Psycho-Therapeutics

Around this time there was great interest in the phenomenon of hypnotism, and there were three prominent schools. The word hypnotism was coined by Dr Braid of Manchester. The oldest school were the Mesmerists, then there was the Paris school of Charcot, where Freud studied, and finally the Nancy school. The difference between these last two is that the Paris School regarded hypnotism as a purely physical abnormal or diseased nervous condition, while the Nancy school held that suggestion is a necessary factor in the induction of hypnosis, and were open to the existence of psychic phenomena, unlike their counterparts in Paris. Hudson finds the Nancy school the most persuasive, and much of the evidence he presents would be inexplicable in physiological terms. He not only deals with clairvoyance and telepathy, but also with calculating prodigies where the information cannot possibly be generated through reason.

Interestingly, he discusses what would now be known as the experimenter or sheep/goat effect produced by what he called an adverse suggestion in the presence of avowed sceptics. The sceptics always conclude that the failure of the experiment proves their case, when it actually demonstrates the power of this adverse suggestion. Here the rational mind is set up in conflict with the intuition and is operating on the conviction that telepathy and allied phenomena are impossible. This doubt undermines the condition of faith necessary for the successful operation of intuitive capacity. Hudson also points out examples of what came to be known as the placebo effect, commenting that the power of drugs to heal disease may be due in part to the mental impression created upon the mind of the patient by the physician. Faith or belief will favour success. Paracelsus is quoted as saying that faith produces miracles, whether it is true or false faith.

The latter part of the book considers various systems of healing or what was then called psychotherapeutics, which he considers in the light of his fundamental hypothesis. He discusses cases where the symptoms of disease can be induced in hypnotic subjects by suggestion, thus indicating the power of the subjective mind over the body. Hudson sees Jesus as the prototype of the mental and physical healer with his profound understanding of the nature of faith. In the case of healing, the suggestion is given by another and is called heterosuggestion. However, it is also possible for people to suggest things to themselves, so that the objective mind operates on the subjective mind through autosuggestion.

In proposing a new system of mental therapeutics, Hudson assumes our telepathic capacity as a communion of subjective minds, based on the extensive research already available at that time. Here, mental receptivity or passivity is also important. Some particularly interesting cases are cited, showing that suggestions made before falling asleep can be communicated through dreams. In one instance, S.H Butcher formulated the intention to appear in the bedroom of some neighbours at one in the morning, which he duly did at the appointed hour according to the account of the neighbours concerned. This suggests to Hudson that the subjective mind is amenable to control by suggestion during natural sleep as well as hypnotic sleep. This line of thinking was pursued in a series of dream telepathy experiments by Montague Ullman.