Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1895 — HYPNOTISM AND LOVE. [ARTICLE]

HYPNOTISM AND LOVE.

London Daily Telegraph. Many a doubtful deed and reprehensible enterprise has been nipped in the bud wholesome fear of the hl? ortho land, and a record of* the feats left thus unachieved would prove highly entertaining. A case in point has just arisen, and it is one of such uncommon interest that those who hear of it will no doubt be tempted to regret that the last act of the unfinished drama was not played in a law court. The story turns upon hypnotic suggestion of an illgitimate kind, and whose main features are the following: In the busy city of Budapest there are numbers of people too serious or too poor to spend their evenings in the theaters or at the card table, and many of the cultivate science on on the cheap in the form of spiritualistic research. Table-rapping, spiritsummoning, fortune-telling, magnetizing, and so forth, are generally in-cluded-in the program of the night’s entertainment which is offered at a private house to the friends and relatives of the owner., A t times mei n - bers of the intelligence and aristoc- - - racy c.f the coun try carried away by the current, go and do likewise. Herr Nameth. a respected land owner, who spends his autumn and summer on the banks of the Danube, having in his leisure moments read up a considerable number of of semiscientific treaties on hypnotism, clairvoyance, the bilocation of the soul and all the other branches of this universal problem, likewise felt eager to see some practical proofs of the theory. Why not summon; the shade of Kossuth, for instance, and find out what is going to happen in Hungary in a hundred years. •'Yes” said his daughter, “or learn the numbers that will be drawn in the next State lotteries. It might mean the doubling of my dowry, you know.” For Miss Nameth was engaged to be married, and the wedding was fixed lor a day from which five short weeks separated her. Her bridegroom,, Herr Samek,is a member of the Hungarian bar, whose fame and fortune are yet before him, and he would be the last to object to an increase of Miss Anna’s dowry. But the practical uses of hypnotism played but a very secondary part among the motives that induced Herr Nan. eh to “go in ’ for the eerie “science.”' He was simply under the influence of a morbid curiosity, dike Bluebeard’s wife, wlien_she put the ke£ in the door of the forir.diien chuinber and entered. And lie mentioned the matter to friends and acquaintances, but none of them seemed able to give him agl mpse.of “Borderland.” One day. it might be eight or nine weeks ago- he was, introduced 7 by a friend to young Dr. Klausberg, who, having taken his degree ata Hungarian university, had studied a year under Chare >t in Paris. Behold the man! th< ught Herr Nameth, as the physician’s antecedents were made known to him by a friend. A day or two later Dr. Klausberg was invited to dinner by Herr Nameth, then to supper, and he soon became a friend of the house, liked by all the members of the family—except the bridegroom, and he was only a member in spe. One evening, when the conversation turned on spiritism and hypnotism. Dr. Klausberg said that the main thing in all experiments is to hit upon a good medium, and that that is a very difficult problem. “I hate mercenary mediums,” exclaimed the master of the house, “and unless I knew personally the individual hypnotised, I should not give a straw for anything he might say or do.” “Well, you have a very favorable opportunity,” remarked the doctor, “for. if.you will allow me to say so, Miss Anna is a magnificent medium, with whom we might work wonders.” “Do you really think so?” asked the delighted father. “Why do you take me for a godtl medium?” inquired, the young lady. “1 can tell it by your eye,” the physician replied, fixing his own upon her. “Let her be a latent medium,” exclaimed the bridegroopi. “Weil,-I confess, I was about to ask yom - permission, Miss, to hypnotize ycu—that is, of course, if you have no objection. I can promise that it will not hurt you in the least —quite the contrary, indeed, it will refresh you." “I,” said the lady, “should like it of all things, because I have always ” “Now, Anna, please, that will do. Experiments may be performed upon guinea pigs, but not on young ladies on the eve of marriage. I protest.” “Nonsense!” replied the Iqdy, “don’t talk like that. It is a matter for me to decide,” and although her father and mother quitejjnexpectedly took the bridegroom’s side, and refused to hear of it, they all ended by giving wav, and the bride was hypnotized in their presence. It was a most entertaining spectacle to watch the patient’s antics, as she took herself to be a sailor to be suffering from shipwreck, a general in the thick of battle, an ancient Hun, and so on. She bit a raw potato and found it luscious when told it was a peach; she found hidden pins and needles and displayed a wonderful knowledge of New’ York city when informed that she was there, and generally did everything that hypnotized persons usually do for the amusement of their expectant friends. At last, when it was time for her to return to her ordinary state of consciousness, Dr. Klausberg ordered her yyhen she awoke to put various questions to her bridegroom, and to leave her father's house secretly at lip. tn. And everything took ph ce exactly as he said it

would, Anna made the suggested inquiries, and at 11 o’clock sharp endeavored to steal out of the house unobserved. —From that evening forth the lady was r ' so to say, transfigured and - transformed. Site took no interest in anything but hypnotism—it had done her such incalculable good; and she wanted to be sent off into a trance every day. Her bridegroom, on the other hand, was extremely apprehensive that her nervous system would break down under these absurd experiments; but she. would not acknowledge his right to a voice in the matter, and the trances were continued. Her parents, too, were afraid, and Herr Nameth’s curiosity, already half satisfied, was more than outweighed by the obvious danger to his daughter’s heal th. — He besought her to return to her former normal habits of life, and t) leave hypnotism to the doctors. But all entreaty was in vain. Life, the young lady said, was no longer life without the soothing influences from the psychic world, winch rained down upon her in hypnotic sleep. “Well, but what will you do in September, when you will be - married?” asked Herr Nameth.--‘Your husband will forbid Dr Klausberg the house, and you must make the best of life without that new fangled charm.” “That,” replied Miss Anna, “is the very matter I have been longing to speak to you about, father. The fact is, that I can not marry Herr Samek. Our engagement must be broken off.” “Why, the girl is mad!” exclaimed her father. “She is bewitched!” said the mother. “Are you in your right mind, Anna, dear?” asked the bridegroom. “What has induced you to think of breaking off our engagement?” “It must not be, is not to be,” answered the “magnificent medium.” “But you must surely have some reason. You loved your bridegroom and vou told us so. We never suggested that you should accept his proposal. You followed the bent of your own inclination. What has happened to alter your mind?” “I don’t know; nothing. I can give no reason but a woman’s reason. I feel an utter repugnance to the match,and I will not marry him. That is the long and short of it.” And bursting into tears, she rushed to her room and threw herself on the bed, where her mother found her in hysterics. All the arts of persuasion, all the arguments of reason, all the incentives to affection—were tried upon her to induce her to keep her pledged word to her bridegroom, but in vain. Herr Samek himself talked to her for hours, but he might as well have been whistling jigs to a milestone. “I do not love you, Dr. Fell, the reason why I cannot tell,” was the gist of her stereotyped reply. Now, Herr Samek did love the girl very tenderly, and his peace of mind was utterly destroyed in consequence. He could do no work and he could devise no means of regaining the affection of MisS Anna, who had now ceased to be more than a “magnificent medium.” One day he confided his sorrow to a brother lawyer, who, having heard the whole story and questioned him about various details, said, with an air of profound conviction: “Believe me, it is a case of hypnotic suggestion, and you have only told me onehalf of the results. Let me tell you the other half. The girl is in love with that Dr. Klausberg.” “What? Do you really fancy so?” “I am ready to take my affidavit on it.” “Well, but supposing it is so, how does the knowledge of the fact help me? She is free to love whom she will,! and it is not by violent or by legal measures that a girl’s love can be won.” “O! I think I can help you. But first verify what I have just asserted. Ask your bride whether she prefers any one to yourself, and tell her that if she does you will gladly release her from the engagement.” Herr Samek did not let the grass grow under his feet. The same day he had an interview with his beloved in the presence of her parents. He asked her frankly whether she loved him less because she loved sdmbody else more. But the reply was an emphatic negative. She loved no one at present, she said, and she could not think of marriage. This was good news for the bridegroom, as far as it went; and he lost no time in communicating it to his colleague. “Well, said that gentlejnan, nothing disconcerted, “if she is not in love with the doctor, the doctor is in love with her, and he has suggested that her engagement with you should be broken off, as a first step to his marrying her himself.” “What do you suggest, then?” “Let us call on him at his lodgings, and 1 will do the talking.” One morning early, the pair rang the bell of Dr. Klausberg’s flat, and asked to see him on very urgent business. He was not up at the time, but, dressing hurriedly, he came into the drawing room in an excited state, and hoped no accident had happened. . “Well, that is just what we have come to ask you,” was the lawyer’s reply, and the cross-examination forthwith began. It ended in threats —threats of the law, imprisonment, Of social ruin. “For we know.from the girl’s own conduct and conversation, that you suggested to her that the engagement be broken off, and this is a criminal offense. You will never be allowed to see the lady till she ap pears as a witness against you in a law court. You have still one chanoe

to save yourself. Acknowledge youi offense, and suggest to Miss Nameth that she should return to her normal state of mind, and everything will be forgiven.” Dr. Klausberg followed the advice. He confessed there and then that hi was in love with Miss Nameth, that love knoweth no law,and that, yielding to an insuperable-temptation, he had taken the best way of gaining her affection, and began by suggesting that she should never wed his rival. He ended by promising to call at the house that same evening, in order to break the spell he had woven round her. At 7 o'clock he came and in presence of the lady’s parents and bridegroom he put h.er in a. trance and suggested that she should marry Herr Samek and cease to left after hypnotic sleep. Then ha hanker the house forever. From that evening Miss Nameth had no further objections to offer and was willing to have a new day fixed for the wedding. Unfortunately the doctors have now exercised their veto, and the happy day is as far off as ever. The lady is a walk-! ing shadow, has lost her appetite and her—sleep, and is slowly passing away. She has frequent fainting fits and hallucinations, and often fancies she sees the hypnotiser in' the room preparing to send her into a trance. The doctors are apprehensive les| she should lose her reason, and iq snite of his promise to the contrary Herr Samek insists on bringing thq matter before the courts.