THE EVIL OF HYPNOTISM

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 18, 1906

THE EVIL OF HYPNOTISM.

A CLIPPING is kindly sent to us dated New York, February 3, giving a report of a student in criminology stating that he hoped to be able to win the consent of parents or guardians to use hypnotic suggestion in the treatment of children who are in the hands of the law in the jurisdiction of children's courts. This hypnotist declares, “Give me any child, I do not care who, under fourteen, and I will bring out the good side of his nature so that it will predominate over the bad and abolish his tendency to crime. I have done it in scores of cases, and almost invariably—yes, in 100 per cent. of cases—the treatment has been successful. Between the ages of five and fourteen years every child is susceptible to suggestion; after that some of them are less amenable to it.”

Now all this from a moral view-point is sheer nonsense. The hypnotist contends that unruly children taught by this method would grow up and become good and useful members of society instead of the prison or perhaps the gallows. All this is theory and, to some extent, demonstrated temporarily in practise; but the very worst evil—the worst of all evils that can come to a soul—is what we have repeatedly pointed out, the destruction of individuality of the person who submits to be hypnotized. The absolute subjection of the will of one creature to another places the will of that creature in that condition where he is susceptible to every evil influence of stronger wills. It is upon such minds as this that the devil will delight to play, and hypnotism is one of his ablest evangelistic propagandists in this world to-day. Given a race with wills controlled by others, creatures as themselves, and you have a class of minds upon which Satan can play his triumphant march to the lower regions at his will.

It is God's design that the will shall be absolutely free; even submitted to Him, He does not enchain it or deprive it of its freedom. The highest angel in heaven is bound to God only by free choice; but the demons of Satan are enslaved by a chain from which, once made, they can not break. We shall have more to say on this subject in the future.