The Philosophy of Mystery

by Walter Cooper Dendy

Ev. I admire the acuteness of your question, Astrophel; but you are now come down from your clouds; you are descending unawares to physiology. There are, doubtless, many peculiar states of the nervous system at present inexplicable. I grant it is possible that the influence of the nervous energy may become so eccentric as to illustrate the phenomena of magnetism, if, as some believe, this influence depends on a subtle fluid analogous to light, heat, and electricity; the nerve conveying this fluid as the wire conducts the electric.

Thus an influence, which is apparently physical, may be, in reality, mental, for there is usually consciousness of the contact. M. Bertrand believed that the mind alone of the patient was acted on, and this is strengthened by the experiments of the Abbé Faria, who produced many of these phenomena by merely exclaiming to his sensitive visitors, “Dormez.”

Astr. Well, you are drawing the influences of mind and body very closely together, Evelyn. If animal magnetism be not the universal influence of sensitive beings, what is personal sympathy?

Ev. It is not that mysterious freemasonry of the senses which may impart a superhuman knowledge, or confer a power of personal recognition. Yet we are required to believe such stories.

Astr. And are there not many well attested? There was a Monsieur de la Tour Landrie, a nobleman of France, who so powerfully influenced a young shoemaker by whom he was measured, that the youth fell into a senseless syncope, and profuse hæmorrhage succeeded it. This influence was repeated, and excited so deep an interest in the mind of the noble, that he instituted an inquiry regarding his birth and fortunes. And the result was, that Monsieur de la Tour discovered in the humble mechanic the son of his sister, the Baronne de Vesines.

The thrill of feeling with which the lover touches the lip of his mistress, the intense delight with which the mother presses her infant to her bosom, are illustrations of that power to which I allude. It is the magnetic touch of beauty which sends the fires of passion not only through the bounding heart of youth, but even through the icy veins of the stoic. “He that would preserve the liberty of his soul,” said Socrates, “must abstain from kissing handsome people.” “What, then,” said Charmides, “must I be afraid of coming near a handsome woman? Nevertheless, I remember very well, and I believe you do so too, Socrates, that being one day in company with Critobulus’s beautiful sister, who resembles him so much, as we were searching together for a passage in some author, you held your head close to that beautiful virgin, and I thought you seemed to take pleasure in touching her naked shoulder with yours.” “Good God!” replied Socrates, “I will tell you truly how I was punished for it for five days after. I thought I felt in my shoulder a certain tickling pain as if I had been bit by gnats, or pricked with nettles; and I must confess, too, that during all that time I felt a certain hitherto unknown pain at my heart.”

Ev. So that “the crime,” like that of Sir Peter Teazle, “carried its punishment along with it.” But you must see that the mind of Socrates first appreciated beauty, ere this influence was imparted to him. Imagination is not certainly idle here, yet I grant, that if the charm of substantial beauty or endearment be wanting, poesy will ever be but a cold and joyless sentiment.

Astr. Then there is another mysterious sympathy, the fascination of the evil eye, or fascino. There were, both in Africa and in Illyria, writes Aulius Gellius, certain families believed to possess the power of destroying trees, flowers, and children, and this by merely praising them; and Plutarch and Pindar refer to the credence of the Greeks on this point, who were wont to invoke the Fate Nemesis against this fascination of an evil eye.

I think, too, traces of this credence may be found in Ovid, and Horace, and Pliny.

Ev. Yes, and in modern Italy the professors of the art are yet termed jettatori, or eye-throwers. But Valletta, an Italian author, conscious of the truth, boldly disclaims for his countrymen the notion of demoniac influence, referring it to physical impression, somewhat resembling the fascination of the eye of the rattlesnake, that drops, as we are told, the bird from the branch into its mouth. In that exquisite sympathy between mind and body (the sequence of an influence on sensibility, or on the senses) consists the secret of all this.