Science: Everyman His Own Svengali

About one-quarter of mankind can save themselves pain and improve their own health by using hypnotism on themselves.

So said Hypnotist Andrew Salter of Manhattan last week, explaining in the Journal of General Psychology that 20 or 25% of normal adults can be hypnotized and can learn with little trouble to hypnotize themselves to produce the whole range of hypnotic phenomena—insensitivity to pain or noise, steely muscular rigidity, hallucinations, posthypnotic suggestion, etc.

This, says Salter, is "one aspect of hypnosis which, so far, has been untouched by modern experimental techniques." No one can be...

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