in the centre of the forehead, to have 'a certain perception of
learning'; and so on." And again "I placed a cork endways over the
organ of veneration and bound it in that position by a bandage
passing under the chin. I now hypnotized the patient, and ... after
a minute and a half an altered expression of countenance took place,
and a movement of the arms and hands, which latter became clasped
as in adoration, and the patient now arose from the seat and knelt
down as if engaged in prayer. On moving the cork forward, active
benevolence was manifested, and, on being pushed back, veneration
again manifested itself." We are then assured that the subjects knew
nothing of phrenology, were perfectly honest, and that no indications
were given of the expected results. Braid frankly records his belief
in the possibility of calling out phrenological activities by
pressure on definite points of the cranium; and the only loophole
of explanation which he left open was the one to which he later
resorted, claiming that the manifestations may be due to "a system
of training during the sleep, so that they may come out subsequently
as acts of memory, when corresponding points are touched, with which
particular ideas have been associated through audible suggestion."
In brief, in this explanation, given in 1854, Braid demonstrated the
admitted possibility of arousing emotions in hypnotic subjects by
inducing the expressions with which those emotions were associated.
But in 1843 he wrote, "If I am to believe the evidence of my senses,
therefore, in anything, I cannot see how I can doubt the relation
which consists between certain points of the cranium and the mental
manifestations which are excited by acting on them during hypnotism.
I believe there are few physiological phenomena which can be more
clearly demonstrated, especially at such an early stage of their
investigation."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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