It seems almost like a return to the old laws against witchcraft, when we read of the strict legal enactments which two leading European countries have already deemed it necessary to make concerning Hypnotism. The reality of that strange mental and physical condition having been scientifically established, cases of its abuse have become frequent enough to cause stringent legislation against it in France and Denmark.
In France, public exhibitions of Hypnotism—or Mesmerism, as it is more frequently called—have been prohibited, and severe penalties have been enacted against the hypnotizing of one person by another, except the operator be a physician, and then only with the written consent of the subject, and in the presence of another physician. The fact that, under the influence of what is called hypnotic suggestion, one person may be made a passive instrument in the hands of another, absolutely unconscious and doing whatever the operator may will, is the reason for this.
Elaborate and repeated scientific experiments have proven that a person may thus be made unconsciously to commit any manner of crime, so that one may be published for an act of which he is morally innocent, while the real criminal remains secure. The hypnotized subject might even be made to commit suicide after his deed, and thus all possibility of tracing the real criminal would be removed.
