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.