We shall see later on that the assumption that the truth can be extracted from a hypnotic has induced some people to advocate the use of hypnosis for forensic purposes. I will only mention here that apart from legal cases it was assumed that the truth could be ascertained by hypnosis, especially in the days when animal magnetism flourished. About that time a certain Rahel Herz for years deceived her medical attendant by allowing him to excise hundreds of needles from various parts of her body when she was in a state of hysterical analgesia. Like many stigmatics she apparently required no food. Brandis, who was at that time physician to the court, determined to clear the matter up, and visited Herz at the request of the queen. Taking off his coat, he informed Herz that he intended to magnetize her, which would compel her to admit everything. She refused, and Brandis left the room declaring that her refusal told him all he wanted to know (Rieks). According to Malfatti, an Italian army-surgeon, Franchini, has recently proposed the hypnotization of recruits suspected of simulating epilepsy.

Franchini thinks that the truth could be ascertained in this way.

In other cases the resistance can only be overcome by suggesting a false premise, as I mentioned on page 133. The order will then be more easily obeyed. I will choose an example from Liegeois. A subject was to be induced to steal a watch. He refused. But when it was represented to him that the watch was his own, and that he would only be taking it back again, he immediately obeyed the command. Or the subject may be told that the laws are altered, that stealing is no longer punishable, etc.

The explanations I have already given do not exclusively concern movements and actions, but delusions of the senses and other suggestions as well. I have often seen unpleasant and improbable suggestions resisted when contrary ones succeeded.

I once told a subject who was forty years old, "You are now thirteen years old." He answered, "No, I am forty-one." But directly after he accepted the suggestion that he was twelve or fourteen years old. How» ever, I failed to make him believe he was thirteen years old; he refused the suggestion. He was superstitious and dreaded the number thirteen. His notion that thirteen was an unlucky number accounted for his resistance; on that account he would not be thirteen years old.

The experimenter may unconsciously increase the resistance. Fontan and Sdgard rightly maintain that many hypnosis may be continued or put an end to by the tone in which the operator speaks. If we say to a subject, "Try to open your eyes; they are fast closed, you cannot possibly open them," the kind of emphasis may alter the effect. If the emphasis is laid upon "Try to open your eyes," the last part of the suggestion is more easily overcome, and vice versa. It is just these cases which show clearly the gradual transitions from the lightest stages to the deepest. I raise a man's arm; the arm remains raised so long as I say nothing. Directly I tell him that if he tries to drop his arm he will not succeed, he does it nevertheless, though at first with some stiffness. This alone shows that the state was not quite a normal one. In this case, as in many others, the subject passively allows his arm to remain as it was fixed; he makes no effort of will either for or against. But the moment I induce him by verbal suggestion to make an effort of will, he does so, and shows that he can exert the will against my orders, even though the hesitating movement plainly shows that he was somewhat influenced.

It is the same thing with continued movements, which are sometimes made passively without an act of the will, and sometimes cannot be inhibited by the strongest effort of will, as I have explained above (page 77).

Although the above examples show that there is no complete loss of will in hypnosis, yet in all of them the will was set in action by some external impulse. Let us ask whether spontaneity, an independent activity of thought and will, the presence or absence of which was utilized by Durand de Gros in his classification of somnambulists, may not exist in hypnosis, apart from external impulse. This question must be answered in the affirmative, so far as the first group of hypnosis is concerned. But the hypnotic often shows independent activity of the will in deep hypnosis, hallucinations even arising without external suggestion. But the question is complicated by the fact that we are not always able to exclude external stimuli. For example, without any suggestion from me, a hypnotic suddenly jumps up and says that he has seen and heard a mad dog. The cause of this is the unintentional creaking of the boots of one of the people present. I had not observed the creaking, but as often as it was repeated the same result occurred. The subject misinterpreted an impression of hearing, which aroused a certain chain of thought in him.

I have often observed such phenomena in impressionable and lively persons.

But I have found spontaneous hallucinations in the deepest hypnoses, which I was unable to refer to any stimulus of the senses. In particular, any events which had much occupied the subject in the waking state, continued to affect him in hypnosis. One of them, for example, related anecdotes which he had recently heard. While his mind was full of them no experiment could be made with him; he was as uncomfortable as a diner-out who only feels at ease when he has got rid of his whole stock of stories. In this and other such cases there must have been independent mental activity; at least I could never discover any external stimulus. Of course I cannot mathematically prove that these spontaneous actions did not arise from some external impulse; for the external impulse might have been some faint sound which I failed to hear, and even the slightest friction of the skin by the clothes may act as a stimulus and induce apparently independent actions in the subject. I do not believe this, but have rather gained the impression that hypnotic subjects in the deep stage often have independent currents of thought. Briigelmann has published the case of an otherwise very chaste woman who became filled with sexual ideas when hypnotized.