ANCIENT MYSTERIES

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3480, 16 June 1934, Page 6

ANCIENT MYSTERIES

MASS HYPNOSIS AND LEVITATION. In London recently was revived with additional vigour controversy over two of the most ancient mysteries ever to have baffled mankind hypnotism and levitation. It was contended in the columns of the Morning Post by a member of the Occult Committee of the Magic Circle, who have been investigating the Indian Rope Trick, that hypnosis of a number of people simultaneously is an utter impossibility. At the same time, there was reported a statement by Dr Halliday Sutherland that there are in history authentically witnessed cases of levitation.

Dr Sutherland cited as one instance the case of Daniel Home, the famous Nineteenth "Century medium, who was stated by a number of persons to have levitated himself from one window to another at a height of 70 feet above a London street. It has been contended that this “case” of levitation was attested on the strength of mass hypnosis of the “witnesses.”

Inquiries by a Morning Post representative discovered that the divergence of opinion on the two subjects is as strong as ever. The general opinion among those who have made an intensive study of both is that mass hypnosis is impossible and levitation not proven. On the other hand, it was freely admitted that hundreds of well-educated and intelligent men and women could be brought forward to claim that they had been acquainted with both. “Levitation, which of course defines all the laws of Nature, has never yet been proved possible,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Elliott, chairman of the Magic Circle, “and as regards Home, I have been told by people who knew him that one could not but be sceptical of his achievements. “One must admit in this particular case the possibility of mass hypnosis. But at the same time one must bear in mind the fact that all those who were present were probably willing subjects to such hypnosis. Willing subjects could be convinced of anything, even levitation, when hypnotised. “Collective hypnosis of persons who are not willing to be hypnotised is, to my mind, utterly incredible. Even a willing subject cannot always be hypnotised at the first attempt.”

Mr Harry Price, lion, director of the National Laboratory for Psychical Research, said: “Levitation has never been accepted as possible. As regards the case of Home, whom a number of witnesses claimed to have seen floating in at a window, it has never been emphasised that there was a ledge on which it is conceivable, though highly improbable, that he might have walked from the window out of which he climbed to that which he entered. Mr W. R. Minns, secretary of the Magic Circle, said: “Neither levitation nor collective hypnotism has ever been so much as half proved in our experience. Levitation can be safely confined to the stage and stage tricks, and lipnotism to those who wished to be hpnotised. Home was little more than a charlatan. ’’