“I experienced at the same time a feeling of great pleasure in giving way to the attraction which dragged me sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other; then a kind of surprise on feeling my head fall into Mr. Townshend’s hand, who appeared to me from that time to be the cause of the attraction. To his inquiry if I were well, and what I felt, I found I could not answer, but I smiled; I felt that my features expanded in spite of my resistance. I was inwardly confused at experiencing pleasure from an influence which was mysterious to me. From this moment I wished to wake, and was less at my ease; and yet, on Mr. Townshend asking me whether I wished to be awakened, I made a hesitating movement with my shoulders. Mr. Townshend then repeated some frictions which increased my sleep, yet I was always conscious of what was passing around me.
“He then asked me if I wished to become lucid, at the same time continuing, as I felt, the frictions from the face to the arms. I then experienced an indescribable sensation of delight, and for an instant saw before me rays of dazzling light, which instantly disappeared. I was then inwardly sorrowful at this state being prolonged. It appeared to me that enough had been done with me. I wished to awake, but could not; yet when Mr. Townshend and Mr. Desor spoke, I heard them. I also heard the clock, and the watchman cry, but I did not know what hour he cried. Mr. Townshend then presented his watch to me, and asked me if I could see the time, and if I saw him; but I could distinguish nothing. I heard the clock strike the quarter, but could not get out of my sleepy state. Mr. Townshend then woke me with some quick transverse movements from the middle of the face outward, which instantly caused my eyes to open; and at the same time I got up, saying to him, ‘I thank you.’ It was a quarter past eleven. He then told me—and M. Desor repeated the same thing—that the only fact which had satisfied them that I was in a state of mesmeric sleep was the facility with which my head followed all the movements of his hand, although he did not touch me, and the pleasure which I appeared to feel at the moment when, after several repetitions of friction, he thus moved my head at pleasure.
“(Signed) Agassiz.”
On the above quoted statement of Agassiz himself, Mr. Allan Putnam, in his pamphlet on “Agassiz and Spiritualism,” remarks:
“We are distinctly taught, in the above (see pages 6, 7, 8, and 9), that as philosopher and scientist, then in the full vigor of manhood, Agassiz ‘had for a long time sought’ for such an opportunity to be mesmerized as Dr. Townshend’s visit afforded. This professor, even then eminent—this man, gifted with gigantic mental and strong physical powers—reverently and prayerfully, as well as philosophically, sat calmly down, not to welcome and imbibe, but ‘to resist the mesmeric influence.’ Then Greek met Greek, scientist met scientist, in calm but resolute measurement of the strength and efficiency of their respective weapons and forces. Agassiz says his purpose was to resist. The whole tone of his account, however, indicates that his resistance was in no degree captious, but designed simply to measure the strength and enable him to note the action of mesmeric force. The vigorous professor then called into exercise all his own great inherent powers of resistance, and such further aid as his earnest aspiration could bring to his support, and yet was forced to yield up to another’s will all command over his own physical organs. A stronger than he entered and ruled over his peculiar domain. The Author of all things, though besought, did not so co-operate as to countervail the legitimate action of natural powers. Invisible forces, emitted and directed by another man’s mind, against which his own robust intellect was planted in calm and firm resistance, penetrated even the compact Agassiz, and caused him,
“1st. To feel the sensation of a current through all his limbs.
“2d. To close his eye-lids from necessity.
“3d. To lose his powers of utterance.
“4th. To lose power to change the position of his arms.
“5th. To lose power to even will to move his arms.