WHEN HYPNOTISM WAS DENOUNCED AND BELAUDED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18008, 19 November 1926, Page 9

WHEN HYPNOTISM WAS DENOUNCED AND BELAUDED.

“IT’S NOTHING MORE THAN HYSTERICAL ATTACK.” (Special to the M Star.”) SYDNEY, November 8. Towards the end of last century hypnotism, or mesmerism, as it was originally called, was both boomed as a cure-all and as a desperately dangerous weapon in unscrupulous hands. Svengali and Trilby were the rage (says an Australian doctor, writing to the Press). Some “master-mind,” generally a psycchologist or a mysterious unidentified man, was at the bottom of many a crime. Mesmer started it. H© taught that animal magnetism, a sort of intangible fluid, flowed from the performer to induce the mesmeric trance. The vital force was supposed to exist in tuningforks, crystals, magnets, metals, and drugs in sealed tubes, by gazing in ten tly at which the subject absorbed the emanations. I-lis pupil, Elliotson, successful! y introduced mesmerism into his practice, performing hundreds of painless operations, including big amputations, for which infamous conduct he was ostracised and compelled to resign his hospital appointments. Bitterly opposed by the medical profession, the movement practically ceased, until James Braid, several years later, revived interest by putting the whole thing on a more scientific basis. He substituted the term hypnotism, and explained that the entire action is due to effects in the patient’s own brain. In other words hypnotism is nothing more than the intentional artificial production of a hysterical , attack by suggestion. Therefore, only those persons can be hypnotised who are willing to submit and are susceptible to this kind of influence. The essential feature of all the associated claptrap is merely to produce, In the most telling way possible, the belief, “It must happen, as the hypnotiser says.” Everything else—the fixation of the eyes on bright objects, the vibrations of a tuning-fork, etc.— are side issues, and help to drive home the suggestion. No matter how profound the hypnosis, if the operator knows his job, the subject can be aroused easily. It is only necessary to suggest during the trance that the condition shall terminate-to some given signal, such as counting “One” “two,” “three!” It seldom fails. Authorities agree that patients never carry out suggestions which involve anything opposed to their prejudices, or moral sense. Nobody on earth can hypnotise you against your will.