Studies in the Out-Lying Fields of Psychic Science. Hudson Tuttle
Читать онлайн книгу.
of possibilities, exhibiting mental perceptions far more acute than those possess who are around him, or he himself possesses in his normal condition. Hypnotism as treated by its exponents is an extremely complicated state, ranging from the cataleptic to the independent clairvoyant. To define it with the usual narrow meaning is extremely misleading and unscientific.
There are two distinct states of hypnotism. The first is that in which most platform experiments are made. The sensitive is capable of carrying on conversations, answering questions, and is governed by a “dominant idea,” believing all the operator wishes, and doing as commanded.
The sensitive rapidly enters the next stage, when he becomes insensible to pain, and irresponsive to the address of any one except the operator. Until this stage is reached consciousness and memory are retained, a fact fatal to the theory of automatic action or “unconscious cerebration.” In this profound state the sensitive has no memory of events which occur. It is an induced, incipient somnambulism, the true counterpart of that which under proper condition appears spontaneously.
The report of the Committee on Hypnotism, vol. I., p. 95, of Proceedings of American Society for Psychical Research, shows that it confined its attention to fifty or sixty students of Harvard College. Of these about a dozen were affected, and of these, two were so good that attention was confined to them.
“The extraordinary mixture, in the hypnotic trance, of preternatural refinement of discrimination with the grossest insensibility, is one of the most remarkable features of the condition. A blank sheet of paper, with fine-cut edges, without watermarks or any thing which could lead to the recognition of one side or edge from the other, is shown to the subject with the statement that it is a photograph of a well-known face. As soon as he distinctly sees the photograph upon its surface, he is told that it will float off from the paper, make a voyage around the walls of the room, and then return to the paper again. During this imaginary performance, he sees it successfully on the various regions of the wall; but if the paper is meanwhile secretly turned over, and handed to him upside down, or with its under surface on top, he instantly recognizes the change, and seeing the portrait in the altered position of the paper, turns the latter about, ‘to get the portrait right.’ ”
In the hypnotic state the subject is under the control of the operator, and in a great degree an automaton; in the somnambulic, he in part regains his individuality, and in certain lines of thought and action is superior to himself in his waking moments. Natural somnambulism comes without warning, and illustrates the condition induced by mesmeric passes.
Somnambulism.—Sleep waking, or sleep walking, whatever may be its cause, mental derangement by disease or intense exertion of mind or body, or a constitutional inclination thereto, is of deepest interest to the psychologist as proving the independence of the spirit of the physical senses. The somnambulist has lost the use of his senses. He feels, hears and sees nothing by touch, ear or eye, and yet the objects to which his attention is drawn are plainly perceptible.
The Archbishop of Bordeaux is authority for the following narrative: A young clergyman was in the habit of rising from his bed, and writing his sermons while asleep. When he had written a page he would read it aloud and correct it. Once in altering the expression “ce devin enfant,” he substituted the word “adorable” for “devin,” which, commencing with a vowel, required that “ce” before it should be changed to “cet;” he accordingly added the “t.” While he was writing the Archbishop held a piece of pasteboard under his chin to prevent him seeing what he was writing, but he went on without being in the least incommoded. The paper on which he was writing was removed and another piece substituted, but he at once perceived the change. He also wrote pieces of music with his eyes closed. He once wrote the words under the notes too large, but discovering his mistake, he erased and rewrote them. He certainly did not see with his eyes and yet the vision was perfect.
The case of Jane C. Rider, known as the Springfield somnambulist, created in its time much wonder and speculation among intelligent persons acquainted with the facts. A full account of it was published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Volume XI., Numbers 4 and 5. Miss Rider would walk in her sleep, attend to domestic duties in the dark or with her eyes bandaged, and read in a dark room with her eyes covered with cotton batting, over which was tied a black silk handkerchief. She learned without difficulty to play at backgammon while in this state, and would generally beat her antagonist, though in her normal state she knew nothing about the game.
A young lady, while at school, succeeded in her Latin exercises without devoting much time or attention to them, apparently. At length the secret of her easy progress was discovered. She was observed to leave her room at night, take her class-book, and go to a certain place on the banks of a small stream, where she remained but a short time and then returned to the house. In the morning she was invariably unconscious of what had occurred during the night; but a glance at the lesson of the day usually resulted in the discovery that it was already quite familiar to her.
A young man on a farm in Australia, after a hard day’s work, went to sleep on a sofa; after some little time he arose, passed through several gates, opening and fastening them. Reaching the shed, he took off his coat, sharpened his shears, caught a sheep, and had just finished shearing it when his companions came with lanterns in search of him. The shock of awaking caused him to tremble like a leaf, but he soon recovered. The sheep was shorn as perfectly as if the work had been done in broad daylight.
Moral Effect of Mesmerism.—Dr. Voisin recommends a suggestive application of mesmerism. He experimented on a coarse, debauched and lazy woman, who was susceptible to magnetism; and kept her in the mesmeric sleep ten or twelve hours a day, and to its value as a curative agent he added moral education. During her sleep he suggested ideas of obedience, of submission, of decency, and exhorted her to useful labor. In this sleep she memorized whole pages of moral books. A complete transformation was effected in her in a few months.
What a glorious field here opens for the moral reformer! The calloused criminal who will not listen to moral suasion, deaf alike to entreaty and prayer, may be hypnotized, and in that susceptible condition taught the Lord’s Prayer and moral precepts; his moral nature roused and thus be transformed into a new being. The influence of some men when brought into contact with criminals is explained by their strong mesmeric or hypnotic influence. They always lift up those they control. They are born masters, though they may not understand the cause of their strength.
Trance and Clairvoyance.—The trance or clairvoyant state has been observed in all ages and among all races of mankind. It has, in seasons of great religious excitement, become epidemic, the devotee falling in convulsions, becoming cataleptic, and after hours, days, or even months of apparent death, awakening with mind overwrought with visions of the strange world in which it had dwelt during the period of unconsciousness.
The records of clairvoyance are as old as history. If prophecy, the “clear seeing of the future,” be its fruit, the prophets and sages of the past were all more or less endowed with this gift. Socrates and Apollonius predicted, and were conscious of, events transpiring at remote distances. Cicero mentions that when the revelations are being given, someone must be present to record them, as “these sleepers do not retain any recollection of them.” Pliny, speaking of the celebrated Hermotimus, of Clazomenæ, remarks that his soul separated itself from the body, and wandered in various parts of the earth, relating events occurring in distant places. During the period of inspiration his body was insensible. The day of the battle of Pharsalia, Cornelius, a priest of profound piety, described while in Padua, as though present, every feature of the fight. Nicephorus says that when the unfortunate Valens, taking refuge in a barn, was burned by the Goths, a hermit named Paul, in a fit of ecstasy, cried out to those who were with him: “It is now that Valens burns.” Tertulian describes two females, celebrated for their piety and ecstasy, that they entered that state in the midst of the congregation, revealed celestial secrets, and knew the innermost hearts of persons.
St. Justin affirms that the sibyls foretold events correctly, and quotes Plato as coinciding with him in that view. St. Athenagoras says of the faculty of prescience, that “it is proper to the soul.” Volumes might be readily filled with quotations like the foregoing,