STRYCHNINE BALLROOM
Methods and Uses of Hypnosis and Self-Hypnosis – Bernard Hollander
This is a robust and reassuring read on hypnosis and, moreover, self-hypnosis by Viennese-born British psychiatrist and medical doctor, Bernard Hollander.
Published in the USA in 1957, Hollander (1864-1934) was actually writing in 1928. But his “treatise” on the powers of the subconscious mind has been artfully resurrected by none other than… Melvin Powers: Hollywood hypnotist, Personal Branding guru, and Cosmic Pancakes! legend.
The Powers hypnotic publishing empire is so vast (see back page ads, plus there are listings for 250ish titles from the “Melvin Powers Self Improvement Library” in the back matter), I can’t persuade myself that Dr Hollander’s work was republished on merit. In fact, Powers’ flimsy foreword suggests the book’s appeal is mainly in “modern neuropathy”, citing apraxia, agnosia, and aphasia, and ‘equivalent’ phenomena and findings in hypnotised subjects. He then dismisses the broader topics Hollander will cover – “apparitions, clairvoyance, etc” (Hollander was mainly known for phrenology) – as not directly related to hypnotism.
I myself found Methods and Uses to be authentic and authoritative, putting forth the case for hypnotism’s potential to transform mankind for the better – a sort of nascent, unwieldy kernel of ‘self-help’ that Team Powers Publishing, Inc could have reworked for contemporary readers. But… didn’t. That said, Hollander’s reproduced work is especially sophisticated in conceptualising ‘suggestibility’; a crucial distinction for students seeking to harness The Powers of Suggestion. (‘Powers’ Melvin perhaps couldn’t improve upon in spite of the aged and medically extraneous bits of the book?!) Hollander’s writing is, however, vibrant and clear when it comes to conveying hypnotism as a credible topic: “Human suggestibility enters into every act of life, colours all our sensations with the most varied tints, leads our judgement astray, and creates those continual illusions against which we have so much difficulty in defending ourselves, even when we exert our strength of reason.”
Hollander considers the cause-and-effect of suggestion, citing the muddles of love, obsession, and novelty as ruining any man’s good command of himself. “There is no hypnotist who can produce such complex results all at once as are manifest in a person who has “fallen in love.”.” Pah! His description of the process of Men falling in love leads into sentimental musings on artists and poets, musicians and preachers; soldiers who fight and fall. The world was again betwixt Great Wars and there was no one better than a Professional noggin-bump-diviner to advise seekers of hypnotic, despotic, homoerotic ‘secrets’ to build a new hope.
Indeed, Hollander’s hypnotism comes from a place of gravitas – threat, even. ‘Hypnotism would be illegal if it were dangerous’ is a cute position for a doctor to adopt; a dose of mesmerism or strychnine from a qualified Doctor is simply just… correct. It’s chillingly authoritative. Whichever way the dose is swallowed.
The pages feature many names from the contemporary psychiatric scene. European ‘madhouses’ significantly shaped modern perceptions of psychiatry and humanity, and cemented the narrative that ‘demented’ and ‘diseased’ brains required drugs, doctors, and behavioural ‘therapy’ and ‘treatments’. The book is gossipy in naming key players from that time: a quote from Professor Bechterev; the latest from Forel, director of the Asylum for the Insane at Zürich (who, incidentally, I’m currently reading); an Abbot Prince of Hohenlohe; a Professor Delboeuf, of Liège, who has “made some interesting experiments in the computation of time by somnambules.” Characters who influenced the author, if not hypnotism, as a construct and phenomenon.
The book is packed with anecdotes of Gentlemen Scientists suspiciously comfortable commandeering stages, ‘salons’, ‘seances’, surgeries, etc, in their thrusting investigations into Scientific & Magical Secrets. “Eh, what’s that man? You’re putting on a what..? A play?! Who?! No, no… Wait, precisely what sort of a Palace are you running here, Madam?! A play..? Never heard of such nonsense! No, we’ve no fancy for these fictive trifles. Oh, well, if spontaneous outbreaks of… “singing”, you called it…? Well, there’s 17 varieties of language coming out of this self-working Butterfly Lady Illusion we won last night at—.” Suddenly, A Magician seizes His moment and says, “Well, whether you’re got a Lady made of wood or of frills or of prostitute, we’ll be needing the strongest bottle of Mesmerism and the big saw and, um, yes, you! Yep, King of England! You’ll do!”
Blinding lights, bunch of flowers, bow… Whether Props in Skirts possess feet remains a mystery.
I imagine myself as the nine-year-old showgirl I once was, watching from the wings (stage left), wondering when I’ll get a go at Mesmerising People To Death using the latest in Foreign Orchestral Conducting. Me. Amy. The OG poster girl for Magic. I prepare my festering belly button scabs and three-to-five secret scalp patches to produce the latest in ooh-and-ahh Stigmata. Suddenly, the velvet ropes feel unfamiliar; the wooden floor is waxy… or… wet; will my extreme tolerance for splinters keep this miserable troupe of freaks out of the morgue for one single goddamn night—? I’m sedated with chloroform before I can complete my thought, as is necessary for whatever phase of show business occurs before I magically appear… elsewhere! Ta-da! At some point, the shadowy figures who do the curtains give you your smokes and you say, listen, I’m sorry my Lobotomy Trick with the hammer and nail up the nose went a bit wrong with that wooden Princess you were all practicing the mesmerising neck strokes and presses on but a) the audience loved it and b) I didn’t know you all hung out underneath the stage without me for my, like, entire life and c) that Princess is called Jim or Jock or Jack or Bob now and he’s got a job being silently tied to the ceiling and it’s better than having to sew up that small angry girl we stole from the boat who did the Welsh/“Welsh” mystic blahsy-blah-blah and wait, what, many of you live here..? Hmn. Hhhmmm… Orphan..? Or-fans? Fans… Fans! Well, yes, I am the star of this show – me! Amy! “The Amy Show!” wow! – and I’ve got big ideas about electricity and ghosts and mould and magnets—.
And that’s how a girl gets promoted into pre-show publicity writing about card-shuffling paper-cut avoiders who don’t even know what a belly button is because they were born into the tailoring department.
Stage hypnotism owes so much to vintage psychiatry it should, frankly, be illegal for a woman magician-hypnotist Retired Producifer of Disappearing Corporate Reports like me to read this stuff. The quality of Hollander’s musings on ‘acting’ (all sorts of stolen vaudevillian secrets would be on London and European stages) would make RADA blush. Like, ‘mimicry’ is still a sensitive topic in magic! So it’s a funny time to be splashing about in emerging conversations about autism and neurodiversity… TMI, but I was misdiagnosed as “bipolar” in a private jigsaw puzzle retreat in 2016 gratefully paid for by my then-employer. I’m still curious to learn how I fit the criteria based on the basic facts of my biology and medical history..? Maybe I’ve just got double-mind or shell-shock or my ganglion cells are playing up because of the odylic light or it’s a new kind of modern brain disease called Working, Why?… Perhaps a qualified Psychiatrist could lube up a sthenometer and give a PSA sit-rep of their rumoured ‘profession’ and its moral, ethical, and legal responsibilities – convenient to the latest in trillion-dollar private jet work, of course.
And for my next trick..! Stealing the souls of all the world’s ghosts at once?!
It is genuinely fascinating to consider what these men considered possible…
Hollander’s words on the stupidity of The Dearly Departed continue to inspire me significantly.
