slightly dazed condition after the close. When the trance set in, she turned pale, and her head swerved to and fro, and the eyes were turned upwards and inwards. She was hypersensitive, especially to the touch, and also to light; she had hallucinations, delirium, fits of laughter, weeping, or deep sleep, and showed other typical hysterical convulsions. Digestive troubles also sometimes set in, especially when she had eaten before the sitting. In a sudden light, or at a sudden rough touch, she cried out and shuddered, as she would under unexpected violent pain.”[93] And again: “Eusapia Paladino used to be very exhausted after every successful sitting, especially after she had been in a state of trance. She sometimes slept until the next mid-day, and was for the rest of the day apathetic, peevish, and monosyllabic. Her skin was usually cold after the sittings, her pulse rapid (100° per minute), and she had a strong feeling of fatigue. Her subsequent sleep was often restless and interrupted by vivid dreams.”[94] Speaking of another famous medium the same authority says: “In the case of Eva C. also, where the number of negative sittings is very considerable, she feels much exhausted, according to the degree of her performances, and after exhaustive positive sittings she usually needs from twenty-eight to forty-four hours to recover the deficit in her strength. Also, she is often, on the following day, dazed, and complains of headache and lack of appetite.”[95] It is extremely significant, and one might say even more significant that these are the very symptoms exhibited by those who have been attacked by a Vampire.
Another fact which must be borne in mind is that the Vampire was often a person who during life had read deeply in poetic lore and practised black magic. For the connexion between spiritism and black magic one may refer to my History of Witchcraft when the matter is very amply discussed and made plain.[96]
With these pregnant and remarkable details in mind we may consider the explanation of vampirism given by Z. T. Pierart,[97] a well-known French spiritualist and sometime editor of La Revue Spiritualiste. He writes as follows: “As long as the astral form is not entirely liberated from the body there is a liability that it may be forced by magnetic attraction to re-enter it. Sometimes it will be only half-way out when
