ON CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF HYPNOTISM. 95 



condemnation." The Holy Office has seldom sounded the note 

 of alarm, unless some dangerous truth was on the point of 

 discovery, and damaging indeed to superstition have been the 

 truths which have come to light through scientific researches into 

 the various phenomena of hysteria, catalepsy, and somnambulism. 



In the very year, 1841,* when the Holy See had declared that 

 " magnetism ... is not permitted," Dr. James Braid, of 

 Manchester, began that series of experiments which were to rescue 

 the study of animal magnetism from the quagmire of charlatanism 

 into which it was sinking, and direct it into its proper channels — 

 those of observation and experiment. Beginning as a sceptic, he 

 was anxious to discover by what means Lafontaine, the Swiss 

 magnetiser, was able to dupe his audience. He was soon 

 satisfied, however, that the phenomena, however strange, were 

 quite genuine, and he gives the following account of the way in 

 which he arrived at this discovery. His attention was struck by 

 the fact that one of the subjects who was " magnetised " could not 

 open his eyes. He believed this incapacity to be genuine, and he 

 endeavoured to discover its physical cause. It occurred to him 

 that this cause might be found in the fixed gaze which exhausted 

 and paralysed the nervous centres of the eyes. His first 

 experiments were carried on in his own home, where he hypnotised 

 his friend. Walker, by causing him to look fixedly at a wine bottle 

 placed at such a height above his eyes as to fatigue them ; and, 

 his wife, by making her fix her eyes on the ornaments on a sugar- 

 basin placed at about the same angle. It was evident that there 

 was nothing mysterious about the sleep ; it was only necessary for 

 the subject to concentrate his attention on a given object till the 

 optic centres were fatigued. 



Another important discovery made by Braid related to the 

 effect produced by a given attitude on the subject's sentiments. 

 When placed in an attitude of anger, with clenched fists, his 

 countenance assumed a menacing appearance, and he began to 

 box ; if he were made to imitate the action of sending a kiss, his 

 mouth smiled. And the movements peculiar to climbing and 

 swimming were produced when the body was placed in appropriate 



The condemnation by the Holy Inquisition took place in 1856. 



