Popular Superstitions, and the Truths Contained Therein. Herbert Mayo
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Herbert Mayo
Popular Superstitions, and the Truths Contained Therein
With an Account of Mesmerism
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066198817
Table of Contents
I. Hypothesis of an Abnormal Psychico-neural Relation as the essence of trance.
II. Transposition of the Senses.
III. Sources of Error in the communications of entranced persons.
IV. Of the Different Qualities of Od in different individuals.
V. The Od-Force is the usual channel of establishing mesmeric relation.
VI. Trance-Identification of persons at a distance by means of material objects.
VII. Mental Travelling by clairvoyantes.
VIII. Mesmerising at a Distance. Mesmerising by the Will
XII. Rapport. Mesmeric Relation. Psychical Attraction.
XIV. Ultra-terrestrial Vision.
XVI. Nature of the Supreme Being.
ON POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.
LETTER I.
The Divining Rod.—Description of and mode of using the same—Mr. Fairholm’s statement—M. de Tristan’s statement—Account of Von Reichenbach’s Od force—The Author’s own observations.
Dear Archy—As a resource in the solitary evenings of commencing winter, it occurred to me to look into the long-neglected lore of the marvellous, the mystical, the supernatural. I remembered the deep awe with which I had listened, many a year ago, to tales of seers, ghosts, vampyrs, and all the dark brood of night. And I thought it would be infinitely agreeable to thrill again with mysterious terrors, to start in my chair at the closing of a distant door, to raise my eyes with uneasy apprehension towards the mirror opposite, and to feel my skin creep through the sensible “afflatus” of an invisible presence. I entered, accordingly, upon a very promising course of appalling reading. But, a-lack and well-a-day! a change had come over me since the good old times when fancy, with fear and superstition behind her, would creep on tiptoe to catch a shuddering glimpse of Kobbold, Fay, or incubus. Vain were all my efforts to revive the pleasant horrors of earlier years: it was as if I had planned going to a play to enjoy again the full gusto of scenic illusion, and, through absence of mind, was attending a morning rehearsal only; when, instead of what I had anticipated, great-coats, hats, umbrellas, and ordinary men and women, masks, tinsel, trap-doors, pulleys, and a world of intricate machinery, lit by a partial gleam of sunshine, had met my view. The enchantment was no longer there—the spell was broken.
Yet, on second thoughts, the daylight scene was worth contemplating. A new object, of stronger interest, suggested itself. I might examine and learn the mechanism of the illusions which had failed to furnish me the projected entertainment. In the books I had looked into, I discerned a clue to the explanation of many wonderful stories, which I could hitherto only seriously meet by disbelief. I saw that phenomena, which before had appeared isolated, depended upon a common principle, itself allied with a variety of other singular