In the fifth class the reader's credence will be much tested. Many of
the Scripture miracles were not a whit more difficult to believe. In
fact, some were precisely the same. Professional frauds have created
much hostility to the idea of anyone possessing clairvoyance. But the
somewhat amusing fact is that every human being is a clairvoyant--which
could be shown beyond disagreement if the doubter were placed in the
mesmeric trance. An instructive experiment has lately been told me, in
which the same patient, Grace ----, was used. A Mrs. Fuller, an invalid
in the hospital, was anxious about her daughter, who had not lately
written. Dr. Chapin, one of the house doctors, was the actuator. Under
his will the faculties of Grace ---- were made to see the child, then
about thirty miles off. She described Mrs. Fuller's home, its interior,
the daughter coming from school with her books, whom she talked to, what
she said, the precise time on a peculiar old clock in the room, and a
call on a neighbor then made by the daughter--all of which was afterward
proved to have been correctly reported. I mention Dr. Chapin's work
because it relieves me of some of the seeming egotism which a recital of
this kind enforces, and because my own experiments, which were, in
effect, precisely the same, though different in detail, have been
published elsewhere.[16]
[16] "The Ascent of Life," by Stinson Jarvis. Postal address,
Branch "X," New York, N. Y. Price $1.50.
As if these facts were not astounding enough, we come finally to a sixth
class, in which we find that these marvels can be produced by one's own
will-power acting on one's own interior faculties--the proofs of which I
have already published.
Now here, I submit, we get our right clew to the true position of man in
history. We now see why great men had always to be possessed of peculiar
will-power. They were great when the intensities of their ambitions,
desires, or necessities forced from their soul-faculties some portions
of knowledge which gave them a temporary ascendency, such, for instance,
as would provide an advantage in strategy, statecraft, duplicity,
treachery, or any other qualities which have assisted men who were
leaders. There was no limit to this, for the experiments show that there
is some quality in the soul of man that seems to be omniscient, or in
direct correspondence with omniscience.
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