 There is a broad and well-recognized sphere of personal influence which, though widely discussed, is not fully understood, and extremely conflicting opinions are held about it. It assumes a multitude of forms, sometimes exerts very positive control over others, and is the result of peculiar conditions which in some of their phases have received a very large amount of systematic investigation, though the investigators have not reached an absolute agreement among themselves. Students of these phenomena, whether or not they accept the more extreme doctrines of telepathy, sooner or later become convinced that there is some means of communicating thoughts and mental conditions other than the more apparent methods of speech, facial expression, gesture, and other action. Some deny that these expressions exist except as figments of imagination; but the strong tendency of scientific investigation is toward the opinion expressed by a recent writer, "that thoughts pass in their own subtle, silent way from mind to mind, and that no man can think, however secretly, without spreading the influence of his thought into the minds around him." Open as most of us are to the influence of verbal suggestion, there is something more subtle which may control us without our being aware of it. This particular phase of personal influence finds its most extreme and perhaps its worst form in what has been called by the various names of mesmerism, animal magnetism, and more recently hypnotism. According to later authorities it is suggestion by means of either the vocalized or unvocalized thinking which controls the hypnotized person. We have no means of knowing how often this is the case in ordinary life when there is no intention to hypnotize and where none of its formalities are used. Through it one mind may control another with more or less of an approach toward an absoluteness which is sometimes complete, and it is an important question whether there is a defense against these vary suggestive influences in any or all of their manifold forms. The mental habit of the vast majority of mankind is to follow any suggestion that presents itself without much direct control of one's own thinking unless the subject is widely outside the ordinary track. Random thinking is the rule with some persons, whether it be merely aimless revelry; the more or less ecstatic drift of thought set up by sensuous surroundings of various kinds, as light, color, or sound; the self-suggested mental action arising from the memory of some past experience; the suggestive word, or even the mere presence of another person. These mental activities may be either pleasant to the extent of intoxication or uncomfortable to the extent of acute pain and distress; all of them are injurious, and their indulgence is a worse than use- less waste of time. It appears most remarkable that no worse consequences have followed uncontrolled, aimless, objectless, haphazard, random mental action. Fortunately, not all thinking is of this kind; and, fortunately for the good of the race, more often than otherwise the general tendency of this unguided thinking is toward more desirable things, because every man is really seeking that which he considers an improvement over his present condition or attainment, and his thinking follows his strongest inclination without any intentional control. But the person who has really assumed full control of his thinking and maintains it stands on a pedestal which cannot be shaken. He guides his thoughts where he will and can bid defiance to suggestions of every kind. He is consciously himself, and not a weather- vane to be veered about by every breath of influence. The prominent characteristic of the fully developed hypnotic state is a condition wherein the normal mental powers are either dulled, suspended, or in a state of abeyance, so that the mind accepts without inquiry any statement and obeys without objection any command suggested to it or thrust upon it. Hence, the man's thinking being con- trolled, his actions are controlled also. This is the last step in personal influence. A man in this condition is no longer free, because in abandoning the control of his mind he has surrendered his freedom. He is so completely the slave of another that he is no longer himself, but is merely a machine, an automaton, a puppet, acting solely by another's guidance and without any initiative, choice, or will of his own. Such abandonment of one's self to the control of another cannot be anything but criminal on the part of the one who purposely permits it, and also on the part of the one who induces the condition. Suicide may be worse, but this is temporary suicide, for the man has allowed his own self to become inactive and for the time he is dead. The worst result of it all is that this condition may be continued even into his "waking moments," so that a long time after the hypnotic state is supposed to have ceased, his actions are sometimes controlled by the suggestions received during his hypnotic condition. In view of these acknowledged post-hypnotic actions of the victims it is impossible for any one to tell how far into the future this influence may extend nor how inclusive it may be. This hypnotic condition and its results are possible only when a person has habitually allowed his mind to follow in any direction toward which external circumstances pointed, and has thus made himself an easy prey for the hypnotist, who depends for his success upon his ability to control the thinking of his subject. Self-control and its abandonment are exact opposites, and both cannot exist at the same time in one person. The contrast between them indicates at once the advantage of one and the disadvantage of the other. If mental self-control is desirable, then it should be constantly maintained and ought never to be weakened by indulgence in its opposite. In the mental condition which will result from exercising the control advocated in these pages, every suggestion, regardless of its source, whether mental or otherwise, will be examined and the kind and character of the thinking which shall follow will be decided upon by the thinker himself in compliance with his own understanding, choice, or judgment. If a person purposely controls his thinking at all times until the habit is well established, then the habit itself, without conscious effort, will work in the same direction. The mental action of such a person is always within his own personal volition and is controlled absolutely by himself; therefore hypnotic suggestion has no power over him, and he possesses complete immunity from all such influence. The man who has habituated himself to supremacy over his own thinking is not only uncontrolled by the external suggestions of which he is aware, but also by those more subtle ones of which he may not be conscious, because his own mental action of which he is not conscious is so dominated by this habit of self-control that the thinking of others cannot influence him. This means that the power of habit may be so strong that even a man's mental action of which he is not aware is, unconsciously to himself, wholly in abeyance to his own choice. Such a man is free. Here is not only efficient protection against aft hypnotic or mesmeric intrusion, but also against all forms of improper or injurious external personal influences of every kind whatever. He who controls his own thoughts lives in his own castle, which may be absolutely impregnable against assault from within or without, whether insidious or open, whether mild or violent. God means it to be so. The man who does not thus have mastery of himself is short of his own stature. The physically strong may feel no self-confidence unless to their physical strength they have added control of their thinking. Neither need the physically weak be frightened because of their weakness, for neither physical strength nor weakness is a factor in the case. With- out the exercise of any physical strength whatever, each may maintain perfect mental control, thus insuring absolute freedom to himself. |
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