Psychical Miscellanea: Being Papers on Psychical Research, Telepathy, Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc.Hill, J. Arthur (John Arthur)
Religion
Psychical Miscellanea: Being Papers on Psychical Research, Telepathy, Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc.
Hill, J. Arthur (John Arthur)
Parapsychology
However, as a matter of practical fact, the "mechanic" has his
limitations, like the normal consciousness. He is not omnipotent.
Consequently we cannot be sure of being able to stimulate him to the
extent of a cure. It depends on his knowledge and power. But he can
always do something, if we can get at him. The chief difficulty is that
in many people he is inaccessible.
For instance, I have many times submitted myself to the treatment of
Dr Tuckey and another medical friend, without effect. I have each time
tried my best to help, making my mind as passive as I could; for I was
sure that if a suggestible stage could be reached, some troublesome
heart symptoms and insomnia could be alleviated. But I was never
able to reach a state even approaching hypnosis. I suppose my normal
consciousness could not put itself sufficiently to sleep. Being
interested in the scientific aspect of the subject, my consciousness
watched the process and analysed its own sensations, instead of
"letting go" and subsiding out of the way.
As to the proportion of susceptible persons, observers differ.
Wetterstrand and Vogt hold that all sane and healthy people are
hypnotisable, and Dr Bramwell's results among strong farm labourers at
Goole support that view. Patients with nervous ailments are difficult
to hypnotise; out of one hundred such cases in his London practice, Dr
Bramwell only influenced eighty. This is the percentage of susceptibles
found by Drs Tuckey and Bernheim also.
The insane are usually unhypnotisable, probably because of their
inability to concentrate their attention. Out of the 80 per cent. of
sane susceptibles, only a small proportion go off into hypnotic sleep;
ten according to Tuckey, rather more according to the experience of
Bramwell, Forel, and Vogt. Most of the susceptible, however, though
retaining consciousness, may be deprived of muscular control. For
example, if told that they cannot open their eyes, they find that
it is so.
The various "stages" of hypnosis shade gradually into each other, and
classifications are not much good. Charcot's three stages of lethargy,
catalepsy, and somnambulism are now discredited as true stages. In good
subjects they are producible at will, and as observed at the Salpêtrière
they were almost certainly due to training.
I have no space for the quoting of detailed medical cases, but it is
desirable to emphasise the practical facts and to make the subject
as concrete as possible to the reader, so I will quote just one, as
illustration, from Dr Bramwell's contribution to _Proceedings of the
Society for Psychical Research_, vol. xiv, page 99.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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