eyes rolled up in her head, took no notice of any person; the only thing she would say was that she was confined in a pit, held there by a large man whose duty it was to hold her there, and she said to me, “I shall never die, nor never get well.” She had been in this condition for one year, refused all nourishment, and was a mere skeleton at the time I went to see her. This was her story when I got her so as to converse. I sat down by the lady, and in about an hour I saw the man she had created, and described him to her, and told her that I should drive him away. This seemed to frighten her, for she was afraid for my safety. But when I assured her that I could drive the man away she kept quiet. In three hours she walked to the door, and she recovered her health.
I could name hundreds of cases showing the effect of mind upon the body. Some will say it is spiritualism. Others will say it is not. When asked to explain where the difference lies, the only answer is, that the mesmeric state is produced by some other person than the subject, while the spiritualist is thrown into this state or trance by spirits. Now the fact is known by thousands of persons that this mesmerising oneself has been common ever since mesmerism has been known, therefore there is nothing new in that. So it is with questions put to any spiritualist.
Let us now examine the proof of its being from the dead. A person is thrown into an unconscious state: while in this state the spirit of some person purporting to come from the dead enters the body and addresses itself to the company, telling some story which the company knows nothing of.
When roused from the trance he is asked if he was conscious of what he had been saying or doing. To this question they nearly all say, “No.” The company is left in the same condition as in the mesmeric experiments. Some call it mesmerism, some spiritualism.[1]
LETTER TO A PATIENT
BELFAST, Nov. 4th, 1856.
Madam: Yours of the 2nd. inst. was received, and now I sit down to answer your inquiry in regard to your lameness.
- ↑ Quimby gives evidence of his increasing clairvoyant and psychometric power in the above. This power made him more interiorly receptive than either a “medium” or a “subject,” hence he had the clue to both. Moreover, he could cast out an obsessing idea.
