HYPNOTIC INFLUENCE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19805, 22 May 1934, Page 16

HYPNOTIC INFLUENCE

AMAZING ( IRES CLAIMED. Amazing stories of cures claimed have been effected through the of the sub-conscious mind arc by the passing of a man who renowned as the father of He was Mr William Alexander Erskinc, of London, who lately died the age of 77 in St. Mary's Paddington. While alone in his flat a few prior to his death Mr Erskine fell to a gas-fire and lay unconscious some minutes before being and rescued. He was terribly and never completely recovered. |i|||S Nearly half a century has since Mr Erskine returned to after studying in the United States began to practise the healing power the sub-conscious mind. The science psycho-therapy was then little stood, and he met with ridicule and even suggestions of honesty. He said he believed that sub-conscious mind was in reality soul, and that all functional could be cured by hypnosis. “No one can be hypnotised his will,” Mr Erskine said: “It is I. but the patient, who achieves cure. I only show him how to do it.” One of Mr Erskine's most able cures was made just before war. when by hypnotic influence enabled a nine-ycor-old girl, blind birth, to see. The girl. Gertrude was attending a school for the and her case was considered by physicians. Describing his success. Mr said: "I induced a hypnotic sleep, suggested to the girl's mind that she could see. I had beyond hope, and to my surprise said she could see. and when she described various objects to monstrate that sight had been to her.” Another successful treatment blindness was that of a artist. Miss Violet Winter, who the sight of one eye in an until it was restored by hypnotism. Once, at a country-house party, theft occurred, and Mr Erskine gested as a game he should show of the marvels of hypnosis. He suaded the host and guests to let hypnotise one of them. After one of the women guests to sleep. made her write down how the were stolen and where they were. he walked to a certain bedroom, lie found the jewels and returned t '' to the owner. What was written on the paper a complete account of the stances of the robbery and the name the thief, but Mr Erskine never closed to anyone except a friend the paper contained. Mr Erskine remarked, “If I put a patient to sleep in the of a suspected man I can tell he is guilty or not: for the man will read everything in the peat's mind. Hypnotism cannot miracles: it cannot make the mind a “sleeping’ man rove the world large and "discover the perpetrator crime, but it can search out a ticular individual and read his to its inmost secrets.” At the time of the Crippen case Erskine ottered to trace the but Sir Edward Henry, the sioner of P ohce. declined his help. many months ago he claimed to cured a man who. because of a palate, had never spoken clearly. B^B The late Mr Arnold Bennett treated by Mr Erskine, who. it is could never sufficiently direct novelist’s will to hypnotise him, was able to put him into a sleep from ' hich Mr Bennett he got more nerve rest, than he obtained through doctors.