HYPNOTISM. 613 



be quite sufficient for modern scientific enlightenment, tlie 

 moment it appears that a reputed saint can thereby be 

 classed as 'a case of hystero-epilepsy.' 



There remain two other topics, viz., post-hypnotic effects 

 of suggestion, and effects of suggestion in the waking 

 state. 



Fosi-hypnotic, or deferred, suggestions are such as are 

 given to the patients during trance, to take effect after wak- 

 ing. They succeed with a certain number of patients even 

 when the execution is named for a remote period — months 

 or even a year, in one case reported by M. Liegeois. In 

 this way one can make the patient feel a pain, or be para- 

 lyzed, or be hungry or thirsty, or have an hallucination, 

 positive or negative, or perform some fantastic action after 

 emerging from his trance. The effect in question may be 

 ordered to take place not immediately, but after an interval 

 of time has elapsed, and the interval may be left to the 

 Bubject to measure, or may be marked by a certain signal. 

 The moment the signal occurs, or the time is run out, the 

 subject, who until then seems in a perfectly normal waking 

 condition, will experience the suggested effect. In many 

 instances, whilst thus obedient to the suggestion, he 

 seems to fall into the hypnotic condition again. This is 

 proved by the fact that the moment the hallucination or sug- 

 gested performance is over he forgets it, denies all knowl- 

 edge of it, and so forth ; and by the further fact that he is 

 'suggestible ' during its performance, that is, will receive 

 new hallucinations, etc., at command. A moment later and 

 tiiis suggestibility has disappeared. It cannot be said, how- 

 ever, that relapse into the trance is an absolutely necessary 

 condition for the post-hypnotic carrying out of commands, 

 for the subject may be neither suggestible nor amnesic, and 

 may struggle with all the strength of his will against tlie 

 absurdity of this impulse which he feels rising in him, he 

 knows not why. In these cases, as in most cases, he forgets 

 the circumstance of the impulse having been suggested to 

 him in li previous trance ; regards it as arising within him- 

 self ; and often improvises, as he yields to it, some more or 

 less plausible or ingenious motive by which to justify it to 



