Hypnotic

“ A second feature of the hypnotic state, which is closely linked with the heightened suggestibility, is a great increase in sensitiveness [p. 102] to sensory stimuli, or at least to certain kinds of sensory stimulus. A hypnotised person may become aware of and utilise indications given by organs of sense which produce no effect whatever upon his consciousness in the normal state. ”

“ I must acknowledge that in so far as hypnotism itself is concerned, it may seem to be stretching the facts to suggest that there is a special tendency for the manifestations of hypnotism in the human subject to take the form which would be dictated by the instinct of immobility, though this form is definite in the allied behaviour of animals which has been so widely regarded as hypnotic. ”

“ The subjective mind has absolute control of the functions, conditions, and sensations of the body.
This proposition seems almost self-evident, and will receive the instant assent of all who are familiar with the simplest phenomena of hypnotism. It is well known, and no one at all acquainted with hypnotic phenomena now disputes the fact, that perfect anesthesia can be produced at the will of the operator simply by suggestion. Hundreds of cases are recorded where the most severe surgical operations have been performed without pain upon patients in the hypnotic condition. ”

“ Hypnotic suggestion aims at co-operations of just this kind between the waking state in which the suggestion, say, of some functional change, is planned and the sleeping state in which that change is carried out,—with benefit persisting anew into waking life. The hypnotic trance, which is a developed sleep, thus accomplishes for the ordinary man what ordinary sleep accomplishes for the man of genius. ”

“ William James, of Harvard College, the great authority on psychical phenomena and president of the Psychic Research Society, leads to the conviction that in the hypnotic sleep the will is only in abeyance, as it is in natural slumber or in sleepwalking, and any unusual or especially exciting occurrence, especially anything that runs against the grain of the nature, reawakens that will, and it soon becomes as active as ever. ”

“ Moreover, these investigators have shown that, even after a person has been brought out of the hypnotic state, the self evoked by hypnotism may in some inscrutable way continue operant without his suspecting for a moment its existence and influence.
Impressive proof of this is found in the execution of what are known as post-hypnotic commands. A hypnotized person is told that, after being de-hypnotized, he is to perform a certain act on receiving a certain signal, or at the expiration of a certain time. ”

“ Another element of safety, the purling brook, is here mentioned; all noise is a good antidote; it is perhaps the case that with hypnotism from a distance the hypnotic state is continually waxing and waning, one link, generally a weaker one, succeeding another in the chain of impressions on the temperament. ”

“ Accounts of the well-established phenomena of hypnotism are so readily accessible, that it seems sufficient to emphasize these two fundamental points—the ultimate recognition of an altered psycho-physiological state, and of the dominant part which suggestion plays in the development of hypnotic phenomena—and to accept them as furnishing the principles according to which the survey of the antecedents of hypnotism is to be conducted. ”

“ Such rapid abolition of ancient impulses and propensities reminds us so strongly of what has been observed as the result of hypnotic suggestion that it is difficult not to believe that subliminal influences play the decisive part in these abrupt changes of heart, just as they do in hypnotism. ”

“ These are "highest-level centres," which I began by saying that the hypnotist could rarely hope to reach;—since those spontaneous somnambulisms which the hypnotic trance imitates and develops do so seldom reach them. We have, however, already found a good deal of intelligence of a certain kind in hypnotic phenomena; what we do here is to pass from one stage to another and higher stage of consciousness of intelligent action. ”

“ The sensitive is the subject, the percipient, psychic, patient, or person who passes into the hypnotic, mesmeric, or trance states, etc.
Hypnosis is the term used for the hypnotic state artificially induced by the agent. Hypnosis is the lowest rung of the ladder; the psychic or soul state the highest. The intermediate phases, as indicated in conscious or sub-conscious conditions of life, are innumerable and not readily classified. [10] Still, the states mentioned will give a favourable insight to the whole. In hypnosis, physical rather than mental phenomena are evolved ”

“ The largest quantity of our "dream-stuff" comes, as we have seen, from within and not from without the organism. And this fact accounts for the chief characteristic difference between the natural and the hypnotic dream. The former is complex, consisting of crowds of images, and continually changing: the latter is simple, limited, and persistent. As Braid remarks, the peculiarity of hypnotism is that the attention is concentrated on a remarkably narrow field of mental images and ideas. So long as a particular bodily posture is assumed, so long does the corresponding illusion endure. ”

“ The activity of the organs of special sense, except the eye, may be heightened, and the power of the muscles increased. Complete insensibility to pain may be induced by hypnotism, and it has been used as an anaesthetic. It is apt to be followed by a severe headache of long continuance, and by various nervous disturbances. On emerging from the hypnotic state, the person hypnotized usually has no remembrance of what happened during its continuance, but in many persons such remembrance may be induced by ‘suggestion’. ”

“ The hypnotised person when in the hypnotic state has a definite experience which becomes inaccessible to his consciousness when he awakes, and this experience has so definite an independent existence that it determines conduct of a highly specific kind. ”

“ The Paris school holds that hypnotism is the result of an abnormal or diseased condition of the nerves; that a great number of the phenomena can be produced independently of suggestion in any form; that the true hypnotic condition can be produced only in persons whose nerves are diseased; and that the whole subject is explicable on the basis of cerebral anatomy or physiology. ”

“ The hypnotic dream is far more easily modified.22 The simplest manifestations of such influence are exhibited in movements in obedience to the command of the hypnotizer. Next in rank are those more complicated actions that are effected by excitement of the imitative faculties of the subject. Every suggested movement that can be in any way perceived by the patient will be at once reproduced. ”

“ Hypnotism, however, does not mean trance or somnambulism only. It is a name, if not for the whole ensemble, yet for a large group of those artifices which we have as yet discovered for the purpose of eliciting and utilising subliminal faculty. The results of hypnotic suggestion will be found to imitate sometimes the subliminal uprushes{54} of genius, and sometimes the visions of spontaneous somnambulism; while they also open to us fresh and characteristic accesses into subliminal knowledge and power. ”

“ Many feel if they audibly give themselves suggestions, they will "awaken." In hypno-analysis, the subject answers questions during the hypnotic state. Having the subject talk does not terminate the state. You can keep the talkative subject under hypnosis as long as you want. Furthermore, the subject can be sitting erect with his eyes open and still be under hypnosis. ”

“ It is also certain that similar, but yet more vivid, false experiences may be produced, at the word of the hypnotiser, in persons under the hypnotic sleep. A hypnotised man will take water for wine, and get drunk on it. ”

“ Others experience a heavy, pleasant, "sinking" feeling. Still others get a feeling of "peace and serenity." Many describe the hypnotic state as being akin to the state just prior to falling asleep or like daydreaming, and they experience the same reactions. ”

“ I hope to be able to prove, what I firmly hold, both from my own personal experience and experiment, as I have already related in the Nineteenth Century, that there is no such thing as a potent mesmeric influence, no such power resident in any one person more than another; that a glass of water, a tree, a stick, a penny-post letter, or a lime-light can mesmerize as effectually as can any individual. A clever hypnotizer means only a person who is acquainted with the physical or mental tricks by which the hypnotic condition is produced ”

“ GROSSMAN. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not, strictly speaking, a spiritualist. I have only studied hypnotism. It is true I have studied hypnotism in all its known manifestations; but what is called spiritualism, is entirely unknown to me. When a subject is thrown into a trance, I may expect the hypnotic phenomena known to me: lethargy, abulia, anæsthesia, analgesia, catalepsy, and every kind of 198susceptibility to suggestion. ”

“ The onlooker has no choice but to look at the hypnodisc as well. As I suggest to the subject that his eyes are becoming heavy and tired and that soon he'll have an irresistible impulse to close them, the onlooker is naturally hearing the same suggestion. Because this person feels apart from the hypnotic situation, there can be no conscious resistance. Since these defenses are not hampering the attainment of hypnosis, the onlooker may readily fall under hypnosis. ”

“ And not only must she learn to distinguish thus between real and unreal sensations, but she must also learn to resist all hypnotic suggestion to feel sensations which do not exist or which are unlawful. No psychic can be considered thoroughly self-controlled who has not acquired this power of resistance to hypnotic suggestion of unlawful touches or of unreal things as real. ”

“ I always had more or less interest in the study of physiology, and during my college course conducted a series of experiments in hypnotism, and made some interesting discoveries regarding the exaltation of the senses, and especially in relation to illusion and hallucination by the aid of post-hypnotic suggestion. ”

“ In this connection it is well to notice that it is a common observation that not only the affect of emotion but that of feeling also may emerge from the subconscious into consciousness and color the attitude of the personal consciousness. This may be demonstrated by hypnotic procedures. When in hypnosis complexes of ideas with strong feeling tones, whether of pleasure or displeasure, of exaltation or depression, are suggested, the subject after awakening experiences these same feeling tones which dominate the personality. ”

“ You give to a hypnotized subject, adequately susceptible, an order to perform some designated act—usual or eccentric, it makes no difference—after he wakes from his hypnotic sleep. Punctually, when the signal comes or the time elapses upon which you have told him that the act must ensue, he performs it;—but in so doing he has no recollection of your suggestion, and he always trumps up an improvised pretext for his behavior if the act be of an eccentric kind. ”

“ The hypnotic state is a partial sleep, then, of the motor side of the nervous system and of portions of the sensory nervous system. Certain of the higher intellectual powers, however, are entirely awake, and capable of being impressed through the hearing, and thus hypnotic suggestion has a place. ”

“ For within the last generation our knowledge of the subject has been increased by two methods. In the first place an increasing familiarity with hypnotism has enabled us to reproduce hallucinations at will. A subject in the somnambulic stage of the hypnotic sleep will not merely see and hear what he is hidden to see or hear at the time ”

“ Again, it is well known to hypnotists that an attempt to contradict or argue with a subject in the hypnotic state invariably distresses him, and persistency in such a course awakens him, often with a nervous shock. A conflict of suggestions invariably causes confusion in the subjective mind, and generally results in restoring the subject to normal consciousness. ”

“ For the great majority of those that are susceptible to the {131} hypnotic condition, there is very little danger. We now have on record the experiences of men who have seriously devoted many years to the study of hypnotic phenomena. ”

“ It is a safe rule to place hypnotism in exactly the same category as drugs. Rightly used, drugs are invaluable; wrongly used, they become the instruments of the murderer. At all times should they be used with great caution. The same is true of hypnotism.
Now let us cite some evidence. Lafontaine, a professional hypnotist, gives some interesting facts. He says that public hypnotic entertainments usually induce a great many of the audience to become amateur hypnotists, and these experiments may cause suffocation. Fear often results in congestion, or a rush of blood to the brain. ”

“ That such things really exist, and are not wholly a matter of superstition has been thoroughly demonstrated in a scientific way by the British Society for Psychical Research, and kindred societies in various parts of the world. Strictly speaking, such phenomena as these are not a part of hypnotism, but our study of hypnotism will enable us to understand them to some extent, and the investigation of them is a natural corollary to the study of hypnotism, for the reason that it has been found that these extraordinary powers are often possessed by persons under hypnotic influence. ”

“ The investigations of these men present the peculiarity that they observe hypnotism from its clinical and nosographical side, which side had until now been entirely neglected, and that they observe patients of the strongest hysterical temperaments. "If we can reasonably assert that the hypnotic phenomena which depend upon the disturbance of a regular function of the organism demand for their development a peculiar temperament, then we shall find the most marked phenomena when we turn to an hysterical person." ”