Delusion

בס''ד

3 Shvat, 5772

January 27th, 2012

Dear reader, herein find the cautionary tale of Jean Martin Charcot.

Charcot was a French neurologist of the 19th century. His impact on modern neurology is profound: he was the first to describe and name multiple sclerosis, and one of the first with ALS; he counted among his students Sigmund Freud, William James, Alfred Binet (of IQ test fame), and Gilles de la Tourette; he contributed significantly to systematic neurological examination. 

But his unfortunate legacy is forever linked with hypnotism.

Hypnotism was the popular scientific rage of the time. Charcot believed that the ability to be hypnotized was the best sign that a person was a hysteric - an antiquated term for neuroses (itself antiquated). A natural showman, physicians came from all over Europe to watch as Charcot, with merely a glance, sent his patients into deep hypnotic trances, whereupon they would produce dramatic hysteric fits. 

But there was a problem. It turns out that Charcot’s patients were carefully prepared by his assistants beforehand, essentially told how to act. Thus Charcot wasn’t uncovering anything in his patients; he was producing the effects himself. The brilliant physician’s demonstrations were discarded as studies of the etiology of disease, and became an eternal example of the power of suggestibility. Charcot, a father of neurology, died with the shame of public discredit. 

Even the best of us has a huge capacity for self-delusion. When our blood pumps hot with the felt truth of our convictions, it is hard to remember that we bend the world to meet our opinions, and that we hide that bending from ourselves.

This then is the power of studying Torah. To train one’s mind and heart to seek truth beyond one’s personal intuitions -- this is the responsibility anyone who would speak for truth in the world. 

“Lips that speak truth last forever; Gone in an moment is a tongue that speaks falsehood” Proverbs 12:19