Self-Hypnotization.—How It may Be Done.—An Experience.—Accountable for
Children’s Crusade.—Oriental Prophets Self-Hypnotized.
If self-hypnotism is possible (and it is true that a person can
deliberately hypnotize himself when he wishes to till he has become
accustomed to it and is expert in it, so to speak), it does away at a
stroke with the claims of all professional hypnotists and magnetic
healers that they have any peculiar power in themselves which they
exert over their fellows. One of these professionals gives an account
in his book of what he calls “The Wonderful Lock Method.” He says that
though he is locked up in a separate room he can make the psychic power
work through the walls. All that he does is to put his subjects in the
way of hypnotizing themselves. He shows his inconsistency when he
states that under certain circumstances the hypnotizer is in danger of
becoming hypnotized himself. In this he makes no claim that the subject
is using any psychic power; but, of course, if the hypnotizer looks
steadily into the eyes of his subject, and the subject looks into his
eyes, the steady gaze on a bright object will produce hypnotism in one
quite as readily as in the other.
Hypnotism is an established scientific fact; but the claim that the
hypnotizer has any mysterious psychic power is the invariable mark of
the charlatan. Probably no scientific phenomenon was ever so grossly
prostituted to base ends as that of hypnotism. Later we shall see some
of the outrageous forms this charlatanism assumes, and how it extends
to the professional subjects as well as to the professional operators,
till those subjects even impose upon scientific men who ought to be
proof against such deception. Moreover, the possibility of
self-hypnotization, carefully concealed and called by another name,
opens another great field of humbug and charlatanism, of which the
advertising columns of the newspapers are constantly filled—namely,
that of the clairvoyant and medium. We may conceive how such a
profession might become perfectly legitimate and highly useful; but at
present it seems as if any person who went into it, however honest he
might be at the start, soon began to deceive himself as well as others,
until he lost his power entirely to distinguish between fact and
imagination.
Before discussing the matter further, let us quote Dr. Cocke’s
experiment in hypnotizing himself. It will be remembered that a
professional hypnotizer or magnetizer had hypnotized him by telling him
to fix his mind on the number twenty-six and holding up his hand. Says
the doctor:
“In my room that evening it occurred to me to try the same experiment.
I did so. I kept the number twenty-six in my mind. In a few minutes I
felt the sensation of terror, but in a different way. I was intensely
cold. My heart seemed to stand still. I had ringing in my ears. My hair
seemed to rise upon my scalp. I persisted in the effort, and the
previously mentioned noise in my ears grew louder and louder. The roar
became deafening. It crackled like a mighty fire. I was fearfully
conscious of myself. Having read vivid accounts of dreams, visions,
etc., it occurred to me that I would experience them. I felt in a vague
way that there were beings all about me but could not hear their
voices. I felt as though every muscle in my body was fixed and rigid.
The roar in my ears grew louder still, and I heard, above the roar,
reports which sounded like artillery and musketry. Then above the din
of the noise a musical chord. I seemed to be absorbed in this chord. I
knew nothing else. The world existed for me only in the tones of the
mighty chord. Then I had a sensation as though I were expanding. The
sound in my ears died away, and yet I was not conscious of silence.
Then all consciousness was lost. The next thing I experienced was a
sensation of intense cold, and of someone roughly shaking me. Then I
heard the voice of my jolly landlord calling me by name.”
The landlord had found the doctor “as white as a ghost and as limp as a
rag,” and thought he was dead. He says it took him ten minutes to
arouse the sleeper. During the time a physician had been summoned.
As to the causes of this condition as produced Dr. Cocke says: “I
firmly believed that something would happen when the attempt was made
to hypnotize me. Secondly, I wished to be hypnotized. These, together
with a vivid imagination and strained attention, brought on the states
which occurred.”
It is interesting to compare the effects of hypnotization with those of
opium or other narcotic. Dr. Cocke asserts that there is a difference.
His descriptions of dreams bear a wonderful likeness to De Quincey’s
dreams, such as those described in “The English Mail-Coach,” “De
Profundis,” and “The Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” all of
which were presumably due to opium.
The causes which Dr. Cocke thinks produced the hypnotic condition in
his case, namely, belief, desire to be hypnotized, and strained
attention, united with a vivid imagination, are causes which are often
found in conjunction and produce effects which we may reasonably
explain on the theory of self-hypnotization.
For instance, the effects of an exciting religious revival are very
like those produced by Mesmer’s operations in Paris. The subjects
become hysterical, and are ready to believe anything or do anything. By
prolonging the operation, a whole community becomes more or less
hypnotized. In all such cases, however, unusual excitement is commonly
followed by unusual lethargy. It is much like a wild spree of
intoxication—in fact, it is a sort of intoxication.
The same phenomena are probably accountable for many of the strange
records of history. The wonderful cures at Lourdes (of which we have
read in Zola’s novel of that name) are no doubt the effect of
hypnotization by the priests. Some of the strange movements of whole
communities during the Crusades are to be explained either on the
theory of hypnotization or of contagion, and possibly these two things
will turn out to be much the same in fact. On no other ground can we
explain the so-called “Children’s Crusade,” in which over thirty
thousand children from Germany, from all classes of the community,
tried to cross the Alps in winter, and in their struggles were all lost
or sold into slavery without even reaching the Holy Land.
Again, hypnotism is accountable for many of the poet’s dreams. Gazing
steadily at a bed of bright coals or a stream of running water will
invariably throw a sensitive subject into a hypnotic sleep that will
last sometimes for several hours. Dr. Cocke says that he has
experimented in this direction with patients of his. Says he: “They
have the ability to resist the state or to bring it at will. Many of
them describe beautiful scenes from nature, or some mighty cathedral
with its lofty dome, or the faces of imaginary beings, beautiful or
demoniacal, according to the will and temper of the subject.”
Perhaps the most wonderful example of self-hypnotism which we have in
history is that of the mystic Swedenborg, who saw, such strange things
in his visions, and at last came to believe in them as real.
The same explanation may be given of the manifestations of Oriental
prophets—for in the Orient hypnotism is much easier and more
systematically developed than with us of the West. The performances of
the dervishes, and also of the fakirs, who wound themselves and perform
many wonderful feats which would be difficult for an ordinary person,
are no doubt in part feats of hypnotism.
While in a condition of auto-hypnotization a person may imagine that he
is some other personality. Says Dr. Cocke: “A curious thing about those
self-hypnotized subjects is that they carry out perfectly their own
ideals of the personality with whom they believe themselves to be
possessed. If their own ideals of the part they are playing are
imperfect, their impersonations are ridiculous in the extreme. One man
I remember believed himself to be controlled by the spirit of Charles
Sumner. Being uneducated, he used the most wretched English, and his
language was utterly devoid of sense. While, on the other hand, a very
intelligent lady who believed herself to be controlled by the spirit of
Charlotte Cushman personated the part very well.”
Dr. Cooke says of himself: “I can hypnotize myself to such an extent
that I will become wholly unconscious of events taking place around me,
and a long interval of time, say from one-half to two hours, will be a
complete blank. During this condition of auto-hypnotization I will obey
suggestions made to me by another, talking rationally, and not knowing
any event that has occurred after the condition has passed off.”