A necessary complement to the suggestive devices of a wizard is the suggestibility of his clients. There is such a thing as an assenting or a dissenting disposition—suggestibility or contrasuggestibility; but the latter is, like the former, a tendency to react without reflection, and may be as well controlled by appropriate suggestions. The power of any given suggestion to control the course of a man’s thought and action depends upon the resistance (apart from contra-suggestibility) which it meets with in his mind; and this depends upon the extent, quality and integration of his apperceptive masses, and upon the facility with which they come into action. Upon the perceptual plane a savage’s mind is well organised, and accordingly his suggestibility is low; but upon the ideational plane it is in most cases ill organised, poor in analysis, classification, generalisation, poor in knowledge, abounding in imagination-beliefs about Magic and Animism; so that, except in natural sceptics (who, as we shall see, exist among savages), the suggestions of the wizard meet with little resistance from common sense and with ready acceptance by magical and animistic prejudice. But even with a man of common sense, a suggestion, however absurd, may for a time prevail, if his mental reaction is slow; although, with time for reflection, he will certainly reject it. The art of the wizard consists in getting such hold of his client’s attention that, as in hypnosis, the power of reflective comparison is suspended and criticism abolished. There are many masters of this art. The client’s state of mind is very common in the effects of oratory, the theatre, ghost-stories and generally in the propagation of opinion, suspicion and prejudice. § 4. THE WIZARD AND THE SCEPTIC Inasmuch as the wizard’s boasting, conjuring, ventriloquising, dramatising and practising of all the arts of suggestion, seem incompatible with sincerity, whilst nevertheless he is devoted to his calling, some observers have declared him a calculating impostor, whilst others maintain that he, in various degrees, believes in himself and shares the delusions which he propagates. Examples may be found in support of either position.