Part 60 (1/2)
Let us begin with the brain. Let us take a ball of cotton for our ill.u.s.tration. We draw out a piece from it, and spin it out to our fancy.
It is a thread, but _cotton_ still, twisted to a fine string. The brain is located at the top of man. By means of fine threads, called nerves, the brain is distributed over the entire body, so completely that you cannot stick a pin in the flesh without touching a nerve, wounding the brain.
Suspend the entire action of the brain, as by ether, chloroform, or nitrous oxygen gas, and sticking the pin is not felt. Partially suspend the action, as by a small quant.i.ty of the nitrous oxygen gas, and the force of the brain (or active force) is centred upon the lower brain, and the man under its influence acts out his animal nature in spite of reason.
A man, I hold, who magnetizes or mesmerizes another, uses only the force of the lower brain. Like begets like. He cannot affect a person of large intellectual organs; only one with the animal organs active.
You cannot _see_ the gas, yet it affects the person. You cannot see the subtile power conveyed from one man to a weaker. He conveys it by touch--nerve to nerve. I believe science will yet discover just what this subtile agent is--both in the blood and nerves; for it is in both, or why does the suspension of it in one destroy the other? Destroy the nerve, and the corresponding blood-vessel is inactive. Destroy the blood-vessel, and the corresponding nerve suffers.
It is the power that the mother exercises to hush her sobbing babe to slumber. As the child gathers strength of mind, she loses that control. A person may be used as a mesmeric subject until he becomes a mere idiotic machine. Educate a clairvoyant doctor, and what becomes of his clairvoyant power? It is lost with the increase of intellectual power. Now, is this a ”divine” quality, that only ignorance can make use of? Is it really ”hidden from the wise and prudent, and given to babes?” All sciences were practised by the uneducated first, before being reduced to a _science_. I think this will be yet reduced to a useful science. As it now stands, it is useless. If it is a spirit power, the spirits are mighty silent as to the fact.
We come into this world by natural causes. We live, grow, exist, and we die by natural causes. We brought no knowledge with us; we carry none out.
All the qualities yet developed in man are natural, and adapted to this life. Millions upon millions have so lived and so died, and a spirit power in _this_ world is no nearer to being established than it was when Adam was a little boy. All that heretofore has been attributed to spirit, or supernatural causes, has been proven to be but natural. I claim that magnetism and the undiscovered sciences are natural, and have no connection with the next world, to which we tend. The human eye, to some extent, is magnetic. A blind man cannot thrill an audience; hardly can an orator with gla.s.ses over his eyes. Dr. Chapin approaches the nearest to it. Dr. Beecher's great magnetic power is in his eyes, and is also let off at the ends of his fingers. But to _thoroughly_ magnetize a person, he must be _touched_.
POWER OF THE HUMAN EYE.
A wild animal has only small reasoning organs. The influence of the human eye is potent over him. Lichtenstein says, ”The African hunters avail themselves of the circ.u.mstance that the lion does not attempt to spring upon his prey until he has measured the ground, and has reached the distance of ten or twelve paces, when he lies crouching on the ground, gathering himself up for the effort. The hunters,” he says, ”make it a rule never to fire on the lion until he lies down at this short distance, so that they can aim directly at his head with the most perfect certainty.
If one meets a lion, his only safety is to stand still, though the animal crouches to make his spring; that spring will not be hazarded if the man remain motionless, and look him steadfastly in the eyes. The animal hesitates, rises, slowly retreats some steps, looks earnestly about him, lies down, again retreats, till, getting by degrees quite out of the magic circle of man's influence, he takes flight in the utmost haste.”
It is said of Valentine Greatrakes, the great magnetizer and forerunner of Mesmer, that the glance of his eye had a marvellously fascinating influence upon people of a susceptible or nervous organization. All magnetizers, etc., who have tried their powers upon the writer, first bent a sharp, scrutinizing gaze upon the eye of their unruly subject. Yet they have exercised no _reason_ in selecting the subject.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LION MAGNETIZED.]
I attended the exhibitions of Professor Cadwell, night after night, in Boston. I went on the stage. I examined the subjects whom he controlled ”like an old fiddle,” and, physiognomically and phrenologically, not one of them was above mediocrity intellectually, and the most of them were far below. The best subjects had the least intellectuality. His control over them was astonis.h.i.+ng. In some he could suspend the power of memory, others all the reasoning faculties. Some he could control muscularly, some mentally.
”This is a hot stove,” he said, setting an empty chair before the row of men, boys, and girls sitting along the wall side of the stage. ”_It is very hot_;” and they began drawing back--all but one. ”Don't you see the stove, and feel the awful heat, Frank?” he asked of one hard subject.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A HARD SUBJECT.]
”I can feel the heat, but I can't see the stove in that chair,” was his droll reply.
The professor could make this gentleman forget his name, but could not make him believe that ”a silk hat was a basin of water.”
THE ROYAL TOUCH.
The old ignorant kings and queens were said to remove the scrofula (king's evil) by the touch. Gouty old Queen Anne was the last to exercise the royal prerogative to any extent.
A scrofulous _development_ is the result of imperfect action, and obstruction of some one or more of the five excretory organs of the human system. These are the skin (or glands of the same), the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, and the colon. The most that the regular physician does in scrofula (or one who is not a specialist in this branch of physic) is to attend to the general health of the patient of a scrofulous diathesis, build up the strength, and endeavor to increase the vitality. This _in a measure_ tends to reduce the scrofulous development. Now, will not a child sleeping continually with an aged person or invalid tend to reduce the vitality of the child? Yes, it absorbs the disease of the one, while the vitality is thrown off for the benefit of the weaker person. Here, you see, one person may partake of the vitality of another by touch. Then may not the continued touch of a healthy person (king or subject) affect the health of a weaker, on the principle of increased vitality?
But it really removes no cause, hence cannot take the place of an alterative, or anti-scrofulous medicine. The ”crew of wretched souls” who waited the king's touch really believed that he ”solicits Heaven.” Hence the cure. The coin which he hung about the neck of these ”strangely visited people, all swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,” called their attention continually to ”the healing benediction.”
Pyrrhus, who was placed upon the throne by force of arms B. C. 306, was said to cure the ”evil” by the ”grace of G.o.d.” Valentine, who only held his throne--A. D. 375--by the help of Theodosius, not by the ”grace of G.o.d”--claimed to cure scrofula by the latter power, as did Valentine II., whose wicked temper ended his life in a ”fit of pa.s.sion.”
The subject of the following sketch claimed also divine power:--
HERR Ga.s.sNER. ”THE DEVIL UNDERSTANDS LATIN.”
It seems from the following truthful account of Herr Ga.s.sner, a clergyman at Elw.a.n.gen, that the devil can understand Latin, as well as ”quote Scripture.” About the year 1758 this clergyman became so celebrated in curing diseases by animal magnetism, that the people came flocking from Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Swabia, in great numbers, to be cured of all sorts of ailments, a thousand persons arriving at a time, who had to lodge in tents, as the town could not lodge them all.