\Nn\s A - 4|1 A* */"'*^fe^ 'V^ r^^Mtf'fm^ ^f- f'W- L*'^ S^*3 ,■- \,^'i ®0pell Utiirmitg pitatg ,, THE GIFT OF MM^nriM^^M ,, '- ..A..5:iij>4 iMuM. Cornell University Library BF1148.S9 B62 1889 Hypnotism: its history and present devel olin 1924 028 953 622 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/cu31924028953622 Double Number-^Price 30 cents. No. 113. The Humboldt Library, ^mw Published semi-month^. Subscription price, $3.00 a yewr. Entered at the New ■ York Post Office as Beaond-elasa Mail Matter. HYPNOTISM: Its History And Present Development. BY FREDERICK BJORNSTROM, M.D. Head Phtsioian of the Stockholm HospiTAii, Pbofbssob op Pstchiatbx* BoTAii Swedish Mbdioab OotJNcniOK, AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SECOND SWEDISH EDITIO^J BY BARON nils posse, M.G. • DiBECTOB OP THE BOSTON SOHOOL OP GtMNASTICS. (COPYRIGHTED BY THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO.) New York: THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO. 28 LAFAYETTE PLACE. The Greatest Book of the Century. Thousands of tj ordered every Week. EVERY ONE SHOULD READ LOOKING BACKWARD. By EDWARD BELLAMY. In paper covers, 50 cents ; in cloth covers, %x. "Bellamy's wonderful book.'' — Edwakd Everett Hale. "It is a revelation and an evangel." —^ Fkances £. Willakd. "A romance of surpassing merit and noble purpose." — Edgar Fawcett. "The vital, inspiring, convindng power of this book." — Literary World. " Intensely interesting, and more than interesting." — Golden Rule, Boston. "That remarkable and fascinating novel which so many are now reading."^ E. C. Stedman, »» The Critic. ' "A marvelous story, combined with social philosophy and a forecast of the millennium." — Portland Transcript. "That astonishing book, 'Looking Backward,' how it haunts one, like a grown-up 'Alice in Wonder- land.' The mind follows entranced." — Gazefte, Boston. " It has made a deeper and more lasting impression than any other book of the year, not even except- ing the two great theological novels." — Boston Herald. " ' Looking Backward ' is the ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' of the mdustrial slavery of < i-day — a noble dream admirably wrought out." — James Jeffrey Roche. "The extraordinary effect which Mr. Bellamy's romance has had with the public; '. . . one cannot deny the charms of the author's art; ... his alluring allegory." — W. D. Howells. "The most wonderful book of the nineteenth century. This is the best of the many good ones wrii-..; ten to make the people think. But 'Looking Backward' inspires hope as well as thought" — Tie Mxaminer. "Its satire, wd its intense feeling for the wronged and suffering of the present day, make the reader think seriously. The appeal is alwiysmade to a man's reason, and to his noblest sentiments — nevei to his selfishness."— ^0j/0» /'ojA "It is a thought-breeding book, and all who are studying the problems of the age, all who believe in progress, all who are free to receive new light upon the capacities and possibilities of the race, will find in Mr. Bellamy's exceedingly clever book satisfaction and inspiration." — A'««' York Tribum. "'Looking Backward' is a well-made book, but it is more — a glowing prophecy and a gospel of oeace. He who reads it expecting merely to be entertained, must, we should think, find himself unex- pectedly haunted hy visions of a golden age wherein all the world unites to do the world's work like jiembers of one family, where labor and living are provided for each man, where toil ^nd leisure alter- nate in happy proportions, where waiVt and therefore greed and jealousy are unknown, where the pleas-i ures of this world are free to all, to cheer but not enslave." — TTie Nation, New York. We will' mail this book to any Post Office address in the world at above prices. Address : THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO. 28 Lafayette Place, NEW YORkJ HYPNOTISM: Its History and Present Development. BY FREDRIK gJORNSTROM, M. D. {lead Physician of the Stockholm Hospital, Professor of Psychiatry, Late Royal Swedish Medical Councillor. AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SECOND SWEDISH EDITION, BY BARON NILS POSSe', M. G. Director of the Boston School of Gymnastics. (copyrighted by the humboldt publishing co.) New York: THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO., 28 Lafayette Place. (5 CONTENTS, I. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT 3 II. DEFINITION OF HYPNOTISM; SUSCEPTIBILITY TO HYPNOTISM 11 m. MEANS OR METHODS OF HYPNOTIZING U IV. STAGES OR DEGREES OF HYPNOTISM 20 V. UNILATERAL HYPNOTISM 25 VI. PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF HYPNOTISM 28 VH. PSYCHICAL EFFECTS OF HYPNOTISM 35 V^m. SUGGESTION 41 IX. HYPNOTISM AS A REMEDIAL AGENT 90 X. HYPNOTISM AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION, OR AS A MORAL REMEDY 103 XI. HYPNOTISM AND THE LAW 104 Xn. MISUSES AND DANGERS OE xiYPNOTISM 115 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HYPNOTISM. HYPNOTISM: ITS HISTOET AND PRESENT DEVELOPMENT. BY FEEDRIK BJORNSTROM, M.D., Head PhyBieian of the Stockholm Hospital, Professor of Psychiatry, Late Koyal Swedish Medical Councillor. AtJTHOBIZBO TEANSLATION FBOM THE SEOOND SWEDISH EDITION, BY BABON NILS POSSE, M.G., Birector of the Boston School of GymnasticB. PREFACE. Ohservandum sed non imitandum. This ancient classical dictum, which in our language might be translated, Investigate, but do not experiment, applies, with reference to the subject here treated, to both the physician and the pubUc at large ; yet, in such a manner, that, while the first part applies to both, the second is for the public alone. Now that the old mystical and often misused animal magnetism has, under the modem name of hypnotism, entered upon a more scien- tific stage, and that prominent scientific men. in France, Italy, Ger- many, and England, especially during the last decade, have commenced to separate the wheat from the chaff of this important subject, no edu- cated person should be ignorant of it, and above all, no physician should pass it by, on account of prejudice. ' Hence I have decided to try and give an easily comprehensible account of the development and present status of hypnotism, for the benefit of physicians as well as of lawyers and of the interested public ; and as my personal experience in the matter is as yet too small, I have collected from the best and latest authorities such facts as to me seemed surest, most reliable, and most instructive. I have especially illustrated the dark sides of hypnotism, and the many injurious effects upon the physical and psychic life of man, which may result from the abuse of it : and I would strongly advise those who have not had a medical education, not to meddle with this agent so dangerous and so difficult to control. If this treatise shall be the means of inducing more specialists "seriously to investigate this subject, and to use their knowledge as an 2 HYPNOTISM. aid in therapeutics; and if by it the public shall be prevented from playing with a fire by which oneself or others may be burnt, the object of my unpretentious work will be gained. Pb. Bjoensteom. Stockholm, October, 1887. PBEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. As, on account of the rapid sale of the first edition, the publisher has already decided to issue a new edition of this work, the author has availed himself of the opportunity to add a special chapter on the abuse and the dangers of hypnotism, so as still more to emphasize his previously expressed warning to the public against a careless trifling with this force. The question has arisen, whether it could be considered proper to enlighten the public on such a dangerous subject. Before publishing hie work, the author had the same doubts. But considering that the question is of so important and interesting a nature, that it neither could nor should be passed over in silence, especially as the overflow of foreign literature on the subject would soon make its way even here, the author concluded that the question could be most easily directed into the right channels, if it were taken hold of by a physician who has given special study to these phenomena. Fb. Bjobmstbom. SiocznoLM, November, 1887. CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT. THE wonderful psychical phenomena that are now-a-days embraced under the names of hypnotism and somnambulism, and which as cnimal Tnaynetism, or m.esmerism, stirred the world in the latter part of the last century and far into the present were known and used from the earliest times in the service of mysticism, prognostication, and religion, by the priests of ancient Egypt as well as by the ojd Indian fakirs, the Greek oracles, the Soman sibyls and the mediaeval magicians, exorcists, conjurers, pneumatologists, etc. At certain festivals in ancient Egypt, women and children were wont to be inspired by the god Apis, and so entered into a prophetic trance. Traces are found also of spiritism: in Babylon there was a belief in rap- ping spirits, among the Israelites the Witch of Endor conjured the shadows of the dead just as does a spiritistic mediiun of the 19th century. In the temple of Ceres in Achaia, there was on the bottom of a well a mirror, in which the priests could produce the image of the sick for whom a cure was sought ; this corresponds, in a measure, to the photo- graphic pictures of spiritism. In the temple of Apollo, in Delphi, the priestess was seated on a tripod, placed over a chasm in the ground, from which vapors of sulphur arose. Prepared by fasting and mortifi- cation, she soon was in a kind of hypnotic trance, during which she trans- mitted her oracles from the gods, just like a somnambule. The Greek and Eoman sibyls were clairvoyant only on certain occasions, when they had convulsions. The skill of the Indian fakir in spiritistic mat- ters approaches the incredible, and deserves a special description that space will not allow here, particularly as it widely passes the limits of ordinary hypnotism. After the introduction of Christianity, the belief in the divine origin of these phenomena ceased. They were looked upon instead as the works of the devil, and those who possessed such power were regarded as obsessed, as sorceresses, as bewitched, etc. Those witches who were inhiunanly persecuted during the middle ages and even up tc recent times, were nothing but somnambules, who easily entered into the hypnotic state ; and this was so common, that in the year 1600 the number of witches in France was reckoned to be nearly 300,000. Under the most dreadful tortures they often fell asleep and became senseless. Sometimes this also occurred among religious fanatics ; thus it is told of one of thejgersecuted Hussites, that he fell into such a lethargic state under torture, that he was left for dead, i HYPNOTISM. but that he afterward wakened to life very much astonished at the wounds he had received without feeling any ^ai^>. Some showed great clairvoyance concerning both past and future things. Others displayed a marvelous development of the senses and heard the slightest noise from immense distances. Some spoke in foreign languages, which they did not know when in normal condition, as in the case of the fanatics of Auxanne (1652) ; they could also read the secret thoughts of others, and obeyed involuntarily orders that had been thought but not uttered. The descriptions of the condition of the obsessed correspond thoroughly with what is now seen in the hypnotized : tetanus, catalepsy, lethargy, somnambulism, and often, also hystero-epUeptic convulsions. They also lost the memory of what they had said or done during the ecstatic state. In some, this excited state of the nervous system changed to real mental disease, which often took that form of insanity . in which the patient imagines himself transformed into an animal, as a wolf, lycanthropy, or into a vampire, vampirismus, lamismus (lamia- vampire). The remedy consisted in exorcism or , the eflforts of the priests to conjure away the evQ spirits, by which these persons were considered beset, and in which a kind of hypnotic manipulations were used. The radical meSns of burning them on a pile, as witches, was however generally resorted to, after they had been previously tormen- ted by juridical procedures, in which the most cruel torture was used, as also superstitious methods for testing their real witchcraft, such as the vsdtch's scales, etc. These nervous conditions show great contagiousness. In the beginning of the 18th century a single Calvinist, hailitig from a village in Dauphine, was sufficient to impart a prophetic spirit to the whole population. By a magnetic inspiration of this spirit through the mouth of some persons, who afterwards communicated it to others, no less than 8,000 or 1Q,000 prophets arose in Dauphine, Vivarais, and the Cevennes. Men, women, children, old men, all prophesied the future. Children, three years old, who never before had spoken anything l)ut the patois of the province, now during the trance, spoke the purest French with astonishing ease, foretelling the speedy destruction of the papistic Babylon. Another hypnotic phenomenon which has survived from the most ancient into the latest times (Boltzius !*), is the curing of certain diseases by the laying on of hands. During the Middle Ages most European kings and princes considered themselves especially gifted with this power. But also persons of lower rank occupied themselves vyith this convenient mode of healing, and as particularly prominent thaumaturgists are mentioned Greatrakes and Gassner One day '<' ,5o2(ziu« was a fanatic who, but a few yeara ago in Sweden, " healed the eict" by prayer and the laying on of hands, until the Board of Health put a stop to his proceedings. HYPNOTISM. 5 in 1662, the former, an Irishman and soldier of distinotion, had a divine revelation that he could cure scrofula by the laying on of hands alone. He tried and succeeded with one after another. He had a new revelation that in the same manner he could cure fevers, wounds - dropsy, etc. His fame spread enormously ; patients flocked to him from all directions; by stroking, he led the disease from the centre to the periphery ; often crises resembling the mesmeric were produced. About 100 years later, in 1773, another performer of miracles ( Gassner) appeared, an ex-monk from Suabia, who, after having passed through Suabia, Switzerland, and Tyrol, settled in Kegensburg, where he drew around him 10,000 patients. He commenced his cure by exorcism to try whether any devil were in the body, who would show himself by convulsions. His cure of a young German lady of high rank aroused the most comment ; her devil showed perfect obedience to Gassner's Latin words of command ; but then the girl was thoroughly versed in Latin. Here we see unconscious magnetizers or hypnotizers, who practised magnetism or hypnotism long before these names had been invented. In Egypt, there is a sect that for forty centuries has practised hypnotism. In the middle of a white porcelain plate they dra-^ with pen and ink, two triangles that cross each other, fill the figures with some cabalistic words, and pour oil over the plate to make it more shiny. By staring for some minutes at the middle of the triangles young people easily fall asleep and enter the somnambulistic state. Others use only a ball of crystal Similar agencies are used by Arabic sorceresses and Morocco marabouts. The former draw in the hand a circle with a black spot in the centre. Staring at this spot soon pro- duces hypnotic sleep and loss of sensibility. The latter place on a table, covered with a clean cloth, a bottle filled with water in front of a lamp, and sleep is produced by .fixing the eyes on the light in the focus of the bottle. In Constantine, the members of the tribe of the Beni-Aiaoussa sit down in a circle, amid music from drums and casta- nets, and perform first a number of voluntary swaying movements, until with foaming mouth, staring eyes, and bodies dripping with perspiration, they fall into convulsions and insensibility, during which they pierce their flesh with daggers, walk on red-hot iron, swallow pieces of glass, etc., without the slightest pain, and finally, exhausted, fall into deep slumber. Most of the above mentioned phenomena, covered by the veil of mysticism, we find again in the end pf the last and the beginning of this century, in the facts — too much mingled with quackery — of ani- mal magnetism, which finally gains its scientific explanation and illus- tration in the hypnotism of to-day. First a few words about Mesmer and the animal magnetism. Fried/rich Anton Mesmer, bom 1734, in a village on Lake Con- stance, pursued his medical studies in Vienna. In 1766, after he had 6 HYPNOTISM. treated the mystic subject " The influence of the planets on the human body " in a thesis for the degree of Doctor, he commenced to use mineral magnetism as a remedy, and explained its action by a corresponding magnetic quahty of the human body. Soon he considered magnetism as a quality common to all bodies and as the bond which held together the whole creation ; this now took the name of animal magnetism. " Through certain manipulations (such as touching, stroking, in a word 'magnetizing'), even simply by merely a strong act of the wUl, one can," he says, "produce this power in persons, impart it to others, and cause the most marvelous and wholesome effects." The magnet now became superfluous, and cures were performed by only the newly-dis- covered animal magnetism. By medical men and physicists, however, he was considered a juggler, who made his cures through hidden magnets. His letters to most of the learned societies of Europe were left un- answered, except by the Acadamy of Berlin which declared his theory fallacious. On a journey to Suabia and Switzerland, he witnessed the miraculous cures of Father Gassner and declared 'that they were pro- duced by- animal magnetism. In Vienna, he was afterward violently attacked on account of the alleged cure of a blind girl (Marie Par- adise), and he was expelled from that city in 1777, after an investi- gation by an imperial commission. He then moved to Paris and by his intimacy with Dr. Charles d'Eslon, physician to the XJount of Artois, he was soon introduced into the fashionable world, which fas- cinated by the mystic doctrine, before long crowded his parlors. How things went on in these parlors was vividly described by Dr. I. V. Broberg, in his lectures delivered in 1865, on " Animal Magnetism an J the Mysticism of the 18th Century." From it we borrow the follow- ing particulars: Mesmer's parlors in the hotel at the Place Vendome soon became the rendezvous of the Paris fashionable world. In the so-called experimenting room, there stood in the middle of the floor a round tub, a "Jag'Mei," with a diameter of about five feet and provided with a lid. On the bottom of it bottles were so placed that some had their necks converging towards the centre, while others diverged outwards. If possible, all the bottles were magnetized by the same hand. The tub was filled with water, so that the bottles were covered ; through the lid, which was provided with several holes, bent iron bars protruded. The walls of the room were covered with mirrors, by the reflection of which the magnetism was increased, according to the doctrine of Mes- mer. The patients were placed in a circle around the tub or '■^baquet," and so close together that they were in contact with each other's knees. Each one held in his hand one of the iron bars that protruded from the baquet. Generally there was placed a second row of patients be- hind the first — and often there were several rows — who formed closed chains by holding each other's hands and who were in contact with HYJPNOTISM. 7 the tub by means of long magnetized cords. Besides, all the patients were mutually connected through a cord twisted around each one's waist, so that the 'icagnetic force might thus the more easily pass from one to another. A mystic twilight prevailed in the room. The ear , was charmed by sweet melodies played on harp and piano and during the pauses a harmonium sounded its soft vibrating tones, an instru- ment that Mesmer played with a master hand. Men and women were now sitting besi'le each other, holding the mystic bars from the tub and \ each other's hands ; first one, then another began to experience strange sensations and twitchings, which were soon imparted to all of them., j Then Mesmer solemnly entered, dressed in a violet robe of embroidered \ silk, holding' in liis hand an iron staff. With majestic dignity he walked around and stroked the patients. Within a short time the ■ healing crises appeared. Various hysterical attacks took place. The patients jumped up, wept, laughed, embraced each other, beat the walls had convulsions, rolled on the floor, etc. "Those who have not actually witnessed the scenes in Mesmer's parlor's,"^ contemporary writes,y'can hardly form an idea of them. On the other hand, if we witness them we can only be astonished partly at the complete tranquility and repose displayed by some, partly also at the violent excitement shown by others. We see some sympathetically drawn to each other and loving- ly trying to reheve each other's crises. They are all blindly submissive to the magnetizer. Even though they be in apparent trance, they are immediately wakened by the slightest gesture oi the magnetizer, by his mere glance. A sudden noise causes the most terrible convulsions." Those who had really terrible crises of heaUng were carried into an adjijiniug room, the walls and floor' of which were covered by well-pad- ded mattresses, so that, without any risk, they could fight for health as best they were able. ,/ After having quarreled with the faculty and tl^e physicians of Paris, as well as with his friend d'Eslon, who told Mesmer's secrets and opened a parlor of his own, Mesmer left Paris in disgust, but was soon called back by his friends, instituted a secret magnetic order under the name of Societe or Ordre de VHarmonie, opened his parlors anew, and also constructed smaller haqueta for private parties which were in such demand that subscription had to be made for them long in advance. Persons worn out by idling, laziness, and pleasures came in crowds to his hotel, and he soon accumulated a large fortune. In the principal cities throughout all France, magnetic societies or harmonic orders so called, were formed under the headship of Mesmer. The expectations of people had no limits ; man was to become stronger and more healthy, even the animals would be better and the magnet- ized tree would bear finer fruit and its leaves would not fade. In other words, through magnetism a real golden age was expected to come. 8 HYPNOTISM. In 1784, however, the government appointed a committee of learned men (among them Franklin, Lavoisier, Jussieu, Bailly) to make a minute scientific investigation of the celebrated question. When Mesmer refused to open his parlors for this investigation, the experiments were made at d'Eslon's. Mbst of them were unsuccessful, and in the report, ably written by Bailly, all the magnetic marvels were referred to the workings of imagination. His report ends with the words; — "Magnetism is one fact more in the history of human errors, and a great proof of the power pf imagination." After this blow, the star of Mesmer gradually declined in Paris, especially after a new one had arisen in the famous imposter, Cagliostro, who soon attracted the public by his conjurings and his " powder of immortality.'' In the country, however, magnetism spread for some time through the many pupils of Mesmer. He himself retired, left ■ Paris at the outbreak of the revolution, lived after that for some time in England under another name, and finally died, in 1815, in the small city of Meersburg. D'Eslon on the contrary, continued his magnetic cures in Paris until his death in 1786, which, strange to say, was caused by pneumonia, although he himself had declared, that he was so well magnetized that death could reach him only tnrough accident or decrepitude. A new era commenced, however, in the history of animal magnet- ism, inasmuch as the convulsive crises began to be considered more injurious than beneficial, and under the direction of Mesmer's most zelalous pupil, the marquis de Puysegur, attention was instead given to somnambulism and clairvoyance, as being the principal effects of magnetism. When the marquis, on his estate at Busancy, near Sois- sons, was so crowded by persons seeking help, that he could not per- sonally magnetize them all, he conceived the bright idea of magnetizing a tree in his park, an elm, the radiating power of which afterward attracted numerous multitudes. Puyslgur soon discovered the sopo- rific effect of magnetism, as also that during the sleep persons an- swered questions and often proved much brighter and more inteUigent than in the wakeful state. This was notably the case with an other- wise very stupid peasant, who, during the magnetic sleep, showed himself so discerning and clairvoyant that M. de Puysegur used to call him "my intelligence." Now new life entered into the magnetic societies and a theory invented by Tardy de Montravel was universally! accepted, that man, besides his ordinary five senses, has a sixth sense, ' the internal sense, the organ of which is the whole nervous system, but whose principal seat is the large nerve plexus of the stomach. This sense corresponds to the instinct of animals. When the external senses are benumbed and the organ of instinct is in a state of increased activity, this sense performs alone the functions of all the others. The soul of the somnambulist can thus see and comprehend not only HYPNOTISM. 9 the condition within the bodies of others, bnt also within his own body. Through this internal sense the somnambulist can read any kind of writing without using his eyes. To produce this condition, Mesmer's elaborate apparatus was not necessary, but merely soft strokings or even a strong will only. In this new Puyseguric form, magnetism again gained a strong following, also through Germany (through Lavater), England, Holland, and Italy. Sweden also was favored by one of Mesmer's pupils, Marais, who in 1786 made various magnetic experiments before certain high officials in Stockholm. ' The Swedenborgian society known as the exegetic and philanthropic society, interested itself especially in magnet- ism, and even before the end of 1786 there were in this city, both a harmonic society and a baquet. To the English surgeon, James Braid of Manchester, who in 1842 published his work " Neurypnology," belongs the merit of having taken animal magnetism out of the dark region of charlatanry and bringingit into the clear light of science ; of having proved that its' .phenomena do not depend upon a fluid transmitted from the magnet-l izer, but on ner ve forc es working within the organism of the one mag- netized ; and finally, of having given the whole thing the more suitable I name of hypnotism. In order to expose the impostures of mesmer- ism, he began, in November 1841, to study the subject at the seances of Lafontaine. He then found that at least one phenomenon did not,; depend upon imposture, viz., the spasmodic closing of the eyelids.) Thinking that this spasm must restilt from fatigue in certain muscles| of the eye, he had his friend Walker to gaze fixedly at the neck of a bottle, and within three minutes his eyes closed, tears ran down hiq cheeks, his head drooped — a sigh, and he fell into a deep sleep. Thei experiment was repeated on Braid's vyife and on a servant girl witH the same result. He now tried the procedures of the magnetizerJ with equal success. From this he concluded that the magnetic phe-} nomena must be attributed to a disturbance of the nervous system, produced by the concentration of the visual powers, ^the absolute re- pose of the body, and the fixing of the attention ; that all depended on the physical and psychical condition of the subject, not on the will of the magnetizer or on any magnetic fluid, or on any general mystic agert. Accordingly, he let the subjectivity of the sleeper play the main role, and he explained numerous somnambulistic phenomena by a morbidly increased sensibility — hyperoesthesia. Furthermore, Braid found that the hypnotic sleep is not always! the same, but varies from a light dreaming state to a deep coma. In| some, the sleep is quite light, in others, so deep that they lose con-! sciousness and will, and remember nothing after awakening. In some, entire muscular relaxation takes place, in others, cataleptic tetanus 10 HYPNOTISM. with increased respiration and circulation. Change from one state to the other could be produced by directing a current of air against the face, and awakening could be produced in the same way. Braid also understood "suggestion" although he did not use this ame. One can play he says on the sleeper as on a musical instrument, nd create dreams in their imagination which they accept as reality. !n order to produce illusions and hallucinations, you need only to declare in loud voice and in a commanding or persuading manner, the thought picture or sensation that you wish to call up in his mind. Hallucinations can also be produced indirectly by corresponding atti- tudes of the limbs. A subject placed in an attitude of ecstasy sees Heaven : if you wrinkle his forehead he experiences gloomy fantasies. Even in those who are awake, suggestions have been produced and employed as a means of mesmerizing from a distance. As a means of curing diseases. Braid tried hypnotism with more or less success. In spite of the great scientific value of Braid's theories (orBraidism) they did not, however, gain much ground with the medical profession, nor did they prevent various less scientific theories in explanation of this kind of phenomena from trying to attain prominence, such as in America Grimes's Electrobiology, in Germany Reichenbach's Odology and Barth's Phrenomagnetismus, in Prance Philips's Electrodynam- isme Vitale. In England, hypnotism was but little known or noticed, although the articles "Sleep" in Todd and Carpenter's Encyclopaedia and "Hypnotisme" in Nysten's " Dietionnaire de Medecine," 1855, as also Meunier's article in ia Presse, 1852, were designed to bring it before the public. Although the opinion of the scientific world was against the cause, there were however some French physicians who were sufficiently aware of the importance of this question to study it, and who had courage enough to publish their investigations, as Professor Azam, of Bordeaux, who, after experimenting a couple of years, together with his afterwards famous colleagues, Broca and Verneuil, in 1860, published his own experiences in the medical journal Archives Generales de Medecine. Shortly before this, Velpeau had related before the French Academy Broca's success in using hypnotism as an anodyne in surgi- cal operations. In 1860 interesting observations were also published by Demar- quay and Giraud Teulon, by Philips and Guerineau. In 1865, Pro- fessor Lasegue showed how catalepsy and various hypnotic phenomena could be produced in hysterical women simply by a pressure on the closed eyelids, and in 1866, Liebault of Nancy pointed out the use of hypnotism as a valuable means not only of curing disease, but also of education for the improvement of character and morals. In 1875, Richet showed among other things how the personality can be changed by hypnotism. HYPNOTISM. 11 These single experiments however succeeded but little in arousing , the interest of scientists for hypnotism, while the curiosity of the pub-j he was from time to time revived by traveling professional magnetizers. j In the beginning of this decade, one of these, Hansen, a Dane, succeeded in interesting some German professors in the scientific solution of the question, and the result of this was some works by Heidenhain, Griitz- ner, Berger, Schneider, Preyer, Weinhold, and others. But no onq has contributed so much to the scientific explanation of this matter- and by his authority sanctioned so many of these experiments as entitled to scientific value, as Prof. Charcot, the famous neurologist of La SalpStriere in Paris. As early as 1878, he commenced his strictljfi scientific investigations of the effects of hypnotism on hysterics ; of the; purely physical phenomena ; of the different stages, the lethargic, ih.& cataleptic, and the somnambulic, besides intermediate mixed stages.! From time to time these experiments were published, partly in public lectures before physicians from all over the world, partly in journals ; and a number of pupils, who had taken part in the investigations or made such for themselves, have treated-this subject so extensively in a number of pamphlets, that now it is coming to be ranked among the best-ascertained data of neuropathology. Another school, which in many points differs from that of Charcot, is the school of Nancy, with Bernheim, Liebault, Beaunis and others at the head. These scientists have paid special attention to the practical use of hypnotism, partly as a means of curing disease, partly as an educational agency ; they have also pointed out its great importance in medical jurisprudence. 1 Among other recent French authors on the subject may be men- tioned Paul Eicher, Charles Eichet, Azam, Eegnard, David, Dumont- pallier, Cullerre, Barety, Perronet, Fere, Gilles de la Tourette, Bottey, Pitre, and Ochorowicz, a Pole ; among English authors Hack Tuke ; among Italians, Sepilli, Tamburini and Maggiorani ; among Germans, Obersteiner and Gessmann. Since July 1886, hypnotism also has had its own scientific jour- nal, Im Revue de UHypnotisme, published monthly in Paris, with Dr. E. Berillon as chief editor and with such collaborateurs as Char- cot, Luys, Voisin, Ladame, Hack Tuke, Ireland, and others. CHAPTEE n. DEnUITION OP HYPNOTISM; SUSCEPTIBILITY TO HYPNOTISM. HYPNOTISM (from the Greek word hypnoa, sleep) is the science^ of the sleep-like state {hypnos) — nearly corresponding to th^] older expression, magnetic sleep — which manifests itself by variousf nervous phenomena, and is produced, in certain persons susceptible of i it, generally by some special influence on the nervous system exerted 12 HYPNOTISM. |)y another, but also, though more rarely, by spontaneous action {apon- ianeoua hypnotism; idiohypnotism). To throw anybody into such a state is to hypiriotize him. The sleeper is hypnotized ; is in hypnosis — in the hypnotic state. To waken anybody from hypnotism is to dehypnotize him. We first turn to ihe question: what persons are susceptible of hypnotism ? Formerly it was supposed that only weak, sickly, nervous persons and especially hysterical women were susceptible to hypnotism. Later iexperiences, and particularly the elaborate statistics of In6bault, of JNancy, have shown that almost anybody can be hypnotized. A differ- ence, however, must be made between those whom it is easy and those whom it is difficult to hypnotize. Among the former belong without doubt the hysteric ; but otherwise physical weakness gives no special predisposition. The willingness of the subject, his passivity, and power to concentrate the thought or attention on the intended sleep have more importance. Thus it has been found that even the strongest men from the lower classes (mechanics, laborers, soldiers), are more easily put to sleep than intelligent persons, who voluntarily or involun- tarily, let their thought wander to various objects which distract the attention. It will often be found that those who cannot be hypiiotized in the first, second, or third seance, yet succumb to renewed patient efforts. Age is of consequence, inasmuch as it is always easier to hypnotize I young persons, especially from seven to twenty-one years. This has I long been known, and it was on this account that the ancient Egyp- tian, Greek, and Rpman priests and the Indian yogis preferred to em- ;'; ploy children and young persons for their mystic ceremonies. ! Out of 744 persons of different ages, who were tested by Li^bault in one year, he succeeded in throwing 682 into a more or less deep hyp- notic state, so that only 62 proved entirely insusceptible, and among these none under fourteen years of age. Neither does sex make such a difference in favor of women, as is generally supposed. The fact that hysteria is almost peculiar to the female sex certainly increases the ratio of susceptibility to hypnotization among women, but not so much as might be supposed. Out of Liebault's 287 men and 468 women, 31 of each sex proved insusceptible ■ to hypnotism, which gives 10.8 per cent oi men and 6.6 per cent 'of women ; thus the difference is not great. Climate seems to have the effect of making hypnotization much easier in warm and southern countries than in cold and northern. Thus the French show a far greater susceptibility, thap the Scandina- vians and Germans. In the tropics hypnosis is said to appear rapidly and to become very deep. Moreover a number of lesser circumstances are considered as hav-y HYPNOTISM. 13 ing a favorable or a disturbing effect. Thus the sleep is hindered by every distracting noise, by a recently taken meal, by mental emotions,; by too much heat or cold in the room, by strong light, by damp atmos-| phere, by alcoholic liquors, coffee, tea, and sundry other causes. On;, the other hand, the sleep is promoted by quiet and rest, both internal and external, by twilight, darkness, soft music, fragrant flowers, etc.) The oftener a person is hypnotized, the sooner and more easily will he fall asleep. Medium intelligence seems also to be favorable, for the reasons mentioned above. On the other hand, it is impossible to hypi notize idiots and very difficult to do so with the insane ; .but if it suc- ceeds at all with the latter, the'^ can be cured through suggestion, as Toisin has shown. Baron Eeichenbach, who has written an extensive work upon " odic force " and the human sensitivity, enumerates a number of signs of sus- ceptibility in this respect ; but as yet they have not been sufficiently submitted to scientific criticism. In order to decide rapidly and easily the question of a person's sus- ceptibility to hypnotism, special instruments of investigation — hypno- scopes, so called — have been invented. The first was constructed a couple of years ago by Dr. Ochorowicz, the PoHsh physician of Paris, and consists simply of a grooved magnet, which was put on the index £nger of the person who was to be examined. If this person within a few minutes experienced some strange sensation in the finger, as of heat or cold, formication, prickling, or twitching in the hand, or swell- ing of the finger, this proved that he was easy to hypnotize. With this instrument about 30 per cent, of those examined proved susceptible to hypnotism. But it was found by Obersteiner and others, that also those who did not show any sei;sitiveness to the hypnoscope were easy to hypnotize, and that, on the whole, only the hysteric, who are gen- erally sensitive to metals and magnets, were sensitive also to the hypnoscope. After this, the value of the instrument as a "medium- tester " became more than doubtful. From several magnets combined von Hellenbach and Gessmann in Tienna constructed considerably stronger hypnoscopes, through which 66 per cent, of those examined showed the above mentioned sensitive- ness; moreover, some who were used to being hypnotized fell into hypnotic sleep by the mere effect of the hypnoscope. Nevertheless Gessmann considers hypnoscopes more valuable for investigating the effects of magnets on the organism, than as standards or reagents of hypnotism. 14 HYPNOTISM. CHAPTER in. MEANS OB METHODS OF ■ HYPNOTIZING. HYPNOTIC sleep can be produced in various ways, by various means ("hypnogenic processes"). Almost every magnetizer has had his special method, and they have all succeeded in a measure. According to Bemheim the nature of the external means is of httle importance, as long as it impresses the imaginaHon or fancy of the one hypnotized, and conveys to him the idea that he will go to sleep. According to this theory all hypnosis would depend upon a "sugges- tion,'' a transmitted conception,, and thus no one could be hypnotized against hi,3 own free will, or unless he were fully conscious of the in- tended sleep. It certainly is true that a conscious and willing co-op- eration promotes the sleep, but a number of cases are on record where the sleep appears even unexpectedly, unconsciously and against one's will. This is especially the case with the hypnotizing of animals. In childhood many of lis have doubtless amused ourselves by hypnotizing a crawfish, which is easily done by supporting its head and claws and softly rubbing its bent tail, when for many minutes afterward it re- mains motionless in full hypnosis. The experiment of Father Kircher, in 1646, with the hen that lies motionless on the ground if a long line is chalked from her bill, has often been repeated. To the same class of phenomena belong all kinds of charming by the eyes ox fascination., as when the snake-charmer by his eye tames serpents, or when snakes paralyze frogs ; as also the art of Earey, the famous horse-tamer, which appears to have consisted principally in hypnotic manipulations. The various hypnogenic processes which have been used up to 'this time may be classified in two large principal groups, ^Ayszcai and psychical. The first includes such as afifect the nervous system, espe- cially the sensory nerves, by causing a state of fatigue or relaxation in certain senses, partly by producing a certain inhibitory condition of the brain. The second act principally by suggestion of which more will be said later on. Among the first, those that affect the sense of sight seem to be the most powerful. To these belong the fixing of the eyes on some shining object and also the steady gazing of the subject at the eyes of the hypnotizer ; or following with the eyes the customary mag- netic strokings ; or the effect of suddenly lighted flame such as a mag- nesia-light, an electric spark, or exploding gunpowder. Even the staring at one's own image in a looking glass may produce hypnosis. Thus Dumontpallier tells of»a woman, who, when combing her hair before a mirror — ^in which she must have surveyed herself rather intently — fell into catalepsy and remained motionless, with both hands over her head in the attitude of combing, until D. awakened her by staring at the reflection of her eyes in the glass. HYPNOTISM. 15 A sudden affection of the sense of hearing, a blow on a gong for instance, often causes an equally sudden sleep (catalepsy), especially in hysterical persons who are accustomed to this way of being hypno- tized, k. laughable occurrence of this kind in La SalpStriere in Paris is related by Richer. An hysterical woman was suspected by the physicians of stealing photographs from the laboratory of the hospital, but she repelled the accusation with scorn. One morning, however, Eicher found her standing with her hand outstretched in the box of photographs. He approached; she did not move. At the moment of her reaching for the photographs a gong had been sounded in an adjoining room in order to hypnotize another patient, and immediately she had fallen into a hypnotico-cataleptic state. The best notion of the means of hypnogenic processes will bel gained from a description of- the different methods that have hitherto been used by the most prominent magnetizers and hypnotizers. , Mesmer sat down opposite the person who was to be mesmer- J ized, grasped his hands, and stared at his eyes. After ten or fifteen ' minutes he let go his hold and made strokings with his hands at a dis-yi tance of a few centimetres from the body of the medium, from the top!' of the head slowly downward, letting the tips of his fingers remain forj a few moments o.n the eyes, the chest, the pit of the stomach and the ' knees. This was repeated ten or fifteen times ; if any effect appeared; the seance was continued ; if not, the experiment was not renewed un- 1 til another day. But as time did not allow the magnetizing of each per- son separately, and Mesmer besides maintained that the magnetic fluid could also be stored in various objects, he soon resorted to the more convenient method of magnetizing indirectly, through magnetized tables, " iaquets," trees, flowers, magnetized water, etc. Real mediums must feel a difference between magnetized water and ordinary water. Through the former they fall asleep, through the latter they do not. The Indian magnetizers, of whom Dr. Esdaile of Calcutta made use in 1840 — 1850, proceeded thus : the medium, partly undressed, was put to bed on his back in a dark hall. The magnetizer placed himself at the head of the bed, leaned over the medium, bringing his face almost in contact with the latter's, stared at his eyes. One hand rested on the pit of the medium's stomach, the other made strokings, principally over the eyes. Moreover, he blew softly and frequently into the nose, between the lips and on the eyeballs. The deepest silence prevailed during the entire proceeding. Others use only the method of fixing each other's eyes — as Teste and Cullerre. Braid! s method, widely known and used, consists in letting the! medium stare at a shining object, a glass knob or some such thing,| which is held a couple of inches above the root of the nose, so that! the eyes nre obliged to take a position that makes them converge strongly 16 HYFNOTISM. upward, by which the muscles of the eyes get tired or the optic nerve becomes over-irritated. Also it is of importance to concentrate the attention upon the thought, that sleep may follow. This method easily causes tears and headache. It was used a great deal by the Danish magnetizer Hansen. In ancient times, staring at mirrors, at the glistening surface of water &c. was used. The priest FariaHs method belongs among the purely psychical. It consisted in suddenly frightening the inattentive into sleep. He used to rise suddenly, stretch his hands toward those who were to be hypnotized, and to cry out in a stem, commanding voice : " Sleep ! " if four such attempts proved unsuccessful, the subject was declared to be insusceptible. This simple and convenient method, however, seldom succeeds, and when it does, it rarely causes any deep sleep and must be supported by other methods. Lasegue has subdued refractory mediums by closing their eyelids with his fingers and by gently pressing on their eyeballs. Charcot's school at La SalpStiere has modified the Braid method, by placing pieces of glass close to the bridge of the nose, by which pro- cedure the convergency of the eyes is "increased and sleep comes more rapidly. A blow on a gong or a pressure on some "hypnogenic or hysterogenic" zone — such as an ovary, the top of the head, etc. — or the appoaching of a magnet will act on hysterical women. Gessman of Vienna describes* his method in exfenso thus : " I choose out of the company a woman having a pale and nervous appearance and dreamy eyes; I tell her that there is in my organism a strong evolution of electricity, which enables me to electrize persons who are not too robust. As a proof of this, I let her with both hands seize two fingers of my right hand, and after a few seconds, I ask whether she feels anything. If she is susceptible to hypnotism, she usually answers that she feels a crawling sensation, and later a numbness of the arms and upper part of the body. Then I say : ' Hold my hand tight — tighter — tighter still — well ! Now you cannot let go my hand ! ' And the fact is that she can not. By strokings of my left hand along her arms the muscular spasm increases, so that she can not let my hand go even when asked to do so. Blowing on the hands and telling her that she is free immediately stop the spasm. "By this preliminary test I get a sure proof that the person is susceptible to actual hypnotization, which is produced thus: I sit down opposite her, make her close her eyes, take her hands in mine so that the four thumbs are pressed- against each other, tell her to be quiet, and to yield unresistingly to the first inclination to sleep. When she has fallen asleep — generally within ten or twenty minutes — I increase the sleep by some strokings over her head and chest, and try to induce her to talk ; this I easily achieve by placing one hand on her *G-. Gessman, Magnetismus und Hypnotismus. Vienna 1887. HYFN0TT8M. \1 head and taking one of her hands in my other hand, while I — speaking towards the pit of her stoma,ch — ask: 'Do you hear me?' which ques- tion must often be repeated four or five times, before I receive a very -weak answer. Now is the time to make further experiments. At the first attempt, however, one should stop here, so as not to tire the the patient. After twenty minutes, at most, she should be wakened, — _ which is done by the simple command: 'Awake!' Yet she may first be asked if she feels well, and be assured that after awaking she will feel entirely healthy and normal. If she herself prescribes some way in which she desires to be wakened, her wish should be heeded. If a simple order does not succeed in waking her, you may blow in her face, or make reverse strokings, but violent means, such as vigorous shak- ing, sprinkling with water, etc. should never be used; nor should strange persons be allowed to come in contact with her. If she still does not awake, she may be allowed to sleep for ten or twenty minutes more, provided pulse and respiration do not give cause for apprehen- tion. Generally she awakes within that time of her ovm accord." Thus we find that hypnosis can be produced in the most widely differing ways, and it can be said with Richer, that all methods lead to the desired aim, provided you find a well predisposed organism ; for the oftener a person is hypnotized, the more easily will the sleep be reproduced. A review of the difierent methods shows that among the physical .methods that affect the senses, those which act upon vision, hearing and sensation are the most powerful but that the senses of taste and smell may also be used. The sense of sight is affected either by rapid and strong irritation, as by a ray of light thrown into the eye from the sun, from a magnesium lamp, from an electric light, or by slow and weak irritation as by staring at a dazzling object, at the eyes of the hypnotizer, etc. The sense of hearing is irritated either suddenly and vigorously by a gong, tomtom, tuning fork, or slowly and gently by the monotonous ticking of a watch or by other unvaried sounds, ^e remember how natural sleep is promoted by monotonous songs, such as cradle-songs, dull sermons, etc. The sense of touch is irritated by rapid, strong pressure upon the ovary or other particularly sensitive spots — hypnogenic zones so-called — or by gentle pinching, heat, magnets, etc. That heat is a hypnogenic agent was shown by Berger, who succeeded in hypnotizing, when- he held a heated metal or his warm hand in the neighborhood of the patient's head, but he did not succeed when the hand or the head was covered, so that the radiation of heat was prevented. Binet and Fere have succeeded in producing lethargic sleep by exhausting the sense of snlell by musk. To act upon the sense of taste has been tried less, but it has sometimes succeeded. Without directly stimulating the senses of sight or hearing hpyno- sis may be produced by mere pressure on the eye or ear — as when 18 HYPNOTISM. the finger presses on -the eyeball through the closed eyelids, or on the external auditory canal. Whether, as has been supposed, the nerves of the eye or ear are affected or tired hereby, is hard to decide. The strokings, or "passes," so much affected by magrietizers, have perhaps a direct physical effect on the sense of feeling, when they touch the skin ; but when they are made at a distance, their influence on vision and their purely psychical effects probably play the princi- pal role. In modem times, it has been discovered that efficacious excitation, of the skin may be made with a feather or any inert body, just as well as with the hand. Some parts of the body, however, are especially sensitive — as the top of the head, the forehead, the ovarian regions, the root of the thumb, the joints, etc. — spots which have been described by Pitres as "hypnogenic zones." Hypnotizing by a mag- net shows that the excitation, need not be consciously conceived in order to be efficacious. All these physical hypnogenic processes have very different effects on different individuals ; some persons are more easily influenced by one, others by another ; a combination of several processes is often more efficacious than one alone. Though these physical processes act inde- pendently of the personality of the hypnotizer, who thus is not of so great importance as was claimed by the earlier magnetizers, yet it vnll be found that some hypnotizers succeed better than others, which fact must depend upon the great importance of the psychical influ ence in hypnotizing. For hypnosis is caused not only by the above- mentioned peripheral or sensorial excitations, but also by central excitation in the brain, by psychical action on the imagination, or by suggestion — as it is called in modem language. Faria's method, mentioned above, was of this kind. Milder and less terrifying methods of suggestion are used now, however. You say, for instance, to the one you wish to hypnotize, that he needs sleep ; that he will soon be asleep ; that he is feeling dull ; that his eyelids are closing; that he can no longer hear nor see ; or you yourself^retend to be sleepy or asleep. This method is especially successful with those who have been hypnotized before in other ways, or those who are desirous of falling asleep in order to go through an operation or some- thing similar, or who have impHcit faith in the skiU of the hypnotizer. It is by this method that hypnotism can be caused from a long distance and after a long time. In such cases there is no magnetic fluid that is transmitted from the magnetizer who acts from a distance, but it is the fixed idea of the patient, that he is just then put to sleep, which pro- duces the sleep. But he must previously have been notified ol the day and moment of his going to sleep, either by agreement, that he, though at a distance, shall be hypnotized just at that time ; or by the order, during a previous hypnosis that just then he shall go to sleej: again : in the latter case the patient need not remember this ordei while he is awake. HYPNOTISM. 19 The effect of magnetized water, magnetized trees, letters, and other objects, so wonderful in by-gone days, is easily explained in the same manner. Without a confirmed idea of the power they are to possess, they produce no effect. But we shall have occasion to develop this interesting subject further, when we come to discuss the psychical effects of hypnotism. Often, however, it is quite difficult clearly to decide how great a part the psychical and physical agents have in producing hypnosis. Generally, however, it may be safely said that although suggestion, or the psychical momentum, does not alone dominate the hypnotism, yet it is usually of greater importance than was formerly supposed. But on the other hand, it may be men- tioned as a sui-e proof that hypnotic sleep can be produced even without a more or less conscious co-operation, that hypnosis may also be successfully produced in a person who is in a deep natural sleep, simply by pressure on his eyelids. FinaDy, it should be remembered that the fixed idea can be directed not only to cause sleep, but equally well to prevent and oppose the sleep. If anybody firmly makes up his mind not to be put to sleep at such a time, in such a manner, or by such a person, the experiments generally fail, even if they have succeeded ever so well before, when the patient was willing and prepared. The methods of awaking the subject from the hypnotic state or of dehypnotizing are also many and varied. Moreover, these can be divided into physical or peripherally acting and psychical or centrally acting. The s implest and m o st co m msa ^Jnethed 48 ta blow on the eyes or forehead. This may be done with a pair of bellows instead of with the mouth ; or a few drops of water may be dashed on the face. If this proves unsuccessful, the eyelids are raised and the blowing is made a Utile stronger straight into the eyes. If then awakening does not follow, pressure may be made (in hysterical women) on the ovarian region or on other hypnogenic zones. For by pressure on the same spot, many hysterical persons can be hypnotized when awake, and wakened when asleep. The same means seems to have opposite effects, depend- ing on the state of the persons. Blowing on only one half of the head, while the other half is separated by a screen, wakens only one half of the body. The subject is wakened psychically by the simple cry "Awake! " addressed to him. 20 HYPNOTISM. ' CHAPTER IV. STAGES OK DEGREES OF HYPNOTISM. THE effects or symptoms of hypnotism are so many and so differ- ent in different individuals and in different stages, that it is hard to give a picture that shall correspond to all the hypnotized. It may generally be said that hypnotism causes changes vnthin the limits of both the physical and the psychical life, often of so strange a kind as to border on the vronderful. In order to reduce to something like system the complicated phenomena producible by hypnotism, some authors have divided the hypnotic sleep into certain stages or degrees of intensity, while others have classified the symptoms into certain main groups. Among the former may be mentioned Kluge (Berlin, 1811) who gives no less than seven degrees : 1, Waking: the sensory organs are still in full activity, but the limbs have slightly increased functions. 2, Half-sleep ; incomplete crisis ; feeling of heaviness in the eyes, which close ; but the patient can hear and is not yet asleep. 3, Magnetic sleep ; restful, deep, refreshing slumber, without memory on waking. '4, Simple somnambulism; talking and acting in the sleep under the [influence of the magnetizer ; the " somniloque" and "crisoloque" of the French. 5, Clairvoyance, with increased interior consciousness. 6, Ecstacy ; far-seeing in time and space ; conception of past, present and future events, which is otherwise lacking in the ordinary con- scious state. 7, Trance. This classification was also approved by the great practical phy- sician, Hufeland, with the exception of the 7th degree. JEschenmayer (1816) adopted only four degrees, based on the psychological classification of the mental faculties, as perception, imagination, sensation and fantasy : 1, Magnetic perception ; removing the senses to the pit of the stomach or to the finger-tips and toes ; penetration of the condition of other persons ; increased internal instinct. 2, Magnetic clairvoyance; 3, Magnetic sympathy with the magnetizer ; and 4, Magnetic divination. While these magnetic systems prevailed in Germany, the French generally favored that which was started by Lausanne (Paris,, 1818), and which was still richer in " degrees " — as many as twelve — of which the first eight were considered as merely " half-crises,'' and only the last four as real crises. These degrees were 1, Sensation of heat or cold. 2, Heaviness in head and limbs ; the eyes close. 3, The patient hears but cannot answer. 4, Light slumber ; the dreams are remem- bered. 5, Deep sleep. 6, Sweet and light sleep ; feeling of delight after it; 7, Apparent sleep; motionless body ; the somnambule hears and answers questions . 8, Dim perception of the disease ; sympathy and HYPNOTISM. 21 antipathy for diflferent perBons. 9, Clairvoyance of his own body ; self-prescription ; cure predicted. 10, Incomplete clairvoyance of other persons' bodies. 11, Complete clairvoyance of other persons' bodies ; remedies ordered and cure predicted. 12, Far-eeeing and prediction. The system shows on how low a level the scientific elaboration and explanation of magnetism still remained. Another system, " so symmetrical that it can be drawn in three connecting elhpses of unequal length," (!) was devised in 1826 by the famous German psychiater Kieser. - He classified the phenomena as belonging to the falling asleep and to the awakening, and he made either pass through one vegetative. One animal, and one sensitive stage, from which six different stages arose. Ennemoser (1852) was the first who made the very essential difiference between physical and psychical phenomena. Finally, if we turn to the hypnotic systems which prevail to-day, that adopted by Charcot and the Salpdtriere school occupies the first place. But as this is based principally on experiments on hysterical women, the system adopted by Liebault and the school of Nancy would perhaps be of more general importance. Charcot accepts three main stages: 1, The cataleptic, 2, The lethargic; and 3, the somnambulistic stage. In the description of these stages or phases, we follow Dr. Paul Richer, Charcot's pupil, who exten- , sively treats this in his great work on hysteria.* The cataleptic state occurs primarily under the influence of an in- tense and unexpected noise, a strong light placed under the eyes, or by staring at some object according to Braid's method. Concentration of the attention, of the imagination, or even of a moral impression, may also produce catalepsy. Besides it develops from the lethargic state if the already-closed eyes are suddenly exposed to rays of light, by the raising of the eyelids. On the inhaling of ether or chloroform, a transient cataleptic state sometimes occurs before the narcotic stage. Even in healthy persons a passing catalepsy sometimes takes place under the influence of a sudden emotion (fear, wrath, etc.). A sud- denly frightened person may become motionless as a statue, stiff and rigid, without feeling, and with hands and arms fixed in some express- ive posture. Either by reason of the noise or through fright, a peal of thunder sometimes has the same effect as the striking of a gong. Even the faculty of speech may in this way be lost for one or more days. The cataleptic stage comes on slowly or suddenly, the former generally by the use of Braid's method, which often can not even produce this stage, but will instead cause the lethargic one. If, how- ever, it is desirable to try this method, the staring at the object should suddenly be interrupted, shortly before the occurrence of the lethargic stage, when the cataleptic stage will appear instead. Yet a certain *P. Bicher, Etudes cUniques sur la grande hystSrie. ou liyst6ro-6piIepsie. Paris, 1886. 22 HYPNOTISM. co-operation of the will of the one hypnotized is here needed, contrary to the sudden causing of catalepsy by other methods — as by an electric spark, or a blow on a gong — when the catalepsy occurs quite involun- tarily. Those hypnotized in this way remain motionless in the same place and position they occupied when the sudden noise or other hypnotizing influence befell. Generally a certain fear is expressed in their faces. The characteristic feature of catalepsy is the immobility, the statue-like attitude. The eyes are open and staring ; the tears accu- mulate and run over from want of motion in the eyelids ; respiration has almost ceased. Without apparent fatigue, the limbs retain the most difficult positions in which they are placed, but make no resistance to change of attitude. Muscular reflex-action is absent, as also the increased nervous irritability of the muscles, characteristic of the lethargic state. By mechanical irritation of muscles and nerves contraction is not produced, but rather a loss of elasticity. The skin, is insensible to the strongest irritation, but certain senses — such as the muscular sense, vision, and especially hearing — partly at least retain their activity, by which they are susceptible to suggestion. A commu- nicated position produces ideas in the brain corresponding to the attitude ; it also produces mimic expressions and motions in the same direction. So, for instance, if the fingers of the cataleptic person are placed on his mouth in kissing position, a smile will appear on his lips. Catalepsy ceases, either by return to normal condition or by changing into lethargy. A slight irritation, — such as blowing in the face, or pressing on the ovaries in hysterical persons — is enough to awaken the cataleptic. At once the subject returns to the real world. The closing of the eyelids or the softening of the light will, on the contrary, transfer them to the lethargic state. If only one eye is closed, while light enters the open one, the lethargy occurs in only the half of the body corresponding to the closed eye, while the other half remains cataleptic. We shall return later to these very interesting, one-sided hypnotic phenomena, which prove a certain independence of the separate halves of the brain. The lethargic state can be primarily produced by staring, or by continuous gentle pressure upon the eye-balls through the lowered upper eyelids. The time required to produce this phenomenon varies in different individuals, and decreases gradually by practice from ten or fifteen minutes to a few seconds, but the lethargic state can never be so suddenly caused as the cataleptic can sometimes be. As before mentioned, the former state may also arise by transmission from the last-named by a simple closing of the eyelids or from the somnam- bulistic state by pressure on the closed eyelids. The lethargic state is often preceded by some epileptic phenomena, such as motions of HYPNOTISM. 23 swallowing, guttural sounds, asthmatic respiration, foaming mouth, or rigidity of the limbs. , The principal characteristics of lethargy are : complete insensibility of the skin and mucous membranes, increased irritability of the motor nerves, and as a rule, insusceptibility to sug- gestion or imparted hallucination. The eyes remain closed or half- closed, turned upward and inward, the eye-lids generally trembling The body is perfectly relaxed, the limbs are lax and pendent, and fall heavily back, if lifted and then released ; respiration is deep and quick- ened. The spinal cord is in an over-excited state and the reflex action of the tendons increased, that is, the corresponding muscle, or some- times even others, will contract by percussion or stroking on its ten- don. The muscle can also be excited directly. The contractions, thus easily caused, often remain luitil they are released by excitation of the antagonist muscles. By opening one or both eyes, the lethargic state can be immediately tranferred to the cataleptic state in one or both sides. The somnambulistic state — ^psychologically the most interesting — is produced either primarily by staring or other ordinary methods of hypnotizing, or secondarily from the cataleptic or lethargic state by a gentle pressure or friction of the hand on the cranium, sometimes also spontaneously. It is the somnambulistic state that is generally produced by magnetizers, and by all the methods which act upon the imagination. The somnambulistic state is characterized by the same insensibility to pain, of the skin and mucous membranes, as in the lethargic state, but the senses are often quickened to a high degree; the muscular irritability is normal ; there is no increased sensitiveness as during lethargy ; by excitation of the cutaneous nerves muscular contraction is caused, which, however, does not change into lasting contraction — contrary to the lethargic state, where contraction is caused only by excitation that reaches through the skin to a muscle, nerve, of tendon. The eyes are generally closed, but may also be half or wholly open, yet without winking of the eyelids. Pressure on the eyelids immediately causes lethargy; pressure on the eye produces hemi-lethargy of the corresponding half of the body, while the other half remains semi-somnambulistic. The mental faculties of the somnambulist are highly sharpened; he answers questions and is easily led through the most varied sugges- tions. There is hardly any limit to what can be produced by sug- gestion, and the actions of the somnambule often border on the marvelous. The "automatism" (unconscious spontaneity) of the somnambulist differs from that of the cataleptic. The latter is a mere automaton, a machine, acting without consciousness, without aim, blindly obeying external sensorial impression. The somnambulist, on 24 HYPNOTISM. ^ the contrary, is a subject, a personality, who acts spontaneously, by his own impulse, or obeying the will of the operator, yet with a certain independence, a certain consciousness peculiar, however, to the new somnambulistic personality, and which does not return to memory with the wakeful condition. Thus there is a somnambulistic ego, but no cataleptic ego. An eicample is necessary, however, to explain this fine distinction. On a table before a patient in the cataleptic state, are placed a picher of water, a washbowl, and soap. As soon as these objects are seen or touched, he immediately begins to pour out water in the bowl and to wash himself with great care ; if a towel is given him, ne wipes himself carefully. If pressure is made on the top of his head, he is immediately changed from a cataleptic automaton to a somnambulist ; he immediately ceases to work and asks in astonish- ment: "What am I doing? I certainly do not need to wash my hands ! " But now it is only necessary to raise his eyelids to bring him back instantly to the cataleptic automatism, and without objection, without reasoning, he will renew his continuous washing. If now his right eye be closed, his right hand will drop inactive, and the washing will be continued with the left hand alone ; he is now hemi-lethargic, that is, in his right side. If then, his left eye be closed, the left hand will also drop ; all washing ceases, and he is wholly lethargic. In the cataleptic state, he can in the same way be made to roll a cigarette, to light it, to smoke it; but care should be taken lest he burn himself, for he is entirely insensible to pain. The hypnotic phenomena, however, do not always appear as regu- larly and decidedly, as in the stages defined by Charcot, now briefiy described; nor in the order in which they have been set forth. There are numerous transitory and mixed stages, and many observers (Mag- nin etc.) have foimd the order reversed, so that the hypnotized first enter into the somnambulistic state and afterward into the lethargic and cataleptic stages. As habit here plays an important role, they may depend upon a certain training, and upon the order in which the hypnotism takes place. We must therefore remember that Charcot's system is to be understood merely as a general outline, from which there are many variations. The school of Nancy does not cling so vigorously to the difference between the three stages ; they divide the hypnosis into several de- grees from the Ughtest to the deepest sleep ; attribute more importance to suggestion ; and have shown that hypnosis can be produced, not only in hysterical women, but also in healthy persons, both men and women. Finally, they have very clearly set forth the great practical significance of hypnotism. HYFNOTIi^M. 25 Below is given a synopgis, made by the Italians, Tamburini and SepUli, which in a comprehensible way displays the main character- istics of the different stages of hypnotism. fed a at •8 K- p ff. o P 02 CD a I o ♦s H a S. a s- y (S -^ CD S. (J" » ■< a CD _ 4 O CD Ms tB Ell "ill » re p 2. « -^ £■ re 1 re 00 tr P n 13 re re P' re 2. £. p' o' "it § o S' <§ I g=g SO >i II. ert- O O re o ii-.s re P- & g H O m I—' * p M '^ 3 § 3. B O a- ■<« i c i'- CO f^ S" hj ogre B a 2. P re *d =*■ & D- o v.. re B" p B a- 09 re re 9 B P o oq ^ S P S- B B 2. re ~" I & CD o o B B e- B P til g 05 o; re ? O GO p P_ C3 t^ re o I re o re a* re p re p 1 § S". CD p B B 2 o B 05 O B CHAPTER V. UNILATEEAL HYPNOTISM. A CLASS of phenomena that we have hitherto but lightly touched, but which deserves special attention is hemi-hypnotiam or one- sided hypnotism, also called unilateral hypnotism, and consisting of 26 HYPNOTISM. the development of hypnotism in only one half of the body, or of different forms or degrees in opposite sides. It is well known how the nerves of each half of the body cross each other in the medulla oblongata and ran to the opposile hemis- phere of the brain. Thus each half of the brain governs its separate half of the body — the opposite — with a certain independence ; through the transverse commissural fibres there is also, however, a connection between the two sides of the brain. By various processes that act especially on the nerves of one half of the body, one side of the brain and the corresponding half of the body may be hypnotized. Braid succeeded in awakening only one half of the body by affect- ing one eye. Heidenhain produced hemi-lethargy, or lethargy in one side, by friction upon one side of the head, and when the friction was applied to the left side, he also produced aphasia or loss of speech, as the speech-centre is situated in the left temporal lobe of the brain. Berger found that friction of the region of the neck on one side of the head caused catalepsy of the same side, while friction of the temporal region produced catalepsy of the opposite side. By one-sided friction of the head Ladan^e succeeded in producing color-blindness of the eye of the same si'de, while the other eye distinguished the colors normally. Dumontpallier has caused one-sided hypnotic phenomena in hysterical persons and afterward transferred the phenomena to the opposite side through " transferrers '' so-called, that is ; by the application of metals or magnets. Furthermore, different states or stages of hypnotism have been produced at one time in the two halves of the body. This is often done in Charcot's clinic, where it was first exhibited by Descourtis in 1878. It is only necessary to open one eye so that light strikes the retina of one who is in a state of general lethargy, and he will immedi- ately become cataleptic in the corresponding side, while he remaina lethargic in the other. On the other hand hemi-lethargy may be produced in a cataleptic individual by the closing of one of his eyes. By approaching a ticking watch to one of the ears of a hysterical woman, Dumontpallier caused hemi-catalepsy of that side, and at the same time hemi-lethargy of the opposite side, whereas general catalepsy appeared when he placed a watch at each ear. Hemi-lethargy can also be produced by the inhalation of ether through only one nostril. Finally, hemi-lethargy and semi-somnambulism have also been produced at one time, as have also hemi-catalepsy and semi- somnambulism. But even the same hypnotic state may at the same time show a different degree or character in different sides, especially when the separate halves of the brain are given separate impressions and ideas by suggestion. Here is an instance : A girl is put. into a cataleptic state. Her left hand is placed in a HYPNOTISM. 27 position corresponding to that of throwing a kiss ; she now smiles with the left half of the face. While the left side continues to keep this position and expression, her right hand is given a posture of aversion, anH the right half of the face will immediately assume an expression of fear and horror, while the left half of the face continues to simper with satisfaction. Strange as it may seem, this phenomenon, which shows the independence of the brain-halves relatively to each other, is how- ever, at the present standpoint of brain-physiology, quite easy to explain. Every muscular action is conceived by the opposite half of the brain through the sensory nerves which go to it. Every oft-repeated ordinary combination of muscular actions and positions produces corresponding impressions of memory on the brain-cells ; through this, the moods and ideas are caused which are generally connected with those movements. By reflex action and association, movements and positions are completed, so that, for instance, the mimicry of the face harmonizes with the posture of the hand. During hypnotic sleep the wakeful consciousness is absent, which comprehends the ego -as a unit, that, so to speak, joins the two halves of the brain together into one combined whole. Each hemisphere works automatically for itself, and the direct, involuntary reflex movements are - absolute masters of the situation. These ideas, illusions, hallucinations, etc. can be imparted to the separate hemispheres, not only through the muscular sense but also through all the other senses, and usually through suggestion, about which more will be said in a special chapter. For instance, give a hysterical individual, in the somnambulistic stage, a few drops of water on one side of her tongue and tell her that it is vinegar ; then, let some drops of the same water fall on the other side of her tongue, and tell her that it is molasses, and she will express astonishment at feeling a sweet and a sour taste in her mouth at the same time, and usually one half of the face will show discontent and the other satis- faction. In the same way double illusions can be produced with the sense of smell. So also with hearing. To one ear something pleasant may be told, to the other something unpleasant ; the different halluci- nations of hearing produce reverse-expressions in the two halves of the face. While one ear is acted upon, the other should be covered. If different pictures are exhibited to the two eyes, while their circles of vision are separated by a partition , double hallucinations will arise with corresponding double facial expression. If now the individual be suddenly wakened, the two halves of the brain still continue for a while to act independently. The different hallucinations and the different facial expressions still continue ; and under the influence of the two opposite ideas the merriest laughter may rapidly alternate with shrieks of horror, just as on awaking from a dream the mood ia 28 HYPNOTISM. dependent on the contents of the dream, until the thoughts can be collected and the person has awaked by getting a perfectly clear conception of the facts of the wakeful state. Hence there is no doubt but that the separate hemispheres of the brain have each a separate and independent activity to a certain extent and under certain conditions, especially during hypnotic sleep. But the consequences should not be hence drawn that all the contrasts of mental Hfe in the same individual are dependent on this ; for intance, that one hemisphere is the seat of man's better self, the other of his worse self ; one for the good instincts and thoughts, the other for the bad ones ; or that, in a criminal, one hemisphere should plan the crime whUe the other warns and condemns ; or that in an insane person who is conscious of his disease, only one half of the brain is deranged and the other half is aware of it. There is no such division of the ego, no double personality. The above-named contrasts within the mental life depend on a brain activity, differing more |in time than in space ; they are successive utterances of the activity of the whole brain. CHAPTEE VI. PHTSICAL EFFECTS OF HYPNOTISM. HYPNOTISM extends its effects in different individuals and in different stages more or less to all the orgkns of man, not only to his organs of motion and sense but also to his brain and its functions, as well as to the vegetative functions of life : respiration, circulation, nutrition, etc. For a more convenient review of all these varied effects, we will now give special attention to the -effects of hypnotism on each separate system of organs, and, ^postponing to a separate chapter its most remarkable effects — those pertaining to the higher mental life — we will now in this chapter, discuss the purely somatic or physical phenomena, as opposed to the psychical. The organs of locomotion. The muscular system shows a strik- ing sensitiveness to hypnotic influence, but, as has already been men- tioned, very differently in different stages, sometimes showing a relaxation bordering on paralyzation, sometimes extreme irritability, disposition to contraction, spasm, tetanus, etc. The external signs of these different conditions of the muscles manifest themselves not only in the form and hardness of the muscles themselves but above all in the posture and mobility of the limbs, and with reference to the facial muscles in the mien and mimicry of the face. If the mus- cles are relaxed, as in the lethargic state, the body collapses like a rag, arms and legs latjk control, give no support to the trunk, and the position of the body is entirely governed by the laws of gravitation and by the doings of others. The cataleptic state, on the other hand. HYPNOTISM. 29 causes a certain semi-rigidity of muscles and limbs, besides an ab- normal endurance and passivity, so that the limbs can be bent like wax {flexibilitas cerea) and maintain the most tiresome and unnatural positions, far longer than in the normal state, so that the person resembles a doll of soft wax or gutta-percha, to which can be given any position desired. Such catelepsy is also found in certain severe forms of mental disease. Another hypnotic muscular anomaly is the general rigidity or teta- nus, which is sometimes produced by a mere breathing on the neck. By this a sudden and continuous contraction of all the muscles of the trunk and extremities arises, just as a frog poisoned by strychnia be- comes tetanized at the sUghtest touch. The whole body becomes rigid as a stick and the muscles as hard as stone. It is this experi- ment that is so much abused by professional magnetizers, who boast of their cruel triqk of letting a tetanized person stay suspended be- tween a couple of chairs, with support for only the neck and feet, and of even sitting upon the unfortunate victim, to show the hardness of his tetanized muscles. Such experiments are so much the more dangerous in that the tetanus may also extend" to the respiratory muscles and the heart, when life is endangered. . Even very gentle attempts to tetanize one muscle or another by special friction may have dangerous results, as the tetanus sometimes shows an increasing tendency to spread to other muscles or groups of muscles. Thus by merely rubbing the muscles of a student's left thumb, Heidenhain caused a successively appearing tetanus of the left thumb, left hand, left forearm, left upper arm and shoulder, right shoulder, and upper arm, right forearm, right hand, left lower leg, left thigh, right thigh, t right lower leg, the masticatory muscles and the muscles of the neck. The general spasm was however at once dispersed by a blow on the arm or by bending the thumb that was turned in toward the hand. By pressure, percussion, friction, or in other words, by mechanical excitation, especially during the lethargic stage, partial contraction of the manipulated muscle may be successfully produced, which contrac- tion is again dispersed by excitation of the antagonist, that is, the muscle that acts in the opposite direction. In this way the most varied mimical expressions of joy, pain, fear, wrath, astonishment etc. may be produced by excitation of special muscles of the face. Accord- ing tcKthe method of Duchenne, a small stick, round at the end, by whicBpressure is made on such points of nerves or muscles as have shown sensitiveness to faradic excitation, completely substitutes the electric current, during the lethargic state. According to Richer, however, these experiments require much care and experience. If the pressure is too weak, only a slight trembling appears in the muscle ; if it is too strong, the excitation is communicated to more muscles 30 . HYPNOTISM. which contract at the same time. The muscles of the face are unlike those of the limbs, inasmuch as their contraction usually ceases as soon as the excitation ceases and does not become permanent. If a muscle, which has a corresponding muscle on the other side, be irritated, it will often happen that the "homologous" muscle is made to contract by excitation of the first one. A further description of how the physiognomy changes and assumes characteristic expressions for certain affections by excitation of certain muscles would be very interesting, but iff order to be understood, it requires of the reader a special knowledge of the muscles of the face, which we do not dare to pre-suppose. The contractions which ar^ produced in the muscles of the limbs have a great tendency to persist. This contraction is most easily relaxed by excitation of the antagonist muscles : thus, contraction of the flexors of a limb is removed by excitation of the corresponding extensors. But the contraction usually disappears of its own accord if the patient is wakened during the lethargic state. Sometimes, how- ever, the contraction remains on awaking, especially if the patient has previously been made cataleptic. These contractions, which greatly resemble the hysteric, can not then be stopped by anything but the excitation of the antagonist muscles, after the patient has again been hypnotized. During the somnambulistic .stage contractions may alfeo be pro- duced, yet more by excitation of the skin than by direct excitation of the tendons or nerves. These fine distinctions however will interest the reader less than wUl the perceptible changes that hypnotism causes in the sensitive organs — the general sense of touch in the skin as also the special organs of the senses. The conditions in this respect vary greatly in different individuals and in different stages. Sometimes increased sensibility is found, sometimes lessened; sometimes sharpened senses, sometimes duller. A constant fea ture and one common to all hypnotic stages however is insensibility to pain {analgesia) from pricking, pinching, burning, «tc., while the sensibility to touch may at the same time remain in the skin. During lethargy, all the senses are usually entirely inactive, except hearing, which may sometimes be weak- ly active, especially when aided by a speaking-tube placed in the ear. Although the one who is thus addressed can not answer, a twitching or an increased respiration is often noticed. When asked if he can hear/ j he may assent by a nod but he cannot articulate a sound. If requ&at- ed to speak, he will shrug his shoulders as a sign that it is impos^role for him. If he is ordered to rise, he does not do so, or only slowly after long hesitation. "When once risen, he stands staggering, with shaking legs, and cannot move a step. Heis insusceptible to sugges- tion. If he is told : "Look at that bird!" he only shakes his head; he does not see anything. If the speaking-tube is removed from his ear, he can usually hear no more. HYPNOTISM. 31 In the catalepftc state the senses are a littl6 more active, while the general sensibility to pain is completely absent. By affecting' the special senses, sight, hearing, smell and taste, a number of ideas can be imparted to the cataleptic ; but the muscular sensibility is specially acute, and through it characteristic attitudes can produce correspond- ing ideas in the brain. Also in the somnambulistic stage sensibility to pain is usually absent ; but this phenomenon sometimes varies in the same individual at different times ; sometimes the sensibility to pain is even increased. The other senses also show variations. Some are benumbed, others highly sharpened, especially the senses dt temperature and touch. The mildest current of air is then felt with the greatest acuteness even at a distance of several yards. The attraction to certain persons seems to depend on increased sensibility (.hypercesthesia.) The som- nambulist who is hypnotized by the pressure of my finger on the top of his head, afterwards follows me like a faithful dog. If I absent myself, he grows nervous, follows me and holds on to me. This does not seem to depend on any mystic '' rapport " between the hypnotizer and the hypnotized, but on some special unconscious modification of the sense of touch, as is easily proved by the following experiment. The patient is hypnotized by some one. Two other persons approach and each grasps a hand of the somnambulist. Which will she follow ? Which gets now her sympathy? Well! it is divided between the two; she grasps with equal firmness the hands of both. Many interesting observations have been made with reference to an extreme sensibility of the skin, and in this hyperaesthesia is found the most reasonable explanation of many wonderful phenomena in the somnambulists such as their ability to help themselves without the aid of their eyes, both in walking and in judging about objects near them. Braid has pointed out, that the somnambulist's pretended power of seeing with some other organ than the eye, is an error; that when with blindfolded eyes he describes the shape of an object held at a dis- tance of one or two inches from the skin of his neck, head, arm, hand or other parts, the perception is imparted through the extremely shar- pened sense of temperature of the skin, besides the power of the object of radiating or absorbing heat. The sense of hearing is also^ sharpened, according to Braid, to fourteen times the normal. This same writer also mentions the case of a lady who had so acute a sense of smell, that at a distance of forty-six feet, blindfolded, she could follow a rose just as surely as a hound follows a hare. In modern times, Berger of Breslau, has specially submitted the question to close investigation. The slightest touch of a hair upon the skin is felt by the somnambulist and accurately localized. With Weber's instrument for measuring sensibility, Berger found the sense/, of space of the skin to be three times sharper than the normal. Also 32 HYPNOTISM. the senses of pressure, temperature, hearing, smell and sight were measured by Berger and were found sharpened. In hysterical women, Dumontpallier could produce muscular con- tractions by such gentle means as the ultra-red and riltra-violet rays of the Drummond light refracted through a prism, or by sound waves, directed to the skin by means of a rubber tube. The ticking sound of a watch, directed in the same way, produced muscular movements repeated even in the same rhythm. It was probably this sensibility of the skin to the slightest air-current which acted when the ancient magnetizers succeeded in producing muscular contraction by merely pointing at a muscle from a,distance. In spite of the opposite statements of Braid and Azarn, the sense of sight can also be highly sharpened. A remarkable proof of this was exhibited a couple of years ago by Taguet, before the medico- psychological society of Paris. A young girl had from childhood shown the ordinary symptoms of hysteria. At nine years of age she had had hystero-epileptic fits. After many vain attempts she was at last successfully hypnotized, and then several interesting phenomena appeared, which by this author are described thus : ^ " While Noehe is in a convulsive crisis, in catalepsy, or in lethargy, which we successively cause by different pressures, we draw on her face some lines, with a lead pencil or with ink, some distinct, others hardly noticeable. We now put her into a somnambuhstic state and hold before her a flat object, usually one with a dull not a reflecting surface, a piece of pasteboard, for instance. She has hardly glanced at this, before she expresses her astonishment that her face is soiled, and she wipes off one line after another, using the pasteboard as a real looking-glass. The pasteboard has to be turned to and fro, in order that all the lines may be detected. Behind her head, yet so that tiieir reflections in the pasteboard can reach her eyes, we place various objects, such as a ring, a watch, a pipe, paper-dolls, coins, lead pencils ; she sees them, describes and names them, sometimes slowly however ; for instance, when instead of a watch a tencentime piece was rapidly exhibited, she still tried to read the hour ; but suddenly she ex- claimed : ' The watch is gone ! That is two sous.' If we go behind her and show our faces in her pasteboard mirror, she immediately bows, asks a question, or reminds us of a promise. If we throw a kiss at her, she exclaims that we guy her ; if we persevere, she grows angry and spits at the mirror. If we raise two fingers behind her forehead, she grows sad and crosses herself repeatedly ; she cries that she sees the devil with horns, and exhorts one of her friends to pray with her. The sight of a crucifix makes her glad, and she extends her arms backward to reach it ; but if she should happen to touch it she does not feel it. The paper-dolls that are being swung over her head amuse her a great deal and she exclaims : ' What a droll mirror ! I see in it alternately the HYPNOTISM. 33 good God, the devil, and paper-dolls.' One day we exhibit her garter, which has dropped during one of her crises ; she immediately recog- nizes it and asks how that can be in her looldng-glass. Several unknown persons pass behind her bed, so that they can be seen in the mirror ; she says something to every one : ' This one is young ; that one is old ; this one has a black beard, this one has a white beard ; this one is gay ; this one is a mocker. ' She sees every gesture, every motion of the lips. One takes a cigar and pretends to smoke. ' Make yourself at home,' she says. About another who crosses himself, she says: 'That one is a good Christian.' If the inscription; 'I am the devil,' is exhibited, she crosses herself in terror. If instead, a slip with the inscription : ' I am the good God ' is shown, she grows extremely glad. " These inscriptions are alternated, and she always shows that she understands them, even if she does not read them aloud. While the pasteboard is lifted and her eyes follow it upward, hei' breast is bared; when the mirror is again lowered, she discovers it, blushes, and begins to adjust her dress ; but it is only necessary to hold her hands to make her forget the commenced movement, and to lift the mirror to bring her out of her temporary confusion. "Her sense of smell also shows a highly increased acuteness. In order to test this, we bring her again into a somnambulistic^ state ; we take a visiting-card and tear it into small pieces, which are hidden under the carpet of another room, behind furniture, in glasses, flower- pots, in the stove, in our pockets. We then return and give her a piece of the card. She smells of it several times, reflects a little, and rushes out into the other room, runs around, and sniffs and searches like a sleuth-hound for the pieces. Suddenly she stops, sniffs, screams with joy, and picks out a piece of the card. She passes indifferently those persons and objects which hide nothing, but stops obstinately wherever a piece of card" is hidden. Protests do not discourage her and she persists until she produces the piece, which she evidently traces by her acute smell. After she has found most of the pieces, she fits them carefully together into a whole; and deciphers the contents of the text. Even with blindfolded eyes she can fit the pieces, together. If then, somebody is made to remove one or more pieces she first becomes impatient and nervous, counts the pieces, and soon attacks the thief like a fury, shrieking, gesticulating and pommeling him, until he gives up what he has taken. If he has gone away, she follows his tracks and finds him. If we try to mix in pieces of another card, she immediately finds the right ones by smelling of them, and throws away the wrong ones. If objects that have been carried by different persons are placed on her bed, she can give each one his own, by smelling of the objects and of the persons. After half an hour'ft exer- tion, she does not succeed so well, as she becomes tired, so that her 34 HYPNOTISM. sense of smell is also weakened. After awaking she remembers nothing of what has passed." The case just described, thus shows a considerably increased acuteness of both the sense of sight and that of smell during the somnambulistic state. In other somnanbulists, on the contrary, a ^total anosmia, is sometimes found, that is, inability to experience odors, .even the most intense. In such a case blowing into the nose is often all that is necessary to restore the sense of smell. Concerning the sense of sight of the somnambulist it has been found that he can see through the smallest opening between the appar- ently completely closed eyelids ; and Chambard does not consider it impossible that seeing can take place, to some extent at least, through the eyehds, which are often so thin that they let the stronger rays of light through. Cases are mentioned, where color-bhndness has been caused in the opposite eye merely by friction on one side of the head, "which blindness ceased when the same side of the head was again rubbed. %\ By careful estimation, the physiologist Beaunis, of Nancy has found increased power of hearing with reference both to the strength of the sound and to the speed [time of reaction] with which the sound is heard. Tamburini and SepilU found a sharpening of the sense of hearing during the lethargic stage, and this in so high a degree that the patient jumped at the slightest sound, and at a continuous noise experienced a general tremor, which easily produced a sort of tetanus. The catalep- tic stage, on the contrary, caused complete numbness of all the senses, as also of the sensibility to pain. If the eyes were opened during the lethargic state — which produced catalepsy — a tattoo might be beaten close to the patient's ears without his hearing in the least, and his eyes remained staring and fixed ; for his sense of sight was now also extin- guished. Any kind of motion might be made before his eyes, without causing the eyelids to wink perceptibly. The deepest incisions into the skin were not felt ; the strongest vapors (hartshorn, etc.) before ths nose, or the most bitter substance (quinine) laid on the tongue was not felt. The difference showed itself best if one side was made cataleptic, the other lethargic. The latter showed pain at very superficial stabs into the sMn, the former was entirely insensible to the deepest cuts. A slight noise before the ear of the lethargic side caused trembling and muscular activity in that side but had no influence the other. If pun- gent vapors were lead into the nostril of the lethargic side, the head was rapidly drawn away, whereas the same experiment on the other nostril left the patient entirely unaffected. Such was also the case with the sense of taste. If the cataleptic side of the tongue was painted with a solution of quinine, it did not move ; if, on the other HYPNOTISM. 35 hand, the lethargic half of the tongue was painted, the tongue immedi- ately drew backward, the whole face expressed nausea, and foamy saliva accumulated in the mouth. The influence of hypnotism on the respiration and circulation is rather uncertain and as yet but little investigated. Bemheim's opin- ion, that all the changes of this kind depend only upon the influence of suggestion, varying mental states and affections, is too one-sided. By careful observation Tamburini and Sepilli have found constant effects of the different hypnotic stages, such as stronger respiratory move- ments during the lethargic state, weaker during the cataleptic ; vas- cular dilatation during the former, vascular contraction during the lat- ter. In hysterical persons respiration is always quickened at the beginning of the sleep, often in connection with a peculiar noise in the throat, and sleep is always preceded by at least one or two deep inhal ations. On transition from the lethargic to the cataleptic state by opening of the eyes, respiration often completely ceases {apnoea) for as much as a whole minute, and for a long time afterwards it remains superficial, irregular and labored. The most remarkable phenomena within the circulation — local congestions and hemorrhages — are pro- duced by suggestion, about which more will be said later on. CHAPTER VII. PSYCHICAL EFFECTS OF HYPNOTISM. THE influence of hypnotism upon mental life — its psychical effects — is rich and varied, and of so peeular a nature (often opposed to ordinary mental life and sometimes even bordering on the incompre- hensible and marvelous) that these phenomena, which at all times chiefly interested the public at large, and of late have also attracted the serious attention and study of the scientists, well deserve a more extensive consideration in this work. As for the influence of hypnotism on the special senses, we have already seen how perception of external impressions is greatly modified, although in different ways during different hypnotic stages, so that the senses are sometimes benumbed, sometimes extremely sharpened. On this a number of the psychical phenomena of hypnosis depend. Here we would only recall to memory, that during lethargy all the senses are benumbed, except sometimes hearing; that during catalepsy, one sense or another wakes, but that especially the muscular sense is very impressionable ; and finally that during somnanbulism the senses are not only awake, but generally highly acute. This also applies to the other mental faculties during the somnambulistic state. 36 HYPNOTISM. and hence somnambulism offers the greatest variety of marvelous phenomena within mental hfe,' and hence is best adapted to psycho- logical experiment. Among the sharpened mental faculties memory takes the first place ; indeed it can be said that it is principally the memory that masters the whole scene of the somnambulic drama. Under different circumstances the memory proves exceedingly good or particularly dtill. It is a very characteristic and constant fact that the deeply- hypnotized, upon waking, remember nothing of all that has taken place during the sleep, whereas, if again put to sleep, they thep very clearly remember what they have thought or experienced during previous hypnoses. It seems as if there were two separate forms of life, the normal, wakeful life and the somnambulistic life, each with its experi- ence, its memory ; that the two spheres are rather independent of each other; that the personality is doubled, as it were. These spheres are not entirely without connection, for it is a second characteristic quality of the somnambulistic memory, that it holds not only remembrances from previous somnambulic states, but also from the wakeful state, and these much more lively than the normal. As long-forgotten things can return during natural sleep in dreams, so the memory during hypnosis can show an incredible acuteness as to past events and impressions received long ago, which otherwise in the wakeful state cannot be brought to consciousness even with the- greatest effort. By this acuteness of the memory, the ability of the somnambulist to recite poetry can be explained, as also the fact that he can express himself in foreign languages, of which he formerly had only, a slight knowledge. , There is however a means, but only one, of restoring to memory ^ the wakeful state that which has passed during the hypnosis, viz.: suggestion. If you assure a hypnotized person during his sleep, that upon waking he will remember all that he has heard, said or done in his sleep, he will then remember it upon awaking ; otherwise he will not. It is essentially necessary that the hand of an outsider put this mechanism of memory into motion; the subject himself cannot do it! But that is not all; by suggestion you may in the same way so thoroughly obliterate memory, with reference to both the wakeful and the hypnotic states, so that it even does not return as usual in later hypnoses. This has a great practical significance, especially from a juridical point of view, to which we shall later return. Some instances published by Beaunis might best illustrate the above-mentioned qualities of the memory. Miss E., who felt a repugnance towards certain articles of food and who was ordered by Beaunis to observe a certain dietary, could seldom minutely give an account of what she had eaten a couple of days before, if she was questioned about it when awake. By put- ting her to sleep, on the contrary, B, received the most minute and HYBNOTISM. 37 complete accounts of the meals, including even such trifles as other- wise do not generally attract one's attention. Hypnotized at the physiological laboratory in Nancy, the same person was informed by suggestion, that upon awaking she should see Mr. X., (who was then present) with a nose of silver ten inches long. We need not add that he had his awn natural nose. When she, upon awaking, beheld Mr. X., she immediately began to laugh aloud. — "What is the matter?" — "Of course you see that nose!" — "It is a hallucination that I have imparted to you ; it is not true." — "But I see the nose clearly, though." — "Well, I will take that fancy from you." — Beaunis now assured her that the silver nose was gone. — " Oh look ! Mr. X. has no longer any silver nose ; — he has an ordinary nose!" — "Of course!" — "Well, do you now remember that you just saw Mr. X., with a silver nose?" — "No! his nose has always been as I now see it.'' Thus she had no memory of the hallucination produced by suggestion. The case is the same with actions. Madam A., is hypnotized by staring. While asleep, she is made to believe that three minutes after awaking, she will go and embrace a little peasant woman, who is sit- ting in the corner of the room and whom she then sees for the first time. At the moment predicted, she goes and embraces the woman, who is quite astonished at this unexpected caress. When a moment afterward she was asked "What did you do?" — she answered "I? Nothing!" "Yes, you embraced that woman." — "No! certainly not." — She had already forgotten what she had done. Prom this it may be seen, that such actions as are afterwards acted out during the wakeful state on account of suggestion under hypnosis, yet are not done with fully awakened' consciousness, but probably in a somnambulistic state — produced for the occasion — which lasts only during the time of the action. Still more complicated actions of the same kind are usiially forgotten. But yet again: Suggestions can be produced even in an entirely wakeful state, and these can also be effaced from memory. During a conversation v^ith Miss E., when she was fully awake and had not been hypnotized once during that day, B. quite unexpectedly closed her hand saying : "You can no more open your hand!" She tried in vain and said " Please open my hand, for otherwise I cannot work ! " — After awhile B. said: "Now you can open your hand yourself!" — She opened it without difiSculty. A few minutes later, B. asked: "Of course you remember, that a moment ago you could not open your hand? " "No; I have always been able to open it." In a like manner, B. could make the same lady believe, in a wake- ful state, that a friend's hat, which she saw before her, was white although it was really garnet-colored ; and though she then first con- tradicted B., when he declared it garnet-colored, she immediately forgot that she bad seen it white. 38 HYPNOTISM. On another occasion she was compelled by suggestion to twirl her hands around each other. During this proceeding, she acknowledged that she was fully awake ; that she well knew what she was doing, but that she could not stop the movement ; she also promised to remember what she was doibg, but nevertheless she remembered nothing after B. had stopped her hands. , So, too, suggested actions of greater complex- ity can be forgotton. Miss E;, had just entered when B. said to her: "In one minute you will go and change the two Statuettes, (Thiers and Beranger), on that etagere." At the appointed time she did it, but did not remem- ber it. Mrs. A., who was of the company, was sure that anything so silly would certainly never happen to her. " Very well ! " said B., "in one minute, madam, you will steal one sou out of my coat-pocket and put it in your own.'' One minute, later, with some hesitation, the lady rose, furtively slipped her hand into B's pocket, took out a sou and put it quite unconcernedly into her ovm. A moment afterwards B., said: " Empty your pocket ! " She looked at him quite astonished, emptied the contents of her pocket into her lap, found among other things one sou, looked at it for a moment and put the coin into her pocket-book. One of the assistants then said: "That coin was not yours, you have just taken it from Mr. B." She remembered nothing and lives in the behef that it was her coin. Not always however does the memory in these cases disappear so quickly; sometimes it lasts for some minutes, but finally disappears entirely. The strangest thing is, that the suggestions, performed during wakefulness and soon forgotten, again return to memory during the next hypnosis. This gives further support to the opinion that the action was performed in a somnambulistic though apparently wakeful state. Through suggestion persons can also be made to have certain dreams duiing the natural sleep. Furthermore, memory can be partly extinguished; for instance, a person can be made to forget all the vowels, all the consonants; this vowel or consonant or that one; nouns, adjectives, pronouns, even his own name, special periods of his life etc. In one word, it would seem to be as easy to benumb by suggestion a certain group of brain-cells, as it is to paralyze a muscle. ~v^ Finally, we will call attention to the latent, unconscious memory, which manifests itself by the fact that an action ordered by suggestion for a certain time is performed punctually at the prescribed moment, though months and even years may have elapsed, and although the person has not thought of the matter during the intervening time, nor had it in conscious memory. There seems to be hardly any limit to this latent memory. Beaunis quotes one case, where the action was performed after 172 days ; others tell of still greater differences in the time between the suggestion and the execution. When the action is' HYPNOTISM. 39 then performed, it is not on account of a conscious remembeiing that it should be done, but through an unconscious and irresistible im- pulse, without the motives being clear to consciousness. This is some- thing very peculiar, and has no analogy within the normal functions of memory. Under ordinary circumstances it happens, though, that something, that has been forgotten — a name, a date, etc. — and which, you in vain try to find in the dim corridors of memory, will return of itself on a later occasion, usually however, brought forth by some chance occurrence that causes an association of ideas in that direction. But time and moment are not decided for such a resurrection of mem cry. The case is vei"y different with the somnambulistic memory, "where the impulse of performing the previously suggested action always occurs at the hour given, and of itself, without being caused by any external occurrence or association. For instance, I tell the hypnotized person that on the tenth day after this at five P. M., he ■win open a certain book and read page 25. Although the idea of opening the prescribed page of the book unconsciously lingers in his "brain, and is so strong that it absolutely compels him to do it when the fixed hour has arrived, he can not even be reminded of this idea before the appointed hour, even if the said page of the book is shown to him. Only when the right hour has come, are the memory of the action and the impulse to it awakened. Thus we see that here we have no common association. This phenomenon has been proved so often that it can not be doubted, although it is difficult to explain. An analogy may be found in the ability possessed by many to awake from ordinary sleep at a determined hour, when they have thoroughly made up their minds to it. Still more common is the previously de- termined punctual waking from hypnotic sleep. Before or during the hypnosis, you say to the subject : " Tou will awake in five, ten, fifteen minutes;" or, "You will sleep so many hours;" and it never fails that •waking takes place punctually at the prescribed time. The intellectual ability of the hypnotized is more difficult to estimate than is the acuteness of the senses and memory. It can gen- erally be said, however, that the intellect [power of judgment] keeps pace with the sensibility and memory. In lethargy, which corresponds to deep, natural sleep without dreams, the intellect also sleeps. Only the hearing is enough awake to be able to accept some simple sugges- tions, some hallucinations. It is first during catalepsy and still more duiing somnambulism, that mental life awakes ; that the hypnotic dream begins and develops to great vividness. Characteristic of catalepsy is the automatism, the involuntary, passive, machine-like, mental activity. Through suggestion the cataleptic can be forced to psychical activity, but the latter is entirely dependent upon the exter- nal impulses, and is not regulated by any internal motives ; the cata- 40 HYPNOTISM. leptic individual is an ' inert tool in the hand of the hypnotizer ; he makes no resistance and takes no initiative of his own ; he is a doll, a marionette, whose actions are entirely dependent upon the cords that are pulled ; he is no personality ; there is no cataleptic ego. He is like one asleep who is completely a slave of his dreams. V Such is not the case with the somnambulist. He is much more independent; he is a personality, with a certain character, with distinct sympathies and antipathies ; certainly in a great measure susceptible to suggestion, but at the same time possessing a certain power of criticism, of resistance, of freedom. As for the mental faculties of the somnambulist, they are by no means dififerent in quality from those of the normal, wakeful state, though they are of different acuteness ; they often prove highly sharpened in all direc- tions : the senses more acute, the sensibility quickened, the judgment more rapid, the fantasy livelier ; all the strings of the soul are tuned higher ; their condition might be best compared to a slight maniacal exaltation. But the somnambulist is not such a passive automaton as is the cataleptic; he certainly is easily impressed by suggestion, if that does not touch his personality ; but if this is concerned, he can say nay, offer resistance, show judgment of his own and a certain freedom of action. The somnambulist shows especially a certain independence with reference to other persons' influence over him, so that he, for instance, blindly obeys those who awaken his sympathy, but opposes all others. This kind of independence, however, is often seeming rather than real. For the sympathy mentioned can be pro- duced in a very artificial manner. The person who has caused the somnambuhsm by some direct personal contact — such as pressure on the head with the naked hand, "passes" etc. — always becomes the chosen one, to whom the somnambulist renders blind obedience. This is plainly shown by the following experiment. Instead of using the hand, the top of the head is pressed by a wooden spoon, a roll of paper, or any inanimate object. The somnambulist then remains indif- ferent ; any one can now exert influence over him ; produce contrac- tures ; again relax them ; waken him etc. ; whereas, if he were hypnotized by direct personal contact, no one except the one who touched him has any further influence on him. But besides this rather artificial sym- pathy, there is also, as in normal life, a natural sympathy, a certain " rapport^'' which makes the somnambulist more easily influenced by one person than by another. Before proceeding with the consideration of the somnambulic psychical phenomena, we will more closely investigate the method which is used to produce and guide these phenomena, and which can be comprised in the modern name — suggestion. HYPNOTISM. 41 CHAPTER Vm. BTTGGESTION. SUGGESTION, from the Latin suggerere, to lay under, to inform, would perhaps in our language be best rendered as "inspiration'' or "imagination ; '' but, as these words are used only in the sense of spon- taneous internal inspiration — imagination — spontaneous suggestion, whereas suggestion generally signifies an inspiration from without or an internally imparted sensation, thought, impulse, etc. — for which meaning the modern expression "transmission of thought" is not fully exhaustive either, — we prefer to use the term suggestion, which originated in Prance, and is generally used both in that and in other civilized countries. It is not easy to give a definition of the word suggestion, which persons begin to use with a more and more extensive meaning. It might be said, that by this word is meant every operation, which in a living being causes some involuntary effect, the impulse to which, passes through the intellect, producing some imagination or idea, or simply: control over a person by means of an idea. A concrete example will more easily explain this abstract definition, which, for the reader, may be somewhat hard to digest. On one hypnotized a contracture is produced in the muscle that bends the arm by squeezing the muscle, or without touching it, by merely saying : " Tour arm is bent ; you cannot straighten it ! " In the former case the procedure is purely physical : the excitation to muscular contraction is a reflex- action, so-called, which runs over from the sensory nerves of the muscle to its motory nerves, without passing through the intelligent sphere of the brain ; in the latter case the excitation goes through the organ of hearing to this sphere, where it produces an idea or illusion that the muscle is going to iCon tract ; this imagination produces in the muscle's motor centre in the brain an impulse, which is communicated to the muscle through its motor. We see that this way of suggestion to the muscle is far longer, and that it passes more stations than does the simple reflex-action. All suggestion is thus mediated through an " ideation " or action of ideas or illusions. The great susceptibility of the organism to influence from such ideations explains the important role that is played by imagination, in the causing and curing of certain diseases. But the roads to the brain centre of ideas and imaginations are many, and hence there are also many kinds of suggestion. The sim- plest, shortest, most convenient and consequently most common way is that of the spoken word. It goes directly through the ear to the brain. The somnambulist is told that something is thus or so ; that he is seeing, hearing or feeling this or that"; that he wiU do this or 42 HYPNOTISM. that; and then his ideas concentrate exclusively on this. This sug- gestion by words is called verbal suggestion. But the word can also be written. The only difference then is that the suggestion enters through the eye instead of through the ear. Also the other senses? smell, taste and especially touch, are easy routes for suggestion. It is worth while to give special attention to the suggestion through, the sense of touch, which in a measure arises within the organism of the somnambulist himself through the muscular sensibility ; the last named interprets the different attitudes, of the body (if these are in any way characteristic) as expressing some special mood, affection or passion in the brain, and produces certain corresponding ideas, moods, and motions. This form of suggestion is by the French called '■'■sug- gestion par attitude." For instance, if you place some one in the attitude of prayer, without mentioning by a single word that he is going to pray, the mere position awakens in his brain the idea of prayer, and not only his position but also his facial expression then shows that he is exclusively thinking of prayer. If he is placed in a tragic attitude, his face assumes a tragical expression ; if his fist is clinched, his eyebrows contract and anger is reflected on his face. If he is made to commence a movement with some distinct aim, he continues the movement himself. If he is placed on all fours, his locomotion is that of a quadruped. If a pen is placed in his hand, he will write ; if some fancy-work with needle and thread is placed in the hands of a woman, she begins to sew. The positions in which the hypnotized are placed easily create corresponding ideas in the degree that they are expressive and common. There are instances of such suggestions by positions even in completely healthy, wide-awake persons with strong imaginations. Bennett tells of a butcher, who, when' he was about to hang a piece of meat, caught his own arm on the hook and remained hanging until he was taken down half dead with pain and fright. Although he complained of pain in his arm, which he supposed to be pierced by the hook, the arm was found entirely unin- jured, and the hook had only caught in his clothes. , This suggestion through attitudes impressed from without and sensations experienced within, borders on the suggestion which comes entirely from within, and which is consequently called auto-suggestion or self-suggestion. As instances of this, cases like the following have been quoted. During hypnosis a woman was made to believe that she was wrestling with her physician, and that she had given him a strong blow in the face. The day after, when her imagined adversary entered the room, she claimed, that she saw a large black and blue spot on his face, although there was no trace of it. This hallucination had arisen in her through self-suggestion. No one from vnthout had created this idea in her. It was eaused in her own brain by her previous idea of HYPNOTISM. 43 the wrestling. She thought: "I gave him yesterday a sound blow on his face; consequently, he must to-day have some mark from it." Another woman, who was one morning put into a deep lethargic sleep, but only for five minutes, imagined upon wakening that she had slept for many hours. The physician let her remain in this belief, and told her that it was 2. P. M., although it was but 9. A. M. At this imformation the patient immediately experienced sharp hunger and asked to have some dinner. This imaginary hunger was satisfied by a meal, equally imaginary. Through suggestion the hallucination was produced in her that a plate with victuals was standing on the table and that she was partaking of a meal. She became satisfied and spoke no more of hunger. Concerning these cases of self-suggestion, so-called, it might how- ever be remarked, that although the later ideas have arisen in the brain of the patients themselves, yet they are really but a continuation, a logical sequel of the ideas that had previously arisen through im- pulse from without. Such an independent and yet irresistible completion of an idea, so that it even changes into feeling, desire, and action, is generally found in the somnambulists, yet with far more lack of freedom than in the wakeful. Beaunis quotes several striking instances of this. After he had hypnotized Miss E., he said: "When you awake, you wiU say to Mrs. A.: "I should like very much to have a few cherries ! " Awhile after awaking, she went to her friend, Mrs. A., and whispered something to her. B. then said: "I know what you whispered; that you longed for cherries." — "How do you know that?" she said quite astonished. On the following day she bought some cherries to satisfy her violent longing for them. Mark well, that B. had merely suggested the words, but through the words she had spoken, the desire had arisen : all of which shows the close connection between words, ideas, and sensation. 'Hie expression of the desire blends with the desire itself. Yet it is not so in a waking person. If I repeat ever BO many times the words: "I desire cherries," then, unless I already had the desire for them, I certainly do not conceive it by merely repeating these words. Nor am I compelled to write because I take a pen in my hand. This shows, that in the hypnotized the associations of ideas are more automatic, more dependent upon external circumstances, whereas, in the wakeful state they are con- trolled, regulated, checked when necessary, and generally guided by a conscious free will. Before we proceed, we will somewhat diiscuss the question of susceptibility to suggestion. Who are more or less susceptible First we would remark that susceptibility manifests itself not 44 HYPNOTISM. only during hypnotic, but also during natural sleep ; yea, even during the completely wakeful state. Many who are used to receiving suggestions during hypnosis, also prove susceptible to such suggestions during the completely wakeful state, without any need of their first being put to sleep. The influence which the hypnotizer acquires over his subjects during hypnosis, often continues to a certain extent, when they live their usual life. But many persons are also found, who have never been thus prepared by hypnotism and who yet prove highly susceptible to suggestion and this even without proving particularly susceptible to hypnotism. This is especially the case with all imaginative persons. Only by seeing or hearing of a disease, they can imagine that they suffer from the same complaint. Especially within the nervous system many ailments are to be found — such as spasm, contracture, paij-lysis, neuralgia, ansestLh sis, etc.— which arise in this way. It is easy by mere assur- ance to transfer such a disease from one part of the body to another. Before the biological society of Paris, Botty has exhibited healthy and wakeful persons, who, by merely an energetic assurance, or by some anointing, could be rapidly made mute, blind, deaf, insensible to odors, or striken with palsy, contracture, or anaesthesis. It is obvious that such diseases are just as easily cured by suggesion or by a confidence- inspiring assurance that they are cured. This, explains how such thaumaturgists as Boltzius possibly succeed in a few cases belonging to this category. L Nothing is more common than for those who study medical books and even young medical students — to feel' distinct symptoms of the diseases of which they are reading at the time. Bremaud tells of a young student, on whom he could at pleasure produce contracture, ansesthesis, etc. The student, who was in good health, could not understand why he could not move his limbs when R forbade him to do so, and why B. could stick needles through his skin without his experiencing any pain. Another student, who was iuthis manner fastened to a chair or pinned to the floor, became quite angry over the awkardness of his situation. As a proof of how one suggestion neutralizes another, B. gave to each of the students mentioned a box well wrapped up, with a state- ment that the box contained something that would make them insus- ceptible to every suggestion. As long as they held the box in their hands, it was impossible to renew the experiment just mentioned. But great was their astonishment when they afterward opened the boxes and found that they contained — nothing. In the same way, wide-awake persons can be made to jump, dance, assume the most comical postures, or to become insensible. Without previously hypnotizing the patient, Bemheim succeeded in causing such insensibility that the roots of five teeth could' be pulled out with HTJPNOTISM. 45 out the slighest pain. Probably, however, there is a certain nervous weakness in individuals so susceptible to suggestion, although they are apparently healthy. Yet this is more easily done with those who are used to being hypnotized, and although seemingly awake, they must be considered as being put by the suggestion into a less perceptible (latent) hypnotic state. Since remote times, such imperceptible states of hypnotism have been known under the names of enchantment and fascination. The snake-charmers of India have practised this form of suggestion for thousands of years. In modern times, the attention of the scientists was called to this strange phenomenon— suggestion of the wakeful — about 1848, by one Grimes from New England, who in wakeful persons produced the same nervous phenomena as his contemperaries, Braid and his pupils, caused in the hypnotized. The method, which was called by Grimes Mlectro- Siology, was introduced into England in 1850 by Dr. DarHng, and awakened great interest in the mind of the physiologist. Carpenter. In his "Mental Physiology" C. devotes a whole chapter to this biological state or "induced dream." Those "biologized " are considered as awake. These suggestions in the wakeful have been throughly studied by Bemheim, Liegeois, Beaunis and others. According to Liegeois such a person does not show the slightest sign of sleep ; his eyes are open ; his movements easy, he speaks, walks, acts as every- body else ; he joins in the conversation, answers objections ; he discusses with successful hits ; he seems to be in a fully normal state, except in the one respect, where he is checked by the person who experiments with him. A similar state, though somewhat more akin to somnambulism, liiegeois describes under the name of "charme.'' Beaunis points out, that those " suggested " in the waking state may be mistaken for persons slightly hypnotized with open eyes. I myself have seen such a condition in a spiritual medium, who sometimes entered into a somnambulic state — by the spiritualists called ''trance'' — ^when with open eyes he fell into a kind of ecstasy vsith hallucina- tions, sharpened mental faculties etc. ' In one word, there are a number of different stages between the completely wakeful state and the deep somnambulic sleep ; and it is often exceedingly difficult to decide whether a person who proves susceptible to suggestion is fully awake, or in a slight, latent, somnam- bulic state. I am inclined to think that a latent somnambulism is present much oftener than is supposed, especially if the meaning of somnambulism be extended so far as to embrace all conditions — except- ing natural sleep and all pathological forms of insensibility depending upon distinct diseases, poisoning, etc — where consciousness, judgment and free will do not possess their ordinary acuteness and distinctness. 4=6 HYPNOTISM. According to this opinion all who prove susceptible to suggestion would at the time be more or less somnambiilistic ; but if they really are fully awake, and yet allow themselves to be imposed upon by suggestion, they may at least be considered as "poor sticks." Tet there are conditions, under which strong minds also can be ensnared by a suggestion, viz.: — when they are taken by surprise during a state of absent-mindedness, onesided thinking in another direction, lack of attention, temporary want of will, or too much confidence in the one who produces the suggestion ; but aU these conditions are such as make a person at least less wakeful, if not sleeping. In a limited sense, suggestion plays a far greater role in normal human life^ and appears daily far more often, then we think. Broadly speaking, suggestion generally constitutes an important part of, all education of children, of all teaching ; of the physician's treatment of the sick ; of the influence of all men over each other, for good or for evU. For instance it is a common experience that " confidence " in the physician and in the remedy in many diseases greatly promotes the success of the treatment. What is this but suggestion ? The phy- sician or the remedy awakens in the brain of the sick person the idea, that just this physician or this remedy will cure his disease. This suggestion is often more than half the cure. The like action of suggestion is to be seen, in every day life. If you suddenly say to a young, bashful girl : " How you are blushing! " her face usually grows red, although she did not have the slightest cause. By yawning or by pretending to yawn I can cause a whole company to yawn. Laughter and tears are also directly contagfious ; my mouth waters when I hear a delicacy spoken of; all is suggestion, when it is a direct, not fully voluntary, reflex action that passes through the brain. As, in a somnambulist, by a fictitious story, I can produce the liveliest mental affections, so a wide-awake person may be moved to tears, to laughter, to expressions of joy, sorrow, anger, etc., by a drama or by the reading of a novel. The difference between the suggestions in the two cases is not great. The reasoning thought, that the sorrow is fiction, not reality, immediately stops the tears, which were produced by merely a reflex action. This common human susceptibility to suggestion has its degrees however; it is least developed in powerful thinkers — cold, practical men of sense — and most prominent in weak, sensitive, powerless, dependent natures, and generally most in women, children and old men. Also during natural sleep, man is susceptible to suggestion. But it would lead us too far to show how dreams can be produced and guided at pleasure by this means. HYPNOTISM. 47 We have shown above, how suggeBtion can be conveyed in differ- ent ways and by different methods. One kind of suggestion, wjhich arises in the hypnotized by imitation, is especially described by Berger. The subjects of this sort of suggestion are by him called ecAoZaZi,because they imitate precisely like an echo, inasmuch as they not only repeat every word spoken by the hypnotizer, but they also imitate every gesture, every motion ; and finally if they only hear a word, an intimation, they execute movements that are connected with this idea. The mere mentioning of the words, weeping, laughter singing, running, dancing, causes them to perform these several acts. Suggestion has a vast field for its effects ; it can be said to be as extensive as the nervous system in general, inasmuch as all forms of nervous activity can be induced by suggestion. Thus the effects manifest themselves within the motor sphere by producing or inhibit- ing motions, and by producing all kinds of positions, and also changes in the condition of the muscles, such as contraction, contracture, tetanus, paralysis, etc., as well as within the sensitive or sensory sphere by causing or alleviating pain, sensitiveness or insensibility and by producing all possible changes in the senses; their sharpening or benumbing. StUl more important and varied are the effects of sugges- tion within the higher psychical life, where thoughts, ideas, moods, desires, impulses and actions can all be ruled by it. This influence lasts not only for the moment and during the sleep, but by affecting the memory it also lasts far into the wakeful state through^o«^ hypno- tic suggestion, so-called. — Finally there is a sphere for suggestion, where the normal influence of the nervous system, though quite per- ceptible, is as yet not fully explained by physiology, viz. : — the func- tions of the vegetative life, such as circulation, heat-production, diges- tion, excretion, etc. On this ground it seems that the influence of the nervous system can be increased, often to an incredible degree, by suggestion, which has aided many a performer of wonders to produce so-called supernatural effects in this direction. Thus, with reference to their effects, suggestions might be classified as motor, sensitive, sensorial, hallucinatory, psychical, vegetative, etc. From another point of view, they may also be divided into posi- tive and negative; the first-named, when a positive result is caused — an active effect, such as a motion, an action, a pain, an hallucination, a spoken or otherwise expressed thought ; the last-named, when they have a negative, inhibitive effect ; for instance, when insensibitity, palsy, blindness, deafness, dumbness, etc. are produced. We have shown in general, how suggestion by impression is imparted, and how it manifests itself by different expressions. But what is it that mediates impressions and expressions ? As we have Been, suggestion — unlike the simple reflex action, which only passes 48 HYPNOTISM. through the spinal chord — must pass through the centre of ideas in the brain ; the mediation thus takes place through stn association of ideas. An instance best explains the machinery of suggestion. The hypotized- person is told: "Look! there is a bird on your table." As soon as the words are spoken, he sees the bird and feels it with his fingers ; he can even hear it sing. Thus, the mere word creates an hallucination, produced by the fact that the word, bird, and the image of the bird are always connected with each other by an association of ideas. The same optical illusion can be brought on by other means ; for instance, by describing a bird's flight through the air by means of the hanH. Here it is the similarity between the move- ments of the hand and those of the bird that form the bridge of association. Some Scotch psychologists — Th. Brown, for instance — have called attention to the fact that the association is also really dependent on suggestion : one image, one idea suggests another ; thus the law of suggestion is a physiological basis for normal thinking. When an image arises in the brain, it always strives to arouse similar images, such as are through nature and habit most easily connected with the first one. Hence we find that this form of hypnotic sugges- tion, wonderful as it is at first may seem, and foreign to normal mental life, yet is nothing but a somewhat more complicated application of one of ^the most important fundamental laws of mind. This corrobo- rates the general rule : in natura non datur salius, that is : — there is no leap in nature; from the normal functions of life you usually find changes into the abnormal, so slight and so slowly-appearmg, that they, as subject to the same laws, cannot be plainly distinguished from each other. However, all forms of suggestion are not equally easy to explain. For both the negative suggestions and those which are put into action directly or a long time afterwards, offer great difficulties. Now ap- pears another influence of a higher, less mechanical kind, than when one image is produced by another, viz. : the impulse from a will that makes action voluntary, as opposed to reflex action. In those who act on account of suggestion, this impulse comes from without, from the will of the hypnotizer ; in the wakeful person, who acts voluntarily, it comes from the will of the latter himself ; this is the only difference. Besides, it is just as difficult in one case as in the other, to understand the connection between the mental impulse and the physical action. Here we stop before a dualism, where science is still searching in vain for the connecting link. That functions are suppressed by negative suggestion, must depend on the imparted fixed idea or belief, that the functions are impossible ; which idea totally checks both the impulse to motion in paralysis and the sense of feeling in ansesthesiS. HYPNOTISM. 49 After this general explanation, it will become easier to compre- hend — in some degree at least — the complex effects of suggestion. It is not easy to make a choice from the variety of instances offered by the literature, even if we adhere to only the most modern. For better order, we divide them into new main groups. ■ Hallucinations or illusions. By hallucination is meant — as we all know — a perception through one of our senses without correspond- ing reality ; as when the eye perceives an image on a blank sheet of paper, or when the ear hears a voice though everything is still. On the other hand, we call it delusion, when the senses conceive a real object in a wrong way , as when the eye takes the picture of a man to be that of a horse ; or when the ear mistakes the stroke of a bell for a human voice. Both kinds are included in the name illusions. These constantly appear in our dreams and during various mental diseases. In the hypnotized they are easily produced by suggestion. These suggested illusions can affect all the senses, and can be varied ad infinitum according to the will of the hypnotizer. By deception of sight the room may be changed into a street, a garden, a cemetery, a lake ; present persons may be made to change appearance ; strangers to appear, objects to change form and color. On a blank sheet of paper all possible figures can be made to appear to the imagination ; the hypnotized can even ba made to cast up long accounts with the numbers that they imagine they see on the paper. To the hearing, the voices of unknown persons can be made to sound like those of friends ; under complete silence sounds of birds and various animals can be produced, as can also voices, that speak gently or loudly, that praise, insult or scold. The sense of taste can be so deceived that raw potatoes taste like the most delicious peaches ; that the sweet tastes sour, the sour sweet ; even vomiting may be caused by merely declaring a draught of water, after it is in the stomach, to be an emetic. The sense of smell can be made to find the strongest odor in objects that have no smell at all, or to find the fragrance of roses in assafcetida, or abominable odors in a fragrant rose. The sense of touch can be deceived and cheated in various ways. In the part of the body that is declared insensible, incisions can be made with sharp needles, burning irons or keen-edged knives, without being noticed. The pain from an imaginary wound also arouses other hallucinations: — blood seems to run and the wound is carefully bandaged. Suggsstion can affect the musculax sense, — so that objects seem heavy or the reverse — as also the organic sense or ccenoesthesis, by which all kinds of natural desires (hunger, thirst, etc.) can be aroused or appeased. This organic sense can be so completely deceived, that the hypnotized individual believes himself to be an entirely different person. 50 HYPNQTI8U. An amusing instance of this kind is told by Binet- and Fere: One day they said to the hypnotized ■ Miss X., that she was Dr. P. After some slight opposition she agreed to it. Upon waking, she did not see Dr. p. who stood before her; but she imitated his walk, his gestures, his speech ; from time to time she put her fingers to bar lips and made a motion, as if she twisted a moustache, as the doctor was in the habit of doing, and she assumed a pompous mien and posture. At the question : " Do you know Miss X.? " she hesitated a moment, then shrugged her shoulders in contempt and said : " Oh ! yes, she is an hysterical woman." — "Well' how do you like her ? " — " Oh! she is a fool." Most of the hallucinations produced in this way, do not stop at this simple state, but awaken secondary series of ideas or manias, which further develop and disclose the consequences of the hallucinations, exactly as in the mentally deranged. As there are one-sided (unilateral) illusions in the insane, so that, for instance, they see a vision with only one eye, hear a sound with only one ear, so unilateral hallucinations can also be produced by suggestion. For instance,, the one hypnotized is made to believe, that on a blank paper he perceives a picture with his right eye only. If his right eye is closed and the left one is open, he then does not see the picture ; and the same can be reversed. Upon waking, the illusory picture remains, but only to the right eye. To the left the paper appears entirely blank. This interesting experiment can be made stiU more compli- cated. Corresponding senses may receive dissimilar and opposite hallucinations. For instance, you say to the right ear : the weather vis pleasant, the sun shines brightly ; and to the other ear : it is raining and it is unpleasant weather.- The right half of the face then smiles while the left looks sullen. To the right ear, a rustic festival with merry young persons is discribed, but the left one is told that an angry dog is barking. The same diflference as before in the two halves of the face. The hypnotized person can be made to believe that every thing looks red to his right eye. A piece of white paper will then appear red to the right- eye, white to the left eye, and pink to both eyes If one eye is made to see red and the other green or blue, a compound color will not appear to both eyes, but alternately red, green or blue. We now arrive at some still more wonderful phenomena of halluci- nation which the science of the present day has not been able to explain. Although an optical illusion seem to be fixed only in the brain of the one who sees it, and lacks all reality, all fixation, yet it seems as if the hallucinator possessed a certain power of giving the image some kind of physical fixation in reality. The following facts, properly vouched for by scientists, yet incomprehensible, testify to this. We return to the example with the imagined portrait on a blank sheet of paper. Take a clean piece of white paper, which is alike on both sides, and so HYPNOTISM. 51 free from all marks that the underside cannot be distinquished from the upper. Put it before the hypnotized person and make him beHeve that he sees a portrait drawn on the paper. Turn the paper, and he will not see any picture on the other side, unless he is made to believe that he also sees an image there — which should not be done in this experiment. Always remember which side was first turiied up, and how- ever deceptive the turning of the paper may be, it" will y et be found that he never mistakes the two sides, nor ever sees the picture on the wrong side, nor ever fails to see it on the right one. Nor does he mistaJ^e the position of the picture ; if the paper is turned upside down, he sees the picture standing on its head ; if it is turned side-ways, the picture is lying horizontally. It is evident that all changes of the position of the paper are done so that he cannot in any ordinary way notice it, either behind his back, or while his eyes are blindfolded- He always places the picture according to the first suggestion. Another experiment made by Fere is not less wonderful. On a piece of white paper, he placed a white visiting-card, whose outlines he followed with a blunt pen, in the air, close to the paper, without leaving amy trace of the lines, but he made the hypnotized individual believe that he drew black lines on the paper. After the patient had been wakened, he was asked to fold the paper where the fictitious lines were. He held it at the same distance from his eyes as it had been during the hypnosis, and folded it in a rectangle minutely corresponding to the card, which now he was not allowed to see. A similar experiment has been performed many times by Charcot before a number of pupils. On a blank white cardboard, he produces by suggestion to the hypnotized person the image of a portrait. Then he mixes this piece among a do'zen blank cardboards of the same kind and appearance. He wakens the sleeper, and without saying any- thing about the portrait, he asks her to look through the blank cards ; upon doing so she finds, to her astonishment, one that has a portrait, and she gives the same description of it as during the hypnosis. In the present status of the science, this wonderful power of seeing can hardly be explained in any other way, than that the image on the paper must be connected by some association of ideas with some mark on the paper, some spot, uneveness, etc., which causes the right side and its correct original position to be always recognized, although the marks are so diminutive that they cannot be traced by ordinary eyes. But at the same time it must be stated that this explanation is not satisfactory ; for it is only the experimentalist, who thinks of such a mark and has occasion to make it. The hypnotized person has n6 reason for such a precaution, when he only stares at the image and by no means dreams of the experiments to follow. If a spiritualist were asked to explain this mystic phenomenon, he would immediately have on hand an answer that would solve the 52 HtPNOTISM. enigma.: bis doctrine of "materialization" — if it were only true. For he claims in the human spirit, as in the absolute Spirit of the universe, a certain creative power, and he does not consider it imposssible, that the optical illusion of man, when projected from the eye to the paper, deposits there a fine ethereal substance, which, imperceptible to ordinary eyes, is yet easily detected by sight sharpened by hypnotism. The spirituahst would even Deheve in the possibihty of transmitting this image to a sensitive photographic plate, which would of course be the best proof of its physical reality. It must be reserved for fixture science to solve this enigma ; the science of to-day can only acknowl- edge its want of power in this respect. However, we cannot leave the question of hallucinations without glancing at the very important experiments which have been made in the optics of hallucination so-called, or the relation of optical illusions to the ordinary laws of optics. One would naturally believe that the hallucinations are so immaterial, so connected with the sphere of the imagination in the central parts of the brain, so wanting in reality, that the realistic laws just mentioned would not in the least have any application to them. Until now, optical illusion has always been explained as if it were an internal image in the brain, which arises either in the central visual centre in the cortical substance of the brain, or at least is not found further away than on the retina of the eye, and as if the apparent external image were only constructed by an act of thinking in the brain — a perception, an imagination — which, when it is accustomed to receive all sight-impiessions from the external world, upon judging about the place of the image, projects the hallucination-image outward, as it does every image from the real external world. In both cases, the projecting is a mere action of thinking, which, as such, cannot cast any rays into the world from the internal image in the brain. Thus the real image and the illusory one are, alike in this respect ; but the difference is, that the real external image throws real rays into the eye, whereas no such rays are thrown into the illusoi-y internal image in the brain. Then, as the -illusory image has no real rays of light, either entering or emerging, it seems as if this image would be entirely independent of the laws of real reflection and refraction. But that is not the case ; and here we meet new and wonderful phenomena, which are very difficult to explain. Wo know, that in seeing with both eyes at the same time, every object would appear double, unless the eyes were always placed, so that the visual rays converge and meet on the object. If, on the other hand, the eyes are directed so that the visual rays, or the prolonged axes of the eyes cross each other before or behind the object, then two images arise ; the person sees double, as in strabismus, or when the rays that go to one eye are refracted through a prism. Hence, if an object is steadily looked at with both eyes so that it appears single, two HYPNOTISM. 53 images arise if one eye is pushed inward so that an artificial strabismus is produced ; if the finger yielc^s, the object again appears single. Brews- ter tried this simple experiment on a person who suffered from visual hallucinations, and to his great astpnishpfient, he found that in this way he doubled the imaginary picture, the imaginary object. This observation has been corroborated by several physicians. Ball, of Paris, had in his clinic a hysterical woman, who, during an ecstatic crisis, saw the holy virgin in a luminous dress ; if one of her eyelids, was pressed obliquely she saw two such madonnas. Instead ' of pressure by the finger. Fere has used a prismatic glass before one eye to double the visual hallucination; and he has calculated that the distance between the images has exactly corresponded to the power of refraction of the prism! For instance, he made the hypnotized indi- vidual believe that he saw on an empty table the profile of a portrait. Upon awaking, he saw the same picture, and was greatly astonished that the portrait was doubled, when F. placed before one eye a prism of whose qualities he iad no idea. And even supposing that perhaps he saw that the glass was a prism and that he previously knew its power of doubling the image, he could not possibly know the index of refraction of the prism, and of his own accord so place the distance between the images, that it precisely corresponded to the power of refraction of the prism. If the base of the prism was placed upward, he saw one image over the other. Also other glasses exert their specific influence over the visionary image. An opera-glass approaches or distances the image, according to which end is placed before , the eye. The glasses must also be dififerently adjusted for the near-sighted and for the far-sighted, to enable both to see the image. — If a magnifying glass is placed before the image, this is enlarged. A microscope also enlarges the outlines of the illusory image ; but investigators have as yet failed to produce by microscope any fine details, which are not seen by the naked eye ; and that would be rather too much ! With a mirror placed in the right position, a reflection of the visionary image has also been produced/ That the hypnotized person, himself, does not know that the other image is a reflection may be seen by the following experiment. The hypnotized one is made to believe, that he sees a butterfly on a table that stands before a mirror. He immediately exclaims: "But there are two I'' He is asked to catch them. First, he pierces the nearest one by a pin ; then he tries to catch the image in the mirror, which is somewhat farther away, but he hits his hand against the glass ; he renews the attempt, but says finally: "I cannot catch the other one!" Another experiment with the mirror is also convincing. If a hypno- tized person is made to believe that he is reading a couple of lines, written or printed on blank white paper, and if a mirror is put on one side of the inscription, he will see two inscriptions, but will express 54 HYPNOTISM. his astonishment that the new inscription is reversed, so that it must be read like Hebrew from right to left. If the mirror is placed above the writing, he sees the other image npside down; but this writing is read from left to right. There .are not many who realize that all reflected images are in reaUtj just like this. The attempts to shut the illusory images out by means of a screen have varied so much in their outcome that no definite results can as yet be quoted. How are we to explain this apparent genuineness of the illusory image, which even stands the test of the laws of optics? The only possible explanation of the above-mentioned, well-proved facts, which has as yet been tried by science, is that the hallucinate singles out some point in reality — a '■'■point de repere " — which afterwards serves to guide him. The hallucinate would be immovably bound to this mark, and as the mark is subject to the laws of optics, so the hallu- cinate must also bei subject to them. As a support to this theory, Binet and F616 relate a strange story from La SalpStri^re (Charcot's clinic) in Paris. A woman in the sonmambuUstic state was shown a view of the Pyrenees with some donkeys climbing the slopes, and she was told: "This is your portrait; you are entirely naked." Upon awaking she happened to look at the same picture, and enraged at seeing her own image in such a nude condition, she tore the picture to pieces. But two photographs of the picture had already been taken and carefully hidden. Every time either of these photographs were shown to her- she became enraged ; for she always saw in the photograph her own naked image, and this hallucination remained unchanged for two years. From this the consequence has been drawn that the view of the Pyrenees was only a mark, a, point de repere, which always produced her own visionary image. This is at least an evident mark; but what should be said about the application of this theory to the white card- board, which did not seem to have any marks ? And yet Binet and P6r6 once succeeded with the following experiment. After they had produced a visionary portrait on a white card board, they took a photograph of the blank card-board, and the halluci- nator saw the same portrait on the photograph, but not on other card-boards apparently just as bare. Here the imperceptible mark would also be photographed, if the theory is correct. But we put the explanation aside and proceed to a new optical expferiment, which proves that the optic laws are also valid in other respects in visual hallucination. Easy as it may be to produce by suggestion any color in an object, yet it is absolutely impossible to make a color-blind somnambulist see the color to which he is bhnd. If he is red-blind in one eye, a red visual hallucination cannot be produced to this eye, though it may be to the other. Visual hallucina- HYPNOTISM. 55 tion also follows the laws of contrasts and complementary colors. If for instance, a white paper, divided into two halves by a line through the middle, is put before a somnambulist, and he is told that the right half is red, he will of his own accord see the green com*plemen- tary color on the left half, without being told, and without having any previous idea that a complementary color would appear and that this should be green. This proves, among other things, that no deceit or simulation has any part in the play. Many more optical observations have been made, but we have already lingered long enough on the visual hallucinations. There only remains to tell something about their duration. For the above-named general rule, that the memory of -what has been experienced during hypnosis ceases upon waking, does not hold good with regard to all visual hallucinations. Some are totally forgotten ; others can remain for a long time-:-as we have seen, even for years. Some describe how the vision fades and disappears even during the sleep ; in others, this fading takes place shortly after waking. In some, this disappear- ance causes great sorrow and regret, just as a pleasant dream is missed upon waking to a dreary reality. Bemheim mentions a patient, who, upon waking, can still see her visionary rings, bracelets and other cost, ly ornaments, but who grows quite sad, when she sees one after another disappear ; and asks that she may keep them. Another one is surprised at finding that the imaginary photo- graphic pictures on blank card-boards grow paler from day to day, and finally disappear, but concludes that the photographs must have been poorly fixed. Even though it be statj^d, both before and after the suggestion, that it concerns only an imagination,, the hallucination will yet often be quite obstinately retained. Thus, F. declared to his patient before she was hypnotized, that she was going to have a •vision, which, upon awaking, she ought to reject with all her might, as something not real. That did not help; she still saw on the bare table a ten-franc piece of gold with its bust of Napoleon. — "But we have made an agfreement vrith reference to this illusion ; for you know that the gold piece is not real ! " — She appeared quite astonished and said ; " But I see and feel the gold piece ; " — and she could not be convinced. Generally, however, the hallucination disappears if the patient is told in a determined way that he has seen nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, etc. Also the approach of a magnet usually destroys the hallucination. In obstinate cases it must be removed during a new hypnosis. We will mention still another queer kind of hallucination. A real object can be so obliterated by an imaginary one of the same kind, that the hypnotized individual loses all sense of the former. For instance, a feal bottle standing on a table, was shown to a somnambu- list; it was then removed, but she was told that it still remained 56 HYPNOTISM. Upon awaking, she saw only the imaginary bottle ; the real one could be held before her eyes and she did not see it ; put into her hand and she did not feel it ; struck with a key and yet she did not notice it. Her perception of the real bottle was paralyzed by her perception of the imaginary one. ' We have lingered long on the visual hallucinations, because these are best adapted to illustrate the general qualities of all hallucinations. In the same manner, the most varied hallucinations, both positive and negative, of the other senses, can be produced by suggestion. Space here forbids the quoting of more instances; we will instead proceed to a still more important point, viz.: the influence of suggestion upon still higher spheres within mental life — upon the will and actions. The change from illusions to suggestive actions is so much the easier, since the latter often have their immediate origin in the former. Generally, however, it is customary, in hypnotic experiments to directly prescribe an action by a verbal or written suggestion. The order should be direct and decided. For instance, if I say : "If I had a watch, I would see what time it is," that has no effect; but if I say : " Let me see what time it is," the somnambulist pulls out. his watch. Obedience is generally very precise. If I point out to the somnambulist a spot on a plane surface, one that is invisible, and that I, myself, can find only by minute, complicated measuring, and if I order him to drive a knife through that spot, when he awakes, he • — dashes the knife without hesitation into precisely the right spot. k. criminal action would be performed as punctually. As we have before mentioned, a somnambulist is not an entirely dependant automaton; he has intelligence enough of his own to reach the aim of the prescribed action. He succeeds without neces- sarily being told how to proceed. For instance, the somnambulist is given a glass of water; she is made to beHeve that it contains poison, and she is told to poison a certain person with it. She gets no further orders. Afterwards, when she offers the glass, she says of her own accord, if, for instance, it is summer : "It is so hot to-day; would'nt you like a drink?" One, who was ordered to take a handkerchief, out of another's pocket, pretended that she was about to faint, staggered to and fro, and fell on the chosen victim, so that she could easily get at the handkerchief. Another, who had the same commission, went up and asked: "What have you on your hands T and while the victim was* looking at her hands, the theft was performed. But such blind obedience is not always found in the somnam- bulists. Sometimes they are disobedient and make considerable re- sistance. The cause of this rests either with the hypnotizer or with the patient. The authority the former exerts over the latter depends partly on his personality and the influence he generally exerts over HYPNOTISM. 57 his patient, partly upon the decision and severity with which at the time he has pronounced his order. If this is done with hesitation and too gently, the patient becomes hesitating and irresolute, when it is to be performed. But the opposition can also depend on the degree of firmness in the character of the patient, as also upon the quality of the ordered action. So much of his own personality remains in the somnambulist, that his inner nature, when good and peaceable, resists a prescribed crime. Only a cataleptic indiAddual is a machine, a blind tool, without a will ; the somnambulist is a person whose opposition can often be rather embarrassing to the operator. Even from the different motives, which the somnambulists give as reason for refusing to commit a crime, their true character can be understood. Order a theft, and one may answer : " I do not wish to steal, I am no thief," whereas another naively answers: "No, I might be seen." A third makes only slight objection and soon yields. For instance, " Go and stab that doctor! " — "Why? He has not done me any harm!" — "Yes! you must do it ; I order it ! " — " Well, since I have to, I suppose I must ! " — Wakened, she looks at her victim with a treacherous smile, goes a few times around him, and suddenly dashes at him with the imaginary dagger which has been put into her hand. But the same person could by no means be made to do any harm to a person whom she loved. One could not be made to say his prayers ; nor another to sing a mocking song which she had composed about the doctor ; a third could not be made to sign a note for one million, although she signed notes for smaller sums without resistance. One who performs an action on account of suggestion, is coi pletely ignorant of the real motive of the act. He feels an irresistible impulse which he cannot comprehend nor explain. Usually, the action is performed without further reasoning ; but sometimes he tries to create some motive. He believes himself to act voluntarily, he is ignorant of the outside will that governs him. We borrow a couple of instances from Eichet, who has more closely studied these occurrences. A woman was hypnotized and told to remove the lamp-shade. Wakened she said " You can not see well in this room ; " and she took off the shade. Another time she was told that upon waking, she should put a great deal of sugar in her tea. When the tea was served she fiJled her cup half full of sugar. — " What are you doing ? " — " I am taking sugar." — " But so much ! " — " Certainly, and I shall take more," and she put in more sugar. Afterwards, she found the tea abomin- able, but said: "What then? It was foolish; have you never done anything, foolish ? " Charcot's clinic furnishes the case of a somnam- bulist who was ordered to assassinate a strange doctor by means of a slip of card-board. As soon as she awoke, she assaulted her victim and stabbed the card-board dagger to the region of his heart. "The doctor made believe that he fell. — "But why have you killed him?" — With ^ 68 HYPNOTISM. wild aspect, she answered: "He is an old pig! He had wicked designs against me." We have already remarked, that, although the memory of occur- rences during hypnosis generally ceases upon waking, yet the halluci- nation, caused by suggestion, remains, as does also the impulse to action, imparted in the same way ; that this impulse lies completely hidden from consciousness and memory, until the time prescribed for the action has arrived ; and that by suggestion the operator can thus cause an action on a certain future day and hour. Here we shall consider somewhat more fully this wonderful phenomenon corroborated by many. \A In modem times it was principally Richet, who brought this phenomenon into prominence (in Reoue PMlosophique, March 1883.) He gives the following instance. " After B. had been hypnotized, I used to say to her : ' You will return to me on this day or that, at this hour or that.' She remembered nothing of this, when she awoke, but said of her own accord : .'When \shall I return ? ' — ' Whenever you can ; some day next week.' — 'At what hour ? ' — ' At any hour you like.' — With astonishing precision, she always returned on the day and hour that I had prescribed during the hypnosis, although she did not remember anything, when she awoke. Even if the time were ever so inconvenient, she came at the appointed hour. Once when she arrived, she said : 'I do not know why I came now ; the weather is terrible ; I have company at home ; I have been running to get here ; I have no time to stay, but must immediately return to my callers. It is too silly! I do not understand why I came here. Can it be by some magnetism? ' " * Beaunis relates the following suggestion with an interva. of 171 days. "In the afternoon of the 14th of July, 1884, I hypnotized Miss E., and gave her the following suggestion: "On the first of January,. 1885, at 10 A. M., you will see me ; I shall come to wish you a happy New-Tear; after that is done I shall immediately disappear" — ^I did not mention this suggestion to anybody. Miss E. lives in Nancy. P was myself in Paris on the first of January, 1885. That day. Miss E. told a friend, a physician and several other persons, that on the same day, at 10 A. M., when she was in her room, she heard somebody knocking at the door. She said: 'Come in! ' and to her astonishment saw me enter, and heard me with a cheerful voice wish her a Happy New Tear. I immediately went out; she at once hastened to the window to see me leave the house, but did not see any further trace of me. To her surprise, she . also noticed that I, at that season, had come to her in a summer dress. (The same clothes that I wore at the time of the suggestion.) Her attention was in v.ain called to the fact HYPNOTISM. ' 59 that I was in Paris on the first of January, and could not have come to her on that day. Nerertheless she maintained that she had seen and heard me, and she is still convinced of that, in spite of my declarations that it was impossible." This suggestion was thus fulfilled in every particular after 171 days ; and Beaunis claims that it would have succeeded after a still longer time, even after several years. Li^geois has succeeded with a suggestion of one year's duration. On October 12, 1885, he hypnotized in Nancy a young man, Paul M. already before subjected to hypnotic experiments. At 10.10 A.M., he told him during the hypnosis that the following would happen to him on the same day one year later. "You will go to Monsieur Liebault in the morning. You will say, that your eyes have been well for a whole year, and that for that you are indebted to him and to M. Lifegeois. You will express your gratitude to both, and you will ask permission to embrace both of them, which they will gladly allow you to do. After that, you will see a dog and a trick monkey enter the doctor's room, one carrying the other. They will play various pranks and make grimaces, and it will greatly amuse you. Five minutes later, you will behold a trainer with a tame bear. This man wUl be rejoiced to find his dog and his monkey, which he thought he had lost; in order to please the company, he wDl let his bear dance also — an American grizzly bear, of large frame but very gentle — and you will not be afraid of him. Just as the man is about to leave, you wiU ask M. Lifegeois to let you have ten centimes to give to the dog, who will beg, and you will give them to him yourself. " Lifegeois and Liebault,. ^t whose clinic the experiment was made, naturally kept the suggestion a secret, so that the somnambulist might not get any knowledge of it. One year later — on the twelfth of October, 1886 — Li^geois was at Li^bault's before 9 A. M. At 9.30, as nobody had arrived, the former considered the experiment a failure and returned to his rooms. But at ten minutes past ten, the youth, Paul, who had better remembered the hour, came to Liebault and thanked him, but also asked for Li6- geois. The latter arrived immediately, called by a messenger. Paul arose, rushed to meet him, and thanked him also. In the presence nt fifteen or twenty reliable witnesses, the hallucinations now clearly developed themselves in Paul as they had been predicted one year before. Paul saw a monkey and a dog enter ; he was amused by their antics and grimaces. Then he saw the dog approach him, hold- ing a box in his mouth. Paul borrowed ten centimes ' from Lifegeois and made a gesture as if to give them to the dog. Then the trainer came and took away the monkey and the dog. But no bear appeared. Nor did Paul think of embracing any one. "With the exception of these two details, the suggestion had thus been fulfilled. The experi- 60' HYPNOTISM. ment was ended. Paul complained of slight nervous weakness. In order to restore him, L. hypnotized him ; but took the opportunity during the hypnosis, to ask for information about what had just hap- pened. — " Why did you just now see that monkey and that dog?" — "Because you gave me suggestion of it oh the twelfth of October, 1885." — "Have you not mistaken the hour? I thought I said at 9 A. M." — "No, it is you who remember wrong. You did not hypnotize me on the sofa I am now occupying, but on the one opposite. Then you let me follow you out into the garden, and asked me to return in one year ; just then it was ten minutes past ten, and it was at that hour that I returned." — "But why did you not see any bear, and why did you not embrace Liebault and me?" — "Because you told me that only once, whereas you repeated the rest twice." All those present were struck with the precision of his answers, and Lifegeois had to acknowledge that Paul's memory was better than his own. Awakened after ten or fifteen minutes, Paul was entirely calm and had no remembrance of what he had just said during the hypnosis, nor did he remember what happened before the hypnosis in consequence of the suggestion of October 12th, 1885. Many other reliable authorities might be quoted for such post- hypnotic suggestion, or ^'■suggestion a longue echeance''' as the French call it. Here is an instance from Bemheim. Miss G. was given the suggestion that, five days later at the doctor's regular "wsit, she would complain of headache'i That came true. Another day he said to her: — "In six days, in the night between Thurs- day and Friday, you will see the nurse come to your bed and pour cold water over your legs." On the following Friday, she loudly complained that the nurse had poured cold water on her legs during the night. The nurse was called, but natuaUy denied it. He then said to the patient: — "It was a dream, for you know how I make you have dreams; the nurse has done nothing." — She emphatically declared, that it was no dream ; for she had clearly seen it, felt the water, and become wet. Another case was for a still longer time. In August, B. said to the somnambulist S. formerly a sergeant : — " What day of the first week in October will you be at leisure? " — "On Wednesday." — "Well on the first Wednesday of October you will go to Dr. Liebault ; at his house yon will meet the President of the Eepublic, who will give you a medal and a pension." — "I will go there." — Upon waking he did not remember anything of it. B. met him several times, and gave him other suggestions in the meantime, but did not speak any more of this one. On the third of October, or sixty-three days after the sugges- tion, B. received from Liebault a letter with contents as follows: "The somnambulist S., was here to-day at ten minutes before 11. Upon entering, after he had bowed to M. F., who was in his way, he HYPNOTISM. 61 turned to the left to my library, bowed respectfully in a direction where there was nobody, uttered the word 'Excellency,' stretched out his right hand, and said : — ' I thank your Excellency ! ' I asked to whom he talked — 'To the President of the Eepublic' — No one was there. Once more he turned in the same direction, bowed respectfully and went away. Those who saw him, asked me if the man was in- sane. I assured them that he was as sane as they or I, but that another person acted through him." Sonie days afterward, when B. met the sergeant, the latter declared, that the idea of going to Dr. L. had come over him quite suddenly on the third of Octobet at 10 A. M. ; that he had not had the slightest thought of it during the preceding days, and that he did not have any idea whom he was going to meet at L's. Still another case from Bernheim. "On Saturday December 22, after having hypnotized Miss G., I said to her: "Three weeks from Tuesday — that is in twenty-five days — when I pass -your bed during my mornings rounds, you will see in my company Monsieur V. P. Tou will give him a detailed account of your disease, and you will talk ■with him of things that interest you." Upon waking, she remembered nothing, did not speak of it, nor even mention anything to the pupils. During the interval, she received many other suggestions and had her picture taken in various attitudes. On Tuesday, January 15, during my rounds, I stopped as usual at her bed ; she looked to the left and bowed respectfully : 'Ah! it is Monsieur V. P.' After some moments she answered an imaginary question : ' Well, I feel very much better ; I have no more pain ; unfortunately my knee is sprained ; and I cannot walk except with an apparatus. She heard a new question and answered : ' Thank you very much ; you know that I have nursed Mr B's child. If you would recommend me to him, he could get me a place in an infirmary.' She heard his imaginary answer, thanked him, bowed, and followed with her eyes the image of my colleague all the way to the door. — ' Did you. know that Monsieur V. P. would come to-day f ' — ' Certainly not ' — she had no previous idea of it.'' The following experiment with the same woman shows some .remarkable characteristics of the somnambulistic memory and associa- tion of memories. "One day her picture was taken, while she was awake; she was hypnotized and photographed in different attitudes of suggestion — such as anger, fear (she saw a snake), hilarity (she was intoxicated), contempt (for joking students), and ecstasy. Some days afterwrards B. said to her during hypnosis : ' When you awake, you will open "^e book that is lying on your pillow, and there you will find_your picture.' (In reality, there was no picture in the book.) Upon awaking, she takes the book, opens it, immediately finds her picture, and asks to be allowed to keep it, in order to send it to her son. — 'Do 62 IITPNOTISM. you find it good'' — 'Very good! I have a serious expression.' — 'Well, turn the leaf.' — She turns it and finds another portrait — one in which she has the expression of anger. She continues to look, La the book, and finds all the photographs taken with the different, expressions — of fear, joy, contempt and ecstasy. With perfect exact- ness she describes every attitude, that she had taken when photo- graphed during the hypnosis, without now remembering that she had been photographed in these attitudes, and she became very much astonished, when I told her of it." i The above instances are safficiently clear and are based upon suf- "ftaently reliable authority to prove fully that an idea, inspired even long before, during hypnotic sleep, reappears spontaneously in the brain at a certain time, without appearing to memory or consciousness during the whole interval. Nay ! This hidden, latent memory seems to be much surer, much more reliable, than the wakeful one, which very easily forgets details that are minutely preserved by the latent, somnambulistic memory. How shall we explain this strange phenomenon ? That is no easy matter. For this purpose, the brain has been compared to an alarm clock, which can be arranged so that it rings and wakens the sleeper at a certain minute. The mechanism of the brain, however, is not so simple. The difference is too vsdde. The alarm must continuously incessantly and exclusively work for its aim, in order to reach it, the way of the -Wheels can be followed, cog by cog, second by second, until the alarm rings. In the brain only the terminal points can be observed — the beginning and the end, the setting and the " striking;" — but no intervening work is seen ; and to judge by all the signs there is none. The brain seems to work on thousands of other ideas during the inter- val, but not on the suggested idea, which at the proper time seems to come like lightening from a clear sky. We must acknowledge our complete inability to explain this : we can only point out that something similar is to be found in those who have the power of waking from natural sleep at a desired hour, although the sleep will then be uneasy and light, and the waking is generally not so punctual as in the case in question. Moreover, dogs are often in the habit of reminding their masters of the right time for an undertaking, if the hour is neglected. Negative suggestions axe those which manifest themselves by a lessened or suppressed activity of the nervous system, whether it be in lameness, insensibility, dullness of the senses, or suppressed will; inability to think, talk, act, etc. This kind of phenomena has also been called psychic paralysis. We have seen how every sense can be separately hypnotized and neutralized, how persons can be made insensible, blind, deaf, etc.; but by suggestion "systematized ancesthesis,'' so-called, can also be produced ; that is, several senses can be hypnotized at one time, the HYPNOTISM. 63 total effect of which is, that a person can be made wholly to disappear to a somnambulist, so that the latter neither sees, hears, feels, nor in any way perceives the presence of the other. In this way a person present can even be made partially to disappear, so that only his head, arms, hands, or feet become perceptible ; and the queerest situations can thus be caused ; or the somnambulist can be made to perceive an object or a person with one sense, and not with the other, — so, for instance, that he hears a person standing beside him but does not see Viim ; but does not feel his touch. The following is an experiment by Beaunis and Lifegeois, performed in the presence of Li6bault and a number of others. Li^geois made Mrs. A. believe, that, upon awaking, she would neither see nor hear Beaunis, but that she would feel his touch and remain "ew rapport" with him by this alone. This came true. When she awoke, B. sat down directly in front of her ; she did not see him. He spoke to her, she did not answer. He took her hand and she immediately recognized him. She saw, heard, and spoke with the other persons present. B. made some passes so that she went to sleep. Now she was "e/i rop^orf" with B. only; she heard him and spoke to him, but did not see , or hear any of the others. Lifegeois spoke to her ; she did not hear him. L. tried to waken her — it was impossible ! Beaunis wakened her, but everything was as before ; she neither saw nor heard B., while she saw and heard all the others, and was conscious of. B. only by the touch. Not until Lifegeois had banished the negative suggestion which he had given her, did she see and hear Beaunis. The same experiment was repeated several times in the same way, except that other persons were made the objects of her negative perception, and always with the same success. Binet and F6r6 quote another experiment of the same kind. During the sleep, they made the patient believe that, upon waking, she would not see one of them, viz. F6r6, but that she would stiU hear his voice. When she awoke, F. placed himself in front of her; she did not look at him. He gave her his hand ; she did not move. Soon she expressed her astonishment that she did not see P., who was but just now in the room, and asked where he had gone — " He has gone out; you may now go to your chamber." — F. placed himself in front of the door. The patient, arose, said good bye, and went toward the door. When she was about to open it she stumbled against F's invisible body. This unexpected shock made her tremble. Once more she tried to advance, but when she met the same invisible and inexplicable obstruction, she grew frightened and refused to approach the door again. They then took a hat from the table and showed it to her; she convinced herself, with both eyes and hands, that it was a real hat; then they put the hat on F's head. She saw the hat, but as if floating in the air; nothing could describe her astonishment. F. 64 HYPNOTISM. took his hat off and bowed with it several times ; and her astonishment grew still greater, when she saw the curves that the hat described in the air, without seeing any one holding it. She declared that it cotild be explained by physics, and believed that the hat was suspended by a thread. She climbed a chair to feel of the thread, but she did not find any. They put an o'^ercoat on P. ; she saw the coat in the air, taking the shape of a human body, and was stiU more astonished ; and she said: "It is. like a hollow dummy." The invisible F. now per- formed several tricks with furniture and .other objects, which to her appeared to move by themselves. Articles of furniture moved about in confusion and then put themselves in the right places again ; pieces of a skull, which were spread over the floor, put themselves together and separated again ; a purse opened of itself and let out gold and silver coins. — They now made her sit down. While she was talking to B., F. alternately totiched her nose, cheek, forehead and chin. Every time, she put her hand to her face. Being asked why she did that, she said that she felt a peculiar itching in one place and another ctn the face, so that she had to scratch. This she took very calmly aaid found quite natural. She was then asked to strike the air with her fist. F. stopped her arm, just as she lifted it. — " What is it ? " — " Oh ! it feels just like cramp in the arm.'' She immediately found some explanation. Thus when, by negative suggestion, a person is made invisible to a somnambulist, not only he, himself, disappears to the perception of ' the latter, but so also do his clothes, and even such things as he takes out of his pockets — such as his watch, handkerchief and key. But, some one might object, what proof have you that the som- nambulist does not really see or perceive in such cases ? It might be a deception or a simulation ! Another experiment is convincing in that respect. It is known that a stroke of a gong immediately puts certain hysterical women into the catalepsy. Two such women were at Binet and Fern's quarters. They were hypnotized and made to believe that upon waking they would neither see nor hear the sound of the gong ; in other words, a hysterical ancethesia, with the gong as object was suggested to them. When they awoke, the gong was moved, right before their eyes, to a place' close to their ears ; they did not show the usual fear of this instrument ; a violent blow was struck on it ; they did not move, they did not become cataleptic as usual. It was evident that they neither saw nor heard this large and loud-sounding instru- ment. One of them, however, showed slight surprise and said she seemed to have heard something — like a gust of wind in a stove. A reversed test was immediately made. They were again hypnotized ; they were again made sensitive to the gong by removal of the negative suggestion and when they awoke the instrument produced its custom- ary effect. HYjHNOTISM. 65 A negative suggestion may remain for days — even months — if it is not removed. Otherwise anaesthesia disappears of itself after some time, though not all at once, but only by degrees, so that the person or the object, which was made invisible, gradually comes forth as out of a mist, and is recognized at first dimly, then more clearly. In the above mentioned case, where F6r6 was made invisible, the patient, on the third or fourth day, first began to see that F. was a person ; but at first she took him for an entire stranger, whom she had never seen before, and not until later did she understand that it was F6r6. Another experiment was only partially successful. A patient who was for the first time submitted to negative suggestion, was made to believe that, upon awaking, she woxild not see the assistant, C, whose name and appearance she knew well. Upon awaking, however, she saw C, but did not recognize him in the least. Shortly before, the same patient had been given the visual hallucination that she saw C's portrait on a blank piece of white paper. This paper was now given to her, and after she had several times compared the imaginary por- trait with the strange person she saw, she recognized that it was the assistant, C. But negative suggestion does not stop at these illusions, — it can also cause a complete delirium, of which the following may serve as an illustration. A patient was made to believe that she would not see F6r6, but would hear his voice. Upon waking, when she heard F's voice, but did not see him, she began to search all over the room, asking anxious questions. She was then told : " F. is dead, but his soul is here ; it is the latter that is speaking to you." — The intelligent woman would certainly have taken this for a joke, if she had been fully awake ; but under the influence of the suggestion she easily accepted the explana- tion. Soon F. raised his voice again ; he said that he had died during the night, and that his corpse was removed to the morgue. The woman elapsed her hands and assumed a sad expression. She asked when he was going to be buried ; she desired to be present at the cememony. "Poor boy," she said, "he was not a bad man." F. sighed deeply and complained about the post-mortem examination of his body, which had already taken .ilace. The scene began to be tragic. The woman became faint witL emotion, threw herself back- ward, and began to have a hysterical attack, which, however, was immediately checked by pressure on the ovarian region. This case shows that those under the influence of a suggestion are not so much awake as they appear. Judgment and criticism are to a great extent suppressed by the suggestion, and the subject is as one in a dream, or like one temporarily insane. This condition may reason- ably be called an artificial insanity. That negative suggestion with reference to pain has a very great significance in therapeutics will be shown later. 66 HYPJSfO TISM. Moreover the memory can become the object of a negative sug- gestion, and total or partial loss of memory — amnesia — ^with reference to certain thing's and circumstances can be produced in this way. A common experiment of traveling magnetizers is to make a person forget his own name. The victim then makes the most comical effort to find it, but does not succeed. In the same way the somnam- bulist can bo made to forget the year of his birth, the names of his nearest relatives, certain vowels, consonants, numbers, etc. ad infinitum,. By suggestion the memory can be acted upon not only in a quan- titative direction, suppressing or strengthening it, but, what is worse, also in a qualitative respect, so that it can be changed; it can be given, another, a fictitious or false tenor. As hallucinations can be produced which first appear in the future, so retro-active hallucinations, so-called or hallucinations of memory can also be produced. For instance, the hypnotized person can be made to think that on a certain occasion he has witnessed this or that occurance, and in his memory these facts afterwards remain impressed with such vividness, that without hesi- tation he will tell them as the truth at a serious trial before a court. It is easy to imagine the dangerous conseuqences of such hallucinations if they are abused before a jury. The whole motor apparatus also may by degrees or all at once become the object of negative suggestion, and by this all kinds of lameness or paralysis can be caused. Also, independently of hypnotism, lameness has been f ;und as the result of purely psychical causes. In 1869, Russel Reynolds, the prominent English physician, published a case of lameness in conse quenee of spontaneous imagination of the sufferer ("dependent on idea"). A young girl hved alone with her father, who, after various sorrows and reverses, grew lame. In order to support the family the girl had to give lessons, and for this purpose had to walk long dis- tances. With anxiety she soon began to think that she also might become lame, and that their condition would then become still worse. Under the influence of this idea, which never left her, she began to feel her legs grow weaker and weaker, until she could no longer walk. E., who soon understood the cause, adopted an exclusively mental treatment ; he gradually convinced her that she was able to walk, and she soon became entirely well. (What an excellent case for a Boltzius !) Erb, the neurologist, also describes imaginary paralysis. Charcot, Bernheim, and others have, however, produced the greatest number of proofs of how easily paralysis is caused by hyp- notic suggestion. Here the lameness may be confined to one muscle, or to a whole limb, or to certain combined muscular movements con- HYPNOTISM. 67 cerned in a certain action — such as sewing, writing, smoking, singing, speaking, playing on the piano, standing, walking, etc., etc. By nega- tive suggestion, such anoesthesia can be produced just as well as sys- tematized paralysis. It would take too much space further to discuss the many kinds of paralysis that can be caused, not only with reference to the external result, but also with reference to the internal mechan- ism. In the former respect, there are as many possibilities as there are ways of using all the muscles of the body. In the latter respect, there are a few important differences, which we have time merely to indicate here. Thus lameness, for instance, may arise from the paralyzing of one or more muscles, so that they cannot perform any kind of movement ; another form of lameness is the paralysis in co- ordination, or the suspended co-operation of the muscles for a certain objfect, for instance, inability to write, " agraphia,'' where the muscles of the arm and hand can perform everything except the combined motions that are necessary for guiding the pen.. Finally, the paralysis may be still more deep-seated in the centre of the nervous system, as when, by suggestion, I affect and suppress the will, cause want of will — "abulia," — when only the stimulus oi \h.& wUl is needed to make the muscles perform their work. All these kinds of paralysis are best removed in the same way that they are produced — by sug- gestion. We now proceed to a still more obscure sphere for the influence of the nervous system and suggestion on the human organism, viz. the sphere of vegetative life, the functions of organic life, embracing digestion, nutrition, growth, production of heat, circulation, secretion, etc. The hypnotic experiments have so much greater importance and significance in this branch, and are so much more convincing and pro- bative, as these functions are not dependent on the influence of the will, and hence do not leave room for any deceit or simulation which could make the experiment dubious. We begin with Beaunis' experiment of changing the beatings ol the heart by suggestion. Both Li^bault and Beaunis had noticed that by suggestion they could relieve palpitation and regulate the action of the heart in somnambulists. This subject B. submitted to strictly scientific investigation with the aid of the usual instruments of iihysi- ologists for recording the movements of the heart ; and he found cleai proofs of the fact, that the heart could be made by suggestion to beat more slowly or more rapidly, probably by stimulating or paralyzing action on the inhibitory centers of the heart. Beaunis's next experiment in this respect was to cause, by sugges- tion, redness or congestion in a limited part of the skin. For this purpose he hypnotized Miss E., and told her that upon waking she would have a red mark on the spot which he then touched; and he 68 HYPNOTISM. placed his finger on her forearm, but quite lightly, so that, in ordinary cases, a redness could not arise from the pressure. About ten minutes after her waking, a slight redness began to show itself oh the forearm, at the place that he had touched; it gradually increased and by degrees disappeared, after having been visible for ten or fifteen minutes. By suggestion he could also make the mark remain from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, while she was closely watched so that she could not herself produce or preserve the red mark. We know that redness and pallor are caused by dilatation and contraction of the blood-vessels, and that these changes in the vessels are under the influence of the vaso-motor nerves ; but these nerves are not affected by the will; at least, not so that, in the wakeful state, congestion or redness can be produced by the will alone in any desired part of the skin. To a certain extent, of course, the face can be made to blush or grow pale in connection with some affection ; and actors especially are in the habit of cultivating their power in this respect ; but from this it is a long step to the effect gained by suggestion, as mentioned above. But this is not all ; by suggestion a much more heightened effect can be produced in this direction. The congestion may be carried still further — to a raised swelling of the skin, to a blister (as from Spanish flies), to bloody transpiration and bleeding, even to complete formation of a wound. Concerning this, Beaunis relates the following experiment, for the truth of which he vouches. A skilled physiologist and experienced experimentalist, he would not allow himself to be easily deceived. The experiments were made on a young girl — ^Ehse F., — ^first by Facachon, then also by Beaunis. One day, when Elise complained of a pain in the left groin, P. made her believe, after he had hypnotized her, that a blister would form on the aching spot, just as from a plaster of Spanish flies. The next momiag, there appeared on the left groin a blister filled vdth serum, although nothing had been applied there. On another occasion, he cured neuralgia in the region of the right clavicle by merely causing, by suggestion, a blister resembling in every respect an ordinary burn. Afterwards several such experiments were successfully made on Elise. We quote only one, which was made under the closest control, before the eyes of several scientists — Beaunis, Li^bault and others. On the twelfth of May, in 1885, Elise was hypnotized toward 11 A. M. On her back, at a point which the girl could not possibly reach with her hand, a strip of eight gummed stamps was fastened, after a strip ojf the same kind had for eighteen hours been applied to the arm of another person, without causing the slightest effect. Over the stamps an ordinary bandage was fixed, so as to simulate a plaster of Spanish flies, and she was three times given to understand that Spanish flies had been applied to her. She was close- HYPNOTISM. 69 ly watched duiing the day and was locked up alone in her chamber over night, after she had been put in hypnotic sleep with the assertion that she was not going to awake until seven o'clock on the following morning, — which took plae'e punctually. An hour later, F. removed the bandage in the presence of Bernheim, Lifegeois, Liebnult, Beaunis, etc. It was first ascertained that the stamps had not been disturbed. They were removed and the underlying surface of the skin now showed the following changes: on a space of four or five centimetres the epidermis was thicker, yellowish white and inflamed, but as yet not raised into blisters ; the surrounding skin showed intense redness and swelling to the extent of half a centimetre. The spot was covered with a dry compress, in order to be further investigated later on ; three hours after, the spot had the same appearance. At four P. M. the spot was photographed, and it now showed four or five blisters, which also plainly appeared in the photograph. These blisters gradually increased and secreted a thick, milky serum. On the twenty-eighth of May — fourteen days later — the spot was still in full suppuration. On the thirtieth of May, F. produced by suggestion another Spaniel fly blister on her arm. This case is not the only one. On another girl — Marie G. — who had for three months suffered greatly from neuralgia, F. produced by suggestion two such blisters in succession, each the size of a five-franc piece, one below the left ear, the other on the left temple. These required forty-eight hours to become fully developed. The neuralgia disappeared after twelve hypnotic stances. After these successes, F. tried on Elise an experiment in the opposite direction, that is, by nega- tive suggestion to make a real Spaniel fly plaster inactive. For this purpose a plaster was cut into three parts ; the first was applied to EUse's left arm, the second to her right arm, the third on a sick person who needed such treatment. Elise was hypnotized and F. made her believe that the plaster on her left arm would not have any effect. This took place at 11 A. M. Elise was closely watched until 8 P. M., when the bandage was removed, after F. had satisfied himself that it had not been disturbed. On her left arm the skin was unchanged, on her right the skin was red and showed the beginning of a formation of a blister. The plaster was again applied ; after three-quarters of an hour a normal blister was found on the right arm, but on the left — nothing. The third piece, which was placed on the abdomen of the other patient, had raised a large Mister after eight hours. Several other physicians have related similar facts. As early as 1840, Louis Prejalmiui, the Italian physician, mentions similar experi- ments, when with " magnetized paper " he caused the same effect as with Spanish flies. It is evident that the active cause was not the magnetized paper, but the suggestion, or imagination. 70 HYPNOTISM. By suggestion Dumontpallier (in 1885) produced not only local redness, but also a local increase of temperature of several degrees and Beaunis, by the some method, has produced general increase of temperature throughout the body, and perspiration. Bourru, Professor of Medicine in Eochefort, and Burot, of the same place, in this way caused nose-bleod and perspiration of blood in a hysterical man, who was paralyzed and without feeling in his right side. One of them wrote his name on the arms of the hypnotized^ man with a blunt instrument, and said: "To-day at 4 P. M. you will fall asleep and the lines which I have now drawn on your arms will bleed." At the prescribed time he went to sleep. On his left arm, the letters apppeared raised and very red, readily distinguishable from the surrounding pale skin, and from several of the strokes blood was dripping. On the arm which was paralyzed, nothing appeared. Dr. Mabille has since seen the same man several times during fits of hysteria, when he himself loudly ordered the arm to, bleed, and the bleeding afterwards appeared. Still another experiment with the same man, and one witnessed by several physicians, is worth mentioning. He was hypnotized ; a letter was inscribed on his left wrist, with the order that he should imme- diately make it bleed. " It hurts," the patient said. — " Still you must bleed ! " — Then the muscles of the arm contracted ; the forearm swelled ; a letter appeared, red and raised ; drops of blood trickled out and were clearly seen by all present. The experiment only failed, in that the bleeding letter was not the one that had just been written, but another higher up on the arm, from a previous experiment. The suggestion may not have been clear enough in this respect. But this deviation from what was intended was so much the more favorable in one way, as through this, full guarantee was received that the congestion was at least not caused by reflex when the drawing took place on the skin. Charcot and his pupils have often produced real bums by sugg