Part 9

“Well, can ‘some’ of mine be right?”

“No, there is but one way, and that is the right way; that is the reason your nineteen ways are failures, none of them are right.” If hypnosis consists of five attributes, the shortest, quickest method of bringing these five together is the right way. All others are wrong. A Chicago firm publishes fifty ways, or the promise of teaching fifty ways, to induce hypnosis. That is in the line of modern science (?).

“Still, Mr. Santanelli, I have hypnotized many subjects without using any of the attributes you name as necessary to hypnosis; how is that?”

“Very simple, my dear sir. First, you do not hypnotize; you lead another into hypnosis. After a subject has once been taught the way to the postoffice, he can go without any guidance on your part. Twenty-seven per cent of mankind are what is known as “sensitives”—somnambulists, sleep-walkers. Unconsciously knowing the way into hypnosis any method you use is satisfactory. You can tell him to go to the postoffice over the telephone, you can tell him every time he hears the whistle of the factory he will go to the postoffice; there are a hundred suggestions that may cause him to go to the postoffice. So it is with the sensitive, he knows the way; your method is nothing. You can only hypnotize (?) three in ten; with my method I can “hypnotize” one hundred of one hundred, provided they give me their attention.”

Auto-suggestion can only exist in the case of a sleep-walker, proven by the fact that he responds to no one’s voice. It is spontaneous, and is the nearest to being self.

In my experience, subjects have pre-inspired themselves with the thought of leaving the stage, which each time was successful. The first happened in a little town in Tennessee. My reader must understand this, that a certain portion of my evening entertainments were always the same; that is, I laid the subjects on the floor, produced the catalepsy, built the “log-pile,” then caused them to rub their ears, then their knees, and then take a seat on the chairs. In the instance I have in mind, the young man, who was some twenty-two years of age, although not larger than a lad of twelve, came onto the stage several nights and proved himself to be an extremely clever subject. I think it was on the fifth night when he was laid on the floor, after having been used in the “log-pile,” he immediately got up and joined his companions in the orchestra seats. I was greatly surprised. No comment was made, but that night after I went to the hotel I did considerable “thinking,” and at last concluded as to how he succeeded in doing so.

I was so successful in the city that I remained over and played the following week, and on Wednesday night this young man and his friends were again in the opera house. I invited him to come onto the stage. He said, “No.” I asked him why, and he replied, “You will make it hot for me.”

“No, I will not. I would like you to come up and repeat the experiment.” He looked at me a moment and said, “This is not a trick?”

“No, I wish to see if you can repeat what you did last Friday. It is a matter of science. You have proven your side of it, and I want to see what I can do with mine.”

The young man came onto the stage, took on hypnosis and when I awakened him, some thirty minutes later, and asked him why he hadn’t taken his seat, he looked puzzled, and said, “I don’t know.” I did; do you, dear reader?

The form of pre-inspired thought that this young man took was this: “After I am laid on the floor in the unbuilding of the ‘log-pile,’ I will awaken.” Now, mind, he was to awaken when he was laid on the floor out of the “log-pile.” I omitted putting him in the “log-pile,” therefore the suggestion that was to awaken him did not occur, hence no awakening. There is no effect without a cause (suggestion).

Last winter, in Erie, three subjects left the stage one night during the “statuary,” in the latter part of the second week of my engagement. They had watched the performances all of the first week and had been on the stage several nights, were good subjects, and this night took a pre-inspiration that at the fourth inspiration given in the “statuary” they would awaken. They did so, left the stage, said the whole thing was a “fake,” but failed to impress any of the audience.

I immediately caused a subject to do a little more difficult act than that, and one I inspired, instead of the subject taking a pre-inspiration. I told the subject that when he opened his eyes he would find he had a couple of dice and would throw craps, and that at the end of three minutes he would awaken, which he did. Afterwards he pre-inspired himself with the thought that when he opened his eyes he would think of one of the most amusing incidents he ever witnessed, and at the end of a minute and a half would awaken. He did so, the audience holding their watches both times, and both times he awakened to the instant.

Any subject, after he has been in hypnosis four or five times, should very readily go into that condition with a pre-inspiration of awakening upon the occurrence of a certain event, and if the event takes place he will awaken, demonstrating nothing except the subject’s ability to accept a pre-inspiration.

All dime museum freaks, such as the human pin-cushions, poison eaters or snake eaters, work under pre-inspiration. In the course of time the merging of the “normal” into the pre-inspiration becomes second nature and can be very rapidly and almost imperceptibly done; still, an expert, understanding the “reflexes,” by closely watching the subject can comprehend that he is not in the so-called normal condition and may note the change.

It is this quick merging that has given many of the alleged exposers a standing with superficial newspaper men, who have accepted their word that they were not in “hypnosis” when they reproduced the work that the operator caused them to do on the stage.

The martyr burning at the stake is an example of pre-inspiration, the entire environment forcing and maintaining in the “mind” of the subject or person the thought that he will not suffer and will have no pain. The snake dancing of the Mokis is done under “hypnosis”; also many of the endurance and religious tests of the adepts of the East.

How long will an inspiration last? The public fears, forever.

My experience is that great skill is required to force a thought to remain over one minute with a new subject working by himself. Training them to hold a thought (no; training sounds “faky,” develop them, sounds better) requires experience on the part of the operator. Lead into hypnosis a new subject, start him brushing a fly, if he continues for one minute you have a good subject. Put two working together, and you may keep them at work for two minutes. Three or more subjects working together will hold out for a long time. To work one subject alone is very hard. Three or more, easy.

You desire to cure a headache, to let your patient go home. If the patient is a “good” subject (has been in hypnosis often), perhaps it will be an hour until he again feels the headache. Only a nervous headache can be “cured” through hypnosis. In all other cases there is no cure, simply the producing of “no feeling.” Might just as well give the patient a dose of morphia.

“But, Mr. Santanelli, I am a doctor; you have taught me of the many ills that can be relieved through hypnosis. My patient is free from pain, yet I wish to force certain changes physically. The patient has never been hypnotized and the holding of the thought for one minute is of no value to me. What is to be done?”

Induce hypnosis while the patient is lying on a sofa; return every five minutes and re-inspire by saying, “Stay deep asleep, deep asleep.” Keep the patient there for two hours, renewing every fifteen minutes during the last hour. You can rest assured that when the patient leaves he will retain the thought for an hour and a half. After that, the time will lengthen one-third with each inspiration up to twenty-four hours. None will hold an inspiration over twenty-four hours, but can so be trained or developed that a very slight suggestion will continue the inspiration. I am certain that subjects making the long sleeps in the windows, are re-inspired by the suggestion of their environment every twenty-four hours. If a subject is willing to sleep but twenty-four hours, can I force him to sleep forty-eight? No. The thought (action) is not there to be brought out, and I cannot play off from the cylinder what is not on it. Therefore, the operator is always “in the hands” of the subject, and the work is co-operative. Any subject can seemingly refute or destroy the claims of any operator.

Writing of training or developing a subject—what can be “taught” them? Absolutely nothing. We say to a subject, “When you open your eyes, you’re alongside a fishing stream; you see beside you bait, lines, hooks, et cetera, now open your eyes.” If the subject does not possess the ideas (actions) to be forced by the “ghosts” just mentioned, no action is possible. If there is no action in the subject, i. e., ideas associated, no ghost to be aroused, then the subject must act (?). His cerebrum is inactive, he is possessed of absolutely no ideas relative to the thought; therefore, if unconscious (cerebrum inactive), he possesses no action, he would not know what to do. “From nothing only nothing can be produced.” Again, words mean nothing.

If I put three subjects in a photograph scene; one the photographer, one the dude, the other the girl, they having never been in a photograph gallery, I get no action. I rehearse it—all right. If the words and actions of all three are not perfect the act will fail. Theatrical companies rehearse a play at least six weeks and are on the road at least two months before the performance runs smoothly. In all the smaller cities where hypnosis is popular, local subjects and different ones every night the hypnotist must have, if he expects to make a living. Assuming that in the photograph scene I use two of my “horses” (subjects I carry with me) and one local man, my subjects do not know what he will do or what he will say. My rehearsal would have been useless. But in hypnosis I force them to see a certain environment, and all photograph galleries are so similar that if they have ever been in one, the general environment that is now constantly around them will force them as automatic beings to an ultimate end, which would be impossible if all three did not see the gallery. Seeing the actual environment and each guessing what the others would do, would produce confusion. They all see the same general picture, therefore act in unison.

A hypnotic “horse” is simply a good subject who travels with a hypnotist, generally possesses a good singing voice, the ability to make stump speeches, or with a humorous personality. Never of any use after a year, as he gets so at home in “hypnosis” that the public will no longer accept him as “hypnotized.” What I call a good subject the public will not stand for. What the public calls a good subject I have no use for.

One season I had traveling with me a Swede named Carl, whom I used to inspire thus: “When you open your eyes, you will find yourself seated on the stage of the theater in La Crosse, Wis., to give the people a speech, as the boys have decided to run you for mayor, provided you tell them what you will do if elected, and your Swedish dialect is very pronounced.” (Note that the inspiration is in one sentence, properly correlated connected with “ands,” “buts,” et cetera; no possibility of it being made other than one thought.) “Now open your eyes.” Carl opened his eyes, made his bow and in the most pronounced dialect gave an illiterate, asinine speech that provoked roars of laughter. Carl could give but two speeches. Nightly the audience demanded a speech. While in Philadelphia, I had a speech written for Carl and had him learn it. Then I was stuck. How could I inspire him to get the speech that was written for him? If I said, “You will deliver the speech you learned,” he would have tried; I did, and the effect was worse than bad. He simply did what he would have done had he not been hypnotized. He could not properly deliver it; it lacked personality, individuality and spontaneity. It was simply like a school boy, delivering, parrot-like, a speech of Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, and just as asinine. The only teaching is to allow the subject to watch many subjects in an act that sometime in the future you expect to put him in, that he may “absorb” some of the better actions.

In the cow act, milking a table for a cow, I use a feather duster as the cow’s tail to switch the milker in the face. One young man, who was very funny in the act, I nearly always used. After a few months, instead of watching the place for the cow’s tail, he watched (?) me and dodged every time he saw the duster coming towards him. He quickly learned (feeling) that he was hit from behind instead of by the tail of the cow, and I could no longer put him in the act. Professional subjects last but a short time, and when discharged, often make exposés (?).

What makes a man steal? Does he choose to steal, or is the stealing forced upon him? If a man’s actions are caused or forced on him by his environment, he steals because he responds minus to that environment. Why does he respond minus to this environment when others do not? Because his ideas (actions associated) are positive against, where the so-called normal man is positive for. If it takes ten parts to make the whole, and you possess nine, you lack the entirety. Therefore, the criminal steals the moment the ten parts are brought together. Can he be made to steal in hypnosis? No. Why not? First, if the nine parts only were brought together and one was missing, he failed to steal. After we lead him into hypnosis, we are unable to furnish the other part, saying nothing about knowing what attribute to furnish. How about a confirmed criminal? If we tell him when he opens his eyes he will go down and break into a bank, he will say, “Go break into it yourself. Why should I steal for you?”