The Hypnotic Eye of Health
The Hypnotic Eye of Health is an article written by Alex Erskine published in the Sunday Dispatch on 16 february 1930.
The Hypnotic Eye of Health
Svengali, arch-hypnotist of fiction, uses his power to teach Trilby to sing.
New Ally Advances In Harley St.
by Alex Erskine, Practitioner in Neurology and Psycho-Therapeutics.
[Two students of Glasgow University are paying the penalty for is little deception. One was clever, the other was not; and the first, so that his companion should pass his examination, impersonated him.
Had they known, they need have had no fear (says the author), for a single visit to a skilled hypnosis practitioner might have ensured that Number Two passed with flying colours.]
Ingrained prejudice is alone responsible for the ignorance which exists to-day in regard to hypnosis.
For over 30 years I have been fighting its battle in London. It was only two years ago that the General Medical Council recognised it as an art, but it had been practised to a more or less degree for years by many Harley-street physicians.
No Magic.
Small wonder, then, that the great mass of the people regard it as magic. There is no magic about it. Hypnosis, or induced sleep, is a simple, accepted scientific fact.
A year or two ago an actor came to me for help. He had to play Macbeth at 48 hours' notice.
He had not played the part for four years and, though he had spent 12 of his valuable remaining hours rubbing up the part, he found that he would not be word-perfect in time for the performance.
It was an easy case. I put him to sleep, then got down my Shakespeare, turned up "Macbeth," and said to him, "Now, I'm going to read every other part but yours. You will act your part as though you were on the stage, and you will remember every word."
Wife as Witness.
Not only did he do so (and incidentally put up so fine a performance that I called on my wife to witness it, strutting about my consulting room as though he were at His Majesty's), but when I read straight ahead from the uncut text he interrupted me from time to time telling me exactly what cuts had been made.
Having finished the play, I woke him up. In his waking state he remembered every word.
The plain scientific fact was this — that I had appealed to his sub-conscious mind.
The theory is that this sub-conscious mind rules the conscious mind. The sub-conscious mind loses nothing. It stores up everything which has appealed to the conscious mind with sufficient interest.
In a perfectly ordered mind everything so stored would be recalled at will. But man is born to err. That is where the hypnosis practitioner is of benefit.
Amazing Cures.
And as the mind governs the body, power over the sub-conscious is also power over the body. Hence, amazing cures are effected in people born blind, paralysed, lame, or with other functional and even organic deformities.
A student at London University who was on the eve of an examination came to me. He had been studying too hard and his memory had gone completely.
I put him into an hypnotic sleep and suggested that when he awoke his brain-fag would he gone and his memory restored. Two days later he successfully passed his examination.
Elated by his success, he sent to me a fellow-student who was his antithesis. This man found it impossible to absorb any learning. His mind was like a sieve. It was my task to make it like a sponge.
He went to sleep. I suggested to him that he would remember everything he read, however cursorily he read it, and that be would be able to recall what he read whenever he wished. Moreover, I infused him with confidence.
Two terms later this man secured two of his college prizes at the ordinary degree examinations.
Only three months ago three young law students within a week or so of their law examinations, who, having given too much time to games and too little to study, found themselves with too little time to cram up that which they had left undone, asked for help.
Both passed — much to their own surprise, for there was barely time to cover the remaining work once before their examination.
Doctors, business men, lawyers. and clergymen have been treated by me at different times and for a diversity of reasons. Self-confidence and greater power of concentration and interest are among the benefits derived.
These spring from the mastery of the sub-conscious, and it is with that that the hypnosis practitioner is called upon to deal.
Conan Doyle.
Perhaps, as illustrating the amazing power which is inherent in the sub-conscious mind, I may relate an experience which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I had in my consulting rooms recently.
He was anxious to test a man in a deep hypnotic sleep. I secured F———, a suitable subject, who slept at my command. Sir Arthur tried to awaken him, but in vain. He spoke to him, but F——— took no notice at all.
I then asked Sir Arthur to think of something and not to tell us what it was. A moment later F——— burst into uncontrollable laughter.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Sir Arthur wants you to see his watch chain," he said.
F——— went on. "You can't see it because he has a double-breasted coat on, but he's got a locket that size (illustrating with his hands) in his waistcoat pocket at the end of the chain. There's a lady in it."
Enough!
"Who is the lady? " I asked.
F——— sat up quickly. "I beg your pardon," he said. "It is a picture of a very beautiful lady. It is Lady Conan Doyle.
Sir Arthur took the locket from his pocket and opened it. F——— was correct.
"And now I can send this man's mind to Victoria Chambers and he shall tell you what Lady Conan Doyle is doing," I said.
But Sir Arthur refused. "I have seen enough; wake him up."
I had a very strange experience about six weeks ago. Leaving my house in Connaught-street one morning in a hurry, I fell over a man sitting on the step. When we got up, I now that he was blind.
Sight Preferred.
Feeling sorry for him, I took him into the house and he told me his story. He had been an electrician and 17 years ago had been afflicted with white atrophy of the eyes. Hospitals had given him up long ago. The disease is considered incurable.
"Let me see if I can help you." I suggested, and the man readily consented to go to sleep.
Five minutes later I woke him up. He could see perfectly. In ten days he came back. Imagine my surprise when his first words were: "You've ruined me."
"Ruined you!" I repeated, almost too surprised to speak.
"Yes," he said. "I've been getting relief while I've been blind, now I've been told to get work. I am sorry you did it. And an old gent, who used to give me a shilling a day now thinks I'm an impostor."
Later I verified the man's statements, and then and there said, "All right; go to sleep again."
He jumped up from the chair.
"What for?" he demanded.
"You shall be made blind again," I replied.
But that prospect was too awful. "I think I'll chance it," he said, and to this day he can see as well as any ordinary man.
Triumphs in Store.
A common fallacy about hypnosis is that it can be achieved against a man's will. It cannot. A practitioner must have the co-operation of his patient.
To-day we are but on the threshold of all that hypnosis may mean. No one can foretell what triumphs over disease it may hold.
I have myself taught the principles of the art to many Harley-street physicians, and the medical profession is making increasing use of it. It may not be too much to say that in a few years it will form part of the training of every doctor.
But how long will it be before we in England are allowed to practise medical hypnosis as it is practised in France, and use it for major operations in cases where an anaesthetic is inadvisable?
The pain is nil; the shock to the system is nil; even bleeding can be controlled. I have used hypnosis to enable patients who have a dread of an anaesthetic to have teeth extracted. They have felt no pain.
