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I know of no
well-authenticated case in which sense-stimulation has produced hypnosis by
a purely physiological action. Most people upon
whom such experiments are made know that an attempt is being made to hypnotize
them; they have been already hypnotized, and the stimuli arouse conscious or
unconscious mental images of the hypnosis; or they have seen the same experiments
with others, or have heard of them. Even when
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 45
this is not the case, the objection raised by Bernheim and Forel remains to
be considered—that the sense-stimuli induce a feeling of fatigue, and through
this induce the hypnosis.
Which of the above methods, or which combination of them is the best for practical
use, is a question the answer to which cannot readily be supplied. When we find
that Richet thinks he can throw nearly everybody into the hypnotic state by
means of mesmeric passes, that Liebeault, Bernheim, and Forel hypnotize nearly
all their patients by the Nancy process, Vogt by his fractional method, and
that Braid hypnotized ten out of fourteen by means of fixation, we see that
different methods bring about nearly identical results. From this it follows
that the success or failure of an experiment does not depend solely on the external
influences which may be brought into play. The mental susceptibilities of the
individual to be experimented on are of far greater importance, and consequently
in each individual case that method should be selected which is most suited
to the mental condition of the subject, for some persons appear refractory to
one method while another succeeds. I have found persons insusceptible to the
use of fixed attention, or to the method of Nancy, while I obtained results
by mesmeric passes. Evidently this proves nothing against mental action, for
many persons believe they can only be influenced by some particular process.
On the other hand, I have seen that intense fixity of gaze sometimes induces
hypnosis when other methods are useless, perhaps because the subjective expectation
of the hypnosis is sooner aroused by the long, intense stare than by verbal
orders.
Chambard reckons chloroform, ether, etc., among hypnosigenic agents. Certainly
many phenomena analogous to those of hypnosis have been observed in the sleep
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