Observations placeholder

Dr Paul Brunton
A Search in Secret Egypt

For the final experiment the subject was placed in the third stage of hypnotization, a deeper condition which made certain parts of the body insensible to pain, and which even enabled the hypnotizer to obtain control over organs that function involuntarily. Ades rubbed a piece of cotton-wool upon the palm of her left hand, produced a needle for our inspection; then dug it into the fleshy part of the hand until the point came through on the other side and projected for half an inch. Apparently she felt no pain: on the contrary when he suggested to her that a comedian was standing in front of us telling jokes, she began to shake her sides with laughter. A few minutes later he withdrew the needle from her hand. Not a single drop of blood was visible, either upon the skin or on the needle itself! A tiny black mark in the palm alone indicated where the needle had passed through.
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"What happens when she is in that condition? She becomes a kind of somnambulist, a sleep-walker," he explained, "so that even if you were to fire off a pistol it would not awaken her from the semi-trance. The Doctors Preyer and Berger, who were able to make special studies of the cases of sleep-walkers, found that such persons could see quite well with their eyelids shut while in the somnambulic state.  This mysterious condition proves that consciousness can be divided and that what psychologists call the subconscious mind does exist. And it appears from our demonstrations, that this subconscious is very clairvoyant and untrammelled by the bonds of matter. It is then able to do with the body what the person in a conscious state believes impossible. This shows that our belief in limitations is a false one, and that we are all capable of much more than we think. Hypnotism frees the subject of such handicapping notions."