Is that okay? Do you need to know more? If so, it turns out there's a wealth of information on the internet about different types and uses of pendulum, from mechanisms in time-pieces to those used in dowsing, and special crystal ones for promoting "inner growth". You think I'm kidding? Check out 'A Spiritual Guide on how to use a Pendulum' or 'How to use a Pendulum for Energy Guidance'. (And no, I'm not providing links. Do your own dirty work, dear readers, if you're so inclined.)
... have been hypnotising people since 1841, when Dr James Braid, a Scottish surgeon and the man who coined the words neurohypnology, hypnotise and hypnotism, first pulled one out of his fob and used it to hypnotise. (Fob is my word of the week, the technical term for the small pocket in a man's waistcoat or waistband made to contain e.g. a keyring, a snuffbox or a watch.)
On The Perils Of Self-Hypnotism
My father made a pendulum wall clock as a present for my wife and me. When we got divorced he insisted that she should keep it. He didn't like divorces. I don't like pendulum clocks. Pocket watches on the other hand...
 |
| "You are getting sleepy..." |
Known in some circles as "the father of modern hypnotism", Braid became interested in the phenomenon after attending a series of performances of mesmerism by Charles Lafontaine. He was sceptical at first but was soon convinced that he was seeing altered states in the subjects and soon commenced conducting his own experiments in hypnotism, at first on himself and then on patients.
Of course it doesn't have to be a pocket watch, or even a pendulum, although the swinging watch on a chain has become the de facto cliché in books and films about hypnosis. It just has to be an object at the right distance from the subject so (s)he can concentrate the gaze. The suggestivity of the subject (a willingness to be hypnotised) is also a significant factor.
Braid went on to use hypnotism regularly and successfully in his medical practice and wrote a seminal treatise on the subject, from which I quote the following: "I consider the hypnotic mode of treating certain disorders is a most important ascertained fact, and a real solid addition to practical therapeutics, for there is a variety of cases in which it is really most successful, and to which it is most particularly adapted, and those are the very cases in which ordinary medical means are least successful, or altogether unavailing."
I've never been hypnotised, nor tried hypnotising myself or others. The fact that Braid practised upon himself first (in a long medical tradition of the experimenter boldly using him/herself as prime subject) led me to speculate about what might happen if self-hypnotism were to go wrong. Here's the poem that resulted...
On The Perils Of Self-Hypnotism
Late in the play (a tragi-comedy)
the stage is set for its finale:
velvet drapes half drawn
allow a whey moon to filter
through mullioned windows
picking out a thin man
dressed in hand-me-downs
and incongruous cravat
sitting erect on a battered chair
before an empty grate. His breath
steams in cold air. From offstage
a voice intones blank verse:
He hasn't eaten a square meal in days,
yet with glazed eyes fixed to a point,
he breaks out in a smile, his heart pumps
for joy, fierce pride fills his veins.
His country's taken back the reins and
life has never been so good as this.
Of course, the audience
didn't see him rehearse,
cannot see his rictus grin
only his back and unkempt hair.
The cracked doctor slowly rises,
drops a broken pocket watch
to the floor, lifts the lid of a dustbin
standing previously unnoticed
in the corner, climbs in
and carefully lowers the lid.
A single spot lights the bin
and a scrawl across the wall,
a plague on both your houses.
The audience waits minutes
for something else to happen
and when nothing does, they rise
in twos and threes and walk
in awkward silence out
through velvet drapes
into the coldest night
and a whey moon.
Thanks for reading, S ;-)
25 comments:
I don't understand the poem :(
Interesting about hypnotism. You're making us work hard with the poem! (What a comeback for your lads on Saturday.)
Not so sure that's self-hypnosis, Steve. Looks more like self-delusion, driven by the pendulum-swing of hubris and nemesis. But I like the cut of your jib. And bonus points for "mullioned", which is MY word of the day, even if the real meaning is a bit of a let-down: it should be "We were out last night and Melinda got absolutely mullioned on tequila shots".
So that's why it's sometimes called a fob watch! I never know. Every blog of yours is an education Steve. I've read the comment above and Otyikondo has a point about self-delusion.
What does the poem remind me of? Pinter? Not sure. But it nails the current malaise. 👍
"Look into my eyes..." Sound blog, la!
Interesting about Braid and the therapeutic application of hypnotism (as he was a physician and not a psychiatrist). Clever poem.
It sounds as though you're in an uppity mood here! I enjoyed your take on self-hypnotism. Who was it said words to the effect that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds"?
There's something calming, you could say mesmerising, about watching a pendulum swing. My parents used to have a working grandfather clock and I would stare at it but was never hypnotised, even when that's what I was hoping would happen. Don't ask me why. I agree with earlier comments, your poem seems to describe self-delusion.
Interesting blogging Steve. That reference to a dustbin in your poem must be a nod to Samuel Beckett? 'Endgame' I assume? Well done with it.
Love those googly eyes.
The idea of somebody messing with my mind, no thanks. And if I tried self-hypnosis I'd worry about not being able to snap out of it.
I love the dark poetry. We are here! 👏
I remember a song "England swings like a pendulum do". A great read as always Steve and a very topical poem.
Excellent article. A fob is a great word.
I saw a show once where a man eat an onion and thought it was a delicious apple. I didn't like the whole thing of hynotising for fun.
Very original poem.
Fin de Partie (Endgame)? Very clever.
We've watched people being hypnotised, always thought it was a bit of a scam. Why would you want to anyway? Your poem seems an appropriately bleak assessment of where the last few delusional years have led us.
Interesting stuff about the history of hypnotism and that poem seems really to have captured the zeitgeist.
Your poem kind of anticipated recent events. How about that? The end of an era. I once tried to hypnotise my wife just for fun (needn't go into the details of why etc) and I thought it had worked. But I couldn't bring her out of the trance. It began to freak me out. Then she let on that she'd been faking it all the time. Not funny!
I think Hypnos was the god of sleep so for me your poem symbolised the willingness of people to metaphorically doze when they should be alert to all that's going wrong and to dream that everything is OK when it's not.
We're all doomed Mr Mainwaring! 🤣
I could never see the point of hypnotism, thought it was mostly a showman's con trick, but maybe there are genuine medical applications. As for your poetic ballad of a thin man, I thought that was most effective.
Your poem is very gloomy. A sign for the times? I recognise 'a plague on both your houses'. That's Shakespeare. Is the other italicised section famous?
Thanks for this Steve. I didn't know about the origins of hypnotism (though surely it must be much older than the 19th century?) I liked the allusive poem. If I read it right, that's post-Brexit little Britain consigning its deluded self to the dustbin of history.👏
Thanks everyone for your kind and observant comments. It may be that what I've depicted in the poem could more correctly be labelled self-delusion but my sense was that from 2015 onwards a significant portion of the national psyche has hypnotised itself into believing Brexit would make life better when the opposite may well turn out to be the case.
Post a Comment