Telepathy and the Subliminal Self Part 4

(1) A. C., a young girl of Irish parentage, fifteen years old, light skin, dark hair and eyes, and heavy eyebrows. Her father had "fits" for several years previous to his death. I first saw the patient Dec. 4, 1872; this was five years before Charcot's experiments, and nearly ten years before those of Bernheim.

She was then having frequent epileptic attacks, characterized by sudden loss of consciousness, convulsions, foaming at the mouth, biting the tongue, and dark color. She had her first attack six months before I saw her, and they had increased in frequency and in severity until now they occurred twenty or more times a day, sometimes lasting many minutes, and sometimes only a few seconds; sometimes they were of very great severity.

She had received many falls, burns, and bruises in consequence of their sudden accession. They occurred both day and night. On my second visit I determined to try hypnotism. Patient went to sleep in eight minutes, slept a short time and awoke without interference. She was immediately put to sleep again; she slept only a few minutes, and again awoke.

DEC. 7.--Her friends report that the attacks have not been so frequent and not nearly so violent since my last visit. Hypnotized; patient went into a profound sleep and remained one hour; she was then awakened by reverse pa.s.ses.

DEC. 8.--The attacks have been still less frequent and severe; she has slept quietly; appet.i.te good. Hypnotized and allowed her to sleep two hours, and then awoke her by the upward pa.s.ses.

DEC. 9.--There has been still more marked improvement; the attacks have been very few, none lasting more than half a minute. Hypnotized and allowed her to remain asleep three hours. Awoke her with some difficulty, and she was still somewhat drowsy when I left. She went to sleep in the afternoon and slept soundly four hours; awoke and ate her supper; went to sleep again and slept soundly all night.

DEC. 10.--There has been no return of the attacks. A month later she had had no return of the attacks. She soon after left town, and I have not heard of her since. In this case no suggestions whatever were made.

(2) B. X., twenty-four years of age, a sporting man; obstinate, independent, self-willed, a leader in his circle. He had been a hard drinker from boyhood. He had been injured by a fall three years before, and had been subject to severe attacks of haematemesis. I had known him for three or four months previous to June, 1891. At that time he came into my office one evening somewhat under the influence of alcoholic stimulants.

After talking a few moments, I advised him to lie down on the lounge. I made no remarks about his drinking, nor about sleep. I simply took his two thumbs in my hands and sat quietly beside him. Presently I made a few long pa.s.ses from head to feet, and in five minutes he was fast asleep.

His hands and arms, outstretched and raised high up, remained exactly as they were placed. Severe pinching elicited no sign of sensation. He was in the deep hypnotic sleep.

I then spoke to him in a distinct and decided manner. I told him he was ruining his life and making his family very unhappy by his habit of intemperance. I then told him very decidedly that when he awoke he would have no more desire for alcoholic stimulants of any kind; that he would look upon them all as his enemies, and he would refuse them under all circ.u.mstances; that even the smell of them would be disagreeable to him.

I repeated the suggestions and then awoke him by making a few pa.s.ses upward over his face, I did not inform him that I had hypnotized him, nor speak to him at all about his habit of drinking. I prescribed for some ailment for which he had visited me and he went away.

I neither saw nor heard from him again for three months, when I received a letter from him from a distant city, informing me that he had not drank a drop of spirituous liquor since he was in my office that night. His health was perfect, and he had no more vomiting of blood.

June, 1892, one year from the time I had hypnotized him, he came into my office in splendid condition. He had drank nothing during the whole year.

I have not heard from him since.

The following case ill.u.s.trates Bernheim's method:--

Mlle. J., teacher, thirty-two years old, came to the clinique, Feb. 17, 1887, for ch.o.r.ea, or St. Vitus's dance. Nearly two weeks previous she had been roughly reprimanded by her superior which had greatly affected her.

She could scarcely sleep or eat; she had nausea, p.r.i.c.king sensations in both arms, delirium at times, and now incessant movements, sometimes as frequent as two every second, in both the right arm and leg.

She can neither write nor attend to her school duties. Bernheim hypnotizes her by his method. She goes easily into the somnambulic condition. In three or four minutes, under the influence of suggestion, the movements of the hand and foot cease; upon waking up, they reappear, but less frequently. A second hypnotization, with suggestion, checks them completely.

FEB. 19th.--Says she has been very comfortable; the p.r.i.c.king sensations have ceased. No nervous movements until nine o'clock this morning, when they returned, about ten or eleven every minute. New hypnotization and suggestion, during which the motions cease, and they remain absent when she wakes.

21st.--Has had slight pains and a few choraic movements.

25th.--Is doing well; has no movements; says she is cured.

She returned a few times during the next four months with slight nervous movements, which were promptly relieved by hypnotizing and suggestion.

Bernheim, in his book, "Suggestive Therapeutics," gives details of over one hundred cases, mostly neuralgic and rheumatic, most of which are described as cured, either quickly or by repeated hypnotization and suggestion.

The Zoist, a journal devoted to psychology and mesmerism nearly fifty years ago, gives several hundred cases of treatment and cure by the early mesmerists, some of them very remarkable, and also many cases of surgical operations of the most severe or dangerous character painlessly done under the anaesthetic influence of mesmerism before the benign effects of ether or chloroform were known. These cases are not often referred to by the modern student of hypnotism. Nevertheless, they const.i.tute a storehouse of well-observed facts which have an immense interest and value.

It will thus be seen that throughout the whole history of hypnotism, under whatever name it has been studied, one of its chief features has been its power to relieve suffering and cure disease; and at the present day, while many physicians who are quite ignorant of its uses, in general terms deny its practicability, few who have any real knowledge of it are so unjust or regardless of facts as to deny its therapeutic effects.

CHAPTER III.

HYPNOTISM--PSYCHICAL ASPECT.

As before remarked the phenomena of hypnotism may be viewed from two distinct standpoints--one, that from which the physical and especially the therapeutic features are most prominent, the standpoint from which we have already viewed the subject; the other is the psychical or mental aspect, which presents phenomena no less striking, and is the one which is especially attractive to the most earnest students of psychology.

The hypnotic condition has been variously divided and subdivided by different students and different writers upon the subject; Charcot, for instance, makes three distinct states, which he designates (1) catalepsy, (2) lethargy, and (3) somnambulism, while Bernheim proposes five states, or, as he designates them, degrees of hypnotism, namely, (1) sleepiness, (2) light sleep, (3) deep sleep, (4) very deep sleep, (5) somnambulism.

All these divisions are arbitrary and unnatural; Bernheim's five degrees have no definite limit or line of separation one from the other, and Charcot's condition of catalepsy is only lethargy or sleep in which the subject may, to a greater or less degree, maintain the position in which he is placed by his hypnotizer.

There are, however, as already stated, two distinct and definite conditions, namely, (1) lethargy, or the inactive stage, and (2) somnambulism, or the alert stage, and if, in examining the subject, we make this simple division, we shall free it from much confusion and unnecessary verbiage.

When a subject is hypnotized by any soothing process, he first experiences a sensation of drowsiness, and then in a s.p.a.ce of time, usually varying from two to twenty minutes, he falls into a more or less profound slumber.

His breathing is full and quiet, his pulse normal; he is unconscious of his surroundings; or possibly he may be quiet, restful, indisposed to move, but having a consciousness, probably dim and imperfect, of what is going on about him.

This is the condition of lethargy, and in it most subjects, but not all, retain to a greater or less degree whatever position the hypnotizer imposes upon them; they sleep on, often maintaining what, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, would be a most uncomfortable position, for hours, motionless as a statue of bronze or stone.

If, now, he speaks of his own accord, or his magnetizer speaks to him and he replies, he is in the somnambulic or alert stage. He may open his eyes, talk in a clear and animated manner; he may walk about, and show even more intellectual acuteness and physical activity than when in his normal state, or he may merely nod a.s.sent or answer slowly to his hypnotizer's questions; still, he is in the somnambulic or alert stage of hypnotism.

The following are some of the phenomena which have been observed in this stage. It is not necessary to rehea.r.s.e the stock performances of lecture-room hypnotists. While under the influence of hypnotic suggestion a lad, for instance, is made to go through the pantomime of fishing in an imaginary brook, a dignified man to canter around the stage on all fours, under the impression that he is a pony, or watch an imaginary mouse-hole in the most alert and interested manner while believing himself a cat; or the subject is made to take castor oil with every expression of delight, or reject the choicest wines with disgust, believing them to be nauseous drugs, or stagger with drunkenness under the influence of a gla.s.s of pure water, supposed to be whisky.

All these things have been done over and over for the last forty years, and people have not known whether to consider them a species of necromancy or well-practiced tricks, in which the performers were accomplices, or, perhaps, a few more thoughtful and better-instructed people have looked upon them as involving psychological problems of the greatest interest, which might some day strongly influence all our systems of mental philosophy.

But whether done by the mesmerist of forty years ago or the hypnotist of the past decade, they were identical in character, and were simply genuine examples of the great power of suggestion when applied to persons under the mesmeric or hypnotic influence. Such exhibitions, however, are unnecessary and undignified, if not positively degrading, to both subject and operator, whether given by the self-styled professor of the town-hall platform or the aspiring clinical professor of nervous diseases before his packed amphitheatre of admiring students.

One of the most singular as well as important points in connection with hypnotism is the rapport or relationship which exists between the hypnotizer and the hypnotized subject. The manner in which the hypnotic sleep is induced is of little importance. The important thing, if results of any kind are to be obtained, is that rapport should be established.

This relationship is exhibited in various ways. Generally, while in the hypnotic state, the subject hears no voice but that of his hypnotizer; he does no bidding but his, he receives no suggestions but from him, and no one else can awaken him from his sleep.

If another person interferes, trying to impose his influence upon the sleeping subject, or attempts to waken him, distressing and even alarming results may appear. The degree to which this rapport exists varies greatly in different cases, but almost always, perhaps we should say always, the condition exists in some degree. In some rare cases this rapport is of a still higher and more startling character, exhibiting phenomena so contrary to, or rather, so far exceeding, our usual experience as to be a surprise to all and a puzzle to the wisest.

One of these curious phenomena is well exhibited in what is known as community of sensation, or the perception by the subject of sensations experienced by the operator. The following experiment, observed by Mr.

Gurney and Dr. Myers of the Society for Psychical Research, will ill.u.s.trate this phase of the subject.

The sensitive in this experiment is designated as Mr. C., and the operator as Mr. S. There was no contact or any communication whatsoever of the ordinary kind between them. C. was hypnotized, but was not informed of the nature of the experiment which was to be tried. The operator stood behind the hypnotized subject, and Mr. Gurney, standing behind the operator, handed him the different substances to be used in the experiment, and he, in turn, placed them in his own mouth.

Salt was first so tasted by the operator, whereupon the subject, C., instantly and loudly cried out: "What's that salt stuff?" Sugar was given.

C. replied, "Sweeter; not so bad as before." Powdered ginger; reply, "Hot, dries up your mouth; reminds me of mustard." Sugar given again; reply, "A little better--a sweetish taste." Other substances were tried, with similar results, the last one tasted being vinegar, when it was found that C. had fallen into the deeper lethargic condition and made no reply.

Another experiment is reported by Dr. William A. Hammond of Washington.

The doctor said:

"A most remarkable fact is, that some few subjects of hypnotism experience sensations from impressions made upon the hypnotizer. Thus, there is a subject upon whom I sometimes operate whom I can shut up in a room with an observer, while I go into another closed room at a distance of one hundred feet or more with another observer. This one, for instance, scratches my hand with a pin, and instantly the hypnotized subject rubs his corresponding hand, and says, 'Don't scratch my hand so;' or my hair is pulled, and immediately he puts his hand to his head and says, 'Don't pull my hair;' and so on, feeling every sensation that I experience."

This experiment, it must be borne in mind, is conducted in closed rooms a hundred feet apart, and through at least two part.i.tions or closed doors, and over that distance and through these intervening obstacles peculiar and definite sensations experienced by one person are perceived and definitely described by another person, no ordinary means of communication existing between them. This is an example of the rapport existing between the operator and hypnotized subject carried to an unusual degree.

The following experiments are examples of hypnotizing at a distance, or telepathic hypnotism, and while ill.u.s.trating still further the rapport, or curious relationship, existing between hypnotizer and subject, are also ill.u.s.trations of the rarer psychic phenomena of hypnotism.