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minutes of self-hypnosis, which actually means nothing more than opening your mind to suggestion, your own suggestion, can be wonderfully refreshing. I can cure a tension headache with it; I never use aspirin. I think you're feeling how relaxing this can be. Isn't it a nice way to rest? Better than a drink, better than a cocktail." He lowered the pencil, saying, "I'll tell you how wonderfully relaxed you are, in fact. Look at your right arm lying there on the arm of your chair. It's so completely relaxed, more than ever before in your life, even when you've been asleep, that you can't lift it. The muscles are too relaxed, they refuse to move. When I count to three you'll see for yourself. Try to lift your arm when I say 'three.' You won't be able to. One. Two. Three."
    My arm wouldn't move. I stared at it, leaning closer, my eyes fixed on my coat sleeve, my brain willing it to move. But it lay absolutely motionless; it would no more move at my silent command than the doctor's desk.
    "All right, don't be in any way concerned; you've willingly put yourself under my hypnotic suggestion, and done it very well, too. I'm going to talk to you for just a few minutes, now. Your arm, incidentally, is entirely free to move now."
    I lifted my arm, flexing it, clenching and unclenching the fingers as though it had been asleep. Then I leaned back into the soft leather of the chair, more comfortable and content than I remembered ever having been before.
    Rossoff said, "In a sense the mind is compartmented. Various parts of the brain perform various functions; eliminate a certain part of the brain, by accident, for example, and you lose the ability to talk. You have to learn how all over again, training another part of the mind. We can think of memory in that way, too, if it's convenient. Memories can be shut off. Closed down as though they had never existed. When it happens extensively we call it amnesia. Right now we're going to close off only a small part of your memory. When I tap this pencil against the arm of my chair, you will forget the name of the man who brought you here. For the time being it will be gone from your mind, as impossible to recall as though you never knew it." He tapped the pencil against the leather arm of his chair; it made only the smallest sound but I heard it. "You remember the man, don't you, who first talked to you and induced you to come here? And who just had coffee with us? You can picture his face?"
    "Yes."
    "How was he dressed, by the way?"
    "Wash pants, white shirt with short sleeves, brown moccasin loafers."
    "Could you draw a sketch of his face?"
    "Sure."
    "Okay, what is his name?"
    Nothing came to mind. I thought. I ran over names in my mind: Smith, Jones; names of people I knew or had known; names I had read or heard. None of them meant anything; I simply didn't know his name.
    "You understand why you can't think of it? That you're under hypnotic suggestion?"
    "Yes, I know."
    "Well, see if you can break through it. Do your damnedest. You know his name. You've used it and heard it several times today. Come on, now; what is his name?"
    I closed my eyes, straining. I searched my mind, tried to force out that name, but there was no way to find it. It was as though he were asking the name of a stranger in the street.
    "When I tap this pencil on the arm of the chair again, you will remember it." He tapped the pencil against the leather and said, "What is his name?"
    "Ruben Prien."
    "All right. When I clap my hands together you will come out of hypnosis completely. There will be no lingering remainder, no vestige of it. All hypnotic suggestibility will be gone." He clapped his hands together, not loudly but with a sharp hollow pop. "Feel all right?"
    "Yeah, fine."
    "Let me just test to be sure. When I tap this pencil against the arm of my chair, you will forget my name. You will be completely unable to recall it." He tapped the chair arm with the pencil again. "Now, what is my name?"
    "Alfred E.