ASTR.—Even those displayed before our learned bodies. Madame Celini
Sauvage, you remember, in the presence of the committee, in Paris, was
placed in somnambulism. Even while insensible to stimuli she formed, it
is recorded, a correct judgment of the diseases of persons around her,
especially in the person of M. Marc, one of the committee; and in that
of a young lady, on whom M. Dupuytren had operated for dropsy, and had
tried the effects of the milk of a goat which had been anointed with
mercury. Madame, unconscious of this, _prescribed the very same remedy_.
You remember the report, Evelyn.
EV. I remember, but believe it not.
CAST. And is it thus with _all_ our legends? have you no more faith in
your own order? There is the learned physician, Justin Kerner. _You_
have not forgotten, Astrophel, his beautiful story of that most
accomplished somnambule, the Prophetess of Prevorst, who seemed, as she
said, to draw from the air a living principle, and whose _very
vitality_, it was believed, was preserved by the magnetic influence. The
body of this ethereal creature enfolded her spirit like a veil of
film,—she was a very flower of light living on sun-beams. Her senses
were lighted up by the minutest atom. A web of gossamer stung her waxen
skin like a nettle. At the pale green light of a glow-worm, she fell
into ecstatic sleep; and then, (as to my own Tasso,) came to her
spectral visitants, with whom she conversed, and whose colourless forms
were visible even to her earthly companions. This fair creature had, as
the story goes, been some time dead, when her mother made passes over
her cold face and lips; and lo! her eyes opened, and a tremor was on her
lip. Were I Astrophel, methinks I would make a pilgrimage to Lowenstein,
where her body lies. And now, Evelyn, if you will, reprove me for my
wildness, but confess there must be a sort of truth in legends so
circumstantial as these.
EV. A fair question, dearest Castaly. Yes, it is the crude or false
interpretation of that _sort of truth_, a transient glimpse it may be,
of some embryo principle, that leads to popular error. A baseless theory
is raised on an _isolated_ fact; and infantile science, bursting from
its leading-strings ere it can crawl, topples headlong down the
precipice, and splits on the rock of hypothetical presumption.
And then the confusion into which the mind is thrown by the definitions
and conclusions of magnetizers, would make a very Babel of the fair
field of philosophy. The least perplexing, perhaps, is that of the
French _savans_ who referred magnetism to the efforts of a fluid matter
consisting of fire, air, and spirit, to preserve its equilibrium in
certain bodies which were, as to their capacity for this fluid, in a
state of plus and minus. There is nothing very unphilosophical in this;
for the essence of magnetism is somewhat analogous to eccentric
derangement of mind, a disturbance of that order or symmetry among the
faculties and actions, by which one is highly excited and another is
comparatively passive. In a word, Mesmerism is true in part: it _may_
induce catalepsy, somnambulism, exalted sensation, apathetic
insensibility, suspended circulation, even death. Clairvoyance and
prophecy alone are the impositions as regards its _effects_, as the
“blue flame” at the finger tips is of its _nature_.
One folly more. Mesmer himself vaunted to Dr. Von Ellikon, “twenty years
ago I magnetized the sun;” &c. so that the miracle of Joshua was but a
stroke of magnetism. Indeed, Richter, rector of the School of Dessau,
affirms that all the miracles of the Testament were but the sequences of
magnetic passes. And Kieser refers all to a “telluric spirit,” a sort of
magic, of which the sun and moon are the grand reservoirs; nay, this
influence is the real cause of sleep and waking.
IDA. So that we are mesmerized by the moon at night-fall, and
unmesmerized by the sun at the opening of the dawn.
EV. Then there were some aphorisms of Wolfart about _fiddling_ to the
viscera with his magnetic medicine, and working them up, as it were, to
a jig or a bolero. These are the visions of a madman. But surely the
illusion regarding this mysterious fluid is confessed in Dupotet’s own
notion of _his own_ wondrous faculty, when he asserts his belief that
animal magnetism is analogous to the royal touch, and the mysteries of
Apollo, and Æsculapius, and Isis, the miracles of Vespasian, and the
Sibylline prophecies.
ASTR. You sneer at this as you did at the blue flame; but Dupotet
assures us that while he is magnetizing his patients, he feels a
sensation at the points of his fingers resembling the _aura_ from
diffused electricity. Now is it not fair to ask if electro-magnetism may
not reside in the _animal_ as well as in the _mineral_, in _man_ as well
as in the _torpedo_ and _gymnotus_. And why may there not be a condition
of intercommunication or _en rapport_, a magnetic _aura_ creeping
through the nerves of each body?
We should not, therefore, make any hasty decision against the presence
of an _aura_ streaming from the fingers and directed by the will.
Monsieur Deleuze said, in Paris, “I do not know if this be material or
spiritual, nor to what distance it is impelled; but it is impelled and
directed by my will, for if I cease to will, the influence instantly
ceases.”
I remember Priestly opined that _phlogiston_ in our bodies _produced_
electricity, which was destined for our own purposes merely. But as the
_silurus_ and the _torpedo_ possess the power of _imparting theirs_,
although at the expense of their animal power, I presume to think that
concentrated mind _may_ impart our own nervous influence to others.
EV. I admire the acuteness of your question, Astrophel; but you are now
come down from your clouds; you are descending unawares to _physiology_.
There are, doubtless, many peculiar states of the nervous system at
present inexplicable. I grant it is _possible_ that the influence of the
nervous energy may become so eccentric as to illustrate the phenomena of
magnetism, if, as some believe, this influence depends on a subtle fluid
analogous to light, heat, and electricity; the nerve conveying this
fluid as the wire conducts the electric.
Thus an influence, which is apparently _physical_, may be, in reality,
_mental_, for there is usually _consciousness_ of the contact. M.
Bertrand believed that the mind alone of the patient was acted on, and
this is strengthened by the experiments of the Abbé Faria, who produced
many of these phenomena by merely exclaiming to his sensitive visitors,
“_Dormez_.”
ASTR. Well, you are drawing the influences of mind and body very closely
together, Evelyn. If animal magnetism be not the universal influence of
sensitive beings, what is _personal sympathy_?
EV. It is not that mysterious freemasonry of the senses which may impart
a superhuman knowledge, or confer a power of personal recognition. Yet
we are required to believe such stories.
ASTR. And are there not many well attested? There was a Monsieur de la
Tour Landrie, a nobleman of France, who so powerfully influenced a young
shoemaker by whom he was measured, that the youth fell into a senseless
syncope, and profuse hæmorrhage succeeded it. This influence was
repeated, and excited so deep an interest in the mind of the noble, that
he instituted an inquiry regarding his birth and fortunes. And the
result was, that Monsieur de la Tour discovered in the humble mechanic
the son of his sister, the Baronne de Vesines.
The thrill of feeling with which the lover touches the lip of his
mistress, the intense delight with which the mother presses her infant
to her bosom, are illustrations of that power to which I allude. It is
the magnetic touch of beauty which sends the fires of passion not only
through the bounding heart of youth, but even through the icy veins of
the stoic. “He that would preserve the liberty of his soul,” said
Socrates, “must abstain from kissing _handsome_ people.” “What, then,”
said Charmides, “must I be afraid of coming near a handsome woman?
Nevertheless, I remember very well, and I believe you do so too,
Socrates, that being one day in company with Critobulus’s beautiful
sister, who resembles him so much, as we were searching together for a
passage in some author, you held your head close to that beautiful
virgin, and I thought you seemed to take pleasure in touching her naked
shoulder with yours.” “Good God!” replied Socrates, “I will tell you
truly how I was punished for it for five days after. I thought I felt in
my shoulder a certain tickling pain as if I had been bit by gnats, or
pricked with nettles; and I must confess, too, that during all that time
I felt a certain hitherto unknown pain at my heart.”
EV. So that “the crime,” like that of Sir Peter Teazle, “carried its
punishment along with it.” But you must see that the mind of Socrates
first _appreciated_ beauty, ere this influence was imparted to him.
_Imagination_ is not certainly idle here, yet I grant, that if the charm
of _substantial_ beauty or endearment be wanting, poesy will ever be but
a cold and joyless sentiment.
ASTR. Then there is another mysterious sympathy, the fascination of the
evil eye, or _fascino_. There were, both in Africa and in Illyria,
writes Aulius Gellius, certain families believed to possess the power of
destroying trees, flowers, and children, and this by merely praising
them; and Plutarch and Pindar refer to the credence of the Greeks on
this point, who were wont to invoke the Fate Nemesis against this
fascination of an evil eye.
I think, too, traces of this credence may be found in Ovid, and Horace,
and Pliny.
EV. Yes, and in modern Italy the professors of the art are yet termed
_jettatori_, or _eye-throwers_. But Valletta, an Italian author,
conscious of the truth, boldly disclaims for his countrymen the notion
of _demoniac influence_, referring it to _physical impression_, somewhat
resembling the fascination of the eye of the rattlesnake, that drops, as
we are told, the bird from the branch into its mouth. In that exquisite
sympathy between mind and body (the sequence of an influence on
sensibility, or on the senses) consists the secret of all this.
You remember the effects of intense impression on the mind in the
excitement of catalepsy, and indeed in causing instantaneous death: this
is intense influence on the _sensibility_. The effects of deep
impression on the sight or touch, by the passes of magnetism, are
magnetic ecstacies: this is intense influence on the _senses_. So that
all your mysteries are the result of this influence passing through the
brain to the body; and the vaunted miracles of Mesmer, and Bertrand, and
Dupotet, are, as I have said, impositions, chiefly as regards the
_nature_ of their _influence_. And, like these, the doctrines of Fludd
_the Seeker_, of the Abbé Nollet, of Lavater, of Nicetas the Jesuit, and
the quaint ideas of many other visionaries, which you may read in their
writings, are really explicable by the laws of physiology.
When the magnetiser asserts that a patient should possess _a disposition
to be acted on_, he unwarily divulges his own secret; for this is
nothing more than blind faith in a promise. And this credulity is most
characteristic of that disordered condition of a nerve, acute
sensibility, in which the slightest causes may effect a seeming wonder.
Nay, even disease and _death were_ so induced during the manipulations
of Hensler and Emmelin.
This also is the secret of that influence imparted by the touch of a
seventh son; or of the hand of a criminal hanging on the gallows; or the
revolting precept of Pliny, that an epileptic should drink the blood of
a dying gladiator, as it gushes from his wound; or the _stroking_ of
Valentine Greatrex; the _sympathetic powder_ of Sir Kenelm Digby; the
_tractors_ of Perkins; of chiromancy, rhabdomancy, and of other
curiosities recorded in tracts and journals.
In my professional life, I have seen the same influence, though
infinitely less in degree, imparted by an implicit confidence in the
blessings of our science. Even Bertrand honestly confesses its power.
A lady was thrown into deep sleep by the touch of a magnet, sent by him
in an handkerchief from the distance of three hundred miles. But the
_same effect_ was produced by the contact of _unmagnetized_ cambric; and
Bertrand allows, that where an ignorance of his intention existed, _even
the magnetized talisman was powerless_ over his patient.
I could tell you tales of bits of wood effecting all the wonders of the
metallic tractors of Perkins; and cubes of lead, and those of nickel,
fraught, as a learned doctor had declared, with magnetic virtues; but I
spare you.
From this superstitious faith spring also the miracles of that pious
saint, who had assumed the staff of Saint Francis Xavier, the Prince
Hohenlohe. One of these was the cure of Miss O’Connor, attested by Dr.
Baddeley, of Chelmsford, who had tried in vain to relieve the lady of
_acute neuralgia_. She was directed to prostrate herself at the altar in
Chelmsford at the moment when the sainted prince would kneel at his
shrine in the cathedral of Bamberg. At the appointed time, during the
solemn celebration of high mass, as she exclaimed, “Thy will be done, O
Lord,” the agonizing limb was painless.
I do not doubt the possibility of such an incident. And here is the
unfolding of another secret of these German magnetizers, who were
believed to _shoot at_ their patients with the unerring aim of a rifle,
even though many miles might intervene. Nadler, as we are told in the
“Asclepeion,” was so good a shot, that he brought a woman to the ground
at the moment he fixed his magnetic aura at her, aiming between the eyes
and the bosom, even at the distance of eighteen miles.
I am aware that this, my philosophy, would not pass current at the
Vatican, for “the congregation of the holy office, having once applied
to the pope, to know if animal magnetism were lawful, and if penitents
might be permitted to be operated on; his holiness replied, that the
application of principles and means purely physical to things and
effects which are supernatural, for the purpose of explaining them
_physically_, is nothing but an unlawful and heretical deception.”
But I may tell you that his holiness himself was once a great monopolist
of saints’ cures, if we may believe a book, printed by Roberts, in
London, in 1605, entitled, “A Declaration of egregious Popish
Impostures, to withdraw the hearts of religious men, under pretence of
casting out devils; practised by Father Edmunds, alias Weston, a
Jesuite, and divers Romish priests his wicked associates.”
And, moreover, the interference of priests has often led to the
interdiction of protestants, in their scientific ministering to disease
the most severe, as typhus fever, or surgical operations, because they
were heretics; while the profane Paracelsus says, “It matters not, by
God or devil, so he _be_ cured;” even without an indulgence, I presume,
from Della Genga, or the leave of the sacred college.
Believe me, the influence of faith will illustrate all this mystery, and
reduce even these impostures to a simple truth. Without it, only the
grossest superstition would believe that sympathy would thus “take the
wings of the morning,” and impart to a mind that was thinking at our
antipodes a consciousness of our own sentiments; for this would be a
revival of that blind credulity, which in the darker ages was reposed in
the superhuman agency of magic and of witchcraft.