Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men Part 4

There are one or two points in the study of the advanced combined hypnotism--it is probably always criminal--which are worthy of notice.

One is that the operators generally, or always--(observation is difficult)--repeat a phrase or its most important words. The first saying of the word is barely noticeable. The repet.i.tion forces the word to the subject's attention.

Secondly, speech is addressed to the right ear; the sufferer of course declines attention to it, but this slight, almost automatic effort, yet distracts attention from the left ear, and a communication to that ear is unheard, but perceived as a thought.

To detect speech a very trifling pressure on the ear has to be watched for. In a law court or in society the interest of what is going on knocks the operators out.

A facility for receiving thought transferred makes a person perhaps more susceptible to depression by dull or inferior people, but principle partly cures this.

The art of dismissing obtrusive thoughts and persisting in one's own has to be cultivated by people with the readiest perceptions.

Natural caution and a habit of studying probabilities are great helps against such attackers; but, on the other hand, the man who drinks a gla.s.s of wine when he feels low will beat the hypnotist, who will doubtless harm him by causing degeneration.

A gla.s.s of port wine at eleven in the morning, and tea or breakfast early, are a great help. Early rising deprives the operators of the time when they pin their victim best.

A dog's bark, a peahen's cry, above all a bird's song, is a great interruption to hypnotism--silent or by voices. A nightingale will foil the worst attack.

The scoundrels may try and subst.i.tute an ugly sound for the song of birds; they cannot affect the sharp, short, and sudden cry of the swallow.

Walking up and down hill is much better than walking on the flat. The air is forced harder through the lungs. Windy weather is a help, and rain, for two reasons: it is an advantage to the victim, and keeps rascals away. The writer believes that the cartilages are influenced, or at least felt to be influenced, rather than the nerves, glands, or even the muscles.

He believes that the hearing of the voices of hypnotists is partly brought about by a change in the cartilages of the ear, which (it is stated in Grey's anatomy) are to a certain extent disintegrated by electricity.

The ears thus become rather telephonic, and no longer dependent so entirely on the will; emotion, however, either checks this facility of sound or the weakness that permits attention.

If to this be added the repet.i.tion by various voices of the same word, the first occasion probably when the subject's eye is seen to pa.s.s over the printed pa.s.sage where it occurs in a paper, words will be brought to the victim's ear hypnotically.

But perhaps the first system mentioned is used where the difficulties of approach are greater, the rascals must have great patience.

When the victim begins a letter the date is called to him, and then he can be tested by calling, say, July to him in September. His name may be called when in reverie, perhaps in the country, his mind goes back to his boyhood.

Thought reading is very easy if a person is visible, and rascals begin from a distance, and finally operate between hypnotics out of sight.

They seem in this first to catch a person when he pa.s.ses a window. This shows that they are susceptible to the amount of light, as well as that a thick wall is a greater obstacle than a pane of gla.s.s. They thus too may partly distinguish environment, though this is perhaps learned by practice.

Ear and eye and muscular feeling are all weighed. A strong man much hypnotised in this way, will notice that a diminished light will relieve him, although previously he paid little attention to any glare, even up to the age of forty.

Residence changed from a ground floor to a lofty room would often cause unusual relief. On a church tower this would be felt even more.

The noise of London, and the fact that people hanging about are watched, are checks to the early operations of criminal hypnotists.

Music is probably an excellent antidote. A feeling of stupidity, given even for a second, would probably give a boy a wrong idea of himself, and even repeated successes would not quite efface this.

The j.a.panese system of wrestling lately introduced shows how powerful a touch on a nerve may be in weakening a man. Such a touch transferred or propelled, may for a long time aid hypnotisers from a distance, though it would be in time disregarded or little regarded.

Calculative work is better suited than imaginative work to free the brain. I would urge inquirers to ask themselves, whether Mrs. Piper's doings could be accounted for in any other way than that suggested.

Clairvoyance is seemingly mere guess-work, the imagination being heightened temporarily rather than depressed by the hypnotic pressure.

Mr. Vincent's a.n.a.lysis of mental reactions is invaluable. A hypnotised person does not go on to the a.n.a.logies, which may be quite obvious from a suggestive word.

This resembles the habit of some religious persons who build on one text of the Bible, completely neglecting the modifying and explanatory text that immediately follows. The subject is grossly credulous, and is deprived of much fruitful time for thinking.

The hypnotised person will refuse to do many actions, and religion is of course a mainstay, though irrational accretions, fasting, and superst.i.tious views of the Communion will weaken it.

Miss Freer repeatedly asked herself the question, "How did this come into my head?"

It would seem from the story of the red figure, afterwards recognised on a seal, that she had been hypnotised not by her companion but by some travelling rascal who had seen the letter in the post-office, and thus brought off a piece of prevision.

Intelligent watchfulness is a great protection.