Fascination

Front matter

Glass.

Book.

CHIRON FASCINATING ESCULAPIUS B. C

Preface

It is related of Epimenides, one of the sages of antiquity, that ho fell asleep in a cave, and remained in that state some years. When he awoke, everything was altered around him, and he scarcely knew where he was During his absence he affirmed that he had familiar intercourse with spirits, and obtained the gift of prophecy, etc. He was reported able to dismiss his soul from his body, and recall it at pleasure. So high was hii reputation for sanctity, that during a plague in Attica, 596 B. C, the Athenians sent for him to perform a lustration ; in consequence of which the plague ceased.

Some German students in the last century, wishing to raise the devil, carried a pan of burning charcoal into a close room, and throwing in it various prescribed substances, danced around it, chanting a magic formula. One of them fell dead, and the rest, upon seeing his fate, fled with difficulty ; the incantation, they thought, had evidently been too powerful, A professor in the same university accounted for the facts by the poison* ous influence of fixed air (carbonic acid gas) generated by the ignited carbon ; and offered to produce the gas at pleasure. He was instantly accused from this of having intercourse with familiar spirits.

Science has long since endorsed the professors solution, and to doubt it at the present day would betray gross ignorance. Not so fortunate, however, was Epimenides, for it is only in our own times that his claims have been acknowledged ; and from the want of more extended information, many are even now incredulous. Increasing light will induce belief, and it is my earnest wish that the following pages may tend to that result.

Man, besides soul and matter, possesses an intermediate principle distinct from and between both, called the life power : or in the words of Bonard, " he is an intelligence served by organs" — these organs being the servants of the life power, by which it operates upon the material world, and is in turn operated upon by it. A proper knowledge of the life power is a key to explain all the phenomena of fascination ; and this it is the ob ject of the present work to communicate. A very concise but perfectly clear idra of physiology is given, and on this the foundation is laid.

VI PREFACE.

The Delphic priestess inhaled fixed air to act on the life power in such a manner as to cause the spiritual in the system to preponderate over the material, that she might the better give her responses. In some cases 60 great was the preponderance as to cause death ; the priestess sharing the fate of the German student (who accomplished his desire), and by the 6ame means. When the wished-for change is induced, new powers or instincts, previously dormant, become suddenly developed ; and like the lower animals, who, when sick, run and devour the herb suited to their case, a like faculty of properly prescribing remedies is perceived — the spiritual world is often beheld, and its denizens sometimes give the sleep-wakers information of events that will shortly happen. H< story tells us that the coming of Cortez, and his conquest of their nation, had been .told the Mexicans long before a Spaniard was ever heard of; and the journals of the missionaries stationed at the Pacific isles will present similar facts.

We can now see why the brazier was used in the incantation of the student, and the probability of Epimenides undergoing a change upon entering a certain cavern (likely by accident the first time) wherein fixed air was generated. His pow T ers of curing disease, having interccurse with spirits, and predicting events, are thus explained. It should be remarked here, that none but those predisposed to the change, can experience it; all artificial efforts to induce it, except in such, resulting in almost certain insanity or death.

Like many others in my profession, I was a bitter eaemy to fascination till accidentally led to examine it ; but having done so, found the phe- .nomena it presented, though new and startling, in strict accordance with the laws of life. In explaining my views, I have written for the people, entirely dispensing with technical terms except in one or two instances. That their perusal may clear up in the minds of others as many obscure and mysterious points as they did in his own, and thus subserve the interests of truth, is the sincere desire of the

AUTHOR.

296 Fifth street, New York Citt.

Contents

CONVERSATION 1.

CHARMING.

PAGX.