Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism: How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and UseAlpheus, A.
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Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism: How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and Use
Alpheus, A.
Hypnotism; Mesmerism; Spiritualism; Telepathy
It is better that the person who induces hypnotic sleep should awaken
the subject. Others cannot do it so easily, though as we have said,
subjects usually awaken themselves after a short time.
Further description of the method of producing hypnotism need not be
given; but it is proper to add that in addition to the fact that not
more than one person out of three can be hypnotized at all, even by an
experienced operator, to effect hypnotization except in a few cases
requires a great deal of patience, both on the part of the operator and
of the subject. It may require half a dozen or more trials before any
effect at all can be produced, although in some cases the effect will
come within a minute or two. After a person has been once hypnotized,
hypnotization is much easier. The most startling results are to be
obtained only after a long process of training on the part of the
subject. Public hypnotic entertainments, and even those given at the
hospitals in Paris, would be quite impossible if trained subjects were
not at hand; and in the case of the public hypnotizer, the proper
subjects are hired and placed in the audience for the express purpose
of coming forward when called for. The success of such an entertainment
could not otherwise be guaranteed. In many cases, also, this training
of subjects makes them deceivers. They learn to imitate what they see,
and since their living depends upon it, they must prove hypnotic
subjects who can always be depended upon to do just what is wanted. We
may add, however, that what they do is no more than an imitation of the
real thing. There is no grotesque manifestation on the stage, even if
it is a pure fake, which could not be matched by more startling facts
taken from undoubted scientific experience.
CHAPTER II.
AMUSING EXPERIMENTS.
Hypnotizing on the Stage—“You Can’t Pull Your Hands Apart”—Post
Hypnotic Suggestion—The News boy, the Hunter, and the Young Man with
the Rag Doll—A Whip Becomes Hot Iron—Courting a Broomstick—The Side
Show.
Let us now describe some of the manifestations of hypnotism, to see
just how it operates and how it exhibits itself. The following is a
description of a public performance given by Dr. Herbert L. Flint, a
very successful public operator. It is in the language of an
eye-witness—a New York lawyer.
In response to a call for volunteers, twenty young and middle-aged men
came upon the stage. They evidently belonged to the great middle-class.
The entertainment commenced by Dr. Flint passing around the group, who
were seated on the stage in a semicircle facing the audience, and
stroking each one’s head and forehead, repeating the phrases, “Close
your eyes. Think of nothing but sleep. You are very tired. You are
drowsy. You feel very sleepy.” As he did this, several of the
volunteers closed their eyes at once, and one fell asleep immediately.
One or two remained awake, and these did not give themselves up to the
influence, but rather resisted it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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