"Last night I decided to have an interview with Murphy and find out whether the lad could be hypnotized or not. Why this idea suggested itself to me I do not know, except that, as you know, hypnotism is one of my hobbies. With Blake's consent I sent for Murphy, and asked him to let me look him over, as I would like to assure Blake as to his physical condition, as naturally he was feeling, as I told him, somewhat nervous after our interview of the morning.
"The boy consented readily enough, and after listening to his heart, and asking him a few questions which might suggest a cause for his restlessness at night, I asked him to look at me fixedly while I gently stroked his forehead above the eyes with my hand. Imagine my surprise when I found him to be an extremely sensitive hypnotic subject. He did not become entirely unconscious, but was in a peculiar somnambulistic condition, in which he conversed readily enough. He is one of the best subjects for post-hypnotic suggestion that I have ever seen.
"I tried several experiments with him, and the thought occurred to me if it was not possible that this susceptibility to hypnotic suggestion might be used by unscrupulous persons in many ways, which might be especially dangerous in case he was riding a good horse in a race.
"Upon questioning Murphy, after I had
awakened him, regarding his susceptibility to hypnotic influence, he told me that Simms had often put him to sleep for fun, when they met at his sister's house. The question which now presents itself is, Suppose he has been hypnotized and has been given a post-hypnotic suggestion, that he is to 'pull' Emperor if a certain man waves his handkerchief, how are we to prevent his carrying out these instructions? Of course, we can take the boy off the horse and put on another jockey, but Blake does not wish to do this.
"In his waking moments Murphy does not remember anything that has been told him while hypnotized, and I doubt if we could make Blake believe that there was any real danger in that quarter. Again, if we allow him to go in and ride the race, it is more than possible that he could be made to win or lose the race by any one who had given him orders while in a
hypnotic condition, and we also know that he would forget entirely that he had received such orders after waking.
"Now, the difficulty presents itself as to how we can prevent him following out such instructions, in case he has received them. We know we cannot affect such suggestions by re-hypnotizing him, because we do not know the exact circumstances under which such directions were given. To merely hypnotize and tell him he is not to carry out such orders would have no effect whatever. Perhaps if we could tell him that under certain described circumstances he was not to carry out such orders we might succeed.
"But my experience has been that the directions, as given, are carried out by the subject if, at the time, the circumstance described, which is to be recognized as a signal for such and such action on the part of the hypnotized sensitive, occurs and is noticed.