Hypnotisme

réf. 82975 — Paris: Librairie Fischbacher n.d. First Edition. Octavo. 19cm. Publisher's buff limp card wraps titled in black to spine and front wrap. 180pp. Some light edgewear and discoloration of the wraps with some minor creasing to the lower edge of the front cover internally clean edges untrimmed. A very good neat little copy. A "Hypnotism for All" course of instruction and education expanding presumably for purposes of marketing beyond the boundaries of embryonic hypnotherapy and just falling short of being a primer for a stage act with its enthusiastic jumbling together of hypnotism and spiritualism alongside the rather vague catch all of "Fakirism." What it perhaps lacks in mesmeric integrity it more than makes up for with rampant enthusiasm providing tuition in such areas as inducing hallucinations and nightmares in subjects taking control of subjects while they are asleep a chapter on the dangers of hypnotism and the final 20 or so leaves are essentially advertisements for course compnents ranging from self hypnosis to an elaborate course teaching the mysterious "passes" or mesmeric gestures of skilled practitioners although at the time of the course's popularity the majority of mainstream mesmeric knowledge had rejected most belief in this rather out of date method. The prices of some of the course components have been added by hand. A dense introduction to a rather confused and multi-disciplinary brand of suggestion that rather feels like the author met Sydney Blanchard Flower and thought "This chap is onto something here!" It has a distinctly Chicago Flowers/Parkyn feel to it albeit adapted to a French audience. Librairie Fischbacher unknown