The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
Doctor of Medicine, I resumed and extended my college studies, entered
largely into the study of natural history, physical geography, zoölogy,
geology, mineralogy, and indeed all the ’ologies, then so fashionable
that one must have a smattering of them if he would woo successfully his
sweetheart. I paid some attention to Gall and Spurzheim’s new science of
Phrenology, when Spurzheim visited this country, where he died, and was
much interested in it till I had the misfortune to listen to a course of
lectures in its exposition and defence, by George Combe, Esq., the great
Scottish phrenologist. That course upset me, and I have since abandoned
Phrenology, save so far as I find it taught by Plato in his Timæus, and
only laughed at its pretensions and its adherents.
I was arrested, for a moment, by Boston Transcendentalism, but I could
not make much of it. Its chiefs told me that I was not spiritual enough
to appreciate it, and that I was too much under the despotism of the
understanding to be able to rise to those empyrean regions where the
soul asserts her freedom, and sports with infinite delight in all the
luxury of the unintelligible. I thought they talked metaphysics, what
neither their hearers nor themselves could understand; and finding
myself very little enlightened by their intelligible unintelligibility,
their dark utterances, and their Orphic sayings, I gave them up, and
returned to my laboratory.
About 1836, I made the acquaintance of Dr. P——, or, as he claimed to be,
the Marquis de P——, a native of one of the French West India Islands,
but brought up and educated at Paris, where he had been a
Saint-Simonian, and a chief of the _savans_ of the new religion. The
decision of the French courts in 1833, that Saint-Simonism was not a
religion, and therefore that its chiefs were not priests, and entitled
to a salary from the state, dispersed the new sect, and he soon after
came to the United States, and commenced, though with a very imperfect
knowledge of our language, and very little facility in speaking it, a
course of lectures in several of our eastern cities, on Mesmerism, or,
as he preferred to call it, Animal Magnetism. His appearance was by no
means prepossessing, and his manners, though unpretending, were very far
from indicating that exquisite grace and polish which are supposed, for
what reason I know not, to be peculiar to the Frenchman; but he was a
serious, earnest-minded man, who in several branches of science had made
solid studies. I knew him well, and esteemed him much.
At that time I had paid not much attention to Mesmerism. I had heard of
Mesmer indeed, of his extraordinary pretensions, and the wonderful
phenomena which he professed to produce by his rod and tub; but I had
supposed that the matter had been put at rest for all sensible persons
by the famous report of the French Academy in 1784, signed, among
others, by Bailly the astronomer, and our own Franklin. I supposed that
every scientific man acquiesced in the conclusion of that report, that
the extraordinary phenomena exhibited by magnetism were to be ascribed
to the imagination, and that from the date of that report magnetism had
ceased to occupy the attention of the scientific. I was therefore
surprised, nay, scandalized, to find a man of real science, and, as I
wished to believe, of real worth, professing faith in what I had been
led to regard as an exploded humbug, and which, at the very best, could
have no practical utility beyond illustrating the deceptive power of the
imagination, and the sad consequences which might result to those
weak-minded people who become dupes to their own disordered fancy.
Dr. P—— assured me that I was mistaken both as to the bearing and as to
the effect of the famous report of the French Academy. That report, he
said, concedes the reality of the mesmeric phenomena, and only declares
that the assertion of Mesmer, that they are produced by means of a
subtle fluid analogous to electricity or magnetism, was not proven or
demonstrated by the experiments the commission witnessed; which gives no
uneasiness to any animal magnetist in our day, because now no one
pretends to explain those phenomena by means of such a fluid. It is
true, he said, the commission, in their published report, assert that
the phenomena are to be explained by the imagination; but in a private
report, addressed to the king, they say, that “it is impossible not to
recognize in them a _great power_ which agitates and subjects the
patients, and of which the magnetizer appears to be the depositary.”
This, contended Dr. P——, is by no means compatible with the theory which
ascribes them to the imagination, for that theory supposes the cause
that produces them to be in the magnetized, since it is to their
imagination, not to that of the magnetizer, that they are to be
ascribed; but in this secret report, the power which produces them is
assumed to be in the magnetizer, “of which,” it says, “he who magnetizes
seems to be the depositary.” For these, as well as other reasons, he
said, the report of the Academy was not regarded by magnetists as any
authority against Animal Magnetism as understood and practised at the
present time.
Moreover, he assured me, that the report of the Academy had not settled
the question, or seriously checked the cultivation or the progress of
Animal Magnetism. It had at no moment ceased to be studied and
practised, chiefly for its therapeutic effects, and, as he proved to me,
was at the time firmly held and practised by large numbers of the most
upright, benevolent, learned, and scientific members of the medical
profession in France, Germany, and Great Britain. It had continued to
make progress, and was now very generally held and respected on the
continent of Europe. If I would not be behind my age, if I would not
remain ignorant of a very curious and interesting class of phenomena, I
must, he insisted, investigate and make myself acquainted with Animal
Magnetism. I should do it as a lover of science; I should do it more
especially as a lover of my race, as a friend of humanity; for I might
rest assured that Animal Magnetism is the most facile and powerful means
ever yet discovered of solacing, and to a great extent curing, a
thousand ills that flesh is heir to.
My curiosity, I confess, was excited, and I resolved to investigate the
subject. Dr. P—— had picked up, somewhere in Rhode Island, a
somnambulist, an honest, simple-minded young woman, of no great strength
of intellect, and very little education or knowledge. She was sickly,
and suffering from some nervous affection. He had found her very
susceptible to the mesmeric influence, and he made her the subject of
numerous experiments. He had brought her, in the winter of 1836-7, to
Boston, and there exhibited her to his class. Spending that winter in
the same city, I consented one afternoon to be present at his
experiments. There were some twenty or thirty gentlemen present on the
occasion, mostly lawyers, physicians, ministers, and literary and
scientific gentlemen of distinction, all disbelievers in Mesmerism, and
on the alert to detect the least sign of deception or complicity.
The Doctor introduced his patient, who took her seat in an arm-chair
placed in the centre of the room, and, without any visible sign from Dr.
P——, was in a few minutes apparently fast asleep. Her breathing was
regular, her pulse natural, and her sleep sound and tranquil. Was it
sleep? It was, as far as we could ascertain, and sleep accompanied by
complete insensibility. We resorted to every imaginable contrivance to
awaken her. One tickled her nose with a feather, another shook her with
all his might, another discharged a pistol close to her ear, another
stuck pins and needles into her flesh,—all without the least effect.
There was no quivering or shrinking, no muscular contraction, and to the
rudest proofs she was as insensible as a corpse. We all exhausted our
inventive powers in vain, and stood astounded, unwilling to trust our
own senses, and yet unable to detect the least conceivable deception or
collusion. We none of us knew what to think or say. We were taken all
aback.
Various written questions, after we had given over trying to awaken her,
were handed to Dr. P——, which he put to her mentally, without a word or
sign that we could any of us discern, and to which she instantly
answered. One question was, the time of the day; she answered, and
answered correctly, much more so than most gentlemen’s watches present.
To every question put she answered, and so far as any of us knew, or
could ascertain, with perfect accuracy. The Doctor at length told her he
thought she had slept long enough, and would do well to wake up.
Instantly she was wide awake, and apparently unconscious of all that had
passed. She remained awake for some time, when Dr. P—— said to her, “I
will you to go to sleep again for just fifteen minutes, and then to wake
up.” Instantly she dropped asleep. One or two of the company took the
Doctor into a different part of the room, got him into an angry
discussion, and made him forget the order he had given. I stood by the
somnambulist holding my watch in my hand, and to my astonishment,
precisely at the expiration of fifteen minutes, she awoke. Various other
experiments were tried, various severe tests were put;—some of them with
complete success, others, indeed, proved total failures; and after a
session of about three hours the party broke up and went to their
several homes, some two or three converted, the greater part satisfied
that there was and could be no collusion or deception, and yet wholly
sceptical as to the alleged magnetic power.
CHAPTER II.
GUESSES.
It is no easy matter to give full credit to the reality of the mesmeric
phenomena, or to admit the alleged facts, and when forced to do so by a
mass of testimony which it is impossible to resist, nothing is more
natural than that we should suggest various hypotheses to account for
them. Of all these hypotheses no one, to those who have been
eye-witnesses of the mesmeric phenomena, is less satisfactory than that
which attributes them to a species of juggling or sleight-of-hand, or to
collusion between the magnetized and the magnetizer. Whatever may be the
jugglery or connivance in particular cases, or whatever be the real
solution of the problem, we must, as a general rule, admit the good
faith of the parties. The man who could produce by address or skill, by
art, the wonderful phenomena produced by the mesmerizer, who could so
successfully elude the scrutiny of the most acute and intelligent
witnesses, and so effectually deceive the senses of all classes, would
have no motive to practise mesmerism, for he could produce more
excitement, and gain more notoriety, and more money as a professed
juggler. It is very easy for those who have never seen the mesmeric
phenomena, to set them down as a mere cheat, which they, if present,
could very easily have detected, but it is very possible that they who
have witnessed them are as able to detect an imposition as would be
these critics themselves, and are far better judges than they are, not
having seen them, unless we are to suppose that the blind can in some
cases see better than those who have eyes. Among the innumerable
witnesses of these phenomena there may be as careful and as intelligent
observers as those who emit their oracles with solemn gravity on matters
of which they confessedly know nothing. Academicians and members of
royal and scientific societies are no doubt very respectable personages,
but they are not always the best observers in the world. I would trust
“Jack” to distinguish between a seal or horse-mackerel and the