[Sidenote: Difference between hypnosis and sleep]
[Sidenote: Mental condition of hypnotized person]
By referring to the wheels you can see there is a blank on either side
of every thought. When a person is asleep the “mind” is empty, the
thought having faded away and the two blank spaces having merged into
one, and the “mind” is free of thought. Assuming that in sleep the two
merged blanks on either side of the thought will occupy a space of
six inches, in hypnosis we have a blank space on either side of the
thought, occupying two inches each, and an inactive thought occupying
two inches, making up the six inches required; but in three parts—a
blank, an inactive thought, and a blank. The subject is in this mental
condition: First, the inactive condition of being awake—he has a
thought; second, this thought being inactive (but of sleep), he has
seemingly all of the attributes making up the condition of sleep, with
the exception that the “mind” holds the thought; hence we can readily
see that all action must necessarily be part of a thought, and will
define hypnosis to be a _simulated sleep_, yet the subject has
the most important attribute of being awake, he can accept and hold a
thought. His condition is actually this: He cannot receive impressions
but can respond with those already possessed. Thought will not
respond to its environment and by my method thoughts can only be made
responsive through the operator’s voice. If he were actually asleep
and we attempted to arouse a thought, he would awaken. In hypnosis we
can force the thought to remain at pleasure, therefore are enabled to
deliberately study it and to find what attributes are necessary to
force an action.
[Sidenote: Recapitulation]
To recapitulate: In hypnosis there is the dummy thought of sleep,
holding the space of an active thought; the key—the operator’s voice.
The subject is free from his environment, therefore no shifting of
thought, thus illustrating my previous statement that man does not
choose his thoughts (action), but has them forced on him by environment
(suggestion).
[Sidenote: Dreams]
[Sidenote: Magnetic passes]
[Sidenote: Law of suggestion]
[Sidenote: Two positives]
One is not asleep when dreaming, there being a thought in the mind;
one is rarely over half asleep. A dream is the passing through the
conscious mind (cerebrum) of a thought usually without the action
taking place in the Sympathetic System—the cylinder of a phonograph
going “zip” instead of running at the usual speed. I might state here
to the amateurs that if the subjects take on hypnosis through the
suggestion of so-called magnetic passes, the operator’s touch will
force into play certain actions if previously comprehended (associated)
by the subject. Suggestion means anything that arouses an action. This
is the law: Surround a man with every suggestion or attribute of sleep
and he will be asleep; surround him with every suggestion of virtue and
he cannot help being pure, and no credit is due him. Surround him with
every suggestion of vice and crime and he will be a criminal, and in
no manner should he be held responsible. Remember, though, that every
suggestion has two positives, one for and one against, and the body is
the closest environment (suggestion).
[Sidenote: Relaxation]
The subject holding the thought of sleep, and that thought being made
up of a series of attributes, all of which I do not know, has every
appearance of being asleep. First, he is relaxed. Why relaxed? Is the
contraction of the muscles a voluntary unconscious or an involuntary
unconscious act? The babe must learn to draw up its limbs, to sit,
to crawl, to stand, to walk. Therefore, it must be acquired, and
is the result of a feeling suggestion. Is man conscious of it? You
suddenly pull a chair from under him, he seems to be very conscious
that the chair is going. Therefore it is an enforced, acquired action,
unconsciously done in response to the suggestion of the environment.
[Sidenote: Is the waking state hypnosis?]
[Sidenote: Inspiration]
[Sidenote: The subject always normal.]
But a sleeping man is of little value to us. So we tell him that when
he opens his eyes he will see a fly on the end of his nose, he will
feel it biting, cannot brush it away, and to open his eyes. Is the man
now in hypnosis? If hypnosis consists of an easy position, the thought
of sleep, an upturned eye, a closed eye, he is not. As the subject
has none of these attributes now, he cannot possibly be in hypnosis.
He is now in a condition that I call “inspired,” meaning that the
condition he is in was forced on him through the operator’s voice,
instead of the natural suggestion of his environment. The man believes
there is a fly on his nose; he sees it and is trying to brush it away.
Perfectly rational, perfectly consistent. In fact, does he differ from
the so-called normal—a word I cannot understand? If there was a fly on
his nose and he felt it biting, he surely would think of it and try to
brush it away. That is what he is doing now. Wherein does the subject
differ from the ordinary? If the fly really alighted on his nose, the
sense of feeling and sight would arouse the thought. Through hypnosis,
that old thought is aroused through my voice; and, as his senses fail
to arouse a thought, there is nothing to contradict my affirmation. The
result thoroughly consistent, the man being in identically the same
condition as when he held that thought, aroused and put into action
through the proper senses. Therefore, it can be readily seen that the
hypnotized subject is in a perfectly “normal” condition; save that
he has had a thought aroused through hearing and emphasized through
hearing which his environment would have aroused and put into action
through sight and feeling.
[Sidenote: Memory]
[Sidenote: Impossible to implant a new thought]
[Sidenote: As to sense-impressions]
[Sidenote: As to sight]
[Sidenote: As to pictures]
Memory is the registration of ideas. A hypnotized subject retains no
memory of what has taken place in hypnosis; we have only turned off
from the cylinder what was already there, and that conditionally. Why
is it impossible to put any thought in the “mind” of a hypnotized
subject? Because it is impossible to register through one sense that
which the economy of man is made to receive through another. It is
impossible to describe color to a man born blind; or sound to one born
deaf. The comprehension of the girl, Helen Keller, in Boston, to me is
quite an interesting problem. I unhesitatingly state that the girl is
a mere automaton; she has no ideas, no thoughts in any manner, shape
or form similar to those of her teachers. We associate color with a
stimulation of the nerve-ends of the eye and sound with a stimulation
of the nerve-ends of the ear. Therefore, anyone lacking the ability to
receive these two sensations can have no conception _similar_ to
the one who does. Sight is the least trained of all our senses. A child
or even an adult has to learn to read a picture. To one never having
seen a picture, it is simply a blur of colors. A missionary in South
Africa, showed the photograph of a cow to one of the native chiefs, who
was the owner of vast herds; he looked at it and saw nothing. It took
the missionary three days to make him comprehend. When he did, a smile
illumined the chief’s face and he sent for other chiefs, showed it to
them, and because they could not comprehend at once what he failed to,
_he wanted to behead them_, a proof positive that he was becoming
civilized.
A man born blind and suddenly given his sight has no perspective.
Perspective must be learned. The use (correlating) of the senses is
acquired—must be learned.
[Sidenote: Force (suggestion)]
No man does anything because he is told to. He must always have a
reason, which I call a force. Nothing that we tell him to do can mean
anything to him unless there are two ideas associated to give him
conception, three to give him comprehension. The soldier whose officer
commands to “shoulder” or “present arms” does so not because he is
told, but because he knows that if he refuses or fails to do so, he
will be punished; or he hopes for a reward. These are the incentives
that force the action, the mere telling him to do a thing would not
cause him to act.
The general public believes that all that is necessary to get a
hypnotized subject to do something is to say to him, “Jump out of your
chair,” and he will do so; but he will not. If his cerebrum was active,
he would ask you why he should jump. But if we put the force there he
will respond instantly. Therefore, if we say to him, “When you open
your eyes, you will find the chair you are sitting on is red hot,”
believing it to be hot, the action of getting away will take place at
once, and he will jump out of the chair, not because we told him to,
but because of the natural action to do so, forced by the suggested
environment. In hypnosis the senses fail to convey ideas, therefore
they do not contradict the statement that the chair is hot.
[Sidenote: Mental condition of hypnotized subject]
[Sidenote: Always normal]
Let us now look at the mental condition of the subject: First, in his
so-called normal condition he sits on a hot chair; through the sense
of feeling he has the thought forced on him, and he jumps because of
his first associated action. The thought of heat is transformed into
the action of getting away from it. If he had no previous experience
with heat, the action would not have been there to be forced into
play. I now hypnotize him, and tell him that when he opens his eyes he
will discover that he is sitting on a hot chair; to open his eyes, he
does so, he jumps and repeats everything he did when he actually sat
on the hot chair. In what way does the man differ from the so-called
normal? Normally, there was a chair, heat, the man, a thought and its
action. In hypnosis we have the chair, the man, the thought of the
coming into contact with the heat, and its action. What is wrong? The
man or the environment? It is the environment. The difference is this:
There is no hot chair. Therefore, nothing to force the thought of such
and accentuate the action of jumping. As I have forced such a thought
through the ear and that not being the proper channel, it makes no
registration and consequently can only be a thought re-used, and hence
no memory. I maintain a man is perfectly normal in body and mind, and
will only do what he would have been forced to do had he received the
thought through feeling, the result being identical with “normal.”
[Sidenote: Like a camera]
[Sidenote: As a stereopticon]
The automatic action of man is registered on the cylinder of the
phonograph regulated by the picture taken. Man is also like a camera
taking a photograph of his surroundings, which forces the cylinder of
the phonograph into operation. In hypnosis the process is reversed and
he becomes like a stereopticon, throwing out registered pictures. As it
is impossible to light up a plate which is not there, we have another
proof that nothing new can be introduced into the mind of a hypnotized
subject. I can light up any plate upon which an impression has been
recorded, but in no way can I change the detail. (Plate I.)
[Sidenote: Environment]
I shall next endeavor to show how one is ruled by environment
(suggestion).
[Sidenote: Suggestion]
[Illustration: Non-hypnotized Man as a Camera, receiving and
registering a picture of his environment.]
[Illustration: Hypnotized Man as a Stereopticon, throwing out an
inspired environment.