晚清民国时期，催眠术一度成为全民追捧的新兴科学，并在全国上下掀起了一股研究催眠术的科学热潮。然而，催眠术伪科学的争议自其诞生以来就从未休止，我国近代史和科学史学者大多从唯物论和自然辩证法出发，将催眠术视为西学东渐和近代科学启蒙中的反面教材，是打着科学旗号甚嚣尘上的封建迷信和愚昧思想。近年来，学术界出现了看待催眠术的客观视角，开始从大众科学史角度考察催眠术在近代中国的传播。报刊是近代催眠术传播最重要的媒介，对催眠术知识的生产和科学观念的塑造起着关键作用，更进一步地，催眠术的科学传播也从一个侧面反映了科学概念传入中国后的演变过程，即人们如何将科学与宗教迷信相区分，近代国人的科学观经历了怎样的变化？本文选取上海图书馆《全国报刊索引数据库》中催眠术的有关报道，选取有代表性的文本进行分析，意在探究近代报刊如何构建了有关催眠术的知识体系以及背后反映了何种科学观念，并在启蒙与救亡的特殊时代背景下考察催眠文化与政治的联系。研究发现，近代报刊通过将催眠术纳入医学和心理学学科范围内，使用“动物磁气”、“以太”、“暗示”等科学术语，并刊登催眠术实验报告、强调催眠术的实证主义科学方法，试图论证催眠术的科学性，将其与巫术和迷信作区分。在催眠术的大众文化方面，大众报刊在唯科学主义和消费主义意识形态的共同作用下，呈现出催眠术解困、催眠术犯罪和催眠术奇观三种新闻叙事，大肆鼓吹催眠术之神奇，宣称催眠术万能。在道德和政治语境下，催眠术与科学救国的民族主义话语结合，迎合了“开民智、新民德、鼓民力”的社会思潮，成为人们寻求民族和国家变革的新出路；另一方面，从报刊对催眠术伦理道德论述中，可以发现国人对科学的理解仍然有着中国传统价值的印记，形成了催眠术“技”与“道”的区分。科学、文化与政治共同构成了催眠术传播过程中的复杂面貌，揭示着“科学”这一概念在近代中国的多重意涵。
During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, hypnosis was once a popular science sought by all, and a scientific craze for the study of hypnosis was set in motion throughout the country. However, the controversy over the pseudoscience of hypnosis has never ceased since its inception, and most scholars of modern history and the history of science in China have viewed hypnosis from the perspective of materialism and natural dialectics as a negative teaching material in Western study and modern scientific enlightenment, and as a feudal superstition and ignorant ideology clamouring for attention under the banner of science. In recent years, an objective perspective on hypnosis has emerged in academic circles, and the spread of hypnosis in modern China has begun to be studied from the perspective of the history of popular science. The press was the most important medium for the dissemination of hypnosis in modern China and played a key role in the production of hypnotic knowledge and the formation of scientific concepts. Furthermore, the scientific dissemination of hypnosis also reflects the evolution of the concept of science after its introduction into China, i.e. how people distinguished science from religious superstition, and how the concept of science changed in modern China.This paper selects representative texts from the Shanghai Library‘s National Newspaper Index Database to analyse how the modern press constructed a body of knowledge about hypnosis and the scientific concepts behind it, and to examine the links between hypnotic culture and politics in the particular context of the Enlightenment and Salvation. The study finds that by including hypnosis in the disciplines of medicine and psychology, by using scientific terms such as ‘animal magnetism‘, ‘ether‘ and ‘suggestion‘, and by publishing experimental reports on hypnosis and emphasising the positivist scientific approach to hypnosis, the modern press sought to argue for the scientific nature of hypnosis and to distinguish it from witchcraft and superstition. In the popular culture of hypnosis, the popular press, under the combined influence of scientistic and consumerist ideologies, presented three news narratives: hypnotic relief, hypnotic crime and hypnotic spectacle, trumpeting the magic of hypnosis and claiming its omnipotence. In the moral and political context, hypnotism combined with the nationalist discourse of scientific salvation, catering to the social trend of "opening up the people‘s wisdom, creating a new people‘s morality and encouraging the people‘s strength", and became a new way out for people seeking national and state change; On the other hand, from the ethical and moral discourse of hypnosis in the press, we can see that the national understanding of science still bears the imprint of Chinese traditional values, forming a distinction between "technology" and "Tao" in hypnosis. Science, culture and politics together form a complex picture of the spread of hypnosis, revealing the multiple meanings of the concept of "science‘‘ in modern China.
