Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1890-02-27
HtPNOTISM.

HtPsOTISM.
II the attention be directed re-
peatedly. by an individual in CEN
ditions OF bodily weakness, TO any
part Of his organism, sensations Of
different kinds, not existing previ-
ously, will be perceived In that part.
This Is fact generally accepted by
physicians, and fatal disease hiss. 1t
is maintained, resulted simply from
the Influence Of the imagination in
tensified in its power by fear at the
time Of reception Of some slight or
even fancied injury. As one Of she
highest mental faculties we must
consider that Of concentrating byan
act of will the attention; the con-
verse of such power is inability 10
concentrate the attention by an
effort Of the VIII, aud conse-
quently the individuals mind
is here n prey TO all sorts Of
distraction arising from sensorial
(peripheraD impressions or from
mental reproduction Of previous
states or ideas, these reproductions
being due TO hyper-e1citability OF
the cortical brain cells. II, now, by
any process the power Of inhibiting
mental impressions arising from oc-
currences without the body or with
in 1t Is put out Of function, the power
Of concentrating the attention Is
lost for the time being, and imagiDa-
ton may run riot Now, let the
Imagination be directed into a def
mite channel, so TO say, and. there
being no inhibitory check upon il,
vhntever power il may have in
affecting vital processes Of the or
ganism will lie exercised TO an
unusual degrte in the direc-
ton or channel to which
its operations are thus limited.
In such condition the individual
may be made TO sleep, or TO enter
abnormal states, such as catalepsy:
to become anesthetic in different
parts Of the body; TO experience hal
fluctuations Of sight or taste, etc; to
exhibit without any external real
cause different trOphic disorders,
such as the appearance OF blister
which goes through all the stages OF
change seen in an ordinary blister
from a burn; to be without memory
Of what occurs during the condition;
to become an autGmaton, and fol-
low the operator as n piece OF soft
iron follows a magnet, and, finally,
to be so imbued with a command OF
the operator that at the hour d.
rected by the latter (it may
be many hours, or even some days,
sfterwarIil the subject, then in
his ordinary condition, does precise
ly, and at the exact time, and with
out knowing why, just what he had
been ordered TO do. More than this,
diseases can be ordered away, nor
NAL secretions and discharges OF the
organism can their absence being
diseasel be ordered to return,
and even the normal pains in
surgical operations can be CON-
manded to not appear; and IN
suitable subjects these commands
have been obeyed- These are facts,
many of them repeated over and
over again, and the state or condi-
ton of body In which such phe-
nomena are possible is called hyp-
nosis, or, more commonly, hypno-
tism. .--,-..
The school Of Charcot hold that
only mysteries are subject to byp-
motto methods, aud that hypnosis
itself Is a disease, neurosis. The
final stage Of development In the
subject up to the present writing
eliminates in the observations Of
Dr. II. Bernheim, professor in the
medical school at Nancy. He has
shown that the theory Of Charcot
has beclouded the whole subject,
both from the purely experimental
and the therapeutic points OF view.
All the facts which for years have
been observed 10 the few ''drilled"
hysterical subjects in La Salpetriere
eau be explained by the action
Of "suggestion' and all The
phenomena Of hypnotism are to
he thus explained. Suggestion may
be verbal or by gesture, or by the
unconscious play Of the operators
features frsm surprise, or disappoint-
ment, or satisfaction, etc. The expec-
tation that some special line OF phe-
nomena will appear acts, in cases
such rs Charcot's subjects, as ''sug-
gestion., The sinfiuenee'' Of differ
emit metals applied TO different parts
OF the body is proven 10 have been
from within the subject but aroused
by sssuggestion,' lauto-suggestion,
as in the case Of applied plates OF
gold), from the old notion that, c. O.,
the metal gold possesses a specially
noble quality, for this metal refused
TO act when the subject was made to
believe it was copper, and copper,
when believed by the subject 10 be
gold, brought out the same symp-
toms as gold did in the earlier ex-
periments. So, in Luys' expert
ments with medicines in closed and
sealed glass tubes held in the hand
or applied to different parts Of the
subjects body, the possibility, and
even the likelihood, Of auto-sugges-
ton cannot be excluded. The
writer believes, with DR.. Frieden-
reich, that Eau individual who has
been frequently hypDotized Is
thereby rendered abnormal, and
even II other sbnorpalities cannot
be shown to exist, he Is still
easily hypnotizable and readi-
~ subjected to the influence
OF another person" At the
same time II must be remembered
that this Is probably true olly Of fire.
quency Of the higher grades Of
hypnorism, and that Bernheim dis
tinctly states that the higher grades
are not necessary for therapeutic
purposes. Suggestion accepted with
out resistance, and often uncon-
sciously, by the subject accounts for
all that hypnotisnl really does; the
mode Of action within the body
IL unknown. but it is according
to natural laws Of the organ
ism. I have yet 10 learn that a
tumor has been removed by hypno-
tism, or that the results of destruc-
tive lesion in the nervous system
have bern undone, or that an ulcer
has been healed suddenly The
power OF post-hypuotic suggestion
to cause crime through an innocent
agent carrying out-at time houn