placed, retain its power unimpaired, however frequently it may impart it—that it should attract and firmly hold to it bodies of great weight, so as not to be removed from it without great force, offers a phenomenon very analogous to that of mesmerism, whereby the hand or the foot is arrested, and so firmly held to a panel of a door, or to a floor, as, without extreme violence, not to be removed. I have heard, too, of cases where parties have communicated with each other, or have been asserted so to have done, in a mesmeric state, though at the distance of many streets, Indeed, what else was the seeing the postman arrive, deliver a letter, and then the telling the contents of that letter, as in the instance I spoke of, and at which I was present? For though, in this case, only one party was in a mesmeric state, it was equally possible the other, though at miles distant, might have been in the same state, and might have known what was going on in the room where the mesmerised person spoke of the contents of the letter. She even described the expression of surprise the contents of the letter were producing on her friends. And this telegraphic power has actually been assumed, and the reader may remember the description given, some few months since, of the condition and situation of the Franklin crew and ships. The reader cannot fail to observe what an exact description this account from Strada gives of the electric telegraph, particularly the submarine. One would almost imagine it to have been written in 1850. supposing the science of mesmerism to be only now in progress, and to be a perfectible science, why should we doubt taking individual facts as data for more universal and invariable, that the whole machinery of telegraph by wire may be dispensed with? Mesmerists do claim powers quite equal, though in individuals only, and not invariably—does such power at any time exist? If it does, and the science is progressive, who is to define its limit? It is important that we should know what is demanded of our belief. No one will deny that the demand is of a nature to warrant, if credited, the expectation of such a future as I have laid down.
Many may remember that, under this notion of electricity, metallic tractors were in fashion, and said to work great cures—till the experiment was tried with pieces of wood painted to resemble them, and the effects were the same. This took away the virtue from the metallic tractors.
There has ever been, in all ages, an extensive credulity with regard to the power of charm in the human eye and hand—particularly the latter, arising, or greatly strengthened, by its use in the act of blessing. There is the touching for the Evil, hence acquiring a royal name; and the superstition of the healing power in the dead man's hand. Naaman the Syrian thought that the prophet would "strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper." This striking the hand over the place has been the adopted means of the mesmerists also; but it is not according to the rules of the science necessary. For some go so far as to say they have only to will, and they effect. "I will that a person should come to me, and he or she comes"—this I have heard asserted, and many instances given, and some of very strange willing—and purposely strange to test the power. You are told that you may make a person love or hate—if under these passions you should will that they act, will they act? If the honest person, as I have shown, was made a thief by striking the hand "over the place" of thieving; and if a person is really made to come to you by your willing the coming—though at the same time, by words, you will him or her not to come—can you not will that he or she shall commit a particular theft, and it will be committed? I say not that any of our mesmerists are so wicked as to will such things; but a science so advantageous to thieves, who require instruments, may fall into very bad hands.
Viewing this and the many dangers which I have shown it comprehends, ought one not to desire that there may be in reality no such science—that it is all mere delusion, illusion, or collusion—anything rather than a truth? And this honest desire is right, and the honesty of it should effectually rescue the unconvinced from the coarseness of obloquy which, I am
