Jacob's rod : a translation from the French of a rare and curious work, A.D. 1693, on the art of finding springs, mines and minerals by means of the hazel rod / To which is appended researches, with proofs of the existence of a more certain and far higher faculty, with clear and ample instructions for using it.

Date:
[1870?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Jacob's rod : a translation from the French of a rare and curious work, A.D. 1693, on the art of finding springs, mines and minerals by means of the hazel rod / To which is appended researches, with proofs of the existence of a more certain and far higher faculty, with clear and ample instructions for using it. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sensibly as if it were the mesmerizer himself.” “And,” says Bacon earnestly, in a very different spirit from that which dictates to the sages of our time the philoso] hy of rejecting without trial that which belongs to the marvellous—“and whatsocvei is of this kind, should be thoroughly enquired into and this great feui der or reno\ator of the sober inductive system of investigation, evtn so far leaves it a matter of speculative enquiry, whether ir.agina- tion may not be so powerful that it can actually operate upen a plant, that he says, “ This likewise should be madt up< n plants, and that diligently, as if you should tell a man that such a tree would die this year, and will him, at these and these times, to go unto it and see how it thriveth.” I presume that r.o j hilosepher has follow ed such recommendations. Had seme real philosoj her done so, possibly we should by this time knew all the secrets of what is popularly called witchcraft. Sir Bulwer Lytton proceeds : “ May it not be possible, apart from the dcubtful quistion whether a man can communicate to an inanimate material sub- stance, a power to act upon the mind or imagination of another man—may it not, I say, be possible that such a substar ce may con'ain in itselfsuch a virtue orproperty, pottnt overceitain con- stitutions, though not over all? Forinstance, itisinmyexperier.ee that the common hazel-wood will strongly affect seme nervous temperaments, though wholly without effects cn others. 1 re- member a young girl who, having taken vp a hazel stick freshly cut, could not relax her hold of it ; and when it was wrenched away from her by force, was irresistibly attracted towards it, re- possessed herself of it, and, after holding it a few minutes, was cast into a kind of trance in w'hich she beheld phantasmal visions. Mentioningthis curious case, w'hich 1 supposed unique, toa learned brother of our profession, he told me that he had known other instances of the effect of the hazel upon netvous temperaments in persons of both sexes. Possibly it was seme such peculiar j roperty in the hazel that made it the wood selected for the old divining rod. Again, we know that the bay-tree or laurel was dedicated to the oracular Pyth an Apollo. Now, wherever in the old world w-e find that the learning of the pr ests enabled them to exhibit exceptional phenomena, which imposed upon popular credulity, there was something or< ther wh ch it is worth a philosopher’s while to explore. And, accordingly, I always suspected that there wras in the laurel some property favourable to ecstatic vision, in highly impressionable ttnrj elements. My suspicion, a few years ago, was justified by the exp< ritr.ee of a German physician, who had under his care a cataleptic or ecstatic patient, and who assured me, that he (curd nothii g in this patient, so stimulated the state of ‘sleep-waking,’ or so disposed