CHAPTER VI.
Simulation.--Deception in Hypnotism Very
Common.--Examples of Neuropathic Deceit.--Detecting
Simulation.--Professional Subjects.--How Dr. Luys of the Charity Hospital
at Paris Was Deceived.--Impossibility of Detecting Deception in All
Cases.--Confessions of a Professional Hypnotic Subject.
It has already been remarked that hypnotism and
hysteria are conditions very nearly allied, and that hysterical
neuropathic individuals make the best hypnotic subjects. Now persons of
this character are in most cases morally as well as physically degenerate,
and it is a curious fact that deception seems to be an inherent element in
nearly all such characters. Expert doctors have been thoroughly deceived.
And again, persons who have been trying to expose frauds have also been
deceived by the positive statements of such persons that they were
deceiving the doctors when they were not. A diseased vanity seems to
operate in such cases and the subjects take any method which promises for
the time being to bring them into prominence. Merely to attract attention
is a mania with some people.
There is also something about the study of hypnotism,
and similar subjects in which delusions constitute half the existence,
that seems to destroy the faculty for distinguishing between truth and
delusion. Undoubtedly we must look on such manifestations as a species of
insanity.
There is also a point at which the unconscious
deceiver, for the sake of gain, passes into the conscious deceiver. At the
close of this chapter we will give some cases illustrating the fact that
persons may learn by practice to do seemingly impossible things, such as
holding themselves perfectly rigid (as in the cataleptic state) while
their head rests on one chair and their heels on another, and a heavy
person sits upon them.
First, let us cite a few cases of what may be called
neuropathic deceit--a kind of insanity which shows itself in deceiving.
The newspapers record similar cases from time to time. The first two of
the following are quoted by Dr. Courmelles from the French courts, etc.
1. The Comtesse de W-- accused her maid of having
attempted to poison her. The case was a celebrated one, and the court-room
was thronged with women who sympathized with the supposed victim. The maid
was condemned to death; but a second trial was granted, at which it was
conclusively proved that the Comtesse had herself bound herself on her
bed, and had herself poured out the poison which was found still
blackening her breast and lips.
2. In 1886 a man called Ulysse broke into the shop of a
second-hand dealer, facing his own house in Paris, and there began
deliberately to take away the goods, just as if he were removing his own
furniture. This he did without hurrying himself in any way, and
transported the property to his own premises. Being caught in the very act
of the theft, he seemed at first to be flurried and bewildered. When
arrested and taken to the lock-up, he seemed to be in a state of
abstraction; when spoken to he made no reply, seemed ready to fall asleep,
and when brought before the examining magistrate actually fell asleep. Dr.
Garnier, the medical man attached to the infirmary of the police
establishment, had no doubt of his irresponsibility and he was released
from custody.
3. While engaged as police-court reporter for a Boston
newspaper, the present writer saw a number of strange cases of the same
kind. One was that of a quiet, refined, well educated lady, who was
brought in for shop-lifting. Though her husband was well to do, and she
did not sell or even use the things she took, she had made a regular
business of stealing whenever she could. She had begun it about seven
months before by taking a lace handkerchief, which she slipped under her
shawl: Soon after she accomplished another theft. "I felt so encouraged,"
she said, "that I got a large bag, which I fastened under my dress, and
into this I slipped whatever I could take when the clerks were not
looking. I do not know what made me do it. My success seemed to lead me
on."
Other cases of kleptomania could easily be cited.
"Simulation," say Messieurs Binet and Fere, "which is
already a stumbling block in the study of hysterical cases, becomes far
more formidable in such studies as we are now occupied with. It is only
when he has to deal with physical phenomena that the operator feels
himself on firm ground."
Yet even here we can by no means feel certain.
Physicians have invented various ingenious pieces of apparatus for testing
the circulation and other physiological conditions; but even these things
are not sure tests. The writer knows of the case of a man who has such
control over his heart and lungs that he can actually throw himself into a
profound sleep in which the breathing is so absolutely stopped for an hour
that a mirror is not moistened in the least by the breath, nor can the
pulses be felt. To all intents and purposes the man appears to be dead;
but in due time he comes to life again, apparently no whit the worse for
his experiment.
If an ordinary person were asked to hold out his arms
at full length for five minutes he would soon become exhausted, his
breathing would quicken, his pulse-rate increase. It might be supposed
that if these conditions did not follow the subject was in a hypnotic
trance; but it is well known that persons may easily train themselves to
hold out the arms for any length of time without increasing the
respiration by one breath or raising the pulse rate at all. We all
remember Montaigne's famous illustration in which he said that if a woman
began by carrying a calf about every day she would still be able to carry
it when it became an ox.
In the Paris hospitals, where the greater number of
regular scientific experiments have been conducted, it is found that
"trained subjects" are required for all of the more difficult
demonstrations. That some of these famous scientists have been deceived,
there is no doubt. They know it themselves. A case which will serve as an
illustration is that of Dr. Luys, some of whose operations were "exposed"
by Dr. Ernest Hart, an English student of hypnotism of a skeptical turn of
mind. One of Dr. Luys's pupils in a book he has published makes the
following statement, which helps to explain the circumstances which we
will give a little later. Says he:
"We know that many hospital patients who are subjected
to the higher or greater treatment of hypnotism are of very doubtful
reputations; we know also the effects of a temperament which in them is
peculiarly addicted to simulation, and which is exaggerated by the
vicinity of maladies similar to their own. To judge of this, it is
necessary to have seen them encourage each other in simulation, rehearsing
among themselves, or even before the medical students of the
establishment, the experiments to which they have been subjected; and
going through their different contortions and attitudes to exercise
themselves in them. And then, again, in the present day, has not the
designation of an 'hypnotical subject' become almost a social position? To
be fed, to be paid, admired, exhibited in public, run after, and all the
rest of it--all this is enough to make the most impartial looker-on
skeptical. But is it enough to enable us to produce an a priori negation?
Certainly not; but it is sufficient to justify legitimate doubt. And when
we come to moral phenomena, where we have to put faith in the subject, the
difficulty becomes still greater. Supposing suggestion and hallucination
to be granted, can they be demonstrated? Can we by plunging the subject in
hypnotical sleep, feel sure of what he may affirm? That is impossible, for
simulation and somnambulism are not reciprocally exclusive terms, and
Monsieur Pitres has established the fact that a subject who sleeps may
still simulate." Messieurs Binet and Fere in their book speak of "the
honest Hublier, whom his somnambulist Emelie cheated for four years
consecutively."
Let us now quote Mr. Hart's investigations.
Dr. Luys is an often quoted authority on hypnotism in
Paris, and is at the head of what is called the Charity Hospital school of
hypnotical experiments. In 1892 he announced some startling results, in
which some people still have faith (more or less). What he was supposed to
accomplish was stated thus in the London Pall Mall Gazette, issue of
December 2: "Dr. Luys then showed us how a similar artificial state of
suffering could be created without suggestion--in fact, by the mere
proximity of certain substances. A pinch of coal dust, for example, corked
and sealed in a small phial and placed by the side of the neck of a
hypnotized person, produces symptoms of suffocation by smoke; a tube of
distilled water, similarly placed, provokes signs of incipient
hydrophobia; while another very simple concoction put in contact with the
flesh brings on symptoms of suffocation by drowning."
Signs of drunkenness were said to be caused by a small
corked bottle of brandy, and the nature of a cat by a corked bottle of
valerian. Patients also saw beautiful blue flames about the north pole of
a magnet and distasteful red flames about the south pole; while by means
of a magnet it was said that the symptoms of illness of a sick patient
might be transferred to a well person also in the hypnotic state, but of
course on awaking the well person at once threw off sickness that had been
transferred, but the sick person was permanently relieved. These
experiments are cited in some recent books on hypnotism, apparently with
faith. The following counter experiments will therefore be read with
interest.
Dr. Hart gives a full account of his investigations in
the Nineteenth Century. Dr. Luys gave Dr. Hart some demonstrations, which
the latter describes as follows: "A tube containing ten drachms of cognac
were placed at a certain point on the subject's neck, which Dr. Luys said
was the seat of the great nerve plexuses. The effect on Marguerite was
very rapid and marked; she began to move her lips and to swallow; the
expression of her face changed, and she asked, 'What have you been giving
me to drink? I am quite giddy.' At first she had a stupid and troubled
look; then she began to get gay. 'I am ashamed of myself,' she said; 'I
feel quite tipsy,' and after passing through some of the phases of lively
inebriety she began to fall from the chair, and was with difficulty
prevented from sprawling on the floor. She was uncomfortable, and seemed
on the point of vomiting, but this was stopped, and she was calmed."
Another patient gave all the signs of imagining himself
transformed into a cat when a small corked bottle of valerian was placed
on his neck.
In the presence of a number of distinguished doctors in
Paris, Dr. Hart tried a series of experiments in which by his conversation
he gave the patient no clue to exactly what drug he was using, in order
that if the patient was simulating he would not know what to simulate.
Marguerite was the subject of several of these experiments, one of which
is described as follows:
"I took a tube which was supposed to contain alcohol,
but which did contain cherry laurel water. Marguerite immediately began,
to use the words of M. Sajous's note, to smile agreeably and then to
laugh; she became gay. 'It makes me laugh,' she said, and then, 'I'm not
tipsy, I want to sing,' and so on through the whole performance of a not
ungraceful giserie, which we stopped at that stage, for I was loth to have
the degrading performance of drunkenness carried to the extreme I had seen
her go through at the Charite. I now applied a tube of alcohol, asking the
assistant, however, to give me valerian, which no doubt this profoundly
hypnotized subject perfectly well heard, for she immediately went through
the whole cat performance. She spat, she scratched, she mewed, she leapt
about on all fours, and she was as thoroughly cat-like as had been Dr.
Luys's subjects."
Similar experiments as to the effect of magnets and
electric currents were tried. A note taken by Dr. Sajous runs thus: "She
found the north pole, notwithstanding there was no current, very pretty;
she was as if she were fascinated by it; she caressed the blue flames, and
showed every sign of delight. Then came the phenomena of attraction. She
followed the magnet with delight across the room, as though fascinated by
it; the bar was turned so as to present the other end or what would be
called, in the language of La Charite, the south pole. Then she fell into
an attitude, of repulsion and horror, with clenched fists, and as it
approached her she fell backward into the arms of M. Cremiere, and was
carried, still showing all the signs of terror and repulsion, back to her
chair. The bar was again turned until what should have been the north pole
was presented to her. She again resumed the same attitudes of attraction,
and tears bedewed her cheeks. 'Ah,' she said, 'it is blue, the flame
mounts,' and she rose from her seat, following the magnet around the room.
Similar but false phenomena were obtained in succession with all the
different forms of magnet and non-magnet; Marguerite was never once right,
but throughout her acting was perfect; she was utterly unable at any time
really to distinguish between a plain bar of iron, demagnetized magnet or
a horseshoe magnet carrying a full current and one from which the current
was wholly cut off."
Five different patients were tested in the same way,
through a long series of experiments, with the same results, a practical
proof that Dr. Luys had been totally deceived and his new and wonderful
discoveries amounted to nothing.
There is, however, another possible explanation,
namely, telepathy, in a real hypnotic condition. Even if Dr. Luys's
experiments were genuine this would be the rational explanation. They were
a case of suggestion of some sort, without doubt.
Nearly every book on hypnotism gives various rules for
detecting simulation of the hypnotic state. One of the commonest tests is
that of anaesthesia. A pin or pen-knife is stuck into a subject to see if
he is insensible to pain; but as we shall see in a latter chapter, this
insensibility also may be simulated, for by long training some persons
learn to control their facial expressions perfectly. We have already seen
that the pulse and respiration tests are not sufficient. Hypnotic persons
often flush slightly in the face; but it is true that there are persons
who can flush on any part of the body at will.
Mr. Ernest Hart had an article in the Century Magazine
on "The Eternal Gullible," in which he gives the confessions of a
professional hypnotic subject. This person, whom he calls L., he brought
to his house, where some experiments were tried in the presence of a
number of doctors, whose names are quoted. The quotation of a paragraph or
two from Mr. Hart's article will be of interest. Says he:
"The 'catalepsy business' had more artistic merit. So
rigid did L. make his muscles that he could be lifted in one piece like an
Egyptian mummy. He lay with his head on the back of one chair, and his
heels on another, and allowed a fairly heavy man to sit on his stomach; it
seemed to me, however, that he was here within a 'straw' or two of the
limit of his endurance. The 'blister trick,' spoken of by Truth as having
deceived some medical men, was done by rapidly biting and sucking the skin
of the wrist. L. did manage with some difficulty to raise a slight
swelling, but the marks of the teeth were plainly visible." (Possibly L.
had made his skin so tough by repeated biting that he could no longer
raise the blister!)
"One point in L.'s exhibition which was undoubtedly
genuine was his remarkable and stoical endurance of pain. He stood before
us smiling and open-eyed while he ran long needles into the fleshy part of
his arms and legs without flinching, and he allowed one of the gentlemen
present to pinch his skin in different parts with strong crenated pincers
in a manner which bruised it, and which to most people would have caused
intense pain. L. allowed no sign of suffering or discomfort to appear; he
did not set his teeth or wince; his pulse was not quickened, and the pupil
of his eye did not dilate as physiologists tell us it does when pain
passes a certain limit. It may be said that this merely shows that in L.
the limit of endurance was beyond the normal standard; or, in other words,
that his sensitiveness was less than that of the average man. At any rate
his performance in this respect was so remarkable that some of the
gentlemen present were fain to explain it by supposed 'post- hypnotic
suggestion,' the theory apparently being that L. and his comrades
hypnotized one another, and thus made themselves insensible to pain.
"As surgeons have reason to know, persons vary widely
in their sensitiveness to pain. I have seen a man chat quietly with
bystanders while his carotid artery was being tied without the use of
chloroform. During the Russo-Turkish war wounded Turks often astonished
English doctors by undergoing the most formidable amputations with no
other anaesthetic than a cigarette. Hysterical women will inflict very
severe pain on themselves--merely for wantonness or in order to excite
sympathy. The fakirs who allow themselves to be hung up by hooks beneath
their shoulder-blades seem to think little of it and, as a matter of fact,
I believe are not much inconvenienced by the process."
The fact is, the amateur can always be deceived, and
there are no special tests that can be relied on. If a person is well
accustomed to hypnotic manifestations, and also a good judge of human
nature, and will keep constantly on guard, using every precaution to avoid
deception, it is altogether likely that it can be entirely obviated. But
one must use his good judgment in every possible way. In the case of fresh
subjects, or persons well known, of course there is little possibility of
deception. And the fact that deception exists does not in any way
invalidate the truth of hypnotism as a scientific phenomenon. We cite it
merely as one of the physiological peculiarities connected with the mental
condition of which it is a manifestation. The fact that a tendency to
deception exists is interesting in itself, and may have an influence upon
our judgment of our fellow beings. There is, to be sure, a tendency on the
part of scientific writers to find lunatics instead of criminals; but
knowledge of the well demonstrated fact that many criminals are insane
helps to make us charitable. |
