Dr. Maitland, in his valuable _Illustrations of Mesmerism_, has not, I
think, noticed an important passage in St. Augustine's treatise, _De Genesi
ad litteram_, l. XII. c. 17. §§ 34. _seq._, in which, after saying that
demons _can read men's thoughts_, and know what is passing at a distance,
he proceeds to give a detailed account of two cases of _clairvoyance_. The
whole is written with his usual graphic power, and will well reward the
perusal. I must content myself with a brief outline of the facts.
1. A patient, suffering from a fever, was supposed to be possessed by an
unclean spirit. Twelve miles off lived a presbyter, with whom, in mesmerist
phraseology, he was _en rapport_. He would receive no food from any other
hands; with him, except when a fit was upon him, he was calm and
submissive. When the presbyter left his home the patient would indicate his
position at each stage of his journey, and mark his nearer and nearer
approach. "He is entering the farm--the house--he is at the door;" and his
visitor stood before him. Once he foretold the death of a neighbour, not as
though he were predicting a future event, but as if recollecting a past.
For when she was mentioned in his hearing, he exclaimed, "She is dead, I
saw her funeral; that way they carried out her corpse." In a few days she
fell sick and died, and was carried out along that very road which he had
named.
2. A boy was labouring under a painful disorder, which the physicians had
vainly endeavoured to relieve. In the exhaustion which followed on his
convulsive struggles, he would pass into a trance, keeping his eyes open,
but insensible to what was going on around him, and passively submitting to
pinches from the bystanders (_ad nullam se vellicationem movens_). After
awhile he awoke and told what he had seen. Generally an old man and a youth
appeared to him; at the beginning of Lent they promised him ease during the
forty days, and gave him _directions by which he might be relieved and
finally cured_. He followed their counsel, with the promised success.
Augustine's remarks (c. xviii. § 39.) on these and similar phenomena are
well worth reading. He begs the learned not to mock him as speaking
confidently, and the unlearned not to take what he says on trust, but hopes
that both will regard him simply as an inquirer. He compares these visions
to those in dreams. Some come true, and some false; some are clear, others
obscure. But men love to search into what is singular, neglecting what is
usual, though even more inexplicable; just as when a man hears a word whose
sound is new to him, he is curious to know its meaning; while he never
thinks of asking the meaning of words familiar to his ear, however little
he may really understand them. If any one then wishes for a satisfactory
account of these strange phenomena, let him first explain the phenomena of
dreams, or let him show how the images of material objects reach the mind
through the eyes.