"Mesmerism" Quotes from Famous Books
... self-instruction based on the new and improved system of mental and bodily healing. Pronounced by all who have read it to be the most fascinating and instructive book of its kind published. Inductive Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Suggestive Therapeutics and Magnetic Healing, including Telepathy, Mind Reading and Spiritualism fully treated. Nearly 100 lessons especially prepared for self-instruction. This is positively the best book on Hypnotism ... — Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... interesting as furnishing a new line of inquiry, by showing that, in this instance at least—and if in this, why not in others?—the phenomena of spiritualism were closely allied to those of clairvoyance and mesmerism, and that the path of investigation into all these mysteries may be pursued by one and the same course ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... than the invention of James Watt? what more obtrusive or noisy, on the contrary, than the invention of Mr. Henson? And we have illustrations of the same truth in our Scottish metropolis at the present moment, that seem in no degree less striking. Phreno-mesmerism and the calotype have been introduced to the Edinburgh public about much the same time; but how very differently have they fared hitherto! A real invention, which bids fair to produce some of the greatest ... — Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... commenced one year ago. No person has yet been able to ascertain their cause. Scientific men from all parts of Canada and the United States have investigated them in vain. Some people think that electricity is the principal agent; others, mesmerism; whilst others again, are sure they are produced by the devil. Of the three supposed causes, the latter is certainly the most plausible theory, for some of the manifestations are remarkably devilish in their ... — The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... times the same want—namely, of one sane man, with adequate powers of expression to hold up each object of monomania in its right relations. 'The ambitious and mercenary bring their last new Mumbo-Jumbo—whether tariff, railway, mesmerism, or California—and by detaching the object from its relations, easily succeed in making it seen in a glare, and a multitude go mad about it; and they are not to be reproved or cured by the opposite multitude, ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... laughing and crying, by perpetual brilliant sallies. There were other peculiarities of habit and power. When she turned her head on one side, she alleged she had second sight, like St. Francis. These traits or predispositions made her a willing listener to all the uncertain science of mesmerism and its goblin brood, which have ... — Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... you be of those who have longed in vain for a glimpse of that tropic world,—tales of whose beauty charmed your childhood, and made stronger upon you that weird mesmerism of the sea which pulls at the heart of a boy,—one who had longed like you, and who, chance-led, beheld at last the fulfilment of the wish, can swear to you that the magnificence of the reality far excels the imagining. Those who know only the lands in which all processes for the satisfaction ... — Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... twilight. Never had he felt so sensibly the mighty power of the heavens and the earth upon man! how much the springs of our intellectual being are moved and acted upon by the solemn influences of Nature! As a patient on whom, slowly and by degrees, the agencies of mesmerism are brought to bear, he acknowledged to his heart the growing force of that vast and universal magnetism which is the life of creation, and binds the atom to the whole. A strange and ineffable consciousness ... — Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he is clever enough!—took a good degree, a better one than I did—but horribly eclectic; full of mesmerism, and German metaphysics, and all that sort of thing. I heard of him one night last spring, on which he had been seen, if you will believe it, going successively into a Swedenborgian chapel, the Garrick's Head, and one of Elliotson's magnetic soirees. What can ... — Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... Mr. Pound has always professed strong admiration (see "Mesmerism" in "Personae"); there are traces of him in "Cino" and "Famam Librosque Cano," in the same volume. But it is more profitable to comment upon the variety of metres and the original use ... — Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... committee which sat with D. D. Home, and it is admitted that nothing of interest there occurred. Then we find the Rev. Maurice Davies, who was wont to write books of little distinction on semi-religious topics. Mr. H. G. Atkinson was a person interested in mesmerism. Kisch, Moss, and Quelch, with Dyte and Isaac Meyers, Bergheim and Geary, Hannah, Hillier, Reed (their names go naturally in blank verse), were, doubtless, all most estimable men, but scarcely boast of scientific ... — Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... promised marvels. Admission as usual: 25 cents, children and negroes half price. The village had heard of mesmerism, in a general way, but had not encountered it yet. Not many people attended, the first night, but next day they had so many wonders to tell that everybody's curiosity was fired, and after that for a fortnight the magician had prosperous ... — Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... strange, its effect upon the young man was at least equally unforeseen. Greif had always despised persons who professed to dabble in the supernatural, and had laughed to scorn all the so-called manifestations of spiritualism, mesmerism, and super- rational force. When he had heard that the great astronomer Zollner had written a book to explain the performances of Slade, the medium, by means of a mathematical theory of a fourth dimension in space, Greif had believed that ... — Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... East could allay, in the men in his time, as we are informed by a popular poet of the days of Elizabeth; and which, when exhibited in women, no medical discoveries or practice subsequent —neither homoeopathy, nor hydropathy, nor mesmerism, nor Dr. Simpson, nor Dr. Locock can cure, and that is—we won't call it jealousy, but rather gently denominate rivalry and ... — The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... person is made well in a moment by some moral influence; a weak and sickly mother will nurse a sick child, night after night, without rest or sleep, and keep well, where a strong man would break down. Mesmerism brings forward multitudes of like facts. There are, for example, the well-attested facts concerning the transfer of the senses: that people under the influence of animal magnetism can read with their forehead, the pit of their stomach, or the back of their head. We have seen a weak boy, some thirteen ... — Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... air to breathe is not at all. He could sense hushed expectancy on every side—could feel the eyes of many women fixed on him—and began to draw on his guard as a fighting man draws on armor. There and then he deliberately set himself to resist mesmerism, which is the East's ... — King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Grey tell his sister, in answer to some inquiry concerning the arcana of mesmerism, that he had bestowed much time and thought upon the investigation of the subject, and was thoroughly convinced that there existed subtle psychological laws whose operations were not yet comprehended, but which, when analyzed and studied, would explain the ... — Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... friend,— these things were as microbes which, acting on a system already predisposed for their reception, produced high fever; I was in a fever,—of unrest. Brain in a whirl!—Marjorie, Paul, Isis, beetle, mesmerism, in delirious jumble. Love's upsetting!—in itself a sufficiently severe disease; but when complications intervene, suggestive of mystery and novelties, so that you do not know if you are moving in an atmosphere of dreams or of frozen facts,—if, then, ... — The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... into small communities to live in common. After wearying the readers on this and numerous other 'isms,' it was discontinued. He went into a political frenzy over Clay and protection; next his paper was full of the 'Irish Repeal,' 'Advocacy of the Water Cure,' 'Phrenology,' 'Mesmerism,' 'Opposition to Capital Punishment,' ... — Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... wishes of the skipper, wishes which approximated closely to those of Royalty in their effects, they remained on board. A new acquaintance of his, a brother captain, who dabbled in mesmerism, was coming to give them a taste of his quality, and the skipper, sitting on the side of the schooner in the faint light which streamed from the galley, was condescendingly explaining to them the marvels ... — Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... attendant, Sir Percival has consented to it. Now, Mrs. Michelson, I know I can depend on you, and I want you to keep a sharp eye on the nurse for the first day or two, and to see that she gives Miss Halcombe no medicines but mine. This foreign nobleman of yours is dying to try his quack remedies (mesmerism included) on my patient, and a nurse who is brought here by his wife may be a little too willing to help him. You understand? Very well, then, we may go upstairs. Is the nurse there? I'll say a word to her before she goes into ... — The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... intellectual man, as the world now conceives of him, is one who is full of 'views,' on all subjects of philosophy, on all matters of the day. It is almost thought a disgrace not to have a view at a moment's notice on any question from the Personal Advent to the Cholera or Mesmerism. This is owing in a great measure to the necessities of periodical literature, now so much in request. Every quarter of a year, every month every day, there must be a supply for the gratification ... — Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... but the most celebrated one was at Epidaurus. Here the sick sought responses and the recovery of their health by sleeping in the temple. It has been inferred from the accounts that have come down to us that the treatment of the sick resembled what is now called Animal Magnetism or Mesmerism. ... — Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... done by mesmerism." How many times have I heard this futile remark when discussing the Rope trick. What always defeats me is this. Supposing it could be done by mesmerism, why does this wonderful mesmerist, hypnotist, or suggestionist limit his powers, marvellous as they are, to making people ... — Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... as the old mesmerism, and mesmerism was widely acknowledged as clairvoyance, and all that harmonizes again with the experiences of the mediums whose subconscious mind in trance enters into contact with the spirits of the dead. The subconscious personality is thus really a metaphysical power which transcends the limitations ... — Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... result of this overcharged existence. To this region, however misunderstood, or interpreted with presumptuous carelessness, belong the phenomena of magnetism, or mesmerism, as it is now often called, where the trance of the Ecstatica purports to be produced by the agency of one human being on another, instead of, as in her ... — Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... when amid these paroxysms of turmoil I heard a very fair harmony between the bass of my bedfellow and the tenor of a sleeper in the next berth, that if a Gilmore could take snores, into training, and by animal magnetism or mesmerism manage to make them snore ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... subject having, in this case, an introspective power still more remarkable than that which has hitherto revealed itself only in a profound knowledge of his anatomical structure. As we are not yet convinced that a human being becomes supernaturally enlightened—in mesmerism more than in fanaticism—by simply losing his senses; or that a man in a trance, however he got there, is necessarily omniscient; we do not find that Mr Poe's conjectures on these mysterious topics gather any weight whatever from the authority of the spokesman to whom he has intrusted them. ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... see the streets and the lights, Or hear the answers my questions brought; Yet something guides me, and guides me aright— Is mesmerism the nonsense I thought? If the brain, engross'd by a single fact, Fails the whole army of nerves to sustain, The outposts perhaps, refusing to act, Transmit neither sight nor sound to ... — Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... world goes on as before; but she cares not a fig for any deities, Christian or pagan—and don't believe a word of the immortality of the soul! In this new book, of which she is the chief author, the interlocutors place implicit credence in all the phenomena of mesmerism, and they cannot believe there is any thing in man's being or existence or conscience beyond what the senses reach, beyond what the scalpel discloses in the brain. They trace acts and motions and even inclinations to the brain, and deny that there is or can be any thing in contact ... — The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... mesmerism," explained the other. "I'll try you for a subject. If you'll stand up, feet apart, eyes closed, I'll hypnotize you so that you'll ... — Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... equivalents of power in their action. These subterranean philosophers assert that by one operation of vril, which Faraday would perhaps call 'atmospheric magnetism,' they can influence the variations of temperature—in plain words, the weather; that by operations, akin to those ascribed to mesmerism, electro-biology, odic force, &c., but applied scientifically, through vril conductors, they can exercise influence over minds, and bodies animal and vegetable, to an extent not surpassed in the romances of our mystics. To all such agencies they give ... — The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... facts of Magic again on the attention of both the theological and scientific world. Hypnotism and Psychical Research are already becoming respectable and attracting the attention of the generality of men of science and of our clergy. Spiritualism and Mesmerism are still tabooed, but wait their turn for popular recognition, having already been recognized by pioneers distinguished ... — Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... agnosticism take Hume's a priori argument against miracles, leading on to the analogous case of the attitude of scientific men towards modern spiritualism. Notwithstanding that they have the close analogy of mesmerism as an object-lesson to warn them, scientific men as a class are here quite as dogmatic as the straightest sect of theologians. I may give examples which can cause no offence, inasmuch as the men in question have themselves made ... — Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... prophetess,' as we called her, and the wonder with which we remarked that her prophecies invariably were fulfilled. But, as I grew older, my awe and wonder diminished in proportion, and, being of a very practical turn of mind myself, and very skeptical of spiritual agencies, mesmerism, and clairvoyance, and indeed of anything out of the ordinary course of events, I put no faith whatever in any of Miriam's visions and prophecies; especially as I noticed they only occurred when she was sick, or suffering under depression of spirits. Annie either did ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and written grave books upon them. They had been doing all this before any society for psychical research had founded itself and the intention of new logic was to be scientific rather than psychological. They had written books, scattered through the years, on mesmerism, hypnosis, abnormal mental conditions, the powers of suggestion, even unexplored dimensions ... — Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... instructive. We have heard grave good men—men of intellect and influence—with all the advantages of modern science, learning, experience; men who would regard Anselm with sad and serious pity; yet tell us stories, as having fallen within their own experience, of the marvels of mesmerism, to the full as ridiculous (if anything is ridiculous) as this of ... — Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... am afraid that, if I had too much reason for the one, I have not faith enough for the other. That the miracles and prophecies of the Bible may possibly have been true,—only the effect of mesmerism;—that things quite as wonderful, or more so, happen every day by this wonderful agent;—that every phenomenon that takes place does so in virtue a perfectly wise LAW, without any wise LAWGIVER;—that this wise law has, it seems, prearranged that man should ... — The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... even that there is no imposture, there must be a human being like ourselves by whom, or through whom, the effects presented to human beings are produced. It is so with the now familiar phenomena of mesmerism or electro-biology; the mind of the person operated on is affected through a material living agent. Nor, supposing it true that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or passes of a mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less occasioned by a material being; it ... — Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... an' thar'd be whisperin's an' goin's on outside the lodge an' in, while fire-eyes would show an' burn an' glower up in the peak of the teepee; an' all plenty skeary an' mystifiyin'. Besides these yere accomplishments the Lance is one of them mesmerism sports who can set anamiles to dreamin'. He could call a coyote or a fox, or even so fitful an' nervous a prop'sition as a antelope; an' little by little, snuffin' an' snortin', or if it's a coyote, whinin', them beasts would approach the Lance ontil they're ... — Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... folks keep the people in ignorance, and make them believe the moon is made of green cheese; others, with as much sense, fancy the world is. One has old saints, the other invents new ones. One places miracles at a distance, t'other makes them before their eyes, while both are up to mesmerism. One says there is no marryin' in Paradise, the other says, if that's true, it's hard, and it is best to be a mormon and to have polygamy here. Then there is a third party who says, neither of you speak sense, it is better to believe nothin' than ... — Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... know nothing about mesmerism, but I have seen strange effects produced quite unconsciously by the presence of one person upon another. And in a few minutes after Herbert took his seat beside Traverse, it was noticeable that the face of the sleeper lost its ... — Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the case to one of my female detectives; she would be posted upon all the points of Mrs. Thayer's history; she would be required to learn enough of astrology, clairvoyance and mesmerism, to pass for one of the genuine tribe; the plan would be so arranged that Mrs. Thayer would voluntarily consult this fortune-teller, who would soon gain a complete ascendency over her superstitious nature ... — The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... not; for mesmerism implies the throwing of the patient into a mesmeric sleep. Neither am I a magnetist, properly so called, for there is no outgoing of magnetism from my body when I am healing. The ordinary magnetist admits ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... be advancing, in one magnificent progression, towards the spiritual state. The danger now is, not that Religion may be undermined by Materialism, but that it may be supplanted by a fond and foolish superstition, in which the facts of Mesmerism and the fictions of Clairvoyance are blended into one ghostly system, fitted to exert a powerful but pernicious influence on ... — Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... called the 'Vine.' We took our supper with a numerous company at the public table, when it happened that they made themselves merry over the peculiarities of the Swiss in connection with the belief in mesmerism, Lavater's physiognomical system, and the like. One of my companions, whose national pride was touched by their raillery, begged me to make some reply, particularly in answer to a young man of superior appearance who sat opposite, and had indulged ... — Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... us.' Very true; but what remedy? 'We find one German writer endeavouring to explain away the miracles on the mystical (mythical) theory; and another riding into the arena of controversy on the miserable hobby-horse of "clairvoyance" or "mesmerism"; each of these, and a host of others of the same class, rejecting whatever light is thrown on the question by all the theories together.' He therefore proposes, with great and gratuitous liberality, to heap ... — Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... seems to have been determined by the fact that the water of that place agreed with him. That the spasms which from time to time attacked him were extremely serious, is abundantly proved by the testimony of those who lived with him at this period, and by his own letters. Some relief was obtained by mesmerism, a remedy suggested by Medwin; but the obstinacy of the torment preyed upon his spirits to such an extent, that even during the last months of his life we find him begging Trelawny to procure him prussic acid as a final and effectual remedy for all the ills that flesh is heir to. It may be added ... — Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... the days by, the weeks and the months; four days in the front line, the harassing journey to and from it, the monotonous sentry-go, the spy-hole on the plain, the mesmerism of the empty outlook and of the deserts of waiting; and after that, four days of rest-camp full of marches and parades and great cleansings of implements and of streets, with regulations of the strictest, anticipating all the different occasions ... — Light • Henri Barbusse
... ignorant, uncultured men, nor can even the professors whom they sometimes outwit in their own professorial domain perceive that they have been outwitted by men of superior scientific attainments to their own. The following passage from Dr. Carpenter's "Mesmerism, Spiritualism," &c., may serve ... — Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Miss Martineau made me a convert to mesmerism? Scarcely; yet I heard miracles of its efficacy and could hardly discredit the whole of what was told me. I even underwent a personal experiment; and though the result was not absolutely clear, it was inferred that in time I should prove an ... — Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Spirit-revelator, is man healed and saved. No opinions of mortals nor human hypotheses enter this [15] line of thought or action. Drugs, inert matter, never are needed to aid spiritual power. Hygiene, manipulation, and mesmerism are not Mind's medicine. The Principle of all cure is God, unerring and immortal Mind. We have learned that the erring or mortal thought holds [20] in itself all sin, sickness, and death, and imparts these states to the body; while the supreme and perfect Mind, as seen in the truth ... — Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... an English physician, born in London; lost his professorship in London University on account of employing mesmerism for medical purposes; promoted clinical instruction and the use of the stethoscope; founded the ... — The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... they find the source of a new interest in the purpose that unites them. I only notice this as offering a curious view of human character, which must be quite new to you. We have nothing whatever to do with clairvoyance, or with mesmerism, or with anything else that is hard of belief to a practical man, in the inquiry that we are now pursuing. My object in following the Indian plot, step by step, is to trace results back, by rational means, to natural causes. Have I succeeded ... — The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... ostensible employment is mending nets, collecting olives, carrying bricks, and other miscellaneous jobs; but her real status is that of village sorceress. You think our peasants are skeptical? Perhaps they do not believe in thought-reading, mesmerism, and ghosts, like you, dear Lady Evelyn. But they believe very firmly in the evil eye, in magic, and in love-potions. Every one has his little story of this or that which happened to his brother or cousin or neighbor. My stable-boy and male ... — Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf? As Alexis, after a few passes from Dr. Elliotson, despises pain, reads with the back of his ... — Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and she chatted blythely and freshly with all—her spontaneous laugh bearing testimony to her enjoyment—while The Dreamer yielded himself with his wonted modesty and grace to the hour—answering questions as to whether he really did believe in ghosts and whether the experiments in mesmerism in his story, "The Case of M. Valdemar" had any foundation in fact, with his captivating but enigmatic smile, and a little Frenchified shrug ... — The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... for truth." Upon receiving a second pamphlet treating on the same subject, Mrs. Trollope wrote as follows: "The document you have sent me, my dear Sir, is indeed full of interest. Had it been less so, I should not have retained it so long. In speaking of a state of mesmerism as being one of disease, I by no means infer that the mesmeric influence is either the cause or effect of disease, but that only diseased persons are liable to it. I have listened to statements from more than one physician in great practice tending very clearly to show that the manifestations ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... the science of man understood would have eradicated sin, sickness, and death, in a less period than six thousand years. We find great difficulties in starting this work right. Some shockingly false claims are already made to a metaphysical practice; mesmerism, its very antipodes, is one of them. Hitherto we have never, in a single instance of our discovery, found the slightest resemblance between mesmerism and metaphysics. No especial idiosyncrasy is requisite to acquire a knowledge of metaphysical ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she was so terribly out of health that no treatment produced any effect, until someone suggested that mesmerism should be tried, and this succeeded so well that she recovered a certain amount of strength and was able to go on with her writing. Nevertheless, that it did not wholly restore her health is evident from the fact that in 1855, when Newman was writing to her brother, ... — Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Diseases." Translated from the eighth German edition, and enriched by a Treatise on Anatomy and Physiology, embellished with 30 illustrations, by W. Esrey, M.D. With additions and a preface by C. Hering, M.D. Containing also a Chapter on Mesmerism and Magnetism; directions for patients living some distance from a homoeopathic physician, to describe their symptoms; a Tabular Index of the medicines and the diseases in which they are used; and ... — Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... causes of his complaint and wrongs, the priest sometimes argues with him, sometimes chides, sometimes soothes, and sometimes threatens, and at last says to the spirit, "If you do not go out quietly, I will confine you by my sacred power." By such means the spirit is exorcised; the process resembles mesmerism in some points, but of course has no sensible foundation. In other cases the spirits of those who have either recently, or even years before, met with cruel wrongs or death, may in their wanderings seize upon some person in the vicinity, though totally unconnected with the ... — Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... Mesmerism followed close upon phrenology; and this too had its lecturers, who entertained the stronger portion of their audiences by showing them how easily the weaker ones could be brought ... — A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... in her nursery as to over-exciting our minds or emotions, or that sort of thing. She was quite prepared to read us to sleep with the witches in Macbeth, or the death-scene in Othello. I can remember now the exaltation derived, half from the mesmerism of the verse and half from a pleasant terror, by her rendering of the lines: "Put out the light, and then put out the light." I see her now, with her wrinkled brown face, her cap with white streamers awry over her black hair beginning to ... — The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... swarming past. Her dark eyes followed the people with a strange wondering, pitying look which I did not understand. Her face, exquisite in its expression at all times, was now absolutely transformed, beatified. Brande had often spoken to me of mesmerism, clairvoyance, and similar subjects, and it occurred to me that he had used his sister as a medium, a clairvoyante. Her brain was not, therefore, under normal control. I determined instantly to tell him on the first opportunity that if he did not wish to see the girl permanently ... — The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... comes out in all the letters!) had been repelled by the blunt strength of Jane Eyre; just as it would not have been wonderful if they had held aloof from Miss Martineau, in the days when it pleased that remarkable woman to preach mesmeric atheism, or atheistic mesmerism, as we choose to put it. But there was a lifelong friendship between them and Harriet Martineau; and they recognized at once the sincerity and truth—the literary rank, in fact—of Jane Eyre. Not long after her marriage, Jane Forster with her husband went over ... — A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the part of others of a disbelief in the possibility of clairvoyance, is on a level with the proverbial African's disbelief in ice. But the experiences of clairvoyance that have accumulated on the hands of those who have studied it in connection with mesmerism, do no more than prove the existence in human nature of a capacity for cognizing physical phenomena distant either in space or time, in some way which has nothing to do with the physical senses. Those who have studied the mysteries of clairvoyance in ... — The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... of psychical force, as shown by Planchette, that the phenomena known as mesmerism and the so-called spiritualism are undoubtedly due. In some persons this force is found to exist abnormally, when its manifestations are certainly extraordinary. The trouble is that we are not always satisfied with its feeble and uncertain utterances, and are too often impelled by cupidity ... — The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... this generation. On February twenty-first, 1843, Mr. Johnson of Tennessee wished to say a word upon the bill. As the present Congress had done much to encourage science, he did not wish to see the science of Mesmerism neglected and overlooked. He therefore proposed that one-half of the appropriation be given to Mr. Fisk to enable him to carry on experiments as well as Professor Morse. Mr. Houston thought that Millerism should also be included in the benefits of the appropriation. ... — Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... and the Committee on Commerce again recommended an appropriation of 30,000 dollars in aid of the telegraph. Morse had come to be regarded as a tiresome 'crank' by some of the Congressmen, and they objected that if the magnetic telegraph were endowed, mesmerism or any other 'ism' might have a claim on the Treasury. The Bill passed the House by a slender majority of six votes, given orally, some of the representatives fearing that their support of the measure would alienate their constituents. Its fate in the Senate was even ... — Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro |