Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men | Page 8

affect the corners of
the eye; the electric film is perhaps divided by the approach over the
skin to another and damper tissue. But hyperaesthesia sometimes
spreads to the upper cheek.
Madame de Maceine saw Rubinstein's hallucinatory picture with the
corner of her eye.[22] A shock even as slight as a bit of thistledown
blown against the cornea might be ill--timed at a street-crossing. Mr. S.
of B---- was run over in the streets of London and killed. He had been
previously hypnotically affected, for he heard quantities of raps; these
were no friendly signs of spirits, but the affection of his early
hypnotists practising against him.
[Footnote 22: Vide a leading article, Daily News, July 23.]
A double image is seen, the eye being curiously affected, when for
instance the knobs of a chest of drawers appeared through the
apparition.
The vision is in the veil or mist of Ibn Khaldoon. Does not this cast a
light upon the conceptive and receptive powers of the eye. The
conceptive power is shown, as Binet and Féré remark, by the fact that
our imagination has done away with the end of a nerve which should be
seen at every instant of our lives. Light images may be given by feeble
hypnotists of which but the dark reaction can be detected only once in a
way. Compare Binet and Féré. They are perhaps noted when hypnotic
speech does not come off and is not heard. The small vision in one eye
only is separate from the landscape, and practically does not much
influence the mind of the person on whom it is inflicted, who continues
aware that it is a mere delusion, causing scarcely anything but trifling
interruption. This is perhaps only the case with the few, more numerous
however amongst the strong nations than amongst the weaker ones,
who are impervious to ordinary hypnotism, or could only be hypnotised
if extraordinarily fatigued.

The development of intelligence and perhaps endurance increases the
number of these. I imagine the students in Germany, whom Heidenhain
found so superior to our British students, were not only better educated,
as is usual, but were also fighting club men, hardened to pain, and very
superior to the bulk of their British contemporaries in courage and
endurance.
The word skin-deep hypnotism might well be applied to the cases just
mentioned. To show instances of its criminal use. Hypnotism has been
used, there is reason to believe, against an Austrian ambassador in
Petersburg, who found his papers in disorder, and saw a pale young
man in his study. Ordering the gates to be closed, he was told by the
porter that no one had entered, but that the ghost of the son of a former
ambassador--a lad the writer knew who died at the Embassy--haunted
the house. The ghost was therefore a hallucination inflicted on the
ambassador. Stepniak's death at a level-crossing on a railway, might be
brought about as Mr. Stewart's was in the street. Prince Alexander of
Battenburg's mental prostration might be brought about by the same
means when he was kidnapped.
At the time of the dispute between England and Russia, caused by
Penjdeh, a Greek naval officer showed a slightly indiscreet attachment
for England. Shortly afterwards he was removed for a time from the
post he held, as he was considered not quite sane; he had been at
Copenhagen, He was, however, restored to the navy, as it was
considered rather good for his health than otherwise that he should go
to sea. He and an English diplomatist at Copenhagen had been at Fiume
together on duty, and the former was undoubtedly tricked by hypnotists,
pretending to be acting for freemasonry, a trick played since on another
person, and before in England on a third. It has also been played in
Italy long ago. The voices would be taken for ventriloquists, whilst
scenes heard would be considered to be perceived in catalepsy by a
person in good health, and in full possession of his faculties, if not a
doctor. At Fiume is the Whitehead torpedo manufactory, but as the
hammering and other noises connected with it would prevent the chief
persons in charge of the factory from being got at, the hypnotists were
doubtless foiled there. Of course they may have got some information

indirectly, but nothing of high value.
The alarm produced at B---- House was brought about less by the
phenomena than by the pressure on the vagus nerve or heart. Whether
fatal syncope can be produced by modifying the heart beats, as Mr.
Vincent suggests it can, is of course a question for a doctor. He seems
to think such cases not uncommon. A gentleman attacked by hypnotists
twice suffered from syncope. He was previously suffering from
exhaustion brought on by rowing a party