TABLE TURNING.
The point to which I at first directed my attention was to ascertain the
power, which, by means of mesmerism, I might acquire over the elemental
forces of nature. I found that with or without actual contact I could at
will paralyze the whole body of another, subject it in great measure to
my own will, and force it to obey my bidding. I could render it
preternaturally weak and preternaturally strong. I found also that I
could produce all these effects at a distance, by means of magnetized
inanimate objects. For instance, I would magnetize a bunch of flowers,
and a person knowing nothing of what I had done, who should take them up
and smell of them, would exhibit all the usual phenomena of the
mesmerized. Here it was evident that the mesmeric power, whatever it
might be, could act directly on matter, and lodge itself in a material
object. It was clear then that the mesmeric phenomena had a real
objective cause, and therefore could not be the effects either of
imagination or hallucination. Here was a most striking and important
fact, and one which entirely refuted the ultra spiritualism of the
majority of mesmerizers.
My experiments in clairvoyance and second sight were equally surprising
in their results. The theory of those who conceded the facts was, that
in some inexplicable way, the somnambulist uses the brain of him with
whom he or she is _en rapport_, and therefore is restricted in the
clairvoyant power to the images already in that brain. I mesmerize, say
a young woman. In her mesmeric state she becomes clairvoyant. She can
see with my organs of vision whatever I myself can see, or have seen,
but nothing else. She can tell my most secret thoughts and intentions,
or those of any one with whom she is _en rapport_, but nothing more. She
can answer correctly any question the answer to which is known to the
interrogator, but not questions the answer to which is unknown to him.
But repeated and well-attested experiments prove to the contrary.
Nothing is more common than for her to answer correctly questions
equally unknown to herself and to those with whom she is placed in
communication, and in cases where it is certain the answer could not be
known by any human means to either. The magnetic power was, then,
clearly a medium of knowledge distinct from the brain or mind of the
magnetizer, or individual with whom the magnetized is _en rapport_.
What tends to confirm this is the surprising fact that persons
mesmerized by a mesmerized glass of water, or bunch of flowers, manifest
equally a superhuman knowledge. I passed one day by a boarding-school,
and threw over the wall, unseen myself, a bunch of flowers which I had
mesmerized. One of the young ladies saw it, picked it up, smelled it,
and placed it in her bosom. Almost instantly she became strangely
affected, seemed bewitched, acted as one possessed. But what it is
important to note is, that she saw and described, as was clearly proved,
things with perfect accuracy, which none of the inmates of the school,
and neither she nor I, had any human means of knowing. She had learned
no language but English, and yet could understand and answer readily in
any language in which she was questioned, could and did foretell events,
with all the particulars of time and place when they would happen.
Moreover, the poor girl herself complained of feeling herself under a
foreign power, and one which made her say and do things to which she
felt, even at the moment, the greatest repugnance. It was clear, then,
that the mesmeric power was not a mere blind force, but acted from
intelligence and will, and an intelligence and will foreign to mine, for
how could I lodge my intelligence and will in a bunch of flowers, and
render them there more powerful than in myself? Clearly the force was
not exclusively material, unless matter can be endowed with intelligence
and will.
I was somewhat puzzled, it is true, but I was resolved to continue my
experiments, and wrest from nature, if possible her last secret. I soon
found that it was not necessary to operate with others; that I had the
clairvoyant power myself. With a slight effort I could throw myself into
the mesmeric state. As soon as I found myself in this state I seemed no
longer master of myself. I suffered in entering into it, and on coming
out of it, convulsions more or less violent. While in it, I felt
oppressed at the pit of my stomach, and my organs of speech seemed to be
used by another. When I spoke, it was clear to me that I heard a voice
at the pit of my stomach, speaking the words, and I was perfectly
conscious of struggling not to say things which, nevertheless, were
uttered by my organs. If in this state I sat down to write, my arm and
pen seemed seized upon by a foreign power, and moved and guided without
any agency of mine. What I wrote I knew not, and had never had in my
mind till it came off the end of my pen, and I read it as written down.
Evidently the power was distinct from me, and operated by a will not my
own.
But I was not at all pleased to find myself subject even momentarily to
a foreign power. I did not choose to let another use my organs, and to
suffer my own will to lie in abeyance. The question arose, whether the
same power could not be made to operate without using my organs. If I
could mesmerize a material object, and by that mesmerize persons, why
might I not mesmerize by it other material objects, and make them serve
as organs to this power? I tried the experiment. I mesmerized a bunch of
flowers and laid them on a table in my room, with the will that they
should communicate to the table their mesmeric virtue. Immediately the
table began to move, and to dance round the room, to raise itself from
the floor, to balance itself on two legs, then on one leg, to come to me
or remove from me as I willed. I was delighted. I found the force could
be communicated to the table. I wished to ascertain whether this power
was intelligent or not. I required the table, if it could understand me,
to give two raps with one of its feet. Immediately it did so. Then I
required it, by the same sign, to tell me, whether it understood me by
virtue of the mesmeric force. It gave the sign. Then I requested it to
tell me, in the same way, whether this mesmeric force is one of the
forces of nature, like electricity or magnetism, or whether it is a
spirit. There was no answer. Is it, I asked, a spirit? No answer. If not
a spirit, let the table, I said, strike with one foot. No movement. I
went to the table, and found it, as it were, nailed to the floor. I
could not move it. I am a strong man, of far more than ordinary physical
strength, and was then in its full possession. The table was a light
card-table, but with all my strength, repeatedly put forth, I could not
so much as raise one end of it. This was extraordinary. I sat down on
the sofa at a little distance. Immediately I began to hear slight raps,
apparently under the table. Very soon they became louder, and seemed to
be sometimes on the table, and sometimes under it; sometimes they seemed
to come from a corner of the room, and sometimes from under the floor. I
knew not what to make of them, but I felt no alarm, and remained calm
and undisturbed, in the full possession of all my faculties. In some six
or eight minutes they ceased, and then I saw the bunch of flowers which
still lay on the table, taken up without visible agency, and carried and
placed in a porcelain vase on the mantle shelf. I was sure I was
surrounded by invisible and mysterious agencies, but I began to
apprehend that I was in the condition of the Magician’s apprentice, sung
by Goethe, who had overheard the word by which the master evoked the
spirits, but had forgotten or had not learned that by which he dismissed
them. I however retained my equanimity, and felt that I had gained at
least something.
The next day I tried my experiments anew. This time I merely mesmerized
the table. It soon began to move, raising itself about six inches from
the floor, and whirling round like a dancing dervish. It seemed animated
by a capricious or rather a mocking spirit, and it was some time before
I could make it behave with a little sobriety. But I had spent the
greater part of the night in consulting an old work on magic, which some
years before I picked up on one of the Quais of Paris. It was written
chiefly in characters and hieroglyphics, which at first I could not
decipher; but at length I stumbled upon what I found to be a key to
their meaning, and which was scarcely any meaning at all. However, I
obtained one or two significant hints, and I went armed with a new
power. I held a long dialogue with the table, which, however, I shall
not record. I ascertained the origin of the raps, how to produce them,
and how to read them. But this was but a trifle. I would have the power
visible to my eyes, submissive to my orders, and speak to me in plain
and intelligible language, properly so called. I obtained a promise that
this should come in due time, but that for the present I must suffer the
force to remain invisible, and be content with a language of mere
arbitrary signs.
I was informed that I was on the eve of gratifying my most secret and
ardent wish, and that I should have, in full measure, the knowledge and
power I craved. But I was not yet prepared, inasmuch as I craved them
for an irreligious end. I was moved by no noble motive. I was moved by
curiosity, and the love of power, for my own sake, not from love and
sympathy with mankind. I was not in harmony with the great principles of
nature, and did not seek the real end of the universe. I needed
purification, a sublimation of my affections, and an elevation of my
aims. I had devoted myself to the physical sciences, which was all very
well, but I had neglected moral science, which was not well. I had only
partially imbibed the spirit of the age, and took no part in the great
movements of the day; felt no interest in the great questions of social
amelioration and progress. I had no sympathy with the poorest and most
numerous class, and made no efforts to emancipate the slave, or to
elevate woman to her proper sphere in social and political life. I did
not properly love my race, and had no due appreciation of humanity. I
had great talents, great abilities, and might, if I would, make myself
the Messiah of the nineteenth century.
But what had I done? What good cause could boast of having had me for
its friend and advocate? Had I aided the Moral Reform Association? Had I
raised my voice in behalf of the Abolitionists? Had Owen or Fourier
found me a coadjutor in time of need? Had I risked my popularity in
defending new and unpopular sects, those prophets of the future? Or had
I given my sympathy to those noble spirits everywhere moving society,
and risking their lives to overthrow the tyranny of church and state, to
conquer liberty, and to raise up the down-trodden millions of mankind?
No, no; I had done nothing of all this. I might have been kind and
useful to this or that individual, and sympathized with suffering when
immediately under my eyes, and removable or mitigable by my individual
effort; but I had not sympathized with humanity, and labored to relieve
the poor and destitute, to enlighten the ignorant and superstitious of
remote and neglected regions. The age is philanthropic, and love is the
great miracle-worker of our times. In love you place yourself in harmony
with the source of all things, make yourself one with God, and possessor
of his omnipotence. Learn to love, associate yourself heart and soul
with the movement party of the times, and you will soon render yourself
capable of receiving an answer to your questions and your wishes.
It must not be supposed that all this was told me at once, or in plain,
direct terms. It was told me only a little at a time, and in a very
indirect and cumbersome mode of communication. It required several weeks
daily communing with my mesmerized table, and in spelling out the raps
with which I was favored. But though it reproved me, I was still
delighted. The power was good, and this accorded with my previous
conviction. I regarded the power which, by mesmerism, was brought into
play, as one of the primordial laws or elemental forces of nature, and
as nature was good, as it worked always to a good end, of course I could
hope to avail myself of it only in proportion as I myself became good
and devoted to the end to which nature herself works. God will work with
and for us, only as we work with and for him; that is, for the end for
which he himself works. As to the intelligence apparently possessed by
this force, that was in harmony with what of philosophy I had. Is not
God infinite, universal intelligence? and is he not the original and
similitude of the universe? What, then, is the universe itself but an
emanation of infinite and universal intelligence. All creatures
participate their creator, for they are nothing without him, and
therefore all that exists must participate intelligence, or be a
participated intelligence, and, of course, the higher the order of
existence, the greater and more comprehensive its intelligence. All
nature bears evidence that its laws are the laws of reason, and that its
primitive forces are intelligent forces. How, then, should this force
not be intelligent, and if intelligent, far more intelligent than I?
I resolved to prepare for placing myself in immediate relation with
infinite power and intelligence. I thought I caught a glimpse of a
deeper significance in the words, “ye shall be as gods,” than had been
generally suspected, and I began to think in real earnest that my sweet
lady friend in Philadelphia, who had so eloquently and lovingly defended
Eve in eating the forbidden fruit, was quite right, and that her
disobedience was really a brave and heroic act. Man could really become
as a god, but the priests had invented the prohibition to prevent him.
The god of the priests, then, could not be the true God, and Satan,
instead of being regarded as the enemy, should be, as the author of
_Festus_ seems to teach, loved and honored as the friend of man. A new
light seemed to break in at once upon my mind. The world had hitherto
worshipped a false god; it had called evil good, and good evil; it had
enshrined in its temples the enemy of man, and chained to the Caucasian
rock that god Prometheus, who was the true and noble friend and
benefactor of the race.