THE PSYCHOLOGY 
 OF 
 
 A RESEARCH INTO THE 
 SUBCONSCIOUS NATURE 
 OF MAN AND SOCIETY 
 
 BY 
 
 BORIS SIDIS, M. A., PH.D. 
 
 ASSOCIATE IN PSYCHOLOGY AT THE PATHOLOGICAL INSTITUTE 
 OF THE NEW YORK STATE HOSPITALS 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION V 
 PROF. WILLIAM JAMES, OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1919
 
 
 F 
 
 COPTRIOHT, 1898, 
 
 BT D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America
 
 fltebicateb to 
 DAVID GORDON LYON, PH.D. 
 
 HOLLIS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY 
 AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
 
 INTKODUCTIOK 
 
 I AM glad to contribute to this book of Dr. Boris 
 Sidis a few words of introduction, which may possibly 
 gain for it a prompter recognition by the world of 
 readers who are interested in the things of which it 
 treats. Much of the experimental part of the work, 
 although planned entirely by Dr. Sidis, was done in the 
 Harvard Psychological Laboratory, and I have been 
 more or less in his confidence while his theoretic conclu- 
 sions, based on his later work in the Pathological Institute 
 of the New York State Hospitals, were taking shape. 
 
 The meaning of personality, with its limits and its 
 laws, forms a problem which until quite recently had 
 to be discussed almost exclusively by logical and meta- 
 physical methods. Within the past dozen years, how- 
 ever, an immense amount of new empirical material 
 had been injected into the question by the observations 
 which the "recognition" by science of the hypnotic 
 state set in motion. Many of these observations are 
 pathological : fixed ideas, hysteric attacks, insane delu- 
 sions, mediumistic phenomena, etc. And altogether, 
 although they are far from having solved the problem 
 of personality, they must be admitted to have trans- 
 formed its outward shape. What are the limits of the 
 consciousness of a human being ? Is " self " conscious-
 
 vi THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 ness only a part of the whole consciousness ? Are there 
 many " selves " dissociated from one another ? What 
 is the medium of synthesis in a group of associated 
 ideas? How can certain systems of ideas be cut off 
 and forgotten ? Is personality a product, and not a 
 principle ? Such are the questions now being forced 
 to the front questions now asked for the first time 
 with some sense of their concrete import, and questions 
 which it will require a great amount of further work, 
 both of observation and of analysis, to answer ade- 
 quately. 
 
 Meanwhile many writers are seeking to fill the gap, 
 and several books have been published seeking to popu- 
 larize the new observations and ideas and present them 
 in connected form. Dr. Sidis' work distinguishes itself 
 from some of these by its originality, and from others 
 by the width of its scope. 
 
 It is divided into three parts : Suggestibility ; the 
 Self ; Man as One of a Crowd. Under all these heads 
 the author is original. He tries by ingenious experi- 
 ments to show that the suggestibility of waking persons 
 follows an opposite law to that of hypnotic subjects. 
 Suggestions must be veiled, in the former case, to be 
 effective ; in the latter case, the more direct and open 
 they are the better. By other ingenious experiments 
 Dr. Sidis tries to show that the " subliminal" or "ultra- 
 marginal " portions of the mind may in normal persons 
 distinguish objects which the attentive senses find it 
 impossible to name. These latter experiments are in- 
 complete, but they open the way to a highly important 
 psychological investigation. 
 
 In Part II, on " The Self," a very full account is 
 given of " double personality," subliminal conscious- 
 ness, etc. The author is led to adopt as an explanation
 
 INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 of the dissociations which lie at the root of all these 
 conditions the physiological theory of retraction of the 
 processes of the brain cells, which in other quarters 
 also seems coming to the front. He makes an elaborate 
 classification of the different degrees of dissociation or 
 amnesia, and, on the basis of a highly interesting and 
 important pathological case, suggests definite methods 
 of diagnosis and cure. This portion of the book well 
 deserves the attention of neurologists. 
 
 In Part III the very important matter of " crowd 
 psychology" is discussed, almost for the first time in 
 English. There is probably no more practically impor- 
 tant topic to the student of public affairs. Dr. Sidis 
 illustrates it by fresh examples, and his treatment is 
 highly suggestive. 
 
 I am not convinced of all of Dr. Sidis' positions, 
 but I can cordially recommend the volume to all classes 
 of readers as a treatise both interesting and instructive, 
 and original in a high degree, on a branch of research 
 whose importance is daily growing greater. 
 
 WILLIAM JAMES. 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY, November 1, 1897.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY PROF. WILLIAM JAMES . . . . v 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR 1 
 
 PART I. 
 
 S UG GES TIBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. SUGGESTIONS AND SUGGESTIBILITY .... 5 
 
 II. THE CLASSIFICATION OF SUGGESTIONS AND SUGGESTI- 
 BILITY 16 
 
 III. THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY ... 24 
 
 IV. THE CONDITIONS OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY . . 45 
 
 V. THE LAW OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY .... 50 
 
 VI. THE CONDITIONS OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY . . 56 
 
 VII. THE NATURE OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY . . 62 
 
 VIII. THE LAW OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY ... 78 
 
 IX. SUGGESTIBILITY AND THE WAKING CONSCIOUSNESS . 8? 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE SELF. 
 
 X. THE SECONDARY SELF 91 
 
 XI. THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF AND UNCONSCIOUS CEREBRA- 
 TION -.109 
 
 XII. THE DOUBLE SELF 129 
 
 XIII. THE INTERRELATION OF THE TWO SELVES . . . 141 
 
 XIV. SUBCONSCIOUS SENSE PERCEPTION IN THE WAKING STATE 148 
 
 iz
 
 x THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION". 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 XV. THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF AND HALLUCINATIONS . . 154 
 
 XVI. THE SUBWAKING SELF AND THE NORMAL INDIVIDUAL 158 
 
 XVII. THE INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES . 162 
 
 XVIII. THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF IN THE WAKING STATE . 180 
 
 XIX. TlIE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 188 
 
 XX. THE ELEMENTS AND STAGES OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS . 201 
 XXI. THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF SUBCONSCIOUS- 
 NESS 208 
 
 XXII. THE CASE OF THE REV. THOMAS CARSON HANNA . 216 
 
 XXIII. FORMS OF SUBCONSCIOUS STATES AND TYPES OF 
 
 AMNESIA 228 
 
 XXIV. THE CHARACTER OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF . . 245 
 XXV. SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY .... 269 
 
 XXVI. THE TRAITS OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF . . . 293 
 
 PART III. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 XXVII. SOCIAL SUGGESTIBILITY ...... 297 
 
 XXVIII. SOCIETY AND EPIDEMICS 309 
 
 XXIX. STAMPEDES 314 
 
 XXX. MEDIAEVAL SIENTAL EPIDEMICS . . . . .319 
 
 XXXI. DEMONOPHOBIA 331 
 
 XXXII. FINANCIAL CRAZES 343 
 
 XXXIII. AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS 350 
 
 APPENDIX 365 
 
 INDEX . . 381
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE study of the subconscious is becoming of more 
 and more absorbing interest. The phenomena of hys- 
 teria and of hypnosis are now studied by the French 
 psychologists with remarkable acumen and with an un- 
 rivalled fertility of ingenious devices, and the results 
 obtained thus far form almost an epoch in the history 
 of psychology. Although the French psychologists 
 work independently of one another and disagree among 
 themselves on many important points, still their method 
 and general line of investigation are pretty nearly the 
 same. They all care for clinical cases more than for 
 minute, detailed laboratory experiments the present 
 hobby of the Germans and their chief work falls 
 within the domain of the subconscious. The French 
 psychologists seem to be on the track of a rich gold 
 vein. Without closely formulating their method, they 
 have all, as if by a mutual tacit understanding, chosen 
 the right way that leads to a better and deeper in- 
 sight into the nature of mind. For the mechanism 
 of consciousness is hidden deep down in the depths 
 of the subconscious, and it is thither we have to. 
 descend in order to get a clear understanding of the 
 
 1
 
 2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 phenomena that appear in the broad daylight of con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 The German school, with "Wundt at its head, at first 
 started out on similar lines, but they could not make 
 any use of the subconscious, and their speculations ran 
 wild in the fancies of Hartmann. The reason of this 
 failure is due to the fact that the concept of the sub- 
 conscious as conceived by the German school was 
 extremely vague, and had rather the character of a 
 mechanical than that of a psychical process. An un- 
 conscious consciousness that was their concept of the 
 subconscious. In such a form as this the subconscious 
 was certainly meaningless mere nonsense and had 
 to be given up. The German psychological investiga- 
 tions are now confined to the content of consciousness 
 in so far as the individual is immediately conscious of 
 it. But as this form of consciousness is extremely nar- 
 row and circumscribed, the results arrived at, though 
 remarkable for their thoroughness, are after all of a 
 rather trivial nature. It is what Prof. James aptly 
 characterizes "the elaboration of the obvious." We 
 may therefore, with full right, assert that it was the 
 French psychologists who made proper use of the sub- 
 conscious and arrived at results that are of the utmost 
 importance to psychology, although it were well if the 
 French were to conduct their investigations with Ger- 
 man thoroughness. 
 
 It is not, however, the French alone who work 
 along the lines of the subconscious, but the English 
 and Americans, too, have a large share in the work. 
 Gourney, James, Myers, and others, have done much 
 toward the elucidation of the obscure phenomena of the 
 subconscious. Psychology is especially indebted to the 
 genius of Myers for his wide and comprehensive study
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 of the phenomena of the subconscious, or of what he 
 calls the manifestations of the subliminal self. The 
 only drawback in Myers's concept of the subliminal 
 self is that he conceives it as a metaphysical entity, as 
 a kind of a cosmic self. Now, while Myers may be 
 right in his belief, the phenomena under investigation 
 do not warrant the hypothesis of metaphysical entities. 
 I have therefore avoided the use of the term " subliminal 
 self," however excellent it might be in itself, in order 
 not to entangle the reader in the metaphysical con- 
 siderations that cluster round that concept, and also 
 because my point of view of the subconscious widely 
 differs from that of Myers. 
 
 The study of subconscious phenomena is of great 
 interest from a purely practical standpoint, because 
 of the use that can be made of it in the state of 
 health and disease. A knowledge of the laws of the 
 subconscious is of momentous import in education, in 
 the reformation of juvenile criminals and offenders, 
 and one can hardly realize the great benefit that suffer- 
 ing humanity will derive from a proper methodical 
 use of the subconscious within the province of thera- 
 peutics. 
 
 The study of the subconscious is especially of great 
 value to sociology, because nowhere else does the sub- 
 conscious work on such a grand, stupendous scale as it 
 does in the popular mind ; and the sociologist who 
 ignores the subconscious lacks a deep insight into the 
 nature of social forces. For the practical man who 
 takes part in social affairs, in so far as they concern his 
 own interests, the knowledge of the subconscious can 
 hardly be overestimated ; and this knowledge becomes 
 an imperative necessity to him who lives in a democ- 
 racy. The object of this book is the study of the sujb-
 
 4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 conscious, normal or abnormal, individual or social, in 
 its relation to suggestion and suggestibility ; and let me 
 hope that the thoughtful reader will find my work not 
 only interesting, but stimulating to thought and useful 
 in practical life. T> o 
 
 PATHOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, OF THE NEW YORK 
 STATE HOSPITALS, NEW YORK, 1897.
 
 PART I. 
 SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL investigators employ the term " sug- 
 gestion " in such a careless and loose fashion that the 
 reader is often puzzled as to its actual meaning. Sug- 
 gestion is sometimes used for an idea bringing in its 
 train another idea, and is thus identified with associa- 
 tion. Some extend the province of suggestion, and 
 make it so broad as to coincide with any influence man 
 exerts on his fellow-beings. Others narrow down sug- 
 gestion and suggestibility to mere symptoms of hyster- 
 ical neurosis. This is done by the adherents of the 
 Salpetriere school. Suggestion, again, is used by the 
 Nancy school to indicate the cause which produces that 
 peculiar state of mind in which the phenomena of sug- 
 gestibility become especially prominent. 
 
 This vague and hazy condition of the subject of sug- 
 gestion causes much confusion in psychological discus- 
 sions. To free the subject from this confusion of 
 tongues, we must endeavour in some way or other to 
 give a strict definition of suggestion, and rigorously 
 study the phenomena contained within the limited field 
 
 5
 
 C THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 of our investigation. "We must not follow in the way 
 of those writers who employ the terms suggestion and 
 suggestibility in all possible meanings. Such careless- 
 ness can not but lead into a tangle of words. In order 
 to give a full description of suggestion and make its 
 boundary lines clear, distinct, and definite, let us take a 
 few concrete cases and inspect them closely. 
 
 I hold a newspaper in my hands and begin to roll 
 it up ; soon I find that my friend sitting opposite 
 me rolled up his in a similar way. This, we say, is a 
 case of suggestion. 
 
 My friend Mr. A. is absent-minded; he sits near 
 the table, thinking of some abstruse mathematical prob- 
 lem that baffles all his efforts to solve it. Absorbed in 
 the solution of that intractable problem, he is blind and 
 deaf to what is going on around him. His eyes are 
 directed on the table, but he appears not to see any of 
 the objects there. I put two glasses of water on the 
 table, and at short intervals make passes in the 
 direction of the glasses passes which he seems not 
 to perceive ; then I resolutely stretch out my hand, take 
 one of the glasses, and begin to drink. My friend fol- 
 lows suit dreamily he raises his hand, takes the glass, 
 and begins to sip, awakening fully to consciousness 
 when a good part of the tumbler is emptied. 
 
 To take an interesting and amusing case given by 
 Ochorowitz in his book Mental Suggestion : 
 
 " My friend P., a man no less absent-minded than 
 he is keen of intellect, was playing chess in a neigh- 
 bouring room. Others of us were talking near the door. 
 I had made the remark that it was my friend's habit 
 when he paid the closest attention to the game to 
 whistle an air from Madame Angot. I was about to 
 accompany him by beating time on the table. But
 
 SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY. 7 
 
 this time he whistled something else- a march from 
 Le Prophete. 
 
 " ' Listen,' said I to my associates ; ' we are going to 
 play a trick upon P. We will (mentally) order him 
 to pass from Le Prophete to La Fille de Madame 
 Angot.' 
 
 " First I began to drum the march ; then, profiting 
 by some notes common to both, I passed quickly to the 
 quicker and more staccato measure of my friend's fa- 
 vourite air. P. on his part suddenly changed the air 
 and began to whistle Madame Angot. Every one 
 burst out laughing. My friend was too much absorbed 
 in a check to the queen to notice anything. 
 
 " ' Let us begin again,' said I, ' and go back to Le 
 Prophete.' And straightway we had Meyerbeer once 
 more with a special fugue. My friend knew that he 
 had whistled something, but that was all he knew." 
 
 A huckster stations himself in the middle of the 
 street, on some public square, or on a sidewalk, and be- 
 gins to pour forth volumes of gibberish intended both 
 as a compliment to the people and a praise of his ware. 
 The curiosity of the passers-by is awakened. They 
 stop. Soon our hero forms the centre of a crowd that 
 stupidly gazes at the " wonderful " objects held out to 
 its view for admiration. A few moments more, and 
 the crowd begins to buy the things the huckster sug- 
 gests as " grand, beautiful, and cheap." 
 
 A stump orator mounts a log or a car and begins to 
 harangue the crowd. In the grossest way he praises 
 the great intelligence, the brave spirit of the people, the 
 virtue of the citizens, glibly telling his audience that 
 with such genius as they possess they must clearly see 
 that the prosperity of the country depends on the poli- 
 tics he favours, on the party whose valiant champion he 
 2
 
 S THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 now is. His argumentation is absurd, his motive is con- 
 temptible, and still, as a rule, he carries the body of the 
 crowd, unless another stump orator interferes and turns 
 the stream of sentiment in another direction. The 
 speech of Antony in Julius Caesar is an excellent ex- 
 ample of suggestion. 
 
 All these examples undoubtedly belong to the prov- 
 ince of suggestion. Now what are their characteris- 
 tic traits ? What are the elements common to all these 
 cases of suggestion ? We find in all these instances 
 a stream of consciousness that goes on flowing in its 
 peculiar, individual, idiosyncratic way ; suddenly from 
 the depths of the stream a wave rises to the surface, 
 swamps the rest of the waves, overflows the banks, de- 
 flects for a while the course of the current, and then 
 suddenly subsides, disappears, and the stream resumes 
 its natural course, flowing once more in its former bed. 
 On tracing the cause of this disturbance, we invariably 
 find that it is due to some external source, to some other 
 stream running alongside the one disturbed. Stating 
 the same in the language of Baldwin, we may say that 
 " by suggestion is meant a great class of phenomena 
 typified by the abrupt entrance from without into con- 
 sciousness of an idea or image which becomes a part 
 of the stream of thought, and tends to produce the mus- 
 cular and volitional efforts which ordinarily follow upon 
 its presence." * 
 
 Is this our last say of suggestion ? Far from being 
 the case. On closer inspection of our examples we find 
 some more traits which are of the utmost importance. 
 The subject accepts uncritically the idea suggested to 
 him, and carries it out almost automatically. This can 
 
 * Psychology, vol. ii.
 
 SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY. 9 
 
 be easily detected in nearly every instance of suggestion, 
 but it stands out especially clear and sharp in its out- 
 line in cases of hypnosis. 
 
 I hypnotized Mr. F., * and commanded that, after 
 awakening, when he would hear me cough, he should 
 take three oranges on the table and give them to my 
 friends who were present at the seance. I woke him 
 up. A few minutes later I coughed ; he snatched from 
 the table the oranges, which were, in fact, nothing but 
 ordinary potatoes, and distributed them among my 
 friends. While carrying out this post-hypnotic sugges- 
 tion he appeared to be in a peculiar automatic condi- 
 tion. His movements were hurried, as if some spring 
 was loosened in his ideo-motor mechanism; his eyes 
 were dull and glassy ; it was plain he was in a semicon- 
 scious state. On my asking him afterward how the 
 oranges appeared to him he replied : " They seemed to 
 me rather queer ; they were too small and heavy for 
 oranges. I thought they were lemons, but I did not 
 attempt to examine them; something impelled me to 
 carry out the order and be done with it." 
 
 To take a still better example from the store of my 
 hypnotic experiments : I hypnotized Mr. F., and sug- 
 gested to him that after awakening, on hearing me 
 cough, he should take the umbrella, open it, and prome- 
 nade in the room three times. I woke him up. A 
 few minutes later I coughed ; up went his legs, but he 
 
 * Let me say at the outset that all the subjects on whom I made 
 hypnotic experiments were never hypnotized by any one else before. 
 Whatever, therefore, occurred during hypnosis was not due to pre- 
 vious suggestive training unknown to me. Each subject was fully 
 under my observation. I took the precaution of isolating my sub- 
 jects from extraneous suggestion. During trance I suggested to 
 them that no one should be able to hypnotize them. I ask the 
 reader to bear this in mind.
 
 10 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 remained sitting in the chair. I coughed again ; once 
 more up went his legs, but he did not carry out my 
 commands. I rehypnotized him, and this time I 
 strongly and authoritatively commanded him he should 
 carry out my post-hypnotic suggestion, taking care to 
 suggest to him he should forget everything that passed 
 during the hypnotic trance. He was awakened, felt 
 well, conversed with his friends. While he was en- 
 gaged in conversation I went behind his chair and 
 coughed. Up he jumped, opened the umbrella, and 
 walked in the room three times. When he was through 
 with the suggested promenade the umbrella dropped 
 from his hands on the floor, and, without picking it up, 
 he sat down on a chair and smiled. He remembered 
 very clearly the umbrella affair, and it seemed to him 
 queer and comical. I asked him whether he knew 
 what he was going to do when he heard me cough. 
 " Yes, I knew I must do something in a general way, 
 though. When I took the umbrella, I do not know 
 how it happened, but I opened it and began to walk." 
 I asked him whether he knew how many times he had 
 to walk, to which he answered : " No, I did not know, 
 but I kept on walking ; and when it came to the end 
 of the third turn, the umbrella dropped from my 
 hands." 
 
 I could easily bring many more instances of the 
 same type, but I think that those given will suffice for 
 our purpose. 
 
 What we find in all these caces is the uncritical ac- 
 ceptance of the ideas or actions suggested, and also the 
 motor automatism with which these ideas or actions are 
 realized. In short, mental and motor automatism con- 
 stitute the prominent elements of suggestion. 
 
 There is, however, one more element in suggestion
 
 SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY. H 
 
 an element which must be taken into account, and 
 without which our definition of suggestion will be in- 
 complete. This factor, or element, is the overcoming 
 or circumventing of the subject's opposition. The 
 suggested idea is forced on the stream of consciousness ; 
 it is a stranger, an unwelcome guest, a parasite, which 
 the subject's consciousness seeks to get rid of. The 
 stream of the individual's consciousness combats sug- 
 gested ideas as the organism does bacteria and baciHi 
 that tend to disturb the stability of its equilibrium. 
 It is this opposition element that Dr. J. Grossmann has 
 in mind when he defines suggestion as " der Vorgang, 
 bei dem eine Yorstellung sich einem Gehirn aufzuzwin- 
 gen versucht." * 
 
 My friend would not have rolled up his paper, nor 
 would Mr. A. have taken the glass and sipped the wa- 
 ter, nor would Mr. P. have whistled his airs, nor 
 would the crowd have bought the articles of the huck- 
 ster or voted for certain political candidates had they 
 been openly commanded to do so. They would have 
 opposed strenuously the suggestion given to them. It 
 was required to devise means in order to circumvent 
 this opposition. The same necessity for circumven- 
 tion of opposition we find in post-hypnotic sugges- 
 tion. At first the subject F. opposed the idea of 
 walking with the umbrella. When I rehypnotized 
 him I asked him, "Why did not you carry out my 
 command ? " The reply was, " I wanted to see whether 
 I could resist." That this was actually the case we can 
 see from the fact that, while his legs started at the sig- 
 nal and went up to fulfil the order, Mr. F. exclaimed, 
 " I know what you want me to do, but I will not do 
 
 * Zeitschrif t ftir Hypnoviismus, August, 1893.
 
 12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 it." This opposition was overcome only after repeated 
 and insistent injunctions that he must obey my com- 
 mand. 
 
 The first stages of hypnosis are especially character- 
 ized by this spirit of opposition, which, however, grad- 
 ually slackens as the subject falls into a deeper state of 
 hypnosis, and completely disappears with the advent of 
 somnambulism. To watch the struggle of the mind 
 in its opposition to the engrafted suggested idea is of 
 intense interest to the psychologist, and of great value 
 to a clearer comprehension of suggestion itself. 
 
 I hypnotized Mr. J. F. With one resolute command 
 I made him cataleptic. " Rise ! " I commanded him. He 
 rose. " Walk ! " He walked. " You can not walk 
 forward ! " He tried to walk, but he could not. " You 
 can only walk backward ! " He began to move back- 
 ward. At the very first sitting he seemed to have fallen 
 completely under my control and to carry out with- 
 out any opposition all the motor suggestions given to 
 him. This, however, was not really the case. Oppo- 
 sition was there, only it was ineffective. As we con- 
 tinued our sittings (and we had many of them) Mr. 
 J. F. became more and more intractable, my control over 
 him grew less and less, and now it is only after great 
 exertion and repeated imperative commands that I am 
 enabled to bring him into any cataleptic condition at all. 
 The opposition or inhibition kept in abeyance during 
 the first seance asserted itself as the subject became 
 more familiar with the hypnotic condition. 
 
 The following experiments are still more interest- 
 ing, as revealing to us in the clearest way possible the 
 internal struggle the great opposition which the con- 
 sciousness of the subject shows to the parasitic sug- 
 gested idea :
 
 SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY. 13 
 
 Mr. L. falls into a slight hypnotic condition into 
 the first degree of hypnosis ; he can open his eyes if I 
 challenge him that he is unable to do it. Although his 
 hypnosis is but slight, I still tried on him post-hypnotic 
 suggestions. While he was in the hypnotic condition 
 I suggested to him that after awakening, when he will 
 hear a knock, he will go to the table, take a cigarette, 
 and light it. I suggested to him he should forget 
 everything that passed during the hypnosis. 
 
 On awakening he remembered everything. I gave 
 a few knocks in quick succession. He rose from his 
 chair, but immediately sat down again, and laughingly 
 exclaimed, " No, I shall not do it ! " " Do what ? " I 
 asked. " Light the cigarette nonsense ! " " Had you 
 a strong desire to do it?" I asked him, putting the 
 desire in the past, although it was plain he was still 
 struggling with it. He did not answer. "Did you 
 wish very much to do it ? " I asked again. " Not very 
 much," he answered curtly and evasively. 
 
 On another occasion I hypnotized Mr. L. by the 
 method of fascination.* He seemed to have fallen 
 into a slightly deeper hypnotic condition than usual. 
 The post-hypnotic suggestion was to light the gas, and 
 also complete amnesia. On awakening he remembered 
 everything that passed during hypnosis. He ridiculed 
 the post-hypnotic suggestions I gave him. After a 
 few minutes' conversation, without my giving the sug- 
 gestion signal, which was to be a knock, I left the 
 room for a few moments for five or ten seconds. 
 When I returned I found him lighting the gas. 
 " What are you doing that for, Mr. L. ? " I asked. 
 
 'Ordinarily I use the method of Nancy; it is the most con- 
 venient and pleasant way of hypnotization, as it requires no strain 
 on the side of the subject.
 
 14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 " To feel easier," he answered ; " I felt somewhat un- 
 easy." Evidently the post-hypnotic suggestion took 
 deep root in his mind. He struggled hard against it, to 
 put it down, to suppress it ; and it was due to this fact 
 that he attempted to counteract the suggested idea by 
 ridiculing it. As long as I was in the room he wanted 
 to show the energy of his will, and he struggled hard 
 against the insistent idea, keeping it at bay ; but when I 
 left the room one of the motives of resisting the sug- 
 gestion was removed, and the struggle became an un- 
 equal one. The insistent parasitic idea asserted itself 
 with greater force than before, and this time, not meet- 
 ing with such a strenuous opposition, it gained the 
 upper hand and realized itself completely. 
 
 To take one more instance of the many sittings I 
 had with Mr. L. I hypnotized him once in the pres- 
 ence of two acquaintances of mine, and gave him a 
 post-hypnotic suggestion to take from the table a box 
 of matches and light the gas. This he had to do when 
 hearing me cough. I woke him up, and as soon as he 
 heard me cough he started up from his chair, looked 
 hard at the box of matches, but did not take it. He 
 went up to the window, put his head against the window 
 pane, and seemed to be engaged in a severe struggle 
 against the insistent suggested idea. Now and then one 
 could perceive a slight shudder passing over his entire 
 body, thus making almost palpably evident the inner, 
 restless, contentious state of his consciousness. Again 
 and again the suggested idea cropped up in his mind, 
 and again and again it was suppressed ; now the sugges- 
 tion gained ground, and now once more it was beaten 
 and driven back into the obscure regions from which it 
 came. I then rehypnotized him, strongly emphasized 
 my suggestion, and then awakened him. I slightly
 
 SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY. 15 
 
 coughed. This time the suggested idea got a stronger 
 hold of his mind. Mr. L. rose from his chair, took the 
 box of matches, kept it in his hand for a second or two, 
 and threw it resolutely on the table. "No," he ex- 
 claimed, " I will not do it ! " 
 
 Such cases might be multiplied by the hundreds, 
 but I think that the hypnotic experiments made on my 
 subjects L. and J. F. will suffice for our purpose. They 
 show most clearly that the trait of opposition is an in- 
 gredient of suggestion. This opposition element varies 
 with the state of mind of the individual. What the 
 nature of this variation is we shall see later on ; mean- 
 while the present stage of our discussion fully enables us 
 to formulate a definition of suggestion and suggestibility. 
 
 By suggestion is meant the intrusion into the mind 
 of an idea ; met with more or less opposition by the 
 person ; accepted uncritically at last ; and realized un- 
 reflectively, almost automatically. 
 
 By suggestibility is meant that peculiar state of 
 mind which is favourable to suggestion.* 
 
 * The psycho-physiological state of suggestion I term suggesti- 
 bility. By "suggestibility of a factor" is meant the power of the 
 factor to induce the psycho-physiological state of suggestion of a 
 certain degree of intensity, the suggestiveness of the factor being 
 measured by the degree of suggestibility induced.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATION OF SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 ONCE the subject-matter under investigation is de- 
 fined, we must proceed to a further subdivision of it ; 
 we must define and classify the different species of sug- 
 gestion and suggestibility. Already in our last chap- 
 ter, in adducing different cases of suggestion, suggesti- 
 bility in the normal state was tacitly implied. We have 
 now reached a stage in our discussion in which we must 
 state this fact more explicitly. The soil favourable for 
 the seeds of suggestion exists also in what we call the 
 normal individual. Suggestibility is present in what 
 we call the normal state, and in order to reveal it we 
 must only know how to tap it. The suggestible ele- 
 ment is a constituent of our nature ; it never leaves us ; 
 it is always present in us. Before Janet, Binet, and 
 many other investigators undertook the study of hys- 
 terical subjects, no one suspected the existence of those 
 remarkable phenomena of double consciousness that 
 opened for us new regions in the psychical life of man. 
 These phenomena were merely not noticed, although 
 present all the while ; and when at times they rose from 
 their obscurity, came to light, and obtruded themselves 
 on the attention of people, they were either put down as 
 sorcery, witchcraft, or classed contemptuously with lying, 
 cheating, and deception. The same is true with regard 
 
 16
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SUGGESTION. if 
 
 to normal suggestibility. It rarely attracts our attention, 
 as it manifests itself in but trifling things. When, how- 
 ever, it rises to the surface and with the savage fury of 
 a hurricane cripples and maims on its way everything 
 it can not destroy, menaces life, and throws social order 
 into the wildest confusion possible, we put it down as 
 mobs. We do not in the least suspect that the awful, 
 destructive, automatic spirit of the mob moves in the 
 bosom of the peaceful crowd, reposes in the heart of 
 the quiet assembly, and slumbers in the breast of the 
 law-abiding citizen. "We do not suspect that the spirit 
 of suggestibility lies hidden even in the best of men ; 
 like the evil jinnee of the Arabian tales is corked up in 
 the innocent-looking bottle. Deep down in the nature 
 of man we find hidden the spirit of suggestibility. 
 Every one of us is more or less suggestible. Man is 
 often defined as a social animal. This definition is no 
 doubt true, but it conveys little information as to the 
 psychical state of each individual within society. There 
 exists another definition which claims to give an insight 
 into the nature of man, and that is the well-known an- 
 cient view that man is a rational animal ; but this defi- 
 nition breaks down as soon as we come- to test it by facts 
 of life, for it scarcely holds true of the vast multitudes 
 of mankind. Not sociality, not rationality, but sug- 
 gestibility is what characterizes the average- specimen 
 of humanity, for man is a suggestible animal. 
 
 The fact of suggestibility existing in the normal in- 
 dividual is of the highest importance in the theoretical 
 field of knowledge, in psychology, sociology, ethics, 
 history, as well as in practical life, in education, politics, 
 and economics ; and since this fact of suggestibility may 
 be subject to doubt on account of its seeming paradoxi- 
 calness, it must therefore be established on a firm basis
 
 18 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 by a rigorous experimentation, and I have taken great 
 pains to prove this fact satisfactorily. The evidence for 
 the existence of normal suggestibility I shall adduce later 
 on in our discussion ; meanwhile I ask the reader to take 
 it on trust, sincerely hoping that he will at the end be 
 perfectly satisfied with the demonstration of its truth. 
 
 The presence of suggestibility in such states as the 
 hysterical and the hypnotic is a fact well proved and 
 attested, and I think there is no need to say a word in 
 
 * V 
 
 its defence. Since the hysterical, the hypnotic, the 
 somnambulic states do not belong to the routine of our 
 experience; since they are but rare and occur under 
 special peculiar conditions ; since they unfit one for so- 
 cial life, disable in the struggle for existence, I think 
 the reader will hot quarrel with me for naming such 
 states abnormal. 
 
 Thus it becomes quite clear that suggestibility must 
 be classed under two heads : (1) Suggestibility in the 
 normal state, or normal suggestibility, and (2) suggesti- 
 bility in the abnormal state, or abnormal suggestibility. 
 
 Turning now to suggestion, we find that it can be 
 easily subdivided and classified according to the mode 
 it is effected in consciousness. Concrete examples will 
 best illustrate my meaning. The hypnotizer commands 
 his subject to walk ; the latter walks. He raises the 
 hand of the patient, and it remains uplifted in a con- 
 tracted cataleptic condition. The hypnotizer tells the 
 subject that after awakening, when he will hear a knock, 
 he will take off his coat and dance a polka, and the sub- 
 ject, on awakening and perceiving the signal, fulfils the 
 order most faithfully. In cases like these the experi- 
 menter gives his orders or suggestions directly, without 
 beating round the bush, without any circumlocution, 
 without any evasions. In a plain and brusque manner
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SUGGESTION. 19 
 
 does the hypnotizer give his suggestion, so much so 
 that it partakes of the nature of an imperative command 
 issued by the order of the highest authority from which 
 there is no appeal. The essential feature here, how- 
 ever, is not so much the authoritativeness, for in many 
 cases it may be totally absent, and a courteous, bland 
 way of expression may be used ; not so much the au- 
 thoritativeness, I say, as the plainness, the directness 
 
 V * 
 
 with which the suggestion is given. Such a suggestion 
 we may designate as direct suggestion. 
 
 Suggestions may also be given in quite a different 
 way. Instead of openly telling the subject what he 
 should do, the experimenter produces some object, or 
 makes a movement, a gesture, which in their own silent 
 fashion tell the subject what to do. To illustrate it by 
 a few examples, so as to make my meaning clearer : I 
 stretch out the hand of the hypnotic subject and make 
 it rigid, and while doing this I press his arm with an 
 iron rod. In the next seance as soon as the iron, rod 
 touches the arm the hand becomes rigid. I tell the sub- 
 ject to spell the word " Napoleon," and when he comes 
 to " p " I stretch out my hand and make it stiff ; the sub- 
 ject begins to stammer ; the muscles .of his lips spas- 
 modically contract and stiffen. Dr. Tuckey brings a 
 case of suggestion given by him unintentionally in such 
 an indirect way. He hypnotized a physician and or- 
 dered him to wake up in a quarter of an hour. He 
 then left the room for about half an hour, being sure that 
 in the meantime the subject would come back to himself . 
 "When he returned he was surprised to find the patient 
 still sitting in the chair, and in the most distressed 
 condition possible. The patient could not recover his 
 speech ; his jaws were firmly shut. Dr. Tuckey thinks 
 that while hypnotizing he inadvertently passed his hands
 
 20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 over the mouth of the subject, and this was taken as a 
 suggestion to keep the mouth firmly shut. My friend 
 who drank the glass of water on account of my sug- 
 gestive movements; Mr. P., whom Prof. Ochorowitz 
 suggested to whistle certain airs ; the crowd that was 
 induced by the politician by means of flattery and talk 
 of business prosperity to vote for the party whose cause 
 he advocated all these are good cases of this type of 
 suggestion. This mode of influencing the mind plays a 
 great part in the history of humanity, and is therefore of 
 great importance in sociology. Such a kind of sugges- 
 tion may be properly designated as indirect suggestion. 
 Suggestion partakes of the nature of reflex action. 
 This truth was implied in our discussion of the last 
 chapter, and in the definition of suggestion we finally 
 arrived at. And authorities are not lacking who go to 
 support the same view. " Eine sorgfaltige Beobach- 
 tung," writes Prof. Forel, " der Bedingungen der Sug- 
 gestibilitat bringt uns immer wieder auf die relativ Ruhe 
 des Gehirns zuriick, auf einen plastischen Zustand des- 
 selben oder wenigstens eines Theiles desselben, worin 
 die Vorstellungen eine schwachere Kraft oder Tendenz 
 haben sich zu associiren und deshalb leichter dem von 
 aussen commenden Impuls folgen." " Der Mechanis- 
 mus (der Suggestion)," writes Dr. Bernheim, " ist ein 
 physiologischer Mechanismus dessen Realisation sich mit 
 den Eigenschaften unseres Hirn ganz gut vereinbarn 
 lasst.* What Dr. Bernheim means to say here is that 
 suggestion partakes of the nature of the reflex and 
 automatic activity that characterizes the physiological 
 mechanism in general. He makes himself more ex- 
 plicit in another place. " The mechanism of sugges- 
 
 * Zeitschrift fur Hypnotisraus, Januar, 1893.
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SUGGESTION. 21 
 
 tion," lie writes in his book Suggestive Therapeutics, 
 " may be summed up in the following formula : In- 
 crease of the reflex ideo-motor, ideo-sensitive, and ideo- 
 sensorial excitability." 
 
 Goumey tells us in his simple straightforward way 
 that the mechanism of " suggestion is conscious reflex 
 action." * As reflex action of consciousness, suggestion 
 has a double aspect : afferent, centripetal, or sensory, and 
 efferent, centrifugal, or motor. This is perfectly obvi- 
 ous, for in suggestion we deal, on the one hand, with the 
 impression of the suggested idea on the mind and its 
 acceptance by consciousness ; this is the afferent, sensory 
 side of suggestion ; and, on the other hand, with the 
 realization of the accepted idea; this is the efferent, 
 motor side of suggestion. The process of suggestion 
 may therefore be represented in the form of an arc, 
 which may be called the suggestion arc. It is quite clear 
 that in classifying suggestion as direct and indirect, we 
 had solely in view the afferent, the sensory aspect of 
 suggestion. If now we regard suggestion from the other 
 aspect, from the efferent or motor aspect, we find that 
 suggestion is subject to another subdivision. Concrete 
 instances will bring out this subdivision most clearly. 
 
 The experimenter suggests to the subject to turn 
 over the chair and sit down near it on the floor. This 
 is faithfully and immediately carried out by the sub- 
 ject. The experimenter raises the patient's arm and 
 bends it ; immediately the arm becomes stiff, rigid, cata- 
 leptic. The suggested idea impressed on the brain is 
 immediately discharged into the motor tracts. The 
 same holds true of post-hypnotic or deferred sugges- 
 tion. The idea suggested or the order given is present 
 
 * Mind, Oct., 1884.
 
 22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 in the mind, only there is present a suggested obstacle 
 to its motor discharge ; but as soon as some kind of 
 suggested signal is perceived, the obstacle is removed 
 and the idea immediately discharges itself along the 
 motor tracts. I hypnotized one of my subjects, Mr. 
 F., and ordered him that on awakening, when he 
 hears me cough, he shall put out the gas. I woke him 
 up. He remained quietly sitting in his chair, waiting, 
 as it seemed, for my signal. He himself, however, was 
 not in the least conscious of it ; f of when his brother 
 asked him whether he would like to go home, as it 
 was rather late, he answered in the negative. I then 
 coughed, and Mr. F. immediately rushed for the light 
 and put it out. What we find here is the literal carry- 
 ing out of the suggested idea. This kind of suggestion 
 the realization of which bears a direct and immediate 
 relation to the suggested object or act is, of course, also 
 present in normal suggestibility, as in the case of the 
 buyer who chooses the goods suggested to him by the 
 salesman or huckster, as in the case of the citizen who 
 votes for the unknown candidate suggested to him by 
 the politician. In short, when there is full and com- 
 plete realization of the idea or order suggested, direct- 
 ly or indirectly, we have that kind of suggestion which 
 I designate as immediate. 
 
 Instead, however, of immediately taking the hint 
 and fully carrying it into execution, the subject may 
 realize something else, either what is closely allied 
 with the idea suggested or what is connected with it by 
 association of contiguity. A suggestion is given to the 
 subject that when he wakes up he will see a tiger. He 
 is awakened, and sees a big cat. The subject is suggested 
 that on awakening he will steal the pocketbook lying 
 on the table. When aroused from the hypnotic state
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 23 
 
 he goes up to the table, does not take the pocketbook, 
 but the pencil that lies close to it. The buyer does 
 not always choose the precise thing which the sales- 
 man suggests, but some other thing closely allied to 
 it. In case the suggestion is not successful, it is still, 
 as a rule, realized in some indirect and mediate way. 
 Man is not always doing what has been suggested to him ; 
 he sometimes obeys not the suggested idea itself, but some 
 other idea associated with the former by contiguity, simi- 
 larity, or contrast. Suggestion by contrast is especially 
 Interesting, as it often gives rise to counter-suggestion. 
 Now such kind of suggestion, where not the suggested 
 idea itself but the one associated with it is realized, I 
 designate as mediate. 
 
 Thus we have four kinds of suggestion : 
 
 (a) Direct. (<$) Immediate. 
 
 (b) Indirect. (e) Mediate. 
 
 The classification of suggestion and suggestibility 
 may be represented in terms of the suggestion arc in 
 the following diagrammatic form : 
 
 SUGGESTIBILITY 
 
 NORMAL 
 
 ABNORMAL 
 
 3O.;* * SUGG.
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 IN our last chapter we ventured to generalize that 
 every man in his full normal waking state is more or 
 less suggestible. I should not wonder if such a seem- 
 ingly sweeping generalization should startle many a 
 cautious reader, and should call forth strenuous opposi- 
 tion. We must therefore rigorously demonstrate the 
 fact of the universality of normal suggestibility. Such 
 a proof is of the more importance, as the generalization 
 which it establishes supplies a new principle to sociol- 
 ogy, furnishes a key to the comprehension of many a 
 great historical event, gives a deeper insight into the 
 phenomena of political and economical life, and might 
 possibly be of use in education. Is there such a thing 
 as suggestibility in the normal waking condition ? The 
 Nancy school, with Bernheim and Liebault at its head, 
 gives an affirmative answer. " Jemanden hypnotisiren," 
 says Bernheim, "heisstnur: seine Suggestibilitat kiinst- 
 lich erhohen." In fact, the hypnotic state itself is in- 
 duced by suggestion. " Es giebt keinen Hypnotismus : 
 es giebt nur Phanomene der Suggestion," exclaims the 
 Nancy professor. " Als etwas pathologisches, als eine 
 kiinstliche Neurose betrachtet existirt ein Hypnotismus 
 nicht. Wir schaffen im eigentlichen Sinne mit ilim 
 keinen besonderen Zustand des Gehirns oder des Ner- 
 
 .. 24
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 25 
 
 vensystems ; wir machen uns ganz einfach nur eine phy- 
 siologische Eigenthumlichkeit des Gehirns die Sugges- 
 tibilitat zu Nutze und schaffen die zur Entfaltung 
 dieser Suggestibility giinstigen Vorbedingungen." On 
 closer inspection, however, we find that the great au- 
 thority of the Nancy school stretches too wide and far 
 the conception of suggestion, for, according to him, 
 " Jede Yorstellung ist eine Suggestion." This, I say, is 
 too far-fetched ; for it is to identify the whole field of 
 mental activity with but a part of it, namely, suggesti- 
 bility. This is, in fact, the obliteration of all traces of 
 the problem itself. If now we turn and ask for facts 
 that go to support his view, we find that Bernheim does 
 not sustain his cause. He limits his instances to but a 
 small class of persons who are easily suggestible in their 
 waking state, but he offers no proof that suggestibility 
 is present in all men. " Es giebt Menschen bei denen 
 . . . die einfache Affirmation, ohne Schlaf und ohne 
 vorhergehende ihn begunstigende Manipulationen bei 
 ihnen alle sogenannten hypnotischen Phenomena her- 
 vorruft. Durch das einfache Wort schafft man bei 
 ihnen Anasthesia, Contractur, Hallucinationen, Im- 
 puls, die verschiedensten Handlungen."-* 
 
 Although the instances Prof. Bernheim adduces do 
 not certainly establish the fact of the universality of 
 normal suggestibility, they are still interesting for us 
 as they show the presence of normal suggestibility in 
 some particular cases at least. " Many subjects," writes 
 Bernheim in his Suggestive Therapeutics, "who have 
 previously been hypnotized may manifest susceptibility 
 to the same suggestive phenomena in the waking state, 
 without being again hypnotized, however slightly might 
 
 * Zeitschrift, Januar, 1894.
 
 26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 have been the influence of a small number of previous 
 seances. Here, for example, is the case of K., one 
 of my patients who is accustomed to being hypnotized, 
 and is subject to light somnambulism. Without put- 
 ting him to sleep, I say directly : ' Close your hand. 
 You can not open it again.' He keeps his hand closed 
 and contracted, and makes fruitless efforts to open it. 
 I make him hold out his other arm, with his hand open, 
 and say, ' You can not shut it.' He tries in vain to do 
 BO ; brings the phalanges into semiflexion, but can do 
 no more in spite of every effort. There is in my serv- 
 ice a young hysterical girl afflicted with sensitivo-sen- 
 sorial hemiansesthesia of the left side, and capable of 
 being hypnotized into deep sleep. In the waking condi- 
 tion she is susceptible to catalepsy or suggestive contrac- 
 tion. I can effect transfer of the hemianaesthesia from the 
 left to the right side without hypnotizing and without 
 touching her. In one of my somnambulistic cases I can 
 obtain all possible modifications of sensibility in the wak- 
 ing condition. It suffices to say, ' Your left side is insen- 
 sible ' ; then if I prick his left arm with a pin, stick the 
 pin into his nostril, touch the mucous membrane of his 
 eye, or tickle his throat, he does not move. The other side 
 of his body reacts. I transfer the anaesthesia from the 
 left to the right side. I produce total anaesthesia, which 
 was on one occasion so profound that my chef de cli- 
 nique pulled out the roots of five teeth which were 
 deeply embedded in the gums, twisting them round in 
 their sockets for more than ten minutes. I simply said 
 to the patient, ' You will have no feeling whatever.' 
 He laughed as he spat out the blood, and did not show 
 the least symptom of pain." 
 
 Here, as we see, the experiments were carried on 
 with somnambulic and hysterical subjects; the result,
 
 THE EVIDENCE OP NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 27 
 
 therefore, can not prove the facts of suggestibility in 
 normal and perfectly healthy people. Some of my own 
 experiments might possibly prove more conclusive. Mr. 
 W., an acquaintance of mine, who was never hypno- 
 tized by anyone, readily took suggestions in his waking 
 state. I told him he could not write his name. He 
 tried, and he did write it. I stretched out my arm, 
 opened my hand and stiffened the fingers, and said, 
 " Try now." He could not write his hand became 
 cataleptic. I made a whole series of experiments of 
 this kind, 'but as they interested me from quite a differ- 
 ent point of view I shall give a detailed account of 
 them later on. Meanwhile this one instance will suffice 
 for our present purpose to show the power of sugges- 
 tion in the waking state. The fact, however, of its 
 rarity 'and singularity makes it unfit to prove the uni- 
 versality of normal suggestibility. 
 
 In the Zeitschrift f iir Hypnotismus * Prof. J. Del- 
 boeuf brings cases of suggestibility in normal condition. 
 Thus he made a patient anaesthetic who was not and 
 could not be hypnotized. He told the patient : " Rei- 
 chen Sie mir Ihren Arm, sehen Sie mich fest an und 
 zeigen Sie mir durch Ihren Blick, dass Sie entschlossen 
 sind, nichts zu f uhlen, und Sie werden thatsachlich nichts 
 f iihlen." The patient did it. Prof. Delboeuf severely 
 pricked the subject's arm, and the latter felt no pain. 
 
 To take another case. An old man of seventy suf- 
 ered great pain from facial neuralgia for more than fif- 
 teen years. " Ich komme zu ihm," says Prof. Delboeuf ; 
 " ziehe ihn heftig am Bart und erklare ihm, dass er keine 
 Schmerzen mehr hat, dass er auch ferner keine Schmer- 
 zen haben wird, und meine Prophezeihung erfiillt sich." 
 
 * November and December, 1892.
 
 28 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 These cases, like the preceding one, are subject to the 
 same objections ; they do not prove the universality of 
 normal suggestibility on account of their rarity and 
 singularity. Not every one can so easily be made cata- 
 leptic or anaesthetic in his waking condition. With 
 most people such suggestions are failures even in hyp- 
 nosis. The only way, then, to test the verity of normal 
 suggestibility is to lay aside all experimentation on hys- 
 terical, somnambulic, hypnotic, and extraordinarily sug- 
 gestible subjects, and start a series of experiments on 
 perfectly healthy and normal individuals. Thanks to 
 Prof. H. Miinsterberg and to the admirable facilities 
 afforded by the Psychological Laboratory of Harvard 
 University and the Pathological Institute of the New 
 York State Hospitals, I was enabled to carry out more 
 than eight thousand experiments relating to the subject 
 of suggestion. 
 
 The order of experiments taken up first was sugges- 
 tion of letters and figures. 
 
 The mechanism of this class of experiments was as 
 follows : A successive series of letters or of figures was 
 introduced through a slit on a white screen, each letter 
 or figure being pasted on a separate slip of cardboard 
 which in colour and position coincided with the back- 
 ground of the screen. Each experiment consisted of a 
 series of nine slips. Each slip was kept on the back- 
 ground for two or three seconds. The interval between 
 the slip and its successor was also two or three seconds. 
 Time was measured by a metronome inclosed within a 
 felt box, with a rubber tube passing close to the ear of 
 the experimenter, so that the subjects should not be dis- 
 turbed by the ticking of the metronome. For the same 
 reason the experimenter and his movements of inserting 
 the slips into the white screen were all carefully hidden
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 29 
 
 by screens. The ring of a bell indicated that the series 
 came to an end, and it also served as a signal for the 
 subjects to write down immediately on paper which 
 they kept ready in their hands anything that came into 
 their mind at that particular moment letters, numerals, 
 words, phrases, etc. 
 
 While looking for evidence for normal suggesti- 
 bility, an opportunity was also taken to arrange the ex- 
 periments according to different factors, so that should 
 it be proved that suggestion in the normal state is an 
 indubitable fact, we should be enabled to know what 
 kind of factors are the more impressive and sug- 
 gestive. 
 
 The seizes of letters and figures were arranged ac- 
 cording to the following factors and their combi- 
 nations : 
 
 1. Repetition. 
 
 2. Frequency. 
 
 3. Coexistence. 
 
 4. Last impression. 
 
 Great care, of course, was taken not to repeat the 
 same series of letters or figures. As I had many slips 
 at my disposal the series could be easily changed both 
 by permutation and insertion of new slips. The sub- 
 jects did not and could not possibly suspect the sug- 
 gested letter or figure, first, because there were so many 
 of them in each series; second, because the factors 
 studied were constantly varied ; and, third, because 
 sham series, such as inverted or coloured letters, etc., 
 were introduced so as to baffle the subjects. 
 
 I had twelve subjects at my disposal, and experi- 
 mented with three or four at a time. Recently I made 
 experiments of this kind with thirteen subjects more, 
 so that the total number of subjects is twenty -five.
 
 30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 The results are as follows : 
 
 1. KEPETITION. In the middle of the series a letter 
 or numeral was shown three times in succession e. g. : 
 
 B 3 
 
 E 6 
 
 K 8 
 
 M 5 
 
 M or 5 
 
 M 5 
 
 K 7 
 
 O 2 
 
 P 9 
 
 Of 300 experiments made, 53 succeeded that is, the 
 subject wrote the letter or numeral suggested by the 
 factor of repetition. 
 
 The factor of repetition gives a suggestibility of IT' 6 
 per cent. 
 
 2. FREQUENCY. A letter or numeral was shown 
 three times in the series, and each time with an inter- 
 ruption e. g. : 
 
 B 5 
 
 K 3 
 
 E 7 
 
 K 3 
 
 M or 9 
 
 K 3 
 
 C 4 
 
 E 8 
 
 D 6 
 
 Of 300 experiments made, 128 succeeded. 
 The factor of frequency gives a suggestibility of 42 '6 
 per cent. 
 
 3. COEXISTENCE. A letter or numeral was shown 
 repeatedly ; not, however, in succession, as it was in the
 
 THE EVIDENCE OP NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 31 
 
 case of the factor of repetition, also not with interrup- 
 tions as it was in the case of frequency, but at the same 
 
 time e. g. : 
 
 B 4 
 
 E 1 
 
 C 2 
 
 L> 6 
 
 E E E, or 7 7 T 
 
 M 5 
 
 L 3 
 
 A 9 
 
 F 8 
 
 Of 300 experiments made, only 20 succeeded. 
 The factor of coexistence gives as its power of sug- 
 gestion 6* 6 per cent. 
 
 4. LAST IMPRESSION. Here was studied the suggesti- 
 bility effected by the last impression, by the last letter 
 or figure. In all our experiments unnecessary repeti- 
 tion was carefully avoided. It is plain that the nature 
 of these experiments of last impression required that 
 not one letter or figure should be repeated twice in the 
 series e. g. : 
 
 A 7 
 
 K 9 
 
 F 5 
 
 L 8 
 
 D or' 6 
 
 E 2 
 
 B 4 
 
 E 1 
 
 M 3 
 
 Of 300 experiments made, 190 succeeded. 
 The factor of last impression gives a suggestibility 
 of 63'3 per cent.
 
 32 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 5. COEXISTENCE AND LAST IMPRESSION. In these 
 experiments a slip with three identical characters pasted 
 on it appeared at the end of the series, thus combining 
 in one the factor of coexistence with that of last im- 
 pression e. g. : 
 
 E 2 
 
 N 5 
 
 C 7 
 
 K 1 
 
 B or 9 
 
 M 8 
 
 Q 4 
 
 Z 6 
 
 A A A 333 
 
 Of 300 experiments made, 55 succeeded. 
 The combined effect of coexistence and last impres- 
 sion gives a suggestibility of 18*3 per cent. 
 
 6. FREQUENCY AND LAST IMPRESSION. The letter 
 or numeral repeated with interruptions was also shown 
 at the end of the series e. g. : 
 
 M 5 
 
 C 2 
 
 B 8 
 
 C 2 
 
 K or 4 
 
 C 2 
 
 P 9 
 
 N 6 
 
 C 2 
 
 Of 150 experiments made, 113 succeeded. 
 The combined effect of the two factors gives a sug- 
 gestibility of 75 '2 per cent. 
 
 Arranging now the factors in the order of their rate 
 of effected suggestibility, we have the following table :
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 33 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Frequency and last impression 7"5'2 
 
 Last impression 63'3 
 
 Frequency 42*6 
 
 Coexistence and last impression . . . 18'3 
 
 Repetition . . . . , 17'6 
 
 Coexistence 6-6 
 
 Comparing now the suggestibility effected by dif- 
 ferent factors,* that of the last impression stands out 
 most prominently. The " last impression " is the most 
 impressive. Our daily life teems with facts that illus- 
 trate this rule : The child is influenced by the last 
 impression it receives. In a debate he, as a rule, gains 
 the victory in the eyes of the public who has the last 
 word. In a crowd he moves and stirs the citizens to 
 action who makes the last inciting speech. In a mob 
 he who last sets an example becomes the hero and the 
 leader. 
 
 Frequency comes next to last impression and pre- 
 cedes repetition. This may be explained by the fact 
 that in repetition the suggestion is too grossly obvious, 
 lying almost on the surface ; the mind, therefore, is 
 aroused to opposition, and a counter-suggestion is 
 formed ; while in frequency the suggestion, on account 
 of the interruption, is not so tangibly obvious, the 
 opposition therefore is considerably less, and the sug- 
 gestion is left to run its course. 
 
 Coexistence is a still poorer mode of suggestion 
 than repetition; it only arouses opposition. Coexist- 
 ence is in reality of the nature of repetition, for it is 
 repetition in space ; it is a poor form of repetition. 
 
 * Let me add here that the figures bring out rather the relative 
 than the absolute suggestiveness of the factors studied.
 
 34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 On the whole, we may say that in the normal state 
 temporal or spatial repetition is the most unfortunate 
 mode of suggestion, while the best, the most successful 
 of all the particular factors, is that of the last impres- 
 sion that is, the mode of bringing the idea intended 
 for suggestion at the very end. This rule is observed 
 by influential orators and widely read popular writers ; 
 it is known in rhetoric as bringing the composition 
 to a climax. Of all the modes of suggestion, however, 
 the most powerful, t/te most effective, and the most suc- 
 cessful is a skilful combination of frequency and last 
 impression. This rule is observed by Shakespeare in 
 the speech of Antony. Be these rules of the particular 
 factors what they may, one thing is clear and sure: 
 these experiments unquestionably prove the reality of 
 normal suggestibility ; they prove the presence of sug- 
 gestibility in the average normal individual. 
 
 From suggestion of ideas I turned to suggestion of 
 movements, of acts. The first set of experiments was 
 rather crude in form, but not without its peculiar inter- 
 est and value. 
 
 The experiments were carried on in the following 
 way: On a little table I put a few objects, screened 
 from the subject by a sheet of white cardboard. The 
 subject was asked to concentrate his attention on a cer- 
 tain spot of the screen for about twenty seconds. On 
 the sudden removal of the screen the subject had im- 
 mediately to do something anything he liked. It 
 was, of course, also understood that the subject should 
 keep his mind a blank as much as it was in his power, 
 and, at any rate, that he should not beforehand make 
 up his mind what to do. The subjects, I must add, 
 were perfectly trustworthy people coworkers in the 
 Psychological Laboratory.
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 35 
 
 Now, while the screen was removed I at the same 
 time loudly suggested some action such as " Read ! " 
 " Write ! " " Cut ! " " Strike ! " " Ring ! " etc. On the 
 table were objects appropriate to such actions a book, 
 a pen, a knife, a hammer, a bell. The subjects very 
 frequently carried out the commands, the suggestions 
 given to them. 
 
 Of five hundred experiments made, about one half 
 succeeded ; that is, the subject carried out the sugges- 
 tion given to him during the removal of the screen. 
 Allowing ten per cent for chance, there remains about 
 forty per cent in favour of suggestibility. 
 
 On interrogating the subjects of their state of mind 
 at the moment of action, many of them told me that 
 they felt no desire nor any particular impulse to carry 
 out the act suggested, but that they complied with my 
 order out of sheer politeness. (I should say, though, 
 that the fact of the order being realized so many times, 
 be it even from mere politeness, indicates the presence 
 of suggestibility.) 
 
 Some of the subjects became totally unfitted to do 
 anything at all. It seemed as if all activity was for the 
 time being under some powerful inhibition. 
 
 In the case of one subject Mr. S., one of the 
 ablest men in the Psychological Laboratory I found 
 that my order was carried out in a reflex way ; so much 
 so that a few times, when I called out " Strike ! " " Ham- 
 mer ! " the hand went down on the table instantane- 
 ously and with such violence that the table was nearly 
 shattered. Mr. S. felt pain in his hand for some min- 
 utes. On one occasion I called out, "Look there!" 
 Quick as lightning Mr. S. turned round and looked 
 hard. On another occasion I commanded, " Rise ! " 
 Back moved the chair and up went Mr. S.
 
 36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 Now this set of experiments, if regarded alone, cer- 
 tainly does not carry conviction as to the presence of 
 suggestibility in all perfectly normal and healthy per- 
 sons; but along with other experiments with those 
 that relate to suggestion of ideas, and with those in re- 
 lation to choice suggestion, of which I shall soon give a 
 detailed account this last set of movements' and acts' 
 suggestion certainly contributes its mite of evidence. 
 It is not, however, on account of their positive side 
 that I value these movement experiments, but on ac- 
 count of their negative side. I shall resume this sub- 
 ject further on in its proper place. Interesting as 
 that last line of investigation was, I still had to aban- 
 don it, because the experiments could not possibly 
 be expressed in precise quantitative terms. Except 
 in the case of Mr. S., I could not precisely know how 
 far the experiment succeeded and how far it failed. 
 The different factors remained unanalyzed, and the 
 whole mechanism was extremely crude and primitive. 
 Thanks to the advice of Prof. H. Miinsterberg, I 
 was enabled to continue my research further and pene- 
 trate deeper into one of the most obscure, most mys- 
 terious, but also most promising regions of human 
 nature. The experiments which I am about to de- 
 scribe were carried out with great care and minute- 
 ness of detail. The new factors studied were carefully 
 analyzed and separated. I must confess that at first I 
 did not fully realize the import and value of these ex- 
 periments ; I saw in them nothing else than a further 
 test and affirmation of the fact of normal suggestibility, 
 especially on its efferent or motor side. The highest I 
 thought of their value was that along with the preced- 
 ing experiments they would carry to the mind convic- 
 tion perfect certitude as to the universality of normal
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 3? 
 
 suggestibility. But later on, when I summed up the 
 results and thought the matter over, I was glad to dis- 
 cover that the results had a profounder meaning than 
 the one I put on them ; that they pointed to something 
 beyond, to something deeper and wider than the prob- 
 lem they were intended to solve. 
 
 To pass now to the experiments themselves. The 
 experiments were carried on in the following way : Six 
 small squares (30x30 mm.) of different colours were 
 placed on a white background. The white background 
 with the six squares on it was again covered by a black 
 cardboard. The subject was told to fix his attention on 
 the black cardboard for five seconds (time being meas- 
 ured by the metronome). At the end of five seconds 
 the black cover was removed, and the subject had im- 
 mediately to take one of the coloured squares, which- 
 ever he liked. 
 
 The subjects were nineteen in number. No subject 
 was allowed to take part in these experiments more 
 than one hour a week. Precautions were also taken 
 that the same series of colours should not be repeated in 
 the experiments with the same subject. For this pur- 
 pose Bradley's colours were used, which give an end- 
 less combination of different colours. At the beginning 
 of each week the colours were rearranged in new series 
 of six squares each; no series containing the same 
 colour, the squares were all of different colours. Pre- 
 caution was also taken to hide the arrangement of the 
 experiments from the subjects.* 
 
 * As the squares were rather small in size they could with equal 
 facility be reached with either hand, and there was, therefore, no 
 tendency to prefer the squares of one side more than those of the 
 other side. Besides, control-experiments with black squares were 
 made by me; and these experiments still further confirmed the
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 In these experiments on suggestion of choice the 
 following six factors were studied : 
 
 1. Abnormal position. 
 
 2. Colored cover. 
 
 3. Strange shape. 
 
 4. Colour verbally suggested. 
 
 5. Place verbally suggested. 
 
 6. Environment. 
 
 1. ABNORMAL POSITION. One of the coloured squares 
 was placed in some abnormal way, thus : 
 
 OR 
 
 2. COLOURED COVER. Instead of the usual black 
 cover a coloured cover was used in these experiments. 
 A square of the same colour as that of the cover was 
 placed in the series of squares. 
 
 3. STRANGE SHAPE. One of the coloured squares 
 was here of some peculiar shape, of the form of a tri- 
 angle, oblong rectangle, rhomboid, pentagon, star, etc., 
 thus : 
 
 A 
 
 view that this factor of preference by convenience was totally 
 absent.
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 39 
 
 4. COLOUR VEEBALLY SUGGESTED. One of the col- 
 oured squares was shown to the subject, who had to de- 
 termine its colour. This was not an easy task, as the 
 subject had to tell the constituents of the colour, and 
 give the precise name of it. The subject usually kept 
 the coloured square in his hand, and spoke about it for 
 more than a minute. In case he did not succeed, I 
 told him the name of the colour. Then the square was 
 replaced in the series, and the experiment proper 
 began. 
 
 5. PLACE VERBALLY SUGGESTED. The place of one 
 of the coloured squares was suggested by calling out a 
 number during the removal of the cover and the set of 
 choice, as, for instance, " Three ! " meaning the third in 
 the row beginning from the left hand. In order that 
 the subject should understand the number suggested 
 and get used to this mode of counting, I asked of 
 him in other suggestion experiments that, after having 
 chosen a coloured square, he should also tell its place, 
 counting from left to right. 
 
 C. ENVIRONMENT. One of the six coloured squares 
 was put on a larger square of differently coloured paper. 
 A fringe environing the square was thus formed. 
 
 Special care was taken not to leave in the same 
 place the square suggested, but to shift it with each 
 subsequent experiment. The differently coloured squares 
 suggested were each time put in different places, so 
 that the subject should not form a habit of choosing 
 from one place more than from another. 
 
 To counteract all expectation as to what the nature 
 of the experiment was, the experiments were constantly 
 4
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 changed as to the nature of the factor, and, to be the 
 more sure of completely eliminating expectation, sham 
 experiments were introduced. Instead of the usual col- 
 oured squares, the subject frequently found a row of 
 black squares, looking like a funeral march. These 
 black squares were often screened by a cover of gay 
 colour. 
 
 Before I proceed to give a detailed account of the 
 experiments, I think it would be well to give the pre- 
 cise meaning in which I here employ the terms of 
 mediate and immediate suggestion and suggestibility. 
 
 By immediate suggestion I mean to indicate the full 
 realization of the suggestion given to the subject the 
 fact of his taking the square suggested to him in a 
 direct or indirect way. 
 
 By mediate suggestion I mean to indicate the fact 
 of incomplete realization of the suggestion the fact of 
 taking a square next to the one suggested by the experi- 
 ment e. g. : 
 
 a a s <> s a 
 
 d, Immediate suggestion. 
 c or 6, Mediate suggestion. 
 The results are as follows : * 
 
 1. ABNORMAL POSITION. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Immediate suggestion 47' 85 
 
 Mediate suggestion 5*37 
 
 Total suggestion 53-22 
 
 * See Appendix A.
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 41 
 
 2. . COLOUEED COVER. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Immediate suggestion 38-16 
 
 Mediate suggestion 5-83 
 
 Total suggestion 43-99 
 
 3. STRANGE SHAPE. 
 
 i 
 Immediate suggestion 43 
 
 Mediate suggestion 13 
 
 Total suggestion 56 
 
 4. COLOUR VERBALLY SUGGESTED. 
 
 Immediate suggestion 28*89 
 
 Mediate suggestion 4*44 
 
 Total suggestion 33-33 
 
 5. PLACE VERBALLY SUGGESTED. 
 
 Immediate suggestion 19-41 
 
 Mediate suggestion 0-58 
 
 Total suggestion 19*99 
 
 6. ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 Immediate suggestion 30-44 
 
 Mediate suggestion 22-22 
 
 Total suggestion 52-66 
 
 Making now a table of the factors and arranging 
 them in the order suggestibility effected, we have the 
 following :
 
 42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 TABLE OF IMMEDIATE SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Abnormal position 47' 8 
 
 Strange shape 43'0 
 
 Coloured Cover 38*1 
 
 Environment 3O4 
 
 Colour verbally suggested 28' 8 
 
 Place verbally suggested 19*4 
 
 Mediate suggestibility necessitates a rearrangement 
 of the factors : 
 
 TABLE OF MEDIATE SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Environment 22'2 
 
 Strange shape 13'0 
 
 Coloured cover 5*8 
 
 Abnormal position 5*3 
 
 Colour verbally suggested 4'4 
 
 Place verbally suggested 0'5 
 
 A scrutiny of the table of immediate suggestibility 
 shows that the factors of abnormal position and of 
 abnormal or strange shape give the strongest sugges- 
 tion. A familiar thing in a strange abnormal position 
 or shape produces the most effective suggestion. Noth- 
 ing speaks so much to the childish or popular mind as 
 a caricature, monstrosity, a grotesque figure. A dis- 
 torted picture of a familiar scene or person will at 
 once attract the attention of the child, and power- 
 fully affect its conduct in case the picture is intended 
 to show the fate of bad children. The angelical hap- 
 piness of saints, the pure, holy bliss of martyrs, the 
 intolerable torments suffered by the wicked in hell,
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 43 
 
 speak volumes to the vulgar religious mind. When 
 Vladimir, the Russian Kniase (king), intended to aban- 
 don paganism and accept a monotheistic religion, mis- 
 sionaries came to him from the Jews, Mohammedans, 
 and Christians. No argument could affect the bar- 
 barian. The cunning Greeks then showed him a pic- 
 ture representing the day of judgment. The righteous 
 enjoy eternal bliss in the company of beautiful maiden- 
 like angels, while the wicked, with distorted faces, 
 writhe and wriggle in agonies of pain. The infidels 
 are cooked in enormous kettles containing a hellish 
 soup of hot, seething oil and bubbling sulphur and 
 pitch. The sinners, the blasphemers, are mercilessly 
 fried and roasted by horned, tailed, cloven -hoofed, grin- 
 ning, hideous-looking devils. Vladimir was deeply af- 
 fected by the picture of the Christian hell, and at once 
 accepted the Greek faith. This Russian tradition may 
 serve as a good illustration of the great power of sug- 
 gestion possessed by the two factors of abnormal posi- 
 tion and strange shape. 
 
 Turning now to the table of mediate suggestibility, 
 we find that the factor of environment gives us as high 
 a rate as 22'2 per cent, almost twice .the rate of the 
 mediate suggestibility possessed by the factor of strange 
 shape, and more than five times the rate of the mediate 
 suggestibility possessed by the factor colour verbally 
 suggested. This can possibly be explained by the fact 
 that one of the conditions of the environment factor 
 was to put one of the squares on a differently coloured 
 background. The fringed square looked somewhat 
 prettier than its fellows, and it was this prettiness that 
 enhanced the mediate suggestibility. An adorned, 
 beautiful object sheds glory on its homely neighbours 
 and makes them more eligible.
 
 44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 But however the case may he with the relative sug- 
 gestihility of the particular factors studied, these last 
 experiments on choice suggestion, together with the 
 other suggestion experiments, establish the fact of nor- 
 mal suggestibility on a firm and unshakable basis. MAN 
 
 18 A SUGGESTIBLE ANIMAL, pCLT excellence.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CONDITIONS OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 1. THE first and general condition of normal sug- 
 gestibility is fixation of the attention. 
 
 In all my experiments the one indispensable condi- 
 tion was to fix the attention on some spot and thus to 
 prepare the subject for the acceptance of the sugges- 
 tion. I asked the subject to look on some particular 
 point chosen by me, the time of fixation usually vary- 
 ing from two to five seconds. In my experiments with 
 letters and figures the attention of the subject was fixed 
 on the white surface of the screen for about two sec- 
 onds before the first character of the series appeared ; 
 then, again, between each figure or letter and the next 
 following there was an interval of two or three seconds 
 during which the subject had to look fixedly at the 
 uniformly white screen. In my experiments with 
 coloured squares, or on choice suggestion, the condition 
 of fixation of attention was scrupulously observed ; the 
 subject had to fix his attention on a particular point for 
 five seconds. The same condition was observed in my 
 experiments on suggestion of movements and of acts. 
 The fixation of attention, as I said, was usually not 
 continued longer than five seconds. Thus, out of 4,487 
 experiments made on suggestion, only 500 experiments 
 (those dealing with suggestion of movements) had a 
 fixation time higher than five seconds. 
 
 45
 
 46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Fixation of attention is one of the most important 
 conditions of normal suggestibility so much so that 
 when this condition was absent the experiments were 
 unsuccessful, the suggestion given invariably failed. 
 The subject declared he was disturbed, mixed up, that 
 he was not in the mood, that he could not make up his 
 mind to write anything, to execute movements, or to 
 choose squares. 
 
 2. The next condition of normal suggestibility is 
 distraction of the attention. The subject had to fix his 
 attention on some irrelevant point, spot, thing that had 
 no connection with the material of the experiments, no 
 resemblance to the objects employed for suggestion. 
 Usually I asked my subjects to fix their attention on 
 some minute dot, because a large spot or a big object 
 might have interfered with the suggestion, on account 
 of form, size, etc. The attention had to be diverted 
 from the objects of the experiments. I found that 
 when this condition of distraction of attention was ab- 
 sent the experiments, as a rule, failed. A. Binet, in his 
 valuable article on Double Consciousness,* the results 
 of which we will discuss later on, tells us that the sug- 
 gestion of movements brought about in healthy, nor- 
 mal persons when in their waking condition required 
 one " necessary condition : that attention should not be 
 fixed on the hand and what is taking place there." Now 
 Binet made his suggestion experiments on the hand 
 movements of the subject ; the condition, then, he re- 
 quires is that of distraction of the attention from the 
 objects of the experiments. 
 
 3. In all the experiments I had to guard against 
 variety of impressions. Slight noises coming from the 
 
 * See also his book, Les alternations de la personnalite.
 
 THE CONDITIONS OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 47 
 
 adjoining rooms in the laboratory, a new man coming 
 into the room where the experiments were being car- 
 ried on, a book dropping, an Italian playing on the street 
 organ, and many other kindred impressions, were dis- 
 tinctly unfavourable to the experiments, and had to be 
 avoided as much as possible. The subjects had to ac- 
 custom themselves to the conditions and objects in the 
 room, and any new impressions strongly interfered with 
 the success of the suggestion. A fresh, new impression, 
 however slight, proved always a disturbance. When the 
 impression was a strong one, or when many impressions 
 came together, the experiments were interrupted and 
 the whole work came to a standstill. The experiments 
 could be carried on only in a monotonous environment, 
 otherwise they failed. Thus we find that 'monotony is 
 an indispensable condition of normal suggestibility. 
 
 4. While fixing their attention the subjects had to 
 keep as quiet as possible ; for otherwise the subject 
 became disturbed, his attention began to wander, and 
 the suggestion failed. Before the experiments began 
 the subjects were asked to make themselves as com- 
 fortable as possible, so that they should not have to 
 change their position during the experiments. We 
 find, then, that normal suggestibility requires as one of 
 its conditions a limitation of voluntary movements. 
 
 5. limitation of the field of consciousness may be 
 also considered as one of the principal conditions of 
 normal suggestibility. This condition, however, is in 
 fact a result of the former ones namely, fixation of 
 attention, monotony, and limitation of voluntary move- 
 ments ; for when these last conditions are present the 
 field of consciousness is contracted, closed to any new 
 incoming impressions, limited only to a certain set of 
 sensations, fixed, riveted to only a certain point. Con
 
 48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 traction of the field of consciousness may, however, be 
 effected where the other conditions are absent. A sud- 
 den, violent impression may instantly effect an enor- 
 mous shrinkage of the field of consciousness, and then 
 the other conditions will naturally follow, or rather co- 
 exist ; for consciousness will reverberate with this one 
 violent sense impression and will thus attend to only 
 the latter. There will also be monotony, since this one 
 sudden and violent sense impression tolerates few 
 neighbours and drives out fresh incomers. Volun- 
 tary movements will then certainly be limited, since 
 the stream of consciousness is narrowed, and along with 
 it its ideomotor side. The fact that limitation or con- 
 traction of the field of consciousness may occur by 
 itself without having been preceded by the conditions 
 mentioned above led me to consider it a separate con- 
 dition of normal suggestibility. 
 
 6. The experiments, again, could not be carried on 
 without the condition of inhibition. I asked the sub- 
 ject that, when he concentrated his attention and fixed 
 a particular dot pointed out to him, he should try as 
 much as it was in his power to banish all ideas images 
 that had no connection with the experiments in hand ; 
 that he should not even think of the experiments them- 
 selves ; in short, that he should make his mind a, perfect 
 blank, and voluntarily inhibit ideas, associations that 
 might arise before his mind's eye and claim attention. 
 Of course, this condition was rather a hard task for the 
 subject to comply with, still it was observed as far as it 
 was possible. When this condition was neglected by 
 the subject the experiments invariably failed. Inhibi- 
 tion, then, is a necessary condition of normal suggesti- 
 bility. 
 
 7. The very last condition, but at the same time the
 
 THE CONDITIONS OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 49 
 
 principal one, the most fundamental condition sine qua 
 non experiments in normal suggestion, was immediate 
 execution. The subject was told that as soon as he per- 
 ceived the signal he should immediately write, act, or 
 choose. 
 
 To make a synopsis of the conditions of normal sug- 
 gestibility : 
 
 1. Fixation of attention. 
 
 2. Distraction of attention. 
 
 3. Monotony. 
 
 4. Limitation of voluntary movements. 
 
 5. Limitation of the field of consciousness. 
 
 6. Inhibition. 
 
 7. Immediate execution.
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 THE LAW OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 WE must turn again to our experiments and give a 
 close study to the results obtained. We take choice 
 suggestion first. N"ow, out of the six factors studied, 
 four belong to direct suggestion and two to indirect 
 suggestion. The factors of abnormal position, strange 
 shape, coloured cover, environment, are of one type, 
 while the factors of colour verbally suggested and place 
 verbally suggested are of the other opposite type of 
 suggestion. Is there any difference in the rate of sug- 
 gestibility of the two types of suggestion ? Yes, and a 
 very good one, too. For even a superficial glance at the 
 two tables of immediate and mediate suggestibility,* 
 if the latter are only inspected from the standpoint of 
 the two types of suggestion, will at once disclose this 
 radical difference. The average immediate suggesti- 
 bility of the four factors belonging to the first type to 
 indirect suggestion amounts to 39*8 per cent, whereas 
 the average rate of immediate suggestibility of the two 
 last factors belonging to the second type to direct sug- 
 gestion amounts only to 2-i^l per cent. 
 
 And if we inspect the table of mediate suggestibility, 
 we find again a similar difference ; for the average medi- 
 ate suggestibility of the first four factors belonging to the 
 type of indirect suggestion gives a rate of 11 '5 per cent. 
 
 * See Chapter III, page 42. 
 50
 
 THE LAW OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 51 
 
 Whereas the average rate of mediate suggestibility 
 of the last two factors belonging to the type of direct 
 suggestion amounts- to only 2*4 per cent. 
 
 The difference between the two types of suggestion 
 becomes very striking indeed if we make a table of total 
 suggestibility that is, if we add together the mediate 
 and immediate suggestibility of each factor. Making 
 thus the table and arranging the factors in the order of 
 their respective rates of total suggestibility, we have the 
 following results : * 
 
 TABLE OF TOTAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Strange shape 56 
 
 Abnormal position 53'2 
 
 Environment 52'6 
 
 Coloured cover 43*9 
 
 Colour verbally suggested 33'3 
 
 Place verbally suggested 19*9 
 
 A mere glance at this table shows the great differ- 
 ence of the two types of suggestion ; and tins differ- 
 ence becomes yet more evident, still more striking, if 
 we take the rate of the average total suggestibility of 
 the first type of factors and compare it with that of 
 the second. For the average total suggestibility of the 
 first four factors amounts to as much as 51 '4 per cent, 
 while that of the last two amounts only to 26*6 per 
 cent. The one rate is about twice the otheri The 
 conclusion is obvious, as it lies now before us clear and 
 distinct in its outlines. In the case of normal sugges- 
 
 * See Chapter III, page 41.
 
 52 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 tibility indirect suggestion is far more effective than 
 direct suggestion. 
 
 If we examine closer the nature of the last two fac- 
 tors, colour verbally suggested and place verbally sug- 
 gested, factors which we classed in the type of direct 
 suggestion, we find that they are only relatively direct ; 
 for, after all, the subject was not explicitly and directly 
 told to take that colour. What we really must say of 
 them is, that they far more approach the type of direct 
 suggestion than the other four factors do. 
 
 If now we inquire as to the rate of suggestibility 
 when the factor is of the actual explicit type of direct 
 suggestion, the answer is, naught. The experiments on 
 suggestion of movements bring out clearly this answer. 
 The suggestion employed there was that of the most 
 direct and explicit kind, and, with the exception of Mr. 
 S., the experiments proved a total failure. The sub- 
 jects ironically complied with my command. The re- 
 sults were negative zero. Direct suggestion is at the 
 freezing point of normal suggestibility. It is only in 
 proportion as a given factor becomes more indirect that 
 it rises in the scale of suggestibility. In other words, 
 the more indirect a factor is the higher is the rate of its 
 suggestibility. 
 
 Should we like to have still further proofs we can 
 easily get them ; for a close scrutiny of the tables of 
 immediate, mediate, and total suggestibility most clearly 
 shows the truth of my position, namely, that in the nor- 
 mal state a suggestion is more effective the more indirect 
 it is, and in proportion as it becomes direct it loses its 
 efficacy. Abnormal position, strange shape, and envi- 
 ronment are the most indirect, and they give the highest 
 suggestibility (environment in mediate suggestibility 
 gives a slightly higher rate because of the additional
 
 THE LAW OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 53 
 
 factor of attractiveness). Abnormal position and abnor- 
 mal shape have about the same rate ; for, on the whole, it 
 makes no difference for man whether a familiar thing is 
 put into an abnormal position or whether it appears in a 
 strange garb : he is equally impressed and moved. As we 
 come to the factor of coloured cover we find a slight de- 
 crease in the rate of suggestibility. For if we take the 
 average immediate suggestibility of abnormal position 
 and strange shape * we have 45 '4 per cent, while that of 
 coloured cover is 38'1 per cent ; the difference is 7*3 per 
 cent ; and we find a difference between the same factors 
 in the case of total suggestibility, the difference being 
 1O6 per cent. Now the suggestion of coloured cover 
 is somewhat more direct than that of abnormal position, 
 or strange shape; for in spreading a coloured cover 
 over the squares, the subject, on seeing and fixing his 
 attention on it, could not help suspecting that it was a 
 square of the same colour that I wanted him to choose : 
 opposition was aroused and the suggestion failed. Al- 
 though I repeatedly baffled and disappointed the expec- 
 tation of the subject by putting black squares under the 
 coloured cover, or spreading one over a row of squares 
 totally different in colour from that of the cover, still I 
 could not completely dislodge the suspicion from the 
 subject's mind ; it was always lurking in the background 
 of his consciousness. 
 
 Of the two factors, colour verbally suggested and 
 place verbally suggested, the former is more indirect 
 than the latter. In the one I merely showed a square 
 to the subject and asked him to determine the colour, 
 without hinting my intention (the subject very fre- 
 quently being absorbingly interested in guessing the 
 
 * See Chapter III, page 42.
 
 54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 name) ; while in the other the number of the place of 
 the suggested square was called out during the removal 
 of the cover the hint, therefore, was more direct. If 
 now we look at the tables of immediate, mediate, and 
 total suggestibility of the two factors we find a great 
 difference in their rates of efficiency. 
 
 The immediate suggestibility of the 
 
 factor colour verbally suggested is 28'8 per cent, 
 
 while that of place verbally suggested is 19*4 " 
 
 the difference amounting to 9'4 " 
 
 The mediate suggestibility of the 
 
 factor colour verbally suggested is 4'4 " 
 
 while that of place verbally suggested is 
 
 but 0-5 " 
 
 the difference amounting to 3'9 " 
 
 The total suggestibility of colour, 
 
 etc., is 33-3 " 
 
 while that of place, etc., is 19'9 " 
 
 the difference being 13*4 " 
 
 If again we turn to our very first study with letters 
 and figures, we find the results pointing to the same 
 truth. The factors of frequency and last impression 
 are far more indirect than those of coexistence and repe- 
 tition, and we correspondingly find a great difference 
 in their rates of suggestibility. Thus the average rate 
 of frequency and of last impression is (63*3 -f 42'6) -f- 
 2 52'9 per cent ; while the average rate of suggesti- 
 bility of repetition and of coexistence is (1T'6 + 6'6) -r- 
 2 12'1 per cent, the difference being 40*8 per cent. 
 
 The factor of last impression, again, is relatively 
 more indirect than that of frequency, and correspond- 
 ingly we find a difference in their rates of suggesti- 
 bility.
 
 THE LAW OF NORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 55 
 
 The factor of last impression gives. . 63 '3 per cent, 
 
 while that of frequency gives 42*6 " 
 
 the difference being 20*7 " 
 
 The factor of repetition is relatively more indirect 
 than that of coexistence, in the latter the suggestion be- 
 ing almost grossly obvious, and once more we find a 
 corresponding difference in their rates of suggestibility. 
 
 Kepetition gives 1 Y'6 per cent, 
 
 while the factor of coexistence gives. ... 6'6 " 
 the difference being 11 
 
 Furthermore, the factor of last impression came with 
 as high a rate as 63*3 per cent, but when the same fac- 
 tor of last impression enters into combination with that 
 of coexistence, forming one factor of coexistence and 
 last impression, the rate falls as low as 18'3 per cent, 
 thus strongly contrasting the efficacy of direct with 
 that of indirect suggestion. 
 
 What is the outcome of this whole discussion ? 
 Nothing less than the law of normal suggestibility a 
 law which we shall find later on of the utmost impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Normal suggestibility varies as indirect suggestion, 
 and inversely as direct suggestion.
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 THE CONDITIONS OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 THE great type of abnormal suggestibility is the 
 hypnotic state ; so much so that the Nancy school de- 
 fines hypnosis as a state of heightened suggestibility. 
 The conditions of abnormal suggestibility are, in fact, 
 those of hypnosis. What are they ? 
 
 1. The first and foremost is that of fixation of the 
 attention. Thus Braid used to hypnotize his subjects 
 by fixing their attention on some brilliant object or 
 point. He considered a steady attention indispensable 
 if hypnosis were to be attained ; the subject must look 
 steadily at the object, he must only think of the thing 
 he was fixing, and must not allow his attention to be 
 diverted from it. Of such permanent importance is 
 fixation of attention that, according to Braid, if only 
 this condition is observed one can hypnotize even in the 
 dark. The ability to direct one's thoughts in any par- 
 ticular direction is very favourable to hypnosis. Those 
 who can by no possibility fix their attention, who suf- 
 fer from continual absence of mind, or those who are 
 helplessly stupid and lacking the power of concentra- 
 tion, are not hypnotizable. I find in my notes the case 
 of an extremely stupid young boy of sixteen who, on 
 account of lack of concentration of mind, is unable to 
 solve the most elementary arithmetical problem. I 
 
 56
 
 CONDITIONS OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 57 
 
 foretold that he would be unhypnotizable (of course 
 I did not tell that to him). Although I hypnotized in his 
 presence three good subjects, he remained refractory. 
 I tried all kinds of methods I could think of ; the last 
 one was that of Braid. For more than twenty minutes 
 he fixed an object, his eyes being converged in the 
 most orthodox fashion, inward and upward ; tears were 
 trickling down his cheeks, but he remained unaffected, 
 and for the simple reason that his attention was not 
 kept steady it was roving and wandering all the while. 
 All methods of hypnotization require fixation of atten- 
 tion as their indispensable condition. The adherents 
 of the Salpetriere school frequently hypnotize by fixing 
 the subject's attention on the expectation of some sud- 
 den brilliant ray of light meant to induce the hypnotic 
 state. The followers of the Nancy school fix the at- 
 tention of the subject on the two fingers held before his 
 eyes and on the sounds of suggestion given by the 
 operator. " I hold two fingers," says Bernheim,* " be- 
 fore the patient's eyes and ask him to concentrate his 
 attention on the idea of sleep." The efficacy of mes- 
 meric passes is also due to the fixation of attention, for 
 by those means the whole attention of the subject is 
 directed to the particular place where the passes are 
 made. " Let any one," says Dr. Moll,f " allow his arm 
 or his leg to be mesmerized by passes, and he will find 
 that his whole attention is directed to this part of his 
 body, and much more strongly than if his attention 
 was concentrated on the limb in another manner." 
 " Die Hauptsache ist," Lehmann \ tells us, " dass in der 
 Hypnose die Aufmerksamkeit in einer bestimmten 
 Bichtung gebunden ist." This is not exactly true of 
 
 * Suggestive Therapeutics. f Hypnotism. \ Die Hvpnose.
 
 58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 ihe hypnotic state itself, but it holds true with re- 
 gard to the induction of hypnosis. " Children under 
 three and four and insane persons, especially idiots, are 
 unusually hard to hypnotize," says Prof. James.* 
 " This seems due to the impossibility of getting them 
 to fix their attention continually on the idea of the com- 
 ing trance." Prof. James seems to me to have hit 
 the mark when he tells us that the concentration of 
 attention on the coming trance induces hypnosis. In 
 short, fixation of attention is an indispensable condition 
 of hypnosis. 
 
 2. Monotony of impressions is another condition of 
 the hypnotic state. If you want to hypnotize a subject, 
 especially if it is for the first time, you must put him 
 into a monotonous environment. You must prevent 
 fresh, new impressions from reaching the sensorium of 
 the subject. Whatever your mode of hypnotization 
 may be, it must always be of the same kind. This 
 might be effected by a strong stimulus acting for a 
 moment or two, or, what is far more often the case, by 
 a prolonged monotonous series of slight stimuli. Thus 
 Binet f tells us that " slight and prolonged stimuli of 
 the same nature " constitute one of the modes of pro- 
 ducing the hypnotic state. Bernheim \ expresses him- 
 self on this point more clearly : " Let us add," he says, 
 " that in the majority of the passes the monotonous, 
 wearying, and continuous impression of one of the 
 senses produce a certain intellectual drowsiness, the 
 prelude of sleep. The mind, entirely absorbed by a 
 quiet, uniform, and incessant perception, becomes for- 
 eign to all other impressions ; it is too feebly stimulated, 
 and allows itself to become dull." This condition of 
 
 * Psychology, vol. ii. f Animal Magnetism. 
 
 \ Suggestive Therapeutics.
 
 CONDITIONS OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 59 
 
 monotony is very clearly seen in the case of the Nancy 
 method of hypnotization. The operator suggests in so 
 many words the same idea of going to sleep : " Your 
 eyelids are heavy ; your eyes are tired ; they begin to 
 wink ; you feel a sort of drowsiness ; your arms and 
 
 legs are motionless ; sleep is coming ; sleep ." My 
 
 mode of hypnotization consists in forming a monot- 
 onous environment ; the light is lowered, and a pro- 
 found silence reigns in the room ; then gently and 
 monotonously stroking the skin of the subject's fore- 
 head, and in a low, muffled, monotonous voice, as if 
 rocking a baby to sleep, I go on repeating, " Sleep, 
 sleep, sleep," etc., until the subject falls into the hyp- 
 notic state. 
 
 3. Limitation of voluntary movements is also one 
 of the conditions of inducing hypnosis. The subject 
 sits down on a chair in a comfortable position, and is 
 asked to relax his muscles and make as few movements 
 as possible to keep as quiet as a mouse. This condi- 
 tion is, in fact, supplementary to that of fixation of at- 
 tention, for many different movements strongly inter- 
 fere with the steadiness of the attention. The attention 
 changes, oscillates in different directions, and the induc- 
 tion of hypnosis is rendered impossible. Dr. Moll * 
 says that " fascination is induced by limitation of volun- 
 tary movements." This is no doubt perfectly true, only 
 Dr. Moll ought not to limit it to " fascination " alone, 
 for limitation of voluntary movements is one of the 
 principal conditions of inducing hypnosis in general. 
 
 4. Limitation of the field of consciousness must cer- 
 tainly be included among the conditions of inducing 
 hypnosis. The consciousness of the subject must be 
 
 * Hypnotism.
 
 60 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 narrowed to one idea of sleep. " I endeavour," says 
 Braid in his Neurypnology, " to rid the mind at once 
 of all ideas but one" Wundt defines the very nature 
 of hypnosis as limitation of the field of consciousness, 
 and to a certain extent he is justified in his assertion, 
 seeing that all the methods of hypnotization turn on it 
 as on a pivot. Thus the method of Braid narrows the 
 field of consciousness to a brilliant point, that of mes- 
 merism to the passes, that of the Nancy school to the 
 tips of the fingers held out before the subject, or to the 
 one idea of expectation of sleep. To induce hypnosis 
 we must in some way or other effect such a limitation. 
 
 We know that a strange emotion narrows down the 
 field of consciousness. We often find that people 
 under the emotion of intense excitement lose, so to say, 
 their senses ; their mind seems to be paralyzed, or 
 rather, so to say, the one idea that produces the excite- 
 ment banishes all other ideas, and a state of monoideism, 
 or concentration of the consciousness, is thus effected. 
 People are frequently run over by carriages, cars, or 
 trains on account of the sudden great fright caused. 
 The one idea of danger reverberates in the mind like a 
 sudden powerful clap of thunder, confusing and stun- 
 ning all other ideas ; the mind is brought into a con- 
 tracted cataleptic condition, and the field of conscious- 
 ness is narrowed down to that one idea, to a single 
 point. IsTow, we find that the hypnotic trance can also 
 be induced by a strong and sudden stimulus acting 
 on the sense organ. " Hypnotization," says Binet,* 
 " can be produced by strong and sudden excitement of 
 the senses." This mode of hypnotization may be suc- 
 cessful with people of an intensely emotional nature or 
 
 * Animal Magnetism.
 
 CONDITIONS OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 61 
 
 with hysterical subjects. A strong, sudden stimulus 
 acts on them like a thunderclap, contracts their field 
 of consciousness, and throws them into a hypnotic state. 
 On the whole, we may say that limitation of the field 
 of consciousness is one of the most important condi- 
 tions of hypnotic trance. 
 
 5. The hypnotic trance, again, can not be induced 
 without the condition of inhibition. The subject must 
 inhibit all ideas, all images that come up before his mind. 
 He must only think of the brilliant point, of the tips of 
 the hypnotizer's fingers, of the passes, of the idea of 
 going to sleep. " Look at me and think of nothing but 
 sleep," tells Bernheim to his patients. " Make your 
 mind a blank," is one of the conditions required by the 
 hypnotizer of his subjects. Concentration of attention 
 and limitation of the field of consciousness are, in fact, 
 impossible without the presence of this condition of 
 inhibition. The case of the boy mentioned above, who 
 could not be hypnotized because his attention was 
 roaming, because he was unable to concentrate his 
 mind, was in reality due to the fact of lacking the 
 power of inhibition. Inhibition, voluntary or involun- 
 tary, is an indispensable condition of hypnosis. 
 
 To make a synopsis of the conditions of hypnosis, 
 or, what is the same, of abnormal suggestibility : 
 
 1. Fixation of attention. 
 
 2. Monotony. 
 
 3. Limitation of voluntary movements. 
 
 4. Limitation of the field of consciousness. 
 
 5. Inhibition.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NATURE OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 FROM the condition of hypnosis we turn now to an 
 inquiry into its nature. To do this I think it would be 
 best to examine from a purely empirical standpoint the 
 general states into which the hypnotic subject may fall. 
 
 Bernheim finds that there are not less than nine 
 states or stages : 
 
 1. Drowsiness. 
 
 2. Drowsiness, with inability to open the eys. 
 
 3. Suggestive catalepsy slightly present. 
 
 4. Suggestive catalepsy more pronounced. 
 
 5. Suggestive contractures fully induced. 
 
 6. Automatic obedience. 
 
 7. Loss of memory on waking. Hallucinations not 
 possible. 
 
 8. Loss of memory. Slight possibility of producing 
 hallucinations, but not post-hypnotically. 
 
 9. Loss of memory. Hypnotic and post-hypnotic 
 hallucinations possible. 
 
 Dr. Liebault finds that there are only six of them : 
 
 1. Drowsiness. 
 
 2. Drowsiness. Suggestive catalepsy indncible. 
 
 3. Light sleep. Automatic movements possible. 
 
 4. Deep sleep. Phenomena rapport manifested. 
 
 5. Light somnambulism. Memory hazy on waking. 
 
 62
 
 THE NATURE OP ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 63 
 
 6. Deep somnambulism. Total amnesia. Phe- 
 nomena of post-hypnotic suggestion possible. 
 Prof. August Forel reduces them to three : 
 
 1. Drowsiness. 
 
 2. Inability to open the eyes. Obedience to sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 3. Somnambulism. Amnesia. 
 
 Dr. Lloyd-Tukey gives the following states : 
 
 1. Light sleep. 
 
 2. Profound sleep. 
 
 3. Somnambulism. 
 
 Max Dessoir reduces them to two : 
 
 1. Voluntary movements show changes. 
 
 2. Abnormalities in the functions of the sense or- 
 gans are added. 
 
 Edmund Gurney, the most philosophical of all the 
 writers and investigators on the subject of hypnotism, 
 gives the following two states : 
 
 1. The alert state. 
 
 2. The deep state. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, the subjects little 
 respect all those quasi-scientific classifications of hyp- 
 notic states. Dr. Kingsbury is no doubt right in his 
 remark that " patients vary as much in hypnosis as they 
 do in their features." No doubt there are as many 
 hypnotic states as there are persons ; no doubt that it 
 is utterly impossible to give cut-and-dried definitions 
 for the infinite variety of hypnotic stages. Although 
 all this is perfectly true, we still assert that there is a 
 line of subdivision a boundary line that separates one 
 region of hypnotic phenomena from that of another. 
 This boundary line is, in fact, implied in nearly all the 
 classifications of hypnosis. 
 
 To find this boundary line, let us examine the state
 
 64 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 of mind of the subject when he is in a light hyp- 
 notic trance. The subject is in a passive condition. If 
 during hypnotization he was sitting in a chair, there 
 he will remain until roused, his limbs relaxed, his fea- 
 tures placid, making as few movements as possible, 
 occasionally changing his position if it becomes very 
 uncomfortable. If his eyes are closed, he will continue 
 to keep them in that condition. Try now to make a 
 direct suggestion that might in the least interfere with 
 what he considers as his voluntary life, with his free- 
 dom of action ; challenge him, for instance, by raising 
 his hand and teDing him that he can not lower it, that 
 he can not open his eyes ; down goes the hand and up 
 goes the eyelid, thus showing us that, passive as he ap- 
 pears to be, he does have control over his limbs. 
 The controlling consciousness is there, only it is in- 
 active, passive, and it requires a special external stimu- 
 lus to set it going, to put it into activity. My friend 
 Mr. L. told me once he wondered greatly at the passiv- 
 ity in which he was when in a state of hypnosis. He 
 told me he firmly made up his mind that when hypno- 
 tized again he would start a conversation on different 
 topics. A few minutes later I hypnotized him, but he 
 remained as passive as usual. To start him into activ- 
 ity an impulse from without was first required. Mark 
 now the peculiarity. The activity set going does not 
 continue longer than the challenged act. I raise the 
 subject's arm and challenge him to lower it ; he does 
 lower the arm, but keeps it down there in a passive 
 condition. I tell the subject he is unable to walk ; the 
 challenge is accepted ; he makes a step, very rarely 
 two, showing me that he can walk, that he possesses 
 full control over his legs, but remains passively in one 
 place. He makes another step if you challenge him
 
 THE NATURE OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 65 
 
 again. The controlling consciousness is in a passive 
 state, and reasserts itself at every single challenge to 
 act. The act done, and the controlling consciousness 
 falls back into its former state the subject relapses 
 into his passive condition. Hypnotization produces a 
 deep cleft in the mind of the subject, a cleft by which 
 the waking, controlling consciousness is separated from 
 the great stream of conscious life. 
 
 Now when the cleft is not deep enough we have the 
 different slight hypnotic states, but as the cleft becomes 
 deeper and deeper the hypnosis grows more profound, 
 and when the controlling consciousness is fully cut off 
 from the rest of conscious life we have a state of full hyp- 
 nosis which is commonly called somnambulism, and in 
 which there is complete amnesia on awakening. That is 
 why we have the strange accounts of hypnotic subjects, 
 especially of those who are on the verge of somnambu- 
 lism, that during hypnosis they were indifferent to the 
 actions of their body the latter acted by itself ; that 
 they were mere spectators of all the experiments per- 
 formed on them, of all the strange actions, dramas, that 
 transpired during the trance ; that it seemed to them as if 
 they themselves, their personality, retreated far, far away. 
 We have not to wonder that on the question " Where 
 are you ? " the subject sometimes gives the seemingly 
 absurd reply of Krafft-Ebing's patient " In your eye." 
 
 There are pathological cases on record which are 
 analogous to this state. The conscious controlling " I " 
 seems to retreat far, far away from the worM. Dr. 
 Krishaber brings the case of a patient who gives tl?e 
 following account of himself : " I myself was immeas- 
 urably far away. I looked about me with terror aD3 
 astonishment ; the world was escaping from me. I r& 
 marked at the same time that my voice was extremely
 
 66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 far away from me, that it sounded no longer as if mine. 
 Constantly it seemed to me as if my legs did not belong 
 to me. It was almost as bad with my arms. I appeared 
 to myself to act automatically, by an impulsion foreign 
 to myself. It was certainly another who had taken my 
 form and assumed my functions. I hated, I despised 
 this other ; he was perfectly odious to me." 
 
 To return, however, to hypnosis. In the superficial 
 stages, when the subject is not in a very deep trance, 
 we frequently meet with curious phenomena of the 
 following kind : I raise the hand of the subject and put 
 it in some uncomfortable position and let it remain 
 there ; there it stays all the while. I challenge him to 
 lower his hand. He does not answer. I repeat again 
 the challenge. No reply. " Answer me : Why do not 
 you lower the hand ? " "I do not care to," comes 
 the slow answer. I keep on challenging him for some 
 seconds. At last the stimuli get summated, the con- 
 trolling consciousness is stimulated, makes strenuous 
 efforts, and the hand, shaking and in jerks, slowly de- 
 scends. I tell the subject that he forgot his name, that 
 he can by no means remember it. He keeps silent. 
 " You forgot your name, you do not remember it," I 
 assert firmly and positively. " Yes, I do," comes in a 
 low voice the slow and tardy reply. " But you do not 
 know your name." " Yes, I do." " No, you don't." 
 " Yes, I do." And so he wrangles with me for about 
 three or five minutes, until at last he seems to brace 
 himself up and tells me his name. " But why did you 
 not tell it to me before ? " "I really do not care to 
 tell my name." The cleft in the mind is here of some 
 depth, and it requires a strong challenge, an intense 
 stimulus, to set the controlling consciousness into ac- 
 tivity.
 
 THE NATURE OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 67 
 
 When the patient sinks into a deeper and deeper 
 hypnotic condition, when the hypnosis is so profound 
 as to verge on somnambulism, the waking, controlling 
 consciousness hangs, so to say, on a thread to the rest 
 of organic life ; and when that thread, too, is cut off by 
 suggestion, or by some other means, the waking, guiding 
 consciousness loses all contact with the stream of life. 
 
 We can easily state our theory in terms of physi- 
 ological psychology. The nervous centres of man's 
 nervous system, if classified as to function, may be 
 divided into inferior and superior. Tli3 inferior cen- 
 tres are characterized by reflex and automatic activity. 
 A stimulus excites the peripheral nerve endings of 
 some sense organ ; at once a nervous current is set 
 up in the afferent nerves. This current in its turn 
 stimulates a plexus of central ganglia, the nervous 
 energy of which is set free and is propagated along the 
 efferent nerves toward glands or muscles ; secretions^ 
 excretions, muscular contractions, or relaxations are 
 the final result. Ingoing and outgoing nervous cur- 
 rents may be modified by the nervous centres ; nervous 
 currents may be intensified, decreased in energy, or 
 even entirely inhibited by mutual interaction, according 
 to the law derived by Prof. Ziehen from the general 
 physiology of the nerves namely : " If an excitation of 
 definite intensity (m) take place in one cortical cle- 
 ment (i), and another excitation of a different intensity 
 (n) take place at the same time in another cortical ele- 
 ment (c), which is connected by a path of conduction 
 with 5, the two intensities of excitation may recip- 
 rocally modify each other." Although such a modifi- 
 cation may frequently occur, still it remains true that 
 the inferior centres are of a reflex nature. No sooner 
 is the nervous energy of a lower centre set free than at
 
 68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 once it tends to discharge itself into some kind of ac- 
 tion, of movement. The physiological process of set- 
 ting free the nervous energy in a central ganglion, or 
 in a system of central ganglia, is accompanied in the 
 simpler but more integrated, more organized centres 
 by sentience, sensitiveness, sensibility,* and in the more 
 complex but less integrated, less organized centres by 
 consciousness, sensations, perceptions, images, and 
 ideas. 
 
 Turning now to the superior or the highest nervous 
 centres, we find that they possess the function of choice 
 and will. A number of impressions, of sensations, of 
 ideas reach those will-centres, and a sifting, a selecting, 
 an inhibitory process at once begins. Some of the im- 
 pressions are rejected, inhibited ; others are permitted 
 to work themselves out within certain limits, and others 
 again are given full, free play. Psychologically, this 
 process expresses itself in the fiat or the neget, in the 
 " I will " or the " I will not." Every one is well ac- 
 quainted with the will-effort, especially when having to 
 make some momentous resolution. These superior 
 choice and will-centres, localized by Ferrier, Bianchi, 
 and others in the frontal lobes, and by other writers in 
 the upper layers of the cortex these centres, on ac- 
 count of their selective and inhibitory function, may be 
 characterized as inhibitory centres par excellence. 
 
 Now, parallel to the double system of nervous cen- 
 tres, the inferior and the superior, we also have a double 
 consciousness, the inferior, the organic, the reflex con- 
 sciousness, and the superior, the controlling, the choice, 
 and will consciousness. The controlling consciousness 
 may be characterized as the guardian consciousness of 
 
 * See G. H. Lewes's Problems of Life and Mind, second series.
 
 THE NATURE OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 69 
 
 the species. And from an evolutionary teleological 
 standpoint we can well see of what use this guardian 
 consciousness is to the life of the species. The external 
 world bombards, so to say, the living organism with 
 innumerable stimuli ; from all sides thousands of im- 
 pressions come on, crowding upon the senses of the 
 individual. Each impression has a motor tendency 
 which, if not counteracted by other impressions, must 
 fatally result in some action. It is not, however, of 
 advantage to the organism always to act, and to act 
 immediately on all stimuli reaching it ; hence that 
 organism will succeed in the struggle for life that pos- 
 sesses some inhibitory choice and will-centres. The 
 choice and will-centres permit only a certain number of 
 impressions to take effect ; the rest are inhibited. Only 
 those impressions that are advantageous to the life ex- 
 istence of the organism are allowed to take their course ; 
 the others are nipped in their bud. The guardian con- 
 sciousness wards off as far as it is able all the harm- 
 ful blows with which the environment incessantly as- 
 sails the organic life of the individual. 
 
 Having all this in mind, we can now understand the 
 nature of hypnosis. In the normal condition of man 
 the superior and the inferior centres work in perfect 
 harmony; the upper and the lower consciousness are 
 for all practical purposes blended into a unity forming 
 one conscious personality. In hypnosis the two systems 
 of nervous centres are dissociated, the superior centres 
 and the upper consciousness are inhibited, or, better, 
 cut off, split off from the rest of the nervous system 
 with its organic consciousness, which is thus laid bare, 
 open to the influence of external stimuli or suggestions. 
 Physiologically, hypnosis is an inhibition of the in- 
 hibitory centres, or, in other words, hypnosis is a dis-
 
 70 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 aggregation of tfo superior from tlie inferior centres^ 
 necessarily followed, as is the removal of inhibition in 
 general, by an increase of the idea-motor and ideo-sen- 
 sory reflex excitability. Psychologically, hypnosis is the 
 split-off^ disaggregated^ organic^ reflex consciousness 
 pure and simple. 
 
 This theory of hypnosis is, in fact, a generalization 
 in which the views of the two schools, the Salpetriere 
 and the Nancy, are included. With the Nancy school, 
 we agree that suggestion is all-powerful in hypnotic 
 trance ; the hypnotic trance is, in fact, a state of height- 
 ened suggestibility, or, rather of pure reflex con- 
 sciousness ; but with the Paris school we agree, that a 
 changed physiological state is a prerequisite to hyp- 
 nosis, and this modification consists in the disaggrega- 
 tion of the superior from the inferior centres, in the 
 segregation of the controlling consciousness from the 
 reflex consciousness. In hypnotic trance the upper in- 
 hibiting, resisting consciousness being absent, we have 
 direct access to man's organic consciousness, and through 
 it to organic life itself. Strong, persistent impressions 
 or suggestions made on the reflex organic consciousness 
 of the inferior centres may modify their functional dis- 
 position, induce trophic changes, and even change or- 
 ganic structures. But whatever the case may be with 
 regard to psycho -therapeutics, this, it seems, may be 
 fairly granted, that the process of hypnotization consists 
 in the separation of the higher inhibitory cortical gan- 
 glion cells from the rest of the cerebro-spinal and sym- 
 pathetic nervous systems. Hypnosis, we may say, is the 
 more or less effected disaggregation of the controlling 
 inhibitory centres from the rest of the nervous system ; 
 along with this disaggregation there goes a dissociation 
 of the controlling guardian consciousness from the reflex
 
 THE NATURE OP ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 71 
 
 organic consciousness. Dissociation is the secret of 
 hypnosis, and amnesia is the ripe fruit. 
 
 The magnitude of this disaggregation greatly varies. 
 If it is at its minimum, the hypnosis is light ; if at its 
 maximum, the hypnosis is deep, and is known as som- 
 nambulism. 
 
 From our standpoint of hypnosis we may say that 
 there are only two great distinct classes of hypnotic states : 
 
 1. Incomplete dissociation of the waking, controlling 
 consciousness. 
 
 2. Complete dissociation of the waking conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 Stating the same somewhat differently, we may say 
 that there are two states : 
 
 1. Incomplete hypnosis accompanied by a greater 
 or lesser degree of memory. 
 
 2. Complete hypnosis with no memory. 
 In other words, hypnosis has two states : 
 
 1. The mnesic state. 
 
 2. The amnesic state. 
 
 Amnesia is the boundary line that separates two 
 different hypnotic regions. 
 
 This view of the matter is, in fact, taken by Ed- 
 mund Gourney ; for he tells us that " we might with- 
 out incorrectness describe the higher hypnotic phenom- 
 ena as reflex action, in respect of the certainty with 
 which particular movements follow on particular stim- 
 uli ; but they are, and their peculiarity consists in their 
 being, conscious reflex action"* "The heart of the 
 problem [of hypnotism] " he says in another place, " lies 
 not in CONSCIOUSNESS, but in WILL." In his paper on 
 The Stages of Hypnotising E. Gourney distinguishes 
 
 * Mind, October, 1884. P. S. P. R., December, 1884. 
 f Ibid., January, 1884. P. S. P. R., January, 1884. 
 6
 
 Y2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 two states of hypnosis the alert and the deep state. 
 " The question then presents itself," he writes, " Is there 
 any distinction of kind between the two states f I be- 
 lieve that there is such a distinction, and that the phe- 
 nomena needed to establish it are to be found in the 
 domain of memory" Gnrney, however, thinks that 
 not only is the deep, but the hypnotic state as a whole, 
 that is, the alert one, too, is separated from the normal 
 state by amnesia a proposition which is not borne out 
 by facts. On the whole, however, I may say that Gur- 
 ney was on the right track ; he cast a searching glance 
 deep into the nature of hypnosis. 
 
 If we turn now to the classifications reviewed by 
 us we find that they have a change of memory, am- 
 nesia, as their fundamentum divisionis. Max Des- 
 soir's forms the only exception, but his classification 
 sins against the truth of facts. For there are cases of 
 subjects who fall into deep hypnosis and still there 
 can be induced no abnormal changes in the sense or- 
 gans. I myself have a somnambule, Mr. F., who can 
 be led through a series of imaginary scenes and changes 
 of personalities, but whose sense organs remain almost 
 normal, perfectly free from suggestion ; by no means 
 can I make him see a picture on a blank paper, or feel 
 the taste of sugar on eating salt, or take a glass of 
 water for a glass of wine phenomena which I easily 
 induce in another somnambule, Mr. W. There are 
 again other cases on record where the sense organs are 
 deeply affected, but no abnormalities can be induced 
 in the voluntary movements. Bernheim brings a few 
 cases of this kind. Amnesia is the only boundary line 
 in hypnosis, and degeneration of consciousness is its 
 source. 
 
 Suggestion is at present the shibboleth of many a
 
 THE NATURE OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 7-3 
 
 "scientific" psychologist. Suggestion is the magic key 
 that opens all secrets and discloses all mysteries. Sug- 
 gestion explains everything. To any question as to 
 hypnosis asked of the suggestionist, he, like a parrot, 
 has but one answer : " Suggestion " ! "Well may Binet 
 say : * "It is insufficient to explain everything that 
 takes place in hypnotized subjects by invoking the 
 hackneyed term 'Suggestion!' And that suffices for 
 all purposes ; that explains everything, and, like the 
 panacea of the ancients, it cures everything. As a 
 matter of fact, theories of suggestion thus invoked 
 amount to nothing less than makeshifts to save people 
 the trouble of serious and delicate investigation." Sug- 
 gestionists make of suggestion a kind of metaphysical 
 absolute, a Spinozistic causa sui, for, according to this 
 trance-philosophy, hypnosis is nothing but suggestion ; 
 and by what is it induced ? Why, by suggestion ! Sug- 
 gestion is thus its own cause. Absurd as this trance- 
 philosophy of suggestionism is, it is none the less the 
 current view of many a "scientific" psychologist. Still 
 the authorities on the subject do not always talk the 
 suggestion jargon ; in their more lucid states they use 
 quite a different language. The pity only is that they 
 do not grasp the full import and meaning of their own 
 propositions ; they do not see the far-reaching conse- 
 quences of their own statements. 
 
 Dr. Moll, in his remarkable book on Hypnotism, 
 sums up his theory of hypnosis thus : " "We may, then, 
 consider every hypnosis as a state in which the normal 
 course of the ideas is inhibited. It matters not whether 
 the ideas have to do with movements or with sense im- 
 pressions. Their normal course is always inhibited. 
 
 * On Double Consciousness.
 
 74 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 The idea of a movement called up in a subject in or out 
 of hypnosis has a tendency to induce the movement. 
 But in waking life this idea is made ineffectual by the 
 voluntary idea of the subject that he will prevent the 
 suggested movement ; the hypnotized subject can not do 
 this* The same is the case with suggested paralysis. 
 Sense delusions can be explained in a similar way. We 
 tell the hypnotic subject, ' Here is a dog,' and he realizes 
 it, and sees the dog. The limitation of the normal 
 course of the ideas allows the idea of the dog to be- 
 come a perception. The subject is unable to control 
 the external ideas, or to put forward his own ; the ex- 
 ternal ones dominate his consciousness. Psychologically 
 speaking, what we mean by attention is the power of 
 fixing certain ideas in the mind and of working with 
 them. Consequently we may say that there is an alter- 
 ation of attention in hypnosis. But attention may be 
 either spontaneous or reflex. When by any act of will 
 we choose one of several ideas and fix our attention 
 upon it, this is spontaneous attention ; but when one 
 idea among several gets the upper hand through its in- 
 tensity or for some other reason, and thus represses 
 other ideas and draws exclusive attention upon itself, 
 this is reflex attention. Now it is only spontaneous at- 
 tention which is altered in hypnosis i. e., the subject's 
 ability voluntarily to prefer one idea to another is inter- 
 fered with, while reflex attention is undisturbed, and it 
 is through this last that a suggested idea, the choice of 
 which has not, however, been left to the subject, comes 
 into prominence. 
 
 "Many investigators," continues Dr. Moll, "con- 
 ceive hypnotism in this way. The works of Durand 
 
 * The italics are mine.
 
 THE NATURE OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. f5 
 
 de Gros, Liebault, and more lately of Beard, Kichet, 
 Schneider, Wundt, and Bentivegni, are in the main di- 
 rect to this point." 
 
 It is truly amusing to see how people concede the 
 main substance to their opponents and still cling to the 
 empty shell of their old creeds. Accepting inhibition 
 of spontaneous attention as the source, as the nature of 
 hypnosis, the psychologist of the suggestion school fully 
 abandons his medical charm, his all-powerful magic 
 suggestion. Inhibition of spontaneous attention, of 
 voluntary control, leaving a residue of reflex attention, 
 what is it, if not the full admission that the hypnotic 
 state is a mental disaggregation, a dissociation of the 
 controlling from the reflex consciousness ? 
 
 Turning now to one of the leaders of the Nancy 
 school, to the greatest popularizer of suggestionism 
 Prof. Bernheim we find him to be still more explicit 
 on this point. I humbly ask the reader's pardon for 
 the lengthy quotation I am going to offer him. I find 
 it will give additional confirmation to my view of the 
 nature of hypnosis. In his book, " Suggestive Thera- 
 peutics," Bernheim gives us the following account of 
 hypnosis, an account that practically amounts to a com- 
 plete abandonment of his omnipotent deity suggestion : 
 "The one thing certain is that a peculiar aptitude for 
 transforming the idea received into an act exists in hyp- 
 notized subjects who are susceptible to suggestion. In 
 the normal consciousness every formulated idea is ques- 
 tioned by the mind. After being perceived by the 
 cortical centres, the impression extends to the cells of 
 the adjacent convolutions ; their peculiar activity is 
 excited ; the diverse faculties generated by the gray 
 substance of the brain come into play ; the impression 
 is elaborated, registered, and analyzed by means of a
 
 76 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 complex mental process which ends in its acceptation 
 or neutralization ; if there is cause, the mind vetoes it. 
 In the hypnotized subject, on the contrary, the trans- 
 formation of thought into action, sensation, movement, 
 or vision is so quickly and so actively accomplished that 
 the intellectual inhibition has not time to act. When 
 the mind interposes, it is already an accomplished fact, 
 which is often registered with surprise, and which is 
 confirmed by the fact that it proves to be real, and no 
 intervention can hamper it further. If I say to the 
 hypnotized subject, ' Tour hand remained closed,' the 
 brain carries out the idea as soon as it is formulated ; 
 reflex is immediately transmitted from the cortical 
 centre, where the idea induced by the auditory nerve is 
 perceived, to the motor centre, corresponding to the 
 central origin of the nerves subserving flexion of the 
 hand ; contracture occurs hi flexion. There is then 
 exaltation of the ideo-motor reflex excitability, which 
 effects the unconscious (subconscious?) transformation 
 of the thought into movement unknown to the will. 
 The same thing occurs when I say to the hypnotized 
 subject, 'You have a tickling sensation in your nose.' 
 The thought induced through hearing is reflected upon 
 the centre of olfactory sensibility, where it awakens the 
 sensitive memory image of the nasal itching as former 
 impressions have created it and left it imprinted and 
 latent. This memory sensation thus resuscitated may be 
 intense enough to cause the reflex action of sneezing. 
 There is also, then, exaltation of the ideo-sensorial reflex 
 excitability, which effects the unconscious transformation 
 of the thought into sensation, or into a sensory image. 
 In the same way the visual, acoustic, and gustatory 
 images succeed the suggested idea. 
 
 " Negative suggestions are more difficult to explain.
 
 THE NATURE OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. f? 
 
 If I say to the hypnotized subject, ' Your body is in- 
 sensible, your eye is blind,' the impression transmitted 
 by the auditory nerve to the centre of tactile or visual 
 anaesthesia is that retinal vision exists, but the cerebral 
 perception no longer exists. It seems as if it might be a 
 reflex paralysis of a cortical centre, which the suggested 
 idea has produced in this case. The mechanism of sug- 
 gestion in general may then be summed up in the fol- 
 lowing formula : Increase of the reflex ideo-motor, ideo- 
 sensorial excitability. In the same way through the 
 effect of some influence strychnine, for example the 
 sensitive-motor excitability is increased in the spinal cord, 
 so that the least impression at the periphery of a nerve 
 is immediately transformed into contracture without the 
 moderating influence of the brain being able to prevent 
 this transformation. In the sama way in hypnotization 
 the ideo-reflex excitability is increased in the brain, so 
 that any idea received is immediately transformed into 
 an act, without the controlling portion of the brain, 
 the higher centres, being able to prevent the transfor- 
 mation." 
 
 Thus we clearly see that when the suggestionist comes 
 to discuss the nature of hypnosis, he abandons his posi- 
 tion and admits that a split in the brain cutting off the 
 higher controlling centres from the lower ones is at the 
 basis of hypnosis. The very conditions of hypnosis pro- 
 claim this fact, for they are but keen psychical scalpels 
 and have the power to effect a deep incision in the semi- 
 fluid stream of consciousness. Fixation of attention, 
 monotony, limitation of the field of consciousness, limita- 
 tion of voluntary movements, inhibition all of them are 
 calculated to pare, to split off the controlling from the 
 reflex consciousness. The nature of hypnosis, of abnor- 
 mal suggestibility, is a disaggregation of consciousness.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LAW OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 A CLOSE examination of the facts of hypnotic sug- 
 gestion will readily yield us the law of abnormal sug- 
 gestibility. 
 
 I hypnotize Mr. N., and tell him that on awakening, 
 when he will hear me cough, he will go to the table, 
 take the Bible, open it on the first page, and read aloud 
 the first verse of the first chapter. He is then awak- 
 ened. I cough. He rises, walks up to the table, but 
 stops there and does not budge. I rehypnotize him. 
 He tells me he did not want to carry out the sugges- 
 tion. " But you must do it ! " I insist. " You must 
 go to the table, open the Bible on the first page, and 
 read the first verse of the first chapter. You must do 
 it ! you can not help doing it ! " He is then awak- 
 ened, and this time the post-hypnotic suggestion is fully 
 carried out. 
 
 I hypnotize Mr. L. "Rise!" I command. He 
 rises. " Walk ! " He walks." " You are unable to 
 walk ! " He makes a step or two, showing me that he 
 can easily do it. "But it is impossible for you to 
 walk ; you can not walk ; you are utterly unable to 
 walk ; you must not, and you can not walk ; you lost 
 all power of moving ; no matter how you try, you find 
 it impossible to take a step ; you can not move your 
 
 78
 
 THE LAW OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 79 
 
 legs ; you have lost all control over them ; they are 
 stiff, rigid, and firmly fixed to the ground. Oh, no, you 
 can not walk ; it is a physical impossibility for you to 
 walk." I go on in this way, pouring forth a torrent of 
 suggestions ; and this time my suggestion takes full . 
 effect. The subject tries hard to move ; he can not do 
 it, his legs are rigid, cataleptic. 
 
 I hypnotize Mr. J. F., a strong, powerful, healthy, 
 burly fellow. "Rise!" I command. He rises. "Walk!" 
 He walks. " You can not move ! " I command again in 
 a somewhat louder voice. The subject makes a step 
 forward. "But you can not move!" I insist in a 
 still louder voice than before, laying more stress on 
 "can not." He makes a step hesitatingly and with 
 great difficulty, like one dragging a heavy burden on 
 his legs. " You can not move ! " I call out in a louder 
 and more commanding tone, putting still more empha- 
 sis on the suggestion "can not." The subject comes 
 to a complete standstill. He is fully paralyzed ; by no 
 effort of will can he take a step forward. 
 
 We may put it down as a rule, that when the sug- 
 gestion is not taken there is a far higher probability of 
 bringing it into effect by repeating the suggestion over 
 and over again in a louder key and in a more com- 
 manding voice. The rule of hypnotic suggestion is, 
 The more direct we make our suggestion the greater the 
 chance of its success. 
 
 If we examine the facts of suggestion in the deeper 
 states of hypnosis we find that the same rule holds true. 
 The hypnotizer must make himself perfectly under- 
 stood by the subject, by the reflex consciousness of the 
 patient. 
 
 I hypnotize Mr. L., make passes over his hand, and 
 suggest that it is rigid, stiff . It becomes cataleptic. On
 
 80 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 a second occasion, when I make the passes, his hand be- 
 comes rigid ; he knows from previous experiments what 
 it is I want of him.* 
 
 The experiments of Braid, Heidenhein, etc., and the 
 controversy between the Nancy and Salpetriere school 
 beautifully bring out this general rule of hypnosis. 
 Thus Braid, in his Neurypnology, tells us of some 
 phreno-hypnotic experiments he made with a subject. 
 "This patient," he writes, "being pressed over the 
 phrenologist's organ of time, always expressed a desire 
 * to write ' a letter to her mother or her brother ; over 
 the organ of tune, ' to sing ' ; between this and wit, * to 
 be judicious ' ; the boundary between wit and causality, 
 ' to be clever ' ; causality, ' to have knowledge,' and so 
 on." f 
 
 Heidenhein found that in pressing certain regions 
 of the subject's body certain abnormal phenomena ap- 
 peared ; that in pressing the neck echolalia resulted 
 the patient repeated everything that was said before him 
 with the exactness of a phonograph ; that the stimula- 
 tion of the neck produced vocal sounds, as in Goltz's 
 experiments. Silva, Binet, Fere, and Heidenhein be- 
 lieve that they can move single limbs of the somnambule 
 by stimulating the parts of the head which correspond 
 to the motor centres of the limbs concerned. Chalan- 
 der even proposed to study the physiology of the brain 
 in this way. Charcot, Dumontpallier, Berillon, Lepine, 
 Strahl, Griitzner, and Heidenhein regard hemihypnosis 
 that is, hypnosis of one side of the body as a physi- 
 ological condition induced by the closing of one eye or 
 
 * Sphygmographic or pulse tracings Illustrate well this state of 
 catalepsy (see diagram, Plate I). 
 
 f I must add here that Braid, in his later investigations in hyp- 
 nosis, became fully aware of the real source of the phenomena.
 
 THE LAW OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 81 
 
 by friction of one half of the crown of the head. Binet 
 and Fere claim that a magnet can effect a transfer of 
 anaesthesia, etc., to the opposite side of the body. 
 
 Now such experiments invariably fail when made 
 by other observers and on other subjects. Braid him- 
 self tells us : * "I also very soon ascertained that the 
 same points of the cranium when thus excited did not 
 excite the same ideas or emotions in the minds of differ- 
 ent patients, which I considered ought to have been the 
 case." He hastens, however, to add : " I have since dis- 
 covered the cause of this namely, not having operated 
 at the proper stage of the hypnotic condition" The 
 Italics are his own, although Braid meant in quite a 
 different sense from that implied by me. You may 
 press a. bump on the head of a fresh subject, and press 
 it as much and as long as you like, and nothing particu- 
 lar will result, or anything might follow. And the rea- 
 son is, the subject does not know what to expect ; he has 
 no suspicion of what the experimenter wants him to do. 
 Charcot and his school maintain that there are three 
 states of what they name " le grand e hypnotisme." 
 These states are induced physiologically. 
 
 1. The lethargic state is induced by fixation upon 
 an object, or by passing lightly upon the eyeball through 
 the closed eyelids. In this stage suggestion is impos- 
 sible, but we find in it anaesthesia, a certain muscular 
 hyperexcitability ; any muscle excited by pressure or 
 light friction contracts ; pressure upon the ulnar nerve 
 provokes the ulnar attitude ; and pressure upon the 
 facial nerve is followed by distortion of the features of 
 the corresponding side of the face. 
 
 2. A subject in the lethargic condition can be made 
 
 * Neurypnology.
 
 82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 to pass into the second or cataleptic state by raising his 
 eyelids. If one eye only is opened the corresponding 
 side of the body alone passes into the cataleptic condi- 
 tion, the other side remaining lethargic. Suggestions 
 can be induced through the muscular sense. If the 
 subject's hand is put into a condition as if to give a 
 kiss, his face assumes a smiling expression ; if his hands 
 are joined as in prayer, the face becomes grave and the 
 subject kneels down. This condition of catalepsy can 
 also be induced at. once without having the subject pass 
 through lethargy, and that is caused by some nervous 
 shock produced by a brilliant point or a violent noise. 
 
 3. Lethargy and catalepsy can be transformed into 
 somnambulism by light or repeated friction of the top 
 of the subject's head. Anaesthesia, hyperacute sensi- 
 bility, and susceptibility to all kinds of suggestion char- 
 acterize this state. 
 
 Now when other observers came to verify these 
 three states they invariably failed to reproduce them 
 without the agency of suggestion. Wetterstrand never 
 found them at all among 3,589 different persons. " I 
 have been as little able," writes Dr. Moll, "as have 
 many others, to observe the stages of Charcot in my 
 experiments. I have, besides, often experimented on 
 several hystero-epileptics, but have failed to observe 
 the stages, in spite of Bichet's opinion that every one 
 who experiments on such persons will obtain the same 
 results as the school of Charcot did." Bernheim finds 
 that these three stages can not be induced without sug- 
 gestion. Continued suggestion alone has been able to 
 produce them. Liebault, who hypnotized more than 
 six thousand persons, never observed anything that 
 should go to confirm the hypnotic stages as described 
 by Charcot. " I have never been able," writes Bern-
 
 THE LAW OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 83 
 
 heim,* " to determine without suggestion any phe- 
 nomena by pressure exercised upon certain points of 
 the cranium. For example, here is one of my som- 
 nambulistic cases. I press upon the different points of 
 the cranium ; no result. I say, ' Now I am going to 
 touch that part of the cranium which corresponds to 
 the movement of the left arm, and this arm will go 
 into convulsions.' Having said this, I touch an arbi- 
 trary part of the head ; immediately the left arm is 
 convulsed. I state that I am going to induce aphasia 
 by touching the region corresponding to speech. I 
 touch any part of the head, and the subject no longer 
 replies to my questions. Then I state that I shall 
 touch the head in such a way that irritation of the cen- 
 tres of speech will result. The person then answers my 
 questions in the following manner : ' What is your 
 name ? ' ' Marie, Marie, Marie.' ' How are you ? ' ' Well, 
 well, well.' ' You have no pain ? ' * None at all, none 
 at all, none at all.' " 
 
 I myself made similar experiments on my subjects 
 and with similar results. I pressed different regions of 
 the Jiead of my subject and nothing resulted. I then 
 said, " I am going to press your shoulder and you will 
 be unable to speak." I pressed it, and he could not 
 speak. In my following seances, whenever I pressed 
 that subject's shoulder he lost the power of speech. 
 
 I pressed the head of Mr. W. in different places 
 and no result followed. I then said, " I will press the 
 centre of speech and you will be unable to speak." I 
 firmly pressed an arbitrary part of the head, and the 
 subject was unable to speak. Without suggestion, by 
 mere physiological means, we are unable to induce any 
 
 * Suggestive Therapeutics.
 
 84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 particular changes in the hypnotic subject. The sub- 
 ject must know what we require of him. 
 
 It is not necessary to make suggestions to each sub- 
 ject separately. If a hypnotizable person is present at 
 a seance, he takes the hint at once, and when he is hyp- 
 notized he manifests phenomena similar to the one he 
 has witnessed. He knows exactly what the hypnotizer 
 wants of him. 
 
 " Here is an experiment," writes Bernheim,* " which 
 I made with M. Beaunis. We hypnotized a nurse in 
 our service who was susceptible to somnambulism. 
 She had never been present either as witness or as sub- 
 ject of the kind of experiment which I wanted to try 
 on her. I put the upper left limb into the cataleptic 
 condition in the horizontal position, the thumb and in- 
 dex fingers stretched out, the other fingers bent ; the 
 right arm remained relaxed. I applied the magnet to 
 it for eight minutes. Nothing occurred. Then turn- 
 ing to M. Beaunis, I said : ' Now I am going to try an 
 experiment. I shall apply the magnet to the right 
 hand (on the unaffected hand), and in a minute you 
 will see this arm lifted and take the exact attitude of 
 the left one, while the latter relaxes and falls.' I 
 placed the magnet just where it was at first, and in a 
 minute the suggested transfer was realized with perfect 
 precision. If, then, without saying anything more, I 
 put the magnet back against the left hand at the end of 
 a minute the transfer occurred in inverse order, and so 
 on consecutively. Afterward I said, ' I shall change 
 the direction of the magnet, and the transfer will take 
 place from the arm to the leg.' At the end of a 
 minute the arm fell and the leg was raised. I put the 
 
 * Suggestive Therapeutics.
 
 THE LAW OF ABNORMAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 85 
 
 magnet against the leg without saying anything, and the 
 transfer took place from the leg to the arm. If, with- 
 out saying anything to the subject, I replace the mag- 
 net by a knife, a pencil, a bottle, a piece of paper, or 
 use anything in its place, the same phenomenon occurs. 
 The next day I repeated these experiments on another 
 somnambulist who had been present the day before, 
 and without saying anything to her, or to any of the 
 persons present, they succeeded marvellously / the idea 
 of the transfer had been suggested to her mind by the 
 circumstances of which she had been a witness" 
 
 In deep hypnosis, on account of the hypersesthesia 
 of the subject's senses, the slightest hint suffices. But 
 here, too, the subject must be trained by previous ex- 
 periments as to the interpretation of the hint. In 
 short, we may fully assert that in hypnosis the subject 
 must know what the hypnotizer wants of him, so that 
 the more precise, exact, and frank the suggestion is, the 
 surer will be its success. We may put it down as a 
 rule for practitioners who intend to use hypnotism for 
 therapeutic purposes, In giving the suggestion to the 
 patient, make your language plain, precise, and direct 
 to the point. 
 
 The following cases will show the necessity of ob- 
 serving this last rule : 
 
 Prof. "W. James gave to one of his patients a post- 
 hypnotic suggestion to smoke only one pipe of tobacco 
 a day. When the patient came again Prof. James asked 
 him how many pipes he smoked a day ? The answer 
 was, " One only." On being hypnotized the patient 
 confessed that he bought a pipe with a bowl of large 
 dimensions, and that it was this one pipe he was smok- 
 ing the whole day. 
 
 Mr. F. suffered from attacks of acute headache.
 
 86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 On account of the violent pain he had to discontinue 
 his work. He came to me to be cured by hypnotism. 
 I have hypnotized him several times and greatly re- 
 lieved his headache. He could continue his occupation 
 without any inconvenience. At the eighth sitting he 
 told me he had no more violent attacks, but was only 
 suffering from occasional slight headaches. I suggested 
 that he will have no more slight headaches. Next day 
 he came to me complaining of a severe attack. 
 
 All the facts discussed in this chapter prove in the 
 clearest way the truth that in hypnosis, in the state of 
 abnormal suggestibility, the more direct a suggestion is 
 the greater is the chance of its being realized, the 
 stronger is its efficacy ; and vice versa, the more indi- 
 rect a suggestion is the less is the chance of having it 
 realized, the less is its efficacy. The law of abnormal 
 suggestibility may be stated as follows : 
 
 Abnormal suggestibility varies as direct suggestion. 
 and inversely as indirect suggestion.
 
 PLATE I shows the influence of suggestion in the 
 production of catalepsy. The subject was put into 
 a state of hypnosis and a sphygmographic record 
 was taken of him. In the middle of the record 
 the subject was thrown into a cataleptic state. At 
 once the record changed ; the characteristic pulse- 
 wave disappeared and was replaced either by a 
 curve full of fine minute vibrations (A and D), or 
 by a series of broken lines (B and E) traces of 
 the pulse-waves r.nd sometimes by one rapidly de- 
 scending straight line passing over into a series of 
 fine minute vibrations as the suggestion of rigidity 
 was more and more enforced (C). Now, at the 
 height of the cataleptic state the subject was sug- 
 gested that he was " well " again, and immediately 
 the characteristic pulse-wave appeared once more, 
 and very often in a better condition, the ascending 
 limb on the upward stroke was higher, and the 
 secondary or dicrotic wave on the descending limb 
 became more emphasized (A, C and'J). 
 
 The arrow -> indicates the direction in which the record 
 runs.
 
 IT a wo 
 
 juiri 
 
 '.--*} 
 
 ; ' 
 
 ' ni ff; 
 
 . 
 
 ; ; iumd 
 
 *- WV..TU
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 SUGGESTIBILITY AND THE WAKING CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 IT is now high time to gather up the threads of our 
 discussion and weave them into one organic, living 
 whole ; to bring the stray rays of light that reached us 
 in the course of our research together into one focus, 
 and illuminate the dark, mysterious regions we under- 
 took to explore. To do this we must retrace our steps 
 and inspect closer the conditions that admit one into 
 that strange land of puzzles, wonders, and prodigies. 
 A comparison of the conditions of normal and ab- 
 normal suggestibility will, I think, prove interesting 
 and valuable, as it might give us a glimpse deep into 
 the nature of suggestibility in general. 
 
 To facilitate this comparison, it would be best to 
 make a table in which the conditions of normal and ab- 
 normal suggestibility should run parallel to each other. 
 
 TABLE OF CONDITIONS OF NORMAL AND ABNORMAJ_ 
 SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 Normal Suggestibility. Abnormal Suggestibility. 
 
 1. Fixation of attention. 1. Fixation of attention. 
 
 2. Distraction. 2. 
 
 3. Monotony. 3. Monotony. 
 
 4. Limitation of voluntary 4. Limitation of voluntary 
 
 movements. movements. 
 
 5. Limitation of the field of 5. Limitation of the field of 
 
 consciousness. consciousness. 
 
 6. Inhibition. 6. Inhibition. 
 
 7. Immediate execution. 7. 
 
 7 87
 
 88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 A glance at our last table will show at once that the 
 conditions in both cases are essentially the same, with 
 the only difference that in abnormal suggestibility two 
 conditions are wanting namely, distraction and imme- 
 diate execution. This sameness of conditions clearly 
 indicates that both normal and abnormal suggestibility 
 flow from some one common source, that they are of 
 like nature, and that they are due to similar causes. 
 Now a previous study led us to the conclusion that the 
 nature of abnormal suggestibility is a disaggregation 
 of consciousness, a slit, a scar produced in the mind, a 
 crack that may extend wider and deeper, ending at last 
 in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, control- 
 ling consciousness from the reflex consciousness, from 
 the rest of the stream of life. Normal suggestibility is 
 of like nature it is a cleft in the mind ; only here the 
 cleft is not so deep, not so lasting as it is in hypnosis, 
 or in the state of abnormal suggestibility ; the split is 
 here but momentary, evanescent, fleeting, disappearing 
 at the very moment of its appearance. 
 
 This fleeting, evanescent character of the split gives 
 the reason why suggestion in the normal state, why 
 normal suggestibility requires immediate execution as 
 one of its most indispensable conditions. We must 
 take the opportunity of the momentary ebb of the con- 
 trolling consciousness and hastily plant our suggestion 
 in the soil of reflex consciousness. "We must watch for 
 this favourable moment ; not let it slip by, otherwise 
 the suggestion is a failure. Furthermore, we must be 
 careful to keep in abeyance, for the moment, though, 
 the ever-active, ever-restless waves of the controlling 
 consciousness ; we must find for them work in some 
 other direction ; we must divert, we must distract them. 
 That is why normal suggestibility requires the addi-
 
 THE WAKING CONSCIOUSNESS. 89 
 
 tional conditions of distraction and of immediate execu- 
 tion. For in the normal state the waking, controlling 
 consciousness is always on its guard, and when enticed, 
 leaves its ground only a single step, and that only for 
 but a moment. In normal suggestibility the psychical 
 scar is faint; the lesion effected in the body of con- 
 sciousness is superficial, transitory, fleeting. In abnor- 
 mal suggestibility, on the contrary, the slit is deep and 
 lasting it is a severe gash. In both cases, however, 
 we have a removal, a dissociation of the waking from 
 the subwaking, reflex consciousness, and suggestion be- 
 ing effected only through the latter. It is the subwak- 
 ing, the reflex, not the waking, the controlling, conscious- 
 ness that is suggestible. Suggestibility is the attribute, 
 the very essence of the subwaking, reflex consciousness. 
 That our suggestions should take root and bring forth 
 fruit, that they should become fully realized, we must 
 address them to the subwaking consciousness directly, 
 and in order to do that a disaggregation of conscious- 
 ness must be effected. 
 
 If we turn to the laws of normal and abnormal sug- 
 gestibility, we find still further evidence in support of 
 our view as to the nature of suggestibility and its rela- 
 tion to the subwaking, reflex consciousness. A mere 
 comparison of the two laws reveals the truth of our 
 position : 
 
 The Law of Abnormal The Law of Normal 
 
 Suggestibility. Suggestibility. 
 
 Abnormal suggestibility varies Normal suggestibility varies as 
 as direct suggestion, and in- indirect suggestion, and in- 
 versely as indirect sugges- versely as direct suggestion, 
 tion. 
 
 The two laws are the reverse of each other, thus 
 clearly indicating the presence of a controlling, inhib-
 
 90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 itorj conscious element in the one case, and its absence 
 in the other. In the normal state we must guard 
 against the inhibitory waking consciousness, and we 
 must therefore make our suggestion as indirect as pos- 
 sible. In the abnormal state, on the contrary, no cir- 
 cumspection is needed ; the controlling, inhibitory wak- 
 ing consciousness is more or less absent, the subwaking 
 reflex consciousness is exposed to external stimuli, and 
 our suggestions, therefore, are the more effective the 
 more direct we make them. With full right may we 
 now assert that suggestibility is a disagg negation of 
 consciousness a disaggregation in which the subwak- 
 ing, reflex consciousness enters into direct communica- 
 tion with the external world. 
 
 The general law of suggestibility is now plainly 
 obvious : 
 
 SUGGESTIBILITY VARIES AS THE AMOUNT OF DISAG- 
 GREGATION, AND INVERSELY AS THE UNIFICATION OF 
 CONSCIOUSNESS.* 
 
 * See Appendix B.
 
 PART n. 
 
 THE SELF. 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 
 
 THE law of suggestibility in general, and those of 
 normal and abnormal suggestibility in particular, indi- 
 cate a coexistence of two streams of consciousness, of 
 two selves within the frame of the individual ; the one, 
 the waking consciousness, the waking self ; the other, 
 the subwaking consciousness, the subwaking self. But 
 although the conditions and laws of suggestibility clearly 
 point to a double self as constituting human individu- 
 ality, still the proof, strong as it appears to me to be, 
 is rather of an indirect nature. We must therefore 
 look for facts that should directly and explicitly prove 
 the same truth. We do not lack such facts. We turn 
 first to those of hysteria. 
 
 If we put a pencil or scissors into the anaesthetic 
 hand of the hysterical person without his seeing it, the 
 insensible hand makes adaptive movements. The fin- 
 gers seize the pencil and place it in a position as if the 
 hand were going to write. Quite differently does the 
 hand possess itself of the scissors : the hand gets hold 
 of the instrument in the proper way, and seems ready 
 for work, for cutting. Now all the while the subject 
 
 91
 
 92 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 is totally unconscious of what is happening there to his 
 hand, since it is insensible, and he can not possibly see 
 it, as his face is concealed by a screen. It is obvious 
 that in order for such movements of adaptation to occur 
 that there must be recognition of the object kept by the 
 anaesthetic hand. But recognition requires a complex 
 mental operation : it requires that the object should be 
 perceived, should be remembered, and should be classed 
 with objects of a certain kind and order. The very fact 
 of the adaptation movements indicate the presence of 
 some kind of embryonic will. Simple as these experi- 
 ments are, they none the less strongly indicate the pres- 
 ence of a hidden agency that works through the an- 
 aesthetic hand; an agency that possesses perception, 
 memory, judgment, and even will. Since these last 
 operations are essentially characteristics of conscious- 
 ness, of a self, we must necessarily conclude that it is a 
 conscious agency that acts through the insensible hand 
 of the hysterical person. Since the activity of this in- 
 telligence, simple and elementary as it is, is unknown to 
 the subject, it is quite clear that there is present within 
 him a secondary consciousness standing in no connec- 
 tion with the primary stream of personal consciousness, 
 and somehow coming in possession of the person's 
 hand. 
 
 As we advance in our research and make the condi- 
 tions more and more complicated, all doubt as to the 
 presence of a conscious being, behind the veil of the 
 subject's primary consciousness, completely disappears. 
 "We put a pen," says Bluet,* "into the anaesthetic 
 hand and we make it write a word ; left to itself, the 
 
 * Binet, On Double Consciousness. Vide Binet, Sur les alterna- 
 tions de la Conscience, Revue Philosophique, v, 27, 1884.
 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 93 
 
 hand preserves its attitude, and at the expiration of a 
 short space of time repeats the words often five or ten 
 times. Having arrived at this fact, we again seize the 
 anaesthetic hand and cause it to write some familiar 
 word for example, the patient's own name but in so 
 doing we intentionally commit an error in spelling. 
 In its turn the anaesthetic hand repeats the word, but, 
 oddly enough, the hand betrays a momentary hesitation 
 when it reaches the letter at which the error in orthog- 
 raphy was committed. If a superfluous letter happens 
 to have been added, sometimes the hand will hesitat- 
 ingly rewrite the name along with the supplementary 
 letter ; again, it will retrace only a part of the letter in 
 question ; and again, finally, entirely suppress it." It 
 is quite evident that we have here to deal with a con- 
 scious agent hesitating about mistakes and able to cor- 
 rect them ; we can not possibly ascribe such activity to 
 mere unconscious cerebration. 
 
 If again we take the anaesthetic hand and trace on 
 the dorsal side of it a letter or a figure, the hand traces 
 this figure or letter. Evidently the secondary con- 
 sciousness is in full possession of these perceptions, 
 although the primary consciousness of the subject is 
 totally ignorant of them. 
 
 Furthermore, insensible as the anaesthetic hand is, 
 since no pinching, pricking, burning, or faradization of 
 it are perceived by the subject, still we can show that 
 there exists a hidden sensibility in the hand ; this can 
 easily be proved by the aesthesiometer. If we prick 
 the insensible hand with one of the points of a pair of 
 compasses, the hand automatically traces a single point. 
 Apply both points, and the automatic writing will trace 
 two points, thus informing us of its degree of insensi- 
 bility.
 
 94r THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 The amaurotic or hysterical eye gives us still 
 stronger evidence of the existence of a secondary 
 being perceiving things which lie outside the visual 
 distance of the subject's waking consciousness. Hys- 
 terical subjects often complain of the loss of sight. As 
 a matter of fact, when we come to test it we find that 
 the subject does see what he claims not to see. This is 
 detected by the so-called " box of Flees." This box is 
 so skilfully arranged that the patient sees with his 
 right eye the picture or the figure situated to the left, 
 and with his left eye what is situated to the right. 
 The hysterical person blind in the right eye, when put 
 to such a test, declares that he sees the picture to the 
 left side but not that to the right. He sees with the 
 blind eye. 
 
 Amaurosis may also be tested in a somewhat differ- 
 ent way. A pair of spectacles in which one glass is 
 red and the other green is put on the patient's eye, 
 and he is made to read six letters on a blank frame, 
 alternately covered with red and green glass. When 
 one eye is closed only three letters can be seen through 
 the spectacles namely, the ones corresponding in color 
 to the spectacle glass through which the eye is looking ; 
 the other three can not be seen on account of the two 
 complementary colors forming black. The patient, 
 then, blind in one eye (say the right), ought to see only 
 three letters when he has the spectacles on. When, 
 however, put to this test the patient promptly reads 
 the six letters. The right eye undoubtedly sees, only 
 the image is retained by the secondary self, and a spe- 
 cial arrangement of conditions is required to force that 
 hidden self to surrender the image it stole. 
 
 To reveal the presence of this secondary self that 
 perceives and knows facts hidden from the upper con-
 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 95 
 
 Bciousness or primary self, I frequently employ the fol- 
 lowing simple but sure method, which may be charac- 
 terized as the method of " guessing " : 
 
 Impressions are made on the anaesthetic limb, and 
 the subject who does not perceive any of the applied 
 stimuli is asked just to make a " wild guess " as to the 
 nature and number of the stimuli, if there were any. 
 Now the interest is that nearly all the guesses are found 
 to be correct. Dr. William A. White, of Binghamton 
 State Hospital, finds that this method works well in his 
 cases. "In the case of D. F./' Dr. White writes to 
 me, " whose field of vision I sent you, I find by experi- 
 ment, taking a hint from you, that, by introducing 
 fingers between the limit of her field of vision (which 
 is very contracted) and the limit of the normal field, 
 she could guess each time and tell which finger was 
 held up." 
 
 To bring out still more clearly and decisively the 
 presence of a secondary consciousness that perceives 
 the image which the hysterical person does not see, 
 A. Binet performed the following experiment : " We 
 place," he says,* " the hysterical subject before a scale 
 of printed letters, and tentatively seek the maximum 
 distance from the board at which the subject is able to 
 read the largest letters. After having experimentally 
 determined the maximum distance at which the subject 
 can read the largest letters of the series, we invite him 
 to read certain small letters that are placed below the 
 former. Naturally enough, the subject is unable to do 
 so ; but if at this instant we slip a pencil into the anaes- 
 thetic hand, we are able by the agency of the hand to 
 induce automatic writing, and this writing will repro- 
 
 * Binet, On Double Consciousness ; also, Rerue Philosophique, v, 27.
 
 96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 duce precisely the letters which the subject is in vain 
 trying to read. It is highly interesting to observe that 
 during the very time the subject is repeatedly declaring 
 that he does not see the letters, the anaesthetic hand, 
 unknown to him, writes out the letters one after an- 
 other. If, interrupting the experiments, we ask the 
 subject to write of his own free will the letters of the 
 printed series, he will not be able to do so ; and when 
 asked simply to draw what he sees, he will only pro- 
 duce a few zigzag marks that have no meaning." 
 These experiments plainly prove that the secondary 
 consciousness sees the letters or words, and directs the 
 anaesthetic hand it possesses to write what it perceives. 
 Furthermore, if we remove the subject at too great 
 a distance, so that the letters are altogether out of the 
 range of vision of the secondary consciousness, the 
 automatic writing begins to make errors writing, for 
 instance, " Lucien " instead of " Louise " ; it tries to 
 guess. Now if anything plainly shows the presence of 
 a hidden intelligence, it is surely this guessing of which 
 the subject himself is totally unconscious, for guess- 
 ing is essentially a characteristic of consciousness. " An 
 automaton," truly remarks Binet, " does not mistake ; 
 the secondary consciousness, on the contrary, is subject 
 to errors because it is a consciousness, because it is a 
 thing that reasons and combines thoughts." This last 
 conclusion is still further proved by the following 
 experiments: "There are patients," writes Binet* 
 " (St. Am., for example), whose hand spontaneously 
 finishes the word they are made to trace. Thus I cause 
 the letter ' d ' to be written ; the hand continues and 
 writes 'don.' I write 'pa,' and the hand continues and 
 
 * Binet, On Double Consciousness ; also, Revue Philosophique, v, 27.
 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 97 
 
 writes 'pavilion.' I write 'Sal,' and the hand writes 
 ' Salpetriere.' Here it is still more obvious that we 
 are in the presence of a hidden agency that can take 
 hints and develop them intelligently. 
 
 We saw above that distraction of attention is one 
 of the indispensable conditions of suggestibility in the 
 normal waking state. Now, M. Janet, in his experi- 
 ments on hysterical persons, used chiefly this condition, 
 or (as it may be called) "method of distraction," as a 
 means for coming into direct oral communication with 
 the secondary suggestible self. In hysterical persons 
 it is easier to bring about the conditions of suggesti- 
 bility, because, as a rule, they possess a contracted field 
 of consciousness, and when engaged in one thing they 
 are oblivious to all else. "When Lucie [the subject] 
 talked directly with any one," says M. Janet,* " she 
 ceased to be able to hear any other person. You may 
 stand behind her, call her by name, shout abuse in her 
 ear, without making her turn round ; or place yourself 
 before her, show her objects, touch her, etc., without 
 attracting her notice. When finally she becomes 
 aware of you she thinks you have just come into the 
 room again, and greets you accordingly." M. Janet 
 availed himself of these already existent conditions of 
 suggestibility, and began to give her suggestions while 
 she was in the waking state. When the subject's at- 
 tention was fully fixed on a conversation with a third 
 party M. Janet came up behind her, whispered in her 
 ear some simple commands, which she instantly obeyed. 
 He made her reply by signs to his questions, and even 
 made her answer in writing if a pencil were placed in 
 her hands. The subject's primary consciousness was 
 
 * Pierre Janet, L'Automatisme Psychologique.
 
 98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 entirely ignorant of what was going on. In some 
 cases the patient was made to pass through a series of 
 awkward bodily positions without the least spark of 
 knowledge on his side. The following is a very inter- 
 esting and striking case : 
 
 P., a man of forty, was received at the hospital 
 at Havre for delirium tremens. He improved and 
 became quite rational during the daytime. The hos- 
 pital doctor observed that the patient was highly sug- 
 gestible, and invited M. Janet to experiment on him. 
 " While the doctor was talking to the patient on some 
 interesting subject," writes M. Janet,' 55 ' " I placed my- 
 self behind P., and told him to raise his arm. On 
 the first trial I had to touch his arm in order to pro- 
 voke the desired act ; afterward his unconscious obedi- 
 ence followed my order without difficulty. I made 
 him walk, sit down, kneel all without his knowing it. 
 I even told him to lie down on his stomach, and he 
 fell down at once, but his head still raised itself to 
 answer at once the doctor's questions. The doctor 
 asked him, 'In what position are you while I am 
 talking to you ? ' ' Why, I am standing by my bed ; 
 I am not moving." 1 The secondary self accepted 
 motor suggestions of which the primary self was totally 
 unaware. 
 
 As the orders thus whispered to the secondary, 
 subwaking self become more complicated the latter 
 rises to the surface, pushes the waking self into the 
 background and carries out the suggested commands. 
 " M. Binet had been kind enough," writes M. Janet," f 
 " to show me one of the subjects on whom he was in 
 the habit of studying acts rendered unconscious by 
 
 * Pierre Janet, L'Automatisme Psychologique. f Ibid.
 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 99 
 
 anaesthesia, and I had asked his permission to pro- 
 duce on this subject the phenomenon of suggestion by 
 distraction. Everything took place just as I expected. 
 The subject (Hab.), fully awake, talked to M. Binet. 
 Placing myself behind her, I caused her to move her 
 hand unconsciously, to write a few words, to answer 
 my questions by signs, etc. Suddenly Hab. ceased to 
 speak to M. Binet, and, turning toward me, continued 
 correctly by the voice the conversation she had begun 
 with me by unconscious signs. On the other hand, she 
 no longer spoke to M. Binet, and could no longer hear 
 him speak ; in a word, she had fallen into elective som- 
 nambulism (rapport). It was necessary to wake her 
 up, and when awakened she had naturally forgotten 
 everything. Now Hab. had no previous knowledge of 
 me at all ; it was not, therefore, my presence which 
 had sent her to sleep. The sleep was in this case 
 manifestly the result of the development of unconscious 
 actions, which had invaded and finally effaced the nor- 
 mal consciousness. This explanation, indeed, is easily 
 
 verified. My subject, Madame. B , remains wide 
 
 awake in my neighbourhood so long as I do not pro- 
 voke unconscious phenomena, but when the unconscious 
 phenomena become too numerous and too complicated 
 she goes to sleep." We have here clear and direct 
 proof as to the presence of a conscious agency lying 
 buried below the upper stratum of personal life, and 
 also as to the identity of this hidden, mysterious self 
 with the hypnotic self. The self of normal and that 
 of abnormal suggestibility are one and the same.. 
 
 Turning now to hypnosis, we find that the classical 
 experiments of P. Janet and Gourney on deferred or 
 post-hypnotic suggestion furnish clear, valid, and direct 
 evidence of the reality of a secondary consciousness, of
 
 100 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 an intelligent, subwaking, hypnotic self concealed be- 
 hind the curtain of personal consciousness. 
 
 " When Lucie was in a state of genuine somnam- 
 bulism," writes P. Janet, " I said to her, in the tone 
 used for giving suggestions, 'When I clap my hand 
 twelve times you will go to sleep again.' Then I 
 talked to her of other things, and five or six minutes 
 later I woke her completely. The forgetfulness of all 
 that had happened during the hypnotic state, and of 
 my suggestion in particular, was complete. I was 
 assured of this forgetfulness, which was an important 
 thing here, first, by the preceding state of sleep, which 
 was genuine somnambulism with all its characteristic 
 symptoms; by the agreement of all those who have 
 been engaged upon these questions, and who have all 
 proved the forgetfulness of similar suggestions after 
 waking ; and, finally, by the results of all the preced- 
 ing experiments made upon this subject, in which I 
 have always found this unconsciousness. Other people 
 
 / 
 
 surrounded Lucie and talked to her about different 
 things ; and then, drawing back a few steps, I struck 
 my hand five blows at rather long intervals and rather 
 faintly, noticing at the same time that the subject paid 
 no attention to me, but still talked on briskly. I came 
 nearer and said to her, 'Did you hear what I just 
 did ? ' ' What did you do ? ' said she, ' I was not pay- 
 ing attention.' ' This ' (I clapped my hands). ' You 
 just clapped your hands.' ' How many times ? ' 
 ' Once.' I drew back and continued to clap more 
 faintly every now and then. Lucie, whose attention 
 was distracted, no longer listened to me, and seemed 
 to have completely forgotten my existence. When I 
 had clapped six times more in this way, which with 
 the preceding ones made twelve, Lucie stopped talk-
 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 101 
 
 ing immediately, closed her eyes, and fell back asleep. 
 ' Why do you go to sleep ? ' I said to her. ' I do not 
 know anything about it ; it came upon me all at once,' 
 she said. 
 
 " The somnambulist must have counted, for I en- 
 deavoured to make the blows just alike, and the twelfth 
 could not be distinguished from the preceding ones. 
 She must have heard them and counted them, but 
 without knowing it; therefore, unconsciously (sub- 
 consciously). The experiment was easy to repeat, and 
 I repeated it in many ways. In this way Lucie 
 counted unconsciously (subconsciously) up to forty- 
 three, the blows being sometimes regular and some- 
 times irregular, with never a mistake in the result. 
 The most striking of these experiments was this: I 
 gave the order, ' At the third blow you will raise your 
 hands, at the fifth you will lower them, at the sixth 
 you will look foolish, at the ninth you will walk about 
 the room, and at the sixteenth you will go to sleep in 
 an easy-chair.' She remembered nothing at all of this 
 on waking, but all these actions were performed in the 
 order desired, although during the whole time Lucie 
 replied to questions that were put to her, and was not 
 aware that she counted the noises, that she looked 
 foolish, or that she walked about. 
 
 "After repeating the experiment I cast about for 
 some means of varying it, in order to obtain very sim- 
 ple unconscious judgments. The experiment was al- 
 ways arranged in the same way. Suggestions were 
 made during a well-established hypnotic sleep, then 
 the subject was thoroughly wakened, and the signals 
 and the actions took place in the waking state. 
 'When I repeat the same letter in succession you 
 will become rigid.' After she awoke I whispered the
 
 102 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 letters, 'a,' 'c,' 'd,' 'e,' 'a,' 'a.' Lucie became mo- 
 tionless and perfectly rigid. That shows an uncon- 
 scious judgment of resemblance. I may also cite some 
 examples of judgments of difference : ' You will go to 
 sleep when I pronounce an uneven number,' or ' Your 
 hands will revolve around each other when I pronounce 
 a woman's name.' The result is the same ; as long as 
 I whisper even numbers or names of men nothing hap- 
 pens, but the suggestion is carried out when I give the 
 proper signal. Lucie has therefore listened uncon- 
 sciously (subconsciously), compared, and appreciated 
 the differences. 
 
 " I next tried to complicate the experiment in order 
 to see to what lengths this faculty of an unconscious 
 (subconscious) judgment would go. 'When the sum 
 of the number which I shall pronounce amounts to ten 
 you will throw kisses.' The same precautions were 
 taken. She was awakened, forgetfulness established, 
 and while she was chatting witli other people who dis- 
 turbed her as much as possible, I whispered, at quite a 
 distance from her, 'Two, three, one, four,' and she 
 made the movement. Then I tried more complicated 
 numbers and other operations. 'When the numbers 
 that I shall pronounce two by two, subtracted from one 
 another, leave six, you will make a certain gesture ' or 
 multiplication, and even very simple divisions. The 
 whole thing was carried out with almost no errors, ex- 
 cept when the calculation became too complicated and 
 could not be done in her head. There was no new 
 faculty there, only the usual processes were operating 
 unconsciously (subconsciously). 
 
 " It seems to me that these experiments are quite 
 directly connected with the problem of the intelligent 
 performance of suggestion that appears to be forgotten.
 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 103 
 
 The facts mentioned are perfectly accurate. Som- 
 nambulists are able to count the days and hours that 
 intervene between the present time and the perform- 
 ance of a suggestion, although they have no memory 
 whatever of the suggestion itself. Outside of their 
 consciousness there is a memory that persists, an atten- 
 tion always on the alert, and a judgment perfectly capable 
 of counting the days, as is shown by its being able to 
 make these multiplications and divisions." 
 
 The experiments of E. Gourney confirm the same 
 truth that behind the primary upper consciousness a 
 secondary lower consciousness is present. 
 
 " P 11," writes E. Gourney, " was told on March 
 
 26th that on the one hundred and twenty-third day 
 from then he was to put a blank sheet of paper in an 
 envelope and send it to a friend of mine whose name 
 and residence he knew, but whom he had never seen. 
 The subject was not referred to again till April 18th, 
 when he was hypnotized and asked if he remembered 
 anything in connection with this gentleman. He at 
 once repeated the order, and said, ' This is the twenty- 
 third day a hundred more.' 
 
 " / (hypnotizer). How do you know ? Have you 
 noted each day ? 
 
 " P U. No ; it seemed natural. 
 
 " S. Have you thought of it often ? 
 
 "P II. It generally strikes me early in the 
 
 morning. Something tells me, 'You have got to 
 count.' 
 
 " S. Does that happen every day ? 
 
 " P U. No, not every day perhaps more likely 
 
 every other day. It goes from my mind. I never 
 think of it during the day. I only know it has to be 
 
 done. 
 
 8
 
 104 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 " He was questioned again on April 20th, and at once 
 said, ' That is going on all right twenty-five days ' ; 
 and on April 22d, when in the trance, he spontane- 
 ously recalled the subject and added ' Twenty-seven 
 days.' After he was awakened (April 18th), I asked 
 him if he knew the gentleman in question or had been 
 thinking about him. He was clearly surprised at the 
 question." The hypnotic self knew he had to do some- 
 thing, knew the particular act and the precise day when 
 he had to perform it ; watched the flow of time, counted 
 the days and all that was going on, without the least in- 
 timation to the consciousness of the waking personal self. 
 
 E. Gourney then conceived the happy idea of 
 further tapping the intelligence and knowledge of this 
 subwaking hypnotic self by means of automatic writ- 
 ing. 
 
 "I showed P 11," says E. Gourney,* "a plan- 
 
 chette he had never seen or touched one before and 
 got him to write his name with it. He was then hyp- 
 notized, and told that it had been as dark as night in 
 London on the previous day, and that he would be 
 able to write what he had heard. He was awakened, 
 and as usual was offered a sovereign to say what it was 
 he had been told, and as usual without impunity to my 
 purse. He was then placed with his hand on the plan- 
 chette, a large screen being held in the front of his face, 
 so that it was impossible for him to see the paper or 
 instrument. In less than a minute the writing began. 
 The words were, ' It was a dark day in London." 
 
 " When asked what he had written, he did not know. 
 He was given a post-hypnotic suggestion to poke the 
 fire in six minutes, and that he should inform us how 
 
 * E. Gourney. Poet-hypnotic States, Pr. S. P. R., April, 1887.
 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 105 
 
 the time was going, without any direction as to writing. 
 
 He wrote soon after waking, f P 11, will you poke 
 
 the fire in six minutes ? ' " 
 
 To prove decisively the intelligence of the second- 
 ary, subwaking, hypnotic self, Gourney gave the en- 
 tranced subject arithmetical problems to solve, and 
 immediately had him awakened. When put to the 
 planchette the subject gave the solution of the problem, 
 without being conscious as to what he was doing. It 
 was the hypnotic self who made the calculation, who 
 solved the arithmetical problem. 
 
 W s was told to add together 5, 6, 8, 9, and had 
 
 just time to say " 5," when he was awakened in the 
 fraction of a second with the words on his lips. The 
 planchette immediately produced " 28." 
 
 P 11 was told during trance to add all the digits 
 
 from 1 to 9 ; the first result was 39, the second 45 
 (right). Rehypnotized, and asked by S. what he had 
 been writing, he said, " You told me to add the figures 
 from 1 to 9 = 45." " Did you write it ? " " Yes, I 
 wrote it down." 
 
 W s was hypnotized and told that in six minutes 
 
 he was to blow a candle out, and that he would be re- 
 quired at the same time before this to write the num- 
 ber of minutes that had passed and the number that 
 had still to elapse. He was awakened, laughed and 
 talked as usual, and, of course, knew nothing of the 
 order. In about three and a half minutes (he was 
 taken by surprise, so to say) he was set down to the 
 planchette, which wrote, " Four and a half one more." 
 
 About a minute passed, and W s was rehypnotized, 
 
 but just as his eyes were beginning to close, he raised 
 himself and blew out the candle, saying, " It is beginning 
 to smell." Hypnotized and questioned, he remembered
 
 106 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 all that lie had done ; and when it was pointed out to 
 him that four and a half and one do not make six, he 
 explained the discrepancy by saying, " It took half a 
 minute for you to tell me ; I reckoned from the end of 
 your telling me." 
 
 S 1 was told in the trance that he was to look 
 
 out of the window seven minutes after waking, and 
 that he was to write how the time was going. He was 
 then awakened. This was 7.34^ p. M. I set him to the 
 planchette, and the writing began at 7.36. I did not 
 watch the process, but when I stood holding the screen 
 in front of his eyes I was so close to his hand that I 
 could not help becoming aware that the writing was 
 being produced at distinct intervals. I remarked that 
 he was going by fits and starts, and seemed to have to 
 pause to get up steam. Immediately on the conclu- 
 sion of the writing at 7.40 he got up and drew aside the 
 blind, and looked out. Examining the paper, I found 
 " 25, 34, 43, 52, 61, 7." 
 
 Clearly he had aimed at recording at each moment 
 when he began the number that had passed and the 
 number that remained. The subwaking, suggestible, 
 hypnotic being seems to be not a physiological automa- 
 ton, but a self, possessing consciousness, memory, and 
 even a rudimentary intelligence. 
 
 Sphygmographic or tracings of the radial artery 
 seem to point to the same conclusion. Thus in the 
 normal state, on the application of agreeable stimuli, 
 such as perfumes, the curves become broader, the pulse 
 slower, indicating a muscular relaxation of the heart ; 
 while on the other hand, if disagreeable or painful 
 stimuli are applied, such as pricking, faradic or gal- 
 vanic currents, ammonia, acetic acid, formaline, etc., the 
 pulse becomes rapid, the " Riickstoss elevation," or the
 
 PLATE II. A, B, C and D are sphygmographic 
 or pulse tracings in the fully waking normal state. 
 The first part of each tracing in A, C and D shows 
 the normal pulse of the subject; the rest ia under 
 the influence of pain stimuli, such as ammonia or 
 acetic acid. B, in the first part of the record, ia 
 normal, with no stimulus ; the second part of the 
 record shows the influence of the pleasant stimulus 
 of vanilla ; the third part of B shows the effect of 
 acetic acid. 
 
 Tracings B and C are of the same subject whose 
 characteristic normal (rather abnormal) pulse was 
 that of C normal. Under the influence of pleasant 
 stimuli (B, " vanilla ") the abnormal (normal to this 
 subject) characteristics of this pulse became more 
 manifest. Under the influence of painful stimuli 
 (acetic acid, ammonia, etc.) the abnormal charac- 
 teristic (normal pulse of this subject) disappeared, 
 and the pulse became a typical normal pulse. 
 
 Tracing E, in the first part of the record, shows 
 the pulse in hypnosis, but with no application of 
 any stimuli ; the second part of the record shows 
 the influence of pain stimuli in hypnosis with sug- 
 gestive analgesis. 
 
 The arrow -> indicates the direction in which the record
 
 .. ...I.''! ' ' ,: 
 
 
 
 lyf'/iu - 
 
 ' 
 
 d; 'to Iraq f>a, 
 
 i* inssjislq uri- 
 
 
 i'j !i 
 
 -- 
 
 io 

 
 THE SECONDARY SELF. 107 
 
 dicrotic wave, becomes accentuated, and even rises in 
 height (in cases where the dicrotic wave is absent it re- 
 appears under pain), the heart beats increase, indicating 
 a more frequent muscular contraction. 
 
 If now the subject is hypnotized and made an- 
 aesthetic and analgesic, and agreeable and disagreeable 
 stimuli are applied, although the subject feels no pain 
 whatever, still the characteristics of the pain and pleas- 
 ure curves are strangely marked, indicating the pres- 
 ence of a diffused subconscious feeling. 
 
 Kecords of respiration and of the radial artery, or 
 what is called pneumographic and sphygmographic 
 tracings, bring out clearly the real nature of the subcon- 
 scious. 
 
 This is done in the following way : A simultaneous 
 pneumographic and sphygmographic record is first 
 taken of the subject while he is in his normal waking 
 state. A second record is then taken, with the only 
 difference that disagreeable and painful stimuli, such as 
 faradic current or odours of ammonia or acetic acid, are 
 introduced. The tracings will at once show the painful 
 sensations of the subject. The curves will suddenly 
 rise, revealing the violent reactions to the' unwelcome 
 stimuli. If now the subject is thrown into a hypnotic 
 trance and a third record is taken, we shall then have 
 the following curious results : If disagreeable and pain- 
 ful stimuli are applied, and if analgesia is suggested, 
 the subject claims that he feels no pain whatever. In 
 his normal waking state the subject will strongly react, 
 he will scream from pain, but now he keeps quiet. Is 
 there no reaction ? Does the subject actually feel no 
 pain ? Far from being the case. If we look at the 
 pneumographic tracings we find the waves uniformly 
 deep and broad, the respiration is hard and laboured ; a
 
 108 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 similar change we find in the tracings of the radial 
 artery. The pain feeling is there, only it is not concen- 
 trated ; it is diffused. The upper consciousness does 
 not feel the pain, but the subconsciousness does. The 
 painful or uneasy feeling is diffused all over the organic 
 consciousness of the secondary self.
 
 PLATE III. A A are sphygmographic and pneu- 
 mographic tracings of the subject in the normal 
 state. B B are tracings of normal state with pain 
 stimuli, and the reaction of the subject is shown 
 in the abruptly ascending waves. C are tracings 
 of the subject in a state of hypnosis, with suggested 
 analgesia or loss of pain sensibility, and under the 
 uninterrupted application of pain stimuli (acetic 
 acid, ammonia, electricity, pricking, etc.). 
 
 (The upper tracing of each couplet is sphygmo- 
 graphic ; the lower is pneumographic.)
 
 -i/9flq 5oB airiqargoragydqe OT* K k .III 
 
 (i) ui loo^dtig tdj }<. 
 rfliw 9Jj Iimon lo nnioinj SIB v\ 
 
 >n > -,: vDijmdu 
 :yu8 rfiiw ,eieonqvri lo 90tei> B ,ii j->-j[(Mf> sdj To 
 odJ ittfuiu im ,rliIiliHa' nie<{ lc - lyfaas 
 
 ni4| li- ii<ii}jf)i(q(]ii Iwiqim 
 ."j .^iii^i>ni{ .vii->iil <*!' .iiiuoHUiui 
 * i'il'jni.' i li-uio to ; 'T) 
 
 <-
 
 PLATE IV. A A are sphygmographic and pneu- 
 mographic records in normal state under the influ- 
 ence of pain stimuli (acetic acid, ammonia, elec- 
 tricity, etc.). B B and C C are tracings under the 
 continuous application of pain stimuli in the state 
 of hypnosis with suggestive analgesia. In C C the 
 suggestion of analgesia was in one place annulled, 
 the reaction became very powerful, and the curve 
 rose ; with the renewed suggestion of analgesia the 
 reaction disappeared and the curve immediately 
 fell. 
 
 (The upper tracing of each couplet is sphygmo- 
 graphic ; the lower is pneumographic.)
 
 k k .VI 
 
 m BHO-> 
 Huraily ntq 1 
 bnu ft ft .(.oto ,/Jiyii} 
 
 sriJ ni Hoiiih*! ateq to m>jJBorIqq uoi/niino > j 
 9iiJ '^ "3 al .ei89^(Bnfi sviJji^goa ritiw eusonqvrf ^o 
 9t)Jlq 9ao 0r >.i.tf Jii^gliuJi In noil- 
 biui f ltrli9woq yssv 9fa*-ja<: jufTl-u 
 oil} jsigs^lisiiij 'to noil- - diiv 
 
 i -r/iuo odi IMJ j 
 
 -oarg^rfqe ei telquoo ifaes lo yui-^nJ i^t, 
 
 .
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF AND UNCONSCIOUS CEEEBKATION. 
 
 THE facts of post-hypnotic negative hallucinations 
 or of systematized anaesthesia still further reveal the 
 presence of a subconscious self below the upper waking 
 consciousness. The following interesting experiments 
 made by Bernheim and M. Liegeois, and quoted by 
 Binet in his remarkable book, The Alternations of Per- 
 sonality, may serve as good illustrations : 
 
 "Elise B., eighteen years old, a servant, suffering 
 from sciatica. She was a respectable young girl, steady, 
 of average intelligence, and, with the exception of her 
 sciatica, presenting no neuropathic manifestations, symp- 
 toms, nor hereditary tendencies. 
 
 " It was very easy, after her first sitting, to bring on 
 somnambulism coupled with a. state in which she was 
 sensitive to hallucinations both hypnotic and post-hyp- 
 notic, and to amnesia on awaking. I easily developed 
 negative hallucinations with her. During her sleep I 
 said to her, 'When you wake you will no longer see 
 me : I shall have gone.' "When she awoke she looked 
 about for me, and did not seem to see me. I talked to 
 her in vain, shouted in her ear, stuck a pin in her skin, 
 her nostrils, under the nails, and thrust the point of the 
 pin in the mucous membrane of the eye. She did not 
 move a muscle. As far as she was concerned, I had 
 
 109
 
 HO THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 ceased to exist, and all the acoustic, visual, tactile, and 
 other impressions emanating from myself did not make 
 the slightest impression upon her ; she ignored them all. 
 As soon, however, as another person, unknown to her, 
 touched her with the pin, she perceived it quickly, and 
 drew back the member that had been pricked. 
 
 " I may add, in passing, that this experiment is not 
 equally successful with all somnambuli sts. Many patients 
 do not realize negative sensorial suggestions, and others 
 only partially. Some, for example, when I declare that 
 they shall not see me on awaking, do not see me, indeed, 
 but they do hear my voice and feel my touch. Some 
 are astonished to hear me and feel the pricks without 
 seeing me, others do not attempt to understand it, and, 
 finally, others believe that the voice and the sensation 
 come from another person who is present. Sometimes 
 the negative hallucination is made complete for all their 
 sensations when the suggestion is given in this way : 
 ' When you wake, if I touch you and prick you you 
 will not feel it ; if I speak to you you will not hear 
 me. Moreover, you will not see me: I shall have 
 gone.' Some subjects' sensations are quite neutralized 
 after this detailed suggestion; with others, only the 
 visual sensation is neutralized, all the other negative 
 sensorial suggestions remaining ineffectual. 
 
 " The somnambulist of whom I speak realized every- 
 thing to perfection. Logical in her delusive conception, 
 she apparently did not perceive me with any of her 
 senses. It was useless to tell her that I was there and 
 that I was talking to her. She was convinced that they 
 were simply making fun at her expense. I gazed at 
 her obstinately, and said : ' You see me well enough, 
 but you act as if you did not see me. You are a hum- 
 bug; you are playing a part.' She did not stir, and
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. HI 
 
 continued to talk to other people. I added with a con- 
 fident manner : ' However, I know all about it. You 
 can not deceive me. It is only two years since you had 
 a child, and you made away with it. Is that true ? I 
 have been told so.' She did not move ; her face re- 
 mained peaceful. Wishing to see, on account of its 
 medico-legal bearing, whether a serious offence might 
 be committed under cover of a negative hallucination, 
 I roughly raised her dress and skirt. Although natu- 
 rally very modest, she allowed this without a blush. 
 I pinched the calf of her leg and thigh. She made 
 absolutely no sign whatever. I am convinced that she 
 might have been assaulted in this state without the 
 slightest resistance. 
 
 " That established, I asked the head of the clinic to 
 put her to sleep again and suggest to her that I should 
 again be there when she awoke. This she realized. 
 She saw me again, and remembered nothing that had 
 happened in the interval. I said to her: 'You have 
 just seen me. I talked with you.' She was astonished, 
 and said, ' Why, no, you were not there.' ' I was there, 
 and I did talk with you. Ask these gentlemen if I 
 didn't.' 'I saw these gentlemen very well. M. P. 
 tried to persuade me that you were there. But that 
 was only a joke. You were not there.' ' Yery well,' 
 I said, 'but you remember everything that happened 
 while I was not there all that I said and did to you.' 
 ' But how could you say and do anything to me when 
 you were not there ? ' I insisted. Speaking seriously,- 
 and looking her in the face, I laid stress on every 
 word : ' It is true, I was not there, but you remember 
 just the same.' 1 put my hand on her forehead and 
 declared, ' You remember everything, absolutely every- 
 thing. There speak out: what did I say to you?'
 
 112 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 After a moment's concentrated thought, she blushed, 
 and said, ' Oh, no, it is imposible ; I must have dreamed 
 it.' ' Yery well ; what did I say to you in this dream ? ' 
 She was ashamed, and did not want to say. I insisted. 
 At last she said, ' You said that I had had a child.' ' And 
 what did I do to you ? ' ' You pricked me with a pin.' 
 ' And then ? ' After a few minutes she said, ' Oh, no, 
 I would not have allowed you to do it ; it is a dream.' 
 ' What did you dream ? ' ' That you exposed me,' etc. 
 
 " In this way I was able to call up the memory of 
 all that had been said and done by me while she sup- 
 posed that she did not see me. Therefore, in reality 
 she both saw and heard me, notwithstanding her ap- 
 parent obtuseness she neither saw nor heard me. She 
 saw me with her bodily (subconscious) eyes, but she did 
 not see me with the eyes of the mind (upper conscious- 
 ness). She was smitten with blindness, deafness, and 
 psychical anaesthesia as far as I was concerned. All 
 sensorial impressions emanating from me were dis- 
 tinctly perceived, but remained unconscious for her 
 (upper consciousness). 
 
 " Similar experiments were performed by M. Lie- 
 geois. ' I no longer existed,' writes M. Liegeois, ' as 
 far as Madame M. was concerned, to whom M. Liebault 
 had, at my request, suggested that when she woke she 
 would no longer see or hear me. I spoke to her : she 
 did not reply. I stood before her : she did not see me. 
 I pricked her with a pin : she felt no pain. She was 
 asked where I was : she said she did not know that I 
 had undoubtedly gone, etc. 
 
 " I then conceived the idea of making some sugges- 
 tions in loud tones to this person, for whom I had 
 seemed to become an entire stranger; and, what was 
 very singular, she obeyed these suggestions.
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 
 
 " I told her to rise : she rose. To sit down : she 
 seated herself. To make her hands revolve round one 
 another : she did so. I suggested a toothache to her, 
 and she had a toothache ; sneezing, and she sneezed. I 
 said that she was cold, and she shivered ; that she ought 
 to go to the stove in which there was no fire and there 
 she went ; until I told her that she was warm, and then 
 she was all right. During all this time she was, as far 
 as all the assistants were concerned, as fully awake as 
 they were. When questioned by them, she replied that 
 I was absent, she did not know why ; perhaps I would 
 soon come back, etc. Questioned by me with the use 
 of the first personal pronoun, all my questions remained 
 unanswered. She only realized the ideas I expressed 
 impersonally, if I may use such an expression, and as if 
 she drew from her own thought. It is her unconscious 
 (subconscious) ego that causes her to act, and the con- 
 scious ego has not the slightest idea of the impulse that 
 she receives from without. 
 
 " The experiment seemed to me sufficiently inter- 
 esting to bear repeating on another subject, Camille S., 
 and here is a concise resume of the proofs and verifica- 
 tions secured some days later from this girl : 
 
 " Camille S. is eighteen years old, and a very good 
 somnambulist. M. Liebault and I have known her for 
 nearly four years. We have often put her to sleep. We 
 always found her to be perfectly sincere, and we came 
 to have entire confidence in her. This statement is 
 necessary, as we shall see, to give weight to the singular 
 results obtained which confirmed absolutely the first 
 observation made on Madame M. 
 
 " M. Liebault put Camille to sleep, and at my re- 
 quest suggested to her that she would no longer see or 
 hear me ; then he left me to experiment in my own
 
 114 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 way. When she awoke the subject was in communica- 
 tion with everybody, except that I no longer existed for 
 her. Yet, as I am about to show, that is not quite 
 accurate. It was as if there were two personalities 
 within her one that saw me when the other did not 
 see me, and that heard me when the other paid no 
 attention to what I was saying. 
 
 " In the first place, I assured myself of the state of 
 her sensibility. And it was very curious that this ex- 
 isted for all the assistants, but did not exist for any- 
 thing emanating from me. If any one else pricked her 
 she quickly drew her arm back. If I pricked her she 
 did not feel it. I stuck pins in her that remained hang- 
 ing from her arms and cheek. She complained of no 
 sensation, not feeling them at all. This fact of anaes- 
 thesia, not real, but in a measure personal, is certainly 
 very singular. It is quite new, if I am not mistaken. 
 In the same way, if I held a bottle of ammonia under 
 her nose she did not push it away, but she turned away 
 from it when it was presented to her by a strange hand. 
 
 " While she was in this condition, neither seeing nor 
 hearing me apparently, at least almost all the sug- 
 gestions are carried out that may be made in the wak- 
 ing state. I sum them up in the order in which they 
 follow, from my notes taken at the time, June 14th, 
 1888. 
 
 " I need not repeat that if I speak directly to 
 Camille S. if I ask her, for example, how she is, how 
 long it is since she stopped growing, etc. her coun- 
 tenance remains impassive. She neither sees nor hears 
 me at least she is not conscious of so doing. 
 
 " I then proceed, as I said above, impersonally, 
 talking not in my own name, but as if an internal voice 
 of her own was speaking, and expressing such ideas as
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 
 
 the subject would be likely to get from her own private 
 thought. Then somnambulistic automatism shows itself 
 in this new and unexpected guise as complete as any of 
 the other forms already known. 
 
 " I said aloud, ' Camille is thirsty ; she is going to 
 the kitchen for a glass of water, that she will bring 
 back and set on this table.' She did not seem to have 
 heard me, and yet in a few minutes she acted as I had 
 said, and carried out the suggestion with that brisk and 
 impetuous manner which has already been frequently 
 noticed in somnambulists. She was asked why she 
 brought the glass that she put on the table. She did 
 not know what was meant. She had not moved. There 
 was no glass there. 
 
 "I said, 'Camille sees the glass, but there is no 
 water in it, as they are trying to make her believe ; it 
 is wine, and very good wine, too ; she is going to drink 
 it, and it will do her good.' She promptly performed 
 the order thus given to her, then immediately forgot all 
 about it. 
 
 " I made her say some words in succession that 
 were scarcely proper. * Devil take it ! ' ' Confound it ! ' 
 ' Con -' and she repeated all that I suggested to her, 
 but instantly losing the memory of what she had just 
 said. 
 
 " A certain M. F., astonished at this, upbraided her 
 for using these unseemly expressions. She said : ' I 
 did not say those vulgar words. What do you take me 
 for ? You are dreaming ; you must have gone mad.' 
 
 " She saw me without seeing me, as this shows. I 
 said, ' Camille is going to sit on M. L.'s knee.' She im- 
 mediately jumped violently on my knee, and, on being 
 questioned, declared that she had not moved from the 
 bench where she was seated a moment before.
 
 116 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 " M. Liebault spoke to me. As she neither saw nor 
 heard me consciously, she was astonished, and then be- 
 gan a conversation with him in which I played the part 
 of a prompter who dwelt in her own brain. I suggest- 
 ed all the following words to her, and she uttered them, 
 thinking that she was expressing her own thought : 
 
 " ' M. Liebault, aren't you talking to the wall ? I 
 must put you to sleep to cure you. We will change 
 roles,' etc. 
 
 " ' M. F., how is your bronchitis ? ' 
 
 "M. F. asked her how and why she said all this. 
 She replied, after I had whispered to her : ' How do 
 you think it comes to me ? Just as it comes to every 
 one. How do your own thoughts come ? ' and she con- 
 tinued to enlarge upon the theme given her by me. 
 
 " She seemed to be in a perfectly normal state, and 
 held her own with all the assistants with great presence 
 of mind. Only in the midst of her conversation she 
 inserted the phrases that I created in her mind, uncon- 
 sciously making them her own. 
 
 " Thus, while she was arguing with M. F., whom she 
 told that she would take to Mareville,* her interlocutor 
 having objected, ' I am not insane,' she replied : ' All 
 insane people say that they are not insane. You say 
 that you are not insane, therefore you must be insane.' 
 She was very proud of her syllogism, and never sus- 
 pected that she had just got it from me. 
 
 " Wishing to make sure, once more, that she saw me 
 without being conscious of it, I said : ' Camille is going 
 to take a bottle of cologne out of M. L.'s vest pocket ; 
 she will uncork it and enjoy its delightful odour.' She 
 rose, came directly to me, looked first in the left, then 
 
 * Lunatic asylum near Nancy.
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 
 
 in the right pocket, took out a bottle of ammonia, un- 
 corked it, and inhaled it with pleasure. I was obliged 
 to take it away from her. Then, still under the influ- 
 ence of suggestion, she took off my right shoe. M. F. 
 said to her : ' What are you doing there ? You are tak- 
 ing off one of M. L.'s shoes!' She was offended. 
 * What are you talking about ? M. L. is not here, so it 
 is not possible for me to take off his shoe. You are 
 still more insane than you were just now ! ' And when 
 M. F. raised both arms while he was talking to me, 
 Camille cried : ' Absolutely, I must take you to Mare- 
 ville. It is too bad ! Poor M. F. ! ' He did not seem 
 to be cast down by her remark. ' But what shoe is that 
 that you are holding ? what is it ? ' I came to my sub- 
 ject's assistance, and said: 'It is a shoe that Camille 
 must try on ; she was not able to do it this morning at 
 home, because the shoemaker did not keep his appoint- 
 ment. He was drunk, and he has only just brought it. 
 She is going to try it on right here.' 
 
 "All that was accepted, repeated exactly, and 
 promptly performed as if by spontaneous inspiration. 
 For propriety's sake she turned toward the wall to try 
 on my shoe. She found it a little large, and returned 
 it to me, because I said she ought to return it to me. 
 
 " Finally, at my suggestion, she took the glass back 
 lo the kitchen. When she returned, questioned by M. 
 F., she declared that she had not left the room, that she 
 had not drunk anything, and that she had not had a 
 glass in her hands. It was of no use to show her the 
 wet ring that the bottom of the glass had left on the 
 table. She did not see any ring ; there was none ; 
 they were trying to fool her. And then, in order to 
 prove what she said, she passed her hand over the 
 table several times, making the leaves fly on which I
 
 118 THK PSYCHOLOGY OK SUGGESTION, 
 
 took my notes, and which shared in my privilege of 
 being invisible, witliout seeing them. If there \\\\<\ 
 been an inkstand there, it too would undoubtedly have 
 been thrown to the floor. 
 
 "In order to bring this scries of tests to :m end, I 
 said aloud: ' Camille, you arc going to see ;md hear me, 
 I will open your eyes. You are now all right.' I was 
 three metres from her, but the suggestion openiled. 
 Camille passed without any ;ipp;ircnt. tnmsiiion stage 
 from the state of negative ballucinatioD into which M. 
 Li6bault had thrown her into the, normal st;i.lc, which 
 in her case wan, as usual, accompanied by complete, am- 
 nesia. She had no idea of all that bad just buppencd 
 the numerous experiments, varied in every conceivable 
 way, the hallucinations, the words, the actions in which 
 she played the principal part all this was forgotten; it 
 was all, as far as she was concerned, as if it had not been. 11 
 
 I can not do better than to bring M. Liegeois's own 
 interpretation of his experiments, an inlerpret;i.tiori with 
 which I fully agree: 
 
 "During the negative hallucinations," says M. Lie 
 geois, "the subject sees what IK; does not seem to 
 and hears what he docs not seem to hear. Two penOfl 
 alities (selves) exist within him an unconscious (sub- 
 conscious) ego that sees and hears, and a eonsciou 
 
 that does not fee nor hear." And I may add that not 
 
 only do the two egos exist within the state of negative 
 hallucination, but also within the normal state. 
 
 The facts of hypnotic, memory alone -.trongly indi- 
 cate the intelligent nature of the subconscious, ('an 
 the theory of uncon.-.cious cerebration x explain, for in 
 
 * On nnr:<<n-.<:ioiis <:<-r<-\>rii\:\i,\\, :<<. < 'ur|>cMt< r' Mi-ntal I'l. 
 olo#y ; Irc.lfind, Tin: I'lot. upon ttic I'.rniri ; Ijiyork, t'nconwiouH 
 /ration, Journal ol Mental .Junnury un'l Ajril, 1870;
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 
 
 stance, the fact of suggested amnesia during hypnosis ? 
 I hypnotise Mr. V. F., and make him pass through 
 many lively scenes and actions, I give him hypnotic 
 and post-hypnotic suggestions. The subject is wakened 
 and hypnotized time and again. At last he is put into 
 a hypnotic state, and is suggested that on awaking he 
 shall not remember anything of what had happened in 
 the state of hypnosis. The subject, on emerging from 
 his trance, remembers nothing of what he has passed 
 through. I then put my hand on his forehead and 
 tell him in a commanding voice, u You remember now 
 \ thing!" As if touched by the wand of a ma- 
 gician, the suppressed memories become endowed with 
 life and movement and invade the consciousness of 
 the subject Everything is now clearly remembered, 
 and the subject is able to relate the tale of his ad- 
 ventures without the omission of the least incident, 
 So detailed is the account that one can not help won- 
 dering at the extraordinary memory displayed by the 
 subject. How is the theory of unconscious cerebra- 
 tion to account for this strange fact f Prof. Ziehen, 
 in his Physiological Psychology, tells us that "it is 
 still a matter of doubt whether, despite their eom- 
 plieateness, all the facts of the hypnotized individual 
 are not motions accomplished without any concomitant 
 psychical processes," and that " even the recollection of 
 the hypnotic psychical processes do not necessarily argue 
 t*i/<mr of their existence during hypnotic trance," 
 This extreme view is eertninly wrong; for the subject 
 during hypnosis not only acts, moves, but he also speaks, 
 answers questions intelligently, reasons, discusses; and 
 
 Pierce and Rxliuorv. Subliminal Solf or Unconscious GmbntMB, 
 Ptoo. Soc. for Psych. Re&, TU, 1875. 
 
 I
 
 120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 if such an individual may still be regarded as a mere 
 machine, on the same grounds we may as well consider 
 any rational man as a mere unconscious automaton.* 
 
 The advocates of unconscious cerebration must ad- 
 mit at least this much, that hypnosis is a conscious state. 
 How, on the theory of unconscious cerebration it is 
 truly inconceivable how psychical states can be sup- 
 pressed, the accompanying unconscious physiological 
 processes alone being left, and all that done by a mere 
 word of the experimenter. The restoration of memory 
 is still more incomprehensible than even the suggested 
 amnesia. A command by the experimenter, " Now you 
 can remember ! " brings into consciousness a flood of 
 ideas and images. It is not that the experimenter gives 
 the subject a clew which starts trains of particular images 
 and ideas, but the mere general, abstract suggestion, 
 " You can remember ! " is sufficient to restore memories 
 which to all appearances have completely vanished 
 from the mind of the subject. Are the unconscious 
 physiological nervous modifications so intelligent as to 
 understand suggestions and follow them ? Does uncon- 
 scious cerebration understand the command of the ex- 
 perimenter, and does it oblige him to become conscious ? 
 On closer examination, we find the term unconscious 
 cerebration to be of so loose a nature that under its 
 head are often recorded facts that clearly indicate the 
 working of an intelligence. Thus Mr. Charles M. Child 
 brings the following fact as a specimen of unconscious 
 cerebration : f 
 
 " I had earnestly been trying," a gentleman writes 
 
 * Besides, post-hypnotic amnesia is rarely spontaneous ; as a rule, 
 it is induced by suggestion. 
 
 f Unconscious Cerebration, American Journal of Psychology, 
 November, 1892.
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 
 
 to Mr. Child, " to make a trial balance, and at last left 
 off working, the summary of the Dr. and Or. sides of 
 the account showing a difference of 2 10s., the Dr. 
 side being so much smaller. The error I had not found 
 on Saturday night when I left the countinghouse. On 
 this same Saturday night I retired feeling nervous, and 
 angry with myself. Some time in the night I dreamed 
 thus : I was seated at my desk in the countinghouse 
 and in a good light ; everything was orderly and natu- 
 ral, the ledger lying before me. I was looking over 
 the balance of the accounts and comparing them with 
 the sums in the trial-balance sheet. Soon I came to a 
 debit balance of 2 10*. I looked at it, called myself 
 sundry names, spoke to myself in a deprecating man- 
 ner of my own eyes, and at last put the 2 10*. to its 
 proper side of the trial -balance sheet and went home. 
 I arose at the usual Sunday time, dressed carefully, 
 breakfasted, went to call on some . . . friends to go to 
 church. Suddenly the dream flashed on my memory. 
 I went for the keys, opened the office, also the safe, got 
 the ledger, and turned to the folio my dream had indi- 
 cated. There was the account whose balance was the 
 sum wanted which I had omitted to put in the balance 
 sheet, where it was put now, and my year's posting 
 proved correct." 
 
 The adherents of unconscious cerebration tacitly 
 include under this term not only unconscious physio- 
 logical processes, or nerve modifications, but also psy- 
 chical states. Keeping clearly in mind the real mean- 
 ing of unconscious cerebration as referring to physio- 
 logical processes or nerve modifications with no psy- 
 chical accompaniment, the difficulties of unconscious 
 cerebration to account for the phenomena of hypnotic 
 memory become truly insurmountable. For if the
 
 122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 physiological processes subsumed under the category 
 of unconscious cerebration are completely lacking any 
 psychical element whatever, how can a general abstract 
 negative phrase suppress particular psychical states, 
 and how can a similar positive phrase bring the for- 
 gotten memories back to consciousness ? It is simply 
 incomprehensible. 
 
 Furthermore, while the subject is in a hypnotic 
 condition we can suggest to him that on awaking he 
 shall not remember anything, but that when put to 
 the automatic recorder he shall be able to write every- 
 thing that has taken place in the state of hypnosis. 
 The subject is then awakened ; he remembers nothing 
 at all of what he had passed through while in the state 
 of hypnotic trance. As soon, however, as he is put to 
 the automatic recorder the hand gives a full, rational 
 account of all the events. If now you ask the subject 
 what it is he has written, he stares at you in confu- 
 sion ; he knows nothing at all of the writing. How 
 shall we account for this fact on the theory of un- 
 conscious cerebration ? Can unconscious physiological 
 processes write rational discourses ? It is simply won- 
 derful, incomprehensible. 
 
 These, however, are not the only difficulties which 
 the theory of unconscious cerebration has to encounter. 
 Take the following experiment : I gave Mr. Y. F. the 
 suggestion that on awaking he should put my coat on 
 three times, take it off, and put it on again ; that he 
 should do it when he should hear a signal which should 
 be a knock ; amnesia was suggested, and also the possi- 
 bility of writing the suggestion. The subject was then 
 roused from his trance. There was not the slightest 
 recollection of what had been suggested, but when he 
 was put to the automatic recorder the hand at once
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 123 
 
 proceeded to write in full everything. In the middle 
 of the writing, " When a signal will be given . . . ," 
 I stopped the subject's hand and asked him what he 
 was writing about. " I do not know," he answered. 
 " How is it," I asked again, " you write, and you do 
 not know what you write ? " "I do not know ; I think 
 it was something about a coat" "What was it you 
 were writing about a coat ? " "I do not know ; maybe 
 about the make of a coat." Then when the signal 
 came he rose and put on the coat three times. To 
 take another experiment of the same kind : I give the 
 subject the suggestion that he should bow to the gas 
 whenever the door should be opened ; again amnesia 
 is suggested, with the possibility of writing. The sub- 
 ject is stopped when he finished his account. " What 
 was it you wrote ? " I ask. The subject looks sur- 
 prised. I repeat my question. "I do not know; I 
 think something about a door ? " " What was it about 
 a door ? " "I do not know." I have made many 
 similar experiments, and all of them with the same 
 results. It is evident that the writing is not an un- 
 conscious automatic process, for the subject possesses 
 a general knowledge of what he has written, or even 
 of what he is going to write. Now, on the theory of 
 unconscious cerebration this general knowledge ought 
 to be entirely lacking, since the physiological processes 
 of the suppressed memory have no psychical accom- 
 paniment. It would not do to say that the subject 
 knows each word as he writes it, but becomes un- 
 conscious of it, forgets it, as soon as it is written down ; 
 because the subject is able to tell the central idea 
 that is, he has a general knowledge of it ; and, what is 
 more, he is able to tell us this general central idea even 
 before he finishes the writing in "fact, he can do it
 
 124 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 when stopped in the middle of the phrase. On the 
 theory of secondary consciousness, however, the ex- 
 periments could not possibly give other results. The 
 secondary consciousness understands the suggestions 
 given by the experimenter, accepts them, obeys the 
 commands, keeps the suppressed memories, and sends 
 up a general knowledge of them to the upper con- 
 sciousness,* and, if commanded, communicates the 
 suppressed particular suggestions in all their details. 
 
 The advocates of unconscious cerebration assume 
 too much : they assume that normal memory, or recol- 
 lection in the normal state, can be fully accounted for 
 by unconscious physiological processes, and the only 
 thing required is to apply this theory to the phenom- 
 ena of hypnotic memory. It would be well to exam- 
 ine this theory and see how strong its claims are in 
 the case of normal memory. 
 
 Many a modern psycho-physiologist no doubt smiles 
 at the crude, ancient psycho-physiological theory of 
 perception. Images or copies of objects emanate from 
 objects, get deposited in the mind ; hence perception, 
 cognition, memory. The modern psycho-physiological 
 speculations, however the speculations of Maudsley, 
 Carpenter, Ziehen, Ribot, etc. are no less crude. 
 Thus Ziehen, for instance, conceives that each sensa- 
 tion deposits a copy of itself an image, an idea in 
 some one of the memory ganglion cells, and memory 
 consists in the reproduction of this copy the hen 
 lays an egg from which another hen may come out. 
 Maudsley expresses the same thing in slightly different 
 terms ; instead of " deposits of images in memory 
 
 * I am rather disposed to think that the answer in these cases 
 is given not by the upper but by the lower consciousness of the 
 subject.
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 125 
 
 ganglion cells," he uses "modifications of nerve ele- 
 ments." " It may be supposed," says Maudsley, " that 
 the first activity did leave behind it, when it subsided, 
 some after-effect, some modification of the nerve ele- 
 ment, whereby the nerve circuit was disposed to fall 
 again readily into the same action, such disposition 
 (unconscious) appearing in consciousness as recognition 
 or memory." Bibot and many other psychologists, 
 with slight variations in minor points, follow the same 
 beaten track. All of them agree that it is the nerve 
 modifications produced by the physiological processes 
 of sensations, emotions, etc., that constitute the basis, 
 nay, the very essence, of memory itself. It does not 
 require a close examination to find the deficiencies of 
 this theory. A mere modification left behind as a 
 trace can not possibly explain memory, recollection, the 
 fact of referring a particular bit of experience to an 
 experience felt before. The retention of a trace or of 
 a nervous modification, and the reproduction of that 
 trace or modification, can not in the least account for 
 the fact that a series of sensations, ideas, images, emo- 
 tions, felt at different times, should become combined, 
 brought into a unity, felt like being similar, like being 
 one and the same, like being repetitions, copies of one 
 original experience. It is not retention or reproduc- 
 tion, but it is the recognition element that constitutes 
 the essentia of memory. The rose of to-day reminds 
 me of the rose seen yesterday, of the same rose seen 
 the day before yesterday. Now, the image of the rose 
 may be retained, may even be reproduced, but if it is 
 not recognised as having happened in my past, there 
 can be no recollection; in short, without recognition 
 there is no memory. As Prof. James strongly puts 
 it, "the gutter is worn deeper by each successive
 
 126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 shower, but not for that reason brought into contact 
 with previous showers." Does the theory of uncon- 
 scious physiological processes, of material brain traces, 
 of nerve modifications does this theory take into ac- 
 count this element of recognition ? Can the theory of 
 unconscious cerebration offer the faintest suggestion as 
 to how that element of recognition is brought about ? 
 What is that something added to the unconscious 
 physiological trace or nerve modification that effects a 
 conscious recognition ? 
 
 Furthermore, first impressions can be localized in 
 the past, but so can also each subsequent revival. 
 How shall we explain, on the theory of unconscious 
 physiological nerve registration, that the original, the 
 primitive sense experience, as well as each subsequent 
 revival, can be referred to as distinct psychical facts ? 
 For if the structural nerve elements are slightly modi- 
 fied with every revival, how shall we account for this 
 psychical distinction of the original sense experience 
 as well as of the modified revivals ? The remembered 
 experience leaves its own individual trace, then a trace 
 of its being a copy of a former original impression, and 
 also a trace of its being a member in a series of similar 
 traces, each trace being both a copy of one another and 
 a copy of the original impression. How this is done is 
 a mystery. 
 
 The difficulties of the unconscious registration 
 theory increase still more if we consider that the ac- 
 count of memory as usually given by psychologists is 
 rather inadequate. Memory is the recurrence or re- 
 production in consciousness of a former experience. 
 "We saw a certain object yesterday, and to-day, when 
 we happen to think of that object, we say that the 
 image or idea is the reproduction and recognition in
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 127 
 
 memory of the previous perception. This, however, is 
 but a partial account of what actually takes place in 
 the process of recollection. Psychologically speaking, 
 when we remember something we have not a repro- 
 duction of some past experience, but an actual present 
 experience with the quality of pastness about it. I 
 remember the rose I saw and smelled the day before ; 
 what I have here is simply a present experience in the 
 moment content of consciousness, and this experience 
 is projected into the past of my subjective time. The 
 image of the rose I have now turns out to be a rose of 
 yesterday, and the yesterday itself is a part in the con- 
 tent of the present moment consciousness ; in other 
 words, my present experience is projected into my 
 present subjective yesterday. The present image is 
 the primary fact, and the projection of it into the past 
 is but a secondary effect ; but, then, the process is re- 
 versed the present experience is regarded as second- 
 ary, and the secondary as primary. Subjectively con- 
 sidered, memory is the reproduction of the present into 
 the past. It is only if regarded from an objective stand- 
 point that memory becomes the reproduction of the past 
 into the present. In short, in memory, there is a double 
 process going on : the projection of the subjective pres- 
 ent into the subjective past, and then, again, the pro- 
 jection of the objective past into the objective present. 
 This process may be graphically represented as follows : 
 
 SUBJECTIVE 
 PREBENt 
 
 OBJECTIVE
 
 128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Does the physiological registration theory account 
 for this double process ? It certainly does not. If 
 now the theory of unconscious physiological traces or 
 nerve modifications is found inadequate to explain the 
 most elementary act of conscious memory, can we rely 
 upon it, when offered to us in the garb of unconscious 
 cerebration, to account for such complex psychical 
 phenomena as hypnotic memory ? 
 
 Unconscious cerebration failing, we must fall back 
 on the psychical interpretation of hypnosis in general, 
 and of hypnotic memory in particular. The subcon- 
 sciousness is not an unconscious physiological automa- 
 tism; it is a secondary consciousness, a secondary self.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DOUBLE SELF. 
 
 IN the last chapter we came to the conclusion that 
 the subconsciousness is not a mere unconscious physi- 
 ological automatism, but a consciousness, a self in pos- 
 session of memory, and even intelligence. Experiments 
 and observations, however, go further to prove that this 
 hidden intelligence may be of still higher organization ; 
 it may possess even some degree of self-consciousness, 
 which may grow and develop. By means of the so- 
 called method of distraction Prof. Janet entered into 
 direct communication with the secondary self of his 
 subject, Louise. 
 
 " Do you hear me ? " asked Prof. Janet.* 
 
 "Ans. No. 
 
 " J. But, in order to answer, one must hear. 
 
 "Ans. Certainly. 
 
 " J. Then how do you manage ? 
 
 " Ans. I do not know. 
 
 " J. There must be somebody who hears me. 
 
 "Ans. Yes. 
 
 " J. Who is it ? 
 
 "Ans. Not Louise. 
 
 " J. Oh, some one else. Shall we call her Blanche ? 
 
 "Ans. Yes, Blanche. 
 
 * L'Automatisme psychologique. 
 129
 
 130 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 " J. Well, then, Blanche, do you hear me ? 
 
 "Am. Yes." 
 
 This name, however, had soon to be given up, as 
 it happened to have very disagreeable associations in 
 Louise's mind ; and when Louise was shown the paper 
 with the name Blanche, which she had unconsciously 
 written, she was angry and wanted to tear it up. An- 
 other name had to be chosen. 
 
 " J. What name will you have ? 
 
 " Ans. No name. 
 
 " J. You must ; it will be more convenient. 
 
 " Ans. Well, then, Adrienne." 
 
 Now it proved that Adrienne knew of things of 
 which Louise was entirely ignorant. Louise's special 
 terror, which recurred hi wild exclamation in her hys- 
 terical fits, was somehow connected with hidden men. 
 She could not, however, recollect the incident. But 
 Adrienne, when questioned, was able to describe all 
 the details. 
 
 Louise was thrown into catalepsy ; then M. Janet 
 clinched her left hand (she began at once to strike 
 out), put a pencil in her right hand, and said, " Adri- 
 enne, what are you doing ? " The left hand continued 
 to strike and the face to bear the look of rage, while 
 the right hand wrote, " I am furious ! " " With whom ? " 
 "With F." "Why?" "I do not know, but I am 
 very angry." M. Janet then unclinched the subject's 
 left hand and put it gently to her lips. It began " to 
 blow kisses," and the face smiled. " Adrienne, are 
 you still angry ? " " No, that is over." " And now ? " 
 "Oh, I am happy." "And Louise?" "She knows 
 nothing ; she is asleep." 
 
 This case is extremely interesting as indicating at 
 first the lack of self -consciousness in the hypnotic sub-
 
 THE DOUBLE SELF. 131 
 
 waking self, but acquiring it in the course of communi- 
 cation with the external world. Under favourable con- 
 ditions the subwaking self wakes from the deep trance 
 in which it is immersed, raises its head, becomes com- 
 pletely conscious, and rises at times even to the plane of 
 personality. 
 
 When Leonie B. (a subject of M. Janet) is hypno- 
 tized her personal character undergoes a radical change. 
 She assumes a different name, that of Leontine. Now 
 Leontine (that is Leonie hypnotized) was told by Prof. 
 Janet that after the trance was over and Leonie had 
 resumed her ordinary life she, Leontine, was to take 
 off her apron and then to tie it on again. Leonie was 
 then awakened and conducted by Prof. Janet to the 
 door, talking with her usual respectful gravity. Mean- 
 time her hands untied the apron and took it off. Prof. 
 Janet called Leonie's attention to the loosened apron. 
 " Why, my apron is coming off ! " Leonie exclaimed, 
 and with full consciousness (waking consciousness) she 
 tied the apron on again. She then continued the talk. 
 At Leontine's prompting the hands once more began 
 their work, and the apron was taken off again, and again 
 replaced, this time without Leonie's attention having 
 been directed to the matter at all. Only then Leon- 
 tine was fully satisfied and became quiet. Next day 
 Prof. Bichet hypnotized Leonie again, and presently 
 Leontine as usual emerged. " Well," she said, " I did 
 what you told me yesterday. How stupid the other 
 one looked while I took off her apron ! Why did you 
 tell her that the apron was falling off ? I was obliged 
 to begin the job all over again." 
 
 Once this secondary self attains self-consciousness 
 and gets crystallized into a new and independent per- 
 sonality, it now and then rises to the surface and as-
 
 132 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Bumes control over the current of life. The secondary 
 personality may blame, dislike, ridicule, the primary 
 personality. Thus Leontine calls Leonie " that stupid 
 woman." Sometimes the secondary personality may 
 treat the primary with great animosity, and may even 
 threaten to destroy it. Prof. Janet received from 
 Madame B. a very curious letter. " On the first page," 
 he says,* " was a short note, written in a serious and 
 respectful style. She was unwell, she said worse on 
 some days than on others and she signed her true 
 name, Madame B. But over the page began another 
 in a quite different style. ' My dear sir,' thus the letter 
 ran, ' I must tell you that B. really makes me suffer 
 much ; she can not sleep ; she spits blood ; she hurts 
 me ; I am going to demolish her ; she bores me ; I am 
 ill also. This is from your devoted Leontine.' ' : 
 
 Dr. Osgood Mason reports the following interesting 
 case : f " Alma Z. has been under my observation dur- 
 ing the past ten years. In childhood she was remark- 
 able for her intelligence and unusual endowments. Up 
 to her eighteenth year she was in robust health, ex- 
 celling all her companions not only in intellectual 
 attainments but also in physical culture, being expert 
 in gymnastic exercises, skating, and athletic sports gen- 
 erally. At that time, owing to overwork in school, . . . 
 peculiar psychical conditions made their appearance. 
 Instead of the educated, thoughtful, dignified, womanly 
 personality, worn with illness and pain, there appeared 
 a bright, sprightly child personality, with a limited 
 vocabulary, ungrammatical and peculiar dialect, de- 
 cidedly Indian in character, but, as used by her, most 
 
 * P. Janet, L'Automatisine psychologique. 
 
 f The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, September, 1893.
 
 THE DOUBLE SELF. 133 
 
 fascinating and amusing. The intellect was bright and 
 shrewd, her manner lively and good-natured, and her 
 intuitions were remarkably correct and quick; but, 
 strangest of all, she was free from pain, could take 
 food, and had comparatively a good degree of strength. 
 She called herself 'Twoey,' and the normal or usual 
 personality she always referred to as ' 'No. 1.' She pos- 
 sessed none of the acquired knowledge of the primary 
 personality, but was bright and greatly interested in 
 matters going on about her in family affairs, and 
 everything which pertained to the comfort and well- 
 being of No. 1. 
 
 " The new personality would usually remain only a 
 few hours, but, occasionally, her stay was prolonged to 
 several days ; and then the normal self the No. 1 of 
 ' Twoey ' returned with all her intelligence, patience, 
 and womanly qualities, but also with the weakness and 
 suffering which characterized her illness. 
 
 " No. 1 and No. 2 were apparently in every respect 
 separate and distinct personalities. Each had her own 
 distinct consciousness and distinct train of thought and 
 memories. 
 
 " When No. 1 was absent and ' Twoey ' took her 
 place, on resuming her consciousness she commenced 
 at the place where her own personality had been inter- 
 rupted and resumed her ordinary life exactly at that 
 point. To No. 1 the existence of any second person- 
 ality was entirely unknown by any conscious experi- 
 ence, and the time which ' Twoey ' occupied was to her 
 a blank. If 'Twoey' appeared at noon on Tuesday 
 and remained until Thursday night, when she disap- 
 peared and No. 1 resumed her own consciousness and 
 life, she would commence at Tuesday noon where that 
 consciousness was interrupted. The intervening time
 
 134: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 to her was a blank. No. 2, however, while having her 
 own distinct life, knew also the life of No. 1, but only 
 as a distinct personality, entirely separate from herself. 
 No. 1 also came to know ' Twoey ' by the description 
 given by others, and by the change in her own personal 
 belongings and affairs which she saw had been effected 
 during her absence. The two personalities became great 
 friends. No. 2 admired No. 1 for her superior knowl- 
 edge, her patience in suffering, and the lovely qualities 
 which she recognised, and she willingly took her place 
 in order to give her rest, and, as it seemed, the possi- 
 bility of living at all. No. 1 also became fond of 
 Twoey on account of the loving care which she be- 
 stowed upon her and her affairs, and for the witty 
 sayings and sprightly and pertinent conversations which 
 were reported to her, and which she greatly enjoyed. 
 
 " ' Twoey ' seemed to have the power of going and 
 coming at will. She often left communications to No. 
 1, mostly written (for she became able to write in her 
 peculiar dialect very difficult to decipher), telling her 
 what had been done in her absence, where she would 
 find certain things, or advising her when she deemed 
 it necessary ; and her advice was always sound and to 
 the point. 
 
 "Under an entire change in medical treatment 
 change of scene and air and the use of animal mag- 
 netism and hypnotism health and normal conditions 
 were restored, and Twoey's visits became only occa- 
 sional, under circumstances of extreme fatigue or mental 
 excitement, when they were welcome to the patient and 
 enjoyed by her friends. Two years later the patient 
 married, and became a most admirable wife and intelli- 
 gent and efficient mistress of the household. 
 
 " Later on, however, the No. 2 condition or personal-
 
 THE DOUBLE SELF. . 135 
 
 ity began to return with greater frequency, but at 
 length one night ' Twoey ' announced that she would 
 soon take her departure, but that another visitor would 
 come to take her place. Presently an alarming attack 
 of syncope occurred, lasting several hours ; and when 
 consciousness did at last return, it was represented by a 
 third personality, entirely new and entirely distinct, 
 both from the primary self and also from the ' Twoey ' 
 with whom we were so well acquainted. The new per- 
 sonality at once announced itself as 'The Boy,' and 
 that it had come in the place of ' Twoey ' for the spe- 
 cial aid of No. 1 ; and for several weeks, whenever this 
 third personality was present, all its behaviour was en- 
 tirely consistent with that announcement. 
 
 " Gradually, however, she became accustomed and 
 reconciled to her new role and new surroundings, and 
 adapted herself with most astonishing grace to the 
 duties of wife, mother, and mistress of the house, 
 though always when closely questioned she persisted 
 seriously in her original declaration that she was ' The 
 Boy.' The personality was of much more broad and 
 serious type than that of the frolicsome ' Twoey,' and 
 while entirely separate in consciousness and personality 
 from No. 1, she was much nearer to her in general 
 outline of character. The acquired book knowledge 
 of No. 1 the Latin, mathematics, and philosophy 
 acquired at school were entirely wanting in the new 
 personality ; the extensive knowledge of general litera- 
 ture the whole poems of Tennyson, Browning, and 
 Scott which No. 1 could repeat by heart, also her per- 
 fect familiarity with the most beautiful and poetic por- 
 tions of the Bible all these were entirely lacking in 
 this personality. In a general knowledge of affairs, 
 however, in the news of the day from all over the 
 10
 
 136 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 world, and in current literature, she at once became 
 thoroughly interested and thoroughly intelligent, and 
 the judgment was keen and sound. She took the great- 
 est delight in every kind of amusement the theater and 
 literary and musical entertainments and her criticisms 
 of performances and of books were independent, acute, 
 and reliable. At the same time her household affairs 
 and her interest in them and all subjects pertaining to 
 the family were conspicuous. 
 
 " Of the preceding personalities she was fully cogni- 
 zant, and had great admiration and affection for them 
 both. She would listen to no disparaging remarks 
 concerning 'Twoey,' and her admiration for No. 1 
 was unbounded. Neither Twoey nor No. 3 ever 
 seemed anxious to continue and prolong their visits, but, 
 on the contrary, were always desirous that No. 1 should 
 regain her health sufficiently to get on without them ; 
 and they referred with much feeling to the causes 
 which prevented it. 
 
 " The peculiar and interesting incidents which diver- 
 sified these different states of consciousness would fill a 
 volume. No. 1, when in her condition of greatest 
 weakness, would occasionally astonish her listeners by 
 announcing to them some event which they had kept 
 profoundly secret from her. For instance : * You need 
 not be so quiet about it ; I have seen it all. Mrs. C. 
 died the day before yesterday. She is to be buried 
 to-morrow ' ; or, ' There has been a death over in such 
 and such a street. Who is it that died ? ' ' Two- 
 ey's ' sagacity, amounting almost to prevision, was 
 often noticed, and many a time the neglect to be 
 guided by her premonitions was deeply regretted. 
 'The Boy,' or No. 3, frequently exhibited peculiar 
 perceptive powers. At times the sense of hearing
 
 THE DOUBLE SELF. 137 
 
 would be entirely lost, so that the most violent noises 
 close to her ears and when perfectly unexpected failed 
 to startle or disturb her in the slightest degree, although 
 usually she was easily startled by even a slight, sudden, 
 or unexpected noise. Under these circumstances she 
 had a peculiar faculty of perceiving what was said by 
 watching the lips of the speaker, though ordinarily 
 neither she nor the primitive self had any such faculty. 
 
 " In this condition she had often carried on conversa- 
 tions with entire strangers, and entertained guests at 
 table without having it once suspected that all the 
 while she could not hear a sound of any sort. I have 
 myself seen her sit and attend to the reading of a new 
 book simply by watching the lips of the reader, taking 
 in every word and sentiment, and laughing heartily at 
 the funny passages, when I am perfectly sure she could 
 not have heard a pistol shot from her head. 
 
 "When the No. 3 personality had persisted for a 
 considerable period weeks, for instance, at a time, 
 as it has sometimes done the temporary return of 
 No. 1 under the influence of some soothing condi- 
 tion or pleasing sentiment or emotion has been beau- 
 tiful to witness. I saw this transformation once while 
 sitting with her in a box at the Metropolitan Opera 
 House. Beethoven's concerto in C Major was on the 
 programme ; in the midst of the performance I saw 
 the expression of her countenance change; a clear, 
 calm, softened look came into the face as she leaned 
 back in her chair and listened to the music with the 
 most intense enjoyment. I spoke a few words to 
 her at the close of the number, and she replied in the 
 soft and musical tones peculiar to her own normal con- 
 dition, and I recognised without the slightest doubt the 
 presence of No. 1. A few minutes later her eyes
 
 138 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 i 
 closed ; presently she drew two or three short, quick 
 
 respirations ; again her countenance changed, and No. 
 3 was back again. She turned to me and said, 'So 
 No. 1 came to hear her favourite concerto ? ' I replied, 
 ' Yes ; how did you know it ? ' ' Oh, I was here and 
 listened to it too.' ' Where were you ? ' I asked. ' I 
 sat on the front of the box. I saw you speaking to her. 
 How greatly she enjoyed the music ! ' and then she 
 went on listening to the music and commenting upon the 
 programme in the usual discriminating manner of No. 3." 
 
 In this interesting case, communicated by Dr. Osgood 
 Mason, we find a weakening by disease of the upper 
 controlling personality, the subconscious self gained 
 mastery, rose to the plane of conscious individuality 
 and became a person, a " Twoey." The " Twoey " per- 
 sonality, however, seemed to have been unstable, and a 
 new personality, that of " The Boy," emerged. Both 
 " Twoey " and " The Boy " were but two different ex- 
 pressions, two different particular, individualized mani- 
 festations of the same underlying reality the subcon- 
 sciousness. It was from the depth of the subconscious 
 self that those bubble personalities rose to the surface 
 of conscious life. 
 
 As a rule, the stream of subwaking consciousness is 
 broader than that of waking consciousness, so that the 
 submerged subwaking self knows the life of the upper, 
 primary, waking self, but the latter does not know the 
 former. There are, however, cases on record that show 
 that the two streams may flow in two separate channels, 
 that the two selves may be totally ignorant of each other. 
 The subwaking self, in attaining self-consciousness, 
 personality, may become so much individualized as to 
 lead a perfectly independent life from that of the wak- 
 ing self. And when the lower new perfeon rises to the
 
 THE DOUBLE SELF. 139 
 
 surface and assumes control of the current of life, he 
 shows no signs of having once known the old master, 
 the old person. An interesting case of this kind is 
 given by Prof. W. James in his Psychology, and fully 
 described by Mr. Hodgson in the Proceedings of the 
 Society for Psychical Research for the year 1891. I 
 quote from Prof. "W. James's book : * 
 
 "On January 17, 1887, Rev. Ansel Bourne, of 
 Greene, R. I., an itinerant preacher, drew five hundred 
 and fifty-one dollars from a bank in Providence with 
 which to 1 pay for a certain lot of land in Greene, paid 
 certain bills, and got into a Pawtucket horse car. This 
 is the last incident which he remembers. He did not 
 return home that day. He was published in the 
 papers as missing, and, foul play being suspected, the 
 police sought in vain his whereabouts. On the morn- 
 ing of March 14th, however, at Korristown, Pa., a man 
 calling himself A. J. Brown, who had rented a small 
 shop six weeks previously, stocked it with stationery, 
 confectionery, fruit, and small articles, and carried on 
 this quiet trade without seeming to any one unnatural or 
 eccentric, woke up in a fright and called in the people 
 of the house to tell him where he w.as. He said that 
 his name was Ansel Bourne, that he was entirely igno- 
 rant of Norristown, that he knew nothing of shopkeep- 
 ing, and that the last thing he remembered it seemed 
 only yesterday was drawing money from the bank in 
 Providence. He would not believe that two months 
 had elapsed. The people of the house thought him in- 
 sane. Soon his nephew came and took him home. 
 He had such a horror of the candy store that he re- 
 fused to set foot in it again. 
 
 * W. James, Psychology, vol. i.
 
 140 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 " The first two weeks of the period remained unac- 
 counted for, as he had no memory, after he had re- 
 sumed his normal personality, of any part of the time, 
 and no one who knew him seems to have seen him after 
 he left home. The remarkable part of the change is, of 
 course, the peculiar occupation which the so-called 
 Brown indulged in. Mr. Bourne has never in his life 
 had the slightest contact with trade. Brown was de- 
 scribed by the neighbours as taciturn, orderly in his 
 habits, and in no way queer. He went to Philadelphia 
 several times ; replenished his stock ; cooked for him- 
 self in the back shop, where he also slept ; went regu- 
 larly to church ; and once at a prayer-meeting made 
 what was considered by the hearers a good address, in 
 the course of which he related an incident he had wit- 
 nessed in his natural state of Bourne. 
 
 " This was all that was known of the case up to 
 June 1, 1890, when I induced Mr. Bourne to submit to 
 hypnotism, so as to see whether in the hypnotic trance 
 his Brown memory (Brown self-consciousness) would 
 not come back. It did so with surprising readiness so 
 much so, indeed, that it proved quite impossible to make 
 Mm while in hypnosis remember any of the facts of his 
 normal life. He had heard of Ansel Bourne, ' but did 
 not know as he had ever met the man.' When con- 
 fronted with Mrs. Bourne, he said that he had never 
 seen the woman before. On the other hand, he told 
 us of his peregrinations during the last fortnight, and 
 gave all sorts of details during the Norristown episode. 
 ... I had hoped by suggestion to run the two person- 
 alities into one, and make the memories continuous, 
 but no artifice would avail to accomplish this, and Mr. 
 Bournds skull to-day still covers two distinct personal 
 selves"
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE INTERRELATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 
 
 THE phenomena of abnormal states reviewed by 
 us clearly reveal the presence of a subwaking self 
 below the threshold of the waking self-conscious- 
 ness. Turning now to a different class of phenomena, 
 we find still further confirmation of the same truth. 
 There is a great class of phenomena in which the sub- 
 waking self is brought to the light of day, but so as 
 not to suppress the primary self. The two streams 
 of consciousness run parallel to each other, the two 
 selves coexist. The primary personality enters into 
 direct intercourse with the risen lower, subwaking self. 
 The phenomena I mean here are those of automatic 
 writing. 
 
 Usually, as the automatic writer begins his practice 
 on the planchette, the pencil brings out but mere 
 scrawls and scratches; but as the practice continues, 
 letters, figures, words, phrases, and even whole dis- 
 courses, flow from under the automatic pencil. It takes 
 some time before there occurs a cleavage between the 
 subwaking self and the waking personality. Gradu- 
 ally the subwaking self rouses itself from its trance, be- 
 gins to bring out latent memories, starts to lisp, attempts 
 to think coherently, gathers more intelligence and rea- 
 son, attains even some degree of self -consciousness, 
 
 141
 
 142 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 gives itself a name, becomes at times eloquent, pouring 
 forth flat discourses on metaphysics and religion. 
 
 To induce the first stages of automatic writing the 
 same conditions are requisite as those of normal sug- 
 gestibility. The subject starting his first lesson in auto- 
 matic writing must strongly concentrate his attention 
 on some letter, figure, or word ; he must distract his 
 attention from what is going on in his hand ; he must 
 be in a monotonous environment ; he must not be dis- 
 turbed by a variety of incoming sense impressions ; he 
 must keep quiet, thus limiting his voluntary move- 
 ments / his field of consciousness must be contracted 
 no other ideas but the requisite ones should be present 
 in the mind ; and if other ideas and images do enter 
 his mind, they must be inhibited. These conditions, as 
 we know, are favourable to dissociation, disaggregation 
 of consciousness. In the phenomena of automatic writ- 
 ing we have a disaggregation of consciousness the 
 secondary subwaking consciousness is severed from the 
 primary, waking self-consciousness. Both selves coex- 
 ist; one does not interfere with the freedom of the 
 other. Once the cleavage is accomplished the further 
 observance of the conditions is, of course, superfluous 
 the phenomena of automatic writing manifest them- 
 selves freely, the subwaking self cheerfully discourses 
 on all sorts of subjects whenever it is in the mood, and 
 as long as it continues its independent life. 
 
 There are, of course, different stages of cleavage. 
 The incipient stage of automatic writing is described 
 by Mr. P. Myers in the Proceedings of the Society for 
 Psychical Research.* The account is given by Mr. H. 
 Arthur Smith: "I think I have observed that when 
 
 * November, 1884.
 
 THE INTERRELATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 143 
 
 my hand was on it [on the planchette], the wrist being 
 grasped by the other hand, a word on which I concen- 
 trated rny attention was written without any conscious 
 volitional effort. I am doubtful as to this, as it is a 
 difficult thing to be sure of the absence of volition, but 
 such is my decided impression." The cleavage here 
 between the two selves was faint, shadowy ; nothing 
 further occurred. 
 
 Then, again, we have the case (given by Mr. F. 
 Myers in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
 Research, November, 1884) of Mr. A., who can write 
 words by mere attention (fixation), without any muscu- 
 lar effort whatever. He fixes his mind on a word, and 
 his hand writes it with an involuntary spasm, while he 
 is studiously avoiding all intentional impulse. 
 
 A case of a more advanced stage of automatic writ- 
 ing is given in the Psychological Review for July, 1895. 
 The subject knows beforehand what the hand is going 
 to write, and he is not quite sure from whom the writ- 
 ing proceeds, whether from himself or from some 
 " other." The cleavage is incomplete, partial. 
 
 The highest stage of cleavage, when the subwaking 
 self gathers round its being masses of intelligence and 
 discourses on philosophical and religious questions, may 
 be well illustrated by a very interesting and very in- 
 structive case of automatic writing given by Prof. W. 
 James in his Psychology : 
 
 " Some of it [automatic writing]," writes Mr. Sid- 
 ney Dean to Prof. "W. James, " is in hieroglyph or 
 strange compounded arbitrary characters, each series 
 possessing a seeming unity in general design or charac- 
 ter, followed by what purports to be a translation or 
 rendering into mother English. I never attempted the 
 Beemingly impossible feat of copying the characters.
 
 144 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 They were cut with the precision of a graver's tool, and 
 generally with a single rapid stroke of the pencil. . . . 
 When the work is in progress I am in the normal con- 
 dition, and seemingly two minds, intelligences, persons, 
 are practically engaged. The writing is in my own 
 hand, but the dictation not of my own mind and will, 
 but that of another, upon subjects of which I can have 
 no knowledge, and hardly a theory ; and I myself con- 
 sciously criticise the thought, fact, mode of expressing 
 it, etc., while the hand is recording the subject-matter, 
 and even the words impressed to be written. . . . 
 
 " Sentences are commenced without knowledge of 
 mine as to their subject or ending. 
 
 " There is in progress now at uncertain times, not 
 subject to my will, a series of twenty- four chapters upon 
 the scientific features of life, moral, spiritual, eternal. 
 Seven have already been written in the manner indi- 
 cated. These were preceded by twenty -four chapters 
 relating generally to the life beyond material death, its 
 characteristics, etc. Each chapter is signed by the name 
 of some person who has lived on earth, some with whom 
 I have been personally acquainted, others known in 
 history. ... I know nothing of the alleged authorship 
 of any chapter until it is completed and the name im- 
 pressed and appended. I am interested not only in the 
 reputed authorship of which I have nothing corrobora- 
 tive but in the philosophy, thought, of which I was in 
 ignorance until these chapters appeared. It is an intel- 
 ligent ego that writes, or else the influence assumes in- 
 dividuality, which practically makes the influence a 
 personality. It is not myself ; of that I am conscious 
 at every step of the process." 
 
 When the cleavage of the two selves from each 
 other occurs, and the subwaking self begins to express
 
 THE INTERRELATION OP THE TWO SELVES. 145 
 
 himself and gets into possession of some organ which 
 was before under the control of the waking personality, 
 this organ becomes anaesthetic. The upper waking self 
 does not get any more the peripheral sense impressions 
 coming from that organ. It is now the subwaking eelf 
 who possesses himself of these sense impressions and 
 becomes conscious of them. The secondary self may 
 extend its range of activity in its intercourse with the 
 external world ; it may go on enriching itself with the 
 spoils got by plundering the waking self. Amaurosis, 
 hysterical anaesthesia, and analgesia are facts in point. 
 Anaesthesia is found not only in hysteria, but also in 
 such cases in which the cleavage is but transitory, and 
 the possession of the organ into which the subwaking 
 self comes is but momentary. Such anaesthesia is, of 
 course, fugitive, and lasts only as long as the organ is 
 possessed or obsessed by the subwaking self. Prof. "W. 
 James beautifully demonstrated this truth in the case 
 of automatic writing : * 
 
 "William L. Smith, student at the Massachusetts 
 Institute of Technology, aged twenty-one, perfectly 
 healthy and exceptionally intelligent, ... sat with Mr. 
 Hodgson and myself, January 24, 1889, with his right 
 hand extended on the instrument [planchette], and his 
 face averted and buried in the hollow of his left arm, 
 which lay along the table. Care was taken not to sug- 
 gest to him the aim of the inquiry (i. e., to test for 
 anaesthesia induced in healthy subjects by the mere act 
 of automatic writing). 
 
 " The planchette began by illegible scrawling. After 
 ten minutes I pricked the back of the right hand several 
 
 * Proceedings of the American Society for Psychological Research, 
 ToL i.
 
 146 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 times with a pin ; no indication of feeling. Two pricks 
 on the left hand were followed by withdrawal, and the 
 question, ' What did you do that for ? ' to which I re- 
 plied, ' To find whether you were going to sleep.' The 
 first legible words which were written after this were 
 ' You hurt me.' . . . After some more or less illegible 
 writing I pricked the right wrist and fingers several 
 times again quite severely, with no sign of reaction on 
 S.'s part. After an interval, however, the pencil 
 wrote, ' Don't you prick me any more.' S. then said, 
 'My right hand is pretty well asleep.' I tested the 
 two hands immediately by pinching and pricking, but 
 found no difference between them, both apparently 
 normal. S. then said that what he meant by ' asleep ' 
 was the feeling of ' pins and needles ' which an insensi- 
 ble limb has when ' waking up.' 
 
 " The last written sentence was then deciphered 
 aloud. S. laughed, having become conscious only of 
 the pricks on his left hand, and said, 'It is working 
 those two pin pricks for all they are worth.' I then 
 asked, 
 
 " ' What have I been excited about to-day ? ' 
 
 "'May be correct, do not know, possibly sleep- 
 ing.' 
 
 " ' What do you mean by sleeping ? ' 
 
 " ' I do not know. You \ (the subject's right hand 
 made this figure evidently to indicate pricking) me 19, 
 and think I'll write for you.' " 
 
 We find here local anaesthesia induced in the hand 
 possessed or obsessed temporarily by the subpersonal 
 self. And when, on a later day, the pencil was placed 
 in the left hand instead of the right, the left hand took 
 up the memories of the right hand's previous pains. 
 No wonder the memory was the same, for it was the
 
 THE INTERRELATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 147 
 
 same subwaking self possessed or obsessed of different 
 organs. The last experiment may be regarded as an 
 experimentum crucis of the significant truth that what 
 the sub waking self obsesses of that the waking self is 
 deprived. The latter may, however, be informed of 
 the particular experience by reading the automatic 
 writing, or by gazing into a crystal. Once the cleavage 
 occurred, we may say that, as a rule, the growth, the 
 development of the individualized subwakiny self is i/n 
 inverse ratio to that of the waking consciousness.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SENSE-PERCEPTION IN THE WAKING STATE. 
 
 THUS far we have dealt with such uncanny abnormal 
 states as hysteria, hypnosis, automatism. "We saw in 
 them the manifestation of the split-off secondary self, 
 and we also hinted at the relation the latter bears to 
 the waking self. 
 
 i* there any direct evidence of the presence of the 
 subwaking self in the normal state of perfectly healthy 
 individuals ? Yes, there is, and very strong evidence, 
 too. Once more I turn to hypnosis, but this time not 
 as showing the cleavage that occurs in that state, but 
 rather as pointing out the plane of cleavage, the pres- 
 ence of a subwaking self when the individual is in his 
 normal state. 
 
 The subwaking hypnotic self surpasses the waking 
 self in its sensitiveness ; its range of sensibility extends 
 farther than that of the upper personality. The senses 
 of touch, pressure, and temperature are much more 
 delicate in the hypnotic condition. The sesthesiometer 
 showed in Mr. J. F., one of my subjects, when in nor- 
 mal state, the sensibility of the skin on the forehead to 
 be eighteen millimetres, while the same in hypnosis 
 (slight degree) was but fourteen millimetres. The sen- 
 sibility of Mr. A. F. in normal state was fourteen milli- 
 metres, while in hypnosis (falls into the deepest state) it 
 
 148
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SENSE-PERCEPTION. 149 
 
 was eight millimetres. Mr. D. W. showed a sensibility 
 in the normal state fourteen millimetres, but when in 
 hypnosis (falls into the deepest state) it was eight mil- 
 limetres. 
 
 "It is quite certain," writes Braid,* "that some 
 patients can tell the shape of what is held an inch and 
 a half from the skin on the back of the neck, crown of 
 the head, arm, or hand, or other parts of the body, the 
 extremely exalted sensibility of the skin enabling them 
 to discern the shape of the object so presented from 
 its tendency to emit or absorb caloric. ... A patient 
 could feel and obey the motion of a glass funnel passed 
 through the air at a distance of fifteen feet ." 
 
 The entranced subject is able to walk freely about 
 the room with bandaged eyes or in absolute darkness 
 without striking against anything, because, as Moll, 
 Braid, Poirault, and Drjevetzky point out, he recog- 
 nises objects by the resistance of the air and by the 
 alteration of temperature. 
 
 We find in the hypnotic subject hypersesthesia of 
 vision, of hearing, and of smell. 
 
 One can not help being struck by the great 
 acuteness of the sense of hearing in hypnotic trance. 
 To give an example. While Mr. W.' was in a state of 
 hypnosis Mr. G. whispered in my ear, " Six o'clock." I 
 scarcely could hear the whisper. I then turned to Mr. 
 W. and asked him whether he heard what Mr. G. said. 
 " Yes," he answered, " Mr. G. said ' Six o'clock.' " 
 
 To prove visual hyperaesthesia in my subject, A. F., I 
 gave him a book to read while he was in hypnotic trance 
 and his eyes were closed. "Head!" I commanded. 
 " I can not," he answered. " Yes, you can ; you must 
 
 * Braid, Neurypnology.
 
 150 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 read. Try ! " He began to read. So miraculous 
 seemed this experiment that one of the gentlemen 
 present exclaimed, " Now I believe in hypnotism ! " 
 The fact, however, really was that Mr. A. F. raised his 
 eyelids, but so slightly, so imperceptibly, that no one of 
 the people present could notice it, and even I myself 
 am not quite sure I saw it clearly ; I only suspected 
 it was so. However the case might have been, it was 
 altogether impossible for any one in his normal state to 
 read under similar conditions of closure of the eyelids. 
 
 An extraordinary example of visual hypersesthesia 
 is brought by Bergson, whose subject could read the 
 image of a page reflected in the experimenter's cornea. 
 The same subject could discriminate with the naked 
 eye details in a microscopic preparation. " The ordi- 
 nary test of visual hyperacuteness * in hypnotism," 
 writes Prof. "W. James, " is the favourite trick of giv- 
 ing a subject the hallucination of a picture on a blank 
 sheet of cardboard and then mixing the latter with a 
 lot of similar sheets. The subject will always find the 
 picture on the original sheet again and recognise in- 
 fallibly if it has been turned over or upside down, 
 although the bystanders have to resort to artifice to 
 identify it again. The subject notes peculiarities on the 
 card too small for waking observation to detect." The 
 experiment may be made in a far simpler manner : A 
 blank sheet of cardboard is given to the subject, and 
 instead of giving him a hallucination, a thing not very 
 easy to do with many subjects, as they often do not 
 realize the suggested hallucination, the subject is simply 
 asked to take good notice of the card. The card is then 
 mixed with other similar sheets. The subject invaria- 
 
 * James, Psychology, vol. ii.
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SENSE-PERCEPTION. 
 
 bly picks out the sheet shown to him. I have repeat- 
 edly made these experiments on my subjects. 
 
 The same holds true in the case of smell. There is 
 an exaltation of this sense in hypnosis. Braid's subject 
 restored articles to the rightful owners, finding the lat- 
 ter out by mere smell. " They [the subjects]," writes 
 Braid,* "began sniffing, and traced out the parties 
 robbed and restored it [the article] to them. On being 
 asked, ' How do you know the person ? ' the answer 
 was, ' I smell them [or him].' Every time the experi- 
 ment was tried the result was the same and the answer 
 the same." 
 
 Carpenter, in his Mental Physiology, tells of a youth 
 who in hypnosis could " find out by the sense of smell 
 the owner of a glove which was placed in his hand from 
 among a party of more than sixty persons, scenting at 
 each of them, one after the other, until he came to the 
 right individual. In another case the owner of a ring 
 was unhesitatingly found from among a company of 
 twelve, the ring having been withdrawn before the 
 somnambule was introduced." 
 
 In short, the range of sensibility of the hypnotic sub- 
 waking consciousness is wider than that of the waking 
 self. 
 
 Now, if this subpersonal, subwaking hypnotic self is 
 present in the normal state, we ought to find that sen- 
 sory impressions, which on account of their faintness or 
 indistinctness did not reach the waking self, were still 
 perceived by the subwaking self. With this view in 
 hand I made the following experiment : 
 
 I placed Mr. L. and Mr. P. at such a distance that 
 they could not hear my whisper. Although Mr. L. is 
 
 * Braid, Neurypnology. 
 11
 
 152 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 an intimate friend of mine, on whose honesty I can 
 fully rely, .still, for the sake of having the experiment 
 carried out in a rigorous fashion, I placed near him 
 Mr. P., whose ear was far more acute than that of Mr. 
 L., in order to testify that nothing could be heard at 
 such a distance. I then whispered in the ear of Mr. G. 
 the following words : " The Subliminal Consciousness, 
 by Mr. Myers." I repeated this phrase five times in 
 succession in the same whisper, asking each time of 
 Mr. L. and Mr. P. whether they had heard anything. 
 The reply was " No ; nothing." They strained their 
 ears, but could not perceive any words except an indis- 
 tinct whisper. I then hypnotized Mr. L., who fell into 
 a slight hypnosis (Mr. P. could not be hypnotized ; it 
 was the first seance in which he took part), and asked 
 him to tell what he had heard. " I did not hear any- 
 thing." " Try hard, and you will be able to tell," I 
 commanded him. " I heard only a certain rhythm in 
 your whisper, and that was all." " Well, then, guess ! " 
 " I can not." " But you must ! " "I think you said 
 
 * My " " What more ? Go on ! " I urged him. " I 
 
 think you said ' consciousness.' " " Go on ! " "I think 
 you said ' sub.' ' 
 
 "Several friends," writes Max Dessoir, "were in 
 my room, one of whom, Mr. W., was reading to him- 
 self, while the rest of us were talking with one another. 
 Some one happening to mention the name of Mr. X., 
 in whom Mr. W. is much interested, Mr. W. raised 
 his head and asked, ' What was that about Mr. X. ? ' 
 He knew nothing he told us about our previous conver- 
 sation ; he had only heard the familiar name, as often 
 happens. I then hypnotized him, with his consent, 
 and when he was pretty deeply entranced I asked him 
 again as to the conversation. To our great astonish-
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SENSE-PERCEPTION. 153 
 
 ment, he now repeated to us the substance of our whole 
 conversation during the time that he was reading to 
 himself." 
 
 Similar experiments I performed on A. Fingold. 
 The subject, when in the state of hypnosis, gave me 
 details of a conversation which he could not have pos- 
 sibly overheard consciously, and of which he knew 
 nothing at all in his previous waking state. 
 
 The subwaking self, not being occupied with the 
 work that engaged the attention of the upper con- 
 sciousness, was on the alert, and listened to the conver- 
 sation, which escaped the fixed and distracted attention 
 of the waking personality. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the subwaking hypnotic self is 
 present in the normal state and can hear and guess 
 that of which the waking self has no inkling.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF AND HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 TURNING now to the interesting phenomena of crys- 
 tal-gazing we meet with facts of like nature proving 
 the same truth. 
 
 " I find in the crystal," writes a crystal-gazer,* " a 
 bit of dark wall covered with jessamine, and I ask my- 
 self, Where have I walked to-day ? I have no recollec- 
 tion of such a sight not a common one in the London 
 streets ; but to-morrow I repeat my walk of this morn- 
 ing, with a careful regard for the creeper-covered walls. 
 To-morrow solves the mystery. I find the very spot, 
 and the sight brings with it the further recollection that 
 at the moment we passed the spot I was engaged in ab- 
 sorbing conversation with my companion, and my vol- 
 untary attention was preoccupied. 
 
 " On March 9 I saw in the crystal a rocky coast, a 
 rough sea, an expanse of sand in the foreground. As 
 I watched, the picture was nearly effaced by that of a 
 mouse. . . . Two days later I was reading a volume of 
 poetry which I remembered having cut open, talking 
 the while, certainly not consciously reading. As I 
 turned over the leaves a couple of lines struck me : 
 
 Only the sea intoning, 
 Only the wainscot mouse." 
 
 * Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, May, 1889. 
 
 154
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SELF AND HALLUCINATIONS. 155 
 
 The same automatic writer looked in the crystal 
 and saw a " newspaper announcement. It reported 
 the death of a lady at one time a very frequent visitor 
 in my circle and very intimate with some of my near- 
 est friends ; an announcement, therefore, which, had I 
 consciously seen it, would have interested me consider- 
 ably. I related my vision at breakfast, quoting name, 
 date, place, and an allusion to ' a long period of suffer- 
 ing ' borne by the deceased lady, and added that I was 
 sure that I had not heard any report of her illness, or 
 even for some months any mention of her likely to 
 suggest such an hallucination. I was, however, aware 
 that I had the day before taken the first sheet of the 
 Times, but was interrupted before I had consciously 
 read any announcement of death. Mrs. H. Sidgwick 
 immediately sought for the paper, when we discovered 
 the paragraph almost exactly as I had seen it." 
 
 In his article, Some Experiments in Crystal Yision, 
 Prof. James H. Hyslop, of Columbia College,* reports 
 the case of Mrs. D., " who used to have a visual hallu- 
 cination (in the crystal) of a bright-blue sky overhead, a 
 garden with a high- walled fence, and a peculiar chain 
 pump in the garden situated at the back of a house. She 
 attached no significance to it, but took it for one of the 
 many automatisms in her experience which were without 
 assignable meaning to her. But two summers ago she 
 had gone West, to her old home in D., Ohio, and made 
 the acquaintance of a lady whom she had never known 
 before, and by chance was invited to take tea with her 
 one evening. She went, and after tea remarked that 
 she would like to have a drink of water. The lady of 
 the house remarked : * All right ; let us go out into the 
 garden and get a fresh drink from the well.' They 
 
 * Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, December, 1896.
 
 156 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 went, and, behold, there was the identical blue sky, high 
 fence, and chain pump which she had so often seen in her 
 vision ! After going home in the evening Mrs. D. told 
 her mother of her experience, remarking how strange 
 it was. Her mother replied that when Mrs. D. was a 
 little girl about two or three years old she used to visit 
 this house very frequently with her mother." 
 
 Prof. James relates the case of a Cambridge lady 
 who happened to misplace a valuable set of silver 
 knives. She searched everywhere, but could not dis- 
 cover its whereabouts. Having heard of crystal-gazing, 
 the lady thought she might as well try it. She pro- 
 cured a crystal and looked into it for a few minutes. 
 Something appeared at the bottom of the crystal ; grad- 
 ually the image took the shape of a box 
 with straight objects lying in it diagonal- 
 ly. The image had the following shape : 
 Presently she found herself taking a 
 chair, mounting it, and reaching out her hand for a 
 top closet. There was the realization of her visual 
 hallucination there was the box, and inside it the set 
 of knives placed diagonally. 
 
 " I saw in the crystal," writes another crystal-gazer,* 
 " a young girl, an intimate friend, waving to me from 
 her carriage. I observed that her hair, which had 
 hung down her back when I last saw her, was now put 
 up in young-lady fashion. Most certainly I had not 
 consciously seen even the carriage. Next day I called 
 on my friend, was reproached by her for not observing 
 her as she passed, and perceived that she had altered 
 her hair in the way which the crystal had shown. 
 
 "I was writing at an open window and became 
 
 * Myers, The Subliminal Self, Proceedings of the Society for 
 Psychical Research, vol. viii.
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SELF AND HALLUCINATIONS. 157 
 
 aware that an elderly relative inside the room had said 
 something to me ; but the noise of the street pre- 
 vented my asking what had been said. My ink began 
 to run low, and I took up the inkstand to tip it. Look- 
 ing into the ink I saw a white florist's parcel as though 
 reflected on its surface. Going into another room, I 
 there found the parcel in question, of which I had had 
 no knowledge. I returned carrying it, and was greeted 
 with the remark : ' I told you half an hour ago to at- 
 tend to those flowers ; they will all be dead.' 
 
 " I looked across the room this morning to a distant 
 table, where I expected to see a book I wanted. It 
 was not there, but my eye was caught by another book, 
 which I saw was strange to me. I tried, but could not 
 read the title at that distance (I have since proved that, 
 even now I know it, this is impossible), and turned 
 away to resume my writing. On my blank paper, as in 
 a crystal scene, I read ' The Yalley of Lilies,' which I 
 found to be the title of the book. I have no recollec- 
 tion of ever seeing the book before." 
 
 The phenomena of shell-hearing belong to the same 
 class of facts with those of crystal-gazing. The shell 
 often reports to its listener facts and conversations that 
 have escaped the latter's attention. " The shell," writes 
 a shell-hearer, " is more likely after a dinner party to 
 repeat the conversation of my neighbour on the right 
 than that of my lawful interlocutor on the left." * 
 
 Now all these facts of crystal-gazing and shell-hear- 
 ing clearly reveal the presence of a secondary, sub- 
 merged, hyperaesthetic consciousness that sees, hears, 
 and perceives what lies outside the range of perception 
 of the primary personal self. 
 
 * Myers, The Subliminal Consciousness, Proceedings of the So- 
 ciety for Psychical Research, vol. viii.
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 THE SUBWAKING SELF AND THE NORMAL INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 THE subwaking self gets manifested in automatic 
 writing, crystal-gazing, and hypnosis, but these phe- 
 nomena do not occur in everyone. To prove, there- 
 fore, fully our proposition that the secondary self is 
 part and parcel of our normal state, we must make ex- 
 periments on perfectly healthy and normal subjects who 
 never dealt in crystal-gazing, shell-hearing, automatic 
 writing, nor were they ever put into the state of hyp- 
 nosis. I made three thousand laboratory experiments, 
 eight hundred of which I made on myself and two thou- 
 sand two hundred on fifty subjects, and the results gave 
 direct and conclusive proof of the presence of the sub- 
 waking, subpersonal, hyperaesthetic self in our normal 
 state. Since the results of my experiments tell us of the 
 subwaking consciousness something more than its mere 
 bare presence, I reserve the account of them for the 
 next chapter, where the discussion of them will be more 
 appropriate. Meanwhile the experiments of Binet will 
 fully suffice for our present purpose. Binet set himself 
 the task to find out " whether the phenomena of the 
 duplication of consciousness are to be met with in 
 healthy, nonhysterical individuals," or, in other words, 
 whether there can be detected the presence of another 
 self in perfectly healthy and normal subjects. He con- 
 ducted the experiments in the following way : 
 
 158
 
 THE SUBWAKING SELF. 159 
 
 " I requested my subjects," says Binet,* " to whom, 
 of course, no explanation was given of what was going 
 to be done, to seat themselves before a table and leave 
 their right hands to me, while I gave them something 
 interesting to read. One of the experiments it ap- 
 peared to me easiest to effect was that of the repetition 
 of passive movements. A pencil being placed in the 
 hand of the subject, who was attentively reading a jour- 
 nal, I made the hand trace a uniform movement, choos- 
 ing that which it executes with most facility for 
 example, shadings, or curls, or little dots. Having 
 communicated these movements for some minutes, I 
 left the hand to itself quite gently ; the hand continued 
 the movement a little. After three or four experi- 
 ments the repetition of the movement became more 
 perfect, and with Mile. G. at the fourth sitting the 
 repetition was so distinct that the hand traced as many 
 as eighty curls without stopping." Furthermore, there 
 was a rudimentary memory of the movements imparted. 
 " When the hand had been successfully habituated to 
 repeating a certain kind of movement for example, 
 curls it was to this kind of movement that it had a 
 tendency to return. If it was made to trace the figure 1 
 a hundred times and was afterward left to itself, the 
 stroke of the figure became rapidly modified, and 
 turned into a curl." This subwaking self, like a child, 
 learned to use the hand and to write, and showed that 
 it remembered what it once learned, and that it was 
 easier for it to perform the acts once acquired. 
 
 "When any kind of movement had been well 
 repeated it could be reproduced without solicitation 
 
 * A. Binet, On Double Consciousness. Vide Binet, On Double 
 Consciousness in Health, Mind, vol. xv.
 
 160 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 every time a pen was put in the subject's hand and she 
 fixed her attention on reading. But if the subject 
 thought attentively of her hand the movement stopped. 
 
 " With a slight pressure I was able to 'make the 
 hand go obediently in all directions, carrying the pen 
 with it. This is not a simple mechanical compulsion, 
 for a very feeble and very short contact is sufficient to 
 bring a very long movement of the hand. The phe- 
 nomena, I believe, can be approximated to a rudi- 
 mentary suggestion by the sense of touch. Nothing is 
 more curious than to see the hand of a person who is 
 awake and thinks she is in full possession of herself 
 implicitly obey the experimenter's orders." 
 
 Thus we find that by distracting the attention of the 
 waking self we may gain access to the subwaking self of 
 the normal individual and teach it to use the bodily 
 organs which we place at its disposal to express itself. 
 It can not attain, however, to any degree of efficiency, 
 because the disaggregation effected is but slight and 
 transitory the controlling consciousness is wide awake. 
 Meanwhile, during the time the secondary self takes 
 its exercises in writing slight anaesthesia supervenes. 
 Pain is not as well perceived, the aesthesiometer shows 
 diminished sensibility. 
 
 Furthermore, Binet finds that " the more the subject 
 is distracted (by reading, mental calculation, etc.) the 
 more irregular become the voluntary movements of the 
 hand, and if the distraction is very intense these move- 
 ments may cease completely. On the contrary, the 
 more distracted the subject is, the more regular and 
 considerable become the automatic movements of the 
 hand. The contrast is striking." Here once more we 
 strike upon the truth, and this time in the case of per- 
 fectly normal people, that the growth and expansion of
 
 THE SUBWAKING SELF. 161 
 
 the subwaking consciousness is in inverse ratio to that 
 of the waking self -consciousness. 
 
 However the case may be with this last proposition, 
 one central truth remains firm, valid, unshaken, and 
 that is the presence of a subpersonal self in normal life. 
 The results of laboratory experiments on perfectly 
 healthy people in their normal waking state, the phe- 
 nomena of hypnosis, of automatic writing, of crystal- 
 gazing, and of shell-hearing all go to form a strong, 
 irrefragable chain of evidence in support of the truth 
 that behind the primary self a secondary consciousness 
 lies hidden.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 
 
 THE two selves in normal man are so co-ordinated 
 that they blend into one. For all practical purposes a 
 unity, the conscious individual is still a duality. The 
 self-conscious personality, although apparently blended 
 with the subwaking self, is still not of the latter. The 
 life of the waking self -consciousness flows within the 
 larger life of the subwaking self like a warm equa- 
 torial current within the cold bosom of the ocean. 
 The swiftly coursing current and the deep ocean seem 
 to form one body, but they really do not. The one is 
 the bed in which the other circulates. The two do not 
 mingle their waters ; and still, separate and different as 
 the two are, they nevertheless intercommunicate. The 
 warmth of the Gulf Stream is conducted to the ocean, 
 and the agitation of the ocean is transmitted to the 
 Gulf Stream. So is it with the two selves. Appar- 
 ently one, they are, in fact, two the warm stream of 
 waking self -consciousness does not mingle its intelli- 
 gence with that of the subwaking self. But though 
 flowing apart, they still intercommunicate. Messages 
 come from the one to the other ; and since the range of 
 sensibility life is wider and deeper in the case of the 
 subwaking self, the messages, as a rule, come not from 
 the waking to the subwaking, but, on the contrary, 
 
 162
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 163 
 
 from the subwaking or secondary to the waking or 
 primary self. The two streams of consciousness and 
 their intercommunication may be represented thus : 
 
 <0 
 
 3i 
 
 fi2ffl 
 
 111 
 
 ~*<J - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 *"'. 8 
 
 r 
 
 '' 
 
 --- 
 
 
 
 [ 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i_ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 We find such messages in the case of hysteria. 
 Ask the hysterical patient to think of a number, and if 
 he holds a pen or a pencil in the anaesthetic hand he 
 will write down the number, or if he has a dynamom- 
 eter in his hand he will press distinctly as many times 
 as there are units in the number, not being aware of 
 what he is doing. In these cases the message is trans- 
 mitted from the primary to the secondary self. 
 
 " L., an hysterical patient totally anaesthetic," says 
 Binet,* " gazed fixedly at a blue cross ; the position 
 and arrangement of the cross by simultaneous contrast 
 caused the production of a yellow colour about the 
 cross. During this time the right hand, into which, 
 without the patient's knowledge, a pen had been 
 slipped, did not cease to write, ' Blue, yellow, blue, 
 yellow, etc.' ' : Here once more we have the message 
 transmitted from the primary to the secondary self. 
 
 On the other hand, "let us seize the anaesthetic 
 hand," says Binet,f " and let us cause it to trace behind 
 a screen the word ' Paris.' We know that this word 
 will be repeated several times. Then, upon addressing 
 ourselves to the principal subject (that is, to the wak- 
 
 * A. Binet, On Double Consciousness. 
 
 f Ibid.
 
 164 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 ing self-consciousness) we will ask him to write the 
 word ' London.' The subject, entirely ignorant of 
 what has just taken place, eagerly seizes the pen with 
 the intention to carry out our wish, but to his utter 
 astonishment the indocile pen, instead of writing ' Lon- 
 don,' writes ' Paris.' " Here we have a motor message 
 transmitted from the secondary to the primary self. 
 
 The following experiments, also made by Binet * on 
 hysterical subjects, are still more striking : 
 
 " Let us make ten punctures in the anaesthetic 
 hand, and thereupon let us ask the subject, who, as a 
 matter of course, has not seen his hand, which is hid- 
 den behind a screen, to think of some number and to 
 name it ; frequently the subject will answer that he is 
 thinking of the number ten. In the same manner let 
 us put a key, a coin, a needle, a watch, into the anaes- 
 thetic hand, and let us ask the subject to think of any 
 object whatsoever ; it will very often happen that the 
 subject is thinking of the precise object that has been 
 put into his insensible hand." 
 
 If we turn to hypnosis, we find again the frequent 
 occurrence of such messages. 
 
 I hypnotized Mr. A. F., and told him two stories ; 
 then I suggested to him that when he wakes up he shall 
 remember nothing at all of what I had told him that 
 is, the memory shall remain only in possession of the sub- 
 waking self. I then awakened him. My friends who 
 were present at the seance asked him if he knew what I 
 told him. He was surprised at the question ; he could 
 not remember anything. A few minutes later I went 
 up to him, put my hand on his brow, and said : " You 
 can remember now everything that passed during hyp- 
 
 * A. Binet, On Double Consciousness.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 165 
 
 nosis. Try hard ; you can ! " He thought some time, 
 and at once, as if he received sudden information, told 
 us the two stories in detail. Another time I made him 
 pass through a series of actions, again giving the sug- 
 gestion of oblivion, and again with the same results. 
 He thought he slept deeply for about half an hour. As 
 soon as I put my hand to his forehead the subwaking 
 self sent at once a despatch of the detained information 
 to the waking consciousness. Once I made Mr. A. F. 
 pass through a series of scenes and different complicated 
 events of life. The suggestion of oblivion was again 
 enforced. When he was awakened he remarked that 
 he slept very long for about an hour and a half ; he 
 could not remember anything. I put my hand to his 
 brow, gave the suggestion of recollection, and the hyp- 
 notic self at once sent up the intelligence. 
 
 !Now, if the hyperaesthetic, subwaking self and the 
 waking self-consciousness, their interrelations and inter- 
 communications, subsist also in normal life, as they most 
 certainly do in the states of hypnosis, automatic \v riting, 
 and crystal-gazing if they subsist, I say, also in the life 
 of every man, we ought to find it out by experiments. 
 We ought to find that sensory impressions that lie out- 
 side the range of sensibility of the waking self, but 
 within the range of the subwaking self, that such sen- 
 sory impressions will still be transmitted to the primary 
 self. The guesses of the subject must rise far above 
 the dead level of chance probability. And such is 
 actually the case. 
 
 The first set of experiments I made on myself. My 
 right eye is amblyopic ; it sees very imperfectly ; for it, 
 things are enshrouded in a mist. When the left eye is 
 closed and a book is opened before me I am unable to 
 tell letter from figure ; I see only dots, rows of them,
 
 166 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 all indistinct, hazy, oscillating, appearing and disappear- 
 ing from my field of. vision. When a single letter or 
 figure is presented to my right eye, I see only a black 
 dot, as a kernel surrounded by a film of mist. 
 
 I asked Mr. B. to make twenty -five slips and write 
 down on each slip four characters letters, figures, or 
 both in different combinations, but so that in all the 
 twenty -five slips the number of letters should equal the 
 number of figures. When a slip was presented to my 
 right eye, the other being closed, I had to guess which 
 of the characters was letter and which was figure. 
 When the first series of twenty -five was ended the slips 
 were shuffled, and a second series began. Later on, the 
 same slips were used for two more series. I made two 
 groups of experiments with two series in each group. 
 Each series consisted of a hundred experiments, so that 
 there were, four hundred experiments in all. 
 
 In this class of experiments, named Class A, the 
 results are as follows : 
 
 In the first series of the first group, out of one hun- 
 dred characters sixty-eight were correctly guessed. 
 Since there were only two guesses letter or figure 
 fifty per cent must be subtracted, as so much might 
 have been due to mere chance (we shall find, however, 
 from our other experiments that the percentage sub- 
 tracted is too high) ; eighteen per cent thus remains in 
 favour of messages coming from the secondary self 
 in other words, eighteen per cent is left in favour of 
 secondary sight. 
 
 In the second series of the first group, out of one 
 hundred characters seventy -two were guessed aright; 
 here again we must subtract fifty per cent which might 
 have been due to chance ; thus twenty-two per cent re- 
 mains in favour of secondary sight.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 
 
 In the first series of the second group, seventy 
 characters were guessed out of one hundred shown ; 
 subtracting fifty, we have twenty per cent in favour of 
 secondary sight. 
 
 In the second series of the second group, out of one 
 hundred characters shown seventy-six were guessed 
 rightly ; subtracting fifty, we have twenty-six per cent 
 in favour of secondary sight. 
 
 Out of four hundred experiments made, the general 
 character was guessed two hundred and eighty-six times, 
 which gives Y1'5 per cent ; subtracting fifty per cent, 
 we have 21*5 per cent in favour of secondary sight.* 
 
 Figures often speak more eloquently, more con- 
 vincingly, than volumes. The results of the correct 
 answers as to the general nature of the character due to 
 secondary sight are far below the actual one, for in 
 subtracting fifty per cent we subtracted too much, as 
 our experiments will show farther on ; still they were 
 so striking that I communicated them to Prof. James, 
 and he was kind enough to encourage me in my work, 
 and advised me to pursue the inquiry further in the 
 same direction. 
 
 The experiments were now somewhat modified. 
 Five different letters, and as many different figures, 
 were chosen. The letters were A, B, E, N, T; the 
 figures, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9. Each capital or figure was written 
 on a separate card. I knew the characters, and had to 
 guess none but these. I had not to name merely letter 
 or figure, thus having only two guesses, as the case was 
 in the experiments of Class A, but I had to name one of 
 the ten characters shewn; in short, I had always to 
 give the particular name. Now here each guess could 
 
 * See Appendix C. 
 12
 
 168 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 either be general, or both particular and general, or fail 
 altogether. When I took letter as letter, or figure as 
 figure, but gave the wrong name for instance, I took 
 5 for 7, or E for N I guessed rightly the general na- 
 ture only of the character shown. When I gave the 
 correct name, I guessed, of course, both the particular 
 and the general nature. When, however, I mistook a 
 letter for a figure or a figure for a letter, I failed, and 
 failed completely. As the series of ten was finished 
 the cards were shuffled and a new series was started. 
 But few experiments were made at a time, as I had to 
 keep my left eye closed, and looked only with my right 
 eye, which soon became extremely fatigued. 
 
 These experiments, named Class B, give the follow- 
 ing results : 
 
 Out of four hundred experiments made, the general 
 character was guessed correctly two hundred and sev- 
 enty-three times, of which the particular character was 
 guessed correctly one hundred and eighty-eight times.* 
 
 The remarkable success of these last experiments 
 led me to try the same on people with normal vision. 
 The experiments were carried on in the following way : 
 Ten cards were taken ; on each one was put down in 
 faint outlines a small capital or figure, the number 
 of figures being equal to that of the letters, so that 
 there were five cards with a different letter on each, 
 and again five cards with a different figure on each. 
 The subject in these experiments was put at such a 
 distance that the character was outside his range of 
 vision ; he saw nothing but a mere dot, blurred, and 
 often disappearing altogether. The subject was told 
 that there were ten cards in the pack, that the number 
 
 * See Appendix D.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 169 
 
 of letter cards was equal to that of the figure cards, but 
 he was not told the particular names of the characters. 
 Each time a card was shown the subject had to give 
 some particular name of character he took that dot to 
 be. "They are all alike, mere blurred dots," com- 
 plained the subjects. " No matter," I answered ; " just 
 give any letter or figure that rises in your mind on 
 seeing that dot." 
 
 The number of subjects was eight. I worked with 
 each separately, giving five rounds to each subject, mak- 
 ing the number of experiments fifty, and four hundred 
 in all. 
 
 In this class of experiments, named Class C, the 
 results are as follows : 
 
 Out of four hundred experiments two hundred and 
 fifty-five correct guesses were as to general character, of 
 which ninety-two were also correct as to the particular 
 character.* 
 
 In the last experiments of Class C the characters 
 were written in print ; still I could not succeed to have 
 the letters well formed : the characters were not made of 
 exactly the same thickness and size. I therefore made 
 other sets of experiments, and this time with twenty 
 quite different subjects. I took ten cards and pasted on 
 them letters and numerals of the same size. Each card 
 
 had a different letter or figure of the following size : 1^ 
 
 The number of figure cards being equal to that of 
 letter cards (five figure cards and five letter cards), I 
 told the subject that I had a series of ten cards, a letter 
 or a numeral on each, and that the number of figure 
 cards equalled that of the letter cards, but I did not tell 
 him the particular names of the characters. 
 
 * See Appendix E.
 
 170 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 I worked with each subject separately, making only 
 two series with ten experiments in each. The subject 
 was placed at such a distance from the card that the 
 character shown was far out of his range of vision. He 
 saw nothing but a dim, blurred spot or dot. The sub- 
 ject had to name some character which that particular 
 dot shown might possibly be. " It is nothing but mere 
 guess," commented the subjects. 
 
 At the end of the first series the cards were shuffled 
 and the second series was given. Each subject saw the 
 same card but twice. The number of the subjects being 
 twenty, all the first series form a group of two hundred 
 experiments, and so do the second series. 
 
 The results in Class D are as follows : 
 
 In the first group, out of two hundred characters, 
 one hundred and thirty were guessed as to their general 
 character, of which the particular gave forty-nine. 
 
 In the second group, out of two hundred, one hun- 
 dred and forty were of a general character, of which 
 the particular w^as fifty-four.* 
 
 I then made with the same number of subjects 
 another set of experiments that should correspond to 
 Class B, made on myself namely, to tell the subjects 
 the particular characters used, which were : 
 
 Letters B, Z, K, U, H. 
 
 Figures 2, 4, 5, 7, 9. 
 
 The characters were all of the same size, printed, and 
 the letters were all capitals. The subject had to name 
 only one of these characters. Only two series of ten 
 each were made with each subject, thus giving two 
 groups of two hundred experiments each. 
 
 The results in Class E are as follows : 
 
 * See Appendix F.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 
 
 In the first group, out of two hundred characters, 
 one hundred and forty were guessed correctly as to their 
 general character, of which sixty-eight were correct par- 
 ticular guesses. 
 
 In the second group, out of two hundred, one hun- 
 dred and fifty-one were guessed correctly as to the gen- 
 eral character, of which seventy-one were particular 
 guesses.* 
 
 As I remarked above, the subjects often complained 
 that they could not see anything at all ; that even the 
 black, blurred, dim spot often disappeared from their 
 field of vision ; that it was mere " guessing " ; that they 
 might as well shut their eyes and guess. How sur- 
 prised were they when, after the experiments were 
 over, I showed them how many characters they guessed 
 correctly in a general way, and how many times they 
 gave the full name of the particular character shown ! 
 
 Now all these experiments tend to prove the pres- 
 ence within us of a secondary subwaking self that per- 
 ceives things which the primary waking self is unable 
 to get at. The experiments indicate the interrelation 
 of the two selves. They show that messages are sent 
 up by the secondary to the primary self. 
 
 Furthermore, the results seem to show that, in 
 case the particular message fails, some abstract general 
 account of it still reaches the upper consciousness. An 
 inhibited particular idea still reaches the primary self 
 as an abstract idea. An abstract general idea in the 
 consciousness of the waking self has a particular idea 
 as its basis in the subwaking self. 
 
 The great contention of nominalism and concep- 
 tualism over the nature of abstract general ideas thus 
 
 * See Appendix Gr.
 
 1Y2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 may find here its solution. The conceptualists are no 
 doubt right in asserting that a general abstract idea 
 may exist in consciousness apart from the particular 
 idea or perception perceived, but they do not say that 
 this consciousness is that of the waking self. The 
 nominalists, again, are right in asserting that a general 
 abstract idea or concept has a particular idea or percept 
 as its basis ; but they do not add that this percept may 
 be totally absent from the waking consciousness and 
 only present in the subwaking consciousness. No gen- 
 eral abstract idea without some particular percept as 
 basis. 
 
 To return, however, to my work in hand. While 
 the above-mentioned experiments on secondary sight 
 were under way another set of experiments was car- 
 ried out by me, the purpose of which was to tap directly 
 the suggestibility of the secondary self, and to find out 
 the influence the subconscious has on the primary con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 The mechanism of the experiments was as follows : 
 On slips of paper I made a series of complicated 
 drawings. Each slip had a different pattern. The 
 subject had to look at the pattern of the drawing for 
 ten seconds, and then the slip was withdrawn and he 
 had to reproduce the drawing from memory a task 
 extremely difficult. It took him about fifteen seconds 
 and more before he could make anything bearing the 
 slightest resemblance to the drawing shown. When 
 he finished the drawing an elongated cardboard with 
 eight digits pasted in a row was shown to him and the 
 subject had to choose whichever digit he pleased. 
 Now, on the margin of each slip was written a digit 
 contained in the number of digits on the cardboard from 
 which the subject had to choose. The subject, not
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 173 
 
 having the slightest suspicion of the real purpose of the 
 experiments, being perfectly sure that the whole mat- 
 ter was concerning imitation of the drawings, and be- 
 ing assured by me that the choosing of the digits on the 
 cardboard was nothing but a device " to break up the 
 attention " in passing from one drawing to another, 
 and being besides intensely absorbed in the contempla- 
 tion and reproduction of the drawing, which was ex- 
 tremely complicated the subject, I say, wholly disre- 
 garded the figure on the margin he did not even 
 notice it. I so fully succeeded in allaying all suspi- 
 cions and distracting the attention of the subjects that 
 when Prof. James interrogated one of them, an intelli- 
 gent man, he was amazed at the latter's complete ig- 
 norance as to what was actually going on. 
 
 The purpose of these experiments, as I said, was to 
 address myself directly to the subwaking consciousness, 
 and to see whether it sent up suggestion-messages to 
 the primary consciousness, which by the very mechan- 
 ism of the experiments was thrown off its guard. In 
 the previous suggestion-experiments, in spite of all 
 precautions taken, the subject was more or less con- 
 scious of what was going on. I could not completely 
 banish all suspicions, and success, therefore, could only 
 be assured by the many conditions favourable to nor- 
 mal suggestibility, and especially that of immediate exe- 
 cution^ so that no time was given to the upper self to 
 inhibit the carrying out of the suggestion. In the 
 present experiments, on the other hand, the suggestion 
 was addressed directly (of course, as far as this was 
 possible in the normal waking state) to the subwaking 
 self. The upper primary self, being completely ab- 
 sorbed with the drawing, did not notice the figure, or, 
 if it did, it soon learned to disregard it, because he
 
 174 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 thought it insignificant, and because it would only dis- 
 tract his attention. But although the figure was not 
 noticed and fully disregarded (a fact I was careful to 
 find out from the subjects in an indirect way), it still 
 impressed the sense organ, reached the secondary self, 
 which took it as a suggestion, sending it up as a mes- 
 sage to the primary self or personality and influencing 
 the latter's choice. 
 
 This choice suggestion is strikingly analogous to 
 post-hypnotic suggestion. I hypnotized, for example, 
 Mr. J. F., and told him that ten minutes after awaken- 
 ing he will put out the gas. He was awakened, and 
 ten minutes later he put out the gas. On my asking 
 him why he did it, he answered he did not know why, 
 but somehow the idea came into his mind, and he en- 
 acted it and did put out the gas. The post-hypnotic 
 suggestion rises up from the depths of the secondary 
 self as a fixed, insistent idea. A similar state of mind 
 it was of interest to find in the case of the subjects in 
 the present experiments under consideration. The sug- 
 gestion given was to be carried out only after the imita- 
 tion of the drawing that is, some fifteen, twenty, or 
 twenty-five seconds later. Now, when the suggestion 
 was eight, and the subjects chose eight, they very often 
 told me that they did not know why, but that number 
 came at once into their mind on being presented with 
 the cardboard of figures. We have not to wonder at 
 it, for the same psychical elements are here at work as 
 in the state of post-hypnosis. In hypnosis the sugges- 
 tion is taken up by the secondary, subwaking, suggestible 
 self, and then afterward this suggestion breaks through 
 the stream of the waking consciousness, coming up as an 
 insistent idea ; so here, too, in these choice experiments 
 the suggestion was impressed on the subwaking self di-
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 175 
 
 rectly and firmly, and this suggestion was then sent up 
 to the waking consciousness. And just as we find in 
 the case of post-hypnotic suggestion, that not always 
 and not all suggestions given during hypnosis are sue. 
 cessful in being carried out, so here, too, in our ex- 
 periments, the suggestions messages from the subcon- 
 scious regions were not always taken by the upper 
 consciousness of the subject. We cannot possibly ex- 
 pect invariably success in a state when the waking self 
 is in full swing and possesses all the power of inhibition. 
 Still the success was remarkable. 
 
 Before giving the results let me say a few words as 
 to the classification of the experiments. When I 
 started my first experiments of this kind a suspicion 
 crept into my mind that it might be fully possible that 
 in case a suggestion given did not succeed it might still 
 succeed partially as mediate suggestion, by arousing 
 some association which will be obeyed. For instance, 
 in giving 6 as a suggestion, 6 itself might not be 
 chosen, but some number that succeeds or precedes it, 
 such as 5 or Y, or possibly a numeral next to the sug- 
 gested one in place, say 1 or 2, for I arranged my fig- 
 ures on the cardboard in such a way as to break up the 
 natural succession of the digits. I was therefore care- 
 ful to make two separate classes for these two kinds of 
 association suggestions namely, suggestion ly locality 
 and suggestion by numbers, which we may term as 
 locality and number suggestions. The results of my 
 experiments showed me the mediate suggestion was 
 here of but little importance. 
 
 I made one thousand experiments and operated 
 with twenty subjects, of which sixteen were fresh 
 ones, not having taken part in any of my other experi- 
 ments.
 
 176 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 The figures on the cardboard were arranged thus : 
 26471538 
 
 In suggesting number 6 the subject could have taken 
 by number suggestion that is, either 5 or 7 ; or by 
 locality suggestion that is, either 4 or 2. 
 
 SUGGESTION 
 
 The results are as follows : * 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Immediate suggestion 32'1 
 
 , r ,. I locality 6*2 
 
 Mediate suggestion < 
 
 ( number 3*3 
 
 How shall we explain the fact that in our experi- 
 ments the percentage of correct guesses is far above the 
 one due to chance alone ? Two theories are on the 
 field to account for this fact: one is the well-known 
 unconscious cerebration, and the other is my own point 
 of view, or what I may call the psycho-physiological 
 theory. 
 
 On the theory of unconscious cerebration, each fig- 
 ure shown outside the range of vision made an im- 
 pression on the retina. This impression was trans- 
 mitted to the sensorium, to the central ganglia of the 
 brain, the occipital lobes, exciting there physiological 
 .processes that are not strong enough to rise above the 
 threshold of consciousness. In short, each figure stimu- 
 lated the peripheral sense organ, giving rise to a cen- 
 
 * See Appendix H.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 177 
 
 tral but unconscious physiological process. Now, ac- 
 cording to the theory of unconscious cerebration, it was 
 this unconscious physiological process that helped the 
 subject to form correct guesses. 
 
 The psycho-physiological theory, while agreeing 
 with the theory of unconscious cerebration as to the 
 physiological account, makes a step further. Each 
 figure certainly made an impression on the peripheral 
 sense organ and induced central physiological processes, 
 but these processes had their psychical accompaniments. 
 Far from being mere mechanical, unconscious work, 
 these physiological processes were accompanied by con- 
 sciousness ; only this consciousness was present not to 
 the upper, but to the lower subconscious self. 
 
 If we analyze the theory of unconscious cerebration 
 we find it deficient in giving a full account of the 
 matter. No doubt each figure started some central 
 physiological process, but a physiological process with- 
 out any psychical accompaniment can not possibly serve 
 as a clew to the psychical process of correct guessing ; 
 for as long as a material process remains material, it is 
 from a psychical standpoint as well as nonexistent 
 that is, it can not possibly be taken cognizance of by 
 an already existing consciousness, but, by hypothesis 
 itself, it does not and it can not give rise to a con- 
 sciousness. It is only in so far as physiological pro- 
 cesses have psychical accompaniments that they can 
 serve at all as a clew for correct guessing. In short, 
 the percentage of correct guesses in our experiments 
 can not be accounted for on the theory of unconscious 
 cerebration ; there must therefore have been conscious 
 perception. 
 
 Furthermore, to have a correct general idea of a 
 scarcely perceptible dot as being letter or figure, there
 
 178 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 must evidently be some perception of the particular 
 traits of the dot ; there must be a subconscious percep- 
 tion of the particular letter or figure. 
 
 Moreover, to be still more sure that subconscious 
 perception is a vera causa in correct guessing, I made 
 the following experiments : 
 
 On five cards were put five proper names, one 
 name on each card. The cards were then shown to 
 the subjects, who were put at such a distance that they 
 could see only some faint dots. The subject was told 
 that there were five cards, and that on each card there 
 was some proper name the name of a river, of a city, 
 of a bird, of a man, and of a woman but he was not 
 told the proper name itself. Now each time a card 
 was shown the subject had to guess which is city, river, 
 bird, man, or woman. The number of subjects was 
 ten. The total number of experiments made was five 
 hundred. 
 
 Of these five hundred experiments, three hundred 
 and six were wrong guesses and one hundred and nine- 
 ty-four were correct guesses. Since there were five 
 names to guess, one fifth, or twenty per cent, of the 
 total number of guesses might have been due to chance 
 that is, one hundred guesses may be put down to 
 chance, but there still remains a residuum of ninety- 
 four guesses, or 18*8 per cent of the total number of 
 experiments. 
 
 This residuum must be explained by something 
 other than chance. Now, on the theory of unconscious 
 cerebration the fact of this residuum is almost in- 
 comprehensible. How can one guess correctly what 
 one does not see that it looks like man, river, or 
 city unless one actually perceives the proper name 
 shown ?
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION OF THE TWO SELVES. 179 
 
 On the psycho-physiological or on the subconscious 
 perception theory we can fully see the reason of this 
 residuum. The names were actually perceived. The 
 lower, secondary self, or the subconsciousness, perceived 
 the proper names, but only some of them could be 
 communicated to the upper consciousness. 
 
 The facts and experiments discussed above seem to 
 point, by mere force of cumulative evidence, to the 
 presence within us of a secondary, reflex, subwaking 
 consciousness the highway of suggestion and also to 
 the interrelation and communication that subsist be- 
 tween the two selves.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF IN THE WAKING STATE. 
 
 THE results of our experiments prove the secondary 
 self to be the highway of suggestion. Suggestibility is 
 the very essence of the sub waking self ; and since this is 
 also the essential characteristic of the hypnotic self, we 
 may therefore conclude that the subwaking self of the 
 normal individual is identical with the hypnotic self. 
 We arrived already at this conclusion in a former chap- 
 ter, when we were discussing The Double Self ; and 
 now, having started from quite a different point, we 
 once more come to the same truth. The proof there- 
 fore seems to be complete. Still, in order to elucidate 
 thoroughly the subject under investigation, I bring here 
 one more proof as to the identity of the normal sub- 
 consciousness and the hypnotic self. 
 
 An acquaintance of mine, Mr. W., a highly sugges- 
 tible young man, came to visit me. For the sake of 
 amusement, without expecting any definite result, I 
 tried upon him the following experiment : I took an 
 umbrella, put it on the ground, and asked him to pass 
 it. He did it easily. " Well," I said, " but this is not the 
 way I want you to go about it." I put myself opposite 
 him. "I will count slowly, one, two, three, four, and 
 each time you make a step." I counted ; he passed the 
 umbrella. " Now, once more ! " I counted with great 
 
 180
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SELF IN THE WAKING STATE. 181 
 
 solemnity, with great emphasis, and laid particular stress 
 on number four. He passed the umbrella, but, it seemed 
 to me, with some hesitation and difficulty. "Without 
 giving him time to rest, I exclaimed, " And now, once 
 more ! " I counted slower than before, with greater 
 emphasis and laid still more stress on four, and while 
 pronouncing it I stretched out my arm and made my 
 hand as rigid as possible. To my great surprise, and 
 to that of those present, Mr. "W. could not pass the 
 charmed umbrella. His legs became rigid, and his feet 
 were as if fastened to the ground. He was suspected 
 of simulation. The gentlemen who witnessed the ex- 
 periment could not conceive how a strong, sane young 
 man, in the full possession of his consciousness, should 
 not be able to pass such an innocent object as an um- 
 brella. Mr. W. really could not accomplish this ordi- 
 nary feat, which a child of two can easily do ; he tried 
 hard ; his face became red and bathed in perspiration 
 on account of the muscular strain, but all his efforts 
 were futile. " No," he exclaimed at last in great dis- 
 may, " I can not do it ! " 
 
 Later on, in the presence of two Boston High School 
 instructors, I repeated again the same experiment on 
 Mr. W., and with the same result: Mr. W. exerted 
 himself to the utmost, but all his efforts were in vain ; 
 he could not pass the charmed line. By this time he 
 became accustomed to this strange phenomenon, and 
 he sat down with a smile, acknowledging that he could 
 not step over the umbrella. 
 
 I then tried on Mr. W. another experiment. Pro- 
 nounce " Boston." " Boston," and he said it easily 
 enough. " And now again." I stretched out my hand 
 and made it perfectly rigid. " P-p-p-p-oston ! " he 
 ejaculated with great difficulty. "Again." I made
 
 182 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 my hand still stiffer, and pointed it almost . directly in 
 his face. No sound. " Don't look at me," he said at 
 last, " and I'll be able to say it." 
 
 Fig. 1, normal writing ; Figs. 2, 3, and 4, writing under suggestion 
 that the hand is becoming rigid. 
 
 " Well, then," I said, " try the following sentence : 
 ' Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.' " He 
 began to say it, but when he came to " peck of " I 
 raised my hand and stiffened it. " P-p-p-e-ec-k " came
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SELF IN THE WAKING STATE. 183 
 
 from his lips ; he began to stammer and could not con- 
 tinue. 
 
 " Well, then," I said, " let me see if you are able to 
 pronounce your name." He pronounced it. " Try 
 again." I stiffened my hand, and again the same re- 
 sult he was unable to pronounce his own name. 
 
 " Is it possible," asked Mr. "W. of me, " that if you 
 meet me on the street you could make me of a sud- 
 
 Fig. 1, normal signature ; Figs. 2, 3, 4, and 5, signature under sug- 
 gestion of the hand being rigid. 
 13
 
 184 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 den dumb and paralytic ? " I gave him an evasive 
 answer. 
 
 " Try now to write ' Boston,' " I requested Mr. "W". 
 He did it, and wrote with great ease. " Again." 1 
 stiffened my hand, loudly and authoritatively suggest- 
 ing a like rigidity of his hand. His hand grew more 
 and more rigid; "Boston" became more and more 
 broken ; the hand went in jerks and jumps, breaking at 
 last the point of the pencil. 
 
 " And now let me see whether you are able to write 
 your name." Again the same result. He could not 
 write his own name. 
 
 Specimens of his writings will be found on pages 
 182 and 183. 
 
 Afterward I hypnotized Mr. W., and found he fell 
 into the very last stage of somnambulism. 
 
 Now these last experiments, together with others of 
 the kind adduced by Bernheim, Delboeuf, etc., and 
 mentioned by me in a previous chapter, certainly do 
 give strong evidence of the presence of the hypnotic 
 self in the normal waking state. We have here a young 
 man who in his normal waking condition takes sug- 
 gestions characteristic of the hypnotic state. The hyp- 
 notic self is present in the waking state of man as the 
 subwaking self. The case adduced by me is certainly 
 rare, unique, but it serves to bring out the truth of 
 our contention clearly before the mind of the reader. 
 
 We saw above that all kinds of suggestibility, 
 whether normal or abnormal, must have as their pre- 
 requisite some disaggregation of consciousness, a disag- 
 gregation of the two selves, of the waking and of the 
 hypnotic subwaking self. Now such a disaggregation 
 could easily be effected in Mr. W., and this was proved 
 by the fact of his subsequent falling into the deepest
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SELF IN THE WAKING STATE. 185 
 
 somnambulic condition on being hypnotized. For, as 
 we have shown above, the difference between normal and 
 abnormal suggestibility is only a difference of degree of 
 disaggregation. In the hypnotic state this disaggrega- 
 tion is comparatively more complete, far more perma- 
 nent, than in that of normal suggestibility. In the 
 normal state, even when the subject is highly suggesti- 
 ble, the disaggregation is transitory, fleeting ; it occurs 
 only during the time of the suggestion, and the equilib- 
 rium is restored on the suggestion being over ; but 
 this is not the case in the state of abnormal suggesti- 
 bility. In the waking state, however suggestible the 
 individual may be that is, however easy it is to disso- 
 ciate momentarily the one self from the other still the 
 waking self does not lose its hold on the subwaking 
 self ; the waking self can still control ; his authority, 
 although somewhat impaired, has nevertheless power 
 and commands obedience. This is beautifully shown 
 by the experiments I made on Mr. "W. the day after. 
 
 Next day Mr. "W. came to me again. Again I tried 
 on him the same experiments so successfully carried 
 out the day before, but this time the results were quite 
 different. 
 
 I put the umbrella on the ground and asked him to 
 step over it. He did it without the slightest incon- 
 venience. I counted slowly, stiffened my hand, but of 
 no avail. He stepped over the umbrella, although oc- 
 casionally with some slight difficulty. 
 
 "Just try to write your name," I said. He wrote 
 it. " Again." He wrote it once more. I asked him 
 to write slowly ; meanwhile I raised my hand, stiffened 
 it, kept it before his very eyes. The results were now 
 extremely interesting. His hand became cataleptic ; he 
 could not manage it. In a loud voice he began to give
 
 186 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 suggestions to himself. " I am able to write my name ; 
 I can write my name ; I will and shall write it ; yes, I 
 can ; I can write my name ; " etc. Each time as he 
 
 (u&K2> 
 
 10 
 
 Fig. 1, normal; Figs. 3-8, subject could not continue; he caught 
 sight of me and his hand became rigid ; Fig. 8, the pencil breaks 
 on account of the great strain ; Figs. 9 and 10, the subject re- 
 gained full control over his hand. 
 
 caught sight of my raised hand and listened to the tor- 
 rent of suggestions I poured forth his hand became 
 slightly cataleptic and the letters became broken, but 
 each time as he repeated his suggestions the hand went
 
 SUBCONSCIOUS SELF IN THE WAKING STATE. 187 
 
 on writing. The waking self of Mr. W. and I were 
 contending for the possession of Mr. W.'s secondary 
 self ; and Mr. W. succeeded at last in gaining full con- 
 trol over his secondary self. My suggestions were com- 
 pletely disregarded. 
 
 Specimens of the subject's writing will be found on 
 page 186. 
 
 These last experiments and observations bring out 
 clearly the fact that the hypnotic consciousness is pres- 
 ent in the waking state as the subconscious self.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY. 
 
 IT is certainly of great interest to know whether the 
 subconscious revealed behind the upper consciousness is 
 a personality or not. To answer this question we must 
 first turn to the problem of personality. What is per- 
 sonality ? Omitting the metaphysical hypotheses of the 
 soul and of the transcendental ego, we find on the field 
 of empirical psychology two contending theories of per- 
 sonality : the one is the association theory of the Eng- 
 lish and of the Herbartians, the other is the "wave 
 theory " of Prof. James. 
 
 The personal self is regarded by the associationists 
 as a train of ideas of which memory declares the first to 
 be continuously connected with the last. The succes- 
 sive associated ideas run, as it were, into a single point. 
 Memory and personality are identified. Personality is 
 considered as a series of independent ideas so closely 
 associated as to form in memory one conscious series. 
 " The phenomena of self * and that of memory," says 
 J. S. Mill, " are merely two sides of the same fact. . . . 
 My memory of having ascended Skiddaw on a given 
 day and my consciousness of being the same person who 
 
 * Self is often understood by writers as equivalent to personal- 
 ity, while I use the terra self to designate mere consciousness. 
 
 188
 
 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY. 189 
 
 ascended Skiddaw on that day are two modes of stating 
 the same fact. ... I am aware of a long and uninter- 
 rupted succession of past feelings, going back as far as 
 memory reaches, and terminating with the sensations I 
 have at the present moment, all of which are connected 
 by an inexplicable tie. . . . This succession of feelings 
 which I call my memory of the past is that by which I 
 distinguish myself (personality)." Mill's identification 
 of memory and personality is rather unfortunate, for 
 brutes have memory,* but it is certainly questionable 
 whether they have personality. We shall, however, 
 soon see that not only Mill, but psychologists who seem 
 to take the opposite view, fall into the same fallacy of 
 identifying personality with memory. In another place 
 J. S. Mill expresses himself clearer as to his meaning 
 of personality : " If we speak of the mind as a series of 
 feelings, we are obliged to complete the statement by 
 calling it a series of feelings which is aware of itself as 
 past and future." Mill, however, clearly sees the diffi- 
 culty of his position namely, " the paradox that some- 
 thing which, ex hypothesi, is but a series of feelings 
 can be aware of itself as a series." He endeavours to 
 extricate himself from this difficulty by saying " that 
 we are here face to face with that final inexplicability 
 at which, as Sir W. Hamilton observes, 'we inevitably 
 arrive when we reach ultimate facts.' " 
 
 Now Prof. James takes Mill to task, and points out 
 that Mill himself, when " speaking of what may rightly 
 be demanded of a theorist, says : * He is not entitled to 
 frame a theory from one class of phenomena, extend to 
 another class which it does not fit, and excuse himself 
 
 * See Lloyd Morgan's Comparative Psychology, chapter Memory 
 in Animals.
 
 190 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 by saying that if we can not make it fit it is because 
 ultimate facts are inexplicable.'" The class of phe- 
 nomena which the associationist school takes to frame 
 its theory of the ego are feelings unaware of each other. 
 The class of phenomena the ego presents are feelings of 
 which the latter are intensely aware of those that went 
 before. The two classes do not " fit," and no exercise 
 of ingenuity can ever make them fit. No shuffling of 
 unaware feelings can make them aware. In another 
 place Prof. James says : " This inexplicable tie which 
 connects the feelings, this ' something in common ' by 
 which they are linked and which is not the passing 
 feelings themselves, but something ' permanent ' of 
 which we can ' affirm nothing ' save its attributes and 
 phenomena, what is it but the metaphysical substance 
 come again to life ? " 
 
 Prof. James's criticism of associationism is certainly 
 just and acute, and one can not help agreeing with 
 him. But now, what is Prof. James's own theory of 
 personality ? The passing thought, according to Prof. 
 James, is the thinker. Each passing wave of conscious- 
 ness, each passing thought, is aware of all that has pre- 
 ceded in consciousness ; each pulse of thought as it dies 
 away transmits its title of ownership of its mental con- 
 tent to the succeeding thought. To put it in his own 
 words : 
 
 " Each thought out of a multitude of other thoughts 
 of which it may think is able to distinguish those which 
 belong to its own ego from those which do not. The 
 former have a warmth and intimacy about them of 
 which the latter are completely devoid. ... Each pulse 
 of cognitive consciousness, each thought, dies away and 
 is replaced by another. The other, among the things it 
 knows, knows its own predecessor, and finding it
 
 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY. 191 
 
 ' warm,' greets it, saying, ' Thou art mine and part of 
 the same self with me.' Each later thought, knowing 
 and including thus the thoughts which went before, is 
 the final receptacle, and, appropriating them, is the final 
 owner of all they contain and own. Each thought is 
 thus born an owner, and dies owned, transmitting what- 
 ever it realizes as itself to its own later proprietor. As 
 Kant says, it is as if elastic balls were to have not only 
 motion but knowledge of it, and a first ball were to 
 transmit both its motion and its consciousness to a 
 second, which took both up into its consciousness and 
 passed them to a third, until the last ball held all that 
 the other balls had held, and realized it as its own. It 
 is this trick which the nascent thought has of immedi- 
 ately taking up the expiring thought and adopting it 
 which is the foundation of the appropriation of most of 
 the remoter constituents of the self. Who owns the 
 last self owns the self before the last, for what possesses 
 the possessor possesses the possessed. ... A thing," 
 Prof. James goes on to say, " can not appropriate it- 
 self it is itself ; and still less can it disown itself. 
 There must be an agent of the appropriating and dis- 
 owning ; but that agent we have already named. It is 
 the thought to whom the various '' constituents ' are 
 known. That thought is a vehicle of choice as well 
 as of cognition, and among the choices it makes are 
 those appropriations or repudiations of its own. But 
 the thought never is an object in its own hands. It 
 ... is the hook from which the chain of past selves 
 dangles, planted firmly in the present. . . . Anon the 
 hook itself will drop into the past with all it carries and 
 then be treated as an object and appropriated by a new 
 thought in the new present, which will serve as a living 
 hook in its turn.
 
 192 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 " To illustrate by diagram, let A, B, and C stand 
 for three 
 
 successive thoughts, each with its object inside of it. 
 If B's object be A and C's object be B, then A, B, and 
 C would stand for three pulses in a consciousness of 
 personal identity." 
 
 Like the associationists, Prof. James looks for per- 
 sonality in the function of memory ; like them, he re- 
 gards personality as a series, with the only difference 
 that he postulates a synthesis of that series in each 
 passing thought. Each thought has the title to the 
 content of previous thoughts, but this momentary 
 thought does not know itself. The thought can only 
 be known when dead, when it has become a content of 
 a succeeding wave of consciousness. In short, Prof. 
 James seems to think that personality is a synthesis of 
 a series, and that this synthesis is not conscious of itself. 
 We see at once that although Prof. James attacks so 
 valiantly and justly the association theory, he himself 
 falls into an error no less flagrant he omits from his 
 account of personality the fact of self -consciousness. 
 
 Mill, in starting with a disconnected series of sensa- 
 tions and ideas, could not see how that series could 
 possibly become synthetized and conscious of itself as 
 such, as a series, and he was compelled to fall back in 
 that refuge of ignorance, the unknowable, placing this 
 synthetic conscious activity into a noumenal world, but 
 he at least clearly saw that personality requires self- 
 consciousness. Prof. James, however, while accounting 
 for the synthetic side of the " pure ego," totally omits
 
 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY. 193 
 
 the self-conscious side of personality. He even em- 
 phasizes this lack of self-consciousness in the passing 
 thought, the present personal thinker. " All appropria- 
 tions," he says, " may be made to it, ~by a thought not 
 at the moment immediately cognised by itself." If, 
 then, the passing thought can be known only as content, 
 can there possibly be self -consciousness at all ? Accord- 
 ing to Prof. James the passing thought with its syn- 
 thetized series of contents can be known only as object, 
 but then the consciousness of an object is not self -con- 
 sciousness. Where, then, does the fact of self -conscious- 
 ness come in ? Self -consciousness can not be in the 
 mere object-consciousness, for in it the object occupies 
 the whole field of mental vision, and, besides, the ob- 
 ject content is but the material, the inheritance of 
 former dead owners. Self -consciousness, again, is not 
 present in the passing thought, for the passing thought, 
 according to Prof. James, " can not own itself " ; nor 
 can self -consciousness be in the succeeding thought, for 
 then the previous thought has already perished, and it 
 is now another thought that is conscious of the thought 
 gone a state that can in no wise be self -consciousness ; 
 it is rather other-consciousness. How, then, is self -con- 
 sciousness possible ? Prof. James attempts to escape 
 from the difficulties by making the thoughts feel 
 "warm," but surely "animal warmth" advances us 
 very little toward a clear comprehension of the " pure 
 ego." A warm thought, whatever it may mean to 
 Prof. James, is as much an object as a cold thought. 
 
 The fact is that Prof. James, in asserting that the 
 present passing thought or the present moment of con- 
 sciousness lacks knowledge of itself, seems to have for- 
 gotten his own distinction of the two kinds of knowl- 
 edge knowledge about and knowledge of acquaintance.
 
 194 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 The blind man who knows the theory and laws of light 
 has knowledge about, but he sadly lacks the most essen- 
 tial knowledge knowledge of acquaintance; he does 
 not know what the sensation of light is hi itself that 
 is, he has mediate but not immediate knowledge. Now 
 the most that Prof. James can claim is that the present 
 thought lacks knowledge about, but it nevertheless does 
 possess knowledge knowledge of acquaintance. Prof. 
 James, however, is not altogether unaware of it, for in 
 asserting that " the present moment is the darkest in the 
 whole series," he also tells us that " it may feel its own 
 immediate existence," but he hastens to qualify this last 
 statement of his by adding, " hard as it is by direct in- 
 trospection to ascertain the fact." Even if it be granted 
 that Prof. James did keep in mind the two kinds of 
 knowledge, and denied to the passing thought only 
 knowledge about, he is still in the wrong ; for self -con- 
 sciousness partakes of the two kinds of knowledge : it is 
 both knowledge about and knowledge of acquaintance. 
 
 A close examination of the two theories shows that 
 neither the bundle of associationism nor Prof. James's 
 passing thought gives us a true account of personality. 
 The " pure ego " or personality is not a series, for a 
 disconnected series can not possibly make a unity a 
 person ; nor is personality a mere synthesis of passing 
 thoughts, for there may be synthesis or memory in each 
 passing wave of consciousness and still no personality. 
 The consciousness of a dog, of a cat, may fully answer 
 Prof. James's description of the "pure ego." The 
 central point of the ego or of personality lies in the 
 fact of the thought knowing and critically controlling 
 itself in the very process of thinking, in the very mo- 
 ment of that thought's existence. 
 
 Prof. James is certainly wrong in asserting that in
 
 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY. 195 
 
 \ 
 personality the passing thought does not know itself in 
 
 the moment of thinking. He seems to assume that the 
 knowledge of an object and the knowledge of that 
 knowledge require two distinct pulses of consciousness, 
 two distinct thoughts ; but, as we pointed out above in our 
 discussion, if this were the case self -consciousness would 
 have been an impossibility. The fact is that the knowl- 
 edge of an object and the knowledge of that knowl- 
 edge do not require two distinct moments, but only one 
 and the same moment. Once a thought has come to 
 assert " I feel," the knowledge and the feeling constitute 
 one and the same thought. The pure ego, the "I," 
 taken by itself means consciousness of consciousness. 
 What the " I " asserts is that there is present conscious- 
 ness of consciousness. "I feel" means that there is 
 consciousness of a feeling along with consciousness of 
 that consciousness. The " I know, and I know that I 
 know," and the " I know that I know that I know," and 
 so on, do not require so many separate thought-moments, 
 but only one and the same moment of self -consciousness. 
 
 Prof. James's defective analysis of personality 
 seems to be the result of his imperfect discrimination 
 between the present moment of consciousness and the 
 present time-moment. It is this want' of discrimination 
 between the two moments that underlies the ideal 
 structure of Hegelianism ; and although Prof. James * 
 kicks vigorously against Hegel, he still can not free 
 himself from the influence of that great dialectician. 
 Prof. James, in fact, is a Hegelian at heart. 
 
 Moments, Hegel tell us, f are in a continuous flux ; 
 the now and the here, the this and the that, change with 
 
 * See James's essay On Some Hegelisms. 
 
 f See Hegel's Phanomenologie, chapter Die sinnliche Gewissheit.
 
 196 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 each coming moment. No sooner does the moment of 
 consciousness posit its now, than the moment is changed 
 and the now turns out to be something different. The ne- 
 gation lies on the very face of the moment's affirmation. 
 The moment of consciousness taken in its immediacy can 
 not know itself, because it negates itself in the very act 
 of its affirmation. " Le moment ouje parle est dejd loin 
 de m,oi" It is partly this consideration that Prof. James 
 has in mind when he declares that " the present moment 
 of consciousness is the darkest in the whole series." 
 
 Before we proceed further with our discussion it 
 would not be amiss to point out the fact that Prof. 
 James is also guilty of confounding two widely different 
 moments : the present moment of consciousness and the 
 present moment of self -consciousness. This is, in fact, 
 implied by his whole theory of the passing thought with 
 no self -consciousness to back it ; and this confusion of 
 the two moments is especially clearly revealed in the 
 "darkness of the present moment of consciousness." 
 Prof. James means by the present moment of conscious- 
 ness the present thought, the present thinker that is, 
 the present moment of self -consciousness. Now, even if 
 it be granted that the present moment of consciousness 
 be " the darkest in the whole series," the present moment 
 of self -consciousness is certainly the brightest of all. 
 
 Turning now to the Hegelian flux fallacy a fal- 
 lacy committed by many a philosopher and psycholo- 
 gist we find that two qualitatively different moments 
 are lumped together into one, namely, the present 
 time moment and the present moment of conscious- 
 ness. While in the schema of objective time the pres- 
 ent moments are in a continuous flux, the present mo- 
 ments of consciousness are far from being in a parallel 
 incessant change. The moments in the schema of time
 
 THE PROBLEM OP PERSONALITY. 
 
 may go on flowing, but the present moment of con- 
 sciousness may still remain unchanged ; nay, it is even 
 fully conceivable that a present moment of consciousness 
 should fill a whole eternity. The radical difference of 
 those two moments is well illustrated in the popular 
 story of the monk, who happened to listen to the song 
 of a bird from paradise for but a single moment and 
 found that meanwhile a thousand years had passed 
 away. 
 
 The present moment of consciousness does not 
 change with the change of the present time moment ; 
 the two moments are totally different in their nature. 
 Now the moment of consciousness not being a time 
 moment, not being in a continuous flux as the latter is, 
 may include as well its own consciousness, and thus be 
 a moment of self -consciousness ; and as a matter of fact 
 a present moment of self -consciousness does include the 
 knowledge of the present moment of consciousness 
 within the selfsame present moment. 
 
 Prof. James passes a severe criticism on Hume for 
 not making his ego-bundle a little more of a decent 
 whole; he censures Hume for denying the synthetic 
 unity of the pure ego. On similar grounds may Prof. 
 James be criticised for not making his evanescent 
 thinker a little more of a decent person ; he may be 
 censured for not seeing that knowledge of the con- 
 scious moment within the very present moment of con- 
 sciousness ; in other words, that self -consciousness is of 
 the very essence of the pure ego. 
 
 The central point of personality is self-conscious- 
 ness. A series of moments-consciousness cognized as a 
 unity or synthesis of many moments in one thought, or 
 by one thought, is not at all an indispensable prerequi- 
 site of personality. We can fully conceive an eternal
 
 198 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 moment of self -consciousness with no preceding mo- 
 ments to synthetize, and still such a moment of self- 
 consciousness is no doubt a personality. An ego of 
 such a type is not constituted of a series of moments, 
 and has therefore neither memory nor personal iden- 
 tity ; and still such an ego is a person, and possibly the 
 most perfect of persons, since the personality, independ- 
 ent of all time, is completely synthetized by the very 
 nature of its self-conscious being. "We can again con- 
 ceive a being with distinct pulses in each moment of 
 self -consciousness. Each pulse of consciousness, how- 
 ever, being a moment of self -consciousness, is certainly 
 of the nature of personality. "We have here an ob- 
 jective series of moments of self-consciousness, origi- 
 nating from the primitive life consciousness, but each 
 moment remaining distinct in itself, not owned, not 
 synthetized by the succeeding moment , of self -con- 
 sciousness. This type of self-consciousness has a series, 
 but no synthesis, no memory, no personal identity. 
 On the other hand, there may be a series of pulses of 
 consciousness, there may be memory, there may be a 
 synthesis of all the preceding moments in each pass- 
 ing moment of consciousness, and still if there is 
 no self-consciousness such a consciousness is certain- 
 ly no personality. Neither a connected series of 
 moments nor their synthesis is of the essence of per- 
 sonality ; it is only consciousness of consciousness, the 
 knowledge of consciousness within the same moment 
 of consciousness ; in short, it is only the moment of 
 self -consciousness that makes of a consciousness a per- 
 sonality. 
 
 Consciousness and self-consciousness may hypothet- 
 ically be arranged in the following series of stages or 
 types :
 
 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY. 199 
 
 I. Desultory consciousness. In this type of con- 
 sciousness there is no connection, no association, be- 
 tween one moment of consciousness and another ; there 
 is certainly no synthesis of moments, and consequently no 
 memory, no recognition, no self -consciousness, no person- 
 ality. This type of consciousness may have its repre- 
 sentatives in the psychic life of the lowest invertebrates. 
 
 II. Synthetic consciousness. In this type of con- 
 sciousness there is synthesis of the preceding moments in 
 each passing moment, but there is no recognition. For- 
 mer experiences are reinstated in consciousness, but they 
 are not recognised as such. Instinctive consciousness 
 falls naturally under this type of mental activity. Mem- 
 ory is certainly present, but it is objective in its nature ; 
 it exists only for the observer, not for the individual con- 
 sciousness itself. The subjective side of memory, the 
 projection of the present experience into the subjective 
 past of the present moment consciousness, is wanting ; 
 and, of course, it goes without saying that the synthetic 
 consciousness has no self -consciousness, no personality. 
 
 III. Recogniti/ue consciousness. In this type of con- 
 sciousness there is not only an objective synthesis of 
 the preceding moments in each moment of conscious- 
 ness, but there is also present a subje'ctive synthesis.* 
 Former experiences are not only simply reinstated in 
 consciousness, but they are also recognised as such. 
 This type of mental activity may be represented by the 
 consciousness of the higher vertebrate animals. There 
 is here memory, there is the projection of the present 
 into the subjective past, there is recognition, but there 
 is no self -consciousness, no personality. 
 
 * It is this type of consciousness that answers Prof. James's de- 
 scription of personality. 
 14
 
 200 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 IV. Desultory self -consciousness. This type of self- 
 consciousness has no synthesis in each present moment 
 of the preceding past moments of self-consciousness. 
 Such a form of consciousness may be regarded as a 
 series of independent, instable personalities coming like 
 bubbles to the surface of consciousness and bursting 
 without leaving any marked trace behind them. It is 
 evident that this type of personality, although it has a 
 series of moments, has no memory of that series, nor 
 has it any personal identity. 
 
 Y. Synthetic self -consciousness. This form of self- 
 consciousness has a series of moments, and all the mo- 
 ments in the series can be included in and owned by each 
 present moment of self-consciousness. The moments in 
 the series are intimately linked and intertwined. -Each 
 moment synthetizes, owns, knows, and controls the pre- 
 ceding ones. This type of consciousness possesses syn- 
 thesis, reproduction, recognition, personality, personal 
 identity, and is represented by man's mental activity. 
 
 VI. The eternal moment of self -consciousness. In 
 this form of self -consciousness there is no series ; it is 
 but one moment. Memory and personal identity are 
 not present because they are superfluous, since there is 
 no preceding series to synthetize. This type of per- 
 sonality may transcend the synthetic personality, as the 
 former may contain the whole content of all complete 
 lines of series in one eternal moment of self -conscious- 
 ness. This form of self -consciousness may be considered 
 as the pure type of personality ; it is the perfect person.* 
 
 * I must, however, add that this last type of personality is purely 
 hypothetical, and if I brought it here it was simply to emphasize the 
 pure aspect of personality.
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS AND STAGES OF SUBCONSCIOTJSNESS. 
 
 FROM the standpoint gained in our discussion on 
 personality or the " pure ego " we can once more turn 
 to the study of the secondary self. The secondary or 
 subconscious self must not be regarded as an individual ; 
 it is only a form of mental life, and as such may belong 
 to one of the three types of consciousness. It may be 
 desultory, synthetic, or recognitive. The secondary 
 consciousness is recognitive at its highest, desultory at 
 its lowest. 
 
 The subconscious self is a co-ordination of many 
 series of moments-consciousness. In the subconscious- 
 ness series of moments-consciousness form groups, sys- 
 tems, communities, clusters, constellations. This co- 
 ordination of series, however, can be dissolved ; each 
 separate series again can be broken up into its constitu- 
 ent moments, which may be endowed with a conscious 
 tendency to reunite at a stated interval. The content 
 of the isolated moment is not any more represented in 
 the moments of the other series, and is not therefore 
 known or cognized by them. The inhibited content 
 knowledge or object consciousness has not disappeared ; 
 it is still present in the dissociated moments, and can 
 be revealed by different methods. 
 
 Synthesis and catalysis of moments-consciousness 
 are at the heart of th# subconscious. 
 
 201
 
 202 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 The catalysis of moments-consciousness is often 
 brought about by psychic stimuli under the conditions 
 of suggestibility conditions that favour a dissociation 
 of the primary from the secondary consciousness. Once 
 this dissociation is effected, a catalysis of the constella- 
 tions of moments-consciousness constituting the sub- 
 consciousness may be produced by suggestion and by 
 other means. A dissociation of consciousness may be 
 effected by the impression of a very powerful stimulus, 
 such as a strong shock. The conditions of suggestibil- 
 ity conditions that favour disaggregation of the upper 
 from the lower consciousness, conditions that lay bare 
 the subconscious self to the influence of external stim- 
 uli are here brought about by the overpowering in- 
 tensity of the stimulus. An intense, overpowering 
 shock limits the activity of the voluntary muscles fre- 
 quently paralyzes them momentarily, and sometimes for 
 an appreciable period of time fixes the attention on the 
 impression to the exclusion of all else, strongly inhibits 
 all other mental activity, and narrows the field of the 
 upper consciousness in fact, very often totally removes 
 it. The subconscious self thus emerges. 
 
 If the stimulus is too strong even for the secondary 
 self, the disaggregation goes still further, the subcon- 
 sciousness becomes disaggregated in its turn, and falls 
 from the plane of recognitive to that of synthetic con- 
 sciousness. With a further increase of the stimulus 
 the dissolution goes on further, the disaggregation 
 becomes deeper, and the subconsciousness falls from 
 the level of synthetic to that of desultory conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 Now, if such a disaggregation of moments conscious- 
 ness occurs, whatever may be the cause of it, if the mo- 
 ments can not get synthetized, and if new combinations
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 203 
 
 with different psychic contents are formed, then the 
 result is amnesia amnesia for that particular state of 
 moment-consciousness. 
 
 We must discriminate between the psychic content 
 that may be characterized as the moment-content of 
 consciousness and the synthesis of that content. It is 
 this synthesis of the content that constitutes the nature 
 of a moment-consciousness. In short, a moment-con- 
 sciousness is content plus synthesis. 
 
 Psychic or moment-contents may be represented in 
 the synthesis of different moments-consciousness, so 
 that while certain moments-consciousness may be en- 
 tirely cut off from given psychic contents, other mo- 
 ments may be in full possession of all that material. 
 Thus there may be loss of mental experience and am- 
 nesia for certain states of consciousness, and at the 
 same time full presence of that mental experience as 
 well as recollection of it in other states of conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 The relation of the moments-consciousness to the 
 psychic contents and their synthesis by different mo- 
 ments-consciousness at different levels of consciousness 
 may be graphically represented in the following dia- 
 gram :
 
 204 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 In this diagram the granulated circles #, 5, c, d, e, 
 f, g, h stand for the moment-content or masses of 
 psychic material, while the nucleated circles A, B, C, D, 
 the centres of which form foci for the convergent lines 
 from different moments-content, stand for moments- 
 consciousness. A synthetizes a, b, c, f\ B synthetizes 
 , c, d,f', C synthetizes <?, e, g ; and D synthetizes all 
 the moments-content. Moment-content c is repre- 
 sented in all the moments-consciousness, while the rest 
 of the moments-content are represented in different 
 combinations in each of the moments-consciousness. 
 
 Furthermore, there may also be communications 
 between the moments-consciousness. Some of the 
 psychic material directly presented to and synthetized 
 by one moment-consciousness may be transmitted to 
 and represented in another moment. Such is, in fact, 
 very often the case. The dotted line that connects A 
 with C represents such a relation. 
 
 The moments-consciousness may be connected by 
 association of contiguity, so that if one begins to func- 
 tionate, the other moment is also set into activity. The 
 line connecting B and C represents such a relation. 
 
 D represents a moment-consciousness which, al- 
 though it synthetizes all the moments-content, is alto- 
 gether dissociated from the rest of moments-conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 This stage of synthesis may be termed primary 
 synthesis, or synthesis of apprehension. 
 
 There may be a higher stage of synthesis than the 
 one just considered, and that is when a moment-con- 
 sciousness synthetizes not only moments-content but 
 also moments-consciousness. This stage of synthesis 
 may be termed secondary synthesis, or synthesis of 
 apprehension and reproduction.
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 205 
 
 The secondary stage of synthesis may be repre- 
 sented in the following diagram : 
 
 The moment-consciousness E in the diagram is rep- 
 resented to be one that possesses synthesis of apprehen- 
 sion and reproduction. Such a moment-consciousness 
 may be termed the synthetic moment-consciousness, 
 because it is in this stage that synthetic consciousness 
 of whole series of moments-consciousness first appears. 
 
 The synthetic moment-consciousness may change 
 its synthetized moments-consciousness as well as its 
 moments-content, but still, from the very nature of 
 this type of consciousness, the fluctuations themselves 
 are synthetized in their turn, for each successive beat 
 of synthetic consciousness or each synthetic moment- 
 consciousness synthetizes all the preceding moments. 
 The beats of synthetic consciousness may be graphic- 
 ally represented as follows :
 
 206 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 Each beat of synthetic consciousness is represented 
 by one of the concentric circles E, E u E 2 , E 3 , each suc- 
 ceeding circle including all the preceding ones. 
 
 In the moment of synthetic consciousness, as we 
 
 
 h k
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 207 
 
 know from a previous discussion,* the former synthetic 
 moments are merely reproduced, but they are not rec- 
 ognised as former, as past. It is only an external ob- 
 server who occupies a higher plane than that of the 
 synthetic consciousness, it is only such an observer 
 who can notice the reproduction in the synthetic mo- 
 ment. There is, then, a higher plane of consciousness 
 where a new synthesis is effected that of recognition. 
 This synthesis of recognition is the highest stage that 
 mere consciousness, which takes as yet no recognizance 
 of itself, can attain. 
 
 The stages of consciousness and their interconnec- 
 tions in relation to the nature and range of growth of 
 the subconscious self are graphically represented in the 
 diagram at the bottom of the preceding page. 
 
 * Vide Chapter XIX.
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF SUBCONSCIOTJSNESS. 
 
 THE mental processes of association and aggrega- 
 tion of psychic contents in the synthesis of moment- 
 consciousness and the including of the moments-con- 
 sciousness in synthesis of higher and higher unities can 
 be expressed in physiological terms of cellular activity. 
 The structure of the cell and its morphological relation 
 to other cells can give us a glimpse into the physio- 
 logical processes that run parallel to mental synthesis 
 and dissociation. 
 
 The nerve-cell, as the reader knows, is a nucle- 
 ated mass of protoplasm highly complicated in its 
 structure and organization. The nerve-cell possesses 
 many filaments or "processes," all of which, called 
 dendrons, branch repeatedly and terminate in a net- 
 work of multitudes of fibre-processes representing a 
 greater volume than the cell body itself, with the ex- 
 ception of a single process termed neuraxon, which 
 remains comparatively unchanged in its diameter along 
 its whole course and sends out but a few branches 
 called collaterals. The terminals of collaterals and 
 neuro-axons are in their turn split into a comparatively 
 small number of branches called the terminal arbori- 
 zation! 
 
 If we inquire as to the connection of nerve-cells 
 with one another, we find that no nerve-cell is ana- 
 
 208
 
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 209 
 
 tomically connected with other cells. Every nerve- 
 cell with all its processes forms a distinct and isolated 
 morphological individual. Every nerve-cell anatom- 
 ically considered is a com- 
 plete unit. The processes 
 coming out from different 
 nerve-cells do not fuse with 
 processes coming out from 
 other nerve-cells, but rather 
 interlace and come in con- 
 tact, like the electrodes of a 
 battery in forming the elec- 
 tric circuit. Thus neurologi- 
 cal investigations point to the 
 highly significant fact that 
 the connections among the 
 nerve-cells are not of an ana- 
 tomical but of a physiological 
 nature. The association of 
 nerve-cells is not organic, but 
 functional. 
 
 Nerve-cells with concomi- 
 tant psychic moments-con- 
 tent come into contact with 
 other nerve-cells accompanied 
 by psychic content by means 
 of their fine terminal pro- 
 cesses. This association of 
 
 cells forms a group whose Nerve . cell of corte x : dr., den- 
 physiological function has a drons ; n., neuraxou ; coll. 
 . , , i , - collaterals ; arb., terminal 
 concomitant mental activity arbor i za tion. 
 
 resulting in some form of 
 
 psychic synthesis. By means of association fibres the 
 
 groups are organized into systems, the systems into
 
 210 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 communities, the communities into clusters, the clusters 
 into constellations, and each of the higher, more com- 
 plex aggregates is more feebly organized by less stable 
 association fibres. The combination of groups into sys- 
 tems and of these systems into clusters and constel- 
 lations by means of association fibres have as their 
 psychic concomitants higher and higher forms of men- 
 tal syntheses.* Thus moments-content are synthetized 
 in the unity of moments-consciousness, and the latter 
 are synthetized in their turn in higher and higher 
 unities. 
 
 The simpler, the less complicated a group of nerve- 
 cells is, and the longer and more frequent their fine 
 processes come in contact, the greater is the tendency 
 of that group to form permanent relations ; and the 
 same holds true of systems of cells in communities, 
 clusters, and constellations. We may therefore say 
 that the organization of a system or constellation of 
 cells is in proportion to the duration and frequency of 
 their associative activity. 
 
 Groups of nerve-cells with a more or less stable func- 
 tion become gradually organized and form a stable or- 
 ganization. The more complex, however, a system of 
 nerve-cells is, the greater is its instability, and in the 
 very highest systems or constellations of clusters the 
 instability reaches its maximum. The instability of a 
 system is in proportion to its complexity. In the very 
 highest constellations the instability is extreme, and there 
 is going on a continuous process of variation. Under 
 
 * The difficulties of how a conglomeration of objective units can 
 possibly give rise to a unity in a synthesis are excellently well dis- 
 cussed by Prof. W. James in the first volume of his Psychology. 
 We take it as a postulate that the very nature of mental activity is 
 synthesis.
 
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 211 
 
 the action of the slightest external or internal stimuli, 
 such unstable systems or constellations lose their equi- 
 librium, dissolve and form new systems, or enter into 
 combination with other constellations. On the psy- 
 chical side we have the continuous fluctuation of the 
 content of attention. The characteristic trait of the 
 highest type of psycho-physical life under the ordinary 
 stimuli of the environment is a continuous process of 
 association and dissociation of constellations. 
 
 As the stimuli increase in their intensity, be they 
 of an external or internal nature be they toxic, such 
 as the influence of a poison, or purely mechanical, 
 such as the action of a blow, or be they of a purely 
 internal psycho-physiological character, such as a strong 
 emotion a process of dissolution sets in, and the highest, 
 the most unstable, the least organized constellations of 
 clusters are the first to dissolve. With the further in- 
 crease of the intensity of the stimulus the dissolution 
 goes deeper and extends further the simpler, the more 
 stable, the more organized systems become dissolved. 
 The psycho-physical content, however, does not disap- 
 pear with the dissolution of the system ; the content ex- 
 ists in the less complex forms of cell-associations, and 
 psychically in the simpler forms of mental synthesis. 
 
 The same result may be effected by stimuli of less 
 intensity but of longer duration. A durable hurtful 
 stimulus is in fact by far the more detrimental to the 
 life of cell-aggregation. The pathological process of 
 dissociation and disaggregation may be regarded as a 
 function of two factors of duration and intensity. 
 
 Such a dissociation is not of an organic but of a 
 functional character. The association fibres that con- 
 nect groups into systems, communities, clusters, con- 
 stellations contract. The fine processes of the nerve-
 
 212 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 cells p , the dendrons, or the terminal arborization, or the 
 collaterals that touch these dendrons, thus forming the 
 elementary group, retract and cease to come in contact* 
 
 Association fibres combining the highest constella- 
 tions are the first to give way ; they are the latest to 
 arise in the course of psycho-physical evolution, they 
 are the most unstable, the least organized, and are also 
 the first to succumb to the process of dissolution. The 
 instability of association fibres is proportionate to the 
 complexity and instability of the joined clusters and 
 constellations. 
 
 At the first onslaught of inimical stimuli the cell- 
 communities combined into clusters and constellations 
 by association fibres become dissociated and independ- 
 ent of one another. Cell-communities, being more 
 firmly organized than clusters and constellations, of 
 which they are a part, and acting as a more organized 
 whole, resist longer the action of hurtful stimuli. The 
 association-cells that connect different clustered cell- 
 communities contract or retract their fine terminal 
 processes, and the cluster is dissolved. As the hurtful 
 stimuli become more intense, the systems within the 
 cell-community, though more firmly organized by asso- 
 ciation-fibres than the clusters, withdraw in their turn 
 from the action of the hurtful stimuli. The association- 
 cells that combine systems into communities retract 
 their terminal processes, and the result is the dissolu- 
 tion of the cell-community into its constituent systems, 
 which have more power of resistance than communities 
 of cells, because systems are far more stable, far better 
 
 * The neuraxon is not retracted as a whole ; it may remain prac- 
 tically stationary as far as its whole length is concerned, but the 
 fibrillae by contracting withdraw the terminal arborizations for 
 minute distances, and the same holds true of the dendrons.
 
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 213 
 
 organized. As the stimuli rise in intensity the process 
 of disaggregation reaches the systems and they fall 
 asunder into groups. With the further increase of the 
 intensity of the hurtful stimuli the process of disaggre- 
 gation aifects the group itself, the fine processes of the 
 nerve-cell, the dendrons or collaterals and the terminal 
 arborization of the neuraxon contract, withdraw from 
 the hurtful stimuli, as the monocellular organism re- 
 tracts its pseudopodia from the influence of noxious 
 stimuli. Thus the groups themselvea become disso- 
 ciated, and are dissolved into a number of simple and 
 isolated nerve-cells. For plan of the organization of 
 brain-cells, see Plate Y. 
 
 The following experiment, made at my request by 
 Mr. R. Floyd, at the Pathological Institute of the New 
 York State Hospitals, tends to confirm the theory of 
 retractility of the extensions of the ganglion cell proto- 
 plasm. 
 
 Fig. A shows the retraction of one of the ganglion 
 cells of the cockroach in the living state (Blatta orien- 
 talis) under the influence of a 
 strong toxic reagent, corrosive 
 sublimate. The outer circular 
 zone indicates the normal vol- 
 ume of the cell in the living 
 condition, and the retracted out- 
 line of the cell indicates the 
 reduction of the volume after 
 contact with the corrosive sub- 
 limate. The protoplasmic net- 
 work of the cell having become , 
 
 , . FIG. A. Retraction of the 
 
 contracted under the influence ganglion cell body (from 
 
 of this toxic reagent, the infer- * h cockroach) under the 
 v influence of a solution of 
 
 ence seems to be presented that corrosive sublimate.
 
 214 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 the fibrillse of the dendrons, and perhaps of the axon 
 also, which are continuous with the fibrillar network in 
 the cell-body, may become correspondingly retracted. 
 The dendrons are not shown in the preparation, but the 
 root of the axon with its parallel fibrils continuous with 
 the cell-body network is shown at the right-hand side. 
 
 This whole process of dissolution is functional, for 
 the disaggregation occurs only in the different forms 
 of cell combinations. The cell itself, however, with all 
 its processes remains intact and organically sound. 
 With the removal, therefore, of the hurtful stimuli, 
 there is once more a tendency, on account of the habit 
 acquired from previous combination, to form old asso- 
 ciations, and the old relations and functions are gradu- 
 ally restored. In. short, until the process of dissolution 
 reaches the individual cell, the process is not of an or- 
 ganic out of a functional character. 
 
 All functional diseases are cases of psycho-physio- 
 logical disaggregation, and the gravity of the disease is 
 proportional to the amount of dissociation. A func- 
 tional disease or functional change is a disaggregation 
 of clusters and systems of nerve-cells with their con- 
 comitant moments-consciousness and moments-contents. 
 This disaggregation consists in the withdrawal of the 
 simpler and better organized cell-colonies* from the 
 more complex systems, and, lastly, in the withdrawal of 
 individual cells from the group or cell-colony. The 
 whole process of dissociation or disaggregation is one 
 of contraction, of shrinkage, from the influence of hurt- 
 ful stimuli. First, the most unstable association-fibres 
 are loosened, and communication is interrupted in the 
 clusters forming the highest and most complex con- 
 stellations, and then, as the intensity of the stimuli in- 
 creases, the more stable association-fibres are loosened
 
 *~ "S. 5 
 
 I* I* 
 
 <M 13 t- ~ .s w -2 -~ ?5 JL 5 . 
 . ^pajTa^^^c^ g ^ 
 
 t> apja-,S^.-"-'S! KK. -P^ 
 
 - j4!ip.i^ r *s 
 
 > |Il.sp.l|.|j^ 1> 
 
 i ? 
 
 I 
 
 f .ll|H|1li:>'li^ g 8 - E ^s 
 
 M ffl .2 S < g-i 'C .S- -^ -5 fe JO - S ^ s 2 jhM 
 
 =g|sg ..gg^Sc ^I-'S S'1 B IS^^ 
 
 j-" 23^Xi SSc5wD2 * uH^"OJ 
 
 fi s T; -r? ** tc a
 
 
 
 
 x - "1% 
 
 y|| 

 
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 215 
 
 from the systems they connect. "With the further in- 
 crease of the stimuli the process of disaggregation de- 
 scends still lower, to the elementary group formed of 
 individual cells ; the cells withdraw the terminal pro- 
 cesses by which they come in contact with those of 
 other cells in the same group. 
 
 In post-hypnotic states, in cases that go under 
 the name of hysteria, in many forms of aphasia, in 
 many obscure mental diseases, in many psychic states 
 subsequent to great mental shocks, in many mental 
 maladies known as the " psychic equivalent of epi- 
 lepsy," * we meet with cases of different degrees of 
 cell-disaggregations, accompanied by all shades and 
 forms of mental dissociation or amnesia, forms and 
 types which I shall discuss further on. These forms 
 may be spontaneous, as in cases of diseases, or they 
 may be artificial, as in the case of hypnosis. One 
 psycho-pathological process, however, underlies all the 
 various forms of functional diseases, and that is the 
 process of cell-disaggregation, with its concomitant 
 dissociation of moments-consciousness.^ 
 
 * See Dr. Van Gieson and Sidis, Epilepsy and Expert Testimony, 
 New York State Hospitals Bulletin, April, 1897. - 
 
 f I wish here to express my acknowledgment and sincere thanks 
 to Dr. Ira Van Gieson, Director of the Pathological Institute of 
 the New York State Hospitals, for his kind assistance afforded me 
 in the preparation of the accompanying plate. 
 
 15
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE CASE OF THE REV. THOMAS CARSON HANNA. 
 
 IMPORTANT as the problem of amnesia is for psychol- 
 ogy and psychiatry, no case of amnesia has been studied 
 carefully and experimented on, so as to bring out the 
 inner nature of the subconscious self. Fortunately, a 
 very important case of amnesia recently fell under my 
 care and observation. Dr. S. P. Goodhart, of New 
 York, in making a clinical examination of a case of 
 amnesia and not finding any external signs of organic 
 lesion, had the kindness to refer the case to me for 
 psychological investigation. Thanks to the scientific 
 spirit and excellent facilities for research work at the 
 Pathological Institute of the New York State Hos- 
 pitals, I was enabled to undertake the work. Dr. 
 Goodhart was so much interested in the case that he 
 gave up much of his time to assist me in my psycho- 
 logical investigations of the intricacies of this case. 
 
 This case of amnesia is certainly unique in the 
 annals of psychiatry, because it presents such a rich 
 store of manifold phenomena bearing an intimate rela- 
 tion to many important problems in the science of 
 psychology, and especially because no other case within 
 my knowledge has been so closely and vigilantly 
 watched, so carefully experimented upon, and so many 
 momentous results elicited concerning the nature of 
 the subconscious. From a clinical standpoint, too, this 
 
 216
 
 THE CASE OF THE REV. THOMAS C. HANNA. 217 
 
 case of amnesia is of the utmost consequence, on ac- 
 count of the methods worked out for the diagnosis of 
 different types of amnesia. From a practical thera- 
 peutic standpoint the case can not but be of the highest 
 interest, because of the psycho-therapeutic methods 
 first worked out and applied by me to this case in order 
 to effect a complete cure. 
 
 I give here but a very brief outline of this ex- 
 tremely interesting case, since a full account of it, 
 together with a discussion of the methods used and the 
 results arrived at, will appear in the State Hospitals' 
 Bulletin, published by the New York State Hospitals. 
 For our purpose, meanwhile, a short account of the case 
 will suffice to reveal the presence and the nature of the 
 secondary self, to work out the different forms of sub- 
 conscious states, and to classify the different types of 
 amnesia to which these states may give rise. 
 
 The following is a brief statement of the case : 
 The patient, Rev. Thomas C. Hanna, of Plantsville, 
 Conn., twenty-five years of age, is a man of extraor- 
 dinary abilities and high aspirations. He has an ex- 
 cellent university education. He has a good family 
 history, free from any taint of degeneration. He is 
 possessed of a vigorous, healthy constitution and of a 
 strong power of will. On April 15, 189Y, Mr. Hanna 
 met with an accident ; he fell from a carriage, and was 
 picked up in a state of unconsciousness. When the 
 patient came to himself he was like one just born. He 
 lost all knowledge acquired by him from the date of 
 his birth up to the time of the accident. He lost all 
 power of voluntary activity, knew nothing of his own 
 personality, and could not recognise persons or objects. 
 He had, in fact, no idea whatever of an external world. 
 Objects, distance, time did not exist for him. Move-
 
 218 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 ments alone attracted his involuntary attention, and 
 these he liked to have repeated. Nothing remained of 
 his past life, not even a meaningless word, syllable, or 
 articulate sound. He was totally deprived of speech. 
 He had lost all comprehension of language. The con- 
 versation of the people around him was to him nothing 
 but sounds, without any meaning. He had lost all sense 
 of orderliness in his responses to the calls of Nature. 
 The patient was smitten with full mental blindness, with 
 the malady of complete oblivion. Impressions coming 
 to him from the external world had lost their meaning ; 
 the patient did not know how to interpret them. He 
 was like a newborn babe. The patient opened his eyes 
 on a fresh world. Impressions received by his sense 
 organs kept his attention busy in the elaboration of his 
 new world of experience. He did not know, could not 
 recognise anything from his former life. No object, 
 no person, however intimate and near, awakened in him 
 even the vaguest sense of familiarity. 
 
 The patient had to learn all over again. He soon 
 regained the use of his voluntary muscles from invol- 
 untary movements and instruction. He learned to use 
 his arms and legs in walking and working, and ac- 
 quired a knowledge of objects and their distance ; he 
 no longer attempted to seize his own image in the mir- 
 ror, no longer stretched out his hand to grasp distant 
 trees or far-off shining lights. He learned to know 
 different articles of food ; he no longer ate apple, core, 
 and stem, nor did he any more attempt to devour cakes 
 of soap given to him. With a strong intelligence left 
 entirely intact the patient learned things very quickly. 
 His progress in the acquirement of knowledge was 
 such a rapid one that in a few weeks he was fairly able 
 to comprehend his environment and to communicate
 
 THE CASE OF THE REV. THOMAS C. HANNA. 219 
 
 with people. At first he imitated words and phrases 
 heard, thinking that this would help him to make his 
 wants known to others ; then he dropped this method, 
 and by systematic imitation of words in connection 
 with the objects they indicated the patient learned to 
 speak. He also gained a knowledge of reading and 
 writing, in a very imperfect way, though. In reading, 
 he asked for the meaning of nearly every third word, 
 and his writing was like that of a child who had just 
 begun to learn the formation of letters. His reading 
 was extremely slow, hesitating, and his handwriting 
 awkward. He was ambidextrous ; he could write 
 equally well with both hands, something the patient 
 could not achieve before the accident. 
 
 All knowledge of his life before the accident was 
 totally gone; all his scholarly attainments, all his 
 higher scientific and linguistic acquirements, all the 
 memories of his former experience, seemed to have 
 been wiped out by the destructive violence of the catas- 
 trophe. Persons whom he once knew intimately had 
 to be introduced to him again. He could not recognise 
 his parents, nor the young lady to whom he was at- 
 tached. From a later inquiry it was found that the 
 patient lost his sexual instincts. He had no idea of the 
 sexual functions and of the difference between men 
 and women. The only life experience known to him 
 dated from the time of the accident. He was prac- 
 tically but a few weeks old, and in this brief period of 
 time he rapidly passed in his development through all 
 the stages an infant passes in its slow growth of years. 
 
 When I first met the patient I found him in a state 
 of complete amnesia. To quote from my notes taken 
 at that time : 
 
 "H. has absolutely no recollection of any experi-
 
 220 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 ence previous to the accident. His former life is com- 
 pletely gone from his memory. He has recollections 
 only for such events of his life as have occurred since 
 the injury. The patient is like one just born, a being 
 that had just entered into life. Patient says ' I know ' 
 of events that have occurred since the accident ; of ex- 
 periences previous to that time he knows from reports, 
 of what ' others tell him.' He regards the history of 
 his life before the accident as an experience that had 
 occurred within the life of quite a different person. 
 
 " He is but a few weeks old, and no memory of 
 his previous life spontaneously occurs to him. The 
 accident may be considered as the boundary line sepa- 
 rating two distinct lives of the same individual. What 
 had occurred in his former life before the accident is 
 unknown to the personality formed after the accident. 
 Two sebves seem to dwell within H. One seems to be 
 deadened, crushed in the accident, and the other is a 
 living self whose knowledge and experience are but of 
 yesterday. It seems to be a case of double conscious- 
 ness, and the patient is now in a secondary state." 
 
 Such was the cursory diagnosis of the case the very 
 first time I met the Rev. Th. C. Hanna, and I was glad to 
 find that the diagnosis was fully verified by the results. 
 
 The patient was then examined and tested in differ- 
 ent ways and was found perfectly normal in all other 
 respects. No lesion was found anywhere; no abnor- 
 mality could be discovered in his organic or psycho- 
 motor life. He was well and healthy. There was not 
 the least disturbance in his sense organs, no sign of 
 peripheral or central injury. His sensibility and re- 
 actions to sense stimuli were fully normal. 
 
 His intelligence, his power of inference, his acute- 
 ness for distinguishing fine points, his persistence in
 
 THE CASE OF THE REV. THOMAS C. HANNA. 221 
 
 carrying on a long and complicated train of reasoning, 
 were truly remarkable. His sense of number and his 
 perception of form and symmetry were admirable. He 
 showed the superiority of his mind by his inquisitive- 
 ness and his great anxiety to learn new things. Al- 
 though he had not yet learned (in this state) his frac- 
 tions, nor did he know anything of geometry, he still 
 could solve very complicated problems in a simple way, 
 making the best use of the knowledge he acquired. 
 
 The tenacity with which he retained the knowledge 
 once acquired was truly astounding. His memory was 
 extraordinary, and whatever was mentioned to him once 
 was retained by him down to the least detail ever 
 after. His appreciation of the beautiful was keen ; his 
 disgust for the ugly was extreme ; he shivered and 
 turned away at the sight of deformity. He was ex- 
 tremely sensitive to the harmonious. In his morality 
 he was as pure and innocent as a child. What struck 
 me especially was his patience, and the total absence of 
 any angry moods. The only flaw was the incomplete- 
 ness of his acquired material. He asked the meaning 
 of the simplest words, did not know the spelling of the 
 most commonplace names, and wondered at trite things 
 of ordinary life, as if witnessing something unusual, 
 something he had " never seen before," to use the pa- 
 tient's own words. 
 
 His keen sense of the proportionate, the harmoni- 
 ous, and the musical, his delicate appreciation of the 
 good and the beautiful, his remarkable logical acumen, 
 his great power of carrying on a long train of reason- 
 ing, the extraordinary rapidity and facility with which 
 he acquired new knowledge, the immediate use to 
 which he put it, the significant fact that in the course 
 of a few weeks he learned to speak English correctly,
 
 222 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 pronouncing well and making no mistakes all that, 
 taken as a whole, confirmed me in the conclusion that 
 the old personality was not crushed to death, that it was 
 only dissociated from the rest of conscious life, and that 
 from the subconscious depth into which it sunk it still 
 exerted a great influence on the newly formed person- 
 ality of the patient. 
 
 To tap the subconscious self and find whether or not 
 the seemingly dead experiences are present there, the 
 patient was asked to relate his dreams. 
 
 " I have two kinds of dreams," he answered. " In 
 the one kind the pictures are not clear ; I can recall, 
 but I can not see them well. In the other kind of 
 dreams it is so clear that even now I can see them well." 
 The first kind of dreams, the indistinct ones, were those 
 commonplace dreams of everyday life. They were all 
 experiences coming from the patient's life after the ac- 
 cident. The second kind of dreams, however, proved 
 to be of the highest importance ; they were rifts through 
 which one could catch a glimpse into the darkness of 
 the subconscious life. 
 
 It turned out that the dreams related by the patient, 
 and characterized by him as "clear picture dreams," 
 and afterward as " visions," and which we may term 
 " vivid experiences," in contradistinction to dreams be- 
 ing " faint experiences " if compared to those of the 
 waking life, it turned out that these dreams were real 
 occurrences of the patient's former life now lapsed from 
 his memory. The patient, however, did not recognise 
 them as past experiences. To him they were extraor- 
 dinarily vivid dreams, strange visions, having taken 
 place within his present life experience and without the 
 least hint as to their qualitative pastness. The mean- 
 ing of these visions was beyond the patient's ken.
 
 THE CASE OF THE REV. THOMAS C. HANNA. 223 
 
 In these visions, incidents, names of persons, of ob- 
 jects, of places, were arising from the depths of the pa- 
 tient's split-off subconscious life, and, reaching the sur- 
 face of the upper consciousness, were synthetized within 
 the narrowed circle of the patient's waking self. This 
 synthesis in memory, however, lacked the element of 
 recognition in so far as the life previous to the accident 
 was concerned. The patient did remember well the 
 " visions," but he did not refer them to his previous life 
 history; he regarded them as "lively dreams." The 
 different proper names brought up to his memory by 
 the " visions " were to him meaningless, so many empty 
 sounds which could only be understood by the experi- 
 enced observer, or by his parents, who were acquainted 
 with all the details of his life. Thus, in one of his 
 dreams the patient saw a house on which there was a 
 sign with the following letters (he spelled them out) : 
 N-E-W B-O-S-T-O-N J-TJ-N-C. He could now make out 
 what N-E-W meant, as he had since learned the word 
 " new," but the meaning of the rest of the letters was 
 to him entirely unintelligible and unfamiliar. 
 
 The patient's father, who was present at the re- 
 counting of the dreams, identified the places described 
 by his son, and found that all the names of the places, 
 persons, and objects were perfectly correct. Mr. Hanna 
 not having heard of all that since the accident, re- 
 garded these experiences as " strange dreams " which 
 he could not understand, because he saw in them places, 
 persons, and objects which, according to his own state- 
 ments, he had "never seen before." The patient 
 greatly wondered at the comments and amplifications 
 the father was making on " the visions." When the 
 father accidentally happened to mention the name 
 " Martinoe," the patient's amazement knew no bounds.
 
 224 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 " That is the name of a place I passed in my dream 
 (vision)," the patient exclaimed, " but how do you know 
 it ? It is only a dream ! " 
 
 The subconscious memories of the patient were then 
 tested by different methods, especially by the method 
 which I. term " hypnoidization." This method consists 
 in the following procedure: The patient is asked to 
 close his eyes and keep as quiet as possible, without, 
 however, making any special effort to put himself in 
 such a state. He is then asked to attend to some stim- 
 ulus, such as reading or singing. When the reading is 
 over, the patient, with his eyes still shut, is asked to 
 repeat it, and tell what came into his mind during the 
 reading, during the repetition, or after it. Sometimes, 
 as when the song-stimulus is used, the patient is simply 
 asked to tell the nature of ideas and images that en- 
 tered into liis mind at that time or soon after. This 
 method, simple as it is, I find to work wonders, espe- 
 cially in cases of amnesia. 
 
 In the case of our patient the hypnoidization 
 brought forth phenomena of the utmost interest and 
 value. Events, names of persons, of places, sentences, 
 phrases, whole paragraphs of books totally lapsed from 
 memory, and in languages the very words of which 
 sounded bizarre to his ears and the meaning of which 
 was to him inscrutable all that flashed lightninglike 
 on the patient's mind. So successful was this method, 
 that on one occasion the patient was frightened by the 
 flood of memories that rose suddenly from the obscure 
 subconscious regions, deluged his mind, and were ex- 
 pressed aloud, only to be forgotten the next moment. 
 To the patient himself it appeared as if another being 
 took possession of his tongue. 
 
 The probing of the patient's subconscious self made
 
 THE CASE OF THE REV. THOMAS C. HANNA. 225 
 
 it perfectly clear that his old and forgotten memories 
 did not perish, that they were present to the secondary 
 consciousness. 
 
 To be still more sure of my conclusion, I arranged 
 with Dr. Goodhart, who assisted me in my psychologi- 
 cal examination and investigation of the case, to watch 
 for the appearance of " the vision." After having 
 watched in vain a whole night, we were at last amply 
 rewarded for our vigilance ; we were fortunate enough 
 to be present at the visitation of one of those "visions." 
 Dr. Goodhart was taking notes, while I was trying to 
 insinuate myself by means of questioning into the pa- 
 tient's mind, and lead him on so as to reveal the inner 
 working of his subconscious mental states. 
 
 The patient acted out and Jived through experiences 
 long forgotten and buried. He was in what may be 
 called a " hypnoidic " state. In these hypnoidic states 
 moments-consciousness not synthetized within the focus 
 of the ego, moments-consciousness dissociated from the 
 main stream of personal life, but present to the less or- 
 ganized and less focalized life of the subconsciousness, 
 emerge from the obscure depths of the mind in focal- 
 ized clusters, in synthetized systems of moments-con- 
 sciousness. Outlived personalities with these moments- 
 consciousness come to life again, run through in a short 
 period the whole cycle of events and actions they had 
 once worked through. These outlived personalities 
 with their moments-content of consciousness become 
 infused with new life activity, only once more to merge 
 into the ocean of disaggregated consciousness and to 
 give place to new focalization, to new resurrected per- 
 sonalities seemingly dead years ago. 
 
 By leading questions, without his least knowledge 
 of it, the patient, as if answering to his own thoughts,
 
 226 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 was induced to tell of his life forgotten in the waking 
 state. Thus the rich store of the subconscious self was 
 laid bare. The amnesia was only for the self-conscious 
 waking personality, hut not for the aggregated totality 
 of moments-consciousness of the suocon-scious life. 
 
 A week later the patient was transferred, for the 
 sake of further investigation, to the Pathological Insti- 
 tute of the New York State Hospitals, and under the 
 influence of psychic and physiological stimuli * fell into 
 a state of double consciousness or double personality. 
 The old memories, instead of rising in the form of 
 hypnoidic and hypnoidal states, rose to the full light 
 of the upper consciousness. The " primary state " in- 
 cluded the patient's whole life up to the time of the 
 accident; the "secondary state" dated from the acci- 
 dent, and included all the knowledge and experience 
 acquired in that state. In the primary state the patient 
 was discussing metaphysics, philosophy, theology, and 
 even once wrote for me a concise statement on the 
 science of pathology ; in the secondary state he did not 
 even know the meaning of these terms. In the pri- 
 mary state his handwriting was fine and delicate ; in 
 the secondary state it was awkward and childish, and he 
 could only print capitals, as he had not yet learned to 
 write them. "Whatever he did in one state he could re- 
 member only when he again passed into that state. The 
 events of one state were not known to the patient when 
 in the other state. Complete amnesia separated the 
 two states. 
 
 In the artificially induced persistent alternation of 
 the two states, all the primary entered into one synthetic 
 
 * During the whole course of investigation and treatment of the 
 case hypnosis was not and could not be used. The reasons will be 
 given in the full report of the case.
 
 THE CASE OF THE REV. THOMAS C. HANNA. 227 
 
 unity of consciousness, and so also all the secondary 
 states. By means of the psychic and physiological 
 stimuli used by me, two personalities were crystallized 
 in the depths of his subconsciousness and kept alter- 
 nating in the upper consciousness. A short interval 
 of complete unconsciousness or of a low desultory con- 
 sciousness with full anaesthesia and analgesia intervened 
 between the two states. This interval lasted from one 
 to about three minutes. This intermediate state was an 
 attack ; it was sudden in its onset, and may be termed 
 hypnoleptic* 
 
 By means of a method used by me a method the 
 value of which seems to me to be inestimable for theo- 
 retical and practical purposes the two alternating per- 
 sonalities were finally run together into one.f The 
 patient is now perfectly well and healthy, and has re- 
 sumed his former vocation. 
 
 * A knowledge of the hypnoleptic state is of the utmost value 
 to therapeutics. A discussion of this state will appear in the State 
 Hospitals' Bulletin. 
 
 f An account and discussion of the method of cure will be given 
 in the State Hospitals' Bulletin.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FOKMS OF SUBCONSCIOUS STATES AND TYPES OF AMNESIA. 
 
 WITH the case of H. before us, we return once more 
 to the discussion of subconscious states and types of 
 amnesia. In our analysis of consciousness we arrived 
 at the conclusion that consciousness consists of moments- 
 consciousness. A moment-consciousness contains as 
 much psychic matter or moments-content as is present 
 within one given synthesis of consciousness. Now, the 
 subconscious includes within it the sum total of all the 
 moments-content and also of all the moments-con- 
 sciousness in a condition of indifferent association and 
 dissociation. 
 
 The subconscious is not a selective activity ; it simply 
 stands for the sum total of all the moments-conscious- 
 ness. In the moment-consciousness, again, selection is 
 absent; it is simply a matter of chance what psychic 
 matter shall enter into the synthesis of the moment- 
 consciousness. It is only as we reach the higher plane 
 of psychic life characteristic of the primary self, it is 
 only then that we for the first time meet with selective 
 activity. The primary self, being an active self-con- 
 scious synthesis, is selective in its nature. Out of a 
 number of sensations, ideas, and feelings the activity 
 of the primary self selects only some, and leaves the rest 
 in the background of consciousness. The primary self 
 
 228
 
 TYPES OF AMNESIA. 229 
 
 has its more or less definite, determinate outlines that 
 constitute its personal character. Only material of a 
 certain kind and quality, only moments-content and 
 moments-consciousness of a definite character fitting 
 into the form activity of the self, only such material is 
 taken up within the circle of its experience ; the rest of 
 the material is simply ignored. This leaving out, this 
 ignoring of many moments, ranges through all degrees 
 of synthetic activity, from the laying up of the mo- 
 ments with a view to further use, from the possibility 
 of synthetizing the rejected material up to the total 
 ignoring of it, when the material is entirely resigned, 
 never to be used again because of its total incongruence 
 with the character of the selective activity or because 
 of the weakness within the energy of the synthetic 
 agency. Many mental diseases, and especially those 
 that go under the collective name of hysteria, have as 
 their psychic cause some of those conditions or all of 
 them in different combination and in various degrees 
 of intensity. 
 
 This ignoring of mental material, ranging through 
 all shades and degrees, and also the selective synthetic 
 agency, having different degrees of weakness in the 
 energy of its intensive and extensive "activity, give rise 
 to dissociation of mental states, to disaggregation of 
 synthetized moments from those that were not taken 
 up in that particular synthesis that constitutes for the 
 time being the patient's principal individuality. All 
 the types and degrees of amnesia depend on the na- 
 ture and degree of such dissociation or disintegration. 
 Where the dissociation is incomplete the amnesia will 
 also be incomplete. 
 
 Moments-consciousness as well as moments-content 
 may drop out from the unity of the synthetic con-
 
 230 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 sciousness and produce forgetfulness or amnesia. In 
 such a kind of amnesia, however, the gap formed is 
 felt and appreciated by consciousness as a gap. 
 Glimpses of memory come back and disappear again ; 
 the forgotten moments tend to recur times and again. 
 The range of such an amnesia varies greatly, from 
 simple forgetfulness of some few details to the oblivion 
 of many important events. This type of amnesia may 
 be characterized as reproductive or recurrent. 
 
 Where the dissociation, however, is complete, the 
 amnesia in regard to the disaggregated new synthetized 
 material is total. Under conditions that bring about a 
 disruption in consciousness the whole moment of syn- 
 thetic self -consciousness may in a disaggregated form 
 fall into the region of desultory moments-consciousness, 
 and very frequently with a tendency to combine and 
 emerge at the first favorable opportunity to the sur- 
 face of the primary consciousness. Meanwhile, another 
 series of moments-content and of moments-conscious- 
 ness rise to the level of the upper consciousness and 
 become -synthetized in another different moment . that 
 takes the place of the disaggregated one. Between the 
 two moments there is a break, a gap ; fragmentary re- 
 production of the one by the other is not impossible ; 
 if induced by certain methods, the recognition element 
 may be present, but may also be totally lacking. This 
 form of amnesia may be termed irretraceable. 
 
 Many of the former moments consciousness and 
 moments content may come up in this newly formed 
 moment consciousness, still the moment, on the whole, 
 is a new and different synthesis. Hence we may say 
 that irretraceable amnesia is the possible manifestation 
 of the phenomena of double consciousness. 
 
 We may put it down as a law, that the degree of
 
 TYPES OF AMNESIA. 231 
 
 amnesia is proportional to the amount of psycho- 
 physiological disaggregation. 
 
 The psycho-physiological process of dissolution may 
 extend still further and deeper. From a disaggrega- 
 tion of systems of moments-consciousness the process 
 may pass into a disintegration of the moments-content 
 themselves, and the amnesia then is absolute ; for a 
 disintegration of the moment content itself practically 
 means a total loss of that psychic content and the 
 impossibility of its reinstatement in the synthesis of 
 moment consciousness. 
 
 The physiological side of amnesia is to be found in 
 the disaggregation of clusters of cells into their con- 
 stituent systems and groups. This disaggregation is 
 due to the violent, hurtful impressions of strong stimuli 
 that effect a contraction of these systems and groups 
 joined by association fibres into clusters. Under the 
 influence of some strong injurious stimulus a whole 
 system or group may withdraw from a constellation of 
 co-ordinate systems of cells, but in such a way that the 
 contraction is effected only in relation to some of the 
 systems that is, only some of the association paths get 
 interrupted, while through other paths the system still 
 stands in connection with the cluster .or constellation. 
 There will, of course, be amnesia, but it will be of a 
 vacillating, unstable character, because the connection 
 of the disaggregated system can be effected in an indi- 
 rect way through other systems. Such amnesia will be 
 reproductive. The easiness with which this reproduc- 
 tion can be brought about is in inverse proportion to 
 the extent of disaggregation effected, in inverse pro- 
 portion to the number of interrupted association paths. 
 
 If, however, the system has contracted completely, 
 and has fully withdrawn from the cluster of systems so 
 16
 
 232 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 that all association paths are interrupted, the result is 
 complete irretraceable amnesia. 
 
 In irretraceable amnesia the system that has with- 
 drawn is perfectly sound, only it possesses groups of 
 cells of a less complex nature, and the former connec- 
 tions can be again reinstated under favorable circum- 
 stances. Should, however, the hurtful stimulus be of 
 such a nature as to destroy a whole system of cells, 
 then the amnesia effected is absolute. The connections 
 can not any more be reinstated, because the system 
 Uself is destroyed. 
 
 The process of disaggregation setting in under the 
 action of strong and hurtful stimuli is not something 
 new and different in kind from the usual ; it is a con- 
 tinuation of the process of association and dissociation 
 normally going on in the higher constellations. The 
 one process gradually passes into the other with the 
 increase of the intensity or duration of the hurtful 
 stimulus. Both processes are of one and the same na- 
 ture. A further continuation of the process of disag- 
 gregation passes into that of cell destruction, which, 
 accepting Dr. Ira Yan Gieson's terminology of cell 
 disintegration, may be characterized as cytoclasis.* 
 
 The process may be represented as follows : 
 
 Association and Dissociation I Disaggregation I Cytoclasis 
 Normal _^-^^ Dissolution ___ "^ 
 
 Psychologically, we find that different degrees of 
 amnesia shade into each other imperceptibly, and that 
 between the two extremes namely, that of normal 
 f orgetf ulness and that of absolute amnesia there exists 
 
 * See Dr. Van Gieson's article, The Toxic Basis of Neural Dis- 
 eases, State Hospitals' Bulletin, No. 4.
 
 TYPES OF AMNESIA. 233 
 
 a whole uninterrupted series of gradations of amnesia, 
 forming a continuous progression. 
 
 This may graphically be represented as follows : 
 
 Fdrgetfulness and Recall I Reproductive I Irretraceable I Absolute 
 
 - rJt 1 1 
 
 Normal 
 
 Amnesia 
 
 We may now co-ordinate the two series and graph- 
 ically represent them by two parallel lines : * 
 
 Association and Dissociation I Disaggregation [ Cytoclasis 
 
 ^ Dissolution 
 
 Normal 
 
 Forgetfulness and Recall | Reproductive | Irretraceable [ Absolute 
 _____ Amnesia ___ -"'' 
 
 Normal 
 
 In reproductive or recurrent amnesia the patient 
 must make a special effort to bring out the dissociated 
 experiences, and the strength of the effort is propor- 
 tional to the amount of dissociation. In irretraceable 
 amnesia the patient can by no effort of will bring back 
 the lost memories, but they emerge under artificial con- 
 ditions, such as in the state of hypnosis -or in the induc- 
 tion of slight hypnoidal states, when isolated ideas and 
 sensations, fragments of experiences, without being 
 recognised as past, emerge to the surface of conscious- 
 ness ; also in hypnoidic states, when all the memories 
 are found to be present. The case of Hanna is a fair 
 example. In the hypnoidic states, as the "vision 
 
 * The physiological process of association and dissociation cor- 
 responds to the psychological process of forgetfulness and recall; 
 the process of disaggregation, to the forms of reproductive and irre- 
 traceable amnesia. Cytoclasis is concomitant with absolute amnesia.
 
 234 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 dreams," the patient proved to know everything he 
 had forgotten in his seemingly normal waking state. 
 
 In absolute amnesia, however, there are no means 
 by which the lost memories may be restored ; no psychic 
 condition can reinstate them in consciousness. They 
 are gone and lost, never to return ; they are utterly de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 From a practical clinical standpoint it is of vital 
 importance to make a differential diagnosis as to the 
 kind of amnesia. In a case of amnesia with no possi- 
 bility on the side of the patient, no matter how strong 
 the efforts are, to bring up the lost memories, it is of 
 the utmost importance to find out whether it is a case 
 of irretraceable or a case of absolute amnesia, as the 
 prognosis and treatment in each one of the two mala- 
 dies are totally different. To make such a diagnosis, 
 the subconscious must be tapped by means of different 
 methods. 
 
 The clinician, the alienist, must bear in mind that a 
 case of amnesia, where tfie lost memories lie beyond the 
 control of the patient, may be irretraceable, disaggrega- 
 tvve, and therefore curable, or absolute, cytoclastic, and 
 therefore completely incurable. 
 
 Turning now to irretraceable or disaggregative am- 
 nesia, we find that hypnotic, hypnoid,* hypnoidic, and 
 hypnoidal states reveal the presence of lost memories 
 in the depths of the subconscious self. Memories 
 which the upper personality is unable to recall, and 
 
 * By the terra " hypnoid " I indicate the coexistence of two or 
 more fully independent functioning constellations of moments- 
 consciousness, such as is presented in the phenomena of automatic 
 writing and of hysteria. An experimental study of cases of hypnoid 
 states and the method of their complete and permanent cure will 
 appear in The State Hospitals' Bulletin.
 
 TYPES OF AMNESIA. 235 
 
 which seem to be altogether obliterated, suddenly 
 emerge to the surface of consciousness with the re- 
 moval of the upper layers of mental activity. In 
 hypnosis the removal of the waking consciousness is 
 followed by a state of high reflex suggestibility char- 
 acteristic of the indefinite nature of the secondary self. 
 In the hypnoidic state such suggestibility is absent, be- 
 cause another quasi -personality emerges with a more 
 or less definite character, a personality that is inac- 
 cessible to direct suggestion. The hypnoidic state, 
 however, is amenable to indirect suggestion. By means 
 of indirect suggestion it is even possible entirely to re- 
 move this hypnoidic personality, and have it replaced 
 by another one, which in its turn may be treated in 
 like manner. 
 
 The character of the hypnoidic individuality is some 
 outlived phase of the patient's personal life. Such 
 states may also be induced in hypnosis, but then the 
 hypnoidic state is vague and ill defined. More fre- 
 quently the hypnoidic state may be fully brought about 
 in post-hypnotic or what may be termed hypnonergic 
 states. I could effect such an analogous state in my 
 somnambulic subjects by post-hypnotic suggestion. The 
 difference between the post-hypnotic or hypnonergic 
 and the true spontaneous hypnoidic state consists in 
 the relation of the subject to external impressions. In 
 the hypnonergic state the subject receives external 
 impressions directly and refers them to some external 
 source. He hears, sees, feels, perceives things that hap- 
 pen around him, and frequently carries on very ani- 
 mated conversations on different topics. Even in the 
 case of post-hypnotic negative hallucinations, the pa- 
 tient is still fully alive to other not inhibited sense 
 impressions that reach him from all sides. Quite dif-
 
 236 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 ferent is the true hypnoidic state. The sense organs 
 of the patient are closed to the impressions of external 
 stimuli. He does not perceive anything that takes 
 place around him. His environment is that of the 
 past, and in it he lives and moves. Shut up within 
 one of his past lives, he remains insensible to the world 
 of his objective present. If by chance any impressions 
 do reach the subject, they are at once worked into his 
 present hallucinatory life experience. If the patient is 
 touched, squeezed, pricked, he feels nothing at all ; he 
 is totally anaesthesic and analgesic, and still within his 
 " vision " he may be extremely sensitive to pain, shiver 
 from cold, complain of fatigue, and undergo tortures 
 of pricking sensations caused by a strong gale blowing 
 icicles into his face. Of such a nature were the visions 
 in the case of Hanna. 
 
 The patient hears none of the conversation carried 
 on in his presence. When the patient is spoken to on 
 subjects not directly related to his resurrected life ex- 
 perience, he makes no reply ; he simply does not hear. 
 Only when he is addressed on something relating to 
 the experience he is passing through, it is only then 
 that he makes a reply. He does not realize, however, 
 that it is some one else who speaks to him ; his replies 
 to questions are to him either answers to his own 
 thoughts, or sometimes a case very rare he seems to 
 converse with some imaginary person within his hyp- 
 noidic state. 
 
 No suggestions are taken by the hypnoidic person- 
 ality. It is fully rational in relation to the environ- 
 ment in which it lives. Thus, in one of his hypnoidic 
 states Kev. Thomas C. Hanna lived through a terrible 
 accident that happened to him once. He was on Mount 
 Jewett, Pa. The wind blew high. Lightning rent
 
 TYPES OF AMNESIA. 237 
 
 the sky, thunder crashed overhead. The gale gained 
 strength and became a tempest. Broken branches 
 and trees were falling on all sides. " There is an old 
 woman with a child ! " he exclaimed. " Oh, it is ter- 
 rible ! it is terrible ! " he moaned. " "We must run ! 
 we must run ! I must drag the woman. Thunder ! 
 It is terrible ! Save the woman ! I am so cold ! My 
 heart is so weak ! Oh, it is terrible ! We must run ! 
 we must run ! " To my question whether he knew 
 Miss C., the answer of the hypnoidic personality was 
 highly interesting and instructive. "Don't know her 
 yet acquainted with her a year later. From Mount 
 Jewett to her is a year." (This was found to be cor- 
 rect.) "When I suggested to him that his friend S. was 
 with him, he laughed me to scorn. " That is impossi- 
 ble ! " he exclaimed ; " S, is many miles away from 
 here." I asked for the date. He gave the date in 
 which the event took place. " It is August now," he 
 said. "When I insisted that it was May (the actual time 
 when the vision occurred), the hypnoidic personality 
 became impatient, raised its hand, struck the bed with 
 great force, and exclaimed: "I am sure it is now 
 August. You can not make me crazy ! " 
 
 All that time the patient was sitting up in his bed, 
 with his eyes firmly shut, blind and deaf to all impres- 
 sions that had no relation to the " vision." By indi- 
 rect leading questions this particular personality gradu- 
 ally dwindled away, and lo ! a new personality appeared 
 on the scene a boy personality. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas C. Hanna became a boy of thir- 
 teen. The scenery changed completely. He was on 
 Umbrella Island. It was sunset, it was "beautiful." 
 He was expected for supper, but he was on the water, 
 rowing and fishing.
 
 238 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 On awakening from his hypnoidic state the patient 
 remembered the " vision " very clearly ; he could re- 
 produce it, as if it were impressed on his mind in im- 
 ages of fire. He could not recognise the experiences 
 of his vision as events that had taken place in his past 
 life ; he did not know that I or any one else conversed 
 with him and led him to give answers ; nor did he re- 
 member any of the many statements to my indirect 
 questioning he had made in his hypnoidic state. He 
 could not remember the answers he gave me on the 
 suggestion that his friend S. was with him ; he did not 
 know anything of the quarrel we had about the date ; 
 nor did he remember anything of the interesting in- 
 formation he gave me about the events of his life, such 
 as the date of his acquaintance with Miss C. He could 
 only remember, and that with extraordinary clearness 
 and distinctness, everything that directly related to the 
 " vision " itself. 
 
 Left to itself the hypnoidic personality tends to dis- 
 appear, to fall back into the undifferentiated mass of 
 moments-consciousness of the subconscious self, for the 
 hypnoidic personality is unstable in its nature. Unsta- 
 ble, however, as the hypnoidic personality is, it is in 
 closer contact with the subconscious life than is the 
 waking self. The hypnoidic personality is in possession 
 of facts, experiences, memories, of which the upper 
 central consciousness is entirely ignorant. Absolute 
 amnesia, where there is full destruction of psychic ex- 
 perience, is the only type of amnesia that may touch 
 the hypnoidic personality ; all other forms of amnesia 
 are maladies of the upper self. 
 
 The hypnoidal states are of an entirely different na- 
 ture. They are sudden intrusions of isolated moments- 
 consciousness into the upper regions of the waking
 
 TYPES OF AMNESIA. 239 
 
 personality, and can be induced by post-hypnotic sug- 
 gestion, as well as by methods of hypnoidization. Like 
 the hypnoidic, the hypnoidal states are outlived experi- 
 ences, but, unlike the hypnoidic state, they are not out- 
 lived personalities. The hypnoidal states are bits, mere 
 fragments of past experiences. 
 
 In hypnoidal states past, outlived experiences heave 
 up into the upper consciousness from the depths of the 
 subject's subconscious life. The subject does not wel- 
 come these experiences as his own ; he does not recog- 
 nise them as belonging to the stream of his conscious 
 life once lived through ; they are volcanic eruptions 
 from the subconscious life. 
 
 The hypnoidal differ from the hypnoidic states in 
 four very important points : 
 
 1. They can be and usually are artificially induced 
 by the method of hypnoidization. The hypnoidic can 
 not be artificially induced ; they are always spontaneous. 
 
 2. The upper consciousness takes direct cognizance 
 of the hypnoidal states in the moment of their appear- 
 ance. The hypnoidic states are not directly cognized 
 by the upper consciousness ; the latter is always absent 
 when the hypnoidic states are present. 
 
 3. The experience of hypnoidal states is vague, and 
 tends to disappear from the upper consciousness the 
 next moment after its occurrence. The experience of 
 the hypnoidic state is inscribed on the mnemonic tables 
 of the upper consciousness in letters of fire. 
 
 4. While the hypnoidic states form complete systems 
 of experiences, whole personalities, the hypnoidal states 
 are mere bits, chips of past experiences. 
 
 In both states, hypnoidic and hypnoidal, we find, 
 however, one common trait, and that is the emergence 
 of moments-consciousness that may be known and re-
 
 240 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 called, whether directly or indirectly, by the primary 
 self. These experiences, as we pointed out, are not re- 
 membered as past ; they are not regarded as experiences 
 that had taken place within the former life history of 
 the patient. 
 
 The most important element of memory namely, 
 recognition is here totally absent ; for memory is the 
 reproduction and recognition of one's past conscious 
 experience. Hence, where this recognition element is 
 lacking, there true memory is also absent. The repro- 
 duction of past experience without the element of recog- 
 nition, a condition of mind characteristic of hypnoidic 
 and hypnoidal states in their relations to the upper con- 
 sciousness, may be termed recognitive amnesia. 
 
 In contradistinction to this type of amnesia, there 
 is another one where not only recognition but even the 
 synthesis of reproduction is absent. Such a type may 
 be termed synthetic amnesia. 
 
 Irretraceable amnesia may be recognitive or syn- 
 thetic. 
 
 The dissociated moment may come and go, may sud- 
 denly emerge, to the surprise of the patient, to the upper 
 stream of consciousness, be synthetized, sometimes even 
 recognised, and then be lost again. Such a lapse of 
 memory may be termed simple amnesia. 
 
 Where the loss of memory is for events of a certain 
 period, as an hour, a day, a month, or even several 
 years, and where all events before and after that gap 
 can be recalled, then we have that type of amnesia which 
 is characterized as localized amnesia. 
 
 If the loss of memory is only for certain systems of 
 events, while other events that happened at the same 
 time can be fully recalled, such a loss is termed system- 
 atized amnesia.
 
 TYPES OF AMNESIA. 241 
 
 When the lost content remains unaltered during 
 the whole course of the disease, the amnesia is stable. 
 
 If the amnesia sets on at intervals, it is periodic. 
 
 If psychic states keep on alternating, each one be- 
 ing completely amnesic for the other, such as is the 
 case in double-consciousness, then the amnesia is alter- 
 nating. 
 
 When the content of memory is continually decreas- 
 ing, ending at last in a more or less total loss of it, such 
 as we find in general paralysis, then the amnesia \& pro- 
 gressive. 
 
 The dissociation in consciousness may be in relation 
 to sensations. The patient experiences the sensation 
 but does not comprehend its meaning. Tliis may be 
 termed sensory or perceptual amnesia. This form of 
 amnesia may be limited to one or two classes of sensa- 
 tions, or may extend to all of them. 
 
 If the amnesia is of one sense, it may be called local; 
 if of all of them, total sensory amnesia. 
 
 Where the dissociation occurs in the motor con- 
 sciousness or motor centres, the amnesia is motor. This 
 type may be again local or total. 
 
 If the amnesia is of the whole life experience, as it 
 is in the case of Th. C. H., it may be termed general. 
 
 If, however, the amnesia is of but a part of life 
 experience, as, for instance, in cases of aphasia, or of 
 localized amnesia, it may be termed special. 
 
 If the cause of the amnesic state is some intense 
 mechanical stimulus, such as a fall or a blow on the 
 head, the amnesia is traumatic. 
 
 Amnesia is toxic when the cause is some extrinsic 
 poison absorbed by the organism, as, for instance, in the 
 case of alcoholic intoxication. 
 
 Amnesia is autotoxic when the poison that causes
 
 242 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 the disease is periodically developed by the organism 
 itself, on account of its defective working and imper- 
 fect elimination of waste products. Such cases of am- 
 nesia may occur in the status epilepticus, in the states 
 of mind that go under the name of psychic equivalent 
 of epilepsy, which are found interspersed in the series 
 of typical epileptic motor attacks that are accompanied 
 by a mental activity that can rise no higher than the 
 most elementary desultory moment-consciousness. 
 
 If amnesia is the result of fatigue, of nervous ex- 
 haustion, or of the instability of central organization, it 
 may be termed asthenic. 
 
 Amnesia is emotional or pathematic when the cause 
 of it is an intense emotion. 
 
 These types of amnesia occur spontaneously in 
 many mental diseases, and can also be produced artifi- 
 cially by hypnotic suggestion. Whether artificial or 
 spontaneous, the mechanism of these types is at bot- 
 tom the same it is a disaggregation or disintegration 
 of moments-consciousness. 
 
 Thus there are three types of amnesia, if regarded 
 from the standpoint of extensiveness : 
 
 1. Reproductive. 
 
 2. Irretraceable or disaggregative. 
 
 3. Absolute or cytoclastic. 
 
 According to intensiveness, there are three types of 
 amnesia : 
 
 1. Simple. 
 
 2. Recognitive. 
 
 3. Synthetic. 
 
 According to the lost content, amnesia has six types : 
 
 1. General. 
 
 2. Special. 
 
 3. Localized.
 
 TYPES OF AMNESIA. 243 
 
 4. Systematized. 
 
 5. Sensory j loca1 ' 
 
 7 (total. 
 
 6. Motor | loca j- 
 
 I total. 
 
 According to stability or fluctuation of content 
 amnesia has four types : 
 
 1. Stable. 
 
 2. Periodic. 
 
 3. Alternating. 
 
 4. Progressive. 
 
 Etiologically, or according to cause, there are five 
 types of amnesia : 
 
 1. Traumatic. 
 
 2. Toxic. 
 
 3. Autotoxic. 
 
 4. Asthenic. 
 
 5. Emotional or pathematic. 
 
 A summary of all the principal forms of subcon- 
 scious states and of all the types of amnesia gives the 
 following table : 
 
 Forms of subconscious states : 
 
 1. Hypnotic. 
 
 2. Somnambulic. 
 
 3. Hypnonergic. 
 
 4. Hypnoid. 
 
 5. Hypnoidic. 
 
 6. Hypnoidal. 
 
 7. Hypnoleptic. 
 Types of amnesia : 
 
 1. Reproductive or recurrent. 
 
 2. Irretraceable or disaggregative. 
 
 3. Absolute or cytoclastic. 
 
 4. Simple.
 
 244 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 5. Recognitive. 
 
 6. Synthetic. 
 
 7. Localized. 
 
 8. Systematized. 
 
 n c ( local. 
 
 9. Sensory < 
 
 J ( total. 
 
 * n -\r . 
 
 10. Motor 
 
 ( total. 
 
 11. General. 
 
 12. Special. 
 
 13. Stable. 
 
 14. Periodic. 
 
 15. Alternating. 
 
 16. Progressive. 
 
 17. Traumatic. 
 
 18. Toxic. 
 
 19. Autotoxic. 
 
 20. Asthenic. 
 
 21. Emotional or patliematiCo
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 
 
 THE problem that interested me most was to come 
 into closer contact with the subwaking self. What is 
 its fundamental nature ? What are the main traits of 
 its character ? Since in hypnosis the subwaking self is 
 freed from its chains, untrammelled by the shackles of 
 the upper controlling self ; since in hypnosis the under- 
 ground self is more or less exposed to our view, it is 
 plain that experimentation on the hypnotic self will in- 
 troduce us into the secret life of the subwaking self ; 
 for, as we pointed out above, the two are identical. 
 Now I have made all kinds of experiments, bringing 
 subjects into catalepsy, somnambulisms, giving illusions, 
 hallucinations, post-hypnotic suggestions, etc. As a 
 result of my work one central truth stands out clear 
 before my mind, and that is the extraordinary plas- 
 ticity of the subwaking self. If you can only in some 
 way or other succeed in separating the primary con- 
 trolling consciousness from the lower one, the waking 
 from the subwaking self, so that they should no longer 
 keep company, you can do anything you please with 
 the subwaking self. You can make its legs, hands, any 
 limb you like, perfectly rigid ; you can make it eat pep- 
 per for sugar ; you can make it drink water for wine ; 
 
 245
 
 246 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 feel cold or warm ; hear delightful music ; feel pain or 
 pleasure; see oranges where there is nothing; nay, you 
 can make it even eat them and feel their taste. In 
 short, you can do with the subwaking self anything you 
 like. The subwaking consciousness is in your power 
 like clay in the hands of the potter. The nature of 
 its plasticity is revealed by its complete suggestibility. 
 Unlike clay, however, it can not be hardened into any 
 permanent and durable form. 
 
 I wanted to get an insight into the very nature of 
 the subwaking self ; I wanted to make personal acquaint- 
 ance with it. "What is its personal character?" I 
 asked. How surprised was I when, after close inter- 
 rogation, the answer came to me that there could possi- 
 bly be no personal acquaintance with it, for the sub- 
 waking self lacks personality. Under certain condi- 
 tions a cleavage may occur between the two selves, and 
 then the subwaking self may rapidly grow, develop, 
 and attain the plane of self -consciousness, get crystal- 
 lized into a person, and give itself a name, imaginary 
 or borrowed from history. But this newly crystallized 
 personality is, as a rule, extremely unstable, ephemeral, 
 shadowy in its outlines, tends to subside, to become 
 amorphous, again and again gets formed, rising to the 
 surface of life, then sinks and disappears for evermore. 
 The two selves blend, and once more form one con- 
 scious individuality. 
 
 The following account by an automatic writer * is 
 extremely interesting from our point of view. I bring 
 the account in full, as I find it of great value. 
 
 "The experiment," writes Mr. A., "was made 
 
 * Myers, Some So-called Spiritualistic Phenomena, Proceedings 
 of the Society for Psychical Research, November, 1884.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 247 
 
 Easter, 1883, on one day, and, after an interval of 
 a week, continued on three consecutive days. Upon 
 the first day I became seriously interested ; on the 
 second puzzled ; on the third I seemed to be enter- 
 ing upon entirely novel experiences, half awful, half 
 romantic; upon the fourth the sublime ended pain- 
 fully in the ridiculous. 
 
 " FIRST DAT. 
 
 " Ques. Upon what conditions may I learn from the 
 unseen ? 
 
 " Ans. My hand immediately moved, though not to 
 a very satisfying issue. 
 
 " Q. What is it that now moves my pen ? 
 
 " A. Religion. 
 
 " Q- What moves my pen to write that answer ? 
 
 " A. Conscience. 
 
 " Q, What is religion ? 
 
 " A. Worship. 
 
 " Q- What is worship ? 
 
 "A. Wbwbwbwb. 
 
 " Q. What is the meaning of w b ? 
 
 " A. Win, buy. 
 
 " Q. What? 
 
 "A. Know(ledge). . 
 
 " Here I knew the letters which were to follow, and 
 the pen made a sudden jerk, as if it were useless to 
 continue. 
 
 " Q. How ? 
 
 " A. - " 
 
 We find here the secondary self emerging from its 
 prison, giving unintelligent and unintelligible answers, 
 as one dazzled by the light of day. 
 
 17
 
 248 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION, 
 
 " SECOND DAT. 
 
 " Ques. "What is man ? 
 
 " Ans. Flise. 
 
 " Q. What does F stand for ? 
 
 "A. Fesi. 
 
 Q. 1 ? 
 
 "A. le. 
 
 "<?. it 
 
 "A Ivy. 
 
 "Q. s? 
 
 "J.. sir. 
 
 "Q. e? 
 " -4. eye. 
 
 " ' Fesi le ivy sir eye/ 
 " Q. Is this an anagram ? 
 JL. Yes. 
 
 " Q. How many words in the answer ? 
 11 A. 4. 
 " This was made out as : 
 
 * Every life is yes.' " 
 
 The secondary self could not stand long the mid- 
 day light of the waking consciousness, and plunged 
 once more into the depths of the obscure regions, 
 whence it came. 
 
 "THIRD DAY. 
 
 " Ques. What is man ? 
 
 " Ans. Sefi Haslesbli lies. 
 
 " Q. Is this an anagram ? 
 
 "A. Yes. 
 
 " Q. How many words in the answer ? 
 
 " A. v (5). 
 
 " Q. What is the first word ? 
 
 "A. See.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 249 
 
 " Q. What is the second word ? 
 
 " A. e e e. 
 
 " Q. Must I interpret it myself ? 
 
 "A. Try. 
 
 " Presently I got out : 
 
 ' Life is the less able.' 
 
 "I do not know whether any other interpreta- 
 tion can be given to the letters, but these fulfil 
 the requirements; and the action of the pen, assist- 
 ing in the process of interpretation, pointing to the 
 letters, accepting these and rejecting those combina- 
 tions, left no doubt in my mind that I had hit the 
 meaning. 
 
 " But now I was so astonished at the apparently in- 
 dependent will and intellect manifested in forming the 
 above anagrams that it was not without something of 
 awe that I put : 
 
 " Q. Who art thou ? 
 
 "A. Clelia. 
 
 " Q. Thou art a woman ? 
 
 "A. Yes. 
 
 " Q. Hast thou ever lived upon the earth ? 
 
 "A. No. 
 
 " Q. Wilt thou ? 
 
 "A. Yes. 
 
 " Q. When ? 
 
 " A. Six years. 
 
 " Q- Wherefore dost thou then speak with me ? 
 
 " A. E if Clelia el. 
 
 " I made out, < I Clelia feel.' 
 
 " But upon my asking whether this was right Clelia 
 wrote again, thus, 
 
 <Eif Clelia el. 
 20.'
 
 250 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 " Q. Is 20 your age ? 
 " A. GO (She was eternal). 
 " Q. Then 20 what ? 
 "A. Words. . . . 
 
 "FOURTH DAY. 
 
 " Ques. Wherefore dost thou speak with me ? 
 
 " Ans. (Wavy line. Repetition and emphasis) : 
 Wherefore dost thou speak with me f 
 
 " Q- Wherefore dost thou answer me ? 
 
 " A. (Wavy line) Wherefore dost thou answer me f 
 
 " Q. Do I answer myself ? 
 
 "A. Yes. 
 
 "Q. IsCleliahere? 
 
 "A. No. 
 
 " Q. Who is, then, now here ? 
 
 " A. Nobody. 
 
 " Q. Does Clelia exist ? 
 
 "A. No. 
 
 " Q. With whom did I speak yesterday ? 
 
 " A. No one. 
 
 " #. Why didst thou lie ? 
 
 " A. (Wavy line) Why didst thou lie ? 
 
 " Q. Do souls exist in another world ? 
 
 " jl. M b. 
 
 " Q. What does M b mean ? 
 
 " A. May be. 
 
 " Q' What was the last answer of yesterday again ? 
 
 " A. Eif Clelia o el. 
 
 " I. e., ' I feel no Clelia.' 
 
 " Or the original may have been : 
 ' I Clelia flee.' 
 
 " And the 20 meant no, negativing my interpreta- 
 tion.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 251 
 
 " My pen now became altogether wild, sometimes 
 affirming and sometimes denying the existence of Cle- 
 lia, and finally performed as follows : 
 
 n 
 
 eac 
 
 ce . a. c. 
 
 " I wrote ce. and u. c., and placed my pen in the 
 middle. It refused to point to either, but upon my 
 writing 'partly each' above, my pen underlined my 
 words." 
 
 This case beautifully illustrates the evolution and 
 dissolution the birth, life, and death of the personal- 
 ity acquired by the subwaking self. At first the sec- 
 ondary subwaking self lacked rationality in its answers ; 
 soon it gathered round itself more consciousness, intel- 
 ligence, rationality, and even rose for an instant into 
 the high plane of self -consciousness ; but there it could 
 not maintain itself long, and once more it subsided 
 into the obscure regions of subpersonal life, whence it 
 emerged possessing none the less memory of what had 
 passed before. The subwaking self- of the fourth day 
 is fully justified in saying that Clelia does not exist. 
 Who, then, speaks ? Nobody that is, no personality, 
 no independent self-conscious being, but only the sub- 
 personal, secondary, subwaking self, an unconscious 
 cerebration, if you please. 
 
 And still Clelia did speak, Clelia did exist, there 
 was a self-conscious being that communicated with Mr. 
 A. ; but how could the subpersonal self convey the 
 idea that Clelia, the personal being, is not anything 
 apart from itself, from the subwaking self ? The sub-
 
 252 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 waking self exists, but Clelia what is she by herself ? 
 Nobody, nothing. The subwaking self in the darkness 
 of its impersonality could not grapple with the puzzling 
 problem. Clelia is a reality and still she has no being. 
 Clelia is the subconscious self, and yet the subconscious 
 self which is still in existence is not Clelia. How solve 
 this intricate, perplexing problem ? The subpersonal 
 self, by its very nature, could not grasp the situation, 
 and it grew bewildered, and became agitated, and the 
 pen ran riot, now affirming, now denying the exist- 
 ence of Clelia, at last assenting to the significant sug- 
 gestion " ce. and u. c. partly each." The subwaking 
 self was helped out from its seemingly insurmountable 
 difficulty. 
 
 The subwaking self is devoid of all personal charac- 
 ter ; it is both subpersonal and impersonal. And 
 when it attains the plane of self-consciousness and the 
 conditions are favourable to its remaining there it is 
 always roaming about, passing through the most fan- 
 tastic metamorphoses, assuming with equal ease all kinds 
 of personalities without regard to time, station, sex, 
 or age. In automatic writing and kindred phenomena 
 the subwaking, subpersonal self is now Luther, now 
 Mme. Pompadour, now Mozart, now Charlemagne, now 
 Aristotle, Plato, and now an Indian brave or squaw. 
 With marvellous plasticity, with an unequalled placidity, 
 it assumes indifferently all kinds of character and of 
 person, for it has no individuality. This imperson- 
 ality of the hypnotic self is clearly revealed in the fol- 
 lowing hypnotic experiments performed by me in the 
 Pathological Institute of the New York State Hospitals : 
 
 Mr. Y. F. was brought by me into a deep hypnotic 
 condition, and a post-hypnotic suggestion of personal- 
 ity metamorphosis was given to him.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 253 
 
 Experimenter. I will wake you up and you must 
 write by the aid of the automatic recorder, " I am to 
 become Sidis, and Miss B. (the librarian of the Institute, 
 who was then present at the experiments) will be your- 
 self, Y. F." You will ask her how her health is, how 
 she is getting on with her work. Then you will hyp- 
 notize her. You must tell her to sit down in the hyp- 
 notic chair, and if she does not want to you must com- 
 pel her. You must carry out my commands. On 
 awakening, you will forget everything. (Wakes up.) 
 
 A few seconds later a sudden change passed over 
 his all being, and he abruptly turned to Miss B. with 
 
 " How do you do ? How are you getting on with 
 your work ? " 
 
 B. Pretty well. 
 
 Subject. Sleep well ? 
 
 E. Yes. 
 
 Sub. Have dreams ? 
 
 B. No. 
 
 Sub. Get up early ? 
 
 B. Yes. 
 
 Sub. How early ? 
 
 B. About seven. 
 
 Sub. Well, that is better than you used to do. You 
 used to get up at ten. 
 
 I then walked up to the subject and addressed him 
 by his name, Y. F. With a wave of his hand and 
 with a half -humourous, half -ironical smile of the man 
 who knows better, he pointed to Miss B., saying, " This 
 is Y. F." 
 
 Exp. Pardon me, what is your name ? 
 
 Sub. (with a smile). My name is Dr. Sidis,'and let 
 me see your name is Miss B. Will you sit down, 
 Miss B. ?
 
 254 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 . I did not tell the subject to take me for Miss B., 
 but it seems that by the process of exclusion he had to 
 take me for that lady. 
 
 /Sub. (turns to Miss B.). Now I am going to hyp- 
 notize you. 
 
 He leads Miss B. over to the hypnotic chair, but as 
 she does not want to sit down he pushes her down by 
 force. Miss B. laughs and puts her hands over her face. 
 
 Sub. Now put your hands down and compose your- 
 self. 
 
 Miss B. laughs. 
 
 Sub. (impatiently). What are you laughing at ? 
 Just concentrate your mind on sleep. 
 
 Miss B. continues laughing. 
 
 Sub. Now what is the matter ? 
 
 Exp. I think Mr. Y. F. does not want to be hyp- 
 notized. 
 
 Sub. (angrily). I have him under my control ; pos- 
 sibly your standing there might interfere and affect 
 him. (Turns to Miss B.) Here, now, don't purse 
 your mouth up like that. (Miss B. still continues laugh- 
 ing.) What is the cause of all this ? You must not 
 allow yourself to get worked up. Sleep, sleep, sleep. 
 (Then suddenly raises her hand to see whether it is 
 cataleptic.) 
 
 As the lady began to feel rather uncomfortable, I 
 went up to the subject, passed my hand over his face, 
 and he at once passed into the usual passive somnam- 
 bulic trance. 
 
 Exp. What is your name ? 
 
 Sub. Dr. Sidis. 
 
 Exp. No, your name is not Sidis, but Y. F. What 
 is your name ? 
 
 Sub. Y. F.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 255 
 
 Later on, when I asked the subject how he could 
 take me for Miss B., Miss B. for himself, and himself 
 for Sidis, he simply answered : " I felt like being Dr. 
 Sidis, and there I saw Y. F., for some reason or other, 
 dressed in female attire. I took you for Miss B. I 
 did not and could not question myself. I was very 
 angry when you interfered and suggested that Mr. 
 Y. F. did not want to be hypnotized. I felt like show- 
 ing you out of the room, asking you to mind your own 
 business there in the library room, but then I changed 
 my mind and simply asked you to step aside." 
 
 Dr. H. Deady, Chief Associate in Pathology at the 
 Pathological Institute of the New York State Hospital, 
 gives the following account of an experiment in person- 
 ality metamorphosis performed by me in his presence : 
 
 " Mr. Y. F., the subject, a man as to whose health 
 and good character I can fully testify, was hypnotized 
 by Dr. B. Sidis in my presence. Dr. Sidis gave the 
 subject a suggestion that on awakening and hearing 
 four raps he should become myself, Dr. Deady, and 
 that he should take me for himself, for Y. F. The sub- 
 ject was then awakened. For a few minutes he looked 
 perfectly normal ; for more than four or five minutes 
 the subject kept up an animated conversation, smoked 
 and joked freely. When the conversation reached its 
 height of animation and interest, Dr. Sidis gave the 
 signal. So faint and indistinct were the raps that they 
 would have entirely escaped my notice had I not 
 known of the suggestion. It seemed to me that the 
 subject did not hear the raps, but he did hear them 
 after all. A moment later a profound change suddenly 
 passed over his face; something was struggling up 
 into his mind. At first Mr. Y. F. looked as if dazed ; 
 his eyes lost their natural lustre and expression, as
 
 256 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 if darkness set on them, as if the mind became en- 
 shrouded by a dense cloud. A few seconds later and 
 everything was clear again. The subject looked at me 
 fixedly and smiled. He was myself, Dr. Deady. He 
 assumed my role completely. He began to besiege me 
 with questions questions which I had put to him when 
 he was in his waking state. Perfectly oblivious to the 
 presence of other people in the room, his whole atten- 
 tion was engrossed by me, whom he evidently took for 
 himself, for Y. F. A few minutes later he excused 
 himself for leaving the room, pleading urgent work in 
 the office. Without attracting his attention, I followed 
 him at a distance. He entered my office, sat down at 
 my desk, but was at a loss what to do. A letter was 
 lying on my desk ; he took it, opened it, read it 
 through carefully, was lost in thought for a second or 
 two, as if trying to remember something, but, not suc- 
 ceeding, put the letter back in the envelope. At this 
 turn Dr. Sidis came into the office, and I returned to 
 the Pyschological Laboratory where the experiments 
 were made. Through a telephone that connects this 
 laboratory with the office I had the following con- 
 versation with Mr. Y. F. : 
 
 " Deady. I wish you would order an ounce of tan- 
 nic acid for me. 
 
 " Subject. Who is that ? 
 
 "Z>. Dr. Y. 
 
 "Sub. Who is Dr. Y? 
 
 " D. One of the men working in the institute. 
 
 " Sub. Who is going to pay for it ? 
 
 " D. The office, I suppose. 
 
 " Sub. Well, I do not know about that ; I'll have to 
 see about it. Where shall I get it ? 
 
 " D. Send to any of the druggists.
 
 THE CHARACTER OP SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 257 
 
 " Sub. Well, I'll see about that. 
 
 " D. Say, there is a man out here says his name is 
 V. F. wants to see you. 
 
 " Sub. What does he want ? 
 
 " D. I do not know. 
 
 " Sub. I have no time to bother with him. Tell him 
 to come some other time ; tell him to go paint pictures. 
 (The subject is an artist.) 
 
 " D. He can't paint. 
 
 " Sub. I know that, but I would not tell him so. 
 Tell him to stay where he is, or to go to Jericho. I 
 am busy. 
 
 "D. All right. Good-bye. 
 
 " Dr. Sidis then induced the subject to return to the 
 room ; a young lady was waiting there to make Dr. 
 Deady's (that is, the subject's) acquaintance. When in 
 the room he acted Dr. Deady to life. I say 'acted,' 
 but it was not that ; he seemed to feel like Dr. Deady, 
 he was Dr. Deady, and as such he introduced himself 
 to Miss S., who had entered the room during his hyp- 
 notic sleep, and whom he had never met nor heard of 
 before. When asked about the institute, the subject 
 began to enlarge on the scope and purpose of the insti- 
 tution, of the pathological work on sunstroke cases 
 done by Dr. Yan Gieson and his associates, and of the 
 knowledge the medical profession really needs. When 
 asked about Mr. V. F. (myself), whose presence he 
 seemed totally to ignore, he gave a merciless and cut- 
 ting but truthful account of himself, an account which 
 he would otherwise not have given in the presence of a 
 strange young lady. The conversation then turned on 
 hypnotism, and the subject related two of my cases as 
 happening within his medical experience. So true to 
 life, so complete was the subject's mimicry of my per-
 
 258 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 sonality, that he almost expressed my inmost thoughts. 
 . . . As the subject happens to live in the same house 
 with me, I availed myself of the opportunity to watch 
 the after-effects of the experiments. Dr. Sidis, it 
 seemed, did not sufficiently remove the suggestions 
 given to the subject during hypnosis. Mr. Y. F. evi- 
 dently was not in his normal state ; something was 
 working in him. When left alone he began to converse 
 with himself ; he wanted to know ' who he was not.' 
 Next day the subject was hypnotized again by Dr. 
 Sidis, and the after-effects entirely vanished. Mr. V. 
 F. felt better and happier than ever." 
 
 I may add to Dr. Deady's account that before de- 
 hypnotizing the subject I suggested to him that he was 
 Mr. V. F., but that on awakening he would not remem- 
 ber what had transpired during hypnosis. The sug- 
 gested amnesia did not remove the Deady personality, 
 but simply suppressed it into the region of the subcon- 
 scious. Hence the after-effects, hence the fact of 
 double personality. 
 
 The phenomena of personality-metamorphosis are 
 still clearer revealed in the following experiments : 
 
 I hypnotized Mr. A. Fingold and brought him into 
 a deep somnambulic state. I gave him a pencil and 
 paper and asked him to sign his name. He signed it in 
 English. " You are ten years old," I suggested. The 
 subwaking self instantaneously changed and became a 
 boy of ten. " Sign your name," I commanded. My 
 friends present at the experiments, and myself, were 
 surprised to see the hand changing its direction, and in- 
 stead of writing from left to right, started from right 
 to left. The subject signed his name not in English 
 but in the modern rabbinical script used by the Eastern 
 Jews ; the subject knew no other alphabet when he was
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 259 
 
 of that age. His brother, Mr. J. F., who was also pres- 
 ent at the seance, wondered at the writing, as it curiously- 
 resembled the actual childish handwriting of the sub- 
 ject.* 
 
 " You are a boy of seven. "Write a letter to your 
 father." The following is the specimen he wrote : 
 
 This means : 
 
 "Papa,f I want you to come to me. ChaimJ 
 wants to lick me. AB. FINGOLD." 
 
 The following is a faithful reproduction of the sub- 
 ject's writing : 
 
 * While the subject lost his capacity for writing English, he still 
 understood it perfectly well, since the commands and suggestions 
 were given to him in English. This seems to indicate that the 
 motor memory is especially subject to suggestion. 
 
 f He wrote, instead of " father," the word " tate " (a word mostly 
 used by Russian Jewish children). 
 
 $ A name in common use among the Russian Jews.
 
 260 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 10 years old. 
 
 Normal. 
 
 The same kind of experiments I repeated on Mr. F. 
 at another seance. 
 
 " You are twelve years old. "Write a letter to your 
 father." 
 
 The following is an exact copy of his letter :
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 261 
 
 The translation of it is : 
 
 " DEAR FATHER : 
 
 " I ask of you to send me money. 
 
 " A. FINGOLD." 
 
 And now began a metamorphosis of personalities. 
 
 Experimenter. What is your name ? 
 
 /Subject. Ab. Fingold. 
 
 Exp. No, no. Your name is not Fingold. Your 
 name is Sam Finestein. Who are you ? What is your 
 name ? 
 
 Sub. Ab. Fingold. 
 
 Exp. (in a commanding voice). You are Sam Fine- 
 stein, and you are thirty years old. Who are you ? 
 
 Sub. Sam Finestein. 
 
 Exp. How old are you ? 
 
 Sub. I am thirty years old. 
 
 Exp. What is your occupation ? 
 
 Sub. I have none for the present. I live on in- 
 terest. 
 
 Exp. Are you married ? 
 
 Sub. No. 
 
 Exp. (hesitatingly). But I heard you were married. 
 
 Sub. No, I am not, and shall never court one unless 
 she be rich. 
 
 Exp. (hesitatingly). But, Mr. Finestein, I was told 
 you had two children. Are you a widower ? 
 
 Sub. (in an angry tone). I want you to understand 
 that I am not married and never was. 
 
 Exp. Have you ever met a man by name of Ab. 
 Fingold ? 
 
 Sub. Yes, I think I did. 
 
 Exp. Can you tell me anything about him ? 
 
 Sub. Yery little ; I met him but once. If I am not
 
 262 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 mistaken, he is a cigar-maker. He complains of head- 
 aches (the subject's disease). 
 
 Exp. And how are you ? 
 
 Sub. Oh, I am well. 
 
 Exp. Can you tell me anything more about Ab. 
 Fingold ? 
 
 Sub. I told you I met him but once. 
 
 Exp. Have you met a man by name J. Fingold ? 
 (The subject's brother.) 
 
 Sub. Yes, I did. Is he not Mr. Ab. Fingold's 
 brother ? 
 
 Exp. Yes. Can you tell me anything about him ? 
 
 Sub. People say he is an honest man, but that is all 
 I know of him. He is to me a stranger. 
 
 Exp. From what country do you come ? 
 
 Sub. From Russia. 
 
 Exp. How long are you from Russia ? 
 
 Sub. Fifteen years. (Correct. He came here when 
 he was fifteen years old, and being now thirty, he was 
 just fifteen years from Russia.) 
 
 Exp. What is the name of the city you came 
 from? 
 
 Sub. Brest-Litovsk. (Correct.) 
 
 Exp. Where do you live now ? 
 
 Sub. 37 Main St., Allston. (A fictitious address. 
 The subject lives in Boston.) 
 
 Exp. You are Jacob Aaronson, and you are sixty 
 years old. Who are you ? 
 
 Sub. Jacob Finestein. 
 
 Exp. (emphatically). You are Jacob Aaronson, and 
 you are sixty years old. Who are you ? 
 
 Sub. Jacob Aaronson. 
 
 Exp. How old are you ? 
 
 Sub. Sixty years.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 263 
 
 Exp. What is your business ? 
 
 Sub. I retired from business. 
 
 Exp. (hesitatingly). Have you any money of your 
 own ? 
 
 Sub. You are too inquisitive. 
 
 Exp. Are you married ? 
 
 Sub. Oh, no, I would not marry again. 
 
 Exp. Again ? Have you been married once ? 
 
 Sul>. Yes ; that' was about forty years ago, but my 
 wife died two years after marriage, and I made up my 
 mind not to marry again. She was a loving wife. I 
 shall go to my grave a widower. 
 
 Exp. Would not you like to make your will ? 
 
 Sub. I do not expect to die so soon. Although my 
 hairs are gray, still I am strong enough. 
 
 Exp. Have you met a man by name Sam Finestein ? 
 
 Sub. I think I met him about thirty years ago. 
 (Subject was now sixty, and as Sam Finestein he was 
 but thirty.) 
 
 Exp. What do you think of Sam Finestein ? He 
 says he does not want to court any girl unless she is 
 rich. 
 
 Sub. You know we have not much to think of such 
 a fellow. 
 
 Exp. Have you met one by name Ab. Fingold ? 
 
 Sub. Let me see let me see let me see (trying 
 hard to recollect). It is a long while since I saw him 
 last about forty years. (The subject is twenty years 
 of age.) 
 
 Exp. Can not you tell me anything about him ? 
 
 Sub. I can not tell you anything about him ; it is a 
 long while since I met him last. I had no business 
 with him. I met him but once. He did me no harm, 
 nor has he done me any good. 
 18
 
 264 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Exp. Where do you come from ? 
 
 Sub. From Russia. 
 
 Exp. How long are you from Russia ? 
 
 Sub. Forty -five years. (45 -\- 15 = 60.) 
 
 Exp. Would you like to tell me the amount of 
 money you possess ? 
 
 Sub. What for do you want to know it ? 
 
 Exp. It is good to know for the sake of reference 
 for the sake of business. 
 
 Sub. But I do no business. 
 
 Exp. (hesitatingly). Still I should like to know. 
 
 Sub. (decisively). I shall not tell you. It is rather 
 suspicious. What do you want to know it for ? It is 
 suspicious. 
 
 I made him then pass through a whole series of 
 events. I suggested to him he had a poor nephew. He 
 promised to start " the poor fellow " into business to 
 give him five hundred dollars. He was, however, bet- 
 ter than his word, and gave the nephew one thousand 
 dollars. " What can one do with five hundred dollars," 
 he said. 
 
 Exp. (hesitatingly). Would not you like to sign a 
 check on one thousand dollars ? 
 
 Sub. (decisively). I shall sign no checks. I give 
 cash money. (He produced from his pocket imaginary 
 money.) 
 
 Exp. Would not you like to enter into business, 
 Mr. Aaronson ? 
 
 Sub. I worked enough in my life. Let young peo- 
 ple do the work. 
 
 During the time of his being J. Aaronson he be- 
 haved like an old invalid, rocking himself slowly and 
 comfortably, speaking in a low, drawling tone, and 
 assuming an air of superior knowledge and experience
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 265 
 
 in his conversation with his nephew, telling the latter, 
 " You talk like a young man." 
 
 Exp. What is your name ? Who are you ? 
 
 Sub. Jacob Aaronson. 
 
 Exp. (authoritatively). No, you are not Aaronson ! 
 Who are you ? 
 
 S'ub. Sam Finestein. 
 
 Exp. (authoritatively). No, you are not Finestein ! 
 Who are you ? 
 
 Sub. Ab. Fingold. 
 
 I gave him now a post-hypnotic suggestion that 
 after awakening, when he will see me rub my hands, he 
 will become Sidis and take me for Fingold. I woke 
 him up. He felt all right; spoke to his brother. I 
 began to rub my hands. Something began to struggle 
 within him. He looked at me hard, fixedly. I went 
 on rubbing my hands. He rose from his chair and be- 
 came Sidis, addressing me as Fingold. It would take 
 up too much space to describe all he did and said ; I can 
 only say that he mimicked me to perfection. My friends 
 could not restrain themselves from laughing. He then 
 proceeded to hypnotize me, doing it in a careful and 
 guarded way. He rubbed my head, telling me : " You 
 have no headaches the pain is gone. I took away 
 the pain. You feel well, comfortable, cheerful," and 
 so on. He then took a chair, placed it near mine, 
 sat down, took my hand in his, and said : " I give you 
 five minutes to sleep. The sleep will refresh you, and 
 you will wake up strong, healthy, and in good spirits." 
 He took out his watch and looked at the time. At the 
 end of the five minutes he gave me again the sugges- 
 tion of feeling well, etc., arid commanded me to count 
 till five, and wake up. I did not count. He raised 
 his voice, and in a tone full of authority commanded,
 
 266 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 " Count till five, and wake up ! " I counted till five, 
 but did not open my eyes. "Wake up! wake up 
 fully ! " he urged. I kept my eyes closed. He felt 
 my pulse ; put his ear to my chest. " Be quiet ! Be 
 quiet ! " he soothed me. Then suddenly in a loud, im- 
 pressive voice, emphasizing each word, he authorita- 
 tively commanded, " Count till five, and wake up ! " I 
 counted, and opened my eyes. All the time I watched 
 him closely from the corner of my eye ; his face bore 
 an air of unrivalled gravity. Mr. Fingold's subwaking 
 self assumed the Sidis-personality, and for the time 
 being it was Sidis. 
 
 I went behind his chair, passed my hand over his 
 face, and simply said, " Sleep ! " He closed his eyes 
 and passed into a passive state. 
 
 Exp. What is your name ? Who are you ? 
 
 Sub. Dr. Sidis. 
 
 Exp. No, you are not Dr. Sidis ! Who are you ? 
 
 Sub. Jacob Aaronson. 
 
 Exp. No, you are not Jacob Aaronson ! Who are 
 you ? 
 
 /Sub. Sam Finestein. 
 
 Exp. No, you are not Sam Finestein! Who are 
 you ? 
 
 Sub. Ab. Fingold. 
 
 When Mr. Fingold awoke he did not remember 
 anything. " I slept a long time," he remarked. I then 
 put my hand to his forehead and told him, " Try hard, 
 you can remember everything." A flood of facts and 
 items poured into his consciousness. 
 
 In the presence of two Boston High School in- 
 structors, Mr. S. and Mr. E., I made similar experi- 
 ments on their former pupil Mr. W. Mr. W. was 
 now a boy of six ; now a boy of twelve ; now a Mr.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 267 
 
 Thomas Davis, a labourer in a sugar factory, thirty 
 .years of age, married, and having two children ; now a 
 teacher of rhetoric; now Mr. E. The change from 
 one personality to the other was instantaneous, and 
 the acting was lifelike. The subwaking self actually 
 passed through the experience of each personality it 
 assumed; it lived that particular life, it was that per- 
 sonality. 
 
 When Mr. W. awoke he remembered everything. 
 It was a dream. He remembered how he worked 
 nights in the sugar factory, remembered the looks of 
 the factory. He did work there. He remembered the 
 house in which he lived with his wife and the two 
 " kids," as he named his children. He remembered he 
 was a teacher of rhetoric examining and censuring his 
 idle class, and that he was Mr. E. 
 
 The dreaming, subpersonal, subwaking self is chame- 
 leon in its nature ; it is almost absolutely plastic ; it can 
 get metamorphosed into all kinds' of .beings, it can 
 assume indifferently and instantaneously all sorts of 
 characters and personalities, for it has no personality 
 of its own. Once a personality is assumed, the sub- 
 waking self mimics it to perfection. Quick as light- 
 ning, like an evil genius, the subwaking self gets into 
 possession of all ideas and clusters of associations that 
 relate to that assumed personality, embodies, incarnates 
 itself in them, and struts about a different person. 
 
 Subpersonal and impersonal as the subwaking self 
 is, it has a rich store of memories, and as it gets crystal- 
 lized into a new person it takes up memories adapted 
 to that assumed personality. Thus, Mr. F. was Sam 
 Finestein, thirty years of age ; he was fifteen years 
 fcom Russia, because he left that country when he was 
 about fifteen years old. As Jacob Aaronson he was
 
 268 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 sixty years of age ; he was forty-five years from Russia, 
 and again for the same reason. 
 
 Recently I suggested to A. Fingold a fictitious per- 
 sonality of a Thomas McYane. He told me he was 
 Irish ; came from Dublin ; was a bricklayer ; was a 
 devout Catholic ; went to church every Sunday ; spoke 
 of the " Holy Pope " in terms of reverence and awe ; 
 upbraided his sons for being great drunkards. 
 
 The subwaking self is impersonal, and still it pos- 
 sesses memory of all the personalities it has assumed. 
 In the case of Mr. F., as well as in the case of my other 
 subjects, the emphatic denial of each subsequent per- 
 sonality brings immediately to light the precedent one. 
 The personalities lived through form a chain of con- 
 tiguous memories. The subwaking self seems to know 
 only one kind of association that of contiguity.
 
 CHAPTER XXY. 
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 
 
 BEFORE we proceed to sum up the characteristics of 
 the subconscious self I think it would be well to show 
 of what importance the phenomena of post-hypnotic 
 suggestion in general, and those of transformation of 
 personality in particular, are in relation to many forms 
 of insanity. There is, for instance, a form of mental 
 alienation known under the name of " insistent ideas." 
 From some source unknown to the patient an idea rises 
 into consciousness with a persistency that can not be 
 overcome. The idea haunts the patient like a ghost. 
 A concrete case will bring this disease clearly before 
 the mind of the reader. 
 
 A young man of intelligence, of good education, 
 and free from hereditary tendency to neurotic affec- 
 tions, was pursuing his studies at college, when one day 
 he heard his companions talking of the mysterious 
 fatality connected with the number thirteen. An ab- 
 surd idea took possession of his mind. " If the num- 
 ber thirteen is fatal," he thought to himself, " it would 
 be deplorable if God were thirteen." "Without attach- 
 ing any importance to this conception, he could not 
 prevent himself from thinking of it continually, and at 
 each instant he accomplished mentally an act which 
 consisted in repeating to himself " God thirteen." He 
 
 269
 
 270 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 began to attach a certain cabalistic value to this for- 
 mula, and attributed to it a preservative influence. " 1 
 know perfectly well," he said, " that it is ridiculous 
 that I should think myself obliged to imagine ' God 
 thirteen ' in order to save myself from being thirteen," 
 but nevertheless the intellectual act was repeated with- 
 out ceasing. Yery soon he began to apply the same 
 mysterious word to eternity, to the infinite, and similar 
 ideas. His life was thus passed in mentally saying, 
 " God thirteen ! The infinite thirteen ! Eternity thir- 
 teen ! " The patient was fully aware of the absurdity 
 of the idea, but still that idea continued to rise from 
 the depth of his mind and insert itself into all his men- 
 tal operations. 
 
 In impulsive insanity we meet with a similar state 
 of mind. A seemingly unaccountable impulse sud- 
 denly seizes on the mind of the patient, an impulse 
 which is sometimes so overwhelming that restraint is 
 simply unthinkable. No sooner does the impulse come 
 into consciousness than it works itself out with fatal 
 necessity. It is a kind of emotional automatism. A 
 young man, for instance, at the sight of a black silk 
 dress is suddenly possessed by an impulse to ruin silk 
 dresses, and he is bound to carry out his work of de- 
 struction whenever he is confronted with a dress of 
 that material. " I was altogether excited by the sight 
 of that handsome silk dress, and it was impossible for 
 me to resist. I do not know why the idea ever came 
 into my mind." A young lady at the sight of a bare 
 shoulder is suddenly seized by the impulse to bite, and 
 she straightway sinks her teeth into the flesh of her 
 victim.* 
 
 * W. Hammond, A Treatise on Insanity.
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 271 
 
 " E. D.," writes Dr. Stearns, " lias been insane for 
 several months. . . . He appeared to improve, when 
 on one occasion, while he was standing in his room, his 
 attendant advanced toward him with the intention of 
 passing, when the patient suddenly drew back and struck 
 the attendant a blow which brought the latter to the 
 floor. Immediately after it was over the patient apolo- 
 gized, and said he was very sorry and quite ashamed 
 of himself ; he could not tell what had led him to 
 strike, especially his attendant, with whom he was in 
 the most pleasant relations, but the concept suddenly 
 flashed upon and filled his mind as he saw him ap- 
 proach, and the impulse to strike became irresistible." * 
 
 Pyromania, or the impulse to incendiarism, klepto- 
 mania, or the impulse to steal, homicidal or suicidal 
 impulses all of them belong to that peculiar form of 
 mental alienation that may be characterized as impul- 
 sive insanity. 
 
 Whence rise those insistent ideas, those imperative 
 conceptions, those mysterious, unaccountable impulses ? 
 We can not ascribe these phenomena to the mechanism 
 of associative processes ; we can not say that some of the 
 links in the chain of association became abnormally pre- 
 dominant, because those impulses are felt emphatically 
 as having no connection with the association process 
 going on in the consciousness of the patient. Those 
 impulses are psychical parasites on the patient's con- 
 sciousness. Ideas, impressions implanted in the sub- 
 conscious self, when accidentally dissociated from ike 
 upper personality, rise to the periphery of conscious- 
 ness as insistent ideas, imperative concepts, and uncon- 
 trollable impulses of all sorts and descriptions. In 
 
 * H. P. Stearns, Mental Diseases.
 
 272 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 hypnotic, and especially in post-hypnotic, suggestion 
 we hold the key to all forms of conceptual and impul- 
 sive insanity. 
 
 When my subject, Mr. A. Fingold, was in a deep 
 hypnosis and his subconsciousness was laid bare, I sug- 
 gested to him that when he will wake up and hear a 
 knock he shall drive away his brother and Mr. H. L. from 
 the sofa on which they were sitting and lie down there. 
 When Mr. Fingold woke up and the signal was given, 
 he rushed to the sofa with such impetuosity that his 
 brother was frightened and left the place at once. 
 Mr. H. L. was rather tardy in his retreat. The subject 
 angrily caught hold of his arm and pushed him away 
 with such violence that poor Mr. H. L. flew to the op- 
 posite wall. The subject then stretched himself out on 
 the sofa and felt satisfied. As in the case of impulsive 
 insanity, the suggested impulse set on suddenly and 
 was enacted with a like emotional automatism. 
 
 Experiments of like nature I have also performed 
 on other subjects, and with like results. The suggested 
 ideas buried in the depths of the subconsciousness fre- 
 quently rise to the surface of the subject's active life, 
 and are realized with all the vehemence and fatality of 
 an irresistible insane impulse. 
 
 The post-hypnotic suggestion may manifest itself in 
 a different form. Instead of a sudden onset it may de- 
 velop slowly, grow, and finally become uncontrollable. 
 I hypnotized Mr. Y. F., and suggested to him that a 
 few minutes after awakening he should sit down on 
 Miss B.'s chair ; that if she would not like to leave he 
 should make her go. A few minutes after awakening 
 Mr. Y. F. turns to Miss B., whose acquaintance he 
 made at the beginning of the experiments, with the fol- 
 lowing request :
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 273 
 
 F". F. May I sit on your chair ? 
 
 B. Why do you want my chair ? There are other 
 chairs in the room ; can't you take one of them ? 
 
 V. "Well, you take this one, will you ? 
 
 B. No; I am very well satisfied with this one. 
 Won't that one do you just as well ? 
 
 V. No. I wish you would give it to me won't 
 you? 
 
 B. No. 
 
 V. I think that one over there will be much more 
 comfortable. I would rather have this one. 
 
 B. Why can't you let me sit here ? 
 
 V. I can, but I would like to have the chair. I 
 could throw you out, but that would not be exactly 
 square ; but at the same time I want that chair. 
 
 B. Won't any other chair answer ? 
 
 V. Yes, any other chair would answer my purpose 
 just as well. 
 
 B. Have you any claim to it ? 
 
 V. No, no claim or right, but I want it. Let me 
 have it, won't you ? You just like to tease me. 
 
 B. Why do you think so ? To keep one's chair is 
 not teasing. 
 
 V. You see, it works this way : you don't want the 
 chair, and you know I want it, but you won't let me 
 have it, and that amounts to teasing. 
 
 B. Why do you want it ? 
 
 V. No reason. I simply want it. 
 
 B. That is very little reason. 
 
 V. Yes, very little. You don't simply want to 
 keep what you have ; you don't want to give it to me. 
 That is your reason, is it not ? 
 
 B. I am more comfortable here. 
 
 V. You are only teasing me. I can see your eyes
 
 274 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 twinkle. You look at Dr. Sidis and see what he thinks 
 about it. 
 
 JS. I won't give you this chair. 
 
 V. Is that your only reason ? 
 
 B. What is your reason ? 
 
 V. I have no reason. I have only a sneaking sort 
 of desire to sit down in the chair. 
 
 The desire kept on growing. The subject pleaded 
 for a seat in the chair with more and more urgency. 
 He must have this particular chair, happen what may. 
 The desire became an irresistible impulse. Mr. V. F. 
 took a piece of cord, tied it round the much-longed-for 
 chair, and exclaimed : " Now I will show you a modern 
 Stonewall Jackson. If you don't get up I shall pull 
 you down. I'll count three." He counted one, two, 
 and when he came to three he gave a strong pull, and 
 pulled out the chair from under Miss B. and sat down 
 on it in great haste. 
 
 The evolution of the impulse was here a gradual 
 one. Each rebuff served only to increase the intensity 
 of the impulse, until at last the impulse became irre- 
 sistible and the craved-for object was taken by main 
 force. Thus we see that insistent ideas, imperative 
 conceptions, and insane impulses in general work 
 through the mechanism of the subconscious. An idea 
 sunk into the disaggregated subconsciousness, like a 
 post-hypnotic suggestion, struggles up as an insane 
 impulse. 
 
 The phenomena of the subconscious give us an in- 
 sight into the nature of paramnesia. Paramnesia, or 
 illusions of memory, may be divided into positive or 
 additive and negative or subtractive. In positive or 
 additive paramnesia the patient recognises a new per- 
 ception as having taken place within his former expe-
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 275 
 
 rience. The patient meets strangers as old familiar 
 acquaintances. Thus Jensen reports the case of a pa- 
 tient complaining to him: "Doctor, I feel so very 
 strange to-day. When I stand like this and look 
 at you, then it seems to me as if you had stood there 
 once before, and as if everything had been just the 
 same, and as if I knew what was coming." 
 
 An interesting case of paramnesia is reported by 
 Dr. Arnold Pick in the Archiv fur Psychiatric for 
 1876. An educated man who seems to have under- 
 stood his disease, and who himself gave a written de- 
 scription of it, was seized at the age of thirty-two with 
 a singular mental affection. If he was present at a 
 social gathering, if he visited any place whatever, if he 
 met a stranger, the incident with all the attendant cir- 
 cumstances appeared so familiar that he was convinced 
 of having received the same impression before, of hav- 
 ing been surrounded by the same persons or the same 
 objects, under the same sky and the same state of 
 weather. If he undertook any new occupation, he 
 seemed to have gone through with it at some previous 
 time and under the same conditions. The feeling 
 sometimes appeared the same day, at the end of a few 
 moments or hours, sometimes not till the following day, 
 but always with perfect distinctness.* 
 
 Sander brings the case of an invalid who, upon 
 learning of the death of a person whom he knew, was 
 seized with an indefinable terror, because it seemed to 
 him that he knew of the event before. " It seemed to 
 me that at some time previous, while I was lying here in 
 this same bed, X. came to me and said, ' Miiller is dead.' 
 I replied, ' Miiller has been dead for some time.' " f 
 
 * Ribot, Diseases of Memory. 
 
 f Archiv fur Psychiatric, 1873, vol. iv.
 
 276 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Similar cases of paramnesia occur also in normal 
 life. Prof. Royce, in an interesting article, Hallu- 
 cinations of Memory and Telepathy, * called attention 
 to " a not yet recognised type of instantaneous hallu- 
 cination of memory, consisting in the fancy at the very 
 moment of some exciting experience that one has ex- 
 pected it before its coming." According to Prof. 
 Royce, many facts of telepathy recorded by Gourney in 
 his book The Phantasms of the Living belong to this 
 last type of paramnesia. 
 
 In subtractive paramnesia, on the contrary, the pa- 
 tient has a false memory as to an event that had actu- 
 ally taken place in his experience. He is sure that the 
 event has never occurred to him. Thus Wernicke 
 brings the case of a patient who assaulted a public offi- 
 cial and afterward could not be convinced that he had 
 ever done anything like it, although he remembered 
 well everything that happened at that time. 
 
 How shall we explain these interesting phenomena 
 of paramnesia ? We can not possibly agree with Ribot, 
 who thinks that paramnesia is due to the fact that the 
 memorial image evoked by the present perception is 
 more vivid than the perception itself, and the result is 
 that the present experience as the weaker and fainter 
 one is considered a copy of the more vivid memorial 
 image. 
 
 It does not require a deep insight to see the weak- 
 ness of such a forced explanation. First of all, Ribot 
 is wrong in identifying pastness with faintness. A 
 faint perception is not a past perception. Second, 
 even if we accept the proposition that faintness gives 
 the feeling of pastness, Ribot is still wrong in his ex- 
 
 * Mind, xiii.
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 277 
 
 planation. He simply did not analyze well the phe- 
 nomena of paramnesia. In paramnesia the present 
 perception has about it all the vivid feeling of present- 
 ness ; what is added to it is the feeling that the percep- 
 tion has been experienced formerly. Were Ribot's 
 account the true one, the present perception would not 
 have been felt as present, but as past, and the evoked 
 memorial image instead would have been felt as pres- 
 ent, which is not the case. Besides, such a process 
 would give rise not to paramnesia but to mere illu- 
 sion. The phenomena of paramnesia are due to a 
 disaggregation effected within the consciousness of the 
 patient. 
 
 The disaggregated subconsciousness, on account of 
 its wider range of sensibility, or on account of the tem- 
 porary inhibition of the upper consciousness, gets the 
 perception first, and after some appreciable interval it is 
 transmitted with a feeling of pastness to the upper con- 
 sciousness, which by this time already has its own direct 
 perception. The present perception of the upper con- 
 sciousness is then recognised recognised as familiar, as 
 having already been before within the experience of 
 the patient. This transmitted message coming from 
 the secondary to the primary self may be more or less 
 instantaneous, or it may come some time after, as in the 
 interesting case of the patient reported by Dr. Pick. 
 
 Subtractive paramnesia admits of still easier expla- 
 nation if regarded from the standpoint of the subcon- 
 scious. The disaggregated secondary consciousness 
 possesses itself of certain details in experience that 
 never reached the primary consciousness. The patient 
 therefore with full right asserts that he is sure that the 
 given details had never occurred within his self-con- 
 scious experience.
 
 278 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Subtractive paramnesia is analogous to the phe^ 
 nomena of negative hallucination which occur in post- 
 hypnotic or hypnonergic states.* 
 
 Turning now to demonomania and paranoia, we once 
 more encounter the underground working of the sub- 
 conscious self. In paranoia we find that an insistent 
 idea or an imperative concept, often accompanied by 
 illusions and hallucinations, and detached from the main 
 stream of consciousness, gets inserted into the associa- 
 tive processes of the primary self. The idea soon gath- 
 ers round itself clusters of other ideas and forms a system 
 tinged with emotional colour. The insistency and un- 
 controllableness of this slowly evolving disaggregated 
 cluster give it all the characteristics of an external re- 
 ality. Hence we have a more or less stable delusion of 
 a systematized order. Ideas and impulses coming from 
 the disaggregated subconscious self are projected out- 
 ward, and ascribed to the activity of an external agency. 
 Hence the ideas of persecution by hidden, mysterious 
 enemies. 
 
 With the evolution of that subconscious cluster the 
 primary self is weakened, a new specious personality is 
 formed within the depths of the subconscious, a per- 
 sonality which rises to the surface of consciousness and 
 occupies the whole field of mental vision, the old self 
 existing in the background as memory. Hence we 
 have the last stage of paranoia, known as the stage of 
 transformation of personality. 
 
 To give the reader an idea of the mental malady 
 known as paranoia, I select two cases from the reports 
 sent to me for the Pathological Institute of the 
 
 * Subtractive paramnesia is a form of amnesia. For a fuller dis- 
 cussion of amnesia see Chapters XXI-XXIII.
 
 SUBCONSC10USNESS AND INSANITY. 279 
 
 York State Hospitals by Dr. Spellman, of Manhattan 
 Hospital, Ward's Island, New York : 
 
 "Patient, B. F. Hunter, was admitted in 1895, 
 aged thirty-seven. Memory perfect. He gives a full 
 account of himself up to the year 1892. 'In 1892,' 
 says the patient, ' I lived with Mr. C. Mr. C. went to 
 the country, and I was to look after the place. One 
 hot summer day when I was asleep a sharp, distinct 
 voice called me. I went to look for the caller, but 
 there was none outside. There was a man who lived in 
 the house and who took care of the property. He would 
 leave in the morning and come back at night. I asked 
 him if he had called during the day, and he said he had 
 not. At night I went down to my house and said to 
 my wife: "Something very queer has happened. I 
 heard a sharp, distinct voice call me, and when I looked 
 out of the window I saw no one." Another time, about 
 half past twelve in the night, I heard again a sharp, 
 distinct voice call me, "Ben! Ben!" and when I 
 looked out of the window I could see no one. This 
 was the third time I had been called. 
 
 "'During Cleveland's second term, in 1892, one 
 night while I lay in bed I saw Grover Cleveland in the 
 Executive Mansion. Some other party stood behind 
 me and said to me, " What do you see ? " I said, " I 
 see Grover Cleveland." " Go and tell him," said the 
 person behind me, " that he will be the next President 
 of the United States." About the 8th of March I sent 
 a long letter to Mr. Cleveland. I don't know exactly 
 what I said, but here are a few of the words : " On 
 a certain day of the month God notified me to tell 
 you that you would be the next President of the 
 United States, and so you are. When God tells his 
 servant to tell a man such things as I have told 
 19
 
 280 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 you there is something behind it unknown to human 
 beings." 
 
 " ' The next year, 1894, I wrote letters to all the 
 governors of the States to the following effect : " It is 
 hereby known to all nations, people, and things that 
 there is a prophet among the people with bad tidings 
 from God. Yery respectfully, B. F. Hunter." 
 
 " * Last June, 1896, it was revealed to me that I was 
 the prophet Nebuchadnezzar.' " 
 
 The other case reported by Dr. Spellman is also 
 characteristic of paranoia, and points to the subcon- 
 scious source whence the delusion originates. 
 
 "Solomon Monroe. Admitted January 6, 1897, 
 aged thirty-four ; nativity, Germany ; salesman ; Prot- 
 estant ; single ; temperate. No hereditary tendencies 
 are known to exist. The cause of attack is supposed to 
 be lack of food. The patient states emphatically that 
 he is Jesus Christ, and his general demeanour corre- 
 sponds to his statement. He states as follows : ' I have 
 told you that I am Jesus Christ. I have been Jesus 
 Christ since my birth. I have not always known it, 
 but found it out about six weeks before I came here. 
 I received my proper enlightenment. I was educated 
 in the common schools of Germany. Since coming to 
 New York, about four and a half years ago, I have fol- 
 lowed out a religious train of thought, teaching Bible 
 classes, etc. I had hope; birthmarks on my body- 
 viz., scars on my face and sign of a cross on my fore- 
 head and hands confirmed my belief. I was anointed 
 on my head. This anointment came during the night. 
 Later the revelations came through iny sight and ears. 
 I have them now days and nights. God my Father 
 holds constant communication with me. I am the same 
 Christ treated of in the Holy Word, and this is my sec-
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 281 
 
 ond coming. Father, Father, the Holy Spirit has al- 
 ways been within me.' The patient eats and sleeps 
 well, and aside from his general exaltation of demeanour 
 appears as other people." 
 
 The phenomena of personality-metamorphosis in 
 hypnotic and post-hypnotic or hypnonergic states re- 
 produce on a smaller scale the condition of paranoia. 
 We find in them the growth of systematized delusions 
 culminating in the phenomenon of personality-meta- 
 morphosis. The reader is already acquainted with these 
 facts from our previous experiments, and there is no 
 use for me to bring here more of them. One thing is 
 clear from the experiments, and that is the fact that the 
 phenomena of personality metamorphosis are due to a 
 specious parasitic personality formed within the depth 
 of the disaggregated, whether by hypnotization or by 
 disease subconscious self. Dissociation of the sub- 
 conscious is a requisite of paranoia * 
 
 Prof. Josiah Royce, in his remarkable paper on 
 Some Observations on the Anomalies of Self -Conscious- 
 ness, f maintains that self-consciousness is social con- 
 sciousness, and whenever the derangement is in the 
 mass of ideas involving social relationship there neces- 
 sarily happens a transformation of personality. That 
 may be. But Prof. Royce must still explain the fact 
 why this change in the social consciousness should be 
 
 * The theory of Ribot, that metamorphosis of personality is due 
 to a fundamental change in common sensibility, is more fanciful 
 than it is commonly supposed, for that fundamental change remains 
 yet to be proved. There may be a change in common sensibility 
 without a transformation of personality, and also a transformation 
 of personality without a change in common sensibility. Besides, 
 Ribot's theory can not account for the phenomena of coexistent 
 double or multiple personality. 
 
 f The Psychological Review, November, 1895.
 
 282 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 felt as induced by mysterious revelations, uncontrol- 
 lable, heavenly inspirations, and the activity of hidden 
 agencies. How does it happen that an uncontrollable 
 element, a "sort of non-ego," is formed within "the 
 ego " of the patient ? How do insistent ideas, impera- 
 tive conceptions, irresistible impulses, seize on the con- 
 sciousness of the patient ? What is the source of the 
 strange elements out of which paranoia evolves ? This 
 source is the disaggregated subconsciousness.* 
 
 When my work was already complete Prof. James 
 called my attention to the recent work of Wernicke, 
 Grundriss der Psychiatric, f in which the author dis- 
 cusses the phenomena of paranoia. It is interesting to 
 observe that Dr. C. Wernicke is so near to the solution 
 of the problem and still he does not see it in its full 
 light. He characterizes paranoia as a " sejunction " of 
 consciousness ; he tells us that in the state of paranoia 
 the patient is vexed by what Wernicke calls " autoch- 
 thonic ideas " ideas that arise from the depth of the 
 patient's " sejuncted " mind, and which the patient pro- 
 jects outside him. I heartily agree with Dr. Wernicke, 
 and I am glad to find that the work of such a great 
 physiologist and psychiatrist falls in the same line with 
 my own investigations. What, however, Dr. Wernicke 
 does not see is the full meaning of " sejuncted con- 
 sciousness," the fact that paranoia is essentially a dis- 
 eased hypnoidic state, a pathological condition of the 
 subconscious self. 
 
 The subconscious self must not be conceived as any 
 distinct being; it is rather a diffused consciousness of 
 any strength of intensity with a content rich and varied. 
 
 * I may add that in a private talk with me Prof. Royce admit- 
 ted that we must look for that source to the subconscious. 
 f Theil II, Die Paranoischen Zustiinde, 1896.
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 283 
 
 The subconscious, as we have pointed out, is impersonal. 
 Occasionally, however, it reaches the plane of self-con- 
 sciousness, but then soon subsides again into its former 
 impersonal obscurity. The subconscious self may be- 
 come crystallized into a personality, but this personality 
 is ephemeral, transient in its nature. Suppose, now, 
 that the subconscious or secondary self is easily disso- 
 ciated from the primary self or conscious personality ; 
 suppose, further, that within the bosom of the subcon- 
 scious a new personality is in the process of formation 
 a personality no longer of an evanescent character, but 
 of a stable nature we shall then have a case of de- 
 composition of personality. The newly forming para- 
 sitic personality will again and again obtrude itself on 
 the primary consciousness, and time and again it will 
 be beaten back into its subconscious obscurity. The 
 patient will then consider himself as having a devil 
 within him, a demon that fights and tempts his honest 
 personality. If the parasitic personality grows in 
 strength or the primary personality is weakened the 
 patient may regard himself as double the two person- 
 alities are of equal rank. It is not, however, only one 
 personality, but two, three, and even more coexistent 
 personalities may be formed within the womb of the 
 subconscious. "We have, then, the cases of the mental 
 malady known under the name of demonoinania. 
 
 Demonomania is a special form of paranoia ; it is a 
 decomposition of personality ; it is the formation of new 
 personalities within the depths of the subconscious. 
 The patient claims to be possessed by a demon. The 
 evil spirit sometimes recounts what he did on earth, 
 and what he has done since he left it for the infernal 
 regions. The attack throws the patient into a fury of 
 excitement, into violent convulsions. In the presence
 
 284 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 of a stranger, especially of a priest, the violence of the 
 convulsions is greatly increased. When the crisis is 
 over the patient looks about with a somewhat astonished 
 air, and returns to the work in which he was engaged 
 at the beginning of the fit. The patient does not re- 
 member what he had said or done during the attack. 
 In very rare cases, where there is memory, the patient 
 asserts : " I know well that he (the devil) has said so, 
 or done so and so, but it was not I. If my mouth has 
 spoken, if my hand has struck, it was he who made me 
 speak and caused the blows." The patient is sometimes 
 possessed not by one demon, but by many demons. The 
 patient feels and hears them moving in his body. 
 
 S., forty years of age, is devoured by two demons 
 who have taken up their abode in her haunches and 
 come forth through her ears. Devils have made several 
 marks upon her person, and her heart is daily displaced. 
 She shall never die, though the devil may tell her to go 
 and drown herself. She has seen the two devils by 
 which she is possessed. They are cats, one of which 
 is yellow and white, and the other black. She puts 
 tobacco, wine, and particularly grease, upon her head 
 and in her ears, to exorcise the devil. She walks con- 
 stantly with naked feet in fair and rainy weather, and 
 while walking picks up whatever comes in her way. 
 She mislays her clothing ; eats largely. She sleeps not ; 
 is filthy, emaciated, and her skin very, much sunburnt. 
 There is no coherence in the system of ideas that con- 
 stantly occupies her mind. 
 
 A young man at Charenton has a dracq in his abdo- 
 men. The dracq or destiny enters his head, tortures 
 him in a thousand ways during the day, 'and particu- 
 larly in the night addresses and threatens him. If I 
 ask this unfortunate young man what this dracq may
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 285 
 
 be, " I know nothing about it," he replies, " but it is 
 a destiny that has been imposed upon me, and every- 
 thing has been done to deliver me from it, but with- 
 out success." * 
 
 Prof. James, in his article, Notes on Automatic 
 Writing, f brings, a very interesting case of personality 
 or ego decomposition akin to demonomania, or demoni- 
 acal possession. The case is reported by Dr. Ira Bar- 
 rows, of Providence. The record begins in the nine- 
 teenth year of the patient's age, and continues for sev- 
 eral years. It runs as follows : 
 
 "September 17, I860. Wild with delirium. Tears 
 her hair, pillow-cases, bedclothes, bath sheets, night- 
 dress, all to pieces. Her right hand prevents her left 
 hand, by seizing and holding it, from tearing out her hair, 
 but she tears her clothes with her left hand and teeth. 
 
 " 29th. Complains of great pain in right arm, more 
 and more intense when suddenly it falls down by her 
 side. She looks at it in amazement. Thinks it belongs 
 to some one else ; positive it is not hers. Sees her right 
 arm drawn around her spine. Cut it, prick it, do what 
 you please to it, she takes no notice of it. Complains 
 of great pain in the neck and back, which she now calls 
 her shoulder and arm ; no process of reasoning can con- 
 vince her to the contrary. To the present time, now 
 nearly five years, the hallucination remains firm. She 
 believes her spine is her right arm, and that her right 
 arm is a foreign object and a nuisance. She believes it 
 to be an arm and a hand, but treats it as if it had in- 
 telligence, and might keep away from her. She bites 
 it, pounds it, pricks it, and in many ways seeks to drive 
 
 * Esquirol, Mental Maladies. 
 
 f Proceedings of the American Society for Psychological Re- 
 search, vol. i..
 
 286 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 it from her. She calls it ' Stump,' ' Old Stump.' Some- 
 times she is in great excitement and tears, pounding 
 Old Stump. Says Stump has got this or the other that 
 belongs to her. The history of September is her daily 
 and nightly history till October 25th. 
 
 " November 12th. From eleven to twelve at night 
 sits up, apparently asleep, and writes with her paper 
 against the wall. After she wakes seems to be uncon- 
 scious of what she has written. 
 
 " From November 20th to January 1, 1861, raving 
 delirium ; pulls her hair nearly all out from the top of 
 her head. The right hand protects her against the left 
 as much as possible. 
 
 "February 1st to llth. Under the influence of 
 magnetism writes poetry ; personates different persons, 
 mostly those who have long since passed away. When 
 in the magnetic state, whatever she does and says is not 
 remembered when she comes out of it. Commences a 
 series of drawings with her right paralyzed hand, Old 
 Stump. Also writes poetry with it. Whatever Stump 
 writes, or draws, or does, she appears to take no inter- 
 est in ; says it is none of hers, and that she wants noth- 
 ing to do with Stump or Stump's. I have sat by her 
 bed and engaged her in conversation, and drawn her 
 attention in various ways, while the writing and draw- 
 ing has been uninterrupted. 
 
 " March, 1861. She became blind. 
 
 " January 4, 1862. Is still blind ; sees as well with 
 eyes closed as open ; keeps them closed much of the time. 
 Draws in the dark as well as in the light. Writes poe- 
 try chiefly with the right hand, and often while it is dark. 
 The handwriting differs greatly in different pieces. 
 
 " January 10th. When her delirium is at it height, 
 as well as at all other times, her right hand is rational,
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 287 
 
 asking and answering questions in writing ; giving di- 
 rections ; trying to prevent her tearing her clothes ; 
 when she pulls out her hair it seizes and holds her left 
 hand. When she is asleep it carries on conversation; 
 writes poetry ; never sleeps ; acts the part of a nurse 
 as far as it can ; pulls the bedclothes over the patient, 
 if it can reach them, when uncovered ; raps on the 
 headboard to awaken her mother (who always sleeps in 
 the room) if anything occurs, as spasms, etc. 
 
 " January, 1863. At night and during her sleep 
 Stump writes letters, some of them very amusing; 
 writes poetry, some pieces original. Writes Hasty 
 Pudding, by Barlow, in several cantos, which she had 
 never read ; all correctly written, but queerly arranged 
 e. g., one line belonging in one canto would be trans- 
 posed with another line in another canto. She has no 
 knowledge of Latin or French, yet Stump produces the 
 following lines : 
 
 " Sed tempus recessit, and this was all over, 
 Cum illi successit, another gay rover; 
 Nam cum navigaret in his own cutter, 
 Portentum apparet, which made them all flutter. 
 
 "Et horrid us anguis which they behold, 
 Haud dubio sanguis within them ran- cold ; 
 Tringinta pedes his head was upraised, 
 Et corporis sedes in secret was placed. 
 
 " Sic serpens manebat, so says the same joker, 
 Et sese ferebat as stiff as a poker; 
 Tergum fricabat against the old lighthouse, 
 Et sese liberabat of scaly detritus. 
 
 " Tune plumbo percussit thinking he hath him, 
 At serpens exsiluit full thirty fathoms, 
 Exsiluit mare with pain and affright, 
 Conatus abnare as fast as he might.
 
 288 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 " Neque ille secuti ? no, nothing so rash, 
 Terrore sunt muti he'd made such a splash ; 
 Sed mine adierunt the place to inspect, 
 Et squamas viderunt, the which they collect. 
 
 " Quicumque non credat and doubtfully rails, 
 Adlocum accedat, they'll show him the scales; 
 Quas, sola trophea, they brought to the shore ; 
 Et causa est ea, they couldn't get more. 
 
 " Stump writes both asleep and awake, and the 
 writing goes on while she is occupied with her left 
 hand in other matters. Ask her what she is writing:, 
 
 O" 
 
 she replies, ' I am not writing ; that is Stump writing. 
 I don't know what he is writing. I don't trouble my- 
 self with Stump's doings.' Reads with her book 
 upside down, and sometimes when covered with the 
 sheet. Stump produces two bills of fare in French. 
 
 " Upon this one subject of her right arm she is a 
 monomaniac. Her right hand and arm are not hers. 
 Attempt to reason with her, and she holds up her left 
 arm and says : ' This is my left arm. I see and feel my 
 right arm drawn behind me. You say this Stump is 
 my right arm. Then I have three arms and hands.' 
 In this arm the nerves of sensation are paralyzed, but 
 the nerves of motion preserved. She has no will to 
 move it. She has no knowledge of its motion. This 
 arm appears to have a separate intelligence. When 
 she sleeps, it writes or converses by signs. It never 
 sleeps ; watches over her when she sleeps ; endeavours 
 to prevent her from injuring herself or her clothing 
 when she is raving. It seems to possess an independ- 
 ent life." 
 
 Prof. James, -who is in possession of the full record, 
 adds "that Old Stump used to write to Miss W. in 
 the third person as Anna."
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 289 
 
 Instead of being possessed by an evil spirit, as is 
 usually the rule in Catholic countries, this patient was 
 possessed by a good spirit, who took care of the patient 
 and watched over her, and who, like spirits in general, 
 claimed to be clairvoyant. This good spirit was prob- 
 ably a peculiarly crystallized personality formed of the 
 sane remnants of the patient's subconscious self. 
 
 In the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases * Dr. 
 Irving C. Rosse describes the following interesting 
 case of triple personality : 
 
 " M. L., age thirty-five ; brasier ; single ; nativity, 
 Connecticut ; education, common school ; religion, Ro- 
 man Catholic. No hereditary or atavistic antecedents 
 of note. His habits from earliest manhood have been 
 of a kind that it would be charitable to designate sim- 
 ply as irregular. Alcoholic, nicotinic, and venereal ex- 
 cesses have been followed by persistent masturbation 
 and constant erotic tendency. 
 
 " Nothing unusual occurred in his life until about 
 1884, when he got to drinking, became nervous, sleep- 
 less, and finally had mania a potu, with a series of epi- 
 leptiform convulsions. His physicians prescribed more 
 whisky and a hypodermic of morphine, which did not 
 quiet him altogether, and while lying on the bed a 
 ' picture form ' appeared on the wall and gradually 
 assumed the form of Lucifer, whose voice issued forth, 
 saying, 'Who has hold of your blood God, or the 
 devil ? ' (the beginning of the delusional state as near 
 as can be ascertained). Leaping from the bed, he ran 
 to a priest's house for protection from the Evil One. 
 Subsequently was sent to a private asylum for four 
 weeks ; afterward under asylum treatment on three 
 
 * March, 1892.
 
 290 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 different occasions, about three years in all ; finally, es- 
 caping and getting drunk, was arrested for using pro- 
 fane language on the street, and spent four weeks in 
 jail. Regaining his liberty, worked as porter, Lucifer 
 still pursuing him, but not so troublesome as formerly. 
 On speaking to a priest about the delusion, the patient 
 was advised to stop drink. Shortly after went to New 
 York, where he kept up his bad habits. At length re- 
 turned to his home in Connecticut, insulted his mother, 
 sister, and a young woman visitor, owing to which 
 erotic conduct he was compelled to quit the paternal 
 roof, ultimately bringing up in Boston, where he en- 
 listed in the Marine Corps. This last act was volun- 
 tary, and not the outcome of Lucifer's instigation as 
 were the preceding acts, especially those of a criminal 
 or sinful nature ; but when asked by an examining 
 officer if there had been anything the matter with him 
 that would tend to disqualify him for military sendee, 
 Lucifer spoke up and said ' No.' After enlisting he 
 kept up his bad habits. He was transferred to "Wash- 
 ington, where his erotic habits and eccentric conduct, 
 particularly his speaking aloud to himself and gesticu- 
 lating wildly while communing with Lucifer, attracted 
 the attention of officers and men, and led to his being 
 sent to a hospital. 
 
 " M. L. speaks of himself as an innocent person 
 who is controlled by a spirit whom he calls ' the young 
 man,' and who in his turn is under the influence of 
 Lucifer, or, at any rate, is engaged in a continual strug- 
 gle with the latter for supremacy in controlling the ac- 
 tions of L. The young man abuses himself sexually at 
 times, but L. is not responsible for these actions. He 
 does not see Lucifer, but hears him talking and roaring 
 like a lion when opposed and angered. Lucifer tells
 
 SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INSANITY. 291 
 
 him to kill the writer or other person finding out L.'s 
 business, but he resists that advice. 
 
 " The patient is generally well conducted, and when 
 not assisting at work about the ward will go to a se- 
 cluded place, where he can be heard upbraiding Lucifer 
 in a loud tone for attempting to control his speech and 
 actions against his will, and tempting him to do things 
 that he knows to be improper. The patient dwells a 
 great deal on the importance of religious duties, ear- 
 nestly wishes to comply with the rules of the Church, 
 and believes that Lucifer can finally be expelled or 
 chased out by a species of exorcism. 
 
 " Patient's memory is fair as regards dates, but he 
 is indifferent to surroundings and to recent occurrences, 
 political or other. Knew when Mr. Cleveland was 
 President ; don't know who is now and don't care, his 
 only concern being to get his personality out of trouble, 
 as he feels that he has to answer to God for being the 
 cause of them. For the past six years he has been in 
 league with Lucifer to ' down ' L., but for the last six 
 months he has endeavoured to give up his dealings 
 with Lucifer and to assist L. to return to God. He, as 
 the 'young man,' wants to become L.'s good angel. 
 Formerly he was L.'s bad angel or evil counsellor, ow- 
 ing to some sinful act which placed him in Lucifer's 
 power. At each attempt to emancipate himself from 
 the power of Lucifer the latter tantalizes him in every 
 conceivable way. He says Lucifer is afraid of God, 
 but tries to bluff L. into the belief that God does not 
 know and see all things. The patient keeps religious 
 souvenirs about him, which displease Lucifer and in- 
 duce * kicking ' on his part." 
 
 The phenomena of insistent concepts, of impera- 
 tive ideas, of impulsive mania, of paramnesia, of para-
 
 292 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 noia and demonomania, can be fully reproduced in our 
 laboratories. From the way we induce the phenomena 
 artificially we can learn how they originate spontane- 
 ously. To bring about insistent concepts, irresistible 
 impulses, and all kinds of changes of the ego, we must 
 dissociate the secondary subconscious self from the pri- 
 mary controlling consciousness ; we must then inoculate 
 the subconscious self with the idea, impulse, or specious 
 personality, and make a deep cleft between the two 
 selves by enforcing amnesia, otherwise the suggestion 
 will simply rise as a memory. Once, however, disag- 
 gregation is enforced, we can easily induce all kinds of 
 insistent ideas, imperative concepts, all forms of irre- 
 sistible impulses, all sorts of changes of personality ; 
 and we may assert that all these forms of insanity 
 have at their basis a disaggregation of consciousness, a 
 dissociation of the primary and secondary subcon- 
 scious selves.
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 THE TRAITS OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 
 
 WE are now in a position to characterize the under- 
 ground self. 
 
 The subwaking self is stupid; it lacks all critical 
 sense. A thing must be told to it plainly in all details, 
 and even then it follows more the letter than the spirit 
 of the suggestion. I remind the reader of Prof. W. 
 James's subject who smoked but " one " pipe the whole 
 day, and also of my own subject, who, on being sug- 
 gested not to have any slight headache, next day came 
 complaining of violent pain. The lack of critical sense 
 is well brought out in the following experiment : 
 
 Mr. Y. F. is hypnotized and is suggested to be Sam 
 Smith, a bootblack, ten years of age. 
 
 Exp. What is your name ? 
 
 /Sub. Sam Smith. 
 
 Exp. Your occupation ? 
 
 /Sub. A bootblack. 
 
 Exp. How old are you ? 
 
 Sub. Ten years. 
 
 Exp. What is your father's name ? 
 
 Sub. (Gives his father's correct name.) 
 
 Exp. How is it that your name is Sam Smith and 
 your father's is different ? 
 
 Sub. I do not know. 
 
 293
 
 294 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 On another occasion I made the following experi* 
 ment on the same subject : 
 
 Exp. Are you alive ? 
 
 Sub. Yes. 
 
 Exp. No, you are dead. 
 
 Sub. Yes, I tlnnk I am dead. 
 
 Exp. How long is it since you died ? 
 
 Sub. A few days ago. 
 
 Exp. From what disease ? 
 
 Sub. I do not know ; just died. 
 
 Exp. Can you hear and feel me ? 
 
 Sub. Yes. 
 
 Exp. But how can you feel if you are dead ? 
 
 Sub. I do not know. 
 
 The subwaking self is ready to take any sugges- 
 tion, no matter how ridiculous or painful the sugges- 
 tion is. 
 
 Mr. Y. F. is hypnotized and is suggested that on 
 awakening he should light the gas and bow to the light 
 whenever the door is opened. On awakening he at 
 once rushes to light the gas, and is at last satisfied when 
 he sees the flame. 
 
 Exp. "What did you light the gas for ? 
 
 Sub. I do not know, unless I wanted to light my 
 pipe. 
 
 Exp. But you have no pipe. 
 
 Sub. That is true, but then I can light a cigarette. 
 (Takes a cigarette from my table, lights it, and begins 
 to puff.) 
 
 The reason here given by the subject is extremely 
 stupid, because he could far easier light directly the 
 cigarette with the match, and, besides, the gas jet was 
 so high up that he had to give a good jump to reach it. 
 
 I then opened the door. The subject bowed to the
 
 THE TRAITS OP THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF. 295 
 
 light. I opened the door again; again the subject 
 bowed to the gas jet. Each opening of the door was 
 followed by a polite bow to the fire. 
 
 Exp. Why do you bow to the fire ? 
 
 Sub. I do not know. I suppose I am practising. 
 I do not know. I feel like a chump while I am 
 doing it. 
 
 Exp. Why are you doing it ? Can you give any 
 reason ? 
 
 Sub. None, except that I want to. 
 
 Exp. Have you any desire to do it ? 
 
 Sub. Yes, I think it is a nice thing to do. 
 
 I take the hand of the subject, put it on the table, 
 and tell the hypnotic self that the pencil is a lighted 
 candle, the flames issuing from the point. When I 
 now touch any part of the subject's body with the 
 point of the pencil the self screams from great pain. I 
 tell the self, " You have a toothache," and he does get 
 the ache. 
 
 The subwaking self is extremely credulous ; it lacks 
 all sense of the true and rational. " Two and two make 
 five." "Yes." Anything is accepted if sufficiently 
 emphasized by the hypnotizer. The suggestibility and 
 imitativeness of the subwaking self was discussed by 
 me at great length. What I should like to point out 
 here is the extreme servility and cowardliness of that 
 self. Show hesitation, and it will show fight; com- 
 mand authoritatively, and it will obey slavishly.* 
 
 The subwaking self is devoid of all morality; it 
 will steal without the least scruple ; it will poison ; it 
 will stab ; it will assassinate its best friends without the 
 
 * This is well illustrated in the experiments on my subject A. 
 Fingold, see Chapter XXIV. 
 20
 
 296 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 least scruple. When completely cut off from the wak- 
 ing person it is precluded from conscience.* 
 
 The subwaking self dresses to fashion, gossips in 
 company, runs riot in business panics, revels in the 
 crowd, storms in the mob, and prays in the camp meet- 
 ing. Its senses are acute, but its sense is nil. Asso- 
 ciation by contiguity, the mental mechanism of the 
 brute, is the only one that it possesses. 
 
 The subwaking self lacks all personality and indi- 
 viduality; it is absolutely servile; it works according 
 to no maxims ; it has no moral law, no law at all. To 
 be a law unto one's self, the chief and essential charac- 
 teristic of personality, is just the very trait the subwak- 
 ing self so glaringly lacks. The subwaking self has no 
 will ; it is blown hither and thither by all sorts of in- 
 coming suggestions. It is essentially a brutal self. 
 
 The primary self alone possesses true personality, 
 will, and self-control. The primary self alone is a law 
 unto itself a person having the power to investigate 
 his own nature, to discover faults, to create ideals, to 
 strive after them, to struggle for them, and by con- 
 tinuous, strenuous efforts of will to attain higher and 
 higher stages of personality. 
 
 Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach ! in meiner Brust, 
 Die eine will sich von der andern trennen : 
 Die eine halt, in derber Liebeslust, 
 Sich an die Welt, mit klammernden Organen ; 
 Die andre hebt gewaltsam sich von Dust 
 Zu den Gefilden hoher Ahnen. FAUST. 
 
 * See an interesting article by Liebault in the Zeitschrift fur 
 Hypnotismus for April and May, 1895.
 
 PART III. 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 SOCIAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 
 
 SUGGESTIBILITY is a fundamental attribute of man's 
 nature. We must therefore expect that man, in his 
 social capacity, will display this general property ; and 
 so do we actually find the case to be. What is required 
 is only the condition to bring about a disaggregation in 
 the social consciousness. This disaggregation may 
 either be fleeting, unstable then the type of suggesti- 
 bility is that of the normal one ; or it may become stable 
 then the suggestibility is of the abnormal type. The 
 one is the suggestibility of the crowd, the other that of 
 the mob. In the mob direct suggestion is effective, in 
 the crowd indirect suggestion. The clever stump orator, 
 the politician, the preacher, fix the attention of their lis- 
 teners on themselves, interesting them in the " subject." 
 They as a rule distract the attention of the crowd by 
 their stories, frequently giving the suggestion in some 
 indirect and striking way, winding up the long yarn by 
 a climax requiring the immediate execution of the sug- 
 gested act. Out of the infinite number of cases, I take 
 the first that comes to my hand : 
 
 . 297
 
 298 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 In August 11, 1895, at Old Orchard, Me., a camp 
 meeting was held. The purpose was to raise a collec- 
 tion for the evangelization of the world. The preacher 
 gave his suggestions in the following way : 
 
 " The most impressive memory I have of foreign 
 iands is the crowds, the billows of lost humanity dash- 
 ing ceaselessly on the shores of eternity. . . . How des- 
 perate and unloved they are no joy, no spring, no 
 song in their religion ! I once heard a Chinaman tell 
 why he was a Christian. It seemed to him that he was 
 down in a deep pit, with no means to get out. [Story.] 
 Have you wept on a lost world as Jesus wept ? If not, 
 woe unto you. Your religion is but a dream and a 
 fancy. We find Christ testing his disciples. Shall he 
 make them his partners? Beloved, he is testing you 
 to-day. [Indirect suggestion.] He could convert one 
 thousand millionaires, but he is giving us a chance. 
 [Suggestion more direct than before.] Have we faith 
 enough ? [A discourse on faith follows here.] God 
 can not bring about great things without faith. I be- 
 lieve the coming of Jesus will be brought about by one 
 who believes strongly in it. . . . Beloved, if you are 
 going to give grandly for God you have got faith. 
 [The suggestion is still more direct.] The lad with 
 the five loaves and the two small fishes [story] when 
 it was over the little fellow did not lose his buns ; there 
 were twelve baskets over. . . . Oh, beloved, how it 
 will come back ! . . . Some day the King of kings will 
 call you and give you a kingdom of glory, and just for 
 trusting him a little ! What you give to-day is a great 
 investment. . . . Some day God will let us know how 
 much better he can invest our treasures than we our- 
 selves." The suggestion was effective. Money poured 
 in from all sides, contributions ran from hundreds
 
 SOCIAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 209 
 
 into thousands, into tens of thousands. The crowd 
 contributed as much as seventy thousand dollars. 
 
 A disaggregation of consciousness is easily effected 
 in the crowd. Some of the conditions of suggestibility 
 work in the crowd with great power and on a large 
 scale. The social psychical scalpels are big, powerful ; 
 their edges are extremely keen, and they cut sure and 
 deep. If anything gives us a strong sense of our indi- 
 viduality, it is surely our voluntary movements. "We 
 may say that the individual self grows and expands 
 with the increase of variety and intensity of its vol- 
 untary activity ; and conversely, the life of the indi- 
 vidual self sinks, shrinks with the decrease of variety 
 and intensity of voluntary movements. We find, ac- 
 cordingly, that the condition of limitation of vol- 
 untary movements is of great importance in sugges- 
 tibility in general, and this condition is of the more 
 importance since it, in fact, can bring about a narrow- 
 ing down of the field of consciousness with the con- 
 ditions consequent on that contraction all favour- 
 able to suggestibility. Now nowhere else, except 
 perhaps in solitary confinement, are the voluntary 
 movements of men so limited as they are in the crowd ; 
 and the larger the crowd is the greater is this limita- 
 tion, the lower sinks the individual self. Intensity of 
 personality is in inverse proportion to the number of 
 aggregated men. This law holds true not only in the 
 case of crowds, but also in the ase of highly organized 
 masses. Large, massive social organisms produce, as a 
 rule, very small persons. Great men are not to be 
 found in ancient Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, but 
 rather in the diminutive communities of ancient Greece 
 and Judea. 
 
 This condition of limitation of voluntary move-
 
 300 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 ments is one of the prime conditions that help to bring 
 about a deep; a more or less lasting dissociation in 
 the consciousness of the crowd the crowd passes into 
 the mob-state. A large gathering on account of the 
 cramping of voluntary movements easily falls into a 
 state of abnormal suggestibility, and is easily moved 
 by a ringleader or hero. Large assemblies carry within 
 themselves the germs of the possible mob. The crowd 
 contains within itself all the elements and conditions 
 favourable to a disaggregation of consciousness. What 
 is required is only that an interesting object, or that 
 some sudden violent impressions should strongly fix 
 the attention of the crowd, and plunge it into that 
 state in which the waking personality is shorn of its 
 dignity and power, and the naked subwaking self alone 
 remains face to face with the external environment. 
 
 Besides limitation of voluntary movements and con- 
 traction of the field of consciousness, there are also 
 present in the crowd, the matrix of the mob, the con- 
 ditions of monotony and inhibition. When the preach- 
 er, the politician, the stump orator, the ringleader, the 
 hero, gains the ear of the crowd, an ominous silence 
 sets in, a silence frequently characterized as " awful." 
 The crowd is in a state of overstrained expectation ; 
 with suspended breath it watches the hero or the inter- 
 esting, all-absorbing object. Disturbing impressions 
 are excluded, put down, driven away by main force. 
 So great is the silence induced in the fascinated crowd, 
 that very frequently the buzzing of a fly, or even the 
 drop of a pin, can be distinctly heard. All interfering 
 impressions and ideas are inhibited. The crowd is en- 
 tranced, and rapidly merges into the mob-state. 
 
 The great novelist Count Tolstoy gives the follow- 
 ing characteristic description of a crowd passing into
 
 SOCIAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 301 
 
 the entranced condition of the mob : " The crowd re- 
 mained silent, and pressed on one another closer and 
 closer. To bear the pressure of one another, to breathe 
 in this stifling, contagious atmosphere, not to have the 
 power to stir, and to expect something unknown, in- 
 comprehensible, and terrible, became intolerable. Those 
 who were in the front, who saw and heard everything 
 that took place, all those stood with eyes full of fright, 
 widely dilated, with open mouths ; and straining their 
 whole strength, they kept on their backs the pressure 
 of those behind them." * 
 
 The following concrete cases taken from American 
 life will perhaps show clearly the factors that work in 
 the entrancement of the crowd, and will also disclose 
 the disaggregation of consciousness effected in the pop- 
 ular mind. 
 
 One of the American newspapers gives the follow- 
 ing sensational but interesting account of feminine 
 crowds entranced by Paderewski : " There is a chatter, 
 a rustling of programmes, a waving of fans, a nodding 
 of feathers, a general air of expectancy, and the lights 
 are lowered. A hush. All eyes are turned to a small 
 door leading on to the stage ; it is opened. Paderew- 
 ski enters. ... A storm of applause greets him, . . . 
 but after it comes a tremulous hush- and a prolonged 
 sigh, . . . created by the long, deep inhalation of up- 
 ward of three thousand women. . . . Paderewski is at 
 the piano. . . . Thousands of eyes watch every common- 
 place movement [of his] through opera glasses with an 
 intensity painful to observe. He the idol, they the 
 idolators. . . . Toward the end of the performance 
 the most decorous women seem to abandon themselves 
 
 * Voina i Mir. (War and Peace.)
 
 302 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 to the influence. . . . There are sighs, sobs, the tight 
 clinching of the palms, the bowing of the head. Fer- 
 vid exclamations : ' He is my master ! ' are heard in 
 the feminine mob." In this highly sensational report 
 the paper unconsciously describes all the conditions re 
 quisite to effect a disaggregation of consciousness. 
 
 The conditions of crowd entran cement are clearly 
 revealed in the following case : 
 
 In 1895 a " modern Messiah," a " Man-Christ " by 
 name of Francis Schlatter, appeared in this country. 
 He worked miracles. People believed in his divine, 
 supernatural power. Men, women, and children flocked 
 to him from all sides, and Schlatter did cure many of 
 them of " the ills of the flesh " by " mere laying on of 
 hands," as the hypnotizer treats the entranced subject 
 or the one he intends to entrance. A disaggrega- 
 tion of consciousness was easily effected in the manipu- 
 lated crowd of believers, the subwaking reflex self 
 emerged, and Schlatter's suggestions took effect. A 
 reporter describes the scene as follows : 
 
 "Men, women, and children with the imprint of 
 mental illness upon their faces were on all sides. . . . 
 Every moment the crowd was augmented, . . . and 
 soon the place was a sea of heads as far as the eye could 
 see. [Limitation of voluntary movements.] . . . Then 
 a sudden movement went through the assemblage, and 
 even the faintest whisper was hushed. [Monotony, in- 
 hibition.] . . . Schlatter had come." [Concentration 
 of attention]. The reporter, as the individual of the 
 crowd, fell into the trance condition characteristic of 
 the person in the mob. " As I approached him," 
 writes the reporter, " I became possessed of a certain 
 supernatural fear, which it was difficult to analyze. 
 My faith in the man grew in spite of my reason,"
 
 SOCIAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 303 
 
 The waking, controlling, thinking, reasoning self began 
 to waver, to lose its power, and the reflex, subwaking 
 consciousness began to assert itself. " As he released 
 my hands my soul acknowledged some power in this 
 man that my mind and my brain (?) seemed to fight 
 against. When he unclasped my hands I felt as 
 though I could kneel at his feet and call him master" 
 
 The suggestion given to the entranced crowd by the 
 " master " spreads like wildfire. The given suggestion 
 reverberates from individual to individual, gathers 
 strength, and becomes so overwhelming as to drive the 
 crowd into a fury of activity, into a frenzy of excite- 
 ment. As the suggestions are taken by the mob 
 and executed the wave of excitement rises higher and 
 higher. Each fulfilled suggestion increases the emo- 
 tion of the mob in volume and intensity. Each new 
 attack is followed by a more violent paroxysm of furious 
 demoniac frenzy. The mob is like an avalanche : the 
 more it rolls the more menacing and dangerous it grows. 
 The suggestion given by the hero, by the ringleader, 
 by the master of the moment, is taken up by the crowd 
 and is reflected and reverberated from man to man, 
 until every soul is dizzied and every person is stunned. 
 In the entranced crowd, in the mob ; every one influ- 
 ences and is influenced in his turn ; every one suggests 
 and is suggested to, and the surging billow of sug- 
 gestion swells and rises until it reaches a formidable 
 height. 
 
 Suppose that the number of individuals in the crowd 
 Is 1,000, that the energy of the suggested idea in the 
 " master " himself be represented by 50, and that only 
 one half of it can be awakened in others ; then the 
 hero awakens an energy of 25 in every individual, who 
 again in his or her turn awakens in every one an
 
 304 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 energy of 12'5. The total energy aroused by the hero 
 is equal to 25 X 1,000 = 25,000. The total energy of 
 suggestion awakened by each individual in the crowd is 
 equal to 12'5 X 1,000, or 12,500 (the hero being in- 
 cluded, as he is, after all, but a part of the crowd). 
 Since the number of individuals in the crowd is 1,000, 
 we have the energy rising to as much as 12,500 X 1,000 ; 
 adding to it the 25,000 produced by the ringleader, we 
 have the total energy of suggestion amounting to 12,- 
 525,000 ! * 
 
 The mob energy grows faster than the increase of 
 numbers. The mob spirit grows and expands with 
 each fresh human increment. Like a cannibal it feeds 
 on human beings. In my article A Study of the Mob f 
 I point out that the mob has a self of its own ; that the 
 personal self is suppressed, swallowed up by it, so much 
 so that when the latter comes once more to the light of 
 day it is frequently horrified at the work, the crime, 
 the mob self had committed ; and that once the mob 
 self is generated, or, truer to say, brought to the surface, 
 it possesses a strong attractive power and a great capa- 
 city of assimilation. It attracts fresh individuals, breaks 
 down their personal life, and quickly assimilates them ; 
 it effects in them a disaggregation of consciousness and 
 assimilates the subwaking selves. Out of the subwak- 
 ing selves the mob-self springs into being. The assimi- 
 lated individual expresses nothing but the energy sug- 
 gestion, the will of the entranced crowd; he enters 
 fully into the spirit of the mob. This can be well 
 illustrated by a curious incident describing the riots of 
 the military colonists in Russia in 1831, taken from the 
 memoirs of Panaev : 
 
 * See Appendix I. f Atlantic Monthly, February, 1895.
 
 SOCIAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 305 
 
 " While Sokolov was fighting hard for his life I 
 saw a corporal lying on the piazza and crying bitterly. 
 On my question, ' Why do you cry ? ' he pointed in the 
 direction of the mob and exclaimed, ' Oh, they do not 
 kill a commander, but a father ! ' I told him that in- 
 stead of it he should rather go to Sokolov's aid. He 
 rose at once and ran to the help of his commander. A 
 little later when I came with a few soldiers to Sokolov's 
 help, I found the same corporal striking Sokolov with 
 a club. f Wretch, what are you doing ? Have you not 
 told me he was to you like a father ? ' To which he 
 answered : ' It is such a time, your honor ; all the peo- 
 ple strike him ; why should I keep quiet ? ' : 
 
 To take another interesting example : During the 
 Russian anti- Jewish riots in 1881 the city of Berditchev, 
 consisting mainly of Jewish inhabitants, suffered from 
 Jewish mobs. One day a Jewish mob of about fifteen 
 thousand men, armed with clubs, butchers' knives, and 
 revolvers, marched through the streets to the railway 
 station to meet the Katzapi.* To the surprise of intel- 
 ligent observers, many Christians were found to partici- 
 pate in this Jewish mob. 
 
 An interesting case of this kind is brought by the 
 Rev. H. C. Fish in his Handbook of Revivals : 
 
 " While a revival was in progress in a certain vil- 
 lage a profane tavern keeper swore he would never be 
 found among the fools who were running to the meet- 
 ings. On hearing, however, of the pleasing mode of 
 singing his curiosity was excited, and he said he did not 
 know but he might go and hear the singing, but with 
 an imprecation that he would never hear a word of the 
 
 * A Malo-Russian term for Veliko-Russians. In all anti-Jew- 
 ish riots Veliko-Russians were the ringleaders.
 
 306 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 sermon. As soon as the hymn before the sermon was 
 sung he leaned forward and secured both ears against 
 the sermon with his forefingers. Happening to with- 
 draw one of his forefingers, the words, ' He that hath 
 ears to hear let him hear,' pronounced with great so- 
 lemnity, entered the ear that was open and struck him 
 with irresistible force. He kept his hand from return- 
 ing to the ear, and, feeling an impression he had never" 
 known before, presently withdrew the other finger and 
 hearkened with deep attention to the discourse which 
 followed." The tavern keeper was fascinated, drawn 
 into the mob of true believers, was converted, and, 
 in the words of the Rev. H. C. Fish, "became truly 
 pious." 
 
 The power of suggestion possessed by the revival 
 meeting is well brought out in another case related by 
 the Rev. H. C. Fish : * 
 
 " An actress in one of the English provincial thea- 
 tres was one day passing through the streets of the 
 town when her attention was attracted by the sound of 
 voices. Curiosity prompted her to look in at an open 
 door. It was a social (revival) meeting, and at the 
 moment of her observation they were singing : 
 
 Depth of mercy ! can there be 
 Mercy still reserved for me ? 
 
 She stood motionless during a prayer which was 
 offered. . . . The words of the hymn followed her. 
 . . . The manager of the theatre called upon her one 
 morning and requested her to sustain the principal 
 character in a new play which was to be performed the 
 next week. . . . She promised to appear. The char- 
 
 * Handbook of Revivals.
 
 SOCIAL SUGGESTIBILITY. 307 
 
 acter she assumed required her on her first entrance to 
 sing a song, and when the curtain was drawn up the 
 orchestra immediately began the accompaniment. But 
 \ she stood as if lost in thought (she seemed to have fallen 
 into a trance), and as one forgetting all around her and 
 her own situation. The music ceased, but she did not 
 sing, and, supposing her to be overcome by embarrass- 
 ment, the band again commenced. A second time they 
 paused for her to begin, but still she did not open her 
 lips. A third time the air was played, and then with 
 clasped hand and eyes suffused with tears she sang not 
 the words of the song," but the verses suggested to her 
 at the revival meeting : 
 
 Depth of mercy ! can there be 
 Mercy still reserved for me ? 
 
 " The performance," the Rev. H. C. Fish naively 
 adds, " was suddenly ended." 
 
 The extreme impulsiveness of the mob self is noto- 
 rious. No sooner is a suggestion accepted, no matter 
 how criminal, how inhuman it might be, than it is im- 
 mediately realized, unless another suggestion more in 
 accord with the general nature of suggestions in which 
 the mob self was trained, interferes and deflects the 
 energy of the mob in another direction. The follow- 
 ing interesting case will perhaps best illustrate my 
 meaning : 
 
 On February 26, 1896, at Wichita Falls, Texas, a 
 mob of several thousand men attacked the jail where 
 two bank robbers were confined. The mob battered 
 the jail doors and forcibly took possession of the two 
 prisoners. The two men were taken to the bank 
 - which they attempted to rob the day before. An im- 
 provised scaffold was erected. The first impulse of the
 
 308 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 mob was to burn the prisoners. Roasting was the 
 programme. This inquisitorial mode of execution 
 " without shedding human blood " was by suggestion 
 changed to hanging, the way of execution commonly 
 in use in this country to inflict capital punishment, 
 the way of murder common to all American lynch- 
 ing mobs. 
 
 The consciousness of the mob is reflex in its nature. 
 In the entranced crowd, in the mob, social conscious- 
 ness is disaggregated, thus exposing to the direct influ- 
 ence of the environment the reflex consciousness of the 
 social subwaking self. The subwaking mob self slum- 
 bers within the bosom of society.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 SOCIETY AND EPIDEMICS. 
 
 WHEN animals, on account of the great dangers that 
 threaten them, begin to rove about in groups, in com- 
 panies, in herds, and thus become social, such animals, 
 on pain of extinction, must vary in the direction of sug- 
 gestibility ; they must become more and more suscep- 
 tible to the emotional expression of their comrades, and 
 reproduce it instantaneously at the first impression. 
 When danger is drawing near, and one of the herd de- 
 tects it and gives vent to his muscular expression of 
 fear, attempting to escape, those of his comrades who 
 are most susceptible reproduce the movements, experi- 
 ence the same emotions that agitate their companion, 
 and are thus alone able to survive in the struggle for 
 existence. A delicate susceptibility to the movements 
 of his fellows is a question of life and death to the in- 
 dividual in the herd. Suggestibility is of vital impor- 
 tance to the group, to society, for it is the only way of 
 rapid communication social brutes can possibly possess. 
 Natural selection seizes on this variation and develops 
 it to its highest degree. Individuals having a more 
 delicate susceptibility to suggestions survive, and leave 
 a greater progeny which more or less inherit the char- 
 acteristics of their parents. In the new generation, 
 again, natural selection resumes its merciless work, mak- 
 
 309
 
 310 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 ing the useful trait of suggestibility still more promi- 
 nent, and the sifting process goes on thus for genera- 
 tions, endlessly. A highly developed suggestibility, an 
 extreme, keen susceptibility to the sensori-motor sug- 
 gestions, coming from its companions, and immediately 
 realizing those suggestions by passing through the mo- 
 tor processes it witnesses, is the only way by which the 
 social brute can become conscious of the emotions that 
 agitate its fellows. The sentinel posted by the wasps 
 becomes agitated at the sight of danger, flies into the 
 interior of the nest buzzing violently, the whole nestful 
 of wasps raises a buzzing, and is thus put into the same 
 state of emotion which the sentinel experiences. 
 
 Suggestibility is the cement of the herd, the very 
 soul of the primitive social group. A herd of sheep 
 stands packed close together, looking abstractedly, stu- 
 pidly, into vacant space. . Frighten one of them ; if the 
 animal begins to run, frantic with terror, a stampede 
 ensues. Each sheep passes through the movements of 
 its neighbour. The herd acts like one body animated 
 by one soul. Social life presupposes suggestion. No 
 society without suggestibility. Man is a social animal, 
 no doubt ; but he is social because he is suggestible. 
 Suggestibility, however, requires disaggregation of con- 
 sciousness ; hence, society presupposes a cleavage of the 
 mind, it presupposes a plane of cleavage between the 
 differentiated individuality and the undifferentiated re- 
 flex consciousness, the indifferent subwaking self. So- 
 ciety and mental epidemics are intimately related / for 
 flie social gregarious self is the suggestible subconsciates 
 self. 
 
 The very organization of society keeps up the disag- 
 gregation of consciousness. The rules, the customs, the 
 laws of society are categorical, imperative, absolute.
 
 SOCIETY AND EPIDEMICS. 311 
 
 One must obey them on pain of death. Blind obedi- 
 ence is a social virtue.* But blind obedience is the 
 very essence of suggestibility, the constitution of the 
 disaggregated subwaking self. Society by its nature, 
 by its organization, tends to run riot in mobs, manias, 
 crazes, and all kinds of mental epidemics. 
 
 With the development of society the economical, 
 political, and religious institutions become more and 
 more differentiated ; their rules, laws, by-laws, and regu- 
 lations become more and more detailed, and tend to 
 cramp the individual, to limit, to constrain his volun- 
 tary movements, to contract his field of consciousness, 
 to inhibit all extraneous ideas in short, to create con- 
 ditions requisite for a disaggregation of consciousness. 
 If, now, something striking fixes the attention of the 
 public a brilliant campaign, a glittering holy image, 
 or a bright " silver dollar " the subwaking social self, 
 the demon of the demos, emerges, and society is agi- 
 tated with crazes, manias, panics, and mental plagues 
 of all sorts. 
 
 With the growth and civilization of society, institu- 
 tions become more stable, laws more rigid, individuality 
 is more and more crushed out, and the poor, barren 
 subwaking self is exposed in all its nakedness to the 
 vicissitudes of the external world. In civilized society 
 laws and regulations press on the individual from all 
 sides. Whenever one attempts to rise above the dead 
 level of commonplace life, instantly the social screw 
 begins to work, and down is brought upon him the 
 
 * " The vast majority of persons," writes F. Galton, " of our race 
 have a natural tendency to shrink from the responsibility of stand- 
 ing and acting alone ; they exalt the vox populi, even when they 
 know it to be the utterance of a mob of nobodies, into the vox Dei. 
 and they are willing slaves to tradition, authority, and custom." 
 21
 
 312 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 tremendous weight of the socio-static press, and it 
 squeezes him back into the mire of mediocrity, fre- 
 quently crushing him to death for his bold attempt. 
 Man's relations in life are determined and fixed for 
 him ; he is told how he must put on his tie, and the way 
 he must wear his coat ; such should be the fashion of his 
 dress on this particular occasion, and such should be the 
 form of his hat ; here must he nod his head, put on a 
 solemn air ; and there take off his hat, make a profound 
 bow, and display a smile full of delight. Personality is 
 suppressed by the rigidity of social organization ; the 
 cultivated, civilized individual is an automaton, a mere 
 puppet. 
 
 Under the enormous weight of the socio-static press, 
 under the crushing pressure of economical, political, and 
 religious regulations there is no possibility for the indi- 
 vidual to determine his own relations in life ; there is 
 no possibility for him to move, live, and think freely ; 
 the personal self sinks, the suggestible, subconscious, 
 social, impersonal self rises to the surface, gets trained 
 and cultivated, and becomes the hysterical actor in all 
 the tragedies of historical life. 
 
 Laws and mobs, society and epidemics are they 
 not antagonistic ? In point of fact they are intimately, 
 vitally interrelated, they are two sides of the same 
 shield. 
 
 Under normal conditions social activity no doubt 
 works wonders ; it elaborates such marvellous products 
 as language, folklore, mythology, tribal organization, 
 etc. products that can only be studied and admired by 
 the intellect of the scientist. When, however, the so- 
 cial conditions are of such a nature as to charge society 
 with strong emotional excitement, or when the institu- 
 tions dwarf individuality, when they arrest personal
 
 SOCIETY AND EPIDEMICS. 313 
 
 "growth, when they hinder the free development and 
 exercise of the personal controlling consciousness, then 
 society falls into a hypnoid condition, the social mind 
 gets disaggregated. The gregarious self begins to move 
 within the bosom of the crowd and becomes active ; the 
 demon of the demos emerges to the surface of social 
 life and throws the body politic into convulsions of de- 
 moniac fury.,
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 STAMPEDES. 
 
 MENTAL epidemics, panics, stampedes occurring in 
 social animals, are especially interesting from our point 
 of view. In the Journal of Mental Science for Janu- 
 ary, 1872, Dr. "W. Lauder Lindsay brings a few cases 
 of stampedes among cavalry horses. Of these stam- 
 pedes four deserve our special attention. Three were 
 English and one was Russian. 
 
 On Monday, August 30, 1871, a stampede happened 
 among the horses of the First Life Guard, encamped on 
 Cove Common, near Aldershot. The Daily Telegraph 
 of September 1, 1871, gives the following description 
 of the panic : " A sudden noise frightened the horses 
 of two officers and caused them to start from their 
 pickets, followed by six troop horses. A panic then 
 seized on the whole line ; three hundred horses broke 
 loose simultaneously, running in all directions, some 
 dragging the cords and pins, and all wearing their sad- 
 dle cloths. . . . Almost every open route had been 
 taken by the fugitives. ... At one point the troop 
 dashed against the closed toll-gate and smashed it 
 to pieces, while . . . many plunged against stakes or 
 other obstructions, seriously injuring themselves. Sev- 
 eral dropped down dead within an hour ; some were 
 drowned in the canal, and others were captured in a 
 
 314
 
 STAMPEDES. 315 
 
 crippled state." " Who could have thought," exclaims 
 the Times, " that horses would go mad, like Goldsmith's 
 dog, to gain some private end of their own ? and yet, 
 what other conclusion can we form ? . . . A sedate and 
 virtuous body of three hundred horses suddenly going 
 mad, running over one another, kicking and fighting 
 among themselves, and committing suicide by all the 
 means in their power. . . . The three hundred horses 
 . . . became frenzied with the same unity of purpose." 
 
 On September 2, 1871, a second stampede occurred 
 to the horses of the Second Dragoon Guards, also en- 
 camped on Cove Common. This time the stampede 
 was on a somewhat smaller scale than the first one. 
 According to the Daily News of September 4, 1871, 
 " seventy-six horses suddenly broke loose from the 
 right wing of the regiment and galloped madly in all 
 directions. The vast expanse of common ground in 
 the locality is intersected by the Basingstoke Canal and 
 numerous ditches, into which many of the animals 
 plunged or fell, and were with difficulty rescued from 
 drowning or suffocation." 
 
 Next day, September 3d, a still smaller stampede of 
 forty only occurred in the same camp to the horses of 
 the Tenth Hussars. The epidemic was rapidly losing 
 ground, and vanished altogether with the third stam- 
 pede. 
 
 If now we inquire after the immediate or exciting 
 cause in all these stampedes, we find it invariably to be 
 some very trivial accident, in itself utterly dispropor- 
 tionate to the effect produced. Thus the first stampede 
 was caused by a flock of geese that disturbed the repose 
 of the chargers, and the second was brought about by 
 " a runaway horse from an adjacent camp." The excit- 
 ing cause was insignificant ; what, then, was the pre-
 
 316 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 disposing cause ? The natural social suggestibility of 
 horsekind. 
 
 Compare now these equine stampedes with similar 
 stampedes or panics among men. The following case 
 may serve as a good illustration : 
 
 In the year 1761 the citizens of London were 
 alarmed by two shocks of an earthquake, and the 
 prophecy of a third, which was to destroy them alto- 
 gether. A crack-brained fellow named Bell, a soldier 
 in the Life Guards, was so impressed with the idea 
 that there would be a third earthquake in another 
 month that he lost his senses and ran about the streets 
 predicting the destruction of London on the 5th of 
 April. Thousands confidently believed his prediction 
 and took measures to transport themselves and their 
 families from the scene of the impending calamity. 
 As the awful day approached the excitement became 
 intense, and great numbers of credulous people resorted 
 to all the villages within a circuit of twenty miles, 
 awaiting the doom of London. Islington, Highgate, 
 Hampstead, Harrow, and Blackheath were crowded 
 with panic-stricken fugitives, who paid exorbitant 
 prices for accommodation to the housekeepers of these 
 secure retreats. Such as could not afford to pay for 
 lodgings at any of those places remained in London 
 until two or three days before the time, and then en- 
 camped in the surrounding fields, awaiting the tremen- 
 dous shock which was to lay the- city all level with the 
 dust. The fear became contagious, and hundreds, who 
 had laughed at the prediction a week before, packed up 
 their goods when they saw others doing so and has- 
 tened away. The river was thought to be a place of 
 great security, and all the merchant vessels in the port 
 were filled with people, who passed the night between
 
 STAMPEDES. 
 
 the 4th and 5th on board, expecting every instant to 
 see St. Paul's totter and the towers of Westminster 
 Abbey rock in the wind and fall amid a cloud of dust. 
 
 Stampedes have their leaders just as mobs have 
 their instigators, as political parties have their bosses, 
 and as great movements have their saints and heroes. 
 Each great stampede has its political boss, its " run- 
 away horse," its hero who is obeyed blindly and de- 
 votedly followed even to the point of self-destruction. 
 The suggestion of the hero is fatal in its effects. The 
 special correspondent of The Scotsman, in commenting 
 on the English stampedes, truly remarks : " It is always 
 one or two horses which begin the mischief; and if 
 they were quieted at once, the contagion of the panic 
 would be arrested." 
 
 If not counteracted, the suggestion given by the 
 boss of the stampede is simply irresistible, and is car- 
 ried out in a spirit of perfectly blind, slavish obedience. 
 This can be clearly seen in the Russian St. Petersburg 
 stampede of 1871. The Times correspondent gives the 
 following account of it : 
 
 " On the second night of the campaign an unlucky 
 accident occurred. ... A regiment of the Empress's 
 Cuirassiers of the Guard, nine hundred strong, . . . 
 had arrived at their cantonments. One of the squad- 
 ron of horses became alarmed, broke away, was fol- 
 lowed by the next squadron, and, a panic seizing them 
 all, in one instant the whole nine hundred fled in wild 
 disorder. . . . Two things were very remarkable in 
 this stampede. In the first place, they unanimously 
 selected one large, powerful horse as their leader, and, 
 with a look at him and a snort at him which they 
 meant and he understood as apres vous, they actually 
 waited until he dashed to the front, and then followed
 
 318 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 in wild confusion. "When I tell you that some of the 
 horses were not recovered till they had gone one hun- 
 dred and twenty miles into Finland, you may imagine 
 what the panic was. 
 
 " The second remarkable thing is the way that some 
 of them were stopped. In one solid mass they dashed 
 on for miles, and then came directly, at right angles, on 
 a river. In front of them was a bridge, but on the 
 other side of the bridge was a sort of tete du pont and 
 a small picket of cavalry. The horse which led would 
 not face the bridge, seeing the cavalry at the other end, 
 but turned to one side, dashed into the stream, and the 
 whole nine hundred horses swam the river together. 
 As they emerged and flew wildly on, the commander 
 of the picket bethought him of a ruse, and ordered a 
 bugler to blow the appel. This is always blown when 
 the horses are going to be fed. . . . All the old horses 
 pricked up their ears, wavered, stopped, paused, turned 
 round and trotted back. . . . This severed the mass. 
 . . . The rest was broken up." 
 
 Those who live in a democracy and have the in- 
 terests of the country at heart may well ponder on these 
 stampedes. From our standpoint these stampedes are 
 very interesting and highly instructive, because they 
 clearly show the extreme suggestibility to which the 
 social brute is constantly subject.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 MEDLEVAL MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 
 
 THE phenomena of history lie open before us. 
 Looking back to the middle ages, we find them to be 
 times in which abnormal social suggestibility was dis- 
 played on a grand scale times full of mobs, riots, of 
 blind movements of vast human masses, of terrible 
 epidemics ravaging Europe from end to end. They 
 were ages peculiar for the seemingly strange fact that 
 whole cities, extensive provinces, great countries were 
 stricken by one mental disease. Men went mad in 
 packs, in tens of thousands. An obscure individual in 
 some remote country place went off into fits of hys- 
 terics, and soon nations were struggling in convulsions 
 of hysterical insanity. 
 
 The middle ages appear to us as dark and brutal. 
 We consider ourselves vastly superior to the mediaeval 
 peasant, burgher, and knight, with their superstitions, 
 religious fervor, with their recurrent mental epidemics. 
 But might we not meet with a similar fate at the hands 
 of our descendants ? Might not a future historian look 
 back to our own times with dismay, if not with horror ? 
 He might represent our " modern civilized " times as 
 dark, cruel, brutal ; times of the St. Bartholomew butch- 
 ery and other Protestant massacres ; times of the Thirty 
 Years' War, of the Seven Tears' War, of the terrors 
 
 319
 
 320 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 of the French Revolution, of the brutal Napoleonic 
 wars ; times of the absurd tulip craze in Holland, of 
 great commercial manias and business bubbles, and of 
 still greater industrial panics and crises ; times of Sal- 
 vation armies, Coxey mobs, of blind religious revivals, 
 of mental epidemics and plagues of all sorts and de- 
 scriptions. 
 
 Different as mediaeval society is from our own, it is 
 still at bottom of like nature. A close inspection of it 
 will therefore help us to see clearer into the nature of 
 our own social life. 
 
 The life of the mediaeval individual was regulated 
 down to its least details by rigid laws, orders, and com- 
 mands. The guild, the order, the commune, and the 
 church all had minute regulations, rules, and prescrip- 
 tions for the slightest exigencies of life. Nothing was 
 left to individual enterprise ; even love had its rules 
 and customs. Society was divided and subdivided into 
 classes and groups, each having its own fixed rules, each 
 leading its own peculiar, narrow, dwarfish life. The 
 weight of authority was crushing, social pressure was 
 overwhelming, the inhibition of the individual's will 
 was complete, and the suggestible, social, subwaking 
 self was in direct relation with the external environ- 
 ment. 
 
 A brief review of the chief mental epidemics of 
 that time will at once show us the extreme suggesti- 
 bility of mediaeval society. 
 
 The most striking phenomenon in mediaeval history 
 is that of the Crusades, which agitated European nations 
 for about two centuries, and cost them about seven 
 million men. People were drawn by an irresistible 
 longing toward the Holy Sepulchre, which fascinated 
 their mental gaze, just as the butterfly is blindly drawn
 
 MEDIAEVAL MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 321 
 
 toward the candle. This attraction of devout Christians 
 by the Holy Sepulchre manifested itself in pilgrimages, 
 which at first were rare, but gradually spread, and be- 
 came a universal mania. Bishops abandoned their 
 dioceses, princes their dominions, to visit the tomb of 
 Christ. 
 
 At the time of its highest tide, the flood of pilgrims 
 was suddenly stopped by the Seljukian Turks, who 
 conquered Palestine about 1076. As a maniac, when 
 thwarted in his purpose, becomes raving and violent, 
 so did Europe become when the floodgates of the pil- 
 grim torrent were stopped, and only drops were let to 
 trickle through. European humanity fell into a fit of 
 acute mania which expressed itself in the savage ecstasy 
 of the first Crusade. 
 
 Peter the Hermit and Pope Urban II were the 
 heroes who first broke the ice, and directed the popular 
 current to the conquest of the Holy Land. The fiery 
 appeals of the emaciated, dwarfish hermit Peter car- 
 ried everything before them. The frenzy which had 
 unsettled the mind of the hermit was by him com- 
 municated to his hearers, and they became enraptured, 
 entranced with the splendid schemes he unfolded. 
 
 Meantime Pope Urban II convoked two councils, 
 one after another. At the second council, that of 
 Clermont, the pope addressed a multitude of thou- 
 sands of people. His speech was at first listened to in 
 solemn silence. Gradually, however, as he proceeded, 
 sobs broke out. " Listen to nothing," he exclaimed, 
 "but the groans of Jerusalem! . . . And remember 
 that the Lord has said, ' He that will not take up his 
 cross and follow me is unworthy of me.' You are the 
 soldiers of the cross ; wear, then, on your breast or on 
 your shoulders the blood-red sign of him who died for
 
 322 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 the salvation of your soul ! " The suggestion was irre- 
 sistible. Leaving the fields and towns, agricultural 
 serfs and petty traders displayed intense eagerness to 
 reach the Holy City. If a rational individual inter- 
 fered with a word of warning, their only answer was 
 the suggestion of the pope, " He who will not follow 
 me is unworthy of me." The whole world of Western 
 Christendom fell into a deep somnambulic condition. 
 This state of social somnambulism was naturally accom- 
 panied by its usual phenomena, by illusions, hallucina- 
 tions, and delusions in other words, by religious visions 
 and miracles. 
 
 Heinrich von Sybel, in speaking of the first Crusade, 
 tells us that " we can hardly understand such a state of 
 mind. It was much as if a large army were now to 
 embark in balloons, in order to conquer an island be- 
 tween the earth and the moon, which was also expected 
 to contain the paradise." Swarms of men of different 
 races, with their wives and daughters, with infants 
 taken from the cradle, and grandsires on the verge of 
 the grave, and many sick and dying, came from every 
 direction, all of them ready to be led to the conquest of 
 the Holy Land. Peter the Hermit, Walter the Penni- 
 less, and Gottschalk became the heroes, the ringleaders 
 of the mobs, which were cut to pieces before they 
 reached Palestine. Then followed an army led by pil- 
 grim princes, who succeeded in conquering the Holy 
 Land, and founded there a Christian kingdom; but 
 this kingdom was unstable, and it fell again and again 
 into the hands of the unbelievers, and crusade after 
 crusade was organized, each being a weaker copy of the 
 preceding, until 1272, when the crusade epidemic was 
 completely at an end. 
 
 During the same period of time there were also
 
 MEDIAEVAL MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 323 
 
 western crusades against the Arabians in Spain and 
 against the unfortunate Albigenses in southern France. 
 In the crusade against the Albigenses, according to 
 Albert von Stade, a peculiar religious mania broke out 
 among women ; thousands of them, stark naked arid in 
 deep silence, as if stricken with dumbness, ran franti- 
 cally about the streets. In Liittich many of them fell 
 into convulsions of ecstasy. 
 
 The abnormal suggestibility of mediaeval society was 
 most clearly seen in the crusades of children. About 
 1212, between the fourth and fifth crusades, Stephen, 
 a shepherd boy at Cloyes, in imitation of his elders, be- 
 gan to preach to children of a holy war. Stephen soon 
 became the rage of the day; the shrines were aban- 
 doned to listen to his words. He even worked mira- 
 cles. The appeal of Stephen to the children to save 
 the Holy Sepulchre aroused in the young a longing to 
 join him in the holy pilgrimage. 
 
 The crusade epidemic rapidly spread among the lit- 
 tle ones. Everywhere there arose children of ten years, 
 and some even as young as eight, who claimed to be 
 prophets sent by Stephen in the name of God. When 
 the " prophets " had gathered sufficient numbers, they 
 began to march through towns and villages. Like a 
 true epidemic, this migration-mania spared neither boys 
 nor girls ; according to the statements of the chroni- 
 clers, there was a large proportion of little girls in the 
 multitude of hypnotized children. 
 
 The king, Philip Augustus, by the advice of the Uni- 
 versity of Paris, issued an edict commanding the chil- 
 dren to return to their homes ; but the religious sugges- 
 tions were stronger than the king's command, and the 
 children continued to assemble unimpeded. Fathers 
 and mothers brought to bear upon the young all the
 
 324 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 influence they had to check this dangerous migration- 
 mania, but of no avail. Persuasions, threats, punish- 
 ments were as futile as the king's command. Bolts and 
 bars could not hold the children. If shut up, they 
 broke through doors and windows, and rushed to take 
 their places in the processions which they saw passing by. 
 If the children were forcibly detained, so that escape 
 was impossible, they pined away like migratory birds 
 kept in seclusion. 
 
 In a village near Cologne, Nicolas, a boy of ten, 
 began to play at crusade-preaching. Thousands of 
 children flocked to him from all sides. As in France, 
 all opposition was of no avail. Parents, friends, and 
 pastors sought to restrain them by force or appeal ; but 
 the young ones pined so that, as the chroniclers say, 
 their lives were frequently endangered, as by disease, 
 and it was necessary to allow them to depart. Hosts 
 of children assembled in the city of Cologne to start 
 on their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There they 
 were divided into two armies, one under the leadership 
 of Nicolas, the boy-prophet, the other under some un- 
 known leader. The armies of the little crusaders, like 
 Coxey's army of our own times, were soon reduced in 
 numbers by mere lack of food. 
 
 After many tribulations the army led by Nicolas, 
 considerably reduced in size, reached Rome, where the 
 pope, Innocent III, succeeded in diverting this stream 
 of little pilgrims back to Germany. Ruined, degraded, 
 and ridiculed, the poor German children reached their 
 homes ; and when asked what they in reality wanted, 
 the children, as if aroused from a narcotic state, an- 
 swered that they did not know. 
 
 The other German army had a worse fate. After 
 untold sufferings and enormous loss of numbers, they
 
 MEDIAEVAL MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 325 
 
 reached Brindisi, where they were treated with extreme 
 cruelty. The boys were seized by the citizens and sold 
 into slavery, and the girls were maltreated and sold into 
 dens of infamy. 
 
 The French little crusaders met with a similar fate. 
 When, after a long and fatiguing journey, they at last 
 reached Marseilles, two pious merchants voluntarily 
 offered to provide vessels to convey the children to 
 Palestine. Half of the vessels suffered shipwreck, and 
 the rest were directed to the shores of Africa, where 
 the little pilgrims were delivered into the hands of the 
 Turks and Arabians. The two pious merchants were 
 slave dealers. 
 
 A contemporary chronicler * describes the children's 
 crusade epidemic in the following barbaric, doggerel 
 Latin verse : 
 
 Hie vide perigrinacionem et qualiter per incantacinnes 
 
 sunt decepti, 
 
 Illis temporibus stupendum quid crevit. 
 Mundoque mirabilis truffa inolevit. 
 Nam sub boni specie malum sic succrevit. 
 Arte quidem magica ista late sevit. 
 
 Talis devocio ante hec non est audito. 
 Aures cunctis pruriunt virgines ornantur. 
 Annos infra sedecim evangelizantur. - 
 Concurrentes pueri certant et sequantur. 
 Et romore viderant casso consolantur. 
 Ungarus Theutunicus Francus sociantur. 
 Boemus Lombardicus Brittoque canantur. 
 Flandria Vestfalia amnes federantur. 
 Friso cum Norwagia cuncti conglobantur 
 Prurit pes et oculus pueros venantur. 
 
 Risum luctus occopat digne lamentantur. 
 
 * Anon. Chron. Rhythmicum, in Ranch's Rerum Austriacarum 
 Scriptores.
 
 326 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 No sooner did the crusade epidemic abate than an- 
 other one took its place, that of the flagellants. In 
 1260 the flagellants appeared in Italy, and from there 
 spread all over Europe. "An unexampled spirit of 
 remorse," writes a chronicler, " suddenly seized on the 
 minds of the people. The fear of Christ fell on all ; 
 noble and ignoble, old and young, and even children of 
 five, marched on the streets with no covering but a scarf 
 round their waists. They each had a scourge of leather 
 thongSj which they applied to their limbs with sighs 
 and tears with such violence that blood flowed from 
 their wounds." 
 
 As the flagellant epidemic was dying away, a terri- 
 ble plague arose, and this time a deadly one that of 
 the black death. While the black death was doing its 
 merciless, destructive work, a frenzy of anti-Semitic 
 mania seized on European nations ; they brutally burned 
 and slaughtered the unfortunate Jews by thousands, 
 sparing neither sex nor age. 
 
 The black death over, the dancing mania began. 
 About the year 1370 thousands of dancers filled the 
 streets of European cities. So virulent was this epi- 
 demic that peasants left their ploughs, mechanics their 
 workshops, and housewives their domestic duties, to 
 join the wild revels. Girls and boys quitted their 
 parents, and servants their masters, to look at the 
 dancers, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental 
 infection. 
 
 In Italy the dancing mania took a somewhat differ- 
 ent form. There a belief spread that he who was bit- 
 ten by a tarantula (a species of spider whose sting is 
 no more harmful than that of the ordinary wasp) got 
 dangerously sick, and could not be cured unless he 
 danced to the tune of the tarantella. Nothing short of
 
 MEDIAEVAL MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 327 
 
 death itself was expected from the wound which those 
 insects inflicted ; and if those who were bitten escaped 
 with their lives, they were pining away in a desponding 
 state of lassitude. Many became weak-sighted, lost the 
 power of speech, and were insensible to ordinary causes 
 of excitement. At the sounds of musical instruments 
 the patients awoke from their lethargy and started a 
 most passionate dance. Tarantism became the plague 
 of Italy. Crowds of patients thronged the streets of 
 the Italian cities, and danced madly to the merry tune 
 of the tarantella. The epidemic reached such a height 
 and became so widely spread that few persons could 
 claim to be entirely exempt from it. Neither youth 
 nor age was spared. Old men of ninety and children 
 of five were alike attacked by it. 
 
 Social suggestibility is individual hypnotization writ- 
 ten large. The laws of hypnosis work on a great scale 
 in society. Hypnotic suggestion is especially effective 
 if it accords with the character of the subject. The 
 same holds true in the case of social hypnotization. 
 Each nation has its own bent of mind, and suggestions 
 given in that direction are fatally effective. The Jew 
 is a fair example. Religious emotions are at the basis 
 of his character, and he is also highly susceptible to 
 religious suggestions. The list of Jewish Messiahs is 
 inordinately long. It would take too much space to 
 recount the names of all the " saviours " who appeared 
 among the Jews from the second destruction of the 
 temple down to our own times. A few strong cases, 
 however, will suffice. In the year 1666, on Rosh 
 Hashanah (Jewish New Year), a Jew, by name Sab- 
 bathai Zevi, declared himself publicly as the long-ex- 
 pected Messiah. The Jewish populace was full of glee 
 at hearing such happy news, and in the ardour of its 
 22
 
 328 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 belief, in the insanity of its religious intoxication, shout- 
 ed fervently, ' ; Long live the Jewish King, our Mes- 
 siah ! " A maniacal ecstasy took possession of the Jew- 
 ish mind. Men, women, and children fell into fits of 
 hysterics. Business men left their occupations, work- 
 men their trades, and devoted themselves to prayer and 
 penitence. The synagogues resounded with sighs, cries, 
 and sobs for days and nights together. The religious 
 mania became so furious that all the rabbis who op- 
 posed it had to save their lives by flight. Among the 
 Persian Jews the excitement ran so high that all the 
 Jewish husbandmen refused to labour in the fields. 
 Even Christians regarded Sabbathai with awe, for this 
 event took place in the apocalyptic year. The fame of 
 Sabbathai spread throughout the world. In Poland, 
 in Germany, in Holland, and in England, the course 
 of business was interrupted on the exchange by the 
 gravest Jews breaking off to discuss this wonder- 
 ful event. The Jews of Amsterdam sent inquiries 
 to their commercial agents in the Levant, and re- 
 ceived the brief and emphatic reply, " It is He, and 
 no other ! " 
 
 "Wherever the messages of the Messiah came, there 
 the Jews instituted fast days, according to the cabalistic 
 regulations of Nathan the prophet, and afterward aban- 
 doned themselves to gross intemperance. The Jewish 
 communities of Amsterdam and Hamburg were espe- 
 cially conspicuous for their absurd religious extrava- 
 gances. In Amsterdam the Jews marched through the 
 streets, carrying with them rolls of the torah, singing, 
 leaping, and dancing as if possessed. Scenes still more 
 turbulent, licentious, and wild occurred in Hamburg, 
 Venice, Leghorn, Avignon, and in many other cities of 
 Italy, Germany, France, and Poland. The tide of re-
 
 MEDLEVAL MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 339 
 
 ligious mania rose so high that even such learned men 
 as Isaac Aboab, Moses de Aguilar, Isaac Noar, the rich 
 banker and writer Abraham Pereira, and the Spinozist, 
 Dr. Benjamin Musaphia, became ardent adherents of 
 the Messiah. Spinoza himself seemed to have followed 
 these strange events with great interest. 
 
 The tide of religious mania rose higher and higher. 
 In all parts of the world prophets and prophetesses ap- 
 peared, thus realizing the Jewish belief in the inspired 
 nature of Messianic times. Men and women, boys and 
 girls, wriggled in hysterical convulsions, screaming 
 praises to the new Messiah ; many went raving about 
 in prophetic raptures, exclaiming : " Sabbathai Zevi is 
 the true Messiah of the race of David ; to him the 
 crown and kingdom are given ! " 
 
 The Jews seemed to have gone mad. From all 
 sides rich men came to Sabbathai, putting their wealth 
 at his disposal. Many sold out their houses and all 
 they possessed, and set out for Palestine. So great 
 was the number of pilgrims that the price of passage 
 was considerably raised. Traffic in the greatest com- 
 mercial centres came to a complete standstill ; most of 
 the Jewish merchants and bankers liquidated their 
 affairs. The belief in the divine mission of Sabbathai 
 was made into a religious dogma of equal rank with 
 that of the unity of God. Even when Sabbathai was 
 compelled by the Sultan to accept Mohammedanism the 
 mystico-Messianic epidemic continued to rage with 
 unabated fury. Many stubbornly rejected the fact of 
 his apostasy: it was his shade that had turned Mus- 
 sulman. 
 
 After Sabbathai's death a new prophet appeared, by 
 the name of Michael Cordozo. His doctrine, in spite of 
 its manifest absurdity, spread like wildfire. " The Son
 
 330 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 of David," he said, " will not appear until all Israel is 
 either holy or wicked." As the latter was by far the 
 easier process, he recommended all true Israelites to 
 hasten the coming of the Messiah by turning Moham- 
 medans. Great numbers with pious zeal complied with 
 his advice. 
 
 As an individual man may be foolish and mis- 
 chievous, but as a social brute he is absurd and dan- 
 gerous.
 
 CHAPTEK XXXI. 
 
 DEMONOPHOBIA. 
 
 ABOTTT the end of the fifteenth century the germs 
 of a fearful epidemic got lodged within the subcon- 
 scious mind of Western humanity. Demonophobia, 
 the fear of demons, the fear of witchcraft, got posses- 
 sion of the mind of European nations. Whole popu- 
 lations seemed to have been driven crazy with the fear 
 of the devil. For more than a century and a half did 
 the epidemic of demonophobia rage with an over- 
 whelming fury. No one was exempt from this mal- 
 ady of truly infernal origin. The old and the young, 
 the ignorant and the learned, were stricken by it alike. 
 
 In all European countries the same absurd opinions 
 and insane ideas prevailed as to the power of impious 
 and malicious people, especially of old. women, to effect 
 supernatural mischief, to fly through space, to change 
 themselves into dogs, cats, wolves, and goats, to kill, 
 worry, or terrify men, women, and children for their 
 pastime, and to feed on the flesh of the latter at horrid 
 banquets presided over by devils.* 
 
 Europe seemed to have become a vast asylum of 
 paranoiacs, of monomaniacs, possessed with the fear of 
 persecution by infernal agencies. Weak-minded per- 
 
 * Phantasmata, vol. i. R. R. Madden. 
 331
 
 332 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 sons, old, helpless, demented men and women, hyster- 
 ical subjects, and insane patients with a disposition to 
 form delusions were accused, or accused themselves, of 
 having entered into intimate relationship with imps, 
 incubi, succubi, and even of having had direct inter- 
 course with the archfiend himself. So strong were the 
 suspicions of this peculiar acute form of social paranoia 
 persecutoria that neither beauty nor tender age could 
 serve as protection. 
 
 The pope, Innocent VIII, in his bull of 1488 made 
 a strong appeal to his Catholic fold to rescue the Church 
 of Christ from the power of Satan. He preached a 
 crusade against the atrocious, unpardonable sin of witch- 
 craft. The land must be purified of this great evil. 
 Those servants of the devil, the sorcerers and witches, 
 commit the horrible crime of having intercourse with 
 impure spirits ; moreover, they delight in mischief and 
 evildoing ; they blast the corn of the field, the herbs 
 of the orchard, the grapes of the garden, and the 
 fruits of the trees ; they afflict with diseases man and 
 beast. Sorcery must be wiped out from the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 The appeal of the pope made a strong impression 
 on the minds of the people, and the malady of demono- 
 phobia was fairly under way. On all sides men sprang 
 up who made it their sole business to discover and burn 
 Borcerers and witches. Sprenger, the author of Mal- 
 leus Maleficarum, with true German thoroughness, 
 even worked out a whole system of rules by which the 
 inquisitors in other countries might best discover the 
 guilty. The inquisitors, for instance, were required to 
 ask the suspected whether they had midnight meetings 
 with the devil ; whether they attended the witches' sab- 
 bath ; whether they could raise whirlwinds ; whether
 
 DEMONOPHOBIA. 333 
 
 they had had sexual intercourse with Satan. To elicit 
 affirmative answers, tortures of the most excruciating 
 kinds were employed. 
 
 Pious and zealous inquisitors set at once to their 
 deadly work. Cumanus, in Italy, burned forty-one poor 
 women in one province alone ; and Sprenger, in Ger- 
 many, burned numbers of them ; his victims amounted 
 to as many as nine hundred in a year. The German 
 commissioners appointed by the pope, Innocent VIII, 
 condemned to the stake upward of three thousand 
 victims. 
 
 The new commissioners for the extermination of 
 witchcraft appointed by each successive pope still fur- 
 ther increased the virulence of the epidemic. One was 
 appointed by Alexander VI in 1494, another by Leo X 
 in 1521, and a third by Adrian VI in 1522. The epi- 
 demic of demonophobia increased from year to year, and 
 the spirit of persecution grew in vigour and intensity. 
 In Geneva alone five hundred persons were burned in 
 the years 1515 and 1516. Bartholomew de Spina in- 
 forms us that in the year 1524 no less than a thousand 
 persons suffered death for witchcraft in the district of 
 Como, and that for several years afterward the average 
 number of victims exceeded one hundred annually. 
 One inquisitor, Remigius, took great credit to himself 
 for having during fifteen years convicted and burned 
 nine hundred. The inquisitor of a rural township in 
 Piedmont burned the victims so plentifully and so fast 
 that there was not a family in the place which had not 
 its dead to mourn. 
 
 The Reformation helped little to alleviate this witch- 
 craft mania ; on the contrary, it only served to intensify 
 this truly demoniacal malady. -The spirit of persecu- 
 tion was even stronger in Protestant than in Catholic
 
 334 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 countries. In Luther's Table Talk we find the follow- 
 ing item : 
 
 " August 25, 1538. The conversation fell upon 
 witches, who spoil milk, eggs, and butter in farmyards. 
 Dr. Luther said : ' I should have no compassion on these 
 witches / / would burn aU of them? " 
 
 In France, fires for the execution of witches blazed 
 in almost every town. Children were torn away from 
 their parents and wives taken from their husbands and 
 cruelly sacrificed to the Moloch of demonophobia. The 
 people became so strongly possessed with the fear of 
 persecution by infernal agencies that in 1579 a great 
 alarm was raised in the neighbourhood of Melun by 
 the increase of witches, and a council was to devise 
 some measures to stay the evil. A decree was passed 
 that all witches and consultors with witches should be 
 punished with death ; and not only those, but also for- 
 tune-tellers and conjurers. In the following year the 
 Parliament of Rouen took up the same question, and de- 
 creed that the possession of a grimoire, or book of spells, 
 was sufficient evidence of witchcraft, and that all per- 
 sons on whom such books were found should be burned 
 alive. Three councils were held in different parts of 
 France in the year 1583, all relating to demonophobia. 
 
 From the Continent the epidemic spread to Eng- 
 land. In 1562 the statute of Elizabeth declared witch- 
 craft as a crime of the highest magnitude. An epi- 
 demic terror of witchcraft seized on the English mind, 
 and this epidemic spread and grew in virulence with the 
 growth of Puritanism. 
 
 In Scotland the germs of the epidemic were dili- 
 gently cultivated by the preachers of the Reformation. 
 In 1563 the ninth parliament of Queen Mary passed 
 an act that decreed the punishment of death against
 
 DEMONOPHOBIA. 335 
 
 witches and consulters of witches. The Scotch nation 
 was smitten with an epidemic fear of the devil and his 
 infernal agents. Sorcerers and witches were hunted 
 out and tortured with a truly demoniacal cruelty. As 
 a fair example of the cruelties and tortures practised 
 on the poor unfortunates convicted of witchcraft may 
 be taken the case of Dr. Fian, a petty schoolmaster of 
 Tranent. 
 
 Dr. Fian was accused of sorcery. He was arrested 
 and put on the rack, but he would confess nothing, and 
 held out so long unmoved that the severe tortures of 
 the loots was resolved upon. He fainted away from 
 great pain, but still no confession escaped his lips. Re- 
 storatives were then administered to him, and during 
 the first faint gleam of returning consciousness he was 
 prevailed upon to sign a full confession of his crime. 
 He was then remanded to his prison, from which 
 he managed to escape. He was soon recaptured and 
 brought before the Court of Judiciary, James I, the 
 demonologist, being present. Fian denied all the cir- 
 cumstances of the written confession which he had 
 signed ; whereupon the king, enraged at his stubborn 
 wilfulness, ordered him once more to the torture. Dr. 
 Fian's finger nails were riven out with pincers, and 
 long needles thrust, their entire length, into the quick. 
 He was then consigned again to the boots, in which he 
 continued " so long, and abode so many blows in them 
 that his legs were crushed and beaten together as small 
 as might be, and the bones and flesh so bruised that the 
 blood and marrow spouted forth in great abundance." 
 
 The social malady of demonophobia kept on grow- 
 ing among the Scotch, and the spirit of persecution 
 grew in violence from year to year. From the passing 
 of the act of Queen Mary till the accession of James to
 
 336 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 the throne of England, a period of thirty-nine years, 
 the average number of persecutions for witchcraft in 
 Scotland was two hundred annually, or upward of sev- 
 enteen thousand victims ! 
 
 Witch-finding in Scotland became a regular trade, 
 and hundreds of ruffians carried on this profession with 
 great profit. It was believed that the devil put his 
 mark on his servants in the shape of an anaesthetic, or 
 rather analgesic, spot a spot free from pain. Such an- 
 aesthetic spots, as we know, exist in hysterical subjects, 
 and can be easily induced by suggestion. The witch- 
 finders, armed with long pins, roamed about the coun- 
 try, pricking the flesh of supposed criminals. Once 
 the anaesthetic spot was found the person was doomed 
 to death. So acute was the social mental malady of 
 demonophobia that no one once accused of relations 
 with the devil was acquitted. To be accused of witch- 
 craft meant to be guilty of it, and to be guilty of witch- 
 craft was certain death. 
 
 In the year 1597 King James I published his famous 
 or infamous treatise on demonology. " Witches," 
 says the king, " ought to be put to death, according to the 
 law of God, the civil and imperial law, and the munici- 
 pal law of all Christian nations : yea, to spare the life, 
 and not strike whom God bids strike, and so severely 
 punish in so odious a treason against God, is not only 
 unlawful, but doubtless as great a sin in the magistrate 
 as was Saul's sparing Agag." He says also that the 
 crime is so abominable that it may be proved by evi- 
 dence which would not be received against any other 
 offenders young children who knew not the nature of 
 an oath and persons of an infamous character being 
 sufficient witnesses against them. To be, however, 
 more sure, James gives us well-tried tests for the discov-
 
 DEMONOPHOBIA. 337 
 
 ery of witches and sorcerers. " Two good helps," says 
 James, " may be used : the one is the finding of their 
 mark and the trying of the insensibleness thereof ; the 
 other is their floating on the water ; for, as in a secret 
 murther, if the dead carcass be at any time thereafter 
 handled by the murtherer, it will gush out of the blood, 
 as if the blood were crying to Heaven for revenge of 
 the murtherer (God having appointed that secret super- 
 natural sign for trial of that secret unnatural crime) ; so 
 that it appears that God hath appointed (for a super- 
 natural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches) that 
 the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom that 
 have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism and 
 wilfully refused the benefit thereof ; no, not so much 
 as their eyes are able to shed tears (threaten and torture 
 them as you please) while first they repent (God not 
 permitting them to dissemble their obstinacy in so hor- 
 rible a crime) ; albeit the womankind especially be able 
 otherwise to shed tears at every light occasion when 
 they will, yea, although it were dissembling like the 
 crocodiles." 
 
 With the accession of James, the demonologist, to 
 the throne of England the epidemic of demonophobia 
 burst forth among the English with . renewed vigour 
 and with more intense fury than ever. In 1604 the 
 first parliament of King James passed a bill to the 
 effect " that if any person shall use, practise, or exer- 
 cise any conjuration of any wicked or evil spirit, or 
 shall consult, covenant with, or feed any spirit, the first 
 offence to be imprisonment for a year and standing in 
 the pillory once a quarter ; the second offence to be 
 death." 
 
 This act of James I against witchcraft was passed 
 when Lord Bacon was a member of the House of Com-
 
 338 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 mons and Lord Coke was attorney -general. That act 
 was referred to a committee which had the spiritual 
 guidance of twelve bishops of the Church of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 As a rule, however, the minor punishment was but 
 rarely inflicted. Nearly all of the records report cases 
 of accused hanged and burned alive and quick. Dur- 
 ing the long period of social cataclysms from the reign 
 of James I to that of Charles II, the epidemic of 
 deinonophobia continued to rage with unabated fury. 
 Dr. Zachary Grey, in a note to " Hudibras," informs us 
 that he himself perused a list of three thousand witches 
 executed in the time of the Long Parliament alone. 
 During the first eighty years of the seventeenth century 
 the number executed has been estimated at five hun- 
 dred annually, making a total of forty thousand. 
 
 Among the English inquisitors, Matthew Hopkins, 
 the witch-finder, greatly distinguished himself for his 
 insane passion of witch persecution. He claimed to 
 have a thorough knowledge of "such cattle," as he 
 called the witches, and soon assumed the title of "Witch- 
 finder Generall." He travelled through the counties 
 of Norfolk, Essex, Huntington, and Sussex for the sole 
 purpose of finding out the servants of the devil.* The 
 most favourable test, however, with him was that of 
 swimming. The hands and feet of the suspected per- 
 sons were tied together crosswise, the thumb of the 
 right hand to the toe of the left foot, and the thumb of 
 
 * The repetition of the Lord's Prayer and Creed was a sure test 
 to discover the followers of Beelzebub. No witch could do so cor- 
 rectly. If she missed a word, or even if she pronounced one in- 
 coherently, she was guilty. Tearlessness was also a good test. 
 Witches can not shed more than three tears, and that only from the 
 left eye.
 
 DEMONOPHOBIA. 339 
 
 the left hand to the toe of the right foot. The unfor- 
 tunates were then wrapped up in a large blanket and 
 laid upon their backs in a pond or river. If they sank 
 and were drowned, they were innocent ; but if they 
 floated, they were guilty of witchcraft and were burned 
 " alive and quick." 
 
 Another favourite method of Hopkins, " the Witch- 
 finder Generall," was to tie the suspected witch in the 
 middle of a room to a chair or table in some uneasy 
 posture. He then placed persons to watch her for four- 
 and-twenty hours, during which time she was kept with- 
 out food and drink. In this state one of her imps will 
 surely come and visit her and suck her blood. As the 
 imp might come in the shape of a moth or a fly, a 
 hole was made in the door or window to admit it. If 
 any fly escaped from the room, and the watchers could 
 not catch it and kill it, the woman was guilty, and she 
 was sentenced to death. Thus a poor old woman was 
 found guilty, because four flies appeared in the room, 
 and she was made to confess that she had in her employ 
 four imps named " Ilemazar," " Pye-wackett," " Peck- 
 in-the Crown," and " Grizel-Greedigut." 
 
 In the seventeenth century the social malady of 
 demonophobia reached its acme of development. The 
 epidemic was in full swing. " The world seemed to be 
 like a large madhouse for witches and devils to play 
 their antics in." The terror of mysterious evil agencies 
 fell on the spirits of men. The demon of fear seemed 
 to have obsessed the mind of European humanity. 
 Continental Europe, especially France, Germany, and 
 Switzerland, suffered greatly from the epidemic. High 
 and low were attacked by this malady without any 
 discrimination. In fact, the more learned one was 
 the stronger was the malady, the more acute was the *
 
 340 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 fear of inimical mysterious agencies. Social paranoia 
 persecutoria seemed to have become chronic. 
 
 The great Bodinus, the highest authority of the sev- 
 enteenth century, tells us that " the trial of the offence 
 [witchcraft] must not be conducted like other crimes. 
 Whoever adheres to the ordinary course of justice per- 
 verts the spirit of the law, both divine and human. 
 He who is accused of sorcery should never be acquitted, 
 unless the malice of the persecutor be clearer than the 
 sun', for it is so difficult to bring full proof of this 
 secret crime, that out of a million of witches not one 
 would be convicted if the usual course were followed " ! 
 
 Thousands upon thousands of victims were cruelly 
 sacrificed to that insane fear of evil spirits. Nurem- 
 berg, Geneva, Paris, Toulouse, Lyons, and many other 
 cities, brought on the average an annual sacrifice of 
 two hundred ; Cologne burned three hundred and the 
 district of Bamberg four hundred witches and sorcerers 
 annually. 
 
 The list of trials of the city of Wiirzburg for only 
 two years, from 1627 to 1629, may serve as an illustra- 
 tion of the diabolical work done by that insane spirit of 
 demonophobia. Hauber, who has preserved the list in 
 his Acta et Scripta Magica, says, in a note at the end, 
 that it is far from being complete, and that there were 
 a great many other burnings too numerous to specify. 
 This list of executions contains the names of one 
 hundred and fifty -seven persons who were burned in 
 the course of two years in twenty-nine burnings, aver- 
 aging from five to six at a time. It comprises three 
 play actors, four innkeepers, three common councilmen 
 of Wiirzburg, fourteen vicars of the cathedral, the bur- 
 gomaster's lady, an apothecary's wife and daughter, two 
 choristers of the cathedral, Gobel Babclin, tbe prettiest
 
 DEMONOPHOBIA. 341 
 
 girl in the town, and the wife, the two little sons, and 
 the daughter of the councillor Stalzenberg. At the 
 seventh of these recorded burnings the victims are de- 
 scribed as a wandering boy twelve years of age, and 
 four strange men and women. Thirty of the whole 
 number appear to have been vagrants of both sexes. 
 None escaped. All fell victims to the insane suspicions 
 of religious paranoia persecutoria. 
 
 The spirit of persecution did not spare even the 
 little ones. The number of children on the list is great. 
 The thirteenth and the fourteenth burnings comprise 
 a little girl of nine, another child (a younger sister), 
 their mother, and their aunt, a pretty young woman of 
 twenty-four. At the eighteenth burning the victims 
 were two boys of twelve and a girl of fifteen. At 
 the nineteenth, the young heir of Rotenhahn, aged 
 nine, and two other boys, one aged ten and the other 
 twelve. Whoever had the misfortune of falling under 
 the suspicion of practising witchcraft, of dealing with 
 spirits, was lost. Nothing could save him from the 
 homicidal fury of religious demonophobia. 
 
 So acute was the malady of demonophobia that 
 nonsensical jargon uttered by poor crazed creatures 
 scared people out of their wits. Thus at Amsterdam 
 a crazy girl confessed that she could cause sterility in 
 cattle and bewitch pigs and poultry by merely repeat- 
 ing the magic words Turius und Shurius Inturius. 
 She was hanged and burned. One insane person was 
 condemned to the stake by the magistrate of Wiirzburg 
 for uttering the following formula : 
 
 Lalle, Bachera, Magatte, Baphia, Dajam, 
 Vagath Heneche Ammi Nagaz, Adamator, 
 
 Raphael Immanuel Christus, Tetragrammaton, 
 
 Agra Jad Loi. Konig ! Konig !
 
 342 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 People were condemned to the flames for pronounc- 
 ing meaningless words, such as 
 
 Anion, Lalle, Sabalos, Aado, Pater, Aziel, 
 Adonai Sado Vagoth Agra, Jad, 
 Baphra ! Komm ! Komm ! 
 
 It was considered an unpardonable sin, a heinous 
 crime that could only be expiated by the auto-da-fe, to 
 repeat the following gibberish : 
 
 Zellianelle Heotti Bonus Vagotha, 
 Plisos Sother osech unicus Beelzebub, 
 Dox ! Comm ! Comm ! * 
 
 The wave of the epidemic ran so high that even 
 little children who in their play happened to repeat 
 those awful incantations were seized by the authorities, 
 tried for witchcraft, found guilty, and condemned to 
 the flames. 
 
 On American ground we find the same malady of 
 demonophobia blazing up in the celebrated trials of 
 Salem witchcraft. On the accusation of a few hyster- 
 ical girls, f twenty innocent people were condemned to 
 death. Some were hanged, and others suffered a hor- 
 rible end under the crushing pressure of heavy weights. 
 
 One can hardly find on the records of human 
 crimes anything more disgusting, more infamous, than 
 this insane systematic persecution of feeble women and 
 tender children. 
 
 * Charles Mackay, Memoirs. 
 
 f Upham, On Witchcraft. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 FINANCIAL CRAZES. 
 
 IF from the horrors of demonophobia we turn to 
 the market place, to the world of business and finances, 
 we are once more impressed by the extreme suggesti- 
 bility characteristic of the social spirit. The enthusi- 
 asm of speculative mania and the abject fear of finan- 
 cial panics are epidemical. Men think in crowds, and 
 go mad in herds. The tulipomania of the Dutch, the 
 Mississippi scheme of the French, the South Sea bub- 
 ble of the English, the financial epidemics and business 
 panics of our own time, may serve as good illustrations. 
 
 About the year 1634 the Dutch became suddenly 
 possessed with a mania for tulips. The ordinary in- 
 dustry of the country was neglected, and the popula- 
 tion, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in the tulip 
 trade. The tulip rapidly rose in value, and when the 
 mania was in full swing some daring speculators in- 
 vested as much as 100,000 florins in the purchase of 
 forty roots. The bulbs were as precious as diamonds; 
 they were sold by their weight in perits, a weight less 
 than a grain. A tulip of the species called Admiral 
 Lief ken weighing 400 perits was worth 4,400 florins ; 
 an Admiral Von der Eyck weighing 446 perits was 
 worth 1,260 florins ; a Childer of 106 perits was worth 
 1,615 florins ; a Yiceroy of 400 perits, 3,000 florins ; and 
 23 343
 
 344: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 a Semper Augustus weighing 200 perils was thought to 
 be very cheap at 5,500 florins.* 
 
 An insane mania of speculating in tulips seized 
 upon the minds of the Dutch. Regular marts for the 
 sale of roots were established in all the large towns of 
 Holland in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leyden, 
 Alkmaar. The stock jobbers dealt largely in tulips, 
 and their profits were enormous. Many speculators 
 grew suddenly rich. The epidemic of tulipomania 
 raged with intense fury, the enthusiasm of speculation 
 filled every heart, and confidence was at its height. A 
 golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and 
 one after the other they rushed to the tulip marts, like 
 flies around a honey pot. Every one imagined that the 
 passion for tulips would last forever, and that the 
 wealthy from every part of the world would send to 
 Holland and pay whatever prices were asked for them. 
 The riches of Europe would be concentrated on the 
 shores of the Zuyder Zee. Nobles, citizens, farmers, 
 mechanics, seamen, footmen, maid servants, chimney- 
 sweeps, and old-clothes women dabbled in tulips. 
 Houses and lands were offered for sale at ruinous- 
 ly low prices, or assigned in payment of bargains 
 made at the tulip market. So contagious was the 
 epidemic that foreigners became smitten with the 
 same frenzy and money poured into Holland from all 
 directions. 
 
 This speculative mania did not last long ; social sug- 
 gestion began to work in the opposite direction, and a 
 universal panic suddenly seized on the minds of the 
 Dutch. Instead of buying, every one was trying to sell. 
 Tulips fell below their normal value. Thousands of 
 
 * Mackay, Memoirs.
 
 FINANCIAL CRAZES. 345 
 
 merchants were utterly ruined, and a cry of lamenta- 
 tion rose in the land. 
 
 About the year 1717 a maniacal enthusiasm of 
 speculation seized on the French mind. John Law, a 
 sharp Scotchman, was authorized by the Regent of 
 France to establish a company with the exclusive privi- 
 lege of trading on the western bank of the Mississippi. 
 Expectation rose on all sides, and thousands of people 
 hastened to invest their capital, which was to be raised 
 with unheard-of profits on the water of that great 
 river. With a large fund in hand and with prospects 
 of getting an unlimited supply of money, the Missis- 
 sippi Company extended the range of its visionary 
 speculation. 
 
 In the year 1719 an edict was published granting 
 to the Mississippi Company the exclusive privilege of 
 trading to the East Indies and the South Seas. The 
 prospects of profit were glorious. John Law, the pro- 
 jector, the ringleader of the epidemic, promised a 
 profit of about one hundred and twenty per cent ! 
 
 The enthusiasm of the French nation knew no 
 bounds. Three hundred thousand applications were 
 made for the fifty thousand new shares issued by the 
 company, and Law's house was beset from morning to 
 night by mobs of applicants. 
 
 The eagerness to be on the list of the stockholders 
 rose to a pitch of frenzy. Dukes, marquises, counts, 
 with their duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses, 
 waited in the streets for hours every day to know the 
 result. Every day the value of the shares increased, 
 and fresh applications became so numerous that it was 
 deemed advisable to create no less than three hundred 
 thousand new shares at five thousand livres each, in 
 order that the regent might take advantage of the popu-
 
 346 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 lar enthusiasm to pay off the national debt. For this 
 purpose the sum of fifteen hundred million livres was 
 necessary. Such was the eagerness of the nation that 
 thrice the sum would have been subscribed if the Gov- 
 ernment had authorized it. 
 
 The tide of speculative mania rose higher and 
 higher. The French were seized with an insatiable 
 greed for speculation. There was not a person of note 
 among the aristocracy who was not engaged in buying 
 and selling stock. People of every age and sex and 
 condition in life speculated in the rise and fall of Mis- 
 sissippi bonds. The street where the jobbers met was 
 thronged with multitudes of people, and accidents fre- 
 quently occurred there on account of the great pressure 
 of the crowd. Houses round the resort of speculation 
 houses worth in ordinary times a thousand livres of 
 yearly rent yielded as much as twelve or sixteen 
 thousand. A cobbler who had a stall in that street 
 gained about two hundred livres a day by letting 
 it out and furnishing writing materials to brokers 
 and their clients. The story goes that a hunchback 
 who stood in the street gained considerable sums by 
 lending his hump as a writing desk to the eager specu- 
 lators.* 
 
 A spirit of furious speculation took possession of the 
 French mind to such a degree that thousands abandoned 
 resorts of pleasure to join the orgies of gambling in 
 Mississippi bonds. The whole nation was in a trance ; 
 it was intoxicated with the hopes and expectations of 
 enormous gains, nay with actual realization of great 
 treasures. The French, however, soon woke up from 
 their trance with a cry of distress; the Mississippi 
 
 * Mackay, Memoirs.
 
 FINANCIAL CRAZES. 347 
 
 bubble burst, and thousands of speculators were ruined 
 and reduced to poverty and misery. 
 
 In the year 1720 a fever of speculation seized on 
 the English mind. The South Sea Company, in order 
 to raise the value of its stock, spread fanciful rumours 
 that all the Spanish colonies would soon be granted 
 free trade, and then the rich product of Potosi would be 
 poured into the lap of the English. Silver and gold 
 would be as plentiful as iron. England would become 
 the wealthiest country in the world, and the richest 
 company in England would be the South Sea Com- 
 pany ; every hundred pounds invested in it would pro- 
 duce hundreds per annum. 
 
 Strange to say, people believed in all those fables, 
 and bought shares and speculated recklessly. Business 
 men were in a high fever of excitement. They aban- 
 doned their trades and turned to speculation. For a 
 time it looked as if the whole nation turned stock job- 
 bers. Exchange Alley was blocked up by crowds. 
 Everybody came to purchase stock. " Every fool as- 
 pired to be a knave." The epidemic grew in vigour and 
 intensity ; the mania for speculation became more acute. 
 New companies with schemes of the most extravagant 
 and fanciful nature sprang up on all sides like mush- 
 rooms. The share lists were speedily" filled up, and the 
 shares grew on wind and water. Business bubbles were 
 raised on all sides, and people were sure to get rich on 
 them. 
 
 Yerily, verily, there are no bounds to human cre- 
 dulity and folly. People invested their fortunes in such 
 absurd schemes that one who has never experienced 
 the fever of modern speculation can hardly realize the 
 state of the public mind. Thus one of the projects 
 that received great encouragement was for the estab-
 
 348 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 lishment of a company " to make deal boards out of 
 sawdust." One project was more absurd than the 
 other : " For furnishing funerals to any part of Great 
 Britain " ; " For a wheel of perpetual motion " ; " For 
 extracting silver from lead " ; " For the transmutation 
 of quicksilver into a malleable fine metal." Such were 
 the nature of the projects. Some bold speculator 
 started " A company for carrying on an undertaking of 
 great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." In 
 his prospectus the speculator stated that the required 
 capital was half a million, in five thousand shares of 
 one hundred pounds each; deposit, two pounds per 
 share. Each subscriber paying his deposit would be 
 entitled to one hundred pounds per share.* " Man be- 
 lieves as much as he can," says Prof. James, but as a 
 gregarious animal man believes whatever is suggested 
 to him. 
 
 The waves of business speculation ran higher and 
 higher, and along with it rose the stock of the South 
 Sea Company. The shares rose three hundred to five 
 hundred, five hundred to five hundred and fifty, and 
 then made a prodigious leap to eight hundred and 
 ninety, and finally the price of the stock rose to one 
 thousand per cent ! The bubble was full blown and 
 burst. People began to sell stock to realize profit. 
 The stock fell. The rush for selling increased. The 
 stock began to sink rapidly. The fall produced an alarm, 
 a panic ! 
 
 The course of speculation epidemics is to rise to the 
 highest point of heavenly bliss, and then to fatl to the 
 lowest depth of misery ; to pass from a state of acute 
 maniacal exaltation to a state of still more acute melan- 
 
 * Mackay, Memoirs.
 
 FINANCIAL CRAZES. 349 
 
 cholic depression. The course of the speculation epoch 
 is a kind of social folie d double forme. It is this mod- 
 ern social folie d double forme that clearly discloses the 
 extreme suggestibility of gregarious man. 
 
 A chronological table will show at a glance th,e un- 
 interrupted chain of European epidemics : 
 
 Pilgrimage epidemic, 1000 to 1095 
 
 Crusade epi- ) Eastern and Western Crusades, ) inr . K 
 
 ' [ 109o " 1270 
 demic. ) Children s Crusade, ) 
 
 Flagellant epidemic, 1260 " 1348 
 
 Black Death and Antisemitic mania, 1348 
 
 i St. John's dance, 1374 \ To the end of 
 
 l!!f \ St. Vitus' dance, 1418 [ the fifteenth 
 
 I II dl lit*. I I 
 
 \ Tarantism, 1470 ; century. 
 
 !To the end of 
 seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 f Tulipomania, 1634 
 
 Speculative J The Mississippi Scheme, 1717 
 
 mania. j The South Sea Bubble, 1720 
 
 I And business bubbles, To our own times.
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIII. 
 
 AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 
 
 TURNING now to American social life, so radically 
 different from that of the middle ages, we still find 
 the same phenomena manifesting themselves. The so- 
 cial spirit runs riot in mobs, crazes, manias, pests, 
 plagues, and epidemics. 
 
 American religious epidemics hallowed by the name 
 of " revivalism " are notorious. A Jonathan, a Mc- 
 Gready, a Sankey, or a Moody is stricken by the 
 plague, falls into a delirium, and begins to rave on 
 religion. The contagion spreads, and thousands upon 
 thousands pray wildly in churches and chapels, rave 
 furiously, and fall into convulsions in camp meetings. 
 A revival epidemic has come, rages violently for some 
 time, and then disappears as suddenly as it came. To 
 take a few instances of the many cases of revivals : 
 
 In 1800 a wave of religious mania passed over the 
 country and reached its acme in the famous Kentucky 
 revivals. The first camp meeting was held at Cabin 
 Creek. It began on the 22d of May and continued 
 four days and three nights. The crying, the singing, 
 the praying, the shouting, the falling in convulsions 
 made of the place a pandemonium. Those who tried 
 to escape were either compelled to return, as if drawn 
 by some mysterious force, or were struck with convul- 
 
 350
 
 AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 351 
 
 sions on the way. The pestilence spread, raging with 
 unabated fury. Families came in wagons from great 
 distances to attend the meetings. The camp meetings 
 generally continued four days, from Friday to Tuesday 
 morning, but sometimes they lasted a week. One suc- 
 ceeded another in rapid succession. The woods and 
 paths leading to the camp meeting were alive with peo- 
 ple. " The labourer," writes Dr. Davidson,* " quitted 
 his task ; age snatched his crutch ; youth forgot his 
 pastimes ; the plough was left in the furrow ; the deer 
 enjoyed a respite upon the mountains ; business of all 
 kinds was suspended ; bold hunters and sober matrons, 
 young men, maidens, and little children nocked to the 
 common centre of attraction." As many as twenty 
 thousand people were present at one of these meetings. 
 The general meeting at Indian Creek, Harrison 
 County, continued about five days. The meeting was 
 at first quiet. The suggestion, however, was not slow 
 to come, and this time it was given by a child. A boy 
 of twelve mounted a log and began to rave violently. 
 He soon attracted the main body of the people. Over- 
 come by the power of emotions, the little maniac raised 
 his hands, and, dropping his handkerchief wet with 
 tears and perspiration, cried out: "Thus, O sinner, 
 shall you drop into hell unless you forsake your sins 
 and turn to the Lord ! " At that moment some fell to 
 the ground " like those who are shot in a battle, and the 
 work spread in a manner which human language can 
 not describe." Thousands were wriggling, writhing, 
 and jerking in paroxysms of religious fury. So vim- 
 lent was the revival plague that mere indifferent look- 
 ers-on, even mockers and sceptics, were infected by it, 
 
 * History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky.
 
 352 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 and joined the exercises of the raving religious maniacs 
 and fell into jerking convulsions of religious hysteria. 
 The following case may serve as a fair example : 
 
 " A gentleman and a lady of some note in the 
 fashionable world were attracted to the camp meeting 
 at Cone Ridge. They indulged in many contemptuous 
 remarks on their way about the poor infatuated crea- 
 tures who rolled over screaming in the mud, and prom- 
 ised jestingly to stand by and assist each other in case 
 that either should be seized with the convulsions. 
 They had not been long looking upon the strange 
 scene before them, when the young woman lost her 
 consciousness and fell to the ground. Her companion, 
 forgetting his promise of protection, instantly forsook 
 her and ran off at the top of his speed. But flight 
 afforded him no safety. Before he had gone two hun- 
 dred yards he, too, fell down in convulsions." * 
 
 In many places the religious epidemic took the form 
 of laughing, dancing, and barking or dog manias. 
 Whole congregations were convulsed with hysterical 
 laughter during holy service. In the wild delirium of 
 religious frenzy people took to dancing, and at last to 
 barking like dogs. They assumed the posture of dogs, 
 " moving about on all fours, growling, snapping the 
 teeth, and barking with such an exactness of imitation 
 as to deceive any one whose eyes were not directed to 
 the spot.f Nor were the people who suffered so morti- 
 fying a transformation always of the vulgar classes ; 
 persons of the highest rank in society, on the contrary, 
 men and women of cultivated minds and polite manners, 
 found themselves by sympathy reduced to this degrad- 
 
 * Gospel Herald. Prof. D. W. Yandell, Epidemic Convulsions 
 Brain, October, 1881. f McNemar.
 
 AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 353 
 
 ing situation." * The baneful poison of religious re- 
 vivalism turns its victims into packs of mad dogs. 
 
 In 1815 a religious revival swept over the country, 
 and ended in the excesses of camp meetings. 
 
 In 1832 a great revival epidemic raged fiercely in 
 this country. An excellent description of this revival 
 is given by Mr. Albert S. Rhodes, f I give his account 
 verbatim : 
 
 " What is usually called ' the Great American Re- 
 vival ' began simultaneously in New Haven and New 
 York in 1832, and does not seem to have been set in 
 motion by any particular individual or individuals, but 
 to have been in a full sense a popular expression. It 
 was in men's minds and in the atmosphere. It broke 
 out and raged like a fire over a certain portion of the 
 country known by the old inhabitants as the 'burnt 
 district.' It was especially felt along the shore of Lake 
 Ontario and in the counties of Madison and Oneida. 
 
 " The host that marched in this revival movement 
 had many banners, but were without known chieftains. 
 . . . The corporals and sergeants who marched with 
 the uprising were men of mediocrity (unknown heroes 
 of mobs). These did not make the revival, but it 
 made them. They were of various religious colours, 
 and formed a motley group gathered from the Wes- 
 leyan Methodists, Episcopal Methodists, Evangelists, 
 Independents, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians. 
 
 " The characteristic signs [of revivalism] attended this 
 spiritual tempest. Ballrooms were turned into places 
 of prayer and theatres into churches. . . . Clergymen 
 who reasoned logically were told that they held the 
 
 * Prof. D. W. Yandell, Brain, October, 1881. 
 f Appleton's Journal, December 11, 1875.
 
 354 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 sponge of vinegar to the parched lips of sinners, instead 
 of leading them to the brook of life where they might 
 drink to completion. They met with the treatment 
 usual in such popular upheavals they were pushed 
 aside to make room for the new expounders and proph- 
 ets, ignorant men full of faith and vociferation, who 
 preached night and day the golden streets of the New 
 Jerusalem and the wrath to come. 
 
 "The apple of Sodom grew out of this religious 
 mania; the followers soon became incapable of sin.* 
 . . . ' And wjien a man becomes conscious that his soul 
 is saved,' proclaimed one of their spiritual leaders, ' the 
 first thing that he sets about is to find his paradise and 
 his Eve.' The leaders could not find paradises in their 
 own homes, nor Eves in their own wives, and sought 
 their ' affinities ' elsewhere. One of their leaders had a 
 vision of an immense throng of men and women in 
 heaven who wandered hither and thither in search of 
 something necessary to their happiness with an expres- 
 sion of longing depicted on their faces. The men hunted 
 for wives, as women did for men. The spirit of yearn- 
 ing for an incomplete joy was everywhere visible in 
 these great hosts. The seer gave an interpretation of 
 his vision that men and women were wrongly yoked on 
 
 * The sense of guilt and that of regeneration and elevation after 
 conversion are good symptoms of revival mania. Mr. D. Starbuck, 
 to whom my thanks are due for placing at my disposal his rich ma- 
 terial on religious conversion, in his article " A Study of Conver- 
 sion " (The American Journal of Psychology, January, 1897), comes 
 to the conclusion that " revival meetings play an important part in 
 conversion," and that " the sense of sin " and " the sense of eleva- 
 tion" are its main characteristics. What Mr. Starbuck does not 
 realize is the fact that it is not healthy normal life that one studies 
 in sudden religious conversions, but the phenomena of revival in- 
 sanity.
 
 AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 355 
 
 this earth, and that this may be remedied by a proper 
 and spiritual union in the terrestrial sphere. The in- 
 terpretation was received with favour, and even with 
 enthusiasm. The man who saw the vision set the ex- 
 ample by putting his legitimate wife aside and taking 
 to his bosom the comely wife of one of his brethren. 
 Others quickly followed the example. . . . The union 
 was popularly designated among them as spiritual wed- 
 lock. . . . Old ties were given up. The kingdom of 
 heaven was at hand. Old rules were no longer binding, 
 and old obligations were set aside. Men and women, 
 regardless of marital ties, selected their celestial com- 
 panions. 
 
 " At first such unions were to be of purely spiritual 
 character, but, of course, in the end became sexual. . . . 
 Before long the spiritual union was found to be incom- 
 plete, and it assumed the ordinary character of that 
 which exists between man and woman who live to- 
 gether in close intimacy. Men who lived with the 
 wives of others, and women who lived with the hus- 
 bands of others, produced a strange confusion. . . . 
 Children were abandoned by their natural protectors. 
 
 " It resulted in evil still worse. Men and women 
 discovered that they had made mistakes in their spiritual 
 unions, and, after having lived for a 'certain period to- 
 gether, they separated to make new selections. It soon 
 came to pass that they made new selections in com- 
 paratively short periods of time, and the doctrine of 
 spiritual affinity thus inevitably merged into gross 
 licentiousness. 
 
 " If the facts were not before us, some of the unions 
 would appear incredible. These were what the French 
 would call mariages a trois. The lawful husband and 
 the spiritual one lived under the same roof, in some
 
 356 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 cases with the same wife, who denied all conjugal rights 
 to the husband in law, and accorded them freely to the 
 husband in spirit ; and there are remarkable instances 
 furnished of the husbands submitting to such a state of 
 things as being in accordance with the divine will. And 
 such examples of degradation, according to the annals of 
 the time, do not appear to have been rare. 
 
 " Such were some of the results which the revival 
 of 1832 left behind in the ' burnt district.' . . . Such 
 was the revival in its moral aspect. It had still a phys- 
 ical and mental side, which was worse to contemplate, 
 in the number of deluded people who were placed in 
 the hospitals and insane asylums." 
 
 About the year 1840 the so-called "Miller mania" 
 broke out.* "This delusion originated in the read- 
 ings, reflections, and dreams of one "William Miller, of 
 the State of New York, who came to know about the 
 year 1840 at what time ' the Lord was to appear in the 
 heavens' and the end of all things to come. He soon 
 found adherents as will the author of any ' humbug,' 
 however palpable who with a zeal worthy of a better 
 cause set themselves to proselyting. They went abroad 
 preaching their doctrine to all who would hear, and 
 publishing their views to the world through periodicals 
 and newspapers. ... At the outset they pitched not 
 only upon the year, but the day and hour on which the 
 ' Son of Man should come with power and great glory.' 
 A doctrine like this, solemn and momentous beyond 
 expression, spread abroad with all the rapidity that 
 novelty could lend to it ; the zeal of its adherents . . . 
 soon collected around its standard throngs of men and 
 women who hugged the delusion as the announcement 
 
 * Esquirol, Mental Maladies, English translation.
 
 AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 357 
 
 of great events, and the support of raptures and glori- 
 ous ecstasies. 
 
 " The beggarly amount of intellect with which its de- 
 luded followers were possessed soon yielded to the farce 
 of religious excitement, and long before 'the time 
 drew near when they were to be received up ' they for- 
 sook their respective callings, closed their shops and 
 stores, left their families to suffer, or abandoned them 
 to the cold charities of the world, attending meetings 
 for prayers and exhortations, ' rendering night hideous 
 by their screams ' and by ceaseless prayers and watch- 
 ings, intending to open in 'the great day of the 
 Lord.' 
 
 " The excitement, of which the above brief presen- 
 tation furnishes by no means an exaggerated description, 
 soon began to produce its effects upon both the bodies 
 and minds of these wretched beings. A pale and hag- 
 gard countenance, indicative at once of physical exhaus- 
 tion and great mental solicitude, strange and erroneous 
 views in reference to their worldly relations and affairs, 
 together with their conduct, which showed that the con- 
 trolling pmoer of reason was swallowed up in the great 
 maelstrom of Millerism all indicated the shock which 
 had been produced by the terrors of this fearful delu- 
 sion. As the time for the great denouement approached 
 meetings increased, their prayers were heard far and 
 wide around ; converts were multiplied ; baptisms were 
 celebrated, not by sprinkling, but by immersions which 
 lasted sometimes longer than life. The gift of tongues 
 was vouchsafed, ascension robes of snowy whiteness 
 were made ready, property was freely given away, and 
 on the morning of ' the great day,' with hearts pre- 
 pared, and decked in robes of peerless white, they went 
 forth to meet the ' bridegroom.' Some, not content to
 
 358 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 meet him upon earth, actually ascended trees in order 
 first to greet his approach. 
 
 "The day first announced passed off quietly. . . . 
 Great was the disappointment of the followers of the 
 doctrine of Miller. Their time for weeks and months 
 had been lost, their business broken up, and their prop- 
 erty gone. Yet, to exhibit, as it were, still more forci- 
 bly the strength of religious fanaticism (religious sug- 
 gestion) operating upon (weak) minds, they still clung 
 to their delusion, again ' searched the Scriptures,' and 
 happily found that they had been in error. It was on 
 a certain day and hour of the Jewish year 18^4 on 
 which their calculation should have been based, in- 
 stead of the corresponding year of our calendar. The 
 joyful news was spread abroad throughout the realms 
 of Millerism, and the zeal and fervour of the followers 
 rose higher than before. 
 
 " Meanwhile institutions for the insane were daily 
 furnishing new proofs of the mental ravages Millerism 
 was producing throughout the country. Miller maniacs 
 were almost daily brought to the doors of the insane 
 asylums. Worn out and exhausted by ceaseless reli- 
 gious orgies, many broke down completely and be- 
 came hopelessly insane. Some were already in heaven, 
 clothed with the new bodies provided for the saints ; 
 others, like spectres, were hastening to convert to the 
 same faith their fellow-victims to disease ; while a third 
 class refused to eat, having no further need of other 
 than ' angels' food.' So strictly did many of the be- 
 lievers adhere to the cherished passages of the sacred 
 Scriptures that they declined to go abroad to respond 
 to the calls of Nature, because, forsooth, we were com- 
 manded ' to become as little children,' and hence soiled 
 their underdresses. None slept, or slept but little ; all
 
 AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 359 
 
 were waiting, waiting in obedience to a divine com- 
 mand. . . . Sleep, in fact, was far from their eyes in con- 
 sequence of the long-continued watchfulness which had 
 been imposed. They had passed the point of sleep ; 
 some of them even passed the rallying point of ex- 
 hausted nature, and sank to rise no more. Scores of 
 the victims to this modern delusion (epidemic) were 
 known by all to be the tenants of madhouses, and it 
 was promulgated far and wide by the most respectful 
 authorities that this was a legitimate result of their mis- 
 guided views and acts, yet it fell unheeded upon the 
 ears of those for whom in kindness it was designed. 
 
 Meanwhile the period approached when the correct- 
 ness of their last reckoning was to be verified. ... If 
 possible, a more firm conviction of the truth of Miller- 
 ism existed in the minds of its followers generally than 
 before; converts to it had increased, and all the ele- 
 ments of prodigious and extended commotion were con- 
 centrating preparatory to this event. The scenes which 
 were enacted in view of the fulfillment of this second 
 interpretation greatly exceeded the first. Like the first, 
 it proved to be a baseless fabric of a vision. . . . The epi- 
 demic, however, did not abate. The Cry of November 
 22, 1844, announced the fact that 'our brethren and 
 sisters are not only strong, but much stronger than ever. 
 Our brethren are all standing fast, expecting the Lord 
 every day.' ): 
 
 Well may President -Jordan, of Stanford University, 
 exclaim : " Whisky, cocaine, and alcohol bring tempo- 
 rary insanity, and so does a revival of religion one of 
 those religious revivals in which men lose their reason 
 and self-control. This is simply a form of drunkenness 
 no more worthy of respect than the drunkenness that lies 
 in the gutter." Prof. Jordan was attacked on all sides 
 24
 
 360 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 by the small fry of the pulpits. But Prof. Jordan 
 was, in fact, too mild in his expression. Religious re- 
 vivalism is a social bane, it is far more dangerous to the 
 life of society than drunkenness. As a sot, man falls 
 below the brute ; as a revivalist, he sinks lower than 
 the sot. 
 
 In 185T-'58 a great industrial panic occurred in this 
 country. Business was pressed to its utmost limits. 
 The greed of gain became a veritable mania. Com- 
 mercial centres, cities, towns large and small, and even 
 villages were possessed by the demon of financial spec- 
 ulation. Speculation rose to a fever heat ; the wildest 
 projects were readily undertaken by the credulous busi- 
 ness public. Finally the crash came. Social sugges- 
 tion began to work the other way, and the stream of 
 business life turned in the opposite direction. Every 
 one ran for his life, not so much because he perceived 
 danger, but simply because he saw his neighbours run- 
 ning a stampede, a panic, ensued. 
 
 In this morbid condition of the body politic the 
 toxic germs of religious mania, the poisonous microbes 
 of the revival pest, once more found a favourable soil. 
 A fierce religious epidemic set on and spread far and 
 wide. The religious journals of the country gloried 
 in it. " Such a time as the present," writes trium- 
 phantly one of them,* " was never known since the .days 
 of the apostles for revivals. Revivals now cover our 
 very land, sweeping all before them. . . . Meetmgs are 
 held for prayer, for exhortation, with the deepest inter- 
 est and the most astonishing results. Not only are 
 they held in the church and from house to house, but 
 
 * H. C. Fish, Handbook of Revivals. For the use of Winners 
 of Souls.
 
 AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 361 
 
 in the great marts of trade and centres of business. In 
 New York there is a most astonishing interest in all 
 the churches, seeming as if that great and populous 
 and depraved city was enveloped in one conflagration 
 of divine influence. . . . Prayer and conference meet- 
 ings are held in retired rooms connected with large 
 commercial houses, and with the best effects (!). The 
 large cities and towns generally from Maine to Cali- 
 fornia are sharing in this great and glorious work." 
 
 A Boston journalist caught a glimpse of the true 
 nature of this religious revival. " For the last three 
 months," he writes, " a revival of religion has spread 
 like an epidemic over a wide extent of the country. 
 Prayer meetings noon and night ; prayer meetings in 
 Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago; prayer 
 meetings in Richmond, Charleston, Mobile, New Or- 
 leans ; prayer meetings in town, village, hamlet, North 
 and South, crowded with expectant listeners and ac- 
 companied with a copious outpouring of the Divine 
 Spirit. The whole thing is emotional contagion with- 
 out principle." 
 
 This religious revival then spread to Ireland, where 
 it raged with as great a fury as in its native place, the 
 United States, the country of the revival plague. 
 
 " I am unwilling to give the details," writes Rev. J. 
 Llewelyn Davies,* " of the kinds of affection which 
 have prevailed. They are painful, and in many cases, 
 to speak frankly, simply disgusting. The attacks have 
 so far the character of an epidemic that they have had 
 a singular resemblance to one another. The prevailing 
 symptoms have been a state of perfect physical help- 
 lessness beneath an overwhelming sense of guilt and 
 
 * Macmillan, vol. i, March, 1860.
 
 362 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 danger; . . . sudden prostrations, shrieks and cries, 
 cataleptic rigidity, oppression at the heart and stomach, 
 in some cases temporary blindness, deafness, and numb- 
 ness." 
 
 American society oscillates between acute financial 
 mania and attacks of religious insanity. I^o sooner is 
 the business fever over than the delirium acutuin 
 of religious mania sets in. Society is thrown from 
 Scylla into Charybdis. From the heights of finan- 
 cial speculation it sinks into the abyss of revival- 
 ism. American society seems to suffer from circular 
 insanity. 
 
 The friends of revivalism are not unaware of this 
 fact. Thus Rev. H. C. Fish, who made a text-book of 
 revivalism, naively tells us : " It is an interesting fact 
 that they [revivals] frequently succeed some great 
 [public] calamity, a prevailing epidemic, or financial 
 embarrassment." The germs of religious insanity re- 
 quire for their development a diseased and exhausted 
 body politic. 
 
 Women in general, and American women in par- 
 ticular, are highly suggestible.* The woman's crusade 
 
 * I take here the opportunity to mention the interesting fact of 
 revivalism among the American Jewish women. The revival of an- 
 cient Jewish customs and the separation from the Gentile world are 
 among the aims of this religious mania. " Those who take part in 
 this revival," a well-known rabbi informs me, " consider themselves 
 superior to other women." This sense of superiority of those who 
 were " saved " is a well-marked symptom of the revival plague. 
 The germs of this epidemic seem to be very active. Although they 
 started their career in Chicago, at the World's Fair, in the year of 
 our Lord 1893, they have invaded nearly every city of the United 
 States. Rich Jewish ladies form the main body of victims ; they 
 are very susceptible to this religious disease. The interesting pe- 
 culiarity of this Jewish revival plague is that it attacks only women 
 and rabbis.
 
 AMERICAN MENTAL EPIDEMICS. 363 
 
 of 1873 may serve as a good illustration.* The crusade 
 commenced in Hillsborough, Ohio, on a Christmas 
 morning. After a lecture by Dr. Dio Lewis on the 
 Potency of "Woman's Prayer in the Grogshop, the 
 response was general. A meeting for prayer and 
 organization was held, the women, led by a distin- 
 guished Methodist lady, the heroine of the mob, 
 marched forth on their first visit to drug etores, hotels, 
 and saloons. The crusade mania, like a true epidemic, 
 spread rapidly into adjacent towns, the women visiting 
 saloons, preaching, singing, and praying. Ladies of all 
 denominations joined the crusade. Neither threats nor 
 harsh treatment nor rough weather could check the 
 fervent religious zeal of the female mobs. In many 
 places the ladies suffered severe privations ; they were 
 oftentimes kept standing in the cold and rain ; they 
 were often offended and ill treated ; but of no avail 
 the crusade epidemic kept on raging with unabated 
 fury. The churches were crowded day and night. 
 Like all things taken up by women, the enthusiasm of 
 this crusade did not last long ; it soon died out. Social 
 suggestibility is too strong in woman to permit her to 
 remain long under the influence of suggestions that are 
 out of the way of commonplace life. Woman can not 
 leave long the routine of her life, the beaten track of 
 mediocrity ; she can rarely rise above the trite ; she is a 
 Philistine by nature. 
 
 Such were, in the main, some of the religious epi- 
 demics that befell American society for the brief space 
 of its existence. Who can enumerate all the com- 
 mercial "revivals," the "business bubbles," and the 
 economical panics closely following in their wake ? 
 
 * Cyclopaedia of Methodism, Bishop Matthew Simpson.
 
 364 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Who can tell of all the crazes and manias such, for 
 instance, as the football mania, the baseball mania, the 
 prize-fight insanity, the Trilby craze, the bicycle frenzy, 
 the new-woman pest that have taken possession of 
 the American social self ? Who can count all the in- 
 dustrial, political, and lynching mobs hi which the spirit 
 of American society has manifested itself ? Their name 
 is legion, for they are innumerable, countless.* 
 
 Sad and melancholy are the mental aberrations of 
 the social mind, but very painful is it to find that they 
 flow from the inmost soul of society. Society by its 
 very nature tends to run riot in mobs and epidemics. 
 For the gregarious, the subpersonal, uncritical social 
 self, the mob self, and the suggestible subconscious self 
 are identical. 
 
 * While this work was in progress a great economico-political 
 epidemic, the so-called silver movement, was raging over the coun- 
 try. The work was hardly completed when the excitement of the 
 silver mania subsided, but only to give place to a different form of 
 social malady, the speculative " gold-mining mania," the Klondike 
 plague.
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 A. 
 
 To find out the percentage of pure suggestion cases 
 we use what may be called the method of subtraction by 
 distribution. Let n factors with a chance element in 
 proportion to their number give m results ; and let the 
 different factors contribute unequally to the sum total 
 some giving more results and some less, and others, ex- 
 cept for the chance element, having almost no effect to 
 bring out any results of their own. Some of the factors 
 being effective and others ineffective, it is now required 
 to find how much is due to each factor and how much to 
 chance. To solve this problem we distribute equally the 
 chance element among the different factors, and then 
 separate the results of the factors into, sets of equations, 
 each factor having its equation with the corresponding 
 chance element. The equations, of course, have to be 
 found by experimentation. Adding then the results of 
 the effective factors, and subtracting the sum from the 
 sum total m, we have the sum of results given by the in- 
 effective factors that is, we have pure chance results. 
 If now we divide that last sum by the number of the in- 
 effective factors, we get the chance element of each factor. 
 Once the chance element is found, we subtract it from 
 the results given by each one of the effective factors. 
 
 365
 
 366 THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 Suppose we have four factors, A, B, C, D, of which A 
 and D are effective, B and C are ineffective. Suppose 
 they all, with the total chance element included, give a 
 sum total of m results ; and that factor A with its chance 
 element give a results, and factor D with its chance ele- 
 ment give d results. Let P represent the total chance 
 element, then P must be distributed equally among the 
 
 p 
 
 factors, each factor having a chance element of . Let 
 
 x represent the cases or results due to the factor A alone, 
 and y to D alone, we have then the following equations 
 for factor A and factor D : 
 
 P P 
 
 - + z = a; - + y = d 
 
 p 
 
 Factors B and C will simply have each - results. 
 
 p 
 
 Let = p. We may now arrange the factors as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 A p-\-x = a 
 
 B p 
 
 C ....p 
 
 D . . . . p + y = d. 
 
 Since the sum total of experiments is m, we have, on 
 adding all the factors, the following formula : 
 
 (p + x) + (p + y) + *p = m [i] 
 
 But (p + y) =d [2] 
 
 (p + x) =a [3] 
 
 Subtracting the sum of equations [2] and [3] from 
 equation [1], we get the value of the particular chance 
 element, p. Solving now the equations [2] and [3], we 
 find the values of x and y. 
 
 1. Abnormal Position. 
 
 Let P represent the number of cases due to chance ; 
 y, the cases due to immediate suggestibilit}- ; x, the cases
 
 APPENDIX. 367 
 
 due to mediate suggestibility ; s, the total number of ex- 
 periments ; then, P -j- y + z = s. Now, P must be equally 
 distributed among the squares, and as there are six of 
 
 P P 
 
 them, each square has chance cases. Let -^ = p, then we 
 
 have: 
 
 n n O a 
 
 P p + y P 
 
 This gives the following formula : 
 
 (1) 3p + (p + y) + (2p + x)=s, which = 620 
 
 (2) Now, (p-\-y) was found to = 345 
 
 (3) And (2^ + a;) =130 
 Subtracting (2) and (3) from (1), we have 3p = 145 
 
 and p = 48-33, y = 296-67, x = 33-34. 
 
 Out of 620, 296-67 are cases of immediate suggesti- 
 bility, which gives a percentage of 47-85. 
 
 This percentage or ratio of immediate suggestibility I 
 represent by percentage y. 
 
 Out of 620, 33-34 are cases of mediate suggestibility, 
 which gives 5 -3 7 per cent. 
 
 This percentage or ratio of mediate suggestibility I 
 represent by percentage x. 
 
 Hence, 
 
 Percentage y = 47-85 per cent. 
 Percentage x = 5-37 per cent. 
 
 2. Coloured Cover. 
 
 Number of experiments, 400. 
 
 Cases of immediate suggestion,* (p -f- y) = 190. 
 
 Cases of mediate suggestion, (2 p -\- x) = 98. 
 
 * By " cases of immediate or mediate suggestion " I mean all 
 the cases in which the square immediately or mediately suggested 
 was taken, the chance cases not being as yet eliminated.
 
 368 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 = 98 
 Hence, 
 
 Percentage y = 38-16 per cent. 
 Percentage x 5 '83 per cent. 
 
 3. Strange Shape. 
 
 Number of experiments, 300. 
 Cases of immediate suggestion, 151. 
 Cases of mediate suggestion, 83. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 p-\-y = 151 
 2p + z = 83 
 Hence, 
 
 Percentage y = 43 per cent. 
 Percentage x = 13 per cent. 
 
 4- Colour verbally Suggested. 
 
 Number of experiments, 300. 
 Cases of immediate suggestion, 120,, 
 Cases of mediate suggestion, 80. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 = 80 
 Hence, 
 
 Percentage y = 28-89 per cent. 
 Percentage x = 4-44 per cent.
 
 APPENDIX. 369 
 
 5. Place verbally Suggested. 
 Number of experiments, 400. 
 Cases of immediate suggestion, 131. 
 Cases of mediate suggestion, 109. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 2p + x = 109 
 Hence, 
 
 Percentage y = 19-41 per cent. 
 Percentage x = -58 per cent. 
 
 6. Environment. 
 Number of experiments, 300. 
 Cases of immediate suggestion, 115. 
 Cases of mediate suggestion, 114. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 Hence, 
 
 Percentage y = 30-44 per cent. 
 
 Percentage x = 22-22 per cent. 
 
 Total number of experiments, 2,320. 
 Cases of immediate suggestion, 1,052. 
 Cases of mediate suggestion, 614. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 3p + (P + y) + (*P + = 2,320 
 p + y = 1,052 
 2p + x= 614 
 Hence, 
 
 Percentage y = 35-94 per cent. 
 
 Percentage x = 6-41 per cent
 
 370 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 B. 
 
 The results of our investigation enable us to formu- 
 late in the symbolical language of mathematics the rela- 
 tion of normal and abnormal suggestibility. (The reader 
 is asked to regard the formulas as mere mathematical 
 illustrations of relations of psychic phenomena.) 
 
 We know that abnormal suggestibility varies as direct 
 suggestion and inversely as indirect suggestion, whereas 
 normal suggestibility varies as indirect suggestion and 
 inversely as direct suggestion. Now, indicating abnormal 
 suggestibility by S, normal suggestibility by S 1} direct 
 suggestion by e?, and indirect suggestion by t, we may 
 express the laws of suggestibility in the following way : 
 
 Q _ d q ._ * 
 
 O Oj -j 
 
 i d 
 
 The relation of normal to abnormal suggestibility is 
 expressed by the following formula : 
 
 Si-!** 
 8~<P 
 
 If now we make i equal to 1, we have : 
 
 That is, as we retreat from the normal state and ad- 
 vance into that of abnormal suggestibility, the efficacy or 
 the force of direct suggestion increases as the square of 
 its magnitude. In other words, the efficacy or force of 
 direct suggestion increases faster than the magnitude 
 of advance into the state of abnormal suggestibility- 
 
 * Such a proportion is possible, because S and Si differ but in 
 the amount of disaggregation.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 371 
 
 And, vice versa, the force of direct suggestion diminishes 
 faster than the advance into the normal state. 
 
 Furthermore, once the abnormal state is induced, it 
 becomes deeper as we increase and multiply the force of 
 direct suggestion. 
 
 Inverting the proportion and putting d equal to 1, we 
 have: 
 
 S : S a = 1 : i\ 
 
 That is, as we pass the borderland of the abnormal and 
 advance into the normal state, the efficacy or force of 
 indirect suggestion increases as the square of its magni- 
 tude. In other words, the efficacy of the indirect sugges- 
 tion increases faster than the advance into the normal 
 state. And, vice versa, the force of indirect suggestion 
 decreases faster with the reverse procession. 
 
 c. 
 
 Making a table, we have : 
 
 Class A. 
 FIRST GROUP. 
 
 Experi- General charac- 
 
 ments. ter guessed. Chance. Secondary sight. 
 
 First series, 100 68 50 18 per cent. 
 
 Second series, 100 72 50 22 " 
 
 SECOND GROUP. 
 
 Experi- General charac- 
 
 ments. ter guessed. Chance. Secondary sight. 
 
 First series, 100 70 50 20 per cent. 
 
 Second series, 100 76 50 26 "
 
 372 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Experi- General charac- 
 
 ments. ter guessed. Chance. Secondary sight. 
 
 Total, 400 286 50 21-5 per cent. 
 
 (71-5 p. c.) 
 
 D. 
 
 To eliminate the chance element and to find the per- 
 centage of correct guesses, both general and particular, 
 due to secondary sight, let y be the correct general 
 guesses due to secondary sight, and p the correct gen- 
 eral chance guesses ; let, again, x represent the correct 
 particular guesses due to secondary sight, and p the par- 
 ticular chance guesses. We have the following formula : 
 
 (*! + *) = 68-2 [1] 
 
 are a ^ the correct general guesses as mere 
 general, while (j9, -f- x) are all the correct particular 
 guesses regarded from the standpoint of their generality. 
 For, as I pointed out in the text, every particular guess 
 is also a general one ( p l -\- x} ; again, in the second equa- 
 tion are the correct particular guesses as particular. 
 Subtracting equation [2] from [1], we have, 
 
 0> + y)=21-2 [3] 
 
 These are all the correct general guesses taken apart from 
 ( JP, -}- x) the general-particular guesses. Now, in equa- 
 tion [3], p is 50 per cent, because each guess has only 
 one alternative, letter or figure ; in other words, p = y ; 
 hence, y = 10-6. 
 
 Since there are only ten characters to guess in each 
 particular case, therefore in a hundred cases the chance
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 373 
 
 element in equation [2] is ten, or p l = 10 and x = 37 ; 
 and since y = 10-6, therefore y + a;, or the general 
 guesses taken in their totality, = 47' 6. 
 Making a table, we have : 
 
 Experi- 
 ments. 
 
 400 
 
 100 
 
 General 
 character. 
 
 273 
 
 68-2 
 
 Class B. 
 
 Particular 
 character. 
 
 188 
 
 47 
 
 FOEMULA. 
 
 Secondary sight, 
 general character. 
 
 47'6 per cent. 
 
 particular character. 
 
 37-0 per cent. 
 
 p = y x l = 37 
 
 y = 10-6 y + x = 47'6 
 
 NOTE. In all my subsequent calculations on secondary sight 
 p and y stand for mere general cases, while p\ and x stand for the 
 class of particular guesses, and also for the class which is both 
 particular and general. 
 
 E. 
 
 Making a table, we have : 
 
 Class C. 
 
 Experi- 
 ments. 
 
 400 
 100 
 
 General Particular 
 character, character. 
 
 255 92 
 
 63-7 
 
 23 
 
 Secondary sight, 
 general character. 
 
 40-5 per cent. 
 
 particular character. 
 
 20-2 per cent.
 
 374 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 p y 
 y = 20-3 
 
 *) = 63-7 
 x = 23 
 
 p l = 2-8 
 y -\- x 40-5 
 
 Here p l = 2-8 because of the number of characters to 
 choose from, there being twenty-six letters and nine digits 
 (zero was excluded). 
 
 F. 
 
 Making tables, we have : 
 
 Class D. 
 FIRST GROUP. 
 
 Experi- General Particular 
 ments. character, character. 
 
 200 
 
 100 
 
 130 
 
 65 
 
 (f+ir) 
 
 49 
 
 24-5 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 Secondary sight, 
 general character. 
 
 41 -9 per cent. 
 
 particular character. 
 21*7 per cent. 
 
 = 24-5 
 
 # = 40-5 
 p = y 
 y = 20-2 
 
 = 2-8 
 
 = 21-7
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 3T5 
 
 SECOND GROUP. 
 
 Experi- General Particular 
 ments. character, character. 
 
 200 
 
 100 
 
 140 
 
 70 
 
 54 
 
 27 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 p + y = 43 
 
 y = 21-5 
 
 TOTAL. 
 
 Experi- General Particular 
 ments. character, character. 
 
 400 270 103 
 
 Secondary sight, 
 general character. 
 
 45*7 per cent. 
 
 particular character. 
 24-2 per cent. 
 
 l = 2-8 
 x = 24-2 
 
 = 45-7 
 
 Secondary sight, 
 general character. 
 
 43 '8 per cent. 
 
 particular character. 
 22-9 per cent. 
 
 G. 
 
 Class E. 
 FIRST GROUP. 
 
 Experi- General Particular 
 ments. character, character. 
 
 200 140 68 
 
 100 
 
 25 
 
 70 
 
 34 
 
 Secondary sight, 
 general character. 
 
 42 per cent. 
 
 particular character. 
 24 per cent.
 
 376 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 x = 34 
 
 a; = 24 
 z = 42 
 
 Experi- 
 ments. 
 
 200 
 
 100 
 
 SECOND GROUP. 
 
 General Particular 
 character, character. 
 
 151 71 
 
 75-5 
 
 35-5 
 
 Secondary sight, 
 general character. 
 
 45-5 per cent. 
 
 particular character. 
 25 "5 per cent. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 p l -f- x 35'5 
 
 y = 20 
 
 x = 25*5 
 a; = 45-5 
 
 TOTAL. 
 
 Experi- General Particular 
 ments. character, character. 
 
 400 291 139 
 
 100 
 
 72-7 
 
 34-7 
 
 Secondary sight, 
 general character. 
 
 43 '7 per cent. 
 
 particular chance. 
 24-7 per cent.
 
 APPENDIX. 377 
 
 H. 
 
 If we designate the probability of each figure being 
 taken by chance by p, immediate suggestion by a;, locality 
 suggestion by y, number suggestion by z, we have : 
 
 (2p + y) 
 
 Solving these equations and eliminating p, we have: 
 
 Percentage x = 32*1 per cent. 
 y= 6-2 " 
 " z= 3-3 " 
 
 Experi- - Immediate Locality Number 
 
 ments. suggestion. suggestion. suggestion. 
 
 1000 394 208 179 
 
 32-1 per cent. 6-2 per cent. 3-3 per cent. 
 
 FORMULA. 
 
 321 
 Percentage x - = 32-1 per cent. p + x= 394 
 
 Percentage y = = 6-2 " 2p + y= 208 
 
 qq 
 
 Percentage z = = 3-3 " 2p + z= 179 
 
 3p= 219
 
 378 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 If we designate the number of the crowd by TW, the 
 energy of the hero by s, the energy awakened by the hero 
 
 m 
 
 in each individual by , and the energy awakened by 
 S3 
 
 s 
 each individual in his fellow by , the total energy 
 
 awakened by the hero is - , the total energy awakened 
 
 A 
 
 AYI O 
 
 by each individual is -^-, the total energy of the mob is 
 
 ms . ms m* s . m s 
 
 m - -f- -^-, or the mob-energy = \- . 
 
 Designating the total mob-energy by E, we have : 
 
 ,., m' s . ms ms 
 - r + T - : =^- 
 
 Let EI represent the energy of another mob, whose ini- 
 initial energy is also s, but the number of individuals is 
 different, say m,, then the relation of the two mob-energies 
 will be : 
 
 ms . . 
 
 B_ = -r< m + 2 >_. m(m 
 
 El miS 
 
 Putting m l = n m, we have : 
 
 J - _J?LJL v P 
 
 E! ~w a m + 2w' 01 ^-\ m + 2 / J 
 
 ( - ) may be regarded as the coefficient of mob- 
 
 \ 171 ~\~ A / 
 
 energy. If the mob-energy of 100 individuals be taken 
 as a unit, then the mob-energy of 200, or of twice as many 
 individuals, will be about four times as great. In a mob 
 of 200, n = 2 and m = 100, substituting these numerical
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 379 
 
 values in the formula of the mob-coefficient, we have 
 
 404 
 
 r^ , which gives a quotient of about four units. A mob 
 10* 
 
 of 300 gives about nine times as much energy, or nine 
 units. A mob of 400 gives about sixteen units. In. short, 
 we may say that while the numbers of the mob grow in 
 an arithmetical progression, the energy of the mob grows 
 (approximately) in a geometrical progression.* 
 
 The growth of mob-energy may be graphically repre- 
 sented by a curve. 
 
 y, 
 
 1OO 2OO 3OO 4OO 5OO BOO 7OO 8OO 9OO 1OOO 
 
 MOB -ENERGY 
 
 The horizontal line X X, represents the number of 
 individuals in the mob from 100 to 1,000 ; the perpendicu- 
 lars represent the rates of mob-energy; and the curve 
 A B is the curve of mob- energy. 
 
 * The reader must regard the formula as but an illustration of 
 the proposition that the mob-energy grows faster than the sum of 
 individuals.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abnormal position, factor of sugges- 
 tion, 38, 40, 52, 366. 
 Abstract ideas, 171. 
 Activity, selective, 229. 
 Albigenscs, 323. 
 Amaurosis, hysterical, 94. 
 
 experiments on, 95. 
 
 test of, 94. 
 American revivals, 350. 
 
 society, 362, 364. 
 
 women, 362, 363. 
 Amnesia, 72. 
 
 cause of, 203, 211. 
 
 diagnosis of, 234. 
 
 law of, 231. 
 
 physiological side of, 231. 
 
 suggested, 119, 120, 258. 
 
 types of, 242. 
 Amnesic state, 71. 
 
 Anaesthesia in automatic writing, 
 143. 
 
 experiments on, 92, 93. 
 
 hysterical, 91, 163. 
 
 systematized, 109. 
 Analgesia in hypnosis, 107. 
 Association of contiguity, 268. 
 Associationism, 189. 
 
 criticism of, 190. 
 Attention, distraction of, 46, 211. 
 
 fixation of, 45, 56. 
 
 fluctuation of, 211. 
 Autochthonic ideas, 282. 
 
 Automatic writing, 96, 141. 
 cases of, 143, 145, 247. 
 conditions of, 142. 
 post-hypnotic, 105. 
 
 Baldwin, 8, 24, 58. 
 
 Beaunis, 84. 
 
 Bergson, 150. 
 
 Bernheim, 20, 24, 84. 
 
 Binet, 16, 60, 81, 95, 99, 158, 163. 
 
 Black death, 326. 
 
 Bodinus, 340. 
 
 Braid, 56, 60, 149, 151. 
 
 Brain-cells, organization of, 210. 
 
 Camp meetings, 350. 
 Carpenter, 124, 151. 
 Catalepsy, 12, 62, 79, 82, 84. 
 
 control of, 186. 
 
 in normal state, 180. 
 Centres, nervous, 67. 
 Cerebration, unconscious, 118. 
 
 criticism of, 121. 
 Charcot, 81. 
 Choice suggestion, experiments on, 
 
 175. 
 Coexistence, factor of suggestion, 30, 
 
 33, 55. 
 Colour, factor of suggestion, 39, 53, 
 
 Coloured cover, factor of suggestion, 
 38, 53, 367. 
 
 381
 
 382 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Conceptualism, 171. 
 Consciousness, controlling, 64, 66. 87, 
 90. 
 
 desultory, 199. 
 
 double, 68. 
 
 guardian, 68. 
 
 inhibitory, 68. 
 
 in the normal individual, 160. 
 
 limitation of, 47, 59. 
 
 moment, 201, 205, 228. 
 
 passive, 64. 
 
 primary, 97, 103, 142, 172, 296. 
 
 recognitive, 199. 
 
 reflex, 79. 
 
 secondary, 92, 95, 103, 128, 161. 
 
 social, 297. 
 
 subwaking, 89. 
 
 synthetic, 199, 203. 
 
 types of, 199. 
 
 upper, 103, 108, 112, 179. 
 
 waking, 87, 147. 
 
 wave of, 188, 192. 
 Content, moment, 203. 
 Conversion, religious, 354. 
 Cordozo, Michael, 329. 
 Crowd, entrancement of, 299, 301, 
 303. 
 
 suggestibility of, 297. 
 Crusades, 320, 323, 326. 
 
 children's, 323. 
 
 woman's, 363. 
 Crystal-gazing, 154. 
 Cytoclasis, 232, 233. 
 
 Dancing mania, 326. 
 Delboeuf, 27. 
 
 Democracy and stampedes, 318. 
 Demonomania, 278. 
 
 cases of, 284-286. 
 
 nature of, 284. 
 Demonophobia, 331. 
 
 in America, 342. 
 
 in England, 337. 
 
 in Germany, 340. 
 
 in Holland, 341. 
 
 in Italy, 333. 
 
 in Scotland, 334. 
 
 Dessoir, 63, 151. 
 
 Differences of hypnoidic and hyp- 
 
 noidal states, 239. 
 
 Disaggregation of consciousness, 77 f 
 89, 185, 292, 300, 304. 
 
 -of momenta, 185, 202. 
 
 nature of functional, 212. 
 
 of nerve-cell associations, 211. 
 
 psycho-physiological, 231. 
 
 of social consciousness, 308. 
 
 of the two selves, 70, 77, 142, 160. 
 Disease, functional, 214. 
 Dissociation, 71. 
 
 Double consciousness, cases of, 130, 
 132, 139, 216, 284. 
 
 Environment, factor of suggestion, 
 
 38, 369. 
 
 Epidemics, mental, 310. 
 nature of, 311. 
 table of, 349. 
 Epilepsy, 242. 
 Esquirol, 285, 356. 
 Experiments in automatic writing, 
 
 143. 
 
 on brain-cell retraction, 213. 
 on catalepsy in hypnosis, 79. 
 on catalepsy in waking state, 181. 
 on choice, 38. 
 criticism of transfer, 83. 
 in crystal-gazing, 155. 
 in distraction, 97, 129. 
 on duplication of consciousness in 
 
 healthy individuals, 159. 
 on guesses, 95, 178. 
 "biThyperaesthesia in hypnosis, 148. 
 hypnotic, 9, 11, 22. 
 on hysterical anaesthesia, 92, 96. 
 on intercommunicated choice sug- 
 gestion, 172, 176, 377. 
 on intercommunication between 
 
 the two selves, 163, 170. 
 with letters and figures, 29. 
 on negative hallucinations, 109, 
 
 123. 
 
 on personality metamorphosis, 253, 
 258.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 383 
 
 Experiments in post-hypnotic auto- 
 matic writing, 103, 105. 
 
 on pulse and respiration, 107. 
 
 quasi phrenological, 80, 83. 
 
 on the secondary self in normal 
 waking state, 151, 153. 
 
 on secondary sight, 166, 168, 171, 
 371. 
 
 in shell-hearing, 157. 
 
 on somnambulic hyperaestbesia, 
 148, 153. 
 
 on suggestion with letters and fig- 
 ures, 28. 
 
 on suggestion of movements, 34. 
 
 transfer, 81. 
 
 Fere 1 , 81. 
 
 Financial crazes, 343. 
 
 in England, 347. 
 
 in France, 345. 
 
 in Holland, 344. 
 
 cause and nature of, 348. 
 
 chronological table of, 349. 
 Fish, Rev. H. C., 305, 360, 362. 
 Flagellant epidemic, 326. 
 Forel, 20. 
 Frequency, factor of suggestion, 30, 
 
 33. 
 
 Functional diseases, nature of, 202, 
 214. 
 
 physiological theory of, 211. 
 
 Galton, 311. 
 
 Goltz, 80. 
 
 Gourney, 21, 71, 99, 104. 
 
 Great American revival, 353. 
 
 Gregariousness, nature of, 310, 313. 
 
 Grossmann, 11. 
 
 Guessing, method of, 95. 
 
 Guilt, sense of, 354. 
 
 Hallucination, negative, 109, 118. 
 
 in paranoia, 278. 
 
 subconscious, 154. 
 
 suggested, 150. 
 Hegelianism, 195. 
 
 criticism of, 196. 
 
 Hcidenhein, 80. 
 
 Herbartians, 188. 
 
 Hume, 197. 
 
 Hypersesthesia of subconscious self, 
 
 148, 153, 157. 
 Hypnoid states, 234. 
 Hypnoidal states, 224, 235. 
 Hypnoidic states, 225. 
 Hypnoidization, method of, 224. 
 Hypnoleptic state, 227. 
 Hypnonergic state, 235, 278. 
 Hypnosis, 12. 63, 71, 74, 77, 88, 99, 
 119, 140, 151, 153, 158, 164, 327. 
 
 classification of, 62, 71. 
 
 cleft in, 65. 
 
 conditions of, 56. 
 
 controlling consciousness in, 64, 66. 
 
 definition of, 69. 
 
 hypersesthesia in, 148. 
 
 nature of, 77. 
 
 passive consciousness in, 64. 
 
 theory of, 67. 
 Hysteria, 91. 
 
 experiments on, 164. 
 
 in history, 312. 
 
 nature of, 229, 234. 
 
 religious, 352. 
 
 Ideas, abstract, 171. 
 
 autochthonic, 282. 
 
 insistent, 269, 292. 
 
 of persecution, 278. 
 
 suggested, insistent, 13, 271, 292. 
 Immediate execution, 49, 88, 297. 
 Inhibition, 48, 61, 300. 
 Inhibitory consciousness, 90. 
 Insanity, impulsive, 270. 
 
 nature of, 271. 
 
 James. 57, 85, 145, 156, 188, 190, 285, 
 
 348. 
 
 Janet, 16, 97, 100, 129, 132. 
 Jewish epidemic, 327. 
 
 mobs, 305. 
 Jordan, President, 359. 
 
 Kentucky revivals, 350. 
 Kleptomania, 271.
 
 884 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Klondike plague, 364. 
 Knowledge about and of acquaint- 
 ance, 193. 
 Krafft-Ebing, 65. 
 Krishaber, 65. 
 
 Last impression, factor of suggestion, 
 
 31, 33, 55. 
 Lehmann, 57. 
 Lethargy, 81. 
 LiSbault, 24, 82, 116, 295. 
 Liegeois, 109. 
 Lloyd-Tukey, 63. 
 Luther, 334. 
 Lynching mobs, 364. 
 
 Mackay, Charles, 342, 344, 346, 348. 
 Mania, anti-Semitic, 326. 
 
 dancing, 326. 
 
 flagellant, 326. 
 
 mystico-Messianic, 329. 
 
 revival, 354. 
 
 silver, 364. 
 
 speculative, 343, 346, 360. 
 
 witchcraft, 334. 
 Mason, Osgood, 132. 
 Maudsley, 125. 
 Memory, 124, 127, 188. 
 Mesmerization, 57. 
 
 Method of automatic writing, 93, 96, 
 104. 
 
 of distraction, 97. 
 
 of guessing, 95, 166, 168, 170. 
 
 of hypnoidization, 224. 
 
 of hypnotic suggestion, 85. 
 
 of hypnotization, 57, 60. 
 
 of subtraction by distribution, 365. 
 Mill, J. S., 188. 
 Millerism, 356. 
 Mississippi scheme, 343, 345. 
 Mnesic state, 71. 
 Mob epergy, 304. 
 
 curve of, 379. 
 
 formula of, 378. 
 Mob, growth of the, 303. 
 
 impulsiveness, 307. 
 
 nature of the, 299, 308. 
 
 Mob, suggestibility of the, 297. 
 Moll, 57, 82. 
 
 Moment-content, 203, 206, 229. 
 Moments of consciousness, 196, 201, 
 
 205, 228. 
 
 of self-consciousness, 197. 
 Monotony, 47, 57, 300. 
 Miinsterberg, 36. 
 Myers, 143, 156, 246. 
 
 Nancy school, 24, 57, 70. 
 Nerve-cells, 203. 
 
 association of, 209. 
 
 dissolution of association of, 211. 
 
 retraction of fibrillae of, 212. 
 Nervous centres, 67. 
 Neuraxon, 209, 212. 
 Nominalism, 171. 
 
 Ochorowitz, 6. 
 
 Organization of brain-cells, 210. 
 
 Panic, industrial, 344, 348, 360. 
 Paramnesia, 274. 
 
 cases of, 275. 
 
 nature of, 277. 
 
 Ribot on, 276. 
 
 Royce on, 276. 
 Paranoia, 278. 
 
 cases of, 279. 
 
 nature of, 281. 
 
 Royce on, 281. 
 
 social, 332. 
 
 Wernicke on, 282. 
 Paris school, 81. 
 
 criticism of, 82. 
 Passivity in hypnosis, 64. 
 Personality, double, 130, 132, 139, 
 216, 284. 
 
 in the crowd, 299. 
 
 metamorphosis of, 252, 255, 258, 
 266, 278. 
 
 nature of, 194, 198. 
 
 in society, 312. 
 
 triple, 289. 
 
 types of, 200. 
 Pick, Arnold, 275.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 385 
 
 Place, factor of suggestion, 38, 369. 
 
 Pneumographic tracings, 107. 
 
 Post-hypnotic suggestion, 10, 13, 100, 
 119, 164, 174, 269, 272, 274, 294. 
 
 Process of dissolution of cell aggre- 
 gation, 212, 232. 
 cause of, 211, 212. 
 
 Protestant massacres, 319. 
 
 Psycho-physical life, highest type 
 of, 211. 
 
 Psycho-physiologicaldisaggregation, 
 process of, 233. 
 
 Psycho-physiological theory, 177. 
 
 Pyromania, 271. 
 
 Recognition, 92, 125, 240. 
 
 Reflex action, 71. 
 
 Reflex consciousness, 79, 88. 
 
 Reformation, 333. 
 
 Repetition, factor of suggestion, 30, 
 
 34, 55. 
 
 Retraction of nerve-cells, 21 2. 
 Revivals, American, 350, 352, 353, 
 356, 360. 
 
 Irish, 361. 
 
 Jewish, 362. 
 Ribot, 125. 
 
 on paramnesia, 276. 
 
 criticism of, 277. 
 EicheL 82. 
 Rosse, Irving C., 289. 
 Royce, 276, 281. 
 Russian anti- Jewish riots, 305. 
 
 Salpe'triere school, 70. 
 
 criticism of, 82. 
 
 hypnotic stages of, 81. 
 Secondary consciousness, 94, 128, 
 143, 161. 
 
 intelligence of, 100. 
 Secondary sight, experiments on, 165. 
 Sej unction of consciousness, 282. 
 Self, definition of, 188. 
 Self-consciousness, types of, 200. 
 Shape, strange, factor of suggestion, 
 
 38, 43, 368. 
 Shell-hearing, 157. 
 
 Sidgwick, H., Mrs., 155. 
 
 Silver mania, 364. 
 
 Social consciousness, disaggregation 
 
 of, 308, 310, 313. 
 Society, nature of, 310. 
 Somnambulism, 63, 65, 82, 84, 100, 
 
 110, 113, 184. 
 Sorcery, 332. 
 South Sea bubble, 347. 
 Speculative mania, course of, 348. 
 Sphygmographic tracings, on cata- 
 lepsy, 80. 
 
 on pain, 107. 
 Spinoza, 329. 
 Stampedes, English, 315. 
 
 Russian, 317. 
 Subconsciousness, elements of, 201. 
 
 experiments on, 101, 103, 107. 
 Subconscious messages in hypnosis, 
 
 164. 
 Subconscious self, 109. 
 
 credulity of, 293. 
 
 disaggregation of, 292. 
 
 hyperaesthesia of, 148. 
 
 impersonality of, 246, 2$6. 
 
 intelligent nature of, 127. 
 
 moments of, 201, 206. 
 
 in normal state, 166, 180. 
 
 servility of, 296. 
 
 Subconscious states, forms of, 243. 
 Suggestibility, classification of, 18. 
 
 conditions of abnormal, 61. 
 
 conditions of normal, 49. 
 
 definition qf, 15. 
 
 law of, 90. 
 
 law of abnormal, 86, 89. 
 
 law of normal, 55, 89. 
 
 in man, 17, 44. 
 
 nature of, 90, 185. 
 
 social, 309, 316, 327. 
 
 table of, 33. 
 
 table of immediate and mediate, 42, 
 
 table of total, 51. 
 Suggestion arc, 21. 
 
 classification of, 23. 
 
 definition of, 15. 
 
 direct, 19.
 
 386 
 
 THE PbfCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 Suggestion, elements of, 10. 
 
 immediate, 22, 40. 
 
 indirect, 20. 
 
 mediate, 23, 40. 
 
 post-hypnotic, 10, 13, 100, 119, 164, 
 174, 269, 272, 274, 294. 
 
 success of, 79. 
 Suggestion experiments, factors of, 
 
 29, 38. 
 Suggest! on ism, 73. 
 
 criticism of, 73, 75. 
 Sybel, Heinrich von, 322. 
 Synthesis of apprehension, 203. 
 
 of mental activity, 210. 
 
 of recognition, 207. 
 
 of reproduction, 204. 
 
 Tarantism, 327. 
 
 Transformation of personality, 252, 
 255, 258, 266, 268, 278. 
 
 Kibot on, 281. 
 
 Koyce on, 282. 
 Triple personality, 289. 
 Tulipomaniu, 343. 
 
 Unconscious cerebration, 118, 176. 
 
 criticism of, 119, 177. 
 Upham, 842. 
 
 Van Giesou, Ira, 215, 232. 
 
 visions, 222, 238. 
 
 Voluntary movements, limitation of, 
 47, 59, 299. 
 
 Wave theory of consciousness, 188, 
 
 194. 
 Wernicke on paramnesia, 276. 
 
 on paranoia, 282. 
 Will, 68, 71. 
 Witchcraft mania, 331. 
 Woman's crusade, 363. 
 Women, 302, 363. 
 
 Yandell, D. W., 353. 
 
 Zevi, Sabbathai, 327. 
 Zieheu, Prof., 67, 119, 124. 
 
 (14) 
 
 THE END.
 
 Date Due 
 
 1378 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
 CAT. NO. 24 161
 
 A 000 500 908 9 
 
 .58 
 S568p 
 1921 
 Sidis, Boris 
 
 The Psychology of suggestion 
 
 MEDICAL SCIENCES LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE 
 
 IRVINE, CALIFORNIA 92664