64 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



viction of everyone, including Charcot himself, that the 

 bar became a magnet, and that loss of sensation would 

 follow, was a necessary condition of the " suggestion " 

 or control of the patient. It was thus demonstrated 

 that the state of the iron bar as magnet or not magnet 

 had nothing to do with the result, but that the im- 

 portant thing was that the patient should believe that 

 the bar became a magnet, and that she should be in- 

 fluenced by her expectation, and that of all those 

 around her, that the bar, being now a magnet, sensation 

 would disappear from her arm. With appropriate 

 apologies I explained to Charcot that the electric 

 battery had been emptied by me, and that no current 

 had been produced. The assistants rushed to verify 

 the fact, and I was expecting that I should be frigidly 

 requested to take my leave, when my hand was grasped, 

 and my shoulder held by the great physician, who said, 

 " Mais que vous avez bien fait, mon cher Monsieur ! " 

 I had many delightful hours with him in after years, 

 both at the Salpetriere and in his beautiful old house 

 and garden in the Boulevard St. Germain. 



There are few "subjects" in this country for the 

 student of hypnotism to equal the patients of the 

 Salpetriere and other hospitals in France and very 

 few amongst those who read, and even write, about 

 " occultism " and " super-normal phenomena " know the 

 leading facts which have been established in regard to 

 this important branch of psychology. The study of the 

 natural history of the mind, its modes of activity, and 

 its defects and diseases is of fundamental importance 

 but its results are often either unknown or greatly mis- 

 understood by those who have most need of such know- 

 ledge, namely those who, mistaking the attitude of an 

 ignorant child for that of " a candid inquirer," try to 

 form a judgment as to the truth or untruth of stories of 

 ghosts, thought-transference, spirit-controls, crystal- 

 gazing, divining-rods, amulets, and the evil eye. 



