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mind. It is this action on the sub-conscious mind to which 1 wish
particularly to draw attention, seeing that whenever the message
of the cinema film has reached the sub-conscious level, it cannot
be rooted out by the conscious mind, but remains in the substratum
of the mind without the knowledge of the individual, either
possibly as an incentive to great deeds or—and much more probably
with the type of film commonly shewn—as a core of evil,
influencing the character by some particular element of fear, or
apprehension, or crime, or vice, or by a wrong perspective of
questions of sex, or of social relations in various groups of the
community. Such a core of evil, lying at the roots of the
character, is a veritable foreign body introduced into the mind. It
has either to be walled in and sealed off, during which the mental
development may be retarded, irregular and unbalanced, and the
mental condition strained, owing to a portion of the mental activities
being engaged constantly in holding down and crushing the
intrusive element; or, if the effort at walling in is not successful,
the whole mental life may be warped, giving rise perhaps to
individuals varying from one with unbalanced appetites or with a
sense of hampering inferiority up to a moral defective or conceivably
to one who in later life will be admitted to a mental hospital
for gross mental defect.
I do not think that it would be an exaggeration to say that the
intense hypnotic effect produced on the sub-conscious mind by a
powerful and terrifying cinema film may be sufficient to alter
entirely the type of a sensitive child's character; while its effect
in a smaller degree must be of every-day occurrence. Possibly an
illustration may serve to make the matter a little plainer. I have
recently seen a girl of twenty years of age, who a few years ago
saw, without the knowledge of her relations, a well-known film of
high " artistic " merit, depicting scenes of war and desolation.
This girl, up to the time of seeing the film had shewn no signs of
gross mental aberration, being regarded merely rsa sensitive, introspective,
self-absorbed child, backward in school, very possibly by
reason of her self-absorption. From the moment of seeing the film
her character, according to her relatives, was fundamentally altered.
Alternating with periods of a few days during which she is as bright
and cheery as she used once to be, there are prolonged periods in
which she is in a state of extreme mental confusion, amounting
almost to stupor, in which she is incapable even of the simplest
physical actions. Presumably during these periods her mind is
almost entirely engaged in trying to hold down the fearful element
intruded into her sub-conscious mind by the film. This girl has
now been referred for appropriate treatment, though I cannot as