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ITINERANT SVENGALIS SHOWING OFF THEIR ART SPREAD EXAM PLES OF REVOLTING CRUELTY. Laws regulating the practice and teaching of hypnotism are one of the gravest needs of our states and ter ritories, according to medico-legal specialists of the country. The hyp notic craze has been steadily growing in recent years until it has now be come a public danger. Itinerant Sven galis are sweeping the country, sus pecting victims to all sorts of cruel ties to the amusement of the morbidly curious or for advertising purposes. They are leaving behind them a trail of maimed bodies and weakened in tellects. These exhibitions are being protected by municipal license, while many fraudulent or othewise baneful correspondence schools of hypnotism are flourishing under federal copyright protection and by aid of the United States mail privilege. In France there is a law forbidding the practice or teaching of hypnotism by any other than trained physicians, licensed by the government. That is what our medico-legal authorites are fighting for. One of the most ac tive advocates of this reform is Dr. William Lee Howard, vice president of the Medico-Legal society. Since 95 per cent of mankind can be hypnotised, according to the noted hypnologist, Liebeault, of Nancy, France, the subject might be said to be vital. The other day, in the course of a public entertainment at Neola, Iowa, a traveling Svengali sewed together with big needles and stout cords the wrists of a hypnotised subject, who emerged from the trance premature ly, tearing the flesh. Through the legs of another hypnotised subject long needles were thrust until the blood flowed freely. A panic ensued, women fainted and a mob was about to tar and feather the “professor” when he was rescued by the authori ties and carried off to jail. Some time before this an itinerant hypnotist, giving a public exhibition, in Washington, set a brawny man and a frail youth, both hypnotised, to wrestling. The audience gasped with delight till the helpless one was curled off the stage with several bones broken. During the course of similar exhibitions in Cleveland, a boy was kept asleep for a week, during which he was given no food and lost nearly 15 pounds. The father of the lad made frantic efforts to rescue him from the hypnotist, but without suc cess, and medical students subjected the youth to all sorts of experiments. In the show window of a Washington drug store the writer witnessed phases of a similar experiment. A youth, upon a couch, was kept in pub lic view night and day during a pro longed trance. It was a revolting spectacle. But the experiment drew trade for the druggist, who presuma bly employed for that purpose the coarse, dissipated looking woman who had the victim “under control.” A hypnotized man, sealed up in a casket and buried alive, in a grave nine feet deep, was offered as the piece de resistance during a hypnotic exhibition near Chicago. A ventilat ing tube led up from the casket, which on the seventh day of the trance was dug up in the presence of a large crowd. A series of hypnotic exhibitions ev en more revolting and demoralizing was planned for this country some months ago. In 1890 Gabrielle Bom pard, a mere girl, put a silken cord around the neck of her dover who sat beside her on a sofa, while a man hid den in darperies behind the sofa at tached the sord to a pulley and hang ed the victim. The girl’s defense was that she did her share of the crime while hypnotised. But she was sen tenced to a long term in prison. Hav ing been lately released, she came to America with a young dentist, but was detained at the immigration sta tion at Ellis Island, N. Y., on the charge that she was an ex-convict. She confessed her identity as well as her intent to travel through the country with the dentist and a hypnotist. While the latter had her under con trol she and the dentist were to re hearse the murder for which she was convicted. This histricic feat for the American people was suggested to her by experiments performed with her by Prof. Leigois, of Paris, who, after the murder, put her under the hypnot ic influence. During the trance she repeated her part in the murder. The hypnotic school offers dangers far graver than those of the hypnotic exhibition, for it sows the seed from which springs up the large annual crop of itinerant Svengalis. There is no doubt that the ability to put vic tims “under control” is easily learned. The writer some years ago interview ed a scientific hypnotist, who outlined the methods by which he put subjects in the hypnotic state. He was soon flooded with letters, some of them stating that great success had been obtained by following the tactics men tioned in the article. The writer found himself a teacher of hypnotism without ever having been a matricu late. A considerable proportion of the “schools of hypnotism” is conducted by that class of men known in the dia lect of the streets as “grafters.” I have the statement of a woman who took such a course, and after parting with her money had nothing in return Save a store of ludicrous anecdote; but this, perhaps, was an asset worth more than for which she paid her money. The teacher had told her at length how he had treated a woman for cancer. “I hypnotized her’,’ said he, “and in doing so absorbed into my own system the drugs which the doctors had been cJasing her. As a result I had a large carbuncle on my face, and was for a short time a sick man. In mesmerizing for disease one takes into his system all the impuri ties of the sick one.” But the correspondence course in hypnatism is now the rage. The les sons are sent out either in good form or by some of the systems of mani folding typewriting. In this way a tempting dose can be administered for a flat price, but more startling in formation is guaranteed if more mon ey is sent, and so on. The elementary course gives simple methods by which the home loafer, with nothing to occu py his mnd, may commence experi ments upon his little sister. This leads to the exhibiton course, which equips him as an itinerant mesmerist, and a further course makes him a magnetic healer, while the highest of all turns him out a full-fledger clairvoyant. All sorts of tortures are prescribed as tests by which the novice may as certain his aptness. To be sure that his subject is under control, for ex ample, he may be jammed with a pin in the back of the hand. Being under control, he may be told that bees are stinging him, and he will roll on the floor screaming from the pain. It may be suggested that needles or pins stuck through his tongue, ears, or cheeks will cause him no pain, and we will not flinch when they are inserted. Quite readily can the subject be made to sign promissory notes, deeds, checks etc. After suggesting this, one of these mail courses adds that the crime thus induced “could never be proved if you commanded the subject before he did it that he would positively never have any remembrance of the act.” In one course teaching hypnotic methods of disobeying the laws as an amateur practice of medicine it is shown how cancer may be treated by the newly made hypnotist rubbing his fingers upon the sore while concen trating his mind upon the cure. But the clairvoyant course is the most complicated. The subject, un der control, may be made to reveal the future of his own life, the past and future of others. While these charlatans are day by day spreading the bareful effects of this fascinating science, conscientious Savants are as rapidly spreading its benefits and discovering more and more of its hidden powers as a cura tive agent. “Hypnotism is of far great er benefit of some offerers than nor mal sleep, if properly administered,” says Dr. Liebeault. “For centuries,” Says he, “it has been admitted that there was no medicine that equalled sleep. Therefore the doctor who can place his patient at a critical time under the influence of hypnosis is re ally giving him an opportunity to find in that blessed oblivion the relief that can be gained in no other manner, ex cept by the use of anodynes.”
Newspaper Details
Sedalia Weekly Sentinel
Sedalia, Missouri, US
Fri, May 05, 1905
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Michael B.
TX, USA 15 Feb 2026
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