CHAPTER IX
HYPNOTISM

Hypnotism is popularly supposed to be a mysterious psychological process by which susceptible subjects are brought under the influence of a person possessing some marvelous power over others' minds and wills. According to this supposition, during the periods in which the subjects are under this influence, they either have some new source of energy transferred to them from the operator's strong personality, or else they share to some extent in the will power possessed by him. In the midst of the sub-consciousness which characterizes the hypnotic condition, then, they are in some way endowed with new strength, which enables them to overcome obstacles to physical or mental health, some of which seemed at least quite insurmountable under their normal condition.

As a matter of fact, hypnotism is much simpler than this, consisting merely of a state of mental absorption in which all distracting thoughts are for the moment warded off, and only such thoughts as are suggested by the hypnotist reach the consciousness of the patient. The essence of hypnotism is the concentration of mind on one idea or only a few ideas dictated by the hypnotist. This mental concentration produces the effect of greater strength, whether apparent or real, to carry out the purposes connected with those thoughts. It is usually considered that hypnotism involves sleep, and in some cases it does. This is often undesirable. True, therapeutic hypnosis leaves at least certain senses of the subject open to perceive such things as are presented by the hypnotist's suggestion though these senses may be, and usually are, quite closed to all other perceptions. In a great many cases, though there is a real hypnotic condition, a state resembling true sleep does not occur. There is only a more or less complete concentration of attention on the suggestions of the operator, and a complete cessation of all spontaneous thought, or of all suggestions that might come in ordinary ways from the subject's own senses.

Effects of Hypnotism.—Most people have a very erroneous notion with regard to the effects of hypnotism. Some expect that the hypnotic sleep will work miracles. Nothing is more common in the experience of one who is known to employ hypnotism, even occasionally, than to have a patient who is addicted to some habit, alcoholic, drug, or sexual, ask, "Do you hypnotize?" If an affirmative answer is given, the patient proceeds to say that he has heard that one can be hypnotized, and then all the tendency to fall back into the old habit is immediately lost, and he has no further bother from it. This supposed miraculous effect of hypnotism in supplanting the necessity for using the human will has been cultivated very sedulously in the public mind by quacks and charlatans of various kinds and even exploiters of hypnotism who belong to the medical profession. But there is nothing in it. Hypnotism will not change character unless it be for the worse, since the habit of it sometimes leads to dependence on suggestion rather than spontaneous motives. Hypnotism cannot be substituted for weakness of will. The suggestions given in the hypnotic state are practically no stronger than those given in the waking state, if the patient would only equally concentrate his mind to receive them, and would be as ready in response. It is the readiness of response which comes in cumulative fashion, in the midst of the utter abstraction from other thoughts, that characterizes the hypnotic condition.

This is, of course, quite a different valuation of hypnotism from the very strong expressions, with regard to the power of hypnotists to influence the human will, which have at various times been made. These exaggerated claims have been no stronger than those often made for remedies of various kinds that have been long since discredited. I have heard a serious though young professor of psychology declare that he was not sure whether he was justified in using all the power that he possessed by hypnotism to influence men's wills to keep them from indulging in liquor to excess, because after all men had a right to their free will, even in a matter of this kind, and it would be wrong to take it away from them. He added very philosophically that no human being had the right to play the role of Providence in directing others' actions even for good, unless they themselves were perfectly satisfied. If there was any such force in hypnotism as is thus suggested, the reformation of the world, or still more its deformation, at the hands of some of the strong-minded practicers of hypnotism, would be a comparatively easy process. As a matter of fact, however, the hypnotizer has, except as regards abnormally suggestible people, only as much influence over the person hypnotized as the subject permits, and the subject retains all his personality as an individual with all his weaknesses. After he has been helped away from his weaknesses by hypnotism, he is just as likely as ever to yield to them again, unless, during the interval of conquest, he has succeeded in bracing up his will to resist them.

FORMER METHODS OF HYPNOTIZATION

All the methods of hypnotizing, then, are directed to securing this state of concentration of the patient's mind. The hypnotic state is brought about in different ways by different operators, and even the same operator must employ quite different methods to secure hypnotic influence over different subjects. In the old times, mysterious passes and strokings and rubbings of various kinds, and instruments that flashed light, or that made special sounds, were employed. Among the pioneers, each worker invented methods of his own. A review of these will bring out the fact that none of them represents essentials, and that they are only auxiliaries to secure concentration of the patient's mind.

The methods of hypnotism practiced by those most noted in the history of the art were very different from one another, but not more different than are the methods in vogue to-day among individual hypnotizers. Indeed, the practices of the past have come down as a heritage to our own time. Stroking and touching, of which we have hints in the oldest times in Egypt and Babylonia and Greece, have always been prominent features. Valentine Greatrakes dreamt that he heard a voice in his dream telling him that his right hand should be dead and that stroking it with his left should cause it to recover its power once more. After this had happened three times in succession he began to apply this method to the ills of others. Greatrakes seems really to have come in to replace the touching by the king for the King's Evil at a time when there was no king in England, Pastor Gassner, the next worker who attracted attention by hypnotic procedures, used words of command after attracting the profound attention of his patients. Father Hell employed the touch of magnets. Mesmer used music to predispose the mind, but had many of the methods of modern hypnotists.

Mesmer.—While Mesmer undoubtedly attracted attention to certain phases of hypnotism that were to prove valuable, he was by no means the first to do so, and what he did had such a tincture of charlatanism it is no wonder that he was discredited. There was a little truth, but there was a deal of mere pretense in his work. While he undoubtedly obtained results, he did so mainly because of certain mentally impressive methods that he employed in connection with whatever of hypnotism he used. Binet and Feré, who have given us some details of his work, describe his methods in such a way as to make it clear that they smacked largely of quackery:

Mesmer, wearing a coat of lilac silk, walked up and down amid his agitated throng, accompanied by Dezlon and his associates, whom he chose for their youth and comeliness. Mesmer carried a long iron wand with which he touched the bodies of the patients and especially the diseased parts. Often laying aside the wand, he magnetized the patients with his eyes, fixing his gaze on theirs, or applying his hand to the hypochondriac region and to the abdomen. This application was often applied for hours, and at other times the master made use of passes. He began by placing himself "en rapport" with his subject. Seated opposite to him, foot against foot, knee against knee, Mesmer laid his fingers upon the hypochondriac region and moved them to and fro, lightly touching the ribs. Magnetism, with strong electric currents, was substituted for these manipulations when more energetic results were to be produced. The master, raising his fingers in a pyramidal form, passed his hands all over the patient's body, beginning with the head, and going downward over the shoulders to the feet. He then returned to the head, both back and front, then the belly and the back, and renewed the process again and again until the magnetized person was saturated with the healing fluid and transported with pain or pleasure, both sensations being equally salutary. Young women were so much gratified by the crisis that they wished to be thrown into it anew. They followed Mesmer through the halls and confessed that it was impossible not to be warmly attached to the person of the magnetizer.

De Puysegur and His Successors.—De Puysegur has some definite instructions for hypnotizers, whom he called magnetizers. It is instructive even now to read these, for they emphasize the most important element in all hypnotism, the confidence of the operator in his own power, for this, communicated to the subject, produces the beneficial results:

You are to consider yourself as a magnet; your arms, and particularly your hands, being its poles; and when you touch a patient by laying one of your hands on his back, and the other in direct opposition upon his stomach, you are to imagine that the magnetic fluid has a tendency to circulate from one hand to the other through the body of the patient. You may vary this position by placing one hand on the head and the other on the stomach, still with the same intention, the same desire of doing good. The circulation from one hand to the other will continue, the head and stomach being the parts of the body where the greatest number of nerves converge; these are, therefore, the two centres to which your action ought to be mostly directed. Friction is quite unnecessary; it is sufficient to touch with great attention.

Some of these methods continued to be employed by the successors of Mesmer and De Puysegur, the sense of touch being the principal adjuvant, though Mesmer employed also the sense of hearing. Braid seems to have been the first to realize that the sense of sight could be used effectively, or perhaps that the tiring of the muscle sense might well serve as a point for the concentration of attention. He used the flash of a light from some bright object or tired the eye muscles by having the patient look upward at some object brought near so as to require convergence of vision. His methods were imitated by most of the hypnotizers of the nineteenth century. Liebault and Bernheim, at Nancy, employed them regularly, and they were used in the investigations at the Salpêtrière. It was found, however, that after a patient had been once hypnotized, all that was needed was a word of command or a definite suggestion, and the hypnotic state recurred. Further experience showed also that the original hypnotic phenomena might, in most cases, be secured very simply by word-suggestion to the patient, though some individuals required persistent efforts in the application of several methods to secure the concentration of mind on a single idea or set of ideas that is the essence of hypnotism.

By most serious hypnotists, especially those who use hypnotism for therapeutic purposes, all the rubbings and manipulations are now either completely eliminated, or are used only under special circumstances. The important element of the operator's influence consists in obtaining the complete confidence of the subject in the operator's power to control his intelligence for the time being; getting the subject to resign himself completely, with absolute assurance that his trust will be for his good, and can by no means result in harm. Without this attitude of mind on the part of the subject, anything like real hypnotism is impossible. Even with this, only a slight degree of the hypnotic condition may be secured in certain people, but the majority have a distinct susceptibility to it.