- Homer.

500. A very complex subject must in this chapter be discussed with as much completeness as brevity will allow. It will be convenient to lay at once before the reader the main divisions under which Hypnotism will be treated here.

(a) In the first place (sections 500-504), I shall endeavour to trace the connection of hypnotism with the subjects of the former chapters, especially with sleep and hysteria, - and to indicate what kind of advance in faculty may be expected from such experimental developments of sleep-waking states, and of subliminal activity in general, as those to which the broad general title of hypnotism (or hypnotic suggestion) is now commonly given. Hypnotism is too often presented as though it comprised a quite isolated group of phenomena. Until it is more definitely correlated with other phases of personality, it can hardly occupy the place which it merits in any psychological scheme.

(ß) The ordinary methods and theories of hypnotism must occupy the second division of this chapter (505-516). I shall not, indeed, repeat the customary historical survey; - feeling that the history of hypnotism is a history rather of isolated and scattered reconnaissances than of systematic advance upon the unknown. Rather I shall try to analyse the intrinsic nature of the stimuli employed, and to compare them with the results attained. My general conclusion will be one which has now become widely prevalent - namely, that small physiological causes cannot be credited with these profound psychological effects. Faute de mieux, and with some reserves as to telepathic action, I shall assent to the dogma of the Nancy school, - that hypnotic agencies may be simplified into suggestion and self-suggestion.

(y) In the third place, however (517-525), I shall show that these words bring no true solution; - that they are mere names which disguise our ignorance. We do not know either why a subject obeys any suggestion which may be made to him, or how he obeys it. We do not know this even when the suggestion bears upon some easy, external matter. Still deeper is the mystery when the suggestion is an organic or therapeutic command; - when the subject is old (for instance) not to feel an aching tooth. If he cannot stop feeling the ache by his own strong desire, how can he stop feeling it out of deference to a doctor? Unless there be some supernormal influence or effluence - telepathic or mesmeric from doctor to patient, we cannot credit the doctor with doing more than set in motion some self-suggestive machinery by which the patient cures his toothache himself. Where no such telepathic influence is exercised (and I do not claim that it is often exercised, although I believe that it is exercised sometimes), suggestion is merely equivalent to self-suggestion; - and self-suggestion remains for our solution as an inexplicable and capricious responsiveness; - a sudden obedience of subliminal agencies to supraliminal commands, which at certain times will modify both body and mind far more effectively than any exertion of the ordinary will.

No serious attempt has yet been made to explain this obedience to control; and before trying to explain it we must review its range and limits from a psychological as well as from a physiological standpoint. In the meantime I define suggestion as successful appeal to the subliminal self.

(δ) My fourth sub-chapter, therefore (526-562), will briefly set forth the main achievements of suggestion; - including that most important of all achievements, the suggestive or hypnotic induction of supernormal powers. Even apart from these new powers, which indefinitely extend the significance of the whole inquiry, it will be found that the work of suggestion, even when it seems to be purely inhibitive, is in fact essentially dynamogenic; - that however capricious or grotesque its effects may be, they are, nevertheless, effects of vitalisation; - that some energy is added, though in an irregular fashion, to both organic and psychical operations.

(ε) In the fifth place (563-578), our task must be to inquire as to the nature and source of this energy which both telepathic suggestion and self-suggestion imply. Self-suggestion, - which is probably still in its infancy, - has thus far proved successful on a large scale mainly when applied according to one or other of two popular schemes, - the "Miracles of Lourdes," and "Christian Science" or Mind-healing. As to the value of the Lourdes legend I shall give the reader ample opportunity of judging for himself. But as to "Christian Science," I shall endeavour to show that here, at least, beneath a mask of vulgar crudity, certain ancient philosophic conceptions of permanent value are reasserting themselves in the modern world.

(ζ) Lastly, then (579-583), we are driven - here as elsewhere - to consider how far it may be possible for science to confirm and utilise man's ancient instinct of trust in the unseen. I shall state in answer my belief that that trust has never as yet (save in the very highest of our race) risen within measurable distance of the actual and provable truth; that even now the organism of each man is passing and must pass increasingly under the control of his spirit; and that his spirit indraws from the met-etherial environment an energy limited only by the intensity of its own appeal. In things physical as well as in things spiritual, "by grace we are saved, through faith".