The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. The History of Hypnotism and Somnambulism

[ 1 ] Today I would like to speak to you about a chapter in recent intellectual history which, while repeating an old story in a certain form, does so in such a peculiar, characteristic way that perhaps nothing is more suitable than this chapter to show how difficult it is to bring certain great phenomena in the life of the spirit—in human life in general—into alignment with what is called official scholarship. Some words that may seem a bit harsh in relation to this chapter will be necessary, especially today. Do not take every word spoken in this vein as if it were dictated by passion or emotion. I can assure you that I have the utmost respect for many scholars with regard to their research and their scientific competence, and that yet many—I would almost say painful—words must be spoken to them when we speak of the chapter we wish to discuss today in a brief historical sketch: the chapter on hypnotism. At the same time, we would like to include a brief reference to something related to it: somnambulism.

[ 2 ] Many people today believe that hypnotism is something entirely new, that it is something science has only been exploring for a little over half a century. Well, let me present you with a testimony from the 17th century to the contrary. The account I would like to cite comes from a book that is, admittedly, rarely read today—the book by the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher—and dates from the year 1646. I would like to share with you, in somewhat modern language, the words of this Jesuit priest. They appear in a book that Goethe discussed at length in his History of Color Theory, because this priest also plays a very important role in the history of color theory. This book also speaks of what the Jesuit priest calls “actinobolism.” That would roughly mean: radiant imagination. “This very great power of the imagination is even evident in animals. Chickens, I find, possess such a strong imagination that at the mere sight of a piece of string they become motionless and seem to be seized by a peculiar daze. The truth of this assertion is demonstrated by the following experiment: A marvelous experiment on the imagination of the chicken. Place a chicken, whose feet are tied together, on any floor, and at first, feeling trapped, it will strive in every way to shake off the restraints placed upon it by flapping its wings and moving its entire body. But eventually, after futile efforts, as if despairing of escape, it will calm down and submit to the will of the victor. Now, while the chicken lies there quietly, draw a straight line on the floor from its eye, in the shape of the string, using chalk or some other color; then, after releasing its bonds, leave it in peace: thus, I say, the chicken, although freed from its bonds, will by no means fly away, even if one provokes it to do so. The explanation for this behavior rests on nothing other than the animal’s vivid imagination, which takes that line drawn on the ground to be the rope with which it is bound. I have performed this experiment many times to the amazement of spectators, and I have no doubt that it would succeed with other animals as well. However, the inquisitive reader may wish to investigate this further.”

[ 3 ] Around the same time, another German writer, Caspar Schott, made a similar report on this condition of the animals in a book he titled *Belustigung der menschlichen Einbildungskraft* (Amusement of the Human Imagination). In it, the writer in question, who was a friend of Athanasius Kircher, tells us that he derived the information in this book from numerous experiments conducted by a French medical writer. What is described in this book is nothing other than what we call hypnotism in animals. I have already spoken in a previous lecture about the relationship between hypnotism and somnambulism; therefore, I shall only briefly recapitulate this chapter today.

[ 4 ] As you know, hypnosis refers to a sleep-like state into which a person is artificially induced through various methods, which we will discuss later in this lecture. In this sleep-like state, a person exhibits various characteristics that are not present in waking consciousness, including characteristics that are not present in ordinary sleep. For example, you can prick a person in hypnotic sleep with needles; they will prove to be insensitive. You can, when a person is in a certain stage of sleep, simply lay them down and stretch out their limbs; they then become so rigid and firm that you can place the person across two chairs, and even the heaviest man can stand on this now-rigid body.

[ 5 ] Those who witnessed the experiments of the truly extraordinary hypnotist Hansen in the 1880s know that, after putting people into a hypnotic sleep, Hansen would place them on two chairs with only a very small surface area to support them, and then stand on top of them—that heavy Hansen! These hypnotized bodies behaved almost like a plank.

[ 6 ] It is also well known that whoever has put a person into such a sleep-like state can give them so-called suggestive commands. Once you have put a person into such a state, you can say to them: “You will now stand up, walk to the middle of the room, and stand there as if spellbound; you will not go any further, you will not be able to move!”—They will carry out all of this and then stand there as if spellbound. Yes, you can do even more. You can say to the person in a room filled with people: “There is not a single person in this room except you and me.”—They will tell you: “There is no one here; the room is completely empty.”—Or you can also say to them: There is no light here — and he sees none. These are negative hallucinations. But you can also induce hallucinations of a different kind in him. You can say to him, while placing a potato in his hand: This is a pear, take it and eat it! — and you can see that he thinks he is eating a pear. You can similarly give him water to drink, and he thinks it is champagne.

[ 7 ] I could cite many other examples, but I will mention only a few particularly remarkable ones. If you induce a visual hallucination in such a hypnotized person and say to them, for example, “You see a red circle on the white wall,” they will see a red circle on a white wall. If, after they have had this hallucination, you then show them the red circle through a prism, it turns out that this hallucination appears refracted exactly according to the laws of refraction of the prism—that is, just like any other phenomenon. The visual hallucinations produced in hypnotized subjects follow the external laws of refraction; they also follow other optical laws, but it would take us too far afield to list them in detail. It is particularly important to know: If we give such a hypnotized person a command that they are not to carry out immediately, but only after some time has passed, this can also happen. I put a person under hypnosis and tell them: You will come to me tomorrow, say hello, and then ask me for a glass of water. — If the experiment is conducted in such a way that all preconditions are met, they will remember nothing of the experiment upon waking; but tomorrow, at the time I told them, they will feel an irresistible urge and carry out what I instructed them to do. This is a post-hypnotic suggestion. This can extend to remarkable things, notably also to scheduled suggestions. I can suggest to a hypnotized person to perform a specific action in three sets of ten days; however, a large number of actions must have been performed beforehand. Do not be alarmed by this. Overlooking the necessary preconditions is perhaps possible only for the occultist; nevertheless, the person in question will carry out the command given to him punctually in three sets of ten days.

[ 8 ] These are phenomena that very few people today—not even scholars who have studied these issues—actually deny. It is hardly possible for anyone who has studied these matters to deny the facts I have presented. What goes beyond that, however, is denied by many. But we have also seen that in recent decades, physiologists and psychologists have admitted to such a vast array of things that one cannot know how much more remains to be added to what has already been acknowledged.

[ 9 ] Well, I have shown you that such abnormal states of consciousness are also hinted at in the 17th-century books I have mentioned. I could also point out, with regard to other phenomena, that knowledge of what we call the hypnotic state has existed among occultists and secret researchers of all ages. However, it cannot be proven that the ancient Egyptian, and especially the ancient Indian, priest-sages knew only exactly what I have described to you here as the phenomena of hypnotism—and these are the most elementary ones: these sages knew much more. And because they knew much more, this prevented them from sharing their wisdom with the masses. We shall yet see why. One thing, however, is curious. We are told of that Jesuit Kircher that he received this wisdom of his via a roundabout route from India. Let us take note of this account from the 17th century, that this wisdom was transmitted from India.

[ 10 ] The centuries that followed, beginning in the 17th century, were not particularly favorable for such matters in the external sciences. These external sciences made great strides, particularly in the fields of physics, astronomy, and the investigation of external, sensory facts. I have already explained last time what significance these advances had for human thought. I have shown that these advances, above all, have accustomed people to seeking the truly knowable—the truth—only in the sensually perceptible reality, so that people have become accustomed to rejecting anything that cannot be seen with the eyes, grasped with the hands, or comprehended by the reasoning mind. It is, after all, the Age of Enlightenment that we are approaching, that age in which the average human intellect set the tone, in which people wanted to understand everything in the same way that one understands physical phenomena. And with physical phenomena, provided the conditions are properly established, the experiments must succeed. Anyone can create these conditions. In the field of hypnotism, however, something else is necessary. There, the direct influence from life to life is necessary; indeed, the direct influence from human to human or from human to living being is necessary. The manipulations that a person must perform on the chicken, as in the experiment already described to us by the Jesuit Father Kircher in the 17th century, these manipulations had to be carried out by a human being. And all the other things I have spoken of must also be performed by one human being on another living human being or creature. Now it could well be—and here lies the most important question—that because people are so different from one another, that they possess such diverse characteristics, they affect other living beings, above all other people, in entirely different ways. And so it could well be—since a human being is necessary to produce phenomena of hypnosis—that one person lacks the qualities necessary to hypnotize another, while another person possesses these qualities. We need not be surprised if this were the case. We all know that an interaction takes place between the things in question, comparable to that between a magnet and iron filings. The iron filings remain at rest when you place wood among them; but if you place a magnet among them, these filings arrange themselves in a certain way.

[ 11 ] Now we must assume that human beings differ from one another so greatly that one can produce certain effects, like a magnet, while another cannot produce any effect, like a piece of wood. Such a view will never be accepted by purely rational Enlightenment. It assumes that one person is just like another. The average standard is applied to people, and one would never admit that someone could be a distinguished scholar of reason but have absolutely no ability, no qualities, to induce a hypnotic state. It might, however, be the case that it depends less on the person being hypnotized and more on the one who hypnotizes, who is the active agent. Perhaps the qualities that exert such a powerful influence on others can even be artificially induced in a person, so that the phenomena we have spoken of occur—indeed, that perhaps even more significant phenomena occur. Rational Enlightenment, which makes no distinction between one person and another, will not admit this. But those who have studied these matters were well aware of this right up to the Age of Enlightenment. Anyone who traces the course of history will find a very different conception of science than the one we have today. Sometimes it is only oral traditions that have been passed down from school to school. In all of this, we are never told anything about the state of the hypnotized, about the state of those who are to be hypnotized; that is of no consequence at all. On the other hand, we are given methods that enable another person, the hypnotist, to summon such powers within himself that he can exert such an influence on his fellow human beings. In the secret schools, very specific methods are then taught through which a person gains such power over his fellow human beings. However, all schools also require that the one who develops such power within himself must undergo a certain development that engages the whole person. Mere intellectual learning does not help here; mere thinking and science do not help. Only those who know and practice the mysterious methods, who work their way up to a high level of moral development, who undergo the most diverse stages of testing in intellectual, spiritual, and moral terms, rise above their fellow human beings and become priests of humanity. They are thereby led to a point where it becomes impossible for them to use such power for anything other than the good of their fellow human beings. And because such knowledge bestows the highest power, because it comes about through a transformation of the whole person, that is why it was kept secret. Only when other views gained ground did people also develop different perspectives, different aims, and different intentions regarding these phenomena. Esoteric traditions, then, have underlain this question for centuries, and nothing else matters but this: What requirements must the one to whom such power is imparted fulfill, and what methods are necessary for a human being to acquire such influence over their fellow human beings?

[ 12 ] This was the state of affairs right up until the Age of Enlightenment. It was only at the dawn of the Enlightenment that someone like the Jesuit priest I mentioned could reveal something about these phenomena in a popular scientific format. Never before would anyone familiar with the matter and its nature have dared to speak of these phenomena in public books. Only through indiscretion could anything about this matter come to light. It was only at this point—when the saying Knowledge is power—had such immense significance; only at that point, when people were, so to speak, playing with knowledge—which under certain circumstances could be quite disastrous—as a child plays with fire, and did not know what to do with it, only in such a time was it possible to discuss this knowledge, which means nothing other than the dominion of the spirit over the spirit, in a popular manner. It is therefore not surprising that official scholarship proper—which, in the form we know it, is after all a child of the last few centuries—did not know what to make of these phenomena.

[ 13 ] She had no idea what to make of it when these phenomena confronted her in a strangely surprising way. This occurred at the end of the 18th century through Mesmer, who was, on the one hand, much maligned and, on the other, held in the highest esteem. This figure set the question in motion for scholarship. The name “mesmerism” comes from him, after all. He was a very peculiar individual, the sort of person who perhaps appeared in greater numbers in the 18th century than might be the case today; a figure who, as we shall see, was bound to be misunderstood by many, but who, on the other hand, through a fearlessness—which, admittedly, appears to the outsider as a thirst for adventure, as charlatanism—was able to set this question in motion. In 1766, Mesmer published a treatise on the “Influence of the Planets on Human Life,” which today’s scholar must regard as a thoroughly fantastical matter. The man I hold in high esteem—take this word seriously, for it is not a prejudice but a characterization — Preyer, Darwin’s biographer, brought an immense lack of prejudice to this very question, which I know how to appreciate, and I therefore choose him in particular as an example of how little the transformed science of the 19th century can do justice to what was written in the 18th century from entirely different premises. Preyer, then, approached Mesmer’s works with the best of intentions and could find nothing in them but empty words. Anyone who judges such matters not with fantasy but with expertise will understand this, and may even approach with suspicion those who believe they can defend Mesmer against Preyer. If one wishes to judge correctly, the prerequisites for such a judgment lie much deeper than is commonly believed. But this first treatise is not what concerns us here, for to the discerning eye it reveals nothing more than that Mesmer, from a rather high vantage point and with a comprehensive view, knew how to master the science of his time. I wish to emphasize this so that the belief does not arise that he dealt with such matters as a dilettante. Mesmer was, without a doubt, an impeccable young scholar when he wrote his doctoral dissertation, and what he wrote can be found in countless dissertations by people who went on to become quite respectable and capable scholars of the 18th and even the 19th centuries.

[ 14 ] This Mesmer appeared in Vienna during the last third of the 18th century with his so-called magnetic cures. To perform these magnetic cures, he initially employed certain methods that were actually already commonplace at the time. It was a tradition at that time—one that had never completely died out—that healing could be achieved through means such as those I am about to mention. This tradition came to life during that period. He employed a method that was not at all questionable: by placing steel magnets on the affected part of the body or bringing them close to it, relief or healing of pain was allegedly—or perhaps truly—brought about. Mesmer used such magnets at the institute for quite some time. Then, however, he noticed something quite remarkable. Perhaps he didn’t even notice it at the time; perhaps he already knew it and simply wanted to use a more conventional method as a cover. Namely, he cast the magnets aside and said that the power emanated solely from his own body, that as a healing force it was merely transferred from his own body to the affected sick body, so that the healing was an interaction between a force he developed in his body and another force present in the sick body of the other person. He called this force animal magnetism. I am recounting this in broad strokes and in a rough manner; to go into detail and explain it more precisely would take too much time. Now, very soon—we will not discuss the success of his treatment—he had differences in Vienna. He had to leave the city and subsequently turned to Paris. At first, he had quite extraordinary success there. He had an unusual influx of patients. The scholars, however, could not get over the fact that Mesmer earned six thousand francs a month, which is, of course, quite a nuisance from a physician’s standpoint when someone earns that much. This was, of course, to be expected from the side of the emerging science, which was inclined toward materialism.

[ 15 ] You know that in the 18th century we were fully in the Age of Enlightenment, that tensions were running high in France, and that people would not accept anything that could not be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands, or comprehended by the mind. And you will understand that official science, which was more or less under the influence of materialist thought, took offense at things it could not comprehend. Mesmer’s cures therefore became a public scandal. People said to themselves: these must not be real illnesses, but only imaginary ones, so that hysterics were healed only in the imagination, or that the sick were freed from pain in the imagination. In any case, Mesmer’s method was denied. The result was that, at the king’s behest, two bodies were called upon to issue expert opinions on mesmerism. I would like to present them to you so that you may see how science truly viewed these matters at that time; so that you may see that one must not regard these things with passion, but at the same time also see how, at that time, one was necessarily bound to misjudge the stance one had to take toward Mesmer.

[ 16 ] A woman was blindfolded and told that Mr. d’Elon had been summoned to mesmerize her. Three of the commission’s representatives were present: one to ask questions, one to take notes, and one to perform the mesmerization. The woman was not magnetized. After three minutes, the woman felt the influence, became rigid, sat up in her chair, and stamped her feet. Now the crisis had arrived. This crisis was also discussed in connection with Mesmer’s healings; success was attributed to it.

[ 17 ] A hysterical woman was brought to the door. She was told that the magnetizer was inside. She began to shiver and feel cold, and the crisis set in.

[ 18 ] The commission had concluded that something strange was going on, something the commission could not have anticipated. And it had reached a conclusion that left it with little choice but to rule that the entire procedure was a fraud perpetrated by Mesmer. Anyone who understood anything about it could have predicted that they would arrive at this conclusion with a probability of ninety-five to one hundred, and that, given their premises, they could not arrive at any other explanation. But the Commission could have arrived at other conclusions! Is it really nothing at all that a woman, merely by thinking of a person, enters into all the states described to us here—both regarding the woman inside the room and the woman outside? Above all, we must ask—and this commission should have asked itself honestly and sincerely at the time: Could they, from their rationalist, Enlightenment standpoint, have expected such an effect of thought? Would they have had any possibility, with their materialistic means, of explaining such an immense effect of thought on physical conditions? Even if we grant the Commission the right to condemn Mesmer, we can by no means grant them the right to have left this matter alone. The matter had to be investigated further, precisely by the Commission, for there is undoubtedly a very special scientific question at hand.

[ 19 ] There is one fact I would like to highlight that is highly significant to those in the know, but which has been viewed only with disdain. Mesmer was offered a large sum of money to reveal his secret to others. It was also said that the sum had been paid to him, but that he had kept the secret to himself and not shared it with others. Many regard this as a hoax. But shortly thereafter, so-called hermetic societies began to appear throughout France, in which the same arts were also practiced to a certain extent. It was not said that he had betrayed the secret, but there were those who practiced his methods. Anyone who knows anything about these matters understands that he shared his secrets only with trustworthy individuals. The fact that he did not publish his secrets in the newspapers means nothing. Consider this in light of the fact that those who truly know anything about such matters do not share them, since the point is not to share, but to develop certain qualities that bring them forth.

[ 20 ] Now you will understand where these societies came from. The experiments are not what matters here; in fact, they should be prohibited if conducted by unqualified individuals. What matters is simply the development of the hypnotist. Scientists at the time could hardly offer any explanation for these phenomena. Therefore, these phenomena were initially dismissed as nonsense, both by the French Academy and by the scientific community as a whole. But they kept reappearing. And even in Germany, such phenomena were constantly being discussed. Newspapers were founded specifically for this purpose. People who believe that such an influence can be exerted from one person to another explain the phenomenon by assuming that a fluid, a subtle substance, passes from the hypnotist to the hypnotized person and exerts the influence. But even those who do not deny the influence cannot transcend materialism; they tell themselves: matter remains matter, whether coarse or fine. — One could conceive of nothing other than something material under the term “spiritually active.” That these phenomena were interpreted in this way at the time is a consequence of the fact that they were attempted to be interpreted in the materialistic age.

[ 21 ] I cannot now describe in detail the various decades that followed Mesmer. I will merely mention that these phenomena were never completely forgotten; indeed, time and again people have emerged who took these phenomena very seriously. There have also been university professors who described these phenomena in detail and already knew various things that we today summarize under the term “hypnotic phenomena.” They knew about what we call verbal suggestion. For example, they claimed far more than what modern science is willing to admit. One scholar claimed that he could read a book quite well with his eyes closed; that he could read with his solar plexus and, in such a state, read the words by merely touching a page of the book. It was claimed that one could also, through artificial somnambulism, come to see distant events—that is, to become a clairvoyant.

[ 22 ] Now all these phenomena were set in motion again—and the curious thing is that the scholars of the 19th century had to be led right to them—they were first set in motion by traveling hypnotists like Hansen, who traveled around America in the 1840s, demonstrated the phenomena to large audiences, and charged for their services. They often evoked quite tremendous effects in their audiences. They were called soul-tamer. Justinus Kerner, in particular, calls these people “soul tamers” because they produced effects on the soul through mere staring, mere looking. However, this “stumbling upon” the phenomena has dangerous aspects, because on the one hand there are dangers for the test subjects, and on the other hand certain charlatans deceive the public in the most unbelievable ways.

[ 23 ] I would like to describe an experiment to you that has been conducted many times and of which I am personally convinced that it has, time and again, left people perplexed and deceived at large public gatherings. The experiment consists of the following. Here sits a medium with a blindfold. He cannot see anything. The impresario in question walks around among the audience and says to someone at the very back of the hall: “Whisper something in my ear or ask a question, and let’s see if the medium can know anything about it. Or write a word or a sentence on a piece of paper for me.” — One or the other happens, and after a very short time, the medium at the front of the table—that is, far away from the impresario—will announce the word that was whispered or written down. No one but the two people know anything about it, and the impresario in question can produce the slip of paper or have the person in question asked whether the medium’s message is correct. In truth, in many cases where I was present, nothing other than the following had happened. The man walking around was a very skilled ventriloquist. The medium moved his lips at the very moment he was supposed to speak the word. The entire audience was watching the medium’s lips, and the impresario himself said the word or sentence in question! I have seen time and again that there were hardly two people in the hall who had an explanation for this trick. Such things were, of course, constantly mixed in with genuine facts. One must be well-informed in this matter so as not to be deceived by itinerant magnetizers. That is why I consider it regrettable that scholars must be made aware of this matter. There are ventriloquists who can produce entire melodies, piano playing, and so on through ventriloquism! Anyone who is familiar with these things and knows what they’re about will not be easily deceived on these matters.

[ 24 ] In the 1940s and 1950s, itinerant spirit mediums once again brought these phenomena to the attention of scholars. In particular, a certain Stone caused quite a stir and made a name for himself. But even earlier, such a showman had prompted a scholar to study these phenomena closely once again. From the 1940s, we have scholarly treatises by this scholar on these phenomena. They mainly concerned the fixation method, the staring at a shiny object. Now, this scholar immediately pointed out that all these phenomena could not be attributed to the hypnotists exerting a very special, specific influence on the subjects being hypnotized. And it was precisely this fixation experiment that was so decisive for him, because he wanted to show that these phenomena were due to an abnormal state of the test subject in question. He wanted to show that no interaction was taking place, but that everything that happened was nothing more than a physiologically understandable phenomenon caused by a purely cerebral process. It was important to him to demonstrate that mesmerism—which requires the subject to possess specific characteristics—was an absurdity. This essentially set the tone in which these questions were subsequently addressed by official science throughout the entire second half of the 19th century. With few exceptions, this question was treated as if it could be handled like an ordinary scientific experiment, as if it were nothing more than a fact that is significant only insofar as it can be reproduced like any other scientific experiment that can be set up and repeated at any time. This requirement was now also imposed on this experiment. Under this requirement, science also set out to study the phenomena. However, this study fell into a rather unfavorable era. To illustrate for you just how unfavorable the era of the 1850s and 1860s was, I would like to mention something that is most characteristic for the observer of the course of development in the 19th century, but which is generally overlooked by official science.

[ 25 ] Long before Stone, long before academic scholarship, a man appeared in Paris who had previously been a Catholic priest, had then gone to India to join the Brahmins, and who, in Paris, used the methods he had learned in India—hypnotism and suggestion, that is, the transmission of ideas from person to person—to perform healings. This man, named Faria, explained all these phenomena in a fundamentally different way. He said that only one thing mattered: it depended on the hypnotist being able to induce a very specific mental state in the person to be hypnotized, that he be capable of bringing the person’s mental faculties into a state of concentration and focus. Once this composure, this concentration is achieved—that is, once the subject’s entire mental faculties are focused on a specific point—the desired state must occur. And then the other phenomena must also occur, including the even more complex ones that Faria describes.

[ 26 ] There, for once, is an explanation and interpretation given in a proper manner by someone who truly understood the matter. But he was not understood. People simply ignore him. And that is understandable. — I have said that the Jesuit priest, who first discussed this matter and who had also drawn his wisdom from India, hinted at the explanation in the headline. But the scholars understood little of this, so that the learned Preyer still said in 1877 that if the Church attributed these phenomena to imagination, it only showed how much imagination the Church possessed. He spoke disparagingly of the Catholic priest who had become a Brahmin. However, it is consistently found that hypnotism has been used for healing and for pain relief during operations. Those associated with Faria managed to achieve a state where, through mental influence, the patient undergoing surgery felt no pain. In 1847, chloroform was discovered, a substance about which materialistic researchers could believe—and rightly so—that it was suitable for preventing pain during operations. With this, understanding of the other pain-relieving agent was lost for a long time. Only a few truly thoughtful researchers continued to study these phenomena in the years that followed. Anyone who looks more closely will find time and again that doctors are very well acquainted with the relevant methods, but here and there they let slip that there is something behind these phenomena that they do not understand. And those who are more discerning expressly warn against dealing with these phenomena at all, with this field that is so prone to deception that even great scholars can be misled; one cannot therefore warn strongly enough against it.

[ 27 ] This was the view held by certain scholars who were otherwise held in the highest regard. I will mention only the Viennese researcher Benedikt, whom I greatly admire in this regard, who pointed out these phenomena time and again, as early as the 1870s. He is the same researcher who put forward the idea of so-called moral insanity, which is simply not usually understood. One need not agree with the theory, nor with what he says about hypnotism and magnetism. Even as a young man, he had studied mesmerism and found that there was something to it; but he never engaged with it in the same way as, for example, Liébeault and Bernheim of the Nancy School. It was Benedikt who strongly opposed the theory and emphasized that even Charcot had warned against attempts to interpret these phenomena. Nowhere in Benedikt’s writings can you find a plausible reason for his opposition to the entire theory of hypnosis, but his instinctive remarks follow a remarkably sound line of reasoning. He simply states: Anyone conducting experiments in this field must be aware that the subjects with whom he conducts such experiments may just as easily, perhaps without their knowing it, deceive him as they may convey something true to him. — On the other hand, he has emphasized that the way in which science seeks to take possession of things leads to no results at all.

[ 28 ] Now we see, following yet another itinerant hypnotist, Hansen, has demonstrated the most horrendous experiments to the public—experiments that were replicated by scholars in the laboratory and were partially successful—how magazines seize upon the subject, how thick books are written that are exploited by journalism, how these matters gradually become topics of daily discussion, and how popular writings are produced so that everyone can carry a guide to these matters in their pocket. It was notably the scholars of the Nancy School, Liébeault and Bernheim, who interpreted these phenomena in a manner befitting science. These phenomena had to be attributed with a characteristic that makes them comparable and equivalent to other scientific phenomena. Thus we see that the external aspect—that which materialists cannot deny—is to be decisive for inducing hypnosis. Bernheim went so far as to exclude all other methods and admit only verbal suggestion: The word I speak to the subject has the effect of bringing them into this state. Hypnosis itself is an effect of suggestion. When I say: “You are sleeping!”—or: “You are lowering your eyelids!”—and so on, the corresponding mental image is evoked, and this brings about the effect.

[ 29 ] Thus, materialism had successfully dismissed the phenomena of hypnosis; thus fading into the background was what all those familiar with these matters know: that what matters is the influence of one person on another; that a person either possesses a natural predisposition for it or develops it through special methods, thereby evolving into a powerful personality of significance to their fellow human beings. And precisely the fact that this personal influence was at work had been completely disregarded. The standpoint of the average mind was to prevail—the one that regards all people as equal and refuses to acknowledge the development of the human being to a certain level of moral and intellectual refinement. What really matters has been buried.

[ 30 ] All modern literature is written from this perspective. In particular, it is the philosopher Wundt, who does not know what to make of it, who explains it as the inactivation of a specific part of the brain. My friend, whom I hold in high esteem, Dr. Hans Schmidkunz, has also written a book on the psychology of suggestion, in which he explains in detail that these processes are merely an intensification of phenomena observable in everyday life, brought about in a natural way, but that we do not yet know where to look for an explanation.

[ 31 ] In examining the history of this fact, we have reached a sort of dead end. No one will be able to find anything in contemporary literature on this subject other than a more or less extensive collection of simple, elementary facts. The influence of one person on another reveals more or less meaningless attempts at explanation of a rather materialistic nature. But above all, one will be convinced that official science was not up to the task of dealing with these facts, and that nothing is more unjustified than when medicine today presumes to co-opt these phenomena for itself, when it goes so far as to claim that it alone—and medicine alone—has the prerogative to deal with these facts. It is clear to anyone with true insight that medicine, at its current stage, does not know what to make of these facts, and that above all those are right who point out the danger of these things. It is not for nothing that people like Moritz Benedikt have warned against a scientific engagement with these matters in the conventional sense. It is not for nothing that they have said that even a Charcot must be cautious, because these states, which he evokes as an objective observer, could just as easily affect him subjectively. It is not for nothing that they sought to protect science from the approach cultivated by the Nancy School, which, for the truly discerning, has produced nothing but worthless attempts at recording or explaining that, in essence, mean nothing. Benedikt rightly pointed out that throughout the entire literature of the Nancy School, it is impossible to distinguish between what is superficial and what is substantive, or to determine whether one has succumbed to self-deception or been deceived.

[ 32 ] This is the instinctive judgment of a man who is highly regarded by certain, notably more profound medical minds of the present day—the judgment of none other than Professor Benedikt. This judgment is significant because it instinctively presents us with the true facts of the matter. Instinctively, Benedikt points out what really matters. The first point is that these things—and Benedikt expresses this in clear terms—must not be lumped together with others for the purpose of experimentation. Therefore, he examines only those facts that present themselves to him without his intervention. If someone enters a state of natural hypnosis and undergoes no change induced by the hypnotist, then we have scientifically investigated these phenomena. But as soon as we exert an influence on our fellow human beings in this context, we do so from person to person, from one person’s power to another’s; then we alter the other person’s state, and then it depends—as those who know the higher methods, which science does not yet possess, are aware—on what is inherent in our person, on the nature of that person. If you are a bad person, in a certain sense an inferior person, and you exert a hypnotic influence on your fellow human beings, you harm them. If you wish to exert such an influence in a proper manner, so that comprehensive cosmic forces are not tainted in a harmful way, then you must be familiar with the mysteries of higher spiritual life, and you can only do so if you have developed your power to a higher level. It is not a matter of experimenting here and there. These phenomena are ones that are constantly at work around us. You cannot enter a room without interactions taking place within that room—if other people are present—that are analogous to what occurs, under different circumstances, in hypnotic phenomena. If such influences are to be exerted consciously, one must first be worthy and capable of exerting such an influence.

[ 33 ] That is why a healthy life will only return to this field when the demand is no longer to study these phenomena from a scientific perspective, but rather when the old method is revived: that the one who has awakened the power within himself—and who can thus be a hypnotist—must first develop very specific higher powers within himself. This was known in the past. People knew what these phenomena were like. The key was to prepare people so that they were permitted to perform such phenomena. Only when our medical training becomes something entirely different again, when all of humanity is led back to a higher moral, spiritual, and intellectual level, and when the individual has proven themselves worthy—only when the examination is conducted in this sense—can we speak of a fruitful development in this field. Therefore, there is nothing to hope for from today’s academic treatment of hypnotism and suggestion. They are understood in a completely wrong way. They must first be viewed in the correct manner again. When that happens, one will see that these phenomena are, in fact, more widespread than is generally believed. We will then understand many things in our surroundings. We will also realize that beyond a certain point, these phenomena cannot be popularized at all, because beyond that point, they belong to human inner development. The highest power is not attained through the vivisection of the spirit, but through the cultivation of forces lying deep within us. Moral, intellectual, and spiritual higher development—that is what will make us worthy once again to speak a clear and distinct word in these areas.

[ 34 ] Then we will once again understand our ancestors, who did not want to reveal these things in their deepest meaning to the profane world. This is precisely what was meant when speaking of the veiled image of Isis—that no one should lift the veil if they are unworthy. The intention was to imply that human beings can only perceive the highest truths once they have first made themselves worthy of them. This will cast a new meaning and a new light on the saying: Knowledge is power. —Indeed, knowledge is power. And the higher the knowledge, the greater the power. The course of world history rests upon such power. It is a caricature of this that science seeks to present to us today. But such knowledge, which awakens the heart, such power, which may intervene in the hearts and freedom of others—these may only be acquired through an insight that is at the same time a blessing for the human being, before which he stands in awe. That our knowledge may take hold of our whole being, that we may stand before the highest truths and recognize that the truth experienced within us is divine revelation, which we regard as something sacred—this must be our ideal. Then we will experience knowledge once again as power, when knowledge is once again a communion with the Divine. He who unites with the Divine through knowledge is called to realize the saying: Knowledge is power.