In contrast to the dominant belief in the miraculous endowment of "somnambulic" subjects, there were a few who presented the subjective nature of the phenomena. The career of Faria, a priest of Portuguese extraction, who resided long in India, is regarded by some as occupying an important place in the history of hypnotism. The Abbé Faria came to Paris in 1814 and gave public exhibitions, in which he produced many of the typical hypnotic phenomena, and explained them as dependent not at all on his own powers, but entirely upon the susceptibility and the faith of his subjects. He rejected alike any belief in a personal influence or in a magnetic or other fluid. He simply asked his subjects to think determinedly of sleep, or to look at the back of his hand; and then in an authoritative voice he would call out "_dormez_," emphasizing the command by pressing his hand on the subject's forehead. By such simple means he put to sleep three or four of every five subjects, and that within a minute or two. He demonstrated the production of forced movements, the deprivation of control of simple movements, the false perceptions of sense, etc., all as products of suggestion, and indeed anticipated many of the typical phenomena of modern hypnotism. Faria's career was prematurely curtailed by an unfortunate incident; an actor succeeded in feigning sleep in one of his performances, and forthwith branded him as an impostor. If we may credit certain accounts, his position practically anticipated that of Braid; but, according to others, while impressed with the value of verbal suggestion, he was not free from the prevailing mysteries and dogmas of somnambulism. In 1819 Bertrand delivered a course of public lectures on animal magnetism, notable for their appreciation of the rôle of suggestion in their production. For example, he sent a magnetized letter to his patient which, when applied to the body, produced the desired symptoms; but a second letter, not magnetized, but supposed to be so, and a third letter, written by a friend in imitation of Bertrand's handwriting, were equally efficacious. These are, however, some of the exceptional exponents of the doctrines, which in the main were concerned with the miraculous element of somnambulism introduced by Puységur and his followers.