Chapter 2

Is described as a different form of natural sleep, and all the causes which bring on fatigue are capable of bringing on hypnotism in suitable subjects. Two of the leading hypnotic states are lethargy and catalepsy, the former being analogous to deep sleep, and the latter to a light slumber. In lethargy the respiratory movements are slow and deep; in catalepsy slight, shallow, very slow, and separated by a long interval. In lethargy the application of a magnet over the region of the stomach causes profound modifications in the breathing and circulation, while there is no such effect in catalepsy. This shows the connection of hypnotism with magnetism, and various other experiments with magnets have produced some remarkable results. Here it may be added that Dr. Gessmann, a Vienna scientist who has made a specialty of hypnotic studies, has invented and successfully applied an instrument called a hypnoscope, consisting of an arrangement of magnets for the purpose of ascertaining whether any person is a good hypnotic subject.

The experiments demonstrate that sensation in the hypnotic states varies between the two opposite poles of hyperaesthesia and anaeesthesia; in other words, the senses may be extraordinarily exalted, as in somnambulism, or, as in lethargy, they may be extinct, except sometimes hearing. In somnambulism the field of vision and acuteness of sight are about doubled, hearing is made very acute, and smell is so intensely developed that a subject can find by scent the fragment of a card, previously given him to feel, and then torn up and hidden. The memory in somnambulism is similarly exalted. When awakened the subject does not, as a rule, remember anything that occurred while he was entranced, but, when again hypnotized, his memory includes all the facts of his sleep, his life when awake and his former sleeps. Richet attests how somnambules recall with a luxury of detail scenes in which they have taken part and places they have visited long ago. M----, one of his somnambules, sings the air of the second act of the opera "L'Africaine" when she is asleep, but can not remember a note of it when awake.

There is a theory that no experience whatever of any person is lost to the memory; it is only the power to recall it that is defective. The authors of this work say that, while the exaltation of the memory during somnambulism does not give absolute proof to the theory that nothing is lost, it proves at any rate that the memory of preservation is much greater than is generally imagined, in comparison with the memory of reproduction, or recollection. "It is evident," they say, "that in a great number of cases, where we believe the memory is completely blotted out, it is nothing of the kind. The trace is always there, but what is lacking is the power to evoke it; and it is highly probable that if we were subjected to hypnotism, or the action of suitable excitants, memories to all appearance dead might be revived."

A comparison between the phenomena of awakening from natural and artificial sleep is instituted. In the case of dreams, recollection more or less vivid persists for a few seconds, then becomes effaced. This forgetfulness is even more marked in the case of hypnosis. On returning to natural consciousness, the subject cannot recompose a single one of the scenes in which he has played his part as witness or actor. The loss, however, is not complete, for often a word or two is sufficient to bring back a whole scene, though this word or two coming from operator to subject, partakes more or less of the nature of a suggestion.

SUGGESTION.

"Suggestion," by which is meant the production of thoughts and actions on the part of the subject through some indication or hint given by the operator, is found to be analogous to dreaming. Say the authors: "For suggestion to succeed, the subject must have naturally fallen, or been artificially thrown into a state of morbid receptivity: but it is difficult to determine accurately the conditions of suggestionability. However, we may mention two. The first, the mental inertia of the subject: * * * the consciousness is completely empty: an idea is suggested, and reigns supreme over the slumbering consciousness, * * * The second is psychic hyperexcitability, the cause of the aptitude for suggestion." "For example, we say to a patient: 'Look, you have a bird in your apron,' and no sooner are these simple words pronounced than she sees the bird, feels it with her fingers, and sometimes even hears it sing." "Again, in place of speech we engage the attention of the patient, and when her gaze has become settled and obediently follows all our movements, we imitate with the hand the motion of an object which flies. Soon the subject cries: 'Oh, what a pretty bird!' How has a simple gesture produced so singular an effect?"

"It is admitted, however, that the hypothesis of the association of ideas only partly covers the facts of suggestion, even when stretched to include resemblances. For instance, when we charge the brain of an entranced patient with some strange idea, such as, 'On awakening you will rob Mr. So-and-so of his handkerchief,' and on awakening, the patient accomplishes the theft commanded, can we believe that in such a sequence there is nothing more than an image associated with an act? In point of fact, the patient has appropriated and assimilated the idea of the experimenter. She does not passively execute a strange order, but the order has passed in her consciousness from passive to active. We can go so far as to say that the patient has the will to steal. This state is complex and obscure, hitherto no one has explained it. * * * The facts of paralysis by suggestion completely upset classical psychology. The experimenter who produces them so easily knows neither what he produces nor how he does it. Take the example of a systematic anaesthesia (paralysis of sensation). We say to the subject, 'On awakening you will not see Mr. X., who is there before us; he will have completely disappeared.' No sooner said than done; the patient on awakening sees every one around her except Mr. X. When he speaks she does not answer his questions; if he places his hand on her shoulder she does not feel the contact; if he gets in her way, she walks straight on, and is terrified at being stopped by an invisible obstacle. * * * Here the laws of association, which do such good service in solving psychological problems, abandon us completely. Apparently they do not account for all the facts of consciousness."

PORTRAITS BY HALLUCINATION.

A remarkable and suggestive series of experiments performed with portraits by hallucination is given in the book. These experiments show, that if by suggestion a subject is made to see a portrait on a sheet of card board which is exactly alike on both sides, the image will always be seen on the same side, and, however it is presented, the subject will always place the card with the surfaces and edges in the exact positions they occupied at the moment of suggestion, in such a manner that the image can neither be reversed nor inclined. If the surfaces are reversed, the image is no longer seen; if the edges, it is seen upside down. The subject is never caught in a mistake; the changes may be made out of his sight, but the image is invariably seen in accordance with the primitive conditions, although absolutely no difference is to be detected by the normal vision between the two blank surfaces.

One experiment brings out this fact clearly. On a white sheet of paper is placed a card equally white; with a fine point, but without touching the paper, the contour of the card is followed while the idea of a line traced in black is suggested to the subject. The subject, when awakened, is asked to fold the paper according to these imaginary lines. He holds the paper at the distance at which it was at the moment of suggestion, and folds it in the form of a rectangle exactly superposable on the card.

A curious experiment in the same line has been often repeated by Prof. Charcot. The subject is given the suggestion of a portrait on a white card, which is then shuffled up with a dozen cards all alike. On awakening, the subject is asked to run over the collection, without being told the reason why it is wished. When he comes to the card on which had been located the imaginary portrait, he at once perceives it. One detail of these experiments is very significant. Supposing we show the imaginary portrait at a distance of two yards from the subject's eyes, the card appears white, whereas a real photograph would appear gray. If it is gradually brought nearer, the imaginary portrait at last appears, but it is necessary for it to be much nearer than an ordinary photograph for the patient to recognize the subject. By means of opera glasses we can make the patient recognize her hallucination at a distance at which she could not perceive it with the naked eye. In short, the imaginary object which figures in the hallucination is perceived under the same conditions as if it were real. Various other experiments are detailed in support of this formula. The opera glasses only act as if they were focussed upon the point of hallucination, and in the case of a short-sighted subject they had to be altered to allow for the defect of vision. If the patient looks through a prism the image is seen duplicated, although the subject is absolutely ignorant of the properties of a prism, as well as of the fact that the glass is a prism. A photograph of the plain white card used when the photograph was suggested may be substituted, and on being shown to the patient, the hallucinatory image is seen just the same, even two years after the original experiment, as was done in one case.

Some strange phenomena of polarity are related. The following experiments by MM. Binet and Fere are given in illustration: "We give a patient in somnambulism the common hallucination of a bird poised on her finger. While she is caressing the imaginary bird she is awakened and a magnet is brought near her head. After a few minutes she stops short, raises her eyes and looks about in astonishment. The bird which was on her finger has disappeared. She looks all over the ward and at last finds it, for we hear her say, 'So you thought you would leave me, little bird.' After a few minutes the bird again disappears anew, but almost immediately reappears. The patient complains from time to time of a pain in the head at a point corresponding to what has been described in this book as the visual centre (some distance above and slightly posterior to the ear)." The magnet also has the same effect in suspending the real perception. One of the patients was shown a Chinese gong and striker, and took fright on sight of the instrument. When a blow was struck she instantly fell into catalepsy. She was reawakened, and asked to look attentively at the gong; meanwhile, without her knowledge, a small magnet was brought near her head. After a minute the instrument had completely disappeared from her sight. When it was struck with redoubled force, she only looked from side to side with an air of slight astonishment.

* * * * *

The mysteries which puzzle these writers are made plain by anthropology, and I have been presenting the explanation for over forty years to my pupils. The sensibility to hypnotic phenomena is due to the anterior portion of the middle lobe of the brain--to the portion which is developed one inch behind the external angle of the eye, by exciting which we bring on the somnolent condition. The predominance of this region renders the person liable to the mesmeric phenomena.

The hypnoscope proposed is quite unnecessary. The proper test of magnetic susceptibility is either to excite the organ of somnolence and observe if the eyes are disposed to close, or to pass your fingers over the outstretched hand of the subject, within one or two inches, and observe if he feels any impression. A distinct feeling of coolness is sufficient proof of magnetic susceptibility.

Let those who wish to investigate the subject begin in accordance with true science by testing the sensitiveness of the hand. If sensitive, let the subject sit in a passive state, while you touch the somnolent region on the temples, one inch horizontally behind the brow. In from one to ten minutes the eyes will show a disposition to close, winking repeatedly until a dreamy condition arises, with a tendency to a conscious sleep. In this condition the susceptibility is extreme. Experiments in psychometry may be tried with success; the organs of the brain may be excited, and many interesting experiments may be made by those who understand the brain, for intellectual purposes, or for the promotion of health and cure of diseases.

The whole subject is thoroughly explained in the College of Therapeutics, making thereby a perfect guidance to health, and to progress in philosophy, and supplying the great lack in all systems of education--self-knowledge and the sublime art of health, longevity, and progress in Divine wisdom.

THE SO-CALLED SCIENTIFIC IMMORTALITY.

The Smithsonian Institution at Washington was founded for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. Guided by the contracted notions prevalent among scientists, it has not accomplished much for either object. The theory of Lester F. Ward of this institution was paraphrased as follows in the last JOURNAL:

As for immortal life I must confess, Science has never, never answered "yes." Indeed all psycho-physiological sciences show, If we'd be loyal, we must answer "no!" Man cannot recollect before being born, And hence his future life must be "in a horn." There must be a _parte ante_ if there's a _parte post_, And logic thus demolishes every future ghost. Upon this subject the voice of science Has ne'er been aught but stern defiance. Mythology and magic belong to "_limbus fatuorum_;" If fools believe them, we scientists deplore 'em. But, nevertheless, the immortal can't be lost, For every atom has its bright, eternal ghost!

Mr. Ward appears to enjoy greatly this theory of his own final extinction, and he exclaims with infinite self-satisfaction, "this pure and ennobling sense of truth he would scorn to barter for the selfish and illusory hope of an eternity of personal existence." This is quite a jolly funeral indeed!

It is true Mr. Ward's very profound theories contradict an immense number of facts observed by wiser men than himself, but so much the worse for the facts,--they must not embarrass a Smithsonian philosopher when he solves to his own satisfaction the vast problem of the universe. This Mr. Ward thinks he has done. It is quite an ingenious and laboriously constructed hypothesis, but like all other attempts to construct a grand philosophy without a basis of fact, it is hard to manufacture the theory and hard to comprehend it. Mr. Ward says himself in the _Open Court_ that even to comprehend his doctrine would require the "careful reading of nearly 200 pages," while "to see the matter in precisely the same light as I see it would require the reading of the entire work of some 1400 pages!" Really, Mr. Ward, the writer who cannot sufficiently befuddle himself and his readers in fifty pages is not very skilful.

Nevertheless the Ward theory is one of the best that has ever been gotten up by the champions of nescience, and is worthy of a statement in the Journal as quite an improvement on the common expression of materialistic stolidity. He claims that he does not deny immortality, but he recognizes no immortality of man--no human soul. He recognizes only the immortality of the world, such as it is, which nobody denies. The future life of man he considers nothing but an illusion, though there is an immortality of intelligence _here_ in successive forms.

The doctrine, is that spirit, intelligence, or consciousness is a part of matter--that every atom has its own little share, which practically amounts to nothing in its infinite subdivision, but when matter comes into organized forms the spiritual powers thus aggregated and organized become an efficient spiritual energy; and the higher the organism the grander the power that is developed, man being the most perfect organization evolves the grandest spiritual power, as a superior violin evolves finer music than a tambourine. But the intelligence and will of man are only phenomena, like the music, and have no existence beyond that of the organism that produces them. This is substantially the theory of materialists generally, and of the old school medical colleges which consider human life a mere product of human tissues in combination--a doctrine conclusively refuted in "Therapeutic Sarcognomy."

The special merit of the Ward theory lies in the supposition that mind and matter are elements everywhere inseparably united, and that human intelligence is developed by the aggregation and organization of the mind powers that reside in the atoms of matter,--an explanation which does not often occur to the exponents of materialism,--and has the merit of ingenuity. The theory would do very well if it were not demonstrable that life exists only from influx, and that human life and personality survive the body, and become known to every highly organized sensitive, who knows how to investigate such matters.

The Ward theory demolishes the Deity with the greatest ease, and places man, fleeting or evanescent as he is, at the summit of the universe! As he expresses it, "The only intelligence in the universe worthy of the name is the intelligence of the organized beings which have been evolved; and the highest manifestations of the psychic power known to the occupants of this planet is that which emanates from the human brain. Thus does science invert the pantheistic pyramid."

Such is the fog that emanates from the institution that should help the advance and diffusion of knowledge. No God! no soul! not even the awful power that Spencer blindly acknowledges--nothing but matter bubbling up and organizing itself into temporary forms that decay and are gone forever. We may well reciprocate his suggestion, and say that such doctrines belong to the _limbus fatuorum_, and, if enjoyed as Mr. Ward enjoys them, they may well be called the "fool's paradise." I think Hegel has some similar notion--that God becomes conscious only in man, unconscious everywhere else! And even so brilliant a writer as M. Renan says, "For myself I think that there is not in the universe any intelligence superior to that of man." In reading such expressions we are strongly reminded of the poem on the "rationalistic chicken," which would not admit that it ever came out of an egg. When the wisdom shown in the universe is so immensely beyond the comprehension of man, how can he assume his own to be the highest wisdom?

To such dreary absurdities as this the _Open Court_ newspaper at Chicago is devoted, and it has a bevy of well-educated friends and supporters--well-educated as the world goes,--and graced with literary capacity and culture, but educated into blindness and ignorance of the scientific phenomena of psychic science,--unwilling to investigate or incapable of candid investigation. The coterie sustaining such a newspaper are precisely in the position of the contemporaries of Galileo, who refused to look through his telescope or study his demonstrations.

It is not from any scientific spirit or scientific acumen that this materialistic coterie avoid psychometric and spiritual facts. The newspapers which ignore or sneer at such knowledge are easily gulled in matters of science. A writer in the _Open Court_ upon the possibilities of the future, which he presents as being confined "strictly to legitimate deductions from present knowledge," exhibits an amount and variety of ignorant credulity which ought not to have gained admission to an intelligent journal. He speaks of an unlimited freedom of submarine navigation and navigation of the air which would not have appeared possible to any but the most superficial sciolist. He also speaks of an electroscope that will telegraph rays of light (!) and enable us thereby to see our most distant friends, and of stowing in a small compass electricity enough to exterminate an army. This imaginative ignoramus adds, "Give to our present biped acquaintance the ability to exterminate armies with a lightning flash, added to the power of sailing at will through the air or of passing at will and in safety beneath the ocean waves, and he would depopulate the earth." The writer gives much more of this Munchausen stuff which is not worthy of notice except as an illustration of the feeble scientific intelligence with which many newspapers are edited. The editor of a really scientific journal referred to this article in the _Open Court_ "as a proof of the danger of a little knowledge."[1]

[1] The air is certainly yet to be navigated when a sufficient amount of power can be concentrated in the machine, but at present we can do little more than float with the wind. It is probable that an engine sufficiently strong, built of the best steel, and propelled by the explosive power of gun cotton, or some similar explosive, would overcome the difficulty. If I were to construct such an engine I would substitute for the lifting power of a balloon that of a sail acting as a kite.

REVIEW OF THE NEW EDUCATION.

BY SAMUEL EADON, M.A., M.D., PH.D., F.S.A., ETC.

I have read very carefully the third edition of the "New Education," and feel impelled, in order to satisfy my conscientiousness, to write a short article relative to the impressions which the reading of the book produced in my mind.

It is a work of extraordinary merit. Like George Combe's "Constitution of Man," it is highly suggestive; the fascination of the author was such that I could not help but write. To know its value and appreciate its lofty moral outpourings, people must buy the book and read for themselves. The first thought would be that it is the production of an original thinker who had the courage to utter opinions fearless of results, however antagonistic to the common-herd notions.

In all ages, the human understanding, the reasoning faculties, have ever been considered to hold the supremacy in the scale of development, of culture, and of advance toward a higher form of civilization; the moral faculties were thought next in order, and then the propensities common to all animal natures held the third or inferior position. This view of human nature has been handed down from an elder antiquity and still retains its hold largely in the universities and great public schools of the present day.

If this view of the nature of man be a correct one, there ought to be a vast intellectual brotherhood of mankind; but it is not so. From the days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, this culture of the intellectual power has been continuously pursued, but with very slender results; for were this kind of education pursued for 100,000 years, the morale of society would be little better than it is at the present time.

Dr. Buchanan takes quite a different view and makes the moral or ethical faculties supreme, in development and culture, the intellect being the instruments for acquiring facts and the propensities the steam to bring about the desired results. According to his views of man, our emotional faculties are of a higher or more God-like order than our intellectual powers. The intellect being the hand-maid to the emotions, to _feel_ the force of truth is higher in mental excellence than to _perceive_ it. Depth of emotions is the climax of spiritual power.