A series of one hundred and sixty experiments of this character was made with five different subjects. Of these, only seven were failures. In another series of forty-one experiments this curious fact was observed. In all these experiments the operator, while making the pa.s.ses in the same manner and under the same conditions as in the former series, silently willed that the effect should not follow; that is, that insensibility and rigidity should not occur. In thirty-six of these experiments insensibility did not occur; in five cases the insensibility and rigidity occurred--in two cases perfectly, in three imperfectly.
That some quality is imparted even to inanimate objects by some mesmerizers, by pa.s.ses or handling, through which a sensitive or subject is able to recognize and select that object from among many others, seems to be a well-established fact. The following experiments are in point:--
A gentleman well known to the committee of investigation, and who was equally interested with it in securing reliable results, was selected as a subject. He was accustomed to be hypnotized by the operator, but in the present case he remained perfectly in his normal condition.
One member of the committee took the subject into a separate room on another floor and engaged him closely in conversation. The operator remained with other members of the committee. Ten small miscellaneous articles, such as a piece of sealing wax, a penknife, paperweight, card-case, pocketbook, and similar articles were scattered upon a table.
One was designated by the committee, over which the mesmerist made pa.s.ses, sometimes with light contact.
This was continued for one or two minutes, and when the process was completed the mesmerist was conducted out and to a third room. The articles were then rearranged in a manner quite different from that in which they had been left by the operator, and the subject from the floor above was brought into the room. The several objects were then examined by the sensitive, who upon taking the mesmerized object in his hand, immediately recognized it as the one treated by his mesmerizer.
The experiment was then varied by using ten small volumes exactly alike.
One volume was selected by the committee, over which the operator simply made pa.s.ses with out any contact whatsoever. Three or four other volumes of the set were also handled and pa.s.ses made over them by a member of the committee.
The operator then being excluded, the sensitive was brought in and immediately selected the magnetized volume. This he did four times in succession. In reply to the question as to how he was able to distinguish the magnetized object from others, he said that when he took the right object in his hand he experienced a mild tingling sensation.
My own experiments with magnetized water have presented similar results.
The water was treated by simply holding the fingers of both hands brought together in a clump, for about a minute just over the cup of water, but without any contact whatsoever. This water was then given to the subject without her knowing that she was taking part in an experiment; but alternating it or giving it irregularly with water which had not been so treated, and given by a third person, in every case the magnetized water was at once detected with great certainty. In describing the sensation produced by the magnetized water one patient said the sensation was an agreeable warmth and stimulation upon the tongue, another that it was a "sparkle" like aerated water; it sparkled in her mouth and all the way down into her stomach. Such are a few among the mult.i.tude of facts and phenomena relating to hypnotism. They suffice to settle and make sure some matters which until lately have been looked upon as questionable, and, on the other hand, they bring into prominence others of the greatest interest which demand further study.
Among the subjects which may be considered established may be placed,
(1) The reality of the hypnotic condition.
(2) The increased and unusual power of suggestion over the hypnotized subject.
(3) The usefulness of hypnotism as a therapeutic agent.
(4) The perfect reality and natural, as contrasted with supernatural, character of many wonderful phenomena, both physical and psychical, exhibited in the hypnotic state.
On the other hand, much remains for future study;
(1) The exact nature of the influence which produces the hypnotic condition is not known.
(2) Neither is the nature of the rapport or peculiar relationship which exists between the hypnotizer and the hypnotized subject--a relationship which is sometimes so close that the subject hears no voice but that of his hypnotizer, perceives and experiences the same sensations of taste, touch, and feeling generally as are experienced by him, and can be awakened only by him.
(3) Nor is it known by what peculiar process suggestion is rendered so potent, turning, for the time being, at least, water into wine, vulgar weeds into choicest flowers, a lady"s drawing-room into a fishpond, and clear skies and quiet waters into lightning-rent storm-clouds and tempest-tossed waves; turning laughter into sadness, and tears into mirth.
In dealing with the subject of hypnotism in this hasty and general way, only such facts and phenomena have been presented as are well known and accepted by well-informed students of the subjects. Others still more wonderful will later claim our attention.
CHAPTER IV.
LUCIDITY OR CLAIRVOYANCE.
While there is doubtless a recognized standard of normal perception, yet the acuteness with which sensations are perceived by different individuals, even in ordinary health, pa.s.ses through a wide scale of variation, both above and below this standard. The difference in the ability to see and recognize natural objects, signs, and indications, between the ordinary city denizen and, for instance, the American Indian or the white frontiersman, hunter, or scout, is something marvellous.
So, also, regarding the power to distinguish colors. One person may not be able to distinguish even the simple or primary colors, as, for example, red from blue or green, while the weavers of Central or Eastern Asia distinguish with certainty two hundred or three hundred shades which are entirely undistinguishable to ordinary Western eyes.
So of sound. One ear can hardly be said to make any distinction whatever regarding pitch, while to another the slightest variation is perfectly perceptible. Some even do not hear at all sounds above or below a certain pitch; some persons of ordinary hearing within a certain range of pitch, nevertheless, have never heard the song of the canary bird, and perhaps have lived through a large portion of their lives without even knowing that it was a song-bird at all. Its song was above the range of their hearing. Some never hear the sound of the piccolo, or octave flute, while others miss entirely the lowest notes of the organ.
There is the same great difference in perception by touch, taste, and smell. In certain conditions of disease, accompanied by great depression of the vital forces, this deviation from normal perception is greatly increased. I have had a patient who presented the following briefly-outlined phenomena:--
After a long illness, during which other interesting psychical phenomena were manifested, as convalescence progressed, I had occasion to notice instances of supernormal perception, and to test it I made use of the following expedient: Taking an old-fashioned copper cent, I carefully enveloped it in a piece of ordinary tissue paper. This was then covered by another and then another, until the coin had acquired six complete envelopes of the paper, and formed a little flat parcel, easily held in the palm of my hand.
Taking this with me, I visited my patient. She was lying upon a sofa, and as I entered the room I took a chair and sat leisurely down beside her, having the little package close in the palm of my right hand. I took her right hand in mine in such a manner that the little package was between our hands in close contact with her palm as well as my own. I remarked upon the weather and commenced the routine duty of feeling her pulse with my left hand. A minute or two was then pa.s.sed in banter and conversation, designed to thoroughly engage her attention, when all at once she commenced to wipe her mouth with her handkerchief and to spit and sputter with her tongue and lips, as if to rid herself of some offensive taste or substance. She then looked up suspiciously at me and said:
"I wonder what you are doing with me now."
Then suddenly pulling her hand away from mine she exclaimed:
"I know what it is; you have put a nasty piece of copper in my hand."
Through all these coverings the coppery emanation from the coin had penetrated her system, reached her tongue, and was perceptible to her supernormal taste.
This patient could distinguish with absolute certainty "mesmerized" water from that which had not been so treated; my finger, also, pointed at her even at a distance and when her back was turned to me caused convulsive action, and the same result followed when the experiment was made through a closed door, and when she did not suspect that I was in the neighborhood.
It will be seen, then, how marvellously the action of certain senses may be exalted by long and careful training on the one hand, and suddenly by disease on the other. We have seen, moreover, how some persons known as sensitives are able to receive impressions by thought-transference so as to name cards, repeat words and fict.i.tious names, both of persons and places, merely thought of but not spoken by another person known as the agent or operator, and to draw diagrams unmistakably like those formed in the mind or intently looked upon by the agent.
We have also seen how the hypnotized or mesmerized subject is able to detect objects which have only been touched or handled by the mesmerizer, and even to feel pain inflicted upon him, and recognize by taste substances put in the mesmerizer"s mouth.
It will be seen, then, that not only increased but entirely supernormal perception on the part of some individuals is a well-established fact. But all these conditions of increased power of perception, and especially thought-transference, must be carefully distinguished from independent clairvoyance. It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss the method or philosophy of clairvoyance, but simply to call attention to well-authenticated facts ill.u.s.trating the exercise of this power, and to briefly point to the current theories regarding it.
A belief in supernormal perception, and especially in the clairvoyant vision, is apparent in the history, however meagre it may be, of every ancient nation.
Hebrew history is full of instances of it. A striking example is recorded as occurring during the long war between Syria and Israel. The King of Syria had good reasons for suspecting that in some manner the King of Israel was made acquainted with all his intended military operations, since he was always prepared to thwart them at every point. Accordingly he called together his chiefs and demanded to know who it was among them who thus favored the King of Israel, to which one of the chiefs replied: "It is none of thy servants, O King: but Elisha, a prophet that is in Israel, telleth the King of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy chamber."
Pythagoras, a century before the time of Socrates, found this faculty believed in, and made use of in Egypt, Babylon, and India, and he himself, as the founder of the early Greek philosophy and culture, practised and taught the esoteric as well as the exoteric methods of acquiring knowledge, and he is credited with having acquired by esoteric methods--internal or mental perception and clairvoyant vision--a knowledge of the true theory of the solar system as expounded and demonstrated in a later day by Copernicus.
As an example of responses by the Greek oracles, take the experience of Croesus, the rich King of Lydia. He sent messengers to ascertain if the Pythoness could tell what he, the King of Lydia, was doing on a certain specified day. The answer came:--
"I number the sands--I fathom the sea.
I hear the dumb--I know the thoughts of the silent.
There cometh to me the odor of lamb"s flesh.
It is seething, mixed with the flesh of a tortoise.
Bra.s.s is beneath it, and bra.s.s is also above it."
The messenger returned and delivered the reply, when he found that Croesus, in order to do something most unlikely to be either guessed or discovered, had cut in pieces a lamb and a tortoise, and seethed them together in a brazen vessel having a brazen cover.
Apollonius Tyaneus, a Pythagorian philosopher and chief of a school of philosophy which was the predecessor of the Alexandrian Neo-Platonists, is credited with most remarkable clairvoyant powers. Many instances of this faculty are recorded and believed upon the best of ancient authority.
One instance relates to the a.s.sa.s.sination of Domitian. Apollonius was in the midst of a discourse at Ephesus, when suddenly he stopped as though having lost his train of thought. After a moment"s hesitation, to the astonishment of his auditors, he cried out: "Strike! strike the tyrant."
Seeing the surprise of the people he explained that at the very moment at which he had stopped in his discourse the tyrant was slain. Subsequent information proved that Domitian, the reigning tyrant, was a.s.sa.s.sinated at that very moment.
Ancient historians, philosophers and poets all unite in defending the truth of the oracles and their power of perceiving events transpiring at a distance, and also of foreseeing those in the future. Herodotus gives more than seventy examples of oracular responses, dreams and portents which he affirms were literally fulfilled. Livy gives more than fifty, Cicero many striking cases; and Xenophon, Plato, Tacitus, Suetonius, and a host of other writers all give evidence in the same direction. Now whether these responses and visions were, as all these intelligent people supposed, from a supernatural source, or as we shall endeavor to show, had their origin in certain faculties naturally appertaining to the mind, and which at certain times and under certain favorable circ.u.mstances came into activity, it certainly shows that the most intelligent men amongst all the most cultivated nations of the past have been firm believers in the reality of clairvoyance.
Coming down to later times, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Frederica Hauffe, the seeress of Proverst, were marked examples of the clairvoyant faculty. Some have affected to discredit Swedenborg"s clairvoyant powers, but apart from his revelations regarding a spiritual world, which, of course, it is at present impossible to substantiate, whatever may be our belief regarding them, if human testimony is to be regarded of any value whatever in matters of this kind, the following oft-told incident should be counted as established for a verity.