The Search for Bridey Murphy (6 page)

When he arrived the next night he first told me that he had been surprised that while I was under the influence of the narcotics I had told him practically nothing of value. Oddly enough, he observed, I had freely given him much more intimate, personal information during our discussions prior to the truth serum. He told me, for instance, that when he asked certain questions about various members of my family—questions which I had already answered for him without the persuasion of drugs—I had replied, “I’ll have to get their permission before I answer that.”

“But at least,” he affirmed, “we’ll now have better luck with the hypnosis.”

I was convinced too. After all, I had witnessed the power of posthypnotic suggestion frequently enough to know that my subconscious must now be ready to perform in a similar fashion; surely my mind was loaded and ready for the discharge.

The doctor went to work. Fortified by years of experience in hypnosis—and with the advantage of my narcosis of the previous night—he had good reason for confidence. Meticulously and smoothly he moved along the map that he had undoubtedly impressed upon my mind the night before.

Results: negative.

Either my “block” was insurmountable, or somehow hypnosis had not been superinduced on the narcotic state. This is a point about which there is considerable hubbub in medical circles. Some of the British psychiatrists, pioneers in narcosis, insist that almost all the failures with this method can be traced to the fact that hypnosis was not induced on top of the narcosis.

Next on my list of experiments came a most remarkable machine. From a reprint of a New York
Times
article I had learned that a New York doctor had conceived the idea for an equalizing pressure chamber which enables the patient to stop breathing!

Whereas the machine had been developed primarily as a local lung-rest therapy for tuberculosis victims, I had a different interest. We have all heard of the psychic effects of non-breathing exercises. The yogis have made such techniques famous. Their demonstrations of the rejuvenating effects, on mind and body, made possible through breath control are little short of fantastic. The yogi enters a trance-like state and remains motionless for long periods without any apparent restlessness of mind or body. In short, the yogi achieves the trance state through training in breath control. Perhaps, then, I could do the same thing by means of this yogi-like machine.

This pressure chamber, let me repeat, actually makes it possible for its occupant to stop breathing. Understand that it is not like an iron lung. The chest doesn’t budge; the lungs make no movement; breathing actually stops. The chamber is designed so that an equal pressure is maintained on both sides of the chest, and also on the upper and lower surfaces of the diaphragm. Then, by manipulating the pressures within both the body and head compartments of the chamber, oxygen is brought into the lungs and carbon dioxide elim
inated. The volume within the lungs is kept constant, but the density changes. All this without taking a single breath!
⁷

From the moment I read the article I could hardly wait to try that machine. Here, I thought, was the hypnosis machine for which I had been searching.

When company business next sent me to New York, I took advantage of my first free hour to rush to the office of the doctor who had created the pressure chamber. Here again I was to encounter another sample of the co-operation which I have found so prevalent within the ranks of the men of medicine during my pursuit of knowledge of hypnosis. Although the doctor expressed surprise that I was anxious to submit myself and my wife to the pressure chamber, he made all necessary arrangements immediately.

Within a few days, therefore, my wife and I were standing before a casket-like affair at a hospital in New York City. My wife, Hazel, had to be included in this experiment because somebody would have to be inside the chamber while I attempted to superimpose hypnosis on this state of non-breathing. Besides, Hazel by now had become accustomed to my perpetual experimentation and she was as interested as I.

With us were two doctors, researchers at the Columbia University division of the hospital and old hands with the pressure device. “Are you
sure
you want to enter the chamber?” one of the doctors asked.

This made the third time that I had been questioned, apparently with some degree of sympathy, as to whether I really knew what I was getting into.

“Why do you ask?” was my question. I was remembering the carbon dioxide experience. “Will this machine give me a rough time?”

“No, not at all,” he replied. “But some people have claustrophobia to varying degrees, and so they are terrified at the prospect of being closed up in narrow compartments.”

I wondered whether I had claustrophobia, decided I didn’t, and crawled into the chamber. It is a sort of horizontal cylindrical structure with a dome which slides forward like that over the cockpit of a jet plane. But in this cockpit you stretch out flat on a surface made comfortable by a mattress. Then a partition, like a collar, slides down around the neck, separating the head and the body into two compartments. The dome is pulled back, closing the chamber, and the air compressor is switched on.

At the start I had been told to inhale each time the doctor—I could see him easily through the Plexiglas dome—raised his hand and to exhale as he lowered it. As his hand movements shortened, my respiration was to become shallower until he finally made a crosswise motion with his hands, like an umpire gesturing “safe.” At this point I was to stop breathing entirely.

I did. It was a pleasant, soothing sensation; I didn’t breathe for more than five minutes. It was probably the only five minutes during my entire lifetime when I made no movement whatsoever. But I was anxious to have Hazel take my place so that I could attempt to induce hypnosis upon a subject inside the pressure chamber. So I got out and she climbed in.

Her experience was a duplicate of my own. Then the microphone was turned on so that I would be able to talk to her from the outside. Here was the ideal opportunity: a completely relaxed subject, not moving, not even breathing. I could hardly wait.

Then when we were ready to undertake the experiment, the microphone refused to function.

It was a tremendous disappointment. We tinkered with the mike for several minutes but we finally had to give up. I’m still looking forward to taking another try at that experiment.

All my effort to become a good hypnotic subject should at least help to establish one point—not everyone can be readily hypnotized. And good subjects, so far as I know, cannot be distinguished by their behavior, their appearance, or their disposition.

It is generally agreed that there are certain factors which definitely affect susceptibility to the trance. Ordinarily, as has been stated, normal, happy individuals make the best subjects. As one
hypnotist put it, the very best subjects seem to be the same ones who would be most likely to avoid the psychiatrist’s couch.

I found that very anxious and nervous people are frequently difficult subjects, as are skeptics and “know-it-alls.” There is little difference between the sexes or races, but some operators do contend that women generally make the best subjects. As to age, children are definitely easier to hypnotize than elderly people. In fact, susceptibility seems to diminish as the years go by. It is for this reason that one hypnotherapist has put forth the suggestion that all children be given instruction in trance induction before the age of fifteen.

Oddly enough, hypnotists and others having a fair degree of knowledge about hypnotism are usually poor subjects. Probably the people in this group cannot prevent themselves from criticizing or evaluating the technique of the operator who is trying to help them. Likewise, close friends and relatives of the hypnotist are usually not impressed by someone they know so well. A total stranger will generally obtain more effective results.

Alcoholics are generally easy to hypnotize, and so are those who stutter or stammer. (One respected authority, referring to hypnosis, declares that it is amazing that so many continue to suffer from stuttering when such a potent remedy is readily available.) Insomnia sufferers, on the other hand, are somewhat more difficult to help.

Contrary to my preconceived notions, real will power, if anything, would tend to make a subject better, because the will power could be utilized to co-operate with the hypnotist. Weak-minded or insane people, on the other hand, are extremely difficult, often impossible, to hypnotize.

My own conviction is that this major drawback of hypnosis—the fact that not everyone can be quickly hypnotized to an impressive depth—can be, and will be, overcome. Just as soon as a rapid, universal method of inducing a deep trance is developed, hypnosis will automatically become a therapeutic instrument of paramount importance.

And whether the key be psychological, mechanical, or electrical, the men of science will eventually spring open the lock. So far the big barrier has been the shocking absence of funds devoted to the scientific investigation of hypnosis. I was unable to find any
record of a single grant ever having been made for the study of hypnosis itself.
⁸

Meanwhile the experimentation is carried on by individuals. Many confine themselves to the therapeutic aspects of hypnosis; some explore the infinite potential of age-regression phenomena; and a few incessantly seek the perfect technique.

But there is still another facet of hypnosis, probably the most fascinating of all. It is concerned with probing the unknown realms of the mind, with the mysteries that have surrounded man for ages. I had never involved myself in this phase. Fate, however, had other plans; I was soon to take another step on the long bridge.

My wife and I were driving to Colorado Springs. It was a beautiful April day of Colorado sunshine, and giving a special touch of grandeur to the whole scene was the majestic Pikes Peak off to the northwest. Silently engulfed by this beauty, we had not spoken a word for fifteen minutes.

Suddenly I found myself humming a tune; oddly enough, my wife at that precise moment began to hum the very same tune. We had gone through several verses before we realized what was taking place. The same tune had occurred to both of us simultaneously, and we had been in perfect synchronization up to the point when, aware of the curious coincidence, we turned toward each other to register our surprise.

Hazel laughed. “Do you think that was telepathy?”

“No, not a chance,” I assured her. “We were both simply affected by the same stimuli; these generated a similar chain of thoughts in our minds, finally creating the response, which in this case happened to be a certain tune.”

“Husband gives wife the scientific treatment,” mocked Hazel. “And perhaps the scientist can also explain why the response to the stimuli in this case was a tune called ‘Once in a While’ and why we hit upon it at the exact same instant, and also tell me just what every thought was in the chain leading to the final response.”

“That’s just where a lot of people get thrown off the track,” I remarked. “After all, it might well be impossible to explain all these tiny details. Keep in mind that there are more than two billion people in the world, and the number of circumstances involving these people is infinite—astronomical! It would be even more astonishing, considering all these people and circumstances, all the accidents, crosscurrents, and intertwinings, if, out of this maelstrom, there didn’t occur once in a while a few striking coincidences. It’s nothing to get excited about.

“No,” I added, “I can’t buy telepathy.”

“You didn’t believe hypnotism was real either,” she reminded me.

“Hypnosis is one thing. This telepathy stuff is another. And as
for telepathy’s first cousin, clairvoyance, that’s strictly for the lunatic fringe!

“So I was wrong about hypnosis; that doesn’t mean I have to be wrong all the time.”

But once again, as though signaled forth by our little debate, events began to gang up on me. I was forced to scratch my head in wonder.

It all began with a dream. I dreamed that Mr. Haines, the general manager of Bernstein Brothers, came striding into my office in his usual brisk fashion and, just as I was about to speak into the mouthpiece of my dictaphone, shoved a stack of papers between me and the dictaphone. At the top of the papers was a check; he asked whether the check was made out in the right amount. When I nodded, he turned to go. But he spotted something on my desk. “I’ve been looking for this,” he said. It looked like a letter; he took it and walked out.