For example, a young person whom Mr. Williamson mesmerised became clairvoyant. In this state she paid me a mental visit at Boppard; and Mr. Williamson, who had been a resident there, was satisfied that she realized the scene. Afterwards I removed to Weilbach, where Mr. Williamson had never been. Then he proposed to the clairvoyante to visit me again. She reached, accordingly, in mental travelling, my former room in Boppard; and expressed surprise and annoyance at not finding me there, and at observing others in its occupation. Mr. Williamson proposed that she should set out, and try to find me. She said, “You must help me.” Then Mr. Williamson said, “We must go up the river some way, till we come to a great town,” (Mainz.) The clairvoyante said she had got there. “Then,” said Mr. Williamson, “we must now go up another river, (the Maine,) which joins our river at this town, and try and find Dr. Mayo on its banks somewhere.” Then the clairvoyante said, “Oh, there is a large house; let us go and see it; no, there are two large houses—one white, the other red.” Upon this, Mr. Williamson proposed that she should go into one of the two houses, and look about; she quickly recognised my servant, went mentally into my room, found me, and described a particular or two, which were by no means likely to be guessed by her. When Mr. Williamson subsequently came to visit me at Weilbach, he was forcibly struck with the appearance of the two houses, which tallied with the account given beforehand by the mental traveller. I have not the smallest doubt she mentally realized my new abode. Then, how did she do all this?
The first question is, how does the clairvoyante realize scenes which are familiar to her fellow-traveller? I cannot help inclining to the belief that, in the ordinary perception of a place or person, the mind acts exoneurally; and that our apprehension (as I have ventured to conjecture in Letter V.) comes thus always into a direct relation with the place or person. There is a peculiar vividness in a first impression, which every one must have observed; there is no renewing that force of impression again. This fact helps my hypothesis. It will be remembered again, that in Zschokke’s narrative of his seer-gift, he never penetrated the minds of his visiters unless at their very first visit. It is the same, even to a certain extent, with mesmeric inspection of the mind. My friend, who consulted M. Alexis for me, consulted him likewise for himself more than once. At the first visit, M. Alexis traced an aggravation of his illness, a year before, to distress occasioned by the death of two younger brothers at a short interval. On my friend’s subsequent visits, M. Alexis marked no knowledge at all of the latter occurrence. Slightly as these facts are connected, they concurrently strengthen my notion of the occurrence of an exoneural act of the mind in common perception. I suspect, I repeat, that, in visiting new places, the mind establishes a direct relation with the scenes or persons. Then, in the simplest case of mental visiting, where the scene visited is familiar to the other party, I presume that the clairvoyante’s mind, being in communion with the mind of the other, realizes scenes which the latter has previously exoneurally realized. Arriving thus at the scene itself, the clairvoyante observes for herself, and sees what may be new in it, and unknown to her fellow-traveller; and in the same way may pursue, as in the mental visit made to myself at Weilbach, suggested features of the locality, and be thus helped to beat about in space for new objects, and at length to recognise among them, and mentally identify, persons with whom she has already arrived at a mental mesmeric relation.
VIII. Mesmerising at a Distance. Mesmerising by the Will
VIII. Mesmerising at a Distance. Mesmerising by the Will.—I have not heard of a case in which a person has been for the first time mesmerised with effect by one out of the room.
Generally the mesmeriser is very near to his patient at the first sitting, often actually holding his hand—at all events so near that the Od-emanation of his person might be expected to reach the patient. And the patient is often sensible of new sensations, which he is disposed to attribute to the physical agency of the operator on him. In Mr. Braid’s cases, it seemed to me clear that the effects were mainly brought about, as in common mesmerism, by his personal influence.
Afterwards, when a patient has by use become highly sensitive to Od, and disposed to fall into trance, I have myself, by making passes in the next room, succeeded in producing the sleep. And I have seen, with open doors, mesmeric effects produced by passes at the distance of ninety feet.
But with persons rendered through use extremely susceptible of mesmeric impression, an effect may be produced by the habitual mesmeriser of the patient at almost unlimited distances. The following instance is given by Dr. Foissac in his valuable work on mesmerism, entitled Rapports et Discussions sur le Magnétisme Animal, (Paris, 1838.) Dr. Foissac speaks, in the first person, of an experiment made by himself on a patient of the name of Paul Villagrand, whom he had been in the habit of mesmerising in the usual way at Paris, where both resided.
“In the course of the June ensuing,” says Dr. Foissac, “Paul expressed the wish to pass some days in his native place, Magnac-Laval, Haute Vienne. I provided him with the means, and proposed to turn his journey to scientific account by attempting to entrance him at the distance of a hundred leagues. He was not to know my intention before the time came; but on the 2d of July, at half-past five P.M., his father was to give him a note from me, which ran thus—‘I am magnetising you at this moment; I will awake you when you have had a quarter of an hour’s sleep.’ M. Villagrand made the success of the experiment the more decisive by not handing over my letter to his son, and so disregarding my instructions. Nevertheless, at ten minutes before six, Paul being in the midst of his family, experienced a sensation of heat, and considerable uneasiness. His shirt was wet through with perspiration; he wished to retire to his room; but they detained him. In a few minutes he was entranced. In this state he astonished the persons present, by reading with his eyes shut several lines of a book taken at hazard from the library, and by telling the hour upon a watch they held to him. He awoke in a quarter of an hour.”
One naturally doubts whether the physical influence of the Od force can extend to this enormous distance; whether the agency ought not to be regarded as purely psychical; whether, in short, the will of the speaker may not have been the exclusive agent employed.
I think that there is a disposition, among experimenters in mesmerism, to attribute too much to the agency of the will. There was with me in the autumn of 1849 a young lady, who was extremely susceptible of mesmerism. A gentleman who came with the family had been in the habit of entrancing her daily, and at last she was so sensitive that a wave of his hand would fix her motionless. His presence even in the room affected her; and if he then tried to mesmerise her sister, she herself invariably became entranced. The operator was a person of remarkable mesmeric power. Then at my request, made unknown to her, he went to the end window of the room, and, looking out upon the Rhine, tried at the same time with the most forcible mental efforts to will her into sleep. The attempt failed entirely. Another day that he was in my room, about fifty feet from the room in which the young lady was sitting, he tried again by the will to entrance her. But it was all in vain. Therefore, if the will ever acts independently of Od influence, I am disposed to think that its action in producing trance must be infinitely feebler than the direct use of Od.