Recollections of Europe

by James Fenimore Cooper

Animal magnetism is clearly one of three things: it is what it pretends to be, an unexplained and as yet incomprehensible physical influence; it is delusion, or it is absolute fraud.

A young countryman of ours, having made the acquaintance of M. C——, professionally, and being full of the subject, I have so far listened to his entreaties as to inquire personally into the facts, a step I might not have otherwise been induced to take.

I shall now proceed to the history of my own experience in this inexplicable mystery. We found M. C—— buried in the heart of Paris, in one of those vast old hotels, which give to this town the air of generations of houses, commencing with the quaint and noble of the sixteenth century, and ending with the more fashionable pavilion of our own times. His cabinet looked upon a small garden, a pleasant transition from the animal within to the vegetable without. But one meets with gardens, with their verdure and shrubbery and trees, in the most unexpected manner, in this crowded town.

M. C—— received us politely, and we found with him one of his somnambules; but as she had just come out of a trance, we were told she could not be put asleep again that morning. Our first visit, therefore, went no farther than some discourse on the subject of "animal magnetism," and a little practical by-play, that shall be related in its place.

M. C—— did not attempt ascending to first principles, in his explanations. Animal magnetism was animal magnetism—it was a fact, and not a theory. Its effects were not to be doubted; they depended on testimony of sufficient validity to dispose of any mere question of authenticity. All that he attempted was hypothesis, which he invited us to controvert. He might as well have desired me to demonstrate that the sun is not a carbuncle. On the modus operandi, and the powers of his art, the doctor was more explicit. There were a great many gradations in quality in his somnambules, some being better and some worse; and there was also a good deal of difference in the intensity of the magnetiser's. It appears to be settled that the best somnambules are females, and the best magnetisers males, though the law is not absolute. I was flattered with being, by nature, a first-rate magnetiser, and the doctor had not the smallest doubt of his ability to put me to sleep; and ability, so far as his theory went, I thought it was likely enough he might possess, though I greatly questioned his physical means.

I suppose it is primâ facie evidence of credulity, to take the trouble to inquire into the subject at all; at any rate it was quite evident I was set down as a good subject, from the moment of my appearance. Even the somnambule testified to this, though she would not then consent to be put into a trance in order to give her opinion its mystical sanction.

The powers of a really good somnambule are certainly of a very respectable class. If a lock of hair be cut from the head of an invalid, and sent a hundred leagues from the provinces, such a somnambule, properly magnetised, becomes gifted with the faculty to discover the seat of the disease, however latent; and, by practice, she may even prescribe the remedy, though this is usually done by a physician, like M. C——, who is regularly graduated. The somnambule is, properly, only versed in pathology, any other skill she may discover being either a consequence of this knowledge, or the effects of observation and experience. The powers of a somnambule extend equally to the morale as well as to the physique. In this respect a phrenologist is a pure quack in comparison with a lady in a trance. The latter has no dependence on bumps and organs, but she looks right through you, at a glance, and pronounces ex cathedrâ, whether you are a rogue, or an honest man; a well-disposed, or an evil-disposed child of Adam. In this particular, it is an invaluable science, and it is a thousand pities all young women were not magnetised before they pronounce the fatal vows, as not a few of them would probably wake up, and cheat the parson of his fee. Our sex is difficult to be put asleep, and are so obstinate, that I doubt if they would be satisfied with a shadowy glimpse of the temper and dispositions of their mistresses.

You may possibly think I am trifling with you, and that I invent as I write. On the contrary, I have not related one half of the miraculous powers which being magnetised imparts to the thoroughly good somnambule, as they were related to me by M. C——, and vouched for by four or five of his patients who were present, as well as by my own companion, a firm believer in the doctrine. M. C—— added that somnambules improve by practice, as well as magnetisers, and that he has such command over one of his somnambules that he can put her to sleep, by a simple effort of the will, although she may be in her own apartment, in an adjoining street. He related the story of M. Cloquet and the cancer, with great unction, and asked me what I thought of that? Upon my word, I did not very well know what I did think of it, unless it was to think it very queer. It appeared to me to be altogether extraordinary, especially as I knew M. Cloquet to be a man of talents, and believe him to be honest.

By this time I was nearly magnetised with second-hand facts; and I became a little urgent for one or two that were visible to my own sense. I was promised more testimony, and a sight of the process of magnetising some water that a patient was to drink. This patient was present; the very type of credulity. He listened to everything that fell from M. C—— with a gusto and a faith that might have worked miracles truly, had it been of the right sort, now and then turning his good-humoured marvel-eating eyes on me, as much as to say, "What do you think of that, now?" My companion told me, in English, he was a man of good estate, and of proved philanthropy, who had no more doubt of the efficacy of animal magnetism than I had of my being in the room. He had brought with him two bottles of water, and these M. C—— magnetised, by pointing his fingers at their orifices, rubbing their sides, and ringing his hands about them as if washing them, in order to disengage the subtle fluid that was to impart to them their healing properties, for the patient drank no other water.

Presently a young man came in, of a good countenance and certainly of a very respectable exterior. As the somnambule had left us, and this person could not consult her, which was his avowed intention in coming, M. C—— proposed to let me see his own power as a magnetiser, in an experiment on this patient. The young man consenting, the parties were soon prepared. M. C—— began by telling me, that he would, by a transfusion of his will, into the body of the patient, compel him to sit still, although his own desire should be to rise. In order to achieve this, he placed himself before the young man and threw off the fluid from his fingers' ends, which he kept in a cluster, by constant forward gestures of the arms. Sometimes he held the fingers pointed at some particular part of the body, the heart in preference, though the brain would have been more poetical. The young man certainly did not rise; neither did I, nor any one else in the room. As this experiment appeared so satisfactory to everybody else, I was almost ashamed to distrust it, easy as it really seemed to sit still, with a man flourishing his fingers before one's eyes.