The mystic will : a method of developing and strengthening the faculties of the mind, through the awakened will, by a simple, scientific process possible to any person of ordinary intelligene / by Charles G. Leland.

  • Leland, Charles Godfrey, 1824-1903.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The mystic will : a method of developing and strengthening the faculties of the mind, through the awakened will, by a simple, scientific process possible to any person of ordinary intelligene / by Charles G. Leland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    first causing a sleep, as is done in animal magnetism, during which the subject implicitly obeys the will of the operator, or performs whatever he suggests. Hence arose the term Suggestion, implying that what the pa- tient takes into his head to do, or does, must first be submitted to his own mental action. Very remarkable results are thus achieved. If the operator, having put a subject to sleep (which he can do in most cases, if he be clever, and the experiments are renewed often enough), will say or suggest to him that on the next day, or the one following, or, in fact, any determined time, he shall visit a certain friend, or dance a jig, or wear a given suit of clothes, or the like, he will, when the hypnotic sleep is over, have forgotten all about it. But when the hour indicated for his call or dance, or change of garment arrives, he will be haunted by such an irresistible feeling that he must do it; that in most cases it will infallibly be done. It is no exag- geration to say that this has been experimented on, tested and tried thousands of times with success and incredible ingenuity in all kinds of forms and devices. It would seem as if spontaneous attention went to sleep, but, like an alarm clock, awoke at the fixed hour, and then reflex action. Again—and this constitutes the chief subject of all I here discuss—we can suggest to ourselves so as to pro- duce the same results. It seems to be a curious law of Nature that if we put an image or idea into our minds with the preconceived determination or intent that it shall recur or return at a certain time, or in a certain way, after sleeping, it will do so. And here I beg the reader to recall what I said regarding the resolving to begin any task, that it can be greatly aided by even a brief pre-determination. In all cases it is a kind of self- suggestion. There would seem to be some magic virtue in sleep, as if it preserved and ripened our wishes, hence the injunction in the proverbs of all languages to sleep over a resolve, or subject—and that “night brings coun- sel.” It is not necessary that this sleep shall be hypnotic, or