Self Hypnotization

How It may Be Done.--An Experience.--Accountable for

Children's Crusade.--Oriental Prophets Self-Hypnotized.



If self-hypnotism is possible (and it is true that a person can

deliberately hypnotize himself when he wishes to till he has become

accustomed to it and is expert in it, so to speak), it does away at a

stroke with the claims of all professional hypnotists and magnetic

healers that they have any pec liar power in themselves which they exert

over their fellows. One of these professionals gives an account in his

book of what he calls The Wonderful Lock Method. He says that though

he is locked up in a separate room he can make the psychic power work

through the walls. All that he does is to put his subjects in the way of

hypnotizing themselves. He shows his inconsistency when he states that

under certain circumstances the hypnotizer is in danger of becoming

hypnotized himself. In this he makes no claim that the subject is using

any psychic power; but, of course, if the hypnotizer looks steadily into

the eyes of his subject, and the subject looks into his eyes, the steady

gaze on a bright object will produce hypnotism in one quite as readily

as in the other.



Hypnotism is an established scientific fact; but the claim that the

hypnotizer has any mysterious psychic power is the invariable mark of

the charlatan. Probably no scientific phenomenon was ever so grossly

prostituted to base ends as that of hypnotism. Later we shall see some

of the outrageous forms this charlatanism assumes, and how it extends to

the professional subjects as well as to the professional operators, till

those subjects even impose upon scientific men who ought to be proof

against such deception. Moreover, the possibility of self-hypnotization,

carefully concealed and called by another name, opens another great

field of humbug and charlatanism, of which the advertising columns of

the newspapers are constantly filled--namely, that of the clairvoyant and

medium. We may conceive how such a profession might become perfectly

legitimate and highly useful; but at present it seems as if any person

who went into it, however honest he might be at the start, soon began to

deceive himself as well as others, until he lost his power entirely to

distinguish between fact and imagination.



Before discussing the matter further, let us quote Dr. Cocke's

experiment in hypnotizing himself. It will be remembered that a

professional hypnotizer or magnetizer had hypnotized him by telling him

to fix his mind on the number twenty-six and holding up his hand. Says

the doctor:



In my room that evening it occurred to me to try the same experiment. I

did so. I kept the number twenty-six in my mind. In a few minutes I felt

the sensation of terror, but in a different way. I was intensely cold.

My heart seemed to stand still. I had ringing in my ears. My hair seemed

to rise upon my scalp. I persisted in the effort, and the previously

mentioned noise in my ears grew louder and louder. The roar became

deafening. It crackled like a mighty fire. I was fearfully conscious of

myself. Having read vivid accounts of dreams, visions, etc., it occurred

to me that I would experience them. I felt in a vague way that there

were beings all about me but could not hear their voices. I felt as

though every muscle in my body was fixed and rigid. The roar in my ears

grew louder still, and I heard, above the roar, reports which sounded

like artillery and musketry. Then above the din of the noise a musical

chord. I seemed to be absorbed in this chord. I knew nothing else. The

world existed for me only in the tones of the mighty chord. Then I had a

sensation as though I were expanding. The sound in my ears died away,

and yet I was not conscious of silence. Then all consciousness was lost.

The next thing I experienced was a sensation of intense cold, and of

someone roughly shaking me. Then I heard the voice of my jolly landlord

calling me by name.



The landlord had found the doctor as white as a ghost and as limp as a

rag, and thought he was dead. He says it took him ten minutes to arouse

the sleeper. During the time a physician had been summoned.



As to the causes of this condition as produced Dr. Cocke says: I firmly

believed that something would happen when the attempt was made to

hypnotize me. Secondly, I wished to be hypnotized. These, together with

a vivid imagination and strained attention, brought on the states which

occurred.



It is interesting to compare the effects of hypnotization with those of

opium or other narcotic. Dr. Cocke asserts that there is a difference.

His descriptions of dreams bear a wonderful likeness to De Quincey's

dreams, such as those described in The English Mail-Coach, De

Profundis, and The Confessions of an English Opium Eater, all of

which were presumably due to opium.



The causes which Dr. Cocke thinks produced the hypnotic condition in his

case, namely, belief, desire to be hypnotized, and strained attention,

united with a vivid imagination, are causes which are often found in

conjunction and produce effects which we may reasonably explain on the

theory of self-hypnotization.



For instance, the effects of an exciting religious revival are very like

those produced by Mesmer's operations in Paris. The subjects become

hysterical, and are ready to believe anything or do anything. By

prolonging the operation, a whole community becomes more or less

hypnotized. In all such cases, however, unusual excitement is commonly

followed by unusual lethargy. It is much like a wild spree of

intoxication--in fact, it is a sort of intoxication.



The same phenomena are probably accountable for many of the strange

records of history. The wonderful cures at Lourdes (of which we have

read in Zola's novel of that name) are no doubt the effect of

hypnotization by the priests. Some of the strange movements of whole

communities during the Crusades are to be explained either on the theory

of hypnotization or of contagion, and possibly these two things will

turn out to be much the same in fact. On no other ground can we explain

the so-called Children's Crusade, in which over thirty thousand

children from Germany, from all classes of the community, tried to cross

the Alps in winter, and in their struggles were all lost or sold into

slavery without even reaching the Holy Land.



Again, hypnotism is accountable for many of the poet's dreams. Gazing

steadily at a bed of bright coals or a stream of running water will

invariably throw a sensitive subject into a hypnotic sleep that will

last sometimes for several hours. Dr. Cocke says that he has

experimented in this direction with patients of his. Says he: They have

the ability to resist the state or to bring it at will. Many of them

describe beautiful scenes from nature, or some mighty cathedral with its

lofty dome, or the faces of imaginary beings, beautiful or demoniacal,

according to the will and temper of the subject.



Perhaps the most wonderful example of self-hypnotism which we have in

history is that of the mystic Swedenborg, who saw, such strange things

in his visions, and at last came to believe in them as real.



The same explanation may be given of the manifestations of Oriental

prophets--for in the Orient hypnotism is much easier and more

systematically developed than with us of the West. The performances of

the dervishes, and also of the fakirs, who wound themselves and perform

many wonderful feats which would be difficult for an ordinary person,

are no doubt in part feats of hypnotism.



While in a condition of auto-hypnotization a person may imagine that he

is some other personality. Says Dr. Cocke: A curious thing about those

self-hypnotized subjects is that they carry out perfectly their own

ideals of the personality with whom they believe themselves to be

possessed. If their own ideals of the part they are playing are

imperfect, their impersonations are ridiculous in the extreme. One man I

remember believed himself to be controlled by the spirit of Charles

Sumner. Being uneducated, he used the most wretched English, and his

language was utterly devoid of sense. While, on the other hand, a very

intelligent lady who believed herself to be controlled by the spirit of

Charlotte Cushman personated the part very well.



Dr. Cooke says of himself: I can hypnotize myself to such an extent

that I will become wholly unconscious of events taking place around me,

and a long interval of time, say from one-half to two hours, will be a

complete blank. During this condition of auto-hypnotization I will obey

suggestions made to me by another, talking rationally, and not knowing

any event that has occurred after the condition has passed off.