THE MYSTERIOUS POWER by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1901

THE MYSTERIOUS POWER.

By T.

A PERIODICAL that comes to our desk occasionally has for the front cover of its last issue a full-page advertisement of the “mysterious power.” The “mysterious power” that is advertised is hypnotism.

The advertisement claims to represent a “world-famous hypnotic institute” that will teach you the science of hypnotism for so much, and it offers as inducements that its knowledge will give you success in “business,” “love making,” “healing,” etc. The only interpretation that can be placed upon an advertisement of this kind is that this school of hypnotists offers to put you in possession of a power that will enable you to win the affections of a lady who otherwise might repulse you, and to induce men to do business with you when they otherwise would not consider your propositions. Getting money under false pretenses is considered a crime, and men are promptly punished for it when caught at it. A man who meets you on the highway and orders you to throw up your hands while he takes your money and other valuables, is hunted out by the officers of the law and lodged in the penitentiary, when apprehended for his crime. Every one will say that this is no more than justice.

Now what is the difference between a man that meets you alone on the public road and overpowers you, and the one who meets you in the business office and thru some subtle influence gains a power over your mind and leads you to make a business transaction that you would not make if left to your natural self? Certainly the one who uses hypnotic power in making business transactions or in love-making or anything of the kind is far worse than the highwayman and far more to be dreaded. What right has any one to exercise any such power? The principal of it is evil and only evil.

Some will say, however, that hypnotism can be used as an anesthetic in surgery and otherwise as an agent in healing disease. But can a power of this kind that can be worked in such awfully evil ways by evil men be really a good thing? The evil that may be done with hypnotism makes the good that is claimed for it seem so small that it is not worth taking into account. Indeed, the very fact that there can be found some things that hypnotism can do that seem to be good, makes it all the more subtle and perniciously evil.

A power that an evil-minded man can be exercising upon you while you are wholly unconscious of what he is trying to do, is more dangerous than the revolver or the dagger. And the evil effects that are produced by it are worse than the dark deeds of the assassin and highwayman. Every day we read of some wife who has been induced to leave her husband by some one that has acquired a hypnotic influence over her, and thus a happy home is wrecked, and not only the husband but also all his friends and relatives, as well as the friends and relatives of his wife, are made to suffer a far keener pain than if she had been murdered outright. And not only do we read of the homes that are being broken up in this way by the hypnotist, but we read continually of the girls whose hopes and prospects for life have been wholly destroyed by the wily arts of hypnotism. Then how is it possible for any one to say that a power is good when it can be used, and is being used far more, to do evil than it is used in that which seems to be good?

Several times in this article we have spoken in regard to hypnotism “seeming” to do some good. We made use of the word “seem” advisedly; for hypnotism works harm and only harm. That which appears to be good in it is not good in reality at all. What the apostle James says in regard to the unruly tongue applies very forcibly here. He says: “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.” James 3:11, 12.

The individual who is not on his guard and who once yields himself to the influence of hypnotism makes himself the sporting toy of others. And the medical value that this “mysterious power” claims, makes it all the more dangerous. No one will seek to apologize for the highwayman and say that he ought to be advertised favorably because there is some good about him. But they will tell of hypnotic good, and thereby make it popular, and thus allow individuals to perpetrate their frauds and evil deeds of darkness by means of it.

It is high time that all good men and women everywhere did all they could to expose the evil of this craze that is sweeping the country in favor of hypnotism. And every one ought to be made fully aware of the fact that it is impossible for them to be put under the influence of it if they are on their guard and their trust is in Him who is the Author of our minds as well as of our bodies. T.