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 "But where did you run up against Hypnotism? I thought this a new thing under the sun?"

The doctor laughed.

"It's not a home industry, exactly. I became interested in it in Edinburgh while a medical student, and pursued it with increased interest in Paris."

"Did you study medicine abroad?" Phil asked in surprise.

"Yes; I was poor, but I managed to raise and to borrow enough to take three years on the other side. I put all I had and all my credit in it. I've never regretted the sacrifice. The more I saw of the great world, the better I liked my own world. I've given these farmers and their families the best God gave to me."

"Do you find much use for your powers of hypnosis?" Phil asked.

"Only in an experimental way. Naturally I am endowed with this gift—especially over certain classes who are easily the subjects of extreme fear. I owned a rascally slave named Gus whom I used to watch stealing. Suddenly confronting him, I've thrown him into unconsciousness with a steady gaze of the eye, until he would drop on his face, trembling like a leaf, unable to speak until I allowed him."

"How do you account for such powers?"

"I don't account for them at all. They belong to the world of spiritual phenomena of which we know so little and yet which touch our material lives at a thousand points every day. How do we account for sleep and dreams, or second sight, or the day-dreams which we call visions?"