Kansas City daily journal., 1896-12-09
The new MESMERISM,
HYPNOTIC FRANCES INDUCED BY
MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCEs.
Horseshoe Magnets and whirlinE Cir
cuIar Mirrors Put One to Sleep
In Short Order-Cur-
ious Effects.
From the New York Herald

| 10 Ihd our eyes suddenly tranStlXed by a
little demon of clockwork machine in
the window of an enterprising merchant.
| II instantly divests US of all rational men
| tai control and holds US spellbound, with
| strange fascination, to 90 the bidding of
suggestions, good or evil, from any chance
| passerby.
| Or, still worse, we may fall prey to the
uncanny Vaccinations of the ambitious
storekeeper, who has carefully surrounded
| his machine with such suggestive signs
| as You must come in and purchase our
| great bargains" or BE sure and leave
your money here" and the normally penu-
| rious victim, with hypnotic prodisaIitv
| meekly parts with his hard earned wealth
| through the aid of this nineteenth century
| science and machine made mesmeric
| sleep.
All facetiousness aside, Dr. Arthur Mac
| Donald, of the bureau of education gov
| ernment specialist in education, as related
| to abnormalities, has a machine in his
possession which will throw persons at all
susceptible to mesmeric influences into the
| first stage of hypnotic somnambulsm 1t
| is an innocent enough looking machine TO
| those uninitiated to its dread power or
to those who have never felt the mys-
terious, subtle, all-peryading force of hyp-
MOTTO impressions.
DR.. Macdonald calls this machine the
mirror hypnotizer." Two slender, black
ebony bars, ten inches long, three-eighths of
an inch thick, by one and one-quarter
inches in width, are inlaid on the oppo-
sites broad sides with seven circular mir
rors to each face, about an inch in dame
ter. These bars are superimposed upon
rotating, vertical axes, propelled by a
powerful spring through a clockwork train
OF wheels
In motion, the mosaic mirror bars re-
volye in opposite directions, not at a very
high rate of speed-perhaps as many as
twenty to thirty revolutions a second.
With each whirl of the blades there are
thrown into the eye of the spectator four
binding flashes of light, which seem to
race in and out, now from the ends OF the
blades to the center, and from the center
out again, in a most bewildering confu-
sion
a curious and startling opfseal illusion
takes place II the blades are persistently
gazed at. At first the two spacial reIa-
tions or the opposite circumferential re-
volving of the blades are readily recos-
nized, but in short time this gives way
to the sensation that the machine is moy-
ing bodily toward you, with ever increas-
ing Velocity-like broad, bright meteor
in summer sky.
To test the machine properly, with a
view to producing hypnotic sleep. DR.. Mac
Donald assured me that it is necessary to
sleep being produced by the machine, and
to constantly repeat the suggestion until
sleep is produced for the first time. The
machine itself really produces a profound
physiologic disturbance and when viewed
at point somewhat above the eye, the
scintifating, binding flashes from the mir
rors become frightfully painful, and the
head swims and reels, and to all comes an
irresistible desire to close the eyes in
peaceful slumber The new subject will in
Wit g'rly lie fTSNyY
painful glare. unless repeated suggestion
that the machine Is making him go to sleep
Is continued.
After the first successful effort to put
subject into hypnotic sleep through the
aid of the mirror hypnotizer, each succeed
ing attempt becomes much easier, and the
individual soon is an autohypnotic subject.
throwing himself with ease into profound
somnambulism or a cataleptic condition by
mere self-suggestion, as he views the ma
chine.
Illustrating the effects OF this device
upon apparently normal people, DR.. Mac
Donald related that, after a lecture deliv-
cred at the conference of charity and COR
rection, at New Haven. Conn, where he
had the machine revolving in front of the
audience, many ladies and some men as
sured him that they dared not look at the
machine more than few moments at a
time for fear they should pass into 4 hyp-
motto coma.
er application than any other known de-
vice in being able to produce simultaneous
ly upon a large number of subjects the
necessary tncpient physiologic effects
which must precede the hypnotic condition.
BY its aid such masters of the mesmeric
science as Charcot, Forel and Liegois could
control entire classes in their more ex-
haustive and comparative studies, and gain
deep and valuable insight into what must
ever seem to the layman a mysterious and
occult art.
There are number of other machines
which are intended to be used as hypno-
Tiers. and in DR.. MacDonald's extremely
interesting laboratory were seen three 9TH
er devices which are warranted. with the
proper surroundings and the needed men,
tai suggestions, to create an entire absence
of personal responsibility.
The instrlmnet of next Importance is
rather simple affair A leather covered
front plate, which fits the curve of the
forehead, has two straps, which project
from its ends, encircltng the head and
fastening at the rear with buckle. From |
the center of the front OF this plate ex-
tends outward a small rod of lead compo- |
stion, some six inches in length. Upon the |
end OF this rod. which may be bent easily |
in any direction and retain its position. |
is soldered a bright nickel-plated ball half |
an inch in diameter.
The experimenter fastens the band |
around the head OF the subject. taking |
tient shall not see the ball too distinctly |
suggesting at the same time that only a /
few moments will elapse, after the arrange |
ments are complete. before he will pass |
into a complete condition OF hypnosis The |
ball Is raised to n point so far above the |
eye that it is only by the greatest strain
ing of the upward lifting muscles of the |
eye and eyelid that the subject can see it |
at all.
He is then commanded to concentrate
all his power of sight upon the sparkling
spot Of light reflected from the tiny
sphere. Repeated suggestion that his eye
lids are becoming heavy. so heavy that
soon he will not be able to keep them open,
accompanied by the actual tiring to ex-
cess of the obIcuaris. or eyelid muscle,
completes the mental hallucination and the
victim helplessly sinks into a deep slum-
ber.
In many Instances this slumber in no way
differs from the healthful deep sleep pro
duced by normal causes. and no i'll effects
are to be apprehended In fact. the same
beneficial recuperation results from simple
hypnotic slumbers as accompanies the SOM
nolence engendered by fatigue
But again, hypnotic sleep in many inii-
viduals is marked by a Representatives,
of certain brain areas which make them |
highly mobile through objective suggestion
and influences in so pronounced a degree !
that subject may be commanded by the