Popular Superstitions, and the Truths Contained Therein: With an Account of MesmerismMayo, Herbert
History
Popular Superstitions, and the Truths Contained Therein: With an Account of Mesmerism
Mayo, Herbert
Mesmerism; Parapsychology and medicine; Superstition
In ten days we have succeeded in disentangling the confused results
which attended our first experiments; and as I see no likelihood of
extending them at present in any new direction, I present them to
the reader now, as complete as I can at present render them. I have
used the term “divining-ring,” partly because I have a vague idea of
having seen Herr Caspari’s first facts adverted to in some publication
under that name; partly because it is really thus far deserved:—If you
place a piece of silver on a table, and lay over the table and it an
unfolded silk pocket-handkerchief, you can discover where the silver
lies by trying with the suspended ring each part of the surface. The
ring will only oscillate when held over the silver. But now I have to
substitute another name for the sake of precision.
A fragment of any thing, of any shape, suspended either by silk or
cotton thread, the other end of which is wound round the first joint
either of the forefinger or of the thumb, I will call an _Odometer_.
The length of the thread does not matter. It must be sufficient to
allow the ring, or whatever it is, to reach to about half an inch from
the table, against which you rest your arm or elbow to steady your
hand. If there be nothing on the table, the ring or its equivalent soon
becomes stationary. Then you test the powers of the odometer by placing
upon the table under it what substances you please. These I would call
_Od-subjects_.
To obtain uniform results with the Odometer, it is important to attach
the sustaining thread always to the same finger of the same hand,—best
to the forefinger of the right hand. It is evident that this rule
is not to prevent the experimenter, when he has succeeded in thus
obtaining a series of consistent results, from trying what will come of
substituting his other digits for that first employed.
I have armed the odometer with gold, silver, lead, zinc, iron, copper;
with coal, bone, horn, dry wood, charcoal, cinder, glass, soap, wax,
sealing-wax, shell-lac, sulphur, earthenware. As Od-subjects I have
likewise tried most of the substances above enumerated. All do not go
equally well, or perform exactly the same feats, with each odometer.
For example, an odometer of dry wood remains stationary over gold;
while it oscillates with great vivacity over glass. The respective
habitudes of different odometers to different Od-subjects is one of the
simplest points of investigation which the facts I am narrating suggest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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