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      THREE  LECTURES


                    ON





               AS DELIVERED


IN NEW-YORK, AT THE KALI. OF SCIENCE,


   On the 26th of July, 2d and 9th of August,


                    EY


    DR. JOSEPH du coxaiauN,

 2j> TEACHER OF FRENCH AT THE V. S. MILITARY ACADEMY,
                WEST-POINT.







                  SOLD BY
   BERARD & MONDON, No. 3, COURTLAND-STREET.
     G. ifc C. & H. CARVILL, No. 108, BROADWAY.
 AND AT THE OFFICE OF THE  HALL OF SCIENCE,
        BROOME-STREET, NEAR BOWERY.

        PRINTED BY JOSEPH DESNOUES,
             23, PROVOST-STREET.
1829. 
 
I
                       TO

      MISS  FRANCES  WRIGHT,
 FOUNDER OF NASHOBA AND OTHER USEFUL ESTABLISHMENTS.



       Madam,
  Permit me to present you with these lectures ; a feel-
ing similar to yours has dictated them—Philanthropy.

  I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, and
the  highest admiration for your talents, disinterestedness
and courage,
                 Madam,
                      Your very humble and
                          obedient servant,
                     JOSEPH DU COMMUJY. 
 
a*aiB©^ jubghcwibibq
DISCOVERY  AND  HISTORY
       Gentlemen,
       Ladies,
  The purpose of this meeting is to present to
your consideration a subject of vital importance
to human  happiness and life, and one which has
given rise in Europe to vivid controversies in the
learned world ; this subject is Animal Magnetism.
1 am confident that many among my hearers have
scarcely heard the name pronounced; some may
have attached to it an  unfavourable idea derived
from hostile publications;  a few may wish to hear
more of a subject that may have excited their
curiosity, and  a still smaller number friendly to
this discovery, will encourage by their presence
and support  my exertions on this occasion.  Jt is
then before an audience thus constituted  that I
present myself with a due feeling of diffidence in 
6
FIRST LECTURE.
my own powers.  A citizen of this happy country,
not by birth, but from choice, hardly able to com-
mand enough of the language to express plainly
and clearly my ideas, if I have to request your
impartiality for the  subject, I have at the same
time to beg your indulgence for the manner in
which it is treated.
  About the  year  1778,  a  German physician,
Mesmer, in his practice for  the cure of several
sorts of diseases, made use of magnetic iron bars,
or Tractors; this extraordinary genius one day, not
having at hand the magnetic Tractors, imagined
to substitute for  them simple iron  bars;  to  his
own astonishment he produced  the same effect.
Struck with this unexpected result, he substituted
for  iron other metals—silver, gold, &c, and he
obtained constantly the same effect.  Then, tak-
ing objects of a  different  nature with the same
intention, he finally came to  use merely his own
hands.   He made attempts;  renewed them, and
succeeded in producing again  the  same pheno-
mena.  He then recognised in man the power of
acting on the organs of another man, by means
which  depend on the will of him  who employs
them.  From that moment Animal Magnetism was
discovered,  and  the discovery received  that
strange name in opposition to mineral magnetism,
or to the  property of the loadstone, of which it
seemed to be but the substitute.
  The manner this discovery was  made, led to
the disadvantageous circumstance,  that many er- 
DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.
7
rors were mingled, blended with a primitive truth.
Mesmer imagined he had  made the discovery of
a universal fluid spread throughout, and generally
diffused in nature; a universal agent  which, being
directed by the  means he had adopted, would
cure all kinds of diseases.  Repulsed from his na-
tive country by those whose interests  he wounded,
he came to Paris about the year 1784.  The cures
he operated astonished, those who witnessed them;
they soon excited a general enthusiasm. He made
pupils.  A hundred of them paid him each a hun-
dred  Louis d'or to purchase his  secret.  Some
have blamed Mesmer  for having received money
to communicate  his secret, some have  excused
him on the score that a Physician has the right to
receive fees.   However, a circumstance  remark-
able in this transaction is that not  a single pu-
pil reproached  him with  having  imposed  upon
their  credulity.  There was among  the  pupils
a very  talented  man,  then  first physician of a
French prince now the reigning king of France,
Charles X. This physician, Dr. D'Eslon, adopted
the principles  of Mesmer; formed a large appa-
ratus, called Magnetic Tub, according to the opi-
nion of a universal fluid, in order  to accumulate
and  concentrate it, and opened a  public treat-
ment.  Public attention being drawn to this sub-
ject, the French  government thought it proper to
submit Magnetism to  the  judgment of the Aca-
demy of Sciences and  of the Faculty of Me-
dicine. 
3
FIRST LECTURE.
  Commissaries of these companies were appoint-
ed to examine the new doctrine.  They were en-
lightened and upright  men, but  so much preju-
diced against Magnetism that they refused to call
on Mesmer; they went to D'Eslon's public treat-
ment ; there they made experiments on the Mag-
netic Tub, in the  same manner as they would  have
done to verify phenomena of mineral magnetism
and electricity;  they consequently produced  no
effects, since those  effects could merely depend
upon their will;  and, without having even heard
or seen the inventor, Mesmer, they declared that
Magnetism was nothing.
  I cannot pass over in silence at this moment a
circumstance  most  unfavourable  in  the United
States to the cause  of  this discovery.  Benjamin
Franklin, the great  Franklin, the honour of this
country and the friend of France, was, on account
of his great popularity and his known merit  as a
philosopher, appointed, by the king  of France,
one of the  commissaries, and he signed in that
capacity  the fatal report.  To  this unfortunate
circumstance we must probably ascribe the  diffi-
culty this discovery has met with to find its way
among  you.   Indeed his signature seemed to  be
a deadly stroke.   Still when we  consider how it
was obtained  its effects on our  opinion must be
modified.  Franklin was sick; he did  not attend
to any experiment.   Oh!  if he had, things had
been very different! They presented the report,
to which he put his name while in his bed, la- 
                DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.         9
      bouring under acute pains.   All that we can infer
      then from the case is  that Franklin had a strong
      prejudice against Magnetism.  I shall  not expa-
      tiate any more on that point, but leave  to Frank-
;     lin himself to apologize  in  his own words, here
      extracted from his private memoirs :
        " We sometimes embrace an opinion which we
      " think correct,  but upon maturer reflection we
      " change it for the very reverse."
        A name should be recorded here—that of pro-
      fessor de Jussieu.  Being  one ©f the commissaries
      of the  Royal Society  of Medicine, he had the
      courage to refuse to join his signature to theirs,
      and published a particular report, remarkable for
      its philosophical views in favor of the discovery.
        No sooner had the reports of the commissaries
      been published than Magnetism,  its author  and
      propagators were delivered up to  public animad-
      version ;  insult  and  ridicule were not  spared.
      Pamphlets against it were multiplied to an incal-
      culable number, under every form, with answers,
      replies, counter-replies, &c.   The  theatre, taking
      possession of it,  ridiculed Mesmer  and  his  fol-
      lowers.  The faculty of Medicine prohibited its
      members to make  use of a means they had pror
      scribed, and, adding proscription and persecution
      to  injustice,  they dismissed from their number
      those who would not adhere  to their prohibition.
        In the mean time, the pupils of Mesmer conti-
      nued their operations;  they performed  cures, at-
      tended with crisis, convulsions, sleep, which were
                            2 
j0             FIRST LECTURE.
the only things the public observed; the most im-
portant phenomenon had escaped the observation
of Mesmer himself.
   It was the good fortune of one amongst them to
make first the important observation.  De Puyse-
cur, a man of high birth and  of a large fortune,
having by chance addressed a patient whom he
had just put to sleep, this  one answered, warned
him of the state in which he was, and of the pos*
sibility of producing a  similar effect on others.
So was Magnetic Somnambulism discovered. It
soon attracted the attention of Magnetisors, and
the astonishment it excited, redoubled their zeal
and activity.
  A  new era begins here.  From this moment the
practice  of Magnetism spread more universally,
and phenomena the most extraordinary in their re-
sults were observed by those who were  willing to
open  their eyes.  Societies of Magnetisors  were
formed in several parts of  France, Germany, and
even  in the West Indies, as much by the care of
De Puysegur and his brothers, as by the exertions
of Mesmer's other pupils and their own pupils, for
in their turn, they had made many proselytes. If
a man may be  allowed to speak of himself on
such an occasion, I must declare here that I con-
sider myself as  a  pupil  of De Puysegur; in that
capacity, I beg leave to pay him the tribute of
respect and regret that his memory deserves.
  The most proper way to praise De Puysegur,
is to relate faithfully what he has done, and  to-re-
late it, is to continue the history of Magnetism. 
DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.
11
   After  having contributed to the formation of
 societies in Bayonne, Lyons, Strasbourg, and se-
 veral other cities of France,  under the  name of
 Society  of  Harmony,  a name which,  in  these
 walls, must  re-echo from trie ears to the hearts of
 my hearers; after having carried the new benefi-
 cent  theory to the French colonies; after having
 changed all the officers of the regiment he com-
 manded  into as many Magnetisors, the dawn of
 the French revolution having made its  appear-
 ance,  the  Marquis  De  Puysegur, adopting its
 principles, retired into Busancy, one of his estates,
 to consecrate all his fortune and time to the relief
 of the sick and poor, he opened there a public
 and  gratuitous treatment on the Mesmerian prin-
 ciple of a universal  fluid, but modified  according
 to his own  ideas.  A large tree,  as an  organised
 body, spreading its branches in the air, and its
 roots under ground, seemed to  him a more proper
 apparatus, to accumulate a wholesome fluid, than
 the tub at that time in use. He obtained by these
 means the power of magnetising  several  persons
 at the same  time;  of being even supplied during
 his absence, which was  frequent, to attend dis-
 tant  or disabled patients.   Neither the  attacks
 made in the newspapers, neither the ridicule
 lavished on  the stage upon his exertions, nor the
 recriminations of the physicians,  were able to
 check him  in the course of beneficence  he was
 determined to follow.
  Indeed it  had been  one of  the deplorable re-
sults of the publication of the reports, to put as it. 
32             FIRST LECTURE.
were  at war the magnetisors and the physicians
as a constituted body;  I say a constituted body,
for many of them acknowledged the reality and
advantages of Magnetism in the cure of diseases;
made use of it in spite of the prohibition of their
faculty, and even suffered  their  names to be
erased from the list of  their corps.  But a war,
whether waged with  the sword or with  the  pen,
presents constantly the hideous spectacle of vio-
lence,  injustice, hatred and  vengeance.  Each
party would annihilate  the  opposite party, and
all means seemed good.   The physicians scorned
and rejected Magnetism; the magnetisors, raising
altar against altar, endeavoured to  make them-
selves independant of Hippocratic medicine. The
physicians, after having declared that Magnetism
was  nothing, said it  was a dangerous thing, and
dissuaded their patients  from  the use of it;  the
magnetisors, to retort  the argument and prove
the contrary, would sometimes take  the patients
the physicians  had abandonned, and cure  them.
The physicians attacked then the  magnetisors
as quacks, and law-suits were instituted against
them;  the  magnetisors  had  several consultations
made upon the same patient, and exposed pub-
licly the  physicians that had given for  the same
disease—contrary  opinions.   But let us draw  a
veil  on these  shameful  transactions; if they be-
long to the history of Magnetism, they  have no-
thing in common with Magnetism itself.
  Wars  still more extensive and dangerous than
this put a stop to it—I mean here the wars of the 
DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.
13
French revolution.  At this  period the  several
societies of Harmony were dissolved ; their mem-
bers disseminated; public treatments shut up; par-
ticular ones, if any, unobserved.   It seemed that
Magnetism, that long folly, was finally forgotten.
   Fifteen  years  after this  apparent defection,
Magnetism sprung up again, stronger than ever,
time and political interests had quelled the pas-
sions and  dissentions ; it had been practised in
silence, and its  effects observed with a philoso-
phical eye.  The indefatigable De Puysegur, came
forward, in  1806,1807 and  ] 809, with three vo-
lumes of his personal observations.  These  works
had  a great influence;  they  were  followed by
more than 30 volumes, which contain incontest-
able proofs of magnetism: an innumerable num-
ber  of witnesses attest the effects.   De Puysegur
was  the  first to  expose the phenomena of Som-
nambulism and  consequently the first who esta-
blished the doctrine  on  a solid  foundation.  A
multitude ©f observations have confirmed his prin-
ciples, and made known the results; the end and
means have been indicated.
   Then  Mr. Deleuze, now living,  a professor at
the Royal Garden of Plants, gave his Critical His-
tory of Magnetism, a work distinguished for its me-
thodical exposition of principles,  its logical  de-
ductions, and its great moderation.   I aknowledge
the obligations I owe it for the present historical
sketch.  The works of De Puysegur and Deleuze
should be  in  the  hands  of all those who take an 
 14              FIRST LECTURE.
 interest in the science: they may make up for all
 others, and the others cannot supply them.
   Now from every part of France publications
 were daily made, on cures operated by this agent,
 the necessity of a periodical work to record the
 facts was felt;  a regular journal, under the name
 oC Annals of Magnetism, made its  appearance in
 1814.  It was my good fortune to  have a share
 in it, and contribute my mite to the articles fur-
 nished by magnetisors who publicly acknowledge
 and practise Magnetism.
  Soon after, the Magnetisors, feeling the neces-
 sity of forming a  corps—a body to be able to
 stand against  the  attacks of their adversaries,
 united  into  a  regular society, to  communicate
 their observations to each other, give and receive
 advice, and collect more light and information on
 the favourite subject.  They continued the annals,
 under the title of Library of Animal Magnetism, up
to the  year 1819.  That  collection  presents  a
 mass of facts well attested, of observations  and
 experiments made with a scrupulous attention, of
 researches on  antiquity, most interesting and in-
 structive.  I will freely extract from it what I may
 think worthy of your attention in  the  following
 lectures.
  So far  I have spoken only of what has passed
 in France with respect to Magnetism, as if  it  had
 been confined  to that country by its limits.  True
 it is that France  claims  the  honour of bavin*
 sheltered Mesmer persecuted in his own country: 
DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.
15
and it claims at the same time the honour of hav-
ing added a discovery equally important to that
of Mesmer—Magnetic Somnambulism, observed
first by De Puysegur; still France did  not con-
fine the discovery in its limits; it spread back to
Germany, from whence it originated, with a great
ardour.  Societies were formed in imitation of
those of France, and learned men, such as pro-
fessor  Von  Eschenmayer, Doctor Muck Plugge,
Prince Hohenlohe, Mr. Wolfart, and many others,
having  examined  the facts, and  having called
public  attention upon  those facts, the reigning
transcendant philosophy being more fit to give
the  explanation of Magnetic  phenomena, they
have explained according to that philosophy the
most important and difficult questions. Have they
not proceeded too far, and is there not more dan-
ger  than advantage in the association of Mag-
netism with mystic doctrines ?
   In Russia, Magnetism has been introduced and
cultivated by many German and French physi-
cians.   Dr. Brosse, a Russian physician, at Riga,
professor Reiss at  Moscow, Dr. Litchtenstaedt at
St. Petersburg have sent to the society at Paris
many interesting communications.
   It is to be observed that the Prussian and Bava-
rian governments, have judged proper to reserve
the practice of Magnetism to physicians.   How
strange, how  inconsistent!   The same body of
physicians who called  the invention a folly, and
the  inventor a crazy, visionary man, requested 
16             FIRST LECTURE.
the authority of the country to grant them the ex-
clusive use of his discovery. Some good has been
derived from that bad  measure, Chains of Mag-
netism have been instituted in colleges of medi-
cine, and  it is  not permitted  a  physician to be
ignorant of it.
  They have done more in Austria.  In 1816,
Magnetism was  proscribed altogether.  The effect
of persecution  is well  known; it  increases the
zeal and devotion of the adepts.  Magnetism was
secretly used.   How can authority interfere in an
act that may be performed secretly between two
individuals ? Physicians, themselves,  disguised
Magnetism under the form of electric or Galvanic
treatments.  That of Mr. Soherr of Vienna, a well
known one, and renowned for its numerous  at-
tendants,  was in appearance  a compendium  of
Mesmer's  tub, Volta's pile, and Franklin's  light-
ning-rod.
,  At Stockholm, in Sweden, the society of mag-
netisors assumed the  title of  Exegetic and Phi-
lanthropic Society. They performed wonders, and
they thought they wrought miracles.  They  en-
tirely separated themselves from the body of phi-
losophers, and  are persuaded  they have  entered
into communication with supernatural beings. We
will speak  of their theory with some details in
our third  lecture.
   In Italy and Spain the progress of Magnetism
has been  slow; the  practice  of it could  not  be
without danger, on account of the Holy Inquisi- 
DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.
17
tion;  I am indebted for this observation to Major
Boado of the Spanish corps of engineers, an ex-
cellent magnetisor himself.
  But the wonder of all wonders, more astonish-
ing to me than the very Magnetism is that  it  is
almost unknown in  England.  What under  hea-
vens prevents its introduction  there, a free and
enlightened  country? are they all fools in Europe,
with the  exception  of the English ? or will  they
punish Magnetism for not having sought an asy-
lum among them? The support of the learned of
that country would be of great weight in this dis-
cussion.  Nothing should be neglected to obtain
it, and, by turning over  and over all the publica-
tions I possess on this subject, to find something
from  England, I have finally put my hands upon
a work on Animal  Magnetism,  by  Mr.  Baldwin
Ex-Consul of England at Alexandria, in Egypt;
translated into French by Count Lepelletier d'Au-
nay.   The preface is curious, it is the explanation
of what we  are looking for, why Magnetism has
not been introduced into England.  I beg leave
to translate  back into  English  that preface,  at
the hazard  of not doing justice to the style  of
Mr. Baldwin: the interest for the subject will re-
deem the faults of the elocution.   The preface of
the author, according to our translation, will then
run thus:
  " When I returned to England in  1801,  after
having resided as consul many years  in Egypt, I
imparted to some  friends  the  resolution I had
                      3 
]8             FIRST LECTURE.
taken, to communicate to my countrymen the ef-
fects  I had produced on several persons by the
means of Animal Magnetism, most of my friends
endeavoured to dissuade me from it.  ' You will ex-
pose yourself^ said they, ' to public derision.  There
is in England a prejudice so strongly pronounced against
Magnetism, that it will be impossible for you to sur-
mount it.'9  Feigning to yield to that advice, I re-
mained quiet, and took the course of following, in
appearance, the torrent of indifference and incre-
dulity of the learned men of my country for this
important discovery.   I took advantage  of  that
time  to mature my ideas by reflection.  I have
particularly sought for the reason, not only of the
repugnance, but of the fear they have for Animal
Magnetism.  I think I have found  it, and this  is
what gives me at this moment the courage to  sub-
mit to the whole world the examination of this
great truth."  The author has found it, he says,
but he  does not say  what it is,  he leaves to the
sagacity of his readers to guess at it.  I  then read
his book with a great deal of attention, to find it
out, thinking that it  must be implicitly  contained
in  it, and, as I  saw the writer  endeavour to re-
concile Magnetism with the Holy Scriptures, I
supposed that he was afraid to give offence to the
Church of England.
   When  I  turn my  looks  upon  my gentle au-
 dience, when I enquire from them, why  they  have
 come here to hear me treating of Magnetism, and
 why they are not as well informed on this subject 
DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.
19
 as I may be myself, it seems to me that one among
 them rises and  says: " Sir, although we are  not
 English, and consequently are not ruled by an ex-
 clusive Church, that can proscribe what they dread
 with or without foundation, still we all of us or
 at least most of us speak but that language, all
 our knowledge, science, information and opinions
 come from or through England."
   Yes, Gentlemen, I see what an almost insuper-
 able barrier difference of language puts between
 nations.  With the greatest reasons to love  and
 esteem each other, the French and the American
 are  still strangers in  many  respects.   They  are
 brothers of different mothers, of different tongues.
 Let  us try to conquer that difficulty; let us come
 more and  more  in contact with each  other;  £
 doubt not  that we will find  additional reasons to
 be inseparable friends.   For my part I will neg-
 lect  nothing in  my power  to  bring about that
 most wished  for result; in particular with respect
 to the interesting subject which at this moment
 attracts your attention.
  However, Gentlemen, do not think Animal Mag-
 netism entirely  neglected in the United States.
 On my  arrival  in 1815, I called two other per-
 sons, whom I knew in Europe as having practised
 the new science;  we united in a society, of which
 they honoured me with the title of president, and
 we increased our number, which at this moment
is about 12;  among which there are two doctors
of medicine.  This society of magnetisors, small 
20             FIRST LECTURE.
as it  is, has  already diffused  among the public
some  knowledge  of its  object and  of its  useful-
ness.   Cures have been performed, often without
even mentioning the name of the agency put in use.
  Let us  now  cast a  last look upon France, to
ascertain what  is there the actual state of Mag-
netism : we will see that the war between the fol-
lowers of Hippocrates and those of  Mesmer is at
an  end.   Doctors and  magnetisors go hand in
hand.  They have united in their exertions: mag-
netisors are  willing to give their  assistance to
physicians;  doctors of medicine do not make ob-
jection to consult with somnambulists. What do
I say ? they magnetise  themselves  and they pub-
lish their  observations, in conjunction with other
magnetisors, in a journal of Magnetism, known by
the name  of Hermes.  There are curious articles
in this publication : the quarrel  about magnetism
now  is in the Faculty of medicine itself, between
the doctors of the old school and those of the new
one.   As  there is all probability the oldest  will
leave the ground the  first, Death, according to
Mr. Dupin's  expression, will bring  the victory on
the liberal side.
   Another circumstance will hasten the final  suc-
cess  of magnetism upon prejudice and resistance.
 Doctor D'Eslon, the first  pupil of Mesmer,  was
 physician of the  French prince who now is  the
 reigning king, Charles X, as I have already men-
 tioned at the  beginning  of this discourse.   The
 prince must have been offended at the insults his 
          DISCOVERY AND HISTORY.          21
first  physician  had to endure  on the occasion,
and  it may be concluded that the doctor suc-
ceeded in  convincing him of the reality of mag-
netism, of which  he  was himself  so  fully con-
vinced.  An additional reason for me  to believe
it, is that in 1814, at the first  return of the royal
family, I presented to the prince the three first
volumes of our annals; the prince with a smile of
satisfaction  said: " Do  they  still practise mag.
netism in Paris ? " « Yes, my lord, answered I,
D'Eslon has found successors."  " I am very glad
of it," added  he, " I will read your book with
interest."
  The king has ordered a revision of the reports
of the first commissaries, and has ordered the fa-
culty to appoint new ones and make a new and
impartial  examination  of the subject so long in
litigation before the public.   We have all reason
to hope that the  new report will reinstate mag-
netism in all its due honours and privileges.
  But then, my dear  hearers,  let me close this
lecture with an observation.  How  long shall we
see and hear with our neighbour's eyes and ears?
Let us use our own for once.  The subject is well
worth the trouble.  Let us examine by ourselves;
let us be our own commissaries.   If you are will-
ing to join  me, we will endeavour  to  settle our
opinion from our  own experience and judgment.
If the authority by testimony  was sufficient  to
bring a full conviction, certainly here this autho-
rity would be superabundant; there are now more 
22             FIRST  LECTURE.
than  2000 persons who practise magnetism of
whom 400  physicians.   More  than 100,000 who
have  felt  the effects  of it.  A  library of more
than 300 volumes could be  collected, containing
cures, certificates, declarations, observations, ex-
periments, &c.  These witnesses are, as you see,
numerous; they are living, they are round us, and
we may hear them ourselves;  but, with all that,
there is no conviction as  full and complete as
that which  a single  experiment made by our-
selves would bring to our minds.  Let us then
examine and investigate the subject with a severe
and scrupulous attention; if we detect it to be
imposture, let it be rejected; but, on the contrary,
if we find here the truth, the amiable truth, let all
of us surround her, make  for her a rampart of
our bodies, shield her  from the  assaults  of  her
enemies, proclaim her glory, and follow her steps
wherever  she  may lead us, for our own felicity
and the happiness of mankind.
END OF THE  FIRST LECTURE. 
«<MT® ILH^SWIBI^g
APPLICATION  AND  EFFECTS.
   In  my  first  Lecture on Animal Magnetism,
 I  confined my investigation to its Discovery and
 History.   It was necessary to  do so, this subject
 being so new to many of my hearers that, had I
 not begun in  this manner,  the name  scarcely
 known would  have presented no fixed idea.  It
 might  have been  inquired:  what is  this new
 science you speak of?—From whence does it ori-
 ginate ?—Of what importance  is it ?—How did it
 spread ?—Who cultivates it ? It is precisely these
 questions I have tried to answer in my foregoing
 discourse.  The very flattering attention I obtain-
 ed from my audience, for the part  of my subject
 which I considered as the least interesting, makes
me hope, when I am to enter on  the discussion of
 the means of application, its effects on the human
frame and probably its usefulness  in society, to
obtain the continuation of your favour. 
24            SECOND LECTURE.
  Before entering into  the exposition of the se-
veral theories which will be discussed in my Third
Lecture, it is necessary  to adopt one, in order to
fix our ideas in our operations.  I will then take
the one most in use among the French  magneti-
sors :—that of a vital and magnetic fluid.   I will
adopt it,  not as a demonstrated  truth, but  as
an hypothesis,  and I will not even go so far as
to  declare it my own,  that I may not be  accu-
sed of imposing on you my own opinions, leaving
you at full liberty, after discussion, to reject  or
adopt it-for yourselves ; to choose one and even to
create another, which may appear to you better
for your own  use.
  This hypothesis being in such conditional man-
ner admitted, I will proceed  thus  in my way of
reasoning.  To support  life and  restore  strength,
Nature  uses two agencies, that of food  and that
of sleep;  food, to make up for the material parts
of our bodies, wasted by its  exertions,  sleep, to
make up  for our  vital  fluid  employed  in  those
exertions, the absence of which is felt by the sen-
sation of fatigue.  During sleep, atmospheric  air
is  inhaled into the lungs, caloric  (which,  in the
Mesmerian language, may as well be called uni-
versal fluid)  is disengaged, animalised,  and from
thence carried to and accumulated in the  brain,
where it receives from us the name of vital fluid.
TJie anatomy of the brain, according to Dr. Gall's
system, shows  that, being a series of lamina fold-
ed on each other, it is very proper for this accu- 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.        25
mulation, as if in an electrical reservoir.  As there
is  no waste  of fluid during sleep, except what
is necessary for the involuntary motions, the indi-
vidual,  at waking up, is  charged (allow me  the
expression, borrowed from electricity) is charged,
I say, with the  vital fluid;  he feels refreshed  and
revived; the fluid  thus accumulated  in the brain
is  ready for the use of the individual ;• a part is
employed even  without his knowledge, as in sleep
to  maintain in him the involuntary motions, as the
beating of the heart, that of the arteries, the  dis-
tention and contraction of the lungs in breathing,
&c, and another part is put at  his disposal, to be
used at his will,  for the voluntary motions.   As
long as we consider this fluid in an individual  for
the support of  his life and motions, we will  call
it  vital fluid; if we consider it employed to act
on another individual, we will give it the name of
magnetic  fluid.  So then, vital fluid and magnetic
fluid are one and  the same,   varying  only  the
name according to its application.
  This theory,  or supposition, gives us the means
to  understand  what is  meant by  magnetising;
for, to magnetise, will then be to direct our vital
fluid to another person.
  This fluid  is seen, by some somnambulists, as
a bright atmosphere round our bodies, and ema-
nating from  our fingers,  in the  act of magnetisa-
tion, as rays of light.  It may be, according to
some of them,  concentrated in water,  reflected
by  mirrors;  it may impregnate  many objects;
                       1 
gg            SECOND LECTURE.
it is not interrupted by opaque bodies, and pe-
netrates those towards whom it is directed.   This
last  circumstance  determines that  sympathy, or
antipathy, which we often feel  at first sight for a
person, according to the similarity or dissimilarity
of our fluid with his.
  The qualifications necessary to magnetise well,
are again derived from the same principle :—they
are three in number.
           First.—Belief.
           Second.—Will or Volition.
           Third.—Benevolence.
  Let us  examine, separately,  each  of  these
qualifications or requisites.
  First.  Belief is necessary, because we do not
try to do what we  deem impossible.   If then, be-
lief is necessary to qualify us to  magnetise, and
if it is necessary to have  magnetised  to  obtain
that belief, there seems to be an unconquerable
difficulty.  So far you cannot have full belief, but
by granting a little confidence to your  predeces-
sors, keeping off doubts as  much as  you  can,
wishing for success, and acting with attention and
with simplicity of heart, you  will certainly pro-
duce some effects, and these effects will create in
you true belief.
   Second Requisite:—Will.   I  am afraid to have
as much difficulty here to make the word under-
stood as the thing itself.
   In the actions of our lives, we do but what we
will to do. Let me quote an example of every day's, 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.        27
of every moment's observation.  I wish to raise
my arm, I know  I can do it since I have done it
many times.  I  have, then, belief in  my  own
power.   What more is to be done ?   To  will it.
My will is the agent.  I  will it,  and  my  arm is
raised :  It remains in that situation as long as my
will and attention are permanent; it falls as soon
as the will ceases to be active.  He who is  able
to explain this simple fact, is able, to explain the
whole system of magnetisation:—They  are  of
the same nature.  According to the  theory of a
vital fluid, which we have provisionally adopted,
this fluid, accumulated in  the  brain, is sent  by
the will of  the individual  along the  nerves,  as
conductors  to the muscles  of  the arm, which it
swells and  consequently shortens; the muscles
contract, and the arm is raised.  But how  does
an act of the will send the fluid from the head
into the arm, and in the precise quantity required ?
This is inexplicable.  It is merely a fact.  So are
the acts of magnetisation to be considered.  True
it  is,  that will, in both instances, is  necessary.
Will must be strong and permanent  in  magneti-
sing ;  it is one of  the qualifications the most diffi-
cult to  acquire,  and  the most fatiguing  to ex-
ercise.
   Third Requisite:—Benevolence,Charity or Love.
I make use of three words for the same idea;  they
become a definition to each other. It might also
be expressed by  a firm determination  to do good.
This requisite is not less important than the pre- 
,28            SECOND LECTURE.
ceding.  If you should magnetise, with the inten-
tion to do evil, your fluid, producing that impres-
sion on your patient, would be repulsed immedi-
ately ;  and all confidence in you would be lost.  I
do not know whether any person ever magnetised
with the intention  to injure.  I have never  seen
it, and I am inclined to think it impossible.   To
magnetise  is an act of benevolence.   We do  it
with the intention of relieving the sick.  If we in-
dulge sometimes in some trials or experiments,  it
should not be with the view of gratifying an idle
curiosity,  but with  the ultimate wish to acquire
more knowledge,  to extend  our powers, and to
enable ourselves more and more to do good.   It
is difficult  to describe the pleasure a magnetisor
feels in removing the pains of his fellow creatures;
and this pleasure  is a sweet  and just reward for
his devotion.
  Good health, if not an indispensable qualifi-
cation,  is a most favourable  one.  The fluid  is
then abundant, well animalised, and not impreg-
nated  with any deleterious  quality.  It follows,
also, from the principles established, that the most
favourable time in life to be a good magnetisor,  is
the period  when our frame  has acquired its full
growth, and  the  mind  the  full  extent of  its
powers.
   The better part of the human family, I  mean
the females, are very well qualified to magnetise.
What they may be supposed to lose in energy  of
volition, compared with  men, they make up  in 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.        29
benevolence, charity and love, the best of their
attributes, and they prove to be excellent mag-
netisors.  I  will  have the pleasure of recording
many interesting operations  performed by  the
fair  sex.
  From the premises just now established,  are
derived the rules to operate.  I will suppose that
you wish to magnetise a patient; sit opposite to
him, take hold of his thumbs,  and  look steadily
at him, with a permanent attention  and intention
or will to produce the desired effect.  After four
or five minutes,  when his  thumbs have  acquired
the same  temperature  with yours,  place your
hands on his  shoulders, let them  remain there
two  or three minutes, then  draw them  along
the arms, and take hold again  of the thumbs;  do
so again three or four times; after, place your
hands on his stomach, in such a manner that your
thumbs may be in the centre and your fingers on
the sides; when you feel a communication of heat,
draw your hand down; afterwards place them
over his head, to draw them again down to the
feet, and continue in the same  manner, taking
care in raising your hands to his head  to extend
them both  sides.   The  precaution   never  to
magnetise upwards, and to separate  your hands
when you  raise them,  is recommended as  es-
sential.
  Some expressions  are  used by  magnetisors,
which I will translate into English, and  which re-
quire a definition, as I shall use them myself.  To 
30            SECOND LECTURE.
magnetise for the first time in the manner descri-
bed is, to place yourself in relation.  Each motion
of the hand is a pass.  To magnetise from head to
foot, is said by streams or currents. To magnetise at
a distance, is used when your hands cease  to touch
the person; but more particularly when  the  dis-
tance is above several feet.
  Let us proceed:—Touch slightly and slowly,
keeping your hands  a few inches from the face,
and  scarcely even touching the clothes; use no
muscular effort; let your motions  be easy  and
supple; your hand must not be stiff; let your fin-
gers  be a little bent, and occasionally united, for
it is from the end of the fingers that the fluid flows
or radiates;  do not be impatient of producing
effects; give  yourself up entirely to feelings of
Sympathy, and to the wish to relieve your patient.
If he feels pain in particular parts, hold your hand
some time on that part; continue your operation
for about half an hour.  As it is necessary  that
your attention should be permanent, a longer time
would  be fatiguing.  In finishing the operation,
make several long passes, and one across the eyes,
to disseminate equally the fluid.
  The relation  once well established, contact  is
not necessary;  the  action at  a distance is often
more beneficial  and salutary than that produced
by immediate contact.
  The situation indicated is the most favorable,
so much so that the look of the magnetisor produ-
ces a great effect;  but this situation is not always 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.
81
possible; a patient may be confined to his bed :—
then you  place,  your  hands on  his  head,  his
shoulder,  his stomach, down to his feet.  There
are many other means; they are taught by expe-
rience ;  sometimes guessed by the magnetisor, or
indicated by the patient himself.
  In swellings  or glands, you  may put a clean
handkerchief on  them, place your mouth upon it
and send your breath through; it produces a great
heat, at first mechanical,  then magnetic, which is
very active. In sick headachs, or when the blood
ascends there, passes made over the legs are good
to relieve it.  If the pain is the result of a blow,
keep  your hand  on the  part  affected for some
time before drawing down.  It may happen  a pain
felt in the shoulder is drawn to the elbow, then to
the hands, and finally  thrown  out at the fingers,
with some very observable perspiration.
  It is proper,  when a treatment  must last seve-
ral days, to magnetise  at the same hour.   Perio-
dical  regularity seems to  increase the effects.
  When magnetism has produced  an effect, it is
dangerous to interrupt the treatment; it must be
continued to the end:  It  would be better not to
begin it than to discontinue.
  I will now make known the various practices by
which Mesmer, De  Puysegur,  and others, pre-
tended to enforce the effects of magnetism, and to
apply it to many persons  at the same time.  The
principal of these means  are the Tub, the  Trer?:
and the Chain, 
32            SECOND LECTURE.
  Let us first explain what the Chain is:—When
several patients are assembled in the same place
with persons interested for them, and in favour of
magnetism,  they must all be seated in a circle, in
such a  manner that  they touch each other by
their feet; they take hold of their  neighbour on
the right by the thumb;  in  this way the chain
is uninterrupted, the  magnetisor is  one  among
them.  Then, in order to fix attention  and  to
keep  a  regular  time,  the   magnetisor  presses
the thumb of his neighbour, and says,  Sleep:  (l)
the neighbour passes  the motion and  the word
to the  next, and so on,  until it returns  to  the
magnetisor,  who passes it  round  again  in  the
same manner.  No disturbing circumstance, no
conversation introduced, attention  by  every one
must be kept active.   At the end of a  quarter of
an hour,  the fluid is in circulation, all the patients
feel the action of magnetism.   Then the magneti-
sor leaves the  chain,  which his two neighbours
connect again, and he magnetises separately those
who compose it, particularly  the  patients who
want it  the most.   Sometimes  slight  indisposi-
tions are cured by  the chain,  sometimes sleep
and even somnambulism  are produced.
  (1) It must not be understood that the magnetisors believe that
the word Sleep contains in itself any narcotic virtue, and con-
sequently  that it is better than any other; but as it is neces-
sary to fix the attention on the object intended, this word has
been chosen. 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.         33
  The magnetic Tub was a large wooden box,
containing pounded glass, iron filings, bottles full
of magnetised water, and  arranged in regular
order;  this box was supplied  with a sufficient
number of conductors to direct the fluid.  The
tub is no longer in use, the chain is preferable to
it, on account of the union of intentions.
   A magnetised Tree is superior to the tub, it is
more powerful and  salutary;  it is under trees
that the most astonishing effects have  been pro-
duced by  De Puysegur.  Unfortunately,  these
trees can  be used  but  during summer and in
fine weather.
   The chain is the only collective  mode still in
use, to operate on many persons at a time.
   Music was proposed by Mesmer, as a means to
transmit the fluid.  Now it is not used with that
view, to which it does not  appear proper, but to
produce in a collection of individuals uniformity
of motions and permanence of attention.
   No means to accumulate and transmit the fluid
must  be neglected;  all sorts of objects touched
by a  magnetisor, with that  intention, may be im-
pregnated with it.  But water seems more fit for
this  purpose than any other.  In order to mag-
netise a decanter or  a tumbler full of water, hold
it on the palm of the left hand, and place Lie right
hand  above with the fingers closed; open and shut
them by turns; move them  over  the surface, at a
short distance, to charge the water with the fluid,
in  the same manner as philosophers would charge
                      5 
34            SECOND LECTURE.
with electricity  a Leyden  bottle.   This water
produces surprising effects.  Sometimes it is pur-
gative, sometimes astringent; it will now cool the
stomach, it will then warm it. How is that?  Will
magnetisors say  they have  communicated these
opposite qualities to the same water  by the same
means ?  No, they will say that the water carries
with it the vital fluid,  which gives to the stomach
of the patient a new vital and energetic power.
  After having described the means put in use by
the magnetisors  to operate  on the persons who
required their services, the next question which
presents itself is this.  Is belief and confidence as
necessary a  condition to receive the magnetic
influence as it is  to produce it?  Faith is neces-
sary to the person magnetising, it is not to the
person  magnetised;  true it is, that an absolute
incredulity would  trouble, and an invincible re-
pugnance counteract the effects; but a sick per-
son naturally wishes to be relieved, if he has not
an implicit faith in the efficacy  of the agent, he
wishes it to be true;  this disposition  is sufficient
to receive the beneficial influence.
  Now let us proceed gradually with the phe-
nomena which have  been  observed in  the ap-
plication of magnetism on the human body, from
the lowest to the highest.  We will extract, from
our  numerous collection  of cures,  those  which
will show more particularly the  case in question:
We will have no trouble except that of choosing 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.
33
one from among  many  thousands  of the same
description.
   We will divide the phenomena  into two dis-
tinct classes; those in which  there  is no som-
nambulism,  those  in which it  is produced.
   First Division.—No Somnambulism.  When one
person in good health magnetises another, the fluid
is equally abundant in each, no impression is felt.
This is the result, according to the observation of
De  Puysegur,  with  those  who have just been
cured of their diseases.  This  he considered as
the best  test of a complete cure.
   Some  are relieved, or cured, and have expe-
rienced  no  particular action.  Some have had
sensations, without being cured.   Some have had
crisis, which remained without apparent results.
Some have been cured, after a long and obstinate
treatment.   Some others have been cured, almost
suddenly.
   The hand of the magnetisor, at  two inches
distance, gives  generally  a sensation  of heat,
scarcely  ever of cold.   Frequently it excites a
drowsiness,  or  heaviness of the head, which is
not unpleasant.  On the stomach it often  produ-
ces the  effect  of  a weight;  pulsation  becomes
more lively and regular;  perspiration is frequent-
ly very  sensible, particularly  in  the  hands and
feet;  the patient gets into a state  of ease, and
ceases to perceive the duration of time; he may
fall into  a slight slumber, which  the  least noise
may destroy.  Sometimes the eyelids are contract- 
36            SECOND LECTURE.
ed, he cannot  raise  them, although  perfectly
awake.
  These slight effects may be made more sensi-
ble in the succeeding  operations.  Now  it  is  a
sound sleep which lasts an hour and more each
day, until the patient  is cured.  Then a lively
sensation of heat, or a heavy oppression.  It may
happen, that a pain not felt for several years is
suddenly renewed.
  I-will here extract from the  eighth volume of
the Library of Animal Magnetism, the relation of a
cure which answers to the present progress of our
discovery.
  " A cure  operated  in 15 days  by Magnetism
alone, without the assistance of somnambulism or
of any other curative means whatever.
  " An Irish girl about twenty  years of age, had
been afflicted during eighteen months with a  dis-
ease which she at first termed a very bad cold. She
experienced every  day two very violent fits of
coughing,  one  in  the morning,  the other  in  the
evening; after each fit, she  felt weak, exhausted,
fainting. Besides, she experienced as she coughed
an acute pain in the left side, as if  she had re-
ceived there a stab with a knife.   A soreness ex-
tended from her breast to that  part  of her  side.
To express her  sufferings, she used to say that
she had an inside blister, which extended across
that part.   She lost her appetite  and  grew very
thin.   Five different physicians had  been called
during these eighteen months; they had exhausted: 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.        37
all the resources of the art of medicine; no ease
followed, not the least hope of recovery.   Two
had declared her consumptive, and that there was
no remedy.
  " It is in that deplorable situation, on the 1st of
October  1818, that I found her at Laroque, near
Bordeaux,  a country seat where she had  been
invited to  spend some time in  the hope that the
air of the country might do her  some good.   I of-
fered to magnetise her;  her sister expressed a
great repugnance;  the patient, not  less incredu-
lous  perhaps, but beaten  down by her pains, ac-
cepted it as a last resource.   I  magnetised her
three quarters of an hour; she did not precisely
sleep, but fell into a sort of drowsiness.  At each
pass from her breast to her side, when my hand
reached it, she started as a person who has re-
ceived a blow.   This symptom indicated that the
disease was in  the  spleen and  not  in  the lungs.
At the end of three  quarters of an  hour—How
are you? asked I.—Well.—Did you feel any effect
of the Magnetism? — Very much. — I  will then
magnetise you twice a day, at regular hours.
  " At the  end of the fourth day, her morning and
evening fits of coughing had left her; the shocks
produced  by Magnetism had ceased ; her inside
blister, as she called it, was less sore.
  " On the eighth day, she had  an abundant per-
spiration at  the parts magnetised, and  no where
else, so abundant that drops would run out;  this 
S8            SECOND LECTURE.
perspiration Was renewed every day at the same
hour.
  " From the  moment this  happy  crisis  took
place,  all the symptoms of her disease disap-
peared, cough,  pain, inside blister and with her
appetite, returned  strength, hope,  and cheerful-
ness.   I continued to magnetise her until the 16th
of October, and the thankful Irish girl now enjoys
a perfect health."
  This article is signed : G. Gaufreteau.
  This relation is remarkable, and may serve as
an illustration of what  we have just now said.
The patient was considered as lost.  She had no
confidence  in Magnetism;  still, she  was com-
pletely cured  in a fortnight,  without  the aid of
somnambulism or the help of any prescription;
her recovery, therefore, must  be  ascribed to the
curative power of Magnetism alone.
  Second Division.—Somnambulism.  On entering
on this new ground,  1 feel some embarassement. '
Of all the phenomena which have been observed
in magnetic treatments, the  most astonishing, the
most inconceivable is Somnambulism.  The de-
scriptions which have been given, often offer the
most incredible  results.  How shall  I introduce
the subject?  Let us  see how  Dr. Georget, a long
opponent to  Magnetism, lately convinced of its
truth, opens the subject  in his excellent treatise
on physiology.
  " The wise, the  enlightened observer, the sin- 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.        39
cere friend of truth," says the Doctor, " placed in
the middle of controversies and disputes, to which
new and extraordinary discoveries give rise, must,
before surrendering his  opinion, before denying
or acknowledging the truth of the facts on which
they rest, take cognisance of all the circumstances
which may enlighten his judgment.  So far doubt
alone is permitted.   Incredulity  is but ignorance
and presumption.   But vanity and pride  induce
men often to believe that nothing exists in nature,
but must refer  to  certain laws which  they are
used to consider as general and absolute; because
the weakness of their understanding does not al-
low them to pass over  its limits.   They  do not
perceive that those laws are only mere abstrac-
tions, only mere results  of the  generalisation of
analogous facts; that these facts form  the  laws,
or  rather, that general laws are but the expres-
sion of the co-ordinate and particular facts. From
thence it follows that experience, new observa-
tions, the discovery  of  unknown facts, the co-
ordination of which  is  different from  those  al-
ready known, cause changes  and modifications in
these abstractions, which unfortunately in sciences
they mistake for things.  At each important dis-
covery we hear  every one exclaim:  This  cannot
be; we  cannot  conceive that this should be so !
such  facts,  if they  were true, would upset the
foundations  of our knowledge. Poor ignorant and
feeble man! who wishes to  know the  how, the
why and the end of all things, and still who is 
 40             SECOND LECTURE.
 afraid to extend the circle of his knowledge, and
 does not dare  to take hold of a new truth which
 seems to be separated from the  chain  or series
 by an immeasurable distance."
   When Magnetism produces somnambulism, the
 being who enters in this state acquires prodigious
 faculties of perception ;  his exterior senses, par-
 ticularly sight and  hearing, are suspended,  and
 the sensations are transferred inwardly ; it seems
 that a new sense, which supplies all the others in
 him, is developed.
   The  somnambulist has his eyes shut, and sees
 not with his eyes; he hears not with his ears, and
 he sees and hears better  than in his natural state.
   He sees and hears  but  those with whom  he is
put in relation.  He  sees but the object  on which
 he brings his attention.
   He is obedient to the  will of his magnetisor, in
 all that is not in opposition to his ideas of justice
 and truth.
   He often feels the influence of the  operator's
 will without the use of words.
   He perceives the magnetic fluid.
   He sees, or  rather, he feels  the interior of his
 body and that  of others;  but he observes  com-
 monly but  the  parts which are not in  a  natural
 state, and the harmony of which is disturbed.
   He finds  in his  memory the recollection of
 things he had forgotten when awake.
   Time and space  are no obstacles to him.  He
 knows the  past, foresees the future, and sees ob- 
          APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.         4l
 jects out of the reach of the sense of sight. How-
 ever these faculties are limited in their extent.
   His elocution is generally elegant.
   His  faculties improve  if he is well directed^
 they are destroyed if not.
   H*e is very sensitive, and easily offended.
   When he returns into his natural state, he loses
 completely the recollection of the sensations and
 ideas he had in somnambulism; in such a manner
 that these two states are as strange to each other,
 as if the somnambulist and the man awake were'
 two distinct beings.
   The  means  a magnetisor  has  to  excite in his
 Somnambulist lively sensations, to calm his suffer-
 ings,  to change the order  of his  ideas, to direct
 his attention upon such or such an object, to put
 him in  relation with other persons  and to destroy
 that relation, finally, the power of the magnetisor
 upon the magnetised appears magical  to those
 who see it for the first time.
   Here is the best series of questions to be asked
 of a somnambulist: Do you sleep ? How long do
 you wish to sleep ? When shall I put you again in
 this state ? Do you see your disease ? Do you see
 the cause of it ? Do you see the  remedy ? What
 course is to be followed to preserve your health,
 after your cure is effected ?
   I will here relate some cures in which somnam-
bulism is produced, which will be a confirmation
of the faculties, and an example of what is to be
done in  such a  case.
                      6 
42             SECOND LECTURE.
  A remarkable case among the number of those
recorded in the Hermes, or Journal of Magnetism,
lately occurred at the Hospital of Charity in Paris,
which has made a great impression and attracted
public attention.  A young man, Mr. Paul, a stu-
dent  at law, was struck in a ball-room with an
apoplectic lit, carried to his bed, and, after a few
days of an  unsuccessful treatment, his left side re-
mained palsied or paralysed;  he lost the sense of
hearing and the faculty of speaking.  However, at
the end of two years, by the constant attention of
the physicians of the hospital, he recovered so
far as to support himself upon crutches, but with-
out touching the ground with his  left foot.   The
acceleration  of the pulse, the discolouration of the
skin, the constant heaviness of the head, the ex-
cessive weakness of the patient,  caused the ex-
pectation of a fatal and speedy termination, when
he was put under the influence of Magnetism on
 the 29 of August, 1827, under the directions of
 Dr. Foissac.
   The first passes exeited a smile of incredulity in
 the patient, but soon he felt shocks in his limbs; he
 rubbed his eyes, and was astonished to find him-
 self sleepy;  his head fell on his breast. Mr. Fois-
 sac opened  his eyes, and he declared he had not
 been able to resist his propensity to sleep.
    During the  sleep thus  produced, the head  of
  the  patient would follow  constantly the motions
  of the hand.
    From  the first to the seventh visit, the mobility
  *>f the patient increased; he could not resist the 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.         43
effects of attraction produced on him; after use-
less efforts, he  seemed to lose recollection and
consciousness, he  was only occupied with the
hand  of the magnetisor; he was  spoken to, and
even pulled by his hair, he was unconscious of all,
  At  the seventh  meeting, the sleep was  com-
plete ; the Doctor put to  him some -questions, the
last of which awakened him in a  start.  Interro-
gated how he was—I feel better, said he, since I
am magnetised; my head is not embarrassed; I
have no longer any trembling in my limbs.
  At  the thirteenth visit, being in somnambulism,
he was asked by the Doctor—How  are  you ?—
Better.—Do you believe that magnetism will cure
you ?—Yes.—Are you sure of it ?—Yes, but it will
be long before, very long.
  At the fifteenth visit, a  pupil observed that the
patient began to lay his left foot on the floor;  he
was no  longer hard of hearing; his head was en-
tirely free.
  At  the seventeenth visit, he  prescribed, in his
somnambulism, to himself some pills, of which he
gave the composition.
  At  the eighteenth visit—Are you  better than
yesterday ?—Yes.—Prescribe precisely what you
want.—Cold shower-baths on the left side.—How
long each ?—Two minutes.—Every day ?—Yes.—
Is there any thing else to be done ?—Bleeding.—
From what  part?—The arm.—Which? — The
right.—How much  blood to be  drawn ?—Two
porringers. — Is  that all ? — Sinapisms. —Where 
n            SECOND LECTURE.
placed ?—To the feet.—Do you want any thing
else ?  He  put  both his hands  on  his face, as if
crying, and  said in waking up—How sleepy I feel.
  Twenty-fourth meeting—Does Magnetism do
you good ?—Yes, no doubt, very much.-r-Could  it
alone cure you?—Yes, but it would require more
time.—If it  should be interrupted...?—God forbid!
I could never walk without crutcbes.rr-What is
Magnetism? — This  is  rather an  embarrassing
question; this comes from your fingers.—Is there
any thing in my hand ?—Nothing.—r-Can nothing
produce any thing?—Why, no.—But what then
acts upon you?—When you pass your hantj,  it
warms, it penetrates and dazzles me, I lose  my
senses.—Do you see what produces that effect?—
Yes, it is a vapour;  but I will n,ot tell you any
more to-;day.
  On the 25th of September, he affirmed in som-
nambulism that  on Friday, the 28th of the same
month, he would walk without his crutches.
  He affirmed again, on the  26th, that on the day
after the morrow he would walk with ease; he
accused his magnetisor of being deficient in  his
faith, and of not believing him.   He said he was
sure of it,   and that he  was not  used to  tell
falsehoods.
  Finally, the day so impatiently expected came.
A great concourse of believers  and unbelievers
had  collected at the Hospital of Charity, on  the
28th of September.  At eleven minutes past nine
o'clock in the morning, the paralitick young man 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.         45
came to the usual place of meeting with the help
of his  crutches: put in the somnambulick stat**,
be  is addressed in Latin;  he answers that the
question is  not to speak latin, but  to walk, and
that he is ready to keep his promise immediately.
He congratulates himself, that he shall not even
walk lame of the left foot, but perfectly straight;
how much he will walk and  run to-day ; he wishes
to have his  eyes open  to show that he does not
impose.  Mr. Foissac blows on his eyes in order-
ing him to  wake up;  he does immediately, and
asks for his crutches; he is answered that they
have been burnt, as they were hereafter  useless.
He refuses  to believe  these  words, rises, and  is
astonished  to be able  to support himself on the
leg formerly paralized. He opens his way  through
the crowd, descends a step  from the  room into
the yard, and stops a moment there to breathe.
He seems as overcome by his joy.  He  crosses
the yard, ascends  the  staircase without support,
goes towards his  bed,  walks  round the room,  to
the great surprise of the patients, the attendants,
nurses, curate, physicians, and particularly of the
enemies to Animal Magnetism. In fine,  the whole
day,  Paul  did  not cease to  walk,  being afraid
every  time  he  would sit, that the  palsy should
come again  upon his limbs. Even during the night,
he rose and  walked a few steps, to convince him-
self he was  not deluded by a dream.  In a few
4ays, his leg had grown again to its usual volume,
his  strength  had increased, &c. 
46
SECOND LECTURE.
  Not to encroach too much on your patience,
we have  been obliged to curtail long and  inte-
resting details;  we  have  preserved enough of
them, however, to present  you with a  case in
which the somnambulist has displayed his powers
for his own cure, the  influence of the will of the
magnetisor, his sensation of the fluid, the internal
view of his diseases, the remedies, the  foresight
or prevision of the day of his cure.
  Now let us choose  one again from the Magnetic
Journal, Hermes,  vol. I, page 358, in which the
somnambulist operates a cure on another person.
  One day,  Miss  G##,  put in somnambulism
during a long treatment she made for herself, re-
newed a scene that had already occured several
times.  She rose suddenly from her seat, and ran
into the next room, where several patients were
assembled.  " I followed  her, says  Mr. Grand-
champ, her magnetisor, and  I saw a young girl,
who had just arrived in a distressing state.  Miss
G** magnetises her,   and gives her a  glass of
sweetened and lukewarm magnetised water; after
having touched in succession the parts where the
pains  where more acute, excited some perspira-
tion, she advised her  to go to her bed, and not to
fail  to come  again on the  morrow, warning her
that indeed she would suffer much  for thirty-six
hours, but at the end of that time she would be
perfectly cured.
  The next  day, at twelve  o'clock, Miss  G*#t
fceing in somnambulism, expressed  a great uir- 
APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.         47
easiness, mingled with agitation and  impatience.
—What is the matter, Miss ? said I.—This girl of
yesterday feels now excruciating pains-; she can-
not come, I must go there.... and magnetise her.—
How can we, Miss ?  we neither know hex name
nor her residence.—Ah !  Sir,  I will  go;  I  shall
find her out; I  must  absolutely go. Attention and
astonishment were vividly excited; we were all
of opinion to let Miss G## do as she pleased.
   She took her bonnet and veil, I offered my arm,
and we went out;  there were  also many persons
who attended.   She crossed several  streets, and
stopping at the corner of a square, she waited a
moment as a greyhound (I must be forgiven the
expression) who seems to interrogate the emana-
tions spread in the air, to find the track that must
lead him to his game. It is in that direction, said
she, she suffers very much.  She is a washer-
woman ; she got wet several times. I am going to
cure her.   I remained silent;  she crossed again
several streets, and suddenly stopping: It is here,
it is here.  She ascends to  the  second  story,
pushes abruptly a small door, and behold us in
the bed-chamber of the sick  girl.  In the  same
manner as magnet is attracted by iron, Miss  G#*
rushes on the bed of the  girl, magnetises her for
half an hour, eases her, cures her, magnetises a
pitcher of water, and  says, in giving her a kiss
and taking leave of her: Drink  this, keep your
bed, and to-morrow all will be over. We returned
home, where  his Royal Highness the Duke of 
 48             SECOND LECTURE.
 Gloucester expected us with  impatience  to hear
 the result of our excursion.
   I shall close these quotations with a fact of sight
 at distance inserted in  the Annals of Magnetism,
 Volume 3d, page 27th, of which I have been the
 Witness and the Agent, performed by my own Sis-
 ter in somnambulism.
  She had been in Paris with me for a fortnight
 and a Somnambulist for a week, when in one of
 her sleeps she told me she was very uneasy about
 her son whom she had left in Nantz.   (There are
 300 miles  from Nantz to Paris). I placed my hand
 upon her  head, my  thumb on her forehead, and
 commanded her to see her son.—This will fatigue*
 me.—No matter.—Ah!  he is well, I am very glad
 he is  not  idle.  A navy officer just now arrived
 from England gives him lessons on navigation as
he has formerly done.—Very Well, this is  for his
usual occupations, but at this hour, at the present
moment, what is he doing ?—He is planting flowers
in the garden with the son of the family where he
lives,  but  I am agitated, fatigued, it  is enough.
As soon as she was awake, I told her to write to
Nantz, it was  on Sunday, at 10 o'clock, a moment
 sufficiently remarkable to recollect what we were
 doing: she asked her son to give her an account
 of that day from morning to evening.  At the end
 of eight days no answer had arrived; 1 was very
 anxious to verify the correctness of a very distant
 vision which is always difficult  and embarrassing;
I put her asleep again—Why did we not  get an 
          APPLICATION AND EFFECTS.        49
answer from your son ?—After a moment's silence
she said : my son has postponed answering because
he wished to announce me a voyage he is about to
make and which was not yet decided upon, his an-
swer  is made, he has not put it at the post-office,
he has given it to a friend to address it to me, and
I will receive it soon.
  Here is now what twenty witnesses who  have
been present at these declarations can testify: at
the end  of two  days she  received a  letter  from
Nantz, opens it, it contains another from her son,
beginning with these words: " I do not know why
you ask me an account of my way of spending last
Sunday; probably you suppose  that  I did some
folly.  To show you the contrary, I give you  an
exact detail.  I got up at 8 o'clock, I intended to go
in the country, but bad weather prevented me, I
went into the garden at nine with S**# and we
planted hyacinths  and ranunculuses until  twelve
o'clock; I am still fatigued with it,  particularly
as I had no breakfast, &c. &c." in that letter was
a little slip of paper  in which he said he did not
think proper to speak of his approaching voyage
before it was certain, but he thought  it was  now
time  to announce it, &c. &c.  So then here  is a
fact verified in all its minute details.
  I will, Ladies and Gentlemen, close here this
discourse, not because materials are wanting, they
seem to multiply in proportion as we use them, but
because the few quotations given here are suffici-
ent  to illustrate our assertions and principles. We
                      7 
^0            SECOND LECTURE.
know that they cannot bring at once a full convic-
tion into your minds:  this cannot be obtained by
the authority of testimony, as we have already ob-
served : we will be happy if we have succeeded
so far as to excite in you a degree of curiosity and
interest that may induce you to examine and judge
for yourselves.  Conviction will come from your
own experience;  I then entreat you, I beg of you
not to reject this address, you will be amply repaid
for your efforts, you will enrich yourselves with a
new power, the greatest and the  most enyiable,
that of doing good to  your fellow-creatures.  Is
there  in this assembly a mother who has a sick
child? a sister who lingers for the recovery of
her sister?  a brother, a husband, a son who feels
the pangs of sorrow, and fears for the life of a sis-
ter, a wife or a mother; oh ! then let them listen
to my voice; let them trust to my promises, so far
at least as to attempt the happy result; yes, I know
they will obtain it and they will join me to bless
forever Nature, for the inexhaustible treasures she
puts at the  disposal of those who know  how to
interrogate her.
END OF THE SECOND LECTURE, 
SEsmaD  ^is^^wib^o
THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.
  In my first lecture, I spoke of the discovery of
Animal Magnetism which I attributed to Mesmer,
and of its history which, beginning at that period,
I brought to the present time, in making you ac-
quainted with the actual state  of its  progress in
the learned world.
  In the second lecture, I presented to your view
and left for your mature consideration the means
of application used  by its professors, the effects
produced on the human body in curing its disor-
ders, and on the human mind in extending its fa-
culties by the acquisition  of a new sense  made
active in the state of somnambulism.
  This perhaps might be thought sufficient for its
practice and usefulness; but an objection arises;
Has man been lately endowed with a new power ? or, if
he possessed always that power, why did he not use it
sooner ?  This objection to the sudden apparition 
52              THIRD LECTURE.
of a new doctrine, of a new power with which the
magnetisors seem endowed, if not answered, would
tend to diminish your confidence in the means pro-
posed.  The object of this  third and last lecture
will then be to remove that difficulty.
  The discovery of Animal Magnetism might be
contested to Mesmer, if the merit of bringing it
forward with an undaunted courage, illustrating it
by  a  new theory, announcing  the power of the
will, producing consequently more  determined ef-
fects,  and assigning to its phenomena philosophi-
cal causes, had not acquired  and preserved for
him the title of inventor.  Still,  throwing our looks
two or  three centuries back,  we  find Paracelsus
and Van Helmont announcing the great truth, but
associated with so many  errors that  it  fell into
complete oblivion.  Magnetism  had then been an-
nounced and,  in some degree, promulgated by
Mesmer's predecessors; but the supreme agency
of the will discovered by him  and the somnam-
bulic  faculties  discovered by Dc Puysegur, justify,
we are  confident, the course we have followed.
   After Paracelsus and Van Helmont,  some other
names may be quoted.   Digby, in England, was
inventor of a powder to cure  wounds by sympa-
thy, in applying it upon the blood which had run
from  it.  Robert Boyle, the founder of the Academy
of London, a profound mathematician and philo-
sopher,  announced  the  action that  individuals
might exercise upon each other, and he  admitted
 of a  universal fluid which produces it.  Maxwell^ 
         THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.       53
a physician of the king of England, published a
book, in 1679, of which the title was: De Medecinu
Magneticd.  There are great ideas in this work,
butburied under a mass of absurdities.   Servius
maintains the opinion of a  universal fluid in a
manner rather singular: " All bodies  in nature,"
says he, " radiate out of them an emanation by
which they act upon each other;  their sphere of
activity is not unlimited, but it extends to a dis-
tance the limits of which are  unknown.  The sun
and the stars, placed at immeasurable distances
from us,  send  us light and heat.  We  are not
astonished because we are used to this phenome-
non ; but bodies send in the same manner effluvia,
which we perceive more or  less according to the
delicacy of our senses."
   Magnetism seems to have been  known and
practised among men  in former times.  If we
plunge at once in the remotest times of antiquity,
shall we not find it among the Egyptians ?  Scien-
tific and  curious researches are  to  be found in
the Annals and Library of Magnetism,  out of which
 we will make abundant extracts.
    Priests were  the only  physicians in Egypt.
 They practised the art of curing diseases in the
 temples, as a divine art.  They made a mystery
 of their means, which the gods revealed only to
 the priests, their favourites.
    They employed  all that  can dispose to a firm
 confidence—long fastings, bathing,  purifications,
 sacrifices, sitting up at night and fervent prayers, 
g4             THIRD LECTURE.
to obtain the divine revelations. It was after these
preparations that the patients, laying on the skins
of goats which they had immolated, slept near the
sanctuary, and there awaited for dreams  and  pro-
phetic visions.  It is  easy to conceive that,  then
as now, somnambulism was  not a general  result,
and many did receive no revelations in dreams.
Then there  were priests of inferior  classes  who
delivered themselves up to dreams, and  gave the
revelations.  These somnambulic priests had  par-
ticular names; it was considered as a  constant
fact  that those who  were deficient  in  faith  and
obedience would not receive any celestial com-
munication.
  When success crowned the revelations, and the
patients were cured, it was customary to engrave
in the temple the names of the sick, the disease
and  the remedy.  This  was more  particularly
practised at Ephesus, in the temple of  Diana.
Some of these inscriptions have escaped the  inju-
ries  of Time : we possess five  of them.  1 will
quote the two most interesting.
   " The God, in a nocturnal apparition, ordered
the son of Lucius, who  suffered by a  hopeless
pleuresy, to take on the altar cinders, to mix  them
with wine, and to apply  them on his painful side.
He was saved, thanked the God, and the people
wished him happiness."
   The second inscription  says," a blind soldier,
named Valerius, after having consulted the  God,
received for answer: go in the  temple, mix the 
THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.        55
blood of a white fowl with honey, and wash your
eyes with it during three days : he has recovered
his sight, and has come to thank the God before
the people."
  It is generally acknowledged that these inscrip-
tions in the temples were the medical code at that
time; they have been the foundation of the science
of medecine, there are  even writers who have af-
firmed that the writings of Hyppocrates have been
formed from these inscriptions.
   What more positive  can be wished, upon the
certainty and multitudes of cures operated in the
different temples; and who would refuse to admit
here somnambulism and its salutary effects. Some-
times it was the patient himself,  who in his sleep
saw and indicated the remedy: sometimes it  was
the  priest  who prescribed  in these dreams, and
what else do our somnambulists do at the present
time.
   Galien declares having drawn great advanta-
ges for the healing of diseases, from these prescrip-
tions given in dreams. He announces that Hermes
of Cappadoce had taken receipts from the temple
of Memphis.
   The impulsive principle which procured the be-
neficial dreams, was not revealed as were the re-
medies : it was concealed with the greatest care
from the vulgar.  Animal Magnetism was the basis
of all these mysteries: they had added to it all the
imposing forms  of superstition.   A very curious
collection which contains details on somnambulic 
56              THIRD LECTURE.
treatments in the temple of Esculapius has escap-
ed destruction.  It is the discourses of Aristides,
VsU in honour of Esculapius.   2nd of Asclepiades,
and  six  under the title  of Sacred Discourses, they
contain details of cures operated  upon  himself.
Is not  the description of the treatment in these
discourses similar to a magnetic treatment related
day by day ? this periodical sleep,  these  dreams
in which the patient prescribes regularly what he
must take or  avoid, the inward view of  his dis-
order,  his foresight of the crisis or accidents he
must experience, is not all this exactly similar to
what we find now  in our  somnambulists ?  I regret
that I cannot devote more time to read these dis-
courses,  but I must hurry you towards other  im-
portant subjects.
  After collecting observations on Somnambulism
which  the Egyptian Priests knew how to excite in
the temple of Isis, Osiris  and Serapis, there  re-
mains but  little doubt that it was principally pro-
duced  by Animal Magnetism, but they had  interest
to make  a mystery of it, as it was the source of
their  authority,  under the name of the Divinity.
Therefore the statues of Harpocrates, God of si-
lence,  were seen  every  where in their temples,
with a  finger on his mouth (1). However,  is it not
possible,in spite of all their precautions, that some
rays of light may be collected from their monu-
ments  to dispel that  darkness and point out the
truth.
  (1) In omnibus templis ubi colebatur Isis et Serapis, similacrum
wat digito labris impresso.   P.Valerius. Hierogvaphica. p. 261 
          THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.,       51
   Every one now knows how magnetism is appli-
 ed, how somnambulism  is  obtained.  It is by the
 laying of hands, by  the  approach of fingers, and
 even of one finger; therefore the word  hand in  a
 metaphorical sense designated the agency of the
 will, even the divine will who provokes the prophe-
 tic inspiration, and operates wonderful things; the
 hand, the finger of the Lord has touched him, (1) were
 and are yet a usual form of expression.
   We are now to call your attention upon some
 mysterious monuments collected and engraved by
 Montfaucon in his Antiquite Expliquee which have
 much distressed the antiquarians, and which might
 well  belong to magnetism.  These are hands of
 bronze covered with  mysterious  figures, having
 three fingers extended and the others bent.
   The first of these hands,  has, besides  other
 Egyptian hieroglyphics, a  kind of  ring towards
 the wrist, on which is seen a woman laying  down
 with a child.  This hand undoubtedly was conse-
 crated to Serapis and  to Esculapius: the  first of
 these deities is  represented under the human form
 with his attributes; the other under the form of a
 serpent.
   It is to be observed that all these hands are right
 hands, they are dedicated to the same deities, Se-
 rapis, Isis  and  Esculapius, that is to say those in
 whose  temples were daily  operated  magnetic

  (1) Et cum iraposuisset illis manus Paulus, venit Spiritus Sanc-
tus super eos, et loquebantur linguis et prophetabant.
                        Act. Apost. Cap. 8. Vers. 17.
                      8 
58              THIRD LECTURE.
cures.  We leave our hearers to judge whether
there is any probability in these conjectures.
  We find also mysterious fingers which we think
equally to belong to  magnetic  mysteries.   Vale-
riana tells us that they gave the name of Medical
Finger to the Index: all the bronze fingers engrav-
ed in that collection are each an Index.
  So far we have seen in the Antiquities of Mont-
faucon Animal  Magnetism  by  fragment: we saw
only hands and  fingers,  which in truth are the
direct instruments of magnetism: but that immense
collection presents also magnetism fully represent-
ed in scenes worthy  all the attention of the cu-
rious.
  The first object which attracts our attention is
a picture taken from the wrappers or envelope of
a mummy.  Upon a table or bed, the extremities
of which are in the form of a lion, is  the figure of
a man lying down and wrapped up in  a kind of
blue camail which falls on his shoulders and breast.
A brown vestment in the form of pantaloons covers
 him to the feet, the face is bare and the eyes open.
 At his side is a person dressed in the same man-
 ner with a cowl and a mask;  his face is turned
 towards the sick, he has his left hand on the breast
 of the patient, and the right on his head in the at-
 titude of a person who magnetises.  At each end
 of the bed are  two women with  bare arms and
 feet;  their head is covered with an Egyptian  ca-
  mail; one holds her right hand raised, the other
  her left. 
THEORIES AND RESEARCHES,       sa
   This subject we consider as a true scene of ani-
 mal  magnetism: the person laying down is the
 sick; the person who magnetises is an Egyptian
 priest covered with the mask of Anubis.   His at-
 titude is not equivocal, one of the hands is placed
 on the breast, the other on the head of the patient;
 he has his face turned towards him and his looks
 fixed  upon  him.   Montfaucon declares  that he
 leaves this  picture without an explanation, the
 learned did  not as yet know magnetism. This pic-
 ture is not the only one on the same subject fur-
 nished by Montfaucon's collection ; there are three
 others with similar  emblems, and representing
 magnetic subjects; the only material difference is
 the situation of the hand of the personage acting.
 In the second, his hands are, one on the head, the
 other on the feet of the patient: in  the third, his
 hands are  on both sides: in  the  fourth, on his
 thighs.  A remarkable circumstance is, that these
 different pictures offer each a way  of magnetisa-
 tion, with the different stages of the cure.  The
 patient stretched at full length in the first, seems
 to move in the second, to  sit up in the  third, and
 to rise in  the fourth.  If this is not exactly a mag-
 netic cure represented, what else can it be?
   Animal magnetism is as old  as the world, not
 indeed under the present name, but under the veil
 of a mysterious science.  If from Egypt and Asia,
 we turn our eyes on ancient  Italy and the Gauls^
 we will find it again there.
   The characteristics of magnetism  are the facul-
ty of curing diseases by the mere touch, and this 
«o              THIRD LECTURE.
wpnderful somnambulism which reveals our inward
diseases and those of others, enables to prescribe
the remedies, to foresee and predict the course and
results of the cure and many other things which a
magnetisor may be pleased to ask. This foresight
has an extensive sphere.  It is stopped neither by
space nor time; its limits are unknown.
   When we find the same effects, we must suppose
the same cause;  the sibyls were then but females
in true state of somnambulism, since they predict-
ed the future and  gave answers  to those who con-
sulted them.
   Cicero says that we should not be believers in
dreams, because they cannot be of divine inspira-
tion.   If he denies the explanation* he admits of
the facts and furnishes us with  some curious ex-
amples.   He  quotes  for instance the dream of
Alexander the Great.   In Cic. De divin. L. 2.
  <•' Ptolemeus, (1) one of his principal captains had
been  wounded with a  poisoned  arrow, and his
 wound causing him excruciating pains, he was in
 great  danger.   Alexander sat at the head  of his
  (1) Cum Ptolomseus familiaris ejus in prcelio telo venenato ictus
essct, eoque vulnere somno cum dolere moreretur, Alexander assi-
dens, somno est consopitus.  Turn secundum quietem. visus ei
dicitur draco, is qure mater Olympias alebat, radiculam ore ferre et
simul dicere quo ilia loci nasceretur ; neque is longeaberat ab eo
loco : ejus autaiu esse vim tantam, ut Ptolomssum facile sanaret.
Quum Alexander experrectus narrasset amicis sumnium,emisisse
qui illam radiculam qucererent: qua inventa, et Ptolomaeus sanatus
dicitur, ei multimilites qui erant eod«m generi teli vulnerati. Cic-
46 Divin. Lib. a. No.  133. 
         THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.        61
bed, and fell asleep.   The Dragon which his mo-
ther Olympias nourished appeared  to him in a
dream, having a root in his mouth,  indicated to
him the  place where it was to be found, and as-
sured him that Ptolemeus would be  immediately
cured by it; they sent for the root at the place de-
signated by the Dragon: it was found  there and
not only Ptolemeus was cured, but also many other
soldiers who had been wounded with the same
sort of arrows.
  Let us weigh all the circumstances of the dream
of Alexander.  Ptolemeus was one of the officers
with whom he lived most familiarly : familiaris ejus
Alexander sat near to his bed assidens, Alexander
slept soundly, somno consopitus  est.  It is  in this
sleep that he  sees the salutary plant: it is difficult
not to see here a true magnetic sleep. What hap-
pens to Alexander is what now happens every day
to our somnambulists.
  Socrates was not  less known in  antiquity  for
what he called his Demon or Genius than for the
wisdom of his philosophy and the  injustice of his
contemporaries.   Let us listen again to what Ci-
cero says in his treatise on Divination.
  " Socrates said often  that there is in man some-
thing divine, that in  himself he called his Demon
or Genius, who never induced him to do any thing,
but, on the contrary, prevented him, and to whom
he  never failed to obey." (1)

  (1) Esse divinum quiddara, quod daemonion appellat; cui sem-
per  ipse paruerit  nunquam impellante  ssepe revocanti.—Cic. de
Divin., lib. I, § 54., N. 12. 
62
THIRD LECTURE.  '
  Socrates, meeting one day Criton his friend with
a banded eye, inquired what it was.  Criton  an-
swered, as he  has walking in the country a twig
struck him in  the  eye.  Socrates reminded him
he had opposed his going to the country: "You
would not believe me," said he, " when from  my
divine presage I wished to keep you with me."
  It is a remarkable thing, continues Cicero, that
after  the  battle lost by the Athenians at Delium,
when Socrates, who was flying as the rest, had ar-
rived at a cross-way,  he was not willing to take
the same way  with the others, and  as they asked
him the cause  : " It is,  said he, that my Genius  de-
ters me from it."  And in fact it happened that
those who followed not the same road with him,
fell into the cavalry of the enemy.
  We must listen to Socrates himself, in Plato, in
his apology to  the Athenians:  " What prevented
me, Athenians, to come into  your  assemblies, is
my familiar Genius, that divine voice of whom  I
spoke so often, and which was so often ridiculed
by Miletas.  This Genius has attached himself to
me from my infancy, &c."  And a few lines lower:
" If any one of my friends wish to impart me some
determination, if dangerous, this voice obliges me
to dissuade them.
  " Timarcus  asked me,« What is your opinion,
Socrates ?' I  then heard  the voice: Do not go,
said  I.  Timarcus  could not  resist, and went.
This  is the reason he said to his brother,41 am
about to  die,  because I would not listen to  So*
crates.'" 
         THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.        63
  And  a few  lines again  lower, we  find  these
words:  " You may yet be informed from many of
our fellow-citizens that I foretold them, before the
expedition to Sicily, the complete destruction of
our army."
  A question presents itself in quoting those pas^
sages:  Did  Socrates  obtain  this wisdom, which
illustrates his name from antiquity to  the present
day, from somnambulic faculties ?
   But  let us  return  to the  oracles  and  sibyls.
The sibyls, according to the meaning of the word,
were the interpreters  of the wilt of the gods. Their
history ascends to the fabulous  parts of history;
their books have not  been preserved.  The sibyl
of Cumes, spoken of by Virgil, is the first of whom
history has left records.
   " When she  rendered her oracles verbally," says
Virgil, JEneid,  lib. VI, (1) "it appears she expe-
rienced violent convulsions; her face changed co-
lour, her  hair would stand  on end, her breast
heaved, her mouth foamed, her voice was fright-
ful; she struggled as if to disengage  herself from
 the god who pressed, fatigued,  subdued her,  &c."
                 (1) Cui talia fanti
Ante fores, subito non vultus, non color unus,
Non comptas mansere comae; sed pectus auhelum
Et rabie fera corda tument, majorque videri,
Nee mortale sonans........
    At Phoebi nundum patiens, inmanis in antro
Baccatur vates, magnum si pectore possit
Excussisse Deum: tanto magis ille fatiguat,
Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingit que premendo.
                    JEneid, libj. VI, vers 45 et sequen. 
64
THIRD LECTURE.
According to Plutarch, she had predicted the fa-
mous eruption of Vesuvius, which swallowed up
Pompeia, Herculanum, and caused  the  death of
Plinius.
  After the Sibyl of Cumes, the  historians speak
of the nymph Egeria, who  served as a counsel
and an oracle to Numa.  We may infer that Ege-
ria was a somnambulist, whom Numa consulted.
The Romans believed in the oracles of that sibyl.
  We will  merely indicate the  sibylian  books
which were considered as depositories of the for-
tune and destinies  of Rome; fifteen magistrates
were  appointed for their preservation. The pre-
dictions  they contained  were often justified  by
the events.   They were destroyed  by fire with
the Capitol, in 670.
  St.  Justin assures that although the sibyls  in
their  predictions said a  great many fine things,
they lost the memory of what they had announced.
  Separate facts come here which are connected
with Roman history.
  Tiberius, walking on the sea shore with Tra-
syle, who enjoyed a great reputation as a diviner,
they perceived  a ship far  off at sea.  Trasyle
said immediately, there was on board a messenger
sent by Augustus with the order for him to return
to Rome. (1)  Was it not for Magnetism, it would
be difficult to explain that fact.
  (1) Sic enim certe omnia sciebat, ut cum procul vidisset navem
in qua nuntius vehebatur, et quern de reditu in urbem mater et
Augustus ad Tiberium raittebant, statim quod ille nunciaturus
erat, prredixerit.—DiomamMS. Augustus, p. 74. 
THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.        -65
    A trait of Mopsus.  He was a great conjurer,
 and when he pleased.   Calchas was also a great
 magician.  They challenged each other.  Mopsus
 proposed to declare how many figs were on a fig-
 tree, and how many young ones had a sow just
 passing by.   Calchas could not answer, and died
 of jealousy a few days after, when the prediction
 of Mopsus was  literally accomplished, either for
 the sow or the number of figs.   Will not our som-
 nambulists, without being oracles, render us every
 day witnesses of facts as surprising.
   This is the way Magnetism throws the greatest
 light on  a multitude of facts in antiquity, which
 were looked upon  as fables, impostures or the
 work of the Devil.
   Let us now from Italy pass into the Gauls.
   The Druids had  also  their sibyls.  The fonc-
 tion of the sacerdoce, that of divination and pro-
 phecy were exercised by female Druids.  They
 attached a great importance to their sibyls;  they
 took a particular care of their education.   The
 young girls were collected in the isle of Sain, not
 far  from Brest;  they observed  with great atten-
 tion those who had  dispositions to fall into fits of
 ecstacy.
   Tacitus takes pleasure to praise the correct-
 ness and  success of their predictions.  He men-
 tions a certain  Velleda, who  had  predicted a
 great victory to the Germans, and the destruction
 of the Roman legions. (1)
 (1)  Nam prosperas  res Germanis, et excidium legionum  pre-
dixerat—Tacit. Hist.,  lib. 4? No. 6.
                        9 
66             THIRD LECTURE.
  Vopiscus relates that Diocletian had a discus-
sion with a female Druid, on account of some vic-
tuals she had  furnished him.  " Diocletian," said
she, " you are  too  saving, too stingy."  He  an-
swered in a joke: " I will be more generous when
1 am emperor."  "  Do not joke," replied the wo-
man," you will be emperor when you have killed
a boar." (1)   It must be observed that the word
Aper, which signifies in latin a boar, is also a
man's name.  Diocletian laughed, but still he put
himself  to hunt and kill boars, and said, seeing
Aurelian, Probus and others ascend the throne;
" I kill boars, but some others eat them." Finally,
it happened that Arius Aper stabbed  the emperor
Numerian; Diocletian plunged his  sword in the
bosom of Aper and  succeeded the Emperor.
  The heresiarch Montan, who lived in the second
 century  of the christian  era, made predictions
emanated, he said, from the Holy Ghost.  He had
with him two females,  Priscilla and Maximilla,
who fell into  ecstacy, predicted the future, and
forgot, out of their somnambulism, what they had
said.  The remarkable word Somniat, applied to
Montan, is used by their historian  (St. Hieron).
 The heresy of Montan  made proselytes, it even
 seduced the  famous Tertullian, the man the most
 enlightened of his age, who, enjoying an immense
 glory, consented to descend from that high rank,
 to make himself a disciple of Montan and of vul-
  (1) Diocletiane jocari noli, nam Imperator eris, cum Aprum oc-
cideris.—Vopiscus. 
          THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.       62
gar men and women.  What can be the motives
that will excuse him in the eyes of the world, nay
in his own eyes ?  Tertullian must have had proofs*
and facts.  It is from himself we will learn it.
   " There is," said he, " now amongst  us a sister
who is  favoured with  gift of revelations, she re-
ceives it in the church, in the middle of our mys-
teries, being ravished in ecstacy, she sees, she
hears celestial secrets, knows what is most hid-
den in the hearts of several persons, and teaches
salutary remedies  to those who express the want
of them, &c."
   This  passage  is  positive and explains these
scenes which are so familiar to us and  which our
modern somnambulists present.
   A word on the  cures operated by the saints or
monks in their monasteries in more modern times.
Thiers will be our authority.
   Protogenes, says Thiers, a priest of Edesse, by
his prayers and his touch cured  the children in-
trusted  to his care; the monk John, had received
from God the gift  of curing the gout: the monk
Benjamin, cured  all sorts of diseases in touching
merely  the sick with his hand.  Parthenius, a bi-
shop in the Hellespont, cured all sorts of diseases,
&c." But continues Thiers, " they were holy per-
sonages, &c."
   The good monks had the  qualifications neces-
sary to magnetise,  they had a firm belief  and the
intention or will to cure; they employed  the touch:
this is exactly Magnetism. 
6g             THIRD LECTURE.
  Another word upon possessions by the devil.
  John Weir relates several histories of persons
haunted.  A young girl in a fall, had a little knife
plunged in her side ; they would not believe her.
She refused  during several days to eat and drink:
in her paroxysms, she made several predictions;
she positively predicted three months in advance
that on the  lady's  day the knife would be visible.
She was considered as haunted by the  devil, be-
cause her friends by mildness or threats could not
do any  thing with  her,  but the  prognostication
being accomplished, she was cured.
  A magnetisor here will ask: and what became
of the devil  ?
  The same writer relates that a  very ignorant
woman, but  agitated by the devil, having been ask-
ed what was the best verse of Virgil replied im-
mediately by this  latin verse of Virgil, of which
here is a translation :
            Be just, and fear the Gods (1).
  The choice is admirable, and shows that the
devil spoke  as a good christian.
  What  shall we  say of the convulsions on the
tomb of Deacon Paris ? Not only more than 2000
persons experienced convulsions such as never did
even the Sibyl of Cumes; not only  by  a natural
magnetisation,  the lame, the paralitics, the sick,
recovered their health, but many of the ecstatic*
could read the most secret thoughts,  and  made
predictions  which  have been preserved  with care,
(1) Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos. 
          'THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.        63
 Dr. Hocquet appeared with his formidable work
 on convulsions and  proved that all this did not
 proceed  from God, nor  from the devil, but from
 Nature.
   Dr. Hocquet makes a curious quotation ;  it re-
 fers to the page of a Spanish Grandee; in health,
 said he, he had  but little sense, but  in his mania,
 his powers increased  to such  a degree that his
 master was very happy  to  follow  his counsels in
 his  government, so  that the page and  the lord
 were  very angry against the physician who cured
 him.
   Happily for Numa, the nymph Egeria had no
 physician.
   Let us  leave our legends, and speak of the un-
 fortunate  Johanna d'Arc, called in French la Pu-
 celle d'Orleans, whom her visions, her predictions
 and her deplorable death have rendered an emin-
 ent character.
   Delaverdy has given an extract of her trial in
 which he declares that he has given the very words
 ofJohanna.
   " At the age of thirteen," said she,  " I heard a
 voice in my father's garden, and saw a great light;
 I was afraid at first,  but I  soon knew it was the
 voice of St. Michael  who  has since accompanied
 me, protected me, &c..............Since that time," con-
 cludes Johanna,  " I have done nothing but by vir-
 tue of the revelations I have received, and appa-
ritions I have seen, as well as in this trial, I speak
but what is revealed to me." 
7D             THIRD LECTURE.
  All this extract is full of facts which might ap-
pear miraculous. Guided by these voices, Johanna
announces in advance what will be  the events.
She told the king that she would cause the siege
of Orleans to be raised, and it was raised.  She
foretold that the English  would be driven from
France in seven years;  they were so in fact. She
had  announced that he would be  crowned  in
Rheims, and he was crowned in Rheims.
  At  the siege of Orleans, she assured that  it
would be taken and that they would enter the city
during night by the bridge.   And  she added,
" Blood will run from my breast."
  The next day, the fort was  attacked, and  Jo-
hanna was wounded by an arrow.  Dunois seeing
his troops fatigued, resolved to sound the retreat.
Johanna's wound being banded, she besought him
to wait.  She  went  into  a vineyard where  she
prayed for a quarter of an hour.  On  her return,
she seized her standard and waved it, calling the
French soldiers.  They resumed the  battle:  the
English lost courage: the boulevard, the fort, were
no longer  defended, and  Johanna entered  Or-
leans, at night, by the bridge, as she had pre-
dicted.
  Why this sudden retreat of Johanna in the vine-
yard, if not to collect her senses and  put herself
in the desired state, consult her faculty of foresight
on what she had to do to accomplish her first pre-
diction ? 
         THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.        Tl
   I will pass over in silence all the  deeds of Jo-
hanna, they are all of the same nature with these,
and would add nothing to our information on  her
somnambulic faculties.
   Johanna was a simple and ignorant girl, brought
up in the country, not knowing how to read. Her
temper was brisk, lively and impatient.   All  the
actions of her life show she was full of benevolence;
she was virtuous.  Such was the maid whom  the
English have burnt alive as a sorceress.    A fatal
effect of ignorance,  revenge and fanaticism.
   A few words upon  a  somnambulic faculty  ob-
served in Scotland and known in that country un-
der the name of second sight.  Johnson will not be
a suspected authority.
   " The second  sight," says the author of the
Voyage in  the  Hebrides,  " is  either an impression
given by the eyes on the mind, or, by the mind on
the eyes, by means  of which distant or future ob-
jects are perceived and seen as if they were pre-
sent.
   " This faculty is passive, it is neither voluntary
nor constant.  These apparitions cannot be com-
manded, detained or recalled, the impression ib
sudden........"
   The writer adds  this very sensible reflection:
" The faculty of second  sight is wonderful only
because it is uncommon ; for, considered in itself,
it does not imply more difficulty than dreams, per-
haps even no more  than the regular  exercise of
our faculties of thinking." 
72             THIRD LECTURE.
   But, my Hearers, do you want examples brought
nearer to your sight in order that you may examine
them yourselves; do you wish to see Mesmer's
Tub, with all its convulsions, spasms, sighs, laugh-
ter, jumping, singing, sleeping, staring eyes and
distorted mouths, magnetism as it was in Europe
before having been regulated by a better system,
look round you, go in that Methodist church, or
still better, go in September next, to a camp-meet-
ing, and you will there have a true representation
of what magnetism was in  1784.
  It follows from that observation that the sect of
the Methodists will constantly go on the increase,
as those  who  experience  these sensations  think
they are produced by the presence of a Superna-
tural Being.
  As for the philosopher who has studied Animal
Magnetism, he will at once  discover  that  these
sensations are  magnetical; and produced by the
fluid put in motion by a regular impulse commu-
nicated on a numerous audience collected with
unity of intention.
  After having brought a crowd of facts before you,
Ladies and Gentlemen, let us see what theories on
Animal Magnetism have been imagined and  what
explanation may be  the most satisfactory to the
philosophical genius  of this age, of this country
and in particular of this audience.
  We have seen that the history of magnetism and
of somnambulism  is as old as the history of  man-
kind ; that speculative medicine owes its origin to 
THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.       7$
them according to the declaration of Hippocrates
and Gahen themselves; that the various supersti-
tions and religions Which succeeded each other had
for foundation their wonderful results presented to
the eye of an ignorant world as communication^
with the Gods.  In Egypt, Asia, Greece,  Rorrie
and the Gauls, we have magnetism modified ac-
cording to the opinion of the time: now what mo-
dification shall it receive from Us when it presents
itself in its  simple garb, and with its plain name of
Animal Magnetism ?
  This strange science, or rather human faculty is
not without danger, when  introduced to  a credu-
lous people, the Swedes have adopted opinions on
this subject which Will appear little concordant
with our present ideas, but we have promised to
be  candid, true and tolerant,  we will keep that
promise.
  According to the Exegetic  and Philanthropic
Society of Stockholm, our diseases are produced
"by our sins:  crime puts this world under  the influ-
ence of the evil spirit, to magnetise is to remove
that influence, or rather to cast away these evi(
spirits. Magnetism thus considered consists in the
desire to do good to man, under the will of God,
whose clemency the magnetisor implores. Follow-
ing this idea,  they imagine that in the state of som-
nambulism a protecting spirit or angel speaks by
the mouth of the patient after having subdued the
evil spirit. This theory Which may appear to us very
extravagant, has the advantage of explaining more
                       1 
It
THIRD LECTURE.
easily the phenomena of somnambulism than any
other. The sight at distance, and the superior un-
derstanding of the somnambulist is ascribed to the
angel; the  loss of recollection to his  departure.
A short specimen of their way of magnetising, ex-
tracted from their register may perhaps be timely
introduced.
  On the 10th of May, in presence of &c.......was
magnetised the wife of a gardener, who having
fallen in  the state of somnambulism, we received
by her organ the following answers : Is the patient
asleep?—Yes.—Who art thou who speakest by
the organ of the patient during her sleep ?—My
name is Maria.—In what condition art thou ?—I
am  in the other world, in a happy state.—How
long since?—These  14 years.—Who wert thou
during thy life time ?—I died a child three years
old.—Who was thy father ?—He was a joiner in
this city.—His name ?—Lindstrom.—Art thou per-
mitted to give us explanations on important point*
which it is  interesting for us  to know exactly ?—
Yes.—What becomes of man  after death ?—He
enters into purification, &c. &c.....
  The letter of Mr  Halldin  which accompanied
the copy of their register to the French Society,
concludes with these words: " No consideration,
not even the fear of being branded with the names
of visionary, deceitful, and crazy men, hypocrites,
fanatics, heretics, or of any other qualification they
Will be pleased to lavish upon us to cover us with
contempt and ridicule will ever deter us from re- 
THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.        7b
 maining faithful to the conviction of the truth,  we
 have had the happiness to arrive at," &c...
   But I think it is enough on the spiritualists of
 Sweden.
   Germany has adopted  a theory mixed with
 spiritualism, religion and  philosophy.  A letter
 written from Carlsrouhe to Mr. Deleuze, will pre-
 sent their ideas better than  I otherwise could  do.
   " I am not  ignorant how many precautions are
 necessary in a country where ridicule is so power-
 ful, and where  materialism is still, in  many res-
 pects, the reigning philosophy.  But it seems to
 me not  impossible to open the way for a  more
 elevated philosophy in presenting facts which lead
 to it, such as they have been given by those who
 witnessed them.  In the last  number of  your
journal, you endeavour  to preserve your readers
 against the system of the  northern  magnetisors,
 who admit spiritual powers  as a medium in mag-
 netic operations.  But if it is true, as we are com-
pelled to admit, that somnambulists  have  seen
past and  future events,  if they have  seen  the  in-
 side of their bodies and that of others, and fore-
 told the result of a treatment, is not this an  in-
 tellectual perception, different  from a physical
one ?.....  Would it be then so  ridiculous  or  so
odious to return, by the very philosophical way
of experience, to the belief of our fathers ?  If our
ancestors joined to their belief dangerous and
superstitious ideas, let us remove them, but let us
be faithful to our principles, let us respect facts 
^6             THIRD LECTURE.
collected  in great number,  which during  6,000
years have been  the ground-work of many reli-
gions, of ours among the number, and attested by
historians, philosophers, fathers of the Church,
and other estimable writers."
  The French have not  been so far, they have in-
herited from Mesmer the idea of a universal fluid,
which  they have animalised  by the organs of life,
and  called vital  or magnetic fluid.   As 1 have
already exposed,  at the beginning of my second
lecture, this fluid, directed by the act  of will- on
another individual, cures him, lulls him to sleep,
and frequently produces somnambulism, in which
a new sense, a sixth  sense  is developed.  This
sense  opens a new mode of perception, of which
we can have no more idea than the blind by birth
can have of colour.  The somnambulist does not
himself preserve any idea of that mode of percep-
tion, as he loses all recollection at his waking up.
   Some passages of the answer of Mr. Deleuze,
this Nestor of magnetism, to the foregoing  letter
will  be an excellent  illustration of  the  opinion
adopted by the majority of the French school.
   " To explain these faculties, Sir, you have re-
course to spiritual beings, but you do  not pay at-
tention that in doing so, you neither  remove  nor
even attenuate them.  I suppose, on the contrary,
that in the state of somnambulism a new faculty is
developed in man of which  all those we  have in
the waking state are but modifications ; that  this
kind of inward sense is the  centre of  all  others, 
THEORIES AND RESEARCHES.        T>
the advantages of which it unites.  That this mode
of perception is as different from that which we
have by the other senses as the impressions given
by the eyes are from those given by the ears. Let
us not be like a blind man who would agree that
the forms of an object placed at a few yards may
be determined, but who would  say that there  is
but an intelligence of superior order who may have
the sensation of an object placed  in space at a
distance which exceeds that of the Diameter  of
the Earth. You see then, Sir, at length I conclude
as Socrates, and as I often heard the  celebrated
Lagrange say: / know not."
   My Dear Hearers, we must all agree with Mr.
Deleuze that we know not how all these phenome-
na are produced;  but if they are produced, take
my word they will be produced by yourselves if
you are not  discouraged by want of information
and of perseverance and a  few unsuccessful at-
tempts.  Do not at first expect wonderful and mi-
raculous  effects, but put yourselves in the condi-
tion to obtain them; let not your motives be in-
discreet curiosity, devoid of the intention to do
good.
   Act with confidence, perseverance, and the ar-
dent wish to  relieve the sufferings of your brother
and you will soon be crowned with a success which
will surpass your most sanguine expectations.
   Full of confidence in the importance of this sub-
ject,  strong in  the uprightness of my intentions,
1 study, I proclaim and I publish the power of the 
78
THIRD LECTURE,.
human will, united with charity:  may my zeal ap^
pear acceptable and  make you  conceive a  true
idea of Animal Magnetism!
END OF THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
i