SLEEP AND HEALTH 171and upon the face of it the good seems to be
undeniable.
But looking at it from the deeper standpoint of the
occultist,who views this life as only one in many, and
looking at it from the effect it has upon the invisible
vehicles of man, the case is vastly different. When a
man is put into a hypnotic sleep, the hypnotist makes
passes over him which have the effect of expelling the
ether from the head of his dense body and substituting
the ether of the hypnotist. The man is then under the
perfect domination of another; he has no free will, and,
therefore, the so-called “suggestions” are in reality
commands which the victim has no choice but to obey.
Besides, when the hypnotist withdraws his ether and
wakens the victim he is unable to remove all the ether
he put into him. To use a simile, as a small part of the
magnetism infused into an electric dynamo before it
can be started for the first time is left behind and
remains as residual magnetism to excite the fields of
the dynamo every time it is started up, so also there
remains a small part of the ether of the hypnotist’s
vital body in the medulla oblongata of the victim,
which is a club the hypnotist holds over him all his
life, and it is due to this fact that suggestions to be
carried out at a period subsequent to the awakening of
the victim are invariably followed.
Thus the victim of a hypnotic healer does not
overcome the bad habit by his own strength, but is as
much chained in that respect as if he were in solitary
confinement, and although in this life he may seem to
be a better citizen, when he returns to Earth in another
embodiment he will have the same weakness and have
to struggle until at last he overcomes it himself.