Suggestion.

I hold a newspaper in my hands and begin to roll it up ; soon I find that my friend sitting opposite me rolled up his in a similar way. This, we say, is a case of suggestion.

My friend Mr. A. is absent-minded; he sits near the table, thinking of some abstruse mathematical problem that baffles all his efforts to solve it. Absorbed in the solution of that intractable problem, he is blind and deaf to what is going on around him. His eyes are directed on the table, but he appears not to see any of the objects there. I put two glasses of water on the table, and at short intervals make passes in the direction of the glasses passes which he seems not to perceive; then I resolutely stretch out my hand, take one of the glasses, and begin to drink. My friend follows suit dreamily he raises his hand, takes the glass, and begins to sip, awakening fully to consciousness when a good part of the tumbler is emptied.

***

To take an interesting and amusing case given by Ochorowitz[2] in his book Mental Suggestion [1891:

" My friend P., a man no less absent-minded than he is keen of intellect, was playing chess in a neighbouring room. Others of us were talking near the door. I had made the remark that it was my friend's habit when he paid the closest attention to the game to whistle an air from Madame Angot. I was about to accompany him by beating time on the table. But this time he whistled something else- a march from Le Prophete.

" 'Listen,' said I to my associates ; ' we are going to play a trick upon P. We will (mentally) order him to pass from Le Prophete to La Fille de Madame Angot.'

" First I began to drum the march ; then, profiting by some notes common to both, I passed quickly to the quicker and more staccato measure of my friend's favourite air. P. on his part suddenly changed the air and began to whistle Madame Angot. Every one burst out laughing. My friend was too much absorbed in a check to the queen to notice anything.

" ' Let us begin again,' said I, ' and go back to Le Prophete.' And straightway we had Meyerbeer once more with a special fugue. My friend knew that he had whistled something, but that was all he knew."

***

A huckster stations himself in the middle of the street, on some public square, or on a sidewalk, and begins to pour forth volumes of gibberish intended both as a compliment to the people and a praise of his ware. The curiosity of the passers-by is awakened. They stop. Soon our hero forms the centre of a crowd that stupidly gazes at the "wonderful" objects held out to its view for admiration. A few moments more, and the crowd begins to buy the things the huckster suggests as " grand, beautiful, and cheap."

***

A stump orator mounts a log or a car and begins to harangue the crowd. In the grossest way he praises the great intelligence, the brave spirit of the people, the virtue of the citizens, glibly telling his audience that with such genius as they possess they must clearly see that the prosperity of the country depends on the politics he favours, on the party whose valiant champion he now is. His argumentation is absurd, his motive is contemptible, and still, as a rule, he carries the body of the crowd, unless another stump orator interferes and turns the stream of sentiment in another direction. The speech of Antony in Julius Caesar is an excellent example of suggestion.

All these examples undoubtedly belong to the province of suggestion. Now what are their characteristic traits ?

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION

A RESEARCH INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS NATURE OF MAN AND SOCIETY

BY

BORIS SIDIS, M. A., PH.D.

ASSOCIATE IN PSYCHOLOGY AT THE PATHOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF THE NEW YORK STATE HOSPITALS

1919

Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D. ( 1867 -  1923) was an American psychologist, physician, psychiatrist, and philosopher of education. Sidis founded the New York State Psychopathic Institute and the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. He was the father of the child prodigy William James Sidis[1]

 [1]. William James Sidis ( 1898 –  1944) was an American child prodigy with exceptional mathematical and linguistic abilities. During his life, his IQ was estimated to be between 250 and 300, making it one of the highest ever recorded. He entered Harvard at age 11 and, as an adult, was claimed to be conversant in over forty languages and dialects. It was later acknowledged, however, that some of the claims made were exaggerations.

 [2] Julian Leopold Ochorowicz (also known as Julien Ochorowitz; 1850 – 1917) was a Polish philosopher, psychologist, inventor (precursor of radio and television), poet, publicist and leading exponent of Polish Positivism. Ochorowicz hosted Palladino in Warsaw from November 1893 to January 1894. Regarding the phenomena demonstrated at Palladino's séances, he concluded against the spirit hypothesis and for a hypothesis that these phenomena were caused by a "fluidic action" and were performed at the expense of the medium's own powers and those of the other participants in the séances.