ion alike, such progress to the
simpler means always at the same time the making use of much richer
knowledge. To explain an obsession or a sleep state by the agencies of
evil spirits or magnetic fluids is certainly an unnecessary side
conception. But to understand it from the working of the mind
presupposes after all the whole modern physiological psychology, and
thus had to be the latest step.

The effects themselves were certainly observed in all times. Even the
phenomena of hypnotism date probably back some thousands of years,
however difficult it may sometimes be to discriminate between the
artificial hypnotic states and hysteric or hystero-epileptic occurrences
in the past. Certainly it may be acknowledged that the Yogi in India
cultivated in the most remote times the methods of autosuggestion which
evidently led to hypnotic states, and everywhere around the
Mediterranean, antiquity knew the hypnotizing effect of staring on
polished metals and crystals. So in Egypt, so in Greece and Rome; and it
has often been claimed that the priestesses of Delphi and the sibyls of
the Romans were in states of hystero-hypnotic character. As to the
therapeutic use, especially the Greek physicians applied hypnotic means.
Excited patients were brought to repose by methods of stroking. The
efforts to explain scientifically the mysterious powers which men can
gain over the mind and will of another begin at the end of the Middle
Age and were developed quite naturally from the prevailing astrological
doctrines. Astrology worked on the theory that the human fate depends
upon the stars. These stars have an effect on the human organism. That
proves that an influence can exist between distant bodies. It is,
therefore, not more surprising that one organism can also have an
influence on another organism. Well known since antiquity were such
influences from one object to another, as in the case of the magnet.
Thus there may be a kind of magnetic power which creates relations
between all objects in the universe.

Pomponnazi explained thus at the end of the fifteenth century the
therapeutic effects of the human soul by the mutual influence which
stars and men have on each other. This theory comes to much more
important development in the writings of the physician Paracelsus. One
individual by the power of his effort can influence the will of another
individual, can fight with it, and suppress it; and all through energies
which are analogous to