The history of hypnotism furnishes another and a varied illustration of a similar relation. If we accept as the essential fact of modern hypnotism the demonstration of an altered nervous and mental state, in which suggestibility is increased to a quite abnormal degree; in which, accordingly, functions not ordinarily under the control of voluntary effort become so controllable, and there are induced simple and complex modifications of physiological and psychological activities,—then the condition of opinion that prevailed prior to the recognition of the true significance of the phenomena in question, the false and unfounded and mystical conceptions concerning them, may properly be grouped together as the antecedents of hypnotism. The entire aspect of the problem under the one régime is strikingly different from its appearance under the reign of the successor.
In the presentation, from the point of view of modern hypnotism, of the more important steps in the tortuous and laborious transition from unbridled speculation and fantastic practices to a rational and consistent body of truth, a twofold interest may be maintained; the one, in the fluctuation of opinion antecedent to the scientific recognition of hypnotism, and the other in the dramatis personæ concerned in this history and their contributions, great and small, for good or for ill, to that gradual and irregular change of attitude the tested residue of which modern hypnotism embodies. The latter interest will form a helpful guide for selection among the complex sequence of events with which we shall have to deal. Accounts of the well-established phenomena of hypnotism are so readily accessible, that it seems sufficient to emphasize these two fundamental points—the ultimate recognition of an altered psycho-physiological state, and of the dominant part which suggestion plays in the development of hypnotic phenomena—and to accept them as furnishing the principles according to which the survey of the antecedents of hypnotism is to be conducted.
It will appear that much of the conflict which the present tale unfolds is the conflict between the rational investigation of intelligible facts and the unwarranted attempts at an explanation of alleged miracles,—a phase of the conflict between science and mysticism. The imperfectly understood is apt to be explained by the still more obscure; totally imaginary forms of energy are called upon to account for poorly observed effects; and so the mystery deepens, superstition spreads, and charlatanism finds a fertile field for its display. This conflict in the present instance is by no means confined to the past; the mystical and the miraculous, or at least the unintelligible side of hypnotic phenomena still finds its exponents. Accounts of observations and experiments purporting to demonstrate that hypnotism not only presents hyperæsthesia and exaggerated forms of mental activity, but transcends all normal psychological processes and reveals a hidden world in which other forces and other modes of mental communication freely appear, are widely circulated and sometimes with the authority of names of repute. But the more discerning, the more exact, and the more logical students of hypnotism, cannot accept such observations, and have often been able to point out the unmistakable sources of error which gave rise to them. The shrewdness of hypnotized subjects, the unconscious suggestion of the operator, looseness of observation and theoretical bias, exercise the same influence for error to-day as they presented in the antecedents of hypnotism.
In reading the story of former opinion, it is of advantage to keep in mind the well-established facts regarding hypnotism, not alone for the sake of recognizing what is important and what unessential, what are the instructive and what the irrelevant facts and details, but also for the equal advantage of securing data for the interpretation of phenomena, which in the absence of present-day knowledge, and in the misleading accounts current at the time, naturally gave rise to extravagant forms of explanation. Our knowledge of insanity, hysteria, and trance-conditions, of the influence of the mind over the body, of the nature of illusion and hallucination, of prepossession and suggestion, shed a strong light upon religious ecstasy, upon demon-possession, upon cures by shrines and relics, or by the king's touch, upon the contagion of psychic epidemics, upon the action of magnetized tree or "mesmerized" water, upon the performances of "sensitives" and somnambulists, and the sensational scenes enacted about the "baquet." Our historical survey might accordingly include an account of the states of insensibility and of the potent power of suggestion, which occurred in connection with the religious observances in the practices of ancient civilizations, and have always formed, as they still form, a characteristic cult among primitive peoples. That such states, closely corresponding to the hypnotic trance, are induced for magical purposes among savages is more than probable; equally clear is it that interspersed through the venerable record of magic and witchcraft and ecstasy and exorcism and miraculous cures, are accounts of states, induced usually by religious fervor, which are strongly suggestive of some of the characteristics of the hypnotic condition. But in the interests of unity and brevity it will be best to limit attention to those ancestors of hypnotism, of whose methods and practices we have fairly definite information. More especially does the career of Mesmer supply the most favorable starting-point of the survey; yet some notice should be taken of those who preceded him in achieving reputation as healers of disease.
II
One of the best known of these healers was Valentine Greaterick (or Greatrakes), who was born in Ireland in 1628, and who came to England (about 1665) by invitation of Lord Conway, upon a mission thus quaintly expressed: to cure "that excellent lady of his, the pains of whose head, as great and as unparalleled as they are, have not made her more known and admired at home and abroad, than have her other endowments." Lady Conway seems to have been intensely devoted to mystical pursuits, and assembled at Ragley Castle such men as Greatrakes, Rev. Joseph Glanvill, F.R.S., author of Sadducismus Triumphatus, Dr. Henry Moore, the Cambridge Platonist, and others of whom Mr. Lang speaks as "an unofficial but active society for psychical research, as that study existed in the seventeenth century." They told tales of "levitation" and witchcraft and the movements of bodies by unseen agencies, at all of which one or the other had been an eyewitness; and Greatrakes seems to have taken as prominent a part in these as in the healing proceedings. Greatrakes was called to his career by a special indication of providence—"he heard a voyce within him (audible to none else) encouraging to the tryals; and afterwards to correct his unbelief the voice aforesaid added this signe, that his right hand should be dead, and that the stroaking of his left arme should recover it again, the events whereof were fully verified by him three nights together by a successive infirmity and cure of his arme." While he failed to cure Lady Conway's headaches "he wrought a few miracles of healing among rural invalids," and seems to have been particularly successful with nervous complaints. "I saw him," writes a contemporary, "put his Finger into the Eares of a man who was very thick of Hearing, and immediately he heard me when I asked him very softly severall questions."
The status of the medical science of the day is well reflected in the comment of Henry Stubbe, physician at Stratford upon Avon, from whose contemporary account our knowledge of Greatrakes is obtained. For explanation of the cures, he suggests "that God had bestowed upon Mr. Greatarick a peculiar Temperament, or composed his Body of some particular Ferments, the Effluvia whereof, being introduced sometimes by a light, sometimes by a violent Friction, should restore the Temperament of the Debilitated parts, reinvigorate the Blood, and dissipate all heterogeneous Ferments out of the Bodies of the Diseased, by the Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Hand and Feet." However crude may seem this cure by the "Precipitation of the Morbifique Ferment," the theoretical position of Mesmer is not less hypothetical, dogmatic, and gratuitous. Indeed, to Greatrakes's and his biographer's credit, it should be noted that they recognized the distinction between functional and organic complaints; that Mr. Greatarick "meddles" only with such diseases as "have their Essence either in the masse of Blood and Spirit (or nervous liquors) or in the particular Temperament of the parts of the Body," that he cures no disease "wherein there is a decay of Nature." "This is a confessed truth by him, he refusing still to touch the Eyes of such as their sight has quite perished." None the less his cures were regarded as miraculous, and Dr. Stubbe tells us that "as there is but one Mr. Greatarick, so there is but one Sunne"; and to dispel incredulity in regard to these wonders, he adds: "We are all Indians and Salvages in what we have not accustomed our senses: What was conjuring in the last age is Mathematiques in this. And if we do but consider the sole effects of Gun-powder, as it is severally to be used, and revolve with ourselves what we would have thought if we had been told those Prodigies, and not seen them; will we think it strange if men think the actions of extraordinary Ferments impossible?" But to leave the "Ferments" for the recorded account of what was done, we can only note that Greatrakes's methods consisted mainly of strokings and passes and in driving the pains from one point to another until they went out at the fingers or toes. There is nothing recorded that definitely suggests the production of the hypnotic state; but direct suggestion, reinforced by manipulations, obviously had much to do with the cures. They clearly approximate more closely to the faith-cure methods of to-day than to the phenomena of hypnotism.
The latter half of the eighteenth century seems to have offered social, intellectual, and political conditions peculiarly favorable to the success of fantastic schemers, of propagandists of strange philosophies, and advertisers of supernatural procedures for short-circuiting the road to health, wealth, knowledge, and immortality. In this period there appeared Swedenborg's inspired revelations and philosophic cult; Cagliostro's extravagant claims of personal power and bold-faced impostures; Schrepfer, who combined with Masonic mysteries a striking anticipation of the materializing séances of modern spiritualism; Gassner, the priest, exorcist, and healer; and finally Mesmer, the founder of animal magnetism, and through it the parent of an endless progeny of unproved and unprovable systems, and of equally irrational practices.
It is worth while to consider for a moment the career of Gassner, if for no other reason than that Mesmer witnessed Gassner's procedures, and that their methods have some points in common,—in particular the calling out of acute symptoms, or "a crisis," as a means of cure. Johann Joseph Gassner, a Suabian priest, appeared as a curer of disease about 1773; he regarded most maladies as of Satanic origin, and attempted cures by driving out the demon of disease by appeal to divine agency. After inquiry regarding the nature of the complaint and its symptoms, he would urge the patient to have faith, and perhaps would offer a prayer for his recovery; he would then call out the various symptoms of pain, stiffness, weakness, and the like, and at the word "Cesset" these symptoms would disappear. "Cesset ista Debilitas,"—the patient becomes as strong and as active as though he had never been sick. "Modo adsit Febris tantum in Manu et Brachio dextro,"—the right hand becomes cold and numb, and trembles, the pulse in this arm is rapid, feverish, and strong, but slow and normal in the left. "Cesset in ista Manu et adeat sinistram,"—the left arm now becomes as the right had been, and the pulse of the right is now normal; and so the treatment proceeds, accompanied by the invocation, "Præcipio hoc in nomine Jesu." This process of alternation of pain and its remission is continued, until at length the patient is dismissed as cured. The status of Gassner's cures, except for their more pronounced religious character, is much the same as those of Greatrakes; both exhibit the effects of suggestion, but neither recognized the process of suggestion, nor gives evidence of having produced an abnormal condition. This, however, is by no means excluded; and Greatrakes's account of the insensibility of his own arm, as well as the similar state induced in his patients by Gassner, indicate a high degree of suggestibility.