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.  The definition and differences of the two are as follows:  Animal Magnetism, first formulized by ANTON MESMER from a mass of more or less confused observations by earlier writers, was the doctrine that there is a magnetic fluid circulating in all created forms, capable of flux and reflux, which is specially active or potent in the human body.  Its action may be concentrated or increased by the human will, so as to work wonders, one of which is to cause a person who is magnetized by another to obey the operator, this obedience being manifested in many very strange ways.

Still there were thousands of physiologists or men of science who doubted the theory of the action or existence of Animal Magnetism, and the vital fluid, as declared by the Mesmerists, and they especially distrusted the marvels narrated of clairvoyance, which was too like the thaumaturgy or wonder-working attributed to the earlier magicians.  Finally, the English scientist, BRAID, determined that it was not a magnetic fluid which produced the recognized results, “but that they were of purely subjective origin, depending on the nervous system of the one acted on.”  That is to say, in ordinary language, it was “all imagination”—­but here, as in many other cases, a very comprehensive and apparently common-sensible word is very far from giving an adequate or correct idea of the matter in question—­for what the imagination itself really is in this relation is a mystery which is very difficult to solve.  I have heard of an old French gentleman who, when in a circus, expressed an opinion that there was nothing remarkable in the wonderful performances of an acrobat on a tight-rope, or trapeze. “Voyez-vous monsieur” he exclaimed; “Ce n’est que la mathematique—­rien que ca!” And only the Imagination—­“all your Imagination” is still the universal solvent in Philistia for all such problems.

Hypnotism reduced to its simplest principle is, like the old Fascination, the action of mind upon mind, or of a mind upon itself, in such a manner as to produce a definite belief, action, or result.  It is generally effected by first causing a sleep, as is done in animal magnetism, during which the subject implicitly obeys the will of the operator, or performs whatever he suggests.  Hence arose the term Suggestion, implying that what the patient takes into his head to do, or does, must first be submitted to his own mental action.