Report of the Committee on Hypnotism

The delicacy of discrimination shown in recognizing the invisible line is often very great. The extraordinary mixture, in the hypnotic trance, of preternatural refinement of discrimination with the grossest insensibility, is one of the most remarkable features of the condition. A blank sheet of paper with machine-cut edges, without water-mark or any thing which could lead to the recognition of one side or edge from the other, is shown to the subject, with the statement that it is a photograph of a well-known face. As soon as he distinctly sees the photograph upon its surface, he is told that it will float off from 1 M. Ch. Fere was, so far as I know, the first to make this remark. 2 The phenomenon is described as it most frequently happens. There have been some ex-