"It must be admitted that our excellent correspondent has set forth the claims of 'Adolphe' and 'Alexis,' and similar interesting abstractions, to the powers of omnipresence and omniscience, with great candor and becoming gravity. We are sorry that we cannot follow what many of our readers may consider so excellent an example. We have no faith in those dear creatures without surnames: we have no faith in animal magnetism, either in its lesser or in its larger pretensions; but we have an unbounded faith in the imbecility, infatuation, vanity, credulity, and knavery of which human nature is capable. And we are of opinion that there is not a single well-authenticated mesmeric phenomenon which is not fully explicable by the operation of one or more of these causes, or of the whole of them taken in conjunction.
"The question in regard to mesmerism is two-fold: first, how is the mesmeric prostration to be accounted for? and secondly, how is it to be disposed of? It may be accounted for, we conceive, by the natural tendencies just recited, without its being necessary to postulate any new or unknown agency; it may be disposed of by the influence of public opinion, which would very soon put a stop to these pitiable exhibitions, and very soon extinguish the magnetizer's power and the patient's susceptibility, if it were but to visit the performers with the contempt and reprobation they deserve. A few words on each of these heads may not be out of place, as a qualifying postscript to the foregoing letter, which, in our opinion, treats the mesmeric superstition with far too much indulgence.
"I. The existence of any physical force or fluid in man or in nature, by which the mesmeric phenomena are induced, has been distinctly disproved by every carefully conducted experiment. No person was ever magnetized when totally unsuspicious of the operation of which he was the subject. This is conclusive; because a physical agent, which never does, of itself and unheralded, produce any effect, is no physical agent at all. Then, again, let certain persons be prepared for the magnetic condition, and aware of what is expected of them, and the effects are equally produced, whether the intended influence be exerted or not. It seems simply ridiculous to postulate an odylic (we should like to be favored with the derivation of this word) fluid to account for phenomena which show themselves just as conspicuously when no such fluid is or can be in operation.
"But it is argued by some of the advocates of mesmeric influence, that their agent, though perhaps not physical, is at any rate moral—that the will, or some spiritual energy on the part of the mesmerist, is the power by which his victims are entranced and rendered obedient to his bidding. Here, too, all the well-authenticated cases establish a totally different conclusion. They prove that the will or spiritual power of the mesmerist has of itself no ascendency or control whatsoever over the body or mind of his victim. Every well-guarded series of experiments has exhibited the mesmerist and his patient at cross-purposes with each other—the patient frequently doing those things which the mesmerist was desirous he should not do, and not doing those things which the operator was desirous he should do. As for the buffoonery begotten by mesmerism on phrenology, this exhibition can scarcely be expected to provoke much astonishment, or credence, or comment, except among professional artists themselves—
'Like Katterfelto, with their hair on end,
At their own wonders, wondering for their bread!'
"The true explanation of mesmerism is to be found, as we have said, in the weakness or infatuation of human nature itself. No other causes are at all necessary to account for the mesmeric prostration. There is far more craziness, both physical and moral, in man than he usually gives himself credit for. The reservoir of human folly may be in a great measure occult, but it is always full; and all that silliness, whether of body or mind, at any time wants, is to get its cue.
"These general remarks are of course more applicable to some individuals than they are to others. In soft and weak natures, where the nervous system is subject to cataleptic seizures, mental and bodily prostration is frequently almost the normal condition. Such of our readers as may have frequented mesmeric exhibitions must have observed a kind of semi-humanity visible in the expression and demeanor of most of the subjects whom the professional operators carry about with them. These poor creatures are at all times ready to imbibe the magnetic stupefaction, because it is only by an effort that they are ever free from it. There is always at work within them an occult tendency to self-abandonment—an unintentional proclivity to aberration, imitation, and deceit, which only requires a signal to precipitate its morbid deposits. This constitutional infirmity of body and of mind furnishes to the mesmerist a basis for his operations, and is the source of all the wonders which he works.
"It is only in the case of individuals who, without being fatuous, are hovering on the verge of fatuity, that the magnetic phenomena and the mesmeric prostration can be admitted to be in any considerable degree real. Real to a certain extent they may be; marvellous they certainly are not. Imbecility of the nervous system, a ready abandonment of the will, a facility in relinquishing every endowment which makes man human—these intelligible causes, eked out by a vanity and cunning which are always inherent in natures of an inferior type, are quite sufficient to account for the effects of the mesmeric manipulations on subjects of peculiar softness and pliancy.
"In those persons of a better organized structure, who yield themselves up to the mesmeric degradation, the physical causes are less operative; but the moral causes are still more influential. In all cases the prostration is self-induced. But in the subjects of whom we have spoken, it is mainly induced by physical depravity, although moral frailties concur to bring about the condition. In persons of a superior type, the condition is mainly due to moral causes, although physical imbecility has some share in facilitating the result. These people have much vanity, much curiosity, and much credulity, together with a weak imagination—that is to say, an imagination which is easily excited by circumstances which would produce no effect upon people of stronger imaginative powers. Their vanity shows itself in the desire to astonish others, and get themselves talked about. They think it rather creditable to be susceptible subjects. It is a point in their favor! Their credulity and curiosity take the form of a powerful wish to be astonished themselves. Why should they be excluded from a land of wonders which others are permitted to enter? The first step is now taken. They are ready for the sacrifice, which various motives concur to render agreeable. They resign themselves passively, mind and body, into the hands of the manipulator; and by his passes and grimaces, they are cowed pleasurably, bullied delightfully, into so much of the condition which their inclinations are bent upon attaining, as justifies them, they think, in laying claim to the whole condition, without bringing them under the imputation of being downright impostors. Downright impostors they unquestionably are not. We believe that their condition is frequently, though to a very limited extent, real. We must also consider, that, in a matter of this kind, which is so deeply imbued with the ridiculous, a mesmeric patient may, and doubtless often does, justify to his own conscience a considerable deviation from the truth, on the ground of waggery or hoaxing. Why should an audience, which has the patience to put up with such spectacles, not be fooled to the top of its bent?
"II. How, then, is the miserable nonsense to be disposed of? It can only be put a stop to by the force of public opinion, guided of course by reason and truth. Let it be announced from all authoritative quarters that the magnetic sensibility is only another name for an unsound condition of the mental and bodily functions—that it may be always accepted as an infallible index of the position which an individual occupies in the scale of humanity—that its manifestation (when real) invariably betokens a physique and a morale greatly below the average, and a character to which no respect can be attached. Let this announcement—which is the undoubted truth—be made by all respectable organs of public opinion, and by all who are in any way concerned in the diffusion of knowledge, or in the instruction of the rising generation, and the magnetic superstition will rapidly decline. Let this—the correct and scientific explanation of the phenomena—be understood and considered carefully by all young people of both sexes, and the mesmeric ranks will be speedily thinned of their recruits. Our young friends who may have been entrapped into this infatuation by want of due consideration, will be wiser for the future. If they allow themselves to be experimented upon, they will at any rate take care not to disgrace themselves by yielding to the follies to which they may be solicited both from within and from without; and we are much mistaken if, when they know what the penalty is, they will abandon themselves to a disgusting condition which is characteristic only of the most abject specimens of our species."