MAKING WILL UNDER A HYPNOTIC TRANCE

I encountered one of the most astounding cases of my life in March 1995. The facts of the case are quite interesting. Rama Devi was a 63 year old woman, who had inherited a good fortune after the death of her husband Mange Ram. Mange Ram worked as a share broker and had earned well during his life. Rama Devi did not understand the share business at all. She had studied only upto higher secondary class and could thus be called a semi-literate person. She could read simple texts like Ramayana and Mahabharata. This was all she ever needed to read anyway. She could also read and write letters in simple English. She was a good natured, religious minded, modest woman who lived a simple life. For a 63 year old individual she was maintaining reasonably good health. Her only trouble was a constant nagging backache. She had seen many doctors for her trouble, and even some sadhus and fakirs, but none had been able to cure her. She was known to have said on several occasions that the backache was giving her a great problem, and she was prepared to go to any length to have it permanently cured.

Rama Devi had a son Ramesh and a daughter Rani. Ramesh was a 24 year old bright boy, who was struggling to set up his own business. Rama Devi was helping him financially, and there was every indication that with the passage of time, he would settle down decently. He was a hard working boy, who was putting his mother's money to good use.

Rani, a 34 year old lady was married to one Surendra Mohan who was a 43 year old man. He did odd jobs for a living. His income was erratic and often he didn't earn well enough to even feed his family properly. His mother-in-law Rama Devi often offered to help him financially to set up some good business, but he never showed any interest. In fact he had no interest in any work whatsoever. He just wanted to relax and have money without working for it. He had some interest in tantra and had learnt this art from some sadhus with whom he spent much of his time. Nobody knew how much tantra he actually knew, but it was well-known that he could hypnotise a person to some extent.

Rama Devi had inherited a large estate. Nobody knew how much she actually owned exactly, but some rough estimates suggested that she might have owned cash and property worth 50 crores. Because of Surendra Mohan's erratic behavior she was not very happy with him, and there were ample indications that she was not going to leave him much after her death. She was going to finalize her will shortly, and the whole household was anxious about it.

On 20th March 1995, Rama Devi was found dead in her bed under mysterious circumstances. There were some nail marks on her throat, and from them, the police concluded that she must have been murdered. An autopsy (conducted by me) proved that she had been killed by throttling. The police had no idea who had killed her. For all they knew, some burglar might have broken in the house and killed her.

When the will was opened after her death, it caused tremendous upheaval in the household. She had left everything to Surendra Mohan leaving hardly anything for her own son Ramesh. This was a totally unexpected thing, and naturally the two facts- her sudden killing, and her strange will- led many to conclude that there was something black at the bottom. But what...

Before going further, I would like to digress a bit, and tell something about hypnotism and its influence on writing. The word hypnosis is derived from the Greek hypnos, god of sleep. In fact the hypnotic state superficially resembles sleep. The art of hypnotism has been practiced since the earliest times, but it was introduced as a therapeutic technique (to cure diseases) by the Austrian doctor Franz Anton Mesmer (1733-1815). About 300 years earlier, the Swiss physician Paracelsus (1490-1541) had insisted that there was a kind of "animal magnetism" in all living beings and that this magnetism was influenced by planets. In the 18th century, the British physician Richard Mead (1673-1754) wrote a book on the influence of the planets on the body. Mesmer read that book and was quite influenced by this idea. He further developed this notion. He thought that there was a Universal Magnetic Fluid which pervaded all human beings, and it was presumably the distribution of this fluid in the body that determined health or disease. Initially he used magnets to draw out this "mesmeric fluid", but later on he modified his ideas. He came to the conclusion that every person possessed magnetic forces, and even these forces could be used to influence the distribution of the magnetic fluid in other persons, thus effecting cures. In effect, he replaced magnets with his own hands. This idea was later brought to perfection by his disciples.

Mesmer attempted to put his views into practice in Vienna and in various other towns, but it was not until he came to Paris in 1778 that he achieved success. Here he opened a clinic in which he treated all kinds of diseases by "animal magnetism". The patients were seated around a tub (a baquet) which contained various chemicals and from which protruded iron rods that were applied to the affected potions of the body. The room was darkened, appropriate music was provided, and Mesmer appeared in a lilac robe, passing from one patient to another and touching each one with his hands or his wand. By this means Mesmer was apparently able to treat some cases of hysteria. He was also able to "mesmerize" or hypnotise people by this technique. According to him, a hypnotised person was a "magnetized" person. He became so popular in France that even the French queen Marie Antoinette (1755-93) became his follower!

Finally branded as a charlatan by his medical colleagues, Mesmer was forced to leave Paris, and he shortly faded into obscurity. Although Mesmer had done pioneering work in the field of hypnotism, his pupil Marquis de Puysegar finally proved that hypnotism was equally effective without the use of magnets, wires, and tubs of water; it could equally easily be done by the use of hands. It was in 1842, that James Braid of Manchester discovered that a hypnotic trance could be induced by gazing at a bright object, and it was he who first suggested the term "hypnotism". Before this time, the word "mesmerism" was used.

Despite their initial success, Mesmer and his disciples gradually faded from the scene. However, their methods and results were the center of controversy in scientific circles for many years; in fact, mesmerism in the early part of the nineteenth century was a great source of heated discussion. This discussion eventually led to a revival of interest in the hypnotic phenomenon.

Hypnosis is induced by having the subject fixate on a small shiny object while suggesting that his or her eyes are growing heavy and that he or she is relaxing into drowsiness and is finally asleep, although the operator is careful to inform the subject that he or she will remain alert to the suggestions and commands which will be given. As the subject enters the hypnotic trance, he or she may appear to be in a sleeplike state in which responsiveness to surroundings is reduced. The eyes may close, breathing slows down, and he will ordinarily not engage in activities until commanded to do so by the hypnotist. However, recent research has shown that the subject can remain alert while under hypnosis and that commanding or authoritative statements to the effect that he is going to sleep are not necessary to the induction of the trance.

Studies of the electroencephalograms (EEG) or the "brain waves" of hypnotized subjects reveal that they resemble those of waking individuals rather than those who are asleep. The subject is awake but is in a state of heightened suggestibility. This means that the hypnotized person is in an uncritical attitude and can be made to experience delusions, hallucinations, anesthesia (operations under hypnosis are well-known), pain and other similar sensations. He may also be made to obey your commands.

Normally a person may not obey you, but under a state of hypnosis he is almost sure to obey you. He may be made to enact unusual roles-crawling about on all fours, barking like a dog, crowing like a rooster-that he would ordinarily find uncongenial to his normal waking state. The subject's heightened state of suggestibility and uncritical attitude do not, however, mean that criminal or immoral behavior will be carried out at the command of the hypnotist. Subjects given such commands usually awaken or fail to carry them out. Thus if someone hypnotises a person, and asks him to commit some murder, chances are that the hypnotised person would not obey him. However there is no guarantee that a subject might not perform an immoral or illegal act under hypnotism.

One of the most striking phenomena of hypnosis is the posthypnotic suggestion. This can be demonstrated by suggestions to the subject that he will carry out an activity at a prearranged signal after he has been awakened from the trance. The subject will have no memory of having been given such a suggestion. For example, a student subject might be instructed to arise in the middle of a lecture and go and open a window upon seeing the hypnotist (also the course instructor) take a handkerchief from his pocket. Many subjects will carry out such acts, being unable to explain why they did so other than to say they felt a strong urge to do so in spite of being embarrassed.

It has been known for quite some time that hypnotised persons may be asked to write things which they really do not want to. However the writing under hypnotic trance differs substantially from the normal writing. It is this part of hypnotism that concerns us here. Have a look at some of the writings written under the hypnotic trance (Please reproduce fig 1,2,3 on pages 132 and 133 here). Fig 1 is divided in three parts. The top potion shows writing during a hypnotic trance. The middle portion shows the writing just after the trance was over, and the lower portion shows the writing 20 minutes after the trance. Fig 2 is divided in four portions. The top portion shows writing before the trance; the second portion, during the trance; the third portion, just after the trance and the final portion 20 minutes after the trance. Fig 3 is also divided on the patten of fig 2. From these figures perhaps you can make out the characteristics of writing during a hypnotic trance. During the hypnotic trance, the angle between the paper and the pen is about 300, while during the normal writing, the angle is about 450. The reduced angle during the hypnotic trance indicates the clumsiness with which the pen is held during the trance. This causes writing to become clumsy. Muscular co-ordination also becomes improper during hypnotism. During trance, the number of errors increase. Many people forget to put the dot over the i, and many forget to make all three limbs of the letters `M' and `W'.

Retouching of strokes is a characteristic of normal writing. By retouching the strokes, we normally correct our mistakes. During the hypnotic trance, the subject does not retouch his strokes. This is a characteristic of writing during the trance state.

The line quality is poor during the trance state. During the trance, the person is not concerned about the line quality. One reason for this could be that during the trance state, the eyes of the subject are usually closed. In all the three samples shown here, you can see that the line quality is poor during the trance state, but it is good before and after the trance state.

Another characteristic of writing during the trance state is the poor state of alignment and of the relative position of letters. This can well be seen in the samples shown here.

During trance writing, the curves become flattened and the angles become blunt. Thus a `C' would appear more like a `['. Similarly the angles become blunt. A `V' would appear more like `U' because the lower angle becomes blunt. This feature is seen in all letters which have either a curve or an angle.

Terminals of letters become bigger during trance state. The writing seems to end with a "flourish". The size of letters is also quite big during the trance state.

Coming back to our case. When the police approached me for the post-mortem of Rama Devi, I asked them what the case was, and they told me the whole story. I immediately suspected that Surendra Mohan must have somehow hypnotised Rama Devi and during the trance stage, must have dictated her to write what he desired. I demanded to see the will. The police officer was initially surprised, but when I told him that the will was the key to the whole mystery, he produced the will before me. I studied the will for two hours, and came to the conclusion that it was indeed written during a trance state. Rama Devi had been killed because later on she would have repudiated her will, knowing that she had been hoodwinked into writing a wrong will. There were several features that gave the will away. First of all the lines were drooping. Secondly, the sizes of the letters were quite big. Thirdly there were terminal flourishes in almost all letters. Furthermore the curves of letters were flattened and the angles were blunted. Additional evidence was that none of i's were dotted and limbs of several m's and w's were missing constantly. I told the police officer that the will had been written under a hypnotic trance. Since it was known that Surendra Mohan was a practitioner of hypnotism, the suspicion naturally fell on him. He had motive to do so also, as otherwise Rama Devi was not going to give him anything. When confronted with these facts, Surendra Mohan admitted his guilt. He revealed the whole story to the police which was like this. On the night of 19th March, Surendra Mohan approached Rama Devi and told her that he could cure her of her constant backache by hypnotism. Although Rama Devi was quite reluctant to interact with Surendra Mohan, but she ultimately gave in, thinking that it could be worth a try, and she gave consent for hypnotising her. It is worth mentioning here that no one can be hypnotised against his will, so it was necessary for Surendra Mohan to obtain her consent somehow. You must have read in Mandrake comics that the hero Mandrake hypnotizes subjects as and when he wants, but in real life, hypnotism under these conditions is absolutely impossible. The consent of the subject is a must. Once Rama Devi gave her consent to be hypnotised, Surendra Mohan hypnotised her, and then instead of doing anything about her pain, brought out a paper and pen, and asked her to write all property in his name. He also arranged for two of his goons to put their signatures on the will as witnesses. After the will was signed by Rama Devi, Surendra Mohan and his two goons throttled Rama Devi.

The court found my scientific evidence admissible, and punished Surendra Mohan with life imprisonment. The court also transferred all the property of Rama Devi to her genuine successor Ramesh. When Ramesh got the property, he came to my office and touched my feet. It was at that time, that I realized how important forensic science can be.