I believe that suggestion also plays a very important part in the production of both the hypnotic state and in its subsequent phenomena.

Drs. Moll, Liebault, Bernheini, and many others have studied carefully the analogies between the various hypnotic states and their phenomena, and many of the states occurring during natural sleep. One writer ingeniously says that the hypnotized person is held by suggestion in the intermediate state between sleeping and waking.

Many writers divide the hypnotic stages to suit their own theories. The best-known classification is that of Charcot, who supposes three stages - the cataleptic, the lethargic, and the somnambulic. I shall go into more details as to these later, but will remark here that this classification has no universal value; Charcot himself does not maintain that it has. In my opinion the classification made by Gurney, containing two stages, alert and deep, is accurate for only a few cases.

I acknowledge the analogies between the various stages of hypnotism and natural sleep, just as I recognize the structural resemblances between man and ape, but I do not consider that a man and an ape are necessarily identical for that reason. They are probably related.

In order to thoroughly comprehend the hypnotic state it will be necessary to study it analytically and synthetically.

The analytical method is very disappointing. The synthetical method simply shows the various states as they occur. There is not one phenomenon occurring during the hypnotic state which does not occur either singly or in combination with others, in states which bear no other discoverable relation to that of hypnosis. If you suggest to a man while he is hypnotized that at 12 o'clock on a certain day, six months later, he will go into a hypnotic state, or will perform some act, the probabilities are that on the day and hour stated, he will do so. So will a normal man if you can impress it strongly enough upon his consciousness.

A number of French and German writers have likened this condition to one which occurs when a man, before going to sleep, makes up his mind to awake at a definite hour. Some can do this accurately, while others will wake a half-dozen times or more during the night. (Bernheim.)

A man may be so absorbed in thought that he will not heed anything which is passing around him, and so the analogies might be traced through every conscious act of our existences, and even the unconscious ones, too.

As has been previously mentioned, men may sustain severe injuries while frightened or while experiencing any great emotion, and be for the time unconscious of them.

When a man is intensely interested his arm may remain in a certain position for an unusual length of time, and he be unconscious of the fact.

Hallucinations and illusions of all kinds may be the result of suggestion, either in the hypnotic state, or they may occur, as is well-known, when the person is otherwise normal. Let me sum up the whole matter by saying that any analysis of the phenomena occurring severally during hypnosis, will fail to throw any light upon the cause of the state. Some writers tell us of double consciousness. Some talk about subconsciousness. I prefer the term subjective consciousness. I have plainly stated in this book, even perhaps have repeated too frequently, the fact that every faculty of the mind may be altered singly or in combination by the hypnotic state. It has been also stated that the susceptibility in this state varies widely in different individuals.

Now let us look at the state from a synthetical point of view. Let us consider what occurs.

As has been said before, it differs according to the method used. "We can see a man in a condition of hypnosis first perform imitative acts. We see him blind and deaf at will. He maybe unconscious of pain or acutely conscious of it. He may apparently sleep quietly. He may, on the contrary, give evidence of being wide awake. One thing which strikes the observer is this: he obeys the suggestion of the operator no matter how unreasonable or how ludicrous it may he. The man will call himself a woman, or a child, or a broomstick. Even the vasomotor system will, in some subjects, obey the suggestion, as has been said elsewhere. This ubedienco to any suggestion is the only distinguishing feature of hypnosis. Although no two hypnotized subjects are precisely alike, yet there is a similarity between them.

In all who obey suggestion while hypnotized, we find them not only obeying the command, but acting out in an intense manner the idea suggested by the operator. Some of them claim to be wholly unconscious of what they do. Others do not make this claim and can tell accurately what occurred. Dr. Moll says some of them will write automatically the occurrences transpiring in the hypnotic state while still professing ignorance of them. This is indeed an astonishing condition of the mind. A man closes his eyes and you tell him that he docs not know anything. He immediately says, "I do not," which is the best evidence that he does. He proceeds to obey whatever suggestion is made. Command him to wake up and tell him that he does know something, and ho proceeds to wake up and know something. Ask him what has occurred, and he tells you that he does not remember. After he makes this statement give him a pencil and paper, talk with him upon some indifferent subject, and while talking be proceeds to write out on paper what ho says he does not know. One may theorize about the storing of memories in various parts of the brain. It will not help him to explain this very paradoxical state of affairs.

Answer, if you will, "One may remember a dream only when circumstances call it to mind the next day." It docs not fit the case. A man may lay his pipe away and forget where he put it, and some trivial circumstance, by means of association, may cause him to remember where he put it. These are some of the answers in explanation of the phenomena which modern hypnotic theorists give us. These theories do not seem to me to apply. Perhaps the fault is mine. Subjects remember in a subsequent hypnosis events which occurred in a previous one, and which they fail to remember when they are not hypnotized, and claim when questioned that they know nothing of the occurrences of either. They will, if told to, during the second hypnosis, remember, after awakening, events occurring in both, or will remember some single event and no other. It is not strange, then, that many have denied the very existence of the hypnotic state, but those making such denials must explain the process by which a leg is amputated and the subject professes neither to have felt the pain of the operation nor to have known in any way that it was taking place, and many other equally wonderful phenomena which have taken place.