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MESMERISM, SPIRITUALISM
MESMERISM, SPIRITUALISM, &c.
HISTORICALLY &- SCIENTIFICALLY CONSIDERED
BEING TWO LECTURES
DELIVERED AT THE LONDON INSTITUTION
W\i\ |lafatc anb gppcnbk
BY
WILLIAM B. CARPENTER, C.B.
M.D. LL.D. F.R.S. F.G.S. V.P.L.S.
CORRESPOND.N-G MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE
REGISTRAR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
ETC.
A^EW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
549 AND 551 BROADWAY.
1877.
GIFT
(?>F /oil
EDUC.
PSYCH.
LIBRARY
PREFACE.
The recent direction of the public mind to the claims
of what is called ' Spiritualism/ partly by the discus-
sion which took place in the Anthropological Section
of the British Association at its Meeting in Glasgow,
and partly by the Slade prosecution which followed,
having led the Directors of the London Institution to
invite me to deliver two Lectures on the subject, I con-
sented to do so on the understanding that I should
treat it purely in its Historical and Scientific aspects :
my purpose being to show, first, the relation of what
seems to me essentially an Epidemic Delusion, to Epi-
demics, more or less similar, which have at different
periods taken a strong — though transient — hold on
the popular imagination ; and secondly, to point out
how completely the evidence adduced by the upholders
of the system fails to afford a scientific proof of the
existence of any new Power or Agency capable of an-
tagonising the action of the known Forces of Nature.
035
VI PREFACE.
In consequence of many representations made to
me that these Lectures might be advantageously
brought under the notice of- a wider circle than that of
their original auditors, I was led to prepare them for
publication in Erasers Magazine y\^A\h. the addition of
passages which want of time prevented me from in-
cluding in their oral delivery. And in now repro-
ducing them in a separate form, with an Appendix
of pieces jiistificatives, I have no other m^otive than a
desire to do what I can to save from this new form
of Epidemic Delusion some who are in danger of
being smitten by its poison, and to afford to such as
desire to keep themselves clear from it, a justification
for their ' common sense ' rejection of testimony
pressed upon them by friends whose honesty they
would not for a moment call in question. Among
these pieces, there are none which seem to me of more
value than the extracts I have given from the writ-
ings (long out of print) of the late Mr. Braid ; whose
experiments, which I repeatedly witnessed, not only
contributed essentially to the elucidation of what is
real in the phenomena of Mesmerism and the states
allied to it, but furnished (by anticipation) the clue to
the explanation of many of the curious psychical
phenomena of honest Spiritualism.
In the discussion to which I have just referred,
Mr. A. R. Wallace, speaking from the Chair of the
Anthropological Section, addressed me in the follow-
PREFACE. vii
Ing words : — * You expect us to believe what you say,
* but you will not believe what we say.* And the
same distinguished Naturalist has since publicly ac-
cused me of ' habitually giving only one side of the
'question, and completely ignoring all facts which tell
' against [my] theory.' — The reader of these Lectures
will see that my whole aim is to discover, on the
generally accepted principles of Testimony, what arc
facts ; and to discriminate between facts and the in-
ferences drawn from them. I have no other ' theory '
to support, than that of the constancy of the well-
ascertained Laws of Nature ; and my contention is,
that where apparent departures from them take place
through Human instrumentality, we are justified* in
assuming in the first instance either fraudulent de-
ception, or unintentional j'r//*-deception, or both com-
bined, — until the absence of either shall have been
proved by every conceivable test that the sagacity of
sceptical experts can devise.
The two different modes in which Spiritualists and
their opponents view the same facts, according to their
respective predispositions, is well brought out in cases
of the so-called ' materialization.' — A party being
assembled in a front drawing-room, the * medium ' re-
tires into a back room separated from it by curtains,
and professes there to go into a trance. After a short
interval, during which the lights are turned down so
as to make * darkness visible,' a figure dressed in some
strange guise enters between the curtains, and (lis-
viii PREFACE.
plays itself to the spectators as an * embodied spirit.'
Precluded from any direct interference with the per-
formance, a sceptic among the company slyly puts
some ink on his fingers, and, whilst this is still wet,
grasps the 'spirit-hand,' which he finds very like a
mortal one. The ' spirit ' withdraws behind the cur-
tains, after a short interval the lights are raised,
and the ' medium ' returns to the company in propria
persona. The sceptic then points out inkstains on
one of the ' medium's ' hands, and tells what he has
done.
These are the fads of the case. — Now, the ' com-
mon-sense ' interpretation of these facts is, that the
' nredium ' is a cheat, and the * embodied spirit ' a vul-
gar ghost personated by him; and until adequate
proof shall have been given to the contrary, I main-
tain that we are perfectly justified in holding to this
interpretation, confirmed as it is by the exposure of
the trick in every instance in which adequate means
have been taken for its detection.
But the explanation of his inked fingers given by
the ' medium ' is, that the impress made on the hand
of the 'embodied spirit' has been transferred 'ac-
cording to a well-known law of Spiritualism ' to his
own ; and this assumption is regarded as more pro-
bable, by such as have accepted the system, than
that their pet 'medium' is a cheat, and their belief
in him a delusion !
That such an assumption should not only gain
PREFACE. ix
the acceptance of minds otherwise rational, but should
be stoutly upheld by them with unquestioning faith,
seems to me a striking exemplification of the strength
of the hold which a 'dominant idea' may gain, when
once the protective safeguard of 'common sense' has
been weakly abandoned. And I would further de-
duce from it the educational importance of that early
Scientific training, of which a disciplined and trust-
worthy judgment on such subjects is one of the most
valuable resultants. For that training — which essen-
tially consists in the formation of habits of accurate
observation, and of correct reasoning upon the facts
so learned — pervades the ivhole mind, and shapes its
general forms of thought in a degree which is rarely (if
ever) equalled by the direction of its powers at a later
period of life to the culture of some limited field of
scientific investigation. Any such specialization leaves
the wide domain of thought which lies outside, un-
touched by scientific influences ; and thus it happens
that men who achieve high distinction in particular
lines of scientific enquiry, may not only have no
special competence for the pursuit of an enquiry of a
totally different kind, but may be absolutely dis^
qualified, by preformed tendencies, for its thorough
and impartial prosecution. A remarkable case of this
kind, incidentally noticed in the following pages (pp.
7 and 69), I have elsewhere more fully discussed.*
' 'The Radiometer and its Lessons,' in the N"uictcenth Century for
March 1877.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
Introduction—
Epidemic Delusions generally • •
Mesmerism—
Mesmer's own System . .
Report of the French Academic Commission
Mesmeric Somnambulism
Mr. Braid's Hypnotism
Miss Martineau's J
Supposed Agency of ' Silent Will '
Influence of Expectancy
9
II
13
16
20
22
25
Odylism—
Von Reichenbach's Doctrine
Explanation of Odylic Phenomena afforded by ]\Ir.
Braid's Experiments
Electro-Biology—
Phenomena of this state all referrible to Dominant
Ideas
Their relation to Spiritualistic Phenometia
29
33
35
40
xii CONTENTS.
Pendule Explorateur—
PAGE
ChevreuVs Investigations 4i
Supposed Odylic Agency disproved ... 43
Rutter's Odometer 44
Divining Rod—
Supposed Discovery of Water-springs and Metallic
veins
Experiments of MM. Chevreul and Biot
Dr. Beard's Test Experiment .
Mr. Dilke's Test Experiment
Various Applications of Rhabdomancy
47
48
49
50
51
THOUGHT-READING —
Expression by Unconscious Muscular Action . . 53
LECTURE II.
Introduction—
Credibility of Testimony . ... . . .56
Common-sense Test 5^
Witch-persecutions 61
Credibility of Scientific Testimony .... 66
Snail Telegraph 68
Mr. Crookes's Radiometer 69
MESMERIC Clairvoyance—
Investigation by French Academy of Medicine . 71
Dr. Forbes's Examination of Alexis and Adolphe . 77
Mr. Braid's Examination of Mdlle. Bernard . . 81
Dr. Forbes's Detection of George Goble ... 85
Detection of Mr. H ewes' * Jack ' at Manchester . 2>7
Untrustworthiness of Professor Gregory's Testimony. 90
Mental Travelling 93
Dr. Forbes's Exposure of Miss Martineau's J . 95
CONTENTS.
Table-Turning and Table-Talking—
I'AGR
Nature of the Movements 97
Their Source, proved by Faraday's * Indicator' . . 98
Spiritualism —
Outbreak of the Epidemic .
Explanation of the Rappings
Mrs. Hayden in England .
Higher Phenomena of Spiritualism
Frauds of Professional Mediums
Tricks of Non-professionals
Self-Deception ....
Fallacies of Memory .
Influence of Expectancy
Trustworthiness of Common Sense
Possession bv Dominant Ideas .
101
102
103
IDS
108
109
1 10
II i
113
APPENDICES.
A. Magic and Demoniacal Agency at the Christian Era . 117
B. Flagellant Mania 119
C. Dancing Mania 122
D. Animal Magnetism of Mesmer . , . . . 1 2.|,
E. Academic Report on Mesmer's Pretensions . .1-5
E. Extraordinary Muscular Energy producible by Mental
Concentration 128
G, Examination of Mr. Lewis's Pretensions at Aber-
deen. 129
xiv CONTENTS.
H. Mr. Braid's Disproof of Supposed Influence of
Magnets on Mesmerised Subjects . . .131
/. Mr. Braid's Experiments on Subjective Sensations 134
A'. Ancient Use of the Pendule Explorateur . . .139
L. Table-talking and Planchette- writing . . . .139
Reproduction of Unremembered Ideas . . .143
M, Supposed Diabolic Manifestations . . . .145
N. Mrs. Norman Culver's Affidavit respecting the Sisters
Fox 130
O. Mr. A. R. Wallace's defence of Mrs. Hayden . .153
P. Mr. Foster's Performances tested . . . .154
Q. Mr. Braid on the Influence of Suggestion and Ex-
pectancy 137
MESMERISM, SPIRITUALISM, &c/
LECTURE L
The aphorism that 'History repeats Itself Is in no
case more true than in regard to the subject on which
I am now to address you. For there has been a con-
tinuity from the very earhest times of a behef, more
or less general, in the existence of ' occult ' agencies
capable of manifesting themselves in the production
of mysterious phenomena of which ordinary expe-
rience docs not furnish the rationale. And while
this very continuity is maintained by some to be an
evidence of the real existence of such agencies, it will
be my purpose to show you that it proves nothing
more than the wide-spread diffusion, alike among
minds of the highest and of the lowest culture, of
certain tendencies to thought, which have either
created ideal marvels possessing no foundation what-
» The Lecturcfi, as here presented, include several passages which
were necessarily omitted in delivery.
2 MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
ever in fact, or have, by exaggeration and distortion,
invested with a preternatural character occurrences
which are perfectly capable of a natural explanation.
Thus, to go no further back than the first century of
the Christian era, we find the most wonderful narra-
tions, alike in the writings of Pagan and of Christian
historians, of the doings of the Eastern 'sorcerers'
and Jewish 'exorcists' who had spread themselves
over the Roman Empire.^ Among these, the Simon
Magus slightly mentioned in the Book of Acts was
one of the most conspicuous ; being recorded to have
gained so great a repute for his ' magic arts,' as to
have been summoned to Rome by Nero to exhibit
them before him ; and a Christian Father goes on to
tell how, when Simon was borne aloft through the
air in a winged chariot, in the sight of the Emperor,
the united prayers of the Apostles Peter and Paul,
prevailing over the demoniacal agencies that sustained
him, brought him precipitately to the ground. So, in
our own day, not only are we seriously assured by a
nobleman of high scientific attainments, that he him-
self saw Mr. Home saihng in the air (by moonlight)
out of one window and in at another, at a height of
seventy feet from the ground ; but eleven persons
unite in declaring that Mrs. Guppy was not only
conveyed through the air in a trance all the way from
Highbury Park to Lamb's Conduit Street, but was
brought by invisible agency into a room of which the
doors and windows were closed and fastened, coming
' plump down ' in a state of complete unconsciousness
' Ajfciuiix A.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRTTUALISM. 3
and partial deshabille upon a table round which they
were sitting in the dark, shoulder to shoulder.
Of course, if you accept the testimony of these
witnesses to the aerial flights of Mr. Home and Mrs.
Gupp}^, you can hav^e no reason whatever for refusing
credit to the historic evidence of the demoniacal ele-
vation of Simon Magus, and the victory obtained
over his demons by the two Apostles. And you are
still more bound to accept the solemnly attested
proofs recorded in the proceedings of our Law Courts
within the last two hundred years, of the aerial trans-
port of witches to attend their demoniacal festivities :
the belief in Witchcraft being then accepted not only
by the ignorant vulgar, but by some of the wisest
men of the time, such as Lord Bacon and Sir Matthew
Hale, Bishop Jewell and Richard Baxter, Sir Thomas
Browne and Addison ; while the denial of it was con-
sidered as virtual Atheism.
The general progress of Rationalism, however, as
Mr. Lecky has well shown, has changed all this ; and
to accept any of these marvels, we must place our-
selves in the mental attitude of the narrator of Mrs.
Guppy's flight ; who glories in being so completely
unfettered by scientific prejudices, as to be free to
swallow anything, however preposterous and impos-
sible in the estimation of scientific men, that his
belief in ' spiritual ' agencies may lead him to expect
as probable.
If time permitted, it would be my endeavour to
show you by a historical examination of these marvels,
that there has been a long succession of epidemic
4 MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
Delusions, the form of which has changed from time
to time, whilst their essential nature has remained the
same throughout ; and that the condition which
underlies them all is the subjection of the mind to a
dominant idea. There is a constitutional tendency in
many minds to be seized by some strange notion
which takes entire possession of them ; so that all the
actions of the individual thus ' possessed ' are results
of its .operation. This notion may be of a nature
purely intellectual, or it may be one that strongly
interests the feelings. It may be confined to a small
group of individuals, or it may spread through vast
multitudes. Such delusions are most tyrannous and
most liable to spread, when connected with religious
enthusiasm ; as we see in the flagellant and dancing
manias of the Middle Ages ; ^ the supposed Demon-
iacal possession that afterwards became common .in
the nunneries of France and Germany ; the ecstatic
revelations of Catholic and Protestant visionaries ;
the strange performances of the Convidsionnaircs of
St. Medard, which have been since almost paralleled at
Methodist * revivals ' and camp-meetings ; the preach-
ing epidemic of Lutheran Sweden ; and many other
outbreaks of a nature more or less similar. But it is
characteristic of some of the later forms of these epi-
demic delusions, that they have connected themselves
rather with Science than with Religion. In fact, just
as the performances of Eastern Magi took the strong-
est hold of the Roman mind, when its faith in its old
religious beliefs was shaken to its foundations, so did
' Af^pcndiccs, B, C.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 5
the grandiose pretensions of Mcsmcr, — who claimed
the discovery of a new Force in Nature, as universal
as Gravitation, and more mysterious in its effects than
Electricity and Magnetism, — find the most ready
welcome among the sceptical votaries of novelty who
paved the way for the French Revolution. And this
pseudo-scientific idea gave the general direction to
the doctrines taught by Mesmer's successors ; until in
the supposed ' Spiritualistic * manifestations a recur-
rence to the religious form has taken place, which may
(I think) be mainly traced to the emotional longing
for some assurance of the continued existence of de-
parted friends, and hence of our own future existence,
which the intellectual loosening of time-honoured
beliefs as to the Immortality of the Soul has brought
into doubt with many.
I must limit myself, however, to the later phase of
this history ; and shall endeavour to show you how
completely the extravagant pretensions of Mesmerism
and Odylism have been disproved by scientific inves-
tigation: all that is genuine in their phenomena
having been accounted for by well-ascertained
Physiological principles ; while the evidence of their
higher marvels has invariably broken down, when
submitted to the searching tests imposed by the
trained ' experts ' whom I maintain to be alone
qualified to pronounce judgment upon such matters.
Nothing is more common than to hear it asserted
that these are subjects which any person of ordinary
intelligence can investigate for himself. But the
Chemist and the Physicist would most assuredly
6 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
demur to any such assumption In regard to a chemical
or physical enquiry ; the Physiologist and Geologist
would make the same protest against the judgment
of unskilled persons in questions of physiology and
geology. And a study of Mesmerism, Odylism, and
Spiritualism extending over more than forty years,
may be thought to justify me in contending that a
knowledge of the physiology and pathology of the
Human Organism — corporeal and mental — of the
strange phenomena which are due to the Physical
excitability of the Nervous System, of the yet stranger
results, the possession of the Mind by dominant
emotions or ideas, of its extraordinary tendency to
self-deception in regard to matters in which the feel-
ings are interested, of its liability to place undue con-
fidence in persons having an interest in deceiving, and
of the modes in which fallacies are best to be detected
and frauds exposed, is an indispensable qualification
both for the discrimination of the genuine from the
false, and for the reduction of the genuine to its true
shape and proportions.
I hold, further, not only that it is quite legitimate
foi the enquirer to enter upon this study with that
* prepossession ' in favour of the ascertained and uni-
versally admitted Laws of Nature, which believers in
Spiritualism make it a reproach against men of science
that they entertain ; but that experience proves that
a prepossession in favour of some * occult ' agency Is
almost sure to lead the investigator to the too ready
acceptance of evidence of Its operation I would be
among the last to affirm that there Is not ' much more
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 7
in heaven and earth than is drcanrit of in our philo-
sophy ; ' and would be as ready as anyone to welcome
any addition to our real knowledge of the great
Agencies of Nature. But my contention is that no
new principle of action has any claim to scientific
acceptance, save after an exhaustive enquiry as to the
extent to which the phenomena can be accounted for,
either certainly or probably, by agencies already
known ; an enquiry which only ' experts ' in those
departments of science which deal with such agencies
are competent to carry out. The assumption of a
new agency, and the interpretation of phenomena in
accordance with it, is a method which has proved so de-
ceptive as to be now universally abandoned by men
of truly philosophical habits of thought ; being only
practised by such as surrender their common sense to
a ' dominant idea,' and deem nothing incredible which
accords with their ' prepossession.'
The recent history of Mr. Crooke's most admirable
invention, the Radiometer, is pregnant with lessons
on this point. When this was first exhibited to the
admiring gaze of the large body of scientific men as-
sembled at the soiree of the Royal Society, there was
probably no one who was not ready to believe with
its inventor that the driving round of its vanes was
effected by the direct mechanical agency of that mode
of Radiant Force which we call Light ; and the
eminent Physicists in whose judgment the greatest
confidence was placed, seemed to have no doubt that
this mechanical agency was something outside Optics
properly so called, and was, in fact, if not a new Force
8 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
in Nature, a new modus operandi of a Force previously
known under another form. There was here, then, a
perfect readiness to admit a novelty which seemed so
unmistakably demonstrated, though transcending all
previous experience. But after some little time the
question was raised whether the effect was not really
due to an intermediate action of that mode of Radiant
force which we call Heaty upon the attenuated vapour
of which it was impossible entirely to get rid ; and the
result of a most careful and elaborate experimental
enquiry, in which nature has been put to the question
in every conceivable mode, has been to make it (I
believe) almost if not quite certain that the first view
was incorrect, and that Heat is the real moving power,
acting under peculiar conditions, but in no new mode.
No examination of the phenomena of Spiritualism
can give the least satisfaction to the mind trained in
philosophical habits of thought, unless it shall have
been, in its way, as searching and complete as this.
And when scientific men are invited to dark seances^
or are admitted only under the condition that they
shall merely look on and not enquire too closely, they
feel that the matter is one with which they are entirely
precluded from dealing. When, again, having seen
what appears to them to present the character of a
very transparent conjuring trick, they ask for a repe-
tition of it under test conditions admitted to be fair,
their usual experience is that they wait in vain (for
hours it may be) for such repetition, and are then told
that they have brought an 'atmosphere of incredulity'
with them, which prevents the manifestation. — Now
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 9
I by no means affirm that the claims of Spirituah'sm
are ^/i-p roved by these failures ; but I do contend that
until the evidence advanced by believers in those
claims has stood the test of the same sifting and cross-
examination by sceptical experts, that would be ap-
plied in the case of any other scientific enquiry, it has
no claim upon general acceptance ; and I shall now
proceed to justify that contention by an appeal to the
history of previous enquiries of the like kind.
MESMERISM.
It was about the year 1772, that Mesmer, who had
previously published a dissertation On the Influence of
the Planets on the Hnnian Body, announced his dis-
covery of a universal fluid, * the immediate agent of
all the phenomena of nature, in which life originates,
and by which it is preserved ; ' and asserted that he
had further discovered the power of regulating the
operations of this fluid, to guide its current in healthy
channels, and to obliterate by its means the tracks of
disease. This power he in the first instance professed
to guide by the use of magnets ; but having quarrelled
with Father Hell, a professor of astronomy at Vienna,
who had furnished him with the magnets with which
he made his -experiments, and who then claimed the
discovery of their curative agency, Mesmer went on
to assert that he could concentrate the power in, and
liberate it from, any substance he pleased, could
charge jars with it (as with electricity) and discharge
them at his pleasure, and could cure by its means
lo MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
the most intractable diseases.^ Having created a
great sensation in Bavaria and Switzerland by his
mysterious manipulations, and by the novel effects
which they often produced, Mesmer returned to
Vienna, and undertook to cure of complete blindness
a celebrated singer Mdlle. Paradis, who had been for
ten years unsuccessfully treated by the court physician.
His claim to a partial success, however, which was in the
first instance supported by his patient, seemed to have
been afterwards so completely disproved by careful
trials of her visual powers, that he found himself
obliged to quit Vienna abruptly ; and he thence pro-
ceeded to Paris, where he soon produced a great sen-
sation. The state of French society at that time, as
I have already remarked, was peculiarly favourable to
his pretensions. A feverish excitability prevailed,
which caused the public mind to be violently agitated
by every question it took up. And Mesmer soon
found it advantageous to challenge the Learned
Societies of the capital to enter the lists against him ;
the storm of opposition which he thus provoked
having the effect of bringing over to his side a large
number of devoted disciples and ardent partisans.
He professed to distribute the magnetic fluid to his
congregated patients, from a baquct or magnetic tub
which he had impregnated with it, each individual
holding a rod which proceeded from the baquct ; but
when the case was particularly interesting, or likely
to be particularly profitable, he took it in hand for
personal magnetisation. All the surroundings were
» Appendix D.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. ii
such as to favour, in the hysterical subjects who con-
stituted the great bulk of his patients, the nervous
paroxysm termed the 'crisis,' which was at once re-
cognised by medical men as only a modified form of
what is commonly known as a ' hysteric fit ; ' and the
influence of the *■ imitative * tendency was strongly
manifested just as in cases where such fits run through
a school, nunnery, factory, or revivalist meeting, ir
which a number of suitable subjects are collectec
together. And it was chiefly on account of the
moral disorders to which Mesmer's proceedings
seemed likely to give rise, that the French Govern-
ment directed a Scientific Commission, including the
most eminent savans of the time — such as Lavoisier,
Bailly, and Benjamin Franklin — to enquire into them.
After careful investigation they came to the conclusion
that there was no evidence whatever of any special
agency proceeding from the baqiiet ; for not only
w^ere they unable to detect the passage of any influence
from it, that was appreciable, either by electric, mag-
netic, or chemical tests, or by the evidence of any of
their senses ; but on blindfolding those who seemed
to be most susceptible to its supposed influence, all
its ordinary effects were produced when they were
without any connection with it, but believed that it ex-
isted. And so, when in a garden of which certain
trees had been magnetised, the patients, either when
blindfolded, or when ignorant which trees had been
magnetised, would be thrown into a convulsive fit if
they believed themselves to be near a magnetised tree,
12
but were really at a distance from it ; whilst, con-
versely, no effect would follow their close proximity to
one of these trees, while they believed themselves to
be at a distance from any of them. Further, the Com-
missioners reported that, although some cures might
be wrought by the Mesmeric treatment, it was not
without danger, since the convulsions excited w^ere
often violent and exceedingly apt to spread, especially
among men feeble in body and weak in mind, and
almost universally among women ; and they dwelt
strongly also on the moral dangers which, as their
enquiries showed, attended these practices.^
Now this Report, although referring to a form of
Mesmeric procedure which has long since passed into
disrepute, really deals with what I hold to be an
important principle of action, which, long vaguely
recognised under the term * imagination,' now takes a
definite rank in Physiological science ; — namely, that
in individuals of that excitable nervous temperament
which is known as ' hysterical ' (a temperament by no
means confined to women, but rare in healthy and
vigorous men), the expectation of a certain result is
often sufficient to evoke it. Of the influence of this
' expectancy ' in producing most remarkable changes
in the bodily organism, either curative or morbid, the
history of Medicine affords abundant and varied
illustrations ; I shall presently show you that it can
generate sejtsations of a great variety of kinds ; and
I shall further prove that it operates no less remark-
ably in calling forth inovcniciits^ which, not being.
' Appendix E.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 13
consciously directed by the person who executes
them, have been attributed to hypothetical 'occult'
agencies.
I shall not trace the further history of Mesmer, or
of the system advocated by himself ; contenting my-
self with one ludicrous example of the absurdity of
his pretensions. When asked in his old age by one
of his disciples, why he ordered his patients to bathe
in river-water in preference to well-water, he replied
that it was because river-water is exposed to the sun's
rays ; and when further asked how these affected it in
any other way than by the warmth they excited, he
replied, " Dear doctor, the reason why all water ex-
" posed to the rays of the sun is superior to all other
" water, is because it is magnetised — since twenty years
** ago / magnetised the sun ! "
In the hands of some of his pupils, however,
Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism (as it gradually
came to be generally called), assumed an entirely
new development. It was discovered by the Marquis
de Puysegur, — a great landed proprietor, who appears
to have practised the art most disinterestedly for the
sole benefit of his tenantry and poor neighbours, —
that a state of profound insensibility might be induced
by very simple methods in some individuals, and a
state akin to somnambulism in others ; and this dis-
covery was taken up and brought into vogue by
numerous mesmerisers in France and Germany,
while, during the long Continental war and for some
time afterwards, it remained almost unknown in Eng-
land. Attention seems to have been first drawn to it
14 MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
in this country by the publication of the account of a
severe operation performed in 1829 by M. Cloquet,
one of the most eminent surgeons of Paris, on a female
patient who had been thrown by mesmerism into a
state of somnambulism ; in which, though able to con-
verse with those around her, she showed herself en-
tirely insensible to pain, whilst of all that took place
in it she had subsequently no recollection whatever.
About twelve years afterwards, two amputations were
performed in our country, one in Nottinghamshire,
and the other in Leicestershire, upon mesmerised
patients, who showed no other sign of consciousness
than an almost inaudible moaning ; both of them ex-
hibiting an uninterrupted placidity of countenance,
and declaring, when brought back to their ordinary
state, that they were utterly unaware of what had
been done to them during their sleep. And not long
afterwards, Dr. Esdaile, a surgeon in Calcutta, gave
details of numerous most severe and tedious opera-
tions performed by him, without the infliction of pain,
upon natives in whom he had induced the mesmeric
sleep ; the rank of Presidency Surgeon being conferred
upon him by Lord Dalhousie (then Governor-General
of India), * in acknowledgment of the services he had
" rendered to humanity." The results of minor experi-
ments performed by various persons desirous of testing
the reality of this state, were quite in harmony with
these. Writing in 1845, Dr. Noble, of Manchester
with whom I was early brought into association by
Sir John Forbes in the pursuit of this enquiry,) said :
** We have seen a needle thrust deeply under the
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 15
nail of a woman sleeping mcsmcrically, without its
exciting a quiver ; we have seen pungent snuff in
large quantities passed up the nostrils under the same
circumstances, without any sneezing being produced
until the patient was roused, many minutes afterwards:
we have noticed an immunity from all shock when
percussion caps have been discharged suddenly and
loudly close to the ear; and we have obsei-ved a
patient's little finger in the flame of a candle, and yet
no indication of pain. In this latter case all idea of
there having been courageous dissimulation was re-
moved from our mind, in seeing the same patient
evince both surprise and indignation at the treatment
received ; as, from particular circumstances, a sub-
stantial inconvenience was to result from the injury to
the finger, which was by no means slight." ^
This 'mesmeric sleep' corresponds precisely in
character with what is known in medicine as ' hysteric
coma ; ' the insensibility being as profound, while it
lasts, as in the coma of narcotic poisoning or pressure
on the brain ; but coming on and passing off with such
suddenness as to show that it is dependent upon some
transient condition of the sensorium, which, with our
present knowledge, we can pretty certainly assign to
a reduction in the supply of blood caused by a sort of
spasmodic contraction of the blood-vessels. That
there is no adequate ground for regarding it as other-
wise than real, appears further from the discovery
made not long afterwards by Mr. Braid, a surgeon
practising at Manchester, that he could induce it by a
* British and Foreign Medical Reviric, April 1S45.
1 6 MESMERISM, ODYLISM.
veiy simple method, which is not only even more
effective than the ' passes ' of the mesmeriser, but is
moreover quite independent of any other will than
that of the person who subjects himself to it. He
found that this state (which he designated as Hypnot-
ism) could be induced in a large proportion of indi-
viduals of either sex, and of all ranks, ages, and
temperaments, who determinately fix their gaze for
several minutes consecutively on an object brought so
near to their eyes, as to require a degree of conver-
gence of their axes that is maintainable only by a
strong effort.^
The first state thus induced is usually one of
profound comatose sleep; the 'subject' not being
capable of being roused by sensory impressions of
any ordinary kind, and bearing without the least
indication of consciousness what would ordinarily pro-
duce intolerable uneasiness or even severe pain. But
after some little time, this state very commonly passes
into one of somnambulism, which again corresponds
* Mr. Braid's peculiar success in inducing this state seemed to
depend partly upon his mode of working his method, and partly upon
the ' expectancy ' of his subjects. Finding a bright object preferable,
he usually employed his silver lancet-case, which he held in the first
place at ordinary reading distance, rather above the plane of the eyes ;
he then slowly approximated it towards the middle point, a little above
the bridge of the nose, keeping his own eyes steadily fixed upon those
of his 'subject,' and watching carefully the direction of their axes.
If he perceived their convergence to be at all relaxed, he withdrew the
object until the axes were both again directed to it ; and then again
approximated it as closely as was compatible with their continued
convergence. When this could be maintained for a sufficient length of
time upon an obiect at no more than about three inches distance, the
comatose state generally supervened.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 17
closely on the one hand with natural^ and on the
other with mesmeric somnambuHsm. In fact, it has
been by the study of the Somnambulism artificially
induced by Mr. Braid's process, that the essential
nature of this condition has been elucidated, and that
a scientific rationale can now be given of a large pro-
portion of the phenomena reported by Mesmcriscrs as
having been presented by their somnambules.
It has been claimed for certain Mesmeric som-
nambules, however, that they occasionally possess an
intelligence altogether superhuman as to things pre-
sent, past, and future, which has received the designa-
tion * lucidity ; ' and it is contended that the testimony
on which we accept the reality of phenomena which
are conformable to our scientific experience, ought to
satisfy us equally as to the genuineness of those
designated as ' the higher,' which not only transcend,
but absolutely contradict, what the mass of enlightened
men would regard as universal experience. This
contention, however, seems to me to rest upon an
entirely incorrect appreciation of the probative force
of evidence ; for, as I shall endeavour to prove to you
in my succeeding lecture, the only secure basis for our
belief on any subject, is the confirmation afforded to
external testimony by our sense of the inherent pro-
bability of the fact testified to ; so that, as has been
well remarked, " evidence tendered in support of what
" is new must correspond in strength with the degree
"of its incompatibility with doctrines generally admitted
" as true ; and, where statements obviously contravene
" all past experience and the universal consent of man-
1 8 MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
" kind, any evidence is inadequate to the proof, which
'* is not complete, beyond suspicion, and absolutely in-
" capable of being explained away."
Putting aside for the present the discussion of
these asserted marvels, I shall try to set before you
briefly the essential character? which distinguish the
state of Somnambulism (whether natural or induced),
on the one hand from dreaming, and on the other
from the ordinary waking condition. As in both
these, the mind is in a state of activity ; but, as in
dreaming, its activity is free from that controlling
power of the will, by which it is directed in the waking
state ; and is also removed from this last by the com-
plete ignorance of all that has passed in it, which is
manifested by the ' subject ' when called back to his
waking self, — although the events of one access of this
•second consciousness' may vividly present them-
selves in the next, as if they had happened only just
before. Again, instead of all the senses being shut
up, as in ordinary dreaming sleep, some of them are
not only awake, but preternaturally impressible ; so
that the course of the somnambulist's thought may
be completely directed by suggestions of any kind
that can be conveyed from without through the sense-
channels which still remain open. But further, while
the mind of the ordinary dreamer can no more pro-
duce movements in his body than impressions on his
sense-organs can affect his mind, that of the Somnam-
bulist retains full direction of his body (in so far, at
least, as his senses serve to guide its movements) ; so
that he acts his dreams as if they were his waking
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 19
thoughts. The mesmerised or hypnotised Somnambulc
may, in fact, be characterised as a conscious automaton,
which, by appropriate suggestions, may be made to
think, feel, say, or do almost anything that its director
wills it to think, feel, say, or do ; with this remarkable
peculiarity, that its whole power seems concentrated
upon the state of activity in which it is at each
moment, so that every faculty it is capable of exerting
may become extraordinarily intensified. Thus, while
vision is usually suspended, the senses of hearing,
smell, and touch, with the muscular sense, are often
preternaturally acute ; in consequence, it would seem,
of the undistracted concentration of the attention on
their indications. I could give you many curious
instances of this, which I have myself witnessed ; as
also of the great exertion of muscular power by sub-
jects of extremely feeble physique : ^ but as they are
all obviously referrible to this one simple principle, I
need not dwell on their details, preferring to narrate
one which I did not myself witness, but which was
reported to me on most trustworthy authority, of a
remarkable manifestation of a power of imitative
vocalisation that is ordinarily attainable only after
long practice. When Jenny Lind was singing at
Manchester, she was invited by Mr. Braid to hear the
performances of one of his hypnotised subjects, an
illiterate factory girl, who had an excellent voice and
ear, but whose musical powers had received scarcely
any cultivation. This girl in the hypnotic state
followed the Swedish nightingale's songs in different
* Appendix F.
20 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
languaj^es both instantaneously and correctly ; and
when, in order to test her powers, Mdlle. Lind extem-
porised a long- and elaborate chromatic exercise, she
imitated this with no less precision, though unable in
her waking state even to attempt anything of the sort.
" She caught the sounds so promptly," says Mr. Braid,
" and gave both words and music so simultaneously
" and correctly, that several persons present could not
" discriminate whether there were two voices or only
" one."
Now I wish you to compare this case with another,
which was reported about the same time upon what
seemed equally unexceptionable testimony. When
Miss Martineau first avowed her conversion to Mes-
merism, the extraordinary performances of her servant
J were much talked of; and among other marvels
it was asserted that she could converse, when in her
mesmeric state, in languages she had never learned,
and of which she knew nothing when aw^ake ; the
particular fact being explicitly stated, that Lord
Morpeth had tested this power and had found it real.
You will readily perceive that supposing the testi-
mony in this case to have been exactly the same as
in the preceding, its probative force would have been
\ cry different. For the first of them, though unprece-
dented, presented no scientific improbability to those
who were prepared by their careful study of the
phenomena of Hypnotism, to believe that the power
of imitative vocalisation, like any other, might be in-
tensified by the concentration of the soinnabule's
\'.li<)lc attention upon the performance. lUit it seemed
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM, 21
inconceivable that an uneducated servant girl could
understand what was said to her in a language she
had never learned ; still more, that she should be able
to reply in the same language. And the only rational
explanation of the fact, if fact it was, short of a mira-
cle, must have lain, either in her having learned the
language long before and subsequently forgotten it,
or in her being able by * thought-reading ' (which is
maintained by some, even at the present time, to be
one of the attributes of the mesmeric state) to divine
and express the answer expected by Lord Morpeth.
But the marvel was entirely dissipated by the enqui-
ries of Dr. Noble ; who, being very desirous of getting
at the exact truth, first applied for information to a
near relative of Miss Martineau, and was told by him
that the report was not quite accurate, for that on
Lord Morpeth putting a question to J in a foreign
language, J had replied appropriately in her own
vernacular. Her comprehension of Lord Morpeth's
question, however, appeared in itself sufficiently strange
to be suggestive of some fallacy ; and having an op-
portunity, not long afterwards, of asking Lord ]\Ior-
peth himself what was the real state of the case,
Dr. Noble learned from him that when he put a question
to J in a foreign language, she imitated his speech
after a fashion by an unmeaning articulation of sound.
On the lesson which this case affords as to the
credibility of testimony in regard to what are called
the 'higher phenomena' of Mesmerism, I shall en-
large in my succeeding lecture ; and at present I shall
only remark that it was shown by careful comparison
22 MESMERIS.]r, ODYLISM,
between the phenomena displayed by the same indi-
viduals, when ' mesmerised ' in the ordinary way, and
' hypnotised ' by Mr. Braid's process, that there was
no other difference between the two states, than that
arising from the special rapport between the mesme-
riser and his 'subject ' ; and that this was clearly expli-
cable by the 'expectancy' under which the 'subject'
passed into the state of second consciousness. For
Mr. Braid found himself able, by assuring his 'sub-
jects* during the induction of the coma that they
would hear the voice of one particular person and no
other, to establish this rapport with any person he
might choose: the case being strictly analogous to
the awaking of the telegraph-clerk by the clicking of
his needles, of the doctor by his night-bell, or of the
mother by her infant's cry, though all would sleep
soundly through far louder noises to which they felt
no call to attend. And thus, as was pointed out long
since by Dr. Noble and myself, not only may the
general reality of the Mesmeric Somnambulism be
fully admitted, but a scientific rationale may be found
for its supposed distinctive peculiarities, without the
assumption of any special 'magnetic' or 'mesmeric'
agency.
It is affirmed, however, that proof of this agency
is furnished by the power of the ' silent will ' of the
Mesmeriser to induce the sleep in subjects \vho are
not in the least aware that it is being exerted, and
further, to direct from a distance the actions of the
Somnambule. Doubtless, if satisfactory proof of this
assertion could be furnished, it would ^go far to estab-
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 23
lish the claim. But nothing is more difficult than to
eliminate all sources of fallacy in this matter. For
while it is admitted by Mesmerisers that the belief
that the influence is being exerted is quite sufficient,
in habitual somnambules, to induce the result, it is
equally certain that such ' sensitives ' are marvellously
quick at guessing from slight intimations what is ex-
pected to happen. And it has been repeatedly found
that mesmerisers who had no hesitation in asserting
that they could send particular * subjects ' to sleep, or
could affect them in other ways, by an effort of silent
will, have utterly failed to do so when these ' subjects '
were carefully kept from any suspicion that such will
was being exerted. Thus Dr. Noble has recorded the
case of a friend of his own, who, believing himself
able thus to influence a female servant whom he had
repeatedly mesmerised, accepted with the full assur-
ance of confident faith a proposal to make this
experiment in Dr. Noble's house instead of his own.
The girl, having been sent thither with a note, was
told to sit down in Dr. Noble's consulting-room while
the' answer was being wTitten ; her chair being close
to a partially-open door, on the other side of which
her master, whom she supposed to be elsewhere, had
previously taken up his position. Although this gen-
tleman had usually found two or three minutes
sufficient to send the girl to sleep, when he was in his
own drawing-room and she was in the kitchen, the two
being separated by intervening walls and flooring, yet
when he put forth his whole force for a quarter of an
hour within two feet of her, with only a partially closed
2^ MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
door between them, it was entirely without result ;
and no other reason for the failure could be assigned
than her entire freedom from expectancy. So in
another case, in which Mr. Lewus (accounted one of
the most powerful Mesmerists of his time) undertook
to direct the actions of his somnambule in the next
room, according to a programme agreed on between
himself and one set of witnesses, — whilst the actions
actually performed were recorded and timed by
another set, — there was found to be so complete a
discordance betw^een the programme ' willed * and the
actions really executed, as entirely to negative the
idea of any dependence of the latter upon the directing
power of the mesmeriser.^ Mr. Lewis w^as challenged
to this test-experiment by Professors of the University
of Aberdeen, in consequence of his public assertion
that he had repeatedly induced the mesmeric sleep,
and had directed the operations of his somnambules,
by the exertion of his ' silent will ' from a distance.
His utter failure to produce either result, however,
under the scrutiny of sceptical enquirers, obviously
discredits all his previous statements ; except to such
as (like Mr. A. R. Wallace, who has recently expressed
his full faith in Mr, Lewis's self-asserted powers,) are
ready to accept without question the slenderest evi-
dence of the greatest marvels. Further, when chal-
lenged to give proof before the same Committee, of
the power he had publicly claimed of overcoming the
force of gravity by raising a man from the ground and
keeping him suspended in the air for a short time,
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 25
simply by holding his hand above the man's head and
willing the result, Mr. Lewis admitted "that he had
*' no such power, and that he could only influence
*' a person lying on the ground so as to make him start
" up, though others were endeavouring to hold him
" down." Now I would ask you to compare this dis-
claimer, made to a body of sceptical Professors of
Aberdeen, whose published report of it was never
impugned by ]\Ir. Lewis, with the assertion made to
and accepted by Professor Gregory of Edinburgh : —
" When Mr. Lewis stood on a chair, and tried to draw
"Mr. H., without contact, from the ground, he gradu-
" ally rose on tiptoe, making the most violent efforts to
" rise, till he was fixed by cataleptic rigidity. Mr. Lewis
"said, that had he been still more elevated above Mr.
" H., he could have raised him from the floor without
"contact, and held him tJms suspended for a short time,
" zvhilesome spectator should pass his hand under Jiisfeet.
" Although this was not done in my presence, yet the
"attraction upwards was so strong, \hdXl seenoreasoji
" to doubt the statement made to me by Mr. Lewis and
" others zvho saw it, that this experiment has been suecess-
'' fully performed.'^ One is inclined to say of such
pretenders, and of the believers in them, " These be
thy gods, O Israel."
A converse experiment performed by Dr. Elliotson
himself, satisfied him that ' expectancy ' would take
the place of what he maintained to be the real Mes-
meric influence. Having told one of his habituces that
he would go into the next room and mesmerise her
' Letters to a Candid Euqtiirer 07i Animal Maguetisvi, p. 352.
26 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
through the door, he retired, shut the door, performed
no mesmeric passes, but tried to forget her, walked
away from the door, busied himself with some-
thing else, and even walked into a third room ; and
on returning in less than ten minutes found the
girl in her usual sleep-waking condition. The ex-
treme susceptibility of many of these * sensitive ' sub-
jects further accounts for their being affected (without
any intentional deceit) by physical impressions which
are quite imperceptible to others : — such as slight
differences in temperature, when two coins are p're-
sented to them, of which one has been held in the
hand of the mesmeriser ; or two wine-glasses of water,
into one of which he has dipped his finger for a short
time. But the belief that he has transmitted his
influence in any mode is quite sufficient to produce the
result ; as was shown in an amusing case recorded by
M. Bertrand, whose treatise on Animal IlagJietisni
(Paris, 1826) is, by far, the most philosophical work
extant on the subject. Having occasion to go a jour-
ney of a hundred leagues, leaving a female somnam-
bule under the treatment of one of his friends,
M. Bertrand sent him a magnetised letter, which he
requested him to place on the stomach of the patient,
who had been led to anticipate the expected results ;
Mesmeric sleep, with the customary phenomena, super-
vened. He then wrote another letter which he did
not magnetise, and sent it to her in the same manner,
and with the same intimation. She again fell into the
Mesmeric sleep, which was attributed to the letter
having been unititcntionalK' impregnated by M. Bcr-
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 27
trand with the mesmeric fluid while he was writing it.
Desiring to test the matter still further, he caused one
of his friends to write a similar letter, imitating his
handwriting so closely that those who received it
should believe it to be his ;~the same effect was once
more produced.
And so it was with the large number of experi-
ments that were made within my own knowledge
during the twenty years' attention that I gave to this
subject, with a view to test the Mesmeriser's power of
inducing any of the phenomena of this state without
the patient's consciousness. Successes, it is true, were
not unfrequent ; but these almost invariably occurred
when the experiments were made under conditions to
which the parties had become habituated, as in the
case of Dr. Noble's friend. For his performances were
so continually being repeated to satisfy the curiosity
of visitors, that Dr. Noble's call at his house would
have been sufficient to excite, on the part of the
'subject,' the expectancy that would have thrown
her into the sleep. But when such expectancy was
carefully guarded against, the result was so constantly
negative, as — I will not say to disprove the existence
of any special Mesmeric force, — but to neutralise com-
pletely the affirmative value of the evidence adduced
to prove it. For I think you must now agree with me,
that, if 'expectancy' alone is competent to produce
the results, as admitted by the most intelligent Mes-
merisers, nothing but the most rigid exclusion of
such expectancy can afford the least ground for the
assumption of any other agency. And my own
28 MESMERISM, ODYLTSM,
prolonged study of the subject further justifies me in
taking the position, that it is only when the enquiry
is directed, and its results recorded, by sceptical experts^
that such results have the least claim to scientific
value. The disposition to overlook sources of fallacy,
to magnify trivialities into marvels, to construct
circumstantial 'myths' (as in the case of Miss Marti-
neau's J and Lord Morpeth) on the slightest foun-
dation of fact, and to allow themselves to be imposed
upon by cunning cheats, have been so constantly
exhibited by even the most honest believers in the
* occult ' power of Mesmerism, as — not only in my
own opinion, but in that of my very able allies in this
enquiry — to deprive the unconfirmed testimony of any
number of such believers, in regard to matters lying
beyond scientific experience, of all claim to acceptance.
In fact, the positions taken in regard to Mesmerism
by my friend Dr. Noble, as far back as 1845,* and
more fully developed by myself a few years later on
the basis of Mr. Braid's experiments and of my own
Physiological and Psychologicalstudies,^ have, not only
in our own judgment, but by the general verdict of
the Medical and Scientific world, been fully confirmed
by the subsequent course of events, the history of
which I shall now proceed to sketch.
' British and Foreign Medical RevieT.v, vol. xix,
2 Principles of Human Physiology, 4th edition, 1853 ; Quarterly
Rerieiv, October, 1853.
TABLE-TURMXG, SPIRITUyiLISM. 29
ODYLISM.
It was asserted, about thirty years ago, by Baron
von Reichenbach, — whose researches on the Chemistry
of the Hydrocarbons constitute the foundation of our
present knowledge of paraffin and its aUied products
of the distillation of coal,— that he had found certain
' sensitive ' subjects so peculiarly affected by the neigh-
bourhood of Magnets or Crystals, as to justify the
assumption of a special polar force which he termed
Odyle, allied to, but not identical with, Magnetism ;
present in all material substances, though generally
in a less degree than in magnets and crystals ; but
called into energetic activity by any kind of physical
or chemical change, and, therefore, especially abun-
dant in the Human body. Of the existence of this
Odylic force, which he identified with the * animal
magnetism ' of Mesmer, he found what he maintained
to be adequate evidence in the peculiar sensations and
attractions experienced by his 'sensitives' when in the
neighbourhood either of Magnets or Crystals, or of
Human beings specially charged with it. After a
magnet had been repeatedly drawn along the arm of
one of these 'subjects,' she would feel a pricking,
streaming, or shooting sensation ; she would smell
odours proceeding from it ; or she would see a small
volcano of flame issuing from its poles, when gazing
at them, even in broad daylight. As in the Mesmeric
sleep light is often seen by the somnambule to issue
from the operator's fingers, so the Odylic light v>ras
30 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
discerned in the dark by Von Relchenbach's ' sensi-
tives,' issuing not only from the hands, but from the
head, eyes, and mouth of powerful generators of this
force. One individual in particular was so peculiarly
sensitive, that she saw (in the dark) sparks and flames
issuing from ordinary nails and hooks in a wall. It
was further affirmed that certain of these ' sensitives *
found their hands so powerfully attracted by magnets
or crystals, as to be irresistibly drawn towards them ;
and thus that if the attracting object were forcibly
drawn away, not only the hand, but the whole body
of the sensitive was dragged after it. Another set of
facts was adduced to prove the special relation of
Odyle to terrestrial Magnetism, — namely, that many
* sensitives ' cannot sleep in beds which lie across the
magnetic meridian ; a position at right angles to it
being to some quite intolerable.
Von Relchenbach's doctrine came before the British
public under the authority of the late Dr. Gregory,
then Professor of Chemistry in the University of
Edinburgh ; who went so far as to affirm that " by a
" laborious and beautiful investigation, Reichenbach
*' had demonstrated the existence of a force, influence,
" or imponderable fluid — whatever name begiventoit —
" which is distinct from all the known forces, influences,
** or imponderable fluids, such as heat, light, electricity,
" magnetism, and from the attractions, such as gravita-
" tion, or chemical attraction." It at once became ap-
parent, however, to experienced Physicians conversant
with the proteiform manifestations of that excitable,
nervous temperament, of which I have already had to
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 31
speak, that all these sensations were of the kind
which the Physiologist terms ' subjective ; ' the state
of the Sensorium on which they immediately depend,
being the resultant, not of physical impressions made
by external agencies upon the Organs of Sense, but
of Cerebral changes connected with the ideas with
which the minds of the * sensitives ' had come to be
* possessed.' The very fact that no manifestation of
the supposed force could be obtained except through
a conscious Human organism, should have been quite
sufficient to suggest to any philosophic investigator
that he had to do, not with a new Physical Force, but
with a peculiar phase of Physiological action, by no
means unfamiliar to those who had previously studied
the influence of the Mind upon the Body. As Mr,
Braid justly remarked, "It unfortunately happens
" that the only test of this alleged new Force is the
" Human Nerve ; and not only so, but it is further ad-
" mitted that its existence can only be demonstrated
*' by certain impressions imparted to, or experienced
*' by, a comparatively small iitimber of highly sensitive
** and nervous subjects. But it is an undoubted fact
" that with many individuals, and especially of the
** highly nervous, and imaginative, and abstractive
"classes, a strong direction of inward consciousness to
" any part of the body, especially if attended with the
" expectation or belief of something being about to
" happen, is quite sufficient to cha7ige the physical action
" of the part, and to produce such impressions from this
^' cause alone, as Baron ReichcnbacJi attributes to his7iew
^' force. Thus every variety of feeling may be excited
32 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
" from an internal or mental cause — such as heat or
*'cold, pricking, creeping, tingHng, spasmodic twitching
"of muscles, catalepsy, a feeling of attraction orrepul-
** sion, sights of every form or hue, odours, tastes, and
'* sounds, in endless variety, and so on, according as ac-
" cident or intention may have suggested. Moreover,
" the oftener such impressions have been excited, the
" more readily may they be reproduced, under similar
"circumstances, through the laws of association and
" habit. Such being the fact, it must consequently be
" obvious to every intelligent and unprejudiced person,
" that no implicit reliance can be placed on the Human
" Nerve, as a test of this new power in producing
" effects from external impressions or influences ; since
" precisely the same phenomena may arise from an
" inter?ial or mental influence, when no external agency
•' whatever is in operation." ^
The fact, which Von Reichenbach himself was
honest enough to admit — that when a magnet was
poised in a delicate balance, and the hand of a'sensitive*
was placed above or beneath it, the magnet was never
drawn towards the hand — ought to have convinced
him that the force which attracted the ' sensitive's *
hand to the magnet has nothing in common with
physical attractions, whose action is invariably ?ra-
procal ; but that it was the product of her own con-
viction that she must thus approximate it. So
'possessed' was he, however, by his pseudo-scientific
conception, that the true* significance of this fact
entirely escaped him'; and although he considered
that he had taken adequate precautions to exclude
' A striking illustration of this principle will be found in Appendix 1 1.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 33
the conveyance of any suggestion of which his
'sensitives' should be conscious, he never tried the
one test which would have been the experimcntinn
criicis in regard to all the supposed influences of
Magnets, — that of using electro-magnets, which could
be * made ' and ' unmade ' by completing or breaking
the electric circuit, without any indication being given
to the 'sensitive' of this change of its conditions.
And the same remark applies to the more recent
statement of Lord Lindsay, as to Mr. Home's recog-
nition of the position of a permanent magnet in a
totally darkened room ; the value of this solitary fact,
for which there are plenty of ways of accounting,
never having been tested by the use of an Electro-
magnet, whose active or passive condition should be
entirely unknown, not only to Mr. Home, but to every
person present.
That ' sensitives ' like Von Reichenbach's, in so far
as they are not intentional deceivers (which many
hysterical subjects are constitutionally prone to be),
can feel, see, or smell anything that they were led to
believe that they would feel, see, or smell, was soon
proved by the experimental enquiries of Mr. Braid,
many of which I myself witnessed.* He found that
not only in hysterical girls, but in many men and
women "of a highly concentrative and imaginative
" turn of mind," though otherwise in ordinary health, it
was sufficient to fix the attention on any particular
form of expectancy, — such as pricking, streaming, heat,
cold, or other feelings, in any part of the body over
• Appendix I.
34 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
which a magnet was being drawn ; luminous emana-
tions from the poles of a magnet in the dark, in some
cases even in full daylight ; or the attraction of a
magnet or crystal held within reach of the hand, — for
that expectancy to be fully realised. And, conversely,
the same sensations were equally produced when the
subjects of them were led to believe that the same
agency was being employed, although nothing what-
ever was really done ; the same flames being seen
when the magnet was concealed by shutting it in a
box, or even when it was carried out of the room,
without the knowledge of the subject ; and the attrac-
tion of the magnet for the hand being entirely
governed by the idea previously suggested, positive
or negative results being thus obtained with either
pole, as Mr. Braid might direct.
I had myself the opportunity of witnessing these
' vigilant phenomena ' (as Mr. Braid termed them,
from their being presented by individuals not asleep,
though in a state of abstraction) upon one of Mr.
Braid's best ' subjects,' a gentleman residing in
Manchester, well knov/n for his high intellectual
culture, great general ability, and strict probity.
He had such a remarkable power of voluntary ab-
straction, as to be able at any time to induce in
himself a state akin to profound Reverie (corre-
sponding to what has been since most inappropriately
called the * biologicar), in which he became so com-
pletely * possessed ' by any idea strongly enforced
upon him, that his whole state of feeling and action
was dominated by it. Thus it was sufficient for him
to place his hand upon the table, and rix his attention
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 35
upon it for half a minute, to be entirely unable to
withdraw it, if assured in a determined tone that he
could not do so. When his gaze had been steadily
directed for a short time to the poles of a magnet, he
could be brought to see flames issuing from them, of
any form or colour that Mr. Braid chose to name.
And when desired to place his hand upon one of the
poles, and to fix his attention for a brief period upon
it, the peremptoiy assurance that he could not detach
it was sufficient to hold it there with such tenacity,
that I saw Mr. Braid drag him round the room by
the traction of the magnet which he held, in a way
that reminded me of George Cruikshank's amus-
ing illustration of the German fairy story of the
Golden Goose. The attraction was dissolved by Mr.
Braid's loud cheery ^ All right, man,' which brought
the subject back to his normal condition, as suddenly
as the attraction of a powerful Electro-magnet for a
heavy mass of iron ceases when the circuit is broken.
ELECTRO-BIOLOGY.
Similar experiments to the foregoing (which I first
witnessed about thirty years ago) have been since
repeated, over and over again, upon great numbers of
persons, in whom a corresponding state can be induced
by prolonged fixation of the vision on a small object
held in the hand. It was in the year 1850 that a new
manifestation of the supposed 'occult' power first
attracted public attention, through the exhibition of
it by a couple of itinerant Americans, who styled
36 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
themselves 'professors' of a new art which they
termed Ekciro-Biology ; asserting that by an influence
of which the secret was only known to themselves, but
which was partially derived from a little disk of zinc
or copper held in the hand of the 'subject' and
steadily gazed on by him, they could subjugate the
most determined Avill, paralyse the strongest muscles,
pervert the evidence of the senses, destroy the memory
of even the most familiar things or of the most recent
occurrences, induce obedience to any command, or
make the individual believe himself transformed into
anyone else ;— all this, and much more, being done
while he was still wide awake. They soon attracted
large assemblages to witness their performances ; and
seldom failed to elicit some of the most remarkable
phenomena from entire strangers to them, whose
honesty could not be reasonably called in question.
In place of a few peculiarly susceptible ' subjects ' not
always to be met with, and open to suspicion on
various grounds, those who took up this practice
found in almost every circle some individuals in whom
the 'biological' state could be self-induced by the
steady direction of their eyes to one point, at the
ordinary reading distance, for a period usually varying
from about five to twenty nn'nutes ; a much shorter
time generally sufficing in cases in which the practice
has been frequently repeated. In this condition, the
whole course of thought is directed by external sug-
gestions, the subject's own control over it being alto-
gether suspended. Yet he difl"ers from the somnam-
bulist in being awake ; that is, he has generally the
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 37
use of all his senses, and usually, though not always,
preserves a distinct recollection of all that has taken
place. There is, in fact, a gradational transition from
the * biological ' to the ' mesmeric ' state ; just as there
is a passage from the state of profound reverie or
'day-dreaming' to that of ordinary sleep. All its
strange phenomena are referrible to one simple prin-
ciple — the possession of the mind by a doniiiiant idea,
from which, however absurd it may be, the subject
cannot free himself by bringing it to the test of actual
experience, because the suspension of his self-directing
power prevents him from correcting his ideational state
by comparing it with external realities ; this suspen-
sion being often as com.plete as it is in dreaming, so
that, though the senses are awake, they cannot be
turned to account. But it may exist in regard to one
sense only, the impressions made on others being
truly represented to the mind. Thus I have seen
instances in which a 'biologised' subject could be
made to believe himself to be tasting anything which
the operator might assure him that he zuould taste —
such as milk, coffee, wine, or porter — when drinking
a glass of pure water, though he was instantly dis-
abused by looking at the liquid ; whilst another would
sec milk or coffee, wine or porter, as he w^as directed,
but would instantly set himself right when he tasted
the liquid. Nothing can be more instructive than to
experiment upon a subject who has no misgivings of
this kind, but whose perceptions are altogether under
the direction of the ideas impressed upon him. He
may be made to exhibit all the manifestations of
38 MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
delight which would be called forth by the viands or
liquors of w^hich he may be most fond ; and these
may be turned in a moment into expressions of the
strongest disgust, by simply giving the word which
shall (ideally) change it into something he detests.
Or if, when he believes himself to be drinking a cup
of tea or coffee, he be made to believe that it is very
hot, nothing will induce him to take more than a sip
at a time ; yet a moment afterwards he will be ready
to swallow the whole in gulps, if assured that the
liquid is quite cool. Tell him, again, that his seat is
growing hot under him, and that he will not be able
to remain long upon it, and he will fidget uneasily for
some time, and at last start up with all the indica-
tions of having found the heat no longer bearable.
Whilst he is firmly grasping a stick in his hand, let
him be assured that it will burn him if he continue to
hold it, or that it is becoming so heavy that he can no
• longer sustain it ; and he will presently drop it with
gestures conformable in each case to the idea.
It may, of course, be said that what I have pre-
sented to you as real phenomena are only simulated ;
and as there would be nothing difficult in such
simulation, the supposition is clearly admissible. But
they are so perfectly conformable to the known prin-
ciples of Mental action, that there is no justification
for the suspicion of deceit, when they are presented
by persons in whose good faith we have reasonable
grounds of confidence. P'or everyone must be con-
scious of occasional mistakes as to what he supposes
himself to have seen or heard, which he can trace to
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 39
a previous ' expectancy.' Of this I can give you a
very striking illustration in a case narrated by Dr.
Tuke. A lady, whose mind had been a good deal
occupied on the subject of drinking-fountains, was
walking from Penryn to Falmouth, and thought she
saw in the road a newly-erected fountain, with the
inscription, ' If any man thirst, let him come hither
and drink.' Some time afterwards, on mentioning
the fact with pleasure to the daughters of a gentleman
whom she supposed to have erected it, she was
greatly surprised to learn from them that no such
drinking-fountain existed ; and on subsequently re-
pairing to the spot, she found nothing but a few stones,
which constituted the foundation on which her ex-
pectant imagination had built an ideal superstructure.
The same may be said with regard to the control
exercised over the muscular movements of the Biolo-
gised ' subject,' by the persuasion that he imist or that
he cannot perform a particular action. His hands
being placed in contact with one another, he is
assured that he cannot separate them ; and they re-
main as if firmly glued together, in spite of all his
apparent efforts to draw them apart. Or, a hand
being held up before him, he is assured that he can-
not succeed in striking it ; and not only does all his
power seem inadequate to the performance of this
simple action, but it actually is so, as long as he
remains convinced of its entire impossibility. So I
have seen a strong man chained down to his chair,
prevented from stepping over a stick on the floor, or
obliged to remain almost doubled upon himself in a
40 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
stooping position, by the assurance that he could not
move. On the other hand, an extraordinary power
may be called forth in any set of muscles — as in
Hypnotised subjects — by the assurance that the action
to be performed by them may be executed with the
greatest facility. This, again, is quite conformable to
ordinary experience ; the assurance that we can per-
form some feat of strength or dexterity, nerving us to
the effort ; whilst our power is w^eakened by our own
doubts of success, still more by the unfavourable im-
pression produced by a confident prediction of failure.
It is only needed for the mind to become completely
* possessed ' by the one or the other conviction, for it
to produce the bodily results of this kind which I have
over and over again witnessed.
Now the phenomena of the ' Biological ' condition
seem to me of peculiar significance, in relation to a
large class of those which are claimed as manifesta-
tions of a supposed ' Spiritual ' agency. When a num-
ber of persons of that *' concentrative and imaginative
turn of mind" which predisposes them to this condi-
tion, sit for a couple of hours (especially if in the dark)
with the expectation of some extraordinary occur-
rence, — such as the rising and floating in the air, either
of the human body, or of chairs or tables, without any
physical agency ; the crawling of live lobsters over
their persons ; the contact of the hands, the sound of
the voices, or the visible luminous shapes,^ of their
' T put aside the question of fraud, to whicli recourse has doubtless
often been had for the production of these phenomena ; being satisfied
that they are often genuinely 'subjective.'
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 41
departed friends,— it is perfectly conformable to scien-
tiiic probability that they should pass more or less
completely (like Reichenbach's ' sensitives ') into a
state which is neither waking nor sleeping, but between
the two, in which they see, hear, or feel by touch,
anything they have been led to expect will present
itself. And the accordance of their testimony, in
regard to such occurrences, is only such as is produced
by the community of the * dominant idea ' with which
they are all * possessed,' a community of which history
furnishes any amount of strangely-varied examples.
And thu5 it becomes obvious that the testimony of a
single cool-headed sceptic, who asserts that nothing
extraordinary has really occurred, should be accepted
as more trustworthy than that of any number of be-
lievers, who have, as it were, created the sensorial
result by their anticipation of it.
TENDULE EXPLORATEUR.
I have now to show you that the like * expectancy '
can also produce movements of various kinds through
the instrumentality of the nervo-muscular apparatus,
without the least consciousness on the part of its sub-
ject of his being himself the instrument of their per-
formance ; a physiological fact which is the key to the
whole mystery of Table-turning and Table-talking.
I very well remember the prevalence, in my school-
boy days, of a belief that when a ring, a button, or
any other small body, suspended by a string over the
end of the finger, was brought near the outside or
42 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
inside of a glass tumbler, it would strike the hour of
the day against its surface ; and the experiment cer-
tainly succeeded in the hands of several of my school-
fellows, who tried it in all good faith, getting up in
the middle of the night to test it, in entire ignorance —
as they declared— of the real time. But, as was pointed
out by M. Chevreul, who investigated this subject in
a truly scientific spirit more than forty years ago,^ it
is impossible by any voluntary effort to keep the hand
absolutely still for a length of time in the position
required ; an involuntary tremulousness is always ob-
servable in the suspended body ; and if the attention
be fixed on it with the expectation that its vibrations
will take a definite direction, they are very likely to
do so. But their persistence in that direction is found
to last only so long as they are guided by the sight
of the operator ; the oscillations at once and entirely
losing their constancy, if he closes or turns away his
eyes. Thus it became obvious that, in the striking
of the hour, the influence which determines the num-
ber of strokes is really the knowledge or suspicion
present to the mifid of the operator, which involuntarily
and unconsciously directs the action of his muscles ;
and the same I'ationale was applied by M. Chevreul
to other cases in which this pcndule cxplorateiw (the use
of which can be traced back to a very remote date)
has been appealed to for answers to questions of very
diverse character.^
' See his Kltcr to M Ampere in the Rcvuc dcs Dciix MondeSy
Mai, 1833.
2 Apl>cndix K.
TA BLE- TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 4 3
When, however, ' Odylc ' came to the front, and
the world of curious but unscientific enquirers was
again * possessed ' by the idea of an unknown and
mysterious agency, capable of manifesting itself in an
unlimited variety of ways, i\\Q pe7idnie cxploratcurwix'^
brought into vogue, under the name of Odometer, by
Dr. Herbert Mayo,^ who investigated its action with
a great show of scientific precision ; starting, however,
with the foregone conclusion that its oscillations were
directed by the hypothetical * odyle,' and altogether
ignoring the mental participation of the operator,
whom he supposed to be as passive as a thermometer
or a balance. By a series of elaborate experiments,
he convinced himself that the direction and extent of
the oscillations could be altered, either by a change
in the nature of the substances placed beneath the
* odometer,' or by the contact of the hand of a person
of the opposite sex, or even of the other hand of the
experimenter himself, with that from which it was sus-
pended. And he gradually reduced his result to a
series of definite laws, which he regarded as having
the same constancy as those of Physics or Chemistry.
Unfortunately, however, other experimenters, who
worked out the enquiry with similar perseverance and
good faith, arrived at such different results, that it
soon came to be obvious that what Astronomical ob-
servers call the 'personal equation' of the individual
has a very large share in determining them. A very
intelligent medical friend of my own, then residing
abroad, wrote me long letters full of the detailed
' 0)1 the Trulhs coiilaincd i)i Popular SiiJ^crstitions, 1 85 1.
44 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
results of his own enquiries, on which he was anxious
for my opinion. ]\Iy reply was simply, " Shut your
" eyes, or turn them away ; let some one else watch the
" oscillations under the conditions you have specified,
" and record their results ; and you will find, if I do not
" mistake, that they will then show an entire waJit of
" the constancy you have hitherto observed." His next
letter informed me that such proved to be the case ;
so that he came entirely to agree with me as to the
dependence of the previous uniformity of his results
on his own * expectancy.'
A curious variation of the * Odometer' was intro-
duced by Mr. Rutter, then manager of the gas-works
at Brighton, under the name of * Magnetometer ; *
which was simply a gallows-shaped frame, mounted
on a solid base, and having a metallic ball suspended
from its free extremity. When the finger was kept for
a short time in contact with this frame, the ball began
to oscillate, usually in some definite direction ; chang-
ing that direction with any change of circumstances,
after the manner of Dr. Mayo's * odometer.' To many
persons, as to Mr. Rutter himself, it appeared impos-
sible that these oscillations could have their origin in
any movement of the operator ; but everyone who
knew how difficult it is to prevent vibrations in the
supporting frame-work of a Microscope or a Telescope,
and who recognised in the construction of the * Mag-
netometer' exactly such an arrangement as enabled
the smallest amount of imparted motion to produce
the greatest sensible effect, was prepared to anticipate
that the oscillations of tlic suspended ball would be
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM, 45
as much maintained and guided by the * expectancy '
of the operator, as they are when it is hung directly
from his own finger. Experiment soon proved this to
be the case ; for it was found that the constancy of
the vibrations entirely depended upon the operator's
watching their direction, either by his own eyes or by
those of some one else ; and further, that when such a
change was made without his knozvlcdge in the condi-
tions of the experiment, as ought, theoretically, to
alter the direction of the oscillations, no such alteration
took place.
A very amusing expose of the mystery of the
* Magnetometer ' resulted from its application by Dr.
Madden, a Homoeopathic physician at Brighton, to
test the virtues of his * globules,' as to which he had,
of course, some pre-formed conclusions of his own.
The results of his first experiments entirely corre-
sponded with his Ideas of wha£ they ought to be ; for
when a globule of one medicine was taken into his
disengaged hand, the suspended ball oscillated longi-
tudinally ; and when this globule was changed for
another of (supposed) opposite virtues, the direction of
the oscillations became transverse. Another Homoeo-
pathic physician, however, was going through a similar
course of experiments ; and his results, while conform-
able to his own notions of the virtues of the globules,
were by no means accordant with those of Dr. Madden.
The latter was thus led to re-investigate the matter
with a precaution he had omitted in the first instance ;
— namely, that the globules should be placed in his
hand by another person, without any hint being given
46 MESMERlSAf, ODVnS.V,
him of their nature. From the moment he began to
work upon tin's pLan, the whole aspect of the subject
was changed ; globules that produced longitudinal
oscillations at one time, gave transverse at another ;
whilst globules of the most opposite remedial virtues
gave no sign of difference. And thus he was soon led
to the conviction, which he avowed with a candour
very creditable to him, that the system he had built
up had no better foundation than his own * expect-
ancy ' of what the results of each experiment should
be ; that anticipation expressing itself unconsciously
in involuntary and imperceptible movements of his
finger, which communicated a rhythmical vibration to
the framework when the oscillations of the ball sus-
pended from it were watched.
Thus, by the investigations of scientific experts
who were alive to the sources of fallacy which the in-
troduction of the Jiiiman element always brings into
play, the hypothesis of Odylic force was proved to be
completely baseless ; the phenomena which were sup-
posed to indicate its existence being traceable to the
Physiological conditions of the Human organisms
through whose instrumentality they were manifested.
The principle that the state of * expectant attention '
is capable of giving rise either to sensations or to in-
voluntary movements, according to the nature of the
expectancy, had been previously recognised in Physio-
logical science, and was not invented for the occasion ;
but the phenomena I have been describing to you are
among its most * pregnant instances.'
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 47
DIVINING ROD.
The same principle furnishes what I bch'eve to be
the true scientific explanation of the supposed mys-
tery of the Divining Rod, often used where water is
scarce for the discovery of springs, and in mining dis-
tricts for the detection of metallic veins. This rod is
a forked twig, shaped like the letter Y, hazel being
usually preferred ; and the diviner walks over the
ground to be explored, firmly grasping its two prongs
with his hands, in such a position that its stem points
forwards. After a time the end of the stem points
downwards, often, it is said, with a sort of writhing
or struggling motion, especially when the fork is tightly
grasped ; and sometimes it even turns backwards, so as
to point towards, instead of away from, the body of the
diviner. Now there is a very large body of apparently
reliable testimony, that when the ground has been
opened in situations thus indicated, either water-
springs or metallic veins have been found beneath ;
and it is quite certain that the existence of such a
power is a matter of unquestioning faith on the part
of large numbers of intelligent persons, who have wit-
nessed what they believed to be its genuine manifes-
tations.^ This subject, however, was carefully enquired
into more than forty years ago by MM. Chevreul and
Biot ; and their experimental conclusions anticipated
' I have lately received a pamphlet from an Enguieer in the United
States, giving most circumstantial details of successes thus obtained
within his own experience.
48 MESMERISM, ODVLJSM,
those to which I was myself led, in ignorance of them,
by Physiological reasoning. They found that the
forked twig cannot be firmly grasped for a quarter of
an hour or more in the regular position, without the
induction of a state of muscular tension which at last
discharges itself in movement ; and this acts on the
prongs of the fork in such a manner, as to cause its
stem to point either upwards or downwards or to one
side. The occasion of this discharge, and the direc-
tion of the movement, are greatly influenced — like the
oscillations of bodies suspended from the finger — by
the expectancy of the operator ; so that if he has any
suspicion or surmise as to the * whereabouts ' of the
object of his search, an involuntary and unconscious
action of his muscles causes the point of the rod to
dip over it. This was admitted even by Dr. H. Mayo,
a believer in the existence of an * Od-force ' governing
the movements of the rod ; for he found that when
his * diviner ' knew which way the fork was expected
to move, it invariably answered his expectations ; whilst,
when he had the man blindfolded, the results were
uncertain and contradictory. Hence he came to the
conclusion that several of those in whose hands the
Divining Rod moves, set it in motion, and direct its
motion (however unintentionally and unconsciously)
by the pressure of their fingers, and by carrying their
hands near-to or apart-from one another.^
Again, since not one individual in forty, in the
localities in which the virtues of the Divining Rod are
still held as an article of faith, is found to obtain any
' Ontlu Truths contained in Popular Superstitions, LeUcr I,, p, 19,
SPIRITUALISM. 49
results from its use, it becomes obvious that its move-
ments must be due, not to any Physical agency
directly affecting the rod, but to some influence ex-
erted through its holder. And that this influence is his
expectation of the result, may, I think, be pretty con-
fidently affirmed. For it has been clearly shown, by
careful and repeated experiments, that, while the rod
dips when the 'diviner' knows or believes he is over
a water-spring or a metallic vein, the results are un-
certain, contradictory, or simply negative, when he is
blindfolded, so as not to be aware precisely where he
is. The following is a striking case of this kind, that
has been lately brought to my knowledge : —
"A friend of mine (says Dr. Beard),* an aged
clergyman, of thorough integrity and fairness, has for
many years — the larger part of his natural life, I be-
lieve — enjoyed the reputation of being especially
skilled in the finding of places to dig wells, by means
of a divining rod of witch hazel, or the fresh branches
of apple or other trees. His fame has spread far ; and
the accounts that are given by him and of him, are, to
those w^ho think human testimony w^orth anything,
overwhelmingly convincing. He consented to allow
me to experiment with him. I found that only a few
moments were required to prove that his fancied gift
was a delusion, and could be explained wholly by
unconscious muscular motion, the result of expectancy
and coincidence. In his own yard there was known
to be a stream of water running through a small pipe
a few feet below the surface. Marching over and near
' Kez'icw of Medicine and Thar macy i^twXoxV), Sept. 1875.
so MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
tills, the rod continually pointed strongly downwards,
and several times turned clear over. These places I
marked, blindfolded him, marched him about until he
knew not where he was, and took him over the same
ground over and over again ; and although the rod
went down a number of times, it did not once point to
or near the places previously indicated."
I very well remember having heard, some 35 years
ago, from Mr. Dilke (the grandfather of the present
Sir Charles) of an experiment of this kind which he
had himself made upon a young Portuguese, who had
come to him with a letter of introduction, describing
the bearer of it as possessing a most remarkable
power of finding, by means of the Divining Rod,
metals concealed from view. Mr. Dilke's family being
at a summer residence in the country, his plate had
all been sent to his chambers in the Adelphi, where he
was visited by the Portuguese youth ; to whom he
said " Go about the room with your rod, and try if you
can find any mass of metal." The youth did so ; and
his rod dipped over a large standing desk, in which
Mr. D.'s plate had been temporarily lodged. Seeing,
however, that there were circumstances which might
reasonably suggest this guess, Mr. Dilke asked the
youth if he was willing to allow his divining power to
be tested under conditions which should exclude all
such suggestion ; and having received a ready assent,
he took his measures accordingly. Taking his plate-
box down to his country residence, he secretly buried
it just beneath the soil in a newly ploughed field ;
selecting a spot which he could identify by cross-
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 51
bearings of conspicuous trees, and getting a plough
drawn again over its surface, so that the ridges and
furrows should correspond precisely with those of the
rest of the field. The young diviner was then sum-
moned from London, and challenged to find beneath
the soil of this field the very same plate which he liad
previously detected in Mr. Dilke's deskatthe Adelphi;
but having nothing whatever to guide him even to a
guess, he was completely at fault. Mr. Dilke's im-
pression was that he was not an impostor, but a sincere
believer in his own power, as the ' dowsers ' of min-
ing districts seem unquestionably to be. — The test of
blindfolding the diviner, and then leading him about in
different directions so as to put him completely at
fault in regard to his locality, is one that can be very
readily applied when the diviner is acting in good
faith ; but, as I shall show you in the next lecture, it
requires very special precautions to blindfold a person
who is determined to see ; and in some of the cases
which seem to have stood this test, it seems not im-
probable that vision was not altogether precluded.
An additional reason for attributing the action of
the Divining Rod to the muscular movements called
forth by a state of * expectancy * (perhaps not always
consciously entertained) on the part of the performer,
seems to me to be furnished by the diversity of the
powers that have been attributed to it ; such as that
of identifying murderers and indicating the direction
of their flight, discovering the lost boundaries of lands,
detecting the birth-place and parentage of foundlings,
&c. The older writers do not in the least call in
52 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
question the reality of the powers of the hazel fork ;
but learnedly discuss whether they are due to natural
or to diabolic agency. When, in the last century, the
phenomena of Electricity and Magnetism became
objects of scientific study, but had not yet been com-
prehended under the grasp of law, it was natural that
those of the Divining Rod should be referred to
agencies so convenient, which seemed ready to account
for anything otherwise unaccountable. But since Phy-
sicists and Physiologists have come to agree that the
moving power is furnished by nothing else than the
muscles of the diviner, the only question that remains
is — what calls forth its exercise .-* And the conclusive
evidence I have given you, as to the dependence of
the definite oscillations of suspended bodies on in-
voluntary movements unconsciously determined by
states of expectancy, clearly points to the conclusion
that we have in the supposed mystery of the Divining
Rod only another case of the same kind. It is well
known that persons who are conversant with the
Geological structure of a district, are often able to
indicate with considerable certainty in what spot, and
at what depth, Water will be found ; and men of less
scientific knowledge, but of considerable practical ex-
perience, frequently arrive at a true conclusion on this
point, without being able to assign reasons for their
opinions. Exactly the same may be said in regard
to the mineral structure of a mining district ; the
course of a Metallic vein being often correctly indi-
cated by the shrewd guess of an observant workman,
where the scientific reasoning of the mining engineer
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 53
altogether fails. It is an experience we are continually-
encountering in other walks of life, that particular
persons are guided,— some apparently by an original,
and others by an acquired intuition, — to conclusions
for which they can give no adequate reasons, but
which subsequent events prove to have been correct ;
and I look upon the Divining Rod in its various ap-
plications as only a peculiar method of giving expres-
sion to results worked out by an Automatic process
of this kind, even before they rise to distinct mental
Consciousness. Various other methods of Divination
that seem to be practised in perfectly good faith —
such, for example, as the Bible and key test, used for
the discovery of stokn property — are probably to be
attributed to the same agency ; the Cerebral traces of
past occurrences often supplying materials for the
automatic evolution of a result (as they unquestion-
ably do in dreams), when the occurrences themselves
have been forgotten.
THOUGHT-READING.
Many of the cases of so-called ' Thought-reading *
are clearly of the same kind ; the communication
being made by unconscious muscular action on the
part of one person, and automatically interpreted by
the other, — as in the following instance. Several
persons being assembled, one of them leaves the room,
and during his ^ absence some object is hidden. On
' The experiment succeeds equally well, or perhaps better, with
ladies.
54 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
the absentee's re-entrance, two persons who know the
hiding-place stand one on either side of him, and
estabhsh some personal contact with him ; one method
being for each to place a finger on the shoulder next
him, while another is for each to place a hand on his
body, one on the front and the other on the back.
He walks about the room between the two, and
generally succeeds before long in finding the hidden
object ; being led towards it (as careful observation
and experiment have fully proved) by the involuntary
muscular action of his unconscious guides, one or the
other of them pressing more heavily when the object
is on his side, and the finder as involuntarily turning
towards that side.
These and other curious results of recent enquiry,
while strictly conformable to Physiological principles,
greatly extend our knowledge of the modes in which
states of Brain express themselves unconsciously and
involuntarily in Muscular action ; and I dwell on them
the more, because they seem to me to afford the key
(as I shall explain in my second lecture) to some of
these phenomena of Spiritualistic divination, which
have been most perplexing to many who have come
in contact with them, without being disposed to accept
the spiritualistic interpretation of them.
There seems no inherent improbability in the sup-
position, that the power of intuitively interpreting the
indications involuntarily furnished by expression of
countenance, gesture, manner, &c., so as to divine
what is passing in the mind of another person, may
be greatly intensified in that state of concentration
TABLE-TURMNG, SPIRITUALISM. 55
which has been already shown (p. 19), to produce a
temporary exaltation of other faculties. There can
be no question that this divining power is naturally
possessed in a very remarkable degree by certain
individuals ; and that it may be greatly improved by
cultivation,— going in many instances far beyond what
can have been learned by experience as to the meaning
of the indications on which it rests. But I have not met
with any cases, either in my own experience, or in
the recorded experiments of such as have proved their
competence to conduct them, of the exercise of this
power without the intermediation of those expressional
signs, which, as in the case I have just cited, are made
and interpreted alike unconsciously.
56 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
LECTURE 11.
Several years ago, an eminent Colonial Judge with
whom I was discussing the subject on which I am now
to address you, said to me, " According to the ordinary
'' rules of evidence, by which I am accustomed to be
" guided in the administration of justice, I cannot refuse
" credit to persons whose honesty and competence
" seem beyond doubt, in regard to facts which they de-
" clare themselves to have witnessed ; and such is the
*' character of a great body of testimony I have received
*' in regard to the phenomena of Spiritualism." In ar-
guing this matter with my friend at the time, I took
my stand upon the fact, well known not only to
lawyers but to all men of large experience in affairs,
that thoroughly honest and competent witnesses con-
tinually differ extremely in their accounts of the very
same transaction, according to their mental pre-
possessions in regard to it ; and I gave him instances
that had occurred within my own experience, in
which a prepossession in favour of 'occult' agencies
had given origin and currency to statements reported
by witnesses whose good faith could not be called in
question, which careful enquiry afterwards proved to
have no real foundation in fact.
Subsequent study, however, of the whole subject
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISAr. 57
of the validity of Testimony, has led me not only to
attach yet greater importance to what Metaphysicians
call its 'subjective' element — that is, the state of mind
of the witness who gives it ; but, further, to see that
we must utterly fail to appreciate the true value of
evidence, if we do not take the general experience of
intelligent men, embodied in what we term * educated
common sense,' as the basis of our estimate. In all
ordinary legal procedures, the witnesses on each side
depose to things which might have happened ; and in
case of a ' conflict of testimony,' the penetration of the
presiding judge, and the good sense of the jury, are
exerted in trying to find out what really did happen ;
their search being guided partly by the relative con-
fidence they place in the several witnesses, but partly
by the general probabilities of the case.
Now, it would be at once accepted as a guiding
principle by any administrator of justice, that the
more extraordinary any assertion — that is, the more
widely it departs from ordinary experience — the
stronger is the testimony needed to give it a claim on
our acceptance as truth ; so that while ordinary evidence
may very properly be admitted as adequate proof
of any ordinary occurrence, an extraordinary weight
of evidence would be rightly required to establish the
credibility of any statement that is in itself inherently
improbable, the strength of the proof required being
proportional to the improbability. And if a statement
made by any witness in a Court of Justice should be
completely in opposition to the universal experience of
Mankind^ as embodied in those Lazvs of Nature luhich
58 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
are accepted by all men of ordinary intelligence, the
judge and jury would most assuredly put that par-
ticular statement ' out of court ' as a thing that could
not have happened ; whatever might be the value
they would assign to the testimony of the same wit-
ness as to ordinary matters. Thus if, in order to
account for the signature of a will in London at a
certain time, by a person who could be proved, beyond
reasonable doubt, to have been in Edinburgh only an
hour before, either a single witness, or any number of
witnesses, were to affirm that the testator had been
carried by ' the spirits ' through the air all the way
from Edinburgh to London in that hour, I ask whether
the * common sense ' of the whole Court would not
revolt at such an assertion, as a thing not in reruin
natnra. And yet there are at the present time
numbers of educated" men and women, who have so
completely surrendered their 'common sense' to a
dominant prepossession, as to maintain that any such
monstrous fiction ought to be believed, even upon the
evidence of a single witness, if that witness be one
upon whose testimony we should rely in the ordinary
affairs of life !
There is, indeed, no other test than that of ' com-
mon sense,' for distinguishing between the delusions
of a Monomaniac, and the conclusions drawn by sane
minds from the same data. There are many persons
who are perfectly rational upon every subject but one ;
and who, if put on their trial, will stand a searching
cross-examination without betraying themselves, es-
pecially if they know from previous experience what
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 59
it is that they should endeavour to conceal. Rut a
questioner who has received the right cue, and skil-
fully follows it up, will generally succeed at last in
extracting an answer which enables him to turn to
the jury and say — " You see that whilst sane enough
" in other matters, the patient upon this point is clearly
" mad." Yet the proof of such madness consists in
nothing else than the absurd discordance between the
fixed conviction entertained by the individual, and
what is accepted by the world at large as indubitably
true ; as, for example, when he declares himself to be
one of the persons of the Trinity, or affirms (as in a
case now before me) that he is a victim to the machi-
nations of infernal powers, whom he overhears to be
conspiring against him. We have no other basis than
the dictates of 'common sense' for regarding such
persons as the subjects of pitiable delusions, and have
no other justification for treating them accordingly.
Their convictions are perfectly true to themselves ;
they maintain in all sincerity that it is only they who
are sane, and that the rest of mankind must be mad
not to see the matter in the same light ; and all this
arises from their having allowed their minds to fall
under subjection to some ' dominant idea,' which at
last takes full possession of them. Thus, for example,
a man suffering under incipient mehincJiolia begins by
taking gloomy views of everything that concerns him ;
his affairs are all going to ruin ; his family and friends
are alienated from him ; the world in general is ' going
to the bad.' Under the influence of this morbid
colouring, he takes more and more distorted views of
6o MESMERISAJ, ODYLISM,
the occurrences of his present Hfe, and looks back
with exagc^erated reprobation at the errors of his past ;
and in time, not only ideal misrepresentations of real
occurrences, but ideal eonstnictions having scarcely
any or perhaps no basis in actual fact, take full pos-
session of his mind, which credits only his own imagin-
ings, and refuses to accept the corrections giv^en by
the assurances of those who surround him. So I
have seen a woman who has had the misfortune to fix
her affections upon a man who did not return them,
first misinterpret ordinary civilities as expressions of
devoted attachment, and then, by constantly dwelling
upon her own feelings, mentally construct ideal
representations of occurrences which she comes to be-
lieve in as real ; not allowing herself to be undeceived,
even when the object of her attachment declares that
the sayings and doings attributed to him are alto-
gether imaginary.
It is in this way that I account for what appear to
me to be the strange delusions, which have laid hold
at the present time of a number of persons who are
not only perfectly sane and rational upon all other
subjects, but may be eminently distinguished by intel-
lectual ability. They first surrender themselves,
without due enquiry, to a disposition to believe in
'occult ' agencies ; and having so surrendered them-
selves, they interpret everything in accordance with
that belief. The best protection against such sur-
render appears to me to be the eai'ly culture of those
scientific habits of thought, which shape, when once
established, the whole future intellectual course of the
individual.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 6l
The case is not really altered by the participation
of large numbers of persons in the same delusion ; in
fact, the majority sometimes goes mad, the few who
retain their 'common sense' being the exceptions.
Of this we have a notable instance in the Witch-
persecutions of the seventeenth century, mainly insti-
gated by King James I. and his Theological allies; who,
because ' witchcraft ' and other * curious arts ' are con-
demned both by the Mosaic law and by Apostolic
authority, * stirred up the people ' against those who
were supposed to practise them, and branded every
doubter as an atheist.
The Witch-persecution carried on by James in
Scotland, before his accession to the English throne,
is believed to have caused the sacrifice of several
thousand lives ; but in England, under the too cele-
brated Witch Act, which was passed by Parliament
under his influence, in the first year of his reign, it
was far more terribly destructive. No fewer than
seventy thousand persons are believed to have been
executed for witchcraft between the years 1603 and
1680 ; a number far larger than that of the sufferers
in all the religious persecutions of the later Tudors.
The * History of Human Error' seems to me, in
fact, to have no pages more full of instruction to such
as can read them aright, than those which chronicle
the trials for this offence, which were presided over by
judges— like Sir Matthew Hale — of the highest re-
pute for learning, uprightness, and humanity. Not
only were the most trivial and ridiculous circumstances
admitted as proofs of the charge, but the most
62 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
monstrous assertions were accepted without the sh"ght-
est question. Thus in 1663 a woman was hanged at
Taunton, on the evidence of a hunter that a hare which
had taken refuge from his pursuit in a bush, was found
on the opposite side in the Hkeness of a witch, who,
having assumed the form of the animal, took advantage
of her hiding-place to resume her proper shape. And
the proof of these marvels did not rest on the testi-
mony of single witnesses. In 1658 a woman was
hung at Chard Assizes for having bewitched a boy of
twelve years old, who was seen to rise in the air, and
pass some thirty yards over a garden wall ; while at
another time he was found in a room with his hands
flat against a beam at the top, and his body two or
three feet above the floor — nine people at a time seeing
him in this position.
In 1677, however, an able work was published
under the title of The Displaying of Supposed Witch-
craft, in which the author, Webster, who had seen a
great deal of witch-trials, maintained the opinion
that the whole system of witchcraft was founded on
natural phenomena, credulity, torture, imposture, or
delusion ; and a reaction seems then to have begun in
favour of * common sense,' which was fostered by the
Revolution of 1688. Though accusations continued
to be made, the judicious conduct of X-ord Chief
Justice Holt, who presided over trials for this offence
in various parts of the kingdom, generally caused the
acquittal of the prisoners ; and when they were found
guilty and condemned, the capital sentence was
seldom carried out. The last witch-execution in
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 63
Scotland, where the Theological prepossession longest
maintained its hold over the public, was in 1722 ; and
the Witch Act was repealed in 1736. The belief in
witchcraft still survived, however, not only among the
iq-norant vulgar, but in the minds of some of the most
enlightened men of the last century. We find Addi-
son, in the earlier part of it, speaking of witchcraft as
a thing that could not reasonably be called in ques-
tion ; while, towards its close, Dr. Johnson maintained
that as the non-existence of witches could not be
proved, there was no sufficient ground for denying their
diabolical powers. This is one of the cases, however,
in which an enlightened ' common sense ' — the intel-
ligent embodiment of the general experience of man-
kind — is a much safer guide than logic. The belief in
Witchcraft was not killed by discussion, but perished
by neglect. The ' childish things ' believed in by our
ancestors have been 'put away' by the full-grown
sense of the present generation ; the testimony in
their favour, once unquestionably accepted as con-
vincing, is no longer deemed worthy of being even
considered ; and it is only among those of our here-
ditarily uneducated population, whose general intel-
ligence is about upon a par with that of a Hottentot
or an Esquimaux, that ' cunning women ' are able to
turn this lingering superstition to the purposes of
gain.
Of the rapid spread of the Witchcraft delusion in
a population whose theological ' prepossession ' fa-
voured its development, and of its equally rapid
decline when 'common sense' resumed its due ascen-
64 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
dancy, no case was more remarkable than the
Epidemic that spread through Puritan New England,
just two hundred years ago. This was initiated by
the trial and execution of a poor Irishman, who, being
obnoxious as a papist, was accused of having be-
witched two children who suffered from convulsive
attacks. Dr. Cotton Mather, Eellow of Harvard Col-
lege, received one of these children into his house ;
and asserted the girl's possession by evil spirits
as an indubitable fact, on the following grounds : —
She would suddenly, in the presence of a number
of spectators, fall into a trance, rise up, place herself
in a riding attitude as if setting out for the Sabbath,
and hold conversation with invisible beings. When
under the influence of ' hellish charms ' she took plea-
sure in reading or hearing ' bad ' books, which she was
permitted to do with perfect freedom. These books
included the Prayer Book of the English Episco-
pal Church, the writings of Quakers, and Popish
productions. On the other hind, whenever the Bible
was taken up, the devil threw her into the most fear-
ful convulsions. It was upon such testimony that the
unfortunate Irishman was convicted and executetl !
The judicial persecution, once begun, soon raged
with such severity that its victims were hung by half
a dozen or more at a time ; one of them being a min-
ister, who had provoked his judges by calling in
question the very existence of witchcraft. The accu-
sations became more and more numerous, and at last
implicated people of the highest consideration, among
them the wife of a minister who had been one of the
TABLE-TURNING, STIRITUALISM. 65
most active promoters of these proceedings ; so that
the authorities felt it necessary for their own safety at
once to check the further progress of the infection.
Judges and juries then found out that they had been
'sadly deluded and mistaken,' only Dr. Cotton
Mather's father (who was President of Harvard) and
other Theologians still holding their ground ; and the
release, by the Governor, of a hundred and fifty
witches who were under arrest, and the stoppage of
proceedings against two hundred more who were
about to be arrested, came to be accepted in a short
time with general approval, though vehemently pro-
tested against by Cotton Mather in these remarkable
terms : — " Fleshy people may burlesque these things ;
'' but when hundreds of the most solemn people, in a
" country where they have as much mother-wit, cer-
'* tainly, as the rest of mankind, knoiv them to be true,
" nothing but the froward spirit of Sadduceeism can
" question them. I have not yet mentioned so much as
" one thing that will not be justified, if it be required,
" by the oaths of more considerate persons than any
" that can ridicule these odd phenomena."
Now this is precisely the position taken by the
modern Spiritualists ; who revive under new forms
the doctrines w^hich were supposed to have faded
away under the light of Modern Science. The 'hun-
dreds of the most solemn people,' who are ready to
justify their conviction of such wonders as Mr.
Home's and Mrs. Guppy-Volckman's aerial flights,
the elongation of the body of the former, or the
bringing in of ice, flowers, and fruits by the minister-
66 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
ing spirits of the latter, are equally bound to accept
the testimony, given on oath and in solemn form of
law, which satisfied able judges and honest juries two
centuries ago, that tens of thousands of innocent
people had entered into the guilty league with Satan,
whose punishment was death here and everlasting
damnation hereafter. The unbelieving Sadducees of
the present time, on the other hand, can appeal to the
same sad history, in justification of their refusal to
admit the testimony of the votaries of a system which
is to their minds quite as absurd and irrational as that
of Witchcraft ; and of their disbelief in the reality of
alleged occurrences which they deem it an insult to
their common sense to be asked to credit. For the
faithful few, who two centuries ago rallied round the
standard of Rationalism, in antagonism not only to
the dead weight of ignorant prejudice, but to the
active force of learning and authority, had no other
defence of their position than the inJiereitt incredibility
of the opposing testimony ; notwithstanding that this
was clearly given (in many cases if not in all) in per-
fect good faith, and often admitted as true even by
the unfortunate victims it incriminated, who seem to
have themselves participated in what every person of
ordinary intelligence now admits to have been a piti-
able delusion.
But, it may be objected, the acceptance of this
test would equally justify a disbelief in any of those
marvels which are rightly esteemed the glories of
Modern Science. Tell a man, for instance, to whom
the fact is new, that the hand may be held without
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 67
injury in the stream of liquid iron issuing from the
smelting furnace, or dipped and moved about in a
bucket of the molten metal ; and he will probably re-
ject your assertion as altogether incredible. Yet this
statement, while apparently antagonistic to universal
experience, can be shown to be really conformable to
it. For the protection of the hand from being burned
by the hot metal, when the intervention of a film of
vapour has been secured by moistening its surface, is
just what you may see every day in the rolling off of
drops of fluid from a heated iron, in the application of
the familiar test by which the laundress judges of
the suitability of its temperature.
Take, again, the case of the Electric Telegraph,
and especially that of the Atlantic cable. If sub-
marine telegraphy had not been led up to by progres-
sive steps, the mass of mankind would have
undoubtedly scoffed at the idea of " putting a girdle
round the earth in twenty minutes " ; and even after
the first Atlantic cable had actually conveyed mes-
sages of great importance, to the full satisfaction of
those who sent them, there were obstinate sceptics
who maintained that its asserted success must be a
falsehood, as being opposed to ' common sense.' But
every person sufficiently educated to understand the
scientific principles of its construction, was perfectly
prepared to accept it as a real success ; the speedy
failure of the first cable, so far from justifying the
original scepticism, only serving to show what the
conditions were, by due observance of which perma-
nent success might be assured.
68 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
Compare this with another curious demand upon
pubHc credence — the 'panasilinic telegraph' — which
was made by an ingenious hoaxer about the time that
the success of land electric telegraphy first set the
world to dream of uniting the New World with the Old
by the like means. It was gravely announced that a
French savant had discovered that if two snails were
brought for a time into mutual relation, such a sym-
pathy would be established between them, that, how-
ever widely they might be separated, the movements
of each would correspond with those of the other ; so
that if a couple of friends, one in New York and the
other in Paris, wished to converse, they had only to
provide themselves with an alphabet and figure dial,
get a pair of sympathetic snails, and appoint a time
for their conversation. The one who led off was to
make his snail walk over the dial, and to stop him at
the letter or figure he wished to indicate ; his friend's
snail would do exactly the same, and thus the mes-
sage would be gradually spelled out. — Now I per-
fectly well remember that this ridiculous absurdity
found many believers. My old friend Dr. Robert
Chambers, ever on the watch for scientific novelties,
gave currency to the statement in Chanibcrs's Jounialy
without, however, committing himself to its truth.
And I am sure that its very marvellousness had an
attraction for those credulous subjects, who are ready
to surrender their common sense to any pretender to
occult powers, — the more readily, it often seems, in
proportion to the extravagance of his claims.
I might cite the Spectroscope and the Radiometer
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 69
as additional cases, not merely of the read'ness, but of
the eagerness of Scientific men, to extend their know-
ledge of the agencies of Nature in entirely new
directions ; and to accept with implicit confidence,
upon adequate evidence, revelations in regard to mat-
ters lying so completely beyond the domain covered
by previous experience, as entirely to transcend, if
not directly to violate it. Now this, in the first case,
is because the whole of that wonderful fabric of Spec-
trum-analysis, by which we are now enabled to study
the chemical and physical constitution of eVery kind
of Celestial object which the telescope can render visi-
ble to us, has been built up, course by course, on the
basis of one of our most familiar scientific experiences
—the dark lines that cross the solar spectrum. So,
Mr. Crookes's invention of the Radiometer w^as the
culmination of a long series of experimental enquiries,
the results of which could be demonstrated at any
time and to any number of persons ; the fundamental
fact of the vanes being driven round by radiant force
being thus put beyond dispute. And while, as I
stated to you in my previous lecture, what at first
seemed the obvious interpretation of this fact —
namely, that radiant force here acted in a manner
altogether new to science, by direct mechanical im-
pulse on the vanes — was almost universally accepted
by even the most distinguished Physicists, further
investigations of the most ingenious and elaborate
nature have now conclusively proved that the action
is really an indirect one, capable of being accounted
for on previously understood principles. — I hold the
70 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
warning given by the history of this enquiry, in regard
to the duty of the Scientific man to exhaust every
possible mode of accounting for new and strange
phenomena, before attributing it to any previously
unknown agency, to be one of the most valuable les-
sons afforded by Mr. Crookes's discoveries.
Now I maintain that it requires exactly the same
kind of specially trained ability, to elicit the truth in
regard to the phenomena we are now considering, as
has been exerted in the researches made by the in-
strumentality of the Spectroscope and the Radio-
meter. And I cannot but believe that if Mr. Crookes
had been prepared by a special training in the bodily
and mental constitution, abnormal as well as normal,
of the Human instruments of the Spiritualistic en-
quiries, and had devoted to them the ability, skill,
perseverance, and freedom from prepossession, which
he has shown in his Physical investigations, he would
have arrived at conclusions more akin to those of the
great body of scientific men whom I believe to share
my own convictions on this subject.
So far are we from regarding Science as having
unveiled all the mysteries of Nature, that we hold
ourselves ready to accept any new agency, the evi-
dence for which will stand the test of cross-examina-
tion by skilled experts. But, in default of such
evidence, we are fully justified by experience in re-
garding it as more probable that the most honest
witnesses have either been intentionally deceived or
have deceived themselves, than that assertions in
direct contradiction to all the 'natural knowledge'
we possess should have any real justification in Hict.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 71
In support of this position, I shall now show you
that in every instance (so far as I am aware) in which
a thorough investigation has been made into those
' higher phenomena ' of Mesmerism which are adduced
in support of SpirituaHsm, the supposed proof has
completely failed, generally by the detection of inten-
tional fraud ; while as the unexplained marvels of the
same kind which are still appealed to as valid proofs,
rest on no better evidentiary foundation than seemed
originally to be possessed by those which have en-
tirely broken down, it may be fairly presumed that
they too would be discredited by the like searching
enquiry.
It was in France that the pretensions of Mesmeric
clairvoyance were first advanced ; and it was by the
French Academy of Medicine, in which the mesmeric
state had been previously discussed with reference to
the performance of surgical operations, that this new
and more extraordinary claim was first carefully
sifted; in consequence of the offer made in 1837 by
M. Burdin (himself a member of that Academy) of a
prize of 3,000 francs to anyone who should be found
capable of reading through opaque substances. The
money was deposited in the hands of a notary for a
period of two years, afterwards extended to three :
the announcement was extensively published ; nume-
rous cases were offered for examination ; every
imaginable concession was made to the competitors,
that was compatible with a thorough testing of the
reality of the asserted power ; and not one ivas found
to stand the trial.
72 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
But not only was there complete and ignominious
failure ; the fraudulent mode in which the previous
successes had been obtained was detected in two of
the three cases which were brought most prominently-
forward, and was made scarcely less evident in the
third.
The first case was presented by M. Houblier, a
physician of Provence, who, after a long period of
preparation, sent his clairvoyante Mile. Emelie to
Paris, to the care of a (riend and mesmeriser, M.
Frappart. This gentleman, before presenting her to
the Commissioners, thought it as well to put her
asserted power of reading with the back of her head
to some preliminary trials ; and soon finding reason
to suspect her good faith, he set a trap for her, into
which (supposing him to be her friend) she unsus-
pectingly fell. Very judiciously, however, he did not
immediately expose her, but let her continue her per-
formances ; bringing up M. Houblier from Provence
to meet other persons interested in the enquiry, that
they might see for themselves through the key-hole of
the room in which Mile. Emelie was supposed to be
lying entranced in a mesmeric sleep, that she got up
and examined, here and there, the pages of the book
— purposely left in the room — in which her alleged
clairvoyant power was to be tested. Of course. Mile.
Emelie was never presented to the Commissioners of
the Academy ; and M. Houblier confessed with grief
and shame that he had not only himself been for
four years the dupe of this viaitrcsse fanvic, but that
he had unconsciously helped her to impose upon
TABLE-rURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 73
many most respectable persons in his own neigbour-
hood. Now, all these, with M. Houblicr himself,
might be presumed to have been both competent and
trustworthy witnesses ; so that if M. Burdin's prize
had never been offered, this case would have been put
on record (like others of which I shall presently tell
you) as an unimpeachable attestation of the reality of
clairvoyance. Again, the immediate detection of the
fraud, not by a hostile sceptic, but by a friendly mes-
meriser, shows how easily, under the influence of a
' prepossession,' numbers of intelligent people may be
led to surrender their * common sense * to the extent
of believing, not only that the seat of vision may be
transferred to the back of the head, but that a dis-
tinct picture of a page of a book can be formed with-
out any optical apparatus. The conduct of M.
Frappart in the matter should serve as a lesson to
honest Spiritualists at the present time; who, when there
is good ground to suspect trickery, would much better
serve their own cause by helping to expose it, than by
lending themselves to the defence of the trickster.
Among the earliest claimants of the Burdin prize
w^as a M. Pigeaire of Montpellier ; who affirmed that
his daughter, a girl eleven years old, Avas able, when
her eyes were completely blinded, to read wath the
points of her fingers, w^hich then became her visual
organs ; the sole condition he required being that she
should be blinded by himself with a bandage of black
velvet. Her power of reading in this condition was
attested by peers, deputies, physicians, distinguished
litterateurs (amongst others by George Sand) and
74
newspaper editors, to whom it had been exhibited in
Paris before she was presented to the Commission.
But its members were nevertheless sceptical enough
to require proof satisfactory to themselves, and de-
sired to render the girl ' temporarily blind ' (to use her
father's words) by their own method ; objecting that
his velvet bandage might be so disarranged by the
working of her facial muscles, as to allow her to see
downwards beneath its lower edge, when the book
was held in a suitable position. M. Pigeaire, how-
ever, objecting to this test, the Commissioners having
satisfied themselves of the opacity of the bandage,
stipulated only that the book should not be put into
the girl's hands, to be held by herself wherever she
wished, but should be placed opposite her eyes at any
distance her father should desire. As he would not
consent to this condition, the Commissioners, of
course, declined to accept his daughter's performances
as furnishing any valid evidence of clairvoyance.
Though the bandage was opaque, the trick now be-
came transparent ; yet it had taken in peers, deputies,
and George Sand ; and only experts in such enquiries
succeeded in discovering it.
The third case was brought forward by M. Teste,
a well-known magnetiser of that date, who affirmed
that every experienced mesmerist had witnessed the
exercise of this faculty at least twenty times. Confi-
dent in his position, he offered to submit his clair-
voyantc (a young girl) to the cxperimentunt crucis —
the reading of print or writing enclosed in opaque
boxes ; stipulating only that the direction of the lines
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 73
should be previously indicated. Such a box was pre-
pared and placed in the girl's hands, with the required
indication. Being presently asked by M. Teste
whether she would be able to read what was in the
interior of the box, she answered Oui ; and on his ask-
ing her how soon, she replied confidently dix mimitcs.
She then turned the box about in her hands, and in
doincT so tore one of the bands that secured it. This
being remarked upon, she made no further attempt of
the same kind, but continued (as it appeared) to exert
herself in fatiguing efforts to discern the concealed
lines. Whole hours having thus passed, and M.
Teste having asked his clairvoyaiite how many lines
there were in the box, she answered deux. He then
pressed her to read, and she announced that she saw
the word nous, and later the word sommes. As she
then declared that she could read no more, the box
was taken from her hands, and the girl was dis-
missed ; and the box being then opened, the printed
slip it contained was shown to M. Teste to have on it
six lines of French poetry, in which neither of the
words nous sommes occurred.
Of course this failure does not disprove any of M.
Teste's assertions, either in regard to the same girl
under other conditions, or in regard to other alleged
clairvoy antes ; but it fully justifies the allegation, that
as this was a picked case, presented by himself, near
the expiration of the third year during which M. Bur-
din's prize was open, with unhesitating confidence in
the girl's success, his other reported cases, of which
not one rests upon better authority than his own,
76 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
have not the least claim upon our acceptance. He
seems to have been very easily satisfied ; and it is
clear that if he was not a consenting party, he was
not adequately on his guard against the possibility of
a furtive peep being taken by his clairvoyaiite into the
interior of the box while it was being turned about in
her hands, — the method which Houdin avows himself
to have practised in performing his * second sight '
trick, and by which, as I shall presently tell you, one
of our own most noted advocates of the * transcen-
dental ' was afterwards completely taken in.
It was in 1844 that '^^ clah'voyant Alexis came
hither from Paris, with the reputation of extraordi-
nary powers ; and though these had not been sub-
mitted to the test of investigation by the French
Academy of Medicine, it was confidently affirmed by
the leading mesmerisers in this country, that there
was nothing in the way of ' lucidity * that this youth
had not done and could not do. Not only had he
divined the contents of sealed packets and thick
wooden boxes, but he could give an exact account oi
the contents of any room in any house never before
seen or heard of; he had described occurrences taking
place at a distance, which, to the great surprise of the
questioners (who expected something very different),
were afterwards found to have transpired exactly as
he had stated ; he had revealed to persons anxious to
recover important papers the unknown places of their
lodgment ; in fact, if all was true that was affirmed of
him, the power for which he could claim credit would
have been little less than omniscience — if only it
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM, yj
could have been commanded at will. But, by the
admission of his best friends, it was extremely vari-
able, coming in gushes or flashes ; while, as he was
often unable to see clearly at first, and had an unfor-
tunate habit of ' thinking aloud,' he continually made
a great many blunders before he arrived at anything
like the truth.
Having myself settled in the neighbourhood of
London just as Alexis came over, and having found
my friend Dr. Forbes (then editor of the British and
Foreign Medical Reviezu) extremely interested m the
enquiry into the reality of his asserted elairvoyant
powers, I accompanied Dr. F., time after time, to
public and private scanees at which these powers were
cxJiibited, though not adequately tested. So far from
being at that time an opponent, I was much more
nearly a believer ; the weight of testimony seemed
too strong to be overborne ; and it was only after re-
peated experience of the numerous sources of fallacy
which the keen-sightedness of Dr. Forbes enabled
him to discern, that I became, Hke him, a sceptic as
to the reality of Alexis's reputed clairvoyance. Wy
scepticism was increased by seeing how, whilst he was
* thinking aloud ' (according to his friends) but * fish-
ing ' or * pumping ' (according to unbelievers), he was
helped by the information he gleaned from the un-
conscious promptings of his questioners. And my
confidence in testimony was greatly weakened, by
finding that extraordinary successes were reported to
have been obtained in some cases which Dr. Forbes
and I regarded as utter failures, as well as in others
78 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
in which it was clear to us that no adequate precau-
tions had been taken to prevent the use of ordinary
vision. For we satisfied ourselves that when he was
going to read or to play cards with his eyes bandaged,
it was his habit so to manoeuvre, as to prevent the
bandage from being drawn tight, — ccla uietoiiffe being
his constant complaint, even when his nostrils were
left perfectly free ; and that when he could not see
under its lower edge at first, he worked the muscles
of his face until he displaced it sufficiently for his
purpose. And thus we came to the conclusion that
no test of his 'lucidity' could be of any value, which
did not involve the reading of print or writing en-
closed in perfectly opaque boxes or other envelopes,
without the assistance of any response to his guesses.
A test-seance of this kind having been arranged by
Dr. Forbes at his own house, the general result (as
admitted by M. Marcillet, the mesmcriser who accom-
panied Alexis) was titter failure ; the only note-
worthy exception being in a case in which, having
selected the thinnest of the paper envelopes, Alexis
correctly stated that the word within it consisted of
three letters, without, however, being able to name
them. And the value of even this very slight success
was afterwards completely neutralised by the disco-
very, which I shall recount in connection with the
case of the brother and successor of Alexis,'* that
nothing else than ordinary vision was required to ob-
tain it.
As M, Marcillet could not dispute the fairness
with which the investigation was conducted, he could
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 79
offer no other explanation of Alexis's failure on this
occasion, than the presence of an 'atmosphere of
incredibility ' emanating from the persons of the
sceptical doctors present. It may be shrewdly sus-
pected, however, that Alexis recognised the presence
of a inaitrc homme in clear-sightedness , and felt him-
self foiled at every point by the keener intelligence of
Dr. Forbes. For he and M. Marcillet forthwith left
London for Paris, and never publicly reappeared in this
country.
His place, however, was taken after a year or two
by his brother Adolphe, whose powers were highly
vaunted by believers as even surpassing those of his
predecessor. Again Dr. Forbes applied himself to the
investigation ; and again I took every opportunity
afforded me of witnessing their exercise. It was at a
public seance at which I was myself present, though
Dr. Forbes was not, that a circumstance occurred
which made at the time considerable impression.
Slips of writing-paper having been distributed, any
person who wished to put Adolphe's power to the
test was desired to write a word at the top of the slip,
and then to fold it over and over several times, so that
the writing should be covered both in front and be-
hind by two or three layers of the paper. Having
myself written Paris, I folded it up in the prescribed
manner ; my friend Mr. Ottley wrote Toulon ; several
other persons did the like ; and we satisfied ourselves,
by holding up our folded slips between our eyes and
the light, that the writing within was completely in-
visible. Yet, taking one of them after another into his
8o MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
hands, and making no attempt to unfold the papers
(some of which, I think, were secured by seal or
wafer), Adolphe named, without hesitation, the word
written on each. Within a day or two, however, I
learned from Mr. Ottley that his sister had discovered
that she could read by her natural eyesight the writ-
ing on his slip, which it was supposed could only be
discovered by clairvoyant power ; and on trying her
method upon my own slip, I found myself able to do
the same. The secret consisted in holding the slip,
not hctzvecn the eye and the light, but in such a posi-
tion that the light of the window or lamp should be
reflected obliquely from its surface. And any of
you will find that after a little practice, words written
in a legible but not large hand can be thus read,
though covered by three folds of ordinary writing-
paper. This discovery fully accounts for various suc-
cesses, as well of Alexis and Adolphe, as of other
reputed clairvoyants ; and affords a further warning
as to the scrupulous care required to exclude all
possible sources of fallacy in conducting such trials.
The conclusions drawn by Dr. Forbes from his
critical examination of Adolphe's pretensions, tallied
exactly with those to which he had been led by his
previous search. All the instances of success could be
fairly explained without crediting the performer with
any extraordinary powers ; where, on the other hand,
due care was taken to render the ordinary operation
of the visual sense impossible, failure invariably re-
sulted. Thus the claims of Adolphe, like those of
Alexis, vanished into thin air at the wand of the ex-
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 8i
pert ; and, notwithstanding- the great efforts made to
rehabilitate his reputation, he soon found his stay in
London no longer profitable, and went the way of his
predecessor. Nothing, so far as I am aware, has ever
been since heard of this /^r iiobile fratruin ; certainly
they never challenged the French Academy of Medi-
cine to an investigation of their pretensions.
Another case of this kind was tested a few years
later by Mr. Braid. In 1852 M. Lassaigne and Mdlle.
Prudence Bernard, who had gained a great reputation
in London by their performances at Hungerford Hall,
having come to Manchester, Mr. B. went, at the desire
of a friend in Edinburgh, to test the lady's clairvoyant
pretensions. The first part of the performance con-
sisted of feats which might be readily explained by a
system of collusion ; not being so remarkable as those
which M. Robin and his female confederate accom-
plished by means so simple, that the performer of
them could scarcely refrain from laughing at the ease
with which the public could be deceived.
" But now arrived," continued Mr. Braid, *' the ex-
periment which I considered by far the most interest-
ing of all on the programme, — viz., playing at cards,
and reading, w^hen her eyes were to be so securely
blindfolded that not a ray of light could reach them,
in the common acceptation of the term. To effect
this, folds of cotton wadding were placed across the
forehead, eyes, and nose, and over the face as far as
the point of the nose ; and then a white handkerchief
folded several times, so as to be about 2\ inches wide,
was bound round the head and eyes, so as to main-
82 lilESMERISM, ODYLISM,
tain the cotton in its place. This done, M. Lassaigne
triumphantly asked anyone to examine his subject,
and say whether it was possible for her to see through
all this apparatus. Some one having exclaimed
* No,' the lady sat down at a table to challenge any
one present to play a game at cards with her. Whilst
they were making arrangements for the game, I was
sufficiently clairvoyant, even without being mesme-
rised, to observe the lady pensively lay her face
upon her hands, so as to enable her very conveniently,
and by mere accident no doubt, to give the proper twist
and finish to the apparatus for excluding light from
her eyes. I observed this manceuvre by the lady
tzi'icCy and called the attention of some friends to it,
who can also testify to the fact. The clairvoyante
now became very lively ; described the personal ap-
pearance of her opponent, played dexterously, and
beat him. She also did the same by another gentle-
man who tried a round with her ; and with a third
gentleman, a friend of my own, who, by my sugges-
tion, had taken a nrcv pack of cards with him, she
proved her power of describing his personal appear-
ance correctly, and playing well, but she lost on this
occasion from having bad cards.
" As the lady was now considered to have proved
her clairvoyant powers to the satisfaction of all pre-
sent, I stepped forward and announced my desire to
have the privilege of applying a test which would be
far more satisfactory to my mind, because I had no con-
fidence in the supposed efficacy of the blindfolding
then in use for effectually accomplishing what it pro-
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALIS}!. 83-
fessed to do. I told the audience that I felt convinced
that the patient was seeing through interstices be-
tween the cotton and the face, near the side of the
nose. My proposal for guarding against such a
source of fallacy as this, was simply to place a thin
sheet of brown cardboard under her chin and round
her neck, so as to guard against the possibility of the
deception which I suspected. This I intended to
have accomplished by tying the sheet of pasteboard
around her neck, proceeding from the bottom of the
throat upwards in a conical form, after the fashion of
the Elizabethan frill, extending considerably higher
than the head, so as to prevent the possibility of her
raising her hands or lowering her head sufficiently for
seeing over it, without exciting the attention of the
audience. Indeed, whoever had had the opportunity
of observing the clairvoyante, as I did, during this
card scene, must have felt that he would be permit-
ting an insult to be perpetrated upon himself and upon
the whole audience, were he not to endeavour to ex-
pose what appeared to me to be such an absurd farce.
I was aware that my test would be objected to, on the
ground that she did not profess to read through card-
board (although I must confess my surprise that a
person who can see and read through stone or brick
walls, should not be competent to -penetrate through
thin cardboard), so I, therefore, offered to remove
that objection, 'by cutting out a piece of the card-
board and covering the hole with the cotton wadding
and folded handkerchief which sJie actually professed
to see through; but, although the auaience were
84 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
almost unanimous in their opinion that my proposed
test was a fair one, and such as they wished to see
tried, M. Lassaigne well knew that it was too certain
and obvious a mode of testing to answer his purpose,
and, therefore, under various pretexts, and in a most
rucie manner, he absolutely refused to try it. I there-
fore withdrew from the platform and left the room, feel-
ing the force of the remark, — ' Ex nno disce omnes'. "^
And so it always proves in the end with these
sham marvels ; which, however specious they may
appear at a distance, vanish under critical investiga-
tion like the mirage of the desert on nearer approach.
The real marvels of Science, on the other hand, not
only stand the test of the most critical examination,
but prove more marvellous the more thoroughly they
are investigated. Reason, it has well been said, can
guide where Imagination scarcely dares to follow.
And those who desire to find a true spring at which
to slack their thirst for knowledge, need only follow
the guidance of the Spectroscope and the Radio-
meter, to be led to wonders of which neither the
* Poughkeepsie Seer,' the * Seeress of Prevorst,' nor
any other of the reputed * prophets ' of Mesmerism or
Spiritualism had ever dreamed. •
My anxiety to impress on you the lessons which (as
it seems to me) such exposures ought to afford in re-
gard to the object of our present enquiry, leads me to
ask your further attention to two other cases ; in each
of which a number of apparent successes of a most
remarkable kind were obtained by what was subse-
' See Braid on Magic, Witchcraft, Aiiivial Magn tism, Hyptiotism,
and Electro- /yiology, 1852; p. 115.
TA BLE- TURNING, SPIRI TUA L ISM. 8 5
quently shown to have been an ingenious fraud, prac-
tised upon the honest patron of the performer, who
was (hke M. Houblier) his unsuspecting dupe.
In the course of his further search for clairvoyance,
Dr. Forbes was requested by a legal gentleman whom
he calls Mr. A. B., to witness the performances of a
copying clerk in his employ, by name George Goble ;
whom he stated to be capable, in a large proportion
of cases, of reading printed words enclosed in opaque
boxes, without either mistake or preliminary guessing.
Being at that time in the country, I did not accom-
pany Dr. Forbes in his repeated visits to Mr. A. B.'s
chambers ; but I well remember his writing to me in
some excitement after the first of them, that at last
he seemed to have got hold of a genuine case of clair-
voyance. He soon, however, recovered his equanimity
and his scepticism ; and felt that he must make a much
more thorough enquiry, before he could be justified in
accepting the case as genuine. George's ' dodge ' con-
sisted (as was subsequently proved) in furtively open-
ing the box or other envelope, so as to get a peep at
its contents, whilst sitting or lying face-downwards on
a sofa ; and in managing to conceal his having done
so, by tearing open the box at the moment he pro-
claimed the word : his failures occurring when the box
was so secured that he could not succeed in opening
it, after manoeuvring (it might be) for half an hour or
more. Finding that in every one of George's successes
the envelope migJit have been opened, whilst all the
cases in which the boxes had certainly not been opened
were complete failures —-d. consideration which, though
86 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
very obvious, seemed never to have suggested itself to
the legal mind of George's patron — Dr. Forbes and
Professor Sharpey (whom he had taken into council)
devised a simple ' counter-dodge,' by which it should
be rendered impossible for George to open the box for
the purpose of reading the contained word, without
the detection of his trick. This entirely succeeded ;
George w^as brought upon his knees and confessed his
roguery, but protested that it was his first offence.
You would scarcely credit the fact if it had not been
self-recorded, that George's patron still continued to
believe in his clairvoyant power ; accepting his assur-
ance that he had only had recourse to trickery when
the genuine power failed him, and requesting Dr.
Forbes to give him another trial. This Dr. F. con-
sented to make, upon the sole condition that a small
scaled box, containing a single word printed in large
type, should be returned to him luiopcned with the
word written upon the outside of it. Some days
elapsed before George's * lucidity ' recovered from the
shock of the exposure ; but his master then informed
Dr. F. that he had read the word IMPLEMENTS, or, as
he spelled it, impclnients, with great assurance of cor-
rectness. This, however, proving altogether wrong,
the box was left in Mr. A. B.'s hands for a further
space of two months ; and no second guess having been
then made, the real word was disclosed by Dr. F. to
be OBJECTIONS.
The history of this enquiry, as detailed by Dr.
Forbes,^ brings into the strongest contrast the patient
' Illustrations of Modern lilcsmcrism from Personal Investigation,
London (Churchill) 1845, Third Series, pp. 63 89.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 87
and honest search for truth of the cautious sceptic,
wilHn^ to be convinced if satisfactory evidence could
be adduced, and the easy credulity of the enthusiastic
disciple, who not only eagerly accepted a conclusion
opposed to universal experience, without taking any
adequate precautions against trickery, but held to that
conclusion after the trick had been not only exposed
but confessed. And here, again, we see how, but for
the interposition of a sceptical ' expert,' a case of sham
clairvoyance would have been published to the world
with the same unhesitating affirmation of its genuine-
ness, as that which now claims credit for the exercise
of * Psychic Force ' in causing accordions to play, and
heavy tables to turn round or even to rise in the air,
without muscular agency.^
In the other case I have now to mention — that of
Mr. Hewes' 'Jack,' publicly exhibited at Manchester
about the same time that Alexis was performing in
London — the proof of clairvoyance, as shown in read-
ing when the eyes had been effectually closed, seemed
as complete as it was possible to obtain. Jack's eye-
lids were bound down by surgeons of that town (who
were assuredly not confederates) with strips of adhe-
sive plaster, over which were placed folds of leather,
which again were kept in place by other plasters ; the
only condition made by Mr. Hewes being that the
ridges of the eyebrows should not be covered, as it
was there that Jack saw. when Mucid.' The results
were truly surprising ; there was no guessing, no need
of prompting, no failure ; ' Jack ' read off, without the
• See Serjeant Cox's letter in the Spectator, Nov. 11, iS;6,
88 MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
least hesitation, everything that was presented to him.
The local newspapers were full of this new wonder ;
and no documentary testimony in favour of clairiwy-
ancc could possibly be more conclusive. But, as usual,
the marvel would not stand the test of close examin-
ation. A young Manchester surgeon, who had been
experimenting upon himself, gave a public exhibition
of his power of reading when his eyes had been * made
up ' in precisely the same manner as ' Jack's,' and by
the same gentlemen ; the means he adopted being
simply to work the muscles of his face, until he so far
loosened the plasters as to obtain a crevice through
which he could read by looking upwards. Mr. Hewes,
who witnessed this performance, readily agreed that
* Jack ' should be further tested ; and it was settled, en
petite comite, that after protecting his eyelashes with
narrow strips of plaster, his eyelids should be covered
with a thick coating of shoemaker's wax, leaving the
superciliary ridges free. When this was done (not
without considerable resistance on the part of 'Jack,'
only kept under by the influence of his patron) the
claii'voyant power was completely annihilated ; but one
thing 'Jack' plainly saw, even with his eyes shut —
that Miis little game was up.' His patron, a gentle-
man of independent fortune, who had become an
active propagandist of the belief he had honestly em-
braced, returned all the money which had been received
for 'Jack's' performances, and 'Jack ' withdrew into
private life.
Now I readily concede that neither the detection
of ' Jack ' and George Goble, nor the failure of Alexis
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 89
and Adolphe under test-conditions, disproves the reality
of clairvoyance; but my position is, that since the
choicest examples of its manifestation are found to
break down when thoroughly investigated, not one of
the reported instances in which no such thorough in-
vestigation has been made, has the least claim to be
accepted as genuine. It must, I think, have become
abundantly obvious to you, that until the existence of
the clairvoyant power shall have been established be-
yond question, by every test that the skill of the most
wary and inveterate sceptic can devise, the scientific
expert is fully justified in refusing to accept the
testimony of any number of witnesses, however
honest, but of no special intelligence in regard to the
subject of the enquiry, as to particular instances of
this power. George Goble's master would have re-
counted the performances of his protege in perfect
good faith, and would have been very angry with
anyone who should express a doubt either of his
veracity or his competence. And not only Mr.
Hewes, but a large body -of lookers-on, would have
stoutly contended for the impossibility of * Jack '
having read with his eyes, when they had been care-
fully covered by a surgeon with plasters and leather.
But to me it seems the ' common sense ' view of the
matter, that the fact of 'Jack' having read with his
eyes covered, should have been accepted as a proof —
not of his clairvoyance — but of his eyes not having
been ejfectnally covered ; and that the very fact of
George Goble having found out the words in certain
boxes which he might have opened, while he did not
90 MESMEKIS.\f, ODYLISM,
find out any in the boxes lie could not open, should
have been accepted as valid evidence — not of his
clairvoyance — but of his having taken a furtive peep
with his natural eyes into the unsecured boxes. And
in each case, 'common sense' would have been justi-
fied by the result.
The ordinary rules of Evidence, as I have en-
deavoured to show you, apply only to ordinary oc-
currences. To establish the reality of such an extra-
ordinary condition as clairvoyance, extraordinary
evidence is required ; and it is the entire absence of
this, which vitiates the whole body of testimony put
forward by Prof Gregory {Letters on Animal Magne-
tism), doubtless in the most complete good faith,
regarding the performances of Major Buckley's clair-
voyantes ; whom he states to have collectively read
the mottoes enclosed in 4,860 nut-shells (one of them
consisting of 98 words), and upwards of 36,000 words
on papers enclosed in boxes, one of these papers con-
taining 371 words. Now, that Professor Gregory lent
not only himself, but the awthority of his public posi-
tion, with reprehensible facility, to the attestation of
Major Buckley's statements, might be fairly antici-
pated from his eager endorsement of Reichenbach's
doctrines, and his credulous acceptance of Mr.
Lewis's claims, of which I spoke in my previous lec-
ture ; and the complete untrustworthiness of his
statements in regard to clairvoyance becomes obvious
to any sceptical reader of his * Letters.' For not
only is there an entire absence of detail, in regard to
the precautions taken to prevent the ingenious tricks,
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUAIJS}r. 91
to which (as all previous experience had indicated)
the claimants to this power are accustomed to have
recourse ; but the narrative of one of his cases shows
such an easy credulity on the very face of it, as at
once to deprive his other statements of the least claim
to credence. I refer to that {pp. cit., p. 364) in which
folded papers or sealed envelopes were forwarded to
the clairvoy antes, who returned them — the seals ap-
parently unbroken — with a correct statement of the
contained words. Now the unsealing of sealed let-
ters, and the resealing them so as to conceal their
having been opened, are practised on occasion in the
Post-office of probably every Continental capital, if
not in our own ; and, as some of you have probably
seen in the public prints, the doings in this line of a
' medium ' who professed to be able to return answers
under spiritual influence to questions contained in
sealed letters, have lately been exposed in the Law-
courts of New York ; the medium's own wife disclosing
the manner in which the unsealing and resealing of
these letters were efl"ected. Common sense, it might
have been thought, would dictate that if the contents
of a sealed letter had been made known by a person
in whose possession it had lain, that letter had been
opened and resealed. Yet Prof. Gregory prefers to
believe that these letters had been read by clairvoy-
ance ; and numbers of persons in various parts of
the Union, including many of high social considera-
tion, were found to have placed such confidence in the
* spiritual ' pretensions of the New York swindler, as
to submit to him questions of the most private
93 MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
nature, with fees that gave him an annual income of
more than a thousand pounds !
It was to put the value of Professor Gregory's
evidence in support of clairvoyance to the test, that
his colleague, Dr. (afterwards Sir James) Simpson,
offered a bank-note of large value, enclosed in a
sealed box and placed in the hands of a public
official in Edinburgh, as a prize to anyone who could
read its number ; and I am informed by Sir Dominic
Corrigan, M.P., that Sir Philip Crampton (Surgeon to
the Queen in Ireland) did the like in Dublin. Though
these rich prizes remained open to all comers for at
least a year, none of Major Buckley's one hundred
and forty-eight clairvoyantcs succeeded in establishing
a claim to either of them ; in fact, I believe that not
even a single attempt was made. And yet there are
even now men of high scientific distinction, w^ho
adduce Professor Gregory's testimony on this subject
as unimpeachable ! ^
Still more akin to the powers claimed for Spirit-
' It was publicly suggested by Mr. Vv'^allace at the Glasgow Meet-
ing of the British Association, that the failure of the clairvoya7ites in
the case of Dr. Simpson's bank-note might be due to there having been
really no note placed in the box. This suggestion I indignantly
repudiated at the time, as an unworthy imputation upon the character of
a public man whose honesty was above all suspicion. But I might
have replied that if the fact had been so, some of Major Buckley's 148
clairvoyantcs ought to have found it out. Dr. Simpson informed me
that Dr. Gregory, on being asked the reason of their complete absten-
tion, could give no other account of it, than that the very ofTcr of the
reward, by introducing a selfish motive for the exercise of this power,
prevented its access ; as if Alexis, Adolphe, and numerous other
professors of the art of reading without eyes, had not been daily
practising it for the j)iirp(jsc of pecuniary gain.
TABLE-TURXING, SPIRITUALISM, 93
ualistic * mediums,' is that form of alleged Mesmeric
claii'voyaiicc which consists in the vision of scenes or
occurrences at a distance ; so that they are described
exactly as they are at the time, and not according to
the expectation of the questioners. Numerous cases
of this kind have been very circumstantially recorded ;
and I most freely admit that a body of thoroughl)^
>vell-attested and well-sifted evidence in their favour
would present a strong claim to acceptance. Every
one knows, however, that plenty of marvels of the
same class have been current as * ghost stories ; ' and
that even some of what were regarded as the best
attested of these, have faded out of the credit they
once enjoyed, under the advancing light of a healthy
rationalism. And while such as have a * transcen-
dental ' turn of mind will accept the most w^onderful
story of clairvoyance at a distance with little or no
hesitation, those of a more sceptical habit will admit
none that has not been subjected to the test of a
searching cross-examination ; thinking it more pro-
bable that some latent fallacy is concealed beneath
the ostensible facts, than that anything so marvellous
should have really happened.
My own attention was very early drawn to this
subject by certain occurrences which fell under my
immediate observation. A Mesmeric * somnambule '
said to be possessed of this power of * mental travelling '
being the subject of a seance at my own house, and
being directed to describe what she saw in the rooms
above, gave a correct and unhesitating reply as to the
occupants of my nursery ; whilst in regard to the
94 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
very unusual contents of a store-room at the top of
the house, she was entirely at fault, until I purposely
prompted her by leading questions. The next day I
found out that she had enjoyed ample previous op-
portunities of information as to the points which she
had described correctly ; whilst it soon came to my
knowledge that a most circumstantial narrative was
current in Bristol (where I then resided) of her extra-
ordinary success in discerning in the store-room ' the
very objects which she had entirely failed to see.
Here, then, was a marked instance of two sources of
fallacy in narratives of this description : first, the dis-
position to attribute to ' occult ' agencies what may
be readily explained by natural causes ; and second,
the * myth- making ' tendency — far more general than
is commonly supposed — which, as I have already
shown you, builds up the most elaborate construc-
tions of fiction upon the slenderest foundation of
fact.
In my interviews with Alexis and Adolphe, also,
both of whom were reputed to possess a very high
degree of this power, I tested them as to the contents
of my house, which they described in a vague and
general way that would apply to almost any ordinary
domicile. But both of them spoke of my drawing-
room as having pictures on its walls, which was not
then the fact ; and neither of them, though pressed as
to something very conspicuous which they could not
help seeing, gave the least hint of the presence of an
organ with gilt pipes. Their failure with me does
not, of course, invalidate any real successes they may
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRTTUALISM. 95
have gained with others ; but my previous experience
had led me to entertain grave doubts as to the reaHty
of the reputed successes ; and these doubts were sub-
sequently strengthened by the complete breakdown,
under the persevering and sagacious enquiries prose-
cuted by Dr. Forbes, of a most notable case which
excited great public interest at that time.
The wonderful performances of Miss Martineau's
servant J., which she announced to the public in 1844,
through the medium of the AtJiencsiimj culminated in
a detailed description — given by J. in the mesmeric
sleep — of the particulars of the wreck of a vessel of
which her cousin was one of the crew, as also of the
previous loss of a boy overboard ; with which particu-
lars it was positively affirmed by Miss Martineau, and
believed by many on her authority, that the girl
could not possibly have been previously informed, as
her aunt had only brought the account to the house
when the seance was nearly terminated. On being
asked, says Miss M., two evenings afterwards, when
again in the sleep, "whether she knew what she
" related by seeing her aunt telling the people
" below," J. replied " No ; I saw the place and the
" people themselves — like a vision." And Miss
Martineau believed her.
My sceptical friend, Dr. Forbes, however, would
not pin his faith to hers ; and determined to institute,
through a Medical friend on the spot, a more search-
ing investigation than Miss Martineau had thought
necessary. The result of this enquiry was to prove,
unequivocally, that J.'s aunt had told the whole story
96 xMESMERISAf, ODYLISM,
to her sister, in whose house Miss M. was residing
about three Jioiirs before the seance ; and that, though
J. was not then in the room, the circumstances were
fully discussed in her presence before she was sum-
moned to the mesmeric performance.^ — Thus not only
was J. completely discredited as a seer; but the value
of all testimony to such marvels was seriously
lowered, w'hen so honest and intelligent a witness as
Harriet Martineau could be so completely led astray
by her ' prepossession,' as to put forth statements as
facts, which w^ere at once upset by the careful en-
quiry which she ought to have made before commit-
ting herself to them.
It is the wise rule of our law, that no Evidence
(save that of dying declarations) is admissible in
Court, that is not capable of being tested by cross-
examination ; and no well-trained investigator will
put forth a new discovery in Science, until he has
verified it by * putting it to the question ' in every
mode he can think of
If, in the case I have just cited, the * common
sense ' view had been taken from the beginning,
the correspondence of J.'s circumstantial narrative
with the actual facts of the case, w^ould have been
accepted as proving — not that she had received them
in Mesmeric vision — but that she had learned them
through some ordinary channel ; and the truth of this
conclusion would have at once become apparent, when
the proper means were taken to verify it. The same
' Illnstratious of I\roii<:m Mcsnu-risni^ pp. 91— loi.
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 97
ground should (I contend) be taken in regard to all
the marvels of this class which rest on the testimony
of believers only. For no one of them is better at-
tested than that which I have just cited ; and until
the evidence in support of any case of clairvoyance
can be shown to have been sifted in the same thorough
manner, I maintain that it has no more claim on our
acceptance, than has the specious ' opening ' of a case
in a Court of Law, before it has been subjected to the
hostile scrutiny of the counsel on the other "side.
TABLE-TURNING AND TABLE-TALKING.
I need not detain you long with the scientific dis-
cussion of the phenomena of Table-turning and Tabic-
talking) since no facts have been established in re-
gard to them, which are not susceptible of a very
simple explanation. A number of persons seat them-
selves round a table, and place their hands upon it,
with a preconceived idea that the table will turn ; and
after some time, it may be, during which the move-
ment has been attentively waited for, the rotation
begins. If the parties retain their seats, the turning
only takes place as far as the length of their arms
allows, but not unfrequently they all rise, feeling
themselves obliged (as they assert) \.o folloiv \}i\(t table;
and, from a walk, their pace may be accelerated to a
run, until the table actually spins round so fast that
they can no longer keep up w^ith it. And since this
happens, not merely without consciousness on the
part of the performers that they are exercising any
98 MESMERISAf, ODVLISM,
force of their own, but for the most part under the
full conviction that they do not ; — and, moreover, as
tables thus move, which the performers declare them-
selves unable to move to the same extent by any
voluntary effort ; — it is not unnatural that they should
conclude that some other foixe than their own Mus-
cular action must have put it in motion.
But the man of science, whether Physicist or Phy-
siologist, cannot rest content without adequate proof
of this conclusion ; and a test is very easily applied.
You see here a little apparatus consisting of two
pieces of board, two cedar pencils, two india-rubber
bands, two pins, and a slender index-rod, which was
devised by Faraday to ascertain whether the table
ev^er. moves round without a lateral pressure froni the
hands of the operators. For this ' indicator ' is so
constructed, that when the hands are placed upon
it, instead of resting immediately on the table, any
lateral pressure exerted by them makes the upper
board roll upon the lower ; and the slightest move-
ment of this kind is so magnified by the leverage of
the index, as to show itself by a very decided motion
of its point in the opposite direction. By this simple
test, anyone may experimentally satisfy himself that
the table never goes round unless the index of the
* indicator ' shows that lateral muscular pressure is
being exerted in the direction of its movement ; and,
conversely, that when such lateral pressure, as shown
by the * indicator,' is being adequately exerted, the
table moves round. The Physicist, therefore, has a
right to assert, that, until a table shall be found to
turn ivitJiout lateral pressure of the hands laid upon
rABLE-TURNING, SriKITUALISXf. 99
the * indicator,' as shown by the fixity of its index,
there is no evidence whatever of the exertion of any
otJicr foree than the Mnsciclar action of the operators.
And the Physiologist, who is famihar with the fact
that every human being is continually putting forth a
vast amount of muscular energy, of the exercise of
which he is entirely unconscious, and who has also
studied that unconscious influence of mental precon-
ception of which I have already given you illustra-
tions in the pendnle exploratctir, at once perceives that
the absence of any consciousness of exertion on the
part of the operators, affords no proof whatever that
it is not being put forth ; while he is further well
aware that involuntary muscular contractions are often
far more powerful than any which the zvill can excite.
The same explanation applies to the tilting of the
table, which is made in response to questions asked
of * the spirits ' by v/hich it is supposed to be in-
fluenced. Nothing but a strange prepossession- in
favour of some 'occult' agency, can attribute such
tilting to anything but the dozvmvard pressure of the
hands laid upon it; the hypothetic exertion of any
other force being scientifically inadmissible, until it
shall have been experimentally shown that the table
tilts without being manually pressed down. An * indi-
cator ' might be easily constructed, which should test
dowmvard pressure, on the same principle that Fara-
day's indicator tests lateral pressure ; but no one, so
far as I am aware, has ever ventured to affirm that he
has thus demonstrated the absence of muscular pres-
sure, although I long since pointed out that only in
loo MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
this manner could the matter be scientifically tested.
Until such demonstrations shall have been given, the
tilting — like the turning— of tables, may be unhesita-
tingly attributed to the unconscious muscular action
of the operators ; while the answers which are brought
out by its instrumentality may be show^n to be the ex-
pressions, either (like the movements of the pcndiile
cxploj-atejir) of ideas actually present to the mind of
one or other of the performers ; or (as often occurs in
Somnambulism and other allied states) of past ideas
which have left their traces in the brain, although they
have dropped out of the conscious memory.
That such is the nature of the responses ordinarily
obtained by those who (in entire good faith) have
practised this ' curious art ' in any of its varied forms
— Including planchette-writing — is shown by the
analysis of a number of cases observed by myself
and recorded by others.^ And there is this very
curious indication of it : that when the ' table-talking *
epidemic first spread in this country, a number of
Low-church Clergymen, strongly imbued with the
belief that it was a manifestation of Satanic agency, put
to the tables a series of what they regarded as * test '
questions, and got just the answers they expected.^
SPIRITUALISM.
I now come to the existing phase of the Epidemic
belief in the ' occult,' which, as I have already pointed
out, differs from the preceding rather in its outward
manifestations than in its essential nature. You have
' Appendix L. ' Appendix M.
TABLE-TURXING, SPIRITUALISM. loi
all heard of the ghostly visitations, which, in the cla}'s
of our ancestors, were reputed to have disclosed by
means of raps the places in which treasure had been
hidden, or a murdered corpse had been buried. Ghosts,
however, like witchcraft, seem to have lost credit with
the present generation, until brought into vogue again
as * spirits ' by the Rochester rappings. A family of
the name of Fox, including two girls aged respectively
about nine and eleven years, went to inhabit a house at
Hydesville (Rochester County, New York State), in
which a murder -was said to have been committed
many years before. They had not resided in it long,
w^hen raps were heard in the girls' chamber ; some-
times obviously issuing from their persons, but some-
times apparently proceeding from other parts of the
room. Curiosity was excited ; the neighbourhood
flocked to witness the marvel ; no one could detect
any movement on the part of either of the girls while
the raps w^ere sounding ; and no concealed instrument-
ality could be discovered by careful search. The rap-
pings soon began to show a certain coherence ; a code
of signals was arranged, according to which one rap
was to mean no, three raps j^'i", and two raps doubtful
or wait ; and communications having been thus opened
with the rappers, visitors were enabled, through the
medium of these two girls, to summon and interrogate
the * spirits ' of their departed friends. Multitudes now
hocked from all parts to witness the phenomena ; and
the girls having gone to live with an elder married
sister at Rochester-town, the alphabetical system was
established at her suggestion ; which enabled the
I02 MESMERISM, ODVLISM,
* spirits * to spell out their messages by rapping at the
required letters, when either the alphabet was repeated
by the enquirer, or the letters on an alphabet-card
were successively pointed to. The excitement con-
tinuing to increase, a Committee of Investigation was
appointed by a town-meeting. Every opportunity was
given for the enquiry ; but the committee Avas com-
pletely baffled. The enquiry was taken up, however,
by an eminent anatomist, Dr. Austin Flint, of New
York ; who, having first convinced himself that the
sounds issued from the legs or feet of the girls them-
selves, notwithstanding their apparent stillness, sought
for a physiological explanation of them ; and soon
found one in the power which certain persons can
acquire, of giving a jerking or snapping action to parti-
cular tendons of either the knees, ankles, or toes, —
a patient of his ow^n being able thus to produce an
exact imitation of the Rochester rappings. Dr. Austin
Flint's -explanation subsequently received full confir-
mation from Professor Schiff, since of Florence, who
not only himself acquired the power of producing the
raps, by the repeated displacement of a tendon which
slides through a sheath behind the external protube-
rance of the ankle, but exhibited this acquirement to
the French Academy of Medicine in April, 1859,
baring his legs, and producing the raps without any
apparent movement. And not more than six years
ago, Mrs. Culver, a female relative of the Fox family,
made a deposition before the magistrates of the town
in which she resided ; ' stating that while visiting the
' Appendix N.
TABLE-TCRXIXG, SPIRITUALISM. 103
girls at Rochester many years before, she had be-
come acquainted with the entire secret, which she
'fully disclosed ; and herself reproducing the raps in
verification of her narrative.
But the very rationality of this explanation caused
it to be disbelieved by such as were anxious to be
placed in communication with * the spirit world.' The
fame of the Fox girls spread through the United States ;
they established themselves as * mediums ' in New
York ; and before long they were drawing a large
income from the pockets of their credulous visitors.
Under the fostering influence of pecuniary temp-
tation, imitators of the Fox girls soon sprang up in
various parts of the United States; 'mediums'
became numerous ; and one of them, Mrs. Hayden,
brought the contagion to this country, where the
* spirit-rapping ' Epidemic rapidly spread. The manner
in which, according to the experience of those w^ho
witnessed Mrs. Hayden's performances (subsequently
confirmed by Mrs. Culver), the ' medium ' divined at
what letters to make the raps, was very simple ; con-
sisting merely in carefully watching the countenance
or gestures of the questioner, who almost invariably
gives, in some way or other, involuntary expression to
his or her expectancy. Of this I could cite many
proofs. An eminent scientific friend told me that
having been at a party by one member of which after
another Mrs. Hayden's powers were tested, he was
at first greatly surprised at the accuracy of the replies
he obtained regarding the name, date of death, and
I04 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
place of death, of a deceased friend of whom he was
thinking ; but that he soon obtained a clue, by observ-
ing that her success varied with the demonstrativeness
of the individual, and that she utterly failed with one
of peculiarly imperturbable habit. He then made a
fresh trial, with the fixed predetermination to withhold
any manifestation of his expectancy ; and Mrs. Hay-
den was completely baffled. The secret was divined
also by Professor Edward Forbes, who, by pausing on
particular letters, made Mrs. Hayden spell 'Lord
Tomnoddy ' and other waggeries. And the most com-
plete exposure of the trick was given by Mr. G. H. K.
Lewes ; who caused Mrs. Hayden to rap out the most
absurd replies to questions which he had previously
written down and communicated to another member
of the party ; finally obtaining, in answer to the ques-
tion ' Is Mrs. Hayden an impostor .? ' three unhesitat-
ing raps at the letters Y, E, S.^
In the 'Report on Spiritualism of the Committee
of the London Dialectical Society/ you will find that
Dr. Edmunds, the chairman of that Committee, not
only detected a well-known professional * medium ' in
making the raps with her foot, but observed that she
regulated her raps by intently watching the questioner,
and that when she was prevented from doing this by
the interposition of a screen, her raps were altogether
» Mr. Wallace cxjilains this result by assuming that the raps were
caused by 'invisible beings,' who, reading what was in the questioner's
mind, answered a fool according to his folly. Where the folly lies, the
readers of Mr. Wallace's letter [Appendix 0) will judge for themselves.
TABLE-TURMNG, SPIRITUALISM. 105
meaningless. Myown experience with other 'mediums'
has been to exactly the same effect.*
Of the ' higher phenomena * of Spiritualism — the
* levitation ' of chairs and tables, and even of men and
women; the 'elongation' of Mr. Home's body, his
handling of heated bodies, and his heaping hot coals
on the head of a bald gentleman without any discom-
fort to him ; the untying of knots and change of coats ;
the production of 'spiritual photographs ;' the bring-
ing-in of fruits, flowers, or live lobsters, in dark seances ;
and the like — I have left myself no time to speak.
The very catalogue speaks, to any sober and unpre-
possessed mind, of the extreme improbability that any
* spiritual ' agents should so manifest their presence.
And in regard to the spirit-writing by pens or pencils,
I can only say that of the revelations given by its
means, I have seen none that could claim any higher
character than that of unmitigated ' twaddle.' It is
because the present generation knows little of the
history of former Epidemics of this kind, and is there-
fore not in a position to profit by the experience they
have afforded, that I have rather dwelt in these lec-
' Appendix P. — Much stress is laid by the Editor of the ^/tY/^j-/^;-,
and by Mr. Wallace, upon a statement made by the late Professor Ue
Morgan, that Mrs. Hayden's success was «<?/ interfered with by the inter-
position of a screen. But I have it on the authority of an eminent Scientific
colleague of Professor De Morgan's, who was repeatedly present at the
spiritualistic seances held at his house, that the experiments were
habitually conducted there in so loose a manner as to be altogether
unsatisfactory ; frauds of the most transparent kind (which my friend him-
self more than once exposed) being accepted as valid proofs ; and non-
natural interpretations being always preferred, when natural explana-
tions were obvious.
io6 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
turcs on the lessons of the past in regard to the credi-
bility of testimony on these subjects, than discussed
the truth or falsehood of statements now in currency
in regard to the recent doings of ' the spirits.' It is
not because I have not investigated Spiritualism for
myself, that I refrain from bringing before you in
detail the results of my own enquiries. At the out-
break of the Epidemic I devoted to the examination
of its pretensions an amount of time and attention
which might have been far more profitably employed ;
and I did not give up the enquiry until I had satis-
fied myself, by long and careful study, that its char-
acter was fundamentally the same with that of the
epidemics I had previously witnessed, differing only
in the particular form of its manifestations. I could not
afford to sacrifice the time that might be much more
profitably spent in adding to our stock of real know-
ledge, in the (so-called) scientific investigation of such
performances as those of the * Davenport Brothers ; '
when I found that the investigation was to be so
carried on, that I should be precluded from using
either my eyes or my hands, the most important in-
struments of scientific enquiry. I felt assured that
these performances would turn out to be mere con-
juring tricks : and that they really are so has been
shown, not merely by Mr. Maskelyne's discovery of
the secret, and his repetition of the performances as
conjuring tricks, but by the recent public expose of the
whole method, in Boston (N.E.), by one who formerly
practised it for gain. So, again, in other cases in which
I strongly suspected the supposed * spiritualistic '
TABLE-TURNING, SPIIUTUALISM. 107
manifestations to be intentional deceptions, and pro-
posed their repetition under test-conditions admitted
to be fair, I waited hour after hour for the manifesta-
tions, the non-production of which was attributed to
my ' atmosphere of incredulity.'
Thus, having accompanied a scientific friend to a
Spiritualistic seance^ at which we saw a small light
table dance up and down under the hands of a pro-
fessional ' medium ' (Mrs. M.) as she moved across the
room, I pointed out to my friend, who regarded this
as an example of ' spiritual ' agency, that since the
' medium ' wore a large crinoline which completely
concealed her feet, it was quite possible for her to have
lifted the table upon one foot, while moving across
the room on the other — as any opera- dancer could do.
My friend, candidly admitting the possibility of this
explanation, subsequently invited me to a j-^w/r^at his
own house, with a non-professional ' medium ; ' and
asked me if I was satisfied with the ' crinoline-guard '
of wire and paper which he had so placed round the
legs of a small table, that the ' medium ' could not lift
the table on her foot without breaking through the
' guard.' I replied that I was perfectly satisfied ; and
that if I should see the table dance up and down
under his * medium's ' hands, in the same manner as
under Mrs. M.'s, I should admit that it was a case for
further investigation. During a seance of two hours,
however, no other manifestation took place than ' raps,'
indicating the presence of 'spirits;' the interposition
of the 'crinoline-guard' apparently keeping them
away from the table.'
' Since the delivery of this Lecture, Mr. A. K. Wallace lias pub-
io8 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
In regard to professional ' mediums ' who make
their living by the exercise of their supposed gifts, I
came to the conclusion that we have as much right to
assume fraud until the contrary shall have been proved,
as we have in the case of a gipsy fortune-teller, who
has managed to learn a good deal about the chief
people of the country neighbourhood into which she
comes, before she allows herself to be consulted, and
then astonishes her credulous clients by the know-
ledge of their affairs which she displays. I need not
tell you how one after another of such pretenders has
been detected in England. In Paris the frauds of a
' spiritual ' Photographic establishment were brought
into the law courts, and the persons concerned in them
sentenced to severe punishment, a year or two ago.
And in America, the ' Katie King' imposture, which
had deluded some of the leading spiritualists in this
country, as well as in the United States, was publicly
exposed at about the same time.
But, it is affirmed, such exposures prove nothing
against the genuineness of any new manifestation.
I quite admit this. But I affirm that to anyone ac-
customed to weigh the value of evidence, the fact that
the testimony in favour of a whole series of antecedent
claims has been completely upset, seriously invali-
dates (as I have shown in regard to Mesmeric clair-
voyancc) the trustworthiness of the testimony in favour
of any new claimant to ' occult ' powers. Why should
licly avowed himself to be the 'scientific friend ' to whom I referred ;
and has stated that on subsequent occasions the table ^Z/V/ rise within the
' crinoline guard.' lias it ever done so, I ask, in the presence of a
sceptical expert ?
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 109
I believe the testimony of any believer in the fjenuine-
ness of D's performances, when he has been obHged
to admit that he has been egregiously deceived in
the cases of A, B, and C ?
The case is not essentially different in regard to
' mediums ' who do not practise for gain. For it is
perfectly well known to those who have had adequate
opportunities of observation, that there is a class of
persons (especially, I am sorry to have to say, of the
female sex) who have an extraordinary proclivity to
deceit, even from a very early period of life ; and who
enjoy nothing better than * taking-in ' older and wiser
people, even when doing so brings no special advan-
tage to themselves.^ Every Medical practitioner of
large experience has met with cases in which young
ladies have imposed in this way, by feigning disease,
not only upon their families, but upon their previous
doctors ; the supposed patients sometimes undergoing
very severe -treatment for its cure. And when the
new attendant has sagaciously found out the cheat,
and has honestly exposed it to the parents, he is in
general ' morally ' kicked out of the house for his un-
founded aspersion ; — not every one having the good
' Thus Mr, Braid gives {Magic, Witchcraft, ^c, p. 117) the case
of a boy who got credit in his own town for clah-voyant power ; being
able to read, play cards, &c., when the upper part of his face was
covered with a mask of nine folds of silk stuffed with cotton-wool.
Hundreds of respectable people were ready to attest the fact ; but when
the precaution suggested by Mr. Braid — of guarding against interspaces
near the nose — was put in practice, the trick was made apparent, as in
the case of xMadlle. Pigeaire (p. 74). Mr. Braid was requested not to
make any public exposure of the cheat ; " because the boy's father was
'* such a respectable man, being one of the Town-Council." '
Tio MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
fortune of my old friend Dr. A. T. Thompson, who
was sent for some years afterwards by a young married
lady to attend her family, on account of the high
opinion she had formed of his ability, as the only one
of the many doctors formerly consulted about her,
who had found out the real nature of her case. I
could tell you the particulars, in my possession, of the
detection of the imposture practised by one of the
most noteworthy of these Lady-mediums, in the distri-
bution of flowers which she averred to be brought-in
by the * spirits ' in a dark seance, fresh from the garden,
and wet with the dew of heaven ; these flowers having
really been previously collected in a basin upstairs,
and watered out of a decanter standing by, — as was
proved by the fact, that an inquisitive sceptic having
furtively introduced into the water of the decanter a
small quantity of a nearly colourless salt (ferrocyanide
of potassium), its presence in the * dew ' of the flowers
was afterwards recognised by the appropriate chemical
test (a per-salt of iron) which brought out 'prussian
blue.'
In other instances, again, I have witnessed the most
extraordinary j^//'-deception : which, as in the Mes-
meric performances, invested occurrences which could
be readily accounted for on * natural ' principles, with
a ' supernatural ' character ; often through the omission
of some essential fact, which is entirely ignored by the
narrator. Thus I was seriously informed, during the
Table-turning epidemic, that a table had been moved
round by the will of a gentleman sitting at a distance
from it ; but it came out upon cross-examination, that
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM, iii
a number of hands were laid upon it in the usual way,
and that after the performers had sat for some time in
silent expectation, the operator called upon ' the spirit
of Samson ' to move the table, which then obediently
went round. — Sometimes the essential fact, under the
influence of this proclivity, completely passes out of
the mind of the narrator ; as in the instance of a lady,
cited by Miss Cobbe in her paper on the ' Fallacies of
Memory,' who assured Miss C. that a table in her
drawing-room had some years before correctly rapped
out her age in the presence of several persons, none of
ivhoni were near the table ; the fact being impressed on
her mind by her annoyance at the disclosure, which
was so great that she sold the table ! Having assured
Miss Cobbe that' she could verify her statement by
reference to notes made at the time, she subsequently
corrected it, very honestly, by telling Miss C. that she
found that there ivere hands on the table. — So, I have
been recently requested by a gentleman to go and see
a light table made heavy at the will of a person stand-
ing apart from it ; a table which could be ordinarily
lifted on a single finger, requiring the strength of the
hands to raise it when so commanded. Thinking that
this might be a trick of the kind that Houdin played
upon the Arabs by means of an electro-magnet, I
made some preliminary enquiries with a view to satisfy
myself wliether the phenomenon was to be thus ac-
counted lor ; and finding that it was not, I was about
to go to witness it, when I received a letter from the
brother of my correspondent, who told me that he
thought I ought to know the real conditions of the
112 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
performance ; which were that, the hands of two of the
operator's family being first laid upon the table, the
table was upset and lay on the floor on its side ; and
that then, their hands still pressing sideways upon the
top of the table, it could be made light or heavy by
the will of the operator at a distance, a single finger
being able to raise it up in the once case, while the
whole hand was required in the other. And thus, as
in the case of * the spirit of Samson,' it became evi-
dent that the will of the operator was exercised in
regulating the pressure of the hands in contact with
the table, there being no evidence whatever of any
alteration in its actual weight.
One potent source of this self-deception, I find in
the state of expectancy that results from prolonged
and repeated seances ; in which, by mere continued
monotony of impression, the mind tends towards a
state in which the will and discrimination are sus-
pended, and the expected phenomenon (such as the
rising of a table in the air) takes place subjectively, —
that is, in the belief of the person or persons who re-
port it — without any objective reality. Of this mental
condition an admirable description was given by Mr.
Braid,^ on the basis of his own investigations, before
' Spiritualism ' became epidemic in this country ; its
existence is not, therefore, a hypothesis invented ad hoc.
Sceptical enquirers, like myself, are continually told : —
" You must not form your negative conclusions from
" one or two failures ; but you must persevere in your
" enquiries until you get positive results." This is just
113
like John Wesley's advice to a young preacher, who
was lamenting his want of ' faith/ and asking his
advice as to continuing in the ministry : — " Preach
."faith tiilyow have it, and then you will preach it be-
" cause you have it." Spiritualistic disciples are bidden
to sit hour after hour, and day after day, until they
pass into the state of mind in which they can be
brought to believe anything they have been led to
expect ; and thenceforth they rail at scientific
sceptics for not abnegating their intellectual discrimi-
nation, by submitting themselves to a process which
dethrones their higher powers from their normal supre-
macy, and leaves their imaginations free scope.
I have thus endeavoured to set before you what a
long sequence of experiences seems to me to teach in
regard to this subject ; namely, that w^e should rather
trust to the evidence of our se7tse, than to that of our
senses. That the latter is liable to many fallacies, we
are almost daily finding out. If we go to see the
performances of a Conjuror, we see things which we
know to be impossibilities ; and that knowledge
makes us aware that they cannot really happen as
they seem to happen. Thus every conjuror can pour
out scores of glasses of different kinds of wine from a
single bottle ; or can tumble a great pile of bouquets
out of a single hat ; but we know that he must do
this from some larger store, which he dexterously
conceals from our view. So, the celebrated conjuror
Bosco seemed even to those who were closely watching
him within a very short distance, to convert a living
114 MESMERISM, ODYLISM,
hare into two living rabbits ; the movements by
which he made the exchange from a bag behind him,
being so extraordinarily rapid as to elude the obser-
vation of the bystanders, whose attention he fixed
(the great secret alike of conjurors and professional
' mediums ') upon something else. And I conclude,
therefore, as I began, with the affirmation that we
have a right to reject the testimony of the most truth-
ful and honest witnesses, as to asserted phenomena
which are as much opposed to the * Laws of Nature '
as the transport of a human being through the air,
the conversion of an old woman into a hare (or vice
versa), or the change of a hare into two rabbits ; until
the facts of the case shall have been so thoroughly
sifted by the investigation of * sceptical experts * as to
present an irresistible claim on our belief. In every
case within my knowledge, in which such investiga-
tion has been made, its fallacies have become ap-
parent ; and when, therefore, I receive narratives fro'm
persons quite credible in regard to ordinary matters, as
to extraordinary occurrences which have taken place
within their knowledge, I think myself justified in
telling them plainly that their conviction cannot
govern my belief, because both theory and experi-
ence have led me to the conclusion that no amount of
testimony is good for anything, which is given by
persons * possessed ' with a * dominant idea ' in regard
to the subject of it, and which has not been tested by
severe cross-examination.
As I wrote twenty-three years ago : — " In all ages
the possession of men's minds by dominant ideas has
TABLE-TURNING, SPIRITUALISM. 115
" been most complete, when these ideas have been rcli-
'' gioiis aberrations. The origin of such aberrations has
" uniformly lain in the preference given to the feelings
" over the judgment, in the inordinate indulgence of
" emotional excitement without adequate control on
" the part of the rational will. Those who are thus
** affected place themselves beyond the pale of any ap-
" peals to their reasoning faculty, and lead others into
" the same position. They are no more to be argued
" with, than are insane patients. They cannot accept
** any proposition which they fancy to be in the least
" inconsistent with their prepossessions ; and the evi-
" dence of 'their own feelings is to them the highest
" attainable truth." ^
Many of the victims of these delusions have be-
come the subjects of actual Insanity ; which has been
attributed by believers to ' a spirit having entered in
and taken possession.' What kind of spirits they are
which thus take possession of credulous and excitable
minds, I hope that I have now made sufficiently
plain : they are Dominant Ideas.
' Quarterly Rez'iew, October 1853. — A sensible CIerg}-nian has lately
written in almost the same words, in regard to the ' dominant ideas '
by which his ultra-ritualistic brethren are at present possessed. "I
"know well (says ' Clericus,' Times, Dec. 29, 1876) that when men have
" once committed themselves to a false principle or theory, it becomes a
" monomania with them for a time ; and those who on all other points
" are reasonable and capable of forming just conclusions, become utterly
•'blind and illogical, so that arginiient with them is hopeless."
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX A.
MAGIC AND DEMONIACAL AGENCY AT THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
" For many years before this time, and for many years
after, impostors from the East, pretending to magical powers,
had great influence over the Roman mind. All the Greek
and Roman Hterature of the empire, from Horace to Lucian,
abounds in proof of the prevalent credulity of this sceptical
period. Unbelief, when it has become conscious of its
weakness, is often glad to give its hand to superstition. The
faith of educated Romans was utterly gone. We can hardly
wonder, when the East was thrown open — the land of mys-
tery — the fountain of the earliest migrations — the cradle of
the earliest religions — that the imagination both of the
populace and the aristocracy of Rome became fanatically
excited, and that they greedily welcomed the most absurd
and degrading superstitions. Not only was the metropolis
of the empire crowded with hungry Greeks, but Syrian for-
tune-tellers flocked into all the haunts of public amusement.
Every part of the East contributed its share to the general
superstition. The gods of Egypt and Phrygia found un-
failing votaries. Before the close of the republic, the temples
of Isis and Serapis had been more than once erected, des-
ii8 APPENDIX A.
troyed and renewed. Josephiis tells us that certain disgrace-
ful priests of Isis were crucified at Rome by the second
emperor ; but this punishment was only a momentary check
to their sway over the Roman mind. The more remote dis-
tricts of Asia Minor sent their itinerant soothsayers ; Syria
sent her music and her medicines ; Chaldcea her Babylonian
numbers and mathematical calculations. To these corrupters
of the people of Romulus we must add one more Asiatic
nation— the nation of the Israelites ;— and it is an instructive
employment to observe that, while some members of the
Jewish people were rising, by the Divine power, to the
highest position ever occupied by men on earth, others were
sinking themselves, and others along with them, to the lowest
and most contemptible degradation."— Conybeare and How-
son's Life of St. Paul, vol. i. p. 158.
The reputation of Simon Magus of Samaria stood so
high in Rome, alike with the Senate and the people, that he
was even adored as a god ; a statue being raised to him in
the island of the Tiber, with the inscription, Siinoni Deo
Saiicto. Several of the early Christian Fathers who speak
of this inscription, fully admit the reality of Simon's mira-
culous powers, as shown in his making statues which walked
at his command in the midst of a crowd thunderstruck with
wonder and fright ; his remaining unhurt in the midst of the
flames of a burning pile ; his changing stones into bread ;
his making a scythe mow without hands, and the like:— some
of them merely protesting against his being credited with
the attribute of Divinity, whilst others affirm that it was only
after having failed to obtain these powers from the Apostles
by the offer of money, that he gained them by allying him-
self with Demons. Apollonius of Thyana was another cele-
brated magician of the first century, who figures much in the
wriungs of the eariy fathers as an opponent of the Christ-
ians, to whom he did all the mischief he could by his
diabolical arts ; in which these Fathers believed as firmly as
APPENDIX n. 119
they did in those of Simon Magus. There is a singular
passage in TertuUian (Apologies, chap, xxiii.), which refers
to magicians who could bring up phantoms, evoke the spirits
of the dead, force the mouths of infants to utter oracles, and
make chairs and tables prophesy by means of ' circles ' or
chains formed by the joined hands of several individuals —
exactly after the manner of- modern Spiritualists. If 'the
spirits ' are powerful enough, argues TertuUian, to do these
things at the orders of others, what must they be able to
effect when working with redoubled zeal on their own ac-
count ? Against these he sets two Christian miracles which
occurred within his own knowledge ; the first, of a corpse,
at its own funeral, raising and clasping its hands in the usual
attitude of supplication at the first word of the priest in
prayer, and then replacing them at its sides when the prayer
was over ; and the second, of a Christian corpse long dead
and buried, which, on its grave being. re-opened for the ad-
mission of a recently defunct, courteously moved to one
side to make room for the new-comer ! These statements,
doubtless made in all honesty and good faith, curiously illus-
trate that influence of ' dominant ideas ' over an intellect
powerful, subtle, and profound in many respects, but totally
destitute of scientific discrimination, which it is the object
of these Lectures to elucidate.
APPENDIX B.
FLAGELLANT MANLA..
The private practice of individual flagellation, as an act
of self-mortification, was common among religious communi-
ties from an early period of Christianity ; but it was not until
the thirteenth century, when a general belief prevailed that
I20 APPENDIX B.
the end of the world was at hand, that regular associations
and fraternities were formed for its public performance, and
that the mania spread epidemically over a large part of
Europe. Of the Dcvoti of Italy in the year 1260, we are
told by a contemporary historian that " noble and ignoble,
old and young, and even children of five years of age,
marched through the streets with no covering but a scarf
round the waist They each carried a scourge of leathern
thongs, which they applied to their limbs, amid sighs and
tears, with such violence that the blood flowed from the
wounds. Not only during the day, but even by night, and
in the severest winter, they traversed the cities with burning
torches and banners in thousands and tens of thousands,
headed by their priests, and prostrated, themselves before
the altars. They proceeded in the same manner in the
villages ; and the woods and mountains resounded with the
voices of those whose cries were raised to God. The melan-
choly chaunt of the penitent alone was heard. Enemies
were reconciled ; men and women vied with each other in
splendid works of charity, as if they dreaded that Divine
Omnipotence would pronounce on them the doom of anni-
hilation." (Monachus Paduanus, in Hecker's Epidemics of
the Middle Ages, translated by Dr. Babington for the Syden-
ham Society, p. 36.)
It was in the middle of the fourteenth century (1347-1350)
that Europe was devastated by the Black Death, a most malig-
nant form of the Oriental Plague, which is believed to have
carried off o^ie fourth of its entire population ; and under
the terror inspired by this visitation the flagellant Mania,
which had previously almost entirely abated, broke out with
new fury, apparently in many places at once ; and the ex-
cesses of this fanaticism became even more violent than
before. But though it prevailed over nearly the whole of
Continental Europe, this Mania does not seem to have be-
come epidemic in Britain. We are told by Stow that a band
APPENDIX B. 121
of Flagellants reached London in the reign of Edward III.,
their number consisting of 120 men and women. Each day,
at an appointed hour, they assembled, ranged themselves in
two lines, and paraded the streets scourging their naked
shoulders and chanting a hymn. At a given signal, all with
the exception of the last,'threw themselves flat on the ground;
and he who was last, as he passed by his companions, gave
each a lash, and then also lay down. The others followed
in succession, till every individual in his or her turn had re-
ceived a stroke from the whole brotherhood. The citizens
of London gazed and marvelled, pitied and commended ;
but they went no farther. Their faith w^as too weak, or their
skins too delicate ; and they allowed the strangers to mcnio-
polise all the merits of such a religious exercise. The mis-
sionaries did not make a single convert, and were obliged to
return without any other success than the conviction of
having done their duty to an unbelieving generation.
Though the practice was at first encouraged by the
Church, the Flagellants subsequently fell under its ban as here-
tical ; for they taught that many of its doctrines were false,
and that faith and flagellation, with a behef in the Apostles'
Creed, were alone necessary to salvation. The priests com-
plained of their loss of influence ; the hierarchy took the alarm ;
and the Pope prohibited throughout Christendom the con-
tinuance of the flagellant pilgrimages, under pain of excom-
munication. The flagellants were then everywhere persecuted,
and some of them were burned as heretics ; but it was long
before the Mania was completely repressed. It broke out
several times in the later part of the fourteenth century ;
in the fifteenth it was deemed necessary in several parts of
Germany to exterminate the flagellants with fire and sword ;
yet as late as 17 10 their processions were still seen in Italy.
Of the strength of this ' possession,' it is scarcely possible to
conceive a stronger instance than is presented by the depo-
122 APPENDIX C.
sition of a citizen of Nordhausen, in 1446, that his wife, in
the behef of performing a Christian act, wanted to scourge
her children as soon as they were baptised !
APPENDIX C.
DANCING MANIA.
" In the year 1374, assemblages of men and women were
seen at Aix-la-Chapelle, who had come out of Germany, and
who, united by one common delusion, exhibited to the public,
both in the streets and in the churches, the following strange
spectacle : — They formed circles hand in hand, and appear-
ing to have lost all control over their senses, continued
dancing, regardless of the bystanders, for hours together, in
wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state
of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppres-
sion, and groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they
were swathed in clothes bound tightly round their waists ;
upon which they again recovered, and remained free from
complaint until the next attack. This practice of swathing
was resorted to, on account of the tympany Avhich followed
these spasmodic ravings ; but the bystanders frequently re-
lieved patients in a less artificial manner, by thumping and
trampling upon the parts affected. While dancing they
neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impres-
sions through the senses ; but were haunted by visions, their
fancies conjuring up spirits, whose names they shrieked out;
and some of them afterwards asserted that they felt as if
they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged
them to leap so high. Others, during the paroxysm, saw
the heavens open, and the Saviour enthroned with the Vir-
gin Mary ; according as the religious notions of the age
were strangely and variously reflected in their imaginations.
APPENDIX C. 123
Where the disease was completely developed, the attack
commenced with epileptic convulsions. Those affected fell
to the ground senseless, panting and labouring for breath.
They foamed at the mouth, and suddenly springing up began
their dance amidst strange contortions.
" A few months after this dancing malady had made its
appearance at Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne,
where the number of those possessed amounted to more
than five hundred ; and about the same time at Metz, the
streets of which place are said to have been filled with
eleven hundred dancers. Peasants left their ploughs, me-
chanics their workshops, housewives their domestic duties,
to join the wild revels ; and this rich commercial city
became the scene of the most ruinous disorder.
"The St. Vitus's dance attacked people of all stations,
especially those who led a sedentary life, such as shoemakers
and tailors ; but even the most robust peasants abandoned
their labours in their fields, as if they were possessed by
evil spirits; and those affected were seen assembling indis-
criminately, from time to time, at certain appointed places,
and, unless prevented by the lookers-on, continued to dance
without intermission, until their very last breath was expen-
ded. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour so com-
pletely deprived them of their senses, that many of them
dashed their brains out against the walls and corners of
buildings, or rushed headlong into rapid rivers, where they
found a watery grave. Roaring and foaming as they were,
the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by
placing benches and chairs in their Avay, so that, by the
high leaps they were thus tempted to take, their strength
might be exhausted. As soon as this was the case, they fell,
as it were, lifeless to the ground, and, by very slow degrees,
recovered their strength. Many there were, who, even with
all this exertion, had not expended the violence of the tem-
pest which raged within them ; but awoke with newly re-
124 APPENDIX D.
vived powers, and again and again mixed with the crowd of
dancers ; until at length the violent excitement of their dis-
ordered nerves was allayed by the great involuntary exertion
of their limbs ; and the mental disorder was calmed by the
exhaustion of the body. The cure effected by these stormy
attacks was in many cases so perfect, that some patients re-
turned to the factory or the plough, as if nothing had hap-
pened. Others, on the contrary, paid the penalty of their
folly by so total a loss of power, that they could not regain
their former health, even by the employment of the most
strengthening remedies."— (Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle
Ages, pp. 87-104.)
APPENDIX D.
THE 'animal magnetism' OF MESMER.
*' Animal Magnetism is a fluid universally diffused ; it is
the medium of a mutual influence between the heavenly
bodies, the earth, and animated bodies ; it is everywhere
continuous, so as to leave no void ; its subtlety admits of
no comparison ; it is capable of receiving, propagating,
communicating all the impressions of motion ; it is suscep-
tible of flux and of reflux. The animal body experiences
the effects of this agent ; by insinuating itself into the sub-
stance of the nerves it affects them immediately. There are
observed, particularly in the human body, properties ana-
logous to those of the magnet ; and in it are discerned pro-
perties equally different and opposite. The action and the
virtues of animal magnetism may be communicated from
one body to other bodies, animate and inanimate. This
action takes place at a remote distance, without the aid of
any intermediate body ; it is increased, reflected by mirrors;
communicated, propagated, augmented by sound ; its virtues
APPENDIX E. 125
may be accumulated, concentrated, transported. Although
this fluid is universal, all animal l)odies are not equally sus-
ceptible of it ; there are even some, though a very small
number, which have properties so opposite, that their very
presence destroys all the effects of this fluid on other bodies.
Animal Magnetism is capable of healing diseases of the
nerves immediately, and others mediately. It perfects the
action of medicines ; it excites and directs salutary crises in
such a manner that the physician may render himself master
of them ; by its means he knows the state of health of each
individual, and judges with certainty of the origin, the nature,
and the progress of the most complicated diseases ; he pre-
vents their increase, and succeeds in healing them without
at any time exposing his patient to dangerous effects or
troublesome consequences; whatever be the age, the tem-
perament, and the sex. In animal magnetism, nature pre-
sents a universal method of healing and preserving man-
kind." — {Memoire sur la Decouverte du Magnctisme Anijnal,
par M. Mesmer. Paris, 1779, p. 74, et seq. — Ibid^ Avis du
Lee fairy p. 6.)
APPENDIX E.
REPORT ON MESMER'S PRETENSIONS, BY THE COMMISSION
APPOINTED BY THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, PARIS,
*'The sick persons, arranged in great numbers and in
several rows around the baquet, receive the magnetism by
all these means ; by the iron rods which convey to them that
of the baquet ; by the cords wound round their bodies ; by
the connection of the thumbs which communicate to them
that of their neighbours ; by the sound of the pianoforte, or
of an agreeable voice diffusing the magnetism in the air ; by
126 APPENDIX E.
the finger and rod of the magnetiser moved before their
faces, above or behind their heads, and on the diseased
parts, always observing the direction of the poles ; by the
eye of the magnetiser ; but above all by the application of
his hands and the pressure of his fingers on the hypochon-
dria and on the regions of the abdomen ; an application
often continued for a long time, sometimes for several hours.
Meanwhile the patients, in their different conditions, present
a varied picture. Some are calm, tranquil, and experience
no effect ; others cough, spit, feel slighf pains, local or gene-
ral heat, and have sweatings ; others again are agitated or
tormented with convulsions. These convulsions are remark-
able in regard to the number affected with them, and to
their duration and force ; and are characterised by the pre-
cipitous involuntary motions of all the limbs and of the
whole body, by the constriction of the throat, by the violent
heavings of the hypochondria and the epigastrium ; by the
dimness and wandering of the eyes ; by piercing shrieks,
tears, sobbing, and immoderate laughter. They are preceded
or followed by a state of languor and reverie, a kind of
depression, and even drowsiness. The smallest unforeseen
noise occasions shudderings ; even a change of tone and
measure in the airs played on the pianoforte influences the
patients, a quicker motion agitating them more and renewing
the vivacity of their convulsions. Nothing is more astonish-
ing than the spectacle of these convulsions ; one who has
not seen them can form no idea of them. The spectator is
equally astonished at the profound repose of one part of the
patients, and at the agitation of the rest ; at the various
accidents which are repeated, and the sympathies which are
estabhshed. Some patients devote their exclusive attention
to each other, rushing towards one another, smiling, speak-
ing with affection, and mutually soothing their crises. All
are under the power of the magnetiser ; it matters not in
what state of drowsiness they may be j his voice, a look, a
APPENDIX E. 127
gesture brings them out of it." — (Report of the Commission
of the French Academy of Sciences.)
The Commissioners further reported — " That this pre-
tended agent certainly is not common Magnetism; for on ex-
amining the baqnet, the grand reservoir of this wonderful
fluid, by means of a needle and electrometer, not the slightest
indication of the presence either of common magnetism or of
electricity was afforded ; that it is wholly inappreciable by
any of the senses, or by any mechanical or chemical process;
that they tried it upon themselves and upon many others,
without being able to perceive anything ; that on blindfold-
ing those who seemed to be most susceptible to its influence,
all its ordinary effects were produced when nothing was done
to them, but when they imagined they were being magnet-
ised, while none of its effects were produced when they were
really magnetised, but imagined that nothing was being
done ; that, in like manner, when brought under a magnet-
ised tree, nothing happened if the subjects of the experi-
ment thought they were at a distance from the tree, while
they were immediately thrown into convulsions if they
believed they were near the tree, although really at a distance
from it ; that, consequently the effects actually produced
were produced purely by the imagination ; that these effects,
though some cures might be wrought, were not without dan-
ger, since the convulsions excited were often violent and
exceedingly apt to spread, especially among men feeble in
body and weak in mind, and almost universally among
women ; and finally, that there were parts of the operation
of magnetising which might readily be turned to vicious pur-
poses, and that immoral practices had already actually grown
out of them.'— (/^/V/.)
128 APPENDIX F.
APPENDIX F.
EXTRAORDINARY MUSCULAR ENERGY PRODUCIBLE BY
MENTAL CONCENTRATION.
It is a well-known fact that when the whole energy is
concentrated upon some Muscular effort, especially under the
influence of an overpowering emotion, U^e body seems
endowed with superhuman strength and agility, so as to be
able to accomplish some extraordinary feat, at which the
performer himself stands aghast when he contemplates it
after his return to his sober senses. Thus an old cook-maid
who heard an alarm of fire, seized an enormous box contain-
ing the whole of her property, and ran down stairs with it as
easily as she would have carried a dish of meat ; yet after
the fire had been extinguished, she could not lift it a hair's
breadth from the ground, and two men were required to
carry it upstairs again. — It was by the artificial induction of
a like state of concentrated effort, coupled with the assurance
of easy success, ('it will go up like a feather,') with which
he had completely possessed his 'subject's' mind, that Mr.
Braid (in my presence) enabled a man so remarkable for the
poverty of his physique, that he had not for many years
ventured to lift a weight of twenty pounds, to take up a
weight of 28 lbs. upon his little finger, and swing it round
his head, with the greatest apparent ease. Neither Mr.
Braid nor his son, both of them powerful men, could do
anything like this ; and I could not myself lift the same
weight on my little finger to more than half my own height.
Trickery in this case was obviously impossible ; since, if the
'subject' had been trained to such feats, the effect of such
training would have become visible in his muscular develop-
ment.
APPENDIX G. 129
APPENDIX G.
EXAMINATION OF MR. LEWIS'S EXPERIMENTS ON MES-
MERISM, AT THE MEDICAL SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY
AND king's COLLEGE, ABERDEEN.
The Committee consisted of three professors, two medical
men, and a clergyman, who undertook the investigation at
the earnest solicitation of the pupils in the Medical School.
The experiments were conducted in a perfectly fair spirit,
with every desire to do ample justice to the operator, and
at the same time in such a manner as to guard against all
obvious sources of fallacy. The ' subjects ' were chosen by
Mr. Lewis from among the students; their susceptibility
having been previously tested by him. Three of the Com-
mittee remained in the Class-room where the ' subject ' was
seated, and recorded the time and description of the move-
ments he performed; whilst the other three went into an
adjoining room with Mr. Lewis, to direct at successive inter-
vals the various movements they wished him to excite by
his silent will and bodily gestures, recording each direction
with the time at which it was given. When the round of
the experiments was finished, these three gentlemen returned
into the Class-room, and both reports were then read aloud
and compared.
The following is the first act in the performance : —
Exactly at three p.m. Mr. Lewis was desired by his com-
mittee to ' make Mr. M. lie on the floor with his face
on the floor.' No other direction was given for five
7niniitcs ; during which Mr. M. made foiirteeii movements,
not one of which had been willed by Mr. Lewis, or bore the
least resemblance to that which he did will.
I30 APPENDIX G.
H. M. M?'. Jirs. Movements.
2y.\\ P.M. — Raised himself up in the chair and shook him-
self.
3.2 P.M. — Slipped down a litde. Got up and sat down.
Changed his seat.
3.2^ P.M. — Rubbed his hand on his thigh, and his left arm
with his right hand.
3. 3 J P.M. — Stamped on the floor and moved his feet side-
ways ; then got up and changed his seat
again.
2i.z% P-^i- — Folded arms. Put left hand behind.
3.4^ P.M. — Rocked his body from side to side.
The divergence was equally great in all the other experi-
ments; so that the Committee unanimously agreed in the
Report (to which Mr. Lewis could make no objection) that
" these experiments afford no ground whatever for the
" opinion that either Mr. L or any other person can in-
" fluence another at a distance from him." Mr. Lewis being
further challenged to prove his control over the influence of
gravitation, by making Mr. M. stand on one leg, with the
same side of his body and his foot pressed close to the
wall, he utterly failed to do so.
In accordance with an arrangement previously made, Mr.
Lewis left the Class-room when this series of experiments
had been brought to an end ; and the spectators were re-
quested to remain quiet for a while, as another experiment
was about to be tried — this being as to Mr. Lewis's asserted
power of mesmerising from a distance. This power he was
to exercise from his lodgings upon Mr. M., the subject of
his previous experiments, at 4 hours 5 min. p.m. Instead,
however, of passing into the mesmeric sleep, Mr. M. got up
from his scat at 4 hours 5 min., came suddenly forward to a
chair, sat upon it in a state of apparent excitement for half a
minute, then rushed back, snatched his hat from the
grouncJ, and ran off to Mr, L.'s lodgings, where, however.
APPENDIX ir. 131
he did 7jot find Mr. L. Anodier gentleman, Mr. H., who
had been previously acted on, seemed to suppose that he
was again affected by Mr. L.'s manoeuvres ; for, after Mr.
M. first got up, he bent down his head, and appeared to be
in a state of great nervous excitement ; refusing to leave on
being pressed to do so. He remained in this state for half
an hour, and was at last induced to go away, in company of
two students who took charge of him. Before he could be
prevailed upon to go home, he also went to Mr. L.'s lodg-
ings, feeling himself irresistibly drawn thither by Mr. L.'s
silent will ; but it was ascertained that all this occurred
without Mr. Lewis having directed his mind to him at all !
The supposed ' attraction ' thus obviously existed only in
the imaginations of the 'subjects,' who had heard of Mr.
Lewis's asserted powder, and supposed that it w^as being
exerted upon them. — Edinburgh Monthly foiirnal of Medical
Science, February, 1852.
APPENDIX H.
SUPPOSED INFLUENCE OF MAGNETS ON MESMERISED SUB
JECTS SHOWN TO BE DUE TO MENTAL SUGGESTION.
"When in London lately," says Mr. Braid, " I had the plea-
sure of calling upon an eminent and excellent physician who
is in the habit of using mesmerism in his practice, in suitable
cases, just as he uses any other remedy. He spoke of the ex-
traordinary effects which he had experienced from the use of
magnets applied during the mesjneric state, and kindly offered
to illustrate the fact on a patient who had been asleep all the
time I was in the room, and in that stage, during which I
felt assured she could overhear every word of our conversa-
tion. He told me, that when he put the magnet into her
7
132 APPENDIX 11.
hands, it would produce catalepsy of the hands and arms,
and such was the result. He wafted the hands, and the
catelepsy ceased. He said that a mere touch of a magnet
on a limb would stiffen it, and such he proved to be the
fact.
" I now told him, that I had got a little instrument in my
poctet, which, although far less than his, I felt assured
would prove quite as powerful ; and I offered to prove this
by operating on the same patient, whom I had never seen
before, and who was in the mesmeric state when I entered
the room. My instrument was about three inches long, tTie
thickness of a quill, with a ring attached to the end of it. I
told him that when put into her hands, he would find it
catalepsize both hands and arms as his had done ; and such
was the result. Having reduced this by wafting, I took my
instrument from her, and again returned it, iii another posi-
tion., and told him it would now have the very reverse effect
— that she would not be able to hold it, and that although I
closed her hands on it, they would open, and that it would
dVop out of them ; and such was the case, to the great sur-
prise of my worthy friend, who now desired to be informed
what I had done to the instrument to invest it with this new
and opposite power. This I declined doing for the present ;
but I promised to do so, when he had seen some further
pi oofs of its remarkable powers. I now told him that a
touch with it on either extremity would cause the extremity
to rise and become cataleptic, and. such was the result; that
a second touch on the same point would reduce the rigidity,
and cause it to fall, and such again was proved to be the
fact. After a variety of other experiments, every one of
which proved precisely as I had predicted, she was aroused.
I now applied the ring of my instrument on the third finger
of the right hand, from which it was suspended, and told
the doctor, that when it was so suspended, it would send
her to sleep. To this he replied " // never will^' but I again
APPENDIX 11. 133
told him that I felt confident that it would send her to
sleep. We then were silent, and very speedily she was once
more asleep. Having aroused her, I put the instrument on
the second finger of her right hand, and told the doctor that
it would be found she could not go to sleep, when it was
placed there. He said he thought she would, and he sat
steadily gazing at her, but I said firmly and confidently that
she would not. After a considerable time the doctor asked
her if she did not feel sleepy, to which she replied ' not at
all ' ; could you rise and walk ? when she told him she
could. I then requested her to look at the point of the
fore-finger of her right hand, which I told the doctor would
send her to sleep, and such was the result ; and, after being
aroused, I desired her to keep a steady gaze at the nail of
the thumb of the left hand, which would send her to sleep
in like manner, and such proved to be the fact.
" Having repaired to another room, I explained to the
doctor the real nature and powers of my little and appa-
rently magical instrument,— that it was nothing more than
my portma7itean-kcy and I'tng ; and that what had imparted
to it such apparently varied powers, was merely the predic-
tions which the patient had overheard me make to him, act-
ing upon her in the peculiar state of the nervous sleep, as
irresistible impulses to be affected, according to the results
she had heard me predict. Had I predicted that she would
see any flame, or colour, or form, or substance, animate or
inanimate, I know from experience that such would have
been realised, and responded to by her ; and that, not from
any desire on her part to impose upon others, but because
she was self-deceived, the vividness of her imagination in
that state, inducing her to believe as real, what were only
the figments of fancy, suggested to her mind by the remarks
of others. The power of suggestions of this sort also, in
paralysing or energising muscular power, is truly astound-
ing ; and may all arise in perfect good faith with almost all
patients who have passed into the second conscious state,
134 APPENDIX I.
and with some, during the first conscious stage ; and with
some weak-minded, or highly imaginative or credulous and
concentrative people, even in the waking conditioii'^ (Braid
on The Power of the Mind ovej- the Body ^ 1846; p. 31.)
APPENDIX L
MR. braid's experiments ON SUBJECTIVE SENSATIONS.
" A lady, upwards of fifty- six years of age, in perfect
health, and wide awake, having been taken into a dark
closet, and desired to look at the poles of the powerful
horse- shoe magnet of nine elements, and describe what she
saw, declared, after looking a considerable time, that she
saw nodiing. However, after I told her to look attentively,
and she would see fire come out of it, she speedily saw
sparks, and presently it seemed to her to burst forth, as she
had witnessed an artificial representation of the volcano of
Mount Vesuvius at some public gardens. Without her
knowledge, I closed down the lid of the trunk which con-
tained the magnet, hit still the same appearances were de-
scribed as visible. By putting leading questions, and asking
her to describe what she saw from another part of the closet
(where there w^as nothing but bare walls) she went on describ-
ing various shades of most brilliant coruscations and flame,
according to the leading questions I had put for the purpose
of changing the fundamental ideas. On repeating the expe-
riments, similar results were repeatedly realised by this
patient. On taking this lady into the said closet after the
magnet had been removed to another part of the house, she
still perceived the same visible appearances of light and flame
when there was nothing but the bare walls to produce them ;
and, two weeks after the magnet was removed, when she
went into the closet by herself, the mere association of ideas
was sufiicient to cause her to realise a visible representation
APPENDIX I 135
of the same liglit and flames. Indeed such had been the
case with her on entering the closet ever since the few first
times she saw the Hght and flames. In Uke manner when
she was made to touch the poles of the magnet when wide
awake, no manifestations of attraction took place between
her hand and the magnet, but the moment the idea was
suggested that she would be held fast by its powerful attrac-
tion, so that she would be utterly unable to separate her
hands from it, such result was realised ; and, on separating
it, by the suggestion of a new idea, and causing her to touch
the other pole in like manner, predicating that // would exert
no attractive poivcr for the fingers or hands, such negative
effects were at once manifested. I know this lady w^as in-
capable of trying to deceive myself, or others present ; but
she was self-deceived and spell-bound by the predominance
of a pre-conceived idea, and was not less surprised at the
var}dng powers of the instrument than others who witnessed
the results." {^Op, ctt., p. 19.)
Other ' subjects ' taken by Mr. Braid into his dark closet,
and unable to see anything in the first instance, when told
to look steadily at a certain point (though there was no
magnet there) and assured that they would see flame and
light of various colours issuing from it, very soon declared
that they saw them ; and in some of them the same sensa-
tions could be called up in open daylight. — The following
was an experiment made, zvith and without the magnet,
upon the sensations of the general surface; the 'subject'
being a young gentleman twenty- one years of age : —
" I first operated on his right hand, by drawing a powerful
horse-shoe magnet over the hand, without contact, whilst
the, armature was attached. He immediately observed a
sensation of cold follow the course of the magnet. I re-
versed the passes, and he felt it /ess cold, but he felt no
attraction between his hand and the magnet. I then re-
moved the cross-bar, and tried the efi'ect with both poles
136 APPENDIX I.
alternately, but still there was no change in the effect, and
decidedly no proof of attraction between his hand and the
magnet. In the afternoon of the same day I desired him to
look aside, and hold his hat between his eyes and his hand,
and observe the effects when I operated on him, whilst he
could not see my proceedings. He very soon described a
recurrence of the same sort of sensations as those he felt in
the morning, but they speedily became more intense, and
extended up the arm, producing rigidity of the member. In
the course of two minutes this feeling attacked the other
arm, and to some extent the whole body; and he was,
moreover, seized with a fit of invokmtary laughter, like that
of hysteria, which continued for several minutes — in fact,
until I put an end to the experiment. His first remark was,
* Now this experiment clearly proves that there must be
some intimate connection between mineral magnetism and
mesmerism ; for I was most strangely affected, and could not
possibly resist laughing during the extraordinary sensations
with which 'my whole body was seized, as you drew the
magnet over my hand and arm.' I replied that I drew a
very different conclusion from the experiments, as / had
never used the magnet at all, nor held it, nor anything else,
near to him ; and that the whole proved the truth of my
position as to the extraordinary power of the mind over the
body." {Oj>. cit.,-^. 14.)
Phenomena of the same kind were found to be produci-
ble without the use of a magnet at all : —
" Another interesting case of a married lady, I experi-
mented with, in the presence of her husband, as follows. I
requested her to place her hand on the table, with the palm
upwards, so situated as to enable her to observe the process
I was about to resort to. I had previously remarked, that by
my drawing something slowly over the hand, without contact,
whilst the patient concentrated her attention on the process,
she would experience some peculiar sensations in conse-
APPENDIX I. 137
quence. I took a pair of her scissors, and drew tlie bowl of
the handle slowly from the wrist downwards. I had only
done so a few times, when she felt a creeping, chilly sensa-
tion, which was immediately followed by a spasmodic
twitching of the muscles, so as to toss the hand from the
table, as the members of a prepared frog are agitated when
galvanised. I next desired her to place her other hand on
the table, in like manner, but placed so that by turning her
head in the opposite direction she might not see what was
being done, and to watch her sensations in that hand, and
tell us the result. In about the same length of time similar
phenomena were manifested as with the other hand, although
in this instance / had do?ie nofhifig whatever, and was not
near her hand. I now desired her to watch what happened
to her hand, when I predicated that she would feel it be-
come cold, and the result was as predicted ; and vice versa,
predicating that she would feel it become intensely hot, such
was realised. When I desired her to think of the tip of her
nose, the predicated result, either of heat or cold, was
speedily realised in that part.
" Another lady, twenty-eight years of age, being operated
on in the same manner, whilst looking at my proceedings, in
the course of half-a-minute, described the sensation as that
of the blood rushing into the fingers ; and when the motion
of my pencil-case was from below, upwards, the sensation
was that of the current of blood being revei-sed, but less
rapid in its motion. On resuming the downward direction,
the original feeling occurred, still more powerfully than at
first. This lady being requested now to look aside, whilst I
operated, realised similar sensations, and that whilst / was
doing nothing.
" The husband of this lady, twenty-eight and a half years
of age, came into the room shortly after the above experi-
ment was finished. She was very desirous of my trying the
effect upon him, as he was in perfect health. I requested
138 APPENDIX I.
him to extend his right arm laterally, and let it rest on a
chair with the palm upwards, to turn his head in the oppo-
site direction so that he might not see what I was doing,
and to concentrate his attention on the feelings which might
arise during my process. In about half-a-minute he felt an
aui-a like a breath of air passing along the hand ; in a little
after a slight pricking, and presently a feeling passed along
the arm, as far as the elbow, which he described as similar
to that of being slightly electrified. All this while I had
been doing 7iothing, beyond watching what might be realised.
I then desired him to tell me what he felt now — speaking in
such a tone of voice as was calculated to lead him to believe
I was operating in some different manner. The result was
that the former sensations ceased; but, when I requested
him once more to tell me what he felt 7ww, the former sen-
sations recurred. I then whispered to his wife, but in a
tone sufficiently loud to be heard by him, observe now, and
you will find his fingers begin to draw, and his hand will be-
come clenched — see how the little finger begins to move,
and such was the case ; see the next one also going in like
manner, and such effects followed; and finally, the entire
hand closed firmly, with a very unpleasant drawing motion
of the whole flexor-muscles of the fore-arm. I did nothing
whatever to this patient until the fingers were nearly closed,
when I touched the palm of his hand with the point of my
finger, which caused it to close more rapidly and firmly.
After it had remained so for a short time, I blew upon the
hand, which dissipated the previously existing mental im-
pression, and instantly the hand became relaxed. The high
respectability and intelligence of this gentleman rendered
his testimony very valuable; and especially so, when he was
not only wide awake, but had never been either mesmerised,
hypnotised, or so tested before." {Op. ci/., pp. 15-17.)
APPENDICES A', L. i39
APPENDIX K.
PKNDULE EXPLORATEUR.
We are told by Ammianus Marcellinus (the last of the
Roman Historians) that, in the reign of the Emperor Flavins
Valens (4th century) a conspiracy was formed, including
many persons of high rank, who devot'ed themselves to
'curious arts,' among them the celebrated lamblicus, a
mystic philosopher of the Alexandrian School ; their objects
being to learn who would be the successor of the reigning
Emperor, which piece of curiosity was held to be a capital
crime. Of the magical procedure they employed, of which
a full description was given by one of them named Hilarius
when put on his trial, the oscillations of a suspended ring,
that pointed to one letter after another of an alphabet cir-
cularly disposed, constituted the essential part. The three
letters GEO having been thus spelled-out, the conspirators
made up their minds that Theodosius was indicated ; and
although the principal members of the conspiracy were after-
wards put to death by the Emperor, the destiny of Theo-
dosius was accomplished, for he ultimately became the
successor of Valens.
APPENDIX L.
TABLE-TALKING AND TLANCHETTE- WRITING.
'• Several years ago we were invited, with two medical
friends, to a very select sea7ia\ to witness the performance
of a lady, the Hon. Miss N , who was described to us
as a peculiarly gifted 'medium;' not merely being the
vehicle of ' spiritual ' revelations of the most elevating cha-
racter, but being able to convince incredulous philosophers
I40 APPENDIX L.
like ourselves of the reality of her * spiritual ' gifts, by
' physical ' manifestations of the most unmistakable kind.
Unfortunately, however, the Hon. Miss N was not in
great force on the occasion of our visit ; and nothing would
go right. It was suggested that she might be exhausted by
a most successful performance which had taken place on
the previous evening ; and that ' the spirits ' should be asked
whether she stood in need of refreshment. The question
was put by our host (a wine-merchant, be it observed), who
repeated the alphabet rapidly until he came to n, and then
went on sloivly ; the table tilted at p. The same process
was repeated, until the letters successively indicated were
I', o, R, T. But this was not enough. The spirits might
prescribe either porf or porter ; and the alphabet was then
repeated slowly from_ the begifining^ a prolonged pause being
made at e ; as the table did not tilt, a bumper of port was
administered ' as directed.' It did not, however, produce
the expected effect.
" On another occasion, we happened to be on a visit at a
house at which two ladies were staying, who worked the
plandutte on the original method (that of attaching to it a
pointer, which indicated letters and figures on a card), and
our long previous knowledge of whom placed them beyond
all suspicion of anything but j-^^- deception. One of them
was a firm believer in the reality of her intercourse with the
spirit-world ; and her ' planchette ' was continually at work
beneath her hands, its index pointing to successive letters
and figures on the card before it, just as if it had been that
of a telegraph- dial acted on by galvanic communication.
After having watched the operation for some time, and
assured ourselves that the answers she obtained' to the
questions she put to her ' spiritual' visitants were just what
her own simple and devout nature would suggest, we ad-
dressed her thus : — * You believe that your replies are dic-
' tated to you by your " spiritual " friends, and that your hands
APPENDIX L. 141
' are the passive vehicles of the " spiritual " agency by which
* the planchette is directed in spelHng them out. We beHeve,
' on the other hand, that the answers are the products of your
* own Brain, and that the planchette is moved by your own
' Muscles. Now we can test, by a very simple experiment,
' whether your view or oins is the correct one. Will you be
Mvind enough to shut your eyes when you ask your question,
' and to let us watch what the planchette spells out? If " the
* spirits " guide it, there is no reason why they should not do
* so as well when your eyes are shut, as when they are open.
' If the table is moved by your own hands, it will not give
'definite replies except under the guidance of your own
' vision.' To this appeal our friend replied that she could
not think of making such an experiment, as * it would show
a want of faith ; ' and all our arguments and persuasions
could only bring her to the point of aski'ug the spirits \\\\c\hQi
she juig/it comply with our request. The reply was, ' No.'
She then, at our continued urgency, asked 'Why not?'
The reply was, 'Want of faith.' Putting a still stronger
pressure upon her, we induced her to ask, ' Faith in what ? '
The reply was, ' In God.'
" Of course, any further appeal in that quarter would have
been useless; and we consequently addressed ourselves to
our other fair friend, whose high culture and great general
intelligence had prepared her for our own rationalistic
explanation of marvels which had seriously perplexed her.
For having been engaged a short time before in promoting
a public movement, which had brought her into contact
with a number of persons who had previously been strangers
to her, she had asked questions respecting them, which
elicited replies that were in many instances such as she
declared to be quite unexpected by herself, — specially tend-
ing to inculpate some of her coadjutors as influenced by
unworthy motives. After a little questioning, however, she
admitted to us that she had previously entertained lurking
142 ArPENDIX L.
suspicions on this point, which she had scarcely even acknoW'
/edged to herself^ far less made known to others ; and was
much relieved when we pointed out that the planchette merely-
revealed \vhat was going on in the tinder-stratum of her own
mind. Her conversion to our view was. complete, when, on
her trying the working of the planchette with her eyes shut,
its pointer went astray altogether P {Quarterly Ranew, Oct.
1871, p. 315.)
It is often cited as a proof that the performers are not
expressing by involuntary muscular actions what is passing
in their own minds, that the answers given by the tables
are not kiiown to any of themselves, though known to sofne
other person in the room. Of this the following instance was
recorded by Mr. Godfrey: —
" I procured an alphabet on a board, such as is used in
a National School ; this board I laid down on the floor at
some little distance from the table, and I lay down on the
ground beside it. I then requested one of the three persons
at the table to command it to spell the Christian names of
Mr. L , of B , by lifting up the leg next him as I
pointed to the letters of the alphabet in succession. He did
so, and I began to point, keeping the pointer about three
seconds on each letter in succession (I must say, that neither
of the three persons at the table had ever heard of Mr.
L ; and B is 150 miles from this place). When I
arrived at G, they said, that's it ; the table is lifting its leg.
When I came to E, it rose again; and in this way it spelt
George Peter, which was perfectly correct." ( 7able-tu7'ning,
the DeviVs Modern Master-piece, p. 22.) Of course the
person wlio influenced the movements of the table was
guided by tlie indications afforded by Mr. Godfrey's own
unconscious expression of his expectancy.
So, again, the late Dr. Hare, an American Chemist and
Physicist of some reputation, thought that he had obtained
a precise experimental proof of the immortality of the soul (!)
by means of an apparatus by which the answers communi-
APPENDIX L. 143
cated through the ' medium ' were spelled out by a hand
pointing to an alphabet-dial which was hidden from her eyes.
But it is clear from his narrative of the experiment, that her
eyes were fixed upon the person to whom the expected
answer was known, and that her movements were guided
by the indications she received from his involuntary move-
ments.
REPRODUCTION OF UNREMEMBERED IDEAS.
A ' planchette,' made in Bath, which had been on a visit
in various families for several months, having been asked
where it was made, replied ' Bath ; ' although the questioners
all thought it came from Lo7idon^ and disbelieved its state-
ment, which was afterwards verified. The rational expla-
nation of this obviously is, that the writing was guided by
the cerebral memory (so to speak), instead of by the co7iscioiis
memory ; just as in the case of the movements in acted
dreams, by which articles long lost have been found again.
The Rev. Mr. Dibdin, M.A. (in his Lecture on Table-
Turnings published in 1853), states that he and a friend
having directed the table to say, * How many years is it
since her Majesty came to the throne ? ' the table struck
sixteen^ though no one present knew the date of her acces-
sion ; and having directed it to ' give the age of the Prince
of Wales,' which was not known either to Mr. Dibdin or his
friend, the table struck elei^en, and then raised the foot a
little way. On referring to an Almanack, both these
numbers w^ere found to be correct. Further, the question
being put (in the house of a tailor), * How many men are at
work in the shop below ? ^ the table replied by striking ihrce^
and giving tiuo gentle rises ; on which the employer, who
was one of the party, said, ' There are four men and two
boys, so three is a mistake ; ' but he afterwards rejnevibered
that one of the young men was out of to^yn.
" An eminent literary man, in whose veracity we have had
144 APPENDIX £.
the fullest confidence, informed us that ' the spirit of a
friend, whose decease had taken place some months pre-
viously, having announced itself in the usual way, and the
question having been put, ' When did I last see you in life?'
the answer given was inconsistent with the recollection of
the interrogator. But, on his subsequently talking over the
matter w^th his family, it was brought to his remembrance
that he had seen his deceased friend on the occasion men-
tioned, and had spoken of it to them at the time, although
he had afterwards quite forgotten the circumstance."-—
{Quarterly Revieiv, October 187 1, p. 319.)
Another instance, supplied by Mr. Dibdin {op, dt.\
affords yet more remarkable evidence to the same effect ;
especially as being related by a firm believer in the * dia-
bolical' origin of Table-talking : — A gendeman, who was at
the time a believer in the ' spiritual ' agency of his table,
assured Mr, Dibdin that he had raised a good spirit instead
of evil ones — that, namely, of Edward Young, the poet.
The ' spirit ' having been desired to prove this identity by
citing a line of his poetry, the table spelled out, ' Man was
not made to question, but adore.' ' Is that in your " Night
Tlioughts " .^ ' was then asked. * No.' * Where is it, then ? '
The reply was, * j o b.' Not being familiar with Young's
Poems, the questioner did not know what this meant ; but
the next day he bought a copy of them; and at the end of
^ Night Thoughts ' he found a paraphrase of the Book of
Job, the last line of which is, ' Man was not made to ques-
tion, but adore.' Of course he was very much astonished ;
but not long afterwards he came to Mr. Dibdin, and assured
him that he had satisfied himself that the whole thing was a
delusion, — numerous answers he had obtained being ob-
viously the results of an influence unconsciously exerted on
the table by those who had their hands upon it ; and when
asked by Mr. Dibdin how he accounted for the dictation of
tlie line by the spirit of Young, ho very honestly confessed,
APPENDIX M. 141;
•Well, the fact is, I must tell you, that I had the book in
my house all the time, although I bought another copy ; and
/ found that I had read it before. My opinion is that it was
a latent idea^ and that the table brought it out.' (p. 7.)
APPENDIX M.
DIABOLICAL ORIGIN OF TABLE TURNING.
In his Table-moving Tested, the Rev. N. S. Godfrey began
by " tracing the existence of Satanic influence from the time
of Moses to the time of Jesus ; connecting the ' witch,' the
* familiar spirit,' the spirit of Python, &c. with the Evil Spirit in
its actual and separate existence : " and asserting without the
least hesitation, that although ' so long as the supernatural
gifts of the Spirit remained among men, so long the evil
spirits were cast out and their presence detected,' yet that
when those miraculous powers were withdrawn, they could
no longer be discerned, but have continued to exist to the
present time, and make themselves known in these ' latter
times ' as the •' wandering (seducing) spirits,' whose appear-
ance was predicted by St. Paul (i Tim. iv. 10). That the
answers to the ' test questions ' were exactly contrary to Mr.
Godfrey's ideas of truth, was in his judgment peculiarly
convincing ; " for if indeed these tables do become possessed
" by some of the ' wandering spirits ' at the command of the
*' Devil, it would be most impohtic, and quite at variance with
" the subtlety of his character, to scare people at the very
*' outset." The following answers, therefore, are obviously
what Mr. G. expected : —
" I spoke to the table, and said, ' If you move by elec-
tricity, stop.* It stopped instantly ! I commanded it to go
on again, and said, while it was moving, ' If an evil spirit
146 APPENDIX M.
cause you to move, stop.' It moved round without stopping!
I again said, ' If there be any evil agency in this, stop.' It
went on as before. I was now prepared w^ith an experiment
of a far more solemn character. ■ I w^hispered to the school-
master to bring a small Bible, and to lay it on the table when
I should tell him. I then caused the table to revolve rapidly,
and gave the signal. The Bible was geiitly laid on the table,
and it instantly stopped. We w-ere horror-struck. However,
I determined to persevere. I had other books in succession
laid on the table, to see whether the fact of a book lying
upon it altered any of the conditions under which it revolved.
It went round with them without making any difference. I
then tried with the Bible four different times, and each time
wdth the same result : // would not move so long as that pre-
cious volume lay upon it. ... I now said, ' If there be a
hell, I command you to knock on the floor with this leg (the
one next me) twice.' It was motionless. * If there be not
a hell, knock twice ; ' no answer. ' If there be a devil, knock
twice ; ' no motion. ' If there be not a devil, knock twice; '
to our horror, the leg slowly rose and knocked tivtce f ] then
said, ' In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, if there be 7W
devil, knock twice ; ' it w\as motionless. This I tried four
several times, and each time with the same result." (p. 24.)
It is clear that Mr. Godfrey and his associates, if they
had not distinctly anticipated these results, were i\A\y prepared
for them. Thus, although he assures his readers that, when
the Bible was placed on the table, the emotion in the minds
of all the parties w^as curiosity, and that, if they had a bias,
it was against the table stopping, the very fact of the experi-
ment being tried by a man imbued with his prepossessions
on the subject of Evil Spirits, Witchcraft, &:c., sufficiently
indicates what his real state of mind was, although he may
not have been himself aware of it. His involuntary mus-
cular actions responded to this, although no voluntary move-
ment would have c^onc so, because he had not consciously
APPEXDIX M. 147
accepted the Idea whosfe ' physical basis ' had been shaping
itself in the under-stratum. The experience of everyone
must have convinced him that there is often a contrariety
between our beliefs as to our own states of 7nt?td^ and i\\Q facts
of that state as they afterwards come to hQ self revealed to us;
and it is a very marked peculiarity of these movements, that
they often express more truly what is buried (as it were) in
the vaults of our storehouse, than what is displayed in the
ware-rooms above.
The Rev. E. Gillson, M.A,, a Clergyman of Bath, fully
partaking of his predecessor's convictions on the subject of
Satanic Agency, and also in the excitement prevailing in
many circles at that time on the subject of ' Papal Aggres-
sion,' gave the following mter alia as his experiences (Table-
Talking: Satanic Wonders and Prophetic Signs, 1853):—
" I placed my hand upon the table, and put a variety ot
questions, all of which w^ere instantly and correctly answered.
Various ages were asked, and all correctly told. In reply to
trifling questions, possessing no particular interest, the table
answered by quietly lifting up the leg and rapping. But in
answer to questions of a more exciting character, it would
become violently agitated, and sometimes to such a degree
that I can only describe the motion by the word frantic. I
inquired, 'Are you a departed spirit?' The answer was
' Yes,' indicated, by a rap. ' Are you unhappy ? ' The table
answered by a sort of writhing motion (!), which no natural
power over it could imitate. It was then asked, ' Shall you
be for ever unhappy ? ' The same kind of writhing motion
was returned. 'Do you know Satan?' 'Yes.' 'Is he
the Prince of Devils ? ' ' Yes.' ' Will he be bound ? ' ' Yes.'
' Will he be cast into the abyss ? ' ' Yes.' ' Will you be
cast in with him ? ' ' Yes.' 'How long will it be before he
is cast out ? ' He rapped ten. ' W^ill wars and commotions
intervene-?' The table rocked and reeled backwards and
forw'ards for a length of time, as if it intended a pantomimic
148 APPENDIX M.
acting of the prophet's predictions (Isaiah xxiv. 20). I
then asked ' Where are Satan's head-quarters ? Are they in
England ? ' There was a slight movement. ' Are they in
France ? ' A violent movement. * Are they in Spain ? '
Similar agitation. ' Are they at Rome ? ' The tabic literally
seemed frajitic. At the close of these experiments, which
occupied about two hoars, the invisible agent, in answer to
some questions about himself, did not agree with what had
been said before. I therefore asked, ' Are you the same
spirit that was in the table when we began ? ' ' No.' ' How
many spirits have been in the table this evening ? ' * Four.'
This spirit informed us that he had been an infidel, and had
embraced Popery about five years before his death. Amongst
other questions, he was asked, ' Do you know the Pope ? '
The table was violendy agitated, I asked, ' How long will
Popery continue ? ' He rapped ten ; exactly coinciding with
the other spirits' account of the binding of Satan. Many
questions were asked, and experiments tried, in order to as-
certain whether the results would agree with Mr. Godfrey's ;
and on every occasion they did, especially that of stopping
the movejnent of the table with the Bible. As we proceeded
with our questions, we found an indescribable facility in the
conversation, from the extraordinary intelligence and ingenuity
displayed in the table (!) E.g. — I inquired if many devils
were posted in Bath. He replied by the most extraordinary
and rapid knocking of the three feet in succession, round
and round, for some time, as if to intimate that they were
innumerable ! " {Op. cit., pp. 4-8.)
A third Clergyman, the Rev. R. W. Dibdin, IM.A., while
agreeing with his predecessors in the belief that the move-
ments of the tables are the result of Satanic (or diabolic)
agency, differed from them in maintaining ' that devils alone
(not departed spirits) are the agents in these cases; and
being lying spirits, it is quite credible that, for purposes of
their own, they might assume the names of departed men
APPENDIX M. 149
and women.' Of course he got the answers he expected on
this hypothesis. The following is his set of * test questions,'
the answers to which — being entirely opposed to his own
notions of truth— satisfied ///;;/, and were expected to satisfy
his partners in the experiment, of the diabolical character of
the respondent : —
" ' Are we justified by works ? ' * Yes.' — ' By faith
alone?' ' No.'— ' Is the whole Bible true?' ' No.'—
' Were the miracles of the New Testament wrought by super-
natural power? ' ' No.'—' By some hidden law of Nature ?'
t Yes.' — ' Was Oliver Cromw^ell good? ' ' No.' — ' Was
Charles I. a good man ? ' ' Yes.'—' Is it right to pray to
the Virgin?' ' Yes.'— ' Is Christ God?' ' No.'— ' Is he
a man ? ' ' No.' — ' Is he something between God and
man, a sort of angel ? ' ' Yes.'—' Is he in heaven ? ' ' No.'
— ' Where is he ? ' It spelt slowly H E L L. — As the last
letter was indicated, the girl drew her hands quickly off the
table, much as a person would do who was drawing them off
a hot iron. Her brother-in-law turned very pale, and took
his hands off the table also." {Lecture on Table-turnings
1853 ; P- 8.)
The character, position, and obvious sincerity of the
actors in these performances place them beyond suspicion
of intentional deception ; and the phenomena they narrate
afford a singularly apposite illustration of the principle which
I desire to enforce. But that such obvious products
of the questioners' own mental states should have been
accepted by men of education, occupying the position of re-
ligious teachers in the National Church, as the lying re-
sponses of evil spirits, sent expressly to delude them, can
only be deemed — by such, at least, as are prepared to accept
a scientific rationale of the phenomena — a pitiable instance
of the readiness with which minds of a certain type may
allow themselves to become ' possessed ' by dominant ideas.
ISO APPENDIX N.
APPENDIX N.
MRS. culver's statement.
*'I am by marriage a connection of the Fox girls.
Their brother married my husband's sister. The girls
have been a great deal at my house ; and for about two
years I was a very sincere believer in the rappings ; but
something which I saw when I was visiting the girls at
Rochester made me suspect that they were deceiving. I
resolved to satisfy myself in some way, and sometime
afterwards I made a proposition to Catherine to assist her
in producing the manifestations. I had a cousin visiting
me from Michigan, who was going to consult the spirits ; and
I told Catherine that if they intended going to Detroit, it
would be a great thing for them to convince him. I also
told her that if I could do anything to help her, I would do
it cheerfully ; that I should probably be able to answer all
the questions he would ask, and I would do it if she would
show me how to make the raps. She said that as Margaretta
was absent, she wanted somebody to help her ; and that if
I would become a medium, she would explain it all to me.
She said that when my cousin consulted the spirits, I must
sit next to her, and touch her arm when the right letter was
called. I did so, and was able to answer all the questions
correctly. After I had helped her in this way a few times,
she revealed to me the secret. The raps are produced by
the toes. All the toes are used. After nearly a week's
practice with Catherine showing me how, I could produce
them perfectly myself.
" At first it was very hard work to do it. Catherine told
me to warm my feet, or put them in warm water, and it
would then be easier to rap. She said that she had some-
times to warm her feet three or four times during the evening.
I found that heating my feet did enable me to rap a great
APPENDIX A". 151
deal easier. I have sometimes produced 150 raps in suc-
cession. I can rap with all the toes on both feet ; it is
most difficult to rap with the great toe. Catherine told me
how to manage to answer the questions. She said it was
generally easy enough to answer right, if the one who asked
the question called the alphabet. She said the reason why
she asked people to write down several names on paper, and
then point to them till the spirits rapped at the right one,
was to give them a chance to watch the countenance and
motions of the person, and that in that way they could
nearly always guess right. She also explained how they
held down and moved tables. (Mrs. Culver here gave some
illustration of the tricks.) She told me that all I should have
to do to make raps heard on the table, would be to put my
foot on the bottom of the table when I rapped ; and that
when I Avished to make the raps sound distant on the wall
I must make them louder, and direct my own eyes earnestly
to the spot where I wished them to be heard. She said if I
could put my foot to the bottom of the door, the raps would
be heard on the top of the door.
" Catherine told me that when her feet were held down
by the Rochester Committee, the Dutch servant-girl rapped
with her knuckles under the floor from the cellar. The girl
was instructed to rap whenever she heard their voices calling
the spirits. Catherine also showed me how they made the
sounds of sawing and planing boards. When I was at
Rochester last January, Margaretta told me that when
people insisted on seeing her feet and toes, she could pro-
duce a few raps with her knees and ankles.
" Elizabeth Fish (Mr. Fish's daughter), who now lives
with her father, was the first one who produced these raps.
She accidentally discovered the way of making them by
playing with her toes against the foot-board while in bed.
Catherine told me that the reason why Elizabeth went west
to live with her father, was because she was too conscientious
152 APPENDIX N.
to become a medium. The Avhole secret was revealed to
me, with the understanding that I should practise as a
medium when the girls were away. Catherine said that
whenever I practised, I had better have my little girl with
me, and make folks believe that she was the medium ;
' for,' she said, ' they would never suspect so young a child
of any tricks.' After I had obtained the entire secret, I
plainly told Catherine that my only object was to find out
how these tricks were done, and that I should never go any
further in this imposition. She was very much frightened,
and said she beheved I meant to tell of it and expose them,
and if "I did, she would swear it was a lie. She was so
nervous and excited that I had to sleep with her that night.
When she was instructing me how to be a medium, she told
me how frightened they used to get in New York, for fear
somebody would detect them ; and gave me the history of
all the tricks they played upon the people there. She said
that once Margaretta spoke aloud, and that the whole party
believed it was a spirit."
(Signed) Mrs. Norman Culver.
Certificate.
" We hereby certify that Mrs. Culver is one of the most
respectable and intelligent ladies in the town of Arcadia.
We were present when she made the disclosures. We had
heard the same from her before, and we cheerfully bear
testimony that there cannot be the slightest doubt of the
truth of the whole statement."
(Signed) C. J. Pomeroy, M.D. .
Rev. D. S. Chase.
APPENDIX O. 153
a corrrction rkspkctfng appendix n, from the axhenj-^um of
June 16, 1877.
THE ROCHESTER RAPPINOS.
June 12, 1877.
Having learned from Mr. J. Nevil Maskelyne, from \vlioi=o " Moflern Spirit-
nalism'" I obtained the "declaration" of Mrs. Norman Culver (originally
pnhlished in tho New York Trihune)^ that the date 1871, wliich he assigned to
it, was a misprint for 18.51, I willingly apologize to Mrs. Kate Fox Jencken for
the chronological error into which I have been thus led, and for having given
additional currency to a document of which, according to her statement, the
Tintruh^tworthinoss has been publicly proved ; and I have directed its with-
drawal from all the unsold copies of my " Lectures."
The question of the production of the " raps " by the muscular action of the
'■ mediums" is not. however, thus easily disposed of. The report published
by Prof. Austin Flint (then of Buffalo, now of New York) and his coadjutors,
Drs. Coventry and Lee, after a careful examination of the conditions under
which the Rochester rappings occurred. not only proves that they couldbe, but
gives strong evidence that they were, so produced by the sisters Fox. And
when, in April, 1859, Prof. Schiff demonstrated in his own person, to the French
Academy of Medicine, one of the several modes in which these sounds can not.
only be called forth, but caused to seem either near or remote, three of the most
eminent surgeons in Paris, MM. Jobert de Lamballe, Cloquet, and Velpeau,
stated that they had patients who could produce sounds more or less similar,
in different joints. It is, therefore, no " theory," but a well-attested fact, that
the voluntary muscular contractions of individuals who have trained themselves
to the trick can produce an exact imitation of the sounds affirmed by Mrs.
Kate Fox Jencken to be " echoes from an unseen world."
1 may refer those who wish to acquaint themselves with the history of the
Rochester rappings to the fourth volume of M. Louis Figuier's •■ Histoire du
Merveillouxdane les Temps Modernes" (1861), in w^hich Prof. Austin Flint's
report and the proceedings in the French Academy of Medicine are given
in faU.
William B. Carpenter.
lettei-r^and pointer carefully concealed from her, but the
152 APPENDIX N.
to become a medium. The whnlp cprr^f Tir^n ».^,.^-,i-,j
APPENDIX O. 153
APPENDIX O.
LETTER FROM MR. A. R. WALLACE TO THE EDITOR
OF THE 'spectator/ DEC. 23, 1876.
Sir, — In your comment on Mr. Lewes's letter you seem
to imply that the experiment described may prove imposture,
but tliat Professor De Morgan's experiment was equally
decisive against imposture. Will you allow me very briefly
to point out that the alleged exposure proves nothing without
assuming the very fact at issue — that Mrs. Hayden herself
caused the raps following the indications given by the person
who pointed to the letters of tlie alphabet? For let us
assume, on the other hand, that the raps were, as alleged,
caused by invisible beings, perhaps not superior in in-
telligence to Mrs. Hayden, and equally liable to be affected
by insult or impulse, and that these beings could read, mo7-e
or less imperfectly^ the questioner's mind. Nonsense ques-
tions were asked these intelligences, and absurd or contra-
dictory answers were sought to be- obtained by dwelling on
certain letters. These absurd answers were obtained. Tl is
is consistent with the supposition on two theories. Either
the intelligence could read only the questioner's active
desire for a certain answer while pointing to the letters, and
accordingly gave that answer ; or, if it were able also to
perceive the question (though less vivid in the questioner's
mind at the moment), it might well adopt the human prin-
ciples of answering what would be impertinent questions in
the only way they deserved an answer. It is a fact within
my own knowledge, and it is well-known to all spiritualists,
that both kinds of answers are obtained in pri\ate circles
where any imposture is out of the question. Professor De
Morgan's experiment on the other hand absolutely precluded
imposture on Mrs. Hayden's part, since not only were the
letters and pointer carefully concealed from her, but the
154 APPENDIX P.
answer, though correct, was in words which tlie Professor
was not expecting. The one experiment was purely nega-
tive and inconclusive, the other positive ; and I cannot
understand how so logical a mind as that of Mr. G. H.
Lewes can put the two results even in the category, much
less allow the negative evidence to prevail. — I am, Sir, &c.,
Alfred R. Wallace.
APPENDIX P.
" We were requested by a lady who had known Mr. Foster
in America, to accompany her and her son-in-law (an
eminent London Physician) on a visit to Mr. Foster, who
had arrived in London only a few days previously. We
were not introduced to him by name, and we do not think
that he could have had any opportunity of knowing our
person. Nevertheless, he not only answered, in a variety of
modes, the questions we put to him respecting the time and
cause of the death of several of our departed friends and
relatives, whose names we had written down on slips of
paper which had been folded-up and crumpled into pellets
before being placed in his hands ; but he brought out names
and dates correctly, in large red letters, on his bare arm, the
redness being produced by the turgescence of the minute
vessels of the skin, and passing away after a few minutes,
like a blush. We must own to have been strongly impressed
at the time by this performance ; but on subsequently think-
ing it over, we could see that Mr. Foster's divining power
was probably derived from his having acquired the foculty
of interpreting the movements of the top of a pen or pencil,
though the point and what was written by it was hid from
his sight, with the aid of an observing power sharpened by
practice, which enabled him to guide his own movements
APPENDIX P. 155
by the indications unconsciously given by ourselves of the
answers we expected. For though we were fully armed with
the knowledge which had been acquired of the source from
which Mrs. Hayden drew her inspiration, and did our ut-
most to repress every sign of anticipation, we came, on re-
llection, to an assured conviction that Mr. Foster had been
keen-sighted enough to detect such signs, notwithstanding
our attempt to baffle him. For, having asked him the month
of the death of a friend, whose name had previously appeared
in red letters on his arm, and the year of whose death had
also been correctly indicated in another way, he desired us
to take up the alphabet-card and to point to the successive
letters. This we did, as we believe, with pendulum-like
regularity ; nevertheless, distinct raps were heard at the
letters j, u. When, however, on the next repetition, we
came to L, M, N, Mr. Foster was obviously baffled. He
directed us to try-back two or three times, and at last con-
fessed that he could not certainly tell whether the month was
June ox July. The secret of this was, that we did not our-
selves recollect.
" Wishing to clear up the matter further, we called on Mr.
Foster, revealed ourselves to him in propria peisoJict, and
asked him if he would object to meet a few scientific in-
vestigators, who should be allowed to subject his powers to
fair tests. As he professed his readiness to do so, we
brought together such a meeting at our own house ; and
previously to Mr. Foster's arrival, we explained to our
friends the arrangements we proposed. One of these was,
that one of the party should sit outside the ' circle,' and
should devote himself to observing and recording all that
passed, without taking any part whatever in the performance.
Another was, that instead of writing down names on slips of
paper, whilst sitting at the table within Mr. Foster's view, we
should write them at a side-table, with our backs turned to
him. On explaining these arrangements to Mr. Foster, he
8
156 APPENDIX P.
immediately said that the first could not be permitted, for
that every person present 77111st form part of the circle. To
the second he made no objection. After handing him our
slips of paper carefully folded-up, we took our seats at the
table, and waited for the announcement of spiritual visitors.
The only one, however, who presented himself during an
hour's sea7ice, was the spirit of our own old master, whose
name Mr. Foster might very readily have learned previously,
but about whom he could give no particulars whatever.
Avt 07ie of the 7iaines W7'itte7i 07i the pape7's was revealed.
" The patience of our friends bemg exhausted, they took
their leave ; but as Mr. Foster's carriage had been ordered
for a later hour, we requested him to sit down again with
the members of our own family. ' Now,' we said, ' that these
incredulous philosophers are gone, perhaps the spirits will
favour us with a visit.' We purposely followed Jiis lead, as
on our first interview, and everything went on as successfully
as on that occasion ; until, whilst the name of a relative we
had recently lost was being spelled out on our alphabet-card,
the raps sudde7ily ceased on the interposition of a large music-
book, which was set-up at a preconcerted signal so as to hide
the top as well as the bottom of our pointer from Mr.
Foster's eyes. Nothing could more conclusively prove that
Mr. Foster's knowledge was derived from observation of the
movements of the pointer, although he could only see the
portion of it not hidden by the card, which was so held as
to conceal the lower part of it ; and nothing could be a
better illustration of the principle of 'unconscious ideo-
motor action,' then the fact, that ivhilst we were 77iost ca7-e-
fully abstaining f7V7n any pause or look fro7n which he 7night
de7'ive guidance^ ive had e7iablcd hi7n to divine the answer we
expected. The trick by which the red letters were produced
was discovered by the inquiries of our medical friends." —
{Qiiarte7-ly Review^ October 187 1, p. 332.)
APPENDIX Q. 157
APPENDIX Q.
MR. BRAID ON THE INFLUENCE OF SUGGESTION AND
EXPECTANCY.
" The most curious and important fact of all, however, is
this, — that by engendering a state of mental concentration,
by a simple act of sustained attention, fixed upon some unex-
citing and empty thing,—' for poverty of object engenders
abstraction,' — the faculties of the minds of some patients are
thereby thrown out of gear, {i.e., their ordinary relations are
changed,) so that the higher faculties— reason, comparison,
and will, become dethroned from their supremacy, and give
place and power to imagination, (which now careers in un-
bridled liberty,) easy credulity, and dociUty or passive
obedience ; so that, even whilst apparently wide awake, and
conscious of all around, they become susceptible of being in-
fluenced and controlled entirely by the suggestions of others,
upon whom their attention is fixed. In fact, such subjects,
are in a sub-hypnotic condition, — in that intermediate state
between sleeping and waking, when the mind becomes waver-
ing, the attention off duty, or engrossed with a predominant
idea, so that, in reality, the subjects are only half conscious of
what is passing around ; and their minds, therefore, become
easily imposed upon by any suggestion, audibly expressed or
visibly exhibited before them. Thus they may be made to
perceive, and mistake for realities, whatever mental illusions
or ideas are suggested to them. In common parlance they
see and fee/ as real, and they consider themselves irresistibly
or ijivoluntarily fixed, or spell-bound, or impelled to perform
whatever 7nay be said or signified by the other party upon whom
their attention has beeome involimtarily and vividly riveted,
until a new idea has been suggested, by which the spell is
broken, and the subject is left in a condition again to be
subjugated and controlled by other suggestions of his tern-
158 APPENDIX Q.
porary fascinator. This is just similar to what we see occurring
to anyone spontaneously engaged in deep abstraction, who
is instantaneously aroused to consciousness of all around by
a tap on the shoulder, or by a word sharply addressed to
him.
" It requires considerable tact to manage this, adroitly and
successfully, with some patients ; for the will and belief of
certain subjects can only be successfully subjugated and con-
trolled by an earnest and energetic, and confident and
authoritative manner, on the part of the operator ; such as
by his insisti7ig that such and such must be the case, according
to his audible suggestions, or visible manoeuvres for influenc-
ing the subjects through the power of sympathy and imita-
tion. I have had ample evidence to convince «ie of the fact,
that, in cases where these waking illusions and delusions
could not be excited by giving the suggestions in an ap-
parently doubting tone of voice, or with a hesitating manner,
they became quite efficient for the purpose, the instant I
assumed a commanding and confident tone of voice and
deportment. By these means the Reason and Will become
temporarily paralysed ; they lose their freedom of action,
through the mind being so much engrossed by the suggested
thought, as to allow every idea which has been vividly and
energetically addressed to such individual, to assume all the
force of present reality, — just as we know to occur spon-
taneously, in case oi fnonomania and delirium trcjuens." (See
Braid On Magic, Witchcraft, Animal Afagnetism, Hypnotism^
and Electro-Biology, 1852, pp. 65-67.)
PRINCIPLES
OF
MENTAL PHYSIOLOGY,
Their Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind, atid
the Study of its Morbid Conditions.
By WILLIAM CARPENTER, M. D., LL.D.
I vol., i2mo. 737 pages. Price, $3.00.
«* Dr. Carpenter has won his reputation as a physiologist, largely
from the clearness of his expositions, and the present work shows that
his capacity in this respect is still vigorous. Its most scientific parts
are attractive reading, and the extensive array of personal instances
and incidents, which illustrate his positions, gives great fascination to
the volume.
"It is a hard book to lay down when once entered upon, and Dr.
Carpenter may be congratulated upon having contributed so fresh a
book upon such an important subject." — Popular Science Monthly.
" Is a profound and learned work, which goes to the very bottom of
the problems of Life and Eternity."— i?(?j/^« Commonwealth.
"The work is probably the ablest exposition of the subject which
has been given to the world, and goes far to establish a new system of
mental philosophy upon a much broader and more substantial basis
than it has heretofore stood."— 6"/?. Louis Democrat.
"The work is a revision and expansion of the author's well-known
work bearing the same name, published over twenty years ago, and
so popular as to reach half a dozen editions." — Cincinnati Gazette.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers,
549 "S: 551 Broadway, N. Y.
opinions of the Press on the " International Scientific Series.''
IX.
Responsibility in Mental Disease.
By HENRY MAUDSLEY, M. D.,
Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians ; Professor of Medical Jurisprudence
in University College, London.
I vol., i2mo. Cloth Price, $1.50.
" Having lectured in a medical college on Mental Disease, this book has been a
feast to us. It handles a great subject in a masterly manner, and, in our judgment,
the positions taken by the author are correct and well sustained.^ In his second cjiap-
ter he has well marked out the border-line between sanity and insanity, speaks of the
prophets of the Old Testament, the epileptic nature of Mahomet's visions, crime and
insanity, epileptic insanity, etc. Here we can bear testimony to the truth of his re-
marks from professional experience, having had probably more epileptic patients than
any other physician of our day to treat." — Pastor and People.
" The author is at home in his subject, and presents his views in an almost singu-
larly clear and satisfactory manner. . . . The volume is a valuable contribution to one
of the most difficult, and at the same time one of the most important subjects of inves-
tigation at the present day." — N. V. Observer,
" It is a work profound and searching, and abounds in wisdom." — Pittsburg Com-
vtercial.
" Handles the important topic with masterly power, and its suggestions are prac-
tical and of great value." — Providence Press.
" Dr. Maudsley's book appears to us timely and valuable as bringing within the
reach of every person the facts which, to the multitude, are often inaccessible."—
Chicago Tribune.
"Dr, Maudsley's treatise cannot but have an influence on the jurisprudence of the
future with respect to the insane." — Buffalo Courier.
"A compact presentation of those facts and principles which require to be taken
into account in estimating human responsibility." — Popular Science Monthly.
" The International Scientific Series, whose merits have commanded such
a prompt and extended recognition by the reading and thinking public, has its scope
considerably enlarged by the publication of this, its latest volume. The treatise of
Prof Maudsley relates to a subject of peculi.ir interest, and which to eveiy one has
more or less importance. How far insanity, whether partial or entire, affects the re-
sponsibility of the sufferer, is ably argued, the importance of the question wap-anting
tlie length of the treatise, which the admirable style of the author renders of constant
interest throughout." — Bostofi Post.
" The author has evidently devoted much study to his theme, which he discusses
with commendable common-sense. His stylo is clear and his essay is decidedly inter-
esting." — The Cultivator a7id Country Gentleman.
" The style is clear and vigorous. In the chapter on Law and Insanity the author
commends himself, by his acute criticisms and judicial deliverances, to the attention of
lawyers." — 'The Christian Era.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.
No more stirring chronicle o/ adventure was ever penned." — London Quarterly.
NEW LANDS WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE:
NARRATIVE OF THE DISCOVERIES OF THE AUSTRIAN SHIP
TEGETTHOFF IN iZj^-'j^.
By JTJIL.ITJS FJ^YER,
ONE OF THE COMMANDERS OF THE EXPEDITION.
Containing upward of One Hundred Illustrations from Drawings by
the Author, engraved by J. D. Cooper, a Colored Frontispiece
and Route Maps, and Preface comparing the Results
of the English and Austrian Expeditions.
I vol., vtediu7n Bvo Cloth, extra, $3 50.
"We advise all who desire to enjoy a genuine and unalloyed pleasure to read his
book, which will bear more than one perusal. We are mistaken if it does not take rank
with the best of our English arctic narratives, and become a permanent favorite with
old and young. The well-executed illustrations from the pencil of the author add
greatly to tlie value and attractions of the book." — Lo7idoft Times,
" Lieutenant Payer has written its story in a style not surpassed in fascinating in-
terest and scientific value by any of those old narratives that are still the delight of all
who love to read of the adventures of daring men." — Nature.
"No arctic navigator, since the days of William Barentz, has had a more startling
tale to tell, and not one has told it better."— A themeuni.
" Cold-blooded, indeed, must the reader be who can study these volumes without a
thrill of almost too intense excitement. For literary power, the story of the Tegetthoff
stands in the very front rank of arctic narrative." — Graphic.
" The result of the voyage is given by Lieutenant Payer in a magnificent work.
. . . No more stirring chronicle of adventure was ever penned. ... It is impossible
to avoid recording our tribute of admiration to the heroic endurance with which, after
abandoning their ship, they struggled for months across a treacherous floating desert
of ice in their return home." — London Qttarterly. '
" This remarkable adventure, the record of which stands, in many respects, alone
amid the stories of arctic discovery. , . . The book presents a singularly vivid picture
of a marvelous expedition." — Edinburgh Review.
" M. Payer tells his story with the simple directness of a man who knows that his
unvarnished tale has power in itself to move the reader. There is throughout his nar-
rative a charm rarely to be met with in the tales of arctic adventure and discovery."—
Londott Spectator. _ i. 1 • -i
" It is one of the most interesting tales of personal experiences, of hardship, toil,
and peril, of valiant endurance and performance, to be found in the records of seafaring
life and enterprise. Lieutenant Payer relates it altogether well, simply and modestly,
without any self-glorification, but fully setting forth, in justice to his comrades and
shipmates of all ranks, their actual labors and privations." — London Sat. Review.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
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By George B. Prescott. With Illustrations, i vol., 8vo. Cloth,
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purpose in the elucidation of the text." — Extract from Pre/ace.
MAJOLICA AND FAYENCE,
Italian, Sicilian, Majorcan, Hispano-Moresque, and Persian. By
Arthur Beckwith. With Photo-engraved Illustrations, i vol.,
i2mo. $1.50.
" The interest shown by visitors in the ceramic display at the International Exhi-
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FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE:
A Series of Detached Essays, Addresses, and Reviews. By John
TYiVDALL, F. R. S. Fifth edition. 625 pages. i2mo. 82.50.
The fifth edition of the "Fragments of Science" now appears gready enlarged by
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scientific articles in Part I. and the controversial discussions in Part II., to which there
is a special introduction.
New Yokk: D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers.
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TWO WOMEN.
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By James E. Freeman. i6ino. Cloth, $1.25.
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ters graphically descriptive of art-life in Italy. The book is eminently enjoyable to all
classes of readers, and especially entertaining to artists. Nothing more gossipy, bright,
and readable, has recently appeared.
SIX LE0TUEE3 ON LIGHT,
Delivered in America in i872-'73. By John Tyndall, F. R. S. Sec-
ond edition, i vol., i2mo. Cloth, $1.50.
" Professor Tyndall's American Lectures form incomparably the best popular ex-
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portant additions, put it in larger type, and substituted new and superior illustrations,
so that the edition which now appears has very much the aspect of a new work." —
Popular Science Monthly,
PETITES CAUSERIES;
Or, ELEMENTARY ENGLISH AND FRENCH CONVERSA-
TIONS. For Young Students and Home Teaching. To which are
added Models of Juvenile Correspondence, in French and English.
By AcHiLLE MoTTEAU. With numerous Illustrations, i vol.,
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AND OTHER POLITICAL ESSAYS. By Walter Bagehot,
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" With the author's inclination and capacity to regard public questions in their sci-
entific aspects, many readers are already familiar through his suggestive volume entitled
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treats its subjects very much with reference to the principles of human nature and the
natural laws of human society. It is a free disquisition on English political experience ;
an acute, critical, and dispassionate discussion of English institutions, designed to show,
how they operate, and to point out their defects and advantages. The writer is not so
much a partisan or an advocate, as a cool, philosophical inquirer, with large knowledge,
clear insight, independent opinions, and great freedom from the bias of what he terms
that 'territorial sectarianism called patriotism,' His criticism of the faults of the Eng-
lish system is searching and trenchant, and his appreciation of its benefits and usefulness
is cordial, discriminating, and wise. The book, indeed, is full of instructive episodes,
and sagacious reflections on the springs of action in human nature, the exercise of power
by individuals or political bodies, the adaptation of institutions to the qualities and cir-
cumstances of the different classes who live under them, and numerous points of politi-
cal philosophy, which are applicable everj'where, and have an interest for all students of
political and social affairs." — Extract fro7n pre/ace.
THE VARIOUS CONTEH AXCES
BY WHICH
ORCHIDS ARE FERTILIZED BY INSECTS.
By Charles Darwin, M. A. Second edition, revised. With Illus-
trations. I vol., i2mo. Cloth. Price, $1.75.
" Mr. Darwin has prepared a new edition of his work on the fertilization of orchids
by insects, which was published in 1862, and has been for some time out of print. He
has, during the interval, received a great deal of information on the subject from vari-
ous correspondents, and has also continued his own researches ; and he has used the
materials thus obtained in remodeling the original work. The object which the writer has
in view is, as he explains, not only to show how wonderfully complex and perfect arc the
contrivances by which orchids are fertilized with pollen brought by insects from a dis-
tinct plant, but also to support his theory that ' it is an almost universal law of N»ature
that the higher organic beings require an occasional cross with another individual ; or,
which is the same thing, that no hermaphrodite fertilizes itself for a perpetuity of gener-
ations.' " — Saturday Review,
BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE,
By Frances Eleanor Trollope, author of "a Charming Fellow,"
etc. I vol., 8vo. Illustrated. Paper covers. Price, 75 cents.
" It has all the rapid movement of a play, and is at the same time full of piquant
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there is not a puppet among them. It has been said of one of them— the American
'medium'— that he is simply a caricature; but those who have seen a certain erratic
countryman of ours will recognize many of his curious traits."— iV. Y. Tribune.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers.
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GAETH.
A Novel. By Julian Hawthorne, author of " Bressant," " Saxon Studies," etc. i
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to venture the suggestion that, if ' Garth ' had not been a serial, it would have been more
compact and closely written, and so its situations more effective, its characters better
sustained." — New York World.
THE AET OF ELECTEO-METALLUEGY.
Including all Known Processes of Electro-Deposition. Ey G. Gore, LL. D., F. R. S.
I vol., i2mo. 391 pages. Illustrated. $2.50.
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and strength of interest.
NEW LANDS WITHIN THE AEOTIO CIECLE:
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Payer, one of the Commanders of the Expedition. Containing upward of 100
Illustrations from Drawings by the Author, engraved by J. D. Cooper, a Colored
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"We advise all who desire to enjoy a genuine and unalloyed pleasure to read his
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