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 Mental suggestion, by Dr. J. Ochorowicz 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 028 953 721 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028953721 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION 
 
 BY 
 
 Dr. J. QCHOROWICZ 
 
 SOMETIME PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARIUS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND NATURE-PHILOSOPHY 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEMBERG 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 CHARLES RICHET 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY 
 
 J. FITZGERALD, M. A. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 19 ASTOR PLACE 
 
COPYKIGHT, iSgi, 
 
 By The Humboldt PuBuaniNG Ci*. 
 
 r 
 
 U-" 
 
 PRESS OF F. V. STRAUSS, 
 
 108-H4 WOOSTER ST,, N. V 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface, . . . . . . . S 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Experiments and Observations of the Author. 
 
 Chapter I. — Apparent Mental Suggestion, . lo 
 
 II. — Probable Mental Suggestion, . 42 
 
 III. — True Mental Suggestion, . 60 
 
 IV. — Experiments at Havre, . . 81 
 
 V. — New Experiments, . . 97 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Facts observed by Others. Evolution of Mental Suggestion 
 
 Physical Analysis. 
 
 Chapter I. — Organic Sympathism, . . 105 
 
 II. — Sympathism and Contagion, n8 
 
 III. — Transmission of Emotive States, . 146 
 
 IV. — Transmission of Ideas, . . .161 
 
 V. — Direct Will-Transmission, . . . 196 
 
 VI. — Will-Action and the Question of "Rapport," 212 
 
 VII. — Action Unbeknown to the Subject and 
 
 Against His Will, . . 231 
 
 VIII. — Deferred Mental Suggestion, 249 
 
 IX. — Mental Suggestion at a Distance, 258 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Theories. Conclusions. Applications. 
 Chapter I. — The Hypothesis of Exalted Perception, . 287 
 II. — The Hypothesis of Brain Exaltation, with 
 
 Paralysis of the Senses, . .292 
 
 III. — The Hypothesis of Direct Psychic Action, . 295 
 IV. — The Hypothesis of Direct Physical Action, . 299 
 V. — The Hypothesis of a Universal Fluid, . . 303 
 VI. — The Hypothesis of Psycho-Physical Trans- 
 mission, ... . . 
 Vll. — The Elements of a Scientific Explanation, 
 VII] . — The Law of Reversibility, 
 IX. — Final Suppositions, 
 Annen^dix.^^ . ^ . 
 
 3'7 
 320 
 
 337 
 353 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 This book, the title of which will, perhaps, scare those who fear 
 novelty, is not a work of imagination, but of experience. A multitude 
 of facts are set forth herein, that have been observed as well by the 
 author himself as by sundry experimenters. It is a Collection of facts, 
 and nowhere else can you find brought together so many data. But 
 it is not enough to accumulate facts — the facts must be rightly 
 observed. In this respect Mr. Ochorowicz's criticism of the facts he 
 has witnessed, or that he cites from the accounts given by other 
 scientific men, is as rigorous as is called for by a subject so difficult. 
 The most notable thing in his work is the resolute, unflagging deter- 
 mination to weigh all objections, to put away all causes of bad faith, 
 whether conscious or unconscious, to take note of the difficulties of 
 the problem, sometimes magnifying them, and not to be content till 
 every possible cause of illusion has been removed. 
 
 The task was difficult, and it is much to have attempted it under 
 conditions so stringent. 
 
 To demonstrate mental suggestion it suffices to eliminate two causes 
 of error : 
 
 First, the error due to fraud. And when I say fraud, I do not mean 
 willful deception plotted, contrived, studied beforehand — that is very 
 rare ; but unconscious, automatic fraud (so to speak) produced by the 
 natural tendency that is in all of us to wish to make an experiment 
 successful when once we have taken it in hand. Hence, we must first 
 of all make sure that no involuntary indication can have been given; 
 in other words, that there has been no word or gesture or touch that 
 could lead the person that answers to give preferably such or such 
 response. 
 
 The second cause of error is chance. Chance often brings about 
 amazing coincidences. Now, mathematical certitude is never attain- 
 able in cases where chance may play a part ; nevertheless, there is a 
 moral certitude resulting from the continuous success of many experi- 
 ments, the probability of any one of which is weak. 
 
 Mr. Ochorowicz has sought to eliminate these various difficulties ; 
 he finds a certain nnmher nf rasps which he regards as conclusive — 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 and I think I may say that he is pretty exacting in the matter of 
 proofs. In consequence of certain de'cisive experiments he has 
 reached a conviction, and naturally he strives to make his readers 
 share it with him. 
 
 And yet I do not think that his book, strong as it is in proofs, will 
 convince all, or even many persons. I know too well (from my own 
 experience) how difficult it is to believe what we have seen when it does 
 not accord with the general tenor of our thoughts, with the common- 
 places that underlie all our knowledge. A fortnight ago I witnessed 
 such or such an astonishing fact, and I was convinced. To-day I 
 toss my head and begin to doubt. Six months hence I shall no longer 
 believe it at all. This is a curious anomaly of our mind. To produce 
 conviction, it is not enough that a fact is proven logically and experi- 
 mentally; it is necessary, furthermore, that we, so to speak, become 
 intellectually habituated to it. If it clashes with our routine, it is 
 rejected, spurned. 
 
 This is what is commonly called " common sense." Common sense 
 it is that makes us reject all new and unexpected thoughts ; that 
 regulates our conduct and governs our opinions. 
 
 And yet this much-lauded " common sense " is little better than a 
 routine of the intelligence. To-days common sense is not the com- 
 mon sense of a couple of hundred years ago, or of a couple of thousand 
 years ago. A couple of thousand years ago it was common sense to 
 believe that the sun revolves round the earth and at even sinks into 
 the ocean. A couple of hundred years ago it was common sense that 
 one cannot in one day send a message to Pekin and receive an answer ; 
 but to-day common sense says that one can send a telegram thither, 
 answer prepaid. To-day common sense commands that an army of a 
 million soldiers be maintained, with five million muskets. Two or 
 three centuries hence will not this common sense seem astounding 
 absurdity ? 
 
 Hence, if mental suggestion is opposed in the name of common 
 sense, the common sense of the present year is meant, for the common 
 sense of ten years hence will have quite other tendencies. It is only 
 a question of time, and I dare say that after a few years this idea, 
 having made its way into people's minds, will be found quite matter- 
 of-course. People will, perhaps, even marvel that we should have 
 found so much difficulty in accepting it. Do we not see the immortal 
 discoveries of our great Pasteur, though proved by a superabundance 
 of demonstrative experiments, nevertheless meeting an astonishing 
 amount of opposition ? What stronger evidence is needed of our 
 incurable routine ? 
 
 Not that I consider mental suggestion as rigorously proven once 
 for all. Certainly not.' Strictly demonstrative experiments are rare. 
 In general, when they are conclusive (by concordance of results) they 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 are not irreproachable in other respects ; and when they are irreproach- 
 able, they are not conclusive. But some there are that are at once 
 irreproachable and conclusive ; they will be found set forth in this 
 book, and the reader will be able to judge of their importance. 
 
 After the facts, the theories. Of these there are many, but to me 
 they do not seem to be of any great importance. The essential 
 thing is to establish this fact, that independently of any phenomenon 
 appreciable by our nortnal senses, or by our normal perspicacity, how quick 
 soever it may be supposed to be, there exists between the thought of two indi- 
 diduals a correlation such as chance cannot account for. 
 
 The demonstration of this proposition is, to my thinking, the funda- 
 mental point. And though Mr. Ochorowicz and others before him 
 have amassed proofs, these do not produce absolute, complete convic- 
 tion, but only doubt : so strong in its action upon our ideas is the 
 influence of routine and of habit. 
 
 But whatever the opinion ultimately formed as to the reality of 
 mental suggestion, it ought not, I think, to influence one's judgment 
 as to Mr. Ochorowicz's book. Everybody, it seems to me, must 
 recognize his sincerity, his perseverance, and his contempt for ready- 
 made opinions. One feels that he has a passionate love of truth. 
 That is an encomium that every man of good faith will appreciate. 
 
 Charles Richet. 
 
PART 1. 
 
 EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS OF THE 
 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 ** The man who, outside of pure mathematics, pronounces the word impossible, lacks 
 PRUDENCE." — Arago, in his ^loge of Bailly. 
 
 THE limits of the possible are receding. The experimental 
 method, after having founded positive psychology, is itself 
 introducing us into the domain of the miraculous. 
 
 " Hypnotism " is henceforth part and parcel of science, and " sug- 
 gestion," which produces most of its wonders, no longer surprises us ; 
 on the contrary, we constantly refer to it as explaining other phe- 
 nomena still harder to understand. 
 
 Yet with mental suggestion the problem grows complicated. The 
 explanation offered by the Commission' of 1784, viz.: "imagination 
 and imitation," no longer suffices. One loses one's way ; one seems 
 ready to spurn science and to go headlong into occultism. 
 
 This limit once overpast, and mental suggestion accepted, may we 
 flatter ourselves with the thought that there is some other phenome- 
 non still more extraordinary to study ? 
 
 But what matters it ? Truth has nothing in it to make science 
 afraid. This truth may even be absolutely at variance with current 
 opinions, but none the less is it worthy of being studied with care, 
 for nothing is so helpful to progress as a discovery that contradicts 
 dominant theories. 
 
 But — is this a discovery ? Is it a truth ? That is the whole 
 question. 
 
 Let us for the nonce put ^way scruples ; let us double our habitual 
 precautions, our tests, and let us examine the facts. An experiment 
 
 ' Appointed by the French Academy to investigate " Mesmerism." — Translator. 
 
lo MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 is always instructive, even when it involves an illusion. Saved from 
 the trouble of explaining the experiment, we shall have to get at the 
 illusion ; and if we succeed in accounting for that, why there is a 
 result at all events. 
 
 And now, kind reader, if we are agreed as to principles, let us 
 begin our little journey in search of a phenomenon in Mental Sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 1MUST, first of all, confess that a year ago I did not believe in 
 mental suggestion — not only did not believe in it, but the ques- 
 tion did not to me appear to be important enough to warrant a special 
 study. Yet several times I had tested the alleged action of thought 
 upon a certain number of subjects. 
 
 First at Lublin, in 1867,' I experimented on a youth of seventeen, 
 one pretty difficult to endorm,' but who, once in the somnambulic 
 state, presented certain interesting phenomena. 
 
 For example, he would recognize any person of his acquaintance 
 who might simply touch him on the back with a finger. Once he dis- 
 tinguished in this way as many as fifteen persons, one after another ; 
 and I must add that some of these persons entered after he had been 
 endormed. 
 
 Though he showed a little hesitation with regard to persons that 
 
 did not belong to the circle of his habitual acquaintance, he always 
 
 distinguished my touch from that of every one else ; and once he 
 
 . recognized a lady that had entered unknown to him, and whom he 
 
 had seen for the first time several days before. 
 
 How could he do it? 
 
 As for the difference between the magnetizer and a stranger, it is 
 very clearly recognized by many somnambules. The magnetizer's 
 touch is to them either agreeable or indifferent, while the touch of 
 any other person causes them pain. Why ? Because these persons, 
 say the magnetizers, are not " in rapport " with the subject. But 
 that phrase does not tell us much. What, then, is " rapport ? " 
 
 To state the question clearly, it is first to be observed that this phe- 
 nomenon does not exist in " hypnotism " properly so-called. Let an 
 hypnotized subject be touched by whomsoever, and if that touch 
 
 'That same year appeared my first work on " Magnetism" (Warsaw, 1867, Gazeta 
 Polskd). 
 
 ' In French, endormir — to put to sleep ; to put in the magnetic or the hypnotic 
 sleep. — Translator, 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. ri 
 
 causes him pain, then the touch of all other persons will have the same 
 effect. He hears either everybody or nobody, obeys everybody, and 
 can be awakened by any one. 
 
 It is not always so in the magnetic sleep, so-called, produced not 
 by an inanimate object (a shining button, for example), but by a mag- 
 netizer, and especially by passes. 
 
 Now, every person has his own way of touching, and when one is 
 accustomed to it, one readily notices the contact, the warmth, or the 
 pressure of a strange hand. Some domestic animals, cats especially, 
 will not suffer strangers to fondle them. If we stroke with the hand 
 a sleeping cat that shows this idiosyncrasy, we easily recognize the 
 fact from the difference in the reflex movements. The cat stretches 
 herself out at full length languorously if it is her mistress that strokes 
 her ; if it is a stranger, she awakes dissatisfied and runs away. 
 
 The isolation in whiqh the magnetized subject exists, and the possi- 
 bility of his concentrating his attention better than in waking, facilitate 
 this differential sensibility. It is strengthened by exercise, by habit. 
 The subject takes those impressions best to which he is accustomed ; 
 sometimes even they become for him a need, an agreeable necessity, 
 whereas unexpected and unwonted sensations confuse him. 
 
 But when there is question of distinguishing between strangers, this 
 explanation seems no longer sufficient, even though we suppose mole- 
 cular differences of touch — differences probable indeed, but not 
 proved ; which, besides, would have to be known beforehand, through 
 habit, so that the subject might from them infer correspondence 
 between a certain physical sensation and a given psychic personality. 
 
 Have we, then, here mental suggestion ? 
 
 To recognize a person is to recognize in particular his /jy^/z/c person- 
 ality ; that is, to recognize that living whole, inwardly active, whereof 
 the external tactual manifestations are but a weak reflection. If, then, 
 it were proven that the ego of a person can act upon the ego of the 
 subject, that were a direct explanation, and it would be relatively 
 adequate. The person touching thinks of himself ; his mental state 
 may be represented by an affirmation ( " It is I " ) and a question 
 ( " Do you recognize me ? " ). All the persons present are looking at 
 him, and, of course, thinking of him ; hence, the whole company 
 influences the subject, and this influence constitutes suggestion. 
 
 But if such an explanation is to be accepted, mental suggestion 
 must be proved to exist, while these experiments are far from proving 
 it by themselves. Hence, I turned to another explanation, more 
 natural, indeed, though rather complex, viz., that there was suggestion 
 on the part of the company, but not mental suggestion. The subject 
 was blindfolded, but as I called his attention to the people around him 
 he could hear all that passed ; he was at home, habit made him 
 familiar with every possible noise of doors, furniture, floor ; he was 
 
12 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 intimately acquainted with the eight or ten persons present before his 
 sleep ; those who, at a given moment, did not take part in the experi- 
 ment would freely exchange a few words in a high voice, while the 
 others would request silence ; the hearing of familiar voices enables 
 one pretty accurately to determine the position of different interlocu- 
 tors ; and the noise made by the unavoidable changes of place helps 
 one to complete or to correct one's judgments as occasion may require. 
 
 All these inductions may have been perfectly unconscious. In some 
 respects we are better observers in dreams than in the waking state. 
 The imaginary scenes of our dreams represent persons of our acquaint- 
 ance in strict accordance with their characters and habits, reproducing 
 their favorite sayings, and no end of physiognomic signs that our 
 conscious observation takes no note of. Hence, it well may be that 
 a somnambule, who has no distractions, whose whole recollection and 
 whose every sensation contribute to one single perceptive act, can 
 make out better than we the connections of certain signs. 
 
 The only fact that struck me as rather unaccountable, was the 
 somnambule's recognition of the lady whom he had seen only once ; 
 but that incident presented some peculiarities of a kind to serve as 
 pointers. The rustling of a silk robe behind his chair betokened to 
 the subject a woman, and she a stranger, for the women of the house 
 had no such robe. She hardly touched him, thus plainly showing 
 timidity ; ergo, more likely a spinster than a married woman ; of the 
 young ladies likely to come to the party in a silk gown, Miss W, stood 
 among the first ; ergo, it is Miss W. 
 
 Consequently, in the facts described, we have only suggestion by 
 conjecture} 
 
 Here is another experiment made upon the same subject, and 
 apparently still more extraordinary. The problem was, to determine 
 whether there was vision without the aid of the eyes. 
 
 I take up a book at such distance from the subject that he cannot 
 see what it contains, and I open it anywhere. I then bid him read. 
 
 " I do not see clearly," he answers. I suggest to him the first two 
 or three words of the page, and ask him to go on with the rest, 
 "That is in the middle of the second volume," says he, naming the 
 chapter; "it is Kraszewski's novel 'The World and the Poet."' 
 " Just so," I answer ; " go on, then." And to our great astonishment 
 he goes and reads a whole page, with hardly a slip. Whenever 1 laid 
 the book aside he stopped ; he " read " fluently when I kept my eyes 
 on the text. I turned over a page ; still he read well. 
 
 Some of the persons who witnessed this experiment thought they 
 had here a demonstration of "second sight," despite the explanations 
 I offered, and which I will state presently. 
 
 ' We shall see later that the explanation of "rapport " given here is in many cases 
 inadequate. 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 13 
 
 But if it was no " second sight," do we need a better proof of mental 
 suggestion ? 
 
 Unfortunately, we do ! For, first, he " read," though less well, while 
 the book was closed ; he needed only to have the opening phrase of a 
 passage given him — therefore it was not thought-transference ; neither 
 was it second sight, for without that suggestion of the opening words 
 he could not even read the number of the page, or make out anything 
 whatsoever. 
 
 Here is the explanation of the mystery : The youth had shortly 
 before read twice over the novel by Kraszewski already mentioned — 
 had read it as people used to read in Poland in those days, and 
 particularly those 17 years of age. He knew it almost by heart. 
 Evidently he could not recite page after page verbatim in the waking 
 state ; but the one thing that our experiment proves is, the astonishing 
 activity of recollection in somnambulism. And as for the influence of my 
 thought, that is a very simple matter ; the subject " saw " better while 
 I was looking in the book, because then I used to correct his little 
 errors. It was these errors that suggested to me the true explanation 
 of the phenomenon ; for instead of reading faultily a word in the text, 
 he substituted another word of like meaning, but totally different in 
 form. The regular train of association being thus interrupted, he 
 used to come to a stop if the book was shut, for I could not come to 
 his assistance. 
 
 In spite of these failures, I still tried to obtain direct mental sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 1. The subject was required to repeat my gestures, made in an 
 adjoining room, with the door ajar. These experiments yielded no 
 striking result — merely a few coincidences from time to time. 
 
 2. With eyes blindfolded, he was required to come to me, passing 
 through several closed rooms. 
 
 This experiment was always successful, but it was necessary to 
 inform him in a general way that it was about to be performed. 
 Then, always after a delay of several minutes, he would find me. 
 Quite evidently he was conscious of my presence as soon as he found 
 himself in the same room ; but that was no proof of mental action, 
 more particularly because all tests made without previous notice — 
 ex improvise- — gave only negative results. 
 
 3. He was required, by touching my hand, to find out the thought 
 in my mind. Result : little or nothing, though there were a few 
 successes. 
 
 I account for a certain number of coincidences as follows : 
 
 1. He and I were comrades, living together under the same condi- 
 tions, and not seldom did it happen that we had the same thoughts 
 simultaneously. 
 
 2. The gestures that were repeated at a distance were customary 
 
14 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 gestures and attitudes, which are very few and which might easily have 
 been guessed at random. I remember, for instance, having begun the 
 experiments by an order " to raise the right arm." Now this is the 
 first thought that occurs to one who wishes to experiment on mental 
 suggestion, just as when one would prove free will one usually strikes 
 the table with the fist, saying " I can strike or not strike." 
 
 As the subject did raise the right arm, but did not carry out the 
 orders that followed, I had the right to judge that simultaneously, 
 though independently, he had the same thought that I had. Be it 
 added that he was notified in advance that he was to perform certain 
 movements mentally ordered by me. 
 
 In 1869 I renewed these experiments at Warsaw with an Italian 
 lady said to be " lucid," and whose performances were much talked 
 about. One thing remarkable about her was the almost total insensi- 
 bility of the pupils of her eyes to light, in the state of general con- 
 tracture. Having endormed her and applied tests, I was surprised to 
 observe the very great facility with which she recounted her som- 
 nambulic dreams ; it was indeed a pleasure to hear them. As for 
 " lucidity," or clairvoyance properly so-called, it was very obscure, 
 and not even once did I succeed in arresting the tide of her eloquence 
 by a mental order. 
 
 Further on it will be seen that in the state of active somnambulism, 
 when the somnambule talks much of herself, mental suggestion is not 
 possible. 
 
 The same year I made also some " spiritist " experiments, which 
 have a bearing upon our subject. 
 
 They came about in this way : A sober-minded man one day 
 
 attended a table-turning seance. Seeing the infatuation and the 
 
 'ready enthusiasm of the company, as they amused themselves with 
 
 unconsciously pushing the table, " I will believe in the spirits," he 
 
 said, "if they tell me the forename of my grandfather." 
 
 He was himself advanced in years, and was confident that no one 
 in the company knew his grandfather's name. 
 
 " It may be that the spirits themselves do not know it," gravely 
 remarked a spiritist who was managing the experiments ; " but if you 
 concentrate your thoughts upon the name, which you alone know, 
 they will be able to tell it you." 
 
 Some one recited the alphabet, and the knocks on the table when 
 the corresponding letters were pronounced made up the fore-name 
 " Adalbert " — the correct name. 
 
 "This is diabolism," said the serious-minded one, and he vowed to 
 himself that never again would he witness the doings of spiritists. 
 
 When he told me the story, I was justified in supposing the case to 
 be one of mental suggestion. As I did not believe in the spirits, 1 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 15 
 
 must needs resign myself to this latter hypothesis, or else adopt the 
 hardly probable explanation that it was all mere chance. Neverthe- 
 less, considering the complexity of this kind of experiments, and the 
 probability of some sort of illusion, I decided to accept nothing save 
 what should be proved by an experiment to be made by myself under 
 well-known and clearly-defined conditions. 
 
 Soon an opportunity was offered to apply the test. 
 
 Of the five persons (young women mostly) seated round the table, 
 none, as I was assured by all, knew the name of the grandmother ot 
 a certain aged lady, who took no part in the experiment. That n^me 
 was spelled out. But on investigation I found that one of the girls 
 that turned the table must often have heard the name pronounced ; 
 she herself admitted to me that in the course of the seance she had 
 recollected the name, which a few minutes before she believed she 
 had never known. 
 
 That sufficed to justify belief in a more or less involuntary in- 
 fluence of her muscles. 
 
 1 then thought of a purely fictitious name known to myself alone. 
 
 The table answered with another name having no resemblance 
 whatever to the one in my mind. I pretended to write a word on a 
 bit of paper. The answer of the table was " louche " — a word that 
 no one had thought of. This showed that the unconscious imagina- 
 tion of the mediums was bound to go astray when it was not guided 
 by some sort of suggestion. 
 
 Let us pass to another experiment. Before coming, I had prepared 
 a photograph of one of my friends, putting it in a sealed envelope. 
 
 " What is in this envelope ? Is it a letter, a bank note, or a photo- 
 graph ?" (I give the question verbatim^ according to my notes.) 
 
 " It is a photograph." 
 
 " Of a man or of a woman ? " 
 
 « A man." 
 
 " How old ?" 
 
 The table gave 23 knocks, which was correct. The believers were 
 delighted ; but on reflection, after recalling all the circumstances, I 
 was unable to agree with them. 
 
 First, the probability of the correct answer being made was very 
 great — for the first question, i to 3 ; for the second, 1 to 2 ; as for 
 the third question, the probability there was considerably less, but — 
 I had made a slip which no doubt decided the result. For when the 
 table, after giving 23 knocks, stopped for a moment, I hastily ex- 
 claimed " That's it ! " But before coming to the twenty-third knock 
 the table had stopped now and then, and I had said nothing. The 
 impression left upon my mind was that had the knocking not been 
 stopped by my exclamation, the table almost of a certainty would 
 have kept on knocking. 
 
i6 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Next, I noticed that the envelope showed pretty plainly the shape 
 of a photograph card, slightly curved, and manifestly stiffer than a 
 letter or a bank note. 
 
 Finally — and this is a point not easy to make plain — I felt dis- 
 tinctly that in that company, and under the conditions given, a pho- 
 tograph of a man was much rather to be expected than the pho- 
 tograph of a woman. 
 
 Hence this was a case of suggestion by conjecture, and perhaps a 
 matter of chance. 
 
 Here is another instance of apparent success : 
 
 I request a lady, not of the mediums' set, to pass to another room, 
 to write some number on a bit of paper, and not to show it to any one. 
 
 Upon her return, I ask the table : 
 
 " How many figures are there ? " 
 
 "Two." 
 
 " What is the first ? " I then name all the numbers, zero included, 
 but the table makes no sign. I begin again : 
 
 " Is it one ? " 
 
 "Yes." (It had been agreed with the "spirits" that one knock 
 was to mean yes, two knocks no.) 
 
 " And the second figure ? " 
 
 The table gave 6 knocks. But we had hardly come tq the sixth 
 when the lady exclaimed : "It is astonishing ; I wrote i6 ! " 
 
 I must add that she could not decide what number to choose. " Must 
 I write one figure or two ? " she asked of me before quitting the room. 
 
 " Any number at all," I replied, " one of two or three figures, for 
 instance." Thus the suggestion of two figures was given by inadver- 
 tence. 
 
 We began again, and this time under stringent conditions. I alone 
 knew the number, and I wrote 4 ; the table guessed 346. 
 
 In 1872 a young German lady of high sensibility and delicate con- 
 stitution, subject to hysterical fainting fits, suggested to me the 
 thought of a new trial. I had made a series of observations upon her 
 pulse changes in various phases of somnambulism. But in her case 
 the psychic phenomena were of little moment, while mental suggestion 
 would not work at all. 
 
 I will pass oyer a multitude of experiments made with persons in 
 the waking state unbeknown to them — making a person, whose back 
 is toward you, turn about when you order him to look at you. These 
 experiments have now and then been successful, but never under 
 stringent conditions. Once, however, the appearances surprised me a 
 good deal. I was in a ballroom. A young woman attracted my 
 attention by her peculiarities of feature ; so I often looked toward 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 17 
 
 "her, and fancied that whenever my gaze was fixed upon her for any 
 length of time, she would turn her head and look in the direction of 
 me. Still she could not see me. To verify the phenomenon, I chose 
 a less favorable moment and succeeded. I tried once again, and the 
 success was the same. Then, being in an adjoining room, I said to a 
 friend : " Let us make a curious experiment. Do you see that girl 
 in the corner of the ballroom ? I will make her come hither." A 
 minute afterward the young lady rose, entered the room, remained for 
 a moment undecided, cast a look of interrogation upon us, and then 
 went back to the ballroom. 
 
 I made her acquaintance a few weeks later. On being tested with 
 the hypnoscope ' she presented only a slight numbness of the finger. 
 She was rather hard to endorm (15 minutes), and the sleep was very 
 light and was soon over. No experiment in mental suggestion was suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Was it then an illusion ? I believe it was. 
 
 Having reflected upon the case, after making the acquaintance of 
 the subject, I interpreted quite differently my prior successes. In the 
 first place, it was nothing surprising that she turned her head while I 
 was looking at her, for having heard of me, she wished to make my 
 acquaintance ; and it is even probable that, through a very common 
 illusion, I fancied that I had first noticed her " because of her pecu- 
 liarities of feature," whereas, in fact, she had for a good while been 
 observing me, and so had, unconsciously, perhaps, given direction 
 first to my attention and then to my experiments. 
 
 "This incident gave me a disgust for mental suggestion, and many 
 remarkable subjects came under my hands without awakening any 
 desire to test with them the transmission of thought. 
 
 I recall aiiother discouraging circumstance : 
 
 I went to an " extraordinary " exhibition given by a certain 
 " Vicomte de Caston," who performed feats of memory and prsesti- 
 giation, improvised verses, read without the ajd of the eyes, and 
 divined thoughts. The seance was highly interesting to the psycholo- 
 gist. I say nothing of tricks of the common sort; albeit here, I am 
 free to say, is a study that I heartily commend to every psychologist 
 who is curious about hypnotism in general and mental suggestion in 
 particular. Sleight-of-hand is the result of an ingenious application 
 of the psychology of attention,'' involuntary associations, illusion, 
 and reflex movements, rather than of psychic power. In hypnotism 
 
 ■ This is the name I have given to a peculiarly shaped magnet, which, applied to a 
 finger, serves to show one's hypnotic sensibility. With few exceptions, this instrument 
 always gives positive results, and it is very convenient for use, for its application lasts 
 only two minutes. (See Appendix I.) 
 
 ^ See the remarkable work of Ribot bearing that title (Humboldt Library, No. 112). 
 — Translator. 
 
i8 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the great praestigiator is Hartmann's Unconscious : if one is not to be 
 its dupe, one must be " up to its tricks." 
 
 But among the performances of this " vicornte " the thing worthy 
 of mention here was a series of tricks grounded solely on the associa- 
 tion of ideas} We know how easy it is, by a very simple ruse, to 
 make a person select a given card from among many. You have only 
 to exhibit before his eyes the cards of the pack, one after another, 
 rapidly, but in such a way that only one shall be fully and distinctly 
 visible. You thus trick the subject's vision, and he selects the sug- 
 gested card as a matter of course. Our psychologic praestigiator had 
 developed this method, applying it to operations purely mental. 
 Having in readiness a certain number of envelopes, "sealed and con- 
 taining a word written beforehand, such as "rose," "diamond," 
 " negro," he opened a lively conversation with the audience. Dis- 
 coursing de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, he would stop just at the 
 moment when the most direct and the most inevitable association 
 was with one of the predetermined ideas. Then by a clever detour 
 he came round again to the same association, which he never expressed, 
 and suddenly asked a person he deemed to be absorbed in the per- 
 formance, to think of some object. 
 
 The object thought of was always the one suggested. 
 
 All he had to do now was to ask to which of the three kingdoms, 
 mineral, vegetal, or animal, the object belonged, to insure success, 
 and to prove to the person interested that his thought had been 
 written down by itself in a sealed letter. 
 
 As the experiment just described is but a conscious utilization of a 
 mental process that is daily and hourly repeated in ordinary life, it 
 follows that in very many cases the psychic atmosphere of a company 
 sufifices to account for unexpected coincidences of thought between 
 the experimenter and his subjects — coincidences all the more surpris- 
 ing the less one knows about the unconscious mechanism of these 
 suggestions, mental suggestions, if you please, though they have 
 nothing to do with thought-transference. Ever since that time I have 
 held that in a successful experiment in mental suggestion there are 
 always two questions to be settled. The question, How did the sub- 
 ject divine the thought? is but the second; while the first is, How 
 came the experimenter to choose one thought rather than another ? 
 We can judge of the scientific value of an experiment only according 
 to the intimate relation between these two processes. 
 
 Whenever several persons hold a conversation for any length of 
 time, there arises between their minds a reciprocal enchainment. A 
 clever observer has then but to isolate himself from this involuntary 
 mechanism and to grasp it mentally in a general view, and then 
 
 ' See " Diseases of Memory," by Ribot, (Humboldt Library, No. 46). — Trans- 
 lator. 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 19 
 
 sometimes he can foresee the object that some moments later will 
 occupy the attention of the company. It is this same mechanism 
 that often causes two persons in a company to express the same 
 thought or to raise the same question. The better one knows those 
 about him, the greater his success in this psychic "clairvoyance." I 
 remember how once, being secretary of a society, the object of which 
 was the publication of an encyclopaedia of the sciences, I wrote in 
 advance the notes of one of our meetings. The question before the 
 society was whether theology should be reckoned among the sciences 
 that were to be treated. There were two priests on the committee. 
 Knowing the members and their views, I risked the experiment. The 
 " minutes " were written out ; they gave an account of the general 
 discussion, and closed with this resolution : " Resolved, that theology 
 ought not to be treated, save as constituting a part of the history of 
 religions." I had to change only a few words in order to submit the 
 minutes to the members for approval. 
 
 Of course, one cannot be so good a prophet unless he is in some 
 degree an accomplice ; but one is always an accomplice when one 
 orders the carrying out of a thought that comes to us mechanically. 
 For instance, you are a frequent visitor at a house. You do not 
 recollect the fact that at your last visit the conversation was about 
 colonial policy, and that immediately after it was over a lady sat 
 down at the piano. The talk is now again about colonial policy, and 
 the thought occurs to you to make an experiment in mental sugges- 
 tion. So you order (mentally) the lady to go to the piano — and she 
 goes. You are amazed af your success — all the more because you 
 see no connection whatever between colonial policy and a piece of 
 piano music, and because your chum assures you in all sincerity that 
 in some quite inexplicable way the idea came suddenly to him to take 
 a seat at the piano. 
 
 We may utilize this unconscious process with deliberate purpose : 
 My friend P., a man no less absent-minded than he is keen of intel- 
 lect, was playing chess in a neighboring room. Others of us were 
 talking near the door. I had made the remark that it was my friend's 
 habit, when he paid closest attention to the game, to whistle an air 
 from " Madame Angot." I was about to accompany him by beating 
 time on the table. But this time he whistled something else — the 
 march from " Le Prophfete." 
 
 " Listen," said I to my associates ; " we are going to play a trick 
 upon P. We will mentally order him to pass from ' Le Prophfete ' to 
 ' La Fille de Madame Angot.' " 
 
 First I began to drum the march; then, profiting by some notes 
 common to both, I passed quickly to the quicker and more staccato 
 measure of my friend's favorite air. P., on his part also suddenly 
 changed the air and began to whistle " Madame Angot." 
 
20 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Every one burst out laughing. My friend was too much absorbed 
 in a eheck to the queen to notice anything. 
 
 "Let us begin again," said I, "and go back to ' Le Prophete.' " 
 And straightway we had Meyerbeer once more with a special fugue. 
 
 My friend knew that he had whistled something, but that was all 
 he knew. 
 
 One who knows a person's habits can sometimes imitate mental 
 suggestion, even without any suggestive impression. 
 
 In the Medical Faculty of X., we had a professor of philosophy, 
 who, in giving his lectures used to look first to the right, then to the 
 middle of the room, then to the left, again to the right, and so on, 
 with the regularity of a pendulum. In this little habit there was 
 nothing offensive to any one, and it had passed unnoticed. One day 
 he was proving to us the psychic liberty of man. 
 
 " You will soon see his freedom of will," said I in pleasantry to my 
 fellow students. So extending a finger, I began to give orders for the 
 movements his head was to make to the right, the middle, the left. 
 
 Do not think that this anecdote has no bearing upon our subject. 
 Of course, the thing was but a piece of pleasantry ; but had it been 
 taken seriously it would have been a deception. Now, in hypnotism, 
 physiologists are liable to just such deceptions, involuntarily, if while 
 understanding well how to observe external facts, they do not know 
 how to observe their own selves. Here is an instance of this from my 
 own experience : it comes fully within the class of apparent suggestions. 
 
 I was treating by hypnotism an elderly lady suffering from chronic 
 arthritic rheumatism. I put her asleep very readily, and absolute 
 repose of half an hour (aideic^ state) always sufficed to calm her 
 nerves, and to improve her natural sleep, at least for a few days. 
 There was no means of producing somnambulism, properly so-called, 
 or of making the subject talk {polyidetc^ state), so I left her, and 
 occupied myself with turning over the leaves of a book, and awaiting 
 the time of her awaking. One day I thought I should awaken her by 
 a mental order. "Awake," said I to her mentally, and at once there 
 were contractions of the face muscles ; the eyes opened, and she was 
 awake. 
 
 Some days afterward I tried to make her perform certain move- 
 ments, but in vain ; but I succeeded in awakening the subject as 
 before, though not so promptly. Still, it was a surprise. But why did 
 she Awake, and yet prove insensible to other suggestions ? 
 
 The reason was this : Here were two habitudes that had passed 
 unnoticed. Continuing the treatment for several weeks, I had fallen 
 into the habit of awakening her just half an hour after sleep had 
 
 ' Aideic (Greek, u, privative ; idea, idea, thought), without thoughts. Polyideic 
 (Greek, polvs, pi. polloi, much, many ; idea, thought), with many thoughts. Monoideic 
 (Greek, monos, single ; idea, thought), with one thought. — Translator. 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 21 
 
 become manifest. I did not look at my watch, but went always at 
 the fixed time ; and as that was one hour before dinner, my stomach 
 took the place of my watch perfectly. 
 
 The patient too had acquired the habit of waking almost precisely 
 on the minute — a phenomenon familiar to magnetizers. This does not 
 happen in every case, but it does happen very often. 
 
 This suspicion occurring to me, I resolved to find out whether it 
 was correct. I readily found 
 
 1. That I was unable to awaken her " mentally " 10, 15, or 20 min- 
 utes after she was sound asleep. 
 
 2. That she always awoke of herself after 30 or 35 minutes, without 
 any mental suggestion. 
 
 Thus we were in just the condition of our anecdote, except that in 
 the one case the cause of the coincidence was known from the first, 
 in the other it was not. 
 
 In 1881 I attended, in Lemberg, the magnetic seances given in that 
 city by Donate. Among his performances was one which, though not 
 presented as an instance of mental suggestion, nevertheless w;ore all 
 the appearances of one. Miss Lucile, who was blindfolded, remained 
 upon the stage, seated, while Donato went among the audience and 
 invited persons to name to him, in a whisper, a certain number of acts 
 for the somnambule to perform afterward. For instance, to fan her- 
 self with Mrs. N's fan ; to spread Mr. X's opera hat and put it on his 
 head ; to take Mrs. Y's bracelet and put it on the arm of Miss Z, and 
 so on. It is to be remembered that the choice of acts to be done is 
 very restricted, the same thing pretty nearly all the time, yet there 
 was no trickery ; thepsychic atmosphere played its own part. 
 
 Donato, having received the requests that were made, led Miss 
 Lucile toward the audience, and without speaking a word, solely with 
 the aid of gestures made at the distance of one or two paces from her, 
 then nearer, he conducted the " medium " to the persons in question, 
 and she performed perfectly every act that had been requested. 
 
 This experiment made a deep impression, for it was evident that 
 there was neither any understanding with the subject nor any collusion 
 with the audience. 
 
 How was Miss Lucile able to perform these interesting feats ? 
 
 "By magnetic education" was the magnetizer's answer. It was 
 vague, and yet true. 
 
 There exists in magnetism a phenomenon little studied by hypno- 
 tizers — that of magnetic attraction, so-called. It is enough to bring 
 the hand near the arm of the endormed subject : at once that arm 
 goes out in the direction of the hand and follows all its movements. 
 Though the magnet produces the same phenomenon, one must not 
 suffer himself to be deceived by the analogy. This attraction has 
 
2 2 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 nothing in common with the attraction of iron by the magnet ; it is 
 not of a physical kind, but of the reflex order. 
 
 But that is a distinct question, which we need not touch at present. 
 The important point, the one that has to do with the matter in hand, 
 is that this faculty, possessed by very many somnambules, may be 
 cultivated and improved by magnetic education. Little by little the 
 subject becomes sensible to various attractions, and if to the automatic 
 attractions there be added quick understanding of gestures, then the 
 subject possesses everything that is needed for a marvelously perfect 
 simulation of thought-transference. 
 
 At first the subject is influenced only from anear, and can under- 
 stand only simple movements ; later he grows accustomed to his mag- 
 netizer's ways, comprehends his inchoate gestures, and an automatic 
 association is formed between the almost unnoticeable directions of the 
 experimenter and certain reflex, or even voluntary, movements of the 
 subject. 
 
 Thus was Miss Lucile able to execute the unspoken orders of 
 Donato. 
 
 There is another and much simpler way of simulating mental sug- 
 gestion. Donato himself has shown that by making certain motions 
 with his fingers at Miss Lucile's ear, he could produce a hyperacusia ' 
 sufficient to enable the subject to hear words spoken so low and with 
 lip-movements so slight that even persons on the watch for them 
 and observing attentively were unable to hear anything. I have re- 
 peated this experiment many a time, in one case — to mention no 
 others — with a peasant woman of Zakopane in Galicia, who, though 
 her ears were plugged and her head wrapt thrice around with a coarse 
 thick kerchief, repeated words spoken as low as possible by me at the 
 distance of 13 feet. 
 
 Plainly with such a degree of hypersesthesia the subject can : 
 
 1. Hear direct what is spoken in the ear of the magnetizer ; 
 
 Or, 2, hear what later he whispers into her ear, unheard by the by- 
 standers. 
 
 Donato kindly held for my behoof a private seance, at which I had 
 an opportunity once more to experiment on mental suggestion. The 
 magnetizer himself expressed some doubts upon that head. The 
 phenomenon he believed possible, and he had once demonstrated it 
 in the presence of Mr. Arkasof; but according to him the experiment 
 is but seldom successful — how, no one knows ; in most cases it mis- 
 carries — why, no qne can tell. 
 
 We made the attempt, nevertheless. 
 
 Miss Lucile stood with her back toward us; I was on the right of 
 the magnetizer, between 6 and 7 feet from the subject. The latter 
 
 ' Hyperacusia: Greek, hyper, over; akoue, hearing. A super-sensibility of the 
 sense of hearing. — Translator . 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 23 
 
 was to extend the left arm. After a minute there were some slight 
 movements of that arm, or rather of the whole body — movements 
 that may have been produced by the subject's fatigue, and may have 
 had no relation to the intentions of the magnetizer. This was readily 
 admitted by Donate. " I should be more sure of a result," said he to 
 me, " if you would allow me to act by gestures." But that was not 
 the question; undoubtedly, he could, acting by attraction, cause the 
 the arm to be extended. 
 
 Other attempts had no better result, whether it was I that gave the 
 order after endorming the subject, or whether it was Donato himself. 
 I simply proved again what I had already proved with one of my first 
 subjects, to wit : the subject's power cf recognizing the person that 
 touches her on the back (through the clothing). When Donato en- 
 dorraed her, a touch from me caused her pain ; the contrary was the 
 case when I myself magnetized her, but she always bore more easily 
 the touch of her customary magnetizer. 
 
 Care was taken that the subject should not be able to tell who 
 touched her, except from the mere act of simple, slight contact. 
 
 This phenomenon I have since verified in nearly all highly-sensitive 
 subjects, when magnetized (not hypnotized), and so I have been obliged 
 to postulate an individual physical action not found in Braid's hyp- 
 notism. 
 
 This physical action is a matter of no slight importance in the 
 problem of mental suggestion, as will be seen later, but evidently the 
 one does not imply the other. 
 
 Notwithstanding this evolution of my views, I was still far from 
 believing in thought-transference. On the contrary, the foregoing 
 attempts discouraged me, bringing to light the full complexity of the 
 question and all the causes of error. 
 
 One thing I had learned, to wit : that a skillful magnetizer who 
 has a suitably trained subject, can imitate mental suggestion per- 
 fectly, or may himself be duped by unconscious associations. Wit- 
 nesses in relating the performance, transfigure it, embellish it invol- 
 untarily, in virtue of the psychic faculty — of great value in art, but 
 highly dangerous in science — which has been called " complementary 
 imagination."' 
 
 By omitting details that seem insignificant, and magnifying others 
 that seem essential to the understanding of the situation, one makes 
 up in his own mind an experimental " demonstration " that in reality 
 demonstrates nothing but one's own personal enthusiasm. If in nar- 
 rating the facts for the first time one adapts them just a little " in 
 usum Delphini," ^ on& yiWl T&coveai them the second X.\me fretty nearly 
 
 ' Fantaide compUmentaire . 
 
 * A famous annotated edition of the Latin classics was prepared in the reign of 
 Louis XIV., " for the Dauphin's use" — in usuni Ddphini. — Translator. 
 
24 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 as at the first, and the third pretty nearly as at the second ; slight 
 modifications then go on accumulating and little details drop out. 
 Thus, persons little used to strict scientific method in the end will, in 
 all sincerity, tell of things that never were. A scientific man will not 
 go so far as this, yet he may easily permit himself to be fascinated by 
 a novel and unexpected impression received under conditions that 
 either cannot be, or that at least have not been, ascertained with pre- 
 cision. That is enough to lead to an erroneous interpretation, which 
 may go so far as to assert the existence of a new phenomenon that 
 does not exist at all. Lest I should be accused of exaggeration I give 
 an example : 
 
 Mr. Hughes, inventor of the microphone, the printing telegraph, 
 etc., a noted physicist and thinker, believed it to be demonstrated at 
 the beginning of his researches that the microphone increases the 
 intensity of sounds. That was an error of interpretation, caused by 
 certain illusive effects. No microphone has ever amplified the inten- 
 sity of speech, or of sounds in general ; on the contrary there is always 
 a notable reduction of the intensity. How comes the error, then ? 
 From the failure to distinguish between the sounds and the mechani- 
 cal vibrations accompanying them. The microphone makes audible 
 the tread of a fly over a thin planchette, but not because it amplifies 
 the sound — which, indeed, is imperceptible directly — but because it 
 transforms into sounds the mechanical vibrations of the fly's tread. 
 Place near the planchette a watch that makes a far louder sound, and 
 you will hear nothing ; but set it upon the planchette of the micro- 
 phone, and you will hear the ticking through the telephone a great 
 deal better than you can directly, because in the latter case the 
 mechanical vibrations are transformed into sounds, and these are 
 added to the real sounds. Now, this error of interpretation has cir- 
 culated so widely that even to-day you will find it asserted in works 
 on physics that sounds are amplified by the microphone — in other 
 words, a fact is said to exist that has no existence at all. 
 
 The case is often much the same with regard to mental suggestion. 
 It is not the evidence for the naked fact that is at fault, but the inter- 
 pretation of the fact — the determination of the causal relation between 
 two phenomena that in themselves are verified easily enough. The 
 thought of one brain is succeeded by a like thought of another like 
 brain : is the case here like that when two telephones influence each 
 other by the aid of undulatory currents ? or are the conditions like 
 those of the two watches supposed by Leibnitz, which, while indicat- 
 ing the same hour, were mutually independent ? That is the question. 
 And it must be added that between these two extreme situations there 
 is plenty of room for an intermediate state of some complexity ; for 
 while independent in their mechanism, the two watches maybe imper- 
 ceptibly regulated electrically or pneumatically. Have the physicians 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 25 
 
 who like Barrier, Teste, Bertrand, Charpignon, Garcin, Despine, et al., 
 vouch for us the reality of thought transference — have they seen an 
 actual transmission ? They have seen only two watches that some- 
 times indicate the same hour. I was therefore justified in regarding 
 their testimony as insufficient, and that for still another reason' : 
 
 In order to judge aright of such a fact as this, one must of neces- 
 sity have in mind the suggestion theory of hypnotism ; one must ever 
 remember that all hypnotic phenomena whatever may be produced by 
 imagination alone, by ideoplasty} Consequently, to make out a case 
 of somnambulism produced from a distance, for example, it is not 
 enough simply to verify the fact ; we must furthermore have absolute 
 certitude that it has not been possible for the subject by a combina- 
 tion of the circumstances or by the behavior of the persoti whose 
 business is to observe him, to presume what the experiment is to be. 
 Further, this presumption itself may be unconscious even while it brings 
 about the desired result. On this point my hypnotic studies leave no 
 doubt. In fact, even when the subject has anticipated nothing, when 
 he declares that he has suspected nothing, one is not free from uncer- 
 tainties. Hence, notwithstanding all that has been /published by the 
 priest Faria, by H^nin, Cuvillier, Bertrand, Braid, Durand, Gros, 
 Morin, Szokalski, and Li^beault, the theory of suggestion was really 
 not known and recognized till the publication of Dr. Bernheim's 
 ingenious work. At one time the action of " magnetic currents " in 
 space was found to be comprehensible, but it was held to be improba- 
 ble that somnambulism might be produced by means of a letter (not 
 magnetized) fixing the experiment for a given hour. The subject fell 
 asleep a few minutes after a concentration of will at a distance, there- 
 fore it was the thought of the magnetizer and the " magnetic fluid," 
 its agent, that produced the somnambulism ; post hoc, ergo propter hoc. 
 
 For a long time these doubts seemed to me sufficient to withhold 
 me. from new experiments. But one always returns to his first love. 
 
 While giving at the University of Lemberg (i87S-'8i) a course of 
 lectures on physiological psychology, I studied the different questions 
 of hypnotism a good deal. Many of my students willingly offered 
 themselves for all sorts of researches, and then it was that I began to 
 see my way a little better in this mysterious region. One day I 
 brought together six of my best subjects in a hall of the Polytechnic 
 School, from which every ray of light was excluded, in order to test 
 the alleged discoveries of Baron Reichenbach.' We rematoed three 
 
 ^ Ochorowicz, Sur Vid^oplastie : classification des faits; etsur la th^oriede Vid^oplasiie 
 {Comptes rendus de la SociM de biologic). Ideoplasty (Greek, idea, idea, mental image; 
 plattein or plassein, to sliape, wiience plastes, modeler), imagination, or the power of 
 conceiving, or forming, mental images. See Appendices II., III. — Translator. 
 
 ^ Reichenbach asserted that the " influence" of a magnetizer upon his subject is 
 manifested in' a dark chamber by luminous rays emanating from him. — Translator. 
 
26 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 hours in absolute darkness, yet were unable to verify any of the 
 statements of the German chemist. But to make amends, we discovered 
 a new fact of considerable interest, namely, that certain hypnotizable 
 subjects see far more distinctly the phosphorescence of an electric 
 machine than do other persons. Threads of light, quite invisible to 
 the rest of us, and forming a prolongation of the visible rays, were 
 described perfectly by some of the subjects, and were objectively veri- 
 fied in divers ways. 
 
 I chose two of these subjects for an experiment in mental sug- 
 gestion. The first, a youth of good stature and remarkably muscular, 
 in good health, but highly sensitive to hypnotism (hypnoscope showed : 
 irritation, anaesthesis, contracture) presented this peculiarity, that it 
 was impossible to produce in him an hallucination or any word-sug- 
 gestion whatever. Endormed by fixing the gaze, or by other equiva- 
 lent means, he showed a general contracture and, psychically, a state of 
 complete aideism (tetanic aideia). To make him talk, it was necessary 
 to free the speech muscles, which were all contractured ; and once a 
 reply was obtained, he did not fall asleep any more ; a certain dizziness 
 and a general contracture alone remained. It was possible to awaken 
 one hemisphere alone, and one-half of the body, but somnambulism 
 could not be produced. He passed straight from the " lethargic " state 
 to waking ; but in waking, as well as in the lethargy, it was possible 
 to produce by localized passes, insensibility, hyperesthesia, attraction, 
 catalepsy and contractures, but hallucination never. So pronounced 
 was the neuromuscular hyperassthesia, that to produce a local contrac- 
 tion or contracture one had only to bring near to any part of his body, 
 divested of clothing, a finger, a magnet, or to project a ray of light, 
 or even to look fixedly upon it. 
 
 If I endeavored to influence him mentally by ordering a movement, 
 that movement was not performed, but the member on which I looked 
 was seized with contracture. If instead of acting by look I acted by 
 gestures, there was an exceedingly strong attraction of the whole 
 body, and he performed all the acts indicated by the attractions, till a 
 general contracture obliged him to fall rigid or to stand motionless. 
 The rigidity had then to be removed by gentle massage in order to 
 continue the experiment. 
 
 This special sensibility was developed little by little. The attraction 
 did not manifest itself till the fifth magnetization. (All these experi- 
 ments were reported to the Medical Society of Lemberg in 1881.) It 
 was proven to my satisfaction that he was capable of being influenced 
 by looks — though the experiments were not always successful when 
 made extempore ; but it was certain, at the same time, that mental 
 suggestion by itself alone was always without result ; there was no 
 trace of effect. When hypnotized, he obeyed every one ; when mag- 
 netized, he followed only his magnetizer ; the latter alone could awaken 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 27 
 
 him, or cause the contracture to disappear, but always by massage, 
 passes, gestures, by blowing on the subject, not by a mental order. 
 Once or twice only did I succeed, in the state of momentary stupor of 
 the brain prior to the awaking, in transmitting to him some physical 
 sensations — as a painful puncture, a bitter taste — but even then there 
 was uncertainty as to interpretation, and I could not guarantee the 
 value of a few successes. 
 
 My other subject was also a young man, tall of stature, but not 
 strong ; highly intelligent, rather anaemic and consumptive. He was 
 very sensitive, even too sensitive, to all sorts of impulsions (hypnos- 
 cope showed analgesia, instantaneous contracture of the whole arm). 
 The application of the hypnoscope at the pit of the stomach produced 
 in him a series of peculiar phenomena — sensations, contortions, sharp 
 long-drawn cries, and rotary movements of the arms, the head, and 
 the whole body. He was remarkable also for somnambulic and 
 suggestional dreams of all the senses. 
 
 First Experiment. — The subject, being in somnambulism (polyideic 
 state), counts from i to 50. His counting was to be interrupted by a 
 mental oxAqt from a distance. Result : a few coincidences, but in most 
 cases the paralysis came too soon — it preceded the mental order : con- 
 sequently it had to be regarded as produced by ideoplasty. 
 
 Second Experitnent. — I touch the nape of the neck with my finger, 
 and mentally order him to arise and go sit on a bed. The subject 
 rises partly, slips to the floor, sits down, bows, kneels. One of the 
 company, B, an engineer, says it was he that mentally gave him the 
 order to kneel. (Probably the slight downward pressure of my finger 
 suggested to the subject the idea of sitting on the floor, and then the 
 lowliness of his position produced in his mind the image of an attitude 
 lowly/ar excellence and more convenient — that of kneeling ; while at 
 the same time, and through a like association, B got the idea of order- 
 ing that posture). 
 
 Third Experiment. — No touch and no gesture. The whole company 
 think on making him raise the right leg. 
 
 He remains motionless, but says he wishes to dance. (The resem- 
 blance does not suffice to justify a conclusion.) 
 
 Fourth Experiment. — I alone give the mental order. I do not touch 
 the subject, but I use gestures, and direct my looks toward the mem- 
 ber in question. The subject is blindfolded. I stand in front of him 
 at distances of 2, 3, 4 and 6 paces, respectively. 
 
 He performs various motions ; rises, walks to the right, to the left, 
 forward, backward (he retreats slowly and with difficulty), kneels, sits. 
 I order him to extend the right arm — and he raises the left, that 
 being the only act in this experiment that failed ; at that time I was 
 distant from the subject six paces. When repeated, without gestures, 
 these experiments gave no positive result. Repeated with gestures. 
 
28 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 but without any special concentration of the will, they gave nearly the 
 same positive result as at first. 
 
 Fifth Experiment (a few days later). — The subject being in som- 
 nambulism, his eyes bandaged, his ears plugged, I stand in front of 
 him at a distance of from thirteen to sixteen feet, and make gestures 
 of attraction and repulsion. 
 
 For more than an hour all the tests of this fifth experiment were 
 successful. The principal one was to determine whether the subject 
 really had a sense of my presence. I therefore hid in remote corners, 
 while I attracted him toward me. I took all possible care to make 
 no noise. I changed my foot-gear ; another person imitated my tread. I 
 tried to lead the subject astray by speech, etc.; he followed me every- 
 where and found me always. In coming toward me he sniffed like a 
 hunting dog (pi all the persons present I was the only smoker, and my 
 clothing was impregnated by the odor of tobacco). 
 
 Result : the subject was guided : 
 
 1. By an exceptional sensibility of the whole surface of his body 
 for motions of the air (gestures at a distance); 
 
 2. By an exceptional sensibility for warmth (he felt the warmth of 
 my hand at a distance of thirty inches) ; 
 
 3. By an exaltation of the sense of smell ; but not at all by mental 
 suggestion. 
 
 Sixth Experiment (some days afterward). — The sleep not perfect ; he 
 partly recollects after awaking (this, perhaps, because of the emotions 
 of the day). Attraction often lacking. 
 
 One of my pupils. P., deceives the subject, who confounds him with 
 me. The movements ordered are executed badly. The subject im- 
 provises, giving his dreaming fancy a free rein. He performs move- 
 ments that no one thought of, while having the appearance of being 
 under an influence. General result strictly negative. 
 
 Here is another negative experiment, performed on an hysterical 
 young woman of marked sensibility. (Hypnoscope showed paralysis, 
 contracture, and total anaesthesia of the finger.) There were two 
 magnetizers. Dr. B. and myself. We each touch her on the head 
 with a finger, ordering her to seize some object. The only result is 
 that she falls asleep, but after a peculiar fashion, for the left half of 
 her body is in rapport with me, the right with Dr. B. She hears me 
 only through the left ear, and Dr. B. only through the right. So, 
 too, with regard to attraction. If I touch the right arm, she has no 
 sensation ; it is the same if I touch her with any object, a stick, for 
 instance. Looks have no effect, neither has purely mental suggestion. 
 
 Here are some experiments upon "willing." 
 
 We are in the Count D.'s salon. One of the ladies tells me how she 
 several times has succeeded in suggesting to her friend one act or 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 29 
 
 another by placing her hands upon her shoulders. I make a few 
 experiments which are successful, or nearly so. But in this sort of 
 performances mental suggestion plays no part. Having studied the 
 unconscious muscular movements that cause a table to tip, or a pen- 
 dulum to sway, as explained by Chevreul, I knew what to think of 
 these phenomena. These involuntary movements suffice to suggest 
 directions to the subject, who is thinking of nothing and whose body 
 is in unstable equilibrium. Sometimes he divines the rest, that is, 
 even acts that cannot be indicated directly. 
 
 Yet one of these experiments surprised me. The Prince C. is 
 sitting in an arm-chair — consequently is in a stable position. Two 
 ladies kneel before him and form a circle by joining hands with him. 
 The order is for him to cross his legs and to dangle the right. The 
 order was carried out after a few minutes. In this case the explana- 
 tion is complex. Involuntary movement of the legs is difficult when 
 the subject is in a fixed position, with hands held, as in this instance. 
 But first, just because of that position, the legs alone (and the head) 
 were free, and hence it is not surprising that after some minutes of 
 immobility he should have felt the need of moving his legs, and the 
 only thing he could do, in view of the position ot the ladies, was to 
 cross them. Then, if only to verify the experiment, the eyes of the 
 ladies were sure to turn every moment to the right foot of the Prince, 
 who more or less automatically directed his attention to that point. 
 The direction of attention toward a given point of the body always 
 produces a tendency to movement, and the only convenient move- 
 ment was the one he performed. 
 
 I must add that before this he made several movements of the head, 
 which were disregarded as "unimportant;" but had one of these 
 movements been selected, we should not have waited for the others, 
 but should have had the same right to claim a success. 
 
 During the same evening I made still another experiment simulat- 
 ing will-action at a distance. Having noticed the sensibility of the 
 Countess D. (hypnoscopic experiment : heat, numbness), I stand facing 
 her and fix my gaze upon her for two or three minutes ; then I move 
 away, walking backward, and she follows me ; I quicken my pace, 
 still backward, and despite the laughter of the company, and though 
 she made some opposition, she is obliged to follow. This experiment, 
 one now quite familiar through Donato's performances, seems to 
 prove a physical action of the will and of the eye. That is not so, 
 however. The fixing of the gaze, expectant attention, and emotion 
 produce a sort of fascination that may be regarded as an intermittent 
 monoideism. Without losing consciousness and will completely, the 
 predisposed subject undergoes, from moment to moment, the inhibit- 
 ory influence of his own mind ; he is not paralyzed, but is subject to the 
 visual suggestions that dominate his will. 
 
^ 30 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Another experience in "willing" tried by the two ladies with the 
 Count P. as subject was unsuccessful, and yet he was a sensitive sub- 
 ject (hypnoscopic experiment : prickling, heaviness, anaesthesia). I 
 drove a pin into his finger, which had been locally " insensibilized " 
 without hypnotization. This proves that the success of this sort of 
 experiments is not always in proportion to the sensibility of the sub- 
 ject. We shall see further on what are the precise relations between 
 hypnotism and Cumberlandism. I modified these tests in experimenting 
 upon other persons. 
 
 Mrs. Sch., robust, but anaemic, subject from time to time (under the 
 influence of emotions) to cataleptoid hysteric fits (hypnoscopic expe- 
 riment : anaesthesia, localized contracture), is, while in the standing 
 posture, put in the state 'of fascination by fixing the gaze. Mental 
 order : To pull me by the beard. She slowly raises her hand in the 
 direction of my beard, but does not touch it. 
 
 Mrs. A., weak, thin, nervous, but in fair health (hypnoscopic experi- 
 ment : no result). Mental order : To embrace Mr. S. She goes in the 
 direction of that gentleman and says : " I am to embrace some one." 
 
 Miss R., lymphatic, but in perfectly good health, with little sensi- 
 bility (hypnoscopic experiment : prickling, heaviness). Mental order 
 (with touch of the hand on the occiput) : 
 
 1. To go to the piano. After a couple of minutes' hesitation, " I 
 must play," said she. 
 
 2. To embrace Miss E. After a minute's silence, she says : " I am 
 to embrace some one. It is you, Marie. No ; it is you, Edvige." 
 
 3. To guess whether I am thinking of an affirmation or of a nega- 
 tion. She exclaims almost immediately, "You are thinking yes." 
 The contrary was the fact. 
 
 Barring the last experiment, which might be regarded as the result 
 of a mere erroneous conjecture, all the rest seem to indicate a real 
 action. But they were not performed under faultless conditions ; the 
 subjects were not blindfolded, and the rest of the company, being in 
 the secret, may have influenced them by their attitude. At all events, I 
 remember distinctly that my individual impression derived from these 
 experiments was not decisive. The first two, though more surprising 
 than the last, because of the nature of the injunctions, which could 
 not be easily conjectured, were not carried out fully. The others, in 
 giving which I touched the subject, left room for doubt, as is always 
 the case when that method is employed ; and, besides, the acts 
 enjoined on the subject may have been selected under the influence 
 of the psychic atmosphere. I remember, for instance, that in the first 
 part of the evening on which the last three experiments were made. 
 Miss R. was asked to play a piece on the piano and refused. Little 
 wonder, then, that when later she had to execute a suggestion, the 
 same act came to her mind. 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 31 
 
 Then, the number of acts from which a choice has to be made on 
 such occasions is very small. Indeed, in a decorous company what is 
 there for you to bid a young woman do but to go to the piano, to 
 embrace her sister, or the like ? And if the order is merely to seize 
 some object or to go to a place indicated, the touch of the hand and 
 its involuntary pressures guide the subject very well indeed. I men- 
 tion these petty details to show how needful it is to be circumspect 
 and attentive in researches of this kind. 
 
 It was about this time that, having acquired a certain acquaintance 
 with hypnotism, I resolved to apply it to the treatment of diseases. 
 The result was surprising, and I saw not only that the assertions of 
 magnetizers might be true,, but also that a rational and methodical 
 application would probably lead to the establishment of facts more 
 surprising still. To-day we are beginning- to take steps in that direc- 
 tion, and certainly it is time that, having demoralized a number of 
 hysteric subjects, we should restore them to health by the same pro- 
 cess. 
 
 Being absorbed in therapeutic study, I had neglected the problem 
 of mental suggestion as apparently of no practical value ; and it was 
 only by accident that I had occasion to observe a few more or less 
 unexpected phenomena connected with it. For instance, one of my 
 patients could always tell, as soon as I touched her, whether my im- 
 pressions during the day had been pleasant or disagreeable. She 
 suffered from a complicated disease, which I might be tempted to call 
 chlorotic ganglionic neurosis, and had been for thirty years bed-rid- 
 den. She was excessively impressionable, yet was insensible to hyp- 
 notism and to metalloscopy (hypnoscopic experiment : no result). An 
 interesting peculiarity was that my hand seemed to her always warm, 
 even when it was of much lower temperature than her body. As my 
 attitude toward her was always the same, I marveled not a little at 
 this faculty of discerning my mental state. But there are a thousand 
 ways of guessing such things, as from the expression of the face, or 
 from the tone of the voice ; and there is no need to suppose a direct 
 transmission. True, she could also tell whether before coming to her 
 I had touched any other patient ; but she might have inferred that 
 from certain signs of fatigue, or from my coming a little late ; per- 
 haps, too, she was aided by olfactory sensations. 
 
 Another patient showed a like gift with regard to the persons who 
 were habitually about her. She was hysterical, very easily hypnotiz- 
 able (hypnoscopic experiment : anaesthesia and contracture of the 
 whole arm), and manifested this aptitude only at the moment of awak- 
 ing, i. e., in a state intermediate between somnambulism and the wak- 
 ing state. She would then say of her own accord : " Oh ! how weary X 
 is of his work 1 " " Why is Y so worried ? " " To-day you have more 
 
32 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 hope of curing me, and you are very much pleased. I thank you for 
 that," etc. All this she would say before opening her eyes, and often 
 without a single suggestive word being spoken. Was there a real 
 transmission of states of mind ? I did not think there was. The same 
 people were always around her, and she knew them well enough to be 
 able to make these prejudgments. But there were a few strange 
 coincidences. 
 
 Finally, a third patient, a Frenchwoman, knowing not a word of 
 Polish, made apt reply (-in somnambulism) to an observation made in 
 the latter tongue. There was no analogy between the words. But 
 this thing did not occur again, all further experiments in mental 
 suggestion having failed, so I set the occurrence down to the account 
 of chance. This subject was easily hypnotizable (hypnoscopic ex- 
 periment : heaviness, anesthesia and contracture of the whole arm),, 
 and often, in the waking state, divined the complaint of a stranger by 
 simply touching his hand. 
 
 Having heard of many feats of this sort, I decided myself to in- 
 vestigate, so I asked her what disease she found in me ? 
 
 " None ; you are never ill ; a slight congestion when you work toO' 
 hard, but otherwise your health is perfect." 
 
 That was the exact truth. As a second test, I took her to one of 
 my patients, a woman whose complex malady, though it presented 
 lesions clearly characterized, still was not easily recognizable from the 
 appearance of the patient. She had formerly had an attack of pneu- 
 monia, and there was hepatization of the right lung, chronic inflam- 
 mation of the larynx, dorsal hyperesthesia, frequent headache, several 
 defects of circulation, dyspepsia, and intermittent general debility. 
 Despite all this, the patient, thanks to her exceptional constitution, 
 looked well, and no one would, on first seeing her, suspect her case to 
 be so serious. 
 
 The somnambule, after touching the patient's hand, named pretty 
 nearly all her maladies. She did not describe the lesions in sufficient 
 detail, but with regard to the symptoms her diagnosis was very ac- 
 curate. And more accurate still was her capital description of the 
 patient's character and of her bad habits. 
 
 " On what do you base your inferences? " I asked. " Do you think 
 that you see the organs that are affected ? " 
 
 " No," she said ; " rather I myself /«/ the symptoms of the disease." 
 
 And, in truth, I have seen her suffer and for a moment present cer- 
 tain morbid phenomena of another patient that she examined but 
 whom I did not know. 
 
 Her feeling the symptoms might be explained by ideoplasty, but even 
 so, she would have to know them. And here it is that doubt begins. 
 The somnambule did know the symptoms. But she was a very well- 
 informed midwife, possessing a certain amount of medical knowledge 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTIOi<r. 33 
 
 and a good deal of experience : hence she might well have had other 
 guidance than that of a mystic faculty. After all, one or two experi- 
 ments are not enough. On the other hand, however, I must admit 
 that the somnambule then saw my patient for the first time ; that dur- 
 ing the whole consultation she kept her eyes half-shut, and did not 
 attempt to examine the patient according to any of the ordinary 
 methods. As for the influence of the imagination in feeling the symp- 
 toms, that explanation becomes doubtful from the fact that the som- 
 nambule was not suggestionable Sit all, whether in the waking state or in 
 somnambulism. She passed rapidly out of the aideic state into active 
 polyideism, the latter resembling the waking state in all respects, save 
 that it presented anesthesia of the limbs. 
 
 I may cite, in connection with the fact here observed, a passage 
 from the report read before the Paris Academy of Medicine, in 1831, 
 by Husson : " We have found a somnambule that told us all the 
 symptoms of the illness of three persons." 
 
 Was the case I hav-e described one of mental suggestion ? I alone 
 could know the condition of my patient ; the somnambule may have 
 read it in my mind. 
 
 This hypothesis did not to me seem admissible, for the reason that 
 no voluntary suggestion had been successful ; besides, it is better to 
 hold to an explanation of a less extraordinary character — a transmis- 
 sion of the symptoms of a disease. 
 
 Is that possible ? I know not. I do not think we can hold with 
 certitude the existence of a faculty whereby we directly feel all the 
 peculiarities of another's pathological state ; and yet, a Paris physi- 
 cian has assured me that not only does he possess that faculty, but 
 that he never needs any other means of diagnosis. 
 
 All that I can testify from my own experience is, that there exists 
 another sort of nervic transmission, more general and less "circum- 
 stantiated ; " ' and this, too, for a long time seemed to me untenable 
 and absurd. 
 
 It is a popular belief of very ancient standing, that one may give 
 the pain he suffers to another person, or even to an animal. Many a 
 case of this kind have I heard of, and many a one more is mentioned 
 in the writings of magnetizers and of a few physicians, but I will teil 
 only of what I myself have seen and experienced. Here are the con- 
 clusions I have reached in my own practice : 
 
 1. The act of magnetizing, even when it is restricted to imposition 
 of the hands, is much more exhausting than an act mechanically 
 analogous. 
 
 2. This exhaustion is more marked when one magnetizes a sick 
 person than when one magnetizes one who is sound. 
 
 3. This nervous exhaustion, which manifests itself by certain 
 
 * Circonstanci^e. 
 
34 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 special characters, is sometimes accompanied by a transmission 
 of pain. 
 
 4. The kinds of pain that are most likely to produce this phenome- 
 non are the " fulgurant " pains of the ataxic, rheumatic pains, and 
 dorsal hyperaesthesia. 
 
 5. Prolonged contact facilitates this phenomenon, which, though 
 more rarely, is manifested also as a sequel of magnetization without 
 contact. 
 
 6. The transmission is rarely definite and immediate. Sometimes, 
 not often, the pain visits the same part of the body, and this 
 occurs particularly when one has to do with several patients, all pre- 
 senting the same symptoms. But, as a general rule, it attacks the 
 nodi tninoris resistentice, and manifests itself mostly the following 
 morning at awaking. 
 
 7. Transmitted pains are always much lighter and of short duration. 
 
 8. Besides pains, certain pathological states, as congestions^ cold in 
 the head, insomnia, etc., may also be transmitted as a consequence of 
 a magnetization. They are easily distinguished from an indisposi- 
 tion of spontaneous origin in the magnetizer himself, by their sudden 
 appearance and disappearance, as also by their superficial character, 
 so to speak. They do not bring with them the other consequences 
 that belong to spontaneous pathological states. 
 
 9. The phenomenon is always accompanied by a notable relief to 
 the patient whose disease condition is communicated. One might 
 say that the nervic equilibrium is established at the expense of another 
 organism that is more in equilibrium. 
 
 Hence, holding as I do that there is a more or less general trans- 
 mission from the patient to the magnetizer, I cannot deny the possi- 
 bility of a more explicit and more detailed transmission from the 
 patient to a hypnotizable subject or one made hyperassthesic by the 
 methods of artificial somnambulism. 
 
 Two bodies of unequal temperature tend to equalize their tempera- 
 ture. Two bodies unequally electrized tend to equalize their elec- 
 tricity. Two bodies unequally equilibrated in their nerve functions 
 tend to equilibrate those functions. 
 
 Comparison is not demonstration ; yet it brings out an analogy, and 
 that helps our ignorance a little. 
 
 And as for thought, does not that correspond also to a nerve state ? 
 Undoubtedly ; nor have I ever denied the theoretic possibility of 
 transmitting a psychic state, any more than I can deny the theoretic 
 possibility of transmitting the human voice across the ocean — more 
 particularly since a certain lesson in circumspectness I once got my- 
 self. In October, 1884, I was still fixed in the belief that, because of 
 the radical antagonism existing in the microphone between the sensi- 
 bility of its constituent parts and distinctness of utterance, we should 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 35 
 
 never succeed in reproducing speech in a loud voice ; and I held that 
 a multitude of facts and strictly logical arguments justified that con- 
 clusion ; yet in October, 1885, 1 myself invented the thermomicrophone, 
 which reproduces speech in a loud voice. So, then, let us repeat the 
 wise remark of Arago, quoted at the beginning of this work, and pro- 
 ceed with our investigation. 
 
 Coming to Paris in 1882, I naturally visited everywhere, wherever 
 anything relating to hypnotism was to be seen. One day I witnessed 
 some hypnotic experiments at the house of a physician. After exhibit- 
 ing all the wonderful feats of an hysterical young woman, duly trained, 
 the physician gave me a surprise in the shape of an exhibition of men- 
 tal suggestion. The experiment was made in this wise : 
 
 The somnambule having received the (verbal) order to go to the 
 end of the room, she went thither, her eyes half shut, with the air of a 
 school-boy that knows his lesson perfectly, then stood still, facing us. 
 Then the doctor fixing on the subject a look of stern command, " men- 
 tally " ordered her to come back toward us (we were standing beside 
 her bed). After a few moments of hesitation and impatience, the sub- 
 ject came back to us. The doctor turned to me with a smile of 
 triumph, as though he were to say, " Isn't that astounding ? " But the 
 only thing that astonished me in the matter was the honesty of the 
 experimenter, content with so little. 
 
 If when he questioned the subject whether she felt any sensation 
 whatever in the legs, and she answered that she did, indeed, feel some- 
 thing, he took that as proof that this something was the result of 
 "mental suggestion." Of course, these experiments could serve only 
 to make me more incredulous. 
 
 With regard to " demonstrative " experiments, repeated for the 
 benefit of the curious, I must here lay down a general rule that will, 
 perhaps, seem over-rigorous : 
 
 One same experiment in mental suggestio^n, repeated under the same ex- 
 ternal circumstances, has no scientific value. When first made, it may 
 possess the value of an isolated fact, but it possesses that value no 
 longer when it is made a second time in the same way, and under the 
 same conditions. Here is an example to show what I mean : 
 
 A curved finger may signify many things, or nothing at all. But if 
 you make a somnambule in the state of suggestionable hypnotism 
 believe that a parrot is perched on that curved finger, the next time 
 you have only to hold the curved finger out toward the subject in the 
 same way in order to make her at once see the parrot perched upon 
 it. 
 
 This phenomenon is possible in the polyideic state : it is inevitable 
 in monoideism, for then control is out of the question, and the subject 
 does not think, cannot conceive but one single idea, and that idea you 
 
36 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 inculcate directly or indirectly. In the case under consideration it is 
 the inseparable association that completes the direct sensation. 
 
 Suppose the somnambule that comes back to where the doctor and 
 I are standing, was, in the first instance, moved simply by impatience 
 and a wish to return to her couch ; or suppose that there was some 
 sort of real action : these alternative suppositions are of no account 
 when the experiment comes to be repeated another day under the 
 same conditions. There is already formed a more or less invincible 
 association between the thought of being at the lower end of the 
 rooxn, the stern look of the doctor, the expectancy expressed by the 
 faces of the lookers-on, and the intention to go to them. 
 
 This remark upon the importance of association by contiguity first, 
 and afterward by habit, is very simple, yet it is too often lost sight of. 
 I have, indeed, been astonished to see it disregarded by distinguished 
 physiologists who have not the knack of psychological observation. 
 So general is this disregard that it is become the sole cause of a mul- 
 titude of entirely erroneous generalizations, which nevertheless are 
 accepted in hypnolog'y as principles. 
 
 For example, there is absolutely no essential relation between 
 " open eyes " and catalepsy. Catalepsy can be produced with the 
 eyes of the subject open, or half shut, or entirely closed, or in per- 
 fect darkness. But catalepsy may be induced by any sudden, lively 
 impression that takes the subject by surprise. Suppose the subject 
 on lifting his eyes is met by a bright flash of light, contrived before- 
 hand by the " impressioner." He suffers the nerve-shock of this 
 impression and instantly falls into the hypnotic state of catalepsy, 
 and has not time even to close the eyes. That is enough ; there is 
 formed an ideorganic' association between a sudden opening of the 
 eyelids and the organic state of catalepsy. The brain being momen- 
 tarily paralyzed, other ideas there are none, and consequently they 
 cannot interfere with the forming of this association. 
 
 Lower the eyelids and the limbs grow relaxed : by suppressing the 
 first term of the association you cause the other to disappear. If on 
 the strength of this experiment you announce as an axiom that "cata- 
 lepsy is produced by opening the eyes," or that " the subject in 
 catalepsy keeps the eyes wide open," you make a statement that has 
 no more value than if you were to say that "in catalepsy the subject 
 keeps the eyes always closed," on the strength of another individual 
 habit as easily producible. 
 
 To verify the cataleptic state the usual way is to raise the arm of 
 the subject : if it falls, he is no longer cataleptic, else the arm would 
 have retained the position you gave it. 
 
 Once I tried to produce catalepsy by a mental order, after ascer- 
 
 ' Ideorganic (idea -|- organ) association ; an association between a thought in the 
 mind and the action of a bodily organ — Translator. 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 37 
 
 taining that the muscles were perfectly lax. Catalepsy appeared : 
 the arm stood out from the trunk. I removed the catalepsy, to begin 
 again ; the arm fell. I mentally ordered the catalepsy to return ; 
 again it appeared ; and so on. Had I any ground to infer that there 
 was real mental action in this case? Not at all! Here is the true 
 explanation of the phenomenon : 
 
 When experimenting for the first time upon the subject in question, 
 I had produced catalepsy in the arm by lifting it with one hand while 
 with the other hand I made a few passes (gentle massage) from above 
 downward. It took several minutes to produce the lightness and 
 mechanical flexibility of the member which constitute catalepsy.' 
 But by repeating often I reached this result much more speedily ; 
 one pass along the arm was enough. 
 
 After this experiment I concluded that not even the one pass was 
 necessary ; there had been formed an ideorganic association between 
 the act of lifting the arm and the cataleptic state. The one called 
 forth the other ; hence my mental suggestion played no part, and 
 / produced the catalepsy while trying to find out whether it existed. 
 
 But, you will say, the same movement of the arm a moment ago 
 showed a complete relaxation of the muscles ; how, then, is it that 
 the same movement suggests at one time simple paralysis (lethargy), 
 and at another time the cataleptic state ? 
 
 The reason is that the movement is not the same. We lift the arm 
 m one way to make it fall, and in another way when we wish to see 
 if it will not stand rigid. A slight difference in our state of mind 
 suffices to give to our muscles and to our fingers a difference of 
 motion and of touch that in hypnotism is quite sufficient to reproduce 
 the organic association of catalepsy in one case, and not to reproduce 
 it in another. 
 
 Our touch is of one kind when it is entirely without purpose, it is 
 another thing when we wish to produce an effect ; of one kind when 
 we have no belief in its efficacy, of another when we have unlimited 
 confidence. "Will and believe" — but you will then find phenomena 
 that do not exist. 
 
 The unconscious, as I have said, is the great prsestigiator in hyp- 
 notism, and many a trick it plays upon us. But, I must add, it rarely 
 does so dishonestly. It is, on the other hand, perfectly docile, and 
 never was animal more easily trained than it is. The misfortune is 
 that we train it all unconsciously and without appearing to do so. 
 
 Then it is that the unconscious of each of us disports itself in play- 
 ing tricks on each other one — and upon ourselves. 
 
 In the two instances just cited, I postulate a really active interme- 
 diary — a bright flash of light and a gentle massage — 'but these are not 
 essential ; the unconscious can divine your thoughts without them, 
 
 ' Cette lifg^reti et flexiblliti micanique du membre qui constitue la catalepsie. 
 
38 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 provided you remain steadfast in your wish. You lift the subject's 
 arm, and it falls ; try again, and the subject will perhaps hesitate, and 
 the arm will drop to his side less quickly ; keep on, and probably the 
 unconscious will say to itself : " Evidently they want me to maintain 
 the posture they give to the arm. I am willing." And you will get 
 your "cataleptic state" without any accessory manipulation. 
 
 It is in this way that certain magnetizers have found a number of 
 " polarities " in the human body^ I have seen their experiments, 
 which are quite convincing : the thumb attracts, the little finger repels, 
 and so on. The unconscious having learned its lesson, no longer 
 contradicts itself. Yet, if you use a little entreaty — albeit, without 
 any words — you will easily obtain the opposite result, and you will 
 get any polarity what.soever, according to whatever fanciful plan you 
 may lay out in advance. Three seances are enough to produce a habit 
 of re-action. 
 
 (Of course, these remarks do not settle the question of polarity in 
 general. Upon that question I do not mean even to touch. I merely 
 say that it is possible to inculcate into the subject an imaginary 
 polarity.) 
 
 Even when you experiment without contact, even when you act 
 upon a sleeping person, who, however, has already been magnetized by yov, 
 you must be on your guard against ifnconscious habitudes. 
 
 The possibility of producing somnambulism in a person that is in 
 natural sleep, and who has no suspicion of your presence, is often 
 cited as proof of fluidic action, or mental action at a distance. But in 
 most cases this, too, is an illusion, and when the experiment is success- 
 ful, proves one thing only, to wit, the force of ideorganic associations. 
 
 You have the habit — perhaps quite unconscious — of disturbing the 
 air in front of the subject's face, when you make passes in a peculiar 
 way of your own. The subject, or rather his unconscious, divines your 
 presence, feels you are there, obeys you ; the association of these im- 
 pressions with the organic state of somnambulism produces the som- 
 nambulic state. Try some new method — one that would have been 
 equally effectual in the waking state, because of the conscious sug- 
 gestion — and you will obtain no result. 
 
 In purposely employing the principle of association, we come upon 
 curious applications of it. You choose whatever link of association 
 you please, and connect that with one, two, three, four or more similar 
 links, be they ideas, sensations, acts, states or whatever you will. It 
 is not necessary that there be any logical relation at all between the 
 first link and the ones that follow. 
 
 I once had as a patient an insane woman, fully bent upon suicide, 
 but who always very carefully planned in advance the carrying out of 
 her projects. In the normal state she never would tell me about them, 
 and by degrees she became mistrustful even in somnambulism. The 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 39 
 
 monoideic state, which is always characterized by absolute submission, 
 it was almost impossible to produce, and the most trivial question 
 made her pass straight from the aideic state to active polyideism, in 
 which she regained her independence. Still it was necessary to learn 
 her- secret in order to prevent mischief. To this end I contrived the 
 following ruse. Having been in the habit of sitting on the right when- 
 ever I talked with her, one day I sat to the left of her, and taking 
 advantage of a favorable moment — a sort of visional delirium akin to 
 monoideism — I changed my voice slightly, and made answer to her 
 raving, taking care to be agreeable to her. The conversation went 
 on, and I saw that she did not recognize me, though now she was fully 
 in the state of active somnambulism. She began to unbosom herself 
 to me, and soon she confided to me her inmost thoughts. 
 
 " But who are you?" she suddenly asked, " and what right have you 
 to question me ?" 
 
 " Oh, you know me well. I am your old friend and devoted confid- 
 ant for whom you have no secrets. How, have you forgotten Mr. 
 Camille, your good Mr. Camille ? " 
 
 "That's a funny name," said she, "but no matter." 
 Thenceforth / had only to station myself on her left in order to possess 
 her confidence. There I was called Mr. Camille, while on her right 
 I was still her "doctor." The thing was understood and there was 
 no longer any need for me to change my voice or my position in any 
 respect. I was transformed; but at the same time she also under- 
 went a transformation, and she was no longer the mistrustful, circum- 
 spect person she was before. (She was saved from suicide thrice by 
 this ruse.) 
 
 Suppose now that I had wished to give a deceptive demonstration 
 of the force of a complex mental suggestion — changing my personal- 
 ity in the mind of the subject, without a gesture, without a word; 
 changing my name ; changing her attitude, her feeling toward me; 
 " mentally " ordering her to confide in me. 
 
 To perform that marvel, all I should need to do would be to stand 
 on the left of her. 
 
 Well, these things happen involuntarily through ignorance of the 
 mysteries of association. We believe ourselves to be candid observers, 
 the while we are unconsciously suggesting the phenomenon that is to 
 be verified. Thus it is that the somnambulic subjects of the " fluidist " 
 magnetizer see the fluid emanating from his finger-tips, while the 
 somnambules of the hypnotizer see nothing, and those of the spiritist 
 discover spirits everywhere, the same being invisible for the somnam- 
 bules of the materialist. So it is, once more, that " pressure on the 
 ' top of the head " produces, at Paris, the " somnambulic ; " at Breslau, 
 the " lethargic " state ; at Manchester, " religious ecstasy," and so on. 
 It is all " the story of Mr. Camille!" 
 
40 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Robert-Houdin long ago contrived a means of imitating " second 
 sight." He trained his assistant — who played the part of the medium 
 — so readily to understand his questions, that the latter always "saw" 
 from a distance objects held in the hand, even when the hand w'as 
 closed. If the question was "What do you see ?" it was a coin. The 
 question " What do you see now ? " indicated a gold coin, and so on. 
 Robert-Houdin could even convey to his subject, " mentally," the 
 number of a bank-note simply by means of questions, the secret import 
 of which was understood between them. 
 
 One often imitates this trick unconsciously when one, in thinking of 
 a given phenomenon, has the habit of questioning the subject always 
 after the same fashion. 
 
 Sometimes habit even is unnecessary, and one succeeds ex tempore^ 
 even in the waking state. I have often made the following experiment : 
 
 I lay a walking-stick on the ground, and say to a person that is 
 hypnotizable, though not hypnotized : " Pass this limit if you please." 
 The subject does so. " Once again ! " He steps over the cane 
 hesitatingly, and looks at me with mistrust. "And again!" He 
 stands stock-still quite unable to step over the cane ; his legs refuse 
 to carry him. 
 
 Did I say that this was going to happen ? No ! Did I make any 
 gesture whatever ? No ! I simply willed and believed. Then it is a 
 case of mental suggestion ? By no means — only a suggestion guessed. 
 
 Cumberland, the famous "mind-reader," came to Paris in 1884. It 
 will be readily understood that, after having made the experiments 
 already described, I could not be under any illusions with regard to 
 the apparent thought-transference exhibited by him. Mental sug- 
 gestion has nothing to do with his performances, but it is interesting 
 and highly instructive to read the first reports of the newspapers. 
 There we may see the difference between the experiments as per- 
 formed, and as described, even when the performances are described 
 by scientific chroniclers. There, too, we learn how small is the value 
 of testimony when there is a question of a new and unknown 
 phenomenon. 
 
 Having clearly perceived that the true medium in these perform- 
 ances was he who "thought," not he who guessed, I repeated Cum- 
 berland's experiments, and I published a series of articles on the 
 subject in the Gazeta Polska (" Polish Gazette "), in May, 1884. 
 Since that time the matter has Been sufficiently eiuc'dated in France, 
 by the researches of Messrs. Gley and Ch. Richet, and I have only to ' 
 formulate my own observations in order to complete theirs, without 
 recounting the experiments in detail. 
 
 It is certain, then, that every thought having any relation whatever 
 to space tends to produce unconscious movements indicating such 
 relations. That is a habit, a nerve mechanism, in part hereditary, in 
 
APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 41 
 
 part acquired. In the case of an object hidden (to be found by the 
 "mind-reader "), or of a person chosen (whom the mind-reader is to 
 point out), one is thinking of the place where the object or the per- 
 son is, and one simply leads the mind-reader who holds one's hand. 
 One needs only to practice for one evening to perform the feats of 
 the famous mind-reader ; for notwithstanding all the extravagant 
 stories that have been published about the matter, it does not even 
 involve any special fineness of touch, no nice perception of pulse- 
 changes or of imperceptible vibrations. One must be able to go whither 
 one is led ; that is all. The comic side of the thing is that one has not 
 the slightest suspicion of what one is doing, and that people pay 
 twenty francs to see a person point out an object they themselves 
 have hidden. The melancholy side, on the other hand, is that our 
 contempt for the "occult sciences" has rendered us ignorant of 
 highly remarkable and highly instructive physiological phenomena, 
 to that degree that we stupidly cry " Fraud ! " when some simple, 
 common fact is shown to us that ought long ago to have been studied 
 and ascertained. 
 
 It has been necessary for a bold professional to traverse all Europe, 
 playing tricks upon diplomats and princes of blood royal, in order to 
 make science take account of the relations between " the physical 
 and the moral." And it was the same with hypnotism, which would 
 to this day not have been recognized by science had it not been for 
 the public exhibitions given by Donato and Hansen. 
 
 In these experiments the one who leads you knovi^s not what he is 
 doing, the wrhile thinking himself quite master of himself. I have 
 known a very intelligent and highly educated lady with whom I could 
 find a needle in a haystack. She would lead me with such certainty 
 and with such force that resistance was out of the question. Once a 
 little note was hid under a flowerpot. She indicated to me the 
 flowerpot, and I began to feel about within it ; then, with her hand, 
 which I held loosely in my own, she made a negative gesture per- 
 fectly intelligible, and then another which said : Underneath ! 
 
 Now, that lady not only was entirely unconscious of this expressive 
 conversation, but she never would believe that it was by her uncon- 
 scious motions that I was guided in the search. 
 
 " No," she would say, " that is impossible. You read my thought ; 
 I was very careful this time not to make any motion whatever." She 
 was a person easily hypnotizable (hypnoscopic experiment : heavi- 
 ness, paralysis, numbness). 
 
 There are some 60 persons in 100 with whom Cumberlandism 
 succeeds more or less readily ; thus, they are more numerous than 
 hypnotizable subjects, who are not more than 30 in 100. 
 
 Usually the experiments are more successful with hypnotizable 
 
*- 
 
 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 persons. Nevertheless, there is a certain number of the latter — even 
 of the best subjects — with whom you never will succeed. Why? 
 Because the conditions of success in Cumberlandism are twofold : 
 
 1. An organic tendency to a duplication between the voluntary 
 and the involuntary movements, which characterizes the majority of 
 hypnotizable subjects. 
 
 2. A facility in concentrating one's thoughts and keeping up the 
 concentration, which quite naturally and of necessity produces in 
 every one this duplication. 
 
 Now, among non-hypnotizable persons there are some who possess 
 this latter faculty in a high degree, while, on the other hand, it is 
 sometimes lacking in persons easily hypnotizable, but who cannot 
 concentrate their attention. When they pass foment a person, they 
 think of that person ; but when they perceive a mirror they think of 
 the mirror, and plainly the muscular indications become confused. 
 Yes ; there are persons easily hypnotizable who are incapable of con- 
 centrating their attention — a thing, be it said in passing, which con- 
 tradicts Braid's theory. 
 
 In general, Cumberlandism rests upon the same physiological basis 
 as " willing," though the external conditions are altogether different. 
 In " willing " it is by the will that we seek to make the person we 
 touch perform a given movement, and then we involuntarily impel 
 him to its performance. In Cumberlandism, on the contrary, we have 
 no such will, we simply think of a place — but we lead the subject all 
 the same. At bottom the same principle is found in both ; an ideo- 
 plasty of movements (realization' of the movements we think about) 
 and, from the point of view of the one who guesses, a mechanical 
 suggestion. 
 
 It is still a long way to mental suggestion. Yet these are the 
 experiments that have contributed most to awaken in the minds of 
 some physiologists the thought of studying true mental suggestion. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 SUCH were my judgments, such my doubts, when, in the month of 
 March,i884, I received from a well-known physician of Nice a 
 letter, in which occurred the following passage : 
 
 "To-day I met a young man of 24 years, intelligent and educated, 
 who wishes to be of service to science, and in whom can be produced, 
 in the waking state, suggestion phenomena by word and by thought. 
 ' Or actualization. — Translator. 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTLON. 43 
 
 He is a noctambule from childhood ; so have been or are his mother, 
 his maternal grandfather, and his maternal uncle. I have been able 
 to make a few experiments with him. I imagined seeing a bird flying 
 hither and thither in a room : I touched him and he saw the bird flying 
 about in every direction. [Here follows an experiment in color- 
 changes by verbal suggestion, which does not concern us.] He 
 appears to be a little more sensitive on the left side of the body [than 
 on the right] . I must see this subject again, for he is a very remark- 
 able one. 
 
 [Signed] A. Bar^ty." 
 
 As the details of the experiment were not stated with precision, I 
 was justified in supposing that the questions of the experimenter, and 
 his attitude, might have suggested to the subject the hallucination 
 desired. In fact, to suggest to the subject the idea of a bird flying, 
 one need but look round the ceiling and ask if he does not see some- 
 thing in the air. And had details of what he saw been asked for, it 
 is probable that the bird seen by the subject would be found very 
 different from that imagined by the experimenter. Some weeks later 
 I received a second letter, containing more details : 
 
 " Since my last letter was written, I have seen again the subject of 
 whom I have spoken to you. He is in the hands of a magnetizer, 
 with whom he came to see me. I have on my desk two statuettes, 
 one bronze, the other ivory ; these I placed side by side, three or four 
 inches apart, and upright. Then I said to the subject: 'Look at 
 these two statuettes ; what is their color ? ' He answered : ' One is 
 white (that on the right) and the other is dark.' Then placing my 
 left hand in his right, I asked if he saw anything peculiar in looking 
 at the two statuettes. As for me, I had imagined or strongly con- 
 ceived the thought of the white one quitting its place and becoming one 
 ■with the brown. He answered, after a few minutes, that the white 
 statuette left its place ; that it transferred itself to the other side of 
 the brown. That was a little more than I had thought. 
 
 " Next I imagined (always without making the slightest sign) the 
 statuettes growing smaller, and (my right hand being placed in the 
 right hand of the subject) I asked him what he saw. He answered 
 that he saw the statuettes growing smaller and smaller, till they were 
 no bigger than a pin-head. In reality, they are each about five inches 
 in height. 
 
 " Then I thought of them growing larger, and, without my questioning 
 him, he told me that now he saw them growing larger and larger. He 
 even lifted his head to follow this increase in their size, and seemed 
 quite surprised at it. Imaging to myself, then, the statuettes grow- 
 ing smaller till they resumed their proper dimensions, I was told by 
 the subject that he saw them growing smaller." 
 
 Here I interrupt the quotation to make some remarks. This experi- 
 ment is certainly a good deal more important than the previous one. But 
 it is far from being conclusive. First, the thoughts of the subject were 
 fixed in advance, and limited to " something " about to happen to 
 the statuettes. What could happen to them ? A change of color ? 
 
44 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Experiments on color changes had already been made in the preceding- 
 seance. The statuettes might change their places. The subject had 
 this thought, but was a little " out " as to details. They might grow 
 bigger. This the subject guessed. What association comes nearest 
 to increased size ? Diminution. This, too, the subject guessed. After 
 the reality is falsified in two opposite respects ; one, as a matter of 
 course, feels the need of restoring the true state of things as they 
 appear to our senses, and it is probable that the experimenter and the 
 subject had this thought simultaneously. We need to know not only 
 the details of the experiment — which has been described carefully — 
 but also the conversation that went before, and all the conditions of 
 the moment, in order to be sure that a train of associations and the 
 psychic atmosphere were not the sole cause of the successful issue. 
 
 Such, in substance, were the observations that I made to the experi- 
 menter, and he was pleased to recognize the pertinency of a certain 
 number of my objections. We may now return to the letter : 
 
 " After this experiment (writes Dr. Bar6ty), I made another and 
 very interesting one on making \i\m. find a hidden object. 
 
 " Having made him turn his head away entirely, I took the ivory 
 statuette and concealed it in my right hand, which I placed upon my 
 hip. My left hand was not at this time in contact with his hand as it 
 was before. 
 
 " I asked him to face about and look at the statuettes, which he 
 immediately did. But, as he showed no surprise, I asked if he saw 
 them both. He answered yes. Then, I said, ' Well, then, take the 
 white one in your hand ' He put his hand forth to where the ivory 
 statuette had stood before, and seemed to bring it toward him and to 
 examme it. But presently he moved his fingers as though conscious 
 that he was grasping only a shadow, or that the object was vanishing. 
 ' Where is it ? What is become of it ? ' Forthwith he directed his eyes 
 toward my closed right hand, placed on my hip (a position in which I 
 had held that hand before seizing the object), and said to me, ' What 
 have you in your right hand ? ' " 
 
 So far, I still see nothing but a transient hallucination, and an infer- 
 ence that easily enough may have been suggested by the immobility 
 of the experimenter's closed right hand, which the subject, perhaps, 
 for the first time noticed at the moment of his search. But let us 
 return to the letter. 
 
 " I then asked him to turn and look in the opposite direction [an 
 insufficient precaution, for it gives assurance to the subject that noth- 
 ing is taken to any distance away], and then rapidly and noiselessly I 
 hid the statuette in my waistcoat. Then I again placed my closed 
 hand upon my hip as before. I bid him turn round and tell me quickly 
 where the white statuette was, and to get it. He thereupon made his 
 right hand perform a most singular movement. First he carried his 
 hand to the spot where the statuette had originally stood, then, always 
 slowly, he guided it toward the waistcoat, passing nigh to the hip 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 45 
 
 (where I had before held the statuette concealed in my hand), and 
 following the track of the statuette. 
 
 " In conclusion, I repeated the experiment of increasing and dimin- 
 ishing the size of the statuettes without my hand being in contact 
 with the subject's, at the same time concealing my eyes. It was a complete 
 success. This last experiment seems to me very convincing. What 
 think you of it ? " 
 
 Yes ; more convincing than the first, but unfortunately it was the 
 second, repeated under the same conditions ; consequently it is open 
 to the doubts formulated above with regard to repeated experiments 
 in general. 
 
 But while I raised these objections I was deeply interested in Dr. 
 Bar6ty's experiments, and I sent to him a great many questions which 
 I asked him to resolve experimentally. As for the experiments in 
 finding a hidden object, when the subject followed exactly the track 
 of the object itself, I frankly told the doctor that I did not under- 
 stand them at all. 
 
 What was needed was a more systematic, a more rigorous, study of 
 the matter. This Dr. Barety knew as well as I, but unfortunately 
 circumstances were adverse. Then, too, perhaps it was an excess of 
 incredulity ; but when there is question of an experiment in mental 
 suggestion, I put no trust in anybody but myself. Besides, have I 
 not told of a case in which I was myself deceived by an unnoticed 
 circumstance or an unsuspected psychic mechanism ? Nor is it out 
 of presumption that I depreciate the testimony of others, who per- 
 haps have taken precisely the same precautions I would myself have 
 taken ; but in matters like this it is impossible to recount all the little 
 details that are essential for a full understanding of the situation, and 
 conviction does not flow from the final result nor from the general 
 conditions ; what produces conviction is certain peculiar circum- 
 stances, the impression on the observer's mind, his personal sense of 
 the impossibility of explaining the thing otherwise than by a direct 
 psychic action. 
 
 I was therefore very glad to learn a month afterward that the sub- 
 ject and his magnetizer were about to come to Paris. I gave a good 
 deal of time and study to planning experiments, and a seance was 
 held in accordance with a programme drawn up jointly by Dr. Barety 
 and myself. 
 
 I commenced with the hypnoscopic experiment. It showed the subject 
 to be a person of enormous sensibility : there was contracture and 
 almost instantaneous insensibility of the whole arm. And this 
 phenomenon could be produced or suppressed purely by verbal sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 I wished at first to leave his habitual magnetizer, Mr. R., entirely at 
 liberty, reserving to myself the right to make the experiments again 
 
46 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 under different conditions. When one seeks to verify a phenomenon 
 about which he knows nothing, one must not impose upon it at first a 
 lot of conditions that may interfere with success, and yet, for all that, 
 may not disprove the principle one is investigating, and the true 
 nature of which one does not know. 
 
 " What results do you think you can produce with your subject ? " 
 I asked the magnetizer. He recited a whole litany of phenomena, 
 out of which I selected the following three: i. — Sympathic and 
 attractive action on the right side, antipathic and repellant action on 
 the left. 2. — Paralysis produced from a distance. 3. — Finding hidden 
 objects. 
 
 " Do you think you can obtain with your subject any direct trans- 
 mission by means of your thought alone ? " 
 
 Much to my astonishment, the magnetizer replied in the negative. 
 Yet that was the object of our meeting ! 
 
 " I must use gestures," he said, " except in the third experiment, 
 which can be performed without my taking any part in it. But I can- 
 not guarantee thought-action pure and simple : with regard to that I 
 am not at all sure." 
 
 What matters it ? We will make the attempt all the same, as Dr. 
 Bar^ty thinks he has succeeded often. 
 
 I shall not need to recount the details of the first experiment. 
 Evidently — -and R. himself shared in this opinion — it was simply the 
 result of hypnotic training. It is " the story of Mr. Camille " once 
 more, and it does not even prove the independence of the two cerebral 
 hemispheres. 
 
 Second Experiment. — The subject turns his back to the magnetizer, 
 who is in another room at the distance of about 25 feet. Dr. Barety 
 stays with the subject, I watch the magnetizer. The subject is count- 
 ing aloud. At a signal from me the magnetizer " projects the fluid " 
 with all his might. The subject ceases to count — he is paralyzed. 
 
 This experiment succeeded three times consecutively. I thought I 
 noticed, however, that the magnetizer's cuffs were too noisy. 
 
 I now remained in the room. I walked up and down to prevent 
 the subject from hearing the magnetizer's gestures. The experiment 
 was a flash in the pan, that is to say, there was a delay of several 
 numbers. 
 
 As the magnetizer was acting in perfect good faith, I asked him to 
 take off his cuffs. Check again. We began once more, and now, 
 though the magnetizer, at my request, made his gestures as noise- 
 lessly as possible, the experiment was successful. 
 
 Conclusion : Direct action was not proved, but no more was it dis- 
 proved. But if direct action is to be admitted, there was reason to 
 believe that the auditive impressions assisted in producing the phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 47 
 
 Third experiment. — This time something really new was presented. 
 The procedure was as follows : 
 
 In the first place, every precaution was taken to avoid illusions. 
 
 An object of any sort was chosen^a book, for instance — which 
 was placed on a table. (In this experiment the selection of the ob- 
 ject is not important.) 
 
 The subject and his magnetizer being absent, I take this book in a 
 direction chosen by myself, and hide it in a nook in the room not 
 easily guessed. (I make an accurate sketch of the route taken by 
 me in removing the book.) Bardty and I know where the book lies, 
 but we take such positions in the room as to prevent our influencing 
 the subject by any involuntary sign. 
 
 The subject is brought in blindfolded. The place on the table 
 where the object formerly lay is indicated to him, but without naming 
 to him the object. The subject is not asleep, but it becomes plain, 
 as the experiment proceeds, that the concentration of his attention 
 produces in him a state of super-excitation that is almost hypnotic. 
 He begins by feeling of the spot indicated. He knows not what the 
 object is, does not guess what it is, yet, strange to say, his fingers as 
 they grope describe the contour of a book. One might say that the 
 ghost of the book offers a resistance to his fingers. Having made 
 sure of the form of the object and of the place it occupied before, he 
 essays two or three directions, always groping in the air, and takes 
 the true one. This he follows slowly, misses it twice or thrice, 
 retraces his steps, goes on with greater confidence, and in three min- 
 utes finds the book. We say nothing, but he assures us that this is 
 the object we had hidden. 
 
 I made a sketch of the path he took. On comparing the two lines, 
 the second is found to be a little more curved. 
 
 In another experiment I purposely made two unexpected declina- 
 tions ; the track of the subject was straighter than mine. 
 
 Here, again, is something extraordinary : I selected as the object 
 to be hidden a powerful magnet (the hypnoscope), without letting the 
 subject know. He comes in, feels of the place where the magnet had 
 lain, and stands motionless. "I cannot go on," he said ; "my fingers 
 are become stiff." In truth, there was a contracture not only of the 
 fingers, but of the whole forearm. I was much surprised, but by 
 means of gentle massage, without uttering a word, I freed him from 
 the contracture and induced him to proceed. On reaching the mantel- 
 shelf, on which was the magnet, hid in a vase, the same phenomenon 
 was seen. " It is there," he said, " but again my arms are stiff." He 
 showed great fatigue at the conclusion of each experiment. 
 
 I shkll now be asked. What is the solution of the enigma ? All that 
 I can say is : 
 
 I. All the experiments were successful, or neariy so. 
 
48 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 2. There was no mental suggestion, or if there was, it played a 
 Secondary part. 
 
 3. The principal role was played by the subject's tactile sensations, 
 "which were exceedingly acute. 
 
 4. The object chosen might be "magnetized " or not, and taken to 
 the hiding-place by an unknown person, and consequently neither the 
 individual " fluid " nor certain olfactive emanations come here into 
 play, or at least they are not necessary. 
 
 5. Unless we admit mental suggestion or the reality of a " dynamic 
 ghost " (spectre dynamique) left at the place where before the hypno- 
 scope lay, it must be confessed that in this case no scientific explana- 
 tion whatever is possible. 
 
 6. Between the transfer of the object and the performance of the 
 experiment it was essential that only a few minutes should intervene ; 
 else the "trace" of the object through the air vanished. 
 
 I may mention a few additional points of interest : 
 
 When questioned with regard to his own sensations or opinions, the 
 subject told me that he considered the phenomenon as the effect of a 
 special tactile sensibility acquired by practice. " When you are in a bath," 
 said he, " you feel distinctly the difference in density of the two 
 media, water and air. The water offers a greater resistance to your 
 movements than does the air. Now, I have very much the same sen- 
 sation in the air that an object has traversed ; it is for me i?iore rare- 
 fied, it offers me less resistance, and it is this less resistance mainly that 
 guides me. I cannot tell you anything more about it. I do not feel 
 quite master of myself in making this experiment, and the certainty 
 of success depends precisely upon the degree of this peculiar state. 
 I then feel isolated ir ova. all around me, I hear nothing, I exist only in 
 my fingers, which, however, work without me. The more I reason 
 the less do I succeed." 
 
 As for the experiment with the hypnoscope, evidently we must sup- 
 pose that the presence of the instrument magnetizes the air for a certain 
 time, or at least produces an electric change that we are unable to 
 define. This supposition accords with Reichenbach's researches, which 
 perhaps are worth repeating in spite of the non-success of the experi- 
 ments mentioned in the beginning of the present study. 
 
 We decided to make a further test of the direct action of thought 
 upon the subject. Touching him with my hand, I imagined to myself 
 some object — its shape, color, feel. In this case the subject either 
 saw nothing at all, or something very indefinite. 
 
 Setting before us a leaf of white paper, I imagined to myself a 
 round yellow spot. The subject saw something gray. Again I imag- 
 ined a black cross ; he saw a round spot. 
 
 It appears that Dr. Bardty was more fortunate than I, and that 
 with him the subject twice or thrice guessed the color that the doctor 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 49 
 
 had in mind, or at least the complementary color. But there was 
 nothing decisive in these experiments — such, at all events, was my 
 personal impression. 
 
 The following year (1885) Charles Richet published his remarkable 
 essay in Ribot's Revue Philosophique. 
 
 He was inspired by an idea that I find to be at once simple and in- 
 genious, and which may, I think, be stated as follows : 
 
 There are in physiological phenomena, no absolute limits — only a 
 gradation. Consequently, if mental suggestion exists in an excep- 
 tional degree in some privileged subjects — and that remains to be 
 proyed — it must needs exist in a degree more or less inappreciable in 
 everybody. That which in an isolated fact is inappreciable may be 
 rendered appreciable by bringing isolated facts together. Statistic 
 may light up an effect previously not noticed, and the calculus of 
 probability readily shows how much belongs to chance and how much 
 to a real agent. Thus one can find a rational, a premonitory (excuse 
 the term !) ' basis, before he attains direct proof of an extraordinary 
 fact. 
 
 Mr. Richet set about making experiments (easily repeated with 
 
 everybody) and grouping them, and reached the interesting conclusion 
 
 that in cases where mental suggestion possibly was added to chance, 
 
 there was always a slight surplus of successes. Here is a summary of 
 
 the results obtained : 
 
 Successes. 
 
 Probable. Actual. 
 
 1. In 1833 experiments with playing-cards 458 510 
 
 2. " 218 " photographs, etc 42 67 
 
 3. " 98 " a rod l8 44 
 
 4. " 124 spiritist experiments, so-called 3 17 
 
 2,273 521 638 
 
 That is to say, in all these experiments there was a surplus in favor 
 of suggestion. 
 
 I have repeated the experiments with playing-cards with four non- 
 hypnotizable persons, and found the results very much the same. In 
 order to be able to compare them, we must observe that for Richet's 
 1833 experiments the calculated probability was 0.250, and the actual 
 proportion 0.278 — a surplus of 0.028 in favor of mental suggestion. 
 Now here are my figures : 
 
 Successes. Proportion of 
 
 Probable. Actual. Actual. 
 
 C. R. 92 experiments 23 22 0.239 
 
 M. K. 30 " 7 7 0.250 
 
 B. A. 50 " 12 15 0.300 
 
 M. A. 107 " 26 32 0.299 
 
 J. O. 49 " 12 16 0.329 
 
 328 80 92 0.283 
 
 ' Pr^monitoire . The meaning is obvious. The author it is that begs the reader's 
 indulgence for using the word. — Translator. 
 
50 MENTAL SUGGESTION., 
 
 That is to say, the proportion of successes was 0.283, supposing 
 mental suggestion, while it was but 0.250 according to the calculus of 
 probability, and 0.240 according to comparative experiment without 
 suggestion — a difference of 0.033 in favor of the hypothesis. 
 
 These figures, it is seen, are even higher than those obtained by 
 Richet ; but the number of my experiments being much smaller, it is 
 probable that were it increased the differences would be equalized. 
 
 In another series of experiments with another person (also non- 
 hypnotizable, but very nervous and easily impressionable), upon 
 guessing only the color of the cards, I obtained a difference still more 
 marked in favor of suggestion, thus : 
 
 Without mental suggestion 0.42 
 
 By calculus of probability 0.50 
 
 With mental suggestion 0.60 
 
 A surplus of -^. Mr. Richet thinks that experiments on the color of 
 a card are inconclusive, because of a large influence of chance, which, 
 with the probability of \, must efface the very slight influence of sug- 
 gestion. That would be true if the suggestive influence were absolutely 
 the same in both cases. But I do not think it is so. 
 
 The difference between red and black being clearer and simpler than 
 the difference between spade and club, or between heart and diamond, 
 the imagination of the subject ought to receive more readily a sug- 
 gestion of the former than of the latter. Does not Mr. Richet himself 
 say that, with a smaller chance, -^-^ for example, for a full designation 
 of the card " the conditions of suggestion are bad, as if the selecting from 
 among 52 cards were too large a matter for suggestion to act clearly ?j" 
 The remark is very just ; but then d fortiori suggestion ought to act 
 still more clearly when there is a question merely of a color. 
 
 From all his experiments, Mr. Richet infers the probability of the 
 following propositions : 
 
 1. The thought of an individual is transmitted without the help of 
 external gestures to the mind of an individual placed near hi-m. 
 
 2. This transmission takes place in different degrees in different indi- 
 viduals ; it is also extremely variable in the same person. 
 
 3. This transmission is usually unconscious, in that it acts rather on 
 the unconscious intelligence than on the conscious intelligence of the 
 individual perceiving and of the individual transmitting. 
 
 4. In healthy adults who are not hypnotizable, the degree of probability 
 of this transmission hardly exceeds -^ (we have seen that under excep- 
 tional circumstances it may amount to -jij). 
 
 5. The general probability in favor of suggestion may be represented by 
 
 The personal impression that results from all these experiments is 
 as follows : the method is not of a kind to produce conviction ; but 
 if mental suggestion is a fact, this method has rendered a valuable 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 SI 
 
 service to the cause by establishing for it a basis of probability, a real 
 ground to stand on, and by awakening the curiosity of investigators. 
 
 Were it not for Mr. Richet's work, I should probably never have 
 reverted to this unfruitful study and its manifold illusions. What 
 induced me to persevere was the following passage : 
 
 "All my experiments (says Mr. Richet) were made upon non- 
 sensitive persons, as my friends and myself ; it will be interesting to 
 know what effect they have on persons really sensitive, hypnotized, 
 hypnotizable, hysterical, nervous, or trained by long practice in the 
 perception of suggestions. Unfortunately I have had no opportunity 
 to make such research, as I have not had at command a sensitive 
 subject." 
 
 As one has only to provide himself with a hypnoscope and to enter 
 a company of a score of persons, in order to find a good subject, I 
 undertook a series of experiments for the purpose of verifying those 
 made by the Society for Psychical Research, of London. Here are 
 the results of my first seance : 
 
 The subject, Mrs. D., is 60 years of age, hypnotizable. (Hypno- 
 scopic experiment: heaviness, paralysis, analgesia.) Chronic articular 
 rheumatism, very strong constitution, very robust, remarkable intelli- 
 gence, accustomed to literary work, a good deal of erudition, internal 
 impressionability, without external signs ; psychically active tempera- 
 ment, but quiet ; of exceedingly gentle disposition. Her back is turned 
 toward us. Mrs. P. and myself think of an object while we touch the 
 subject ; the latter is informed that the object is 
 
 A Playing Card: / 
 
 OBJECT THOUGI 
 
 IT 01 
 
 r 
 
 OBJECT GUESSED 
 
 I. Six of spades. (Prob. 
 
 = A). 
 
 Six of black. 
 
 2. Ten of spades. 
 
 
 
 Red, not black, a ten-spot. 
 
 3. Knave of hearts. 
 
 
 
 Red, a king ? A queen ? 
 
 
 
 A Color: 
 
 4. White. 
 
 
 
 White. 
 
 5. Yellow. 
 
 
 
 Yellow. 
 
 6. Black. 
 
 
 
 Black. 
 
 
 
 Any Object ■ 
 
 7. A lamp. 
 
 
 
 A book, a cigar, paper. Result.=o. 
 
 8. A silk hat. 
 
 
 
 Something blue, light. 
 
 9. An armchair. 
 
 
 
 A sugar-bowl, bureau, a piece of 
 furniture. Result=o. 
 
 10. Salt. 
 
 
 
 A taste of salt. 
 
 
 
 A Letter : 
 
 II. Z. (Prob.=A)'. 
 
 
 1 I. R. S. ResuIt=o. 
 A Person : 
 
 12. Valentine. 
 
 
 Valentine. 
 
 13. Mr. 0. (myself.) 
 
 
 Mr. D., Mr. Z. Result=o. 
 
 ' Sic. But as the number of 
 
 letters in the French alphabet is 23, the probability 
 
 would seem to be one in 23, 
 
 not one in 34. 
 
 — Translator. 
 
52 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 A Portrait : 
 
 OBJECT THOUGHT OF | OBJECT GUESSED 
 
 14. The Bishop. (Prob ={). | It is the Bishop. 
 
 A Digit : 
 
 15. 8. I 7, 5, 2, 8. Result=o. 
 
 An Impression : 
 i5. Joyful. 1 Sad. .Result=:0. 
 
 Any Figure : 
 
 17. A black cross. 1 A tree, crossed branches. Result=<x 
 
 18. A long-bearded old man. 1 A man, bearded, white beard. 
 
 A Photograph : 
 ig. Of a boy. (Prob.=j). | A girl, children. Result=o. 
 
 A Name ■ 
 
 20. Marie. | Marie. 
 
 21. Adam. | Jean, Gustave, Charles. Result=o. 
 
 A Number : 
 
 22. Ten. I Six, twelve, nine, ten. 
 
 Any Object : 
 
 Violet color, pink. Result=o. 
 Something black on blue. Re- 
 sult=o 
 
 Something black, blue, a card, ace 
 of clubs. 
 
 23. A book bound in blue satin. 
 
 24. Gold pencil case on a blue 
 
 ground. 
 
 25. Ace of spades on a black 
 
 ground. 
 
 A Musical Instrument . 
 
 26. A trumpet. | The violin. Result=o 
 
 A Digit : 
 
 27. Three. | 2, 5. Result=o. 
 
 An Object in the Dining-room : 
 
 28. A plate with figure on it. | A plate with figure. 
 
 A Taste : 
 
 29. Of salt. 
 
 30. Of sugar. 
 
 31. Of strawberries. 
 
 Sour, bitter. ResuIt=o. 
 
 Sweet. 
 
 Of an apple, grapes, strawberries. 
 
 The subject was visibly fatigued, and we interrupted the experi- 
 ments. 
 
 I was much surprised. Of 31 experiments at least 13 were dntirely 
 successful, though often the probability was exceedingly small ; even 
 the misses in some cases presented evident analogies. And hardly 12 
 out of the whole 31 could be regarded as absolute failures. The first 
 three, for example, though not entirely exact, plainly uphold the 
 probability of suggestion. 
 
 One doubt alone troubled me. I have already explained what I 
 ca.\l the psychic atmosphere. All the objects thought of, except a few 
 cards drawn at random, were chosen during the seance by myself or 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 53 
 
 by Mrs. P. Now, it well might be that we were all three quite un- 
 consciously borne along, so to speak, by a current of associations. 
 This supposition may seem improbable, but in making it I had in 
 mind a prior experiment of my own that was truly astonishing. 
 
 There were five or six of us staying with friends in the country. 
 We amused ourselves as we could ; among other things by play- 
 ing tricks with cards. Then we passed, to guessing. Having 
 by chance twice or thrice guessed a number chosen between o 
 and 6, and several cards chosen mentally, I thought I noticed 
 that after repeated experiments there was set up in our minds 
 a- mechanical series of cards or of numbers, based on contiguity, 
 likeness, or contrast, and that this gave me a presentiment of the 
 card or number to be selected immediately. I had only to give the 
 rein to this unconscious and unreasoned conjecture in order to per- 
 ceive in my imagination the image of a card that was in the air, so to 
 speak. I was almost certain that now it was the turn of, say, the 
 king of diamonds, and I would ask my neighbor to think of a card. 
 He would think of the king of diamonds. 
 
 It was no suggestion from my neighbor, for before he chose his card 
 I had made up my mind to say " king of diamonds." And often in 
 such cases it happened that another person would remark : " Well, 
 that is curious ! I thought of the same card ! " Thus, it was in the 
 air. 
 
 Sometimes I have been able to discover the probable mechanism 
 of this enchainment. Thus, 28 was chosen next after 47 probably be- 
 cause 4x7 = 28. Again, if among the numbers between i and 9 one 
 chose 8, that is, a number near to 9, another person would choose 2 or 
 3, to be farthest away from the former ; 2 and 3 would lead to the 
 thought of 6 ; then, in order not to take again the numbers already 
 used, the choice would fall upon 4 or 5, associated to 3 and 6, which 
 were pronounced more aloud than the others, and so on. It is impos- 
 sible to foresee all these relations between numbers : if they chanced 
 to agree in several persons at once they constituted the psychic atmos- 
 phere, playing the part of a prompter. 
 
 Evidently the mechanism of these guesses seldom suffices to explain 
 certain unexpected coincidences ; but being a determinist in psychol- 
 ogy as in other matters, I have said to myself : I am ignorant of this 
 mechanism ; therefore I cannot justify the general hypothesis by 
 proofs ; yet, all things being determined by an enchainment of causes 
 and effects,' it is conceivable that an omniscient intelligence, know- 
 ing all the impresses of sensations in our brains, all the connections 
 of our thoughts, all our habitudes, weaknesses, and other qualities, 
 
 ' This clause furnishes a definition of the term "determinist:" One who holds 
 that all things are determined by an enchainment of causes and effects. " Determi- 
 nism " contradicts "freewill." — Translator. 
 
54 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 might easily calculate or foresee not only our choice, but also the 
 answers of the subject. And as it is certain that the unconscious 
 of somnambules is a Grand Master in occultism, who is there that 
 may boast himself to know the limits of its power? The fact that 
 my subject was not in somnambulism was no obstacle, for I have long 
 been convinced that all the phenomena of somnambulism may pre- 
 sent themselves isolatedly and momentarily in the waking state. 
 
 I beg the reader not to be surprised at these rather conjectural 
 speculations. In dealing with a phenomenon so controverted, so extra- 
 ordinary, when after long years of research one sees that all his 
 convictions, acquired theoretically and experimentally, are shaken, one 
 defends himself as best he can. 
 
 But to return to the facts. Here are three experiments in favor of 
 the psychic-atmosphere hypothesis, hastily made upon another per- 
 son, not hypnotizable : 
 
 A Color : 
 
 OBJECT THOUGHT OF OBJECT GUESSED 
 
 32. Red. I Pink. 
 
 A Flower : 
 
 33. Lilac. I Lilac. 
 
 A Person Present : 
 
 34. Mr. J. I Mrs. D. 
 
 The general outcome of these three experiments seems quite favor- 
 able to the theory of transmission. But let us consider the circum- 
 stances. The subject is told that there is question of some color, and 
 he guesses it only approximatively ; the color was redj it becomes 
 pink. 
 
 The subject is told that the test is some flower. A bunch of lilacs 
 was on the table ; every one noticed it, and it was uppermost in the 
 minds of all. Then, the question being about a matter a little more 
 remote, with the probability still strong, only some dozen persons 
 being present, there was a check. Not only does the subject not 
 guess the person, but he names a woman instead of a man. Conse- 
 quently, these three experiments are almost valueless — and, when I 
 say almost, that is solely because of a certain resemblance between red 
 and pink ; but the thought of pink may have been called up by a purely 
 fortuitous cause, that is to say, one having nothing to do with sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 Let us now come back to our first subject. Here is a second series 
 of experiments, made with greater precaution, care being taken to 
 avoid the enchainment of associations (May 2, 1885). 
 
 Any Object : 
 
 OBJECT THOUGHT OF OBJECT GUESSED 
 
 35. A bust of Mr. N. I Portrait ... of a man . 
 
 I a bust. 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 55 
 
 Any Object : 
 
 OBJECT THOUGHT OF 
 
 36. A fan. 
 
 37. A key. 
 
 38. A hand wearing a ring. 
 
 3g. Acid. 
 
 40. 
 
 A Square 
 
 41. 
 
 A circle. 
 
 42. 
 
 M. 
 
 43- 
 
 D. 
 
 44- 
 
 J. 
 
 45- 
 
 B. 
 
 45. 
 
 0. 
 
 47. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 OBJECT GUESSED 
 
 Something round. Result ■= o. 
 Something made of lead 
 
 bronze ... it is of iron. 
 Something shining, a diamond . , 
 . a finger-ring. 
 
 A Taste : 
 
 I Sweet. Result — o. 
 
 A Shape : 
 
 1 Something irregular. Result •— O, 
 I A triangle ... a circle. 
 
 A Letter: 
 
 
 M. 
 
 
 D. 
 
 
 J- 
 
 A, X, R, B. 
 
 
 W, A ; no, it is O. 
 
 J . . . (continue !) Jan 
 
 Third series, May 6, 1885. Twenty-five experiments were made, 
 notes of which, unfortunately, I have not kept, except as to the follow- 
 ing, which surprised me most. (The subject has her back turned 
 toward us, holds a pencil, and writes the thought that comes to her. 
 We touch her back lightly while looking on letters written by our- 
 selves). 
 
 OBJECT THOUGHT OF OBJECT GUESSED 
 
 48. Brabant. 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 Bra. . . (I strive mentally to 
 aid the subject, saying noth- 
 ing.) Brabant. 
 
 49. Paris. 
 
 
 
 
 P. . . aris. 
 
 50. Telephone. 
 
 
 
 T. . . elephone. 
 
 urth Series, 
 
 May 8. 
 
 Same 
 
 Conditions. 
 
 51. z. 
 
 
 
 
 L, P, K, J. Result — 0. 
 
 52. B. 
 
 
 
 
 B. 
 
 53. T. 
 
 
 
 
 S, T, F. 
 
 54. N. 
 
 
 
 
 M, N. 
 
 55- P. 
 
 
 
 
 R, Z, A. Result — 0. 
 
 56 Y. 
 
 
 
 
 V,Y. 
 
 57- E. 
 
 
 
 
 E. 
 
 58. Gustave. 
 
 
 
 
 F, J, Gabriel. Result — 0. 
 
 59 Duch. 
 
 
 
 
 E, 0. Result — 0. 
 
 60. Ba. 
 
 
 
 
 B, A. 
 
 61. No. 
 
 
 
 
 F, K, 0. Result — 0. 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 Number : 
 
 62. 44. 
 
 
 
 6, 8, 12. Result ■= 0. 
 
 63. 2. 
 
 
 
 
 7>5, 9. " -0. 
 
56 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 (I endeavor to have represented in the subject's mind the written 
 numbers, not their sound.) 
 
 64- 3- 
 
 65. 7. 
 
 66. 8. 
 
 3- 
 
 no, o, 6 
 
 Thirteen experiments followed with fantastically drawn figures, 
 only five of which presented a general likeness, without much exactir 
 
 tude. 
 
 A Person Represented Mentally : 
 
 67. The subject. 1 Mr. O. No, it is myself. 
 
 68. Mr. D. I Mr. D. 
 
 Any Image {or View) Whatever : 
 
 69. We imagine a crescent moon, 
 Mrs. P. representing it to 
 herself with a background 
 of clouds ; I, with one of 
 deep blue. 
 
 I see the clouds flitting ... A 
 light . . . (with a look 
 of satisfaction) it is the moon. 
 
 If after these experiments any one had asked whether I believed in 
 thought-transference, I should have answered affirmatively. From 
 the point of view of conscious, scientific reasoning, one must have 
 surrendered to the evidence. Chance could not have produced so 
 many fortuitous hits. For example, if we look only at the experi- 
 ments with letters, leaving out of account the whole words guessed, of 20 
 experiments 15 succeeded, whereas probability allows only one success 
 in 24, or o in 20 — zero against fifteen ! To hit the chance guess of 
 the three-letter combination jan, would have required 25" (== 15,625) 
 experiments without suggestion, while with suggestion one sufficed. 
 
 Thus, from the objective standpoint, my skepticism might well sur- 
 render before the eloquence of the facts. But — and here is the oddity 
 of the thing — in problems of this kind the observer's subjective 
 impression is sometimes worth more than a purely empiric showing. 
 Evidently the observer must have a general scientific routine and a 
 special acquaintance with the phenomena belonging to it ; but then it 
 is upon his instinctive subjective impression that I should most rely. 
 He may give me all the details — and it is impossible for him to give 
 all' the details of conditions and circumstances — but if I do not see 
 that inwardly, subjectively, he is not merely astonished, but convinced, 
 conquered by the facts observed, without having his reason upset, as 
 may unfortunately happen — it was so with Zollner' — I would give no 
 particular credence to his- revelations. I should prefer an almost 
 entirely defective experiment, but accompanied by that personal 
 
 ' Slade, the American spiritist, succeeded in making the German mathematician 
 Zblliaer believe in a fourth dimension of space, by showing to him a knot produced 
 on a single cord after the two ends of it had been tied together and sealed with wax 
 bearing the impression of Zollner's seal ! — Translator. 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 57 
 
 impression of an instructed and honest man which is expressed in the 
 cautious yet decisive phrase : " There's something in that." 
 
 Now, this personal impression was mine when I made those hurried 
 experiments ; but the thing that was always lacking was that other 
 impression, subjective also, but more decisive : " Here is direct trans- 
 ference of thought." 
 
 Singularly enough, nearly every time that the subject was going to 
 guess our thoughts, I had a presentiment that it would be so. It 
 seemed to me that, despite all precautions, and though we were all in 
 perfectly good faith, there was a certain trickery on the part of our 
 unconsciouses, and that they were fooling us. It seemed to me that 
 even in choosing the objects hardest to guess, I was astutely making 
 the choice that mo.st facilitated success ; that even when a card was 
 drawn at random, I substituted another for it under some insufficient 
 pretext, even forgetting this manoeuvre, and remaining quite at rest 
 in my conscience, while my partner (aide) nothing suspected. 
 
 I fear I shall be misunderstood. I am speaking of a phenomenon 
 almost inappreciable, of operations infinitesimal, transient, more or 
 less unconscious, caused by the psychic atmosphere. I have been 
 long used to make psychological observations ; they have been the 
 principal occupation of my life, from early childhood I might say, for 
 since my fifteenth year I have been taking daily notes (some of them 
 published in my native language), and I was but seventeen when I 
 wrote my first dissertation on "Methods of Psychological Study," 
 published in 1869, wherein I showed (for the first time, I believe) how 
 the phenomena of hypnotism may be exploited under the form of a 
 . special method hy positive theoretic psychology. 
 
 Consequently I do not wish to be suspected of any sort of mysti- 
 cism, and I think I have the right to claim for myself the routine that 
 is necessary for making exact observations. But just because of this 
 long practice I have reached some empiric subtilties very difficult to 
 express. Psychology has throughout for me an aspect widely differ- 
 ent from what one sees in the best works on our science. The 
 psychology of the day seems to me gross and crude in view of the 
 subtilties of real life as I see it. The theory of association of ideas, 
 for example, which has been made, and with reason, for the nonce, the 
 sole ground of the whole psychology of phenomena, is for me only a 
 partial and quite inadequate expression of the mechanism of psychic 
 life. It is but a rough draft of a delicate mechanism. It may 
 suffice for the needs of instruction in the elements of psychology, but 
 not for a finished science. I am free to confess that with the associa- 
 tion theory of to-day I do not even see why our ideas associate, and 
 in general why they live, circulate and produce sensible effects. And 
 yet I am a determinist, and it is no -faculty, no obscure force, that I 
 would add to the association theory to make it true to fact and life. 
 
58 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 The question is one of details, but of details that stand related to the 
 current theory of association as vision through a microscope is related 
 to direct vision. 
 
 For explaining the larger phenomena of psychic life this association- 
 anatomy is well enough ; the thing we need is a microscopic histology 
 of association when we have to do with rare phenomena, i. e., with 
 phenomena rarely noticeable and rarely noticed — for that, too, is a point 
 of my personal separatism in psychology, to wit, that rare phenomena 
 are such only because we are rarely capable of seeing them. On the other 
 hand, we should be less ready to discern an enchainment through 
 contiguity, likeness, or contrast, in time or in space, were we to see 
 things through a psychological microscope which should oftentimes 
 distinguish like phenomena, assimilate contrasts and dislocate con- 
 tiguities, interposing a number of intermediate links and agencies. 
 
 Unfortunately, when it comes to setting forth details precisely, two 
 things are lacking: first, clear vision of these details, and then, even 
 when they are seen passably well, the possibility of expressing them 
 correctly. Here we may call to mind the vicious circle of the sophist 
 Gorgias. Plainly our skepticism is not, like his, nihilistic. We do not 
 see clearly to-day, we shall to-morrow, and no doubt \ve shall little 
 by little find new words for new ideas. In the meantime it is better 
 to stand still where we are than to create an incomprehensible lan- 
 guage and to talk Volapuk under pretense of propagating a universal 
 science. We have had plenty of Volapiikian psychologies which, 
 albeit they were created by Kauts and Kegels, no longer exist in the 
 estimation of exact science. All this notwithstanding, the Kants and 
 Kegels may have had profound ideas that will be understood, better 
 than by their authors, a few centuries hence. 
 
 I have often mentioned the unconscious. I have even personified 
 it a little, without any back-thought," however. I concede to German 
 psychology the great merit of having brought to light that absolutely 
 true and fundamentally necessary theory. But see what happened 
 when men set about defining it prematurely ; see what it has come to 
 be in the deft and reckless hands of Von Kartmann ; a fantastic 
 romance of the unconscious, an Edgar A. Poe story, not even as near 
 the facts as a story of Jules Verne's ! 
 
 Hence it is that I choose to content myself with a few hints that to 
 me seem clear, instead of plunging into subtilties that I do not myself 
 quite understand. Later, when we come to certain details of the 
 question, we shall see what it may be possible to add. 
 
 So, then, I was convinced of the reality of W\^ facts of mental sug- 
 gestion, but not of suggestion itself. It remained to formulate the 
 theory of the facts, and that theory appeared to me far removed from 
 
 ' Sit venia verba. It is meant to translate arrihre pensie — the thought (or intent) 
 that is behind, or lies back of, an overt act or speech. — Translator. 
 
PROBABLE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 59 
 
 the theory of direct actio?i of mind upon mind, such as Mr. Richet 
 received. 
 
 Finally, here perhaps were two or even more different processes to 
 be discovered. 
 
 First, a concordance between two unconscious mechanisms, as between 
 Leibnitz's two watches, a concordance resting on a sort of harmony 
 preestablished through the mutual interchange of the ordinary con- 
 scious sensations, and in which the object chosen as well as the object 
 guessed is determined independently the one of the other, but by one 
 self-same unconscious determinant set of works.' 
 
 Then, in some cases, a true perception of thought by intermediation 
 of external signs that may easily escape us, seeing that so perceptible 
 a sign as the tension of the muscles in the direction of the object 
 thought of has taken so long to be discovered. There would thus be 
 an exaltation of perception, but of the normal perception for physiog- 
 nomic, pathognomic, and ideognomic signs, that usually enable us only 
 to distinguish joy from sadness, quiet enjoyment from intense pleasure; 
 sympathy, distrust, irony, or sincerity, in the touch of a hand or in the 
 tone of a voice ; whereas here, in virtue of an exceptional percepti- 
 bility, those signs would enable us furthermore J;o divine whether one 
 is thinking of yellow or of blue, of a round figure or a square. 
 
 Finally, over and above all normal perceptibility there is perhaps 
 ground to suppose a transmission, always indirect^ of vibrations pro- 
 duced by the thought itself, and capable of reconstructing the 
 thought, like as the human voice produces undulatory telephone cur- 
 rents that can reproduce speech at another like station. 
 
 Henceforth all this was possible, and it behooved to look forward 
 to an unheard-of complexity of phenomena. Consequently it was 
 my wish to simplify at least the conditions of experiment. In the 
 experiments already recited this was impossible. The subject had 
 always to be notified in advance that the experiment was to be made, 
 consequently his unconscious was put on its guard. The subject 
 could take for granted that we would avoid repeating the same experi- 
 ments, and that if at the seance before we thought of blue undyellow, 
 it would now be the turn of red and green. 
 
 We had to circumscribe, and that pretty narrowly, the category of 
 objects to be chosen, and then the thought of the subject was also 
 circumscribed in advance, and had to rummage in only one of the 
 receptacles of memory, there to concentrate all the perspicacity of his 
 divining power. 
 
 ^ Rouage — The works of a watch, the "movement." 
 
 ' The meaning of indirect here is gathered from the author's illustration. The 
 human voice is one thing ; the undulatory current another. The result in a receiving 
 telephone is the human voice indirectly transmitted : it has suffered transformation 
 and retransformation in the passage. The case may be the same when thought is 
 supposed to be transmitted from one brain to another. — Translator . 
 
6o MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Of objects belonging to the same category, only a very small 
 number will be in sight and capable of being chosen for the experi- 
 ment. Suppose the thing to be thought of is a flower, assuredly one 
 will not choose Scrophularia nodosa, nor Contrayerva officinalis, which 
 one would find it difficult to bring clearly before his imagination : one 
 will choose a rose, a lilac, a violet,, and then from time to time he will 
 meet with success. The subject will divine (that is the word) our 
 thought. But that is not what I want. I want a fact of actual 
 thought-transference wherein shall be nothing to be divined, and 
 wherein the unconscious may calculate as it will without prejudicing 
 the precision of the experiment. ' 
 
 What I want is that a subject in nowise forewarned, nor expecting 
 anything, neither seeing nor hearing anything, shall manifest the 
 action of my thought by some reflex action visibly connected with that 
 psychic impulse. I shall be content with any sign however slight, but 
 it must be a sure sign and a constant, and it must be one that cannot 
 be referred to any other cause but my mental action. That is what I 
 want ; and till I have in my hands a fact of that sort I shall not have 
 subjective impression of the reality of a mental action ; but till then it 
 will not be worth while to make a»special, thorough study of the 
 matter and to brave the prejudices of the scientific. 
 
 The fitting occasion for that decisive experiment was not long in 
 coming. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 1WAS attending a lady suffering from hysterepilepsy, whose 
 ailment, already of long standing, was aggravated by an attack 
 of sujcidal mania. Mrs. M., 27 years old, strong, and of good consti- 
 tution, has the look of perfect health (hypnoscopic exp. : insensibility 
 and almost instantaneous contracture of the entire arm). Convulsive 
 seizures of the major hysteria dating from childhood, almost. Heredi- 
 tary influences very strong. For some time past, besides these princi- 
 pal symptoms, at sundry periods, attacks of mental alienation, with 
 congestion of the anterior lobes and anaemia of the posterior lobes of 
 the brain ; paralytic, nervous, fainting fits, and epileptic seizures of 
 brief duration. Transient contractures and amblyopy, more marked 
 on the left side. A single hysterogetiic point beneath the left clavicle. 
 A delirogenic point on the right occiput corresponding to the superior 
 occipital fossa. No ansesthesis. Pressure on the ovaries arrests the 
 attack for a moment. Sensitive to tin, but' also to other metals in 
 •different and varying degrees. Temperament active and sprightly, 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 6i 
 
 combined with extreme inner moral sensibility, that is to say, without 
 external signs. Character eminently truthful, kindliness very marked, 
 disposition to self-sacrifice. Intelligence remarkable, many talents, 
 capacity of observation. Momentary lack of will-power, painful 
 indecision, but afterward exceptional firmness. The least moral 
 fatigue, an unexpected impression of small importance, whether 
 pleasant or painful, is reflected on the vasomotors, though slowly 
 and imperceptibly, and brings on an attack or a nervous fainting 
 fit. 
 
 One day, or rather one night, her attack having passed away 
 (including the delirium phase) the patient was sleeping quietly. 
 Awaking suddenly and seeing us (a woman friend and me) beside her 
 bed, she begged us to go and not to tire ourselves for her sake to no 
 purpose. She was so pressing that in order to save her a nervous 
 crisis we left her. I went downstairs slowly (she lived on the third 
 floor), but halted several times and listened, being haunted by a pre- 
 sentiment of mischief (she had given herself several wounds a few 
 ■days before). Reaching the courtyard I halted once again, consider- 
 ing whether I should leave or not. Suddenly the window was opened 
 noisily, and I saw the patient lean out with a rapid movement. I 
 sprang to the spot whereon she would fall, and mechanically, without 
 attaching any importance to what I did, I concentrated my will to 
 withstand her fall. It was a silly thought, and I was but imitating 
 the action of billiard players, who, foreseeing a carambolage, strive to 
 stop a ball by gestures and speech. 
 
 Yet the patient, already leaning out over the window sill, stopped 
 and drew back slowly and by clegrees. 
 
 The performance was repeated five times in succession, and at last 
 the patient, as if fatigued, stood motionless, her back resting against 
 the frame of the window,' which remained open. 
 
 She could not see me, for I was in shadow and night was falling. 
 At that moment Miss X., the patient's friend, ran in and seized her by 
 the arms. I heard them struggling and hastened upstairs to help. I 
 found the patient in a fit of insanity. She did not recognize us, 
 taking us for robbers. I succeeded in releasing her grip on the 
 window frame only by pressure on the ovaries, which rriade her fall 
 upon her knees. Again and again she tried to bite me and only with 
 much difficulty was I able to put her again in bed. Keeping up with 
 one hand the pressure on the ovaries, I brought about the contracture 
 of the arms, and at last endormed her. 
 
 Once in the somnambulic state, her first words were, " I thank you 
 and beg pardon." Then she told me that she had wished to throw 
 herself out of the window, but that whenever she attenxpted it, she 
 felt herself "lifted from beneath." 
 
 ' The " French" style of window, hinged on the side. — Translator. 
 
62 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 " How so ? " I asked. 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " Did you suspect I was there ? " 
 
 " No ; it was just because I thought you had gone away that I 
 wanted to carry out my plan. Yet it seemed to me now and again 
 as if you were beside me or at my back, and that you did not want 
 me to fall." 
 
 This experiment — or rather accident — was, of course, not enough to 
 prove action at a distance. But it suggested to me the thought of 
 studying the question anew. As there was an appearance of action, 
 it was a very easy matter to test it experimentally. But in order to 
 have the conditions just what they ought to be, I breathed not a word 
 to any one about what I purposed to do, and I even resolved to wait 
 a few days, so as to arrange the details of the experiment. 
 
 I had been in the habit of endorming the patient every other day, 
 and I used to leave her in profound slumber (aideic state) while I 
 made my notes. Two months' experience gave me the assurance that 
 she would not stir till I should approach her in order to induce som- 
 nambulism proper. But this day, after taking a few notes and with- 
 out changing my attitude (I was several yards distant from the patient, 
 outside of her field of vision, with my note-book on my knee and my 
 head supported by my left hand), I pretended to be writing, making 
 the pen scratch as it had been doing, but inwardly I concentrated my 
 thought upon an order I gave her as follows : ' 
 
 December 2. 
 
 I. Lift the right hand ! 
 
 I watch the patient, looking through 
 the fingers of my left hand 
 on which my forehead 
 rested. 
 
 isfmmute : no action. 
 
 2d minute : agitation in the right 
 
 hand. 
 3d minute : agitation increases, 
 
 patient frowns and raises the 
 
 right hand. 
 
 This experiment, I confess, moved me more than any other. 
 
 2. Get up and come hither ! 
 
 (I lead her back to her place with- 
 out uttering a word.) 
 
 3. Take off bracelet from left arm 
 
 and hand it to me ! 
 I touch her on the right arm, and 
 perhaps give it a slight push 
 in the direction of her left 
 arm, while I concentrate my 
 thought upon the order 
 given. 
 
 Patient frowns, stirs, rises slowly 
 and with difficulty, comes to 
 me with hand outstretched. 
 
 No action. 
 
 She puts forth her left hand, rises, 
 and goes in the direction of 
 
 Miss , then toward the 
 
 piano. She sits down exhaust- 
 ed. She takes off her bracelet. 
 (Seems to be reflecting. ) Gives 
 it to me. 
 ' Most of these experiments were communicated to the Society of Physiological 
 
 Psychology, January 25, 1886. Some of them have been published in the Kevtu 
 
 P hilosophique , August, 1886. 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 63 
 
 4. Get up, draw the armchair up 
 to the table, sit beside us ! 
 
 I check her hand thus astray. 
 
 5. Hold out the right hand ! 
 
 Stay seated ! 
 
 Give the left hand ! 
 
 Give the left hand ! 
 Not that : the other ! ' 
 
 She frowns, gets up, and comes 
 toward me. 
 
 " I have yet something to do." 
 Seeking something ; touches the 
 stool and displaces a glass of 
 tea. 
 
 She steps back, seizes the arm- 
 chair, pushes it toward the 
 table with a smile of satisfac- 
 tion, and sits down, dropping 
 into the chair through fatigue. 
 
 ' ' They tell me to carry, and do 
 not tell me what. Why do 
 they speak so indistinctly ? " 
 
 She stirs. 
 
 Holds the right hand out. 
 
 Tries to rise. 
 
 She settles herself again in the 
 chair. 
 
 Movement of left hand, but she 
 does not hold it out. Rises 
 and goes to the sofa. 
 
 Gives the right. 
 
 Gives the left hand. 
 
 It is to be remarked that even in the waking state the patient 
 often mistakes one side for the other. 
 
 During experiment 5 active somnambulism manifests itself ; the pa- 
 tient converses with us in a playful vein. She no longer obeys the 
 orders. " I am now going to sleep," she said. 
 
 She slept. During the sleep there were some traces of an hysteric 
 attack. At length shS seemed to awake. " There is a tingling in my 
 head," said she, " that will not let me sleep. I don't want to sleep 
 any longer. Sit by me." " Are you still in somnambulism ? " I asked. 
 "Yes." (This patient was able to note each phase of her state with 
 wonderful precision — a very rare circumstance, indeed. I often pre- 
 tended not to recognize the state she was in, so that she herself might 
 describe it.) 
 
 " And if you go to sleep in that state, is it all the same as if you 
 were in the waking state ? " " Oh, no ; for now the legs and the body 
 go to sleep first, and then the head. The head, too, awakes first, so 
 that I can easily tell whether I have slept well or not ; whereas when 
 I go to sleep from the waking state, I go to sleep in the head and I 
 know nothing more. Then, too, when I converse, being magnetized, 
 / am resting all the same ; whereas if I were to converse in the waking 
 state my head would be tired and drowsy." 
 
 ' All these orders were given mentally and without gesture. No word was 
 spoken. 
 
64 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 December 3. 
 Mrs. M. is endormed by the process of gazing,' and falls into a 
 very profound slumber {^paralytic aideid). 
 
 6. Answer whether you hear me ? | No action. 
 
 I put the same question I'iva voce. She does not hear. A moment 
 later she stirs slightly. 
 
 "You did not hear me just now?" I asked. "No!" "Why?" 
 " Because my sleep was too deep." "Will there be an attack this, 
 evening ?" " No ! " 
 
 I therefore left her to herself, and a few minutes afterward began 
 the experiments again. 
 
 7. Give me your right hand ! 
 Give me your hand ! 
 No matter which hand. 
 
 Frowning. 
 No result. 
 Gives the left. 
 
 If at this moment I speak to her, touching her at the same time, 
 she replies ; if I speak to her without touching her, she hears only 
 unintelligible sounds. 
 
 I tell her that I am obliged to be absent fifteen minutes ; once out- 
 side, I try to call her mentally : 
 
 8. Come hither ! ] Frowning. 
 
 I General agitation of the body. 
 
 Here the experiment is interrupted by a singular accident. The 
 action from a distance produces in her a general hyperaesthesia, and 
 in that state she " feels incommoded by something on her right ; " 
 " an unbearable stench horrifies her ; " " an imaginary noise, produced 
 by the irritation and congestion of the brain, prevents her hearing" 
 me. 
 
 " It seemed to me," she said, " that I must get up and walk about ; 
 but that horrible atmosphere was suffocating me. That thing {cela) 
 prevented me ; that thing does not love you, but that thing is ashamed 
 to confess it." 
 
 " What is it, pray ? " "I do not know ; but deliver me from that 
 thing " — and she made gestures of repulsion toward the right. We 
 saw nothing out of the common in that direction. At last I noticed 
 that there was on the flower stand a new plant, and I removed it. 
 " Ah, at last ! " said the patient ; " thank you ; I was near having a 
 paroxysm." 
 
 The new plant had been brought that day by one of her friends a 
 lady for whom, in the normal state, she had a strong liking, but whom 
 in the somnambulic state she could not endure even at the distance 
 of several yards. This I knew already, having witnessed a terrible 
 
 ' Par le regard. 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 65 
 
 paroxysm caused solely by the presence of this lady ; but it nevei 
 occurred to me to suppose that an object that had belonged to her 
 would have the same influence. First I thought the patient's abhor- 
 rence of the plant might be due to its odor, but it was nearly odorless. 
 Then I made several experiments with objects coming from the lady,- 
 mixed with other objects. For instance, I placed upon the couch 
 beside the patient, yet at some distance, a roll of music brought by 
 this same lady. Having just touched it lightly with her hand in 
 making a gesture, she drew herself away frpm it quickly, asking who 
 it was that was treating her so ill. So with other objects. She never 
 made out what was the matter, but she always was conscious of an 
 antipathic influence. Even a playing-card coming from the lady, and 
 shuffled with several otheirs, was rejected as " disagreeable." I must 
 add that the young lady in question was a great friend of Mrs. M., 
 and was jealous of the influence J exercised over my subject. 
 
 December 5. 
 (Our patient, on awaking, passes momentarily through a transient 
 state of monoideism, and then she has always a sense of the mental state 
 of the persons around her. She will say : " Why have you greater 
 confidence to-day?" "Why is she so worried (or so happy) to-day?" 
 And so on. But once fully awake, she no longer has this sense.) 
 
 No action. 
 
 (Patient is half awake ) 
 ' ' Where is she — Mary ? She must 
 have a wearisome task to per- 
 form. I beHeve she is think- 
 ing of nothing, for I have no 
 feeling of her." 
 
 Wishing to sit back of the table I came near falling, the chair being 
 lower than I thought. The patient uttered a cry. "What is the mat- 
 ter?" I asked. "It seemed to me," she answered, "as though some- 
 thing were giving way beneath me." 
 
 If any one pinches me she complains of it, yet she does not know it 
 is I that suffer. I tell her that I want to put her a few questions. 
 " Then endorm me a little more," she said ; so I make a few passes in 
 front of her eyes. At this moment she is \\\ passive somnambulism, i. e., 
 she answers easily and volubly every question put by me (and by me 
 alone), but does not of her own accord say anything. 
 
 "Can you tell me," I ask, "in what degree of sleep you undergo 
 the action of my thoughts ? " 
 
 "When the members sleep in very deep slumber," (each part of 
 
 ' Somnambulisme actif gai. In the original this exp. is numbered 8, and the 
 words of the subject are given in the text, not in two columns, like the others. The 
 author forgot to state the order given to the subject. — Translator. 
 
 9. An experiment in the state of 
 genial, active somnambu- 
 lism,'^ 
 
66 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 her body can be put to sleep and awakened separately), " and when I 
 cannot think by myself." 
 
 " But if, then, I order you to rise, you will not be able to do so ? " 
 "Alone, no ; but if you will it strongly something will lift me." 
 " Do you know beforehand what I require of you ? " 
 " No, but it gives me an impulsion ; and I prefer you to divide your 
 thought. I cannot take it in all at once. I do not understand the 
 words, and I believe that you might think in any language whatever ; 
 I feel only an impulsion Jhat comes upon me and at last controls me." 
 (Here I gave some explanations to Marie.) I now asked : " Did you 
 hear what I said ? " 
 
 "I heard you speaking, but understood nothing, for you had not 
 the intention to be understood by me." 
 
 " If I do not address my speech to you, what do you do mentally .? 
 Dp 5'ou think of anything ? " 
 
 "When I am in light sleep as now, I can think well if you are near 
 me J but if you withdraw there is a veering in my head' as though 
 you were to leave me in a dark room." 
 
 " And if I were to put you in a deeper sleep ? " 
 
 " In that case I should know nothing, and were you to leave me, I 
 should remain just so, not suffering anything." 
 
 " In what state, then, in your opinion, is thought-action easiest ? " 
 "For that the sleep must be very deep, but I must hear you all the same. 
 In fact, I hear you always, or at least I think I do (plainly the som- 
 nambule could not know whether she heard me in the state of abso- 
 lute aideism) ; still, sometimes I hear only detached words; for ex- 
 ample, you put me the question, ' Do you hear me at this moment ? ' 
 and I hear only ' hear ' and ' moment ; ' or again, I hear all the words, 
 but each word isolated, so that when you are at the end of a phrase / 
 have forgotten, the beginning ; the first words are gone from me (mon- 
 oideism). Sometimes, too, I hear you and understand you well, but 
 I have not the strength to answer." 
 
 " And in the state you are in at this moment could you receive my 
 thought ? " " No," she said. I gave her, mentally, the order " Awake ! " 
 No result. But some minutes later she said of her own accord : 
 " Awaken me ; " and then I was able to awaken her from a distance. 
 (A simple yea never sufficed to awaken her.) 
 
 December 7. 
 The patient is in the aideic state and partly tetanized — arms in con- 
 tracture, the legs a little stiff. 
 
 10. Rise, go to the piano, take a 
 box of matches, bring it to 
 me, light a match, go back 
 to your place ! 
 
 She rises with difficulty. 
 
 Comes near me. 
 
 ' // se fait un revirement dans ma tlte. 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 6^ 
 
 Go to the piano ! 
 
 Come back ! 
 Still farther ! 
 I stop her with my hand. 
 
 Lower ! 
 
 Lower ! 
 
 Take the match-box ! 
 
 Take the match-box 1 
 
 Come to me ! 
 
 Light ! 
 
 Light ! 
 
 Light ! 
 
 Go back to your place ! 
 
 Bring the right hand to my 
 
 lips. 
 Raise it ! 
 Raise it ! 
 Give it to be kissed ! 
 
 Not that ! To my mouth ! 
 
 To the lips ! 
 
 Goes to the piano, but passes 
 
 beyond. 
 Turns back. 
 Goes toward the door. 
 Returns to the piano. 
 Seeks too high. 
 No result. 
 Lowers her hand. 
 Touches the box, then retreats. 
 Touches it again, and takes it. 
 Comes to me. 
 
 Wants to pass the match-box to me. 
 Takes out a match. 
 Lights it. 
 
 Returns to her place. 
 Her right hand stirs. 
 
 No result. 
 
 Raises the hand. 
 
 Brings the right hand to her face ; 
 
 removes her cravat. 
 Brings her right hand near my 
 
 head. 
 Brings it to my lips. 
 
 December 9. 
 The patient is sleeping well ; aideic state, with tendency to con- 
 tractures. 
 
 12. Lie on the right side. 
 
 I suppressed the contracture 
 by means of a light mas- 
 sage. I take her hand, and, 
 at a given moment, try 
 mentally to 
 
 Produce contracture in the left 
 
 13- 
 
 14. 
 
 arm. 
 Lie down ! 
 
 No result. She , rises and stops ; her 
 whole body contractured, perhaps 
 under the influence of my gaze, 
 which was fixed intently upon her. 
 
 The left arm almost instantly 
 
 becomes stiff. 
 No action. 
 
 At this moment there is a state of hyperacusia : the slightest noise 
 irritates her ; then she falls again into a state of general immobility. 
 
 Then suddenly : " I do not hear your thoughts well, because either 
 I sleep too soundly or not deeply enough." 
 
 Opening her left eye produces catalepsy in the right arm, then in 
 both arms. Opening the right eye produces no result at all. 
 
 15. Ordered to scratch her cheeks. | No action. 
 
 At this moment a flaming match held before one of her eyes, opened 
 for the purpose, produces no reflex action. Even the contraction of 
 
68 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the pupil is not as great as usual, though but a moment before the 
 contraction was nearly normal, and the patient said she saw " a little 
 brightness." Now she says she sees nothing. I awaken her ; she 
 seems to be pretty well, but little by little a paroxysm comes on. I 
 stop it by magnetizing her anew. 
 
 December ii. 
 (Experiments made in presence of Mr. Sosnowski, engineer.) 
 The patient doing well. I put her to sleep in two minutes, and 
 show the three principal states, viz.: 
 
 1. Aideia (without thought, very deep sleep). 
 
 2. Monoideia (one thought alone possible). 
 
 3. Polyideia (somnambulism properly so-called). 
 
 Then by means of a few passes in front of her eyes, I deepen the 
 sleep to the transition degree betwixt aideia and monoideism. She 
 now hears me even without touch, but she is totally paralyzed and ' 
 insensible. 
 
 16. Come to me ! She rises and comes straight to me. 
 I change position and hide as far 
 
 away as possible. 
 
 17. Shake hands with Mr. S. ! 
 (The experiment was proposed by 
 
 Mr. S.) 
 
 At thi3 moment the opening of her eyes did not produce catalepsy. 
 The touch of Mr. S., as of every stranger, is highly disagreeable to 
 her. She will not allow them even to come within two feet of her. 
 
 She extends the right hand and 
 gives it to Mr. S. 
 
 December 18. 
 
 No action. 
 
 A few minutes later the paroxysm 
 comes. Then I put her into 
 deep sleep for the whole iiight. 
 
 She awoke quite well the next day. 
 
 18. An experiment in the state of 
 active somnambulism, be- 
 fore the paroxysm. 
 
 December 27. 
 In endorming the patient / prolong the passes beyond the usual time, 
 for without the passes she fell asleep with difificulty. The sleep 
 becomes very deep. She no longer hears me at all. The pulse is 
 weak and uneven, pulsations 80. The respiration is short and inter- 
 mittent. I quiet her by laying my hand upon the pit of the stomach. 
 
 19. The subject is to go to the No result, 
 table, take a cake and give 
 it to me. (Seeing that the 
 sleep is too deep, I "awak- 
 en" her arms and ears. 
 She hears' me without my She rises, 
 touching her.) Comes to me. 
 
 ' " Hears " his thoughts. — Translator. 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 69 
 
 I stop her. 
 
 Extend the arm ! 
 
 4< fl (I 
 
 Lower ! 
 
 Stands hesitating, in the middle of 
 
 the room. 
 Approaches the table. 
 No action. 
 
 She extends the arm. 
 She gropes on one side. 
 She touches the cake and starts. 
 She takes it and gives it to me. 
 
 Take it and give it to me I 
 
 She is evidently fatigued ; her eyelids droop. " Why,'' I asked her, 
 •" did you take the cake and give it to me ? " 
 
 "Because all the other objects were strange, while the cake seemed 
 to me well known. But I did not know it was a cake. I knew only 
 that it was something less repellant than the strange objects. I was 
 not sufficiently asleep (active somnambulism.) My ears should not be 
 awakened." 
 
 A few minutes later an experience was had, all the more curious 
 because unexpected. I was absorbed in thinking of a matter of per- 
 sonal concern that troubled me the whole day, and despite its inti- 
 mate nature I must make it known here in order that the reader may 
 understand the occurrence. 
 
 The case of Mrs. M. taking up all my time, I neglected several 
 affairs, so that I found myself greatly straitened for money. My 
 attendance on the patient was wholly gratuitous and I did not wish 
 that she should have any suspicion of my embarrassment. As I 
 could not leave her because of the seriousness of her condition (she 
 was constantly subject to fits of suicidal mania) my thoughts were 
 ever returning to the question of finance. 
 
 I chatted with the patient pleasantly, but perhaps my voice betrayed 
 my unrest, and I saw that she divined what was in my mind. She 
 halted in the conversation and became pensive. From long-continued 
 observation I too was able to guess the thoughts that occupied her 
 mind. After reflection she said to herself : " He is in trouble ; he 
 must be helped ; but if I am awakened I shall forget all. What shall 
 I do ? " 
 
 She reflected on the problem and hit upon a plan. She took off a 
 finger ring, as was her custom whenever she desired to remember any- 
 thing, and her face showed a strong resolution not to forget the mean- 
 ing of that act. 
 
 " You must not think about that," I said. 
 
 " If I want to think of it, you will not hinder me " — and she made 
 pretense of not caring about the matter, in order that I might not 
 prevent. 
 
 Some minutes later I mentally gave her the order to forget the pro- 
 ject. That instant she suddenly withdrew her hand. 
 
 "Do not touch me," she said, "for I feel my thought is leaving 
 me. 
 
7° 
 
 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 " It will leave you anyhow," I said, and made a few passes to make 
 her sleep deeper. 
 
 " Do not put that out of my head ! Oh " you have no pity. What 
 was I thinking of just now ? I wished to remember something. I 
 have quite lost it." A few minutes later I noticed on her counte- 
 nance tokens of renewed mental action. The sleep was become less 
 deep ; the thought had come back to her, and again she strove to 
 evade my influence, requesting me to wake her as slowly as possible 
 " for fear of a paroxysm." I awakened her very gently, suggesting 
 cheerful thoughts on her coming out of sleep. Once awake she 'be- 
 came pensive and put her hand to her forehead. 
 
 "It seems to me," she said, "that there is something I have to re- 
 member, but I don't know what." She examined the ring again and 
 again. " No, I do not remember anything." 
 
 She was cheerful and talked freely with us. 
 
 Here are two more experiments in the waking state. 
 
 20. What is it I want this moment ? 
 
 21. And now ? (My wish was that 
 she might take a cake.) 
 
 It is true, you want something. She 
 looks round about as if seek- 
 ing something. Then peering 
 into my eyes, says ; " You 
 want a little wine for tea." 
 Correct. 
 
 No ; I know nothing any more ; I 
 feel nothing. 
 
 December 28. 
 
 Endormed in the morning, she recalls her memory of yesterday, and 
 tries once again to fix it in her mind. She finds a new means of doing 
 this. Suddenly she uttered an exclamation — a phrase that could not 
 be understood by us, but which, when recalled at waking, would call 
 up in her mind the plan contrived the evening before. Then, to guard 
 against an influence, she stops her ears and begins to mutter so as not 
 to hear me. 
 
 22. I give her mentally the order to forget. She thinks she has 
 won and asks to be awakened slowly. I awaken her. The mnemo- 
 technic phrase is repeated to her. "What does it mean ? " I asked. 
 " I do not understand it all," she replied ; and she thought no more 
 about it. In the evening she had a slight attack of delirium. She 
 had an hallucination that she was a dead person. The attack ended 
 in a general contracture : this I suppressed. She then fell back upon 
 the cushions and remained motionless. 
 
 23. Get up and come to me 1 
 
 She stirs a little. Result=o. 
 
 At this moment she was in very profound sleep (paralytic aideia). 
 She does not hear me unless I touch her. 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 71 
 
 24. I want you to hear me ' 
 
 25. Ditto. I excite the ears a little 
 
 fjy movements of the fingers, 
 which usually produce hy- 
 peracusia. 
 
 26. I now purposed to make her 
 
 hear the voice of Miss * * *, 
 which she does not hear of 
 her own accord. (Puyse'- 
 gur's experiment.) 
 I touch the hand of Miss * * * 
 while she is speaking. 
 
 She hears the " noise" of my voice, 
 but does not understand. 
 
 Same imperfect result. I cannot 
 make myself understood. At 
 last, after several minutes, she 
 hears me clearly. 
 
 Result = o. 
 
 She hears the voice like a whisper; 
 or rather as pretty loud sounds, 
 but not understandable. She 
 hears the voice without my 
 touching Miss * * *. Again 
 I touch Miss * * *, but the 
 patient does not hear the 
 words spoken. 
 
 These experiments were probably spoiled by the patient's incon- 
 stant and pathological state. After some minutes : 
 
 27. 
 
 Give the other hand ! 
 holding the left). 
 
 (I was 
 
 S8, 
 
 Ask what I want ! (This with- 
 out touching.) 
 
 What is it ? What do you wish 
 to say ? (Aloud.) 
 
 29, Open your eyes and awake ! 
 
 The right hand stirs. , (It was in 
 contracture.) 
 
 She raises it a little. 
 
 She stretches her right hand toward 
 me with much difficulty, ' ' for 
 it is stiff." She gives it to 
 me, then falls back on the pil- 
 low very much fatigued. 
 
 Result = o. 
 
 Something urged me to put a ques- 
 tion — I don't know what — I 
 have forgotten. Things are 
 all mixed in my head. 
 
 Result = o. 
 
 She moves her head to right and 
 left, then the right arm, but 
 does not awake. 
 
 At this moment she was absorbed by a somnambulic reverie, which 
 reduced the sensibility. I tried to awaken her by spoken order, but 
 the result was only a fatiguing drowsiness, and after several minutes 
 I was obliged to have recourse to passes. 
 
 December 31. 
 The patient is feeling well. I produce easily whatever states I 
 wish, and halt at a phase intermediate between lethargy and monoide- 
 ism. She hears me, but me only, and she cannot answer save by 
 signs or by detached words. 
 
72 
 
 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 30. Get up, go to your brother, 
 and kiss him ! 
 
 Why do you start ? 
 
 She gets up. 
 
 Moves toward me, then goes back 
 
 toward her brother. 
 Stops before him, hesitating, goes 
 
 slowly up to him and kisses 
 
 him on the forehead with a 
 
 start. 
 Because it is something strange. 
 
 (She loves her brother dearly.) 
 
 There was a serious paroxysm that evening ; she gave herself 
 several cuts on the temple with a knife. I came in time to prevent 
 suicide, and endormed her with much difficulty. She did not recog- 
 nize me. She begged my pardon in somnambulism, at the same time 
 complaining that the knife was not sharp enough. 
 
 The normal state did not return till after two hours of sleep. The 
 hysterepileptic seizures do not recur any more, but the paroxysms of 
 mental alienation and the fainting-fits are still frequent. 
 
 January 6. 
 
 The patient was lying on the couch and heard nothing. I went 
 out noiselessly to make an experiment at a distance. 
 
 31. Get up and be seated till I 
 come back ! 
 
 She frowns, her respiration grows 
 rapid, but she does not move. 
 
 The experiment had lasted hardly a minute when it was inter- 
 rupted. She was not very well, so I gave up the experiment in 
 order to attend to the patient. 
 
 January 10. 
 
 I endormed the patient by passes at a distance, that is, without 
 touching her. Then I try to 
 
 32. Produce deep natural sleep in 
 artificial somnambulism. 
 
 Some seconds after the beginning 
 of the mental action, I hear 
 snoring, the lips open and so 
 remain. 
 
 A few minutes after, this state ceases. I begin anew. 
 
 33. (As above.) 
 
 Open your mouth ! 
 Close your mouth ! 
 
 She slept well the whole night. 
 
 Same signs, minus the opening of 
 
 the mouth. 
 She opens her mouth and sleeps ; 
 
 respiration rapid. 
 No action, probably because her 
 
 sleep was so deep 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 73 
 
 • January ii. 
 State of aideic lethargy, with tendency to contractures. 
 
 35. Extend the right arm. Right arm stirs. 
 
 Same phenomenon seven times 
 
 consecutively. 
 Slight movement of left arm. 
 She rises partly. 
 Falls back. 
 Extends the right arm. 
 
 At this moment she hears me, but finds difficulty in answering me. 
 
 She recognizes an object belonging to me among four like objects, 
 pointing it out as " best known." (She sees it now for the first time, 
 but so she always speaks of what belongs to me, what I have touched, 
 ■or concentrated my thought upon.) She rejected one object among 
 five that were alike — the object rejected belonged to Miss X., whose 
 presence is to her insupportable. Three different fingers touch her, 
 she recognizes mine ; and so on. She asks for a drink, and some one 
 puts a glass of water to her lips ; but she notices nothing and keeps 
 asking for a drink. If I hold the glass she recognizes it at once, and 
 drinks with pleasure. (This phenomenon is of daily occurrence.) 
 
 January 14. 
 Mrs. M. falls asleep with difficulty, but her sleep is exceedingly 
 deep. Even after half-an'-hour she does not hear me. There is no 
 contracture. The head is not very hot. The members are not cold. 
 The pulse is pretty regular, 80 pulsations. From time to time some 
 slight tremor of the fingers. The nervomuscular superexcitability 
 does not exist. The members retain the posture given them. Conse- 
 quently there is a state of cataleptic aideia. 
 
 36. I wish you to hear me. I No action. A minute later seve- 
 
 I ral fainting spells. 
 
 Because of the pathological state, no conclusion is to be drawn 
 from this check in the state of cataleptic aideia. Little by little she 
 passes of her own accord into the somnambulic delirium. An hour 
 later, acting more powerfully, I brought about a calm somnambulism. 
 
 37. Sleep well the whole night ! | She does sleep well the whole night. 
 
 She awakes quite well, barring an amblyopy that soon passed 
 away. 
 
 January 18. 
 
 The improvement in Mrs. M.'s health permits me to make a few 
 new experiments. I endorm her as usual. Then I endormed her 
 brother also, and he remained motionless in an armchair in the mid- 
 dle of the room. He was in a state of mild paralytic aideia, easily 
 effaced, but from which he could not come out by himself. Mrs. M. 
 
74 
 
 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 lay on the couch at the lower end of the room, in passive somnam- 
 bulism. By means of a few passes I put her into a deeper sleep— a 
 little too deep even — and I withdraw to begm the experiments. 
 
 38. I order her mentally to kneel 
 in the middle of the room. 
 
 I take hold of her hand. 
 
 Kneel ! 
 
 Result = o. 
 
 She stirs. (Afterward she said that 
 she was sleeping very well, 
 when something awakened 
 her.) 
 
 She gets up and walks toward the 
 middle of the room, where she 
 encounters her brother. This 
 time she does not start at all; 
 on the contrary, she feels of 
 him with a certain satisfaction 
 and a little astonishment. 
 
 Then she goes back to the couch 
 and sits down. 
 
 After two minutes of hesitation she 
 kneels. 
 
 She told us afterward that it was her brother that had put her "off 
 the scent." " I knew not what to do," she said ; "I sensed you here 
 and there. That confused me. There was 'another you' in the 
 middle of the chamber." 
 
 "'Another me?' How is that?" 
 
 " Something that was you. I don't know. But that confused me." 
 
 January 24. 
 She was put to sleep in the armchair {atdeia, then monoideism). 
 
 39. Ordered to blow out a lighted 
 
 wax candle on the piano. 
 
 She stands so near to the candle 
 that I blow it out myself, 
 lest her gown take fire. 
 
 Give me the candle ' 
 
 40. Give me your left hand 1 
 (I held her right.) 
 
 41. Come to me. 
 
 (This experiment was per- 
 formed with many precau- 
 tions ; the somnambule was 
 not aware that I had retired 
 and was acting, at a distance 
 of several yards, from the 
 rear end of the hallway ) 
 
 She rises. 
 
 Comes toward me, then goes 
 toward the piano. 
 
 Touches the music as she gropes. 
 
 Removes the candlestick. 
 
 Takes the candle out of the can- 
 dlestick and brings it to me. 
 
 Raises the left hand and gives it 
 to me. 
 
 Frowns. 
 
 She rises. 
 
 Extends the right arm, advances, 
 opens the door, and goes 
 straight into the hallway, 
 where I hasten to meet her. 
 
 She showed pleasure in encounter- 
 ing ray hand, then she returned 
 slowly to the drawing-room. 
 
 That same evening I made two experiments more, to test my per- 
 sonal magnetic action. 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 75 
 
 As I have already said, whenever the patient touched a "strange" 
 object or person, /. ^,, outside of my influence, there was a start and 
 an instinctive repulsion. This I wished to verify. I requested her 
 brother to take, unnoticed by her, a seat not far from her, a little 
 behind where she was. Then, by exerting an attractive action upon 
 her arm, I so guided her that she by chance touched th& arm of her 
 brother. There was a shudder of repulsion, and a repetition of the 
 experiment gave the same result. Then I endormed the brother, 
 unknown to the subject, where he sat, and began the attraction again. 
 She was obliged to touch her brother several times, but no more repul- 
 sion was shown. 
 
 Another comparative experiment was made during normal sleep. 
 Three hands, of three different persons, were brought within a few 
 inches of her head. After a minute she became slightly agitated, 
 raised her hand above her head, as feeling for something, pushed 
 away the other two hands, and drew mine to her. Almost immediately 
 the natural sleep was transformed into somnambulism. Not knowing 
 that I was there, she was astonished to see me near her 
 
 February 4. 
 
 On awaking she showed, as usual, her sensibility with regard to the 
 
 psychic state of those present. " I am very angry at Marie," she said. 
 
 "Why so .' " " Because all the time she has been trying to keep me, 
 
 and it is absolutely necessary for me to go." (That was exactly so.) 
 
 February 5. 
 
 The hysterogenic point beneath the left clavicle no longer exists. 
 But she does not yet feel the warmth of my hand at the back of the 
 head (delirogenic point). In somnambulism, her sensibility is already 
 normal. Magnetization checks the beginning of a paroxysm of 
 delirium. Aideia, 82 pulsations. After thirty minutes of this state 
 the head grows cooler. A few minutes later passive somnambulism 
 appears, and then active somnambulism. Then she asks me to 
 awaken "her whole body except the front of the head." In this 
 state she manifests a very high degree of sensibility. She notices 
 •everything, but feels a difficulty in reflecting. If one pinch me, or strike 
 me, it hurts her. She describes perfectly my mental state, or rather 
 my sensations. The touch of a stranger is still disagreeable to her. 
 I give myself a pinch. " I do not like that," she said. 
 
 In general she is not obedient in this state, in spite of the trans- 
 mission of sensations ; she is too irascible for that. She undergoes 
 the influence of my sensations, but not of my will. The memory 
 persists. 
 
 After an hour this state disappears and she falls into her normal 
 sleep. 
 
76 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Here I stop. The history of this patient has been most instructive 
 to me. I have with regard to her case a great volume of notes taken 
 on the spot, and having a bearing upon sundry other questions, 
 among which the question of therapeutic holds the foremost place. 
 Next comes the question of mental suggestion, that of physical 
 action, that of hypnotic phases, and a few others of less importance. 
 I have purposely left out whatever was not directly concerned with 
 psychic transmission, so as not to complicate the task of the reader,, 
 who will find here quite enough if he will but study with the necessary 
 attention the details given above. 
 
 I have left out nothing — quite the reverse — that had to do with our 
 principal subject. I have given all the experiments, even those which 
 of necessity had to be inconclusive and resultless, or which could be 
 successful only in part, because of accidental circumstances. Hence,, 
 the general effect of this narrative will be less conclusive for the 
 reader than for myself. As for me, I am free to confess it, these 
 experiments were decisive. At last I have the personal impression I 
 sought so long, of a true, direct, indubitable action. I was fully sure 
 that there was neither chance, coincidence, nor suggestion by attitude 
 or gesture, nor any other possible cause of error. Wherever these 
 influences were for a moment added, I have pointed them out, and the 
 reader will himself be able to appreciate them in accordance with the 
 principles already set forth. But a point that may have escaped the 
 reader, just because of the strictly objective manner of this account, 
 is that from the second week forward I was already master of the 
 phenomenon, and that if in the subsequent experiments there still 
 were checks, that was solely because I wished to verify the impossi- 
 bility or difficulty of success in certain hypnotic phases. AVhenever I 
 produced the phase of sleep favorable to these experiments, they were 
 always successful. The reader will not wonder that I was delighted 
 with this discovery. For me, a phenomenon is not a scientific fact if 
 one is obliged to accept it purely and simply as an accident distinctly 
 seen, clearly controlled, but which has come about one knows not how, 
 and which is not repeated one knows not why. 
 
 And that was just the case with all the experiments in mental sug- 
 gestion hitherto known, even with those cited in the first two chap- 
 ters, and which so astonished me. Mr. D. divined several letters, and 
 even whole words, one after another, under pretty stringent condi- 
 tions. But what annoyed me was that after a series of amazing suc- 
 cesses, there were other series in which the transmission seemed 
 absolutely in default. And yet the subject kept on divining, and 
 divined amiss, wholly amiss. Why ? I could not tell ; but this 
 inconstancy of the phenomenon discredited in my eyes results the 
 most astonishing. This all the more that on some occasions I suc- 
 ceeded in mentally representing to myself the object with great 
 
TRUE MEA^'TAL SUGGESTION. 77 
 
 distinctness. For example, I represent to myself a lamp, and I 
 almost see it flaring before the eyes of my imagination. 
 
 "It is a book," says the subject. Seeing that I do not confirm this 
 conjecture, " No," says he, " it is a cigar." 
 
 Is not that enough to disconcert a skeptic, particularly one but 
 little prepossessed ? 
 
 Well, I now understood this unevenness, this inconstancy of phe- 
 nomena : Direct mental suggestion is possible only in one state, and 
 that a transition state between two others. Though I was able to 
 fix that state for a few moments, by graduating the sleep almost at 
 will, that was not possible to do in the waking state, wherein each 
 moment brings change, without which, as Bain very well says, there 
 is no consciousness, and wherein this change, as such, is not appre- 
 ciable for the subject. jThus it sometimes happened that Mr. D. 
 would say to me: "T'feel well disposed to-day." Yet the experi- 
 ments would be unsuccessful, while on another day they would pro- 
 ceed far better, despite his untoward presentiments. 
 
 All was now comparatively cler.r to me; we must regard thought- 
 transference as a sort of audition. 
 
 One does not hear who is deaf ; one does not hear when there is 
 too much noise ; one does not hear when one is absorbed in thought. 
 
 One is deaf to a transference of thought when one sleeps so soundly 
 that the brain does not perform its functions. How, think you, can a 
 subject sunk m prof ound paralytic aideia obey your thought if he can- 
 not even hear the living voice ? He is deaf. In vain will you shout 
 into his ear, a fortiori in vain will you whisper to him from a distance. 
 Hence mental suggestions are still more difficult in this state of pro- 
 found aideia than in the waking state, and therefore those who think 
 that all that is needed in order to make one amenable to their mental 
 action is to put one into the magnetic sleep, are mistaken. 
 
 One does not hear when there is too much noise, and a hypnotized 
 subject will not "hear" your thought because he is at the mercy of 
 everybody ; because he has too many strong and different sensations; 
 because his attention is not directed solely to you. Consequently, 
 even though you were to make him hypersesthesic in every possible 
 way by fixing the gaze on a shining object, or other inanimate object, 
 you will not make him easily sensitive to exceedingly slight personal 
 influences, such as thought-action. 
 
 One does not hear when one's mind is occupied by other thoughts, 
 because the one action excludes the other. One that is talking hears 
 badly. The dreams of active somnambulistn being more vivid than 
 those of normal sleep and being nearly always " spoken " dreams, are 
 more opposed to delicate perception th'an is the waking state itself. 
 Consequently, it is useless to attempt direct mental suggestion with a 
 somnambule that is talking with vivacity, or who is carrying out any 
 
78 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 somnambulic project whatsoever ; he will not hear you. His atten- 
 tion is not null, as in an hypnotized subject ; but what is worse for 
 your purpose, it is turned in another direction. Hence, despite the 
 favorable appearances — for he can always hear you, his magnetizer 
 — the state of strongly active polyideia is no better for experimental 
 purposes than that of paralytic aideia. 
 
 Then, as regards the intermediate states : Some subjects who are 
 capable of presenting these two opposite states — aideia and polyideia 
 — do not pass directly, or at least may not pass directly, from the one 
 into the other. They tarry for a longer or a shorter time in the mo- 
 noideic phase. You have before you no longer an inertia, a complete 
 paralysis of the brain ; neither have you a reasoning activity more or 
 less like that of the waking state ; but you have to do with a brain 
 that concentrates all its functional action, and that cannot but con- 
 centrate it, upon a single idea standing alone and dominant. It is 
 dominant, not being counterbalanced by any other thought. It is 
 hallucinational for the same reason and through the vivacity, the 
 physiological vitality, of a brain that has just rested itself better than 
 usually (aideia), and which asks only a chance to work. Hence you 
 need but little to set it a-going. A nothing moves it, a nothing con- 
 trols. 
 
 That is the moment for suggestions. Mental suggestions ? Yes 
 and no \ This state is still far more complex than it seems to be. The 
 monoideic state, in the first place, may be two-fold — active or passive, 
 en active^ it approacfies~polyideism while remaining what it fs. 
 t is akin to it by a very great preponderance of one idea associated 
 with a few others that are very faint^This is the state of somnambulic 
 monomania. The subordinate ideas belong to the real world, the domi- 
 nant one to imagination. Consequently the subject cannot make his 
 way so well amid the surroundings of actual life as can an active 
 somnambule proper, who reflects, perceives, shuns obstacles, and per- 
 forms a difficult task. But if he sees (imperfectly) any object, his dream 
 may easily persuade him to believe it a book, a lantern, or a bird, and 
 then he will do a certain number of acts meet to such vision. 
 [ This state, the state of spontaneous hallucination, is no more favor- 
 able to thought-transference than is active polyideism, whereof it is 
 only a lower grade as regards lucidity, but more advanced and more 
 isolated as regards liveliness of sensations. 
 
 Passive monoideism, on the other hand, comes nearer to aideia, just 
 because of its character of passivity, inertia. The vividness of sensa- 
 tions is the same. But they can no longer arise of their own accord ; 
 they must be suggested, and they are suggested with the utmost ease. 
 Whatever you say is law to the subject. He is under obligation to 
 divine as you bid him, and the divination is done, not by reflection, 
 but by unconscious, imperceptible associations which deceive you, 
 
TRUE MENTAL SUGGESTION. 79 
 
 which appear and disappear almost before their task is done. I For 
 this state is, so to speak, still more monoideic than the preceding one. 
 The faint, accessory ideas are almost entirely wanting. And it is 
 always a state of tension, even violent tension, like the other, with 
 this difference, that the tension of active monoideism comes into play 
 of itself, while the tension of passive monoideism always awaits an 
 external stimulus however slight — a breath, a hint, a nothing. Bain 
 would say that it is an " involuntary energy " requiring only an im- 
 pulsion to show itself. 
 
 I Is this the phase for mental suggestions ? Almost ! Anyway, 
 mental suggestions always act in this phase, that is to say, you have 
 only to concentrate your thought strongly and the subject will per- 
 ceive it. There will be first a corrugation of the eyebrows, an ex- 
 j pression of attention in the countenance, an agitation of the mem- 
 I bers, and at last a doing of your will, or a beginning of doing it/ One 
 \ thing, however, may mar the experiment : if your action is too lively 
 in the beginning, or if it is too vividly (albeit indistinctly) perceived 
 by the subject, it will have upon him an awakening influence — awak- 
 ening in the relative meaning of the word, viz., the subject, though 
 he executes your mental order, and because of the same, will pass too 
 quickly into a state of sleep a little less deep, into active monoideism, 
 and then will be all eagerness to execute your mental order without 
 having grasped it fairly ; he will seek you, will run after you, and will 
 even " insensibilize" himself ' by this involuntarily suggested mono- 
 mania. Or else he will pass into a state of sleep still less profound, 
 more tranquil, and at the same time more lucid, a state of active poly- 
 ideism ; he will begin to divine, to guess by his own reflection what 
 he can no longer perceive passively, and then he will be capable of 
 doing other things than you have ordered. Finally — and this hap- 
 pens seldomer, but does happen with subjects that are too sensi- 
 tive — the mental impulse you give him produces first excitation, after, 
 the manner of narcotics, and then puts him to sleep ; and the sub- 
 ject, after making a beginning of carrying out the order, lapses into 
 complete aideia. Thus this state does not afford us the best guaranty 
 of success ; for that we must seek a little deeper. 
 
 The true moment for mental suggestion is the state betwixt aideia and 
 passive monoideism. 
 
 But if that is so, and if our experiment has a better chance here 
 than in outright passive monoideism, the cause is simply that it has 
 more time at its command, and that one usually makes too great 
 an effort in beginning the mental action — a thing helpful this side the 
 threshold of aideia, while beyond that it is not safe. Could we be 
 certain which stage we had before us, we should have only to conform 
 
 ' .S" insensibilisera I that is, will make himself insensible [to your further action]. 
 — Translator. 
 
8o MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 to its requirements ; we would act with some forcefulness in aideia 
 (to awaken the brain), a little more gently in monoideia (not to 
 awaken it too much), and we should have free scope up to the very- 
 limits of both states. In any case the brain should be " regulated ; " 
 it should be regulated for nascent monoideia. Permit me to illustrate 
 by a comparison with the telephone. 
 
 A telephone, unless it is well regulated, does not reproduce dis- 
 tinctly speech at a distance. But in telephony, as in neurology, all is 
 relative. A telephone is well regulated when the vibrating disk is 
 very nigh, but not too nigh, the magnetic core of the coil ; you may 
 then shout pretty loud without impairing the distinctness of the 
 sounds transmitted. On the contrary, the louder you shout the better 
 they hear at the other station. And they would hear better still, com- 
 paratively, were the disk still nigher the core, almost touching; but 
 then, in speaking too loud there is danger of the disk sticking to the 
 magnet and of almost complete failure to transmit. Medium regu- 
 lation bordering on maximum is what practice requires, herein differing 
 slightl)' from theory. 
 
 But how " regulate " a somnambule ? Ah, that is the question ! 
 Fortunately, it is not much more difficult in hypnology than is that 
 other question in telephony ; only here as there the instrument must 
 be regulable. 
 
 Subjects there are who will not be controlled in this respect ; they 
 can be employed for other purposes, or with them one has to be 
 content with a hurried mental action, as has been done hitherto. 
 But we must also eschew subjects that are too obedient and already 
 trained — subjects worked by turning a crank, so to speak. But 
 again one must learn how to bring about the degree of slumber that 
 is needed. The first seances, however, must have for their one end 
 purely passive observation of the effect produced by your action, in 
 order to learn what kind of a subject you have. You shall spend, hours, 
 if needful, waiting for the subject to awake of his own accord, unless 
 he asks to be awakened sooner. In subjects that are specially sus- 
 ceptible of sleep — for some there are with whom you can make all 
 the physical experiments, but not the psychical — you will produce 
 two principal phases, namely, the deep sleep, which vanishes by de- 
 grees, and the lucid sleep, or somnambulism proper. What you need is 
 an intermediate state. The subject must not be allowed to become 
 too much awake and to regain his spontaneous activity, nor is he to 
 be put in too deep a sleep, for then he will not hear you. The best 
 means to obtain this graduation is by magnetic passes, so-called, up-and- 
 down and crosswise, for the depth of the slumber usually increases 
 with the number of those, and lessens with the number of these. By 
 making two, three, four passes right before the subject (without con- 
 tact) you obtain a little less or a little more of sleep, and sometimes 
 
EXPERIMENTS AT HAVRE. 8i 
 
 one is able to graduate at will the intermediate phases just mentioned. 
 Should such graduation by passes be impossible, you will have diffi- 
 culty in obtaining that result by any other means. And above all 
 one must be careful not to employ different means for the different 
 phases, for so one establishes an artificial ideorganic association, a bad 
 habit that will disorganize the subject. 
 
 It is understood that I do not enter here upon a discussion of the 
 action of the passes. One may suppose that they exercise a physical 
 action, or,one purely suggestive : that is of no importance for the end 
 in view. I simply mention the oldest and best known process, which 
 gives the most constant and most beneficial results as regards the 
 subject (certain hypnotic processes are harmful) and which serves 
 best to graduate the sleep at will whenever graduation is possible. 
 
 Once master of your subject, you have only to avail yourself of the 
 moment when he hears you and does not yet give answer well. 
 
 Do not mistake difficulty of speaking, caused by a contracture of 
 the voice-muscles, for an aphasic difficulty, /. e., one of purely cerebral 
 origin. The latter is what you require. 
 
 We will enter on some further details when we state the conclusions 
 of our study. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EXPERIMENTS AT HAVRE. 
 
 IN the month of November, 1885, Mr. Paul Janet, of the Institute, 
 read to the Society of Physiological Psychology a communication 
 from his nephew, Mr. Peter Janet, professor of philosophy in the Ly- 
 ceum at Havre, entitled " Upon Some Phenomena of Somnambulism." 
 This title, prudently vague, veiled some quite extraordinary revela- 
 tions. The subject was a series of experiments, made by Messrs. 
 Gibert and Janet, that seemed to prove not only mental suggestion 
 in general but also mental suggestion from a distance of some kilo- 
 meters, and unbeknown to the subject. 
 
 That I followed the reading of this communication with interest 
 was matter of course : everybody did the same, not without a good 
 measure of incredulity. Mr. Janet abstained entirely from theorizing ; 
 he simply stated the facts, and left them to be believed or not. The 
 communication, listened to in silence, was passed in silence, save that 
 a few exceptions, of a very general character, were taken by our 
 President, Mr. Charcot. Positively there was no ground for argument, 
 but one might examine the facts. Having decided to do this, I took 
 the first favorable opportunity to carry out my purpose. 
 
 True, I had already made many experiments in mental suggestion^ 
 
82 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 and on that point I no longer had any doubt : I must needs surrender 
 to evidence. But the facts recounted by Messrs. Janet and Gibert 
 presented quite another character. These gentlemen carried out no 
 experiments like those we have been observing in the case of Mrs. D. 
 in the waking state and of Mrs. M. in the state of sleep ; they tried, 
 but without success; whereas they did attain success under more 
 extraordinary conditions, giving mental suggestions to be carried out 
 much later, ar.d endorming their subject at a distance. 
 
 To me this seemed noteworthy. I wished, first of all, to verify this 
 latter phenomenon, recognizing its importance for a theory of sugges- 
 tion and for the problem of magnetism in general. It was evident 
 that such verification would be the death of the exclusive theory of 
 contemporary hypnotism, which was boasting itself to be the legitimate 
 successor of animal magnetism, deceased, and destined hencefor- 
 ward to take a very modest place alongside its predecessor. On the 
 other hand, should Messrs. Gibert and Janet have been duped by any 
 illusion, we must once again retrace our steps to see if even suggestion 
 from anear be not due to some presently incomprehensible exaltation 
 of the perceiving mind, and not to thought-transference in the true 
 sense of the word. 
 
 The subject of these experiments was Mrs. B., a countrywoman of 
 Normandy, 50 years old, in good health, honest, very timid, intelligent, 
 but quite uneducated (she cannot even write and can hardly read). 
 She is of robust, sturdy constitution ; when young was hysterical, but 
 was cured by an unknown magnetizer. Since, only in somnambulism 
 do some traces of hysteria appear, when she is crossed. In the normal 
 state, the hysteria has disappeared, but the hypnotic sensibility that 
 served as its ground persists, as usual. Mrs. B., ever since childhood, 
 has been subject to natural somnambulism, in which she recounts the 
 singular hallucinations she experiences. The somnambulism recurs 
 more frequently of late. The woman has a husband and children, who 
 enjoy good health. Several physicians have, it seems, wished to 
 experiment with ber, but she has always' rejected their propositions. 
 Only at the request of Mr. Gibert did she consent to spend a little 
 time in Havre. She is endormed very easily : one need but take her 
 hand, grasping it gently for a few moments, intending to endorm her ; 
 otherwise there is no result. After a longer or shorter time— 2 to 5 
 minutes, according to the person that puts her asleep — her look becomes 
 vague, the eyelids quiver with slight motions that often are very rapid, 
 till the eyeball hides itself behind the lids. At the same time the chest 
 rises laboredly : the subject is evidently ill at ease. Very often a 
 shiver agitates the body for an instant, then she gives a deep sigh and 
 throws herself backward, plunged in deep sleep. 
 
 Hypnoscopic exp.: anaesthesia, general contracture almost instan- 
 taneous, deep sleep. 
 
EXPERIMENTS AT HA VRE. 83 
 
 I reached Havre August 21, and found Messrs. Gibert and Janet 
 so convinced of the reality of the action at a distance that they will- 
 ingly assented to the minute precautions suggested to them by me so 
 that I might be able to test the phenomenon. 
 
 Mr. F.. Myers and Dr. Myers (members of the London Society for 
 Psychical Research), Mr. Marillier (of the SociM de Psychologic 
 Physiologique), and myself, formed a sort of commission, and the 
 details of all the experiments were arranged by us with common 
 accord. 
 
 The precautions we observed in experimenting were as follows : 
 
 1. The precise hour for the action at a distance was fixed by lot. 
 
 2. It was not made known to Mr. Gibert till a few minutes before 
 it arrived, and forthwith the members of the commission went to the 
 pavilion. 
 
 3. Neither the subject, nor any occupant of the pavilion,' distant 
 nearly a kilometer, knew the precise hour, or even the kind of experi- 
 ment that was about to take place. 
 
 4. To avoid involuntary suggestion, neither we nor any of those 
 gentlemen entered the pavilion except to verify the sleep. 
 
 First Experiment. — Dr. Gibert must endorm the subject from his 
 office, 51 St. Quentin Street, and mentally order her to go out into the 
 street. Action begins 5:50 p. m. Probable time of executing the 
 order, 6:05. 
 
 At 6 o'clock precisely we reach No. 5 Ferme Street, where the 
 pavilion is, but we stand aloof, so that no one might suspect our pres- 
 ence. We wait a quarter of an hour in vain ; the subject does not 
 come down into the street. Consequently the experiment was a 
 failure in that respect. 
 
 We enter the pavilion, ringing the bell at the garden gate, and go 
 up to the first floor, but find no one there. 
 
 Two of us go down to the kitchen, on pretext of inquiring whether 
 Mr. Gibert has yet arrived, and find the subject sitting motionless but 
 awake. We pass to a chamber on the first floor, and there talk about 
 the experiment, which we regard as abortive. A few minutes there- 
 after the subject enters the parlor (opposite to the room we were in), 
 and there we find her reclining on an easy chair in lethargy. That, it 
 seems, is always the case when she is endormed by Mr. Gibert. Dr. 
 Gibert is at this moment making his professional calls, and cannot 
 join us. 
 
 The subject makes answer to questions put by Mr. Janet, who of 
 late has been endorming her more often than Mr. Gibert. 
 
 Mrs. B., in somnambulism, tells of how toward six o'clock she felt 
 ill at ease, and was about to go to sleep when a ring of the bell 
 awakened her, and she took refuge in the kitchen ; how thereafter she 
 ' Pavilion : the house at which the subject lodged. 
 
84 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 was unable to overcome the drowsiness, and so went up to the 
 parlor. " 'Twas Mr. Gibert played me that trick," she added ; " you 
 torment me ; I don't want folks to endorm me without giving me 
 notice 1 " 
 
 We profit by the somnambulism to make some experiments, which 
 the subject interrupts continually, asking "Where is Mr. Gibert? 
 Where is he .? I must go and look for him." She tries to get away 
 from us and go into the street. We hold her back. 
 
 After an hour we withdraw, and Mr. Janet awakens her. She recol- 
 lects nothing, but she has headache, and at evening we go away ; she 
 is all the time restless, falls of her own accord into somnambulism, 
 and goes down into the garden seeking Mr. Gibert. They hold her 
 back with difficulty, and send for Mr. Gibert, who comes and quiets 
 her. 
 
 Despite these unfavorable conditions, another experiment was 
 arranged, to come off at 12:15 that night. Mrs. B. was sure to be then 
 in her natural sleep. 
 
 Secotid experiment. — " From a distance to make Mrs. B. pass from her 
 natural sleep into somnambulism and go find Mr. Gibert in his office 
 in St. Quentin Street." 
 
 The success of this experiment, even according to those gentlemen, 
 was hardly probable. Besides, this was the first time they ever tried 
 to act during the subject's natural sleep. So it failed ; the somnam- 
 bule did not come down stairs ; and, as we did not wish to disturb the 
 inmates of the house, we did not go in to see whether there were any 
 indications of action. So much at least is certain, that Mrs. B. did not 
 leave her chamber. The only difference noticed in her behavior on 
 this day as compared with other days was, that instead of rising very 
 early as her custom was, she slept till after ten o'clock, and she got 
 up with a headache. She went down to the kitchen and set herself 
 to work, but, the headache continuing, she went again up to her 
 chamber toward noon. 
 
 Then came the third experiment. Mr. Gibert was to endorm Mrs. B. 
 from his own house at 10 minutes before 12 o'clock, exerting mental 
 action during lo minutes. Mrs. B. was to be endormed and to remain 
 in the parlor. At 12.07 we reach the pavilion without ringing the bell, 
 and taking care to make no noise. Mrs. B. is still in her chamber. 
 So as not to influence her by our presence, we send the cook to her to 
 ask if she is coming down to breakfast. 
 
 Mrs. B. is walking briskly up and down the room. " I am in a queer 
 way," says she to the cook ; " I don't know what ails me. I am 
 trembling ; but I will go down all the same." 
 
 She did not come down till 10 minutes afterwards. We watch her 
 from a distance. She is not quite endormed, but neither is she in her 
 normal state. She seems not to see what is going on around her nor 
 
EXPERIMENTS AT HA VRE. 85 
 
 to know what she wishes to do. She enters one room and thea 
 another ; a minute later she falls into lethargy. 
 
 The same questions, the same answers. " Again it is Mr. Gibert that 
 plays this trick upon me. But I have made you wait (smiling). I have had 
 time to dip my hands in water, and that kept me up for some time. But 
 where is Mr. Gibert ? Why does he not come ? Why torment me so Y 
 I must go and look for him (applying both hands to her forehead). 
 No ; he does not want me to go in search of him (fretfully). Why 
 doesn't he wish me to go ?" 
 
 Sundry experiments are made, in the course of which I remove her 
 headache. 
 
 Mrs. B. recognized all the persons present by touching their thumbs 
 and particularly by scratching lightly the thumb nail. There was no 
 getting an explanation of this trick, which to her seemed quite 
 natural. She would not even tell us how she hit upon it. I can only 
 say that in this way she perceives really the personality, the physical 
 state, sometimes also the mental state of people. After touching my 
 thumb she declared that I should have great influence over her and 
 that I might easily control her. " For example, I should not dare tO' 
 say no to you," said she ; and so on. 
 
 Thenceforward she seems really to feel my presence, and to be 
 subject to a sort of attraction for me. Wishing to test the reality of 
 this influence, I concentrate my thought and order her to give m& 
 her hand ; suddenly I see her start ; she grows excited, leans toward 
 me, and holds her hand out to me. Thrice I made this experiment 
 with the same success while she was in a state more or less proximate 
 to monoideism. When she was in the aideic state the effect was null, 
 retarded, or incomplete ; she became agitated, but did not execute 
 the mental order. 
 
 In active somnambulism the experiments were sometimes successful, 
 if I took care to select a moment of inaction. In acting while she 
 talked animatedly with Mr. Janet or another person, or when she was. 
 absorbed in her own thoughts, I obtained no result, absolutely none. 
 I had also occasion to notice that too great concentration of my own 
 thought rather marred the result of the experiment ; it upset her, 
 producing spasms and general tension, interfering with the exactness 
 of the transmission. On the other hand, a thought formulated with 
 precision but, so to speak, in passing and without special mental 
 pressure, produced an action whenever the subject was amenable to 
 those mysterious influences. Here are two experiments made under 
 this condition of tension, which were unsuccessful. 
 
 I was at the lower end of the room, hid behind Mr. Janet, and I 
 ordered the somnambule to kneel. She manifested strong agitation, 
 seemed to be looking for me, her eyes opened and remained open 
 without intelligence. The state in which she was at this moment was 
 
■86 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 like that produced by Donate when he makes his subject follow him. 
 It was thus a state of fascination, with a noteworthy difference, how- 
 ever. The state of fascination is a monoideic state. It is passive, 
 eminently passive, when you hold the subject fast with your eye, 
 operating upon him as you please. This state is sensitive to visual 
 influences, to the imitation of gestures, etc., when it is calm. If, on 
 the contrary, the subject, drawn by your eye, follows you, the calm 
 disappears, a sort of fever seizes him, his thought is too absorbed, too 
 tense in one direction to allow new influences to act ; the subject 
 follows you madly, he is infuriated by the slightest obstacle, and then 
 he can do nothing but follow your eye with blind obstinacy. That is 
 not passive monoideia, it is active monoideia, hypnotic monomania. 
 
 Acting mentally at a distance and unseen by the subject, I produced 
 a state like this, but more agitated and less clearly defined, less fixed, 
 the fixity of gaze being lacking as a support to the monomanial tend- 
 ency of the subject. She was, therefore, upset, agitated, attracted, 
 but indistinctly, and her mental state, which asked only to be domi- 
 nated by one thought, was at the same time too much on the strain 
 to grasp it. It was an almost aideic fever, because of the mingling 
 of indistinct ideas. 
 
 The subject began with rising to her feet ; then I thought I noticed 
 a bending of her body as though she were about to kneel ; but this 
 movement ceased and Mrs. B. straightened herself and for a moment 
 remained standing. Then I changed my thought and ordered her to 
 come to me and then to go upon her knees before the easy chair. 
 She stepped tottering toward the chair. At that moment I pro- 
 nounced mentally the words " Kneel ! " "On the floor!" The latter 
 expression caused me some uneasiness arid I regretted it. " Perhaps 
 she will fall to the floor and hurt herself," I thought ; so I began anew 
 fhe mental order, " Kneel ! " 
 
 At that instant Mrs. B. fell backward in lethargy into the arms of 
 Mr. Janet. 
 
 Another experiment, suggested by Mr. Frederic Myers, also failed, 
 The somnambule was to take in her hands a cushion placed to the 
 left of her on the couch. This experiment took a good deal of time, 
 for the different states of the subject succeeded one another rapidly. 
 At times there was no action ; at times the feverish monomanial 
 agitation interfered with the distinctness of the transmission. Mrs. 
 B. stretched her arms forth toward the cushion, but did not take hold 
 of it. At last she rose, went to the end of the couch where the 
 cushion was, paying no attention to it, and went down upon her knees — 
 thus executing the order she had failed to execute when given before, 
 and which I was not then thinking of. 
 
 But, I must add, there is no certainty that in this case we have 
 a retarded mental perception of the first order ; for, inasmuch as I 
 
EXPERIMENTS AT HAVRE. 87 
 
 considered the first experiment a failure, I said to the gentlemen pre- 
 sent that I had chosen that injunction rather than another, expressly 
 because it had not succeeded definitely with my former subject. At 
 that moment the somnambule was in lethargic aideia and could not 
 hear us ; but we must never trust this hypnotic deafness, for though 
 it is absolute as regards reflex action, it may be that it does not ex- 
 clude latent, unconscious audition, and this may manifest itself in a 
 subsequent state. I may even say, I think, that the habitual over- 
 looking of this fact by experimenters does a great deal toward 
 making their observations inexact. 
 
 Finally, a third trial, in which she was ordered to give her right 
 hand while I was on her left, was only in part successful. There was 
 a motion of the right arm in the direction of me, but the hand was 
 not given. 
 
 It is to be remarked that all these experiments were made by 
 me without my touching the subject, who never was magnetized 
 by me. She was at this moment under the influence of Mr Gibert 
 (absent), and of Mr. Janet, who awakened her at length, not without 
 difficulty 
 
 Fourth Experiment. — On account of the patient's fatigue, it was 
 about decided to suspend experiment till the morrow ; but not being 
 satisfied with the first three, I urged Mr. Gibert to allow an imme- 
 diate repetition of the second, which had failed (Cagliostro's experi- 
 ment — endorming the subject from a distance and making her come 
 to him across the city). 
 
 It was half-past 8 in the evening. Mr. Gibert consented. The 
 precise time was chosen by lot. The mental action was to begin 5 
 minutes before 9 and to continue till 9.10. 'At that moment there was 
 no one in the pavilion, besides the subject, but the cook, and she did 
 not expect that anything was to be done by us. No one went to the 
 pavilion. Profiting by this absence, the two women went to the 
 parlor, and amused themselves with playing on the piano. 
 
 We reached the neighborhood of the pavilion past 9 o'clock. Silence. 
 The street was deserted.. Without making the least noise, we broke 
 up into two parties to watch the house from a distance. 
 
 At 9.25 I saw a shadow appear at the garden gate. It was she. I 
 hid in a corner to listen without being observed. But I heard nothing. 
 The somnambule, after waiting a minute at the gate, went back into 
 the garden. (At this moment Mr. Gibert was no longer acting ; by 
 dint of concentrating his thought he had a sort of syncope or stupor, 
 lasting till 9.35.) 
 
 At 9.30 the somnambule appeared again at the gate, and this time 
 sprang into the street unhesitating. She hurried along like one who 
 is late, but who must positively reach his destination. The other 
 gentlemen, who were on her route, had no time to notify us — Dr. 
 
S8 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Myers and me ; but, hearing rapid footfalls, we followed the somnam- 
 bule, who noticed nothing around her ; or, at least, did not recognize 
 us. Reaching Du Bard Street she began to stagger, halted a moment, 
 and came near falling. Suddenly she started forward again at a rapid 
 pace. It was now 9.35. (At this moment Mr. Gibert, come to himself, 
 began the action again.) The somnambule hurried on regardless of 
 surroundings. 
 
 In ten minutes we were quite near Mr. Gibert's house, when he, 
 thinking the experiment had missed, and wondering because he did 
 not see us back again, steps out to meet us. He comes across the 
 somnambule, who keeps her eyes still closed. She does not recognize 
 him. Absorbed in her hypnotic monomania, she rushes to the stair- 
 case, followed by us all. Mr. Gibert wanted to enter his office, but I 
 take him by the hand and lead him to a room opposite. The som- 
 nambule, highly wrought up, looks for him everywhere, brushing by 
 us, but not noticing anything. She enters the office, feels of the fur- 
 niture, repeating in a tone of distress, " Where is he ? Where is Mr. 
 Gibert ? " 
 
 Meanwhile the magnetizer was seated, making not the least motion. 
 The subject enters the room, almost touches him as she passes, but in 
 her excitement fails to recognize him. Again she rushes through 
 other rooms. Then the thought occurred to Mr. Gibert to draw her 
 to him mentally, and in consequence of that act of will, or by simple 
 coincidence, she retraced her steps and seized him by the hands. 
 
 That moment an insane joy took possession of her. She springs 
 upon the sofa, claps her hands like a child, and cries, " There you 
 are ! There you are at last ! How happy I am ! " 
 
 Then she repeats to us lier impressions. The two women, Mrs. B. 
 and the cook, were amusing themselves in the parlor, playing and 
 singing, profiting by the absence of the lady of the house. Then, 
 toward 9 o'clock — 9 o'clock, she said, lacking two or three minutes^ 
 " being seated on the sofa, I felt a drowsiness coming upon me." " It 
 was you," said she, addressing Mr. Gibert, "that did that to me. I 
 knew these gentlemen were waiting in the street. ' Well,' said I to 
 myself, ' let them wait ; I have enough of this nonsense.' But I could 
 not make a long resistance, and I ran like a crazy woman." 
 
 She was able to name the streets she had traversed, but she had 
 " met nobody." 
 
 The evening was a very interesting one. After enjoying for a good 
 half-hour the presence of her " dear Mr. Gibert," and felt of the 
 thumb of Mr. Janet, whom she also " loves dearly," she suddenly 
 exclaimed: "And that gentleman— the other gentleman — what's his 
 name ? Where is he ? " She reaches forth her hand in the direction of 
 me, groping in the air. I give her my hand. She examines my 
 
 ' But according to the cook the parlor clock pointed to 9.15. 
 
EXPERIMENTS AT HAVRE. 89 
 
 thumb after her own fashion, recognizes me' with satisfaction, but 
 continues the examination. "What, then, is your name? Mr. Oko — 
 Goro — I don't know." I repeat, mentally, my name, but she cannot 
 yet speak it. 
 
 " You are — you are not English. [The first day she took me for 
 Mr. Frederic Myers, which proves that she did not see persons.] You 
 are from Paris — but you are not French ; you have come only for 
 
 France — you are from What is the name of your country ? 
 
 Bre No ! Po Poland, isn't that it ? You endorm many, a 
 
 good many people. Why ? I don't want you to endorm so many 
 people. Listen ! What do you do in Paris ? [She applies her fingers 
 to her forehead.] A factory, you make ape-^apa — how do you call 
 it ? Apparatus, isn't that it ? " 
 
 "What are those apparatus used for ? " asked Mr. Gibert. 
 
 I thought of telephones, but what came into her mind was the hyp- 
 noscope (she had seen one in my hands, but she has never seen a 
 telephone). 
 
 " Oh, it works so." Here she imitated general contracture — a re- 
 miniscence of yesterday's experiment. 
 
 We pass to other experiments, but the somnambule's thoughts are 
 elsewhere, she is preoccupied about me. In vam do I hold my tongue, 
 withdraw, hide ; shq seems always drawn toward me, and wants to 
 go and find me. She grows angry at Mr. Janet, and says he (men- 
 tally) forbids her to keep her thoughts fixed upon me. 
 
 Seeing this strange influence, Mr. Gibert proposed that I should take 
 his place, judging that I could obtain results still more remarkable. 
 But I decline. " It is a sympathy," I said, " a somnambulic passion 
 such as we sometimes see, rather than a really stronger influence. I 
 do not know the subject well enough, and, besides, in delicate experi- 
 ments it is not well to multiply influences. I trust more your con- 
 versance with the subject than my personal power. Finally, inasmuch 
 as it is a question of facts that I have not yet verified, and which I am 
 trying to study, I prefer to retain my independence as an observer." 
 
 Consequently, Mr. Gibert was requested to continue the experi- 
 ments and in particular to attempt transmission of sensations. 
 
 To the end that the attraction that my presence seemed to exert 
 upon Mrs. B. might not become a hindrance, I asked Mr. Janet to 
 suggest to her the thought that I was gone away. 
 
 " Mr. Ochorowicz is gone ; he will not return. I forbid you to think 
 of him!" 
 
 This order, several times repeated in view of the opposition made 
 by the subject, secured for us a quiet time for nearly an hour. Dur- 
 ing that time she spoke no more of me and I was able to stand quite 
 near her and to watch the experiments. 
 
 ' That is, recognizes that I am the one whose power she lauded. 
 
go MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 It was necessary to select the favorable moment for the transmis- 
 sion of sensations, for that phenomenon, as well as mental suggestion 
 in general, succeeds only in an intermediate state betwixt aideic 
 lethargy and regular monoideism. I was glad to be able to verify in 
 this remarkable subject the same physiological conditions which were 
 first formulated by me before the Society of Physiological Psychology, 
 January 25, 1886, and which were based upon a detailed study of the 
 phenomena presented by Mrs. M. 
 
 Verification of the state needful for transmission was made in the 
 following manner : Mr. Gibert drank slowly alongside Mrs. M. a 
 glass of water. Immediately she exhibited the movements of swal- 
 lowing. 
 
 After this preparatory trial, Mr. Gibert, followed by Mr. Marillier, 
 retired to a remote apartment. On the threshold of the chamber I 
 whisper in the ear of Mr. Marillier : " Pinch his right hand." 
 
 Two minutes after, Mrs. B. manifests the signs of suffering sharp 
 pain. Both her hands, but the right in particular, are in a quiver. 
 " Don't," she cried. " Don't do that, wretch." 
 
 The second experiment was proposed in writing : " Puncture the 
 middle of his forehead." 
 
 In the subject, general agitation, less marked in the arms. The 
 somnambule raises her hands toward her forehead, complaining of the 
 hurt they are causing her, and continually repeating : " You wretch ! 
 Don't do that ! Wretch ! " Her agitation continued for a minute 
 after the return of the two gentlemen. 
 
 Then came the last experiment — one that I had never witnessed 
 before — namely, mentally to order an act that was not to be per- 
 formed till the following morning. At the stroke of 11 o'clock Mrs. 
 B. -was to go to the parlor, take up a photograph album that lay on the 
 table, open it and examine the portraits. (This order was proposed 
 in writing by Mr. Frederic Myers.) 
 
 To communicate the order mentally, Mr. Gibert seized Mrs. B.'s 
 hands and applied his forehead to her's. I stood quite close to them: 
 he made no movement of the lips. He merely attracted the subject's 
 attention by saying, " Listen, L^onie ! " 
 
 At the moment of transmission Mrs. B's countenance assumed a 
 peculiar expression ; one would say she was listening with all her 
 powers of attention. But at the same time it was plain that Mr. 
 Gibert did not act auditive sensations for . her,' for while still retain- 
 ing this expression she began to be agitated, to writhe in strong con- 
 vulsions. There was a true paroxysm of hysterepilepsy, with, grind- 
 ing of the teeth, clonic movements and contractures. After barely 
 two minutes the communication was at an end, and Mrs. B. grew 
 quiet little by little, giving no sign that she knew what had passed. 
 
 ' N^agissait pas pour elle des sensations auditives. 
 
EXPERIMENTS AT HA VJiE. g i 
 
 Messrs. Gibert and Janet even assured me that she could not tell 
 what was asked of her, and that orders given in this way to be carried 
 out in the sleep itself had never succeeded. Hence, it appears that this is 
 a transmission eminently unconscious, and that the subject's uncon- 
 scious requires a certain time to crystallize, so to speak, the impres- 
 sions received, and to excite the corresponding muscles. 
 
 This phenomenon is not an isolated one in psychology. It some- 
 times happens to one, as he lies abed, that the thought of getting up 
 comes to him, but without sufficient force to overcome his indolence. 
 This thought returns once or twice without result. Then, while his 
 mind is occupiied with quite other things, he feels himself raised sud- 
 denly, as by a stranger force, and is up with a bound without making 
 up his mind to act. 
 
 So, with regard to waking at a set hour. I must take the train very 
 early. I know that there will be somebody to awaken me, and so my 
 consciousness may sleep tranquilly. But the unconscious has received 
 communication of this decision, though the Me did not at all count 
 on the unconscious. So the unconscious watches, is so wakeful, calcu- 
 lates time so exactly, that at the approach of the fixed hour it rouses 
 us and recalls the Me to consciousness. 
 
 The following morning, at 5 minutes before 11 o'clock, Mr.. Marillier 
 and I were in the garden. The clock struck 11, and we saw Mrs. B. 
 coming down-stairs from her chamber. She enters the parlor, looking 
 for something. She touches several objects, without taking them in 
 hand. She opens the wall closet, and shuts it again. Mr. Janet comes 
 and bids her good morning ; she makes reply, and then goes on with 
 her indeterminate task, while walking up and down the parlor. Mr. 
 Janet returns to us, and proposes to us to endorm the subject from a 
 distance, thinking the experiment has failed. I object, saying that 
 Mrs. B., not being quite in her normal state, plight fall asleep of her 
 own accord, and that we ought to wait and see what she would do. 
 And all agreed that I was in the right ; for, a few minutes later, at 
 11.30, Mrs. B. takes up an album, then another, opens it, sits on the 
 sofa ; and, now visibly quieted, begins to turn the photographs over. 
 As she told us afterward, she was looking for the portrait of Mr. 
 Gibert. " Why ? " she was asked. " Because it gives me pleasure to 
 see it." (That photograph had been taken out after it was found 
 that once she was endormed spontaneously while looking at it.) 
 
 We go to the parior and find Mrs. B. still engaged in thumbing 
 the album, but she was in a state of active somnambulism. She did not 
 this time say it was Mr. Gibert that endormed her : she did not even 
 know she was endormed. 
 
 Naturally we profited by the occasion to make a few experiments. 
 She again touched the thumbs of all present and recognized us 
 easily. Mr. Janet asked her to continue her revelation about me. She 
 
92 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 repeated her remarks of the other day : "He has a good deal — I don't 
 know how to speak it — well, he has that which is needed to endorm." 
 "A good deal of will-power? " asked Mr. Janet. " Yes, yes, a will- 
 power — but I don't know how to call it — he thinks well. When one 
 means to endorm me he must think well — else it torments me — some 
 one wants to endorm me and thinks of something else ; that annoys 
 me. He has — I don't know — but I should not dare, for instance, to 
 say nay to him — Oh, there ! He could make me walk — make me walk 
 into the sea." 
 
 "You want to leave us, then — Mr. Gibert and me?" "No; }'0U 
 are mine." " Then forget him ! " "I will not." But at last she 
 gives way, and we are able to proceed with the experiments. 
 
 I have forgotten to say that after the seance at Mr. Gibert's she 
 was taken home in a carriage and awakened on her arrival, so that 
 she retained no recollection of her night-wandering. While on the 
 way home she said to the gentlemen that were with her that / had 
 something in my pocket which attracted (the hypnoscope). Wishing to 
 verify the fact I passed the magnet to Dr. Myers, who, according to 
 the somnambule, had no influence over her. He put it in his pocket ; 
 while on the other side Mr. Frederic Myers, who was equally indiffer- 
 ent for Mrs. B., had another magnet. 
 
 Almost instantly Mrs. B. stretched forth her arms, attracted in two 
 opposite directions. This attraction ceased in the state of active 
 somnambulism, and then reappeared in one of the phases of lethargy 
 that I was unable to define. 
 
 But little by little the order to forget me was blotted out of the 
 subject's mind, and she showed again an attraction toward me, though 
 now I had not the hypnoscope in my pocket. She rose twice and 
 wanted to follow me. I went into the garden so as not to spoil the 
 experiment, and Mr. Janet was obliged to repeat the order to forget. 
 Finally, toward 2 o'clock, in the street I stopped the gentlemen to say 
 to them this : 
 
 " You know I came to Havre mainly to verify the fact, till then 
 unknown to me, of somnambulism at a distance. Now, the experi- 
 ments we have made do not convince me. They are acceptable as 
 regards action at a distance, but then they may also be explained by 
 involuntary suggestions. In the first experiment Mrs. B. was not 
 endormed till after she had seen that we were come. The second 
 failed entirely ; true, it was performed under exceptional difficulties, 
 but at all events it proves nothing. The third seems conclusive ; the 
 subject came across town endormed. But for me there is a serious 
 doubt. Mr. Gibert began the action at 5 minutes before 9 o'clock, 
 whereas according to the cook Mrs. B. seemed to be already endormed 
 15 minutes before 9. I have ascertained that my watch keeps time 
 with the clock in the parlor, and Mr. Gibert's is regulated according 
 
EXPERIMENTS AT HAVRE. 93 
 
 to mine. Consequently we may suppose that Mrs. B. fell asleep of 
 her own accord some minutes before Mr. Gibert began to act. After- 
 ward she came, it is true, but I saw her at the garden gate, and it may 
 be that she perceived one of us and that this circumstance suggested 
 to her the thought of going out a few minutes after. In short, if we 
 reject the testimony of the somnambule herself, certain doubts arise. 
 To be absolutely convinced, I request Mr. Janet to endorm the sub- 
 ject now. The conditions are as perfect as can be. I noticed Mrs. 
 B. from a distance and am perfectly certain that she is in her normal 
 state, without any tendency to spontaneous somnambulism. No one 
 is at this moment expecting an experiment. " Will you try it ? " 
 
 It was cruel on my part, for we were all both tired and hungry; but 
 I did not wish to go away without a clear conscience, and without being 
 able to subscribe to the report that Mr. Marillier was to make to the 
 Society of Physiological Psychology. Mr. Janet replied that he never 
 had tried to act in the public street, that it would be impossible for 
 him sufficiently to concentrate his thought, and that, on the whole, he 
 preferred that the experiment should be made by Mr. Gibert. But 
 at last he consented, provided he were permitted to act from his own 
 house, /. e., from a much greater distance, but where he would have 
 the necessary quietude. I accepted the conditions, and it was agreed 
 that we should first go to lunch together, to fix the exact time, and 
 then try the experiment. 
 
 The matter was arranged as follows : I asked Mr. Marillier to go 
 to the pavilion and watch Mrs. B. He did not act upon her, and so 
 his presence could not have a disturbing effect. He was an habitui 
 of the house, and therefore his presence could not awaken any sus- 
 picion. He did not know the precise time of the experiment, conse- 
 quently he could not by his behavior influence the subject at the 
 given moment. The precise time, fixed by lot after the departure of 
 Mr. Marillier, waS 4.30. 
 
 "We have still a good hour before us, but I'll not let you slip 
 from me," said I to Mr. Janet, laughing. So we went together to 
 take a cup of coffee, and then to have a stroll on the beach ; at last, 
 we went back to Mr. Janet's house. No. 3 Robert Alley. I kept up a 
 lively conversation all the time with Mr. Janet, to keep him from 
 thinking of Mrs. B., and .so that there might be no excuses if by 
 chance Mrs. B. should be endormed before the hour. 
 
 At 4.30 I withdrew to the little garden plot of his house, to give 
 him entire freedom of action. 
 
 He sat in his armchair, his head between his hands, and concen- 
 trated his will so as to order Mrs. B., about half a mile away, to fall 
 into somnambulism. This mental action lasted 18 minutes. 
 
 At 4.48 I enter Mr. Janet's study. He puts on his hat, and we go 
 out to join the Messrs. Myers and proceed to the pavilion. Before 
 
94 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 entering I asked Dr. Myers to go upstairs alone and call Mr. Marillier 
 down. The latter said he had seen nothing. " All that I can certify," 
 he declared, " is that since my arrival nobody entered the pavilion. 
 As for Mrs. B., she probably is busy sewing in the parlor, but I did 
 not enter the parlor for fear of exciting her suspicions." Before going 
 in, I begged Mr. Janet to permit me to put the questions to Mrs. B. 
 in case we should find her endormed. 
 
 Then we enter without ringing, as noiselessly as possible, and 
 notice, through the door of the parlor, which was ajar, Mrs. B. 
 engaged in sewing, but in active somnambulism. She did not hear us. 
 She answered only the questions put by Air. Janet. 
 
 " Well ! You are tormenting me again ! Do I look like a fool ? 
 It is you that are playing this trick upon me ! " 
 
 " Perhaps it is Mr, Gibert." 
 
 "It is not Mr. Gibert at all, 'tis you." 
 
 " When did you fall asleep ? " 
 
 "Just at half-past four." 
 
 "Did you look at the watch?" 
 
 "What need to look at the watch ? I tell you it was half-past four." 
 
 I compared Mrs. B.'s watch with mine. It was 3' 30'' slow ; conse- 
 quently, if she noted the time correctly, the effect was produced from a 
 distance in about 4 minutes after the commencement of the action. 
 
 " Tell us what you have been doing since we left." 
 
 She then told us that first she went down to the kitchen for lunoh, 
 that she talked awhile with the cook, and then went up to the iirst 
 floor to dress ; that at last she took up her sewing and suddenly found 
 herself paralysed, so that when the bell rang (on Mr. Myers entering) 
 she was unable to rise. 
 
 She did not speak of Mr. Gibert this time as she had done always 
 before. 
 
 Another point worthy of notice is that, as thesa gentlemen assured 
 me, when Mr. Gibert endorms her from a distance, she is always 
 found in lethargy ; when Mr. Janet is the operator she falls into a less 
 profound somnambulic state. The cook confirmed the somnambule's 
 statements. 
 
 " Now, then, are you satisfied ? " asked Mr. Janet, addressing me. 
 
 "Yes ; this time the experiment is clear. One thing only I regret 
 ■ — that Mr. Marillier could see nothing. Thereupon we proceed to 
 experiment. 
 
 From the beginning of our seances she had shown a certain repul- 
 sion toward Mr. Marillier, a purely physical repulsion against being 
 touched by him ; yet she would talk with him and show no sign of 
 dislike. We ask the reason of this. She examines his thumb ; then, 
 letting go his hand, she says : " He makes me ill. Oh, not me — but 
 — that does not concern you." Mr. Janet insists. Again she seizes 
 
EXPERIMENTS AT HAVRE. 95 
 
 Mr, Marillier's thumb, touches his chest, then her own, with an expres- 
 sion of pain, and makes answer: "I do not wish — that does not con- 
 cern you." All that can be got from her is that he is ill. 
 
 Mr. Marillier took me aside, and admitted that he had an affection 
 of the heart, and but a few days before had suffered a good deal 
 from it. The fact is mentioned in his study on Hallucinations. 
 
 With her habitual vivacity — habitual only when she is in the state 
 of active somnambulism — Mrs. B. passes to other matters, amuses 
 herself like a child, touches the hands of those present, always in the 
 same way and with the eyes shut. 
 
 While she was holding a lively conversation with Mr. Janet, I made 
 an experiment in mental action. It was without result. At that 
 moment there was hyperesthesia of the sense of smell, for a cigarette 
 mouthpiece, held some twenty inches away, produced coughing and 
 discomfort. 
 
 As she showed such marked impressionableness with regard to me, 
 and as she believed I had left the house, 1 wished to find out whether 
 she could recognize an object belonging to me. So I remove my 
 cravat and pass it secretly to Mr. Janet by the hand of Mr. Marillier. 
 Being at the moment occupied with other questions, Mr. Janet laid 
 the cravat on the table. A few seconds afterward, the somnambule 
 rose of her own accord, took the cravat, went straight to me, dropped 
 the cravat into my lap, and went back to her place, acting through- 
 out like an automaton. Was this an instance of thought-action on my 
 part ? At all events Mrs. B. did not recognize me ; she merely carried 
 out my thought, which had not been formulated as a mental order, 
 and this she did mechanically, as though not knowing what she did. 
 But the somnambule, despite her apparent inability to see, might have 
 noticed my not having on the cravat. I therefore decided to make 
 the same experiment over again with another object, and for this 
 purpose I chose a bit of black ribbon that no one had seen me wear : 
 this, too, I passed to Mr. Janet by the hand of a third person, not 
 a word being spoken. Mr. Janet held the ribbon in his closed hand. 
 Suddenly the somnambule opened his hand, took the ribbon, and as 
 soon as she had touched it danced with joy like a child, saying : " He 
 is there ! He is there ! He is not gone ! " Then she asked for a 
 piece of paper, and it was given to her. She wrapped the ribbon in 
 this and held it out in the direction of me, to give it to me. I did not 
 stir, and she grew impatient. Mr. Janet tried to take the little parcel 
 from her, and her irritation increased. Then I took up a broad- 
 brimmed hat, and with that concealed my hand and Mr. Janet's. The 
 instant the parcel touched my hand, Mrs. B. smiled and tried to give 
 it back to me ; but when she found Mr. Janet's hand she withdrew the 
 parcel, and showed signs of displeasure. After many experiments of 
 this kind her agitation increased, and she had a real paroxysm of 
 
96 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 hysteria, which Mr. Janet tried to quiet by applying his fore- 
 head to hers. (It seems that ovarian pressure has not this effect upon 
 Mrs. B., who, I repeat, presents no symptom of hysteria in her normal 
 state.) 
 
 To elucidate the question of her discernment of objects, I pro- 
 posed to Mr. Janet to take three similar leaves of paper, touched by 
 three different persons and marked by them. It was done, and an 
 effort made to pass the papers to Mrs. B. But she objected strenu- 
 ously, struggled, and would not touch them. She brushed them aside 
 with her handkerchief, and was not quieted till she saw them on the 
 floor. Then she threw the handkerchief on the sofa, and started 
 when she chanced to touch it. When the three sheets of paper were 
 by force laid in her lap, she struggled, threw herself back, and fell 
 into lethargy. The experiment had therefore to be given up. 
 
 I was obliged to return to Paris, but one more experiment in en- 
 dorming from a distance took place, under the direction of Mr. F. 
 Myers. The details were communicated to me by Mr. Janet, as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " On Saturday, after you left, nothing of real interest occurred,, 
 save an experiment in somnambulism produced from a distance, under 
 precisely the same conditions as on the day before. The Messrs. 
 Myers had me to lunch with them, and suddenly requested me to 
 endorm L6onie at an hour they had agreed upon — a little before 3 
 o'clock. I thought upon it for a little less time than the previous 
 day — -about ten minutes — and we went forthwith to the pavilion, with- 
 out waiting. L^onie was asleep over her work, as on the preceding 
 day; she had been endormed just about 3:15. AH that is known 
 with precision is that she had gone upstairs to her work hardly a 
 quarter of an hour before (at 2:45). It is further to be noted that no 
 one had endormed her since the preceding day, and that I had not 
 seen her that morning. 
 
 " Leonie said it was I that had endormed her. It seems that at 
 that moment she had an hallucination — such, at least, is Mr. Myers's 
 opinion. She kept saying that she saw me endorm her. 
 
 " During the sleep we did little more than repeat what you have 
 seen already. . . . The sleep was disturbed by a storm which 
 caused very violent paroxysms {crises) such as I had not seen before. 
 
 " The Messrs. Myers left Saturday evening. I endormed the sub- 
 ject once more Sunday morning, but I did it all alone in continuation 
 of my researches. 
 
 "As soon as I shall see Leonie in her second state, which is for us 
 the true one, I will convey to her your compliments. 
 
 " I am, etc., 
 
 " P. Janet. 
 
 "Havre, May 4, 1886." 
 
 I left Havre with a profound emotion. I had at last witnessed the 
 extraordinary phenomenon of action from a distance, which upsets all 
 the opinions currently received. I summoned up my recollections, I 
 questioned my notes a hundred times, to make sure of the reality of 
 
NEW EXPERIMENTS. 97 
 
 what I had just witnessed. I examined the facts from the skeptic's 
 point of view, if perchance they might be pure accidence and coinci- 
 dence, then from the point of view of the magnetizer ; finally, I looked 
 at them in the light of the suggestional theory and of other inter- 
 mediate theories, possible or fanciful ; and I came to the conclusion 
 that leaving out the first three experiments, which were inconclu- 
 sive, the fourth stands and cannot be explained save by a causal 
 connection between an act of will and an effect produced at a distance. But 
 as I have already said, in questions of this kind one must himself 
 make the experiments ; one must himself have brought out — and that 
 again and again — the phenomenon, with a subject and amid surround- 
 ings that he knows thoroughly, if he is to give a definitive judgment. 
 Now, with regard to the action from a distance in this case, I was but 
 a passive observer, and therefore I must have my reserves upon the 
 matter. I have, however, verified mental suggestion from anear, but 
 J saw only one experiment from a distance that to me seemed to meet 
 all the requirements. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 NEW EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 A FEW days after my return to Paris I had occasion to make 
 some further experiments upon two hysteric patients whom it 
 was my duty to treat under like conditions. 
 
 Miss Z. was magnetized by me for hysteric paroxysms, complicated 
 by physical exhaustion and marked anaemia. (Hypnoscopic exp. : 
 sensation of cold and slight analgesia.) The first seance gave no 
 positive result, except that my hands were chilled in quite an extra- 
 ordinary degree. The patient, having passed through a torpor hardly 
 perceptible to her, felt a little better, but did not admit that the mag- 
 netism had had any effect. The second seance produced magnetic 
 sleep, and then a rather protracted paroxysm, but the transition from 
 waking to sleep and from sleep to the normal state took place so 
 imperceptibly, that she would not believe in the sleep, and was almost 
 quite unconscious of having had the paroxysm. 
 
 At the third seance, she told me that she did not at all believe in 
 the sleep produced, and said that I should never succeed in endorm- 
 ing her ; that if she remained for a time motionless that was because 
 such was her good pleasure, but that should she only try to make a 
 little resistance, I should have no influence. I advised her not to 
 open a discussion that led to nothing, and said that if she persisted 
 in her resistance I should prefer doing nothing, lest I should produce 
 
98 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 useless excitation. But my efforts to persuade were in vain ; on the 
 contrary, Miss Z. was set in her purpose to convince me, and posi- 
 tively asked me to endorm her against her will. As that experiment 
 could not, in the present case, cause serious mischief, I at last con- 
 sented. 
 
 After a few minutes she was endormed by fixing the gaze, but 
 straightway passed into somnambulic delirium, constantly repeating : 
 " No ! I won't ! You shall do nothing with me ! " Little by little 
 the delirium became a spoken dream lasting more than an hour. 
 The patient remained seated and quiet, heard only me, but was not 
 quite obedient. I told her to go to bed, the hour being late. She 
 refused, saying she was very well as it was, and that she wanted to 
 be left undisturbed. 
 
 I might have awakened her, but from what I had seen I was almost 
 sure that the awaking would bring about an hysterepileptic paroxysm 
 in the normal state, contrarily to the therapeutic principle of magnet- 
 ism. (My treatment of hysterepilepsy by magnetism consists in this : 
 I transfer, so to speak, the paroxysms to the magnetic sleep, and thus- 
 suppress them by degrees in the normal state. The cure is complete 
 when a paroxysm can no longer be produced even in the somnambu- 
 lic state.) 
 
 At this moment a young lady companion entered the parlor quite 
 noiselessly and looked with astonishment at Miss Z. " Do not look 
 at me," said the latter. "You make me ill." (The patient's eyes 
 were shut, and she was some twenty-five feet distant from the visitor.) 
 Miss Marie, the caller, withdrew frightened. But the patient still 
 kept crying out to her : '•'•Do not think on me ! You make me ill." 
 
 These words, which might have been dictated by a presumption 
 and not by a real psychic action, recalled to my mind Mr. Gibert's 
 experiment. Wishing by hook or by crook to get the patient to bed 
 so that I might leave, I tried unconscious psychic inoculation. I 
 applied my forehead to hers, saying mentally : " In five minutes you 
 will want to go to bed." The patient continued to rave, and seemed 
 in no wise influenced by my action. Five minutes passed and she 
 said nothing to me. Then I advised her, for the tenth time at least, 
 to go to bed. " As you wish," she answered. She went to bed and 
 perforce believed in magnetism now, for the next day she was unable 
 to account for her being there. 
 
 Mr. Gibert believed strongly in the efficacy of mental action by 
 contact of foreheads. He has told me that often he has in this way 
 arrested violent hysteric paroxysms. I wished to test the matter, and 
 an opportunity soon presented itself. 
 
 Miss S., to all appearance, sound, strong, not at all anaemic, was 
 subject to attacks of the major hysteria of great violence, but very 
 infrequent. One might even say that hers was latent hysteria, for it 
 
NEW EXPERIMENTS. 99 
 
 manifested itself only under the influence of moral causes at intervals 
 of several months, or even of several years. Still, it was the greater 
 hysteria, a very serious case, presenting all the chief phases so well 
 analyzed by Mr. Charcot, including the period of delirium at the end 
 of the attack. This always lasted several hours, nay, a whole night. 
 Miss S. was very sensitive to hypnotism, and that explains the intensity 
 of the attacks. (Hypnoscopic exp. : insensibility and torpor soon ex- 
 tending to the whole nervous system, producing an hypotaxic state 
 very much like sleep.) 
 
 Once I made with her some experiments in mental suggestion with 
 playing-cards. The result was rather remarkable. She never divined 
 quite aright, but she always had a perception correct in part, and 
 always in accord with the visual, but not the auditive characters. For 
 example : I thought of the deuce of spades, she divined tray of spades ; 
 I thought of the queen of hearts, she divined jack of hearts ; ten of 
 clubs, she said nine of spades ; and so on. In divining, she shut her 
 eyes, bowed her head, and remained absorbed in a visibly monoideic 
 state that struggled with the ordinary impressions. After a quarter of 
 an hour of this exercise her countenance was changed, and gave 
 tokens of great fatigue. I interrupted the experiments, and to bring 
 her back to herself made a few awakening passes. I was wrong ; I 
 ought rather to have endormed her completely, and allowed her to 
 take repose in that state. For a moment she was freed from her ener- 
 vation, and seemed entirely well. But the shock had been produced, 
 and the partial disturbance of the normal equilibrium brought about 
 an attack. 
 
 We were at table when I was notified that Miss S., who had gone to 
 her chamber, was writhing in convulsions. I hastened thither and 
 found her on the floor in a fearful paroxysm. She was rolling on the 
 floor so violently that I had all that I could do to hold her by the 
 arms ; but restrain her I must, for she was dead set upon dashing 
 her head against any hard object whatever, or throwing herself out of 
 the window. Then I tried Mr. Gibert's plan ; but it was without re- 
 sult, whereas ovarian pressure stilled the paroxysm a little, at least 
 for a few moments. In such cases it is difficult to endorm the sub- 
 ject. The struggle lasted three hours. After the first hour she was 
 already a little influenced, and about every ten minutes she fell into a 
 somnambulic dream, with rapport ; but by reason of the quite surpris- 
 ing force of her convulsed muscles, and of the necessity of keeping her 
 in restraint unaided (she could not brook the touch of another person), 
 I found myself exhausted, and every time I brought about a begin- 
 ning of sleep, it was broken by frightful convulsions. At last, after a 
 dozen attempts at suicide, a quiet delirium appeared ; she became 
 voluble in speech, passed again in imagination through divers episodes 
 of her life, but remained calm by my side, answered my questions, and 
 
loo MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 was beginning to obey me. I induced her to rest on a bed, and there 
 little by little lucid somnambulism got the better of the attack. The 
 rapport was well defined ; she heard only me, and that only when 1 
 ■wished her to hear, so that we talked about her all the time, aloud, 
 without her knowing it. The slighest touch by a stranger, even 
 through the bed clothes, even when the sense of touch could give her 
 no information, produced irritation and threatened her with a new at- 
 tack. While speaking in somnambulism she always addressed me in 
 the familiar form of speech — thee, thouj'^ consequently I did the same. 
 " Go and rest now," she said : " I shall sleep quietly till lo o'clock to- 
 morrow morning. At that hour you will come and awaken me." I 
 went home and slept like a marmot. On the morrow at 9:30 I entered 
 her chamber. 
 
 " I heard you coming along the street,'' she said, " but do not 
 awaken me yet. It is not yet 10 o'clock." 
 " Did you sleep well ?" 
 "Yes; because you did." 
 
 I found that the head was still a little hot, and offered to endorm 
 her a little more deeply, to calm her. She assented. I made several 
 passes without contact, and then went to the parlor and waited, read- 
 ing a newspaper at a window. Suddenly I heard a noise like that of 
 a falling body. The noise came from the street, but I fancied it 
 came from her chamber, and for a moment I feared she had been 
 seized by a new paroxysm. But that alarm shot through my mind 
 like a flash, and lasted hardly one second ; immediately the reflection 
 came to me that there was, at that moment, nothing to fear, and I 
 did not even stir from my place nor change my position, but kept on 
 reading. 
 
 After a quarter of an hour I went to the patient's room, between 
 which and the parlor was another large room looking into the court- 
 yard, not upon the street. 
 
 I touched the patient's head and found it hotter than before. " Why ? " 
 " Because you are alarmed about something," was her answer. " Not 
 at all," I replied, forgetting at first the trifling occurrence in the 
 parlor ; " why should I be alarmed ? " "I don't know, but you are 
 alarmed, and that has given me a congestion." 
 
 At this moment she was in an inert polyideic state (she exercised 
 thought, but made no spontaneous movement). 
 
 I calmed her head by laying my hand upon it, and then tried men- 
 tally to suggest to her some movements, but without success. A little 
 after I spoke quite near to her, addressing her, but intending not 
 to be heard. She answered, nevertheless. I now formulated the 
 order that I was not to be heard, and then recommenced the same 
 
 ' The English language has lost the faculty of exhibiting this distinction. — Trans- 
 lator . 
 
NEW EXPERIMENTS. loi 
 
 experiment in other words, and without any possible verbal sugges- 
 tion. She did not hear. 
 
 "You will awaken me soon and I shall not have any more par- 
 oxysms." 
 
 "No more?" 
 
 " No more. I shall recollect nothing, and you must not tell me 
 what passed during the night. Furthermore, you will give me your, 
 word that you will never try to act upon me from a distance." 
 
 " And do you think that would be possible for me — to act from a 
 distance ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but you must not do it, for that would make me ill ; I should 
 be worried all the time." 
 
 " And if I promise you that, you will be no more made nervous by 
 my presence?" 
 " No ! " 
 
 " How do you recognize the touch of a third person ? " 
 " Because it is disagreeable — strange — different — unbearable." 
 Miss S. was serious-minded in the sleep. She was always grave 
 and laconic in somnambulism, and never laughed, a fact which gave 
 a peculiar air to that state. She said that it would be preferable to 
 endorm her entirely, instead of wanting to awaken her quickly. " But 
 that makes no difference," she added ; " I shall not have a further 
 attack, because you have let me have a long sleep." In reality she slept 
 fourteen hours consecutively. 
 
 " Awaken me now, but quite gently." (A request often made to me 
 by somnambules in like cases.) So I awakened her very slowly, 
 taking some twelve minutes to do it, by means of transverse passes 
 without contact. At length she smiled, opened her eyes, and looked 
 around surprised. She asked what meant my presence at her bed- 
 side, and recollected nothing. 
 
 During the following days there was only general fatigue and a 
 little pain in the spleen, and that disappeared by degrees. In the 
 evening she had headache. I removed this pain by imposition of 
 hands, but on leaving I had a slight headache myself. I went to see 
 another patient, who never had had headache — at least so she assured 
 me many times. This patient I put to sleep (it was very difficult to 
 endorm her, but the sleep was very deep). My headache disap- 
 peared. I awoke the patient after half an hour. 
 
 " I am doing very well, don't you think so ? " she said (she is ataxic). 
 " But this is odd, my head pains me a little ; something that has never 
 occurred before to me." I removed her headache, which disappeared 
 for good. 
 
 I smile as I write this narrative, so strange and incredible does it 
 seem to me. But to proceed ; I have not yet exhausted my casket 
 of surprises : 
 
102 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 I saw Miss S. again that evening. She has headache again, and 
 my hands are exhausted, my skin burning. I feel a disagreeable 
 moisture (moiteur). I dip my hands in cold water, but all I can do is 
 to allay her headache for a few moments. So with regard to the pain 
 in the spleen. A cold compress cools her head, but does not banish 
 the pain. 
 
 The following day I felt refreshed, and easily banished, in the case 
 of another patient, a very intense headache attending an attack of 
 fever and lasting three days. After this I found a fourth patient 
 suffering from a slight headache. I may remark that I am unable to 
 fix the precise moment at which my hands regained their force. I 
 was reading a book that pleased me much, and suddenly I felt the dis- 
 agreeable dryness [s^cheresse) of my hands disappear, and regained 
 my wonted feeling of a certain agreeable freshness. 
 
 I will cite one more complementary observation, since all this helps 
 to throw light upon our problem. 
 
 When I find my eyes fatigued from reading I go to the theatre^ 
 and there, looking at things from a distance serves to give them rest. 
 But sometimes, in order to refresh the eyes, I press the palms of my 
 hands upon the lids. 
 
 Now, when the hands are exhausted I experience no relief, but if 
 only some scene in the play, or a well-spoken phrase produces in me 
 an agreeable emotion, my hands at once regain their therapeutic 
 quality, and then if I apply them to the eyelids, the fatigue of the 
 eyes disappears. 
 
 I reached the house of Miss S. " What were you doing last night. 
 at II o'clock?" she asked, abruptly. Inferring some somnambulic 
 eccentricity, I said to her : "Ah, no ! You shall first tell me what 
 you know, and I will tell you whether it is correct." 
 
 " So be it. You were writing the whole evening, and it was not 
 letters, for I saw big sheets of paper. You did not read a book, but 
 you wrote all the time, and then at ii o'clock went to bed, but were- 
 unable to sleep, and so got up again and walked up and down your 
 room, smoking a cigarette." 
 
 Here a person who was with Miss S. the preceding night informed 
 me that after going to bed she did nothing but repeat continually : 
 "Oh, my God ! When will he go to sleep? He prevents me from 
 sleeping." I said nothing, and Miss S. continued her story : 
 
 " Then, at last, toward i o'clock, you fell asleep, and woke just at 
 7 in the morning. Is that so ? " 
 
 It was all precisely so, barring a constant slowing of the time.. 
 That is to say, she "saw" me still writing at ii o'clock, whereas I 
 quit writing about 10.45. But it is precise'ly so that I did not read 
 any book, that the whole evening I wrote on large sheets of paper, 
 that, unable to sleep (my mind being preoccupied), I got up agaia 
 
NEW EXPERIMENTS. 103 
 
 *(quite exceptional this, for I never have had that habit), and so forth. 
 The hour of rising was also stated correctly, within a few minutes, 
 though about that time I was accustomed not to get up till 8 o'clock. 
 I add that Miss S. had' no knowledge either of my domicile or of 
 my habits, and that I lived about half a mile away. 
 
 It was difficult to accept mere chance as an explanation, but then 
 what did this mean ? Here is all that I can say : 
 
 Until that evening I had not had time to take notes upon Miss S.'s 
 ■case. Without any thought of acting upon her, having indeed promised 
 that I would not, I began to recall to mind exactly all that had 
 ■occurred the other day, and it is my custom to make my notes very 
 •circumstantial. Consequently / thought of Miss S. the whole evening. 
 As the matter involved certain rather interesting details from the 
 theor.etic standpoint, this mental occupation kept me from sleeping 
 and all the time my thoughts dwelt upon questions in which she 
 played the chief part. 
 
 As for Miss S., she retired to bed early and in a half -sleep believed 
 she saw all that took place with me, but she declared that my mental 
 occupation prevented her from sleeping and that she was angry at 
 me, feeling a sense of strange dependence which she could not rid 
 herself of. At last on awaking at 7 o'clock she felt as though I also 
 had awaked. 
 
 The day following, also, she had a similar sensation, less clear, 
 however, and then this rapport disappeared. 
 
 The case then probably was one of " veridical hallucination." 
 I know other facts of this kind, but I do not wish to raise this 
 question here. It seems to me as yet too difficult and premature. I 
 give this narrative only as a simple piece of evidence, and I shall be 
 content in the sequel with analyzing the direct experiments, which 
 seem to me more palpable. 
 
 The reader will find in the work compiled by Messrs. E. Gurney, 
 Frederic Myers and F. Podmore, under the auspices of the London 
 Society for Psychical Research, several hundred similar cases, well 
 attested and collected for many years. Its title is " Phantasms of the 
 Living" (2 vols. London, 1886). 
 
 I will add only that Mrs. M., too, believed she saw me on the occa- 
 sion of my address to the Society of Physiological Psychology, Janu- 
 ary 25, 1886, in which I spoke of experiments made upon her; but she 
 was informed of it beforehand. Still there were some details of which 
 she was ignorant but which she saw in her dream, to wit, that while 
 1 spoke " I was concealed as high as the chest by a green table." 
 Was that thought-transference ? Perhaps it was. 
 
PART II. 
 
 FACTS OBSERVED BY OTHERS. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 PHYSICAL ANALOGIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ORGANIC SYMPATHISM, 
 
 IS the surface of one body capable of transmitting, whether with or 
 without contact, certain of its organic states to another body ? 
 Such is the question. We will begin with an examination of the physi- 
 cal states, passing thence to isolated sensations, and finally to thoughts. 
 We shall therefore have to study : 
 
 A. Physical nervous transmission of diseases. 
 
 B. Transmission of emotive states. 
 
 C. Transmission of sensations. 
 
 D. Transmission of ideas. 
 
 E. Transmission of will. 
 Then we will study separately. 
 
 A. Suspended mental suggestion.' 
 
 B. Mental suggestion from a distance. 
 
 The history of magnetism contains many facts, more or less ill-ob- 
 served, more or less ill-attested, appertaining to the foregoing cate- 
 gories, but they contain also a certain number of positive observations 
 that ought to count. 
 
 Hitherto I have restricted myself to telling of what I have myself 
 seen, judging that in this sort of phenomena one must himself be ob- 
 server, actor and critic, in order to accept others' testimony. Other- 
 wise one would have simply to accept all the alleged facts of magnet- 
 ism, for all, or nearly all of them, are vouched for by respectable 
 witnesses. Besides, no man can boast of such authority in science, 
 
 ' That is, suggestion to be executed at a future time. I know not how to translate 
 otherwise the convenient French phrase suggestion mentale h ich^ance. — Translator. 
 
io6 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 that he can introduce into the scientific domain an entirely new fact, 
 theoretically isolated from all other facts, in short, unexplainable. 
 Hence the precaution I imposed upon myself and on the reader had 
 no aim, no significance, other than to make the latter a witness of the 
 course of my studies, of the progressive development of my convic- 
 tions, and hence of my methods. Plainly I do not hold that my testi- 
 mony is worth more than that of other physiologists. I only say — 
 excuse my egoism, if egoism it be — that it w4s worth more for me. 
 And since one must be answerable for a book as for an act that 
 endures, I do wish to have a clear conscience. That will, perhaps, not 
 prevent the skeptics of scientific officialdom from taxing me with, 
 credulousness, and I shall be the first to understand and to make 
 allowance for their skepticism ; but it certainly will save me front 
 self-reproach in the future. That, I take it, is all that a writer can do. 
 Unfortunately, authors have not always taken this precaution. 
 
 You wish to study in the history of magnetism the phenomenon of 
 mental suggestion and you are looking for testimony of real weight.. 
 You open a book on hypnotism and in it find banter about mental 
 suggestion ; those worthies never have studied it, but they assure you 
 of the exactness of their negative judgments, based on the witness of 
 other men of science, who in turn have not studied it either. At last 
 you find a grave author who believes in mental suggestion. 
 
 Take Dr. P. Despine the younger, author of a big treatise in three 
 volumes on " Natural Psychology " — a work very little known in France, 
 but abroad justly prized. Mr. Despine has also published during the 
 last few years a book on somnambulism. He believes in mental sug- 
 gestion, even proposes a theory of it ; but as for facts, he has himself 
 seen none. He refers to other respectable authors and especially tO' 
 Dr. A. Bertrand, an excellent observer who published (1823 and 1826) 
 two volumes on somnambulism and magnetism, wherein he treats at 
 considerable length the phenomenon in question, but declares that he 
 has no positive evidence drawn from his personal experience. He 
 merely says that the number of testimonies that presented themselves 
 in favor of the existence of this phenomenon in the different works 
 wherein he sought information about ecstasy, compelled him to be- 
 lieve in spite of himself and obliged him to give more attention to the 
 testimonies of the believers in animal magnetism. And he refers 
 chiefly to authors of past times, to Father Surin, " a man of genuine 
 piety, to whom the majority of his enemies did not refuse to do 
 justice, but credulous beyond all possible imagination." He refers X.O 
 Poncet, author of religious books, an equally estimable personage, 
 and to Madame Guyon, the best possible witness, for she " read the 
 thoughts of Father Lacombe, her confessor, as he read hers." 
 
 I am only half in play. Bertrand, too, was but half serious when 
 he said that he had not met with facts of mental suggestion in his 
 
ORGANIC SYMPATHISM. 107 
 
 practice. He met with a few, and I will quote them in due time and 
 place, as I shall also cite the facts observed by Father Surin and by 
 Mr. Poncet, for they possess a certain value because of special cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 But had I no other evidence than the testimony of Father Surin, 
 Mr, Poncet, and Mme. Guyon, think you I would have published a 
 book on mental suggestion, or so much as mentioned the existence 
 of that phenomenon ? Not I ! Neither assuredly would I have denied 
 it, for I never deny what I am ignorant about ; but from that to a 
 scientific affirmation of so strange a fact is a long way. 
 
 That is Vifhy I took care not to begin, as is the wont, with the his- 
 torj' of the subject, and therefore with ancient testimonies ; but now 
 things are different. I have seen, myself clearly seen, and therefore 
 I can have faith in the testimony of those who have seen the same 
 thing, and it would not be fair for me to hide from the reader obser- 
 vations not my own. On the contrary, I wish to quote them all ; that 
 is to say, all that have the appearance of truthfulness, that have been 
 well proved, and that are clearly analogous to those observed by 
 myself. This latter proviso will be pardoned me, for without it I 
 should be obliged to quote also things incredible, at least just now, 
 and it is always- prudent to advance slowly over unfamiliar ground in 
 the dark. 
 
 I will array the subjects according to the classification given above, 
 adding my comments, so as to present a full inventory of the known 
 facts of mental suggestion, upon which will be based the theory, or 
 rather the beginnings of the theory of the future. We will begin with 
 a phenomenon seemingly foreign to our inquiry, often found in the 
 writings of magnetizers, to wit : the appreciation of diseases by somnavi- 
 bules, and the alleged power of seeing the diseased organs. Let not the 
 reader be surprised at finding the matter considered here. It is 
 essential, as will presently appear. 
 
 I. "I observed (writes Dr. Bertrand) a somnambule who, I was 
 told.'possessed the faculty of discerning diseases. . . . But not 
 content with what they told me about her, I wished to test her with 
 regard to a patient whose state I knew beforehand. So I brought 
 her into-rapport with a young lady whose chief malady was an attack 
 of asthma, which afflicted her very often. When the patient came, the 
 somnambule was already endormed, and I was sure that she could not 
 know the person I brought to her. Nevertheless, after contact for a 
 few minutes, she seemed to respire with difficulty, and soon she expe- 
 rienced all the symptoms that attend a violent fit of asthma ; her 
 voice was suppressed, and with much effort she told us that the 
 patient was subject to the kind of oppression that her coming had 
 imparted to herself. Nor did she limit herself to that, but added to 
 what she had just said details of several local complaints and pains 
 to which the patient was subject, and which she recognized with the 
 greatest precision by means of the sufferings she herself experienced in 
 
io8 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the corresponding farts of her body ; but what in the most unmistakable 
 way showed the somnambule's faculty was the discovery she made of 
 an herpetic affection with which the patient was troubled in the geni- 
 tal parts. None of us had knowledge of this, and the patient alone 
 could tell us how correctly the somnambule had hit it off in this re- 
 spect." ' 
 
 Bertrand adds to this observation the following remarks : 
 "In general we must, in consultations with somnambules, distin- 
 guish what they say they experience through contact with the patients 
 from what they fancy they see within their bodies. What they say 
 they feel is worthy of credit, while what they infer from what, they 
 believe they see never presents aught but baseless conjectures, often 
 quite absurd." 
 
 2. "I showed," says the same author, "to another somnambule a 
 female child of 4 years, one of whose arms was crippled in consequence 
 of a fall which had produced a deposit in the shoulder-joint ; further, a 
 vice of constitution made her gait awkward, and she swayed from 
 one leg to the other. The child was brought to the somnambule, 
 and, during the whole time of the consultation, was held in the lap of 
 the person who carried her. Thus, nothing could have taught the 
 somnambule in advance what she should say. Yet, this is what hap- 
 pened. When the child was presented to her, the somnambule raised, 
 with difficulty, her own flexed arm, seemed to make vain efforts to 
 raise it to her head, and exclaimed : 'Oh, the poor child, she is crip- 
 pled ! ' On being asked what had caused the trouble she had just 
 found out, she answered, 'A fall' (and that was the fact). After this 
 first remark she said nothing for a little while, and then continued : 
 ' Oh, my God ! how weak she is in the loins ! She must have much 
 trouble in walking.' "" 
 
 3. " I was with the somnambule, whom I was magnetizing as she 
 lay on her bed asleep, when I saw coming in a friend of mine accom- 
 panied by a poor fellow wounded a little before in a duel, a ball having 
 entered the skull. I put the somnambule in rapport with the wounded 
 man, and limited myself to asking her to say what ailed him. She 
 seemed for a moment to be trying to find out, and then, addressing 
 herself, said : ' No, no ! It is impossible. If a man had a ball in his 
 head he would be dead.' ' Well,' said I, ' what then do you see ? ' Said 
 she : ' He tells me that the gentleman has a ball in his head.' " (He 
 wa.s, according to the somnambule, a distinct being, separate 'from 
 herself, and whose voice came from the pit of the stomach ; a sort of 
 guardian angel, scilicet, the Unconscious. It is probable that this 
 notion of a revealer was suggested to her by some spiritist magnet- 
 izer.) " I assured her (continues Bertrand) that what she had said was 
 true, and asked her if she could see where the ball had entered and 
 what direction it had taken. The somnambule reflected a moment, 
 then opened her mouth, and with her finger indicated that the ball 
 had entered through the mouth and penetrated to the posterior part of 
 the neck. This, too, was correct. Finally, she carried exactitude so 
 far as to point out some of the teeth that were lacking in the mouth, 
 and which the bullet had broken. The somnambule had not opened 
 her eyes since the moment when the wounded man entered the 
 
 •Bertrand. " Traite du Soranambulisme," etc., p. 229. Paris, 1823. 
 ^ Id., p. 232. 
 
ORGANIC SYMPATHISM. 109 
 
 chamber. There was no lesion of the external integuments of the 
 mouth."' 
 
 In his second work" Dr. Bertrand expresses himself in these terms: 
 " We find in the works of magnetizers very many instances of this 
 phenomenon, and I myself have had occasion to verify it several 
 times in such a way as to leave no doubt. There is no one, I believe, 
 who has made any little observation of a few somnambules, but that 
 has often seen them by simple contact feel the pains of the patients 
 with whom they have been put in rapport." (Bertrand employs this 
 term, consecrated by its use among magnetizers, but he attaches to it 
 no other meaning but that of contact ; he does not accept the " mag- 
 netic fluid" hypothesis.) "The impression thus received is commonly 
 but momentary, and very rarely do they on awaking retain the symp- 
 toms communicated to them during the sleep. A few exceptions to 
 the rule may be met, however, and in order that the somnambule 
 retain the disease for a considerable time, he needs but to be con- 
 vinced, from what he experiences, that he has really caught it from 
 the patient. . . . That, apparently, is what happened to some of 
 the ' Convulsionaries ' of Saint-M^dard, who thought that God ac- 
 cepted them as victims and permitted them to take the diseases of 
 those who came to consult them. ' It often happened to the Convul- 
 sionaries,' says Carr^ de Montgdron, ' io take diseases without knowing 
 whether the persons were ill and in ignorance of the nature of their ail- 
 ments. They were informed of these things by the sense of pain they 
 felt in the same parts. It appears also that then the sick, witnesses 
 of the singular phenomenon before their eyes, believed themselves to be 
 freed from their ailments as soon as those ailments had passed into 
 the bodies of the Convulsionaries. Thus we see one Chevalier Deydd 
 relieved of his fits of dizziness after Sister Jane had taken them.' 
 Among the possessed, when the exorcization was protracted for 
 a sufficient time to accustom them to the terrible situation in 
 which they were, many likewise believed themselves supernaturally 
 informed as to the diseases of the persons present, and thus they 
 presented the strongest resemblance to the Saint-Mddard Convulsion- 
 aries and to somnambules 
 
 4. " The documents concerning the trial of a (hysterepileptic) ' pos- 
 sessed ' person named Mary Bucaille, in 1699, contain, with other 
 matter, proofs of the phenomenon of the transmission of diseases. 
 These proofs are the more worthy of attention because the prosecu- 
 tion confirms them as well as the defense, with the difference that 
 according to the latter the phenomenon proceeds from a gift of 
 miracle-working accorded by God himself, while according to the 
 former it is of the devil's doing. Now, this Mary Bucaille had suf- 
 fered in her person the ailment of Ann Seville, and evidently she 
 must be a witch and a sorceress, ' it being the way of sorcerers to cure 
 people by taking upon themselves their diseases.' The counsel for 
 defense regards this assertion as proof of great ignorance on the 
 judge's part, for ' he has always heard it said that a sorcerer, in cur- 
 ing a sick person, oftentimes casts the maleficium upon another per- 
 son ; but no one ever has heard it said that the sorcerer takes the ail- 
 ment upon himself ; and thus, in the cures that God has wrought by 
 
 ' Bertrand, ib. 
 
 ' " Du Magnetisme Animal en France," etc., pp. 428-430. Paris, 1826. 
 
no MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the said Bucaille, if she has in truth taken upon herself the ailments 
 of the sick, as is proved as well with regard to the present case 
 as with regard to the aged parish priest of Golleville and other per- 
 sons that have been mentioned, then this way of curing others is 
 something greater and nobler than other miraculous cures, which are 
 performed by a single word,' " et cetera? 
 
 What the possessed and the Convulsionaries did of themselves, 
 under the influence of disease, somnambules did under the influence 
 of magnetizers. The first fact of this kind known, being one of the 
 experiments of the Marquis de Puysegur, is given by Clocquet, in a 
 letter dated Soissons, July 13, 1784, hence prior to the publication of 
 Puysegur's own narrative, which did not take place till toward the 
 close of the same year." Clocquet went as an impartial curiosityr 
 seeker to witness the Busancy miracles. 
 
 "Attracted like others to this spectacle [he says], I took thither 
 merely the dispositions of a quiet and impartial observer ; fully 
 resolved to be on my guard against the illusions of novelty ; fully 
 resolved to make good use of eyes and ears." 
 
 But here is what he tells : 
 
 5. " Mr. de Puysegur chose from among his patients several sub- 
 jects whom, by touching them with his hands and holding toward 
 them his wand (an iron rod about fifteen inches in length), he caused 
 to fall into a regular crisis. The complement of this state is an 
 apparent sleep, during which the physical faculties seem suspended, 
 but to the profit of the intellectual faculties. The eyes are shut, the 
 sense of hearing is null, and awakes only at the master's call." (This 
 is the phenomenon of isolation peculiar to the magnetic sleep, as dis- 
 tinguished from the hypnotic state, produced by an inanimate object.) 
 " One must be careful not to touch the patient in the crises, nor even 
 the chair he sits in." (I have often, since 1867, observed and verified 
 that fact.) " Were one to do so it would cause great suffering ; con- 
 vulsions that only the master can allay. These patients in the crisis,' 
 who are called mddecins (doctors), have a supernatural power whereby, 
 on touching a sick person presented to them, or on laying the hand 
 upon him, even outside the clothes, they know what internal organ is 
 affected, the part of the body that is ailing. They name it and give 
 pretty correct advice as to the proper remedies. I had myself touched 
 by one of the medecins — a woman of about fifty years. I certainly 
 had not told anybody the nature of my complaint. After giving 
 some time to my head in particular, she said that I often had pain 
 therein, and that I habitually had a loud buzzing in the ears, which 
 
 ' " Du Magnfetisme Animal en France," etc., p. 430. 
 
 ^ To the Marquis de Puysegur is usually attributed the discovery of artificial {pro- 
 voqud) somnambulism and of the faculty of which we are speaking ; but one has but 
 to read Mesmer's second " Memoire " to be convinced that the founder of mesmerism 
 knew of both phenomena. It is certain that he kept secret a portion of his experience, 
 
 ' The word crisis has here the same meaning that Mesmer gave it. In general it 
 signifies any nervous state different from the normal brought' about by the processes 
 of magnetization or by the patient's imagination. 
 
ORGANIC SYMPATHISM. iii 
 
 is quite true. A young man wiio witnessed this experiment with 
 incredulity, submitted to it himself afterward, and was told that he 
 had trouble with his stomach, that he had engorgements in the lower 
 abdomen — this since the occurrence of a fit of sickness a few years 
 before. This, he confessed, was in accordance with the facts. Not 
 contented with this divination, he forthwith went and had himself 
 touched by another ' doctor,' twenty paces away from the first, and 
 got the same answer. I never saw a man so dumbfounded as this 
 one, who surely had come to contradict, to jeer, and not to be con- 
 vinced."' 
 
 In a book published the same year (1784) under the title " Reiiex- 
 ions Impartiales sur le Magnetisme Animal," " we find the following 
 remarks upon the report of the royal commission : 
 
 6. "While the commission were making so many experiments, I 
 wish they had extended their observations to one of those somnam- 
 iules, made such by magnetic action, and subjected him to the follow- 
 ing tests. After blindfolding him with the bandage employed in the 
 other experiments, I should have liked to see them bring before him 
 different persons whose ailments they knew, and ask him to tell what 
 the ailments were. If this new style of doctor should discover the 
 seat of diseases merely by contact, I rather think it would not be 
 possible for the members of the commission to say that touching the 
 patients produced the ailment, and that imagination or touch had any- 
 thing to do with it. This experiment is decisive. It has been made 
 before my own eyes in Mr. Mesmer's practice ; and since then I have seen 
 it repeated at Lyons many times with success, every precaution being taken 
 to prevent trickery. The different somnambules that served in the 
 experiments were young women of the people. To them were brought 
 sick persons unknown to them : they pointed out with the greatest 
 exactitude the ailments with which these were affected. I have seen 
 them feel sharply the ailments of those whom they magnetized, and 
 make those ailments known by pointing toward the region of the 
 disease in their own body." 
 
 In August, 1825, Dr. Foissac addressed to the Paris Academy of 
 Medicine a letter in which he announced in the following words the 
 phenomenon of the transmission of aches : 
 
 " By placing the hand successively on the head, the chest, and the 
 abdomen of an unknown patient, the somnambules discover instantly 
 his complaints and aches, and the various symptoms these occasion." 
 
 Here follows an account of the instinct for remedies, which does hot 
 concern us. Foissac exaggerates this, as he exaggerates also the 
 diagnostic instinct, presenting as a general rule what is only a phe- 
 nomenon more or less rare. The few somnambules he chanced to 
 meet inspired him with unlimited confidence, which soon disappeared 
 as his experience grew a little larger. He continues : 
 
 " There is no disease, acute or chronic, simple or complicated — and 
 I except none of those which have their seat in either of the three 
 ' Quoted by Bertrand, id., p. 222. ' Page 228. 
 
112 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 splanchnic cavities — that the somnambules cannot discover and treat 
 suitably ; for the case is not the same with those which are seated in the 
 members and at the surface of the body, if they produce no general reac- 
 tion, or do not disturb any essential function." 
 
 This restriction is important, especially when made by a competent 
 enthusiast. Foissac, then, sees that if communication of symptoms 
 is to take place they must proceed from a rather pronounced and 
 rather profound disturbance of the vital equilibrium. And if somnam- 
 bules do not judge equally well of local disorders " in the members and 
 on the surface of the body," the reason is that the faculty here in 
 question does not consist in seeing, or as Foissac himself puts it, in 
 " reading the inmost structure of the most hidden organs," but that it is 
 rather the faculty of feeling the disordered state of a disequilibrated 
 nervous system. This disorder must be pretty considerable in order 
 to react upon the somnambule as an electric charge in a conductor 
 body acts on a distant galvanometer. 
 
 Full of confidence, Foissac proposed to the Academy a scientific 
 investigation : 
 
 " Take (said he) in this city — at the Central Bureau or in one of 
 the hospitals — three or five of the most pronounced or most charac- 
 teristic cases of disease, and let these form the subject of the first 
 test ; for the second test you shall select the most obscure or the most 
 complicated cases. The somnambules, I pledge my word for it, will 
 give all the more convincing proof of their sagacity as the difficulties 
 shall be greater. These experiments shall be repeated as often as 
 may be agreed upon in order to convince you fully. A commission 
 named by you shall observe all the details, and will render to you 
 their report thereupon, and to that I will add my report. If you are 
 not satisfied with their operations, you shall select others. Should 
 I have any complaint to make against any of them, I, too, should 
 have the right to name others. The truth could not fail to be ar- 
 rived at by so rigorous an investigation." 
 
 True, but it is a rare occurrence for an academy to take an interest 
 in a new truth. On the contrary, it is matter of frequent observation 
 that academies care more for professional dignity than for the ad- 
 vance of science. This is a psychological phenomenon no less inter- 
 esting than several others, but we mention it only in passing. The 
 fact is that Dr. Foissac's letter was not even read to the academy, 
 and that Mr. Adelon, the Secretary, judged it sufficient to acquaint 
 the academicians with its purport. After a long and noisy discussion, 
 the academy named a commission whose duty was to report " whether 
 it is fitting, yea or nay, that the academy take up the question of 
 animal magnetism." 
 
 Adelon, Pariset, Marc, Husson, and Burdin were on the commis- 
 sion. Husson was named Secretary. 
 
 After four months, December 13, 1825, the report was read to the 
 
ORGANIC SYMPATHISM. 113 
 
 academy. It was a thunderbolt. Taking the works of Bertrand, 
 Deleuze, and Georget for a basis, the commission decided in favor 
 of the examination. Still, not till after several indecisive sessions 
 was a commission of eleven members, nearly all unbelievers, author- 
 ized to begin the investigation. That was on February 14, 1826. 
 The question of fittingness was decided by a vote of 35 yeas against 
 25 nays. 
 
 The commission experimented for five years, and its report was 
 presented to the academy by the same Dr. Husson, June 28, 1831. It 
 was entirely in favor of magnetism, and even confirmed the idea of 
 action from a distance. As for the question which specially interests 
 us, here is what the report says : 
 
 " There is not one of you, gentlemen, who in all that has been said 
 to him about magnetism has not heard tell of the faculty possessed 
 by certain somnambules, not only of defining the- kind of diseases 
 with which they are affected, the duration and the issue of those dis- 
 eases, but also the kind, duration and issue of the ailments of persons 
 with whom they are brought into rapport. The following three 
 observations have seemed to us so important that we have believed 
 it our duty to make them known to you in their entirety, as pre- 
 senting very remarkable examples of this intuition and this fore- 
 sight : . . . 
 
 7. "The commission found (says the report) among its members 
 one who agreed to offer himself for the purpose of having his ailment 
 pointed out by the somnambule (Miss Celine Sauvage). This was 
 Mr. Marc. Miss Cdline was asked to examine attentively the state of 
 health of our colleague. She applied her hands to the forehead and the 
 region of the heart, and in three minutes said that the blood was tend- 
 ing to the head ; that at that moment Mr. Marc had trouble with the 
 left side of that cavity ; that he often had a feeling of oppression, 
 particularly after eating; that he must often have a light cough ; that 
 the interior part of the chest must be gorged with blood ; that some- 
 thing interfered with the passage of the food ; that this part — desig- 
 nating the region of the xiphoid appendage — was contracted 
 
 We were longing to learn from Mr. Marc whether he felt all 
 that the somnambule had declared. He told us that in fact he 
 had a sense of oppression when he walked after meals ; that often, as 
 she said, he had a cough ; and that before the experiment he had an 
 ache in the left side of the head, but that he was unconscious of any 
 interference with the passage of his food 
 
 8. " There was another woman, 23 to 25 years of age, suffering for 
 the last two years with ascitic dropsy accompanied by numerous 
 obstructions, some the size of a hen's egg, others the size of the fist, 
 some as big as a babe's head, the large ones having their seat in the 
 left side of the abdomen. The exterior of the abdomen was uneven 
 and lumpy, and these inequalities corresponded to the obstructions, the 
 seat of which was in the abdominal cavity. Mr. Dupuytren had 
 already ten or twelve times performed puncture on the patient, and 
 had always drawn off a large quantity of albumen, clear, limpid, odor- 
 less, and without any admixture. Relief followed. The writer was 
 present thrice at this operation, and it was easy for Mr. Dupuytren 
 
114 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 and him to ascertain the volume and hardness of these tumors and 
 consequently to see their own powerlessness to cure the patient. 
 They prescribed, nevertheless, different remedies, and they attached 
 some importance to this, that Miss . . . (the patient) should use 
 the milk of a goat rubbed with mercury. February 21, 1827, the 
 writer went in search of Mr. Foissac and Miss C61ine, and took them 
 to a house in the Faubourg du Roule, without telling them the name, 
 the dwelling place, or the nature of the malady of the person whom 
 he wished to submit to the somnambule for examination. The patient 
 did not make her appearance in the chamber where the experiment 
 took place, until Mr. .Foissac had endormed Miss Celine, and then, 
 after taking one of the patient' s hands in her own, Miss Celine examined 
 her for ten minutes, not as a physician would, by pressing on the 
 abdomen, percussing it, scrutinizing it in every way, hvX merely applying 
 the hand again and again to the belly, chest, back, and head. Asked what 
 she had observed in Miss . . . , she replied that the whole 
 abdomen was diseased, that there was a schirrus and a great quantity 
 of water in the region of the spleen, that the intestines were much, 
 distended, that there were pouches containing worms ; that there 
 were tumors as big as an Qgg in which was contained pus-like matter,, 
 and that these tumors must be painful ; that at the bottom of the 
 stomach was an engorged gland the bigness of her three fingers, that 
 this gland was in the interior of the stomach and must needs impair 
 the digestion ; that the disease was of long standing; and finally that 
 Miss . . . must have headaches. She advised the use of an in- 
 fusion of borage and of nitrated triticum caninum, 5 ounces of the 
 juice of pellitory, taken every morning, and a very little mercury 
 taken in milk. She added that the milk of a goat that had been rubbed 
 with mercurial ointment half an hour before milking would be better.' 
 The nourishment should consist of white meats, gruel with milk, but 
 no lemons. She allowed very little wine, a little rum, h la fleur 
 d'oranger, or peppermint liqueur. This treatment was not observed, 
 and had it been it would not have saved the patient. She died a 
 year afterward. As the body was not opened it was not possible to 
 verify what the somnambule said. ....... 
 
 9. " In a case of some delicacy wherein very skillful physicians had 
 prescribed mercurial treatment for an engorgement of the cervical 
 glands, which they attributed to venereal disease, the family of the 
 patient that was so treated, seeing grave symptoms supervening, 
 wished to have the advice of a somnambule. The writer was called 
 to attend this consultation, and did not fail to profit by this new 
 opportunity to add to what the Commission had seen. He found a 
 young woman, Mrs. La C, with the whole right side of her neck pro- 
 foundly engorged by a great mass of glands lying close together. 
 One was open, and from it issued a yellowish purulent matter. 
 
 " Miss Celine, whom Mr. Foissac magnetized in the presence of the 
 writer, put herself in rapport with the patient, and declared that the 
 stomach had been attacked by a substance like a poison j that there was 
 
 ' " Without attaching great importance to this singular coincidence of the som- 
 nambule's prescribing the use of the milk of a goat rubbed with mercurial ointment, 
 and the prescribing of the same by Mr. Dupuytren and the writer, the Commission 
 must in its Report note it ; it is presented as a fact the authenticity of which the 
 writer guarantees, but of which neither he nor the Commission can give any explana- 
 tion." [Note by the Secretary of the Commission.] 
 
ORGANIC SYMPATHISM. 115 
 
 slight inflammation of the bowels j that there was in the right upper part 
 of the neck a scrofulous malady, which must have been more extensive 
 than it was then ; that by the adoption of a soothing treatment, which- 
 she prescribed, there would be betterment in two or three weeks. She 
 followed this treatment for a little while, and there was a notable 
 improvement. But the impatience of the sick woman,, who found the 
 return to health not speedy enough, determined the family to call 
 another council of doctors. There it was decided that the patient 
 should again be subjected to mercurial treatment. The writer there- 
 after saw the patient no more, but learned that in consequence of the 
 administration of mercury she had had very serious stomach troubles, 
 which carried her to the grave after two months of great suffering. A 
 minute of the autopsy, signed by Messrs. Fouquier, Marjolin, Cruveillier 
 and Foissac, showed that there was a scrofulous or tubercular engorge- 
 ment of the glands of the neck, two small cavities filled with pus, 
 resulting from the discharges of the tubercles at the top of each lung, 
 and that the mucous membrane of the great cul-de-sac of the stomach 
 was almost entirely destroyed. These gentlemen ascertained, further, 
 that there was nothing indicative of venereal disease, whether recent or of 
 long standing." 
 
 The report ends with these conclusions : 
 
 " I. That, in the state of somnambulism. Miss Celine indicated the 
 diseases of three persons with whom she had been put in rapport. 
 
 " 2. That the declaration of one of these, the examination made of 
 another, after three punctures, and the autopsy held on the third, 
 were found to agree with what the somnambule had declared. 
 
 " 3. That the several treatments prescribed by her are not of the 
 class of remedies that she might have known, and not such as she 
 might reasonably be expected to recommend. 
 
 "4. That she applied them with some discernment." 
 
 Mr. Foissac had the luck to be able to keep his word. 
 
 We may imagine the emotion produced in the Academy by the 
 reading of the report, only • a few pages of which we have quoted. 
 Seldom has so impartial, so clear, or so discreet an account been given 
 of so great a number of observations. 
 
 Applause was frequent, but when the question arose about printing 
 the report, members began to have fears for the prestige of the 
 Academy. 
 
 " Were most of the things recounted in this report real facts," said 
 Mr. Castel, " they would upset one-half of our physiological knowl- 
 edge, and it would be dangerous to propagate these facts by means 
 of the press." The Academy had almost decided to follow this ad- 
 vice when Mr. Roux had the happy thought to propose a via media ; 
 hence the report was not printed, but it was autographed. 
 
 It will be readily seen that despite a seeming exactitude " con- 
 firmed by the autopsy '' in determining the lesions, this exactitude 
 has regard only to the general functions, and that the remarks we 
 have already made, as well as those of Dr. Bertrand, lose none of 
 
ii6 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 their value. It is not vision of the organs that the commission found, 
 but a sympathic perception, more or less precise, of the ailments of 
 the patients. I remark further that these consultations of Miss 
 Celine are slightly different from those of other somnambules already 
 mentioned. She does not suffer the pains and aches she is examining ; 
 she simply perceives them as though they were something palpable ; 
 she feels of them (tdte), so to speak, but does not " catch " them. 
 We shall see further on that this difference springs from the existence 
 of two slightly different types of somnambulic perception. But the 
 basis is the same, and it is always constituted by a possibility of 
 nervic transmission ; only we must distinguish between imitative or 
 imaginative transmission, which has no relation to mental suggestion, 
 and physical transmission^ which serves as the basis of mental sugges- 
 tion, and which may be more or less pronounced. 
 
 " Most somnambules,'' says Dr. Charpignon,' " feel the pains of the 
 persons with whom they are put in rapport. This sensation is tran- 
 sitory, and leaves no trace on awaking if we take care duly to break 
 the rapport. If it is the magnetizer that suffers, the sensation is most 
 vivid, and often persists after awaking. If one in a state of ill health 
 goes on magnetizing for several days, these impressionable somnam- 
 bules become affected with the same complaint. Hence we must be 
 very careful with regard to this point, and must exercise this pru- 
 dence even with respect to psychic affections, for one can hardly 
 conceive how serious is the influence of an agitated mind upon some 
 somnambules. This identification [he adds] of the two nervous sys- 
 tems produces sometimes the phenomenon of imitation, so that if the 
 magnetizer uses his handkerchief, or coughs, the somnambule repeats 
 the acts ; if he takes snuff, the somnambule sneezes ; prick the mag- 
 netizer or give him a burn, and the somnambule feels the same pains 
 in the same parts of the body." 
 
 In this passage three different phenomena are confounded : 
 
 1. Imitation of movements — a subject studied of late by Heiden- 
 hain. 
 
 2. Hypersesthesia of the sense of smell (the magnetizer takes snuffy 
 the somnambule sneezes). 
 
 3. Transmission of sensations. 
 
 But evidently in practice these phenomena are usually associated,, 
 and that constitutes one of the difficulties of experimentation, and is- 
 at the same time a pretty strong argument for the theory of " sym- 
 pathism," as we shall see. 
 
 This word sympathism, employed sometimes by Charpignon, seems, 
 to me well chosen, and I shall accept it, giving to it, however, a more 
 precise meaning. I will use it to signify the phenomenon of direct 
 and instantaneous communication of the sense of pain and of other 
 subjective sensations, of feelings, and of emotive states ; but not. 
 
 ' " Physiologie, Mfidecine, Mfitaphysique du Magn^tisme," p. 72. 
 
ORGANIC SYMPATHISM. 117 
 
 facts of observation through eye and ear ; these might be comprised 
 under the term " mimism." ' Mimism, as related to diseases and to 
 acts, will take the name of psychic contagion, while facts of disease- 
 transmission (which is nearly always mediate and retarded) by touch 
 alone, unbeknown to the one who undergoes the action, may be con- 
 sidered as coming under the head of nervic contagion, properly so- 
 called, or physical nerV\c contagion. 
 
 Physical sympathism may be subjective or objective. It is sub- 
 jective in somnambules who themselves feel the symptoms they 
 discover. In Miss Celine and in the two following cases observed 
 by Dr. Pigeaire, it was objective only. 
 
 10. " The lady put her hand in that of the somnambule, who forth- 
 with said : 'Madame, you have a headache?' 'That is true,' the 
 lady answered ; ' since this morning I have had a pain in the head.' " " 
 
 11. "Some time after, Prof. Lallemand told me that a patient 
 wanted to consult a somnambule. Wishing to be assured of the ex- 
 istence of this magnetic faculty, which, so to speak, senses ailments, 
 we know not how, I once more tried my somnambule. [Pigeaire's 
 own young daughter.] Hardly had she touched the sick man's hand, 
 when she said : ' Your legs, sir, are dead-like.' ' Tell me,' said I, ' are 
 you a paralytic ; can you not move your legs ? ' ' No, sir.' ' You were 
 ill after your coming to France,' added the somnambule, 'but now you 
 are much better.' The old man made a sign of affirmation " (p. 61). 
 
 12. " Mrs. Ch. had for some time been suffering in her left jaw . . . 
 The lancinating pains were concentrated in the temple and in the 
 branch of the lower jawbone. The patient indicated the track of the 
 pain, and the track was along the dental canal. The somnambule 
 taking Mrs. Ch.'s hand, brought her own hand to her own face, 
 touched with a finger the dental nerve, then the temple and the jaw. 
 At last she said : ' This nerve (the dental) is attached to a blood 
 vessel (the dental artery) ; it is the same here (at the temple). Well, 
 the vessels are so distended with blood, and their tissue so inflamed, 
 that they compress the nerves and irritate them.' " ° 
 
 This last observation presents an intermediate type. The somnam- 
 bule does not suffer, but yet she seems to feel the effect of the con- 
 sultation, since it is upon herself that she shows the track of the 
 pain. 
 
 Two observations with which we are already familiar, that of Mrs. 
 R., who clearly defined the ailments of one of my patients, selected 
 purposely for this test [p. 32, supra'l, and that of Mrs. B., who divined 
 Mr. Marillier's complaint [p. 95, supra], belong to the first category. 
 These two somnambules felt distinctly in themselves the ailments 
 diagnosed by them, and I remember another consultation of Mrs. 
 R.'s, after which she took a full quarter of an hour to recover from 
 an illness communicated to her by a patient. In the course of a few 
 
 ' The author uses here the hybrid and bastard word "imitatisme." — Translator. 
 ' J. Pigeaire, " Puissance de I'EIectricitfe Animale," p. 61. Paris, 1839. 
 ' Charpignon, op. cit., pp. 251, 252. 
 
ii8 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 minutes her abdomen became hard and swollen, as happens in cases of 
 hysteria. Almost of a certainty, had she been awakened at that 
 moment, the ailment would have persisted many hours. 
 
 I add that then for the first time did Mrs. R., magnetized by me, 
 make a diagnosis in the somnambulic state. She was in the habit of 
 doing so in the waking state. One might say that in somnambulism 
 she is too sensitive. 
 
 But as there are somnambules that recognize the ailments of 
 patients without appearing to be affected by them, it is well to ex- 
 amine what the process is that guides them, and to this end I must 
 touch on a phenomenon not less extraordinary, which, for a long 
 time, I durst not publish. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 
 
 SOMNAMBULES of the second category are not satisfied with 
 " entering into rapport " with the patient by touching his hand, 
 or simply by remaining a few moments in his presence, as is often 
 the case with Mrs. R.: they touch the patient at sundry points, and 
 pass their hands over his body, intent upon what they are doing. 
 Can it be that this performance gives them any indications as to his 
 pathological state ? 
 
 That is the question. Its importance is seen ; for could it be proved 
 that on the surface of the body, and even at a certain distance, ail- 
 ments more or less deep-seated manifest themselves in a way as yet 
 unknown, science must seize upon so valuable a discovery, and seek 
 to profit by it. 
 
 Now, for the first time, do I venture to speak of this phenomenon, 
 though I have known it five or six years. And here is the history of 
 my opinions : 
 
 Some seven years ago an old magnetizer, who was no longer in 
 practice, for he was himself a sufferer, said one day to me : " Are you 
 not afraid of doing yourself hurt by magnetizing so many people .' " 
 
 " Why should I ? I am always in good health and can stand a good 
 deal of fatigue." 
 
 " I was not thinking of fatigue," said he. " But you take to your- 
 self all the emanations of the patients, all the morbific fluids" [fluides 
 malsains). 
 
 I laughed in his face. I did not believe in his " fluid," nor do I 
 yet. But now I do believe in a certain physical action, whereas then 
 I confounded magnetism with hypnotism, as people do to this day. 
 
SYMPATHJSM AND CONTAGION. 119 
 
 It is true that at that time I magnetized very few sick persons,, 
 hardly any at all ; I made my experiments on healthy persons, and 
 not till a few months afterward did I come to recognize the thera- 
 peutic value of magnetism, and undertook to make research in that 
 direction. 
 
 But during the whole of the following year, though I magnetized 
 many a patient, I observed nothing of the kind the magnetizer had 
 spoken of, nothing such as I remembered to have read of in certain 
 books, giving no credence at all to the stories. 
 
 In fact, it was not upon a sick person that I made my first observa- 
 tion of this kind. We were in the country. The Count de P., who 
 had witnessed my experiments with peasants, asked me to make trial 
 upon him. 
 
 I was unable to endorm him, but he believed he felt several very- 
 definite sensations. I did not speak a word to him, so as not to influ- 
 ence his imagination, but I, too, while magnetizing him, had a very 
 peculiar sensation in my hands, never observed by me before — a 
 breath of cool air, very distinctly felt when I held my hand above his 
 at the distance of a few centimeters, or when I passed my hand about 
 over his body. This sensation was not always of the same intensity, 
 but sometimes, now and then, it was so distinct that it was like a per- 
 son's breath blown between my fingers. Once the count exclaimed,, 
 " Oh, what a funny current ! " 
 
 Only on finding that my sensations coincided with his, did I acquaint 
 him with mine, and we spent many hours in studying them. 
 
 I must mention that the count, though in good health, had just 
 passed many sleepless nights with his cousin, who was seriously ill, 
 and that he was very much exhausted. It was in order to recuperate 
 from this fatigue that he had come into the country. 
 
 The sensation I felt much resembled another one that was familiar 
 to me. Any one may experience it by bringing the hand near to an 
 electrostatic machine in action, but not so near as to receive a spark. 
 But in spite of this analogy, I was inclined to think that it was noth- 
 ing but a rapid absorption of heat, though I was aware that the phe- 
 nomenon was not always in proportion to the temperature of our 
 hands. At the same time I thought it might be all a subjective illu- 
 sion, and now I regret my skepticism of that time, for because of it 
 I neglected, in that case, as in a few others, to take detailed notes. 
 
 But my attention was won, and I began, little by little, to see in 
 this phenomenon a real cause. First I was forced to recognize that it 
 is more or less independent of heat. 
 
 I had a patient, ansemic in the highest degree, who always found 
 my hand hot, even when it was numb with cold (it was winter), while 
 she gave me a sensation of cold, despite the heat of her skin upon, 
 direct contact. 
 
I20 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Another patient, a man, who was also highly ansamic, gave me the 
 same sensation, and in this case there was actual loss of heat, for my 
 hands became very cool in a few minutes. 
 
 Usually the contrary is the fact : my hands grow warmer during 
 magnetization and I have a distinct feeling of dryness, not always in 
 direct proportion to the actual dryness of the skin. 
 
 Still another patient, a man suffering from phthisis, caused me the 
 sensation of a cool draught, but only from the level of the lungs; and 
 an ataxic patient had a cold sensation in the left side, a hot in the 
 right. The magnet produced exactly the same effect (without any 
 distinction of poles), whereas I felt nothing. Finally, in other ataxic 
 patients the case was reversed : they felt nothing, while I had a very 
 clear sensation on one side, for one leg of the patient drew, as it were, 
 a current of air from my hands (either hand), while the other leg did 
 not draw at all, or did so less sensibly. 
 
 By degrees I found that this phenomenon occurs in many other 
 persons, sick or exhausted, and thus I am sometimes able to determine 
 the degree of exhaustion of a single organ even. I must add that 
 when there is complete paralysis of long standing, I feel nothing — at 
 least so it has been hitherto — and that sometimes the sensation is 
 lacking despite exhaustion. 
 
 I have made some very curious observations on the feeling of a 
 breath or faint current of air restricted to the track of a single affected 
 nerve, but I have not yet arranged the facts in logical order. 
 
 But then, to make amends, I have found another kind of sensation 
 that has given me more positive results. I have relieved hundreds of 
 persons of headache by simple imposition of hands. Simple though 
 the process is, the phenomenon is complex, and I have no intention 
 just at present to theorize upon it. Still, two things are certain: i, 
 that by this method (which is as old as the world) I remove the head- 
 ache in 60 cases out of 100 within a few minutes ; and 2, that very 
 often I can tell the precise instant at which the pain grows less and 
 disappears under my hand. 
 
 And this is how I notice the change : The aching head may be hot 
 or cool, and everybody knows that headache may be produced by 
 several different causes. But independently of these differences, one 
 character, perceptible only to him who holds his hand upon the head, 
 and who is in the habit of observing, is almost constant, to wit, a sen- 
 sation of increased warmth under the hands if the pain is disappearing, 
 but a lack of this sensation if the ache continues. 
 
 This phenomenon may be observed not only in the head but over 
 the whole surface of the body, and particularly at the epigastrium. 
 If a given surface of the skin overlies a sound organ, the subjective 
 sense of increasing warmth should begin immediately after the im- 
 position of the hands, and should attain maximum after a few minutes. 
 
SYMFATHISM AND CONTAGION. 121 
 
 Some persons to whom I communicated this observation have more 
 or less easily confirmed it ; but I cannot guarantee that the phenom- 
 enon will, with everybody, present the same character or the same 
 definiteness. I would add that, acting without contact, at the dis- 
 tance of a few centimeters, I sometimes obtain the same results and 
 the same sensations. 
 
 As I am not writing a medical treatise, I pass over details and ex- 
 ceptions, and merely remark that henceforth it becomes theoretically 
 possible to diagnose an invisible malady by the touch of the hand. 
 This power may depend simply on a heat reaction hitherto overlooked 
 in medical thermometry. The details I have given will, perhaps, have 
 some interest for Professor Grasset, who has just published an essay 
 on the rapidity of the action of animal heat upon a thermometer as a 
 diagnostic character,' and who holds that " the emissive power, often 
 in contradiction to the patient's temperature, is, on the other hand, 
 proportioned to the sensation had on touching the body.'' 
 
 We know what close relations subsist between certain diseases and 
 the peripheric temperature ; Mantegazza's studies show that, as a 
 rule, pain reduces the body's temperature ; Mr. Charcot's researches 
 have taught us to distinguish cerebral haemorrhage from softening of 
 the brain, simply with the aid of thermometric readings ; and Mr. 
 Williams asserts that he can tell from the degree of temperature ob- 
 served to what category of patients an idiot belongs. Even Hippo- 
 crates declared that " the expired air that issues cold from the mouth 
 and the nostrils is a death sign,'' etc' 
 
 If it is so as regards rough general indications, it becomes probable 
 that more detailed, more specific indicia might give a more or less 
 exact idea of the pathological state of the organism — the more 
 because the thermometric signs do not stand alone. Electric reactions 
 come of necessity into play, and the already old observations of Frank, 
 Nieszkowski and Sniadecki prove that some hysteric subjects are 
 conscious of them. I have, myself, made some researches on this 
 point, but cannot yet state the results with precision. These questions 
 are too obscure, though some physicians think they find in electric re- 
 actions the principal causes of diseases.' 
 
 A subject a little better known, and one closely connected with the 
 diagnostic of diseases by somnambules, is that of odoriferous material 
 exhalations. 
 
 We must not be led astray by appearances. Somnambules seem- 
 ingly employ only the touch or tactile transmission from a distance, 
 
 ' " Un Nouvel Element de Thermometrie Clinique." Pub. in La Semaine Medicate, 
 August, 1885. 
 
 ' A detailed analysis of these questions will be found in Redard's " Etudes de 
 Thermometrie Clinique." Paris, 1874. 
 
 ' See Scoutetten, " Involution M6dicale, ou de I'^lectricitfe du Sang," etc. Metz 
 1870. ' 
 
122 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 but I have repeatedly found that they are also guided unconsciously 
 by olfactive sensations. Cut them off from these, and you will in 
 many cases see the appreciation and communication of symptoms 
 sensibly lessened. Smell is the unconscious's own sense, just as sight 
 is the sense of the consciousness, and touch their common master. 
 
 Civilization has suppressed in us the science at once deep and wide 
 which animals possess, and for which they are indebted to the sense 
 of smell; but somnambulism and certain morbid states give it back its 
 true value. We must not forget that if the hypnotized subject can 
 remain insensible while inhaling ammonia, he may also, a moment 
 later, distinctly sense the odor of apples by sniffing at several yards' 
 ■distance the paper in which apples were wrapped some days previously. 
 Now, it is certain that our individualities, our pathological states, 
 ■our feelings even, betray themselves by a specific odor which we do 
 not knowingly perceive, but which none the less acts upon smell, 
 leaving on the brain unconscious traces that in turn associate themselves 
 -with the state that produced them. And by virtue of the law of psychic 
 reversibility, the sensation a^ belonging to the state A, may reproduce 
 the latter, just as the state may reproduce the sensation. {See Part 
 III., Chapter viii.) 
 
 That which is quite easy in a state of exceptional exaltation of 
 smell and exclusive concentration of the attention upon one object (" rap- 
 port "), of course, is hardly possible in the normal state, and some- 
 times incomprehensible. But it is not to be forgotten that, as Dr. 
 Monin says in his remarkable semeiological monograph,' " Odorant 
 ■waves always reveal important chemic changes . . . and in all 
 biological phenomena play a leading part." 
 
 Most diseases have their specific smells, and these, by marking the 
 stage of the pathologic evolution, may even guide us often to a sure 
 prognosis. " In the chamber of a lying-in woman, the sour smell 
 betokens to the practiced nose that all is going on well, that the work 
 of milk secretion is beginning. On the contrary, an ammoniacal smell 
 will make the physician fear the imminence of the morbid syndromus 
 known as puerperal fever." Dr. Vidal, of Cassis, records in his 
 •" Treatise on Surgery," that J. H. Petit, while traveling in Germany, 
 distinguished the smell of gangrene among other smells not less dis- 
 agreeable, and so was able to cure a man dying of strangulated hernia 
 (p. 6). The cutaneous perspiration and the various secretions of the 
 skin diffuse round about each individual a special odor. This odor, 
 commonly but little sensible, is very distinctly sensed by certain per- 
 sons of highly developed sense of smell. Cadet de Gassicourt (" Diet, 
 des Sciences M^d.," vol. iv., p. 196) tells of a young matron who by 
 the smell alone distinguished men and women. She could not endure 
 the smell of her bed clothes when touched by any one but herself. 
 
 ' " Les Odeurs du Corps Huraain," p. 4. Paris, 2d ed., 1886. 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 123 
 
 The Journal des Savants, 1864, relates that a monk in Hungary could 
 by olfaction tell a chaste woman from one not chaste. Party cites 
 many cases of this kind. It appears that the Cardinal Alexander 
 Albani, after losing his sight, distinguished by olfaction young women 
 from old.' Debay reports an observation of a somnambule who, 
 after examining by smell a score of different objects, apparently 
 inodorous, as rings, pins, brooches, etc., belonging to ten different 
 persons, sorted them and distributed them to their owners without 
 making a mistake." 
 
 It is even not impossible that certain psychic states may reveal 
 themselves in the same manner, for certainly the odor of the cutan- 
 eous exudations undergoes marked changes under the influence of 
 sundry emotions. Says Dr. Monin : 
 
 " The action of the nervous system on the odor of the cutaneous 
 exudations is highly important ; not infrequently it is heightened or 
 modified by moral excitement, depressmg passions, and neuroses. 
 Gamberini {Annali Universali, 1854) cites the case of a young man, 
 who, in consequence of being crossed in love and of a violent fit of 
 jealousy, gave out from his whole body a fetid smell, nauseating and 
 very lasting. Dr. Hammond, of New York, lately reported [Med. 
 Rec, June 21, 1887) the case of a young hypochondriac whose skin 
 gave out the odor of violets ; of a victim of chorea who exhaled the 
 odor of pines ; of an hysteric woman, who, in her crises, emitted the 
 smell of bananas ; he tells of another hysterical woman whose trans- 
 piration was restricted to the left anterior half of the chest, exhaling 
 the odor of iris. In the latter case a chemical examination of the 
 sweat was made and showed the presence of butyric ether." 
 
 I have myself observed an hysterical woman in whom the approach 
 of a paroxysm was announced by an odor of Gruyfere cheese, or rather 
 by an odor that recalled the taste of Gruyere. In another case a 
 metalloscopic plate of tin applied to the patient for a few days 
 acquired a very strong smell resembling that of petroleum, despite 
 the patient's scrupulous neatness. 
 
 " In localized perspiration (continues Dr. Monin) these odd osphre- 
 siologic anomalies are by no means rare. Schmidt knew a man sub- 
 ject to a hyperhydrosis limited tathe hands, and who smelt of sulphur. 
 Orteschi observed a young girl who without any trickery gave out a 
 strong odor of vanilla from the commissures of the fingers. All these 
 phenomena result from disorders of innervation. According to 
 Hammond the odor of sanctity is not a mere rhetorical figure, it is the 
 expression of a holy neurosis' perfuming the skin with effluvia, more 
 or less agreeable, at the moment of the ecstatic religious paroxysm " 
 (p. 17). "In lethargy (which hardly ever occurs in hysteric subjects') 
 
 ' Perty, " Anthropologie," I., 187. Leipsic, 1874. 
 " A. Debay, " Hygiene des Douleurs," p. 32. Paris, 1877. 
 
 ' Sainte nevrose is Dr. Monin's rendering of Hammond's phrase, whatever that 
 may have been. — Translator, 
 
 * Or rather in hypnotizable subjects. 
 
124 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the cutaneous exudation emits a cadaveric smell, thus adding to the 
 picture of death, already so realistic. This odor must doubtless have 
 been the cause of frightful mistakes : such at least is the opinion of 
 Bernutz." 
 
 According to the researches I have made in cholera times, hyp- 
 notizable persons constitute the greater part of the quickly fatal 
 cases ; but such persons are the ones liable to fall into true lethargy 
 (profound paralytic aideia), presenting all the appearances of death. 
 It would be "well, therefore, in such cases to have recourse to mag- 
 netism, which might transform this state into somnambulism ; or to 
 call in a somnambule who presents the phenomenon of sympathism, 
 and who doubtless will know better than we how to distinguish 
 apparent death. At all events one must not laugh at this means 
 before one has tried it. 
 
 As the different mental states find expression ty means of a trophic 
 action of the nervous system, they may produce a special cutaneous 
 odor. The odor exhaled from the skin in mental diseases, an odor 
 noted in 1862 by Dagonet, has been studied particularly by Fevre of 
 Toulouse in his work " Les Alterations du Systfeme Cutan6 dans la 
 Folie" (Paris, 1876). He there says (p. 19) : 
 
 " The sweat of insane persons has special sui generis emanations, 
 penetrant and infectant, like those of hands that are kept constantly 
 shut, something like the smell of mice or of the fallow deer. This 
 smell is found especially in general paralytics and confirmed dements.' 
 It impregnates the clothing, bedding, furniture, as well as the rooms 
 occupied by the insane ; and it is very lasting, in spite of soap and 
 water. This odor is so characteristic in simple insanity {folie) that 
 Burrows declares that were he to find it given out by any one he 
 'would not hesitate to pronounce the person insane, even if there 
 were no other evidence.' An English psychiater goes further : 
 Knight declared that he could detect pretended insanity by the ab- 
 sence of this physiognomic odor." 
 
 This pathological exhalation may even be localized and may oc- 
 cupy a region of the skin corresponding to the inward disorders. 
 S. Weir Mitchell has noticed that in nerve lesions the corresponding 
 cutaneous region emits a smell resembling that of stagnant water. 
 Mr. Monin is of the opinion that in such cases we have an epithelial 
 dystrophy rather than actual changes in the physiological secretion — 
 but that is no reason why an hyperaesthesic sense should not be able 
 to detect by this means the state of the disease and its area. 
 
 That most occupations may have their specific odors we can under- 
 stand. Mr. Monin sees nothing out of the way in the saying of the 
 famous Vidocq : " Place me in a crowd and there I will pick out 
 from among a thousand a galley-bird by the smell alone." Chomel 
 
 ' French eUment, Latin demens. The meaning is plain — a victim of dementia. — 
 Translator. 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 125 
 
 observed for six weeks a groom suffering from pneumonia, whose 
 sweat retained during all that lapse of time the smell of the stable.' 
 Again, Monin writes : 
 
 " In enuresic patients, a urinous smell, or a mousy smell, penetrant 
 and which nothing can suppress, has often been of use to military 
 surgeons in detecting the simulation of incontinence of urine. So, 
 too, in constipation there is an odor from the skin like that of faeces ; 
 often we have found that this odor perceived by the patients, con- 
 tributes to bring on hypochondria, which is ever lying in wait for 
 sufferers from this complaint " (p. 25). 
 
 In gout the skin secretions take a special odor, which Sydenham 
 compares to that of whey. In jaundice the odor is of musk ; in 
 oppilation, of vinegar ; in syphilis, of honey ; urinous in urinary dis- 
 orders (cystitis) ; of sour beer in scrofula (Stark apud Hebra) ; of 
 warm bread in intermittent fever (Heim) ; in diabetes when there is 
 perspiration the smell is of hay (Latham), or rather of acetone (Picot), 
 but according to Bouchardat, midway between aldehyde and acetone, 
 being due to mixture, in variable proportions, of these two bodies. 
 In cholera the odor is ammoniacal (Drasch, Parker) ; it is acid in 
 what is called milk fever ; sweet in the onset period of the plague 
 (Diemerbroeck), or honey-like, according to Doppner, who observed 
 the plague at Vetlanka (Lancet, February i, 1879) ; aceto-formic in 
 rheumatism, particularly in the region of the engorged articulations 
 (Monin) ; of new-plucked feathers in measles (rougeole) ; of new- 
 baked bread in scarlatina ; in small pox the odor is that of the fallow 
 deer; in typhoid fever it is that of blood (Behier). Frederic Berard 
 goes so far as to say that, apart from the secretions, the cutaneous 
 odor draws flies to a still living body. However little noticeable it 
 may be, it says plainly that death is near: a sweat having a cadaveric 
 odor precedes death, says Bcerhaave (Aphorism 728 of the cditio prin- 
 ceps). Dr. Althaus tells us that Skoda hardly ever was led into error 
 by this indication, and Crompton, of Birmingham, also laid great stress 
 upon this as an important clinical symptom. But the smell given out 
 at the death agony is totally different from the death-odor : it is 
 universally admitted to be specific, and it differs entirely from the 
 odor of putridity." 
 
 It would be difficult to insure the exactitude, or, at least, the prac- 
 tical value of all these assertions. But they suffice to show that there 
 is ground in facts for the occult judgments of somnambules, not only 
 from the diagnostic, but also from the prognostic, point of view. 
 Clearly, disease is not bounded by the surface of the body; it goes 
 beyond it. 
 
 The reader, doubtless, has heard tell of extraordinary diagnoses made 
 by somnambules at a distance, by means of some object belonging to 
 ' Monin, op. cit., p. 25. ' Monin, op. cit., p. 27. 
 
126 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the patients, especially by m€;3ns of a lock of hair. Why by a lock 
 of hair in particular? Perhaps because the hair, because of its 
 odors, manifests better than any object the patient's pathological 
 state.' Dr. Charpignon cites many facts of this sort, and, like all 
 magnetizers, attributes this form of transmission to the magnetic 
 fluid. These facts I do not bring forward here because I have never 
 had cognizance of anything of the kind. Once only, some fifteen 
 years ago, wishing to experiment upon this point, I took a lock of 
 my grandmother's hair and handed it to a somnambule. She told me 
 that it belonged to a beautiful lady with whom I was in love, and 
 that my love for her had not cooled much of late. True, my grand- 
 mother's hair, despite her age, is still black. This somnambule, like 
 all extra-lucid somnambules, had her "professor," who turned her 
 doings to profit for himself. To make sure of her lucidity, usually 
 he did not endorm his subject ; he simply bandaged her eyes, which 
 gave to the consultations an air of serenity. But the woman was 
 sensitive and well endormed when I consulted her. Her state, how- 
 ever, was one in which sensibility offers nothing out of the common. 
 She would doubtless have divined better in the waking state. 
 
 So I have not verified this phenomenon, but it appears to me to be 
 not at all impossible. The hair itself possesses an odor peculiar to 
 each individual, and which varies according to sex, race, age and 
 pathological state. We are told that the hair of the Chinese retains 
 its musky odor even after it has been washed with potash (Galippe, 
 paper read at the Societe de Biologic, January 25, 1879). "Hair- 
 dressers [wig makers ?] can tell easily," says Mr. Monin, " simply 
 from the smell, whether a bunch of hair was cut from the head of a 
 living person, or whether it is made up of hairs that have fallen 
 out." 
 
 There are also wide differences with regard to the tactile sensations 
 produced by a bunch of hairs. Their thickness, their elasticity, their 
 smoothness, the rustle they make when rolled between the fingers, 
 vary widely. And there is no doubt that there subsists a very close 
 relation between the quality of the hair and the psychic states. Every- 
 body knows the injurious effect of grief, which may be produced in a 
 very short time. I have observed in myself that my hair becomes 
 less supple under the influence of worry, softer under agreeable con- 
 ditions. Gratiolet makes the observation that melancholy makes the 
 skin dry and, consequently, the hair too. 
 
 At the same time the odor changes perceptibly with the dominant 
 state of the nervous system. "In hysterepilepsy," says Monin, "the 
 
 ' Dr. E. Louis de S6r6 prefers a shirt or a flannel vest that' has been worn by the 
 patient, In his boolc are found thirty-five more or less extraordinary observations of 
 this kind. Its title is " Application du Somnambulisme Magnfetique au Diagnostic 
 et au Traitement des Maladies." Paris, 1855. 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 127 
 
 "hair, at the moment of the paroxysms, has a special odor, always the 
 same, resembling the smell of ozone, or of an electrical machine 
 •operated in dry weather" (p. 33). 
 
 Hence, it may be that a hyperaesthesic sensibility can detect in a 
 dock of hair a certain number of true symptoms. " But," some one 
 will, perhaps, say, " your whole explanation is rather obscure. A 
 somnambule may have sensations that we never receive ; nothing 
 more likely than that. But to find the smell of ozone in a lock of 
 hair and to divine hysterepilepsy, are two things. So with regard to 
 .all the other objective explanations. It remains yet to be proved that 
 .somnambules know the meaning of these signs. Granted that each 
 ■disease, each emotion-r-why not each thought ? — is manifested out- 
 wardly by a modification of our material emanations : that is quite 
 possible ; but the bond that connects these modifications to these 
 states, the inmost relations between them — where may the somnambule 
 learn these ? " 
 
 I answer : First, we must not exaggerate the phenomenon we are 
 trying to explain. 
 
 Sympathism exists, but it is a rare fact. In a hundred somnambulic 
 •diagnoses you will hardly find a dozen that are entirely exact. That 
 suffices to exclude the hypothesis of bare chance, but it does not 
 suffice for the formulation of a simple, precise theory, always applic- 
 able. It is not well to prove too much, and to make that appear 
 -simple which is not simple. We must allow a little for chance, for 
 natural acuteness, for involuntary suggestions, for the vagueness of 
 most sympathic communications. Then the difficulty of finding a 
 ■causal bond between a sensation felt and its physiological meaning is 
 not so enormous as it seems. That bond exists, and it is formed in 
 this way : 
 
 Our experience is twofold : conscious and unconscious. The latter 
 is the larger — by far the larger ; it is the first, has a basis in heredity ; 
 it is ever growing richer at the expense of conscious experience ; it is 
 •ever insensibly completing the latter by generalizations, impulsions, 
 presentiments. We have much more in our brains than we suppose — 
 much science'we little think we have ; and Socrates was right when he 
 said that we give birth to ideas, but do not create them. Ask a man 
 "what was the color of the walls of a room he lived in last year — he 
 will, perhaps, be stalled ; but take him to that room and he will 
 readily see wheth'er any change has been made. You may fail to 
 recognize an old friend, but his face will, perhaps, suggest to you a 
 series of recollections. You have never thought of defining the 
 "cutaneous odor" of a loved person, but a like odor will make you 
 think of her, and you will not even know why. What one of us has 
 not been for a longer or shorter time with a number of sick persons 
 that exhaled an odor or exerted some other sort of action upon us, 
 
128 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 that to us was entirely unconscious ? But nevertheless there was then 
 formed in our brains a close association between the presence of a 
 sick person and that particular reaction. We do not feel our own 
 cutaneous odor, but were it to be changed suddenly we should surely 
 note the difference. And these associations are ever forming, and they 
 persist. We are not aware, but our unconscious knows very well, that 
 in a moment of fear,, joy, pain, hope, anger, love, as well as in patho- 
 logic states that we ourselves have been in, our individual atmosphere 
 changes, and, recognizing this change in another individual, it may 
 infer these several states, and even may, under exceptionally favorable 
 conditions, make them sensible to ourselves. Now the conditions can 
 nowhere be more favorable than in the state wherein : 
 
 1. All extrane sensations are shut out ; 
 
 2. The attention is wholly set in one direction ; 
 
 3. All the senses may be in a state of exaltation. 
 
 And if sometimes sympathism attains a surprising degree of force, 
 if the symptoms we discover appear in ourselves, or rather reveal 
 themselves by this apparition, that, again, is an effect that is not of 
 necessity physical ; it, too, ma)^ be the product of a psycho-nervic re- 
 flex action. But to understand it we must know that the association- 
 theory, as set forth in psychology, is very incomplete, in essential par- 
 ticulars incomplete. Psychologists think they have said all when they 
 admit associations between thoughts, feelings, sensations, volitions 
 and movements. 
 
 Well, if that were all, our psycho-physical mechanism would be 
 utterly incomprehensible. We could not even tell why these associa- 
 tions are not a dead letter, why they live and are operative. Bain long 
 since felt the necessity of postulating an involuntary energyheyond the 
 known associations. The theory of association is not false ; it is only 
 incomplete. Psychological association is but a special case of biologi- 
 cal association in general, and physiology will not be a comprehensible 
 science — one comprehensible in its details — until we apply to it the 
 same association principle that has been of such service to modern 
 psychology. We will here dwell upon only one point of this applica- 
 tion : there are associations between ideas (emotions, sensations, etc.), 
 but there are also associations between ideas and states that seemingly 
 have nought to do with psychology — bodily, organic states : there are 
 ideorganic associations.' An idea may be associated with an inflamed 
 finger, a skin secretion, a paralysis of the right arm, a sore on the left 
 jaw, the quantity of adipose in the tissues, a neuralgia, an attack of 
 cholera, of rabies, and so on ; and these associations may be so defi- 
 nite and real, that, as the thought of Peter produces" the thought of 
 Paul, the thought of an hemorrhage shall produce haemorrhage, the 
 thought of a cicatrization produce cicatrization, of a disease that 
 
 ' Sue Appendices II. and III. 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 129 
 
 identical disease. I have seen hemorrhages stopped by the act of the 
 imagination ; I have seen sores healed rapidly by suggestion ; I have 
 seen a fat hysteric woman grow thin in the course of a few weeks by 
 somnambulic order ; I have seen cases of cholera brought about 
 simply by thought-influence, apart from any epidemic action. 
 
 Hence, it is nothing surprising if the recollection of some ailment 
 should itself produce that ailment. 
 
 Finally — and here ends my answer to the objection stated above — 
 I do not at all intend to explain everything by one theory, A theory 
 that is simple is rarely a correct theory, particularly in biology, par- 
 ticularly in hypnotism ; and the tendency to refer unknown things to 
 things known must not blind us to new and complex facts. Objective 
 sensations, unconscious perception, ideorganic associations do not 
 account for all the facts of sympathism and nervic contagion. We 
 must have the courage to make that confession, and must look in 
 other directions. 
 
 I have already mentioned the sensations the magnetizer sometimes 
 feels on touching the patient. I was not the first to observe them. 
 There is nothing new in " hypnotism " ! A hundred years before me, 
 these sensations were discovered and studied with special care by a 
 physiologist and physicist now quite forgotten. His name was De 
 Bruno, and he was the introducer of ambassadors to the Count d'Ar- 
 tois, brother of the King of France. His first book was on mineral 
 magnetism ; then, Mesmer's " animal magnetism " having attracted 
 his attention, he devoted himself, 1 785-1805, to a series of original 
 researches, the results of which would have filled two volumes. He 
 died in 1818, leaving them unpublished. At that period, animal mag- 
 netism having been discredited by the legitimists of science, the 
 family of the deceased did not care to authorize the publication of 
 the work ; it was handed over to the Societ6 de Magnetisme and 
 appeared only in extracts under the name of Mr. de Lausanne.' This 
 book had but a feeble echo. It was the further extracts quoted by 
 Mr. Aubin Gauthier" in his " Practical Treatise" that made it a little 
 better known, though without rescuing the author from oblivion. 
 
 There are extraordinary things in Bruno's experiences that I can- 
 not guarantee. He himself, it seems, had great sensibility, and per- 
 haps " complementary imagination " was not altogether a stranger to 
 him ; but as there is a certain analogy between his observations and 
 mine, albeit I am not at all hypnotizable, I will give a few quotations: 
 
 " If Nature (says this author) has endowed the one who magne- 
 tizes with a nerve sensibility of some little delicacy, he will feel 
 externally many of the irregular movements that take place in the 
 
 ' Lausanne, " Des Principes et des Proc6d6s du Magn6tisme," etc. 2 vols. Paris 
 1819. The first volume contains the extracts from Bruno. 
 
 'A. Gauthier, " Traitfe Pratique du Magn6tisme,"etc., pp. 233-289. Paris, 1S45.. 
 
130 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 magnetized person ; sensations will be for him sure indications of the 
 work that Nature, aided by his action, is doing in the patient. It is 
 true that all persons are not gifted with this sensibility, and that it is 
 not always of the same degree of delicacy in the same person; but some 
 there are to whom this property becomes sometimes burdensome ; and 
 there are others who, in a state of crisis, have such sensibility as ren- 
 ders incredible the degree to which the delicacy of their organs makes 
 them capable of distinguishing. To my natural organization I must 
 refer a sensibility that has been perfected by the habitual use that I make 
 of this property of my senses. I owe much to this use and to the 
 attention with which I note my sensations. Were everybody to do as 
 much, this property would become very common, and there might be 
 developed in some individuals a delicacy of sensations that would 
 seem far more extraordinary still than anything I may report about 
 my own in the sequel" (pp. 86, 94). 
 
 Let us observe, in the first place, that we find in Mesmer the follow- 
 ing passage: "Touch at a little distance from the ^^^rt is, more power- 
 ful, because there exists a current between the hand, or the conductor, 
 
 and the patient We observe the flow of a matter 
 
 (e'coulement d'une matiire) the subtility of which penetrates all bodies" 
 (Prop, xxiii). 
 
 It is perhaps this subjective sensation that led him to adopt the 
 theory of a fluid. 
 
 " There is no doubt," says Bruno, " that Mesmer formally desig- 
 nated the currents (he even gives them a special name — tonic currents'), 
 and that he recognized their existence ; but there is nothing to show 
 that he explained the subject to his disciples." 
 
 Bruno distinguishes sensations of currents from entrainments (attrac- 
 tions) of currents. Apart from the sensation of a current, he further 
 believed that he felt attractions toward certain parts of the patient's 
 body. He communicated these experiences to Dr. Deslon, who no- 
 ticed something similar on holding the hands an inch or two away 
 from the stomach of a patient. He felt peculiar sensations " in the 
 flesh around the root of the nails." 
 
 " The sensations (says De Bruno) vary according to the person you 
 magnetize. You feel, for example, that the breath (souffle) that blows 
 upon your hands is warm. This warmth has differences that habit 
 will teach you to distinguish ; the warmth is greater or less, more or 
 less dry. Sometimes it makes the hands dry. I am accustomed to wet 
 my hands, and not to wipe them ; the current soon removes the ex- 
 cess of humidity. I wet the hands to retain the sensibility, which is 
 reduced by dryness." 
 
 It is seen that these sensations are nearly the same as those I expe- 
 rienced before I knew of Bruno's works. As regards the influence of 
 humidity, I made use of it in the Infant Jesus Hospital at Warsaw, in 
 1881, not to increase the sensibility of my hands, but to increase 
 their curative action (gentle massage) in a very obstinate case of 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 131 
 
 hemianaesthesia. The thought to do so came to me instinctively, and 
 the effect was very favorable, for the patient's sensibility came back 
 under my hands, and I gained ground far more rapidly than if the 
 hands had remained dry. Four seances sufficed (with the aid of som- 
 nambulism and hypnotic metalloscopy) to restore the patient's sensi- 
 bility. 
 
 " In other circumstances (continues Bruno) you have sensations of 
 cold, and this cold, too, shows differences. Sometimes there is a very 
 faint tingling at the tips of the fingers ; again there is a prickling and 
 a numbness. One experiences also a nervous shudder. A feeling of 
 cold nearly always betokens an obstruction, an engorgement, or some 
 atony " (pp. 76-79). " A dry, burning heat betokens a tension of 
 the fibers ; a gentle, moist heat is a favorable symptom, which tells of 
 a freer circulation, and sometimes an evacuation " (Deslon, Aph. 14). 
 
 Formication at the finger tips indicates the existence of bile and of 
 acrid blood, especially if it is felt when the head or the arms are 
 magnetized (Bruno, p. 79). The benumbing of the hand, the fingers 
 and their extremities, shows a defect in circulation (p. 77). The 
 magnetizer sometimes feels a fluctuating motion in the fingers, which 
 tells him that a movement of the blood is going on (un mouvement 
 sanguin s'effectue) in the patient (p. 78). When there is slime {des 
 glaires) in the stomach or chest, the fingers seem to become clumsy 
 and stiff ; sometimes one feels in the fingers a circular pressure as 
 though a silk thread were wound around them (Mainduc, Deleuze, 
 "Instr. Prat.," 342). This pressure sometimes appears as high up as 
 the wrist, which feels as though a bracelet were tightly clasped about 
 it (Deslon, Aph. 10 ; Bruno, 77). When there is nervous relaxation, 
 the hand is quickly wearied ; there is a degree of weakness in the 
 fingers and wrist (Bruno, 78 ; Deleuze, 343 ; Gauthier, 11, 12). 
 
 Besides these sensations in the hands, Bruno had also sympathic 
 sensations all over the body. "When I am very near and face to 
 face with a patient," he says, ^'^ I feel the reaction of his work^ in the 
 part opposite, so that an ache in the liver makes itself felt in the 
 spleen, or parts adjacent ; and one in the spleen, in the liver. But 
 when I am at a distance from the patient, the pains are felt in the 
 same viscera as are affected. These observations, repeated almost 
 daily for three years, confirm me in the belief that like parts in each 
 individual exert upon one another reciprocal action." 
 
 An English author. Dr. Mainduc, quoted by Deleuze (" Inst. Prat.," 
 342), gives some indications that do not agree always with tliose of 
 Bruno. For the latter cold indicated obstruction ; while, according to 
 Mainduc, in obstructions one feels a sensation of acridity, dryness, 
 contraction and formication, if there is no inflammation, and of 
 warmth if there is inflammation. Contusions produce a sense of 
 
 ' Physiological work ; the work of his organs — Translator. 
 
132 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 heaviness and numbness in the hand. The presence of worms pro- 
 duces formication or a pinching sensation {pincement) in the fingers. 
 In nervous relaxation there is a feeling of weakness in fingers and 
 
 wrist. 
 
 " I know a man," says Deleuze,' " who was very closely associated 
 with the one whose work I have quoted. Me feels the disease of those 
 he magnetizes ; he experiences in advance, and sometimes in a very pain- 
 ful way, the crises they are soon to have." " I know (says Gauthier) 
 a lady of about 50 years, a grandmother ; she has been present at the 
 several child-births of her daughter-in-law ; and placing her hands on 
 the seat of the pains, she felt and announced in advance the crises 
 that were about to come " (p. 278). 
 
 I shall not go so far ; but, as I have already said, by putting my 
 hands on the suffering organ, I can, not always, but very often, tell 
 the moment when the trouble is disappearing, for then it is that I 
 have the inward impression of a gentle warmth, ot a warm shiver.' 
 According to Bruno, such a sensation announces that the circulation is 
 in equilibrium. On the contrary, if the hands grow cold, instead of 
 warm, I begin to have doubts of success. " I know a lady," says 
 Deleuze again, "who when she begins to magnetize feels much heat in 
 her hands. After a seance of three-quarters of an hour, her hands 
 become quite cold ; she then no longer acts " (p. 334). " I also know 
 
 ' " Instruction Pratique," etc., p. 344. 
 
 ' A lady of my acquaintance whom I taught to magnetize, though without com- 
 municating to her the phenomenon in question, being elated by the successful result 
 of her first experiment, wrote to me as follows : " As I announced to you in my last 
 letter, 1 have, by the aid of the hypnoscope, found three persons of sensibility. One 
 of them is Mrs. A.'s daughter, a girl of i8 years. One day, seeing her suffering 
 from a severe headache, which never lasts less than two or three days, I began by 
 touching her forehead and head, as you taught me to do, and as I learned in the little 
 book " Le Magnfetisme Curatif." In ten minutes the ache was over ; it came back the 
 next day, weaker, at the same hour, and did not return on the following days. I can- 
 not express to you my gladness and astonishment. But that is 'nothing compared 
 with what remains to be told. The same young lady has for some years suffered fear- 
 fully on the first and the third day of her period. She was suffering in this way a few 
 days since ; she wgp bathed in perspiration and did nothing but cry for pain. The 
 thought occurred to me to try the same means, for all the remedies ordered by the 
 doctors had been without effect. Thinking that anyway this could not do her any 
 harm, I laid my hands upon her stomach and then made passes. In lo or 15 minutes 
 my patient was sleeping quietly, and she slept for nearly two hours . Upon being 
 awakened she was entirely well, and the third day of the period passed without any 
 pain. Can it be that my action produced this result ? I can hardly believe it, for she 
 fairly writhed in agony. Tell me what you think about it. And, strange to say, / 
 felt the pain going away, as though something was becoming assuaged [quelque chose 
 s'apaisait^ under my hands. (Is that an illusion of mine ?) I felt a strange pulsation 
 in my hands, and particularly in the fingers. After every treatment of this kind, I 
 find myself horribly fatigued ; it was as though 1 were losing part of my strength. (Is 
 that, too, an effect of my imagination ?) Please explain all this to me, and advise me 
 what I am to do in other cases." 
 
SYMFATUISM AND CONTAGION. 133 
 
 several magnetizers who, when they lay their hand upon the seat of 
 an internal ailment, feel a pain extending to the elbow; the hand 
 grows numb and even becomes swollen. This effect grows less with 
 the disease ; it ceases with the care, and this cessation shows that the 
 magnetism is no longer needed." "I have known a physician to 
 experience this sensation the first time he tried to magnetize. In 
 other persons it does not appear till after repeated trials. I have not 
 experienced it myself. Yet some effects that I have experienced 
 under sundry circumstances lead me to believe that I should have 
 acquired it had I taken pains to study the cause that produced them " 
 
 (PP- 33°> 331)- 
 
 As for me, I never have felt any direct and immediate painful sen- 
 sations. As an immediate effect, I have often felt simply fatigue, an 
 exhaustion of a peculiar kind not in proportion either to the move- 
 ments performed or to the emotion or the psychic concentration. 
 
 We must distinguish between these phenomena. 
 
 The action of the magnetizer in making passes produces fatigue, 
 like all monotonous movements, though they be slow. But this 
 fatigue is something well known ; it is muscular fatigue. We can 
 fatigue in this way the arms, but not the legs, for we do not magne- 
 tize with the legs, and in most cases of magnetizing persons in good 
 health one has no other sensation but that of fatigue of the muscles. 
 
 With novices in magnetism in certain important circumstances, and 
 particularly in dealing with patients that are seriously ill, another 
 sort of fatigue is added to the first — that of exhaustion by emotion. 
 
 The sufferings of others cause us suffering through sympathy. 
 Now, every suffering, every painful emotion, causes exhaustion, espe- 
 cially when prolonged. This fatigue is not localized in the muscles. 
 On the contrary, the muscles may be exceptionally excited under the 
 influence of such an emotion. Persons who are feeble and ill regain 
 their strength when called upon to care for a person dear to them, 
 who is ailing worse than themselves. But at last an emotion may 
 produce exhaustion in an instant and give a sense of prostration, of 
 moral fatigue. 
 
 Finally, there is still another sort of fatigue, known only to those 
 who have practiced magnetism for a long time. This, too, is an 
 exhaustion, even an exhaustion more lasting than that caused by an 
 emotion, but it is of a different character. This I will call external 
 exhaustion, for it produces a feeling as though the surface of the body 
 chiefly were fatigued. Especially in the hands, one has a very un- 
 pleasant feeling of dryness. The surface of the body seems to us 
 void ; ' we are no more master of the ambient air ; it presses upon us 
 and weighs upon us. And this sense of exhaustion, if due to an 
 
 ' In the original vide, empty, void, etc. The sense is by no means obvious. ^ 
 
 Translator, 
 
134 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 important cause, is not easily removed. Rest acts very slowly — far 
 more slowly than in muscular or in psychic fatigue. There is only 
 one way of working the miracle of reconstitution, and that is mas- 
 sage. ' 
 
 The state of the hands is sensibly bettered by dipping them in cool 
 water, and the state of the whole body by a vapor bath, but massage 
 is needed for complete restoration. I recommend to all who magnetize 
 many patients these three processes : First, immediately after a mag- 
 netization, dipping the hands in water, and in case of need, or from 
 time to time, a vapor bath, then massage. 
 
 Once, when in this sort of state, I laid my hand upon the forehead 
 of a patient in somnambulism suffering from headache. She allowed 
 the hand to remain for a few minutes, then put it away without say- 
 ing a word. " Why did you remove my hand ? " I asked : " it always 
 soothes you." "Yes ; but it is spoilt." 
 
 When, after having dipped my hand in cool water, and taken some 
 rest, I visited her again, she no longer put my liand away. " Why do 
 you allow it to remain now ? " I asked. " Because it is better" was 
 the reply. She could not tell me what she meant by saying that 
 a hand is " better," " good," or " spoilt," but subjectively I was forced 
 to recognize these differences, for my " spoilt " hand was spoilt for me 
 too, because of a sense of weakness and disagreeable dryness (a sub- 
 jective impression this, for the hand was not dryer than usual) and of 
 an enervating heat. But the conditions must be exceptional for this 
 effect to be produced in me in such a degree. 
 
 The prediction of the old magnetizer was fulfilled for the first time 
 under the following circumstances : I was attending a consumptive 
 patient, whose fulgurant pains came on by paroxysms and lasted for 
 hours. There was only one way of allaying them — imposition of 
 hands. The reader will laugh at the remedy, yet the fact was so, 
 nevertheless. Taking a seat by the bedside of the patient, I laid one 
 hand on his thigh and waited for the thermic reaction. It did not 
 come till after lo or 15 minutes : the pains grew less by degrees, and 
 at the end of a quarter of an hour, sometimes later, they would end. 
 As for me, I would be quite fatigued. 
 
 And yet neither the physical fatigue nor the emotion — I had grown 
 accustomed to these crises — could account for this general sense of 
 
 ' The phenomenon of exhaustion seems to have been observed when the magnetic 
 treatment was first used in France, for Jussieu mentions it in his report to the King : 
 "The treatment, especially treatment by contact, may fatigue those who administer 
 it. I have never experienced this myself, but I have seen many magnetizers, worn 
 out after protracted seances, have recourse to the tub [in the original, baquet, a tub of 
 water employed by Mesmer in his seances. — Translator!\ and to contact with another 
 man, and regain their power by the use of these two means." (" Report of one of 
 the Commissioners appointed by the King to investigate Animal Magnetism." Paris, 
 1784.) 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 135 
 
 exhaustion. I had not, however, any painful sensation. But the fol- 
 lowing morning, and sometimes in the night, I used to feel in the 
 back or in the arms pains of a peculiar kind. At first they did not 
 last long, and though they were pretty sharp they impressed me as 
 counterfeit pains, superficial, extraneous. They were but an echo of 
 the fulgurant pain of the patient. 
 
 This phenomenon was repeated rather often without any injurious 
 effect. I have since then observed other cases where transmission 
 seemed unquestionable — in fact I have observed many cases of double 
 transmission, that is, of transmission to a third person unbeknown to 
 him. 
 
 I would catch a headache, say, or some rheumatic affection, from a 
 patient, and involuntarily would transmit it to another, though with de- 
 creased violence and with some retardation. A pain thus doubly trans- 
 mitted I have* always been able to remove so that it would not return. 
 Twice only have I observed in myself almost immediate transmission. 
 In the first instance there was nervous aphonia that had to be cured as 
 speedily as possible, for the patient was to deliver an address in pub- 
 lic. The voice was restored for the whole time of the address, but I 
 was hoarse for a full quarter of an hour. The second instance was 
 one of cold in the head, which was communicated to me almost in- 
 stantaneously by one of my patients. She experienced a little relief 
 (though I had magnetized her for an entirely different ailment). As 
 for me, the cold in the head lasted the whole evening, disappearing the 
 next morning. In other cases the "communicated" cold in the head 
 would appear only in the night. I would awake feeling really ill and 
 hardly able to breathe ; then I would sleep again, and it was all over. 
 
 So curious are these phenomena of nervous contagio?t that it needs a 
 little courage to speak of them ; but we must speak of them, for 
 assuredly in this transmission we recognize the Jirst stage in mental 
 transmission. Organic states can be transmitted from one individual 
 to another, and hence thought transmission is only a question of de- 
 grees, for a thought always ansv/ers to a special organic state. 
 
 Nervous contagion is a rather frequent phenomenon, provided one 
 takes the trouble to notice it. For me it was an easy thing to find, 
 for ever since my fourteenth or fifteenth year I have been in the 
 habit of observing whatever goes on within myself and the effects 
 produced by different influences. In the meantime I never have 
 been seriously ill, but if I suffer from any indisposition I am able 
 readily to say what is the cause. The transmitted ailments were the 
 only ones that I was unable to refer to any common or ordinary 
 cause, and little by little I was forced to succumb to the evidence 
 and to admit the phenomenon in question. 
 
 Still — and this I never have thought of denying — the influence of 
 the imagination may play a part in many of these phenomena. 
 
136 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 When you take a headache without any suspicion that the person 
 you are magnetizing has one, and it disappears in him the moment it 
 appears in you, there is reason to infer physical nervous contagion. 
 In most cases the magnetizer knows of the ailment, and if so, then 
 quite likely psychic nervous contagion by ideoplasty is added to the 
 direct action. Here are a few highly instructive facts upon this 
 point, that have been confirmed by the experience of many persons. 
 Several Brussels newspapers mentioned them at the time of their 
 occurrence. The following narrative is written in the form of a 
 feuilleton by A. Lebrun, a clerk in the (Belgian) Ministry of Justice, 
 a neophyte in magnetism, and therefore an ardent apostle : 
 
 . . . "Another day I met two poets and a prose writer; and as one 
 is required to give names when one speaks of magnetism, I may say 
 that the poets were Messrs. Adolphe Mathieu and Van Hascelt, and 
 the prose writer Mr. Deschamps. The first-named and the last were 
 strong unbelievers ; Mr. Van Hasselt was already well along in the 
 road of the faith ; he was a catechumen, asking only for full illumina- 
 tion. I noticed my three men right on Carmes Street. I had notified 
 Mr. Montius, the magnetizer ; we found him at home, in company 
 with a female somnambule, and he set to work at once. The odd- 
 ness of the mimicry of magnetism caused the two unbelievers to 
 chuckle. As for Mr. Van Hasselt, he was as solemn and thoughtful 
 as one of Lamartine's " Meditations." Mr. Montius, noticing this, 
 conceived forthwith a favorable opinion of the poet, and wanted to 
 make an experiment upon him. But now the somnambule complained 
 of a violent headache that had come upon her suddenly. Mr. Montius 
 smiled with an air of satisfaction. We asked him why he smiled. 
 ' Why,' he answered in a whisper, ' I gave her that headache on pur- 
 pose It was now the turn of our unbelievers to smile. But the 
 somnambule having heard what Mr. Montius had said, exclaimed : 
 ' Since 'tis you that gave it me, you can take it away ! Take it away, 
 then ; I pray you, take it away ! ' ' One moment,' said Mr. Montius ; 
 and applying one hand to the somnambule's forehead and the other 
 to Mr. Van Hasselt's, he made him a gift of the somnambule's head- 
 ache, she exclaiming with glee : ' Thanks ! My headache is gone.' 
 'Yes, gone, but I have got it,' cried Mr. Van Hasselt, with a woful 
 expression of countenance. The rest of us burst out laughing up- 
 roariously, with the exception of the patient, whose pain grew more 
 and more intense. He begged Mr. Montius to make the headache 
 pass to another head. ' Well, here is mine,' said Mr. Deschamps ; 
 ' and if you succeed in introducing into it what is in Mr. Van Has- 
 selt's, I pronounce you, not in verse, but in correct and polished 
 prose,, a being such as fancy paints, a very wizard ! ' 'I will try,' the 
 magnetizer answered, ' but I do not guarantee success ; unbelief is a 
 force that repels magnetism.' At the same time, raising his arms, he 
 laid one hand on the head of Mr. Van Hasselt, and the other on that 
 of Mr. Deschamps. I observed attentively the face of the latter ; 
 the two corners of his mouth, at first kept wide apart by a sardonic 
 smile, insensibly came together so that soon his mouth made a per- 
 fect letter O, proving that the serious mood of Mr. Van Hasselt was 
 gaining on our friend. Suddenly he freed himself from Mr. Montius's 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 137 
 
 hands, saying : ' Enough ; I surrender. The devil take me if I 
 haven't an able-bodied headache!' 'Yes, but I am beginning to 
 think that you have all conspired to act a comedy at my expense,' 
 said Mr. Mathieu, who till now had looked on, seemingly meditating 
 deeply. ' Pass my headache to him to convince him,' said Mr. Des- 
 champs to the magnetizer. ' With pleasure,' Mr. Montius replied ; so 
 he operated on Mr. Mathieu as upon the two others. Again the 
 experiment was entirely successful, so that the new patient shook his 
 head repeatedly as though to make sure of the tenacity of the ache 
 he felt. He wanted to keep his megrim for some time, for fear lest 
 conviction should vanish suddenly with the ache. 
 
 " Such, reader, is the story I had to tell you for your convince- 
 ment, for, I do confess to you, they that believe in these phenomena 
 have a mania for sharing their conviction with everybody." ' 
 
 It is probable that in these experiments the first transmission — 
 from magnetrzer to somnambule — was effected by a physical nervous 
 contagion, but in the cases that follow ideoplasty plays the principal, 
 if not the only, role ; else the ailment would be considerably lessened 
 at each transmission. 
 
 Du Potet, one of the most experienced practitioners, advised his 
 pupils always to magnetize without contact, and the reason he gives 
 is this : 
 
 "Inoculation by Contact. — Among the facts 1 have ascertained I 
 may quote these : A woman suffering from a gouty arthritic affection, 
 whose joints had become solidified, whose limbs had lost their flexi- 
 bility, whose jaws, even, could not open fully, was put in rapport with 
 one of my somnambules. This somnambule, after having seen the 
 ailment perfectly and indicated the thermal waters that would cure it, 
 complained of suffering in the same parts that were affected in the 
 patient. I paid little attention, for it had been just so with respect to 
 other ailments, and no ill results had followed. I awakened her,' but, 
 much to my surprise, she was unable to stir ; she could not open her 
 mouth. In vain I tried to stay the trouble, which I supposed to be 
 momentary. . . . She remained in this state three days. During 
 that time we had to feed her like a baby, giving her broth in small 
 spoonfuls, her mouth being three-quarters shut. Little by little the 
 trouble left her. 
 
 " Another somnambule, after touching a patient whose blood was 
 doubly corrupt — by syphilitic and by scrofulous virus — lost all her 
 hair a few hours after the mere contact. 
 
 " A convulsive hiccough, a cough, a stitch in the side, were trans- 
 mitted by contact to another sleeper. 
 
 " Another, from holding for some time the hand of an idiot, re- 
 mained stupid for some days." 
 
 . Here are facts it will be easy to make merry over. Idiocy, it will, 
 perhaps, be said, is contagious — for magnetizers ! Say what you will, 
 
 ' F. Lebrun, " Transmission des Douleurs d'une Personne i une Autre (Z'^- 
 mancipatian, Aug. 4, 1838) ; Lafontaine, " Mfemoires," vol. i., p. 87. 
 
 ' The somnambule should never be awakened till all these symptoms have bees 
 done away. — Du Potet' s Note, 
 
138 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the thing will remain true nevertheless. I have myself observed a 
 like case with respect to another disease, though in a less degree. 
 But I do not wonder at the incredulity these facts may meet with. 
 With shame do I confess that after having read, hardly four years 
 ago, the passage I have quoted from Du Potet, I made a big interro- 
 gation point and two big exclamation points on the margin of his 
 book. These I now blot out and go on transcribing : 
 
 " Here is what Puys6gur says about this matter : ' The suscepti- 
 bility of patients in crises for catching (susceptibility . . . . de gagner) 
 readily certain maladies, has many times been demonstrated for me. 
 I have seen magnetic somnambules, in the midst of a swarm of many 
 patients, ask [leave] to quit their place, saying that their neighbors 
 made them ill ; and others to withdraw precipitately. And often I 
 have had to repair the mischief caused by the approach of certain 
 individuals.'" 
 
 I observed lately a similar case. A young person, in good health 
 at the time, produced, simply by her presence, an exceedingly violent 
 paroxysm in an endormed lady. Some weeks later this young person 
 fell gravely ill of typhoid fever, aggravated by an old heart complaint. 
 Was it the influence of this on-coming pathological state that caused 
 the mischief, or was it the girl's own individuality ? Anyway, there 
 was no suggestion : the girl had no thought of the disease, and she 
 loved the lady well. 
 
 " One day (continues Du Potet) I consulted my somnambule, Vielet, 
 upon the kinds of diseases most readily communicable to somnam- 
 bules ; he had himself twice or thrice had a sad experience in that 
 way. His answer, which he gave in writing, and which I still have, 
 was, that the most dangerous are epilepsy, scurvy, diarrhoea, cold 
 paralysis, sciatic gout, catalepsy, itch, cold humors, and all venereal 
 diseases. 
 
 " As for myself, I never have magnetized a consumptive or a 
 patient who, having taken [has been taking] mercury,' without expe- 
 riencing, in the former case, pains in the chest, and without feeling, 
 in the latter, pains in the bones, and particularly in the finger-joints 
 and the wrists. 
 
 "Whi'le magnetizing a young man who had a luxation of the femur 
 in consequence of a lymphatic deposit in the joint, I was seized, on 
 leaving his house, with very sharp pains in the limb on the same side. 
 Belifeving this to be personal to me, I at first did not give it much 
 attention ; the trouble passed away quickly, but on the next day it 
 was the same. Yet, at entering the patient's house, I was not suffer- 
 ing at all ; I could not believe in this singular phenomenon, and 
 wished to make sure of its reality, so for two days I suspended the 
 treatment, and felt nothing. I resumed the treatment, my joint was 
 ailing again, and I began to drag the leg. I found a pretext for not 
 attending to the case. T did not at that time know that in magnetizing 
 
 ' Sic in the original : un malade qui, ayant pris du mercure. Instances of simi- 
 lar defective grammatical construction are rather frequent in these quotations from 
 authors, and the translator has for the most part retained them in the English version.. 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 139. 
 
 without contact the action is of the same efficacy, and that this inoculation ' 
 might have been avoided. 
 
 " One day, while making some experiments upon a young man 
 suffering frbm a syphilitic malady (of the existence of which I was 
 unaware), I held his knees between mine (according to Deleuze's 
 method). After about a quarter of an hour I felt sharp pains in my 
 legs. I asked the patient to tell me whether he himself had pains in 
 the same region ; he answered that just then he did not suffer pain, 
 but that usually his suffering was unbearable. I desisted from my 
 experiments, and the pains I had thus ' caught ' persisted for a part 
 of the day. 
 
 " In consequence of this discovery I have many a time said to 
 patients that I was magnetizing : You have pain in such a part of 
 your body ; and every time this proved to be true. 
 
 " Having never had any disease, and never having suffered from 
 pain or ache, when I feel some pain in magnetizing I know it comes 
 not from me, and I hold myself sufificiently aloof from the patient to 
 discontinue the facts of this inoculation. 
 
 " Other magnetizers have told me of facts of the same kind. I con- 
 fess that for a long time I refused to believe their testimony and my 
 own as well. This is no longer possible for me, for I have observed 
 too much to harbor a doubt. 
 
 " In order to avoid these mishaps I advise the practitioner to mag- 
 netize by touch as seldom as possible." " 
 
 But the absence of contact is no absolutely sure guaranty.! Some- 
 times, though rarely, transmission takes place at some distance in 
 case there has been established between two persons the close and 
 strange relation which we have not yet explained, known as the 
 " magnetic rapport." Du Potet himself cites some cases of this sort : 
 
 " Inoculation without Contact. — By a singular play of the magnetic 
 forces, and perhaps because of the analogy of two nervous systems, 
 unexpected phenomena sometimes occur. Thus I have many times 
 seen a rapport set up between magnetized subjects that did not know 
 each other, and what one felt was felt by the other, though often they 
 were separated by walls. This makes a good deal of trouble for you, 
 for while you are giving all your care to the patient that is affected 
 sympathically, the other, whom you have left at rest, becomes agitated 
 again and the paroxysm returns, and vice versa. In this way hours 
 pass in useless and very fatiguing work ; then the hours have to be 
 changed, or you must find some one to take your place with one of 
 the two patients. Do not think that in these cases imagination^ plays 
 a part. In' a hospital in St. Petersburg' where two epileptiform 
 nervous affections were given to me for treatment — complaints that I 
 cured, though they were serious and of long standing — well, though 
 the patients were separated by a great distance, and one was on the 
 first floor, the other on the second, the moment I magnetized the one 
 the other had a crisis, yet there was nothing to convey intelligence to 
 the one I did not rnagnetize ; and not once only, but twenty times, 
 
 ' Transfer of disease to the magnetizer. 
 
 ' Du Potet, " Manuel de I'Etudiant Magnetiseur, " pp. 251-256. Paris, 1868. 
 
 ^ ^^^ Journal du Magnitisme, vol. i., p. 289. 
 
I40 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 both at ni^ht and in daytime, have we been able to observe this 
 singular phenomenon. My entry was unannounced, made without any 
 noise whatever ; often, indeed, the two patients would be in natural 
 sleep ; yet, no matter which one I magnetized first, the one I was not 
 thinking of at all soon would come out of her sleep and utter fearful 
 shrieks. I permitted this sympathy to go on for a while, for my own 
 instruction, but then I broke it up by producing several artificial 
 crises in succession. Thus I removed the too acute sensibility of 
 their nervous systems." 
 
 There was a simpler way, viz. : forbidding the somnambule by 
 verbal suggestion to undergo any involuntary action. This recourse 
 is always successful, provided it be availed of in a state approaching 
 monoideism. 
 
 " Here is a fact more incredible still, yet no less true. Magnetism 
 is bound for a long time to come to exercise the mind of the physi- 
 ologist and the psychologist. Facts novel and incomprehensible are 
 coming into notice every moment, owing to the singular properties of 
 the agent employed. I was attending a patient living in the street 
 des Mauvaises-Paroles, in Paris. He was but little sensitive to mag- 
 netism. But one evening he experienced pretty violent commotions 
 (/prouva des commotions assez violentes). I left him resting quietly. The 
 next evening the same phenomenon ; but another patient whom I was 
 attending, and who did not know the first at all, had set out for Fon- 
 tainebleau a few days before. This man, too, was very little sensitive 
 to magnetism. But what was my astonishment, when after three days 
 he came back to Paris, to learn from him that he had experienced 
 violent jerks (secousses) at the same hour, the same minute, and for 
 the same length of time. At the moment I made no remark, but that 
 very evening I magnetized this patient. He lived in the street Coq- 
 H^ron ; the other patient, he of Mauvaises-Paroles street, had the 
 same nervous symptoms. I ceased and the nervous affection stopped. 
 I resumed the magnetization at other hours, and this singular rapport 
 was broken up. I repeat, these men did not know each other at all, 
 and knew nothing of the curious observation they afforded me in this 
 way." 
 
 This last fact is not conclusive. If the change of time sufficed to 
 break up the rapport, then no rapport existed. When a phenomenon, 
 apparentl}' inexplicable, manifests itself at a fixed hour, it is nearly 
 always explainable by imagination, conscious or unconscious. Mr. 
 Du Potet does not say expressly that he magnetized his second 
 patient at the same hour at which he had been in the habit of magnet- 
 izing the first, but that seems to have been the case. Now, nothing 
 is more common than the coming-on of a nervous trouble at the 
 habitual time of hypnotization. Anyway, Du Potet's observation is 
 recounted too vaguely to be of any service as proof. I have cited 
 it, therefore, only to show the possibility of facile illusion in similar 
 cases. 
 
 The following is an observation of Charpignon's : 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 141 
 
 " We have had occasion (he writes)' to operate in a case of acute 
 arthritic rheumatism on the second day of the attack. It is needless 
 to speak of the sharpness of the pains and their continuance for five 
 or six weeks. A few days of magnetization brought about a grati- 
 fying alleviation, and the relief would soon have been complete had 
 not we ourselves been seized with symptoms of the same disease. This 
 accident taught us the value of the advice given by magnetizers, to 
 detnagnetize oneself after having operated in certain maladies. vVe 
 had to suffer then, as on many another occasion, for this careless- 
 ness." 
 
 The fact, then, is vouched for by many practitioners ; still, we must 
 not exaggerate it. It is rather rare, and depends upon a multitude of 
 conditions that make the studying of it difficult. In the first place, 
 there are magnetizers that never have witnessed it. The person that 
 experiences this contagion from time to time, may not experience it 
 in the case of a very serious malady, but may undergo its action very 
 distinctly indeed in some case of little consequence. It seems that 
 here, as in all instances of contagion, individual predisposition counts 
 for more than the agent itself. And in the present instance this pre- 
 disposition is itself conditional, depending as it does on a certain mo- 
 mentary rapport between the patient and the magnetizer. So to speak, 
 the two must be tuned in one key. Magnetizing by passes facilitates 
 this " tuning," but it seldom attains the degree of concord that 
 brings about communication of pains, more rarely produces transmis- 
 sion of objective sensations, and more rarely still thought-transfer- 
 ence. 
 
 It is generally thought that contagion is always material. That is 
 an error. There are two kinds of contagion, to wit : 
 
 1. Material contagion, which might be subdivided, but which is not 
 of interest to us here. Its agents are visible parasites, microbes, 
 virulent liquids, and miasmata. (I should be much embarrassed were 
 I asked what a miasma is, but I suppose it is some deleterious gas.'') 
 
 Barring cases of direct communication of the parasite, or cirect 
 introduction of the virus into the blood, this contagion is never 
 inevitable ; but non-hypnotizable persons are liable to it in the same 
 degree as the hypnotizable ; and if anything makes resistance against 
 it, it is the general state of the individual's strength and health 
 (physiological resistance), without regard to his sensitivity. It mani- 
 fests itself, however, only in a few categories of diseases known as 
 contagious. 
 
 2. Nervous Contagion. — This is twofold : 
 ' Op. cit., p. 179. 
 
 ' This is not exactly Mr. Bechamp's definition, who says that miasmata are "agents 
 whether ponderable or imponderable, diffusible, without definite form, of a. physical or 
 a chemical nature, which, transported by the air, are able to modify at many points at 
 
 once the functionment of that which is anatomically alive in us, the microzyma." 
 
 Bulletin de I' Acad, de M4d., p. 1727. 1884. 
 
142 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 a. Psychic nervous contagion (imagination, imitation, ideoplasty), 
 from which very many persons are exempt — some 70 per cent. — but 
 which manifests itself in a larger number of diseases (contagious or 
 non-contagious), but particularly in nervous maladies of tl^e cerebro- 
 spinal and gariglionary systems. It is more widespread than one sup- 
 poses, but it does not, any more than material contagion, enter into 
 the plan of our present study. 
 
 b. Physical nervous contagion (communication nearly always by con- 
 tact, but almost solely in consequence of a magnetic rapport, so- 
 called). It may apply to different diseases, mostly those not mate- 
 rially contagious, but especially to states of exhaustion, general indis- 
 position and pain, and these usually in a very mild form. 
 
 These three kinds of contagion, and the first two in particular, of 
 course, in practice, come together. The third may be considered as 
 comparatively unimportant in everyday practice. Nevertheless, it 
 possesses, for us the highest theoretic value, since from that point of 
 view it constitutes the basis of sympathism in general, and of mental 
 suggestion in particular. 
 
 But, unfortunately, we are still far from understanding this basis, 
 on which rest other phenomena still more recondite. Nevertheless, we 
 must do what we can to obtain some sort of a conception of it. 
 
 To this end let us look at the question on the reverse side. If dis- 
 ease is transmitted by contagion, health should be transmissible in the 
 same way. In truth, both express only a relation : they are not 
 things, only states. Health represents harmony of the functions, 
 these being in equilibrium with the influences of the world without. 
 Disease means the opposite of this : it is dysharmony of the functions, 
 these not sufficiently withstanding the influences of the environment. 
 If this be so, then health must be, so to speak, ;«(7rif contagious by 
 bodily contact than is disease, being more expansive, in that it re-acts 
 better outward. Only it must not be forgotten that we are looking 
 at things from the physical, the dynamic standing-point. 
 
 Now, taking this point of view, that is what we actually see. Apart 
 from material and psychic nervous contagion, a person that enjoys 
 health and strength gives more of good than a person weak and 
 sickly gives of ill. AVhat they call animal magnetism,' so far as it is 
 physical action, is nothing but a contagion of health and of force. 
 And, on the whole, the one that is magnetized gains more than is lost 
 by the one that magnetizes. Here the analogy with the loadstone is 
 perfect, and it is pretty evident in the phenomena of attraction, of 
 specific (sp^cifie'e) affinity, and action from a distance. 
 
 ' We shall not dispute about words. The word "electricity" {jpixKvphv, amber) 
 has no more to do with the batteries and dynamos of to-day than the word " magnet- 
 ism" with certain physiological actions — rather less. But all words change their 
 meaning with the march of progress, and of this we need not complain. 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 143 
 
 And if magnetic action in general may be considered as contagion, 
 mental suggestion is contagion also, in a still more striking way. 
 
 Bodies when brought together tena to equilibrium of their molecular 
 motions. That is an intelligible law, consistent with all our knowledge, 
 and easily verified in sundry classes of phenomena. Why should 
 organic bodies not come under it, seeing they are far more active, far 
 more expansive centers of force than dead "matter ? In fact, among 
 these molecular movements produced, that is, transformed within the 
 organism, there are some with respect to which doubt is impossible. 
 Such is heat ; electricity also, though less evidently. These two 
 forces, /'. (?., these two kinds of molecular motion, cannot be circum- 
 scribed by any superficies. Heat and electricity are ever escaping at 
 every point, and it were foolish to suppose that though they re-act 
 upon the ambient atmosphere, they shun other organic bodies and are 
 indifferent for them. I 
 
 Now, atiimal heat and animal electricity, themselves alone, suffice 
 to account' for very many magnetic phenomena. Their weakness, 
 physically, has long deceived us. People have thought that to pro- 
 duce a physiological effect there must be actual fire, or electric bat- 
 teries contracting the muscles. But the warmth of the hand is much 
 more effective than a blaze, and metalloscopy, the action of the mag- 
 net and of very weak electric currents, much more effective than that 
 of strong currents. The more like a remedy is to the normal agencies 
 of the organism, the better it is. And, plainly, nothing more resem- 
 bles the internal currents that keep up the harmony of the functions 
 than those very currents themselves in a like organism, but one in 
 better equilibrium. (On the other hand, we should be surprised were 
 the presence of a living body, i. e., of a complexus of vibrations and 
 currents, to have no influence upon another like complexus. A matter 
 less clear, in the present state of our knowledge, is this specific affinity 
 of certain vibrations of certain organs for those organs only, the 
 transmission from a nerve to a like nerve in another body. But that 
 is chargeable only to our ignorance. Then, in two pianofortes that 
 stand side by side, do not two like strings act in the same way ? And 
 when two wires lie side by side and an electric current is passed over 
 one, is not a like current, in the reverse direction, produced in the 
 other by induction, whereas you see nothing of the kind in a rod of 
 wood or of glass? Thus, there is an affinity of nature, and there 
 exists no reason why a nerve that is disordered in its molecular state 
 should not act by induction mainly upon a like nervej 
 
 Not to enter upon these questions of elective sympathism of parts 
 it is plain, as all organic changes may be reduced to changes plus or 
 minus, that the energy whose intensity is normal, acting upon several 
 associated parts, whereof some have an excess and others a lack of 
 energy, will tend to equalize their tensions — that is, to restore their 
 
144 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 equilibrium ; and inversely, an association of unequal energies will 
 produce a like break-up of equilibrium in a like association. 
 
 " Every living being (says Jussieu, in his interesting report upon 
 mesmerism) is a true electric body, constantly impregnated by this 
 active principle, but not always in the same proportion. Some have 
 more of it, others less. . . . Hence we see why by some it must 
 be given out, and taken in or eagerly imbibed by others ; that near- 
 ness to the one in which it abounds is of advantage to the one in 
 which it is deficient. The sleeping of a child with an aged person is 
 good for the latter, bad for the former. Plants, when brought to- 
 gether in a seed-plot, are strong and healthy ; but in the neighbor- 
 hood of a large tree they wither and perish." 
 
 The latter fact has been confirmed by recent researches, and it is 
 certain that Jussieu judged it aright when he attributed the effects 
 mentioned to absorption of electricity. But what he says of electric- 
 ity applies equally to all molecular motions and to all organic states, 
 though this influence may not be visible save after manifold trans- 
 formations, due to the influences of the media. 
 
 Is the fact of physiological transmission between a child and an 
 aged person empirically ascertained ? Hitherto modern science has 
 not concerned itself with these questions ; but science in former 
 times looked on the fact as quite natural,and it has a place in popular 
 beliefs. I have heard of many instances of cure, particularly of 
 rheumatic complaints, effected solely by contact with young and 
 healthy persons, or even with young and healthy animals. In one 
 case, too extraordinary to be quoted as evidence, fowls served as the 
 remedy, and they died after curing the patient ! I cite this merely to 
 direct the attention of observers upon a fact of everyday occurrence 
 in rural districts ; and physicians are perhaps in the wrong when they 
 treat such stories with contempt. Facts of the kind are found in the 
 history of Hungary. I find the following in Cabanis : 
 
 " In general, the emanations of young, vigorous animals are benefi- 
 •cial ; consequently they produce agreeable impressions, more or less 
 distinctly noticed. Hence the instinctive attraction whereby we are 
 -drawn to them, and which gives us to feel an organic pleasure in see- 
 ing them, being near them, even before any thought of a relation of 
 affection or of utility intervenes. The air of stables that contain 
 •cows and horses, if they are kept clean, is both agreeable and whole- 
 some ; it is even believed — and the opinion is not altogether without 
 foundation — that in certain diseases this air may be employed as a 
 remedy and contribute to the cure. Montaigne tells that a physi- 
 cian of Toulouse, having met him in the house of an aged cacochy- 
 mic patient whose health he was caring for, being struck with the 
 young man's hearty, vigorous looks (for the philosopher was then 
 hardly twenty years old) bade his patient keep around him persons of 
 that age, whom he deemed to be no less of service in re-animating 
 the old man than in cheering him. The ancients knew how useful it 
 is for languid age and for patients exhausted by the pleasures of love 
 
SYMPATHISM AND CONTAGION. 145 
 
 to live in an atmosphere filled with the restorative emanations given 
 out by bodies young and full of vigor. We see in the third book of 
 Kings ' that David lay with comely damsels to warm him and to get 
 back a little strength.. According to Galen," Greek doctors had long 
 recognized in the treatment of sundry consumptions, the advantage 
 of making the patients take nourishment from the breasts of young, 
 healthy nurses ; and experience had taught them that the effect is not 
 the satne when the milk is given after being caught in a vessel. Cappivac- 
 cius saved the heir of a great house in Italy, fallen into marasmus, 
 by making him lie betwixt two vigorous young girls. Forestus tells 
 how a young Pole was cured of marasmus by spending the days and 
 nights with a nurse of twenty years ; and the effect of the remedy 
 was so prompt that soon there v/as reason to fear that the convales- 
 cent would again lose his strength with the person that had restored 
 it to him. Finally, to bring this subject to an end, Boerhaave used to 
 tell his disciples of having seen a German prince cured by this means, 
 employed in the same way which had succeeded so well for Cappivac- 
 cius."' 
 
 " There is not a housewife but knows that it is not good for a 
 child to make it sleep with an aged person, though the latter enjoy 
 perfect health. In other times there existed in the mountains of 
 Auvergne a custom that may well be mentioned. When any traveler 
 arrived at an hostelry, feeble, sickly, or benumbed by cold, they 
 asked him whether he wished a warmed or a brasiered bed; naturally 
 his answer would be : ' I want a good warm bed.' When about to 
 get into the bed he would be much surprised to see a chubby, hearty, 
 well-complexioned fellow leave it, enveloped from head to foot in a 
 clean linen shirt. 
 
 " The next morning our man would be sure to inquire if it was the 
 custom to give one a bed in which another had slept. ' Sir, you 
 asked that your bed should be warm, and we warmed it for you. If 
 you had wished it brasiered, we would have heated it with a brasier.' 
 ' What difference is there between these two methods ? ' ' O sir, 
 much difference ; the bed warmed by a young, strong, healthy person 
 is far more restorative and strengthening.' '"' 
 
 " When we observe," says Hufeland, " the effect produced by plac- 
 ing newly-killed animals on paralyzed members, and live animals on 
 parts of the body that are suffering pain, it does seem that this thera- 
 peutic method ought not to be spurned." " 
 
 Let us enumerate the facts we have been examining : 
 I. Transmission of exhaustion, of a nervous fatigue caused by any 
 serious illness or the like. This transmission is rather common, 
 always more or less weakened, often to the advantage of the 
 patient. 
 
 ' Our author quotes the Bible according to the LXX and the Vulgate, wherein I. 
 and II. Samuel are reckoned I. and II. Kings, while I. and II. Kings (as reckoned 
 in the Protestant canon) are III. and IV. Kings. — Translator. 
 
 ' " Methodus Medendi," lib. iii., cap. 12. 
 
 ^Cabanis, "Rapports du Physique et du Moral de I'Homme,'' 3d ed., toI. ii., p. 
 340. Paris, 181 5. 
 
 * Dr. Pigeaire, " Puissance de I'filectricite Aramale,'' p. 231. Paris, 1839. 
 
 ' Hufeland, " Die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verlangern," p. 7. Jena, 1798, 
 
T46 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 2. Transmission of health and strength, regulative action of a well 
 equilibrated organism upon another organism that is not well equili- 
 brated. This action is still more common, and takes place sometimes 
 at the expense of the transmitter. 
 
 3. Weak transmission of pain and other like symptoms, which ena- 
 bles one to appreciate the state of the patient, sometimes through an 
 exceptional sensibility of touch and smell, sometimes by analogous 
 sympathic sensations in analogous organs. 
 
 4. Strong transmission of pain and other pathologic symptoms,, 
 communicating an analogous complaint to subjects that are moment- 
 arily hypersesthesic, so as to produce a more or less lasting pathologic 
 state. This transmission is rare, except where there is material or 
 psychic nervous contagion. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TRANSMISSION OF EMOTIVE STATES. 
 
 COME we now to the fifth group — transmission of feelings and 
 emotive states generally. These kinds of transmission are rather 
 common, but they are seldom produced by simple " influence," in the 
 electro-technic sense of the word. In most cases the ordinary sense- 
 perceptions, those of sight and hearing, aid the direct communication 
 with their automatic inductions, more or less unconscious. We know 
 how easy it is to divine the mental state of a person we know from 
 the expression of his face and the tone of his voice. 
 
 As direct transmission alone is what interests us just now, we will 
 examine particularly instances where other influences are more or less 
 thoroughly eliminated. 
 
 In the following case the influence of imagination is not excluded, 
 but there is little probability that there was any. " One day,", says 
 Lafontaine, the man whose experimental lectures at Manchester sug- 
 gested to Braid the first thought of his discoveries — 
 
 " One day, in magnetizing a friend of mine, Mr. Devienne, a painter,. 
 I obtained a result of a kind to show the uncertainty of the existence 
 and communication of the vital fluid. \Mr . Devienne was suffering" 
 from a headache that prevented him from working, and he suggested 
 that I should remove it. I agreed, but on the condition that he should 
 give me a glass of Bordeaux wine, for I was exhausted and ready to 
 drop from fatigue ; I had been magnetizing all the time ever since 
 the morning. He hastened to gratify my wish ; I ate a biscuit, drank 
 a glass of wine, and commenced the magnetization. I directed all my 
 action to the. brain and the stomach, imposing hands on both organs, 
 and while magnetizing I took a second glass of wine. My patient's 
 eyes were shut and he was unable to open them, but he was not asleep. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF EMOTIVE STATES. 147 
 
 After an hour's magnetizing the headache was gone entirely, but my 
 friend's gayety was delightful ; he talked incoherently as if he had 
 been drinking. I promptly took him out of the magnetic state, and, 
 ■to my great astonishment, the effect remained ; Mr. Devienne was 
 quite drunk, he could hardly stand. He had taken nothing, and I 
 had drunk only two glasses of wine, of which I felt no effect. My 
 fluid, therefore, had become charged with the spirituous parts con- 
 tained in the wine, and had transmitted them to the patient, leaving no 
 trace of them in me." 
 
 Alongside this narrative I also set an exclamation point some years 
 since. To-day the fact does not seem to me impossible. The case is 
 an interesting one in that the action of the alcohol was transmitted 
 directly without producing any marked effect on the magnetizer. 
 
 " Since then (continues Mr. Lafontaine) I have many a time in my 
 own practice and in that of other magnetizers come upon this fact of 
 the transmission of physical serfsations. Ll have also seen transmis- 
 sions of moral sensations (sensations morales') ; the patient would be- 
 come downcast or joyous, just as he became a sufferer if the magne- 
 tizer was indisposed or preoccupied. It was not even essential that 
 the patients should be endormed to experience these different physical 
 and moral effects, it sufficed if they were powerfully magnetized ; 
 nevertheless, it must be understood that these were rare instances, 
 very rare indeed, and they were developed only in the case of ex- 
 ceptional individuals." ' 
 
 I would observe that in the case of Mr. Devienne transmission took 
 place in a state intermediate between sleep and waking. Now, it will 
 be remembered how in the case of Mrs. M., who discerned the moral 
 state' of persons around her, this phenomenon manifested itself always 
 at the moment of awaking. Nevertheless, somnambulism being a . 
 highly variable, a highly elastic state, the conditions of monoideism 
 may be realized therein momentaneously, and then the same phe- 
 nomenon may occur. 
 
 Baragnon gives a case in all respects like the foregoing, and in 
 which the subject was in perfect somnambulism. 
 
 " On leaving the table after a dinner at which I had become a little 
 heated [with wine], I was invited to magnetize a young person who 
 was passing the evening at the same party. I brought about sleep 
 with singular energy of action. This I attributed to my excitement, 
 though that seemed to me to be very slight. I was still more 
 astonished to discover in the magnetized person, when she was in the 
 somnambulic state, the most unmistakable signs of intoxication. No 
 one guessed the cause, as I seemed perfectly sober ; but, surprised as 
 
 ' Ch. Lafontaine, " Mferaoires d'un Magnetiseur," vol. i., p. g5. Paris, 1866. 
 
 ' I doubt whether ' ' moral state " expresses the meaning of ^tat moral. But let the 
 reader attach the same meaning to "moral" in this phrase that it bears in " moral 
 courage," The word is used as the antonym of "physical." "Moral state" here 
 means the thoughts, sensations, emotions, etc , present in one's mind at a given 
 moment. — Translator. 
 
148 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 I was myself, I explained this wonderful effect of transmission, pro- 
 ducing intoxication in a delicate woman, who was incomparably more 
 sensitive than a man could be to the effects of spirituous liquor." ' 
 
 Here, then, is another case of involuntary transmission, with 
 apparent amplification due to the sensibility of the subject. But it is 
 probable that in these cases psychic contagion played a certain part ; 
 in other words, that the subject thought to herself that she was deal- 
 ■ ing with an intoxicated man, judging by some symptoms more or less 
 faint, and that in a moment of monoideism this idea was realized in 
 herself by ideoplasty. 
 
 " Transmission of sensations (says the same author) extends over 
 the two beings through a general and sympathic harmony. The 
 moral impressions of vexation, anger, joy, will be perceptible to the 
 second party as physical re-action, if they affect the first party. This 
 organism, wholly controlled in body and mind, will note far better than 
 I who am in control, the slightest differences in opinion of the persons 
 around me with regard to myself and my experiments and to mag- 
 netism. Is this so because, receiving one after another all my sensa- 
 tions, she analyzes them better than I could do, in the recollectedness ' 
 which this demi-separation from matter always procures for her ? " 
 
 To say nothing of the "separation from matter," which is only a 
 phrase, we can understand why the subject should perceive relatively 
 better, and that for two reasons : first, because the subject is hyper- 
 cesthesic J and- secondly, because the subject is isolated. The subject 
 is hypercesthesic, that is to say, an excitant insufficient for the mag- 
 netizer may be overpowering to the subject. There is no real ampli- 
 fication in nervous transmission, as there is none in any other sort 
 of transmission ; but sometimes there is apparent .amplification, as 
 for instance in the case last cited of transmitted intoxication. It 
 is as though we were to transfer a burden that we can bear very 
 easily, to the shoulders of another person who is too weak to bear it. 
 The subject is isolated, that is, his mind is not distracted ; he per- 
 ceives better whatever is in rapport with the sphere of his occupa- 
 tion for the moment, and he takes in better than we do the meaning 
 of a tone of voice, of a laugh, of a word that escapes from the lips of 
 one in the company. He need not " analyze " his sensations, it is 
 enough that he is under the action of associations based on unconscious 
 experience. 
 
 ' P. Baragnon, " Etude de Magn^tisme Animal sous le point de vue d'une exacte 
 Pratique," p. 136. Paris, Toulouse, 1855. 
 
 ' Recueillement. Webster gives to the word ' ' recollection " as its fourth meaning^ 
 a sense . very nearly the same as that of ftie French word, but he marks it "rare." 
 The term comes from the theology of the Mystics and of writers on the " spiritual 
 life," and with them means a state of abstraction of the faculties of the soul from all 
 created things and their concentration upon the objects of religious contemplation. — 
 Translator. 
 
THANSMISSION OF EMOTIVE STATES. 149 
 
 Baragnon, I am aware, would object that the subject being isolated 
 cannot hear "strangers."^ But the phenomenon is a complex one. 
 The subject hears only his magnetizer, that is to say, answers the 
 questions of his magnetizer only, and it may be said that he does not 
 really hear, in the proper sense of the word. But it is a mistake to 
 suppose that extrane auditory sensations are totally inactive. They 
 enter the brain, and then results a phenomenon that I may call latent 
 hearing ; impressions entering thus (I do not say perceived) form 
 associations as all other impressions do, combine together, and give 
 resultants that may at a given moment make their appearance amid 
 other and more intense states. 
 
 If lucidity (I do not say clairvoyance, but lucidity as the faculty of 
 reflecting),' the lucidity that belongs to active somnambulism, must 
 be regarded as unconscious because of the total forgetfulness on 
 awaking,' then the latent sensations that are not perceived in som- 
 nambulism, but which enter the brain and there produce an action in 
 all respects resembling the habitual actions, though unaccompanied 
 by reflex acts ; these actions, I say, must be regarded as a second grade 
 of unconsciousness. Below consciousness are even several strata of un- 
 consciousness. 
 
 This is proved by a long series of facts, and I go so far even as to 
 say that hypnotic phenomena in general would be more or less incom- 
 prehensible without this graduation of the intelligence. Let it for 
 the time being suffice that we derive from these reflections a practical 
 lesson, to wit : 
 
 Whoever would experiment to any purpose must always con- 
 sider the endormed subject — even in the state of profound aideia, and 
 despite all ordinary evidences of total deafness or blindness — as though 
 awake. 
 
 And " beware of suggestion ! " This counsel of Mr. Bernheim 
 ought to be writ in big letters on the walls of all hypnotic laborato- 
 ries. Mr. Bernheim, however, does not believe — at least did not yet 
 believe in mental suggestion when he wrote his treatise. Scientific 
 hypnotizers little think that when they experiment on a highly sensi- 
 tive subject they inculcate into him their theories, their knowledge 
 [connaissances), their fears, even their guesses, and that thus they are 
 tricking themselves while they think they are making discoveries. 
 
 ' For the somnambule strangers are all persons with whom be is not " in rapport." 
 In this translation the word extrane will be used to express the French a4jective 
 stranger, as a technical terra in magnetism. — Translator. 
 
 ' Rdfiichir. This ambiguous word seems to be used here in the sense of ' ' giving 
 back " (after the manner of a mirror); not in the sense of " considerihg," "ponder- 
 ing." — Translator. 
 
 ^ We have no other criterion for determining whether a thought or an action was 
 unconscious or not, save the possibility of recollecting a few minutes after. It is vain 
 to look for any other. 
 
t 
 
 150 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Phenomena are summoned as the exorcists of Loudun summoned the 
 devil. So, then, beware also of mental suggestion ! I 
 
 Mr. Baragnon, who was an excellent practitioner and often a very 
 clear-sighted observer, himself points out certain illusions of this 
 kind, and we will quote his remarks presently, when we treat of trans- 
 imission in detail. 
 
 A state very favorable to transmission of feelings and emotions is 
 also easily produced in the hypotaxic phase — that is, in the state 
 'which results from passive concentration of the attention before 
 [hypnosis, properly so-called, makes it appearance. So this, too, is a 
 I state intermediate between sleep and waking. It is often brought 
 I about in persons who, while holding their hands upon a table, wait 
 I patiently for it to begin tipping. Again, people amuse themselves in 
 company by putting to the "spirit" (i. e., to the medium's uncon- 
 scious) questions touching the psychic state of those who are present, 
 and thus are discovered not only the good or bad humor, the fears, the 
 cares, the trustfulness or the incredulity of those who are in the com- 
 pany, but also their inclinations, their sympathies, their antipathies. 
 
 This phenomenon was very common in the possessed and the 
 demoniacs of past times, and of course was then explained by the 
 intervention of the devil. Here afe some instances from the history 
 of the nervous epidemic of the Shakers i^Trembleurs) of the Cevennes 
 — an epidemic that broke out among the Protestant fanatics in that 
 mountain region of France after the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes. 
 
 K- a. " Two boys in ecstasy discerned down to the smallest circum- 
 ! stances what John Cavelier had in his mind. It was just these facts 
 that won him for the revolutionary cause, and, as we know, John 
 i Cavelier became thereafter the principal leader of the Shakers. 
 
 b. " A. crisiac' discovers that a man present in the assembly has 
 , betrayed them for a sum of money. He goes straight to the culprit 
 
 and indicates that he has poison hid in the sleeve of his jacket. All 
 this proved to be true; ' I was there,' adds the person who tells the 
 story, ' and I saw it all.' 
 
 c. " Another crisiac discovers in the midst of a meeting of 400 or 500 
 Protestants, two spies, who confess their crime. His name was Clary, 
 and to prove the truth of what he had said, he offered to go through 
 the ordeal of fire, and in fact did. Thus he gave proof of insensibility 
 after giving proof of hypercesthesia." " 
 
 " As for the Convulsionaries of Saint-Medard (victims of another 
 nervous epidemic appearing about the year 1770, among the Jan- 
 senists, at the grave of Deacon Paris), this is what is said of them by 
 Mr. Poncet, one of the ablest writers on their side (Poncet was so 
 moderate in his assertions that even his opponents said he wrote pro 
 and contra the Convulsionaries) : ' You would have much less difficulty,' 
 
 ' Crisiaqtie (from crisis), one that is in the magnetic or hypnotic crisis, or in som- 
 nambulism, etc. 
 
 ' " Theatre Sacre des Cevennes," pp. 38, 45. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF EMOTIVE STATES. 151 
 
 he says, in replying to the author of ' Nouvelles Observations,' ' had 
 you witnessed the facts ; if being in the company of a Convulsionary, 
 he had told you the most secret thoughts of your heart ; if he had 
 warned you against some serious mis-step and you had taken it ; if he 
 had pointed out to you just the moment for electing the better part,. 
 and you had preferred a less suitable course : if this thing and other 
 things equally well defined in detail, had happened to yourself, you 
 would have been upset and could not have refrained from acknowl- 
 edging that such warning came from God.' The author of ' Lettres d'un 
 Eccl^siastique de Province,' whose work bears the unquestionable 
 stamp of truth, also declares that ' there are innumerable instances of 
 Convulsionaries discovering in fullest detail the secrets of hearts.' In 
 a writing entitled ' Coups d'oeil sur les Convulsionnaires ' (p. 8), we read 
 that in many crisiacs the supernatural and the divine are manifested 
 by indubitable signs ; among these signs is manifestation again and 
 again of the secret conscience. So we find in the heart of Paris, among 
 cultivated theologians, 30 years after the scenes in the C6vennes, the 
 selfsame marvels that had before been attested by uneducated peas- 
 ants ; and these Jansenist theologians assuredly did not seek to liken 
 themselves to persons possessed, or to Protestants, heretics."' , 
 
 In the facts just cited, transmission of thoughts is blended with 
 transmission of feelings ; the latter is by far the more common. 
 
 A case similarly coniplicated was observed by Charpignon. He 
 was attending a married lady and encountered sundry remarkable 
 phenomena : 
 
 " The lady's husbancj, at first unbelieving, took so to heart the 
 extraordinary phenomena he witnessed that he became morose. He 
 now thought only about the great questions of man's destiny, and 
 evidently having a tendency to melancholia, he fell into a state of 
 profound excitation, and even thought of blowing out his brains, the 
 more quickly to attain full knowledge of things. He had sense 
 enough, however, to conceal from his wife and family the thoughts 
 that possessed him ; he evea retired to another apartment. 
 
 " AH this time the thoughts of the somnambule reflected the mental 
 troubles of her husband. Excitation followed depression, and she 
 suddenly exclaimed, ' Yes, if I had a pistol I'd blow my brains out ! ' 
 The husband having entered on hearing the cries of distress, ' Listen, "^ 
 said the somnambule to him ; ' you must live, and you have been 
 cowardly enough to wish to die.' " The author adds the following 
 reflections : " Serious worry or deep grief may have the same dis- 
 astrous results as a disease. The patient feels the sufferings of the 
 magnetizer with all the more pain as he knows not to whom to attribute 
 the frightful overturning that oppresses him."' 
 
 It is to be remarked that in this case it was not the magnetizer, but 
 a third person, that was the cause of the trouble — a third person united 
 
 ' Bertrand, " Du Magnetisme Animal," p. 436. 
 
 ' Le houleversement affreux qui I'opprime. Dr. Ochorowicz gives no foot-note 
 reference to show where the passage is to be found ; and though the whole is en- 
 closed between quotation marks by him, some of the remarks, for instance, " The 
 author adds the following reflections," would seem to be his own — Translator. 
 
152 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 only to the somnambule by the ties of sympathy and of life-associa- 
 tion. On this point Deleuze says : 
 
 " The action of one individual's thought upon another is still an 
 inexplicable phenomenon, but our thoughts are communicated by 
 speech and by gesture — that is, by sound and light. How know we 
 but that the modifications of our soul may be made sensible by other 
 means ? Whence the feeling inherent in human nature, that makes us 
 wish that an absent friend shall think of us ? Magnetism gives to 
 this wish a new motive ; even explains to us how he who is thinking 
 of another and for his good, acts upon him ; and how, rapport once 
 set up, whether by affections and habitudes, or by physical means, there 
 may pxist communication between two beings that are compelled to 
 live apart from each other. And again, must we not seek in a like 
 principle for the origin of the opinion diffused through all peoples, 
 that wishes have an influence on the health, the well-being of those 
 who are the objects of them ; as also for the origin of the opinion so 
 dear to sensitive souls, which leads children to desire and to receive 
 their father's blessing? I do not want to urge these thoughts too far; 
 I hold that though they please the imagination and the heart, and 
 though they account for many of our inclinations, they are not suffi- 
 ciently proven to be proposed to the reason. I will simply remark 
 that philosophy would gain a good deal could we reduce under natu- 
 ral and physical laws, facts that have the appearance of the marvel- 
 ous, and which, nevertheless, are attested by enlightened men. It is 
 not the belief in these facts, but the consequences we draw from 
 them, that are the cause of superstition. Say what you will, you 
 never will persuade those who are convinced of the reality of these 
 phenomena, whether by experience or by trustworthy testimony, that 
 they are dupes of an illusion. Compel them to keep silence for fear 
 of ridicule, and they will be none the less ready to attribute these 
 things to a supernatural cause ; they will then look on the principles 
 of the sciences and on those who measure everything by those princi- 
 ples, as a system and as men who see only the rind of things. Better 
 were it to bring all the wonder phenomena within the physical order, 
 and to distinguish clearly what truth they may contain from what is 
 actually inadmissible."' 
 
 These very just remarks may well give matter for reflection to 
 those who understand one thing only — the inviolability of accepted 
 truths. As for Deleuze's suppositions with regard to popular opin- 
 ions, they are equally just in principle. 
 
 I venture to go further, and to say that the human mind is too little 
 inventive to originate any prejudice " whatever, with no empiric basis. 
 The question simply is, where does the basis end and where is the 
 beginning of the complementary imagination and of the errors that 
 come from our forgetting the origin of.it all ? But as for the practi- 
 cal importance of these real facts, it can by no means satisfy the 
 
 ' Deleuze, " Histoire Critique," etc., vol. ii., p. 327. Paris, 1813. 
 
 * The word is used here in its etymological sense — 31. judgment formed before know- 
 ledge is had. Prixjudicium — forejudgment. Just above I have rendered /?-i^Kf/j, 
 " popular opinions." — Translator. 
 
TEANSMISSION OF EMOTIVE STATES. 153 
 
 aspirations of " sensitive souls." The facts of unconscious commu- 
 nication, whicli may be frequent enough, are quite lost in the torrent 
 of normal impressions and associations ; and the facts of definite, 
 experimental communication are so rare that they cannot have any 
 practical value till we shall discover all the precise conditions of their 
 physiological manifestation. 
 
 But we return to the facts. One must never be troubled about ap- 
 plications when there is question of a new theoretic truth. Let us 
 accumulate facts in order to frame a sound theory ; the application 
 will come of itself. Meanwhile this truth embarrasses us sometimes. 
 
 " It has happened often to me (writes the Count de Maricourt) to 
 be flustered and embarrassed by the clairvoyance of somnambules in 
 perceiving impressions or divining feelings that I should have wished 
 hidden from them." 
 
 I do not question the fact, but the adverb " often " is perhaps too 
 strong in this passage. 
 
 I might quote several facts of the same kind ; but because of 
 their personal and complicated character it were difficult to tell the 
 tale without entering upon many explanatory details that would over- 
 load our study and perhaps add nothing that would be convincing to 
 the unbeliever. 
 
 This sort of facts one must observe for himself and keep for his 
 own instruction. It is not to be supposed that a " clairvoyant " som- 
 nambule is all the time discovering or reproducing your sensations. 
 In the first place, the somnambules that discover them are rare, and 
 they cannot do this thing every day. As with all transmission phe- 
 nomena, there are moments — quarter hours at most — during which 
 transmission takes place. 
 
 This is true particularly of clear, experimental transmissions and of 
 detailed sensations. We are already familiar with some of these facts, as 
 observed in Mrs. M. and Mrs. B. Let us now look at observations 
 made by other experimenters. We begin with some remarks from 
 Baragnon : 
 
 " Before devoting oneself to the study of the moral and mysterious 
 union that is formed by the nerve-fluid between two beings, it is well 
 to apply oneself to the observation of facts which disclose a no less 
 abnormal and miraculous closeness of relation [intimite') between two 
 bodies. 
 
 " Profoundly attached to the physical facts, because I believe it is 
 they that will save magnetism from the destruction that time works, 
 till the minds of men are opened to it [Baragnon_wrote in 1853], I 
 see in the fact of the transmission of sensation a new lever against 
 resistance. 
 
 " What is this intimate communion of two natures so that the slight- 
 est pains, the most diverse physical impressions, being felt by the'one 
 are echoed by the other ... by the other, whose senses are in 
 
154 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 abeyance, whose means of perception are effaced ? [This effacement 
 is only relative.] We cannot explain such facts ; they are found to 
 exist, and that is all. If the magnetizer feels an impression, that 
 instant the somnambule feels a like commotion. If, for instance, 
 you prick the operator's arm so as to cause him pain, the subject will 
 show signs of pain, and will always tell correctly the part that was 
 hurt, whether by burning, or by pricking, or by a blow. 
 
 " If the magnetizer is sufficiently stoical to withstand every painful 
 impression, the subject feels nothing or next to nothing. So, as re- 
 gards smell and taste. If I find the odor of ammonia, ether, or any 
 other smell, the endormed person will name the odor, for he, in fact, 
 will sense it too. Still, this is a fact that must not be confounded with 
 thought-transference." 
 
 That is a just remark. There are subjects that take the sensations 
 of the operator without being influenced by his thoughts, and in- 
 versely ; and with the same subject one of the two phenomena may 
 show itself without the other. Sensations are generally transmitted 
 in a monoideic state, in which imitation of movements exists also, while 
 transmission of thoughts seems to require a monoideism a little more 
 passive and, at the same time, a little more absorbed ; it is, perhaps, 
 a little nearer than the other to polyideism, while the state that favors 
 will-transmission seems more passive still and nigher to aideism. 
 
 The same author makes another just remark with regard to mental 
 influence during experiments in general : 
 
 " Let us say upon this point, that if we are trying tests of insensi- 
 bility upon the magnetized person, and while we are making burns 
 (opdrons brillures), suppose we feel some impression of'what we are 
 doing — a feeling of repugnance and dislike for committing such cruel- 
 ties — the patient, in virtue of the transmission of sensation, will shud- 
 der, too, not from pain, for there is none, but because of the senti- 
 ment of pain in us. From this one can judge whether our advice, so 
 often repeated, to keep calm and cool, is of much importance. The 
 re-action of the magnetizer on the sulsject, in these conditions, is the 
 prime source of the cure, as in the opposite state it is the mainspring 
 of the disturbing principle " (p, 134). 
 
 A very just remark. At the time (1845) a sharp controversy was 
 proceeding in journals devoted to magnetism, upon experiments in 
 iiisensibility, in particular between Mr. Lafontaine, who gave public 
 exhibitions of such experiments, and Mr. Brice de Beauregard, who 
 held them to be infamous, among Other reasons, because of the suffer- 
 ing endured by the somnambules at awaking or afterward. Till 
 lately I have been unable to understand this polemic. I have many 
 a time experimented upon the insensibility of somnambules ; on many 
 persons I have, with their permission, inflicted all manner of seeming 
 tortures— punctures, burning with melted wax, etc. With punctures, 
 even deep punctures, I have never had the least mishap ; in two cases 
 of burning, where a surface of several square centimeters was 
 
TRANSMISSION OF EMOTIVE STATES. ■ 155 
 
 involved, melted wax being used in one, red-hot iron in the other, the 
 process of inflammation took the usual course, but without any suffer- 
 ing at all either during the sleep or after. Hence it was with great 
 astonishment I learned that some magnetizers find their patients suf- 
 fering more or less pain after awaking. Now I know why. After my 
 first experiment, which succeeded perfectly, I felt fully assured that 
 the subject could not suffer at all, and this assurance I suggested 
 effectively to my subjects ; whereas operators who have- begun with 
 a mishap always thereafter have a fear, an emotion, an uneasiness, a 
 needless compassion, which influence their subjects. Nay, more ; the 
 most humane man of all magnetizers, the man morally most suscep- 
 tible, namely, Deleuze, never could produce insensibility j and yet, ac- 
 cording to Esdaile, Baragnon, Lafontaine, Du Potet, and others^ 
 anaesthesia is one of the most constant characters of nervous sleep ! 
 Deleuze, after quoting several cases of insensibility vouched for by 
 physicians, says : 
 
 "My somnambules never presented it ; their sensibility was, on the 
 contrary, more delicate than in the waking state ; the contact of a 
 body not magnetized was disagreeable toi them, and the touch of an 
 extrane person gave them much annoyance. / even know for certain 
 of patients falling into convulsions and awaking because of being touched 
 suddenly by someone not in rapport." ^ 
 
 All this is true, but the opposite side is in the right also. 
 
 One produces insensibility when one is sure that it will be produced. 
 And so with respect to all other phenomena, symptoms, states — ac- 
 count, of course, being made of the subject's hypnotic sensibility. 
 
 " One day," says Perronet, " I fancied that a subject was fatigued 
 and that the attitudes taken by him, counter to the laws of gravity, 
 must exhaust his muscular strength. Straightway, at the very instant 
 of this reflection — an erroneous one, no doubt — I saw his limbs relax 
 and become inert and flabby ; when raised and let go, they fell like 
 lifeless masses, or like the arms and legs of Policinello. . . . After 
 four or five minutes, in a moment of ill humor, I had a strong will to 
 revive in the subject the properties belonging to the cataleptic -state ; 
 and I had the satisfaction of succeeding. From this experience I 
 concluded that in the phenomena of catalepsy all depends on volitive 
 or intuitive direction on the part of the operator, regard, however, 
 being had to the subjective predisposition of the catalepsied subject." ' 
 
 It may be remarked that Mesmer, a man of nervous, irascible tem- 
 perament, and 'who despised somnambulism, seldom produced it, while 
 he nearly always produced the convulsive crises, which he regarded as 
 necessary ; that Puysegur, calm and of a kindly disposition, rarely 
 produced spasms, and nearly always somnambulism ; that the force- 
 ful Lafontaine produced profound and lasting states ; that if the 
 
 ' Deleuze, "Instr. Pratique," p. 139. 
 
 * Perronet, "Du Magn^tisme Animal," p. 15. Paris, 1884. 
 
iS6 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 credulous Billot did but obey the spontaneous divagations of his som- 
 nambules, Donato, full of self-confidence, controls them like trained 
 animals ; that if many magnetizers recommend the deepest stillness, 
 so as not to delay the coming on of the sleep, the priest Faria and 
 General Noizet brought it on by shouting " Sleep ! " ; that if. some 
 magnetizers fail to produce suggestions, the Nancy school acts solely 
 by suggestion ; that if the regulation three states' exhibit themselves 
 daily at the Salpetrifere, that happens rarely elsewhere ; that " the- 
 cause that makes, unmakes," rarely, however, anywhere save at the 
 Pitie. 
 
 It is as with new remedies, which act efficaciously only while they 
 are the fashion — " Hurry up, for it is curing folks now ! " 
 
 But, then, is it all illusion, and does it all depend on the sensations, 
 feelings, beliefs of the operators? 
 
 No ; there is truth in all these conflicting observations ; only one 
 must not generalize too much ; we must ^ot give way to a first im- 
 pression, or work ourselves into an enthusiasm for an impossible idea, 
 for an observation that perhaps has no better foundation than chance 
 or peculiar circumstances. 
 
 One needs to preserve in the current of research neutrality of feeling, 
 for all your rather bold guesses have an echo in the highly sensitive 
 subject, and they lead you astray. Do not forget that you are not 
 dealing with a comet, which does not trouble itself about your tele- 
 scope, nor with a chemic combination, which, while undergoing the 
 action of your reagents, is concerned no further with them. 
 
 What would be thought of a physicist who, wishing to make a nice 
 galvanometric test, should load his pockets with chunks of iron or 
 with magnets ? 
 
 Let us go back now to our sheep. Here is an observation of 
 Mr. Peter Janet : 
 
 " Mrs. B. seems to feel most of the sensations felt by the person 
 that has endormed her. She believed she herself was drinking when 
 that person drank. She always knew exactly the substance I put in 
 my mouth, and distinguished perfectly whether I was tasting of salt, 
 or pepper, or sugar.'" 
 
 And in his last note' he adds the following : 
 
 " We have noticed that the phenomenon keeps on, even though I 
 be in another room. ... If, even in another chamber, I pinch 
 myself strongly on the arm or the leg, she cries out and is angry be- 
 cause she, too, is pinched on the arm or on the calf. Finally, my 
 brother, who was present at the experiments, and who had a peculiar 
 influence over her, for she confounded him with me, tried a curious 
 ■experiment. Going into another room, he made a severe burn on his 
 
 ' Catalepsy, somnambulism, lethargy. — Translator, 
 
 ' P. Janet, " Note sur quelques Faits de Somnambulisme '' {Bu//. de la Soc. de 
 Fsych. Physiol. . 1885, i fasc). ^ Reviie Philosophique, No. 8, Aug., 1886. 
 
■ TJiANSMISSIOJV OF EMOTIVE STATES. 157 
 
 arm, Mrs. B. being at the time in that state of lethargic somnambulism ' 
 in which she takes mental suggestions. Mrs. B. was crying out wildly, 
 and I had difficulty in restraining her. She had hold of her right 
 arm above the wrist, and complained of suffering greatly there. Now, 
 I did not myself know exactly the spot at which my brother had in- 
 tended to make the burn. It was at that part. When Mrs. B. was 
 awakened, I noticed with astonishment that she still held her right 
 wrist and complained of suffering greatly therein, though she knew 
 not why. The next day she was still treating her arm with cold-water 
 compresses, and in the evening I found a swelling and a redness, both 
 very apparent, at the^ exact place on which my brother had made the 
 burn on his arm ; but it must be remarked that during the day she 
 had touched and rubbed the arm. . . . This phenomenon of com- 
 munication of sensations appeared only after a long series of seances 
 and at the end of one that lasted several hours ; therefore I have never 
 seen it again presented with the same definiteness." 
 
 1 was not present at this experiment, but I saw the burn on Mr. J. 
 Janet's arm — a large burn and one that must have been very painful. 
 Similar facts have long been observed by magnetizers, for example : 
 
 " The phenoqietion of transmission of sensations from the magnet- 
 izer to the magnetized (Says Lafontaine) was one day manifested at 
 Clarisse's. I then weht down to the floor below with two persons, 
 who inflicted a thousand little tortures on me — pulling my hair, tick- 
 ling, pricking, and so-forth. When we went upstairs again, we were 
 told that the somnambule had indicated all these sufferings in the 
 order in which they had been inflicted on me. This is one of the phe- 
 nomena I have seldomest come across." ' 
 
 Among recent experiments are to be mentioned those made by the 
 London Society for Psychical Research, which has done so much to 
 advance the study of these delicate questions of psychology, hitherto 
 entirely neglected : 
 
 " Community of Sensations. — We come now to a question much de- 
 bated and very open to discussion. We hold — and here we have the 
 support of the previous experimenters — that we have often observed 
 a truly remarkable co?nmunity of sensations between the operator and 
 his subject — a phenomenon that perhaps might more correctly be 
 called transmission of sensations. This phenomenon is nearly allied 
 to those with which the committee on thought-transference is con- 
 cerned. But our experiments differ from those made by the latter 
 committee in this, that the subject is not in his normal state, 
 but is in the 'mesmeric sleep.' The experiments were conducted 
 as fpUows : /Frederic Wells (the somnambule, a young man of 
 twenty years)^t in a chair with his eyes bandaged, and Mr. Smith 
 stood behind him. The subject was put to sleep by Mr. Smith by the 
 use of passes. Mr. Smith was then pricked or pinched pretty hard 
 on different parts of the body, this operation lasting generally a 
 
 • " Lethargic somnambulism " is a c6ntradiction. The state in question was one 
 intermediate between aideia (lethargy) and polyideia (somnambulism) , in other words a 
 monoideic state. — Note by Dr. Ochorowicz. 
 
 'Lafontaine, " Memoires," vol. i., p. 157. 
 
158 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 minute or two. Absolute silence was observed, barring the necessary 
 question, ' Do you feel anything?' This question was pronounced 
 by Mr. Smith, for the subject seemed not to hear the other persons. 
 In the first set of experiments Mr. Smith held one of the subject's 
 hands, but that precaution having afterward been found useless, all 
 contact between operator and subject was broken off in the subse- 
 quent experiments." 
 
 First series, January 4, 1883 : 
 
 1. The upper part of Mr. Smith's right arm was pinched several 
 times. About two minutes after, Mr. Wells began to rub the corres- 
 ponding part of his body. 
 
 2. Back of neck pinched. Same result. 
 
 3. A blow on the calf of left leg. Same result. 
 
 4. Lobe of left ear pinched. Same result. 
 
 5. Back of left hand pinched. Same result. 
 
 6. A blow on the upper part of the back. Same result. 
 
 7. Hair pulled. Wells locates the pain in his left arm. 
 
 8. A blow on the right shoulder. The corresponding part indicated 
 exactly. 
 
 9. Back of left hand pricked. Same result. 
 
 10. Back of neck pricked. Same result. 
 
 11. Left great toe squeezed. No action. 
 
 12. Left ear pricked. Corresponding part indicated exactly. 
 
 13. Back of left shoulder struck. Same result. ' 
 
 14. Calf of right leg pinched. Wells touches his arm. 
 
 15. Palm of left hand pricked. Corresponding part indicated ex- 
 actly. 
 
 16. Neck below right ear pricked. Same result. 
 
 Thus we find in 16 experiments 13 successes and 3 failures. 
 
 In the second series of experiments, Wells's eyes were bandaged as 
 before ; but, furthermore, there was a screen between him and Mr. 
 Smith. For a while during the experiments Mr. Smith was in a 
 neighboring room, separated from his subject by a thick curtain. 
 
 Second series, April 10, 1883 : 
 
 17. Upper portion of Mr. Smith's left ear pinched. After about 
 two minutes Wells exclaimed: "Who is pinching me?" and began to 
 rub the corresponding part. 
 
 18. Upper portion of left arm pinched. Wells indicates the spot 
 almost immediately. 
 
 19. Right ear pmched. After about one minute Wells struck his 
 own right ear, as though brushing away a fly, exclaiming, " Won't you 
 leave me alone ? " 
 
 20. Chin pinched. Wells indicated the place almost immediately. 
 
 21. Hair pulled. No action. 
 
 22. Back of neck pinched. Wells pinched the corresponding part 
 soon after. 
 
 23. Left ear pinched. Same result. 
 
 24. Salt put in Mr. Smith's mouth. Wells exclaimed : " I don't 
 like to eat wax candles" — an idea no doubt suggested to him by 
 the words "wax candles" uttered in his hearing a few minutes pre- 
 viously. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF EMOTIVE STATES. 159 
 
 25. Some ground ginger given Mr. Smith. "I don't like things 
 that burn. Why do you give me pepper that way ? " 
 
 26. Some salt. "What disgusting stuff is this?" 
 
 27. Some wormwood. " You hurt my eyes ; I do not like mus- 
 tard." 
 
 (It is to be remarked that in the last two experiments the taste of 
 the ginger continues, and is confounded with the new sensations.) 
 
 28. The calf of the right leg pinched. Wells becomes angry and 
 ■refuses to speak. At last he stretches forth the right leg violently 
 and rubs the calf. 
 
 After this experiment Wells becomes quite angry and will no longer 
 answer any questions, saying that were he to answer people would 
 keep on pinching him. (During this time the calf of Mr. Smith's left 
 leg was continually pinched.) 
 
 Thus in twenty-four experiments on touch there were twenty suc- 
 cesses. Of the four checks two might have been foreseen, for trans- 
 ference is seldom produced by pulling the hair. Once the response 
 ■was not given, and once only was it false. 
 
 The report is signed by Messrs. W. F. Barrett, Edmond Gurney, 
 Frederic W. H. Myers, Henry N. Ridley, W. H. Stone, George Wyld 
 and Frank Podmore.' 
 
 To this report it might be objected that for a good deal of the 
 time the co-operation of the hearing of the subject was not excluded. 
 But that objection cannot weaken the general impression made by 
 the experiment ; that is fairly conclusive. Besides, other series of 
 •experiments were made for three years, and always gave similar 
 results. ■• 
 
 But how is it possible for the pain of the operator not only to be 
 felt by the subject, but even to be localized so exactly ? However 
 ■extraordinary this may seem, it is not, I believe, unintelligible. 
 
 If, in order that the transference may take place at all, there must 
 be a sort of regulating; if the tonic movement of the subject's organism 
 has to be brought into accord with the tonic movement proper to the 
 organism of the operator — this by means of repeated touching, passes, 
 etc. — the special regulating of the corresponding nerves is given in 
 advance. We may suppose that there are differences among the 
 several parts of the organ of touch, and that one part, a, accords 
 better with a corresponding part, a' , of another organism than with 
 the parts b\ c', etc. We do not know wherein this difference consists — 
 it may be very complex — but suppose there exists in the analogous 
 part only one analogous character : that of a determinate resistance 
 for certain currents. Now, there are found among physical phenomena 
 dependences of this kind. 
 
 Remember, first, that, as here in physiological sympathism, so in 
 physical sympathism, direct contact is not necessary. A magnet will 
 magnetize from a distance a piece of steel, without producing any 
 ' " Proceedings of the Soc. for Psych. Res.,'' vol. i., part 3., July, 1883. 
 
i6o MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 perceptible action on other metals. Soft iron, too, is magnetized, but 
 only for the moment. We might say that if we liken the magnetizer 
 to a magnet, somnambules that feel his action slightly are comparable 
 to iron, while those that are affected by it for a certain time may be 
 compared to steel. We know that if a magnet undergoes a change 
 in its molecular energy, its armature, at a greater or less distance, 
 feels the change in the same degree. 
 
 Then, it is known that as there are electrostatic machines that pro- 
 duce electricity by direct friction, so there are others that charge 
 themselves and produce electricity " by influence " — i. e., without 
 contact. The comparison is not entirely exact. But substitute gal- 
 vanism in place of electricity. In galvanism not only is contact not 
 necessary, but no poor conductor can prevent the phenomena of in- 
 duction — that is, oi physical sympathism. A wire insulated as thoroughly 
 as possible, and even at some distance from another wire, will produce 
 in the latter a corresponding current so soon as it is itself traversed 
 by a current. So inevitable is this phenomenon that it forms the 
 principal obstacle to telephonic communication. If upon the same 
 poles are suspended telegraph wires, though a meter or more distant, 
 there will be heard strokes (coups) in the telephone at each interrup- 
 tion of the telegraphic current ; and even telephonic currents them- 
 selves alone, when brought together on many wires in a central 
 station, get mixed by induction. 
 
 Suppose, now, that the wires, instead of being stretched in a right 
 line, are coiled as though wound on a bobbin. A bobbin having a 
 certain number of coils presents greater or less resistance. 
 
 The bobbin constitutes the essential part of a telephone. Take a 
 telephone circuit, longer or shorter, uniting two stations. At each 
 station are two telephones interposed in the circuit, but while the 
 bobbin of telephone a has a resistance of 300 ohms, that of telephone 
 b has only 3 ; so, too, telephone a' has high resistance, and telephone 
 b' very low resistance. You employ as transmitter telephone a, into 
 which you speak ; your words will be transmitted, and you will be 
 heard distinctly at the other station, but only through receiver a' — 
 receiver b' will be mute or nearly so, according to the degree of differ- 
 ence in quality of the wire, the number of coils, etc. So, too, if the 
 answer is given through a' you will hear only through a. 
 
 And yet all four telephones are on the line. 
 
 They may also not be in contact ; the bobbins may be simply 
 placed side by side, and you will obtain by induction the same result. 
 
 I do not mean to force the analogy, which is but partial. 
 
 The phenomenon is always comparatively much more simple in a 
 complex of bobbins than in an aggregation of cells. 
 
 The currents in the organism may not be all alike. They may even 
 present a great number of differences as regards their nature, velocity, 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. i6i 
 
 amplitude, intermittence, etc. But it is none the less comprehensible 
 that the excitation of a certain determinate modus will be more easily 
 echoed, and chiefly by an organ susceptible of like vibrations. 
 
 Not to enter into details concerning these nerve-vibrations, of which 
 we are ignorant, we may state the question thus : 
 
 Are there electric currents in the nerves ? Yes ! Have the electric 
 currents the property of self-induction at a distance despite all sorts 
 of obstacles? Yes! Is this induction always palpable? No! For 
 that purpose we require instruments of extreme sensibility : to wit, 
 good subjects. Is there a constant relation between excitations of 
 nerves and the electric currents of those nerves ? Yes ! 
 
 Well, it is enough that a given excitation of nerve A, accompanied 
 by electric change a, produce by induction a like change a! in a dis- 
 tant nerve A', to make that nerve reproduce the given excitation, in 
 virtue of the principle of inter-organic associations mentioned above. 
 
 Nor is it contrary to reason to hold that this transmission, or this 
 induction, may also be direct, that is, even without the intervention 
 of electric currents ; the nerve-currents may equally induce them- 
 selves. 
 
 Hence, there is no need of supposing a new force to make these 
 phenomena comprehensible ; we have only to broaden and to subtilize 
 a little the properties of known forces and the laws of re-action, which 
 are probably inherent in all natural motions. 
 
 Finally, we must not forget that precise localization is very rare. 
 There are subjects that distinctly feel the pain in a corresponding 
 organ, but not on the same side. It seems that in that case induction 
 acts on the more sensitive side, or on the nodi minoris resistentia. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 
 
 WITH the transference of sensations we quit the region of sym- 
 pathic localization. Ideas are not localized. 
 
 Here, of course, as everywhere, there are degrees. 
 
 Sensations of sight and hearing have less local relation with their 
 organs than have sensations of touch, but they are so akin to ideas 
 properly so-called that there is no use in treating them separately. If 
 I transmit the sense-image of the king of diamonds while gazing at 
 it or simply imagining it, thisre will be only a difference in the degree 
 of clearness of the representation, whereas in tactile sensations, 
 which we have been considering, the emotional element made a marked 
 difference. 
 
l62 
 
 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 In the sphere of ideas, therefore, we shall look for a more subtile 
 action, and we may expect that direct, clear transmission will be still 
 rarer there. 
 
 The- reader will recall the experiments made with Mrs. D. (p. St, seq., 
 supra), but it is to the English Society 'for Psychical Research in par- 
 ticular that the honor belongs of having conducted a great number 
 of studies of this kind, made with remarkable precision and perse- 
 verance. These must be regarded not only as the starting-point in 
 the study of mental suggestion, but in general as a new impulsion 
 given to psychological science as a whole. There is no doubt that 
 they mark a new era in modern psychology. 
 
 In sundry of my works in the Polish language, and particularly in 
 a study upon the actual state of psychology, published in 1881 in 
 Mr. Ribot's Revue Philosophique^ I showed the absolute necessity of 
 collective work in psychology. The English Society was the first to 
 undertake it, and we see what enormous strides we have made in these 
 last years ! • * 
 
 The results of the English Psychical Research Society upon mental 
 suggestion are contained in four reports of a special committee, on 
 which were Messrs. Edmond Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, F. Podmore, 
 and W. F. Barrett, Professor of Physics in the Royal College of Science 
 for Ireland. Experiments have also been made by Mr. Henry Sidg- 
 wick and Professor Balfour Stewart. They were carried on at Buxton, 
 Cambridge, Dublin, Liverpool, etc. Everywhere the result was the 
 same : verification of the existence of the phenomenon. The follow- 
 ing table shows the ratio of successes in the early series : 
 
 WITH MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 I success in i ^ exp. 
 
 13 ' 
 12K ■ 
 10 
 
 2 ' 
 
 Mean i in 6)4 
 
 WITHOUT MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 success in 52 exp. 
 
 " 90 " 
 
 52 
 90 
 52 
 12 
 4 
 
 Mean i in 46 
 
 The experiments were made with playing-cards, objects of different 
 kinds, names, and numbers. But the most interesting results were 
 obtained with drawings. In volume i., part 3, is given a series of 
 demonstrative tables. 
 
 My experiments with drawings have been much less striking, and I 
 believe that in this and in other respects there are great individual 
 differences, particularly between subjects, but also between operators. 
 
 ' " Projet d"un Congr^s International de Psychologie." (J?ev. Phil., vol. xii., 
 pp. 1-17, 1881.) 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 163 
 
 For example, I have observed, I think, that an almost hallucinational 
 image is transmitted better than an image really seen, despite the 
 greater apparent distinctness in the latter case. But it is certain that 
 an hallucinational mental image is more mofwideic than an image 
 merely seen. There are also differences with regard to the subject ; 
 some subjects are influenced most by visual images, others by mental 
 sounds, others by motor images.' Transmission would seem to be 
 appreciably helped when two persons that are able strongly to con- 
 centrate their thoughts act together, and when one thinks with 
 the aid of visual images and the other with the aid of the sounds of 
 the same images mentally produced. ' 
 
 But one fact specially worthy of attention, and one positive result 
 of my experiments, is, that successes come by series — that is to say, 
 there are fluctuations in the state of the subject which either help or 
 hinder transmission. These series are perhaps more constant in som- 
 nambulism than in the waking state, but the principle of sympathic 
 impressibility is ever the same. If there is to be transmission the 
 brain ought not to be too torpid (aideia), nor too distracted (polyi- 
 deia), nor too absorbed in its own thoughts (active monoideia) ; it 
 ought, on the contrary, to be passive, but capable of functioning with 
 absorption (passive nasce"nt monoideia). The nearer the momentary 
 state comes to this limit the better is the chance of successful trans- 
 mission 
 
 But besides immediate transmission there is latent transmission, and 
 retarded transmission. The subject's state may not permit direct com- 
 munication (on account of the pressure of the thoughts that occupy 
 him, or because of the torpor of the brain), but communication is 
 effected all the sarne insensibly, and the idea taken in unawares 
 makes its appearance unexpectedly in a subsequent experiment, or 
 apart from experiments. Mr. Richet makes the highly important ob- 
 servation, that transmission is made more easily from the conscious to 
 the unconscious than between two conscious states. Is it easier still 
 between two unconscious states ? We are unable at the moment to 
 decide the question. It may be that the transmissor state must be 
 the stronger, and usually (not always) the conscious states are the 
 stronger ; but perhaps also between two unconscious states, despite 
 their habitual weakness, mutual sympathic adjustment is easier. 
 
 ' Perhaps the reader will have some difficulty in understanding the terms, visual 
 images, mental sounds, and motor images. Their meanings can be readily seen from 
 an illustration : A sees a piece of piano music, knowing nothing at all about musical 
 notation. The impression on his sensorium or brain is a purely visual image. B sees 
 the same piece, but he can "read " music, and can imagine how it sounds when played 
 on the piano ; that imagination is mental sound. C also reads music, and in particu- 
 lar is a performer on the piano : as he reads he imagines himself playing the piece — 
 i. c, putting in action the muscles concerned in performing on the piano. The piece 
 of music impresses motor images on C's sensorium. — Translator. 
 
t64 mental suggestion. 
 
 However that may be, the best conditions for such transmissions as 
 we know of are these : 
 
 On the part of the operator, the state of definite (dMar^) active 
 monoideism ; 
 
 On the part of the subject, the state of passive nascent monoideism. 
 
 The first is akin to polyideism, the second to aideia. 
 
 Consequently, the receiver-subject is not to reflect nor to divine, 
 but to undergo, the action of the thought transmitted. It may be said 
 almost without hesitation that this transmission — even when it takes 
 place in a conscious state — is always effected by the unconscious 
 strata of the mind as an intermediary. Hence it is that the subject 
 can but seldom tell whence the transmitted thought comes to him, 
 and he inclines to consider it as a spontaneous act of his own mind 
 rather than as a suggestion from others. Two or even many thoughts 
 may be transmitted simultaneously by two or more transmitters, but 
 then they are still more subject to the influence of the individual 
 medium' that receives them, and generally combine to produce a 
 resultant, a complexus modified and accommodated to the associations 
 personal to the subject. 
 
 It is probable that most of the transmissions that take place in 
 ordinary life are always unconscious, though made manifest in their 
 effects. Thsj partly account for the undoubted phenomenon of the 
 history of civilization, that certain ideas, certain tendencies and aspi- 
 rations become dominant in certain epoohs, and that reforms and rev- 
 olutions often come to the front simultaneously in countries widely 
 separated from one another, and between which there are hardly any 
 mutual relations. 
 
 The first ages of Christianity, the period of the Crusades, that of 
 the Renaissance, of the French Revolution, present striking examples 
 in illustration of this remark. It is also worthy of note that the 
 literary movement known as Romanticism had its evolution almost 
 simultaneously everywhere — even Japan shared Jn it ; that the years 
 1830-31 and 1846-48 were much alike in different countries, and so- 
 forth. 
 
 There are, beyond a doubt, epidemics of ideas. But with these, as 
 with the foregoing classes of transmissions, itnitation has much more 
 to do than direct communication, and we must not let ourselves be car- 
 ried away by fanciful conjectures. Suffice it to note one element more 
 to be employed for the positive explication of a certain community of 
 minds — an element, by the way, hardly noticeable in the general 
 mechanism of history. 
 
 ' Milieti. This word can generally be translated "atmosphere;'' it never means 
 " medium " in the spiritist sense.- In the present instance "individual medium" 
 means the totality of psychic states, hUoAs, psychorganic associations, etc., peculiar to 
 tlie recipient subject. — Translator. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 165 
 
 When one comes to recognize the possibility of thought-transfer- 
 ence, one naturally seeks traces of it even in antiquity. Rare it may 
 be, yet that phenomenon cannot have escaped the attention of authors 
 who have scrupulously noted extraordinary manifestations of human 
 faculty. I shall be content with a few examples only, seeing the 
 slight scientific value of these observations of the remote past. 
 
 St. Augustin relates that while he was a Manicheean he consulted 
 soothsayers. Licentius, whom he introduces in his books against 
 the Academicians, reminds him of the lucidity of a certain sooth- 
 sayer named Albicerius. One Flaccianus went in search of Albicerius, 
 after having planned to win an inheritance, and entertained the sooth- 
 sayer with the intent to make him reveal this secret design, that so he 
 might judge of the man's skill. The soothsayer straightway told 
 him the nature of the business in question; nay, more — and this 
 heightened the wonderment of Flaccianus — specified to him, without 
 any hesitation, the name of the inheritance — a name so barbarous and 
 so difficult that Flaccit .lus himself could hardly remember it. Fur- 
 thermore, Albicerius divined the thoughts of those who asked him 
 questions.' 
 
 "The remarkable thing in this narrative," says Morin, "is that the 
 lucidity of the soothsayer is not at all attributed to a revelation from 
 God or his auxiliaries, for St. Augustin, become a Christian, is re- 
 counting the doings of a Manichsean." 
 
 Similar facts are found in the lives of saints and among ecstatici of 
 all religions. 
 
 "Thus, the parish priest of Ars, who died quite recently (1876), and 
 whom they already talk of canonizing, read (so they say) the 
 thoughts of those who came to consult him, and by the infallible 
 accuracy of his vision disconcerted the skeptics that approached him 
 to test and baffle him. Joseph de Cupertius, canonized under the 
 name of Saint Cupertinus," famous for his many ascensions, had the 
 gift of reading the thoughts of penitents who did not dare to confess to hi>n 
 certain big sins." 
 
 " Of course," continues Morin, " we cannot accept, without verifica- 
 tion, all these wonderful tales. It is a pity they were not subjected 
 to strict and judicious critical tests. But in examining facts like 
 these we may draw comparisons that will throw some light on a 
 subject of much difficulty." 
 
 Thanks to one of those vulgar errors imposed upon mankind by 
 
 ' Augustin! "Contra Academicos," lib. i., cap. 6, Nos. 17,18; Abbe Flottes, 
 "Etudes sur Saint Augustin," p. ig et seq. ; A. S. Morin, "Les Lucides d'autre- 
 fois" {Union Magnet., p. 640, 1867). 
 
 "^ The name Joseph de Cupertius has a suspicious look ; and of a certainty no 
 ■worthy was ever canonized " under the name of Saint Cupertinus." In the original 
 the whole paragraph is printed in small type and stands between quotation marks 
 but no author is named. — Translator. 
 
i66 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 fate,' some almost certain proofs of thought-transference were col- 
 lected in the seventeenth century. I speak of the belief in the exist- 
 ence of demons and their incarnation in the bodies of certain un- 
 fortunates. This forejudgment, like all others, is not altogether 
 groundless ; the facts upon which it originally stood were real facts. 
 It was the interpretation of them alone that was erroneous, and that 
 showed a deplorable ignorance. The eccentricity of a terrible dis- 
 ease, which to-day no longer frightens us, thanks particularly to the 
 celebrated researches of Mr. Charcot, and which often makes its 
 appearance amid the favoring conditions of great hypnotic sensibility^ 
 led observers in the past to believe that a force outside of man, a 
 demonic power, was required to explain these manifestations. And 
 since the devil cannot take possession of a baptized body save by 
 consent of its soul, these wretches were burnt to make easier for them 
 the expiation of their offense. 
 
 In this way our neuropathic heritage has been diminished, but at the 
 same time we have lost a great number of excellent hypnotic subjects. 
 
 But we must not suppose that our forefathers would proceed heed- 
 lessly to condemn man or woman charged with demonolatry. On the 
 contrary, one was declared to he. possessed only after a strict examina- 
 tion. 
 
 A regular code fixed the conditions of the inquiry. According to 
 the Ritual, the priest that was called on to exorcize was required, 
 after having prepared himself by fasting, prayer and other good 
 works, on leaving the altar after the mass, to take his seat, and with 
 covered head inwardly to command the demon to give him a sign, and 
 the demon, constrained to obey, had to reveal his name. Thus, 
 according to the Ritual, the priest had to exorcise only patients that 
 possessed the marvelous faculty of reading unspoken thoughts. 
 
 ^ Un prejug^ fatal de VhumaniU. 
 
 "^ " It is rational to suppose," says Mr. Paul Richer, " that the phenomena of hyp- 
 notism which always depend on a disturbance of the regular functionment of the 
 organism, require for their development a special predisposition which, ivith one 
 accord, authors place in the hysteric diathesis" ("Etudes Cliniques sur I'Hystero- 
 Epilepsie," p. 361. Paris, 1881). True, there is almost unanimous agreement on 
 this point, but the authors are mistaken, I believe. It is not hysteria that constitutes 
 a favorable ground for hypnotism, but it is hypnotic sensibility that affords a favor- 
 able ground for hysteria. Maximum hypnotic sensibility may exist without hysteria. 
 Hysteria is a malady that develops at a certain age, and that may either disappear or 
 become much modified, while hypnotic sensibility is an innate property that is nearly 
 constant and as a rule persists through life. It is a question of temperament, of physi- 
 ological constitution. If hysterepilepsy appears in this favorable soil — favorable not 
 only to it, but also to many another disease, cholera, for example — the hysterepilepsy 
 is easily curable by " hypnotism." I cannot give here the proofs of what I assert, 
 and the assertion may seem strange and rash. It is based on long experience, and 
 one will perhaps not take the trouble to verify it. Meanwhile, the reader may regard 
 these few lines as a simple note not related to the matter in hand. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 167 
 
 Of course, that was not the interpretation the exorcists gave of the 
 ■words of the Ritual. On the contrary, they believed transmission of 
 thought to be impossible ; and if nevertheless the patient answered 
 the mental questions, being in an hysterepileptic paroxysm, or in the 
 state of spontaneous somnambulism, that was proof that his case was 
 one not of disease, but of possession. It was believed that the devil, 
 who is a spirit and an evil spirit, could discern thoughts, but that a 
 person that was merely ill could not. 
 
 Father Sarin,' in recapitulating the proofs of possession in the case 
 of the Ursuline Nuns of Loudun, presents as one of the most indis- 
 putable the fact that they told the most secret thoughts. Of the many 
 examples he gives of this faculty, I will quote only these two : 
 
 " The day after py arrival (he says), there was present at the 
 exorcism a man who expressed to me a desire to see whether the 
 ■demon knows our thoughts. I bade him make an order in his heart ; 
 and after he had done so, I constrained the demon to do what the 
 man had ordered him. After giving me a few refusals he went to 
 take from the altar the card on which is the gospel of St. John, and 
 this man declared that he had in his heart ordered the demon to show 
 the last gospel that had been read at the mass. 
 
 " One of our Fathers wishing to find if it were true that the demons 
 know our thoughts, gave an inward order to the demon on duty (en 
 faction), and then gave another ; in short, in the space of an instant 
 he gave five or six orders, and recalling them one after another, tor- 
 mented the demon, saying, ' obediat ad nientem.' The demon repeated 
 aloud all the orders the Father had given him. He began with the 
 first, then he said: 'But Monsieur does not wish.' Being at the 
 seventh, he said: 'We shall see whether we shall do this, on which 
 he has at last settled.' " 
 
 Among the other witnesses that affirmed the existence of thought- 
 communication on the part of the Nuns of Loudun, we must quote 
 the King's brother, who signed a certificate in which he declares that 
 for several reasons he dare not doubt the possession. Among his 
 reasons was the fact that a nun obeyed an order given by him 
 mentally, without uttering a word or making any sign. Here is the 
 passage in question : 
 
 " We, Gaston, son of France, Duke of Orleans, certify 
 
 And having wished once more to have a perfect sign of the possession 
 of these women," we concerted in secret and in a low voice with 
 Father Tranquille, Capuchin, to order the demon Sabulon, who then 
 possessed the said Sister Claire, to go and kiss the right hand of Father 
 Flysh, his exorcist ; the said demon obeyed strictly according to our 
 desire, the which made us believe for certain that what the religious 
 men laboring in the exorcisms of the said women had said to us of 
 their possession is true, there being no appearance that such move- 
 ments and knowledge of things secret could be attributed to human 
 
 ' Bertrand, " Du Magn^tisme," p. 321. Paris, 1826. 
 ' Filks — unmarried women of any age, — Translator. 
 
1 68 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 power. Whereof wishing to render testimony to the public, we have 
 granted this present attestation, which we have signed with our own 
 name, and had countersigned by the Secretary of our Commands, 
 House and Finances of France tliis nth May, 1635. 
 
 {Signed) Gaston." ' 
 
 Prince Gaston, then, has this title to our gratitude — his only one, 
 doubtless — that he made one of the first experiments in mental sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 The Jesuit Surin made a good many more. He was able to declare, 
 upon his conscience, that possession was a fact, and to swear before 
 God and the Church that "more than two hundred times" demons had 
 discovered to him " very secret things, hidden in his thoughts or 
 about his person." 
 
 This revelation it was that decided the conviction of those hapless 
 nuns, when proofs were no longer to be had, the devils refusing to do 
 miracles. 
 
 Evidently the phenomenon of transmission was not manifested at 
 all times, and it took a good deal of assiduous work on the part of 
 Father Surin to obtain so imposing a lot of proofs. The exorcist — read 
 magnetizer — thus acquired a personal influence over these subjects, an 
 influence that prevented that of other persons from being exercised. 
 The ecstaticas sometimes divined thoughts, but Father Surin must 
 know beforehand what the thoughts were ; else the thing did not 
 work. 
 
 The Duke and Duchess de la Tremouille wished to repeat the 
 experiment of the Duke of Orleans, only they took care not to com- 
 municate in advance to the exorcist the thought they wished to have 
 divined. Three long hours they waited, but the demon did not divine 
 anything. The same experiment was tried by two counselors of the 
 parliament : the demon could not succeed in discovering their thought. 
 To account for this, a pact of silence was alleged, shutting the demon's 
 mouth." 
 
 But in addition to these set experiments, there was a number of 
 others that succeeded. The exorcists, who had got into their heads a 
 whole hierarchy of demons, and who had adopted a preconceived 
 theory, accusing the handsome priest. Urban Grandier (who was loved 
 platonically by the nuns and most of his female parishioners), of hav- 
 ing given up to the devil his own soul, and those of the sisters, iiivol- 
 untarily communicated their a priori notions to the ecstaticas, who did all 
 they could to confirm them. The following interrogatory may serve 
 as an example of this kind of suggestion : 
 
 " Hardly had Jane de Belciel noticed the magistrates when she 
 
 ' " Relation de ce qui s'est pass6 aux Exorcismes de Loudun," etc. See L. Figuier, 
 " Hist, du Merveilleux," vol. i.. No. 205. Paris, 1873. 
 'Figuier, op. cit., i. , 218. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 169 
 
 fell into violent convulsions. She acted .in the most extravagant 
 fashion, writhing on her bed, gesticulating, uttering plaintive cries. A 
 Carmelite stood at the right of the possessed : Mignon (the Canon), 
 who was on the left, began his exorcisms. Here is his first dialogue 
 with the demon" (that is to say, with the patient's Unconscious) : 
 
 " ' Propter quam causam ingressus es in corpus hujus virginis ? ' 
 (Wherefore did you enter the body of this virgin ?) 
 
 " ' Causa animositatis,' answered Jane de Belciel, still a victim of 
 the convulsions. (Out of animosity.) 
 
 " ' Per quod pactum ? ' (By what means ?) 
 
 " ' Per flores.' (By flowers.) 
 
 " ' Quales ? ' (What flowers ?) 
 
 "'Posas.' (Roses.) 
 
 " ' Qm's inisifi ' (Who sent them ?) 
 
 " ' Urbanus: (Urban.) 
 
 " 'Die cognomen.' (Tell his surname.) 
 
 " ' Grandier.' 
 
 " 'Die qualitate?n.' (Tell his station.) 
 
 " ' Sacerdos.' (Priest.) 
 
 " ' Cujus ecclesice i ' (Of what church ?) 
 
 " ' Sancti Petri.' (St. Peter's.) 
 
 " ' Quce persona attulit flores ? ' (What person brought the flowers ?) 
 
 " ' Diabolica.' (A diabolic one.) 
 
 " It is evident that there were in this interrogatory suggestions, and 
 they not mental only, and that on the other hand the examiner had 
 neglected to clear up certain answers of the patient ; so the proceed- 
 ings did not seem entirely correct to the magistrates present at the 
 exorcism. 
 
 "'It would have been well,' said the civil lieutenant, 'had the pos- 
 sessed been interrogated as to the cause of the animosity of which 
 she has spoken.' 
 
 " ' I am not allowed,' answered the priest, ' to put indiscreet questions.' 
 
 " ' But it seems to me,' the lieutenant made bold to say, ' that that 
 question would not have been more indiscreet than the others — than 
 that, in particular, whereby you procured the name and surname of 
 Urban Grandier to be given to you.' 
 
 " Thus, then, did the devil in the first interrogatory reveal his pres- 
 ence. But such was not always the exorcist's thought, or at least the 
 eestatica did not always divine just what he wanted her to say. From 
 this resulted some amusing contradictions. Here is another inter- 
 rogatory conducted by another exorcist, named Barre, in presence of 
 the bailli and four physicians. 
 
 " The mass having been performed, Barrd came forward to give 
 the communion and thereafter to exorcize. Holding in both hands 
 the blessed sacrament, he said to the possessed : 
 
 " 'AdoraDeum tuum, Creatorem tuum.' (Adore thy God, thy Creator.) 
 
 " She answered : 
 
 " 'Adoro te.' (I adore thee.) 
 
 " The exorcist, a little taken aback by this answer, resumed his 
 questioning. 
 
 '' ' Quern adoras ? ' (Whom do you adore ?) 
 
 '"Jesus Christus,' she answered with a solecism. 
 
 " Whereupon one of the assessors of the provost, Daniel Drouin, 
 could not help saying quite aloud : 
 
I70 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 "'There's a devil that is not grammatical.' 
 
 " The exorcist, a little disconcerted, repeated the question, taking- 
 care, however, to modify his phrase so as to bring the nominative 
 case (which had just been employed amiss) into the answer. 
 
 " ' Quis est quern adoras 1 ' 
 
 " But the possessed, conscious that she had made a slip in gram- 
 mar, chose to set matters right by employing the vocative case — 
 which came in no less amiss. 
 
 "'yesu Christe' she answered. 
 
 " ' There's bad Latin,' exclaimed several persons present, but the 
 exorcist held that the answer was 'Adoro ie, Jesu Christe,' and the 
 grammatical dispute was not carried any further." ' 
 
 But if the devil was not quite correct in his Latin, still he was 
 rather accommodating, for he recognized Jesus Christ as his master. 
 
 Someone, perhaps, will be surprised to find these nuns speaking 
 Latin, but they had some little knowledge of it, being obliged to 
 explain the creed and the paternoster to the novices ; they heard 
 Latin every day all around them ; and in ecstatic states the memory 
 is often highly developed. Sick patients and somnambules have been 
 known to pronounce several phrases in languages of which they knew 
 nothing in the normal state, but which they heard spoken in their 
 childhood. Finally, the transmission of thoughts was sometimes 
 added to other causes. When that failed and the possessed knew 
 not what reply to make to a question put in Latin, she would sa3r 
 " Deus lion volo," instead of " Deus nonvult." 
 
 When a question was asked in Greek or Hebrew, there was no 
 answer. Sometimes, however, thought-communication helped in such 
 cases. 
 
 Finally, there was still another phenomenon that led people to 
 believe in the gift of strange tongues : the ecstaticas sometimes spoke: 
 a language entirely unknown. 
 
 It is known that now and then, particularly in spells of good 
 humor, one will utter odd sorts of words, senseless combinations of 
 syllables. This tendency is seen in the argot of students and children. 
 Some ecstatic and convulsive states exhibit this caprice of our auto- 
 matism in a peculiar way. The ecstaticas of early Christian times also- 
 spoke unknown tongues. 
 
 " I have already observed (says Carre de Montgeron) that it is in 
 the height of their ecstasy that many convulsionaries pronounce those 
 discourses in unknown or foreign languages. I must add that they do 
 not themselves understand the purport of them save at the moment, 
 while they are pronouncing them, and that they remember them no 
 more, or at best only in a general way, the instant their discourse is. 
 over." ' 
 
 " The same phenomenon was seen among the first Christians. St. 
 Paul shows this plainly in sundry places : ' He that speaketh a 
 
 ' Figuier, op. cit., io8. 
 
 ' MontgSron, " Id6e de I'feat des Convulsionnaires,'' p. 89. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 171 
 
 tongue,' says he (i Cor. xiv.), 'speaketh not to men but to God, for 
 none understandeth.' Elsewhere he says in effect that these tongues 
 are but signs to procure the conversion of unbelievers." (Bertrand, 325.) 
 
 But sometimes one cannot explain the answers of the possessed, 
 except by thought-transference. Here are some instances of this 
 sort, taken from Lamenardifere's " Demonomanie de Loudun : " 
 
 " Mr. Launay de Barille, who had lived in America, declared that, 
 on a visit he made to Loudun, he had spoken to the nuns the language 
 of certain savages in that country, and that they had answered him 
 very aptly." 
 
 We are not told what words these were. If they were, as is prob- 
 able, only such expressions as " Good-day," " How do you do ? " the 
 very tone of the phrase might betray the meaning. But here is a 
 more detailed narrative : 
 
 " The Bishop of Nimes having put questions in Greek and in Ger- 
 man, got satisfactory answers to both. He ordered (in Greek) Sister 
 C\a\re. to lift her veil SiViA to kiss the grille' at a spot he designated. 
 She obeyed him, and did several other things that he desired of her. 
 On this occasion it was said publicly of this prelate that he must 
 needs be either an atheist or an idiot if he did not believe in posses- 
 sion. 
 
 " Some physicians, too, questioned them in Greek upon the terms 
 of their science — terms very difficult and known only by the learned 
 in their profession ; the nuns explained them clearly. 
 
 " Some gentlemen of Normandy certified in writing that they had 
 interrogated Sister Claire de Sazilly in Turkish, Spanish and Italian, 
 and that her replies were quite apt."" 
 
 Carre de Montgeron ' speaks of a young lady, Dancogne, who. 
 though she never had any voice, used to sing canticles in an unknown 
 tongue. (I have myself observed similar facts in the state of som- 
 nambulic delirium.) " But," says Montgeron, " what is more surprising 
 is, that it often happens to her, in certain times of ecstasy, to under- 
 stand the meaning of all that is said to her in whatever language it 
 may be spoken, and to make .reply in a perfectly apt way to all ; a 
 multitude of people have witnessed this." 
 
 Bertrand justly remarks that very few cases indeed are recorded in 
 which the answer is given in the same language, and in those cases 
 the foreign tongue was more or less known by the patient, whereas 
 in the great majority of cases the patient understands the language 
 (that is to say, the thought) but does not speak it. 
 
 Evidently it is easier to get at or divine the meaning of a phrase 
 spoken with a certain intonation, than to fish out foreign words in the 
 
 ' The grating that separates the outer reception room from the cloistered portion 
 of a nunnery. — Translator. 
 
 ' Pilet de Lamenardi^re, " La Dfimonomanie de Loudun," etc., p. 26. 2d ed.. La 
 Fl^che, 1634. ^ Op. cit., p. 53. 
 
172 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 mind of one that knows that foreign tongue, in order to reply to him 
 in the same. 
 
 "As for somnambules (says Bertrand), magnetizers are not wont to 
 exercise them in giving replies in unknown languages, and I can quote 
 only one fact of that kind. It was reported to me by an estimable 
 man, a physician of great learning, too early taken from science and 
 his friends. He had a somnambule that presented to him the most 
 marvelous phenomena, and who understood him when he spoke Greek, 
 Latin, or English. One day he decided to read to her a few lines in 
 English. ' Do you expect me to understand your gibberish ? ' she 
 asked. ' But,' the doctor replied, 'I spoke to you a moment ago in 
 the same tongue and you understood me.' ' Then it was your thought 
 I understood,' answered the somnambule, ' and not your language.' " 
 
 "August 6, 1634 (writes Lamenardiere) John Chiron, Prior of 
 Maillerais, wishing to be confirmed in the belief he had in 'possession,' 
 said in a low voice in the ear of Blaise de Fernairon (Canon) that he 
 wished the nun to open the Missal that was by the grille, and to put 
 her finger on an introit beginning with the words ' Salve, sancta 
 parens.' The exorcist bade her to obey according to the intention of 
 the said Sieur Chiron. She fell into strange convulsions^ and uttered 
 several blasphemies, and though she had never seen the said Sieur, she 
 called him Prior of Maillerais, and, after several orders reiterated for 
 an hour, she took the Missal, which lay on a shelf by the grille, and 
 said, ' I wish to pray to God,' and turning her eyes in another direc- 
 tion, she put her finger on a large S, at the beginning of the introit of 
 a Mass of the Virgin, the opening words of which are ' Salve, sancta 
 parens,' which the said Prior seeing, he said that was the sign he had 
 asked for."" 
 
 " June 20, 1633, a priest of Saint-Jacques-de-Fouars, desiring to 
 make proof of divination of thought, in a low voice asked the exor- 
 cist to make the possessed bring five leaves of a rosebush. The 
 exorcist ordered Claire de Sazilly to obey. The nun went out and 
 into the garden, whence she brought first a marigold and some other 
 herbs, and presented them at the grille, with much crying, saying to 
 the Sieur de Morans : ' Is that, Father, what you ask ? I am no devil, 
 to know your intentions.' Whereto he replied simply, '■Obedias!^ 
 (obey !) She went back to the garden, and, after many repeated 
 orders, presented' at the grille a small sprig of rosebush on which 
 were six leaves. The exorcist said to her, ' Obedias punctualiter sub 
 p(zna maledictionis !' (obey precisely under pain of a curse !) She now 
 broke off one leaf, and presented the sprig to him, saying, ' I see that 
 you want only five, the other was not of the number.' The Prior was 
 so content with what he saw, and so moved, that he went away with 
 tears in his eyes." ' 
 
 In the same work we find recorded many similar cases. For 
 instance. Sister Claire kneels by mental order of her magnetizer 
 exorcist ; she divines the day when the Chevalier de M6r6 last con- 
 fessed, and repeats words that were heard by the exorcist alone ; and 
 so on. 
 
 "■ See Mr. Gibert's experiment, p. go, supra. 
 
 'Pilet de Lamenardiere, " La D6monologie," etc., p. 26. 
 
 ^ Id., p. 27. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 173 
 
 The latter class of facts, namely, suggestion or penetration of 
 thoughts, seemed impossible to Aubin (author of the " Histoire des 
 Diables de Loudun " ), who was overmuch afraid lest he should be 
 forced to believe in Dsemonomania. He gives only one instance of 
 suggestion, the one witnessed by Prince Gaston, May 10, 1635. 
 
 Another author. Dr. Calmeil, no less scrupulous, but more impartial, 
 after having seen that artificial somnambulism produced some of the 
 effects for which people wanted to hold the demons answerable, adds : 
 " On a hundred occasions indeed, we may believe, the energumens 
 (the possessed) read the thoughts of the religious men charged with 
 the duty of fighting the demons."' "Read the thoughts of the 
 religious men, who gained a powerful influence over them," remarks 
 Figuier, " and not the thoughts of other persons." 
 
 This remark is applicable in the majority of cases. We may, how- 
 ever, recall some experiments in mental suggestion made by me upon 
 Mrs. B. {^magnetized by Mr. Janet), and who had not seen me while she 
 was in the waking state (p. 85, supra). 
 
 We find the same phenomenon among the prophets of the C6ven- 
 nes ; so, too, among the Convulsionaries of Saint-Medard. "Add," says 
 Dr. Bertrand, " that Madame Guyon, that mystic devotee, famous for 
 the admiration that the virtuous Fenelon professed to have for her, 
 tells in the history of her life, that often she used to read the thoughts 
 of Father Lacombe, her confessor, as he read hers ; 'I saw,' she says, 
 ' that men might, in this life, learn the language of the angels ; little 
 by little I was reduced to speaking to him only in silence.' " 
 
 It is to be remarked that the conversations of these two pious souls 
 probably were ever about the same questions, and that consequently 
 the divination was not always difficult. 
 
 Let us now turn to the somnambules : 
 
 " Among the somnambules that I have magnetized (says Bertrand), 
 I never found one that presented communication of thought in any 
 high degree. Nevertheless, I can cite two facts of which I am per- 
 sonally cognizant. The first is found recorded in my ' Traite du Som- 
 nambulisme ' (p. 247). The case was that of my first somnambule, on 
 whom I was performing the processes by which I had been accustomed 
 to awaken her, while, at the same time, I willed strongly that she 
 should not awake. Instantly she had violent convulsive movements. 
 ' What is the matter ? ' I asked her. ' How is this ? ' she replied ; ' you 
 tell me to awake, and you want me not to awake.' " 
 
 This experiment is very conclusive, but it is rarely successful, for 
 the ideorganic association formed between certain gestures and 
 sleep, produces sleep by force of habit, the weak, purely mental oppos- 
 ing influence notwithstanding. 
 
 " The other instance coming under my personal observation is 
 found at page 279 of the same work. A poor woman, uneducated, not 
 
 ' Calmeil, " De la Folie,'' vol. ii. 
 
174 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 able to read, could, I was told, understand in somnambulism the 
 meaning of words the signification of which was unknown to her in 
 the waking state ; and, in fact, she explained to me most accurately 
 and most ingeniously what we were to understand by the word 
 encephalon, which I proposed to her : a phenomenon which, if you do 
 not wish to regard it as chance — a supposition as hard to admit, per- 
 haps, as the faculty itself, that the phenomenon supposes — can only 
 be explained by recognizing that this woman read in my very thoughts 
 the signification of the word about which I had questioned her." 
 
 This fact, too, is worthy of attention, and for this reason : If we 
 compare the diagnostic pronouncements of somnambules recorded in 
 the writings of magnetizers who themselves did not possess compe- 
 petent knowledge of anatomy, with the pronouncements of somnam- 
 bules directed by a physician (for example, the 35 observations of 
 Dr. E. Louis de Sere),' we find a great difference as regards precision. 
 The same is to be said of psychological and other questions. 
 
 Unless we hold that none of the physicians that made these experi- 
 ments could refrain from verbal suggestions, even while his precise 
 object was to get at the truth, we must admit, here and there, trans- 
 missions of thought like those we have quoted from Bertrand. 
 
 The first person to call the attention of observers to the phenome- 
 non of mental suggestion in artificial somnambulism, was the Marquis 
 de Puysegur. In his writings we find a great number of facts. Here 
 is how he relates his first experience, in a letter of March 8, 1784, ad- 
 dressed to a member of the Harmony Society. In the first place, he 
 apologizes for the enthusiasm awakened in him by his first attempts 
 at magnetic treatment, begun " in play " (en plaisantant') and which 
 had surprising results. Then he continues thus : 
 
 " These trifling successes led me to try whether I might be of 
 service to a peasant, a man of 23 years, who for four days had been 
 confined to his bed by an attack of pneumonia. I went therefore to 
 see him : it was last Tuesday, the 4th of this month, at 8 o'clock in the 
 evening. The fever was growing less. After having him taken out 
 of bed I magnetized him. What was my surprise to see him, after 
 half a quarter of an hour, /a// asleep quietly in my arms, without con- 
 vulsions, without any pain. I pushed the crisis [/. e., he kept on 
 magnetizing], and that produced vertigo. The man talked, speaking 
 in a loud voice about his affairs [somnambulic ravings]. Judging that 
 these thoughts might affect him injuriously, I sought to inspire him 
 with more cheering thoughts. [The somnambulism therefore was not 
 very active, and was akin to aideia and to a suggestionable state inter- 
 mediate between aideia and polyideia.] To do this needed no great 
 effort ; then I saw him satisfied, imagining himself to be drawing for 
 a prize, dancing at a festival, etc. 
 
 " These thoughts I encouraged in him, and so forced him to take a 
 good deal of exercise in his chair, as though dancing to an air which, 
 by singing it {mentally), I made him repeat aloud. By this means, 
 from that day on, I occasioned in the patient an abundant perspiration. 
 
 ' " Application du Somnambulisme Magnfetique au Diagnostic,'' etc. Paris, 1855. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 175 
 
 " After an hour of crisis, I quieted liim [that is to say, awakened 
 him], and left the chamber. A drink was given him. Having pro- 
 cured for him some bread and bouillon, I made him eat that very 
 evening a soup — a thing he had not been able to do for five days. He 
 slept soundly the whole night [amelioration of the natural sleep is an 
 almost constant phenomenon in magnetism], and the following morn- 
 ing had no recollection of my visit of the evening before j he told me of his 
 bettered state of health." 
 
 That experience was the starling-point of modern somnambulic 
 magnetism. Some time after, Puysegur, always enthusiastic about his 
 successes, wrote as follows to his brother concerning Vielet : 
 
 " When he is in the magnetic state, he is no longer a simple hind 
 scarcely able to phrase an answer, but a being I know not how to 
 describe. I have no need to speak to him ; I think foment hint, and he 
 understands me, answers me. When anyone enters his chamber, he sees 
 him if I will it ; talks to him, tells him the ih\ngs I will that he tell him, 
 not always as T dictate them to him, but as truth requires. When he 
 wishes to say more than I deem it prudent that people should hear, 
 then I stay his thoughts, his phrases, in the tniddle of a word, and change 
 his thought completely." ' 
 
 He did not find, it seems, many somnambules of this stamp, for he 
 has less to say about them in his two later writings : " Du Magn6- 
 tisme Animal considere dans ses rapports avec diverses Branches de 
 la Physique generale," Paris, 1807 ; and " Recherches, Experiences^ 
 et Observations Physiologiques sur I'Homme," Paris, 181 1. But he 
 laid the more stress upon the appreciation of diseases, and he still 
 believed that his will was the one sole agent — plainly an exaggera- 
 tion. 
 
 The fact is, one always feels the effect of a first experiment ; and 
 this time a school was formed under the influence of this first im- 
 pression of the master. 
 
 It is so in our day, and I hardly find more of prudence or of 
 circumspection in the writings of medical men who, after having 
 sophisticated an hysteric, believe themselves competent to lay down 
 physiological " laws," and to settle in accordance with their individual 
 convictions the most delicate and most complicated questions. 
 
 As for the old-time magnetizers, who spent their lives in studying 
 these problems, sometimes without sufficient preparation, but at the 
 same time without presumption, we do not read them nowadays ; we 
 just append to their names the epithet "charlatans." Some have 
 adopted a more profitable method : they glean here and there an 
 observation made by some old-time magnetizer, and having sophis- 
 ticated it, and, above all, put their own brand upon it, take to them- 
 selves the credit of discovery. But let us proceed. 
 
 ' Puysfegur, " M6moires pour servir i rStablissement du Magn6tisme," pp. 22, 
 29, et seq. 
 
176 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Some time after Puysegur, a distinguished piiysician of Lyons, 
 President of the Medical Society of that city, was led to investigate 
 the more striking phenomena of magnetism. He was skeptical, and 
 an opponent of mesmerism, but it so chanced that he was forced to 
 recognize a series of facts far more extraordinary than anything 
 announced by Mesmer. His researches on catalepsy, on the action 
 of the magnet, of electricity and of metals, on the phenomenon known 
 as "transposition of the senses," etc. ; finally, on the subject that 
 engages our attention here, mark an epoch in magnetism. They are 
 to-day absolutely unknown ; but as already just a century has elapsed 
 since he observed certain facts, I have no doubt that some fine morn- 
 ing they will tell you that a hypnotizer in Lyons or in Paris has dis- 
 covered them anew, and that, thanks to his ingenuity, his authority, 
 and the general ignorance of history, a new " hypnotic " school has 
 sprung up. 
 
 In the meanwhile let us note the facts that concern our subject. 
 This is how Petetin '■ was led to employ magnetism for the first time : 
 
 "The patient was sinking day by day. She had hardly two hours' 
 sleep in a night ; she could take no nourishment except chicken 
 broth, milk, and pounded ice. Petetin, her physician, possessed by 
 the idea that the excitation of brain and nerves was caused by super- 
 abundant electricity, bethought him of making very strong aspira- 
 tions foment the patient's nostrils, to abstract this excess of elec- 
 tricity ; but that method had no effect. Then, laying one hand on the 
 forehead and the other on the epigastrium, he made another aspiration. 
 Mrs. X. opened her eyes, but they were dull and fixed ; at a second 
 aspiration they resumed their brightness ; a few minutes later, the fit, 
 which used to last two hours, was over. At his subsequent visits the 
 doctor substituted expiration for aspiration, and in eight days all the 
 symptoms of this extraordinary malady had disappeared through this 
 simple means, ' the effects of which,' says he, ' are as evident as the 
 cause is hidden.' 
 
 " He adds that as the cure progressed, the faculties of the cata- 
 leptic patient acquired a new power. ' Not only did she foresee what 
 was about to happen to her, but if one conceived a thought without 
 manifesting it by speech, she was cognizant of it at once, and did what- 
 ever one had the intention to bid her do, as if the decision had come of 
 itself ; sometimes, however, she would ask that the mental order 
 might be suspended or revoked, when the act ordered was beyond 
 her strength, or if she was fatigued. ' " " 
 
 Petetin made upon another cataleptic, Mrs. de Saint-Paul, a great 
 number of experiments, and he invited, to be witnesses of these, 
 
 ' Dr. Petetin, ' ' Memoire sur la Decouverte des Phenom^nes que presentent la Cata- 
 lepsie et le Somnambulisme." Lyons, 1787. " Electricite Animale prouvee par la 
 Decouverte des Phenom^nes Physiques et Moraux de la Catalepsie Hysterique." 
 Paris, 1808. 
 
 '^ Foissac, "Rapports et Discussions sur le Magnetisme Animal," p. 369. Paris, 
 1353. Figuier, " Hist, du Merveilleux," vol. iii., p. 292. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 177 
 
 several of his professional associates and other persons, as Messrs. 
 Eynard, Colladon, of Geneva ; Domenjon, Dolomieu, brother of 
 the naturalist, and Jacquier, administrator of the Lyons hospitals. 
 Eynard, the most incredulous of them all, came one day to the lady's 
 house and found her in one of her fits, alone with a nurse. He had 
 with him several drawings that he had made by electricity.' He held 
 near the epigastrium of the patient the portrait of Louis XIV., and 
 asked whether she recognized it. She gave an affirmative movement 
 of the head. "Is it Francis I.?" Negative sign. "Louis XV.?" 
 Same response. After several other names he pronounced that of 
 Louis XIV. ; she answered "Yes." Mr. Eynard having been assured 
 that cataleptics are able to read the thoughts of persons in rapport 
 with them, he asked her once more, in order to verify the fact, 
 whether she knew the author of the drawing. Affirmative sign. He 
 tried to mislead her by naming sundry persons, but she did not answer 
 " Yes " till he had named himself. Say what he would about his 
 being unable to draw, the patient only shrugged her shoulders ; the 
 more he denied, the more strongly she showed her impatience by 
 characteristic gestures. Asked at last by what means he had pro- 
 duced the portrait, she pointed toward an electrical machine that 
 was near her bed and which Petetin employed in treating her com- 
 plaint." 
 
 Soon people at Lyons talked of nothing else but the wonders of 
 somnambulism, and no doubt Petetin's researches would in the end 
 have won the attention of men of science, had not the Revolution 
 broken out. " Nothing short of the cannon of the Revolution," says 
 Figuier, " could have silenced in that town the discussions on mag- 
 netism. But at the time all this hubbub subsided, in Lyons as else- 
 where, not because magnetism was forgotten, but because its 
 adherents were scattered." 
 
 Petetin was forgotten, and died in 1808, without so much as print- 
 ing his important treatise on " Animal Electricity, " which appeared 
 some months later. The work is now very hard to find. 
 
 The priest Faria," a bold and truly original experimenter, held the 
 attention of the public for a while about 1815. He is the father ofV;he 
 Suggestionists of to-day. He acted only by verbal suggestion and did 
 not believe in will-transmission : thus he was in absolute opposition to 
 the Volimtists of the Puysegur school. As his one purpose was to 
 produce effects in public, it is not surprising that he should have 
 
 ' Our author prints this paragraph in brevier, but without quotation marks, so 
 indicating that the statements it contains are given on the authority of the writers 
 named in the next foot-note. — Translator. 
 
 ^ See Petetin, " Electr. Anim.," p. 127; Foissac, "Rapports, etc.," p. 310; 
 Figuier, " Hist, du Mcrv.," vol. iii., p. 292. 
 
 ' " De la Cause du Sommeil Lucide," etc. Paris, 1819. 
 
178 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 failed to obtain a phenomenon that requires long and patient research 
 in seclusion. 
 
 A third school, one more directly connected with Mesmer, was that 
 of the Fluidists, represented by the learned librarian of the Paris Jardin 
 des Plantes, a most conscientious worker, cautious and reserved, whose 
 prmcipal work, the fruit of twenty-five years' observation (I do not 
 mention this detail to frighten the hypnotizers of to-day), appeared 
 in 1813.1 
 
 Deleuze, as we know already, was familiar with the phenomena of 
 transmission ; he even glimpsed the benefit that might accrue to 
 science from bringing into the domain of positive knowledge a great 
 number of facts previously incomprehensible, and of a kind to lend 
 support to vulgar errors [pri'jug^s). But he does not concern himself 
 much with these phenomena, for two reasons : First, he wished, 
 especially in this first edition, to avoid everything that could offend 
 the incredulity of the academic bodies ; and then he regarded as unfit- 
 ting all experiments made for curiosity' sake, /. e., whatever has not for 
 its principal end the cure of diseases. But so strongly did he believe 
 in the community of thoughts between the magnetizer and his subject, 
 that he says with a charming simplicity: "When one wishes to ask 
 anything of the somnambule, he must express his wish in words. 
 Good somnambules understand what you wish without your speaking. 
 But why employ that means without necessity ? It is an experiment, 
 and we ought to have it made a law to deny ourselves all experi- 
 ments;"" 
 
 The reader will perhaps be surprised to see that in Deleuze's time 
 this prohibition of experimentation was scrupulously respected by very 
 many observers. Volumes were published upon the therapeutic appli- 
 cation of magnetism, but the scientific experimental part made no 
 progress. There were cures, that is all. It was only by accident,, 
 therefore, that mental suggestion was observed. 
 
 But certain magnetizers studied the question a little, and have left 
 some interesting observations. I will quote all of these that have a 
 right to our confidence, trying, as far as possible, to separate thought- 
 transference from will-transference, which will be considered later. 
 
 Transmission of ideas and words, or of thoughts in general, presents 
 itself in several forms : 
 
 I. Direct Experiments. — These are least numerous. To this class 
 belong the experiments of Drs. Teste, Fuel, Comet, Barrier, Ferronet, 
 and of Messrs. Lafontaine, Maricourt and Souchere. But it is, above 
 all, the quite recent experiments of Professor Barrett, of the English 
 Society for Psychological Research, that have revealed this phenom- 
 enon to us. 
 
 ' Deleuze, " Histoire Critique du Magn^tisme Animal." Paris, 1813. 
 
 ° Deleuze, " Instruction Pratique sur le Magn6tisrae Animal," p. 135. Paris, 1825^ 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 
 
 179 
 
 2. Experiments in Apparent Vision, which have been much more 
 numerous, and in which thought-transference and transmission of 
 recollections have been confounded with actual vision of near or dis- 
 tant objects. Under this head we will cite the observations of Dr. 
 Charpignon, of Messrs. Tissot, Jolly, Baragnon, Lafontaine, Robert- 
 Houdin, and General Noizet. 
 
 3. Finally, we shall have occasion to mention the fact that thought- 
 transference is by accident associated with other classes of facts, 
 especially in pseud-hypnotism. 
 
 Let us begin with the experiments of the English Committee, which 
 are quite recent and which were the best controlled. The reports 
 upon these researches already fill a volume, and I can reproduce only 
 a few instances. I will, however, give in full the report of the experi- 
 ments of December 6, 1884. They were made in presence of Mr. 
 Guthrie and Professor Herdman. 
 
 Mrs. Relph, the subject, is seated, and the objects chosen for the 
 experiments are concealed by a screen behind her back. The experi- 
 ments take place without contact. 
 
 OBJECT THOUGHT OF. 
 
 Piece of red paper cut in the 
 form of a small egg-cup 
 with white egg in it. 
 
 Blue paper in shape of a 
 pitcher. 
 
 Red paper cut in form of a 
 
 vase. 
 A new rasp. 
 
 disc 
 
 dark 
 
 II. 
 
 12. 
 
 13- 
 
 14. 
 
 15. 
 
 A wooden 
 ground. 
 A red disc. 
 Same object as in No. 5. 
 
 Silvered paper cut in shape of 
 
 a teapot. 
 A yellow oblong rectangular 
 
 figure. 
 A sovereign. 
 
 Three of hearts. 
 
 Five of clubs. 
 
 Eight of diamonds. 
 
 A card with two red crosses. 
 
 No object. We think of a 
 white cross on a black 
 ground. 
 
 OBJECT DIVINED. 
 
 Something red ; longer than it is 
 broad. 
 
 'Tis blue. 'Tis wider at top than 
 in the middle, then wider 
 again. 'Tis like a pitcher 
 (draws figure of a pitcher). 
 
 'Tis red. I can see only the color. 
 
 Something shining — silver or steel 
 
 — long and thin. 
 I cannot make that out. 
 
 'Tis red ; 'tis round and red. 
 
 Is it something red all around ? — 
 
 reddish yellow — something 
 
 light. 
 'Tis of bright silver, like a boiler 
 
 — 'tis a teapot. 
 It is longer than wide. 
 
 Is it bright yellow ? — gold ? — is it 
 
 round ? 
 Is it a card with red spots? A 
 
 tray or something like that. 
 Another card, with five black 
 
 spots ? 
 A card with a good many spots ? 
 
 Red — a ten. 
 Something yellow and bright. I 
 
 don't see well. Is it a card 
 
 with red spots ? I do not see. 
 I see something white and black 
 
 — I see two lines. 
 
i8o MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 I commend this series to the attention of Mr. Preyer, and invite 
 him to do the same thing by drawing lots.' 
 Let us now see what the magnetizers say: 
 
 " At Tours (says Mr. Lafontaine) I had a somnambule that was 
 gifted with great lucidity. Mr. Renard, steward (proviseur) of the 
 college, a man strongly skeptical, came each day bringing objects care- 
 fully wrapped up, and which he kept in his pockets. No sooner was 
 he in rapport with Clarissa, the somnambule, than she named to him 
 the object he had so "carefully concealed. To prove to him that it 
 was really thought-transmission and not sight, I had a mental order 
 executed, that is, without my uttering a word or making any sign ; 
 but concentrating my thought upon any act the performance of 
 which I wished, the somnambule rose from the chair and did what I 
 willed."" 
 
 2. " Dr. Thomas presented to Clarissa his small lancet case, asking- 
 her what was inside. The somnambule answered that it contained 
 only three instruments, and told him where he had left the fourth." * 
 
 3. " Sometimes Mr. Renard would fasten the doors and the shutters 
 of his study, stopping the keyholes so that no one might see him ; 
 then he would light a candle and write a few words, and wrap several 
 papers around what he had written. He would come with an air of 
 triumph, hoping, after all the precautions he had taken, that the som- 
 nambule would not be able to see what he had written. But the in- 
 stant he had put the paper in the girl's hand, sometimes even before he 
 had taken it out of his pocket, Clarissa would tell him what he had 
 written." * 
 
 4. " Mr. de la Souch^re, educated at the Polytechnic School, an 
 able chemist of Marseilles, had as a domestic servant a country 
 woman in whom somnambulism and several of its noteworthy phe- 
 nomena were produced with great ease. ' In magnetic somnambulism,' 
 says he, ' Lazarine entered into most complete communication of 
 thought with me, and so insensible was she that I used to drive needles 
 into her flesh, into the roots of the nails, yet she would not suffer the 
 slightest pain, nor would there be a drop of blood. [This phenome- 
 non is very common ; there is produced often in somnambulism a 
 notable contraction of the small vessels.] In presence of the engineer, 
 Gabriel and some friends I have made the following experiments : I 
 would make her drink pure water, and she would tell me it had the 
 taste of whatever liquid I was thinking of — lemonade, syrup, wine, etc. 
 It was proposed that I should make her drink sand. She was unable 
 to divine [the order]. Then I put sand in my mouth, and straight- 
 away she began to spit, saying that / was giving her sand. [Transfer- 
 ence of sensation.] I was then behind her and it was impossible for 
 her to see me. [A similar experiment, but still more striking, is 
 quoted by the Count de Maricourt : the subject, having drank in the 
 
 ' Mr. Preyer, professor of physiology at Jena, has criticised the researches of Mr. 
 Ch. Richet, declaring that he obtained by simple chance the same results. {" jDie^ 
 Erkldrung ties Gedankenlesens nebst Beschreibung eines neuen Verfahrens zicm Nach~ 
 weise unwillkiirlicher Bewegungen.^' Leipsic, 1886 ) 
 
 ' Ch. Lafontaine, " L'Art de Magnfetiser," p. 98, 5th ed. Paris, 1886. 
 
 ' Ch. Lafontaine, " Mfimoires d'un Magn6tiseur, " vol. i., p. 154. Paris, 1866. 
 
 * lb. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. i8i 
 
 waking state a glass of water, under mental suggestion of a glass of 
 kirschwasser, manifested all the signs of intoxication /isr several days. 
 I would remark that when such phenomena are produced in the wak- 
 ing state it is harder to do them away than when they are produced in 
 somnambulism. It is phenomena of this sort that lead magnetizers to 
 believe that, by magnetizing a glass of water or any other object, they 
 can impregnate their " fluid " with different physical and chemical 
 properties. The magnetization is of no effect in such case, for it is 
 the thought that acts, and not upon the object, but upon the brain of 
 the subject.] Some one sends me a book (Robinson Crusoe.) I open 
 it and examine an engraving representing Robinson in a canoe. Laza- 
 rine, being asked what I was doing, answered : ' You have a book ; 
 you are not reading ; you are looking at a picture ; there is a boat 
 and a man in it.' I bade her describe to me the furniture of a chamber 
 that she did not know, and she described the articles of furniture 
 precisely as T represented them to myself. I have not been able 
 to see in my domestic transposition of the senses. Different objects 
 would be applied over the epigastrium : if I kne7a what they were, 
 she would describe them ; if I did not know what they were, she was 
 unable to name them. It is possible that, in certain cases, what has 
 been accounted transposition of the senses is only transmission of 
 thought.'" 
 
 5. Dr. Teste" has again and again found that the somnambule can 
 follow the magnetizer's thoughts. " Miss Diana," says he, " had a 
 conversation with me in which I spoke only mentally." He cites, 
 furthermore, an extraordinary experiment wherein mental suggestion 
 appeared as an hallucination. 
 
 " One day," he writes, " I imagined a wooden railing round about 
 me, but spoke not a word. I put in the somnambulic state Miss H., 
 a very nervous young person, and asked her to fetch me my books. 
 Coming to where I imagined the railing to be, Miss H. halted, saying 
 they had set up a railing there. 'What a singular idea,' she said, 'to 
 have put a railing in this place ! ' If you take her by the hand to 
 make her go beyond, her feet are riveted to the floor, the upper por- 
 tion of her body alone is projected forward, and she says you make 
 her stomach press against the obstacle." 
 
 And here is a highly interesting fact recorded by Dr. Bertrand in 
 one of his lectures on magnetism, reproduced by Noizet : 
 
 6. " A magnetizer deeply imbued with mystic ideas had a somnam- 
 bule who, in his sleep, saw nothing but angels and sprites of all kinds. 
 These visions served more and more to strengthen the magnetizer's 
 religious belief. As he was always quoting his somnambule's dreams 
 in support of his system, another magnetizer undertook to undeceive 
 him by showing to him that no somnambule has such visions as he 
 told of, except so far as they existed first in the magnetizer's brain. 
 To demonstrate this assertion, he proposed to make the same som- 
 nambule see all the angels of heaven at table together, and eating turkey. 
 So he endormed the somnambule, and after a while asked him if he 
 did not see something extraordinary ; the somnambule replied that 
 
 'Dr. Despine, " Etude Scientifique sur le Somnambulisme," p. 221. Paris, 1880. 
 ' Teste, " Manuel Pratique du Maguetiseur," 4th ed., 1854 ; and " Le Magn. 
 Anim. Explique," p. 243, 1845. 
 
i82 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 he saw a great company of angels. 'And what are they doing?' 
 ^ They are around a table and are eating.' But he could not tell what 
 dishes they had before them.'" 
 
 In general, if the somnambule thinks he sees something out of the 
 ordinary course of things, the first question is, whether that is not due 
 to simple involuntary suggestion on our part. 
 
 7. "A student of medicine asks one of my somnambules what 
 patients the jury will give him for examination as his test for the 
 doctorate. She described very accurately three patients in the Hotel 
 Dieu who had more particularly attracted the attention of the student, 
 and whom he would have wished to be made the subjects of his 
 examination. She even added — a characteristic detail — with regard 
 to one of the patients : ' Oh, what a bright eye that woman has — and 
 fixed ! It makes me afraid, that eye ! ' ' Does she see with that 
 bright eye ? ' asked the student. ' Hold ! I do not know — it is hard. 
 It is not natural. What is it made of ? Something — something that 
 breaks — and shines. Oh, she is taking it out — putting it in water,' and 
 so on. The patient had a glass eye ; this fact, of which I was quite 
 ignorant (for I did not know the patients in question), but which was 
 known to the student that was questioning the somnambule, was 
 described accurately by he»'. Whence did she get the image ? From 
 the questioner's psychism, which, through mine as an intermediary, 
 was reflected in her. 
 
 " It is right to add that the somnambule's predictions were not 
 fulfilled ; that on the day of his test the student had to examine other 
 patients, and that those described by the somnambule were not even 
 mentioned."" 
 
 "As a rule," says Dr. Charpignon, " second-sight is confounded with 
 the phenomenon of thought-transmission. Thus, most of the experi- 
 ments that are cited consist in asking the somnambule to go to your 
 home or to a place known to you. You are in rapport with him and he 
 usually describes to you places or objects with the utmost precision. 
 Now, in all this there is, as a rule, no real vision : the somnambule 
 sees in your thoughts the images you trace therein. The more 
 attentively you follow him and direct his descriptions (namely, by 
 helping him with verbal suggestions), the more perfect they will be." ' 
 
 But this is of rather rare occurrence. I have observed only one 
 case of this kind. That was some time ago, and as I did not believe 
 in mental transmission, I regarded the fact as the result of circum- 
 stances that it was impossible to verify. According to the person 
 that consulted the somnambule, the latter had described exactly to 
 him his house and garden. But Charpignon is quite right in saying 
 that if there be such a thing as vision at a distance, it has usually 
 been apparent only, leading astray magnetizers that were not exacting. 
 
 ' Noizet, " MSmoire," p. 128. 
 " Perronet, " Du Magn. Anim.," p. 34, 1884. 
 
 'Dr. Charpignon, " Physiologie, MSdecine, et Metaphysique du Magn'Stisme, " 
 p. 90. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 183 
 
 They wrote a few words, for instance, on a bit of paper, then folded 
 this carefully; the somnambule clapped it on his own person any- 
 where, and "read" the contents. It was Dr. Teste, I believe, who, 
 believing he had a case of second sight, broke down completely 
 in his experiments before the Academic Commission of 1840, when a 
 bit of writing shut up in a box, and the contents of which he did not 
 know, was to be " read " by the somnambule. It need not be added 
 that , certain bona fide magnetizers, among them Mr, Hublier, have 
 been simply tricked by their somnambules.' 
 
 Mr. Henry Joly," who does not believe in clairvoyance, nor in 
 thought-transference, relates the following : 
 
 8. " We have from an honorable magistrate, one of the most sym- 
 pathetic auditors of our courts, the minutes of an inquiry or expertise 
 made by him in the case of a somnambule, whose practices had been 
 brought under the notice of the ofScers of the law. This magistrate 
 was of the opinion that the somnambule was honest and that she was 
 really endormed. Monday, July 4, 1859, he said, I repaired at 8.40 
 A. M. to the house of the B's., husband and wife, living in C. S. S., 
 St. G. Street. I asked Mr. B. to put his wife in the state of magnetic 
 sleep. The woman has been blind for 2 years, does not d 'stinguish. 
 objects, and has but a dim perception of light through the left eye. 
 Mr. B. had told me that I might interrogate his wife ; I put into her 
 hands a white handkerchief, and the following dialogue took place i 
 ' Can you tell me what mark is on this handkerchief ? ' ' Very easily j 
 but who gave you this handkerchief ? ' ' Answer my question. This 
 handkerchief is mine ; I bought it.' ^The mark that I have under my 
 fingers is pretty hard to read. But I see an M.; I cannot read the 
 letter that is before it ' (the mark on the handkerchief is J. M., on red 
 cotton, in Gothic letters) 
 
 " ' What is the age of the person to whom this lock of hair belongs .? *■ 
 ' It is a young person.' ' Can you conduct me to that person ?' ' No ; 
 for the person is no more.' ' You have divined aright. Can you read 
 the letters written on the inside of this medallion ?' ' It is pretty hard. 
 I will try. . . , ■ No ; I cannot read.' 
 
 " ' Could you tell me whether I have on my body a fresh wound, 
 and where ?' ' Yes ; you have one on the leg, or rather not a wound, 
 for it is closed.' 'On which leg?' 'It is on the left.' (That was 
 correct, but she was in error as to the precise place.) ' I hand you 
 this lock of hair wrapped in paper. Examine it.' ' It is not blond 
 like that you showed me a while ago ; it is very dark broiun. What da 
 you mean to do with it .? Take it to my neighbor, R. ; he makes hair- 
 work mementoes in very fine style.' ' Tell me whose hair it is.' (The 
 somnambule is much fatigued ; she hesitates for a good while without 
 replying.) 'Does it belong to a man or to a woman ?' ' To a woman.' 
 'You are mistaken.' 'Yes, I was mistaken. I thought you intended 
 this hair to be worn by a woman ; that is what I meant to say.' ' Tell 
 me whether I have much love for the person to whom this hair 
 
 ' Burdin and Dubois, " Histoire Acad^mique du Magfnfitisme Animal," p. 584, 
 etseq. Paris, 1841. 
 
 '' H. Joly, " L'Imagination, Etude Psychologique," p. 60. Paris, 1877. 
 
i84 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 belongs.' ' So much that one cannot have more.' ' Do you know 
 what that person is to me ? ' With a little impatience : ' I have told 
 how you loved the person. It is with family affection, that is plain ; 
 it is the bond of blood ; I cannot say anything else.' The hair was 
 very dark brown ; it was a lock cut from the head of my only son by 
 his mother, who intends to have a bracelet made of it for herself." 
 
 The author from whom this observation is taken does not believe 
 in clairvoyance, and plainly there is in this instance no clairvoyance 
 proper ; but it were difficult, I think, to explain the facts unless there 
 were some traces of thought-transference in spite of the verbal sug- 
 gestions, which are not wanting. 
 
 Another skeptic, Mr. Tissot,' gives his own experience : 
 
 9. " Seance of Sept. 4. — Sixty pulsations a minute, before the sleep 
 as after ; but at the moment of sleep and before the feigned or real 
 convulsion (there was no convulsive movement in the two latest 
 seances) sudden weakening of pulse, without slowing ; after the con- 
 vulsive movement the pulse regains its intensity. The somnambule, 
 who, according to all appearances, knew not the localities I made her 
 traverse and visit, though she was of Franche Comte and Haute- 
 Saone, betakes herself to the village where I was born, the name of 
 which I withhold from her, and which she names of her own accord. 
 But in passing by way of Pontarlier she gives the name of that town ; 
 tells the direction in which lies Les Fourgs — the village in question ; 
 describes the road leading thither from the Department highway ; 
 assigns the position of the church outside the village, and gives almost 
 the number of my father's house ; adds remarkably correct particulars 
 about my mother, the sequels of her lying-in, her ailment, the treat- 
 ment, her death. But she is mistaken as to my age at the time 
 of the death, and on the make-up of the family. She hits it 
 exactly with regard to sundry details of the life of my father and my 
 mother, and is mistaken as to some others. She describes with great 
 precision the features of the country as one observes them in following 
 the path leading from the village to the hamlet of Ea Beuffarde ; 
 makes two mistakes with regard to the house I used to live in ; then 
 describes its parts precisely ; is mistaken as to the cause of the ruin 
 of a neighboring house. She gives correct details about my early 
 years ; follows me elsewhither ; is only half-way mistaken with respect 
 to my situation at Pontarlier from 1815 to 1819 ; is more exact as to 
 my life and occupation at Besangon ; but her intuition of the remainder 
 of my life is a little more obscure, though a pxetty large number of 
 the particulars are true." 
 
 ' In this narrative we have a somnambulic dream, fed by verbal sug- 
 gestions, but also by communication of recollections, especially recol- 
 lections of early childhood, which are wont to be vivid. 
 
 Mr. Tissot's somnambule, as also Mr. Joly's, was deaf to impres- 
 sions not proceeding from the person with whom she was in rapport. 
 
 Mr. Tissot presents his manner of making notes as a model. But 
 
 ' J. Tissot, " L'Imagination, ses Bienfaits et ses llfigarements,'' p. 119. Paris, 
 i860. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 185 
 
 it is far from being satisfactory. He has noted all the errors of the 
 somnambule, but that is not enough. The entire dialogue must be 
 noted. Hence I prefer General Noizet's narrative. 
 
 General Noizet, author of several philosophical works, and whose 
 volume on somnambulism was praised at the Academy of Sciences by 
 Flourens, recounts the following fact : 
 
 10. " I reached my friend's place before the magnetizer and his 
 somnambule, and the master of the house told us that among the ex- 
 traordinary powers she was credited with was, that she could tell 
 what a person with whom she was put in rapport had been doing 
 throughout the day. Now, on that very day it chanced that I had 
 done something quite out of the common — I had gone to the Hotel 
 des Invalides with the Duke de Montpensier, to show him the gallery 
 of relief -plans of the fortifications. I proposed to test on myself the 
 somnambule's power, and this proposition was accepted by my two 
 friends. The somnambule having arrived and having been endormed, 
 I forthwith put myself jn rapport with her, and asked if she was able 
 to see what I had been doing that day. After some details of little 
 consequence, and obtained with difficulty, as to how I had passed the 
 morning, I asked whither I had gone for breakfast. She answered, 
 without much hesitation, 'To the Tuileries.' That might mean a 
 simple stroll thither, so I persisted and asked at what point I had 
 entered. 'By the wicket on the quay hard by the Pont-Royal* 
 ' And then ? ' ' You went up into the chateau.' ' By which steps, the 
 middle ones ? ' ' No ; by those at the corner, near the wicket.' Here 
 she lost herself among the different sets of steps — and well she 
 might, for there are many of them. Finally she set me down in a 
 large hall where some officers were. It was a reception hall on the 
 ground floor. ' You waited,' said she to me. ' And then ? ' ' A tall young 
 man came and spoke to you.' 'Who was that young man?' 'I do not 
 know.' 'Try hard to find out.' ' Oh, it is the King's son.' 'Which?' 'I 
 do not know.' (I tell her it was the Duke de Montpensier.) ' Afterward ? ' 
 ' You entered a coach.' 'Alone?' ' No ; with the prince.' 'Where was I 
 placed ? ' ' In the rear, to the left of him.' ' Were we two alone in the 
 coach ? ■ ' No ; there was, further, in front, a stout gentleman ? ' ' Who 
 was that gentleman ? ' ' I do not know.' ' Try.' (After reflecting) 
 ' 'Twas the King.' ' How,' said I, ' I on the rear seat and the King on 
 the front ? You see that is not reasonable.' ' I can't say ; I do not know 
 that gentleman.' ' Well, it was the Prince's aide-de-camp.' ' I do not 
 kriow him.' ' Where did we go ? ' 'Along the riverside.' ' And then ? ' 
 ' You entered a large chateau.' ' What chateau ? ' ' I do not know ; 
 there are trees before you come to it.' 'Take a good look ai: it, 
 you must know it.' ' No ; I don't know.' (I drop this question and 
 tell her to continue.) 'You were in a large hall' (Here she gives 
 me an imaginative description of the hall, where she see stars glitter- 
 ing on a white ground.) At last she said to me : ' There were long 
 tables.' ' And what was on the tables ? ' 'It was not high nor was it 
 entirely flat.' (I could not bring her to tell me that it was relief- 
 plans — things that she, no doubt, had never seen.) ' What did we do 
 then, at those tables ? ' 'You got on a bench, and with a long rod 
 pointed out something ? ' (This remarkable specification was per- 
 fectly exact.) At last she had us in the coach again and away. I 
 then said to her : ' But just look back ; you must recognize the place 
 
1 86 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 we are leaving.' ' Ah ! ' she said, as though astonished and confused, 
 ' 'tis the H6tel des Invalides.' She said, furthermore, that the Prince 
 quitted me at the door, which was the fact. 
 
 " Though familiar with the phenomena of somnambulism, this 
 scene nevertheless impressed me much, and I could not reasonably 
 attribute to any cause save the faculty of reading my thoughts or of 
 deciphering impressions still existing in my brain, the kind of divina- 
 tion exhibited by the somnambule. That is the only explanation I 
 can give even to-day." 
 
 This observation is curious, indeed, m that it proves : 
 
 a. That till the moment when the General had fixed his atten- 
 tion on some detail of his recollections, the somnambule divined 
 nothing. 
 
 b. That sometimes she spoke according to verbal suggestions made 
 by the General, and that then either she wandered abroad in con- 
 jecture, or else complemented these verbal suggestions with details 
 mentally transmitted. 
 
 c. That she " saw " best the details that had left the most vivid 
 traces on the mind of the General. 
 
 d. That the traces partially transmitted were completed little by 
 little, till they formed a more distinct image (the Invalides). 
 
 e. That sometimes reflective conjecture failed completely, and then 
 the somnambule guided herself by images passing spontaneously 
 through her mind (the King). 
 
 11. "Professor Barrett, of Edinburgh, tells of a young Irishwoman 
 who, though she never had been away from her native village, was 
 able to describe Regent Street, London, which street he was thinking 
 of when he magnetized her. From this fact and from other facts 
 like it, Professor Barrett concludes that any idea upon which the 
 operator concentrates his thoughts produces its like in the mind 
 of the magnetized subject." ' 
 
 12. Mr. Ch. Richet has recently collected many observations of 
 this kind (not yet published). The subject, when questioned by the 
 operator, describes a chamber, a house, etc., according to the mag- 
 netizer's recollections. These observations, made with exactness, 
 possess a special interest, for they may help us to determine the role 
 of unconscious recollections in the act of transmission. We may in this 
 way decide whether, and in what proportion, the knowledge one pos- 
 sesses, but which at the moment is not present in the mind, can be 
 transmitted to the subject. All that is needed for attaining this 
 object is carefully to note and describe in detail the operator's men- 
 tal state. 
 
 13. Mr. William Gregory, ex-Professor of Chemistry in the Uni- 
 
 ' I quote the passr.ge from P. Despine (pp. «V.),only correcting the name of the 
 operator from Bennet (as given by Dr. Despine) to Barrett. Prof. W. F. Barrett, 
 no doubt, is meant, for this experiment is described in an article by him " On Some 
 Phenomena Associated with Abnormal Conditions of Mind," published in the " Proc. 
 Soc. Psych. Res.," p. 238. July, 1883. — Author's note. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 187 
 
 versity of Edinburgh, quotes a similar case, but I have not his book 
 at hand." 
 
 • 14. The Count de Maricourt,' from whom we have already quoted 
 a few lines, gives the following narrative : 
 
 " It has often happened to me to be staggered and nonplussed by 
 the clairvoyance of somnambules, who told of impressions or divined 
 sentiments that I could have wished to keep secret from them. As I 
 lived in association with these persons, the fact may be accounted for 
 by the habitual community of thought existing between us. To put 
 aside this cause of illusion, I tried an experiment upon a person entirely 
 unknown to me. A professional magnetizer was at the time exhibit- 
 ing in Paris a certain somnambule, about whose performances 
 marvelous stories were told. She knew the past, the present and the 
 future, understood all languages, and above all divined the most 
 secret thoughts. The seances were held in a large hall on the 
 boulevards. You had .only to give her your hand and concentrate 
 your thought upon any object whatever, and she would tell you, 
 following your thought, what the object was. I saw several gentle- 
 men interrogate her thus tacitly. One of them thought of a murder, 
 of a duel he had witnessed ; another made her a witness of some 
 battle scene, of a shipwreck, or of a fire. The somnamibule's 
 descriptions seemed fully to convince her patrons. As I did not 
 believe in the supernatural, I did not wish to be fooled by jugglers. 
 These gentlemen, who were unknown to me, might easily enough be 
 accomplices. ' It is not necessary (said the JBarnum of the establish- 
 ment) to entertain the somnambule with tales of horror and disaster 
 only. On the contrary, I should say you fatigue her by occasioning 
 painful emotions.' 
 
 "I, too, wished to experiment in my turn ; in accordance with the 
 advice of the manager, I called up a pleasant memory inwardly, going 
 back to a remote place in the country, and to a time some few years 
 before." 
 
 The author here recounts the whole story of a feast in which the 
 dominant figure is a drunken man, with red nose and a very comical 
 face, whom he describes in detail. 
 
 " I said not a word (he continues) to the somnambule, but to this 
 vision of the past I strove to give, in my mind, the luminous distinct- 
 ness of a photograph. ' Oh, what a ridiculous phiz ! (exclaimed the 
 seeress after a few moments). What a phiz, what a phiz, my God ! ' 
 Her almost convulsive laugh had in it something so infectious that 
 the whole company shared her jollity. 
 
 "This time I had to confess myself entirely convinced. To the 
 faculty — unexplainable by the play of the organism — of seeing thus 
 into the minds of others must be attributed the alleged facts of 
 somnambulic polyglotism." 
 
 This experiment is not quite conclusive, for jollity being the order 
 of the day after the magnetizer's speech, the somnambule divined 
 only the mental image of a phiz. But granting this not to have been 
 
 'Gregory, "Letters on Mesmerism and Clairvoyance," Edinburgh, 1852 ; Morin, 
 op. cit., p. 168. 
 
 ' R. Comte de Maricourt, " Souvenirs d'un MagnStiseur,'' p. 96 et seq. Paris, 1884. 
 
1 88 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 pure chance, the experiment is instructive in this, that the humorous, 
 comic element, being transmitted to the somnambule and producing 
 laughter, hindered the transmission of all the objective images that 
 were in the mind of the Count. 
 
 Another experiment that I find in the same book is more con- 
 vincing : 
 
 15. "I was walking with a patient whom I had endormed before- 
 hand. [There is nothing unusual in this walk. In active somnam- 
 bulism the subject presents all the appearances of a waking person. 
 If the somnambulism, however, is not deep enough, the subject may- 
 be awakened by a current of air. In other cases you might throw the 
 subject into water or into a fire without awakening him.] She was 
 paralyzed in the legs and could walk only in the magnetic sleep. 
 [This, too, is seen often .enough in hysteric paralysis.] As we passed 
 in front of a field, the owner of which I knew, I a-sked her to tell me 
 Ms name, and at the same time pronounced the name inwardly ; I had 
 some difficulty in obtaining a satisfactory reply. [Observe, the 
 patient was in an active polyideic state.] The subject declared 
 that she could not tell it to me ; I insisted, and the name was pro- 
 nounced as I wished. It is, you see, a hard job {fait brutal), for the 
 subject has to see what yoia think and what she cannot guess. No 
 more striking instance of thought-reading can, I think, be found " 
 
 (P- 123)- 
 
 16. Dr. Puel, author of a memoir on catalepsy that was "crowned" 
 by the Academy, also made one of his cataleptics divine words he 
 thought of ; only he made the task light by indicating the termi- 
 nations. He would say to the patient : " Tell me the word I am 
 
 thinking of; it rhymes with " (clairvoyance, for example), and 
 
 the subject gave it without hesitation.' 
 
 17. Dr. Comet, editor of medical journals and a distinguished writer, 
 was a thorough unbeliever in somnambulism, and had often amused 
 his readers by ridiculing the wonders of lucidity as reported by mag- 
 netizers. In 1839, his wife, having fallen ill, had a fit of natural som- 
 nambulism, and became lucid. Mr. Comet (whose testimony has the 
 more weight, inasmuch as it dealt with facts that he had considered 
 impossible) sent to the Academy of Medicine a detailed report and 
 published the same in the journal L'Hygie. To mention but two of 
 Mrs. Comet's feats, she would describe every little object held in the 
 closed hand and divined thoughts that related to her. 
 
 I pass over other feats that have to do with another question, that 
 of clairvoyance, that is, when the subject sees or divines things that 
 cannot be known to the persons around her. After quoting the 
 description of these curious facts as found in Dr. Comet's " Report," 
 another physician, Mr. Frappart, adds : " Surely it must have cost 
 its author dear, for but the other day he was one of the most deter- 
 mined opponents of magnetism." I3ut Mr. Comet " did not go there 
 by four roads," and here is what he himself wrote in his " Report : " 
 
 " The unfortunate ailment of my wife carries with it a consolation, 
 for it will bring to unappealable judgment a question that has been 
 the subject of much discussion in this Academy and in the press, 
 wherein I have taken an active part — I speak of the lucidity and 
 
 ' A. S. Morin, " Du Magn^tisme et des Sciences Occultes," p. 177. Paris, i85o. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 189 
 
 clairvoyance of somnambules and the wonderful things they do. 
 Three months ago I myself did not believe them, and to-day I regret 
 my having characterized them publicly as fraudulent devices and 
 catchpenny tricks." 
 
 There is a piece of advice for hypnotizers who are doing the same 
 thing to-day ! 
 
 But as for the hope that Dr. Comet fostered, in the belief that the 
 Academy would profit by this occasion and decide, as the highest 
 court, a question that so profoundly concerns the progress of science 
 — what an illusion ! 
 
 The Academy could not refuse to name a commission that was 
 asked for by an esteemed member. The commission even went twice 
 to visit Mrs. Comet ; but after remarking that the case had some 
 extraordinary features, in dealing with which they might compromise 
 either their sagacity or their renown, they hesitated about going on. 
 
 " I notified all of them this morning," wrote Mr. Comet, " and I 
 count upon them for this evening " — the business being to verify a 
 prediction made by the patient. " The fact is of sufficient interest to 
 science and humanity for them to take cognizance of it." " Be not 
 deluded," answered Dr. Frappart, " not one of them will come, either 
 to-night or to-morrow, or later, for a man carefully holds aloof from 
 the truth that hurts him." 
 
 In fact, no member of the commission went.' 
 
 18. A well-known physicist-prestigiator, Mr. Robert-Houdin, took 
 a greater interest in these questions. We have already mentioned his 
 imitating second-sight and thought-transmission, by means of a very 
 ingenious trick. At the outset hfe was very incredulous about somnam- 
 bulism. Nay, accustotned as he was to perform wonderful feats, he 
 made light of marvels, and believed he held the secret of them all ; 
 and he, too, regarded the extraordinary performances of lucid som- 
 nambules as clever tricks. In many towns where somnambules had 
 been successful, he amused himself by counterfeiting their doings, 
 and even surpassing them. Mr. de Mirville, the famous demonologist, 
 who, in his system, has need of somnambulism, thereby to do 
 honor to the spirits infernal, conceived the ambitious project of 
 converting so doughty an adversary. With good reason he judged 
 that should he succeed in proving to Robert-Houdin that lucidity 
 belongs to a class of things entirely foreign to his studies and his 
 practice, the testimony of so expert a judge would be of great service 
 to the cause of magnetism. So he took him to see the somnambule 
 Alexis. Mr. de Mirville, in his book on " Spirits," describes the scene. 
 
 Mr. Morin, from whom I borrow this passage, and who wrote a 
 spirifuelhMt skeptical book on magnetism, declares that Robert-Houdin 
 assured him of the exactitude of Mr. de Mirville's narrative. 
 
 " I was amazed, confounded (says the prestigiator). Here was 
 neither trick nor jugglery. I was witness of the exercise of a higher, 
 
 ' Dr. Frappart, " Lettres sur le Magnetisme," 1839, 1840 ; Dr. Comet, " La Vferite 
 aux M^decins," 1869; Dr. Charpignon, " Physiologic,'' etc., p. 116, 1848; Morin, 
 " Du Magnfetisme," p. 176, i860. 
 
I90 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 an inconceivable faculty whereof I had not the slightest notion, and 
 in which I would have refused to believe, had not the facts come 
 under my own eyes. So great was my emotion that the perspiration 
 streamed down my face." With other experiments he mentions the 
 following : 
 
 19. "Alexis, seizing the hands of my wife, who accompanied me, 
 spoke to her about past occurrences, and in particular about the very 
 painful loss of one of our children ; all the circumstances were re- 
 counted accurately." [In this case, the somnambule read in the mind 
 of Mrs. Houdin her recollections and her sentiments, which were more 
 or less vivid in her consciousness.] 
 
 Another feat of the same somnambule simulates vision and clair- 
 voyance at the same time, as in the case last mentioned, by trans- 
 mission of recollections. 
 
 20. " We had with us a physician, a strong unbeliever. Dr. Chomel, 
 who, desiring also to study the matter for himself, presented to Alexis 
 a little box. The somnambule felt of it without opening it, and said, 
 ' It is a medal ; it was given you under rather singular circumstances. 
 You were then a poor student, living at Lyons in an attic. A work- 
 man to whom you had rendered some services found this medal among 
 refuse, and thinking it might be of some interest to you, climbed 
 your six flights of stairs to offer it to you.' This was all true. Certainly 
 here are facts that one can neither guess not hit on by chance. The 
 doctor shared our admiration for the feat. I gave to Mr. de Mirville 
 the certificate he asked of me, stating that the facts I had witnessed 
 surpassed all that can be done by sleight-of-hand." 
 
 Another quotation from the same author will be found interesting for 
 the very reason that it mentions some mistakes made by the somnam- 
 bule : 
 
 19. " Some months after, I went a second time to consult Alexis. I 
 did not find him as lucid as at first. I was specially impressed by one 
 feature. I presented to him a letter I had just received, and which 
 had not yet been opened. [But Mr. Houdin knew whom it was from.] 
 It bore the Boulogne post-mark. Alexis told me it had come from 
 England, which was true, and gave me z. pretty correct description of 
 the writer. He made a mistake in saying he was a book-seller ; I 
 took him up, and then he said he saw him in a room filled with books 
 and like a book-seller's shop ; and such in fact was the appearance of 
 the sitting-room of my correspondent." ' 
 
 When we recall a person to mind, we automatically {machinakme?it) 
 recall also his surroundings, the background on which his silhouette 
 is limned by memory ; and doubtless it is thiS|fleeting image that was 
 communicated to the somnambule and led him to say, conjecturally, that 
 the writer of the letter was a book-seller. Note again, that the seer 
 did not tell Mr. Houdin what was in the letter : that was a detail of 
 which Houdin himself was ignorant. 
 
 Facts like these last are usually classed as feats of clairvoyance, or 
 'A. S. Morin, op. cit., p. 180. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 191 
 
 are confounded with others which, if they are correctly reported, seem 
 really to exhibit a faculty different from the one we are considering 
 here. 
 
 And, strange to say, there are in the history of magnetism, even 
 though we restrict ourselves to observations made by scientific men, 
 more facts of clairvoyance, relating in particular to questions of the 
 health of patients, than there are facts of mental suggestion properly 
 so-called. It is true that in many cases of somnambulic consultation, 
 •we must absolutely presuppose the mental influence of the physician, un- 
 less we are willing to accept explanations more extraordinary still, or 
 totally-inadequate. 
 
 Baragnon distinguishes mental transmission from lucidity ; he is 
 right, for what is called " clairvoyance " (I do not mean to discuss 
 here the value of that " faculty," not having studied it sufficiently) 
 presupposes a state rather more polyideic than the one that favors pas- 
 sive transmission. Lafontaine, too, had too much experience not to 
 have noticed that the transmission of sensations of thought and of 
 will does not imply lucidity. He even observes that often they who 
 consult somnambules do in reality consult themselves, the somnam- 
 bule merely reproducing their thoughts. But Baragnon is more 
 explicit. " There may be," says he, " thought-transference without 
 clairvoyance, just as there may be clairvoyance without thought- 
 transference : the two phenomena are independent.'" He names as 
 conditions favoring thought-transference these : 
 
 1. " A close sympathy of the magnetizer with the subject. 
 
 2. "A sleep cheerful {gai), free; highly developed magnetic 
 vision. 
 
 3. " Transmission of sensations as a basis." 
 
 As for the first condition, nothing more needs to be said. Plainly, 
 sympathism is more facile where sympathy already exists. 
 
 With regard to the second, I am a little surprised to find that the 
 sleep must be cheerful and free, for to me such sleep seems less favor- 
 able to true transmission, though it is highly favorable to divination 
 by conjecture.' 
 
 By " magnetic vision " Baragnon understands the faculty that many 
 somnambules possess of making their way about and finding their 
 bearings though their eyes be closed, even in places unfamiliar to 
 them, or in the dark. It is far less exact in details than ordinary vis- 
 ion, but, according to this' author, it becomes very accurate when an 
 organism is put in rapport with the somnambule. 
 
 ' " Cheerful and free sleep " is not a happy phrase, and does not render with pre- 
 cision the French sommeil gai et llbre. The meaning of " gay," " free " sleep, is per- 
 haps best obtained by looking at its opposite, namely, magnetic sleep in which the 
 somnambule is more or less inert mentally, say, without initiative, and is restricted in 
 his psychic action. In other words, " gay, free," =polyideic. — Translator. 
 
192 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 We must not be too ready to ridicule this magnetic vision. I cannot 
 analyze here the question of vision with closed eyes, which, indeed, I 
 have studied but little, and I do not yet admit the existence of such 
 faculty, I believe that in the cases in which it has been supposed by 
 competent observers to exist, for example, the case reported by the 
 Academy Commission, it may be regarded as an exaltation of vision, 
 that is to say, vision through the eyelids. But what Baragnon calls 
 " magnetic vision " is a complex phenomenon, sometimes independent 
 of the visual organs — rather an exaltation of touch or more probably 
 an elective and limited exaltation of all the senses, sometimes of those of 
 touch and hearing, sometimes of sight and smell, etc. That is what I 
 mean by elective, or specificated hypersesthesia. 
 
 When the magnetic sleep is thorough, the subject is insensible, deaf, 
 and blind to all that takes place outside of the magnetic " rapport." 
 But in turn his senses are hyperaesthesic with respect to the magnetizer, 
 or of any object upon which he fixes his attention. The apparent con- 
 tradiction must not shock us. The senses are unchanged, but the 
 state of the brain may modify their action in the direction of plus or 
 of minus. In the first place, the same quantity of nervous energy 
 may, instead of being expended on all the senses, be concentrated 
 upon one at the expense of the rest ; then, in the same sense (touch 
 in particular), it may be concentrated in one region, in a single point, 
 at the expense of the rest (the hysterogenic zones belong to this 
 class) ; finally, this displacement may be still further specificated by 
 a brain-adjustment. A mother that is not awakened by a loud knock- 
 ing at night, is up with a leap at the faintest cry of her babe, because 
 her brain is adjusted for that kind of impressions only. There is an 
 unconscious attention that watches without interfering with sleep. One 
 forms the intention of awaking at 5 o'clock in the morning, and at 
 the stroke of five awakes ; and so on. 
 
 Somnambulism shows us magnified what is exhibited on a small 
 scale every day of our lives. The magnetizer is for his subject like 
 the figures at the opera that are illumined by an electric light. He 
 alone is visible, around him all is darkness ; but he it is that holds the 
 reflector, and he can project the light whither he will. 
 
 The somnambule " sees " with closed eyes his magnetizer, or at 
 least translates by the term " vision " all his concentrated and exalted 
 sensations, which come from the magnetizer. He feels his presence, 
 knows whether he is to the right or the left, whether he is walking or 
 motionless ; to a certain extent, he senses even his gestures ; all this 
 through perception of air-movements, of warmth, of cutaneous odor, 
 of noises made, of tones of voice, etc.; and these impressions being by 
 habitude associated with visual images, the somnambule translates 
 them into terms of vision. 
 
 " Magnetic vision," in this sense, is, of course, a favorable condition 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 193 
 
 for rpental communications ; yet it implies a theory of divination 
 rather than a theory of direct transmission. Baragnon leaves the 
 question undecided. 
 
 Finally, the third condition, too, is consistent with physiology. 
 Thoughts are only sensations cerebralized (excuse the word !).' 
 
 Not only are sensations the sole springs of ideas in their primitive 
 form, but every fully elaborated idea, so far forth as it is active, is ac- 
 companied by unmodified sensations," unconscious for the most part, 
 but which sustain the consciousness. So, too, it is accompanied by 
 the inchoate reflex movements proper to it (Sietschenoff), and Campa- 
 nella, perhaps, was in the right when he said that if he could imitate 
 precisely the attitude" of a man that is thinking of anything, he 
 could at once divine his thought. 
 
 " There is no doubt," says Baragnon, " but that transmission of sen- 
 sations has much to do with thought-transference." He holds that 
 the reciprocal sensations of two organisms, in the state of erethism 
 that conditions that phenomenon, awaken in the mind the same 
 thoughts, precisely as in ordinary perception, in which the words 
 uttered enable us to know the thoughts. 
 
 In that .sense, properly speaking, there would be no transmission of 
 thought, but only of sensations. The theory is tenable, but not m 
 every instance, for mental suggestion may exist without transmission 
 of sensations, at least without perceptible transmission. 
 
 The following fact would seem to have supplied a basis for the 
 views of Baragnon : 
 
 " I was smoking quietly in company with some gentlemen in an 
 apartment adjoining a parlor where that evening I had made some 
 experiments, when the request was made unexpectedly that I should 
 endorm from a distance my subject, who had remained in the parlor 
 with the ladies ; I did so without knowing that he was dancing. The 
 fluid came upon him like a lightning-stroke, and with the sleep he had 
 a crisis. I was summoned. The somnambule was surrounded by a 
 ring of spectators standing so close that I had difficulty in getting 
 through. ' Hey ! Get out of there, if you want to have him recover,' 
 said I, gruffly, to a young officer that kept me back, not knowing me ; 
 for I was thinking only of my patient, and had put politeness in 
 quarantine. The crisis was checked straightway. I let the subject 
 sleep for a few minutes in quiet, and thought of everything but the 
 young officer. The latter after a few moments came up to me, no 
 
 ' But the term admits of no apology ! Moreover, it is unnecessary, for a perfectly 
 legitimate one might have been coined to express the idea, to wit, 'encephalized. — 
 Translator. 
 
 ' Sensations brutes = sensations " in the raw state." — Translator. 
 
 * The word appears to be used in a larger sense than attaches to it commonly in 
 English. Doubtless it denotes here the whole nervo-muscular action of the man, in- 
 ternal no less than external, not merely his pose, the direction of his eyes, etc. ; not 
 
 simply his outward action and bearing, as a good mimic might render the same. 
 
 Translator, 
 
194 MENTAL SUGGESTION 
 
 doubt to demand an explanation of my rudeness , my subject rqse to 
 his feet, went toward the officer, stopped him, took hold of his hands, 
 and said : ' You are offended He is m the wrong, excuse him , he is 
 quick-tempered, but he is kindly.' On learning what was the matter, 
 I hastened to offer my apologies, which were courteously accepted. I 
 then questioned myself as to the purport of this phenomenon. No- 
 body, in the confusion of the moment, had heard me speak to the 
 officer I had no recollection of having said a word to him. Som- 
 nambules hear nobody but their magnetizer, and my subject was in^ 
 the crisis." ' 
 
 The author gives the story without comment, but comment is 
 necessary. 
 
 1. We have here a pretty clear case of will-action from a distance. 
 The crisis came on in consequence of a collision between the subject's 
 activity (dancing) and the magnetizer's unexpected action. This 
 action is at present unexplained, unless we are content with the ex- 
 planation given by Baragnon — fluid-projection. But we pass that by ; 
 we will return to it later. 
 
 2. The magnetizer could not transmit his sensations, for he took no 
 notice of anything, being occupied with his patient. The only sup- 
 position would be that he had unconscious sensations, and. that they 
 were transmitted Unconsciously — a supposition impossible to verify. 
 
 3. But what may be considered certain is, that the somnambule heard 
 his magnetizer when the latter said to the officer " Hey, get out," etc. 
 His attention was attracted, and it is probable that the officer muttered 
 some words that the subject heard likewise. He divined the situation , 
 his attention remained fixed on the impressions coming from the 
 officer , and sympathy determined his course. 
 
 It is true that, as a rule, somnambules do not hear strangers, nor 
 even their magnetizer when he addresses his speech to other persons , 
 but in this instance the voice indicated the coming of the magnetizer, 
 and when that is the case it is often heard. Then, recall what we have 
 said above concerning unconscious sensations, not perceived directly, 
 but which enter the brain, there to manifest themselves afterward at a 
 favorable moment. 
 
 Consequently, this observation does not even prove the transmission 
 of sensations. 
 
 We have already quoted Dr. Teste, who believed that he could hold 
 a mental conversation with his somnambule, as Madame Guyon used 
 to converse with her confessor. Puysegur mentions several facts of 
 this kind, among others the feat of a cataleptic who, being deaf, an- 
 swered for some moments very detailed questions put mentally " with- 
 out words and without any expression of the face-muscles." He 
 quotes the answers word for word. 
 
 General Noizet gives the following narrative : 
 'Baragnon, op. cit., pp. 137, 301. 
 
TRANSMISSION OF IDEAS. 195 
 
 " One of my friends, a young physician, employed in a Paris infirm- 
 ary, did not believe in the surprising facts of somnambulism. I in- 
 duced him to make experiments on one of his patients. He followed 
 my advice, and soon he had a somnambule. He had heard that these 
 singular beings can answer questions put to them mentally. He ques- 
 tioned his somnambule in this way on behalf of another woman that 
 was present, to whom he did not wish his question to be known, and, 
 as luck would have it, the somnambule answered with such correct- 
 ness that he did not easily recover from the emotion caused by so ex- 
 traordinary a feat." ' 
 
 I never have observed anything of this sort, save for a moment 
 with regard to a few detached questions. But there once was a physi- 
 cian who declared that this phenomenon was of constant occurrence 
 with a patient of his. This was Dr. Barrier, of Privas, who, in a me- 
 moir addressed to Cuvier and to the Academy, in 1835, nientions the 
 following facts, observed in the case of a patient, Euphrasia Bonneau : 
 
 1. " Complete insensibility, except at the epigastrium, where life is 
 concentrated." ' (This often is the case with magnetized hysteric sub- 
 jects. " Life concentrated at the epigastrium " means simply that the 
 epigastrium is the only sensitive part, and that only through that part 
 of the body " rapport " could be maintained. We find similar facts in 
 Petetin, Frank and others.) 
 
 2. " The gift of divining the thoughts of a person who comes into 
 rapport with her : so pronounced is this faculty, that Euphrasia 
 /to/ds a conversation in which the interlocutor speaks mentally only." 
 
 3. "Production of very remarkable electro-magnetic phenomena." 
 
 4. " Abolition of sight, taste and smell in the organs of those 
 senses, and their transfer to the epigastrium." (We need not consider 
 this phenomenon here ; it can be studied in Petetin, Frank, Teste and 
 Despine.) 
 
 5. " Prevision of future events with regard to her ailment." 
 (There was a good deal of amusement recently at the Academy of 
 
 Sciences apropos of a communication of this kind. The faculty never- 
 theless exists, and is in nowise extraordinary. An hysterepileptic 
 patient sometimes foresees a paroxysm, knowing by the aura hysterica 
 that it is coming on ; a magnetized hysteriac, whose whole attention 
 is concentrated inwardly, may foresee it several days in advance. 
 Finally, it is to be observed that the unconscious sometimes /(7rM?« 
 what it is itself going to produce.) 
 
 6. " Appreciation of the value of remedies proposed \ feeling others' 
 sufferings." 
 
 7. " Strong inclination to act the part of prophetess." " 
 I quote this communication only as part of the record. 
 ■ Noizet, " M6moire sur le Somnambulisme," p. 127. Paris, 1854. 
 
 ' I have not been able to obtain tiiis memoir ; I merely find it mentioned by Char- 
 pignon (" Phys., MM. et M6t., p. 397). 
 
196 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 DIRECT WILL-TRANSMISSION. 
 
 WE come now to will-transmission. I begin with a narrative by 
 a very good observer, now almost utterly forgotten. Four- 
 nel ' tells us of a somnambule whom he ordered to take a hat that lay 
 on a table in the middle of his sitting-room, and to go and put it on 
 the head of one of the company. 
 
 " This will (he writes) I did not express in speech, but only by a 
 sign, which traced the lines I wanted him to go over, and which ended 
 at the hat. The somnambule, whose eyes were bandaged, rose from his 
 chair, followed the direction indicated by my finger, advanced toward 
 the table, took the hat from among several objects, and went and put 
 it on the head of the person indicated."' 
 
 It is to be remarked that the gestures of the magnetizer help the 
 experiment, even when they are not seen by the subject. Sundry 
 agents contribute to this result, i. Air-currents, often very clearly 
 perceptible at a distance. 2. Auditive impressions accompanying the 
 gestures. 3. Attractions, very active in some subjects. 4. The mental 
 ■ concentration itself of the operator, which is much facilitated by his 
 mimetic gestures. 
 
 Fournel's work appeared in 1785, that is, a year after Puys^gur's 
 classic memoir. I have begun with this little observation of Fournel's 
 because, though it is not altogether demonstrative with regard to 
 mental suggestion, it yet presents the most usual type of experiments 
 in will-transmission as ordinarily practiced. 
 
 But we must not forget that Puysegur was the iirst to propose this 
 kind of researches. He it was that first proclaimed the reality of the 
 fact and met the cavils of his contemporaries. 
 
 One often wonders that certain studious observers should have re- 
 tained the term " tnagneiic sleep," given by Mesmer and Puysegur to 
 a certain form of artificial somnambulism, confounded nowadays with 
 hypnosis. The passages I am about to quote will give the reason for 
 so denominating it, and will show a close relation between it and will- 
 transmission. The analogies that Puysegur believes he finds subsisting 
 between certain electrical and magnetic phenomena, and the aptitudes 
 of somnambules, may seem to us in these days inexact and superficial ; 
 but neither must it be forgotten that even he considers them only as 
 analogies, and not as proofs of identity. 
 
 ' Fournel, the advocate, was the author of three remarkable writings; ■' Essai sur 
 les Probabilites du Somnambulisme," Amsterdam and Paris, 1785 ; " M6moire pour 
 le Docteur Vernier," 1785 — a defense of Dr. Vernier whose name was dropped from 
 the rolls of the Faculty for having practiced magnetism ; and ' ' Remontrance des 
 Malades, ' etc., 1785. 
 
 ^ " Ess. sur les Prob. ," p. 48. 
 
DIRECT WILL-TRANSMISSION. 197 
 
 The following narrative has reference to an epileptic (probably 
 hysterepileptic) girl, of whom the author speaks in his second 
 " Mdmoire : " 
 
 " This girl, in the somnambulic state, showed the utmost magnetic 
 mobility j and as, barring her nervous disorder, she was of very strong 
 constitution, I had no fear lest I should injure her health by subjecting 
 her to all the experiments for which she was fitted. Of all those who 
 at the time came to my house to satisfy their curiosity, there must 
 doubtless be still many who will recall the hours they passed there, 
 and the details I am about to enter upon. 
 
 " Before presenting Magdeleine before the company, I always began 
 by announcing to the spectators not only what I was about to perform, 
 but also what each one might perform to convince himself. ' The girl 
 once in the somnambulic state,' I used to say to all, ' will present to 
 you all the phenomena of electricity and of the magnet ; comparable 
 at first in all respects to an insulated body charged with electric fluid ^ 
 she will be in communication with me alone, so that to touch her 
 without risk of doing her hurt, and to make yourself heard by her, I 
 must put you in rapport with her. Then, regardless of rest or of 
 motion, she will obey all the intimations of your will, as readily as a 
 magnetic needle obeys the iron held out to it.' 
 
 " As can be understood, an announcement so extraordinary prepared 
 the minds of the majority of the audience for an illusive performance, 
 rather than for a real exhibition of unwonted powers ; but my subject 
 was so well fitted to re-assure the audience by the passive state of all 
 her sensations, that I felt sure I should, by her means, triumph over 
 all uncertainties and over all the cavils of incredulity. 
 
 " Magdeleine having entered, I performed upon her what I used to 
 hear called, ironically, ' the great work,' or ' the mystery.' In two 
 or three minutes, though no movement, no change, could be observed 
 in her, she closed her eyes and was in the electro-magnetic state. I 
 then invited the two or three persons named in advance by the com- 
 pany, to begin the experiments. If one touched the arm, or even only 
 the apron of the girl, she was seen to quiver and to suffer ; a bit of 
 paper laid unawares upon her head weighed her down as though she 
 were bearing a heavy burden hard to sustain. I have to say that at 
 each shock {commotion) thus given her (for such in truth it was), I 
 made haste by my touch to put her nerves at rest again, and the mis- 
 chief done her was at once repaired. ... If anyone spoke to her, 
 she made no reply, and whatever noise might be made at a little dis- 
 tance from her, she seemed to be insensible to it. I then made a sign, 
 for I did not speak, fearing lest people might suspect some understand- 
 ing between the girl and me — I proposed, I say, to somebody to give 
 me his hand ; immediately she, grown indifferent to the approach [of 
 the stranger], answered him as she would have done in her natural 
 state. Eight or ten persons joined hands, and provided they were in 
 communication with me, the last, or the one nearest to her, repeated 
 the experiments with the same success. When I thought I had proved 
 sufficiently the analogy of the phenomena she presented, with those 
 of electricity, I proceeded to the experiments designed to prove the 
 same analogy with the magnet. To this end, I took a position face 
 to face with her, and, without speaking, made her rise from her 
 chair, and, by a sign, or even without any sign, with the hand (which. 
 
ipS MENTAL SUGGESTION 
 
 indeed, she could not have seen, for her eyes were shut), I directed 
 her to a given part of the room, or to a given chair in which I willed 
 her to sit ; I then, still mentally, made her touch, take up, and fetch 
 me any object ; but, because, seeing that she did not act save by my 
 direction, people might think with some shov/ of reason, that I had an 
 understanding with her, I used to say to the spectators : 
 
 "' I have made the experiments you have just seen, only to show 
 you in what way you are to act in order to repeat them yourselves : 
 the one among you with whom I am about to put this young lady in 
 harmony, will make her obey, as I have done, all the indications he 
 may have in his mind. I ask of you one thing only, namely, that once 
 your will is decided, it shall remain firm and constant, and shall not 
 again change in direction. Imagine some one that never has seen a 
 mariner's compass, to whom is given an iron rod, with the remark that 
 by means of the same he can guide the needle at his will ; if every 
 time he saw it going in one direction he should forthwith move the tip 
 of the iron rod back again, you know that he would then produce only 
 an oscillation, and might thence draw the conclusions most favorable 
 to his ignorance or his prejudices. It were worse still if, his self- 
 opinionatedness revolting at the sort of doggedness with which the 
 needle followed his indications, he should jump from one pole straight 
 to the other, for then the needle, resuming of necessity its first position, 
 would make him dead-set in his incredulity. You, gentlemen, will 
 stand in the same relation toward this young woman as the iron rod 
 toward the needle ; it will, therefore, be your fault, not hers, if you see 
 her for one moment vacillate in following the guidance of your will.' 
 
 " I cannot but laugh even now when I recall the little eagerness 
 shown to make this last and conclusive experiment : if people had 
 shown indifference toward trying the experiment of electrical com- 
 munications, they refused to put themselves to the test in this. True, 
 one had to begin with an act of faith, a thing always hard to do, and 
 then to behave consistently with it, perhaps a more difficult thing 
 still. Yet there was never a seance at which seven or eight persons 
 at least did not make trial of their will-power, or in which that did 
 not happen which I have already described. If a person fixed his 
 thoughts fast upon an object, and designated it with the hand or only 
 with the eyes, the girl went to that object and touched it or took it in 
 hand without hesitating ; but, if a person -through want of confidence 
 or through timidity ceased to fix his thought, the girl would follow 
 the oscillations of the man's mind ; if the thought was turned in 
 another direction, in the hope of putting her out, she was seen to 
 vacillate, and then to stop short and stand still. A weak will, one 
 but little set upon a purpose, was with respect to her what the iron 
 rod is with respect to the needle when, being at too great a distance, 
 it receives therefrom too slight an influence. 
 
 " Though, when the girl was in the magnetic state, her eyes were 
 always shut, and she could not open them, nevertheless, in order to do 
 away with all suspicion of trickery or subterfuge on her part, I used, 
 whenever anybody desired it, to put a thick bandage over her eyes, a 
 thing equally indifferent to her and to myself, and the results of her 
 magnetic mobility were the same. 
 
 " How many persons on whose esteem I had some claim, and how 
 many others whom, in view of the respect they enjoyed in the world, 
 it would have been an honor to me to convince of the reality of the 
 
DIRECT WILL-TRANSMISSION. 199 
 
 phenomena, nevertheless left my house, not only not believing in what 
 they had seen, and what they had themselves performed, but with more 
 than a doubt of my good faith ! That I should appear in their eyes, 
 if not exactly as a sleight-of-hand trickster, at least as a deluded 
 enthusiast, is still a painful thought for me. But how great is the 
 power of prejudice, if the purest truth, presented by the being who is 
 least interested in making it known, is unable to overthrow its baleful 
 prestige ! 
 
 " Though I have made it a law for myself not to name any of the 
 persons who for two months came in succession to take part in, and to 
 be witnesses of my experiments, still I think I may, without indiscre- 
 tion, name one of the more notable. The Baron de Bezenval wrote 
 to me to express the desire that I would go on a certain evening with 
 my somnambule to the house of Mr. Mitonard, a well-known pharma- 
 cist and an able chemist. There was a numerous company present, 
 but very few of the people were known to me. After having called 
 into play, with my wonted good faith, the electro-magnetic powers of 
 Magdeleine, and observed very clearly that the company had little 
 faith in their reality, I begged Mr. Mitonard himself for a moment 
 kindly to suppose that what I wished to persuade him was true. ' In 
 any event,' said I to him, ' there would be some mystery in what I am 
 proposing to you ; and though the facts you have witnessed should be 
 referable to a different cause from the one I assign, it will still be 
 interesting to you, even should you be unable to tell why, to see this 
 girl act in accordance with your thoughts alone ; but, give your 
 thoughts a fixed direction, and will strongly the execution of them.' 
 Mr. Mitonard having agreed to this, made known to a few persons 
 what he intended mentally to demand of the somnambule ; and this 
 preliminary, which assured me of the fixedness of his, thoughts in a 
 definite direction, left in my mind no doubt as to the success of the 
 experiment. So, having put the young woman in communication 
 •with him, I left her entirely at his disposal, and withdrew to a corner 
 of the room. Mr. Mitonard, after having made her walk about and 
 sit down, and take different objects in hand, as well from the mantel- 
 piece as from the table, acts which, in view of the promptitude with 
 which she carried out his intentions, were to me proof that his thoughts 
 were strongly fixed, now stopped, and standing straight before her, 
 without making any movement whatever, remained in an attitude of 
 deep thought. Instantly the somnambule moves her hand toward one of 
 his coat-pockets, thrusts it into the bottom, and takes out three small 
 screws that he had put there, and which he had had the intention that 
 she should go to the pocket for and take out of it. . . Mr. Mito- 
 nard's astonishment, and the assurance everyone had of the execu- 
 tion of his thought, for a moment overcame their incredulity ; but 
 soon. How is it done ? and That is incredible, and The thing is impossible, 
 put a stop, I fancy, to the current of the reflections that each one 
 must have been making, for I have not heard of them since. 
 
 " From this narrative it is seen that I did my best to open the eyes 
 of educated men of all classes and all conditions, to the interesting 
 discovery of animal magnetism ; and my confessed incapacity to 
 explain to them all its phenomena ought not, I think, to be to them a 
 reason for denying its reality." ' 
 
 'See p. II of the "Suite de M^moires pour servir i I'Histoire du Magn6tisme 
 Animal. " 
 
200 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Let us now consider a few more recent observations : 
 
 " It was (says Lafontaine) at one of tlie seances held at tlie house 
 of the learned and very incredulous Dr. Bretonneau, that I was so 
 fortunate as to see and hear B^ranger, our celebrated balladist. Ber- 
 anger having witnessed several experiments on thought-transference, 
 wished to make some himself, in order, as he said, to convince the 
 doctor, who could not mistrust him. After some directions given by 
 me, he took the somnambule's hand, telling her to do what he would 
 order her mentally. He exerted such will-force in the experiment that 
 his other hand caused the table on which it rested to tremble. Soon 
 the somnambule was seen to rise, go toward Dr. Bretonneau, take him 
 by the hand, and, in spite of his resistance, lead him to B6ranger, 
 who declared that such had been his mental order." ' 
 
 " At another seance the name of a lady was written on a piece of 
 paper ; the paper was passed to me, and immediately the somnambule 
 was seen to rise, take a bouquet, and carry it to the lady indicated."" 
 
 An eminent physiologist, Mr. H. Beaunis, Professor at the Faculty 
 of Nancy, said recently : " I have never been able to find in the sub- 
 jects I have observed, the wondrous phenomena spoken of by some 
 magnetizers. Whenever the suggestion I wanted to produce was 
 simply thought, and not expressed in one way or another, it never has 
 been carried out I do not wish, however, absolutely to deny those 
 facts, in the face of the affirmative testimony given by scientific men ; 
 what I can say is, that I never have observed them." ° 
 
 That is, indeed, the language of a man of science ; and if Mr. Beau- 
 nis had not found anything of this kind, he would have the right to 
 make all reservations with regard to other observers. But chance 
 willed that it should be otherwise ; here is mi hat he himself published 
 a little later : 
 
 " Mr. Janet's communication gives me an opportunity to mention a 
 fact of mental suggestion that I observed a few days ago with Dr. 
 Liebeault. The subject is a young man, a very good somnambule, in 
 good health, a little timid. He accompanied his cousin to Dr. Lie- 
 beault's. The cousin is also a very good somnambule ; she is under 
 treatment by hypnotism for a nervous affection. Dr. Liebeault en- 
 dormed the subject, and said to him during the sleep : ' On awaking, 
 you will do the act that the persons present will mentally order you to 
 do.' I then wrote in pencil on a piece of paper these words : ' To kiss 
 his cousin.' I showed the paper to Dr. Liebeault and to the few per- 
 sons present, asking them to read it with the eyes only, without pro- 
 nouncing even with the lips a single one of the words written on it, 
 and added : ' When he awakes, you are to think intently upon the act 
 he is to perform, but you are not to speak a word or to make any sign 
 that might put him on the track.' The subject was then awakened 
 and we awaited the outcome of the experiment. Shortly after he 
 
 ■Lafontaine, " Mfemoires," vol. i., p. 155. 
 
 ' Lafontaine, " L'Art de Magnfetiser," 5th ed., p. 99. Paris, 1886. 
 ^ H. Beaunis, " Recherches Expferimen tales sur les Conditions de 1' Activity Cer6- 
 brale," etc., ii., p. 90. Paris, 18S6. 
 
DIRECT WILL-TRANSMISSION. 201 
 
 awoke, we saw him laughing and hiding his face in his hands, and this 
 play went on for some time without other result. I then asked him : 
 ' What is the matter ? ' ' Nothing ! ' ' What are you thinking about ? ' 
 (No reply.) ' You know,' I said, ♦ that you have to do something we 
 are thinking on. If you are unwilling to do it, at least tell us what 
 we are thinking about.' ' No ! ' ' Then," said I, ' if you won't tell us 
 aloud, whisper it in my ear,' and I went up close to him. ' To kiss 
 my cousin,' he said. The first step once taken, the rest of the mental 
 suggestion was executed with a good grace. 
 
 " Have we here simple coincidence ? That were surprising, indeed. 
 Was it possible for the subject, during his sleep, to learn the meaning 
 of the words I wrote on the paper, or could he have seen them ? That 
 is hardly supposable. Again, I am sure that none of the persons 
 present could in anywise have put him in the way of finding out the 
 act he was required to perform. Here plainly is something that 
 upsets the received theories of brain-function, and, as for myself, till 
 lately I was an unbeliever in facts of this kind. To-day I am con- 
 vinced that they must not be rejected, successes being, though rare, 
 far too numerous to be the result of mere chance ; and from the 
 moment that the question of mental suggestion was brought before 
 the Society, I have believed that, strange as these phenomena might 
 appear, I could contribute my quota." ' 
 
 The transmission of a simple act of the will, i. e., of a purely me- 
 chanical one, is easily performed if the subject manifests the phenom- 
 enon of attraction in a high degree. 
 
 " At Nottingham (says Lafontaine) I obtained the phenomenon of 
 attraction in a young woman during somnolence, and from the first. 
 Dr. Lightfoot, who was very incredulous, brought to a public seance 
 a young woman to have her magnetized. In the course of a- few 
 minutes the girl was put in the state of somnolence ; there was insen- 
 sibility. Suddenly I perceived that there was attraction in my hand ; 
 I made her rise and walk toward Dr. Altenburow \sic\. While she 
 walked I was ten paces behind her. I tried to attract her, and 
 speedily she halted ; her body swayed ; then, though the doctor 
 called her forward, she turned back toward me. I quit attracting 
 her, and immediately she walked forward. When I again attracted 
 her the same result followed — she halted, wavered, and turned 
 back." » 
 
 Had Dr. Altenburow been a magnetizer he would have been able 
 to thwart this influence by attracting the subject on his side. I made 
 that experiment in Paris at the Piti6 in 1882. Dr. Dumontpailler 
 having endormed his subject, Miss Marie, since so famous, attracted 
 her on one side, and her body would incline toward him at the risk of 
 her falling out of her chair ; then, after having made a few passes with- 
 out contact (in order to enter into rapport, /. e., to have the right to 
 act) I attracted her on the other side, and thus we were able to bal- 
 ance her as though with cords, each of us attracting in turn. 
 
 ' H. Beaunis, " Un Fait de Suggestion Mentale" (Rev. Philos., No. 2, p. 204, 
 1886 ; Bulletin de la Soc. de Psych. Physiol., I fascicule). 
 
 '' Lafontaine, " L'Art de Magn^tiser," 3d ed., p. go, Paris, 1886. 
 
202 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 The phenomenon of attraction presents many shades of difference ; 
 these we will throw a little light upon when we treat of action at a 
 distance. 
 
 Let us now consider purely mental will-transmissions, that is, ex- 
 periments made without contact, without gestures and without attrac- 
 tion, sometimes even without a loolt (le regard^. 
 
 A tentative demonstration of this delicate phenomenon was made 
 in 1837 by Dr. Berna before an academic commission, but it failed 
 utterly; at least so says the report of Mr. Dubois of Amiens, a master- 
 piece of ill-will. The members of the Commission were unable even 
 to find any proof of the existence of somnambulism ! Here is an 
 extract from the report, referring to will-action : 
 
 " Third Conclusion. — The magnetizer had to prove to the Commis- 
 sion that, simply by the intervention of his will, he had the power of 
 restoring, either locally or generally, the somnambule's sensibility. 
 But as it was impossible for him to prove to us experimentally that 
 he had taken away, done away, the girl's sensibility, it was for that 
 very reason impossible for him to prove the restoration of the same ; 
 and, besides, it results from the facts by us observed that all the 
 attempts made to that end failed completely." 
 
 This experiment is a very difficult one. In fact it involves not 
 only a mental suggestion but, at the same time, a trophic ideoplasty, ' 
 and it is matter for surprise that Dr. Berna should risk such an experi- 
 ment before men that knew nothing about magnetism, and who could 
 not distinguish somnambulism from the waking state. The report 
 goes on to say : 
 
 " One of the paragraphs of the program had this heading : ' Obe- 
 dience to the mental order that the subject cease, in the middle of a 
 conversation, from answering, verbally or by signs, a given person.* 
 The magnetizer sought to prove to the Commission that the silent 
 power of his will could produce that effect. But the facts of the 
 seance show that, far .from producing these results, his somnambule 
 did not hear, even when he had, as yet, no intention of preventing 
 her from hearing, and that she appeared (!) to hear again when he 
 positively willed her not to hear. So that, according to the assertions 
 of this somnambule, the faculty of hearing or not hearing was com- 
 pletely in revolt against the magnetizer's will. But, weighing the 
 facts carefully, the Commission no more conclude that there was 
 revolt than that there was submission ; they found complete inde- 
 pendence, and that is all."" 
 
 As for the phenomenon announced by Dr. Berna, and first described 
 by Puys6gur, that we will examine in the sequel. For the present we 
 would only remark that, despite its apparent simplicity, this experiment 
 
 ' See Appendices II., III. 
 
 ' For details see ' ' Experiences et Considerations i 1' Appui relatives au Magnfetisme 
 Animal, Tii^se prfesentee et soutenue i la Faculte de Paris,'' 1834 ; also " Examen el 
 Refutation du Rapport fait par M. Dubois." Paris, 1838. 
 
DIRECT WILL-TRANSMJSSION. 203 
 
 is exceedingly difficult. As I have already observed elsewhere, when 
 the subject converses with anyone, i. e., when he is in the state of 
 active polyideism, it is very hard to act upon him mentally, first, be- 
 cause his " rapport " with the magnetizer is weakened by being shared 
 with another person ; secondly, and mainly, because in order that so 
 slight an action may be felt, no other action must oppose it. Often- 
 times persons engaged in conversation with one another do not hear 
 those outside of their circle. The same phenomenon, comparatively, 
 occurs in mental speech : several thoughts simultaneously occupy the 
 mind of the subject ; hence it is difficult for a new thought to find ad- 
 mission. 
 
 On the whole, I admire the robust faith of the physicians who, 
 without knowing the conditions of so fleeting a phenomenon, were 
 willing to run the risk of a set-back before a committee of unbelievers. 
 
 Magnetizers nowadays are more prudent. The reader will recall 
 what Donato said to me when I asked him if he believed in mental 
 suggestion. It seems, however, that he succeeded several times in 
 presence of Messrs. Aksakof and Flammarion. First let us hear what 
 he tells us himself : 
 
 " One day, at Paris, Mr. Aksakof requested of me a private seance. 
 I consented, as I always do. Mr. Aksakof did not apprise me in ad- 
 vance of what he wanted to obtain, and I expected that I should have 
 to reproduce my ordinary experiments. 
 
 " He required of me something totally different from what I had 
 been accustomed to do. If I recall this circumstance, that is because 
 it possesses an importance that will be patent to everyone. In fact, 
 Mr. Aksakof wanted thought-transmissions — experiments that I never 
 had made, whether publicly or in private. A little while after, Mr. 
 Flammarion unexpectedly made the same request. I tried the experi- 
 ment to gratify a thoroughly scientific curiosity, and all the thought- 
 transmissions that were asked for were as successful as I. could have 
 desired. Had this experiment been habitual, one might have sus- 
 pected the existence of an understanding, of a secret telegraphy be- 
 tween my subject and myself. But to say nothing of the minute 
 precautions taken to prevent all subterfuge, I was asked for some 
 new experiments to be performed on the instant. At first I refused to 
 make the attempt ; then, upon iterated insistance, I agreed to try, and 
 though they were successful, they were so almost in spite of me. I 
 brought no egoism into the thing ; it is without vanity, and even with- 
 out pleasure, that I declare my complete success, for I ktunv that it 
 will be impossible to content everybody always, and in particular al- 
 ways to satisfy myself in this class of phenomena, as fugitive as they 
 are eminently curious." 
 
 Mr. Aksakof, in his report of the experiments, which he drew up 
 with great care, says : 
 
 " It is known that one of the most widely heralded aphorisms of 
 modern physiology is, that psychic activity does not extend beyond the 
 periphery of the nerves. If, then, we could prove that man's thought is 
 
204 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 not circumscribed by the limits of the body, but that it can overstep 
 them, and act upon another human body at a distance, be transmitted 
 to its brain, without any visible or any known process, and be repro- 
 duced by speech, movement, or other means, that were a fact of vast 
 importance, before which materialistic physiology would have to bend, and 
 which psychology and philosophy would have to take possession of, 
 in order to give fresh support and a new development to their meta- 
 physical speculations." 
 
 Mr. Aksakof is mistaken. There is no relation between mental 
 suggestion and the question of materialism or spiritualism. Mental 
 suggestion is a fact of action, not of the recondite nature of things, 
 whereof we know nothing. Action at a distance is not a character 
 peculiar to immaterial things — if immaterial things there be, and of 
 such I know nothing. Electricity did not become a " spiritual " thing 
 when the telegraph was invented. 
 
 "November 17, 1878, I went to see Mr. Donato at 2 o'clock, and 
 after a few minutes' conversation we set to work. 
 
 " First Experiment. — I asked Mr. Donato to endorm Miss Lucile. 
 He placed an armchair between the two windows of the room, a few 
 paces from the wall ; Miss Lucile seated herself in it, and within a 
 few moments was endormed. We' station ourselves at the lower end 
 of the room, facing Miss Lucile. Then I take from my pocket a 
 memorandum book and from it take a card, which I hand to Mr. 
 Donato, requesting him to make Miss Lucile, solely by fixing his eyes 
 upon her, to execute the movement indicated on the card. The 
 writing on the card was : ^Etendre le bras gauche' (extend the left arm). 
 Mr. Donato takes the card, rises, stands alongside of me without a 
 motion, and gazes on Miss Lucile. Instantly her left arm begins to 
 stir, slowly quits the body, is held out horizontally, and so remains 
 till Mr. Donato puts it back in the normal position. 
 
 " Second Experiment. — I hand to Mr-. Donato a white handkerchief 
 that I had brought with me, and ask him to cover with it the eyes 
 and the head of Miss Lucile. The borders of the handkerchief reach 
 her shoulders. We take our places again. I hand to Mr. Donato in 
 perfect silence a second card on which is written : ^Lever le bras droit 
 verticalement' (raise the right arm vertically). Mr. Donato fixes his 
 gaze on the motionless body of Miss Lucile, and soon her right arm, 
 docile to the thought that directs it, executes the desired movement, 
 always slowly, gently, stopping immediately when Mr. Donato turns 
 his head to put a question to me with a look. 
 
 "I congratulated Mr. Donato on the success and asked him to re- 
 move the handkerchief from Miss Lucile's head and awaken her, so as 
 to prevent all fatigue. [It would have been better to let her sleep 
 quietly.] 
 
 " Third Experiment. — After ten minutes' conversation. Miss Lucile is 
 endormed, and her head again covered with the handkerchief. We 
 take our places and I hand to Mr. Donato a third card on which I had 
 written: ' Mettrc les deux mains sur la tite' (put both hands on the 
 head), and ask him this time to operate, not from in front of the sub- 
 ject, but from behind her. Mr. Donato expressed some doubts whether 
 he would succeed under these conditions ; nevertheless, he stood be- 
 hind Miss Lucile and made the attempt, but in vain. That did not 
 
DIRECT WILL-TRANSMISSION. 205 
 
 surprise me, the general rapports of polarity between the operator 
 and his subject having been reversed." 
 
 We must not call in an unknown cause. Has the spiritual soul, 
 then, a right side and a left ? Besides, in acting from a great distance 
 one cannot know what is the position of the subject. With regard to 
 this check Donato writes : 
 
 " Without discussing the question of polarity, I would remark that 
 my objection was not based on that phenomenon. The objection 
 simply was that, stationed behind Miss Lucile, I could not through 
 her body give action (actionner) to her sx-cc^s,, placed out of sight for me. 
 It is as though a sharpshooter were required to hit a mark behind a 
 wall, and at which, therefore, he could not take aim." 
 
 From this remark it follows that Mr. Donato believes rather in 
 direct action upon the member aimed at than in action through the 
 brain as an intermediary. I cannot say that the theory is erroneous, 
 for I myself have witnessed the excitative action of the eye {regard). 
 But even should light-rays reflected from the eye of the operator, or 
 should any other cause unknown, by irritating the organ directly, 
 facilitate the local action, still they are not absolutely necessary, and 
 the reader will remember that most of my experiments with Mr. 
 M a ' were made without the phy.sical action of the eye, and with- 
 out gestures. But to return to Mr. Aksakof : 
 
 " At this moment I came up to Mr. Donato, and a remarkable phe- 
 nomenon occurred. Wishing to ask Mr. Donato to concentrate his 
 thought upon the occiput of Miss Lucile, my hand, while I was stand- 
 ing behind her, was inadvertently brought toward her back to point 
 out the place I spoke of. As soon as my hand had come near her 
 back (it was still some inches away from it) the body of the subject 
 bent forward with a sudden movement. Thus did I obtain, in a way 
 as unexpected as it was conclusive, confirmation of the phenomenon 
 of polarity, or of attraction and repulsion, which I had already ob- 
 served in the public exhibition." 
 
 This phenomenon proves nothing in favor of polarity. Any person 
 not in rapport who should touch her with either left hand or right, or 
 who should bring his hand near to her, would have obtained the same 
 repulsional effect. The subject recoils because nearness of one not 
 in rapport causes her discomfort. The phenomenon proves only that 
 what is called magnetic rapport does not consist solely in concentra- 
 tion of attention, but rests also on a physical basis. 
 
 We might say that the act of the magnetizer sets up in the molecu- 
 lar motions of the subject's nerves a special tonality in accord with 
 that of the magnetizer, and that then a person who does not possess 
 
 ■ Doubtless " Mr. M a " {M. M a) is an error of the printer or a lapsus of 
 
 the author's pen. We know Mrs. M a, but who is Mr. A. ? A Uttle further on 
 
 a probable misprint of " Mr. L" is changed to " Miss L." — Translator. 
 
2o6 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 this — that is to say, who presents a different tonality — makes upon 
 the subject a disagreeable impression. In that case it suffices to make 
 a few passes foment the point in question, in order to have the right 
 to touch it. 
 
 I have observed one case, and only one, among hundreds, where 
 the magnetizer himself durst not touch the subject without giving the 
 latter a disagreeable shock. I was much surprised, and sought to 
 verify the fact. The cause of the phenomenon was, that the mag- 
 netizer always endormed his subject from a distance of several paces, 
 never beginning with contact or with passes made anear. 
 
 That would not have sufficed with other subjects, but it sufficed 
 with Miss L., who was remarkably impressionable. I myself endormed 
 her by touching her hands and by making passes anear, and the gen- 
 eral hypersesthesia was not manifested. I communicated to her a 
 dynamic state like that of my own body. (The terms I employ here 
 I am unable to define more accurately, but the thing seems to me to 
 be not improbable.) Anyhow, the attention [of the subject] does not 
 alone suffice to explain this phenomenon, for it may take place with- 
 out the possibility of the subject's guessing who touched him,' and 
 there are other phenomena of this kind that attention cannot explain. 
 
 " ' If you will let me act with my hands,' said Mr. Donato to me, ' I 
 am confident I shall succeed.' ' Act, then,' I replied. And, indeed, as 
 soon as he (still behind the subject) brought his hands near Miss 
 Lucile's shoulders, making a few passes toward the elbows, the arms 
 began to move upward and both hands were laid upon the head." 
 
 But, then, there was no longer mental suggestion, only the effect of 
 magnetic attraction. 
 
 " Fourth Experiment. — Miss Lucile still endormed, with the hand- 
 kerchief over her head. I give to Mr. D. (Donato) a fourth card, on 
 which I had written this : ' Riunir les deux mains comme en priant' (join 
 the two hands as in prayer), and I take a place on a sofa to the left 
 of Miss L.', the better to observe all Mr. D.'s movements. He stood 
 motionless five or six paces away from Miss L., facing her, and with 
 his eyes fixed upon her. Her hands, which had been restored to their 
 natural posture by Mr. D., were raised slowly, were brought together, 
 even the fingers were crossed — in a word, took the pose of prayer. 
 The experiment performed, Mr. D. removed the handkerchief and 
 awakened the subject. 
 
 " Fifth Experiment. — After resting ten minutes, Miss L. again takes 
 her seat in the armchair, and Mr. D. endorms her anew. I pass to 
 Mr. D. a fifth card : ' Faire un nxud avec un mouchoir ' (make a knot 
 on a handkerchief). ' See how we are going to work this time,' 
 said Mr. Donato, and stationing himself a little behind Miss L., he 
 stretched his handout above her head, but without touching her. She 
 rose from her chair. Mr. D. directed her toward the table on which, 
 unbeknown to her, the handkerchief had been laid by me. Miss L., 
 obeying the attraction of the hand, approaches the table, Mr. D. 
 
 ' See the experiments mentioned on p. 23. 
 
DIRECT WILL-TRANSMISSION. 207 
 
 approaching also, while keeping still at the same relative distance 
 behind Miss L. I was alongside Mr. D., and we both followed, with 
 increasing interest, the movements of the subject. Little by little 
 her hands steadily approach the handkerchief, take it by one cor- 
 ner, fold it, turn the ends over each other, and, lo ! the knot is made. 
 Mr. D. himself was amazed. This time there was no simple effect of 
 will, but a thought transmitted and executed. 
 
 " Sixth and last Experiment. — It was almost useless to continue ; but 
 as Mr. Donato insisted, I once more passed to him a card. On it was 
 written : ' Toucher Voreille gauche avec la main droite ' (touch the left 
 ear with the right hand). Without moving a muscle and without a 
 sound, Mr. D. fixes his gaze on Miss L., a few paces distant. I was 
 alongside of Miss L. and nearly facing Mr. D., so as to observe his 
 slightest movements. Soon the subject's right arm leaves her side and 
 executes the order in three successive movements ; first it is brought 
 toward her breast, then moves toward the ear, and up to it, finally 
 one finger is extended and touches the ear." 
 
 No details are given as to the state in which Miss Lucile was dur- 
 ing these experiments. But from the record it would appear that she 
 neither spoke uor acted of herself ; hence she was not in active 
 polyideia. 
 
 On the other hand her state was not one of profound paralytic 
 aideia, for she did not fall inert. It was therefore an intermediate 
 state. 
 
 I take occasion from Mr. Aksakof's excellent account to raise the 
 following question : 
 
 Must one distinguish between will transmission and thought trans- 
 mission ? 
 
 In the quotations just given it has been impossible for me to do so. 
 I was compelled to treat the two phenomena as one. But are they in 
 fact distinct ? Can we transmit and cause the execution of an act of 
 the will without at the same time transmitting a thought or a number 
 of thoughts .' 
 
 The question is a very complex one. Take for example Mr. Don- 
 ato's experiment last cited. Miss Lucile was to touch her left ear with 
 her right hand. Had this movement been executed by attraction 
 through gestures, as in the first portion of' the fifth experiment, there 
 would have been no communication of thought, but no more would 
 there have been transmission of will. The act would have been purely 
 physical, even though we should grant that somnambulic attraction is 
 not a direct but a reflex fact. But as this experiment was made at a 
 distance and without gestures. Miss Lucile must needs have divined 
 what was required of her, the more because though the movement 
 was executed slowly, it was, nevertheless, executed well, and without 
 hesitation, not after the manner of one who gropes in the dark. Only 
 one influence from without was possible, that of the eye of the opera- 
 tor. We know that a fixed regard directed upon a portion of the 
 
2o8 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 hypersesthesic body calls forth in certain subjects and in certain states 
 a local action that now is inhibitive (insensibility and contracture), 
 anon dynamogenic (excitative). Consequently, Mr. Donato could, by 
 fixing his gaze upon his subject's right arm, produce therein an exci- 
 tation, an agitation, in short an impression of whatever sort, which, 
 being felt by Miss Lucile, would lead her to guess that she had to 
 perform a movement with the arm. But there the action of the eye 
 ends. Mr. Donato could not by a look cause the arm to extend itself, 
 nor could he with the eye indicate the movement ordered. Conse- 
 quently we must concede the fact of transmission. But transmission 
 of what ? Of will or of a thought ? A thought was not of itself 
 enough. Were the thought alone transmitted, the subject would have 
 the mental image of an ear touched by a finger, just as she might 
 have the image of a bird flying, of the ace of spades, etc. She must 
 needs at the same time feel desire, impulsion to realize that image. On 
 the other hand, is the impulsion by itself sufficient ? Yes ! There is 
 no doubt that subjects can feel by transmission, by sympathism, by 
 mental imitation, an impulse to perform a movement, without knowing 
 either why they do it, or what it means, or what it will result in. In 
 such a case there is simple will-transmission. It is only the mental 
 impulse, the tendency, the volition, that is transmitted. And I even 
 believe that this is what occurs oftenest. Were the subject to be 
 asked, say at the beginning of the fifth experiment, she could not tell 
 what she wanted to do ; but, little by little, driven by impulses coming 
 one after another, she finally performs the action willed, perhaps with- 
 out even knowing what she does (for the monoideic state is unfavor- 
 able to a generalization of acts or of ideas). Suppose, for example, 
 the order is to take some object and give it to somebody ; the subject 
 will do what is required, and then, if you ask him what he has done, 
 he will say that he had to take up something and carry it to somebody, 
 knowing neither to whom, nor wherefore. If, in such a case there is 
 transmission of thought, it belongs among the unconscious phenomena 
 of secondary rank, and only the will is perceived under the form of 
 unconscious tendencies of prime rank. 
 
 In short, though the two transmissions may be manifested sepa- 
 rately, usually they are combined. 
 
 And is transmission of sensations a necessary concomitant in these 
 two phenomena ? 
 
 Not a necessary one, but useful. 
 
 I have many a time, for example, observed (though in most in- 
 stances this phenomenon lags a little) that a strong action of will 
 directly produces in the subject sensations analogous to itself. An 
 act of will that is strongly affirmative or strongly negative is always 
 accompanied by certain agreeable sensations in the first case, disa- 
 greeable in the second, to which are added also sensations resulting 
 
DIRECT WILL-TRANSMISSION. 209 
 
 from inchoate gestures of affirmation or negation. The former are 
 by their nature attractional, the latter repulsional. Now, the subject 
 often feels these sensations. You mentally exclaim to him : " No, 
 not that ! " and he halts or he retreats. 
 
 We will bring this chapter to a close with two interesting observa- 
 tions by Dr. Perronet. There will be found direct will-transmission 
 combined with facts of mental suggestion of ideas. I invite the 
 attention of the reader particularly to the details of an apparent 
 phrenhypnotic action ; they will help us to appreciate in the next 
 chapter Braid's illusions. 
 
 First Observation. — "On the night of May 2-3, 1883, I was called to 
 attend a person of eighteen years. Nervous, impressionable, frivol- 
 ous, she had been angered during the day. I found her stark — 
 absolutely rigid and insensible. I applied my fingers over the eye- 
 balls ; first there was a slight tremulation, and then the lids were 
 opened. The members now became limp, did not retain the postures 
 given them ; if raised and let go they fell inert. 
 
 " After a brief period of waking, during which the subject spoke a 
 few words consciously, the rigidity returned ; application of the fin- 
 gers over the eyeballs did not overcome it till after a morphine injec- 
 tion ; the members retained the postures given to them. 
 
 " Then were performed, at my order, the most varied movements : 
 applying the fingers to the right side of the cranium I obtained the 
 movements ordered for the members of the left side, and vice versa. 
 
 " This I attributed to the decussation, in the pyramids, of the 
 nerve-tubes coming from the cerebral hemispheres, in virtue of 
 which a nerve-tube belonging to the left hemisphere of the brain 
 passes to the right in the medullary fasciculus, and consequently 
 controls movements and sensations in the right side of the body. 
 Of course, the inverse is true of the nerve-tubes that have their rise 
 in the right hemisphere of the brain. 
 
 " I made the subject talk by touching the left half of the cranium ; 
 in so doing I was governed by the idea that the third left frontal 
 convolution is the seat of articulate speech. When, being under 
 the influence of this idea, I touched the right half of the cranium, I 
 obtained no response, for the reason that, in my innermost thoughts, 
 subjectively, theoretically, I expected none. But once I mistook one 
 side for the other, and the subject made answer to me though my 
 finger was placed on the right side of the cranium, to wit, the side 
 opposite to that of the convolution that Broca assigns as the seat of 
 articulate speech. 
 
 " Speech ceased as soon as I recognized my error. I inferred 
 directly that my thought alone was active in the producing of these 
 phenomena, and that to apply my fingers at such or such a point of 
 the cranium to obtain this or that result, was an act of supereroga- 
 tion. 
 
 " Having, then, obtained the shutting or opening of the eyelids, 
 pouting, smiling, etc., by placing my fingers on the muscles that 
 govern those actions, it occurred to me to avoid all contact with the 
 subject, and, stationing myself several yards away, to ask of her a 
 repetition of the acts and speeches before obtained by the aid of digi- 
 tal contact. The subject obeyed all my orders orally expressed. 
 
210 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 " I then bethought me of communicating my orders to her mentally; 
 I was much surprised to find them executed punctually. And I was 
 more surprised when, on requesting the persons present to take my 
 hand and think in turn of some act, that act was performed by the 
 subject automatically. 
 
 " A whiff of illuminism and of spiritism at that moment, I confess, 
 entered my brain, so I thought it best to let my ideas upon this ques- 
 tion lie over for a year before I should give them to the public. 
 
 "At last, after having prolonged the experiment for four hours, I 
 awakened the subject by blowing into her eyes ; the awaking was in- 
 stantaneous, and left no consciousness of the phenomena that arose 
 or were produced during the crisis. 
 
 " Second Observation. — July 4, 1883, MissX., hysterical, chloranaemic, 
 aged 21 years, who had witnessed the facts contained in the foregoing 
 observation, and whom I was treating for lymphangitis of the arm, 
 had just taken a pretty strong dose of syrup of codein. 
 
 " At this juncture I arrived and this is what I observed : Eyes 
 surrounded by dark rings, drooping upper eyelids, contraction of the 
 pupils, laughing and crying without cause, clonic agitation of the 
 members ; then after three or four minutes a strange stare, complete 
 rigidity and insensibility. The rigidity disappeared after application 
 of the fingers over the eyeballs (phenomenon of hypnotization), and 
 was succeeded by a limpness of the muscles which allowed postures 
 imposed on the members to be retained. 
 
 " When I press upon one eye only, the rigidity is retained in the 
 corresponding half of the body, and the members of the other half 
 take and keep all the poses determined by my impulsion ; the subject 
 replies to all my questions if the rigidity disappears in the right side 
 of the body, consequently, if I have compressed the left eye ; when 
 pressure is on the right eye alone I obtain no reply. 
 
 " Laughter, tears, walking, singing, calculating, statuesque poses, 
 and other phenomena were produced at my order with mathematical 
 precision. 
 
 " The subject cannot play the piano ; I made her play on that in- 
 strument airs from "L'Ombre," " Le Chalet," "La Traviata," etc. 
 To obtain this result I placed my left hand on the left side of the 
 cranium, played the airs with my right, and ordered the subject to 
 repeat them ; the whole was reproduced note for note. I had the same 
 success when I asked for an air already played in a different key ; to 
 this end it sufficed for me to give the first note in the new key. 
 
 " My hand being applied to the right side of the cranium with the 
 preconceived idea that the seat of articulate speech is situate in the 
 left cerebral hemisphere, the subject was deaf to all excitation, 
 whether verbal or musical. In the midst of a series of quadruple 
 quavers, I suddenly broke the contact of my hand with the left half 
 of the cranium ; then the fingers of the cataleptic pianist stood sus- 
 pended over the next note, which was sounded when I gave the order 
 to do so by putting my hand on that side of the cranium again ; the 
 remainder of the piece was played without any modification. 
 
 " Finally, making an effort of will to free myself from the idea that 
 such or such contact is necessary to obtain such or such act, I asked 
 her in an imperative tone, from a distance, to go on with an air she 
 had begun to play. At the end of the piece she stopped and was like 
 a statue, fixed in the pose necessary for sounding the last note. ' You 
 
DIRECT WILL-TRANSMISSION. 2n 
 
 are going to play Quand je monte Cocotte,' I said, 'till I tell you to 
 stop ; put a little expression into it, a little soul.' 
 
 " Then came some horrible music ; she repeated a couplet over and 
 over. All that the company present could do to drag her away from 
 the piano and to put a stop to the air I had suggested to her was 
 futile. Like the broom-handle Lucian of Samosata tells of, which 
 being set to work by a magic word, could never cease working till 
 another more or less cabalistic phrase was spoken, the subject played, 
 played, played. 
 
 "At last, judging that the experiment had been carried far enough, 
 I gazed sternly at her, with strong, decisive will to put a stop to the 
 music : I gave forth no sound, made no movement ; I was several 
 paces back of the cataleptic subject. As soon as my will was clear 
 in my consciousness, without any need of word or sign, the subject 
 came to a full stop in the very middle of a musical phrase. The like 
 of this may be seen in the phenomenon of supersaturation ; the slight- 
 est disturbance in the supersaturated solution produces sudden crys- 
 tallization. 
 
 " ' What is the name of the state in which you are ? ' ' Ca — ca — ca — 
 ta — lepsy.' (N. B. — When awake she does not know what 'catalepsy' 
 means.) ' Is it anything serious ? ' ' No ! ' ' Can any one put you in 
 that state?' 'No; only the doctor.' 'What is this power that he 
 has over you?' ' Something that I do not understand.' ' Explain ! ' 
 ' I don't know' what ; it is the force of the blood.' 
 
 " I tell her to say how many persons are present, and to give their 
 names. Having myself reckoned the number amiss, she gave the 
 number I had in my mind ; as soon as I had rectified my error she 
 gave the correct number. 
 
 " A lady having come to ask money of her, I requested the cata- 
 leptic to give her some. She went straight to the piece of furniture in 
 which she had been accustomed to keep her purse ; not finding it she 
 was worried ; when some one whispered in my ear that it was on the 
 piano, the subject knew it as quickly as I did, and suddenly changing 
 her expression of ill-humor to an air of satisfaction, she ran to the 
 piano, took the purse, and took out ten francs to give to her creditor. 
 I begged the latter to call the next day, for I did not wish to make use 
 of a scientific experiment to force the subject to pay automatically ; 
 I gave the lady to understand that it was hardly right for her to pay 
 herself. She gave the money back, but my experiment was made. I 
 awakened the subject by blowing on her eyes. 
 
 " From the foregoing facts I inferred that the cataleptic traced ' her 
 answers on my thoughts rather than on the reality ; that she was 
 more impressed by the psychic phenomena of my brain than by those 
 of the outer world ; in short, that whether she perceived aright or amiss, 
 she was quite insensible to all excitations save such as came from me ; 
 that she was as it were an extension of my own consciousness. 
 
 " I observed this subject many times. In the state of catalepsy she 
 was ever deaf to all impulsions not given to her by me directly or by 
 me delegated to others ; her personality was lost in mine, as the per- 
 sonality of the Fakir is lost in Nirvana. 
 
 " Of all the subjects observed by me none presented this disposi- 
 tion in anything like the same degree."" 
 
 ' Calquait — As when one copies outlines on tracing-paper. — Translator. 
 ' Claude Perronet, " Du Magnfetisme Animal." Louis-le-Saunier, 1884. 
 
212 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Mr. Perronet's experiments, which were so successful, were made 
 on caialeptics. Those of Dr. Puel, too, were on cataleptics. Those of 
 Drs. Comet and Despine were likewise made on cataleptics. Finally, 
 we may remark that it was in catalepsy that Dr. Petetin came un- 
 awares upon the phenomenon of mental suggestion. It would seem 
 therefore that there is some sort of relation between catalepsy and 
 suggestion. What is it ? 
 
 As we have seen, the psychic state most favorable to mental sug- 
 gestion is monoideisni. Now catalepsy, as an outward phenomenon, is 
 simply a muscular manifestation of a monoideic tendency in the brain. 
 The subject keeps the one selfsame position, for he is capable of but 
 one selfsame thought at a time. The idea of a given attitude domi- 
 nates his brain without limitation. "There it is, there it remains." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WILL-ACTION AND THE QUESTION OF " RAPPORT. 
 
 WE find very few experiments of the kind here referred to in the 
 history of magnetism ; not only because they seldom were 
 successful, but because, thanks to Deleuze's influence, all experiments 
 whatever were banned — that is to say, all that were foreign to the 
 question of treatment. Aubin Gauthier,' who wrote a sort of ency- 
 clopaedia of magnetism, says upon this matter : 
 
 " There are somn:.mbules that hear their magnetizer without any 
 need on his part to address them in words ; indeed, there are many 
 such. As a rule, a somnambule that has had rapport only with one 
 magnetizer, understands him without his speaking. One may test this, 
 not for the sake of the experiment, but because there are cases in 
 waich this faculty is very useful. If it is feared that the somnambule 
 will tell, in presence of a third person, things that the latter ought not 
 to know, he is mentally made to understand that he must keep silence, 
 just as in ordinary life one speaks with the eyes or with a gesture. 
 So, too, if it is feared lest in the course of a consultation given to a 
 patient whose case affords no hope of a recovery, the somnambule 
 may be indiscreet ; again, the will is employed, and the somnambule 
 understands, unbeknown to the patient. Otherwise, this means is not 
 to be used without necessity." 
 
 This humanitarian purpose was predominant, as has already been 
 observed, in the first two periods of magnetism — that of Mesmer's 
 " baquet" ' diVid that of somnambulism. Puysegur also forbade use- 
 
 'A. Gauthier, " Trait6 Pratique du Magnetisme et du Somnambulisme,'' p. 594. 
 Paris, 1845. 
 
 '' See Humboldt Library, No. 113, " Hypnotism," p. 6. 
 
WILL-ACTION AND "RAPPORT." 213 
 
 less experiments ; but enchanted as he was by the mental sensibility 
 of his first somnambules, Victor, Magdeleine, and a few others, he 
 authorized the experiment mentioned by Gauthier, and in his en- 
 thusiasm even maintained that we can always make the somnambule 
 cease talking and that we can make or break, mentally, the rapport 
 of a somnambule with a third person. I will quote in full the passage 
 relating to this. 
 
 Puysegur recognizes three principal characters as distinctive of 
 complete somnambulism : 
 
 1. "Isolation" (rapport with the magnetizer exclusively, insensi- 
 bility to all the subject's surroundings) ; 
 
 2. " Concentration " (meaning that all the activity of the subject is 
 concentrated inwardly). Puysegur knew nothing of spontaneously 
 active magnetic somnambulism ; ' 
 
 3. "Magnetic mobility" (mental suggestibility and attraction at a 
 distance). 
 
 " The third character of complete somnambulism (he writes) is 
 magnetic mobility ; that is to say, a patient in this state is always 
 more or less sensible to the very thought of the magnetizer. I say 
 ' more or less,' because there are patients whose muscles sometimes 
 grow numb in somnambulism, so that they cannot stir save with 
 much difficulty ; and there are others whose drowsy concentration is 
 so profound that it is no easy thing to rouse them. Hence, you will 
 not make them all alike get up, walk, follow you, sit down, take a cup 
 off a table, or accept what you may offer them mentally and by the 
 simple act of your will. But what you will always succeed in, without 
 any need of touching them or speaking to them, is the putting them 
 in rapport with persons that you wish them to hear. The success of 
 experiments of this kind, depends, however, solely on the magnetizers, not 
 at all on the magnetized, who, like compass-needles on their pivot, are 
 quite indifferent as to what directions you may wish to give them, 
 provided the influence is good." " 
 
 How could so good an observer speak with so much confidence of 
 so delicate a phenomenon ? 
 
 For many reasons : 
 
 I. It appears, whatever the hypnotizers may say, that he was not 
 mistaken in saying there are differences between individuals. Not 
 only is it conceivable that some persons may not be able to concentrate 
 their thought (this phenomenon may be easily observed by making an 
 experiment in Cumberlandism) ; but further, it seems to result from the 
 differences in the character of the somnambulism obtained by different 
 
 ' Magnetic sleep with rapport and spontaneously active is rather rare. It mani- 
 fests itself only when the subject is magnetized in spite of himself, or when there is a 
 somnambulic awaking out of a state of profound aideia, the awaking being occasioned 
 by a thought dominant in the waking state. 
 
 'A. M. J. Chasnet de Puysegur, " Recherches, Experiences, et Observations 
 Physiologiques," etc., p. 45. Paris, 1811. 
 
214 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 observers, that the psycho-physiological individuality of the oper- 
 ator counts here for something. I know, for instance, a person 
 who, without willing it, obtains nearly always paralysis-phenomena ; 
 others who bring about hyperaesthesia mostly ; others who cannot 
 obtain more than a slight drowsiness ; others who always determine 
 a disagreeable state— a fact that for a long time surprised me ; for 
 in all my observations, except the cases of two or three epileptics 
 and one or two hysteriacs, I have always obtained a state highly 
 agreeable to the subjects ; indeed, this it is that has brought to me so 
 many amateurs, so that I never have needed to seek for subjects. In 
 a word, there are personal differences, and if I have not succeeded in 
 repeating Puysegur's experiment, or anything like it, that may be due 
 to an individual difference or to some irregularity inherent in my way 
 of experiment in that particular case. 
 
 I do not wish to exaggerate the importance of these observations. 
 The individuality of the subject is, after all, the principal cause, the 
 most obvious cause, of these phenomena. 
 
 A person that is distinctly sensitive to the hypnoscope can be hyp- 
 notized by anyone.' Differences begin to appear only in the vital 
 action, and are seldom sharply defined. 
 
 2. As we have seen, Puysegur knew nothing about active somnam- 
 bulism, that is to say, a polyideic state that usually withstands mental 
 action. Hence he saw no obstacles except such as are presented by 
 too profound a state, with drowsiness, torpor, rigidity ; that is, the 
 state of paralytic or tetanic aideia, which, when it has a strong hold, 
 also withstands mental action. Consequently, he acted only on states 
 more or less akin to monoideism. 
 
 3. Finally, we must not forget that he speaks only of complete 
 somnambulism with rapport, and that it was his luck from the begin- 
 ning to find excellent subjects : that may have increased his confi- 
 dence. 
 
 However that may be, this fact has been noticed by an excellent 
 observer, whose book recommends itself to the inventors of hypnotic 
 novelties. 
 
 " About the same time (says Dr. Despine, Sr.) there arrived at Aix 
 the Count Paul D., a superior officer of the Russian Imperial Guard, 
 who, having heard of my patients, showed a desire to see them. He 
 had previously given some attention to magnetism in company with 
 Dr. Pizzati, who wrote to me from Florence, introducing him. 
 Though he no longer made magnetism the subject of his studies, he 
 remembered his former great magnetic power and spoke of it with 
 some satisfaction. He was curious to know to what extent he still 
 possessed it. I cheerfully complied with Mr. D's. wishes, and, with 
 the consent of my two patients and of their family, I put them in 
 
 ' Yet I have been assured that a hospital doctor in Paris never could obtain sleep, 
 even in patients that were exceedingly easy to endorm. 
 
WILL-ACTION AND "EAFFORT." 215 
 
 rapport. From the first I was amazed at the enormous magnetic 
 power he exercised over them. His gaze alone ' petrified ' Estelle, 
 and a few quieting passes round about the prsecordial and epigastric 
 region, at the distance of five or six inches, were enough to relieve 
 Miss Isaure of her terrible suffering, the seat of which was the pneu- 
 mogastric nervous system, and which for many months never ceased, 
 save during the state of catalepsy or of ecstasy, or perhaps during 
 her natural sleep, which was rare and nearly always troubled by 
 dreams and visions. What astonished me most in the Count D.'s 
 magnetic power over the latter patient was, that he was able by sole 
 act of his will to suspend in her the magnetic rapports already existing 
 between her and me, when he wished to act upon her by the will alone, 
 and to re-establish them at his own will or the will of others. I had 
 been Miss Isaure's physician from the time of her coming to Aix, and 
 I seemed to have her entire confidence, but Mr. D. soon deprived me 
 of that, and so the case stood till he went away. Whence this power 
 of sympathy ? I know not, but the fact nevertheless remains. I 
 have seen it repeated many times, and Miss Isaure heard me or heard 
 me not according to Mr. D.'s good pleasure. And quite certainly this 
 could only have been produced by act of the said Mr. D.'s will, for he 
 did not touch her either directly or indirectly. I have seen the 
 phenomenon again and again. He and I even communicated in 
 writing, to remove from th'e minds of those present all suspicion that 
 perhaps the patient, albeit her eyes were completely shut during the 
 whole time of her crises, could hear us, could know by signs, and so 
 conform out of complaisance to the will of her magnetizer. The 
 Count D., furthermore, varied the phenomena absolutely according to 
 my good pleasure. He spoke not a word, yet when I handed to him 
 my orders in writing, he was able to have them executed by the 
 patient at the moment willed and fixed by me then and there ; and if 1 
 changed the orders, after first giving them in another shape. Miss 
 Isaure executed them, not as first given, but as given just a moment 
 before. Mr. D. had told me of this feat, saying he had performed it 
 often already. I was very curious to see how he would carry out such 
 a program, for I did not believe it possible then, and even still I 
 have a diflficulty in believing that the thing can be done, in spite of 
 all that the magnetizers have said about it, of all that has been 
 written about will-force, and all that I myself have witnessed time 
 and time again. 
 
 " From all this the reader will naturally infer that I brought to the 
 experiment all possible attention, to see clearly what should take 
 place so as to discover the law that governed it, and to make such in- 
 ductions as would help me to appreciate justly the cause of the modi- 
 fications to which it unquestionably must be exposed in the various 
 somnambules. I was therefore all eyes and all ears, and no one could 
 give closer attention than I to the gestures, the looks, the slightest 
 movements of both. And yet, beyond the possibility of doubt, and, 
 I confess, much to my surprise, I saw Mr. D. do away the rapports 
 subsisting between the patient and me ; I saw these rapports, these 
 sympathies, renewed, again suspended, and so on, and that by a 
 single act of his will — or perhaps, if you will, by a fascination the 
 nature and modus operandi of which were absolutely unknown to me 
 then as they still are — and it constantly produced its effect when my 
 thought or the thought of any other person in the company /cj-.s^f/ [to 
 
2i6 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the patient] by the will of Mr. D. This phenomenon cannot be ex- 
 plained as many other phenomena can, by the mere reading of the mag- 
 netizer's thought, done by a magnetized subject (a phenomenon that is 
 much more common than people think, in the nervous state of 
 crisiacs, whether magnetic or spontaneous). Indeed, to produce it, not 
 only must Miss Isaure have been able to read the thought of the per- 
 son acting upon her, but, furthermore, the magnetizer must have by 
 his will paralyzed the organ which maintained the neuropathic rap- 
 port between her and me, and all this must have been simultaneous. 
 Without the concurrence of these two conditions the solution of the 
 problem would have been incomplete. However that may be and 
 whether the explanation here given of the phenomenon is satisfac- 
 tory or not [plainly, it is not a sufficient one], it is a positive fact 
 that so soon as the will of Mr. D. had re-established the rapport 
 between Miss Isaure and me, if I said to her, 'But why, madam, did 
 you not answer me when I addressed you a while ago ? ' she replied 
 at once, ' For a very simple reason, sir ; you did not ask me any 
 question.' " ' 
 
 Thus Puysegur observed correctly, and the phenomenon is possible. 
 We may suppose that a concentration of the will on the part of Mr. 
 D., directed toward Miss Isaure, in the first place diverted the exist- 
 ing rapport with Mr. Despine toward Mr. D., that is to say, toward a 
 more powerful dynamic center, and then by successive efforts communi- 
 cated to the subject such impulsions as Mr. D. willed. The staying 
 of these efforts, the displacement of this center, freeing the nervous 
 system of Miss Isaure from its leading-strings, re-established the rap- 
 port with her habitual magnetizer. It is as if two telegraphers were 
 to snatch from each other the conducting wire upon which transmis- 
 sion depends. 
 
 Imagine a highly sensitive galvanometer connected separately with 
 two coils, A and B, of heavy wire ; both have a magnetic core, but 
 the magnet of coil A is weak, while the magnet of coil B is strong. 
 If these magnets are at rest there is no action, and the galvanometer 
 will not stir. But the first, by a series of displacements, induces in 
 its coil a series of alternating currents. The galvanometer needle 
 oscillates, and it will be in a constant state of wavering so long as 
 the movement of the weak magnet in coil A continues. But now the 
 other begins to vibrate ; its displacement changes the molecular ten- 
 sion of the spirals of coil B ; currents are produced, and these, being 
 stronger than those others, determine a more considerable re-action of 
 the needle and predominate over the influence of coil A, causing the 
 galvanometer needle to go through all the corresponding movements. 
 The very sensitive galvanometer represents the subject, and the two 
 coils correspond to the two magnetizers, in whom the intense interior 
 action produces intense molecular vibrations, which radiate outward. 
 
 ' Dr. Despine, p^re, " Observations de M6decine Pratique," p. 176 et sea, 
 Annecy, 1838. 
 
WILL-ACTION AND "RAPPORT." 217 
 
 The wires — here the analogy is less patent — represent the rapport. 
 Cut the wires, and the galvanometer is stock-still. 
 
 It is much the same in the magnetic action, as it is called, of a 
 living organism. If rapport is not set up by preparatory magnetiza- 
 tion, or at least by prior magnetizations, I believe mental action 
 will have no result. 
 
 There are some facts that seem opposed to this view. Thought- 
 transference has sometimes been obtained with a few persons that 
 never were magnetized. But when we examine the facts closely, we 
 find that in the first place the subject was always advised beforehand, 
 that always his expectant attention placed him in a more or less abnor- 
 mal state, and that always, prior to obtaining any result whatever, the 
 operator was obliged to concentrate his thought with the purpose of 
 influencing the subject — and that is pretty nearly equivalent to a mag- 
 netization. 
 
 Hence I believe that Despine observed the phenomenon well ; there 
 is no mental suggestion without magnetic rapport. He observed that Mr, 
 D., if he would act on Miss Isaure, had first to break the rapport with 
 Mr. Despine, and then establish his own. That observation no doubt 
 seemed to the reader insignificant, yet it possesses an importance of 
 its own. 
 
 " But," it will be said, " it all amounts to the same thing, for Mr. D. 
 acted in the same way in order to set up rapport as he did to make 
 the subject obey an order." 
 
 Yes and no ! He acted in the same way, for he acted mentally, but 
 the action is not altogether the same. To establish rapport you call 
 the subject mentally, you attract him, that is, you draw his attention 
 by an effort, which, causing the particles of — I know not what — to 
 vibrate, is propagated and reaches a sufficiently sensitive galvanome- 
 ter ; while to carry out an order, you represent it to yourself inwardly 
 and yoapress (on pousse) the subject on, mentally, in the direction you 
 will, striving the while, above all, to think clearly of what you want to 
 obtain. The difference is much like the difference between the 
 "hallo-o" you shout into a telephone to attract the attention of 
 whomever you wish to address, and the tones of ordinary conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Yet there is a mental action in both cases ; and if there is no 
 mental action without rapport, it must also be admitted that there is 
 no rapport without mental action." 
 
 Yes ; there is rapport without mental action. The very presence 
 of an organism endowed with a high nerve-tension, a well-balanced 
 vitality of the molecular movements, can act physically on a subject 
 eager for such a vital energy, and may prepare the way for a purposed 
 mental action. Catalytic actions of this sort are seen even in inor- 
 ganic chemistry. 
 
2i8 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 The vicious circle, then, is apparent only. It is due simply to the 
 imperfectness of our speech. 
 
 Certain German psychologists who love useless questions, have 
 worried much, thinking how it is that a sleeping man may be 
 awakened by an impression, while he is insensible to impressions. 
 
 Of course if you define sleep "a non-impressionable state," you 
 never will understand awakening by an impression. 
 
 Fortunately, all things are relative. The sleeper does not perceive, 
 but his unconscious does perceive perfectly well, and there is no 
 boundary between the conscious and the unconscious. 
 
 In a state of profound aideia mental suggestion fails ; but if the 
 state be less profound, it succeeds in doing one thing, to wit, in 
 nudging ' the subject and producing a comparative awaking, a tran- 
 sition to a state of more sensibility, and then, by persistence, the 
 suggestion may succeed absolutely. 
 
 In short, we see the importance of rapport for the manifestation of 
 the phenomenon we are considering ; and though we desire to touch 
 as little as possible upon questions that are beyond the scope of our 
 work, we shall be obliged to elucidate it somewhat. 
 
 What is meant by this " magnetic rapport ? " 
 
 The phenomenon so called is a very complex one. In it is involved 
 the whole question of magnetism. For hypnotism it has no meaning. 
 A hypnotized subject hears everybody. A magnetized subject hears 
 only his magnetizer. Nay, more ; /le hears his magnetizer only when his 
 magnetizer addresses him. 
 
 Standing beside a somnambule, and conversing with him, you may 
 freely answer other persons, address them, speak to them about the 
 somnambule, ridicule him. He hears nothing. But when you yourself 
 shall address him he will reply to you, and will execute your orders. 
 
 Why ? How comes it that another impression, in all respects iden- 
 tical, at 'i\i& physical -^oviit of view, is not noted by the somnambule, 
 when it is not accompanied by a certain intention ? 
 
 Is the thing lacking in the latter case a mental action ? Doubtless ! 
 But the case is not so simple as it seems. We cannot affirm mental 
 action simply on the basis of this phenomenon. In most cases mental 
 action is absent from the phenomenon, at least in the sense of will-- 
 transmission. Yes, the intention makes all the difference ; but if we 
 observe closely we see that we change our attitude perceptibly when 
 addressing other persons. Usually we turn about ; above all, we give 
 a different intonation to the voice, and the brain of our subject is not 
 regulated for that intonation. 
 
 From this we may see the importance of involuntary suggestions. 
 
 ^ French, exciter. But the words excite, excitement, etc., seem to denote a higher 
 degree of commotion tlian is always implied by exciter. Nudge is an appropriate verb 
 here — and a picturesque. Stet ! — Translator. 
 
WILL-ACTION AND "RAPPORT." 219 
 
 A mass of valueless observations in hypnology might have been 
 spared had it been known : 
 
 1. That hypnotism is not to be confounded with magnetism ; 
 
 2. That the magnetized subject divines our intentions up to the 
 point of ansesthesis or to that of hypereesthesia, according to the in- 
 tonation of our voice. 
 
 All this, again, without mental suggestion. Now add the action of 
 suggestion that manifests itself from time to time, at least indirectly, 
 by unconscious perceptions of the secondary order, and you will see how 
 great is the chance of error in a study made under such conditions. 
 
 Rapport results : 
 
 1. From a concentration of the subject's attention, directed solely 
 toward the magnetizer. (This is the more usual case, and very often 
 this explanation suffices.) 
 
 2. From a special psychic adjustment (r^glage), partly obtained 
 through this concentration, but principally brought about by the 
 magnetizing processes, and kept up by involuntary indications con- 
 veyed by the attitude of the magnetizer, his voice, etc. (This case 
 is less frequent.) 
 
 3. From an individual physical action (which we will describe in the 
 sequel, but which is seldom evident). 
 
 4. From a mental suggestion. 
 
 There we have magnetism at flood ! An individual physical action : 
 that is magnetism, whether fluid or not. When the operator comes 
 into play, not as a bright button,' but as a live body, as a dynamic 
 center whose presence is not indifferent, that assuredly is magnetism. 
 
 Well, yes ! That must be admitted, else we must renounce the un- 
 derstanding of certain facts. 
 
 An eminent professor in the College de France, whose originality 
 of views and exactitude of experimentation I esteem highly, has said 
 concerning this subject : 
 
 " Science is indebted to Braid for having drawn the line sharp be- 
 tween the erroneous pretensions of those who believe more or less in 
 what purports to be animal magnetism or neuric force, that may issue 
 from the nerves of one individual and enter those of another, and the 
 very interesting facts that may be produced in sundry parts of the 
 nervous system of an individual, under the influence of a special irri- 
 tation coming from another part of that system." 
 
 This disposition to substitute, as far as possible, the positive for 
 the mysterious, I understand and approve ; but why be more Braidian 
 than Braid ? That excellent observer could not abide long in the 
 erroneous belief that the phenomena he produced and those produced 
 by magnetizers are identical. He rejects the concurrence of the 
 
 ' Bouton brillant — a button, or knob, of polished metal, or the like, used in pro- 
 ducing hypnosis. — Translator. 
 
220 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 " fluid " in his experiments, and strives to substitute for an impalpa- 
 ble objective action a verified subjective one, and he is right : every 
 one ought to refuse, as far as possible, to admit new forces ; but 
 Braid does not say, like the hypnotizers of our time, that magnetism 
 does not exist, and that hypnotism takes its place completely. He 
 says only this : " We were unable to discover the sympathetic influ- 
 ence that other experimenters, 'tis said, have found." These are the 
 words of the true man of science. But there is something more : 
 despite his dominant disposition, which was eminently scientific, to 
 eliminate magnetism from hypnotic action, he came to recognize the 
 error of supposing that the one took the place of the other com- 
 pletely. He says : 
 
 " The following remarks of Mr. M. Brookes, the well-known 
 lecturer, on animal magnetism, will throw still more light on this con- 
 troversy. On learning that I had changed my opinion upon the subject 
 of identity, he said : ' I am very glad you have believed it your duty 
 to change your original view as to the identity of your phenomena 
 with those of mesmerism. From the first day I admitted the value 
 and importance of your discovery, but I could not accept this identity, 
 and I found fault with you for the violence with which you condemned 
 the partisans of animal magnetism, because they could not agree 
 with you. I believed, and still believe, that you were in the wrong in 
 that controversy, and that in fact you were unfair to yourself, for you 
 have in fact discovered a new agent, and not simply a modification of 
 an agent already known.' " 
 
 Leave therefore to Braid the things that are Braid's, and to Mesmer 
 the things that are Mesmer's. 
 
 Mesmer was in the wrong (he was often in the wrong, but in this 
 case was particularly in the wrong), in that he came first, and one is 
 seldom received kindly who comes too early. Braid rendered great 
 service to science by verifying, according to exact methods, a certain 
 number of facts already discovered by the magnetizers, already 
 authenticated by an academic commission, already explained sub- 
 jectively by Faria, Bertrand and H6nin de Cuvilliers, merely pre- 
 sented by him in a more positive and more scientific light. That is 
 all he did, and that is enough. But it is not enough for those in our 
 day who continue his labors. 
 
 "To-day," says Dr. Bottey, ' "the mysterious is dead, and with it 
 animal magnetism, which has ceased to exist since Braid, in 1843, 
 gave to mesmerism and fluidism the decisive blow that killed them 
 forever." 
 
 Such is Dr. Bottey's opinion, but such was not Braid's. He said : " I 
 
 long believed in the identity of the phenomena produced by my 
 
 method and by that of the believers in mesmerism. ... I still 
 
 believe at least in the analogy of the actions exercised upon the nervous 
 
 • Dr. J. Bottey, " Le Magnfetisme Animal," etc., p. i. Paris, 1884. 
 
WILL-ACTION AND "RAPPORT." 221 
 
 system " — a very just remark. " Nevertheless, judging from what 
 the magnetizers declare that they produce, in certain cases, there 
 seems to be sufficient difference to regard hypnotism and mesmerism 
 as two distinct agents." ' 
 
 Braid, therefore, has killed nothing, and it would perhaps be well if 
 writers would read him before they assign him any part to play. 
 
 Let us proceed to the facts : 
 
 Instead of entering into details upon the question of rapport, 
 which would require a separate volume, let us simply point out a 
 few facts which prove the insufficiency of the two psychic causes 
 mentioned above, to explain the phenomena of rapport. 
 
 In a person sunk in the magnetic sleep the sense of touch presents 
 peculiarities that are quite astonishing. There are many shades of 
 difference in the phenomenon, but we may consider it in its simplest 
 and most definite form ; to verify it we shall have but to select a sub- 
 ject that has been magnetized by one person only, and that many 
 times, for this phenomenon is seldom manifested in a first or a second 
 seance. 
 
 The subject feels and takes kindly the touch of his magnetizer. If 
 extranes touch him, either of two results may follow, according to 
 the state the subj.ect is in : either 
 
 1. The touch will cause him visible annoyance, which may be so 
 great as to produce a paroxysm ; or 
 
 2. He will not feel it at all. 
 
 In the former case, it is not necessary that the touch be direct ; 
 touch his clothes, pillow, bed-covering, bed, chair, etc., and though the 
 subject does not see the act, he will shudder, start and complain of 
 the unpleasant sensation. I have made many experiments with a view 
 to eliminate the influence of imagination, and am fully convinced that 
 the phenomenon is real. Besides, it was noticed long ago by 
 Puys6gur. Sometimes this elective ancesthesia is so pronounced that 
 the subject cannot endure even the presence of an individual though 
 the latter be some yards distant from him. But we may suppose that 
 in this case olfactive sensations have some influence. In other cases 
 he will endure the presence of a person even alongside him, but only 
 on condition that the person shall not touch him either directly or in- 
 directly. In this phenomenon there is a regular scale of sensibility : 
 some subjects are influenced only by direct contact, others are in- 
 fluenced at the distance of two or three inches, others at the distance 
 of several yards. I have not noticed any difference with respect to 
 covered or exposed parts of the body ; when the touch is disagreeable 
 it is so whether the body is touched directly or through the clothing, 
 only the effect is perhaps a little more obnoxious when one touches a 
 
 ' J. Braid, " Neurypnology." [The quotation is from Brown-Sequard's French 
 translation of the worlc, p. 27.] 
 
222 MENTAL SUGGESTIOrV. 
 
 garment that comes in close contact with the skin than when one 
 touches, for example, the hem of a long robe ; but the difference is 
 neither constant nor certain. 
 
 I anticipate the objections of observers who will bring forward the 
 fact that in some subjects, those of little sensibility, this phenomenon 
 does not occur ; that with others, in light somnambulism, the touch of 
 a third person simply awakens the subject ; finally, that with others 
 only the first contact gives the subject a shock and that thereafter 
 there is no effect. But there are a good many subjects on whom the 
 experiment can be made successfully. 
 
 A physician of my acquaintance, refusing to believe in this phe- 
 nomenon, once asked me to exhibit it to him. The experiment was 
 made on a young woman whom he knew well, and who was magnet- 
 ized by me for the fifth time. Her eyes were blindfolded and we sta- 
 tioned ourselves behind her, touching with one finger her hair or her 
 back, according as the doctor indicated by signs. She never once 
 made a mistake in telling which of us two had touched her ; indeed, 
 the thing was visible, for there was a reflex movement of repulsion 
 when she was touched by other than me. 
 
 There is a physical action, then ; but of what sort ? 
 
 It is of two kinds — i, pathological ; 2, physiological. 
 
 1. A person that is ill — that is to say, disequilibrated, suffering, and 
 debilitated — re-acts upon the sensitive subject by disturbing her mole- 
 cular equilibrium, by communicating to her his- suffering by influence, 
 or by depriving her of a part of her general' molecular energy. 
 
 2. A person in good health, but extrane, acts less strongly, as a 
 rule ; his touch is not so disagreeable, but is more or less so on 
 account of the difference between his dynamic state and that pro- 
 duced or communicated to the subject by the magnetizer. We are 
 unable to state definitely wherein this difference consists, but we 
 must needs accept it, even outside of magnetism. 
 
 If we do not perceive it in the normal state, that does not prove 
 that it does not exist ; we do not see the stars by day, though they 
 are ever shining with the same luster. With respect to this matter, 
 the somnambule is an exceedingly sensitive apparatus that is influ- 
 enced by causes which in the normal state are insignificant. 
 
 In the second case — to wit, when the subject feels not at all the 
 touch of the extrane — the following experiment can be made : Instead 
 of touching directly, one may touch with a pencil, for example. If 
 one were to touch directly, as with a finger, differences of tempera- 
 ture, etc., might be supposed to indicate to the subject who it was 
 that touched her. But that supposition has no weight in the case of 
 indirect contact. But now, in spite of that, the subject will feel the 
 magnetizer's pencil, and will not feel the same pencil when it is held 
 by the hand of a third person. 
 
WILL-ACTION AND ''RAPPORT." 223 
 
 I beg the opponents of magnetism to reflect upon this experiment. 
 It may be varied in several ways. The subject does not feel the 
 pencil, but let the magnetizer touch the hand of the person holding 
 it, and now it is felt again. Nay, more. Let us take, instead of the 
 pencil, a long rod, and let the magnetizer grasp it first at the distance 
 of five, then of ten, finally of twenty-five inches. The pressure of 
 the rod and its contact with the skin. of the subject will become more 
 and more confused, more and more uncertain, till at last at the dis- 
 tance of some yards, according to the force of the individual physical 
 action and the subject's sensibility, the latter will feel nothing. 
 Nevertheless the mechanical pressure is ever the same ! 
 
 Is it imagination that does this ? Is it faith ? Explain this experi- 
 ment to me without physical action, and I will renounce magnetism ; 
 but not till then. 
 
 There are several other evidences of physical action, but this one 
 will suffice for the present. It proves that molecular dynamic differ- 
 ences pass beyond the surface of the body ; that a certain vibratory tonic 
 movement peculiar to a given organism is propagated beyond its 
 periphery, and can influence the subject so definitely, so palpably, 
 that there is a real action. 
 
 There is, then, an individual physical action. The hypnotizers may 
 make as much sport of that as they wish : " He laughs best who 
 laughs last." 
 
 Personal dynamic action is one of the causes of rapport. The sub- 
 ject is insensible, but he feels better than ever the hand of his mag- 
 netizer. He is deaf, but he hears better than ever his magnetizer's 
 voice. And this it is that, with other things, constitutes rapport. 
 
 The fourth and last agent remains — mental suggestion. 
 
 The magnetizer's organism, already active by its very presence, be- 
 comes more active when, in the dynamic mass that constitutes his 
 personality, there is developed by concentration of thought and 
 tension of will a center of force, strengthening the invisible but most 
 real bond that unites the two organisms. 
 
 And now, lest the reader should think we are leading him into a 
 world of fancy, let us glance at the sum of the phenomena common 
 to the two. 
 
 In hypnotic states these agents are inactive, for in hypnotism there 
 is no rapport ; but in magnetic states they manifest themselves in 
 every possible degree. In most instances the first of the four agents 
 (the subject's expectant attention) suffices to explain the facts. This 
 explanation is made more complete by the concurrence of the second 
 agent : ordinary suggestions are associated with the magnetizing pro- 
 cesses and the attitude, gestures, etc., of the magnetizer. In a few 
 cases physical action becomes evident. In fine, exceptionally (per- 
 haps once in several hundred cases), mental suggestion overrules all 
 
224 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 other influences, and then only is the theory of the Voluntists con- 
 firmed. 
 
 But those who, lightly dismissing the facts, deny physical action 
 and mental suggestion, simply prove one or other of two things : 
 either that they have not studied the question sufficiently — /. e., have 
 not experimented on a great number of persons ; or that they are in- 
 capable of making delicate experiments. But I forgot — there is a 
 third class — bona-fide observers, capable and familiar with the results 
 of experiment, but who have preconceived opinions. 
 
 They wear colored spectacles, and for them all things are of the 
 color of their glasses. The result is often ludicrous. I will give 
 three instances : First,'' the case of a distinguished savani v/ho, in order 
 not to accept physical action, concedes mental suggestion ; then the 
 case of a very ingenious but very skeptical analyst, who, unwilling to 
 recognize a physical action, admits mental suggestion and second 
 sight; finally, an excellent observer and discreet innovator who, in his 
 efforts to dispute both physical action and mental suggestion, in spite 
 of himself demonstrates them both, and besides gives the weight of 
 his authority to an utterly praeter-scientific opinion. 
 
 Let us begin with the last. The question is about Braid. Dr. 
 Bottey, in whose eyes thought-transference is "only a piece of jug- 
 glery having its place in the domain of charlatanism," is right, how- 
 ever, when he says that " the only fault one can find with Braid is, 
 that he wished to make his discovery promote the doctrines of phre- 
 nology." But Mr. Bottey does not know that it is just the phrenhyp- 
 notic studies of Braid that prove thought-transference. 
 
 The matter stands thus : Dr. Gall conceived a theory, based appa- 
 rently on experiment, and in which is some truth, but which in many 
 respects runs counter to the data of physiology, and is entirely wrong 
 in its details. According to this theory, the whole gray matter of the 
 brain is divided into 27 small regions, called organs, which are the 
 seats of the several faculties. 
 
 Thus, according to Gall, we have in the brain a special organ for 
 Industry, one for Friendship, Quarrelsomeness, Theft, Self-esteem, 
 Metaphysic Penetration, Veneration (the same which at La Salpetrifere 
 determines somna.mhulisTa : Jiressure on the vertex), and so on. 
 
 Several magnetizers amused themselves with practicing phrtno- 
 magnetism, i. e., applying magnetism to the phrenology of Gall, Spurz- 
 heim, and other craniologists. They acted by contact, pressing upon 
 a point on the cranium corresponding to some phrenological organ, 
 and thus sometimes obtaining in sensitive subjects a manifestation of 
 the corresponding sentiments, dispositions, or ideas. 
 
 Braid tried to verify their assertions, and had such success that he 
 was quite surprised at the result. Every few pages of his, book he 
 reverts to this subject, and it is highly instructive to see him at the 
 
WILL-ACTION AND ''RAPPORT." 225 
 
 same time enthused and embarrassed by the strangeness of these 
 phenomena. 
 
 In truth, it was a little too much for a mind so positive as his, 
 especially when the man had got it into his head that all hypnotic 
 phenomena result from fatigue of the visual organs. The thing, 
 nevertheless, was true. Braid doubts, experiments again, raises every 
 possible objection ; but the reality remains, mysterious, but unde- 
 niable. The subject steals a ring if you press on the organ of Theft ; 
 shamefaced, he gives it back if you press on the organ of Conscien- 
 tiousness ; begins to pray when you touch Veneration, and fights his 
 magnetizer if the latter bears a little heavily on Combativeness, and 
 so on. Nay, more. Some subjects do not need to be touched ; by 
 simply pointing his finger at an organ Braid got nearly the same 
 result. Certain individual differences were noticed : one person could 
 act better than another, and always the best operator is the one that 
 knotvs more about phrenology. Braid, ever more and more embarrassed, 
 experiments on forty-five persons one after another, hardly any of 
 whom had any notion of phrenology, and who, therefore, could not 
 simulate. He substituted in place of the finger a glass rod, glass 
 being a bad conductor of electricity and magnetism (!), and then, in 
 place of the glass rod, he used a cork. But the results were the same, 
 the subjects still underwent the action of the organ that was touched ! 
 
 What was to be done ? Physical action was deemed impossible, 
 a fortiori mental action. So Braid contrives a highly ingenious but 
 quite gratuitous theory : he supposes a sympathic correspondence 
 between certain points of the scalp and the expression of certain 
 states of mind. 
 
 At length, seventeen years later, he recognized a certain action upon 
 the subject's intelligence, produced by contact, but was unable to 
 account fully for so many successes obtained. 
 
 As for us, while we admit that there were several influences at work 
 in Braid's experiments, we do not hesitate to say that the latter 
 demonstrate a physical action of the magnetizer (whether direct or 
 through the glass rod), and above ail that they demonstrate in a very 
 remarkable way the fact of mental suggestion. 
 
 All the details given by Braid as to his mode of operation and the 
 state of the subjects with whom his experiments were successful, con- 
 firm our view. Braid was practicing magnetism as Monsieur Jourdain 
 wrote prose. 
 
 The second observer is Morin. His whole book, a very interesting 
 one, is devoted to a refutation of the " fluid " theory and of the 
 hypothesis of any physical action whatever, but it confirms the facts 
 of mental suggestion and even of vision at a distance. We will return to 
 this point when we come to speak of theories, for Morin gives a theory 
 of mental suggestion. 
 
226 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 The third is Bertrand. I am reluctant to find fault with this 
 eminent observer. Like Braid, Bertrand was led simply by a sincere 
 love of truth, and had he had evidence sufficiently strong to meet his 
 requirements, he no doubt would have been quick to recognize a 
 physical action, no matter what the cost in the scientific world. But 
 he had only negative results. Twice, however, he was much em- 
 barrassed ; once when he was obliged to sign the report of Du Potet's 
 experiments made at the Hotel-Dieu in presence of Husson and 
 several other physicians, and which went to prove action at a distance. 
 He had signed the document, and then retracted his signature, not 
 without reason ; for Mr. Husson, who was not as familiar as Bertrand 
 was with the suggestion theory of the magnetizers, had not taken all 
 the needed precautions. It was Bertrand's ill-luck to call for a new 
 experiment, for that confirmed Du Potet's theory rather than his own. 
 But at all events he was within his right as a skeptical observer ; he 
 was seeking evidence that could not be questioned. 
 
 On another occasion — but let us hear Bertrand himself : 
 
 " I have seen (he says) ' a somnambule (Mrs. Chevalier) whom I did 
 not magnetize, but whose treatment I had long been observing, and 
 upon whom the person that magnetized her had acquired an extraor- 
 dinary influence. He could at will deprive her of any one of her 
 senses, making her for a moment blind, dumb, deaf, etc. ; could 
 paralyze a portion of her body, or even throw her into a state of per- 
 fect lethargy, which ceased only when the magnetizer was pleased to 
 bring her to herself again by means of a peculiar gesture. This latter fact 
 is the more remarkable because the somnambule was absolutely deprived of the 
 use of her senses, as I often had occasion to verify. (A witness one day, 
 to make sure of the somnambule's insensibility, pinched her so hard as 
 to cut out with his nails a small portion of flesh, so producing a bleed- 
 ing wound which she perceived on awaking, and which for some time 
 caused her to suffer.) There was nothing that could give her notice 
 of the moment when the accustomed sign was to be given." 
 
 There Bertrand is mistaken. General insensibility though verified 
 objectively in every way, is in no wise inconsistent with even very 
 great sensibility with respect to excitations comitig from the magne- 
 tizer. 
 
 Apart from cases of very profound paralytic aideia (which are very 
 rare) and from certain active ecstatic states wherein the subject 
 ceases momentarily to hear and to sense his magnetizer, he always 
 does sense him, and that very clearly too, even at a distance, despite 
 the general anaesthesia. He feels the gesture made anear, even while 
 he is sleeping naturally, without ever a suspicion of the magnetizer's 
 presence. Consequently, the fact cited proves only the individualiza- 
 
 ' See the details in Husson's report, also in Morin, and in Bertrand, " Du Magn.," 
 p. 259. See also Du Potet, " Experiences Publiques sur le Magnfitisme Animal, "etc. 
 Paris, 1821. 
 
WILL-ACTION AND "RAPPORT." 227 
 
 Hon of the sensibility, and not mental suggestion, nor direct physical 
 action. This appears from the further details following : 
 
 " This sign consisted in a rapid movement inward of the out- 
 stretched hand (consequently there was a current of air). At this 
 sign she started and came to herself ; but usually one sign was not 
 enough ; many signs had to be made one after another, and at each 
 there would be a start, a commotion of her whole body, as though 
 she had received a powerful galvanic charge ; after four or five 
 shocks she would open her eyes, sit up, and come to herself." 
 
 Experiments for producing paralysis of any one sense, purely by 
 means of gestures, are rather easy to make. This I demonstrated 
 upon four subjects to the Warsaw Medical Society in 1881. 
 
 They do not suffice to demonstrate mental action, nor even physical 
 action of the hand, but they prove the existence of ideorganic associa- 
 tions produced by habit, between a sign and an organic state. The ex- 
 periment is more conclusive when it is performed on a person in his 
 natural sleep, whom you never have magnetized, who is not expecting 
 the magnetizer, and whom you magnetize without contact. I once 
 made this experiment under favorable conditions, and was successful. 
 But here again mental action is not proven, if one acts as I did, by 
 making passes at but a little distance, for with sensitive subjects air- 
 movements many times repeated before the subject's face may pro- 
 duce somnambulism without the intervention of special physical 
 action. 
 
 On this point Bertrand remarks : 
 
 " I found it always impossible by a simple act of my will to make 
 the waking patient lose consciousness [as we have seen, this phen- 
 omenon does occur, but it is very rare], and when I made the sign 
 without any act of will, I produced the same effect as though I had 
 willed to act ; so that my will, per se, was without action while I sought 
 to act upon the patient in the waking state ; but it was not so when she 
 was in somnambulism or in paralysis, for then my will of itself sufficed 
 to make her come to herself [as for me, I never have been able 
 to awaken a somnambule by a simple act of will, at least, not under 
 strict conditions, i. e., under conditions excluding involuntary habit- 
 ual suggestion. It would seem that in this respect individuals 
 differ]. Still the latter result, it must be confessed, was not as clear 
 as the former, for, as though to prevent accidents that might result 
 the somnambule was never left more than three or four minutes in uncon- 
 sciousness, it was difficult, in so short a time, to make any conclusive 
 experiments." 
 
 Of course ; and it seems to me that Bertrand is self-illusioned with 
 regard to his mental action ; that the somnambule, accustomed to 
 sleep only three or four minutes, would have awaked of her own 
 accord. (See p. 20, supra.) Bertrand, however, declares (though at 
 the same time himself raising some objections) that in order to con- 
 vince himself he made the following experiment : 
 
228 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 " I placed myself in a part of the chamber where I was hidden by 
 a corner of the mantelpiece. I repeated seven times (when I made 
 the gesture anear the patient, she usually came to herself at the third 
 or fourth) — I seven times repeated the customary gesture while she 
 was unconscious, and seven times she felt at the same instant the 
 shocks (secousses) that this gesture is wont to produce ; then she came 
 to herself completely. According to what was told me, the shocks 
 were in number the same as my gestures ; they took place at the 
 same moment with my gestures, and the awaking came progressively, 
 as when I stood close by her ; in a word, nothing is wanting to this 
 observation." 
 
 On the contrary, there is wanting to it the certainty that the pa- 
 tient could not hear these gestures, or feel the currents of air they 
 occasioned. 
 
 A strange fact, but one repeated every day in works on hypnotism : 
 Bertrand, who was so exacting when judging the experiments of 
 others, and who did not believe in the magnetic fluid, does not seem 
 very scrupulous in his own experiments upon so complex a question. 
 
 He is even astonished to find that the signs or gestures that always 
 produced the desired effect in the state of somnambulism and while 
 the somnambule did not see them, were insufficient in the waking 
 state. That, again, was an effect of ideorganic association. The 
 somnambule was trained in somnambulism, and not in the waking 
 state ; consequently, the associations formed in that state could not 
 spring up again in a state totally different. They were related to a 
 special organic state as follows : 
 
 Sign a plus Somn. == Effect a' flus Somn. 
 " b " " = " b' " " 
 " c " " — " c' " 
 " d " " — '■ d' " 
 
 and that does not mean that 
 
 Sign a plus Waking »— Effect a' plus Waking. 
 " b " " — " b' " 
 
 for there is no continuity between complete somnambulism and 
 waking. But the signs used in the waking state may have influence 
 in somnambulisni, for there is continuity between waking and som- 
 nambulism—the somnambule remembers things happening to him in 
 the normal state. 
 
 This complex ideorganic association may apply equally and solely 
 to distinct phases of the sleep. Thus it is that at La Salpetriere 
 catalepsy is obtained by opening the eyes of the subject, lethargy by 
 closing the eyes, somnambulism by friction on the top of the head. 
 These are mere accidental associations that have no scientific value, 
 and which have only brought confusion into the domain of hypnotism 
 
WILL-ACTION AND "RAPPORT." 229 
 
 and the magnetic sleep, where already there was confusion enough. 
 Observers, confident of the exactitude of their researches, have made 
 it their business to find the three states where they did not exist, and 
 have sometimes succeeded — with suggestionable subjects. Proceeding 
 on the same principle, one might produce lethargy by pressure on the 
 vertex, catalepsy by occlusion of the eyelids, and somnambulism by 
 friction — on the ankle. It is time to make an end of illusions that 
 have already produced a lot of valueless observations. 
 
 I have just said that I never succeeded in awakening a subject by 
 simple mental suggestion. That phenomenon, however, was verified 
 by the academic commission of 1826. 
 
 " At an agreed signal, given by Mr. Fouquier, Mr. Foissac, whose 
 presence was unknown to Cazot, awakened the latter, as he had en- 
 dormed him, by the force of his will alone, despite the questions the 
 company were addressing to the somnambule with the sole purpose 
 of keeping from him all knowledge of the instant at which he was to 
 be awakened. . . . 
 
 " September 10, at 7 o'clock in the evening, the commission met at 
 Mr. Itard's to continue their experiments on Cazot. The latter was 
 in the sitting-room and a conversation was opened with him, and kept 
 up till half-past seven, the moment when Mr. Foissac, who arrived 
 after him and had remained in the antechamber, separated from him 
 by two locked doors, and distant from him twelve feet, began to 
 magnetize him. Three minutes after, Cazot said : • ' I believe Mr. 
 Foissac is here, for I feel dazed.' In eight minutes he was completely 
 asleep. . . 
 
 " Though the commission could not have any doubt as to the real 
 action produced by the magnetism upon Cazot, even unbeknown to 
 him, we wished to have one more proof nevertheless. The com- 
 mission therefore went to Mr. Bourdois's study, Oct. 5, at noon, at 
 which hour Cazot came there with his child. Mr. Foissac had been 
 invited for half-past twelve, and arrived at the hour named (the time 
 when Cazot withdrew to the parlor) without any communication with 
 us. He was told, however, that Cazot was sitting on a sofa six feet 
 distant from a closed door, and that the commission wished him to 
 endorm the subject and to awaken him at that distance, he being in 
 the parlor and Cazot in the study. 
 
 " At thirty-seven minutes past twelve, while Cazot was engaged in 
 the conversation that we were carrying on, and examining the pictures 
 that adorn the study, Mr. Foissac began his magnetic manoeuvres, 
 and we observed that at the end of four minutes Cazot was winking 
 slightly, that he appeared restless ; finally, that he fell asleep in nine 
 minutes." ' 
 
 Other similar experiments were made by the commission, and were 
 equally successful, but they were conducted under less stringent con- 
 ditions. Hence, it is needless to quote them. 
 
 As regards simultaneous will-transmission and thought-transmission, 
 experiments of that sort were less successful. 
 
 ' This narrative appears to be inconsistent with regard to the locations of Foissac 
 and Cazot. — Translator. 
 
230 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 " Mr. Gudneau wrote on a bit of paper the following words : ' Go 
 sit on a stool that is in front of the piano.' Mr. de Geslin, making 
 this will possess him wholly, bade the somnambule do what he 
 mentally required of her. She arose from her place, and going in 
 front of the clock said, ' It is half-past nine o'clock.' Mr. de Geslin 
 told her that was not what he had asked. Then she went into the 
 neighboring chamber ; again she was told that she was mistaken, so 
 she went back to her place. The next act willed was that she should 
 scratch her forehead : she held out her right hand, but did not per- 
 form the desired movement. [It is always wrong to tell the subject 
 that an experiment is to be made, for then emotion awakens her partly, 
 t. e., causes her to pass into an active state — active polyideia — and then 
 she reflects too much, and tries to divine what is demanded of her, 
 instead of submitting passively to influence. When, under such con- 
 ditions, the subject is mistaken twice in succession, it is best to suspend 
 the experiment, and to make the sleep a little deeper by the aid of a 
 few passes before the face.] The will is that she sit dovyn at the 
 piano, and she goes to a window six feet away from the instrument. 
 The magnetizer complains that she does not do what is enjoined on 
 her by his thought ; she rises, and changes chairs. We ask that when 
 Mr. de Geslin lifts his hand she shall lift hers, and keep it raised till 
 the magnetizer's hand is lowered. She raises her hand, and it remains 
 motionless, not falling till five minutes after Mr. de Geslin has lowered 
 his hand." 
 
 After these unsuccessful experiments, the commission declared that 
 thought-transference had not been verified, but admits the fact of 
 will-action at a distance. That was the opposite of what Bertrand 
 held, for he believed that there is no will-action at a distance, but that 
 the subject can divine the will of the operator by a communication of 
 thoughts. That was rather curious hair-splitting, but we must add 
 that Bertrand had in mind action of will directly upon the organs of the 
 subject that are to be put in motion, and that is what he denied, while 
 he admitted the fact of thought-communication, and consequently the 
 possibility of a movement that is ordered being executed, if the subject 
 perceives our thought and is willing to conform to our desires. 
 
 The commission reached the following conclusions with regard to 
 mental action : 
 
 " When once we put a person in the magnetic sleep we do not 
 always need to have recourse to contact and passes to magnetize him 
 again. We can not only act upon the magnetized person, but we can put 
 him fully in somnambulism and take him out of it unbeknown to hitUy 
 while we are out of his sight, some distance away, with doors between him 
 and us." ("Report of the Academy of Medicine," June 28, 1831.) 
 
 The report was signed by Messrs. Bourdois de la Motte (President), 
 Fouquier, Gu^neau de Mussy, Guersent, Husson (Secretary), Itard, 
 J. J. Leroux, Marc, Thillaye. Messrs. Double and Magendie, having 
 been unable to be present at the experiments, thought they ought not 
 to sign. 
 
ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. 231 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ACTIOK UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT AND AGAINST HIS WILL. 
 
 THUS will-action unbeknown to the subject has been verified by 
 an academic commission, but that does not prevent Mr. Bern- 
 heim from pronouncing the following judgment in a memoir addressed 
 to Mr. Paul Janet : 
 
 " There is not a magnetizer in existence ; there is no magnetic 
 fluid. Neither Donato nor Hansen possesses any special hypnotic 
 powers. The sleep produced does not depend on the hypnotizer, but 
 on the subject ; it is his own faith that endorms him ; no one can be 
 hypnotized against his will, if he withstands the injunction. I am happy 
 to join you in assuring the public against all the chimerical fears that 
 a false interpretation of facts might engender." ' 
 
 The public is re-assured ; but I am astonished that so eminent an 
 observer could bring together so many inexactitudes in the compass 
 of a few lines. 
 
 We may set aside the question of a special fluid, for a fluid is not 
 necessary for an explanation of the facts ; we would simply remark 
 that those who have believed in a fluid have always regarded it as a 
 general, not an individual property, presenting only some differences 
 of degree. 
 
 " The sleep produced does not depend on the hypnotizer." On the 
 hypnotizer, no ; on the magnetizer, yes ; that is to say, it does depend 
 on those who, instead of being simply water-bottle stopples, employ 
 their own bodies, their minds, and their wills in the act of hypnotiza- 
 tion. 
 
 " It is the subject's own faith that endorms him." Have frogs, 
 lobsters, ducks, hens, guinea-pigs the same faith in magnetism that 
 Donato's subjects have ? 
 
 " No one can be hypnotized against his will, if he withstand the 
 injunction." Nevertheless I have many a time endormed persons 
 that resisted with all their might. Mr. Bernheim is doubly mistaken 
 here, for in most cases this phenomenon can be explained by his 
 suggestional theory, without any direct influence, physical or psy- 
 chical. There is not even any need to cite the facts of somnambulism 
 produced at a distance, by a direct physical or psychic action. 
 
 Ideoplasty may be two-fold — conscious and unconscious. There 
 are persons who in all sincerity declare that they are free from a given 
 prejudice, but who, nevertheless, are influenced by it involuntarily. 
 There is a conscious submission and an unconscious. Provided a sub- 
 ject has sensibility, if you suggest sleep to him that idea may realize 
 sleep despite his opposition. 
 
 'Bernheim, " De la Sugg-estion dans I'Etat Hypnotique," p. 13. Paris, 1884. 
 
232 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 The same is to be said of other ideas suggested. 
 
 After all, is it wise to cut short in half a dozen words a delicate 
 question that one has not studied sufficiently ? That seems to be the 
 fashion nowadays. Here is the author of a book in other respects 
 highly interesting, who says : " The question of thought-reading, of 
 lucidity, of second-sight, is decided once for all." ' 
 
 By whom decided ? It would no doubt be no easy thing to say. 
 When one is in such a situation 'twere best he should say, " I have not 
 studied that question ; " or, " My studies have yielded me only nega- 
 tive results ; " or, " The results I have obtained do not authorize me 
 to decide the question ; " but not, " This thing does not exist, that 
 thing is false, because I do not believe in it." 
 
 Let us now look at the facts : 
 
 1. Mr. S. had a somnambule, Miss X., who was also his mistress. 
 She is at his house, sitting at a table ; he is walking about the rooms. 
 Suddenly he sees in the court-yard another young woman coming, 
 and he wants above all things to prevent the women from meeting. 
 Without any long reflection, while still walking, he makes a gesture 
 behind Miss X.'s head, and she forthwith falls asleep, and enters the 
 state of paralytic aideia. He then receives the other woman and 
 talks with her in presence of Miss X., who notices nothing. He did 
 not awaken her till after the other was gone, then he awakened her 
 with one puff of breath, and so rapidly that she did not even know 
 she had been endormed. Mr. S. was still walking about the room. 
 
 This fact proves neither physical action of gestures nor mental 
 action of the will, but it does prove that one may be endormed unbe- 
 known to himself. Miss X. was exceptionally sensitive, not to the more 
 refined influences (mental suggestion did not succeed with her), but as 
 concerns the rapidity of the phenomena. The impression of an hyp- 
 notizing gesture (auditive and tactile) produced sleep by ideoplasty, 
 that is, by an ideorganic association based on habitude, before she 
 had time to think about it. 
 
 I knew this person myself and I even made on her a similar experi- 
 ment : 
 
 2. Not having been magnetized in a long while by Mr. S., she be- 
 lieved she had lost sensibility, and one day, in society, she told me she 
 now felt so strong that she would like to try and magnetize me. I 
 agreed for the fun of the thing, and let her have her way. Delighted 
 because I consented, she seized my thumbs and fixed my gaze. To 
 humor her the more I pretended to be overpowered by sleep ; then 
 suddenly I opened my eyes and fixed her gaze, intending to endorm her, 
 and she was asleep after a few seconds. We experimented on her for 
 at least three quarters of an hour. Then J. resumed my position 
 before her, awakened her with a puff of breath, and continued my 
 pretended sleep. Believing me to be really endormed, she began to 
 clap her hands in triumph, and could not understand why everyone 
 
 'CulUre, " Magnetisme et Hypnotisme," p. 239. Paris, 1886. 
 
. ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. 233 
 
 burst out laughing. She would not believe it was herself that was 
 the sleeper. 
 
 3. A girl of 14 years was magnetized by me five or six times ; she 
 was highly sensitive, though less so than the preceding subject (hyp. 
 exp., insensibility and contracture of the finger, whereas in the other 
 the whole arm was contractured) ; in very good health (as was the 
 other, too) ; she was magnetized only for the sake of some experi- 
 ments designed to convince an acquaintance of mine, a physician. 
 The only effect of these seances was that she slept a little longer in 
 the night in natural sleep, and that magnetism made her prettier — so 
 at least thought her girl friends. But her companions persuaded her 
 to believe that if she should go on letting herself be endormed she 
 would lose her will-power, and she would not be allowed to marry her 
 cousin, whom she loved — as one loves at 14 years. In short, my 
 somnambule refused to obey me, without giving any reasons. She did 
 not wish to be magnetized any more. She was entreated, ordered 
 even, not to be whimsical, but in vain. 
 
 " And you are not afraid that I shall endorm you in spite of your- 
 self ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, for I won't even sit by you." 
 
 I was asked to try, and her parents authorized me to make the 
 experiment, angry as they were at the disobedience of their daughter. 
 
 I then took a handkerchief that she had left on the table and threw 
 it into her lap, saying : 
 
 " Well, now 'tis done. You will be asleep in five minutes." " That 
 will have no effect whatever on me," she said. But all the same she 
 hastened away to avoid my gaze. " No use in running away, you 
 will come back of your own accord." 
 
 Half an hour later she returned in somnambulism. 
 
 Consequently one can be endormed " against his will " and though 
 he " withstands the injunction." But here ideoplasty plays again the 
 principal part. 
 
 I might cite three or four others facts of the same sort — skeptics 
 themselves asking me to make the attempt to overcome their resist- 
 ance and incredulity. Credulousness without sensibility is of no avail ; 
 incredulity is no hindrance where sensibility exists. The will may retard 
 the action, but it can only retard. Most of those who think them- 
 selves hypnotizable are not, and some of those who hardly suspect 
 themselves of sensibility may be hypnotized without difficulty. 
 
 Here is a narrative of occurrences that took place in France ; it 
 has been published over and over again. The matter came before 
 the courts of law, and all the facts have been verified. 
 
 4. "March 31, 1865, came to the hamlet of Guiols a mendicant. 
 He was about 25 years of age ; was crippled in both legs. He begged 
 hospitality of one H., who lived in the hamlet with his daughter. She 
 was 26 years old, and her moral character was of the best. The beg- 
 garman, whose name was Castellan, pretending to be deaf and dumb 
 gave them to understand by signs that he was hungry, and he was 
 bid to supper. During the meal he acted strangely, and so attracted 
 the attention of his hosts ; he would not let his glass be filled again 
 
234 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 without first making over it and on his own face the sign of the cross. 
 During the evening he signified that he was able to write. Then he 
 wrote the following phrases : ' I am the Son of God ; I come from 
 Heaven and my name is Our Lord ; for you see my little miracles, 
 and later you shall see greater ones. Do not fear me at all, I am sent 
 from God.' Then he offered to remove the film that overspread the 
 eye of a woman then present. He pretended that he knew the future 
 and predicted that war would break out in six months. 
 
 " These absurd actions made an impression on those present, and 
 Josephine H. was particularly stirred by them. She slept all dressed, 
 out of fear of the beggarman. The latter spent the night in the hay- 
 loft, and on the morrow, after he had breakfasted, quit the hamlet. 
 Soon he returned, after having made sure that Josephine would be 
 alone the whole day. He found her busied with household cares, and 
 for a while conversed with her by signs. The forenoon was spent by 
 Castellan in exerting upon the young woman all his fascination. A 
 witness declares that while she lea?ied over the fire on the hearth. 
 Castellan, bent over her, kept making on her back circular signs and 
 the sign of the cross ; at those times her eyes were wan. At noon they 
 sat at table together. Hardly was the meal begun, when Castellan 
 made a gesture as though to throw something into Josephine's spoon. 
 Immediately the girl fainted. Castellan seized her, took her to her 
 bed, and committed the uttermost outrages upon her. Josephine was 
 conscious of what took place ; but, restrained by an irresistible force, she 
 could not make any movement, nor utter a cry, though her will pro- 
 tested against the assault committed upon her. Evidently she was in 
 lethargy [in the state of fascination rather]. Having come to herself 
 again, she did not cease to be under the power of Castellan, and at 
 4 o'clock p. M., when the man was going away from the hamlet, the 
 wretched girl, drawn by a mysterious influence, which she strove in vain 
 to withstand, left her father's house and blindly followed this beggar- 
 man, toivard whom she had feelings only of fear and loathing. "They 
 passed the night in a hayloft, and on the morrow directed their steps 
 toward Collobriferes. One Mr. Sauteron met them in a wood and took 
 them to his house. Castellan told him that he had abducted the 
 young woman after having won her favors by device. Josephine, too, 
 told him of her misfortune, adding that in her despair she had wished 
 to drown herself. April 3, Castellan, followed by the girl, stopped at 
 the house of a Mr. Coudroyer, farmer. Josephine ceased not to 
 lament and deplore the unfortunate situation in which she was held 
 by the irresistible power of this man. ' Bring the strongest and 
 tallest woman,' said she ; ' you will see if Castellan will not cause her 
 to fall.' [The poor girl judged from her own impressions. Not more 
 than about 5 persons in 100 are capable of being brought under such 
 an influence, that is to say, unless they have been already hypnotized.] 
 Josephine, dreading outrages that she feared might yet be per- 
 petrated upon her, asked that she might be allowed to sleep in a 
 neighboring house. Castellan came up to her at the moment when 
 she was about to go, and seized her round the hips ; she fainted. 
 Then, though according to the testimony of witnesses she was like 
 one dead, she was seen, by order of Castellan, to go up the steps 
 of the stairway, counting them without a mistake, then laughing 
 convulsively. It was found that she was at the time completely 
 endormed. 
 
ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. 235 
 
 " The next day, April 4th, she fell into a state like that of simple 
 insanity (somnambulic delirium). She was out of her head and re- 
 fused all food. She invoked God and the Virgin by turns. Castellan, 
 wishing to give a new proof of his ascendancy over her, ordered her 
 to go all round the room on her knees, and she obeyed. Touched 
 by the sorrows of the wretched girl, provoked by the boldness with 
 which her seducer abused his power over her, the inmates of the house 
 drove the beggar away, despite his resistance. Hardly was he out- 
 side the door when Josephine dropped to the floor as if dead. Castellan 
 was called back ; he made sundry signs over her and restored to her 
 the use of her senses. On the next day they went away together. 
 The people dared not prevent Josephine from following the man. 
 Suddenly they saw her coming back on the run. Castellan had fallen 
 in with some hunters, and while he talked with them she took flight. 
 With tears, she begged that they would hide her, that they would 
 rescue her from that influence. She was taken back to her father's 
 house, and since then she seems not to have full use of her reason." 
 [That was quite natural ; for with highly sensitive persons who are 
 not thoroughly demagnetized''- a nervous derangement persists for a 
 good while. If they be thoroughly demagnetized the effect of the 
 magnetism must in all cases be beneficial.] 
 
 " Castellan was arrested April 14. He had already been convicted 
 on a correctional process {correctionnellement). Nature appears to 
 have gifted him with very extraordinary magnetic power. [Every- 
 body can magnetize, but there are differences both in the degree and 
 in the nature of the action.] To that cause is to be attributed the 
 mysterious influence he possessed over Josephine [to that cause in part 
 only, for ideoplasty also acted a part], whose constitution lent itself 
 marvelously well to magnetism, as appeared from sundry experiments 
 made upon her by physicians. Castellan admitted that it was by 
 magnetic passes that he produced the fainting fit that preceded the 
 rape. He even confessed that twice he had intimacy with her while 
 she was neither endormed nor in the fainting fit, though she was in- 
 capable of giving free consent to his criminal acts. The relations he 
 had with her the second night they spent at Capelude were under 
 different conditions, for on that occasion Josephine had no conscious- 
 ness of the criminal act of which she was the victim \paralytic aideia'\, 
 and it was Castellan himself that told her in the morning. On two 
 other occasions the conditions were the same. 
 
 " On his trial, Castellan exhibited the utmost coolness and auda- 
 city. He specially paraded his magnetic powers. He had the impu- 
 dence to offer to give proof of his skill in an experiment on the Presi- 
 dent of the court. While undergoing examination by the Procureur 
 Imperial he went further, for by the fixedness of his gaze he threat- 
 ened to magnetize that officer, and the latter had to require him to 
 lower his eyes. 
 
 " Josephine, since she was taken from under the influence of this 
 man, has nearly recovered her reason. In her deposition before the 
 court she says : ' He exercised such power over me by his gestures 
 and his passes that several times I fell in a dead faint. He might do 
 with me then as he would. I know what things I suffered ; but I 
 could neither speak nor act, and I underwent the most cruel tortures.' 
 
 ' I beg the reader to take this word in its empiric sense, apart from all theory ; I 
 cannot here enter upon explanatory details. 
 
236 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 "Three physicians, Drs. Heriart, Poulet and Th^us, were suni- 
 moned to enlighten the jury asto the effects of magnetism. By their 
 declarations they corroborated the conclusions of Drs. Auban and 
 Roux (of Toulon). Castellan was condemned to twelve years of 
 hard labor." ' 
 
 " Extraordinary as these facts may appear," adds Mr. Liegeois to 
 this narrative; "strange as seems the power exercised by Castellan 
 over his victim, we must not regard this as a unique occurrence. I 
 could, I dare say, find among the clientage of Dr. Liebeault not one 
 only, but ten persons, that under the conditions given would be as 
 powerless to resist criminal assaults as Josephine H. was. The facts 
 developed are of great importance."' 
 
 Now we see why Mesmer insisted on not divulging the methods of 
 obtaining somnambulism. He states the reasons himself : " Since 
 my method of treating and observing disease came into practice in 
 different parts of France, several persons, whether from indiscreet 
 zeal or from a vanity that is out of place, have, without any regard 
 for the reserves and the precautions that I judged necessary, given a 
 premature publicity to the effects, and above all to the explanation 
 of this crisis-sleep ; / know that abuses have resulted from this, and I 
 see with pain old-time prejudices coming back with big strides." ' 
 
 In the foregoing cases the subject was aware of the magnetizer's 
 intention, or at least of his presence. But this is in no wise essential. 
 A person in a deep natural sleep, who never has seen the magnetizer 
 and who has no thought of his presence, may be subjected to the 
 influence of his passes and of his will, may be put in the somnam- 
 bulic state, execute the magnetizer's orders, and wake again on the 
 morrow, remembering absolutely nothing, not even in another period 
 of somnambulism, not even under the influence of another magnetizer. 
 
 Still, I make haste to add that such cases must, of necessity, be 
 exceedingly infrequent — for they require not only an exceptional 
 hypnotic sensibility, but also a sleep accompanied by complete insensi- 
 bility — and that while magnetism may produce such serious effects, it 
 at the same time supplies the means of guarding against them. Only 
 it has to be remembered that hypnotism, which cannot produce these 
 effects, is but an imitation of magnetism. 
 
 Let us return to the facts : 
 
 5. I was attending a lady patient who was not easily endormed. 
 Once coming to her house a little late, I found her sleeping her natural 
 sleep over a tiresome novel. I endormed her magnetically, left her 
 as usual for a quarter of an hour in paralytic aideia, then held con- 
 
 ' Dr. p. Despine, " Psychologie Naturelle," vol. i., p. 586. Paris, 1868. 
 
 ^ Liegeois, " De la Suggestion Hypnotique," p. 48. Paris, 1884. I notice witii 
 surprise that in the new edition of his work Dr. Bernheim cites the same narrative, 
 without perceiving that it contradicts his opinions. 
 
 ' F. A. Mesmer, " Memoire," new edition, with notes by Dr. Picher Grandchamp, 
 p. 56. Paris, 1826. 
 
ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. 237 
 
 versation with her in somnambulism ; at last, as my time was short, I 
 awakened her. 
 
 " Ah, so you are come," she said. " Well, endorm me quick, for my 
 legs are paining me." 
 
 "But I have already endormed you, and you have no more pain." 
 "That is true ; it seems to me that I do not suffer now." 
 But she would not believe that she had already been magnetized. 
 Another time she was worse. The pains were excruciating, and I 
 was summoned by telegraph. I was away from home, and did not 
 call on the patient till near midnight. I found her out of her mind, 
 raving, groaning, and writhing in pain. I spoke to her ; she made no 
 answer. I then laid my hand upon her head, and endormed her within 
 five minutes at the longest. She always fell asleep more readily when 
 she did not know I was present. (There was a peculiar individual 
 cause for this, not easily explained here.) The pain ceased instantly, 
 the fever grew less by degrees ; I gave her the order to sleep quietly 
 the whole night, and left her. The next morning she was much sur- 
 prised to find she had slept so well, and only from her husband did 
 she learn that I had come and endormed her. 
 
 Finally, I have often endormed patients in a fit of insanity — a more 
 difficult thing, because, unable to recognize the magnetizer, they resist 
 with all their might ; but by acting at first from a distance and then 
 coming gradually nearer, one can always attain the end with patients 
 sufficiently sensitive, that one has endormed before. As the fit of insanity 
 usually ceases in the magnetic sleep, if the patient is then awakened 
 he is surprised to see us. 
 
 6. I myself had occasion lately to endorm an insane woman, abso- 
 lutely unconscious, having no suspicion of what I was about to do, 
 and who had never been hypnotized. The patient, a woman named 
 Fier (excited melancholia, mania of persecution, thoughts of suicide, 
 mutism), was under the care of Mr. Auguste Voisin at La Salpetriere. 
 June 29, Mr. Voisin requested me to examine with the hypnoscope a 
 number of his patients. They were brought to me, and I made my 
 notes. When the turn of the patient referred to came, the woman 
 attendant told me that it would be difficult to fetch her, for she was 
 strapped in an armchair, and she could not be brought to me save by 
 carrying her in the chair. So I went to the compartment for violent 
 patients and found a woman of some 45 years, whose face and whose 
 fetid breath betokened inanition. She refused all food, and had 
 taken almost nothing for eight days. A rational word or sign was 
 not to be got from her, and as she had made two attempts to hang 
 herself, it had been necessary to put her in the camisole or strait 
 waistcoat, and to strap her down. I had the camisole taken off and 
 applied the hypnoscope. On pricking her finger with a pin I thought 
 I observed a diminution of sensibility, judging from the weakness of 
 the reflex movements, and, without more ado, / laid my hand upon her 
 head with the intention of endormiug her. After three or four minutes 
 her eyelids fell and she slept. She replied to me rationally, making 
 signs with the head. I ordered her to sleep till I should come again, 
 and went to apprise Mr. Voisin, who was much pleased with this 
 result, for he was beginning to be troubled about the patient's state. 
 
238 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Half an hour afterward, we, Mr. Voisin and myself, found her still in 
 somnambulism. It was proposed to move her into her bed. I said 
 that she was able to go herself. She was unstrapped from the chair, 
 and I ordered her to rise. She rose and bent forward, but her legs 
 were fixed where she stood. They were stiff. A slight massage re- 
 moved the stiffness, and, assisted by us, the patient crossed the court 
 to go to her bed. From that moment forth the improvement was 
 noticeable from day to day. She began to speak, to eat and to sleep 
 .quietly of nights. For the first few days I tried to keep her nearly all 
 the time in somnambulism, and, in fact, the sleep was interrupted only 
 now and then by the return of the fit of insanity. She had no recol- 
 lection either of this first magnetization or of the period of derange- 
 ment. She is still in the hospital, for as yet there can be no certitude 
 of a definitive cure, but she is perfectly rational and does sewing in 
 the workroom. This observation is worthy of a detailed account, 
 but at present I wish only to prove that an insane person can be en- 
 dormed without any expressed suggestion. 
 
 7. And here is an instance to prove that it is possible to endorm an 
 insane patient in spite of his opposition. I take it from a memorable 
 observation of Mr. Voisin: "June i. — The agitation had not ceased. 
 Mr. Voisin wanted to hypnotize her; she showed fight, spat in his face ; 
 he succeeded only with difficulty. The sleep was deep, lasted twenty- 
 five minutes. In the afternoon and all the next day she was more 
 calm.'" 
 
 Consequently, it is inexact to say that " No one can be hypnotized 
 against his will, if he withstand the injunction.'' In the new edition 
 of his book, Mr. Bernheim reproduces the same assertion. But I find 
 this at the end of the volume : 
 
 " Before applying the suggestional therapeutic, here are the rules I 
 consider myself bound to observe, and which every physician must 
 observe, to safeguard his conscience and his professional honor : 
 
 "First, never to endorm any subject without his formal consent" etc. 
 
 It is possible, then, to endorm him without his formal consent ? 
 
 In view of the importance of this matter, I will cite a few more 
 evidences of real action, physical or psychic, exercised unbeknown to 
 the subject. 
 
 8. " March 15, 1826, Mr. J. Dupotet brought together at Mr. Bouil- 
 let's (No. 4 Dragon Street) several persons, to enable them to witness 
 some of the phenomena of magnetism and somnambulism. Mr. 
 Petit, primary instructor (instituteur primaire) at Athis, near Fromen- 
 teau, who in 1818 had been cured by Mr. Dupotet, by means of the 
 magnetic treatment, of several deposits," and who, having then be- 
 come a somnambule, has ever since shown much sensibility to mag- 
 netism, kindly consented to offer himself for the following experi- 
 ments : . . . . 
 
 " Mr. Dupotet, having bandaged the somnambule's eyes, repeatedly 
 held his fingers pointed toward him, at the distance of about two 
 feet ; immediately there appeared in the hands and the arms, toward 
 
 ' Voisin, " Etude sur I'Hypnotisme et sur les Suggestions cliez les Alienes," p. 7. 
 Paris, 1884. ^ D/pSis. 
 
ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. 239 
 
 •which the action was directed, a violent contraction. . . . Mr. 
 Bourdin tried to produce the same effects ; he, too, obtained them, 
 but less promptly, and in a milder form. These experiments were 
 repeated to satiety. . . . While Mr. Petit was playing piquet [in 
 somnambulism] Mr. Dupotet, at the instance of Mr. Ribes, brought 
 his hand, from behind, near his [Petit's] elbow : the contraction previ- 
 ously observed took place anew. Then, by request of Mr. Bourdois, 
 he magnetized him from behind, still at the distance of more than a 
 foot, with the intention of awakening him ; the keenness of the 
 somnambule's interest in the game countered this action, so that in- 
 stead of awakening him, it incommoded and annoyed him ; several 
 times he raised his hand to the back of his head, as though he had a 
 pain there ; at last he fell into a doze that seemed to be a rather light 
 natural sleep, and some one having spoken to him in that state, he 
 awoke with a bound, as it were. 
 
 " A few minutes afterward Mr. Dupotet, still behind him and at 
 some distance, put him again in the magnetic sleep, and the experi- 
 ments began anew. Mr. Bourdois directed his hand toward one of the 
 somnambule's arms, intending to make it perform a certain movement. 
 After a few moments there was produced in the arm, and especially 
 in the hand, a very marked agitation, which became so violent that 
 Mr. Dupotet felt called upon to allay it. 
 
 " Mr. Bouillet, lest there should rest any shadow of doubt upon the 
 reality of a physical action exercised at will, proposed to blindfold 
 Mr. Petit with as many bandages as anyone might wish, and to act 
 upon him in that state. So his face was wrapped about down to the 
 nostrils with several cravats, the chink left on each side of the nose 
 was stuffed with gloves, and the whole was then covered with a black 
 cravat, falling like a veil down to the neck. Then we began once 
 more to make all sorts of experiments on action from a distance, and 
 the same movements were in every case manifested in the parts of 
 the somnambule's body toward which the hand or the foot was 
 pointed. After these new tests, Mr. Dupotet having taken off the 
 bandages from Mr. Petit, played a game of 6cart6 with him, to occupy 
 his attention and to amuse him. The somnambule played with the 
 same skill and still won. He played with such ardor that he was 
 insensible to the influence of Mr. Bourdois, who tried in vain to act 
 upon him from behind and to make him execute an order of his will. 
 The play ended, the somnambule rose, walked across the parlor, 
 pushing aside the chairs that were in his way, and went and sat apart 
 to rest himself at a distance from the quidnuncs and experimenters 
 that had wearied him. There Mr. Dupotet, who was several feet 
 away from him, awakened him ; but apparently the awakening was 
 not complete, for a few moments afterward, while in the company of 
 the Count de Gestas, he dozed, and a new effort had to be made to 
 awaken him fully. When awake, he had no recollection of what had 
 taken place during his sleep." 
 
 The minutes were signed by Messrs. Bourdin, M. D., member of 
 the Academy, President of the Commission appointed to investigate 
 magnetism ; Ribes, M. D., member of the Academy of Medicine ; the 
 Count de Gestas, Deputy ; Deleuze, Assistant Naturalist of the Jar- 
 din des Plantes (he did not arrive till the middle of the seance) ; 
 Raynal, ex-Inspector-General of the University ; Raynal, Jr., student 
 of law ; Lachevardifere, printer ; Binet, Professor of Mathematics in 
 
240 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the Ste. Barbe College ; Bouillet, Professor of Philosophy in the same 
 college, and Corbin, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the College of 
 Lyons.' 
 
 9. In another seance, January 26, 1826, after having awakened 
 Mr. Petit, Mr. Dupotet endormed him again at the request of several 
 persons. He was then distant from Mr. Dupotet the whole length of 
 the parlor, had his back turned to him, and was talking with one of 
 the company. Present at this experiment were, with others, Mr. 
 Ampere, of the Academy of Sciences, and Messrs. Adelon and Ribes, 
 of the Academy of Medicine." 
 
 10. All means have been employed against magnetism — even lying. 
 A certain young woman named Samson was cured by Mr. Dupotet. 
 Mr. Recarmier, in order to destroy the effect of this cure, bethought 
 him to announce in full Academy that Miss Samson had since re-en- 
 tered the Hotel Dieu and there died. Mr. Dupotet having met her in 
 the street, took her to the house of Mr. Husson, Secretary of the 
 Academic Commission, where everybody recognized her. The only 
 thing to be done was to verify by new experiments the phenomena 
 she had presented six years before, but she refused obstinately, and 
 her refusal suggested to the members of the Commission the idea of 
 trying the action of magnetism in spite of the subject. " I felt that 
 this was a sort of indirect challenge," says Mr. Dupotet, " and I made 
 ready to honor it. So I began to act upon her unbeknown to her, 
 and then came a sort of struggle between her and me, in which she 
 was seen to put forth all her efforts to keep herself aloof from my 
 influence. She showed violent agitation, and this, after being sus- 
 pended during a moment of exhaustion and absolute immobility, 
 reappeared with most curious characters. She, in fact, presented a 
 most striking image of the ancient Sibyls ; controlled as she was by 
 an irresistible force, she sprang suddenly from her armchair as those 
 prophetesses from their tripods ; nothing could divert her from this 
 frenetic enthusiasm. [In magnetizing a subject against his will we 
 always produce a sort of somnambulic delirium ; the subject talks 
 incessantly, or else is seized by nervous spasms — in the latter case he 
 must not be awakened till he is calm.] After having exhausted every 
 kind of physical excitation, it occurred to us to address to her aloud 
 the most aggravating speeches — such as women feel most keenly ; 
 but her complete impassibility plainly showed that she heard nothing. 
 As for me, standing at a certain distance from her, I spoke to her and 
 made myself heard ; I touched her and she was conscious of my 
 touch ; it was the same when there was question of awakening her ; 
 the others made a noise, one might say a most deafening uproar, in try- 
 ing to rouse her, but it was in vain ; then it was that, receiving from 
 them a request to awaken her, all that was needed for me to succeed 
 instantly was a simple act of my will." ° (The subject who is in the 
 magnetic sleep cannot be awakened save by the one who has en- 
 dormed him, or who has been able to enter into rapport with him — 
 another difference between magnetism and hypnotism, for the hypno- 
 tized subject can be awakened by anybody.) 
 
 Readers will perhaps be surprised that I quote magnetizers as one 
 quotes scientific observers. It is true that I would not have done so 
 
 ' " Le Propagateur du Magnetisme Animal," etc., p. 32. Paris, 1827. 
 «/(/., p. 30. ^ Id., p. 52. 
 
ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. li^i 
 
 ten years ago ; but since then I have found out that magnetizers are 
 at least as worthy of confidence as hypnotizers, and that if there are 
 among them some credulous folk who have mal-observed and mis- 
 interpreted certain extraordinary phenomena, there are among hypno- 
 tizers, too, many who have mal-observed and misinterpreted certain 
 very ordinary ones. 
 
 Incomplete instruction is sometimes preferable to science sophisti- 
 cated by prejudices. 
 
 That the will takes part in magnetizing action can no longer be 
 denied. True, when one employs passes, the eyes, verbal suggestion, 
 etc., simultaneously with will power, the latter may be superfluous, or 
 at least its action is doubtful. In most cases it is certainly useless, 
 for the subjects influence themselves, or else the physical action of 
 the hand dispenses with mental action. But one subject that is ex- 
 ceptionally sensitive suffices to prove the existence of this action, 
 provided you can influence him without passes, without the eye (sans 
 regard'), without words, and without involuntary suggestion. As we 
 eliminate, one after another, the accessory agents, we come upon the 
 true one. Hear what is said on this head by a contemporary Voluntist, 
 Dr. Perronet, taking care to reduce to their true value the author's 
 generalizations : 
 
 II. "I have employed several processes,'' says he, " to obtain cata- 
 lepsy artificially. Whatever the processes — magnetic passes or odd 
 gestures made for the purpose of discharging an alleged fluid — they 
 all have the same results ; whatever value they have they derive 
 from theories or from beliefs subjectively preconceived. 
 
 " Eschewing, therefore, all mimic ceremony, I was content to say, 
 ' Sleep ! ' and forthwith the catalepsy appeared. Nay, I dispensed with 
 that formula, trifling though it was ; I concentrated all the power of 
 my will within itself, I stripped it of every symbol whether mimic or 
 phonic ; I condensed it, so to speak, with a view to obtain the mag- 
 netic sleep in a predisposed person ; the latter without being prepared 
 by any previous conversation, by any sign, or by any act that might 
 physiologically account for the fact, stopped short in the middle of a 
 phrase, his members and his eyes fixed in cataleptic immobility and 
 insensibility. 
 
 " 'Why do you sleep ? Come, awake,' said I to the subject, in order 
 to intimate to the persons present the true cause of the crisis. ' You 
 know well that I cannot awake,' answered the subject. ' Why ? ' ' Be- 
 cause you want me to sleep.' 'What you say is false ; how do you 
 know that I want you to sleep ? Did I tell you to go to sleep ? ' 'You 
 did not tell me ; you say the contrary to tease me, but I know well 
 that you want me to sleep.' 'What must be done to awaken you?' 
 'Will it you.' 
 
 " I willed the subject to awake, as I had willed him to sleep, that is 
 to say, without manifesting outwardly by gesture or word the essence 
 of my willing ; the awaking was effected rapidly. 
 
 " I succeeded often with this experiment, and hence I infer that the 
 will of the operator is the sole, or at least the preponderant, instrument 
 
242 MENTAL SUGGESTION 
 
 in producing artificial catalepsy ; that in a word the stage business of 
 passes, cabalistic gestures, commanding or mysterious looks {regards) 
 is a supererogation. [The author forgets that all subjects are not 
 mentally suggestionable.] Though I would not deny utterly the 
 utility of passes, etc., I hold that they derive their power from the 
 direction given by the will ; that being backed by a firm, energetic 
 will, they concur in making the experiment successful, but not with- 
 out the will-power : in short, that will-power alone, unaided by any 
 outward act, suffices to produce catalepsy artificially. 
 
 " The same is to be said of all the acts performed by the operator 
 with a view to obtain such or such a result. The will alone gives 
 efficacy to the act. Thus, for example, in virtue of a priori ideas, I have 
 believed that pressure exerted by me on the pit of the stomach of a 
 catalepsied person will produce manifestations of ecstatic enjoyment ; 
 the result corroborated my hypothesis. I asked a friend of mine to 
 exert the pressure instead of me. At once clonic spasms that were 
 subjectively looked for by me, agitated the subject, and ceased the 
 moment I myself touched the person that was exerting the pressure ; 
 they began again when my contact was interrupted. 
 
 " Another time, influenced by a theory of the movement of fluids 
 in living organisms, I believed that on touching the feet of a catalep- 
 sied subject, I should produce in him sudden contractures, and that I 
 could make these disappear by touching the head and the feet simul- 
 taneously. Everything happened as I had anticipated, but that is no 
 proof that the physiological effects are indissolubly connected with 
 these manipulations ; any other processes whatever would have suc- 
 ceeded, provided I had believed in their efficacy. 
 
 " The formula is of small account ; will-force is all. Here we may 
 ponder that word of the gospel : ' The letter killeth, the spirit maketh 
 alive: " ' 
 
 Thanks to the impulse given to scientific research by the Society of 
 Physiological Psychology, of which Mr. Charcot is President, these 
 old discoveries of the magnetizers have been corroborated by many 
 savants, and now men are zealously collecting well-observed cases 
 with a view to draw therefrom theoretic conclusions. The magnet- 
 izers, and in particular the Voluntists, have been treated with derision 
 long enough ; it is time now to make the amend of honor to them, 
 and to give cuique suum. Let us see what has been published by mem- 
 bers of the society upon the part played by the will in magnetic 
 experiments. 
 
 In striving to determine under what conditions, and by what in- 
 fluence sleep was produced in the case of Mrs. B., Mr. Peter Janet 
 finds : 
 
 a. That fixation of gaze {^fixation du regard) was useless. 
 
 b. That pressing the hand favored the sleep a little and made it 
 deeper. 
 
 c. That the production [of sleep] was still more prompt if, instead 
 of simply pressing the hand, the thumb was laid exactly against the 
 thumb of the subject ; but 
 
 ' Perronet, " Du Magnetisme Animal," pp. 15-17. Paris, 1884. 
 
ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. 243 
 
 d. That none of these processes has any influence if the thotight is 
 wandering, and if the will does not intervene. 
 
 Let us make haste to say that we have to do with a monograph, not 
 with a general theory.- Unfortunately, this difference is too oft for- 
 gotten. It is truly astonishing that physiologists that know how to 
 generalize prudently when there is question of ordinary researches, 
 lose their head when they deal with hypnotism. And not only lose 
 their head, but believe themselves dispensed from all circumspection 
 with regard to facts affirmed by magnetizers. " Magnetizers have ob- 
 served this or that in a thousand cases, therefore it is fudge ; I have 
 seen this or that in Mr. X. or Miss Z., therefore hypnotized persons 
 behave thus and so." Hypnotism is taken to be synonymous with 
 magnetism, and, lo ! there you have a generalized observation, put for- 
 ward under the observer's authority, but which positively has no 
 scientific value, not even an individual value, for the reason that the 
 individual's peculiarities are not pointed out, and that it is not said 
 whether the sleep was procured by a shining button or by passes. 
 Hand a magnetizer that is familiar with experimentation Heidenhain's 
 unfortunate little book, for example, and he will simply shrug his 
 shoulders ; and yet Heidenhain is an eminent physiologist. There is 
 a good deal more truth in Mr. Dupotet's exaggerations than in the 
 scientific observations of Mr. Heidenhain. I should be embarrassed 
 were I asked to point to a single page in Heidenhain that could be 
 accepted without reservation. Think you that when he writes a treatise 
 on hypnotism or " self-styled magnetism," he at least was careful to 
 read Braid ? Not a bit of it, nor Mesmer either ! Yet, if the question 
 were the action of cocaine, or of narceine, he would, no doubt, read 
 up his predecessors. Such is the Fluch der bosen That, as the Ger- 
 mans say. Science has spurned and ridiculed magnetism ; magnetism 
 now sends the curse back home. 
 
 So then, without generalizing, for it is certain that in most cases we 
 shall not be able to demonstrate the mental action of the will, let us 
 see what has been observed by unbiased experimenters in some 
 privileged subjects : 
 
 12. "One day Mr. Gibert was holding Mrs. B.'s hand to endorm 
 her ; but he was visibly preoccupied and thinking of something other 
 than the business in hand ; sleep did not come at all. This experi- 
 ment, repeated by me many a time in various ways, has shown us [says 
 Mr. Janet] that to endorm Mrs. B. ojie must concentrate his thought 
 strongly upon the order to go to sleep that one gives, and that the more the 
 thought of the operator is distracted the more diffi,cult it is to produce sleep. 
 This influence of the operator's thought, extraordinary as it may seem, 
 is here absolutely predominant, so that in fact it may take the place of 
 all other influences. If you press Mrs. B.'s hand without any thought 
 of endorming her, you do not produce sleep ; on the other hand if 
 you think of endorming her without pressing her hand, you will 
 succeed perfectly. So we left Mrs. B. seated at the lower end of the 
 
244 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 room ; then, without touching her or saying a word, Mr. Gibert, who 
 was at the other end, held his thought upon willing to make her sleep; 
 in three minutes lethargic sleep appeared. I repeated the same ex- 
 periment many times with the utmost ease ; all that was needed was 
 that (remaining, it is true, in the same room) I should think strongly 
 upon my will to endorm her. Once I succeeded in endorming her 
 even in spite of herself and though she was in great agitation, but it 
 required five minutes of effort. It has often happened that while 
 waiting for Mr. Gibert, I would remain by Mrs. B., in the same atti- 
 tude of meditation, in the same silence, without any thought of 
 endorming her, and then the sleep would not even begin. On the 
 other hand, so soon as, without any change of attitude, I thought upon 
 the order to her to sleep, the eyes of the subject would become set 
 and soon lethargy began. In the second place, if the attitude of the 
 persons present had suggested the sleep, I cannot explain why only 
 the person that had produced it by thought, could, in the lethargy, 
 produce the characteristic phenomena of contracture and attraction." ' 
 [That, too, is a character of the magnetic sleep that does not exist in 
 hypnotism. Consequently, they who confound the two phenomena 
 and after having obtained the magnetic sleep, without knowing it, 
 say that a pressure, or a mechanical excitation, produces this or that, 
 are mistaken, for pressure, or excitation, as such, produces absolutely 
 no effect. The literature of hypnotism is full of such inexactitudes.] 
 
 13. "In the course of the year 1873 [says Mr. Richet], being then 
 interne of the Beaujon Hospital, I made many experiments in som- 
 nambulism. In only one of the subjects endormed by me was I able 
 to produce somnambulism at a distance. [At present I quote only 
 the experiments that were made in the same room, and which prove 
 only will-action.] It was a young married v\roman of some 25 years, 
 who, being at first -with difficulty accessible to sleep, at last, from having 
 been trained to the process, could be endormed with very great 
 facility. At first I endormed her by passes ; then by touching her 
 hand ; at last simply by entering the ward in which she was. Morn- 
 ings, when I entered the ward with Professor Le Fort, chief of my de- 
 partment in the hospital, I would see her at the opposite end of the 
 ward immediately falling asleep. But as I did not wish her to be in 
 that state when Mr. Le Fort should reach her, I would make every 
 effort mentally to awaken her, and in fact she always used to awake 
 a few moments before Mr. Le Fort came to her bedside."" 
 
 14. " The observation I report here [Dr. Hericourt is speaking] 
 dates from the year 1878, and I communicated it at the time to my 
 friend Mr. Charles Richet, who has kept it faithfully and prudently 
 among his papers for reasons easily understood. The case was that 
 of a young woman of 24 years, of Spanish descent, a widow, and 
 mother of a little girl of 5 years. Mrs. D. is small, thin, very brown, 
 has the pilose system greatly developed. The most thorough investi- 
 gation developed no trace in her of hysteria, whether hereditary or 
 individual. When I tried to produce hypnotism \inagnetism is meant] 
 in Mrs. D., she never had undergone any experiment of the kind. 
 The first attempt, however, succeeded fully after some twelve minutes 
 spent in gazing at her fixedly and holding her thumbs fast in my 
 
 ' P. Janet, " Notes sur quelques Ph6nom4nes du Somnambulisme." {Bull, de la 
 Soc. Psych. Phys., 1885.) 
 
 ' Ch. Richet, " Un Fait de Somnambulisme i Distance.'' 
 
ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. 245 
 
 hands. In the sequel the same result was obtained by simply gazing 
 at her, or touching her head or her hand for not more than a few 
 seconds ; at last, with still less ado, as will presently be seen. The 
 state of Mrs. D. was then from the first moment one of lucid somnam- 
 bulism ; she was fluent in conversation, her intelligence was quick, 
 her sensibility seemed heightened, her memory was remarkable ; every 
 image evoked produced an hallucination, but this phenomenon never 
 appeared spontaneously. [The state then w&s polyideit:, with tendency 
 to passive monoideism.'\ At the same time there was total insensibility 
 to pain, and the members which were the seat of a very definite mus- 
 cular superexcitability were put in catalepsy by a simple touch, without 
 modifying in the least the psychic state. [That is a very common 
 phenomenon in magnetism, audit proves : i — That it is not necessary 
 to open the subject's eyes to produce catalepsy ; and, 2 — That cata- 
 lepsy may co-exist with somnambulism, and that, therefore, it is incor- 
 rect to regard these two states as distinct phases. In general, all 
 classifications based solely on external characters must necessarily 
 be defective, for all the external characters may be produced in all 
 hypnotic states and even in the state of waking. Only the psychic 
 characters can serve as a basis for a valid classification. Somnam- 
 bulism is a cerebral phenomenon first of all, and therefore we must not 
 seek elsewhere but in the brain the differentiating characters of its 
 phases. We may only say, for example, cataleptic or simply paralytic 
 aideia, or polyideia, to indicate the cases where the members are limp, 
 or where they keep the posture given them.] At the awaking, which 
 I produced by drawing my finger over the upper lids, the memory of 
 what had taken place was wholly lost ; but in the second state it made 
 an unbroken chain of the facts of her waking state and those of her 
 state of sleep. 
 
 "As I have said, I endormed Mrs. D. with greater facility each suc- 
 ceeding day. In fact, after a fortnight or so of this special training, 
 I no longer needed, in order to obtain that result, either contact or 
 the power of the eye. I had only to will, using no sort of gesture 
 whatever that might betray my intention. If she were engaged in 
 animated conversation with a number of persons while I was in some 
 corner in an attitude of the utmost indifference, I would soon see her, 
 as I willed, trying to ward off the sleep that was coming upon her, 
 and at last succumbing, or taking up again the thread of her thoughts, 
 accordingly as I either continued or ceased to apply my thought to 
 the result to be obtained. And I might even gaze fixedly on my sub- 
 ject, hold her fast by the thumbs or the wrists, and make all imagin- 
 able passes of the sort used by professional magnetizers, yet if it was 
 not my will to endorm her she remained wide awake and conscious 
 of my powerlessness." ' 
 
 15. Finally, a fourth observation of this kind was communicated to 
 the Society by Mr. Glay. It was made by Mr. Desart, sometime interne 
 of the Paris hospitals, and was published in the Tribune Medicate 
 (May 16 and 30, 1875): "The case was that of a girl of 14 years 
 whom Mr. Desart was called, in 1869, to treat for a serious hysteric 
 affection — paralysis of sight and smell, perversion of taste, loss of 
 power of movement and of sensibility in the right arm and both legs, 
 cesophagism, rachialgia, suicidal tendency. Mr. Desart tells how he 
 came to think of endorming her. The spasm of the oesophagus was 
 
 ■J. Hdricourt, Bull, de la Soc, de Psych. Physiol., 1885. 
 
246 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 such that she had to be fed with a tube ; but swayed as she was by 
 the thought of suicide, she every time had a fierce struggle with us 
 to prevent the introduction of food. It took three of us, often four, 
 to overcome her resistance. After the food was introduced, the 
 patient would strive in every way to bring on vomiting, would keep 
 expectorating and shouting for hours at a time. 
 
 " Her parents, whose intelligence was below the average, and who 
 were full of prejudices, were opposed to the employment of narcotics 
 or any agent capable of quieting her. In these circumstances the 
 patient was failing rapidly and giving us much anxiety. The strug- 
 gle for the introduction of nourishment lasted from early in June till 
 the end of October. Then it was that I proposed to the parents 
 a method I had for some time had in mind — magnetic sleep. All my 
 knowledge of magnetism was limited to a few recollections of what I 
 had seen when I was an interne under Aran. I had often seen that 
 physician endorm an hysteriac, and I said to myself that I might 
 doubtless greatly improve the condition of Miss J. if I could make 
 sure of her digesting her food, by producing after each meal a state 
 of sleep, or at least a sufficient calm." 
 
 So Mr. Desart tried to endorm her by means of passes, as he had 
 seen Aran do. He was successful and fed his patient without diffi- 
 culty. In trying to discover how the sleep was produced he was led 
 to observe the following phenomena : 
 
 " I observed," he says, " that when, in making passes, I allowed 
 myself to be distracted by the parents' conversation, I never was able 
 to produce sufficiently deep sleep, even after trying for a long time. 
 So, then, the intervention of my will had to count for a good deal. 
 But was that sufficient without the aid of any outward manifestation ? 
 That was what I wished to know. I therefore came one day, before 
 the hour set for her awaking, and, without looking at the patient, 
 without making any gesture, I mentally ordered her to awake. I was 
 obeyed instantly. As I had willed, the delirium and the outcries 
 began. I then sat before the fire, my back to the bed of the patient, 
 whose face was turned toward the door of the chamber, and talked 
 with the persons present, without appearing to pay any attention to 
 Miss J.'s cries. Then, at a given moment, no one noticing what was 
 going on in my mind, I gave the mental order to sleep, and sleep 
 followed. More than one hundred times was the experiment made, 
 and modified in various ways ; the order used to be given at a sign 
 made to me by Dr. X., and the effect was always produced. One day 
 I arrived when the patient was awake and in full delirium ; she con- 
 tinued her outcries and her agitation regardless of my presence. So 
 I sat down and awaited the signal from Dr. X. That given and the 
 mental order formulated, the patient grew quiet and fell asleep. 
 ' You knew that I was in the room for some time ? ' ' No, sir ! I 
 knew of your presence only when I felt sleep coming upon me. Then 
 I was conscious that you were in front of the fire.' " ' 
 
 This last remark explains how mental transmission, following a con- 
 centration of thought, may simulate vision. At the same time, with 
 the act of will, some sensations are also transmitted, and produce in 
 
 V 
 
 ' E. Glay, "A propos d'une Observation de Sommeil provoque i Distance.'' {Bull. 
 Soc. F. P. 1885.) 
 
ACTION UNBEKNOWN TO THE SUBJECT. 247 
 
 the mind of the subject a visual image of the operator and his sur- 
 roundings — a veridical hallucination, as Mr. Frederic Myers well 
 calls it. 
 
 Oftener still the will-action, though not transmitted as such, simply 
 strengthens "Cat. physical action of the magnetism, which can be exerted 
 without this special concentration ; and there are all possible degrees 
 — purely ideoplastic action, ideoplastic and physical, purely physical 
 and physical and mental. The first (purely ideoplastic action) is the 
 most common, the last (action physical and mental) the rarest. 
 Physical action holds the middle place as regards frequency, but it 
 comes in so often, or rather is so often perceptible, that it is easily 
 verified. 
 
 I wish to speak of this latter category of mediate ■will-transmission 
 before I pass on to the more extraordinary phenomena of suggestion. 
 
 When your hand acts upon a waking patient, the concurrence of 
 ideoplasty is always to be supposed, but one can experiment on sleeping 
 infants, and in that case it is not easy, especially if it is a first experi- 
 ment, to''show that imagination is the sole cause of the action. Such 
 experiment does not demonstrate (at least not directly) mental action 
 of the will, but 'it does demonstrate physical action, and the former 
 is not comprehensible without the latter. I mention these experi- 
 ments with the more pleasure because they have brought about the 
 conversion of an old sinner, a man highly respected and of great 
 worth — I mean Dr. Liebeault, apostle of the theory of suggestion and 
 father of the hypnotic school at Nancy. For many years he, like 
 everybody, confounded hypnotism with magnetism, and rejected the 
 theory of physical action. It was the little children that converted 
 him, and, singularly enough, a suggestion from Mr. Bernheim made 
 the conversion complete. 
 
 " We sought," writes Mr. Liebeault, " to repeat our experiments upon 
 a still younger child, according to the advice given by Professor Bernheim. 
 And at bottom this is the same mode of experimenting long ago 
 employed with advantage by Dupotet and Dumont upon three juvenile 
 subjects, with a purely physiological end in view, though they acted 
 at a distance, in this differing from us. A little child, Louise Meyer, 
 one year old, was presented to us in such condition as we wanted. 
 For four weeks the child had cried night and day, and in spite of the 
 care bestowed upon her by a very excellent physician, no change for 
 the better had yet appeared. To us she seemed to have continuous 
 colic pains, the result of obstinate constipation. Now and then, per- 
 haps, she would sleep five or six minutes at a time. During one of 
 these naps, consequently unbeknown to the babe, we prolonged that state 
 and kept her twenty minutes under our hands, till there was a sign of 
 awaking. From that moment, as by enchantment, she cried no more, 
 slept even a good part of the night, and was brought back to us the 
 following day quiet and beginning to have stools. Three seances 
 during the following days, but without her sleeping, completed the 
 cure." 
 
248 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 This fact may seem extraordinary to a physician who knows only 
 drugs, but for magnetizers it is an everyday matter, and I have verified 
 it over and over again. And there is no need to suppose that a one- 
 year old baby has read the works of Dupotet, or attended one of 
 Mr. Donato's seances, to acquire the robust faith that is indispensable 
 for hypnotic action : all the same, it can be cured. 
 
 Mr. Liebeault cites forty- five similar observations, and, like an honest • 
 man and one that knows how to observe, he concludes thus : " In 
 view of the curative effects we have just recounted, we are led to 
 admit a direct action of the neurility — [but why of the neurility 
 alone ? The whole body acts physically ; nerve-action and mind- 
 action do but emphasize and confirm that action. Among the facts I 
 have verified is this, that the speediness of the curative action depends 
 largely upon the agreeable impressions received just before by the mag- 
 netizer, but it is always exercised more or less when an ailing organism 
 is magnetized by a man that is in sound health, even though his will 
 be not specially intense] — we are led to admit a direct action trans- 
 mitted from man to man, and possessing this essential, irreducible, 
 sui-generis character, that it can re-establish the physiological func- 
 tionment of organs. A nerve-undulation was, in the cases of all our 
 patients, transmitted from us to their nervous systems, and conse- 
 quently, though in what way we know not, gave a beneficial impulse 
 to the diseased organs. Though as regards magnetism I am a psycho- 
 logist, and for a long time have been opposed to the theory of the 
 fluid by externation,' I can no longer deny that certain phenomena 
 are due to the action of one organism on another, without any con- 
 scious intervention of the subject under experiment. ... It 
 were no inconsiderable advance were these two different views both 
 accepted, for they enable us to account for many facts which before 
 seemed inexplicable by either of them alone. ... In the mean- 
 time we invite the true friends of science, those who, being independent, 
 do not believe in the infallibility of academicians — we invite them to 
 verify our experiments. The work is easy, and we are sure that they 
 will confirm our conclusions, even as we have confirmed those of the 
 Lifege magnetizer, Mr. Longpretz." " 
 
 These words were written three years ago. Since then not a single 
 savant has tried to verify Mr. Liebeault's assertions. There has been 
 a hundred years of waiting, and we can wait a while longer. Unfor- 
 tunately, the matter involves a difficulty — that of finding an inde- 
 pendent medical man. 
 
 Rara avis ! 
 
 ' Du jiuide par externation, 
 
 ^ Dr. Lifebeault, "Etude sur le Zoomagn6tisme,'' pp. 4, 24, 28. Paris, Nancy, 
 1883. 
 
DEFERRED MENTAL SUGGESTION. 249 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DEFERRED MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 THE phenomenon next to be considered constitutes a special 
 case of will-transmission — a deferred transmission with time 
 fixed. In reality it is not the transmission that is deferred or re- 
 tarded, but only the execution of the order given ; the action is men- 
 tal suggestion " with a long time to run " (a longue dcMance).^ 
 
 Everybody has heard of deferred mental suggestions with a long 
 time to run ; they have become commonplace. You order an hypno- 
 tized or a magnetized subject to perform some act after he awakes — 
 to-morrow, the day after, a week, even some months hence. Awakened, 
 he will have no thought whatever of the matter ; but when the hour 
 comes he will, perforce, carry out your order, knowing neither how 
 nor why the thought has come to him. Generally the subject assimi- 
 lates the thought, so to speak, and thinks he is acting of his own 
 accord, as if to prove the truth of Spinoza's dictum, that " we know 
 not the causes that determine our actions." 
 
 Dr. Gibert has employed mental, as others have employed verbal, 
 suggestion in producing this phenomenon, and he has obtained no less 
 satisfactory results. 
 
 Not the least surprising thing in this class of facts, of themselves 
 surprising enough, is, that certain somnambules with whom the trans- 
 mission of orders to be executed at once is unsuccessful or difficult, 
 are highly susceptible to long-interval suggestions. 
 
 To explain this fact as far as it may be explained, we must recall 
 what we have already said about two different unconscious strata — 
 one strong, manifesting itself in somnambulism ; the other weak, over- 
 borne by the first, not subject to our direct investigation, but ready 
 at the propitious moment to re-acquire its right to act. Transmission 
 seems to be more easy in this latter stratum, and seems even to take 
 place very often, yet can give us no plain proof of its existence. 
 This is the domain of Leibnitz's " imperceptible sensations." These 
 cannot manifest themselves immediately, but give them the time 
 needed in order to work up into the higher strata, and they will 
 appear at the surface. 
 
 "Mental suggestions," says Mr. Janet, "may be given to Mrs. B. 
 in another way, and have quite other success. The result is uncer- 
 tain when you bid her execute the order immediately, during the 
 sleep ; it is much surer when you mentally order her to execute the 
 order later, some time after awaking." 
 
 ' ^ch^ance, the falling due of a promissory note, etc. — Translator. 
 
2SO MENTAL SUGGESTION 
 
 1 " October 8, Mr. Gibert gave a suggestion in this way : without 
 uttering a word, he brought his forehead near that of Mrs. B. during 
 the lethargic sleep [thus it was a state more or less aideic\, and for a 
 few moments concentrated his thought on the order he gave her. 
 Mrs. B. seemed to experience a painful impression, and uttered groans 
 [as we have seen, p. 90 supra, this impression may be so strong as to 
 bring on an attack of hysteria] ; in other respects the sleep seemed 
 not in the least disturbed. Mr. Gibert told no one the order he had 
 given, but simply wrote it on a piece of paper which he put in an envel- 
 ope. The next day I came back to Mrs. B. to see the effect of this 
 suggestion, which was to be executed between 11 and 12 o'clock. At 
 11:30 the woman showed the greatest agitation, left the kitchen 
 where she had been, entered a room and took away a tumbler ; then, 
 overcoming her timidity, she decided to enter the parlor, where I was, 
 and excitedly asked if I had not called her. Upon my replying in 
 the negative, she went away, and kept going up stairs and down 
 several times between the kitchen and parlor, though she brought noth- 
 ing. That day she did nothing more, for soon she fell into a sleep, 
 being endormed by Mr. Gibert at a distance. During her sleep she 
 said : ' I trembled when I came and asked you if anyone had called 
 me ; I had to come— it was rather inconvenient to come with this 
 tray — why am I asked to carry glasses ? What was I going to say ? 
 Wasn't it that I don't want you to do that ? — I was to say something 
 to you on coming.' 
 
 " On opening the envelope, I saw that Mr. Gibert had the day 
 before ordered Mrs. B. ' to offer a glass of water to each of those 
 gentlemen.' Here again it must be acknowledged that the experi- 
 ment was not a complete success. The suggestion was not executed ; 
 but can it be denied at least that it was taken in ? " 
 
 2. " Here is a more significant experiment. October 10, we, Mr. 
 Gibert and I, agreed to make the following suggestion : f To-morrow 
 at noon lock the doors of the hotise.' I wrote the suggestion on a piece 
 of paper, which I kept about me and which I would not show to any- 
 one. Mr. Gibert made the suggestion as before, bringing his fore- 
 head near that of Mrs. B. The next day when I arrived, a quarter 
 before 12 o'clock, I found the house barricaded and the door locked. 
 I learned on inquiry that Mrs. B. had just locked it. When I asked 
 why she had done that singular act, she answered : ' I felt much 
 fatigued, and did not wish you to be able to enter in order to endorm 
 me.' Mrs. B. was at the moment much excited. She kept roaming 
 about in the garden, and I saw her pluck a rose and go to the letter- 
 box at the entrance gate. These acts are unimportant, but it is 
 curious to observe that they were just the acts that the evening before 
 we had thought of ordering her to do. But we decided to order 
 another act, that of locking the doors ; yet the thought of those other 
 acts doubtless occupied Mr. Gibert's mind while he was giving the 
 order and she too was influenced thereby." Rather in this ca.se the 
 transmission was doubly unconscious ; transmission of the uncon- 
 scious of the first order (in the operator) to the unconscious of the 
 second order (in the subject). 
 
 3. " October 13, Mr. Gibert ordered her, still mentally, the next day 
 at noon to take a spread umbrella and twice to go the round of the 
 garden. That next day she was much excited at noon, twice made 
 the round of the garden, but did not spread the umbrella. A little 
 
DEFERRED MENTAL SUGGESTION. 251 
 
 while afterward I endormed her to quiet her agitation, which was 
 becoming greater and greater. The first words she spoke were 
 these: 'Why did you make me walk round the garden? I looked 
 like a fool. If only the weather were like yesterday's, though. But 
 to-day I should have been a laughing-stock.' It was a very fine day, 
 the day before it rained heavily. She did not wish to spread the 
 umbrella for fear of being laughed at." 
 
 In what state (of the subject) were these deferred suggestions 
 possible ? We shall soon See ; but it is a long story. 
 
 In the beginning of the experiments Mrs. B. presented only two 
 quite distinct states : deep sleep (aideia) and light sleep, /. e., som- 
 nambulism properly so-called (polyideia, passive or active). The 
 former state was usually characterized by complete muscular immo- 
 bility (paralytic aideia) ; the latter by excessive sensibility, with 
 facility of movement, and with intelligence. 
 
 These two states alternated indefinitely, that is to say, after having 
 manifested a certain intelligent spontaneity, the subject, as though 
 fatigued, relapsed into aideic immobility, passing thence anew into 
 the lucidity of somnambulism. That was a sign of maximum hyp- 
 notic sensibility, for at a slightly lower degree the subject does not 
 return again to aideia, but passes little by little from sleep to the 
 waking state, or rests a little while in a state very like normal sleep 
 (with only this difference, that rapport continues), then awakes. 
 This transition may last several hours, but it is always accompanied 
 by sensibility, whereas subjects that are in the state of maximum 
 sensibility pass to and fro between these two principal states, without 
 waking of their own accord till they have had a night's natural sleep, 
 and sometimes even they do not come to themselves the following 
 day. 
 
 Probably there was between these two principal states an inter- 
 mediate monoideic state of longer or shorter duration. 
 
 Not to enter into details, we may affirm, on the basis of Mr. Janet's 
 own account, that not one of the three well-known states — catalepsy, 
 lethargy and somnambulism — as described by Mr. Charcot, existed at 
 this period. 
 
 But sometime after, Mr. Janet went to the Salpetriere to study the 
 hypnotic triad, and took it away in his head, slightly confused (as he 
 himself confessed to me) ; so he set to work to discover the three 
 phases in Mrs. B. " If these states did not exist in her," said he, 
 " might not one try to produce them ? " But that was not the work of a 
 moment. Mr. Janet had to be " infinitely persistent," to experiment, 
 to verify ; above all as regards the " lethargy," the production of 
 which was a " a very laborious " task. At last he succeeded in pro- 
 ducing (that is the word) six different states. 
 
 " New studies undertaken with the same end in view," says Mr. 
 
252 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Janet, "verified the preceding results, complicating them a little, how- 
 ever, I must say." A little is, perhaps, not the word. 
 
 However that may be, Mrs. B. at that time presented, over and 
 above the three principal phases— catalepsy, lethargy and somnam- 
 bulism — three intermediate phases, lethargic catalepsy, lethargic 
 somnambulism and somnambulism with the eyes open, or cataleptic 
 somnambulism. 
 
 Plainly, the subject, restrained in her natural tendencies, defended 
 herself as she could. 
 
 But Mr. Janet, to bring more order into this vicious circle " made 
 the subject go through, in one direction or in the other, the whole 
 series of these states." And then, the subject defended herself 
 so well that she manifested a seventh phase, called by Mr. Janet 
 lethargic catalepsy ; then an eighth, somnambulic lethargy (that is as 
 though we were to speak of a black white), which was added to the 
 lethargic somnambulism already mentioned. 
 
 The latter state has special interest for us, for it was in that state 
 that the deferred mental suggestions were given (by bringing the 
 foreheads of the magnetizer and the subject together). These sug- 
 gestions could not be carried out immediately, but they could be in a 
 subsequent more active phase. It is important that we understand 
 what that phase was. 
 
 In lethargic somnambulism there is still relaxation of the muscles, as 
 in the deeper state preceding it ; there is still insensibility, but 
 already certain moral phenomena come into view which were absent 
 in the preceding state. The subject begins to dream aloud {somnam- 
 bulic dreaming, which sometimes deserves to be called somnambulic 
 delirium); he regains sensibility and complains if he is hurt in any 
 way physically, or should he seem not to notice hurts he will recollect 
 than soon in the state that follows. 
 
 This remark of Mr. Janet's is a very ingenious one, for this is pre- 
 cisely the moment for the latent perceptions of the second order, 
 which await a more mobile state (the lucid somnambulism of Mr. 
 Janet) in order to be able to manifest themselves. Once the lucid 
 somnambulism (polyideia) has appeared "new suggestions are nearly 
 impossible." 
 
 Lethargic somnambulism, then, is strictly the same state described 
 by me in the case of Mrs. M. as monoideic, only it is a little more 
 advanced, a little more polyideic (dreaming aloud: dreams are always 
 hallucinational), and a little more active (the subject complained of 
 hurts); that is to say, I acted on Mrs. M. in the state of nascent mono- 
 ideism, in which she was more passive, whereas Mr. Janet acted on 
 Mrs. B. in a state of definite monoideism. Therefore I was able to act 
 immediately,' whereas Messrs. Janet and Gibert were obliged to in- 
 
 ^ /. e., to act, and 7nake the subject act, immediately. — Translator. 
 
DEFERRED MENTAL SUGGESTION. 253 
 
 fluence the unconscious of the second order, already overborne by the 
 unconscious of the first order, and which, consequently, had to await 
 its turn to be raised to a higher grade. 
 
 These distinctions are fine-drawn, I know, but we cannot do with- 
 out them. But I may remark that it is difificult, if not impossible, to 
 obtain all these gradations in one subject ; subjects, in fact, are char- 
 acterized by predominant tendencies toward such or such a state, 
 and it is enough if, with a little persistence, one can obtain just a 
 glimpse of these flitting phases. Hence, I am not raising objections 
 against Mr. Janet, who is a very conscientious observer ; I am only 
 verifying the shades of difference between states. 
 
 I myself reached the conviction, by experimenting on Mrs. B., that, 
 with her, immediate suggestions' seldom or never came to anything, 
 because a direct mental order " excited her overmuch and produced a 
 kind of somnambulic monomania, which always interferes with immedi- 
 ate transmission. Hence it was that we have seen her bring to an 
 end on the following day, on the occasion of another suggestion that 
 failed, the execution of an order given her by me. 
 
 As for the phases, Mr. Janet obtained even a ninth — somnambulic 
 catalepsy — and that completed the series for the time being. After that 
 ninth state, the first state came back, and so on. The succession be- 
 came more and more rapid, till at last it was no longer a somnambule, 
 but a hurdy-gurdy. At first the crank had to be turned — excuse me ! 
 — the thwnb had to be pressed lo make the subject pass through all the 
 states in succession, from lethargy to catalepsy, or one had to blow 
 upon her eyes to make her traverse them in the reverse order ; but 
 later these means were no longer needed, for the subject went like a 
 mill-wheel. 
 
 Here, observe, pressing on the thumb takes the place of " pressure 
 on the top of the head," or blowing on the subject ; but an air from 
 an opera would have dene as well. " The cause of this procession of 
 states is still obscure," says Mr. Janet. For me it is very clear. All 
 the states that have been imagined, or that will yet be imagined, pre- 
 sent to us one thing only — sleep more or less profound. More or less 
 profound sleep means : 
 
 a. Partial paralysis of the brain (polyideia) ; or 
 
 b. Incomplete paralysis of the brain (monoideia) ; " or 
 
 c. Total paralysis of the brain (aideia). 
 
 But as the paralysis we observe in hypnotism (I use the word in its 
 
 '/. tr. , suggestions to be executed immediately. — Translator. 
 
 ''I. e. , an order to be executed straightway. — Translator. 
 
 "In the original the first two phases of paralysis are C3.\\eA paralysie partielle, and 
 paralysis incomplhte. The difference is that in partial paralysis a part, some of the 
 cerebral organs, or centers, are paralyzed, others not ; while in incomplete paralysis 
 all the cerebral organs are paralyzed, but not completely. — Translator. 
 
2S4 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 broadest sense) is not a strictly pathological paralysis, but a physi- 
 ological state of inhibition, this inhibition, or relative paralysis, must 
 always be accompanied by an evolution of force,^ that is to say, by a 
 relative exaltation, which equilibrates it. The sum of the nerve- 
 energy remains about the same, but one portion of the brain loses 
 what another portion wins. Consequently, though the psychic field \s 
 always more or less narrowed in somnambulism, and even because of 
 this narrowing, the psychic functions may gain in quality what they 
 have lost in quantity. 
 
 Every inhibitive cause — and the inhibitory power of a cause does 
 not depend upon that cause solely, but on a relation between it and 
 the field of action and the surroundings for the time being — every 
 inhibitive cause, I say, will make the subject advance from polyideia 
 toward aideia, and every dynamogenic cause will make it advance 
 in the contrary direction. 
 
 Now, it must be remembered that the brain is not the only nerve- 
 center of the organism. 
 
 The new distribution of the vital energy, the apparition of the 
 plus or the minus, is seldom restricted to the brain alone ; it extends 
 to other centers — cerebellum, bulb, spinal cord, ganglia. If the brain 
 loses, all these are the gainers, and that according to the relations, 
 whether hereditary or acquired, that attach to those centers. Now, 
 by the very nature of this admirable organization of our economy, 
 there exists a certain physiological antagonism between the action of 
 the brain and that of the automatic centers — cerebellum, bulb and 
 spinal cord — and, on the other hand, between the cerebro-spinal sys- 
 tem and the ganglionary. 
 
 Besides these primary antagonisms, there are partial antagonisms 
 characteristic of the individual or of the moment, and from this we 
 can see the complexity of the phenomena that may result. 
 
 Suppose the action of the brain to be for a moment done away 
 (aideic state), then the automatic centers will profit by this : there will 
 be an exaggeration of the reflex actions, as in a decapitated frog. But 
 the vital energy, having left the brain more or less completely, may 
 withdraw into the cerebellum rather than into the cord, and, then, 
 instead of inanimate reflex action, so to speak, we shall have a series 
 of coordinated automatic movements, we shall have a somnambulism 
 exteriorly active, and more or less intelligent, in proportion to the con- 
 currence yielded by the brain to the cerebellum. Again, if the energy 
 goes chiefly to the cord, it may by preference seek the anterior fasci- 
 culi, and in that case there will be an enhancement of contractions 
 (lethargic aideia, or lethargy as defined by Mr. Charcot), with pro- 
 found and mechanical neuro-muscular excitability that may take the 
 more durable form of general contracture — that is, of tetanic aideia 
 
 * DynatKo^inie. 
 
DEFERRED MENTAL SUGGESTION. 255 
 
 — or the evolution of force {dynamogMe) may manifest itself in the 
 posterior fasciculi and give rise to reflex hypersesthesia, in which the 
 slightest superficial excitations will be enough to bring about con- 
 tracture (Charcot's somnambulic contracture, which, however, is by 
 no means peculiar to the somnambulic state alone). This hyperaes- 
 thesia may be followed by complete ansesthesia, if inhibition should 
 give place to the state of exaltation ; and, supposing a like thing to 
 take place in the anterior fasciculi, we shall have, furthermore, com- 
 plete paralysis with relaxation of the muscles — that is, simply /ara- 
 tytic aideia. 
 
 Each part of the nervous system — every ganglion, every fasciculus, 
 each cell, one might say, may be excited or paralyzed momentarily ; 
 no rigorous order, no regular and inflexible classification of these 
 several complexus is to be thought of. All the external characters of 
 somnambulism in general — anaesthesia, hyperaesthesia, catalepsy, con- 
 tracture, neuro-muscular excitability — can be produced in degrees 
 corresponding to the general conditions of the moment, in all hypnotic 
 phases — nay, in the waking state. 
 
 Consequently, it is a waste of time to define over-nicely in detail 
 the combinations of the external signs j we add one to another pretty 
 much as we please ; we modify them, change them about at will, and 
 if there is in these combinations anything essential or fundamental, 
 that surely is the psychic state, the state of the brain itself, and that 
 state is just a sleep, more or less deep — polyideia, monoideia, aideia.^ 
 
 On this canvas (with very highly sensitive subjects) you may broider 
 what you will. 
 
 Sketch me any state you choose ; bring together at random the 
 most contradictory characters ; let the sketch be fantastical — a state 
 somnambulo-lethargo-catalepti-tetanic — and I will show it you real- 
 ized within three days. 
 
 If right after any excitation the hypnotic phase changes, that is 
 because the excitation acted either to endorm more profoundly, or to 
 bring the subject nearer to wakefulness, and that natural change 
 carries with it a host of accidental characters that you have impressed 
 upon the subject by passes and on-breathings {souffles), the physical 
 action of which you deny ; by verbal suggestion, by habitude, by 
 ideorganic association ; finally, sometimes by mental suggestion. 
 Thus have Braid and his successors sometimes practiced magnetism 
 unawares and without seeming to do so. 
 
 Mr. Janet has done so in perfect good faith, though he still con- 
 founds hypnotism with magnetism, calling Mrs. B.'s sleep hypnotic 
 though she never has been hypnotized. 
 
 ' The question of the phases is too complex to be cleared up by a few remarks ■ 
 nor was it my intention to do so. I wished only to define a few points relating to our 
 main object. 
 
256 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 " Inasmuch as mental suggestion," says he, " sufficed to endorm 
 Mrs. B., it must needs also suffice to transfer her from one phase of 
 the sleep to another. The supposition was easily verified. Mrs. B. 
 was in lethargic somnambulism. While making mental suggestion, 
 without touching the subject, I kept thinking simply this : ' I will 
 that you sleep.' In a few moments she was in somnambulic lethargy 
 [that is to say, in a sleep a little deeper], I repeat the same mental 
 order ; she sighs, and forthwith is in lethargy, then in cataleptic lethargy, 
 and every time that I take up that thought again, she thus enters a 
 new state. 
 
 " She passes thus through all the phases, and comes back to her 
 first state. One thing to be noted is, that the mental order always 
 made the subject advance in the same direction. She was once 
 more in lethargic somnambuli.sm, and I essayed to make her revert 
 to lucid somnambulism. Instead of thinking ' Sleep on!' I thought 
 'Awake!'" 
 
 In the beginning Mr. Janet did not succeed ; by a force of habit 
 that we can understand, the subject passed into a profounder state ; 
 but little by little the unconscious grasped her master's thought, and 
 the succession of the phases proceeded according to the unuttered 
 wish of the magnetizer. " The magnetizer's thought, then," concludes 
 the author, " may by an inexplicable influence, directly verifiable, 
 however, make the subject pass through the several phases in either 
 direction." 
 
 So, then, here is proof direct that the phases can be elicited men- 
 tally, as were the several psychic states in Braid's " phrenhypnotism." 
 
 I would not have anyone suppose that my criticism is an attack 
 upon Mr. Janet. In fact, the question is not about Mr. Janet's 
 opinions at all. His conclusions are very moderate, very discreet, 
 and cannot be attacked. I have simply profited by the occasion 
 offered and analyzed the facts published by this author — facts which 
 I regard as furnishing the strongest arguments against the schematic 
 tendencies of Mr. Charcot's school. These Mr. Janet has involun- 
 tarily reduced ad absurdum, while meaning to serve them. 
 
 As for his own conclusions, they are aa follows : 
 
 First, he admonishes the reader that " one must not draw any 
 general conclusion from a monograph ;" then he explains himself 
 more clearly : " Some lay great stress upon the phases of hypnotism, 
 and regard them as states entirely distinct from one another ; others 
 see in them only phenomena without significance, produced by the 
 operator artificially. The facts that I have stated, and in particular 
 the manner in which they were observed, do not agree with either of 
 these extremes. They show that the three primary states have no 
 such high importance, for we can call forth several other states as 
 well characterized and as lasting. The number of these, I believe, is 
 
DEFERRED MENTAL SUGGESTION. 257 
 
 in no wise fixed j at first I observed six, and later nine. The number 
 of these phases remained the same through sov:^^ fifteen seances, but in 
 the later seances I was forced to recognize the existence of a new 
 state, as yet rather indistinct, but plainly /i!7r;«z;^^. . . . No doubt, 
 with more practice on the part of the subject and greater skill on the 
 part of the operator, other states still may be determined."' 
 
 But neither does Mr. Janet view these phases as merely accidental 
 phenomena, and he is right. A state artificially produced is always a 
 resultant of the operator's personal influences and of the subject's 
 physiological nature or idiosyncrasy. But the more mobile the subject 
 (in the Puysegurian sense of the word), the more do these first 
 influences prevail. Here is an experiment I made in presence of 
 Mr. Janet and the other gentlemen at Havre : I asked Mr. Janet to 
 ■ mention a state in which catalepsy of the arm is impossible. He 
 instanced one of those lethargic states with complete relaxation of 
 the muscles. AVithout a word, I seized the arm of the subject (who, 
 however, had not been endormed by me) ; I raised it, and it fell ; 
 thus, no catalepsy. I began again with a little insistence ; again the 
 arm dropped, but slowly. I raised it the third time, with intention to 
 see catalepsy make its appearance, and the arm remained outstretched, 
 and retained the position given to it. I was not successful in a second 
 experiment, wherein it was attempted to produce the continuation of 
 movements begun and not belonging ' to a given phase ; but Mr. Janet, 
 too, did not succeed at the first attempt. At last, when Mr. Janet's 
 faith with regard to the value of the phases began to be unsettled, 
 the subject, too, or rather her unconscious, became rattled ; states got 
 mixed, were passed over two or three at a bound, so to speak ; and I 
 do believe that to-day this whole edifice, so patiently built up, is in 
 ruins for the want of a foundation. 
 
 Were these facts not sufficient to make an end once for all of this 
 tangled, idle question, I might add that when Mr. Gibert (who did not 
 believe in the phases) endormed the subject, the phases did not ap- 
 pear. Moral — Beware of mental suggestion ! 
 
 Is contact necessary for deferred mental suggestion ? Hand-con- 
 tact seems indifferent ; contact of the forehead facilitates, perhaps, 
 the inoculation, according to Mr. Gibert. But the interesting fact 
 — observed, as I believed, by me in the case of Mrs. B. — is that 
 " psychic- inoculation " seems painful to the subject. She always sub- 
 mits to it with difficulty, struggling and re-acting with a sort of con- 
 vulsion. Then the "psychic virus" becomes, little by little, assimi- 
 lated, and the subject grows calm. Could the subject tell us 
 
 * Pierre Janet, " Les Phases Intermediaires de I'Hypnotisme'' {Rev. Scient., May 
 8, 1886, pp. 577-87). 
 
 ^ Continuation des mouvements commences et ^trangere h tine phase donne'e. &tran. 
 gire is no doubt a misprint for e'trangers. — Translator. 
 
258 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 straightway what has just been inculcated into her? I think not ! 
 Her bearing does not betray it, and, indeed, were it otherwise she 
 would be capable of carrying out at once the order given, and that is 
 not the case. Consequently there is reason to believe that the inocu- 
 lation takes place from the conscious to the unconscious of the second 
 order ; that the traces inapressed' are too faint to appear at once upon 
 the scene of the cerebral life, but that they persist and are retained in 
 the lower strata of memory, not to reappear till the moment when 
 the hour associated with them shall have struck. Then the dynamic 
 virus frees itself from the oppression of conscious thoughts that have 
 been keeping it confined in shadow ; the suggested thoughts take pos- 
 session of the psychic field, and bring about a sort of almost somnam- 
 bulic monomania which struggles for a time with the normal polyideia. 
 Then, sometimes the definiteness of the suggested ideas is effaced in 
 the tussle with the normal state ; sometimes they succeed more or 
 less in getting in among the conscious thoughts and in being realized 
 outwardly." 
 
 If the struggle is a long one, and the subject, excited, disturbed, 
 irritated, grows more and more absorbed in his monomania, without 
 getting as far as a precise and immediate execution of the brder, then 
 what happens is what happened during my stay at Havre — the sub- 
 ject falls asleep by automatic psychic influence. 
 
 And then calm is restored. The brain takes repose in a transient 
 state of aideia. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 
 
 THERE remains for us only one more class of facts— that com- 
 prising cases of action at a distance. These phenomena surely 
 are the most extraordinary and the hardest to explain. True, when 
 once you grant mental action, i. c, the influence of human thought 
 neighbor to our own, the question of distance becomes secondary. 
 They who are content with mystic notions might even hold that 
 thought, being independent of matter (unfortunately it is not), can 
 act through the distance hence to the moon as well as it can forehead 
 to forehead. But the method of positive science does not allow us to 
 go beyond experience, save step by step. It is well to recall with 
 
 * Percuss. 
 
 ° The many bold and sohk times rather odd metaphors of this paragraph are the 
 author's own. — Translator. 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 259 
 
 regard to this subject the wise words of the " liippocrates of Mag- 
 netism : " 
 
 "The impressions," says Deleuze, " produced by objects are fainter 
 in the ratio of the distance at which the objects are situate. The 
 farther we are from an object, the fewer rays of light does it send to 
 our eyes. The sound of a bell is reduced in proportion as we increase 
 our distance, till at last it is no longer perceptible. Impressions made 
 upon somnambules must in like manner be weakened by distance. 
 Hence, from this, that a somnambule feels the action of his magnetizer 
 20 paces away, it does not follow that he will feel it in like manner at 
 20,000. . . . These limits are not known; they are far or nigh, 
 according to the measure of the somnambule's sensibility ; but there 
 they are, and we must take care not to set them further back than is 
 warranted by decisive experience."' 
 
 There is still another source of possible error, in view of which 
 we must exercise the utmost discretion, not only as regards a 
 greater or less range, but also with respect to action from a distance 
 in general. 
 
 We must needs allow that certain subjects are able to perceive 
 others' thoughts ; but we do not yet know how this is done. Now if, 
 as Morin holds, mental suggestion proves only an extraordinary 
 exaltation of the perceptive faculties, that perception may be had at 
 two paces or at twenty in one room, but not through a partition, and 
 completely unbeknown to the subject. Here doubt is quite in place, 
 and we see that the contrary supposition is not to be admitted without 
 sufficient experimental evidence. Hence it is that, having already 
 verified in a way that left no doubt in my mind, mental suggestion 
 from anear, even unbeknown to the subject, I did not feel at all 
 justified in accepting the facts published by Messrs. Gibert and Janet; 
 so I went to Havre to make sure of them. Here, undoubtedly, is the 
 question's coie: all depends on action at a distance. We can have 
 no decisive idea of the process of transmission from anigh until we 
 know whether this transference is possible only under conditions of 
 ordinary perception, or whether it can manifest itself even beyond the 
 probable range of our senses. And at the same time the whole theory 
 of magnetism must, of necessity, take a new shape." 
 
 But on the other hand it is to be remarked that once we concede 
 transmission from anear, independent of all normal perception, the ques- 
 tion of distance becomes secondary, inasmuch as action at a kilo- 
 meter's distance will not surprise us much more than action at the 
 distance of a meter, and that because of the very nature of the 
 phenomenon, which in that case assumes the special character of a 
 
 ' Deleuze, "Hist. Crit. du Magnfetisme Animal," i., p. i8g. Paris, 1813. 
 ^ This point is elucidated by Dr. H^ricourt in his article " Somnambulisroe aa 
 dehors de I'Hyst^rie " (Rev. Scientijique, June 28, 1884). 
 
26o MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 transmission sui generis, like teleplionic and radiophonic transmission, 
 and independent of direct sense-perception. 
 
 Of course Deleuze's reservations still retain their validity, and we 
 must advance slowly, step by step, as experience shall warrant. 
 
 Mesmer was familiar with the fact of mental transmission at a dis- 
 tance. As we shall see, he even offers an ingenious theory to account 
 for It, and it is very probable that what gave most offense to his con- 
 temporaries — to wit : his breadth of view, his universal fluid, etc. — 
 was attributable, above all, to his profound belief in action at a 
 distance. But just as with regard to somnambulism in general, he 
 thought he must be reticent about this portion of his studies,- which 
 he communicated only to a few favored friends under the seal of 
 secrecy. Mesmer generally experimented a good deal more than he 
 wrote, stated his results very briefly, and even the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of his teaching, of which a small number of copies was printed, 
 were distributed only among chosen disciples and nearly always 
 under the pledge of secrecy. Consequently we possess very meager 
 details as to what took place in the " chamber of crises,'' to which the 
 profane were never admitted. 
 
 Still, as regards action from a distance, a little distance indeed, but 
 from another room, we are able to quote an interesting experiment, 
 reported by a judicious observer, the Austrian savant Seifert, who at 
 first treated Mesmer as a charlatan, but who afterward, mainly under 
 the influence of the facts I am about to recount, accepted the mesmer- 
 izer's theory. 
 
 I. The occurrence took place in 1775, at Rochow, Hungary, in an 
 old castle of the Baron Horetzky, of Horka. Mesmer was treating 
 the Baron with magnetism, and at the same time had under his care 
 several other patients who came from the vicinage to consult him. 
 Seifert looked on all this as humbuggery. 
 
 One day newspapers were broijght, and in one of them was found 
 an account of Mesmer's doings, according to which the magnetizer 
 had produced convulsions in some epileptics that had been apparently 
 cured by the exorcist Gassner, Mesmer being concealed in a neigh- 
 boring room and there simply making his finger move in the direction 
 of the patients. Seifert arrived at the castle, newspaper in hand, and 
 finds Mesmer surrounded by gentlemen. He asked him if what the 
 paper said was true, and Mesmer confirmed the story. Then Mesmer 
 was asked to give experimental proof of action through a wall. At 
 first he refused, but the company urged him so hard — not without a 
 purpose — that finally he accepted the test. From among the most 
 sensitive of his patients he selected a young Jew, suffering from dis- 
 ease of the chest. He placed him in a room separated from the side 
 drawing-room, in which the _experiment was to be made, by a wall 
 two and one-half feet thick. Under these conditions the experiment 
 could not be altogether conclusive, as the subject looked for an 
 experiment of some sort ; but it is interesting because of the peculiar 
 circumstances that we will recount presently. 
 
 Mesmer stood three paces away from the wall, while Seifert, as. an 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 261 
 
 observer, stationed himself at the partly open door, so that he might 
 be able to observe both the magnetizer and the patient. This is what 
 he witnessed : 
 
 At first Mesmer made, with the index finger of the left hand, several 
 horizontal motions in the supposed direction of the patient. The latter 
 soon began to complain, felt of his sides, and seemed to be suffering. 
 "What ails you?" asked Seifert. "I don't feel well," he answered. 
 Not content with this reply, Seifert demanded a clearer description of 
 what he felt. " I feel," said the Jew, " as if all my inwards were 
 balancing right and left." 
 
 In order to avoid asking questions, Seifert told the patient to let 
 him know of any changes he might be sensible of, without waiting to 
 be asked. A few minutes afterward Mesmer moved his finger in an 
 oval. " Now everything is going round in me as in a circle," said 
 the patient. Mesmer then ceased to act, and almost immediately the 
 patient declared that he felt nothing more ; and so on. All these 
 declarations agreed fully, not only with the moments of action and 
 the intervals, but also with the sensations that Mesmer wished to 
 to excite.^ 
 
 2. The same author describes another experiment not less extraor- 
 dinary. Mesmer, as we know, held that the physical transmission is 
 aided by sound, and that sound-waves may be, so to speak, charged 
 with the fluid and may transmit it to a distance. Now, it was custom- 
 ary in the Baron Horetzky's castle for two musicians from time to 
 time to blow a huntsman's horn in a kiosque in the garden. The 
 patients, who were awaiting the coming of Mesmer, and who were 
 separated by several walls from the garden, listened with pleasure to 
 this music. One day Mesmer, wishing to make the experiment, 
 visited the kiosque. Seifert went to the hall where the patients were 
 to see Mesmer. He did not find him, but to his surprise observed 
 that some of the patients, instead of enjoying the music as usual, 
 were becoming uneasy, and even showed more serious nervous symp- 
 toms. Seifert ran to look for Mesmer and found him in the kiosque, 
 his right hand holding the flange of the hunting-horn the musician 
 was blowing. He told what had happened ; Mesmer smiled as he 
 heard. " I expected that," he said. Then he touched the. instrument 
 with his left hand, and lastly let it go entirely, saying: " Now, or pre- 
 sently, the patients will grow quiet." They went back to the hall and 
 found the patients coming to themselves by degrees.'' 
 
 Can we admit the reality of such action ? Experiment is needed in 
 order to decide the question. But is there not some analogy between 
 this phenomenon and the phenomena of Bell's radiophone, by means 
 of which a light-ray transmits the voice? Who would have ventured 
 to believe in such a thing ten years ago ? It is a fact, nevertheless. 
 And here is another phenomenon that I have observed once only, 
 and which consequently still needs verification : 
 
 Mrs. M. was in the magnetic sleep. While awaiting the time of 
 her awaking, I struck a few accords on the piano. Immediately the 
 
 ' Dr. J. Kerner, "Franz Anton Mesmer aus Schwaben," p. 28. Frankfort-on- 
 Main, 1856. 
 " Id., p. 44. 
 
262 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 somnambule, who just before was in the state of moderate (^peu pro- 
 fonde) paralytic aideia, gave signs of attention and seemed to be 
 pleased by the sounds. As she never heard anyone but myself, 1 
 wished to ascertain what might be the action of sounds produced by 
 another person. So I motioned to Miss B., and sh6 went to the piano 
 and played the same accords. Mrs. M. gave no sign of sensation. 
 I played again ; she heard. Miss B. played once more 3.\-\Afortissitno; 
 no action. "You heard me playing?" I asked the somnambule, try- 
 ing to deceive her. " No," said she ; " I did not hear anything." 
 
 That is a special case of rapport and probably a very rare one, for 
 usually somnambules more or less distinctly hear music, and singing 
 in particular. Can it be that there is such physical difference be- 
 tween sounds produced by the magnetizer and the same sounds 
 produced by another person ? Can it be that sonorous vibrations 
 transmit the personal tonic movement upon which depends the som- 
 nambule's perception ? That is a matter yet to be studied. 
 
 3. Experiments in action at a distance would seem to have been 
 very frequent in France about 1784, for in a pamphlet attributed to 
 the Marquis de Dampierre, we find this : 
 
 " The following experiment has been made repeatedly : A highly 
 susceptible person was left with other persons who were in the secret 
 and who tried to occupy her attention. In the meantime she was 
 magnetized unbeknown to her from the adjoining room, and the effect 
 was nearly as prompt and nearly as manifest as though the operator 
 had been nigh. The only difference noted was that, not knowing 
 that she was being magnetized without her co-operation, she at first 
 held herself in check (se contraignait), mistaking what she felt for a 
 natural indisposition, and did not cease to resist till the action, bear- 
 ing upon her with force, put it out of her power to conceal from her- 
 self that she was magnetized. One experiment would not have been 
 decisive, so several were made. Results were obtained more or less 
 marked according to the degree of sensibility possessed by the person 
 magnetized." ' 
 
 4. But we find earlier traces still. Action at a distance was suc- 
 cessfully tried in the case of the possessed nuns of Loudun : 
 
 " Many times the exorcists [/. e., the magnetizers unknown to 
 themselves] called secretly this same nun [Elizabeth Bastard], some- 
 times mentally and by their thought only, again in a low voice, but 
 without being heard by the persons present. This woman felt herself 
 drawn to the places whence they called her, and suspecting the pur- 
 pose, lay down upon the floor to withstand her inclination, and never- 
 theless on these occasions she usually obeyed."" 
 
 5. Van Helmont, the great physician and great dreamer of the 
 i6th century, must have studied this question, so explicit is he with 
 
 ' " Reflexions Impartiales sur le Magnfetisme Animal." Geneva-Paris, 1784. 
 ' ' ' Relation de ce qui s'est passe aux Exorcismes en Presence de Monsieur, Fr^re 
 du Roi," p. 3g. 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 263 
 
 regard to it. He believed that everyone is capable of influencing his 
 fellowmen from a distance, but that generally this force lies dormant 
 in us and oversloughed by "the flesh." If it is to be exercised there 
 must be a certain harmony between the operator and the subject. 
 The latter must be sensitive, and his sensibility must be trained so 
 that, under the influence of the " inner imagination," it may meet the 
 action of the magnetizer half-way. This magic action is felt particu- 
 larly at the pit of the stomach, for " the sense at the pit of the 
 stomach is more delicate than in the fingers or even in the eyes. 
 Sometimes the subject cannot even bear the laying of one's hand upon 
 that region." ' The observation that the magnetic action makes itself 
 felt first at the pit of the stomach is an interesting one, and should 
 be considered in the light of Petetin's discoveries and of a recent 
 observation of Dr. H^ricourt, who writes : " Mrs. D. declared that 
 whenever I was thinking of her she felt a sharp pain in the prsecordial 
 region ; in fact, the same pain she felt when the somnambulic seances 
 were protracted, and which decided me to bring them to an end." 
 " Hitherto,'' says van Helmont, " '' I have hesitated to unveil a great 
 mystery, namely, that there is in man an energy in virtue of which he 
 can, by his mere will and by his imagination, act outside of himself, 
 and impress a lasting influence upon a very remote object. This one 
 mystery illumines with a sufficient light sundry facts hard to under- 
 stand, bearing upon the magnetism of all bodies, upon man's mental 
 power, and upon all that has been said regarding man's magic and his 
 mastery of the universe."' 
 
 This, remember, was written two hundred years ago ! 
 
 6. The comparison of the sensitive subject with the compass-needle 
 is ever recurring in these old authors. It is justified by the undoubted 
 analogy that subsists between the physical action of a hand and that of 
 the magnet in general ;' but especially is it justified by the attractive 
 action of the magnetizer on the magnetized. This is a very complex 
 
 ' ' ''Pcrscete os siomachi non fert manum oppositam ; ibidem esse sensum acutissimum 
 ac prcecisum^ qui alioqiti magis in digitis exti'eviis requiri videbatur.'' J. B. von Hel- 
 mont, " Opera Omnia,'' p. 278. Frankfori, 1682. Our author s translation of van Hel- 
 mont's words is slightly inaccurate. No comparison is made between the " sense at 
 the pit of the stomach " and touch and sight ; it is only said that a very acute sense is 
 manifested at os stomachi, such sense as under other conditions {alioqui) we look for in 
 the finger-tips and the eyes ; the pit of the stomach becomes a tact-organ and a visual 
 organ. — Translator. 
 
 ' Id., p. 731. 
 
 ' lb. See also " De I'Opinion de van Helmont sur la Cause et les Effets du Mag- 
 nfetisme," by Deleuze, in " Bibl. Magn. Animal," vol i., p. 45, vol. ii., p. 198 ; and 
 Dr., Ennemoser, " Der Magnetismus nach der allseitigen Beziehung," p. 616. Leipsic, 
 1819. 
 
 * This subject I have treated in an article in Polish, " The Magnet and the Hand," 
 which appeared in the scientific magazine Niwa, published in 1881 at 'Warsaw, and 
 of which I was editor. 
 
264 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 question, for it assumes many different forms: i. Attraction by 
 ideoplasty, fascination, imitation of movements. 2. Reflex physical 
 attraction by the approximation of the hand. 3. Direct physical and 
 mental attraction, /. e., attraction without intermediation of ordinary 
 perception, from a distance. The magnetized subject is always drawn 
 toward the operator, seeks him, tends to come nearer to him ; hence, 
 the mental suggestion experiment that succeeds most readily is one 
 that makes the subject come to the operator. The subject will always 
 incline toward the magnetizer, and Mr. Janet has observed that, after 
 having endormed Mrs. B. from a distance, he found her head leaning 
 in the direction of his action. But the most striking fact of this kind 
 is recorded by Bruno : 
 
 "The phenomenon that surprised me most," he says, "because it 
 was the first that came under my notice, is the one I am about to 
 relate. A young woman 18 or 19 years of age had been, for five 
 or six months, dying of consumption. After three or four days of 
 treatment she slept. Her sleep became very deep in a few days. 
 When I magnetized her, her head leaned toward me ; I was obliged 
 to push her back gently in her chair, to prevent her falling on me. 
 As that is a usual effect of sleep I paid no attention to it ; after mag- 
 netizing her I left her sleeping quietly and went to another patient. 
 But now new trouble : the girl leaned to one side, sometimes fell on 
 her next neighbor, and some one had to be continually holding her 
 up. I had a large armchair provided for her in which she might 
 sleep comfortably. Vain precaution ! Her head leaned quite slowly, 
 but by jerks, and all that portion of her body which was not held 
 back by the armchair followed this movement. At last a thought 
 struck me: that her head always leaned toward the side on which I 
 was. I changed my position gradually, and what was my astonish- 
 ment to find that her head, like a veritable compass-needle, followed 
 the curve I slowly made around her at the distance of five or six feet. 
 It stopped when I stopped, always leaning toward me. ... In 
 vain I went to a greater distance, the effect was the same. I left the 
 room, went down into the courtyard, placed myself in different direc- 
 tions. I went and placed myself at a very great distance in the angle 
 of a second courtyard of my house, which faces on two intersecting 
 streets; my 'compass' always showed, with the utmost exactitude, 
 the point of the horizon at which I stood. She had to be supported 
 or she would have fallen out of the chair. 
 
 " This experiment was very successful when I made it in presence 
 of a physician, to whom I feft the choice of the places. After having 
 had me placed at different points outside of the chamber, while he 
 remained in it himself, in order to observe the directions in which the 
 young woman would turn, he proposed to me to go into the street. 
 He himself led me to a corner of the court-yard very far from the 
 house. I had ordered that no one should touch the girl, so that her 
 direction might be seen on our return. As soon as I was in place, the 
 physician went back promptly, and hurried upstairs witn all speed. 
 He found the girl had fallen on the floor. I had seated heron a very 
 low chair, telling the attendants to see that her fall should be very 
 gentle, and to assist her in falling by helping her with their arms to 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 265 
 
 the floor. The direction of her body was not exactly toward my 
 place, the back of the chair having hindered that, but she had fallen 
 to that side. Her sleep was not disturbed by the occurrence. The 
 next day the same physician had some doubts as to the direction of 
 the fall, which did not seem to him to be exactly toward where I had 
 stood, and he was not willing to accept the explanation I had given. 
 So he asked me to repeat the experiment. When I had gone down 
 into the street ihe desired that I should go around the neighboring 
 house, situated to the west of mine. He went upstairs immediately 
 to observe what might take place. It was agreed between us that 
 the attendants should prevent the girl's falling. He returned in time 
 to witness the prodigy, and it produced conviction in him. I walked 
 very slowly, always thinking of the girl, and that without knowing the 
 full importance of that operation. The head of the patient indicated 
 to him perfectly the direction in which I went ; he also perceived the 
 action I exerted (Taction que je fis) from the position of her body, 
 which was in danger of falling soon. A young woman who was in 
 the custom of assisting her when in this state kept her from falling 
 But soon that was no longer necessary. The girl straightened herself 
 up, and the new direction of her head, which described a curve from 
 east to west, announced my return."* 
 
 This observation possesses interest for us, for it shows how a 
 physical phenomenon of bodily attraction produced by the mere 
 presence of the magnetizer may be accentuated by the concurrence 
 of mental action. But it is of very rare occurrence, and generally the 
 attraction is purely reflex (sensation of warmth and of air-currents) ; 
 or, if it be direct, it is exerted only at a very small distance. It is 
 also to be remarked that Bruno's somnambule tolerated the attouch- 
 ment of a third person, that is to say, there was no hyperaesthesia, 
 properly called. This point is one that we shall not fail to consider 
 from the view-point of theory. Strong attraction is always accom- 
 panied by rigidity of the members. It ceases sometimes at the 
 moment of a general contracture, but there is always a tendency to 
 contracture wherever attraction manifests itself. After Bruno, and 
 ■often without knowing of his researches, several magnetizers have 
 noted the same phenomenon. It is to be regarded as an aid to mental 
 suggestion when one calls to him the subject. 
 
 7. "We sometimes," says Dupotet,'' "find subjects of such mobil- 
 ity, that you may act upon them through partitions or walls at a 
 moment when it is not possible that they should be cognizant of 
 your intention. They sense your coming, perceive your going ; they 
 
 ' De Lausanne, " Des Principes, etc., du Magn. Anim." (2 vols. Vol. i. is by 
 Bruno), pp. 123-128. Paris, 1819. As the house around whicli the walk was made 
 lay west from Bruno's house, the return walk was, of course, from west to east, and 
 the girl's head must have moved in the same direction. The whole narrative leaves 
 much to be desired in respect of clearness and precision. The exceeding awkwardness 
 ■of the style is reflected in the English version. — Translator. 
 
 ' " De I'Art d'Appliquer le Magnetisme Animal 4 la Therapeutique " {Le Propaga- 
 ieur, p. l-j-j: 1827). 
 
266 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 fall asleep to awake, and then to sleep again, all at your will." 
 Here are the experiments Dupotet had in mind when he wrote that 
 passage : 
 
 " Experiments at the H6tel Dieu (Nov. i, 1820). — We were all assem- 
 bled in the hall used for our seances, the patient alone excepted. Mr. 
 Husson, physician of this hospital, said to me: ' Will you endorm the 
 patient, and that very speedily, without touching her? I wish you 
 would try to obtain sleep without her seeing you or being apprised 
 of your coming hither.' I answered that I would try, but that I 
 could not guarantee the success of this experiment, because action at 
 a distance, through intervening bodies, depends on the special sus- 
 ceptibility of the individual. We agreed upon a signal that I should 
 be able to hear. Mr. Husson, who, at the moment, held in his hand 
 a pair of scissors, chose the throwing of them upon the table as the 
 signal. It was proposed that I should enter a closet separated by a 
 thick partition from the apartment we were in, and the door of which 
 was secured by a strong lock. I did not hesitate to shut myself up ■ 
 in that closet, being unwilling to elude any difficulty, to leave any 
 doubt in the minds of honest men, or to afford any occasion for ma- 
 levolent criticism. The patient was brought in and was placed with 
 her back turned toward the place where I was concealed and some 
 three or four feet distant. The persons present wondered, with the 
 patient, that I had not yet come, and from my delay concluded that 
 perhaps I was not coming ; it was wrong for me to keep people wait- 
 ing — in short, the make-believe that I had failed to come was acted 
 very plausibly. At the appointed signal, though I knew not where 
 nor at what distance Miss Samson was placed, I began magnetizing, 
 keeping the strictest silence and avoiding the slightest movement 
 that might give her notice of my presence. It was then 35 minutes 
 past 9 o'clock. Three minutes later she was asleep, and from the 
 moment that I began to direct my will-action the patient was seen to 
 rub her eyes and to show signs of drowsiness, and at last fell into her 
 ordinary somnambulism. I repeated this experiment November 7, in 
 presence of Professor Rdcarmier. He took all possible precautions, 
 and the result was, in all respects, the same as in our first attempt. 
 The particulars of this second experiment are as follows : Upon my 
 arrival, at 9.15, at the place of our seances, Mr. Husson came to tell 
 me that Mr. Rdcarmier wished to be present to see me endorm the 
 patient through the partition. I promptly consented to the imme- 
 diate admission of so respectable a witness. Mr. Rdcarmier entered 
 and talked with me, in particular about his belief as to magnetic phe- 
 nomena. We agreed upon a signal ; I went into the closet and was 
 locked in. Then Miss Samson was brought, and Mr. R^carmier placed 
 her more than six feet from the closet — I not knowing where she sat 
 — with her back turned toward it. He conversed with her and found 
 her better. They told her I was not coming, and she wanted absolutely 
 to withdraw. The moment that Mr. Rdcarmier asked her whether she 
 digested meat (these words were the signal agreed upon by Mr. Rdcar- 
 mier and me), I began magnetizing her. It was then 9.32; three min- 
 utes later Mr. R^carmier touched her, raised her eyelids, shook her 
 by the hands, questioned her, and so we obtained proof that she was 
 fully endormed. But these two facts did not suffice to demonstrate 
 so strange a phenomenon." 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 267 
 
 In fact, this second experiment was very ill-contrived. The same 
 hour was selected — 9.35, 9.32 — the same place, the same subterfuge 
 to hoodwink the patient. All this was anything but ingenious, and 
 this second experience, qua second (p. 35, supra) was positively 
 of no value whatever. Bertrand had good right to retain his doubts. 
 As for Rdcarmier, when Mr. Dupotet asked him, "Well, are you con- 
 vinced now ?" " Convinced ? No," he replied, " but staggered." 
 
 " So we resolved to multiply the experiments, varying them, chang- 
 ing the hour and the wonted circumstances. What we did was this : 
 1 went one evening, accompanied by Mr. Husson and other physicians, 
 to the ward where the patient was. [A new imprudence !] They 
 placed me at the distance of several beds away from the patient, 
 observing the strictest silence, so that my coming might not be noticed. 
 At 7.08 o'clock I magnetized the patient; at 7.12 we all approached 
 her, and were convinced that the sleep and the insensibility that 
 habitually characterized her existed in the highest degree. I need 
 not say that the day for the experiment was chosen by the physician - 
 in-chief, not by me ; that the observers had made sure in advance 
 that the patient was not sleeping [it was upon this point that Ber- 
 trand's objections mainly bore : he declared that Mr. Husson, by his 
 simple presence, might suggest the thought of an experiment] ;' and, 
 finally, that my action was directed from a distance of about 20 feet. 
 To put an end to all uncertainty as to the result of this wonderful 
 [prodigieuse) action, this is what we did, or rather what I was ordered 
 to do : Mr. Bertrand, doctor of medicine of the Paris Faculty, had 
 witnessed the seances. He said that to him it did not appear strange 
 that the magnetized patient should fall asleep, the magnetizer being 
 placed in the closet; he believed that the concurrence of the same 
 environing circumstances would, without my presence, bring about a 
 like result ; that, in fact, the patient might be naturally predisposed. 
 He therefore proposed the experiment I am about to describe : 
 
 " The patient was to be made to come to the same place, to sit in the 
 same chair at the same spot, and the same sort of conversation was to 
 be carried on with her and around her ; it seemed certain to him that 
 sleep must follow. Consequently, I agreed not to come till a quarter 
 •of an hour after the usual time. At 9.45 began, in presence of 
 Miss Samson, the pre-arranged proceedings. She was seated in the 
 same armchair she usually occupied, and in the same position. She 
 was asked various questions, then she was left in quiet. A pretense 
 was made of giving signals, as on former occasions, by dropping the 
 scissors and the like ; in short, the customary practices were repeated 
 exactly. But in vain did the observers look for the magnetic state to 
 make its appearance in the patient. She complained of her side, was 
 restless, rubbed her side, changed her place, and gave no sign of a 
 need for sleep, whether natural or magnetic. The delay of a quarter 
 of an hour being at an end, I repaired to the Hotel Dieu, entering at 
 10.05. The patient said she had no inclination to sleep, nodded, and 
 in one minute and a half was asleep, but did not respond till half-an- 
 hour later." ' 
 
 Such is the story told by the party most interested in the affair. 
 
 ' Dupotet, "Traite Complet du Magn. Anim.," 4th ed., p. 182. Paris, 1879. 
 
268 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 Let us now see what is said of it by the unbelieving intransigentes, 
 Messrs. Burdin and Dubois : ' 
 
 " In the first place, Mr. Husson visited the ward unexpectedly at 7 
 o'clock in the evening, an occurrence quite unwonted and out of keep- 
 ing with the habits of so precise, so punctual a chief of service. Mr. 
 Husson did not hide, but went straight to Miss Samson's bed, and to 
 put her on the wrong scent [as though it were an easy thing to do 
 with a somnambule], he addressed her next neighbor, saying to her : 
 ' It is on your account I come this evening ; I was anxious about you 
 this morning, but I find you are better ; be not alarmed and all will 
 be well.' It was the somnambule that should have said, 'All will be 
 well,' for now she is fore-advised. Nor is that all. Very adroitly 
 the magnetizer is placed at the distance of one bed from his subject ; 
 a lamp, says Bertrand, lighted the ward, and stood behind the said 
 magnetizer, so that he might make a Chinese shadow-picture of him- 
 self ; and Mr. Husson, also at a short distance from the subject, had 
 his eyes fixed on her. Now, was not that a neatly contrived experi- 
 ment ? ... So then, what happened ? Why this, that Mademoi- 
 selle, once the preliminaries were settled, exclaimed aloud for the 
 edification of the experimenters : ' It is astonishing what trouble I 
 have with my eyes ; I can't keep awake.' And lo ! she is asleep ! " 
 
 But Messrs. Burdin and Dubois were not present at the experiment. 
 Let us see, then, what is said of it by Bertrand, to whom the academic 
 authors refer : 
 
 " Mr. Husson [says Dr. Bertrand] was so good as to consider my 
 objections and to agree to an experiment which would serve as a 
 counter-proof by showing to what extent the accessory circumstances 
 I have just pointed out might act in the absence of the experimenter. 
 It was proposed to have the patient come at the usual hour to the 
 same room ; she was to sit in the same chair ; a show of giving a sig- 
 nal was to be made ; in short, in the absence of the magnetizer, we 
 were to act precisely as we had been in the habit of acting when he 
 was present. All this was done as I requested, and contrary to my 
 anticipations the patient was not endormed. As this experiment had not 
 the result I had expected, I proposed a second one that seemed more 
 conclusive still. This consisted in directing the magnetic action 
 upon the patient not only unbeknown to her, but also at an hour when 
 she would not be likely to suspect that any one was trying to magne- 
 tize her ; this might be done by entering her chamber at night when 
 all were in bed, and, after making sure that she was not asleep, then 
 magnetizing her from a distance unbeknown to her. . . . Not till 
 we had all retired to a corner of the ward at a certain distance was 
 the place of the experiment chosen. Several circumstances conspired 
 to render this experiment more than doubtful to me. A lamp th^t 
 lighted the ward stood back of the magnetizer and at a small distance 
 from him, so that his body, even though he did not stand erect, might 
 easily perhaps have been seen by the patient. Another cause of 
 uncertainty resulted from the very exactitude with which it was 
 attempted to perform the experiment, for Mr. Husson, wishing to 
 make sure that the patient was not asleep, was obliged to let himself 
 be seen by her ; and do what he might to lead her to believe that she 
 
 ' " Histoire Academique," p. 260. 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 269 
 
 herself was not the object of his night-call, she must at least have 
 had some doubts, enough to awaken her attention — all the more be- 
 cause for a fortnight she had been day after day the subject of a 
 multitude of experiments, very many of which, as we have seen, were 
 tried for the purpose of exerting some action or other upon her 
 unawares." 
 
 Bertrand concludes his analysis by declaring that he did not con- 
 test the facts, but that when he signed the report he was far from 
 confirming, thereby, the reality of the magnetic agent and from offer- 
 ing these experiments as conclusive.' 
 
 I am positively of the same opinion. They are not conclusive, but 
 neither are they altogether valueless, as Messrs. Burdin and Dubois 
 would have us believe. They were the first public experiments of the 
 kind, and to Dupotet belongs the credit of having ventured to make 
 the first step. 
 
 " Shortly afterward [says Bertrand] similar experiments were made 
 at the Salpetriere by men versed in the study of medicine and by dis- 
 tinguished students who have become physicians of repute. The 
 result was to convert to a belief in the phenomena of somnambulism 
 the author of the " Physiologic du Systeme Nerveux," Dr. Georget, 
 who in 1821 recorded in that very work the result of his researches. 
 These experiments commanded also the belief of Dr. Rostan, author 
 of several excellent works, and of a great number of articles in the 
 new " Dictionnaire de Medicine," a compilation in which he has just 
 published an article on " Animal Magnetism," wherein he sets forth 
 the observations that wrought conviction in him. Mr. Georget, as 
 well as Mr. Rostan, declares the existence of a special agent, and in 
 particular believes in the influence of the will of the magnetizer, to 
 which he assigns a role as important as that assigned to it by Messrs. 
 Deleuze and Puysegur. But that is not much to be wondered at, so 
 easy is it to be illuded, when one observes creatures for whom the 
 most baseless belief becomes the source of real phenomena. I have 
 passed through the illusion under which the distinguished men I have 
 named still remam. May I be permitted to hope that they one day 
 will adopt the point of view at which I stand ? For the rest, the 
 important thing is, the testimony they have given as to the reality of 
 the phenomena ; it came at an opportune season to strengthen the 
 testimony already given by men whom no one can reasonably suspect 
 of an intention to deceive, and it will no doubt help to win the belief 
 of the scientific world. 
 
 " Other experiments were made at the Pitie, at the Charity, under 
 the direction of Mr. Fouquier, at the Hospital of St. Louis, and every- 
 where results more or less noteworthy were obtained ; but officialdom, 
 which ought not to have remained a stranger to researches conducted 
 under the direction of enlightened physicians and that could not have 
 any untoward effect on the patients, opposed them blindly, and hin- 
 deired them in every way."" 
 
 Bertrand was mistaken as to the definitive outcome of the experi- 
 ments made at a distance. Five years after the publication of his 
 ' Bertrand, " Du Magn^tisme,'' pp. 259-265. Paris, 1826. '^ Id., p. 266. 
 
2 70 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 book, new proofs were brought forward by the academic commis- 
 sion that was appointed about the time when the work appeared. 
 Dr. Foissac repeated Dupotet's experiments with entire success and 
 under the best conditions.' Morin, another unbeliever, in reporting 
 these facts, is able to raise but one objection, viz. : that there might 
 liave been collusion between Dr. Foissac and the patient. It is 
 difficult to accept the supposition of Mr. Morin, or rather of Messrs. 
 Burdin and Dubois. And, in fact, those gentlemen did not make it 
 seriously ; but they are in the right when they say that in handling this 
 sort of question all delicacy must be laid aside, and that Mr. Foissac 
 ought not to have known beforehand the precise time. 
 
 9. " Sleep at a distance [says Lafontaine] is not produced save 
 upon persons that have been magnetized repeatedly. At Renner, 
 Mr. Dufihol, rector of the academy, and Mr. Rabusseau, inspector, 
 came one day with several physicians to the hotel where I lodged. 
 After we had conversed for a good while, Mr. Dufihol asked me to 
 accompany him home, saying that a lady wished to talk with me. I 
 took my hat and went with Mr. Dufihol. After crossing the court 
 yard we entered one of the parlors of the hotel, and Mr. Dufihol began 
 a conversation, the purpose of which I did not see. After a quarter 
 of an hour he said to me : ' You have maintained that you are able to 
 endorm your subject at a distance without his being fore-advised ; will 
 you now try that experiment?' I agreed. 'How much time will it 
 take?' ' Four or five minutes.' 'Begin.' Three minutes after I told 
 Mr. Dufihol that the subject must be asleep. He requested me to 
 remain in the parlor, crossed the court-yard himself, went upstairs, 
 and as he neared the door, he heard the other gentlemen say to 
 the subject: 'Well, you are sleeping? Awake! He is asleep!' 
 Mr. Dufihol entered hastily and found the subject endormed ; then he 
 called me, and said : 'In the face of facts like these, gentlemen, we 
 must believe ; it was I that asked Mr. Lafontaine to endorm the sub- 
 ject from the large parlor of the hotel." 
 
 That experiment was well contrived. Here are two more, arranged 
 ex improviso likewise : 
 
 " The seance ended, many persons surrounded Mr. Lafontaine and 
 discussed with the liveliest interest the different effects of magnetism. 
 Just then took place the most conclusive experiment of the evening. 
 The subject had withdrawn, and was talking with ^ov!\& gardes de ville 
 at one of the braziers in which fire had been made to warm the hall. 
 'Could you endorm him from here?' some one asked Mr. Lafontaine. 
 ' Undoubtedly,' was his reply ; ' stand around me, so that he may not 
 see me.' After a few moments the subject was sound asleep. . . . 
 
 "At Cinq-Mars-la-Pile, two hours before giving a public seance, I 
 happened to be at the house of Dr. Renaud. A dozen persons were 
 present ; the talk was about magnetism, and it was proposed that I 
 should, from the doctor's house, endorm my subject at the hall of the 
 Mairie, where I was to give the seance. I agreed. The conditions 
 were that I should not leave the house ; that two of the gentlemen in 
 the company should remain with me and should tell me the moment 
 ' " L'Art de Magnfetiser," 5th ed., corrected, p. 92. 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 271 
 
 when I was to commence ; that two others were to go and find the 
 somnambule, who was at the hotel, and conduct her to the Mairie, 
 telling her nothing about what was to be done. From the doctor's 
 residence to the Mairie was about half a kilometer. The hour having 
 come, and the two persons that had remained with me — one of whom 
 was Mr. de la Berandifere — having told me that I might begin, I 
 thought, four minutes later, I could assure them that the subject was 
 asleep. We then set out for the Mairie, and when we arrived there 
 the subject was sleeping. Not till five minutes [after the operation 
 began] had the sleep been perfect. In the second minute the first 
 effects had been noticed, such as winking and drowsiness." 
 
 We may add that Lafontaine did not believe in direct will-action or 
 will-transmission, but only in the emission of a fluid, under the control 
 of the will. 
 
 lo. Dr. Dusart completes as follows his observation on Miss J. : 
 " Each day [he says] before leaving I gave the order to sleep till a 
 fixed hour of the next day. One day I came away, forgetting that 
 precaution, and had gone 700 meters away when I adverted to it. I 
 therefore formulated the order to sleep till eight o'clock the next day, 
 and went my way. On the morrow I arrived at half-past seven o'clock. 
 The patient was asleep. ' How comes it,' I asked, 'that you are still 
 sleeping ? ' ' Sir, I am obeying you.' ' You are mistaken ; I left with- 
 out giving you any order." True, but five minutes afterward I dis- 
 tinctly heard you tell me to sleep till eight. Now, it is not yet eight.' 
 
 " The latter hour was the one I usually set for her to awake. Pos- 
 sibly habit produced an illusion, and there may have been simply a 
 coincidence. In order to satisfy my mind as to that and to leave no 
 room for doubt, I commanded the patient to sleep till she should 
 receive the order to awake. 
 
 " In the course of the day, having found a moment of free time, I 
 resolved to complete the experiment. I left my home (seven kilo- 
 meters distant), giving at the same time the order to awake. I reached 
 the house of the patient and found her awake. Her relatives had, at 
 my request, noted the precise moment of her awaking ; it was exactly 
 the moment at which I had given the order. This experiment, re- 
 peated many times, at different hours, always had the same result." 
 
 It is really an interesting one. First, because it seems to prove that, 
 not only is forehead-contact not necessary, but that the action can be 
 exercised at the distance of seven kilometers; and then because it proves 
 that, under these conditions, the influence may have a bearing not only 
 on the fact of sleeping, but on that of awaking also, probably with 
 specialization of a particular thought — that of a stated hour. 
 
 But here is something that will seem more extraordinary still : 
 
 " January i, I suspended my visits and ceased to have any relations 
 with the family. I had heard nothing more about them when, on the 
 12th day of the month, while I was going my round in the opposite 
 direction and ten kilometers distant from the patient, I asked myself 
 whether, in spite of the distance, the suspension of all relations, and 
 the intervention of a third person (for the patient's father magnetized 
 
272 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 lier then) it would be still possible for me to make her obey me. I 
 Jorbade the patient to allow herself to be endormed j then, half an hour 
 afterward, reflecting that if, by an extraordinary chance I should be 
 ■obeyed, that might prove injurious to the afflicted girl, I lifted the 
 prohibition and thought no more about it. I was much surprised 
 when, the next day, at six o'clock in the morning, a messenger came 
 express to my house bearing a letter' from Miss J.'s father. He wrote 
 that the day before, at lo o'clock a. m., he had succeeded in endorming 
 his daughter only after a prolonged and very painful struggle. The 
 patient, once endormed, had declared that if she had made resistance 
 it had been by my order, and that she had not fallen asleep till I per- 
 mitted. These declarations were made in the presence of witnesses, 
 whom the girl's father got to sign the notes of them made at the 
 moment. This letter I have preserved; its contents were confirmed 
 to me later by Mr. , who added some circumstantial details." 
 
 Thus it becomes probable that with an exact knowledge of the con- 
 ditions of the phenomenon we may be able to communicate our 
 thoughts at a distance, as we now converse by telephone. 
 
 Dr. Glay adds to this observation a remark having a bearing on 
 experiment. " It seems," he says, " that Dr. Dusa'rt succeeded in en- 
 dorming his patient at a distance only after subjecting her to an 
 education process. Thus, he says that ^t first he endormed her very 
 many times by mental order, but that the order was given from very 
 hear. Evidently we have no very clear understanding as to what may be 
 the influence of such education ; it may be, nevertheless, that here is a 
 condition favorable to the development of these phenomena, should 
 they be proved real." 
 
 We can, I believe, get a pretty fair notion of the influence of this 
 education : 
 
 a. In the first place, such influence need not cause us any surprise, 
 for it is observed in all hypnotic and magnetic phenomena, without 
 exception : the subject's sensibility grows in proportion to the experi- 
 mentation. The hypnoscope enables us to determine this fact ; and, 
 as I observed in a note ' communicated to the Societe de Biologie in 
 1884, there exists with respect to this point a very sharp contrast be- 
 tween imaginary and real sensibility. Persons who think themselves 
 highly sensitive, very " nervous," who have faith in magnetism, but 
 who do not possess this special sensibility, which does not depend at 
 all on the will or on faith, experience various sensations, more or less 
 strong, at the moment of a first hypnoscopic test. These sensations 
 are produced by fear, by expectant attention — in a word, by the imag- 
 ination. Make the test a second time, and you will see these sensations 
 rapidly grow less and disappear, whereas the effects due to real sensi- 
 bility persist and grow more pronounced with each application. 
 
 If, after a first hypnoscopic test, you hypnotize or magnetize the 
 subject, say for a month, and then apply the test again, you will 
 
 ' See Appendix I. 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 273 
 
 always find evidence of greater sensibility. Why ? Because the 
 action, consisting of a reflex influence between the brain and the 
 ganglia, must needs present the phenomena proper to reflex action in 
 general, which is a thing that is learned, that strikes root, and that 
 becomes more and more easy. Any nerve-route whatever, traversed 
 once by any excitation, no matter what, will present less resistance at 
 the second passage of the same excitation. Herein consists the differ- 
 ence between a wire and a nerve-fiber, particularly when the fiber is 
 connected with living cells. This is what Ribot has called organic 
 memory,^ and this memory must be no less favorable to slight excita- 
 tions than to the ordinary mechanic actions. 
 
 b. We must not forget that though hypnotic sensibility is inde- 
 pendent of the subject's conscious will, it is not so with his uncon- 
 scious. The unconscious may be regarded almost as a privy govern- 
 ment, often, if not always, more powerful than that which under the 
 style of Ego I. reigns in the light of publicity, but — governs not. With 
 this Ego I., more pompous than puissant, you may treat of matters 
 of a superficial sort, but with Ego II. you can conclude treaties with 
 regard to all vital functions. 
 
 To it you may, for example, say : " While Ego I. is sleeping you 
 will watch, reckoning the hours and minutes, and you will wake him 
 at such an hour ; you are to have an eye upon your first minister, who 
 is called ' Exchange of Matter,' so that he shall not hurry his work ; 
 you will carry on and equalize the life-movement in all the provinces 
 of your realm, guard the frontier against invasion, expel foci of 
 disease that break your rest,'' etc., and he will obey you ; he has the 
 power to obey you. Consequently the will of Ego II. can go out to 
 meet us, can aid us, can facilitate more and more our task. 
 
 c. There must be a strong analogy between a spoken voice and a 
 mental voice." Now, we sometimes have difficulty in understanding 
 what is said by one who is a stranger to us ; he speaks too rapidly, or 
 in too low a voice, or with faulty pronunciation ; but little by little we 
 grow used to this ; associations are formed, and, as a mother under- 
 stands the babble of her child, we learn to associate the more or less 
 jumbled sounds with definite ideas. Probably the vibrations that 
 transmit thought and will are no less confused, no less imperfect ; 
 consequently we must have them repeated to us over and over, in 
 order that we may perceive their differences ; and it is easy to see 
 how habit, trainmg and exercise help us to perceive them. 
 
 d. Finally, as we have already observed, the action upon the subject 
 of a center of radiation from without,' and an adjustment in conform- 
 ity with the dynamic nature of that center, are effected little by 
 
 'Ribot, " Diseases of Memory." (Humboldt Library No. 46.) 
 
 2 Une voix parlde, une voix nientale, 
 
 ^ V envahissement du sujet par un foyer rayonnant extirieur. 
 
274 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 little, and constitute what is called " rapport." And this rapport is 
 a necessary condition of all mental transmission. 
 
 II. "One day [says Mr. Richet], being at breakfast with my col- 
 leagues, among them our confrere Mr. Ladouzy, then, like myself, an 
 interne of the Beaujon Hospital, I affirmed that I could endorm a 
 patient at a distance, and that I would simply, by an act of my will, 
 make her come to where we were. Bur after waiting ten minutes, no 
 one having come, the experiment was considered to be a failure. In 
 fact, it was not a failure, for after a while word was brought to me 
 that the patient was walking up and down the corridors endormed, 
 trying to have a talk with me, and not finding me. So in fact it was, 
 and I could get from her no explanation of her sleep and of her wan- 
 dering about but this, that she wanted to talk with me." 
 
 Here we see a lack of magnetic training. Had this patient been 
 accustomed to the experiments, like the somnambules of Dupotet and 
 Foissac, or even like Mr. Gibert's subject, Mrs. B., she would doubtless 
 have known the reason of her promenade. Another point is worthy 
 of mention : the somnambule did not find Mr. Richet, and that for 
 sundry reasons. First, because Mr. Richet had ceased to influence 
 her ; then, because where physical attraction does not combine with 
 the mental action (as in Bruno's experiment), the subject cannot find 
 his way ; he knows he must go somewhere, but whither he knows not ; 
 finally, it is probable that this dominant thought of going to see 
 Mr. Richet developed in her a somnambulic monomania, which, like all 
 monomanias, hinders clear vision. Often it happens that one will be 
 searching for a knife, for instance, that lies before his eyes on the 
 table ; the more persistently he searches the blinder does he become 
 to the object. At last he gives up looking for it, and then finds it. 
 We may recall an occurrence of this sort in our third experiment at 
 Havre, where Mrs. B. was looking for Mr. Gibert, but could not find 
 him. Nevertheless, she had come from the distance of a kilometer in 
 obedience to the mental order. This explains for us the unsuccess of 
 many magnetizers, who, after having mentally attracted their subject, 
 cannot make him come to them after they change their place. The 
 subject grows impatient, stubborn, and has no sense for anything 
 more. 
 
 " Another time [writes the same author] I repeated this experiment, 
 varying it in the following way : I asked two of my colleagues to visit 
 the ward under pretense of examining some patiept or other, but 
 really in order to observe how No. ii would act, it being my intention 
 to endorm her at that moment. A little afterward they came and told 
 me that the experiment had failed. But this time also it was success- 
 ful, for they had mistaken for No. ii the patient in the next bed to 
 hers, who, of course, had remained awake, while No. ii had been put 
 in a sound sleep. 
 
 " I ought [he adds] to have repeated this interesting experiment, to 
 have varied it, and to have made the conditions more precise ; but in 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 275 
 
 matters of this sort one cannot do all that he fain would do, and only 
 those who have experimented know what difficulties of all kinds, moral 
 and otherwise, beset the path of methodical experimentation. After a 
 few weeks the patient went back to her own district, to Beziers, I 
 believe, and I have not heard of her since. Since that time (1873) I 
 have not been able in one single case to produce this phenomenon of 
 somnambulism at a distance. If, then, the phenomenon exists — and 
 it were not easy, I think, absolutely to deny it — it is extremely rare, 
 and occurs only under special circumstances that hitherto have escaped 
 scientific verification." 
 
 We shall endeavor to define these special circumstances with the 
 aid of recent research. But first let us continue our record of experi- 
 ments. 
 
 12. Mr. Hericourt completes his note, already cited, as follows: 
 
 " Soon my thoughts were no longer about exerting my action from 
 one end of a room to another ; the same results were obtained in act- 
 ing from one part of a house to another, and from one house to another 
 house in a more or less distant street. The circumstances amid which 
 I thus exerted, for the first time, this long-distance action-, are worth 
 stating in some detail. Being one day in my study (I lived then in 
 Perpignan), the thought occurred to me to endorm Mrs. D., who, I 
 had every reason to believe, was at home, and who lived in a street 
 some 300 meters distant from mine. By the way, I was far from 
 believing that the experiment would succeed. It was 3 o'clock, p. m., 
 and I kept walking to and fro, thinking very intently of the result I 
 wished to produce ; and I was fully occupied with this exercise when 
 I was called to see some patients. As the cases were urgent, I, for 
 the moment, forgot Mrs. D., whom I was to meet toward half -past 
 four on a public promenade. Having repaired thither at that hour, I 
 was much surprised not to see her there, but thought that, after all, 
 my experiment might have been successful ; so about 5 o'clock, lest 
 anything should be amiss, and to restore things to their normal state, 
 in case that state had been, in fact, disturbed, I bethought me, to ease 
 my conscience, to awaken my subject with the same strong effort 
 with which I had shortly before sought to endorm her. I happened to 
 see Mrs. D. that evening, and this is what she told me, purely of her 
 own accord, and without any allusion whatever, on my part, to her 
 absence from the promenade. Toward 3 o'clock, being in her bed- 
 chamber, she was suddenly possessed by an irresistible desire to sleep ; 
 her eyelids were leaden, her legs refused to support her — she never 
 had been in the habit of sleeping in the daytime — so that she was 
 hardly able to go to her drawing-room and there throw herself upon 
 a sofa. Her maid having come in to speak to her, found her mistress, 
 as she afterward told her, pale, motionless, her skin cold, corpse-like, 
 to use her own expression. Justly alarmed, the servant began to 
 shake her vigorously, but with no success beyond making her open 
 her eyes. At that moment Mrs. D. was conscious, as she told me, 
 only of a violent headache, but that, it seems, disappeared suddenly 
 toward 5 o'clock. That was just the moment when I thought of 
 awakening her. 
 
 " This narrative, I repeat, having been spontaneous, no further 
 doubt remained ; my experiment had surely been successful. In 
 
2 76 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 order to repeat it under conditions as stringent as might be, I did not 
 acquaint Mrs. D. witii wliat I had done, and I set on foot a whole 
 series of experiments, bringing as witnesses a number of persons who 
 consented to fix the conditions and to verify the results. Among 
 these witnesses I may mention the surgeon-major and a captain in 
 the battalion of chasseurs in which I was aide-major. All these ex- 
 periments are ultimately reducible to the following type: Being in a 
 drawing-room with Mrs. D., I told her I would try to endorm her 
 from a neighboring apartment, the doors being closed. I then pro- 
 ceeded to that apartment and there remained a few minutes, my 
 thought being distinctly to let her remain in the waking state. AVhen 
 I went back to the drawing-room I, in fact, found Mrs. D. in her nor- 
 mal state, and making merry over my want of success. A moment 
 afterward, or on another day, I would enter the same neighboring 
 apartment on one pretext or another, but now with the set purpose 
 of producing sleep, and almost within a minute the most complete 
 result would be obtained. Here no other suggestion than the mental 
 one is to be thought of, for expectant attention when brought to bear 
 with full force in the preceding experiment, had been absolutely with- 
 out effect. The conditions of these experiments controlling' one 
 another as they do, are so simple and so effective, that I call attention 
 to them as constituting a sort of schematism for use in demonstra- 
 tion." 
 
 This observation is highly instructive. In fact, negative control- 
 experiments are of special interest. We recall a counter-proof of this 
 kind demanded by Bertrand, and which was successfully made by 
 Dupotet. Similar facts are found in Mr. Peter Janet's narrative, and 
 in most of the cases wherein an action purely mental is alleged. The 
 subject may be touched, passes may be made, we may pretend that it 
 is our purpose to endorm him, and no result will follow. 
 
 But this is of very rare occurrence ; the majority of very highly 
 sensitive subjects undergo ideoplastic action, and I even believe that 
 some of those who are capable of being influenced at a distance will 
 not withstand an imaginary action ; and that consequently Mr. Heri- 
 court's negative test cannot be decisive. But what appears to be 
 certain is, that subjects that are suggestionable mentally, or from a 
 distance, are less suggestionable verbally. They feel the real action, 
 however weak it may be, but do not influence themselves. True, this 
 may be due to training rather than to any positive difference in sensi- 
 bility. In these latter times suggestion is the fashion ; practitioners 
 are suggesting all sorts of hallucinations to their subjects ; and the 
 Nancy school has for a long time been doing nothing else. Such 
 being the case, it is no wonder that there should be plenty of subjects 
 to afford rich amusement, though they be quite unsuited for a serious 
 study. Where all is imagination, true action remains unperceived. 
 Quite different was the practice of sober-minded magnetizers like 
 
 ' The word is used in its original, etymological sense of " checking by a double 
 register or double account." Webster marks "control," in this sense, obsolete. But 
 multa renascentur qua iam cecidere ! — ; Translator. 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 277 
 
 Bruno, Puysegur, Deleuze, etc. They took pains to lead their som- 
 nambules without driving them, and to develop their simple faculties 
 rather than their suggestional mobility. Verbal suggestion is not to 
 be disregarded, for it may render great service to therapeutic ; but we 
 must, above all, develop the native properties {^propriMs sinceres) of 
 this extraordinary sensibility if we would make real progress as 
 regards theory. Little wonder that with suggestion run mad, mag- 
 netism has been made a laughing-stock and somnambules have been 
 replaced by hurdy-gurdies. 
 
 13. Let us again consider the experiments made from a distance 
 upon Mrs. B. 
 
 a. " Without advising her of what he intended to do, Mr. Gibert shut 
 himself up in a neighboring room, at the distance of 18 or 20 feet, and 
 there tried mentally to give her the order to sleep. I remained with 
 the subject [says Mr. Janet] and observed that, after a few moments, 
 the eyes closed and sleep began. But what seemed to me specially 
 curious was, that in the lethargy she was not at all under my influence. 
 I was unable to produce in her either contracture or attraction, though 
 I remained beside her while she was entering the sleep. On the other 
 hand, she was entirely obedient to Mr. Gibert, though he had not 
 been present ; finally, it was Mr. Gibert that had to awaken her, and 
 that proves that he had endormed her. There may be some doubt, 
 however, as to this point. Mrs. B. certainly was not unaware of the 
 presence of Mr. Gibert in the house ; so, too, she knew he had come to 
 endorm her; hence, though the supposition seems to me to be hardly 
 probable, one might say that she put herself to sleep by suggestion 
 at the very instant when Mr. Gibert was giving the order from the 
 neighboring room. 
 
 b. "October 3, 1885, I called on Mr. Gibert, at his residence, at 
 half-past eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and asked him to endorm 
 Mrs. B. by a mental order without quitting his study. The woman 
 was, on this occasion, in nowise forewarned, for we had never en- 
 dormed her at that hour. She was in another house at least 500 
 yards distant. I forthwith repaired to where she was, to note the 
 result of this singular command. As I expected, she was not at all 
 asleep. I then endormed her myself by touching her, and when she 
 was in somnambulism, before I had addressed any question to her, 
 she began to talk as follows : ' I know Mr. Gibert wanted to endorm 
 me . . . but as soon as I noticed that, I went and got some 
 water and dipped my hands in the cool water. ... I do not wish to 
 be endormed in that way. ... I might become talkative . . . 
 that puts me out and makes me ridiculous.' It turned out that she 
 had, in fact, dipped her hands in cold water before my arrival. I 
 record this experiment though it failed, because it seems to me inter- 
 esting from many points of view. Mrs. B., then, appears to be con- 
 scious, even in the waking state, of the influence that controls her ; 
 she is able to withstand the sleep by dipping her hands in cold water ; 
 finally, she did not lend herself kindly to the experimentation, and 
 that fact may be regarded as a guarantee of her honesty. 
 
 c. " October 9, I again visited Mr. Gibert and asked him to endorm 
 Mrs. B., not immediately, but at twenty minutes before 12. I went 
 
278 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 straight to her unaccompanied by Mr. Gibert, who I am certain could 
 not have had any communication with her ; I expected to be able to 
 prevent her from putting her hands in cold water should she attempt 
 to do so again. I was unable to watch her as I had intended, for she 
 had gone to her chamber a quarter of an hour before and closed the 
 door, and I thought it best not to put her on her guard by having her 
 called down-stairs. At fifteen minutes before 12 I went up to her 
 room with some other persons who accompanied me. Mrs. B. was 
 reclining in a chair in a very uncomfortable posture and in deep 
 sleep. It was not natural sleep, for she was totally insensible and it 
 was absolutely impossible to awaken her. I remark again that neither 
 I nor any one of those present had any influence upon her or was able 
 to produce any contracture whatever. The first words she uttered 
 as soon as the somnambulism appeared spontaneously were these : 
 ' Why send them so ? I don't want you to make me act foolishly. 
 Do I look like a fool ? Why does he, Mr. Gibert, endorm me from 
 his house ? I didn't have time to dip my hand in my basin.' As I 
 Jiad no influence over her, it was impossible for me to awaken her, 
 and as we could not leave her so we had to go and fetch Mr. Gibert. 
 As soon as he came he produced all the phenomena which on that day 
 I was not able to produce, and at last awakened her with the greatest 
 ease. Is it to be supposed that my presence in the house and the 
 knowledge I had of the time set by myself for the sleep to come on, 
 had any influence upon her and put her to sleep? I think not, but 
 still the supposition is not unreasonable. We resolved to make the 
 experiment in a different way. 
 
 d. "October 14, Mr. Gibert promised me that he would endorm 
 Mrs. B. at some hour of the day to be set by him or by a third per- 
 son, but which I was not to know. I came to the pavilion where 
 Mrs. B. was about half-past 4 o'clock. She had already been asleep 
 for fifteen minutes, and consequently 1 had nothing to do with that 
 sleep, and all I did was to ascertain its existence. I observed the 
 same insensibility, the same characters as before, save that the leth- 
 argy seemed still more profound, for there was no state of somnam- 
 bulism at all. Still, there were produced on that day other phe- 
 nomena, but these belong to another order of ideas of which I will 
 speak presently. Mr. Gibert did not come till half-past 5. He then 
 told me that at the suggestion of Mr. B., he had given thought 
 to the endorming of the subject about fifteen minutes after 4 o'clock, 
 and that he was then at Graville, that is to say, at least two kilometers 
 distant from her. He had no difficulty in producing contracture or 
 in awakening the subject. It were well could this experiment have 
 been repeated many times, and it is to be regretted that the depart- 
 ure of Mrs. B. prevented us from making it again. Nevertheless to 
 me it seems decisive, considering that it is but the complement of 
 prior experiments and that it is connected with other facts of the 
 same kind that we must now set forth. 
 
 c. " October 14, the same day that Mrs. B. was endormed from 
 Graville, I observed during her sleep the foUSwing phenomena : At 
 five o'clock precisely Mrs. B., while asleep, began to moan and to 
 tremble, and then to mutter these words : ' Enough, enough, it is very 
 unkind of you.' She sat up, and, moaning, rose to her feet and made 
 a few steps ; then laughing aloud, she threw herself backward into the 
 armchair and fell into deep sleep. At five minutes past five the same 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 279 
 
 scene precisely was enacted : she rose, stood up, and seemed inclined 
 to walk ; after a few moments she said, laughing : ' You cannot. Let 
 your thought wander ever so little, and I am myself again ; ' and, in 
 fact, she lay down again and once more was asleep. The same scene 
 was repeated at ten minutes past five. When Mr. Gibert arrived, at 
 half-past five, he showed me a card that had been sent to him by a third 
 person, Mr. D. ; he could not have had any communication whatever 
 with Mrs. B. from the time when the card had been sent. It was 
 suggested that Mr. Gibert should order Mrs. B. to perform different 
 acts of some complexity at intervals of five minutes, after five o'clock. 
 These acts, plainly because they were too complex, were not per- 
 formed ; but at the very moment when Mr. Gibert, at Graville, was 
 ordering them to be done, I, at the distance of two kilometers, with 
 my own eyes, saw the effect those orders produced and a beginning 
 made toward carrying them out. Mrs. B., in fact, seemed to have 
 cognizance of the orders, to withstand them, and to be able to dis- 
 obey them only because of a sort of distraction on the part of Mr. 
 Gibert. We began this experiment again, placing ourselves this time 
 beside her during the lethargic sleep. Strange to say, the result, con- 
 trary to what might have been expected, was not more noteworthy. 
 The person who endorms Mrs. B. can easily enough, by a mental 
 order, make her sit up, and even rise to her feet ; but whether be- 
 cause the concentration of thought does not last long enough, or 
 whatever the cause may be, Mrs. B. is not slow to ' get herself back 
 again,' as she says, and to resume the reclining posture. The order 
 mentally given has an influence that seems immediate, but, as far as 
 we have been able to see, that influence seems not to be greater anear 
 than from afar."' 
 
 " Later, in a new series of experiments, after a rather lengthy train- 
 ing of the subject, I myself succeeded in producing at ■will this curious 
 phenomenon. Eight times consecutively I essayed to endorm Mrs. B. 
 from my own house, taking every possible precaution so that nobody 
 might be aware of what I intended to do, and each time changing the 
 hour of the experiment, and in every instance Mrs. B. was put in the 
 hypnotic sleep [hypnotism from a distance !] a few mmutes after the 
 time of my beginning to fix my thought upon the matter.'" 
 
 The details of these new experiments will be read with interest. I 
 take them from Mr. Janet's second note presented to the Society for 
 Physiological Psychology, May 31, 1886 : 
 
 " These new researches have had to do particularly with sleep pro- 
 duced by action at a distance, for that phenomenon is of the highest 
 importance and seems to be easily verifiable. As I was resolved to 
 make sure of the reality of the phenomenon, I sought to produce it 
 myself repeatedly and with all possible precision, and will begin with 
 an account of these experiments. 
 
 " Mrs. B. had been back in Havre since February 10; her health had 
 continued to be very good, and she had had no nervous attack since 
 her last journey. Once only had she been indisposed, she said, and 
 the circumstances of her indisposition were these : A person living in 
 
 > Bull, de la Soc. de Phys. Psych., 1885, vol. i. Paris, 1B86. 
 
 * P. Janet, " Les Phases Intermfidiaires de I'Hypnotisme." Rev. Scieniif.,'Hla.j 
 
28o MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the part of the country where she was, and who at other times used 
 to endorm her with the greatest ease, had tried again to produce in 
 her the magnetic sleep. He made the attempt repeatedly during 
 three consecutive hours, yet did not succeed in endorming her. As a 
 consequence of this experiment Mrs. B. had a severe headache, and 
 was indisposed for some days. She did not understand the matter at 
 all ; in her simplicity she believed that she could not be endormed 
 any more, and that even we could no longer succeed. But we were 
 not at all concerned, for we remembered how, on the eve of her leav- 
 ing Havre, at the last somnambulic seance on October 14, Mr. Gibert 
 had forbidden her to be endormed by anybody outside of Havre. 
 The suggestion had been made mentally, that is to say, Mr. Gibert 
 had done nothing but simply to think upon that command while near- 
 ing his forehead to the forehead of Mrs. B. Still, I cannot cite this 
 fact as a clear case of mental suggestion, for I am not sure that we 
 did not discuss in her presence, during the sleep, the possibility of 
 such suggestion. In any case, it is seen that the suggestion was per- 
 fectly effective during four months. As soon as Mrs. B. was with us 
 again, Mr. Gibert, without a word of explanation, pressed her hand as 
 he had been wont to do before, and in two minutes she was asleep ; 
 the following day I endormed her with the greatest ease in a few 
 minutes. 
 
 ." I tried by endorming her often myself to acquire over this woman 
 an influence sufficiently strong to warrant me in essaying with some 
 prospect of success to give her from a distance the order to sleep. At 
 first I would endorm her by holding her hand or seizing her thumb, 
 without trying any other procedures. After a few days I was able to 
 bring about sleep much more speedily. Previously it took me three 
 or four minutes, and sometimes longer, to endorm Mrs. B. I produced 
 the sleep now in half a minute. To endorm Mrs. B. it was no longer 
 necessary to fix the mind on the order to sleep ; physical action exerted 
 upon her hypnogenic point on the thumb superseded all other kinds 
 of influence. The mental command retained its importance when the 
 subject was not touched, when she was endormed by mental sugges- 
 tion exercised in the room where she was. That experiment was. still 
 performed very readily, but there was no certainty that the attitude 
 of the magnetizer did not play a greater part in producing the sleep 
 than his mind did. 
 
 " After a dozen seances, at which I myself had endormed Mrs. B. 
 six times, I essayed to give her the order to sleep, I not being beside 
 her, but in a neighboring room. The experiment was successful. 
 After thinking for five minutes upon endorming her, I entered her 
 room and saw her completely endormed, her head and her body lean- 
 ing in the direction of where I had been. The experiment, however, 
 is not conclusive, for Mrs. B. evidently suspected my intention. 
 
 "February 22, after fourteen somnambulic seances, and after en- 
 dorming her myself eight times, I for the first time attempted to give 
 her from a distance the order to sleep. I was at my house, some 400 
 or 500 meters away from the pavilion where Mrs. B. was, when I 
 essayed to concentrate my mind upon the order, ' Sleep,' as I had 
 many a time done when she was present. I did not perhaps bring the 
 necessary conviction, nor did I spend the necessary time, for I 
 ' thought ' hardly more than five minutes. At all events, I did not 
 visit her till an hour later, being persuaded beforehand that my 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 281 
 
 attempt was a failure. To my great astonishment, the people of the 
 house told me that Mrs. B. had been much indisposed for an hour; that 
 she had had spells of drowsiness and been forced to suspend her work ; 
 that to free herself from this feeling she had had to drink a glass of 
 water and to bathe her face and hands. Mrs. B. herself told me of 
 her indisposition, which she did not explain. It is well to remark 
 here that in the waking state she has not the slightest suspicion that 
 she may be endormed from a distance. This coincidence — which, to 
 say the least, is a singular one — showed two things : (i) That proba- 
 bly I exercised from a distance a certain action upon this woman, and 
 that there was good reason for trying again ; and (2) that, for what- 
 ever reason, whether for want of accustomance or because of the 
 action of the cool water, Mrs. B. was able still to withstand that 
 action and so was not endormed. 
 
 " For two days more I endormed her from anear by touching her. 
 During her waking state I asked her not to put her hands in water 
 again ; without giving her any reason, I persuaded her to believe — 
 what was not without truth — that she was doing herself great harm 
 by struggling so against a transient drowsiness. In the state of som- 
 nambulism I repeated the prohibition, so reinforcing my recommen- 
 dations with the power of suggestion ; and February 25, without 
 acquainting any one with my intention, I made the same experiment 
 again. U;ider the same conditions as before, about five o'clock in 
 the evening, I gave thought to endorming her, fixing my mind as in- 
 tently as possible, and almost without distraction, upon that object 
 for eight minutes ; then I went straight to her. She lay upon a sofa 
 in deepest sleep ; no shaking could arouse her. But if I but pressed 
 her fingers, or touched her lightly on the arm, the subjacent muscles 
 underwent strong contracture ; if I opened her eyes to the light she 
 went into true catalepsy, with the characteristic immobility of atti- 
 tudes ; if I closed her eyes, she reverted to the prior state. Thus she 
 was plainly in the hypnotic sleep, which, by a strange coincidence, 
 had set in just a few minutes before my coming. She was not slow 
 to bestir herself {s'agtter) and to talk in the lucid somnambulism ; she 
 showed great joy on finding me near her, and was perfectly aware 
 that it was I that had endormed her at five o'clock. 
 
 " Two further experiments, one on February 26, and the other on 
 March i, were not entirely successful ; Mrs. B. only felt an indis- 
 position, and was distracted in her mind by persons who were talking 
 to her at the moment when she was about to fall into the sleep. 
 
 " But March 2, at my house, I began at 3 o'clock p. m. to give the 
 same order. I did not see Mrs. B. till an hour later and found her in 
 a singular attitude. She was seated and was hemming a napkin ; 
 her eyes were open ; the motion of sewing went on with great regu- 
 larity but with extraordinary slowness — she took no more than three 
 or four stitches a minute. Without speaking a word, I seized her 
 arm and left it in the air ; it stayed there motionless. She was in 
 true catalepsy, and that state continued, to the amazement of the 
 persons present, for one hour. Little by little she had ceased to 
 answer questions, and had remained thus motionless. I lowered her 
 eyelids, and forthwith she fell back, and in that state of somnam- 
 bulism, in the lethargic form, kept repeating, ' Oh ! I am sleepy. You 
 make me ill by talking to me. I am sleepy ; I am ready to drop. 
 Mr. Janet does not wish .... when will he come ? ' In a 
 
282 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 moment of lucidity she recognized me, took me by the hand, with an 
 exclamation of satisfaction, and then fell into quiet, dreamless sleep. 
 
 " On the next day, March 3, Mrs. B. was not endormed and was 
 very well. 
 
 '' On the 4th a curious incident occurred. I wanted to endorm 
 Mrs. B. from my house by means of the usual mental order, and had 
 been giving thought to the act for three or four minutes, when several 
 persons coming in interrupted my singular occupation. To begin 
 again was impossible, and when, an hour later, I visited the pavilion 
 where Mrs. B. was, I supposed the experiment had failed utterly. 
 Mrs. B. was in a chair, apparently asleep since three-quarters of an 
 hour before ; in accordance with directions from me no one had dis- 
 turbed her. I wished to take her hand to produce the characteristic 
 contractures, but she at once started, opened her eyes, and rose to 
 ■her feet, saying that she was not at all asleep. Nevertheless, her 
 eyes were dull, her walk unsteady, and I had to support her in order 
 to conduct her to another room. But she soon was sound asleep 
 after touching my hand. Is there not something curious in this 
 drowsiness, this half-sleep, coming just on the day and at the hour 
 when my thought was fixed upon endorming her, though I had not 
 sufficient time ? 
 
 " March 5, under the same conditions, this time about 5 o'clock 
 p. M., for ten minutes I gave thought to endorming her ; gi few min- 
 utes later I found her in the same cataleptic state already described. 
 
 " March 6, Mr. Gibert essayed to endorm her from his house at a 
 quite different hour — 8 p. M. He was entirely successful, though he 
 had not endormed the subject for eight days. We may remark that 
 on this day a third person had regulated his watch by Mr. Gibert's, 
 and observed Mrs. B. closely. It was found that she fell asleep at 
 three minutes past 8 exactly. Such precision makes chance coinci- 
 dence highly improbable. 
 
 " For a few days following we made no attempt at producing sleep 
 from a distance, and on March 9, when I tried to recommence the 
 experiments, I failed. 
 
 " March 10, Mr. Gibert endormed her from his house. The same 
 day he made a very interesting experiment. But as I was unable to 
 be present when it was made, and as it was repeated later, I defer the 
 description of it. On the nth and 12th no experiment. On the 13th 
 I endormed her from my house at 4 p. m.; at 4:15 I found her in the 
 cataleptic state. She was sewing, with the same automatic movement 
 as before ; her task was a rather complicated one, and she performed 
 it well, but very slowly. Without speaking a word, without touching 
 her, I simply gave her the mental order to sleep on and more deeply. 
 Slie gave a sigh, the movements of the hands ceased, and she re- 
 mained motionless in the last position assumed. I persisted, and she 
 leaned back in the state of complete muscular relaxation. A tap 
 on the tendons of the wrist now produced the contractures special to 
 lethargy. 
 
 " March 14, at 3 p. m., I again endormed her in the same way, and 
 found her in the state of lethargic somnambulism, motionless. 
 
 "March 16, it was agreed between us that Mr. Gibert should en- 
 dorm Mrs. B. by mental action from his house, and that he should 
 endeavor, while still at home, to make her get up and come to us. 
 My brother, Julius Janet, Interne oi the Paris hospitals, who happened 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 283 
 
 then to be in Havre, was to go with me to Mr. Gibert's before 8 p. m., 
 at which hour it was our intention to begin the experiment. An un- 
 foreseen delay prevented us from going to Mr. Gibert's early enough, 
 and the experiment could not begin till 9 o'clock. 1 note this insignifi- 
 cant incident, because if by any extraordinary chance Mrs. B. had been 
 advised of our intention, she would have fallen asleep, perhaps, and 
 have started out at 8 o'clock, and not at 9. Now see what did hap- 
 pen. As I did not wish to have the sleeping woman walk through 
 ■ the streets unattended, I left Mr. Gibert and went toward the pavilion 
 where she was. I did not enter, lest my presence should produce a 
 suggestion, but remained on the street at some distance. A few min- 
 utes past 9 o'clock Mrs. B. came briskly out of the house. She was 
 bareheaded and walked at a rapid pace. I went up to her and saw 
 that her eyes were fast shut, and that she manifested all the signs of 
 her somnambulic state. She avoided all obstacles so deftly that I. 
 was reassured, but she was very slow to recognize me. At first she 
 repulsed me — she did not wish, she said, to be accompanied. After 
 going some 200 meters she knew who I was and seemed to be pleased 
 that I was with her. But I was worried a good deal by her frequent 
 halts. She would stop and sway to and fro as though about to fall. 
 I was afraid lest she should suddenly fall into a state of lethargy or 
 of catalepsy, which would have made the walk difficult. But nothing 
 of the kind happened ; she righted herself and reached the house 
 without a mishap. Hardly had she entered when she dropped into 
 an armchair in profoundest lethargy. This lethargy was interrupted 
 only for an instant by a period of somnambulism, during which she 
 murmured : ' I am come ; I saw Mr. Janet. I considered that I must 
 not come by way of Etretat Street — too many people there.' (She 
 of her own accord took another street.) ' A man came up to me, 
 said I was blind, the fool.' Then she remained for a good while 
 asleep. Later she was somnambulic again and said that she had felt 
 much fatigue and hesitation during tlie walk because, as she said, Mr. 
 Gibert had not thought continuously enough upon making her come. 
 She had been endormed, as I was informed afterward, a few minutes 
 before 9 o'clock, that is to say, at the time when Mr. Gibert had been 
 ' thinking,' but she had not set out for his house till five or six min- 
 utes later. 
 
 " This experiment was repeated with the same success, once in 
 presence of Mr. Paul Janet on April 20, and another time in presence 
 of Messrs. Myers, Marillier, and Ochorowicz, on the 2 2d. We may 
 remark that Mrs. B. does not sleep so evenings, and does not walk in 
 somnambulism.' 
 
 " Such is the history of the experiments upon the producing of 
 sleep from a distance, made during this second series of researches. 
 Mrs. B. had left us March 18 ; but several persons, among them my 
 uncle Mr. Paul Janet, Dr. Charles Richet, the Messrs. Myers (of 
 Cambridge), Dr. Ochorowicz and Mr. Marillier, having expressed a 
 desire to witness a few of these experiments, we induced her to return 
 to Havre, April 11. 
 
 " I was much concerned about the success of the experiments, for 
 in my opinion they were made under faulty conditions. Till then I 
 had not been able to produce sleep from a distance, save after train- 
 ing the subject for a considerable time — an fiour a day, for 14 or 15 
 
 ' See Part I, chapter iv. 
 
284 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 days at least. Now, these gentlemen were to be in Havre two or 
 three days after the arrival of the somnambule, and she must needs 
 have lost in a month a good deal of her hypnotic habitude. To make 
 good this deficiency, I endormed the subject several times a day. In 
 this way I attained my object — that is, I produced a higher degree 
 of sensibility, but at the same time brought about an untoward result. 
 Mrs. B. was exceedingly fatigued ; she had frequent headaches, which 
 completely spoiled the normal phenomena.' Finally, after a few days 
 it befell that she was in a state of almost continual drowsiness. Once 
 she fell spontaneously into catalepsy, without any suggestion, two hours 
 after having been awakened. It is my opinion that on that day, after 
 two very protracted hypnotic seances, she was wakened awrong. 
 
 " However that may be, here is the simple record of the experi- 
 ments in producing sleep at a distance, made during this third sojourn 
 ■■ of Mrs. B. at Havre. April 14, being alone with her, I endormed her 
 without touching her, but being in the same room. Sunday, the i8th, 
 I was still alone, and for the first time in this series of experiments 
 tried to endorm her from my house. I succeeded perfectly ; she was 
 asleep 10 minutes after I began 'thinking.' Monday, 19th, my uncle, 
 Mr. Paul Janet, arrived in Havre I wanted him to see the subject 
 previous to making any experiments, but he chose rather to ask Mr. 
 Gibert to endorm her immediately from his house, for then nobody 
 would be forewarned. Taken unawares, Mr. Gibert made the attempt 
 at 4 o'clock ; we found Mrs, B. completely endormed at 4.15. Tues- 
 day, the 20th, Mr. Gibert again endormed her from afar at 8 o'clock 
 p. M., in presence of Mr. Paul Janet, and by mental suggestion made 
 her come to his house, as I will relate presently. Unfortunately, on 
 the two days following, the 21st and 22d, for sundry reasons, among 
 which the subject's fatigue and her headaches counted for a good 
 deal, two experiments by Mr. Gibert to produce sleep at a distance 
 were but partially successful ; the subject was not endormed till half 
 an hour later after a long resistance. But the same day, April 22, 
 Mr. Gibert endormed her much more promptly in the evening, and on 
 Friday and Saturday, at times set by Messrs. Myers, Ochorowicz and 
 Marillier, I endormed the subject from a distance with full success 
 and great precision. 
 
 "The gentlemen named left us on Easter Sunday, and it was abso- 
 lutely necessary that the subject should be allowed to rest. I did not 
 resume the experiments till May 4, when I endormed the subject from 
 anear ; but on the two days next following I again obtained sleep 
 from a distance. A recital of these experiments would possess no 
 interest, for it would be the same as the foregoing ones." 
 
 Mr. Janet concludes with a summary of the experiments on pro- 
 duction of sleep at a distance, made whether by himself or by Mr. 
 Gibert. 
 
 Of twenty-two experiments six failed ; and of these six, three were 
 made at the very beginning, when the somnambulic habit was not yet 
 sufficiently strong ; one was made later, but after an interruption of 
 the seances for a few days ; and two when the subject had held out 
 
 ' These headaches could -have been cured in a few minutes by imposition of the 
 hands and by suggestion. [This note is apparently added by Dr. Ochorowicz. — 
 Translator ,~\ 
 
MENTAL SUGGESTION AT A DISTANCE. 285 
 
 for more than half-an-hour before she fell asleep. In short, sixteen 
 successes, "definite and complete.'' 
 
 " Are we to suppose," asks Mr. Janet, " that the coincidence in 
 these sixteen cases, though precise, was the result of chance? The 
 supposition is, perhaps, slightly improbable. Was there all the time 
 an involuntary suggesting on our part ? The only answer I can give 
 is, that with perfect honesty we took every possible precaution to 
 guard against it." 
 
 All these experiments tend to prove not only action at a distance, 
 but also : 
 
 1. The importance of " rapport," a relation that is brought about 
 only by several consecutive magnetizations, and which puts the stamp 
 of individuality on every successful experiment (the subject always 
 knows whether it is Mr. Gibert or Mr. Janet that has endormed her 
 from a distance, and the profundity of the state produced depends on 
 the closeness of the " rapport ") ; 
 
 2. The importance of sustained concentration of thought on the 
 part of the magnetizer ; 
 
 3. The absence of any perceptible difference in the degree of mag- 
 netization between action at the distance of a few paces and of a few 
 kilometers. 
 
 (The same thing is seen in telephonic communications. The voice 
 grows faint only when the distance is considerable, and even in that 
 case the difference is determined by thickness of wires and by second- 
 ary circumstances — induction, electro-static capacity, etc. — rather 
 than by the essential nature of the transmission. With a wire of cop- 
 per instead of iron, with large diameter and well insulated, speech 
 might be transmitted over thousands of kilometers. For us, the wire 
 represents the " rapport.") • 
 
 But the question of limits is as yet rather premature. Let us simply 
 note the fact that the greatest distance mentioned in the foregoing 
 experiments is ten kilometers. 
 
 If we suppose the phenomenon to be real, it is interesting to know 
 what conditions are favorable or unfavorable to transmission from a 
 distance. Mr. Aubin Gauthier' is the only magnetizer that has ven- 
 tured to formulate them. According to him — 
 
 1. Inanimate bodies do not interrupt action from a distance ; 
 
 2. Plants assist it ; 
 
 3. Certain animals interfere with it ; 
 
 4. A number of men may hinder it. 
 
 Finally, he adds that " in stormy weather it is difficult to magnetize 
 
 not only from a distance, but even in presence of the subject." 
 
 It need not be said that I quote these assertions only as a matter of 
 
 curiosity. 
 
 ' " Traite Pratique du Magnfetisme," p. 531. Paris, 1845. 
 
PART III. 
 
 THEORIES, CONCLUSIONS, APPLICATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HYPOTHESIS OF EXALTED PERCEPTION. 
 
 AS. MORIN, in his interesting study,' says : " Communication 
 , of thoughts is one of the faculties oftenest noticed in lucid 
 subjects, and often even it underlies several other kinds of lucidity 
 that the observer fancies he finds, though in reality they do not 
 exist. . . . There are very few somnambules that can discover 
 your thoughts as they exist connected and formulate them in the self- 
 same expressions that you have in your mind. Usually the somnam- 
 bule takes some fragments of your thoughts while you are bidding 
 him discover either matters in the past or occurrences at a distance, 
 and then the lucid subject fancies that he has actually seen these 
 things, though he has only read them in your mind. If after this you 
 wish him to read your thoughts, however much you may concentrate 
 your attention on what you mean to make him see, you will not suc- 
 ceed. Thus, the lucid subject steals your thoughts unbeknown to 
 himself and to you, and when you propose to him as a performance to 
 read your thought, he cannot do it. As regards this latter point there 
 are some exceptions, notably the case of a cataleptic patient recorded 
 by Mr. Puel ; but they are very rare. [Morin, who wrote in i860, 
 could not, of course, know of the experiments recently made by the 
 English Psychical Research Society, and by others.] And, above all, 
 let not the reader jump to the conclusion that with a good somnam- 
 bule he can at will penetrate the secrets of hearts. In case a lucid 
 subject does read a few thoughts, he does so only with regard to persons 
 with whom he is in rapport, and even that faculty, thus restricted, is 
 
 ' " Du Magnfitisme et des Sciences Occultes," pp. 185-188, and 283-289. Paris, 
 1 860. 
 
288 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 variable, intermittent, subject to illusion, so that the subject fancies 
 that he possesses it when he does not, and flatters himself that he 
 penetrates your thoughts, though he has discovered nothing, and gives 
 out as a discovery the vagaries of his imagination." 
 
 Morin does not point out the probable causes of this variability. 
 But these general observations are just, with this exception, that a 
 well-behaved somnambule will never say that he sees this or that 
 when he does not see anything. However, it is not difficult to test 
 what he says. 
 
 Morin refers to thought-communication the apparent action of the 
 will. He does not believe in a fluid, nor in any physical action, nor 
 in direct will-action upon the organs of the subject. If the latter 
 perihits a limb to be cataleptized, or a sense to be paralyzed or 
 hyperaesthesiated, that is because, after having divined the thought 
 of his magnetizer, he himself influences his own body. 
 
 But Morin also rejects the hypothesis of a real transmission of 
 thought ; according to him thought is transmitted only by the usual 
 signs. And to prove this divination by the outward signs of thought, 
 he invokes in turn phrenology, physiognomy and chiromancy. As 
 for phrenology, I really do not see what it has to do here, for no 
 phrenologist hitherto has ever held that by touching the correspond- 
 ing organs on the skull, one may divine thoughts ; and besides, som- 
 nambules who divine thoughts do not touch the phrenological organs. 
 Then, as phrenology itself is not a demonstrated science, we have a 
 right to leave it out of account. 
 
 The same remarks apply to chiromancy. But, as regards physiog- 
 nomy, or rather pathognomy (expression-signs in general), the com- 
 parison here is worthy of attention. There is no doubt that our 
 thoughts, and still more our feelings and our character in general, 
 are reflected on our countenance, that "mirror of the soul." "Among 
 the signs and tokens that the exterior of the human body may thus 
 manifest, there are some that strike every observer ; the man addicted 
 to drunkenness, for example, does he not bear upon his face the shame- 
 ful tokens of his habits? There are other signs, the reading of which 
 requires a good deal of sagacity. Lavater was gifted, in this respect, 
 with a perspicacity that one might be tempted to regard as divirra- 
 tion ; he read faces as one reads a book. If the rules he laid down 
 failed to constitute the science of physiognomy, or to develop physi- 
 ognomists as clever as himself, the principles on which he based his 
 system are none the less true, and the results he reached prove that 
 all that is needed to complete his work is to formulate the method 
 that instinctively guided him with admirable certitude." 
 
 Here I agree entirely with Morin. Physiognomy has a positive 
 basis in a general determinism that applies no less to the development 
 of organisms than to their stable characters, and which, with regard 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF EXALTED PERCEPTION. 289 
 
 to the matter in hand, may be thus stated : Nothing in the exterior of 
 a living organism is accidental. We need but to know the causal rela- 
 tions that indubitably exist. But we are still far from that consum- 
 mation, and I even believe that, the sooner to reach it, it were well, 
 instead of formulating the laws of physiognomies — it is yet too early 
 for that — to continue the study oi pathognomy, to the revival of which 
 Darwin lent the weight of his high authority. 
 
 The expression of states more or less fleeting, of diseases, pains, 
 emotions, attention, and will-tendencies, is a far more convenient 
 subject of experimental research than the expression of characters by 
 fixed traits, which for a long time to come we shall be able to judge 
 of only by a sort of intuition based on unconscious experience. 
 
 It is nevertheless certain that they who from childhood have been 
 in the habit of observing, are able to read with close approximation 
 to the truth a man's character in his physiognomy. In the case of 
 sharp contrasts error, indeed, is almost impossible. The somnambule 
 might possess the same faculty, and turn it to account in divining 
 feelings, tendencies and habits. 
 
 And here is another point worthy of notice with regard to the divi- 
 nation of diseases. There is a certain work, now very rare and quite 
 forgotten, that is unique in its kind. Its author was a distinguished 
 physician, professor in the University of Freiburg, Dr. K. N. Baum- 
 gartner, and its title is " Physiognomice Pathologica: Kranken-Physi- 
 ognomik " (Stuttgart and Leipsic, 1839). It is a big quarto volume, 
 with an atlas giving the physiognomic types of all the chief diseases. 
 The figures, which are nearly of life size, are painted by hand and after 
 nature, by excellent artists. Highly interesting to the physician is this 
 crystallization, so to speak, of pathological signs that enable you to 
 distinguish by the countenance a disease of the heart, for instance, from 
 a disease of the uterus, and which thus prove that all is reflected in the 
 face. Many experienced physicians possess this faculty of apprecia- 
 tion. It may be possessed in a certain degree by somnambules, in 
 virtue of their lifelong unconscious experience, which, though in the 
 waking state, amid the pressure of conscious acts, they perceive it not, 
 may manifest itself in the psychic isolation of somnambulism. 
 
 So, too, with regard to the signs of emotions ; and Morin should 
 have noted in particular the modifications of the voice, which, even 
 against our will, betray our sentiments, and especially our approval 
 and our doubts. Divination of a thought depends sometimes upon 
 these faint signs. " The physical is the expression of the moral," 
 justly observes Morin ; then he concludes : 
 
 "The lucid subject that penetrates one's thoughts does only what 
 is done by the phrenologist, the physiognomist, or the chirognomist, 
 only he sees a host of material signs that elude our sight and that are 
 the complement of the indications furnished by examination of the 
 
290 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 skull, the visage, or the hands. The lucid subject therefore possesses 
 only means like those we possess, but his are much more extensive. 
 Observation of the organs is everything. He is unable to explain, 
 either to us or to himself, the value of each sign ; it is a sort of lan- 
 guage that he comprehends instinctively without knowing its princi- 
 ples ; nor need that surprise us, for we all are acquainted with the 
 first elements of that language, without having learned them, and 
 though we are unable to formulate its rules. . . Suppose that 
 
 at a party some one happens to talk of matters the mention of which 
 angers one of the persons present, and that the latter lets his feelings 
 find expression in his countenance ; everyone will notice it, and it will 
 be said, for example, that the man is angry, or meditating revenge, 
 or that his hate is restrained by fear, and so on. But ask the com- 
 pany what were the physical signs that revealed so many things to 
 them, and they will answer that they do not know, but that they are 
 sure of the correctness of their judgment, and that the sentiments in 
 question were manifested in such a way as to leave no room for 
 doubt. In like manner, the somnambule that reads the thoughts of 
 others cannot tell how they are manifested to him ; all that he knows 
 is that he sees them." 
 
 In short, as Morin himself puts it, " the question is simply one as to 
 the way in which somnambules see material objects," 
 
 Precisely here is the weak point of the theory. 
 
 In the first place, it is not well to leave out of view the sensations 
 of hearing and smell ; then, as the somnambule's eyes are shut, or, at 
 least, he does not use them to divine thoughts, Morin's theory does 
 but refer back an unsolvable problem to another not less so — " How 
 do somnambules see material objects ? " But that is another questioa 
 As for us, we do not care even to touch it ; yet one might be tempted 
 to suppose that Morin, who, to explain thought-communication, refers 
 it to somnambulic vision, is able to explain for us the latter. But no ! 
 He rejects all known hypotheses and " confesses his ignorance." ' 
 
 So we are back at our starting-point. 
 
 We would add that Morin's theory (though it may apply in certain 
 cases) does not -explain the experiments wherein the subject turns his 
 back to the operator and has his eyes blindfolded ; 2iy\d^ a fortiori \\. 
 does not explain any action from a distance. 
 
 Mr. L. Figuier' has broadened this theory, still accepting the same 
 principle. According to Figuier, all is explained by an exceptional 
 exaltation of the senses and of the intelligence in the state of sleep. 
 The somnambule has no other sensations but those of our senses ; but 
 his perception being exalted, he perceives the faintest signs, voluntary 
 or involuntary, proceeding from the magnetizer, and through these 
 
 ' " Du Magnfetisrae et des Sciences Occultes," p. 271. 
 
 ' "Hist, du Merveilleux," vol. iii., pp. 408-11. 3d ed. Paris, 1881. 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF EXALTED PERCEPTION. 291 
 
 divines the magnetizer's thoughts. " The transient exaltation of the 
 senses of the magnetic somnambule,'' says he, " explains, we think, 
 the phenomenon called by the magnetizers suggestion or penetration of 
 thought. When a magnetizer announces that his somnambule is going 
 to obey an order mentally expressed by him, and when the somnam- 
 bule performs that feat — a thing, by the way, that is pretty rare — it is 
 not impossible to account for the seeming miracle which, were it real, 
 would upset all our physiological notions, and, indeed, all the known laws 
 of animated nature. In this case, a sound, a bodily movement, a sign of 
 whatever kind, an impression imperceptible to the rest of the company, 
 suffices, in view of the extraordinary tension of the somnarabule's 
 principal senses, to enable him to understand, without any supernatural 
 means, the thought that the magnetizer wishes to communicate to 
 him. Thus, no more in this case than in others, is the magnetized 
 individual privileged to break through the common barriers with which 
 nature has hemmed in jour powers." 
 
 Of course ; "Ad id sufficit natura quod poscit," as Seneca said. But 
 since that Stoic's day "the common barriers of nature," though they 
 have not been broken through, have been set pretty well back, and 
 besides, if there is any theory which might have checked the develop- 
 ment of all the notions of modern physiology, assuredly it is the theory 
 of insuperable barriers, had it been accepted before those notions were 
 acquired. Who shall say just where those barriers stand ? A metallic 
 plate, for instance, can that talk like a human being ? yea or nay ? 
 Mr. Bouilland — and he was no common man — said no ; to accept such 
 a fact were to upset all our notions of physiology. So said Mr. 
 Bouilland right in the face of Edison's phonograph in full Academy, 
 and he throttled the luckless interpreter of the famous American in- 
 ventor, accusing it of ventriloquism. 
 
 But why and how must mental suggestion upset all our notions of 
 physiology ? 
 
 Not all of them, surely! I hope the theory of digestion, at least, for 
 one thing, may stand unmoved. So, too, the theory of blood circula- 
 tion, as well as the theories of respiration, reproduction, etc. 
 
 The theory of perception alone is at stake. But can it be that the 
 existence of some subtile mode of transmission does away with the 
 facts and the laws of a transmission that is visible and palpable .' 
 Did the invention of the electric telegraph do away with railroads ? 
 
 No, we must not overstrain the maxim — a very wise one in its way 
 — which recognizes certain natural limitations of all science. Let us 
 not be more naturalistic than nature herself ; let us leave to her the 
 initiative of opposition. 
 
 In short the theory of Morin and Figuier, though these admit the 
 facts of mental suggestion, does not account for those facts as a 
 whole, and is hardly applicable to cases where there is anythino- like 
 
292 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 definite transmission, many of which are cited by those authors them- 
 selves. Still, it is not to be denied that their theory might to advan- 
 tage be developed so as to help explain a great number of mixed 
 cases in which the jiortnal perception exalted is combined with true 
 transmission. Further, it must be allowed to possess this advantage, 
 that it rests on an eminently scientific principle, that of referring the 
 unknown to the known as far as possible. Only, I think it applies it 
 amiss. 
 
 Anyhow, it is an evasive hypothesis. It turns the difficulty round 
 instead of facing it. 
 
 Come we to theories that frankly accept the phenomenon. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE HYPOTHESIS OF BRAIN-EXALTATION WITH PARALYSIS OF THE 
 
 SENSES. 
 
 IN the first place, we have to quote Bertrand. That eminent analyst 
 did not, it is true, develop a complete theory of suggestion, but 
 he did publish many clear ideas upon the subject that deserve to be 
 mentioned. 
 
 Bertrand, too, does not believe in action at a distance, nor, in 
 general, in any physical action whatever ; he is the scientific father 
 of the suggestional theory of magnetism. According to him, it is the 
 subject that influences himself by imagination ; but the subject's imagina- 
 tion may be influenced by an extrane thought, even without any outward 
 sign. Thought is transmitted ; will, not. Consequently, if the subject 
 executes the order given, the reason is not that the magnetizer's will 
 has acted on the subject's members, but that, having perceived the 
 magnetizer's thought, the subject consents to execute it. "The Count 
 of Lutzelburg, wishing to get light upon this subject, made the fol- 
 lowing experiment : He whispered in the ear of a witness that which 
 he wished a somnambule to execute, and asked the patient if his 
 thought determined her to act. ' I know it,' [the thought] she 
 answered, ' and I execute that which you will. You willed, without 
 telling me so, that I should sit down, and I obeyed.' ... In 
 general," adds Bertrand, " magnetizers nowadays [1823] seem to me 
 to accept with inconceivable levity the opinion that the will of one 
 man influences another man directly ; but I know not any notion that 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF BRAIN-EXALTATION. 293 
 
 is more easy to overturn if one will but reflect upon it with some 
 little attention. In the first place, there is nothing that is so inward 
 to us as our will ; will alone constitutes personality, the Ego." (Ber- 
 trand confounds here several phenomena. Personality is not the Ego, 
 nor is the Ego the will ; personality is a complex of all the psychic 
 characters proper to the individual ; the Ego is but a focus, a central 
 point of this complex whole ; the will is but a resultant of tendencies.) 
 " And if the magnetizer's will took possession, as is supposed, of the 
 person of the somnambule, the latter would be but an automaton 
 actuated by springs extraneous to the magnetizer's second body." 
 
 Well, yes ! It does often happen that the somnambule is nothing 
 but an automaton. Bertrand, taught in the humanitarian school of 
 Puysegur and Deleuze, knew nothing of our modern magnetizers with 
 their hurdy-gurdies. Furthermore, he was one of those who asked of 
 patients the permission to do them good. " For the rest," he adds, 
 " I know not how it is that the believers in this influence of the will 
 are not appalled by the consequences to which it leads. According to them, 
 a heedless somnambule, an agent actuated by an impulsion from with- 
 out, may seize a dagger and bury it in the breast of his own brother, 
 being powerless to withstand the will that dominates him, and being 
 unconscious of his act till after the crime has been perpetrated. For- 
 tunately, the case is not thus, and all the facts that have given rise to 
 the strange opinion I am arguing against are powerless to prove more 
 than communication of thought and the limited influence that such 
 communication may have upon the determinations of the somnam- 
 bule." 
 
 Here, again, Bertrand is in error. The experiment has not been 
 made with mental suggestion, but many a time with verbal suggestion, 
 and it is entirely certain that in states more or less near to monoideism 
 the subject may commit a crime he is ordered to commit, and that 
 without a suspicion of what he does, even after he has done the act 
 ordered. Resistance is not possible save in full somnambulism, and 
 may be suppressed by a few passes. About five persons in 100 will 
 be unable to make any resistance. But the question of morality must 
 not be mixed with questions of fact. What's true is true, and that is 
 all. If we were to be " appalled by the consequences " in studying a 
 problem, we should never reach new results, for everything that is 
 new appals the conservative. Was not Jesus Christ crucified on ac- 
 count of his "dangerous novelties?" Neither Socrates nor Kopernik 
 dreaded the consequences of a truth : they left to others the trouble 
 of condemning them. 
 
 Fortunately, times are changed. To Mr. H. A. Taine is credited 
 the following reply when some one reproached him with publishing 
 doctrines that might be dangerous : " I never have thought that a 
 truth may serve for anything." 
 
294 MENTAL SUGGESTION 
 
 But it may serve for something, only we must not trouble ourselves 
 about it in advance. And I am certain that the sway of the magnet- 
 izer's will over the magnetized subject, when it is rightly understood, 
 will be productive of far more good than evil. 
 
 " So to sum up," concludes Bertrand, " I think it absurd to suppose 
 that in any case an extraneous will can act directly upon the organs of 
 sonmambules, and still less upon their determinations [the first phrase 
 is correct, the second erroneous] ; but it seems to me that a number 
 of facts sufficient to produce conviction prove that not seldom som- 
 nambules have cognizance of the will, or the thoughts, of those with 
 whom they are in rapport, and that this cognizance may determine 
 them to act and produce upon them the same effects as though one 
 had spoken to them. I will add that as this phenomenon results 
 from the sympathic cotnmunication of the brain-movements of him 
 who gives the order, the somnambule will all the more easily know 
 the order given to him if it be accompanied by some gesture, which, 
 as it cannot be made without a greater movement of the cerebral fibers, 
 will help the communication : this is what is confirmed by experience 
 in every case, and this is what I myself have observed. Besides, the 
 opinion I express has been adopted by many magnetizers.'' 
 
 It is readily seen that the sharp distinction drawn by Bertrand be- 
 tween thought-transmission, which he accepts, and will-transmission, 
 which he rejects, is a rather idle distinction. He had need to make 
 yet another in order to be entirely right, namely, a distinction between 
 direct action of will upon the peripheric organs, and transmission of 
 will to the brain. As for the muscles, for example, it is nearly certain 
 that without a local physical excitation of the tendons or the nerves, 
 it is impossible to set them in motion by the act of an extraneous 
 will ; but that is not what is implied by the phrase " suggestive will- 
 action." And once thought-transmission is granted, there is no reason 
 for an outcry against those who believe that the tendency to any 
 movement whatever may be transmitted as well as a purely passive 
 and objective idea. As soon as you awaken a sentiment, you awaken 
 also a tendency that is proper to it. Now, Bertrand does not deny 
 the transmission of sentiments. Consequently, it being understood 
 that the phenomenon cannot occur, save by a reflex action of the brain, 
 there is no longer any need of drawing a hard and fast line of dis- 
 tinction between will and thought. 
 
 Bertrand has always in view a polyideic state of the brain, and that 
 is what leads him astray. When there are man)' thoughts, they may 
 resist the execution [of the order], and if it is executed, it is so 
 only through the consent of those thoughts. But what if there are 
 not many thoughts ? When all opposition is done away by the state 
 of aideia or of nascent monoideism, will not the thought " inoculated " 
 [into the subject's mind] and made dominant by the very fact of its 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF DIRECT PSYCHIC ACTION. 295 
 
 isolation, determine execution ? And it is just in that state that we 
 must make direct experiments. 
 
 As to the how of the transmission Bertrand has hardly anything to 
 say. But he seems to regard exaltation of the brain with paralysis oj 
 the external senses as an essential condition, and he very justly compares 
 the sympathism of diseases, which he verified many times, with sym- 
 pathism of ideas, which is more rare. 
 
 " Communication of ideas," he says, " is oftenest presented by 
 ecstatic somnambules, and that, I think, is due to the fact that their 
 state of moral exaltation could never have been produced without a 
 considerable augmentation of the brain's sensibility, an augmentation 
 that promotes, betwixt the brain of the somnambule and the brains of 
 those around .him, a sympathic communication like to that in virtue of 
 which he feels, in other portions of his body, the pains of those in 
 rapport with him.'' In another place Bertrand adds : " It has been 
 seen that my will, though not expressed, had a true action upon the 
 patient in the state of paralysis, and had no action that was instan- 
 taneously perceptible in the waking state." ' 
 
 We shall see further on the importance of this simple remark. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HYPOTHESIS OF DIRECT PSYCHIC ACTION. 
 
 BERTRAND'S sympathism, while it is not clear, has nothing mys- 
 tical. It was a sort of induction, in the electrical sense of the 
 word. A thought was supposed to induce a like thought, as an 
 electric current induces a like electric current. Nothing passed from 
 one brain to another brain. Was that an action at a distance — a very 
 small distance (for Bertrajid did not believe in anything else) ? 
 Doubtless it was, but Bertrand has not pronounced any judgment on 
 the question. The transmission has not been explained. 
 
 Several magnetizers have tried to fill the gap by supposing some- 
 thing that passes from brain to brain, and naturally have attributed to 
 this intermediary qualities now psychical, again physical, according 
 to the bias of their several minds. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment the first hypothesis. My soul acts 
 upon another soul. What more natural than to suppose a real trans- 
 
 ' " Traite du Somnarabulisme,'' etc., pp. 246-283. Paris, 1823. 
 
296 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 ference of my thoughts ? Such a supposition would cause no em- 
 barrassment to a spiritist. If my thought is able to move my body^ 
 and if my subject's thought cin move his body, then to explain all I 
 have only to suppose my thought to pass into his brain. How clear t 
 
 When the problem was to account for vision at a distance, the 
 solution was simply that the soul of the subject, after quitting his 
 body for a moment, went forth to see what was going on a hundred 
 leagues away, and then came back and told what it had just seen. 
 
 It was a little awkward to leave the body so, without a soul. But 
 the spiritists found a way out of that difficulty : the soul remained, 
 the mind it was that made the excursion. 
 
 So with regard to transmission of thought. The soul (or mind if 
 you will) not having any limits, as the body has, could easily stretch 
 itself a little, so as to occupy for a moment an extraneous position, 
 there perform whatever act was to be p-erformed, and then double itself 
 up and get back into its shell. Descartes recognized the impossibility 
 of an action of thought upon extension (matter), but not upon another 
 thought. 
 
 Consequently they might intermingle ; and could anything surprise 
 us in this affair, our surprise would be that this happened so seldom. 
 We should rather look for a universal interchange. " Pass over to me 
 your experiences and I will pass to you my hopes " — that would be a 
 convenience ! One man might go to school for the benefit of all, and 
 then sell his ideas at so much a lot. 
 
 Unfortunately, the time is not yet come for this kind of commerce. 
 We are even not quite sure whether a soul or a soul's thought can 
 leave its body ; or whether after it has quit the body it becomes more 
 potent than it was just before. But that would have to be proved 
 first of all. 
 
 Instead of supposing a direct passage [of thoughts], some spiritual- 
 ists are pleased to allege an action equally mystical, but still more 
 vague. " We know," (?) says Chardel, ' "that obstacles and distances 
 vanish for a lucid soul. It troubles itself no more about them : it 
 gives itself up naturally to this new mode of investigation, and therein 
 seems only to recover its manner of action that is proper to it [Chardel 
 does not indicate the source of his knowledge], and which the loosen- 
 ing of the bonds of life has just given back to it." 
 
 It is as easy as to say, " Good morning ! " 
 
 Others, without supposing a translocation or a mystical enlargement 
 of the faculties, give us a glimpse of an almost physical "radiation." 
 
 " The mind,'"' says the Grand Master of Spiritism,' "is not shut up 
 in the body as in a casket ; it radiates all around ; therefore it can 
 
 ' C. Chardel, ''Essai de Psychologic Physiol.," p. 286. Paris, 1838. 
 
 '^ Or "spirit," esprit. — Translator, 
 
 ' Allan Kardec, " Le Livre des Esprits," p. 185. Paris, 1862. 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF DIRECT PSYCHIC ACTION. 297 
 
 communicate itself to other minds, ' even in the waking state, though 
 more difficultly than in sleep." 
 
 That is pretty ; but it would have to be proved that there exists an 
 analogy between a soul and a lantern. And even that would not be 
 enough, for a lantern only gives light, whereas a soul can command 
 movements. True, a ray of light can make a Crookes radiometer to 
 go round, but no one has yet determined what a ray of the mind is, 
 nor what it can do. 
 
 The necromantic spiritists, " as we know, believe in a transmission 
 of thought between embodied souls and disembodied spirits. " Spirits 
 have only the language of thought ; they have no articulate lan- 
 guage," we are assured by Allan Kardec,' and we may take his word 
 for it. 
 
 So, if a spirit has anything to say to us, it must needs employ an 
 interpreter. The medium is the interpreter. 
 
 "It is the medium's spirit that is the interpreter, because it is con- 
 nected with the body that serves to speak."* But in most cases this 
 one intermediary is insufficient. " The. familiar spirit is nearly always 
 the one that acts as interpreter, to communicate to the medium the 
 thought of the spirit evoked, when the latter is so exalted as not to 
 deem it proper that he should come in person, or when other occupa- 
 tions hinder. Thought is communicated between spirit and spirit 
 directly, and without the aid of spoken language. If you evoke a 
 spirit that knows not your language, he transmits his thought directly 
 to your familiar spirit, who translates it into the language that you 
 know and that is familiar to you." ' 
 
 Certain spiritualists have gone further still. They believe in the 
 need of spiritual interpreters not only for a communication between a 
 living man and an evoked spirit, but even between the magnetizer 
 and his subject. " The influence that is exercised by one man on 
 another man through the action of magnetism," says Dr. Billot," 
 " comes from an auxiliary either unknown or misknown, and only its 
 presence can give the solution of the phenomena of magnetism." 
 
 This auxiliary is the world of spirits, good or evil— evil spirits par- 
 ticularly, the Marquis of Mirville assures us. 
 
 These authors take the exorcists' point of view : man cannot per- 
 ceive the thoughts of men ; therefore, if he seems to perceive them, it 
 
 ' Or " spirits." 
 
 ° Spirites. Here the author is speaking of spiritists of the Rochester-knockings 
 sort ; so to make the meaning clear I render the word as above, necromantic spiritists. — 
 Translator. 
 
 ^ " Le Livre des Mediums," p. 271. 
 
 ■> Id., p. 268. 
 
 * J. Roze, " R6v61ations du Monde des Esprits," p. 18. Second series. Paris, 
 1862. 
 
 'Billot, " Recherches Psychologiques,'' etc., vol. i., 12. Paris, 1839. 
 
298 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 is because his guardian angel — or the devil — has whispered them to 
 him. 
 
 We will not waste our time in examining these extra-scientific fan- 
 cies. We would only remark that even if credulousness can carry- 
 men to these lengths, reckless incredulity is not a whit better. 
 " Doubt," says Arago, " is proof of modesty, and has seldom hindered 
 the progress of science. We cannot say as much of incredulity." For 
 a striking proof of the result of a diseased skepticism, one need but 
 read Mr. Mabru, " Laureate of the Academy of Sciences." That 
 author wrote a book of 560 pages' to say that he sees nothing in 
 magnetism (p. 5) in spite of all the letters he has written and all the 
 conferences he has held. For him " magnetic somnambulism so-called 
 does not exist any more than the fluid, and the phenomena that are 
 attributed to somnambulism are nothing but pure illusion."" Puy- 
 segur was fooled by his maid-servants, who simulated clairvoyance 
 "to get higher wages," and so on. 
 
 He, too, supposes an interpreter for the phenomena of transmission, 
 to wit, a colluder. " In order not to be duped by the clever tricks so 
 often repeated in certain magnetic parlors, all that we have to do," 
 says he, " is to eliminate the colluder. . . . There is no animal fluid, 
 no artificial somnambulism, no magic, no sorcery ; these pretended 
 sciences possess in reality no scientific fact ; and when, by means of 
 immobility of body and strained attention, somnolence is produced in 
 a sick patient or in a subject that is fatigued [but in fact this is done 
 with healthy persons and persons whose senses are alert], the sleep is 
 only common sleep. It possesses none of the miraculous properties 
 of the so-called magnetic sleep. Often there are tricks of collusion ; 
 but these apart, it is utterly false that there exists between the endormer 
 and his subject any relation, or any psychic state, except the ordinary 
 relations of everyday life. Not only does the thing not exist, but it 
 cannot exist." ° 
 
 "There are errors," say Cabanis, "to which only wits are liable." 
 Mr. Mabru has not this excuse, but he has another. La Bruyere says : 
 " All the wit in the world is of no use for him that has none." 
 
 The other day Mr. Mabru was surpassed by a member of the 
 Academy of Political and Moral Sciences. Mr. Mabru wished at least 
 to learn ; he asked for demonstrative facts. Mr. Desjardins, for his 
 part, does not want to see anything, and will not suffer others to see. 
 He condemns the study of hypnotism. He has not studied anything 
 — that need not be said — but he is fully convinced that all the experi- 
 ments in suggestion, whether of a therapeutic, a pedagogic or other 
 nature, have been " pitiful failures." But they are hurtful and criminal, 
 nevertheless. Not only the hypnotizers, but the hypnotized also, should 
 
 ' E. Mabru, " Les Magnfetiseurs Jugfes par Eux-memes." Paris, 1885. 
 ' /</.,?. 356. '/<sr.,p. 483. 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF DIRECT PHYSICAL ACTION. 299 
 
 be punished, for " man has no right to abdicate his humanity and his 
 free-will." 
 
 It is to be hoped that the honorable jurisconsult will not rest 
 thete. He ought to propose an enactment against those that sleep 
 o' nights, seeing that it must not be permitted to a man to transform 
 himself voluntarily into an inert mass and to abdicate his free-will. 
 " As we might well expect," says Mr. P. Fauvreuil, " this eloquent 
 protest has been approved unanimously and its author has been 
 warmly felicitated. Mr. Arthur Desjardins has dealt hypnotism a 
 stunning blow from which we hope it will not recover." ' 
 
 Time will tell. Be it noted only that this took place August 13, 
 1886, thus in the 19th century, in France, in Paris, at the Academy. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HYPOTHESIS OF DIRECT PHYSICAL ACTION. 
 
 MOST magiietizers believe in the existence of a vital or magnetic 
 nerve-fluid. A good deal of sport has been made of this fluid, 
 and the subject, we must confess, invites such treatment. But those 
 who have made many experiments are alone qualified to decide the 
 question, and they tell us that often appearances are as though some- 
 what passed from the magnetizer over to the subject. 
 
 This subtile fluid is supposed to serve as an intermediary between 
 niind and body. This it is that excites the muscles and transmits 
 sensations to the brain ; this, too, it is that, under the impulsion of 
 the will, projects itself outward and affects the nerves of the subject. 
 Being of an eminently motile nature, if it is influenced by the environ- 
 ment as well as by the impulsions of the mind [or thought, pens^e^ it 
 must reflect the man's personality, his feelings and sentiments, his 
 will — it must be impregnated, so to speak, with the modifications of 
 his mind. On uniting with another like fluid, though the same be in- 
 dividually different, it may transmit to it the same modifications. It 
 is the fluid, then, that transmits thought, and the latter need not quit 
 its body to act on another body. 
 
 This theory was first expounded by Lecat,'' doctor of medicine and 
 professor of physiology. His fluid is called the animal fluid, and it is 
 
 ' 5o/i?;7 newspaper of August 15, 1886. 
 
 * Lecat, " Traite des Sensations," pp. 154, 242. Paris, 1767. 
 
300 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 interesting to find that as early as 1767 there was an effort made to 
 account for certain mysterious transmissions. "This fluid," says 
 Lecat, " being affected with the special character of a passion, carries 
 the impression of it into the animal fluid of other individuals," ' for 
 " sensations and impressions [or impresses — pressions] consist of modi- 
 fications of the animal fluid, and these characters are communicated to 
 fluids of the same sort, and are susceptible of change at every in- 
 stant." ^ This fluid is an emanation, which the author, like most 
 magnetizers, often confounds with odoriferous emanations. We quote 
 one more passage : 
 
 " Once we recognize the evident facts that prove that the different 
 characters of the animal fluid and of the vegetal fluids produce in the 
 fluids of other individuals emotions, changes of characters, considerable 
 revolutions, according to their consonance or dissonance, we shall have 
 no difficulty in conceiving all the effects that result from their natural 
 concurrence or from their conflict, o£ whatever sort they may be — 
 intellectual, animal, or animo-vegetal." " 
 
 Such, in few words, is the theory of the magnetic fluid. 
 
 But why magnetic ? 
 
 To answer that question, let us hear what is said of it by the chief 
 advocate of this theory, J. P. F. Deleuze : 
 
 " A somnambule is sensible of \jaisit'\ the will of his magnetizer, he 
 executes what is mentally demanded of him. To understand this 
 phenomenon we must consider somnambules as infinitely mobile mag- 
 nets ; no movement occurs in the brain of their magnetizer but is 
 repeated in them, or at least they perceive it." ' 
 
 But it was the more patent and more frequent phenomenon of 
 attraction that suggested this analogy. Let the reader recall Bruno's 
 experiment, which exhibits this phenomenon in an exceptional degree ; 
 but it is very common to see the subject's hand attracted by the ap- 
 proach of the magnetizer's hand, and following its movements. A 
 magnet brought near to the subject produces the same phenomenon ; 
 and, though this action is not, properly speaking, magnetic, we know 
 that such phenomena may well have determined the choice of the 
 term " animal magnetism," which is not any worse than the term 
 " electricity," as applied to certain well-known phenomena that have 
 nothing to do with electron (amber). 
 
 Puys6gur, too, was struck by the analogy existing between a 
 compass-needle and a mentally-suggestionable subject ; but, as we 
 shall see, he laid no stress upon this seeming anilogy. 
 
 Deleuze makes yet another comparison : " We know,'' says he, 
 " that if we place side by side two stringed musical instruments that 
 are in unison, and twang the strings of the first one, the corresponding 
 
 ' "Traitfe des Sensations," p. 154. ' Id., p. 549. ^ j^^ p 242. 
 
 * Deleuze, " Hist. Critique du Magnfetisme," p. i8i. Paris, 1813. 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF DIRECT PHYSICAI ACTION. 301 
 
 strings of the second sound of their own accord. This physical phe- 
 nomenon is like that which takes place in magnetism." ' 
 
 According to this last analogy, the magnetic fluid carries the 
 psychic vibrations as sound-vibrations are carried by the air. 
 
 And here is what this author says of action at a greater distance : 
 
 " Though it is very difficult to explain how the magnetic fluid can 
 act from one apartment to another, most magnetizers are convinced 
 of the reality of such action. I myself have made experiments that 
 go to prove it. Nevertheless, that phenomenon being one of those 
 that to me seem inconceivable, I invite magnetizers to examine it 
 anew (1813), refusing to believe in it until they have verified it by 
 their own experience. But light and sound travel to great distances, 
 yet we cannot see in the motor agent that gives them forth a force 
 sufficiently great to propel them rapidly, even through bodies. 
 Whether light is an emanation from luminous bodies, or whether it is 
 an undulation of ether, it is not easy to understand how the light of 
 a coal or the flame of a candle makes itself visible instantaneously at 
 a great distance through transparent bodies, or how the light of a star 
 comes to us. Perhaps phenomena that we refuse to believe, because 
 we have not observed them, are no more incomprehensible than other 
 phenomena that do not astonish us at all, because we see them every 
 day." " 
 
 He then adds this with regard to the conditions of magnetic action : 
 
 " In order that the fluid that goes out from me may act upon that 
 of the man I magnetize, the two fluids must needs unite, must needs 
 have the same tone of motion. If I touch with purpose and attention, 
 and the one upon whom I wish to act is in a passive state or state of 
 inaction, my fluid will determine the movement of his. There occurs 
 then something like what takes place between a magnetized bar of 
 iron and one not magnetized ; when you pass many times, always in 
 the same direction, one over the other, the one communicates to the 
 other its motion or its virtue. That is not an explanation, but a 
 comparison." " 
 
 " Once the nerves are permeated by a certain quantity of fluid, they 
 acquire a susceptibility of which we have no conception in the ordinary 
 state. Regard the magnetized individual as in some sense a part of his 
 magnetizer, and you will not be astonished that the will of the latter 
 should act upon him and determine his movements. That is all that 
 I can say about the principle of magnetic action and will-influence." ' 
 
 Evidently it is not an explanation. But, then, neither Deleuze nor 
 any of his successors ever flattered themselves that they had explained 
 the whole mystery. They have merely insisted upon the necessity of 
 accepting a physical action — in their language " emission of the 
 
 ' " Hist. Critique du Magn6tisme," p. 180. 
 
 "/-/.p. 85. »/</., p. 91. */rf., p. 93. 
 
302 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 fluid " — in order to understand as well as may be possible the different 
 phenomena of transmission. "The will," says Lafontaine, "cannot 
 act upon another body materially. Our will acts only upon ourselves 
 by producing a more active secretion in the brain and contractions in 
 the plexus : hence the emission of a greater quantity of the fluid, and 
 greater intensity in the action. . . . We can, therefore, justly say 
 that the magnetic phenomena have one sole cause, the vital fluid, and 
 that here, as everywhere, the will is but an accessory. . . . The 
 belief that the will acts upon the magnetized individual is founded on 
 ■one of the effects presented in the somnambulic state. A somnambule 
 of developed lucidity sees his magnetizer's thought and obeys the 
 mental order. That is a transmission of thought ; from it the infer- 
 ence has been drawn that the will to which the subject is thus obedient 
 is the cause ; but that is a mistake : cause is confounded with effect. 
 The transmission of thought is but the result of the special state in 
 which the subject is. If the magnetizer is not in the proper state of 
 health and strength ; if he is tired, exhausted by any overdoing or 
 excess whatever, he will be able to do nothing, or next to nothing [he 
 can hypnotize, however], even though he bring to bear all the will- 
 power he has. If, on the other hand, the magnetizer is perfectly 
 sound and vigorous, and magnetizes perfunctorily, distractedly, 
 without clearly defined intention, he will produce, nevertheless, positive 
 effects. . . . To end the magnetic state, one must demagnetize, 
 must free the subject or the member on which one has acted, of all 
 the fluid one has transmitted to him, and however much the magnetizer 
 may will the member or the magnetized individual himself to be 
 restored to the normal state, that willing of itself is insufficient ; one 
 has, furthermore, to a.ct physically, and if one does not that, or does it 
 slightingly, the result often is distress ^that may involve serious con- 
 sequences." 
 
 That last remark, apart from the theory of the fluid, is fully justified. 
 We often hear of the injurious consequences following a magnetiza- 
 tion. Now, never — and I bottom my remark upon an experience of 
 19 years — never can a magnetization do any harm if the conditions 
 are duly observed ; on the contrary, it must always be more or less 
 beneficial ; the least favorable case is where the effect is null. But 
 experiments made hurriedly, for the sake of the effect, by strolling 
 magnetizers or by hypnotizers that have not studied the literature of 
 the subject, are very often harmful, and the main cause of the 
 untoward results is an insufficient demagnetization. The beneficial 
 effect of the magnetization is reduced by one-half, and sometimes 
 serious mischief is done, by a premature, a too sudden, or an imperfect 
 awakening. 
 
 "The advocates of will-influence," says the same author, "seem 
 to rely upon another example to strengthen their cause. When a 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF A UNIVERSAL FLUID. 303 
 
 magnetizer, from a distance and without any movement, endorms a 
 subject that he is in the habit of magnetizing, or even when he mag- 
 netizes a person for the first time, they assume that the will alone 
 acts. That is a mistake. The magnetizer, by concentrating himself 
 in himself, produces the emission of the fluid, which hits \^frappe\ the 
 subject and endorms him. Here, as everywhere, there is simply a 
 projection of the vital fluid."' 
 
 This theory is simple, indeed. Were there such a fluid it would be 
 very convenient for explaining facts ; and oftentimes, especially in the 
 therapeutic application of magnetism, we must act as if the fluid existed. 
 But, in the first place, it is certain that in very many cases the inter- 
 vention of the fluid is theoretically of no use ; and that even where we 
 are compelled to recognize a physical action, it does not prove the 
 transmission, nor even the existence of a special fluid. In a word, the 
 theory of the fluid is too simple in view of the complex facts, and too 
 complicated in view of the simpler ones. 
 
 But herein Lafontaine is perfectly right, to wit : in maintaining that, 
 action at a distance once admitted, a. physical action must be assumed. 
 Thought, as such, can neither walk abroad nor radiate elsewhither than 
 in a brain to it belonging, or to which it belongs. But since the emis- 
 sion or transference, as well as the very existence of a special vital 
 fluid, is incapable of demonstration, we must seek a more positive 
 principle to elucidate our problem. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HYPOTHESIS OF A UNIVERSAL FLUID. 
 
 THE general belief is that Mesmer was the propounder of the 
 theory of a nervic, vital, or magnetic fluid, which, becoming 
 detached from our body, is projected outward, is borne at need 
 through space, and so on. That is an error propagated by those who 
 have not read Mesmer, or have been unable to understand him. The 
 theory we have sketched — and it is a very ancient one — was elaborated 
 by the collective efforts of several of his indirect disciples, and in par- 
 ticular by the revelations of somnambules, who explained things as 
 best they could. Finally, the authority of Deleuze, who himself points 
 out this source, easily won popularity for a theory that anyone could 
 grasp, that was comprehensible to the uncultured imagination, and 
 
 ' " L'Art de Magn6tiser," pp. 25-34. 
 
304 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 that seemed to explain all. But it was in flat contradiction to Mes- 
 mer's doctrine, which was known only to his direct disciples. His 
 course of instruction has never been published entire ; but the extracts 
 from it that were published by Puysegur, as well as his Aphorisms, 
 his Memoirs, and certain fragments that lay long unpublished, prove 
 sufficiently how inexact is all that is said about him. 
 
 They show him to have been a mind profound as well as original, 
 that may well have parted with the qualities of modesty and disin- 
 terestedness that characterized him at first, for he had to face a univer- 
 sal outburst of derision, the like of which surely never has been heard. 
 Mesmer understood somnambulism better than Puysdgur, who in his 
 enthusiasm exaggerated its value ; in some respects he understood it 
 better than the hypnotizers of our day, who do not know even Mes- 
 mer's disciples. At first people were fain to call him charlatan ; then 
 little by little they began to discover what he had discovered ; they 
 merely altered names so as not to compromise themselves, but they 
 left to him the title of charlatan. 'Tis brutal, but the fact is thus. 
 
 I will state Mesmer's theory as far as it concerns the problem in 
 hand : 
 
 Whatever is amenable to investigation may be expressed in two 
 words : matter and motion. But to reach this conclusion we must 
 efface from our cognitions the superficial impress given to them by 
 the senses. " We acquire all ideas through the senses : the senses 
 convey to us only properties, characters, accidents, attributes ; the 
 ideas of all these sensations are expressed by an adjective or epitheton, 
 as hot, cold, fluid, solid, heavy, light, shining, sonorous, etc. For these 
 epitheta substantives have been for convenience' sake substituted ; 
 soon the properties were substantified ; we say heat, gravity, light, 
 sound, etc., and lo ! — the origin of metaphysical abstractions."' 
 
 These substances '' were multiplied, personified. Hence ghosts, 
 divinities, demons, genies, archei, and so on. " We still retain a cer- 
 tain number of these entities, which we must eliminate in order to get 
 a clear view of phenomena. That is in general terms the end I pur- 
 pose to attain " (p. i8). 
 
 Matter presents several degrees of fluidity. Water is more fluid 
 than sand, for it can fill the interstices between the grains of sand ; 
 air is more fluid than water, for it can be diffused through it ; ether is 
 more fluid than air. It is difficult to determine where this divisibility 
 ends, but we may suppose there are still many degrees of this kind, 
 and that there exists a universal primitive matter, the graduated con- 
 centration of which constitutes all the states of matter. However 
 that may be, it must be allowed, according to Mesmer, that all space 
 
 ' •" Mfemoire de F. A. Mesmer, Docteur en Medecine, sur ses Dfecouvertes " (1778). 
 Nouv. ed. avec des notes du Dr. Picher Granchamp, p. 17. Paris, 1828. 
 ' That is, these substantified adjectives. — Translator. 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF A UNIVERSAL FLUID. 305 
 
 is filled, and we may well call the fluid which fills all the universal fluid. 
 " Some physicists have already," says he, " recognized the existence 
 of a universal fluid, but they have erred in defining its characters, in 
 overloading it with properties and specific powers \vertus\ that we 
 cannot have cognizance of" (p. 22). This fluid exists though we feel 
 not its presence. It is all around us, and with regard to it we are 
 nearly in the same situation as fishes, which no doubt would be much 
 surprised were one of themselves to declare that all the space between 
 the bottom of the sea and the surface is filled with a fluid in which 
 they live ; that in this medium alone do they come together and go 
 apart, and that it is the one means of their reciprocal relations (p. 22). 
 " The universal fluid is simply the sum of all the series of matter in 
 the highest state of division through the movement of its particles." ' 
 By it the universe is fused and reduced to one mass. Ail that can be 
 predicated of it is, that it is fluid by pre-eminence, and consequently 
 that it must in particular govern transmissions of motion more subtile 
 than those effected by other and better known fluids. Water can give 
 motion to a mill ; the air transmits sound-vibrations, the ether light 
 vibrations, the universal fluid transmits life- vibrations. Each of these 
 series answers to a degree of phenomena, and the vibrations of each 
 of these series cannot be perceived save in a corresponding degree of 
 the organization (/. e., of the aggregation) of matter (p. 24). Neither 
 heat, nor light, nor electricity, nor magnetism, is a substance, but they 
 are effects of motion in the different series of the universal fluid. 
 While it is neither heavy, nor elastic, etc., this fluid determines the 
 phenomena of gravity, of cohesion, of attraction, etc., as results of 
 the re-actions of the motion communicated. 
 
 Properly speaking, there is in nature no attraction ; it is only a 
 seeming effect of communicated movements, and in general all prop- 
 erties, all so-called forces, are but a combined result of the organization 
 of bodies, and of the movement of the fluid in which they exist (p. 25). 
 This fluid it is that governs the mutual influences of all bodies ; and 
 as these actions and re-actions are, so to speak, symbolized in the 
 mutual influence of the magnet and iron, we may give the name of 
 universal magnetism to this general mutual influence. Nothing is 
 exempt from this influence, which may be more or less inappreciable, 
 but which theoretically has no limits. The heavenly bodies act upon 
 us and we re-act upon the heavenly bodies, as well as upon the bodies 
 around us. The property of the animal body that makes it capable 
 of such action and re-action may be called, by analogy with the mag- 
 net, animal magnetism (Aphorism 8). Consequently, magnetism, 
 whether the universal or the animal magnetism, is not a fluid, but an 
 action ; motion, not matter ; transmission of motion, not an emanation 
 
 * U ensemble de toutes les series de la matikre la plus divis^e, par le mouvement de ses 
 particules. 
 
3o6 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 of any kind. No displacement can take place without replacement, for 
 all space is filled (p. 39), and that presupposes that if a motion of 
 the subtile matter is produced in one body there is forthwith pro- 
 duced a like motion in another similar body capable of receiving it, 
 whatever the distance between them (p. 39). 
 
 "Considering," adds Mesmer, "that reciprocal action is general 
 between bodies, that the magnet furnishes us with the model of this 
 general law, and that the animal body is susceptible of properties 
 analogous to those of the magnet, I hold the term animal magnetism, 
 which I have adopted, to be fully justified. ... I see with regret 
 that this phrase is thouglitlessly abused ; when one has familiarized 
 himself with it, he flatters himself that he possesses the idea of the 
 thing, whereas he has only an idea of the word. As long as my dis- 
 coveries were regarded as chimaeras, the incredulity of some savants 
 left to me all the glory of the discovery ; but since they were com- 
 pelled to recognize its reality, they have taken to quoting against me 
 the writings of the ancients, in which occur the phrases, ' universal 
 fluid,' ' magnetism,' ' influence,' and so on. We have to do not with 
 words, but with the thing, and, above all, with the usefulness of its 
 application " (47). 
 
 Life is but a manifestation of a subtile motion, the stoppage of 
 which is death. Among these subtile motions, sensations hold a chief 
 place ; all actions are the results of sensations (p. 49). The sense- 
 organs correspond to different degrees of subtility in the vibrations 
 that influence us, and they are not capable of being influenced save 
 by a special sort of vibrations. But nerve-matter itself, as the 
 supreme product of organization, is capable of being influenced 
 directly by the most subtile vibrations of the most subtile matter : to 
 wit, the universal fluid. This faculty, hitherto overlooked or mis- 
 conceived, Mesmer calls the inner sense {sens intMeur). 
 
 Here I remark that this term recurs oft in the history of psychol- 
 ogy, but in a different sense. Even Aristotle deals with this question. 
 After him Albertus Magnus, Occam, Giordano Bruno, Cremonius, 
 and many others, speak of a sensus interior, or even of sensus interni. 
 But the term has been employed either in the sense of a sensus com- 
 munis, bringing together all sensations, or in the sense of perception 
 and consciousness of oneself. 
 
 Commonly the psychologists did but travesty the problem posed 
 by Aristotle : " Must we suppose a sixth sense to see what the eye 
 sees, to hear what the ear hears, etc.," or else (as in modern psychol- 
 ogy) they gave the name " inner sense " ' to the faculty of perceiving 
 
 ' This faculty is what Sir William Hamilton calls the vital sense, synonyms of 
 which are " subjective sensation" (Huxley), " coenoesthesis," "vital feeling." It is, I 
 believe, called by French physiologists le sens de la vie — the sense of life ; the feeling 
 we have of our own vital processes. — Translator. 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF A UNIVERSAL FLUID. 307 
 
 the inward bodily sensations (Selbstempfindungen). The meaning given 
 to it by Mesmer is different. He believes that nerve-substance in 
 general and the gray matter in particular can be affected directly by 
 the vibrations of the universal fluid. Herein he sees a source of 
 vague cognitions, commonly inappreciable, particularly by man, in 
 whom the sense-impressions and the development of reflection smother 
 these faint perceptions ; but in the animals, whose senses are less 
 perfected, this purely cerebral sensibility makes up for the imperfec- 
 tion of the senses, and in many ways takes their place. It puts them 
 in relation with all nature, enables them to divine directions in space, 
 to forefeel terrestrial or atmospheric changes, and in general forms 
 the sort of unconscious experience to which we give the title instinct. 
 In man this faculty manifests itself only exceptionally, in normal 
 sleep and especially in somnambulism, when the ordinary senses are 
 in abeyance and there are no conscious thoughts to oyerpower it. 
 " If it be true," says he, " as I shall endeavor to show, that we are 
 affected by the enchainment of things and of events that succeed one 
 another, we may see the possibility of presentiments and other like 
 phenomena " (p. 50). 
 
 In the state of " crisis " the somnambule's senses may extend to any 
 distance. All nature seems to be present to them. Even dictates of 
 "will are communicated to them without regard to any of the con- 
 ventional means. These faculties differ according to the individual 
 (p. 52) ; the most usual phenomenon is for a somnambule to see the 
 interior of his own body, or even of others' bodies. But it is a rare 
 thing to find all these faculties in the same person. 
 
 " How can a man receive the impress of a will not his own ? " 
 
 " This communication can take place between two individuals in the 
 normal state only when the movement resulting from their thoughts is 
 propagated to the vocal organs, and to the parts that serve to express 
 the natural or the conventional signs ; these movements are then 
 transmitted to the air or to the ether as intermediaries, and are received 
 and sensed by the external sense-organs. These same movements, thus 
 modified by thought in the brain and in the nerve-substance, being 
 communicated at the same time to the series of a subtile fluid with 
 which that nerve-substance is in continuity, can, independently and 
 without the aid of air and ether, extend to an indefinite distance and 
 report direct to the inner sense of another individual." 
 
 " From this a notion may be had of how the wills of two individuals 
 can communicate by their inner senses, and consequently of how there 
 may exist a reciprocity, an accord, a sort of understanding between 
 two wills, which relation we may designate as rapport" (p. 75). 
 
 " As this sort of sensations are not to be had, save through the 
 mediation of fluids as far excelling ether in subtility as ether excels 
 common air, the means of expression fail me : it is as though I wished 
 
3o8 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 to explain colors in terms of sound. I therefore must needs supply 
 the deficiency with the reflections that may be made upon the con- 
 stant /r^-j^/j-a/zraj of human beings, and more particularly of animals, 
 with regard to the great occurrences of nature at distances all too great 
 to be spanned by their ostensible organs ; upon the irresistible attrac- 
 tion that causes birds and fishes to make their periodic migrations ; 
 finally, upon all the relevant phenomena furnished to us by the crisis- 
 sleep \sommeil critique\ of man " (p. 77). 
 
 These pre-sensations may relate also to the past or to the future, for 
 to see the past is simply to perceive the causes in the eflects, and to 
 see the future is to divine the effects from the causes. Whatever has 
 been has left traces ; so, too, whatever is to be is already determined by 
 the concatenation of causes (p. 76). 
 
 But why is the state of sleep better fitted than the waking state to 
 manifest these different transmissions? Mesmer answers that ques- 
 tion with the utmost precision. The reason is twofold : 
 
 1. Because in sleep the sense-functions are suspended (p. 77), and 
 the continuity of the common sensorium with the external organs 
 more or less broken. " The impressions of circumjacent things, 
 therefore, are made, not upon the external organs of sense, but di- 
 rectly and immediately upon the very substance of the nerves. The 
 inner sense thus becomes the sole organ of sensations" (p. 78). 
 
 2. Because, in consequence of the senses being in abeyance, the 
 psychic functions of conscious memory, of imagination, reflection, 
 etc., which depend upon the senses directly or indirectly, are also 
 suspended, and consequently the impressions made direct upon the 
 cerebral substance " become perceptible by the very fact that they 
 stand alone" (monoideism). "As it is the immutable law of sensa- 
 tions that the stronger effaces the weaker, the latter may be percepti- 
 ble in the absence of the former. If the impression of the stars is 
 not perceptible to our vision in daytime as it is at night, though their 
 action is the same, the reason is, that in the day it is effaced by the 
 superior impression made by the presence of the sun" (p. 78). 
 
 For individual transmissions from man to man we have to recog- 
 nize two other conditions : 
 
 1. That of rapport. The special action between two individuals is 
 facilitated by a sort of accord, by the production, natural or artificial, 
 of a like tone of motion or of a like tonic motion, which makes a brain 
 more susceptible of a vibration belonging to the same category (pp. 
 24, 75)- 
 
 2. That of education. For the perfection of this crisis-sleep not 
 only varies according to the process {marche^ of the crisis, and the 
 temperaments and habitudes of subjects, but also depends very much 
 upon a sort of education that can be given them in that state, and on 
 the way in which you direct their faculties ; in this respect the sleep 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF A UNIVERSAL FLUID. 309 
 
 may be compared to a telescope, the action of which differs accord- 
 ing to the means of adjustment (p. 81). 
 
 In a state favorable to transmissions of all sorts man enters into 
 relation with all nature, and we might compare him to a liquid whose 
 surface, being in perfect equilibrium, reflects like a mirror everything 
 in the universe, faithfully pictures all objects. But fancy that surface 
 ruffled by all sorts of shocks (impressions made upon the ordinary 
 senses), and you shall see the liquid agitated by innumerable undula- 
 tions and re-actions, and the reflection of objects will disappear. 
 
 But, plainly, it is but seldom that all these conditions of cerebral 
 perceptivity are combined. Sundry observers, impressed by what 
 they saw in exceptional cases, have supposed that they could at will 
 develop lucid somnambules. They forgot that it is always in the 
 state of sleep that dreams are commingled with true sensations. 
 They confounded together magnetism and somnambulism, and so 
 exposed both to the ridicule of men of sense." 
 
 Mesmer does not hide from himself the fact that in spite of all the 
 reserve one may exercise with regard to so delicate a subject it will 
 be hard to convince those who have not themselves verified the. phe- 
 nomena. " Suppose," he says, " a people that of necessity must fall 
 a.sleep at sundown, and that never awake till sunrise : such a people 
 would have no conception of the magnificent spectacle of the night. 
 Were one to tell them that there are among them men in whom this 
 wonted ordering of sleep and waking is disarranged, and who, awak- 
 ing in the night, have descried at infinite distances innumerable 
 luminous bodies, new worlds, so to speak, one would doubtless be 
 treated as a visionary because of the vast difference between the 
 opinions held on the one side and on the other. Such to-day, in the 
 estimation of the multitude, are those who maintain that in sleep man 
 has the faculty of broadening his sensations " (p. 80). 
 
 " In the memoir I published in 1779," says Mesmer again, " I made 
 known the reflections I had made many years previously upon the 
 universality of certain popular opinions, which, as I believe, are the 
 results of the most widespread and the most constant observation. 
 Thereanent I said that I had undertaken the task of inquiring what 
 of useful and true might be contained in old-time errors ; and I felt 
 warranted in asserting that among the vulgar opinions of all times 
 [as imposition of hands, visions and oracles, influence of certain metals, 
 mystic action of man on man, evil eye, power of taming animals, com- 
 munication at a distance, presentiments and simultaneous sensations, 
 influence of yearning and of prayer, transmission of health, strength, 
 disease, etc.] there are few, however ridiculous, however extravagant 
 they may seem, that may not be regarded as remnants of truths 
 primitively recognized " (p. 3). 
 
 ' " F. A. Mesmer," p. 79. By Dr. Kemer. Frankfort-on-Main, 1856. 
 
310 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 And as certain of these processes, by a too scrupulous observance 
 (p. 44), by a blind application (p. 44), seemed to recall ancient 
 opinions, ancient practices that have justly been regarded as errors 
 (p. 89), " most of the men devoted to science and the healing art have 
 considered my doctrine only from this point of view : carried away by 
 these first impressions, they have neglected to study it thoroughly. 
 Others, actuated by personal motives, by professional interest [interet 
 de corps], have refused to see in me aught but an adversary that they 
 must crush. To that end they employed first the so powerful weapon 
 of ridicule, and the no less effective and more hateful one of calumny; 
 at last they spread broadcast copies of a report ' that is destined to 
 stand for all time as a monument that will insure little of honorable 
 fame to the men that dared to sign it. Other persons, convinced at 
 last, whether by their own experience or by that of others, have be- 
 come enthusiasts, and have indulged in such exaggerations as to render 
 all the facts unworthy of belief. Hence have resulted, for the weak 
 and uneducated multitude, illusions and groundless fears. Such hith- 
 erto have been the sources of public opinion adverse to my doctrine " 
 (pp. 89, 90). 
 
 Hitherto ! Yes, as late as 1886. 
 
 " I willingly submit my theory to criticism, declaring that I have 
 neither the time nor the will to reply. I should not have anything to 
 say to those who, incapable of crediting me with straightforwardness 
 and disinterestedness, would think only of attacking me with purely 
 hostile intent ; and I should be pleased to see men of greater talent 
 discover principles more solid, more luminous, men of larger mental 
 endowment than myself develop new facts " — they have discovered 
 new names — " and by their ideas and their researches render my dis- 
 covery more interesting still. It will be enough for my fame that I 
 have been able to open a vast field for science, and that I have in 
 some measure traced the route of this new career" (p. 92). 
 
 Such were the opinions of the illustrious "charlatan." 
 
 We may take exception to several points of this hypothesis, and, 
 indeed, I shall endeavor later to present the facts in a slightly 
 different aspect ; but it will be allowed, I think, on comparing Mes- 
 mer's ideas with those of his successors, that his is the only theory 
 worthy of the name. 
 
 How far removed we are here from the crudities of the magnetizers 
 with their fluid running hither and yon ! which goes around walls and 
 floats through the air to hit\h& predestined subject and to set itself 
 up within his body ! Heedless of their master's admonitions, they 
 have hypostasized, substantized an action, creating a new metaphysical 
 entity, whereas he wanted to free us from the ancient ones. 
 
 But how far removed we are also from the academic commonplaces 
 
 ' 1784. 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF A UNIVERSAL FLUID. 31 1 
 
 that attributed all the phenomena of magnetism to imagination, imita- 
 tion, and jugglery ! Fortunately, prejudices pass away, and experience 
 remains. Undoubtedly we are beginning to go back to the fountain- 
 head. Dr. Despine, Jr., ' published in 1880, that is 200 years after 
 Mestner, the following reflections : 
 
 " Explanation of the phenomenon of thought-transmission. Action from 
 a distance upon the psychic phenomena of somnambules being no 
 longer matter of doubt, let us try to explain it by means of natural 
 agencies. Let us remark, in the first place, that the expression ' action 
 at a distance' comes from the belief that there is vacuum in nature. 
 Now, that is not so at all." 
 
 Before I proceed with the exposition of Mr. Despine's views, I will 
 observe that though he is perfectly right in rejecting action at a dis- 
 tance in the absolute sense of the term, that is, across a vacuum, he 
 goes a little too far in affirming the non-existence of a vacuum. That 
 was Mesmer's error, for he, too, regarded the universe as absolutely 
 full. That supposition is incompatible with the idea of motion such 
 as' is necessary for explaining any transmission whatever. One can, 
 indeed, conceive the motion of a spher'; turning on its axis without dis- 
 placement ; but when there is' question of transmitting any motion, we 
 must postulate a free space, a shock communicated through this free 
 space, consequently a vacuum. To assume a medium more and more 
 elastic, and which, because of this elasticity, opposes no obstacle, will 
 not serve ; for when you assume a matter to the last degree subtile, 
 you still must ascribe to it particles separated from one another by 
 empty spaces. Either a vacuum exists or there is no motion. Motion 
 being change of place, there must be a place in order that place may 
 be changed. From this there is no escape. Whether it is thus with 
 "the thing in itself" of Kant, I know not; but what I do know is, 
 that one puts himself under an illusion if he thinks he can comprehend 
 motion without a vacuum ; a motionless movement, if I may be 
 allowed the expression, there may be — but that does not help ; a 
 transmission of motion, no. 
 
 But that is a question that is independent of the mystic action at a 
 distance. Vacuum may exist, and action at a distance across vacuum 
 may not exist. 
 
 Mathematicians have often puzzled their brains calculating the 
 actions and re-actions that must take place between two material 
 points separated by vacant space. It is labor lost. Between two 
 material points separated by vacant space there is neither action nor 
 re-action. Universal attraction as an occult property of bodies is a 
 senseless idea, infinitely more difficult to comprehend than the trans- 
 mission of thought. It is not I who say this : it is Newton. The 
 
 ' Dr. P. Despine, fils, "Etude Scientifique sur !e Somnambulisme, " pp. 222-229. 
 Paris, 1880. 
 
312 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 theory of Newton has been brutalized, idiotized, as that of Mesmer 
 has been, by men who could not understand the necessity of subtile 
 ideas for subtile causes. Newton himself — and here Mr. Despine is 
 perfectly right in quoting him — rejected action at a distance : "That 
 brute matter (or matter of any sort) should, without the intermediary 
 of any other thing that is not material, be able to act, to operate 
 upon other matter without mutual contact, is incomprehensible. That 
 gravitation should be inherent, essential to matter, so that a body may 
 act upon another body at a distance in space, without the intermediary 
 of something whereby their activity " — in other words, their motion — 
 " may be transmitted from the one to the other, seems to me so great 
 an absurdity, that no man, I believe, who is competent to think 
 of philosophic matters, can ever fall into it." ' 
 
 And yet that is the opinion of the majority of scientific men nowa- 
 days. But let us go back to Despine's analysis : 
 
 " The researches of modern physicists confirm Newton's view in so 
 far as they prove that there is no vacuum [again the same confusion] ; 
 that space is full of a matter that is eminently subtile, called ether, 
 whose attributes are not only transmission of electricity, and trans- 
 mission of terrestrial magnetism, but also transmission of light and 
 heat. [A matter eminently subtile means a matter eminently rarefied, 
 and if a thing is rarefied that means that there is vacuum between 
 its particles.] The vast interstellar spaces then are not regions of 
 vacuum and of isolation. We find them filled with this medium which 
 extends everywhere, so that when a molecule of hydrogen vibrates in 
 Sirius, the medium receives therefrom an impression ; but so great is 
 the distance of that star that this impulsion takes three years to reach 
 the earth. And yet that distance in no wise alters the vibrations 
 transmitted." [That is another question. No one has been in Sirius 
 to compare them.] 
 
 Mr. Despine then quotes from Herbert Spencer a passage of which 
 I will repeat a part : 
 
 " The discovery that matter, apparently so simple, is, in its inmost 
 structure, astoundingly complex ; and that other, that its molecules, 
 oscillating with almost infinite rapidity, propagate their impulsion to 
 the surrounding ether, which transmits them to inconceivable dis- 
 tances in times infinitely small, lead us to this still more wonderful 
 discovery, that molecules of each kind are affected in a special way by 
 molecules of the same kind that exist in the remotest regions of space." ^ 
 That is Mesmer's idea. 
 
 ' Our author does not locate the passage in Newton's works, and the above is but 
 a version of the French version. — Translator. 
 
 " Diligent search has failed to discover the original of this passage in H. Spencer's 
 "First Principles;" the translator must therefore content himself -with aversion of 
 the French translation of it. 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF A UNIVERSAL FLUID. 313 
 
 Mr. Despine quotes also Mr. Bertrand, of the French Academy, with 
 regard to the existence of ether and its action upon the phenomena of 
 light, electricity, etc. Then he adds : 
 
 " Why should it not be of equal importance in organic nature ? 
 May we not reasonably suppose that that which in this universal 
 medium is the principle of light, electricity and heat, may also, when 
 united with nerve-matter, be the principle of life in animals possess- 
 ing a nervous system, and consequently the principle of activity of 
 that system and of its various functions ? When we reflect that this 
 system is not absolutely necessary to life, inasmuch as plants and the 
 lowest animals are without it ; when we reflect that light, heat and 
 electricity, that is, the principal manifestations of the ether, are nec- 
 essary to life, seeing that wherever they are insufficient vegetal life 
 and animal life are impossible, and that life is all the more active the 
 more potent these manifestations are ; when we reflect upon all this, 
 have we not a right to conclude that the principle of life in organized 
 bodies really consists in these three manifestations of the ether, and 
 that the nervous system is needed only to regulate \^prdsider a\ the 
 specialty of each function as the ether puts the same in action ? This 
 hypothesis seems to us so reasonable that we take the liberty of sub- 
 mitting it for the judgment of the learned." ' 
 
 I do not well see, I confess, the advantage of this transfer to the 
 ether of the principle of nervic and of general organic activity ; I do 
 not think it is made thereby more comprehensible. So many things 
 are saddled upon that long-suffering intermediary ! Mr. Despine 
 attributes to the ether light, heat, electricity, terrestrial magnetism, 
 gravitation, molecular attraction, chemical affinity, the functions of 
 organic life and those of automatism, finally, the functions of the 
 brain. There remains little, I think, to dispose of. Yes, there is 
 Providence; but that has been attended to. Spiller' attributes to 
 the ether not only all these things, but Godhead too. " The Ether is 
 God," says Spiller. I see no difficulty in going so far, but why halt 
 there? Let us call light the Son and electricity the Holy Ghost, 
 and everything will be explained. The only thing to be accounted 
 for then will be how the Ether formed organisms and watches over 
 the human race. 
 
 Let us return to mental suggestion. 
 
 "From these data," continues Mr. Despine, "we see how brain 
 activity, which governs psychic manifestations, may, under certain 
 conditions of impressionableness [what are they ? a theory of trans- 
 mission ought to define them], be echoed in an effective way in the 
 brain of another individual by means of the ether, may therein de- 
 termine an activity of the same kind, and therein call out similar 
 
 ' " Etude Scientifique sur le Somnambulisme," p. 285. 
 ' " Gott im Lichte der Naturwissenschaften." 
 
314 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 instinctive elements, thoughts, mental representations and volitions. 
 Every psychic act, unquestionably, has for cause a cerebral modifica- 
 tion of vibrations, a special mode of activity in the gray-matter cells 
 of the brain. True, these vibrations are not capable of impressing, 
 by the intermediation of the ether, similar vibrations on neighboring 
 sound [?] brains. Yet, however faint these vibrations, they neverthe- 
 less are propagated outwards, though they hit \^frappent~\ those brains 
 without effect. But suppose that among these brains there is one 
 that is in such a state of impressionableness as to be influenced by 
 the ether-vibrations produced by the activity of a sound brain, and 
 suppose that these vibrations produce in this impressionable brain 
 identical vibrations, then the activity of this organ will certainly give 
 rise to similar thoughts. Thus is explained naturally thought-trans- 
 mission and transmission of will from one individual to another, with- 
 out external signs. If this action is rare, that is not because of the 
 mode of action of the ether fluid nor of the laws governing that mode 
 of action — two things that do not change ; it is because of the special 
 state in which the nervous system may be influenced by this faint 
 action — a state consisting particularly in an extreme sensibility of that 
 system, and which is abnormal, pathological [?], and, fortunately, 
 rare. The action of the agent is always the same ; the thing that 
 varies and that makes the phenomenon rare is the state of the nerve- 
 organs that receive the action of the agent." 
 
 True, but rather vague. 
 
 " By this cause of transmission from a distance — a transmission that 
 is undoubted, and which has to be held in reserve simply because it 
 has not yet found popular acceptance — is explained not only the 
 transmission of thought in somnambules, but also the fact that per- 
 sons whose nervic constitution is vigorous, whose cerebral activity is 
 energetic, and whose will is strong, are better magnetizers than per- 
 sons of feeble constitution. So, too, we explain nervic contagion, 
 which Bouchut ' believed to be a fact — a contagion that under certain 
 
 ' Here is a significant passage from this eminent observer : " One might say that 
 in certain cases, notably with regard to convulsive neuroses, there exists a direct 
 physical action of the patient upon the man in health, by a nervic emanation the in- 
 fluence of which produces at a distance the convulsive state, for it is difficult always to 
 explain the fact by imitation, as imitation is commonly understood. However that 
 may be, contrariwise to what we see in other modes of contagion which we think we 
 understand, attributing them to miasmata, cholera for example, we know nothing of 
 the cause of epidemic neuroses, as chorea or hysteria ; we know no more about their 
 contagional principle, if so be that there is one, than we do about the vehicle in which 
 it is conveyed. It is easy to frame hypotheses about it, but impossible to demonstrate 
 the nature of the contagion principle. . . . The action of this nervic contagion 
 is exceedingly powerful and almost without bounds. It acts upon men and upon 
 animals, at every period of life, but particularly in youth, and its influence is greater 
 on woman than on man. It shares at once the properties of contagion, in that there 
 
HYPOTHESIS OF A UNIVERSAL FLUID. 315 
 
 conditions propagates afar the phenomena somatic and psychic that 
 characterize the different epidemic insanities ; so we explain moral 
 contagion, as also the ascendant that strong minds exercise over 
 weak." [But if they "hit without effect" sound brains, how can the 
 vibrations of the ether transmit all this?] "So we explain why the 
 processes of magnetization — passes made whether in contact or at a 
 distance — are able to produce the different phenomena called mag- 
 netic. So we explain why it is that the organs that have been 
 rendered highly impressionable by disease, and the organs best sup- 
 plied with ganglia and nerves, as the head, epigastrium, neck, arms, 
 finger-tips, are the parts most readily impressed by passes " [but then 
 it is the number of nerve fibers that explains all this, not the ether 
 theory]. " Finally, so we explain the very remarkable action of certain 
 individuals' will upon other individuals, without any outward sign — 
 an effect that we see exhibited very strikingly in the case of Castellan, 
 condemned at the assizes of Draguignan " (227). 
 
 A little 'farther on the author gives as the cause of this special 
 impressionableness of mentally-suggestionable subjects, " neuropathic 
 and hysteric affections and anaemia." 
 
 It is usual for hypnotizers to confound these conditions with hyp- 
 notic sensibility, which is a primordial character independent of all 
 disease. A person may be eminently sensitive and yet entirely 
 healthy. Only it is easier for a hypnotizable person to become hys- 
 terical than for another person ; or at least in the case of the former 
 the hysteria assumes the convulsional character of the major hysteria. 
 Neuropathies generally have no greater sensibility than healthy 
 persons. Among the patients under the care of Dr. Aug. Voisin at 
 the Salpetrifere, Paris, we found but 28 per cent, sensitive : among 
 persons in health the proportion is 30 per cent. As for anaemia 
 (another error propagated by Prof. Heidenhain ! ) it is rather an un- 
 favorable condition : at all events, an anaemic brain is not necessarily 
 more impressionable than an hyperamic one ; I am inclined to hold 
 that it is less. 
 
 Mr. Despine closes with the following reflection : " If neither 
 nervic fluid nor magnetic fluid intervenes in the phenomena of animal 
 
 is apparently a contagional agent, and of imitation by reason of its moral and mental 
 character." (Bouchut, " De la Contagion Nerveuse," etc. , p. 14. 1862.) 
 
 I quote the above passage from J. Rambossom's " Phenom^nes Nerveux, Intel- 
 lectuels, et Moraux, leur Transmission par Contagion," pp. 200, 201. Paris, 1883. 
 This author does not spealc of mental suggestion, but he formulates a law of the 
 transmission of expressive motion (niouvement expressif) in the following terms ; " A 
 cerebral or psychic motion may, in traversing different media, became purely physio- 
 logical, then physical, once more physiological, and finally cerebral or psychic, with- 
 out changing its nature, /. e , while still retaining the power of reproducing all the 
 phenomena that are appurtenant to it" (p. 187). This law may be regarded as the 
 generalized formula of psycho-physical theories. See the next chapter. 
 
3i6 • MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 magnetism so-called, as the old theory had it, the universal fluid does 
 positively intervene, if not as the direct cause of the phenomena, 
 then at least as the agent for transmitting the mode of activity of 
 one person's nervous system to the nervous system of another 
 person." 
 
 In short, between the theory of Mr. Despine and that of Mesmer, 
 which he knows not, there are only a few differences of detail, to the 
 advantage of the latter if I am not mistaken. 
 
 Mesmer held, like Spencer, that the particles of a given matter are 
 affected principally by particles having like motions, and, guided by 
 this thought, he conceived a series of motions of progressive sub- 
 tility, and a series of states of matter of progressive rarefaction — 
 solid, liquid, gaseous, etheric, more subtile still, the state of the uni- 
 versal fluid or primordial matter, and that too, presents degrees, but 
 to us they are unknown. In short, he made a division of Nature's 
 work, and distinguished the universal fluid, which he regarded as the 
 medium of life-vibrations, from the ether, to which he assigned 
 mainly the light-vibrations. In sooth we know nothing about this 
 whole organization, but as the matter is entirely under our own con- 
 trol, we can allow ourselves the luxury of several series ; that is at 
 least fairer than to lay the whole burden upon the back of one fluid. 
 Then, I believe that there are in nature no absolute limits, and I 
 prefer Mesmer's graduation to the fluid, doubtless imponderable, of 
 Mr. Despine, that is to say, of the majority of modern physicists. 
 That fluid, which is but an absolute negation of " ponderable " mat- 
 ter, constitutes a species of matter absolutely the reverse of every- 
 thing we know of ordinary matter, and, let us say it frankly, incon- 
 sistent with common sense. The particles of ordinary matter attract 
 one another, those of the ether repel, and so on. It is a tissue of 
 phantasy. The ether is an imponderable fluid. But if "fluid "means 
 anything, then "imponderable fluid" is nonsense. A fluid, that is, 
 something that can flow, must be impelled by something, and conse- 
 quently must weigh upon something. Again, the molecules of the 
 ether, we are told, are attracted by ordinary matter, and when one 
 body is attracted by another body, it weighs upon it. Then, the 
 ether cannot fill all space, precisely because it is rarefied. Finally, if 
 this is to explain for us attraction and ponderability, it cannot itself 
 be either ponderable or imponderable, since it is only by a relation 
 between it and ordinary matter that these qualities are manifested. 
 
 In a word, I understand the necessity of a gas more rarefied than 
 the gases we now know, i. e., more rarefied than hydrogen (there 
 are perhaps many such, for all I know); but I do not understand a 
 matter that is not matter, a rarefied body that does away with vacu- 
 um, a deus ex machina explaining everything, himself incomprehen- 
 sible. I prefer my ignorance to such science. And I beg the mathe- 
 
PSYCHO-PHYSICAL TRANSMISSION. • 317 
 
 maticians not to imagine that they can discover anything outside of 
 the relations founded on experience. A psychologist can understand 
 this. He can value as highly as you please the four, five, or n dimen- 
 sions shown him by means of abstract symbols, but he confesses 
 frankly that three dimensions he can indeed imagine for himself, but 
 no more. Were Zollner still alive, he, no doubt, would explain 
 thought-transmission by saying that it takes place across the fourth 
 dimension, and we should have one theory additional. 
 
 In the lack of that, it only remains that we mention one theory 
 more, and that simply in order to make a transition from the fore- 
 going hypothesis to our own. This transition we find in Puys6gur's 
 theory. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE HYPOTHESIS OF A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL TRANSMISSION. 
 
 THE sympathetic wizard (sorciei-) of Busancy, who was so deeply 
 ^ interested in mental suggestion, is worthy of mention here. He 
 was a soldier,' and disposed to cut the knot of a problem. The series 
 of Mesmer's universal fluid had some difficulty in effecting a lodgment 
 in- Puys^gur's cranium, but he was a marquis all too courteous to bear 
 a grudge against his master on that score. Rather does he charge 
 himself with incapacity for metaphysics, and confess that, after 
 having for two months attended Dr. Mesmer's theoretic course, he 
 knew about as much of magnetism as before (p. 30). But theory 
 mattered little to him. " Increase the number of experiments,'' says 
 he, " and you will come upon a theory ; else you will lose your time. 
 Had we been obliged, in order to recognize the well-known phenomena 
 of electricity, of the magnet, and of galvanism, to wait till we should 
 agree as to their causes, there is reason to believe that we should 
 to-day have neither lightning-rods, nor compass, nor Voltaic pile. Is 
 there an electric fluid, a magnetic fluid, a galvanic fluid?" (p. 26.) 
 He does not know whether there is or not ; but what he does know is, 
 that in order to act upon Victor or Magdeleine he did not need to 
 have any knowledge of poles, or even to believe in the existence of a 
 fluid. " So I took care to choose rather a certitude gained through 
 
 ' Puys6gur was marshal de camp of the royal artillery corps. The quotations that 
 follow are from the work published in 1807, entitled " Du Magnfetisme Animal Con- 
 sidferfe dans ses Rapports avec diverses Branches de la Physique G6n6rale." 
 
3i8 • MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 experience than the hypothetic probabiUty of a magnetic fluid, the 
 existence of which no physicist has ever. been able to verify" (p. 35). 
 
 Then he passes in review the phenomena of heat, of fire, of the 
 electric machine, of light, of the Voltaic pile and of galvanism, of the 
 magnet, and of the sorciers,^ and by a series of comparisons and 
 reflections of the utmost lucidity, comes to the conclusion — quite 
 opposed to the dominant ideas of his time — that heat is but the effect, 
 perceptible to the senses, of the transmission of a motion (p. 37) ; and that, 
 consequently, " caloric has no existence " (p. 38) ; that the cause of 
 the magnetic properties of the loadstone results solely from a " tonic 
 inner motion (mouvement tonique et intestin) in the iron, of a kind 
 much like that recognized as existing in the Voltaic pile" (p. 71). 
 Ampere's theory ! Finally, that it is all "transmission of motion." 
 
 Puysegur is incomparable in his deductions from an experiment in 
 thought transference compared to an experiment with an electrostatic 
 machine. He poses two problems : To light at a distance a bit of 
 amadou by the aid of the electric spark ; and to act mentally from a 
 distance upon his brother, v'ho is at Versailles. "I performed an 
 action, that of turning the crank of the machine, I not stirring from 
 where I stood ; the action of necessity had its indispensable result, 
 which is, to communicate motion ; from this I concluded that no bit 
 of amadou in the world can be set on fire save by the transmission of a 
 communicated motion" (p. 46). " My brother is four leagues away, at 
 Versailles. Let us see how I may transmit motion to him. Nothing 
 can be simpler. I recall his image and I think of him. ' Mysticism 
 and witchcraft ? ' By no means : it is the sanest kind of physics. Is 
 not every human act preceded by the volition to execute it ? Is not 
 the volition itself preceded by the thought that it can be carried out ? 
 That thought then is the motor ; hence it is as regards me what the 
 glass plate is as regards the electric machine. ' And you think you 
 can produce some effect upon your brother by the action of your 
 mind ? ' Certainly not. He would in that case be less sensible of the 
 action of my mind than you, not being insulated, would be of the 
 action of the revolving plate of an electric machine " (p. 53). 
 
 So, then, one must be "insulated" in order to feel a transmission of 
 motion otherwise imperceptible. Imagine a series of ivory balls sus- 
 pended by threads and contiguous to one another. If I hit the first, 
 the last that very instant leaps out. If I strike the end of a bar of 
 steel with a hammer, it becomes magnetized. The particles cannot 
 leap out, nevertheless they are put in motion ; this " inner motion " 
 (mouvement intestin) is accelerated and regulated in some unknown 
 way, and lo ! the bar is tnagnetized. In like manner, by producing an 
 
 'Probaoly practicers of "Bletonism," named from Bleton, a Frenchman, who 
 claimed to possess the faculty of perceiving subterranean waters by sensation. — 
 Translator. 
 
PSYCHO-PHYSICAL TRANSMISSION. 319 
 
 inward shock of my will {en effectuant un choc inUrieur de ma volontd), 
 I transmit motion that may be reverberated by a being at a distance 
 
 <PP- 33. 52)- 
 
 This, it is seen, is Mesmer's theory simplified and popularized, minus 
 the universal fluid, which Puysegur cares little about, and minus the 
 remarkable precision of the founder of magnetism. 
 
 This theory was lately propounded by Dr. Perronet under the name 
 of undulationism. He formulates it very briefly, thus : 
 
 "Suggestion is a phenomenon whereby an individual transmits to 
 one or to many other individuals his own thoughts, whether conscious 
 or unconscious, by materializing them in the forms of the objects 
 represented by them, and passing through this series of interme- 
 diate phenomena : 
 
 " I. Nerve-undulations of central origin and centrifugal in direction, 
 which undulations are produced by an unknown mechanism in the 
 organs that serve as a ground for his psychic faculties ; 
 
 " 2. Undulations at the periphery of his body, fibrillary contrac- 
 tions or other kinetic phenomena that are usually unconscious ; 
 
 " 3. Undulations produced in the cosmic medium by the foregoing 
 motions ; 
 
 " 4. Shock to the nerve-extremities of the recipient individuals 
 from these cosmic undulations, which produce in the psychic centers 
 of those recipients the final undulatory phenomenon, translated by the 
 real perception of the object signified by the thought." ' 
 
 And now let us put all these theories aside and attend only to the 
 facts. I will endeavor to make them intelligible as far as may be in 
 the present stage of our researches. And you, gentle reader, keep an 
 eye upon me, lest I broach some absurdity — a thing quite possible in 
 so perplexed a question, and that happens oft to those who do not spare 
 others. 
 
 ' Claude Perronet, " Du Magnfitisme Animal," pp. 60, 61. 1884. 
 
320 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION. 
 
 BE it observed at the outset : 
 I. That the suggestion called mental is a highly complex phe- 
 nomenon, which for that reason cannot be explained by one simple 
 principle ; 
 
 2. That even virith regard to a determinate and isolated fact, the 
 theory must necessarily be bifarious : psychological and physical ; 
 
 3. That in all phenomena of this sort we must consider, on the one 
 hand, the conditions pertaining to the operator, on the other the con- 
 ditions pertaining to the subject. 
 
 This stated, let us have an understanding as to the general purport 
 of a scientific explanation. 
 
 Explaining means nothing else but reducing the unknown to the 
 known ; and there is but one way of doing that, to wit, by pointing 
 out the conditions on which the phenomenon appears, and without which it 
 cannot appear. That is all that one can do ; X is also all that is re- 
 quired. We must not suffer ourselves to be under the illusion that 
 adequate knowledge is attainable of anything. We ascertain the con- 
 ditions of phenomena, we state these as well as may be in laws that 
 are simply a generalization of our observations : that is all. That is 
 the whole of science. 
 
 If we would define the conditions of a phenomenon, we must first 
 describe it, analyze it, so as to circumscribe its contents and assign it a 
 suitable place among other phenomena. This we have endeavored to 
 do by treating separately the different kinds of psycho-physical trans- 
 mission. It follows that mental suggestion proper must be studied in 
 connection with sundry phenomena of physical transmission, which, 
 by approaching it step by step, elucidate it. Furthermore, as we 
 have seen, very many phenomena that have been attributed to physi- 
 cal or mental transmission, are only facts of apparent transmission. 
 
 This apparent transmission may, according to the nature of the case, 
 be explained : 
 
 1. By a pre-established harmony between two associational mechan- 
 isms mutually independent, but depending upon a psychic medium j 
 
 2. By a presumption' based on the ordinary sensations of sight, 
 hearing, smell, and touch. 
 
 These sensations, which betray our organic or our psychic state, 
 can be perceived or even realized by the subject in proportion to : 
 
 ' On the part of the subject. From the sense-impressions received by him in 
 any way from the magnetizer or the bystanders, he infers the purport of the intended 
 mental suggestion. — Translator. 
 
ELEMENTS OF A SCIENTIFIC EXP I ANA TION. 321 
 
 1. His unconscious experience, a faculty belonging to us all, and 
 which tells especially when conscious reflection is in abeyance ; 
 
 2. IWs ideorganic associations ; these may reveal the signification of 
 influences more or less unnoticed in the normal state ; 
 
 3. His ideoplasty, which realizes the thought suggested by uncon- 
 scious experience and by ideorganic associations ; 
 
 4. His hypnotic and magnetic training, which facilitates the co- 
 operation of all the foregoing agencies. 
 
 It follows that apparent transmission will be favored : 
 
 1. By exaltation of the senses ; 
 
 2. By exaltation of the intelligence ; 
 
 3. By isolation of the senses and the intelligence, which allows the 
 whole power of attention to be concentrated in one chosen direction. 
 
 But this whole theory falls short when we have to explain the 
 phenomena wherein the involuntary tokens furnished by the principle 
 of the expressional exiterioration of every state, psychic or organic, no 
 longer come into play. Unless we are ready to extend sensorial 
 perceptivity beyond all reasonable bounds, and to make it as incom- 
 prehensible as the phenomenon of transmission itself, we must have 
 recourse to another principle, which shall explain for us, not apparent 
 transmission, but true transmission. 
 
 True transmission means that the state a of brain A is reproduced 
 by brain B, without the intermediation of signs, whether visual, 
 auditive, olfactive, or tactual. 
 
 Of course in practice these two kinds of transmission must com- 
 monly be confounded, and only in experiments made expressly for 
 the purpose and at a certain distance can we be sure that true trans- 
 mission alone is in play. 
 
 Though thought is purely a phenomenon of the brain, in the sense 
 that it cannot be produced by any other organ, still it is never restricted 
 to the brain alone as regards the manifestations that accompany it. 
 There is no thought without expression ; we might even say with Sietsh- 
 enof that there is no thought without muscular contraction ; but I 
 prefer the first formula, which is the more general one, inasmuch as 
 it includes also the secretions, the emanations, the direct production of 
 heat and electricity. One may stand absolutely motionless and think 
 of ail manner of things, yet on analyzing our attitude attentively 
 we find : 
 
 1. That if we are reflecting with any degree of intensity, there is 
 always an inchoation of speech ; the larynx, the tongue, even the 
 maxilla executes slight movements ; ' 
 
 2. That if our thinking presents a visual rather than an auditive 
 character, then the eye, though shut, follows the movements of the 
 
 ' I called attention to this fact in my work on Method, " Mfethode des Recherches 
 Psychologiques," i86q. 
 
32 z MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 imaginary objects and the pupil is dilated or contracted according to 
 the brightness or the remoteness of those objects ; 
 
 3. That the respiration is governed, accelerated or slowed, accord- 
 ing to the course of our thoughts ; ' 
 
 4. That in the muscles of the members there is always an internal 
 contraction answering to the unexecuted movements we think about, 
 or appropriate to the sense-images in our mind ; 
 
 5. That all emotive states are accompanied by a corresponding 
 change in the circulation ; 
 
 6. That a concentration of the will is reflected in a corresponding 
 contraction of the diaphragm ; 
 
 7. That all these phenomena must determine a modification in 
 the functions of the vegetative life, in the exchange of matter, and 
 consequently in the production of the various secretions and emana- 
 tions ; 
 
 8. That all psychic work determines a production of heat, and that 
 probably there is a direct transformation of psychic work into radiant 
 heat. 
 
 The effect of these actions cannot be restricted to the surface of 
 our body, and, consequently, even at a certain distance, these changes 
 may imperceptibly influence the senses of some other organism and 
 make themselves felt, more or less distinctly, by an exceptionally 
 impressionable organism. 
 
 By having regard to but one class of sensations one may reach 
 partial, incomplete explanations. One might, for instance, say : 
 
 1. That the subject reads the operator's thought in the visual pa- 
 thognomic signs, and that therefore the theory of mental suggestion 
 resolves itself into a theory of an exalted visual sense ; 
 
 2. That as thought is habitually expressed in speech, and as the 
 subject may present an extraordinary hyperacusia (be it said in pa- 
 renthesis that this hyperacusia never extends more than some yards' 
 distance for words really pronounced), we may regard mental sugges- 
 tion as an exalted audition of the inward speech and of the respiration- 
 sounds ; 
 
 3. That inasmuch as it has been proved that emotions are accom- 
 panied by a modification of the cutaneous odor, we may magnify the 
 value of these indicia and hold that every thought that is in any 
 degree concentrated and persistent, especially the thought of ap- 
 proval or of negation (and perception of these two thoughts may 
 greatly assist a subject who seeks to execute an order given him), 
 that each such thought is characterized by a perceptible olfactive 
 modification ; 
 
 4. That the heat given out because of a mental effort, as modified 
 by the approach of the operator's body and by his gestures (air- 
 
 ' See my work " Bedingungen des Bewusstwerdens." Leipsic, 1874. 
 
ELEMENTS OF A SCIENTIFIC EXP LAN A TION. 323 
 
 currents), may guide the subject, may, in particular, enable him to 
 perceive the inception and the direction of the action, and may thus 
 account, upon grounds purely of caloric action, for influences said to 
 be mental ; 
 
 5. That in experiments with direct contact all the expressive vibra- 
 tions and tensions of the muscles may serve as unmistakable pointers 
 to an interpretation of our thoughts : this would be a mechanical 
 theory of suggestion ; 
 
 6. That as the phenomenon of reflex attraction, based on an exalted 
 cutaneous sensibility, can be developed very highly so that the sub- 
 ject shall be attracted by gestures that are hardly made at all, one 
 might adopt a purely attractional theory of suggestion, and say that 
 all the movements mentally ordered are executed because of a reflex 
 physical attraction ; 
 
 7. That the phenomenon of the imitation of movements being a 
 common one and capable of being largely developed, we may suppose 
 that if, even with the eyes closed, the subject can repeat the move- 
 ments of the operator, the same phenomenon, in a slightly higher 
 degree, might be presented with regard even to incomplete move- 
 ments ; that would be a purely imitational theory. 
 
 All these considerations taken separately, or even taken together, 
 can apply only to a certain number of facts ; but we have to bear them 
 in mind wherever, according to the case emergent, any one or more 
 of the principles stated can fairly be appealed to. 
 
 A few controlled experiments alone can decide whether or not they 
 apply in any given case. 
 
 In general, as regards experiments made from anear, it appears 
 certain that there is a graduation of the facility with which they may 
 be performed. The scale is about as follows : 
 
 1. Experiments made with contact, gestures, and looks ; 
 
 2. Experiments made with gestures and looks ; 
 
 3. Experiments made without gestures, with looks ; 
 
 4. Experiments made without contact, gestures, or looks. 
 Starting from this last degree, the influence, up to an unknown 
 
 limit, no longer decreases with the distance. If action can be exerted 
 from the farther end of a room unbeknown to the subject, it can be exerted 
 equally well from another room, from another house, and so forth. 
 
 The fact that a small distance often makes a noticeable difference, 
 and that a great distance makes no perceptible difference, proves : 
 
 1. That in certain cases contact, gestures, and looks have their share 
 in the action ; 
 
 2. That neither this action of theirs nor the action of olfactive sen- 
 sations suffices to explain certain other cases. 
 
 Furthermore, contact is very often indifferent, gestures useless, and 
 looks exert no distinct action ; therefore, if "-hese agents have any 
 
324 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 action at a distance, it must be a subjective one : to wit, it simply 
 helps the operator to concentrate his thought. 
 
 On the side of the operator the conditions have been very little 
 studied. But it is probable : 
 
 1. That there are personal differences; 
 
 2. That these differences may be due not only to the degree of 
 thought-intensity, but also to the nature of the thought itself, accord- 
 ing as it is visual, or auditive, or motorial ; 
 
 3. That some account has to be taken of a sort of accord, of con- 
 cordance between the natures of the two intelligences ; 
 
 4. That excessive will-effort impairs the definiteness of the trans- 
 missio^n, without much enhancing its intensity ; 
 
 5. That strong, persistent, prolonged thinking, or a thought repeated 
 for a longer or shorter time, constitutes a condition in the highest 
 degree favorable ; 
 
 6. That any distraction that causes the thought to disappear for a 
 moment, or that makes it cease to be isolated, seems eminently 
 unfavorable to the mental action ; 
 
 7. That, nevertheless, thoughts that are not intense, and even 
 thoughts that are at the moment unconscious, may be transmitted 
 involuntarily ; 
 
 8. That the muscular efforts that always accompany an exertion of 
 will are more or less indifferent ; but that the muscle-expression of 
 the operator may be useful, subjectively, by reason of the habitude 
 that connects thought with these expressional signs. 
 
 It follows from these considerations that the operator should insist 
 less upon the " I will it " than upon the content of that willing ; and 
 hence it is probable that, properly speaking, it is not the stroAg will 
 that helps suggestion so much as the clear thinking. 
 
 As regards the subject, to find the bearings in this question we may 
 consider one after another the four principal states : 
 
 1. In the state of profound aideia, transmission is never immediate, 
 but it may sometimes be latent ; 
 
 2. In the state of nascent monoideism, it may be immediate and 
 perfect ; 
 
 3. In the state of passive poiytdeism, it may be either mediate ' or 
 immediate, but always weaker ; 
 
 4. In the state of active poiytdeism, the conditions are complex, and 
 they must be considered separately : 
 
 a. Transmission may be direct if the subject helps by voluntary 
 self-absorption in a concentration of mind mo/e or less monoideic ; 
 
 ' Mediate — with a lapse of time intervening between the mental action and the 
 action of the subject. — Translator. 
 
ELEMENTS OF A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANA TION. 325 
 
 he lends himself to the action, he listens mentally, he seei<s, sometimes 
 he finds. 
 
 b. It may be indirect, that is, latent, this time also with some con- 
 currence on the part of the subject ; this case seems more frequent. 
 
 c. Finally, it may, in exceptional instances, be either mediate or 
 immediate, even without the subject's being advised beforehand of 
 the action. Here we touch the question of mental action upon a sub- 
 ject in the waking state, and that calls for some explanations. The 
 somnambulic state of active polyideia differs from the waking state 
 only by two characters, of which one is absolute, the other relative : 
 
 I. The absolute, /. e., the constant, necessary difference is quantita- 
 tive only: waking is a state more polyideic than somnambulism. In the 
 latter there is always a narrowing of the psychic field. In the waking 
 state, despite the apparent monoideism which has deceived many 
 psychologists (Bain, Wundt, Morell, Horwicz, et a/.), our thought is 
 always very complex ; we have simultaneously a multitude of con- 
 tending sensations, and a multitude of recollections that are ever 
 striving to free themselves from the pressure of the dominant ideas 
 (Herbart). In somnambulism their number is much smaller ; most of 
 the usual sensations are wanting (anaesthesia) ; most of our recollec- 
 tions are paralyzed ; but what may lead one astray, and what (despite 
 the general narrowing of the psychic field) constitutes a peculiar 
 character of this state is, that the sensations and recollections belong- 
 ing to a given idea may be more numerous in somnambulism than in 
 the waking state ; the perception is more detailed, though only with 
 regard to one idea, and the associational reproduction more complete, 
 though alwaj's strictly in one direction. Hence it follows that the 
 somnambulic state of polyideia is more favorable to mental sugges- 
 tion, if the subject is fore-advised of the action ; but if he is not, then the 
 waking state will have the preference. It is easier to influence 
 unbeknownst a waking subject than one clearly in the state of active 
 somnambulism. In the latter case the subject is more absorbed Sind 
 hence less accessible. The normal state is in general less sensitive be- 
 cause of the resistance of a multitude of thoughts that are struggling 
 for life, but it is less concentrated, rnore elastic, more diversified, and 
 hence more accessible. What I meant to express when I said " more 
 elastic," is, that in the normal state our thoughts launch out more 
 freely right and left, without losing the clue that guides them ; but I 
 used the term»chiefly because of this peculiarity — one that is of inter- 
 est for us on other accounts — that in fact the normal state is not a 
 state out and out polyideic ; it is rather a fluctuating {niobile) aggre- 
 gate of all possible states, with preponderance of polyideia. There 
 are unquestionably moments of monoideism in its every grade, and 
 even intervals strictly monoideic. Only, all these phases are com- 
 mingled, following one another with inconceivable rapidity. But 
 
326 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 that is what makes this state amenable to faint influences, particu- 
 larly in hypnotizable subjects, whose minds are generally character- 
 ized by a constant tendency to monoideism. 
 
 2. The second difference between the somnambulic state and the 
 normal is only a relative one, but it is of still greater importance for 
 the matter in hand. It is a relative one in that it does not exist in the 
 hypnotized : a hypnotized %\ib)tc\. is not in rapport with any one. It is 
 relative also from another point of view, in that, though in magnetic 
 somnambulism there is isolation of the subject, the isolation differs 
 only in degree from that of a normal state in which suggestion can 
 succeed. In fact it never does succeed — at least immediate suggestion 
 does not — in a normal state in which there is no trace of rapport. This 
 rapport must be established, either by repeated magnetizations, by a 
 tie of blood, of sympathy, of daily association, or by some exceptional 
 influence of the moment. 
 
 This detail brings us to the very heart of the subject. Rapport 
 being a conditio sine qua non of distinct mind action, let us strive to 
 define what it is. 
 
 As we have already observed in the opening of this study, and then 
 in remarking upon Despine's experiments, the nature of this phenome- 
 non is essentially two-fold — psychic and physical. We already know 
 the psychic elements, which are the predominant ones in regard of the 
 frequency of their plain manifestation, but we have now to analyze 
 \\\& physical cause of the phenomena of rapport. 
 
 "There's the rub!" Are we justified in asserting that "animal 
 magnetism " has a physical cause ? 
 
 Observe in passing that, considering the general aspect of the phe- 
 nomena hitherto lumped together under the one denomination of 
 " hypnotic " phenomena, this cause is not necessary save for certain 
 classes of facts ; the rest can do without it. But that does not remove 
 the difficulty : it remains, though in shadow. And what shocks the 
 " regulars " is, that this physical action " upsets every notion of phy- 
 siology." 
 
 " I never could understand, " says Mr. Brown-Sequard, " how an 
 intelligent man, acquainted with the ground principles of physiology, 
 can believe in such transmission (a transmission of nerve-force from 
 one individual to another), seeing that the student who has learned 
 ever so little knows how vain, after a motor nerve has been severed, 
 is the effort, the wish, the will to move the paralyzed part "' 
 
 I should not like to pass for the most uninstructed student, still less 
 should I care to set up as teacher of my honored master, to whom I 
 am indebted for more than one excellent idea, but — amicus Plato, magis 
 arnica Veritas— \ venture to say that even I see how the paralyzed part 
 might be moved. 
 
 ' Preface to Simon's French translation of Braid's " Neurypnology. " 
 
ELEMENTS OF A SCIENTIFIC EXP LAN A TION. 3 2 7 
 
 The will, says Mr. Brown-Sequard, cannot reach a muscle the motor 
 nerve of which is severed, whereas it seems to him quite natural that 
 it should be able to reach a muscle whose motor nerve is not severed. 
 Now to me that does not seem natural at all. I agree that it cannot 
 reach a muscle whose motor nerve is severed, but at the same time I 
 do not believe that it can reach a muscle whose motor nerve remains 
 intact. The will is a cerebral phenomenon, that never has been found 
 (constat^') outside of the brain, and that cannot outstep the brain. It 
 is not even transmitted to the motori nerve that issues from the brain 
 and terminates in a muscle. So, too, the mechanical motion of a muscle 
 is not transmitted to the sensor nerve to reach the brain, but it may, it 
 necessarily must, give rise to a molecular current ; that current is trans- 
 mitted to the brain, and therein calls out another dynamic phenomenon 
 the nature of which is unknown, but which we distinguish quite clearly 
 as sensation or idea. It is the same with the will. To reach a muscle, 
 the will absolutely requires a molecular intermediary which shall 
 traverse the nerve, and it is entirely true that this intermediary cannot 
 leap over where the nerve is cut in two. Neither can a telephonic 
 current, though less capricious, overleap a break in a wire : the tele- 
 phone will be dumb. And were we to stand still at this experiment we 
 should be fully justified in saying of the telephone what Mr. Brown- 
 Sdquard says of the muscle. 
 
 Fortunately, our science does not stand still there. Mr. Brown- 
 Sequard, in proclaiming two indisputable truths, makes two mistakes. 
 The two truths are these : 
 
 1. Nerve-force cannot traverse a severed nerve ; 
 
 2. Nerve-loxcz cannot /«« into another nervous system. 
 Very true ; nor do I believe in any passage of any nerve-fluid. 
 
 But does that mean that nerve-force, or any force whatsoever, acts 
 only where it is, and that its action is absolutely restricted within the 
 body in which it manifests itself visibly ? 
 
 Here the error begins. It is twofold, for — 
 
 1. Such force, thus absolutely limited to any material point what- 
 ever, does not exist ; 
 
 2. If it did exist, the most fundamental principles of physiology, 
 among them Mr. Brown-Sequard's principles of inhibition and of 
 dynamogeny, would be upset. 
 
 The normal action of a telephone ceases when the wire is broken. 
 It is equally null for us when, though the wire is not broken, the 
 circuit contains only one telephone. Is it possible to transmit speech 
 with one telephone ? No ; and yet the telephone works. The whole 
 length of the wire is traversed by a current which is not speech itself, 
 but which is its correlative, though it is dumb. 
 
 Take another telephone having also a closed circuit, and, like the 
 first, dumb. Bring it near the other, or only near the wire of the 
 
328 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 first telephone, or even simply bring the wire of the first near the wire 
 of the second, and the latter will talk, will reproduce speech, though 
 there is no material contact between the two. It will talk by induction. 
 It is this transmission, not that which takes place between muscle and 
 brain, that corresponds to mental transmission. My brain does not act 
 upon the muscles of the subject, but it may act upon his brain. If instead 
 of a second telephone we were to place alongside of the first telephone 
 a different sort of instrument, an electroscope, for example, there 
 would be no result ; but we must not by any means infer that therefore 
 there is no electric action all around the telephone, for in order to get 
 a specific action we must employ a specific instrument, a telephone 
 for a telephone, a brain for a brain. 
 
 I do not at all mean to strain the analogy; comparison is not proof ; 
 and were there not other evidences of inductive physical action this 
 would be of no avail. But the case is not so. Apart from all theory, 
 facts compel us to admit a physical action : we should have to admit 
 it even were there no other analogous phenomenon. 
 
 Here are the facts in brief. Of course I cannot here prove their 
 reality, but shall merely mention them, believe them who will : 
 
 1. Sometimes the magnetized subject discerns the presence of his 
 magnetizer independently of the ordinary sensations. His touch he 
 distinguishes from that of others — distinguishes it even though it be 
 applied by means of an inert body (a rod, for instance), which of itself 
 cannot influence him differently. If, therefore, the subject distin- 
 guishes his magnetizer's touch as well through a rod as directly, it 
 must be that there exists a molecular current of some sort peculiar to 
 the organism of the magnetizer, and which indicates his presence in 
 much the same way that a galvanic current, through the intermedia- 
 tion of a wire in contact with us, indicates the presence of a pile. 
 The objection that most subjects feel nothing of this action is of no 
 weight, for so, too, with a current from a weak galvanic element we 
 shall feel nothing, while the magnetic needle will clearly prove its 
 presence, and with a current weaker still, from a telephone or from a 
 frog, the magnetic needle will show no result whatever : an excep- 
 tionally sensitive galvanometer would be necessary in such a case. 
 Suppose that 40 years ago, when Mr. Du Bois-Reymond published his 
 discoveries in electricity, some one had challenged his assertions, 
 saying that no galvanometer had shown the presence of the currents 
 he declared to exist : the assertion would have been true, but never- 
 theless unjust, for at that time Du Bois-Reymond alone possessed a 
 multiplier capable of showing their presence. 
 
 2. We can obtain marked results of a therapeutic kind by acting 
 without contact and unbeknown to the patients operated upon, 
 sleeping children, for example. Hence, there is an inductive action 
 that overpasses the superficies of the body. 
 
ELEMENTS OE A SCIENTIFIC EXP LAN A TION. 3 2 9 
 
 3. We find marked differences in the so-called magnetic action of 
 different persons — differences not to be explained by moral action. 
 One hand acts differently from another hand. Hence, there is a 
 physical action, and & personal physical action. 
 
 4. Finally, inasmuch as facts compel us to accept action from afar, 
 we must needs admit real ' action from anear. 
 
 Though we cannot define with precision the nature of this action, 
 we can nevertheless affirm that : 
 
 1. Every living being is a dynamic focus ; 
 
 2. A dynamic focus tends ever to propagate the motion that is 
 proper to it ; 
 
 3. Propagated motion becomes transformed according to the me- 
 dium it traverses. 
 
 Let us enter a little into details. 
 
 Whether forces, as such, exist in nature, I know not ; a fortiori I 
 do not know whether they exist outside of nature ; what I do knovsr 
 is, that so far as it is knowable, force is nothing but motion. We 
 say " motion," when we see motion ; we say " force," when the mo- 
 tion is invisible. A sleeping animal possesses the " force " to rise, for 
 there exists in it 1 latent, hidden molecular motion that may be 
 transformed into visible mechanical motion. When the animal is 
 dead it possesses this force no longer, for the inner molecular motion 
 constituting the biological exchange of matter is no more. Hence, 
 we may regard this force as molecular motion. 
 
 Motion tends always to propagate itself. 
 
 Why does it seem sometimes to disappear? Can it annul itself? 
 No ; as motion is not self-produced, so it is not self-destroyed. 
 Therefore, when we see work of any kind — mechanical, electrical, 
 nervic or psychic — disappear without visible effect, then of two things 
 one, either 
 
 1. A transmission ; or 
 
 2. A transformation. 
 
 In a medium that opposed no resistance, a motion would be trans- 
 mitted indefinitely. Imagine a universe consisting of a medium 
 motionless, but capable of being set in motion, and presenting no 
 resistance, and to set that whole universe in motion, we should 
 need only to give an impulse to one single atom. And were that 
 atom alone, it would move on for all eternity. It would proceed 
 in a right line, according to the old law of mechanics, but in an 
 infinite circle according to the new — and that is the beginning of the 
 scientific farces." Suffice it to say that there would then be no reason 
 why the motion should cease. 
 
 But the univers.e is not like that ; there is resistance. What is 
 
 ' R^elle, physical, opposed to moral, in par. 3. — Translator. 
 ^ C 'est ici que commencent les farces scientifiques. 
 
330 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 the meaning of this resistance ? To explain it we liave done as 
 savages do — have endowed matter with the qualities that belong 
 to ourselves. After having " objectivated " a subjective muscular 
 feeling in the notion of " force,'' we proceeded to do the same 
 for that which " opposes " force, giving to matter our own " inertia," 
 our own indolence. Inertia has no existence any more than force, 
 any more than absolute rest. But what does surely exist is motion, 
 which opposes another motion, if it is not of the same nature. 
 
 What happens then ? The initial motion is transformed. 
 
 Such is the great principle of the universe ; not merely " trans- 
 mission," as Puysegur held, but transformation. 
 
 Where does the first end and where does the second begin ? Phys- 
 ical philosophy gives us a very clear idea with regard to that point : 
 
 a. In an identical medium there is only transmission ; 
 
 b. In a different medium there is transformation. 
 
 A dynamic nucleus, in propagating its motion, sends it out in every 
 direction ; but this transmission becomes perceptible only on the lines 
 of least resistance. Hence we say that magnetism chooses iron ; that 
 heat, like sound, chooses good conductors ; that a galvanic current 
 gives the preference to a thick wire among many fine wires, as 
 lightning chooses the line of its route, as a light-impression chooses 
 the nerve that suits it, as the will chooses the fiber that serves its 
 purpose ; and so on. 
 
 But in reality nothing chooses anything. We it is that do this 
 choosing, subjectively, owing to our inability to see invisible things. 
 The pressure exerted by a liquid confined in a vessel is the same 
 when its wall is intact as when a hole is pierced in it. But the liquid 
 does not escape save when the wall is pierced, and then the other 
 pressure concerns us little. Instead of a substance let us take a 
 force. Cast a stone into a lake not far from the shore. The shock 
 will produce a series of waves. These are visible on the surface of 
 the water. Do they end at the shore ? No ! The land receives the 
 shock like the water, and propagates it ; only, it propagates it in its 
 own way, invisibly. What does a force do that strikes a medium un- 
 suitable to its kind of motion ? It becomes transformed, that is all. 
 It is so always, and there are no other causes of transformation. 
 Transformation implies resistance. You send an electric current 
 through a thick wire. You have the current, but you do not per- 
 ceive any other force. But cut that thick wire and connect the ends 
 by means of a fine wire : the fine wire will grow hot ; there will be a 
 transformation of a part of the current into heat. Carry the experi- 
 ment further. Take a pretty strong current and interpose a wire still 
 more resistent, or a very thin carbon rod. The carbon will emit 
 light, and the light will be still more intense if you cut the carbon in 
 two, introducing a conductor still more resistent — air. A part of the 
 
ELEMENTS OF A SCIENTIFIC EXP LAN A TION. 33 1 
 
 current then is transformed into heat and light. Think you that this 
 light acts only as light, and only in the lamp ? Not so ! It acts in 
 every direction round about, first visibly as light, then invisibly as 
 heat and as electric current. Hold a magnet near it. If the magnet 
 is weak and movable, in the form of a magnetic needle, the beam of 
 light will cause it to deviate ; if it is strong and immovable, it will in 
 turn cause the beam of light to deviate. The rays of light that 
 impinge on the non-transparent vanes of a Crookes radiometer make 
 the mill go round. And all this from a distance, without contact, 
 without special conductors. And all this' because, somewhere far 
 away, somebody turns a crank, or because an almost imperceptible 
 chemical process is going on in a battery ! 
 
 A process that is at once chemical, physical and psychical, goes on 
 in a brain. A complex action of this kind is propagated through the 
 gray matter, as waves are propagated in water. These phenomena 
 are intense in a different way : their intensity is not mechanical, it is 
 more subtile and more concentrated. What we call an idea is a 
 strictly localized phenomenon. But we must not forget that to pro- 
 duce an idea, thousands of repeated impressions were necessary, and 
 ■every one represents a force. That force is accumulated, condensed, 
 as it were, in an idea. Regarded on its physiological side, an idea 
 is only a vibration, a vibration that is propagated, yet which does 
 not pass out of the medium in which it can exist as such. It is 
 propagated as far as other like vibrations allow. It is propagated 
 more widely if it assumes the character which subjectively we call 
 emotive. An emotion is more expansive than an indifferent idea : it 
 may occupy the whole brain to the disadvantage of all other ideas. 
 But it cannot go beyond without being transformed. Nevertheless, 
 like force in general, it cannot remain in isolation, it escapes in 
 disguise. The official world of science allows it only one route — 
 through the motor nerves. These are the openings in a dark lantern 
 through which the luminous rays pass. But thought does not radiate 
 like a flame, nor even like the heat of a flame, though that makes 
 little account of the opaque walls that are impermeable to light. 
 
 Thought stays at home, as the chemical action of a battery re- 
 mains in the battery ; it is represented abroad by its dynamic 
 correlate, called, in the case of the battery, a current, and in the case 
 of the brain — I know not what : but whatever its name may be, it is 
 the dynamic correlate of thought. This dynamic correlate is not, nor 
 can be, restricted to the nervic currents of the motor fibers. It 
 represents all the transformations of cerebral motion — transformations 
 all the more subtile and all the more radical, as the difference is 
 greater between the anatomic medium of thought and the environing 
 
 ' The electrical and magnetic phenomena mentioned, not the revolution of the 
 iight-mill. — Translator , 
 
332 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 media : bodies solid, liquid, or gaseous, with the ether considered as 
 the fourth state of matter and, relatively, filling the universe. 
 
 Let us halt for a moment. We have reached the conclusion that 
 the motion that answers to thought cannot be exceptional in nature, 
 and that like all force it is transformed into other forms of motion, 
 logically necessary though for the most part unknown. 
 
 " No displacement of matter," says Mr. de Parville, " takes place in 
 inanimate nature, no act, voluntary or unconscious, takes place in 
 living nature, but that there is a production of electricity in exact 
 ratio to the energy of the work expended." ^ Besides electricity, 
 there is production of heat, production of mechanical motion, and, 
 perhaps, production of light. But I do not intend to go into par- 
 ticulars. I believe we do not know one thousandth part of the 
 molecular changes that a thought may produce, and we must content 
 ourselves with simply noting the facts : here, as elsewhere, energy is 
 transmitted and transformed. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LAW OF REVERSIBILITY, 
 
 SO then we must regard thought as a dynamic act. That dy- 
 namic act is developed at the center of a larger dynamic focus 
 which is called nerve-action ; and the latter must be considered 
 as a special mechanic action resting on a basis wider still — the whole 
 vital aggregate. The entire organism has a dynamic tone peculiar 
 to itself and dependent on the individual's general anatomical and 
 physiological nature, as well as on his state of equilibrium at the 
 moment. This equilibrium is governed by the nerve-tension, and 
 the latter by the individual's psychic mobility. This triple dynamic 
 microcosm acts upon a medium, first by its presence only, as a liv- 
 ing mechanism, next by its state, as a nerve-system, finally by its 
 thought, as a psychic center. 
 
 Motion being contagious, we can see that a tone that is sufficiently 
 pronounced may be communicated to surrounding objects, and espe- 
 cially to another organism whose individual tone is less masterful, 
 and which is distinguished by passive mobility and readiness to 
 be modified. The influence no doubt is reciprocal, but it is the 
 ' H. de Parville, " L'Electricit^ et ses Applications," p. 17. Paris, 1882. 
 
THE LA W OF REVERSIBILITY. 333 
 
 stronger, the more largely constant, the more invasive modality 
 that gives the tone. And then an extrane contact will produce 
 either a dissonance unpleasant to the subject, or no effect at all, 
 according to the firmness (solidM) of the dominant tone. When 
 the effect is nil, we have to do with a strong, decisive current that 
 withstands all interruption. The more the dynamic union is insured 
 by contact, by repeated passes, by the physiological submission of 
 the subject, the less is transmission balked and the less resistance 
 it meets. Some kinds of motion — heat, electricity — can be commu- 
 nicated without perceptible modification ; others are transformed. 
 
 But neither the principle of communication nor that of trans- 
 formation would be of much use in explaining mental suggestion, 
 were they not complemented by another principle which may be 
 stated in a general law of physics. 
 
 This we call the law of reversibility} 
 
 We already know that all motion propagates itself (law of trans- 
 mission); that all propagated force, when it meets resistance, is 
 transformed (law of transformation); but we do not know what 
 comes to pass on a second or a third transformation. Now it may 
 happen that a motion twice transformed shall regain its original char- 
 acter. Under what circumstances might that happen ? It might 
 happen if the communicated motion were to find a medium of the 
 same kind as at its starting-point. Such is the law of reversibility. 
 
 According to that principle a transformation is always reversible. 
 
 The thing seems, in theory, quite natural, but we must not forget 
 that it is less evident in practice, for but rarely do the same con- 
 ditions accompany a reiterated transformation. Electricity was for 
 a long time produced by friction without ever a thought that fric- 
 tion, in turn, can be produced by electricity. The phonautograph, 
 /. e., the mechanical action of speech, was long known before men 
 suspected that a mechanical action, in turn, may reproduce speech 
 in Edison's phonograph. 
 
 Years ago it was known that under the influence of electricity the 
 conductivity of glass as regards light may be changed ; but it is not 
 long since it was found that, inversely, light can alter the electric 
 conductivity of selenium. 
 
 Hence may be seen the utility of a law which assures us in advance 
 that if the effect A can be produced by the cause B, then, inversely, the effect 
 B can be produced by the cause A. 
 
 If mechanical work produces heat, inversely heat can produce 
 mechanical work. Savages turned the first of these facts to account, 
 the second was never seriously applied till the invention of the steam- 
 engine. 
 
 If electricity in motion can produce a magnet, a magnet in motion 
 ' See my essay, " Force as Motion " (in Polish). Warsaw, 1879. 
 
334 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 can produce an electric current ; and if we obtain a current by 
 mechanical rotation, so, inversely, a current can produce mechanical 
 rotation. 
 
 If a chemical action can develop light, light, in turn, can develop 
 chemical action ; and if this chemical action encounters certain special 
 conditions, it will reproduce for us an image that was visible before 
 chemical action, and which after chemical action becomes visible 
 again in a photograph. 
 
 The magic of science does not cease there. Do you want, by the 
 help of an ordinary lamp, to light another lamp miles away ? To do 
 so, you have only to set up a series of transmissions. You use your 
 lamp to heat a Clamond thermelectric battery. The difference of 
 temperature between two metals gives you a current. This current, 
 you, being in Paris, send, say, to Versailles. There you oppose resist- 
 ance to it by means of a very slender platinum wire. The platinum 
 wire grows hot, and on touching the wick of a lamp, lights it. 
 
 But you needed to have a special conductor reaching from Paris to 
 Versailles. You must have a conductor also to produce a reversed 
 transformation of mechanical motion in a dynamo connected with an 
 electric motor. One is needed also for reversed telephonic tran.smis- 
 sion. But a more surprising thing is, that there is a way of reproduc- 
 ing speech at a distance without conducting wires. 
 
 You substitute for the wire a ray of light. 
 
 Here is the principle of the photophone : A ray of light is reflected 
 by a very thin mirror and projected to a distant point. Back of the 
 mirror is fixed a mouthpiece. By speaking into the mouthpiece you 
 cause the mirror to vibrate. A vibrating mirror modifies the reflection 
 of light. The light that reaches the other station is modified by your 
 speech, has your speech to carry, not as speech, but as represented in 
 its mechanical correlate. It reaches the station and impinges on a 
 lamina of selenium. The selenium is traversed by a local current. 
 But the lamina of selenium offers to this current a resistance greater 
 or less in proportion to the brightness of the ray that impinges upon 
 it. This constantly modified current you pass into a telephone ; it 
 causes the disk of the telephone to vibrate according to the modifica- 
 tions it undergoes — and it reproduces your speech. 
 
 Is it possible that a ray of light may transmit speech ? Most 
 assuredly, for the thing has been done by Bell and Tainter. But 
 what physicist 20 years ago would have admitted it.? 
 
 Let us note what takes place when this experiment is performed. 
 Your brain gives your thought, transformed, to the nerves ; the 
 nerves transmit it to the muscles and the vocal chords, they to the 
 atmosphere, the atmosphere to the mirror, the mirror to the beam of 
 light, i. e., to the ether, the ether to the selenium, the selenium to the 
 battery current, the current to the electro-magnet of the telephone, 
 
THE LA W OF REVERSIBILITY. 335 
 
 the electro-magnet to the vibratory disk, the disk to the air, the air to 
 the tympanic membrane, the tympanic membrane to the ossicles of the 
 middle ear, these to the membrane of the labyrinth, that membrane to 
 the liquid of the inner ear, that to the terminal organs of the auditory 
 nerve ; and, finally, that nerve conveys it to the brain. And that 
 brain reproduces the thought of another brain. Why ? Because the 
 latest transmission has found a medium of the same kind as at its 
 starting-point. 
 
 Think you that this was never done before Bell and Tainter's 
 time ? Why not ? Everybody that ever spoke before a mirror — and, 
 in a certain sense, everything is a mirror — sent his speech out into 
 the whole world. And let us not forget that this is but one applica- 
 tion of a general law. Everything is transmitted, everything is trans- 
 formed, everything may be reproduced. 
 
 If anything is not reproduced visibly, palpably, the reason is that 
 the conditions of reproduction are more or less remote from perfect 
 likeness between the media. Find you a receiver that is sufficiently 
 sensitive and you will have reproduction. In vain have you a tele- 
 phone unless there is another telephone to act as receiver. But the 
 telephone is but a coarse type of a biological reversed transmission. 
 The photophone is a more delicate instrument : it does without 
 wires ; a ray of light serves its purpose. Some day we shall dispense 
 with that one reflected ray, and will employ any intermediary what- 
 ever, a jet of water, a current of air. Inventions are ever advancing 
 from the complex to the simple as regards fundamental principles, 
 though in the details there may be greater complexity. 
 
 But observe what results from this experiment, to wit, among other 
 things this, that light may be made a vehicle of speech. Well, in 
 like manner the warmth of the hand may be made a vehicle of health 
 or of a good intention. 
 
 The cry will be raised. Mysticism / So much worse for those that 
 raise it : they will miss the opportunity for learning a grand truth ! 
 It matters little to me that the truth has been propagated by an 
 ignorant crowd ; forasmuch as it is truth let us give thanks to the 
 crowd. Yes, as the la of a musical instrument is not the la of the 
 vocal chord of a man or a woman, of an individuality, so the warmth 
 of a hand is not the warmth of a poultice. Do not call in the ther- 
 mometer to decide ! A thermometer has no business to be the arbi- 
 ter of such a difference, any more than a barometer has to judge the 
 purity of the atmosphere, or a pair of scales to judge the quality of 
 two wines. Let us be less boastful of our science, so our science 
 may be more boastful of us. If everything could be learned in 
 school, what, I ask myself, would be the use of the science that 
 investigates ? 
 
 One remark more. While availing ourselves of the law of transfor- 
 
336 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 mation, we must not forget that the transformation is never total. I 
 say never, and I mean it. In another place I have endeavored to 
 prove that a force A is always transformed into more than a force B, 
 C, D, etc. A blow with a hammer produces not only a mechanical 
 concussion, but also heat, electricity, a sound, a magnetic change, 
 sometimes a spark, and so on. Never is a force A transformed in its 
 entirety into a force B. That is why the mechanical equivalent of 
 heat cannot, in practice, be an absolutely constant quantity, and 
 therefore it. is that, instead of the word equivalent, I have chosen 
 rather to use the term dynamic correlate. There is something more 
 than that : the universe is neither void nor dead. A force that is 
 transmitted meets other forces, and if it is transformed only little by 
 little, it usually limits itself to modifying another force at its own cost, 
 though without suffering perceptibly thereby. This is the case par- 
 ticularly with forces that are persistent, concentrated, well seconded 
 by their medium : it is the case with the physiological equilibrium, 
 nervic force, psychic force, ideas, emotions, tendencies. These 
 modify environing forces without themselves disappearing ; they are 
 but imperceptibly transformed, and if the next man is of a nature 
 exceptionally well adapted to them, they even gain in inductive 
 action, as the magnet gains by contact with an armature of soft iron, 
 to which, nevertheless, it communicates its force. A sentiment that 
 is communicated loses nothing ; on the contrary, a polar induction 
 oftentimes strengthens it. 
 
 We should have to write a whole psychology and a whole philos- 
 ophy of nature to elucidate sufficiently these subtile questions. Let 
 it suffice to say that in " dead " nature there are found like phe- 
 nomena. A spark produces a conflagration, but neither the confla- 
 gration itself nor even the first flicker is to be regarded as the 
 mechanical equivalent of the spark. The latter does but set free 
 a series of latent forces. If the magnetic telephone of itself produces 
 the current which transmits speech, the same is not true of a 
 microphonic transmitter. The latter requires a battery, and speech 
 only modifies an existing current, impresses modifications upon it, 
 charges it with a mission, without being thereby weakened. It is 
 .so with the magnetizer's thought. 
 
FINAL SUPPOSITIONS. 337 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FINAL SUPPOSITIONS. 
 
 LET us now betake ourselves to another station and observe 
 what passes there. Let us take the case of sleep produced 
 from a distance and strive to explain it. 
 
 Magnetizers tell us that their will conceutrates the fluid and then 
 projects it outward, approximately in a given direction, like a pack- 
 age of opium. So intelligent is this fluid, so complaisant, that it 
 hies away with all speed, finds its road, goes round obstructions, 
 and hits the subject. It enters the subject, and the moment it has 
 duly saturated him sleep appears, brought on by action from afar 
 or anear. All very clear, and in fact rather more rational than the 
 old-time explanation of the action of opium, according to which the 
 drug endorms one because of its somniferous power. 
 
 But in the first place the existence of the fluid needs to be proved ; 
 then that it can be shot forth, and that it can find its way ; finally, 
 that it will stop just when it has entered the nervous system of the 
 subject ; in short, the theory is not of much help to us. It describes 
 the action by substantializing it, as Mesmer used to say. 
 
 Let us look at the matter from another side. Suppose for a mo- 
 ment the suggestional theory alone to be true, i. e., that if the sub- 
 ject is put to sleep, he. endorms himself by the act of his own imagi- 
 nation, by ideoplasty. The thought of sleep presents itself to his 
 mind, finds a monoideic moment, and is realized. In that case it 
 is enough that the imperative thought of sleeping be transmitted 
 to the subject to cause him to sleep. This thought cannot come 
 to him as a thought. Thoughts do not travel abroad, but we already 
 know that thoughts send forth in every direction their dynamic 
 correlate. There is no substance carried hither or thither, but a 
 wave is propagated and modified more and more according to the 
 different natures and the different resistances of the media it trav- 
 erses. It may impinge on all manner of bodies without any sensible 
 action ; and I say sensible (that is perceptible by the senses) because 
 it were contrary to the mechanical ground-principle of the universe 
 to say that it has no action. (True, we are guilty every day of 
 such inexactitudes. We say, for example, that the moon causes 
 the fiux and reflux of the ocean, but that it has no action upon the 
 atmosphere or upon man.) The action, therefore, is general, but 
 it is more or less imperceptible till the undulation finds a medium 
 like the original one, and all the conditions requisite for a reversed 
 
338 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 transformation. A brain B presents these conditions ; in it the cor- 
 responding thought awakes, and brain B falls asleep. 
 
 " But then all the sensitive brains within the sphere of the action 
 must be endormed also?" 
 
 Not so, for all those brains are not regulated, are not in rapport 
 with the operator. I do not think it possible to act at a distance 
 without rapport. And rapport consists in this, that the dynamic tone 
 of the subject corresponds to that of the operator ; that, through 
 habit and training, the subject's brain has become quite specially 
 sensitive to the slightest influences of the magnetizer. 
 
 Allowing that mental action from a distance is a fact, is it con- 
 scious or is it unconscious ? That is to say, has the subject any inti- 
 mation of it before he submits to it entirely "i 
 
 Usually he has not. The transmission is mediate — from the con- 
 scious to the unconscious. The thought suggested does not enter 
 mto the normal polyideia ; but, having found a moment of monoideia 
 — a moment of absolute monoideia is never a moment of consciousness : 
 who says consciousness says polyideia- — it is realized forthwith by 
 ideoplasty. It is, then, only in the somnambulic state that the sub- 
 ject can perceive the process of the influence and divine its cause. 
 Often in such case the image of the operator is suggested at the 
 same time, producing a veridical hallucination. 
 
 But it also happens that the subject divines the action before he 
 submits completely to it. Sometimes even, particularly when the 
 operator falters for a moment, the subject gets time to make resist- 
 ance. In that case we have to do with an immediate suggestion that 
 is insufficient either because of the operator or of the subject. But 
 then, as a rule, the balked immediate suggestion is transformed into 
 a mediate, a retarded suggestion, and that may later find its favor- 
 able moment. 
 
 The action may, therefore, be conscious or unconscious ; but is it 
 always purely cerebral ? In other words, is transmission effected in 
 the subject through the brain acting on the organism, or through 
 the organism acting upon the brain .' 
 
 According to Baragnon's hypothesis, that the transmission of sen- 
 sations is the foundation of all mental suggestion, the nerves, they 
 being affected first, re-act upon the brain. 
 
 Viewed from the ground of general physiology, this hypothesis is 
 not without foundation. The law of reversibility applies no less to 
 the physiology of the nervous system than to physics. If an emotion 
 finds expression in a muscular attitude, that muscular attitude, when 
 impressed upon a subject from without, may conversely produce an 
 emotion. This is proved by Braid's muscular suggestions. So, too, 
 transmitted sensations might reproduce the thoughts that accom- 
 panied them in the mind of the operator. But, in the first place, has 
 
FINAL SUPPOSITIONS. 339 
 
 the operator actually in his mind the sensations of sleep when he 
 produces sleep ? To say that he has would be to do some violence 
 to the facts. He has only the idea of sleep ; and then I think that, 
 at least as regards experiments made at a distance, the sympathic 
 action of two brains is more easily conceivable than the sympathic 
 action of nerves ; and, since the brain itself suffices to produce, by 
 centrifugal action, all possible sensations, it is best to regard the 
 brain as the direct recipient of the mental action. 
 
 Hence I hold, or rather suppose, that an action at a distance may 
 be exerted solely, or principally, through the intermediation of the 
 brain. 
 
 True, we have admitted a physical action ; nay, a local physical 
 action. But it is almost impossible in hypnology in general to elim- 
 inate the co-operation of the brain, that is, of ideoplasty or of sen- 
 sorial reflex action. You may, indeed, act upon one member sepa- 
 rately ; you may paralyze a single finger, or a single ear; but we 
 must not be led astray by an apparent local action produced by 
 passes, or by the hand, a magnet, metals, or sundry medicinal sub- 
 stances when brought near to the subject : even when the brain 
 seems to be in deep sleep it may re-act through reversed ideorganic 
 associations. Only one kind of local physical action seems to be 
 admissible — the kind analogous to the communication of heat. I 
 can warm a cold hand by holding it between my own warm hands, 
 and then the action is not reflex, but purely physical. Probably 
 there are other physical transmissions of the same sort. It is prob- 
 able that a hand well supplied with blood, well fed by the normal 
 currents of the muscles and nerves, a hand that transpires in the 
 normal way, that, in short, is perfectly equilibrated in the sum of its 
 molecular vibrations — it is theoretically probable, and true in fact, 
 that such a hand can communicate its tone to a diseased part ; can, 
 by induction, revive a slowed molecular motion or a languid physio- 
 logical exchange of matter ; can stay dynamic excess of the vital 
 processes, and can restore equilibrium when it is disturbed. 
 
 I can understand how all this may be done, even at a little 
 distance, if the hand be directed toward the part affected. But I 
 cannot well see how similar action can be performed from a great 
 distance or from the opposite side of a wall ; and I think that in 
 such case there is no longer direct physical communication, but 
 rather cerebral suggestion ; and if Mesmer's subject (p. 260 supra) 
 sensed at the other side of a wall the movements of the magnetizer's 
 arms, he perhaps did so in virtue of a transformed and reversed 
 thought-transmission and of mentally suggested ideoplasty, rather 
 than of local physical action. But we will not dwell upon this ques- 
 tion, for as yet it is not susceptible of thorough discussion. Never- 
 theless here are some inferences that I think may be drawn from several 
 
340 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 of my experiments as well as from the experiments of Bertrand and 
 other authors. 
 
 Contrary to what we should expect according to the theory of the 
 exaltation of the senses, mental suggestion seems to be most success- 
 ful when the senses are paralyzed. Then, too, we are certainly in 
 presence of true thought-transmission. There is an exaltation of the 
 brain — a quite special exaltation that we shall presently endeavor to 
 make clear ; but there is no exaltation of the senses. 
 
 The question here mooted is full of difficulty, and I present my 
 hypotheses concerning it with all reserve. 
 
 Mesmer, it seems to me, was once again right in regard to this. 
 He held that the subject whose senses are absolutely paralyzed (as 
 happens now and then in catalepsy and in ectasy), nevertheless hears 
 his magnetizer, hears him by mental suggestion} Speech, though 
 uttered viva voce, directly impresses his brain, not his ear. It might 
 happen that thought without speech would be insufficient to influence 
 the subject, but even so the hypothesis would stand, for the trans- 
 mission might be too weak unless aided by speech. 
 
 Mesmer was partly in error : he made too wide a generalization. 
 He believed that in all cases whenever the subject hears only his mag- 
 netizer, he hears him mentally. But as we have seen, the phenome- 
 non of rapport can in some measure be explained by a specific 
 impressionability, by an elective perception, and we must always recur 
 to influences that are known before we have recourse to an essen- 
 tially new hypothesis. And yet, if instead of a relative anaesthesia 
 we find absolute and general insensibility, so that a pistol fired 
 suddenly alongside the ear of the subject produces no impression, no 
 reflex motion, it is difficult indeed to understand how a word from 
 the magnetizer, spoken also unexpectedly, and even with a change of 
 voice, is heard perfectly well. 
 
 It is probable, then, that there are two kinds of mental suggestion : 
 one conditioned on an exaltation of the senses — an exaltation with 
 respect to sensations coming from the part of the magnetizer, consti- 
 tuting rapport ; and another conditioned on complete paralysis of the 
 senses, with a quite exceptional exaltation of the brain. 
 
 In the latter case there is always a sort of fever localized in the 
 brain alone. The head is hot. Oue would say that all the nerve 
 force is concentrated in the hemispheres. There is hyperaemia, but 
 hyperaemia of a special sort — hyperaemia from electric tension^ one 
 might call it ; it does not oppress the brain, it only gives it an excess 
 of available, but latent vitality. The circulation is not rapid, but 
 it may at any moment become more rapid than usual under the 
 influence of the slightest excitation. 
 
 ' Puysegur, it will be remembered, mentions the case of a deaf patient who made 
 answer to mental questions. 
 
FINAL SUPPOSITIONS. 341 
 
 If it is the action of the vaso-constrictors that regulates the capillary 
 circulation, then in this case we must concede to them an extraordi- 
 nary mobility of excitation and relaxation. As for the electrical 
 phenomena, they might be explained as follows : The classic researches 
 of Du Bois-Reymond have shown that the currents proper to the 
 nerves as well as to the muscles undergo a reduction of tension 
 iaffaiblissement) during nerve-action proper ; that is, that a given 
 quantity of energy manifests itself, now under the form of nerve- 
 action, anon under the form of elec'tric action. In the case we are 
 considering the psychic nerve-action is null ; but it may become very 
 intense. Consequently, there must exist in the brain an exceptional 
 electric tension, which, however, may disappeai rapidly, and which 
 in general is subject to great momentary changes. When the brain 
 is in aideia the electric tension is high, and it excites the vasomotors, 
 which contract the arteries. But because of the relative hyperasmia 
 and the consequent tension of the blood, particularly of the arterial 
 blood, the slightest reduction of the electric tension may increase the 
 work of the nerves and cause a dilatation of the arteries. Hence we 
 need only suppose that the electric currents of the atmosphere, modi- 
 fied by a psycho-physical transmission (as in the case of the photo- 
 phone the ray of light is modified by speech), transmit that modifica- 
 tion to the electric currents of the brain, which is, by the sum of these 
 conditions, made amenable to the slightest influences, in order to 
 understand the reproduction of a mental phenomenon transformed 
 into its dynamic correlate. 
 
 I beg the reader not to be over-critical of this little excursion into 
 the region of the invisible. It may be that things are quite otherwise ; 
 in particular it may be that this inward process is far more complex 
 than it would seem to be from my conjectural sketch. One does the 
 best one can so as not to seem awkward in the presence of a 
 phenomenon that "upsets all the notions of physiology." Let us 
 hope that, after all, it will not upset anything, and that it will shed a 
 clear light upon many an obscure fact.' 
 
 To that end, we have to show that the phenomenon is closely con- 
 nected with other phenomena that are near at hand and more or less 
 known. If the law of reversibility explains action at a distance, it 
 must also explain action from anear, and that should have its ana- 
 logues in facts still more rudimentary. 
 
 As we have already remarked, mental action at a distance is 
 
 ' On the question of the state of the brain in natural sleep, see the excellent work 
 of Dr. A. M. Langlois : " Contributions k I'Etude du Sommeil Naturel et Artificiel," 
 Dijon, 1877; an interesting essay by Dr. H. Haan ; " Ueber die Beziehungen 
 zwischen Hypnotismus und Cerebraler Blutfilllung," Wiesbaden, 1885 ; and a recent 
 descriptive work, full of quotations, by Dr. Barth : " Du Sommeil Non-naturel." 
 Paris, 1886. 
 
342 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 closely associated with physical action from anear and with several 
 phenomena of sympathism and of nervic contagion. Let us now 
 descend still lower, to the very bottom of the scale, in order to 
 discover the connection between the two series of phenomena. 
 
 Action at a distance exists within the individual organism. " It is,'' 
 says Maudsley, " a characteristic property of the nervous system, 
 that a local excitation is immediately transmitted to distant parts. 
 How is this done ? We know not. We may therefore designate 
 the phenomenon either as sympathy or consensus of parts, induc- 
 tion, infection, or reflex action, or by any other name that, like an 
 algebraic symbol, may express an unknown quantity." "How are 
 we to account for the fact," says Mr. D. Whyte, "that sometimes 
 the amputation of an arm or a leg produces contraction of the mus- 
 cles of the jaw, rather than of any other organ?" Our ignorance 
 thereanent need not surprise us ; nobody knows why, in a sensitive 
 plant, Mimosa pudica for example, excitation applied at one point 
 is propagated throughout a whole leaf, and sometimes even to the 
 neighboring leaves, which contract ; in fact no one knows how elec- 
 tric induction is produced, nor why a single point of an excited 
 muscle transmits the excitation through the entire length of the 
 fibers, nor how the substance of a nerve is transformed in the 
 electro-tonic state. 
 
 But in order to understand the principle there is no need to know 
 all this in detail. The principle is manifestly contained in the laws 
 we have just pointed out. 
 
 Any excitation caused by an anatomical or a purely dynamical 
 change, whether spontaneous or induced, always constitutes a center 
 of motion. This motion, like all motions in nature, is propagated. 
 If it is propagated through an identical medium (nerve-fibers of 
 the same kind), there is only transmission. If it enters a different 
 medium there is transformation ; and then it is that there is mani- 
 fested, in the same individual, the. .phenomenon of sympathism. 
 
 An inflammatory state of the pituitary gland may be transmitted 
 to the mucous membrane of the eyelids, larynx, lungs, intestines, 
 anus, etc., in whole or in part, and then there is only transmission. 
 But it may take place athwart the intermediate mucous membranes 
 without affecting them, and then attack a remote point that individ- 
 ually constitutes a nodus minoris resistentice, for here, as elsewhere, the 
 transmission becomes evident only along the routes of less resist- 
 ance. 
 
 There will be complete transformation if two different organs re- 
 act upon each other from a distance. Thus a displacement of the 
 uterus may bring on an attack of melancholia, which disappears when 
 the organ is restored to its place (Schroder van der Kolk) ; if the 
 action goes to the brain, the reason is that the brain was specially 
 
FINAL SUPPOSITIONS. 343 
 
 predisposed. I have noticed another sympathism of this sort. In an 
 ataxic patient a displacement of the uterus produced sciatic pains 
 that ceased directly after the organ was put in place. In this 
 instance the sciatic nerves presented a favorable field (on account of 
 the ataxy), while the brain resisted all influence. I have also seen 
 dorsal ansesthesia transformed into nervous hepatic colic. The 
 malady changed its place as well as its character from one day to the 
 next, and I obtained a rapid cure by a series of those " transfers." 
 
 The state of pregnancy not infrequently produces mental aliena- 
 tion, but again it may restore sanity, so that a patient will be sane 
 only during that period (Guislain, Griesinger). A pessary will 
 instantly suppress melancholia in certain cases (Fleming, Maudsley), 
 just as pressure on the ovaries may arrest an hysterical attack 
 (Charcot), and in the male pressure on a testicle may arrest an attack 
 of hysterical epilepsy (Abbe). It is known that the presence of 
 worms in the intestine may cause nasal pruritus and other sympathic 
 phenomena, and that a needle in the same region may produce 
 convulsions. 
 
 But of special interest is total transmission with total transforma- 
 tion, seen in many complaints, and which has been observed by Dr. 
 Darwin, and lately by Maudsley. There is a certain antagonism 
 between convulsions and delirium. Very often delirium makes its 
 appearance the moment the convulsions cease, and conversely. In 
 such case the excitation of the spinal cord is transferred to the brain, 
 and there is transformed under the influence of the medium. 
 
 On the other hand, when transmission takes place m a transverse 
 direction, i. e., from one side of the body to the other, it usually 
 meets an homologous organ, and therefore does not change in char- 
 acter. Thus a headache, any neuralgia, a contraction or a contrac- 
 ture, an ansesthesia or a hyperaesthesia, passes from right to left, and 
 the phenomenon of h}'pnotic " transfer " shows that all unilateral 
 phenomena, sensations and hallucinations (F^r6) may be transferred. 
 
 This phenomenon is well known in its essential features from the 
 report of the commission appointed by the Biological Society (of 
 Paris) to investigate Dr. Burq's metallotherapy. But sometimes the 
 " transfer " presents peculiar characters. Here, for example, is an 
 interesting fact observed by Ollivier : In a case of left hemianaes- 
 thesia, by puncturing the numb leg, that author produced a sense of 
 pain at the corresponding point in the opposite one. I observed a 
 similar fact in the case of a healthy young man, one of my pupils in 
 the University of Lemberg. I could produce in B. a clearly localized 
 anesthesia in the waking state. I would draw on his forearm, e. g., a 
 square or a triangle, and with my finger would give the spot a slight 
 massage ; after a couple of minutes the square or the triangle of 
 skin would be numb, but sometimes I could, by puncturing the arm. 
 
344 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 produce in precisely the corresponding part of the other arm the 
 painful sensation of pricking. 
 
 There exist therefore in the same organism : 
 
 a. An action at a distance (excitation reflected in a remote organ). 
 Note that the excitation may be of psychic origin, and that all cases 
 of trophic or material ideoplasty may be regarded as phenomena of 
 mental action at a distance within the same organism ; ' 
 
 b. A transmission with partial transformation apparently entire 
 (transmission and transformation of the disease of one organ to 
 another different one). Here, too, the starting point may be psychic ; " 
 
 c. A transfer of symptoms (that is, a reversed psychical or physical 
 transmission to analogous bilateral organs). 
 
 Rising a step higher, we observe a transmission from one organism 
 to another that is connected with it only by community of nutrition. 
 I allude to the mother's influence on the foetus. The fcEtus is chloro- 
 formed when the mother is ; it undergoes the influence of all her 
 sensorial excitations (Fere), and seemingly in some cases even moral 
 action is shown. Theoretically I have ever held this fact to be one 
 of necessary sequence, and I might even cite some convincing obser- 
 vations of my own ; but the question has, on the whole, received so 
 little serious study that I purposely leave it out.' 
 
 Another kind of transmission, a little more remote still, is hereditary 
 transmission,* which is psychical as well as physical. A strange fact ! 
 Hereditary transmission is generally accepted, because there is a drop 
 of albumen to be its vehicle and to afford a sort of basis for our 
 imagination, while people refuse to believe in transmission by con- 
 tact ; as though it were easier to conceive of a series of moral tenden- 
 cies and aptitudes being locked up in a drop of matter ! Take, for 
 instance, the case observed by Mr. Brown-Sequard : it will at the 
 same time serve as an example of the inverse action of the foetus on 
 the mother : 
 
 " The fact recorded by Dr. Harvey, of Edinburgh, as having 
 been observed in man and in certain animals, was very clearly pre- 
 sented in the guinea-pig. The mother was modified physically so 
 as to resemble the father. Male guinea-pigs in which the cervical 
 
 ^ See Notes on ideoplasty in the Appendix. 
 
 ^ For the influence of the brain on the other org^ans, see the excellent work of Dr. 
 Hack-Tuke, " Body and Mind." 
 
 ■* Certain pointers are to be found in two interesting works, one written by a dis- 
 tinguished physician and strong scientific skeptic, Dr. J. B. Demangeon : " De 
 I'lmagination Consid^r^e dans ses Effets Directs sur I'Homme et les Animaux,'' 2d 
 ed., Paris, 1829 ; the other by pn enthusiastic but spirituel schoolmaster, Frari^re : 
 "Education Ante'rieure, Influences IMaternelles,'' etc. Paris, 1862. See also the 
 chapter devoted to this question in Dr. Li6beault's excellent and classic essay, " Du 
 Sorameil et des Etats Analogues," Paris, 1866. 
 
 ""See Ribot, " Psychological Heredity." 2d ed. [Ribot's " Heredity " was done 
 into English by the translator of the present work.] 
 
FINAL SUPPOSITIONS. 345 
 
 sympathic nerve had been cut begot young that presented the effects 
 of the severing of that nerve, and the mother, too, at the time of lit- 
 tering and afterward, showed the same effects." 
 
 So, then, the operation was performed on the sire, but the dam 
 underwent the action ! Is that in any degree less astonishing than 
 nervic contagion or mental transmission ? 
 
 At bottom all these phenomena are one. A drop of albumen as an 
 intermediary is not more comprehensible than mere contact, or the 
 environing media as intermediaries. In nature there are no absolute 
 limits, all things are linked together in a gradual evolution. If the 
 dam can become like to the sire through a physiological transmission ; 
 if the embryo, after inheriting from the sire, can communicate its 
 malady to the dam ; if nervous diseases are heritable, whether with 
 or without transformation ; if epilepsy in the child can be the sequel 
 of insanity in the parents, or insanity in the child the sequel of 
 epilepsy in the parents, then why should not the case be the same 
 with regard to a close contact between two individuals — a contact 
 much broader and much more direct than that of a spermatic cor- 
 puscle, which, after all, is not absorbed by the dam, but, on the 
 contrary, is nourished and is transformed at her expense. 
 
 And nervic contagion once accepted, we are in the region of mental 
 suggestion, and we reach it, as has been seen, by a series of interme- 
 diate phenomena : transmission of healthiness, of sensations of the 
 raagnetizer, of sensations of the subject, transmission of the sense of 
 exhaustion, of aches and pains, of objective sensations, of emotions, 
 of thoughts, and of will. Will-action at a distance is but the last 
 term of a long evolutional series. 
 
 And at the bottom of all this there is but one thing, the same thing 
 that underlies the relation of the magnet to iron, of the sun to the 
 earth : transmission and transformation of motion. It remains only 
 that we point out the applications. 
 
 What ? Can mental suggestion have any practical application ? 
 When I began this study, I little thought myself that it could have ; 
 I supposed I was dealing only with questions of pure theory, and so, 
 in accordance with Mr. Taine's dictum, when I came. upon anew truth 
 I cared but little to know whether it was of any use or not. But 
 certain facts lately observed seem to be of a sort to justify an imme- 
 diate application. 
 
 First, I would remark that the moment you admit the reality of 
 mental suggestion you must make amend of honor to the magnetizers 
 and reserve to that influence a certain part in the general practice of 
 magnetism. One must not act like a machine, but must superadd to 
 the suggestive or the physical action the influence of a concentrated 
 thought and a firm will. True, the act is performed habitually with- 
 out attaching any importance to this point, even without thinking of 
 
346 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 it. But they who hypnotize often, or who parade their own purely 
 subjective theories, neglect this resource, and then it happens, as it 
 has happened to me, that they do not obtain all the results they might. 
 For example, I put a question to an endormed patient that has always 
 answered me readily. But it happens that to-day she is in a pro- 
 founder sleep than usual ; so, despite my reiterated questioning, she 
 makes no reply. Supposing that there might be some contracture of 
 the vocal muscles, I set them free by a few passes, but the patient 
 still made no answer. The patient's right arm stirred, as though 
 she wanted to write, so I set the arm free and gave her a pen. She 
 wrote this word : "Veuillez." ' I did not understand her meaning and 
 was annoyed, as she was also, still remaining aphasic. At length 
 I said to her with more psychic energy : " Answer me ; I want you 
 to answer.'' She then replied and explained to me that she had 
 been powerless to speak because I had not willed it with sufficient 
 firmness. 
 
 On another occasion I had a patient whom it was very difficult to 
 hypnotize, and in whom somnambulism did not manifest itself till 
 after three months' treatment. After a few days some progress was 
 made in endorming her, but thereafter for a whole year her sensibility 
 remained in statu quo. It always took ten or fifteen minutes to endorm 
 the patient. It was tiresome work, but I resigned myself to it 
 and performed the passes listlessly. When a year had passed it 
 occurred to me to add to the action of the " regard " not only a show- 
 of will but a positively stronger exercise of will-power, and in less 
 than half the time the patient was endormed. 
 
 True, in this particular case, had I employed the same means 
 earlier, I should probably have had no better success. The patient 
 was insensible to all the finer magnetic agencies. But about the 
 time referred to I noticed with astonishment that she was becoming 
 sensitive to the magnet (sensitive, I mean, apart from the influence of 
 the imagination, for under that influence she was from the first slightly 
 sensitive to the hypnoscope). The magnet, when placed near her arm 
 while she was in lethargic aideia, produced, for the first time, a gen- 
 eral contracture. This it was that gave me the idea of trying mental 
 action, which, by itself, never had any effect upon her, but which ma- 
 terially assisted the action of the hand or of the eye. 
 
 I know that in the great majority of cases mental action will be of 
 little avail ; but as one never knows when it may begin to be 
 efficacious, one will do well to try ic. 
 
 So, too, we must make use of it in therapeutic applications, and not 
 
 make light of the advice of magnetizers, who require of the operator 
 
 a certain moral sympathy with the patient, and a strong desire to do 
 
 him good. We must take account of our physical and psychic state 
 
 ' Imperative mode of the verb meaning to will, ' ' exert will. " — Translator. 
 
FINAL SUPPOSITIONS. 347 
 
 at the moment, so as not to transmit to the patient an indisposition or 
 a sense of depression. 
 
 Such are the general applications, but these are not all. Certain 
 other facts have suggested to me a more special application. 
 
 At first I supposed (and the supposition seems entirely logical) that 
 where verbal suggestion fails, mental suggestion will, a fortiori, be of 
 no use. 
 
 That is a mistake. Mental suggestion may be of use, and even of 
 great use. 
 
 It happens sometimes, particularly in nervous and mental com- 
 plaints, that some subject, on being recalled to the patient's mind, 
 produces untoward results. Yet, in some way or other, the matter 
 has to be settled. A sensible physician knows how to deal with the 
 natural or the morbid susceptibilities of his patient, and goes to work 
 in a roundabout way. He brings the patient round by degrees. But 
 very often this is of no avail, especially in somnambulism ; the recol- 
 lection of the most trivial circumstance may precipitate a paroxysm, 
 the most trifling order looking in a given direction may excite opposi- 
 tion. Now, it is just in such cases that I have found mental sugges- 
 tion of great use. I would add that the two subjects on whom I 
 tried this experiment were not suggestionable directly, whether by 
 speech or by mental action. In one case the question was about 
 removing the patient's bed to another apartment. For certain reasons 
 it was impossible to make the patient consent to the change, which, 
 nevertheless, was intended for her own good. One day as I sat by 
 her, she being endormed, I kept thinking for ten minutes at least, 
 "You are going to have the bed taken into the other apartment;" 
 " The bed must be taken into the other apartment," and so on. A 
 few minutes afterward she began to talk with me about different 
 things, and then suddenly, of her own accord, brought up the question 
 of the bed without any excitement at all ; for ten minutes she dis- 
 cussed the matter, and at last showed a disposition to agree to the 
 change. Knowing as I did the conditions, I was almost sure that 
 mental suggestion had had something to do with her sudden change 
 of mind ; but, to remove all doubt, I made another experiment. So 
 again for about ten minutes I kept thinking, " You are going to put 
 your right hand on your head ; " " Put your right hand on your head," 
 and so on. Immediate action there was none ; but a quarter of an 
 hour afterward she put her right hand on her head and kept it there 
 for ten minutes, without any reasonable cause. 
 
 The reader recalls another case like this one, that of Miss Z. (p. 97 
 supra), who would hot go to bed, and who, after withstanding all sorts 
 of verbal persuasion, succumbed to a suggestion not expressed in 
 words, to a retarded mental suggestion. 
 
 On the whole, my latest observations seem to prove that retarded 
 
348 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 mental suggestion is far more common tiian one might suppose, i. e., 
 that it may succeed where immediate direct action is absolutely null. 
 
 That is a result that assuredly will have weight, should it be con- 
 firmed by wider observation. 
 
 Finally, we may remark that with subjects with whom direct sug- 
 gestion is possible, the therapeutic application may be made when- 
 ever a train of mental associations is to be broken or another train to 
 be set up without the subject suspecting your intention, for, as we 
 know, the mental suggestion may be entirely unnoticed : the subject, 
 though he obeys it, still thinks he is acting from his own personal 
 motives. 
 
 Shall I say anything about theoretical applications ? They are 
 very many. A multitude of facts hitherto inadmissible may, nay 
 must, henceforward be examined seriously. In short, psycho-physi- 
 cal transmission may be able to account for : 
 
 1. Certain cases of instinctive appreciation of diseases ; 
 
 2. Certain cases of direct nervic contagion ; 
 
 3. Certain illusions of observers that have not guarded against a 
 mental influence ; 
 
 4. Certain cases of alleged second-sight ; 
 
 5. Certain phenomena of veridical hallucination, hard to believe, 
 but in some instances well attested ; 
 
 6. Communication of certain sensations in the dreams of normal 
 sleep ; 
 
 7. The alleged divinations of " rapping spirits ; " 
 
 8. The mysterious influence of certain personages ; 
 
 9. The difference between one " hypnotizer " and another; 
 
 10. Sundry facts recorded in the history of civilization and credited 
 to demons, oracles, sorcerers, obsessed persons, etc' 
 
 ' Here is an alleged case of psycho-physical transmission of a kind not mentioned 
 by our author, and the reader may set a big interrogation point over against it, but 
 let him recall Arago's dictum : 
 
 " The strange case of a north-western Kansas girl is attracting much attention. 
 Her life will be studied at the summer meeting of the English Psychical Society. 
 She is Mary Vennum, a resident of Rawlins County, and it is believed that she has 
 lived two lives. 
 
 " The Vennum family lived near a family named Koff, The latter had a daughter 
 about the age of Mary, who died of epilepsy. Mary Vennum was also subject to 
 this disease. 
 
 ' ' While she was suffering from an attack the Koffs called on her, and were startled 
 to see how closely she resembled their daughter. After many hours of suffering Mary 
 came out of her fit, and, although she was not changed in feature, she seemed entirely 
 changed in mind. 
 
 " To all intents and purposes she became Mary Koff. Where the latter's life was 
 broken off she took it up, and she was allowed to go and live with the Koffs, her 
 family hoping it would cure her. She was perfectly content in her new home, and 
 from the moment she stepped inside the door seemed familiar with the household. 
 Though she had never visited the house before, she seemed to recognize the belong- 
 ings of the dead girl as her own. On one occasion she ran through the house, 
 saying : 
 
 " ' Mother, where is my pink cape?' 
 
FINAL SUPPOSITIONS. 349 
 
 "But will not that be simply a revival of occultism and magic?" 
 
 Precisely so. Nor shall I complain, for this occultism and this 
 magic come back as a science. They may regenerate science. Latter- 
 day science is slightly at fault for lack of imagination. She has 
 become "routinized," has shut herself up in a bleak and arid region, 
 has puttered vrith petty details, petty measures, and petty formulas, 
 all highly useful and necessary ; but they never .can constitute a 
 science. A science is not complete without a general conception, that 
 is, a philosophical conception. In the past the philosophical imagi- 
 nation was so misused, we think it our duty to do entirely without it. 
 Men think that the scientific positivism that debars the study of 
 "efficient" causes and "final" causes as in fact beyond our ken in 
 our present stage of evolution, must debar such study forever, and not 
 only that, but the study of every alleged phenomenon that seems 
 visibly to lie beyond the boundary of our knowledge. 
 
 Such prejudice is to be condemned. The old unscientific systems 
 are dead, and that is well ; but it is not well that no better system 
 has come to take their place. We must advance with all caution, 
 but we must advance, not only with regard to minor observations, but 
 also with regard to a philosophic conceptio7i that shall steadily become 
 broader, bolder and more profound. 
 
 Now, we shall never attain a view of the sum of phenomena unless 
 we free ourselves from the routine of the schools, and unless we 
 attack manfully the problems of occultism and magic. 
 
 For, take note, the sensist doctrine itself holds that man does not 
 invent problems, but derives them from his experience. Magic is 
 only an experimental science set on a wrong basis, distorted, incom- 
 plete, degenerated — what you will : yet a science in its beginnings 
 experimental. Let us take up anew these studies with the improved 
 instrumentalities that we possess, with the precise methods we are so 
 proud of, and we shall see a progress we look not for take its start 
 from this alliance between the past and the present — we shall see a 
 new Renascence. I am mistaken or it is already begun. 
 
 The great discoveries and inventions of these latter years bear the 
 stamp of the marvelous as well as of strict method : disks of metal 
 and light-rays are made to speak, we make chemical analysis of the 
 heavenly bodies, we attack the problem of electric vision at a distance, 
 we bring to the front again the medical lore of the exorcists and the 
 miracles of the stigmatizati, we exhume the ancient spiritism, we go 
 
 ** ' What do you mean ? ' asked Mrs. Koff, and then she rembered that her daugh- 
 ter had had a pink caUco cape, which she wore before she died. Again she inquired: 
 
 " ' Where is Gyp ? I want to see him, I am afraid he has not been properly 
 cared for.' 
 
 " Gyp had been the favorite dog of Mary Koff, and had been dead for six years. 
 His name had never been mentioned before Mary Vennum, and Mrs. IvofI does not 
 remember having ever spoken of him since their acquaintance witla the Vennums. " — 
 Newspaper telegram, dated Abilene, Kan., July 3, 1891. 
 
350 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 back to the amulets of metallotherapy, to the massage of olden priest- 
 craft, to the magic formularies of the Orient. 
 
 So much the better ! I like well to see this awaking of a spirit 
 mature and strong to the phantasies of youth. Can it be that we are 
 not quite so sure of the soundness of our logic, of our mental equi- 
 librium, and of our positive tendencies, rooted as they are by the ex- 
 perience of a century, as not to be afeared of an outbreak of mys- 
 ticism ? 
 
 No ! Occultism is not a source of danger to civilization in that it 
 exists, but in that it has possessed itself of some rays of light which 
 science does not strive to regain for itself. 
 
 Clearly there will ever be unkempt enthusiasts whose delight it is. 
 to contemplate the vague and the obscure. But it is not such as these 
 that keep alive popular errors and prejudgments. Those errors are 
 kept alive by the aspirations of those who, dissatisfied with a science 
 that only makes darkness visible, look for a clearer light, and seek it 
 after the manner of night-flitting moths : they singe their wings. 
 
 An intelligent physician, of lively imagination, a sincere inquirer, 
 but a skeptic from scientific routine, attended a spiritist seance. He 
 went there to oblige a friend, not even out of curiosity, being con- 
 vinced that the whole thing was " imposture or illusion." With a 
 smile on his lips he put a few questions to the " spirits," just to 
 expose the stupidity of mankind. But the " spirit " took his revenge. 
 The medium's unconscious divined his thoughts, and our skeptic was 
 confounded, amazed, and like an honest man published the truth. In- 
 asmuch as science has never troubled itself about the phenomenon of 
 mental suggestion, he knew nothing about it, and believed it impos- 
 sible ; so he fell into mysticism, became a spiritist, and is engaged in 
 propagating the contagion. 
 
 Science lost a useful man. Why ? Because from vanity, or from 
 over-confidence, it disregarded the discoveries of its fallen rival. 
 
 No ; mental suggestion does not favor occultism, on the contrary it 
 banishes it. And once recognized, once regenerated by positive 
 science, it will interpret to us, in language more forceful and more 
 worthy of our age, the mysterious echo of ancient truths. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note on a Criterion of Hypnotic Sensibility ; The Hypnoscope ; 
 A New Method of Diagnosis. By J. Ochorowicz. Presented 
 to the (Paris) Biological Society by Mr. Ch. Richet, May 17, 
 1884. 
 
 I have the honor to present to the Society the results of my re- 
 searches made in 1880-82 in the University of Lemberg, in Cracow, in 
 Warsaw, in the Tatra mountains, and during the last two years in 
 Paris. As I consider them to be of some practical value, I propose to 
 give a brief account of them before publishing the observations in 
 detail. I will point out the advantages to be gained for physiology 
 and medicine from the physiological action of the magnet. That 
 action, as I am well aware, is by no means accepted by all ; but from 
 the empiric point of view, which I am at this moment taking, I can 
 leave to the reader the liberty of looking on this action as purely 
 psychic or suggestional : the results will be none the less true, none 
 the less important. 
 
 The form of magnet that I have definitively settled upon as the best 
 for practical use, is much like Joule's electro-magnet, differing from it 
 in that in mine the lines of force are inside instead of outside of the 
 magnetized tube. To distinguish the style of magnet that I employ 
 from all others, to avoid repetition, and to indicate the purpose for 
 which it is used, I call this little apparatus a "hypnoscope." I hope 
 it will, before long, find its place in medical practice alongside Weber's 
 sesthesiometer. 
 
 The advantage gained by the use of the hypnoscope is twofold : 
 
 1. It gives us the criterion of hypnotic sensibility, /. <?., facilitates 
 greatly investigation of the phenomena of hypnotism ; 
 
 2. It gives to the physician a new means of diagnosis in nervous 
 disorders. 
 
 The mode of applying it is as follows : the index finger of the 
 person to be tested is introduced into the tube of the hypnoscope so 
 as to touch both poles at once ; after two minutes the finger is with- 
 drawn and the effects produced in the finger are examined. 
 
352 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 In seventy persons in one hundred taken at random no change will 
 be observed. In about thirty, two kinds of effects will be noticed : 
 subjective effects and objective. The former consist of subjective 
 sensations, chiefly these : a feeling as of a breath of cool or warm air, 
 a tingling or pricking sensation, a feeling as if the skin were puffed 
 out, numbness of the muscles, pains of different kinds, a sense of 
 heaviness in the finger or in the whole arm, etc. The objective effects 
 belong to one or other of these three categories ; 
 
 1. Involuntary movements : uncontrollable tremor of the index 
 finger, or of the whole arm ; 
 
 2. Insensibility more or less pronounced, analgesia, anaesthesia, 
 especially in the tip of the finger, sometimes in the whole arm ; 
 
 3. Paralysis and contracture, more or less manifest, amounting some- 
 times to complete rigidity ; elastic rigidity (what Nelaton calls doigt a 
 ressort).^ 
 
 The phenomena thus produced disappear after a few minutes under 
 very gentle massage ; without massage they may continue for several 
 minutes, or even for several hours. 
 
 There is a constant parallelism between this faculty of being 
 influenced by a magnet and hypnotic sensibility. All persons who show 
 sensibility to the magnet are more or less hypnotizable ; all other 
 persons are refractory. 
 
 The number and the degree of the effects, subjective and objective, 
 correspond to the degree of the person's hypnotic sensibility. Whenever 
 the subjective and objective phenomena are easily produced, one may 
 infer a high degree of sensibility ; the sensibility is small when but 
 one of the three classes of effects is exhibited, or when the effects are 
 but little marked. But one must be on his guard against purely acci- 
 dental sensations produced by emotion. These are easily recognized, 
 for the true sensations always reappear when the test is repeated, 
 while the imaginary ones disappear, or change their character at the 
 second trial. 
 
 The few exceptions to the above-mentioned general rule can always 
 be traced to secondary causes, and rather confirm the rule. It is 
 known, for instance, that the habit of being influenced by stimuli of 
 a definite kind enhances the sensibility for that sort of stimuli, and so 
 it may be that a person that has been frequently hypnotized by a 
 given method will be relatively less sensitive to the magnet on the 
 'first trial ; but we have only to take the same course with the magnet 
 in order to bring out the normal parallelism, as is seen when after the 
 hypnoscopic test hypnotization is tried for the first time. 
 
 I would remark further that hypnotic sensibility on the one hand, 
 and magnetic sensibility on the other, may be modified, or even done 
 
 ' Literally " finger with a spring," ;'. e., one that when bent springs back to its 
 original posture, as if it were actuated by a spring. — Translator . 
 
APPENDIX. 353 
 
 away by suggestion in the monoideic state. Nor must it be forgotten 
 that " hypnotic sensibility " is not synonymous with " somnambuhsm 
 with loss of memory." The latter phenomenon cannot be produced in 
 more than about 15 per 100 of subjects, while with 15 per cent, more 
 several phenomena can be obtained without complete sleep. 
 
 It happens even that we may by the aid of the hypnoscope discover 
 a very high degree of sensibility, restricted, however, to inhibitory 
 phenomena of muscles, and in that case the subject will be readily 
 hypnotizable in the sense that it will be possible to tetanize him com- 
 pletely, though we may be unable to endorm him. More rarely we 
 observe with the aid of the hypnoscope insensibility alone, and then, 
 too, it is difficult to produce sleep, and impossible to produce con- 
 tractures. 
 
 In short, the hypnoscope reveals to us a special nervic aptitude 
 peculiar to a relatively large number of persons who enjoy, or seem 
 to enjoy, perfect health. This aptitude is not synonymous with 
 general nervousness, for 'a good many exceedingly nervous persons 
 are refractory to the action of the magnet and to hypnotization, while 
 we find excellent subjects among those who are not at all " nervous." 
 Women in vigorous health have in general less sensibility than men, 
 but among persons suffering from disease the women have by far 
 the greater sensibility. Sometimes the proportion is, for women, 45 
 per cent.; for men, 35 per cent. But it is certain that in nervous dis- 
 orders the hypnotic sensibility is great, and that of the victims of the 
 major hysteria but few are refractory. 
 
 ■ Nevertheless, we must not confound hysteria, epilepsy, neurasthenia, 
 still less anaemia, with hypnotic sensibility, which is a complex aptitude, 
 but sui generis. It probably depends on special reflex relations sub- 
 sisting between the cerebro-spinal system and the ganglionic system, 
 and, above all, between the brain and the vasomotor nerves. 
 
 It remains that I make a few observations upon the use of the 
 magnet as an instrument of diagnosis. A simple hypnoscopic experi- 
 ment of itself gives us a deep insight into the mysteries of the patient's 
 nervous system. It brings out in a minute all the weak points of his 
 nervous organization, one after another. If there is any functional 
 anomaly whatever, the patient will for a moment feel pains, or will be 
 seized with convulsions ; complaints that are past and gone, and that 
 for years have made no sign, make their appearance for an instant in 
 miniature ; the tendencies of nascent diseases are revealed ; epileptics 
 feel the oncoming of an attack (but the actual attack is even thereby 
 deferred and made milder) ; we are enabled readily to distinguish 
 functional ansesthesis or paralysis from organic, for the former begins 
 to disappear under the magnet, and where the complaint is clearly 
 organic there is always hope of betterment when the hypnoscope 
 produces any effect at all. In many cases of paraplegia we are able 
 
354 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 to determine exactly the limits of the spinal lesion by passing a 
 magnet along the vertebral column. In some cases of neuralgia and 
 of paresis, the magnet produces heat on one side and intense cold on 
 the other, thus indicating exactly the sensor or the motor nerves 
 affected by the disease, and so on. Hence it would be an unpardon- 
 able negligence were one obstinately to reject this harmless agency — 
 one, too, so instructive — on the pretext that the physiological action 
 of the magnet is as yet unknown. In the revelations of the hypno- 
 scope I see the necessity of a discrimination in therapeutic. It begins 
 to be seen that it is useless, or even imprudent, to apply the self- 
 same remedies to sensitive patients as to those without sensibility. 
 With very many hypnotizable patients remedies are all equally good 
 or equally bad, according to the particular nervic influences. We can 
 by suggestion neutralize the strongest doses of the most typical medi- 
 cines, and again by suggestion we can produce their typical effects in 
 the most unmistakable way. With sensitive patients we often bring 
 about a change for the better in an instant by means of a number of 
 simple operations that hypnotism and magnetism place at our disposal. 
 Will physicians still insist on administering poisons which do injury 
 even when they cure ? 
 
 II. 
 
 On Ideoplasty ; The Facts Classified. Note by Dr. Julian 
 OcHOROWicz, presented to the (Paris) Biological Society, June 21, 
 1884. 
 
 Ideoplasty ' signiiies physiological realization of an idea. It in- 
 cludes all the phenomena that come under the term (vocal) " sug- 
 gestion," and also all similar phenomena produced without the 
 intervention of a second party, i. e., all the phenomena of "self- 
 suggestion," or "spontaneous suggestion." Thus we have ideoplasty 
 whenever the thought alone of any functional modification determines 
 such functional modification. 
 
 The phenomena of ideoplasty are but instances of the action of a 
 general law, to wit, the law of reversibility. All transformations of 
 force are reversible. If heat can produce mechanical motion, so 
 mechanical motion can produce heat. If electricity produces mag- 
 netism, magnetism too can develop electric currents. If the voice 
 can cause undulatory currents, so can such currents reproduce the 
 voice ; and so on. This law is of the highest philosophic importance, 
 because it enables us to foresee the inverse transformation once the 
 direct transformation is verified ; and it often happens that the trans- 
 formation of a into b is fully known, while the transformation of b 
 
 ' The word was first employed by Dr. Phillips in a slightly different sense. See 
 his " Cours Theorique et Pratique de Braidisme," p. 44, sqq. Paris, 1868. 
 
APPENDIX. 3SS 
 
 into a has yet to be made out. For example, the phonautograph 
 (mechanical motion caused by speech) was known for a long time 
 before any one dreamed of the possibility of an inverse transforma- 
 tion, i. e., the reproduction of speech by mechanical motion (the 
 phonograph). 
 
 So then ideoplasty is an instance of the operation of this universal 
 law of nature. Commonly it is the sensation that gives rise to the 
 thought ; in ideoplasty it is the idea that gives rise to the sensation. 
 This inverse transformation is called hallucination when it occurs 
 spontaneously, and we have habitually given to suggestion the name 
 of artificial (provoqu^e) hallucination. In both forms there is ideo- 
 plasty of sensations, ox passive ideoplasty. This may be either positive 
 or negative. It is positive when it determines perception of an 
 excitant that does not exist ; it is negative when it renders perception 
 of a real agent impossible. Phenomena of the former class are well 
 known, those of the latter class not so well, but I have, many a time 
 had evidence that it is possible for example to render invisible to the 
 subject, even in the waking state, a person, an object, or a portion of 
 an object or of a person ; so that the retina of the hypnotizable sub- 
 ject, even when awake, shall be absolutely insensible to a given 
 object. And if, for instance, the magnetizer renders invisible a per- 
 son that is smoking a cigarette, the person, the cigarette and the 
 smoke will be invisible to the subject ; but if the person lights 
 another cigarette that has not been bewitched by negative ideoplasty, 
 the subject will be amazed to see a lighted cigarette moving through 
 the air. 
 
 Besides ideoplasty of sensations there is another kind of ideoplasty, 
 which we shall call ideoplasty of movements, or active ideoplasty. Like ideo- 
 plasty of sensations, it may be either positive or negative. Examples : 
 I. The thought of yawning of itself produces yawning; or one suggests 
 to a somnambulic subject any movement, and it is impossible for him 
 to refrain from performing it. In this way we can, for instance, com- 
 mand the writing of a testament, or even the commission of a murder, 
 nay, even suicide. In the state of monoideism, the object of the 
 suggestion is indifferent, for the subject is totally incapable of resist- 
 ing. Recent experiments have proved this, and the fact is beyond 
 question. 2. So, too, we can hinder the performance of certain 
 voluntary movements. You draw an imaginary line, for instance, and 
 the subject finds it impossible to overstep it, not because of any 
 momentary paralysis of the muscles, for they may remain supple, but 
 because of a momentary amnesia of the bodily movements at a given 
 instant ; for there is psychic amnesia of ambulation just as there is 
 amnesia of words. But it is the thought of the impossibility of 
 movement that renders it impossible : this, therefore, is negative 
 active ideoplasty. 
 
3S6 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 The two categories just mentioned do not include all the phenomena 
 of ideoplasty. There is a third, which embraces facts that are truly 
 surprising : this we shall call material (or trophic) ideoplasty. We have 
 to do now, not with a subjective sensitivo-motor effect, but with a real, 
 an objective change in the vital functions, and in particular of the 
 vegetative functions. Material ideoplasty may also be either positive 
 or negative. It is a common thing for a person after receiving a burn 
 mentally to represent to himself the pain of a burn, but is it possible 
 for the idea of a burn to produce an actual local inflarrimation ? 
 
 However improbable that may seem, it is none the less true. By 
 dint of protracted passive ideoplasty, local inflammation may some- 
 times be produced, or even a blister ; and inversely I have in one case 
 succeeded in dissipating, by means of suggestion in the hypnotic state, 
 a very definite dental fluxion of two days' standing. Beginning with 
 passive hallucinative ideoplasty I procured the complete disappear- 
 ance of the boil in 25 minutes. These experiments account for the 
 extraordinary fact of stigmata, and they are well worthy of being re- 
 peated by other magnetizers. Again, we can, by prolonged sugges- 
 tion, produce not only the sensations of heat and cold, but also an 
 actual increase of the surface temperature. In one instance I obtained 
 a diminution of 0.9°,' and the diminution lasted several hours. So," 
 too, we can lessen or increase the rate of pulsation, the secretions, 
 and in general the physiological exchange of matter. We can give 
 the subject a prodigious appetite and cram him for hours. We can 
 at pleasure fix with precision the duration of natural sleep, and can 
 cure insomnia. Finally, we can alter for several weeks the appe- 
 tences and the moral character of a subject. It is impossible to cite 
 here all the facts observed by me, but these will suffice, I hope, to 
 win the attention of physiologists. 
 
 And just as we can produce material modifications in the functions 
 of the subject, so, too, we can save him from influences that else would 
 produce certain functional modifications. This is an instance of 
 negative material ideoplasty. It is possible, for example, by simple 
 suggestion in the state of monoideism, to render the subject totally 
 refractory to a strong dose of alcohol, opium, morphine, or the like. 
 I venture even to hold the opinion that the effect of a lethal dose of 
 poison might at least be reduced ; and it would be well to try this 
 method of psychic inoculation in cases of hydrophobia and of cholera 
 when the patients happen to be hypnotizable subjects. 
 
 In general, in all the three categories of ideoplasty, just as it is 
 possible to produce certain pathologic functional changes, so it is 
 often possible, too, to cause them to disappear when they arise spon- 
 taneously as diseases. This is mind-cure, and it has been unjustly 
 neglected. 
 
 ' Centigrade. 
 
APPENDIX. 357 
 
 Persons who are sensitive to ideoplastic influences are keenly sensi- 
 tive to the hypnoscope. 
 
 I reserve for a future communication a sketch of a psycho-physio- 
 logical theory of ideoplasty. 
 
 III. 
 
 On the Theory of Ideoplasty. Note by Dr. J. Ochorowicz, pre- 
 sented to the (Paris) Biological Society, June 28, 1884. 
 
 According to the classification set forth in my preceding communi- 
 cation, three categories of ideoplastic phenomena may be distinguished, 
 viz. : 
 
 1. Ideoplasty of sensations : positive and negative ; 
 
 2. Ideoplasty of movements : positive and negative ; 
 
 3. Material or trophic ideoplasty : positive and negative. 
 
 It remains for us now to explain the facts. Explaining means 
 reducing an isolated fact to known conditions that suffice and that 
 are necessary. The conditions of ideoplasty are twofold : psychic 
 and physiological. 
 
 Psychic Conditions. Ideas may be regarded as in a certain sense 
 forces. They are linked together by associations, and their action, as 
 a rule, is manifested inwardly only. If they are to produce an effect 
 external with respect to the brain, there must be either an excitation 
 from without or an act of ivill. In ideoplasty it is otherwise, the idea 
 producing an effect without any sufficient external excitation, and 
 independently of any act of will, sometimes even counter to excitations 
 and will. Whence this autonomy of ideas ? It comes of an increase 
 of their intensity. The idea of a source of light, as that idea grows 
 in intensity, becomes transformed into a sensation of light. The 
 representation ' of a movement, by becoming more intense, produces 
 that m^jvement ; and so on. And what is the cause of this increase 
 of intensity ? This : ordinarily an idea never presents itself alone, 
 but is always associated with a group of other ideas. While I am 
 thinking of a lion that I do not see, I see the paper on which I am 
 writing these words ; I see my hand, the pen, the writing ; I am con- 
 scious of the position of my members ; I hear the noises of the street ; 
 and so on. All these ideas, sensations, and representations are pic- 
 tured in my mind with more or less distinctness. The greater their 
 number, the less distinct are they, for they rub one another out, 
 paralyze one another. When I concentrate my thought upon a dis- 
 tant sound, I catch that sound more clearly ; but at the same time I 
 
 ' Representation here = idea above. Both terms are used by the author to mean 
 the residuum of a sense-impression in the mind v.hen the outward object no longer 
 presents itself actually to the senses. — Translator 
 
35 8 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 am relatively insensible to other sounds ; and often while we wait 
 impatiently for a signal that has been agreed upon to be given, we 
 get it through ideoplasty before it has really been given. Hence it is 
 through an isolating of the attention, by elimination of extrane ideas, 
 that the dominant idea gains its exceptional intensity. It is stronger 
 than usual because it stands alone, and because it meets no obstacles 
 within. I may, while writing, represent to myjself the act of yawning, 
 and the representation will rest in my mind as a mere recollection of 
 a reflex movement, being counterbalanced by other ideas ; but if, 
 having nothing to occupy my thoughts, I contemplate passively a 
 person that is yawning, I myself shall begin to yawn through imitative 
 ideoplasty. In all cases of ideoplasty one psychic condition is essen- 
 tial : to wit, there must be a marked tendency toward monoideisra, i. e., 
 toward isolation of the dominant idea. Otherwise that idea will 
 remain weak, and will be unable to translate itself into a sensation or 
 a motion. Material ideoplasty betokens a still more pronounced state 
 of monoideism. Material ideoplasty cannot be produced save in the 
 perfect hypnotic state (though that be but momentary), and by vig- 
 orous and prolonged monoideic action. Then it is that the idea attains 
 the maximum of its potency, and reigns supreme. All extrane sensa- 
 tions are done away, and the mind is become tabula rasa whereon the 
 suggested idea is reflected with unwonted intensity. The dominant 
 idea then controls the entire nervous system. 
 
 But how can the idea of a haemorrhage, for example, which is 
 simply something subjective, mental, produce actual haemorrhage, 
 which is an objective, material fact ? To understand that we must 
 consider the physiological conditions. 
 
 Physiological Conditions. — Doubtless the trophic changes produced 
 by material ideoplasty are brought about by the agency of the 
 vasomotor nerves. A super-excitation or a paralysis of these nerves 
 in their different combinations, might account for them more or less 
 fully. But how comes an idea to influence the vasomotor nerves ?■ 
 Strictly speaking, it is not the idea as such that determines these 
 changes. The idea is but the starting-point of an action, not the 
 agent properly so-called. And here I desire to call attention to a 
 class of associations highly important, but not much studied. It is 
 not to be supposed that only ideas associate with one another. There 
 are also psycho-physical associations between ideas on the one hand, 
 and certain organic states on the other. These sta;es, which are 
 physiological complexes of great diversity, never reach the conscious- 
 ness : we can move one finger or another, albeit we have no notion 
 either of the nerves or of the muscles, or of the nerve currents that 
 have to come into play to produce such movements. It is ideorganic 
 association that sees to the execution of our will. This association is 
 
APPENDIX. 359 
 
 partly hereditary, partly acquired, but even so far as it is acquired, it 
 is still unconscious ; only the first link of the chain, to wit, the idea, 
 reaches the conciousness. Now, in material ideoplasty we have to do 
 with associations of this sort. On the one side is the idea of a change ; 
 on the other an organic complexus that effects the change. And as, 
 in the reproduction of ideas, the idea that is present awakens a past 
 sensation or a past movement, so here the dominant idea calls up 
 some particular organic state wherewith it is in unconscious associa- 
 tion. We have here a sort of memory, but an unconscious, a 
 materialized memory. 
 
 And a right strong memory it is. If, on the one hand, pathological 
 states of organs may determine morbid ideas in the brain, on the other 
 hand, in virtue of the law of reversibility, ideas favorable or unfavor- 
 able to health may mend or mar the general state of the organism. 
 The influence is perfectly mutual, for it is exerted between two links of 
 one same chain of association. Sometimes a mere change of surround- 
 ings suffices to produce a betterment ; for, in a given place, every- 
 thing, however indifferent in itself, is, in an unconscious way, asso- 
 ciated with a morbid state, and tends to produce it, to maintain it, 
 favors its continuance through ideorganic association. There are per- 
 sons (the fact has been noted by Boerhaave) in whom the idea of a 
 disease, the exact representation of its symptoms, suffices to deter- 
 mine the disease itself — the real ailment. That is an extreme case, 
 but the agency that there comes into play remains. When some one 
 tells us. of a " stifling heat," we understand well what he is talking 
 about, for the idea of heat calls up in us the physiological state of 
 being heated. Suppose a greater degree of sensibility, an exceptional 
 power of ideorganic reproduction, and you shall see an actual rise 
 of the subject's temperature. If it is true, as has been well remarked 
 by Mr. Brown-Sdquard, that the phenomena of hypnotism are but 
 manifestations of inhibition or of dynamogeny, then the phenomena 
 of ideoplasty are onljr facts of inhibition or of dynamogeny condi- 
 tioned by an ideorganic association, while the other cases of inhibi- 
 tion and dynamogeny depend on associations purely physiological — 
 inter-organic. If, for example, excitation of the splanchnic nerve 
 arrests movements of the intestine, that is because these two phe- 
 nomena apparently so far apart — irritation of the splanchnic nerve 
 and paresis of the muscles of the coecum — are, in some way more 
 or less unknown, physiologically associated, as a given feeling or 
 sentiment is associated with certain expressional movements. The 
 theory of inter-organic and ideorganic associations do not, it is 
 true, explain what unfortunately remains unexplainable in the pre- 
 sent state of our knowledge, to wit, the real cause of most of these 
 associations ; still it may, at all events, I hope, contribute to bring 
 a number of highly diverse facts under one law and into one 
 
360 MENTAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 associational mechanism. Psychology and physiology are thus brought 
 together, and we can henceforth investigate the laws of physiological 
 as we have already studied those of psychic associations. It is 
 when it loses its psychic associations in the state of monoideism, that 
 the idea recovers its organic associations, that it links itself to them, 
 that it produces modifications in the organs with a force the more 
 decisive and irresistible as it is itself potent and irresistible. It 
 becomes confounded, so to speak, with the state it represents ; it 
 realizes it. One might say that cases of inter-organic inhibition are, 
 for the most part, associations by contrast, wherein excitation of a is 
 associated with inhibition of b ; while cases of dynamogeny are asso- 
 ciations by likeness, wherein an excitation a is followed by excitation 
 b. And these associations may be causal, indissoluble, or they may 
 be merely accidental ; for, just as between ideas, so there are physio- 
 logical associations by contiguity, that is, associations brought about 
 by simple proximity in space or time. The morbid state a becomes 
 associated with another morbid state b, through the mere fact that 
 accidental causes have produced them, either simultaneously or one 
 after the other. Thenceforth to call out b all that is needed is the 
 presence of a. Such ideorganic associations by contiguity are often 
 mistaken for causal associations. It is supposed, for example, that 
 " the somnambulic state is induced by pressure on the top of the 
 head," whereas between the two phenomena there is no causal 
 relation. 
 
 In this brief notice I have had no other intention save to sketch 
 roughly the general principles of a theory of ideoplasty. I have, 
 therefore, purposely omitted any analysis of the special physiological 
 conditions, as also any comparison of these general remarks with the 
 theories of ideoplastic phenomena put forth by Braid, Durand, Char- 
 pignon, Li^beault and Bernheim. 
 
 IV. 
 Note to Chapter VII., Part II. 
 
 Mr. Bernheim makes this reply to my criticism : 
 
 " I said," he writes, " ' No one can be . endormed against his will.' 
 Mr. Ochorowicz hotly contests that proposition. Probably he has 
 not quite grasped my meaning. It is certain that a subject that is 
 unwilling to be hypnotized, and who knows that he cannot be hypnotized 
 if he is unwilling, successfully resists all efforts. It is true, also, that 
 certain subjects are unable to resist, because their will is weakened by 
 fear or by the thought of a superior force that influences them in spite of 
 themselves." (Bernheim, " De la Suggestion," preface, p. iv., 2d ed., 
 1888.) 
 
APPENDIX. 361 
 
 Now, these provisos suffice to show that the exactitude of the pro- 
 position " No one can be endormed against his will," may rightfully 
 be challenged. For, first, " the will may be weakened by fear, and 
 consequently may be insufficient ; and, secondly, the subject may not 
 know that he cannot be hypnotized if he resists." 
 
 Now, we find exactly these two conditions in most cases of hypnotic 
 constraint. A subject wants to resist, but has not the strength to re- 
 sist. Or, one wants to resist, but is not quite certain that he can 
 resist, and so he undergoes the action against his will. There is the 
 principal condition ! Faith, submission, the best will in the world to 
 be hypnotized, are all of no avail in the absence of predisposition, 
 of hypnotic sensibility ; and incredulity and opposition do not suffice 
 to safeguard the subject when there is predisposition, when he pos- 
 sesses in a high degree hypnotic sensibility. 
 
 One is not a somnambule because he wants to be ; but those who 
 are somnambules may be unable to resist, unless they have in their 
 mind a sufficiently strong counter-suggestion. Unfortunately, the 
 Nancy School confounds hypnotic sleep with normal sleep, and con- 
 sequently overlooks the main role of predisposition. 
 
 Mr. Bernheim sums up by saying : " No one can be hypnotized, 
 unless he has the idea that he will be hypnotized. Thus expressed, 
 my proposition is impregnable." 
 
 By no means. The proposition is now nearer the truth, inasmuch 
 as it covers a larger number of facts, but still it is inexact. Miss X. 
 (chap, vii., part ii., obs. i and 2) did not know that she was going to 
 be hypnotized. Hypnotized she was, nevertheless. 
 
 The same conditions are found in cases 4, 5, 6, 9, etc. It were 
 nearer the truth to add that the idea of which Mr. Bernheim speaks 
 may be unconscious. Thus filled out, is the proposition at last flaw- 
 less? Possibly, but without entering on theoretic subtilities, we are 
 obliged to affirm this much ; 
 
 The facts prove that, given a sufficient hypnotic sensibility, an in- 
 dividual may be hypnotized in spite of himself and even unbeknown 
 to himself. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A., Mrs., magnetic subject, 30 
 
 Academic de M/decine,. report to, on som- 
 nambulic perception of disease, 33 
 
 Academies, their besetting weakness, 112 
 
 Academy of Med. of Paris, and magnet- 
 ism, 112 
 
 Action, mental, at a distance, 62 ; at 10 
 kilometers' distance, 271 ; unbeknown 
 to the subject, 231 ; on an unwilling 
 subject, 360 
 
 Aideia, 20 ; profound, suggestion impos- 
 sible in, 77 
 
 Active somnambulism, 65 ; unfavorable 
 to mental suggestion, 77 
 
 Angels eating turkey, 181 
 
 " Animal fluid," 299 
 
 Animals, emanations from, beneficial, 144 
 
 Anxiety of the magnetizer divined by the 
 subject, 6g 
 
 " Appalled by consequences," 293 
 
 Apparent transmission explained, 320 
 
 Arago, the word "Impossible," 9; on 
 doubt and incredulity, 298 
 
 Aristotle's question as to a sixth sense, 
 306 
 
 Ars, the Curfe of, 165 
 
 Association of ideas in tricks of prsesti- 
 giation, 18 ; theory of, as yet very 
 incomplete, 36, 57, 128 
 
 Attention, concentrated in magnetic 
 sleep, 1 1 ; psychology of , 1 7 
 
 Attraction, magnetic, 21, 26 ; suggesting 
 the idea of " animal magnetism," 300 ; 
 Bruno's case of, 264 ; attractions, op- 
 posite, 203 
 
 Augustin, St , on soothsaying, 165 
 
 Authors Quoted. 
 
 Aksakof, 204. Anonymous, Reflexions sur 
 la Magn/t Anim., Ill) Propagateur du 
 
 Magnit. Anim., 240; Suite de M/m- 
 oires four servir h I' Hist, du Magndt.^ 
 199 ; Relation (of occurrences at Lou- 
 dun), 262 ; TMAtre Sacr/ des C^vennes, 
 1 50. Arago, Aloge de Bailly, 9. Au- 
 gustinus, Contra A cademicos, 165. Bar- 
 agnon. P., Magnet. Anim., 148, 153, 
 194. Barrier, apud Charpignon, 195^ 
 Barth, Sommeil Non-naturel^ 341. 
 Baumgartner, K. N., Physiognomice 
 Pathologica^ 289. Beaunis, H., Con- 
 ditions de I' Activity CirSrale, 200; Un 
 Fait de Suggestion Mentale^ 201 . Berna, 
 Experiences et Considerations, 202 ; Re- 
 futation du Rapport fait par Dubois, 
 id. Bernheim, Suggestion dans I 'Flat 
 Hypnot., 231, 360. Bertrand, A., Mag- 
 net. Anim. en France, 109, m, 151, 
 167, 269, 290; Traite du Somnamb,, 
 108, 294. Billot, Recherches Psychol., 
 297. Bottey, J., Magnet. Anim., 220. 
 Bouchut, Contagion Nerveuse, 314. 
 Braid, Neurypnology, 221. Brown-Se- 
 quard, in pref. to Neurypnology. Bruno, 
 a/ao' Gauthier, 130; «/W Deslon, 131; 
 apud Lausanne, 264. Burdin and T)-a- 
 hois. Hist. Academ, du Magnet. Anim., 
 183, 268. Cabanis, Rapports du Phy- 
 sique et du Moral, 145. Calmeil, Folic, 
 173. Chardel, Fssai de Psychologic 
 Physiol., 296. Charpignon, Physiol., 
 Med., etc., du Magnet., 116, 141, 182. 
 Comet, Dr , Report to Acad, of Med., 
 188 ; Verite aux Medecins, l8g. 
 CulUre, Magnetisme et Hypnot., 232. 
 Dampierre, Marquis de. Magnet. 
 Anim., 263. Debay, A., Hygihne des 
 Douleurs, 123. Deleuze, Hist. Cri- 
 tique, etc., 152, 178, 259, 300; Instr, 
 Prat., 132, 155, 178 ; Opinion de van 
 Helmont sur la Cause du Magnet., 263. 
 
3^4 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Demangeon, J. B., Imagination Con- 
 sidirie dam ses Effets, 344. Despine, 
 P., Jr., Etude sur le Somnamb., 181, 
 311, 313 ; Psychologic Naturelle, I'ib. 
 Despine, P., Sen., Observations dc Mid. 
 Pratique, 216. Dupotet, Art d'Appli- 
 quer le Magn. Anim. & la Therapeti- 
 tique, 265 ; Experiences Publiques sur 
 le Magn. Anim., 226 ; Manuel de 
 I 'Etudiant Magne'tiseur, 138 ; Traits 
 Complet du Magn. Anim., 267. Du- 
 sart, 271. Ennemoser, Der Magnctis- 
 vius nach der allseitigcn Beziehung, 263. 
 Faria, Sommeil Lucide, 177. Fevre, 
 Alt&ations du Syst. Ctttani dans la 
 Folic, 124. Figuier, L., Hist, du Mer- 
 vcillcux, 168, 176, 2go. Foissac, Rap- 
 ports et Discussions, 176. Fournel, 
 Probabilitis du Somnambulisme , Ig6. 
 Frappart, Jiettres sur le Magndt., 189. 
 Galen, Mcthodus Mcdendi, 145. Gas- 
 sicourt. Cadet de, 122. Gauthier, A., 
 Traits du Magnet., I2g, 212, 285. 
 Clay, E., Sommeil Provoqu/ a Dis- 
 tance, 246. Grasset, Thermomitrie 
 Clinique, 121. Gregory, Wm., Mes- 
 jjicrism, etc., 187. Haan, H., Bezie- 
 hungen zwiscJien Hypnotismus und Cc- 
 rcbraler Blutfullung, 341. Hack-Tuke, 
 Body and Mind, 344. Hammond, Wm. 
 A., 123. H6ricoHrt, So?nnamb. au de- 
 hors de VHyste'rie, 259, 275. Hippo- 
 crates, 122. Hufeland, Kunst das 
 Mensehl. Lcbcn zu Verldngern, 145. 
 Janet, Pierre, sundry Notes, 156, 244, 
 257, 277. Joly, H., V Imagination, 
 183. Jussieu, 144. Kardec, Allan, 
 Livre des Esprits, 296 ; Livre des Me- 
 diums, 297. Kerner, J., Franz Anton 
 Mesmer, 261, 309. Lafontaine, Art de 
 Magnitiser, 180, 200, 201, 270, 302 ; 
 Mimoircs, 139, 146, 157, 180, 200. 
 Lamenardi^re, Pilet de, Dimonomanie 
 dc Loudun, 171, 172. Langlois, A. M., 
 Sommeil Naturcl et Artificiel, 341. 
 Lausanne, Principes du Magnet, 129. 
 Lebrun, F., Transjuission des Doti- 
 leurs, 137. Lecat, TraM des Sensa- 
 tions, 299. Liebeault, Etude sur le 
 Zoomagnctis?/ic, 248 ; Sommeil et Etats 
 Anal., 344. Li^geois, Suggestion Hyp- 
 not., 236. Mabru, E., Les Magneti- 
 
 seurs Jug/s par Eux-mSma, 299. 
 Mainduc apud Deleuze, 131. Mari- 
 court. Count de. Souvenirs d'uti Mag- 
 nitiseur, 153, 187. Mesmer, F. A., 
 Mimoire, 236, 304. Montgeron, Carr6 
 de, Idie de I'^tat des Convulsionnaires , 
 170. Monin, Dr., Odeurs du Corps 
 Hum., 122, 125. Morin, A. S., Les 
 Lucides d' autrefois, 165 ; MagnMsme, 
 etc., 188, 287. Noizet, le Gen., MSm- 
 oires sur le Somnam-bulisme, 182, 184, 
 195. Ochorowicz, J.; Force as Motion, 
 333 » Mithode des Rechcrches Psychol., 
 321 ; Projet d'un Congrh de Psychol., 
 162 ; The Magnet and the Hand, 263. 
 Parville, H. de, L' Alectriciti et ses Ap- 
 plications, 332. Perronet, Claude, Mag- 
 nM. Anim., 155, 182, 211, 242, 319. 
 Perty, Anthropologic, 123. Petetin, 
 Electricite Animate, 176, 177 ; Phe'- 
 nomhnes que prisente la Catalepsie, etc., 
 176. Phillips, Cours Thiorique et Pra- 
 tique de Braidisvie, 354. Pigeaire, 
 Puissance de VKlectr. Ani?n., 117, 145, 
 Poncet, apud Bertrand, 150. Preyer, 
 Erkldrung des Gedankenlesens, 180. 
 Proc. Soc. Psych. Research, 159. Puy- 
 segur. Magnet. Anim., 175, 317; Mim- 
 oires, 175 ; Recherches, Experiences, 
 etc., 175, 213. Rambosson, J., Phi- 
 nomhnes Nerveux, Intellectuels, etc., 
 315. Redard, TlierTnomdtrie Clinique, 
 121. Report of Com. of Acad, of Med. , 
 113. Ribot, Th., Diseases of Memory, 
 273 ; Psychological Heredity, 344. 
 Richer, Paul, Hystiro-Epilepsie, 166. 
 Richet, Un Fait de Somnamb. a Dis- 
 tance, 'z\i\. Roze, J., Revelations du 
 Monde des Esprits, 297. Scoutetten, 
 J&volution Medicate, 121. S6r6, E. L. 
 de. Application du Somnamb. Magnet, 
 au Diagnostic, 126, 174. Spiller, Gott 
 im Lichte der Natttrwissenschaftcn, 
 313. T^st^, Mantlet Prat, du Magnet- 
 iseur, 181; Magnet. Anim., 181. Tis- 
 sot, J., L' Imagination, 184. Van Hel- 
 mont, J. B., Opera, 263. Vidal, Sur- 
 gery, 122. Voisin, Suggestion chez les 
 Alienes, 238. 
 Automaton, the somnambule is an, 298 
 Awakening a subject by mental sugges- 
 tion, 229 
 
INDEX. 
 
 36s 
 
 B. Mrs. , subject of experiments at Havre, 
 82-go ; crosses the town at the mental 
 order of Dr. Gibert, 87-88 ; other ex- 
 periments with, 156, 247, 249 et seq., 
 277 et seq,] how magnetized, 243. 
 
 Ballroom, experiment in a, 16 
 
 Barfety, Dr. A., his experiments, 42 et 
 seq. 
 
 " Barriers of nature,'' 291 
 
 Beaunis, Prof. H., how he came to 
 believe in animal magnetism, 200 
 
 Beds warmed and beds braziered, 145 
 
 Bernheim denies that one can be mag- 
 netized against his will, 331, 360 
 
 Bertrand, Dr. A., on somnambulism and 
 magnetism, 106 
 
 Beware of suggestion, 149 
 
 Bi-lateral rapport, 28 
 
 Bouilland suspects trickery in Edison's 
 phonograph, 291 
 
 Braid on difference between hypnotism 
 and magnetism, 220 ; his researches on 
 phrenology, 224 
 
 Brain, action of, on brain, 338 
 
 Brown-Sequard's criticism of mental sug- 
 gestion, 326 ; transmission of accidental 
 lesions, 344 
 
 Bruno, his study of magnetism, 129 et 
 seq.; on magnetic attraction, 264 
 
 Bucaille, Mary, 109 
 
 C, Prince, a magnetic subject, 29 
 
 Cabanis's dictum, 298 
 
 Capivaccius, 145 
 
 Castellan, story of, 233 et seq. 
 
 Caston, Vicomte de, 17 
 
 Catalepsy and lethargy, 36-7 
 
 Cats, sleeping, discern differences in 
 
 touch, II 
 Cazot, a magnetic subject, 229 
 Celine, a magnetic subject, 113 
 Cevennes, Shakers of the, 150 
 Chance, brings amazing coincidences, 5 
 Charcot, his "three phases," 251 
 Chevalier, Mrs. , a magnetic subject, 226 
 Cholera, most fatal to hypnotizable per- 
 sons, 124 
 Clairvoyance, 31 
 
 Clarissa, somnambulist, her feats, 180 
 Collusion, Mabru's explanation of som- 
 nambulism, 298 
 
 Comet, Dr., how convinced of the reality 
 
 of animal magnetism, 188 
 Common sense, a variable quantity, 6 ; 
 
 proved fallacious, 6 
 Communication between minds, 1 52 
 Community of sensations, 157 et seq ; of 
 
 minds, 164 
 Complementary imagination, 23 
 Concentration, a character of magnetic 
 
 somnambulism, 213 
 Conjecture, suggestion by, 12, 16 
 Consequences must not arrest the search 
 
 for truth, 293 
 Contagion, psychic, nervic, physical 
 
 nervic, 117, 135, 141-2 
 Convulsionaries of Saint-Medard, log, 
 
 150 
 Crime, somnambules ordered to com- 
 mit, 293 
 Crisis in magnetism, no 
 Cumberland and "mind-reading," 40 
 Cumberlandism, factors of success in, 42 
 Currents, magnetic, 25 ; tonic, 130 ; of 
 
 air, sensation of, in presence of some 
 
 patients, 120 
 
 D., Count Paul de, a. magnetic subject, 
 
 28„2I5 
 
 D., Countess, a magnetic subject, 29 
 
 D., Mrs., a magnetic subject, 51-6, 244 
 
 Dampierre, Marquis de, on magnetizing 
 an unwilling subject, 262 
 
 David, King, 145 
 
 Deferred suggestions, 249 
 
 Deleuze, opposed to magnetic experi- 
 ments, 178 
 
 Demagnetization, 302 
 
 Descartes on action of mind on matter, 
 296 
 
 Desjardins, his condemnation of hypnot- 
 ism, 298 
 
 Despine, Jr. , Dr. P. , his " Natural 
 Psychology,'' 106; his theory of 
 thought-transmission, 311 ; his uni- 
 versal fluid, 314 
 
 Despine, Sr., his experiments, i\\,etstq. 
 
 Determinism, 53 
 
 Diagnosing diseases, 118 ; by the coun- 
 tenance, 289 
 
 Discoverers of forgotten facts, 175 
 
 Disease, divined by touch, 32 ; symptoms 
 of, transmitted, 34 ; diseased organs 
 
366 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 betokened by sensations of heat or cold 
 and otherwise, I20, 131 etscq.; diseases 
 "cairght" by magnetizers, 118, 137 ; 
 divined by somnambules, 107 et seq. , 
 produced by ideorganic association, 12S ; 
 specific odors of, 122 ; sympathism of, 
 
 295 
 Donato, and his subject, Lucile, 21 et 
 seq. ; experiment in mental suggestion, 
 203 et seq 
 Dreaming and the waking state, 12 
 Du Bois-Reymond's multiplier, 328 
 Du Potet on magnetization by contact, 
 137-8; without contact, 139; experi- 
 ments by, 238 et seq.; on action at a 
 distance, 265-7 
 Dynamic ghost, 48 ; correlate, 331, 336 
 
 Education, magnetic, 21, '2,'Ti'et seq. 
 
 Elective anaesthesia, 221 
 
 Electricity, development of, accompanies 
 every action in Nature, 332 ; and 
 galvanism, their analogies in animal 
 magnetism, 160 
 
 Envelope trick, 18 
 
 Equilibration between organisms, 143 
 
 Equilibrium, nervic, 34 
 
 Errors, popular, often based on truth, 309 
 
 Exaltation of senses unfavorable to men- 
 tal action, 338 ; exalted perception, 
 286, 322 
 
 Exhaustion, fatigue, etc., of the magne- 
 tizer, 133-4 
 
 Explanation, scientific, meaning of, 320 
 
 Experiments always instructive, 10 
 
 Expression, natural and involuntary, of 
 thought, 321 
 
 Extranes, action of, not perceived by 
 magnetic subject, 149, 222 
 
 Familiar spirit, 297 
 
 Faria, his method, 177 
 
 Fascination, 29, 86 
 
 Fluid, magnetic, 25 ; universal, theory 
 of a, 303 ; vital, 302 ; fluid-emission 
 theory of magnetism, 301 ; fluidic ac- 
 tion, 38 
 
 Foissac, challenge to the Acad, of Med., 
 112 ; experiments, 229 
 
 Force, molecular motion, 329 ; and in- 
 ertia, the terms, 330 
 
 Fraud, unconscious, vitiating experi- 
 ments, 5 
 
 Gall's phrenology, 224 
 
 Gaston, Prince, what he witnessed at 
 Loudun, 167 
 
 Georget, converted to belief in magnet- 
 ism, 269 
 
 Gestures, use of, in magnetism, 196 
 
 Ghost of a book, 47 
 
 Gibert, see Janet 
 
 Giving one's aches to another, 33 
 
 Grandier, Urban, convicted of sorcery, 
 168 et seq. 
 
 Guyon, Mme., 106 ; as a mind-reader, 173 
 
 Habit, effects of, passing for effects of 
 suggestion, 19-21 
 
 Hair, diagnosis by, 126 
 
 Hands, exhaustion of the, 102 
 
 Hartmann's Unconscious, the great praes- 
 tigiator, 18 
 
 Havre, experiments at, 81-97 ; conditions 
 of, 83 
 
 Headache transmitted and retransmitted, 
 loi 
 
 Health transmissible, 142 
 
 Hereditary transmission, 344 
 
 Hericourt's action from a distance, 276 
 
 Hughes, and the microphone, 24 
 
 Husson's report to the Acad, of Med. on 
 magnetism, 113 
 
 Hyperacusia, 22 
 
 Hypnoscope, a means of diagnosis, 351 
 et seq. 
 
 Hypnotic monomania, 86 ; sensibility, 
 not conditioned on hysteria, 166 
 
 Hypnotism, different from animal mag- 
 netism, 10, II, 26, 223, 302, 326; as 
 a medical agent, 31 
 
 Hysteria not a condition of hypnotic sen- 
 sibility, 166 
 
 Ideas, association of, with physical states, 
 128; see Association; producing sensa- 
 tions, 357 
 
 Ideoplasty, 25 ; defined, 354 ; passive, 
 353 ; positive and negative, 355 ; of 
 movements, 355 ; material, or trophic, 
 356; of sensations, 357 
 
INDEX. 
 
 367 
 
 Ideorganic associations, 128 
 Imagination, complementary, 23 
 Imponderable fluid, a contradiction, 316 
 Impossible, 9 
 
 Induction of states in a somnambule, 160 
 Infants, sleeping, magnetizable, 247 
 Inoculation by contact, 137 ; without 
 
 contact, 139 
 Insane, endorming the, 237 
 Insensibility of somnambules, 154; 
 depends on the temperament of the 
 magnetizer, 155 
 Instruments, stringed, analogy between, 
 
 and nerves, 301 
 Intoxication transmitted, 146 et seq. 
 Isaure, Miss, a magnetic subject, 214 
 Isolation, of the magnetized subject, 11, 
 148 ; a character of magnetic somnam- 
 bulism, 213 
 
 J., Miss, Dusart's magnetic subject, 271 
 
 La Bruy^re, saying of, 2g8 
 
 Lacombe, Father, io5 
 
 Lafontaine, exhibits action at a distance, 
 
 270 ; theory of mental action, 302 
 Language, imperfection of, 58 ; lan- 
 guages, strange, understood and spoken 
 by energumens and somnambules, 
 170-2 
 Latent sensations, 149 ; transmission, 163 
 "Legitimists" of science, 129 
 Leibnitz's two watches, 24 
 Lemberg, experiments at, 21, 25 
 Li6beault. on magnetizing infants, 247 
 Light and heat compared to the ' ' mag- 
 netic fluid," 301 
 Loudun, nuns of, 167 et seq., 262 
 Lucile and Donato : see Donato 
 
 M., Mrs., a magnetic subject, 60-76, 
 
 261 ; attempts suicide, 61 
 Magdeleine, Puysfegur's somnambule, 197 
 Magnetic attraction, 21, 26 ; currents, 25 ; 
 
 fluid, 25 ; mobility, according to Puy- 
 
 segur, 213 ; passes, 80 ; sleep, 11, no 
 Magnetism and hypnotism differentiated: 
 
 see Hypnotisvi 
 Magnetized subject, isolation of, n 
 Magnetizer and stranger, difference be- 
 
 tween, for the subjectr, 10 ; and sub- 
 ject, 328 ; magnetizer's personality as a 
 factor in magnetism, 324 
 
 Maricourt, Count de, and the somnam- 
 bule, 187 
 
 MUecins, no 
 
 Medical men's bigotry, 248 
 
 Mental action, conditions of, on part of 
 operator, 324 ; on part of subject, ib.; 
 on a waking subject, 325 ; mental 
 sounds, 163 ; suggestion simulated, 23; 
 suggestion, direct, possible only in one 
 special somnambulic state, 77 
 
 Mesmer, his theory, 304 ; on metaphysi- 
 cal abstractions, ib.; different states of 
 matter, ib.; the universal fluid, 305 ; 
 why he used the term ' ' animal magnet- 
 ism," 306 ; inner sense, ib.; theory of 
 will-transmission, 307 ; pre-sensation, 
 308 
 
 Microphone, its real action, 24 
 
 Mimosa pudica, 343 
 
 Mind-reading, 40 
 
 Minutes of a meeting, written in ad- 
 vance, 19 
 
 Mr. Camille, the story of, 39 
 
 Monoideism, 20 ; two phases of, 78 ; pas- 
 sive, favorable to mental suggestion, 78 
 
 Morin's theory of thought communica- 
 tion, 287 
 
 Mother and foetus, sympathism of, 344 
 
 Motion transformed according to the 
 medium traversed, 329 ; transformation 
 of, 330 
 
 Motor images, 163 
 
 Muscles, tension of, betrays thought, 
 emotion, etc., 59 
 
 Muscular suggestions, 338 
 
 Musical notes " magnetized," 262 
 
 Myers brothers, 83-go 
 
 Nascent monoideia, favorable to mental 
 
 suggestion, 80 
 Nerve-action, producing electric currents, 
 
 341 ; currents, interaction of, 161 ; 
 
 fluid, vital or magnetic, 299 
 Ner vie contagion, 117, 135 ; equilibrium, 
 
 34 
 Nervous affections, contagiousness of, 
 
 314 note 
 Nervousness, not a condition favorable 
 
 to magnetic action, 353 
 
368 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Newton, Isaac, on action at a distance, 
 
 312 
 Noizet, Gen., and the somnambule, 185 
 Nuns of Loudun, 167 et seq., 262 
 
 Occultism and magic, sciences gone 
 astray, 349 
 
 Ochorowicz. only of late a believer in 
 mental suggestion, 10 ; experiments at 
 Lublin, 10-14 ; at Warsaw, 15-20 ; at 
 X., 20 ; at Lemberg (with Donato) 21 
 
 Odoriferous exhalations, 121 
 
 Odors, specific, of occupations, 124 ; of 
 diseases, 122-126 
 
 Organic sympathism, its phases, 105 
 
 P., Count de, experiment with, 119 
 
 Pain, transmission of, 90, 135, 156 
 
 Passive somnambulism, 65 
 
 Perronet, Dr., observations on will-trans- 
 mission, 2C9 
 
 Personality, alleged transfer of, 348, note 
 
 Petetin, how he was led to study magnet- 
 ism, 176 
 
 Phonautograph, 333 
 
 Photophone, 334 
 
 Phrenomagnetism, 224 
 
 Physical action, direct, hypothesis of, 
 299 ; equivalents of psychic action, 322 
 
 Physiognomic, pathognomic and ideog- 
 nomic signs, 59 
 
 Physiological transmission, 144 
 
 Piano played in catalepsy, 210 
 
 Playing cards, tricks with, 18 
 
 " Polarities," 38 
 
 Polyideism, 20 
 
 Poncet, 106 
 
 Popular opinions, 152 
 
 Prasstigiation, 17 
 
 ' Pre-sensation," presentiment, etc., 308, 
 
 Psychic atmosphere, 18, 21, 30, 44, 57, 
 320; contagion, 117 
 
 Psychic action, direct, 295 ; action, phy- 
 sical equivalents of, 322 ; personality, 
 II ; states, theoretically transmissible, 
 34 ; states, revealed by odors, 123 
 
 Psychical Research Soc. , experiments by, 
 
 157 '^^ -y^?' 
 Psychology as yet an inchoate science, 57 
 Psycho-physical transmission, hypothesis 
 
 of, 317 
 
 Puysegui , his subjects, 1 10 ; his first ex- 
 perience of mental suggestion, 1 74 ; his 
 theory of mental suggestion, 317 ; his 
 prevision of modern theories of physics, 
 318 ; compares thought-transference to 
 the action of an electric machine, 318 
 
 R., Miss, a magnetic subject, 30 
 
 R., Mr., a magnetizer, and his subject, 
 
 45-47 
 
 Radiophone, 261, 334 
 
 Rapport, 10 ; bi-lateral, 28 ; will-action 
 and, 212 et seq. ; diverted from the 
 magnetizer, 215 ; does not exist in hyp- 
 notism, 218 ; what it means, 326 ; 
 necessary for action at a distance, 338 
 
 Reading a book without aid of the eyes, 
 12-13 
 
 Reciprocal enchainment, 18 
 
 Recognition of a person, meaning of, 11 
 
 Recollectedness, 148 
 
 Recollection, activity of, in somnambul- 
 ism, 13 
 
 Reichenbach, 25, 48 
 
 " Regulating " a somnambule, 80, 159 
 
 Repetition of an experiment destroys its 
 scientific value, 35, 45 
 
 Retarded transmission, 163 
 
 Reversibility, law of, 332 et seq. 
 
 Richet, Ch., his experiments compared 
 with the author's, 49, 50 
 
 Robert-Houdin, his prsestigiations, 40 ; 
 his study of magnetism, 189 
 
 Routine, force of, 6, 7 
 
 S., Miss, a magnetic subject, 98-103 ; 
 how restrained from suicide, 99 
 
 Saint-M6dard, convulsionaries of, 150 
 
 Sch., Mrs., as a magnetic subject, 30 
 
 Scientific men, attitude of, toward mag- 
 netism, 243 
 
 Second-sight, 12 ; spiritualist theory of, 
 296 ; and thought-transference, 183 
 
 Self-suggestion, 354 
 
 Seneca, 291 
 
 Sense-perception, heightened in somnam- 
 bules, 122, 290 ; impaired in civilized 
 man, 122 
 
 Shakers (trembleurs) of theC6vennes, 150 
 
 Sleep, why favorable to mental trans- 
 mission, 308 
 
INDEX. 
 
 369 
 
 Sleight-of-hand, 17 
 Smells, specific, of diseases, 122 
 Somnambules, keen observers, 12 
 Somnambulism, complete, principal 
 
 characters of, 213 
 Spencer, H., on transmission of motion, 
 
 312 
 Spiritism, 297 ; experiments in, 12, 14 
 " Story of Mr. Camille," 39 
 "Stranger," 10; see Extrane 
 Subjective impression, 56, 60, 76, 106 
 Suggestion, idea of, coming into general 
 
 acceptation, 9; by conjecture, 12, 16; 
 
 by signs, often given unconsciously, 11 
 Suicide, a would-be, 38 ; attempted, of 
 
 the subject, Mrs. M., 6i 
 Superstition, the essence of, 152 
 Surin, Father, 106 ; his account of the 
 
 possessed nuns of Loudun, 167 
 Suspended mental suggestion, go 
 Sympathism, 116 
 Symptoms, transmission of, 33 
 
 Tactile sensations, 48 
 
 Taine, H. A., reported dictum of, 293 
 
 "Taking" ailments, 109 
 
 Telephone, phenomena of the, 160 ; and 
 thought-transference, 328 ; regelating 
 a, and "regulating" a somnambule, 
 80 
 
 Temperature, diagnosis by, 121 
 
 Theoretic applications of mental sugges- 
 tion, 348 
 
 Thermomicrophone, invented by the 
 author, 35 
 
 Thought, inseparable from expression, 
 320 ; a dynamic act, 332 ; dynamic 
 correlate of, 331 ; thought-transference, 
 a sort of audition, 77 ; transference 
 compared to the action of electric ma- 
 chine, 318 ; transference, author's 
 theory of, 340 
 
 Thoughts, identical, occurring to two or 
 more persons, 19 
 
 "Three phases" of hypnotism increased 
 to nine, 251 
 
 Touch, differences of, 11 ; peculiarities of , 
 under magnetization, 221 
 
 Transformation of motion, 330 
 
 Transmission, mental, conditions of, 
 164 ; between homologous and different 
 organs, 343 ; of maladies, 135 ; doifble 
 transmission, ib.; and transformation 
 of motion, 330 
 
 Truth, science need not fear, 9 
 
 Unconscious, experience, 127, 321; strata, 
 164 ; the, a great prsestigiator, 18 ; the, 
 Grand Master of Occultism, 54; the, 
 its tricks, 37, 57 
 
 Undulationism, 319 
 
 Universal fluid, theory of a, 303 
 
 Vacuum and motion, 311 
 
 Van Helmont on magnetism, 263 
 
 Vibrations, produced by thought, 59 
 
 " Vicomte de Caston," 17 
 
 Vision without aid of the eyes, 12 
 
 Visual images, 163 
 
 Vital fluid, 302 
 
 Waking at a set hour, mechanism of, 91 , 
 waking state and polyideic somnambul- 
 ism, 325 
 
 Warsaw, experiments at (subject, an Ital. 
 lady), 14 ; spiritist experiments, 14-16 
 
 Will-action, denied by Bertrand, 294 ; 
 denied by Lafontaine, 302 ; and 
 " Rapport," 212 et seq.; will-transmis- 
 sion, 196 et seq. ; and thought-trans- 
 mission, 207, 294 
 
 " Willing," experiments on, 28-31 
 
 Wits, errors of, 298 
 
 Z., Miss, a magnetic subject, 97 ; en- 
 
 dormed nolens, 98 
 Zollner, Prof., how he was duped, 56 
 
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 this clear and well-written essay, has given about all that modern science has been able to 
 develop of these phenomena. — Medical Visitor (Chicago). 
 
 It has become a matter of s<;ientific research, and engages the attention of some of the 
 foremost men of the day, like Charcot, of Paris. It is interesting reading, outside of any 
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 (Cincinnati). 
 
 This interesting book contains a scholarly account of the history, development, and 
 scientific aspect of hypnotism. As a whole, the book is of great interest and very instruc- 
 tive. It is worthy of careful perusal by all physicians, and contains nothing unfit to be read 
 by the laity. — Medical and Surgical Reporter (Philadelphia). 
 
 To define t're real nature of hypnotism is as difficult as to explain the philosophy of toxic 
 or therapeutic action of medicine — more so, indeed. None the less, however, does it 
 behoove the pra<;titioner to understand what it does, even if he cannot tell just what it is, or 
 how it operates. Dr. Bjornsirom's book aims to give a general review of the entire subject. 
 — Medical Record. 
 
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 HYPNOTISM : 
 
 Its History and Present deveIvOF»jvient, 
 By FREDRIK BJORNSTROM, M. D., 
 
 Head' Physician of the Stockholm Hospital, Professor of Psychiatry, Late Royal Swedish "' 
 
 Medical Counselor. 
 
 Authorized Translation from tlie Second Swedish Edition. 
 By BARON NILS POSSE, M. G., 
 
 Director of the Boston Schoolof Gymnastics. 
 Paper Cover (No. 113 of The Humboldt Libmry), - - - 30 Cents 
 Cloth, Extra. " " " " " 75 Cents 
 
 PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 The learned Swedish pjiysician, BjOrnstrom. — Churchman. 
 
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 . Recprder. ' . . - 
 
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 (Boston). . 
 
 The study of hypnotism is in fashion again. It is a fascinating and dangerous study. — 
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 It is well written, being concise, which is a difficult point to master in all translations. — 
 Medical BulleiinXPbiXaiieX'phXa). 
 
 The subject will be fascinating to many, and it receives a. cautious yet sympathetic 
 treatment in this book. — Evangelist. 
 
 One of the most timely works of the hour. No physician who would- keep up with the 
 <imes can afford to be without this work. — Quarterly Journal of Inebriety. 
 
 Its aim has been to give all the information that may be said under the present state of 
 our knowledge. Every physician should read this volume. — American Medical Journal (Sti 
 Louis). ' - 
 
 Is a contribution of decided value to a much-discussed and but little-analyzed subject by 
 an eminent Swedish alienist known to American students of European psychiatry. — Medical 
 Standard (Chicago). 
 
 This is a highly interesting and instructive book. Hypnotism is on the onward march 
 to the front a.s a scientific subject for serious thought and investigation. — The Medical Free 
 Press (Indianapolis). 
 
 Many of the mysteries of mesmerism, and all that class of manifestation, are here 
 treated at length, and explained as far as they can be with our present knowledge of psy- 
 chology.— iV^ie" York Journal of Commerce. , 
 
 The marvels of hypnotic phenomena increase with investigation. Dr. BjBrnstrSm, in 
 this clear and well-written essay, has giv^n about all that modern science has been -able to 
 develop of these phenomena. — Medical Visitor (Chicago). 
 
 It has become a matter of scientific research, and engages the, attention of some of the 
 foremost men of the day, like Charcot, of Paris. It is interesting reading, outside of any 
 usefulness, and may take the place of a novel on the ofi5c.e table. — Eclectic Medical Joiltnal 
 (Cincinnati). '.' 
 
 This interestit^g book contains a scholarly account of the history, developTn5.nt, and 
 scientific aspect pf hypnotism. As a whole', the book is of great interest and very instruc- 
 tive. It is worthy of careful perusal by all physicians, and contains nothing unfit to he read 
 by the laity. — Medicdl and' Surgical Reporter (Philadelphia). 
 
 To define the real nature of hypnotism is as difficult as to explain the philosophy pf toxic 
 or therapeutic action of medicine— more so, indeed. None the less, however, does it 
 behoove the practitioner to understand what it does, even if he cannot tell just what it is, or 
 how it operates. Dr. BjSrnstrom's book ai™- '" "■"» => o-cnpral review»of the entire subject. 
 — Medical Record. 
 
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 Is steadily superseding tea 
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 its use. 
 
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WIWTM EDIXIOW. - v^ 
 
 HYPNOTISM: 1 
 
 Its history and fresent DbvelxdpmbnI^ 
 By FREDRIK BJORNSTROM, M. D., • 
 
 Head Physician of the Stockholm Hospital, Proiessor of Psychiatry, Late Royal Swedish 
 
 Medical Counselor. 
 
 Authorized Translation from tlie Second Swedish Edition. 
 
 By BARON NILS POSSE, M. G., 
 
 Director of the Boston School of Gymnastics. 
 
 Paper Cover (No. 113 of The Hu-mboldt Library), ^ - - 30 Cents 
 Cloth, Extra, " " " - - - 75 Cents 
 
 PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 The learned Swedish physician, BjornstrSm. — Churchman. 
 
 It is a strange and mysterious subject this hypnotism.^ — The Sun. 
 
 Perhaps as concise as any work we have. — S. California Practitioner . 
 
 We have found this book exceedingly interestinj?. — California Homxpath. 
 ' A concise, thorough, and scientific examination of a little-understood sa!a\acX^-r^Episcopal 
 
 '. Recorder. ' 
 
 Few of the new books have more interest for scientist and layman alike. — Sutiday Times 
 (Boston). ' 
 
 The study of hypnotism is in fashion again. It is a fascinating and dangerous study.-^ 
 Toledo Bee. 
 
 It is well written, being concise, which is a difficult point to master in all translations. — 
 Medical' Bulletin (Philadelphia). 
 
 The subject will be fascinating to many, and it receives a cautious yet sympathetic 
 treatment in this book. — Evangelist. 
 
 One of the most timely works of the hour. No physician who would keep up with the 
 (imes can afford to be without this work. — Quarterly Journal of Inebriety. 
 
 Its aim has I5een to give all the information that may be said under the present state of 
 our knowledge. Every physician should read this volume. — American Medical Journal {Si. 
 Louis). 
 
 Is a contribution of decided value to a much-discussed and but liitle-analyzed subject by 
 an eminent Swedish alienist known to American students of European psychiatry. — Medical 
 • Standard (Chicago). 
 
 _ This is a highly interesting and instructive book. .Hypnotism is on the onward march 
 to the front as a scientific subject for seripus thbught a,nd investigation. — The Medical Free 
 Press (Indianapolis). 
 
 Many of the mysteries of mesmerism, and all that class, qi manifestatiqn,- are here 
 treated at length, and explained as far as they can be with our present knowledge of psy- 
 chology.— A')?jp York Journal of Commerce . ■ ' 
 
 The marvels of hypnotic phenomena increase' with investiga^on. Dr. Bj6rnstroi%^: 
 \his clear and well-written essay, has given about all that modern science has beeri able to 
 develop of these phenomena. — Medical Visitor {<Z\aci.%o). 
 
 . It has become a matter of scientific research, and engages the attention of some of the 
 foremost men of the day, 'like Charcot, of Paris. It is interesting reading, outside of any 
 usefulness, and may take the place of a novel on the office table. — Eclectic Medical Journal 
 (Cincinnati). 
 
 This interesting book contains a scholarly account of the history, developjnent, and 
 scientific aspect of hypnotism. As a whole, the book is of great interest, and very instruc- 
 tive. It is worthy of careful perusal by all physicians, and contains nothing unfit to be read 
 by the laity. — Medical and -Surgical Reporter t^\i\\a.i.^\^)x\a), , 
 
 To define the real nature of hypnotism is as difiScultas to explain the philosophy of toxic 
 or therapeutic action of medicine— more so, indeed. None the less, however, does it 
 behoove the practitioner to understand what it does, even if he cannot tell just what it is, or 
 how it operates. Dr. BjSrnstrom's book ainiarfMUiia^dwaASab£iiifiaUlUlU?''t'^ subject. 
 — Mediial Record. . — , 
 
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 Without an equal in Ji'lavor, 
 Strength and purity. 
 
 A refreshing and delightful 
 beverage, and a most nutri- 
 tious food. 
 
 Is steadily superseding tea 
 and coffee. 
 
 Everyone is benefited by 
 its use. 
 
 ALL GROCERS. 
 
 Snimer Scliool of Lani^. 
 
 AX BRTANT SVjniKIER SC^OOW^ 
 
 RosiiYN, li. I , N. i^.^ ; . 
 
 For Ladies, Oentlemen, CoU'egiatesV 'Teacb^ 
 Clergy, or Pupils of otJjer Schools. / 
 
 ^T" Term— July 8th to Sept. 8th,'i8gi/ 
 
 French three hours a day .(opftonal); 'Music, Art, 
 Sciences, Spanish, or other Language's' in pro- 
 portion. An excellent oppbrtuhity for' cultured 
 persons to ^pend the summer by the s^lt^rcater, in 
 the society of their own class,'in a splendt^ build- 
 ing, with charming scenery, with mkch or li^le 
 reciting. Good boating, bathing, sketching, GOCfL- 
 nights, spring wate^, wide views of bay and Sound>^ 
 shady forest, 14-acre ^rove. cost $250,000. "^il^^ 
 now for a summer outing in the most rural ''Sfl0^ 
 near New York. Invite your friends- OpenXpfp 
 the year as a Collegiate and Prej^aratory Sc^^i." 
 Dekarte System. TFor 18 beautiful new jphotK-'^ 
 graphs of the School, write 0. F. DeMott, BeilTO 
 stead, L. I,, with P. O. order.] '" 
 
Hi. 
 
 : PUBLI$HeD 
 
 Imi-monthly. 
 
 DOUBLd NUMBERT V 
 
 SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, 
 00 A YEAR. 
 
 I 
 
 ■"WJ^iii"- 
 
 Nos. .57-8. 1 PRICE'SQ^iH-TS 
 
 Aug., J 89 1. J 
 
 7yj^^^!S^2^^^^2^S222P^^2^^^SSSS^^S^^^^. 
 
 MENTAL 
 SUGGESTION. 
 
 OFFICE AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER. 
 
WINXM EDITION. 
 
 HYPNOTISM: '-I 
 
 Its History and Present DEVELOPiviENnci 
 By FREDRIK BJORNSTROM, M. D., ' ^ 
 
 Head Physician of the Stockholm Hospita:!, Professor of Psychiatry, Late Royal Swedishi . 
 
 Medical Counselor*. ' ' V. 
 
 ^ Authorized Translation from the Second Swedish Edition. 
 
 By BARON NILS POSSE, M. G., 
 
 Director of the Boston School of Gymnastics. 
 Paper Cover (No. 113 of The Humboldt Library), - . . 30 Cents 
 Cloth, Extra. " " . " - ■ - 75 Cents 
 
 PRESSNOTICES. 
 
 The learned Swedish physician, BjornstrSm. — Churchman. ^ 
 It is a strange and mysterious subject this hypnotisnJ. — The Sun. \ 
 Perhaps as concise as any work we have. — S. California Practitioner' . 
 jjr^ ' We have found this book'exceedingly interesting. — Ca-liforniaHgrnapaih. 
 
 I'-i;- , A concise, thorough, and scientific examination of a little-understood subject. — Episcopal 
 «!. ; 'Recorder. , ' 
 
 ' Few of the new books have more interest for scientist and layman alike. — Sunday Times 
 f^; ^(Boston). - -«■ 
 
 ' , The study of hypnotism is in fashion again. It is a fascinating and dangerous study.-^-" 
 
 "■/''. Toledo Bee. 
 
 '- It is well written, being concise, which is a difficult point to master in all translations.' — 
 
 Medical Bulletin (Philadelphia). ■ r^ 
 
 The subject will be fascinating to many, and it receives a cautious yet sympathefra 
 ,: treatment in this book. — Evangelist, • -,': 
 
 ;. One of the most timely works of the hour. No physician who would keep up with the 
 
 »! ' .fifties can afford to be without this work. — Quarterly Journal of Inebriety. 
 
 Its aim has been to give all the information that may be said under the present state of 
 our knowledge. Every physician should read this volume. — American Medical Journal. .I^\.. 
 |v ,,-c I-ouis). " .-; - 
 
 '■* • ' ' Is a contribution of decided value to a much-discussed and but little-analyzed subjectfby 
 an eminent Swedish alienist known to American students of European psychiatry. — MiM(al 
 'il;j--,':\Stdndard\C'\\\Z2LS.o). ' ' f 
 
 *' This is a highly interesting and instructive book. Hypnotism is on the onward march 
 
 to the front as a scientific subject for serious thought and investigation: — The Medical 'Free 
 Press (Indianapolis). v - I - 
 
 Many of /the mysteries of mesmerism, and all that class of manifestation, are here 
 \ treated at length, and explained as far as they can be with our present knowledge of psy- 
 chology.— A'ijii/ York Journal of Commerce. 
 
 The marvels of hypnotic phenomena increase with investigation. Dr. BjSrnstrflm, in 
 
 this clear and w"fell-written essay, has given about all that modern science has been able to, 
 
 '! develop of these phenomenai — Medical Visitor (Chicago). 
 
 ■h It has become a matter of scientific research, and engages the attention of some of the 
 
 ■J ■' foremost men of the day, like Cl^arcot, of Paris. It is interesting reading, outside of any' 
 
 I usefulness, and may take the place of a novel on the office table, — Eclectic Medical Journal 
 
 (Cincinnati). '^ 
 
 ; , This interesting book contains a. scholarly account of the history, development, ancp, 
 
 scientific aspect of hypnotism. As a whole, the book is of great interest and very ihstruc- 
 ^'; live. It is worthy of careful perusal by all physicians, and contains nothing unfit to be read . 
 by the laity. — Medical and Surgical Reporter {Pii\\&Ae\f\n3^. 
 
 To define the real nature of hypnotism is as difficult as to explain the philosophy of toxic 
 or therapeutic action of medicine— more so, indeed. None the less, hoiEfiver, does it 
 behoove the practitioner to understand what it does, even if he cannot tell just what it is, or 
 how it operates. Dr, BjSrnstrSm's book aims to give a general review of tlie entire subject. 
 — Medical Record. s 
 
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 Strength and purity. 
 
 A refreshing and delightful 
 beverage, and a most nutri- 
 tious food. 
 
 Is steadily superseding tea 
 and cofifee. 
 
 Everyone is benefited by 
 its use. 
 
 AU GROCERS. 
 
 Smomer Scliool of Lanpag. 
 
 AT BRTANT SCJUITIER SCHOOIi^ 
 
 ROSI.TN, I.. I , N. IT. I 
 
 For Ladies, Gentlemen, Colle^lates, Teaclie^^ 
 Clergy, or Pupils Si other Schools. ' ^ 
 
 igW Term— July 8th to Sept: 8th, 1891. 
 
 Frenck three hours a'day (optional)|^usic, Art,. 
 Sciences, Spanish, or other Languages in' pro!f^^ 
 portion. An excellent opportunity for cultured:^ 
 persons t^-spend the summer by the Saltwater, in 
 the ' society of their-own class, in a splendid buildi^'^ 
 ing, with charming scenery, with muchjoijlitsle 
 reciting. Good boating, bathing, sketching, cool 
 nights, ^pringwater, wide view^s of Hay and So^^pl 
 shady forest, 14-acre grove, cost $250,000: Sffiill 
 now for a summer outing in the most WfaSlspot 
 near New York. Invite your friends^' Open alt 
 the year as a Collegiate and Preparatory ^1 ' ' 
 Delsarte System. TFor 18 beautifut.nigra 
 graphs of the School,, write C. F, DelT ' 
 stfed, L. I., with P. O. order.] 
 
 j^;-/;„: 
 
 PRESS OF F. V. STRAUSS, N.- V. 
 
r^-f'EB 2 1901 ''H: 
 
 T>T5C 1 1 1911 
 
 '"'L.:t^ 
 
 %'.m 
 
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