Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/366

344 the hypnotic trance, and the possession trance. The two differ markedly, both in their physical and in their psychic symptoms; while at the same time bearing a strong family resemblance to each other. To an unsympathetic bystander, the subject of the one seems an idiotic automaton, while the subject of the other appears raving mad. We will take up the hypnotic variety first.

To an outsider nothing marks that critical point when the subject's statuesque immovability passes from the voluntary into the involuntary state. It simply was the one and is the other; a passing over as indistinguishable as the traveler's crossing the line, known only by the change of pole round which all things seem to turn.

If left alone the subject remains in his mummified state till at last he comes to of himself. If, however, while in the midst of it he be addressed by the operator, instantly certain striking phenomena follow. Out of a lethargy seemingly too deep for any stimulus to stir, he suddenly responds to the operator's word with the instantaneity of mechanism. He not only wakes to life again, but as soon appears to a most peculiar