Apparitions; Dreams; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Parapsychology -- Early works to 1900
From the journal of Esquirol I will quote other fragments, in which we
see that every object was associated with _one_ image.
“During our promenade he (a gallant general) interrupted me several
times, in the midst of a very connected conversation, saying, “Do you
hear how they repeat the words ‘_coward_, _jealous_?’ &c.” This illusion
was produced by the noise of the leaves and the whistling of the wind
among the branches of the trees, which _appeared to him well-articulated
sounds_; and, although I had each time combated it with success, the
illusion returned whenever the wind agitated the trees anew.
“A young married man was in a state of fury whenever he saw a woman
leaning on a man’s arm, being convinced that it was _his own wife_. I
took him to the theatre at the commencement of his convalescence, but as
soon as a lady entered the saloon accompanied by a gentleman, he became
agitated, and called out eagerly several times, ‘That is she, that is
she.’ I could hardly help laughing, and we were obliged to retire.
“A lady, twenty-three years of age, afflicted with hysterical madness,
used to remain constantly at the windows of her apartment during the
summer. When she saw a beautiful cloud in the sky, she screamed out
‘Garnerin, Garnerin, come and take me!’ and repeated the same invitation
until the cloud disappeared. She mistook the clouds for balloons sent up
by Garnerin.”
CAST. There is here as much romance, as when Ajax mistook a drove of
oxen for the armed Greeks, or Don Quixote the windmills for a band of
Spanish giants.
EV. Again, Dr. Beddoes relates the case of a scholar, who locked himself
up to study the Revelation. The confinement brought on _dyspeptic_ pains
and spasms, and he was persuaded that “the monster blasphemy, with ten
heads, was preying on his vitals.”
The Reverend Simon Brown died with the conviction that his _rational
soul_ was annihilated by a special fiat of the Divine will; and a
patient in the Friends’ “Retreat,” at York, thought he had no soul,
heart, or lungs.
From “Tulpius” we learn, that the wife of Salomon Galmus sank into a
state of extreme melancholy, from the deep conviction that she was a
visitant from the tomb, but sent back to the world _without her heart_,
for God had detained that in heaven.
Such illusions are sometimes excited by wounds of the brain. A soldier
of the field of Austerlitz was struck with a delirious conviction that
he was but an ill-made model of his former self. “You ask how Père
Lambert is,” (he would say;) “he is dead, killed at Austerlitz; _that_
you now see is a mere machine, made in his likeness.” He would then
often lapse into a state of catalepsy insensible to every stimulus.
Dr. Mead tells us of an Oxford student, who ordered the _passing bell_
to be rung for him, and _went himself_ to the belfry to instruct the
ringers. He returned to his bed only to die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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