The record-union., 1896-11-19
MENTAL EPIDEMICS.
The l1edievaI r1an in a State of Ligh
Hypnosis.


authority in hypnotism, against. the
Technology which has been to a great
extent adopted, and which many doc
tors have helped to propagate. but
which is none the less erroneous 1t
is often said that hypnotized persons
are asleep and the two states have
been partly identified. I think this
misuse of words, since there are
whole series of hypnotic states in which
not one symptom of sleep appears and
mistaken conclusions are often drawn
from the mistaken Technology, with re-
sulting confusion. Susceptibility to sug-
gestion is the chief phenomena of hyp-
nosis." And he goes on to say that,
however strange and paradoxical the
phenomena of hypnosis may appear to
us at first sight, we may be sure that
there is no absolute difference between
hypnotic and non hypnotic states"
Man carries with him the germ of the
possible mob, of the epidemic. AS a So
cial being he is naturally suggestible:
but when this susceptibility to sugges-
ton becomes under certain conditions
abnormally intense, we may say that
he is thrown into a hypnotic state. We
movements induces light hypnosis,
which is characterized by inhibition of
the will; the memory is unaffected,
self-consciousness remains intact, and
the subject is perfectly aware Of all that
goes on a loss of voluntary movements
is one of it's chief phenomena Keeping
this in mind, we can understand to a
certain extent medieval life The me-
dieval man was in a state of light hyp-
nosis This was induced in him by the
great limitation of his voluntary move
ments, by the inhibition of his will, by
the social pressure which was exerted
on him by the great weight of author
ity to which his life was subjected
The life Of the medieval man was
regulated down to its last detail. The
order, the guild, the commune, the
church. had minute regulations for all
exigencies of life. Nothing was left to
individual enterprise. Even love had
its rules; there were laws governing
| love-making and the treatment by a
| man of the lady of his heart. There
were curious love trials, one Of the low
ers accusing the other of having tres
passed some fixed rule of love Society
was divided and subdivided into nu-
merous parts, each having it's own
| fixed rules, each leading it's own seclud-
ed, narrow, dwarfish life. Bound fast
| by the strings of authority, medieval
men were reduced to a state of hypnotic
automata.
| The religious ecstasy that animated
the medieval man was especially favor
| able to his spontaneous lf-hypnotiza-
| ton; for as Ribot points out, ecstasy is
mono-ideism, the intense concentration
Of attention on one object, an essential
condition of hypnosis.
The most striking phenomenon in
medieval history is that of crusades
which agitated European nations for
about two centuries, and cost them
about seven million men. People were
drawn by an irresistible longing toward
the Holy Sepulcher, which fascinated
their metal gaze, just as the butterfly
is blindiy drawn toward the candle
This attraction of devout Christians by
the Holy Sepulcher manifested itself
in pilgrimages, which at first were
rare, but gradually spread and became
81 universal mania. Bishops abandoned
their dioceses, princes their dominions,
to visit the tomb of Christ. At the
time Of its highest tide the flood of pill
grim5 was suddenly stopped by the Sell
jLkian Turks, who conquered Pales-
tine about 1876. AS a maniac, when
thwarted in his purpose, becomes raw
ing and violent so did Europe become
when the floodgates of the pilgrim
torrent were stopped, and only drops
We're let to trickle through. European
humanity fell into fit of acute mania,
which expressed itself in the savage
ecstasy of the first crusade.-"A Study
Of Mental Epidemics," by Boris Sids,
in the Ccutury