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قراءة كتاب Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 Volume 1, Number 12
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Bold,’’ said the artist, amid laughter.
“The scoffer came back to his seat and said,
“‘It’s probably ventriloquism.’
“‘Aw!’ said the silversmith derisively, ‘you can’t throw the voice any such distance nor make it sound clear and sweet like that. I’ve made a study of ventriloquism.’
“‘Well, I’ve made a study of pig,’ said Incredulous obstinately.
“Then I changed the illusion by making the pig’s ear grow out three feet long, and then turning him into an elephant with one leg and four tails.
“Sometimes I turn my class into infants and have them ‘play school,’ with infinite fun; sometimes I transport them over the seas to Africa or Japan on my enchanted carpet, where for a brief space they enjoy all the delights of travel; sometimes we participate in battles, sometimes visit famous picture galleries, sometimes the artist enjoys a quiet talk with Socrates, or Moses or Confucius, providing both questions and answers in a curious dual action of the mind highly entertaining to the audience.
“The other evening I transformed my artist into President Cleveland. He assumed the character with quiet dignity, but said he had had a hard day’s work and was tired.
“‘Queen Victoria will visit you this evening, you know,’ I said.
“‘No!’ he exclaimed with surprise. ‘I didn’t know she was in this country. When did she come?’
“‘Yesterday, on the Aurania; here she comes, now.’
“He straightened up as I spoke and received her imaginary Majesty with real dignity and tact. After bowing and shaking hands he said:
“‘I have heard with unfeigned pleasure of your Majesty’s approach to the capital of the republic, and it is my agreeable privilege to extend to you the freedom of this city and country in behalf of sixty millions of people. Dan, get the lady a chair!’
“As she seemed to seat herself he listened a moment, smiled and said: ‘I reciprocate those feelings, as do all Americans, and I trust that the amicable relations so long preserved between this republic and the mighty realm of which you are the honored and beloved ruler may never be broken.’
“‘Where can the lady hang her crown?’ I asked him. ‘It must have a peck of diamonds in it. Can’t I take it?’
“He looked scornfully at me and I added: ‘Can’t the boys manage to get it away from her Majesty when she goes down stairs?’
“‘You are a disgrace to this administration, Dan, and have got to be fired out!’ the President exclaimed angrily to me, and then he humbly apologized to the Queen.
“He casually added that the fisheries dispute might lead to trouble, and she would be prudent to let our boys get bait along shore where it seemed handiest.
“I know of no other thing in which there is so much entertainment as mesmerism. For the benefit of those who desire to experiment I append certain conclusions from my own experiments here:
“1. About one person in ten can be mesmerized.
“2. The proportion of people who have the ‘power’ to mesmerize, if it be a power, I do not know.
“3. Mesmerism is a trance and seems to me almost identical with somnambulism.
“4. It is as harmless as sleep. My sensitives occasionally come to me in the daytime to be put to sleep for the purpose of obtaining rest.
“5. Hallucinations that take place under mesmerism are seldom remembered in a subsequent waking state, but are generally recalled with vividness in a subsequent mesmeric state.
“6. Mesmerized subjects do not see the objects or people in the room, or hear any noise whatever except the voice of the operator.
“7. My sensitives could have an arm or a leg amputated, I have no doubt, without suffering any pain.
“8. Some of my sensitives are able to tell what goes on behind them and where they cannot see it, by some occult sense of which I am ignorant. I am at present pursuing study along this line.
“Others here are now experimenting, and I think mesmerism is the coming fashionable ‘fad.’
“W. A. Croffut.”
Animal Magnetism.—Methinks that if some of our eminent (?) scientists were to investigate this much abused subject (as all of them might) they would soon find themselves hors de combat in relation to their premises that all manifestations of mind are nothing but products of matter. Huxley, for instance, that the “mind is a voltaic pile giving shocks of thought,” and many other quotations equally as absurd by other materialistic philosophers (?) who claim prominence as such.
As long ago as 1843 I was induced to investigate and try this phenomenon mainly for a hygienic purpose and afterwards led on by curiosity. I had no teacher, consulted no works on the subject, but derived all I learned in relation thereto by my own individual experiments, and in parenthesis say that what I learned I hold as above all price in settling in my mind the vexed question, “to be or not to be.”
In 1847 I was in Wisconsin, and for the satisfaction of others I was induced to a renewal of experiments in magnetism. I was located with several other families with a view of forming a co-operative colony, so that excepting myself the rest had their residences closely together, whilst mine was half a mile from the rest. The subject at one time was brought up for discussion, and an earnest desire on the part of many to see something of it resulted in my finding a subject to experiment with at once, and fortunately he proved to be an extraordinary one. The finding of property through him in a mesmeric condition was a thing of common occurrence, and in some instances he seemed to be conscious of the mental conditions under which the property was lost. I found that he could take cognizance of what was occurring out of his sight, by pre-arrangements to test him.
One evening I mesmerized him, and in imagination took him to England, and prepared as I was to accept the marvellous, I was considerably surprised at the probabilities of some statements from a letter received afterwards. Telling of this to my neighbors, they suggested the institution of a series of experiments to thoroughly test the matter. The course pursued was this: His brother would magnetize him, distant from me one-half a mile, and in the evening, according to arrangements, my family were to be engaged at anything suggested to our minds at the time, something for instance somewhat out of the ordinary routine of family occupation, to make it more apparent, and by comparing notes it was evident that through some mysterious law or power of mind he was with us taking cognizance of our actions. This was so thoroughly demonstrated that the parties concerned would have subscribed and sworn to the same before any officer qualified to administer an oath.—A. Lansdell, in Golden Gate.
Good Clairvoyance.—Dr. E. S. Packard, of Corunna, Me., in the Eastern Star, states that Mr. David Prescott, of South Sangerville, over ninety years of age, “wandered away into the woods, and not returning, a crowd of over a hundred men hunted for him nearly two days; the mill pond near his house was drained. Search was made in every direction but to no success.
“A gentleman of that place decided to call in the aid of Mrs. Stevens; she told him somebody was lost, and not being able to visit the place she drew a map or chart of the locality, giving directions, by which, on his return he was immediately found alive, but died the next day. The day following I was at South Sangerville, and stopping at this gentleman’s house,