One day when Drs. Liébeault and Bernheim were together at their clinic at the hospital, Dr. Liébeault suggested to a hypnotized patient that when she awoke she would no longer see Dr. Bernheim, but that she would recognize his hat, would put it on her head, and offer to take it to him.
When she awoke, Dr. Bernheim was standing in front of her. She was asked: “Where is Dr. Bernheim?” She replied: “He is gone, but here is his hat.”
Dr. Bernheim then said to her, “Here I am, madam; I am not gone, you recognize me, perfectly.”
She was silent, taking not the slightest notice of him. Some one else addressed her; she replied with perfect propriety. Finally, when about to go out she took up Dr. Bernheim’s hat, put it on her head, saying she would take it to him; but to her Dr. Bernheim was not present.
To the number of curious phenomena, both physical and mental, connected with hypnotism, it is difficult to find a limit; a few others seem too important in their bearing upon the subject to be omitted, even in this hasty survey.
Some curious experiments in the production of local anæsthesia were observed by the committee on mesmerism from the Society for Psychical Research.
The subject was in his normal condition and blindfolded; his arms were then passed through holes in a thick paper screen, extending in front of him and far above his head, and his ten fingers were spread out upon a table. Two of the fingers were then silently pointed out by a third person to Mr. S., the operator, who proceeded to make passes over the designated fingers.
Care was taken that such a distance was maintained between the fingers of the subject and operator that no contact was possible, and no currents of air or sensation of heat were produced by which the subject might possibly divine which of his fingers were the subject of experiment. In short, the strictest test conditions in every particular, were observed. After the passes had been continued for a minute, or even less time, the operator simply holding his own fingers pointed downward toward the designated fingers of the subject, the two fingers so treated were found to be perfectly stiff and insensible. A strong current of electricity, wounding with a pointed instrument, burning with a match—all failed to elicit the slightest sign of pain or discomfort, while the slightest injury to the unmagnetized fingers quickly elicited cries and protests. When told to double up his fist the two magnetized fingers remained rigid and immovable, and utterly refused to be folded up with the others.
A series of one hundred and sixty experiments of this character was made with five different subjects. Of these, only seven were failures. In another series of forty-one experiments this curious fact was observed. In all these experiments the operator, while making the passes in the same manner and under the same conditions as in the former series, silently willed that the effect should not follow; that is, that insensibility and rigidity should not occur. In thirty-six of these experiments insensibility did not occur; in five cases the insensibility and rigidity occurred—in two cases perfectly, in three imperfectly.
That some quality is imparted even to inanimate objects by some mesmerizers, by passes or handling, through which a sensitive or subject is able to recognize and select that object from among many others, seems to be a well-established fact. The following experiments are in point:—