Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/370

348 hypnotic trance are probably due. The initiation idea thus resurrected is the idea in the subject's mind that the operator will have a certain indefinite but all-effective power over him when he shall have lapsed into the trance. It is not necessary that this impression should reach the level of full belief; a bare fear that he may be thus controlled is enough. That the mere idea of it should be present to the person is all that is necessary. Now such idea is the last poignant idea in the subject's mind before he composes himself for the trance. Consequently, after he has entered the trance state it is this idea that is nearest the point of passing over into action and that, as the whole potential rises, passes over first. Thus it is the idea which the subject carries with him into the trance that becomes the dominant idea of the trance itself.

Now the fact that this idea alone is at the necessary potential to be stirred explains the insentience of the brain to all other stimuli. The brain cells connected with it alone are in a condition to be affected from without; all others are affected only as they are connected with them. Nor are