It is generally believed that the hypnotic state is likely to weaken and paralyze the will of the subject when he is otherwise in a normal condition. Many persons will object to being hypnotized because, as they express it, they are "afraid of losing their wills" and becoming the dupes of unscrupulous persons. I do not believe that there is any danger whatever of this. I have no evidence (and I have studied a large number of hypnotized subjects) that hypnotism will render a subject less capable of exercising his will when he is relieved from the hypnotic trance. I do not believe that it increases in any way his susceptibility to ordinary suggestion made in ordinary conversation.

I once had a business man tell me, after he had been induced to commit a folly in signing a note, that he did not know what made him do it. I inquired minutely into the circumstances and found that he had bees, as it is ordinarily expressed, "over-persuaded." Now this condition of over-persuading, or persuading against one's better judgment, is not similar to, or identical with, the hypnotic state. The crafty rascal with the winning smile who cheats you out of your every dollar does not entrance you, nor does he render you in any way unconscious. He studies the vulnerable parts in man's nature, and works skilfully upon him through.these. His victim's weakness may he either greed, excessive sympathy, profound vanity, or the inability to reason clearly. Upon one or all of these the cunning man relies for success in dealing with his victim.

Reason is the great governor which controls and balances all of the mechanism of the mind, and it is indeed astonishing bow few men allow its full sway. Let the emotions get the upper hand, give any or all of the passions sway, and the man is a wreck. I think as I have said before, that hypnotism does not weaken the man's reason or his will. It is the happy balance of mind that protects a man, and while the mind consists of the co-ordinate action of all of the faculties, they may act individually, and when one predominates and governs the others the mind is unbalanced. There is then no immediate danger of hypnotism in itself being used for the purpose of unduly influencing the conduct of the mind. That very mysterious power which some men exercise over others and over the opposite sex, does not seem to me to be akin to any of the hypnotic states. As I said previously, the influence depends upon the ability of one man to appeal to the avarice or the vanity, or to the sympathies, of another. The real danger of hypnotism lies in the fact that, owing to the mystery that surrounds it, it may, in the imaginative and enthusiastic, produce by its very mystery a disturbed condition of the mind similar to, if not identical with, the condition of religious monomania.

I think that patients are not liable to die from the effects of hypnotism, as they sometimes do from the effects of chloroform, ether, morphine, etc. Every time a man is hypnotized, for the time, more than the usual amount of energy is consumed. If such a condition be too long continued, or if he be hypnotized too frequently, a condition might result in which nervous exhaustion would be prominent. (See "Hypnotism" by Krafft-Ebing.) There are in our hospitals cases of a similar condition which were brought on by over-excitement of one kind and another.

Thus it follows that hypnotism is not a magical power by which one man can permanently control or rule the destinies of another, or in which women can be robbed of their virtue, or the wealthy of their property; and yet certain states of mental enfeeblement may be produced, not by hypnotism, per se, but by the credulity which was a part of the subject's nature before he submitted to the process of hypnotization.

This element of faith, as will be shown later, is a very important element in the production of hypnotism. It is this element when misused that makes hypnotism a dangerous thing. The love of the miraculous and belief in the supernatural, are, in many cases, the twin sisters of laziness, and men have ever sought through utilizing these to obtain their ends, and to earn their daily bread without toil.

Many persons who are afflicted with organic incurable disease, apply to me for treatment, and are very much disappointed when they are told that hypnotism is not the universal specific for all the ills of man.

Several chapters will be devoted to the uses of hypnotism in disease. The dangers of public exhibitions, made ludicrous as they are by the operators, should be condemned by all intelligent men and women, not from the danger of hypnotism in itself so much as from the liability of the performers to disturb the mental poise of that large mass of ill-balanced individuals, which makes up no inconsiderable part of society.

Dr. Moll quotes the following: "Du Potet and Lafontaine describe, as a rare occurrence in hypnotic experiments, a state of lethargy in which artificial awakening was impossible. After some time there was a spontaneous awakening, and no evil consequences were to be observed. Guermonorez described lately how a person had remained three days in hypnosis, nobody being able to awaken him."

I cite the following from Dr. Moll again, in proof of what I have stated in the earlier part of this chapter:

"It is well known that there are some who can be easily influenced in life, who believe all that they are told, upon whom the most unimportant trifles make an impression, nevertheless, when an effort is made to hypnotize them, they offer a lively resistance, and the typical symptoms of hypnosis cannot be induced in them."

The following ideas differ from my own. They are taken from a translation of Dr. Lays' Clinical Lectures which were given in the Charity Hospital, in Paris: "You can not only oblige this defenceless being, who is incapable of opposing the slightest resistance, to give from hand to hand anything you choose, but you can also make him sign a promise, draw up a bill of exchange, or any kind of agreement. You can make him write an holographic will (which, according to the French law, would be valid), which he will hand over to you, and of which he will never know the existence. He is ready to fulfil the minutest legal formalities, and will do so with a calm, serene, and natural manner, which would deceive the most expert law officers. The somnambulists will not hesitate either, you may be sure, to make a denunciation, or to bear false witness. They are, I repeat, the passive instruments of your will. For instance, take E., she will at my bidding write out and sign in my favor a donation of forty pounds.

In a criminal point of view, the subject under certain suggestions will make false denunciations, accuse this or that person, and maintain with the greatest assurance that he has assisted at an imaginary crime."

As will be seen from the quotation here made from M. Luys, he evidently believes that he can convert his subjects into mere puppets. This may be true in the laboratory when a hypnotist has a few hysterical young men and women, who will, under such circumstances, do what they are told; but the conditions cited by him are certainly exceptional, and are not likely to occur in the ordinary therapeutic application of hypnotism.

The following are rules from Bernheim for preventing danger from the hypnotic state:

1. Never hypnotize any subject without his formal consent, or the consent of those in authority over him.

2. Never induce sleep except in the presence of a third person who is in authority, who can guarantee the good faith of the hypnotist and the subject. Thus, in the event of an accusation, or any suspicion of any attempt which is not for the relief of the subject, any trouble may be avoided.

3. Never give to the hypnotized subject, without his consent, any suggestions other than those necessary for his cure. The physician has no rights but those conferred upon him by the patient. He should limit himself to the therapeutic suggestion; any other experiment, even if it should be in the interest of the science, is forbidden him, without the formal consent of the patient. The physician should not, if he thinks that the experiment which he wishes to perform may have the slightest harmful effect, profit by his authority over the patient in order to provoke this consent.

He also states that each of the phenomena severally can be induced in sensitive subjects, without producing first the hypnotic state, meaning by the hypnotic state, I suppose, the unconsciousness; and he cites a number of cases to prove his assertion. The terms hypnosis and hypnotic sleep are used in a very confusing manner by most, if not by all, writers upon this subject. They tell you in one breath that a patient may be hypnotized and will be conscious, that he may be hypnotized and be unconscious, that he may obey the suggestions when out of the hypnotic state exactly as he would when in it, that a part of the body may be made insensible to pain without in any way making the patient unconscious of events around him. Once for all I mean, when speaking of the hypnotic state, the condition in which unconsciousness is induced by those means, varied as they are, which are described in this and other books of its kind.

Krafft-Ebing also cites a case where a patient had been injured by the misuse of hypnotism. That such is the case uo one who has ever experimented intelligently in this direction will deny. This is true of every remedial agent ever employed for the relief of man. Every article we eat, if wrongly prepared, if stale, or if too much is taken, will be harmful. Every act, every duty of our lives may, if overdone, become an injury.

Then, for the sake of clearness, let me state in closing, that hypnotism is dangerous only when it is misused, or when it is applied to that large class of persons who are inherently unsound, especially if that mysterious thing we call credulity predominates to a very great extent over the reason and over other faculties of the mind.