Observations on Trance - Or, Human Hybernation #261929

It may here be requisite for me to ex plain, that by the term Hypnotism, or Ner vous Sleep, which frequently occurs in the following pages, I mean a peculiar condition of the nervous system, into which it may be thrown by artificial contrivance, and which differs, in several respects, from com mon sleep or the waking condition. I do not allege that this condition is induced through the transmission of a magnetic or occult influence from my body into that of my patients; nor do I profess, by my pro cesses, to produce the higher phenomena of the Mesmerists. My pretensions are of a much more humble character, and are all consistent with generally admitted prin ciples in physiological and psychological science. Hypnotism might therefore not inaptly be designated, Rational Illesmerism, in contra-distinction to the Transcendental Mesmerism of the Mesmerists.