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330 THE WILL IN NATURE.
the eye steadily upon him, is frequently substituted with
complete success for the customary manipulation ; precisely
because even this outward act is suited to fix the will in a
determined direction. But this immediate power which
the will can exercise over other persons, is brought to light
best of all by the admirable experiments made, even in
public, by M. Dupotet and his pupils in Paris, in which
a stranger is guided and determined at pleasure by the
magnetiser s mere will, aided by a few gestures, and is
even forced into the most extraordinary contortions. An
apparently quite honestly written pamphlet, entitled
"
First
glance into the wonder-world of Magnetism," by Karl
Scholl (1853). contains a brief account of this.
In the
"
Communications concerning the somnambulist,
Auguste K. in Dresden" (1843), we find the truth in ques
tion confirmed in another way by what the somnambulist
herself says, p. 53 :
"
I was half asleep and my brother
the brain from the spinal marrow, either completely, in which case the
sensible and motor nerves become paralyzed, and total catalepsy ensues ;
or partially, by the paralysis only affecting the motor nerves while
sensibility remains in other words, the head keeps its consciousness,
while the body is apparently lifeless. This is precisely the effect of
strychnine : it paralyzes the motor nerves only, even to complete tetanos,
which induces death by asphyxia ; but it leaves the sensible nerves, and
with them consciousness, intact. Eegazzoni does this same thing by the
magic influence of his will. The moment at which this isolation takes
place is distinctly visible in a peculiar trembling of the .patient. I
"
recommend a small French publication entitled Antoine Regazzoni de
Bergame & Francfort sur Mein," by L. A. V. Dubourg (Frankfurt,
Nov. 1854, 31 pages in 8vo.) on Regazzoni s feats and the unmistakeably
genuine character they bear for everyone who is not entirely devoid of
all sense for organic Nature.
In the
"
Journal du Magnetisme," edit. Dupotet, of the 15th August,
1856, in criticizing a treatise: "De la Catalepsie, memoire couronne","
1856, in 4to, the reviewer, Morin, says :
" La plupart des caracteres qui
distinguent la catalepsie, peuvent etre obtenus artinciellement et sans
danger sur les sujets magnetiques, et c est meme la une des experiences
les plus ordinaires des stances magn6tiques." [Add. to 3rd ed,}