Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/420

 FURTHER PROBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. (ll.) 407 per se and exceptional, tends still further to the simplification of the telepathic theory. Before leaving the subject of hypnotic rapport and its effect on the telepathic transference of ideas, I must point out that I have been speaking exclusively oihypnoge.netic ideas. In : respect of other phenomena of thought-transference, exhibited during the actual duration of the trance, it would be rash, I think, to assert that the rapport with the operator is not a condition of transference more favourable than any that spontaneously presents itself. I at any rate do not know of any results of experiments conducted with persons in a normal state which can be compared, for scope and complexity, with some of the hypnotic cases e.g., with the important set of observations recorded in Phantasms of the Living, ii. 336-43 ; where an exceptional facility of communi- cation seems to be shown in two ways, (1) by the great frequency and certainty of the effects ; and (2) by the idea communicated being often one which passed through the hypnotiser's head when she was not in the least thinking of her patient or of attempting a transference, and upon which therefore she was not concentrating any special energy of attention. The very fact, moreover, that the phenomena of 1 community of sensation ' were observed with hypnotised persons many years before they were obtained with others may seem to point in the same direction ; and in most of these cases it looks as if the results were directly dependent on the establishment of the hypnotic relation. At the same time it must be remembered that ' community of sensation ' is a very rare phenomenon even with hypnotised ' subjects '; while, on the other hand, we are not yet at all in a position to decide what proportion of unhypnotised persons might show high susceptibility to this and other forms of thought- transference, if only the necessary experiments were widely made. It should be noted, moreover, that quite as striking results have been obtained in the particular line of ' community of sensation ' with non-hypnotised as with hypnotised ' subjects ' (Phantasms, i. 52-8) ; and that several forms of transference have been obtained exclusively with persons in a normal state. On the whole, the conclusion seems to be that the effect of the hypnotic state in facilitating and strengthening telepathic impulses, though occasionally very decisive, is very far from constant. We should probably gain a clearer view on the subject if persons who have shown themselves to be susceptible when in one state were sub-- jected to experiments when in the other ; and if hypnotisers who have obtained community of sensation with their ' sub-