Hypnotism: Its History, Practice and Theory

 

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it has become. Finally, it would be an omission on my part if I did not mention that animal magnetism, as distinct from hypnotism, has retained some of its adherents in the scientific world—Ochorowicz, Myers, and Richet. Naturally, I ignore the numerous uncritical and unscientific persons who express a belief in this magnetism.
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CHAPTER H.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

IN order to give the reader an idea of the phenomena of hypnotism, it will be best, first of all, to describe a few experiments. The phenomena will in this way be made more comprehensible than by means of any number of definitions.

First Experiment.—I begin the experiments with a young man of twenty. I request him to seat himself on a chair, and give him a button to hold, telling him to look at it fixedly. After three minutes his eyelids fall; he tries in vain to open his eyes, which are fast closed; his hand, which up till 'now has grasped the button, drops upon his knee. In answer to my question as to how he feels, he replies that he is tired. I assure him it is impossible for him to open his eyes. (He makes vain efforts to open them.) I now say to him, "Your hands are stuck fast to your knee; you cannot possibly raise them." (Ile raises his hands, how-ever.) I continue to converse with him; I find that he is perfectly conscious, and I can find no essential change in him whatever. I raise his right arm; directly I let go he drops it as he pleases. Upon which I blow upon his eyes, which open at once, and he is in the same state as before the experiment. The young man remembers all that I have said to him.

The only striking thing is, therefore, that he could not open his eyes, and that he felt a certain degree of fatigue.

Second Experiment.—This is a woman of fifty-three. When she has seated herself on a chair I place myself before her; I raise my hands and move them downwards, with the palms towards her, from the top of the head to about the pit of the stomach. I hold my hands so that they may not touch her, at a distance of from two to four centimetres. As soon as my hands come to the lowest part of the stroke 1 carry them in a wide sweep with outspread arms up over the subject's head. I then repeat exactly the same movements—that is, passes from above downwards, close to the body, and continue this for about ten minutes. At the end of this time the subject is sitting with closed eyes, breathing deeply and

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