Part 11

Post-hypnotic suggestion (which I call a deferred inspiration) is a misnomer, inasmuch as no inspiration given in hypnosis (so-called), can happen except in hypnosis. We tell a subject that when he opens his eyes he will see and feel a fly on his nose, that produces an instant response, if we do not actually awaken him. We tell him that in five minutes, one hour, one day, six months, after he opens his eyes, a fly will alight on his nose, he will feel it bite, et cetera, it will fail if the time be deferred over two hours. But, if we say to him (and he must be an exceptionally good subject), “When you open your eyes, one week from to-day when the town clock strikes eleven, you will see and feel a fly on your nose, et cetera,” you will succeed, for you have really said, “One week from to-day when the clock strikes eleven, you will go into hypnosis; a fly, et cetera.” If he be a good subject, one that will hold an inspiration for several hours, and he hears the clock strike, you can see him take on hypnosis, then the inspiration. Remember, no operator other than myself and my pupils ever awakened their subjects. They inspired them with the thought of being awake, the same as with the thought of a fly, and allowed the subjects to slowly pass into a “normal” awakening. If the subject is actually awakened there will be no “post-hypnotic” effect.

Sleeping suggestions in the hands of a clever mother are a most potent factor in guiding the child. Tell the child that when she goes to sleep to-night you are going to her bedside and talk to her; that she must remain asleep. After the child is asleep, go to the bedside and you will find her in an easy position, with inactive mind, upturned eye and closed eye. Now quietly and soothingly speak to the child, call her by name and say, “Bessie, remain asleep.” The moment that you have aroused the thought, you will have hypnosis, which your baby has shown by a long, deep sigh, or the movement of some limb. Then say to her, “When you awaken in the morning you will do so and so, you will have a good appetite,” or whatever inspiration you desire to give, and then quietly go out of the room. But mind, you cannot raise or force in action any thought which is not there, it must be within the comprehension of the child, and be something other than antagonistic. This is really the most delightful phase of the entire art of hypnosis.

Now, doctor, if you are at a bedside and desirous of inducing sleep in your patient, the patient not willing to be hypnotized, is it possible to do so? No. Yes; first, you give your patient a sleeping draught (?), then stand at the bedside and watch him go to sleep, only he does not. I stand at the bedside and he does. How is it?

“Oh! you are full of magnetism.”

“There is no magnetism, there is nothing but suggestion.”

“But you suggest to your patient to go to sleep.”

“How do I suggest to my patient to go to sleep?”

“I do not know.”

To induce hypnosis, I must bring together five attributes. (Plate IV.) A shows where you stand at the bedside. In B note the position of the patient and where I stand, and see if the patient is looking in my eyes. Have I the attributes necessary? The picture is the only thing that will describe the method. While the patient is watching you, quietly tell him that the draught just given is becoming effective, that he is getting quiet, sleepy, et cetera.

PLATE IV]

You will note that I use two words—“inspiration” and “suggestion.” I inspire a hypnotized subject. I suggest to him in the so-called normal state. A pupil writes me that Mrs. Jones has been suffering from headaches; he inspired her with the thought of “no headache” and she went away seemingly all right, which immediately informs me that he hypnotized her; but if he writes me that she called and he suggested to her “no headache,” I know that he did not hypnotize her. He may have stroked her head, assured her that the headache would pass away; he may have given her a blank pill, or even a drug. He used methods other than hypnosis, but obeyed the law that is demonstrated in hypnosis.

It is claimed that the rope trick of the fakirs of India is performed through “hypnosis.” No. The first proof is that the spectators remember what they “saw” (?), whereas if they had been hypnotized, there would have been no memory of it after the “hypnosis” had passed off. This trick, if done, is the same as the sleight-of-hand performer makes you accept when he places a dollar with his right hand in his left and then causes it to disappear. He goes through the entire motion of placing it there except the actual doing so; that, he forces you to deduce; and if this rope trick of India is, it is simply the result of a master knowledge of suggestion that forces you to deduce the expected result.

Pain is a thought; the suggestion or cause exists. I pinch your arm; where do you feel it? In your arm? That is not true, because when you are chloroformed you do not feel it. You feel it in the brain. Oh, yes. In the brain; then it is thought. Baby comes crying to mother—she has hurt her hand; mamma kisses it and the baby goes away smiling; the mother being scientific (?), instead of nursing the pretty thought that a kiss from mamma will remove pain, teaches the child to be afraid, and adds attributes—including the doctor—and by and by the child has associated with the thought of doctor only a man who gives nasty medicine and hurts. Teach the children that pain is something to be laughed at; fail to add attributes to pain—arouse thoughts of “no pain.” I would rather spank a child for getting hurt than to console it. If we spank it, it will think of the spanking, and will have a little more pain, perhaps; though not at the seat of the original trouble. I have seen children of ten years, in families of mental scientists, hold their fingers over burning matches until blistered, exhibiting no signs of pain.

You hypnotize a clever subject and tell him that he has no finger; you can then stick pins in it, burn it, and he will not feel it, because if he has no finger there is nothing to be hurt, a most beautiful demonstration; but, my dear hypnotist, do not try this on a fool, because he will “holler” unless you are smart. Tell him he has no finger, it is gone; then explain to the audience that as he has no finger, it is impossible for him to have pain from it; he cannot avoid responding to your inspiration, the audience thinking you are talking to them, when in truth you are talking to your subject; you can then stick pins in his finger and be safe.

Again, if you inspire the subject with the thought of “no feeling,” put a pin into him, and then commence talking to your audience about it, you will find your subject will begin to howl; or if, after you have withdrawn the pin and have a cowardly subject, you draw the audience’s attention to the fact that he might have the nerve to stand the putting in of the pin, but he could not control the flow of blood, saying “You will note there is no blood,” the moment you utter the word “blood,” blood will appear; but if the fellow is unlearned and you use the word hemorrhage, he failing to comprehend, you are safe.

I could tell you of myriads of experiments which demonstrate beyond all question that the body is entirely controlled by the mind; that pain is a thought, and the thing we are most afraid of is that which our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends have done the best to build in our “minds.”

Pain is a bugaboo.

Your body is a house and an unwelcome neighbor calls. You try to smile; ofttimes do. You invite him in and treat him with the best you have. So let it be with pain, if he is going to enter the house, instead of running away, meet him and sit down and talk to him. You will forget his unpleasantness, because there is good in all, and if you are looking for good you can find it, but if you are looking for “bad,” you can find “bad.” A few years ago I failed to see any good in life, because I overlooked the good and was quick to discover the “bad.” To-day I can see much good and can overlook the “bad” and forget it; I feel sorry for it; I know it is a disease, and who, other than a degenerate (sensualist), can enjoy disease.

That the Sympathetic System receives sensations as well as responding, was first impressed upon me when I was giving little cross-road entertainments in the South. I arrived in town with a few handbills, hired a hall, distributed the bills, got a few people interested, hunted up a little negro boy, who, after being promised a quarter, agreed to go on the stage. The little negro would have run if anybody had told him I was going to stick pins in him. I got him on the platform, and, after putting him through a performance of jumping out of hot chairs, and brushing flies off his nose, et cetera, I inspired him with the thought of “no feeling,” and, we will say, stuck a hat pin through his left ear, afterward taking him among the audience, allowing the doctors and others to examine him. I removed the pin, put him through more “monkey-shines” and ultimately awakened him.

As he started to leave the hall, the doctor said to him, “Did Mr. Santanelli hurt you when he stuck those pins in you?”

“No, suh; he done stick no pins in me, suh;” and the left hand rubbed the left ear. If I had pierced his right ear, he would always put his hand up to that ear. There was no question but that he was thoroughly unconscious of the pin having been put into him. Why and wherefore, then, was the hand always put to the proper place, if the Sympathetic System does not receive impressions? A hypnotized subject does not use his cerebrum.

In my “Living Statuary,” where I inspire the subjects with, “When you open your eyes you will juggle balls in the air; when I call now you will be stiff as iron, stone, you cannot move a muscle; now open your eyes;” they go to juggling, I call, “now,” and they are perfectly rigid in whatever position they are in when I speak the word, “now”; their eyes are immovable. It was here I first learned that the eye blinks every time one gets a different or new thought. I tell the subjects to close their eyes, and their hands drop to their sides and they are limber. If one is not expert the subjects will fall. If a subject, during the “statuary,” is put to whistling, and I call, “now,” he will stop; when I release him he will complete the whistle. If he is uttering a word he will stop and when I release him he will complete the word, something that no “normal” being can do; the same with sneezing.

When the subjects are baseball pitchers I stop them in the middle of an action, and when I release them they complete the action. One evening, in Kentucky, the boys were defending themselves from an eagle; one of them had his coat off and started throwing it at the eagle; I produced the catalepsy, and when I released him out of that rigidity the coat passed or was thrown into the gallery of the theater. Where did he get the energy, how did he complete the action? The “mind” will hold but one thought at a time. When they open their eyes they are jugglers going through the actions they have seen jugglers perform. When I call “now” to them they think of rigidity, the action of which thought is catalepsy, when I tell them to close their eyes, they think of relaxation, yet complete the first thought, having a third thought in their “mind,” an utterly impossible thing to conceive, other than that action is received and executed by separate brain conditions. It was through noting these effects that in 1895 I preached an Abdominal Brain. At that time, having no comprehension as to what I was talking about, but being familiar enough with actions of the subjects to note that it was an utter impossibility for all to be done with the brain system as now understood (?).

Now, dear reader, we have covered all the different phases of hypnosis, how and why it is, how to induce it, et cetera. This book answers all questions as to hypnosis if you have the comprehension to pick them out. On the premise here given you, I have yet to fail to give a logical and comprehensive explanation to the thousands of questions asked me by students, doctors, ministers, lawyers and laymen before whom I lecture.

You are satisfied if you comprehend; yet a most important question you have failed to ask me—not you who have not tried, but the amateurs. I lead into hypnosis Mrs. Santanelli and tell her when she opens her eyes she will find in her lap an object which she will describe to me; to open her eyes; she does so, takes up the object and describes it. While she is describing it, I say, “all right” and clap my hands; she awakens, and I ask her what she has been doing and she has no memory whatever. I have her again take on hypnosis, ask her what she was doing in the last “hypnosis,” and she tells me. Why is it the hypnotized subject has no memory of what has taken place in “hypnosis” when he is actually awake, yet while in “hypnosis” has a memory of the previous hypnosis? Why this contradiction, what does it mean? How is it that the subject does not see his present environment, but sees the environment of the picture I arouse for him? Why this contradiction? I will explain it to you.

Memory is the registration of ideas. The subject, having no memory, proves that nothing has been registered cerebrally; again, it is impossible to register through one sense that which the economy of man intended to be registered through another. Therefore, we put nothing in through the cerebrum. When I talk to a subject he does not hear me cerebrally, if he did he would always remember what I said to him. The subject only responds to me.

Consciousness, realization, is cerebral. Sense-impressions pass through the cerebrum yet are actually registered in the Sympathetic System. Every cerebral nerve is accompanied by a sympathetic nerve. Many sympathetic nerves are alone. This makes the so-called brain system a two-wire system. I believe it to be a three-wire system. I say to a hypnotized subject, “You have no feeling in your finger” (touching the finger); the Sympathetic System immediately contracts the tissue over the cerebral nerve and insulates it; yet the Sympathetic System is conscious of any irritation that I make on the designated place, showing that it receives the impression free of the cerebrum. The Sympathetic System can work free and independently of the cerebral, but the cerebrum cannot work free of the sympathetic, because the sympathetic is the actual machinery that does the work, the cerebral brain simply being the realizing brain. In a hypnotized subject the cerebrum is inactive, as in hypnosis the impulse is received through and responded to by the Sympathetic System. The experiment made by all students of decapitating a frog, irritating a nerve-end and the “normal” action taking place, proves my affirmation. A hypnotized subject is as a decapitated being. Feeling is never eliminated until death. Conscious feeling—yes. If the Abdominal Brain did not know what was taking place it would lose its control over the body, therefore, feeling as to the Sympathetic System cannot be obliterated.

Hudson’s philosophy of objective and subjective mind will not hold water, inasmuch as it is based on the premise than man is a free agent and can discriminate. Now, this subject is so thoroughly illustrated in the barber story, the banjo story, the story of crime, that really it is not worthy of discussion, although the entire public has seemingly endorsed a most false theory, manufactured to explain a condition that the alleged “authority” was not capable of explaining. We have but one mind; we are entirely creatures of our environment; our every action, our every thought, is simply the transforming into other action, of suggestion. The ability to discriminate is impossible.