10 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
rigid cataleptic form. Turning to the audience, I watched to see what 
impression this very evident change in the boy had made. It was quite 
clear that I was master of the situation; that all acknowledged my power 
over the boy. To no one, perhaps, was this result as unexpected as to 
myself. It had not occurred to me that my effort to impress him suffi¬ 
ciently to keep him quiet while the experiment was being tried would 
result in his complete hypnosis. I had trusted that the impressions 
already made would be quite sufficient for my purpose. This result, 
altogether unintentional on my part, greatly heightened the effects 
already produced. Seeing from the expression of one well known to all 
present that he was thoroughly convinced of the presence and operation 
of mysterious agencies, I asked him to go quietly behind the boy and 
see if he could lift him. Grasping him by the arms he made what ap¬ 
peared to be a most vigorous effort; yet he did not even elevate the 
boy’s shoulders. Turning to the audience, he remarked that he had 
never felt a weight like that, and that though a strong man, he could 
not lift the boy. By a word from me the boy was brought back to his 
normal state. 
Having obtained these very satisfactory results, I next endeavored to 
explain as fully as possible the real nature of the whole performance. 
The mechanical feats were repeated and explained. Concerning the hyp¬ 
notic phenomena, the theory was presented that they had not been due 
to the real possession of any unusual power on my part, but had been 
produced solely by the belief that such power had been at my command. 
With the foregoing illustration of how such a belief may arise, and 
with these statements of the results obtained when this belief was the 
only agent relied upon, I shall now, with much diffidence, attempt a 
formal statement of the real nature of hypnotism and of the law for its 
production. 
These phenomena of mind and body classified under the term hypnosis 
originate in one’s belief that he is under the absolute control of an irre¬ 
sistible agent; such belief compelling him to obey the one supposed to 
direct this agent; and in many cases by the reflex action of mind on 
body, producing physiological disturbances that correspond to mental 
images. 
A hypnotist is one who, by some form of manipulation calculated to 
excite the imagination, produces an unexpected result or sensation, for 
which the subject can find no explanation save the presence of a sus¬ 
pected, mysterious agent, and by which he is convinced that already he 
has fallen under its dominion. 
If the above statement be substantially correct, it furnishes at least a 
partial answer to the questions which Gurney has raised. 
But the question that most would raise is, Can mere belief accomplish 
