Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men by John William Harris
page 39 of 45 (86%)
page 39 of 45 (86%)
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thought transfer; (4) that such hypnotic operations could be traced
by due vigilance. No. 2 is based in part on the writer's experience. If the roads and neighbourhood had been patrolled, and exposure to possible hypnotists avoided, the phenomena would have ceased. The gentleman who wrote to the _Times_ made a point or two that were too petty to notice, and was probably disagreeable to Miss Freer, but detective work would have been useful. The gentleman's connection with a class of men, the mad doctors whom the late Sir William Gull so rightly despised, and whose observations have been so unscientific, may perhaps have unduly prejudiced Miss Freer against him. Yet people have listened to a Maudsley against an Esher, and gone to the other extreme. Perhaps Miss Freer will reconsider her opinion, that hypnotism is for doctors only to study. To wind up with a statement of what the writer believes to have been the object of the rascals about B----; ordinary thought-transfer probably precedes audible speech by hypnotic influence. The many people who hear their names called, and find that no death or other striking occurrence coincides in time with this, are perhaps being experimented on by hypnotists, who somehow or other, perhaps by community of feeling, have hit upon the precise moment of a state of subconscious expectation that makes transfer of an actual word easier. Of course people, friends or others, about the victim are an antidote to influences. The inevitable tendency of pious natures, sensitive people who are indispensable to society, is to self-blame. In misfortune they would always blame themselves as sinners who deserved punishment, probably from having paid previously an undeserved attention to the |
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