Speaker 1: The phenomena of induced imagination. I will now lead you
to a consideration of a class of experiments more marked
and sensational features than those related in the previous two chapters.
These experiments are the ones usually alluded to as the
higher hypnotic phenomena, although they are really as distinct from
the hypnotic or sleep condition as the ones already considered.
Any and all forms of the hypnotic phenomena may be
produced without resorting to the methods of the hypnotists, so
far as producing the sleep condition is concerned. I call
this class of phenomena induced imagination. What imagination is? The
term imagination, you know, means the power of the mind
to create man images of objects of sense, the power
to reconstruct or recombine the materials furnished by experience, memory
or fancy, a mental image formed by the faculty of imagination, etcetera, etcetera.
The word is derived from the English word image, which
in turn has for its root the Latin word immatari,
meaning to imitate, imagination and fancy. The imagination is creative
in its nature and works with the plastic material of
the mind. The writers usually make a distinction between what
is called imagination proper on the one hand, and what
is called fancy on the other. By imagination proper is
meant the higher forms of activity of the image creating faculty,
such as is manifested in the creation of literature, art, music,
philosophical theory, scientific hypothesis, et cetera. By fancy is meant
the lither forms of the manifestation of the image creating faculty,
such as the ideal fancies and stay dreams of people,
the arbitrary and capricious imaginings fantasy, et cetera. Imagination proper
may be considered as a positive phase and fancy as
the negative phase of the image creating faculty. Positive imagination
imagination in its positive phase is a most important faculty
of the human being. It lies at the basis of
active mental manifestation. One must form a mental image of
a thing before he can manifest it in objective form.
It is distinctly creative in its nature and really forms
the mold in which deeds and actions are cast. It
forms the architect's plan which we use to build our
life of actions and deeds and mind you this it
is the faculty used in the occult practice known as visualization,
which is spoken of in my work on mental magic.
Positive imagination is very far from being the fanciful, capricious,
light whimsical thing that many suppose it to be. It
is one of the most positive manifestations of the mind.
Not only does it proceed and is necessary to the
performance of objective acts and the producing of material things,
but it is also the faculty by which we impress
our mental images upon the minds of others, by manative
induction and by the use of desire and will. Positive
imagination is the mother of ideas and idea is but
an image formed in the mind webster, and the imagination
is the faculty in which the image or idea is formed.
And in proportion to the activity of the imagination, so
is the strength of the image or idea, And as
is the strength of the image or idea, so is
the degree of its power to impress itself upon the
minds of others. So you see, imagination in its positive
phase is a strong real thing. But it is largely
with its negative phase that we shall have to do
with here the nature of mesmeric control. All of you
who have witnessed an exhibition of mesmerism or hypnotism or
else read descriptions of the same, have doubtless marveled at
the phenomenon of the subject performing all sorts of ridiculous
and peculiar actions under the direction of the hypnotist. There
have been many theories advanced to account for this phenomenon,
some of them very complicated and labored. But I have
discarded theory after theory of this kind, finding them inadequate
to explain the mental processes involved, much less the underlying principle.
I have come to a conclusion, arising from my own
investigation and experiments, which I shall give you here. This theory,
or explanation for it is scarcely a theory, does not attempt
to go into the what is mind question, nor does
it attempt to divide or subdivide the mind. It merely
explains the workings of the mind in this class of phenomena.
An explanation the explanation just mentioned is as follows. I
hold that the action of the hypnotic subject may be
explained upon the hypothesis that his negative imagination or fancy,
if you prefer to call it such, is acted upon
by the suggestions and manative currents of the operator and
an induced state of negative imagination is set up. That
is to say that, in hypnotic phenomena, instead of the
subject's negative imagination being aroused by his own desire or
will or other planes of his mentality, such condition is
aroused by menative induction, caused by the menative currents of
the operator, and aided by suggestion. Let us see whether
this is reasonable induced imagination. All of you know that
your negative imagination may be aroused by outward persons or things.
You hear a piece of music, and before you know it,
your fancy is running along paintings, all the sorts of
pictures in your mind, and inducing all sorts of feelings.
A picture may affect you in the same way a
piece of poetry or poem may lift you out of
yourself on the wings of fancy. A book may carry
you along in a world of fantasy and unreality until
you forget the actual world around. Have you not had
this experience? And more marked than any of the above
mentioned cases, is the effect of a perfect stage performance,
in which the world and characters of the play take
such a hold upon you as the same reality itself,
and you laugh and cry with the characters in the play,
you scowl let the villain, and tremble at the danger
of the heroine. You glory in the hero's success, and
shed tears at the sorrows and trials of the suffering characters.
And you feel these things in proportion that your negative
imagination or fancy is called into activity by induction. But
remember this, The actors, poet, wriither composer, or artist created
his effect by the exercise of his or her positive imagination,
while the effect upon you is induced in your negative imagination.
The first is an act of positive creation, while the
second is merely a reflection impressed upon your mind by
either the suggestion or the menative energy of the actor.
In your consideration of the above, remember what I have
said about suggestion in an earlier chapter. Suggestion is merely
the presentation of the outward symbol of the inner feeling.
The mistake of the suggestionists. The radical school of suggestionists
pooh pooh at the idea of mentative energy having anything
to do with the phenomena which we are now considering.
They claim that suggestion is a to account for it all.
Without going deeply into a discussion of this matter, I
would ask these gentlemen. Why is it that the same
words uttered in the same tone by two different suggestors
produce widely different degrees of effect? Also, what is that
peculiar personal force that we feel when certain persons suggest
that is absent in the suggestions of others. My answer
is that the difference lies in the degree of feeling
called into activity in the mind of the suggest the
degree of mandative energy released by him. And I think
that any careful investigator will agree with me in this
if he will open his mind to all the impressions
received during his investigations instead of tying himself to a
previously conceived theory highly impressionable subject. Now here is an
important feature of this matter of the phenomena which we
are considering. The investigator will find that while the conditions
mentioned in the two last chapters, the muscular and sense induction, respectively,
may be produced in a large percentage of the impressionables,
still there are comparatively few of them in which the
more startling phases may be induced. Why is this? The
answer is that there are a certain number of persons
who combine within themselves the negative qualities of the impressionables,
combined with a highly developed faculty or fancy or negative imagination.
This combination causes the person possessing it to be an
ideal subject for these experiments. Referred to. Such a person
is what the French hypnotists call a somnambule or hyper sensitive,
by which terms I discard because of the hypnotic association,
and I substitute the term hyper impressionables. I have explained
the sense in which I use the term impressionable. The
word hyper is a prefex meaning over above, excessive or
abnormally great, et cetera. The term hyper impressionables, as I
shall use it, means an abnormally impressionable person. This excessive
or abnormally great impressionability, as I have said, arises from
the combination of a negative will with an excessive faculty
of fancy, the latter being a form of negative imagination.
Remember so you see that the taint of negativity is
all over these persons, a psychological combination. In order to
show that I am correct in this classification, I will
call your attention to the fact that an ordinary impressionable,
even though his will power be the weakest, cannot be
induced to perform the tests of the hyper impersonable if
his faculty of fancy be not excessive. And on the
other hand, one may take a person of highly developed
positive imagination and are great people in all lines are such,
and today are most difficult to influence in this way.
In fact, they are constantly affecting and influencing others. The
strongest influen wincers of men belong to this last mentioned class.
So you see, the ideal hyper impressionable may have the
combination of negativity and fancy. He is in a class
all by himself. Let us examine him the hyper impressionable.
In the first place, he is most credulous, superstitious, fanciful, bigoted,
and unstable. He is of the class whose fancy is
easily aroused and induced, and whose general tendency is toward
giving airy nothings a local habitation and a name, and
to whom, when shown an egg the next minute, the
air is full of feathers. He is also prone to imitation,
and is inclined to follow my leader rather than to
strike out a new path for himself. He has but
little originality and initiative, which are highly developed in the
man of strong positive imagination. He resembles the sheep and
goose rather than the eagle or lion. He is always
dependent upon others for ideas, information, advice, and often material support.
His imagination is negative, that is, has little or no
original action, and acts only and easily when induced or
excited by another mentality or suggestion. He has no executive
ability and feels easier when he has someone to order
him around and tell him what to do. He is
a good copier, mimic and imitator, and is often quite
surfaceable in positions where the work is mechanical and a
good copier is needed. The mysterious and unusual has a
fascination for him, akin to the fascination exerted over some
birds by a waving bit of colored cloth. He is
governed by his emotions rather than his reason. He is
excessively fanciful and imaginative, as the term is generally used,
and has a decided hysterical tendency and a disposition to
see things and to feel strangely. He has many strange experiences.
He has bought a minimum of self control and is
apt to fly off readily. He lacks voluntary attention and application,
and his mind is apt to go a wandering The
only time that he can be kept study is when
some positive individual controls and superintends him. The excitable, emotional
colored man who gets religion at every camp meeting, only
to backslide next week is an illustration of one class
of this type. He takes on the mental states of
those around him readily and accepts readily a strong positive suggestion.
These are some of his characteristics, the earmarks. There are
many of these people in the world, in high and
low life, but high or low there is a strong
family resemblance in their mental make up. The two great
characteristics by which they may be distinguished are, as stated,
one a negative will and two an excessive faculty of fancy.
These two combine to manifest a highly marked example of
negative imagination. The prize subjects of the hypnotists. Now, the
reason that I have gone into the matter of the
nature and character of the hyper impressionable people is this.
It is from the ranks of these people that the
subjects of the hypnotists are recruited. If you understand the
nature of these people, you will understand how the phenomena
are produced. Of course, the majority of professional hypnotists deny
this and make great claims that their subjects belong to
a class of people having peculiar qualities owing to ability
to concentrate, et cetera. But every one of them knows
in his heart that my above statement is true. Those
who have had the opportunity of personal acquaintance with these
subjects know that they all come under the above classification,
with the exception of those persons known as horses, the
name which the professional hypnotists give to people who travel
around as professional subjects and to play their parts just
as any other actor does. These horses are trained to
go through their parts and also to serve as bellwethers
or leaders of the flock of harper impressionables who are
taken from the audience. I know just what I am
talking about when I make this statement, notwithstanding the commonly
accepted opinion of the uninformed public to the effect that
the prize subjects are just the average run of folks. Now,
let us attend a an imaginary public hypnotic performance in
order to form a clear understanding of the matter.