It may of course be objected that in such cases auto-suggestion plays a part, because the hypnotic thinks of the experimenter when falling asleep, and so, by auto-suggestion, isolates himself from the other persons present. This is a possible explanation, though it appears to me doubtful whether the concept suggestion suffices to explain the phenomenon, because there may be associative processes at work which are not included in that concept. The old mesmerists were acquainted with isolated rapport It struck them that the magnetized person appeared not only to hear, but also to feel the magnetizer. This form of rapport was to them a proof that the magnetizer exercised a physical influence on the person magnetized. I have, however, demonstrated in my large work on Rapport in Hypnosis that isolated rapport occurs as a psychic phenomenon without the aid of magnetic manipulations. Up to the present no one has made any serious attempt to refute my demonstration. The phenomena of magnetization are exactly the same as those observed when a subject is sent to sleep by suggestion. As suggestions are most easily made through the muscular sense and the hearing, isolated rapport is made most clearly evident by means of these senses. A subject, X., is hypnotized.

I lift up his arm; it remains raised in suggested catalepsy. Another person, A., makes a similar attempt with the other arm, but without result; the arm always falls down loosely. A. now tries to bend the cataleptic arm, but is prevented by its rigid contracture, while I easily succeed. The command of the experimenter suffices to put other persons - A., for example - in rapport with the subject. The circumstances are analogous in verbal suggestion. The experimenter says when he has lifted the arm, "Now it bends, now it falls, now it is stretched out," and the effect at once follows. The commands of others are not obeyed if they have not been put in rapport with the subject by the experimenter. This shows the importance of rapport if a subject is to be influenced. On the other hand, I must point out that persons who are not in rapport with the hypnotic are sometimes only apparently ignored. It can be shown in various ways that sense-impressions coming from other persons are perceived, although they do not cross the threshold of consciousness.

I have been able in some cases to demonstrate the existence of perception by means of automatic writing, to which I shall refer later; in others I was able to produce the necessary proof by persistently suggesting that the subject should do something which A., who was present, told him to - for example, put his hand to his forehead. Being a case of isolated rapport, the patient ignored A.'s command, but subsequently obeyed when I suggested that he should do so. Phenomena exactly like those of rapport in hypnosis have been observed in spontaneous somnambulism (Macario). Finally, I must mention that in superficial hypnosis also, in which others besides the experimenter are distinctly felt and heard by the hypnotic - a fact he readily admits - he can sometimes only be influenced by the experimenter. The ideas suggested by the latter alone lead to the realization of suggestion; attempts at verbal suggestion made by others are heard and may be repeated by the hypnotic if requested to do so, but they produce no effect.

As we have already seen, isolated rapport depends entirely on the attention paid by the subject to the experimenter, and just as the rapport may be transferred to another person by suggestion - i.e.., the subject's attention directed to that person, so we can force the hypnotic to concentrate his attention on any point we please. The increased mental activity which is occasionally observed in hypnosis is often referred to the fact that the subject's attention is directed to one point exclusively, from which nothing distracts it, and, as Hirschlaff points out, the same result may be induced by suggestion. Hirschlaff found by experiment that, with the same subject, the reaction-time is shorter in deep hypnosis than in the waking state, and thinks this explains the phenomenon mentioned above.

By reaction-time we mean the time that elapses between the moment of making a sense-impression and the moment when the impression manifests itself by some external sign (Wundt). It is known that a number of different processes take place in the consciousness during the time of reaction. I shall the less enter into them, that the researches which have hitherto been made into the time of reaction during hypnosis have given contradictory results. Stanley Hall found the time of reaction considerably shortened in hypnosis. He found -

Before hypnosis ... ... 0.328 secs.

During hypnosis ... ... ... 0.193 ,,

Half an hour after hypnosis ... 0.348 ,,

The time of reaction during hypnosis is thus sensibly diminished here; but William James's experiments have not confirmed Stanley Hall's. He nearly always found an increase of time of reaction during hypnosis, sometimes to an important extent. He gives this as an average on one occasion: -

Before hypnosis ...... ... 0.282 secs.

During hypnosis ......... 0. 546 ,,

After hypnosis ... ... ... ... 0.166 ,,

But as there are many contradictions in James's different experiments, no definite conclusion can be drawn. He himself believes that the contradictions are to be ascribed to the fact that so many different states are included in hypnosis, as Braid already knew, and that we should be careful not to generalize from single observations. Beaunis, who has also made these experiments, is equally cautious. The only conclusion he draws from his partially contradictory results is that the time of reaction in hypnosis may be shortened by suggestion. Similar results are given by the experiments of Henika, Worotynski, and Bechterew. These observers also found a lengthening of reactiontime in hypnosis as compared with the waking condition. Marie and Azoulay have measured the time of reaction for suggested sense-delusions in hypnosis; they found it longer than when the object was a real one. Perhaps this is because the points of recognition (points de repere, p. 100) have to arouse the suggested picture before it can be perceived. The time of reaction,1 according to my experience, may last so long - to return to the experiment with the photographs on page 100 - that we might even speak of a search for the picture.