Review: Illusions and Delusions of the Supernatural and the Occult

Illusions and Delusions of the Supernatural and the Occult by D.H. Rawcliffe
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What we observe and feel we control of our minds is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The mind is so constructed that a part of it is able to deal subconsciously with those routine jobs requiring little or no originality; the most highly developed part-the part normally associated with consciousness can thus be left to work without hindrance on tasks which require a higher degree of applied intelligence, or in coping with novel situations or ideas.
It is not often realised that nearly all mental activity is of the subconscious variety.
[…]
…mental activity is synonymous with brain activity, the mind itself being merely subjective aspect of the brain in action. The brain is an incredibly intricate mechanism which rules over every phase of our thinking and actions. The subjective or conscious aspect of its activities, which we experience as imagination, ideas, thoughts, emotions, desires, memories, feeling and willing, is called "mental" for lack of a better term, for we in total ignorance as to how or why brain activity is accompanied by the subjective phenomenon of consciousness.
Only a small part of our cerebral activity is accompanied by consciousness. Such processes as the regulation of our breathing, heartbeats, digestion, the co-ordination of our movements, the maintenance of our balance and the smooth running of all the natural functions of our body, depend on unconscious activities of the brain. Such brain activities are not termed "mental" because they are totally automatic and do not depend to any degree upon conscious processes. Nevertheless, we find that there are many brain processes which, although largely automatic, could never have been acquired in the first instance without the aid of consciousness. For example, when one ties a shoelace automatically with the attention focused on something else, we say, for convenience of expression, that the subconscious mind, not the unconscious brain, is directing the movements of the hands.
Subconscious mental functions may be regarded as half- way between the fully conscious aspects of brain activity and those of its activities which remain forever unaccompanied by any spark of conscious illumination. As we grow older the range and complexity of our subconscious mental functions increases enormously; they form the great bulk of our mental life and colour all our thoughts and actions, leaving only a relatively minor, but highly specialised, part of our minds associated with consciousness. These sub- conscious mental activities have given rise to the conception of the subconscious mind. This must not be confused, as it often is, with the theoretical concept of the Unconscious, originated by Freud, the use of which is mainly limited to the psychoanalytical schools of psychopathology.

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And at this, it is easily steered.

There are innumerable ways in which the mind may be disarmed of its critical faculties: fatigue, strong emotion, faulty reasoning, wishful-thinking, drugs, hypnosis, hysteria, enthusiasm, ignorance, prejudice all these are capable of increasing the effect of suggestion. The working up of emotion is often a deliberate preliminary step in rendering the mind susceptible to suggestion, especially with crowds. A good example was seen in the Nazi rallies before the last war. Suggestion and emotion can of course be inculcated simultaneously, each reciprocally increasing the effect of the other…

Hypnosis is a fascinating window into the mind’s power

[Levine, M., Psychogalvanic Reaction to Painful, Stimuli in Hypnotic and Hysterical Anaesthesia, Bulletin of the John Hopkin's Hospital, 1930, pp. 331-339] successfully induced local analgesia by hypnotic suggestion and pricked the affected area with a needle. This normally painful stimulus failed to produce the usual alteration in electrical potential known as the psychogalvanic response. Waking suggestion, he could not prevent the psychogalvanic response from occurring. He then tried another experiment: he suggested the hallucination of being pricked with a needle; this im- mediately produced a psychogalvanic response. Most operators in the past would have been content to publish this last effect as yet another spectacular example of hypnotic suggestion! Levine, however, next proceeded to carry out control-experiments and found that precisely the same response occurred with non-hypnotic suggestion.
The question arises as to whether such psychological stimuli as suggestion can produce effects which are beyond the normal powers of the subject. The answer is that hypnotic suggestion is merely one of many psychological stimuli which can produce such effects; it can produce effects which are beyond the normal control of the will, but usually only in individuals who are suggestible above the average or who tend to latent or actual hysteria. Suggested analgesia is one such effect, which finds a close parallel in hysterical analgesia. If the right subjects and the correct technique are used, suggestion may also increase a subject's physical strength or endurance. There is nothing surprising in this. Other psychological stimuli such as fear, or desire for reward or praise, can produce the same effects.
There is also the vexed question whether hypnosis facilitates the recall of events which have been forgotten by the subject. Can hypnosis, in fact, improve the memory? Modern investigation shows that with the normal person hypnosis has, if anything, a slightly deleterious effect on the memory. With hysterical subjects, on the other hand, especially cases of hysterical amnesia, the effect of hypnosis on the ability to recall past events is often very striking. Reports of hysterical subjects being able, through hypnotic suggestion, to recall memories of their foetal existence, or even of extreme infancy, can be rejected.

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Ideomotor
You referenced Jastrow's experiments on ideomotor movements, which show a correlation between unconscious movements and attention, with a suggestion of potential use in vaudeville exhibitions.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48869...

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In one of Jastrow's experiments the subject was asked to concentrate his attention for thirty-five seconds upon some patches of colour on the wall opposite. Without warning, the subject was then directed to count the strokes of a metronome for the same length of time. The sudden change completely altered the style of the ideomotor movements as revealed by the automatograph.

Jastrow and Tarchanow both found that unconscious ideomotor actions manifested themselves in slight movements of the whole body, generally in the form of an irregular swaying. By fixing the apparatus to the subject's head the movements could be recorded. It was found that in regard to these slight swaying movements there was a general movement towards any object of attention.

Not everybody shows the same degree of style of ideomotor activity; some people show very little, while others can be extraordinarily responsive. The latter are potentially ex- cellent agents in certain types of vaudeville "telepathy exhibitions. دو

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