Many individuals claim for themselves, and make a living by so doing, a peculiar property or power as potent mesmerizers and hypnotizers. One even often hears it said in society (I am sorry to say that these mischievous practices and pranks are sometimes made a society game) that such a person is a clever hypnotist or has great mesmeric or healing power. I hope to be able to prove, what I firmly hold, both from my own personal experience and experiment, that there is no such thing as a potent mesmeric influence, no such power resident in any one person more than another; that a glass of water, a tree, or a stick can mesmerize as effectually as can any individual. A clever hypnotizer means only a person who is acquainted with the physical or mental tricks by which the hypnotic condition is produced; or sometimes an ignorant imposter who is unaware of the very trifling part for which he is cast in the play, and who supposes himself really to possess a mysterious power which in fact he does not possess at all, or which, to speak more accurately, is equally possessed by every stock or stone."