BEWITCH PEOPLE BRAINS EXPLAINED BY WILLIAM JUDGE

In this article, William Judge talks about that ability to make people see things or beings that are not really real.

 

 

Glamour, its Purpose and Place in Magic

 

The word “glamour” was long ago defined in old dictionaries as “witchery or a charm on the eyes, making them see things differently from what they really are.” This is still the meaning of the word. Not long ago, before the strange things possible in hypnotic experiments became known to the Western world, it seemed as if everything would be reduced to mere matter and motion by the fiat of science.

 

Witchery was to fade away, be forgotten, be laughed out of sight, and what could not be ascribed to defective training of the senses was to have its explanation in the state of the liver, a most prosaic organ. But before science with its speculation and ever-altering canons could enlighten the unlearned multitude, hypnotism crept slowly and surely forward and at last began to buttress the positions of Theosophy. Glamour stands once more a fair chance for recognition. Indeed, H.P. Blavatsky uttered prophetic words when she said that in America more than anywhere else this art would be practiced by selfish men for selfish purposes, for money-getting and gratification of desire.

 

Hurriedly glancing over some fields of folk-lore, see what a mass of tales bearing on glamour produced by men, gods, or elementals. In India the gods every now and then, often the sages, appear before certain persons in various guises by means of a glamour which causes the eye to see what is not really there. In Ireland volumes of tales in which the person sees houses, men, and animals where they are not; he is suddenly given the power to see under the skin of natural things, and then perceives the field or the market-place full of fairies, men, and women gliding in and out among the people. Anon a man or woman is changed into the appearance of animal or bird, and only regains the old semblance when touched with the magic rod.

 

This change of appearance is not a change in fact, but always a glamour affecting the eyes of the other person. Such a mass of similar stories found during all time and among every people cannot be due to folly nor be without a basis. The basis is a fact and a law in man’s nature. It is glamour, the reason for glamour, and the power to bring it about. Just because there have always been those who, either by natural ability or training, had the power to bring on a “witchery over the eyes,” these stories have arisen.

 

 

A writer well-known in England and America once thought he had found a mare’s nest when he reported that Mme. Blavatsky had confessed to him that certain phenomena he enquired of had been caused by glamour.

 

“Ah, glamour” he said; “thus falls this Theosophic house of cards”; and he went away satisfied, for in truth he had been himself thoroughly glamoured. But Theosophists should not stumble and fall violently as this gentleman did over a word which, when enquired into, carries with it a good deal of science relating to an important branch of occultism.

 

When I read in an issue of the Arena all about this confession on glamour, I was quite ready to believe that H.P. Blavatsky did say to the learned enquirer what he reported, but at the same time, of course, knew that she never intended to apply her enchantment explanation to every phenomenon. She only intended to include certain classes, — although in every occult phenomenon there is some glamour upon some of the observers according to their individual physical idiosyncrasies.

 

The classes of phenomena covered by this word are referred to in part by Patanjali in his Yoga Aphorisms, where he says that if the luminousness natural to object and eye is interfered with the object will disappear, whether it be man or thing and whether it be day or night. This little aphorism covers a good deal of ground, and confutes, if accepted, some theories of the day. It declares, in fact, that not only is it necessary for rays of light to proceed from the object to the eye, but also light must also proceed from the eye towards the object. Cut off the latter and the object disappears; alter the character of the luminousness coming from the eye, and the object is altered in shape or color for the perceiver.

 

(Cid's observation: I think that here perhaps William Judge was wrong and I am inclined to consider that the bewitcher manages to manipulate the brain of the person so that she sees —or does not see— what he wants. And this is also what William Judge detailed below.)

 

Carrying this on further and connecting it with the well-known fact that we see no objects whatever, but only their ideal form as presented to the mind, and we arrive at an explanation in part of how glamour may be possible. For if in any way you can interfere with the vibrations proceeding to the eye on the way to affect the brain and then the percipient within, then you have the possibility of sensibly altering the ideal form which the mind is to cognize within before it declares the object to be without which produced the vibration.

 

 

 

How does it work?

 

Take up now imagination in its aspects of a power to make a clear and definite image. This is done in hypnotism and in spiritualism. If the image be definite enough and the perceiver or subject sensitive enough, a glamour will be produced. The person will see that which is not the normal shape or form or corporature of the other. But this new shape is as real as the normal, for the normal form is but that which is to last during a certain stage of human evolution and will certainly alter as new senses and organs develop in us.

 

Thus far having gone, is it not easy to see that if a person can make the definite and vivid mind-pictures spoken of, and if the minor organs can affect and be affected, it is quite probable and possible that trained persons may have glamoured the eyes of others so to make them see an elephant, snake, man, tree, pot, or any other object where only is empty space, or as an alteration of a thing or person actually there?

 

This is exactly what is done in experiments by the hypnotists, with this difference, that they have to put the subject into an abnormal state, while the other operators need no such adventitious aids. Glamour, then, has a very important place in magic.

 

 

That it was frequently used by H.P. Blavatsky there is not the smallest doubt, just as there is no doubt that the yogi in India puts the same power into operation. In many cases she could have used it by making the persons present think they saw her when she had gone into the next room, or that another person was also present who was not in fact.

 

The same power of glamour would permit her to hide from sight any object in the room or in her hands. This is one of the difficult feats of magic, and not in the slightest degree dependent on legerdemain. Persons sometimes say this is folly even if true, but looked at in another light it is no folly, nor are those cases in which anyone was entitled to know all that was going on.

 

She exhibited these feats —seldom as it was— for the purpose of showing those who were learning from her that the human subject is a complicated and powerful being, not to be classed, as science so loves to do, with mere matter and motion. All these phenomena accomplished two objects. First, to help those who learned from her, and second, to spread abroad again in the West the belief in man’s real power and nature.

 

The last was a most necessary thing to do because in the West materialism was beginning to have too much sway and threatened to destroy spirituality. And it was done also in pursuance of the plans of the Great Lodge for the human race. As one of her Masters said, her phenomena puzzled skeptics for many years. Even now we see the effects, for when such men as Stead, the Editor of the Review of Reviews, and Du Prel, Schiaparelli, and others take up the facts of Spiritualism scientifically, one can perceive that another day for psychology is dawning.

 

This power of glamour is used more often than people think, and not excluding members of the Theosophical Society, by the Adepts. They are often among us from day to day appearing in a guise we do not recognize, and are dropping ideas into men’s minds about the spiritual world and the true life of the soul, as well as also inciting men and women to good acts. By this means they pass unrecognized and are able to accomplish more in this doubting and transition age than they could in any other way.

 

Sometimes as they pass they are recognized by those who have the right faculty; but a subtle and powerful bond and agreement prevents their secret from being divulged. This is something for members of the Theosophical Society to think of, for they may be entertaining now and then angels unawares. They may now and then be tried by their leaders when they least expect it, and the verdict is not given out but has its effect all the same.

 

But glamour covers only a small part of the field of occultism. The use of the astral body enters into nearly all of the phenomena, and in other directions the subject of occult chemistry, absolutely unknown to the man of the day, is of the utmost importance; if it is ever given out it will be a surprise to science, but certainly that divulgation will not soon be to such a selfish age.

 

(The Path, Vol. VIII, May 1893, p.43-46; Echoes I, p.357-360)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THEOSOPHY AND HYPNOTISM BY JOHN SCHOFIELD

The third object of the Theosophical Society is "To investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man."  Some of these unexplained latent powers have been brought to light by what is sometimes called mesmerism, animal magnetism, or hypnotism, which are but different names for essentially the same thing. Sometimes men profess to make a scientific distinction between them, but I doubt the accuracy of their definitions.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH HYPNOTISM

For over ten years I investigated mesmerism, reading every book I could find in the English and French languages, and making thousands of experiments in private and public.

I began by using the mesmeric passes and succeeded as well with them as I did later with other methods, except that it took much longer to produce sleep. With mesmeric passes it took me from ten to twenty minutes to produce sleep, and by other methods from two to five minutes,

And sometimes it was instantaneous!

If I took a boy by the hand, placing my left thumb at the root of the nose — where the phrenologist locates individuality — and told him to look into my eye it was seldom more than two minutes before the eyelids began to droop, and the eyeballs to turn up and I told him he was asleep and could not get off the seat.

In public lectures I used to give a dozen boys, each a little zinc disk with a bright copper rivet in the center and tell them to look steadily at it, while I kept the attention of the audience for five minutes.

At the end of that time I took the boys one by one, selecting first those who seemed most susceptible to the influence, and treated them as described above. Generally ten of the twelve (and often the whole dozen) made good subjects for a mesmeric entertainment.

At my suggestion they at once imagined themselves soldiers, sailors, auctioneers, lecturers, or any other character that I happened to think of. By drilling them together for a little time I got complete control of them and then selected the best of them for more striking experiments.

Any of the boys could be made to imagine themselves girls and would take most remarkable pains with imaginary babies, or they would climb pillars for bird's nests, and tell how many eggs or young birds they found in the nest, the number seldom varying from what was in my own mind; — thought transference was quite easy.

They would imitate all the noises of animals on a farm, would be sea-sick, imagine salt was sweet and sugar bitter; and from the same glass of water would taste any kind of liquid suggested. Almost any of them could be made to think cold things were hot, and hot things cold, light things heavy and heavy things light.

Many times I have made strong men unable to lift a pound weight, and sometimes they got angry because I made small boys lift weights that they could not move at all.

CURIOSITIES

There were very few subjects whose limbs could not be made rigid as iron, or weak and paralyzed, and quite a number of those who volunteer for public experiment can be made as rigid as a body long dead.

For instance, I have made a man lie down on three chairs, his head on one, his heels on another, while a third supported his back. I then made mesmeric passes over him for two or three minutes, after which I have removed the middle chair and sat upon his body without its yielding under my weight.

I have then placed my hands upon his body for a few seconds, and then slowly raising them, the center of the body followed my hands without contact, until it formed a curve. On my replacing the chair and telling him to wake up, he would stand on his feet with every muscle loose and pulse normal.

(Note: this experiment is very dangerous because although the person does not feel the pain, she can be seriously injured and even crippled for life, so please do not do it.)

It was a not uncommon thing for subjects to develop clairvoyance both in private and public experiments. I say clairvoyance though perhaps it was not true clairvoyance, but the subjects could see and hear without using the physical organs of sight and hearing.

For instance, with the subject's eyes closed and tightly bandaged, I would say to him:

   -  "Describe for me the first person on the fourth seat."

He would do it quite accurately and sometimes humorously. I would then ask what the gentleman had in his pockets. This would be told in detail, and when he mentioned a watch I would ask him what time it indicated, what the number inside the case was, and whether a name or anything else was engraved there. This was usually told without an error.

If there happened to be a letter in one of the pockets, the subject would (with the permission of the owner) describe its contents, and sometimes the person who wrote it and his surroundings when writing.

Some subjects would describe the homes of people in the audience whom they did not know, telling of pictures, furniture, carpets, and people present. On one occasion a conversation was reported that we afterward found to be correct.

They sometimes told of incidents in the lives of people in the audience that these persons declared untrue, but which upon inquiry of relatives were found to be correct, though the memory of the person had not retained them.

REFLECTION ON HYPNOTISM

An objection to reincarnation which is commonly advanced is that if it were true we would be sure to remember. But if we utterly forget events that have occurred in the present life why should we expect to remember past lives?

Some of the incidents referred to were very important and had affected the whole life. But while these experiments assured me of the truth of certain statements that I had read as to the wonderful latent powers in man I had still a feeling that it was morally wrong for me to be making these experiments. This feeling became stronger and stronger, so that I found myself asking these questions:

Am I doing an injury to these people?

Am I weakening their will power — their power to resist evil?

Have I any right whatever to control and dominate their minds and bodies?

I reached the conclusion that I was wronging them, and resolved never to hypnotize another person, not even to cure disease. For more than twenty-five years I have kept this resolution, and after becoming a student of Theosophy I was glad that I had given up hypnotism, for I then came to understand what I had intuitively felt before.

There are different theories advocated by different men to explain how these phenomena are produced.

Some hold to the old mesmeric theory that there is a magnetic fluid passing from operator to subject, and in proof of this they give the statements of clairvoyants.

Some also tell us that the fact that some diseases are contagious, and that old people are benefited by sleeping with young people confirms this theory.

Others claim that the thought and will of the operator are propagated by ether waves, of even smaller amplitude and greater frequency than those which carry the Rontgen rays. Such waves are supposed to pass from one brain to another, arousing in the second brain an image similar to the one in the first brain.

But what matters it how the phenomena are produced if the effect be bad?

Charcot, one of the greatest hypnotists of this generation, says:

« The more I have examined the facts and the more I have advanced in my study, the more I am convinced that hypnotism is a reaction, not an action. »

What does this mean?

It can only mean that hypnotism is to a certain degree a suspension of the vital force that animates and controls the body of man. In other words it is what Theosophy declares it to be, namely, a driving of the soul from the body, the paralyzing of Manas and the separation of Buddhi from that principle.

It is an inversion of the truth. No God-given power should ever be used to produce a reaction by which the will of man is weakened or suspended, and the faculties of the mind controlled by another. No man should seek to control another, for by so doing he violates the laws of his being, the laws of brotherhood.

We have no moral or spiritual right to control another or to compel him to do anything, whether we believe it will be beneficial to him or not. Hypnotism weakens the will of the subject and destroys his independence. It tends to deaden his mental faculties, making him negative and susceptible to the influence of others, and liable to be controlled by the will of others, and not so competent to control his own thinking and actions. This is a sin against our brother.

SHOULD BE USE HYPNOTISM FOR GOOD?

Medical men are using it for the curing of disease and relief of pain, and because of this many people believe it to be an agent for good. We may not question the sincerity nor the benevolent impulses of those who use it and those who advocate its use, but we may question their wisdom and the value of the results produced.

In the first place hypnotism is founded on selfishness and cannot therefore be of real service to man. To sacrifice our own independence and our own individuality is a far greater price to pay than any relief from pain is worth.

Perhaps we do not think that these results will follow, but that we shall be able to resist the will of others in everyday life, and be well able to control ourselves. Perhaps we can, but the risk is great.

If during the time I was experimenting with mesmerism I met a boy on the street going to his work with dinner pail in hand, whom I had mesmerized, and would say to him:

  -  "That pail is hot!"

He would instantly drop it and feel a sensation of burning in his hand. Now he knew it was not hot, but he was unable to hold it, although he enjoyed the joke as much as those who saw what he did.

Another thing I found, too, and that is, that these boys whom I had controlled would go to another mesmeric entertainment declaring they would not yield themselves to this man as they had to me, but found themselves unable to resist. This was one of the first things that led me to give up the practice.

We should try to overcome disease and pain by seeking to under stand and obey the laws that regulate life and produce health and strength. We should seek to perfect life by the rightful use and strengthening of all our powers of body and mind, for it is every man's duty to control himself.

Perhaps some will ask if we may not allow qualified medical men to use it as we allow them to prescribe poisonous drugs for us. They further say that these drugs not only become harm less in their hands but positively beneficial, and in like manner hypnotism that is so dangerous in the hands of ignorant persons would be entirely changed, and only beneficial results would ensue if used by trained, scientific minds of the medical profession.

Our medical men have a good knowledge of anatomy and physiology but many of them under stand little of the workings of the human mind, and most of them are entirely ignorant of occultism.

Such a great power as this cannot be put into the hands of any class or profession with safety. Power is only safe with the unselfish wise, with those whose great desire is to bless and not to curse, to quicken and strengthen the minds of our brothers and sisters, and not to dull and deaden their faculties; who desire to increase and not to lessen the will power of all, so that all may be self-controlled and in perfect harmony with the laws of being.

CONCLUSION

Hypnotic suggestion is the reversal of certain laws of life and it is immoral to do evil that good may result. This much at least is plain, that we should never use our wills to force another to do, or refrain from doing even when we think that it would be for his good. We should never force on another the acceptance of any truth however important we may think it is — he must have liberty to accept, or reject as he may choose. It is ours to help, to bless, to instruct, but never to control and command.

(The Theosophical Quarterly, 1911, vol. 9, p.70-73)

HYPNOTISM EXPLAINED BY WILLIAM JUDGE

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)