Abstract of 'Researches on magnetism and on certain allied subjects', including a supposed new imponderable / By Baron von Reichenbach. Translated and abridged from the German by William Gregory.
- Carl Reichenbach
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Abstract of 'Researches on magnetism and on certain allied subjects', including a supposed new imponderable / By Baron von Reichenbach. Translated and abridged from the German by William Gregory. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![the same thing, only weaker, on a second grave. But she saw neither witches nor ghosts: she described the fiery ap¬ pearance as a shining vapour, one to two spans high, extend¬ ing as far as the grave, and floating near its surface. Some time afterwards she was taken to two large cemeteries near Vienna, where several burials occur daily, and graves lie about by thousands. Here she saw numerous graves pro¬ vided with similar lights. Wherever she looked, she saw luminous masses scattered about. But this appearance w>as most vivid over the newest graves, while in the oldest it could not be perceived. She described the appearance less as a clear flame, than as a dense vaporous mass of fire, in¬ termediate between fog and flame. On many graves the flame was 4 feet high, so that when she stood on them, it surrounded her up to the neck. If she thrust her hand into it, it was like putting it into a dense fiery cloud. She be¬ trayed no uneasiness, because she had all her life been ac¬ customed to such emanations, and had seen the same, in the author’s experiments, often produced by natural causes. Many ghost stories will now find their natural explanation. We can also see, that it was not altogether erroneous when old women declared that all had not the gift to see the de¬ parted wandering about their graves : for it must have al¬ ways been the sensitive alone who were able to perceive the light given out by the chemical action going on in the corpse. The author has thus, he hopes, succeeded in tearing down one of the most impenetrable barriers erected by dark ignor¬ ance and superstitious folly against the progress of natural truth. [The reader will at once apply the above most remarkable experiments to the explanation of corpse-lights in church yards, which were often visible to the gifted alone, to those who had the second sight, for example. Many nervous or hysterical females must often have been alarmed by white, faintly luminous objects in dark churchyards, to which ob¬ jects fear has given a defined form. In this, as well as in numerous other points, which will force themselves on the attention of the careful reader of both works, Baron Beichen- bach’s experiments illustrate the experiences of the Seeress of Prevorst.—W. G.] 161. We now come to the province of Electricity. It might be supposed that, in the foregoing experiments, elec¬ tricity played an important part, or was even the principal cause of the whole phenomena. The author carefully ex¬ amined this point, and the results will shew the true position of electricity in this matter.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30351017_0082.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
