Frederica was almost constantly in a magnetic state, and in this condition frequently communicated what was taking place at a distance, and was aware of producing sounds in space, and some ways off; but this being found to materially injure her, the habit was abandoned. She had a very high degree of susceptibility to mundane influences, and the effect was, that mineral loads and subterranean currents acted through her upon a simple stick held in her hand.
At one time she was attacked with nervous fever, which continued fourteen days with great violence. This was followed by seven years of MAGNETIC LIFE, interrupted only by very short and merely apparent intervals. After the fever, she was attacked with spasms in the breast, which continued three days. On the second day, a peasant's wife came from the village, and seating herself beside her, said, "She needs no physicians; they cannot help her;" and laid her hands on her forehead. Immediately she was seized with the most direful spasms, and her forehead was as cold as if she was dead. During the whole night she cried deliriously that the woman had exercised a demoniacal influence upon her; and whenever the woman returned she was always attacked with spasms. On the third day they sent for a physician; and being then in a magnetic condition, she cried to him when he entered, although she had never seen him, "If you are a physician, you must help me!" He, well understanding her malady, laid his hands on her head; and it was remarked that, as long as he remained in the room, she saw and heard him alone, and was insensible to the presence of all other persons. The same kind of exclusive attachment has been seen in cases of persons who have fallen under the peculiar influence of the magnet or a crystal, thus showing the relation of mundane agencies to the psychological nerve centres, as well as to the nerve centres in the spine, and among the viscera.
After her physician had laid his hands on her she became calm, and slept for some hours. Some internal remedies and a bath were prescribed for her; but the spasms returned in the night, and for eighteen weeks she was attacked by them from twice to five or six times a day. All the remedies prescribed proving inefficacious, recourse was had to "magnetic passes," which, for a time, relieved the spasms. It was amid such sufferings and such influences that, in the month of February, 1823, after extreme tortures, she gave birth to her first child. This event was followed, for some time, by additional ills. The following is a somewhat curious circumstance, and goes to show the influence which one organization will have upon another, when a certain relation is established between them. It is this: The woman who, on a former occasion, had exerted so unhappy an influence upon the mother, produced precisely the same effects upon the child. Her contact with it threw it into spasms, and the convulsions became periodical until its death.
About a year after the birth of her child, being laughed at for her superstition, she was thrown into a state of rigid spasm, and became as cold and stiff as a corpse. For a long time no respiration was visible. She lay as in a dream. In this peculiar condition she spoke for three days entirely in verse and at another, she saw, for the same period, nothing but a ball of fire, that ran through her whole body as if on thin bright threads. And then, for three days, she felt as if water was falling upon her head, drop by drop; and it was at this time that she saw her own image. She saw it clad in white, seated on a stool, whilst she was lying in bed. She contemplated the vision for some time, and would have cried out, but could not; at length she made herself heard, and her husband entering, it disappeared. Her susceptibility was now so great that she heard and felt what happened at a distance, and was so sensible to external agencies, that the nails in the walls affected her, which obliged her friends to remove them. The least light had a powerful influence upon her nervous system, and could not be endured.
She was now induced to take a medicine which made her more calm, but threw her into a deeper trance. Still she could not endure the sunlight. She was taken in a darkened carriage to her home on the mountains. "Here she existed," says her physician, "only through the nervous emanation of others, and it became necessary that some one should always hold her hand; and if the person was weak, it increased her debility. The physician prescribed magnetic passes and medicines, but she fell into a magnetic sleep, and then prescribed for herself. Her greatest suffering arose from the sensation of having a stone in her head. It seemed as if her brain was compressed, and at every breath she drew, the motion pained her. At this time a large magnet was applied to her forehead; immediately her head and face were turned round, and her mouth distorted as by a stroke of palsy. On the 28th of December she gave birth to her second child, which was followed, as before, by a long and severe illness. She continued constantly in a magnetic state. Persons of various tempers now became her magnetizers. The effects of these different nervous temperaments upon hers were very serious. It brought her into special relation to so many persons, that, even at a distance, they affected her, visions of whom would appear to her like visions of spirits. This, moveover, brought her into a deeper magnetic condition, and rendered her more dependent on the nervous energy of others. Another physician was employed from a distance. He gave her an amulet to wear, composed of certain substances, and a small magnet, all arranged together. Occasionally this amulet, untouched by any one, would run about her head, breast, and bed covering, like a live thing."
"It has already been remarked, that, in the earlier stage of her magnetic state, she was aware of making sounds at a distance. This she repeatedly performed, so that her friends at a distance, as they lay in bed, heard distinctly the sounds. This fact being communicated to her physician, Dr. Kerner, he, by actual experiment and observation, confirmed it. This was not performed by her will, which was inactive in her somnambulic or cataleptic state, as well as her consciousness. Every nerve centre was in a most intimate rapport or relation with the mundane agencies, especially that which acts in conjunction with the nervous force, and holds every animal in a certain connection with every thing out of the organism.
The father of this unfortunate woman inhabited a house which formed a part of an old cathedral, where, it had been reported by former tenants, strange sights had been seen, and strange sounds heard. It was in this house, at the time of her somnambulic state, already spoken of, that there were heard unusual knockings on the walls, noises in the air, and other sounds, which, as Dr. Kerner remarks, "can be testified to by more than twenty credible witnesses." There was a trampling up and down stairs by day and by night to be heard, but no one to be seen, as well as knockings on the walls and in the cellars; but, however suddenly a person flew to the place to try to detect whence the noise proceeded, they could see nothing. If they went outside, the knocking was immediately heard inside, and vice versa. The noises at length became so perplexing, that her father declared that he could live in the house no longer. They were not only audible to every body in the house, but to the passengers in the street, who stopped to listen to them as they passed. Whenever there was playing on the piano, and singing, sounds would commence on the walls."
We have not room to mention all the facts in her case; but will add a few of the most remarkable. "She was very susceptible to electrical influences, and, what is almost incredible, she had a preternatural feeling or consciousness of human writing. Various minerals seemed to have a specific effect, when brought in contact with her. Glass and rock crystal had a powerful effect in waking her from the somnambulic state, or in exciting the force within her organism. This fact, and others of this character in abundance, point to the peculiar tendency of this force, in some cases of disease, to act outwardly from the nerve centres upon glass ware, window glass, &c. "We have known a child, eight years old," says Mr. Rogers, "who seldom, at one period, took hold of a glass dish without its soon bursting to pieces." In the case of Frederica, a rock crystal, placed on the pit of her stomach, and allowed to remain there for some time, would produce a deep state of catalepsy. She was affected in the same manner by silicious sand and gravel, or even by standing some time near a glass window. If she chanced to seat herself on a sandstone beach, she was apt to become cataleptic; and once, having been for some time missed, she was at length found at the top of the house, seated on a heap of sand, so rigid, that she was unable to move away from it. Whenever she was placed in a bath by her medical attendants, it was with a great deal of labor they could immerse her body beneath the surface. Her specific gravity seemed to be more like cork, or a bladder of air, than that of muscle, nerve, and bone. Something seemed to pervade her body, or to act upon it, so entirely opposite to the centripetal action of the earth, as to counteract this law of force in the most marked manner. This fact suggested to Dr. Kerner a curious experiment, which resulted in the development of another important phenomenon. He had concluded, that as all these phenomena had taken place more or less in conjunction with those usually termed magnetic or mesmeric, there might be some relation of the forces in both, or indeed they might be identical. To test this matter, he at one time placed his fingers against hers, when he found at once there existed a mutual attraction, as between two magnets; and now, by extending his hand upward, he raised her clear from the ground; thus she was suspended, as a magnet suspends a piece of iron, or another magnet, simply by a polar force. This was repeated several times, and afterwards his wife did quite the same thing."
"We have already spoken of the action which the sun's light had upon her in producing physical effects. Among others it was observed that the different colored rays produced each a specific effect. The light of the moon, also, when she looked at it, produced coldness and shivering, with melancholy." The effects of these agents on the human organism are clearly explained, in the numbers of an astronomical paper, by Mr. Chapman, of Philadelphia.
"On touching Frederica with a finger, during an electrical state of the atmosphere, she saw small flashes, which ascended to the ceiling; from men these were colorless, from women blue; and she perceived emanations of the same kind, and of the same variation of color, from people's eyes."