Mesmerism, with hints for beginners / by John James.

  • John James
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mesmerism, with hints for beginners / by John James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    state of the somnambulist who detects the diseases of others. The following is a remarkable instance of sympathy :—I had mesmerised a young lady who was living with my brother and sister, twenty miles from town. She proved an excellent clairvoyante. One Sunday I was walking with a lady, after church, in her garden, in St; John’s Wood, when I found the dead body of a new-born infant, wrapped up in a clean cloth ; it must have been thrown over the wall. Next morning I received a note from my sister, telling me that my patient had on the Sunday, after church, insisted on taking her all about the garden to look for a baby, because she was sure she should find one. Once when I had been mesmerising the same young lady before a company, and was making a cross pass to wake her, a lady standing close by received the influence from my hand, and ran away screaming like one possessed. From that time, whenever I mesmerised my patient, which was at very uncertain times, when I could get away from London, this lady, living four miles off, fell into mesmeric sleep at the same time, and her case exhibited the same phenomena of clairvoyance. Two of my patients once fell into a dead sleep or trance, so deep that I believe you might have cut them to pieces, and they would have felt nothing. No ordinary means could arouse them yet, if a drop of water fell, even on their dress, it immediately set them a-trembling ; the touch of a piece of silver convulsed them with laughter, which the touch of another metal instantly stopped. The trem- bling and laughing seemed wholly without consciousness, a kind of life in death, or merely spasmodic. I have seen and heard some patients writhe and groan and scream as if in agony, and yet on awaking declare they had had delightful dreams. Here a conscious and an unconscious state seemed to exist together, so that the persons may be truly said to be beside themselves. One lady whom I know suffers acutely from the contact of metals. She feels a prickling sensation, with general discomfort, and at times even sickness. A brass thimble caused her finger to swell,
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