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
The explanation of this mysterious phenomenon has been but recently
arrived at. The discoveries of Von Reichenbach, of which I gave a
sketch in the first letter, announce the principle on which it depends.
Among these discoveries is the fact that the Od force makes itself
visible as a dim light or waving flame to highly sensitive subjects.
Such persons, in the dark, see flames issuing from the poles of magnets
and crystals. Von Reichenbach eventually discovered that the Od force
is distributed universally, although in varying quantities. But among
the causes which excite its evolution, one of the most active is
chemical decomposition. Then, happening to remember Pfeffel’s ghost
story, it occurred to Von Reichenbach that what Billing had seen was
possibly Od light. To test the soundness of this conjecture, Miss
Reichel, a very sensitive subject, was taken at night to an extensive
burying-ground near Vienna, where interments take place daily, and
there are many thousand graves. The result did not disappoint Von
Reichenbach’s expectations. Whithersoever Miss Reichel turned her
eyes, she saw masses of flame. This appearance manifested itself most
about recent graves. About very old ones it was not visible. She
described the appearance as resembling less bright flame than fiery
vapour, something between fog and flame. In several instances the light
extended four feet in height above the ground. When Miss Reichel placed
her hand on it, it seemed to her involved in a cloud of fire. When she
stood in it, it came up to her throat. She expressed no alarm, being
accustomed to the appearance.
The mystery has thus been entirely solved; for it is evident that the
spectral character of the luminous apparition, in the two instances
which I have narrated, had been supplied by the seers themselves. So
the superstition has vanished; but, as usual, it veiled a truth.
LETTER IV.
TRUE GHOSTS.—The apparitions themselves always sensorial
illusions—The truth of their communications accounted for—Zschokke’s
Seer-gift described, to show the possibility of direct mental
communication—Second-sight—The true relation of the mind to the living
body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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