Simulation.—Deception in Hypnotism Very Common.—Examples of Neuropathic
Deceit.—Detecting Simulation.—Professional Subjects.—How Dr. Luys of
the Charity Hospital at Paris Was Deceived.—Impossibility of Detecting
Deception in All Cases.—Confessions of a Professional Hypnotic Subject.
It has already been remarked that hypnotism and hysteria are conditions
very nearly allied, and that hysterical neuropathic individuals make
the best hypnotic subjects. Now persons of this character are in most
cases morally as well as physically degenerate, and it is a curious
fact that deception seems to be an inherent element in nearly all such
characters. Expert doctors have been thoroughly deceived. And again,
persons who have been trying to expose frauds have also been deceived
by the positive statements of such persons that they were deceiving the
doctors when they were not. A diseased vanity seems to operate in such
cases and the subjects take any method which promises for the time
being to bring them into prominence. Merely to attract attention is a
mania with some people.
There is also something about the study of hypnotism, and similar
subjects in which delusions constitute half the existence, that seems
to destroy the faculty for distinguishing between truth and delusion.
Undoubtedly we must look on such manifestations as a species of
insanity.
There is also a point at which the unconscious deceiver, for the sake
of gain, passes into the conscious deceiver. At the close of this
chapter we will give some cases illustrating the fact that persons may
learn by practice to do seemingly impossible things, such as holding
themselves perfectly rigid (as in the cataleptic state) while their
head rests on one chair and their heels on another, and a heavy person
sits upon them.
First, let us cite a few cases of what may be called neuropathic
deceit—a kind of insanity which shows itself in deceiving. The
newspapers record similar cases from time to time. The first two of the
following are quoted by Dr. Courmelles from the French courts, etc.
1. The Comtesse de W— accused her maid of having attempted to poison
her. The case was a celebrated one, and the court-room was thronged
with women who sympathized with the supposed victim. The maid was
condemned to death; but a second trial was granted, at which it was
conclusively proved that the Comtesse had herself bound herself on her
bed, and had herself poured out the poison which was found still
blackening her breast and lips.
2. In 1886 a man called Ulysse broke into the shop of a second-hand
dealer, facing his own house in Paris, and there began deliberately to
take away the goods, just as if he were removing his own furniture.
This he did without hurrying himself in any way, and transported the
property to his own premises. Being caught in the very act of the
theft, he seemed at first to be flurried and bewildered. When arrested
and taken to the lock-up, he seemed to be in a state of abstraction;
when spoken to he made no reply, seemed ready to fall asleep, and when
brought before the examining magistrate actually fell asleep. Dr.
Garnier, the medical man attached to the infirmary of the police
establishment, had no doubt of his irresponsibility and he was released
from custody.
3. While engaged as police-court reporter for a Boston newspaper, the
present writer saw a number of strange cases of the same kind. One was
that of a quiet, refined, well educated lady, who was brought in for
shop-lifting. Though her husband was well to do, and she did not sell
or even use the things she took, she had made a regular business of
stealing whenever she could. She had begun it about seven months before
by taking a lace handkerchief, which she slipped under her shawl: Soon
after she accomplished another theft. “I felt so encouraged,” she said,
“that I got a large bag, which I fastened under my dress, and into this
I slipped whatever I could take when the clerks were not looking. I do
not know what made me do it. My success seemed to lead me on.”
Other cases of kleptomania could easily be cited.
“Simulation,” say Messieurs Binet and Fere, “which is already a
stumbling block in the study of hysterical cases, becomes far more
formidable in such studies as we are now occupied with. It is only when
he has to deal with physical phenomena that the operator feels himself
on firm ground.”
Yet even here we can by no means feel certain. Physicians have invented
various ingenious pieces of apparatus for testing the circulation and
other physiological conditions; but even these things are not sure
tests. The writer knows of the case of a man who has such control over
his heart and lungs that he can actually throw himself into a profound
sleep in which the breathing is so absolutely stopped for an hour that
a mirror is not moistened in the least by the breath, nor can the
pulses be felt. To all intents and purposes the man appears to be dead;
but in due time he comes to life again, apparently no whit the worse
for his experiment.
If an ordinary person were asked to hold out his arms at full length
for five minutes he would soon become exhausted, his breathing would
quicken, his pulse-rate increase. It might be supposed that if these
conditions did not follow the subject was in a hypnotic trance; but it
is well known that persons may easily train themselves to hold out the
arms for any length of time without increasing the respiration by one
breath or raising the pulse rate at all. We all remember Montaigne’s
famous illustration in which he said that if a woman began by carrying
a calf about every day she would still be able to carry it when it
became an ox.
In the Paris hospitals, where the greater number of regular scientific
experiments have been conducted, it is found that “trained subjects”
are required for all of the more difficult demonstrations. That some of
these famous scientists have been deceived, there is no doubt. They
know it themselves. A case which will serve as an illustration is that
of Dr. Luys, some of whose operations were “exposed” by Dr. Ernest
Hart, an English student of hypnotism of a skeptical turn of mind. One
of Dr. Luys’s pupils in a book he has published makes the following
statement, which helps to explain the circumstances which we will give
a little later. Says he:
“We know that many hospital patients who are subjected to the higher or
greater treatment of hypnotism are of very doubtful reputations; we
know also the effects of a temperament which in them is peculiarly
addicted to simulation, and which is exaggerated by the vicinity of
maladies similar to their own. To judge of this, it is necessary to
have seen them encourage each other in simulation, rehearsing among
themselves, or even before the medical students of the establishment,
the experiments to which they have been subjected; and going through
their different contortions and attitudes to exercise themselves in
them. And then, again, in the present day, has not the designation of
an ‘hypnotical subject’ become almost a social position? To be fed, to
be paid, admired, exhibited in public, run after, and all the rest of
it—all this is enough to make the most impartial looker-on skeptical.
But is it enough to enable us to produce an a priori negation?
Certainly not; but it is sufficient to justify legitimate doubt. And
when we come to moral phenomena, where we have to put faith in the
subject, the difficulty becomes still greater. Supposing suggestion and
hallucination to be granted, can they be demonstrated? Can we by
plunging the subject in hypnotical sleep, feel sure of what he may
affirm? That is impossible, for simulation and somnambulism are not
reciprocally exclusive terms, and Monsieur Pitres has established the
fact that a subject who sleeps may still simulate.” Messieurs Binet and
Fere in their book speak of “the honest Hublier, whom his somnambulist
Emelie cheated for four years consecutively.”
Let us now quote Mr. Hart’s investigations.
Dr. Luys is an often quoted authority on hypnotism in Paris, and is at
the head of what is called the Charity Hospital school of hypnotical
experiments. In 1892 he announced some startling results, in which some
people still have faith (more or less). What he was supposed to
accomplish was stated thus in the London Pall Mall Gazette, issue of
December 2: “Dr. Luys then showed us how a similar artificial state of
suffering could be created without suggestion—in fact, by the mere
proximity of certain substances. A pinch of coal dust, for example,
corked and sealed in a small phial and placed by the side of the neck
of a hypnotized person, produces symptoms of suffocation by smoke; a
tube of distilled water, similarly placed, provokes signs of incipient
hydrophobia; while another very simple concoction put in contact with
the flesh brings on symptoms of suffocation by drowning.”
Signs of drunkenness were said to be caused by a small corked bottle of
brandy, and the nature of a cat by a corked bottle of valerian.
Patients also saw beautiful blue flames about the north pole of a
magnet and distasteful red flames about the south pole; while by means
of a magnet it was said that the symptoms of illness of a sick patient
might be transferred to a well person also in the hypnotic state, but
of course on awaking the well person at once threw off sickness that
had been transferred, but the sick person was permanently relieved.
These experiments are cited in some recent books on hypnotism,
apparently with faith. The following counter experiments will therefore
be read with interest.
Dr. Hart gives a full account of his investigations in the Nineteenth
Century. Dr. Luys gave Dr. Hart some demonstrations, which the latter
describes as follows: “A tube containing ten drachms of cognac were
placed at a certain point on the subject’s neck, which Dr. Luys said
was the seat of the great nerve plexuses. The effect on Marguerite was
very rapid and marked; she began to move her lips and to swallow; the
expression of her face changed, and she asked, ‘What have you been
giving me to drink? I am quite giddy.’ At first she had a stupid and
troubled look; then she began to get gay. ‘I am ashamed of myself,’ she
said; ‘I feel quite tipsy,’ and after passing through some of the
phases of lively inebriety she began to fall from the chair, and was
with difficulty prevented from sprawling on the floor. She was
uncomfortable, and seemed on the point of vomiting, but this was
stopped, and she was calmed.”
Another patient gave all the signs of imagining himself transformed
into a cat when a small corked bottle of valerian was placed on his
neck.
In the presence of a number of distinguished doctors in Paris, Dr. Hart
tried a series of experiments in which by his conversation he gave the
patient no clue to exactly what drug he was using, in order that if the
patient was simulating he would not know what to simulate. Marguerite
was the subject of several of these experiments, one of which is
described as follows:
“I took a tube which was supposed to contain alcohol, but which did
contain cherry laurel water. Marguerite immediately began, to use the
words of M. Sajous’s note, to smile agreeably and then to laugh; she
became gay. ‘It makes me laugh,’ she said, and then, ‘I’m not tipsy, I
want to sing,’ and so on through the whole performance of a not
ungraceful giserie, which we stopped at that stage, for I was loth to
have the degrading performance of drunkenness carried to the extreme I
had seen her go through at the Charite. I now applied a tube of
alcohol, asking the assistant, however, to give me valerian, which no
doubt this profoundly hypnotized subject perfectly well heard, for she
immediately went through the whole cat performance. She spat, she
scratched, she mewed, she leapt about on all fours, and she was as
thoroughly cat-like as had been Dr. Luys’s subjects.”
Similar experiments as to the effect of magnets and electric currents
were tried. A note taken by Dr. Sajous runs thus: “She found the north
pole, notwithstanding there was no current, very pretty; she was as if
she were fascinated by it; she caressed the blue flames, and showed
every sign of delight. Then came the phenomena of attraction. She
followed the magnet with delight across the room, as though fascinated
by it; the bar was turned so as to present the other end or what would
be called, in the language of La Charite, the south pole. Then she fell
into an attitude, of repulsion and horror, with clenched fists, and as
it approached her she fell backward into the arms of M. Cremiere, and
was carried, still showing all the signs of terror and repulsion, back
to her chair. The bar was again turned until what should have been the
north pole was presented to her. She again resumed the same attitudes
of attraction, and tears bedewed her cheeks. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘it is
blue, the flame mounts,’ and she rose from her seat, following the
magnet around the room. Similar but false phenomena were obtained in
succession with all the different forms of magnet and non-magnet;
Marguerite was never once right, but throughout her acting was perfect;
she was utterly unable at any time really to distinguish between a
plain bar of iron, demagnetized magnet or a horseshoe magnet carrying a
full current and one from which the current was wholly cut off.”
Five different patients were tested in the same way, through a long
series of experiments, with the same results, a practical proof that
Dr. Luys had been totally deceived and his new and wonderful
discoveries amounted to nothing.
There is, however, another possible explanation, namely, telepathy, in
a real hypnotic condition. Even if Dr. Luys’s experiments were genuine
this would be the rational explanation. They were a case of suggestion
of some sort, without doubt.
Nearly every book on hypnotism gives various rules for detecting
simulation of the hypnotic state. One of the commonest tests is that of
anaesthesia. A pin or pen-knife is stuck into a subject to see if he is
insensible to pain; but as we shall see in a latter chapter, this
insensibility also may be simulated, for by long training some persons
learn to control their facial expressions perfectly. We have already
seen that the pulse and respiration tests are not sufficient. Hypnotic
persons often flush slightly in the face; but it is true that there are
persons who can flush on any part of the body at will.
Mr. Ernest Hart had an article in the Century Magazine on “The Eternal
Gullible,” in which he gives the confessions of a professional hypnotic
subject. This person, whom he calls L., he brought to his house, where
some experiments were tried in the presence of a number of doctors,
whose names are quoted. The quotation of a paragraph or two from Mr.
Hart’s article will be of interest. Says he:
“The ‘catalepsy business’ had more artistic merit. So rigid did L. make
his muscles that he could be lifted in one piece like an Egyptian
mummy. He lay with his head on the back of one chair, and his heels on
another, and allowed a fairly heavy man to sit on his stomach; it
seemed to me, however, that he was here within a ‘straw’ or two of the
limit of his endurance. The ‘blister trick,’ spoken of by Truth as
having deceived some medical men, was done by rapidly biting and
sucking the skin of the wrist. L. did manage with some difficulty to
raise a slight swelling, but the marks of the teeth were plainly
visible.” (Possibly L. had made his skin so tough by repeated biting
that he could no longer raise the blister!)
“One point in L.’s exhibition which was undoubtedly genuine was his
remarkable and stoical endurance of pain. He stood before us smiling
and open-eyed while he ran long needles into the fleshy part of his
arms and legs without flinching, and he allowed one of the gentlemen
present to pinch his skin in different parts with strong crenated
pincers in a manner which bruised it, and which to most people would
have caused intense pain. L. allowed no sign of suffering or discomfort
to appear; he did not set his teeth or wince; his pulse was not
quickened, and the pupil of his eye did not dilate as physiologists
tell us it does when pain passes a certain limit. It may be said that
this merely shows that in L. the limit of endurance was beyond the
normal standard; or, in other words, that his sensitiveness was less
than that of the average man. At any rate his performance in this
respect was so remarkable that some of the gentlemen present were fain
to explain it by supposed ‘post-hypnotic suggestion,’ the theory
apparently being that L. and his comrades hypnotized one another, and
thus made themselves insensible to pain.
“As surgeons have reason to know, persons vary widely in their
sensitiveness to pain. I have seen a man chat quietly with bystanders
while his carotid artery was being tied without the use of chloroform.
During the Russo-Turkish war wounded Turks often astonished English
doctors by undergoing the most formidable amputations with no other
anaesthetic than a cigarette. Hysterical women will inflict very severe
pain on themselves—merely for wantonness or in order to excite
sympathy. The fakirs who allow themselves to be hung up by hooks
beneath their shoulder-blades seem to think little of it and, as a
matter of fact, I believe are not much inconvenienced by the process.”
The fact is, the amateur can always be deceived, and there are no
special tests that can be relied on. If a person is well accustomed to
hypnotic manifestations, and also a good judge of human nature, and
will keep constantly on guard, using every precaution to avoid
deception, it is altogether likely that it can be entirely obviated.
But one must use his good judgment in every possible way. In the case
of fresh subjects, or persons well known, of course there is little
possibility of deception. And the fact that deception exists does not
in any way invalidate the truth of hypnotism as a scientific
phenomenon. We cite it merely as one of the physiological peculiarities
connected with the mental condition of which it is a manifestation. The
fact that a tendency to deception exists is interesting in itself, and
may have an influence upon our judgment of our fellow beings. There is,
to be sure, a tendency on the part of scientific writers to find
lunatics instead of criminals; but knowledge of the well demonstrated
fact that many criminals are insane helps to make us charitable.