tioned we have the evidence published in a newspaper at the time, reading in part as follows: “During Mr. Quimby's exhibition in this town on Wednesday evening, (14th inst.) his intelligent Clairvoyant was in communication with F. Clark, Esq., a respectable merchant of this place. The Clairvoyant described to the audience a Barque . . . called the Casilda then on her passage from Cuba to New York, minutely from ‘clew to carving,’ as seamen say. He then informed the company how far said Barque was from her destined port, and gave the name of vessel and port the distance we think was about 70 miles.
“On the next evening, he visited (in his somnambulism) the same vessel and said she had arrived off the Hook at New York, where she then was. On the Tuesday following this exhibition the merchants received a letter informing them of the arrival of this Barque (see our Marine Report) at the precise time stated by the Clairvoyant, who it will be recollected is Lucius Bickford [Burkmar], a young man 19 years of age.
“This was but one of several exhibitions of his visiting absent vessels of which he could have had no information, and describing even the master and people on board. We profess no knowledge of this wonderful science, but deem it a duty we owe to the public to publish every fact that may aid the progress of human knowledge.”
It is interesting to note that this fair-minded newspaper writer, while heading his contribution “Animal Electricity,” according to the popular notion prevailing at the time, 1844, expresses his opinion that “there is no more mystery in all this than there is in repeating a lesson committed.” That is to say, he thinks these facts at a distance are discerned by "the mind's eye.” He was probably convinced, therefore, by Quimby's argument in his lectures to the effect that there was no “fluid” passing between, no “magnetism,” but mind operating on mind to put Lucius in possession of the clue he was to follow when locating a ship at a distance or describing her captain and crew.
Quimby tells us in one of his later articles that very early in his experiments with mesmerism he became convinced that Lucius could “see through matter.” That is, a person in a clairvoyant state, with all his physical senses quiescent, can discern in another person every state or condition ordinarily coming within the range of the five bodily senses. He was
