Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Offspring Through Wiser GenerationHolbrook, M. L. (Martin Luther)
Philosophy
Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Offspring Through Wiser Generation
Holbrook, M. L. (Martin Luther)
Eugenics; Heredity
From these few cases, and many not quoted, it appears evident that we
have in hypnotism, or suggestion, an agent which, when fully understood,
will be of great usefulness to parents in the early training of
children. That it should be used wisely no one will deny.
The question will naturally arise, How is it that a suggestion to a
child while passive or in the hypnotic sleep is more effective than when
awake. The answer is not so easy to give; but it is possible that in
this state the subliminal self, the higher self, or, perhaps, the
spiritual nature is appealed to; and as the active, every-day nature,
the conscious self, is now dormant, it receives this appeal more
seriously. Perhaps a quotation from Prof. Frederic W. H. Myer, who has
given the subject profound attention, will help to make the subject
clearer. He says: "In waking consciousness I am like the proprietor of a
factory whose machinery I do not understand. My foreman, my subliminal
self, weaves for me so many yards of broadcloth per diem (my ordinary
vital processes), as a matter of course. If I want any pattern more
complex, I have to shout my orders in the din of the factory, where only
two or three inferior workmen hear me, and they shift their looms in a
small and scattered way. Such are the confined and capricious results of
the first, the more familiar stages of hypnotic suggestion.
"At certain intervals, indeed, the foreman stops most of the looms, and
uses the freed power to stoke the engine and oil the machinery. This, in
my metaphor, is sleep; and it will be effective hypnotic trance if I can
get the foreman to stop still more of the looms, come out of his private
room, and attend to my orders--my-self suggestions--for their repair and
re-arrangment."
To make this a little plainer. The subliminal self, the foreman, is the
one who manages the machinery of the nervous system, and turns out this
or that sort of conduct or behavior in the child, or the man or woman,
as he is told to turn out by the conscious self. But in the hypnotic
trance this subliminal self can take orders, or suggestions, for other
kinds of conduct or behavior; alter the action of the brain, so as to
make another sort of creature; for he is not so occupied then but that
he can receive these orders. As in the kaleidescope, the pictures
presented depend entirely on the arrangement of the pieces of glass. So
in daily conduct, character depends on the combination and activity of
the brain cells. By suggestion in the hypnotic state we are able, to
some extent at least, to alter this combination so that new conduct is
presented.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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