HYPNOTISM A PERIL

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 31, 1906

"HYPNOTISM A PERIL."

So an article states in the Chatham (Ontario) Daily News of November 11. Of course our friends know that we have stated the same thing many times in this paper. Whatever that science be which enslaves mind to mind is evil. God designed that the human mind should be subject to no one but the Creator, and the Creator never enslaves it. The article above referred to is based on the experience of Dr. Mary E. Sellen, of London, who has had fifteen years' experience with hypnotism. She says it tends to lessen the individuality of the person hypnotized, and renders the subject more or less receptive to allied influences. Of course it does. It takes away all the individuality at last, all the independence and freedom of soul, which God gave. She thinks that the cases are very rare indeed where it truly helps individuals.

She refers to two young men, bright young fellows, who were taken as subjects for the purpose of investigating hypnotism, and were always hypnotized by the same person, the hypnotic state being induced two or three times in the course of the evening. After two or three months she noticed that their opinion was always that of the hypnotist. They seemed to have no opinion of their own, and usually appealed to him for support. They had really lost their own individuality and become mentally a part of the hypnotist. Six months later she left town. After three years she returned and learned that one of the young men had been placed in the insane asylum. The other, tho able to follow his usual occupation, was queer in his actions and not firm in his opinion. Previously they were perfectly normal.

Another case was that of a brilliant girl fifteen years old, whose father began to practise upon her, hypnotizing her two or three times a week. Up to this time she had stood at the head of her classes in school; but during the year she grew morose and stupid, at times refusing to eat, lost interest in her school work, and no longer cared to mingle with her former companions. Friends of the father warned him against the course he was pursuing, but he was still doing the same work when Dr. Sellen last heard from him.

She instances another case of another young man who was affected by a spiritualistic seance to kill some one, but no one in particular. It seemed as tho at times he must commit murder.

Another case was that of a man who wished to get rid of his wife. He hypnotized her, inducing her to believe that it would be a benefit to her to leave him. This was kept up at intervals of a few days. On each occasion he suggested that she should dislike him and make an effort to leave him at her own volition. This idea actually possessed her until she concluded that her husband was no longer necessary to her existence, and left him. She was not heard of for weeks. Suddenly she reappeared at the home of her sister, but refused to return to her husband. Apparently she was well. In two or three weeks, however, she began to exhibit signs of insanity, when she was taken to a sanitarium at the expense of her husband. He, becoming terrified at the results of his work, attempted to reverse the process that produced it. His wife recovered her sanity and returned to his home, but always seemed adverse to his presence.

Dr. Sellen continues that there are only two classes who can not be hypnotized, the insane and the idiots. Men of strong, positive mind can not be hypnotized involuntarily. She carries this thought still further, and there is a moral to it. She says it is not good in a mixed world to be receptive to everything that comes along, for the most part of what we call public opinion is thought-transference. The opinion formed by the average man is more the opinion of others than his own. All catch this from stronger thinkers in every department of life. The man who would form his own opinions must keep the key to his own brain; and this is true.

But how are we to escape the peril? That is the one great question that Dr. Sellen does not answer, and which many others do not answer who see the evil of hypnotism. The great, mighty will of the universe is God's will; the great thoughts of the universe are God's thoughts. None can hinder His will. No thoughts or opinions are as mighty as the living thoughts of God. There is a will set to oppose God's will, and a mind set to the perversion of God's thoughts. The master mind of evil is working through hypnotism, spiritualism, and a thousand other isms to enslave the minds of men and make them subject to the flesh instead of to the Creator. That means dooming them to destruction. The only way to escape this peril is to yield our will to God's will, and think the thoughts of God after Him. He who yields to the hypnotic influence of Satan has no power to break from Satan's spell, but he who yields to the freedom of God's will, will be kept by that will from yielding to evil as long as he yields himself in harmony with it; but at any time and at all times he may choose to depart if he will. The service of God is perfect and absolute freedom. Outside of that, apart from that, it is slavery in one form or another, in one degree or another, and the last degree is absolute submission of soul and body to the prince of darkness. Flee from hypnotism as from a plague. Keep the mind positive for God.