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-
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.
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
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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
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The Psychology of suggestion
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