Part 6

If the roads and neighbourhood had been patrolled, and exposure to possible hypnotists avoided, the phenomena would have ceased. The gentleman who wrote to the Times made a point or two that were too petty to notice, and was probably disagreeable to Miss Freer, but detective work would have been useful. The gentleman's connection with a class of men, the mad doctors whom the late Sir William Gull so rightly despised, and whose observations have been so unscientific, may perhaps have unduly prejudiced Miss Freer against him. Yet people have listened to a Maudsley against an Esher, and gone to the other extreme. Perhaps Miss Freer will reconsider her opinion, that hypnotism is for doctors only to study.

To wind up with a statement of what the writer believes to have been the object of the rascals about B----; ordinary thought-transfer probably precedes audible speech by hypnotic influence.

The many people who hear their names called, and find that no death or other striking occurrence coincides in time with this, are perhaps being experimented on by hypnotists, who somehow or other, perhaps by community of feeling, have hit upon the precise moment of a state of subconscious expectation that makes transfer of an actual word easier.

Of course people, friends or others, about the victim are an antidote to influences. The inevitable tendency of pious natures, sensitive people who are indispensable to society, is to self-blame. In misfortune they would always blame themselves as sinners who deserved punishment, probably from having paid previously an undeserved attention to the censorious. Their frame of mind is very contrary to the gospel teaching, and to science; but the division of labour is moral as well as material; one man takes the kicks undeservedly, another the halfpence undeservedly. These gentle people can thus be driven into apparently insane acts, if they have fools about them.

The fact of the name Ishbel being transferred to the inquirers assembled at Ballechin, may indicate whose was the spirit that should profess to preach to victims. Women are often said to be worse, if evil, than men, and they play this ugly role better.

That rain interrupted the phenomena is another point against the partisans of the supernatural. When after rain the nun was surprised and chased by Miss Freer, it would seem that she intended mischief to some other member of the garrison at B----, or she would have been en rapport with Miss Freer, and aware that she was nearing her.

The pronunciation of the names Ishbel and Margaret only indicate a non-Highlander being implicated, but it seems possible that the latter name, for which there was no particular cause, may have been a punning appellation. Mar-garret, as the grey woman, attacked the servants in the attics. Such a joke is characteristic of such villains, and shows that they are tolerably educated people. Their avoiding Mr. Z. may indicate that they may have been brought in contact with him, in the fifty different ways that an editor may have seen people--their contributing to the press is not impossible. They must have some money too. The writer believes that physiology and many other branches of science, notably social, will be benefited by studying this case.

Lord Bute, Miss Freer, Colonel Taylor, and other members of the "garrison," deserve the gratitude of society. May inquirers never rest until the subject, not too difficult a one in the age of electricians and physiologists, has been fairly cleared up.

There are one or two points in the study of the advanced combined hypnotism--it is probably always criminal--which are worthy of notice. One is that the operators generally, or always--(observation is difficult)--repeat a phrase or its most important words. The first saying of the word is barely noticeable. The repetition forces the word to the subject's attention.

Secondly, speech is addressed to the right ear; the sufferer of course declines attention to it, but this slight, almost automatic effort, yet distracts attention from the left ear, and a communication to that ear is unheard, but perceived as a thought.

To detect speech a very trifling pressure on the ear has to be watched for. In a law court or in society the interest of what is going on knocks the operators out.

A facility for receiving thought transferred makes a person perhaps more susceptible to depression by dull or inferior people, but principle partly cures this.

The art of dismissing obtrusive thoughts and persisting in one's own has to be cultivated by people with the readiest perceptions.

Natural caution and a habit of studying probabilities are great helps against such attackers; but, on the other hand, the man who drinks a glass of wine when he feels low will beat the hypnotist, who will doubtless harm him by causing degeneration.

A glass of port wine at eleven in the morning, and tea or breakfast early, are a great help. Early rising deprives the operators of the time when they pin their victim best.

A dog's bark, a peahen's cry, above all a bird's song, is a great interruption to hypnotism--silent or by voices. A nightingale will foil the worst attack.

The scoundrels may try and substitute an ugly sound for the song of birds; they cannot affect the sharp, short, and sudden cry of the swallow.

Walking up and down hill is much better than walking on the flat. The air is forced harder through the lungs. Windy weather is a help, and rain, for two reasons: it is an advantage to the victim, and keeps rascals away. The writer believes that the cartilages are influenced, or at least felt to be influenced, rather than the nerves, glands, or even the muscles.

He believes that the hearing of the voices of hypnotists is partly brought about by a change in the cartilages of the ear, which (it is stated in Grey's anatomy) are to a certain extent disintegrated by electricity.

The ears thus become rather telephonic, and no longer dependent so entirely on the will; emotion, however, either checks this facility of sound or the weakness that permits attention.

If to this be added the repetition by various voices of the same word, the first occasion probably when the subject's eye is seen to pass over the printed passage where it occurs in a paper, words will be brought to the victim's ear hypnotically.

But perhaps the first system mentioned is used where the difficulties of approach are greater, the rascals must have great patience.

When the victim begins a letter the date is called to him, and then he can be tested by calling, say, July to him in September. His name may be called when in reverie, perhaps in the country, his mind goes back to his boyhood.

Thought reading is very easy if a person is visible, and rascals begin from a distance, and finally operate between hypnotics out of sight.

They seem in this first to catch a person when he passes a window. This shows that they are susceptible to the amount of light, as well as that a thick wall is a greater obstacle than a pane of glass. They thus too may partly distinguish environment, though this is perhaps learned by practice.

Ear and eye and muscular feeling are all weighed. A strong man much hypnotised in this way, will notice that a diminished light will relieve him, although previously he paid little attention to any glare, even up to the age of forty.

Residence changed from a ground floor to a lofty room would often cause unusual relief. On a church tower this would be felt even more.

The noise of London, and the fact that people hanging about are watched, are checks to the early operations of criminal hypnotists.