THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON HYPNOTISM.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In the Spectator of October 4th, there is a paragraph reviewing an article by Mr. Taylor Innes on "Hypnotism and Crime," in which you speak of certain phenomena related by him as "almost incredible." Will you allow me to add my personal testimony to the reality of facts closely analogous, and some of them even more extraordinary?
I had the honour of an intimate friendship with the late Dr. Gregory, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edin- burgh,—the last survivor of an illustrious race which has given to science, and to the scientific professions, distinguished men during a period of nearly two hundred years. He was laughed at by many of his contemporaries as credulous, on no better grounds than that he had a mind open to new ideas, and did not believe that our present knowledge exhausted all the knowable in Nature.
At his house, about the time mentioned by Mr. Taylor Innes, I was present at a meeting of friends who were in- vited to see the effects of mesmeric hypnotism. The wonderful "phenomena of suggestion" were then exhibited in perfec- tion, and under conditions which precluded deception. A young officer of the garrison then in Edinburgh Castle was made to act in almost any character suggested to him. From choosing a horse at a market, to shooting grouse upon a moor, he went through all the appropriate movements ; and if he had not been prevented, he would have walked out of the window in running to pick up some imaginary fallen birds. It was impossible to doubt that every suggestion took the form of the most vivid dream, in which he actually did what many of Us think we do in dreams.
I am not sure that I think this very mysterious. It is an exaggeration—a curious exaggeration, indeed—but still only an exaggeration, of what happens in .ordinary dreams. Still, the power of producing this condition artificially, places undoubtedly a most dangerous power in the hands of other men. I need hardly point out the thoughts which must occur to us as to the dim light it may throw on the possible work of spiritual agencies on the temptations—consequently, on the conduct—of men.
But I saw also on that occasion a case of what is called "clairvoyance," which was much more astonishing. Some one was asked to think steadily of some familiar scene,—a house, or a room, or any object of which one could form a vivid mental image. On taking the hand of the mesmeric or hypnotised person, the image became visible to him or her, and was read off or described by the clairvoyant.
Trying this experiment myself, I thought of a special room in a friend's house in England which was very peculiarly, and almost fantastically furnished. I imaged it in my mind with that distinctness which we are all able to give to the stores of recent memory, and awaited the result. I can only say that it was a result which astounded me. The clairvoyant described the room, with all its special and unique features, as if she saw it, but saw it with difficulty, through some darkness which it required some groping to penetrate. Not a word was spoken by me. She made out her vision with extraordinary truth.
This happened now nearly forty years ago; but it left an indelible impression on my mind. I was convinced then, and I am convinced now, that the power of clairvoyance, as above defined and limited, was, however incomprehensible, a real power. I felt also, however, that the whole phenomena bordered on a region into which it is hardly safe to enter. It is well to feel in so practical a form the truth of the saying that there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Inverarcuy, October 6th. ARGYLL.
[We should call this account, one of thought-reading rather than of "clairvoyance," a word which is now generally reserved for the discernment of facts not known to any one who is in communication with the hypnotised person, and also, of course, not known by the'hypnotised person himself. Surely. the reality of thought-reading has been established beyond possibility of rational doubt by the Society for Psychical Research.—En. Spectator.]
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