Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spritualism

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Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading?by A. Alpheus

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Title: Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spritualism How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and Use
Author: A. Alpheus

Release Date: September 20, 2006 [eBook #19342]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE HYPNOTISM, MESMERISM, MIND-READING AND SPRITUALISM***
E-text prepared by Jerry Kuntz as part of the Lawson's Progress Project

COMPLETE HYPNOTISM: MESMERISM, MIND-READING AND SPIRITUALISM
How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and Use
by
A. ALPHEUS
1903

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION--History of hypnotism--Mesmer--Puysegur--Braid--What is hypnotism?--Theories of hypnotism: 1. Animal magnetism; 2. The Neurosis Theory; 3. Suggestion Theory
CHAPTER I
--How to Hypnotize--Dr. Cocke's method-Dr. Flint's method--The French method at Paris--At Nancy--The Hindoo silent method--How to wake a subject from hypnotic sleep--Frauds of public hypnotic entertainments.
CHAPTER II
--Amusing experiments--Hypnotizing on the stage--"You can't pull your hands apart!"--Post-hypnotic suggestion--The newsboy, the hunter, and the young man with the rag doll--A whip becomes hot iron--Courting a broom stick--The side-show
CHAPTER III
--The stages of hypnotism--Lethargy-Catalepsy--The somnambulistic stage--Fascination
CHAPTER IV
--How the subject feels under hypnotization--Dr. Cocke's experience--Effect of music--Dr. Alfred Warthin's experiments
CHAPTER V
--Self hypnotization--How it may be done--An experience--Accountable for children's crusade--Oriental prophets self-hypnotized
CHAPTER VI
--Simulation--Deception in hypnotism very common--Examples of Neuropathic deceit--Detecting simulation--Professional subjects--How Dr. Luys of the Charity Hospital at Paris was deceived--Impossibility of detecting deception in all cases--Confessions of a professional hypnotic subject
CHAPTER VII
--Criminal suggestion--Laboratory crimes--Dr. Cocke's experiments showing criminal suggestion is not possible--Dr. William James' theory--A bad man cannot be made good, why expect to make a good man bad?
CHAPTER VIII
--Dangers in being hypnotized Condemnation of public performances--A commonsense view--Evidence furnished by Lafontaine; by Dr. Courmelles; by Dr. Hart; by Dr. Cocke--No danger in hypnotism if rightly used by physicians or scientists
CHAPTER IX
--Hypnotism in medicine--Anesthesia--Restoring the use of muscles--Hallucination--Bad habits
CHAPTER X
--Hypnotism of animals--Snake charming
CHAPTER XI
--A scientific explanation of hypnotism--Dr. Hart's theory
CHAPTER XII
--Telepathy and Clairvoyance--Peculiar power in hypnotic state--Experiments--"Phantasms of the living" explained by telepathy
CHAPTER XIII
--The Confessions of a Medium--Spiritualistic phenomena explained on theory of telepathy--Interesting statement of Mrs. Piper, the famous medium of the Psychical Research Society

INTRODUCTION.
There is no doubt that hypnotism is a very old subject, though the name was not invented till 1850. In it was wrapped up the "mysteries of Isis" in Egypt thousands of years ago, and probably it was one of the weapons, if not the chief instrument of operation, of the magi mentioned in the Bible and of the "wise men" of Babylon and Egypt. "Laying on of hands" must have been a form of mesmerism, and Greek oracles of Delphi and other places seem to have been delivered by priests or priestesses who went into trances of self-induced hypnotism. It is suspected that the fakirs of India who make trees grow from dry twigs in a few minutes, or transform a rod into a serpent (as Aaron did in Bible history), operate by some form of hypnotism. The people of the East are much more subject to influences of this kind than Western peoples are, and there can be no question that the religious orgies of heathendom were merely a form of that hysteria which is so closely related to the modern phenomenon of hypnotism. Though various scientific men spoke of magnetism, and understood that there was a power of a peculiar kind which one man could exercise over another, it was not until Frederick Anton Mesmer (a doctor of Vienna) appeared in 1775 that the general public gave any special attention to the subject. In the year mentioned, Mesmer sent out a circular letter to various scientific societies or "Academies" as they are called in Europe, stating his belief that "animal magnetism" existed, and that through it one man could influence another. No attention was given his letter, except by the Academy of Berlin, which sent him an unfavorable reply.
In 1778 Mesmer was obliged for some unknown reason to leave Vienna, and went to Paris, where he was fortunate in converting to his ideas d'Eslon, the Comte d'Artois's physician, and one of the medical professors at the Faculty of Medicine. His success was very great; everybody was anxious to be magnetized, and the lucky Viennese doctor was soon obliged to call in assistants. Deleuze, the librarian at the Jardin des Plantes, who has been called the Hippocrates of magnetism, has left the following account of Mesmer's experiments:
"In the middle of a large room stood an oak tub, four or five feet in diameter and one foot deep. It was closed by a lid made in two pieces, and encased in another tub or bucket. At the