Fascination and Hypnotism
The two general forms of direct Mental Influence are fascination and hypnotism. Both use the same power, which sometimes makes it hard to tell them apart.
- Fascination
Fascination is the oldest form of Mental Influence. It is even seen when animals stalk prey or attract mates. (If you’ve ever locked eyes with a stranger, oddly powerless to turn away, you’ve experienced it too.) Even though it often occurs without conscious knowledge of the principles employed (the natural ‘charisma’ of Caesar and Napoleon comes to mind), it can be acquired by study and strengthened by practice.
The process occurs in two steps. Step one is to form a thought of what you want the other person to do. This should be “charged with the force of concentrated will”. Step two is to silently project this thought to the other person. The unspoken words simply give the thought energy, which means the principles still work with people who don’t speak the same language.
- Hypnotism
Hypnotism was rediscovered by Frederick Anton Mesmer in the second half of the eighteenth century. (This is where the term “mesmerised” comes from). It was based on the belief in a universally pervasive “magnetic fluid” that only worked when the subject was asleep.
It’s now been shown that this fluid is thought energy the hypnotist transfers to the subject. It has also been shown that the subject does not need to be asleep. A sufficiently lowered resistance and state of suggestible passivity will do.
Influencing at a Distance
Using fascination and hypnotism to influence others in person is easier since added effects like eye contact and tone of voice can be used. But influencing others at a distance is possible too: “[The] difference between present influence and distant influence is merely a matter of degree – a question of a little more or less space to be traversed by the [thought] currents.”
The best way to do this is by sitting in a quiet place and imagining the person you want to influence seated in front of you. As you send out thought waves (you can even picture them as “tiny sparks of electricity or of a subtle fluid”), give verbal commands to this imaginary person. This establishes a “psychic condition” and may even be felt as a faint shock.
Advanced practitioners can quickly reach a state of Mental Calm (“the Silence”) and create an image of the person they want to influence in the conditions they desire: “A picture of a person held in the mind in this way – the person being seen in perfect, robust health, and happy and successful – tends to materialise the same conditions in the person in real life.”
Influencing En Masse
This goes a step further by influencing an entire group of people instead of one person at a time. Many do this unconsciously due to an aggressive and burning desire for success: “Everything they do towards accomplishing their ends gives an additional impetus to their constantly widening and constantly strengthening circle of power and influence… until at last they form a mental whirlpool rushing round and round and always sucking in toward the centre.”
Again, there must be a clear image of what you want to achieve and strong thoughts that will resist neutralising effects: “[An] individual who has cultivated the faculty of concentration and has acquired the art of creating sharp, clear, strong mental images, and who when engaged in an undertaking will so charge his mind with the idea of success, will be bound to become an attracting centre… [If] he will give his mental picture a prominent place in his mental gallery, taking a frequent glance at it, and using his will upon it to create new scenes of actual success, he will create for himself a centre of radiating thought that will surely be felt by those coming within its field of influence.”
The process isn’t easy: “[There] has got to be active mental effort behind the imaging. Daydreamers do not materialise thought – they merely dissipate energy.” But with a strong enough desire, anything is possible.
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