Radio Hypnosis-Should Revolutionize Education, Among Other Things--Murray Comments on Latest Scientific Test

Radio Hypnosis is the latest attempt of man through space. Commenting on the recent experiment in hypnosis by radio broadcast conducted in Springfield and Boston by WBZ, Dr. H. A. Murray, of the Psychology department, has written the following article for the CRIMSON.

The necessity to assuage the American thirst for novelty is the parent of this new indoor spirit--Radio Hypnosis. Suppose, however, that it were more than a Vaudeville Act and that by chance the enterprising Radiologist of WBZ had inadventently disclosed a pearl in the newly cracked oyster.

In the decorous 1840's when the sparkling Mr. Atkinson was compelling the hot-house plants of London's selectest society to swoon on sofas every evening and releasing for literature the troubled unconscious of Harriet Martinean, the myth was current that Hypnosis called for a handsome, muscular Personality with electric eyes; a veritable storage battery of animal magnetism. After the Radio experiments of the other night in Boston, Personality dwindles to condensite. If the talking machine companies should see the point, the gentle art of falling asleep might drive out morphine and gin as a method for dodging the World crisis. A Victor record would become a substitute for an opiate. Putting his favorite record on the Victorla, any hypnotisee would recognize His Master's Voice and doze off into Elysium.

The problem is no longer that of finding the Human Magnet but rather of cultivating a wilful pliability to Suggestion in the population. This may turn out to be an insurmountable difficulty for New Englanders who are proverbially negativistic and resistant to any outer voice, whether it be the Good, the True, or the Beautiful.

However, one can easily see unlimited possibilities for the Initiate from other parts of the country. Take for instance a minor problem such as education.

It has been shown by careful experiment that poetry, the multiplication table, and the telegraphic code can be taught in a shorter time when the student was in hypnotic sleep. This is a great lead to those who want to know How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. I believe that the dear Mr. Nolan, a very shrewd man, would use the idea if he were alive today. Backward students could be lulled to knowledge while they reclined peacefully on their Davenports after a night of ribald revelry. Or the good Widow might have made Trilbys of them and sent them to the examination in a somnambulistic trance stocked with formulas, epitomes and anthologies.

Of course the Harvard Professor may soon be lecturing with amplifiers from his Morris Chair, or even while sunning himself with ex-Mayor Hylan on the Palm Beach sands. Fluency might be enhanced by a little Prince Albert in a Briar Pipe and by evading the facing of dreary rows of bland, apathetic faces. If the Professor be indisposed, each student may put on the record marked Hypnosis--Extra Deep--and have his roommate follow it with English 13 for Deep Sleepers--etc. The possibilities are obviously limitless.

Apply those speculations to War, Politics, Love, and Religion, and a new Dawn cracks Man's horizon and the World is His