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