70 HYPNOTISM AND ALLIED PHENOMENA. 



an enthralling novel. The key to all the unexplained 

 phenomena revealed by hypnotism and by all his studies is, he 

 taught, to be found in concentration of will power by the 

 operator. 



Society has of late years been exercised in mind about 

 thought transference and telepathy. We are familiar with, 

 drawing-room experiences of collective willpower over one of a 

 company who may thus be impelled to perform almost any in- 

 congruous act. I feel convinced that individual will power 

 concentrated upon another by one who is able to use it, and 

 under favourable conditions, must be reckoned remarkable, and 

 in some cases irresistible. A sad case of the unintentional mis- 

 use of the influence is within my knowledge. About twenty 

 years ago an officer in garrison at Malta found he thus was 

 able to control the actions of a young member of the ancient 

 nobility of that island, and was accustomed to amuse his 

 brother officers at the expense of that gentleman. He carried 

 it so far as to cause the victim to pick pockets. The officer re- 

 turned to England, and some time afterward many small 

 articles having been missed from the Club a detective was em- 

 ployed, who traced the thefts to the nobleman in question. 

 The culprit was tried, found guilty, and sentenced, to the dis- 

 grace of his family and the ruin of his career. 



Obedience by the subject in after days to suggestions given 

 in the hypnotic state appears to be an extension of the in- 

 fluence which we are not able to explain. The supersensuous 

 perceptions alleged to become manifest during the stage of 

 somnambulism appear to be related to those recorded by 

 Frederick Hockley from hypnotism by mirrors and crystals, 

 and are equally unexplained. The evidence for this class of 

 unexplained phenomena is becoming very strong, and rebuts 

 dogmatism on the subject. Bearing in mind the slow stages of 

 official recognition accorded to the simpler facts of hypnotism, 

 we cannot be surprised at delay in the acceptance of its more 

 advanced phenomena. These in former days always ruined the 

 reputation of those who attested them. 



A writer in the April number of the Nineteenth Century 

 magazine, reviewing the claims of the advanced phenomena 

 and urging them on the consideration of men of science, asserts 

 " That it is possible for an experimenter to produce a hallucina- 

 tory image of himself in the perception of a friend at a distance 

 without the friends having received any previous suggestion or 

 anticipation that such an image would appear," and claims it as 

 a fact " attested in several instances by trustworthy persons at 

 each end of the chain." This claim, if it can be substantiated, 

 may be found to correlate the admitted phenomena of hyp- 

 notism and telepathy with the astounding claims of the late 

 Frederick Hockley. 



