Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.

POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS,

AND

THE TRUTHS CONTAINED THEREIN,

WITH AN

ACCOUNT OF MESMERISM.

BY

HERBERT MAYO, M.D.,

FORMERLY SENIOR SURGEON OF MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL; PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY AND
PHYSIOLOGY IN KING’S COLLEGE; PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY
IN THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, LONDON.
F.R.S., F.G.S., ETC.

FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:
LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON.
1852.

WM. S. YOUNG, PRINTER.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

In the following Letters I have endeavoured to exhibit in their true light the singular natural phenomena of which old superstition and modern charlatanism in turn availed themselves—to indicate their laws, and to develop their theory. The subject is so important that I might well have approached it in a severer guise. But, slight as this performance may appear, I profess to have employed upon it the keenest and most patient efforts of reflection of which I am capable. And as to its tone at the commencement, and the prominence given to popular and trivial topics, I candidly avow that, without some such artifice, I doubt whether I should have found a publisher of repute to publish, or a circle of readers to read, my lucubrations.

“Cosi all’ egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi
Di soave licor gli orli del vaso;
Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve,
E dall’ inganno suo vita riceve.”

It was in the winter of 1846 that the original seven Letters were written, of which the present fourteen are the third and expanded reprint. The hour had come for successfully assailing certain already shaking prejudices of the reading public. The Selbstschau of Zschokke, and the researches of Von Reichenbach, were in the hands of the literary and philosophic. The seer-gift of the former (see Letter IV.) had established the fact that one mind can enter into direct though one-sided communion with another. The undenied Od-force of the latter (see Letter I.) is evidently the same influence with that, the first crude announcement of which, by Mesmer, had scared the world into disbelief. It had now become possible to explain ghostly warnings, and popular prophecies, the wonders of natural trance, and of animal magnetism, without having recourse to a single unproven principle. I therefore made the attempt; other more efficient labourers have co-operated in the same object; and public opinion is no longer hostile to this class of inquiries.

BAD WEILBACH, near MAYENCE,
_1st August, 1851_.

CONTENTS.

LETTER I. THE DIVINING-ROD.—Description of, and mode
of using the same—Mr. Fairholm’s statement—M. de
Tristan’s statement—Account of Von Reichenbach’s Od-force—The
Author’s own observations, 9

LETTER II. VAMPYRISM.—Tale exemplifying the superstition—The
Vampyr state of the body in the grave—Various
instances of death-trance—The risk of premature interment
considered—The Vampyr visit, 30

LETTER III. UNREAL GHOSTS.—Law of sensorial illusions—Cases
of Nicolai, Schwedenborg, Joan of Arc—Fetches—Churchyard
ghosts, 53

LETTER IV. TRUE GHOSTS.—The apparitions themselves
always sensorial illusions—The truth of their communications
accounted for—Zschokke’s seer-gift described,
to show the possibility of direct mental
communication—Second-sight—The true relation of the
mind to the living body, 70

LETTER V. TRANCE.—Distinction of esoneural and exoneural
mental phenomena—Abnormal relation of the mind
and nervous system possible—Insanity—Sleep—Essential
nature of trance—Its alliance with spasmodic seizures—General
characters of trance—Enumeration of
kinds, 86

LETTER VI. TRANCE-SLEEP.—The phenomena of trance
divided into those of trance-sleep, and those of trance-waking—Trance-sleep
presents three forms; Trance-waking
two. The three forms of trance sleep described;
viz., death-trance, trance-coma, simple or initiatory
trance, 98

LETTER VII. HALF-WAKING TRANCE, OR SOMNAMBULISM.—The
same thing with ordinary sleep-walking—Its characteristic
feature, the acting of a dream—Cases, and disquisition, 106

LETTER VIII. TRANCE-WAKING.—Instances of its spontaneous
occurrence in the form of catalepsy—Analysis of
catalepsy—its three elements: double consciousness, or
pure waking-trance; the spasmodic seizure; the new
mental powers displayed—Cases exemplifying catalepsy—Other
cases unattended with spasm, but of spontaneous
occurrence, in which new mental powers were
manifested—Oracles of antiquity—Animal instinct—Intuition, 116

LETTER IX. RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS.—The seizures giving
rise to them shown to have been forms of trance brought
on by fanatical excitement—The Cevennes—Scenes at
the tomb of the Abbé Paris—Revivals in America—The
Ecstatica of Caldaro—Three forms of imputed demoniacal
possession—Witchcraft; its marvels, and the solution, 136

LETTER X. MESMERISM.—Use of chloroform—History of
Mesmer—The true nature and extent of his discovery—Its
applications to medicine and surgery—Various
effects produced by mesmeric manipulations—Hysteric
seizures—St. Veitz’s dance—Nervous paralysis—Catochus—Initiatory
trance—The order in which the higher
trance-phenomena are afterwards generally drawn out, 153

LETTER XI. SUPPLEMENTAL.—Abnormal neuro-psychical
relation—Cautions necessary in receiving trance
communications—Trance-visiting—Mesmerising at a distance,
and by the will—Mesmeric diagnosis and treatment
of disease—Prevision—Ultra-vital vision, 175

LETTER XII. THE ODOMETER OR DIVINING-RING.—How
come upon by the author—His first experiments—The
phenomena an objective proof of the reality of the Od-force, 209

LETTER XIII. THE SOLUTION.—Examination of the genuineness
of the phenomena—Od-motions produced by bodies
in their most inert state—Analysis of the forces which
originate them—Od-motions connected with electrical,
magnetic, chemical, crystalline, and vital influences—Their
analysis, 219

POSTSCRIPT.—Further analysis of Od-motions—Proof of their
genuineness—Explanation of their immediate cause, 242

LETTER XIV. HYPNOTISM. TRANCE-UMBRA.—Mr. Braid’s
discovery—Trance-faculties manifested in the waking
state—Self-induced waking clairvoyance—Conclusion, 248

ON POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.