The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-03-20


men would by their treatment so lower the
vitality that nature would ave no power to
throw OF the impression, aud chronic in
sanity would be the result"
"Supersensitives whom you have uaone-
tlzed fall into the magnetic state every time
you think Of them and most deeply when
you magnetic other subjects, no matter
how far distant you may be from them.
They may act as you are COM
manding. your subject at the time to act,
and start dancing in public assembly, or
suddenly fall down in the magnetic sleep, or
become paralYzed like statue in the mid
die OF a high road and be in danger of Deing
run over, etc.
All those warnings Of liabilities to cause
physical disease, Generalization, insanity
and death. IL is to be observed, are not the
averments of enemies of thu so-called
science, but the privately accorded mont
lions Of an expert teacher, speaking from
ripe experience.
When the restriction Of hypnotism was
under discussion in Italy, Prof. Lombroso
OF Turin reported concerning the results of
Donates approximations: IAN artillery off.
Ger, who was hypnotized by Donata at pub
lie seance. afterward became almost insane.
From time to time he had attacks of spon-
famous hypnotism at the sight of any shin
ing object. He would follow a carriage
lamp I'm the street, as though spell-bound.
One evening, IL his fellow officer had not
saved him, he would have been crushed to
death by going directly toward an approach
ing carriage. violent hysterical crisis
followed. 4 A railroad employe had
oonvulsions and a violent attack Of insanity.
young man Of II became morally de-
PRAYED and became enraged."
DR.. T. Bjorustrom is undoubtedly right in
saying, as he does in his work Of "Hypno.
tiam ~ atManU N firNna ~ has hon a.
an ignorant magnetizer has been able to
hypnotic, but not to dehypnotize; thus the
nervous system may suffer irremediable in
jury. By few hypnoses many women who
previously had only a slumbering DISPOSE
ton to hysteria have had this di iease
brought to full activity, with violent hys-
terical attacks. From all this we find that
hypnotism is not to be trifled with; that it
can harm in various ways, and that it re-
quires all the skill and conscientiousness of
an experienced physician to properly use
this powerful agency"
Before leaving this branch of the subject
the dangers 10 the sensitive-an incident
related by the Able Aphons Louis Con-
slant seems worthy of inclusion. Il con-
Germs case Of natural somnambulism, but,
as will be remembered, the somnambulistic
state is arti1cially produced in hypnosis, is,
indeed, its common manifestation, and the
those Of tho artificial
1.-TWO companions lodged in the same inn
and shared the same room. Ons had the
habit of speaking in his sleep aud respond,
ing to questions. One night he suddenly
CALCULATED stifIed cries. his companion
awoke and demanded what was the matter
:" DO you not see, said the sleeper, that
enormous stone which is becoming loose and
detached from the mountains 1t falls on
mel It's going TO crush mep
Well; save Yourself
Impossible. have my feet entangled
in the meshes, which are Tightening. O.!
Helpl There there! The great stone is
falling on meI'
"'There it is, cried bis companion, laugh
ing and throwing the pillow at his head to
awaken him.
"A terrible shrek suddenly stifed in the
throat, a convulsion, a sigh, then nothing
more. The practical joker arose; he pulled
his companion by the arm, and in his turn
frightened. called out aloud the people
came with lights; the ill-fated somnambulist
was dead
But that 10 which the community is. per-
haps, even more interested than in the eff
feots OF hypnotism upon the subject is the
effect of the subject upon society. That q
woman shall be demoralized or a man
driven insane, or both of them thrown into
q death trance" and buried alive-as some
still assert the mind-reader, Bishop, would
have been had not the doctors consii-
erately made sure of his demise by
slicing him open-is doubtless very
sad for the woman and the man concerned.
And it may be grave consideration that
one can be hypnotzed without his knowl-
edge by some person not near him, and
caused to unconsciously give away his dla-
monds and other valuables But all those
things are less serious than the fact that a
suggestion made to a sensitive during the
hypnotic trance may, at the will Of the OPP
orator, become n hallucination possessing
the mind in post-hypnotic conditions and
impelling actions during the wakeful state.
Liegeois and Liebault have caused halluci-
nations. produced by suggestion. to persist
a whole year and then bear their fruits in
ections-prescribed a 12-month before, but
altogether without the knowledge of the
subject. or his volition, until the moment
when he found himself irresistibv impelled
TO perform them. Bernheim, Binet. Fere
and many others have done like things.
+. Quincy says proc. s. P. r., vol.
ivy: The Psychological condition of the
subject during the post-hypnotic perform.
ance Of hypnotic commands, and also dur
ing the intermediate period after Weakening
and prior to the performance, really admits
of great variety. There are cases in which
no reason whatever appears for
regarding the state in which the
action is performed as other than
normal. The subjects account of it
afterward is az of something which it just
occurred to him he would like to do, and
which he did because be chose. While he
does 1t, he is in bis usual relation to the ex-
ternal world and can converse naturally
and nationally, and both the performance
itself and the surrounding circumstances
are completely remembered afterwerd."
But the subject-or to give him more APP
propriate title, the victim-has absolutely
no consciousness that the impulse to that
action was a suggestion or command Of
his hynotizer, given to him long before.
II the thing done was a crime, he may
suffer the legal penalty for it and endure
agonies of remorse. yet he will have
been powerless to refrain from the
doing Of it and will be incapable of know
ing that the moral guilt is another's. A
fatal faculty is thus afforded for the easy
and safe promotion of almost all crimes,
through the unconscious subjects" obe-
dience TO the imperative will Of the hYpno-
tier, communicated by suggestion" per-
haps months before the perpetration. Truly
Hufeand was right when he wrote; 1.-THE
chief qualification of a magnetist is, that he
should be in good health and morally pure.
Imagination and sensual feelings may be so
mixed up with the magnetic force as to pro-
duce the most perverse and unhappy con-
sequences" Will we be sure that none others
will WELD the power il its exercise is
legally restricted to physiciansl
J. II. Connolly.
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