I think that the observation of this fact, which I point out with much reserve, not having submitted it to serious study, is easier than is supposed, by employing the method I indicate, that is to say, by pinching or pricking garments which the sensitive has just thrown off.
I have had occasion also of verifying this phenomenon, under the technical conditions indicated by Colonel de Rochas. Very few sensitives present it in a marked manner, and it has seemed to me necessary to push the artificial sleep rather deeply. This expression may seem somewhat antiquated, to those who have frequented our learned neurological cliniques; but I cannot help thinking, that a real difference exists between the different phases of somnambulism, if they be observed. I speak of a difference of degree. It seems to me that, once the subject is put to sleep, the repeated action of the passes determines a particular state, pointed out by ancient magnetisers and exposed in detail by de Rochas, in which the subject appears to lose the notion of his personality, and be in close dependence upon his ‘magnetiser.’ I have experimented very little in this order of research, and I can permit myself only to give indications; I am unable to affirm a personal conviction. The few experiments I have made, however, tend to make me think that de Rochas is quite right in speaking of superficial and profound states. I am not convinced that the passage from the one to the other takes place with the regularity that my eminent friend has observed, but the fact pointed out by him is, I think, true in a general way. I am going to support my opinion with an example.
I have already spoken of Madame Agullana. Those who have only been present at her ordinary seances can have no idea of the curious faculties, she sometimes presents. An experienced manipulator can obtain with her—on condition of operating quietly and in the presence of very few people—phenomena which are very interesting, in the sphere of what is called animal magnetism. I was at her home one evening with Monsieur B. We were expecting a tutor, a medium of whom I had heard marvellous things. This tutor did not turn up; but, while waiting for him, I put Madame Agullana to sleep; I wished to show Monsieur B., who had no experience of this kind, the effects of profound sleep. I prolonged my passes, made longitudinally from the forehead to the epigastrium, for more than twenty-five minutes. From time to time, every seven or eight minutes, I asked Madame Agullana what was her name. She told me her name. At last the moment came when she could not remember her name, and appeared to have lost consciousness of her personality. I made a few more passes, and remarked to Monsieur B. that, when Madame A. appeared to have cutaneous anæsthesia, she seemed to perceive pricks at a distance of two or three centimetres from the skin. The passes were continued for about another quarter of an hour; at that moment Madame A. appeared to present two peculiarities:—
1. Her sensitiveness appeared to be localised behind her, at about three feet from, and twenty-one inches above the level of her head. She winced, when—care being taken that she did not see—the air was pinched at the spot indicated.
2. Only the persons en rapport with her—in the sense given to this word by de Rochas—could make an impression upon her; contacts and pinching by other people were not perceived by her. I did not observe these two peculiarities under conditions sufficiently precise to warrant me affirming, that my observation was good; but I indicate them, for to me they appeared probable.
Then, phenomena were forthcoming. Madame Agullana said she was in the street, outside of the house. I asked her to go and see what one of my friends, Monsieur Béchade, was doing—a man whom she knew well. It was twenty minutes past ten o’clock. To our great surprise, she told us that she saw ‘Monsieur Béchade half-undressed, walking bare-footed on stones.’ This did not seem to us to have any sense. I saw my friend the next day, and, although he is well acquainted with spiritistic phenomena, he seemed to be astonished at my recital, and said to me, word for word: ‘I was not feeling very well yesterday evening; one of my friends who lives with me advised me to try Kneipp’s method, and urged me so strongly, that, in order to satisfy him, I tried last night for the first time to walk barefooted on cold stone. I was, in reality, half-undressed when I made the first attempt; it was then twenty minutes past ten o’clock; I walked about for some time on the first steps of the staircase, which is built of stone.’
Perhaps this also is a coincidence, but this fact, which was witnessed by several people, presents very strange coincidences all the same. The hour, the costume, the unusual operation, are circumstances of too special a nature for mere hazard to suffice to explain them, it seems to me. I cite this case because it came under my personal observation, and because it shows a variety of telepathic phenomena; it is what the ancient magnetisers called lucidity, clairvoyance or, more exactly, vision at a distance. It appears to me to be a development of the facts pointed out by de Rochas; it looks as though the entire sensibility was exteriorised to variable distances. This is telæsthesia, a phenomenon in the sensitivo-sensorial domain, analogous to motor telekinesis.
Experimenters, who might be desirous of verifying these facts, should not forget, (1) it is necessary to have a sensitive who has often been magnetised—I do not say hypnotised; (2) sleep must be pushed very deeply—passes must be continued for more than half an hour after somnambulism sets in. The time is reduced with sensitives who are well developed.
It would be easy to multiply examples of this kind, particularly those of well-observed telepathic cases. The publications of the London Society for Psychical Research, Flammarion’s book, L’Inconnu et les problèmes psychiques, the Annales des Sciences psychiques, contain a great number of them. This symbolism will always be met with,—this dramatic element, which I have indicated as the ordinary way by which the general consciousness transmits its information to the personal consciousness. The assimilation which I make between sensory automatisms and dreams, crystal vision and telepathy, appears to me to find support in these facts. These phenomena are of the same order and, in all probability, have their seat in the same strata of the consciousness.
I will not try to fathom the cause; once again I must repeat what I have so often said already,—the question is still so little known, that we are not able to enter profitably upon the study of the apparent cause of the psychical facts examined in this present chapter. We must multiply observations and verify the undeniable existence of the facts, before attempting to interpret them.