Self Hypnotism Helpful Hints

Hypnotism is an established scientific fact; but the claim that the hypnotizer has any mysterious psychic power is the invariable mark of the charlatan. Probably no scientific phenomenon was ever so grossly prostituted to base ends as that of hypnotism. Later we shall see some of the outrageous forms this charlatanism assumes, and how it extends to the professional subjects as well as to the professional operators, till those subjects even impose upon scientific men who ought to be proof against such deception.

Moreover, the possibility of self-hypnotization,carefully concealed and called by another name, opens another great field of humbug and charlatanism, of which the advertising columns of the newspapers are constantly filled--namely, that of the clairvoyant and medium. We may conceive how such a profession might become perfectly legitimate and highly useful; but at present it seems as if any person who went into it, however honest he might be at the start, soon began to deceive himself as well as others, until he lost his power entirely to distinguish between fact and imagination.