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214 DIVINATION & AUGURY IN A MODERN LIGHT
Now, let us pass on to the Mesmerists and their modern cousins, the Hypnotists among the French inedical savants. These derive their light on this subject by experiments on the powers of the human mind when thrown into a somnolent or automatic state of consciousness by ineans of passes and suggestions. The fourth of our classes of augury.would naturally be best explained by them. A Delphic Priestess, or a Sybil, or a dancing Dervish, has do mystery for them. Hypnotism or Statuvolism (self-hypnotisation) explains it all. The view of the majority of scientific Hypnotiste. is much the same as that of Mr. Myers, as to the abnormal power of the sub-consciousness when the normal consciousness is suspended. A mesmerized subject can foresee illnesses, diagnose complaints, prophesy coming events; they have no doubts on that point. Consequently they have no difficulty in explaining thereby vaticination as mentioned in our second and third classes. But, as regards the actual existence and help in such matters of beings external to ourselves, they are mostly sceptical. Mesmerized clairvoyants so sometimes see, hear and describe such exterpal beings invisible to the normal sight, but Dr. Charcot, like Mr. Myers, would prefer to explain that fact as a self-delusion of the sub-consciousness caused by previous misconceptions. But there is a large party of these explorers, more or less under the ban of the orthodox materialistic and scientific schools. of hypnotists, who affirm that these phenomena
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