If you could all take your time and read this post you will find that it will be of a great help to you all. If not it will be one of the most interesting things you've ever red for it contains explanations, practice and examples, very detailed-indeed. This is an extract from one of my favorite books called "Manual of occultism" by Sephariel .
HIPNOTISM AND MESMERISM
IT will no doubt be questioned whether either Hypnotism or Mesmerism forms any legitimate part of Occultism, and indeed I have put the question to myself before finally deciding to include them. My reason for so doing is that formerly the whole of the magnetic art, then known as "Fascination" and the "Laying on of Hands," was an essential factor in the curriculum of the thaumaturgist.. Scripture references to the transmission of vital energy to those sick or dying, or even dead to all appearances, are numerous and well known. The use of oil as a medium for the conveyance and retention of the vital or magnetic energy is also noticed and is commonly in use in India and other parts of the Orient at this day.
Mesmerism may be distinguished in a popular manner from Hypnotism in that it presumes the existence of an effluvium which is in the nature of a subtle essence capable of being transmitted from one body to another under the direction of the Will . Paracelsus calls it the Archeus or Liquor Vitae. "The Archeus is an essence," he says, "which is distributed equally in all parts of the body if the latter is in a healthy condition; it is the invisible nutriment from which the body draws its strength, and the qualities of each
of its parts correspond to the nature of the physical parts which contain it. . . . The Archeus is of a magnetic nature and attracts or repels other forces belonging to the same plane. The individual power of resistance will determine how far a man is subject to astral influences. The vital force is not enclosed in man but radiates around him like a luminous sphere, and may be made to act at a distance. In those semimaterial rays the imagination may produce healthy or morbid effects. It may poison the essence and cause diseases, or it may purify it after it has been made impure and so restore the health. . . . If we separate the vital force from the physical form, the latter will die and putrefy; and by impregnating a
dying body with vitality, it may be made to live again.
"Paracelsus further states that diseases may be transmitted from one person to another, or from man to animal, or animal to plant, by means of the magnetic emanations, and we have ocular demonstration that this is a belief firmly held by those nations of the East among whom it is practised. The story of the Gadarene swine is in line with our own experience of the epidemic of crime which follows upon the death of a renowned criminal. "If a person dies," says Paracelsus, "and seriously desires that another should die with him, his imagination may create a force that may draw a menstruum from the dead body to form a corpus, and it may be projected by the impulse given to it by the thought of the dying person
toward that other so that he may also die. Such especially may be the case with a woman dying of puerperal fever, for if such should desire that the whole world might die with her, an epidemic may be the consequence of her poisoned imagination ."
The suggestion in this case has regard to the known contagious influence of the corpse of a woman dying of puerperal fever. The point, however, is that the will of the dying person is capable of distributing such contagion.
I have cited these opinions in order to show that Mesmerism, of which Paracelsus was undoubtedly the earliest known European exponent, has little in common with the beliefs and practice of the Hypnotists.
The Mesmerists, or those who believe in the transmission of animal magnetism, whether we regard it as the Archeus of Paracelsus or the Odyle of Reichenbach, affirm that the emanation is most active through certain channels - e. g. the eyes, the lips, and the finger-tips.
They also state that certain natural bodies, such as oil and water, are capable of holding the magnetism better than others; while vinegar is capable of augmenting the efflux and thus of increasing the transmission. Volatile spirits are, on the contrary, completely destructive of the magnetic transmission and storage. Earth and clay are excellent storage mediums, or mumia as Paracelsus would call them.
There is nothing singular in this, if we reflect that all the forces of nature of which we have any
knowledge require certain media through which to operate. Electrical energy, for example, cannot be conveyed through a length of rope or wood, but only through a natural conductor of electricity, such as steel or copper. When it is said that Jesus spat upon the ground and made clay and anointed the eyes of the man who was blind from birth, we see that use was made of the natural odylic power of the saliva, and the powerful storage medium of clay or earth. The rest is explained by the powerful will of the
magician as expressed completely and decisively in the single exclamation Ephphatha!
The laying on of hands for the cure of sickness is one phase of Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism of which there is abundant evidence and which conclusively proves the existence of the magnetic fluid.
Touching for kings-evil or scrofula was in use among our own kings until Rome discountenanced any delegation of its powers. "Le Roy te touche, Dieu te guerys" (The King touches thee, God heals thee) had brought new life to thousands before the Divine right of kings was assailed.
Dr. James Esdaile , at one time the Presidency Surgeon at Calcutta, has left us a very remarkable series of cases which prove the surpassing value of Mesmerism in the medical and surgical treatment of disease.
His book on Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance is among the best upon this subject. Incidentally, he mentions two phenomena by which I think I may claim complete justification for the inclusion of this subject in a work upon magic.
The first is the dislocation of the senses. Normally each of the senses has its appropriate organ, as theeye, ear, nose, etc. They are not in themselves the only organs of the corresponding senses of sight, hearing, smell, etc., but have become specialized as such. This is shown by the fact that in natural and induced somnambulism, the whole sensorium may be transferred to the finger-tips or the pit of the stomach, or even the soles of the feet. Fredrika Wanner , better known as the Seeress of Prevorst, was a natural somnambulist, and in her trances was particularly sensitive to the presence of other persons, discriminating between them as painful or soothing to her. And on such occasions it was found that her
eyes being closed, or the senses incapable of being affected by ordinary stimuli, she could see, hear, and even taste by means of the epigastric region.
Prof. Dumas is quoted by Dr. Esdaile to the same effect :
"It is possible that, by a singular concourse of circumstances, certain organs become apable of exercising properties and fulfilling functions to which they have hitherto been strangers and which even belonged to different organs. If rare and extraordinary facts did not inspire distrust, I could allege the singular transference of the hearing and sight, which, abandoning their usual seat, have appeared to be transferred to the stomach - so that sounds and colours excited there the same sensations as are ordinarily conveyed through the ears and eyes. Five years ago a young woman from the department of Ardche, who gave an example of a very strange phenomenon, came to Montpellier to consult the doctors for a hysteric affection attended with catalepsy. She referred all the sensations of sight, hearing and smell to the region of the stomach, the appropriate organs being insensible to the usual stimuli."
The second phenomenon to which I would call attention is the transference of the senses. In the former cases we have the dislocation of the normal centres of sensation to the region of the sympathetic ganglion at the pit of the stomach, and now we may consider the marvellous fact of sensation being transferred from one person to another.
Finding a specially sensitive subject in the person of Babu Lali Mohun Mitra, a young Hindu of twentytwo years, Dr. Esdaile, after curing him of a loathsome disease for which he had come to the hospital, subjected him to some experimental development. He would place his watch in Mitras hand and with a few passes would render the whole arm so rigid that under no bribe or persuasion or threat could the young man stir a finger to loose the watch as he was bidden. "Seeing this mans extreme sensibility, I thought it probable," says Esdaile, "that he might exhibit community of taste with his mesmerizer, and here is the result of the first experiment made upon him. He had never heard of such a thing nor had I even tried it before.
"One day that the Babu came to the hospital to pay his respects after getting well, I took him into a side room and, mesmerizing him till he could not open his eyes, I went out and desired the native assistantsurgeon to procure me some salt, a slice of lemon, a piece of gentian, and some brandy, and to give them to me in any order he pleased when I opened my mouth. We returned, and, blindfolding Lali Mohun, I took hold of both his hands, and opening my mouth had a slice of half-rotten lime-fruit put into it by my assistant. Having showed it, I asked, 'Do you taste anything? ' 'Yes; I taste a nasty old lime,' and he made wry faces in correspondence. He was equally correct with all the other substances, calling the gentian by its native name, cheretea; and when I tasted the brandy he called it shrb (the general name for wine and spirits); being asked what kind, he said: What I used to drink -brandy.'"
It should here be remarked that Dr. Esdaile had cured this man of confirmed brandy-drinking as well as of his terrible disease. As to the local rigidity of the arm of the patient who otherwise had full and perfect control of his faculties, it should be remarked that the mesmerizer can not only saturate his patient with his own nervous fluid, but also determine the energy to various parts of the body so as to place them in effect beyond the patients control. In similar manner local ansthesia or insensibility can be produced at the will of the operator. When the volition can no longer act upon a part of the body, it is found that its sensibility is at the same time inhibited, which proves that volition and sensation are consentaneous.
When voluntary action is restored, sensation is simultaneously developed in the part.
The nervous fluid not only follows the direction of the will, but is moreover impressed with our
individuality, both physical and mental. It bears the signature of our thought, it carries the healthy or diseased tendencies of our body, it is moved by our will and coloured by our desires and passions.
The dictum of Lord Bacon: "The human mind can be placed in communication with other minds and transmit their impressions," is not inclusive enough to cover the phenomena of statuvolism, animal magnetism, electro-biology, mesmerism, or by whatsoever name we may indicate the use of this mysterious agent. It is a force that can be set in motion at any time and made to operate at any distance apart from any suggestion of the effects it is required to produce. Herein it differs entirely from the "hypnotic suggestion" of the medical schools and the "auto-suggestion" which the critical writers wholly unskilled in the knowledge of Occultism bring to bear as explanation of every fulfilled prediction, every
thaumaturgic effect, every case of healing which is in distinction from the known and approved methods, the clinic and pharmacy, of the medical profession.
On the question of animal magnetism, either as a psychological or a therapeutic agent, the Occultist will always prefer the experience of such men as Esdaile, Gregory, and Baron Du Potet to the uninstructed opinions of the critic, however skilful he may be in his own field of research or work. Baron Du Potet, in his Manual de lEtudiant Magnetiseur, says: "Nature herself discovered the secret to me. And how? By producing before my own eyes, without waiting for me to search for them, indisputable facts of sorcery and magic. And what is it determines these sudden impulses, these raving epidemics, antipathies and cries, the convulsions that one can make durable? What if not the very principle we employ, the agent so thoroughly well known to the ancients? What you call nervous fluid or magnetism the men of old called occult force, the power of the soul, subjection, magic ! An element
existing in nature, unknown to most men, gets hold of a person and withers and breaks him down as the raging hurricane does the bulrush. It scatters men far apart, it strikes them in a thousand places at the same time without their perceiving the invisible foe or being able to protect themselves. But that this element should choose friends and elect favourites, obey their thoughts, answer to the human voice and understand the meaning of traced signs, that is what people cannot realize and what their reason rejects, and that is what I saw; and I say it here most emphatically that for me it is a truth and a fact demonstrated forever!"
And this is a phase of Animal Magnetism that has been repeatedly offered as the only intelligible explanation of the phenomena of sorcery and as repeatedly rejected by the schools that have no knowledge either of the facts or the agent which alone is capable of explaining them.
According to the experience of mesmerists, the magnetizer can communicate his fluid to a variety of objects, which thus become conductors or agents of his action to all persons with whom he is in magnetic relations. These agents are water, oil, woollen and cotton materials, trees, etc. Charles Dickens found a means of magnetizing water by means of pieces of sugar which had been subjected to magnetization, which were then readily distributed among the old country folk in Kent.
Magnetized water is one of the most powerful agents that can be employed, inasmuch as it is conveyed at once to the stomach and thence distributed throughout the system, acting upon the circulation and the digestion, taking in turn, according to the immediate needs of the body, the place of anodyne, diaphoretic, prophylactic and purgative. An agent of such universal utility is necessarily not thought very highly of by those whosebusiness it is to scare Nature into obedience by cryptic prescriptions and unnatural concoctions. Given normal health and a desire to heal the sufferer, you may take a vessel of water, and having thoroughly cleansed the hands, dip them in vinegar. Shake off the superfluous moisture by flicking the hands violently towards the ground. Continue so to do until the finger-tips tingle, with a slight streaming sensation down the forearm and hand.
Now take a clean glass and pour into it some fresh cold water, which must not have been boiled or heated previously. Place the glass upon the left hand with the fingers closed around it to steady it, and with the right hand make passes from above the glass downwards for a score of strokes or more. Then bunch the finger-tips above the mouth of the glass, bringing them almost in contact with the water, and impregnate it with the nervous fluid by a sustained effort of the will to that effect, letting the mind dwell the while upon the result you would obtain. A glass of water may thus be treated in from one to two minutes. Thus given to the patient it immediately goes to work and produces the most remarkable results without in any way complicating matters, as may be readily done by the administering of improper drugs, and without having any deleterious reaction, even when used as a soporific.
That such an agent, so inoffensive, so natural and, above all, so efficacious and sure, should have escaped the recognition of medical men appears to me to be inexplicable, except on the grounds of complete ignorance of its properties and action. I do not pretend to explain by what magical process the mind of man is capable of acting upon a glass of water to the end that it becomes either a powerful astringent or a
laxative, or an anodyne, or a stimulant. The chemical nature of the water remains unchanged. It is still a mechanical compound of H2O. But something has happened, and this something the will of man can determine while yet his intellect fails to understand.
What I am now saying is not a tradition or an effort of the imagination. It is the record of my own personal experience. Suggestion ? How does one suggest purgation to a babe that is teething, or peaceful sleep to one delirious ? The suggestion, if there is one, is directed, not to the mind of the patient, but to Nature herself, and the suggestion of an intent will is equivalent to a command. In the use of magnetized water as a purgative, no colic pains are felt either during or after the action. As an anodyne it leaves no sense of depression or lassitude behind it; while as a tonic it is not accompanied by any rise of temperature nor followed by the slightest constipation.
A magnetic subject will readily distinguish magnetized water from water that has not been so treated, and I have known persons who could normally distinguish between them, though at first I was unwilling to believe this and only convinced myself of it after trying a number of tricks to discover if there were a possibility of suggestion or fancy. But all I discovered was the fact that in some remarkable way magnetic water could be distinguished by its taste.
But whatever agent we make use of for the purpose of conveying the nervous or vital fluid, it has been thought, even by those who practise magnetism, that rapport with the patient must first have been established. This, however, is not the case; though undoubtedly it is more certain in its action when
magnetization by contact has preceded the use of an agent. The agent is the means of continuing magnetization, and especially of attacking diseases that are internal and deep-seated and not merely nervous or superficial. But for all that, there is. no reason whatsoever why magnetization should not be begun by means of a suitable agent. Contactual magnetism is not generally effective at once, but becomes so by persistence, the action being cumulative. So if water or any other agent is persisted with, it will bring about the desired effect. Of this I am quite certain, since I have treated persons at a distance
by this means alone, never having set eyes upon them. Yet so wonderful is the sympathy existing
throughout Nature, that I have been presently conscious of changes taking place in my own body, of pains and sickness, which had no other origin than the subtle connection of sympathy between my subject and myself vi the agent I had employed. I know of persons who are capable of communicating their sensations at a great distance to one with whom they are in close sympathy, though nothing in the nature of thought transference is observable between them. With others there is ready communication of thought or of mental images but no community of sensation.
Hypnotism proposes to secure the same results. as magnetization by mechanically-induced trance supplemented by suggestion. But while this process lends itself peculiarly to the production of phenomena, and is extremely useful for experimental purposes and psychic research, it cannot pretend to have the same therapeutic value as magnetization, inasmuch as it does nothing to reinforce nature or to supplement depleted vitality. Where insensibility is the effect aimed at it is equally useful, and as in all induced somnambulism the automatic and subconscious self is rendered alert and active, very valuable results may be produced by hypnotic suggestion.
If, however, you induce the hypnotic sleep by any of the usual methods and then stand aside while a phonographic record film is set in action to voice the number of original "suggestions," the effect will surprise many into an entirely new view of the matter, and those who do not now believe that the personal factor is at all considerable, will come to the conclusion that it is the only factor which counts for anything in the whole process. The complete insensibility to written or spoken instructions, other than those which pass through the mind of the magnetizer, is in itself a suggestion which the upholders of the
non-magnetic position would do well to ponder. I prefer, however, to leave the schools of the Salptrire and Nancy to thresh out the question to its natural and inevitable conclusion.
Deleuze, who followed the teaching of Puysegur, of Mesmer, Van Helmont and Paracelsus, has some excellent admonitions to those anxious to practise Animal Magnetism, which may very suitably be quoted in conclusion : - "Persons who follow this subject may be divided into two classes.
" The first class comprehends those who, having recognized in themselves the faculty of doing good by magnetism, or at least hoping to succeed therein, wish to make use of it in their families, or among their friends, or with some poor patients, but who, having duties to fulfil or business to follow, do not magnetize except in circumstances where it appears to them necessary, without seeking publicity, without any motive but that of charity, without any other aim than that of curing or relieving suffering humanity.
" The second class is composed of men who, having leisure, wish to join in the practice of magnetism, the study of the phenomena it exhibits, to enter largely into it, to establish treatments for taking care of several patients at a time, to form pupils capable of aiding them, to have somnambulists who may enlighten them to examine closely, compare and arrange the phenomena, in such a way as to establish a regular code of laws whose principles may be certain, and whose consequences, extending daily, may lead to new applications.
"This class is separated from the preceding by a great number of degrees which must be successively mounted before one can find oneself situated where he can command a more extensive horizon. I therefore advise those of the former class not to think of passing beyond their limits unless they are masters of their own time and have some preliminary knowledge. Their lot is very good; they are strangers to the vanities and inquietudes which attend new attempts, to the uncertainty which springs from the conflict of opinions and of various points of view under which things are presented to us; they taste without mixture or distraction the satisfaction of doing good. . . . As to the persons who desire to
belong to the second class, I advise them to consider at first the extent of the career they will have to run.
It is better not to enter it than to stop in the midst of their enterprise. In what pertains to practice, a prudent simplicity is preferable to science. In what relates to theory, imperfect notions expose us to dangerous errors. The labourer who cultivates his farm as his fathers did before him, collects every year the price of his labours. Should he give way to an inclination to pursue experimental methods, he may be ruined before he is enlightened by his own experience."
Up to a point this is very good advice, but it is doubtful whether any amount of advice, however sound, will deter men from making experiments and sacrificing both life and fortune to the satisfaction of that desire for knowledge which is inherent in every active and well-developed mind. As between the curative and experimental practice of Mesmerism and Hypnotism there can be little doubt that Mesmerism as understood by its best exponents is more adapted to the curative method, while Hypnotism is peculiarly adapted to the development of experimental psychology. As to which branch of the subject has the greater claim to our consideration, is a matter not so easily answered, seeing that a profound knowledge of psychology is very necessary to the practice of even curative magnetism, and the more we know of the psychic origin of disease the better we shall be equipped to successfully deal with morbid conditions as they arise.
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