Hypnotism Made Plain

Chapter 6. Hypnotism and Personality 57

INTRODUCTION

To many persons mention of the word “hypnotism” at once brings to mind a “Professor” in full-dress suit on a vaudeville stage putting “subjects” through laugh-provoking antics. Or the image of Svengali rises before the mind’s eyes, with long, lank fingers making mystic “passes” before the now helpless--not to say enslaved--victim, fascinated by the large, black, “sorcerer” eyes of the great master.

To such persons the “hypnotist” is rather closely identified with the “charlatan.” Happily, this conception of hypnotists and hypnotism is fading out in the strong, clear light of modern science.

Hypnotism and Suggestion (two phases of the same phenomenon) have now taken their legitimate places in psychology and medicine as subjects intimately related to our everyday life, in health and in disease. Whether we know it or not, Suggestion is at work all around and within us, day and night, from earliest childhood to the very close of our lives.

Hypnotism and suggestion have--against strong opposition--won an important place in the history of medicine. It has been amply demonstrated that certain maladies which have stubbornly resisted the regular medical treatment often yield to psycho-therapeutic methods (mind treatment). The time has long since passed when medical science scoffed at the idea of alleviating or entirely removing pain and certain pathological conditions by suggestion in mild cases and hypnotism in more stubborn, deep-seated afflictions.

What is the “Applied Psychology” about which we hear so much nowadays, but the application of the established principles of suggestion to the problems of social life and the affairs of prosaic business? Applied psychology--for a course of ten lessons for which enterprising “leaders of thought” are charging $100--is nothing more or less than hypnotism and suggestion “made plain.” Investigation will readily show that the principles of suggestion are applicable to the affairs of business and social life. But hypnosis and suggestion may also play a sinister part in intellectual, social and political life, and need to be understood as a matter of self-protection.

From what has been said--and I shall adduce abundant proofs in succeeding pages in support of the statements made above--it may be seen that to give a little time and study to the elementary principles of hypnotism and suggestion is not merely a form of diversion, but a measure of self-defense as well as a means of self-improvement, resulting often in improved health, a happier frame of mind, and even worldly success.

HYPNOTISM MADE PLAIN

CHAPTER 1.. A Retrospect

A RETROSPECT

The story of the origin and development of hypnotism--or mesmerism, as it was once called--is not only interesting in itself, as history, but also helpful to a clear understanding of its modern phases and applications.

What we now call suggestion and hypnotism, and recognize as purely psychological phenomena, were originally believed to be manifestations of a peculiar, universally disseminated fluid, analogous to the ether of the physicists, which could be absorbed by various substances and discharged therefrom.

As early as 1530, the celebrated Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493-1541)--founder of medical chemistry--advanced the theory of “personal magnetism,” or magnetic influences, derived from the universal cosmic magnetic “fluid” or force which, he declared, bound the stars together, and permeated all living things. Each man carries within his own body, he said, a twofold magnetism, one healthful, the other morbid. The magnetism of a healthy person attracts the morbid magnetism of a sick person, thus relieving the latter of his malady. Absorbed by the healthy person, the morbid magnetic force is transformed at once into wholesome magnetism.

Dr. Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus von Hohemeim--Paracelsus’ real name--may or may not have fully believed in his theory of transferable magnetism. He was--for his time--a great physician, and as such a very practical man--a forerunner of the modern pragmatists. If belief in his doctrine on the part of his patient would act as a curative agency, Paracelsus would undoubtedly utilize this doctrine, just as he did astrology--belief in which was universal in his day and age. He appears to have been fully aware of the value of faith if not of suggestion in the cure of disease. “It is all one,” he remarks, “whether you believe in something real or something false, it will have the same effect upon you.... It is always the faith that works the miracle, and whether the faith is aroused by something real or something false its miraculous power is the same.”

A few years later, Jean Baptist van Helmont, “father of chemistry” (1577-1644), stimulated by diligent perusal of the works of Paracelsus, adopted and expounded the doctrine that man possessed a magnetic force capable of healing the sick.

Van Helmont was first to prove the indestructibility of matter in chemical changes by utilizing the balance in analysis, invented the word “gas”, and first used the melting-point of ice and the boiling-point of water as limits of a thermometric scale. He opposed the view of Descartes that the pineal gland is the seat of the soul, his physiological investigations leading him to the conviction that the temple of that entity is the stomach!

The Paracelsean doctrine of a healing magnetic force was introduced into England by Robert Fludd (1574-1637), the physician and theosophist (a partisan of the Rosicrucians). We hear little or nothing of this doctrine in French works until the year 1766, when appeared the dissertation, “De planetarum influxu” (“On the Influence of the Planets”), of the Viennese physician, Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734-1815)--born near Constance, and later resident in Paris.

Mesmer, like Paracelsus, believed that a magnetic element or fluid pervaded the universe and pervaded all bodies. Following Descartes, he denied that there could be a vacuum anywhere within the cosmos, since the mutual influence between the stars and planets “is transmitted by a fluid universally disseminated, and everywhere continuous, so that no vacuum can exist.” This universal fluid--analogous to the hypothetic ether of space of modern physicists--“is, by its very nature, enabled to receive and retain all impressions of movement, to propagate them and transmit them.” In the human body this medium expresses itself in conditions related to magnetism, and the forces exhibited are of the nature of Animal Magnetism. This force, says Mesmer, may be transferred from the human body to both inanimate and animate bodies, certain substances being more susceptible to this influence than others. “The magnet, too, artificial, as well as natural, is susceptible to animal magnetism, without any impairment of its influence upon iron or the magnetic needle. From this we see that the artificial magnet possesses qualities which are efficacious in sickness, and that if we obtain successful results from its application, these are due merely to animal magnetism.”

Mesmer laid down rules of procedure in accordance with which “this principle is able to cure maladies of the nervous system directly, and other maladies indirectly.”

This method of healing was put into practice in Vienna about 1763, with the co-operation of Dr. Maximillian Hell, Professor of Astronomy, and it is recorded that a number of cures were effected.

Having been bred for the church, it was not difficult for Dr. Mesmer to pass from a belief in cures by “sacred relics” to the treatment of diseases by application of magnetized plates, rings, collars, amulets, etc. As in the case of many “faith” healers of our own day, Mesmer’s fame soon became widespread, reports of his marvelous cures even reaching the court of Louis XVI.

Under the patronage of Marie Antoinette, Mesmer held seances to which people of all classes flocked for treatment, including many men distinguished in the arts and sciences. Unfortunately, Mesmer elected to invest himself and his procedure with an atmosphere of mysticism, arraying himself in yellow robes, bearing a wand in his hand, suggestive of the staff of the ancient followers of Aesculapius.

In the light of our present-day knowledge regarding the power of suggestion as a curative agent, we are not surprised to learn that Dr. Mesmer was able to effect many remarkable cures by convincing his patients of the therapeutic virtues of his magnetized paraphernalia.

Believing as he undoubtedly did that he possessed an “animal magnetism” which could be transferred to inanimate substances, including water, glass, iron, etc., Mesmer constructed his curious “baquet.” This weird apparatus consisted of a wooden tub with an iron rod placed vertically in the center, around which were arranged layers of corked bottles filled with magnetized water--“magnetized” by his own hands, just as he believed he could pass his own “magnetic fluid” directly into the body of a patient. Each bottle was supplied with a conductor, i. e., an iron wire running through the cork and in contact with the central rod. The tub was filled with water, iron filings, pounded glass and sand, previously magnetized by passes of Mesmer’s hands, or by his merely breathing upon them. That the magnetic effluvia might not escape and be dissipated in space, a closely-fitting cover was placed on the tub. “Conductors” passed from the source of the emanations, or fluid, to the patient--woolen or cotton cords, which the patients twined around their bodies. Soft iron rods projected from the baquet, which were placed in contact with any desired part of the patient’s body.

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