. She complained on one occasion
+of a taste of spice in her mouth. As the doctor had been chewing some
+spice, he at once guessed that this might be telepathy. Nothing was
+said at the time, but the next time the girl was hypnotized, the doctor
+put a quinine tablet in his mouth. The girl at once asked for water,
+and said she had a very bitter taste in her mouth. The water was given
+her, and the doctor went behind a screen, where he put cayenne pepper
+in his mouth, severely burning himself. No one but the doctor knew of
+the experiment at the time. The girl immediately cried and became so
+hysterical that she had to be awakened. The burning in her mouth
+disappeared as soon as she came out of the hypnotic state, but the
+doctor continued to suffer. Nearly three hundred similar experiments
+with thirty-six different subjects were tried by Dr. Cocke, and of
+these sixty-nine were entirely successful. The others were doubtful or
+complete failures.
+
+The most remarkable of the experiments may be given in the doctor’s own
+words: “I told the subject to remain perfectly still for five minutes
+and to relate to me at the end of this time any sensation he might
+experience. I passed into another room and closed the door and locked
+it; went into a closet in the room and closed the door after me; took
+down from the shelf, first a linen sheet, then a pasteboard box, then a
+toy engine, owned by a child in the house. I went back to my subject
+and asked him what experience he had had.
+
+“He said I seemed to go into another room, and from thence into a dark
+closet. I wanted something off the shelf, but did not know what. I took
+down from the shelf a piece of smooth cloth, a long, square pasteboard
+box and a tin engine. These were all the sensations he had experienced.
+I asked him if he saw the articles with his eyes which I had removed
+from the shelf. He answered that the closet was dark and that he only
+felt them with his hands. I asked him how he knew that the engine was
+tin. He said: ‘By the sound of it.’ As my hands touched it I heard the
+wheels rattle. Now the only sound made by me while in the closet was
+simply the rattling of the wheels of the toy as I took it off the
+shelf. This could not possibly have been heard, as the subject was
+distant from me two large rooms, and there were two closed doors
+between us, and the noise was very slight. Neither could the subject
+have judged where I went, as I had on light slippers which made no
+noise. The subject had never visited the house before, and naturally
+did not know the contents of the closet as he was carefully observed
+from the moment he entered the house.”
+
+Many similar experiments are on record. Persons in the hypnotic
+condition have been able to tell what other persons were doing in
+distant parts of a city; could tell the pages of the books they might
+be reading and the numbers of all sorts of articles. While in London
+the writer had an opportunity of witnessing a performance of this kind.
+There was a young boy who seemed to have this peculiar power. A queer
+old desk had come into the house from Italy, and as it was a valuable
+piece of furniture, the owner was anxious to learn its pedigree.
+Without having examined the desk beforehand in any way the boy, during
+one of his trances, said that in a certain place a secret spring would
+be found which would open an unknown drawer, and behind that drawer
+would be found the name of the maker of the desk and the date 1639. The
+desk was at once examined, and the name and date found exactly as
+described. It is clear in this case that this information could not
+have been in the mind of any one, unless it were some person in Italy,
+whence the desk had come. It is more likely that the remarkable
+supersensory power given enabled reading through the wood.
+
+We may now turn our attention to another class of phenomena of great
+interest, and that is the visions persons in the ordinary state have of
+friends who are on the point of death. It would seem that by an
+extraordinary effort the mind of a person in the waking state might be
+impressed through a great distance. At the moment of death an almost
+superhuman mental effort is more likely and possible than at any other
+time, and it is peculiar that these visions or phantasms are largely
+confined to that moment. The natural explanation that rises to the
+ordinary mind is, of course, “Spirits.” This supposition is
+strengthened by the fact that the visions sometimes appear immediately
+after death, as well as at the time and just before. This may be
+explained, however, on the theory that the ordinary mind is not easily
+impressed, and when unconsciously impressed some time may elapse before
+the impression becomes perceptible to the conscious mind, just as in
+passing by on a swift train, we may see something, but not realize that
+we have seen it till some time afterward, when we remember what we have
+unconsciously observed.
+
+The British Society for Psychical Research has compiled two large
+volumes of carefully authenticated cases, which are published under the
+title, “Phantasms of the Living.” We quote one or two interesting
+cases.
+
+A Miss L. sends the following report:
+
+January 4, 1886.
+
+“On one of the last days of July, about the year 1860, at 3 o’clock
+p.m., I was sitting in the drawing room at the Rectory, reading, and my
+thoughts entirely occupied. I suddenly looked up and saw most
+distinctly a tall, thin old gentleman enter the room and walk to the
+table. He wore a peculiar, old-fashioned cloak which I recognized as
+belonging to my great-uncle. I then looked at him closely and
+remembered his features and appearance perfectly, although I had not
+seen him since I was quite a child. In his hand was a roll of paper,
+and he appeared to be very agitated. I was not in the least alarmed, as
+I firmly believed he was my uncle, not knowing then of his illness. I
+asked him if he wanted my father, who, as I said, was not at home. He
+then appeared still more agitated and distressed, but made no remark.
+He then left the room, passing through the open door. I noticed that,
+although it was a very wet day, there was no appearance of his having
+walked either in mud or rain. He had no umbrella, but a thick walking
+stick, which I recognized at once when my father brought it home after
+the funeral. On questioning the servants, they declared that no one had
+rung the bell; neither did they see any one enter. My father had a
+letter by the next post, asking him to go at once to my uncle, who was
+very ill in Leicestershire. He started at once, but on his arrival was
+told that his uncle had died at exactly 3 o’clock that afternoon, and
+had asked for him by name several times in an anxious and troubled
+manner, and a roll of paper was found under his pillow.
+
+“I may mention that my father was his only nephew, and, having no son,
+he always led him to think that he would have a considerable legacy.
+Such, however, was not the case, and it is supposed that, as they were
+always good friends, he was influenced in his last illness, and
+probably, when too late, he wished to alter his will.”
+
+In answer to inquiries, Miss L. adds:
+
+“I told my mother and an uncle at once about the strange appearance
+before the news arrived, and also my father directly he returned, all
+of whom are now dead. They advised me to dismiss it from my memory, but
+agreed that it could not be imagination, as I described my uncle so
+exactly, and they did not consider me to be either of a nervous or
+superstitious temperament.
+
+“I am quite sure that I have stated the facts truthfully and correctly.
+The facts are as fresh in my memory as if they happened only yesterday,
+although so many years have passed away.
+
+“I can assure you that nothing of the sort ever occurred before or
+since. Neither have I been subject to nervous or imaginative fancies.
+This strange apparition was in broad daylight, and as I was only
+reading the ‘Illustrated Newspaper,’ there was nothing to excite my
+imagination.”
+
+Hundreds of cases of this kind have been reported by persons whose
+truthfulness cannot be doubted, and every effort has been made to
+eliminate possibility of hallucination or accidental fancy. That things
+of this kind do occur may be said to be scientifically proven.
+
+Such facts as these have stimulated experiment in the direction of
+testing thought transference. These experiments have usually been in
+the reading of numbers and names, and a certain measure of success has
+resulted. It may be added, however, that no claimants ever appeared for
+various banknotes deposited in strong-boxes, to be turned over to any
+one who would read the numbers. Just why success was never attained
+under these conditions it would be hard to say. The writer once made a
+slight observation in this direction. When matching pennies with his
+brother he found that if the other looked at the penny he could match
+it nearly every time. There may have been some unconscious expression
+of face that gave the clue. Persons in hypnotic trance are expert
+muscle readers. For instance, let such a person take your hand and then
+go through the alphabet, naming the letters. If you have any word in
+your mind, as the muscle reader comes to each letter the muscles will
+unconsciously contract. By giving attention to the muscles you can make
+them contract on the wrong letters and entirely mislead such a person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The Confessions of Medium.—Spiritualistic Phenomena Explained on Theory
+of Telepathy.—Interesting Statement of Mrs. Piper, the Famous Medium of
+the Psychical Research Society.
+
+
+The subject of spiritualism has been very thoroughly investigated by
+the Society for Psychical Research, both in England and this country,
+and under circumstances so peculiarly advantageous that a world of
+light has been thrown on the connection between hypnotism and this
+strange phenomenon.
+
+Professor William James, the professor of psychology at Harvard
+University, was fortunate enough some years ago to find a perfect
+medium who was not a professional and whose character was such as to
+preclude fraud. This was Mrs. Leonora E. Piper, of Boston. For many
+years she remained in the special employ of the Society for Psychical
+Research, and the members of that society were able to study her case
+under every possible condition through a long period of time. Not long
+ago she resolved to give up her engagement, and made a public statement
+over her own signature which is full of interest.
+
+A brief history of her life and experiences will go far toward
+furnishing the general reader a fair explanation of clairvoyant and
+spiritualistic phenomena.
+
+Mrs. Piper was the wife of a modest tailor, and lived on Pinckney
+street, back of Beacon Hill. She was married in 1881, and it was not
+until May 16, 1884, that her first child was born. A little more than a
+month later, on June 29, she had her first trance experience. Says she:
+“I remember the date distinctly, because it was two days after my first
+birthday following the birth of my first child.” She had gone to Dr. J.
+R. Cocke, the great authority on hypnotism and a practicing physician
+of high scientific attainments. “During the interview,” says Mrs.
+Piper, “I was partly unconscious for a few minutes. On the following
+Sunday I went into a trance.”
+
+She appears to have slipped into it unconsciously. She surprised her
+friends by saying some very odd things, none of which she remembered
+when she came to herself. Not long after she did it again. A neighbor,
+the wife of a merchant, when she heard the things that had been said,
+assured Mrs. Piper that it must be messages from the spirit world. The
+atmosphere in Boston was full of talk of that kind, and it was not hard
+for people to believe that a real medium of spirit communication had
+been found. The merchant’s wife wanted a sitting, and Mrs. Piper
+arranged one, for which she received her first dollar.
+
+She had discovered that she could go into trances by an effort of her
+own will. She would sit down at a table, with her sitter opposite, and
+leaning her head on a pillow, go off into the trance after a few
+minutes of silence. There was a clock behind her. She gave her sitters
+an hour, sometimes two hours, and they wondered how she knew when the
+hour had expired. At any rate, when the time came around she awoke. In
+describing her experiences she has said:
+
+“At first when I sat in my chair and leaned my head back and went into
+the trance state, the action was attended by something of a struggle. I
+always felt as if I were undergoing an anesthetic, but of late years I
+have slipped easily into the condition, leaning the head forward. On
+coming out of it I felt stupid and dazed. At first I said disconnected
+things. It was all a gibberish, nothing but gibberish. Then I began to
+speak some broken French phrases. I had studied French two years, but
+did not speak it well.”
+
+Once she had an Italian for sitter, who could speak no English and
+asked questions in Italian. Mrs. Piper could speak no Italian, indeed
+did not understand a word of it, except in her trance state. But she
+had no trouble in understanding her sitter.
+
+After a while her automatic utterance announced the personality of a
+certain Dr. Phinuit, who was said to have been a noted French physician
+who had died long before. His “spirit” controlled her for a number of
+years. After some time Dr. Phinuit was succeeded by one “Pelham,” and
+finally by “Imperator” and “Rector.”
+
+As the birth of her second child approached Mrs. Piper gave up what she
+considered a form of hysteria; but after the birth of the child the
+sittings, paid for at a dollar each, began again. Dr. Hodgson, of the
+London Society for Psychical Research, saw her at the house of
+Professor James, and he became so interested in her case that he
+decided to take her to London to be studied. She spent nearly a year
+abroad; and after her return the American branch of the Society for
+Psychical Research was formed, and for a long time Mrs. Piper received
+a salary to sit exclusively for the society. Their records and reports
+are full of the things she said and did.
+
+Every one who investigated Mrs. Piper had to admit that her case was
+full of mystery. But if one reads the reports through from beginning to
+end one cannot help feeling that her spirit messages are filled with
+nonsense, at least of triviality. Here is a specimen—and a fair
+specimen, too—of the kind of communication Pelham gave. He wrote out
+the message. It referred to a certain famous man known in the reports
+as Mr. Marte. Pelham is reported to have written by Mrs. Piper’s hand:
+
+“That he (Mr. Marte), with his keen brain and marvelous perception,
+will be interested, I know. He was a very dear friend of X. I was
+exceedingly fond of him. Comical weather interests both he and
+I—me—him—I know it all. Don’t you see I correct these? Well, I am not
+less intelligent now. But there are many difficulties. I am far clearer
+on all points than I was shut up in the prisoned body (prisoned,
+prisoning or imprisoned you ought to say). No, I don’t mean, to get it
+that way. ‘See here, H, don’t view me with a critic’s eye, but pass my
+imperfections by.’ Of course, I know all that as well as anybody on
+your sphere (of course). Well, I think so. I tell you, old fellow, it
+don’t do to pick all these little errors too much when they amount to
+nothing in one way. You have light enough and brain enough, I know, to
+understand my explanations of being shut up in this body, dreaming, as
+it were, and trying to help on science.”
+
+Some people would say that Pelham had had a little too much whisky
+toddy when he wrote that rambling, meaningless string of words. Or we
+can suppose that Mrs. Piper was dreaming. We see in the last sentence a
+curious mixture of ideas that must have been in her mind. She herself
+says:
+
+“I do not see how anybody can look on all that as testimony from
+another world. I cannot see but that it must have been an unconscious
+expression of my subliminal self, writing such stuff as dreams are made
+of.”
+
+In another place Mrs. Piper makes the following direct statement: “I
+never heard of anything being said by myself while in a trance state
+which might not have been latent in:
+
+“1. My own mind.
+
+“2. In the mind of the person in charge of the sitting.
+
+“3. In the mind of the person who was trying to get communication with
+some one in another state of existence, or some companion present with
+such person, or,
+
+“4. In the mind of some absent person alive somewhere else in the
+world.”
+
+Writing in the Psychological Review in 1898, Professor James says:
+
+“Mrs. Piper’s trance memory is no ordinary human memory, and we have to
+explain its singular perfection either as the natural endowment of her
+solitary subliminal self, or as a collection of distinct memory
+systems, each with a communicating spirit as its vehicle.
+
+“The spirit hypothesis exhibits a vacancy, triviality, and incoherence
+of mind painful to think of as the state of the departed, and coupled
+with a pretension to impress one, a disposition to ‘fish’ and face
+around and disguise the essential hollowness which is, if anything,
+more painful still. Mr. Hodgson has to resort to the theory that,
+although the communicants probably are spirits, they are in a
+semi-comatose or sleeping state while communicating, and only half
+aware of what is going on, while the habits of Mrs. Piper’s neural
+organism largely supply the definite form of words, etc., in which the
+phenomenon is clothed.”
+
+After considering other theories Professor James concludes:
+
+“The world is evidently more complex than we are accustomed to think
+it, the absolute ‘world ground’ in particular being farther off than we
+are wont to think it.”
+
+Mrs. Piper is reported to have said:
+
+“Of what occurs after I enter the trance period I remember
+nothing—nothing of what I said or what was said to me. I am but a
+passive agent in the hands of powers that control me. I can give no
+account of what becomes of me during a trance. The wisdom and inspired
+eloquence which of late has been conveyed to Dr. Hodgson through my
+mediumship is entirely beyond my understanding. I do not pretend to
+understand it, and can give no explanation—I simply know that I have
+the power of going into a trance when I wish.”
+
+Professor James says: “The Piper phenomena are the most absolutely
+baffling thing I know.”
+
+Professor Hudson, Ph.D., LL.D., author of “The Law of Psychic
+Phenomena,” comes as near giving an explanation of “spiritualism,” so
+called, as any one. He begins by saying:
+
+“All things considered, Mrs. Piper is probably the best ‘psychic’ now
+before the public for the scientific investigation of spiritualism and
+it must be admitted that if her alleged communications from discarnate
+spirits cannot be traced to any other source, the claims of spiritism
+have been confirmed.”
+
+Then he goes on:
+
+“A few words, however, will make it clear to the scientific mind that
+her phenomena can be easily accounted for on purely psychological
+principles, thus:
+
+“Man is endowed with a dual mind, or two minds, or states of
+consciousness, designated, respectively, as the objective and the
+subjective. The objective mind is normally unconscious of the content
+of the subjective mind. The latter is constantly amenable to control by
+suggestion, and it is exclusively endowed with the faculty of
+telepathy.
+
+“An entranced psychic is dominated exclusively by her subjective mind,
+and reason is in abeyance. Hence she is controlled by suggestion, and,
+consequently, is compelled to believe herself to be a spirit, good or
+bad, if that suggestion is in any way imparted to her, and she
+automatically acts accordingly.
+
+“She is in no sense responsible for the vagaries of a Phinuit, for that
+eccentric personality is the creation of suggestion. But she is also in
+the condition which enables her to read the subjective minds of others.
+Hence her supernormal knowledge of the affairs of her sitters. What he
+knows, or has ever known, consciously or unconsciously (subjective
+memory being perfect), is easily within her reach.
+
+“Thus far no intelligent psychical researcher will gainsay what I have
+said. But it sometimes happens that the psychic obtains information
+that neither she nor the sitter could ever have consciously possessed.
+Does it necessarily follow that discarnate spirits gave her the
+information? Spiritists say ‘yes,’ for this is the ‘last ditch’ of
+spiritism.
+
+“Psychologists declare that the telepathic explanation is as valid in
+the latter class of cases as it obviously is in the former. Thus,
+telepathy being a power of the subjective mind, messages may be
+conveyed from one to another at any time, neither of the parties being
+objectively conscious of the fact. It follows that a telepathist at any
+following seance with the recipient can reach the content of that
+message.
+
+“If this argument is valid—and its validity is self-evident—it is
+impossible to imagine a case that may not be thus explained on
+psychological principles.”
+
+Professor Hudson’s argument will appeal to the ordinary reader as good.
+It may be simplified, however, thus:
+
+We may suppose that Mrs. Piper voluntarily hypnotizes herself. Perhaps
+she simply puts her conscious reason to sleep. In that condition the
+rest of her mind is in an exalted state, and capable of telepathy and
+mind-reading, either of those near at hand or at a distance. Her reason
+being asleep, she simply dreams, and the questions of her sitter are
+made to fit into her dream.
+
+If we regard mediums as persons who have the power of hypnotizing
+themselves and then of doing what we know persons who have been
+hypnotized by others sometimes do, we have an explanation that covers
+the whole case perfectly. At the same time, as Professor James warns
+us, we must believe that the mind is far more complex than we are
+accustomed to think it.
+
+
+
+
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