mesmeric illusion, or were this coating and the lights real?

A common glass of water being brought, it was put within the radius of B's luminous effluvia as described by A, who could see how far they reached. After a few minutes A reports that the water itself has become luminous, and that it remains luminous for a long while, even if removed to the other end of the room out of reach of B's effluvia. B's sensitiveness of the skin has been made to disappear by the hypnotic process; but any touch or puncture of a pin or needle on the outside edge of the phosphorescent or luminous coating perceived by A's eyes, is immediately perceived by B. His body does not feel the sharpness of a needle, but the outer edge of his luminous effluvia, several feet away from the skin, has acquired that sensitiveness lost by the body. And here appears a wonderful fact. The water in the tumbler removed to the end of the room has acquired that came sensitiveness. If you pinch the water with your fingers or touch it with a pin, B will scream that you pinch him, or prick him with a pin. But B will not feel the action if performed by a person who has no magnetic relation to him; in other words, the action of the magnetizer alone will be felt in the water by the subject.

Consequently the nervous sensitiveness of B's flesh has been carried further than the surface of his body, and has been communicated to objects duly soaked and impregnated by his luminous effluvia; and finally, the sensitiveness of these objects remains in them for a while even when removed to a certain distance from B's effluvia. "The water," says De Rochas, "loads itself with sensitiveness as calcium does with light; and the energy received radiates from it till it has returned all it has received, in other words, till it is spent or emptied."

Let us examine now more closely and with more details this strange transfer of the sensitiveness of our nerves to inert objects, which Colonel de Rochas calls the "exteriorization of sensitiveness."

A's eyes have been brought up by hypnotic process to a state which allows him to see the "luminous effluvia." But what he sees and describes varies a great deal according to the grade of hypnotic sleep in which B is being plunged. When B is awake and in his normal state, A describes the "effluvia" as a luminous coating on the skin; but as soon as B loses his sensitiveness under the action of mesmerism, the coating seems to dissolve itself in the atmosphere. Then it reappears like a light mist or smoke, which condenses itself and becomes brighter and brighter, till it takes again the

appearance of a thin coating of light following all the forms. of the body at a distance of about an inch from the skin. B feels then every touch of the magnetizer on the surface of that coating.

If you continue further the hynotizing process on B, A will see, around B's body, several new luminous coatings separated one from the other by a space of about two inches. The sensitiveness of B exists then only on these coatings of light, and seems to be in inverse ratio to their distance from the skin. These coatings will extend from six to nine feet from the body. They will go through a wall, not being stopped by masonry; and they will appear in the next room through the wall.

A glass of water which has remained a few minutes within the luminous coatings of B's body becomes brilliantly illuminated, as already stated. But when the water is thoroughly saturated, a luminous column of smoke will arise vertically from its surface. The acquired sensitiveness of that water when removed becomes weaker with the distance. If the water is carried too far it disappears. This seems to prove conclusively that B's feeling of touch transmitted to the water is real and not influenced by any sug gestion.

Now if we make a small statuette or figure of common moulding wax and place it awhile in the "luminous effluvia" of B, then withdraw it and prick it with a pin, B will feel the puncture of the pin at the corresponding part of his body. If you touch the head of the wax figure B will feel the touch on his own head. If you prick the leg of the statuette, B will feel the point of the pin at his leg, and the puncture will even appear on the skin. If you cut a lock of his hair during his sleep without his knowledge, then plant that lock of hair on the wax figure and pull it slightly, B exclaims suddenly, "Who is pulling my hair?" The same results are obtained if you try the experiment with the whiskers or beard, or even sometimes with the trimming of a fingernail.

Generally in most cases reported by Colonel de Rochas the sensitiveness did not extend over fifteen or twenty feet from the body of the subject, but there were exceptions.

The sensitiveness was then transmitted to a photographic image of the subject by leaving the plate for some time before using it in the "effluvia" of the subject. Here in several instances the plate retained the sensitiveness of the latter for several days. But unless the sensitiveness of the subject has been exteriorized (transferred from the skin to the "effluvia") before the photograph is taken, and unless

the plate has been well impregnated in the "effluvia," the sensitiveness does not exist.

Colonel de Rochas tells us that he made the following experiments on Mme. O- -in the presence of Dr. Barlemont and MM. Paul Nadar and A. Guerronan, in the well known photographer's studio of Nadar in Paris. A photograph was taken under the conditions just mentioned. As soon as the plate was carried to the dark room and touched the developing bath, Mme. O- complained of a cold chill. She could not localize on her body the touch of her image, but she had a general perception of that touch; and she felt "seasick" every time the water of the developing bath was agitated. At the next experiment, Mme. Ó

being

asleep and the operator having gone to another floor of the building to develop the plate, she fell suddenly in convulsions as if she had been sick at the stomach. It turned out that the operator had accidentally broken the plate on the next floor in dipping it in the bath.

Another experiment of Colonel de Rochas on Mme. took place as follows: He used generally the palm of his right hand to hypnotize her; he had a life-size photograph of that palm of his hand taken. Mme. O- - was awake and sitting on a chair, not knowing what was going on in the room. Then one of the assistants, being concealed behind a screen, presented the plate on which the hand of Col. de Rochas was photographed to the plate on which the image of Mme. O

had been previously taken. At the instant when the gentleman opposed the two plates to each other, Mme. O stopped her talk and fell asleep on the chair. Then Colonel De Rochas walked behind the screen and woke up Mme. O by simply blowing on her image.

This experiment was repeated twice without notifying Mme. O-- of what had been done. Then it was communicated to her; she was surprised and stated she would defeat the experiment the next time; she said she could successfully oppose it. The experiment was then tried against her and with her knowledge. She fell asleep one minute after the two plates were placed in opposition to each other; she could not fight the influence any longer.

The substances which are the most apt to acquire the sensitiveness of the mesmerized subject are generally the same as those which are the most apt to retain odors. Liquids, viscous substances, specially those deriving their origin from animals, like beeswax, also cloth of a loose texture like woollen velvet, are peculiarly adapted for it. But all subjects do not "exteriorize" their sense of feeling in the

same manner.

One subject transferred his sensitiveness specially well to iron, another one to silk, and both these subjects had very little power on water or wax.

The sense of touch or feeling seemed to be the only one exteriorized. If the agent spoke in a very low tone of voice to the water away from the subject, after the water had been impregnated with "effluvia" from the ear, the subject felt only a slight sensation of tickling in his ear. But some others nevertheless felt the influence of a small vial of valerianate of ammonia hermetically sealed which had been plunged in the sensitive water.

It should also be observed that all these experiments succeeded only with persons whose sensitiveness was either naturally very great or whose sensitiveness became developed by practice.

Thus, this wonderful "exteriorization" and transfer of a man's sense of feeling to inanimate objects opens now a vast field for new investigations. It shows, in the first place, what enormous physical influence on health and disease the luminous effluvia of a human being can exert. Experiments made by Dr. Babinski (the former assistant of Charcot) in Paris at the hospital La Salpétrière, and by Dr. Luys at the hospital La Charité, show that some diseases have been cured by treating them magnetically. A magnet was used in several cases, and here is an instance of its applica tion for transferring disease.

A metallic crown duly loaded with a magnet had been used at the Charité hospital for the treatment of a man. He was cured, and the crown was stored away in a closet for two weeks. Then it was tried on the head of a healthy subject in a state of hypnotic lethargy, and this man showed at once the same symptoms and the same manifestations of disease from which his predecessor had suffered. It seemed as if the magnetic crown had recorded the symptoms in the same manner as a phonograph records the voice. Had the first man died instead of being cured we should thus, says Colonel de Rochas, have called back, so to speak, the characteristics of a dead human being.

Medical science, consequently, will have to take due notice of such facts, and they will modify to a great extent the exclusive theory of propagation of diseases by microbes.

Then again this transfer of sensitiveness to inert objects throws a most interesting light on the dark and obscure practices of sorcerers and witches in the Middle Ages. Our forefathers believed in the faculty of hurting an enemy under peculiar conditions prescribed by sorcerers, by trans

ferring to him a disease or by stinging his image duly prepared for the purpose. History gives us many accounts of celebrated trials before courts of justice, where the accused man was executed for having killed or attempted to kill by such means a celebrated man. Such was the trial of Robert d'Artois, in France, the record of which we still possess, accused of having applied his dark science to the wife and son of Philip VI of Valois, in 1333. We never believed in such crimes, nevertheless Colonel de Rochas tells us that, after a sitting, as he had stung with a pin the leg of the wax figure used that day, he saw from his window the subject going home, stop suddenly in the street and rub violently his leg. He had felt the wound. Now in olden times a few hairs, or some trimmings of the fingernails, or a tooth, were supposed to transfer the sensitiveness under certain conditions from the subject to his image.

The sorcerer's art was two-edged, like a sword. It was believed that it could hurt, but it was also expected that it could heal. Our old libraries are full of ancient treatises proved now to contain some grains of scientific truth amidst much superstitious rubbish. We did not believe that they contained any truth at all, but now we see that they do, and we understand our forefathers better. Read the works of Robert Fludd (born in Kent, England, in 1574) and you will see how he cured diseases by transfer. He was one of the foremost scientific men of his time and appears now to have known more than we did in some respects. Paracelsus, born in 1493, Van Helmont born in 1577, and Maxwell, who died later, had full knowledge of this extraordinary faculty of our nerves to extend their action outside of our skin. Most of their medical science was based on facts which we have rediscovered to-day. Read the works of Digby, who was one of the most extraordinary Englishmen of his time, a celebrated soldier, statesman, and naturalist at the same time, who defeated at sea the Venetians and the Algerians, and then studied medicine at Montpellier, in France, and published a treatise on the nature of substances. You will see what he says about curing wounds by dipping simply a rag soiled by the blood of the patient in a certain liquid, without applying anything to the wound itself. Of course most of that old science was rubbish, but not all of it, and we were wrong in calling these men fools.

Then again these facts recently discovered in Paris by De Rochas, and others who followed and repeated his experiments, show conclusively-in the writer's opinion at least— that the common scientific theory based on our present