Townsend, on Mesmerism, tells an instructing and amusing anecdote of a
test, by a learned doctor of Antwerp, upon a clairvoyant girl. The doctor
was allowed, at a seance, to select his own test, when he said,--
"If the somnambulist"--that was what he termed her--"tells me what is in
my pocket, I will believe." Then to her he put the question,--
"What is in my pocket?"
"A case of lancets," was the reply.
"True," said the doctor, somewhat startled. "But the young lady may know
that I am a medical man; hence her guess that I carry a case of
instruments in my pocket. But if she will tell me the number of lancets in
the case, I will believe."
"Ten," was the correct answer.