Spiritual Teachings Concerning the Soul

GA 52 — 6 June 1904, Berlin

XIV. The History of Hypnotism and Somnambulism

Today I am going to talk to you about a chapter in recent intellectual history which, although it repeats an old story in a certain form, does so in such a peculiar and characteristic way that perhaps nothing else is more suitable than this chapter for showing how difficult it is to bring certain great phenomena in the life of the mind, in the life of man in general, into line with what is called official scholarship. Some seemingly harsh words may be necessary in relation to this chapter, especially today. Do not take some of the words spoken in this regard as if they were dictated by passion or emotion. I can assure you that I have the utmost respect for many scholars in terms of their research and scientific abilities, and yet I must say some things that may be painful to hear when discussing the chapter we want to talk about today in a brief historical sketch: the chapter on hypnotism. At the same time, we would like to add a small reference to something related to it, namely somnambulism.

Many people today believe that hypnotism is something completely new, that it is something that science has only conquered in the last half-century or so. Well, let me quote you a testimony from the 17th century. The testimony I would like to quote to you is from a book that is rarely read today, from the book by the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher, and dates from 1646. I would like to share with you the words of this Jesuit priest in somewhat modern language. 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 discusses what the Jesuit priest calls actinobolism. This roughly translates as “radiant imagination.” "This very great power of imagination is even evident in animals. Chickens, I find, enjoy such a strong imagination that the mere sight of a piece of string renders them motionless and seized by a peculiar daze. The truth of this assertion is demonstrated by the following experiment: A wonderful experiment on the imagination of chickens. Place a chicken with its feet tied together on any floor, and at first, feeling trapped, it will flap its wings and move its whole body in every way possible to shake off the restraints placed on it. But eventually, after futile efforts, it will calm down, despairing of escape, and submit to the will of its victor. While the chicken is lying calmly, draw a straight line on the floor in the shape of the string with chalk or some other color, starting from its eye, then leave it alone after releasing its bonds: thus, I say, the chicken, although freed from its bonds, will not fly away at all, even if you provoke it to fly away. The explanation for this behavior is based on nothing other than the lively imagination of the animal, which mistakes the line drawn on the ground for 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 also work with other animals. However, the inquisitive reader may investigate this for themselves.

A similar report on this condition of animals was made at about the same time by another German writer, Caspar Schott, in a book he calls “Amusement of the Human Imagination.” In it, the writer, who was a friend of Athanasius Kircher, tells us that he took the information in this book from numerous experiments by a French medical writer. What is communicated to us 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 will only briefly recapitulate this chapter today.

As you know, hypnotism is understood to be a sleep-like state into which a person can be artificially induced by various means, which we will discuss in the course of this lecture. In this sleep-like state, the person exhibits various characteristics that are not present in their waking consciousness, including characteristics that are not present in normal sleep. For example, you can prick a person in hypnotic sleep with needles; they will prove to be insensitive. When a person is in a certain stage of sleep, you can simply stretch them out, lengthen their limbs; they will then become so rigid and firm that you can lay the person across two chairs, and even the heaviest man can stand on this rigid body.

Those who saw the experiments of the truly extraordinary hypnotist Hansen in the 1880s know that Hansen, after putting people into a hypnotic sleep, laid them on two chairs with a very small surface area and then stood on them, heavy Hansen! These hypnotized bodies behaved almost like boards.

It is also well known that the person who has put someone into such a sleep-like state can give them so-called suggestive commands. If you have put someone 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! — He will do all this and then stand there as if spellbound. Yes, you can do even more. You can say to the person in a room full of people: There is not a single person in this room except you and me. — He will tell you: There is no one here, the room is completely empty. — Or you can also say to him: There is no light here — and he will see none. These are negative hallucinations. But you can also induce other kinds of hallucinations. You can say to him, handing him a potato: “This is a pear, take it and eat it!” — and you can see that he thinks he is eating a pear. In a similar way, you can give him water to drink, and he will think it is champagne.

I could cite many other examples, but I will mention only a few particularly remarkable ones. If you induce a facial hallucination in such a hypnotized person and say to him, for example, “You see a red circle on the white wall there,” he will see a red circle on a white wall. If, after he has had this hallucination, you show him the red circle through a prism, it will appear refracted according to the laws of refraction of the prism, just like any other phenomenon. The visual hallucinations produced in hypnotized individuals follow the external laws of refraction; they also follow other optical laws, but it would be going too far to list them in detail. It is particularly important to know that if we give such a hypnotized individual a command that he is not to carry out immediately, but only after some time, this can also happen. I put a person under hypnosis and tell them: Tomorrow you will come to me, say hello, and then ask me for a glass of water. If the experiment is carried out in such a way that all the preconditions are met, they will know nothing about the experiment after waking up; but tomorrow, at the time I told them, they will feel an irresistible urge and carry out what I asked them to do. This is a post-hypnotic suggestion. This can extend to strange things, including suggestions about appointments. I can suggest to a hypnotized person that they perform a certain action in three times ten days; however, a large number of actions must be performed beforehand. Do not be alarmed by this. Only an occultist may be able to overlook the necessary preconditions, but nevertheless, the person concerned will carry out the command given to him punctually in three times ten days.

These are phenomena that are actually denied today by very few people, not even by scholars who have studied these questions. It is hardly possible for anyone who has studied these matters to deny the information I have provided. 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 sum of things that it is impossible to know how much more will be added to what has already been conceded.

Well, I have shown you that such abnormal states of consciousness are also hinted at in the 17th century in the 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 times. However, it cannot be proven that the ancient Egyptian, and especially the ancient Indian priestly sages, knew only what I have told 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 will see why. But one thing is remarkable. We are told that the Jesuit Kircher obtained his wisdom indirectly from India. Let us remember this 17th-century account that this wisdom was transmitted from India.

The centuries that followed the 17th century were not particularly favorable for such things in external science. This external science made great progress, particularly in the fields of physics, astronomy, and the exploration of external, sensory facts. I have already explained last time what significance these advances had for human thinking. I have shown that these advances have above all accustomed people to seeking the actual knowable, the truth, only in the sensually perceptible reality, so that people have become accustomed to not accepting what cannot be seen with the eyes, grasped with the hands, or comprehended with the combining intellect. We are approaching the Age of Enlightenment, the age in which the average human mind became dominant, in which people wanted to understand everything in the same way that they understand physical phenomena. And with physical phenomena, if the conditions are set correctly, the experiments must succeed. Anyone can set 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 being to human being or from human being to living being is necessary. The manipulations that humans have to perform with the chicken, as in the experiment described to us by the Jesuit priest Kircher in the 17th century, these manipulations had to be carried out by humans. And all the other things I have spoken about must also be carried out 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 very different from one another, they have such different characteristics that they affect other living beings, especially other people, in very different ways. And so it could well be that, because humans are necessary to bring about the phenomena of hypnosis, one person does not have the characteristics necessary to hypnotize another person, while another person does have these characteristics. We need not be surprised if this were the case. We all know that there is an interaction between the things in question, comparable to that between a magnet and iron filings. The iron filings remain at rest when you place wood in them, but if you place a magnet in them, the filings arrange themselves in a certain way.

Now we must assume that people are so different from one another that one can produce certain effects, like the magnet, while another cannot produce any effect, like the wood. Such a view will never be accepted by purely rational enlightenment. It assumes that one person is like another. The average standard is applied to people, and it will never be admitted that someone can be a significant intellectual scholar but have no ability whatsoever, no qualities, to induce a hypnotic state. There could perhaps be a case where it is less important who is being hypnotized and more important who is hypnotizing, who is active. Perhaps it is even possible to artificially induce in a person the qualities that exert such a powerful influence on others that the phenomena we have discussed occur, or even that much more significant phenomena occur. Rational enlightenment, which makes no distinction between people, will not admit this. However, those who have studied these matters were clear about this until the Age of Enlightenment. Anyone who follows the course of history will find a completely different view of science than we have today. Sometimes it is only oral traditions that have been passed down from school to school. In all this, we are never told anything about the state of the hypnotized, about the state of those who are to be hypnotized; that is not important at all. On the other hand, we are given methods that enable another person, the hypnotist, to evoke such powers within himself that he can exert such an influence on his fellow human beings. The secret schools then provide very specific methods by which a person can gain such power over his fellow human beings. However, all schools also require that those who develop such power within themselves must undergo a certain development that involves the whole person. Mere intellectual scholarship is of no help here, nor are thinking and science alone. 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. This leads them 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 confers the highest power, because it comes about through a transformation of the whole person, it was kept secret. Only when other views gained ground did people begin to have different views, different intentions, and different aims regarding these phenomena. Secret scientific traditions have thus underlain the question for centuries, and nothing else matters but this: What requirements must those to whom such power is imparted fulfill, what methods are necessary for a person to acquire such influence over their fellow human beings?

This question remained unanswered until the Age of Enlightenment. Only at the dawn of the Enlightenment could something about these phenomena be revealed in popular scientific form by someone such as the Jesuit priest I mentioned. Never before would anyone who knew the matter and the way it worked have dared to speak about these phenomena in public books. Only through indiscretion could anything about this matter become public knowledge. It was only when people no longer knew what the saying Knowledge is power — had tremendous significance, only at that point in time, when people were, so to speak, playing with fire, so to speak, with knowledge that could be quite disastrous under certain circumstances and did not know what to do with it, only at such a time was it possible to discuss this knowledge, which means nothing other than the dominion of the mind over the mind, in a popular way. It is therefore not surprising that official scholarship, which, as we know it, is a child of the last few centuries, did not know what to make of these phenomena.

In particular, it did not know what to make of these phenomena when they confronted it in a strangely surprising way. This was at the end of the 18th century through Mesmer, who was much maligned on the one hand and exalted on the other. This personality set the question in motion for scholarship. The name mesmerism comes from him. He was a very peculiar personality, a personality such as perhaps appeared in greater numbers in the 18th century than might be the case today; a personality who, as we shall see, was necessarily misunderstood by many, but who, on the other hand, through a fearlessness—which, of course, to outsiders appears as adventurousness, 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 scholars must regard as quite fantastical. Preyer, whom I hold in high esteem—take this word seriously, for it is not a prejudice but a characteristic — Preyer, Darwin's biographer, approached this very question with tremendous impartiality, which I greatly appreciate, and I therefore choose him in particular as an example of how little the changed science of the 19th century can do justice to what was written in the 18th century on the basis of completely different assumptions. Preyer, therefore, approached Mesmer's works with all good will and could find nothing in them but empty words. Anyone who judges such things not with fantasy but with expertise will understand this, and may even be suspicious of others who believe they can defend Mesmer against Preyer. If one wants to judge correctly, the preconditions for such a judgment lie much deeper than is usually believed. But this first treatise should not concern us, for to the discerning reader it shows nothing more than that Mesmer, from a fairly high vantage point and with a comprehensive view, understood the science of his time. I want to emphasize this so that no one believes that he was a dilettante who dabbled in such things. Mesmer was undoubtedly an impeccable young scholar when he wrote his doctoral dissertation, and what he wrote can be found in countless dissertations by people who became very good and capable scholars of the 18th and even the 19th century.

This Mesmer appeared in Vienna in the last third of the 18th century with his so-called magnetic cures. For these magnetic cures, he initially used certain methods that were already common practice at the time. It was a tradition at that time, one that had never completely died out, that healing could be achieved by means such as those I will mention. This tradition came to life at that time. He used a method that was not at all controversial: steel magnets were placed on or near the affected area of the body, allegedly or genuinely bringing relief or healing from pain. Mesmer used such magnets in his institute for a long time. But then he noticed something very special. Perhaps he did not even notice it at the time, or perhaps he already knew and simply wanted to use a more viable method as a cover. He threw the magnets aside and said that the power emanated solely from his own body, that it was merely transferred as a healing power from his own body to the sick body in question, so that the healing was an interaction between a power he developed in his body and another power that was in the sick body of the other person. He called this power animal magnetism. I am telling this in a rough and crude way; to explain it in detail and more finely would take too much time. Very soon—we will not discuss the success of his cure—he had differences in Vienna. He had to leave the city and turned to Paris. At first, he had extraordinary success there. He had an unusual influx of patients. However, the scholars could not get over the fact that Mesmer earned six thousand francs a month, which is rather awkward from a doctor's point of view when someone earns so much. This was, of course, from the perspective of the up-and-coming science, which was inclined toward materialism.

You know that in the 18th century we were in the midst of the Age of Enlightenment, that emotions 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 understood with the mind. And you will understand that official science, which was more or less under the influence of materialistic thinking, took offense at things that could not be understood. Mesmer's healings therefore became a public scandal. People said to themselves: these must not be real illnesses, but only imaginary ones, so that hysterical people are only healed in their imagination, or that sick people are freed from pain in their imagination. In any case, Mesmer's method was denied. As a result, two bodies were commissioned by the king to give their opinion on mesmerism. I would like to quote them to you so that you can see how science really viewed these things at that time; so that you can see that one must not view these things with passion, but at the same time also see how one necessarily had to misunderstand the position that one had to take towards Mesmer at that time.

A woman was blindfolded and told that Mr. d'Elon had been brought in to magnetize 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, stood up from her chair, and stamped her feet. Now the crisis was there. This crisis was also mentioned in connection with Mesmer's healings, and its success was attributed to it.

A hysterical woman was brought to the door. She was told that the magnetizer was inside. She began to shiver, to freeze, and the crisis came.

The commission had stated that something strange was going on, something the commission could not have expected. And it had stated something that left it with little choice but to conclude that the whole procedure was Mesmer's fraud. Anyone who understood anything about it could have predicted that they would come to this conclusion with a probability of ninety-five to one, and that their assumptions would not allow them to come to any other explanation. But the commission could have come to other conclusions! Is it not significant that a woman who merely thinks of a person experiences all the conditions that are described to us here, both by the woman inside the room and by the woman outside? Above all, we must ask ourselves, and the commission should have asked itself this question honestly and sincerely at the time: Could they have expected such an effect of thought from their rationalistic, enlightened point of view? With their materialistic means, would they have had any possibility, any tremendous possibility, of explaining the effect of thought on physical conditions? Even if we grant the commission the right to condemn Mesmer, we can never grant it the right to leave this matter unresolved. The matter had to be investigated further, precisely by the commission, because it is undoubtedly a very special scientific question.

I would like to highlight one more fact that is significant for those in the know, but which has only been judged in a derogatory sense. Mesmer was offered a large sum of money to reveal his secret to other people. It was also said that the money had been paid to him, but that he had kept the secret to himself and not shared it with others. Many people consider this to be a hoax. But shortly afterwards, so-called hermetic societies appeared throughout France, in which the same arts were also practiced to a certain extent. It was not said that he had revealed the secret, but there were those who practiced his methods. Anyone who knows anything about these things understands that he only shared his secrets with trustworthy people. The fact that he did not publish his secrets in the newspapers means nothing. Put this sentence in context with the fact that those who really know something about such things do not share this knowledge, because it is not important to share it, but rather to develop certain qualities that bring it about.

Now you will understand where these societies came from. The experiments are not important here; in fact, they should be prohibited if they are carried out by unqualified persons. The only important thing is to develop the hypnotist. At that time, scientists were hardly able to explain these phenomena. Therefore, these phenomena were initially dismissed as nonsense by the French Academy and the scientific community as a whole. But they kept reappearing. And even in Germany, such phenomena were constantly being discussed. Newspapers were founded especially for this purpose. People who believe that such an influence can be exerted from person to person explain the fact by assuming that a fluid, a fine substance, passes from the hypnotist to the hypnotized and exerts the influence. But even those who do not deny the influence cannot go beyond materialism; they say to themselves: matter remains matter, whether it is coarse or fine. — One could not imagine anything other than something material as being spiritually effective. The fact that these phenomena were interpreted in this way at that time is a consequence of the fact that they were interpreted in a materialistic age.

I cannot now describe in detail the various decades that followed Mesmer. I will only mention that the phenomena were never completely forgotten, and that time and again people appeared who took these phenomena very seriously. There were even 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 much more than what today's 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 heart and, in such a state, could read the words by merely touching a page of the book. It was claimed that artificial somnambulism could also enable one to see distant events, i.e., to become clairvoyant.

Now all these phenomena were brought back into circulation — and the strange thing is that the scholars of the 19th century had to be made aware of them — they were first brought into circulation by traveling hypnotists such as Hansen, who traveled around America in the 1840s, demonstrating the phenomena to large audiences and charging for it. They often had tremendous effects on their audiences. They were called soul tamers. Justin Kerner, in particular, calls these people soul tamers because they produced effects on the soul by merely staring, merely looking. However, stumbling upon these phenomena has dangerous aspects because, on the one hand, there are dangers for the test subjects and, on the other hand, certain swindlers deceive the audience in the most unbelievable ways.

I would like to describe an experiment that has been performed many times and which I am personally convinced has repeatedly perplexed and deceived souls in large public gatherings. The experiment consists of the following. A medium sits here with their eyes blindfolded. They cannot see anything. The impresario in question walks around the audience and says at the back of the hall: Tell me something in my ear or ask me a question, and we will 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, far away from the impresario, announces the word that was whispered or written down. No one but the two people know anything about it, and the impresario in question can show the piece of paper or ask the person concerned whether the medium's message is correct. In truth, in many cases where I was present, nothing else happened but the following. The man who was walking around was a very skilled ventriloquist. The medium moved his lips at the moment he was supposed to say the word. The entire audience looked at the medium's lips, and the impresario himself said the word or sentence in question! I have seen time and time again that there were hardly two people in the hall who had an explanation for this experiment. Of course, such things were always mixed up with indisputable facts. One must be knowledgeable in order not to be deceived by traveling magnetizers. That is why I find 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! Those who are familiar with these things and know what they are talking about will not be easily fooled in these matters.

In the 1940s and 1950s, traveling soul tamers once again brought this to the attention of scholars. It was a certain Stone who 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 this scholar, we have scholarly treatises on these phenomena from the 1940s. They mainly referred to the fixation method, to staring at a shiny object. This scholar immediately pointed out that all these phenomena could not be attributed to a very special, specific influence exerted by the hypnotists on the persons being hypnotized. And it was precisely this fixation experiment that was so decisive for him, because he wanted to show that these phenomena were an abnormal state of the test subjects in question. He wanted to show that no interaction took place, but that everything that happened was nothing more than a phenomenon to be understood physiologically, caused by a pure brain process. It was important to him to show that mesmerism, in which the person concerned must have special qualities, was an absurdity. This basically set the tone in which these questions were dealt with by official science throughout the second half of the 19th century. With few exceptions, this question was approached as if it could be treated like an ordinary scientific experiment, as if it were nothing more than a fact that was only significant insofar as it could be reproduced like any other scientific experiment that could be conducted 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, the study fell into a rather unfavorable era. To characterize how unfavorable the era of the 1950s and 1960s was, I would like to mention something that is most characteristic for those examining the course of development in the 19th century, but which is generally overlooked by official science.

Long before Stone, long before academic scholarship, a man appeared in Paris who had previously been a Catholic priest, then went to the Brahmins in India, and who, in Paris, used the methods he had learned in India, hypnotism and suggestion, i.e., inspiration from person to person, for healing. This man, whose name was Faria, explained all these phenomena in a fundamentally different way. He said that only one thing mattered: that the hypnotist was able to induce a very specific state of mind in the person being hypnotized, that he was able to put the person's imagination into a state of concentration and focus. When this concentration is achieved, when the entire imagination of the person concerned is focused on a specific point, the relevant state must occur. And then the other phenomena must also occur, including the much more complicated ones that Faria points out.

Here you have an explanation and interpretation in an appropriate manner from someone who really understood the matter. But he was not understood. He is simply ignored. And that is also 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. However, the scholars understood little of this, so that the learned Preyer said as late as 1877 that if the Church attributed these phenomena to imagination, it only showed how much imagination the Church had. He spoke disparagingly about the Catholic priest who had become a Brahmin. However, hypnotism has always been used for healing and pain relief during operations. Those who had a connection to Faria managed to make the pain of the patient undergoing surgery imperceptible through mental influence. In 1847, chloroform was discovered, a substance that materialistic researchers could believe in and rightly say was suitable for preventing pain during operations. With that, understanding of the other pain-relieving substance was lost for a long time. Only a few truly thoughtful researchers continued to study these phenomena in the following period. Those who look more closely will find time and again that doctors are very familiar with the relevant methods, but here and there they remark that there is something behind the phenomena that they do not understand. And those who are more insightful expressly warn against dealing with these phenomena at all, with this field that is so subject to deception that even great scholars can be misled; therefore, one cannot warn against it enough.

This was the position taken by certain scholars who otherwise commanded the highest respect. I need only mention the Viennese researcher Benedikt, whom I greatly admire in this regard and who pointed out these phenomena again and again, even as early as the 1870s. He is the same researcher who proposed the idea of so-called moral insanity, which is simply not commonly understood. One need not agree with the theory, nor with what he says about hypnotism and magnetism. Even as a young man, he studied mesmerism and found that there was something behind it, but he never indulged in it in the same way as Liébeault and Bernheim of the Nancy School. It was Benedikt who strongly opposed and emphasized that even Charcot had warned against attempts to interpret these phenomena. Nowhere in Benedikt's work can you find a plausible reason for his opposition to the whole theory of hypnosis, but his instinctive statements are strangely accurate. He always says: Anyone who conducts experiments in this field must be aware that the people with whom they conduct such experiments can just as easily deceive them, perhaps without knowing it, as they can convey something true to them. On the other hand, he has emphasized that the way science wants to take control of things will not lead to any results at all.

Now we see, after another traveling hypnotist, Hansen, has performed the most horrendous experiments on people, which have been replicated by scholars in laboratories and have been partially successful, how magazines are taking hold of the matter, how thick books are being written that are being exploited by journalism, how these things are gradually becoming issues of the day and popular writings are being written so that everyone can have a guide to these things in their pocket. It was namely the scholars of the Nancy School, Liébeault and Bernheim, who interpreted these phenomena in a manner befitting science. These phenomena had to be attributed a characteristic that made them equivalent to other scientific phenomena. Thus, we see that the external, which cannot be denied by materialists, should be decisive in bringing about hypnosis. Bernheim went so far as to exclude all methods and admit only verbal suggestion: the word I speak to the person concerned 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 evokes the effect.

Thus, materialism had successfully buried the phenomena of hypnosis; thus, what all those who are knowledgeable in these matters know had been pushed into the background: that what matters is the influence of one person on another; that a person either has a natural predisposition for this or develops it through special methods and thus becomes a powerful personality who is significant to their fellow human beings. And it was precisely this personal influence that had been completely disregarded. The point of view of the average mind, according to which all people are equal and which refuses to accept the development of human beings to a certain level of moral and intellectual education, was to prevail. What really matters has been buried.

All modern literature is written from this point of view. It is the philosopher Wundt in particular who does not know what to make of it and explains it as the ineffectiveness of a certain part of the brain. My friend, whom I hold in high esteem, Dr. Hans Schmidkunz, has also written a psychology of suggestion, in which he explains in detail that these processes are only an intensification of phenomena that can be observed in everyday life and that occur naturally, but that we do not yet know where to look for an explanation.

Having considered the history of this fact, we have reached a kind of impasse. No one will be able to find anything else in contemporary literature on this subject other than a more or less large 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 these facts, and that nothing is more unjustified than for medicine today to presume to bury these phenomena for itself, when it claims that it is solely the field of medicine, the prerogative of medicine, to deal with these facts. It is clear to anyone with real insight that medicine, at its current stage of development, does not know what to do with these facts, and that those who point out the dangers of these things are right. It is not for nothing that people like Moritz Benedikt have warned against dealing with these things in the usual scientific sense. It is not for nothing that they have said that even a Charcot must be careful, because these conditions, which he evokes as an objective observer, could just as easily affect him subjectively. It is not without reason that they wanted to protect science from the treatment practiced by the Nancy School, which achieved nothing for the truly insightful except worthless attempts at registration or explanation that ultimately mean nothing. Benedict was absolutely right to point out that in the entire literature of the Nancy School it is impossible to distinguish between superficial and positive achievements, whether one has succumbed to self-deception or been deceived.

This is the instinctive judgment of a man who is highly regarded by certain, namely deeper medical minds of the present day, the judgment of this very Professor Benedikt. This judgment is significant because it instinctively presents us with the true facts. Benedikt instinctively points out what is important. The first is that these things—and Benedikt expresses this in clear terms—must not be mixed up with others for the sake of experimentation. Therefore, he only examines those facts that come to him without his intervention. If someone enters a state of natural hypnosis and undergoes no change through 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 the power of one person to that of another, then we change the state of the other person, and then it depends—as those who know the higher methods, which science does not yet have, know—on what is attached to our person, on what this person is like. 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 want to exert such an influence in an appropriate manner, so that comprehensive cosmic forces are not tainted in a harmful way, then you must be familiar with the secrets of higher spiritual life, and you can only do that 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 being exercised around us. You cannot enter a room without interactions taking place in that room, if other people are in it, which are analogous to what takes place in hypnotic phenomena under other circumstances. If such influences are to be exerted consciously, one must first be worthy and capable of exerting such an influence.

Therefore, a healthy life will only return to this field when there is no longer a demand to study these phenomena in the scientific sense, but when the old method is renewed, whereby those who have awakened the power within themselves, i.e., those who can be hypnotists, must first develop very specific higher powers within themselves. This was known in the past. People knew what the phenomena were like. It was important to prepare people so that they could perform such phenomena. Only when our medical training is completely different again, when the whole of humanity is led back to a higher moral, spiritual, and intellectual level, and when people have proven themselves worthy, only when the test is carried out in this sense, can we speak of a prosperous development in this field. Therefore, there is nothing to be hoped 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 right way again. When that happens, it will be seen that these phenomena are actually more widespread than is commonly believed. Then we will understand many things in our environment. Then we will also know that beyond a certain point, these phenomena cannot be popularized at all, because beyond this point, these phenomena belong to human inner development. The highest power is not acquired through the vivisection of the spirit, but through the development of forces that lie deep within us. Moral, mental, and spiritual higher development—that is what will make us worthy again to speak clearly and distinctly in these areas.

Then we will also understand our ancestors again, who did not want to know anything about revealing these things in their deepest meaning to the profane world. This is precisely what was meant when people spoke of the veiled image of Isis, that no one who is guilty may lift the veil. The intention was to indicate that human beings can only recognize the highest truths once they have made themselves worthy of them. This will cast new meaning and light on the saying: Knowledge is power. Yes, knowledge is power. And the greater the knowledge, the greater the power. The leadership of world history is based on such power. It is a caricature of this that science wants to show us today. But such knowledge, which awakens the heart, such power, which may intervene in the hearts and freedom of others, can only be acquired through an insight which is at the same time a blessing for man, before which he stands in awe. That our knowledge should grasp our whole being, that we should stand before the highest truths and recognize that the truth experienced within us is divine revelation, which we regard as something sacred, must be our ideal. Then we will experience knowledge as power again, when knowledge is once more a communion with the divine. Those who unite themselves with the divine in knowledge are called upon to realize the saying: Knowledge is power.