WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its startling facts are
now almost universally admitted. Of these latter, those who doubt, are your mere
doubters by profession --- an unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more
absolute waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present day, that man, by mere
exercise of will, can so impress his fellow, as to cast him into an abnormal condition, of
which the phenomena resemble very closely those of death, or at least resemble them
more nearly than they do the phenomena of any other normal condition within our
cognizance; that, while in this state, the person so impressed employs only with effort,
and then feebly, the external organs of sense, yet perceives, with keenly refined
perception, and through channels supposed unknown, matters beyond the scope of the
physical organs; that, moreover, his intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and
invigorated; that his sympathies with the person so impressing him are profound; and,
finally, that his susceptibility to the impression increases with its frequency, while, in the
same proportion, the peculiar phenomena elicited are more extended and more
pronounced.
I say that these --- which are the laws of mesmerism in its general features --- it would
be supererogation to demonstrate; nor shall I inflict upon my readers so needless a
demonstration; to-day. My purpose at present is a very different one indeed. I am
impelled, even in the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail without comment the very
remarkable substance of a colloquy, occurring between a sleep-waker and myself.
I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in question (Mr. Vankirk) and
the usual acute susceptibility and exaltation of the mesmeric perception had supervened.
For many months he had been laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more distressing
effects of which had been relieved by my manipulations; and on the night of Wednesday,
the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his bedside.
The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the heart, and breathed with
great difficulty, having all the ordinary symptoms of asthma. In spasms such as these he
had usually found relief from the application of mustard to the nervous centres, but to-
night this had been attempted in vain.
As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and although evidently in
much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally, quite at ease.
"I sent for you to-night," he said, "not so much to administer to my bodily ailment, as
to satisfy me concerning certain psychal impressions which, of late, have occasioned me
much anxiety and surprise. I need not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto been on the
topic of the soul's immortality. I cannot deny that there has always existed, as if in that
very soul which I have been denying, a vague half-sentiment of its own existence. But
this half-sentiment at no time amounted to conviction. With it my reason had nothing to
do. All attempts at logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me more sceptical than
