Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/234

 FUKTHEB PBOBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. (l.) 221 form only of such hypnotisation to wit, that exercised on a ' subject ' who has been entranced on previous occasions, by the suggestion (either verbal or conveyed by the mere physical proximity of the operator) of the idea of trance. On this view, what happens is that the idea of the intended effect is transferred from the operator to the ' subject,' just as any other idea is transferred when the mind of A affects the mind of B otherwise than through the recognised sensory channels ; and that it then works on the ' subject/ whom previous enhancements have rendered hyper-suscep- tible to its influence, precisely in the same way as the word Dormez works on him when addressed by the operator to his ears. That is to say, the trance supervenes owing to the peculiar liability of the ' subject ' to react on a parti- cular idea, in whatever way that idea may have gained an entrance to his mind, and not owing to any particular magnetic force or compulsion exercised by the operator. I hold, therefore, that the French experimenters have hit on the right word, suggestion, to describe the mode of influence suggestion mentale in contrast to suggestion verbale ; the two sorts of suggestion being in their hypnogenetic power identical, but differing radically in the earlier stage in the mode in which the suggestion obtains access to the ' sub- ject '. The difference is not then (as formerly conceived) between two modes of propagating ' mesmeric ' force, by passes near at hand or ' will ' at a distance. It lies quite outside hypnotism and the particular effect of hypnotic trance. It is a difference more radical than those who have believed in mesmeric action at a distance have hitherto imagined, but also less mysterious ; inasmuch as this distant influence can now be referred to a large general class of phenomena, fundamentally alike through all varieties of circumstance, and in this way confirmatory of one another. 1 In a word, the difference between verbal suggestion and mental suggestion in hypnotic cases is simply the difference 1 There is at present this difficulty in discussing any special topic where the ideas of telepathy and thought-transference have to be introduced that to many readers the terms may convey no meaning, or may appear simply as symbols of what is ridiculous and impossible ; while yet it would be hopeless to attempt to demonstrate the realities which they represent in the course of a paper like the present. The largest collection of evidence on the subject which has so far been published will be found in Phantasms of the Living (Tiiibiier & Co.), and I am here treating the central positions of that book as if they were solidly established. Feeling, as I do, such con- fidence to be justifiable, I refrain from encumbering these pages with apologies for it ; but I am very far indeed from assuming that every candid mind is bound to share it.