POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS,
AND
THE TRUTHS CONTAINED TIIEREIN,
WITII AN
ACCOUNT OF MESHERISM.
BY
HERBERT MAYO, M.D.,
FORMERLY SENIOR SURGEON OF MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL; PROFESSOR OF A NATOMY AND
PHYSIOLOGY IN KING'S COLLEGE; PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY
IN THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, LONDON,
F.R.S., F.G.S., ETC.
FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION.




'WM.,. YOUNG, lPR1NTERo




PREFATORY REMARKS.
IN the following Letters I have endeavoured to exhibit
in their true light the singular natural phenomena of
which old superstition and modern charlatanism in turn
availed themselves-to indicate their laws, and to develope
their theory. The subject is so important that I might
well have approached it in a severer guise. But, slight
as this performance may appear, I profess to have employed upon it the keenest and most patient efforts of
reflection of which I am capable. And as to its tone at
the commencement, and the prominence given to popular
and trivial topics, I candidly avow that, without some
such artifice, I doubt whether I should have found a publisher of repute to publish, or a circle of readers to read,
my lucubrations.
"Cosi all' egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi
Di soave licor gli orli del vaso;
Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve,
E dali' inganno suo vita riceve."
It was in the winter of 1846 that the original seven
Letters were written, of which the present fourteen are
the third and expanded reprint.  The hour had come for




iV              PREFATORY REMARKS.
successfully assailing certain already shaking prejudices
of the reading public. The Selbstschau of Zschokke,
and the researches of Von Reichenbach, were in the hands
of the literary and philosophic. The seer-gift of the
former (see Letter IV.) had established the fact that one
mind can enter into direct though one-sided communion
with another. The undenied Od-force of the latter (see
Letter I.) is evidently the same influence with that, the
first crude announcement of which, by Mesmer, had
scared the world into disbelief. It had now become
possible to explain ghostly warnings, and popular prophecies, the wonders of natural trance, and of animal
magnetism, without having recourse to a single unproven
principle. I therefore made the attempt; other more efficient labourers have co-operated in the same object; and
public opinion is no longer hostile to this class of inquiries.
BAD WEILBACH, near MAYENCE,
1st August, 1851.




CONTENTS.
LETTER I, TH DIVINING-RoD. —-Description of, and mode
of using the same-Mr. Fairholm's statement-M. de
Tristan's statement —Account of Von Reichenbach's Odforce-The Author's own observations,...
LETTER II. VAMPYRIsM.-Tale exemplifying the superstition
— The Vampyr state of the body in the grave-Various
instances of death-trance-The risk of premature interment considered —The Vampyr visit,...       30
LETTER III. UNREAL GHOSTS. -Law of sensorial illusions
— Cases of Nicolai, Schwedenborg, Joan of Arc —Fetches
— Churchyard ghosts,...     53
LETTER IV. TRUE GHOSTS. —The apparitions themselves
always sensorial illusions-The truth of their communications accounted for-Zschokke's seer-gift described, to show the possibility of direct mental communication —Second-sight-The true relation of the
mind to the living body,.....      70
LETTER V. TRANCE.-Distinction of esoneural and exoneural mental phenomena-Abnormal relation of the mind
and nervous system possible-Insanity-Sleep-Essential nature of trance —Its alliance with spasmodic seizures -General characters of trance-Enumeration of
kinds.....               86




Vi                      CONTENTS.
LETTER VI. TRANCE-SLEEP. —The phenomena of trance
divided into those of trance-sleep, and those of trancewaking-Trance-sleep presents three firms; Trancewaking two. The three forms of trance sleep described;
viz., death-trance, trance-coma, simple or initiatory
trance,..,...            98
LETTER VII. HALF-WAKING TRANCE, OR SOMNAMBULISM.The same thing with ordinary sleep-walking —Its characteristic feature, the acting of a dream-Cases, and disquisition,......    106
LETTER VIII. TRANCE-WAKING. —Instances of its spontaneous occurrence in the form of catalepsy-Analysis of
catalepsy-its three elements: double consciousness, or
pure waking-trance; the spasmodic seizure; the new
mental powers displayed —Cases exemplifying catalepsy
-;Other cases unattended with spasm, but of spontaneous occurrence, in which new mental powers were
manifested-Oracles of antiquity-Animal instinct-I[ntuition,........    116
LETTER IX. RELIGIOUS DIELUSIONS.-The seizures giving
rise to them shown to have been forms of trance brought
on by fanatical excitement-The Cevennes-Scenes at
the tomb of the Abbe Paris-Revivals in America-The
Ecstatida of Caldaro-Three forms of imputed demoniacal possession-Witchcraft; its marvels, and the solution)........    136
LETTER X. MESMERISM. —Use of chloroform-History of
Mesmer-The true nature and extent of his discovery
-Its applications to medicine and surgery-Various
-effects produced by mesmeric manipulations —Hysteric




CONTENTS.                       vii
seizures-St. Veitz's dance-Nervous paralysis — Catochus-Initiatory trance-The order in which the higher
trance-phenomena are afterwards generally drawn out,  153
LETTER XI. SUPPLEMENTAL. —Abnormal neuro-psychical relation -Cautions necessary in receiving trance communications-Trance-visiting-Mesmerising at a distance, and by the will-Mesmeric diagnosis and treatment of disease-Prevision-Ultra-vital vision,.    175
LETTER XII. THE ODOMETER OR DIVINING-RING. -How
come upon by the author-His first experiments-The
phenomena an objective proof of the reality of the Odforce,.......    209
LETTER XIII. THE SoLuTION. —Examination of the genuineness of the phenomena-0d-motions produced by bodies
in their most inert state-Analysis of the forces which
originate them —Od-motions connected with electrical,
magnetic, chemical, crystalline, and vital influencesTheir analysis,....             219
POSTSCRIPT.-Further analysis of Od-motions-Proof of their
genuineness-Explanation of their immediate cause,    242
LETTER XIV. HYPNOTISM. TRANCE-UMBRA.-Mr. Braid's
discovery-Trance-faculties manifested in the waking
state —Self-induced waking clairvoyance-Conclusion,   248








ON POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.
LETTER I.
THE DIVINING RoD.-Description of and mode of using the sameMr. Fairholm's statement-M. de Tristan's statement-Account
of Von Reichenbach's Od force-The Author's own observations.
DEAR ARCaH, —AS a resource'in the solitary evenings
of commencing winter, it occurred to me to look into the
long-neglected lore of the marvellous,~ the mystical, the
supernatural.  I remembered the deep awe with which
I had listened, many a year ago, to tales' of seers, ghosts,
vampyrs, and all the dark brood of night. And I thought
it would be infinitely agreeable to thrill again with mysterious terrors, to start in my chair at the' closing of a
distant door, to raise my eyes with uneasy apprehension
towards the mirror opposite, and to feel my skin creep
through the sensible " afflatus  of an invisible presence.
I entered, accordingly, upon a very promising course of
appalling reading. But, a-lack and'w'ell-a-day! a change
had come over me since the good old ti mes when fancy,
with fear and superstition behind her, would creep on
tiptoe to catch' a shuddering glimpse of Kobb'old, Fay,
or incubus.  Vain were all my efforts' to revive the
pleasant horrors of earlier years: it was as if I had
2




IO               THE DIVINING ROD.
planned going to a play to enjoy again the full gusto of
scenic illusion, and, through absence of mind, was attending a morning rehearsal only; when, instead of what I
had anticipated, great-coats, hats, umbrellas, and ordinary men and women, masks, tinsel, trap-doors, pulleys,
and a world of intricate machinery, lit by a partial gleam
of sunshine, had met my view. The enchantment was
no longer there-the spell was broken.
Yet, on second thoughts, the daylight scene was worth
contemplating. A new object, of stronger interest, suggested itself.  I might examine and learn the mechanism
of the illusions which had failed to furnish me the projected entertainment.  In the books I had looked into,
I discerned a clue to the explanation of many wonderful
stories, which I could hitherto only seriously meet by
disbelief. I saw that phenomena, which before had appeared isolated, depended upon a common principle, itself
allied with a variety of other singular facts andi observations, which wanted only to be placed in philosophical
juxtaposition to be recognised as belonging to science.
So I determined to employ the leisure beforie me upon an
inquiry into the amount of truth in popular superstitions,
certain that, if the attempt were not premature, the
labour would be well repaid../ There must be a real
foundation for the belief of ages.:There can be no prevalent delusion without a corresponding truth.  The
visionary promises of alchemy foreshadowed the solid
performances of modern chemistry, as the debased worship of the Egyptians implied the existence of a proper
object of worship.
Among the immortal productions of the Scottish
Shakspeare-you smile, but that phrase contains the
true belief, not a popular delusion; foi the spirit of the




THE DIVINING ROD.      1l
poet lives not in the form of his works, but in his creative
power and vivid intuitions of nature; and the form even
is often nearer than you think: —but this excursiveness
will never do; so, to begin again.
Among the novels of Scott-I intended to say-there is
not one more wins upon us than the Antiquary. Nowhere
has the great author more gently and indulgently, never
with happier humour, portrayed the mixed web of strength
and infirmity in human character; never, besides, with
more facile power evoked pathos and terror, and disported
himself amid the sublimity and beauty of nature. Yet,
gentle as is his mood, he misses not the opportunityalbeit, in general, he displays an honest leaning towards
old superstitions-mercilessly to crush one of the humblest. Do you remember the Priory of St. Ruth, and
the summer-party made to visit it, and the preparations
for the subsequent rogueries of Dousterswivel in the
tale of Martin Waldeck, and the discovery of a spring
of water by means of the divining rod?
I am inclined, do you know, to dispute the verdict of
the novelist on this occasion, and to take the part of the
charlatan against the author of his being; as far, at least,
as regards the genuineness of the art the said charlatan
then and there affected to practise. There exists, in fact,
strong evidence to show that, in competent hands, the
divining rod really does what is pretended of it. This
evidence I propose to put before you in the present
letter. But, as the subject may be entirely new to you,
I had best begin by describing what is meant by a divining rod, and in what the imputed jugglery consists.
Then you are to learn that, in mining districts, a superstition prevails among the people that some are born
gifted with an occult power of detecting the proximity of




12               THE DIVINING LOD.
veins of metal, and of underground currents of water.
In Cornwall, they hold that about one in forty possesses
this faculty. The mode of exercising it is very simple.
They cut a hazel twig, just below where it forks. Having
stripped the leaves off, they cut each branch to something
more than a foot in length, leaving the stump three inches
long. This implement is the divining rod. The hazel
is selected for the purpose, because it branches more
symmetrically than its neighbours. The hazel-fork is to
be held by the branches, one in either hand, the stump
or point projecting straight forwards. The arms of the
experimenter hang by his sides; but the elbows being
bent at a right angle, the fore-arms are advanced horizontally; the hands are held eight to ten inches apart;
the knuckles down, and the thumbs outwards. The ends
of the branches of the divining fork appear between the
roots of the thumbs and fore-fingers.
The operator, thus armed, walks over the ground he
intends exploring, in the full expectation that, if he possesses the mystic gift, as soon as he passes over a vein
of metal, or an underground spring, the hazel-fork will
begin to move spontaneously in his hands, rising or falling as the case may be.
You are possibly amused at my gravely stating, as a
fact, an event so unlikely. It is, indeed, natural that
you should suppose the whole a juggle, and think the
seemingly spontaneous motion of the divining fork to be
really comrn municated to it by the hands of the conjurer
-by a sleight, in fact, which he puts in practice when
he believes that he is walking over a hidden water-course,
or wishes you to believe that there is a vein of metal
near. Well, I thought as you do the greater part of my
life; and probably the likeliest way of combating your




TIlE DIVINING ROD.             13
skepticism, will be to tell you how my own conversion
took place.
In the summer of 1843 I dwelt under the same roof
with a Scottish gentleman, well informed, of a serious
turn of mind, fully endowed with the national allowance
of shrewdness and caution. I saw a good deal of him;
and one day, by chance, this subject of the divining rod
was mentioned. He told me, that at one time his curiosity having been raised upon the subject, he had taken
pains to ascertain what there is in it. With this object
in view he had obtained an introduction to Mrs. R., sister
of Sir G. R., then living at Southampton, whom he had
learned to be one of those in whose hands the divining
rod moved.: He visited the lady, who was polite enough
to show him in what the performance consists, and to
answer all his questions, and to assist him in making
experiments calculated to test the reality of the phenomrenon, and to elucidate its cause.
Mrs. R. told my friend that, being at Cheltenham in
1806, she saw, for the first time, the divining rod used by
Mrs. Colonel Beaumont, who possessed the power of imparting motion to it in a very remarkable degree. Mrs.
R. tried the experiment herself at that time, but without
any success. She was, as it happened, very far from
well. Afterwards, in the year 1815, being asked by a
friend how the divining rod is held, and how it is to be
used, on showing it she was surprised to see that the instrument now moved in her hands.
Since then, whenever she had repeated the experiment,
the power had always manifested itself, though with varying degrees of energy.
Mrs. R. then took my friend to a part of the shrub.
bery where she knew, from former trials, the divining
2*




14               THE DIVINING ROD.
rod would move in her hands. It did so, to my friend's
extreme astonishment; and even continued to move,
when, availing himself of Mrs. R.'s permission, my friend
grasped her hands with sufficient firmness to prevent,
as he supposed, any muscular action of her wrists or
fingers influencing the result.
On a subsequent day my friend having thought over
what he had seen, repeated his visit to the lady. He
provided himself, as substitutes for the hazel-fork which
he had seen her employ, with portions of copper and iron
wire about a foot and a half long, bent something into
the form of the letter V. He had made, in fact, divining
forks of wire, wanting only the projecting point. He
found that these instruments moved quite as freely in
Mrs. R.'s hands as the hazel-fork had done. Then he
coated the two handles of one of them with sealing-wax,
leaving, however, the extreme ends free and uncovered.
-When Mrs. R. tried the rod so prepared, holding the
parts alone which were covered with sealing-wax, and
walked on the same piece of ground as in the former experiments, the rod remained perfectly still. As often,
however, as-with no greater change than adjusting her
hands so as to touch the free ends of the wire with her
thumbs-Mrs. R. renewed direct contact with the instrument, it again moved. The motion ceased again as often
as the direct contact was interrupted.
This simple narrative, made to me by the late Mr.
George Fairholm, carried conviction to my mind of the
reality of the phenomenon. I asked my friend why he
had not pursued the subject further. He said he had
often thought of doing so, and had, he believed, mainly
been deterred by meeting with the work of the Compte
de Tristan, entitled Recherches sur quelqzues effluves ter



THE DIVINING ROD.              15
restres, Paris, 1829, in which facts similar to those which
he had himself verified were given, and a number of additional curious experiments detailed.
At Mr. Fairholm's instance I procured the book, and,
at a later period, read it. I may say that it both satisfled and disappointed me. It satisfied me, inasmuch as
it fully confirmed all that Mr. Fairholm had stated.  It
disappointed me, for it threw'no additional light upon
the phenomena. M. de Tristan had in fact brought too
little physical knowledge to the investigation, so that a
large proportion of his experiments are puerile. However, his simpler experiments are valuable and suggestive.
These I will presently describe.. In the mrann time, you
shall hear the count's own narrative of his initiation into
the mysteries of the divining rod.
"The history of my researches," says M. de Tristan,
i5 is simply this. Some twenty years ago, a gentleman
who, from his position in society, could have no object to
gain by deception, showed to me, for my amuseme nt, the
movement of the divining rod. He attributed the motion
to the influence of a current of water, which appeared to
ime a probable supposition., But my attention was more
engaged with the action produced by the influence, let
the latter be what it might. My informant assured me
he had met with many others in whom the same effects
were manifested. When I returned home, and had opportunities of making trials under favourable circumstances, I found that I myself possessed the same endowment. Since then I have induced many to make the
experiment, and I have found a fourth, or certainly a
fifth, of the number capable of setting the divining rod
in motion at the very first attempt. Since that time, during
these twenty years, I have often tried my hand, but for




16               THE DIVINING ROD.
amusement only, and desultorily, and without any idea
of making the thing an object of scientific investigation.
But at length, in the year 1822, being in the country,
and removed from my ordinary pursuits, the subject
again came across me, and I determined forthwith to
try and ascertain the cause of this phenomena. Accordingly, I commenced a long series of experiments, from
fifteen to eighteen hundred in number, which occupied
me nearly fifteen months. The results of above twelve
hundred were written down at the time of their performance."
The scene of the Count's operations was in the valley
of the Loire, five leagues from Vendome, in the park of
the Chateau de Ranac. The surface of ground which
gave the desired results was from seventy to eighty feet
in breadth. But there was another spot equally efficient
at the Count's ordinary residence at Emerillon, near
Clery, four leagues south of Orleans, ten leagues south
of the Loire, at the commencement of the plains of Solonge. The surface ran from north to south, and had
the same breadth with the other. These "exciting tracts"
form, in general, bands or zones of undetermined, and
often very great length. Their breadth is very variable;
some are only three or four feet across, while others are
one hundred paces. These tracts are sometimes sinuous;
in other instances they ramify. To the most susceptible
they are broader than to those who are less so.
M. de Tristan thus describes what happens when a
competent person, armed with a hazel-fork, walks over
the exciting districts: —
When two or three steps have been made upon the exciting tract of ground, the fork, which at starting is held
horizontally, with the point forwards, begins gently to




THE DIVINING ROD.               17
ascend; it gradually attains a vertical position; sometimes it passes beyond that, and lowering itself, with its
point to the chest of the operator, it becomes again horizontal. If the motion continues, the rod descending
becomes vertical, with the point downwards. Finally,
the rod may again ascend and resume its first position.
When the action is very lively, the rod immediately commences a second revolution; and so it goes on, as long
as the operator continues to walk over the exciting surface of ground.
A few of those in whose hands the divining fork moves
exhibit a remarkable peculiarity. The instrument, instead of commencing its motion by ascending, descends;
the point then becomes directed vertically downwards;
afterwards it reascends, and completes a revolution in a
course the opposite of the usual one; and as often and
as long as its motion is excited, it pursues this abnormal
course.
Of the numerous experiments made by M. de Tristan,
the following are among the simplest and the best:He covered both handles of a divining rod with a thick
silk stuff. The result of using the instrument so prepared was the same which Mr. Fairholm obtained by
coating the handles with sealing-wax. The motion of the
divining rod was extinguished.
He covered both handles with one layer of a thin silk.
He then found that the motion of the divining rod took
place, but it was less lively and vigorous than ordinary.
By covering one handle of the divining rod, and that
the right, with a layer of thin silk, a very singular and
instructive result was obtained. The motion of the instrument was now reversed. It commenced by-descending.




18              THE DIVINING ROD.
After covering the point of the divining rod with a
thick layer of silk stuff, the motion was sensibly more
brisk than it had been before.
When the Count held in his hands a straight rod of
the same substance conjointly with the ordinary divining
rod, no movement of the latter whatsoever ensued.
Finally, the Count discovered that he could cause the
divining rod to move when he walked over a non-exciting
surface-as, for instance, in his own chamber-by various
processes. Of these the most interesting consisted in
touching the point of the instrument with either pole of
a magnetic needle.  The instrument shortly began to
move, ascending or descending, according as the northward or southward pole of the needle had been applied to it.
It is unnecessary to add that these, and all M. de
Tristan's experiments, were repeated by him many times.
The results of those which I have narrated were constant.
Let me now attempt to realize something out of the
preceding statements.
1. It is shown, by the testimony adduced, that whereas
in the hands of most persons the divining rod remains
motionless, in the hands of some it moves promptly and
briskly when the requisite conditions are observed.
2. It is no less certain that the motion of the divining
rod has appeared, to various intelligent and honest persons, who have succeeded in producing it, to be entirely
spontaneous; or that the said persons were not conscious
of having excited or promoted the motion by the slightest
help -of their own.
3. It appears that in the ordinary use of the divining
rod by competent persons, its motion only manifests itself
in certain localities.




THE DIVINING ROD.              19
4. It being assumed that the operator does not, however unconsciously, by the muscular action of his hands
and wrists produce the motion of the divining rod, the
likeliest way of accounting for the phenomenon is to suppose that the divining rod may become the conductor of
some fluid or force, emanating from or disturbed in the
body by a terrestrial agency.
But here a difficulty arises: I-ow can it happen that
the hypothetical force makes so long and round-about
a course?  Why, communicated to the body through the
legs, does not the supposed fluid complete a circuit at
once in the lower part of the trunk?
Such, at all events, would be the course an electric current so circumstanced would take.
The difficulty raised admits of being removed by aid
derived from a novel and unexpected source. I allude
to the discovery, by Von Reichenbach, of a new force or
principle in the physical world, which, whether or not it
is identical with that which gives motion to the divining
rod, exhibits, at all events, the very property which the
hypothetical principle should possess to explain the phenomena which we have been considering.
No attempts have indeed been made to identify the
two as one; and my conjecture that they may prove so,
should it even appear plausible, is so vague, that I should
have contented myself with referring to Von Reichenbach's new principle as to an established truth, and have
introduced no account of it into this Letter, had I not a
second motive for insuring your cognisance of the curious
facts which the Viennese philosopher has brought to
light. It is less with the view of furnishing a leg to the
theory of the divining rod, than in order to provide the
means of elucidating more interesting problems, that I




20               TIE:  ]IVtNING; ROD.
now proceed- briefly to sketch the leading experiments
made by Von Reichenbaich; and their results.
Objections have beeni taken against these experiments,
on the ground that their effects are purely subjective;
that the results must be received on the testimony of the
party employed; and' that the best  parties for the purpose are persons whose natural: sensibility is: exalted' by
disorder of the nerves; a' class of persons always suspected' of exaggeration, and even, and in part with justice,> of a' tendency to trickery and deception.  But this
was well known to YVon Reichenbach, who appears to have
taken every precaution- necessary to secure his observations against error.  Andwhen I add, that many of the
results which he obtained upon the most sensitive and
the highly nervous, were liklewise: manifested in persons
of established character and in; good health, a;nd that the
fidelity of the author and of his researches is authenticated by the publication of the latter in Woehler and
Liebig's Chemiecal Annals, (Supplement to" volume 53,
Heidelberg, 1845,) I think you will not withhold from
them complete reliance.
In general, persons' in health and of a strong constitution are-insensible to the influence of-Von Reichenbach's
new force.- But all persons, the tone of whose health has
been lowered by their mode of life-men of sedentary
habits, clerks, and the like, and women who employ their
whole time in needlework, whose pal-e complexions show
the relaxed and therefore irritable state of their frames
-all such, or nearly all-evince more or less susceptibility to the influ-ence I am about to describe.
Von Reichenbach fouhd-that persons of the latter class,
when slow passes are made with the poles of a strong
magnet moved parallel to the surface-down the back,




THE DIVINING ROD.               21
for instance, or down the limbs, and only distant enough
just not to touch the clothes-feel sensations rather unpleasant than otherwise, as of a light draft of air blown
upon them in the path of the magnet.
In the progress of his researches, Von Reichenbach
found that the more sensitive among his subjects could
detect the presence of his new agent by another sense.
In the dark they saw dim flames of light issuing and
waving from the poles of the magnet. The experiments
suggested by this discovery afford the most satisfactory
proofs of the reality of the phenomena. They were the
following:-A horse-shoe magnet having been adjusted
upon a table, with the poles directed upwards, the sensitive subject saw, at the distance of ten feet, the appearance of flames issuing from it. The armature of the
magnet —a bar of soft iron —was then applied.  Upon
this the flames disappeared. They reappeared, she said,
as often as the armature was removed from the magnet.
A similar experiment was made with a yet more sensitive subject.  This person saw, in the first instance,
flames as the first had done; but when the armature of
the magnet was applied, the flames did not disappear: she
saw flames still: only they were fainter, and their disposition was different. They seemed now to issue from
every part of the surface of the magnet equally.
It is hardly necessary to add, that these experiments
were made in a well-darkened room, and that none of
the bystanders could discern what the sensitive subjects
saw.
Then the following experiment was made:-A powerful lens was so placed as that it should concentrate the
light of the flames (if real light they were) upon a point
of the wall of the room. The patient at once saw the
3




22               THE DIVINING ROD.
light upon the wall at the right place; and when the inclination of the lens was shifted, so as to throw the focus
in succession on different points, the sensitive observer
never failed in pointing out the right spot.
To his new force, which Von Reichenbach had now
found to emanate likewise from the poles of crystals and
the wires of the voltaic pile, he gave the arbitrary but
convenient name of Od, or the Od force.
His next step was to ascertain the existence of a difference among the sensations produced by Od. Sometimes the current of air was described as warm, sometimes
as cool. He found this difference to depend upon the
following cause: Whenever the northward pole of a
magnet, or one definite pole of a large crystal, or the
negi:tive wire of a voltaic battery, is employed in the experiment, the sensation produced is that of a draft of
cool air. On the contrary, the southward pole of the
magnet, the opposite pole of the crystal, the positive
voltaic wire, excite the sensation of a draft of warm air.
So the new force appeared to be a polar force, and
Von Reichenbach called the first series of the above described manifestations Od-negative effects, the second
Od-positive effects.
From among his numerous experiments towards establishing the polarity of Od, I select the following: —One
of the most sensitive of his subjects held, at his desire, a
piece of copper wire, by the middle with the right hand
-by one end with the left. Then Von Reichenbach
touched the free end of the wire with one pole of a large
crystal, in order to charge it with Od. The patient immediately felt a sensation in the right hand, which disappeared as quickly, to be felt by the left hand instead,
at the further end of the piece of wire. She then was




THE DIVINING ROD.               23
bidden to take hold of the wire with both her hands at
the middle, and then to slide them away from each other
to the opposite ends: she observed, on doing so, that
sensations were produced which were strong and decided
when her hands held the two ends of the wire, and diminished in intensity in proportion as the hands were nearer
its middle.
Von Reichenbach next came upon the observation that
the human hand gives out the Od force; and that the
right hand displays the characters of negative Od, the
left those of positive Od. The more sensitive subjects
recognised, in the dark, the appearance of dim flames
proceeding from the tips of his fingers; and all felt the
corresponding sensations of drafts of cool or of warm air.
Subsequently the whole body was found to share the properties of the hands; the entire right side to manifest
negative Od, the entire left side positive Od.
So, in reference to this new force, the human body
exhibits a transverse polarity; the condition is thus
realized which is required to belong to the hypothetical
force through which the divining rod might be supposed
to move. If any terrestrial influence were capable of
disturbing the Od force in the body, however it might
affect its intensity, a current or circuit could only be
established through the arms and hands; unless, indeed,
some extraordinary means were taken, such as employing an artificial conductor, arched half round the body,
to connect the two sides.'The sensations which attend the establishment of a
current of Od and interferences with it, in sensitive subjects, are exemplified in the following observations:A bar magnet was laid on the palm of the left hand of
one of the most sensitive subjects, with its southward pole




24-             THE DIVINING ROD.
resting on the end of her middle finger, the northward
pole on the fore-arm above the wrist. It thus corresponded with the natural polar arrangement of the Od
force in the patient's hand and arm. Accordingly, no
sensation was excited. But when the position of the
magnet was reversed, and the northward pole lay on the
end of the middle finger of the left hand, an uneasy sense
of an inward conflict arose in the hand and wrist, which
disappeared when the magnet was removed or its original
direction restored. On laying the magnet reversed on
the fore-arm, the sense of an inward struggle returned,
which was heightened on joining the hands and establishing a circuit.
When the patient completed the circuit in another
way-namely, by holding a bar magnet by the ends, if
the latter were disposed normally, (that is, if the northward pole was held in the left hand, the southward pole
in the right,) a lively consciousness of some inward action
ensued. A normal circulation of Od was in progress.
When the direction of the magnet was reversed, the
phenomenon mentioned in the last paragraph recurred.
The patient experienced a high degree of uneasiness, a
feeling as of an inward struggle extending itself to the
chest, with a sense of whirling round, and confusion in
the head.  These symptoms disappeared immediately
upon her letting go the magnet.
Similar results ensued when Von Reichenbach substituted himself for the magnet. When he took Miss Maix's
hands in his normally-that is to say, her left in his
right, her right in his left-she felt a circulation moving
up the right arm through the chest down the left arm,
attended with a sense of giddiness. When he changed
hands, the disagreeableness of the sensation was suddenly




THE DIVINING ROD.               25
heightened, the sense of inward conflict arose, attended
with a sort of undulation up and down the arms, and
through the chest, which quickly became intolerable.
A singular but consistent difference in the result ensued
when Von Reichenbach repeated the last two experiments
upon Herr Schuh. Herr Schuh was a strong man, thirty
years of age, in full health, but highly impressible by
Od. When Von Reichenbach took his two hands in his
own normally, Herr Schuh felt the normal establishment
of the Od current in his arms and chest. In a few
seconds headache and vertigo ensued, and the experiment
was too disagreeable to be prolonged. But when Von
Reichenbach took his hands abnormally, no sensible effect
ensued. Being equally strong with Von Reichenbach,
Herr Schuh's frame repelled the counter-current, which
the latter arrangement tended to throw into him. In
the first or normal arrangement, the Od current had met
with no resistance, but had simply gone its natural course.
The distress occurred from its being felt through Herr
Schuh's accidental sensitiveness to Od; of the freaks of
which in their systems people in general are unconscious.
I have concluded my case in favour of the pretensions
of the divining rod. It seems to me, at all events, strong
enough to justify any one who has leisure, in cutting a
hazel-fork, and walking about with it in suitable places,
holding it in the manner described. I doubt, however,
whether I should recommend a friend to make the experiment. If, by good luck, the divining rod should refuse
to move in his hands, he might accuse himself of credulity, and feel silly, and hope nobody had seen him, for
the rest of the day. If, unfortunately, the first trial
should succeed, and he should be led to pursue the inquiry, the consequences would be more serious: his pro3*




26               THIE DIVINING ROD.
bable fate would be to fall at once several degrees in the
estimation of his friends, and to pass with the world, all
the rest of his life, for a crotchety person of weak intellects.
As for the divining rod itself, if my argument prove
sound, it will be a credit to the family of superstitions;
for without any reduction, or clipping, or trimming, it
may at once assume the rank of a new truth. But, alas!
the trials which await it in that character! what an
ordeal is before it! A new truth has to encounter three
normal stages of opposition. In the first, it is denounced
as an imposture; in the second-that is, when it is beginning to force itself into notice-it is cursorily examined, and plausibly explained away; in the third, or
cui bono stage, it is decried as useless, and hostile to religion. And when it is fully admitted, it passes only
under a protest that it has been perfectly known for ages
a proceeding intended to make the new truth ashamed
of itself, and wish it had never been born.
I congratulate the sea-serpent on having arrived at
the second stage of belief.  Since Professor Owen (no
disrespect to his genuine ability and eminent knowledge)
has explained it into a sea-elephant, its chance of being
itself is much improved; and as it will skip the third
stage-for who will venture to question the good of a
sea-serpent?-it is liable now any morning "'to wake and
find itself famous," and to be received even at Lincoln's
Inn Fields, where its remains may commemoratively be
ticketed the Ex-Great-Seal.
POSTSCRIPT, (1850.)-It may save trouble to some
future experimenter to narrate my own exploits with
the divining rod.
In the spring of 1847, being then at Weilbach in Nas



THE DIVINING ROD.              27
sau, a region teeming with underground sources of water,
I requested the son of the proprietol of the bathing establishment-a tall, thin, pale, white-haired youth, by name
Edward Seebold-to walk in my presence up and down
a promising spot of ground, holding a divining fork of
hazel, with the accessories recommended by-. de Tristan
to beginners-that is to say, he held in his right hand
three pieces of silver, besides one handle of the rod,
while the handle which he held in!his left -hand ias covered with a thin silk.
The lad had not made five steps when the point of the
divining fork began to'ascend. He laughed with astonishment at the event, which was totally unexpected by
him; and he said that he expeirtenced a tickling or thrilling sensation in his hands. Hie continued to walk up
and down before me. The fork had soon described a
complete circle; then it described another; and so it continned to do as long as he walked thus, and as often as,
after stopping, he resumed his walk. The experiment
was repeated by him in my presence, with like success,
several times during the ensuing month. Then the lad
fell into -ill health, and I rarely saw him. However, one
day I sent for him, and begged him to do me the favour
of making another trial with the divining fork. He did
so, but the instrument moved slowly and sluggishly; and
when, having completed a semicircle, it pointed backwards towards the pit of his stomach, it stopped, and
would go no farther. At the same time the lad said he
felt an uneasy sensation, which quickly increased to pain,
at the pit of the stomach, and he became alarmed, when
I bade him quit hold of one handle of the divining rod,
and the pain ceased. Ten minutes afterwards I induced
him to make another trial; the results were the same.
A few days later, when the lad seemed still more out of




28              PTHE DIVINING ROD.
health, I induced him to repeat the experiment. Now,
however, the divining fork would not move at all.
I entertain little doubt that the above performances
of Edward Seebold were genuine. I thought the same
of the performances of three English gentlemen, and of
a German, in whose hands, however, the divining rod
never moved through an entire circle. In the hands of
one of them its motion was retrograde, or abnormal: that
is to say, it began by descending.
But I met with other cases, which were less satisfactory, though not uninstructive. I should observe that,
in the hands of several who tried to use it in my presence, the divining fork would not move an inch. But
there were two younger brothers of Edward Seebold, and
a bath-maid, and my own man, in whose hands the rod
played new pranks. When these parties walkedforwards,
the instrument ascended, or moved normally; but when,
by my desire, they walked backwards, the instrument
immediately went the other way. I should observe that,
in the hands of Edward Seebold, the instrument moved
in the same direction whether he walked forwards or
backwards; and I have mentioned that at first it described in his hands a complete circle. But with the
four parties I have just been speaking of, the motion of
the fork was always limited in extent. When it moved
normally at starting, it stopped after describing an arc
of about 2250; in the same way, when it moved abnormally at starting, it would stop after describing an arc
of -about 1350; that is to say, there was one spot the
same for the two cases, beyond which it could not get.
Then I found that, in the hands of my man, the divining
rod would move even when he was standing still, although
with a less lively action; still it stopped as before, nearly
at the same point. Sometimes it ascended, sometimes




THE DIVINING ROD.              29
descended. Then I tried some experiments, touching
the point with a magnetic needle. I found, in the course
of them, that when my man knew which way I expected
the fork to move, it invariably answered my expectations;
but when I had the man blindfolded, the results were uncertain and contradictory. The end of all this was, that
I became certain that several of those in whose hands
the divining rod moves, set it in motion and direct its
motion by the pressure of their fingers, and by carrying
their hands nearer to, or farther apart. In walking
forwards, the hands are unconsciously borne towards
each other; in walking backwards, the reverse is the
case.
Therefore, I recommend no one to prosecute these experiments unless he can execute them himself, and unless
the divining rod describes a complete circle in his hands;
and even then he should be on his guard against self-deception.
POSTSCRIPT II.-I am now (May, 1851) again residing
at the bathing establishment of Weilbach, near Mayence;
and it was With some interest and curiosity that the other
day I requested Mr. Edward Seebold, now a well-groWn
young man, in full health, to try his hand again with the
divining-rod.  He readily assented to my request; and
he this time kne4w exactly what result I expected. But
the experiment entirely failed.  The point of the divining rod rose, as he walked, not more than two or three
inches; but this it does with every one who presses the
two handles towards each other during the experiment.
Afterwards the implement remained perfectly stationary.
I think I am not at liberty to withhold this result from
the reader, whom it may lead to question, though it cannot induce myself to doubt, the genuineness of the former
performances of Mr. E. S.




VAMPYRISM.
LETTER II.
VAMPYRISM.-Tale exemplifying the superstition-The Vampyr state
of the body in the grave-Various instances of death-trance-The
risk of premature interment considered-The Vampyr visit.
-IN acknowledging my former letter, you express an
eager desire to learn, as you phrase it, "all about Vampyrs, if there ever were such things." I will not delay
satisfying your curiosity, although by so doing I interrupt the logical order of my communications. It is, perhaps, all the better. The proper place of this subject
falls in the midst of a philosophical disquisition; and it
would have been a pity not to present it to you in its
pristine colouring. But how came your late tutor, Mr.
H., to leave you in ignorance upon a point on which, in
my time, schoolboys much your juniors entertained decided opinions?
Were there ever such things as Vampyrs?  Tantamne
rem tam negligenter! I turn to the learned pages of
Horst for a luminous and precise definition of the destructive and mysterious beings whose existence you have
ventured to consider problematical.
"A Vampyr is a dead body which continues to live in
the grave; which it leaves, however, by night, for the
purpose of sucking the blood of the living, whereby it is
nourished and preserved in good condition, instead of
being decomposed like other dead bodies."
Upon my word, you really deserve, since Mr. George
Combe has clearly shown, in his admirable work on the
Constitution of Man, and its adaptation to the surrounding
world, that ignorance is a statutable crime before nature,




VAMPYRISM.                    31
and punished by the laws of Providence-you deserve,:I
say, unless you contrive to make Mr. II. your substitute,
which I think would be just, yourself to be the subject
of the nocturnal visit of a Vampyr. Your skepticism
will abate pretty considerably when you see him stealthily
entering your room, yet are powerless under the fascination of his fixed and leaden eye —when you are conscious,
as you lie motionless with terror, of his nearer and
nearer approach-when you feel his face, fresh with the
smell of the grave, bent over your throat, while his keen
teeth make a fine incision in your jugular, preparatory
to his commencing his plain but nutritive repast.
You would look a little paler the next morning, but
that would be all for the moment; for Fischer informs
us that the bite of a Vampyr leaves in general no mark
upon the person.  But he fearfully adds, "it (the bite)
is nevertheless speedily fatal," unless the bitten person
protect himself by eating some of the earth from the
grave of the Vampyr, and smearing himself with his
blood. Unfortunately, indeed, these measures are seldom, if ever, of more than temporary use. Fischer adds,
"if through these precautions the life of the victim be
prolonged for a period, sooner or later he ends with becoming a Vampyr himself; that is to say, he dies and is
buried, but continues to lead a Vampyr life in the grave,
nourishing himself by infecting others, and promiscuously
propagating Vampyrism."
This is no romancer's dream. It is a succinct account
of a superstition which to this day services in the east of
Europe, where little more than a century ago it was
frightfully prevalent.  At that period Vampyrism spread
like a pestilence through Servia and Wallachia, causing
numerous deaths, and disturbing all the land with fear of




32                  VAMPYRISM.
the mysterious visitation, against which no on-e felt himself secure.
Here is something like a good, solid, practical popular
delusion. Do I believe it? To be sure I do. The facts
are matter of history: the people died like rotted sheep;
and the cause and method of their dying was, in their
belief, what has just been stated. You suppose, then,
they died frightened out of their lives, as men have died
whose pardon has been proclaimed when their necks
were already on the block, of the belief that they were
going to die? Well, if that were all, the subject would
still be worth examining. But there is more in it than
that, as the following o'er true tale will convince you,
the essential points of which are authenticated by documentary evidence.
In the spring of 1727, there returned from the Levant
to the village of Meduegna, near Belgrade, one Arnod
Paole, who, in a few years of military service and varied
adventure, had amassed enough to purchase a cottage
and an acre or two of land in his native place,. where he
gave out that he meant to pass the remainder of his days.
He kept his word. Arnod had yet scarcely reached the
prime of manhood; and though he must have encountered
the rough as well as the smooth of life, and have mingled
with many a wild and reckless companion, yet his naturally good disposition and honest principles had preserved
him unscathed in the scenes he had passed through. At
all' events, such were the thoughts expressed by his
neighbours as they discussed his return and settlement
among them in the Stube of the village Hof. Nor did
the frank and open countenance of Arnod, his obliging
habits and steady conduct, argue their judgment incorrect. Nevertheless, there was something occasionally




VAMPYRISM.                  33
noticeable in his ways-a look and tone that betrayed
inward disquiet.  Often would he refuse to join his
friends, or on some sudden plea abruptly quit their society. And he still more unaccountably, and as it seemed
systematically, avoided meeting his pretty neighbour
Nina, whose father occupied the next tenement to his
own. At the age of seventeen, Nina was as charming a
picture of youth, cheerfulness, innocence, and confidence,
as you could have seen in all the world. You could not
look into her limpid eyes, which steadily returned your
gaze, without seeing to the bottom of the pure and transparent spring of her thoughts. Why, then, did Arnod
shrink from meeting her? He was young; had a little
property; had health and industry; and he had told his
friends he had formed no ties in other lands. Why, then,
did he avoid the fascination of the pretty Nina, who
seemed a being made to chase from any brow the clouds
of gathering care? But he did so; yet less and less resolutely, for he felt the charm of her presence. Who
could have done otherwise? And how could he long
resist-he didn't-the impulse of his fondness for the
innocent girl who often sought to cheer his fits of depression?
And they were to be united —were betrothed; yet still
an anxious gloom would fitfully overcast his countenance,
even in the sunshine of those hours.
"What is it, dear Arnod, that makes you sad?  It
cannot be on my account; I know, for you were sad before you ever noticed me; and that, I think," (and you
should have seen the deepening rose upon her cheeks,)
"surely first made me notice you."
"Nina," he answered, "I have done, I fear, a great
4




34                  VAMPYRISM.
wrong in trying to gain your affections. Nina, I have a
fixed impression that I shall not live; yet, knowing this,
I have selfishly made my existence necessary to your
happiness."
"  ow strangely you talk, dear Arnod! Who in the
village is stronger and healthier than you? You feared
no danger when you were a soldier. What danger do
you fear as a villager of Meduegna.?"
" It haunts me, Nina."
"But, Arnod, you were sad before you thought of me.
Did you then fear to die?"
"Ah, Nina, it is something worse than death."  And
his vigorous frame shook with agony.
"Arnod, I conjure you, tell me."
"It was in Cossova this fate befell me. Here you
have hitherto escaped the terrible scourge. But there
they died, and the dead visited the living. I experienced
the first frightful visitation, and I fled; but not till I had
sought his grave, and exacted the dread expiation from
the Vampyr."
Nina's blood ran cold.  She stood horror-stricken.
But her young heart soon mastered her first despair.
With a touching voice she spoke"Fear not, dear Arnod; fear not now. I will be
your shield, or I will die with you!"
And she encircled his neck with her gentle arms, and
returning hope shone, Iriis-like, amid her falling tears.
Afterwards they found a reasonable ground for banishing or allaying their apprehension in the length of time
which had elapsed since Arnod left Cossova, during
which no fearful visitant had again approached him; and
they fondly trustedkthat gave them security.




VAMPYRISM. *5
It is a strange world. The ills we fear are commonly
not those which overwhelm us. The blows that reach us
are for the most part unforeseen. One day, about a
week after this conversation, Arnod missed his footing
when on the top of a loaded hay-wagon, and fell from
it to the ground. He was picked up insensible, and carried home, where, after lingering a short time, he died.
His interment, as usual, followed immediately. His fate
was sad and premature. But what pencil could paint
Nina's grief!
Twenty or thirty days after his decease, says the perfectly authenticated report of these transactions, several
of the neighbourhood complained that they were haunted
by the deceased Arnod; and, what was more to the purpose, four of them died. The evil, looked at skeptically,
was bad enough, but aggravated by the suggestions of
superstition, it spread a panic through the whole district.
To allay the popular terror, and if possible to get at the
root of the evil, a determination was come to publicly to
disinter the body of Arnod, with the view of ascertaining
whether he really was a Vampyr, and, in that event, of
treating him conformably. The day fixed for this proceeding was the fortieth after his burial.
It was on a gray morning in early August that the
commission visited the quiet cemetery of Meduegna, which,
surrounded with a wall of unhewn stone, lies sheltered
by the mountain that, rising in undulating green slopes,
irregularly planted with fruit trees, ends inian abrupt
craggy ridge, feathered with underwood.  The graves
were, for the most part, neatly kept, with borders of box,
or something like it, and flowers between; and at the
head of most a small wooden cross, painted black, bear



36                 VAMPYRISM.
ing the name of the tenant. Here and there a stone had
been raised. One of considerable height, a single narrow slab, ornamented with grotesque Gothic carvings,
dominated over the rest. Near this lay the grave ofArnod Paole, towards which the party moved. The work
of throwing out the earth was begun by the gray, crooked
old sexton, who lived in the Leichenhaus, beyond the
great crucifix.  He seemed unconcerned enough; no
Vampyr would think of extracting a supper out of him.
Nearest the grave stood two military surgeons, or feldscherers, from Belgrade, and a drummer-boy, who held
their case of instruments. The boy looked on with keen
interest; and when the coffin was exposed and rather
roughly drawn out of the grave, his pale face and bright
intent eye showed how the scene moved him. The sexton
lifted the lid of the coffin: the body had become inclined
to one side. Then turning it straight, "Ha! ha!" said
he, pointing to fresh blood upon the lips —  Ha! ha!
What! Your mouth not wiped since last night's work?"
The spectators shuddered; the drummer-boy sank forward, fainting, and upset the instrument-case, scattering
its contents; the senior surgeon, infected with the horror
of the scene, repressed a hasty exclamation, and simply
crossed himself. They threw water on the drummerboy, and he recovered, but would not leave the spot.
Then they inspected the body of Arnod. It looked as if
-it had not been dead a day. On handling it, the scarfskin came off, but below were new skin and new nails!
How could they have come there but from its foul feeding! The case was clear enough; there lay before them
the thing they dreaded-the Vampyr. So, without more
ado, they simply drove a stake through poor Arnod's




VAMPYRISM.                   37
chest, whereupon a quantity of blood gushed forth, and
the corpse uttered an audible groan.  "Murder! oh,
murder!" shrieked the drummer-boy, as he rushed wildly,
with convulsed gestures, from the cemetery.
The drummer-boy was not far from the mark. But,
quitting the romancing vein, which had led me to try
and restore the original colours of the picture, let me confine myself, in describing the rest of the scene and what
followed, to the words of my authority.
The body of Arnod was then burnt to ashes, which
were returned to the grave.  The authorities further
staked and burnt the bodies of the four others which were
supposed to have been infected by Arnod. No mention
is made of the state in which they were found. The
adoption of these decisive measures failed, however, entirely to extinguish the evil, which continued still to hang
about the village. About five years afterwards it had
again become very rife, and many died through it;
whereupon the authorities determined to make another
and a complete clearance of the Vampyrs in the cemetery, and with that object they had all the graves, to
which present suspicion attached, opened, and their contents officially anatomized, of which procedure the following is the medical report, here and there abridged
only: —
1. A woman of the name of Stana, twenty years of
age, who had died three months before of a three days'
illness following her confinement. She had before her
death avowed that she had anointed herself with the blood
of a Vampyr, to liberate herself from his persecution.
Nevertheless, she, as well as her infant, whose body
through careless interment had been half eaten by the
A*




38                 VAMPYRISM,
dogs, had died. Her body was entirely free from decomposition.  On opening it, the chest was found full of
recently effused blood, and the bowels had exactly the
appearances of sound health. The skin and nails of her
hands and feet were loose and came off, but underneath
lay new skin and nails.
2. A woman of the name of Miliza, who had died at
the end of a three months' illness. The body had been
buried ninety and odd days. In the chest was liquid
blood. The viscera were as in the former instance.
The body was declared by a heyduk, who recognised it,
to be in better condition, and fatter, than it had been in
the woman's legitimate lifetime.
3. The body of a child eight years old, that had likewise been buried ninety days: it was in the Vampyr
condition.
4. The son of a heyduk named Milloc, sixteen years
old. The body had lain in the grave nine weeks. He
had died after three days' indisposition, and was in the
condition of a Yampyr.
5. Joachim, likewise son of a heyduk, seventeen years
old. He had died after three days' illness; had been
buried eight weeks and some days; was found in the
Vampyr state.
6. A woman of the name of Rusha, who had died of
an illness of ten days' duration, and had been six weeks
buried, in whom likewise fresh blood was found in the
chest.
(The reader will understand, that to see blood in the
chest, it is first necessary to cut the chest open.)
7. The body of a girl of ten years of age, who had
died two months before. It was likewise in the Vampyr
state, perfectly undecomposed, with blood in the chest.




VAMPYRISM.                  39
8. The body of the wife of one IHadnuck, buried seven
weeks before; and that of her infant, eight weeks old,
buried only twenty-one days. They were both in a state
of decomposition, though buried in the same ground, and
closely adjoining the others.
9. A servant, by name Rhade, twenty-three years of
age; he had died after an illness of three months' duration, and the body had been buried five weeks. It was
in a state of decomposition.
10. The body of the heyduk Stanco, sixty years of age,
who had died six weeks previously. There was much
blood and other fluid in the chest and abdomen, and the
body was in the Vampyr condition.
11. Millac, a heyduk, twenty-five years old. The body
had been in the earth six weeks. It was perfectly in the
Vampyr condition.
12. Stanjoika, the wife of a heyduk, twenty years
old; had died after an illness of three days, and had been
buried eighteen. The countenance was florid. There
was blood in the chest and in the heart.  The viscera
were perfectly sound; the skin remarkably fresh.
The document which gives the above particulars is
signed by three regimental surgeons, and formally countersigned by a lieutenant-colonel and sub-lieutenant. It
bears the date of "June 7, 1732, Meduegna near Belgrade." No doubt can be entertained of its authenticity,
or of its general fidelity; the less that it does not stand
alone, but is supported by a mass of evidence to the same
effect. It appears to establish, beyond question, that
where the fear of Vampyrism prevails, and there occur
several deaths, in the popular belief connected with it,
the bodies, when disinterred weeks after burial, present




40                  VAMPYRISM.
the appearance of corpses from which life has only recently departed.
What inference shall we draw from this fact?-that
Vampyrism is true in the popular sense?-and that these
fresh-looking and well-conditioned corpses had some mysterious source of preternatural nourishment?. That would
be to adopt, not to solve the superstition. Let us content
ourselves with a notion not so monstrous, but still startling enough: that the bodies, which were found in the
so-called Vampyr state, instead of being in a new or mystical condition, were simply alive in the common way,
or had been so for some time subsequent to their interment; that, in short, they were the bodies of persons who
had been buried alive, and whose life, where it yet lingered, was finally extinguished through the ignorance
and barbarity of those who disinterred them. In the
following sketch of a similar scene to that above described,
the correctness of this inference comes out with terrific
force.
Erasmus Francisci, in his remarks upon the description
of the Dukedom of Krain by Valvasor, speaks of a man
of the name of Grando, in the district of Kring, who died,
was buried, and became a Vampyr, and as such was exhumed for the purpose of having a stake thrust through
him.
"When they opened his grave, after he had been long
buried, his face was found with a colour, and his features
made natural sorts of movements, as if the dead man
smiled. He even opened his mouth as if he would inhale
fresh air. They held the crucifix before him, and called
in a loud voice,' See, this is Jesus Christ who redeemed
your soul from hell, and died for you.' After the sound




VAMPYRISM.                   41
had acted on his organs of hearing,- and he had connected perhaps some ideas with it, tears began to flow from
the dead man's eyes. Finally, when after a short prayer
for his poor soul, they proceeded to hack off his head, the
corpse uttered a screech. and turned and rolled just as if
it had been alive-and the grave was full of blood."
We have thus succeeded in interpreting one of the
unknown terms in the Vampyr theorem. The suspicious
character, who had some dark way of nourishing himself
in the grave, turns out to -be an unfortunate gentleman
(or lady) whom his friends had buried under a mistake
while he was still alive, and who, if they afterwards mercifully let him alone, died sooner or later either naturally
or of the premature interment —in either case, it is to
be hoped, with no interval of restored consciousness.
The state which thus passed for death and led to such
fatal consequences, apart from superstition, deserves our
serious consideration; for, although of very rare, it is of
continual occurrence, and society is not sufficiently on its
guard against a contingency so dreadful when overlooked.
When the nurse or the doctor has announced that all is
over-that the valued friend or relative has breathed his
last —no doubt crosses any one's mind of the reality of
the sad event. Disease is now so well understood-every
step in its march laid down and foreseen-the approach
of danger accurately estimated-the liability of the patient, according to his powers of resisting it, to succumb
earlier or to hold out longer-all is theoretically so clear
that a wholesome suspicion of error in the verdict of the
attendants seldom suggests itself. The evil I am considering ought not, however, to be attributed to redundance
of knowledge: it arises from its partial lack-from a too




42                  VAMPYRISM.
general neglect of one very important section in pathological science. The laity, if not the doctors too, constantly lose sight of the fact, that there exists an alternative to the fatal event of ordinary disease; that a patient is liable at any period of illness to deviate, or, as
it were, to slide off, from the customary line of disease
into another and a deceptive route —instead of death, to
encounter apparent death.
The Germans express this condition of the living body
by the term " scheintod," which signifies exactly apparent
death; and it is perhaps a better term than our English
equivalent, "suspended animation." But both these expressions are generic terms, and a specific term is still
wanted to denote the present class of instances. To
meet this exigency, I propose, for reasons which will
afterwards appear, to employ the term "death-trance"
to designate the cases we are investigating.
Death-trance is, then, one of the forms of suspended
animation: there are several others. After incomplete
poisoning, after suffocation in either of its various ways,
after exposure to cold in infants newly born, a state is
occasionally met with, of which (however each may still
differ from the rest) the common feature is an apparent
suspension of the vital actions. But all of these so-cited
instances agree in another important respect, which
second inter-agreement separates them as a class from
death-trance. They represent, each and all, a period of
conflict between the effects of certain deleterious impressions and the vital principle, the latter struggling against
the weight and force of the former. Such is not the
case in death-trance.
Death-trance is a positive status-a period of repose




VAMPYRISM.                   43
-the duration of which is sometimes definite and predetermined, though unknown.  Thus the patient, the term
of the death-trance having expired, occasionally suddenly
wakes, entirely and at once restored. Oftener, however,
the machinery which has been stopped seems to require
to be jogged-then it goes on again.
The basis of death-trance is suspension of the action of
the heart, and of the breathing, and of voluntary motion;
generally likewise feeling and intelligence, and the vegetative changes in the body, are suspended. With these
phenomena is joined loss of external warmth; so that the
usual evidence of life is gone. But there have occurred
varieties of this condition, in which occasional slight
manifestations of one or other of the vital actions have
been observed.
Death-trance may occur as a primary affection, suddenly or gradually. The diseases the course of which it
is liable, as it were, to bifurcate, or to graft itself upon,
are first and principally all disorders of the nervous
system. But in any form of disease, when the body is
brought -to a certain degree of debility, death-trance
may supervene. Age and sex have to do with its occurrence; which is more frequent in the young than in the
old, in women than in men —differences evidently connected with greater irritability of the nervous system.
Accordingly, women in labour are among the most liable
to death-trance, and it is from such a case that I will
give a first instance of the affection as portrayed by a
medical witness.  (Journal des Scavans, 1749.)
M. Rigaudeaux, surgeon to the military hospital, and
licensed accoucher at Douai, was sent for on the 8th of
September, 1745, to attend the wife of Francis Dumont,




44                  VAMPYRISM.
residing two leagues from the town. He was late in
getting there; it was half-past eight, A. M.-too late, it
seemed; the patient was declared to have died at six
o'clock, after eighteen hours of ineffectual labour-pains.
M. Rigaudeaux inspected the body; there was no pulse
or breath; the mouth was full of froth, the abdomen
tumid. He brought away the infant, which he committed
to the care of the nurses, who, after trying to reanimate
it for three hours, gave up the attempt, and prepared to
lay it out, when it opened its mouth. They then gave it
wine, and it was speedily recovered. M. Rigaudeaux,
who returned to the house as this occurred, inspected
again the body of the mother. (It had been already
nailed down in a coffin.) He examined it with the utmost
care; but he came to the conclusion that it was certainly
dead. Nevertheless, as the joints of the limbs were still
flexible, although seven hours had elapsed since its apparent death, he left the strictest injunctions to watch
the body carefully, to apply stimulants to the nostrils
from time to time, to slap the palms of the hands, and
the like. At half-past three o'clock symptoms of returning animation showed themselves, and the patient
recovered.
The period during which every ordinary sign of life
may be absent, without the prevention of their return,
is unknown, but in well-authenticated cases it has much
exceeded the period observed in the above instance.
Here is an example borrowed from the Journal des
Savans, 1741.
There was a Colonel Russell, whose wife, to whom he
was affectionately attached, died, or appeared to do so.
But he would not allow the body to be buried; and




VAMPYRISM.                  45
threatened. to shoot any one who should interfere to
remove it for that purpose. His conduct was guided by
reason as well as by affection and instinct. He said he
would not part from the body till its decomposition had
begun. Eight days had passed, during which the body
of his wife gave no sign of life: when, as he sat bedewing
her hand with his tears, the churich-bell tolled, and, to
his unspeakable amazement, his wife sat up and said"That is the last bell; we shall be too late." She recovered.
There are cases on record of persons, who could spontaneously fall into death-trance. Monti, in a letter to
Haller, adverts to several; and mentions, in particular,
a peasant upon whom, when he assumed this state, the
flies would settle; breathing, the pulse, and all ordinary
signs of life disappeared.  A priest of the name of
Caelius Rhodaginus had the same faculty. But the most
celebrated instance is that of Colonel Townshend, mentioned in the surgical works of Gooch, by whom anid by
Dr. Cheyne and Dr. Baynard, and by Mr. Shrine, an
apothecary, the performance of Colonel Townshend was
seen and attested. They had long attended him, for he
was an habitual invalid, and he had often invited them to
witness the phenomenon of his dying and coming to life
again; but they had hitherto refused, from fear of the
consequences to himself: at last they assented. Accordingly, in their presence, Colonel Townshend laid himself
down on his back, and Dr.' Cheyne undertook to observe
his pulse; Dr. Baynard laid his hand on his heart, and
Mr. Shrine had a looking-glass to hold to his mouth.
After a few seconds, pulse, breathing, and the action of
the heart, were no longer to be observed. Each of the
5




46                  VAMPYRISM.
witnesses satisfied himself of the entire cessation of these
phenomena. When the death-trance had lasted half-anhour, the doctors began to fear that their patient had
pushed the experiment too far, and was dead in earnest;
and they were preparing to leave the house, when a
slight movement of the body attracted their attention.
They renewed their routine of observation; when the
pulse and sensible motion of the heart gradually returned,
and breathing, and consciousness. The tale ends abruptly.  Colonel Townshend, on recovering, sent for his
attorney, made his will, and died, for good and all, six
hours afterwards.
Although many have recovered from death-trance, and
there seems to be in each case a definite period to its
duration, yet its event is not always so fortunate. The
patient sometimes really dies during its continuance,.
either unavoidably, or in consequence of adequate measures not being taken to stimulate him to waken, or to
support life. The following very good instance rests on
the authority of Dr. Schmidt, a physician of the hospital
of Paderborn, where it occurred, (Rheinisch- Westphizlischer Anzeiger, 1835, No. 57 and 58.)
A&young man of the name of Caspar Kreite, from
Berne, died in the hospital of Paderborn, but his body
could not be interred for three weeks, for the following
reasons. During the first twenty-four hours after drawing its last breath, the corpse opened its eyes, and the
pulse could be felt, for a few minutes, beating feebly and
irregularly.  On the third and fourth day, points of the
skin, which had been burned to test the reality of his
death, suppurated.  On the fifth day the corpse changed
the position of one hand:. on the ninth day a vesicular




VAMPYRISM.                  47
eruption appeared on the back. For nine days there
was a vertical fold of the skin of the forehead-a sort of
frown-and the features had not the character of death.
The lips remained red till the eighteenth day; and the
joints preserved their flexibility from first to last. He
lay in this state in a warm room for nineteen days,
without any farther alteration than a sensible wasting in
flesh. Till after the nineteenth day no discoloration of
the body, or odour of putrefaction, was observed. He
had been cured of ague, and laboured under a slight
chest affection; but there had been no adequate cause
for his death. It is evident that this person was much
more alive than many are in the death-trance; and one
half suspects that stimulants and nourishment, properly
introduced, might have entirely reanimated him.
I might exemplify death-trance by many a well authenticated romantic story. —A noise heard in a vault; the
people, instead of breaking open the door, go for the
keys, and for authority to act, and return too late; the
unfortunate person is found dead, having previously
gnawn her hand and arm in agony.-A lady is buried
with a jewel of value on her finger; thieves open the
vault to possess themselves of the treasure; the ring cannot be drawn from the finger, and the thieves proceed to
cut the finger off; the lady, wakening from her trance,
scares the thieves away, and recovers.-A young married
lady dies and is buried; a former admirer, to whom her
parents had refused her *hand, bribes the sexton to let
him see once more the form he loved. The body opportunely comes to life at this moment, and flies from Paris
with its first lover to England, where they are married.
Venturing to return to France, the lady is recognised,




'48                 VAMPYRISM.
and is reclaimed by her previous husband through a suit
at law; her counsel demurs, on the ground of the desertion and burial; but the law not admitting this plea, she
flies again to England with her preserver, to avoid the
judgment of the parliament of Paris, in the acts of which
the case stands recorded. There are one or two other
cases that I dare not cite, the particulars of which transcend the wildest flights of imagination.
It may be thought that these are all tales of the olden
time; and that the very case I have given from the hospital at Paderborn shows that now medical men are sufficiently circumspect, and the public really on its guard
to prevent a living person being interred as one dead.
And I grant that in England, among all but the poorest
class, the danger is practically inconsiderable of being
buried alive. But that it still exists for every class, and
that for the poor the danger is great and serious, I am
afraid there is too much reason for believing. It is stated
in Froriep's Notizen, 1829, No. 522, that, agreeably to
a then recent ordinance in New York, coffins presented
for burial were kept above ground eight days, open at
the head, and so arranged, that the least movement of
the body would ring a bell, through strings attached to
the hands and feet. It will hardly be credited, that out
of twelve hundred whose interment had been thus postponed, six returned to life-one in every two hundred!
The arrangement thus beneficently adopted at New York
is, however, imperfect, as it makes time the criterion
for interment.  The time is not known during which a
body in death-trance may remain alive. Nothing but
one positive condition of the body, which I will presently
mention, authenticates death. It is frightful to think




VAMPYRISM.                  49
how, in the south of Europe, within twenty-four hours
after the last breath bodies are shovelled into pits among
heaped corpses; and to imagine what fearful agonies of
despair must sometimes be encountered by unhappy
beings, who wake amid the unutterable horrors of such
a grave. But it is enough to look at home, and to make
no delay in providing there for the careful watching of
the bodies of the poor, till life has certainly departed.
Many do not dream how barbarous and backward the
vaunted nineteenth century will appear to posterity!
But there is another danger to which society is obnoxious through not making sufficient account of the
contingency of death-trance, that appears to me more
urgent and menacing than even the risk of being buried
alive.
The danger I advert to is not this; but this is somethingThe Cardinal Espinosa, prime minister under Philip
the Second of Spain, died, as it was supposed, after a
short illness. His rank entitled him to be embalmed.
Accordingly, the body was opened for that purpose. The
lungs and heart had just been brought into view, when
the latter was seen to beat. The cardinal awakening at
the fatal moment, had still strength enough left to seize
with his hand the knife of the anatomist!
But it is thisOn the 23d of September, 1763, the Abb6 Prevost, the
French novelist and compiler of travels, was seized with
a fit in the forest of Chantilly. The body was found,
and conveyed to the residence of the nearest clergyman.
It was supposed that death had taken place through
apoplexy. But the local authorities, desiring to be satis5 *




50                  VAMPYRISM.
fled of the fact, ordered the body to be examined. During
the process, the poor abb6 uttered a cry of agony. —It
was too late.
It is to be observed that cases of sudden and unexplained death are, on the one hand, the cases most likely
to furnish a large percentage of death-trance; and, on
the other, are just those in which the anxiety of friends
or the over-zealousness of a coroner is liable to lead to
premature anatomization. Nor does it even follow that,
because the body happily did not wake while being dissected, the:spark of life was therefore extinct. This
view, however, is too painful to be followed out in reference to the past. But it imperatively suggests the
necessity of forbidding necroscopic examinations, before
there is perfect evidence that life has departed —that is,
of extending to this practice the rule which ought to be
made absolute in reference to interment.
Thus comes out the practical importance of the question, how is it to be known that the body is no longer
alive?
The entire absence of the ordinary signs of life is
insufficient to prove the absence of life. The body may
be externally cold; the pulse not be felt; breathing may
have ceased; no bodily motion may occur; the limbs
may be stiff (through spasm;) the sphincter muscles
relaxed; no blood may flow from an opened vein; the
eyes may have become glassy; there may be partial
mortification to offend the sense with the smell of death;
and yet the body may be alive.
The only security we at present know of, that life has
left the body, is the supervention of chemical decomposition, shown in commencing change of colour of the integu



VAMPYRISM.                   51
ments.of the abdomen and throat to blue and green, and
an attendant cadaverous fetor.
To return from this important digression to the former
subject of the Vampyr superstition.  The second element
which we have yet to-explain is the Vampyr visit and its
consequence —the: lapse of the party visited into deathtrance.  There are two ways of dealing with this knbt;
one is to cut it, the other to untie it.
It may be cut, by denying the supposed connexion
between the Vampyr visit and the supervention of deathtrance in the second party. Nor is the explanation thus
obtained devoid of plausibility.  There is no reason why
death-trance should not, in certain seasons;and places,
be'epidemie. Then the persons most liable to it would
be those of weak and'irritable nervous systems. Again,
a first effect of the epidemic might be further to shake
the nerves of weaker subjects. These,are exactly the
persons who are likely to be:infected with imaginary
terrors, and to dream, or even to fancy, they have seen
Mr. or Mrs. such a one, the last victims of the epidemic.
The dream or impression upon the senses might again
recur, and the sickening patient have already talked of
it to his neighbours, before he himself was seized with
death-trance.  On this supposition, the Vampyr visit
would sint into the subordinate rank of a mere premonitory symptom.
To myself, I must confess, this explanation, the best
I am yet in a position to offer, appears barren and
jejune; and not at all to do justice to the force and
frequency, or, as tradition represents the matter, the
universality of the Vampyr visit as a precursor of the
victim's fate. Imagine how strong must have been the




52                 VAMPYRISM.
conviction of the reality of the apparition, how common
a feature it must have been, to have led to the laying
down of the unnatural and repulsive process customarily
followed at the Vampyr's grave, as the regular and proper preventive of ulterior consequences.
I am disposed, therefore, rather to try and untie this
knot, and with that object to wait, hoping that something may turn up in the progress of these inquiries to
assist me in its solution. In the mean time, I would beg
leave to consider this second half of the problem a compound phenomenon, the solutions of the two parts of
which may not emerge simultaneously. The Vampyr
visit is one thing; its presumed contagious effect another.
The Vampyr visit! Well, it is clear the Vampyr could
not have left his grave bodily-or, at all events, if he
could, he never could have buried himself again. Yet
in his grave they always found him. So the body could
not have been the visitant. Then, in popular language,
it was the ghost of the Vampyr that haunted its future
victim. The ghostly nature of the visitant could not
have been identified at a luckier moment. The very
subject which I next propose to undertake is the analysis
of ghosts. I have, therefore, only to throw the Vampyr
ghost into the crucible with the rest; and to-morrow' I
may perhaps be able to report the rational composition
of the whole batch.




UNREAL GHOSTS.                53
LETTER III.
UNREAL GHOSTS-Law of Sensorial Illusions —Cases of Nicolai,
Schwedenborg, Joan of Arc-Fetches-Churchyard ghosts.
THE projected analysis has been crowned with success.
The fumes of superstition'have been driven off, and the
ghosts have been reduced to rational elements. All
trace of supernatural agency has vanished; and in its
place are found three principles-one physical, two psychical-by the help of which every conceivable ghost'may in future be alternately decomposed and recompounded by the merest tyro.
The first of which I shall describe the nature and
operation is a psychical truth, already known to most
persons of education. It is of very general use in ghostbuilding; it forms the immediate personnel of every
ghost; and is of so active a nature that alone, or assisted
by a little credulity, it is enough to constitute the simplest
kind-a common fetch. Mixed with a dose of mental
anxiety, ior as much remorse as will lie on the point of a
dagger, it will form;a troublesome retrospective ghost.
The;second "principle-a physical one, less generally
known-is the basis of that sturdy apparition the churchyard ghost, which it will turn out in very fair style aided
by fancy alone; but, to perfect the illusive result, the
co-operation of the first principle is necessary. The
third, an entirely new one, is the foundation of real
ghosts-that is, of ghosts which announce unexpected
events, distant in space or time; the same principle is
concerned in true dreams, and in second-sight.




54               ~UNREAL GHOSTS.
The first of the three principles adverted to is the
physiological fact that, when the blood is heated, the
nervous system overstrained, or digestion out of sorts,
the thereby directly or sympathetically disordered brain
is liable to project before us illusory forms, which are
coloured and move like life, and are so far undistinguishable from reality. Sometimes a second sense is drawn
into the phantasmagoria, and the fictitious beings speak
as you do. Almost always the illusion stops there. But
in one or two marvellous cases, the touch has been involved in the hallucination, and the ghost has been tangible.  These phenomena are termed sensorial illusions.
The visual part of them, the first and commonest, has
been the most attended to. The cause immediately producing it appears to be an affection, not of the organ of
vision, but of that part of the brain in which the nerves
of seeing take their origin. This organ it is which in
health realizes our sensations of colour, and converts
them into visual perceptions. Like other parts of the
brain, it is stored with memories of its past impressions,
ready to be evoked-either pure and true by conception,
or any how combined by fancy. In perfect health, a
chance moment of warm recollection will call up from
this source the once familiar face transiently, but how
distinctly!
In its morbid state, the beings it projects before us are
for the most part strangers, just as the personages we
meet in our dreams are exceptionally only our living and
present acquaintance.
The most instructive case of sensorial illusions on
record, as containing the largest illustration of the phenomena, is that of Nicolai, the bookseller of Berlin.




UNREAL GHOSTS.                55
The narrative was read before the Academy-of Sciences
at Berlin, in 1799. Its substance runs thus:-Nicolai
had met with some family troubles, which muchbdisturbed
him. Then, on the first of January, 1791, there stood
before him, at the distance of ten paces, the ghost of his
eldest son. He pointed at it, directing his wife to look.
She saw it not, and tried to convince Nicolai that it was
an illusion. In a quarter of an hour it vanished. In
the afternoon, at four o'clock, it came again. Nicolai
was alone. He went to his wife's room, the ghost followed him. About six other apparitions joined the first,
and they walked about among each other. After some
days the apparition of his son stayed away; but its place
was filled with the figures of a number of persons, some
known, some unknown to Nicolai —some of dead, others
of living persons. The known ones represented distant
acquaintances only. The figures of none of Nicolai's
habitual friends were there.  The appearances were
almost always human; occasionally a man on horseback,
and birds, and dogs, would present themselves. The
apparitions came mostly after dinner, at the commencement of digestion; they were just like real persons, the
colouring a thought fainter. The apparitions were equally
distinct whether Nicolai was alone or in society, in the
dark as by day; in his own house or in those of others;
but in the latter case they were less frequent, and they
very seldom made their appearance in the streets. During
the first eight days they seemed to take very little notice
of one another, but walked about like people at a fair,
only here and there communing with each other. They
took no notice of Nicolai, or of the remarks he addressed
regarding them to his wife and physician. No effort of




56'               UNREAL GHIOSTS.
his would dismiss them, or bring an absent one back.
When, he shut. his- eyes, they sometimes disappeared,
sometimes remained; when he opened his eyes, they were
there as- before., After a week they became more numerous, and began to converse.  They conversed with one
another first, and then addressed him. Their remarks
were short and unconnected, but sensible and civil. His
acquaintances inquired after his health, and expressed
sympathy with him, and spoke in terms comforting him.
The apparitions were most conversable when he was alone;
nevertheless, they mingled in the conversation when
others were by, and- their voices had the same sound as
those of real persons,  The illusion went on thus from
the 24th of February to the 20th of April; so that Nicolai, who was in good bodily health,. had time to:be come
tranquillized about the nature of his visiters, and: to observe them at his ease. At last. they rather amused him;
then the doctors thought of an efficient plan of treatment.
They prescribed leeches; and then followed the' " denouement" of this interesting representation. The apparitions
became pale, and vanished. On the 20th of April, at the
time of applying the leeches, Nicolai's room was full of
figures moving about among each other. They first began
to have a less lively motion; shortly afterwards their
colours became paler, in another half hour paler still,
though the forms still remained. About seven o'clock
in the evening the- figures had become colourless, and they
moved scarcely at all; but their outline was still tolerably
perfect.  Gradually that became less and less defined;
at last they disappeared, breaking into air, fragments
only remaining, which at last all vanished. By eight
o'clock all were gone, and Nicolai subsequently saw no
more of them.




UNREAL GHOSTS.                   57
In general, as in Wicolhi's case, the sight is the sense
at first and alone affected.  Illusions of the hearing, if
they occur, follow later.  In some most extraordinary
c-gses, I have observed that the touch has likewise participated in the affection; the following is an instance:Herr von Baczko, already subject to visual.hallucina_
tions of a diseased nervous system, his right side weak
with palsy, his right eye blind, and the vision of the left
imperfect,- was engaged one evening shortly after the
battle of Jena, as he tells in his autobiography, in translating a pamphlet into Polish, when he felt a poke in his.loins.  I-Ie looked round, and found that it proceeded
from a Negro or Egyptian boy, seemingly about twelve
years of age.  Although he was persuaded the whole was.n illusion, he thought it best to knock the apparition
down, when he felt that it offered gi sensible resistance.,The Ntegro then attacked him on the other side, and gave
his left arm a particularly disagreeable twist, when Baczko
again pushed him off.  The Negro continued to visit him
constantly during four months, preserving the same appeprance, and rempining tangible; then he came seldompr; and, finally  -ppearing as a brown-coloured apparition with an owl's head, he took his leave.
Senrsoria lillusions, technically speaking, Ae not mental
delusions; or they become so only when they are believed
to be realities.  So sensorial illusions are not insanity,
neither do they menace that disorder: they are not its
customary precursors.  Nevertheless, they may accompany the first outbreak of madness; and they occur much
mor.e frequently in lunatics than in persons of sound mind.
In insanity they are firmly believed in by the patient,
whose delusions they may.either suggest or be shaped by.
- 6




58                UNIEAL GHOSTS.
In insanity, illusions of the hearing often occur alone,
which is comparatively rare in sane people.
The objects of visual illusions are commonly men and
women; but animals, and even inanimate objects, sometimes constitute them. A lady whose sight was failing
her had long visions every day of rows of buildings,
houses, and parks, and such like. The subjects of visual
illusions are generally perfectly trivial, like the events
of a common dream. But, though susceptible of change,
their custom is to recur with much the same character
daily. One patient could at will summon the apparition
of an acquaintance to join the rest; but, once there, he
could not get rid of him.
Sometimes it happens that sensorial illusions are in accordance with a congenial train of thought-for instance,
with peculiar impressions referring to religion. They
are then very liable to be construed by the patient into
realities, and to materially influence his conversation and
conduct. He remains, no doubt, strictly sane in the
midst of these delusions. But he is apt not to be thought
so; or, to use a figure, the world's opinion of such a person becomes a polar force, and society is divided into his
admiring followers and those who think him a lunatic.
Such was, and remains, the fate of Schwedenborg.
Schwedenborg, the son of a Swedish clergyman of the
name of Schwedberg, ennobled as Schwedenborg, was up
to the year 1743, which was the fifty-fourth of his age,,
an ordinary man of the world, distinguished only in literature, having written many volumes on philosophy and
science, and being professor in the Mineralogical School,
where he was much respected. On a sudden, in the year
1743, he -believed himself to have got into a commerce
with the world of spirits, which so fully took possession




UNREAL GHOSTS.                59
of his thoughts, that he not only published their revelations,
but was in the habit of detailing their daily chat with him.
Thus he says, " I had a conversation the other day on that
very point with the apostle Paul," or with Luther, or some
other dead person.  Schwedenborg continued in what he
believed to be constant communion with spirits till his
death, in 1772. He was, without doubt, in the fullest
degree convinced of the reality of his spiritual commerce.
So in a letter to the Wurtemburg Prelate, Oetinger, dated
November 11, 1766, he uses the following words: "If I
have spoken with the apostles? To this I answer, I conversed with St. Paul during a whole year, particularly
with reference to the text, Romans iii. 28.  I have three
times conversed with St. John, once with Moses, and a
hundred times with Luther, who allowed that it was against
the warning of an angel that he professed fidem solam,
and that he stood alone upon the separation from the Pope.
With angels, finally, have I these twenty years conversed,
and converse daily."
Of the angels, he says, "They have human forms, the
appearance of men, as I have a thousand times seen; for
I have spoken with them as a man with other men-often
with several together-and I have seen nothing in the
least to distinguish them from other men." They had, in
fact, exactly the same appearance as Nicolai's visiters.
"Lest any one should call this an illusion, or imaginary
perception, it is to be understood that I am accustomed
to see them when myself perfectly wide awake, and in
full exercise of my observation. The speech of an angel,
or of a spirit, sounds like and as loud as that of a man;
but it is not heard by the bystanders. The reason is,
that the speech of an angel, or a spirit, finds entrance first
into a man's thoughts, and reaches his organs of hearing




i60'              UNREAL GHOSTS.
from within." A wonderful instance this last reason how
it is possible cum ratione insanire; he analyzes the illusion perfectly, even when he is most deceived by it.
"The angels who converse with men speak not in their
own language, but in the language of the country; and
likewise in other languages which are known to a man, not
in languages which he does not understand." Schwedenborg here interrupted the angels, and, to explain the
matter, observed that they most likely appeared to speak
his mother tongue, because, in fact, it was not they who
spoke, but himself after their suggestions. The angels would
not allow this, and went away at the close of the conversation unpersuaded.
The following fiction is very fine: "When approaching,
the angels often appear like a ball of light; and they
travel in companies so grouped together-they are allowed so to unite by the Lord-that they may act as one
being, and share each other's ideas and knowledge; and
in this form'they bound through the universe, from planet
to planet."
A still more interesting example of the influence of
sensorial illusions on human conduct is furnished by the
touching history of Joan of Arc.
"It is now seven years ago," so spoke before her
judges the simple but high-minded maiden-" it was a summer day, towards the middle hour, I was about thirteen
years old, and was in my father's garden, that I heard for
the first time, on my right hand, towards the church, a voice,
and there stood a figure in a bright radiance before my
eyes. It had the appearance and look of a right good
and virtuous man, bore wings, was surrounded with light
on all sides, and by the angels of heaven.  It was the
archangel Michael. The voice seemed to me to conm



UNREAL GHOSTS.                61
mand respect; but I was yet a child, and was frightened
at the figure, and doubted very much whether it were the
archangel. I saw him and the angels as distinctly before
my eyes as I now see you, my judges."  With words of
encouragement the archangel announced to her that God
had taken pity upon France, and that she must hasten to
the assistance of the King. At the same time he promised her that St. Catharine and St. Margaret would
shortly visit her: he told her that she should do what
they commanded her, because they were sent by God to
guide and conduct her. "Upon this," continued Joan,
" St. Catharine and St. Margaret appeared to me, as the
archangel had foretold. They ordered me to get ready
to go to Robert de Beaudricourt, the King's captain. He
would several times refuse me, but at last would consent,
and give me people who would conduct me to the King.
Then should I raise the siege of Orleans. I replied to
them that I was a poor child, who understood nothing
about riding on horseback and making war. They said
I should carry my banner with courage; God would help
me, and win back for my king his entire kingdom. As
soon as I knew," continued Joan, "that I was to proceed
on this errand, I avoided as much as I could taking part
in the sports and amusements of my young companions."
"So have the saints conducted me during seven years,
and have given me support and assistance in all my need
and labours; and now at present," said she to her judges,
"no day goes by but they come to see me."  "I seldom
see the saints that they are not surrounded with a halo
of light; they wear rich and precious crowns, as it is
reasonable they should. I see them always under the
same forms, and have never found in their discourse any
discrepancies. I know how to distinguish one from the
6.*




62                UNREAL GHOSTS.
other, and distinguish them as well by the dsoufnd o'f their
voices as by their salutation.  They come often without
my calling upon them. But when they do not come, I
pray to the Lord that he will send them to me; and neveri
have I needed them but'they have visited me."
Such is part of the defence of the heroic Joan of Arc,
who was taken prisoner by the D uke of Burgundy on'thi
23d of May, 1430-sold by him for a large sum to the
English, and by them put on her trial as a heretic, idolatress, and magician-condemned, and finally burned alive
on the 30th of May, 1431!
Her innocence, simplicity, and'courage incense:one
sadly against her judges; but it is likely there were at
that time many good aend'snsible persons whio aipproveed
of her sentence, and never suspected its cruelty -and injustice.  Making allowance for the ignorance and barbar'ity of the age, her treatment was, perhaps, not worse
than that of Abd-el-Kader now. Her visions-they were
palpably the productions of her own fancy, the figures
of saints and angels, which she had seen in missals, projected before her mental sight; and their cause the instinctive workings, unknown to herself, of her young highcouraged and enthusiastic heart, shaping its suggestions
into holy prophesyings —the leading facts of which her
resolute will realized, While their actual discrepancies with
subsequent events she pardonably forgot.*
I will present yet another and less pleasing picture,
where the subject of sensorial illusions was of infirm mind,
and they struck upon the insane chord, and reason jangled
harshly out of tune.  It would be a curious question
whether such a sensorial illusion as overthrew the young
* I cannot deny that another principle, afterwards to be explained,
may have been additionally in operation in this interesting case.




UNREAL GHOSTS.                63
seer's judgment in the following case, could have occurred
to'a mind previously sane; whether, for instance, it could
have occurred to Sechwedenborg, -and, in that event, hoW
he would have dealt with it.
Arnold (a German writer) relates, in his Ohistory of the
church and of heresy, how there  ras'a yokung ~n'an in
Ksnigsberg, well educated, the naotural -son of a p'riest,
who lad the impression that -he wa~s met ne'ar a    erucifiK
on the wayside by eeven a;ngels, Who revealed to him that
he was to represent God the FFather on earth, to drive
all'evil ouit of the world, &;c. The'poo'r fellowv, after pondering upon this illusion a long tim'e, issued a circular,
b'eglnning thus:
"We John, Albrecht, Adelgreif, Syrdos, Amata, Kanema'ta, Kilkis, Mataldis, Schmailkilimiun-dis, Sabranfdis,
Elioris, Hyperarch-High-priest and Emperor, Prnice; of
Peace of tBhe whole' world, llyperarch-King of the holy
kingdom of Heaven, Judge of the living and of the dead,
God and Father, in whose divinity Christ will come ot
the last'day'to judge'the'world, Lord of all lords, Kinig
of;all kings," &c.
He was thereupon tihrown into'prison at sK6nigsberg,
where every means were u'sed by the clergy to reclaim
him from these blasphemoius and heretical notions.  To
all their entreaties, however, he listened only with a smile
of pity-"'that they should think of reclaiming God the
Father." He was thien'put to the torture, and as What he
endured made no alteration in his convictions, he was condemned to have his tongube torn out with red-hot tongs, to
be cut in four quarters, and'then burned under the gallows. IHe wept bitterly, not at his own fate, but that
they should pronounce such a sentence on the Deity.
The executioner-was touched with pity, and implored him




64                UNREAL GHOSTS.
to make a final recantation. But he persisted that he
was God the Father, whether they pulled his tongue out
by the roots or not; and so he was executed!
From the preceding forcible illustrations of the working of sensorial illusions on individual minds, it is to descend a little in interest to trace their ministry in giving
rise to the rickety forms of popular superstition. However, the material may be the same, whether it be cast for
the commemoration of a striking event or coined for vulgar currency. And here is a piece of the latter description, with the recommendation of being at least fresh
from the mint, and spic-and-span new-an instance of
superstition surviving in England in the middle of the
nineteenth century.
A young gentleman, who has recently left Oxford, told
me that he was one evening at a supper-party in college,
when they were joined by a common friend on his return
from hunting. They expected him, but were struck with
his appearance. He was pale and agitated. On questioning him, they learned the cause. During the latter
part of his ride home, he had been accompanied by a
horseman, who kept exact pace with him, the rider and
horse being close fac-similes of himself and the steed he
rode, even to the copy of a new fangled bit which he
sported that day for the first time. He had, in fact, seen
his "double" or "Fetch," and it had shaken his nerves
pretty considerably. His friends advised him to consult the
college-tutor, who failed not to give him some good advice,
and hoped the warning would not be thrown away. My
informant, who thought the whole matter very serious, and
was inclined to believe the unearthly visit to have been
no idle one, added that it had made the ghost-seer, for
the time at least, a wiser and better man.




UNREAL GHOSTS.                65
Such a visionary duplicate of one's-self-one's fetchis a not unfrequent form of sensorial illusion. In more
ignorant days the appearance of a fetch excited much apprehension. It was supposed to menace death or serious
calamity to its original. Properly viewed, unless it proceed from hard work and overstrained thought, (from
which you can desist,) it indicates something wrong in
your physical health, and its warning goes no further
than to consult a doctor, to learni "what rhubarb, senna,
or what purgative drug will drive the spectre hence."
The efficiency of such means was shown in the case of
Nicolai. Yet in this case, I may remark, the originating
cause of the attack had been anxiety about the very son
whose apparition was the first of the throng to visit him.
Had the illusion continued limited to the figure of the
son, it would have been more questionable what art could
do towards dismissing it. At all events, in such a case,
the first thing is to remove the perilous stuff that weighs
upon the mind. So the personage whose words I have
been using was doubtless right, in his own case, to'throw
physic to the dogs."
In the tragedy of Macbeth, sensorial illusions are made
to play their part With curious physiological correctness.
The mind of Macbeth is worh by the conflict between
ambition and duty. At last his better resolves give way;
and his excited fancy projects before him the fetch of his
own dagger, which marshals him the way that he shall
go. The spectator is thus artistically prepared for the
further working of the same infirmity in the apparition of
Banquo, Which, unseen by his guests, is visible only to the
conscience-stricken murderer. With a scientific precision
no less admirable, the partner of his guilt-a womanis made to have attacks of trance, (to whtich women aie




66                UNREAL GHOSTS.
more liable than men,) caused by her disturbed mind; and
in her trance the exact physiological character of one
form of that disorder is portrayed-she enacts a dream,
which is the essence of somnambulism.
One almost doubts whether Shakspeare was aware of
the philosophic truth displayed in these master-strokes of
his own art. The apparitions conjured up in the witch
scenes of the same play, and the ghost in ilamlet, are
moulded on the pattern of vulgar superstition. He employs indifferently the baser metal and the truthful inspirations of his own genius-realizing Shelley's strange
figure of
" a poet hidden
In the light of thought."
So they say the sun is himself dark as a planet, and his
atmosphere alone the source of light, through the gaps
in which his common earth is seen. I am tempted-but
it would be idle, and I refrain —to quote an expression
or two, or a passage, from Shakspeare, exemplifying his
wonderful turn for approximating to truths of which he
must have been ignorant-where lines of admired and
unaccountable beauty have unexpectedly acquired lucidity
and appositeness through modern science. While, to make
a quaint comparison, his great contemporary, Bacon, employed the lamp of his imagination to illuminate the paths
to the discovery of truth, Shakspeare would, with random
intuition, seize on the undiscovered truths themselves,
and use them to vivify the conceptions of his fancy.
Let me now turn to explain a ghost of a more positive
description-the churchyard ghost. The ghost will perhaps exclaim against so trivial a title, and one so unjust
in reference to old superstition; but it will be seen he
deserves no better. In popular story he had a higher




UNREAL GHOSTS.                 67
office; his duty was to watch the body over which church
rites had not been performed, that had been rudely inearthed after violent death. As thusThere was a cottage in a village I could name to which
a bad report attached. More than one who had slept in
it had seen, at midnight, the radiant apparition of a little
child standing on the hearth-stone. At length suspicion
was awakened. The hearth-stone was raised, and there
were found buried beneath it the remains of an infant.
A story was now divulged how the last tenant and a female of the village had abruptly quitted the neighbourhood. The ghost was real and significant enough.
But here is a still better instance from a trustworthy
German work, P. Kieffer's Archives. The narrative was
communicated by Herr Ehrman of Strasburg, son-in-law
of the well-known writer Pfeffel, from whom he received
it.
The ghost-seer was a young candidate for orders,
eighteen years of age, of the name of Billing. He was
known to have very excitable nerves, had already experienced sensorial illusions, and was particularly sensitive
to the presence of human remains, which made him tremble and shudder in all his limbs. Pfeffel, being blind, was
accustomed to take the arm of this young man, and they
walked thus together in Pfeffel's garden, near Colmar.
At one spot in the garden, Pfeffel remarked that his companion's arm gave a sudden start, as if he had received an
electric shock. Being asked what was the matter, Billing
replied, "Nothing."  But on their going over the same
spot again, the same effect recurred. The young man
being pressed to explain the cause of his disturbance,
avowed that it arose from a peculiar sensation which he
always experienced when in the vicinity of human re



68                 UNREAL GHOSTS.
mains; that it was his impression a human body, must be
interred there; but that, if Pfeffel would return with him
at night, he should be able to speak with greater confidence. Accordingly they went together to the garden
when it was dark, and as they approached the spot, Billing observed a faint light over it. At ten paces from it
he stopped, and would go no farther, for he saw hovering
over it, or self-supported in the air-its feet only a few
inches from the ground-a luminous female figure, nearly
five feet high, with the right arm folded on her breast,,the left hanging by her:side. When Pfeffel himself
stepped forward and placed himself about where the
figure appeared to be, Billing said it was now on his right
hand, now on his left, now behind, now before him. When
Pfeffelcut the air with his stick, it seemed as if it went
through and divided a light flame, which then united
again.  The visit, repeated the next night, in company
with some of Pfeffel's relatives, gave the same result.
They did not see any thing. Pfeffel then, unknown to the
ghost-seer, had the ground dug up, when there was found
at some depth, beneath a layer of quicklime, a human body
in progress of decomposition. The remains were removed,
and the earth carefully replaced.  Three days afterwards, Billing, from whom this whole proceeding had
been kept concealed, was again led to the spot by Pfeffel.
He walked over it now without experiencing any unusual
impression whatever.
The explanation of this mysterious phenomenon has
been but recently arrived at. The discoveries of Von Reichenbach, of which I gave a sketch in the first letter, announce the principle on which it depends. Among these
discoveries is the fact that the Od force makes itself visible as a dim light or waving flame to highly sensitive sub



UNREAL GHOSTS.                 69
jects. Such persons, in the dark, see flames issuing from
the poles of magnets and crystals. Von Reichenbach
eventually discovered that the Od force is distributed universally, although in varying quantities. But among the
causes which excite its evolution, one of the most active
is chemical decomposition. Then, happening to remember Pfeffel's ghost story, it occurred to Von Reichenbach
that what Billing had seen was possibly Od light. - To
test the soundness of this conjecture, Miss Reichel, a very
sensitive subject, was taken at night to an extensive burying-ground near Vienna, where interments take place
daily, and there are many thousand graves. The result
did not disappoint Von Reichenbach's expectations.
Whithersoever Miss Reichel turned her eyes, she saw
masses of flame. This appearance manifested itself most
about recent graves. About very old ones it was not
visible. She described the appearance as resembling less
bright flame than- fiory vapour, something between fog and
flame. In several instances the light extended four feet
in height above the ground. When Miss Reichel placed
her hand on it, it seemed to her involved in a cloud of
fire. When she stood in it, it came up to her throat.
She expressed no alarm, being accustomed to the appearance.
The mystery has thus been entirely solved; for it is
evident that the spectral character of the luminous apparition, in the two instances which I have narrated, had
been supplied by the seers themselves. So the superstition has vanished; but, as usual, it veiled a truth.
7




70                   TRUE GHOSTS.
LETTER IV.
TRUE GHosTs.-The apparitions themselves always sensorial illusions
-The truth of their communications accounted for-Zschokke's
Seer-gift described, to show the possibility of direct mental communication-Second-sight-The true relation of the mind to the
living body.
THE worst of a true ghost is, that, to be sure of his
genuineness-that is, of his veracity-one must wait the
event. He is distinguished by no sensible and positive
characteristics from the commoner herd. There is nothing in his outward appearance to raise him in your
opinion above a fetch. But even this fact is not barren.
HIis dress,-it is in the ordinary mode of the time, in nothing overdone.  To be dressed thus does credit to his
taste, as to be dressed at all evinces his sense of propriety; but alas! the same elements convict him of objective unreality. Whence come that aerial coat and
waistcoat, whence those visionary trousers?-alas! they
can only have issued from the wardrobe in the seer's
fancy.  And, like his dress, the wearer is imaginary, a
mere sensorial illusion, without a shadow of externality;
he is not more substantial than a dream.
But dreams have differences of quality no less than
ghosts.  All do not come through the ivory gate. Some
are true and significant enough. See, there glides one
skulking assassin-like into the shade,-he not long since
killed his man; " Hilloa, ill-favoured Dream! come hither
and give an account of yourself." (Enter Dream.)
A Scottish gentleman and his wife were travelling four
or five years ago in Switzerland.  There travelled with




-TRUE GHOSTS.                71
them a third party, an intimate friend, a lady, who some
time before had been the object of a deep attachment on
the part of a foreigner, a Frenchman.  Well, she would
have nothing to say to him on the topic uppermost in his
mind, but she gave him a good deal of serious advice,
which she probably thought he wanted; and she ultimately
promoted, or was a cognizant party to, his union with a
lady whom she likewise knew. The so-married couple
were now in America; and the lady occasionally heard
from them, and had every reason to believe they were
both in perfect health. One morning, on their meeting
at breakfast, she told her companions that she had had a
very impressive dream the night before, which had recurred twice. The scene was a room in which lay a coffin; near to it stood her ex-lover in a luminous transfigured resplendent state; his wife was by, looking much
as usual. The dream had caused the lady some misgivings, but her companions exhorted her to view it as a
trick of her fancy, and she was half persuaded so to do.
The dream, however, was right, notwithstanding. In
process of time, letters arrived announcing the death,
after a short illness, of the French gentleman, within the
twenty-four hours in which the vision appeared. (Sensation-applause, followed by cries of Shame; the Dream,
hurrying away, is hurt by the horn of the gate.)
It would be difficult to persuade the lady who dreamed
this dream that there was no connexion between it and
the event it foreshadowed in her mind beyond the accidental coincidence of time. Nevertheless, to this conclusion an indifferent auditor would probably come; and
upon the following reasoning: We sometimes dream of
the death of an absent friend when he is alive and in
health, just as we sometimes dream that long-lost friends




72                 TRUE GHOSTS.
are alive. And it is quite possible-nay, likely to occur
in the chapter of accidents-nay, certain to turn up now
and then among the dreams of millions during centuries
-that a fortuitous dream, seemingly referring to the fact,
should be coincident in point of time with the death of
a distant friend. To explain one such case, we need look
no further than to the operation of chance. Why, then,
ever seek another principle?
Let us examine a parallel ghost-story. A gentleman
has a relative in India, healthy, of good constitution, in
the civil service, prosperous: he has no cause for anxiety,
and entertains none, respecting his relative. But one
day he sees his ghost. In due course letters arrive mentioning the occurrence of his relative's death on that
day. The case is more remarkable than the last; for the
ghost-seer never in his life but that once experienced a
sensorial illusion. Still, it is evidently possible that the
two events were, through chance alone, coincident in time.
And if in this case, why not in another?
Then let me adduce a more remarkable instance: A
late General Wynyard, and the late General Sir John
Sherbroke, when young men, were serving in Canada.
One day —it was daylight-Mr. Wynyard and Mr. Sherbroke both saw pass through the' room where they sat a
figure, which Mr. Wynyard recognised as a brother then
far away. One of the two walked to the door, and
looked out upon the landing-place, but the stranger was
not there; and a servant who was on the stairs had seen
nobody pass out. In time -news arrived that Mr. Wynyard's brother had died about the time of the visit of the
apparition.
I have had opportunities of inquiring of two near relations of this General Wynyard upon what evidence the




TRUE GHOSTS.:73
above story rests.  They told me they had each heard it
from his own mouth. More recently, a gentleman, whose
accuracy of recollection exceeds that of most people, has
told me that he had heard the late Sir John Sherbroke,
the other party in the ghost-story, tell it much in the
same way at a dinner-table.
One does not feel as comfortably satisfied that the complicated coincidences in this tale admit of being referred
to chance. The odds are enormous against two persons
— young men in perfect health, neither of whom before
or after this event experienced a sensorial illusion-being
the subjects at the same moment of one, their common
and only one, which concurred in point of time with- an
event that it foreshadowed, unless there were some real
connexion between the event and the double apparition.
And we feel a nascent inclination to inquire whetherin case such instances as the present occasionally recur,
and instances like the two before narrated become, when
looked for, startingly multiplied-there exists any known
mental or physical principle, by the help of which they
may be explained into natural phenomena.
The more we look after facts of the above nature, the
more urgent becomes the want of such a means of explanation. In every family circle, in every party of men
accidentally brought together, you will be sure to hear,
if the conversation fall on ghosts and dreams, one or
more instances-which the narrators represent as well
authenticated of intimations of the deaths of absent
persons conveyed to friends either through an apparition
or a dream, or an equivalent unaccountable presentiment.
A gentleman-himself of distinguished ability-told me
that when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, he
was secretary to a ghost society formed in sportive earnest
7*




74                 TRUE GHOSTS.
by some of the cleverest young men of one of the best
modern periods of the university. Orle of the results of
their labours was the collection of about a dozen stories
of the above description resting upon good evidence.
Then there transpire occasionally cases with more curious features still. Not only is the general intimation
of an event given, but minute particulars attending it are
figured in the dream, or communicated by the ghost.
Such tales have sometimes been authenticated in courts
of justice. Here is one out of last week's newspaper:"In a Durham paper of last week, there was an account of the disappearance of Mr. Smith, gardener to Sir
Clifford Constable, who, it was supposed, had fallen into
the river Tees, his hat and stick having been found near
the water-side. From that time up to Friday last the
river had been dragged every day; but every effort so
made to find the body proved ineffectual. On the night
of Thursday, however, a person named Awde, residing
at little Newsham, a small village about four miles from
Wycliff, dreamt that Smith was laid under the ledge of a
certain rock, about three hundred yards below Whorlton
Bridge, and that his right arm was broken. Awde got up
early on Friday, and his dream had such an effect upon
him that he determined to go and search the river. He
accordingly started off for that purpose, without mentioning the matter, being afraid that he would be laughed
at by his neighbours. Nevertheless, on his arriving at
the boat-house, he disclosed his object on the man asking
him for what purpose he required the boat. He rowed
to the spot he had seen in his dream; and there, strange
to say, upon the very first trial that he made with his
boat-hook, he pulled up the body of the unfortunate man,
with his right arm actually broken." —(ierald, Decem.
ber, 1848.)




TRUE GHOSTS.                 75
Reviewing all that I have advanced, it appears to me
that there are two desiderata which pressingly require to
be now supplied. First, some one should take the pains
of authenticating at the time, and putting on permanent
record, stories like the above, to be at the service of future speculators. But, secondly, so numerous and well
attested are those already current, that the bringing forward into light of some principle by which they may be
shown to be natural events is now peremptorily called for.
To lead to the supply of the second desideratum, I proceed to mention a physical phenomenon, which from time
to time occurred to the late historian and novelist, Heinrich Zschokke. It is described by him in a sort of autobiography, entitled Selbstschau, which he published a few
years ago. It was only last year that Zschokke died,
having attained a good old age. Early brought into
public life in the troubles of Switzerland, and afterwards
maintaining his place in public consideration by his numerous writings, he was personally widely known: he was
universally esteemed a man of strict veracity and integrity. He writes thus of himself:"If the reception of so many visiters was sometimes
troublesome, it repaid itself occasionally either by making
me acquainted with remarkable personages, or by bringing out a wonderful sort of seer-gift, which I called my
inward vision, and which has always remained an enigma
to me. I am almost afraid to say a word upon this sub.
ject; not for fear of the imputation of being superstitious,
but lest I should encourage that disposition in others;
and yet it forms a contribution to psychology. So to
confess.
" It is acknowledged that the judgment which we form
of strangers, on first meeting them, is frequently more




76                  TREIt GHOSTS.
correct than that which we adopt upon a longer atcquaintance with them. The first impression which, through
an instinct of the soul, attracts one towards, or repels
one from, another, becomes, after a time, more dim, and
is weakened, either through his appearing other than at
first, or through our becoming accustomed to him. People speak, too, in reference to such cases of involuntary
sympathies and aversions, and attach a special certainty
to such manifestations in children, in whom knowledge
of mankind by experience is wanting. Others, again,
are incredulous, and attribute all to physiognomical skill.
But of myself.
"It has happened to me occasionally, at the first meeting with a total stranger, when I have been listening in
silence to his conversation, that his past life, up to the
present moment, with many minute circumstances belonging to one or other particular scene in it, has come
across me like a dream, but distinctly, entirely, involuntarily, and unsought, occupying in duration a few minutes.
During this period I am usually so plunged into the representation of the stranger's life, that at last I neither
continue to see distinctly his face, on which I was idly
speculating, nor to hear intelligently his voice, which at
first I was using as a commentary to the text of his physiognomy. For a long time I was disposed to consider
these fleeting visions as a trick of the fancy; the more
so that my dream-vision displayed to me the dress and
movements of the actors, the appearance of the room,
the furniture, and other accidents of the scene; till, on
one occasion, in a gamesome mood, I narrated to my family the secret history of a sempstress who had just before quitted the room. I had never seen the person before.  Nevertheless the hearers were astonished, and




TRUE GHOSTS.                 77
laughed, and would not be persuaded but that I had a
previous acquaintance with the former life of the person,
inasmuch as what I had stated was perfectly true. I was
not less astonished to find that my dream-vision agreed
with reality.  I then gave more attention to the subject,
and, as often as propriety allowed of it, I related to those
whose lives had so passed before me the substance of my
dream-vision, to obtain from them its contradiction or
confirmation. On every occasion its confirmation followed, not without amazement on the part of those who
gave it.
"Least of all could I myself give faith to these conjuring tricks of my mind. Every time that I described
to any one my dream-vision respecting him, I confidently
expected him to answer it was not so. A secret thrill
always came over me when the listener replied,' It happened as you say;' or when, before he spoke, his astonishment betrayed that I was not wrong. Instead of recording many instances, I will give one which, at the time,
made a strong impression upon me.
" On a fair day, I went into the town of Waldshut, accompanied by two young foresters who are still alive. It
was evening, and, tired with our walk, we went into an
inn called the Vine. We took our supper with a numerous company at the public table; when it happened that
they made themselves merry over the peculiarities and
simplicity of the Swiss, in connexion with the belief in
Mesmerism, Lavater's physiognomical system, and the
like.  One of my companions, whose national pride was
touched by their raillery, begged me to make some reply,
particularly in answer to a young man of superior appearance, who sat opposite, and had indulged in unrestrained ridicule. It happened that the events of this




78                 TRUE GHOSTS.
very person's life had just previously passed before my
mind. I turned to him with the question, whether he
would reply to me with truth and candour, if I narrated
to him the most secret passages of his history, he being
as little known to me as I to him? That would, I suggested, go something beyond Lavater's physiognomical
skill. He promised, if I told the truth, to admit it openly.
Then I narrated the events with which my dream-vision
had furnished me, and the table learnt the history of the
young tradesman's life, of his school years, his peccadilloes, and, finally, of a little act of roguery committed by
him on the strong box of his employer. I described the
uninhabited room with its white walls, where, to the right
of the brown door, there had stood upon the table the
small black money-chest, &c. A dead silence reigned in
the company during this recital, interrupted only when
I occasionally asked if I spoke the truth. The man, much
struck, admitted the correctness of each circumstanceeven, which I could not expect, of the last. Touched
with his frankness, I reached my hand to him across the
table, and closed my narrative. He asked my name,
which I gave him. We sat up late in the night conversing.
He may be alive yet.
"'Now I can well imagine how a lively imagination
could picture, romance-fashion, from the obvious character of a person, how he would conduct himself under given
circumstances. But whence came to me the involuntary
knowledge of accessory details, which were without any
sort of interest, and respected people who for the most
part were utterly indifferent to me, with whom I neither
had, nor wished to have, the slightest association? Or
was it in each case mere coincidence? Or had the listener, to whom I described his history, each time other




TRUE GHOSTS.                   79
images in his mind than the accessory ones of my story,
but, in surprise at the essential resemblance of my story
to the truth, lost sight of the points of difference? Yet
I have, in consideration of this possible source of error,
several times taken pains to describe the most trivial circumstances that my dream-vision has shown me.
" Not another word about this strange seer-gift, which
I can aver was of no use to me in a single instance, which
manifested itself occasionally only, and quite independently of any volition, and often in relation to persons
in whose history I took not the slightest interest. Nor
am I the only one in possession of this faculty.  In a
journey with two of my sons, I fell in with an old Tyrolese who travelled about, selling lemons and oranges, at
the inn at Unterhauerstein in one of the Jura passes.
He fixed his eyes for some time upon me, joined in our
conversation, observed that though I did not know him
he knew me, and began to describe my acts and deeds, to
the no little amusement of the peasants, and astonishment
of my children, whom it interested to learn that another
possessed the same gift as their father. How the old
lemon-merchant acquired his knowledge he was not able
to explain to himself nor to me.  But he seemed to attach
great importance to his hidden wisdom."*
In the newness of such knowledge, it is worth while to
note separately each of the particulars which attended
the manifestation of this strange mental faculty, with his
account of which Zschokke has enriched psychology.
1. Then, after the power of looking up the entire recollections of another, through some other channel than
* Zschokke told a friend of mine at Frankfort, in 1847, shortly before his death, which took place at an advanced age, that in the
latter years of.his life his seer-gift had never manifested itself.




80                 TRUE GHOSTS.
ordinary inquiry and observation-and as it seemed directly-we may note,2. The rapidity, minuteness, and precision, which characterized the act of inspection.
3. The feeling attending it of becoming absent or lost
to what was going on around.
4. Its involuntariness and unexpectedness.
5. Its being practicable on some only; and
6. Those entire strangers, and at their first interview
with the seer.
At present I shall avail myself of the first broad fact
alone, remarking, however, of the conditions observed in
it, that they clearly indicate the existence of a law on
which the phenomenon depended. And I shall assume
it to be proved by the above crucial instance, that the
mind, or soul, of one human being can be brought, in the
natural course of things, and under physiological laws
hereafter to be determined, into immediate relation with
the mind of another living person.
If this principle be admitted, it is adequate to explain
a11 the puzzling phenomena of real ghosts and of true
dreams. For example, the ghostly and intersomnial communications, with which we have as yet dealt, have been
announcements of the deaths of absent parties. Suppose
our new principle brought into play; the soul of the dying
person is to be supposed to have come into direct communication with the mind of his friend, with the effect of suggesting his present condition. If the seer be dreaming,
the suggestion shapes a corresponding dream; if he be
awake, it originates a sensorial illusion. To speak figuratively, merely figuratively, in reference to the circulation of this partial mental obituary, I will suppose that
the death of a human being throws a sort of gleam through




TRUE G.HOSTS.                 81
the spiritual world, which may now and then touch with
light some fittingly disposed object; or even two simultaneously, if chance have placed them in the right relation;-as the twin-spires of a cathedral may be momentarily illuminated by some far-off flash, which does not
break the gloom upon the roofs below.
The same principle is applicable to the explanation of
the vampyr visit. The soul of the buried man is to be
supposed to be brought into communication with his
friend's mind. Thence follows, as a sensorial illusion,
the apparition of the buried man. Perhaps the visit may
have been an instinctive effort to draw the attention of
his friend to his living grave. I beg to suggest that it
would not be an act of superstition now, but of ordinary
humane precaution, if one dreamed pertinaciously of a
recently buried acquaintance, or saw his ghost, to take
immediate steps to have the state of the body ascertained.
It is not my intention, in the present letter, to push
the application of this principle further. With slight
modifications it might be brought to explain several other
wonderful stories, which we usually neglect just from not
seeing how to explain them. One class of these instances
is what was termed second-sight.  The belief in it formerly prevailed in Scotland, and in the whole of the north
of Europe. But the faculty, if it ever existed, seems to
be disappearing now. However, it is difficult, one has
heard so many examples of the correctness of its warnings
and anticipations, not to believe that it once really manifested itself.
A much respected Scottish lady, not unknown in literature, told me very recently how a friend of her mother,
whom she perfectly remembered, had been compelled to
believe in second-sight through its occurrence in one of
8




82                 TRUE GHIOSTS.
her servants. She had a cook, who was a continual annoyance to her through her possession of this gift.  On
one occasion, when the lady expected some friends, she
learned, a short time before they were to arrive, that the
culinary preparations she had ordered to honour them
had not been made. Upon her remonstrating with the
offending cook, the latter simply but doggedly assured
her that come they would not; that she knew it to a certainty; and, true enough, they did not come.  Some
accident had occurred to prevent their visit. The same
person frequently knew beforehand what her mistress's
plans were, and was as inconvenient in her kitchen as a
calculating prodigy in a counting-house. Things went
perfectly right, but the manner was irregular and provoking; so her mistress turned her away. Supposing
this story true, the phenomena look just a modification
of Zschokke's seer-gift.
A number of incidents there are turning up, for the
most part on trivial occasions, which we put aside for
fear of being thought superstitious, because as yet a natural solution is not at hand for them. Sympathy in
general, the spread of panic fears, the simultaneous occurrence of the same thoughts to two persons, the intuitive knowledge of mankind possessed by some, the magnetic fascination of others, may eventually be found to
have to do with a special and unsuspected cause. Among
anecdotes of no great conclusiveness that I have heard
narrated of this sort, I will cite two of Lord Nelson, told
by the late Sir Thomas Hardy to the late Admiral the
Hon. G. Dundas, from whom I heard them.  The first
was mentioned to exemplify Nelson's quick insight into
character. Captain Hardy was present as Nelson gave
directions to the commander of a- frigate to make sail




TRUE GHOSTS.                    83
with all. speed-to proceed to certain points, where he
was likely to fall in with the French fleet-having seen
the French, to go to a certain harbour, and there await
Lord Nelson's coming. After the commander had left
the cabin, Nelson said to Hardy, "He will go to the West
Indies, he will see the French; he will go to the harbour
I have directed him to; but he will not wait for me-he
will sail for England." The commander did so. Shortly
before the battle of Trafalgar an English frigate was in
advance, looking out for the enemy; her place in the
offing was hardly discernible. Of a sudden Nelson said
to Hardy, who was at his side, "' The Celeste," (or whatever the frigate's name was,) "the Celeste sees the
French."  Hardy had nothing to say on the matter.:" She sees the French; she'll fire a gun." Within a little
time, the boom of the signal-gun was heard.*
I am not sure that my new principle will be a general
favourite. It will be said that the cases, in which I suppose it manifested, are of too trivial a nature to justify
so novel a hypothesis. My answer is, the cases are few
and trivial only because the subject has not been attended
to. For how many centuries were the laws of electricity
preindicated by the single fact that a piece of amber,
when rubbed, would attract light bodies!  Again, the
school of physiological materialists will of course be opposed to it.  They hold that the mind is but a function
* The following anecdote has no conceivable right to be introduced on the present occasion; but I had it on the same authority,
and it is a pity it should be lost. As our fleet was bearing down
upon the enemies' line at Trafalgar, Nelson paced the quarter-deck
of the Victory with Sir Thomas Hardy- After a short silence, touching his left thigh with his remaining hand, Nelson said, "I'd give
that, Hardy, to come out of this."




84                 TRUE GHOSTS.
or product of the brain, and cannot therefore consistently
admit its separate action.  But their fundamental tenet
is unsound, even upon considering the analogies of matter
alone.
What is meant by a product? —in what does production
consist?  Let us look for instances: a metal is produced
from an ore; alcohol is produced from saccharine matter;
the bones and sinews of an animal are produced from its
food. Production, in the common signification of the
word, means the conversion of one substance into another,
weight for weight, agreeably with, or under, mechanical,
chemical, and vital laws. I speak, of course, of material
production. But the case of thought is parallel. The
products of the poet's brain are but recombinations of former ideas. Production, with him, is but a rearrangement
of the elements of thought. His food may turn into or
produce new brain; but it is the mental impressions he
has stored which turn into new imagery. To say that the
brain turns into thought, is to assert that consciousness
a nd the brain are one and the same thing, which would
be an idle abuse of language.
It is indeed true that, with the manifestation of each
thought or feeling, a corresponding decomposition of the
brain takes place. But it is equally true that, in a voltaic battery in action, each movement of electric force
developed there is attended with a waste of the metalplates which help to form it. But that waste is not converted into electric, fluid. The exact quantity of pure
zinc which disappears may be detected in the form of sulphate of zinc. The electricity was not produced, it was
only set in motion, by the chemical decomposition.  Here
is the true material analogy of the relation of the brain
to the mind. Mind, like electricity, is an impon(lerable




TRUE GHOSTS.                 85
force pervading the universe: and there happen to be
known to us certain material arrangements, through which
each may be influenced. We cannot, indeed, pursue the
analogy beyond this step. Consciousness and electricity
have nothing further in common. Their further relations
to the dissimilar material arrangements, through which
they may be excited or disturbed, are subjects of totally
distinct studies, and resolvable into laws which have no
affinity, and admit of no comparison.
It is singular how early in the history of mankind the'belief in the separate existence of the soul developed itself
as an instinct of our nature.
Timarchus, who was curious on the subject of the demon
-of Socrates, went to the cave of Trophonius to consult
the oracle about it. There, having for a short time inhaled the mephitic vapour, he felt as if he had received a
sudden blow on the head, and sank down insensible. Then
his head appeared to him to open, and to give issue to
his soul into the other world; and an imaginary being
seemed to inform him that "the part of the soul engaged
in the body, entrammelled in its organization, is the soul
as ordinarily understood; but that there is another part
or province of the soul which is the daimon. This has a,
certain control over the bodily soul, and among other
offices constitutes conscience."- "In three months," the
vision added, "you will knowrmore of this."  At the end
of three months Timarchus died.




86                    TRANCE.
LETTER V.
TRANCE.-Distinction of esoneural and exoneural mental phenomena-Abnormal relation of the mind and nervous system possible
-Insanity-Sleep-Essential nature of Trance-Its alliance with
spasmodic seizures-General characters of Trance-Enumeration
of its kinds.
THE time has now arrived for expounding the phenomena of Trance; an acquaintance with which is necessary
to enable you to understand the source and nature of the
delusions with which I have yet to deal.
You have already had glimpses of this condition.
Arnod Paole was in a trance in the cemetery of Meduegna-Timnarchus was in a trance in the cave of Trophonius.
Let me begin'by developing certain preliminary conceptions relating to the subject.
I. Common observation, the spontaneous course of our
reflections, our instinctive interpretation of nature, reveal
to us matter, motion, and intelligence, as the co-existing
phenomena of the universe. In the farthest distances of
space cognisable to our senses, we discern matter and
motion, and their subordination to intelligence. Upon
the earth's surface we discern, in the finely designed mechanism of each plant, the agency of life; and we recognise in the microcosm of each animal a living organization, fitted to be the recipient of individual consciousness,
or of personal being.
II. The intelligence which is communicated to living
beings becomes, to a great extent, dependent upon the
organization with which it is combined. Thus every men



TRANCE.                    87
tal faculty is found to have its definite seat and habitat
in the bodily frame. The principal successes of modern
physiologists have been achieved in determining with what
precise parts of the nervous system each affection of consciousness is functionally associated. Different classes of
nerves are found to be appropriated to sensation and volition; different parts of the spinal cord are proved to
minister to different offices; and of the subdivisions of
the brain, each is thought to correspond with a separate
faculty, or sentiment, or appetite.  So far the mental
forces, or operations of a living human being, may be
conceived to be essentially esoneural, (crc vEvcov.) Each
appears to have its proper and special workshop or laboratory in the nervous system.
III. But there are not wanting facts which make it
reasonable to think that our mental forces or operations
transcend occasionally and partially the limits of our corporeal frame. The phenomena adverted to in the preceding letter, in connexion with the narrative of Zschokke's
seer-gift, hardly seem to admit of explanation on any
other supposition. Nor is it a very improbable conjecture,
that phenomena of the same class form, as it were, the
complements of many ordinary esoneural operations.
Possibly in common perception the mind directly reaches
the object perceived, being excited thereto by the antecedent material impressions on our organs, and the sensations which follow. To denote mental phenomena of the
kind I am supposing, I propose the term exoneural,
(aft vEVCOV.) I venture even, following out this idea, to
conjecture further, that the Od force may somehow furnish the dynamic bridge along which our exoneural apprehension travels.
IV. The affections of consciousness would thus be in




Se~   ~~TRANCE.
part esoneural, in part exoneural, during the healthy and,normal state of our being; the esoneural part being executed in immediate connexion with its appropriate organ,
and every manifestation of it being attended with a physical change in the latter.
V. But it is conceivable, on the assumption of mind
being a separate principle from matter, that the human
soul may be capable of retaining its union with the body
-in a new, unusual, and abnormal relation. The hypothesis
is startling enough. I adopt it only from seeing no other
way of accounting for certain facts which, with the evidence of their reality, will presently be brought forward.
I -venture to suppose that the mind of a living man may
energize abnormally in two ways: first, that a much larger
share of its operations may be conducted exoneurallythat is, out of the body-than usual; secondly, that the
esoneural mental functions may be conducted within the
body in unaccustomed organs, deserting those naturally
appropriated to them. Two or three instances have been
already given, which favour, at all events, the supposition
of the possibility of such an abnormal relatidn between
the mind and the body being realized. But in most of
the instances hitherto adverted to, the normal relation
may be supposed to have remained.
VI. Thus all the ordinary phenomena of sensorial illusions at once are esoneural, and suppose the persistence
of the normal relation of mind and body. The material
organ to which the physical agencies preceding sensation
are propagated being irritated, is to be:supposed to excite
in the mind:sensuous recollections or fancies that are so
vivid as to appear realities.
VII. In mental delusions, again, there is no reason for
surmising the intervention of the abnormal relation. But




TRANCE.                    89
what are mental delusions?  They are a part of insanity.
And what is insanity?  I will summarily state its features; for some of the instances which remain for explanation are referrible to it, and because I delight to crush
a volume into a paragraph.
The phenomena of insanity may be arranged under five
lie ads: The first, the insane temperament; the next three
the fundamental forms of mental derangement; the fifth,
the paroxysmal state. The features of the insane temperament are various; some of them are incompatible
with the simultaneous presence of others. When a group
of them is present, as a change in natural character, without insanity, insanity is threatened: no form of insanity
manifests itself without the presence of some of them.
The features of the insane temperament are these: The
patient withdraws his sympathies from those around him,
is shy, reserved, cunning, suspicious, with a troubled air,
as if he felt something to be wrong, and wonders if you
see it; he is capricious, and has flaws of temper; being
talkative, he is flighty and extravagant; he is hurried in
his thoughts, and mode of speaking, and gestures; he has
fits of absence, in which he talks aloud to himself; he is
restless, and anxious for change of place. Of the elementary forms of insanity, one consists in the entertainment of mental delusions: the patient imagines himself
the Deity, or a prophet, or a monarch, or that he has become enormously wealthy; or that he is possessed by the
devil, or is persecuted by invisible beings, or is dead, or
very poor, or that he is the victim of public or private
injustice. The second form is moral perversion: the patient is depressed in spirits without a cause, perhaps to
the extent of meditating suicide; or he feels an unaccountable desire to take the lives of others; or he is iun



90                     TRANCE.
pelled to steal, or to do gratuitous mischief; or he is a
sot; or he has fits of ungovernable and dangerous rage.'The third form exhibits itself in loss of connexion of ideas,
failure of memory, loss of common intelligence, disregard
of the common decencies of life. Each of these three
elementary forms is sometimes met with alone; generally
two are combined.  Sensorial- illusions are common in
inasanity; auditory, unaccompanied by visual illusions, are
almost peculiar to it, and to the cognate affection of delirium from fever or inflanmmation of the brain.  To the
head of the paroxysmal state belongs the history of exafcerbations of insanity, of their sudden outbursts in persons of the insane temperament, of their preferential connexion with this or that antecedent condition of the patient, of their occasional periodicity.
VII. In congenital idiotcy and imbecility, the relation
of the mind and brain is normal.  Often the defective
organization is apparent through which the intelligence
is repressed. In many countries a popular belief prevails
t:hat the imbecile have -occasional glimpses of higher
knowledge.  There is no reason evident why their minds
should not be susceptible of the abnormal relation.
VIII. In sleep, the mind and brain are in the normal
relation.  But what is sleep, psychically considered?
It is best to begin by looking into the mental constituents of waking. There is then passing before us an
endless current of images and reflections, furnished from
our recollections; and suggested by our hopes and our
fears, by pursuits that interest us, or by their own inter-.associations. This current of thought is continually
being changed or modified, through impressions made
upon our senses.  It is further liable to be still more
importantly and systematically modified by the exercise




TRANCE.                    91
of the faculty of Attention. The attention operates in
a twofold manner. It enables us to detain at pleasure
any subject of thought before the mind; and, when not
on such urgent duty, it vigilantly inspects every idea
which presents itself, and reports if it be palpably unsound or of questionable tendency. To speak with
more precision, it is a power we have of controlling our
thoughts, which we drill to warn us whenever the
suggested ideas conflict with our experience or our principles.
Then of sleep.  We catch glimpses of its nature at the
moments of falling asleep and of waking. When it is
the usual time for sleep, if our attention happen to be
livelily excited, it is in vain we court sleep. When we
are striving to contend against the sense of overwhelming
fatigue, what we feel is, that we can no longer command
our attention.  Then we are lost, or are asleep.  Then
the head and body drop forwards; we have ceased to attend to the maintenance of our equilibrium. Any iteration of gentle impressions, enough to divert attention
from other objects, without arousing it, promotes sleep.
Thus we recognise as the psychical basis of sleep the
suspension of the attention.
Are any other mental faculties suspended in sleep?
Sensation and the influence of the will over the muscular
system are not; for our dreams are liable to be shaped
by what we hear. The sleeper, without waking, will turn
his head away from a bright light, will withdraw his arm
if you pinch it, will utter loud words which he dreams he
is employing. The seeming insensibility in sleep, the
apparent suspension of the influence of the will, are simply consequences of the suspension of attention.
I have, on another occasion, shown that the organs in




92                    TRANCE.
which sensations are realized, and volition energizes, are
the segments of the cranio-spinal cord in which the sentient and voluntary nerves are rooted. I think I see
now that the seat of the attention is the c medulla oblongata."  For-alas for the imperfect conceptions into
which the imperfection of language as an instrument of
thought forces us! —what is the faculty of attention,
which we have been considering almost as a separate element of mind, but the individual " ich" energizing, now
keenly noticing impressions and thoughts, now allowing
them to pass, while it looks on with lazy indifference;
now, at length, worn out and exhausted, and incapable
of further work? But this inspecting and contrasting
operation, where should it more naturally find its bureau
than at a point situated between the organs of the understanding and those of the will?-that is to say, somewhere at the junction of the spinal marrow and the brain.
Well, Magendie ascertained that just-at that region there
is a small portion of nervous matter, pressure upon which
causes immediately heavy sleep or stupor, while its destruction-for instance, the laceration of the little organ
with the point of a needle-instantaneously and irrevocably extinguishes life.* This precious link in our system
is, reasonably enough, stowed away in the securest part
of our frame-that is to say, within the head, upon the
strong central bone of the base of the skull. How came
the fancy of Shakspeare by the happy figure which seems
to adumbrate Magendie's discovery of to-day, in poetry
written three hundred years ago?
* The reader who wishes to pursue this subject farther, will find
it expounded, in connexion with a large body of collateral facts, in
my. work entitled The Nervous System and its Functions. Parker,
West Strand: 1842.




TRANCE.                       93
"Within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits
Mocking his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little hour,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceits,
As if the flesh that walls about our life
Were brass impregnable. Till, humoured thus,
He comes at last, and, with a little pin,
Bores through his castle wall-and farewell king!"
To return to our argument, Are the sentiments and
higher faculties of the mind suspended during sleep?
Certainly not, if dreaming be a part of natural sleep, as
I hold it to be. For there are some who dream always;
others, who say they seldom dream; others, who disavow
dreaming at all. But the simplest view of these three
cases is to suppose that in sleep all persons always dream,
but that all do not remember their dreams. This imputed forgetfulness is not surprising, considering the importance of the attention to memory, and that in sleep
the attention is suspended. Ordinary dreams present
one remarkable feature; nothing in them appears wonderful. We meet and converse with friends long dead;
the improbability of the event never crosses our minds.
One sees a horse galloping by, and calls after it as one's
friend-Mr. so-and-so.  We fly with agreeable facility,
and explain to an admiring circle how we manage it.
Every absurdity passes unchallenged. The attention is
off duty. It is important to remark that there is nothing
in common dreams to interfere with the purpose of sleep,
which is repose. The cares and interests of our waking
life never recur to us; or, if they do, are not recognised
as our own. The faculties are not really energizing;
9




94                    TRANCE.
their seeming exercise is sport; they are unharnessed,
and are gambolling and rolling in idle relaxation. That
is their refreshment.
The attention alone slumbers; or, through some slight
organic change, it is unlinked from the other faculties,
and they are put out of gear. This is the basis of sleep.
The faculties are all in their places; but the attention is
off duty; itself asleep, or indolently keeping watch of
time alone.
In contrast with this picture of the sleeping and
waking states, of the alternation of which our mental life
consists, I have now to hold up to view another conception, resembling it, but different, vague, imposing, of gigantic proportions, the monstrous double of the firstlike the mocking spectre of the Hartz, which yet is but
your own shadow cast by the level sunbeams on the
morning mist.
To answer to this conception, there is more than the
ideal entity made up of the different forms of trance.
For although trance may occur as a single sleep-like fit
of moderate duration, yet it more frequently recursoften periodically, dividing the night or day with common sleep or common waking; or it may be persistent
for days and weeks-in which case, if it generally maintain one character, it is yet liable to have wakings of its
own.
Then the first division of trance is into trance-sleep
and trance-waking.  In extreme cases it is easy to tell
trance-sleep from  common sleep, trance-waking from
common waking; but there are varieties with less prominent features, in which it is difficult, at first, to say
whether the patient is entranced at all.
There is, upon the whole, more alliance between sleep




TRANCE.                    95
and trance, than between waking and trance.  Or, in a
large class of cases, the patient falls into trance when;Isleep. It is a cognate phenomenon to this that the
common initiatory stage of trance is a trance-sleep.
Trance is of more frequent occurrence among the
young than among the middle-aged or old people. It
occurs more frequently among young women than among
young men. In other words, the liability to trance is in
proportion to delicacy of organization, and higher nervous
susceptibility.
But what is trance?  The question will be best
answered by exhibiting its several phases. In the mean
time, it may be laid down that the basis of trance is the
supervention of the abnormal relation of the mind and
nervous system. In almost all its forms it is easy to
show that some of the mental functions are no longer located in their pristine organs. The most ordinary
change is the departure of common sensation from the
organ of touch. Next, sight leaves the organs of vision.
To make up for these desertions, if the patient wake in
tranie, either the same senses re-appear elsewhere, or
some unaccountable mode of general perception manifests
itself.
A strict alliance exists between trance and the whole
family of spasms. Most of them are exclusively developed in connexion with it; all are liable to be combined
with it; they are all capable of being excited by the
same influences which produce trance; so they often occur
vicariously, or alternate with trance.  One kind is catalepsy; the body motionless, statue-like, but the tone of
spasm maintained low, so that you may arrange the statue in what attitude you will, and'it preserves it. A second is catochus, like the preceding, but with a higher




96                    TRANCE.
power of spasm, so that the joints are rigidly fixed; and
if you overcome one for a moment with superior strength,
being let go, it flies back to where it was. A third,
partial spasm of equal rigidity, arching the body forwards
or backwards or laterally, or fixing one limb or more.
The fourth, clonic spasm, for instance, the contortions
and convulsive struggles of epilepsy.  The fifth, an impulse to rapid and varied muscular actions, nearly
equalling convulsions in violence, but combined so as to
travesty ordinary voluntary motion; this is the dance of
St. Veitz, which took its name from an epidemic outbreak
in Germany in the thirteenth century, that was supposed
to be cured by the interposition of the saint; then persons of all classes were seized in groups in public with a
fury of kicking, shuffling, dancing together, till they
dropt. Now, the same agency is manifested either in a
violent rush, and disposition to climb with inconceivable
agility and precision; or alternately to twist the features,
roll the neck, and jerk and swing the limbs even to the
extent of dislocating them.
The causes of trance are mostly mental. Trance appears to be contagious. Viewed medically, it is seldom
directly dangerous. It is a product of over-excitability,
which time blunts.  The disposition to trance is seldom
manifested beyond a few months, or, at most, two or
three years. For epilepsy is not a form of trance; it is,
however, a mixed mental and spasmodic seizure, much allied to trance. Those who suffer from its attacks are
found to be among the most susceptible of induced
trance.
But let me again ask, what then is trance?
Trance is a peculiar mental seizure, (totally distinct
from insanity, with which again, however, it may be




TRANCE.                     97
combined,) the patient taken with which appears profoundly absorbed or rapt, and as if lost more or less completely to surrounding objects or impressions, or at all
events to the ordinary mode of perceiving them; he is
likewise more or less entirely lost to his former recollections. The mental seizures may or may not occur
simultaneously or alternately with spasmodic seizures of
any and every character.
This definition of trance conveys, I am afraid, no very
exact or distinct picture; but it is the definition of a
genus, and a genus is necessarily an abstraction. However, it gives the features essential to all the forms of
trance.  A true general notion of trance can, indeed,
only be realized by studying in detail each of the forms
it includes. These are separated by the broadest colours. In the one extreme an entranced person appears
dead, and no sign of life is recognisable in him; in the
opposite, he appears to be much as usual, and perfectly
impressible by any thing around him, so that it demands careful observation to establish that hbis not simply awake.
Then trance presents no fewer than five specific forms,
distinguished each from  the other by clear characters,
their essential identity being established by each at
times passing into either of the others.  The terms by
which I propose to designate the five primary forms
of trance are-Death-trance, Trance-coma, Initiatory
Trance, Half-waking-trance, Waking-trance.  The five,
however, admit, as I have before said, of being arranged
in two groups: the first three forms enumerated constituting varieties of trance-sleep; the two latter constituting varieties of waking-trance. The next letter will




98                  TRANCE SLEEP.
treat of the first group; the two following will treat of the
two varieties of the second.
I have observed that the causes of trance are for the
most part mental impressions; but it will be found that
certain physical influences may produce the same results.
The causes of trance, whether mental or physical, deserve again to be regarded in three lights. Either they
have operated blindly and fortuitously, or they have been
resorted to and used as agents to produce some vague
and imperfectly understood result, or they have been
skilfully and intelligently directed to bring out the exact
phenomena which have followed. It is with trance supervening in the two former ways that I alone propose
at present to deal; that is to say, with trance as it was.
imperfectly known as an agent in superstition, or as a
rare and marvellous form  of nervous disease.  Of the
third case of trance, as it may be artificially induced, I
shall afterwards and finally speak.
LETTER VI.
TRANCE-SLEEP —The phenomena of trance divided into those of
trance-sleep, and those of trance-waking-Trance-sleep presents
three forms; trance-waking two. The three forms of trancesleep described: viz., death-trance, trance-coma, simple or initiatory trance.
TRANCE, then, it appears, is a peculiar mental seizure
liable to supervene in persons of an irritable nervous
system, either after mental excitement or-in deranged
bodily health. The seizure may last for a few hours, or




TRANCE SLEEP.                 99
a few days, or for weeks, or years; and is liable to recur
at regular or irregular intervals.
Trance again, it has been observed, has phases corresponding with the sleeping and waking of our natural
state. And as natural sleep presents three varietiesthe profound and heavy sleep of extreme exhaustion, ordinary deep sleep, and the light slumber of the wakeful
and the anxious, so trance-sleep is three-fold likewise.
But as in trance every thing is magnified, the differences
between the three states are greater, and the phenomena
of each more bold and striking.
Two conditions are common, however, to every phase
of trance-sleep; these are, the occurrence of complete
insensibility, and that of vivid and coherent dreams.
The insensibility is so absolute that the most powerful
stimulants are insufficient to rouse the patient.  An
electric shock, a surgical operation, the amputation even
of a limb, are seemingly unfelt.
The dreams of trance-sleep have a character of their
own. It is to be remarked, that in the dreams of ordinary sleep the ideas are commonly an incoherent jumble;
and that, if they happen to refer to passing events, they
commonly reverse their features. The attention seems
to be slumbering. Thus Sir George Back told me, that
in the privations which he encountered in Sir John
Franklin's first expedition, when in fact he was starving,
1he uniformly dreamed of plentiful repasts. But in the
dreams of trance-sleep, on the contrary, the impressions
of the waking thoughts, the exciting ideas themselves,
which have caused the supervention of trance, are realized and carried out in a consecutive train of imaginary
action.  They are, accordingly, upon the patient's awaking, accurately remembered by him; and that with suchl




100                TRANCE SLEEP.
force and distinctness, that if he be a fanatic or superstitiously inclined, he very likely falls into the belief that
the occurrences he dreamed of actually took place in his
presence. A temperate fanatic goes no further, under
such circumstances, than to assert that he has had a vision. The term is so good a one, that it appears to me
worth retaining, in a philosophical sense, for the present
exigency. I propose to restrict the term vision to the
dreams of persons in trance-sleep.
Then of the three different forms of trance-sleep,
I. D)eath-trance.-Death-trance is the image of death.
The heart does not act; the breathing is suspended; the
body is motionless; not the slightest outward sign of
sensibility or consciousness can be detected.  The temperature of the body falls. The entranced person has
the appearance of a corpse from which life has recently
departed. The joints are commonly relaxed, and the
whole frame pliable; but it is likely that spasmodic rigidity forms an occasional adjunct of this strange condition. So the only means of knowing whether life be still
present is to wait the event. The body is to be kept in
a warm room, for the double purpose of promoting decomposition if it be dead, and of preserving in it the
vital spark if it still linger; and it should be constantly
watched. But should every recently dead body be made
the subject of similar care? it is natural to ask.  There
are, of course, many cases where such care is positively
unnecessary —such, for instance, as death following great
lesions of vital organs; and in the great majority of cases
of seeming death, the bare possibility of the persistence
of life hardly remains. Still it is better to err on the
safe side. And although in England, from the higher
tone of moral feeling, and from the respect shown to the




TRANCE SLEEP.                101
remains of the dead, the danger of Ibeing interred alive
is inconsiderable, still the danger certainly exists to a
very considerable degree of being opened alive by order
of a zealous coroner. But for the illustration of this
danger, and examples of the circumstances under which
death-trance has been known to occur, and of its usual
features, I refer the reader back to the second Letter of
this series.  Let me, however, add, that it is not improbable that, by means of persons susceptible of the influence of Od, or of persons in induced waking-trance, the
question could be at once decided whether a seeming
corpse were really dead.
In England, during the last epidemic visitation of cholera, several cases of death-trance occurred, in which the
patient, who was on the point of being buried, fortunately awoke in time to be saved. Death-trance, it is probable, is much more frequently produced by spasmodic and
nervous illness than by mental causes: it has followed
fever; it has frequently attended parturition. In this
respect it differs from other forms of trance-sleep, which
mostly, when spontaneous, supervene upon mental impressions.
The only feature of death-trance which it remains for
me to exemplify is the occurrence in it of visions. Perhaps the following may be taken as an instance:Henry Engelbrecht, as we learn in a pamphlet published by him in 1639, after an ascetic life, during which
he had experienced sensorial illusions, fell into the deepest form of trance, which he thus describes: In the year
1623, exhausted by intense mental excitement of a religious kind, and by abstinence from food, after hearing a
sermon which strongly affected him, he felt as if he could
combat no longer; so he gave in and took to his bed.




102                TRANCE SLEEP.
There he lay a week, without tasting any thing but the
bread and wine of the sacrament.  On the eighth day,
he thought he fell into the death-struggle. Death
seemed to invade him from below upwards. His body
became to his feelings rigid; his hands and feet insensible; his tongue and lips incapable of motion; gradually
his sight failed him. But he still heard the laments and
consultations of those around him. This gradual demise
lasted from mid-day till eleven at night, when he heard
the watchmen. Then he wholly lost sensibility to outward impressions. But an elaborate vision of immense
detail began; the theme of which was, that he was first
carried down to hell, and looked into the place of torment; from whence, after a time, quicker than an arrow
he was borne to Paradise. In these abodes of suffering
and happiness, he saw and heard and smelt things unspeakable.  These scenes, though long in apprehension,
were short in time; for he came enough to himself, by
twelve o'clock, again to hear the watchmen. It took him
another twelve hours to come round entirely. IHis hearing was first restored; then his sight; feeling and power
of motion followed; as soon as he could move his limbs,
he rose. He felt himself stronger than before the
trance.
II. Trance-coma.-The appearance of a person in
trance-coma is that of one in profound sleep. The
breathing is regular, but extremely gentle; the action
of the heart the same; the frame lies completely relaxed
and flexible, and, when raised, falls in any posture, like
the body of one just dead, as its weight determines.
The bodily temperature is natural. The condition is
distinguishable from common sleep by the total insensibility of the entranced person to all ordinary stimulants;




TRANCE SLEEP.                103
besides, the pupil of the eye, instead of being contracted to a minute aperture, as it is in common sleep, is
usually dilated; at all events it is not contracted, and it
is fixed.
Perhaps the commonest cause of trance-coma is hysteria,; or by hysteria is meant a highly irritable state of
the nervous system, most commonly met with in young
unmarried women. There seems to be present, as its
proximate cause, an excessive nervous vitality; and that
excess, in its simplest manifestation, breaks out in fits of
sobbing and crying, alternating often with laughter-a
physical excitement of the system which yet fatigues and
distresses the patient's mind, who cannot resist the unaccountable impulses.  It is at the close of such a paroxysm of hysteria that trance-coma of a few hours' duration not unfrequently supervenes. It is almost a natural repose after the preceding stage of excitement.
Hysteria, besides giving origin to a peculiar class of local
ailments, is further the fruitful mother of most varieties
of trance.
Trance-coma sometimes supervenes on fever, and the
patient lies for hours or days on the seeming verge of
death. I have known it ensue after mesmeric practice
carried to an imprudent excess. Religious mental excitement will bring it on. In the following instance, which
I quote from the Rev. George Sandby's sensible and useful work on Mesmerism, the state of trance so supervening was probably trance-coma: " George Fox, the celebrated father of Quakerism, at one period lay in a trance
for fourteen days, and people came to stare and wonder at him. He had the appearance of a dead man;
but his sleep was full of divine visions of beauty and
glory."




104                 TRANCE SLEEP.
Here is another instance, wherein the prevailing state
must have been trance-coma.  I quote it from the letter
of an intelligent friend.  It will help the reader to
realize the general conception I wish to raise in his
mind:"I heard," says my correspondent, "through the
newspapers, of a case of trance ten miles from this place,
and immediately rode to the village to verify it, and gain
information about it. With some difficulty I persuaded
the mother to allow me to see the entranced girl. Her
name is Ann Cromer; she is daughter of a mason at
Faringdon Gournay, ten miles from Bristol. She was
lying in a state of general but not total suspension of the
symptoms of life.  Her breathing was perceptible by the
heaving of the chest, and at times she had uttered low
groans. Her jaws are locked, and she is incapable of
the slightest movement, so as to create no other wrinkle
in her bed-clothes but such as a dead weight would produce. When I saw her, she had not been moved for a
week. Upon one occasion, when asked to show, by the
pressure of the hand, if she felt any pain, a slight squeeze
was perceptible. A very small portion of fluid is administered as food from time to time, but I neglected to
discover how.  Her hands are warm, and her mother
thinks that she is conscious. Three days before I saw
her, she spoke (incoherently) for the first time since her
trance commenced. She repeated the Lord's prayer, and
asked for an aunt; but she rapidly relapsed, and her
locked-jaw returned. Her mother considered this revival
a sign of approaching death. The most remarkable feature in the case is the length of time that the girl has
remained entranced. She was twelve years old when the
fit supervened, and the locked-jaw followed in sixteen




TRANCE SLEEP.                 105
weeks afterwards. She is now twenty-five years of age,
and will thus, in a month, if alive, have been in this condition for thirteen years. In the mean while she has
grown from a child to a woman, though her countenance
retains all the appearance of her former age.  She is
little else than skin and bone, except her cheeks, which
are puffy. She is- as pale as a corpse, and her eyes are
sunk deep in the sockets."
III. Simple or Initiatory Trance.-In the lightest form
of trance-sleep, the patient, though perfectly insensible
to ordinary impressions, is not necessarily recumbent.
If he is sitting when taken, he continues sitting; if previously lying, he will sometimes raise himself up when
entranced.  His joints are neither relaxed nor rigid: if
you raise his arm, or bend the elbow, you experience a
little resistance; and immediately after, probably, the
limb is restored to its former posture. Such is the ordinary degree of muscular tone present; but either cataleptic immobility, or catochus, may accidentally co-exist
with initiatory trance. The patient may even remain
standing rapt in his trance. I quote the following classic
instance from the EdinburghReview —'  There is a wonderful story told of Socrates. Being in military service
in the expedition to Potidea, he is reported to have stoodl
for twenty-four hours before the camp, rooted to the
same spot and absorbed in deep thought, his arms folded
and his eyes fixed upon one object, as if his soul were
absent from his body."
It is not my intention to dwell more on this form of
trance at present. Various cases, exemplifying its varieties, will be found in the letter on Religious Delusions.
It is the commonest product of fanatical excitement.  I
have called this form initiatory trance, because, in day10




106             HALF-WAKING TRANCE,
somnambulism, it always precedes the half-waking which
constitutes that state; and because it is the state into
which mesmeric manipulators ordinarily first plunge the
patient.  Out of this initiatory state I have seen the
patient thrown into trance-coma; but the ordinary progress of the experiment is to conduct him in the other
direction — that is, towards trance-waking.
LETTER VII.
HALF-WAKING TRANCE OR SOMNAMBULISM. —The same thing with ordinary sleep-walking —Its characteristic feature, the acting of a
dream-Cases, and disquisition.
A CURIOUS fate somnambulism has had.  While other
forms of trance have been either rejected as fictions, or
converted to the use of superstition, somnambulism with
all its wonders, being at once undeniable and familiar,
has been simply taken for granted. While her sisters
have been exalted into mystical phenomena, and play
parts in history, somnambulism has had no temple raised
to her, has had no fear-worship, at the highest has been
promoted to figure in an opera.  Of a quiet and homely
nature, she has moved about the house, not like a visiting demon, but as a maid of all work. To the public the
phenomenon has piesented no more interest than a soapbubble, or the fall of an apple.
Somnambulism, as the term is used in England, exactly comprehends all the phenomena of half-waking trance.*
* Many writers employ the term somnambulism to denote indisrirninately several forms of trance, or trance in general. I prefer




OR SOMNAMBULISM.                107
The seizure mostly comes on during common sleep. But
it may supervene in the daytime; in which case the patient first falls into the lightest form of trance-sleep.
After a little, still lost to things around him, he manifests
one or more of three impulses: one, to speak, but coherently and to a purpose; a second, to dress, rise, and
leave his room with an evident intention of going somewhither; a third, to practise some habitual mechanical
employment. In each case he appears to be pursuing
the thread of a dream. If he speaks, it is a connected
discourse to some end. If he goes out to walk, it is to
a spot he contemplates visiting; his general turn is to
climb ascents, hills, or the roofs of houses: in the latter
case he sometimes examines if the tiles are secure before
he steps on them. If he pursues a customary occupation,
whether it be cleaning harness or writing music, he
finishes his work before he leaves it. He is acting a
dream, which is connected and sustained.. The attention
is keenly awake in this dream, and favours its accomplishment to the utmost. In the mean time the somnambulist appears to be insensible to ordinary impressions,
and to take no cognisance of what is going on around
him-a light may be held so close to his eyes as to singe
his eyebrows without his noticing it-he seems neither
to hear nor to taste-the eyelids are generally closed,
otherwise the eyes are fixed and vacant. Nevertheless
he possesses some means of recognising the objects which
are implicated in his dream; he perceives their place, and
walks among them with perfect precision. Let me narrate some instances. The first, one of day-somnambulism, exemplifies, at the same time, the transitions to full
restricting it to the peculiar class of cases commonly known as sleepwalking.




108            HALF-WAKING TRANCE,
waking, which manifest themselves occasionally in the
talking form of the trance. The case is from the Acta
Vratisv. ann. 1722.
A girl, seventeen years of age, was used to fall into a
kind of sleep in the afternoon, in which it was supposed,
from her expression of countenance and her gestures,
that she was engaged in dreams that interested her.
(She was then in light trance-sleep, initiatory trance.)
After some days she began to speak when in this state.
Then if those present addressed remarks to her, she replied very sensibly, but then fell back into her dream
discourse, which turned principally upon religious and
moral topics, and was directed to warn her friends how
a female should live-Christianly, well governed, and so
as to incur no reproach. When she sang, which often
happened, she heard herself accompanied by an imaginary
violin or piano, and would take up and continue the accompaniment upon an. instrument herself. She sewed,
did knitting, and the like. She imagined, on one occasion, that she wrote a letter upon a napkin, which she
folded for the post. Upon waking, she had not the
slightest recollection of any thing that had passed. After
a few months she recovered.
The following case is from the Hamburgh Zeitschrift
fiir die gesammte Medicin, 1848: —
A lad of eleven years of age, at school at Tarbes, was
surprised several mornings running at finding himself
dressed in bed, though he had undressed himself overnight.
Then on the 3d of May he was seen by a neighbour,
soon after three in the morning, to go out dressed with
his cloak and hat on. She called to him, but he did not
answer; and she concluded that he was going to Bagneres with his father. In fact that was the road he took;




OR SOMNAMBULISM.               109
and he was afterwards seen by several persons near
Bagneres, trudging after a carriage. It rained hard;
and they were surprised to see so young a lad travelling
at so early an hour; but they thought he probably belonged
to the people in the carriage. Xle reached Bagneires at
half past five, having done the distance of five post leagues
in two hours and a quarter. He went to the hotel of M.
Lafargue, which he had on a former occasion visited with
his father, and entered the eating-room. The people of
the hotel addressed him. He told them that he had come
with his father in a post-chaise, and that they would find
his father in the yard busied with the carriage. M. Lafargue went out to look for him. In the mean time the
people of the house observed that the boy's remarkswere
incoherent; so they took off his cloak and cap, when
they found that his eyelids were closed, and that he was
fast asleep. They led him towards the stove, took off
his wet things and his boots without awakening him; but
before they had completely undressed him to put him to
bed he awoke. The impressions of his dream did not
desert him. He complained of having had a bad night;
and asked for his father. They told him his father had
been obliged to set off again immediately. They put him
to bed, and he slept. They sent intelligence to his father, who came to Bagn~res. The boy believed, and believes still, that he came to Bagneres with his father in
a chaise that was driven very slowly. Being asked what
he had seen on the road, he described having passed a
number of monks and priests in procession. He said there
was one good-looking young man who did not leave him,
but was always saying, "Good day, Joseph; Adieu, Joseph." He said that what had most annoyed him was
the burning heat of the sun, which was so intense that
l0*




110            HALF-WAKING TRANCE,
he had been obliged to wrap himself up in his cloak; that
he could not bear its bright light.
The following case of somnnambulism, allied with St.
Vietz's dance is given by Lord Monboddo:The patient, about sixteen years of age, used to be
commonly taken in the morning a few hours after rising.
The approach of the seizure was announced by a sense
of weight in the head and drowsiness, which quickly terminated in sleep, (trance-sleep,) in which her eyes were
fast shut. She described a feeling beginning in the feet,
creeping like a gradual chill higher and higher, till it
reached the heart, when consciousness left her. Being
in this state, she sprang from her seat about the room,
over tables and chairs, with astonishing agility. Then,
if she succeeded in getting out of the house, she ran, at
a pace with which her elder brother could hardly keep
up, to a particular spot in the neighbourhood, taking the
directest but the roughest path. If she could not manage
otherwise, she got over the garden wall, with astonishing
rapidity and precision of movement. HIer eyelids were
all the time fast closed. The impulse to visit this spot
she was often conscious of during the approach of the
paroxysm, and afterwards she sometimes thought that
she had dreamed of going thither.  Towards the termination of her indisposition, she dreamed that the water
of a neighbouring spring would do her good, and she
drank much of it. One time they tried to cheat her by
giving her water from another spring, but she immediately detected the difference. Near the end, she foretold
that she would have three paroxysms more, and then be
well; and so it proved.
The next case is from a communication by M. Pigatti,
published in the July number of the Journal Eneyclo



OR SOMNAMBULISM.              111
pedique of the year 1662. The subject was a servant of
the name of Negretti, in the household of the Marquis
Sale.
In the evening Negretti would seat himself in a chair
in the ante-room, when he commonly fell asleep, and would
sleep quietly for a quarter of an hour.  He then righted
himself in his chair so as to sit up. Then he sat some
time without motion, looking as if he saw something.
Then he rose and walked about the room. On one occasion he drew out his snuff-box, and would have taken a
pinch, but there was little in it; whereupon he walked up
to an empty chair, and, addressing by name a cavalier,
whom he supposed to be sitting in it, asked him for a
pinch. One of those who were watching the scene, here
held towards him an open box, from which he took snuff.
Afterward he fell into the posture of a person who listens;
he seemed to think that he heard an order, and thereupon
hastened with a wax candle in his hand to a spot where
a light usually stood. As soon as he imagined that he
had lit the candle, he walked with it in the proper manner, through the salle, down the steps, turning and waiting
from time to time as if he were lighting some one down.
Arrived at the door he placed himself sideways, in order
to let the imaginary persons pass; and he bowed as he
let them out. He then extinguished the light, returned
up stairs, and sat himself down again in his place, to play
the same farce once or twice over again the same evening.
When in this condition he would lay the table-cloth, place
the chairs, which he sometimes brought from a distant
room, opening and shutting the doors as he went with
exactness; would take decanters fr, om the buffet, fill them
with water at the spring, put them down on a waiter, and
so on. All the objects that were concerned in these




112            HALF-WAKING TRANCE,
operations he distinguished, when they were before him,
with the same precision and certainty as if he had been
in the full use of his senses. Otherwise he seemed to observe nothing; so, on one occasion in passing a table, he
threw down a waiter with two decanters upon it, which
fell and broke without attracting his attention. The dominant idea had entire possession of him. He would
prepare a salad with correctness, and sit down and eat
it. If they changed it, the trick escaped his notice. In
this manner he would go on eating cabbage, or even
pieces of cake, without observing the difference. The
taste he enjoyed was imaginary, the sense was shut. On
another occasion, when he asked for wine they gave him
water, which he drank for wine, and remarked that his
stomach felt the better for it. On a fellow-servant touching his legs with a stick, the idea arose in his mind that it
was a dog, and he scolded to drive it away; but the servant continuing his game, Negretti took a whip to beat
the dog. The servant drew back, when Negretti began
whistling and coaxing to get the dog near him; so they
threw a muff against his legs, which he belaboured
soundly.
M. Pigatti watched these proceedings with great attention, and convinced himself by many experiments that
Negretti did not use his ordinary senses. He did not
hear the loudest sound when it lay out of the circle of his
dream-ideas. If a light was held close to his eyes, near
enough to singe his eyebrows, he did not appear to be
aware of it. He seemed to feel nothing when they inserted a feather into his nostrils.
Perhaps the most interesting case of somnambulism on
record is that of a young ecclesiastic, the narrative of
which, from the immediate communication of the Arch



OR SOMNAMBULISM.              113
bishop of Bordeaux, is given under the head of Somnambulism, in the French -Encyclopedia.
This young ecclesiastic, when the archbishop was at the
same seminary, used to rise every night, and write out
either sermons or pieces of music. To study his condition, the archbishop betook himself several nights consecutively to the chamber of the young man, where he made
the following observations:The young man used to rise, take paper, and begin to
write. Before writing music, he would take a stick and
rule the lines with it. He wrote the-notes, together with
the words corresponding to them, with perfect correctness; or when he had written the words too wide, he altered them. The notes that were to be black he filled
in after he had written the whole. After completing a
sermon, he would read it aloud from beginning to end.
If any passage displeased him, he erased it, and wrote
the amended passage correctly over the other. On one
occasion he had substituted the word "adorable" for
" divin;" but he did not omit to alter the preceding " ce''
into" cet," by adding the letter "t" with exact precision
to the word first written. To ascertain whether he used
his eyes, the archbishop interposed a sheet of pasteboard
between the writing and his face. The somnambulist
took not the least notice, but went on writing as before.
The limitation of his perceptions to what he was thinking
about was very curious. A bit of aniseed cake, that he
had sought for, he ate approvingly; but when, on another
occasion, a piece of the same cake was put into his mouth,
he spat it out without observation. The following instance of the dependence of his perceptions upon his preconceived ideas is truly wonderful. It is to be observed
that he always knew when his pen had ink in it. Like



114            HALF-WAKING TRANCE,
wise, if they adroitly changed his papers when he was
writing, he knew it, if the sheet substituted was of a different size from the former, and he appeared embarrassed
in that case. But if the fresh sheet of paper, which was
substituted for that written on, was exactly of the same
size with it, he appeared not to be aware of the change.
And he would continue to read off his composition from
the blank sheet of paper, as fluently as when the manuscript lay before him; nay more, he would continue his
corrections, and introduce an amended passage, writing
it upon exactly the place in the blank sheet corresponding
with that which it would have occupied on the written
page. —Such are the feats of somnambulists.
At first sight, the phenomena thus exemplified appear
strange and unintelligible enough. But upon a careful
consideration of them, much of the marvellous disappears.
The most curious features seem, in the end, to be really
the least deserving of wonder. The-simplest of the phenomena are alone the inexplicable ones.
I have, however, advanced this group of cases as instances of trance, in which, therefore, I assume that an
abnormal relation exists between the mind and body, in
which the organs of sensation are partially or entirely
deserted by their functions, and in which new perceptive
powers manifest themselves. Then an opponent might
argue;"I know nothing about your trance. What I see is
first a person asleep, then the se person half or partially awake, occupied with a dream or vivid conception
of an action; which, being partially awake, and therefore
having partially resumed his power of attention, he-is
capable of realizing. IHe appears to be insensible; but
this may be deceptive; for he is still asleep, and therefore




OR SOMNAMBULISM.               115
notices not things around him; and his attention is partly
still suspended as in sleep, partly more useless still for
general purposes through intent preoccupation.
"He goes about the house in his rapt state, and finds
his way perfectly; but the house is familiar to him; every
thing in it is distinctly before his conception; he has, too,
the advantage of perfect confidence; and besides, being
partially awake, he partially, vaguely perhaps, uses customary sensations in reference to the objects which his
dream contemplates his meeting.
"The ecclesiastic, indeed, seems at first to see through
a sheet of pasteboard. But the concluding interesting
fact in his case shows that he really used his perception
only to identify the size and place of the sheet of paper.
HIis writing upon it was the mechanical transcript of an
act of mental penmanship. The corrections fell into the
right places upon the paper, owing to the fidelity with
which he retained the mental picture. The clearness and
vividness of the picture, again, is not so very surprising,
when it is considered that the attention was wholly and
exclusively concentrated on that one operation."
The observations of my imaginary opponent might sufficiently account for the more striking phenomena in the
preceding cases, and are doubtless near the truth as regards the principal parts of the young ecclesiastic's performance.  Still there remains the commoner instance
of the lad going about with precision with his eyes shut.
I see no mode of accounting for that on common principles.
And besides, it may be presumed that, if more decisive
experiments as to their sensibility had been made upon
all these subjects, they would have been found really without sight and feeling. For, in general character, persons
in somnambulism exactly resemble other entranced per



116                 TRANCE-WAKING
sons, who certainly feel nothing; for they have borne the
most painful surgical operations without the smallest indication of suffering. So I have little doubt that the insensibility, which; the observers imputed to the somnambulists, really existed, although they may have failed to
establish the fact by positive evidence.
The question as to the development of a new power of
perception, such as I conjecture the lad used in: his walk
from Tarbes to Bagneres, will be found to be resolved,
or, at any rate, to be attended with no theoretical difficulties, when the performances of full-waking in trance,
which I propose to describe in the next letter, shall have
been laid before the reader.
LETTER  VIII.
TRANCE-wa KING.-Instances of its spontaneous occurrence in the form
of catalepsy-Analysis of catalepsy-Its three elements: double
consciousness, or pure waking-trance; the spasmodic seizure; the
new mental powers displayed —Cases exemplifying catalepsyOther cases unattended with spasm, but of spontaneous occurrence, in which new mental powers were manifested-Oracles of
antiquity-Animal instinct-Intuition.
UNDER this head are contained the most marvellous
phenomena which ever came as a group of facts in natural philosophy before the world; and they are reaching
that stage towards general reception when their effect is
most vivid and striking. Five-and-twenty years ago no
one in England dreamed of believing them, although the
same positive evidence of their genuineness then existed
as now. Five-and-twenty years hence the same facts will




AND CATALEPSY.                 I17
be matters of familiar knowledge. It is just at the present moment (or am I anticipating the march of opinion
by half a century?) that their difference, and distinctness,
and abhorrence even, from our previous conceptions are
most intensely felt; and that the powers which they promise eventually to place within human control excite our
irrepressible wonder.
I shall narrate the facts which loom so large in the
dawning light, very simply and briefly, as they are manifested in catalepsy.
An uninformed person being in the room with a cataleptic
patient, would at first suppose her, putting aside the spasmodic affection of the body, to be simply awake in the
ordinary way. By-and-by her new powers might or might
not catch his observation. But a third point would certainly escape his notice. I refer to her mental state of
waking trance, which gives, as it were, the local colouring
to the whole performance.
To elucidate this element, I may avail myself of a
sketch ready prepared by nature, tinted with the local
colour alone-the case of simple trance-waking, unattended by fits or by any marvellous powers, as far as it
has been yet observed, which is known to physicians
under the name of double consciousness.
A single fit of the disorder presents the following features:-The young person (for the patient is most frequently a girl) seems to lose herself for a moment or
longer, then she recovers, and seems to be herself again.
The intervening short period, longer at first, and by use
rendered briefer and briefer, is a period of common initiatory trance. When, having lost, the patient thus finds
herself again, there is nothing in her behaviour which
would lead a stranger to suppose her other than naturally
1 1




118                TRANCE-WAKING
awake.  DBut her friends observe that she now does every
thing with more spirit and better than before —sings better, plays better, has more readiness, moves even more
gracefully, than in her usual state.  She manifests an innocent boldness and disregard of little conventionalisms,
which impart a peculiar charm  to her behaviour.  tier
mode of speaking is perhaps something altered; a supernumerary consonant making its undue appearance, but
upon a regular law, in certain syllables. But the most
striking thing is, that she has totally forgotten all that
has passed during the morning. Inquire what her last
recollections are, they leave off with the termination of
her last fit of this kind; the intervening period is for the
present lost to her.  She was in her natural state of
waking when I introduced her to your notice; she lost
herself for a few seconds, found herself again; but found
herself not in her natural train of recollections, but in
those of the last fit.
These fits occur sometimes at irregular intervals, sometimes periodically and daily. In her ordinary waking
state, she has her chain of waking recollections. In her
trance-waking state, she has her chain of trance-waking
recollections.  The two are kept strictly apart.  Hence
the ill-chosen term, double-consciousness.  So at the occurrence of her first fit, her mental existence may be said
to have bifurcated into two separate routes, in either of
which her being is alternately passed. It is curious to
study, at the commencement of such a case, with how
much knowledge derived from her past life the patient
embarks on her trance-existence. The number of previously realized ideas retained by different patients at the
first fit is very various. It has happened that the memory
of facts and persons has been so defective thaet the pa



AND CATALEPSY.                119
tient has had to learn even to know and to love her parents.  To most of her acquaintances she is observed to
give new names, which she uses to them in the trancestate alone. But her habits remain; her usual propriety
of conduct: the mind is singularly pure in trance. And
she very quickly picks up former ideas, and restores former intimacies, but on a supposed new footing.  To
complete this curious history, if the fits of trance recur
frequently, and through some accidental circumstance are
more and more prolonged in duration, so that most of
her waking existence is passed in trance, it will follow
that the trance-development of her intellect and character
may get ahead of their development in her natural waking.
Being told this, she may become anxious to continue always in her entranced state, and to drop the other: and
I knew a case in which circumstances favoured this final
arrangement, and the patient at last retained her trancerecollections alone, from long continuance in that state
having made it, as it were, her natural one. Her only
fear was-for she had gradually learned her own mental
history, as she expressed it to me-that some day she
should of a sudden find herself a child again, thrown back
to the point at which she ceased her first order of recollections. This is, indeed, a very extreme and monstrous
case.  Ordinarily, the recurrence of fits of simple trancewaking does not extend over a longer period than three
or four months or half a year, after which they never reappear; and her trance acquirements and feelings are
lost to the patient's recollection for good.  I will cite a
case, as it was communicated to me by Dr. G. Barlow, exemplifying some of the points of the preceding statement.
" This young lady has two states of existence. During
the time that the fit is on her, which varies from a few




120               TRANCE-WAKING
hours to three days, she is occasionally merry and in
spirits; occasionally she appears in pain, and rolls about
in uneasiness; but in general she seems so much herself,
that a stranger entering the room would not remark any
thing extraordinary: she amuses herself with reading or
working, sometimes plays on the piano-and better than
at other times-knows every body, and converses rationally, and makes very accurate observations on what she
has seen and read. The fit leaves her suddenly, and she
then forgets every thing that has passed during it, and
imagines that she has been asleep, and sometimes that
she has dreamed of any circumstance that has made a
vivid impression upon her. During one of these fits she
was reading Miss Edgeworth's Tales, and had in the
morning been reading a part of one of them to her mother,
when she went for a few minutes to the window, and suddenly exclaimed, "Mamma, I am quite well, my headach
is gone." Returning to the table, she took up the open
volume, which she had been reading five minutes before,
and said, "What book is this?"  She turned over the
leaves, looked at the frontispiece, and replaced it on the
table. Seven or eight hours afterwards, when the fit returned, she asked for the book, went on at the very paragraph where she had left off, and remembered every circumstance of the narrative. And so it always is; she
reads one set of books during one state, and another
during the other. She seems to be conscious of her state;
for she said one day, " Mamma, this is a novel, but I may
safely read it; it will not hurt my morals, for, when I am
well, I shall not remember a word of it."
To form a just idea of a case of catalepsy, the reader
has to imagine such a case as I have just instanced, with
the physical feature added, that the patient, when en



AND CATALEPSY.                 121
tranced, is, motionless and fixed as a statue; the spasmodic state, however, not confining itself closely to one
type, but running into catochus, or into partial rigid
spasm, or into convulsive seizures, (see Letter V.) capriciously.
The psychical phenomena exhibited by the patient when
thus entranced, are the following:1. The organs of sensation are deserted by their natural
sensibility. The patient neither feels with the skin, nor
sees with the eyes, nor hears with the ears, nor tastes
with the mouth.
2. All these senses, however, are not lost. Sight and
hearing, if not smell and taste, reappear in some other
part at the pit of the stomach, for instance, or the tips
of the fingers.
3. The patient manifests new perceptive powers. She
discerns objects all around her, and through any obstructions, partitions, walls or houses, and at an indefinite
distance. She sees her own inside, as it were, illuminated, and can tell what is wrong in the health of others.
She reads the thoughts of others, whether present or at
indefinite distances.  The ordinary obstacles of space
and matter vanish to her. So likewise that of time; she
foresees future events.
Such and more are the capabilities of cataleptic patients, most of whom exhibit them all-but there is some
caprice in their manifestation.
I first resigned myself to the belief that such statements as the above might be true, upon being shown by
the late Mr. Bulteel letters from an eminent provincial
physician in the year 1838, describing phenomena of this
description in a patient the latter was attending.  In the
spring of 1839, Mr. Bulteel told me that he had himself
11*




122               TRANCE-WAKING
in the interim often seen the patient, who had allowed
him to test in any way he pleased the reality of the faculties she possessed when entranced. As usual, in the
hours which she passed daily in her natural state, she
had no recollection of her extraordinary trance performances. The following are some of the facts, which Mr.
[Bulteel told me he had himself verified.
When entranced, the patient's expression of countenance was slightly altered, and there was some peculiarity
in her mode of speaking. To each of her friends she had
given a new name, which she used only when in the state
of trance. She could read with her skin. If she pressed
the palm of her hand against the whole surface of a
printed or written page deliberately, as it were, to take
off an impression, she became acquainted verbally with
its contents, even to the extent of criticising the type or
the handwriting. One day, after a remark made to put
her off her guard, a line of a folded note was pressed
against the back of her neck; she had read it. She called
this sense-feeling-contact was necessary for its manifestation. But she had a general perceptive power besides.
She used to tell that persons, whom she knew, were coming
to the house, when they were yet at some distance.
Persons sitting in the room with her playing chess, to
whom her back was turned, if they made intentionally
false moves, she would ask them what they possibly could
do that for.
The next three cases which I shall describe are from
a memoir on catalepsy (1787) by Dr. Petetin, an eminent
civil and military physician at Lyons.
M. Petetin attended a young married lady in a sort of
fit. She lay seemingly unconscious; when he raised her
arm, it remained in the air where he placed it. Being




AND CATALEPSY.               123
put to bed, she commenced singing. To stop her, the
doctor placed her limbs each in a different position. This
embarrassed her considerably, but she went on singing.
She seemed perfectly insensible.  Pinching the skin,
shouting in her ear, nothing aroused her attention.
Then it happened that, in arranging her, the doctor's
foot slipped; and, as he recovered himself, half leaning
over her, he said, "How provoking we can't make her
leave off singing!" "Ah, doctor," she cried, "don't be
angry! I won't sing any more," and she stopped. But
shortly she began again; and in vain did the doctor implore her, by the loudest entreaties, addressed to her ear,
to keep her promise and desist. It then occurred to him
to place himself in the same position as when she heard
him before. He raised the bed-clothes, bent his head
towards her stomach, and said, in a loud voice, " Do you,
then, mean to sing for ever?" "Oh, what pain you have.
given me!" she exclaimed; " I implore you speak lower."
At the same time she passed her hand over the pit of
her stomach.  "In what way, then, do you hear?" said
Dr. Petetin.  "Like any one else," was the answer.
" But I am speaking to your stomach."  " Is it possible!" she said. Ile then tried again whether she could
hear with her ears, speaking even through a tube to aggravate his voice-she heard nothing. On his asking her,
at the pit of her stomach, if she had not heard him,"No," said she, "I am indeed unfortunate."
A cognate phenomenon to the above is the conversion
of the patient's new sense of vision in a direction inwards.
He looks into himself, and sees his own inside as it were
illuminated or transfigured: that is to say, his visual
power is turned inwards, and he sees his organs possibly
by the Odl-light they give out.




124               TRANCE-WARING
A few days after the scenes just described, Dr. Petetin's patient had another attack of catalepsy. She still
heard at the pit of her stomach, but the manner of hearing was modified. In the mean time her countenance
expressed astonishment. Dr. Petetin inquired the cause.
"It is not difficult," she answered, "to explain to you
why I look astonished. I am singing, doctor, to divert
my attention from a sight which appals me. I see my
inside, and the strange forms of the organs, surrounded
with a network of light. My countenance must express
what I feel-astonishment and fear. A physician who
should have my complaint for a quarter of an hour would
think himself fortunate, as nature would reveal all her
secrets to him. If he was devoted to his profession, he
would not, as I do, desire to be quickly well." "Do you
see your heart?" asked Dr. Petetin.  "Yes, there it is;
it beats at twice, the two sides in agreement; when the
upper part contracts, the lower part swells, and immediately after that contracts.  The blood rushes out all luminous, and issues by two great vessels, which are but a
little apart."
One morning (to quote from the latter part of this
case) the access of the fit took place, according to custom, at eight o'clock. Petetin arrived later than usual;
he announced himself by speaking to the fingers of the
patient, (by which he was heard.) "You are a very lazy
person this morning, doctor," said she.  "It is true, madam; but if you knew the reason, you would not reproach
me." "Ah," said she, "I perceive you have had a headache for the last four hours: it will not leave you till six
in the evening. You are right to take nothing; no human means can prevent it running its course." "( Can
you tell me on which side is the pain?" said Petetin.




AND-CATALEPSY.               125
" On the right side; it occupies the temple, the eye, the
teeth: I warn you that it will invade the left eye, and
that you will suffer considerably between three and four
o'clock; at six you will be free from pain."  The prediction came out literally true. " If you wish me to believe
you, you must tell me what I hold in my hand."  "I see
through your hand an antique medal."
Petetin inquired of his patient at what hour her own
fit would cease: "At eleven."  "And the evening accession-when will it come on?"  "At seven o'clock."
" In that case it will be later than usual."  " It is true;
the periods of its recurrence are going to change to so
and so." During this conversation, the patient's countenance expressed annoyance. She then said to M. Petetin, "My uncle has just entered; he is conversing with
my husband behind the screen; his visit will fatigue me;
beg him to go away." The uncle, leaving, took with him
by mistake her husband's cloak, which she perceived, and
sent her sister-in-law to reclaim it.
In the evening there were assembled, in the lady's
apartment, a good number of her relations and friends.
Petetin had, intentionally, placed a letter within his waistcoat, on his heart. He begged permission, on arriving,
to wear his cloak. Scarcely had the lady, the access
having come on, fallen into trance, when she said-"And
how long, doctor, has it come into fashion to wear letters
next the heart?" Petetin pretended to deny the fact:
she insisted on her correctness; and, raising her hands,
designated the size, and indicated exactly the place of
the letter. Petetin drew forth the letter, and held it,
closed, to the fingers of the patient.  "If I were not a
discreet person," she said, "I should tell the contents;
but to show you that I know them, they form exactly two




126                TRANCE-WAKING
lines and a-half of writing;" which, on opening the letter, was shown to be the fact.
A friend of the family, who was present, took out his
purse, and put it in Dr. Petetin's bosom, and folded his
cloak over his chest. As soon as Petetin approached his
patient, she told him that he had the purse, and named
its exact contents.  She then gave an inventory of the
contents of the pockets of all present, adding some
pointed remark when the opportunity offered. She said
to her sister-in-law that the most interesting thing in her
possession was a letter; —much to her surprise, for she
had received the letter the same evening, and had mentioned it to no one.
The patient, in the mean time, lost strength daily, and
could take no food. The means employed failed of
giving her relief, and it never occurred to M. Petetin to
inquire of her how he should treat her.  At length, with
some vague idea that she suffered from too great electric
tension of the brain, he tried, fantastically enough, the
effect of making deep inspirations, standing close in front
of the patient. No effect followed from this absurd proceeding.  Then he placed one hand on the forehead, the
other on the pit of the stomach of the patient, and continued his inspirations.  The patient now opened her
eyes; her features lost their fixed look; she rallied rapidly from the fit, which lasted but a few minutes instead
of the usual period of two hours more. In eight days,
under a pursuance of this treatment, she entirely recovered from her fits, and with them ceased her extraordinary powers. But, during these eight days, her powers
manifested a still greater extension; she foretold what
was going to happen to her; she discussed with astonishing subtlety, questions of mental philosophy and physi



AND CATALEP'r.'              9127
ology; she caught what those around her meant to say
before they expressed their wishes, and either did what
they desired, or begged that they would not ask her to
do what was beyond her strength.
A young lady, after much alarm during a revolutionary riot, fell into catalepsy. In her fits she appeared to
hear with the pit of the stomach; and most of the phenomena described in the preceding case were again manifested. She improved in health, under the care of Dr.
Petetin, up to the 29th of May, 1790, the memorable day
when the inhabitants of Lyons expelled the wretches who
were making sport of their fortunes, their liberties, and
their lives. At the report of the first cannon fired, Mdlle.
- fell into violent convulsions, followed by catalepsy
and tetanus.  When in this state she discerned Petetin
distinguishing himself under the fire of a battery; and
she blamed him the following day for having so rashly
exposed his life. In the progress of the complaint,
during the attacks of catalepsy, the occurrences of which
she exactly foresaw, she likewise predicted the bloody
(lay of the 29th of September, the surrender of the city
on the 7th of October, the entrance of the republican
troops on the 8th, and the cruel proscriptions issued by
the Committee of Public Safety.
The third case given by Petetin is that of Madame de
Saint Paul, who was attacked with catalepsy a few days
after her marriage, in consequence of seeing her father
fall down in a fit of apoplexy at table. The general
features of her lucidity are the same as in the former
cases. I shall, therefore, content myself with quoting
some observations made by Dr. Prost, author of La Mfedecine eclairee par l' Observation et i'Anatomie pathologique, on the authority of Dr. Foissac, to whom he com



128               TRANCE-WAKING
municated them. Dr. Prost had studied this case assiduously during nine months.  "Her intellectual faculties," observed Dr. Prost, "acquired a great activity, and
the richness of her fancy made itself remarked in the
picturesque images which she threw into her descriptions.
As she was telling her friends of an approaching attack
of catalepsy, suddenly she exclaimed,-' I no longer see
or hear objects in the same manner; every thing is transparent round me, and my observation extends to incalculable distances.' She designated, without an error, the
people who were on the public promenade, whether near
the house, or still a quarter of an hour's walk distant.
She read the thoughts of every one who came near her;
she marked those who were false and vicious; and repelled the approach of stupid people, who bored her with
their questions and aggravated her malady.'Just as
much as their pates excite my pity,' said she,'do the
heads of men of information and intelligence, all whose
thoughts I look into, fill me with delight.'"
The following facts I cite corroboratively, from one of
several cases of hysteria communicated by Dr. Delpit,
inspecting physician of the waters at Bareges.-(Bibliotheque MJdicale, t. lvi. p. 308.)
Mdlle. T  -, aged thirteen, after seeing the cure administer extreme unction, fainted away. There followed
extreme disgust towards food. During eighteen days
she neither ate nor drank; there was no secretion; her
breathing remained tranquil and regular; the patient
preserved her embonpoint and complexion. During this
complete suspension of the functions of digestion, the
organs of sensation would be alternately paralyzed. One
day the patient became blind; on the next, she could see,
but could not hear; another day she lost her speech. The




AND CATALEPSY.                 129
mutations were noticed generally in the night, upon her
waking out of sleep. "Nevertheless," says M. Delpit,
"her intellect preserved all its vivacity and force, and,
during the palsy of the organs of sensation, nature supplied the loss in another way; when, with her eyes, Mdlle.
Caroline could not distinguish light, she yet read, and
read distinctly, by carrying her fingers over the letters.
I have made her thus read, in the daytime and in the
profoundest darkness, either printed pages out of the
first book that came to hand, or written passages that I
had previously prepared." In this, the alternation of different states of recollections is not described as having
been observed. But I have little doubt that double consciousness was really present. I believe that feature to
be essential to waking trance. I have little doubt, likewise, that double consciousness is attended by more or
less trance-perception. The co-existence of spasm, necessary to constitute the case one of catalepsy, is accidental.
Sensorial illusions occasionally occur in catalepsy, but
not frequently; they are commoner in the inferior grades
of trance. The daimon of Socrates was, no doubt, a hallucination of this kind.
The trance-daimon, or sensorial illusion mixing itself
with trance, is exemplified in the following case of catalepsy, which occurred in the person of the adopted
daughter of the Baron de Strombeck.
Besides the ordinary features, on which I will not again
dwell, at one time it was her custom to apply to an imaginary being for directions as to the treatment of her
own case. Subsequently, she one day observed-" It is
not a phantom; I was in error in thinking it so; it is a
voice which speaks within me, and which I think without
me. This apparition comes because -my sleep is less per12




130                TRANCE-WAKING
feet. In that case, I seem to see a white cloud rise out
of the earth, from which a voice issues, the echo of which
reverberates within me."
This patient had quintuple consciousness, or four morbid
states, each of which kept its own recollections to itself.
A final case I will quote, the authority of which is the
Baron de Fortis. It was treated by Dr. Despine of Aixles-Bains.
The patient had had epilepsy, for the cure of which she
went to Aix. There she had all sorts of fits and daysomnambulism, during which she waited at table, with her
eyes shut, perfectly. She likewise saw alternately with
her fingers, the palm of her hand, and her elbow, and
would write with precision with her right hand, superintending the process with her left elbow. These details
are peculiarly gratifying to myself, for in the little I have
seen, I yet have seen a patient walk about with her eyes
shut, and well blinded besides, holding the knuckles of
one hand before her as a seeing lantern.  However, the
special interest of this case is, that the patient was differently affected by different kinds of matter; glass appeared to burn her, porcelain was pleasantly warm,
earthenware felt cold.
What comment can I make on the preceding wondrous
details? Those to whom they are new must have time to
become familiar with them; in order, reversing the process by which the eye gets to see in the dark, to learn to
distinguish objects in this flood of excessive light.  Those
who are already acquainted with them will, I think, agree
with me that the principle which I have assumed-the
possibility of an abnormal relation of the mind and body
allowing the former, either to shift the place of its manifestations in the nervous system, or partially to energize




AND CATALEPSY.                131
as free spirit —is the only one which at present offers any
solution of the new powers displayed in catalepsy. One
regrets that more was not made of the opportunities of
observation which Petetin enjoyed. But there are means,
which I shall by-and-by have occasion to specify, through
which, in the practice of medicine, and in the proper
treatment of various disorders, like instances may be
artificially multiplied and modified so as to meet the exigencies of inductive science. In the mean time, let me
append one or two corollaries to the preceding demonstration.
I. It is evident that the performances of catalepsy reduce the oracles of antiquity to natural phenomena. Let
us examine the tradition of that of Delphi.
Diodorus relates, that goats feeding near an opening
in the ground were observed to jump about in a singular
manner, and that a goatherd approaching to examine the
spot was taken with a fit and prophesied. Then the priests
took possession of the spot and built a temple. Plutarch
tells us that that the priestess was an uneducated peasantgirl, of good character and conduct. Placed upon the
tripod, and affected by the exhalation, she struggled and
became convulsed, and foamed at the mouth; and in that
state she delivered the oracular answer. The convulsions
were sometimes so violent that the Pythia died. Plutarch
adds, that the answers were never in error, and that their
established truth filled the temple with offerings from the
whole of Greece, and from barbarian nations.  Without
supposing it to have been infallible, we must, I think,
infer that the oracle was too often right to have been
wholly a trick. The state of the Pythia was probably
trance with convulsions, the same with that in which cataleptic patients have foreseen future events. The priestess




132               TRANCE-WA KING
was of blameless life, which suits the production of trance,
the fine susceptibility of which is spoilt by irregular
living. Finally, from what we know of the effects of
the few gases and vapours of which the inhalation has
been tried, it is any thing but improbable that one or
other gaseous compound should directly induce trance in
predisposed subjects.
II. The performances of Zschokke are poor by the side
of those of a cataleptic. But then he was not entranced.
Nevertheless, an approach to that state manifested itself
in his losing himself when inspecting his visiter's brains.
So again, those who had the gift of second-sight are represented to have been subject to fits of abstraction, in
which they stood rapt. The preternatural gifts of Socrates were probably those of a Highland seer; in which
dharacter he is reported to have foretold the death of an
officer, if he pursued a route he contemplated. The officer would not change his plans, and was met by the enemy,
and slain accordingly. In all these cases, the mind seems
to have gone out to seek its knowledge. Two of Mr. Williamson's lucid patients, of whom more afterwards, told
him that their minds went out at the backs of their heads,
in starting on these occasions. They pointed to the lower
and back part of the head, opposite to the medulla oblongata.  In prophetic, and in true retrospective dreams,
one may imagine the phenomena taking the same course;
most likely the dreamers have slipt in their sleep into
a brief lucid somnambulism. In the cases of ghosts and
of dreams, coincident with the period of the death of an
absent person, it seems simpler to suppose the visit to
have come from the other side. So the Vampyr-ghost
was probably a visit made by the free part of the mind
of the patient who lay buried in death-trance. The visit




AND CATALEPSY.                133
was fatal to the party visited, because trance is contagious.
III. The wonderful performances attributed to instinct
in animals appear less incomprehensible when viewed in
juxtaposition with some of the feats of lucid cataleptics.
The term instinct is a very vague one. It is commonly
used to denote the intelligence of animals as opposed to
human reason. Instinct is, therefore, a compound phenomenon; and I must begin by resolving it into its elements. They are three in number:1. Observation and reasoning of the same kind with
that of man, but limited in their scope.  They are exercised only in immediate self-preservation, and in the direct supply of the creature's bodily wants or simple impulses. A dog will whine to get admission into the house,
will open the latch of a gate; one rook will sit sentry foithe rest; a plover will fly low, and short distances, as if
hurt, to wile away a dog from her nest. But in this vein
of intelligence, animals make no further advance. Reflection, with the higher faculties and sentiments which
minister to it, and with it constitute reason, is denied them.
So they originate no objects of pursuit in the way that man
does, and have no source of self-improvement. But, in lack
of human reflection, some animals receive the help of2. Special conceptions, which are developed in their
minds at fitting seasons. Of this nature, to give an instance, is the notion of nest-building in birds. It may be
observed of these conceptions that they appear to us arbitrary, though perfectly suited to the being of each
species: thus, in the example referred to, we may suppose
that the material and shape of the nest might be varied
without its object being the less perfectly attained,-at
least, as fir as we can see. The conception spontaneously
12*




134                TRANCE-WAKING
developed in the mind of the bird is then carried out intelligently, through the same quick and just observation,
in a little way, which habitually ministers to its appetites,
as I explained in a preceding paragraph.
The special conception is sometimes characterized by
the utmost perfectness of mechanical design. Here, however, is nothing to surprise us. The supreme wisdom
which preordained the development of an idea in an insect's mind, might-as easily as not have given it absolute
perfectness. But —
3. Some animals have the power of modifying the
special conception, when circumstances arise which prevent its being carried out in the usual way; and of realizing it in a great many different ways, on as many different occasions. And their work, on each of these occasions, is as perfect as in their carrying out the ordinary form of the conception. I beg leave to call the
principle, by which they see thus how to shape their
course so perfectly under new circumstances-intuition.
To instance it, there is a beetle called the rhynchites
betulse.- Its habit is, towards the end of May, to cut the
leaves of the betula alba, or betula pubescens, into slips,
which it rolls up into funnel-shaped chambers, which
form singularly convenient cradles for its eggs. This is
done after one pattern; and one may suppose it the mechanical realization of an inborn idea, as long as the leaf
is perfect in shape. But if the leaf is imperfect, intui.
tion steps upon the, scene to aid the insect to cut its coat
after its cloth. The sections made are then seen to vary
with the varying shape of the leaf. Many different sections made by the insect were accurately drawn by a
German naturalist, Dr. Debey. He submitted them for
examination to Professor Heis of Aix-la-Chapelle. Upon




AND CATALEPSY.                135
carefully studying them, Dr. Hieis found these cuttings of
the leaves, in suitableness to the end proposed, even to
the minutest technical detail, to be in accordance with
calculations compassable only through the higher mathematics, which, till modern times, were unknown to human
intelligence. Such is the marvellous power of "intuition," displayed by certain insects. I know not how to
define it but as a power of immediate reference to absolute truth, evinced by the insect in carrying out its little
plans. It is evident that the insect uses the same power
in realizing its ordinary special conception, when the result displays equal perfectness. And the question even
crosses one's mind, Are the seemingly arbitrary plans
really arbitrary?-may they not equally represent a
highest type of design? But, be that as it may, the intuition of insects, as we now apprehend it, no longer
stands an isolated phenomenon. The lucid cataleptic
cannot less directly communicate with the source of truth,
as she proves by foreseeing future events.
IV. The speculations of Berkeley and Boscovich on the
non-existence       of matter; and of Kant and others on the
arbitrariness of all our notions, are interested in, for
they appear to be refuted by, the intuitions of cataleptics.
The cataleptic apprehends or perceives directly the objects around her; but they are the same as when realized
through her senses. She notices no difference; size, form,
colour, distance, are elements as real to her now as before. In respect again to:the future, she sees it, but not
in the sense of the annihilation of time; she foresees it; it
is the future present to her; time she measures, present
and future, with strange precision,-strange, yet an approximation, instead of this certainty, would have beestill more puzzling.




136             RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.
So that it appears that our notions of matter, force,
and the like, and of the conditions of space and time,
apart from which we can conceive nothing, are not figments to suit our human and temporary being, but elements of eternal truth.
LETTER IX.
RELIGIOUS DELUSIONs —The seizures giving rise to them shown to
have been forms of trance brought on by fanatical excitementThe Cevennes-Scenes at the tomb of the Abbe Paris-Revivals
in America-The Ecstatica of Caldaro-Three forms of imputed
demoniacal possession-Witchcraft; its marvels, and the solution.
THERE have been occasions, when much excitement on
the subject of religion has prevailed, and when strange
disorders of the nervous system have developed themselves among the people, which have been interpreted as
immediate visitings of the Holy Spirit. The interpretation was delusive, the belief in it superstition. The effects displayed were neither more nor less than phenomena of trance, the physiological consequences of the
prevailing excitement. The reader who has attentively
perused the preceding letters will have no difficulty in
identifying forms of this affection in the varieties of religious seizures, which, without further comment, I proceed to exemplify.
Every one will have met with allusions to some extraordinary scenes which took place in the Cevennes, at the
close of the seventeenth century.
It was towards the end of the year 1688 that a report




RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.            137
was first heard of a gift of prophecy which had shown
itself among the persecuted followers of the Reformation, who, in the south of France, had betaken themselves
to the mountains.  The first instance was said to have
occurred in the family of a glass-dealer of the name of
Du Serre, well known as the most zealous Calvinist of
the neighbourhood, which was a solitary spot in Dauphin6, near Mount Peyra. In the enlarging circle of enthusiasts, Gabriel Astier and Isabella Vincent made themselves first conspicuous. Isabella, a girl of sixteen years
of age, from Dauphine, who was in the service of a peasant, and tended sheep, began in her sleep to preach and
prophesy, and.the Reformers came from far and near to
hear her. An advocate of the name of Gerlan describes
the following scene, which he had witnessed. At his request, she had admitted him and a good many others, after
nightfall, to a meeting at a chateau in the neighbourhood.
She there disposed herself upon a bed, shut her eyes,
and went to sleep. In her sleep she chanted, in a low
tone, the Commandments and a psalm. After a short respite she began to preach, in a louder voice-not in her
own dialect, but in good French, which hitherto she
had not used. The theme was an exhortation to obey
God rather than man. Sometimes she spoke so quickly
as to be hardly intelligible. At certain of her pauses she
stopped to collect herself. She accompanied her words
with gesticulations. Gerlan found her pulse quiet, her
arm not rigid, but relaxed, as natural. After an interval, her countenance put on a mocking expression, and
she began anew her exhortation, which was now mixed
with ironical reflections upon the Church of Rome. She
then suddenly stopped, continuing asleep. It was in vain
they stirred her.  When her arms were lifted and let go,




138            RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.
they dropped unconsciously. As several now went away,
whom her silence rendered impatient, she said in a low
tone, but just as if she was awake,-" Why do you go
away? —why do not you wait till I am ready? " And
then she delivered another ironical discourse against the
Catholic Church. She closed the scene with prayer.
When Bouchier, the intendant of the district, heard of
the performances of Isabella Vincent, he had her brought
before him. She replied to his interrogatories, that people had often told her that she preached in her sleep, but
that she did not herself believe a word of it. As the
slightness of her person made her appear younger than
she really was, the intendant merely sent her to an hospital at Grenoble; where, notwithstanding that she was
visited by persons of the Reformed persuasion, there was
an end of her preaching-she became a Catholic!
Gabriel Astier, who had been a young labourer, likewise from Dauphin6, went, in the capacity of a preacher
and prophet, into the valley of Bressac, in the Vivarais.
He had infected his family: his father, mother, elder
brother, and sweetheart, followed his example, and took
to prophesying. Gabriel, before he preached, used to
fall into a kind of stupor in which he lay rigid. After
delivering his sermon, he would dismiss his auditors with
a kiss, and the words-" My brother, or my sister, I impart to you the Holy Ghost."  Many believed that they
had thus received the Holy Ghost from Astier, being taken
with the same seizure. During the period of the discourse, first one, then another, would fall down: some described themselves afterwards as having felt first a weakness and trembling through the whole frame, and an impulse to yawn and stretch their arms; then they fell, co nvulsed and foaming at the mouth. Others carried the




RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.            139
contagion home with them, and first experienced its effects, days, weeks, or months afterwards. They believed
-nor is it wonderful they did so-that they had received
the Holy Ghost.
Not less curious were the seizures of the Convulsionnaires at the grave of the Abb6 Paris, in the year 1727.
These Jansenist visionaries used to collect in the churchyard of St. M~dard, round the grave of the deposed and
deceased deacon; and before long, the reputation of the
place for working miracles getting about, they fell in troops
into convulsions. They required, to gratify an internal
impulse or feeling, that the most violent blows should
be inflicted upon them at the pit of the stomach. Carr6
de Montgeron mentions that, being himself an enthusiast in the matter, he had inflicted the blows required
with an iron instrument, weighing from twenty to thirty
pounds, with a round head. And as a convulsionary lady
complained that he struck too lightly to relieve the feeling of depression at her stomach, he gave her sixty blows
with all his force. It would not do, and she begged to
have the instrument used by a tall, strong man, who stood
by in the crowd. The spasmodic tension of her muscles
must have been enormous; for she received one hundred
blows, delivered with such force that the wall shook behlind her. She thanked the man for his benevolent aid,
and contemptuously censured De Montgeron for his weakness, or want of faith, and timidity. It was, indeed,
time for issuing the mandate. which, as wit read it, ran"De par le roi —Defense A Dieu,
De faire miracle en ce lieu."
In the revivals of modern times, scenes parallel to the
above have been renewed.
"I have seen," says Mr. Le Roi Sunderland, himself a




140             RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.
preacher, (Zion's Watehman, New York, Oct. 2, 1842,)
"persons often'lose their strength,' as it is called, at
camp-meetings and other places of great religious excitement; and not pious people alone, but those, also, who
were not professors of religion. In the spring of 1824,
while performing pastoral labour in Dennis, Massachusetts, I saw more than twenty affected in this way. Two
young men, of the name of Crowell, came one day to a
prayer-meeting. Theywere quiteindifferent. I conversed
with them freely, but they showed no signs of penitence.
From the meeting they went to their shop,(they were shoemakers,) to finish some work before going to the meeting
in the evening. On seating themselves, they were both
struck perfectly stiff.~ I was immediately sent for, and
found them sitting paralyzed",(he means taken with the
initiatory form of trance-sleep, and possibly cataleptic)
"on their benches, with their work i-n their hands, unable
to get up, or to move at all.  I have seen scores of persons affected the same way. I have seen persons lie in
this state forty-eight hours. At such times they are unable to converse, and are sometimes unconscious of what
is passing round them. At the same time, they say they
are in a happy state of mind."
The following extract from the same journal portrays
another kind of nervous seizure, as it was manifested at
the great revival some forty years ago, at Kentucky and
Tennessee.
"Th'e convulsions were commonly called'the jerks.'
A writer, (M'Neman) quoted by Mr. Power, (Essay on the
InfJuenereof the Imagination over the Nervous System,)
gives this account of-their course and progress:
"' At first appearance these meetings exhibited nothing
to the spectator but a scene of confusion that could scarcely




RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.            141
be put into language. They were generally opened with
a sermon, near the close of which there would be an unusual outcry, some bursting out into loud ejaculations of
prayer, &c.
"'The rolling exercise consisted in being cast down in
a violent manner, doubled with the head and feet together,
or stretched in a prostrate manner, turning swiftly over
like a dog. Nothing in nature could better represent the
jerks, than for one to goad another alternately on every
side with a piece of red-hot iron. The exercise commonly
began in the head, which would fly backwards and forwards, and from side to side, with a quick jolt, which the
person would naturally labour to suppress, but in vain.
He must necessarily go on as he was stimulated, whether
with a violent dash on the ground, and bounce from place
to place, like a foot-ball; or hopping round, with head,
limbs, and trunk twitching and jolting in every direction,
as if they must inevitably fly asunder,'" &c.
The following sketch is from Dow's journal. In the
year 1805 he preached at Knoxville, Tennessee, before
the governor, when some hundred and fifty persons,
among whom were a number of Quakers, had the jerks.
"I have seen," says the writer, "all denominations of
religion exercised by the jerks-gentleman and lady,
black and white, young and old, without exception. I
passed a meeting-house, where I observed the undergrowth had been cut down for camp-meetings, and from
fifty to a hundred saplings were left for the people who
were jerked to hold by. I observed where they had held
on they had kicked up the earth, as a horse stamping
flies."
A widely different picture to the above is given in a
letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to A. M. Phillips,
13




142            RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.
Esq., published in 1841, and describing the state of two
religieuses, (the Ecstatica of Caldaro, and the Addolorata
of Capriana,) who were visited by members of their own
communion, in the belief that they lay in a sort of heavenly beatitude. To this idea their stillness, the devotional attitude of their hands and expression of their
countenances, together with their manifestation of miraculous intuition, contributed. But I am afraid that, to
the eye of a physician, their condition would have been
simple trance. However, while the absence of reasonable enlightenment in the display is to be regretted, one
agreeably recognises the influence of the humanity of
modern times. Had these young women lived two centuries ago, they would have been the subjects of other
discipline, and their history, had I possessed it to quote,
must have been transferred to the darker section which
I have next to enter on.
The belief in possession by devils, which existed in
the middle ages and subsequently, embraced several dissimilar cases. The first of them which I will exemplify
would have included individuals in the state of the religieuses described by Lord Shrewsbury. Behaviour and
powers which the people could not understand, even if
exhibited by good and virtuous persons, and only expressive of or used for right purposes, were construed into the
operation of unholy influences. The times were the reign
of terror in religion. I give the following instance:Marie Bucaille, a native of Normandy, became, towards
the year 1700, the subject of fits, which ordinarily lasted
three or four hours. It appears, by the depositions of
persons of character on her trial, that Marie had effected
many cures seemingly by her prayers; that she comprehended and executed directions given to her mentally;




RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.            143
that she read the thoughts of others. When in the fit,
the Cure of Golleville placed in the hands of Marie a
folded note. Without opening the note, she replied to
the questions which it contained; and, without knowing
the writer, she accurately described her person. Although
Marie only employed her powers to cure the sick and in
the service of religion, she was not the less condemned
to death by the parliament of Valogne.  The parliament
of Rouen mitigated her punishment to whipping and public ignominy.
A second class, who came nearer to the exact idea
of being possessed by devils, were persons who were
deranged, and entertained something of that impression
themselves, and avowed it. I am not speaking of single
instances, but of an extensive popular delusion, or frenzy
rather, which prevailed in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries in parts of Europe as an epidemic seizure. It
was called the wolf-sickness.  Those affected betook
themselves to the forests as wild beasts. One of these,
who was brought before De Lancre, at Bordeaux, in the
beginning of the sixteenth century, was a young man of
Besangon. I-e avowed himself to be huntsman of the
forest lord, his invisible master.  He believed that,
through the power of his master, he had been transformed
into a wolf; that he hunted in the forest as such; and
that he was often accompanied by a bigger wolf, whom
he suspected to be the master he served; with more details of the same kind. The persons thus affected were
called Wehrwolves.  Their common fate was the alternative of recovering from their derangement, under the
influence of exorcism and its accessories, or of being executed.
The third and proper type of possession by devils pre



144            RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.
sented more complicated features. The patient's state
was not uniform. Often, or for the most part, his appearance and behaviour were natural; then paroxysms would
supervene, in which he appeared fierce, malignant, demoniacal, in which he believed himself to be possessed,
and acted up to the character, and in which powers,
seemingly superhuman, such as reading the thoughts of
others, were manifested by the possessed. The explanation of these features is happily given by Dr. Fischer of
Basle, author of an excellent work on Somnambulism.
He resolves them, with evident justice, into recurrent fits
of trance-the patient, when entranced, being at the same
time deranged; and he exemplifies his hypothesis by the
case of a German lady who had fits of trance, in which
she fancied herself a French emigree: it would have been
as easy for her, had it been the mode, to have fancied
herself, and to have played the part of being, possessed
by the fiend. The case is this:
Gmelin, in the first volume of his Contributions to
Anthropology, narrates that, in the year 1789, a German
lady, under his observation, had daily paroxysms, in
which she believed herself to be, and acted the part of,
a French Emigrant. She had been in distress of mind
through the absence of a person she was attached to,
and he was somehow implicated in the scenes of the
French Revolution. After an attack of fever and delirium, the complaint regulated itself, and took the form
of a daily fit of trance-waking.  When the time for the
fit approached, she stopped in her conversation, and
ceased to answer when spoken to; she then remained a
few minutes sitting perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the
carpet before her. Then, in evident uneasiness, she began to more her head backwards and forwards, to sigh and




RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.             145
to pass her fingers across her eyebrows. This lasted a
minute; then she raised her eyes, looked once or twice
round with timidity and embarrassment, then began to
talk in French, when she would describe all the particulars of her escape from France, and, assuming the manner of a French woman, talk purer and better accented
French than she had been known to be capable of talking before, correct her friends when they spoke incorrectly, but delicately, and with a comment on the German rudeness of laughing at the bad pronunciation of
strangers: and if led herself to speak or read German,
she used a French accent, and spoke it ill; and the like.
We have by this time had intercourse enough with
spirits and demons to prepare us for the final subject of
witchcraft.
The superstition of witchcraft stretches back into remote antiquity, and has many roots. In Europe it is
partly of Druidical origin.  The Druidesses were part
priestesses, part shrewd old ladies, who dealt in magic
and medicine.  They were called allrune, all-knowing.
There was some touch of classical superstition mingled
in the stream which was flowing down to us; so an edict
of a Council of Treves, in the year 1310, has this injunction:-" Nulla mulierum se nocturnis horis equitare cum
Diana profiteatur; hlec enim daemoniaca est illusio."  But
the main source from which we derived this superstition
is the East, and traditions and facts incorporated in our
religion.  There were only wanted the ferment of thought
of the fifteenth century, the energy, ignorance, enthusiasm, and faith of those days, and the papal denunciation
of witchcraft by the Bull of Innocent the Eighth, in
1459, to give fury to the delusion. And from this time,
for three centuries, the flames at which more than a
13ap




146            RELT(IOUS DELUSIONS.
hundred thousand victims perished cast a lurid light over
Europe.
But the fires are out-the superstition is extinct-and
its history is trite, and has lost all interest; so I will
hasten to the one point in it which deserves, which indeed
requires, explanation.
I do not advert to the late duration of the belief in
witchcraft-so late, that it is but a century this very
month of January since the last witch, a lady and a subprioress, whose confession I will afterwards give, was
executed in Germany; while, at the same period, a strong
effort was made in Scotland, by good and conscientious,
and otherwise sensible persons, to reanimate the embers
of the delusion, as is shown by the following evidence.
In February, 1743, the Associate Presbytery, meaning
the Presbytery of the Secession or Seceders, (from the
Scottish Established Church,) passed, and soon thereafter
published, an act for renewing the National Covenant,
in which there is a solemn acknowledgment of sins, and
vow to renounce them; among which sins is specified "the
repeal of the penal statutes against witchcraft, contrary
to the express laws of God, and for which a holy God may
be provoked, in a way of righteous judgment, to leave
those who are already ensnared to be hardened more and
more, and to permit Satan to tempt and seduce others to
the same wicked and dangerous snare."-(Note, Edinburgh Review, January, 1847.):Nor is the marvel in the absolute belief of the people
in witchcraft only two centuries ago: what could they do
but believe, when the witches and sorcerers themselves,
before their execution, often avowed their guilt and told
how they had laid themselves out to league with the evil
spirit; how they had gone through a regular process of




RULIGIOUS DELUSIONS.            147
initiation in the black art; how they had been rebaptized
with the support of regular witch-sponsors; how they had
abjured Christ, and had.entered, to the best of their belief, into a compact with the Devil, and had commenced
accordingly a suitable course of bad works, poisoning and
bewitching men and cattle, and the like?
Nor is the wonder in the unfairness with which those
accused of witchcraft were treated. So at Lindheim,
TIorst reports on one occasion six women were implicated
in a charge of having disinterred the body of a child to
make a witchbroth. As they happened to be innocent
of the deed, they underwent the most cruel tortures before they would confess it. At length they saw their
cheapest bargain was to admit the crime, and be simply
burned alive, and have it over. They did so. But the
husband of one of them procured an official examination
of the grave, when the child's body was found in its coffin
safe and sound. What said the Inquisitor? " This is
indeed a proper piece of devil's work: no, no, I am not
to be taken in by such a gross and obvious imposture.
Luckily the women have already confessed the crime, and
burned they must and shall be, in honour of the Holy
Trinity, which has commanded the extirpation of sorcerers
and witches." The six women were burned alive accordingly; for the people had fits of frenzied terror, which required to be allayed by the sacrifice of a victim or two,
and Justice became confused: to be sure, in those days
her head was never very clear, and threw by mistake the
odium of the crime into the accusing scale; the other flew
up significantly of the full extent to which mercy could
interfere to temper the law. A curious instance of an
epidemic attack of the belief in witchcraft occurred at
Salzburg between the years 1627 and 1629, originating




148             RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.
in a sickness among the cattle in the neighbourhood. The
sickness was unluckily attributed to witchcraft, and an
active inquiry was set on foot to detect the participators
in the crime. It was very successful; for we find in the
list of persons burned alive on this occasion, besides children of 14,12, 11, 10, 9 years of age, fourteen canons, four
gentlemen of the choir, two young men of rank, a fat old
lady of rank, the wife of a burgomaster, a counsellor, the
fattest burgess of Wiirtzburg, together with his wife, the
handsomest woman in the city, and a midwife of the
name of Shiekelte, with whom (according to a N. B. in
the original report) the whole of the mischief originated.
The marvel in witchcraft is the belief entertained by
the sorcerers and witches themselves of its reality. That
many of these persons, shrewd and unprincipled, should
have pretended an implicit belief in their art, till they
were brought to justice, is only what is still occasionally
done in modern times. But that they should, as it is
proved by some of their confessions previous to execution,
have been their own dupes, and have entertained no doubt
whatsoever of the reality of their intercourse with the
devil, is surprising enough to deserve explanation. A
single crucial instance will bring us upon the trail of the
solution.
A little maid, twelve years of age, used to fall into fits
of sleep; and afterwards she told her parents and the
judge how an old woman and her daughter, riding on a
broomstick, had come and taken her out with them. The
daughter sat foremost, the old woman behind, the little
maid between. They went away through the roof of the
house, over the adjoining houses and the towngate, to a
village some way off. Upon arriving there, the party
went down the chimney of a cottage into a room, where




RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.             149
sat a black man and twelve women. They eat and drank.
The black man filled their glasses from a can, and gave
each of the women a handful of gold. She herself had
received none, but she had eaten and drunk with them.
See how much this example displays. I mean not that
the superstition was imbibed in childhood, though that
would do much to establish the belief in it, but that it
had power to disturb the mind sufficiently to produce
trance-sleep; for such were evidently the fits of sleep
this child described; and trance-sleep, with its special
character of visions, of dreams vivid, coherent, continuous, realizing the ideas which had driven the mind into
trance. Elder persons, it is to be presumed, were occasionally similarly wrought upon. And the witches seemed
to have known and availed themselves of the confidence
in their art that could be thus promoted; and by witchbroths, of which narcotics formed an ingredient, they
would induce in themselves and in their pupils a heavy
stupor, which so far resembles trance that vivid and connected dreams occur in it. Here was the seeming reality
necessary for absolute belief. It lay in not understood
trance-phenomena. Other evidence from the same source
came in to support the first. - Some of the witch-pupils in
their trances would show a strange knowledge; some of
the victims, on whose fears or persons they had wrought,
would become possessed-proving their art to be not less
real than they believed thus the elementary part to be of
their personal communication with the fiend. These remarks explain collaterally why witches and sorceresses
were more numerous than sorcerers and magicians. Insufficient occupation and other causes helped probably to
dispose women to seek a resource in the intense excitement of this crime; but besides, trance stood at their service, which men seldomer experience.




150            RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.
I will conclude with two pictures.  One, the confession, —-interesting, however, from its relation to the child's
early vision-of vulgar and ordinary witches; the other,
the substance of the confession of a lady-witch, which, in
itself, tells the Whole curious tale of this disease.
At Mora, in Sweden, in 1669, of many who were put
to the torture and executed, seventy-two women agreed
in the following avowal: That they were in the habit of
meeting at a place called Blocula. That on their calling
out "Come forth," the Devil used to appear to them in
a gray coat, red breeches, gray stockings, with a red beard,
and a peaked hat with parti-coloured feathers on his head.
He then enforced upon them, not without blows, that they
must bring him, at nights, their own and other people's
children, stolen for the purpose. They travel through
the air to Blocula either on beasts, or on spits, or broomsticks. When they have many children with them, they
rig on an additional spar to lengthen the back of the goat
or their broomstick, that the children may have room to
sit. At Blocula they sign their name in blood, and are
baptized. The Devil is a humorous, pleasant gentleman;
but his table is coarse enough, which makes the children
often sick on their way home, the product being the socalled witch-butter found in the fields. When the Devil
is larky, he solicits the witches to dance round him on
their brooms, which he suddenly pulls from under them,
and-uses to beat them with, till they are black and blue.
He laughs at this joke till his sides shake again. Sometimes he is in a more gracious mood, and plays to them
lovely airs upon the harp; and occasionally sons and
daughters are born to the Devil, which take up their residence at Blocula.
The following is the history of the lady-witch. She




RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.             151
was, at the time of her death, seventy years of age, and
had been many years sub-prioress of the convent of Unterzell, near Wiirtzburg.
Maria Renata took the veil at nineteen years of age,
against her inclination, having previously been initiated
in the mysteries of witchcraft, which she continued to
practise for fifty years, under the cloak of punctual attendance to discipline and pretended piety.  She was
long in the station of sub-prioress, and would, for her capacity, have been promoted to the rank of prioress, had
she not betrayed a certain discontent with the ecclesiastical life, a certain contrariety to her superiors, something
half expressed only of inward dissatisfaction. Renata
had not ventured to let any one about the convent into
her confidence, and she remained free from suspicion,
notwithstanding that, from time to timne, some of the nuns,
either from the herbs she mixed with their food, or through
sympathy, had strange seizures, of which some died.
Renata became at length extravagant and unguarded in
her witch-propensities, partly from long security, partly
from desire of stronger excitement-made noises in the
dormitory, and uttered shrieks in the garden; went at
nights into the cells of the nuns to pinch and torment
them, to assist her in which she kept a considerable supply of cats.  The removal of the keys of the cells counteracted this annoyance; but a still more efficient means
was a determined blow, on the part of a nun, struck at
the aggressor with the penitential' scourge one night, on
the morning following which Renata was observed to have
a black eye and cut face. This event awakened suspicion,qgainst Renata. Then one of the nuns, who was much
esteemed, declared, believing herself upon her death-bed,
that, "as she shortly] expected to stand before her Maker,




152            RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.
Renata was uncanny; that she had often at nights been
visibly tormented by her, and that she warned. her to
desist from this course."  General alarm arose, and apprehension of Renata's arts; and one of the nuns, who
previously had had fits, now became possessed, and, in
the paroxysms, told the wildest tales against Renata. It
is only wonderful how the sub-prioress contrived to keep
her ground so many years against these suspicions and
incriminations. She adroitly put aside the insinuations
of the nun as imaginary, or of calumnious intention, and
treated witchcraft and possession of the Devil as things
which enlightened people no longer believed in. As, however, five more of the nuns, either taking the infection
from the first, or influenced by the arts of Renata, became
possessed of devils, and unanimously attacked Renata,
the superiors could no longer avoid making a serious investigation of the charges. Renata was confined to a
cell alone, whereupon the six devils screeched in chorus
at being deprived of their friend. She had begged to be
allowed to take her papers with her; but this being refused, and thinking herself detected, she at once avowed
to her confessor and the superiors that she was a witch,
had learned witchcraft out of the convent, and had bewitched the six nuns. They determined to keep the
matter secret, and to attempt the conversion of Renata.
And, as the nuns still continued possessed, they despatched
her to a remote convent. Here, under a show of outward
piety, she still went on with her attempts to realize witchcraft, and the nuns remained possessed. It was decided
at length to give Renata over to the civil power. She
was accordingly condemned to be burned alive; but in
mitigation of punishment, her head was first struck off.
Four of the possessed nuns gradually recovered, with




MESMERISM.                   153
clerical assistance —-?the other two remained deranged.
Renata was executed on the 21st January, 1749.
Renata stated, in her voluntary confession, that she
had often, at night, been carried bodily to witch-sabbaths,
in one of which she was first presented to the Prince of
Darkness, when she abjured God and the Virgin at the
same time.  Her name, with the alteration of Maria into
Emma, was written in a black book, and she herself was
stamped on the back as the Devil's property; in return
for which she received the promise of seventy years of
life, and of all she might wish for.  She stated that she
had often at night gone into the cellar of the chateau and
drank the best wine; in the shape of a sow had walked
on the convent walls  on the bridge had milked the cows
as they passed over; and several times had mingled with
the actors in the theatre in London.
LETTER X.
MESMERISM. —Use of chloroform —History of Mesmer-The true
nature and extent of his discovery —Its applications to medicine
and surgery-Various effects produced by mesmeric manipulatipns-THysteric seizures.-St. Veitz's' dan e:-!-Nervous paralysis —
Catochus —Initiatory trance —The order in which the higher trance
phenomena are afterwards generally drawn out.
CAN no further use be made of the facts and principles we have thus seen verified and established, than to
explain a class of delusions which prevailed in times of
ignorance?  The powers which we have seen successfully
employed to shake the nerves and unsettle the mind in
14




154                 MESMERISM.
the service of superstition, can they not be skilfully turned
to some purpose beneficial to society?
A satisfactory answer to the question may be found
in the invention of ether-inhalation, and in the history
of mesmerism. The witch narcotized her pupils in order
to produce in them delusive visions; the surgeon stupefies his patient to annul the pain of an operation.  The
fanatic preacher excites convulsions and trance in his
auditory as evidence of the working of the Holy Spirit;
Mesmer produced the same effects in his patients as a
means of curing disease.
It occurred to Mr. Jackson, a chemist of the United
States, that it might be possible harmlessly to stupefy a
patient through the inhalation of the vapour of sulphuric
ether, to such an extent that a surgical operation would
be unfelt by him.  He communicated the idea to Mr.
Morton, a dentist, who carried it into execution with the
happiest results.  The patient became insensible; a tooth
was extracted; no pain seemed felt at the time, or was
remembered afterwards, and no ill consequences followed.
Led by the report of this success, in the course of the
autumn of 1846, Messrs. Bigelow, Warren, and Heywood,
ventured to employ the same means in surgical operations
of a more serious description. The results obtained on
these occasions were not less satisfactory than the first
had been. Since then, in England, France, and Germany,
the same interesting experiment has been repeated many
hundred times, and the adoption of this, or of a parallel
method, has become general in surgery.
I withdraw from the present Letter a sketch which I
had made from the "report" of Dr. Heyfelder, of the
phenomena of etherization; for a year had barely elapsed,
when the narcotizing agent recommended by Mr. Jackson




MESMERISM.                  155
was superseded by another, suggested and brought into
use by Professor Simpson of Edinburgh.  The inhalation
of chloroform is found to be more rapid, uniform, and
certain in its effects, and compassable in a simpler manner, than the inhalation of ether. Its brief phenomena
are wound up by the production of stupor; they are remotely comparable to those produced by alcohol. Alas!
the time is passed when I enjoyed the means of looking
through, and forming a practical judgment upon discoveries like the present. Not the less, however, do I
hail the advent of this as a boon to the art of surgery.
The conception was original, bold and reasonable; its
execution neat and scientific; its success wonderful.
It established in the year 1847, to the satisfaction of
the public and of the medical profession, that the exclusion of pain from surgical operations is a practicable
idea, and the attempt to realize it a legitimate pursuit.
Then, what is Mesmerism?
The object of the inventor of the art was to cure diseases through the influence of a new force brought by
him to bear upon the human frame.
Talent, for philosophy or business, is the power of
seeing what is yet hidden from others. As the eyes of
some animals are fitted to see best in the dark, so the
mental vision of some original minds prefers exercising
itself on obscure and occult subjects. Whoever indulges
this turn will certainly pass for a charlatan; most likely
he will prove one. Mesmer had it, and indulged it, in
a high degree. The body of science which I have unfolded
in the preceding Letters- was wholly unknown in his time,
(he was born in 1734;) but he was led by his wayward
instinct to grope after it in the dark, and he seized and
brought to upper light fragmentary elements of strange




156                 MESMERISM.
capabilities, which he strove to interpret and to use. He
had early displayed a bias towards the mystical. When
a student at Vienna, (he was by birth a Swiss,) his principal study was astrology. He sought in the stars a
force which, extending throughout space, might influence
the beings living upon our planet. In the year 1766 he
published his lucubrations. In attempting to identify
his imaginary force, Mesmer first supposed it to be electricity. Afterwards, about the year 1773, he adopted
the idea that it must be magnetism. So at Vienna, from
1773 to 1775, he employed the practice of stroking diseased parts of the body with magnets. But in 1776,
happening to be upon a tour, he fell in with a mystical
monk of the name of Gassner, who was then occupied in
curing the Prince-Bishop of Ratisbon of blindness, by
exorcism. Then Mesmer observed that, without magnets,
Gassner produced much the same effects on the living
body which he had produced with them. The fact was
not lost upon him: he threw aside his magnets, and
operated mostly afterwards with the hand alone. It
appears that he was often successful in curing disease, or
that his patients not only experienced sensible effects
from his procedures, but frequently recovered -from their
complaints. But in 1777, his reputation, which must
have always hung upon a very slender thread, broke
down through a failure in the case of the musician Paradies.  So Mesmer left Vienna, and in the following year
betook himself to Paris.  There he obtained a success
which quickly drew upon him the indignation, perhaps
the jealousy, of the Faculty, who failed not to stigmatize
him as a charlatan. They exclaimed against him for
practising an art which he would not divulge; and when
he offered to display it, averred that he threw difficulties
in the way of their investigations. Perhaps he suspected




MESMERISM.                  157
them of want of fairness in their inquiries; perhaps he
was really unwilling to part with his secret.  He refused
an offer from the Government of 20,000 francs if he
would disclose it; but he communicated freely to individuals, under a pledge of secrecy, all he knew for a
hundred louis. His practice itself gave most support to
the allegations against him. His patients were received
with an air of mystery and studied effect. The apartment, hung with mirrors, was dimly lighted. A profound
silence was observed, broken only by strains of music,
which occasionally floated through the rooms. The patients were seated round a sort of vat, which contained a
heterogeneous mixture of chemical ingredients. With
this, and with each other, they were placed in relation
by means of cords, or jointed rods, or by holding hands;
and among them slowly and mysteriously moved Mesmer
himself, affecting one by a touch, another by a look, a
third by passes with his hand, a fourth by pointing with
a rod.
What followed is easily conceivable from the scenes
referred to in my last letter as witnessed at religious
revivals. One person became hysterical, then another;
one was seized with catalepsy; others with convulsions;
some with palpitations of the heart, perspirations, and
other bodily disturbances. These effects, however various
and different, went all by the name of "salutary crisis."
The method was supposed to provoke in the sick person
exactly the kind of action propitious to his recovery.
And it may easily be imagined that many a patient found
himself the better after a course of this rude empiricism,
and that the effect made by these events passing daily in
Paris must have been very considerable. To the ignorant
the scene was full of wonderment.
14'




158                 MESMERISM.
To ourselves, regarding it from our present vatstageground, it presents no marvellous'characters.  The phenomena were the same which we have been recently
contemplating-a group -of disorders of the nervous system. - The causes which were present are not less familiar
to us, nor their capability of producing such effects; they
were —mental excitement, here consisting in raised expactation and fear; the contagiousness of hysteri&, convulsions, and trance, its force increased by the numbers
and close-packing of the patients; the Od force, developed
by the chemical action in the charged caldron, developed
by each of the excited bodies around, its action first
favoured by the absolute stillness observed, then by the
increasing sensibility of the patients as their nerves
became more and mIore shaken.  It is remarkable that
Jussieu —the most competent judge in the commission of
inquiry into the triuth of'mesmerism, set on foot at Paris
in 1784, of which Franklin'was a member, and which
condemned mesmerism as an imposture-was so struck
with what he saw, that he strongly recommended the
subject to the attention and study of physicians.  His
objections were against the theory alone. He laid it
"down in the separate report which he gave in, that no
physical cause had been proved to be in operation beyond
animal heat! curiously overlooking the fact that common
heat would not produc e the effects observed; and, therefore, that the latter must have been owing to that something which animal heat, O'the radiating  warmth of a
living body, contains, in addition to common'heat.  That
something we now know, but only since 1845, to be the
Od force.
The Od force is so new, so young in science, that
AMesmer's reputation has not yet been credited with the




MESMERISM.                   159
honour thence reflected upon it. I will not say that
Mesmer's astral force was a distinct anticipation of Von
Reichenbach's discovery, which was noways suggested
by the former, and was from  first to last an effort of
inductive'observation. But the guess -of the mystic had
certainly a most happy parallelism to the truth, which a
dliferent sort of mind tracked in the same field; for the
Od force reach'es us even from the stars, and -the sun and
the fixed stats are Od-negative; and the planets and the
moon Od-positive.  It is unnecessary to follow Mesmer
through his minor performances.  The relief sometimes
obtained by stroking diseased parts with the hand-that
is, th-e effects obtained through the local action of Od —
had been before proclaimed by Dr. Greatrex, whose pretensions had had no less an'advocate than the Honourable
]Robert Boyle.  The extraordinary tales of Mesmer's
personal power over individuals are probably part exaggeration, part real results of his confidence and skill in
the use of the means he wielded.  Mesmer died in 1815.
Among his pupils, when at the zenith of his fame, was
the Marquis de Puys6gur.  Returning from  serving at,thle siege of Gibraltar, this young officer found mesmerism
the mode at Paris, and appears to have become, for no'other reason, one of the initiated.  At the end of a course
of instruction, he professed himself to'be no wiser than
when it began; and:he ridiculed the credulity of his
brothers, who were stanch adherents of the new doctrine.
However, he did not forget his lesson; and on going the
same spring to his'estate at Besancy, near Soissons, he
took occasion to mesmerize the daughter of his agent and
another young person, for the'toothache, and they declared'themselves, in a few minutes, cuired.  This questionable
success was sufficient to lead M. de Puys6gur, a few days




160                 MESMERISM.
after, to try his hand on a young peasant of the name
of Victor, who was suffering with a severe fluxion on his
chest. What was M. de Puysegur's surprise, when, at
the end of a few minutes, Victor went off into a kind of
tranquil sleep, without crisis or convulsion, and in that
sleep began to gesticulate and talk, and enter into his
private affairs. Then he became sad; and M. de Puys6gur tried mentally to inspire him with cheerful thoughts;
he hummed a lively tune to himself inaudibly, and immediately Victor began to sing the air. Victor remained
asleep for an hour, and awoke composed, with his symptoms mitigated.
The case of Victor revolutionized the art of mesmerism.
The large part of his life, in which M. de Puysegur had
nothing to do but to follow this vein of inquiry, was occupied in practising and advocating a gentle manipulation
to produce sleep, in preference to the more exciting
means which led to the violent crises in Mesmer's art.
I have no plea for telling how M. de Puysegur served in
the first French revolutionary armies; how he quitted the
service in disgust; how narrowly he escaped the guillotine;
how he lived in retirement afterwards, benevolently endeavouring to do good to his sick neighbours by means of
mesmerism; how he survived the Restoration; and how,
finally, he died of a cold caught by serving in the encampment at Rheims, at the coronation of Charles X.
For he had fulfilled his mission the day that he put
Victor to sleep. He had made a vast stride in advance
of his teacher. Not but that Mesmer must frequently
have induced the same condition; but he had passed it
by unheeded as one only of numerous equivalent forms
of salutary crises; or that M. de Puysegur himself estimated, or had the means of estimating, the real nature




MESMERISM.                  161
and value of the step which he had made. To himself he
appeared to be winning a larger domain for mesmerism,
when in fact he had emerged into an independent field,
into which mesmerism happened to have a gate.
The state which he had induced in Victor was common
trance, the initiatory sleep, followed by half-waking.  He
had obtained this result by using the Od force with quietness- and gentleness, leaving out the exciting mental
agencies to which the mixture of violent seizures in Mesmer's practice is attributable.  The gentler method has
been adopted and practised by the successors of M. de
Puysegur, by Deleuze, Bertrand, Georget, Rostan, Foissac, Elliotson, and others. To Dr. Elliotson, the most
successful probably, certainly the most scientific employer
of the practice of mesmerism; the credit is due of having
introduced iVu~ iiiit6o/England: the credit,-for it required no little moral courage to encounter the storm of
opposition With Which his honest zeal in the advocacy of
an unpopulai- practical truth was met.  It is but fair to
add, that though his theory has been superseded, and his
method changed, to Mesme rbe-Ings the merit ofihavlng
first tracked out and realied this path of discovery.  The
golden medal is his.
The modern practice of mesmerism contemplates two
objects: one, the application of the Od force to produce
local effects; the other, its employment to induce trance.
In the present slight sketch I shall say nothing on the
first subject; but let me describe how trance is induced.
It is to be observed, that attention to certain conditions
favours very much the success of the experiment.  The
room should not be too light; very few persons should
be present; the patient and the operator should be quiet,
tranquil, and composed; the patient should be fasting.




162                 MESMERISM.
The operator has then only to sit down before the patient,
who is likewise sitting with his hands resting on his knees,
and gently closed, with the thumbs upwards. The operator then lays his hands half-open upon the patient's,
pressing the thumbs against those of the patient, as it
were taking thumbs: this is a more convenient attitude
than taking hands in the ordinary way. The operator
and patient have then only to sit still. An Od-current
is established; and if the patient is susceptible, he will
soon become drowsy, and perhaps be entranced at the
first sitting. Instead of this, the two hands of the operator may be held horizontally with the fingers pointed to
the patient's forehead, and either maintained in this position, or brought downwards in frequent passes opposite
to the patient's face, shoulders, arms; the points of the
fingers being held as near the patient as possible without
touching.
It is easy, theoretically, to explain the beneficial results
which follow from the daily induction of trance for an
hour or so, in various forms of disorder of the nervous
system,-in epilepsy,-in tic-doloreux,-in nervous palsy,
and the like. As long as the state of trance is maintained, so long is the nervous system in a state of repose.
It is more or less completely put out of gear.  It experiences the same relief which a sprained joint feels when
you dispose it in a relaxed position on a pillow. A
chance is thus given to the strained nerves of recovering
their tone of health; and it is wonderful how many cases
of nervous disorder get well at once through these simple
means. As it is certain that there is no disease in which
the nervous system is not primarily or secondarily implicated, it is impossible to foresee what will prove the limit to
the beneficial application of mesmerism in medical practice.




MESMERISM.                  163
In operative surgery the art is not less available. In
trance the patient is insensible, and a limb may be removed without the operation exciting disturbance of any
kind. And what is equally important, in all the aftertreatment, at every dressing, the process of mesmerizing
may be resorted to again, with no possible disadvantage,
but being rather soothing and useful to the patient, independently of the extinction of the dread and suffering
of pain. The-first instance in which an operation was
performed on a patient in this state was the celebrated
case of Madame Plantin.  It occurred twenty years ago.
The lady was sixty-four years of age, and laboured under
scirrhus of the breast. She was prepared for the operation by M. Chap6lain, who on several successive days
threw her into trance by the ordinary mesmeric manipulations. She was then like an ordinary sleep-walker, and
would converse with indifference about the contemplated
operation, the idea of which, when she was in her natural
state, filled her with terror. The operation of removing
the diseased breast was performed at Paris on the 12th
of April, 1829, by M. Jules Cloquet; it lasted from ten
to twelve minutes. During the whole of this time the
patient, in her trance, conversed calmly with M. Cloquet,
and exhibited not the slightest sign of suffering.  Her
expression of countenance did not change; nor was the
voice, the breathing, or the pulse at all affected. After
the wound was dressed, the patient was awakened from
the trance, when on learning that the operation was over,
and seeing her children round her, Madame Plantin was
affected with considerable emotion, whereupon M. Chap6lain, to compose her, put her back into the state of
trance.
I copy the above particulars from Dr. Foissac's Rap



164                 MESMERISM.
ports et Discussions de l'Acaadmie Royale do M'decine
sur le Magnetism Animal!,-~Pa.ris, 1833.  My friend,
Dr. Warren, of Boston, informed me that, being at Paris,
he had asked M. Jules Cloquet if the story were true.
M. Cloquet answered, "Perfectly."  "Then why," said
Dr. Warren, "have you not repeated the practice?"
M. Cloquet replied'that he had not dared; that the
prejudice against mesmerism was so strong at Paris that
he probably would have lost his reputation and his income
by so doing."
It has been mentioned that in ordinary trance the
mind appears to gain new powers. For a long time we
had to trust to the chance turning up of cases of spontaneous trance, in the experience of physicians of observation, for any light we could hope would be thrown on
those extraordinary phenomena; now we possess around
us, on every side, adequate opportunities for completely
elucidating these events, if we please to employ them.
The philosopher, when.his speculations suggest a new
question to be put, ca-n summon the attendance of a
trance as easily as the Jupiter of the Iliad summoned a
dream; or, looking out for two or three cases to which
the induction of trance may be heneficial, the physician
may have in his house subjects for perpetual reference
and daily experiment.
A gentleman, with whom I have long been well acquainted, for many year:.chairmafn of -the Quarter:Sessions
in a northern county, of which during a late year he was
high -sheriff, has, like M, de: Pys6gur, amused some of
his leisure hours, and benevolently done not a little
good, by taking the trouble of mesme-rizing invalids,
whom he has thus restored to health.  In constant correspondence with, and occasionally having the pleasure




MESMERISM.                 165
of seeing this gentleman, I have learned from him the
common course in which the new powers of the mind,
which belong to trance, are developed under its artificial
induction. The sketch which I propose to give of this
subject will be taken from his descriptions, which, I
should observe, tally in all essential points with what I
meet with in French and German authors. The little
that I have myself seen of the matter, I will mention
preliminarily.
In some, instead of trance, a common fit of hysterics
is produced; in others, slight headache, and a sense of
weight on the eyebrows, and difficulty of raising the eyelids, supervene.
In one young woman, whom I saw mesmerised for the
first time by Dupotet, nothing resulted but a sense of
pricking and tingling wherever he pointed with his hand;
and her arm, on one or two occasions, jumped in the
most natural and conclusive manner when, her eyes being
covered, he directed his outstretched finger to it.
A gentleman, about thirty years of age, when the mesmeriser held his outstretched hands pointed to his head,
experienced no disposition to sleep; but in two or three
minutes he began to shake his head and twist his features
about; at last, his head was jerked from side to side, and
forwards and backwards, with a violence that looked
alarming. But he said, when it was over, that the motion
had not been unpleasant; that he had moved in a sort
voluntarily-although he could not refrain from it. If
the hands of the operator were pointed to his arm instead
of his head, the same violent jerks ensued, and gradually
extended to the whole body. I asked him to try to resist
the influence, by holding his arm out in strong muscular
tension. This had the effect of retarding the attack of
15




166                 MESMERISM.
the jerks, but, when it came on, it was more violent than
usual. I have lately seen another similar case. The
seizure is evidently a form of St. Veitzi's dance brought
out by the operation of the Od force. In neither of these
two cases could trance be induced.
A servant of mine, aged about twenty-five, was mesmerized by Lafontaine, for a full half-hour, and, no effect
appearing to be produced, I told him he might rise from
the chair and leave us. On getting up he looked uneasy,
and said his arms were numb. They were perfectly
paralyzed from the elbows downwards, and numb to the
shoulders.  This was the more satisfactory, that neither
the man himself, nor Lafontaine, nor the four or five
spectators, expected this result.  The operator triumphantly drew a pin and stuck it into the man's hand,
which bled, but had no feeling.  Then heedlessly, to
show it gave pain, Lafontaine stuck the pin into the
man's thigh, whose flashing eye, and half suppressed
growl, denoted that the aggression would certainly have
been returned by another, had the arm which should have
done it not been really powerless. However, M. Lafontaine made peace with the man, by restoring him the use
and feeling of his arms.  This was done by dusting them,
as it were, by quick transverse motions of his extended'
hands. In five minutes nothing remained of the palsy
but a slight stiffness, which gradually wore off in the
course of the evening.
Occasionally partial tonic spasm (improperly termed
catalepsy, for it is of the nature of catochus, and the
rigidity attending it is absolute) supervenes as the only
consequence of mesmerising a -limb. This result, which
is not less alarming to the patient who has not been led
to expect it than the preceding, may be got rid of in the




MESMERISM.                  167
same way. If you point with your fingers to the rigid
muscles, or again, as it were, dust the limb with brisk
transverse passes, or breathe upon it, the stiffness is
thawed and disappears.  Trance is seldom induced by
mesmeric passes without more or less partial muscular
rigidity of this kind supervening; it always yields to the
means which have been mentioned.
Genuine and ordinary trance I have seen produced by
the same manipulations in from three minutes to halfan-hour. The patient's eyelids have dropped, he has
appeared on the point of sleeping, but he has not sunk
back upon his chair; then he has continued to sit upright
~-seemingly perfectly insensible to the loudest sounds,
or the acutest and most startling impressions on the
sense of touch. The pulse is commonly a little increased
in frequency; the breathing is sometimes heavier than
usual.
Occasionally, as in Victor's case, the patient quickly
and spontaneously emerges from the state of trance-sleep
into trance half-waking —a rapidity of development which
I am persuaded occurs much more frequently among the
French than with the English or Germans. English
patients, especially, for the most part require a long
course of education, many sittings, to have the same
powers drawn out. And these are by far the most interesting cases. I will describe, from Mr. Williamson's
account, the course he has usuallyTTl]T:wd in developling
his patient's powers, and the order in which they have
manifested themselves.
On the first day, perhaps, nothing can be elicited.
But after some minutes, the stupor seems, as it were,
less embarrassing to the patient, who appears less heavily
slumbrous, and breathes lighter again: or it may be the




168               — MESMERISM.
reverse, particularly if the patient is epileptic; after a
little, the breathing may be deeper, the state one of less
composure. Pointing with the hands to the pit of the
stomach, laying the hands upon the shoulders, and slowly
moving them along the arms down to the hands, the
whole with the utmost quietude and composure on the
part of the operator, will dispel this oppression.
And the interest of the first sitting is confined to the
process of awakening the patient, which is one of the
most marvellous phenomena of the whole. The operator
lays his two thumbs on the space between the eyebrows,
and as it were vigorously smooths or irons the eyebrows,
rubbing them from within outwards seven or eight times.
Upon this, the patient probably raises his head and his
eyebrows, and draws a deeper breath, as if he would
yawn; he is half awake, and blowing upon the eyelids,
or the repetition of the previous operation, or dusting
the forehead by smart transverse wavings of the hand,
or blowing upon it, causes the patient's countenance to
become animated; the eyelids open, he looks about him,
recognises you, and begins to speak. If any feeling of
heaviness remains, any weight or pain of the forehead,
another repetition of the same manipulations sets all
right. And yet this patient would not have been awakened if a gun had been fired at his ear, or his arm had
been cut off.
At the next sitting, or the next to that, the living
statue begins to wake in its tranced life. The operator
holds one hand over the opposite hand of his patient, and
makes as if he would draw the patient's hand upwards,
raising his:own with short successive jerks, yet not too
abrupt. Then the patient's hand begins to follow his;
and, often having ascended some inches, stops in the air




MESMERISM.                 169
catochally.  This fixed state is always relieved by transverse brushings with the hand, or by breathing in addition, on the rigid limb. And it is most curious to see
the whole bodily frame, over which spasmodic rigidness
may have crept, thus thawed joint by joint. Then the
first effect shown commonly is this motion, the patient's
hand following the operator's. At the same sitting he
begins to hear, and there is intelligence in his countenance when the operator pronounces his name: perhaps
his lips move, and he begins to answer pertinently, as in
ordinary sleep-walking. But he hears the operator alone
best, and him even in a whisper.  Your voice, if you
shout, he does not hear: unless you take the operator's
hand, and then he hears you too. In general, however,
now the proximity of others seems in some way to be
sensible to him; and he appears uneasy when they crowd
close upon him. It seems that the force of the relation
between the operator and his patient naturally goes on
increasing, as the powers of the sleep-walker are developed; but that this is not necessarily the case, and
depends upon its being encouraged by much commerce
between them, and the exclusion of others from joining
in this trance-communion.
And now the patient-beginning to wake in trance,
hearing and answering the questions of the operator,
moving each limb, or rising even, as the operator's hand
is raised to draw him into obedient following-enters into
a new relation with his mesmeriser. He adopts sympathetically every voluntary movement of the other.  When
the latter rises from his chair, he rises; when he sits
down, he sits down: if he bows, he bows; if he make a
grimace, he makes the same. Yet his eyes are closed.
HIe certainly does not see. His mind has interpenetrated




170                 MESMERISM.
to a small extent the nervous system of the operator; and
is in relation with his voluntary nerves and the anterior
half of his cranio-spinal chord. (These are the organs
by which the impulse to voluntary motion is conveyed
and originated.) Further into the other's being he has
not yet got.  So he does not what the other thinks of, or
wishes him to do: but only what the other either does,
or goes through the mental part of doing. So Victor
sang the air which M. de Puys6gur only mentally hummed.
The next strange phenomenon marks that the mind
of the entranced patient has interpenetrated the nervous
system of the other a step farther, and is in relation
besides with the posterior half of the cranio-spinal chord
and its nerves. For now the entranced person, who has
no feeling, or taste, or smell of his own, feels, tastes, and
smells every thing that is made to tell on the senses of the
operator.  If mustard or sugar be put in his own mouth,
he seems not to know that they are there; if mustard is
placed on the tongue of the operator, the entranced person expresses great disgust, and tries as if to spit it out.
The same with bodily pain. If you pluck a hair from
the operator's head, the other complains of the pain you
give him.
To state in the closest way what has happened:  The
phenomena of sympathetic motion and sympathetic sensation thus displayed are exactly such as might be expected to follow, if the mind or conscious principle of the
entranced person were brought into relation with the
cranio-spinal chord of the operator and its nerves, and
with no farther portion of his nervous system. Later, it
will be seen, the interpenetration can extend farther.
But, before this happens, a new phenomenon manifests
itself, not of a sympathetic character.  The operator




MESMERISM.                  171
contrives to wake the entranced person to the knowledge
that he possesses new faculties.  He develops in him new
organs of sensation, or rather helps to hasten his recognition of their possession.
It is to be observed, however, that several who can be
entranced cannot be brought as far as the present step.
Others make a tantalizing half-advance towards reaching
it thus, and then stop. They are asked,-" Do you see
any thing?" After some days, at length they answer
"Yes."  "What?"  "A light."  "Whereis the light?"
Then they intimate its place to be either before them, or,to one side, or above or behind them. And they describe
the colour of the light, which is commonly yellowish.
And each day it is pointed to in the same direction, and
is seen equally whether the room be light or dark. Their
eyes inthe mean time are closed. And here with many
the phenomenon stops. Others in this light now begin
to discern objects held in the direction in which they see
it. The range of this new visual organ, and the conditions under which it acts, are different in different instances. Sometimes the object must be close, sometimes
it is best seen at a short distance; but seen it is.  The
following experiment, which is decisive, was made at my
suggestion: A gentleman standing behind the entranced
person held behind him a pack of cards, from which he
drew several in succession, and, without seeing them
himself, presented them to the new visual organ of the
patient. In each case she named the card right. The
degree of light suited to this new mode of vision is variable: sometimes bright daylight is best; sometimes they
prefer a moderate light. Some distinguish figure and
colour when the room is so dark that the bystanders can
distinguish neither.




172                 MESMERISM.
These observations, which are, however, only in conformity with similar evidence from many other quarters,
I give on the authority of Mr. J. W. Williamson of
Wickham, the gentleman to whom I have before alluded.
The following accidental features, attending the manifestation of transposed senses, were further observed by
Mr. Williamson:In most of the persons in whom Mr. Williamson has
brought out transposed vision, the faculty has been located in a small surface of the scalp behind the left ear;
and to see objects well, the patient has held them at the
distance of five or six inches from and opposite to this
spot. One young woman, who had been temporarily set
aside under affliction for the loss of a relative, on the experiments being resumed, saw from all parts of the head,
but confusedly, a broken and incomplete picture. On a
subsequent day, she saw with the right side of her head.
Afterwards the visual sense returned to its first place.
In one young person, the new sentient organ was on
the top of her head, and to see objects she required them
to be brought into contact with it.  Once that she had a
rheumatic cold and tenderness of the scalp, she said,
when entranced, putting her hand to the crown of her
head, that the cold had made her eyes sore.
One person saw objects best when placed behind her
at the distance of seven or eight feet.
The governess in a neighbouring family was mesmerised
for tic-doloureux. In seven sittings she was cured. At
the second sitting, in her trance she exhibited displaced
sensation. She could read with her finger-ends; her way
was to hold the book open against her chest, the back of
the book towards her, with one hand; then she passed a
finger of the other hand slowly over each word, to read
it.




MESMERISM.                 173
The part-physical character of these phenomena is
shown by an observation of Dr. Petetin's on the first of
his cataleptic patients. At the time that the patient
heard with the pit of her stomach, he found that if with
the fingers of one, say the left hand, he touched the pit
of her stomach, and whispered to the fingers of his right
hand, the patient heard him; but if the left hand was
removed to the smallest possible distance from the patient,
the contact being interrupted, she no longer heard him.
Then he made a chain of seven persons, holding each
other's hands. The nearest to the patient was her sister,
who touched the pit of her stomach; at the other end
was Dr. Petetin, who whispered to his fingers, and was
heard. A cane was then introduced as part of the circuit-the patient still heard; but if a stick of sealingwax, or a glass rod, was substituted for it, or if one of
the party wore silk gloves, the patient could no longer
hear Dr. Petetin. Without close observation, what is
physical in the phenomena which have thus engaged us
is liable to be overlooked; and the bystander may class
them as examples of lucidity, which they are not. Organic co-operation may be traced in them all. Thus,
among Mr. Williamson's earlier experiments, he tried,
sitting before the entranced person, (who had shown no
lucidity,) by imaging strongly to himself a white horse,
to force the image into her mind. When, being awakened,
she, had left the room, on her way she said to her fellowservant, "What was it master said to me about a white
horse? I am sure he said something."  Mr. Williamson,
on learning the maid's remark, supposed his mental operation had been successful. But the same experiment,
when repeated, mostly failed. At last he found out why:
It only succeeded when, in his mental urgency, he half




174                MESMERISM.
made in his own throat the motions of the sounds that
expressed the mental image. Then, and then only, the
patient caught it. For her mind could not read his
thoughts, but as yet had penetrated the inferior part of
the nervous system only, the cranio-spinal cord; and,
being there, had adopted sympathetically the voluntary
impulses that were there performed; so she half-moved
the muscles of her own vocal organs to express the
idea, and from that-its imperfect expression-received
it into her thoughts. No doubt the phenomenon of Victor's singing the words to M. de Puysegur's mentally
hummed air was the same with the above, and not one of
mesmeric lucidity, the subject which we are now approaching.
But I pause; —and go no further.
For my object in these Letters, generally, has been to
establish principles. And the phenomena of lucidity developed in artificial trance have been only the same as,
and have not been as yet made more of than, the lucidity
of catalepsy. No further principle has yet emerged from
their study; and my special object in this Letter has been
to persuade the opponents of mesmerism to do it justice;
and I think I am most likely to attain ray end by not attempting to prove too much.
So that nothing remains for me to do, but to observe
the form in which these Letters were originally shaped, in
recollection of the pleasant hours which the residence of
your family at Boppard, during the winter of 1844-5,
caused me, and to say finally,
DEAR ARCHy, Farewell.




SUPPLEMENTAL.                  175
LETTER XI.
SUPPLEMENTAL.-Abnormal n.euro-psychical relation-Cautions necessary in receiving trance communications-Trance-visitingMesmerising at a distance, and by the will-Mesmeric diagnosis
and treatment of disease —Prevision-Ultra-vital vision.
THE principal alterations made in "the Letters" for
the present edition comprise an expansion of my account
of "trances of spontaneous occurrence," and the introduction. of greater precision into our elementary conceptions of the relations of the mind and nervous system.
Letters V.., VI., VII., and VIII.., establish that the most
startling phenomena in popular superstitions, and the most
wonderful performances by mesmerised persons, are but
repetitions of events, the occurrence of which, as symnptoms of, or as constituting, certain rare forms of nervous
attacks, have been independently authenticated and put
on record by physicians of credit.  Letters II. and IX.
exemplify the mode in which superstition has dressed up
trance-phenomena; as letters III. and IV. display the
contributions she has levied on sensorial illusions, the Od
force, and normal exoneural psychical phenomena. Letter X. describes the method of inducing trances artificially, whereby they may be reproduced at pleasure,
either in the interests of philosophical inquiry, or for important practical purposes.
I dedicate the present Letter to the reconsideration of
the most knotty points already handled, and to the investigation of a few other questions, the solution of which
is not less difficult.




176               SUPPLEMENTAL.
I. Hypothesis of an Abnormal Psychico-neuraZ Relation as the essence of trance.-I admit that it is a very
clumsy expedient to assume that the mind can, as it were,
get loose in the living body, and, while remaining there
in a partially new alliance, exercise some of its faculties
in unaccustomed organs —which organs lose, for the same
time, their normal participation in consciousness; and
farther, that the mind can, partially indeed, but so completely disengage itself from the living body, that its
powers of apprehension may range with what we are accustomed to consider the properties of free spirit, unlimitedly as to space and time. I adopt the hypothesis
upon compulsion —that is to say, because I see no other
way of accounting for the most remarkable trance-phenomena. In due time, it is to be expected that a simple
inductive expression of the facts will take the place of
my hypothetical explanation. But not the less may the
latter, crude as it is, prove of temporary use, by bringing
together in a connected view many new and diversified
phenomena, and planting the subject in a position favourable for scientific scrutiny.
Let me arrange, in their most persuasive order, the
facts which seem to justify the hypothesis above enunciated.
1. In many cases of waking-trance, the patient does
not see with his eyes, hear with his ears, nor taste with
his tongue, and the sense of touch appears to have deserted the skin. At the same time, the patient sees, hears,
and tastes things applied to the pit of the stomach, or
sees and hears with the back of the head, or tips of the
fingers.
2. In the first imperfect trance-waking from initiatory
trance, the patient's apprehension of sensuous impressions




SUPPLEMENTAL.                 177
often appears to have entirely deserted his own body, and
to be in relation with the sentient apparatus in his mesmeriser's frame-for, if you pull his hair, or put mustard
in his mouth, he does not feel either; but he is actually
alive to the sensations which these impressions excite, if
the hair of the mesmeriser is pulled, or mustard placed
on the mesmeriser's tongue. The sensations excited thus
in the mesmeriser, and these alone, the entranced person
realizes as his own sensations.
3. About the same time, the entranced person displays
no will of his own, but his voluntary muscles execute the
gestures which his mesmeriser is making, even when
standing behind his back. His will takes its guidance
from sympathy with the exerted will of the other.
4. Presently, if his trance-faculties continue to be developed, the entranced person enters into communication
with the entire mind of his mesmeriser. His apprehension seems to penetrate the brain of the latter, and is
capable of reading all his thoughts.
5. In the last three steps, the apprehension of the entranced person appears to have left his own being to the
extent described, and to have entered into relation with
the mind or nervous system of another person. Now, if
the patient become still more lucid, his apprehension seems
to range abroad through space, and to identify material
objects, and penetrate the minds of other human beings,
at indefinite distances.
6. At length the entranced person displays the power
of revealing future events-a power which, as far as it
relates to things separate from his own bodily organization, or that-of others, seems to me to show that his apprehension is in relation with higher spiritual natures, or
with the Fountain of Truth itself.
16




178                SUPPLEMENTAL.
In the following pages I have given examples of those
of the powers here attributed to very lucid clairvoyantes,
which I have not previously instanced.
II. Transposition of the Senses.-No doubt these phenomena, irregular as they seem at present, follow a definite
law, which has to be determined by future observations
and experiments. Mr. Williamson found some of his
clairvoyantes see with the back of the head, some with
the side of the head-some best at seven inches, others
at as many feet off. In the case which Mr. Bulteel reported to me, the lady read with her hand and fingers;
even when he pressed a note against the back of her
neck, she read it instantly: but in this case actual contact was necessary.  In the case of a governess, artificially brought to the state of waking-trance by Mr. Williamson, the same faculty was observed. With one hand
she used to hold open the book to be read, resting it
against her chest, the pages being turned away from her:
the contents of these she read fluently, touching the
words with the forefinger of the other hand. In one
very interesting case, which I witnessed here in the autumn of 1849, the young lady, clairvoyant through mesmerism, sitting in the corner of a sofa, something reclined, would have seen, had she peeped through a linear
aperture between her seemingly closed eyelids, the lower
half of things only. As it was, the reverse was the fact;
and when we asked her what she saw, she told us the
cornice and upper part of the room. Then, without
saying any thing, I raised my cap upon my stick to within
her declared range of trance-vision; she exclaimed, "' Ah,
Guilleaume Tell!"  Her mother, whom she heard speak,
but had not hitherto seen, in this trance, she recognised




SUPPLEMENTAL.                179
at once, when she stood up upon a chair.  To read, in this
trance, appeared a very painful effort to her; but she
was certainly able to make out some words when she
pressed a written paper against her forehead. It was
evident that she could now visually discern things by some
new faculty of apprehension localized there. To enable
her to see things at a few feet distance, they had equally
to be placed opposite to her forehead. In another case,
in which the girl, when entranced, certainly saw with the
knuckles of one hand, on smearing the back of that hand
with ink, she could no longer see with it.
The above instances show how various are the features
attending the transposition of one sense alone in waking
trance; and they suggest a multitude of experiments. I
remember, in 1838, on communicating facts of this kind
to a clear-headed practical man, he raised this objection
to their credibility: "If we can see without eyes, why
has the Creator given us eyes!" The objection is specious enough, but it admits of an obvious answer. The
state of trance is one of disease, transient and temporary; it is during its persistence only that this new power
of apprehension is manifested. In our natural state, the
mind is intended to operate and try experiences in subordination to matter, and through definite material organs, in which it is, in truth, imprisoned. Such is the
law of our normal mortal being. Accordingly, when the
trance is over, and the mind has returned to its normal
relations with the body, all its trance-apprehensions
are forgotten by it-they form no part of our moral
life.
III. Sources of Error in the communications of entranced persons.-I put aside cases of deliberate decep



180                SUPPLEMENTAL.
tion; but when persons are really entranced, they are
liable, in various ways, to be deceived themselves, and to
deceive"'others, as: to the value of their revealments.
There is often, in waking trance, a great vivacity and
disposition to be communicative from the first. Those,
again, who have frequently been thrown into trance,
and have become familiar with their new condition, are
generally'anxious to shine in it, and make a display.
This disposition is furtherheightened when the entranced
person expects tolbe rewarded for his performance.
1. Whenjindulging their lively fancy, they are liable
to have a sort of waking dream, during which they describe imaginary scenes with the precision and minuteness of reality, and represent them as actual, passing at
some place they name.
2. They are liable to recall past impressions, and to
deliver bits of old conclusions for intuitions.
3. They are liable to adopt the thoughts of others who
may be near them, especially those of their mesmeriser,
and to deliver them as trance-revelations.
4. In one instance which came to my knowledge, a
young lady, previously unacquainted with mathematics
or astronomy, would, when entranced, and sitting with
her mother and sister, write fluently off pages of an astronomical treatise, calculations, diagrams, and all. She
averred and believed in her entranced state-for, when
awake, it was all a mystery to her-that this performance was the product of an intuition. Her manuscript
was afterwards found to run word for word with an article in the Encyelopwedia Britannica.  That book, however, stood in the library, in a remote part of the house.
She certainly had it not with her when she used to scribble its contents; nor did she remember ever having




SUPPLEMENTAL.                 181
looked into it, awake or asleep. She said —when entranced: and this had been found out-that she believed
she read the book as it stood in the library.
5. With some imperfectly lucid patients, the exercise
of their new faculties appears to be fatiguing, and to call
for great exertion.  So they are occasionally with difficulty led to answer at all; and then when inconsiderately pressed, they are tempted to say any thing, just to be
left tranquil.
It is difficult to say how the preceding sources of error
are to be effectually guarded against. Possibly, by rigid
training from the first, the patient might be brought to
distinguish false promptings from genuine intuitions.
But even the latter vary in lucidity and certainty. This
admission was made to a friend of mine by M. Alexis,
the celebrated Parisian clairvoyante. The reader cannot
fail to be interested by the following account, given by
M. Alexis when entranced, of his own powers, and their
mode of operation:"Pour voir des objets 6loignes," observed M. Alexis,
"mon ame ne se d6gage pas de mon corps. C'est ma
volonte qui d6rige mon ame, mon esprit, sans sortir de
cette chambre ou je suis.  Si mon ame sortit, je serais
mort; c'est ma volont6. Ma volonte sufIit pour aneantir
pour quelque tems la matiere.  Ainsi quand cette volont6
est en jeu, la boite materielle de mon individu n'est plus.
Les murs, l'espace, et mgme le tems, n'existent plus.
Mais ce n'est qu'un reve plus ou moins lucide. Quelquefois ma vue est meilleure qu'a d'autres.  Ma vue n'est
jamais la emme.  Une fois je suis dispos6 pour voir une
sorte de choses, et une autre fois une autre sorte. En
regardant votre chambre dans un quartier l61oign6 d'ici,
je ne vois pas les rues ni les maisons interm6diaires. La
16*




182                SUPPLEMENTAL.
seule chose (alors) qui est dans la pensee est la personne
qui me parle. Je vois les objets d'une maniere plus incomplete que par mes sens, moins sure. I1 serait impossible de fair comprendre comment je vois. Plus il y a
de l'attraction —plus j'eprouve de l'attraction aux objets
que je veux voir, ou qui me touche-plus il y a de
lumi6re; plus j'eprouve de repulsion, plus il y a de
t6nebres."
IV. Of the Different Qualities of Od in different individuals.-Von Reichenbach observed the Od light to
have different colours tinder different circumstances, and
that, while Od-negative produces the sensation of a draft
of cool air, Od positive produces a sense as of a draft of
warm air. An easy way to verify the last phenomenon
is to beg some one to hold the forefinger of the right
hand pointed to your left palm, at a quarter of an inch
distance, and afterwards his left forefinger to your right
palm, when the two sensations, and their difference, are
appreciable by the majority of persons.
Persons entranced by mesmeric procedures are often
keenly alive to the above impressions. They see light
emanating from the finger-tips of the mesmeriser, and
feel an agreeable afflatus from his manipulations. Others
who approach them affect them in different ways-some
not disagreeably, while others excite a chilly, shivering
feeling, and the patient begs they will keep off from
him.
A gentleman narrated to me the following case.  He
had been for months in anxious attendance upon a brother who was in very delicate health, and exquisitely
sensitive to mesmerism. My friend used himself to mesmerise his brother; but he found it necessary, in order
to soothe and not excite him by the passes, to cover the




SUPPLEMENTAL.                183
patient with a folded blanket, so as to dull the agency
of his Od-emanation. There was but another person, of
several who had been tried, whose hand the brother could
bear at all; this was a maid-servant, who herself was
highly susceptible, and became entranced. She said that
she perceived, when entranced, the suitableness of her
influence, and that of the brother, to the patient; and
she used the singular expression, that they were nearly
of a colour. She said that the patient's Od-emanation
was of a pink colour, and that the brother's was a brick
colour-a flatter, deeper, red; and she endeavoured to
find some one else with the same coloured Od to suit her
master.
In some experiments made at Dr. Leighton's house in
Gower Street, I remember it was distinctly proved that
each of the experimenters produced different effects on
the same person. The patient was one of the Okeys, of
mesmeric celebrity. The party consisted of Dr. Elliotson, Mr. Wheatstone, Dr. Grant, Mr. Kiernan, and some
others.  Mr. Wheatstone tabulated the results.  Each of
us mesmerised a sovereign; and it was found that on
each trial the trance-coma, which contact with the thus
mesmerised gold induced, had a characteristic duration
for each of us. Is it possible that each living person has
his distinguishable measure of Od, either in intensity or
quality?
V. The Od-Foree is the usual channeZ of establishing
mesmeric relation.-I take it for granted that the Odforce-the existence and some of the properties of which
have been inductively ascertained by Von Reichenbach
-is the same agent with that which Mesmer assumed to
be the instrument in his operations.  Then, in support




184               SUPPLEMENTAL.
Of the above proposition, I cite two instances. Mr. Williamson, at my request, mesmerised and entranced the
Rev. Mr. Fox at Weilbach, in the autumn of 1847.  It
was the second sitting, and Mr. Fox was beginning to
pass from the initiatory stage of trance into trance halfwaking. Mr. Williamson addressed him, and he returned
an answer. Other parties in the room, including myselfi
then addressed Mr. Fox, and he seemed not to hear one
of us. Then Mr. Williamson gave me his hand, and I
again spoke to Mr. Fox; he then heard me, and spoke
in answer. When, having left go Mr. Williamson's hand,
I spoke again to Mr. Fox, he heard me not., On my
renewing contact with Mr. Williamson, Mr. Fox heard
me again. He heard me as long as I was brought into
relation with him, and that relation was' clearly due to
the establishment of an Od-current between myself and
Mr. Williamson, with whom  Mr. Fox was already in
trance-relation. Every one who has seen something of
Mesmerism will recognise in the above story one of its
commonest phenomena.
But a more conclusive instance still has been already
mentioned in Letter X. M. Petetin made a chain of
seven persons holding hands, the seventh holding the
hand of a cataleptic patient, who at that time heard by
her fingers only. When Dr. Petetin spoke to the fingers
of the first, i. e. the most remote, person of the chain, the
cataleptic person heard him as well as if he had spoken to
her own fingers. Even when a stick was made to form
part of the circuit, the cataleptic still heard Dr. Petetin's
whisper, uttered at the other end of the chain. iNot so,
however, if one of the Parties forming the chain wore silk
gloves.




SUPPLEMENTAL..               18&5
VI. Trance-Identification of persons at a distance by
means of material objects.-A very lucid clairvoyante,
her eyes being bandaged, recognises not the less, without preparation or effort, every acquaintance present in
the room; describes their dress, the contents of their
purses, or of letters in their pockets, and reads their innermost thoughts. An ordinary clairvoyante usually requires the contact of the party's hand with whom it is
proposed to bring her into trance-relation; then only
does she first know any thing about her new patient.  It
cannot be doubted that, in the latter case, it is the establishment of an Od-current between the two that enables
the mind of the clairvoyante to penetrate the interior
being of the visiter,-just as, in the humblest effects of
common mesmerism, a relation is sensibly established between the party entranced and her mesmeriser, through
the Od-current which he had previously directed upon
her, in order to produce the trance. So far, all is theoretically clear enough.
But how is the establishment of the same relation beetween the clairvoyante and a party wholly unknown to
her, and residing many miles off, to be explained, when
the only visible medium of physical connexion employed
has been a lock of hair or a letter written by the distant
party, and placed in the hands of the clairvoyante?
Let me begin by giving the explanation, and afterwards exemplify the phenomenon out of my own experience.
I conceive that the lock of hair, or the letter on which
his hand has rested, is charged with the Od-fluid emanating from the distant person; and that the clairvoyante measures exactly the force and quality of this dose
of Od, and, as it were, individualizes it. Then, using




18G               SUPPLEMENTAL.
this clue, distance being annihilated to the entranced
mind, it seeks for, or is drawn towards, whatever there
is more of this same individual Od quality any where in
space. When that is found, the party sought is identified, and brought into relation with the clairvoyante, who
proceeds forthwith to tell all about him.
Now for an exemplification of this marvellous phenomenon. Being at Boppard, a letter of mine addressed
to a friend in Paris was by him put into the hands of M.
Alexis, who was asked to describe me. M. Alexis told
at once my age and stature, my disposition, and my illness; how that I am entirely crippled, and at that time
of the day, half-past eleven, A.M. was in bed. All this,
to be sure, M. Alexis might have read in my friend's
mind, without going farther. But, he added, this gentleman lives on the sea-coast. My friend denied the assertion; but M. Alexis continued very positive that he was
right. Now, most oddly, the Rhine, on the banks of
which I resided then, is at Boppard the boundary of
Prussia; and I never cross it, or visit Nassau, but I am
in the habit of sitting on the bank, listening to the breaking of the surge, which the passing steamers create,
and which exactly resembles the murmur of the sea.
This very mistake of M. Alexis helped to convince me
that this performance of his was genuine. However,
being stoutly contradicted by my friend, M. Alexis reconsidered the matter, and said, ".No; he does not live
on the sea-coast, but on the Rhine, twenty leagues from
Frankfort." This answer was exact. But there was
another point which M. Alexis hit with curious felicity.
I should observe that this friend was one of a few months'
date, who had no means of comparing what I am with what
I was formerly. But it had happened that I had written,




SUPPLEMENTAL.,              187
not to him, but to a friend resident in England, about
the same time, that, ill as I was, my mind was singularly
clear and active, and that I regarded the fact as a sign
my end was at hand; that the mental brightness probably resembled the flaring-up of a rushlight before it goes
out.  Well, M. Alexis, adverting to my condition, observed that I was extremely weak, and had suffered much
from irritation of the nerves;-facts true enough, but
which certainly would not have led him to infer the existence of that clearness of mind which I had myself remarked. Nevertheless, strangely added M. Alexis, " Le
morale n'en est pas atteint; au contraire, l'esprit est plus
dega.g  et plus vif qu'auparavant."  I can therefore entertain no doubt, that at four hundred miles' distance,
merely by handling a recent letter from me, M. Alexis
had identified me as its writer, through the Od-fluid the letter conveyed; and had truly penetrated my physical and
mental being so completely, that most that was important in my story lay distinctly revealed before him.
VII. Mental Travelling by clairvoyantes.-Let me begin with an instance. The following extract from the
Zoist contains a very interesting narrative by Lord Ducie,
which is exactly to the point:
"In the highest departments or phenomena of mesmerism, he for a long time was a disbeliever, and could
not bring himself to believe in the power of reading with
the eyes bandaged, or of mental travelling; at length,
however, he was convinced of the truth of those powers,
and that, too, in so curious and unexpected a way, that
there could have been no possibility of deception.  It
happened that he had to call upon a surgeon on business,
and when he was there the surgeon said to him,' You




188               SUPPLEMENTAL.
have never seen my little clairvoyante.' He replied that
he never had, and should like to see her very much. He
was invited to call the next day, but upon his replying
that he should be obliged to leave town that evening, he
said,'Well, you can come in at once. I am obliged to
go out; but I will ring the bell for her, and put her to
sleep, and you can ask her any questions you please.'
He (Lord Ducie) accordingly went in. He had never
been in the house in his life before, and the girl could
have known nothing of him. The bell was rung; the
clairvoyante appeared: the surgeon, without a word passing, put her to sleep, and then he put on his hat and left
the room. He (Lord Ducie) had before seen something
of mesmerism, and he sat by her, took her hand, and
asked her if she felt able to travel. She replied,'Yes;'
and he asked her if she had ever been in Gloucestershire,
to which she answered that she had not, but should very
much like to go there, as she had not been in the country
for six years: she was a girl of about seventeen years
old. He told her that she should go with him, for he
wanted her to see his farm. They travelled (mentally)
by the railroad very comfortably together, and then (in
his imagination) got into a fly and proceeded to his house.
HIe asked her what she saw; and she replied,'I see an
iron gate and a curious old house.' He asked her,'How do you get to it?' she replied,'By this gravelwalk;' which was quite correct. He asked her how they
went into it; and she replied,'I see a porch-a curious
old porch.' It was probably known to many, that his
house, which was a curious old Elizabethan building, was
entered by a porch, as she had described. He asked her
what she saw on the porch, and she replied, truly, that it
was covered with flowers.' He then said,'Now, we will




SUPPLEMENTAL.                  189
turn in at our right hand; what do you see in that room?'
She answered with great accuracy,'I see a book case,
and a picture on each side of it.' Ie told her to turn
her back to the book case, and say what she saw on the
other side; and she said,'I see something shining, like
that which soldiers wear.'  She also described some old
muskets and warlike implements which were hanging in
the hall; and upon his asking her how they were fastened up, (meaning by what means they were secured,)
she mistook his question, but replied,'The muskets are
fastened up in threes,' which was the case. He then
asked of what substance the floors were built; and she
said,'Of black and white squares,' which was correct.
HIe then took her to another apartment, and she very
minutely described the ascent to it as being by four steps.
lie (Lord Ducie) told her to enter by the right door, and
say what she saw there; she said,'There is a painting
on each side of the fire-place.'  Upon his asking her if
she saw any thing particular in the fire-place, she replied,'Yes; it is carved up to the ceiling,' which was quite correct, for it was a curious old Elizabethan fireplace. There
was at Totworth-court a singular old chestnut-tree; and
he told her that he wished her to see a favourite tree,
and asked her to accompany him. He tried to deceive
her by saying,'Let us walk close up to it;' but she replied,'We cannot, for there are railings round it.' IIe
said,'Yes, wooden railings;' to which she answered,'No,
they are of iron,' which was the case.  He asked,'What
tree is it?' and she replied that she had been so little in
the country that she could not tell; but upon his asking
her to describe the leaf, she said,'It is a leaf as dark as
the geranium-leaf, large, long, and jagged at the edges.'
He (Lord Ducie) apprehended that no one could describe
17




190                SUPPLEMENTAL.
more accurately than that the leaf of the Spanish chestnut.  Ile then told her he would take her to see his farm,
and desired her to look over a gate into a field which he
had in his mind, and tell him what she saw growing; she
replied that the field was all over green, and asked if it
was potatoes, adding that she did not know much about
the country.  It was not potatoes, but turnips.  He then
sfid,'Now look over this gate to the right, and tell me
what is growing there.' She at once replied,' There is
nothing growing there; it is a field of wheat, but it has
been cut and carried.'  This was correct; but knowing
that, in a part of the field, grain had been sown at a different period, he asked her if she was sure that the whole
of it had been cut.  She replied, that she could not see
the end of the field, as the land rose in the middle, which
in truth it did.  Ie. then said to her,'Now we are on
the brow, can you tell me if it is cut?' She answered,'No, it is still growing here.' He then said to her,'Now, let us come to this gate —tell me where it leads to.'
She replied,'Into a lane.' She then went on and described every thing on his farm with the same surprising
accuracy; and upon his subsequently inquiring, he found
that she was only in error in one trifling matter, for
which error any one who had ever travelled (mentally)
with a clairvoyante could easily account, without conceiving any breach of the truth."
If the preceding example stood alone, or if, in parallel
cases, no further phenomena manifested themselves, nothing more would be required to explain the facts than
to suppose that the mental fellow-traveller reads all your
thoughts. and adopts your own imagery and impressions. But there are not wanting cases in which the fellow-traveller has seen what was not in his companion's
mind, and was at variance with hIis belief; while subse



SUPPLEMENTAL.                191
quent inquiry has proved that the clairvoyante's unexpected story was true. These more complicated cases prove that
the clairvoyante actually pays a mental visit to the scene.
But she can do more; she can pass on to other and remoter scenes and places, of which her fellow-traveller has
no cognizance.
For example, a young person whom Mr. Williamson
mesmerised became clairvoyant.'In this state she paid
me a mental visit at Boppard; and Mr. Williamson, who
had been a resident there, was satisfied that she realized
the scene. Afterwards I removed to Weilbach, where
Mr. Williamson had never been. Then he proposed to
the clairvoyante to visit me again. She reached, accordingly, in mental travelling, my former room in Boppard;
and expressed surprise and annbyance at not finding me
there, and at observing others in its pccupation. Mr. Williamson proposed that she should set out, and try to find
me. She said, "You must help me." Then Mr. Williamson said, "We must go up the river some way, till
we come to a great town," (Mainz.) The clairvoyante
said she had got there.  "Then," said Mr. Williamson,
"we must now go up another river, (the Maine,) which
joins our river at this town, and try and find Dr. Mayo
on its banks somewhere." Then the clairvoyante said,
"Oh, there is a large house; let us go and see it; no,
there are two large houses-one white, the other red."
Upon this, Mr. Williamson proposed that she should go
into one of the two houses, and look about; she quickly
recognised my servant, went mentally into my room,
found me, and described a particular or two, which were
by no means likely to be guessed by her. When Mr.
Williamson subsequently came to visit me at Weilbach,
he was forcibly struck with the appearance of the two




192                SUPPLEMENTAL.
houses, which tallied with the account given beforehand
by the mental traveller. I have not the smallest doubt
she mentally realized my new abode. Then, how did she
do all this?
The first question is, how does the clairvoyante realize
scenes which are familiar to her fellow-traveller? I cannot help inclining to the belief that, in the ordinary perception of a place or person, the mind acts exoneurally;
and that our apprehension (as I have ventured to conjecture in Letter V.) comes thus always into a direct relation with the place or person. There is a peculiar vividness in a first impression, which every one must have
observed; there is no renewing that force of impression
again.  This fact helps my hypothesis.  It will be remembered again, that in Zschokke's narrative of his seergift, he never penetrated the minds of his visiters unless
at their very first visit. It is the same, even to a certain
extent, with mesmeric inspection of the mind. My friend,
who consulted M. Alexis for me, consulted him likewise
for himself more than once. At the first visit, M. Alexis
traced an aggravation of his illness, a year before, to distress occasioned by the death of two younger brothers at
a short interval.  On my friend's subsequent visits, M.
Alexis marked no knowledge at all of the latter occurrence.  Slightly as these facts are connected, they concurrently strengthen my notion of the occurrence of an
exoneural act of the mind in common perception. I suspect, I repeat, that, in visiting new places, the mind establishes a direct relation with the scenes or persons. Then,
in the simplest case of mental visiting, where the scene
visited is familiar to the other party, I presume that the
clairvoyante's mind, being in communion with the mind of
the other, realizes scenes which the latter has previously
exoneurally realized.  Arriving thus at the scene itself,




SUPPLEMENTAL.                 193
the clairvoyante observes for herself, and sees what may
be new in it, and unknown to her fellow-traveller; and
in the same way may pursue, as in the mental visit made
to myself at Weilbach, suggested features of the locality,
and be thus helped to beat about in space for new objects,
and at length to recognise among them, and mentally
identify, persons with whom she has already arrived at a
mental mesmeric relation.
VIII. lMesmerising at a Distance. Mesmerising by the
Will.-I have not heard of a case in which a person has
been for the first time mesmerised with effect by one out
of the room.
Generally the mesmeriser is very near to his patient
at the first sitting, often actually holding his hand-at
all events so near that the Od-emanation of his person
might be expected to reach the patient. And the patient
is often sensible of new sensations, which he is disposed
to attribute to the physical agency of the operator on him.
In Mr. Braid's cases, it seemed to me clear that the effects
were mainly brought about, as in common mesmerism, by
his personal influence.
Afterwards, when a patient has by use become highly
sensitive to Od, and disposed to fall into trance, I have
myself, by making passes in the next room, succeeded in
producing the sleep. And I have seen, with open doors,
mesmeric effects produced by passes at the distance of
ninety feet.
But with persons rendered through use extremely susceptible of mesmeric impression, an effect may be produced by the habitual mesmeriser of the patient at almost
unlimited distances.  The following instance is given by
Dr. Foissac in his valuable work on mesmerism, entitled
17`




194               SUPPLEMENTAL.
Rapports et Discussions sur le laircgnetisme Animal,
(Paris, 1838.) Dr. Foissac speaks, in the first person,
of an experiment made by himself on a patient of the
name of Paul Villagrand, whom he had been in the habit
of mesmerising in the usual way at Paris, where both resided.
"In the course of the June ensuing," says Dr. Foissac,
-"Paul expressed the wish to pass some days in his native
place, Magnac-Laval, Haute Vienne. I provided him
with the means, and proposed to turn his journey to
scientific account by attempting to entrance him at the
distance qf a hundred leagues. He was not to know
my intention before the time came; but on the 2d of
July, at half-past five P.M., his father was to give him a
note from me, which ran thus-'I am magnetising you
at this moment; I will awake you when you have had a
quarter of an hour's sleep.' M. Villagrand made the
success of the experiment the more decisive by not handing over my letter to his son, and so disregarding my instructions.  Nevertheless, at ten minutes before six, Paul
being in the midst of his family, experienced a sensation
of heat, and considerable uneasiness. His shirt was wet
through with perspiration; he wished to retire to his room;
but they detained him. In a few minutes he was entranced.
In this state he astonished the persons present, by reading with his eyes shut several lines of a book taken at
hazard from the library, and by telling the hour upon a
watch they held to him. He awoke in a quarter of an
hour."
One naturally doubts whether the physical influence of
the Od force can extend to this enormous distance; whether the agency ought not to be regarded as purely psychical; whether, in short, the will of the speaker may not
have been the exclusive agent employed.




SUPPLEMENTAL                 19 5
I think that there is a disposition, among experimenters
in mesmerism, to attribute too much to the agency of the
will. There was with me in the autumn of 1849 a young
lady, who was extremely susceptible of mesmerism. A
gentleman who came with the family had been in the habit
of entrancing her daily, and at last she was so sensitive
that a wave of his hand would fix her motionless. His
presence even in the room affected her; and if he then
tried to mesmerise her sister, she herself invariably became
entranced.  The operator was a person of remarkable
mesmeric power. Then at my request, made unknown to
her, he went to the end window of the room, and, looking
out upon the Rhine, tried at the same time with the most
forcible mental efforts to will her into sleep. The attempt
failed entirely. Another day that he was in my room,
about fifty feet from the room in which the young lady
was sitting, he tried again by the will to entrance her. But
it was all in vain. Therefore, if the will ever acts independently of Od influence, I am disposed to think that its
action in producing trance must be infinitely feebler than
the direct use of Od.
However, some are convinced of the positive agency
of the will in mesmerising. The following statement by
Mr. H. S. Thompson of Fairfield, made in a letter to Dr.
Elliotson, published in the Zoist, admits the inferiority
in force of the will to the material agency of Od, at the
same time that it goes far to prove its efficiency.
"I have succeeded," says Mr. Thompson, "in arresting spasms, and taking away every species of pain, and
in producing intense heat and perspiration, by the will
only; and in many instances without the knowledge of
the patients, who have been all unconscious of the power
I have been exerting, until after the results have occurred.




196               SUPPLEMENTAL.
At the same time, I have generally found that the passes
in combination with the will, or attention, most readily
produce the effects we desire; and that manipulations are
much less fatiguing to the operator than the exertion of
the will."
Of an extremely sensitive patient, who was suffering
with rheumatic pains, Mr. H. S. Thompson observes, "A
few passes put her to sleep, though she was moaning as in
great pain, and scarcely seemed to notice what I was
doing. After sleeping for a few minutes, her face became
composed, and she showed no symptoms of pain; but as
I could not get her to speak in her sleep, I awakened her.
She looked very much surprised, and said that she felt
very comfortable and free from pain. I told my friend
that she was so sensitive that I thought that she might
be put to sleep by the will in a few minutes. The bedcurtains were drawn, so that she could not see or know
what was going on. I fixed my attention upon her, wishing her to go to sleep. Wyhen we looked at her two
minutes afterwards, she was fast asleep. It was agreed
that the following day, though I should be thirty miles off,
the experiment should be tried again. A lady went at
the time fixed on. I purposely postponed the time halfan-hour, thinking that the woman might have become acquainted with my intention, and go to sleep through the
power of the imagination. The lady's account was, that
she called upon the woman at the time agreed on, and at
first thought that the experiment was going to fail, as she
saw no symptoms of sleep; but that in half-an-hour afterwards the patient went into a deep sleep, which lasted some
time. After this she went to sleep every day for a fortnight at the same time, though I did not will her to sleep.
She says that she felt in a dreamy and happy state for
some days after."




SUPPLEMENTAL.               197
I might add many similar facts to the above interesting observations. The mass of evidence existing on the
subject establishes beyond all doubt that patients have
been thrown into trances by persons who have previously
mesmerised them in the common way, at distances which
seem to preclude the idea of any physical agent having
been the medium of communication between the two
parties. The operation seems to have been in those instances mental. Then how is such a result to be explained?
-or by what expression can it be brought to tally with
the principles I am endeavouring to substantiate? I shape
the answer thus:The first step is ordinary mesmerising; in other words,
the operator directs an Od-current upon the patient, the
Od in whose system is thereby disturbed; and initiatory
trance ensues as the consequence.
Secondly, The mind of the patient thus entranced enters into relation with, or is attracted towards, the mind
or person of the mesmeriser.  I remember witnessing a
most decisive instance in which the operation of this attraction was singularly manifested. The place was Dr.
Elliotson's waiting-room; the patient, a young man whom
Mr. Simpson had entranced. Mr. Simpson then moved
about the room, standing still at several points in it in
succession. The young man seemed attracted towards Mr.
Simpson, to whom he drew near each time he stopped;
then he pressed against Mr. Simpson, jostling him out of
his place, which he planted himself in-his countenance
bearing an expression of huge delight at what he had
achieved. But in half a minute he began to look anxious
and uneasy; and again —his eyes being shut all the while
-he set off in search of Mr. Simpson, and repeated the
same scene. There exists, it would appear, an attraction




198               SUPPLEMENTAL.
between the (mind of the?) entranced person and (that
of?) his mesmeriser, or (that of?) any other person with
whom the entranced person has secondarily come into relation.
Then, thirdly, It may be presumed that, in phenomena
which are purely mental, space and distance go for nothing. But if this supposition be admitted, it would be
as easy for a mesmeriser to entrance by a mental effort
a sensitive and habituated patient at a hundred miles off
as at the end of the same room. The phenomenon thus
viewed is wholly exoneural. The one mind is supposed
to be actually sensitive to the influence of the other. Each
of the two minds, though in different degrees, energizes,
it may be imagined, beyond its bodily frame. And the
mind of the patient feels the force of the mesmeriser's
will acting upon it, and slips as it were at once, by the
accustomed track, out of the normal into the abnormal
psychico-neural relation.
Still I cannot get rid of a lurking notion that, in the
phenomena last considered, the Od-force contributes an
element of physical or physico-dynamic influence. For,
putting for the moment aside the idea of mental action,
what is to prevent two living bodies, that may be in Odrelation, or in exact Od-unison, from physically influencing one another at indefinite distances?
IX. Trance-Diagnosis.-From  Boppard, where I was
residing in the winter of 1845-6, I sent to an American
gentleman residing in Paris a lock of hair, which Col.
C-, an invalid then under my care, had cut from his
own head, and wrapped in writing-paper from his own
writing-desk.  Col. C- was unknown even by name to
this American gentleman, who had no clue whatever
whereby to identify the proprietor of the hair, And all




SUPPLEMENTAL.                 199
that he had to do and did was to place the paper, enclosing the lock of hair, in the hands of a noted Parisian
somnambulist. She stated, in the opinion she gave on
the case, that Col. C- had partial palsy of the hips and
legs, and that for another complaint he was in the habit
of using a surgical instrument. The patient laughed
heartily at the idea of the distant somnambulist having
so completely realized him.
The mesmeric discrimination of disease involves three
degrees.
First, the clairvoyante placed in relation with the
patient, either by taking his hand, or by handling a lock
of his hair, or any thing impregnated with his Od, feels
all hisfeelinqs, realizes his sensations, and describes what
he sensibly labours under.  Her account of the. case thus
obtained will be more or less happy, according to the
extent of her previous knowledge respecting ordinary disease.
Secondly, the clairvoyante, if in a higher state of lucidness, actually sees and inspects the interior bodily construction of the patient, whose inward organs are, as it
would seem, lit with Od-light, for her examination. Or
she sees them by their Od-light, being in mesmeric relation with the internal, frame of the patient.
Thirdly, the clairvoyante, if still more lucid, foresees
what will be the progress of the malady; what further
organic changes are threatened; what will be the patient's
fate.
The first two points require no further comment. I
reserve my comments upon the last for another head.
X. Mesmeric Treatment.-Let me first advert to the use
of artificial trance as an anwesthetic agent in the service
of surgery.  There is no doubt that, when a patient can




200                SUPPLEMENTAL.
thus be deprived of ordinary sensibility, the resource is
preferable to the employment of chloroform. Not only
is it absolutely free from risk, but its direct effect is to
soothe and tranquillize; whereas chloroform is but a
powerful narcotic, the effects of which are obtained
through a brief stage of violent physical excitement.
Then, at each dressing-at any moment, in short, when
advisable —mesmerism may be again resorted to, which
chloroform cannot. The honour of having been the first
to employ mesmerism systematically, as an ansesthetic
agent, belongs to James Esdale, M. D., Presidency Surgeon at Calcutta. The reports of his success, in a vast
body of cases, many of the most serious description, are
given in the Zoist.
A second point is the employment of artificial trance
as a universal sedative; as a means from which, in all
cases purely nervous, the most admirable results may be
expected and are realized; and from which, in disease in
general, singular and beneficial effects have been obtained.
This success was confidently to be anticipated, the instant
that the real nature of mesmeric phenomena was appreciated.
A third point is the employment of mesmeric passes,
without the intention or power to produce trance,simply as a local means of tranquillizing the nervous
sensibility of a diseased part, and allaying the morbid
phenomena which depend upon local nervous irritation.
There is a fourth point under this head which will be
regarded as more questionable, viz. the power attributed
to clairvoyantes of prescribing treatment for themselves
and others.  Nevertheless, in their own cases, where
the prescriptions have been limited to baths, and bleeding, and mesmerism itself, the boldness and precision of




SUPPLEMENTAL.                201
their practice, and its success, have been such as to excite
our.wonder, and almost to command our confidence.  It
does not, however, seem that the treatment prescribed
by.clairvoyantes to others is equally certain; and when
they recommend drugs, it is clear that, adopting the
fashion of the time and country in medicine, they are
only prescribing by guess, like other doctors. But they
sometimes guiess very cleverly.
XI. Ph1reno-Mesmerism.-How great is my regret that
I can no longer take an active part in physiological inquiry! How great is my regret that in former years,
when I worked at the physiology of the nervous system,
I undervalued phrenology! Prejudiced against it by the
writings of the late Dr. Gordon, by the authority of my
early instructors, by the puerile mode in which craniology
was generally advocated, by the superficial quality of
the cerebral anatomy of Gall, I confined my attention to
what I considered sounder objects of investigation. But
now I have no doubt, not only that the metaphysical
speculations of Gall were in the main just, but, likewise,
that a great part of his craniological chart is accurately
laid down. To connect phrenology with severe anatomical research, to endeavour to determine the organic conditions which interfere with the application of the science
to-practical purposes, would be a task worthy the efforts
of the best physiological labourer. Then, if phrenology
be.true, and the organology in the main correct, what is
more likely than that directing an Od current upon the
cerebral seat of a mental faculty should bring it into
activity? I have myself witnessed the repetition of this
now common experiment, in a Very unexceptionable, instance.; and the success was perfect. The organs of ve18




202               SUPPLEMENTAL.
neration, of combativeness, of alimentiveness, were successively excited; and in each case a brilliant piece of
acting followed. I must confess, however, that I could
not divest myself of the impression that, whatever pains
we took to conceal our plans, the clairvoyant young
lady really knew beforehand what was expected of her,
and performed accordingly. I speak in reference to the
single instance which I have myself witnessed. I cannot, however, refuse to credit the testimony of good observers-such as Dr. Elliotson —to facts which seem to
establish the genuineness of phreno-mesmerism. In its
double relation to phrenology and mesmerism, this inquiry well merits attention.
XII. Racpport. 2Mesmeric Relation.  Psychical Attraction.-Without presuming to place absolute confidence
in the preceding speculations, but, on the contrary, apologizing for their hypothetical character, on the plea that
any theory is better than none, let me now recapitulatorily put in array the facts and principles to which the
terms at the head of this section refer:1. I hold that the mind of a living person, in its most
normal state, is always, to a certain extent, acting exoneurally, or beyond the limit of the bodily person; but,
possibly, always in conjunction with some Od-operation.
2. I suppose that there must be laws of neuro-psychical attraction, or that there are definite circumstances
which determine our exoneural apprehension to direct
itself upon this or that object or person.
So, in common perception, the exoneural apprehension
probably moves back along the lines of material impression, to reach the object perceived, which so attracts it.
So, in sudden liking or aversion at first sight-or,




SUPPLEMENTAL.                203
more properly, on all occasions of meeting strangersan exoneural mingling of reciprocal appreciation takes
place; different persons being differently gifted with intuitive discernment, as others or the same with powers
of pleasingly affecting most they meet.
So Zschokke's seer-gift would have been but the result
of a greater exoneural mobility of his mind, whereby he
was occasionally drawn to such mental affinity with a
stranger, that he knew his whole life and circumstances.
So in panic fears, in all cases where impressions seem
heightened by the sympathy of many, the power of
psychical attraction we may presume to be increased by
its concentration on one subject, and the participation of
all in one thought. The Rev. Hare Townshend, in his
interesting work on mesmerism, declares that he has
more than once succeeded in the following fact of sympathetic mental influence. All the members of a party
then present have conspired against an expected visiter;
and when he came-carefully, at the same time, abstaining from alluding to some special subject agreed onthey have striven silently and mentally to drive it into
his thoughts; and in a short time he has spoken of it.
3. For the most lucid persons in waking-trance (either
of spontaneous occurrence, as in catelepsy, or when induced by mesmerism) the exoneural apprehension seems
to extend to every object and person round, and to be
drawn into complete intelligence of or with them. Such
a patient is " en rapport," or in trance-mental relation
with any or every thing around, in succession or simultaneously.
4. In persons slowly waking in the most measured
course of things out of artificial initiatory trance into
somnambulism, the mind is at first exoneurally attracted




204               SUPPLEMENTAL.
to the mesmeriser alone. As a next step, the mesmeriser,
by putting himself in Od-relation with a third person,
can make him participator in the same attraction.
I do not here discuss Mr. Braid's views, which are
more fully considered in a subsequent Letter.  I have
analyzed trance in its character of a spontaneous pathological phenomenon.  I have examined its principal
features as they present themselves when it is induced by
mesmerism. But facts have been brought forward by
Mr. Braid, which seem to establish that, in some highly
susceptible persons, trance may be brought on at will in
another way, by their own indirect efforts, apart from
external influences: —as, for instance, by straining the
eyes upwards, the attention being kept some time concentrated on the object or the effort. Certainly, doing
this makes the head feel uncomfortable and giddy, and
seems as if it would lead to some kind of fit if indefinitely
prolonged.
XIII. Trance-Prevision. —Instances of trance-prevision are referrible to three different heads.
1. The simplest trance-prevision is that of epileptic
patients (artificially entranced) who name, at the distance
of weeks beforehand, the exact hour, nay, minute, at
which the next fit will occur. The case of Cazot, (mentioned by Dr. Foissac,) who was in the habit of predicting the accession of his fits with unerring precision, terminated, however, in the following manner: Cazot had
predicted, as usual, when he should be next attacked:
before the time came round, however, he was thrown
from a horse and killed. But no doubt can be entertained that, had he not met with this accident, the next
fit would have occurred at the hour predicted. This is




SUPPLEMENTAL.                205
the simplest and narrowest form of prevision: the clairvoyante can tell, in reference to himself, or to any one
with whom he is placed in relation, what will be the
course of his health. He can see forward what the progress of his living economy will be, other things continuing the same.
2. The next feat is greater. Dr. Teste, in his most
interesting Manuel de MagnCtisme Animal, gives the
case of a lady, his patient, who, when entranced, foretold
the day and hour when an accident, the nature of which
she could not foresee, was to befall her, and from it a
long series of illness was to take its rise. Dr. Teste and
the lady's husband were staying with her when the fatal
moment approached. Then she rose, and, making an
excuse, left the room, followed by her husband; when,
on opening a door, a great gray rat rushed out, and she
sank down in a fit of terror, and the predicted illness
ensued. In this most decisive case, the prevision extended to an extraneous and accidental circumstance, to
which no calculation or intuition of her natural bodily
changes could have led her.
3. But there are instances which reach yet farther.
Dr. Foissac narrates the case of a Mdlle. Ceeline, who,
when entranced, predicted that she would be poisoned on
a certain evening, at a given hour. What would be the
vehicle of the poison she could not foresee, either at the
time when she first uttered the prediction, or on an occasion or two afterwards, when, being again entranced,
she recurred to the subject. However, shortly before
the day she was to be poisoned, being questioned in
trance as to the possibility of averting her fate, she said,
" Throw me into the sleep a little before the time I have
named, and then ask me whether I can discern where the
18*




206                SUPPLEMENTAL.
danger lies."  This was done, and Mdlle. Coeline at once
said that the poison was in a glass at her bed-side —they
had substituted for quinine an excessive dose of morphine.
Thus it appears that persons in waking trance can,
first, calculate what is naturally to follow in their own
health, or in that of persons with whom they are in mesmeric relation; can, secondly, foretell the occurrence of
fortuitous external events, without seeing how to prevent
them; can, thirdly, when endowed with more lucidity,
discern enough to enable them occasionally to counteract
the natural course of external'events.  Fate thus becomes a contingency of certainties. There is a -true series
of consequences to be deduced from  whatever partial
premises the clairvoyante -may happen to be'acquainted
with.  When she has more data, she makes a wider calculation, certain as far as it goes. But other premises,
influencing the ultimate result, may still have escaped
her.  So the utmost reach of genuine trance-prevision'is
but the -announcement of a probability, which unforeseen
events may counteract.
I will conclude this head'by introducing'M. Alexis's
account of his own powers of mesmeric prevision, in which
the reader will see that his experience has led -him to
view his conclusions as calculations upon certain positive
elements; yet he admits the possibility of powers greater
than his own:  ":On pent pr6voir l'avenir,"' said M.
Alexis; "mais lorsque cet avenir a des fondations positives. Mais annoncer un fait isol6, un accident, nune cas
tastrophe, non. Cependant quelquefois cela est arriv6 aiux
individus, mais c'6taient des instruments de la Divinit6;:
ces hommes sont rares.  Etant A:une maison de jeu, jo
sS;urais d'avance la couleur gagnante, surtout aux cartes.




SUPPLEMENTAL.                 207
Mais a la -roulette cela me semble tres difficile. Cela est
de l'avenir. Les cartes, au contraire, sont dans les mains
d'un homme quelques minutes. Cependant soi l'on voula-it
appliquer la clairvoyance a une exploitation semblable, je
suis materiellement et tmoralement certain que la vue ferait
faute."'
XIV. Ultra-terrestrial V;7sion. -If a clairvoyante can
discern what is passing'at the d      distane  of one hundred
leagues, -why should no-t;his perception extend to material
dhje`cts beyond our sphere?
Mr. WVilliamson:tried'to conduct one of his cladirvoyantes
mentally to the moon; but, having got some way, she
declared the moon was so intolerably bright, that the effort pained and distressed her, and accordingly Mr. Williamson relinquished the experiment, and happened not
to renew it.
M. Alexis, when entranced, in -answer to my inquiries,
declared himself cognizant o:f the condition of the planets.
He said that they were inhabited, with the exception of
those which are.either too near to, or too remote from
the sun.  He said that the inhabitants of the different
planets are very diverse,; that the earth is the best off,
for that man'has double:the intelligence of the ruling
animals -in the other planets.  It would be the height df
credulity to regard this communication;as more than a
clever guess:; yet-a plausible guess it is, for if the other
planets are composed- of the same -material elements with
the'earth, it is evident tha't the temperature of our planet
must render these same materials more generally available
for life and economic'purposes on it than they would be
in Mercury or Saturn.




208                SUPPLEMENTAL.
XV. UMtra-vital Vision. —The following is M. Alexis's
trance-revelation as to the state of the soul after death.
I presume it is no more than an ingenious play of his
fancy; but a young clergyman of some acumen, to whom
I communicated it, was half disposed to give it more
credit, and observed, with logical precision, that, viewing
the statement as an intuition, it would show the necessity
of the resurrection of the body.
"L'ame ne change jamais. Apres la mort elle retourne
a la Divinite. Dieu a voulu attacher l'Ame au corps, qui
est un prison od Dieu a voulu enfermer l'ame pendant
qu'elle est sur la terre. L'ame ne perd jamais son individualite. Aprks la mort, nos souvenirs ne nous restent
pas."
The last sentence is that to which my friend's remark
principally referred.
XVI. Nature of the Supreme Being.-The following
striking expressions were made use of by M. Alexis, when
entranced, in answer to a string of questions which I had
sent to him on this subject. He declared, at the same
time, that he had never before been led to consider it in
his mesmeric state. I presume, therefore, that in his ordinary waking state he is a Spinozist, and that, in place
of an intuition, he simply delivered an oracular announcement of his preconceived notions:" I1 n'y a pas de parole humaine qui peut donner une
idee de la Divinit6.  Dieu c'est tout. II n'a pas de personalit6. Dieu est partout et nulle part. Dieu est le
foyer qui allume la nature. Dieu est un foyer universel,
dont les hommes ne sont que la vapeur la plus eloign6e,
la plus faible. Chaque homme est l'extremit6 d'un rayon
de Lui-meime.  II n'existe que Dieu."




THE ODOMIETER, OR DIVINING-RING.      209
LETTER  XII.
THE ODOMETER OR DIVINING-RING.-HOW come upon by the author
-His first experiments-The phenomena an objective proof of
the reality of the Od-force.
"QUALIS ab incepto " shall be the motto of this twelfth
letter, the materials of which were undreamt of by me,
when some three months ago I remitted the new and corrected edition of "the Letters" to England.  The occasion which led me to the knowledge of the facts I have
to mention, and their bearing, tally curiously with what
has gone before.
For it is again winter, with its long, solitary evenings,
against the tedium of which I had to seek a resource;
and I bethought me, this time, of occupying myself with
looking into the higher mathematics. Accordingly I sent
to Herr Caspari, professor of mathematics in the gymnasium at Boppard, to solicit him to give me the instruction and assistance which I needed. And he obligingly
came, in the evening of the 31st of December, to sit by
my side and converse with me. And I went over preliminarily my schoolboy recollections of the elements of
mathematics, and was pleased at finding the remembered
difficulties vanish before the explanations of my well-informed tutor. And I learned, to my vast delight, that
the inability under which asymptotes labour to touch hyperbolas is a purely arbitrary one, like the legislative
prohibition not to marry with one's deceased wife's sister;
but that, unlike the latter, it can be evaded; inasmuch as
an asymptote, by changing its name and forfeiting its




210      THE ODOMETER, OR DIVINING-RING.
properties, may at any time unite itself with the object
to which it had before been infinitely near. Again, I
found my boyish distrust and disbelief in sines and cosines
replaced by an intelligent and well-satisfied acquaintance
with them. And I even obtained a glimpse of the higher
analysis itself, pointing with its unerring finger to the
exact height, else unmeasurable, at which my candle
should stand in the centre of my round table, to shed
upon it its maximum of illumination.
A liberal hour being over, and my dolphin-like recreation ended, my new friend entered into desultory chat,
and asked me, among other things, if I had not written
something on the divining-rod. I replied to his question
by giving him the copy I had of "the Letters;" and promised, as a New-Year's gift for the morrow, to present
him with the implement itself. And I lent him Von Reichenbach's book on Od, with which he was unacquainted.
Then he told me that there were two or three experiments, possibly akin to trials with the divining-rod, with
which he had been familiar for years, and which he had
shown to many without receiving an explanation of them.
He said that as far as he knew they were original and
his own; and that he would willingly show them to me.
He wanted only for that purpose a piece of silver, a gold
ring, and a bit of silk. These were easily found. And
he attached the silk to the ring, which he then held suspended by the silk over a silver spoon, at a distance of
half an inch.
Shortly the ring shaped its first vague movements into
regular oscillations in a direction to and fro, or towards
and from, Herr Caspari. I will call such oscillations
longitudinal. It was evident to me, that this phenomenon must be akin to the motion of the divining-rod.




TIE ODOMETER, OR DIVINING RING.       211
Then, at Herr Caspari's suggestion, I summoned the
maid, who was directed to place her hand in Herr Caspari's disengaged hand. On her doing so, the oscillations
of the ring became transverse. Htow pregnant was this
fact! An Od-current had been established between the
two experimenters; and the apparent influence of the two
metals on each other had been modified.
Herr Caspari told me that, as far as he knew, these
experiments would only succeed when made with silver
and gold, and a bit of silk. But he said that he had still
another experiment to show me, which he did the following day. He said he had a little pea-like bit of something, which he had been told was schwefel-kies, that exhibited another motion: when held suspended by silk over
either of the fingers, it rotated one way; when held
suspended over the thumb, it rotated in the contrary direction.
Herr Caspari left me, after agreeing to assist me in
the further examination of these phenomena; and the
New Year coming in found me in busy thought how to
elicit, through variations of Herr Caspari's experiments,
some important physical evidence as to the reality and
agency of Von Reichenbach's Od-force.
In ten days we have succeeded in disentangling the
confused results which attended our first experiments;
and as I see no likelihood of extending them at present
in any new direction, I present them to the reader now,
as complete as I can at present render them. I have
used the term 1"divining-ring," partly because I have a
vague idea of having seen Herr Caspari's first facts adverted to in some publication under that name; partly
because it is really thus far deserved:-If you place a
piece of silver on a table, and lay over the table and it




212       THE ODOMETER, OR DIVINING-RING.
an unfolded silk pocket-hiandkerchief, you can discover
where the silver lies by trying with the suspended ring
each part of the surface.  The ring will only oscillate
when held over the silver. But now I have to substitute
another name for the sake of precision.
A fragment of any thing,- of any shape, suspended
either by silk or cotton-thread, the other end of which is
wound round the first joint either of the fore-finger or of
the thumb, I will call an Odometer.  The length of the
thread does not matter.  It must'be sufficient to allow
the ring, or whatever it is, to reach to about half an inch
from the table, against which you rest your arm or elbow
to steady your hand. If there be nothing on the table,
the ring or its equivalent soon becomes stationary. Then
you test the -powers of the odometer by placing upon the
table under it what substances you please. These I would
call Od-subjects.
To obtain uniform results -with the Odometer, it is important to attach the sustaining thread always to the
same finger of the same  hand,-best to the fore-finger of
the right hand.  It is evident that this rule is not to
prevent the experimenter, when he has succeeded in thus
obtaining a series of consistent results, from  trying what
will come of substituting his other digits for that first
employed.
I have armed the Odometer with gold, silver, lead, zinc,
iron, copper; with coal, bonae, horn, dry wood, c —harcoal,
cinder, glass, soap, wax, sealing-wax, shell-la-c, sulphur,
earthenware.  As Od-subjects:I have likewise tried most
of the substances above enumerated. All do not go
equally well, or perform exactly the same feats, with each
odometer.  For example, an odomieter of dry wood remains stationary over gold; while it oscillates with great




TME ODOMETER, OR DIVINING-RING.       213
vivacity over glass. The respective habitudes of different
odometers to different Od-subjects is one of the simplest
points of investigation which the facts I am narrating
suggest.
A gold ring with a plain stone in it was the first odometer which I employed, and it is one of the most largely
available.  And gold forms in general the most successful Od-subject.  Sulphur likewise displays very lively
motions in the odometer.  But the material which I
finally employed to verify the following phenomena was
shell-lac, a portion a full inch long, broader towards the
lower end, then cut to be lancet-shaped. The odometer
moves more sluggishly with some than with others, and
in the same hand on different days; and doubtless is capable of manifesting a greater variety of effects than I
have yet elicited from it. I can only pledge myself to
the certainty of my being always now able to obtain with
the shell-lac odometer all the results mentioned in the
XXVII. experiments which first follow. Over rock-crystal, however, the shell-lac odometer acts very feebly; but
a glass odometer moves with brilliant vivacity. I would
besides advise the reader to try a gold-ring odometer, in
preference, for experiments X., XI., XII., XIII.
Then here are the results:I. Odometer (we will suppose armed with shell-lac)
held over three sovereigns heaped loosely together to form
the Od-subject; the odometer suspended from the right
forefinger of a competent person of the male sex. Result
-Longitudinal oscillations.
II. Let the experimenter, continuing experiment I.,
take with his unengaged hand the hand of a person of the
opposite sex. Result-Transverse oscillations of the odometer.
19




214      THE ODOMETER, OR DIVINING-RING.
III. Then, the experiment being continued, let a person of the sex of the experimenter take and hold the unengaged hand of the second party. Result-Longitudinal
oscillations of the odometer.
IV. Repeat experiment I., and, the longitudinal oscillations being established, touch the forefinger which is
engaged in the odometer with the fore-finger of your other
hand. Result-The oscillations become transverse.
V. Repeat experiment I., and, the longitudinal oscillations being established, bring the thumb of the same
hand into contact with the finger implicated in the odometer. Result-The oscillations become transverse.
VI. Then, continuing experiment V., let a person of
the same sex take and hold your unengaged hand. Result
-The oscillations become again longitudinal.
VII. Experiment I. being repeated, take and hold in
your disengaged hand two or three sovereigns. ResultThe oscillations become transverse.
VIII. Continuing experiment VII., let a person of
the same sex take and hold your hand which holds the
sovereigns. Result -The oscillations become longitudin al.
IX. If the odometer be attached to the thumb instead
of to the forefinger, it oscillates longitudinally; but on approaching the thumb-so as to touch the forefinger, the oscillations become of course transverse.
X. Repeat experiment I., but let the Od-subject be a
double row of five sovereigns, each disposed longitudinally
from you, and hold the odometer over the middle of the
double row of sovereigns. Result-Longitudinal oscillations, but the excursions are inordinately long.  Still, on
touching the forefinger with the thumb, the oscillations
become either transverse, or the odometer moves in an




TIIE ODOMETER, OR DIVINING-RING.     215
ellipse, of which the long axis corresponds with the axis
of the double line of sovereigns.
XI. Dispose ten sovereigns longitudinally from  you
in two parallel rows, an inch and a half a, art, and hold
the odometer over the middle of the interval. ResultLongitudinal oscillations.
XII. Modify experiment XI. by holding the odometer
not midway, but nearer one of the rows of sovereigns.
Resgult —Oblique oscillations.
XIII. Dispose ten sovereigns heaped in a short longitudinal group, and hold the odometer over the table half
an inch to one side of the middle of the heap. ResultTransverse oscillations.
From the latter experiments and their modifications, it
became evident that the magnitude and shape of the Odsubject have each a direct influence on the result. A
greater force of attraction evidently exists towards the'greater mass.
XIV. Odometer held over the northward pole of a
magnetic needle contained in a, compass-box under glass.
Result —Rotatory motion in the direction of the hands of
a watch.
XV. Odometer held over the southward pole. Result
-Rotatory motion in the direction contrary to the motion of the hands of a watch.
XVI. Repeat experiments XIV. and XV., with the
difference of touching the forefinger implicated in the
odometer with the thumb of the same hand. ResultsThe rotatory motions observed in the two experiments
referred to become exactly reversed.
XVII. Hold the odometer over the centre of the needle.
Result-Oscillations at right angles, or transverse, to the
axis of the needle.
XVIII. Hold the odometer over, and half an inch to




216      THE ODOMETER, OR DIVINING-RING.
one side of, the centre of the needle. Result-Oscillations parallel to the axis of the needle.
XIX. Repeat experiment XIV. Then, during its
continuance, place a pile of three sovereigns on the compass-box, in front of the northward pole of the needle,
and about an inch from it. Result-Direction of original
rotatory motion reversed.
Then follow experiments with results exactly parallel to
the preceding, having the greatest physiological interest.
XX. Hold the odometer over the tip of the forefinger
of your disengaged hand. Result —Rotatory motion in
the direction of the hands of a watch.
XXI. HIold the odometer over the thumb of your disengaged hand. Result-Rotatory motion against that of
the hands of a watch.
XXII. Hold up the forefinger and thumb of the disengaged hand, their points being at two and a half inches
apart. Hold the odometer in the centre of a line which
would join the points of the finger and thumb. ResultOscillations transverse to the line indicated.
XXIII. Modify the preceding experiment by holding
the odometer half an inch to one side of, and over, the
middle of the line indicated. Result-Oscillations parallel
to the said line.
XXIV. Modify experiment XXIII. by approximating
the ends of the forefinger and thumb of the disengaged
hand, so that they touch. Result-The odometer no
longer moves.
XXV. Forefinger and thumb of the disengaged hand
held upwards and apart, sustaining a short file longwise
between them. Odometer then held over the last joint
of the finger. Result-Odometer stationary. Odometer
then held over the last joint of the thumb. ResultOdometer stationary.




THE ODOMETER, OR DIVINING-RING.       217
XXVI. Odometer held over the northward pole of the
magnetic needle, and its consequent rotatory motion in
the direction of that of the hands of a watch established.
Then advance the finger or the thumb of the other hand
towards the odometer.  (The odometer should be held in
these experiments half an inch above, and a little wide
of, or before, the apex of the needle.) The finger, or the
thumb, is then to be brought as near to the odometer as
is consistent with not touching it in its rotation.  Result
-Direction of the rotation reversed.  Then join the
finger and thumb, and hold the two thus brought into
contact in the same proximity to the odometer. Result
-The rotation returns to the former direction; that is,
to the direction of the motion of the hands of a watch.
XXVII. Odometer held over' the radial (or thumb)
edge of the wrist. Result —The same as when held over
thumb.  Odometer held over the little-finger edge of the
wrist. Result-The same as when held over either of
the fingers. This difference in result extends a third the
length of the fore-arm, over the middle of which the odometer becomes stationary.
XXVIII. A portion of rock-crystal five inches long,
about two wide and deep, placed on the table with its long
axis transverse to the operator.  Glass odometer held
over the middle of the upper plain surface. ResultOscillations parallel to the axis of the crystal.  Position
of the crystal shifted, so as to make its axis point from
the operator. Result-Oscillations as before parallel to
the axis of the crystal, but longitudinal to the operator.
Then the thumb applied to the forefinger. Result —
Transverse oscillations.
XXIX.  Glass odometer held suspended over one apex
of the crystal. Result-Rotatory motion in the direction
19*




218       THE ODOMETER, OR DIVINING-RING.
of the hands of a watch. Odometer held over the opposite end. Result-Rotation in the direction contrary to
that of the hands of a watch.
XXX. The last experiment repeated.  The forefinger
of the operator's unengaged hand brought near to the
odometer in each of its two varieties. Result-The previous rotatory motion reversed. Then the point of the
thumb brought into contact with the odometer finger.
Result-The original rotatory motion re-established.
I will add in reference to the first and simplest experiments, that the interposition of several folds of silk between the Od-subject and the odometer renders the motions of the latter less brisk.
The development which I have thus given to the few,
isolated, and long-hoarded experiments of Herr Caspari,
was not so simple an affair as it may seem to be. For
several days I was in doubt as to the genuineness of the
results, so capricious and contradictory were they. It
was only when I had discovered, first, the reversing effect of touching the odometer finger with the thumb of
the same hand, and, secondly, that approaching the thumb
towards the odometer finger, or even allowing the other
fingers of the odometer hand to close upon the ball of
the thumb, has the same effect with bringing the point
of the thumb into contact with the odometer finger, that
I succeeded in obtaining unvarying results. The interest
of these experiments is unquestionably very considerable.
They open a new vein of research, and establish a new
bond of connexion between physical and physiological
science, which cannot fail to promote the advancement of
both.  They contribute a mass of objective and physical
evidence to give support and substantiality to the subjective results of Von PReichenbach's experiments.  They
tend to prove the existence of some universal force, such




TIE SOLUTION.                 219
as that to which he has given theoretical form and consistence under the designation of Od. And such a universal force, what other can we deem it to be than the longvilipended influence of Mesmer, rendered bright and
transparent and palatable by passing through the filter
of science?
LETTER XIII.
THE SOLUTION.-Examination of the genuineness of the phenomena
-Od-motions produced by bodies in their most inert state —Analysis of the forces which originate them-Od-motions connected
with electrical, magnetic, chemical, crystalline, and vital influences
-Their analysis.
THE present letter might be entitled "An account of
some motions recently discovered, to the manifestation of
which an influence proceeding from the living human body
is necessary."  The contrivance by which these motions
are elicited I have called an Odometer, from the conviction that the force which sets it in movement is no other
than the Od-force of Von Reichenbach. For the same
reason I have called the objects with which it is tested Odsubjects, and the motions themselves Od-motions.
The odometer is a pendulum, formed of a ring, or other
small body attached to a thread, the other end of which
is wound round a finger or the thumb. The odometer employed in the following experiments was a light gold ring,
having a greater mass of metal on the unattached side,
and suspended to the last joint of the right fore-finger,
the suspending medium being either silk, or fine cotton,
or the hair of a horse. The experiments were made I y
myself.  In order to avoid the confusion resulting from




220                THIE SOLUTION.
a multiplicity of details, I shall state the results obtained
through testing a limited number only of Od-subjects, so
selected as to represent the leading divisions of the provinces of nature, and of dynamics. With some of the
principal the reader will be already acquainted through
Letter XII., the contents of which will have prepared
him for, and probably suggested to him, the following
question, as a desirable subject of preliminary consideration.
I. Are the motions referred to worth examining at all?
Are they more than the simple results of impulses conveyed to the pendulum by movements of the hand or
wrist, or some general sway of the experimenter's person, unintentionally going with the expectation or conception of this or that motion of the ring? Such a solution of the phenomena is not wanting in probability.
It is metaphysically and physically certain, that when we
maintain one and the same bodily posture or gesture, as
in standing, sitting, or holding out the hand, whatever
be the seeming continuousness and unity of the effort,
the posture or gesture is really maintained only by a
series of rapidly succeeding efforts. What is more likely
than that, in such a continual renewing of voluntary actions, our fancy, or the sympathy between our will and
our thoughts, should give a bias to the results, even
when we most try to neutralize its influence?  The
fact which I propose first to mention is in complete agreement with this view. I can at will cause the odometer
to move exactly as I please. Although I hold my hand
as steadily as possible by leaning the arm against a table,
and endeavour to keep my person absolutely still, yet I
have only to form a vivid conception of a new path for
the odometer, and a motion in the so-imagined direction
is almost immediately substituted for that which was be



THE SOLUTION.                221
fore- going on. In like manner, I have only to conceive
the cessation of motion, and the odometer gradually
stops. I must farther admit that my first trials of the
odometer were made under the full expectation that the
results which ensued would follow. And I cannot say
that it is impossible, that when other and new motions
emerged, they were not often either realizations of a previous guess, or repetitions on the same principle of what
occurred at first as an accident.
On the other hand, I am not unprepared with an array
of facts which seem to me capable not only of neutralizing the force of the preceding argument, but of making
it appear, most likely, that some other influence than
that of the experimenter's mind is often in operation in
bringing about these results; an influence sufficiently
curious, as I think, to justify me in continuing this investigation and the present letter. I beg the reader's
candid construction of the following statements.
If, when trying the odometer, I have caused it, by conceiving a different motion, to change its path and move
in a wrong direction, I now endeavour to divert my
mind from considering its motion at all, the odometer
invariably resumes its previous right movement.  It is,
indeed, difficult to observe a strict mental neutrality in
this instance. For the odometer moves imperfectly and
uncertainly, unless I frequently look at its performance.
Or, as I interpret the fact, unless I keep my attention
fixed to a certain extent on what I am doing, my hand
loses its steadiness, and communicates all sorts of distracting impulses to the pendulum. And the uncertainty
hence arising admits, it appears to me, of being obviated
by the comparison of numerous careful repetitions of the
experiments.
Many of the motions which I at first thought were




222                THE SOLUTION.
genuine Od-results, I afterwards found out I had been
mistaken in. And the correction of these errors was
mostly due to frequent and careful repetitions of the
experiments, unattended by an expectation of finding the
results reversed or otherwise modified, and instituted
simply to secure their genuineness and certainty.
Then there was one result which at one time I confidently anticipated; but it-never came up. I had found
the ring make gyrations in the direction of those of the
hands of a watch, when held over the small end of a
living unincubated egg.  Opposite gyrations were obtained over the big end. I thought this might have to
do with the sex of the embryo. And I tried, accordingly,
a dozen eggs, expecting that in some the direction of the
gyrations at the two ends would be reversed. But this
event never occurred, much as I laid myself out for it.
If my fancy could have decided the matter in spite of my
care to prevent its interference, I am clear that for a
time, at least, I should have obtained in these experiments upon the egg a double set of results.  I was much
delighted two months later at coming upon the explanation of the question, why gyration like that of the hands
of a watch is manifested at the little end of the egg. I
had known from nearly the first that this direction of the
rotatory Od-motion is manifested when the pendulum is
swung over the right side of the human body. Then I
fell upon an old physiological reminiscence, (and found
a drawing of the fact in my outlines of Physiology,) that
the embryo chick lies in the egg transversely upon its
face, with its right side towards the little end.
Then there were two other results, which were directly at variance with my anticipations, but which never
failed to present themselves.  I made a voltaic arrangement by means of two plates, one of zinc, the other of




THE SOLUTION.                223
copper, fixed in contact in a solution of salt in water.
Now, when held opposite the middle of the zinc disc, the
odometer always rotated like the hands of a watch; while
over the copper disc the phenomenon was reversed.
These results are constant.  But I have had the satisfaction of lately discovering that, if I present the ring to
any part of the circumference of the two discs, its motion
is the opposite, and in accordance with theory.
One of the tests on which I have much relied in determining whether the motions I obtained were genuine Odmotions, consisted in producing their reversal by altering
the Od-relations of my hand or of my person. What
gives particular value to this test is, that the versed or
complimentary motion is subject to different laws.  One
set of secondary oscillations changes into oscillations in
a plane at right angles to the plane of the primary oscillations. In another series the motion continues in the
same plane; but the excursions, which were before longest
in one direction, are; now longest in the opposite, as if a
repellent current had been substituted for an attracting
one. The Od-oscillations, it may be observed, are always
dependent upon the action of a constant rectilinear force
counteracted by the gravitation of the pendulum.  The
means I usually employ to reverse the primary odmotions is, bringing the end of the right thumb into
contact with the odometer-finger, where the thread is
wound round it. But the experimenter cannot be too
careful not to bring the thumb even near to the odometer
finger, or to allow his other fingers to close upon the ball
of the thumb, for the phenomena are thus again liable to
be reversed.
The other means of reversing the results of the experitnents are:



224                 THE SOLUTION.
a. To substitute a hair of a mare for the suspending media
above-named.
b. To hold a sovereign in the left hand.
c. To apply the fore-finger of the left hand to the odometer
finger.
d. To have either hand of a person of the same sex laid on your
right hand or right ear.
e. To have either hand of a person of the opposite sex laid upon
your left hand or left ear.
The various substances employed as Od-subjects admit
of being divided into two great classes; one consisting
of unorganized or organized bodies in which a minimum
of internal activity is present; the other, of bodies of
both classes, in which the more energetic properties of
matter are at work.
I. Let me first notice the results obtained with the
first class of bodies. These, again, are reducible to two
forms. The Od-subject may either be of a regular figure
and equal thickness throughout-as a piece of money,
for instance; or it may be of an irregular figure, with
an unequal mass of matter at one part-as, for instance,
when it consists of an aggregate of several pieces of
money variously arranged.  I shall first treat of the
first and simpler case.
It does not matter how you face in making these experiments. The influence of your person makes the various meridians of the Od-subject. The movements which
we have first to examine are the results of holding the
odometer over the middle of various uniform discs, such
as I have supposed. They consist of two series of oscillations-one directed longitudinally to and from the
experimenter; the other transversal, or in a plane at




THE SOLUTION.                 225
right angles to the plane of the first series of oscillations.
Then it is highly convenient to have terms denoting the
four cardinal points at which these oscillations cut the
edge of the circular disc. These points may be termed
distal, proximal, dextral, sinistral. It will likewise be
found convenient to have terms to denote the direction
of the motions manifested. The terms distad, proximad,
dextrad, sinistrad, will serve our purpose. These terms
refer to the person of the experimenter. Two other terms
are still wanting; sometimes rotatory motion supervenes,
which may be either in the direction of the motion of the
hands of a watch, or the reverse. I call the first of these
two motions clock-rotation, the second versed-rotation.
The present class of Od-subjects present the following
remarkabledifferences among themselves:Over one class, including gold,:zinc, and polished
glass, a circular mass of bi-carbonate of soda, the odometer primarily oscillates longitudinally.
With the other class, which includes pearl, ground glass,
copper, a circular mass of tartaric acid, the odometer
held over the centre primarily oscillates transversely.
Over polished glass, an odometer of resin oscillates
transversely; over ground glass longitudinally.
Each of these movements is replaced by the other,
when the thumb is brought into contact with the odometer-finger. (See figs. 1 and 2, in which the continuous line represents the primary motion; the dotted line,
the secondary or complementary or reversed motion.)
II. Analysis of the forces, or currents conducing to,
or implicated in the movements of the odometer just described.
It has been said that the above movements manifest
20




226               THE SOLUTION.
themselves when the odometer is held over the centre of
the Od-subject. Let us now examine the consequences
of holding the odometer extra-marginally to, or beyond
the edge of, the Od-subject.
Zinc                     Copper
4K _ 
00 )




THE SOLUTION.                    227
Zinc                                 Copper
1'tt
a. Let the odometer be held a quarter of an inch away from, and
over each cardinal point of a sovereign, or zinc circular disc,
in succession. Result-Held near the distal point, its motion
is proximad. Held near the proximal point, its motion is
proximad. Held near the dextral point, its motion is sinistrad.
Held near the sinistral point, its motion is sinistrad.  (See
fig. 3.)
But the first two impulses thus attained correspond
with the direction of the primary oscillations of the odometer, the last two with its complementary oscillations;




228                 THE SOLUTION.
and if the odometer be held now over different points in
succession of the two diametral lines, suspended, of course,
by the finger alone over the first series of points, and by
the finger touched by the thumb over the second, it will
be found that the primary oscillations originated over
every point of the longitudinal diameter of the zinc disc
are proximad; and that those obtainable over any part
of the transverse diameter of the zinc disc are sinistrad.
Then the forces or currents are made manifest by
which the two sets of oscillations are produced; and the
marvel of the prompt substitution of one for the other is
at an end; for it is evident that these two forces, whether
produced or only revealed by the presence of the odometer, co-exist; and that the changed Od-relations of the
experimenter to the odometer, (effected by disjoining the
thumb from, or joining it to, the forefinger,) simply act
by giving temporary predominance to one of the two
co-existent currents.
If these experiments be made at the edge of the copper
disc, they elicit opposite but parallel results. (See fig. 4.)
They evince the existence of two currents, one dextrad,
the other sinistrad, from which the same conclusions may
be deduced.
It is important to notice, that in all this class of the
experiments, the distad and dextrad currents are manifested in combination; and in like manner the proximad
and sinistrad.
This combination is further exemplified in the next
experiment, which I shall describe.
b. Excite the above extra-marginal motions of the odometer held
near the two plates in succession; and then apply the thumb
to the finger in each experiment. Result —Tangential motions
are manifested parallel to the diametral motions before displayed. (See figs. 5 and 6.)




THE SOLUTION.                   229
We cannot, however, suppose these extra-marginal
tangential motions to be the lateral limits of the four
great currents, inasmuch as they are obtained by the
versed process to that which obtains the central motion;
and the question arises, what then are the limits of the
central currents?
c. Hold the odometer over the zinc disc at its centre; of course,
longitudinal oscillations determined by the proximad current
manifest themselves.; Then shift its place on the transverse
diameter more and more to the left. First Result-For something more than a quarter of the whole diameter, the motion
continues longitudinal, proving that the central current has
a breadth at least something exceeding half the diameter.
Same result on the other side of the centre. Second ResultWhen the odometer nears the sinistral cardinal point of the
zinc disc, its longitudinal proximad motion is replaced by the
motion I have called clock-rotation. When it is held near
the dextral cardinal point, versed rotation manifests itself.
This second result establishes that the longitudinal
proximad current extends laterally to the edges of the
disc; but that, when near to them, the force of the coexisting transverse current asserts itself, driving the
odometer (on the left) off in a sinistro-proximad diagonal,
which ends in the establishment of clock-rotation; on the
right driving the central current off, in a dextro-proximad
diagonal, resulting in versed rotation. (See fig. 7.)
Parallel and opposite results are obtained by the odometer when these experiments are repeated with the
copper disc; and necessarily the clock-rotation appears
near the proximad margin of the disc, the versed rotation
near the distal edge.
Therefore it is evident that the great longitudinal and
transverse currents extend over the whole disc, but not
beyond it. Experiment a, section II., and figs. 3 and 4,
20*




230                  THE SOLUTION.
show that, immediately beyond the cardinal points, single
forces are in operation.
Other interesting results follow from trying with the
odometer the extra-marginal spaces between the cardinal
points.
d. First let the central points between each pair of cardinal points
be tried with the zinc disc. Result-(see fig. 9,)-a dextroproximad current is manifested between the sinistral and
distal points, and between the proximal and dextral points;
a sinistro-proximad current is manifested between the dextral
and distal, and between the proximal and sinistral pointsgiving the impression that there exist two diagonal forces,
comparable to the longitudinal and transverse forces.
Fig. 10 gives the corresponding, but opposite, results
obtained upon the copper disc.
It is, however, doubtful whether these currents traverse
the whole disc. For if the experiment is made of following each upon the disc, their influence disappears at
less than a quarter of the diameter, where the odometer
is found to obey on the zinc disc the proximad current,
on the copper disc the dextrad current. Or, probably,
these currents are the simple expression of the action of
two equal forces moving the body operated on by them
(at right angles to each other) in the diagonal. These
effects thus form a remarkable contrast with the results
given in figs. 7 and 8, wherein rotatory movements are
manifested; and they seem to show that an essential
element in these rotatory movements is, that one of the
two currents acting on the odometer must, in the latter
case, be of superior force to the other.
e. Repeat the last experiments versed, or with the thumb applied
to the forefinger. Results-(see figs. 11 and 12)-Tangential
forces are developed, the directions of which are opposite,
as obtained over the zinc and over the copper discs.




THE SOLUTION.                    231
f. Repeat the extra-marginal trials of the odometer in all the
halves of the inter-cardinal spaces, both with the zinc and
with the copper discs. (See figs.;13 and 14.) Result-A
complicated series of rotatory movements, eight'for each
disc; four in each case showing clock-rotation —four versed
rotation —but opposite in the corresponding spaces of the two
discs. On applying the thumb to the odometer finger, the
rotations become exactly inverted; so that, in that case, fig.
14 represents what is now manifested in the zinc disc, fig. 13
what is now manifested in the copper disc.
III. Motions of the odometer obtained over the same
class of substances, when of irregular figure and unequal
thickness.
a. Let the odometer be held over the middle of a line of four
sovereigns disposed either longitudinally, transversely, or
obliquely. Result-Long oscillations over the axis of the
line of sovereigns. But the oscillations are not of equal
length. At one end of the line they extend to the edge of
the fourth sovereign. At the other, they pass an inch beyond it.
b. Repeat the experiment, touching the odometer-finger with the
right thumb. Result-Axial oscillations as before, and unequal as before, but in the contrary direction.
c. Dispose four sovereigns in a line; then place two others upon
any one of the four, and hold the odometer over the table at
three inches to one side of the middle of the line. ResultThe odometer swings in each instance towards that sovereign
on which the two additional are placed —but unequally. We
will suppose that it has swung with sufficient strength to
reach the disc of the loaded sovereign,-the oscillation in the
contrary direction is but two inches in length.
d. Repeat the experiment, with the thumb applied. ResultsOscillations ensue of the same length, and they are again
unequal, but in the contrary direction. Now they do not
reach the pile of sovereigns by an inch, but they pass three
inches in the opposite direction.




232                   THE SOLUTION.
COPPER....,...._        -.. 
A.. —C
a 7                   i }     s
\V




CO
A?f ~~~~~~~~~~kz




234                  THE SOLUTION.
Thus a force is brought into view having this new
quality: when the Od-relations of the experimenter are
versed, a change ensues, not into motion in a plane transverse to the former one, but the direction of the new motion is simply the opposite of the first, or the odometer
appears to be attracted or repelled towards the Od-subject
alternately.
e. Try the same experiment with a single sovereign, or with the
zinc disc. Result —-The odometer held at four inches distance
is attracted and repelled just as in the preceding instance.
Then an irregular form of the Od-subject, or its unequal
mass at different parts, have nothing to do with this new
motion; and it is evident that the relation of the latter
to the former class of oscillatory motions will be easily
determinable.
f. Lay the proper disc before you (see fig. 15,) and hold the odometer over the production in each direction of its transversal
line beyond the limits of the disc. Results-When held near
the right edge of the disc, as before mentioned, a dextrad motion is developed; that is to say, the odometer moves off from
the dextral cardinal point of the disc, oscillatively. This movement, or those oscillations outward, are fainter and fainter, as
the odometer is held over points more and more remote from
the disc. At length, at the distance of an inch and a half, the
odometer becomes absolutely stationary. When moved, however, still farther off, motion begins again, which is very lively
at four to five inches distance from the disc, its direction being
sensibly toward the disc. Moved farther off, still the same
motion continues, and is detectable ten to twelve inches off the
Od-subject.
When the same experiments are made on the left edge
of the Od-subject, phenomena just the reverse are manifested for the same distance. The extra-marginal dextrad
motion is transverse for an inch and a half.  Then there




THE SOLUTION.                   235
occurs a point of quiescence; on the other side of which
the odometer swings in free and long sinistrad or repelled
oscillations.
g. Repeat these experiments (fig. 16,) with the thumb applied. Result-On the left side the near extra-marginal dextrad motion is
replaced by a tangential proximad motion; and the centrifugal
oscillations beyond the point of quiescence are replaced by centripetal oscillations. On the right side again, the near dextrad
extra-marginal oscillations are replaced by a proximad tangential
current: while beyond the point of quiescence, the remote centripetal oscillations are reversed into centrifugal ones.
Effects parallel to these are attained at each of the
cardinal and intercardinal points of the whole circumference, upon the zinc or copper disc, but as usual always
reversed.
Opposite to the eight intervening spaces, the character
of the remote motion is changed.  There it is a rotatory
motion in a direction the'reverse of the rotatory motion
shown in figs. 15 and 16.
Thus, there exists all round the disc, at a distance of
about an inch and a half, a circle of complete repose.
Within this the proper, or near, extra-marginal movements of the odometer are manifested: without it, the
motions of the second and remote force last described.
But to return to the facts mentioned at the beginning
of this section.
The movements of the odometer over a line of sovereigns, or from a distance towards its centre of gravity,
are evidently the consequences of this remote force coming
into operation; the long and forcible oscillations caused
by which toward or from a remote point override the
smaller near extra-marginal, and the super-discal forces
of the Od-subject.




236                 THE SOLUTION.
IV. I have next -to deal with themeffects obtained by
trying the odometer with mineral bodies, in -which electric, chemical, or magnetic forces are energizing, -or that
force on which crystalline structure depends, and with
organized bodies in possession of life.
In this section, I propose to describe the simple resultants, analogous to the two diametral movements, obtained when the odometer is held over a sovereign.  It
will be remembered that, of these two, one only manifested itself at a time; and that -their meridians were determined by the person of the experimenter. One movemenit -was either in the direction of the mesial plane of
his person, or in one parallel to it —namely, the longitudinal oscillations; the other was in a plane at right angles
to the first.
The corresponding movements of the odometer with
the class of bodies now to be considered are rotatory; and
two, at least, are always simultaneously manifested-one
a clock rotation, the other a versed rotation.  These opposite rotations are likewise always manifested on opposite sides or opposite ends of the Od-subject, indicating
the development of polarity.  Finally, the force of this
polarity is such as to render the influence of the person
of the experimenter nugatory as to the direction of the
forces.  Accordingly, if a horse-shoe magnet is laid in
any position in reference to the experimenter, clock-rotation is always obtained by holding the odometer half an
inch above, and beyond its northward pole; and versed
rotation is invariably obtained in like manner at its
southward pole.  The effect of touching the odometerfinger -with the thumb is exactly to reverse the two rotations.
1 will now describe the individual instances in which




THE SOLUTION.                           237
these rotations are manifested; or the parts of each Odsubject over which the odometer rotates in opposite directions.
CLOCK-ROTATION.                    VERSED-ROTATION.
a. A stick of sealing-wax excited by   A glass tube similarly excited.
friction with flannel or silk. A
glass tube excited by rubbing it with
fur.
b. The zinc disc of an arrangement  The copper disc of the same, the odoof two zinc and copper discs mois-  meter being held over against the
tened with salt and water, the odo-  surface of the copper disc; for
meter being held opposite to the    again, if it be held to the edge of
middle of the zinc disc; for if it be  the copper disc, the opposite reheld beyond the disc, half an inch  sult follows, and the rotation is
from and on the exact level of the  clock-rotation.
zinc disc, versed-rotation is manifested round the whole circumference.
c. A mixture of half a drachm of bi-   A mixture of half a drachm oftartarie
carbonate of soda and five grains    acid and five grains of bicarbonatc
of tartaric acid, when effervescing  of soda.
upon a plate after the addition of
water.
d. The northward pole of a horse-   The southward pole of the same.
shoe magnet, or of a magnetic
needle freely suspended.
e. One pole of a large crystal, which,   The opposite pole.
is to be found out by this experiment.
f. The root of a garden weed freshly   The leaves of the same.
taken from the ground.
g. The stalk end of an orange, and   The opposite points of the same.
of an apple, and of an orange pip.
Ih. The small end of an egg.        The large end of the same.
i. The tips of the fingers on. either   The top of the thumb and great toe.
hand, and of the toes of either
foot.
k. Right side of the head of a spar.  Left side.
row.
The last holds likewise with the greater part of the
21




238                  THE SOLUTION.
human body; but the results of trying the odometer with
the human frame are so complicated, that I shall reserve
their consideration for a separate section.
V. The mechanical solution of these phenomena is
simple enough.  The odometer must be under the influence of two constant and unequal rectilinear forces,
operating at right angles to each other on the gold ring,
the effects of which are modified by the centripetal force
of its gravitation. All that is required is, to determine
by observation the place, direction, and limits of the two
forces.
It will render the description which follows easier, to
suppose that the pole of the Od-subject which causes clockrotation be turned directly from the experimenter; for
example, that an egg be placed longways to the experimenter with its small end from him, or a bar magnet with
its northward pole from him.  In the case of a horse-shoe
magnet, both poles are then turned from  you.  So, too,
in the case of the hand, the fingers and thumbs are both
to be turned away.
a. Odometer held immediately before, and a quarter of an inch from,
the small end of an egg. Result —Distad motion, or motion in
the direction of the long axis of the egg, from the egg.
b. Odometer similarly held to the great end. Result-Proximad
motion of the odometer-,that is; again, motion directly from the
axis of the egg.
c. Hold the odometer near either side of the egg, one-fifth of the distance from either end. Results-Transverse sinistrad oscillations.
The same current may be detected above the egg on the same
parallels.
The effects described are given in fig. 17. Then here
are, at either end of the egg, two rectilinear currents
acting at right angles to each other. Fig. 18 represents




THE SOLUTION.                239
the complementary motions to the above, which are obtained by touching the odometer finger with the thumb.
A parallel combination of rectilinear motions is produced,
but in another way.
The next three figures exemplify the composition of
forces necessary to produce the rotatory motion of the
odometer.
Figs. 19 and 20 are intended to represent the large ends
of two'eggs, so placed that the axial currents of the two
shall cross at right angles, at a point equidistant, let us
say at half an inch exactly, from the end of each egg.
If the ring be suspended exactly at the point of meeting
of the two forces, it will be driven off in the diagonal,
and continue simply to oscillate in the line A B. But if
either of the eggs is moved back to double its former distance from the point of intersection of the two forces, the
forces will be rendered unequal, and new results will ensue. The two experiments by which the results of this
arrangement may be tried are represented in figs. 21, 22,
and figs. 23, 24. The longer current is necessarily thereby the weaker of the two in each combination. Accordingly, rotatory motion supervenes in each case instead
of diagonal oscillation; and the direction of the rotation
is from the stronger towards the weaker current.
Figure 25 represents the various motions which may
be elicited by holding the odometer at the sides or over
different parts of a horse-shoe magnet. The continued
lines in all the diagrams represent the primary motions,
the dotted lines their complementary motions.
Figures 26 and 27 represent, in the same way, the
primary and secondary oscillations obtainable over the
centre of, or parallel to the needle.
Figures 28 and 29 represent the motions displayed by




240                THE SOLUTION.
the odometer, when it is held above various points in the
interval between two sovereigns, placed upon the table
an inch and a half asunder. Compound effects follow, produced by the joint influence of the two bodies.
VI. I will finally describe the phenomena elicited by
the odometer from the living human frame, including
those which are dependent on difference of sex.
Parties to experiments with the odometer may be in
the position either of Od-subjects, or of reversers of its
effects in the hands of others, or they may be themselves
components of the odometer.
I can discover absolutely no difference in the results
obtained by the odometer on men and women, when
treated as Od-subjects. The following results appear to
me equally obtainable with persons of both sexes.
With the exception of the arms below the elbows, the
wrists and hands, and of the legs below the knees, the
ankles and feet, the two sides of the person display the
polar differences already noticed. If the odometer be
held over the right side of the head, (either front or
back,) over the right side of the face, over the right
shoulder or elbow, or right knee, it exhibits clock-rotation.  Held over the same parts on the left side, it exhibits versed-rotation.  On touching the odometer-finger
with the thumb, these effects are of course reversed.
If the odometer be held over the middle and outside
of either arm, or over the middle and back of either forearm or hand, it oscillates longitudinally and towards the
hand or foot. On reapplying the thumb, these longitudinal oscillations are replaced by transverse oscillations,
having a direction outwards-i. e., away from the mesial
plane of the frame.
The phenomena last described show that the primary




THE SOLUTION.                241
idea of a transverse polarity for the whole frame is still
verifiable, even in the extreme parts of either limb. But
below the elbows and knees a second polarity is superinduced upon the former. Below the elbows and knees,
one side of each limb repeats the phenomena of the right
side of the body, the other those of the left. The odometer held over the tips of the fingers of either hand exhibits clock-rotation, over the thumb of either hand versedrotation; and with these, as I have mentioned, all the
other effects that can be elicited out of the two limbs of
a horse-shoe magnet.  The same rotatory movements
may likewise be obtained by holding the odometer near
the two edges of the hand, wrist, forearm. The latter
singularity, which contrasts with the simpler effects on
the upper arm, must result from the combination of the
two polarities-the systemic and the submembral one.
The odometer, held over the back of the neck or throat,
oscillates transversely. When versed, longitudinally.
It appears to me now that women generally are incapable of eliciting the movements of the odometer when
held by themselves, without touching a second party.
I have already, in the introductory part of this letter,
given a summary of all the modes I am acquainted with
of reversing the motions of the odometer.
Perhaps I have presumed too much in heading this letter with the title of "The Solution."  But what is the
solution of physical phenomena but the displaying of the
forces which compel their sequence? As an inquiry progresses, a few general expressions take the place of the
first imperfect and complicated explanation.  But the
first step made was still a solution; and the highest solution ever yet obtained has probably still to be merged
in some expression yet more general.  So the attraction
21*




242                TIHE SOLUTION.
of gravitation is probably connected with, or balanced
by,- a corresponding repulsive force, coming into operation at some enormous distance from the centre of each
planetary sphere, and the two may eventually prove to
form one law.
But I had hoped that I was not presuming in asserting
that the present inquiry has immediate practical applications, such as seldom fall to the lot of so young an investigation. The odometer may prove a useful test of the
presence and qualities of electric, chemical, and magnetic
actions; it will probably help to determine the electrochemical qualities of bodies; and in large or small crystalline masses-in the diamond, for instance-will serve
to show the axes and distinguish the opposite poles. In
reference to biology, it will probably furnish the longwanted criterion between death and apparent death; for
I observe that, with an egg long kept, but still alive,
though no longer likely to be very palatable, the odometer freely moves in the way described in the fourth
section. But it treats the freshest egg, when boiled, as
if it were a lump of zinc.
Nevertheless I am not without certain misgivings. I
suspect that the divining-ring will be found to manifest
genuine Od-motions in the hands of as small a number as
succeed with the divining-rod. And I fear that overhasty
confidence in results only seemingly sound, may lead
many astray into a wide field of self-deception.
POSTSCRIPT.
An accident has given me the opportunity of making
further additions to this little volume, of which I proceed
to avail myself; and, first, by communicating my latest
experiments with the divining-ring, July 24.




THE SOLUTION.                243
I. I have stated that, if a fresh egg be placed upon
the table, with the small end directed from me-or a
crystal, with one definite pole so turned from me —or a
bar-magnet, with its northward pole so disposed-and I
then suspend the divining-ring half an inch above either
of the three so averted ends, and half an inch further
off from me, the ring exhibits clock-rotation in each instance. Held in a parallel manner over the opposite
ends-that is, half an inch from, and half an inch higher
than, the same-the ring exhibits versed-rotation. If
the three Od-subjects be moved round, so that their
hitherto distal ends point to the right, or if they be
further turned, so as to bring the previously distal ends
now to point directly towards me, the ring continues to
exhibit exactly the same motions as in the first instance.'If, these objects being removed, I lay a horse-shoe
magnet. on the table before me, with its poles turned directly from me, the northward limb being on my left
hand, the southward limb-pole on my right, and experiments parallel to those just described are made, the results remain the same. If, near one side of the horseshoe magnet, I lay my left hand on the table, the palm
downwards, the thumb held wide of the fingers, the ring,
if suspended half an inch from and above either of the
finger-points, displays clock-rotation; suspended similarly
before and above the point of the thumb, versed-rotation.
Or the fingers of the left hand, so disposed, may be compared, in reference to Od, to the northward pole of a
horse-shoe magnet, while the thumb corresponds with its
southward pole.
If, removing my left hand, I turn the horse-shoe
magnet, without altering the side on which it rests, half
round, so that the poles point directly towards me, the




244                THE SOLUTION.
northward pole being- now, of course, on my right, the
southward pole on my left, the ring held as before over
either of the two poles, displays the same results. If I
now move the magnet still nearer to me, so that its two
poles are an inch beyond the edge of the table, I call
obtain results which furnish a more precise explanation
of the two rotatory movements already described, than I
had before arrived at.
If I now suspend the ring, with its lowest part on a
level with the magnet, and half an inch from its northward pole-that is, half an inch nearer me-it begins to
oscillate longitudinally, with a bias towards me, as if it
were repelled from the pole of the magnet. If I then
suspend the ring an inch vertically above the first point
of suspension, it begins to oscillate transversely, with a
bias towards the right, or as if impelled by a dextrad
current. If I then lower the ring half an inch, the first
effect observed is, that it oscillates obliquely, being evidently impelled at once to the right and towards me-that is, in the diagonal of the two forces, of each of
which I had before obtained the separate influence.  In
this third variation of the experiments, I have brought
the ring-to the limit of the two currents, where both tell
upon it. This oblique oscillation soon, however, undergoes a change: it changes into clock-rotation, showing
that the transverse or dextrad current is stronger than
the longitudinal or proximad current.
If parallel experiments be made at levels below that
of the pole of the magnet, corresponding but opposite
results ensue. If the whole series be repeated upon the
south pole of the magnet, opposite but perfectly corresponding results are again obtained: and similar results
may be obtained with the two poles of an egg.




TIRE SOLUTION.               245
II. The mode in which I have latterly educed the rotatory movements depending upon galvanism, has been
this. I have laid two discs, one of zinc, the other of
copper, one on the other, having previously moistened
their surfaces with salt and water. Then, as I mentioned,
the ring held over the middle of the zinc disc (that being
uppermost) exhibits clock-rotation. Held over the middle
of the copper disc, when that is laid uppermost, versedrotation. I mentioned, too, that if held beyond, but
near the circumference of the same discs, the direction
of the motion of the ring is reversed.
The discs which I employ are circular, an inch and a
half in diameter, and about as thick as a sovereign.
Upon these I do not fail to obtain, when dried and used
singly, the first series of phenomena described in the
preceding letter. But it occurred to me to try what
would be the result of suspending the ring over the two
together, and alternately laid uppermost, when they had
been well cleaned and dried. This is evidently a still
simpler voltaic arrangement than when the salt and water
is additionally used. The result was in the highest degree interesting. When I suspend the ring half an inch
above the centre of the copper disc, (that being laid uppermost,) the first motion observed is transverse; but
after a few oscillations it become's oblique-dextrad and
proximad combined, in the diagonal between the primary
influences of the zinc and of the copper.  This change
does not last long; the transverse force again carries it,
in this instance, and clock-rotation is permanently
established. When the zinc is uppermost, the corresponding opposite phenomena manifest themselves; and in
either case a reversed movement occurs, if the ring is
held extra-marginally to the discs.




246               THE SOLUTION.
III. I may say that I have now obtained positive evidence' that these motions of the odometer do not depend
upon my own will, or the sympathy of my will with existing conceptions in my mind; for they succeed nearly
equally well when the discs are covered with half a sheet
of writing-paper. In nine cases out of ten, when I thus
manage to be in perfect ignorance which disc, or what
combination of the two, is submitted to the odometer, the
right results manifest themselves, and the cause of the
occasional failures-is generally obvious. Let me add
upon this topipthat one day, the weather being cold and
wet, and mys'elf suffering severely with rheumatism, the
odometer would not move at all in my hand. On another
day, late in the evening it was, when I happened to be
much fatigued and exhausted, the ring moved, indeed,
but every motion was exactly reversed; thus my left
hand I found now obtained exactly the results which, on
other occasions, I got with the right.
IV. But by what cause, then-through what mechanism, so to speak, are the movements of the odometer immediately produced? Early in the inquiry I made this
experiment. Inistead of winding the free end of the silk
round my finger, I wound it round a cedar-pencil, and
laid the latter upon the backs of two books, which were
made to stand on their edges, four inches apart, with
the Od-subject on the table between them, the ring being
suspended half an inch above it. The ring, of course,
remained stationary. Then I took hold of the pencil
with my finger and thumb, at the point where the silk
was wound round it; my finger and thumb rested on the
silk; but no motion of the odometer ensued. Hence it
follows, that the odometer is, after all, always set in




THE SOLUTION.                247
motion by the play of my own muscles. I venture then
to suppose that my sentient nerves, unknown to me,
detect on these occasions certain relations of matter-let
me call them currents of force-which determine in me
reflexly certain sympathetic motions of the very lightest,
and even of an unconscious character. This idea, which
I am sure affords the just solution of the matter, is highly
consistent with some observations which I have before
recounted. It explains how the primary delicate impression should yield to the coarser influence of a strong
conception in the mind, that this or that other motion of
the ring is about to follow, or even to that of a vivid and,
so to say, abstract conception of another motion. It
explains what I have several times verified, that on certain days a person standing behind me with his band on
my ear, or on my shoulder, can, by an effort of his will
(mine not resisting,) make the odometer which I am
holding move whichever way he happens strongly to
image to himself, without communicating the same to me.
It explains to me on what the difference consists between
those who can set the divining-ring in motion, without a
conscious effort, and those who cannot.,,The former, it
will be found, are persons of so great nervous mobility,
that any such motions, if their occurrence be forcibly anticipated by them, will certainly be realized by their
sympathetic frames. Among this class should be sought,
and would still remain to be detected by experiment, those
whose impressionability by Od should prove commensurate with their nervous mobility. Finally, I cannot doubt
that the view which I have thus arrived at respecting the
mechanism of the motions of the odometer, is equally
applicable to the explanation of those of the divining-rod.
I see that, through its means, many before anomalous
facts, with the narrative of which I have not bored the




248          HYPNOTISM —TRANCE-UMBRA.
reader, which emerged in my former trials of the divining
rod, made by the hands of others, lose their obscurity
and contradictoriness, and leave the whole subject in the
condition of an intelligible and luminous conception.
N.B.-It is a pity that of the inquirers who now
amuse themselves with investigating these subjects, very
few realize in their minds the idea of Von Reichenbach,
that Od, though often exhibiting the same relations with
electricity and magnetism, is yet an utterly different
principle.
LETTER XIV.
HYPNOTISM. TRANCE-UMBRA. —Mr. Braid's discovery-Trance-faculties manifested in the waking state-Self-induced waking clairvoyance —Conclusion.
IT is an advantage attending a long and patient analysis of, and cautious theorizing upon, a new subject of
inquiry, that when fresh facts and principles emerge in
it, instead of disturbing such solid work as I have supposed, they but enrich and strengthen it, and find, as it
were, prepared for them appropriate niches. Something
of this satisfaction I experience, when I have to render
tardy justice to Mr. Braid's discovery, and to give an account of the wonders realized by Dr. Darling, Mr. Lewis,
and others.
Or, I have observed, that trance, considered in reference to its production, has a twofold character. It presents itself either as a spontaneous seizure brought on
unexpectedly by a continuance of mental or physical excitement or exhaustion; or as intentionally induced
through the systematic direction by some second person,




HYPNOTISM —TRANCE-UMBRA.           249
more or less cognisant what definite effects he can produce, of certain moral and physical influences upon the
party intended to be wrought on. Mr. Braid has added
a third causal difference to the theory of trance. He
has shown that trance can be induced by the subject of
it himself voluntarily, by the use of certain means, which
call into operation a special principle. The effects which
he obtained by these means, but which he perhaps studied
too much to separate from the effects of mesmerismthese and their principle he denominated tlypnotism.
Again, I have shown that all the forms of trance may
be, and require to be, arranged under five types —viz.,
death-trance, trance-coma, initial trance, half-waking
trance, full-waking trance. I mentioned, besides, that
in the manifestation of Zschokke's seer-gift, and in the
accounts which we receive of the performances called
second-sight, the extended exoneural perception was introduced by a brief period, in which the performer was
in a degree absorbed and lost, yet did not pass on into a
second and separate phase of consciousness. He was
still always himself, and observed and remembered as
parts of his natural order of recollections the impressions
which then occurred to him. This same state must be
that which I have seen described as one peculiarly suited
to the exhibition of phreno-mesmerism. Mr. Braid appears likewise often to have brought it on in his curative
applications of hypnotism. But now it has new importance and distinctness conferred upon it, as being the state
in which the wonderful phenomena of " mental suggestion"
are best displayed, and in which conscious clairvoyance
is manifested. As this state does not amount to complete
trance, but as it is a fore-shadowing of it, as it were, I
venture to propose for it the name of trance-umbra.
22




250        HIYPNOTISM-TRANCE-UMBRA.
I. Iypnotism.-Mr. Braid discovered that if certain
sensitive persons fix their sight steadily upon a small
bright object, held near and above the forehead, or their
sight becoming fatigued, and the eyelids fall, if they keep
their attention strained as if they were still observing the
same object, both in the upward direction of the eye and
in their thought, they lose themselves and go off into a
state which, in its full development, is, in fact, initial
trance, bordering often on trance-coma. The party thus
fixed sometimes exhibited many of the humbler performances of ordinarily mesmerised persons. But Mr. Braid
shall speak for himself; I quote from his Neurhypnology,
published in London in 1843. "I requested," narrates
Mr. Braid, "a young gentleman present to sit down, and
maintain a fixed stare at the top of a wine-bottle, placed
so much above him as to produce a considerable strain
on the eyes and eyelids, to enable him to maintain a
steady view of the object. In three minutes his eyelids
closed, a gush of tears ran down his cheeks, his head
drooped, his face was slightly convulsed, he gave a groan,
and instantly fell into profound sleep-the respiration
becoming slow, deep, and sibilant, the right hand and
arm being agitated by slight convulsive movements,"
(p. 17.)  Again, (p. 18,) "I called up," continues Mr.
Braid, "one of my men-servants, who knew nothing of
mesmerism, and gave him such directions as were calculated to impress his mind with the idea, that his fixed
attention was merely for the purpose of watching a chemical experiment in the preparation of some medicine;
and being familiar with such he could feel no alarm. In
two minutes and a half his eyelids closed slowly with a
vibrating motion, his chin fell on his breast, he gave a
deep sigh, and instantly was in a deep sleep, breathing
loudly. In about one minute after his profound sleep, I




HYPNOTISM -TRANCE-UMBRA.           25-1
roused him, and pretended to chide him for being so
careless, said he ought to be ashamed of himself for not
being able to attend to my instructions for three minutes
without falling asleep, and ordered him down stairs. In
a short time I recalled this young man and desired him
to sit down once more, but to be careful not to fall asleep
again, as on the former occasion. Ile sat down with this
intention; but at the expiration of two minutes and a
half, his eyelids closed, and exactly the same phenomena
as in the former experiment ensued." Mr. Braid adds,
" I again tried the experiment of causing the first person
spoken of to gaze on a different object to that used in
the first experiment, but still, as I anticipated, the phenomena were the same. I also tried on him M. Lafontaine's mode of mesmerising with the thumbs and eyes,
and likewise by gazing on my eyes without contact; and
still the effects were the same."
It is indeed perfectly obvious that Mr. Braid succeeded
in producing a heavy form of initial trance in these cases.
Nor is it easy to get rid of the impression that the effect
was not partly at least owing to his personal Od-influence.
But, remembering what I witnessed of his performances,
and construing candidly all his statements, I am disposed
to believe that his method, adopted by the patient when
in a room alone, upon. himself, would throw susceptible
persons into trance.  Mr. Braid appears to me to have
the double merit, first of having discovered the means of
self-mesmerising-of so disturbing by very simple and
harmless means the nervous system, that trance would
appear without the influence of a second party to aid its
supervention-and secondly, of having, at an early period,
when prejudice ran very high in England against these
practices, availed himself of this disguised mesmerism to
do much good in the treatment of disease. Mr. Braid




252         HYPNOTISM-TRANCE-UMBRA.
does not appear to have fallen on any instances of clairvoyance, but he narrates many observations relating to
phreno-mesmerism.
II. Trance- Umbra. —This is the best title I can hit on
to designate the peculiar condition, the study of which
promises to exceed in interest that of any of the phases
of perfect trance; inasmuch as in this state the same
extraordinary powers are manifested as in tranee, without the condition of an abstracted state of consciousness,
which rendered the possession of those powers useless, at
least, directly, to the person who manifested them. It
is true that this law could be broken; the mesmeriser can
desire an entranced clairvoyante to remember, when she
awakes, any particular event or communication made by
her. But for this exceptional power a special injunction
or permit is necessary. Ink trance-um-bra, on the contrary,
the subject is throughout himself. When exhibiting the
wildest phenomena he is conscious of what he is doing,
and preserves afterwards as accurate a recollection of it
as any of the spectators.
Then, how is trance-umbra induced?  How is it known
that the shadow of trance has enveloped the patient, and
that, though quite himself to all appearance, he is in a
state to manifest the highest trance-faculties?
The way to induce trance-umbra, is to administer a
little dose of mesmerism.  One operator, like Dr. Darling,
(I quote from Dr. Gregory's most instructive and interesting Letters on Animal Magnetism,) directs his patient
to sit still with his eyes fixed, and his attention concentrated on a coin held in his hand, or on a double-convex
bit of zinc with a central portion of copper so held. This
is, in truth, a gentle dose of hypnotism. The patient
looks in quiet repose at a small object held in his hand




HYPNOTISM-TRANCE-UMBRA.            253
or his lap, instead of fatiguing his sensations by straining
the eye-balls upwards. Suppose a group of a dozen
persons sitting thus in a half-darkened, still room, preserving a studied quietude, and concentrating their attention on one point of easy vision; in from fifteen to twenty
minutes one or more is found to be in the state of tranceumbra. Mr. Lewis (I quote again the same authority)
employs a different process. He eyes his patients intently
as they sit in a row before him, still and composed, with a
concentrated will, and its full outward expression by him,
to influence their psychical condition. In five minutes it
often happens that the state of trance-umbra supervenes.
In the mean time, what has marked its arrival? The
Rev. R. S. F. writes me, that he had been three times
the subject of the first of the two methods: the operator
was Mr. Stone, Lecturer at the Marylebone Scientific
Institution. The first two experiments were successful,
the third failed. Then Mr. F. writes, " The only circumstance which I noticed (bearing upon the above question)
in myself, and which I afterwards found tallied with the
experience of others, was this: On the two occasions
when I was affected, after about ten minutes the coin
began to disappear from my sight, and to reappear a
confused, brilliant substance, similar to those appearances
which remain on the retina after one has been looking
towards the sun for a few minutes, and I seemed for the
moment to have fallen into a half-dreamy state; but in the
subsequent part of the experiments, I appeared to myself
to be in my ordinary state. On the third occasion, when
the experiment failed with myself and with all the others,
(which I think might be accounted for by the accidental
irregularity of the proceedings,) I did not experience the
sensations mentioned above."  This account tallies with
22*




254         HYPNOTISM-TRANCE —UMBRA.
other evidence upon the point; a brief period of disturbed
sensation, or threatening confusion, or loss of consciousness, passes over the patient. The wing of the unseen
power, to speak figuratively, has -cast its shadow upon
him. It is evident that this transient psychical disturbance is the same phenomenon with that which Zschokke
experienced whenever his seer-gift was manifested. The
agency which thus can at pleasure be used to call forth
trance-umbra, is the same which employed longer, or more
intensely, produces perfect trance. The little dose thrilling through the system, without driving sense and apprehension from their usual seats, seems, as it were, to
remove their fastenings; to throw up, as it were, the
sashes of the body, so that the soul can now look forth
and see, not as through a glass, darkly, but free to grasp
directly things out of its corporeal tenement, whether of
the nature of matter or mind.
But, at the same time, this same loosening of physical
bonds renders the mind correspondingly denuded to aggressions from without. We have seen how strangely
the entranced mind becomes sympathetically subject to
the will, and the subject of the sensations of the person
with whom it has been brought into mesmeric relation.
But now a new feature, or one feebly manifested as yet
in trance, but parallel to the influence of sympathy, displays itself. The person in trance-umbra is an absolute
slave to the spoken, or even to the unexpressed " mental
suggestions" of the operator.  Sense, memory, judgment, give way at his word. The patient believes whatever he is told to believe, —that an apple is an orange, —
that he himself is the Duke of Wellington,-that the
operator standing before him is invisible to him,-and
makes fruitless efforts to execute any voluntary movement the moment he is told he cannot.  I will quote a




HYPNOTISM-TRANCE-UMBRA.            255
passage, in illustration of the above, again from Mr. F.'s
letter:-" After a quarter of an hour Mr. Stone came to
us, and looked in our eyes for a few seconds, and desired
us to close them. He then placed his thumb lightly on
my forehead, and said, peremptorily,'You cannot open
your eyes.' I had great difficulty in doing so, but at last
succeeded, with a violent struggle. After Mr. Stone
had repeated the order or suggestion once or twice more,
I was quite unable to open my eyes. Five out of the
number, (about a dozen,) who sat down were affected, all
more than myself.  On a succeeding evening, however,
Mr. Stone was able to proceed so far as to make me forget
my name and address, by the simple assertion,' You cannot remember your name,' &c., though he had before this
just asked for them, and the answer was scarcely out of
my mouth when he made me forget it. I think I never
exerted my will more strongly than in trying to open
my eyelids when they had been thus closed; but it appeared simply impossible to do this till the operator's
magic' All right,' immediately set them free. On several,
who were highly susceptible, Mr. Stone proceeded with
other experiments. A stick was said to-be a rattlesnake,
and believed to be so. The room became a garden at
his command, with wild beasts in it.  One was set a-fishing and snow-balling; another taken up in a balloon. A
still more curious instance was when the subject was told
that he was in the dark, and a candle was passed before
his eyes, almost close enough to singe the eyebrows, without producing any visual impression on the eye, though
the party operated on said he felt the warmth of it."
I have preferred giving additional and unpublished
evidence of the wonderful control which can thus be
" suggestively" exercised over the belief of a person in
trance-umbra, to quoting Professor Gregory's most inte



256         HYPNOTISM-TRANCE-UMBRA.
resting cases, for which the reader must consult his recent
valuable work. In the sixth letter in the present volume,
(that on Soimnambulism,) I have exemplified the manifestation of the same phenomena in the case of the sleepwalker Negretti. As a large number of persons can
be thrown easily into the state of trance-umbra; and as
then they are totally in the power of the operator, it is
surely most desirable that this and the parallel easily
induced conditions of the frame should be made subjects
of careful observation and study by many competent persons, in order that the conditions necessary to their induction may be exactly ascertained, and made public,
for the protection of society.
Of equal interest is the discovery that clairvoyance
may be manifested in the state of trance-umbra.  Major
Buckley is spoken of by Professor Gregory as a gentleman possessing mesrnerising force of a remarkable quality
and degree. It appears that he had been long in the
habit of producing magnetic sleep, and clairvoyance in
the sleep, before he discovered that, in his subjects, the
sleep might be dispensed with. Dr. Gregory gives the
following account of his present method:"Major B. first ascertains whether his subjects are
susceptible, by making, with his hand, passes above and
below their hands, from the wrist downwards. If certain
sensations, such as tingling, numbness, &c., are strongly
felt, he knows that he will be able to produce the magnetic sleep.  But to ascertain whether he can obtain
conscious clairvoyance, he makes slow passes from his
own forehead to his own chest. If this produce a blue
light in his face, strongly visible, the subject will probably acquire conscious clairvoyance.  If not, or if the
light be pale, the subject will only become clairvoyant




HYPNOTISM-TRANCE-UMBRA.           257
in the sleep, <(that is, when in perfect trance.) - Taking
those subjects who see a very deep blue light, he continues to make passes over his own face, and also over
the object-a box or a nut, for instance —in which written
or printed words are enclosed, which the clairvoyante is
to read.  Some subjects only require a pass or two
to be made: others require many. They describe the
blue light as rendering the box or nut transparent, so
that they can read what is inside. This reminds us of
the curious fact mentioned by Von Reichenbach, that bars
of iron or steel, seen by conscious sensitives, without any
passes, shining in the dark with the Od glow, appeared
to them transparent like glass. If too many passes are
made by Major B., the blue light becomes so deep that
they cannot read, and some reverse passes must be made
to render the colour of the light less deep. Major Buckley has thus produced conscious clairvoyance in eightynine persons, forty-four of whom have been able to read
mottoes contained in nutshells purchased by other parties
for the experiments. The longest motto thus read contained ninety-eight words." "A lady, one of Major
Buckley's waking clairvoyantes, read one hundred and
three mottoes contained in nuts in one day, without a
pass being made on that occasion. In this and in many
other cases, the power of reading through nuts, boxes,
and envelopes, remained, when once induced, for about
a month, and then disappeared. The same lady, after
three months, could no longer read without passes; and
it took five trials fully to restore the power. This may
be done, however, immediately by inducing the mesmeric
sleep and clairvoyance in that state, when the subjects,
in the hands of Major Buckley, soon acquire the power
of waking clairvoyance."
But stranger things remain behind-corollaries, how



258         HYPNOTISM-TRANCE-UMBRA.
ever, of the preceding, yet which eclipse these wonders,
if possible. For a knowledge of these, I am exclusively
indebted to Professor Gregory's recent publication, and
I give them on his authority.
If the looking intently upon a piece of metal will produce trance and trance-umbra, why should not the account of the Egyptian boy-seers be correct? If their
performance be often a trick, may not the protracted
gaze on the black spot in their hand sometimes render
them waking clairvoyantes? and why, on the same showing, might not the gazing upon magic crystals or mirrors
of jet occasionally have thrown the already awe-struck
and fitly disposed lookers on them into the state in which
either the magician at their side might compel suggestively images into their fancy, or they, acting for themselves, have exercised independent ultravision, retrovision, prevision? Why, again, should not simple concentration of thought upon one uninteresting idea convert
a susceptible subject into a soothsayer? Then read the
following facts recorded by Dr. Gregory; I at least do
not question their fidelity.
" Mr. Lewis possesses at times the power of spontaneous clairvoyance, by simple concentration of thought.
He finds, however, that gazing into a crystal substance
produces the state of waking clairvoyance in him much
sooner and more easily. On one occasion, being in a
house in Edinburgh with a party, he looked into a crystal,
and saw in it the inhabitants of another house at a considerable distance. Along with them he saw two strangers,
entire strangers to him. These he described to the company. Ile then proceeded to the other house, and there
found the two strangers whom he had described."
" On another occasion he was asked to inspect a house
and family, quite unknown to him, in Sloane Street,




HYPNOTISM-TRANCE-UMBRA.            259
Chelsea, he being in Edinburgh with a party. He saw
in the crystal the family in London; described the house,
andl also an old gentleman very ill or dying, and wearing
a peculiar cap. All was found to be correct, and the
cap was one which had lately been sent to the old gentleman. On the same occasion Mr. Lewis told a gentleman
present that he had lost or mislaid a key of a very
particular shape, which he, Mr. L., saw in the crystal.
This was confirmed by the gentleman, a total stranger
to Mr. Lewis."
A Sistimus hic tandem."'
I think that I have tolerably succeeded in establishing
the thesis with which these Letters started, that every
superstition is based on a truth; and I am in hopes that
the mass of evidence which I have adduced-the very
variety of the phenomena described, joined to their mutual
coherence —the theoretical consistency of the whole, as
if it were truly a vast body of living science, and not the
"disjecta membra" of a dream —will remove every remaining shade of doubt among candid readers, that these
inquiries are not less sound than they are curious.
CONCLUSION.
An acquaintance with the facts which it has been the
object of the foregoing pages to assemble, and to render
into philosophy, suggests one or two serious reflections.
We have seen the different results which have ensued
when these facts have emerged into day in times of ignorance and in times of enlightenment.  On the first occasion they were viewed with terror-became instruments
of superstition-were used for bad designs-and even
originated new forms of crime, before which common




260                CONCLUSION.
sense fled, and justice became blind and iniquitous. On
the latter-I speak of the reception of these facts towards
and in the present century-they were recognised by one
after another of the most sagacious observers of nature;
by Jussieu, for instance, and by Cuvier, to begin with; and
gradually by an increasing host of candid, well-informed,
and able followers, as forming a part of natural science,
and as susceptible of important applications.
He is ranked among the wisest of mankind, who announced that "knowledge is power."  Divine Wisdom
goes further, and reveals to us that knowledge is a good
and virtuous thing, while ignorance is stamped by the
same seal as sinful; or how otherwise can we interpret
the course of history and human experience, which proves
that, by the very constitution of our being, and the laws
impressed upon the moral and physical world, increase
of knowledge contributes to promote general and individual well-doing and happiness, while ignorance never
fails to be followed by the contrary penal consequences?
Therefore it is that those who unite good intentions and
good principles, with sound and well-cultivated abilities
-in other words the truly wise-humbly deem, that
among the most acceptable offerings to our common Maker
must be diligence in exploring all the sources of knowledge which he has placed within our reach, (which were
hidden only that we might seek for them,) so as to unveil
more and more of the forces and powers of nature, in
publishing the same abroad, that all may profit by them,
and in striving to bend their agencies towards good, and
high, and useful purposes.
THE END.