CHAPTER II.
SELF-SUGGESTION.
"In thy soul, as in a sleep, Gods or fiends are hidden deep, Awful forms of mystery, And spirits, all unknown to thee: Guard with prayer, and heed with care, Ere thou wak'st them from their lair!" The records of the human race, however written, show that Man has always regarded himself as possessed of latent faculties, or capacities of a mysterious or extraordinary nature: that is to say, transcending in scope or power anything within the range of ordinary conscious mental capacity.

Such for example is the Dream, in which there occurs such a mingling of madness with mysterious intuitions or memories that it is no wonder it has always been regarded as allied to supernatural intelligence.

And almost as general as the faith in dreams as being _weird_ (in the true sense of the much-abused word) or "strangely prophetic," is that in _fascination_, or that one human being can exercise over another by a mystic will and power a strong influence, even to the making the patient do whatever the actor or superior requires.
However interesting it may be, it is quite needless for the purpose which I have in view to sketch the history of occultism, magic or sorcery from the earliest times to the present day.

Fascination was, however, its principal power, and this was closely allied to, or the parent of, what is now known as Suggestion in Hypnotism.

But ancient magic in its later days certainly became very much mixed with magnetism in many phases, and it is as an off-shoot of Animal Magnetism that Hypnotism is now regarded, which is to be regretted, since it is in reality radically different from it, as several of the later writers of the subject are beginning to protest.