SCIENCE TAKES A STEP
« The encyclopedias are not yet out of print which
have classed mesmerism among the foolish superstitions of the ignorant played
upon for profit by the quick-witted imposter, nor are the learned doctors dead
who have published articles in support of the encyclopedias; yet today the most
eminent physicians in Europe declare that Mesmer was right and that mesmerism
is not a superstition, but that it is necessary for reputations to adopt a new
name, so mesmerism is rechristened Hypnotism.
In this way those doctors who laughed at and derided what has long been
known to the common people may now learnedly discuss phenomena which some years
ago they ignored under its old name. In the March number of Scribner Dr.
William James writes upon this subject under the name of the “Hidden Self,” and
the April Forum admits an article by the eminent Dr. Charcot upon "Hypnotism
and Crime."
This step, though taken late, is in the right direction. But the eminent
physicians who make this advance cannot claim to be the leaders of the people,
for the latter have for generations known quite as much about the matter as the
licensed practitioners, except that they use no high-sounding name to call it
by.
It is well known to many members of the Theosophical Society that there
are perhaps thousands of people in the United States who forty years ago
pursued the same investigations and made similar experiments to those of Dr.
Charcot and others.
In the year 1850 a certain Dr. J.B. Dods gave lectures about the country
and taught what he called Electrical Psychology. This was then so well
known that it attracted the attention of certain U.S. Senators, among them,
Daniel Webster, John P. Hale, Theodore Rush, Sam Houston, Henry Clay, and
others, who invited Dr. Dods to lecture before them in Washington.
He delivered his lecture, went on with his experiments, and published a
series of Lectures upon the subject. In these are to be found, together with
other things, the directions so loudly proclaimed and appropriated now by
physicians who would have hooted at Dr. Dods. And even on the point of the
necessity of precaution and of keeping hypnotism out of the hands of
unprincipled persons, Dods was not silent.
In 1850 he said in his Introduction that, although he had taught more
than one thousand individuals whom he had put under solemn pledge not to reveal
his methods to impure and immoral persons, yet some were so unprincipled as to
violate their pledge and hawk the "science" about everywhere.
Dr. Charcot in the April Forum pleads for legislation that will
prevent just such unprincipled persons from dealing with subjects, not solely
on the ground that crime may be easily and safely committed with the aid of
hypnotism, but rather that sensitive persons may be protected from the
recurrence of hysteria or catalepsy, and ventures the opinion that crime will
probably not find any aid or safeguard in hypnotism.
While we thoroughly agree with Dr. Charcot as to the need for placing
safeguards around this budding science, it is from a conviction that crime can
be aided and hidden by the use of such a practice, and is today thus aided and
hidden. We do not care to commit hypnotism solely to the doctors, as he asks,
just for their sake, but we would wish to place restrictions upon even those
gentlemen, and to limit the number of them who may be allowed to use it.
The chief value to the Theosophist of this new step of the schools, is
not, however, in the likelihood that rules and methods may be published, but
that before long time the erstwhile materialist who can be convinced of a fact
only when an Academy endorses it will be the more easily convinced that there
is a soul. In the March Scribner article above spoken of, we have a
public admission that the facts of hypnotism prove a Hidden Self.
Dr. Charcot does not go as far as this, but the variety and peculiarly
occult character of numerous facts daily brought to light by other
investigators will raise such a mountain of proof that hardly any one will be
able to overcome it or deny its weight. Once they begin to admit a Hidden
Self,-using, indeed, the very words long adopted by many Theosophists and constantly
found in the ancient Upanishads, they allow the entering wedge.
And so not long to wait have we for the fulfillment of the predictions
of H. P. Blavatsky made in Isis Unveiled and repeated in the Secret
Doctrine, "...and dead facts and events deliberately drowned in the
sea of modern scepticism will ascend once more and reappear upon the surface. »
(Path, May 1890, p.44-46; Echoes I, p.144-146)
HYPNOTISM AND
THEOSOPHY
« Is hypnotism understood? What is the attitude of the Theosophical
Society to hypnotism?
It is thought by some that magnetism and hypnotism are identical; for
many have said this new force or power is only the old practice of Mesmer
revived in this century, after long years of contempt, and labeled with a new
name, which will permit doctors to take it up.
This is not, however, altogether true. Dr. Charcot, of Paris, and his
followers, may be credited with the revival of hypnotism; for, in consequence
of their investigations, it has been accepted by the medical profession.
I have seen the prominent doctors of the Atlantic coast change their
views on this subject in twenty-five years. Dr. Hammond and others laughed at
the credulity of those who believed that the phenomena, now so well known among
hypnotizers, ever took place; today they write articles and admit the facts
previously denied.
Many years ago, Dr. Esdaile, a surgeon of the British army, conducted a
hospital in India, and there performed many difficult operations by using
magnetism as an anesthetic, even instructing native assistants to use it on
patients in his stead.
His book, long ago published, gives all the facts. There is plenty of
testimony in all countries to the reality of the mesmeric and hypnotic states
and powers.
The great question which arose after the proofs about hypnotism were in,
was a very different one from any which has previously been brought forward. As
soon as the process was described and admitted, experiments proceeded with
rapidity, and the great subject of "suggestion" was laid bare.
It was found that the hypnotized person could be made to do many strange
things after recovering from the hypnotic state, provided the suggestion had
been made to him when he was in the state.
The subject was told to murder Dr. A or B; to steal a pocket-book. He
was then taken out of the hypnotic state, and at the appointed time, would take
the suggested weapon a paper knife or harmless thing) and go through all the
required actions, or would actually steal the object he was told to steal.
If this power could be used by a doctor in an experiment, it was argued
that an actual murder might be planned and executed through a hypnotized
person. Hence it was dangerous. Crime is possible of perpetration with impunity
by the real culprit.
Dr. Charcot gave an article to an important New York magazine in which
he admitted the probabilities of suggestion to patients, but denied that there
was danger from suggested crime, and yet also said there ought to be laws
against indiscriminate hypnotization.
In the latter conclusion, most of the Theosophical Society's members
fully concur, but they also think that there is, and will be, danger from crime
suggested to hypnotic subjects. Not in the immediate present, but in the
future.
This is because hypnotism is not understood nor its dangers appreciated
by the medical profession; still less do they credit the public with a correct
knowledge on the subject.
The very best hypnotizers know very well that there are points at which
the hypnotized subject escapes their influence, continues in the hypnotic
state, and remains under some influence not known to the operator nor distinguishable
by the subject.
Here is one danger - the danger of ignorance and of a blind guide's
leading one equally blind. Such writers as Braid, Binet and others are only
statisticians. They simply give facts and methods, all being equally in the
dark as to causes and possibilities.
Again, the operators in the forefront of hypnotic fame know, too, as Dr.
Charcot has said, there is a danger that hysteria will be developed where it
never existed, and a long train of other evils. This is why he demands the
suppression of indiscriminate operating.
But the real rock of offense is this, and well known to theosophical
students, that as the force and power of hypnotism are better known, it will be
seen that whatever the influence is, the process going on in hypnotism is the
contracting of the cells of the body and brain from the periphery to the
centre.
This process is actually a phenomenon of the death state, and is the
opposite of the mesmeric effect; and this point is not known to the medical
profession, nor will it be as they now proceed, because post mortem
examinations never reveal the action of a living cell.
Magnetism by human influence starts from within and proceeds to the
outer surface, thus exhibiting a phenomenon of life the very opposite of
hypnotism. And the use of magnetism is not objectionable, yet it should be
limited in practice to competent members of the medical profession.
The more studious and careful members of the Theosophical Society, then,
are against the use of hypnotism. In all its anesthetic phases it can be
duplicated by mesmerism without any bad effects. And Dr. Esdaile has abundantly
shown this.
Laws ought to be passed making it a misdemeanor to have public or
private hypnotic séance. And these laws should also be aimed at even those
doctors who, under the plea of science, put subjects into absurd and
undignified positions. Such practices are not necessary, and are deliberately
against the desire of the waking will and judgment of the subject. They only exhibit
the operator's power and add nothing to knowledge that cannot be otherwise
obtained.
But even with the remarkable cases recorded by Binet and others in
France, the laws governing man's inner constitution, and which especially
govern in hypnotism after a certain point, are not perceived by the learned
writers.
Some give only facts - either facts about strange recurrence of states,
and others like Dr. James of this country assume that there is a hidden self
who does these queer tricks with the mortal shape.
Theosophists know that the extraordinary alterations in mind or mental
power, the strange "recurrence of states" and the apparently distinct
division or separation of intelligence in a single human subject are all
explained by the ancient eastern method of reducing the inner powers of man
into seven classes, in each of which the hidden self (the Ego) can and
does act independently, the body being only a gross instrument or field for the
action of the real man.
This theory divides him into seven planes of action, in each of which
the Ego or hidden self can have a consciousness operating in a manner
peculiarly appropriate to that plane, and also partaking of the consciousness
and experience of the planes above it but not below.
And each of these layers or fields for consciousness is further divided
into other sub-fields, in every one of which there may be a separate experience
and action, or all may be combined.
Now in the cases taken up by Dr. James, the peculiarity noted was that
when the subject acted as No. I, she had no recollection of a state called No.
2. No explanation of this was offered, only the fact being recorded. It is
explained by the localization of the consciousness of the Ego in one or
the other of the sub-fields of action of the first of the great class of seven.
The failure to recollect from one to the other was due to the fact that
the Ego was forced into that particular field, and was thus unable to
carry recollection with it. Hence it was entirely automatic in its action on
that plane.
This effect was due almost entirely to the specific contractile action
of the hypnotic process, which, as said above, is essentially a contraction of
the cells from outside to the centre.
This will always prevent the Ego from educating itself to remember
from state to state and field to field the experience of each, which education
is however possible in the mesmerized or magnetized state, and of course in the
normal waking life.
The cases where the subject escapes from the operator's control are all
explicable under the same theosophic theory; that is, those are instances in
which the Ego retreats from the first plane or field of consciousness
made up of seven divisions or sub-fields to the next one of the whole class of
seven, instead of entering one of the sub-divisions of the first.
And, as the medical practitioners do not know of nor admit the reality
of the higher inner sub-divisions, they are not acquainted with the means for
reaching the Ego when it has escaped further from them into a field of
consciousness where they are in ignorance of causes and conditions; that is to
say, the hypnotizers are not examining the real field of operation of
the force, but are looking at some of its phenomena merely.
These phenomena are exhibited in the body or outer shell while the
psycho-physiological process, going on within, and causing the visible phenomena,
are hidden from their view. »
(Omaba Daily Bee, March 30, 1891; Echoes III, p.212-215)
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