HYPNOTIC THERAPEUTICS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS OF TREATMENT BY SUGGESTION BY JOHN DUNCAN QUACKENBOS, A.M., M.D. AUTHOR OF " HYPNOTISM IN MENTAL AND MORAL CULTURE" " PRACTICAL PHYSICS " ETC. * If I one soul improve, I have not lived in vain." —"The Minstrel." NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER 6- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS MCMVIII BO&Q Copyright, 1908, by Harper & Brothers. All rights reserved. Published February, 1908. CONTENTS PAGE Preface v Introduction 1 The Transliminal or, ; Across the Threshold ... 9 Sleep as the Suggestible State . ... 28 Suggestibility in . the Dying . .39 Rapport and the Mutual Relationship . 48 Degrees op Suggestibility . ... 60 Auto-suggestion . , . .... 81 Auto-suggestion, the Modus Cvrandi op Christian and Mental Science, Metaphysical Healing, Faith and Prayer Cures, Osteopathy, and Other Delusions . 99 Dangers and Limitations ... 109 Practical Applications op Psycho-therapeutics—Physical Disease . 114 Neurasthenia, or Nervous Exhaustion . 123 Delusions, Obsessions, Morbid Fears and Propensities 149 Suggestion in Theomania, Pubertal and Climacteric In- sanity, Disequilibration, Perversity, and Amnesia 168 Moral Disease 181 Kleptomania: Pseudomania, or Mania for Lying and Im- posture ........ 192 Erotomania, Infatuation, Moral Perversion . 201 The Drink Habit: Dipsomania, or Alcoholic Mania: Ab- sinthism: Tea and Coffee Inebriety . 210 Cigarette Addiction . 230 Drug Habits: Morphinomania, Heroin Habit, Cocaine Addiction . 236 iii : CONTENTS FAOI Pathological Diffidence: Morbid Self-consciousness . 244 Speech Defects: Stammering .... 251 Inspirational Work: the Value of Suggestion to the Player, the Singer, the Musician, and the Artist . 258 Suggestion as a Means of Perfecting the Pulpit Orator, the Teacher, and the Business Man 273 Suggestion in Trained Nursing . 282 Literary Inspiration . 286 -. Psychic Pedagogy . 292 Psychics in the Home . 298 APPENDIX Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, X-Ray Vision, and Other Transluminal Faculties . 313 Telepathy . 323 Spiritism and Psychology: Supernormal or Super- natural? . 327 For Additional Reading . 331 INDEX 335 PREFACE Seven years have elapsed since the author of this mono- graph, in response to requests from many friends of his work, published in a manual entitled Hypnotism in Mental and Moral Culture, the conclusions derived from a series of experiments with Suggestion as a means of dealing with moral obliquity and of developing and exalting mind power. Since the appearance of the initial volume, he has devoted his attention, exclusively and with little interruption, to a practical application of suggestional methods in the treat- ment of a most instructive miscellany of physical and mental conditions. The present book is thus no mere lattermath. It is a record of many thousand recent experiences, cover- ing seven years of investigation. An ever growing interest on the part of enlightened men and women in psychical therapeutics, supplemented by his own apprehension of the force of mind as a singularly potent curative instrumentality in the fields of medicine and psychiatry, and as a regenerating power in that of criminal anthropology, would seem to justify the author in placing the results of his personal experience, together with his conception of the psychology of suggestion, at the disposal of an intelligent public. This he essays to do, modestly, but with the courage of conviction, in the pages that follow. New Yoke, December 1, 1907. : CONTENTS PAOI Pathological Diffidence: Morbid Self-consciousness . 244 Speech Defects: Stammering 251 Inspirational Work: the Value of Suggestion to the Player, the Singer, the Musician, and the Artist 258 Suggestion as a Means of Perfecting the Pulpit Orator, the Teacher, and the Business Man . 273 Suggestion in Trained Nursing . 282 Literary Inspiration ... 286 Psychic Pedagogy . 292 Psychics in the Home . 298 APPENDIX Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, X-Ray Vision, and Other Transliminal Faculties . 313 Telepathy ... .323 Spiritism and Psychology: Supernormal or Super- natural? 327 For Additional Reading 331 INDEX . ... 335 PREFACE Seven years have elapsed since the author of this mono- graph, in response to requests from many friends of his work, published in a manual entitled Hypnotism in Mental and Moral Culture, the conclusions derived from a series of experiments with Suggestion as a means of dealing with moral obliquity and of developing and exalting mind power. Since the appearance of the initial volume, he has devoted his attention, exclusively and with little interruption, to a practical application of suggestional methods in the treat- ment of a most instructive miscellany of physical and mental conditions. The present book is thus no mere lattermath. It is a record of many thousand recent experiences, cover- ing seven years of investigation. An ever growing interest on the part of enlightened men and women in psychical therapeutics, supplemented by his own apprehension of the force of mind as a singularly potent curative instrumentality in the fields of medicine and psychiatry, and as a regenerating power in that of criminal anthropology, would seem to justify the author in placing the results of his personal experience, together with his conception of the psychology of suggestion, at the disposal of an intelligent public. This he essays to do, modestly, but with the courage of conviction, in the pages that follow. New York, December 1, 1907. HYPNOTIC THERAPEUTICS — HYPNOTIC THERAPEUTICS INTRODUCTION The most valuable achievement of modern psychology is that it has stopped the mouths of those who alleged transcendental experiences to be the hallucinations of deranged visionaries, and formulated the inductions that the mind has a reality of its own independent of the physical order; that a noumenal world is positively as existent as the phenomenal, and is one whence perpetually issue streams of life and light and inspiration to the soul of man, whether he be conscious of the fact or not.—W. L. Wilmshurst. The most important step forward that has occurred in psychology since I have been a student of that science is the discovery that, in certain subjects at least, there is not only the consciousness of the ordinary field with its usual centre and margin, but an addition thereto in the shape of a set of memories, thoughts, and feelings which are extra- marginal and outside the primary consciousness altogether, yet able to reveal their presence by unmistakable signs. I call this the most important step forward, because, unlike the other advances which psychology has made, this discovery has revealed to us an entirely unsuspected peculiarity in the constitution of human nature. William James, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy in Harvard University. Without the spirit of research, a man lags behind the progress of knowl- edge, and his mental equipment becomes second-hand.—David Starr Jordan, President of Leland Stanford Junior University. In this enlightened age, which no longer regards the hypnotic procedure either as the plaything of science, the brand of charlatanism, or a mere ignis jatuus of addle-pates, but, fully apprehending the power of spirit over all expres- HYPNOTIC THERAPEUTICS sion through a physical organism, unquestioningly accepts psychological therapeutics as a legitimate application of the healing art, a volume on Hypno-Physics need not be introduced with an apology. It has long been known to medical science that the func- tions of the physical body and the motions of the objective mind are under the control of a higher human spiritual principle—a control which, when relaxed or unexercised, may be evoked by what is known as suggestion, along lines that are regulative and healing in the one case, and in the other nature-changing, character-building, and prodigally creative of that incorporeal force which tends to fashion man's earth-life on more exalted principles. Absorbing interest centres in an instrumentality so powerful and variform. Leaders of science are becoming conscious of a super- physical world, which men have sought to apprehend since men began to think. Psychology, which in its practical phase contemplates the development of spiritual faculty, is recognized as a study paramount. The depth and power and deathlessness of the human personality—all objects of non-sensuous intuition (noumena)—have come to be clear- ly apprehended; materialism is scouted; and sanguine ob- servers, sensing the dawn of a new epoch, see implied in the promise of things a proximate application of Emerson's " philosophy : When the Master of the universe has points to carry in His government, He impresses His will in the structure of minds"—let us interpret it, in the evolution of the spiritual consciousness of man, the logical method of improving environment and unmaking heredity. No well-informed person can be ignorant of the fact that European physicians of high principle and liberal culture have for years successfully employed hypnotic suggestion in the treatment of disease. Liebeault, one of the noblest 2 INTRODUCTION expositors of psychotherapy, and Bernheim, his pupil, have made Nancy as famous as the grotto of Lourdes. Charcot's great name and that of Dr. Jules Voisin are forever associat- ed with the school of hypnotism at the Salpetriere. Drs. Farez and Berillon, with Pierre Janet, at Paris, Dr. Gross- mann and Albert Moll at Berlin, Professor Forel at Zurich, Professor Paul Dubois at Berne, Dr. van Velsen at Brussels, Dr. Von Schrenck-Notzing at Munich, Drs. van Renterghem and van Eeden