Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/223

Rh in Mental and Moral Culture,' by John Duncan Quackenbos, an unfortunate volume which may be permitted to speak for and condemn itself. To begin with, the work was written 'in premeditated ignorance of recent works on hypnotism.' Hypnotism is presented as a miraculous panacea. "A recent experiment of the writer's establishes the fact that disequilibration may be adjusted; a congenital cerebral deficiency overcome; a personality crippled by thought inhibition, mental apathy and defective attention transformed into a personality without a blot upon the brain, and so impending insanity shunted—by the use of hypnotic suggestion as an educational agency." "Differences induced by objective education are obliterated; and the fundamental endowments of that finer spiritual organ in which under God we have our highest being—endowments conferred by Deity on all human souls without favor and without stint—dominate the intellectual life. The divine image is supreme in the man, and creative communication on the broadest lines and on the most exalted planes becomes possible. Hypnotic suggestion is but inspiration. Not only does the subject share the latent knowledge, but he borrows as well the mental tone of the operator. His memory becomes preternaturally impressible. The principles of science, of language, of music, of art, are quickly appropriated and permanently retained for post-hypnotic expression through appropriate channels. Confidence in talent is acquired; and embarrassment, confusion, all admission of inferiority, are banished from the objective life—by placing the superior self in control." Among the patients are "several ladies who are making a profession of fiction writing. To these latter were imparted in hypnosis, first, a knowledge of the canons of narration, viz., the law of selection, which limits the story-teller to appropriate characteristic or individual circumstances; the law of succession," and other laws of like flavor. The result: "In the light of instantaneous apprehension, barrenness gives place to richness of association, the earnest thought and honest toil of the old method to a surprising facility, disinclination to select details to zest in appropriating whatever is available. Opportunity and mood are thus made to coincide, and the subject spontaneously conforms to the eternal principles of style. Under the influence of such inspiration, rapid progress has been made in the chosen field of authorship." The art of acting is equally easily accomplished. "The response of the woman's soul to such suggestions with post-hypnotic import is followed by her speedy ascent to the heights of histrionic art, and by subsequent triumphs on the stage through an apprehension of her own deathless power as revealed by the creative communication of her hypnotist. An actress once so inspired is inspired forever." For music the same formula holds. "The automatic mind is gently wooed to the summits of soul life, where it becomes susceptible to inspiration and burns to launch itself, through music as a medium of artistic expression, into the objective world." Moral perfection is likewise achieved. Here is a typical case before treatment: "Philetas M., aged twenty-one, an adept in all kinds of deviltry; a cigarette fiend; an incorrigible liar, unblushingly denying scarce-cold crimes with the proofs of their commission in our very hands, and constantly deceiving his parents with rotten-hearted promises; a borrower of money under false pretences, and an out-and-out thief for whom jail had no terrors; a gambler: a profligate ready to pawn the clothes on his back at the bidding of town-dowdies: a trencher-knight of the subloins of the Tenderloin," etc.; and this is the appearance after taking: "The weaknesses of the past are forgotten, vice loses its attractions, and the inspired soul seeks to make reparation for its shortcomings by an exaggerated loyalty to the spirit of the moral law. The young man who has regarded with contempt a father's advice and a