After having lived in this state for two days, he had fits of madness, and having laid hold of his hands with his teeth, he died a second time, and was followed by those whom he had named. His master, who survived, fully justified his prediction. Men and women who fall into trances remain sometimes for several days without food, respiration, or pulsation of the heart, as if they were dead. Thauler, a famous contemplative (philosopher) maintains that a man may remain entranced during a week, a month, or even a year. We have seen an abbess, who when in a trance, into which she often fell, lost the use of her natural functions, and passed thirty days in that state without taking any nourishment, and without sensation. Instances of these trances are not rare in the lives of the saints, though they are not all of the same kind, or duration.
Women in hysterical fits remain likewise many days as if dead, speechless, inert, pulseless. Galen mentions a woman who was six days in this state.[[602]] Some of them pass ten whole days motionless, senseless, without respiration and without food.
Some persons who have seemed dead and motionless, had however the sense of hearing very strong, heard all that was said about themselves, made efforts to speak and show that they were not dead, but who could neither speak, nor give any signs of life.[[603]]
I might here add an infinity of trances of saintly personages of both sexes, who in their delight in God, in prayer remained motionless, without sensation, almost breathless, and who felt nothing of what was done to them, or around them.
Footnotes:
[[596]] August. lib. de Curâ pro Mortuis, c. xii. p. 524.
[[597]] Curialis—this word signifies a small employment in a village.
[[598]] IV. Reg. 18, et. seq.
[[599]] Lucian, in Phliopseud. p. 830.
[[600]] Plutarch, de Animâ, apud Eusebius de Præp. Evang. lib. ii. c. 18.