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Updated: June 25, 2025
The art of the demagogue is the art of the parrot; he must utter some senseless catchword again and again, working on the suggestibility of the crowd. Archbishop Trench, 'On the Study of Words, notices this fact of psychology and the use which is commonly made of it.
To bring suggestions to greater effectiveness and to exert their influence practically upon every possible subject, we have thus not only to give suggestions or to advise autosuggestion but in both cases we have to secure, especially for the naturally less suggestible patients, a somewhat heightened suggestibility.
Every individual is melted into the total, has lost his independent power of judging, and becomes influenced through his heightened suggestibility and social feeling by any chance pressure which may push toward error as often as toward truth. But if such arguments are brought into play, it is evident that it is no longer a legal question, but a psychological one.
This is so because as we have already seen, the human psyche is plastic to the suggestions made to it; and this suggestibility is greatly increased when it is living a gregarious life as a member of a united congregation or flock, and is engaged in performing corporate acts.
You need only use this latent suggestibility and make it work for you. What would you say about the suggestibility of a person who doesn't want to talk about hypnosis? This person has never read a book on hypnosis and absolutely doesn't want you or anyone else to hypnotize him. Would you believe this person is a potentially good hypnotic subject?
The crowd may fall into a panic and rush blindly in any direction into which any one may have happened to start and no one thinks about it, or it may go into exaltation and exuberantly do what no one alone would dare to risk. This mass consciousness is also surely a form of increased suggestibility.
Parliamentary crowds present most of the characteristics common to heterogeneous crowds that are not anonymous The simplicity of their opinions Their suggestibility and its limits Their indestructible, fixed opinions and their changed opinions The reason of the predominance of indecision The role of the leaders The reason of their prestige They are the true masters of an assembly whose votes, on that account, are merely those of a small minority The absolute power they exercise The elements of their oratorical art Phrases and images The psychological necessity the leaders are under of being in a general way of stubborn convictions and narrow-minded It is impossible for a speaker without prestige to obtain recognition for his arguments The exaggeration of the sentiments, whether good or bad, of assemblies At certain moments they become automatic The sittings of the Convention Cases in which an assembly loses the characteristics of crowds The influence of specialists when technical questions arise The advantages and dangers of a parliamentary system in all countries It is adapted to modern needs; but it involves financial waste and the progressive curtailment of all liberty Conclusion.
Should readers be interested in further hypnotic phenomena, I refer them to Modern Hypnosis by Leslie Kuhn and Salvadore Russo, Ph.D., Experimental Hypnosis by Leslie LeCron, Time Distortion in Hypnosis by Milton Erickson, M.D. and Lynn F. Cooper, M.D., and Hypnotism An Objective Study in Suggestibility by André M. Weitzenhoffer, Ph.D.
The spellbound audience in a theater or in a picture house is certainly in a state of heightened suggestibility and is ready to receive suggestions. One great and fundamental suggestion is working in both cases, inasmuch as the drama as well as the photoplay suggests to the mind of the spectator that this is more than mere play, that it is life which we witness.
Achieving hypnosis, therefore, is a matter of directing this suggestibility that we all possess into the channels that will finally produce the hypnotic state. It can be much more complicated than this explanation in many cases, but let us use this as a working premise. Everyone can be hypnotized. The time required for achieving hypnosis will vary from subject to subject.
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