So signal and repeated were the failures of the magnetists to establish the truth of their doctrines in France, that the whole subject seems to have fallen into merited contempt and oblivion. In more recent times the exciting ])henomena of sjiirit-rapping liave superseded those of somnambulism, and spiritual media
MESMERISM
131
MESOPOTAMIA
have of late too much occupied the public attention to leave any room for those who can boast no higlier pow'- ers than those of which magnetic clairvoyants claim the possession.
Our limits do not permit us to pursue the subject at greater length. See Spiritism. We must content our- selves with stating briefly the following general conclu- sions advanced by the Encydopcedia Britannica : 1. That it has not been proved that there is any magnetic influ- ence, or nervous fluid, which passes from the operator to the person operated on, and produces in him the various phenomena of magnetic somnambulism. '2. That it has been proved that all the phenomena recorded, which have received sufficient scientific scrutiny to convince men of their truth and reality, can be accounted for on ordinary principles, without the aid of mesmerism. 3. That the lower phenomena — such as sleep, diminished or exalted sensibility, loss of voluntary motion, muscu- lar rigidity, and the like, can be produced by persons acting on themselves by means of fixed staring at ob- jects, which are incapable of giving out any nervous or magnetic influence. 4. That the evidence which can be obtained of the reality of the existence of magnetic somnambulism, in any case, is inconclusive ; that it is possible that the person supposed to be in such a state may really be awake, and simply feigning sleep ; and that in many cases there is the most conclusive ev- idence that the persons pretending to be so affected are impostors, while in other cases, in which no intention to deceive may have existed, the patients have acted un- der a peculiar state of mind, to which only the weak and nervous are liable. 5. That though numerous cases of surgical operations are recorded in which the patients are reported not to have felt pain, it is probable that some at least may have really experienced painful sen- sations without giving any outward expression of their sensations ; that we have no evidence or means of know- ing, except from their own testimony, that they did not really feel pain, but that it is very probable tliat in some cases, from a peculiar state of the mind acting upon the nervous system, the patients were really rendered un- conscious of pain. 6. That it does not appear from ex- periment that immunity from pain in operations can be induced, in any but exceptional cases, in Europeans; though it appears, from the experience of Dr. Esdaile, that it can be produced with comparative facility in the natives of India. 7. That the higher phenomena of clairvoyance, pre-vision, intro-vision, and retro-vision, do not rest on adequate and satisfactory evidence. That it has never been proved in a single instance, when the necessarj' precautions have been taken, that a person could read or see objects through opaque substances; and tliat the alleged instances of the possession of such a power, when put to the test, have proved imiformh' unsuccessful, and have amounted to notliing more tlian attempts at vague guessing. That it li;is been proved in some cases that the persons pretending to know events which happened at a distance were fuUy ac- quainted with tlie events through ordinary channels of inlbrmation. Tliat the description of events pretended to have been discovered by means of clairvoyance has nut been in accordance with the truth, unless it has been possible for the patient to employ the usual means of discovering them ; and that in most instances there are observed the most manifest attempts, on the part of their friends, to assist clairvoyants by suggestions and leading questions. That the attempts to describe what is going on in the interior of their own bodies, to diagnose dis- eases in themselves or others, and to prescribe remedies for the cure of the diseases which they pretend to dis- cover, have been complete failures, and mere repetitions of such notions of anatomy, of disease, and of treatment, as they may have acquired by casual reading, conver- sation, or more careful study. 8. That there is no re- corded instance, worthy of credit, of transference of the senses — that is, of persons being able to read, taste, smell, or hear, by the fingers, stomach, or any other part
of the body, other than the organs by which these func- tions are naturally performed — and that pretended in- stances of the possession of such powers have been proved to be cases of fraud and wilful imposition. 9. That phre- no-mesmerism does not prove the truth of phrenology, or throw any light upon the doctrine that the faculties of the mind have a local seat in special parts of the brain, which can be tied up and let loose — mesmerized or de-mesmerized — at pleasure; and that the experi- ments designed to prove the excitement of the so-called phrenological organs by magnetic operations have all resulted in manifest failures or impositions when prop- erly tested. 10. That the phenomena described by dif- ferent authors, under the various designations of animal magnetism, magnetic somnambulism, hypnotism, odyle, and electro-biology, are identical in their nature, and can be explained, in so far as they possess any truth or scientific value, upon recognised physiological princi- ples. That the whole subject has been systematically obscured by its cultivators with a cloud of mystery, which has given rise to difficulties, and placed impedi- ments in the way of rational and scientific investigation. That the real phenomena which not unfrequently occur in the weak and nervous subjects of magnetic opera- tions are in themselves very remarkable, but that they are not different from phenomena which occur sponta- neously ; and that they are to be explained by tlie re- ciprocal influence exerted by the mind and the nervous system upon each other, and by the unnatural influence thus induced of the nervous ujjon the muscular systems. See Thouret, Recheixhes et JJoutes sur le Magneiisme an- imal (1784) ; Eschmayer, Veisuch iiher die scheinhare Maffik des Magnetismus (Stuttg. and Tub. 1816, 8vo) ; Theorie du Mesmerisme (Paris, 1818, 8vo) ; Jozwik, Sia- le Magneiisme animal ( 1832 ) ; Townshend, Facts in. Mesmerism (Lond. 1853) ; iil. Mesmerism Proved True (Lond. 1857); Sandys, ^fesmerism and its Oj^ponents ; Amer. Bih. Nipositon/, '2d Sen i, 362; Brit. Qu. Rev. ii, 102 ; r/iri.<t. Knimiiur. i. 496 ; li, 395; For. Qu. Ret: v, 96; xii, 413; Xor/h Brit. Rev. xiii, 1; xv, 69; Lo?id. Qu. Rev. Ixi, 151 ; 1871, Oct. art. i; Blackw. Mag. Ivii, 219; Ixx, 70 sq. ; New -Engl, iv, 443; Bib. Sacra, i, 333.