Magnetism, Hypnotism and Suggestion (Translated) E-Book

Paul C. Jagot

• Herausgeber: David De Angelis
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Psychic phenomena have always existed; their main aspects from antiquity to the present day; today they are officially studied at an institute recognized as being of public utility by the State.
The phenomena of which we shall treat in this book have been known since the remotest antiquity. What we now call "magnetism," "hypnotism," "suggestion," "telepsychism," etc., constituted the experimental part of the science reserved, in India, in Chaldea, in Egypt, for a privileged caste who assumed at the same time the functions of priests, magistrates, and physicians. From generation to generation, the ancient initiates transmitted to each other the secret of their powers, and it may be said that they had pushed its development to a point from which the moderns are still far removed. For they seem to have exercised an almost absolute ascendancy over the minds and souls of their fellows, healing bodies with a word, subduing with a mere glance. Several authors are also of the opinion that they were capable of using certain forms of energy which our present-day scientists have not yet rediscovered.
Some elements of this so-called occult science, because it is carefully concealed from the masses, have survived in the disappeared civilizations. History testifies to the prodigies performed at different times among all peoples by individuals who seem to have inherited powers from the Hierophants.

Leseprobe

Magnetism, Hypnotism and Suggestion

The golden rules for influencing others, developing one's hidden energies, enhancing personality and curing illnesses

Paul C. Jagot

Translation and Edition 2021 by ©David De Angelis

All rights reserved

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

PART I - Succinct study of the four factors of influence: the magnetic agent, the sensory processes, suggestion, telepsychic action - Preface

PART II - PRACTICAL COURSE FOR OBTAINING THE ORDINARY PHENOMENA OF MAGNETISM AND HYPNOTISM

PART III - EXCEPTIONAL PSYCHICAL PHENOMENES instructions for observing them

PART IV - THE MEDIUMSHIP

PART V - APPLICATION OF MAGNETISM, SUGGESTION AND MENTAL ACTION IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES - INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHO-MAGNETIC MEDICINE

Illustrations

INTRODUCTION

- 1. Psychic phenomena have always existed; their main aspects from antiquity to the present day; today they are officially studied at an institute recognized as being of public utility by the State.

The phenomena of which we shall treat in this book have been known since the remotest antiquity. What we now call "magnetism," "hypnotism," "suggestion," "telepsychism," etc., constituted the experimental part of the science reserved, in India, in Chaldea, in Egypt, for a privileged caste who assumed at the same time the functions of priests, magistrates, and physicians. From generation to generation, the ancient initiates transmitted to each other the secret of their powers, and it may be said that they had pushed its development to a point from which the moderns are still far removed. For they seem to have exercised an almost absolute ascendancy over the minds and souls of their fellows, healing bodies with a word, subduing with a mere glance. Several authors are also of the opinion that they were capable of using certain forms of energy which our present-day scientists have not yet rediscovered.

Some elements of this so-called occult science, because it is carefully concealed from the masses, have survived in the disappeared civilizations. History testifies to the prodigies performed at different times among all peoples by individuals who seem to have inherited powers from the Hierophants.

After the burning of the Library of Alexandria by Theodosius, the ancient psychic science, deprived of its original research centers, diminished by the dispersion of its practitioners, had to become more prudent to safeguard what remained of it. And so came the origin of the secret societies, found in the Middle Ages, holders of a part of the occult knowledge.

Until the beginning of the Renaissance, psychic phenomena were regarded, even by those who were able to obtain them, as supernatural, as if they implied a departure from the laws of nature. Pliny, Avicenna, Basil, Valentinus, Agrippa, Paracelsus and others gradually threw some light of truth on the problem, proclaiming the attribution to man himself of his action on others, but it was thanks to Mesmer that the decisive step was taken towards a more rational interpretation of psychism: the theory of animal magnetism or the communication of vital energy between animate bodies.

The most valid continuators of Mesmer: de Puységur, Deleuze, du Potet and Lafontaine, were able to carry through the fine-tuning of the earlier theory in such a way that by the time of Lafontaine (1802-1892), a precise technique had already been established for obtaining by "magnetizing," i.e. correctly projecting this physiological radioactivity which is still called "magnetism." both the cure of most diseases and the production of a particular state designated by the name of "somnambulism" and characterized above all by the extension of the perceptive faculties of the somnambulist to objects and persons outside the reach of his psychic senses.

About 1841, the English physician Braid was able to reproduce some experiences that he had seen at a demonstration of the magnetizer Lafontaine, using, however, completely different procedures. Dr. Braid in fact obtained, on several individuals, a state of sleep analogous to "somnambulism" by making them stare at a bright point and he called this state "hypnosis".

Thus originated a school of experimenters, the "hypnotists," who denied the existence of animal magnetism, attributing to the action of fixation of the eye on the luminous point the magnetic phenomena reproduced by their procedure, and denying all the others. The discovery of Braid (known, long before him, by the Hindu enchanters) imposed itself under the name of "hypnotism" in medical schools all over the world, and especially in Paris, where it was illustrated at the Salpétrière hospital, by the celebrated neurologist Charcot.

After these two aspects (magnetism and hypnotism) of the psychic problem, a third soon came to the attention of researchers. Referring to a hypothesis already put forward by Faria and Hénin de Cuvilliers to explain the phenomena observed during the magnetism experiment, Dr. Liébeault, of Nancy, attributed them - together with those of braid hypnosis - to action, manner, gestures, By impressing the spirit of the persons with affirmations, with energetic injunctions, with long sustained fixed gazes and with expressive gestures, Dr. Liébeault arrived at provoking a nervous sleep analogous to the hypnosis of Braid and to the somnambulism of the Mesmerian school. Liébeault's method, simply called "suggestion", allowed him to influence almost all the people he met in his practice, and to generalize a therapy called "suggestive", which could be referred to the ancient thaumaturgy and consisted in making the psycho-nervous activity of the patient react on the affected organs, by means of appropriate suggestions.

A little later, about 1873, following a finding by Professar C. Richet, of the Institute, the attention of the experimenters was called to a fourth order of facts: the action of the will at a distance upon a given person. A hypnotic subject of C. Richet's had been repeatedly hypnotized at a distance, without his knowledge. This phenomenon of "mental suggestion" was repeated and studied by Ochorowicz, by Drs. Gley, Héricourt, Gilbert (especially the latter three renewed the experience known as "Cagliostro's", which consists in putting a subject into a remote sleep, suddenly and without his knowledge, and then mentally ordering him to go in search of his suggestioress) and, although there is no doubt about its reality, its determinism is nowadays still not completely known.

During the last thirty years all the legendary prodigies of Chaldean-Egyptian magic have become acquired facts of experimental metapsychics. The researches of Drs. Maxwell ("Les Phénomènes psychiques"), Gley (author of works on the psychology of the subconscious), Osty ("Lucidité et Intuition") and De Boirac ("La psycologie inconnue" and "L'avenir des sciences psychiques"), rector of the Academy of Dijon, have established the reality, so long disputed, of "somnambulistic lucidity" and of "clairvoyance", i.e. of the possibility for some subjects to see, hear and feel at a distance, and also to foresee events that are yet to occur. The study of mediumship - the name given to certain super-normal faculties - undertaken by Crookes, Lombroso, de Rochas and other luminaries of science, has verified the singular possibility of the mind to act on matter, by means of a kind of exteriorization of motility, which is outside the normal activities. Thus was also developed the problem of the levitation of tables, the haunting of houses, and other manifestations of the unknown energy which the followers of spiritism attributed to the spirits of the dead. Apparitions (1), bilocations, doubling, and visions of ghosts are now explained on the basis of Colonel de Rochas' experimentally provoked exteriorization of the hetero-fluidific double. Gurney, Myers, Podmore, of the Psychic Research Society in London, and Durville, in Paris, have arrived, on this subject and though following different methods, at identical conclusions.

These thirty years of unremitting efforts by most of the distinguished thinkers have constituted a transitory phase, during which psychic phenomena were not yet among those whose reality is admitted by official science. At the present time their study continues, officially, in an Institute recognized by the State as being of public utility.

- 2. Evolution brought to philosophy and metapsychics by the definitive acquisitions of psychical science. Usefulness of this book: to extend to as many people as possible the benefit of experimental knowledge of psychism.

Modern metapsychic, philosophical, and psychological conceptions have already undergone an impressive evolution in the light of the first definitive acquisitions of psychic science: to realize this it is enough to read the latest works of Bergson and Dr. Geley. Psychism provides, by means of the phenomena whose determinism it studies, objective bases, concrete points of support for the speculative problems treated up to now.

In preparing to write this popular book, I wish first of all to contribute, in so far as it is possible for me, to extend to the greatest number of people the benefit of the elevation of the intellectual level which psychism has already effected among the privileged elite who incessantly follow the progress of all branches of human knowledge. I shall subsequently give a course of experiments in which I explain, in a manner comprehensible to all, how to produce the current phenomena of magnetism and hypnosis, because I know that even the smallest result which my readers will be able to obtain by verifying for themselves the reality of these phenomena, will be a development in superiority and power of their minds.

Secondly, my aim is the dissemination of the practical application of magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion and what we know of telepsychia as individual means of action. Above all, I shall show how each one can develop to the fullest the psycho-magnetic energies latent in each individual and how to make use of them in order to act appropriately on the functions of his organism, to strengthen his mental faculties, to free himself from the elements and influences of depression, of submission, of failure; in short, to bring to his personality the modifications, the refinements, the characters that are desired. I will show you how to oppose to disorders, anxieties, illnesses which are affected by magnetic reactions, the influence of suggestion and the action of the will; and finally, how to act in your private life and in business on the mentalities of those around you, to modify the opinions, the decisions, the emotions, the feelings of those with whom you have relations.

- 3. Practical teaching is the most assimilable form of vulgarization: the improved methods indicated below are effective and without danger. Success is assured.

Reserved for a small number of initiates in ancient times, concealed under formulas indecipherable to the vulgar during the Middle Ages, the psychic sciences have until now had only isolated practitioners among modern people. Hence, probably, the widespread belief that only exceptionally gifted individuals can experiment. As with everything else, we come into the world more or less well endowed to "magnetize" or "suggest," but no one lacks the elements that characterize a good operator. I have the experimental certainty that by exactly applying the directions of my practical course, man as well as woman, girl as well as old man will succeed. I have employed meticulous care in the preparation of this course. It will set out, with a precision hitherto absent from popular courses and manuals, the methods by which I have won for myself, in the various circles in which I have experimented, a fair reputation. These methods, developed over ten years of daily practice on people of all ages and conditions, have proved effective. In my Institute I have trained more than forty hypnotists, teaching them verbally the system set forth hereafter, and making demonstrations on subjects which they afterwards needed to repeat the training. I can affirm that there is no person who, after following this teaching, has not succeeded in obtaining magnetic-hypnotic phenomena on subjects chosen from among friends and acquaintances. I also affirm that, contrary to an opinion without foundation, the current practice of magnetism and hypnotism presents no danger, no inconvenience, either to the experimenter or to the subject.

By devoting himself to this experimentation as it is described in Book II, gradually acquiring the habit of provoking all states susceptible of being obtained on the majority of people, from the lightest effects of suggestion to the waking state to total hypnosis, the student will accomplish a double result: the putting into activity of his psycho-magnetic forces and the formation of the state of mind and attitude indispensable for influencing people.

- 4. Before the study of the higher phenomena of psychism, it is necessary to be an expert in the production of current phenomena.

Whatever level one may have, it is indispensable to pass through this stage of psycho-gymnastics in order to approach, with the fullness of one's means of action and control, the higher psychic phenomena. I could cite names of scientific celebrities who, because they were not practiced in current hypnotism, because they did not know experimentally the manifestations of magnetism, of auto-suggestion, and because they had not observed on many people the kaleidoscope of reactions of the subconscious, allowed themselves to be deceived by appearances, had, for example, hallucinations by apparitions, facts of mind-reading, lucidity, somnambulic memory or doubling by manifestation of spirits of deceased persons. In the same order of ideas, I have seen intelligent and educated people, but victims of their own hypersensitivity and insufficient psychic training, allow themselves to be convinced that the movements of psychological automatism which they provoke upon themselves by means of dangerous spirit practices were due to a "spirit" which had taken possession of their body. Every year I observe half a dozen cases of fixed ideas, of continuous auditory and visual hallucinations and other semi-alienations caused to good people by the systems of self-perturbation which are propagated by the continuers of Allan-Kardec. If these people had, before their contacts with spiritist works or propagandists, read the most elementary treatise on suggestion, they would not be so obstinate, in the belief that they are communicating with the dead, born of doctrinaire claims, in disturbing their "sensorium" by self-hallucination. As regards the search for facts of somnambulistic lucidity, clairvoyance, exteriorization, thought-transmission, etc., etc., it will be seen that it is necessary, in order to obtain them, to select subjects after many tests have been made on them, before a suitable one is found. Only an experimenter skilled in the production of elementary phenomena is fit to influence a large percentage of subjects. If all present-day investigators would give their attention to this point, their work would have a renewed impulse, for they would be able to treat a larger number of subjects than they are able to do by their own methods. For our system permits, given a person in a normal state, to influence insensibly and gradually, by modifying his primitive state by a slight action, then by a second somewhat more energetic one, and so on, so as to lead him to the degree of sensitiveness in which the most complex experiments are possible.

- 5. Experimental training considered as an element of self-culture, of personal influence in intimate life, in business, and of success in general.

Those who are especially interested in the personal applications of psychism will arrive, more quickly than by any other exercise, at the development in themselves of the elements of influence, if they carry out frequently, as I recommend, the experiments in suggestion, in hypnotism, as per the instructions given below. They will then adapt the laws of this practice to the ordinary conditions of life, following the data of the last part of this work.

The institutions which initiated, some twenty years ago, the first popular courses in hypnotism, created, consciously or unconsciously, a misunderstanding in the spirit of the public by letting it be supposed that the means of success implied by this science consisted in allowing each one to use imperatives of moral pressure, exercised in a state of provoked unconsciousness. This notion, as absurd as it is inaccurate, was spread by a number of compilers and imitators of the courses in question. Its most unfortunate result was the argument it gave to the opponents of the vulgarization of psychic sciences. This is not how I conceive the fact of success through hypnotism. When I advocate the development of psycho-magnetic means of action with a view to initial application in intimate life and business, I mean first of all that this development involves this kind of persuasive individual charm and sympathy, "personal magnetism," which facilitates our relations with others, predisposing them in our favor; secondly, that this development has as its effects:

- (a) To place sensibility, impressionability, imagination, impulses and instincts under the control of thought.

- (b) To exercise attention, discernment, memory, and volitional energy.

- c) To establish and affirm the conceptual and realizing security that constitutes self-confidence.

- d) To establish the elaboration and management of cerebral dynamism, in such a way as to realize in quality and quantity the maximum of useful output, aptitudes and faculties.

- 6. Work plan. Method of study.

I have subdivided the subject matter of this volume according to a plan which seemed most convenient to my readers:

- In Book I they will find the detailed study of the four elements of influence that come into play during experimentation.

- Book II is a course for obtaining current magnetic-hypnotic phenomena, those which it is possible to cause on most people: suggestion in the waking state, superficial states of hypnosis, hypnotic suggestion, contracture, etc.

- Psychic facts whose determinism is complicated and which cannot be provoked at will are the subject of Book III: lucidity, clairvoyance, exteriorization, etc.

- Among the latter phenomena, those of mediumship seemed to me to need a special part; I have therefore devoted Book IV to them.

- A course of application of the means of action previously discussed for the treatment of organic and psycho-nervous diseases is included in Book V.

PART I - Succinct study of the four factors of influence: the magnetic agent, the sensory processes, suggestion, telepsychic action - Preface

Each of the four factors of influence which we shall study has had its supporters and its detractors. Many authors attempt to explain all phenomena by the action of only one of our four factors, and consider the other three as entirely secondary, when they do not deny them outright. Thus the works of the specialists in magnetism insinuate that this agent alone is at work in the production of phenomena; the writings of Charcot's disciples see sensory hypnotism everywhere; the works of the school of Nancy and its fanatics repeat in every way that suggestion is the key to the phenomena presumed to be magnetic and to the states obtained by Charcot; finally, the Oriental methods, yogic, neo-occultist, theosophical, etc., attribute everything to the will, that is to say, to telepsychic action.

I have come to the certainty that each of these four schools holds a part of the truth. In reality there are four means of acting upon human thought and organism. I shall attempt to demonstrate in this Book I the autonomy of "magnetism," "sensory hypnotism," "suggestion," and "telepsychic action." My experimental method consists in always applying the four factors of influence simultaneously. I am thus sure of exercising the maximum possible action. In order to apply this method, explained in Book H, it is very useful to have previously well assimilated the four chapters which will now follow.

- (1) "MAGNETISM" OR ORGANIC RADIOACTIVITY

- 1. The magnetic ripple

Magnetism is an influence inherent in all bodies; but it is especially developed in the human organism. Like that of electricity, the nature of magnetism is as yet unknown to us, but its presence is manifested by effects which render necessary the hypothesis of its existence.

Inspired by the theories of general physics, it is admitted that this agent consists of waves resulting from the vibration of the atoms which in turn constitute bodies. Experience has shown that the amplitude and frequency of magnetic waves vary according to whether it is a vegetable or a mineral, an animal or a human being. In the latter, if its health is balanced, the magnetic ripple reaches its maximum intensity.

This same magnetic agent which emanates around us can be observed everywhere in nature. It accompanies every manifestation of life and movement. Its presence has been experimentally ascertained in chemical reactions, in the manifestations of motion, heat, light, sound, etc., and in the manifestations of life. Metals, plants, and, still more evidently, animals have an action analogous to ours.

In physics, phenomena due to magnetism are studied under the term "magnetism." It is the latter which, by analogy, have given their name to those which we study here. The magnet has, on the other hand, independently of its generally known properties, a powerful influence upon the human organism; parallel to its physical action, it exerts a remarkable physiological action.

The magnetic ripple seems to be of an intensity proportional to the vibratory energy of the organism, to the vitality of the individual. It normally externalizes itself according to a concentric movement from the whole surface of the body. From the eyes, from the extremities of the fingers, from the encephalon and from the breath, this exteriorization is particularly active.

- 2. Polarization

The polarization in two modes, positive and negative, of the magnetic agent has not escaped the attention of any of the ancient or modern practitioners of Magnetism. Perceived by Robert Fludd and Paracelsus, clearly affirmed by Mesmer, the polarity of the human body was clarified by the works of Reichenbach, Colonel de Rochas, and Hector Durville. As we shall see later, the action of the positive mode of magnetism differs from the negative action. In practice I have observed that only persons of exceptional receptivity, or sick persons brought to similar receptivity by their condition, perceive very clearly the difference between positive and negative magnetism.

The right side and the mid-anterior axis of the human body emit positive magnetism.

The left side and the mid-posterior axis emit negative magnetism.

The top of the head and the perineum can be considered as neutral points.

The observance of the laws of polarity (see paragraph 5) is secondary in the reproduction of exceptional phenomena (those described in Book III).

- 3. Methodical projection of magnetism: general action procedures

To magnetize is to project systematically the magnetic ripple. The actions exerted by this projection can be traced to four:

- 1) "CHARGE" all or part of the organism of the magnetized person so as to accelerate its tone of movement, with an intensive projection of the effluvia of the magnetizer.

- 2) "FREE" all or part of the previously loaded organism.

- 3) "FIXING" at one point, condensing as much energy as possible into a very small area.

- 4) "DESPITE" the super-activity, spontaneous or provoked, of a given point.

The action of loading is carried out with steps performed very slowly from top to bottom. These steps comprise three tempi:

- 1) Drop the arms down the body and stop the fists;

- 2) Bring the fists thus closed to the height of the root of the hair of the subject;

- 3) open the fists and direct the fingers toward the surface of the skin, more or less perpendicularly, and descend very slowly to the epigastrium, keeping the ends of the fingers three centimeters from the epidermis. Take care to keep the joints of the hand, elbow, and shoulder very loose during these three movements (we have indicated, for the purpose of fixing ideas, the execution of a step from the head to the epigastrium; but of course the route of a step varies according to the effect sought).

The unloading action is performed with steps similar to the previous ones, but rapid instead of being slow, and at a distance of seven to ten centimetres from the skin.

The action of fixing is performed by presenting all the fingers of one hand, joined at the point, in front of a point on which you want to act. In the language of magnetisers, this is called "digital imposition".

Finally, the action of dispersing is performed with a simultaneous movement of the hands, in the transverse direction. The movement proceeds what:

- 1) Drop the arms down the body and close the fists;

- 2) bring the clenched fists one to the right, the other to the left of the point to be dispersed;

- 3) Open the fists and move them apart laterally and rather quickly on the same horizontal line; the fingers directed more or less perpendicular to the surface of the body. Of course this horizontal step must be repeated a number of times before the effect is achieved.

To these general procedures, magnetisers add, especially in the practice of magnetotherapy, the action of the gaze, the breath, the laying on of hands and applications. By gently dropping the gaze on a given point of the body (without any fascination intent), the magnetic ripple externalized by the eyes is directed towards that point. Like the eye, the breath actively projects the magnetic agent, hence its therapeutic use. Digital emanation, with some, takes place both in the palmar surface and at the extremities of the fingers. This is taken into account by imposing the hand, that is, by holding it a few centimeters from the surface to be magnetized or by applying it to this surface.

- 4. Polar actions

From the point of view of polarity, two inverse actions are possible: putting two small similarly polarized parts of the body in contact (two positive or two negative regions) and putting two oppositely polarized regions in contact (one negative and one positive). These two actions have opposite effects. The contacts of the same sign (for example, your right hand placed to the right or in the center of the forehead of the subject) repels, excites organic activity, contracts the muscles of the facial region, and determines, if the receptivity of the magnetized allows it, magnetic sleep. Conversely, the opposition of two different poles (suppose your left hand placed in the middle or to the right of the subject's forehead) attracts, calms, paralyses7a (or suppresses contracture), and brings about release from magnetic sleep.

We can sum this up in two succinct "laws" formulated in this way:

The oppositions of poles of the same sign repel, contract, excite and put to sleep. The oppositions of poles of different sign attract, calm, paralyze and awaken.

We shall see what practical applications are derived from these laws, in the experimentation and magnetization of a sick person.

We note that oppositions of poles of the same sign have an effect analogous to the action of "loading" described above, while oppositions of poles of opposite sign have an action analogous to that of "unloading". I have observed, in my practice, that sensitivity to general action procedures is more frequent than sensitivity to polar actions which I consider, in most cases, as coadjutants.

- 5. Conditions of accommodation

In the normal state, not all individuals are equally sensitive to the action of magnetism. Experimenting in such a way as to exclude the factor "sensory hypnotism," the factor "suggestion," and the factor "telepsychia," which are respectively the subject of the following chapters, we find in one hundred persons chosen at random about thirty-three subjects by whom the effects of magnetism are distinctly felt, whatever the time of operation.

Out of thirty-three psychics, to use a term familiar to those who are "insiders," 3 to 5 experience appreciable effects in the space of 15 to 60 seconds of magnetization; 6 to 10 are similarly influential in the space of 2 to 5 minutes; and finally there are 12 to 20 who feel the expected reactions after 10 to 15 minutes.

Here is the simplest way of measuring the sensitivity of a person under the effect of the magnetic agent alone. At the beginning, without saying or doing anything that might give the subject a preconceived idea of what you wish to cause in him, ask him to stand upright, with his feet together, his arms loosened, and to close his eyes without trying to make himself aware of your gestures.

It would be better to blindfold him and leave him for a whole minute in silence, while you remain at a certain distance from him, approaching noiselessly at the moment of operating so that he has no sense of what you are doing.

Standing behind the subject, silently bring your outstretched hands close to his or her scapular region, so that the palmar surface is placed parallel to one centimeter from the subject's body. In this position, wait quietly, without effort of will, but observing your subject. From the moment you perceive an oscillation of his body towards the back (sometimes towards the front or one of the two sides, but rarely) follow the movement with your hands keeping them at the distance of before.

because I have succeeded in hypnotizing a large percentage of subjects. In the particular study of the factor "magnetism," one must exclude the other three means of action, because one seeks to discern precisely the autonomy of the former. But when it comes to obtaining a phenomenon or the amelioration of a pathological state, we will be able to count on several elements of success by bringing together in a powerful and harmonious way the four means which we have at our disposal for acting upon our fellowmen.

The "psychics" will generally experience a more or less rapid or more or less powerful sensation of attraction towards the back according to their degree of receptivity. Based on the data of the previous paragraph, you will easily estimate to which of the three categories the experienced person belongs. Expect to find 60% who will not give, by magnetic means alone, any sign of sensitivity.

Those who feel the attraction of which we have just spoken are susceptible of being put to sleep by magnetic sleep, through the sole effect of the steps and other processes. But only a few of them possess the perceptive acuteness required for the verification of the laws of polarity. It is easy to realize whether a subject, sensitive to the backward attraction by the placing of the hands upon the shoulder blades (general action procedure), can clearly distinguish the effects of the two magnetic polarities. It is sufficient, after blindfolding the subject, to place him in the position of the preceding experiment and then to try on him the following polar oppositions:

- 1) The operator's left hand on the subject's forehead.

- 2) The operator's left hand on the back of the subject's head.

- 3) The operator's right hand on the subject's forehead.

- 4) Contact of the operator's right hand and the subject's right hand.

- 5) Contact of the operator's left hand and the subject's right hand.

If the subject is sensitive to the degree desired to distinctly experience the effects of polarity, the following effects will be observed after the five operations indicated:

- 1) Forward body attraction.

- 2) Repulsion of the body forward.

- 3) Repulsion of the body backwards.

- 4) Contraction of the right arm.

- 5) Relaxation of the right arm.

A person who feels all these reactions is always a valuable tool for the study of high psychic phenomena, especially for somnambulic lucidity and clairvoyance.

Of course this diagnosis is not as serious as if the subject had manifested his sensitiveness with complete spontaneity, if he had not been at all guided, influenced by a theoretical knowledge of the problem, by indications that had escaped his magnetiser or by the example of experiments made in his presence on other subjects. We have seen in some schools in which this is maintained, that the magnetic factor alone produces all the phenomena studied in psychism, and then subjects who presented automatically, by autosuggestion, phenomena conforming to the laws of polarity. The experimenters who had to do with such subjects thought that they were being useful to the cause of magnetism, not taking into account the kind of suggestive action which their way of proceeding gave to the magnetised. Hence their experiments are not easily taken into consideration by the representatives of official science. They acted in fact, at least it seems to us, contrary to their purpose of vulgarizing magnetism. The existence and power of this agent is a truth which only experimentation conducted under very strict conditions of control can gradually impose upon the attention of mankind. If the proportion of people who are sensitive, in their normal state, to magnetization does not greatly exceed 33%, this is not the case with sick people. Each pathological state implies sensitiveness. Therefore, sick people, without exception, can experience the curative effects of magnetism.

- 6. Therapeutic magnetism

If two bodies are placed opposite each other, the more energetically vibrating magnetism of the one imposes itself upon that of the other, because between the two movements of their respective undulations a balance tends to be established. In this way health can be communicated.

If, for example, we place a sick person in the environment of a healthy individual, the latter seems to transmit to the sick person, by undulation, his vital movement. If this radio-vibratory contact is repeated and prolonged sufficiently, a kind of regeneration takes place in the magnetized person: this is the fundamental principle of the treatment of diseases by magnetism.

Certain thaumaturges of antiquity, who were more gifted than we are, more educated, more trained, and perhaps with a more complete knowledge of psychism, sometimes performed instantaneous healings, as historians remind us. The modern magnetizer must know that a prolonged and repeated effort is indispensable to him in order to heal, according to the degree of his science and development. From three to twenty-one sittings of an hour or an hour and a half per week are necessary, as the case may be, to act sufficiently upon the diseased organism. No experimenter will be disappointed if he acts according to the guidelines given in this volume. When the magnetic action is combined with that of the other three means of action, results are sometimes obtained of an unhoped-for rapidity; but when it is a question of an acute disease, of a violent organic disturbance, or of an affliction which after years has passed into a chronic state, an assiduous effort of a good hour per session and the frequent repetition of the magnetizations are indispensable for modifying the pathological state.

By balancing itself, magnetism projected according to the rules set forth in the preceding paragraphs can provide the organism with the necessary strength for the reactions that will bring it back to its normal state, support the vitality that has been lost, excite this or that function whose atony is the cause of the imbalance treated, calm inflammatory states and synthetically regularize the functions of the organs.

Every person, especially in the state in which the desire to help a loved one places him, can successfully magnetize curatively. Only the anxious and the abstemious are unfit for this practice; the former because their ripples dissipate unnecessarily, the latter because of their psychological weakness.

Although somnambulism may sometimes occur in the course of a magnetization, it is never necessary to cure, and all magnetizers agree in seeking its production in therapeutics. The precise instructions according to which magnetotherapy is to be practised are given, later on, in Book VI.

- 7. Experimental magnetism

The magnetic agent plays a very important part in the production of the various psychic phenomena, but more particularly in those which we shall study in Book III-the "high phenomena" which are obtained only on the psychic. In normal experimentation, that is, in the search for phenomena which can be obtained on more or less any person, observance of the laws of magnetism is an element of success: we shall see in Book III the practical application of this principle.

Magnetism, projected onto the psychics, causes in the waking state attractions, repulsions, contractions and muscular paralysis; it determines the state called magnetic sleep which involves four phases called: "state of credulity, or suggestive state", "cataleptic state", "somnambulic state", "lethargic state". These three latter states are not exactly the same as those studied under the same name at the Hypnotic School of La Salpétrière. The procedures of hypnotism do not operate the same psychic reactions as magnetic action. The difference between the two "sleeps," that of the magnetizer and that of the hypnotist, is particularly manifest in somnambulism. Here are the characteristics of magnetic somnambulism. Our readers may compare it with the hypnotic somnambulism described in the following chapter. But we shall here only examine the characteristics peculiar to magnetic somnambulism:

"The somnambulic state," says Durville (H. Durville, Physique magnétique'), "presents several distinct phases each having its own particular characteristics. At the moment when the subject, under the effect of footsteps or of the imposition of his right hand on his forehead, has passed from the cataleptic state to the somnambulic state, he is in 'relation' to his magnetiser, and feels nothing but himself and the persons with whom his magnetiser puts him in contact. This is the first phase.

"If you take a few more steps, very gently, or place your right hand to your forehead for a period of time that may vary from 10 to 30 seconds, you will notice in the subject a small jolt of the whole body, which indicates the occurrence of the second phase. In this phase the relationship continues and if touching the subject the magnetiser pinches, the subject feels pain in the corresponding point: this is the 'contact sympathy'.

"Continuing the action on the subject, a new jolt indicates that the individual is entering the third phase. The relationship continues and if, without touching the subject, the magnetizer pinches, the subject feels pain at the corresponding point. This is the fourth phase called 'sympathy at a distance'.

"Still continuing its action, new jolt and the subject arrives at the fifth phase called 'lucidity with eyes closed'.

"The relationship always takes place but the previously observed phenomena are no longer produced.

"Continuing the action again, a jolt is again observed, indicating entry into the sixth phase.

"If he is then asked to open his eyes, the relationship ceases and the subject is able to see the effluvia emanating from the body: this is open-eyed lucidity."

If you continue to magnetize a subject who has reached the deepest stage, lethargy, his sensitivity externalizes around him at a distance of up to 8 feet. Subsequently, this emanation condenses and forms a column of vapors at each side of the subject. At a certain moment, the right column passes behind the subject and reaches the left one to form a single column. Gradually the form of the condensed emanation is delineated in the image of the subject itself: this is the experimental splitting, observed for the first time, in modern times, by Colonel de Rochas d'Aiglun, former administrator of the Polytechnic School, and studied in every detail by Hector Durville, who was able to obtain photographic evidence of it.

- 8. Action of magnetism on matter

Since magnetism is a form of physiological energy, its action seems to be much more intense upon the organism than upon matter. Nevertheless, attempts to observe its effects upon inert bodies have obtained encouraging results. Many experimenters have constructed apparatuses to diminish the presence of magnetism, among which we will mention the "dynamoscope" and "bioscope" of Dr. Collongues, the apparatuses of Lafontaine, Boirac, Crookes, and Thore, the "galvanometer" of M. G. de Puyfontaine, the "biometer" of Dr. Baraduc, and the "stenometer" of Dr. Joire. A modern experimenter, M. G. de Tromelin, has placed within the reach of all the verification of the principle acting on the apparatus mentioned, by imagining a series of devices ingeniously constructed of materials which all have at hand.

One of these devices is composed of a vertical cylinder placed on a pin which allows it to rotate around its axis. The axis will be a straw, the pin a pin, the cylinder a piece of paper. The whole will be placed on a vessel P.

If you place your right hand in front of the watch, it will turn in the opposite direction of the hands. If one places the left hand, it will rotate in the opposite direction. Experimenting with this apparatus with one of my collaborators, the Count of V., I observed that if one of us was engaged in making the apparatus rotate by placing the palm of one of his hands at a sideways distance of a dozen millimeters from the cylinder, and if the other placed the extremity of his fingers at a right angle with the fingers of the first, the rotation gradually became slower, stopped and began again in the opposite direction.

A rubber glove filled with hot water at 40°, i.e. at a temperature approximately equal to that of the human body, and placed in front of the apparatus as the operator's hand should be, does not cause any rotation. Heat therefore does not seem to be the active agent of the phenomenon observed. By operating in a carefully isolated place and keeping the arm extended so as to be as far away as possible from the apparatus, the possible action of air currents and breathing is eliminated.

- 9. Viewing human effluvia

In recent years numerous works due to Charpentier, Blondlot, J. Becquerel, Gilbert Ballet, Broca, Myer, d'Arsonval, E. Bichat and A. Zimmem have been communicated to the Academy of Sciences concerning the radiation emitted by the human organism. The conditions of visibility of these radiations are not at the present time completely known. Here, however, are some experiments that anyone can attempt:

- A) Assemble in a perfectly darkened room a dozen persons whom you will seat; then, standing two or three yards in front of them, ask them to direct their eyes towards you and to pay attention to their impressions without, however, communicating them before the experiment is over. A certain number of them (the psychics) will have a vision of your form surrounded by a sort of more or less luminous halo, coloured in blue on your right and in yellow-aranda on your left.

- B) In the same conditions as before, approach the group and extend your hands towards it, with the fingers open and directed upwards by 90°. The psychics will see at the end of your fingers a fluorescence, a kind of luminous feather spreading upward.

- C) Under a red light, immerse a photographic plate in the developing acid, sensitive side down. Approach a hand for a period of from 5 to 20 minutes, either above the surface of the liquid, or to the same surface, or even directly on the plate. Then fix the image thus obtained, which will show the action of your radiation.

- D) If in the preceding photographic experiment you place on the plate two hands of the same polarity touching each other at the ends of the fingers, the development will clearly show that, in accordance with the law set forth in paragraph 4 of this chapter, the radiations of the same polarity repel each other. If you were to place two hands of opposite sign (a right hand and a left hand), the polar attraction would be visible on the photograph.

- E) For this experiment a device is necessary, imagined by Ochorowicz (of the University of Lemberg) and composed essentially of a source of electricity, a Rhtunkorf coil that gives two centimeters of spark, a condenser, a lightning rod tip and wire. The coil is brought into contact with the outside air by the lightning rod tip (you can put it on the window by running the wire under it), while the other pole of the coil must be connected to the capacitor. Once darkness is obtained, take the capacitor with one hand and an electric ampoule with the other. Every time a person brings his fingers close to the glass of the ampoule that you are holding, this ampoule will light up.

The luminosity thus produced is all the more vivid if the person causing it is more intensely radioactive. An anaemic, an asthenic, will illuminate the ampoule very weakly; contact with the paralysed hand of a hemiplegic will not illuminate it at all. On the contrary, a robust, healthy individual, full of energy, will be able to extend his fingers two inches from the ampoule, so that the inside of the ampoule will shine with a bright light.

- 2 SENSORY HYPNOTISM

- 1. Peripheral sensory excitation

The word "hypnotism," introduced by Braid to characterize the state of artificial sleep which he obtained by staring at a point of light, is commonly used to designate all psychic phenomena. During the second half of the last century, official science, fanatical of materialist dogma and the doctrines of Charcot, wished to refer all the marvelous to hypnosis, and obstinately denied magnetism, lucidity, action at a distance, and all that hypnosis did not imply. The term hypnotism should properly apply to two categories of procedures used by the school of Paris and the school of Nancy to determine hypnosis, this subconscious state which we clearly differentiate from magnetic sleep. The Paris school provoked hypnotic sleep by actions exerted on the senses: hence the addition of the name "sensory" to that of hypnotism, in order to distinguish the work of this school from that of the Nancy school at which artificial sleep was considered as the result of actions directly exerted on certain psychic centers, let us say on the imagination - whose physiological importance is now known. We will study in this chapter the procedures of sensory hypnosis. Those of the Nancy School or of hypnotism produced by suggestion will be the subject of the next chapter. By exciting the function of one of the senses, by localising the nervous activity thus harnessed, through the intensification caused by this function, a progressive or instantaneous attenuation, even a complete atony, of the objective faculties (judgement, will, psychological consciousness) is brought about. The momentary suppression of the exercise of these faculties leaves the individual with nothing but automatism. The hypnotized person is comparable to a person who sleeps an ordinary sleep in which our objective, rational, volitional personality ceases to direct and control our subconscious mental activities (imagination, sensibility, impressions, desires, emotions, feelings). In the normal dream, we seem to perform actions in relation to our moods and incoherent reasoning. In hypnosis, the subject actually moves after the incitements, the "suggestions" that the hypnotist gives him. As we shall see later, sensory procedures do not, of themselves, have such complete effects on anyone. I will also say that the psychic reactions which they operate vary with each individual. The experimenter must simply bear in mind that their general action tends to diminish more or less the exercise of psychological consciousness.

- 2. The two sets of sensory procedures.

One can act on one of the senses, either abruptly and intensely, or gently and gradually. Here are the principal known processes:

- On eyesight; abrupt means: projection of a strong light into the eyes of a subject placed in darkness, fasci-nation exerted suddenly and very close to the subject's eyes (Donato's method), fixation of a luminous object held over the eyes so as to determine a convergent superior squint; gradual means: contemplation of a rotating mirror, of a non-luminous point, of a cloth with coloured black and white stripes, of the fixed, but gently sustained, gaze of the operator.