604 PSYCHOLOGY. 



inability to utter certain words, pronounce certain letters, 

 are readily producible by suggestion. 



Hallucinations of all tlie senses and delusions of every 

 conceivable kind can be easily suggested to good subjects. 

 The emotional effects are then often so lively, and the pan- 

 tomimic display so expressive, that it is hard not to believe 

 in a certain ' psychic hyper-excitability,' as one of the con- 

 comitants of the hypnotic condition. You can make the 

 subject think that he is freezing or burning, itching or 

 covered with dirt, or wet ; you can make him eat a potato 

 for a peach, or drink a cup of vinegar for a glass of cham- 

 pagne ; * ammonia will smell to him like cologne water ; a 

 chair will be a lion, a broom-stick a beautiful woman, a 

 noise in the street will be an orchestral music, etc., etc., 

 with no limit except your powers of invention and the 

 patience of the lookers on.f Illusions and hallucinations 

 form the pieces de resistance at public exhibitions. The 

 comic effect is at its climax when it is successfully sug- 

 gested to the subject that his personality is changed into 

 that of a baby, of a street boy, of a young lady dressing 

 lor a party, of a stump orator, or of Napoleon the Great. 

 He may even be transformed into a beast, or an inanimate 

 thing like a chair or a carpet, and in every case will act 

 out all the details of the part with a sincerity and inten- 

 sity seldom seen at the theatre. The excellence of the 

 performance is in these cases the best reply to the suspicion 

 that the subject may.be shamming — so skilful a shammer 

 must long since have found his true function in life upon 

 the stage. Hallucinations and histrionic delusions gener- 

 ally go with a certain depth of the trance, and are followed 



* A complete fit of drunkenness may be the consequence of the sug- 

 gested champagne. It is even said that real drunkenness has been cured 

 by suggestion. 



f The suggested hallucination may be followed by a negative after- 

 image, just as if it were a real object. This can be very easily verified 

 with the suggested hallucination of a colored cross on a sheet of white 

 paper. The subject, on turning to another sheet of paper, will see a cross 

 of the complementary color. Hallucinations have been shown by MM. 

 Biuet and Fere to be doubled by a prism or mirror, magnified by a lens, 

 and in many other ways to behave optically like real objects. These 

 points have been discussed already on p. 128 ff. 



