Have the subject look fixedly at a bright object held about fifteen inches from the eyes. Tell him that he must think only of the object at which he is looking. Hold a bright coin in one hand, place the other hand over the radial artery, upon the wrist of the subject, and watch the pulse carefully. If the subject is a good one, in from three to four minutes the heart will heat more rapidly, the pulse will become more bounding, and the pupils of the eyes will dilate. When these changes take place in the pulse and pupils, tell the subject that his consciousness will be absorbed. Insist that he cannot hold his eyelids open, and command him to close them. Then suggest sleep. The subject's face is generally flushed. The expression is set. Then the subject is commanded to relax his muscles, and suggestions are made according to the results desired. If I am treating a man suffering with some form of delusional insanity, I tell him that his delusion is a delusion, and that when he comes out of the hypnotic condition, his mind will be clear, and that the fancy will trouble him no more.

If I wish any portion of the body to become numb for a surgical purpose, I constantly stroke that portion of the body, and state that it will be insensible to pain. If I wish to produce general anaesthesia, I make passes all over the body. I have found by experimenting, that it is sometimes better to make a part rigid by suggestion, when a profound degree of anaesthesia is desired.

It is difficult to express in words the great variety of effects, sensory and motor, which can be produced by suggestion, upon a hypnotic subject, when he is in the hypnotic state. Beings which are children wholly of his imagination, will exist for him as conscious entities. His personality may be changed, and he will for the time, think, act and live another man. The various faculties of the mind may be, each in their turn, rendered abnormally acute. The speech centres may act in such a way that a man who has naturally a poor command of language, will, when bpynotized, converse volubly or deliver an address, speaking fluently.

The emotions may be played upon by suggestions, like an instrument of music by a master's hand. Joy, sorrow, grief, despair, love and hate, may be made to follow each other and appear in combination with marvellous rapidity. The man may be made to believe that he is a broomstick, a pitcher, chair, or carpet, or any other inanimate thing, and to act his part with wonderful skill.

Prof. James, of Harvard, says in effect that one needs only to see a person do these things to be convinced that the subject is not acting his part for the purpose of deception. Could they act such a part when in the normal state, they would have long since found their true place upon the stage.

One cheek may be made pale while the other is red, one hand cold while the other is warm, and in good subjects even the pulse will beat slowly or more rapidly at the command of the operator. The states vary as do the phenomena obtained.

Some subjects will have a mocking smile upon their faces, and remember all that has transpired when the hypnotic state has been suspended. I had one man tell me that he did it all for amusement, and that he was not in any way under my control, but I soon convinced him of his mistake, by hypnotizing him one day and telling him that he had drank a number of flies with his cup of coffee, for he immediately vomited his whole breakfast.

It is said by M. Focachon, an apothecary, at Charmes, that blisters may be made upon the skin by applying several postage stamps and telling the subject that he is being burned.

It does not seem to me that in the experiment by Focachon all chance of fraud was excluded, as the postage stamp mentioned could have been impregnated with one of several substances which would have produced a blister from its action on the skin, independently of hypnotism.

Pain in wounds may certainly be relieved, and another French authority claims that wounds may be inflicted on a person while in the hypnotic state, without subsequent inflammation taking place in them. This has not been my experience. Neither have I been able to produce blisters by means of an ordinary piece of metal as has been described by another writer.

I have recently made a very curious experiment in order to determine whether a person paralyzed by hypnotic suggestion would act in the same way as he would if he were paralyzed from organic disease of the brain.

A good subject was thoroughly hypnotized. I told him that he would have a stroke of apoplexy, and that he would fall, and that when I commanded him to rise, his left side would be entirely paralyzed. He fell at the word, and when I told him to get up the left arm and leg were paralyzed by suggestion. The face was drawn to the opposite side from the one paralyzed, exactly after the manner of one suffering from a stroke of apoplexy, when blood is first effused into the brain. I commanded this subject to walk, and had his gait carefully studied.

Every good physician knows that a person suffering from that form of paralysis known as hemiplegia swings the paralyzed side forward in walking. This subject when commanded to walk, dragged his left leg after him, his left arm hung limp at his side, but he did not swing the body after the manner of those suffering with paralysis from organic brain disease. This proves conclusively that paralysis induced by suggestion does not affect the psychic life of the subject in the same way that paralysis will affect the consciousness when due to organic disease.

I have purposely left the theories of hypnotism for the latter part of the book, wishing to make its phenomena clear to my readers.

The followers of the school at Nancy describe a flushed face and other physical phenomena as common to, if not a necessary part of, the hypnotic state. I think these phenomena occur more frequently when the coin or other bright object is used to hold the attention of the subject.