Psychosis is mental activity. Any state of consciousness or mental process is a psychosis. Strictly, the activity is the psychosis. The term is sometimes used to designate the product of the activity.

Hypnotic, or extra-personal, control is the control of the psychoses of the hypnotized subject by the hypnotist. The hypnotist determines the mental activity of the subject, and so determines his states of consciousness and mental processes.

Unless the psychoses of the subject are determined by the hypnotist, there is no true hypnotic control. Keflex action, is action without psychosis. That is, it is not originated and directed by psychosis. The actor may be conscious of the action, and even attentive to it. He may even wish and strive to inhibit it. Still it is not intentional - personally controlled - and is, therefore, strictly reflex. The hypnotist may originate and direct the action by applying the necessary stimulus. In this way he controls the action, but the control is not hypnotic control, because it is not accomplished by controlling the psychosis of the subject.

What is the explanation of hypnotic, or extra-personal, control? How does the hypnotist determine the psychosis of the hypnotized subject? The aim of this discussion is to contribute something towards an answer to this question.

Neurosis is nervous excitation or activity produced by stimulus. Normal, or ordinary, neuroses consist of, are produced by, stimulation, excitation, activity, of sensory terminals, or end organs; of conducting fibres, both afferent and efferent, and of nerve centers.

Sub-cerebral neurosis is without psychosis. Cerebral, or cortical, neurosis produces psychosis, or accompanies psychosis, or is produced by psychosis. Investigation and experiment have established the fact, apparently, that there is no psychosis without neurosis - without cerebral neurosis. Every neurosis produces, or tends to produce - in a normal, complete nervous system, will produce - its appropriate psychosis. Conversely, it is almost certain that every psychosis produces, or tends to produce, further neurosis. There is, or is a tendency to, a cycle of neurosis and psychosis, accomplished in a complete nervous system acting normally.

If the relation of neurosis to psychosis, and vice versa, ha9 been correctly stated, the hypnotist, in order to control the psychoses of the subject, must control the neuroses of the subject. He must control the neuroses that control the psychoses determined. At least, he must control that neurosis that controls the primary, or initial, psychosis that will produce other psychoses normally by producing the normal, or necessary neurosis. If the hypnotist can control the neuroses of the subject - can produce the appropriate neuroses - he can control the psychoses - can control them to the exact extent that he can control the neuroses. Thus, true hypnotic, or extra-personal, control is by control of neurosis. It is by control of the neurosis that produce the psychoses. Otherwise the result is reflex only, and the control is not hypnotic.

Hypnosis is a state or condition of the nervous system, or of some part of it, which, while it continues, destroys or suspends self-control of the psychoses - and, consequently, of the voluntary action - of the subject, and subjects him to extra-personal control. In hypnosis the neuroses of the subject, or such of them as produce, directly or indirectly, the determined psychoses, are controlled by the hypnotist.

What the nervous state called hypnosis is - how the methods employed by the hypnotist to produce it operate physiologically to produce it - to what extent the nervous system is, or may be, brought into this state - the special and general effects physiologically of hypnosis, etc., etc. - cannot be discussed here. The matter for consideration is the control exercised by the hypnotist over the psychoses of the subject.

The hypnotist induces hypnosis by controlling or directing the attention of the subject. The control and direction of the attention seems to be wholly surrendered to the hypnotist. If the attention is wholly surrendered, the hypnosis is complete. Or, if the hypnosis is complete, the attention is wholly surrendered. The methods and mental processes used by the hypnotist, in inducing hypnosis, are to secure this concentration and surrender of attention.

This "surrender" of attention - control of the attention of the subject by the hypnotist - is the secret of hypnotic control, is the essence of it. It is the key to the explanation of hypnotic control. All extra-personal control of psychosis in hypnosis comes from the control of neurosis made possible by this control of attention. In fact, the attention of the subject is the psychosis controlled by the hypnotist as a hypnotist. All the other neuroses, and, so, psychoses, that occur in hypnosis are normally produced - produced as the subject produces them by self-control, or as they are determined for him out of hypnosis. If there are variations from the normal, or usual, action of the nervous system, they are due to special, or unusual, conditions that result from the unusual nervous condition called hypnosis, or from the effects of the methods used to induce hypnosis. The concentration or "surrender" of attention is the neural, or, what is the same thing, the psychic, condition of susceptibility to suggestion, by which the hypnotist controls as a hypnotist.

The truth of this will appear more fully farther along.

Hypnotic, or extra-personal control extends to volition, or voluntary action, feeling, sensation and perception. The hypnotized subject wills to do what the hypnotist commands, or suggests that he do. He can do what the hypnotist suggests that he can do. He cannot do what the hypnotist suggests he cannot do. He feels as the hypnotist suggests that he feels. He perceives what the hypnotist suggests he perceives. In the case of control of action, the hypnotist must control the neuroses that control the nerve centers of action. In the case of the control of feeling, he must control the neurosis that produces the feeling. In the case of control of sensation and perception, he must control the neuroses that determine sensation and perception. If it is true that there is no psychosis without neurosis, and that every psychosis has its appropriate neurosis, the hypnotist can control volition, feeling, sensation and perception only by controlling the neuroses that produce these psychoses.