Letter to Doctor A. Brigham, on animal magnetism: being an account of a remarkable interview between the author and Miss Loraina Brackett while in a state of somnambulism / By William L. Stone.

  • William Leete Stone, Sr.
Date:
1837
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to Doctor A. Brigham, on animal magnetism: being an account of a remarkable interview between the author and Miss Loraina Brackett while in a state of somnambulism / By William L. Stone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    APPENDIX. No. I. The following statements are copied from the Appendix to Hartshorne’s recent edition of Deleuze. The extraordinary medical case occurred under the eye and care of Dr. Brownell of Providence, the Somnambulist being another lady—not Miss Brackett. Its strict truth cannot be questioned :— In order to prove whether a somnambulist can really visit a place where he has never before been, and describe the present appearance of things there, the Rev. E. B. Hall went, without the knowledge of any one, into the room in which the Franklin Society deposit their curious collection, and disarranged several con¬ spicuous articles. He then went to confer with a young woman who resides at the distance of half a mile from the house occupied by the Franklin Society, and she being in the magnetic state, he sent her into it in spirit without informing her of the disarrangement he had made. She had previously been sent there in the same state, so that she knew immediately what alterations had been made, and stated them so satisfactorily as to establish the fact investigated. This is only one out of many proofs which might be adduced to the same effect. Still the suspicion very naturally remained, that the somnambulist derives all his notions from the mind of the person in communication, which, though it be an astounding circumstance, would induce us to view the subject in an entirely different light. To try this, I one day put an old spike into a gun-barrel, and placed it about four or five feet from my writing desk against the wall. I then sent a note to Dr. Brownell, who was then with one of his patients in the som¬ nambulic state, requesting him to ask her what was in a gun-barrel lying on my desk. The lad who carried the note did not know its contents, and did not go into the house, but came back immediately: in about thirty minutes, a line came from Dr. Brownell, stating that there was no gun-barrel on my desk ; but that there was one leaning against the wall a short distance from it. Other facts affording similar proofs are abundant. It is proper to state that the gun-barrel had probably never been in the room before. A still more interesting proof is exhibited in the following relation ; which, I am authorized to say, is true in all its important facts, and is known to have created a great sensation at the time. Fortunately the witnesses are gentle¬ men of high standing and of scientific attainments, whose w'ords are the cur¬ rency of truth. The relation is extracted from a long and interesting article in the Salem Gazette. “ Dr. Brownell, of Providence, operated upon a young lady, who, during the period of magnetic sleep, frequently left the body, and could see and hear without the aid of eyes or ears. She could tell correctly the time by a watch, though enveloped in a cloth, and at the same time having a bandage over her eyes. The doctor had a patient, sick, as was believed, of the liver complaint, and bade the girl, who was sitting near him, go (in spirit) to the man’s house. Arrived, she, at the doctor’s request, described the house that there might be no mistake, and then entered. What do you see? asked Dr. B. ‘ A man sick.’ Now I w'ant you to tell me what ails him. First look at his head : is that
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