However, in spite of all this, the danger of the hypnotized, who pays such close attention to the hypnotist, detecting unspoken intentions of the latter, and of thus losing his suggestibility, is so great for the hypnotist that it swallows up everything else, and really reduces the forensic danger of hypnotism enormously.

Besides, the newly acquired knowledge brings its antidote with it. People are warned by it of the danger of suggestion by unscrupulous persons. The judge will have to learn to weigh and judge the psychological import of the whole series of facts. Lastly, a highly suggestible person can acquire a considerable, if not a complete, protection against bad suggestions by allowing himself to be suggested by an honest practitioner in the presence of witnesses, to his advantage. This protection, can be attained by suggestions of power of will, self-protection against pernicious influences, etc. One must tell the hypnotized (this is of paramount importance), "I alone can hypnotize you; no one else in the wide world can do it."

Unfortunately, a criminal can employ similar means, and say to the hypnotized, "I alone can put you to sleep, and you will not know that you have been hypnotized." Liegeois, it is true, has demonstrated (loc. cit.), with the help of experiments, which he carried out together with Bernheim and Liebeault, that one can force a hypnotized person to reveal the identity of the wrongdoer indirectly, by means of suggestions of apparent safeguarding the rogue who has cunningly suggested amnesia, personal initiative, etc., for the purpose of committing a suggested criminal act. However, Liegeois seems to have come to the conclusion that one must be able to hypnotize the somnambulist again, and that the wrongdoer was not able to suggest successfully, "No one else in the wide world can hypnotize you again."

I am of opinion, in common with Liegeois, that the detection of the real criminal by hypnotic means applied to the somnambulist will always succeed easily in the hands of a practiced hypnotist, as long as it does not lie in the interests of the hypnotized to keep silent on the subject.

But the possibility of a crime is not excluded by this. The criminal often commits his crimes without sufficient precaution; and yet hypnotism may exercise its attraction for the criminal, because it offers a certain degree of safety and protection for him for the immediate future. And, apart from this, one will not always think of hypnotism in connection with a suggested, apparently spontaneous deed.

The Czynski case, in which a hypnotizing pathological swindler (Czynski) carried out a sexual assault on a titled, virtuous lady, and wanted to marry her, shows how difficult it is to fix a definite limit to the possibilities. He had first hypnotized her for the treatment of some condition, then tried to excite her sympathy for him, and pretended to be madly in love with her (probably he actually felt this passion, for it is not uncommon with pathological swindlers of this type to have a very elastic imagination). Professor Hirt believes that suggestion can be excluded, and that a natural love existed; Professor Grashey accepts hypnosis, and speaks of a pathological love. Doubtless the love of the majority of psychopathic persons like the Baroness is, to some extent, pathological. Dr. von Schrenck accepts a suggestion influence, and is certainly right. There is no doubt that a powerful suggestive influence had been exercised. But this takes place in every intense passion, as Hirt has correctly pointed out. As I have repeatedly emphasized, one has to deal with the sum total of actions. An excess can be attained with the assistance of a skilled hypnotic suggestion, and a sexual inclination can be changed into an irresistible resignation. Who can weigh these imponderable things?

A further danger of hypnosis might consist in the production of illnesses. As will be easily understood, no experimental proofs in support of this contention are available. But the matter is, nevertheless, undoubtedly possible, and even easy. Hysterical attacks have been accidentally produced by faulty methods in hypnotizing. Even the Nancy method can produce unpleasant results in the unskilled hands of a novice, as we have seen, if the hypnotist does not know how to nip the autosuggestions of morbid symptoms in the bud immediately applying energetic opposing suggestions. These autosuggestions mostly are formed in the first hypnosis - e.g., trembling, headache, and the like - and my experience teaches me that they are always curable. Such-like mishaps can generally, if not always, be remedied by an experienced person. Liebeault, and also Bernheim (at a later date), have pointed out that certain very peculiar phenomena, certain illnesses, and even deaths, which have been prophesied by the individual for a definite date, or which have been prophesied by fortune-telling for him, and which took place at the exact time, may depend on autosuggestion or suggestion. A person who has a hypochondriacal inclination may acquire a very marked loss of appetite, dyspepsia, and considerable wasting by autosuggestion. If we further consider that one can produce or prevent such a process as the menstruation of women at will by means of suggestion (I have experimentally postponed the menstruation in a woman for over two weeks), there can be no doubt that one can produce illness and possibly death indirectly (perhaps even directly) in a criminal manner by suggestion. If it were possible to suggest a cardiac paralysis or oedema of the glottis, for example, the possibilities of a direct death suggestion would be present. As we have seen, suggestion in itself is not attended with any disadvantages either of an hysterical or nervous kind, provided that it is properly carried out according to the Nancy method. And even if it should produce an unpleasant symptom, such as spontaneous appearance of somnambulism, a contrary suggestion is all that is necessary to remove it. I have never observed a harmful result in any of the three hundred and seventy-five tabulated cases, nor in the persons who have not been included in the statistics, whom I have subjected to hypnotism (apart from the temporary autosuggestions of headache, etc., which appear at times during the first hypnosis, and which can be immediately suggested away). But if suggestion be applied frivolously and exaggeratedly, if one neglects to remove the before-mentioned autosuggestions of nervous symptoms at once, from want of thought or of knowledge, mild neuroses, at all events in hysterical subjects, may develop, without any bad intention on the part of the hypnotist. The principal danger of hypnotizing by non-medical persons and by medical men who have not grasped suggestion lies in this fact.