The Arizona sentinel., 1889-08-03
SECRETS OF HYPNoTlsM.
The Strange Force Which Is PuzzIing tn
Scientific World.

The Strange Force Which Is PuZzIing the
Scientific World.
When n person has become thor
oughly hypnotized he is but an autom-
atom, moving, acting, thinking at
the will of the operator, who can pro-
duce any sensation that he may desire
He can destroy sensation and complete
anasthesia The fingers of subject
can be sewed together, drawing thread
through the flesh, and the victim will
remain an amused spectator. You can
render any sense hypera sthetic, so
that intense pain will be felt at the
slightest touch.
Every sense can be intensified,
though no other person in the room
can be heard save the operator, yet
the faintest whisper by him will be
heard distinctly across a wide room.
A watch in his hand can be heard at a
distance of thirty or forty feet dis
tinctly, and located, even when the
subject is blindfolded.
Memory is made exceedingly acute,
so that things in a normal state which
are forgotten are easily remembered
and recalled. A young man who had
lost small article was made to re-
member where he had it last, aud was
sent for it, and returned with it as a
matter of course, though he had
searched long and painfully for it
when in a normal state of mind. II
is impossible to hypnotic an idiot, but
not impossible to hypnotic a feeble
minded person, and there is use of it
indicated in that respect which prom
ises development to such in acuteness
and mental strength.
1t can be made the instrument OF
many crimes. At the request of a
physician present l suggested to a
young lady whom l had hypnotized
that she was suffering with a sore
throat and pneumonia, and that she
had a high fever and was i'll. Her
pulse increased so rapidly that in the
space of five seconds the physician
said that the increase was at the rate
of forty beats to the minute. 1t is my
opinion that | could have killed her by
increasing the hearts action, and that
a physician would have signed a GER
tiicate of death by pneumonia or pa
raiysis of the heart.
She was of gentle, kindly disposi-
tiOn, and yet, hypnotized, would COM
nit murder at the operators dire ction
as readily as she would eat an apple.
A paper dagger was placed in her
hand, and she was instructed to kill a
person present, and she stabbed him
with but little hesitation, and on being
awakened had no remembrance OF
doing the deed. She would have COM
mitted suicide with the same indiffer-
ence as she committed the murder, and
make no plea against it. The story
that comes from France that such a
thing was done, and that the operator
who commanded the suicide is to be
hanged for murder. is ali a probable
thing, whether the story published is
man who could be hypnotized would
write check at the command of the
operator and then forget ever having
done it.
The whole phenomena of faith cure
and so-called Christian science lie in
the domain of this new science. What
ever there is in thought transference is
here.
A physician of some prominence, in
an interview on the subject of hypno-
tism, said to a reporter:
From time to time | am using
hypnotism, or suggestion, where the
conditions warrant it, among the sick.
l do not claim for it any supernatural
power, nor do | lessen the faith of peO-
pie in God as the healer of our dis
eases, but l tell them that there are
certain diseases proceeding from the
nervous system that can be modified or
healed. and l use suggestion as a
remedy. Whether l can effect a
permanent cure by the means do not
know yet, as there are complications
beyond the reach of this agent.
The physicians of this country
should come up to the use of this, and
l will cheerfully resign all encroach-
ment upon their art when they do.
Men of strong perceptions and domi-
nant wills often see life where others
prognosticate death, and bring back,
by the infusion of their own strong
wills, those who else might give up the
struggle and die.
mo man who has had a wide ex-
perience among the sick and the dying
but what can substantiate this with
case upon case. The grosser forms of
materialism are giving away before
some of the subtler forms of matter,
and these fall out Of our hands in the
presence of psychic forces, of which all
matter is but a varied manifestation.
The secret of life is still the secret of
God. The knowledge of Him in the
domain of either morals or physics is
the increase of the knowledge of life. ="
N. Y. World.