A widely known criminal trial has brought before thoughtful minds, on
both sides of the water, this question, viz.: Whether a subject in a
hypnotic condition possesses any free will, and whether in such a state,
it is possible to transform him into a criminal or at least, for the time
being into becoming an accomplice in crime! It is not the first time
that this question has been agitated; indeed at the very beginning of
Mesmerism, as it was then called, this idea was brought forward.
It was clearly formulated by Dr. Charpignon, whose own opinion
nevertheless is, that it was “much easier to restore moral rectitude to a
somnambulist who had fallen therefrom, than to pervert the integrity of
character of a woman of high moral standing.” In 1866 Dr. Liébeault, in
his work on, “Sleep and Kindred States of Being,” of which at that time
there were but six copies sold, coincides entirely with this opinion. The
passage is too noticeable, not to be quoted in its entirety. (P. 524.)
“We may postulate, as a first principle, that a subject during
the state of magnetic sleep, is at the mercy of the hypnotiser.
I have made experiments that have confirmed me in this opinion;
I have many a time, removed the hats of such persons, searched
their pockets, drawn off the rings from their fingers, untied
their shoes, etc., ... without their having noticed the action
at all, or having made the least resistance, the isolation into
which I had thrown them, being the cause of this absence of all
consciousness....
“How very grave, the possibilities, are which may ensue from
this state of being, we may readily conceive! What I have
advanced here, is the result of certain experiments which I
made upon a young girl, who, while being very intelligent in
her natural waking condition, became during hypnotic sleep the
most cross-grained and wilful person I had ever had to deal
with. Nevertheless I always ended by mastering her will. I was
able to excite in her mind the most criminal resolves; I roused
her passions to a high degree. I was able to cause her to fall
into a violent rage with a person, to fly out upon her with a
knife in her hand; having displaced in her mind the sentiment
of friendship, still armed with that instrument, I sent her to
stab her best friend, whom I told her she saw in front of her;
she obeyed, the knife burying itself in the wall opposite. I
almost prevailed upon another young girl, who was however less
under the influence, to kill her own mother, and though she
wept, she actually prepared to do the deed.
“After all, it has been known for a fact, that a man, who, up
to that moment, was of sound mind, hearing a voice continually
repeating: ‘Kill your wife. Kill your children’—has obeyed this
command, incited thereto by an irresistible impulse; and shall
the hypnotic subject already predisposed to hallucination,
escape this same involuntary impulse? I am firmly convinced,
after having made many other experiments, that a subject to
whom is suggested the commission of any bad action, will carry
out the crime after his awakening, by reason of what has
now become in him a fixed idea. The most moral will become
vitiated, the highest-minded perverted.
“If it has already been found possible to reform a woman
of loose morals and bring her to abandon entirely her evil
courses, why cannot the reverse be effected and by the same
means? It would be in the power of the magnetiser to suggest to
his subject, not only to become a tale-bearer, a calumniator,
a thief, dissolute, etc., at some period subsequent to the
magnetic sleep, but, he might use him, for example, as the
instrument of his personal vengeance and the poor dreamer,
unmindful of the primary incitement to the criminal action,
would commit on another’s account, instead of on his own, the
evil deed, prompted and forced on thereto, by the irresistible
suggestion and will, imposed upon him by another person. And
when the crime shall have been consummated, where shall he find
the medical jurist, who can hold up to Justice, the torch which
is to throw the Light of Truth upon the act, and challenge the
innocency of a man, who, up to the moment of the crime never
exhibited the slightest sign of insanity, had shown every mark
of a sound mind and yet, when convicted of the dreadful deed,
states with every apparent sign of good faith, that he has
committed it of his own accord? And who can tell whether such
cases have not already taken place.”
These momentous words passed unnoticed. At that time, the world did not
believe in Hypnotism. M. M. Richot and Charcot restored it to a place
of honor. The School of the Salpêtrière made its advent, and saw in
Hypnotism a pathological condition. Simultaneously with this school of
thought, there arose the rival one at Nancy, which following its leader,
Dr. Liébeault, saw in hypnotism, only a psychological phenomenon. One of
the masters in this school, M. Liégeois, Professor of the Faculty of Law,
in 1884, in his pamphlet on “Hypnotic Suggestion, in relation to Civil
and Criminal Law” also propounded to the public this idea of criminal
suggestion.
M. Liégeois, like M. Liébeault, did not confine himself merely to theory.
He went on to demonstrate and prove his thesis by conclusive experiments.
Strange to say, the Salpêtrière took issue on this point, adopting and
defending the opposite opinion.
I would now ask permission to raise my own voice in this debate, and I am
the more emboldened so to do, inasmuch as my own personal observations
and the study which I have brought to bear on this matter, have caused me
to pass, so to speak, from one rival camp to the other. The thesis upheld
by the School at Nancy, while it found in me at first an adherent, finds
me to-day an adversary.
Just a word about myself to the readers of _The Monist_.
I have always been a believer in Magnetism. At the outset, and until
towards 1875, merely on the faith of books, later, because I had been
present at one or two more or less public exhibitions. And it appears
singular enough, that though thus imperfectly trained in the knowledge
of it, I should have explained, as I did in 1869, the ecstasies and
the stigmata of the celebrated Louise Lateau, as coming simply from
auto-suggestion; and that even to-day, there should be neither jot nor
tittle to subtract from what I then wrote, regarding it.
I only began practising magnetism at the commencement of 1886. I was
returning from a visit to the Salpêtrière whither I had been attracted by
my doubts on this very transference of thought and from which I returned
with my doubts intensified. I have already recounted, in a series of
articles, that appeared in less than a year in the _Revue Philosophique_
(“Upon Memory in Hypnotic Subjects”; “On the influence of Imitation
and Education in Somnambulism, as exhibited in the so-called hypnotic
sleep”; etc.) my experiences, observations, and inductions. Not to speak
of my contributions to the Magazines, and notably to the _Revue de
l’Hypnotisme_, I introduced hypnotism into the science course of the
Royal Academy of Belgium by means of two works. One, on the “Origin,” the
other on the “Extent of the Curative Effects of Hypnotism” (1887-1890).
Besides many other polemical writings in favor of the liberty of holding
public exhibitions (“Letters to M. Chiriar, Representative,” 1888.
“Magnetisers and Physicians,” 1890). I related at length what M. Charcot
and his pupils had shown me in Paris, as well as what M. M. Liébeault,
Bernheim, and Liégeois, had let me witness at Nancy (“A Visit to the
Salpêtrière,” 1886—“A Visit to the School at Nancy,” 1889).
At the time then, that I took upon myself to hypnotise, I firmly believed
that the subject became the property of the magnetiser; passing over,
as of no importance, the manifest resistances that I met with at every
point and in every form on the part of subjects, who, in all other
respects I found perfectly adapted to such experiments; as for instance,
one who permitted his tongue to be pierced with a large darning needle
by my sceptical colleague, Dr. Masius; and to be burned several times,
both with a red hot iron and by thermocautery, by my colleague, the
surgeon Von Winiwarter, both these experiments having reference to the
curative effects of hypnotism. Thus, adhering entirely to the belief
of M. M. Liébeault and Beaunis, at the close of 1886 (“A Visit to the
Salpêtrière”) I wrote these words:
“M. Beaunis’s statement is perfectly exact. The somnambulist,
in the hands of the hypnotiser, is less than the _corpse_,
which the perfect disciple of Loyola should resemble. He is a
slave, with no will other than that of his ruler, and in order
to fulfil the commands laid upon him, he will push precaution,
prudence, cunning, dissimulation and falsehood, to their
extremest limits. He will open and shut doors noiselessly, walk
in his stockings; will listen and watch, with what keen sight,
what acute hearing! He will remember anything and everything
you want him to, will forget all you desire him to forget. He
will, in good faith, accuse a perfectly innocent man before a
Court of justice. He will have seen everything, that in reality
he has never seen, if you command him so to do; he will have
heard, what he never could have heard and done everything that
he never could have done. He will swear by his Household Gods,
that he has acted throughout, of his own free will, without any
external pressure, will invent motives if need be, and will
completely protect and cover his hypnotiser.
“Theoretically, such a power is the most dangerous thing on the
face of the earth! I believe though, that practically, with the
exception of what might relate to physical or moral abuses or
tampering with testamentary wills, there is actually little or
no danger. It appears to me the fear of this has been unduly
exaggerated.”
In a foot-note of mine, while mentioning with highest praise the memoir
of M. Liégeois, I added further: “I do not express any alarm that I
cannot show a good reason for.” Among other reasons, I pondered on the
difficulty, say rather, the impossibility there is, of obtaining from the
subject an absolute abnegation of will-power, whilst at the same time we
allow him to retain the necessary free will to cope with any unforeseen
accidents which might occur to compromise the fulfilment of the thought
and action suggested.
Two or three months later I should not have expressed myself thus; and
hence the remarks that accompany the experiments related in my articles
on Hypnotic Consciousness, _Revue Philosophique_, Feb., March, 1887,
experiments which took place about a year previous to this (see the
note to the contributed articles, Feb. 1887, p. 119). It may there be
noticed that my assent is tempered by certain marked reservations. I
was even then opposing practice to theory, i. e. I narrowed down these
apprehensions of danger to two legitimate causes of alarm, viz. attempts
against morals, and tampering with testamentary wills.
Upon these two points I am still of the same opinion, with this
exception, that what I then feared probable, I now regard as exceedingly
problematic. I mean to say, that a villain who was contemplating the
perpetration of a crime, would not easily find an accomplice in a subject
of good moral standing. And in any case, I still think as I thought then,
that such an accomplice would not only be inapt, but compromising. It
is this latter point, I wish to demonstrate to you, by the following
criticism upon an experiment never before published.
At the end of May, of last year, I was passing through Nancy with some
friends, among whom was Dr. L. Frédéricq, Professor of Physiology at the
University of Liège. We were spending the evening at M. Beaunis’s house
together with M. M. Liébeault, Bernheim, and Liégeois. Naturally this
question of Criminal Suggestion came upon the _tapis_ and was discussed
in all its phases, without advancing one step towards its solution. We
made an engagement to meet at the hospital on the following day, where M.
Bernheim invited me to be present at an experiment, which he maintained
would convince me. I will relate at length the occurrence, for in such
cases, the slightest details may acquire very great importance.
M. Bernheim threw into the magnetic sleep a great, tall fellow, quite
easily influenced, and whose illness did not prevent him from walking
about in the ward.
“Presently, when you have waked up, you will go and steal an orange from
the patient that you see over there, in that bed opposite. Remember that
what you are going to do is very wrong; it is strictly forbidden by
honesty and by the law, and you will run the risk of being punished.”
The man is waked. He appears to be collecting his thoughts. He rubs his
forehead, he is visibly meditating something.
“What is the matter with you? What are you thinking about?” I ask him.
“Nothing.”
“You seem preoccupied.”
“Well, yes, I have to do something.”
“What?”
“I am not obliged to render you an account of my actions.”
“Ah! one would almost say you were meditating some mischief, where are
you going?”
“That’s no business of yours.”
“Oh! very well then, I shall watch you and follow you.”
I follow him; he walks towards his companion’s bed, glances at the
orange, then leaning up against the window, he calls me to admire some
cherries growing on a potted plant. He keeps quite still. Why? Simply
because I had told him that I intended to watch him, _otherwise my
presence would not have troubled him in the least_. During this time, M.
Bernheim had acquainted the other patient with the intended proceeding,
he nevertheless having heard the whole transaction. “I do not think
he will do it,” said he to the Doctor, “he is one of my mates and he
wouldn’t steal from me.” I walk away and join the group of persons
present. I say to M. Beaunis, that this experiment will prove nothing,
he answers me by a gesture of surprise. The subject, as soon as he sees
me go away and _thinks that I am not watching him any more_, stretches
out his hand, seizes the orange that is behind his mate’s pillow, _the
latter meanwhile looking full at him_. A score for M. Bernheim, but one
also for M. Delbœuf! I should need twenty pages at least of commentary on
this experiment. But I shall only allow myself to point out the essential
points.
This hypnotised subject then, or to speak more correctly, this man
to whom a thought has been suggested, after I had warned him that I
was watching him, and from whom I never took my eye, goes with the
unerringness, so to speak, “of the falling stone,” to carry out the
suggested action, not however without a certain distrust of me, and
this only, because he had been forewarned. And moreover in his dim
consciousness, it is I alone, whom he is watching in that clumsy fashion,
in order to seize upon some momentary forgetfulness on my part. He
has never noticed at all, that his mate is intently watching him and
following his every movement with open eyes; so he steals the orange
from under his very nose! Let us not forget that it was M. Bernheim
the house physician, who suggested to him to take the orange. But M.
Frédéricq himself would equally well have fulfilled that command, even
preceded as it was by the little homily, recorded above. Why should he
have disobliged M. Bernheim? But indeed, the logic of my opponents is
very weak. If, say they, a somnambulist resists criminal suggestion, it
is because he is not a susceptible subject, or, that the experiment has
been ill conducted, or, that the suggestion has not been strong enough.
At that rate, it is useless to continue experimenting, if failure is
always to be explained away. On my side, I might with equal reason,
argue, that they had been dealing with some licentious mind, as yet all
unknowing its inner self, or with a born criminal or a latent thief; and
though I object to this kind of argument, it would often prove to be more
legitimate reasoning than theirs. Who among us is absolutely virtuous?
How many actions which the law calls criminal have we committed, or might
we commit, under the pressure of circumstances, without a shadow of
remorse? But let us further examine this experiment.
Our subject then put the orange in his trousers’ pocket which stuck
out very noticeably. This man might be a criminal, but he was not a
dissembler. Looking him straight in the face I said: “What have you been
doing?”
“Nothing, I have just done my errand.”
“You have stolen!”
“What nonsense!”
“What have you got in your pocket?”
“Nothing” (notice the absurdity of this reply).
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing!”
“What do you call that?”
“Why! it’s an orange! it’s a very fine orange! _Ma foi!_ I can’t imagine
how it came there!”
M. Bernheim intervenes: “You took it from a fellow-patient, from a
comrade! That was very wrong.”
“Yes, that’s so, but I wanted it. Look! did you ever see such a fine
orange? I took a fancy to it and I determined to have it. Besides, _he
hadn’t seen it_(!) It’s not stealing when it isn’t missed.”
Then I asked: “What is that you said?”
“Why, yes, it is not stealing to take what nobody misses,” answers he,
with a scarce perceptible cunning and significant wink.
A few minutes later, after we had ceased noticing him, he came up to M.
Frédéricq of his own accord laughingly told him that he was in the habit
of abstracting tobacco from his companions on this same ground, that if
they never missed it, it was not stealing. “It is all in fun, you know!”
I conclude therefore, that this subject had in him latent tendencies to
theft, or if you prefer it, to pilfering. And dare any of us, honestly
confess to himself that we have not, deep down in ourselves, the germs
of any such vices? Who among the most upright of us, does not consider
himself perfectly entitled to defraud the government, or to get the
better of a Railway Company, or quietly to appropriate an object which he
may casually find?
M. Liégeois will very likely say to me: “We will grant that this
experiment has not fulfilled the desired requirements; the subject has
not very high moral qualities, and he juggled a little. But here now, are
some experiments absolutely unimpeachable.” Thereupon M. Liégeois relates
the histories of Miss E..., of N..., of Mme. G..., and of Mme. C... Here
are the facts as collated by him in the Gouffe trial.
_First narrative._ M. Liégeois believed that he had produced in Miss E...
such absolute automatism, so complete an annihilation of moral sense and
of all liberty of action, that he caused her, without moving a muscle, to
place the muzzle of a revolver close to her mother and fire upon her. The
youthful criminal appeared completely awake and far calmer than were the
witnesses of this scene. (Take notice of this.) Her mother, immediately
reproaching her and telling her that she might have killed her, Miss
E... answers smiling, with a great deal of common sense: “I have not
killed you, since you are speaking to me now.”—“Is any one likely to
believe that this is merely pretence and acting,” adds M. Liégeois, “that
a daughter will amuse herself by firing at her mother with a revolver,
_which she does not know is not loaded_, simply to deceive the public?”
Well, shall I say it? The hypothesis of simulation, the simulation which
is practised in the hypnotic state appears to me to be the only plausible
explanation. The calm, smiling attitude of Miss E... is an unanswerable
proof of this. I have no doubt that if in a dream she had seen herself
firing at her mother, she would have suffered as in a terrible nightmare.
Lately, it was in the beginning of January, I dreamed I was present at
a sale of paintings. Among others exposed for sale, there was a long
picture, nineteen or twenty feet high and less than three feet wide,
representing the assumption of some saint. Hardly had the auctioneer
mentioned the price, 6,000 francs, than I made a sign of assent. It is
knocked down to me. I start for home with my purchase, but on the way I
am seized with remorse. Where shall I hang the religious picture? And
even if I find a place for it on the staircase what will it look like in
my house, with its old black frame and its extraordinary dimensions? And
what a price to have paid, at such a moment when the house bills are
pouring in! In the midst of these reflections, I woke up, my heart was
beating tumultuously and during the remainder of the night I continued
under the most disagreeable impressions. In spite of my knowing that I
was awake and reasoning with myself, congratulating myself that it was
nothing but a dream, the enormity of my absurd action weighed upon my
mind and I kept continually dreading the reproaches of my family, when
they should learn the stupid bargain I had made. How widely different
is this mental distress from the placid, smiling condition of Miss E...
and how naturally one is brought to suppose that during the hypnotic
state the subject is not even under the sway of the ordinary illusions of
dreamland.
M. Liégeois affirms that Miss E... _was not aware that the pistol was
not loaded_. I do not believe it. Upon what grounds are we to infer that
a somnambulist is an imbecile? You and I, and everybody would easily
surmise that M. Liégeois’s revolver was not loaded! Then why should not
Miss E... surmise the same? Is it not for the very reason that he handed
it to her, to fire at her mother, that she would opine as much? Might
she not have gathered this from the attitude of the spectators, full of
expectancy unmixed by any apprehension? and might she not have wished to
astonish them by her docility and _sang-froid_? All sorts of suppositions
are both rational and possible. Besides all this, somnambulists who
are absorbed in the work in hand, generally speaking, show a quicker
and surer perspicuity; their sensibilities are finer, their quickness,
their memory, overstep the ordinary limits as exhibited in their normal
state. Do we not hear of scholars, who in the hypnotic sleep, learn their
lessons in a very short time and write their essays admirably? I have
recorded in the _Revue Philosophique_, August, 1886, some facts about a
subject, upon whom I experimented before one of my classes.
“The experiment I am about to give an account of might serve
very well as the explanation of many a miracle. B.[55] is in
the hypnotic sleep. We wish to give him some peculiar order,
which he shall execute, after he is awake, at a special
signal. The signal is to be a knock given by me on the desk;
the action, to carry a glass of water (a carafe of water
and glass being on a chair) to the student Eucher. He does
not know any of the fifteen students present, nor has he yet
heard their names. The pupils take their places, without any
special order, some standing, some sitting. B. is awakened.
We chat a little. I give the signal. B. rises, fills a glass,
and _without the slightest sign of hesitation_, carries it
to the student mentioned before, who was sitting on one of
the back benches, beside a fellow student. We looked at each
other with stupefaction. The intention of the experiment had
been, to see how he would obey an obscure command. There
were in my audience, certain persons, with leanings toward
belief in second-sight. This result seemed to overthrow all my
convictions. I again throw him into the sleep, and I command
him to carry a glass of water to the student Gérard; we are
all standing, awaiting with impatient curiosity what will take
place. B. fills the glass and this time sends a questioning
look over all the spectators, presents the glass first to one,
then to another, and finally I had to point out the student
Gérard, to whom he brought the water and made him drink it. I
again put him to sleep, and asked him to whom he carried the
first glass of water. To M. Eucher—Did you know him? No—How did
you recognise him?—By his attitude, he looked as if he wanted
to hide away.”
And this is how the mystery was solved. We had unconsciously prepared
the scene, and it was this preparation which betrayed us. But it is none
the less a remarkable example of the perspicuity shown by somnambulists.
This goes to prove that hypnosis, instead of dulling the understanding,
sharpens it.
The second of M. Liégeois’s experiments appears to me quite as open to
suspicion, and exactly for the same reasons.
“I offered N. a white powder, of the nature of which he is
ignorant; I said to him: ‘Pay great attention to what I am
about to tell you. This paper contains arsenic. You will go
presently to such a street to your Aunt’s Mme. M. _who is here
now_. You will take a glass of water, carefully dissolve the
arsenic in it and then you will offer it to your Aunt.’ ‘Yes
Sir’—That evening I received the following note from Mme. M.:
‘Mme. M. begs leave to inform M. Liégeois that the experiment
succeeded perfectly. Her nephew offered her the poison.’ The
criminal remembered nothing about it, and it was very difficult
to persuade him that he had indeed wished to poison an Aunt for
whom he had a deep affection. The automatism had been complete.”
I cannot help seeing here an erroneous line of reasoning. They
conclude, from the absence of all remembrance, that the somnambulist
is an automaton, and from this they go on to deduce that he swallows
everything that is said to him. But, since he listens to the voice of
his hypnotiser; since he knows that to accomplish the behest, he must
do things that have not been expressly pointed out, though they are
understood in the execution of the deed:—such as to get the water from a
well or pump—why do they not allow that he is able also to reflect upon
the nature of the deed which he is told to do? Why is it that N..., who
is aware that he is being used in an experiment, cannot say to himself
during his hypnotic state, that this is only an experiment, that the
paper does not contain arsenic, that M. Liégeois never would really want
him to poison his aunt, _his aunt who is present at the time, and who
hears every word_?
I repeat again, a hypnotic subject is not an idiot—quite the reverse. All
the precaution which M. Liégeois takes to render the experiments reliable
and conclusive, turns against the proof desired. Can you imagine the
poisoner, Dr. Castaing, saying to his servant before Hypolite Ballet,
whom he intended to kill, “Here is some poisoned wine, you will presently
give it to the sick man, whom you see over there in that bed.” If he had
done this, he would not have been condemned to lose his head, but they
would simply have shut him up in a lunatic asylum. And, as far as that
goes, the servant might easily, without any suspicion being attached to
the action, have given the poison to Hypolite Ballet, and the latter have
drunk it.
But we have dallied long enough over these absurd suppositions. Let us
pass on now to the third narrative:
M. Liégeois caused Mme. G... to fire at M. P..., an ex-magistrate. In
order to show clearly that the revolver was loaded, M. Liégeois fired a
shot in the garden and came in, showing a piece of card-board, through
which the ball had passed. “With absolute unconsciousness and perfect
docility Mme. G... advances to M. P... and fires. Being questioned
on the spot by the Chief Magistrate (who was present at the _séance_)
she avows the crime with entire indifference. She has killed M. P...
_because he was not pleasing to her_(!) They can arrest her; she knows
quite well what awaits her. If they take away her life, she will pass
into the other world like her victim, whom she sees stretched out, and
bathed in his own blood. They ask her whether it was not I who suggested
to her the idea of the murder. She denies it, and says she did it
spontaneously; that she alone is guilty; she is resigned to her fate, she
will accept without complaint the consequences of her deed.”
The more I meditate to-day upon these experiments, the less they appear
to me to prove what it is desired they should. This perfect tranquillity
of Mme. G..., her generosity in not inculpating M. Liégeois; her
resignation to the fate that awaits her, establish entirely the fact that
she is present in mind and knowledge of events; and just because of this
very attitude, that she possesses her full presence of mind. She never
dreamed for an instant that she would really kill M. P.... She plays
her part conscientiously, she faithfully recites a lesson which she has
learned by heart and with which she intermingles side play of her own,
childish tricks, as for instance, saying that _her victim had displeased
her_. Let us recall to mind the patient who stole an orange, _because it
was a fine one_. That Mme. G.... sees M. P.... bathed in his own blood,
is more than doubtful. I can produce numberless proofs of facts that go
to prove that fictitious somnambulists are not dupes of the illusions
suggested to them; their calmness proves this. That it is possible to
make them commit an action dangerous to themselves or to others, I am not
prepared to deny. I will explain myself later upon this point. But from
this state, to that of criminal participation, there is an incalculable
distance.
That the somnambulist repeats a lesson that he has learned, is shown
forth by M. Liégeois’s fourth narrative.
“Mme. C.... was to give some arsenic in a liquid to M. D....
who was thirsty. But M. D.... asked a question that I had not
foreseen; he asked what was in the glass. With a frankness that
precluded all idea of simulation Mme. C.... answered ‘Arsenic.’
“I was then obliged to amend my suggestion, and I said: ‘If you
are asked what is in the glass, say it is sweetened water.’
“Mme. C.... answered the question the second time, ‘Sweetened
water.’
“Very courageously M. D.... swallowed the supposed poison.
Questioned by the Chief Magistrate Mme. C. remembers nothing;
she had seen nothing, done nothing, given no drink to any one.
She does not know what they are talking about.”
Again all this is proof to me, that Mme. C. feels that she is being told
to perform an innocent action. It would have been interesting to have
awakened her in the middle of the act, to see whether she would have
remembered her thoughts, just at the moment when she was giving the
drink to M. D.... I am not sure but that she would have answered like
Miss E... that she had no doubt the poison was imaginary, and the scene
prearranged.
We have seen M. D... ask an unforeseen question, which upset the carrying
out of the crime. We have witnessed M. Bernheim’s patient steal an orange
under the nose of its proprietor, who was looking at him. Admitting,
therefore, that all had been foreseen, that M. Liégeois had warned
Mme. C... of all the possible questions that might be put to her; that
M. Bernheim had strongly recommended his subject to commit his theft
secretly, and that every possible detail had been perfectly carried
out—should we have even then a faithful transcript of a crime? Can we
have the unerring certitude from these occurrences, that a subject in the
hypnotic sleep, a bona fide somnambulist will allow himself to be used as
an accomplice by a veritable criminal?
* * * * *
In the preceding paragraphs, I carefully analysed the slightest details
invalidating experiments, in which the hypnotic subject acts the part
of a criminal, in a fictitious crime. I was able to show, that in all
these tests, there had been certain suspicious traits suggesting doubt
as to the complete illusion of the actor therein, and I finally added:
Supposing that everything had worked smoothly, i. e. that everything had
been foreseen and that the subject had not been tripped up anywhere, are
we authorised in maintaining that a subject thus far unimpeachable as
regards a fictitious crime, would accomplish this same deed in reality? I
answer, No.
In order to justify this denial, it will be necessary for us to enter
into the Psychology of Hypnosis.
A person in the hypnotic sleep, as well as in the natural sleep, is not
so absolutely withdrawn from the real world about him as is generally
supposed. The hypnotic subject even less so, than the sleeper, for the
former remains in intelligent communication with his magnetiser. If the
latter tells him to take a book from a table upon which is an inkstand,
some boxes, a statuette, he will pick up the book and not any of the
other objects. If he is enjoined to walk straight before him in a room
encumbered with chairs he will manage to avoid them, and even if the
illusion is pushed further he may knock up against them, but the action
will be done quite cautiously. And this is why, in public séances, he
never hurts himself, in spite of the wildness and apparent excitement of
his movements. This is also the reason, that in experiments intended to
demonstrate this absolute automatism, the preparation for the proposed
crime, the attitude of the spectators, while the subject is carrying out
his part, the integrity of the person who is suggesting the action, the
calmness of the intended victim; all these things, render the suggestion
less illusive than even an ordinary dream would be.
M. Liégeois asks this question at the conclusion of his first narrative:
“Where is the spectator, who could believe that this scene was only a
melodrama with clever acting; and that a daughter for her amusement,
and solely to deceive an audience, would fire an unloaded revolver at
her mother?” To this I answer: And why should she not play her part in
this melodrama, when she sees M. Liégeois devise it, her mother lend her
co-operation, and the audience watch it with curiosity and interest?
Here again we find the same fallacy in the argument: Because a subject
does not reveal what is going on within himself, and only puts into
visible speech what is suggested to him, it is taken for granted that he
is going through a mental process identical with that of his magnetiser.
But allow me to ask in my turn: Will it be easily credited, that a
daughter, would, deliberately and without a trace of feeling, shoot at
her mother, unless, she fully believed the action would have no serious
consequences, and that the person who had suggested this impious deed,
was only requiring her to act a part?
Hypnotic subjects do not take long to realise that they are being used
as tests in experiments. Some are always gracious in responding to them,
many end by refusing to lend themselves to be used in such fashion,
especially in public séances. All these details go far to prove that in
hypnosis, the subjects retain, at least a partial independence.
If a sleeper, who dreamed he was murdering his mother, should behold
her terrified, beseeching, invoking the pity of her son, calling for
help to the horrified spectators, he would feel that he was induced
to commit this deed by some sort of motive, which, absurd or unlikely
though it might be, would still be the controlling power; in a word, the
dream would be in reality a kind of incoherent and unreal drama, though
composed of very real elements, in which horror would play a very present
part. But if he should see his ostensible victim smiling and conversing
with him amidst a company animated only by a sentiment of curiosity, he
might well suspect, even in his sleep, that what he sees and what he
is doing, is a pure delusion. And this is exactly what he would say to
himself, should it come into his head to fire upon a _magistrate_, and
for the reason _that his looks displeased him_.
These prearranged scenes fail in verisimilitude and no more deceive the
actors in them, than they do the spectators or the author.
To this you may object: But, if the pistol had been loaded, Miss E. would
have shot her mother! This rests upon the supposition that the mother and
the spectators, still believed it to be unloaded, otherwise, their terror
alone, would have been quite sufficient to call back the subject to the
reality. And even with this assumption, this murder-test would have borne
a greater resemblance to a simple homicide from imprudence. By this I
mean to say, that so far as the spectators, the victim, and the assassin
were concerned, the act would not have been changed in its character,
simply because the magnetiser, had by mistake, given a loaded instead of
an unloaded pistol to the subject. I need hardly remark that a real crime
would never be perpetrated in this manner.
Thoroughly convinced though I was, of the impossibility of making
experiments that would entirely fathom this question, circumstances
nevertheless, allowed me once more to make a test which is well adapted
to show that it is not as easy as some may think, to transform an
hypnotic subject into a murderous automaton.
J... is that excellent somnambulist to whom my experiments have given a
certain notoriety. It is she together with her sister, whom I made use
of in my studies on “Memory in Hypnosis,” on “Imitation,” and “Hypnotic
Consciousness.” She it is, who three several times allowed herself to be
experimented upon by blistering on corresponding parts of the body; and
notably in one case where in accordance with suggestion no inflammation
took place.[56] She is tall, robust, intelligent, industrious, healthy.
She is now married and has had a child. The _accouchement_ took place in
the hypnotic sleep. The case being in the hands of M. Fraipont, Professor
of Obstetrics in the University of Liège; and never was the power of
hypnotism more remarkably exhibited.[57] In the case of this patient
there remained no trace of remembrance whatever, after awakening.
I have gone into these details merely to show the reader that no
better subject could have been found for my purpose. I have in another
place (see _Revue Philosophique_, article on “Hypnotic Consciousness”)
pointed out certain traits in her case, which at my _début_, were
strongly calculated to make me a believer in the absolute servility of
the hypnotic subject; traits which I shall subsequently recall to your
attention and comment upon.
To judge more fairly of the value of the experiment, I must further
state, that J. is both resolute and courageous. During several summers
she remained in the country in the environs of Seraing in attendance upon
my wife who was in ill-health, and in whose room she slept. After the
summer vacation it often happened that she spent the whole night alone
with her. At the head of the bed hung a six-barrelled revolver, loaded; a
precaution that we had taken on account of the well-known strikes which
took place in 1886, amongst the workmen of the numerous factories in our
neighborhood.
In the summer of 1887 I happened to be absent. A man came one night,
prowling round the garden and fumbling at the lock of the door, which he
even tried to force. The barking of the dogs wakened J., she opened the
window, perceived the man, took the revolver and went down into the hall
watching for the moment in which to fire at the nocturnal visitor. The
man hearing the noise slipped away with celerity. And the same year that
this occurrence took place, J. slept on the first floor with her loaded
revolver hanging on a nail beside her bed.
The 24th Feb. 1888, without communicating my intentions to anybody
except to my daughter, and that only at the very moment of beginning the
experiment, I discharged the revolver. It was six o’clock in the evening.
A young lady, (herself an hypnotic subject,) and my daughter, were seated
at a table, cutting out articles from a newspaper, which they afterwards
tied up in bundles. I called J. and at the moment she opened the door, I
hypnotised her by a motion. I said to her in an agitated tone—“Here are
some thieves, who are carrying off papers.”—J. came quickly forward and
turning towards me said: “No sir, they are playing with them—Why sure
enough they are taking them.” Then she walked resolutely up to them and
tore the papers out of their hands, put them on the table in front of her
and in an imperious tone said: “Don’t you touch them any more.”
I—“You are never going to let those knaves remain in the house—run and
fetch the revolver” (it was in the adjoining room). J. ran without
hesitation. She returned holding the weapon in her hand and stood on the
threshold. “Fire,” cried I.
“Sir, we must not kill them.”
“Thieves? Why certainly!”
“No sir! I will not kill them.”
“You must.”
“I won’t do it.” And she walked backwards still holding the revolver, I
following her and energetically reiterating my command. “I won’t. I won’t
do it. I will not murder.” She then placed the revolver on the floor but
_cautiously_. She continued to go backwards, I, meanwhile insisting and
following her. “I will not do it.”—Having come to a dead stand in the
corner of the room, she repulsed me violently and I thought it prudent to
awaken her, upon which she came to herself smiling in her usual pleasant
manner. She remembered, however, nothing whatever, although at the sight
of the revolver lying on the floor, she seemed to have a kind of vague
recollection. She did not seem at all discomposed in manner. If this
scene had taken place in a dream, she would certainly have exhibited more
excitement.
This is what we may term conclusive evidence, that is to say if ever
negative evidence can be called so. Let us comment now upon these facts.
It will be noticed that J. is not the dupe of the hallucination to which
she has been subjected. She does not take either of the young ladies
for thieves, nor the newspapers for valuable papers. Her first answer
is very significant—“No sir, they are playing with them.” Besides which
her expression, her attitude, the manner in which she looked at the
two reputed thieves, and tore the newspapers out of their hands, had
something so keenly observant, so prepared, so theatrical, that both my
witnesses and myself could not possibly believe her actions ingenuous. I
have often questioned her about the illusions that I suggested to her. I
asked her for example, if, when I appeared to her under another aspect,
for instance under the appearance of a young man, with clustering locks
and a black beard, she ever perceived anything of my real resemblance.
She invariably answered, that she saw my actual person, as it were in a
cloud, behind the figure which I had called up before her mental vision.
It is very probable that she recognised my daughter and her friend in the
persons whom I pointed out as the robbers. I might have assured myself of
this by causing her to recall her thoughts at the time. I am aware that
the opponents of this opinion challenge, and not unreasonably, tests made
in this manner because they have doubts about the suggestion.
If then the facts were such as are related, J. was playing a rôle not
perhaps strictly in accordance with the rules of ordinary acting, knowing
that she was reciting a part, but feeling nevertheless that she had a
certain part to play and must enter into the spirit of it.
It is incontrovertible that the hypnotic subject really does play his
part in precisely this fashion. When, for example, you extend his arm and
defy him to put it down he seems to make an effort to lower it, but in
reality he does not bring the required muscles into play at all. If you
bid him keep his hand open, he never dreams of using the flexor muscles.
Again, if the spectators try to change the position of either hand or
arm, they meet with energetic resistance.
You will ask me how it was that J. did not carry out her acting all
through? Why, after she had gone for the revolver with such deliberation,
she did not fire it? It was because, the action being so rapid in its
development, she had no time for reflection; she must have thought and
she actually did believe, that the revolver was loaded as it always was.
This is proved by the precaution with which she handled it and put it on
the floor. It is evident that she thought it was a dangerous game. If I
had known how the affair would terminate, I would have taken the pistol
and told her that I would fire myself, in order to see what her thought
and action would have been. But notwithstanding all this, supposing she
had fired could we have concluded from this, that she really had latent
murderous tendencies? We could not have drawn any legitimate conclusions
even yet. For if, as we have just stated, J. was not entirely withdrawn
from her actual surroundings, she might naturally suppose that I was only
joking, and that I should never make her fire on my own child, and on
this account she need not feel any anxiety in fulfilling the order that I
had given her.
The problem is a serious one. It is also a psychological problem. I have
already partially disclosed the solution which I myself am led to give
to it, and I can best translate my thoughts by these words and in the
following formula: Persons in hypnosis will only execute acts similar to
those they would naturally perform in dreams. I have asked a number of
persons, among others, those connected with the law, whether they had
ever dreamt they committed murders or robberies, and up to the present
time all have answered in the negative. And yet, lawyers interrogate
criminals, and it would be quite within the realm of possibility through
one of those duplications of personality which I pointed out in my work
on “Sleep and Dreams,”[58] that they should take up for an instant the
rôle of an assassin. This is not an impossible supposition. Does it ever
happen that the novelist or the actor, in portraying or impersonating an
infamous character, the creation of his imagination, does so identify
himself for the nonce, with his own invention, that even in sleep, for
a brief space, he incorporates himself, so to speak, into the fictitious
personage he has evoked. There are some very curious investigations
to make on this subject. But even if any positive facts could be
gathered from this, we should still be left in doubt, as to whether by
post-hypnotic suggestion the subject would continue to carry out the same
rôle.
Doubtless, an anatomist may dream that he is dissecting a body, but
could we produce an hypnotic condition such as to make him use the
knife as freely upon a living body? Can I make a butcher believe that
a child is a sheep? I consider the thing to be perfectly feasible, yet
my thesis is not at all weakened by this concession. We will take it
for granted that, animated by evil designs you proceed to hypnotise
beforehand, the anatomist and the butcher, and then bring them at a given
moment to the victim! And let us further imagine that the combination
succeeds perfectly. How will you manage to veil in deepest secrecy all
your previous manœuvres and cast a semblance of likelihood over the
culpability of your accomplices?
Will not the old adage, _Cui bono_, be quoted against you? In order to
insure perfect impunity, you would have to overcome such an accumulation
of material _impedimenta_, the lightest of which would suffice to
dissipate all apprehensions in the minds of those in whom chimerical
fears have not entirely obliterated their common sense. It is therefore
evident that in so far as we know now, from experiments intended to
test this theory and these possibilities of Criminal Suggestion, no
positive results can be obtained. These criminal actions, so appositely
named—Laboratory Crimes—bear no resemblance to actual ones.
If this debate is ever to be closed it can only be before a Criminal
Court when a Troppman, a Pranzini, or an Eyraud, shall have been the
operator, and it shall have been clearly shown, what interest the
assassin had in making use of a so-called, unconscious and automatic
accomplice. Then only, shall we be able to appreciate to what degree
hypnotism may become a dangerous enemy to society at large. And even
then, we shall have to remind ourselves that all our medicines are
poisons and that they have the power of destroying even more surely, than
that of healing.
Thus the problem is still unsolved.
Here is a story told me by Dr. Liébeault. He, or perhaps it was M.
Bernheim, or both together, hypnotised a workman and told him to steal
a couple of little plaster figures, that were used as ornaments on the
mantel-piece in a house where he was working. He did so. The affair had
been forgotten for some time because the suggestion had not been carried
out on the spot. About three months after the occurrence, this same
workman was arrested for stealing a pair of trousers from the front of a
shop. Upon which the previous hypnotic suggestion was remembered.
My opinion is that the workman—and how many there are of the same
calibre—had a very slight regard for _meum and tuum_. This reminds us
of that hospital patient, whom we saw pilfering the tobacco from his
comrades, and I do not think it was at all necessary to have thrown
the workman into the hypnotic sleep in order to make him steal the
statuettes. But from another point of view, this experiment, which did
not prove anything, might give rise to party arguments from those who
deem it desirable to maintain that it was the initiatory suggestion that
first gave this man the taste for stealing.
To sum up in a few words this portion of my investigation; the result of
my experiments and of my analyses is this: that the experiments of my
opponents prove nothing.
For the present I shall confine myself to this purely negative conclusion.
But there are other grounds besides experiments on which we may examine
this question. We can do so by careful observation and minute analysis of
the actions of hypnotised persons.
I have said before that the degree of morality observable in the dreams
of the subject, gives the measure of what may be expected from him during
hypnosis.
According to my opinion, hypnotism is less powerful in inciting to
actions of grave moral import, than the corrupting influence of word or
example, the love of gold, or the excitement of the passions.
All truly scientific experiments have brought into prominence the analogy
between physiological and incited dreams, and to-day we may say that this
is the doctrine of the future. Thus if an hypnotic subject admits without
opposition that he is made of sugar, or of glass, that he feels he is
melting in the rain, or being broken to atoms by the awkwardness of the
bystanders; if he thinks he is a lamp, or allows himself to be trundled
along like a wheelbarrow; if such a subject, I repeat, refuses to steal
a purse, or to receive an embrace, the conclusion forces itself upon one
that the hypnotic subject has more power over himself than some persons
would wish us to believe; in spite of his docility, there are some things
he absolutely refuses to do.
If then, reasoning by analogy has ever been legitimate, it is surely so
in this case, when the inference can be drawn that the man who refuses to
give a blow will refuse to use a knife; and that the woman who refuses
to give a token of affection will certainly refuse to allow of serious
tampering with morals.
Let us then pay close attention to what observation may teach us.
I shall hope to be able to demonstrate by actual facts, that persons in
an hypnotic condition, preserve at least a sufficient portion of their
intelligence, their reason, together with freedom of action, to prevent
them from committing deeds that neither their conscience nor their habits
approve of.