Chapter 11 - Hypnotism-What Is It?

Now that you have learned how to hypnotize, you should know just what it is. It would be a strange thing for an engineer to know how to start and stop a locomotive, but not know what he was operating or how to control it while operating it, or why it started or stopped, or what was required to make it run smoothly or what to do if a bearing got hot or a cylinder head blew out. Not that your subject will blow a cylinder head but if you do not know how to handle him, he may blow his top when you awaken him.

Now, just what is hypnotism? It may be defined as a psychic state in which control of the subconscious mind and autonomous nervous system is obtained by any method whereby the conscious control by the subject of such systems is either eliminated or limited, and such control is assumed by another, or heightened suggestibility enables the subject to direct his own autonomous nervous system. I hereby disagree with many psychologists who claim that all types of suggestion are a form of hypnotism. This is not true. The time has come to draw close lines of distinction between hypnotism, suggestion as such, sales talk, personal influence, political demagoguery, bluffing and bulldozing. None of these things are hypnotism, yet 'they are classed as such by some undiscerning psychologists. Now, I am a lawyer. Would you not think it strange if I called a deed an abstract, or vice-versa? Yet, this is about as- discriminating as calling hypnotism suggestion, or suggestion, hypnotism. Such things as I have mentioned may deprive the person of free agency, but not in the same manner as does hypnotism. They are no more hypnotism than the act of wilfully going to sleep or eating or reading or buying a book or going to church. None of the named acts are hypnotism or the result thereof. A man eats or goes to church because his conscious mind wishes to do so. If his wife nags him into it, he still has freedom of his conscious mind, though he may feel constrained to do as she says. A man heeds the pleading and ranting of a political demagogue because he believes what he says or is afraid not to heed him. But all this is not hypnotism. There is a great and distinguishing difference. In the following I will attempt to show you just what I mean; wherein these things and hypnotism differ. No one else has made such a distinction.

First, let us examine the mind and the mental processes which take place before and during hypnosis. To do this, we must understand to some extent, our mental structure and its reactions. You must agree with me that we all have a conscious mind. It directs our actions and thoughts to some extent while we are awake. In fact, some contend that the conscious mind is the director absolutely of our acts and thoughts while we are awake. We presently will see how this is not entirely true.

Our subconscious mind takes charge of our body while we are asleep. It regulates our heart, our breathing, our digestion, our glands and our body functions, like perspiration, expansion and contraction of our blood vessels, the dilation and contraction of the pupil of our eyes while we are awake, and many other functions too numerous to mention here. All of these operations are carried on through our subconscious mind and autonomous nervous system. If, while we are asleep, a lighted cigarette is placed against a foot, the foot will be instantly withdrawn. If the sleeper becomes tired of lying in one position, the subconscious mind causes him to turn over. If he nears the edge of the bed, the subconscious mind causes him to roll away from it. When the sleeper awakens, he cannot remember any of the things which he has done, such as rolling over when he was tired of one position or of moving from the edge of the bed when he drew near it, or of being burned with a lighted cigarette. The actions here are similar to those while under hypnosis, in that they are dictated by the subconscious in part, but they differ from hypnosis in that they are not dictated by an outside suggestion. Some of the actions given as illustrations are reflex, but the actions under hypnosis are not merely reflex in the ordinary sense of the word. They are the result of an outside stimulus applied through the mental channels instead of the nervous channels directly involved in reflex actions. Now, here is where we could get into a lot of arguments if we accepted the challenges, but I am not interested in that, but only in advancing the theories involved herein. You will see later on just what I mean.

In the subconscious mind is also stored up our experiences; our memory of what we see, read, think and do, taste and feel, while awake. All these things are recorded in brain cells which are capable of retaining them and of reproducing them on demand of the conscious mind at some future date. If we cannot recall a certain thing, we say we have a bad memory, but it is really because our brain cells do not function properly. It does not necessarily mean that the facts are not still stored there; for as we know, that at some future time, the thing may be recalled. Then we wonder why we could not recall it when we wished to do so. This shows that it was still stored in our brain cells but the recall mechanism was not functioning properly. The subconscious mind is the seat of memory. It cannot reason inductively. It can reason deductively. In simple language, if you tell a hypnotized person that he is in a hornet's nest, he will reach the general conclusion that he is being stung, that the hornets are buzzing around him and that the stings hurt. On the other hand, if you told him he was stung by a particular type of stinger he could not reason out the kind of insect which had stung him. The same thing would be true if you commanded a person to do something wrongful by a devious means or by direct means. In the first instance, reasoning might fail to connect the two acts, while in the latter, the mind would be able to reason out an objection to the act.

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