DANGER IN HYPNOTISM

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Sep 20, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 38.

DANGER IN HYPNOTISM.

From day to day we have new revelations of the dangers lurking in hypnotism; but recently there occurred in the city of New York a case which has emphasized the danger of alliance with that Satanic invention. A mother and daughter were found in a state of unconsciousness, and were removed to a hospital. All efforts to arouse them were futile, and they were kept alive for fifteen days by liquid food administered through a tube.

As the physicians were unable to explain the phenomenon, a specialist in hypnotism was called. After investigation, he stated that the two women had hypnotized each other. Both being hypnotized, there was no one to break the spell, and even this specialist found himself unable to accomplish their release from the deadening power. He further stated that he himself had been hypnotized while hypnotizing another, and had only been awakened by the arousing of the other party.

It is only what might justly be expected by the one who yields up his God-given powers to the direction of another power. When we surrender the citadel of the will, we can have nothing to say about who or what shall enter and inhabit there. When the mind and will-power are surrendered, all is surrendered. The evil one can enter and do as he pleases. If he choose to vacate at the command of the hypnotizer, it is but to leave a mind weakened and shattered, and more susceptible than ever to Satanic influences. If every person who is approached by a hypnotist could be made to realize that they are about to throw open the innermost door of the soul to the unopposed entrance of the prince of the powers of darkness, there would be much less hypnotism in the world than there is to-day. But that is what takes place, and that gives Satan a hold upon that individual which he has never had before. There is danger in hypnotism. s.