Secret, Don’t Tell: Encyclopedia of Hypnotism
by
Carla Emery
Excerpt From Author
Carla Emery:
Svengali: Unethical Stage Hypnosis in Literature and Life
The hypnotist can be erotically fascinated by the sight of his
inanimate, plastic, unresisting subject. In this, hypnotists share a
dream world with undertakers. – Robert Marks, p. 119
An
Englishman with a French name, George Du Maurier (1834-1896), wrote
his last and most famous novel, Trilby, about hypnocontrol. It was the
first “best seller.”
Du
Maurier got the idea for his tale of Svengali’s cruel domination of
his hapless hypnotic subject from viewing a demonstration of a
subject’s complete, amnesic dissociation in a hypnotist’s office. In
the late 19th century, both natural split personalities and artificial
personality splitting (by suggested amnesia under hypnosis) were hot
new items in psychological research.1 The young female whose hypnotic
submission was demonstrated to Du Maurier was an unknowing, chronic,
hypnotic subject, an artificially-split personality.
The
novelist watched her be hypnotized, made to obey commands under
trance, then awakened. He saw her obedience to posthypnotic commands
and her rationalization of them as being freely willed choices. He
observed her total unawareness of the previous trance state. He
realized the tragic potential for abuse of such a long-term,
unknowing, hypnotic subject.
Svengali and Trilby The novel, Trilby, published in 1894, contained
some minor technical errors. Nevertheless, it introduced the basic,
sordid facts of hypnotic exploitation to a mass readership. By the
vehicle of fiction, it presented important facts about abusive
hypnosis. DuMaurier’s tale of poor Trilby stimulated a much needed
public awareness, and discussion, of unethical hypnosis. What Svengali
did to Trilby has never quite been forgotten, despite ceaseless
efforts by the hypnosis lobby to discredit the basic facts.
In
the novel, Svengali, a middle-aged, unsuccessful musician, captured
Trilby by a disguised induction, then hypno-trained her into a split
personality (and a brilliant singer). Thereafter, she kept her
puppetmaster, Svengali, living in luxury, supported by her concert
performances. She always sang in an amnesic trance.
He
began Trilby’s conditioning by persuading her to agree to a Mesmer-style
induction by passes:
Svengali told her to sit down on the divan, and sat opposite to her,
and bade her look him well in the white of the eyes.
“Recartez-moi pien tans le planc tes yeaux.”
Then
he made little passes and counterpasses on her forehead and temples
and down her cheek and neck. Soon her eyes closed and her face grew
placid. (Du Maurier, p. 69)
In
the novel, as with real-life subjects, Trilby did not understand how a
seemingly harmless first submission to hypnosis can develop into a
terrible longterm mind slavery. Svengali gradually transformed her
from a proud, independent person into an obedient hypno-tool. Now she
lived a cruel, secret life in addition to the “real” life that she
consciously lived.
Conceited, derisive, and malicious, he alternately bullies and fawns
in a harsh, croaking voice…Though Trilby is repelled at first by his
greasy, dirty appearance and regards him as a spidery demon or
incubus, she becomes completely his creature under his
hypnosis….Gecko…[is] a young fiddler, small, swarthy, shabby,
brown-eyed, and pock-marked; a nail-biter. Though he loves Trilby he
helps Svengali train her…so that Svengali may exploit her. (Magill,
Masterplots, p. 1158)
At
the story’s end, foul Svengali dies. Trilby dies a few hours after. (DuMaurier’s
presumption that a mind-controlled victim cannot survive without the
puppet master is false.) The novel concludes with Gecko, Svengali’s
assistant, trying to explain to Trilby’s grieving former friends what
happened to her–and how a hypnotic split personality functions:
Gecko sat and smoked and pondered for a while, and looked from one to
the other. Then he pulled himself together with an effort, so to
speak, and said, “Monsieur, she never went mad-not for one moment!…She
had forgotten-voila tout!”
“But
hang it all, my friend, one doesn’t forget such a…”
“…I
will tell you a secret. There were two Trilbys. There was the Trilby
you knew…But all at once-pr-r-r-out! presto! augenblick!…with one wave
of his hand over her-with one look of his eye-with a word-Svengali
could turn her into the other Trilby, his Trilby, and make her do
whatever he liked…you might have run a red-hot needle into her and she
would not have felt it…
“He
had but to say ‘Dors!’ and she suddenly became an unconscious Trilby
of marble, who could…think his thoughts and wish his wishes-and love
him at his bidding with a strange unreal factitious love…When
Svengali’s Trilby was singing-or seemed to you as if she were
singing-our Trilby was fast asleep…in fact, our Trilby was dead…and
then, suddenly, our Trilby woke up and wondered what it was all
about…” (Du Maurier, pp. 456-459)
Trilby is now back in print (Everyman, 1994), an old fable that
refuses to be forgotten. Svengali, the name that DuMaurier gave to
Trilby’s evil hypnotist, is the author’s best known character. The
mere word is resonant with sinister implications. A Svengali is “one
who attempts, usually with evil intentions, to persuade or force
another to do his bidding.” (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary)
Exploitation of
Female Stage Mediums
The
publication of DuMaurier’s novel wound up a century of European hypno-abuse
of genetically susceptible persons, especially young women. Trilby
spotlighted the specific problem of hypnotic exploitation of women
(and men) in the theater world.
The
use of somnambulist (highly-conditioned) mediums on stage, or in
seances serving smaller audiences, was common in that era. The medium
tended to be young, female, and attractive. She was a highly
susceptible hypnotic subject, of course-and not protected by strong
and prosperous family connections.
The
use of hypnotized women on stage for entertainment emerged from
eighteenth century scientific demonstrations of trance and medical
hypnosis. Scientific researchers regarded their subjects as means to
an end, as useful objects whom they manipulated like laboratory rats
to prove, or disprove, their competing hypotheses. Medical hypnotists
who were followers of Charcot viewed their patients being treated by
hypnosis as disgusting neurotics. Their mechanistic mind manipulations
respected only the knowledge and will of the operator. Unethical
hypnotists viewed subjects as possessions destined by inborn genetic
susceptibility to be ruled by the power of any master who made the
effort to acquire and manipulate them. Most hypnotists scorned their
subjects for the very quality they worked hardest to develop in them:
mindless obedience.
Du
Maurier may also have read the autobiography of Charles Lafontaine
before he wrote Trilby. Lafontaine failed as an actor, but then became
wealthy as a stage hypnotist. The secret of his success on stage was
not his own talent, but that of his female hypnotic subject.
Lafontaine
…taught her a theatrical role that she then performed beautifully on
the stage before a large audience and of which she could remember
nothing in her waking state. (Ellenberger, The Discovery of the
Unconscious, p. 157)
He
might have read Auguste Lassaigne’s autobiography. Lassaigne was
French, born in 1819. He was just a touring solo juggler the day he
watched an 18-year-old girl named Prudence receive treatment from a
magnetizer. Observing her somnambulist behavior, he became fascinated
with the possibilities of hypnosis. Perhaps, he also suddenly
envisioned a more prosperous professional future for himself. He
courted and married Prudence. Thereafter, she traveled with Auguste,
and his act became a stage show in which he hypnotized her.
Offstage, Auguste used hypnotic suggestions to sexually arouse
Prudence, which produced “heavenly voluptuousness.” His control,
however, was imperfect; an angry Prudence could resist induction!
(Ibid.)
In
1894, the same year that Trilby was published, a legal case involving
a disreputable psychic healer, Ceslav Lubicz-Czynski, was reported. He
had a chronically abused medium:
He
made use above all of a method which nowadays is hardly ever applied
and which was called “Psychic Transfer.” He hypnotized a female
employee who served him as a medium (and at the same time as a lover)
and suggested to the patient sitting nearby that his pains and
sufferings would be transferred to the medium. (Hammerschlag, p. 35)
In
deep trance, the young woman was caused to experience other people’s
ailments, daily acquiring her mental version of their pains and
suffering. How cruel! The sexual exploitation was also objectionable,
for Czynski was at that time pursuing a rich aristocratic client, the
Baroness Hedwig von Zedlitz, with the hope of marriage to her. He
conducted his “courtship” during his hypnotic services to her. That is
what caused the legal case (not his psychological and sexual abuse of
the medium), for the Baroness said “Yes” under hypnosis–and her
relatives reported the matter to the police.
“Voodoo Death” on Stage
In
1894, another hypnotist, Franz Neukomm, also made European news. Ella
first was hypnotized by two doctors who were hired by a “relative” to
treat her for a “nervous ailment.” Their power of suggestion
temporarily suppressed the symptoms, but then she got even worse.
Neukomm happened to be passing through, and her relative took Ella to
be mesmerized by him. He also achieved an effective cure of her
problem. Neukomm then saw opportunity knocking. He convinced Ella’s
relative that the somnambulist girl might again relapse in the absence
of his hypnotic influence and therefore should remain in his care. He
would look after her without charge. Her relative then abandoned Ella
to Neukomm. Thereafter, she traveled with the hypnotist as his medium.
Neukomm was “effective,” to say the least. One day, he suggested to
Ella that a cold needle, which he placed on her hand, was red-hot. Its
touch then produced a real burn on her hand (a known somnambulist
phenomenon).
During each show, Neukomm invited an ailing volunteer from the
audience up on stage. Then he would hypnotize Ella and give her a
suggestion to place herself in the mind of the patient and provide
information about his or her state of health. The night that Ella
died, Neukomm, to increase the audience’s sense of drama, had changed
his hypnotic instructions in a small, but significant way. He told
Ella, “Your soul will leave your body in order to enter that of the
patient.”
Ella
showed an uncharacteristic, strong resistance to that hypnotic
suggestion. She tried to deny it.
Imperious master Neukomm deepened her trance,and firmly repeated the
“leave your body” command. Once more, she resisted. He further
deepened the trance and repeated the command again.
Ella
Salamon died. The postmortem stated that heart failure, caused by
Neukomm’s hypnotic suggestion, was the probable cause of her death.
Neukomm was charged with manslaughter and found guilty. (Schrenck-Notzing,
1902) Ella’s death was similar to what anthropologists call “voodoo”
death, death by suggestion.
Hypnotic Subject Killed on Stage
In
another case of that era, a stage hypnotist named Flint was performing
in Switzerland, when his program went terribly wrong:
One
of his acts was to lead on to the stage his wife, who was his partner
in the show, and bring her to a state of rigidity. He would then place
a heavy piece of rock on her stomach and invite volunteers from the
audience to come and smash the rock with a hammer. One night a member
of the audience misjudged his blow with the hammer and, instead of
smashing the rock, he hit the performer’s wife and caused internal
injuries from which she died shortly afterwards. (Magonet, pp. 19-20)
Abusive Hypnosis in
Literature
When
novelists write about unethical hypnosis, they deal with issues of
dominance versus submission, the predator’s technical expertise versus
the subject’s ignorance, and betrayal versus trustworthiness. In
storyland, however, the mind-controlling villain never enjoys a final
victory.
In
the late 1800s, the subject of hypnosis dominated in French nonfiction
publishing. Some years, every book published in France was about
hypnosis. French fiction writers also wrote about it. Alexander Dumas,
author of The Three Musketeers, wrote six novels which involved
mesmerism, “The Marie Antoinette Series.” De Maupassant’s last short
story, “Le Horla,” featured a man who realizes he is a victim of
predatory hypnosis. E.T.A. Hoffman was another European writer who was
fascinated by hypnosis. His fiction is saturated with every aspect of
it. He viewed deep trance as true penetration of the hypnotist’s mind
into the subject’s mind. Hoffman said that hypnotism
…can
be either good or evil. The evil magnetizer is a kind of moral vampire
who destroys his subject…Therefore, the magnetic relationship can be
either good (friendly, fatherly), or evil (demoniacal). (quoted in
Ellenberger, p. 160)
-Author, Carla Emery |