It is an advantage attending a long and patient analysis of, and cautious theorizing upon, a new subject of inquiry, that when fresh facts and principles emerge in it, instead of disturbing such solid work as I have supposed, they but enrich and strengthen it, and find, as it were, prepared for them appropriate niches. Something of this satisfaction I experience, when I have to render tardy justice to Mr. Braid’s discovery, and to give an account of the wonders realized by Dr. Darling, Mr. Lewis, and others.

Or, I have observed, that trance, considered in reference to its production, has a twofold character. It presents itself either as a spontaneous seizure brought on unexpectedly by a continuance of mental or physical excitement or exhaustion; or as intentionally induced through the systematic direction by some second person, more or less cognisant what definite effects he can produce, of certain moral and physical influences upon the party intended to be wrought on. Mr. Braid has added a third causal difference to the theory of trance. He has shown that trance can be induced by the subject of it himself voluntarily, by the use of certain means, which call into operation a special principle. The effects which he obtained by these means, but which he perhaps studied too much to separate from the effects of mesmerism—these and their principle he denominated Hypnotism.

Again, I have shown that all the forms of trance may be, and require to be, arranged under five types—viz., death-trance, trance-coma, initial trance, half-waking trance, full-waking trance. I mentioned, besides, that in the manifestation of Zschokke’s seer-gift, and in the accounts which we receive of the performances called second-sight, the extended exoneural perception was introduced by a brief period, in which the performer was in a degree absorbed and lost, yet did not pass on into a second and separate phase of consciousness. He was still always himself, and observed and remembered as parts of his natural order of recollections the impressions which then occurred to him. This same state must be that which I have seen described as one peculiarly suited to the exhibition of phreno-mesmerism. Mr. Braid appears likewise often to have brought it on in his curative applications of hypnotism. But now it has new importance and distinctness conferred upon it, as being the state in which the wonderful phenomena of “mental suggestion” are best displayed, and in which conscious clairvoyance is manifested. As this state does not amount to complete trance, but as it is a fore-shadowing of it, as it were, I venture to propose for it the name of trance-umbra.

I. Hypnotism

I. Hypnotism.—Mr. Braid discovered that if certain sensitive persons fix their sight steadily upon a small bright object, held near and above the forehead, or their sight becoming fatigued, and the eyelids fall, if they keep their attention strained as if they were still observing the same object, both in the upward direction of the eye and in their thought, they lose themselves and go off into a state which, in its full development, is, in fact, initial trance, bordering often on trance-coma. The party thus fixed sometimes exhibited many of the humbler performances of ordinarily mesmerised persons. But Mr. Braid shall speak for himself; I quote from his Neurhypnology, published in London in 1843. “I requested,” narrates Mr. Braid, “a young gentleman present to sit down, and maintain a fixed stare at the top of a wine-bottle, placed so much above him as to produce a considerable strain on the eyes and eyelids, to enable him to maintain a steady view of the object. In three minutes his eyelids closed, a gush of tears ran down his cheeks, his head drooped, his face was slightly convulsed, he gave a groan, and instantly fell into profound sleep—the respiration becoming slow, deep, and sibilant, the right hand and arm being agitated by slight convulsive movements,” (p. 17.) Again, (p. 18,) “I called up,” continues Mr. Braid, “one of my men-servants, who knew nothing of mesmerism, and gave him such directions as were calculated to impress his mind with the idea, that his fixed attention was merely for the purpose of watching a chemical experiment in the preparation of some medicine; and being familiar with such he could feel no alarm. In two minutes and a half his eyelids closed slowly with a vibrating motion, his chin fell on his breast, he gave a deep sigh, and instantly was in a deep sleep, breathing loudly. In about one minute after his profound sleep, I roused him, and pretended to chide him for being so careless, said he ought to be ashamed of himself for not being able to attend to my instructions for three minutes without falling asleep, and ordered him down stairs. In a short time I recalled this young man and desired him to sit down once more, but to be careful not to fall asleep again, as on the former occasion. He sat down with this intention; but at the expiration of two minutes and a half, his eyelids closed, and exactly the same phenomena as in the former experiment ensued.” Mr. Braid adds, “I again tried the experiment of causing the first person spoken of to gaze on a different object to that used in the first experiment, but still, as I anticipated, the phenomena were the same. I also tried on him M. Lafontaine’s mode of mesmerising with the thumbs and eyes, and likewise by gazing on my eyes without contact; and still the effects were the same.”

It is indeed perfectly obvious that Mr. Braid succeeded in producing a heavy form of initial trance in these cases. Nor is it easy to get rid of the impression that the effect was not partly at least owing to his personal Od-influence. But, remembering what I witnessed of his performances, and construing candidly all his statements, I am disposed to believe that his method, adopted by the patient when in a room alone, upon himself, would throw susceptible persons into trance. Mr. Braid appears to me to have the double merit, first of having discovered the means of self-mesmerising—of so disturbing by very simple and harmless means the nervous system, that trance would appear without the influence of a second party to aid its supervention—and secondly, of having, at an early period, when prejudice ran very high in England against these practices, availed himself of this disguised mesmerism to do much good in the treatment of disease. Mr. Braid does not appear to have fallen on any instances of clairvoyance, but he narrates many observations relating to phreno-mesmerism.

II. Trance-Umbra.

II. Trance-Umbra.—This is the best title I can hit on to designate the peculiar condition, the study of which promises to exceed in interest that of any of the phases of perfect trance; inasmuch as in this state the same extraordinary powers are manifested as in trance, without the condition of an abstracted state of consciousness, which rendered the possession of those powers useless, at least, directly, to the person who manifested them. It is true that this law could be broken; the mesmeriser can desire an entranced clairvoyante to remember, when she awakes, any particular event or communication made by her. But for this exceptional power a special injunction or permit is necessary. In trance-umbra, on the contrary, the subject is throughout himself. When exhibiting the wildest phenomena he is conscious of what he is doing, and preserves afterwards as accurate a recollection of it as any of the spectators.

Then, how is trance-umbra induced? How is it known that the shadow of trance has enveloped the patient, and that, though quite himself to all appearance, he is in a state to manifest the highest trance-faculties?

The way to induce trance-umbra, is to administer a little dose of mesmerism. One operator, like Dr. Darling, (I quote from Dr. Gregory’s most instructive and interesting Letters on Animal Magnetism,) directs his patient to sit still with his eyes fixed, and his attention concentrated on a coin held in his hand, or on a double-convex bit of zinc with a central portion of copper so held. This is, in truth, a gentle dose of hypnotism. The patient looks in quiet repose at a small object held in his hand or his lap, instead of fatiguing his sensations by straining the eye-balls upwards. Suppose a group of a dozen persons sitting thus in a half-darkened, still room, preserving a studied quietude, and concentrating their attention on one point of easy vision; in from fifteen to twenty minutes one or more is found to be in the state of trance-umbra. Mr. Lewis (I quote again the same authority) employs a different process. He eyes his patients intently as they sit in a row before him, still and composed, with a concentrated will, and its full outward expression by him, to influence their psychical condition. In five minutes it often happens that the state of trance-umbra supervenes.

In the mean time, what has marked its arrival? The Rev. R.S.F. writes me, that he had been three times the subject of the first of the two methods: the operator was Mr. Stone, Lecturer at the Marylebone Scientific Institution. The first two experiments were successful, the third failed. Then Mr. F. writes, “The only circumstance which I noticed (bearing upon the above question) in myself, and which I afterwards found tallied with the experience of others, was this: On the two occasions when I was affected, after about ten minutes the coin began to disappear from my sight, and to reappear a confused, brilliant substance, similar to those appearances which remain on the retina after one has been looking towards the sun for a few minutes, and I seemed for the moment to have fallen into a half-dreamy state; but in the subsequent part of the experiments, I appeared to myself to be in my ordinary state. On the third occasion, when the experiment failed with myself and with all the others, (which I think might be accounted for by the accidental irregularity of the proceedings,) I did not experience the sensations mentioned above.” This account tallies with other evidence upon the point; a brief period of disturbed sensation, or threatening confusion, or loss of consciousness, passes over the patient. The wing of the unseen power, to speak figuratively, has cast its shadow upon him. It is evident that this transient psychical disturbance is the same phenomenon with that which Zschokke experienced whenever his seer-gift was manifested. The agency which thus can at pleasure be used to call forth trance-umbra, is the same which employed longer, or more intensely, produces perfect trance. The little dose thrilling through the system, without driving sense and apprehension from their usual seats, seems, as it were, to remove their fastenings; to throw up, as it were, the sashes of the body, so that the soul can now look forth and see, not as through a glass, darkly, but free to grasp directly things out of its corporeal tenement, whether of the nature of matter or mind.

But, at the same time, this same loosening of physical bonds renders the mind correspondingly denuded to aggressions from without. We have seen how strangely the entranced mind becomes sympathetically subject to the will, and the subject of the sensations of the person with whom it has been brought into mesmeric relation. But now a new feature, or one feebly manifested as yet in trance, but parallel to the influence of sympathy, displays itself. The person in trance-umbra is an absolute slave to the spoken, or even to the unexpressed “mental suggestions” of the operator. Sense, memory, judgment, give way at his word. The patient believes whatever he is told to believe,—that an apple is an orange,—that he himself is the Duke of Wellington,—that the operator standing before him is invisible to him,—and makes fruitless efforts to execute any voluntary movement the moment he is told he cannot. I will quote a passage, in illustration of the above, again from Mr. F.’s letter:—“After a quarter of an hour Mr. Stone came to us, and looked in our eyes for a few seconds, and desired us to close them. He then placed his thumb lightly on my forehead, and said, peremptorily, ‘You cannot open your eyes.’ I had great difficulty in doing so, but at last succeeded, with a violent struggle. After Mr. Stone had repeated the order or suggestion once or twice more, I was quite unable to open my eyes. Five out of the number, (about a dozen,) who sat down were affected, all more than myself. On a succeeding evening, however, Mr. Stone was able to proceed so far as to make me forget my name and address, by the simple assertion, ‘You cannot remember your name,’ &c., though he had before this just asked for them, and the answer was scarcely out of my mouth when he made me forget it. I think I never exerted my will more strongly than in trying to open my eyelids when they had been thus closed; but it appeared simply impossible to do this till the operator’s magic ‘All right,’ immediately set them free. On several, who were highly susceptible, Mr. Stone proceeded with other experiments. A stick was said to be a rattlesnake, and believed to be so. The room became a garden at his command, with wild beasts in it. One was set a-fishing and snow-balling; another taken up in a balloon. A still more curious instance was when the subject was told that he was in the dark, and a candle was passed before his eyes, almost close enough to singe the eyebrows, without producing any visual impression on the eye, though the party operated on said he felt the warmth of it.”

I have preferred giving additional and unpublished evidence of the wonderful control which can thus be “suggestively” exercised over the belief of a person in trance-umbra, to quoting Professor Gregory’s most interesting cases, for which the reader must consult his recent valuable work. In the sixth letter in the present volume, (that on Somnambulism,) I have exemplified the manifestation of the same phenomena in the case of the sleep-walker Negretti. As a large number of persons can be thrown easily into the state of trance-umbra; and as then they are totally in the power of the operator, it is surely most desirable that this and the parallel easily induced conditions of the frame should be made subjects of careful observation and study by many competent persons, in order that the conditions necessary to their induction may be exactly ascertained, and made public, for the protection of society.

Of equal interest is the discovery that clairvoyance may be manifested in the state of trance-umbra. Major Buckley is spoken of by Professor Gregory as a gentleman possessing mesmerising force of a remarkable quality and degree. It appears that he had been long in the habit of producing magnetic sleep, and clairvoyance in the sleep, before he discovered that, in his subjects, the sleep might be dispensed with. Dr. Gregory gives the following account of his present method:—

“Major B. first ascertains whether his subjects are susceptible, by making, with his hand, passes above and below their hands, from the wrist downwards. If certain sensations, such as tingling, numbness, &c., are strongly felt, he knows that he will be able to produce the magnetic sleep. But to ascertain whether he can obtain conscious clairvoyance, he makes slow passes from his own forehead to his own chest. If this produce a blue light in his face, strongly visible, the subject will probably acquire conscious clairvoyance. If not, or if the light be pale, the subject will only become clairvoyant in the sleep, (that is, when in perfect trance.) Taking those subjects who see a very deep blue light, he continues to make passes over his own face, and also over the object—a box or a nut, for instance—in which written or printed words are enclosed, which the clairvoyante is to read. Some subjects only require a pass or two to be made: others require many. They describe the blue light as rendering the box or nut transparent, so that they can read what is inside. This reminds us of the curious fact mentioned by Von Reichenbach, that bars of iron or steel, seen by conscious sensitives, without any passes, shining in the dark with the Od glow, appeared to them transparent like glass. If too many passes are made by Major B., the blue light becomes so deep that they cannot read, and some reverse passes must be made to render the colour of the light less deep. Major Buckley has thus produced conscious clairvoyance in eighty-nine persons, forty-four of whom have been able to read mottoes contained in nutshells purchased by other parties for the experiments. The longest motto thus read contained ninety-eight words.” “A lady, one of Major Buckley’s waking clairvoyantes, read one hundred and three mottoes contained in nuts in one day, without a pass being made on that occasion. In this and in many other cases, the power of reading through nuts, boxes, and envelopes, remained, when once induced, for about a month, and then disappeared. The same lady, after three months, could no longer read without passes; and it took five trials fully to restore the power. This may be done, however, immediately by inducing the mesmeric sleep and clairvoyance in that state, when the subjects, in the hands of Major Buckley, soon acquire the power of waking clairvoyance.”

But stranger things remain behind—corollaries, however, of the preceding, yet which eclipse these wonders, if possible. For a knowledge of these, I am exclusively indebted to Professor Gregory’s recent publication, and I give them on his authority.

If the looking intently upon a piece of metal will produce trance and trance-umbra, why should not the account of the Egyptian boy-seers be correct? If their performance be often a trick, may not the protracted gaze on the black spot in their hand sometimes render them waking clairvoyantes? and why, on the same showing, might not the gazing upon magic crystals or mirrors of jet occasionally have thrown the already awe-struck and fitly disposed lookers on them into the state in which either the magician at their side might compel suggestively images into their fancy, or they, acting for themselves, have exercised independent ultravision, retrovision, prevision? Why, again, should not simple concentration of thought upon one uninteresting idea convert a susceptible subject into a soothsayer? Then read the following facts recorded by Dr. Gregory; I at least do not question their fidelity.

“Mr. Lewis possesses at times the power of spontaneous clairvoyance, by simple concentration of thought. He finds, however, that gazing into a crystal substance produces the state of waking clairvoyance in him much sooner and more easily. On one occasion, being in a house in Edinburgh with a party, he looked into a crystal, and saw in it the inhabitants of another house at a considerable distance. Along with them he saw two strangers, entire strangers to him. These he described to the company. He then proceeded to the other house, and there found the two strangers whom he had described.”

“On another occasion he was asked to inspect a house and family, quite unknown to him, in Sloane Street, Chelsea, he being in Edinburgh with a party. He saw in the crystal the family in London; described the house, and also an old gentleman very ill or dying, and wearing a peculiar cap. All was found to be correct, and the cap was one which had lately been sent to the old gentleman. On the same occasion Mr. Lewis told a gentleman present that he had lost or mislaid a key of a very particular shape, which he, Mr. L., saw in the crystal. This was confirmed by the gentleman, a total stranger to Mr. Lewis.”

“Sistimus hic tandem.”

I think that I have tolerably succeeded in establishing the thesis with which these Letters started, that every superstition is based on a truth; and I am in hopes that the mass of evidence which I have adduced—the very variety of the phenomena described, joined to their mutual coherence—the theoretical consistency of the whole, as if it were truly a vast body of living science, and not the “disjecta membra” of a dream—will remove every remaining shade of doubt among candid readers, that these inquiries are not less sound than they are curious.