The Search for Bridey Murphy (3 page)

But even though her astonishment seemed genuine enough, I felt that my good wife was reacting in the same way that I sometimes feel obliged to do with one of her new recipes—just swallowing hard and forcing a big smile. I had to find out.

So I hypnotized her again and this time I had her extend her right arm straight out from her body, telling her that the arm would become rigid, “just like a steel rod welded to her body.” I assured her, furthermore, that the “steel rod” could remain in that position indefinitely, that it would feel surprisingly pleasant, that it would not bring her any discomfort at any time.

I sat down opposite her and just watched for several minutes. Then, noticing that there was a
Readers Digest
near my chair, I picked it up and thumbed through it. Later I glanced over at Hazel. Holy Mahoney! This girl wasn’t bluffing. Her arm was still stiffly extended in the same position.

After giving her a post-hypnotic suggestion in order to check further the reality of the trance, I awakened her. There seemed to be practically no doubt about it: my first subject, my own wife, had been hypnotized.

Soon thereafter the most potent of all advertising agencies, the
grapevine, went to work. Friends and neighbors began to bring their problems. And what was most surprising to me was that this hypnosis business really helped them.

A case in point, for instance, developed one day after an old friend had telephoned me. He was worried about his nephew, and he went on to add up his nephew’s good points: The boy was captain of his basketball team; he had made the all-state high school team; he was being scouted by several college coaches; he was husky, handsome, intelligent, and a nice person.

“Then what in the world are you worried about?” I asked.

Finally he told me. “I have reason to believe that he might have been considering suicide. You see, he stutters. Bad.”

The uncle made it plain that if the matter had not become genuinely serious he would not be calling me. (This was a sort of backhanded compliment to which I soon became accustomed; hypnosis was always the last resort.) He was not exaggerating the case, he insisted, and he wanted me to promise that I would see his nephew as soon as possible. So I suggested that we all get together the following Thursday evening.

When I met the boy, it was soon evident that his uncle had accurately stated the facts. The lad was, indeed, a fine, handsome specimen. But his stuttering had him coming apart at the seams. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been free from this affliction; apparently he had never in all his life known normal speech.

He said that looking forward to each new day was a terrifying prospect. He dreaded going to classes for fear of being called upon for a recitation; as captain of the basketball team, he would be called upon for a speech, and the very thought was paralyzing. And as far as girls were concerned, he was sure that even when they asked him to parties they really only wanted to laugh at his efforts to answer.

What is more, he had recently met a fifty-year-old man who stuttered; the man had told him that he had talked that way all his life. The lad admitted that if he too should be forced to stutter through all those years he would rather not go on. Obviously he had reason to be in bad shape.

Nevertheless, after we had had only four one-hour sessions together, he telephoned—using a telephone in the past would have been quite a stunt for him—to tell me that he wouldn’t need me
any longer. In a clear, smooth voice he unhesitatingly assured me that he no longer stuttered; he thanked me and told me that his new life was a thrilling one.

Apparently he had been cured. More than a year later I checked with his uncle. At first he almost forgot that his nephew had ever stuttered, then he assured me that the boy had never experienced any difficulty after our sessions together.

But all this was not quite so simple as it might sound. Even though each session with the subject lasted only one hour or less, there were many hours devoted to advance research, preparation, outlining, and rehearsing. For one forty-five-minute session with a hysterical paralysis victim I spent several hours in preparation. Everything from my entrance into the room with the subject to the final words of departure was outlined and rehearsed in advance.
¹

There followed a number of gratifying experiences with disturbed cases, including some concerned with migraine, insomnia, excessive smoking, and bad habits. And then a really significant opportunity presented itself. A well-known local doctor who knew of my interest in hypnosis told me of a current problem with a polio victim. The woman, he explained, had real polio involvement in both legs, but the case had been complicated by the development of hysterical paralysis in the right arm. (Hysterical paralysis is the result of a neurosis rather than an organic cause.)

The doctor did not have to ask me twice for assistance. The chance to do some good on a real hospital case was too alluring. Besides, all the books assured me that this type of paralysis—that is, the symptom itself—was routine work for a competent hypnotist.

The woman, about thirty-five, had lost a ten-year-old daughter with polio at the same time that she herself contracted the disease. This, together with still other grave difficulties, understandably left the woman in serious condition, both emotionally and physically. It was no wonder she had developed the hysterical contracture.

I had agreed to tackle the case before I had even seen the condition of the patient. But when I walked into the hospital room and saw the woman’s horribly knotted arm, my first impulse was to turn around and make for the door. How, I asked myself, had
I ever talked myself into this? That arm was something to behold! It was like a chunk of gnarled, petrified wood with twigs, which used to be fingers, jutting out at the end.

I was stuck. I had promised the doctor that I would try. But had he known how scared I was at that moment, I’m sure that he would not only have excused me, he would even have helped me out of the room. As it was, though, he showed me the arm in a manner which clearly indicated that this was old stuff to him. So I pretended that it was old stuff to me too.

The doctor explained that her arm had been in this condition for more than four months and that nothing seemed to help. It did not respond to any sort of therapy, and of course there is no medicine for that sort of thing. “Well, now let’s see what you can do,” he told me.

Shakily I went to work. A trance was induced rather easily, and then, after eliciting ordinary hypnotic phenomena, I finally suggested that she could move her fingers in rhythm with my slow counting. She could. Nobody was more surprised than the hypnotist. I repeated this exercise several times, left some post-hypnotic suggestions, awakened the subject, and called it a day.

In three subsequent weekly sessions I repeated the same general technique, each time getting more of the arm to move until, during the fourth session, the entire arm was freed from paralysis. After that she once more began to use the arm, and within a short time it appeared to be completely normal. My fourth session with her was the last one necessary.

The post-hypnotic suggestions given to the subject were concerned primarily with instruction in the use of autosuggestion: the intimation that the hospital therapy would prove surprisingly more effective in the future; that she would be capable of responding more fully to the directions given by the physiotherapist; that she would now employ to a greater extent her native gifts of cheerfulness and a sense of humor; that she could optimistically look forward to total recovery.

The efficacy of autosuggestion in these cases proves once again how much we can all do with our own minds by simply utilizing the power of suggestion. With all of my subjects I have advised the application of self-suggestion at night just before retiring, in the morning upon awakening, and sometimes during the middle of the day, perhaps just before lunch. During these specified times
the stutterer, for instance, repeated his key sentence, “When I speak slowly I speak perfectly.” He also imagined himself making speeches to large groups, or as a lawyer making dramatic appearances before a jury. The paralysis victim was told that she would at these fixed times repeat certain simple exercises performed during the trance; also that she would imagine that she was once again using her arm in a normal manner. All these subjects, in short, were taught to combine autosuggestion with the creation of vivid mental pictures. The persistent use of these mental images is astonishingly effective.

As my studies continued, I began to experiment with one of the most fascinating phenomena in the field of hypnosis—the marvel of age regression. This refers, as we have already seen, to the ability of the subject, while under hypnosis, to relive or recall detailed incidents of the past even though such incidents may have taken place during infancy. There are two general types of age regression. In one the subject recalls a particular experience as though remembering or witnessing it.

The other is called true or total regression, and is one in which the subject appears to be actually reliving some past episode. The subject, while under hypnosis, is usually told that his mind will turn back through time and space and actually relive a certain scene; that he will speak in the very same voice as he did then; that he will experience the same sensations, the same emotions, the same reactions, the same total experience as he did upon, let us say, his third birthday.

I have kept tape recordings of experiments with both types of regression, and I am continuously confronted with gasps of astonishment from audiences listening to the recordings. Many, I am sure, simply do not believe what they hear. Remembering my own amazement during my earlier experiments, I am not surprised that listeners are dumfounded by simple age regressions which hundreds of hypnotists, psychologists, and doctors are performing every day.

Let us admit that it is a stunning spectacle to watch a grown man return to the scene of his third birthday, recalling the events of the day in minute detail and perhaps even speaking in the voice of a three-year-old. Indeed, he might accurately describe every present he had received on that day. The wealth of remembered detail is awesome.

It is interesting to note, furthermore, that changes in handwriting, behavior, vision, and reflexes all take place during hypnotic age regression. For instance, the signature of one of my subjects, told that he is eight years old, will be substantially different from that of the same person when he is told that he is only six years old. When the five-year-old level is reached, perhaps the subject can print his name; and at an earlier suggested age he will be capable neither of printing nor writing his name. Handwriting experts will usually confirm that these samples of writing, when compared with specimens which were actually produced during the childhood of the subject, are practically identical.

I also learned that intelligence tests and reading tests given at various levels during an age regression confirm its reality. Moreover, a person who stuttered at, say, the age of seven, will likely do so once again when regressed to that level; and then the defect will disappear as earlier periods are suggested. Regressed subjects will also re-experience traumatic events, illnesses, and earlier episodes of almost every nature.

An especially convincing proof of the verity of hypnotic age regression has been demonstrated in experiments concerning the stroking (tickling) of the sole of the foot. If the bottom of the foot of a normal adult is stroked, the big toe tends to turn downward; this is known as flexion. However, in infants up to about seven months of age the toes will turn upward (dorsiflexion) in response to this same stimulation.

With these facts in mind two experimenters, working with three adult subjects, proved that the response changed from flexion to dorsiflexion when the subjects were regressed to the age of five or six months. Then, going the other way, it was found that the reflex altered again to the adult form as age progression was suggested. These findings, furthermore, were confirmed by experiments of Leslie Le Cron, one of the most effective researchers in modern hypnosis.

As interested as I was in this technique, I still had no clue as to just how far back the mind of man can be regressed. Nor did I have any idea that this tool of hypnotic regression was being employed by a few scientists to unveil some of the mysteries of man. Such revelations came much later.

Much later, too, came the discovery that this technique of re
gression provided the path that would ultimately lead to Bridey Murphy.

Meanwhile the number of my experiments kept piling up and I began to learn the answers to questions which are fired at every hypnotist. The first query is the most easily disposed of. Indeed, one must dispose of it because as yet nobody seems to know the answer. The question “What is a trance?” remains essentially unanswered. In other words, we do not know what hypnotism is nor just how much it can actually accomplish. During the next twenty-five years, perhaps, science will turn its spotlight toward hypnosis; then the secrets will be exposed.

Fortunately, however, there are some issues which have been settled. Such problems as the following, for example, have already been answered: Is there any danger of remaining permanently in the trance? Must the hypnotist possess any extraordinary powers? Can a person be hypnotized against his will? Can a hypnotized person be forced to commit a crime or an immoral act? Is it dangerous? Why is it not more widely used? Can anybody be hypnotized?

There is virtually no danger, I learned, of remaining indefinitely in the trance. Even if the hypnotist should place the subject in deep hypnosis and then leave the room, the subject would eventually drift into ordinary sleep and awaken in his own good time. Most hypnotists would state positively, without reservation, that there is no danger on this score. I understand that there have been extremely rare cases which involved difficulty in awakening the subject, but these cases are so infrequent as to be scarcely worthy of mention.