Mental suggestion

PART I. Experiments and Observations of the Author

Chapter I. — Apparent Mental Suggestion, II. — Probable Mental Suggestion, III. — True Mental Suggestion, IV. — Experiments at Havre, V. — New Experiments,

42 60 81

Part II

Facts observed by Others. Evolution of Mental Suggestion

Physical Analysis.

Chapter I. — Organic Sympathism, ..... 105 II. — Sympathism and Contagion, . . . .118

III. — Transmission of Emotive States, . . . 146

IV. — Transmission of Ideas, . . . . .161

V. — Direct Will-Transmission, . . . .196

VI. — Will- Action and the Question of "Rapport," 212

VII. — Action Unbeknown to the Subject and

Against His Will, . . . . .231

VIII. — Deferred Mental Suggestion, . . . 249

IX. — Mental Suggestion at a Distance, . .258

Part III

Theories. Conclusions. Applications.

Chapter I. — The Hypothesis of Exalted Perception, . 287 II. — The Hypothesis of Brain Exaltation, with

Paralysis of the Senses, . . . .292

III. — The Hypothesis of Direct Psychic Action, . 295 IV. — The Hypothesis of Direct Physical Action, . 299 V. — The Hypothesis of a Universal Fluid, . . 303 VI. — The Hypothesis of Psycho-Physical Transmission, . . . . . . 3 1 7

VII. — The Elements of a Scientific Explanation, . 320

VIII. — The Law of Reversibility, .... 332

IX. — Final Suppositions, ..... 337

Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School

Preface

This book, the title of which will, perhaps, scare those who fear novelty, is not a work of imagination, but of experience. A multitude of facts are set forth herein, that have been observed as well by the author himself as by sundry experimenters. It is a collection of facts, and nowhere else can you find brought together so many data. But it is not enough to accumulate facts — the facts must be rightly observed. In this respect Mr. Ochorowicz's criticism of the facts he has witnessed, or that he cites from the accounts given by other scientific men, is as rigorous as is called for by a subject so difficult. The most notable thing in his work is the resolute, unflagging determination to weigh all objections, to put away all causes of bad faith, whether conscious or unconscious, to take note of the difficulties of the problem, sometimes magnifying them, and not to be content till every possible cause of illusion has been removed.

The task was difficult, and it is much to have attempted it under conditions so stringent.

To demonstrate mental suggestion it suffices to eliminate two causes of error :

First, the error due to fraud. And when I say fraud, I do not mean willful deception plotted, contrived, studied beforehand — that is very rare ; but unconscious, automatic fraud (so to speak) produced by the natural tendency that is in all of us to wish to make an experiment successful when qnce we have taken it in hand. Hence, we must first of all make sure that no involuntary indication can have been given; in other words, that there has been no word or gesture or touch that could lead the person that answers to give preferably such or such response.

The second cause of error is chance. Chance often brings about amazing coincidences. Now, mathematical certitude is never attainable in cases where chance may play a part ; nevertheless, there is a moral certitude resulting from the continuous success of many experiments, the probability of any one of which is weak.

Mr. Ochorowicz has sought to eliminate these various difficulties ; he finds a certain number of cas'es which he regards as conclusive —

6 PREFACE.

and I think I may say that he is pretty exacting in the matter of proofs. In consequence of certain decisive experiments he has reached a conviction, and naturally he strives to make his readers share it with him.

And yet I do not think that his book, strong as it is in proofs, will convince all, or even many persons. I know too well (from my own experience) how difficult it is to believe what we have seen when it does not accord with the general tenor of our thoughts, with the commonplaces that underlie all our knowledge. A fortnight ago I witnessed such or such an astonishing fact, and I was convinced. To-day I toss my head and begin to doubt. Six months hence I shall no longer believe it at all. This is a curious anomaly of our mind. To produce conviction, it is not enough that a fact is proven logically and experimentally; it is necessary, furthermore, that we, so to speak, become intellectually habituated to it. If it clashes with our routine, it is rejected, spurned.

This is what is commonly called " common sense." Common sense it is that makes us reject all new and unexpected thoughts ; that regulates our conduct and governs our opinions.

And yet this much-lauded " common sense " is little better than a routine of the intelligence. To-day's common sense is not the common sense of a couple of hundred years ago, or of a couple of thousand years ago. A couple of thousand years ago it was common sense to believe that the sun revolves round the earth and at even sinks into the ocean. A couple of hundred years ago it was common sense that one cannot in one day send a message to Pekin and receive an answer ; but to-day common sense says that one can send a telegram thither, answer prepaid. To-day common sense commands that an army of a million soldiers be maintained, with five million muskets. Two or three centuries hence will not this common sense seem astounding absurdity ?

Hence, if mental suggestion is opposed in the name of common sense, the common sense of the present year is meant, for the common sense of ten years hence will have quite other tendencies. It is only a question of time, and I dare say that after a few years this idea, having made its way into people's minds, will be found quite matterof-course. People will, perhaps, even marvel that we should have found so much difficulty in accepting it. Do we not see the immortal discoveries of our great Pasteur, though proved by a superabundance of demonstrative experiments, nevertheless meeting an astonishing amount of opposition ? What stronger evidence is needed of our incurable routine ?

Not that I consider mental suggestion as rigorously proven once for all. Certainly not. Strictly demonstrative experiments are rare. In general, when they are conclusive (by concordance of results) they

PREFACE. 7

are not irreproachable in other respects ; and when they are irreproachable, they are not conclusive. But some there are that are at once irreproachable and conclusive ; they will be found set forth in this book, and the reader will be able to judge of their importance.

After the facts, the theories. Of these there are many, but to me they do not seem to be of any great importance. The essential thing is to establish this fact, that independently of any phenomenon appreciable by our normal senses, or by our normal perspicacity, how quick soever it may be supposed to be, there exists between the thought of two indididuals a correlation such as chance cannot account for.

The demonstration of this proposition is, to my thinking, the fundamental point. And though Mr. Ochorowicz and others before him have amassed proofs, these do not produce absolute, complete conviction, but only doubt : so strong in its action upon our ideas is the influence of routine and of habit.

But whatever the opinion ultimately formed as to the reality of mental suggestion, it ought not, I think, to influence one's judgment as to Mr. Ochorowicz's book. Everybody, it seems to me, must recognize his sincerity, his perseverance, and his contempt for readymade opinions. One feels that he has a passionate love of truth. That is an encomium that every man of good faith will appreciate.

Charles Richet.

Part I. Experiments And Observations Of The

AUTHOR.

"The man who, outside of pure mathematics, pronounces the word IMPOSSIBLE, lacks

prudence." — Arago, in his ttoge of Bailly.

THE limits of the possible are receding. The experimental method, after having founded positive psychology, is itself introducing us into the domain of the miraculous.

" Hypnotism " is henceforth part and parcel of science, and " suggestion," which produces most of its wonders, no longer surprises us ; on the contrary, we constantly refer to it as explaining other phenomena still harder to understand.

Yet with mental suggestion the problem grows complicated. The explanation offered by the Commission1 of 1784, viz.: "imagination and imitation," no longer suffices. One loses one's way ; one seems ready to spurn science and to go headlong into occultism.

This limit once overpast, and mental suggestion accepted, may we flatter ourselves with the thought that there is some other phenomenon still more extraordinary to study ?

But what matters it ? Truth has nothing in it to make science afraid. This truth may even be absolutely at variance with current opinions, but none the less is it worthy of being studied with care, for nothing is so helpful to progress as a discovery that contradicts dominant theories.

But — is this a discovery ? Is it a truth ? That is the whole question.

Let us for the nonce put away scruples ; let us double our habitual precautions, our tests, and let us examine the facts. An experiment

1 Appointed by the French Academy to investigate " Mesmerism." — Translator .

IO MENTAL SUGGESTION.

is always instructive, even when it involves an illusion. Saved from the trouble of explaining the experiment, we shall have to get at the illusion ; and if we succeed in accounting for that, why there is a result at all events.

And now, kind reader, if we are agreed as to principles, let us begin our little journey in search of a phenomenon in Mental Suggestion.

CHAPTER I.

APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION.

I MUST, first of all, confess that a year ago I did not believe in mental suggestion — not only did not believe in it, but the question did not to me appear to be important enough to warrant a special study. Yet several times I had tested the alleged action of thought upon a certain number of subjects.

First at Lublin, in 1867,1 I experimented on a youth of seventeen, one pretty difficult to endorm,2 but who, once in the somnambulic state, presented certain interesting phenomena.

For example, he would recognize any person of his acquaintance who might simply touch him on the back with a finger. Once he distinguished in this way as many as fifteen persons, one after another ; and I must add that some of these persons entered after he had been endormed.

Though he showed a little hesitation with regard to persons that did not belong to the circle of his habitual acquaintance, he always distinguished my touch from that of every one else ; and once he recognized a lady that had entered unknown to him, and whom he had seen for the first time several days before.

How could he do it?

As for the difference between the magnetizer and a stranger, it is very clearly recognized by many somnambules. The magnetizer's touch is to them either agreeable or indifferent, while the touch of any other person causes them pain. Why ? Because these persons, say the magnetizers, are not " in rapport " with the subject. But that phrase does not tell us much. What, then, is " rapport ? "

To state the question clearly, it is first to be observed that this phenomenon does not exist in " hypnotism " properly so-called. Let an hypnotized subject be touched by whomsoever, and if that touch

'That same year appeared my first work on " Magnetism" (Warsaw, 1867, Gazeta Polskd).

2 In French, endormir — to put to sleep ; to put in the magnetic or the hypnotic sleep. — Translator.

APPARENT MENTAL SUGGESTION. n

causes him pain, then the touch of all other persons will have the same effect. He hears either everybody or nobody, obeys everybody, and can be awakened by any one.

It is not always so in the magnetic sleep, so-called, produced not by an inanimate object (a shining button, for example), but by a magnetizer, and especially by passes.

Now, every person has his own way of touching, and when one is accustomed to it, one readily notices the contact, the warmth, or the pressure of a strange hand. Some domestic animals, cats especially, will not suffer strangers to fondle them. If we stroke with the hand a sleeping cat that shows this idiosyncrasy, we easily recognize the fact from the difference in the reflex movements. The cat stretches herself out at full length languorously if it is her mistress that strokes her ; if it is a stranger, she awakes dissatisfied and runs away.

The isolation in which the magnetized subject exists, and the possibility of his concentrating his attention better than in waking, facilitate this differential sensibility. It is strengthened by exercise, by habit. The subject takes those impressions best to which he is accustomed ; sometimes even they become for him a need, an agreeable necessity, whereas unexpected and unwonted sensations confuse him.

But when there is question of distinguishing between strangers, this explanation seems no longer sufficient, even though we suppose molecular differences of touch — differences probable indeed, but not proved ; which, besides, would have to be known beforehand, through habit, so that the subject might from them infer correspondence between a certain physical sensation and a given psychic personality.

Have we, then, here mental suggestion ?

To recognize a person is to recognize in particular his psychic personality ; that is, to recognize that living whole, inwardly active, whereof the external tactual manifestations are but a weak reflection. If, then, it were proven that the ego of a person can act upon the ego of the subject, that were a direct explanation, and it would be relatively adequate. The person touching thinks of himself ; his mental state may be represented by an affirmation ( " It is I " ) and a question ( " Do you recognize me ? " ). All the persons present are looking at him, and, of course, thinking of him ; hence, the whole company influences the subject, and this influence constitutes suggestion.

But if such an explanation is to be accepted, mental suggestion must be proved to exist, while these experiments are far from proving it by themselves. Hence, I turned to another explanation, more natural, indeed, though rather complex, viz., that there was suggestion on the part of the company, but not mental suggestion. The subject was blindfolded, but as I called his attention to the people around him he could hear all that passed ; he was at home, habit made him familiar with every possible noise of doors, furniture, floor ; he was intimately acquainted with the eight or ten persons present before his sleep ; those who, at a given moment, did not take part in the experiment would freely exchange a few words in a high voice, while the others would request silence ; the hearing of familiar voices enables one pretty accurately to determine the position of different interlocutors ; and the noise made by the unavoidable changes of place helps one to complete or to correct one's judgments as occasion may require.

All these inductions may have been perfectly unconscious. In some respects we are better observers in dreams than in the waking state. The imaginary scenes of our dreams represent persons of our acquaintance in strict accordance with their characters and habits, reproducing their favorite sayings, and no end of physiognomic signs that our conscious observation takes no note of. Hence, it well may be that a somnambule, who has no distractions, whose whole recollection and whose every sensation contribute to one single perceptive act, can make out better than we the connections of certain signs.

The only fact that struck me as rather unaccountable, was the somnambule's recognition of the lady whom he had seen only once ; but that incident presented some peculiarities of a kind to serve as pointers. The rustling of a silk robe behind his chair betokened to the subject a woman, and she a stranger, for the women of the house had no such robe. She hardly touched him, thus plainly showing timidity ; ergo, more likely a spinster than a married woman ; of the young ladies likely to come to the party in a silk gown, Miss W. stood among the first ; ergo, it is Miss W.

Consequently, in the facts described, we have only suggestion by conjecture.1

Here is another experiment made upon the same subject, and apparently still more extraordinary. The problem was, to determine whether there was vision without the aid of the eyes.

I take up a book at such distance from the subject that he cannot see what it contains, and I open it anywhere. I then bid him read.

" I do not see clearly," he answers. I suggest^ to him the first two or three words of the page, and ask him to go on with the rest. "That is in the middle of the second volume," says he, naming the chapter; "it is Kraszewski's novel 'The World and the Poet.'" "Just so," I answer ; " go on, then." And to our great astonishment he goes and reads a whole page, with hardly a slip. Whenever I laid the book aside he stopped ; he " read " fluently when I kept my eyes on the text. I turned over a page ; still he read well.

Some of the persons who witnessed this experiment thought they had here a demonstration of "second sight," despite the explanations I offered, and which I will state presently.

1 We shall see later that the explanation of "rapport " given here is in many cases inadequate.

But if it was no "second sight," do we need a better proof of mental suggestion ?

Unfortunately, we do ! For, first, he " read," though less well, while the book was closed ; he needed only to have the opening phrase of a passage given him — therefore it was not thought-transference ; neither was it second sight, for without that suggestion of the opening words he could not even read the number of the page, or make out anything whatsoever.

Here is the explanation of the mystery : The youth had shortly before read twice over the novel by Kraszewski already mentioned — had read it as people used to read in Poland in those days, and particularly those 17 years of age. He knew it almost by heart. Evidently he could not recite page after page verbatim in the waking state ; but the one thing that our experiment proves is, the astonishing activity of recollection in somnambulism. And as for the influence of my thought, that is a very simple matter ; the subject " saw " better while I was looking in the book, because then I used to correct his little errors. It was these errors that suggested to me the true explanation of the phenomenon ; for instead of reading faultily a word in the text, he substituted another word of like meaning, but totally different in form. The regular train of association being thus interrupted, he used to come to a stop if the book was shut, for I could not come to his assistance.

In spite of these failures, I still tried to obtain direct mental suggestion.

1. The subject was required to repeat my gestures, made in an adjoining room, with the door ajar. These experiments yielded no striking result — merely a few coincidences from time to time.

2. With eyes blindfolded, he was required to come to me, passing through several closed rooms.

This experiment was always successful, but it was necessary to inform him in a general way that it was about to be performed. Then, always after a delay of several minutes, he would find me. Quite evidently he was conscious of my presence as soon as he found himself in the same room ; but that was no proof of mental action, more particularly because all tests made without previous notice — ex improviso- — gave only negative results.

3. He was required, by touching my hand, to find out the thought in my mind. Result : little or nothing, though there were a few successes.

I account for a certain number of coincidences as follows :

1. He and I were comrades, living together under the same conditions, and not seldom did it happen that we had the same thoughts simultaneously.

2. The gestures that were repeated at a distance were customary gestures and attitudes, which are very few and which might easily have been guessed at random. 1 remember, for instance, having begun the experiments by an order "to raise the right arm." Now this is the first thought that occurs to one who wishes to experiment on mental suggestion, just as when one would prove free will one usually strikes the table with the fist, saying " I can strike or not strike."

As the subject did raise the right arm, but did not carry out the orders that followed, I had the right to judge that simultaneously, though independently, he had the same thought that I had. Be it added that he was notified in advance that he was to perform certain movements mentally ordered by me.

In 1869 I renewed these experiments at Warsaw with an Italian lady said to be " lucid," and whose performances were much talked about. One thing remarkable about her was the almost total insensibility of the pupils of her eyes to light, in the state of general contracture. Having endormed her and applied tests, I was surprised to observe the very great facility with which she recounted her somnambulic dreams ; it was indeed a pleasure to hear them. As for " lucidity," or clairvoyance properly so-called, it was very obscure, and not even once did I succeed in arresting the tide of her eloquence by a mental order.

Further on it will be seen that in the state of active somnambulism, when the somnambule talks much of herself, mental suggestion is not possible.

The same year I made also some " spiritist " experiments, which have a bearing upon our subject.

They came about in this way : A sober-minded man one day attended a table-turning seance. Seeing the infatuation and the ready enthusiasm of the company, as they amused themselves with unconsciously pushing the table, "I will believe in the spirits," he said, "if they tell me the forename of my grandfather."

He was himself advanced in years, and was confident that no one in the company knew his grandfather's name.

" It may be that the spirits themselves do not know it," gravely remarked a spiritist who was managing the experiments ; " but if you concentrate your thoughts upon the name, which you alone know, they will be able to tell it you."

Some one recited the alphabet, and the knocks on the table when the corresponding letters were pronounced made up the fore-name " Adalbert " — the correct name.

" This is diabolism," said the serious-minded one, and he vowed to himself that never again would he witness the doings of spiritists.

When he told me the story, I was justified in supposing the case to be one of mental suggestion. As I did not believe in the spirits, I must needs resign myself to this latter hypothesis, or else adopt the hardly probable explanation that it was all mere chance. Nevertheless, considering the complexity of this kind of experiments, and the probability of some sort of illusion, I decided to accept nothing save what should be proved by an experiment to be made by myself under well-known and clearly-defined conditions.

Soon an opportunity was offered to apply the test.

Of the five persons (young women mostly) seated round the table, none, as I was assured by all, knew the name of the grandmother ot a certain aged lady, who took no part in the experiment. That name was spelled out. But on investigation I found that one of the girls that turned the table must often have heard the name pronounced ; she herself admitted to me' that in the course of the seance she had recollected the name, which a few minutes before she believed she had never known.

That sufficed to justify belief in a more or less involuntary influence of her muscles.

I then thought of a purely fictitious name known to myself alone.

The table answered with another name having no resemblance whatever to the one in my mind. I pretended to write a word on a bit of paper. The answer of the table was " louche " — a word that no one had thought of. This showed that the unconscious imagination of the mediums was bound to go astray when it was not guided by some sort of suggestion.

Let us pass to another experiment. Before coming, I had prepared a photograph of one of my friends, putting it in a sealed envelope.

" What is in this envelope ? Is it a letter, a bank note, or a photograph ?" (I give the question verbatim, according to my notes.)

" It is a photograph."

" Of a man or of a woman ? "

" A man." ■

" How old ?"

The table gave 23 knocks, which was correct. The believers were delighted ; but on reflection, after recalling all the circumstances, I was unable to agree with them.

First, the probability of the correct answer being made was very great — for the first question, 1 to 3 ; for the second, 1 to 2 ; as for the third question, the probability there was considerably less, but — I had made a slip which no doubt decided the result. For when the table, after giving 23 knocks, stopped for a moment, I hastily exclaimed " That's it ! " But before coming to the twenty-third knock the table had stopped now and then, and I had said nothing. The impression left upon my mind was that had the knocking not been stopped by my exclamation, the table almost of a certainty would have kept on knocking.

Next, I noticed that the envelope showed pretty plainly the shape of a photograph card, slightly curved, and manifestly stiffer than a letter or a bank note.

Finally — and this is a point rtot easy to make plain — I felt distinctly that in that company, and under the conditions given, a photograph of a man was much rather to be expected than the photograph of a woman.

Hence this was a case of suggestion by conjecture, and perhaps a matter of chance.

Here is another instance of apparent success :

I request a lady, not of the mediums' set, to pass to ^another room, to write some number on a bit of paper, and not to show it to any one.

Upon her return, I ask the table :

" How many figures are there ? "

"Two."

"What is the first?" I then name all the numbers, zero included, but the table makes no sign. I begin again :

" Is it one ? "

"Yes." (It had been agreed with the "spirits" that one knock was to mean yes, two knocks no.)

" And the second figure ? "

The table gave 6 knocks. But we had hardly come to the sixth when the lady exclaimed : " It is astonishing ; I wrote 16 ! "

I must add that she could not decide what number to choose. " Must I write one figure or two ? " she asked of me before quitting the room.

" Any number at all," I replied, " one of two or three figures, for instance." Thus the suggestion of two figures was given by inadvertence.

We began again, and this time under stringent conditions. I alone knew the number, and I wrote 4 ; the table guessed 346.

In 1872 a young German lady of high sensibility and delicate constitution, subject to hysterical fainting fits, suggested to me the thought of a new trial. I had made a series of observations upon her pulse changes in various phases of somnambulism. But in her case the psychic phenomena were of little moment, while mental suggestion would not work at all.

I will pass over a multitude of experiments made with persons in the waking state unbeknown to them — making a person, whose back is toward you, turn about when you order him to look at you. These experiments have now and then been successful, but never under stringent conditions. Once, however, the appearances surprised me a good deal. I was in a ballroom. A young woman attracted my attention by her peculiarities of feature ; so I often looked toward her, and fancied that whenever my gaze was fixed upon her for any length of time, she would turn her head and look in the direction of me. Still she could not see me. To verify the phenomenon, I chose a less favorable moment and succeeded. I tried once again, and the success was the same. Then, being in an adjoining room, I said to a friend : " Let us make a curious experiment. Do you see that girl in the corner of the ballroom? I will make her come hither." A minute afterward the young lady rose, entered the room, remained for a moment undecided, cast a look of interrogation upon us, and then went back to the ballroom.