A short lecture on the subject of hypnotism would be a good thing to give before you attempt to hypnotize your patient. Give him to understand that there is no harm that can come to him and that he can not be hypnotized if he resists, or does not properly concentrate his mind on what you will have to say to him, and that you can not possibly exercise any power over him except for the time being. Tell him that he must keep his mind upon your suggestions of sleep, and to think that he is actually going sound asleep. You should endeavor to persuade your patient to make up his mind to fall into a sleep, get him to hold his mind on the thoughts of sleep and sleep only. You will have no trouble from then on as the work is now half done. Some are of the opinion that sleep is impossible. Let him pay no attention to this, but to think of sleep only. Some may think that on account of their strong will-power they will be hard to hypnotize. After the operator has worked with them for some time they open their eyes and say they were not influenced. To such persons you should explain that a strong will is one of the requirements in hypnotism, as concentration of the mind is indispensable and that if they really have a strong will they will surely have the power. To wander and get beyond the control of its possessor can only be attributed to weakness, or inability to control. If they find it impossible to go to sleep it simply shows that they cannot or will not agree to be hypnotized. If your patient really wants to be hypnotized and will try to prepare himself for the occasion, tell him to go to some quiet place where he can be alone for a few minutes each day and take into his mind just one single thought and try to hold it there at the exclusion of all other thoughts. When your patient can do this, he can be hypnotized. Another good plan is to have your patient recline in some quiet place and close his eyes and repeat some sleep formula such as, I am now going to sleep, going to sleep, to sleep, sleep, slee--, sle--, sl--, s--, sound asleep. Such formulas should be tried every day until the patient can hold his thoughts where he wants them. If a sleepy feeling does not take possession of your patient at the expiration of the time mentioned, it simply shows that your patient’s mind is or has been wandering. If your patient displays any signs of fear, it might be well to hypnotize some one in his presence. The object is to overcome the fear in your patient and to familiarize him with the general proceedings. Do not forget to impress your patient that his submission to the influence of hypnotism is not an admission that he was overpowered by a stronger will than his own. It simply shows that he can and does control his own will. You should try your patient for susceptibility. It also places him on better terms with the operator and establishes confidence. You can dispense with the test if you desire, although in most cases it is best to use it. You will, of course, not expect to hypnotize all people you may experiment with. Your powers will increase with your experience, and the rate per cent will depend much upon your activity. Tell your patient to relax and become perfectly passive, as to resist would be fatal to the influence; that he should concentrate his mind on your suggestions. Let your subject understand that in the drawing exercise he will be in no danger of falling, as his interests will be faithfully guarded, and see that he does not fall. In making this test place your subject in a standing position with his back toward you. You may then have your subject close his eyes and relax his muscles. If you are in doubt as to whether he is doing as requested, take him by the coat collar and gently pull him back. If you find resistance in this you will probably find it in others, and your subject will prove harder to manage. When the subject is standing as at first requested, with his eyes closed and relaxed muscles, place the points of your fingers on the right hand against the back of the neck and your left hand pressed against the forehead. Hold the subject in this position a few seconds and then speak in a slow and gentle tone of voice these words: When my hand withdraws from you, you will slowly fall backward. In removing your hand you should do it as slowly as possible, so that your subject cannot tell at first that you are withdrawing it. If the subject does not incline backward, do not give up, but keep on trying. After a few trials you will probably be successful. INCLINING FORWARD -- Have your subject stand squarely in front of you, facing you. Now tell him to assume a passive attitude as before, that is to relax and not to resist. Some are resisting all the time and do not know it. Resistance on the part of the subject spoils the whole performance. Hold your finger, or any thing you may wish to use
instead, about six inches from his eyes on a direct line between your eyes
and his, requesting him to watch the object closely. Hold it in this
position about half a minute (longer for some subjects) then say in a slow
and positive manner, As I draw this object away from you, you will follow
it. Now withdraw slowly and your subject will incline forward if
he is a hypnotic subject. Do not get discouraged if you fail at first
as often the following efforts will be entirely satisfactory. Perseverance
is the proper thing to make you a great hypnotist.
II. Have your subject clasp his hands together in the usual way, with the fingers between each other. Have him clasp them tightly together and let him make his arms very rigid and to think that he cannot open them, or you can have him repeat to himself that, I cannot separate them. No, sir, I can’t do it. No. Sir, I can’t do it, etc. Great earnestness must be displayed on the part of both subject and operator. The subject must assume that his hands are fastened tightly together and that he cannot open them. Then act upon the following suggestion, Try it. The operator must then get the attention of the subject, looking him squarely in the eyes, and at the same time take the subject’s hands. Do not permit the subject to take his eyes off of yours. Tell him that he must not look away, should he attempt to do so. The operator should continue to keep his eyes upon the steady gaze of the subject. Hold this steady stare without change until your suggestion is given. Now is the time for the operator to act. Let him speak in a firm steady tone. “Now your hands are fastened together tight, tighter and tighter, and you cannot open them.” Then let the operator remove his hands from those of the patient or subject. The subject can then have an opportunity of trying to pull his hands apart. The operator should be very careful not to hurt the subject while pressing the hands together as that would spoil all of the influence. Passes are often used instead of pressure on the subject’s hands. This is done by gently stroking the arms from the shoulders to the hands preparatory to giving the suggestion. Now your hands are fastened together and you cannot open them. The suggestion gains strength by repeating it and should be given several times to make it doubly strong. The operator, in giving his suggestions, should speak in an earnest and steady tone, not too fast, increasing the force and tone of voice with each succeeding suggestion until you have reached the crisis, by telling the subject that his hands are fastened tightly together and that he cannot open them. When the operator has given the subject time to try to pull his hands apart and cannot do so, the operator should strike his own hands together very suddenly and at the same time say with great earnestness, “All right,” now you can,” “wake up,” “You’re all right.” Keep this up until all influence is removed and the subject is wide awake, which is usually done in a few minutes. If the subject’s hands do not come apart readily, the operator may push them together, and tell the subject to wait awhile. Let him rest a minute. The operator can now tell the subject, “When I count three you can take your hands apart.” The operator should now count three and when he says three, he should strike his hands together to make a sharp and loud noise, at the same time say: “Now you take them apart, all right, all right. Now you are all right.” Making Leg Stiff -- Have your subject stand up in front of you and throw his whole weight on one leg that is to be made stiff. Take hold of one of his hands. Have the subject to look you squarely in the eyes, then tell him to think that his leg is stiff and he cannot bend it. During this time the operator is in a stooping posture, with the other hand on the subject’s knee, and in raising up have him keep his eyes on you as before. You may now make passes down the limb a few times. While you are doing this you must say in a very earnest and firm tone of voice, “You will now feel your leg getting stiff, stiffer, stiffer, and you can’t bend it. You leg will be stiff, and you will walk stiff legged.” When you are finishing this last suggestion, you should arise, keeping your gaze fastened on your subject’s eyes. When he has walked a few steps, take the influence off in the usual way, by striking your hands together and saying, “All right.” “All right. “You’re all right.” You can use the same method as is used in taking the hands apart. To stiffen the arm you use about the same methods and suggestions as in other similar exercises. Tell your subject to close his hand and try to stiffen his arm. You should take hold of his hand and make a few passes from shoulder to hand, at the same time say: “Your arm is getting stiff, getting stiff, getting stiffer. Now your arm is stiff and you can’t bend it.” Try hard, and the harder you try the stiffer it will get. When you wish to remove the influence proceed as before in other exercises. It is very important that in all of these exercises the operator must look directly into the subject’s eyes, keeping at all times an earnest and steady gaze. Never let your eyes pass from the subject for an instant, until you are ready to remove the spell. All exercises of this class can be easily mastered with a little practice. The operator should never become discouraged. Never let your subject think that you are disappointed in the result of any experiments. In those cases the operator can say that we do not expect to hypnotize every one on first trial, or something to that effect. Your Subject Can’t Tell His Name -- Place your hands
one on each side of your subject’s neck with the thumbs pressing lightly
on the Adam’s apple, suggesting at the same time that, “When I count three
you can’t tell your name. You can’t tell it. Try it.”
You will observe from day to day that you are becoming more familiar with
the work. The more you practice the better you can perform your part.
III. Arrange for your subject an easy position and hold the object you wish him to look at about six or eight inches from his eyes, requesting him to keep his eyes on the object before him, and tell him to think of sleep. It is well to tell your subject that the same explanation as given in the beginning applies to all that follows. Keep the object your subject is looking at moving in a circular motion for a few minutes, according to the operator’s judgement, or until the subject closes his eyes. The operator can say in a steady and firm tone of voice: “You are getting drowsy. Your eyes are getting tired. They are getting heavy. They are closing. You are getting sleepy. You are going to sleep. Going sound to sleep.” Repeat the above as long as you think necesssary. If your subject is not asleep by this time, tell him to close his eyes and go sound asleep. “Close your eyes and go sound to sleep.” Next place your fingers on each side of the head and the thumbs on “individuality” just above the eyes, so that your thumbs are near together. Then gently stroke the forehead and temples for a few minutes. Let the fingers remain perfectly quiet while stroking the forehead and temples with the thumbs. While manipulating in this manner, use the suggestion
of “Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleepy, sleepy, gone to sleep, to sleep, sound
asleep.” Keep this up for a few minutes, in a steady, gentle and
positive tone of voice.
IV. Preceding the suggestions of sleep, the operator
can place his left hand on top of subject’s head with the thumb on right
temple. Place the other hand on left temple and thumb on center of
forehead. Move the thumb of the right hand down the forehead onto
the nose. Keep fingers of both and thumb of left hand still.
Move the thumb down the forehead and nose a few times while repeating the
suggestions of sleep to your subject.
V. Press the root of patient’s nose with thumb of left
hand, with the fingers on the head. Stroke downward the back part
of patient’s head with right hand. Let the strokes be slow and gentle,
at the same time give suggestions of sleep, as used in former exercises.
Continue until the desired effect is produced.
VI. Take your position at the right of the patient. Let the thumb of the left hand rest on the upper part of the nose, with the hand on the head. You may now give the following suggestions, in an
earnest, steady tone: “Your eyes are shut so tight you can’t open them.
You are going sound asleep. You are at perfect rest. You are
perfectly quiet. You are going into a deep sleep, deep sleep, deep
sleep, sound asleep. You are now sound asleep, sound asleep.
Repeat those suggestions as often as may seem necessary, perhaps from ten
to twenty minutes. Should your patient fail to fall asleep at the
end of that time you should abandon the sitting until the same time next
day when the same exercises can be taken up again.
VII. Drumming on the Forehead -- Place your patient in
a sitting or a lying position as appears most convenient. Tap the
patient’s forehead gently and with a regular motion, while giving the usual
suggestions of sleep. If your patient does not soon become unconscious,
the tapping may cease, but keep the fingers firmly but gently pressing
the forehead. Continue the sleep suggestions, and your patient will
soon be in a deep sleep.
RESPIRATION There is no reason why anyone should die of any kind of lung trouble if they were only taught how to breathe. It is a well-known fact that consumption and other lung troubles can be avoided by all who have what is called a constitutional tendency to it, but that the disease can be overcome and driven out of the body, even after the tubercular bacilli have begun their work of destruction. According to statistics, about one-fifth of humanity die of lung trouble of some kind. The effects of improper breathing has brought many lives to the grave who otherwise might have been living a life of usefulness today. The most of those people not only die of lung trouble, but they are hastened off of this Mundane sphere aided by the drug habit. Their fortunes are consumed in doctor’s bills, and finally they become scared at the little pain in their chests, which is thought to be in the lungs. At every breath they yield to the pain and in a short time there is not enough air breathed to keep up a healthy body. Of coursse, emaciation soon is inevitable. This condition adds to their fright, and such a thing as taking a long breath is a thing of the past. Their lungs become so weak from inactivity that they are in condition to receive any suggestion that may be offered, which, of course, is to be consumption, as the most suitable disease to have under the circumstances. There are few people who know how to breathe to the best advantage, as is demonstrated above. In most cases women are the greatest sufferers, on account of the prevailing mode of dressing, necessitating the habit of short breathing, and that only at the top of their lungs, leaving the lower lobes useless and inert. The air remaining in the lower portion too long becomes rank poison and, preventing the carbonic acid gas from escaping, adds insult to injury, and the blood becomes over-burdened with foreign substances, preventing its free circulation, and the unfortunate sufferer loses all energy and finally despairs. The cheapest and best remedy in the world is an abundance of fresh air, and will in a very short space of time effect a cure if the patient will persist in his efforts to increase his breathing capacity to the fullest extent. Some victims to this disease submit to its inroads without a struggle and simply die because they did not know how to live. The influence on the brain of the patient is demonstrated by the hopeless attitude at times and again alternating with fits of unreasonable hopefulness, which is certainly the result of a poorly nourished brain. The process by which the blood is purified can be shown as follows: The lungs resemble the finest gauze membrane, the interlacing of which are so fine that the oxygen, or electricity of the air, but not the air itself, can pass through it into the lungs, and the carbonic acid gas pass out through it, but not the blood. Nor can the two commingle. It resembles a strainer so fine as to keep the air in its air cells, and yet allow the gases, oxygen and carbonic acid, to pass in and out at pleasure. The venous blood, which has become loaded with carbonic acid gas in its passage through the body, goes to the lungs to be aerated and rendered pure again. That process is accomplished in this way: The walls of the blood vessels in the lungs are full of tiny holes which, while they are too small to allow the red corpuscles to escape, are yet large enough to permit the carbonic acid gas to be thrown off into the lungs and to admit the pure oxygen in its place. If, through defective breathing, but a few inches of the lung substance is supplied with air, then the blood cannot be properly aerated but must be sent out through the body again, still burdened with its old load of impurities, and mind and body suffer alike for want of nourishment. There is no medicine so cheap as pure air, and the tubercular bacilli have no more powerful foe. These germs find their way to the lungs in the same manner as a buzzard finds the dead animal in the jungle. At first only a few get a foothold, and finding a congenial soil in the sluggish lung tissue of the person who does not breathe deeply enough to keep his lungs in a healthy condition, they quickly multiply and spread. These bacilli have a tendency to pack themselves into the air cells, one on top of another, until they form a solid mass. As this mass prevents that air from getting into the cells, the affected tissue soon decays and breaks down, leaving a cavity in the lungs which gradually grows larger, unless the spread of bacilli can be checked. If the wasting process has not already gone too far it can assuredly be checked by forcing pure air into every sluggish, unused cell of the lungs, and stimulating them to perform their normal functions. The inrush of air gradually loosens the hold of the bacilli, which are then expelled by exhalation or expectoration. The lung tissue thus stimulated begins to do its part in throwing off these parasites, and the pure oxygen drawn into every part of the lungs by this deep breathing once more does its normal work in aerating the blood supply, which in turn carries its fresh, pure current to the brain and other parts of the body, stimulting and vivifying every organ. This habit of deep, full breathing is one of the simplest things to acquire. If persisted in, it will make any narrow-chested, weak-lunged man or woman feel as if they had been drinking of the fabled elixir of life. When people come to me to get treated for lung trouble I put them through a course of physical training, beginning with the breathing exercises, which are the most important of all. If the patient is a woman I encourage her to wear clothing comfortably loose so as to allow full expansion to the lower part of the lungs. Then I show her how to breathe. As most women habitually use only the upper part of the lungs, I have my woman patient begin by drawing the breath through the nostrils, slowly expanding the diaphragm and filling the lower part of the lungs, then the upper part, till every air cell is full; then exhaling very slowly through the nostrils as in inhalations. When the lungs are apparently emptied of air, I show the patient how to draw in the muscles of the abdomen and contract the lungs still farther, forcing out the large quantity of residual air which always remains even after an ordinary exhalation. At first these breathing exercises may be decidedly painful. If so, a person should always stop just short of where the pain begins. It will soon be observed that with each effort to breathe deeply the unpleasant sensation comes later, and will, after a time, disappear altogether, while a free, exhilarated, exultant feeling takes its place. These exercises should be repeated at short intervals many times during the day, always taking care that the air is as pure as possible. After a few days the patient will find herself breathing with her whole lungs almost unconsciously. There are several minor breathing exercises, but the one just mentioned, if persisted in, will work wonders in a very short time. When the process of breaking down of the lung tissue called consumption has actually begun, vigorous exercise in the open air, if for no other reason, the exercises makes the person puff and blow, drawing the air into the lungs and forcing it out again. The office of the solar plexus may be discussed in this connection, as its functions are always involved where there is any kind of lung trouble. The exercise of this nerve center is one of the most important, not only in pulmonary troubles, but in all kinds of nervous disorders, indigestion and constipation. This great plexus is located in the region of the stomach. The health depends very much upon the action of this great nerve center. So much so that many writers have called it the animal or physical brain. The office of this plexus seems to be that of controlling the organs or digestion, and by its inaction, all kinds of stomach trouble and constipation is the result. Medicated purgatives and cathartics seem to have very little if any effect in its functions. So far as has been observed, a case of stomach trouble or constipation has never been cured through the influence of any drug upon this plexus. The only way that thisnerve center can be influenced into action is through the power of the will, objectively or subjectively. Exercising a strong and steady intention on the part of the patient or the operator or both. Such influences have been brought to bear, as stated above, that the worst kind of cases of constipation have been permanently cured in a few minutes and the colon completely disgorged in less than an hour. The best way to arouse the action of this plexus is to lie down flat on the back and relax every muscle. Commence to breathe, slowly at first , and gradually growing faster and deeper until the respirations run about thirty per minute. Keep this exercise up for at least five minutes, or until you have forced the perspiration. This exercise forces and equalizes the circulation, assists in purifying the same, by increasing the quantity of oxygen and permitting the escape of carbonic acid gas, thus enabling the blood to circulate freely through the capillaries, as well as permitting the kidneys to perform their share in the process of purification. The immediate effects produced in this exercise is balancing the temperature of the body, preventing cold feet, stimulating the functions of all the organs, and finally establishing harmony throughout the entire body, which produces a condition sufficiently strong to overcome any disease or to drive out any objectionable symptoms that may be lodged therein. Those conditions are produced something like the following: Blood is the grand porter of the system, that vehicle which conveys to all parts of the system with required life materials, and also takes up all waste matter or used up materials. Its presence is life; its absence death; and its paramount condition of all life and all functions. Breathing propels the blood. The idea that the heart alone propels it is a mistake. The lungs do their share in forcing the blood through the body, if not the principal part of the labor, it is therefore plainly seen the importance of deep and full breathing. It should be especially borne in mind that as this mass prevents the air from getting, mind does the work, and being brought into action by the concentration of the objective forces or faculties, admits the suggestion, or intention directed to the subjective mind. Having thus taken up the impression, goes on and does the work directed to it by the irresistible force of the concentrated intention of the objective mind. In treating patients, if you depart from the “mysterious silence” during or previous to treatment, you should attempt to make your patient understand that by setting his mind firmly upon the work before you, the degree of the effect will depend entirely upon the force of the intention exercised, and the length of time consumed in your concentrated intention, until you have reached the acme of your mentalilty, the results of which will restore your patient to perfect health and happiness, which of course is the condition to be attained. This method applies to one’s self as well as in the treatment of others. The only difference is that in the first , you direct your own thoughts and in the latter you direct the thoughts of your patient. In the next number directions will be given in the treatment of patients when they are unable to concentrate their minds on matters pertaining to their recovery, and the best means available in reaching the remedy to be employed in their restoration. |