of the immediate phenomena, for it is the power behind the throne of thought that does the business. Now in both trances the general state of the brain is the same. In both it is as a whole torpid, and in both action eventually takes place along certain isolated lines. The idea that first reaches sufficient potential to respond to an outside stimulus, or to stir of itself, is the idea that acts. This idea is the dominant idea of the trance.
We have followed this out in the case of the hypnotic trance. We shall now see that it applies equally to the possession trance, and that the intrinsic differences in the dominant idea of each account for the different phenomena.
Let us see what the dominant idea in each case is. The hypnotic subject enters the deadening processes leading to the trance with the idea—more or less definite, from a full belief to a bare fear—that in the coming trance the hypnotizer will have an irresistible power over him. That he will then lose his identity, will cease to be himself, is no part of this thought, except as unconsciously included in the power the operator
