In the psychic state—the more perfect trance state or control—the whole mind becomes illumined; past, present, and future become presentable to the mind of the lucid somnambulist as one great whole. This higher stage may be reached through the simple processes of manipulation, and passes as suggested in my little work, “How to Mesmerise.”
In the mesmeric state the sensitive passes from the mere automatism of the earlier stages of hypnosis to the distinct individuality indicated above, although still more or less influenced or directed by his controller or operator into the line of thought and train of actions most desired.
The difference between the hypnotic and mesmeric states should now be very clear. In the former the sensitive has no identity, in the latter his identity is preserved in a clearly individualised form throughout the whole series of abnormal acts. Whenever the sensitive enters this condition his personal consciousness is most apparent in the middle and higher stages.
In fact, in the mesmeric state, it is very stupid for some operators to ask the sensitive, “Are you asleep?” It may be understood what is meant, yet the question is absurd from the standpoint of an intelligent observer. The sensitive is never more awake. The higher the state the greater the wakefulness and lucidity of the inner or soul life.
THE SIXTH SENSE.
In the mesmeric state we see developed what Lord Kelvin (Professor Thomson, of Glasgow University), Drs. Baird, Hammond, and Drayton call the magnetic sense—or “sixth sense.” It is a gift of super-sensitiveness. To my mind it is something more, the enfranchisement of the soul, the human ego—in proportion as the dominance of the senses is arrested.
In blindness, it has been noticed how keen the sense of touch becomes. I have also noticed the keen sensitiveness of facial perception enjoyed by some of the blind, by which they are enabled to perceive objects in the absence of physical sight. In the mesmeric state we see a somewhat analogous mental condition. As the peculiar sense of the blind is developed by extra concentration of the mind in the direction of facial perception, so is “the sixth sense” developed by concentration of direction, as well as by the condition of sensitiveness induced by the mesmeric state.
This newly recognised sense, “the sixth sense,” not only answers the purpose of sight and hearing, but transcends all senses in vividness and power. Materialists, no longer able to ignore the phenomena of somnambulism and trance, and compelled to admit man’s avenues of knowledge in this life were not confined to the recognised five senses, are good enough to give him a “sixth sense,” even while they deny him a soul. In the same way, no longer able to deny the existence of mesmerism, they now admit it to consideration—re-baptised as hypnotism. The phenomena being admitted, we will not quarrel over the names by which they are called.
PSYCHIC-CONSCIOUSNESS.
As we advance in our investigations we find in the higher conditions of these states a double or treble consciousness or memory. The higher including and overlapping the lower. Thus the consciousness of the hypnotic state includes that of the waking state, while the memory of the waking state possesses no conscious recollection of what has taken place in hypnosis, and so on, each stage has its own phases of consciousness. The memory of the sensitive, under influence, overlapping and including the memory of ordinary or normal life.