Hypnosis News Blog

During the Great War, these cases of amnesia were quite common. An excellent example was reported by "A sergeant of long service was carrying a dispatch from one part of the front to another, riding a motor-bicycle. He suddenly found himself, a few hours later, pushing his bicycle through the streets of a seaport town some hundred miles from the front. He was utterly bewildered and, in order to avoid suspicion of desertion, he surrendered himself to the military police. He remained unable to give any account of his long journey from a spot near the front to the seaport. After some stay in various hospitals he came under my care. He had no symptoms beyond his amnesia for this short period of some hours' duration, and a certain depression and lack of self-confidence, such as naturally resulted from the circumstances in a man of his good record and responsible position. Waking conversation having failed to overcome the amnesia, I tried hypnosis and at once the amnesia yielded; the dissociative barrier was overcome, and he continued in the waking state to be able to recollect and describe the whole incident: how a shell exploded near him, throwing him down; how he remounted his cycle and set off for the seaport; how he found his way by studying the signposts and asking questions, etc.

The Hypnosis Suggestions Scoops

"One of the spectators declared that no one would ever be able to have any influence over him, etc. . . . I said nothing to him for the time being, but after he had seen two other subjects quickly put to sleep, I suddenly turned to him and gave him a command to close his eyes. He did so at once. 'Now you can't open them', I suggested firmly. He couldn't in spite of trying hard. That same evening about an hour later he was no longer skeptical about suggestion and offered himself as a subject. In about three minutes he was deeply asleep and very suggestible. Today he is a very good and willing subject."

Hypnotism Blog Updates

It is precisely because the power of suggestion and faith are akin that the field of hypnotism was one of the last to be emancipated from mysticism, which is faith intellectualized. The phenomena of suggestion appeal to feeling and blind belief. Especially when strong faith resulted in strange cures, how could people, ignorant people, refrain from taking them for miracles and from acclaiming the persons capable of performing these wonders as possessed of divine powers? Who could conquer the emotions naturally going with faith and regard the facts of suggestion coldly and speculatively? Before a field of knowledge can be turned systematically to human advantage, it must be comprehended, and the laws controlling it found. Thus, the forces of electricity could be canalized only when they became a subject of intense study and careful experimentation. Similarly, the powers of suggestion can be directed to serve mankind only when superstition is banned and forgotten. Science begins where mysticism ends.