The study of the different forms of paralysis by suggestion opens a perfectly new horizon to psychology, which is not bound by the mental laws hitherto established, and refuses to be included within the too restricted limits of its classification. If you consult one of the classic works on psychology, you will find in it the three great divisions of emotion, intelligence, and will, and in none of these does psychical paralysis find a place. In fact the very name of psychical paralysis is new. Up to this time it has only been used metaphorically, and the notion of this fact has only been slightly indicated by writers on the subject. The experimental method employed in hypnotism was necessary to reveal the existence and extent of paralysis by suggestion. We are now aware that it may affect all the parts of the psychical mechanism, sensation, imagination, memory, reason, will, motor power, etc.; it is, in a word, co-extensive with the intelligence. Classical psychology, which does not mention psychical paralysis, omits half the history of the mind: it describes the active, impulsive forms of the intelligence, without taking note of the passive, negative forms, which are equally numerous; it represents that side of the mind
on which the light falls, without taking note of the side in shadow. The course of this work has repeatedly brought us in contact with paralysis by suggestion. We have seen that when anaesthesiogen acts upon a bilateral hallucination, the latter is destroyed, and that it is succeeded by a corresponding anaesthesia. So, again, when a bilateral movement is subjected to magnetic action, the corresponding paralysis is produced. It may also be observed that when suggestion puts an end to an hallucination or an act, these active phenomena give place on disappearing to a paralysis representing their negative form. We have now to consider these forms of paralysis, as they are displayed in consequence of a direct suggestion.
Sensibility can be destroyed by suggestion. This fact of anaesthesia by suggestion has long been known, and has sometimes been employed in cases of surgical operations. One of the present writers was able, by means of suggestion, to open an abcess, seated in the axilla, without causing pain. There is nothing more surprising than this power of destroying pain by suggestion. The anaesthesia may be such as to lead the subject to believe that the limb is gone; it may affect, not merely the general sensibility of the body but the special senses. It would be easy to render some subjects perfectly blind by suggestion, but the operator must prudently refrain from such serious experiments, lest he should be unable to put an end to their result.
We propose to make a special study of systematic anaesthesia, erroneously termed by Bernheim and some other writers negative hallucinations.
Since the definition of systematic anaesthesia presents
special difficulties, it seems well to defer it, and provisionally to substitute for it as complete a description as possible. We suggested to a hypnotized subject that when she awoke she would be unable to see F—, but that she would continue to hear his voice. When she awoke, F— placed himself before her, but she did not look at him, and when he extended his hand, there was no corresponding gesture on her side. She remained quietly seated in the chair in which she had been sleeping, and we sat waiting beside her. After a while, the subject expressed surprise at no longer seeing F—, who had been in the laboratory, and she asked what had become of him. We replied, "He has gone out; you may return to your room." F— placed himself before the door. The subject arose, said good morning, and went towards it. Just as she was about to lay hold of the handle, she knocked up against F—, whom she was unable to see. This unexpected shock made her start; she tried to go on again, but on encountering the same invisible and inexplicable resistance, she began to be afraid, and refused to go near the door. We next took up a hat, and showed it to the subject. She saw it quite well, and touched it in order to satisfy herself that it was really there. We then placed it on F—'s head, and words cannot express the subject's surprise, since it appeared to her that the hat was suspended in the air. Her surprise was at its height when F— took off the hat and saluted her with it several times; she saw the hat, without any support, describing curves in the air. She declared that it was de la physique, and supposed that the hat was suspended by a string; she even got upon a chair to try and touch
this string, which she was unable to find. We then took a cloak and handed it to F—, who put it on. The subject looked at it fixedly with a bewildered air, since she saw it moving about and assuming the form of a person. "It is," she said, "like a hollow puppet." At our command the furniture was moved about and noisily rolled from one end of the room to the other — they were, in fact, displaced by the invisible F—; the tables and chairs were overturned, and then the chaos was succeeded by order. The different objects were replaced, the disjointed bones of a skull, which had been scattered on the floor were joined together again; a purse opened of itself, and gold and silver coins fell from it.
We then induced the subject to sit down again, and we placed ourselves beside her chair, in order to subject her to experiments of a quieter nature. We shall see how she managed to explain certain facts, rendered inexplicable by her inability to see F—. That gentleman placed himself behind her, and while she was quietly conversing with us, he touched her nose, cheeks, forehead, or chin. Each time the subject put her hand to her face in a natural way, and without any appearance of alarm. We asked why she put her hand to her face, and she replied that it itched, or was painful, and she therefore scratched it. Her tranquil assurance was extremely curious. We begged her to strike out violently into space, and at the moment she raised her arm it was arrested by F—. We asked what was the matter, and she replied that her arm was affected by cramp. She was, therefore, never at a loss; she invariably explained everything, however insufficient the explanation might be. This need of explanation, which exists
in the normal state, is carried to excess in the experiments produced by suggestion.
Such are the main lines of the phenomenon of systematic anaesthesia, and it may be well to insist on some points of this description. With respect to the extent of the systematic anaesthesia, it should be said that when a small object, such as a pencil, is rendered invisible, it is this object alone which the subject is unable to see. The limits of anaesthesia are fixed, its extent invariable. This is not the case when the perception of a more complex object is destroyed; the anaesthesia then affects all which is indirectly connected with the object. If suggestion has rendered a purse invisible, the subject may fail to see the coins which issue from it. When it is a person who is rendered invisible, the subject cannot see the person, nor the clothes he wears, nor — which is more curious — the things he takes out of his pocket, a handkerchief, watch, or key. But these results are very variable, and differ with different subjects. Although the perception of the object is destroyed, it cannot be said to be as though it were nonexistent, for its presence continues to be displayed by certain signs. For instance, when it has been suggested to the subject that he cannot see the light, the pupils continue to react when his eyes are turned to the window. So, again, we have seen that when suggestion has rendered the magnet invisible, transference and polarization can be effected in some subjects. And again, a person rendered invisible by suggestion may hypnotize a subject by means of passes. Moreover, the suppressed object may continue to act on the conscious sensibility of the subject. Suppose that a scent-bottle is rendered
invisible, and the subject is told: "You will no longer see this bottle; your fingers will not feel it; when you strike it, it will not sound; it will have no existence for you." The subject receives the scent-bottle on awaking, and it is true that he does not see it, nor feel its contact. But an intelligent subject will soon perceive that there is something in his hands, and be conscious of resistance when he tries to put them together. One of our subjects, after studying the nature of this resistance, came to the conclusion that the object was round, and this offers a curious analysis of the sense of touch, and of the muscular sense. In order to complete the description, we should ascertain whether the object which has become invisible conceals what is placed behind it. This is sometimes the case. If F— puts on a pince-nez when he is invisible, and then turns his back on the subject, she can no longer see the pince-nez. But generally the invisible object does not prevent the subject from seeing the things beyond it in the same line of vision. It does not cause an apparent gap in the field of vision. The subject believes that he sees the hidden object as well as the rest. When F— stands before the door, the subject maintains that she still sees its handle, and will try to take hold of it. It is probable that she spontaneously creates an hallucination in order to fill up the gap which the invisible object has produced in her field of vision. This effect of auto-suggestion recalls a well-known physiological fact — the normal existence in the field of vision of a gap or blind spot, corresponding with the entrance of the optic nerve. The existence of this spot is only ascertained by means of experiments, since it is filled
up unconsciously during normal vision. It is scarcely necessary to add that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, the invisible object really acts as a screen, and that the subject cannot see what is on the other side of it. If we stand behind F— when he is invisible, the subject maintains that she can still see us, but she cannot accurately describe our gestures.
We must conclude this superficial description of systematic anaesthesia by proving its reality, since all the preceding phenomena might result from adroit simulation; they do not include any of the material, objective characteristics which completely exclude the suspicion of fraud. But there is a mode of ascertaining the good faith of the subject. We know that the deafening noise of a Chinese gong produces catalepsy in some hypnotic subjects, and among these must be included two who were submitted to our observation. During the hypnotic sleep we impressed upon them the idea that they would no longer see the gong nor its sounder on awaking, and that they would be unable to hear its noise. In other words, we suggested a systematic anaesthesia, of which the gong was the object. When they awoke, and the maintenance of the anaesthesia had been ascertained, the gong was brought close to their ears, which they permitted without displaying the terror it habitually excited, and it was violently sounded. No catalepsy ensued, and in each case the subject did not flinch. She made a slight movement of surprise, and said that she had heard something like a gust of wind in the chimney. The counter-proof was immediately afforded by again hypnotizing the subject and restoring to her the perception of the instrument. A much fainter stroke then threw her into
a profound catalepsy. In a fresh experiment we destroyed the existence of the gong, and for eleven successive days its effects were absolutely negative, after which the effect of the suggestion spontaneously disappeared.
Another experiment indicates that these forms of anaesthesia are genuine. One of our subjects had, on each side of the mammary regions, an hysterogenic zone, pressure on which immediately produced an hysterical attack. One of the present writers rendered himself invisible by suggestion, and at the same time destroyed the sensation .of contact on his approach. A strong pressure of the hysterogenic zones then failed to produce any attack in the subject, nor did she make any effort to repel the experimenter: she only complained of a vague sense of oppression. On the other hand, she recoiled in terror when another person put his hand near these zones.
The researches we have made into the duration of systematic anaesthesia are still incomplete. It is often maintained for several days. In the case of our hysterical patients, the effect of the suggestion is destroyed by an attack. We have, however, repeatedly observed instances of anesthesia with reference to small objects, such as watches, pencils, etc., which lasted for several months. Their mode of disappearance is remarkable. When a person has been rendered invisible, the subject does not see nor recognize him, but as time goes on the anaesthesia gradually becomes fainter. It is a curious fact that when the subject begins to see the person in question, she fails to recognize him, and the act of recognition only occurs later, by a species of ascendant evolution. Thus F— , who was the object of experiment in the observations
we have cited, was visible to the subject after the lapse of three or four days, but she did not recognize him: she took him for a stranger who had come to see the Salpêtrière. We have noticed elsewhere the physiological importance of these phenomena.*
We recently observed the converse of the preceding fact in the case of a subject named C—, who was subjected to an experiment in anaesthesia for the first time. It was suggested to her during somnambulism that when she awoke she would no longer see D—, one of the persons present, whose name she knew. When she awoke she saw, but did not recognize him, and at the same time she had forgotten her own name and identity. This subject had received, a few minutes before, the hallucination of D— 's portrait on a blank card. She was now made to look at the card, and after repeatedly comparing the portrait with its original, she became able to recognize D—. The systematic anaesthesia was therefore destroyed by a recollection, just as in some cases paralysis may be destroyed by recalling the movement to mind.
It would be an error to suppose that systematic anaesthesia consists solely in a sensory disturbance. In the case of our subjects we have often found that this suggested disturbance readily serves as the point of departure for delirium. Thus, we once suggested to an hypnotic subject that she would cease to see F—, but would continue to hear his voice. On awaking the subject heard the voice of an invisible person, and looked about the room to discover the cause of this singular phenomenon, asking us about it with some uneasiness.
We said jestingly, "F— is dead, and it is his ghost which speaks to you." The subject is intelligent, and in her normal state she would probably have taken the jest at its true value; but she was dominated by the suggestion of anaesthesia, and readily accepted the explanation. When F— spoke again he said that he had died the night before, and that his body had been taken to the post-mortem room. The subject clasped her hands with a sad expression, and asked when he was to be buried, as she wished to be present at the religious service. "Poor young man!" she said; "he was not a bad man." F—, wishing to see how far her credulity would go, uttered groans, and complained of the autopsy of his body which was going on. The scene then became tragic, for the emotion of the subject caused her to fall backwards in an incipient attack of hysteria, which we promptly arrested by ovarian compression. This experiment shows that when a subject remains under the influence of a suggestion after awaking, he has not, whatever be the appearances to the contrary, returned to his normal state. The suggestion of anaesthesia has disturbed the intelligence, and exerts a suspensory action on the judgment and on the critical sense.
In order to understand the nature of systematic anaesthesia, it is necessary to compare it with the spontaneous phenomena of hysteria, which resemble it. We frequently meet with paralysis of the senses in hysterical patients. There is one remarkable characteristic of hysterical ansesthesia, whether suggested or spontaneous, and this is especially apparent in the anesthesia with respect to colour, or achromatopsia.
Suppose that the left eye of an hysterical subject
displays complete achromatopsia, extending to all colours. If a square of red is shown to her, while her right eye is closed, this square appears to her to be black or grey, and she has no conscious perception of red. Yet the red ray emitted by the object still exerts its special action on the visual centre of the subject, for if she is requested to close the right eye and to look fixedly for a moment at the red square which appears to her to be grey, she will after a while obtain the after-image of a green square. Thus the red, which the patient does not see, has enabled her to see the complementary colour, green, and, in spite of her achromatopsia, the colours produce correct after-images. This curious experiment, which was performed several years ago by Regnard, may be varied in many ways. For instance, it has been ascertained that, even when the subject is colour-blind, the invisible red, when mixed with a visible green, produces white, etc. From these facts Regnard drew the probable conclusion that hysterical achromatopsia does not, as the theory of Helmholtz asserts, result from a lesion of the elements of the retina, but from a modification of the centre of vision.
In order to ascertain whether the achromatopsia of suggestion displayed the same characteristics as true achromatopsia, we made a square of red paper invisible; we then requested the subject to look fixedly at its centre, and she saw the after-image of a green square. A repetition of the experiment with other colours always afibrded corresponding results.* The mixture of un-
perceived colours produced the same tints as if their components were perceptible. In short, we ascertained that, notwithstanding their diversity of origin, the characteristics of suggested and of spontaneous achromatopsia were the same. The paralysis was of the same nature. It is, therefore, probable that when anaesthesia is suggested in the case of colours, the coloured ray reaches and penetrates the sensory centre, since it produces a sensation of the complementary colour. Suggested achromatopsia is a central, not a peripheral disturbance.
An experiment of another kind leads to the same conclusion. A blank card is shown to the subject, and she is told that she will not see what is placed upon it. On awaking, the subject's attention is drawn to a square of blue paper, placed upon the card, which, however, still appears to her to be blank. Yet it may be ascertained that although not consciously perceived by the subject, her brain, like a photographic plate, has registered all the modifications of the card, and this negative proof may subsequently be developed and rendered visible. In other words, the subject may receive a conscious recollection of the blue square laid upon the card. This is most easily effected by the magnet. The subject is invited to picture to herself the colour of the card, and at first it appears to her to be white, but under the influence of magnetization the centre of the card becomes darker, and she finally declares that she sees on it a small blue square.
The anaesthesia by suggestion which we are now con-
sidering displays one important feature — systemization. The spontaneous anaesthesia of hysteria is in some sense diffuse. When a patient is unable to see the colour red*, she is unable to see that colour in the case of any object, whatever be its form and nature. On the other hand, a suggested anaesthesia may easily be produced which refers to a single, definite object. For instance, the subject may be unable to see one particular cross of red paper, while she still sees all the other figures, and even other crosses, cut out of the same paper. And again, suggestion prevents the subject from seeing X—, while all other people remain visible to her.
We wish to insist on the systematic character of suggested anaesthesia, since its consequences are singular, and we might even say paradoxical Since suggestion only deprives the subject of the perception of a special object, it follows that the subject must recognize this object in order not to see it. This fact is illustrated by an experiment. We took one of ten cards which were apparently alike, and said to a somnambulist subject, "When you awake, you will no longer see this card." On awaking, we offered her the ten cards, one after the other, and she took each in turn except one, which she did not appear to see. It was the one to which we had directed her attention, and which we had rendered invisible. She therefore distinguished it from the others and recognized it, since she obeyed the suggestion which made it invisible.
It is clear that there is nothing supernatural in this recognition of an invisible object, when it is mixed with several similar objects. The subject was probably aided by some distinctive mark in which it differed from the
others, and this was also the case when she picked out of ten cards the one on which suggestion had placed an Imaginary portrait. There is some analogy between these two experiments, since in both cases the optic image of the card, with all its slightest details, is photographed in the subject's brain, and serves as a guide to her researches.
It is curious that this recognition of the card, a complex and delicate operation, involving a sustained effort of attention, should end in a phenomenon of anaesthesia. It seems probable that this act of recognition occurs altogether in the region of unconscious vision. This explanation — admitting it to be an explanation — also applies to the fact that when a person who has been rendered invisible takes out his pocket-handkerchief, the subject does not see the handkerchief. If he does not see it, it is clearly because he has ascertained that the handkerchief came from the pocket of the invisible person. Here, again, we find an act of unconscious reasoning, which precedes, prepares, and directs the phenomenon of anaesthesia.
It sometimes happens that the attempt to produce systematic anaesthesia results in a shallower and less defined phenomenon, which is, however, interesting, since it approximates to the phenomena of normal life.
On awaking from the hypnotic sleep, six cards were placed on the table before X—, and she perceived and remembered their number. One of the present writers took one of them, showed it to her, and asserted that it did not exist. After some resistance, she finally admitted that his hand was empty. But when she was told to pick up the cards and give them back to him in succession, it
was not always the card which had been rendered invisible which she left upon the table; it was sometimes one card, sometimes another. Moreover, if a certain* number of other cards was added to the six, without telling the subject how many they were, she counted them all from the first to the last, including the invisible card in her enumeration. This experiment seems to show that the suggestion made in the waking state had not produced in the subject a sensory anaesthesia with respect to a given card, but rather the fixed idea that there were only five cards upon the table. There was not the profound disturbance implied in an error of the senses, but it was an error of the reason, and it was this fixed idea which unconsciously inclined her to leave out one card when she attempted to count them.
There is something in normal life which closely resembles this attenuated form of anaesthesia. The preconceived idea that certain objects occupy a certain place is a hindrance to seeing them elsewhere, when they are displaced. We have often observed this peculiarity. If the hand of another happens to have removed an object which habitually stands on our study table, we look about for it, and may pass over the place in which it now stands ten times without perceiving it. Nor is this the only point o£ contact between the strange facts of invisibility by suggestion, and the known facts of normal life. It should be observed that these effects of psychical inhibition are produced in subjects by a negative form of suggestion. The experimenter always utters a negation, saying, "You do not see that person, you do not feel the contact of my hand." In other words, he impresses on his subjects the conviction that
a given object does not exist. It may, therefore, be inferred that in the normal state, whenever an individual is dominated by the conviction that an object does not exist, the conviction renders him blind and deaf. If it can be truly said that miracles only appear to those who expect them, the converse is also true, and the preconceived idea that an object does not exist is a hindrance to seeing it. It may also be affirmed that every negation is far from being merely an inverted assertion, as it has been termed; it probably produces in a normal hearer a phenomenon of inhibition which is an attenuated form of systematic anaesthesia, just as the categorical assertion of a fact produces in a normal hearer a phenomenon of excitement which is an attenuated form of hallucination.
Nor, indeed, is a preconceived idea essential to the production of effects analogous to anaesthesia. The simple fact of attention, which consists in the concentration of the mind on a single point, has the result of increasing the intensity of that point so as to surround it with a zone of anaesthesia. Attention only increases the force of certain sensations in proportion as it attenuates others. One curious fact unites systematic anaesthesia with the negative effects of attention. We have seen that an invisible object, such as a square of red, may, when looked at with intentness, produce an after-image of the same form and of the complementary colour; the object which was invisible in the case of direct vision becomes visible in this sort of consecutive vision. It is the same with objects at which we gaze without seeing them, since the attention is directed elsewhere. Physiologists say that, after look-
ing at an object, an after-image is sometimes obtained in which details are discovered which had escaped the direct vision.
It is difficult to define the nature of systematic anaesthesia. We believe that the sensations produced by invisible objects penetrate to the sensory centre, since they produce after-images, and the cerebral seat of these images is no longer doubtful.* Moreover, the recognition of an invisible card among ten others which resemble it show that the subject's nervous centres had photographed all the details of the invisible object, as well as all the modifications to which it was subjected during the experiment.
It occurred to Richer to compare the mechanism of these phenomena with that of amnesia. We know that when memory does not respond to a spontaneous call, the material modifications which constitute its physical substratum still remain, since the amnesia may be transitory, and is curable. Something of the same kind occurs in anaesthesia by suggestion; the material modifications corresponding with the perception of the invisible object are produced, but they are not accompanied by consciousness. It is as if the subject, as soon as he perceived the invisible object, immediately forgot it. This is, however, only a comparison, not an explanation.
Nothing more definite can be said, except that systematic anaesthesia and other facts of the same class must be included in the great group of unconscious phenomena, in which they form a fresh class, with distinctive features of their own. Whatever be the part
assigned to consciousness, it is clear that the appearance of this phenomenon is connected with certain material conditions of the nervous centres; the conscious state implies different physiological conditions from the unconscious state. It may, therefore, be assumed, that suggested anaesthesia does not only destroy the phenomenon of consciousness, but that it modifies to a certain extent the concomitant nervous process. Indeed, we cannot understand how a suggestion should modify a psychical phenomenon without affecting the nervous process on which it is founded.
We have not yet had occasion to show the action of aesthesiogens on suggested anaesthesia; this action is curious, since the anaesthesia is destroyed. If, for instance, it has been suggested to an hypnotic subject that she does not see X—, who is standing before her, and a magnet is then applied to the back of her head, the ansesthesia presently disappears, and X— again becomes visible. This experiment is the more curious, since the magnet also possesses the property of producing anaesthesia. Therefore the agent exerts two opposite effects, according to circumstances, and it may also be observed that when the action is continuous, these opposite effects are alternate, and this gives rise to consecutive oscillations.
Systematic anaesthesia is a comparatively simple phenomenon, accessible to observation and experiment, and for this reason it may serve as an introduction to the study of other phenomena of the same order which are much more complex.
Like hallucination and impulse, anaesthesia is a phenomenon which affects the peripheral parts of the
intelligence, the senses and the movements. On the other hand, the complex phenomena connected with it are not external, and in some sense belong to interior, central psychology; they are seated in a region which for the most part eludes direct observation. We will only cite, as an instance of these complex phenomena, the failure of memory with respect to a letter, a word, or a whole language. This experiment was often performed by the early magnetizers, and it never failed to make a strong impression upon their audience. They requested one of those present to come upon the platform, and after making some passes over him, said abruptly in an imperious tone, "You have forgotten what your name is." The person addressed would make signs of denying the fact, would attempt to reply, and after wearying himself by opening his mouth in fruitless efforts, would finally confess that he no longer knew what his name was. The general astonishment can be imagined. This experimental amnesia appears to be allied with systematic anaesthesia; it is of the same order, with this difference, that it affects the images of the memory, instead of the external sensations and perceptions.
Some of our experiments confirm this idea. A few days after rendering F— invisible, a somewhat curious fact was observed. The subject was able to see F—'s person, but did not recognize him, nor remember his name, although she had been acquainted with him for ten years. The suggested sensory anaesthesia had, without suggestion, spontaneously produced anaesthesia of the memory.