induced by Nellie's touch was akin to that, but was far more profound. First there came a sort of mental retrocession, consequent upon my previous intellectual activity. The soul-principle seemed to bound back from its investigations of the previous moment, to a pinnacle within itself, from whence it as rapidly sunk down into one of the profoundest labyrinths of its own vast caverns.
Down, down, still lower and deeper into the awful abyss of itself it sank, until at last it stood solitary and alone in one of its own secret halls. The outer realm, with all its pains and joys, cares, sorrows and ambitions, hopes, likes, antipathies and aspirations; all its shadows and fitful gleams of light, were left behind, and naught of the great wide world remained; for its lakes and green trees, its gardens and its tiny brooks, its beetling cliffs and radiant sky grew distant, very distant, until at length a cold and chilling horror crept over me, and suggested that perhaps, after all, the fearful doctrine
enters the domain of Spirit atall, daring the trance; but instead thereof, roams and revels in the Fancy Realm of his own, or some one else's soul. A suggestion,—either spontaneous or accepted—serves as the hither end of a clue, the line reaching just where the partially freed mind chooses to direct it. Frequent repetitions of the exercise of this organ of spectral illusion, lead directly to bad results, for the illusions soon impress themselves as realities, and the grossest and most absurd fanaticisms result; as witness the thousand phases of spiritual belief. In addition to this, the habit of mesmerizing, or being mesmerized, is a ruinous one to all concerned, producing pestilence and moral death. True, where both parties are good and pure, no harm may at first ensue, but at last an abnormal susceptibility results, by which any man or woman may be led into "the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell." I speak of course concerning indiscriminate magnetizing.
