Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/675

 HYPNOTISM

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HYPNOTISM

Hypnosis is not only powerless to effect a moral or physical cure, to heal radically any malady what- ever, but it is also, and above everything else, a dangerous method. It is right that this point should be insisted on. In the practice of hypnotism there are physical or physiological, psycliic or intellectual, and above all moral, dangers. The wonders of hyp- nosis as achieved in the laboratories at the Salpe- triere are astounding and incontestable, but one must not fail to consider the price at which they are ob- tained. Hypnosis is not a casually improvised thing, it is an induced, artificial state, prepared for in ad- vance; an "intensive culture" is necessary, a scien- tific and patient preparation — at least in so far as the aim is to obtain anything more than the common nervous sleep. Hysteria is the true soil for its growth — it supplies the best subjects, those who respontl to the most difficult suggestions and exhibit the most strik- ing effects. Experimentation on those affected in this way, when carried to extremes, is calculated to bring on the most harmful results. Their sensibility, already perverted and exaggerated by neurosis, can- not fail to become completely unbalanced and lead to madness as a sequel ot the long and arduous s<5ances. Many of them halt on the road, having ceased to be capable subjects. But, even when it succeeds, hypnotic education finds as its reward a corresponding failure of the psycho-sensitive life, a growing disturbance of the emotional or general sensibility. We may point to the case of a nervous young girl, whose malady was aggravated by hospital stances until restraint in an asylum became necessary. Hypnosis is a two- edged weapon, capable of doing more harm than good. Disturbance and perversion of the higher faculties follow those of the sensitive. The cerebral mechanism is of the most delicate kind, and the in- tensive practice of hypnosis has the effect of throwing that mechanism out of gear. Hypnotic suggestions set ideas and sentiments, senses and reason, in con- flict, and vitiate the functioning of the mind. This effect is all the more fatal as the subjects are, to begin with, enervated and predisposed to lose their mental balance.

Hypnotism, therefore, is a dangerous, if not a mor- ally detestable, practice. In the process of suggestion the individual alienates his liberty and his reason, handing himself over to the domination of another. Now, no one has any right thus to abdicate the rights of his conscience, to renounce the duty towards his personality. It has been objected to this view that there is the same effect in intoxication or in the use of chloroform; but the argument is of no validity. Drunkenness is not justifiable; it is a grave sin against temperance. As for chloroform, it has its precise indications strictly marked. It is only law- fully employed in medicine to make insensiBle sick people who are about to undergo a surgical operation. Can hypnotism be employed in the same way as chloroform? Has it any social utility, or does it play a humanitarian role in any way? Its supporters have vainly endeavored to endow it with practical uses, in ortier to give it a scientific turn, but in spite of all their efforts, hj-pnotism remains, not only an idle curiosity, but a dangerous game. Such is the certain conclusion to which we are led by a study of hypnotism in its relation to civil and crim- inal law. It is a generally recognized fact that criminal or unlawful acts have been, or can be, com- mitted on sleeping subjects. Even without pro- ceeding to actual crime, the hypnotist may make in- sidious and improper suggestions. Many have boasted of having obtained delicate secrets from young girls, humiliating avowals which they cer- tainly would not have made had they been awake; such procedure is an odious abuse of confidence. We pass on to the consideration of crimes due to hypnosis: women have been made the victims of attempts on VII.— 39

their honour, and even of actual rape. Sometimes, too, by means of suggestion, the subject is made to consent to the crime, as criminal records show. We have no properly ascertained cases of fraud or theft successfully practised by means of hypnosis, but such things are nevertheless possible. The evidence given in all such cases should be regarded with mistrust; the subject may be deliberately trying to deceive, or he may be in good faith mistaken, and so accuse an innocent person. Of this the famous La Ronciere case (1834) is a sad illustration.

The hypnotized person is not always a victim; he may be the criminal. But it is necessary to know the circumstances of each case, and not confound hos- pital patients with normal subjects. The suggestion of intra- and post-hypnotic acts is a usual operation of hypnotists, and the existence of "laboratory crimes" — i. e., crimes suggested in the course of ex- periment — no longer needs demonstration. But from these jocose crimes we cannot infer the existence of real crimes. Hypnosis, moreover, is complete or partial; only in the former (true somnambulism) is there a total absence of responsibility; in the latter, responsibility is only lessened (auto-suggestion, sug- gestion, persuasion). Then, too, resistance to sug- gestion is frequent; there is an inward struggle, a mental debate, proportioned to the standard of education imparted to the subject, the moral strength of the individual. In the administration of justice the testimony of those who have been subjected to hypnotic influence should be accepted only with the most decided reservations. Apart from the hypnosis, the subject can lie and deceive like any other hys- terical person. Another cause of unconscious lying is retroactive amnesia: the subject, on awakening from hypnosis, may manifest a complete forgetfulness of what took place, not only in the hypnosis, but also in the period preceding it (Bernheim). Writers are divided on the question of spontaneous falsehood in hypnosis, but they are at one in recognizing the fre- quency of suggested lies and false testimony. It is doubtful if any one could succeed in causing a will or a deed of gift to be maile by mere suggestion, but it is a sufficiently serious thing that the possibility of such a crime should even be thought of. It has been pro- posed to use hypnosis as a means of examining pris- oners. In this connexion Li^geois has formulated the following conclusions: (1) No one has a right to hypnotize a prisoner in order to obtain from him by that means confessions or evidence against other per- sons which he refuses in his normal state — that is, when he is in possession of his free will. (2) If, on the other hand, an accused person or the victim of a crime should apply for it, it would be proper to resort to this process in order to elicit indications which the applicant might think likely to be favour- able to him. (3) The same conclusion for civil acts, contracts of every kind, bonds, loans, acquired from hypnotic suggestion, and for donations or wills. This system woukl be fertile of abuses and odious in most cases. — "This kind of inquisition [question] would be no more justifiable than the old kind" (Cullerre).

The Church has not waited for the verdict of science to put the faithful on their guard against the dangers of magnetism and hj-pnotism, and to defend the rights of human conscience; but, ever prudent, she has con- demned only abuses, leaving the way free for scientific research. "The use of magnetism, that is to say, the mere act of employing physical means otherwise per- missilile, is not morally forbidden, provided that it does not tend to an illicit end or one which may be in any manner evil" (Response of the Holy Office, 2 June, 1 S40). The encyclical letter of the Sacred Penitentiary, Tribunal of August, 1856, only confirms this, and Pere Coconnier has referred to it in his famous work " L'Hypnotisme franc ", in which he studies the subject