CHAPTER IV.

MESMERISM AND PSYCHOLOGY, THE VENTRICLES

OF HARMONIAL SPIRITUALISM.

Little need be said of the origin of animal magnetism, since no index to such an epoch has been discovered, save that which exists in the constitution of man. The only rational conclusion is, that whenever and wherever man has existed this principle has also existed; and that all attending phenomena, developed thereby, have been common with men, only, that the laws and means have not always been recognized as connected with the effects. What is now known as mesmerism, psychology, psychometry, biology, spirit-manifestation etc, were formerly known by different appellations. Such as necromancy, divination, magic, sooth-saying, charming, sorcery, etc.

Omitting the history of remote ages, we only pause to note, briefly, the development of the phenomena of the last century.

In "Stilling's Pneumatology," a work translated from the German, are many interesting illustrations-very many striking instances embracing magnetism and its demonstrations, trance conditions, spirit seeing, etc. And to conduct the mind gradually along this magnetic current to

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the present expansion of the same manifestations, we indulge a few brief extracts from that work. "The science of animal magnetism, says Stilling, "which had occasionally manifested itself from the earliest ages, and was brought into system by Mesmer, between the years 1770 and 1780, but which, at the very outset, met with most profound contempt, in consequence of the most extravagant charlatanry, and the most shocking abuse which was made of it, was now investigated by very able, impartial, and candid naturalists-by men who really cannot be charged with the weakness of enthusiasm.

To avoid all unnecessary prolixity, I will only here adduce such results of animal magnetism, as are certain and beyond a doubt.

But before I proceed further, I must give all my readers a serious caution: Animal magnetism is a very dangerous thing." "Pneumatology," pp. 27-8.

From the above, it appears that when Stilling wrote, near a century ago, the evils accruing from animal magnetism were somewhat, at least, understood. Well for the world if they had been, and were better known. If so, the cause, by many not discovered, of the most deplorable evils would be so revealed as to shock the sense of the much injured, by reason of a most diabolical use of insidious laws. "When an intel

ligent physician employs it for the cure of diseases, says Stilling, "there is no objection to it." Even so; but when quacks in medicine, and also the "affinitizing bands," who so benevolently (selfishly) pity those uncongenially united by the laws of matrimony,-when these employ it as a source of charming, it is disastrous to the social relations of life. It severs those pleasantly united, corrodes the conjugial element, dissipates the love of the "twain" that they are no more one flesh, and produces nameless results greatly to be lamented.

On p. 30, ibid, this author thus continues the subject of magnetism and its results:

"The history of the somnambulist of Lyons, says the journal of Paris, presents an assemblage of such striking facts, that we should be inclined to regard the whole as charlatanry and deceit, if credible eye-witnesses had not vouched for the truth of it. . . The catalepsy of a lady at Lyons, had been for some time the subject of conversation in that city; and M. Petetain had already published several very surprising facts relative to it, when Mr. Bellanche became desirous of becoming an eye-witness. He chose the moment, for visiting this lady, when she was approaching the crisis, (the time of magnetic sleep.) Upon this he approached the bed, in which he saw a female lying motionless, and who was, to

all appearance, sunk into a profound sleep. He laid his hand, as he had been instructed, on the stomach of the somnambulist, and then began his interrogatories. The patient answered them all correctly. He then asked the sleeper if she could read the letter," (which he folded and laid on her stomach,) "to which she answered yes. According to the account, the somnambulist, clairvoyant, or medium, read to his satisfaction. The only difference between this case and the modern psychometric mode, is, the letter, now, is placed upon the cerebrum, over the perceptive faculties.

The medium at Lyons, during Mr. Ballanche's test, according to the account, read from a book through a wall. Can the mooted Poughkeepsie Seer do more? And how many of this developed age can equal even this case? Another instance related by Stillings was that of a somnambulist visited by Gmelin, who in search of mesmeric facts, in 1780, went to Carlsruhe and found that "what passed in the souls of those with whom she," (the somnambulist,) "was placed in connection could be read." For "she told him, distinctly, every thing that he imagined." p. 32, ibid.

"Another individual of great integrity," con tinues the author, p. 33, "and to whom I am much attached, told me that his wife had once a

housekeeper, who had also been magnetized on account of illness, and had at length, during her magnetic sleep, attained an extraordinary degree of clearness of vision. In this state she had communicated remarkable and important discoveries concerning the invisible world.

She

brought intelligence from the invisible world, respecting certain important personages, enough to make the hearers' ears tingle. She once said to her master, in the crisis," (magnetic state,) "your brother has just expired at Magdeburg. No one knew anything of his illness, and, besides this, Magdeburg was many miles distant. A few days after, the news arrived of his death, which exactly agreed with the prediction."

These are cases where psychometry and spirit seeing was induced by animal magnetism. In 1848 the following similar case occurred in the town of Berlin, Rensselaer Co., N. Y.:

Mrs. Buton, who had long suffered from an extreme nervous debility, by the earnest solicitation of her friends, and as an experiment, was pathetised by the writer, then Pastor of a Baptist church in that town, of which the lady was a member. The object, at the time, was not so much to restore her lost health, as to quiet the agitated nervous system. From the effect of this pathetism, Mrs. Buton very frequently declared herself in the spirit world holding converse