Poe, Edgar Allen / 2008-06-29 00:00:00

1850
MESMERIC REVELATION
by Edgar Allan Poe
WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its
startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these
latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession- an
unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute
waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present day, that man,
by mere exercise of will can so impress his fellow as to cast him into
an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very closely
those of death, or at least resemble them more nearly than they do the
phenomena of any other normal condition within our cognizance; that,
while in this state, the person so impressed employs only with effort,
and then feebly, the external organs of sense, yet perceives, with
keenly refined perception, and through channels supposed unknown,
matters beyond the scope of the physical organs; that, moreover, his
intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and invigorated; that
his sympathies with the person so impressing him are profound, and,
finally, that his susceptibility to the impression increases with
its frequency, while in the same proportion, the peculiar phenomena
elicited are more extended and more pronounced.
Read more


Parts: 1