Research source

CHAPTER IX Hypnotism in medicine—Anesthesia—Restoring the use of muscles—Hallucination—Bad habits

Date of account: Published 1903
Source: Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and Use
Reference: Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and Use · selected passage 48
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

But is it enough to enable us to produce an a priori negation?

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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.”

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Modern context

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