Popular Superstitions, and the Truths Contained Therein / With an Account of Mesmerism

by Herbert Mayo

In some, instead of trance, a common fit of hysterics is produced; in others, slight headache, and a sense of weight on the eyebrows, and difficulty of raising the eyelids, supervene.

In one young woman, whom I saw mesmerised for the first time by Dupotet, nothing resulted but a sense of pricking and tingling wherever he pointed with his hand; and her arm, on one or two occasions, jumped in the most natural and conclusive manner when, her eyes being covered, he directed his outstretched finger to it.

A gentleman, about thirty years of age, when the mesmeriser held his outstretched hands pointed to his head, experienced no disposition to sleep; but in two or three minutes he began to shake his head and twist his features about; at last, his head was jerked from side to side, and forwards and backwards, with a violence that looked alarming. But he said, when it was over, that the motion had not been unpleasant; that he had moved in a sort voluntarily—although he could not refrain from it. If the hands of the operator were pointed to his arm instead of his head, the same violent jerks ensued, and gradually extended to the whole body. I asked him to try to resist the influence, by holding his arm out in strong muscular tension. This had the effect of retarding the attack of the jerks, but, when it came on, it was more violent than usual. I have lately seen another similar case. The seizure is evidently a form of St. Veitz’s dance brought out by the operation of the Od force. In neither of these two cases could trance be induced.

A servant of mine, aged about twenty-five, was mesmerized by Lafontaine, for a full half-hour, and, no effect appearing to be produced, I told him he might rise from the chair and leave us. On getting up he looked uneasy, and said his arms were numb. They were perfectly paralyzed from the elbows downwards, and numb to the shoulders. This was the more satisfactory, that neither the man himself, nor Lafontaine, nor the four or five spectators, expected this result. The operator triumphantly drew a pin and stuck it into the man’s hand, which bled, but had no feeling. Then heedlessly, to show it gave pain, Lafontaine stuck the pin into the man’s thigh, whose flashing eye, and half suppressed growl, denoted that the aggression would certainly have been returned by another, had the arm which should have done it not been really powerless. However, M. Lafontaine made peace with the man, by restoring him the use and feeling of his arms. This was done by dusting them, as it were, by quick transverse motions of his extended hands. In five minutes nothing remained of the palsy but a slight stiffness, which gradually wore off in the course of the evening.

Occasionally partial tonic spasm (improperly termed catalepsy, for it is of the nature of catochus, and the rigidity attending it is absolute) supervenes as the only consequence of mesmerising a limb. This result, which is not less alarming to the patient who has not been led to expect it than the preceding, may be got rid of in the same way. If you point with your fingers to the rigid muscles, or again, as it were, dust the limb with brisk transverse passes, or breathe upon it, the stiffness is thawed and disappears. Trance is seldom induced by mesmeric passes without more or less partial muscular rigidity of this kind supervening; it always yields to the means which have been mentioned.

Genuine and ordinary trance I have seen produced by the same manipulations in from three minutes to half-an-hour. The patient’s eyelids have dropped, he has appeared on the point of sleeping, but he has not sunk back upon his chair; then he has continued to sit upright—seemingly perfectly insensible to the loudest sounds, or the acutest and most startling impressions on the sense of touch. The pulse is commonly a little increased in frequency; the breathing is sometimes heavier than usual.

Occasionally, as in Victor’s case, the patient quickly and spontaneously emerges from the state of trance-sleep into trance half-waking—a rapidity of development which I am persuaded occurs much more frequently among the French than with the English or Germans. English patients, especially, for the most part require a long course of education, many sittings, to have the same powers drawn out. And these are by far the most interesting cases. I will describe, from Mr. Williamson’s account, the course he has usually followed in developing his patient’s powers, and the order in which they have manifested themselves.

On the first day, perhaps, nothing can be elicited. But after some minutes, the stupor seems, as it were, less embarrassing to the patient, who appears less heavily slumbrous, and breathes lighter again: or it may be the reverse, particularly if the patient is epileptic; after a little, the breathing may be deeper, the state one of less composure. Pointing with the hands to the pit of the stomach, laying the hands upon the shoulders, and slowly moving them along the arms down to the hands, the whole with the utmost quietude and composure on the part of the operator, will dispel this oppression.

And the interest of the first sitting is confined to the process of awakening the patient, which is one of the most marvellous phenomena of the whole. The operator lays his two thumbs on the space between the eyebrows, and as it were vigorously smooths or irons the eyebrows, rubbing them from within outwards seven or eight times. Upon this, the patient probably raises his head and his eyebrows, and draws a deeper breath, as if he would yawn; he is half awake, and blowing upon the eyelids, or the repetition of the previous operation, or dusting the forehead by smart transverse wavings of the hand, or blowing upon it, causes the patient’s countenance to become animated; the eyelids open, he looks about him, recognises you, and begins to speak. If any feeling of heaviness remains, any weight or pain of the forehead, another repetition of the same manipulations sets all right. And yet this patient would not have been awakened if a gun had been fired at his ear, or his arm had been cut off.

At the next sitting, or the next to that, the living statue begins to wake in its tranced life. The operator holds one hand over the opposite hand of his patient, and makes as if he would draw the patient’s hand upwards, raising his own with short successive jerks, yet not too abrupt. Then the patient’s hand begins to follow his; and, often having ascended some inches, stops in the air catochally. This fixed state is always relieved by transverse brushings with the hand, or by breathing in addition, on the rigid limb. And it is most curious to see the whole bodily frame, over which spasmodic rigidness may have crept, thus thawed joint by joint. Then the first effect shown commonly is this motion, the patient’s hand following the operator’s. At the same sitting he begins to hear, and there is intelligence in his countenance when the operator pronounces his name: perhaps his lips move, and he begins to answer pertinently, as in ordinary sleep-walking. But he hears the operator alone best, and him even in a whisper. Your voice, if you shout, he does not hear: unless you take the operator’s hand, and then he hears you too. In general, however, now the proximity of others seems in some way to be sensible to him; and he appears uneasy when they crowd close upon him. It seems that the force of the relation between the operator and his patient naturally goes on increasing, as the powers of the sleep-walker are developed; but that this is not necessarily the case, and depends upon its being encouraged by much commerce between them, and the exclusion of others from joining in this trance-communion.