There is a circumstance which I can not help here mentioning in connection with this history of Thespesius, which on first reading struck me very forcibly.
About three years ago, I had several opportunities of seeing two young girls, then under the care of a Mr. A——, of Edinburgh, who hoped, chiefly by means of magnetism, to restore them to sight. One was a maid-servant afflicted with amaurosis, whom he had taken into his house from a charitable desire to be of use to her; the other, who had been blind from her childhood, was a young lady in better circumstances, the daughter of respectable tradespeople in the north of England. The girl with amaurosis was restored to sight, and the other was so far benefited that she could distinguish houses, trees, carriages, &c., and at length, though obscurely, the features of a person near her. At this period of the curé she was, unhappily, removed, and may possibly have relapsed into her former state. My reason, however, for alluding to these young women on this occasion is, that they were in the habit of saying, when in the magnetic state—for they were both, more or less, clairvoyantes—that the people whom Dr. A—— was magnetizing, in the same room, presented very different appearances. Some of them they described as looking bright, while others were, in different degrees, streaked with black.
One or two they mentioned over whom there seemed to hang a sort of cloud, like a ragged veil of darkness. They also said, though this was before any tidings of Baron von Reichenbach’s discoveries had reached this country, that they saw light streaming from the fingers of Mr. A—— when he magnetized them; and that sometimes his whole person seemed to them radiant. Now, I am positively certain that neither Mr. A—— nor these girls had ever heard of this story of Thespesius; neither had I, at that time; and I confess, when I did meet with it I was a good deal struck by the coincidence. These young people said that it was the “goodness or badness,” meaning the moral state, of the persons that was thus indicated. Now, surely, this concurrence between the man mentioned by Plutarch, and these two girls—one of whom had no education whatever, and the other very little—is worthy of some regard.
I once asked a young person in a highly clairvoyant state, whether she ever “saw the spirits of them that had passed away;” for so she designated the dead, never using the word death herself, in any of its forms. She answered me that she did.
“Then where are they?” I inquired.
“Some are waiting, and some are gone on before.”
“Can you speak to them?” I asked.
“No,” she replied, “there is no meddling nor direction.”
In her waking state she would have been quite incapable of these answers; and that “some are waiting and some gone on before,” seems to be much in accordance with the vision of Thespesius.
Dr. Passavent mentions a peasant-boy who, after a short but painful illness, apparently died, his body being perfectly stiff. He, however, revived, complaining bitterly of being called back to life. He said he had been in a delightful place, and seen his deceased relations. There was a great exaltation of the faculties after this; and having been before rather stupid, he now, while his body lay stiff and immoveable and his eyes closed, prayed and discoursed with eloquence. He continued in this state for seven weeks, but finally recovered.