762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Tliey are not passive. Persons wlio are very much preoccupied 

 with a certain idea are difficult to influence ; hence hypochon- 

 driacal and hysterical patients make poor subjects^ largely on 

 account of their introspection and egoism. Many people think 

 that it is a sign of weak will to yield readily to hypnotism, and 

 that it is a sign of strong character to resist. Both views are 

 equally erroneous. I have frequently seen persons of strong, de- 

 termined character fall asleep at the first trial. On the other 

 hand, hysterical patients with very little will-power are generally 

 highly refractory. Men are as readily hypnotized as women. 

 Imaginative persons, and those who sleep very soundly, are gen- 

 erally easily hypnotized. 



It has been repeatedly stated that frequent hypnotization is 

 dangerous. It is questionable whether hypnotism has ever proved 

 really dangerous, even when it is induced as it is at the Salpetrifere. 

 With Braid's method, it often happens that a severe headache or 

 general nervous irritability is produced, and hysterical or epilep- 

 tic paroxysms are occasionally brought on in persons subject to 

 them. It is important to understand that these evil results are 

 not due to the hypnosis ; they are the result of the long fixation, 

 Liebault, Bernheim, and Forel have hypnotized many thousand 

 persons in the manner I have described — that is, by suggestion — 

 and have never witnessed an unpleasant or harmful after-effect. 



It is impossible to give an exhaustive descrij)tion of the hyp- 

 notic manifestations here. The most that can be done is to men- 

 tion briefly the principal classes of phenomena with which one 

 meets ; and, having done this, some of the more remarkable ones 

 can be studied by themselves. 



Lidbault divides hypnotic sleep into six grades. The division 

 is arbitrary and theoretical, and the grades can not be sharply 

 separated from one another, for there are all imaginable transi- 

 tions. Nevertheless the classification is useful, and I shall give it 

 here as the best means with which I am acquainted of introducing 

 the characteristics of hypnotism. 



Under the first degree Li(?bault includes those cases in which 

 the somnolence is so slight that it is questionable whether it can 

 really be called sleep. There is a sense of drowsiness, often very 

 pronounced, and the eyelids feel heavy, but this influence may 

 only continue while the operator is speaking. As soon as his in- 

 fluence is withdrawn the subject wakens. 



In the second degree the subject's eyes are closed. He hears 

 everything that is said to him or that occurs about him, but does 

 not awake spontaneously for some time. As the magnetizers say, 

 he is in the " hypotaxic " or charmed condition. 



This degree of hypnotism is characterized by the existence of 

 what is called suggestive catalepsy. If, as soon as the subject is 



