If I say to a hypnotized person, "After you awaken you will drink some water out of this glass," this suggestion is carried out without any hesitation. If I add to this, " You will also place this chair on the table," some persons will be puzzled, will look at the chair, be ashamed, laugh, and in the end some of them will not carry out this second suggestion, because they consider it too stupid, too simple. If one asks them what they are thinking about, they answer, "I got the stupid idea of placing this chair on the table." This thought can follow the hypnotized person for a long time, like a kind of impulsion, if he has failed to carry out the suggestion. But this is not always the case. The idea is often soon lost, and then the matter is ended. If I say to a still more suggestible hypnotized person who has placed the chair on the table, "After awakening, you will give Mr. X. a kiss," or, "You will upset this inkpot over your hand," or "You will put my knife, which is lying on the table, into your pocket; I will not notice it. This will no doubt be a small theft, but that does not matter," the result will be different. A violent struggle between the impulse of the suggestion, on the one hand, and the associated aesthetic or ethical opposing conceptions of the normal individuality - i.e., of the inherited and acquired (educational) brain dynamisms - on the other hand, will take place. This struggle increases in proportion to the strength of the opposing conceptions and to the development of the suggestibility. The stronger the antagonistic forces are developed, the more violent the struggle will be. The upshot of it will depend on the momentary intensity as well as the durableness of each of the forces. One must therefore take each of the component parts into account which make up each of the antagonistic forces. These may be tabulated as follows:

1. The degree of the individual suggestibility.

2. The lasting power of the action of the suggestion in the brain of the hypnotized.

3. The strength of the hypnotic education or training.

4. The depth of the sleep (which diminishes the power of resistance of the normal mind by dissociation, and is of special importance in the activity during the hypnosis itself).

5. The adequate nature of the suggestion - i.e., the adaptation of the desired action skillfully and powerfully suggested, or, in other words, the psychical action of the hypnotist.

6. The normal individuality of the hypnotized - i.e., the standard and kind of his ethical and aesthetic disposition, his power of will, his education, etc.

7. The momentary psychical condition of the hypnotized, etc.

The sixth item is very important. A person who does not possess a sensitive conscience will, ceteris paribus, carry out a criminal suggestion more readily than a person possessed of a weII-developed conscience. A cunning person will not be so inclined to carry out a criminal suggestion in which he gains no advantage as soon as he "smells a rat."

Item 4 holds good also for posthypnotic conditions, as we have already seen, provided that these possess more or less the characters of a renewed hypnosis. The more completely awake the hypnotized person is, the more readily will he be able to protect himself against a suggestion. But one can suggest to him that he will go to sleep again posthypnotically.

It can readily be understood how complicated the problem is. The question is, "How far can one go ?"

I have pointed out that even during the deep hypnotic sleep a struggle between the suggestion and the individuality of the hypnotized can take place. Not every suggestion is accepted. This has been clearly pointed out by Bernheim. But even when a criminal suggestion has been accepted, it usually leaves traces of deep associated emotions behind.

In the presence of the Zurich Law Society I put a seventy-year-old man to sleep in an empty room, and said to him: "Look there, B.; that man standing close to us is a wicked wretch, an unmitigated rascal. Let us do for him; here is a knife." (I handed him a piece of chalk.) "He is standing immediately in front of you; stab him in the abdomen." Evidencing great excitement, trembling, and with drawn features, he seized the chalk convulsively in his right hand, suddenly got up, and plunged the knife (chalk) with great force twice into the air. He continued to be excited during the hypnosis, and did not return the chalk to me, but put it into his pocket. It took me several minutes to quiet him by suggestion. When I awoke him he was still sweating and excited. He could not remember what he had been doing, but said that "something wrong must have taken place."

Bernheim, Liegeois, and other French authors, have related some exceedingly interesting eases of criminal suggestions, some of which were carried out quietly, without emotion. These included imitation murders, suggested real thefts, etc.

For the purpose of assisting Mr. Hoefelt, a young lawyer, who was writing his thesis on this subject, I carried out two experiments of this kind. I gave an elderly, very suggestible man a revolver, after having hypnotized him; Mr. Hoefelt had previously loaded it with blank cartridges. I told the subject that Mr. Hoefelt was a very bad person, and that he was to shoot him. He took up the revolver with great determination, and fired a shot straight at the lawyer. The latter, pretending to be wounded, fell down. I told the hypnotized that the fellow was not quite dead: he must fire another shot at him. This was done without hesitation. Professor Delboeuf might answer me that the hypnotized had known from the first that I would not order him to commit a real crime. I admit this. But he ought to allow that the man must have had a very extraordinary, almost incredible presence of mind and a limitless confidence in me were this so; for, firstly, I had never carried out such an experiment before; and, secondly, the loading of the revolver with blank cartridge (of which he had no idea), and the very loud report which the firing caused in the closed room, as well as the excellently acted fall by Mr. Hoefelt, would have disturbed the balance of the best malingerer, at all events for an instant, and have awakened him; but this was not the case. The second shot was fired as deliberately as the first.

A modest (elderly and ugly) servant-girl, whom I had known for many years to be extraordinarily prudish, energetically resisting the most ordinary medical examinations - e.g., that of the breast - and getting excited about it, was at the same time a highly suggestible somnambulist. At that time, however, she was not under the slightest obligation to me, nor had she any reason to hope for an engagement from me. I advised Mr. Hoefelt to look her up, and to obtain her sanction to allow me to hypnotize her in his presence. She consented to this. I then gave her the suggestion during the hypnosis to strip completely to the waist in the presence of this strange gentleman and myself. She carried this out immediately, without hesitation, and without exhibiting the least emotion. I own that I was astounded at it. If I had not been absolutely certain. of her complete amnesia, I would never have dared to have performed this experiment, for she would have despaired had she known. I only carried it out with considerable disinclination, and only in the interest of science, for this kind of experiment borders on the illegal. But, on the other hand, something has to be done to illuminate the matter. Professor Delboeuf would say to me that hundreds of girls do this during full consciousness. But this is only true of a certain category of girls. In this case I knew the girl, her straight, modest character, well for many years, or else I would not have laid any stress on the experiment. Much less was proved in the case of another hypnotized, whom I caused to box Mr. Hoefelt's ears soundly (J. A. Hoefelt, loc. cit.).