There is both entertainment and instruction in Dr. Knerr's account of a séance in which the spirit of an Indian and the mysterious use of a drum were to form parts of the performance. He tells of his success in getting some printer's ink on the drum-sticks just before the lights were lowered, and of the bewildered astonishment (when the lights were turned up after the Indian had manifested) at the condition of the medium's hands. "How in the world printer's ink could have gotten smeared over them while under the control of 'Deerfoot, the Indian,' no one, not even the medium, could fathom." We may read how a medium who professed to materialize a "spirit" right-hand while apparently holding his sitter's hand or arm with both his own, was shown to imitate this double grip with one hand and to do the hocus-pocus with the other. We may vary the nature of the fraud almost indefinitely and observe how universal, how coarse, how degrading it is, and how readily it may be induced to leave its hiding-place to snatch at a cunningly offered bait,—until in the end, if it were not so sad, it would be only ridiculous.
In the reports of the investigations of mediums, published by the Society for Psychical Research (vol. iv.), we find accounts of the performances of one Englinton, also with slate-writing, and whose success, as described by enthusiastic sitters, does not fall short ofthe miraculous. Yet the description of this wonder-worker's doings by a competent observer, Professor Carvill Lewis, renders the manifestations absolutely transparent. He sat intently watching Englinton for an hour, and nothing happened; fearing a blank séance, he purposely diverted his attention. The moment he looked away the manifestations began, and he could see "the medium look down intently toward his knees and in the direction of the slate. I now quickly turned back my head, when the slate was brought up against the table with a sharp rap." The manœuvre was repeated with the same result; and while the writing was going on, Professor Lewis distinctly saw "the movement of the central tendon in his wrist corresponding to that made by his middle finger in the act of writing. Each movement of the tendon was simultaneously accompanied by the sound of a scratch on the slate." Again, for the answer to the request to define "Idocrase," Englinton required the use of a dictionary, and left the room for a minute; the answer was then written just as it is given in Webster's dictionary; but, unfortunately,albuminawas read foralumina. When the slate, which acts with a spring, was to be closed, Englinton suddenly sneezed; when the writing was small and faint, he shifted his position until he came within a few inches of it; a postage stamp secretly glued across the two leaves of the double slate prevented all manifestations; a double fee immediately caused further manifestations, when, owing to the exhaustion of power, such had just been declared to be impossible; and the writing on the slates was identified by an expert as that of Englinton. It was thesame Englinton who was convicted of connivance with Mme. Blavatsky in the production of a spurious theosophic marvel; and it is to him that the following story, supplied by Mr. Padshah and indorsed by Mr. Hodgson (the exposer of Mme. Blavatsky), relates: Mr. Padshah and a friend had asked for Gujerati writing at a séance, but without success. Mr. Padshah (without informing his friend) sent anonymously to Englinton a poem in Gujerati; and the friend received from the medium a minutely faithful copy of the same on a slate, as the direct revelation of the spirits!
But all this accounts for only part of the problem. To convict every medium of fraud is not a complete explanation of the appearance which this belief presented in its most characteristic form some decades ago, and still presents. It remains to account for the great success of the movement; for the fact that so many have been deceived and so few have really understood; to show why we are to believe the Seybert Commission, and not credit the countless miracle-mongers. This is psychologically the most interesting portion of the problem, and has been very successfully treated by Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. Hodgson, and Mr. Davey, of the Society for Psychical Research.
There is a very broadspread notion that anybody can go to a spiritualistic séance and give a reliable opinion as to whether what he or she may chance to see is explicable as conjuring or not. Especially where the right to one's opinion is regarded as a corollary to the right of liberty, does this notion prevail. It isprobably not an exaggeration to maintain that most such claimants are about as competent to form a trustworthy opinion on such a subject as they are to pronounce upon the genuineness of a Syriac manuscript. The matter is in some aspects as much a technical acquisition as is the diagnosticating of a disease. It is not at all to the discredit of any one's powers of observation or intellectual acumen to be deceived by the performances of a conjurer; and the same holds true of the professional part of mediumistic phenomena. Until this homely but salutary truth is impressed with all its importance upon all intending investigators, there is little hope of bringing about a proper attitude towards these and kindred phenomena. We believe that there will be an eclipse of the moon when the astronomer so predicts, not because we can calculate the time or even understand how the astronomer does it, but because that is a technical acquisition which he has learned and we have not; and so with a thousand other and more humble facts of daily life. Spiritualism, to a large extent, comes under the same category; and observers who have acquainted themselves with the possibilities of conjuring and the natural history of deception, who by their training and endowment have fitted themselves to be competent judges of such alleged ultra-physical facts—these persons have the same right to our confidence and respect as a body of chemists or physicians on a question within their province. It by no means follows that all scientists are fitted for an investigation of this kind, nor that all laymen are not; it does follow that a body of trained and able observers, who are aware of the possibilitiesof faulty observation and of the tendency to substitute hasty inference for fact, who know something about deception as a psychological characteristic, who have acquired or call to their aid the technical requisites for such an investigation, are better fitted to carry it to a logical outcome than are others, equally distinguished in other directions and equally able, if you will, but who have not these special qualifications. It follows that it is not fair for you to set up what you think you have seen as overthrowing their authority; even if you happen to be an unprejudiced and accurate observer and have weighed the probability of your observations being vitiated by one or other of the many sources of error in such observation, it is only a small fact, though of course one worthy of notice. There is no good reason why the average man should set so much store by his own impressions of sense, when the fallibility of other witnesses is so readily demonstrable.
Whatever of seeming dogmatism there is in this view is removed by the experimental demonstration furnished by Messrs. Hodgson and Davey, that the kind and amount of mal-observation and faulty description which an average observer will introduce into the account of a performance such as the medium gives, is amply sufficient to account for the divergence between his report of the performance and what really occurred. The success of a large class of tricks depends upon diverting the observer's attention from the points of real importance, and in leading him to draw inferences perfectly valid under ordinary circumstances but entirely wrong in the particular case. It must be constantly remembered that the judging powers are ata great disadvantage in observing such performances, and that it is a kind of judgment in which they have little practice. In the intercourse of daily life a certain amount of good faith and of confidence in the straightforwardness of the doings of others prevents us from exercising that close scrutiny and suspicion here necessary. We know that most of our neighbors have neither the intention nor the sharpness to deceive us, and do not live on the principle of the detective, who regards every one as dishonest until proven to be otherwise. This attitude of extreme suspicion is indispensable in dealing with the phenomena now under discussion. It follows, therefore, that the layman cannot serve as a pilot for himself or for others in such troubled waters. This, however, if duly recognized, need not be a matter of concern. "This unpreparedness and inobservancy of mind in the presence of a conjurer," says Mr. Hodgson, is not "a thing of which any one who is not familiar with the tricks already need be ashamed." Even a professional may be nonplussed by a medium's performance, if he have no experience in the special kind of sleight-of-hand required for the trick. This is the experience of Mr. Harry Kellar; he at first declared himself unable to explain slate-writing as a trick, but now can repeat the process in a variety of ways, and with far greater skill than is shown by the mediums. We may therefore approach Mr. Davey's investigation with the assurance that, in all probability, we too should have failed to detect what was really done, and should have rendered quite as erroneous account of what we saw as did his actual sitters; and according to our trainingand temperament we should have drawn our several conclusions, and all of them variously wide of the mark.
Mr. Davey (who, by the way, was at one time deceived almost into conversion by spiritualistic phenomena, and who, before he took up the matter seriously, recorded his conviction that "the idea of trickery or jugglery in slate-writing communications is quite out of the question") was an expert amateur conjurer, and repeated the slate-writing performances of such as Englinton with at least equal skill. He arranged with Mr. Hodgson to give sittings to several ladies and gentlemen, on the condition that they send him detailed written accounts of what they had seen. He did not pose as a medium nor accept a fee, but simply said that he had something to show which his sitters were to explain as best they could, and with due consideration of trickery as a possible mode of explanation. The "medium" has here a decided advantage over Mr. Davey, because his sitters come to him with a mental attitude that entertains, however remotely, the possibility of witnessing something supernatural; and this difference is sufficient to create an adjustment of the powers of observation less fitted to detect trickery than if the performer refrains from announcing himself as the go-between of the supernatural. This is well illustrated in the reports of Mr. Davey's sitters; for a few friends who were told beforehand that they were to witness a sleight-of-hand performance, or were strongly led to believe it such, made much less of a marvel of the performance than those who had not been thus enlightened. "Nevertheless"(I am citing from Mr. Podmore's résumé), "the effect produced was such that a well-known professional conjurer expressed his complete inability to explain the results by trickery; that no one of his sitters ever detected hismodus operandi; that most were completely baffled, or took refuge in the supposition of a new form of electricity, or 'a powerful magnetic force used in double manner: (1) a force of attraction, and (2) that of repulsion'; and that more than one spiritualist ascribed the phenomena to occult agency, and regarded—perhaps still regard—Mr. Davey as a renegade medium."
Mr. Davey's performances,as describedby many of his sitters, like the descriptions of the performances of many a medium, are marvelous enough to demand the hypothesis of occult agency: "Writing between a conjurer's own slates in a way quite inexplicable to the conjurer; writing upon slates locked and carefully guarded by witnesses; writing upon slates held by the witnesses firmly against the under-surface of the table; writing upon slates held by the witnesses above the table; answers to questions written secretly in locked slates; correct quotations appearing on guarded slates from books chosen by the witnesses at random, and sometimes mentally, the books not touched by the 'medium'; writing in different colors mentally chosen by the witnesses, covering the whole side of one of their own slates; messages in languages unknown to the medium, including a message in German, for which only a mental request had been made, and a letter in Japanese in a double slate locked and sealed by the witness; the date of a coin placed by thewitness in a sealed envelope correctly written in a locked slate upon the table, the envelope remaining intact; a word written between slates screwed together and also corded and sealed together, the word being chosen by the witness after the slates were fastened by himself, etc., etc. And yet, though 'autographic' fragments of pencil were 'heard' weaving mysterious messages between and under and over slates, and fragments of chalk were seen moving about under a tumbler placed above the table in full view, none of the sitters witnessed that best phenomenon,Mr. Davey writing."
It must not be supposed that the errors of mal-description and lapse of memory thus committed are at all serious in themselves; on the contrary, they are mostly such as would be entirely pardonable in ordinary matters. Mr. Hodgson places them in four classes. In the first, the observerinterpolatesa fact which really did not happen, but which he was led to believe had occurred; he records that he examined the slate, when he really did not. Secondly, for similar causes, hesubstitutesone statement for another closely like it; he says he examined the slate minutely, when he really only did so hastily. Thirdly, hetransposesthe order in which the events happened, making the examination of the slate occur at a later period than when it really took place. Lastly, heomitscertain details which he was carefully led to consider trivial, but which really were most important. Such slight lapses as these are sufficient to make a marvel of a clever piece of conjuring; add to this the increased temptations for mal-observation afforded by the dim light and mysterioussurroundings of the medium, as well as by the sympathetic attitude of the sitters, and the wide divergence between the miraculous narratives of spiritualists and the homely deceptions which they are intended to describe, is no longer a mystery.
It cannot be too strongly insisted upon how slight may be the clue that holds the key to the explanation, how easy it is to overlook it, how mysterious the performance becomes without it. It may be the difference between placing the slate in a given position and starting to do so when the hand of the medium naturally comes forward to receive it; it may depend upon whether the slates were examined just before or just after a certain detail in the performance which was carefully not made prominent; it may depend upon the difficulty of really seeing a quick and unexpected sleight-of-hand movement on the part of a skilled performer; it may depend upon whether the question asked was really of your own choosing, or was deftly led up to; it may depend upon a score of other equally insignificant details upon which the assurance of the average person, that such mal-observation or misdescription did not occur, is almost worthless. These are some of the slighter factors in the case; there may be much more serious ones which lead not merely to exaggeration but to elaborate falsification and distortion of truth, and to the emphatic assertion of the most extravagant miracles, coupled usually with the assurance that there was no possibility or room for deception. Mr. Davey's performance was relatively a matter-of-fact test with critical and intelligent sitters; hence we should expect the divergence between report and realityto be far less serious than when the question at issue is the demonstration of the supernatural by an appeal to the religious fervor and to the emotional susceptibilities of would-be believers and sympathetic propagandists. I shall return to this difference of attitude in discussing the prepossession in favor of the belief in Spiritualism; for the present, it is sufficient to notice that under the most favorable combination of circumstances—that is, an able, educated, and experienced observer witnessing a definite performance in a calm, critical mood, and carefully preparing a written account of his observations—the difference between actual fact and the testimony of the witness is still considerable, and the divergence often upon essential points. We are accordingly justified in making allowance for double or treble or a hundredfold more serious divergence between fact and report, when we pass to decidedly less favorable conditions, such as those of the ordinary spiritualistic test or séance; for these surely present conditions least conducive to accuracy of observation or of record.
It is seldom that so direct and forcible an application of experimental results to actual mental experiences occurring under familiar circumstances can be made, as is the case in regard to this noteworthy investigation of Messrs. Hodgson and Davey. This investigation, almost at one stroke, throws a blinding light upon the entire field of the phenomena; accounting in large part for the vast aggregate of testimony in favor of miracles by actual witnesses, demonstrating the readiness with which we may unwittingly deceive ourselves by false observation and others by lapses ofmemory, as to what we actually witnessed; and again presenting the nature of these fallible characteristics of sense-perception and memory, of inference and judgment, so strikingly and tangibly as to serve as a classic illustration for the psychologist. The practical import of these considerations has been quite generally disregarded by upholders of the spiritualistic hypothesis, and has by no means been fully appreciated by those who lay claim to an opinion upon the significance of spiritualistic manifestations, and who discuss the psychological questions which they involve.
It is pertinent to add that after Mr. Davey's death, Mr. Hodgson felt free to publish a precise account of what Mr. Davey actually did during the slate-writing séances.[7]The description from before the footlights may thus be compared with the account from behind the scenes; and although verbal accounts must always be weak and lack the realistic touch of themise en scène, yet this account makes possible a kinetoscopic reproduction, as it were, of the original sitting; we may observe the point at which the several sitters committed their faults of defective observation or report; we may examine at leisure the several steps in the performance which the eyes overlooked in the hasty single glimpse afforded by the sitting itself; we may attend to details which in the original sitting reached only the outlying and evanescent phases of consciousness. But, on the whole, the psychological comprehension of the "séance" was sufficiently manifest without this disclosure of themodus operandi; the disclosure has its value, however, in removing the possibilityof certain forms of criticism of the results, in presenting data by which the specific nature of mal-observation may be more concretely studied, and in convincing the more obstinate and skeptical of how natural it is to err in matters beyond the range of one's intimate experience.
A corroborative illustration of the subjective contribution to deceptions of this type—the part that "always comes out of our head," in Professor James's phrase—is furnished by M. Binet's series of photographs, taken at the rate of ten or twelve per second, of the hands of the performer during a sleight-of-hand performance; for the photographs do not show the essential illusion which the eyes seem to see, but which is really supplied by the fixed interpretative habits of the spectators.
The conclusion thus experimentally arrived at by Messrs. Hodgson and Davey is reinforced by other investigators. After witnessing a séance that was merely a series of the simplest and most glaringly evident tricks, Mrs. Sidgwick was expected to have had all her doubts entirely removed, and was assured that what she had seen was better than the materializations at Paris. "Experiences like this make one feel how misleading the accounts of some completely honest witnesses may be; for the materializations in Paris were those which the Comte de Bullet had with Firman, where near relatives of the Count were believed constantly to appear, and which are among the most wonderful recorded in spiritualistic literature. And, after all, it appears that these marvelous séances were no better than this miserable personation by Haxby."
The Seybert Commission finds that "with every possible desire on the part of spiritualists to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, concerning marvelous phenomena, it is extremely difficult to do so. Be it distinctly understood that we do not for an instant impute willful perversion of the truth. All that we mean is that, for two reasons, it is likely that the marvels of spiritualism will be, by believers in them, incorrectly and insufficiently reported. The first reason is to be found in the mental condition of the observer; if he be excited or deeply moved, his account cannot but be affected, and essential details will surely be distorted. For a second reason, note how hard it is to give a truthful account of any common, everyday occurrence. The difficulty is increased a hundredfold when what we would tell partakes of the wonderful. Who can truthfully describe a juggler's trick? Who would hesitate to affirm that a watch, which never left the eyesight for an instant, was broken by the juggler on an anvil; or that a handkerchief was burned before our eyes? We all know the juggler does not break the watch, and does not burn the handkerchief. We watched most closely the juggler's right hand, while the trick was done with his left. The one minute circumstance has been omitted that would have converted the trick into no-trick. It is likely to be the same in the accounts of the most wonderful phenomena of spiritualism."
If we desire a concrete instance of this omission of an important detail, we may turn once more to Dr. Furness's narrative. Certain highly intelligent observers had described to him the marvelous accomplishmentsof a Boston medium; and this is his own account: "There are two tables in the room of séance, at one of which sits the medium, at the other, the visitor. The visitor at his table writes his question in pencil at the top of a long slip of paper, and, after folding over several times the portion of the slip on which his question is written, gums it down with mucilage and hands it to the medium, who thereupon places on the folded and gummed portion his left hand, and in a few minutes with his right hand writes down answers to the concealed questions; these answers are marvels of pertinency, and prove beyond a cavil the clairvoyant or spiritual powers of the medium." Dr. Furness went to the medium, prepared his slip of paper about as described, and thus continues: "As soon as he took his seat, and laid the strip on his table before him, I rose and approached the table so as to keep my paper still in sight;the row of books entirely intercepted my view of it. The medium instantly motioned to me to return to my seat, and, I think, told me to do so. I obeyed, and as I did so could not repress a profound sigh. Why had no one ever told me of that row of books?"
I have thus passed in review a series of facts and considerations in pursuance of the general inquiry as to why the manifestations produced in evidence of spirit agency deceive, and as to the origin of the vast testimony in favor of spiritualistic marvels. It is not necessary for the purposes of the psychological discussion to demonstrate that all such manifestations arefraudulent; it is not even necessary—although with limitless time and energy it might be desirable—to examine all of the various kinds of manifestations which the ingenuity of mediums has devised, or which have been presented through mediumistic agency.[8]All that is necessary is to examine a sufficient number of manifestations of acknowledged standing and repute among spiritualists,—manifestations, be it clearly understood, which have actually brought hundreds and thousands of converts to its ranks, which have been persistently brought forward as indisputable evidence of supernatural agency—and to show that in reference to these, actual and extensive deception has taken place. It would not be proper to declare that at this point the psychologist's interest ends; for the centre of interest in such problems may shift from one point to another. The central point in the present discussion, however, is not what is the evidence in favor of the spiritualistic hypothesis logically worth,—although the considerations here presented have obvious and radical bearings upon that question. If that were our quest, we should put thespiritualists upon the defensive; for the burden rests upon them to show the inadequacy of the natural explanation of the phenomena, and to present the special facts that point to the correctness of the spiritualistic as opposed to other explanations. We may recognize, in passing, to what sorry excuses they are driven in its defense: writing, they are driven to explain, is best produced in the dark, because dark is "negative," and light is "positive"; if the spirit that appears resembles the medium, that is an effect of the materializing process; if a piece of muslin is found in the medium's cabinet (and obviously used as drapery in the materializations), it is supposed to have been brought by the spirits to clothe their nakedness, or that the spirit which had brought the muslin "had to vanish so quickly that it had no time to dematerialize the muslin;" if writing does not appear when the slates are looked at, that is because the "magnetism" of the eye interferes with this spiritual process of writing; and did not Slade receive an express command from the spirits forbidding him, on penalty of cutting off all communication, to attempt to write on sealed slates? Some even claim that fraud and genuine manifestations go hand in hand, or that the former are the work of evil spirits counterfeiting conjuring tricks. A prominent spiritualist openly announces that Slade "now often cheats with an almost infantile audacity and naïveté, while at the same or the next séance, with the same investigators," genuine spiritualistic phenomena occur; while another disciple holds that the true spirit in which to approach the study is an "entire willingness to be deceived." Surely there is no duty resting uponscientific men to consider the claims of a system that resorts to such idle and extravagant hypotheses, and that fosters and prospers in such a moral atmosphere.
We may therefore profitably confine our attention to the psychological lessons to be drawn from the record of fraud and deception which the exploitation of Spiritualism has produced.[9]When the day comes when the manifestations above considered shall be definitely conceded to have a natural explanation along the general lines here presented, and the spiritualists shall have taken refuge in other and distinctively different manifestations, then it may become advisable to prepare a revised account of the psychology of Spiritualism.
There remains an important series of considerations that form an essential factor in the psychological comprehension of the phenomena of Spiritualism; this is the effect of bias and prepossession. When by onemeans or another a strong faith in the reality of spiritualistic manifestations has been induced; when the critical attitude gives place to a state of extreme emotional tension; when, perhaps, special griefs and trials give undue fervor to the desire for a material proof of life after death, of communion with the dear departed; when the convert becomes a defendant of the faith, anxious to strengthen the proofs of his own conviction,—then we have no longer mere unintentional lapses of observation and memory to deal with, but actual mental blindness to obvious fraud and natural explanations; then caution is thrown to the winds and marvels are reported that are the result of expectant attention and imagination, or of real illusion and hallucination. The blamelessness that may be conceded for one's mystification by conjuring performances cannot be extended to the present class of experiences; here it is not unusualness of external arrangements that forms the main factor in the deception, but the abnormal condition of the observer's mind. The materialization séances offer a sufficient example of this form of manifestation. To recognize a departed friend in the thinly disguised form of the medium is most naturally interpreted as a mark of weak insight or of strong prejudice. "Again and again," writes Dr. Furness, "men have led round the circles the materialized spirits of their wives and introduced them to each visitor in turn; fathers have taken round their daughters, and I have seen widows sob in the arms of their dead husbands. Testimony such as this staggers me. Have I been smitten with color-blindness? Before me, as far as I can detect, stands the very medium herself, in shape, size, form, and featuretrue to a line, and yet, one after another, honest men and women at my side, within ten minutes of each other, assert that she is the absolute counterpart of their nearest and dearest friend; nay, that she is that friend. It is as incomprehensible to me as the assertion that the heavens are green, and the leaves of the trees deep blue. Can it be that the faculty of observation and comparison is rare, and that our features are really vague and misty to our best friends? Is it that the medium exercises some mesmeric influence on her visitors, who are thus made to accept the faces which she wills them to see? Or is it, after all, only the dim light and a fresh illustration ofla nuit tous les chats sont gris?" In the confessions of an exposed medium we read: "The first séance I held, after it became known to the Rochester people that I was a medium, a gentleman from Chicago recognized his daughter Lizzie in me after I had covered my small mustache with a piece of flesh-colored cloth, and reduced the size of my face with a shawl I had purposely hung up in the back of the cabinet." With such powerful magicians as an expectant interest and a strong prepossession, the realm of the marvelous is easily entered; but the evidence thus accumulated may be said to have about the same scientific value as the far more interesting entertainments of the "Thousand and One Nights." "Sergeant Cox," Mr. Podmore tells us, "adduced the hallucinatory feeling of a missing limb in proof of a spiritual body; and a writer in the 'Spiritualist,' 'not yet convinced of the spiritualistic theory,' could even pronounce the after-images produced by gazing at a straw hat to be 'independent of any known human agency.' Fromall of which it may be gathered that the conscientious spiritualist, when on marvels bent, did not display a frugal mind." Such opinions certainly justify Mr. Podmore's remark that there are spiritualists, "not a few, who would be capable of testifying, if their prepossessions happened to point that way, that they had seen the cow jump over the moon; and would refer for corroborative evidence to the archives of the nursery."
It is natural to suppose that prepossession of such intensity could occur only amongst the less intelligent and less discerning portions of mankind; but to a considerable extent, and certainly in sporadic instances, this is not the case. The distinguished naturalist who shares with Darwin the honor of contributing to modern thought the conceptions of evolution, in his ardent advocacy of Spiritualism, has recorded his assent to the belief that professional conjurers, performing at the Crystal Palace in London, could not accomplish their tricks without supernatural aid. With peculiar obliviousness to the double-edgedness of his remark, he writes: "If you think it all juggling, point out where the difference lies between it and mediumistic phenomena." The same prepossession renders him so impervious to the actual status of the evidence for Spiritualism as to permit him to record so preposterous a statement as the following: The physical phenomena of Spiritualism "have all, or nearly all, been before the world for twenty years; the theories and explanations of reviewers and critics do not touch them, or in any way satisfy any sane man who has repeatedly witnessed them; they have been tested and examined by skeptics of every grade of incredulity, men in every way qualifiedto detect imposture or to discover natural causes,—trained physicists, medical men, lawyers, and men of business,—but in every case the investigators have either retired baffled, or become converts." And in the latest utterances of the same authority the failure to credit the marvels of Spiritualism is put down along with the equal neglect of phrenology, as among the signal failures of our "wonderful century." If any further instances be required of the astounding effects of bias and prepossession in matters spiritualistic, the vast literature of the subject may be referred to as a sad but instructive monument of its influence.
The consideration of the effects of a prepossession in favor of a belief in spirit-agency leads naturally to a consideration of the origin of the belief. This tendency to believe in the return to earth of the spirits of the departed, is probably to be viewed as a form of expression of the primitive animism that dominates savage philosophy, that pervades the historical development of religion and of science, and that crops out in various ways throughout all grades of civilization and all levels of society. Combined with it is an equally fundamental love for the marvelous, and a more or less suppressed belief in the significance of the obscure, the mysterious, the occult. These belief-tendencies, accordingly, have an anthropological significance and an historical continuity which Mr. Lang thus presents: "These instances prove that, from the Australian blacks in the Bush, who hear raps when the spirits come, to ancient Egypt, and thence to Greece, andlast, in our own time, and in a London suburb, similar experiences real or imaginary are explained by the same hypothesis. No 'survival' can be more odd and striking, none more illustrative of the permanence, in human nature, of certain elements. To examine these psychological curiosities may, or may not, be 'useful,' but, at the lowest, the study may rank as a branch of mythology or folk-lore." Mr. Tylor fully concords with this view: "The received spiritualistic theory," he says, "belongs to the philosophy of savages.... Suppose a wild North American Indian looking on at a spirit-séance in London. As to the presence of disembodied spirits, manifesting themselves by raps, noises, voices, and other physical actions, the savage would be perfectly at home in the proceedings; for such things are part and parcel of his recognized system of nature." Mr. Podmore's comment upon the spiritualistic hypothesis expresses a kindred thought. "As the peasant referred the movement of the steam-engine to the only motive force with which he was acquainted, and supposed that there were horses inside, so the spiritualists, recognizing, as they thought, in the phenomena the manifestations of will and intelligence not apparently those of any person visibly present, invoked the agency of the spirits of the dead. We can hardly call this belief an hypothesis or an explanation; it seems indeed at its outset to have been little more than the instinctive utterance of primitive animism."
The strongly rooted, anti-logical tendencies of our nature, thus indicated, come to the surface in various and unexpected ways, and give rise to views and cultsthat have much in common with the manifestations and beliefs of Spiritualism. It is this very community that forms one of the recognizable stigmata of such movements; everywhere there is an appeal to the yearning for the mysterious, for special signs and omens that may reinforce the personal interpretation of the events of the universe, and reveal the transcendence of the limitations of natural law. These movements, too, seem at different epochs to flare up and spread into true epidemics, utterly consuming all inherent foundations of logic and common sense, in the white heat of the emotional interest with which they advance. It seems to matter little how trivial, how absurd, how vulgar, how ignorant, or how improbable the manifestations may be, the passion for belief in their mysterious origin sets all aside. Why returning spirits should devote their energies to playing tambourines, and conjuring with slates, to Indian dances, and vapid, bombastic, and ungrammatical "inspirational" speeches, seems not even to be considered. It requires as little evidence and as ridiculous evidence to prove a spirit to a spiritualist as it did to prove a witch to a witch-finder. Those whose feelings are not appealed to by the doctrines of Spiritualism will assuredly never be attracted by its logic.
The psychologist who observes the natural history of the belief in Spiritualism,—its origin, and mode of propagation, its blossoming and fruitage, is naturally led to consider the nature of its decline. That it declines rapidly in the presence of newer rivals for popular favor, appealing to much the same mental and emotional traits, and therefore finding a similarconstituency, has been made evident in the vicissitudes of its career. It suffered considerably at the period when the meteoric showers of Theosophy passed over our planet; it is subject to the waning of interest that always accompanies familiarity, and that makes even the most exciting experiences pale with time. Such familiarity also gives opportunity for the return of a calm and critical investigative attitude, such as the last two decades, in particular, have brought about. That such investigation is destined seriously to influence opinion, and eventually to triumph over error and superstition, no one with confidence in the ultimate rationality of mankind will be inclined to doubt. In the case of Spiritualism, logic will find a worthy ally in the more discerning development of the moral sensibilities which true culture always brings with it. When it is realized that a system that aims to instruct men in regard to beliefs appealing most earnestly and deeply to the human heart appears in the light of exact investigation as a tottering framework, held together by gross fraud, covered over with innocent self-deception, but also with vulgar sham; when it is realized that under the shelter of such a system men and women all over our land are daily and hourly preying upon the credulity of simple-minded folk, and obtaining a livelihood by means for which the law provides punishment,—the moral indignation following upon this realization will impart vigor to the protest against such practices, which a mere sense of their irrationality would fail to incite. The moral and æsthetic aversion which many of the practices and tenets of Spiritualism arouses in those whose ideals are soundand steadfast may prove to be a more serious menace to the spread of the belief, a more potent source of its decay, than even its inherent inconsistencies and improbabilities.
Important periods in the history of science are as likely to be characterized by changes in attitude towards the accepted body of knowledge, as by the extension of its realm through new discoveries. The contrast between the undeveloped and the advanced stages of a science is as well realized by noting the totally different mode in which facts are viewed, as by observing the vast increase in the range of recorded fact. The alchemist and the chemist have far more in common in the way of operations and material than in their conceptions of the purposes and the method of their pursuits. The astrologer and the astronomer are again most characteristically differentiated by their motives and point of view; both observe the positions of planet and star, and calculate orbits and phases and oppositions; but nothing is more absurdly irrelevant to the astronomer's purpose than the hope of predicting the fortunes of men. A more modern example of a similar relation is that between phrenology and the physiological doctrine of the localization of functions in the brain. And alchemist, astrologer, and phrenologist have this in common: that they aimed at immediately practical ends. The one hoped to create wealth, the other to foretell and control fate, and the third to insure success by discovering the earmarks of natural gifts. They distorted the facts of nature, andin the narrow pursuit of a practical goal, substituted for realities their own fanciful theories, or the elaborations of their defective logic. Science advances most favorably when the best energies are devoted to a comprehension of fundamental principles and to the accumulation of data under the guidance of the interests to which these principles give rise; and when the work proceeds with the confidence that, more indirectly but more surely, will the richest practical benefits thus accrue. The marked contrast exemplified in the history of chemistry and astronomy, and in a more limited way of brain physiology, make it proper to speak of the very different pursuits with which they were associated as their antecedents and not as early stages of their own development. Intimate as may be the relations between the two historically, the one represents but the forerunner of the other; it indicates in what direction interest guided thought before that changed interest appeared, which made possible the germination and growth of the true science. Only when the weeds had been rooted out did the flowers begin to thrive.
The history of hypnotism furnishes another and a varied illustration of a similar relation. If we accept as the essential fact of modern hypnotism the demonstration of an altered nervous and mental state, in which suggestibility is increased to a quite abnormal degree; in which, accordingly, functions not ordinarily under the control of voluntary effort become so controllable, and there are induced simple and complex modifications ofphysiological and psychological activities,—then the condition of opinion that prevailed prior to the recognition of the true significance of the phenomena in question, the false and unfounded and mystical conceptions concerning them, may properly be grouped together as the antecedents of hypnotism. The entire aspect of the problem under the one régime is strikingly different from its appearance under the reign of the successor.
In the presentation, from the point of view of modern hypnotism, of the more important steps in the tortuous and laborious transition from unbridled speculation and fantastic practices to a rational and consistent body of truth, a twofold interest may be maintained; the one, in the fluctuation of opinion antecedent to the scientific recognition of hypnotism, and the other in thedramatis personæconcerned in this history and their contributions, great and small, for good or for ill, to that gradual and irregular change of attitude the tested residue of which modern hypnotism embodies. The latter interest will form a helpful guide for selection among the complex sequence of events with which we shall have to deal. Accounts of the well-established phenomena of hypnotism are so readily accessible, that it seems sufficient to emphasize these two fundamental points—the ultimate recognition of an altered psycho-physiological state, and of the dominant part which suggestion plays in the development of hypnotic phenomena—and to accept them as furnishing the principles according to which the survey of the antecedents of hypnotism is to be conducted.
It will appear that much of the conflict which thepresent tale unfolds is the conflict between the rational investigation of intelligible facts and the unwarranted attempts at an explanation of alleged miracles,—a phase of the conflict between science and mysticism. The imperfectly understood is apt to be explained by the still more obscure; totally imaginary forms of energy are called upon to account for poorly observed effects; and so the mystery deepens, superstition spreads, and charlatanism finds a fertile field for its display. This conflict in the present instance is by no means confined to the past; the mystical and the miraculous, or at least the unintelligible side of hypnotic phenomena still finds its exponents. Accounts of observations and experiments purporting to demonstrate that hypnotism not only presents hyperæsthesia and exaggerated forms of mental activity, but transcends all normal psychological processes and reveals a hidden world in which other forces and other modes of mental communication freely appear, are widely circulated and sometimes with the authority of names of repute. But the more discerning, the more exact, and the more logical students of hypnotism, cannot accept such observations, and have often been able to point out the unmistakable sources of error which gave rise to them. The shrewdness of hypnotized subjects, the unconscious suggestion of the operator, looseness of observation and theoretical bias, exercise the same influence for error to-day as they presented in the antecedents of hypnotism.
In reading the story of former opinion, it is of advantage to keep in mind the well-established facts regarding hypnotism, not alone for the sake of recognizingwhat is important and what unessential, what are the instructive and what the irrelevant facts and details, but also for the equal advantage of securing data for the interpretation of phenomena, which in the absence of present-day knowledge, and in the misleading accounts current at the time, naturally gave rise to extravagant forms of explanation. Our knowledge of insanity, hysteria, and trance-conditions, of the influence of the mind over the body, of the nature of illusion and hallucination, of prepossession and suggestion, shed a strong light upon religious ecstasy, upon demon-possession, upon cures by shrines and relics, or by the king's touch, upon the contagion of psychic epidemics, upon the action of magnetized tree or "mesmerized" water, upon the performances of "sensitives" and somnambulists, and the sensational scenes enacted about the "baquet." Our historical survey might accordingly include an account of the states of insensibility and of the potent power of suggestion, which occurred in connection with the religious observances in the practices of ancient civilizations, and have always formed, as they still form, a characteristic cult among primitive peoples. That such states, closely corresponding to the hypnotic trance, are induced for magical purposes among savages is more than probable; equally clear is it that interspersed through the venerable record of magic and witchcraft and ecstasy and exorcism and miraculous cures, are accounts of states, induced usually by religious fervor, which are strongly suggestive of some of the characteristics of the hypnotic condition. But in the interests of unity and brevity it will be best to limit attention to thoseancestors of hypnotism, of whose methods and practices we have fairly definite information. More especially does the career of Mesmer supply the most favorable starting-point of the survey; yet some notice should be taken of those who preceded him in achieving reputation as healers of disease.
One of the best known of these healers was Valentine Greaterick (or Greatrakes), who was born in Ireland in 1628, and who came to England (about 1665) by invitation of Lord Conway, upon a mission thus quaintly expressed: to cure "that excellent lady of his, the pains of whosehead, as great and as unparalleled as they are, have not made her more known and admired at home and abroad, than have her other endowments." Lady Conway seems to have been intensely devoted to mystical pursuits, and assembled at Ragley Castle such men as Greatrakes, Rev. Joseph Glanvill, F.R.S., author ofSadducismus Triumphatus, Dr. Henry Moore, the Cambridge Platonist, and others of whom Mr. Lang speaks as "an unofficial but active society for psychical research, as that study existed in the seventeenth century." They told tales of "levitation" and witchcraft and the movements of bodies by unseen agencies, at all of which one or the other had been an eyewitness; and Greatrakes seems to have taken as prominent a part in these as in the healing proceedings. Greatrakes was called to his career by a special indication of providence—"he heard a voyce within him (audible to none else) encouraging to the tryals; and afterwards to correct hisunbelief the voice aforesaid added this signe,that his right hand should be dead, and that the stroaking of his left arme should recover it again, the events whereof were fully verified by him three nights together by a successive infirmity and cure of his arme." While he failed to cure Lady Conway's headaches "he wrought a few miracles of healing among rural invalids," and seems to have been particularly successful with nervous complaints. "I saw him," writes a contemporary, "put his Finger into the Eares of a man who was very thick of Hearing, and immediately he heard me when I asked him very softly severall questions."
The status of the medical science of the day is well reflected in the comment of Henry Stubbe, physician at Stratford upon Avon, from whose contemporary account our knowledge of Greatrakes is obtained. For explanation of the cures, he suggests "that God had bestowed upon Mr.Greataricka peculiar Temperament, or composed his Body of some particular Ferments, theEffluviawhereof, being introduced sometimes by a light, sometimes by a violent Friction, should restore the Temperament of the Debilitated parts, reinvigorate the Blood, and dissipate all heterogeneous Ferments out of the Bodies of the Diseased, by the Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Hand and Feet." However crude may seem this cure by the "Precipitation of the Morbifique Ferment," the theoretical position of Mesmer is not less hypothetical, dogmatic, and gratuitous. Indeed, to Greatrakes's and his biographer's credit, it should be noted that they recognized the distinction between functional and organic complaints; that Mr. Greatarick "meddles" only with such diseases as "have theirEssence either in the masse of Blood and Spirit (or nervous liquors) or in the particular Temperament of the parts of the Body," that he cures no disease "wherein there is a decay of Nature." "This is a confessed truth by him, he refusing still to touch the Eyes of such as their sight has quite perished." None the less his cures were regarded as miraculous, and Dr. Stubbe tells us that "as there is but one Mr. Greatarick, so there is but one Sunne"; and to dispel incredulity in regard to these wonders, he adds: "We are all Indians and Salvages in what we have not accustomed our senses: What was conjuring in the last age is Mathematiques in this. And if we do but consider the sole effects of Gun-powder, as it is severally to be used, and revolve with ourselves what we would have thought if we had been told those Prodigies, and not seen them; will we think it strange if men think the actions of extraordinary Ferments impossible?" But to leave the "Ferments" for the recorded account of what was done, we can only note that Greatrakes's methods consisted mainly of strokings and passes and in driving the pains from one point to another until they went out at the fingers or toes. There is nothing recorded that definitely suggests the production of the hypnotic state; but direct suggestion, reinforced by manipulations, obviously had much to do with the cures. They clearly approximate more closely to the faith-cure methods of to-day than to the phenomena of hypnotism.
The latter half of the eighteenth century seems to have offered social, intellectual, and political conditions peculiarly favorable to the success of fantastic schemers,of propagandists of strange philosophies, and advertisers of supernatural procedures for short-circuiting the road to health, wealth, knowledge, and immortality. In this period there appeared Swedenborg's inspired revelations and philosophic cult; Cagliostro's extravagant claims of personal power and bold-faced impostures; Schrepfer, who combined with Masonic mysteries a striking anticipation of the materializing séances of modern spiritualism; Gassner, the priest, exorcist, and healer; and finally Mesmer, the founder of animal magnetism, and through it the parent of an endless progeny of unproved and unprovable systems, and of equally irrational practices.
It is worth while to consider for a moment the career of Gassner, if for no other reason than that Mesmer witnessed Gassner's procedures, and that their methods have some points in common,—in particular the calling out of acute symptoms, or "a crisis," as a means of cure. Johann Joseph Gassner, a Suabian priest, appeared as a curer of disease about 1773; he regarded most maladies as of Satanic origin, and attempted cures by driving out the demon of disease by appeal to divine agency. After inquiry regarding the nature of the complaint and its symptoms, he would urge the patient to have faith, and perhaps would offer a prayer for his recovery; he would then call out the various symptoms of pain, stiffness, weakness, and the like, and at the word "Cesset" these symptoms would disappear. "Cesset ista Debilitas,"—the patient becomes as strong and as active as though he had never been sick. "Modo adsit Febris tantum in Manu et Brachio dextro,"—the right hand becomes cold and numb, andtrembles, the pulse in this arm is rapid, feverish, and strong, but slow and normal in the left. "Cesset in ista Manu et adeat sinistram,"—the left arm now becomes as the right had been, and the pulse of the right is now normal; and so the treatment proceeds, accompanied by the invocation, "Præcipio hoc in nomine Jesu." This process of alternation of pain and its remission is continued, until at length the patient is dismissed as cured. The status of Gassner's cures, except for their more pronounced religious character, is much the same as those of Greatrakes; both exhibit the effects of suggestion, but neither recognized the process of suggestion, nor gives evidence of having produced an abnormal condition. This, however, is by no means excluded; and Greatrakes's account of the insensibility of his own arm, as well as the similar state induced in his patients by Gassner, indicate a high degree of suggestibility.
Friedrich Anton Mesmer was born in Iznang, on the Lake of Constance, May 23, 1734; destined by his parents for the church, he turned from the study of theology to that of law, and again changed to medicine. He graduated as a physician from the University of Vienna in 1776, and in his doctor's thesis upon "The Influence of the Planets on the Human Body," he attempted to revive the underlying doctrines of astrology from a medical point of view. He defined the "quality of animal bodies, rendering them susceptible to the influence of heaven and earth," as "animal magnetism;" and regarded the action involved asanalogous to that of the moon upon the ebb and flow of the tide. The fluctuations and periodicities of disease he sought to produce artificially, and therefore called his theory the "imitative theory," the object being to imitate the ups and downs of nature. He records his first practical test on the 28th of July, 1774, when he placed magnets upon the chest and feet of his patient, a young lady, who was suffering from a variety of morbid symptoms. Shortly thereafter "she felt internally a painful streaming of a very fine substance going now here and now there, but finally settling in the lower part of her body, and freeing her from all further attacks for six hours." Somewhat later, when the same patient chanced to be suffering from one of her attacks, and was lying unconscious, she responded by violent movements to the slightest touch of Mesmer, but remained entirely unresponsive to the manipulations of a bystander. One of six cups was then chosen by Mesmer's visitor to be impressed with magnetic properties. Contact with this cup, which Mesmer had touched, produced in the patient movements of her hands and expressions of pain. Mesmer's influence made itself felt at a distance of eight steps, and even when a third person stood between the two. These simple observations were the humble beginnings of the practices of animal magnetism.
The details of Mesmer's early doings are of special value, for in them we may expect to discover the true nature of the man and his system; our knowledge of them is derived mainly from the account, written some thirty-five years after the events, by a not too discerning eyewitness. They give a sufficiently definite pictureof his manner and methods. Magnets and electric machines, passes and strokings, fantastic dress and equally fantastic manipulations, he utilized even before he became well known. The method was always the same; calling out pains and paroxysms and crises, and in turn allaying the symptoms thus aroused until the patient was pronounced cured. From the first, too, he was anxious to secure the recognition of authoritative bodies of scientific men. Early in 1775, Mesmer proposed his theory for acceptance to several learned societies, but received no encouragement. His use of magnets (which he probably derived from the astronomer, Hell) had aroused the opposition of his fellow-practitioners, and his professed cure of a protégé of Maria Theresa involved him in a somewhat unseemly dispute, ultimately necessitating his departure from Vienna. In February, 1778, he came to Paris, where he entered upon a remarkable but brief career, terminating somewhat abruptly in 1784.
Mesmer has left us a narrative of his doings during the first three of these years—a record devoted almost exclusively to a wearisome account of his controversies with the various learned societies of Paris. He appealed to the French Academy of Sciences and to the Royal Medical Society, announcing a most wonderful physical discovery, to describe which suitable words were as yet lacking. Mesmer wished these societies to sanction his discovery, not to act as judges of its truth, of which he says there can be no reasonable doubt. He offered them a series of dogmatic propositions, setting forth the nature of animal magnetism, and apparently desired the cures to be considered a subordinatepart of the issue. He was, however, continuously engaged in curing disease. His most valuable convert was M. Deslon, a member of the Medical Faculty of Paris, a man of considerable influence, who at once espoused Mesmer's cause with unlimited enthusiasm. He invited a dozen of his colleagues to meet Mesmer at dinner, and had read to them an exposition of the system of animal magnetism. The company seem not to have been very deeply impressed; for it was with difficulty that Deslon induced three of them to associate themselves with him in an investigation; and they soon deserted him, when their requests for simple, unambiguous tests and their explanation of the observed effect as due to an overstimulated imagination, were alike disregarded. The point at issue in these tests seems to have been whether Mesmer in his own person possessed an influence or magnetic radiation, which brought him into rapport with his magnetically sensitive subjects; but Mesmer apparently regarded any test that reflected the skeptical attitude of the investigators as unbecomingly suspicious. Deslon, however, remained a staunch believer in the new system, and defended its cause before the Faculty of Medicine, dwelling upon the honor of having it presented to them, and the eternal glory they would merit by accepting "the most important discovery at which the human mind had ever marveled." But the Faculty voted to reject the propositions, and Deslon lost his seat in their body.
This adverse action, together with Mesmer's threat to leave France, seems to have swelled the enthusiasm in his behalf to enormous proportions. He tells usthat he received a letter from the queen urging him not to shirk his duty to mankind by leaving France at this juncture, that he was visited by a high official in behalf of the king offering him an annuity of 20,000 livres, with an additional 10,000 livres for the rental of an establishment for operating his cures. Mesmer insisted upon the formal and irrevocable admission of the existence and utility of his discovery as preliminary to all negotiations, and demanded, in addition to the annuity, the gift of an estate; but this was a step farther than royal protection would venture.
Our information regarding the latter portion of Mesmer's Parisian career is meagre. In 1781 Deslon published his work on "Animal Magnetism," in which he repeats with undiminished enthusiasm his praises of Mesmer, describes the marvelous cures he has witnessed and prophesies the eventual triumph of the system. Shortly thereafter Mesmer went to the Spa; Deslon remained in Paris and began to treat patients by animal magnetism and with great success. He formed a special private class of educated men and women, from each of whom he received ten louis d'or per month. Upon hearing of this, Mesmer hurried back to Paris and found his former adherents divided into Mesmerists and Deslonists. He then (October, 1782) denounced Deslon as one who had betrayed his secrets and was misrepresenting the system. Through the efforts of friends, an inner circle—the first of the "Loges d'Harmonie"—was formed, consisting of one hundred members, each of whom paid one hundred louis d'or for the privilege of hearing Mesmer's exposition of his whole secret. Dissensions and discussionscontinued to arise; one of his hearers said "that those who know the secret are in greater doubt than those who are ignorant of it;" and M. Berthellot, the chemist, who in paying his fee reserved the right of criticism, was so irritated at the pedantic and ridiculous treatment to which he was subjected, that he upset the "baquet" and left the room in a violent rage. Matters went on in this way, with frequent propositions of a scientific examination, and as frequent refusals on the part of Mesmer to have further dealings with scientific societies, until, in 1784, the famous commission was appointed by the throne.
This commission was composed of four members of the Faculty of Medicine, MM. Borie (who at his death was succeeded by M. Majault), Sallin, Darcet, Guillotin, to whom were added five members of the Academy of Sciences, MM. Franklin, Leroy, Bailly, Lavoisier, and de Bory. Their report describes in scrupulous and careful detail everything that they witnessed at the house of Deslon, who carefully and circumstantially assured them that Mesmer's procedures and his own were quite the same; and who allowed them the greatest freedom in examinations and tests. They tried the treatment themselves, but felt no effects. They emphasized the fact that public performances in which excitement and contagion have full play are more successful than private ones, and that the subjects most easily influenced are to be found among the ignorant rather than among the educated classes. They blindfolded one of their subjects, and pretended to perform the usual passes, while they really did nothing; yet the expected results ensued. It was believed thatwhen the subject came in contact with a tree that had been magnetized, the symptoms of an approaching crisis would be manifested; accordingly they had a tree in Franklin's garden magnetized, but their subject went to four other trees and at each exhibited the usual phenomena. From such experiments, ingeniously devised and varied, the commissioners concluded that the effects witnessed were due to an overstimulated imagination, to an anticipation of the result, to excitement and contagion. "Let us represent to ourselves," they say, "the situation of a person of the lower class, and in consequence ignorant, attacked with a distemper and desirous of a cure, introduced with some degree of ceremony to a large company partly composed of physicians, where an operation is performed upon him, totally new, and from which he persuades himself beforehand that he is about to experience prodigious effects. Let us add to this that he is paid for his compliance, that he thinks he shall contribute more to our satisfaction by professing to experience sensations of some kind, and we shall have definite causes to which to attribute these effects."
There was presented at the same time a secret report by the same commission, dwelling upon the dangers to morality inherent in these practices. A commission appointed by the Royal Medical Society reported to the same effect. They found in all their experiments that an expectation of the result was necessary to its accomplishment, and they directed attention anew to the entire lack of proof of any of Mesmer's propositions regarding the magnetic fluid. To this second report there was one dissenting voice, that of Jussieu,the botanist, who, while rejecting all belief in animal magnetism, yet curiously regarded heat, as developed by friction, as an essential factor of the phenomena. Furthermore, M. Thouret reported, by request of the same society, upon the literature and history of the doctrine, and traced the notions which Mesmer advanced to older writers; and showed the similarity of his practices to those of former astrologers and mystics. In opposition to these reports, of which more than twenty thousand copies were issued, Mesmer denounced the government, the scientific societies, the medical profession, and all who had opposed him. His attitude may be inferred from the closing words of a letter to Franklin. "I am like you, Sir, one of those whom one cannot oppress without danger, one of those men, who, because they have done great things, dispose of insult as other men dispose of authority. If any one like you, Sir, cares to try it, I have the world as my judge, and if the world can forget the good I have done, and prevent the good I wish to do, I have posterity as my avenger."
These adverse reports were most influential in terminating Mesmer's career in Paris; but in this they were assisted by other events. Several deaths at the "baquet" alarmed his adherents, and were promptly turned to account by his opponents. The death of M. Court de Gébelin, an author and prominent man of the day, was the occasion of the characteristic comments of the period; and especially so as he had recently and publicly announced his indebtedness for renewed health to Mesmer. One of the journals noted his death thus:"M. Court de Gébelin vient de mourir, guéri par le Magnetisme animale;" another suggested for his epitaph:—