The Funny Side of Physic Part 61

MESMERISM.

Frederick Anthony Mesmer, to whose name the above _ism_ is affixed, was born in Werseburg, in 1734. He neither discovered, developed, nor understood anything of the art which has immortalized him. He was a designing, audacious man. If Ga.s.sner, Prince Hohenloe, and Greatrakes were falsely accused of dealing with the devil, Mesmer was truly leagued with a Father h.e.l.l. Father h.e.l.l was professor of astronomy at Vienna, where Mesmer obtained a medical diploma, and where he was connected at first with Maximilian h.e.l.l in magnetic instruments. Having a falling out with the latter, Mesmer resorted to the arts of his great predecessor, Greatrakes, but professed to cure, without the help of G.o.d or man, all curable diseases. He produced marvellous effects (but only temporary, however) in both Vienna and Paris, to which latter place he repaired to practise animal magnetism.

Among the little episodes relative to his treatment is one of Madame Campan, a lady of the royal household, author of "Memoires de Marie Antoinette." The husband of this celebrated lady sent for Dr. Mesmer--for all Paris was running mad after him--to cure him of lung fever. He came with great pomp, and having timed the pulse, and made certain inquiries respecting the case, he gravely informed the husband and wife that it was not in the way of magnetism, and the only mode of cure lay in the following: "You must lay by his side"--for he was confined to his bed--"one of three things, an old empty bottle, a black hen, or a young woman of brown complexion."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A BOTTLE, A HEN, OR A WOMAN."]

"'Sir,' exclaimed the wife, 'let us try the empty bottle first.'

"The bottle was tried, with what result is easily imagined. Monsieur Campan grew worse. Improving the opportunity of the lady's absence, Mesmer bled and blistered the patient, who recovered.

"Imagine the lady's astonishment when Mesmer asked for and actually obtained a written certificate of cure by magnetism" (Mesmerism).

This is more easily believed when one learns that Mesmer obtained his degree on an address, or thesis, relating to "planetary influence on the human body," and that afterwards, in answer to the inquiry by a learned Paris physician, who asked him why he ordered his patients to bathe in the Seine, instead of spring water, as the waters of the Seine were always dirty, Mesmer replied,--

"Why, my dear doctor, the cause of the water which is exposed to the sun's rays being superior to all other water is, that it is magnetized by the sun. I myself magnetized the sun some twenty years ago."

All that sort of fellows have ever a short course. Mesmer reached his zenith in Paris about the year 1784, when, for one year's practice, he received the enormous sum of four hundred thousand francs. The government, at the instigation of Count Maurepas, had previously offered him an annuity of twenty thousand francs, with ten thousand francs additional, to support a college hospital, if he would remain and practise only in France. "One unpleasant condition was attached to this offer, which prevented its acceptance; viz., three nominees of the crown were to watch the proceedings."

The government appointed a commission, consisting of Dr. Guillotin, and three other physicians, and five members of the Academy,--Franklin, Bailly, Borey, Leroi, and Lavoisier,--to examine the means employed by Mesmer. The result of the investigation--the discovery of his battery, which he termed the _baquet_, around which his patients a.s.sembled, and his windy pretensions to the self-possession of some animal magnetism beyond even his disciples, Berga.s.se and Deslon--was unfavorable to the truth of animal magnetism and morality, and the enthusiasm in his favor rapidly subsided. Mesmer soon found it convenient to repair to London. Here he made no great impression; his day had gone by.

He died in his native town, in all but penury and obscurity, in 1815.

Clairvoyance now made its appearance, which was but a different phase of magnetism, and Mesmerism was soon but indifferently practised in France.

In England the faculty entirely ignored it.

CLAIRVOYANCE.

What is it? The word is French, meaning, literally, clear-sightedness. It is a power attributed to certain persons, or claimed by certain persons, of seeing things not visible to the eye, or things at a distance. It is the action of mind over mind,--the seeing, mentally, of one mind through another.

By personal experiment with clairvoyants, I am positively convinced that they follow the mind (thoughts) of the subject or patient. I have laid out my programme before visiting one, and the operator, whether pretending or not to a "trance" state, has followed that course to the end, but usually adding something which was conjectural. Practice helps them very much. But the most of those persons, male and female, who proclaim themselves clairvoyants, are humbugs and impostors.

Let any clear-headed man, who has good intellectual qualities, go to a good clairvoyant, and try the above plan. Think out just the places and persons you wish the clairvoyant (or spiritualist, if he or she choose to call themselves such) to bring up. Stick firmly to your text, and the operator will follow it, if he or she is a clairvoyant. They can tell you nothing that you do not already know. If they go beyond that, it is guessed at.

No person of large causality can be a clairvoyant. The moment they employ cause and effect, they are lost in doubt. How else can you account for nearly all the professional clairvoyants (and spiritualists) being persons of low intellectuality? Of course they deny this; but a fact is a fact, and _it can't be rubbed out_!

There is a magnetizing feature in clairvoyance. The operator can make some persons _think_ they see a thing, when it is an impossibility to see it.

This influence is sometimes pa.s.sed from one person to another imperceptibly.

When the earthquake shook up the minds of the Bostonians, in 1870, there was one grand ill.u.s.tration of this fact. A gentleman standing in front of the Old State House, on Was.h.i.+ngton Street, soon after the shock, a.s.serted that the earthquake had started a stone in the front end of the Sears Building.

"There! don't you see it?" he exclaimed to the people on the sidewalk, who are always ready to stop and look at any new or curious object, as he pointed towards an imaginary crack in the marble. "It is just above the corner of that window there"--pointing--"a crack in the stone a foot long."

"O, yes, I see it," said one and another; and the gentleman moved on, leaving the gaping crowd to gaze after the imaginary rent in the wall.

"Where is it?" inquired a new comer.

"Right up there over the door," replied one.

"No, over that third window," said another.

Some "saw it," and others didn't "see it," but all day long the tide of curious humans ebbed and flowed. At eight o'clock in the morning I took a look--not at the broken stone in the marble front, but at the magnetized crowd looking upon an imaginary break. People with large causality looked, exclaimed, "Pooh!" and went on. The credulous stood gazing, and pointing out the rent to the "blind ones, who wouldn't see," hour after hour. At noon I again visited the scene. The crowd had s.h.i.+fted, but the same cla.s.s, male and female, stood gazing at the "calico building," and the same sort of people "saw the crack over the window."

[Ill.u.s.tration: EFFECTS OF AN EARTHQUAKE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BELIEVER SEES HIS GRANDMOTHER.]

At six P. M., I again visited the Old State House, and at dusk still again, to behold the crowd straining to get a last look at the rent before darkness shut out the view. On the following day, the scene was repeated, with no mitigation. The fact of the papers denying that there was any rent went for nothing. The crowd came and went, from morning till evening.

THE GATES OF MOSCOW.

Some readers may remember the story of the great Wizard of the North, who performed such marvellous feats before the czar, receiving from his highness a splendid present in money, and finally wound up by announcing that he would leave the city of Moscow on the following day, at twelve M., _by all the gates of the city at the same time_!

The watchmen were doubled at all the gates, to whom a description of the man was sent, and a sharp lookout was commanded, when, lo! just at noon the wizard was seen leaving the city at each separate outlet at the same moment. Of course he could not have left by but one gate, but which of the twelve no one could tell, for he was seen at all, or the watchmen were made to believe that they saw him, as he pa.s.sed out. To this the watchmen of the several gates testified, and that he uncovered his head to them, as he went past.

At which gate did he really make his exit? The beautiful gate Spa.s.s Voratu, or Gate of the Redeemer, has over the archway a picture of the Saviour. All who pa.s.s out here are compelled to uncover. Hence it is my belief, as he was seen uncovered, that this was the gate at which he really went out, and at all the rest the watchmen imagined they saw the wizard make his marvellous exit from Moscow.

THE DOCTOR OF ANTWERP.

Townsend, on Mesmerism, tells an instructing and amusing anecdote of a test, by a learned doctor of Antwerp, upon a clairvoyant girl. The doctor was allowed, at a seance, to select his own test, when he said,--

"If the somnambulist"--that was what he termed her--"tells me what is in my pocket, I will believe." Then to her he put the question,--

"What is in my pocket?"

"A case of lancets," was the reply.

"True," said the doctor, somewhat startled. "But the young lady may know that I am a medical man; hence her guess that I carry a case of instruments in my pocket. But if she will tell me the number of lancets in the case, I will believe."

"Ten," was the correct answer.

Still the doctor was sceptical, and said,--

"I cannot yet believe but if the form of the case is described I must yield to conviction." And the form of the case was given.

"This certainly is very singular," said the doctor, "but still I cannot believe. Now, if the young lady will give the color of the velvet lining of the case, I really _must_ believe."

"The color is dark blue," was her prompt reply.

"True, true!" said the puzzled doctor, and he went away, saying, "It is very curious, very, but still I cannot believe."

Now, if the doctor had not known that the case was in his pocket, or no one present had known beforehand, no clairvoyant could have described it.

What does this prove? That her mind was led by his inquiry to his mind, thence to the article on his mind at the moment. "This is a book" I say.

The fact of my saying it, or thinking it, leads my mind to the book.