Letter to Doctor A. Brigham, on animal magnetism: being an account of a remarkable interview between the author and Miss Loraina Brackett while in a state of somnambulism / By William L. Stone.

  • Stone, William L. (William Leete), 1792-1844.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to Doctor A. Brigham, on animal magnetism: being an account of a remarkable interview between the author and Miss Loraina Brackett while in a state of somnambulism / By William L. Stone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    occasionally gained, even from the ranks both of the learned and the wise. Educated, however, in the be¬ lief that Mesmer was an impostor, that his followers were enthusiasts, and his patients affected, if at all, only through the workings of their own imaginations, —and disliking, exceedingly, the public exhibitions he was making for money,—I was not only an un¬ believer, but a satirist of the whole affair. Not long afterward it was reported that the sys¬ tem of M. Poyen had not only been introduced into Providence, but that the illustrations exhibited there had made a deep impression upon some of the sound¬ est and best balanced minds in that city and its vi¬ cinity. The publications upon the subject assumed a grave character, and the names quoted as among those who, if not full believers in the science, had at least been brought to admit that there was some¬ thing mysterious in the developements daily making of the extent and power of the magnetic influence, both upon the bodies and minds of those who had been made subjects of it, caused me to pause, and question of myself “ whereunto these things would grow.” Still I was a pretty sturdy unbeliever. The early history of Animal Magnetism was familiar to me. I had read also of the ConvulsionnaireS de St. Medard, of which you have reminded me; of the strange epidemic which set half the nuns in Chris¬ tendom simultaneously to mewing like cats and kit¬ tens in concert; of the still stranger doings among various religionists in Kentucky, some thirty or forty years ago; and of course I had not forgotten the