I have heard hypnotism, with regard to fascination, spoken of with great apprehension.  “It is dreadful,” said one to me, “to think of anybody’s being able to exercise such an influence on anyone.”  And yet, widely known as it is, instances of its abuse are very rare.  Thus, when Cremation was first discussed, it was warmly opposed, because somebody might be poisoned, and then, the body being burned, there could be no autopsy!  Nature has decreed some drawback to the best things; nothing is perfect.  But to balance the immense benefits latent in suggestion against the problematic abuses is like condemning the ship because a bucket of tar has been spilt on the deck.

Sincere kindness and respect, which are allied unto identity, are the best or surest key to love, and they in turn are allied to fascination.  Here I might observe that the action of the eye, which is a silent speech of emotion, has always been regarded as powerful in fascination, but those who are not by nature gifted with it cannot use it to much good purpose.  That emotional, susceptible subjects ready to receive suggestion can be put to sleep or made to imagine anything terrible regarding anybody’s glance is very true, just as an ignorant Italian will believe of any man that he has the malocchio if he be told so, whence came the idea that Pope Gregory XVI had the evil eye.  But where there is sincere kindly feeling it makes itself felt in a sympathetic nature by what is popularly called magic, only because it is not understood.  The enchantment lies in this, that unconscious cerebration, or the power (or powers), who are always acting in us, effect many curious and very subtle mental phenomena, all of which they do not confide to the common-sense waking judgment or Reason, simply because the latter is almost entirely occupied with common worldly subjects.  It is as if someone whose whole attention and interest had been at all times given to some plain hard drudgery, should be called on to review or write a book of exquisitely subtle poetry.  It is, indeed, almost sadly touching to reflect how this innocent and beautiful faculty of recognizing what is good, is really acting perhaps in evil and merely worldly minds all in vain, and all unknown to them.  The more the conscious waking-judgment has been trained to recognize goodness, the more will the hidden water-fairies rise above the surface, as it were, to the sunshine.  So it comes that true kindly feeling is recognized by sympathy, and those who would be loved, cannot do better than make themselves truly and perfectly kind by forethought and will, and with this the process of self-hypnotism will be a great aid.  For it is not more by winning others to us, than in willing ourselves to them that true Love consists.