But, at the same time, this same loosening of physical bonds renders the mind correspondingly denuded to aggressions from without. We have seen how strangely the entranced mind becomes sympathetically subject to the will, and the subject of the sensations of the person with whom it has been brought into mesmeric relation. But now a new feature, or one feebly manifested as yet in trance, but parallel to the influence of sympathy, displays itself. The person in trance-umbra is an absolute slave to the spoken, or even to the unexpressed “mental suggestions” of the operator. Sense, memory, judgment, give way at his word. The patient believes whatever he is told to believe,—that an apple is an orange,—that he himself is the Duke of Wellington,—that the operator standing before him is invisible to him,—and makes fruitless efforts to execute any voluntary movement the moment he is told he cannot. I will quote a passage, in illustration of the above, again from Mr. F.’s letter:—“After a quarter of an hour Mr. Stone came to us, and looked in our eyes for a few seconds, and desired us to close them. He then placed his thumb lightly on my forehead, and said, peremptorily, ‘You cannot open your eyes.’ I had great difficulty in doing so, but at last succeeded, with a violent struggle. After Mr. Stone had repeated the order or suggestion once or twice more, I was quite unable to open my eyes. Five out of the number, (about a dozen,) who sat down were affected, all more than myself. On a succeeding evening, however, Mr. Stone was able to proceed so far as to make me forget my name and address, by the simple assertion, ‘You cannot remember your name,’ &c., though he had before this just asked for them, and the answer was scarcely out of my mouth when he made me forget it. I think I never exerted my will more strongly than in trying to open my eyelids when they had been thus closed; but it appeared simply impossible to do this till the operator’s magic ‘All right,’ immediately set them free. On several, who were highly susceptible, Mr. Stone proceeded with other experiments. A stick was said to be a rattlesnake, and believed to be so. The room became a garden at his command, with wild beasts in it. One was set a-fishing and snow-balling; another taken up in a balloon. A still more curious instance was when the subject was told that he was in the dark, and a candle was passed before his eyes, almost close enough to singe the eyebrows, without producing any visual impression on the eye, though the party operated on said he felt the warmth of it.”