Mental Dominance by Julien Ochorowicz (c)1990-1887
Background information: This was originally published in 1887 as "La Suggestion Mental" ("Mental Suggestion").
The author, Julien Ochorowicz, was a leading psychologist, inventor and philosopher of his day. At the time, psychology was a budding science, and included more philosophy and spiritualism than what we think of as psychology today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Ochorowicz
If you have an interest in telepathy this will offer both some interesting scientific discussions and also practical theories and exercises to try for yourself. It's also very interesting a a view into a slice of hypnosis history when "modern" Braid-style hypnosis was taking over from Mesmerism.
The current edition (1990) mentions that it's been "updated," so I can't say for sure how much of the book is the original, and how much has been "updated." (There are a few references to telephones and television which made me highly skeptical of it's authenticity, but according to the Ochorowicz Wiki page, he experimented with early forms of telephone and television in the late 1800s!).
Before we go farther, it's useful to get the historical context in which the author was working. More modern, suggestion-based hypnosis was beginning to dominate the psychology world, but older Mesmerism would still have been very common. What that means is that while there was more of an acknowledgement that trance and other mental states could be brought about by verbal suggestions as is practiced with hypnosis.. Mesmerism, the older science, believed that the trance was produced in the subject by the force of the Mesmerist's will which was projected into the subject's body via a magnetic fluid that was a kind of invisible psychic energy. Telepathy and other forms of psychic communication and healing were common parts of Mesmeristic belief and practice.
According to the author's Wiki bio, he worked with a number of the members of the Society for Psychical Research, which included some of the top scientists and thinkers of the day, and seems to have been a mix of skeptics and true-believers, united in applying the latest scientific methods to psychic phenomena. So it's presumable that he pulled his data from a fairly large and well documented pool of information and experiments.
A big part of this book, or this edition, since I don;t know how closely it relates to the 1887 edition, is to identify a working methodology for mind-to-mind communication. It's pretty thorough, and offers plenty of exercises to experiment with.
From the top, it's interesting that, presumably after experimentation, he identifies the ideal mental state as a "monomaniacal trance" which is a trance state resulting from focusing on a single thing to the exclusion of all else. This would be the kind of "modern" hypnotic trance that was used by James Braid (who suggested the term "monoideaism" --focusing on a single-- as a better name for hypnosis). Orochowicz further designates two degrees of this monomaniacal trance-- a slightly deeper, more passive one for recieving, and a slightly more active one for transmitting.
Different scenarios are described, but it is particularly interesting that he observes that while a suggestion may be received, it may take some time for it to emerge from the subconscious of the receiver and be perceived or acted upon. He feels that a strong, persistent suggestion will be transmitted more effe3ctively than an overly intense one, and that combining the mental suggestion with some kind of physical action will be more effective than the mental suggestion alone.
The Fourth part of the book offers exercises to strengthen one's "Animal Magnetism," which include things like visualizing and moving energy through the body, controlling your sensations of cold and heat, self-discipline and controlling emotions, etc.
In an interesting procedure for psychic persuasion of others, the author distinguishes two parts of persuasion: Preparation and Ultimatum. (The procedure involves preparing by cultivating one's energy for a long time before your expected encounter with the person you want to persuade. When you meet them, hold overwhelmingly positive feelings, and hold your desired idea in your mind the entire time, and even imagine hugging them in you mind. Finally you make a definitive statement (mental, presumably) and they should be persuaded!).
Another interesting observation is that these kinds of suggestions can take a longer amount of time than most other authors indicate. For a simple suggestion, this author advises 3-4 weeks of preparation, while a meaningful change of behavior may take 6 months of daily hour-long suggestions. Presumably this was backed up by some experimental data(?).
There's a big section on finding and influencing your soulmate. I find it rather hard to believe that this was part of Ochorowicz' original manuscript, but most likely a contribution of the 1990 edition. Still, it is an interesting discussion and follows the Authors basic methodology. And again, a much longer commitment is recommended-- 40 daily sessions, with a minimum of 15!
Finally, there are a number of visualization exercises to strengthen focus and imagination, and, hopefully, one's psychic abilities.
I can't say I've had the level of discipline to try these techniques as recommended, but if you have had results, I'd love to hear about them!
Posts
