A Handbook of Suggestive Therapeutics, Applied Hypnotism, Psychic Science (1908)

I bring to the consideration of the medical profession not merely the facts of personal experience and clinical evidence as proof of the value of suggestive therapeutics in the general practice of medicine, but also a detailed explanation of how to apply suggestion efficaciously, both with and without hypnotism as a therapeutic adjunct. I give in explanation of those facts, experience and clinical tests as interpreted in the light of modern scientific knowledge. Many volumes have been written upon this subject by neurologists, scientists, and phsychotherapeutists of note, but in most cases they lack the practicability so essential to its successful employment by the general practitioner. My aim is to emphasize the value of suggestive therapeutics in a field of work that comes within his domain, which has not heretofore been pointed out by the authors of other works of this character. The presentation also embodies what I have assimilated and found practical from a careful study of the investigations of leading authorities on this subject. To make this book practical and easy of assimilation has been my constant aim. And here it may fitly be pointed out, with a view to forestalling criticism, that this book is not intended principally, or even mainly, for neurologists and psychotherapeutists, to whom the constant repetition of what to them are well known facts must inevitably prove wearisome. It is intended rather to instill into the vast mass of the profession to whom this entire field is as yet terra incognita, those basic principles of physiological psychology upon which the scientific therapeutic application of suggestion in all its forms necessarily depends. With that end in view, principles of all pervading importance are iterated and reiterated as often as their application comes under consideration, in order that they may become so fully absorbed and assimilated as to be almost axiomatic to the reader.