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The Power of the Sub-conscious Mind – Professor Alexander Erskine

I HAVE been asked frequently how I first became interested in Hypnotism; I will, therefore, give in as few words as possible how I learned that I possessed magnetic power. The outcome of the study of that possession is my knowledge of the science of Hypnotism, and the wonderful results obtained through Suggestion.

When a boy of sixteen years of age, I intuitively discovered that I possessed the power of healing-or, rather, of removing pain from friends-neuralgia, toothache, headache, and pain in the back, etc. I had not then actually hypnotised anyone-or understood the methods of hypnotism;  but intuitively I used to place my hand over the seat of pain, and place the other on the nape of the neck or over the " Sola Plexus " nerves, which most persons know lie between the " pit of the stomach and the spine "--or, perhaps, to make it clearer to one who may not have studied the position of the organs, the right hand was placed with pressure where the breastbone ends, and the left hand in the locality of pain, and I discovered that and when a tingling sensation came in the left hand the cure was almost certain and pain vanished.

But I found that after I had made the cure I was often extremely exhausted.

As I became a man I learned that the power I possessed was of course ‘magnetic’ it was the giving off of my own ‘magnetic force’, the substance probably that is stored away in the Ganglion cells, which appear to be accumulators to store the ‘magnetic energy’ or nervous fluid of the nervous system through the body.

I learned an Indian method of deep breathing exercise that instantly restored this exhaustion by the re-oxydising of the blood through the lung process.

I also discovered that it was the concentration of will that produced the giving off of this magnetic heat and transferring it to another,-for the instant my attention was taken from what I was doing the tingling of the left hand ceased. We know that by placing a piece of iron within a few inches of a magnet, the iron will soon become magnetic by molecular transmission; we know this to be a fact, but in reality we have no sense that tells us of that fact-we know it only by effects.

As previously stated, the iron is placed in proximity to the magnet, it has no magnetism of its own. Remove it now from the magnet into the next town, but it will retain the magnetic quality which it has absorbed.  So in the healing of another by the same process the patient has absorbed the magnetic life of the operator, and the Ganglion cells are recouped again with new energy and strength.

It appears Magnetic Influence is quite a separate science from Hypnotism, although closely connected in some way difficult of explanation.