"On the 23rd M. Janet lunched in our company and retired to his
own house at 4.30 (a time chosen by lot), to try to put her to
sleep from thence. At 5.5 we all entered the _salon_ of the
Pavilion, and found her asleep with shut eyes, but sewing
vigorously (being in that stage in which movements once
suggested are automatically continued). Passing into the
talkative stage, she said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez
fait dormir à quatre heures et demi.' The impression as to the
hour may have been a suggestion received from M. Janet's mind.
We tried to make her believe that it was M. Gibert who had
sent her to sleep, but she maintained that she had felt that it
was M. Janet.
"On 24th April the whole party chanced to meet at M. Janet's
house at three P.M., and he then, at my suggestion, entered his
study to will that Madame B. should sleep. We waited in his
garden, and at 3.20 proceeded together to the Pavilion, which I
entered first at 3.30, and found Madame B. profoundly sleeping
over her sewing, having ceased to sew. Becoming talkative, she
said to M. Janet: 'C'est vous qui m'avez commandé.' She said
that she fell asleep at 3.5 P.M."
Of the twenty-five trials made in the course of two months, eighteen
were wholly and four partially successful.
This somnolent state might, it is thought, have been induced by
telepathy; in fact, as we shall see, telepathy will in some quarters
have to bear the burden of most, if not all, of the phenomena under
investigation.
Not only is the hypnotic subject frequently induced to do the will of
the operator, but he may actually have presented to his intelligence
certain ideas or images, material or imaginary, known only to the
hypnotiser. After following carefully all the experiments conducted by
the late Professor Sidgwick and others, in the presence of witnesses of
repute, I do not see how it is possible to deny the fact of telepathy.
In these experiments the subject or percipient was always hypnotised,
remaining so to a varying degree throughout the experiment.
Albeit, even as regards this thought-transference, we must be on our
guard against a too rash acceptance of unknown or supernormal agencies
in every bona-fide experiment. Certainly all experiments of the
hypnotiser do not _ipso facto_ prove that any new method of apprehension
has been employed. The hypnotised subject is extremely susceptible to
suggestions, and might even glean an indication of what is proceeding
through the look, the gestures, the very breathing, of those present.
The utmost precautions, therefore, were taken by the Society for
Psychical Research when it began its experimental inquiries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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