Observations on Trance

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. It may here be requisite for me to ex plain, that by the term Hypnotism, or Ner vous Sleep, which frequently occurs in the following pages, I mean a peculiar condition of the nervous system, into which it may be thrown by artificial contrivance, and which differs, in several respects, from com mon sleep or the waking condition. I do not allege that this condition is induced through the transmission of a magnetic or occult influence from my body into that of my patients; nor do I profess, by my pro cesses, to produce the higher phenomena of the Mesmerists. My pretensions are of a much more humble character, and are all consistent with generally admitted prin ciples in physiological and psychological science. Hypnotism might therefore not inaptly be designated, Rational Illesmerism, in contra-distinction to the Transcendental Mesmerism of the Mesmerists.

It may here be requisite for me to ex plain, that by the term Hypnotism, or Ner vous Sleep, which frequently occurs in the following pages, I mean a peculiar condition of the nervous system, into which it may be thrown by artificial contrivance, and which differs, in several respects, from com mon sleep or the waking condition. I do not allege that this condition is induced through the transmission of a magnetic or occult influence from my body into that of my patients; nor do I profess, by my pro cesses, to produce the higher phenomena of the Mesmerists. My pretensions are of a much more humble character, and are all consistent with generally admitted prin ciples in physiological and psychological science. Hypnotism might therefore not inaptly be designated, Rational Illesmerism, in contra-distinction to the Transcendental Mesmerism of the Mesmerists.