THE POWER OF SUGGESTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2240, 4 February 1897, Page 43

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION.

During the last few years the craze for hypnotism has brought before as in many yaried forms the extraordinary power of suggestion — " hypnotic, suggestion." Experiments of the most interesting nature and giving Tory wonderful result* have been detailed in newspapers and magazines. Now some terrible crime -which seemed involved in inscrutable mystery has been traced to hypnotic suggestion ; now some extraordinary intrigue, where an apparently unwilling person has become irretrierably oompromiaed, has been proved to have its foundation in hypnotic suggestion mercilessly used ; swindlers, rogues, and vagabonds, lust of gold and lust of the flesb, all haye — if we believe half we read — set in motion th» power of hypnotic suggestion to work their wicked will. Of course in these cases there is the indomitable will of the hypnotlser aoting behind the suggestion, foouising it like the rays of a burning glass upon the victim's will power, until all power of resistance is burnt away. The tbonghts — recoiling sometimes with reluctance and horror — are led into the necessary channel, a course of action is sugj gested, and then that remorseless will of the | hypnotiser enforces obedience. It is a weird | [ and terrible power, and one from its very I nature so sure to be exercised more for evil than for good that, as we know, its indiscriminate practice is already forbidden in some countries. We read of these terrible instanoes of hypnotic suggestion— in fact, I know of no 1 more exoitiDg reading, — but while wa realise the almost illimitable force of suggestion thus employed, we scarcely give a thought | to the important part that suggestion, mere j suggestion, plays in our everyday lives. j Some temperaments are, of course, much j more open to the influence than others, both I mentally and morally. Extremes of moral nature, good or bad, find fresh impetus to good or evil suggested by every aspect of nature, every occurrenoa of daily life, while the entirely conventional nature is almost dead to its influence, being bound like a mummy with the swathes of formality and routine. Those who earn their living by any brain work, tho«« who take their pleasure in the pursuit of some hobby, are sensible of a strong tendency to press all suggestion Into the service of their special work or fad. The essayist looks upon all unusual instances of emotion, all exceptionally brilliant mental or moral achievements, as data for this or that essay, suggestions for new work, or confirmation of past theories; the journalist finds in the crime, the mystery, the tragedy of the human race from day to day suggestions for brilliant head lines, thrilling paragraphs ; while the novelist sees only in the book of life, with its endless variety of complications, suggestions for "plots" to furnish forth his books. So too the preacher, looking on all these same things, notes with busy brain and heart a&re for the redemption of his flock suggestions for sermons, the real flesh and blood in which he shall olothe the dry bones of his text. To the farmer the level plain with ita rich alluvial soil and wandering streams, whether lying bare and brown in long perspective of ploughed furrows or mellow with russet fields of autumn wealth, suggests j an endless vista of pastoral possibilities. 1 " Rotation of crops." the suitability of this

or that fertiliser, the ease with which the various holdings oan be worked, the means of transit for grain — these are the suggestions that naturally present themselves to his mind. The cyclist, whirling by in his corner of a first-olass " smoking," looks with longiDg eyes over the wide plain where cloud shadows sweep and the long perspective melts into a far blue line of mountains ; he notes the roads that stretch away north and south, and exclaims with enthusiasm, " Jove 1 what a country for oyoling."

To the angler the trout stream purling along through fllokaring ban of light and shade, with all the ratted beauty of golden shallows and dark brown pools, suggests possibilities, awakens memories, and kindles desires utterly unknown to anyone ignorant of "the gentle art," The artist in his turn notes with appreciative eye aad rapid, busy pencil a dozen "bits" for his sketch book. This little bit of red olay bank with its trails of wild parsley dipping into the sombre shadows beneath will make a lovely foreground ; that sunny reach, where the summer sky is reflected in the broad shallows, where the fields of ripening grain stretch away towards the dark line of bush which climbs the lower spurs and melts into the blae distance of range upon range of mountains — what a suggestion for colour and distance I Then the aDgler just emerged from that bend where the- waste bit of bracken and toi-toi has given him such vantage ground for his last oast — why, he who ha? been finding the very day and hour, the very time and place,. all made for him, now perfects the artist's aspirations by supplying the crowning point ol human interest to complete the ploture. He does more — he suggests the very title. Pencil it down quickly — " A Busy Idlar."

So each one of us gathers suggestions to feed and nourish the thing that ia in us, be it good or evil, toil or plea&ure. What do we say of our beet beloved poet ?—"? — " There is such a wealth of suggestion in his simplest verse." How, do we pay tribute to our favourite preacher ?— " He always suggest* a new meaning in old things." Our strongest influence is net the direct; influence which we oonsoiously strive to exeroise ; it is often the unconscious influence exercised by our lives with tbe daily suggestion they carry for good or evil.