rance of the dead and the routine performances of the spiritists.
It seems to many as if there is no point where they have a reason to
stop. If they begin with such abnormal phenomena at all, it seems as if
they are necessarily carried over to all the mysteries of supernatural
energies. Even the competition with Christian Science, and other mental
healers whose judgment is not hampered by any previous study of
medicine, might seem rather unattractive to the serious physician.

Further not a few have the impression that such suggestive treatment
directly demands from them that they also begin to humbug their patients
or to throw out suggestions which they themselves do not believe, in
short, that they be brought down to the level of the miracle performer.
Yet, however much all that speaks in favor of the conscientious instinct
in the physician, it is ultimately based upon a misinterpretation. The
line between real science and its counterfeit is here as everywhere a
distinct one, and the true man of science ought not to hesitate in doing
his duty from fear that he might not be discriminated from the
charlatan. A well-conducted psychotherapeutic treatment as a scientific
physician ought to carry it out, is entirely different in meaning and
appearance, from the first step of diagnosis to the last treatment of
after-effects, from every unscientific faith cure. It is also in no way
necessary that the psychotherapist ever leave the path of complete
sincerity. There is no reason at all for promising that the patient will
be entirely cured if the physician believes that a real cure through
suggestion is impossible. The more the true physicians undertake
psychotherapeutic work, the more it will carry with it that dignity
which is now too often lost by the predominance of those who treat
without diagnosis and cure by mere appeal to superstition.

All that does not mean that other motives do not hold the physician
back. Not seldom he is afraid of unfavorable consequences. He does not
feel sure that, for instance, a deep hypnosis is without dangerous
results or that he will be able to produce it in the technically correct
way. But all these objections mean nothing but insufficient acquaintance
with the facts. Of course every technique needs its period of
preparation for the task, but it is now sufficiently demonstrated that
hypnotism carried through in a scientific spirit will never have any
injurious consequences. The morphine inje