It is exceedingly difficult in all these experiments, apart from accident and trickery, to exclude with certainty self-deception on the part of the hypnotized - that is, of the subject - and even on the part of the hypnotizer, especially of every unconscious suggestion and autosuggestion. It is therefore necessary that great caution should be exercised in accepting these forms of results.

Since the third edition of this book there has been nothing new of importance relative to the subject of telepathy to report. At all events, telepathy has not been able to bring forward a new elucidation, while the doctrine of suggestion has been freely confirmed during the same period of time. All the stories of spiritualists and of superficial individuals have not been able to alter anything belonging to these facts. Still, I would wish to add the following: Professor Th. Flournoy (Geneva) recounted, in some lectures which he delivered in Lausanne, in 1900, that Pouchet once offered one thousand francs to any person who could read a sentence which he had placed in a double envelope, to which a seal had been attached. Professor Flournoy did not fully approve of the method of carrying out this experiment of Pouchet'3, but still admitted the possibility that telepathic reading might succeed.

1See also Liebeault, "he Sommeil Provoque," 1889, p. 295.

My cousin, Professor P. A. Forel, of Morges, then suggested that similar conditions should be imposed, and that the following might be found satisfactory:. 1

He gave Professor Flournoy a carefully closed and sealed casket, and promised the sum of one thousand francs to any person who could, during the course of one year read a motto which was enclosed in the box.

Replies came in so quickly that Professor Flournoy1 became alarmed at the prospects if he continued to take charge of the box, ended the experiment after a fortnight, and sent the casket back to Professor Forel.

Not a single reply sent in bore the slightest resemblance to the enclosed sentence. The latter ran as follows; Et il l'enduisit de biturne, en dedans et en dehors.

It is a pity that my cousin's conditions were not allowed a further chance. It would have been worth while to have awaited the results of the whole year. On a previous occasion the French Academy of Mesmerism offered similar conditions. The failure of the telepaths was a complete one. In future it may be necessary to guard against the use of Roentgen rays and radium, etc., when carrying out this form of experiment.

1 Professor Flournoy's reaction, which appeared in the newspapers, had a very curious character. He promised to give 1,000 francs to charity if the Vinet School in Lausanne were struck by a ball of fire (literally, a ball-shaped lightning") during the course of the year. The comparison of the professor of Philosophy falls suspiciously flat. Even allowing that a ball of fire be just as rare as the presumed telepathic reading, although it can he scientifically proved to occur, one was not dealing with an experiment for which one could invite all telepathists of the world publically to compete, and for which one could allow one year's, time! No invitation was directed to the ball of fire to let itself loose on the Ecole Vinet in Lausanne! For this reason the definite negative result of the condition stipulated by Professor F, A. Forel would have carried with it quite a different significance scientifically to the fact that the Vinet School was not struck by a ball of fire.

2. The theory first formulated by Braid ("Neurhypnology," 1843), and first worked out in its full importance and practical application by Liebeault of Nancy ("Du Somneil et des Etats Analogues," 1866), is diametrically opposed to the first-mentioned theory. This is the conception of suggestion (dictation). It can be formulated somewhat in the following manner:

The production of the various phenomena of hypnosis by means of the calling forth of suitable impressions, and especially of impressions of the fancy. It may be mentioned in this place that the object is most easily and most certainly gained when the hypnotist declares definitely by means of speech that the condition which he wishes to induce will appear at the time while he is speaking, or at a given time, earlier or later (verbal suggestion or persuasion). When a person persuades himself of something, one speaks of autosuggestion (Bernheim). Braid did not realize the importance of suggestion, but attached instead an importance which does not belong to it to the continuous stimulation of the senses (fixation, etc.). He placed Mesmer's animal magnetism side by side with hypnotism, believed in the direct action on the peripheral nervous system, and stood the same ground as the so-called somatic school (Charcot, etc.). One is accustomed to produce a partial or complete dissociation by means of suggestion, and as the dissociation condition of the brain considerably increases the suggestibility of the brain (i.e., the susceptibility toward influencing by means of suggestion), one gains the desired power at once. In the same way sleep is a dissociation condition of the brain, and actually a general one. For the purposes of obtaining rest of the neurons, suggestive dissociation is, as it were, a more or less divided up or localized sleep. But suggestion is not only produced by means of speech and by persuasion: it can be induced by everything which can call forth impressions, and, above all, which can cause strong pictures in the imagination. Liebeault is right when he writes:1

"La disposition a tomber dans ces etats est proportionnelle a la faeulte de representation mentale de chacun. L'on peut etre sur que l'homme qui, en reportant son attention sur une idee image, celle d'une perception tactile, par example, ne tarde pas a la percevoir comme si elle etait reelle, que cet homme est capable de dormir profondement" (i.e., is able to be deeply hypnotized).

1 hoc. cil., p. 347.