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HYPNOTISM
Jain Education International
relinquishment of the will makes them weaker everyday, and the time may come, when they will be altogether susceptible to any guggestion made by any person. All of us have our weeknesses. We are deterred from committing certain acts, because our surroundings do not permit them, but in the hypnotic state, when these surroundings do not influence us, we are liable to go to that extreme in which there will be nothing to prevent us from committing the crime. Even in ordinary experiments we find that, if a person is made to think that another person is his creditor for $500, the subject may dispute this, but when the suggestion is made that he should write a promissory note for the amount he will do this. Thus the suggestion might be made that the subject should commit a crime and as that all persons are not of a strong moral character, crime may be committed. In this way it becomes dangerous in the hands of immoral or designing people. It becomes also dangerous in the hands of lawyers, who might compel the witness to give 8 certain kind of testimony. A reply to this is given, that after the witness is examined by one lawyer the lawyer on the other side has a right of course to examine him, and thus a counter-suggestion would be given, and when two suggestions are made, they restore him to the normal conditon. But after all, the result is that the testimony of that person is made altogether useless, and moreover his mental nature has been disturbed by the two suggestions, and in that way he
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