CRIMINAL HYPNOTISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 11 (Supplement)

CRIMINAL HYPNOTISM.

GIPSY WOMAN'S STRANGE POWERS. HUNGARIAN FAMILY'S COMPLAINT. An extraordinary criminal case will shortly come before the Szolnok tribunal, states the London "Observer's correspondent at Budapest. Mrs. Demeter Dobray, a Tzigane woman of 48, is accused of having exercised her hypnotic power on the inhabitants of the Kunhegyes and terrorised them for 14 years to euch an extent that until now no one dared make a charge againet her. In 1&16 a rich family, called Nagy, is said to have come under her influence, and she received presents of money, corn, and food. The indictment says that when any of her demands were refused by tho Nagys one member of the family or more were attacked by symptoms such as brain pressure, vomiting, and pains, for which the dootore Could find no cause whatever. It is eaid that these symptoms were observed to disappear whenever Mrs. Dobray'e request was fulfilled by the family. On one occasion & widowed member of the family refused a request for money made by the Tzigane, and afterwards became permanently blind in one eye. Mrs. Dobray's alleged "powers" were next turned on a 17-year-old youth, Karoly Nagy, and he became violently attached to an unprepossessing Tzigane girl of loose morale. Young Nagy behaved like a person under a spell, and finally proposed to marry the girl. On this, Mrs. Dobray is said to have informed his distracted mother that she had brought about the youth's attachment, and would cause it to cease for a gift of property equal to 2000 pengo. This was agreed to, and the next day the youth did, in actual fact, declare himself repelled and disgusted by the girl he had wished to marry. The boy later becamo ill, and it is said that his health only improved when gifts of money or goods were made to Mrs. Dobray; and it is further stated that she eventually incited him to attempt the murder of his parents. The "Peeti Naplo" alleges that Mrs. Dobray has admitted to a witness that she possessed hypnotic powers, declaring that when her advocate takes over her defence she intends to send him into a trance in which he will be compelled to , sign a receipt for the fee which she does j not intend tz pay him. J