Miracle Man

"Disease can be diagnosed by its odor every ailment having a different odor."

"A steady green light and green paper or walls should be in the bedrooms of young male children as this color raises the male sex urge to a higher level. . . ."

"It should be borne in mind that the high vibrations of red transmitted-light will, if played upon the eyes for ... half an hour, remove the symptoms of influenza."

"I am a man acquainted with miracles." Such affirmations as these, if made by one of Southern California's obscure wizards, might pass with scant attention. But they are the statements of Dr. Alexander. Cannon, M. D., Ph. D., M. A., K. C. A., D. P. M., Ch. B., F. R. G. S., F. R. S. M., one of the most extraordinary figures in British science. Bald, round-faced Dr. Cannon is co-author of respectable treatises on psychiatry and neurology, an active staff member of the London County Mental Hospital Service. A member in good standing of the British Medical Association, he was on its Executive Council in 1934-35. Nevertheless he has delved so deeply into Oriental mysticism that he has been elevated to the rank of Master-the-Fifth of the Great White Lodge of the Himalayas, which he considers to be a survival of a great university in Atlantis, "sunk by the selfish powers of mankind about the year 254,666 B.C." He believes that man has not only an astral body which leaves the corporal shell in sleep or death but an etheric body even more refined than the astral. He has composed a kind of "music" which consists of combinations of colors. He once offered to do the Hindu rope trick in London's Albert Hall for $275,000. He has invented a thought-reading machine called a psychostethokyrtographmanometer which he intends to demonstrate in the U. S. this year. He believes Armageddon may come in 1937. Like many another prominent mystic, he has no sense of humor.

Dr. Cannon relates wonders in the East which make the notorious rope trick (an illusion, according to him, produced by mass hypnotism) seem like small potatoes. Examples:

P: A lama of the Kum Bum Monastery vanished into thin air.

P: A fig tree withered when a yogi pointed his finger at it.

P: Three men made an appearance before the monastery's Grand Lama, although they were actually lying in a trance several miles away.

P: A shepherd named Abdul Ouab asked a French army captain in Algeria to think of some object in his Paris home. The soldier thought of a valuable family portrait. Instantly the picture appeared on the wall in Algeria; the stupefied Frenchman not only saw it but handled it. He cabled his parents in Paris. Back came the reply: "Portrait inexplicably stolen this morning. Police at work and Surete announces arrest of thief imminent."

Since publication of these marvels in Powers That Be and The Invisible Influence, Dr. Cannon has enjoyed a voluminous correspondence with "businessmen and occultists, parsons and Indian colonels, doctors and judges, hard-headed lawyers, and women haunted by poltergeists."

This week Dr. Cannon published a thin volume called The Science of Hypnotism.* Since the author is a capable practitioner of hypnotism and uses it every day on London's sane and insane, U. S. psychiatrists were professionally interested, regardless of what they thought of his divagations into yogism, perfect numbers, symbolism of colors. Dr. Cannon discusses not only his own methods but those of such pioneers as Mesmer and Charcot, of such well-known hypnotists as Bernheim, Binet, Fere, Liebeault, Lloyd Tuckey. It is generally agreed among psychiatrists that hypnotism is of value in treating stammering and certain hysterical neuroses. Dr. Cannon believes it is useful in treating tetanus, diabetes, prostatic enlargement, menstrual disorders and in relieving the pain of childbirth, pleurisy, sciatica, lumbago, neuralgia, cancer, ulcers.

Hypnotist Cannon makes it abundantly clear that there is nothing mysterious or difficult about the technique. All that is necessary is for the subject to relax, drive all thought from his mind, fix his attention on some object (usually a bright light), listen to the operator's soothing suggestions of sleep. The hypnotic state resembles sleep except that the unconscious mind is in touch with the operator and can be swayed by his suggestions. Almost everybody, unless he is confident of being able to resist and does resist, can be hypnotized into the first "light" state; three persons out of four can be brought to the second "deep" state; and one out of two will go into the deepest trance of all, the somnambulistic. Highly susceptible people may hypnotize themselves, accidentally or intentionally, by staring at a bright object.

Hypnotized persons have such acuity of sense that they can detect the faintest whisper, the slightest odor. The unconscious mind is a wonderfully accurate timekeeper, as posthypnotic suggestion demonstrates. If during hypnosis the suggestion is made that at a certain time, long after waking from the trance, the subject take off his shoes or burst into tears, he will usually do so precisely on time, though he may not have looked at his watch for hours.

In dealing with the insane, it is sometimes necessary to resort to the Binet-Fere method of fascination by which, if it is successful, complete automatism is induced. The subject is asked to look fixedly at the operator's right eye, and the operator stares fixedly at the subject's left eye, at the same time grasping his hands firmly. In a little while the operator's eye appears to shine brilliantly and the patient's expression becomes vacant. Dr. Cannon finds certain defects in this procedure: "If the patient is refractory and the hypnotist is tired, the hypnotist may be hypnotized by the patient. . . . The first sign of the hypnotism being reversed is very unpleasant."

Artificial illumination of the operator's eyes Dr. Cannon considers very important. He sometimes adopts the Oriental procedure of illuminating his own eyes from above, so that they shine unnaturally over the pupils (see cut). He has also developed a hypnotic method of using artificial eyes, illuminated by blue or green lights and held by the patient in his own hand on top of a piece of black cloth. Says Dr. Cannon: "A very good, heavy-looking artificial eye is required with a blue iris and a medium-sized pupil; it should be so well made that the pupil appears to dilate when one gazes at it for a minute or so. . . . Only one eye is needed and with reasonable care will last a lifetime."

* Dutton ($1.50).

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