THINKING AND DESTINY

Harold W. Percival

CHAPTER VI

PSYCHIC DESTINY

Section 19

Hallucinations. Somnambulism. Hypnosis.

Hallucinations in the waking state, in fever, in narcotic and hypnotic states, are like impressions produced by dreams. Objects are seen, heard, tasted, smelled and touched when there are no such objects as on the solid physical plane. Hallucinations are of many kinds and are produced in many different ways. Alcohol affects the nerves in such a way that the doer receives from the astral and airy states of matter reflections of all kinds of sights and sounds, such as bugs, vermin or beasts, and so senses these things. In narcotic states the sense organs are opened to pleasant and sometimes gorgeous scenes, sounds and sensations, which are reported by the senses; and later, hideous creatures appear, terrifying sounds are heard, uncanny things are touched. In fever states the nerves are overwrought and the senses get in touch with elementals which convey pictures and sounds of a distorted nature. The senses are not properly correlated with the doer, and the reports they make are partial, exaggerated and incoherent.

Hallucinations of these various kinds are produced when the nerves of the body are affected by outside influences, are no longer under the proper control of the breath-form, and the elementals functioning as the four senses and as the rulers of the four systems in the body are no longer checked but function uncontrolled. Improper acts or habits will reduce the nerves to this condition, and then elementals of various kinds that like fun and sensation, pour in and affect the already disordered senses.

Hallucinations induced by hypnosis are different. There a man’s psychic nature or his breath-form or both are partially or entirely under the control of another person, and the senses and the doer of the hypnotized obey the command of the hypnotizer.

Other psychic states which are related to sleep and to hallucinations in the waking state, are somnambulism, hypnosis, self-hypnosis and conditions due to self-suggestion in the waking state.

Somnambulism is a state resulting usually from unintended self-suggestion. In somnambulism there is no intention to compel the body to do what it does later in the somnambulistic sleep. In that state the doer is in deep sleep, while its body walks, rides or climbs, often in dangerous places, and then returns to normal sleep in bed. The cause of somnambulism is, that the doer in the waking state thought of certain acts. These thoughts were impressed upon the breath-form. The physical body was restrained from doing the acts by the doer, which, though it wanted to do them, was prevented by the fear of danger or by conventionality. When the doer has retired and is in deep sleep and the body is no longer restrained, the breath-form, obeying the impression received, causes the physical body to do the acts. Whatever the senses and the organs do is merely the carrying out of the impression made by that thought. Somnambulistic walking is a concrete illustration of the exteriorization of a thought. Somnambulism can be prevented by self-suggestion, that is, by forbidding the breath-form to perform in sleep any such suggestions made to it in the waking state and charging it to awaken the doer if it should be impelled to carry out the impression.

Hypnosis is an artificial sleep brought about by the command of one doer-in-the-body acting on the doer-in-the-body of another. This cause is a subject of mental destiny, but the phenomena are psycho-physical. The phenomena preceding natural sleep are produced artificially to put a person into the hypnotic state. The hypnotist causes a feeling of drowsiness to creep over the senses of sight and hearing of his subject, and then suggests or commands that the subject go to sleep and then asserts that he is asleep. This suggestion or command is obeyed. The phenomena of sleep are produced. The doer withdraws from the pituitary body and the senses, or from the pituitary body alone, and then the thought of the hypnotist takes the place of the doer and so controls the breath-form and through that the voluntary movements and the senses. The doer is usually disconnected from its breath-form and its body and is in deep sleep. The operator having taken the place of the other’s doer, dictates the movements of the breath-form and so can affect even involuntary movements, suspend respiration and heartbeat and compel the senses to see, hear, taste, smell and contact what he suggests. Beside the stage tricks usually compelled, the operator may throw the subject into trance states, in which the subject may relate his visions, undergo surgical operations without feeling pain, or receive suggestions for his moral improvement, which he will later carry out.

One should never under any condition consent to be hypnotized by anyone. The hypnotic state once permitted has a tendency to loosen the hold of the doer on its breath-form and to make the breath-form and the doer negative and subject to the magnetic influences of others. The hypnotizer, elementals or disembodied beings may take hold of the breath-form and keep the doer out. All sorts of hallucinations, delusions and moral obliquity may follow for the unfortunate, whose body may become the plaything of any entity. No one can hypnotize another if the other refuses. No experiments should be permitted.