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

by Herbert Mayo

But a more conclusive instance still has been already mentioned in Letter X. M. Petetin made a chain of seven persons holding hands, the seventh holding the hand of a cataleptic patient, who at that time heard by her fingers only. When Dr. Petetin spoke to the fingers of the first, i. e. the most remote, person of the chain, the cataleptic person heard him as well as if he had spoken to her own fingers. Even when a stick was made to form part of the circuit, the cataleptic still heard Dr. Petetin’s whisper, uttered at the other end of the chain. Not so, however, if one of the parties forming the chain wore silk gloves.

VI. Trance-Identification of persons at a distance by means of material objects.

VI. Trance-Identification of persons at a distance by means of material objects.—A very lucid clairvoyante, her eyes being bandaged, recognises not the less, without preparation or effort, every acquaintance present in the room; describes their dress, the contents of their purses, or of letters in their pockets, and reads their innermost thoughts. An ordinary clairvoyante usually requires the contact of the party’s hand with whom it is proposed to bring her into trance-relation; then only does she first know any thing about her new patient. It cannot be doubted that, in the latter case, it is the establishment of an Od-current between the two that enables the mind of the clairvoyante to penetrate the interior being of the visiter,—just as, in the humblest effects of common mesmerism, a relation is sensibly established between the party entranced and her mesmeriser, through the Od-current which he had previously directed upon her, in order to produce the trance. So far, all is theoretically clear enough.

But how is the establishment of the same relation between the clairvoyante and a party wholly unknown to her, and residing many miles off, to be explained, when the only visible medium of physical connexion employed has been a lock of hair or a letter written by the distant party, and placed in the hands of the clairvoyante? Let me begin by giving the explanation, and afterwards exemplify the phenomenon out of my own experience.

I conceive that the lock of hair, or the letter on which his hand has rested, is charged with the Od-fluid emanating from the distant person; and that the clairvoyante measures exactly the force and quality of this dose of Od, and, as it were, individualizes it. Then, using this clue, distance being annihilated to the entranced mind, it seeks for, or is drawn towards, whatever there is more of this same individual Od quality any where in space. When that is found, the party sought is identified, and brought into relation with the clairvoyante, who proceeds forthwith to tell all about him.

Now for an exemplification of this marvellous phenomenon. Being at Boppard, a letter of mine addressed to a friend in Paris was by him put into the hands of M. Alexis, who was asked to describe me. M. Alexis told at once my age and stature, my disposition, and my illness; how that I am entirely crippled, and at that time of the day, half-past eleven, A.M. was in bed. All this, to be sure, M. Alexis might have read in my friend’s mind, without going farther. But, he added, this gentleman lives on the sea-coast. My friend denied the assertion; but M. Alexis continued very positive that he was right. Now, most oddly, the Rhine, on the banks of which I resided then, is at Boppard the boundary of Prussia; and I never cross it, or visit Nassau, but I am in the habit of sitting on the bank, listening to the breaking of the surge, which the passing steamers create, and which exactly resembles the murmur of the sea. This very mistake of M. Alexis helped to convince me that this performance of his was genuine. However, being stoutly contradicted by my friend, M. Alexis reconsidered the matter, and said, “No; he does not live on the sea-coast, but on the Rhine, twenty leagues from Frankfort.” This answer was exact. But there was another point which M. Alexis hit with curious felicity. I should observe that this friend was one of a few months’ date, who had no means of comparing what I am with what I was formerly. But it had happened that I had written, not to him, but to a friend resident in England, about the same time, that, ill as I was, my mind was singularly clear and active, and that I regarded the fact as a sign my end was at hand; that the mental brightness probably resembled the flaring-up of a rushlight before it goes out. Well, M. Alexis, adverting to my condition, observed that I was extremely weak, and had suffered much from irritation of the nerves;—facts true enough, but which certainly would not have led him to infer the existence of that clearness of mind which I had myself remarked. Nevertheless, strangely added M. Alexis, “Le morale n’en est pas atteint; au contraire, l’esprit est plus dégagé et plus vif qu’auparavant.” I can therefore entertain no doubt, that at four hundred miles’ distance, merely by handling a recent letter from me, M. Alexis had identified me as its writer, through the Od-fluid the letter conveyed; and had truly penetrated my physical and mental being so completely, that most that was important in my story lay distinctly revealed before him.

VII. Mental Travelling by clairvoyantes.

VII. Mental Travelling by clairvoyantes.—Let me begin with an instance. The following extract from the Zoist contains a very interesting narrative by Lord Ducie, which is exactly to the point:

“In the highest departments or phenomena of mesmerism, he for a long time was a disbeliever, and could not bring himself to believe in the power of reading with the eyes bandaged, or of mental travelling; at length, however, he was convinced of the truth of those powers, and that, too, in so curious and unexpected a way, that there could have been no possibility of deception. It happened that he had to call upon a surgeon on business, and when he was there the surgeon said to him, ‘You have never seen my little clairvoyante.’ He replied that he never had, and should like to see her very much. He was invited to call the next day, but upon his replying that he should be obliged to leave town that evening, he said, ‘Well, you can come in at once. I am obliged to go out; but I will ring the bell for her, and put her to sleep, and you can ask her any questions you please.’ He (Lord Ducie) accordingly went in. He had never been in the house in his life before, and the girl could have known nothing of him. The bell was rung; the clairvoyante appeared: the surgeon, without a word passing, put her to sleep, and then he put on his hat and left the room. He (Lord Ducie) had before seen something of mesmerism, and he sat by her, took her hand, and asked her if she felt able to travel. She replied, ‘Yes;’ and he asked her if she had ever been in Gloucestershire, to which she answered that she had not, but should very much like to go there, as she had not been in the country for six years: she was a girl of about seventeen years old. He told her that she should go with him, for he wanted her to see his farm. They travelled (mentally) by the railroad very comfortably together, and then (in his imagination) got into a fly and proceeded to his house. He asked her what she saw; and she replied, ‘I see an iron gate and a curious old house.’ He asked her, ‘How do you get to it?’ she replied, ‘By this gravel-walk;’ which was quite correct. He asked her how they went into it; and she replied, ‛I see a porch—a curious old porch.‘ It was probably known to many, that his house, which was a curious old Elizabethan building, was entered by a porch, as she had described. He asked her what she saw on the porch, and she replied, truly, that it was covered with flowers. He then said, ‛Now, we will turn in at our right hand; what do you see in that room?’ She answered with great accuracy, ‘I see a book case, and a picture on each side of it.’ He told her to turn her back to the book case, and say what she saw on the other side; and she said, ‘I see something shining, like that which soldiers wear.’ She also described some old muskets and warlike implements which were hanging in the hall; and upon his asking her how they were fastened up, (meaning by what means they were secured,) she mistook his question, but replied, ‘The muskets are fastened up in threes,’ which was the case. He then asked of what substance the floors were built; and she said, ‘Of black and white squares,’ which was correct. He then took her to another apartment, and she very minutely described the ascent to it as being by four steps, He (Lord Ducie) told her to enter by the right door, and say what she saw there; she said, ‘There is a painting on each side of the fire-place.’ Upon his asking her if she saw any thing particular in the fire-place, she replied, ‘Yes; it is carved up to the ceiling,’ which was quite correct, for it was a curious old Elizabethan fire-place. There was at Totworth-court a singular old chestnut-tree; and he told her that he wished her to see a favourite tree, and asked her to accompany him. He tried to deceive her by saying, ‘Let us walk close up to it;’ but she replied, ‘We cannot, for there are railings round it.’ He said, ‘Yes, wooden railings;’ to which she answered, ‘No, they are of iron,’ which was the case. He asked, ‘What tree is it?’ and she replied that she had been so little in the country that she could not tell; but upon his asking her to describe the leaf, she said, ‘It is a leaf as dark as the geranium-leaf, large, long, and jagged at the edges.’ He (Lord Ducie) apprehended that no one could describe more accurately than that the leaf of the Spanish chestnut. He then told her he would take her to see his farm, and desired her to look over a gate into a field which he had in his mind, and tell him what she saw growing; she replied that the field was all over green, and asked if it was potatoes, adding that she did not know much about the country. It was not potatoes, but turnips. He then said, ‘Now look over this gate to the right, and tell me what is growing there.’ She at once replied, ‘There is nothing growing there; it is a field of wheat, but it has been cut and carried.’ This was correct; but knowing that, in a part of the field, grain had been sown at a different period, he asked her if she was sure that the whole of it had been cut. She replied, that she could not see the end of the field, as the land rose in the middle, which in truth it did. He then said to her, ‘Now we are on the brow, can you tell me if it is cut?’ She answered, ‘No, it is still growing here.’ He then said to her, ‛Now, let us come to this gate—tell me where it leads to.‘ She replied, ‛Into a lane.’ She then went on and described every thing on his farm with the same surprising accuracy; and upon his subsequently inquiring, he found that she was only in error in one trifling matter, for which error any one who had ever travelled (mentally) with a clairvoyante could easily account, without conceiving any breach of the truth.”

If the preceding example stood alone, or if, in parallel cases, no further phenomena manifested themselves, nothing more would be required to explain the facts than to suppose that the mental fellow-traveller reads all your thoughts, and adopts your own imagery and impressions. But there are not wanting cases in which the fellow-traveller has seen what was not in his companion’s mind, and was at variance with his belief; while subsequent inquiry has proved that the clairvoyante’s unexpected story was true. These more complicated cases prove that the clairvoyante actually pays a mental visit to the scene. But she can do more; she can pass on to other and remoter scenes and places, of which her fellow-traveller has no cognizance.