“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”
“Well, you see, our friend John has persuaded the old fellow that he is Goethe, talks to him in German and treats him with a deference which raises a smile. And the odd side of the affair is that the poor old chap now firmly believes himself to be Goethe and does his best to act up to his part.”
“I see,” said Brandon.
“And John Smith has taught us already that in the administration of a place of this kind, there is practically no limit to the power of suggestion. We have a hundred patients here, and his power over them is astonishing. There seems to be nothing he can’t make some of them do; and as he is a great upholder of law and order we bless the day he came among us.”
“As I understand your theory, this moral ascendancy has been gained over your patients by the power of suggestion?”
“Yes; to put it crudely the effect he has upon them is a kind of hypnotism of the imagination. For instance, a truly remarkable case is that of a man who might once have done great things in music. Another German by the way. But for years he has been mentally deranged. Yet in his case John Smith seems to have performed a miracle. By his power of sympathy he has hypnotized the man into composing some quite wonderful music. From time to time he plays it to us. The other day I got a friend of mine who really understands the subject to come and hear it. He says it had such a quality that he can only compare it to Beethoven.”
“Indeed!” said Brandon.
Dr. Thorp laughed. “And the oddest part of the whole matter is that the music only came to be written because John Smith was able to persuade our poor friend that he really was Beethoven.”
“Again the power of suggestion?”
“Undoubtedly. And one that deserves to become a classical instance of the power of sympathetic imagination rightly applied. I am not sure that John Smith is not a great thinker who has discovered a profound truth.”