Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism: How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and UseAlpheus, A.
History
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
After this, however, the operator caused the doctor to do a number of
things which he learned of from his friends after the performance was
over. “It seemed to me that the hypnotist commanded me to awake as soon
as I dropped my arm,” and yet ten minutes of unconsciousness had
passed.
On a subsequent occasion Dr. Cocke, who was blind, was put into a deep
hypnotic sleep by fixing his mind on the number 26 and holding up his
hand. This time he experienced a still greater degree of terror, and
incidentally learned that he could hypnotize himself. The matter of
self-hypnotism we shall consider in another chapter.
In this connection we find great interest in an article in the Medical
News, July 28, 1894, by Dr. Alfred Warthin, of Ann Arbor, Mich., in
which he describes the effects of music upon hypnotic subjects. While
in Vienna he took occasion to observe closely the enthusiastic musical
devotees as they sat in the audience at the performance of one of
Wagner’s operas. He believed they were in a condition of self-induced
hypnotism, in which their subjective faculties were so exalted as to
supersede their objective perceptions. Music was no longer to them a
succession of pleasing sounds, but the embodiment of a drama in which
they became so wrapped up that they forgot all about the mechanical and
external features of the music and lived completely in a fairy world of
dream.
This observation suggested to him an interesting series of experiments.
His first subject was easily hypnotized, and of an emotional nature.
Wagner’s “Ride of Walkure” was played from the piano score. The pulse
of the subject became more rapid and at first of higher tension,
increasing from a normal rate of 60 beats a minute to 120. Then, as the
music progressed, the tension diminished. The respiration increased
from 18 to 30 per minute. Great excitement in the subject was evident.
His whole body was thrown into motion, his legs were drawn up, his arms
tossed into the air, and a profuse sweat appeared. When the subject had
been awakened, he said that he did not remember the music as music, but
had an impression of intense, excitement, brought on by “riding
furiously through the air.” The state of mind brought up before him in
the most realistic and vivid manner possible the picture of the ride of
Tam O’Shanter, which he had seen years before. The picture soon became
real to him, and he found himself taking part in a wild chase, not as
witch, devil, or Tam even; but in some way his consciousness was spread
through every part of the scene, being of it, and yet playing the part
of spectator, as is often the case in dreams.
Dr. Warthin tried the same experiment again, this time on a young man
who was not so emotional, and was hypnotized with much more difficulty.
This subject did not pass into such a deep state of hypnotism, but the
result was practically the same. The pulse rate rose from 70 to 120.
The sensation remembered was that of riding furiously through the air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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