June 1, 2023 • 18 mins
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psychic abilities, paranormal phenomena, metaphysics, spirituality, intuition, extrasensory perception, divination, spiritualism, self-help, personal growth, meditation, clairvoyance, telepathy, astral projection, dream interpretation, chakras, energy healing, esotericism, cultural influence, human nature, self-awareness, spiritual practices, consciousness, psychic development, holistic living
psychic abilities, paranormal phenomena, metaphysics, spirituality, intuition, extrasensory perception, divination, spiritualism, self-help, personal growth, meditation, clairvoyance, telepathy, astral projection, dream interpretation, chakras, energy healing, esotericism, cultural influence, human nature, self-awareness, spiritual practices, consciousness, psychic development, holistic living
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Chapter three, Fear and How tobanish it. We are our own greatest
enemies. We create the majority ofthe ills from which we suffer. In
psychic investigation, more people have sufferedfrom fear than from any other depressing emotion.
But in nine cases out of ten, these fears have been perfectly groundless,
(00:22):
and the subject has had all hisfears and worry for nothing. He
has crossed his bridges before coming tothem. Were he to reflect for a
moment, he would find that theterrible things he feared very rarely came to
him, that the majority of theexperiences which he actually went through were of
such a nature that he needn't havefeared them at all. Fear wrecks faith
(00:46):
saves. Fear is not only uselessfor the reason that it prevents nothing,
but it is actually harmful from thisdouble standpoint. In the first place,
that helps to induce the condition weare fearing. As Job said, that
which I greatly feared has come uponme. He thought about and dreaded certain
(01:07):
conditions so much that he doubtless createdthem, while had he not done so,
they would never have come upon him. Professor William James gives us a
very good illustration of the way inwhich fear sometimes brings about its own fulfillment.
He says, Suppose that, forexample, I am climbing in the
Alps, and have the ill luckto work myself into a position from which
(01:30):
the only escape is by a terribleleap. Being without similar experience, I
have no evidence of my ability toperform it successfully. But hope and confidence
in myself make me sure that Ishall not miss my aim and nerve my
feet to execute what without those subjectiveemotions would perhaps have been impossible. But
(01:53):
suppose that, on the contrary,the emotions of fear and mistrust predominate.
Or suppose that I feel that itwould be sinful to act upon an assumption
unverified by previous experience, Why thenI shall hesitate so long that, at
last, exhausted in trembling and launchingmyself in a moment of despair, I
(02:15):
miss my foothold and roll into theabyss. In this case, and this
is one of an immense class,the part of wisdom clearly is to believe
what one desires, For the beliefis one of the indispensable preliminary conditions for
the realization of its object. Thereare then cases where faith creates its own
(02:38):
verification. Believe and you shall beright, for you shall save yourself.
Doubt and you shall again be right, for you shall perish. The only
difference is that to believe is greatlyto your advantage. The obvious lesson to
be drawn from this is that youshould not fear the unknown or unseen until
(03:00):
you have had just cause to doso. If you do, it will
predispose you to experience the very manifestationsyou most dread evil effects of fears upon
the body. In the second place, fear has a destructive and depressing effect
upon the body. It depletes thevitality, lowers the respiration, and doubly
(03:23):
incapacitates you from performing any serious rationalwork or carrying on any rational, common
sense train of thought. Fear,therefore, is certainly to be avoided,
for it helps nobody and harms everybody. But the reader may object, I
cannot control my fear so easily.It is a thing beyond my power.
(03:46):
I do not pursue fear. Itpursues and overtakes me to a certain extent.
This may be true. There aretwo kinds of fear, the unreasoning,
instinctive fear and theous reflective fear.The former is a relic of our
lowly ancestry, and is shared byall the higher animals. We cannot help
(04:09):
that. But such fear, asa rule is only momentary and is over
in a few instants. We havethe impulse to flee, et cetera,
which demands immediate expression. But thisinstinctive fear may be overcome by the mind.
Our reason tells us, upon secondthought that we have no cause to
fear, and we stop abashed andashamed of ourselves. This is not the
(04:32):
fear which we have to correct,is a rule, since it is bodily
rather than mental, and of shortduration. The kind of fear to fear,
the conscious mental fear, is thatwhich bothers us, in which we
should learn to cure. We aresufficiently advanced in civilization and in the understanding
(04:53):
of things spiritual to know that allis natural. Nothing is supernatural. Even
if a spirit returns to us,that is a natural event, though it
may not be a commoner ordinary event, and for this reason we call it
supernormal. But why should we beafraid of the spirit of a dearly beloved
friend, a relative, or eventhe spirit of a stranger coming to us
(05:15):
in this way, any more thanwe should be afraid of it when coming
to us in the flesh. Itis the same spirit, in one case
possessing a physical body, in theother case animating only an ethereal body of
what is there to be afraid?Spirits are but human beings, such as
ourselves. We are spirits here andnow, just as much as we ever
(05:40):
will be. Spirits are in facthuman beings who have passed through a certain
experience called death, And as ProfessorMino Savage says, they are just folks.
Why therefore should we be afraid ofthem the powers of darkness? We
(06:00):
must school the mind to reflection,and, by due exercise of the reason
and the will, not to beafraid of such happenings, but rather to
accept them and be thankful for them, and to treat them either as scientific
happenings or as spiritual events of greatsignificance and help. In either case there
is truly no cause to fear.It is true that, in the case
(06:23):
of many persons, darkness brings withit a peculiar sense of dread, which
is experienced by nearly all children,and which is to a certain extent shared
by many animals. A dog willgo to the door of a dark room,
peer in and slink away. Eveninsects often refuse to go into dark
places. The cat alone seems toenjoy the uncanny sensation which accompanies darkness.
(06:49):
And we know that cats are proverbialghost lovers, while dogs are the reverse.
It may be that there is moretruth in this belief than many realize.
We know that the Orthodox devil wasknown as the king of the powers
of darkness, and all evil thingsare associated with that state. On the
(07:11):
other hand, Jesus was said tobe the light of the world, and
light always accompanied spiritual manifestations, asit does to day. The expression made
use of by mister Hamlin Garland someyears ago in his book The Tyranny of
the Dark, may therefore have acertain foundation. There are perhaps principalities and
(07:32):
powers which can operate more freely andfully in the dark than in the light,
but only if they are allowed todo so by the fear and the
attitude and mind of the person experiencingthem. We remember that in Pilgrim's Progress,
the travelers were repeatedly warned that noharm could come to them so long
(07:53):
as they faced their spiritual enemies,and we must remember the words of the
greatest of all psychics. Resist thedevil, and he will flee from thee.
All we have to do, therefore, in order to prevent the domination
of any evil thought or power,is to fight it. Resist it,
meet it strongly and courageously, withcalmness and decision, and it will melt
(08:16):
before your attack, like dew beforethe rays of the morning sun. Evil
emotions. Mister Horace Fletcher, inhis little Book Unhappiness, says some very
good things regarding fear, which hedefines as an expression of fear thought.
Fear thought, according to this author, is the self imposed or self permitted
(08:41):
suggestion of inferiority. It is botha cause and an effect of selfishness.
It is the tap root of evil. The body is a mirror in which
all states of the soul are reflected. Perhaps the most extensive of all the
morbid mental conditions which reflect themselves sodisastrously on the human system, is the
(09:03):
state of fear. Doctor hack Took, in his book The Influence of the
Mind upon the Body, cites anumber of well authenticated instances of disease having
been produced by fear or fright,insanity, idiocy, paralysis of various muscles
and organs, profuse perspiration turning thehair gray in a short time, baldness,
(09:28):
nervous shock followed by fatal anemia,malformation of the embryo, and even
skin and other diseases apparently more removedthan these from the effects of the mind,
were traced to the effects of fearand other mental disturbances. He pointed
out also that epidemics such as cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, and other malignant
(09:50):
diseases obtain a footing in a communitylargely through the fear of the inhabitants,
and that hundreds and even thousands ofpersons fall victims to their own mental conditions.
How fear causes sickness? How doesfear operate upon the body to produce
sickness, largely by paralyzing the nervecenters, especially those of the vasomotor nerves,
(10:16):
thus producing not only muscular relaxation,but capillary congestions of all kinds.
It is an interesting fact that fearand all depressing emotions of a similar nature
serve to constrict or contract the body, while mirth, love, altruism,
and all the higher emotions serve toproduce both physical and mental relaxation, opening
(10:41):
up the mental and physiological doorways ofthe organism. The term frightened to death
is not a mere expression, butis founded upon valid physiological and psychological laws.
A Southern physician has reported an interestingcase. It was that of a
big, burly negro who supposed thathe had been fatally shot. Fear had
(11:05):
seized him with tremendous power. Heshook like an aspen leaf. He boarded
on the state of collapse, anddeath seemed imminent. Not finding any blood,
the examining physician ordered all his clothesremoved, and while he was being
undressed, a flattened bullet fell uponthe floor. The doctor exhibited the bullet
(11:26):
to the frightened patient, explaining thathe had had a miraculous escape, whereupon
his circulation was immediately restored, hiscountenance improved, his temperature became normal,
and the look of life returned tohis eyes, which had been fixed with
the gaze of death, while abroad grin crept over his face. The
(11:48):
negro got down from the operating tableand dressed, apologized for the fuss he
had caused, and walked home.Fear is contagious. Fear has the peculiar
power of being extremely contagious. Underthe proper conditions, Fear, manifested by
one person is instantly communicated to theentire company. They feel little chills run
(12:13):
up and down their spines, theirhair begins to stand on end, and
a cold perspiration breaks out here andthere over the body. This shows the
profound effect which this emotion has uponthe bodily functions, and also how easily
it may be acquired without reason.Fear has the power of almost stopping the
heart and paralyzing the entire nervous system. A peculiar fatigue is also caused by
(12:39):
fear, as has been proved bydelicate experiments. A natural and normal way
to overcome fear under such conditions isto open the mind to natural faiths and
normal trust. Let the psychic forcesbe allied with faith and health. Let
fear be finely and forever cast downand banished from the mental domain. This
(13:03):
may often be brought about by reasoning, though an effort of will is generally
necessary. Also, a determined oppositionaccompanied by trust, faith in wise protection,
faith in your own powers, andin the help of friendly spiritual monitors,
are of the greatest use and benefitin overcoming this great monster fear,
(13:26):
the fear of evil spirits. Manypeople are afraid of evil spirits, being
alarmed lest they should influence them againsttheir will and cause them to do certain
things which they would not normally careto do, even to the point of
obsessing them. There is a realdanger here to a certain extent, which
will be dwelt upon and explained inthe chapter on obsession. But let it
(13:48):
be pointed out that the only wayto prevent such things is to keep up
a normal, healthful, resistant attitudeof mind, and not to give way
to fear, which would be doingthe very thing to invite attack. Let
us recall once more the words ofJob in this connection. So long as
the sea walls or dikes of Hollandare sound and unimpaired, the ocean is
(14:11):
kept within its proper limits and cannotbreak through and flood the land, as
it sometimes does when these walls aredestroyed. As we know, a tiny
little hole through which the merest trickleof water can pass will, unless repaired,
soon become a wide crevice and thena roaring torrent. The most important
(14:31):
thing to do is to check thisin its inception, for it is easy
to prevent the ingress of the waterif taken in time. Better still,
it would be far easier to keepthe sea walls in such repair that accidents
of this kind would be impossible,for prevention is better than cure. Applying
(14:52):
this to the case before us,we can see that the very first symptoms
of fear must be checked as soonas they arise, for if they are
allowed to continue, they will spreadand work havoc in the mind, just
as the waters would work havoc uponthe land. The thing to do is
to keep the mind so guarded,strengthened, and repaired by healthful exercise,
(15:13):
intelligent cultivation, and control in theexercise of the will, that fear can
never batter down its ramparts, andeven should it attack the citadel of the
mind, it would be quite unableto find a lodgment within this impregnable fortress.
The fear of being hypnotized what hasbeen said applies also to the action
(15:37):
of hypnotic influences, which many personsfear greatly. They are afraid of being
hypnotized by some distant operator, andthis fear sometimes becomes with them a veritable
phobia, so that we occasionally findinsane asylum patients who have become completely unhinged
on account of this sphere. Wecan see from this how useless, how
(16:00):
exceedingly harmful fear of this character is. And it is more than useless,
it is ridiculous. No one canbe hypnotized against his own will by a
distant operator in this way, asmany suppose if they feel influences of this
character, these feelings are the resultof their own disordered imagination and are not
(16:23):
due to any outside influence. Whatever. An individual really hypnotizes himself the operator
directing his own mental powers into certainchannels, so that this is brought about.
If he resists the suggestion, aseveryone can do, at first,
it is impossible for any one tohypnotize him. Why such fears are groundless.
(16:48):
The only way in which a personcan be hypnotized from a distance is
the following. If an operator hashypnotized his subject a great many times and
repeatedly suggested to him when in thehypnotic trance, that he is becoming more
suggestible that he can easily go offto sleep, that he has only to
think of the operator in order tofall asleep. Et cetera. He may
(17:11):
succeed in making the subject so sensitiveafter a certain length of time, that
this condition is really brought about.The subject tends to fall into trance on
the slightest provocation. But such casesare abnormal and are rarely met with.
And as I have just said,this condition cannot be brought about until a
(17:33):
subject has been hypnotized several times inthese suggestions given to him. These are
well known facts which any experienced hypnotistwill sustain. This being so, it
may readily be seen how absurd itis to fear telepathic suggestion from a distant
operator whom perhaps you have never seen. It is entirely illusory, and you
(17:56):
need, in reality, have nofear whatever in this connection. The will,
if exercised, is supreme. Endof Chapter three
Chapter three, Fear and How tobanish it. We are our own greatest
enemies. We create the majority ofthe ills from which we suffer. In
psychic investigation, more people have sufferedfrom fear than from any other depressing emotion.
But in nine cases out of ten, these fears have been perfectly groundless,
(00:22):
and the subject has had all hisfears and worry for nothing. He
has crossed his bridges before coming tothem. Were he to reflect for a
moment, he would find that theterrible things he feared very rarely came to
him, that the majority of theexperiences which he actually went through were of
such a nature that he needn't havefeared them at all. Fear wrecks faith
(00:46):
saves. Fear is not only uselessfor the reason that it prevents nothing,
but it is actually harmful from thisdouble standpoint. In the first place,
that helps to induce the condition weare fearing. As Job said, that
which I greatly feared has come uponme. He thought about and dreaded certain
(01:07):
conditions so much that he doubtless createdthem, while had he not done so,
they would never have come upon him. Professor William James gives us a
very good illustration of the way inwhich fear sometimes brings about its own fulfillment.
He says, Suppose that, forexample, I am climbing in the
Alps, and have the ill luckto work myself into a position from which
(01:30):
the only escape is by a terribleleap. Being without similar experience, I
have no evidence of my ability toperform it successfully. But hope and confidence
in myself make me sure that Ishall not miss my aim and nerve my
feet to execute what without those subjectiveemotions would perhaps have been impossible. But
(01:53):
suppose that, on the contrary,the emotions of fear and mistrust predominate.
Or suppose that I feel that itwould be sinful to act upon an assumption
unverified by previous experience, Why thenI shall hesitate so long that, at
last, exhausted in trembling and launchingmyself in a moment of despair, I
(02:15):
miss my foothold and roll into theabyss. In this case, and this
is one of an immense class,the part of wisdom clearly is to believe
what one desires, For the beliefis one of the indispensable preliminary conditions for
the realization of its object. Thereare then cases where faith creates its own
(02:38):
verification. Believe and you shall beright, for you shall save yourself.
Doubt and you shall again be right, for you shall perish. The only
difference is that to believe is greatlyto your advantage. The obvious lesson to
be drawn from this is that youshould not fear the unknown or unseen until
(03:00):
you have had just cause to doso. If you do, it will
predispose you to experience the very manifestationsyou most dread evil effects of fears upon
the body. In the second place, fear has a destructive and depressing effect
upon the body. It depletes thevitality, lowers the respiration, and doubly
(03:23):
incapacitates you from performing any serious rationalwork or carrying on any rational, common
sense train of thought. Fear,therefore, is certainly to be avoided,
for it helps nobody and harms everybody. But the reader may object, I
cannot control my fear so easily.It is a thing beyond my power.
(03:46):
I do not pursue fear. Itpursues and overtakes me to a certain extent.
This may be true. There aretwo kinds of fear, the unreasoning,
instinctive fear and theous reflective fear.The former is a relic of our
lowly ancestry, and is shared byall the higher animals. We cannot help
(04:09):
that. But such fear, asa rule is only momentary and is over
in a few instants. We havethe impulse to flee, et cetera,
which demands immediate expression. But thisinstinctive fear may be overcome by the mind.
Our reason tells us, upon secondthought that we have no cause to
fear, and we stop abashed andashamed of ourselves. This is not the
(04:32):
fear which we have to correct,is a rule, since it is bodily
rather than mental, and of shortduration. The kind of fear to fear,
the conscious mental fear, is thatwhich bothers us, in which we
should learn to cure. We aresufficiently advanced in civilization and in the understanding
(04:53):
of things spiritual to know that allis natural. Nothing is supernatural. Even
if a spirit returns to us,that is a natural event, though it
may not be a commoner ordinary event, and for this reason we call it
supernormal. But why should we beafraid of the spirit of a dearly beloved
friend, a relative, or eventhe spirit of a stranger coming to us
(05:15):
in this way, any more thanwe should be afraid of it when coming
to us in the flesh. Itis the same spirit, in one case
possessing a physical body, in theother case animating only an ethereal body of
what is there to be afraid?Spirits are but human beings, such as
ourselves. We are spirits here andnow, just as much as we ever
(05:40):
will be. Spirits are in facthuman beings who have passed through a certain
experience called death, And as ProfessorMino Savage says, they are just folks.
Why therefore should we be afraid ofthem the powers of darkness? We
(06:00):
must school the mind to reflection,and, by due exercise of the reason
and the will, not to beafraid of such happenings, but rather to
accept them and be thankful for them, and to treat them either as scientific
happenings or as spiritual events of greatsignificance and help. In either case there
is truly no cause to fear.It is true that, in the case
(06:23):
of many persons, darkness brings withit a peculiar sense of dread, which
is experienced by nearly all children,and which is to a certain extent shared
by many animals. A dog willgo to the door of a dark room,
peer in and slink away. Eveninsects often refuse to go into dark
places. The cat alone seems toenjoy the uncanny sensation which accompanies darkness.
(06:49):
And we know that cats are proverbialghost lovers, while dogs are the reverse.
It may be that there is moretruth in this belief than many realize.
We know that the Orthodox devil wasknown as the king of the powers
of darkness, and all evil thingsare associated with that state. On the
(07:11):
other hand, Jesus was said tobe the light of the world, and
light always accompanied spiritual manifestations, asit does to day. The expression made
use of by mister Hamlin Garland someyears ago in his book The Tyranny of
the Dark, may therefore have acertain foundation. There are perhaps principalities and
(07:32):
powers which can operate more freely andfully in the dark than in the light,
but only if they are allowed todo so by the fear and the
attitude and mind of the person experiencingthem. We remember that in Pilgrim's Progress,
the travelers were repeatedly warned that noharm could come to them so long
(07:53):
as they faced their spiritual enemies,and we must remember the words of the
greatest of all psychics. Resist thedevil, and he will flee from thee.
All we have to do, therefore, in order to prevent the domination
of any evil thought or power,is to fight it. Resist it,
meet it strongly and courageously, withcalmness and decision, and it will melt
(08:16):
before your attack, like dew beforethe rays of the morning sun. Evil
emotions. Mister Horace Fletcher, inhis little Book Unhappiness, says some very
good things regarding fear, which hedefines as an expression of fear thought.
Fear thought, according to this author, is the self imposed or self permitted
(08:41):
suggestion of inferiority. It is botha cause and an effect of selfishness.
It is the tap root of evil. The body is a mirror in which
all states of the soul are reflected. Perhaps the most extensive of all the
morbid mental conditions which reflect themselves sodisastrously on the human system, is the
(09:03):
state of fear. Doctor hack Took, in his book The Influence of the
Mind upon the Body, cites anumber of well authenticated instances of disease having
been produced by fear or fright,insanity, idiocy, paralysis of various muscles
and organs, profuse perspiration turning thehair gray in a short time, baldness,
(09:28):
nervous shock followed by fatal anemia,malformation of the embryo, and even
skin and other diseases apparently more removedthan these from the effects of the mind,
were traced to the effects of fearand other mental disturbances. He pointed
out also that epidemics such as cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, and other malignant
(09:50):
diseases obtain a footing in a communitylargely through the fear of the inhabitants,
and that hundreds and even thousands ofpersons fall victims to their own mental conditions.
How fear causes sickness? How doesfear operate upon the body to produce
sickness, largely by paralyzing the nervecenters, especially those of the vasomotor nerves,
(10:16):
thus producing not only muscular relaxation,but capillary congestions of all kinds.
It is an interesting fact that fearand all depressing emotions of a similar nature
serve to constrict or contract the body, while mirth, love, altruism,
and all the higher emotions serve toproduce both physical and mental relaxation, opening
(10:41):
up the mental and physiological doorways ofthe organism. The term frightened to death
is not a mere expression, butis founded upon valid physiological and psychological laws.
A Southern physician has reported an interestingcase. It was that of a
big, burly negro who supposed thathe had been fatally shot. Fear had
(11:05):
seized him with tremendous power. Heshook like an aspen leaf. He boarded
on the state of collapse, anddeath seemed imminent. Not finding any blood,
the examining physician ordered all his clothesremoved, and while he was being
undressed, a flattened bullet fell uponthe floor. The doctor exhibited the bullet
(11:26):
to the frightened patient, explaining thathe had had a miraculous escape, whereupon
his circulation was immediately restored, hiscountenance improved, his temperature became normal,
and the look of life returned tohis eyes, which had been fixed with
the gaze of death, while abroad grin crept over his face. The
(11:48):
negro got down from the operating tableand dressed, apologized for the fuss he
had caused, and walked home.Fear is contagious. Fear has the peculiar
power of being extremely contagious. Underthe proper conditions, Fear, manifested by
one person is instantly communicated to theentire company. They feel little chills run
(12:13):
up and down their spines, theirhair begins to stand on end, and
a cold perspiration breaks out here andthere over the body. This shows the
profound effect which this emotion has uponthe bodily functions, and also how easily
it may be acquired without reason.Fear has the power of almost stopping the
heart and paralyzing the entire nervous system. A peculiar fatigue is also caused by
(12:39):
fear, as has been proved bydelicate experiments. A natural and normal way
to overcome fear under such conditions isto open the mind to natural faiths and
normal trust. Let the psychic forcesbe allied with faith and health. Let
fear be finely and forever cast downand banished from the mental domain. This
(13:03):
may often be brought about by reasoning, though an effort of will is generally
necessary. Also, a determined oppositionaccompanied by trust, faith in wise protection,
faith in your own powers, andin the help of friendly spiritual monitors,
are of the greatest use and benefitin overcoming this great monster fear,
(13:26):
the fear of evil spirits. Manypeople are afraid of evil spirits, being
alarmed lest they should influence them againsttheir will and cause them to do certain
things which they would not normally careto do, even to the point of
obsessing them. There is a realdanger here to a certain extent, which
will be dwelt upon and explained inthe chapter on obsession. But let it
(13:48):
be pointed out that the only wayto prevent such things is to keep up
a normal, healthful, resistant attitudeof mind, and not to give way
to fear, which would be doingthe very thing to invite attack. Let
us recall once more the words ofJob in this connection. So long as
the sea walls or dikes of Hollandare sound and unimpaired, the ocean is
(14:11):
kept within its proper limits and cannotbreak through and flood the land, as
it sometimes does when these walls aredestroyed. As we know, a tiny
little hole through which the merest trickleof water can pass will, unless repaired,
soon become a wide crevice and thena roaring torrent. The most important
(14:31):
thing to do is to check thisin its inception, for it is easy
to prevent the ingress of the waterif taken in time. Better still,
it would be far easier to keepthe sea walls in such repair that accidents
of this kind would be impossible,for prevention is better than cure. Applying
(14:52):
this to the case before us,we can see that the very first symptoms
of fear must be checked as soonas they arise, for if they are
allowed to continue, they will spreadand work havoc in the mind, just
as the waters would work havoc uponthe land. The thing to do is
to keep the mind so guarded,strengthened, and repaired by healthful exercise,
(15:13):
intelligent cultivation, and control in theexercise of the will, that fear can
never batter down its ramparts, andeven should it attack the citadel of the
mind, it would be quite unableto find a lodgment within this impregnable fortress.
The fear of being hypnotized what hasbeen said applies also to the action
(15:37):
of hypnotic influences, which many personsfear greatly. They are afraid of being
hypnotized by some distant operator, andthis fear sometimes becomes with them a veritable
phobia, so that we occasionally findinsane asylum patients who have become completely unhinged
on account of this sphere. Wecan see from this how useless, how
(16:00):
exceedingly harmful fear of this character is. And it is more than useless,
it is ridiculous. No one canbe hypnotized against his own will by a
distant operator in this way, asmany suppose if they feel influences of this
character, these feelings are the resultof their own disordered imagination and are not
(16:23):
due to any outside influence. Whatever. An individual really hypnotizes himself the operator
directing his own mental powers into certainchannels, so that this is brought about.
If he resists the suggestion, aseveryone can do, at first,
it is impossible for any one tohypnotize him. Why such fears are groundless.
(16:48):
The only way in which a personcan be hypnotized from a distance is
the following. If an operator hashypnotized his subject a great many times and
repeatedly suggested to him when in thehypnotic trance, that he is becoming more
suggestible that he can easily go offto sleep, that he has only to
think of the operator in order tofall asleep. Et cetera. He may
(17:11):
succeed in making the subject so sensitiveafter a certain length of time, that
this condition is really brought about.The subject tends to fall into trance on
the slightest provocation. But such casesare abnormal and are rarely met with.
And as I have just said,this condition cannot be brought about until a
(17:33):
subject has been hypnotized several times inthese suggestions given to him. These are
well known facts which any experienced hypnotistwill sustain. This being so, it
may readily be seen how absurd itis to fear telepathic suggestion from a distant
operator whom perhaps you have never seen. It is entirely illusory, and you
(17:56):
need, in reality, have nofear whatever in this connection. The will,
if exercised, is supreme. Endof Chapter three
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