The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-08-04
HYPNOTIC WAR
 ON DRINK EVIL
DIR. QUACIkENDOs CONTENDS THE
 PATIENT ISN'T. HARMUD.

DIR. QUACKENDOs CONTENDS THE PATIENT ISN'T HARMED. Fly His Treatment, Which Isn't Mesmer- ism. the sublininal Self h Awak- ened and the Subject is In- spired te sAake or the Mania Which Has Be- nnmbea Him.
 New York Sun.
 A correspondent of The Sun, com menting on the plan of using hypno- tism to reclaim drunkards at the Bow cry Mission. wrote the other day that he was convinced that hypnotism not only produces insanity and physical death bot interrupts the development of the individual soul and causes evils worse than drunkenness. He said he would rather see a friend of his in the ting a single time to hypnotic con- trol
 The strongest exceptions were taken to the views of this correspondent by Dr. John D. Quackenbos. the practi- tioner of psychic suggestion. who said that the enemy of the hypnotic drink cure didn't have a leg to stand on un- less he was confusing hypnotism with mesmerism. If he referred to the pub
 
 their subjects were made to perform all sorts of ludicrous stunts. and really allowed themselves to be dominated for a purpose that would not benefit them. then Dr. Quackenbos said he agreed with the correspondent. Such subjects do become practically insane. he said
 "The treatment of a patient for the drink habit by hypnotic suggestion Is ell hA quickly seen that there can be no harmful effects for the patient" said Dr. Quackenbos. Furthermore, 1t is generally successful. Out of 700 cases that I have treated only eighty have gone back to drink, and then generally for the sake of sociability.
 Man in his higher personality is ad- eauate to the removal from his objec- tive nature of any abnormal craving or passion like the craze for alcoholic drink. And he will always act in re- sponse to the suggestional force which awakens his better self and subordi- mates the lower tendencies of the car nal nature. By means of the enlfght- ened employment of hypno-suggestion the subliminal self may be brought in- to active control.
 The technic I adopt involves the ar rest of the visual attention by some brilliant object, the concurrent estab- lishment of the patients confidence in my desire and ability to help him; and monotonous sleeping suggestions, as an accompaniment of impression by my personality (the several steps being re- faxed eye muscles, vacant stare, blank objective mind. reverie. sleep). Dip somaniacs as a rule are easy subjects, in that they yield readily to hypnotic influence, and accept unconditionally the suggestions communicated by the operator.
 Regular drinkers may be dealt with whenever thev are sober. I have found 1t improbable to attempt influencing an intoxicated person. Periodic drink CTS should be treated just before the close of the season of sobrtety Regu- larly recurring debauches have periods of varying length. the longest in my experience being three years; and I have satisfied myself that in many in- stances a relationship exists between the abuse of tobacco and the oncoming of the irresistible thirst, the depressing effects of nicotine instfnctively sus- gesting recourse to the antidote.
 Such a person frequently realizes his danger and sincerely wishes to be cured He is tactfully conducted into subliminal sphere, and then assured that, in accordance with his own de- sire and decree, he has lost all craving for beer, wine and whiskey; that alco- hol in any form will disgust him. and, as a safeguard, that he cannot swallow 1t, cannot carry the containing glass to his lips. The sleeper is then forced to the conviction that begot of this ap-' prehension has come into his soul an abhorrence for drink and all 1t stands for. He realizes that he is able to en- force total abstinence as the rule Of his life, and he is rendered insenslble. for the future, to any such combination of passion and allurement as has usual ly constituted temptation.
 Tt will thus be seen that hypnotic suggestion is of the nature of an in spiration. It Is summoning into con- trol the true man. It Is a sudden over shadowing and starving out of charac- ter defects and mental weaknesses by a tropical growth of ethical energy which seeks immediate outlet in the activities of a moral life. The patient then expresses his best self from plane above that of the wiil-the plane of apprehension and spontaneous con- trol along lines Of thought and action that are worthy and wholesome Thus is effected a perfect agreement between the law of right and the intelligent creature with which neither the will or the operator nor the will of the subject has anything to do. The popular idea that supposeS aubjectlon to the Will or another is a mistake.
 "The success of this treatment, Of course, requires an honest desire of the subject to reform. Habitual drinkers do not as a rule, wish to be cured. They enjoy indulgence in alcoholic bev- erages and the false pleasures that at- tend 1t, and about 90 per cent of them, women as we'll as men, resent the ap- breaches of all who desire to save them. Innmoderate drinkers may, in sober intervals, be made to realize that they are not only physically depraved but intellectually degenerated as to the faculties of memory, attention, concen- tration. judgment, and that they are deficient in business tact and in the general address essential to success. Once apprised of their enervated men tai condition they honest desire to cor rect the habit, but cannot of them