< O .0* *'T7V* A J: &■**■ •* 3$ *&(U/Z>> - ^ * ODIOMAGNETIC LETTERS, BY BARON REICHENBACH, TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BT JOHN S. HITTELL. Sftto f mrfc PUBLISHED BY CALYIN BLANCHARD, 76 Nassau Street. 1860. ^ Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Northern District of California. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. L. Rausee, Printer, 8 North William Street. CONTENTS. o TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. P a s e Do you believe in Ghosts ? 5 Are you a Spiritist ? 6 Were you ever Mesmerized ? 6 These Things not all a Humbug 8 Necessity of an Explanatory Theory 9 Newton Studying Chemistry 9 The Student of Od compared to Newton 11 Biographical Sketch of Reichenbach 12 Reichenbach as Author and Scientific Investigator 15 The Assailants of Od 15 Reichenbaclfs Sensitives 16 Author's Preface 17 LETTER I.— Sensitive Persons. Yellow-Haters and Blue-Lovers 19 Dislike for Mirors 20 Other Singularities 21 Connection between those Singularities 22 LETTER II. — Experiments with Crystals. Tou have found a Sensitive ? 24 The Sensitive feels a breath from a Quartz Crystal ? 24 The Sensitive sees a Light from Quartz Crystal 25 These Phenomena not caused by Heat or Electricity 27 LETTER III.— The Od of Light. Sunlight is Cold to the Sensitive 28 Connection Between the Odic Sensations of Touch and Light. . 29 Od Discovered by the Taste 30 Od in Moonlight . .' 31 LETTER IV.— Magnetism. "Why these Letters are called Odic-Magnetic 32 Magnets are Luminous in the Dark 33 Distinctions between Od and Magnetism 35 LETTER V.— Animal Magnetism. Animals and Plants visible in the Dark . , 36 The Odic Light of Men 37 The Right and Left Odic Sensations of Touch 38 LETTER VI. — Man as a Producer of Od. The Odic Sensations of Touch Continued 39 Why the Post of Honor is at the Right 41 LETTER VII.— Mesmerism. Mesmerism, the Therapeutic Application of Od 42 Experiment with Magnetic Passes 43 The Value of Od as a Therapeutic Agent 44 4 CONTENTS. LETTER YIIL— Chemical Action. P a e* The name Animal Magnetism Discarded 46 The Od of Effervescing and Fermenting Fluids 47 The Od from Decomposing Corpses 49 LETTER IX. — Od Developed by Sound and Friction. Experiments with Glasses and Bells 51 Experiments with Friction 52 Sourcier, the famous Water-Finder 54 LETTER X.— The Od of Heat and Electricity. The Sensitive gets cold before a Fire 54 Experiments with Electricity 55 The Odic Lights and Colors of Metals 57 Od Pervades" the whole Universe 58 LETTER XL— Common Odic Influences. Disagreeable Effects of Mirrors and Pewter Spoons 59 The Theory of Treasure-Seekers 60 Importance of Od in Mining 61 Sensitiveness Susceptible of Cultivation 62 LETTER XII.— The Discharge and Transfer of Od. Dischargibility of Od 62 Od discharged with the Breath 64 Conductibi'lity of Od 66 LETTER XIIL— Odic Dualism. Dual Opposition throughout Nature 67 The Od-Ohemical Order 67 Odic Polaritv of Various Substances 69 The Odic Polarity of Magnetism, Light Friction, &c, &c 69 The Odic Polarity of the Animal Frame 70 The Od-polar Opposition of the two Sexes 71 LETTER XIY. — Odic Light and its Spectrum. An Odic Rainbow 72 Experiments with the Light from a Magnet 73 Experiments with a Terrel 75 LETTER XV. — Terrestrial Od. Od and the Cardinal Points 76 Why People sleep on their Right Sides 77 The Odic Polarity of Man Lengthwise 78 The ( 'aiise of Swooning in Church : 79 The Position of Furniture 80 LETTER XVI. — Conduction, Radiation, and Conclusion. The Speed of Odic Condcution 81 Etymology of Od 84 1 lad Nature but given us Sense for Od 84 Supplementary Remarks by the Translator 85 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. Do you believe in Ghosts ? Did you ever see a ghost ? At least some of your familiar acquaintances have seen them. Many persons whom you know by name have seen them ; very respectable people too, serious, honest, sensible and stoat-hearted as men need be. The old belief in ghosts is cherished by many of those whom you meet every day in society ; perhaps they are ashamed to confess it, but they still have the belief, and if you get them in a confidential humor and approach them in the right manner, you may hear some of them tell very strange things. Did you ever read Mrs. Crowe's Night Side of Nature? and Stilling's Pneamatology? They are earnest pleas for the doctrine of ghosts ; or rather they are collections of ghost stories, interspersed with a few arguments to defend the truth and genuine- ness of the stories. Stilling was a devout and much esteemed German author, a friend of Goethe. Mrs. Crowe is a lady of excellent standing in society and a novellist of reputation. There are even ghosts which figure in the pages of history. An invisible counsellor and warning voice constantly attended Socrates, who called it his daimon or guardian angel. The excarnate soul of Caesar ap- peared to Brutus and promised to meet him at Phi- lippi. Joan of Arc was induced by angels, dressed in flowing robes and wearing crowns, to save her b TRANSLATORS INTRODUCTION. country, and they attended her and gave her counsel constantly from that time forward. The biographer of Tasso says that poet had an invisible friend and companion, in whose company he delighted. Sweclen- borg and Oberlin also saw spirits and talked with them, and loved their society. Are you a Spiritist? What do you think of Spiritism ? You will prob- ably reply: "There are some very strange things about it, but I do not believe that spirits have any- thing to do with it." If you say "All the alleged manifestations are tricks," I shall think you had not investigated the question seriously. You know that the number of the avowed Spiritists in the United States exceeds a million ; that they are mostly in- telligent and all of them truth-seeking people ; and that their mediums who have direct communication with spirits, number more than twenty thousand. You certainly are acquainted with many spiritists whom you respect. I shall not suspect you of having read many of the books of the Spiritists. If you have read them I doubt whether you have profited much from them, for the Spiritists generally put too little fact and too much empty declamation and illogical inference in their writings. They are too anxious to theorize ; if they would take care of the facts, the theory would take care of itself. Capron {Modern Spiritualism ; Its Facts and Fanaticisms) is perhaps the best of them. Have you heard that "manifestations" very similar to the so-called spirit-manifestations now so common in the United States were common in China about NingpO as early as 1844? Were you ever Mesmerized? Do you know anything about mesmerism? Cer- tainly you have seen men' said to be in the mesmeric TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION. 7 state, making themselves ridiculous before an auditory, submitting to have pins stuck into their arms without wincing, and doing acts which astonished you. Per- haps, besides seeing mesmeric experiments, you have read something about mesmerism. You mav have wondered while perusing Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt's Autobiography whether she really tells the truth about how, when in mesmeric somnambulism, she foreknew the times when her health would improve and grow worse. Do you know the history of the Seeress of Provorst as told by Justinus Kerner, the German physician and poet ? Have you read, Truth in Popu- lar Superstitions by Dr. Herbert Mayo, the works of James Braid, Hypnotism and Trance, and the books of Townsheud, Gregory, Lang, Deieuze, Du- potet, Teste, Esdaile, Colquhon, Eiliotson, and Enne- moser on Animal Magnetism ? They are all well worth reading, and to me, not only entertaining but absolutely fascinating. Perhaps you have read the article on anaesthetics in the Westminister Review for January 1859, and the remarks on mesmerism in Carpenter's Human Physiology: these too, deserve examination. Probably you are aware that Laplace, Cuvier, Hufeland, and Sir Wm. Hamilton did, and that Agassiz and Professor Edward Hitchcock do, be- lieve in Mesmerism. Of course, like everybody else you have heard much of natural somnambulism. There are somnambulists in every country, and in these eases there is no sus- picion of deception, because there is little motive for trickery. They do not wish to establish a theory or make money out of their peculiar condition, but look upon it as a disease and wish to get rid of it as soon as possible. Double-conscionsness, Trance, Catalepsy — you can read something of them in Wigand's Du- ality of the Mind. They are all akin to the isms mentioned above. 8 translator's introduction. These things not all a Humbug. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to say that spiritism, mesmerism, and the doctrine of ghosts, are true ; but it may safely be asserted that there is something true about them. The alleged phenomena are not altogether the creations of hallucination and deception ; many of them are genuine facts, perhaps misrepresented and exaggerated, but nevertheless act- ual, although it becomes a reasonable man to listen with grave and stubborn skepticism to such stories as are told by the spiritists and mesmerists ; yet you will perceive that the probabilities in favor of the trustworthiness of their reports are greatly increased when two separate and hostile schools of theorists base their doctrines on the same alleged phenomena. But here there are more than two schools ; there are the spiritists, mesmerists and believers in ghosts ; and their fundamental facts are in some important par- ticulars the same with those of the unquestioned phe- nomena of natural somnambulism, trance and double consciousness. It needs no argument to convince you that any phenomenon which deserves credit when reported as arising in natural somnambulism, must not be rejected when it appears in spiritism or mes- meric somnambulism unless some reason, very differ- ent from any hitherto offered, be given for making the distinction. The more you read about these abnormal states to which I have referred, the more cause you will have to wonder at the strange nature of humanity, and at the singular manner in which its powers may be manifested; and the more cause you will have to believe that there are in our constitution many things not dreamed of, or at least not accounted for, in our standard works on physiology and psychology. TRANSLATORS INTRODUCTION. 9 Necessity of an Explanatory Theory. So much is said about these things that they are forced on your attention and you must have some theory about them. The human mind is so con- stituted that it loves to know the causes of things. Intelligent men feel restless and dissatisfied when they cannot find some general principle to account for the phenomena occuring around them. All the alleged facts of spiritism and the kindred branches come within the domain of physiology ; but if you will examine the standard works on that science, you will find little about them and no attempt to account for them or ex- plain them by natural laws. They are either ignored or treated as anomalous, contrary to all known laws. You may have heard that the spirit-manifestations are the work of the devil, but I shall not suspect you of having adopted that miserable subterfuge for not giving a fair welcome to facts admitted to be true. You know and reverence the scientific principles that every phenomenon discoverable by the natural senses is governed by an invariable natural law ; and that man does not and dare not despair of discovering the law of every fact within the range of his perception. I shall assume then, that you wish to study the laws of these strange facts of spiritism, mesmerism, natural somnambulism, etc. ; and as an aid in your studies, I ask your attention to the O die- Magnetic Letters of Eeichenbach, the only man who has taken up any of these phenomena in the strict scientific method and pursued the investigation to an important scientific result. Newton Studying Chemistry. Newton died in 1726, and chemistry was not born till oxygen was discovered, fifty years later. Let us suppose that Newton's body and soul were now re- 1* 10 translator's introduction. called to life and brought back to earth, with the same store of knowledge and the same mental capacity, but ignorant of all that has passed on earth since his death. Let us suppose further that immediately after his return to consciousness, he should be placed alone in a room where all his material wants should be sup- plied as they might have been in 1725, without his having an opportunity to see or hear anything to in- dicate that important changes had been made in the useful arts in consequence of chemical discoveries. Let us suppose further that he should rind in his room a well written history of the science of chemistry by the ablest chemists of our time, giving a minute re- cord of all the great discoveries of that science, and the almost numberless experiments by which those discoveries had been tested, countertcsted and con- firmed. The mind of the astonished philosopher, as he would read how all the common objects of nature about us, have been decomposed, how water is made by the union of two gases, and common clay chiefly of gases and metals, how diamond and charcoal are the same substance in different forms, how flesh and blood have been analyzed and found to consist chiefly of such materials a^ we find in air, water and char- coal, — at reading all the particulars of these and the thousand other equally curious facts, the mind of the sage would be filled with wonder and astonishment, and innumerable thoughts of how these discoveries must prove of the utmost importance in human life, and be infinitely interlaced with the useful arts on which a large part of the comfort of civilized life de- pends. We have supposed, however, that the resur- rected philosopher should have no means of knowing anything about the truthfulness of these alleged dis- coveries, save the statements and style of the history itself. Doubt would necessarily arise in his mind, and he would reconsider the main purport of all that TRANSLATORS INTRODUCTION. 11 he had read, but he would conclude that the book must be true ; that so much seriousness, so much talent, so much learning, so much familiarity with the spirit of scientific induction, and so much re- gard for its strictest rules, could neither have been wasted in a book merely intended to amuse or delude the curious, nor have been found in a man, who could write such a work in the full belief that it was all true ; when as a matter of fact it was all false. The revived philosopher would emphatically declare that, wonderful as the alleged discoveries were, it would be still more wonderful — far more wonderful — if that book and all its alleged discoveries were false. The Student of Od compared to Newton. The ordinary man who reads Reichenbach is in a condition similar to that of the imaginarily revived Newton ; he finds a record of a vast number of facts reported as having been ascertained by very careful investigation ; but the reader cannot verify these ex- periments by repeating them himself. Only a few persons can perceive the sensations caused by od, and those few are not ordinary but extraordinary persons. So the reader being unable to perceive the odic phe- nomena by his own senses, must take the say-so of another, and this other may not be easily found ; and after he is found the experiments are many of them not easily made. It was with thoughts similar in kind, if not in degree, to those which I might ascribe to the revived Newton, in the imagined case, that I, comparing small things with great, have perused the books of lieichenbach, and read how he claims to have discovered A new force of nature, and to have traced it through the universe ; to have found it per- vading our bodies and all material objects about us, exercising a powerful influence on us at every moment of our lives, and showing itself in thousands of forms. 12 TRANSLATORS INTRODUCTION. And like the astonished philosopher, I too am ready to declare that strange and wonderful as Reichenbaclf s assertions are, it is far more probable that they are true than that >Jhey should be false. But whether true or false, is not yet finally determined, and per- haps will not be for many years to come ; and until the question be settled, Reichenbach and his theory must be the subjects of frequent discussion, and occupy a large place in the learned world. And even admitt- ing that his theory were false, it would still deserve the close attention of men of letters, as the most re- markable delusion or sham, ever heard in tiie domains of science. In any case it is worthy of examination. Biographical sketch of Reichenbach. Baron Charles Reichenbach, or as he calls himself in German " Carl Freiherr von Reichenbach," was born in Stuttgard, in 1788, and is consequently now 71 years of age. He is still strong and active, men- tally and physically. He received a good education, and after arriving at the years of manhood, entered extensively into the business of smelting iron and burning charcoal, in both of which branches he intro- duced important improvements, and made much money. He also became eminent as a chemist, and was reckoned among the great scientific men of Ger- many. Among his discoveries were creosote, paraffin, assamar, eupion and kapnomors, substances well known to the chemist, but except the first, not used much in the arts. In 1835, he bought the estate and castle of Reisenberg, near Vienna, and beautified them, so as to have one of the most elegant residences in the vicinity of that capital. The king of Wirtemberg elevated him to the nobility in 1839, conferring upon him the title of Baron or " Freiherr." In 1844 he went, as a matter of curiosity, to see a somnambulist, expecting to detect an imposter, and hoping to expose translator's introduction. 13 her ; but finding that the condition of the somnam- bulist was genuine and unassumed, he set to work to study it, and in the course of eleven years, most of which were given exclusively to that study, he made the discoveries which are the subject of the Odic- Magnetie- Letters. In 1845, he made the first publication of his dis- coveries, in a series of articles, called the Dynamics of Magnetism, in Liebig's Annalen der Chemie, in May, 1845. Liebig saw the manuscript of these ar- ticles iii 1844, and on the 7th January, 1845, wrote thus to Reichenbach: " I wish and hope that every one will read your essays (on od) with the same pleasure which I and Hoffmann, and all who know you have had in reading them j and although I cannot, in every point, adopt your views, I confess to you openly, this does not by any means deprive me of the enjoyment with which I have buried myself in your ingenious and brilliant ex- periments, observations, and speculations. Your views must be established by the manner in which we cir- culate it (in the Annalen der Chemie.) May the new year fulfill all your wishes in this respect ; I have no doubt of it." In 1850 he published a second edition of the Dy- namics of Magnetism, which in German contains 460 8vo pages. In 1852 he published in the Allge- m.eine Zeitung of Augsburg — one of the ablest and most widely circulated papers of Germany — the Odic- Magnetic Letters, which I am now about to offer to the public. In 1854 he published his largest work, The sensitive Man and his Relation to Od, contain- ing 1600 octavo pages. In 1856 he published his Sajyerstition and Ovenviseness — a pamphlet of fifty pages — an answer to attacks on him in Karl Vogt's Superstition and Science. In 1855 he published his Odic Replies — a pamphlet of a hundred and twenty 14 translator's introduction. pages — in answer to Professors Fortlage, Sclileiden, and Fechner, and Councillor Caras. In tlie same year lie published a pamphlet of fifty pages, entitled Who is Sensitive f The Dynamics of Magnetism was translated into English by Dr. Ashburner, and published in 1851, in London and New York, but none of Reichenbach's other works had been presented to the English-reading public until I translated the Odic- Magnetic Letters, which were in that form pub- lished in a newspaper of San Francisco. Reiehenbaeh as Author and Scientific In- vestigator, These books contain, in all, 2400 pages of solid original matter. The Sensitive Man, his chief work, may well be compared to the suppositious history of chemistry. It is the most extensive, elaborate, elegant and comprehensive record of scientific experiments known to me. It was written for a skeptical world to meet a skepticism which he esteems, defies, and feels confident he will conquer. lie invites the strict- est investigation for all his statements. He represents himself as having given faith to his facts and adopted his theory only after long doubt and the most patient inquiry. He takes the reader along with him, step by step, explains his doubts, and describes with un- exampled minuteness, the almost innumerable experi- ments that he made as tests and counter-tests of his discoveries. You perceive that the man has watched himself as closely as anybody else can watch him. He is not only familiar with the thoroughly inductive, cautious and skeptical rules of modern science, but he has, in this research, applied the rules in their utmost severity. The Sensitive Man is a magnificent work; it rises in many respects far above the common level of our physiological works. The author shows in it, a mind of great power, learned in all branches of phy- translator's introduction. 15 sics, strictly logical, closely observant, catching in a moment all the wide bearings of facts which might appear insignificant to common minds. Add to this that he has a style which is a model of elegance and force, and has few equals in any language. It is su- perior to the style of any German scientific work, I think, and reminds me of Hugh Miller, physiologist Draper, and the "Vestiges man" in English. Let not the close reasoner or the strict physiologist turn his back on Reichenbach, in the supposition that he and his works are to be classed with Mesmer, Gall, the spiritists, and their works ; he is far more thorough, exact, learned and trustworthy than they all, and in saying this, I mean not to deny the eminent services which Gall rendered to modern science by his phy- siological researches, and Mesmer by his accidental discoveries. The Assailants of Od. The theory of od, as I have said, has not yet been admitted into the domain of established science ; in- deed it has not yet had a fair hearing outside of Ger- many ; for the Dynamics, the only one of his books heretofore translated, was his earliest work, does not contain any note of some of his important discoveries, and is not suited for popular use. I am not aware whether his great work, The Sensitive Man, has ever been mentioned in any English work. Certainly no notice has been taken of it in the Westminster Re- view, which pays more attention than any other English publication to the literature of continental Europe. In Europe most of those scientific men who have spoken of od, have ridiculed it ; and no eminent physiologist now is a declared advocate of it. Berze- lius, the great chemist, was a believer, but his belief led Du Bois Reymond to charge him with dotage. Among those who have spoken disparagingly of od 16 TRANSLATORS INTRODUCTION. are Liebig, (he has changed position,) Cams, Karl Vogt, Feclmer, Fortlage, and Schleiden, all eminent men ; but not one of them pretends to have investi- gated the matter : and opinions, not based on experi- ments, are, worth little. On the other hand, it is said that many persons — Professor Gregory and Dr. Ash- burner among them — have repeated Reichenbach's experiments and obtained the same results Reichenbach's Sensitives. According to Reichenbaclfs statements, only those persons who have a peculiar nervous sensibility can feel the sensations and see the lights which are the only perceptible manifestations of od ; so that to in- vestigate the matter, you must have recurrence to these sensitive persons, as you would be compelled to find similar sensitive persons if you wished to investi- gate animal magnetism. Reichenbach has experi- mented with a hundred and sixty-two sensitive per- sons, whose statements he has compared together carefully. Among these are persons of all classes and ages, and of both sexes — professors, physicians, gov- ernment officers, bankers, mechanics, servants, noble- men. There are also two gentlemen of the allcr- hoechsten Staenden, which means, I presume, mem- bers of the Imperial family. The name of all these sensitives, save the two last referred to, are given in full in the Sensitive Man, with the address of each. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. These letters are reprinted, with little alteration, from the Allgemeine Zeitung, of Augsburg. Their purpose, openly declared, was to appeal to the German public against the unfairness of certain men, learned in some departments of knowledge, who used, not sound arguments, but their scientific reputation, to create the impression that my investigations are un- trustworthy, and who, without examination, declared them wild imaginings, and thus sought to bring them into general contempt. Everything new must go through a battle with the old ; the inconvenience of being compelled to get out of the way, incites to resist- ance. I have not deceived myself; many of the facts which I have adduced are known to everybody, will stand firmly against all rhetorical attacks, and have been witnessed by hundreds of thousands of German people ; the conclusions at which I have arrived, follow as a matter of course, and public opinion, sympathetic for the truth, has everywhere received my work with favor. That a communication of this kind, in a political newspaper (such as the Allgemeine Zeitung) must confine itself to brief hints, lies in the nature of the mixed circle of its readers, to whom they are ad- dressed. Some main principles, set forth as clearly as possible, avoiding all amplification, are all that space allows. 18 author's preface. The Allgemeine Zeitung has often given us series of attractive scientific letters on astronomy, chemistry, geology, phrenology and physiology ; but I was at a great disadvantage, as compared with all these. They all had only known and admitted truths to com- municate; whereas, the Odic Letters are occupied en- tiiely with new facts, or new views of old facts, and are, therefore, compelled not only to declare the prin- ciples, but often to furnish the proof. Those moved forward on the clear and open road ; these must break a passage through the thorns of opposing opinion. They who desire to have a more circumstantial expo- sition of the facts, more evidence and a deeper exami- nation, are referred to my bcok, heretofore published, entitled, Tlie Dynamics of Magnetism, until the completion of a larger work, based upon more exten- sive researches, with which I have long been engaged, and wherein more thorough investigations appear. Reichencach. Castle Reisenberg, near Vienna, August 1852. ODIOMAGNETIC LETTERS. LETTER J SENSITIVE PERSONS. Yellow-Haters and Blue-Lovers. Have you never, my friend, met with persons who had a singular dislike to the color of yellow, and to everything wearing the color ? A delicate lemon, lustrous gold, a glowing orange, surely present an attractive sight; what can there be disagreeable about them ? Ask these singular persons what colors they like, and all will answer, " Blue." The azure of the deep heavens is beautiful ; but, when evening encloses it in a golden frame, it certainly becomes still more beautiful. If I were required to choose whether I would live all my life in a chamber with straw-yellow or light blue walls, I should probably prefer the yel- low ; the enemies of the yellow, to whom I told this, laughed at me and pitied my taste. 1 shall turn the question the other way, and ask you whether you ever found a man who disliked blue ? Surely, you never did ; nobody ever hated blue. Why is it now that there is such an agreement among cer- tain persons to hate yellow and love blue V Our scientific books teach us that yellow and blue stand in a certain relation to each other ; they are complementary colors, forming a kind of polar oppo- sition. Is there anything concealed in this relation, besides the mere influence of our organs of sight ? — some unknown and deeper difference than that of the 20 ODIOMAGNETIC LETTERS. . mere optical colors, known to all? And may there not be a difference among men as to their capability of perceiving this deeper difference between those colors ? Can it be that there are men who have a kind of percept'on not recognised in our physiologies ? That were a wonderful fact ! Let us consider the matter. Dislike for Mirrors and Crowds. Maidens like to look into the mirror ; and there is no lack of men who are fond of their dear reflex. And who should find fault with them when they delight in contemplating the perfect copy of God's beautiful masterpiece ? Indeed, there is nothing more splendid nothing more inspiriting than a handsome myself. But what should we say, if there were maidens, wives and men, who avoid mirrors ? Who turn away and cannot bear to see themselves ? And yet, there cer- tainly are such people. There are persons, and they are not very rare, to whom the sight of a looking- glass causes a feeling of uneasiness, as though it breathed a hateful breath at them, and they cannot bear its sight for a minute. It not only shows them their own picture, but it throws an undctinable disa- greeable feeling over them — upon some strong, upon others weak, and upon some so faintly that a scarcely perceptible dislike of the glass is the only fact of which they are conscious. And what is the cause of this ? Why do some persons feel this dislike and not others? You have travelled much, in stage-coaches and railway-cars, and you must have observed people who would insist upon having the windows open, no mat- ter how cold or stormy the weather might be, and utterly regardless of the dangers of rheumatism and the complaints of fellow-passengers? You considered their conduct to be uncivil? But I beg you to SENSITIVE PERSONS. 21 withhold judgment for a little while ; at least until you have read several more of these letters. Perhaps you may be convinced by them that influences, hi- therto unknown, are at work in crowded companies, and are strong to make the press entirely intolerable to some persons, while it has no perceptible influence on others. Have you not, among your friends, some one who will not sit between others at the table, in the theatre, in company, or at church, but always posts himself in a corner ? Take notice of him ; he is our man, and we shall soon make a closer acquaintance with him. Certainly, you have noticed women who are often unwell in church, though they are well in every other place ? Giving them a corner-seat does not cure them ; they must often be carried away in a swoon. If you observe closely, you will find that not all persons are liable to be affected thus, but that there are a few who are often attacked in the same manner. They cannot bear to sit long in the nave of a church without being sick, and yet they are otherwise healthy. Other Singularities. Your physician will tell you that, for health and comfort, you must sleep upon your right side. Ask him why, and, if he is upright, he will confess he cannot tell the reason. He does not know the cause, but he has learned from much experience that many men cannot go to sleep lying upon their left side. He has often heard the statement, but the connection between lying on that side as cause, and sound sleep as effect, is unknown to him. And yet, it is a fact that, not all men must sleep on their right sides : to many it makes no difference, and sleep on the left is just as refreshing to them as on the right. If you inquire, you will learn that those who can sleep only 22 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. on their right side are the smaller number, and this quality of their nature sticks to them so firmly that they can lie half a night on the left side without being able to slumber for a moment $ when, if tliey turn upon the right, they go to sleep at once. This is a singular tiling, but you can observe it everywhere. How many persons are there who cannot eat from a spoon made of pewter, britannia or German silver, without nausea, while others can perceive no difference between such spoons and those of pure silver for or- dinary use ? There are many who cannot drink tea, coffee or chocolate boiled in brass vessels, while others care not whether the pot was brass, iron or earth- enware. Many persons dislike warm, much-cooked victuals, fat, and sweet meats, and prefer cold, simple or slightly sour dishes. Some have a great fondness for salad, and they say they would rather spare any other dish. Others cannot comprehend how people can have such queer tastes. There are others who cannot bear to have any one standing near behind them ; and these same persons avoid all crowded companies. Some dislike to shake hands, and tear themselves loose when their acquain- tances wish to hold their hands for a time. Many complain that the'heat from iron stoves causes a disa- greeable feeling, which they do not perceive before a fire on a stone hearth ! Connection between those Singularities. Is it necessary that I should go on enumerating hundred of such singularities, peculiar to some men ? What shall we think of them ? Arc they mere fancies caused by defective education, or bad habits, arising perhaps from disease? So it may appear to those who lcok only at the surface of things ; and, indeed, by such a superficial consideration of things, injustice SENSITIVE PERSONS. 23 has often been done to these sensitive people. If these rare phenomena appeared singly, scattered as accidents among d liferent men in various conditions, we might be justified in attaching little importance to them. But a noteworthy circumstance, which has heretofore not been taken into account, places the matter in a different light. Those peculiarities do not appear sin- gly, tut are grouped together in the same persons, often all together and never one alone. The enemy cf yellow hates the looking-glass ; the friend of the corner opens the carriage window; only the man who sleeps on his right side feels unwell in the church ; those affected with nausea by brass and pewter like cold and simple victuals and salad, dislike nit and sweets, etc.; and these likings and dislikings always go forward in an unbroken connection from yellow- hatred to sugar-nausea, from love of blue to fondness for salad. There is a relationship between these different oddities ; for experience shows that the man who has one, has usually all the others with it. It then follows necessarily that the connection be- tween them is not merely accidental ; and if that be the case, it must be owing to their originating in the same cause. But if this cause lies in some men and not in others, it must be clear that there are two kinds of men; — common men, who have not these pecu- liarities, and uncommon who have them. The latter may be called " Sensitives," for they are really more sensitive than the sensitive plant. They are consti- tutionally sensitive, and they can neither change nor master their impressibility, and wherever their oddi- ties are considered to be whims or bad manners, in- justice is done to them. Besides they have already enough to suffer from the mere ignorance of people generally of their sensitiveness, and are entitled to more consideration than they have heretofore received. Their number is not small and we shall presently see 24 ODIOMAGXETIC LETTERS. how deeply human society is penetrated by these things, in regard to which I have to-day only given you a few superficial hints. LETTER II. EXPERIMENTS WITH CRYSTALS- You have found a Sensitive? Without doubt you have succeeded in finding among your acquaintances some persons who have the peculiarities mentioned in my first letter. There is no difficulty in finding such persons ; they are numer- ous in every circle of society. And if you cannot find them among healthy persons, inquire for such as do not sleep soundly, kick off the bed- covers, speak or walk about while dreaming, often have sick head- aches, frequently have short fits of colic, complain of nervous irritability, dislike large companies, and love the company of a few friends or even solitude. Such persons generally have a sensitive constitution. The Sensitive feels a breath from a Quartz Crystal ? But these are only trivial points in tne matter under consideration, which, when brought to the scientific touchstone, shows phenomena of an entirely different class. Obtain a natural crystal, as large as can be found, of sulphate of lime, orgott-hard quartz crystal, a foot long, and Jay it horizontally over the corner of a tabic or on the arm of a chair, so that both ends are tree, and place a sensitive person before it with directions to hold the palm of his left hand opposite to the two ends by turns, at a distance of three or lour inches. In less than half a minute your sensitive EXPERIMENTS WITH CRYSTALS. 25 person will declare that from the point a fine cool breath blows against his hand, while from the butt end, where the crystal grew fast, there is a warm breath. He will describe the cool breath as disagree- able, almost nauseating, which would soon penetrate the whole arm, and cause a feeling of exhaustion. When I first made this observation it was as new as puzzling; and when I told of it, nobody would believe me. Meantime I have repeated it with hun- dreds of sensitive persons in Vienna, and others have confirmed it in England, Scotland and France ; and every one can try it for himself, because sensitive persons are to be found everywhere. If the sensitive subject holds his hand opposite to the sides of the crystal, he will feel sensations of warmth and coolness, but much weaker than from the two ends, which are of opposite poles. Non-sensitive persons can perceive nothing of these sensations. The Sensitive Sees a Light from Quartz Crystal. Since these opposite feelings are excited without touching the crystal, at a distance of several inches — and even with strongly sensitive persons at a distance of several feet — it is probable that there must be some influence flowing out of these half organic stones — some influence unknown to science ; which, though invisible, yet gives notice of its existence by operating upon matter. The thought occurred to me that since sensitive persons have the sense of touch so much more acutely developed than common men, they might possibly have a similar acuteness of sight, whereby, in deep darkness, they might see this in- fluence flowing from the crystal, which they could feel with their hands. To try the experiment, I went one very dark night in May, 1844, with a large quartz crystal to a highly sensitive maiden — Miss Angelica 2 26 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. Sluermann. Her physician, the well known path- ologist. Professor Lippich, was accidentally present. We removed all the lights from two rooms, in one of which I put the crystal in a place unknown to any one save rayself. After some delay, to allow our eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, we led the maiden into the room where the crystal was. In a very short time she pointed out to me the spot where I had laid the crystal. She said that its whole body was pervaded with a mild light, and that from its point a bluish flame as large as a man's hand was blazing, with a constantly waving flicker, sometimes sparkling, losing itself in a fine vapor. When I turned the crystal about with the blunt end up, she saw a dull, yellowish red smoke arising from it. You may imagine what delight this declaration gave me. This was the first observation of thousands of its kind, made with crystals under numberless variations of circumstance, wherein the fact was established by a multitude of sensitive persons that the sensations of the touch caused by crystals are accompanied by emissions of light, which may be perceived by sensi- tive persons in the dark, and are of red and blue color at the opposite poles. W you wish to repeat these experiments, you must be careful lo have a perfect darkness, if you expect to succeed. The crystal light is so faint that if the least trace of any other light can creep into your dark chamber, it will render you sensitive blind to the more delicate phenomena. Indeed, very few persons are so sensitive as Miss Sluermann, or could perceive the light so readily as she did. Demi-sensitives have usually to sit in the dark from one to two hours before their eyes have sufficiently recovered from the irrita- tion of day or lamp-light to enable them to perceive the crystal flame. I have had many eases where weak-sensitives could perceive nothing in the third EXPERIMENTS WITH CRYSTALS. 27 hour, and yet in the fourth succeeded in seeing the crystal light clearly, and thus satisfying themselves of the correct nes of my statements. These Phenomena not caused by Heat or Electricity- You are now impatient to learn what is the cause of these phenomena, and what is their proper posi- tion, considered subjectively and objectively, in phy- sics and physiology. They do not belong within the domain of caloric, although they include sensations similar to those of coolness and luke-warmness ; but there is no source of heat ; and if there were caloric it would be perceived by non-sensitives as well as by sensitives, and might be measured by a thermometer. They are not electrical phenomena, for here there is an endless stream without any chemical or mechanical change to produce it ; it has no influence on an elec- troscope and can not be led away on the conductors of electricity. Magnetism and dia-magnetism it can- not be, because crystals are not magnetic, and dia- magnetism is very different in different crystals, which is not the case with the phenomena under considera- tion. It can not be common light, for that could not cause the warm and cold sensations. What then are the described phenomena ? If you insist upon a reply from me, I must confess that I do not know. I perceive the operations of a force which is unrecognized in our scientific books. If I do not mistake the character of the cited facts, this hitherto unknown force stands midway between magnetism, electricity and caloric, and since it can not be identi- fied with either, I have named it " Od," a word whose etymology I will explain at another time. 28 ODIC-MAGXETIC LETTERS. LETTER III. THE OD OF LIGHT Sunlight is Cold to the Sensitive. You know the sensitive person, and the element in which they move — that force, namely, which I desig- nated by the word " Od." But, with this knowledge, we have only touched a corner of the great garment in which Nature veils herself. That wonderful power streams out, not from the poles of crystals alone, but from a multitude of other objects of the material uni- verse. First, I shall lead you to the heavenly bodies, beginning with the sun. Place a sensitive person in the shade, with a stick of glass or wood in his left hand, and let him hold his stick in the sunlight, his own person being entirely in the shadow. You will soon hear something from this single experiment which will surprise you. You will expect that the subject will declare that the staff is warmed by the sunlight ; for the sunlight conveys heat to whatever it strikes. But you will be told directly the contrary ; the sensi- tive hand will experience various sensations, but the amount of them will be a feeling of coolness. It' he draws the staff back into the shadow, the cool sensa- tion will disappear, and warmth will take its place, which disappears in turn when the staff is again thrust into the light : and so on, the correctness of the first report being confirmed by repeated experiments. These are, therefore, very single circumstances, hitherto un- observed, in which clear and unobstructed sunlight causes a sensation, not of warmth, but coolness; and, of this cool sensation, the sensitives will inform you that it is just like that which flows from the upper point of the quartz crystal. If, now, this coolness have an odic nature, it must also manifest itself by a THE OD OF LIGHT. 29 light visible in the dark ; and this light may be seen. Having one end of a copper wire in the dark cham- ber, I placed the other in the sunlight, and forthwith the former end began to send out a flame, which became as large as my finger. Thus, it appeared that the sunlight poured on odic stream into the wire. But let us go a step further ; intercept the sun^ rays with a glass prism, and throw the rainbow colors on the wall before you. Then let the sensitive try the different colors by touching them with a glass rod held in his left hand. When he holds the rod so that only the violet blue rays come upon it, he will feel a cool and agreeable sensation ; much cooler and purer than from the unseparated sunlight. If he should now insert the end of the rod in the yellow, or better still, in the red rays, the agreeable coolness will vanish at once, and a lukewarm feeling will make the whole arm heavy. Instead of a glass rod, the sensitive may use his finger, and the sensation will be the same. The rod was suggested merely because glass is a poor conductor of heat. These influences of the analyzed sunlight, are precisely the same as those of the crystal-poles. You see from this that od of both kinds is found in sunlight ; it streams down to us in a great flood with the light and heat of our day- star, and forms a new and mighty agent, whose range is yet unknown. Connection Between the Odic Sensations of Touch and Light. And now you will look back again at the haters of yellow and lovers of blue, mentioned in my first let- ter. Have we not seen that the crystal pole which breathed out agreeable coolness, gave a blue light ? And have we not found here, in an entirely different path, that the blue rays of sunlight give out a pleasant, refreshing coolness ? And on the other hand, did not 30 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. in like manner, the orange light of the other crystal- pole, and the red and yellow rays of the sun produce a like lukewarm disagreeable sensation upon the sensi- tive nerves ? You see that in both cases, so far re- moved from each other, the red and yellow had the same pleasant, and the blue the same unpleasant influence. Here you have the first hint from Nature to beware how you hastily condemn, as foolish whims, the peculiarities of sensitive persons. You see that blue and yellow colors have other powers besides those of making themselves sensible to the retina of our eyes ; a deep-lying instinct for an unknown something leads the feelings and the judgment of our sensitives* and this instinct is worthy of our closest attention. But I will give you another experiment without re- ference to colors, for discovering the odic element hi sunlight. Polarize it in by the ordinary method of letting it fall at an angle of thirty-five degrees upon a bundle of a dozen plates of glass. Then let a sensitive person try the transmitted and the reflected light with a glass-rod, and he will tell you that the latter is cool, the former lukewarm. Od Discovered by the Taste. If you please you may bother a chemist with an odic experiment. Take two similar glasses of water, and place them one in the transmitted light and the other in the reflected light. After having been in that position for six or eight minutes, let a sensitive person taste them, and he will at once say the glass from the reflected light is cool and sourish, and the other warm and bitterish. Or place a glass of water in the red rays of the Iris, and another in the yellow ; or put it in front of the upper point of a crystal and another before the lower end or butt, and in all these cases you may be certain that the sensitive will find the water from the blue rays agreeable and sourish, and THE OD OF LIGHT. 31 the other nauseating and bitterish. He will empty the former glass, if you will permit him ; but if you force him to drink all in the latter he may vomit, as happened in a case known to me. Now give such waters to the chemists, and let them see whether they can discover any bitter or sour elements in the water by analyzation. Od in Moonlight. You may try the same experiment with moonlight as with sunlight. You will obtain similar results, ex- cept with the poles inverted. A glass rod held in the rays of the moonlight left hand of a sensitive, will con- vey a lukewarm sensation to him. A glass of water which has been standing in the moonlight will have a more unpleasant taste than other water. Every one knows the great influence the moon exercises upon some persons, and these are always sensitives, and generally have a very acute perception of odic impress- ions. And since the it 0011 exercises beyond a doubt, an odic influence and since its influence on lunatics, correspond exactly with the phenomena obtained from other odic sources, as heretofore stated, we may pre- sume that it is an object of much importance in our researches. Thus the light of the sun and moon send down so much odic power that we can conveniently catch it up and make simple experiments with it How bound- less its influence upon all mankind, and upon the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms will soon be shown. Od is a cosmical force, radiates from star to star, and like light and heat pervades the whole uni- verse. 32 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. LETTER IV. MAGNETISM. Why these Letters are called Odic-Magnetic. These letters are styled odic-magnetic ; but why magnetic ? What is there magnetic about the odic in- fluence ? I might almost answer " little or nothing." But people are accustomed to give the title "mag- netic " to many phenomena which are to be taken into consideration, and 1 must submit to the accepted definitions of words. I use the word magnetic, be- cause the odic forces are found associated with mag- netism in the same manner, as also the light of the sun and moon, as they pour from the poles of crystals, and are found from many other sources which have nothing- in common with magnetism as that word has been understood heretofore. Let us cast a glance upon the relationship of od and magnetism. Lay a strong bar-magnet diagonally across the cor- ner of a table, so that both ends project beyond its edge, as you did with the large crystals ; turn the table so that the magnet lies with its poles of the magnet pointing north and south, to the corresponding poles of the earth. Let a sensitive person now place the palm of his left hand before these two poles by turns, at a distance of four or five inches. In this experiment you will obtain from him precisely such declarations as to his sensations, as he gave when tried with tha crystals; namely that one pole — and in this case the north one — blows cool upon his hand, while the other, the south-pole, has a lukewarm, disagreeable Lnath. You may again place glasses of water before the two ends of the magnet, for six or eight minutes, and when the. sensitive tastes them afterwards, he will assert that the glass from the north-pole is cool and MAGNETISM. 33 refreshing, and that the other glass is warm and nau- seating. If you now ask a chemist to discover the difference between the two glasses by analysis, he will be angry, and to escape from the perplexity, he will deny the fact of a difference. You may laugh at the manner in which scien title men sometimes expose themselves ; for the truth of nature cannot be turned into untruth by denial without investigation. These gentlemen will soon have to learn better, against their will. Magnets are Luminous in the Dark. That the suppositions, which led me into the dark with the crystals, also arose in regard to the magnets, you would expect as a matter of course. I made the first experiment with Maria Nowotny, at Vienna, in April 1844, and afterwards repeated it more than a hundred times with other sensitives in the dark cham- ber. With joyful satisfaction I learned that my sup- positions were correct. Miss Nowotny told me that she saw light and fiery flames, smoking and sparkling, pouring out of both ends of the magnet — that to the northward blue, that to the southward orange-colored. Make this single experiment for yourself; and then set the magnet up perpendicularly, the south pole up- ward and you will learn that the flame grows longer, and it will even rise to the ceiling of the room, and if the magnet be a very large one, will throw upon it a round light, two or three feet in diameter. But to make the experiment successful, absolute darkness is necessary, as well as preparation by remaining several hours in it, otherwise your sensitive will see nothing, and my assertions will be subjected to an undeserved suspicion. The odic light will be more beautiful if you use a horse-shoe magnet, and set it upright, with both poles turned upwards. I have a nine-leaved horse-shoe- s' 34 ODIOMAGNETIC LETTERS. magnet, with a power of raising a hundred pounds ; and all sensitive persons can see a fine light streaming out of each pole — that is, two lights side by side, which do not attract, nor influence, nor extinguish each other — as do the magnetic forces of opposing poles — but steadily stream up high, side by side, and form a light-column, as large as a man and composed of in- numerable light sparkles in constant motion — the col- umn being described as impressively beautiful by all who have seen it. It rises perpendicularly to the ceiling, and there casts a light upon a space about twelve feet in diameter. If the magnet is kept long in this position before the sensitive person, the whole ceiling becomes gradually visible. Such a magnet upon a table, throws a light upon it, so that everything on its surface can be seen for a yard in each direction from the magnet. A hand interposed between the flame and the table, casts a perceptible shadow. If you hold a piece of bord, a pane of window-glass, a plate of tin, or any similar body horizontally into the flame, the latter will bend under it and rise up at the sides, just as the flame of a fire would under the same circumstances. If a draft of air blown upon the magnet, or if it be moved, the flame bends to one side as the flame of a candle would. The light can be collected in a focus by a burning glass, like the rays of ordinary light. The phenomenon is thus shown to be a material one, and has many qualities in common with ordinary flame. If two of these odic flames be made to cross each other, there is no perceptible at- traction or repulsion, but they mutually pierce each other and pursue their respective courses undisturbed. If one be stronger than the other — if its sparkles of light have a stronger headway — it divides the weaker flame which splits, passes over the sides of the stronger one, and meets on the other side, just as it does if a stick be held in it. And as sensitive persons saw the MAGNETISM. 35 crystals penetrated by a fine glow, so also they see the steel magnet translucent with a white lio'ht : and electro-magnets have the same appearance. Distinctions between Od and Magnetism. These properties have nothing in common with magnetism ; they are peculiarly odic. A crystal of sulphate of lime and a steel magnet of the same weight, throw out flames of about the same size, and cause an effect of about equal power upon sensitive nerves, or rather the crystal is the more powerful — causing stronger sensations of warmth, coolness and light ; and yet it has no magnetic property. In one instrument, od appears in conjunction with magnetism ; in the other it appears without magnetism— the od in the two cases being of about equal strength. There is, therefore, no ground for the assertion that od is an as- sociate, or quality of magnetism, or magnetism itself. In the crystal, od appears separate from magnetism, and a multitude of other similar cases might be ad- duced, wherein a substance, which possesses no per- ceptible magnetic power, is strongly odic. Hence it follows that od must be a distinct force of nature, and appears in conjunction with magnetism, as it does also with crystals, sunlight and many other natural phenomena. We know the near relationship of magnetism and electricity ; w r e know that they fol- low each other so closely that we are tempted to con- sider them as one; and the same remark may be made in regard to light and heat, the presence of one induces the presence of the other ; yet we are not able to point out the common source whence they both flow. We suspect, indeed, that all these phenomena, heretofore considered as natural forces, must have a common origin ; but since we cannot prove their identity or their immediate derivation as effect from an antecedent cause, we must treat them — light, heat, electricity and 36 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. magnetism — as distinct groups of phenomena. And we must look upon ocl, for the same reasons, as a distinct force. When we see that the numerous ma- nifestations of od cannot be classed with those of any of the known natural forces, there is nothing left for us save to bring them together and consider them as a group by themselves. That they are in no respect inferior in importance to those other phenomena al- ready admitted to citizenship in the world of science will be most convincingly shown in the letters which are to follow. LETTER Y. ANIMAL MAGNETISM. Animals and Plants visible in the Dark. The world hears a great deal just now of that won- derful thing named "Animal Magnetism " by Mesmer, some eighty and odd years ago. Our fathers, grand- fathers and greatfathers declared it to be a pure humbug, and yet it will not die. Where does it get this tougli life ? From lies, and trickery and super- stitions, as has been asserted ? Let us see whether they have done well who have scorned Mesmerism without examining it. Let us go into the middle of the subject at once. Take a sensitive person into a dark room, with a cat, a bird, a butterfly, and some plants in flower. In the course of a couple of hours you will hear wonderful tilings. The flowers will step out of the darkness and become visible ; some parts will appear brighter than others. Finally different flowers will be distin- guishable, the forms will appear more and more clearly ; ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 37 and when I once placed a flower-pot before the late Professor Endlicher, who was a good demi-sensitive — in the dark — he cried out with terrified astonishment, " It is a blue flower, a gloxinia ?" And so it was in truth a gloxinia speciom, of the variety ccerulea, which he had seen, and distinguished by form and color in the completest darkness. But nothing can be seen in the dark without light ; and therefore there must have been light in the room when this flower was seen and recognised by form and color, and whence came this light ? It came from the plant itself, which gave out light, buds, pistils, anther, flower leaves, stalks — all were in a glow and even the leaves which had the faintest light, were dimly vi- sible. The butterfly, the bird, the cat glow too, and are visible ; and give out a mist of light, which moves with them. The Odie Light of Men. And soon the sensitive declares that he sees you — yourself. At first you will appear to him like a rudely formed snow-man, then like a warrior dressed in armor, and, at last, terrible like a fiery giant. The sensitive person will next see himself, his arms, his legs, feet, breast, body, perceptible through the clothes, all in a fine glow. Direct his attention to his hands. He will first see a gray smoke, and then he will see their forms as shadows upon a light ground ; and at last the fingers seem to glow, and they take the ap- pearance of a hand held close before a candle-flame in a dark room. The hand will appear longer than it really is ; every linger will have a flame-like extension streaming out nearly as long as the finger itself; the whole will seem to be twice as long as it really is. The last joints of the fingers, and particularly the roots of the nails will be the brightest. After the first astonishment, at this hitherto un- 3S ODIC- MAGNETIC LETTERS. known emanation of light from the human body, has passed away, and you ask about the color of this lio-ht, vou will be again astonished to hear that the colors are different in different places. You will be told that the right hand has a bluish glow, and the left yellow ; that the former is dark as compared with the latter. Then you will be told that the same co- lors distinguish the feet, and that the whole right side of your face and body is bluish, and the left side yellowish and lighter in color. It is worthy of note that the opposing colors are the same here as were observed to characterize the odic emanations of the crystal, magnet, and sunlight. The Eight and Left Odic Sensations of Touch. The question now suggests itself whether the relation noticed heretofore between the blue light and the cool sensation at one pole, and the yellowish light and the lukewarm sensation at the other pole, can be observed in the odic sensations of the human body. You will doubt the result, and yet if such a fact can- not be established, the nature of this human light will remain questionable. I made the following ex- periment with cabinet-maker Bollman of Vienna, a demi-sensitive, fifty years of age: — I placed my right hand in his left in such manner that our ringers crossed, but scarcely touched each other. At the end of a minute I withdrew my right hand, and put my left in its place. I charged thus several times, and found that the sensitive perceived two different sensations as caused by the different hands — the blue right hand giving out a coolish current, and theyellowish left a warmish one. The principle sought was found ; I repeated the experiment afterwards with more than a hundred sensitives, all of whom confirmed the results. MAN iSA PRODUCER OF OD. 39 LETTER VI. MAN AS A PRODUCES, OF OD. The Odic Sensations of Touch Continued. You have seen that when I place my right hand in the left hand of a sensitive person, the latter feels a sensation of agreeable coolness ; but when I do the same with my left hand, a disagreeable warmish feel- ing is the result. The experiment may be reversed by putting your left hand in the right of the sensitive person, when he will find it agreeably cool, but your right in his right will cause an unpleasant feeling. The position of the hand may be reversed, putting your left hand in the sensitive's right, and the result will be a coolish pleasant feeling, but if it be your right hand in his right, luke-warm dis- comfort will follow. From these phenomena we deduce the general principles that the junction of hands of the same side causes a disagreeable luke-warmness ; and the junction of hands of unlike sides causes a cool and pleasant sensation. The reader will now recall to mind the observation made in my first letter, that there are people who dislike to shake hands, and wiio tear themselves loose if any one tries to hold their hands long. The cause is that these persons are sensitive and have an unpleasant feeling when their right hands are taken in the right hands of other people. Now make the experiment of placing your right fore finger on the left arm of the sensitive on his shoulder, in the arm pit, on his hip, on his knee, on his foot or toes, and he will find it agreeable whenever touched, because there is a meeting of unlike poles. Try his right side in the same manner with your left hand and the sensations caused will be the same ; they too are unlike. But bring the likes poles together, 40 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. either right to right or left to left, and the contact will be found disagreeable in every case. Pat my theory now to the test by standing near to a sensitive with your right side touching his left and he will feel it pleasant, but face about so that the two left sides are brought together and he will complain at once and move away. The meeting of the like poles has again caused an unpleasant feeling. Try another position : stand either before or behind the sensitive, with your face in the same direction — in both cases the like poles are brought together, and the sensitive cannot endure either position. I must now beg again to look back at my first letter to that place where I called your attention to the fact that there are persons who cannot endure that any one should stand before or behind them, and who therefore avoid all crowds. You see that they have a cause for it. I know some young, strong and vivacious men who do not like to ride on horseback ; and yet it is almost a part of man's nature to like to ride. Vigorous youth delights in the movement of the horse. But on horseback the rider has his sides in contact with the like sides of the animal, and the effect is the same as if he had a man standing at his back with the like sides together. The men who have this dislike for riding are all sensitives; and as examples I have the privilege of mentioning Barons August and Henry Von Oberlander. There are some women who cannot endure to carry children on their backs, not even for a i'cw minutes in play. This case is almost the same with that men- tioned in the preceding paragraph; it is another posi- tion where like poles are brought together. These women are always sensitives. MAN AS A PEODUCEE OF OD. 41 Why the Post of Honor is at the Eight. Many persons cannot sleep well in bed with another person ; the bad bed-fellows are proverbial. Their restlessness is explained by what has gone before. The universal custom of all civilized people to place the person who is to be honored at the right, others placing themselves at his left, has a deep-seated cause in our odic nature. The alleged reason for this cus- tom is to allow the honored person to have his right hand free • and this consideration may have its share in the custom, but the influence of sensitiveness is far greater in the scales. When two persons stand side by side the od of each passes to the other. He at the right gets an od-negative lading from the one at the left, who in his turn receives the positive od. The right-hand person gains therefore as much nega- tive od as the left-hand one loses ; and the latter gains as much positive od as the latter loses. But as you know, the condition of greater odic negativeness is the cooler and more agreeable ; while that of greater positiveness is more luke-warm and disagreeable. The woman, therefore, who is placed on the right gains as much pleasurable feeling from her position as the man at her left loses. The key to these customs brought down from the earliest times is found not in tradition, but in our inmost nature. This goes so far that very sensitive persons cannot bear to have any one at their right side. Such cases appear without number in human life, in a thousand relations and variations ; all of them may be explained and judged by the laws here deve- loped. It will also be seen that sensitives have good reason to demand that their feelings shall be consid- ered and spared. ODIC-MAGXETIC LETTERS. 42 LETTER VII. MESMERISM. Mesmerism* the Therapeutic Application of Od. You will now ask me what — seen from our point of view — the so-called magnetising of man is, and per- haps you will suppose it to be the pivot about which my letters turn. This supposition would be in no wise correct, but yet magnetising is a very important side of odic phenomena. It has risen to great, prac- tical importance, and 'has led to what is called Mes- merism — that is to a system introduced into Medicine by Dr. Mesmer, of using the odic force as a remedial agent in disease. Mesmer, looking at the matter from the condition of science in his day, supposed the prin- ciple to be Magnetism, and called it Animal Magnet- ism. The names Od and Mesmerism will not inter- fere with each other ; the former is a universal force and belongs to the widest domain of science ; the lat- ter is a specific application of that force in therapeutics and comes within the domain of the medical art. Let us now go back to my fifth letter, where I in- vited you, with the light of the general principles pre- viously arrived at, to take a swift flight through the confused territory of the so-called animal magnetism. You know that wherever you touch a sensitive with your lingers, an influence, that may be felt and may be seen in the dark, is exercised upon him. But it is not necessary that there should be an actual touch — tlie mere proximity cf your lingers will produce its effect. This emanation, which is seen in the dark to extend far beyond the lingers, reaches the body to which they approach, and works upon it. At a dis- tance? of several inches you can produce powerful at- tractions; and yon may l»e fell l»v demi-sensitives at the distance of a loot, or even of several i'eet. This MESMEEISM. 43 goes so far in the high sensitives that I have had cases where the influence was felt at the surprising distance of twenty and thirty, and even more, steps. Experiment with Magnetic Passes. Hitherto we have considered only still touches — contact without motion. But now I invite you to make passes with the points of your fingers, with your flat hand, with the pole of a crystal, or with a magnet, over any part of the body of a sensitive. Put, for instance, the fingers of your right hand on the left shoulder of your sensitive, and stroke his arm gently and slowly downwards to the elbow, or continue the stroke downwards to the ends of his fingers. As with the still contact, so here with the moving touch, you will produce an influence along the whole line ; you will cause a cool stripe, which may be considered as a chain of innumerable cool points. This is called " a pass " by physicians. Try similar strokes over other parts — over the left side of the head, the left side of the body, over the left foot out to the toes, and you will leave a cool sensation all the way along. Making similar strokes with your left hand over his right side, exerts a similar influence ; the poles are unlike. Finally, with both your hands make passes over his whole person from his head to his feet, and he will feel an agreeable sensation of coolness and rest throughout his body ; and these strokes which you have just made, are what Mesmer and all the so-called Magnetic physicians called Mesmeric, or Animal-Mag- netic passes. You can now magnetise. In this process, as you readily perceive, it is a matter of indifference whether the stroke be made with the hands, or with crystal poles, or with mag> nets, and whether they be made in contact with the bare skin, over clothing, at a distance of half a span,- or of a yard ; in every case the effect will be the same, 44 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. only the strength will diminish with the increase of the distance. We are now ready to infer that Mesmerism or the influence exercised by strange odic emanations, on the unlike sides of a sensitive person, is the essence of magnetizing. If you make the passes in the dark, the sensitives see the fiery brushes of the stroking fingers, or poles, rub down over them; they see, also, that, where these flames strike on their own bodies, a spot of stronger light appears, and moves along down- wards with the course of the stroke. From this phe- nomenon of light, as well as from the accompanying feeling of coolness, you recognize clearly that the opera- tor exercises, upon the organism of the subject, a charm which must be called significant ; that the od which streams out with a blue light upon those parts which have a red light — that is, unlike poles coming in contact — has a peculiar influence ; and, since the human body is a strong producer of od, and, since the odic force has a large share in its vital operations, so it may be understood that the odic passes take a deep hold on the physical and spiritual relations of man. The creation of sleep or restlessness, beneficial and prejudicial effects, or diseased disturbances of the body, influences by the laying on of hands and strokes, and such like, are, therefore, not " a lamentable maze of lying and deceit, and superstition," as has been as- serted, but they are physiological facts, occurring in accordance with natural laws, and well established by experience. Only those who have never given them- selves the trouble to investigate them, can express such raw opinions in regard to them. The Value of Od as a Therapeutic Agent. If you ask me about the actual benefit which the healing science is to obtain from the use of odic passes, MESMERISM. 45 I must admit that it appears to me as yet very limited and uncertain, although I cherish the conviction that it will he immeasurably great when the nature and physiology of od shall have been developed. The magnetizers declare, as Mesmer did 80 years ago, that they can heal nearly all diseases. Every physician, to whatsoever school he may belong, imagines that when a sick man gets well the cure is due to him and his art; why should not the magnetic physician cherish a similar satisfaction with himself? We others know well that among twenty who recover, nineteen get well by the force of nature and in spite of the doctors. This much I have found to be uni- versally true, that whenever a hand of the unlike odic pole, is laid on the human body, there is an increased activity of the vital functions, not superficial alone, but reaching to the deepest organs. Therefore, when- ever a local relaxation or weakness occurs, this new life and activity can be called forth. This is a great and comprehensive general result, which wise physicians well know how to value. In particular, I think the influence of od on cramps is decisive ; I have cured them at will innumerable times, and have caused them also. But when I have observed physicians operating at the sick bed, I have seen them, with rare excep- tions, making experiments contrary to all sound rules of the odic relations, and the consequence was the im- possibility that the patient should derive any benefit. Without the least knowledge of the essence and laws of a force so complicated as od, and following the road of a blind groping, what solid result could be expected ? But we may hope that when the nature of od, and its connection with the vital functions, shall have been made known by thorough scientific investigations, our physicians will begin to substitute a rational conduct instead of their previous blundering, to bring the in- fluence of od on the sick body under fixed laws, and 46 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. to draw some certain good for the world out of these extraordinary things, as it has long, with reason, ex- pected. LETTER VIII. CHEMICAL ACTION. The name Animal Magnetism Discarded. I HAVE explained what animal magnetism is ; it is not a magnetic but an odic influence on the human body, an influence which may be exercised by many other generators of od as well as by the magnet, which latter acts, in this matter, as a source of od for the occasion, and not as a magnet. We shall then discard the unsuitable word " animal magnetism," as obsolete. It arose in a time when the darkest and most confused ideas of these things prevailed, and it no longer agrees with the present position of theoretic enlightenment. But. before I lead you deeper into the affair on this side, I must make you better acquainted with the extent of od in nature. You know the od which emanates forever -and un- changeably, under the force of unknown causes, from the poles of crystals ; you know also the od which comes from the gradually exhausting source of the steel magnet ; finally, you know such od as springs from the transitory but living spring of organic lile. Now I will lead you to such od as blazes up momen- tarily and then quickly dies. This od is produced by chemical action and must be distinguished from affinity, which marks chemical power. CHEMICAL ACTION. 47 The Od of Effervescing and Fermenting Fluids. Open a bottle of champagne in the dark before a sensitive person ; with pleased astonishment he will see a fiery ray follow the flying cork to the ceiling. The whole bottle will then appear in a white glow, as if it were of illuminated snow, and over it will be a light waving cloud. Since you personally see nothing of all these charming fire -works, you will know at once that it is an odic phenomenon, and if you wish to understand it, you must follow me in some experi- ments. Throw a spoonful of finely pulverized sugar or table salt into a glass of water in the dark. While in dry powder the sugar or salt did not attract the attention of your sensitive, but now that you stir them about in water, he at once sees the glow and the water full of light. If he holds it in his left hand, he will feel it become cold. Simple solution there- fore develpos od ; it is a source of od. Put a wire of iron, copper or zinc in a glass containing diluted sulphuric acid : the whole wire will glow, and from its upper end a blaze will soon arise, with a shape much like that of the flame of a common candle, but infinitely weaker in its light. At the top it will go off into smoke with many little sparks, which stream vertically upward. The wire will appear to the left hand of a sensitive person much colder than it was before. The dissolving of metals in acids therefore is also a source of od. Prepare a soda powder for drinking; first dissolve the soda in a half a glass of water in the dark, and it will lighten. Then in ano- ther glass dissolve the tartaric acid, which will lighten still more. At the end of a few minutes when both shall have become dark, pour the contents of one glass into the other, and immediately the mixture will make a bright light, a large white flame will arise from the glass, which if held in the left hand will also give a 48 ODIC-MAGXETIC LETTERS. strong sensation of cold. Chemical decomposition then develops od in large quantity. Make a solution of sugar of lead and pour it into a solution of alum; the whole fluid will become visible in the dark. Place the pole wires of a voltaic pile in water, and as soon as the decomposition commences your sensitive will see the water glow and become lighter, and the vessel containing it will be cold in his left hand. All chem- ical action develops od rapidly and freely, but the source exhauts itself as soon as the play of the affi- nities is at an end. If the stopper be taken out of a bottle of alcohol, pure ether, sulphuret of carbon, (schvjefelkohlenstoff) salt ammoniac, or pare eupion with a specific gravity of 65, and the air be not disturbed by the breath or otherwise, a sensitive person will see in the dark a light column ascend vertically, the more rapidly in proportion to the volatility of the substance. At the same time the fluid in the bottle will be luminous. But not only substances so volatile as those mentioned, but also others, such as quicksilver with its exceed- ingly weak power of evaporation drive a flame of light up through the mouth of the bottle. Solid bodies, such as camphor, also glow, particularly iodine, which sends up a bright light smoke, and itself becomes as if incandescent. All sweet fermenting fluids give forth a constant light ; die air bubbles arise through them like glowing pearls. The juice of the grape when fermenting is all iirc. The bursting out of your champagne with fire and flame will now explain itself to you without my assistance. Putrefaction is also a stage of fermentation, and therefore all putrifying substances give out a light. We all know that Ion-- aor> from the teaching about phosphorescence ; but we have not yet considered how nearly this is related to the od light ; and al- CHEMICAL ACTION. 49 though we non-sensitives see no trace of phosphores- cence in putrifying substances, they are yet full of light to the eyes of the sensitive. The Od from Decomposing Corpses. And since we are occupied with decomposition, we are not far from the dead. Follow me a moment into the kingdom of the dead, under my promise to bring you back soon enriched by an instructive glance at their nightly doings. You certainly know that the departed souls of the dead wander in garments of fire, for a time, about their graves, until they have atoned for their sins and have obtained eternal rest ? You look at me in doubt? Bat I am in earnest for these ghosts have been seen ; you can find enough witnes- ses. You must, however, have heard that it is not given to everybody to see ghosts, but that only certain persons are chosen to perceive them. All this fell warm upon my heart, while I was investigating, with a sensitive, the nature of the light caused by the pu- trefaction of fish. I wished to know whether I could not get acquainted with the fiery dead. Miss Leo- poldine Reichel consented to be taken, one very dark night, to the Gruenzing graveyard, near Vienna, not far from my dwelling. This was in November, 1844, and the result was, that she saw fiery apparitions over many graves. Afterwards, when she was taken to the great cemeteries of Vienna, she saw a multi- tude of graves covered by moving flames. They made uniform movements, hither and thither, almost like a row of dancers, or of soldiers exercising. Some were large, almost like men, others small, creeping on the ground, like dwarfish sprites. But all were in the rows of the fresh graves ; the old graves had no fiery watchmen. Miss Reichel approached them hesitat- ingly, and, as she drew near, the human forms disap- peared ; she saw that they were only light vapors, 50 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. such as she had seen in my dark chamber in a thous- and shapes. She then ventured up to them and found nothing but a bright mist ; she stepped into one ; it rose to her neck, and she could break it by the mov- ing of her clothes. The dancing and exercising was found to be caused by the motion of the wind, which had played with all of them alike. On another occa- sion I sent four sensitive persons to the Sievring graveyard. It was so dark, that several of them fell down repeatedly on the w T ay. Bat when they came to the graves they all saw the fiery ghost-like forms, more or less plainly, according to the different degrees as their sensitive excitability. One of them drew figures in the earth of one of the fresh graves with the handle of her umbrella, and the marks were visible in the increased light over the furrows. What was, what is this ? Nothing more than the putrefying miasms which emanate from graves and which rise over them into the air, where the wind plays with them ; and fear interprets their flickering in the air to be the dancing of living ghosts : it is carbonate of ammonia, phosphoretted hydrogen, and other known and unknown products of decomposition which in the course of evaporation give out the odic light. When the decomposition ends, the lights disappear and the dead are permitted to rest. But my friend, we must do justice to our old women ; we must make an apology. The fiery ghosts over the graves do, in fact and truth, exist ; their existence can never be denied ; we must, whether we like it or not, admit it to them, and they have the right on their side. Yes, even that the gliosis cannot be seen by everybody, but only by the chosen, the Bentitives, and we must confess, with shame, the truth of it. It is not (heir fault that we have so long failed to comprehend what they have asseverated for cen- turies. OD DEVELOPED BY SOUND AND FRICTION. 51 LETTER IX. OD DEVELOPED BY SOUND AND FKICTION. Experiments with Glasses and Bells. With my last letter we drove superstition out of the den in which she has hidden herself for centuries ; to-day we will give her another chase. Let us examine further about the extent of od in nature. In Octo- ber, 1851, I had Mr. Enter, a mechanic of Vienna, and a middle-sensitive, in my dark chamber, and tried whether sound did not bear some relation with od. I procured the bell-glass of an air pump, and while I held it in my hand by the knob, stmck it carefully with a key. When it sounded, it gave out a light and was visible. The stronger the blows, the brighter the light. A metallic bar, a horseshoe magnet, struck so as to rino;, o-rew in brightness. A metallic bell of a strong, sharp ton, when struck a number of times in rapid succession became so luminous that a bright light pervaded the whole room, so that all sensitives saw it. When a violin was played upon, not only the strings but the whole sounding board £ave out light. Bodies which rang when struck, not only glowed with od, but emitted a light on all sides ; they were as if surrounded with the halo of a saint. Every tumbler, which I struck with a knife, as we do to call a ser- vant, put on a garment of light, bright in proportion as the tone was high. The glass quivered like the sound. The brightest was always that point which I struck. I then had the sensitives to put their hands inside of such glass and metallic bells, but so as not to touch them, and when the bells were struck I was told that 52 ODIOMAGNETIC LETTERS. the left hands felt a cool and the right ones a lukewarm sensation. So there was here a perception of od, oi the same pole with that of the blue rays of the sun, and the point of the crystal and the north pole of the magnet. In a word, I had the satisfaction of having found a new and strong source of od in sound. Experiments with Friction. In July, 1844, I tried an experiment with friction. I placed in the left hand of Maria Maix one end of a copper wire, the other end being fastened into a little board. When I rubbed this board with another like it, a sensation of warmth was felt by Miss Maix's hand. If I rubbed the wire on a grindstone, the whole wire glowed with od, and was covered with a blaze, and from its turned-up end a flame, like that of a candle, arose. As a counterproof, I put one end of the glass tube of a barometer in a tumbler of water, and held the other end on a swiftly revolving little whet- stone. The tube and the water became all aglow. Sensitives testing the water found it lukewarm, bit- terish and nauseating, and one lady whom I persuaded to drink the contents of a full glass, was soon after- wards taken with violent and repeated iits of vomit- ing. A lively development of od by friction was thus placed beyond doubt. This led, in its application, to an event from which I promise myself that you will derive pleasure. I wished to know whether the rub bin £ of fluids could also betray od. In fact, closed bottles containing alcohol, ether, acetic acid, turpentine, and kreosote, were all filled with light when they were shaken in the dark. Water, shaken in the same way, also glowed, and caused a lukewarm disagreeable sensation in the left hand : and when it was again at rest it became invisible m a lew seconds, and by the re-action was OD DEVELOPED BY SOUND AND FRICTION. 53 cooling. Then a singular idea occured to me ; do not be frightened, it was nothing more nor less than the much abused divining rod. The water-hunters, the spring-finders arose in my memory. How, thought I, if the shaking of water sets od in motion, could not its flow have the effect ? To try this, I wrapped a glass tube in paper, placed it in the left hands of. various sensitives, and poured into it from a glass bottle and through a glass funnel a continuous stream of water. All the sensitives found that a sensation of warmth came to them through the paper, so long as the water ran, and whenever I stopped the water a cool' sensa- tion followed. If the experiment was tried in the dark, the water in the funnel and through the whole length of the tube was full of light. There was no room to doubt that the simple flowing of water through a tube developed od; but my hopes increased. I now took Miss Zinkel, a demi-sensitive, out into the park which surrounds my country home. I knew the di- rection of a water pipe which was under a large wooded meadow, but is not perceptible on the surface of the ground. I let her go slowly across the meadow, so that she would cross the course of the water pipe. When she came near it, I saw her hesitate, stop, turn, go backwards and go forwards, and then stand still. Here, she said, she felt up to her knees, particularly in her left foot, a lukewarm disagreeable sensation, such as she had not felt in any other part of the mea- dow. She stood, in fact, immediately over the pipe, through which a brook ran for half a mile to the farm. I repeated the experiment with several other sensi- tives, and obtained the same result invariably ; and see the divining rod rises from the deep disgrace into which it has been cast by ignorance and undeserved ridicule ! Not the rod as such — that may well have been a mere cloak, in which the truth lay hidden, unable to obtain recognition. And now ! The moving 54 ODIC-MAGXETIC LETTERS. of the divining rod is nothing more than the influence of the od developed by the running water and felt by the sensitive. Sourcier the famous Water-Finder. Monsieur Sourcier, in France, the celebrated water- finder, who was sent for from afar, and who was wonderfully successful in finding underground waters, is surely nothing more than a high sensitive ; when- ever lie steps over a subterranean current, he feels its odic influence in his excitable body ; and by the acute- ness of his sensation he can draw an inference in regard to the depth of the fluid from the surface ; and by practice he has acquired the skill which has gained for him the wonder and gratitude of half the French world. His secret, which was a mystery to himself, and which he could not explain, is now exposed, and probably we shall soon have in Germany hundreds of successful water- finders, both men and women, all higdi sensitives. The divining rod is now the com- mon property of all the world. LETTER X. THE OD OF HEAT AND ELECTRICITY. The Sensitive gets cold before a Fire. It is self-evident that such powerful agents as heat and electricity must bear an important relationship to od. But the complication of facts is so great that I must confine myself to a few to bring them within the narrow limits of these letters of abbreviations. Let a high sensitive sit a few steps off from a wood fire, or throw some pieces of potassium on water, or burn some alcohol in a dish, or place a chafing dish full of THE OD OF HEAT AND ELECTJilCITY. 55 live coals before him, and ask him what sensation he feels, of course you will expect him to say, i; warmth. " Both you and he will be astonished when he says that coolness is the predominating sensation which all these fires causes him to feel. Put one end of a cane of light wood in his left hand, and set fire to the other end ; he will perceive that the stick becomes cold in his hand as it burns. Let him hold an iron rod, a glass wand, or a porcelain tube over the chimney of an argand lamp, and he will tell you, while shaking his head, that they all grow cold. The explanation of this anomaly in the laws of caloric is that in heat- ing as in burning, od is developed. Lead a wire of any metal about an eighth of an inch thick into the dark chamber, leaving one end outside. Heat the outer end in a charing dish. When it begins to grow warm in the fire, your sensitive sees a little flame arise from the end in the dark chamber. Experiments with Electricity. Without dwelling longer on this point of the sub- ject, I shall hasten to electricity, but only to dispatch it in a few lines. The predominating sensation which all sensitives feel when they are led near to large bodies, positively electric, is coolness. But the rub- bing of an electric substance causes lukewarmness, while fur exhales coolness. Strike a cake of rosin briskly with the tail of a fox, in the dark, and the sensitive will see a flame about a foot and a half high arise from it. The tail will resemble a white glowing roller. The flame on the cake will disappear in the course of a few minutes. But so Ions; as it flickers it will give out a phosphorescent smoke, which will rise to the ceiling, and flatten out against it, like what you already know of crystals and magnets. I have a large electric machine. When it is still, demi-sen- 56 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. sitives usually see nothing of it in the dark; when the plate is set to revolving, though no electric light be visible, yet the whole machine becomes phosphor- escent with odic light. Some of the sensitives com- pared it to a laden lime wagon, as having a similar white appearance. A charged Ley den jar was full of light. When a Levden iar was discharged through a wire, the latter became luminous for four or five minutes. At the moment of the discharge the sensi- tives saw a bright light passing lightning-like along o or o O o i o the wire, and they minutely described its direction, which was from the inner to the outer coat. In regard to the voltaic pile I shall here mention only that the united wire of the two poles becomes not only glowing bright, but is surrounded by a snow-like light which rushes swiftly round it. It is reasonable to suppose these tacts alone would suffice to excite a lively inter- est among scientific men in regard to od. Ampere's Screw, of the voltaic pile, which they have inferred by an infinite exertion of learned talent is now shown to be perceptible to every sensitive child, which can see it and describe it with all its details. And finally, beyond doubt, sensitive natural philosophers will be found as I have found at least a dozen sensitive pli \ - sicians. But how long it may be before the interest of natural philosophers will set itselt in motion is more than I know. A annth and electricity are then powerful sources of od, but I must deny myself the privilege of dis- playing here the wealth of phenomena which they offer. (Some details on these points will be found in Reichenbach's Dynamic* of Magnetism.) In their place, 1 will lead you to some of the last and most important of the sources of od. THE OD OF HEAT AND ELECTRICITY. 57 The Odic Lights and Colors of Metals. Herr Anschuetz, now captain in the Austrian army, a good demi-sensitive, lay sick in Baden, and during his illness his sensitiveness increased greatly. While lying sleepless on his bed it occurred to him that when- ever the nights were very dark, he could see the lock, hinges and bolts on his door, though everv thing else in the room was invisible. He saw that their light appeared to come from within rather than from with- out. Others, tut only high sensitives, saw light coming from all metallic furnishings, all keys, all gilded objects in their rooms, every nail on the wall. I placed a specimen card of many metals before many high sensitives, who saw them all in the dark, some brighter, others darker. A glass case full of silver plate gradually grew to be full of fine fire. Coal, sele- nium, iodine and sulphur were all found to be lumi- nous. The light was a phosphorescent glow, as though they were translucent : the sensitives could see into them. Besides the glow, the sensitives saw above these substances, flame-like emanations, losing them- selves in smoke, such as we have seen about other concentrated emissions of od ; and in the former as well as in the latter cases, these flames could be made to nicker and be blown away by the breath, and they in many cases, throw light on the fingers, in which the objects were held. The colors of different sub- stances varied greatly, and this variation gave a good test of the correctness of the statements of the sensi- tives. Everything of copper was glowing red, sur- rounded by a green flame; tin, lead, palladium and cobalt blue; bismuth, zinc, osmium, titanium, and sodium red ; silver, gold, platina, antimony and cad- mium white ; nickel and chrome yellowish green ; iron variegated, with the colors of the rainbow ; arsenic, coal, iodine and selenium red, and sulphur blue. The 3* 58 ODIOMAGNETIC LETTEKS. blueness of the sulphur was often seen by demi-sen- sitives. Even compound substances were luminous, some of them remarkably so. For instance the obro- mine was white, paraban acid beautifully blue, cal- cined lime red. I placed several hundred chemical preparations in a portable collection, kept it in the dark, and opened it only in the darkness of the dark chamber. Demi-sensitives saw only some of them ; to high sensitives they were all luminous. Even the stone walls of the dark chamber, after the high sensi- tives had been shut up in it for some time, began to be visible with a faint light ; and this went so far that at last my sensitives could see every thing in the room as at the breaking of dawn ; yes they took me, myself being perfectly blind with the darkness, and led me securely about among my apparatus. Od Pervades the whole Universe. Everything then is luminous with od ; everything, everything ! We are in a world full of phosphorescent matter. Porous bodies are the least luminous, such as cotton and woolen cloths, wood and clay ; all stoves give out light ; among the inorganic bodies, metals and the simple elements generally are the most luminous. This source of light from everything that exists is weaker than all heretofore mentioned, but on the other hand it is infinite in extent. And this light is odic. It is, because it lias all the characteristics of od, and causes the same sensations. Place a piece of any metal, some sulphur, iodine, coal or graphite, on a little board of linden-wood, and let a high sensitive hold his hollow left hand over and near it, and he will feel a cool or lukewarm sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, from every one of them, the sensations being strong in proportion as the light is bright. Or, give to a sensitive a variety of substances, one after another, solid or liquid, open or hermetically THE OD OF HEAT AND ELECTRICITY. 59 sealed in glass, in his bare or gloved hand, and he will feel a peculiar sensation from every one, particu- larly from sulphur, bromine, bi-chlomate of potash, oxygen gas, arsenic, quicksilver, and copper. He can, by his feeling, distinguish and classify every sub- stance by its odic character. Thus, we arrive at the deduction that concentrated od flows not only from a few sources, but is a univer- sal force of nature, unequally distributed, but. pervad- ing everything, like heat, electricity, affinity, and gravity, are. It fills the largest, as well as the smallest, bodies in the universe. LETTER XL COMMON ODIC INFLUENCES. Disagreeable Effects of Mirrors and Pewter Spoons. Do you remember my remark that some most beau- tiful women shun the mirror? In my last letter you will have found the explanation of tins. Quicksilver is one of those metals which re-act most disagreeably lukewarm on sensitive persons. When such a person approaches a large looking-glass, he feels the painful quicksilver influence poured out all over him ; he feels as though a lukewarm, nauseating breath were blow- ing on him ; he feels himself driven away, and, if he binds defiance to the pressure, he feels pain in the stomach, headache and a disposition to vomit ; he must go away. This goes so far, with the increase of experience, that high-sensitives shudder at the sight of a lookingglass, and turn its face to the wall, if they cannot ^et rid of it otherwise. 60 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. Leu us now consider the nausea caused by spoons of pewter and imitations of* silver. Copper, which is the main element in these compounds, is a strong odic body, and exercises a very lukewarm and disagreeable influence. It may be covered as deep as you please with silver plating, the odic influence of the copper will still predominate, will be intolerable even to demi- sensitives, and will cause pain in the stomach, cramps of the tongue and lockjaw. Often enough have I heard from sensitive women that they could not carry any jewelry because it was painful to them; that they could not wear a metallic thimble, but must have one of ivory ; that they could not wear steel corset- springs ; that they could not wear a steel-cornb ; yes, that they could even bear to wear hair-pins ; and all this was caused by odic action. The Theory of Treasure-Seekers. For sensitive girls, who are employed in household service, brass mortars, copper kettles, and particularly smoothing-irons, are objects of aversion. The esteemed factory-owner, in Azgersdorf, near Vienna, Mr. J. Fichtner, a good demi-sensitive, has had all brass pots and pans removed from his kitchen; it was in- tolerable for him to eat or drink anything cooked in brass. If a piece of metal be placed under paper, high sensitives can detect the place by moving the hollow of their hand over the paper, and taking care to notice the odic sensations. Do you not now ti ink, involuntarily of the ninth leticr, in which I spoke about the running of water and Monsieur Sourcier? If a quantity of gold, or some other metal, were buried in the earth near the surface, a high .sensitive would detect its presence more readily than my demi-sensi- tives found the water- pipes in the park. Suppose, now, that there were a vein of lead, copper ore, or red 6ilver ore, not far below the surface, as they are often COMMON ODIC INFLUENCES. 61 found, if a high sensitive were to walk over them, with attention, he would feel them and be able to tell their position. Stone-coal exercises an odic influence dif- ferent from those of sandstone and slate, in which it is found. If the sensitive has paid attention, before- hand, to the sensations which coal causes, he will readily recognize them, when he approaches a vein of coal. Non-sensitive men will not be able to feel any- thing, but the high sensitive will be able to say, with certainty, " Here or there, this or that mineral may be found in the earth," and, by digging, proof will be found of the correctness of the assertion, which appears so much the more wonderful from the fact that the treasure-finder can give no satisfactory explanation of the manner in which he made his discoveries. The marvel is now exposed : it is a purely physical effect of the odic force on the human nerves ; it works like a dark sense, of which we can give no explanation ; and a multitude of instinctive actions, among brutes, will find their explanations in the same way. And now, my friend, you have the whole secret of the di- vining rod ; not of the rod in its literal sense, and of its rising, falling and turning ; these were only the hocus-pocus for the inquisitive crowd, who would not be satisfied until they could see something. Importance of Gd in Mining". You perceive from this, how great the practical im- portance of sensitiveness, and what a career it is des- tined to have. These sensitives, with the cataleptics, lunatics and somnambulists, will soon be sought, bought, and counted, as the benefactors of their neighr boihoods and countries. To mining, this discovery promises an extraordinary development, and this not only by the discovery of new beds of ore, but also for the running of their shafts underground, when the stratum eludes the miner, when the veins break, when 62 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. the leads are lost. Whither shall the miner turn to make new drifts ? Shall the broken vein be sought above or below? The most thorough mining knowl- edge often leaves the miner without a clue in such cases ; but, in many of them, the practised sensitive would, in a few minutes, find the proper place to dig. Sensitiveness Susceptible of Cultivation. The sensitive perception is susceptible of an extra- ordinary cultivation. When I get new subjects, their statements are exceedingly wavering at first. After two or three sittings, everything gains clearness and definiteness; longer experience with these sensitives gives preciseness and readiness to their perception, and I have demi-sensitives who, by a practice of six or seven years, have attained an acuteness of percep- tion often superior to that of the inexperienced high sensitives. Such persons will hereafter be of much value to detect the debasement of metals. A high sensitive can easily distinguish pure gold or silver from that alloyed with copper. These persons can be educated so as to distinguish adulterations and mixtures, and to know, for instance, whether a medi- cine has lost its active principle by exposure. Yes, I shall probably hereafter explain to you what sur- prising discoveries high sensitives can make by merely touching the bodies of the sick. LETTER XII. THE DISCHARGE AND TRANSFER OF OD. Dischargibility of Od. You know, now, the most important sources of Od, at least, so far as I have been able to discover them. THE DISCHARGE AND TRANSFER OF OD. 63 Crystals, the sun, moon, magnets, plants, men, beasts, chemical action, fermentation, putrefaction, sound, friction, the motion of water, heat, electricity, and, finally, the whole material world — all cause these wonderful perceptible and visible phenomena, not at- tributable to any force heretofore known, but possess- ing a common character, which marks them as belong- ing to the same class^ and entitles them to a special place in the domain of physics. We shall now con- sider some of the properties of the principle which lies at the foundation of these phenomena. The first property which attracts attention in od is its dischargibility. [I am compelled to coin this last word, Translator.'] A body which is hot or electric discharges its heat or electricity on others near it, because those forces are conductible. In this respect od is like them. You have seen that a glass of water held at the pole of a magnet or crystal, or touched by a glass wand while the latter is being rubbed, or ex- posed to the sun's or moon's rays, or placed in the red or blue rays of the prism, assumed odic qualities. You might have used any other substance in the place of the water. Take a bit of wood, a skein of yarn, a watch, a porcelain saucer, a little stone, a piece of sugar, or anything that may come in your way ; let a sensitive hand hold it and try it, and then give it to him again after having exposed it for a few minutes to some od-emitting pole, and he will find that it has changed ; he will say that it is either warmer or colder. And observe, too, that the change will ex- actly correspond to the sensation which he would have received directly from the od-emitting pole ; the odiried (geodet) substance will have the same polar condition with the odifier, and not the opposite condition, as is the rule with magnetism. Nothing more then has taken place than that the od-emitting pole has communi- cated toother indifferent bodies within its influence, 64 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. the same odic condition with which it was itself over- flowing. This is communication which is to be care- fully distinguished from induction. The former is odic effect ; the latter is a peculiar magnetic influence on other bodies. All the various tumblers of water, which you have exposed to different generators of od were laden with od, odified, and the change which took place in it must be considered analogous with that which takes place in a glass of water when it is warmed or cooled: it is the same water: nothing tangible has been added to it : it is a dynamic change which is perceptible to the sense of taste. You can prove this with the odic light. Lead a copper wire from the daylight into the dark chamber; then consecutively touch the end outside with a strong crystal pole, or magnet, rub it with a file, stick it in a glass of effervescing soda water, hold it over a coal- fire, and discharge an electrical machine through it, and in all these cases your sensitive will see a smoking little flame with sparks issuing from the wire so long as the od-einitter is held at the other end. The od discharged upon the wire will give it a brighter light, and will visibly stream out and lose itself in the air. Od discharged with the Breath. In like manner there is a constant streaming out of od from your fingers, from your toes, from all parts of your body; and this is a discharging of od upon the air. One of the strongest discharges of this kind is constantly going on through the breath of all living creatures, it is known that there is a lively chemical aclion in the lungs; and od, according to Its rule, is developed, discharges itself upon the air in the living chambers, and is then exhaled. Mrs. Cecilia Bauer, the strong, healthy, and yet highly sensitive wife of an inn-keeper in Vienna, told me with some anxiety, THE DISCHARGE AND TRANSFER OF OD. 65 that when she awoke in the perfectly dark night, she always saw her husband and child lying at her side, both luminous, and from their mouths ascended at every exhalation a cloud of luminous vapor. That was the od-laden breath, which nearly all sensitives see in the dark, issuing from their mouths like tobacco smoke. Think yourself back now to ray first letter, in the full omnibus of the railway car, where a sensitive is crowded in among others, to his great discomfort from the reaction of like-named od. But now the air in the close apartment is soon laden and overladen with od from so many human bodies and breathings of so many lungs ; and the sensitive can not draw a breath without inhaling as much od as it is absolutely neces- sary for him to exhale ; and fancy his torture when he is forbidden to open a window. He is in agony and others about him think his pain is all imaginary. Hereafter you will not deny him your sympathy and your aid. It will aso be clear to you why a high sensitive cannot bear to stay in crowded rooms, parti- cularly if the ceiling be low. The air is overloaded with od ; he feels warm and uncomfortable, and if he cannot escape he becomes ill-humored and crabbed. The longer he must remain, the more ill he feels. So it goes too with the sensitive in bed. His od- emanations charge the pillows, covers and matrasses, and then he becomes uncomfortable and uneasy. They twist about, and turn round and keep moving until they get their covers off, and then they begin to be still. A highly sensitive is always restless, a bad bed fellow, and from his constitution cannot be other- wise. His clothing is always loaded with od from that part of his body which they cover : and the conse- quence is a lukewarm disagreeable feeling. The sen- sitive therefore is always uncomfortable while at rest, 66 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. and only while moving about does he feel relieved by the removal of the od. For that reason he wears little clothing. He feels a continuous impulse to change his position and occupation. Conductibility of Od. Od may not only be discharged on all other bodies but may be conducted from one to another by a con- ducting medium. We had a proof of that when your sensitive held the wand in the sunshine. The od of the sun's rays poured through the wand into his hand, fastening a piece of wood on the end of a metallic rod, put a wax candle on the end of the rod, and tie a silk thread over the end of the wax. Let your sensitive handle this composite stick of wood, metal and wax for a few minutes and after he has accustomed himself to it, let him hold the wooden end in his left hand and do you take the silk thread in your right hand, after a few seconds you will hear that the stick is cool ; now take the thread in your left hand and he will feel a warmish disagreeable sen- sation. Put the thread on a crystal-pole, in the pris- matic rays, in moonshine, in a tumbler of effervescing soda water, in sulphur ; in every case you will trace the sensations corresponding to the source of the od. You may make conducting rods of sulphur, glass, silk, pitch, guttapercha, or any idio-electric body ; every one will be as good an od-conductor as metal. There is no insulator for this force, and therein lies the diffi- culty which it presents to every examination. But it is not necessary that the conducting rod, the end of which is held by the sensitive, should touch the body from which the od emanates : proximity is sufficient. Let the sensitive hold a glass wand in his hand, and you point ycur lingers at the other end of the wand near it but without touching it. You will soon hear that the sensation in his hand is just the ODIC DUALISM. 67 same as when you held the thread but weaker. Put a crystal pole, a cat's-paw, a piece of sulphur, a bit of bichromate of lime hermetically sealed in glass, or a bottle of fermenting wine-juice, in front of the wand, and in every case the sensitive hand will feel a sensa- tion corresponding to the odic nature of the substance. This harmonizes with the luminous emanations from all these bodies. Good conductors, such as metals, glass, silk, are luminous when charged, and are sur- rounded by a halo of light, whether the od is commu- nicated to them by touch or by mere proximity. LETTER XIII. " ODIC DUALISM. Dual Opposition Throughout Nature. Wherever you glance at nature you see dual oppo- sitions, and they are found also in the field to which we are now giving our attention. You have already observed some of them in crystals, and magnets, in both halves of men and beasts, with a reddish yellow od-light with a lukewarm disagreeable sensation on one side, and a bluish light witii a coolish sensation on the other. This opposition appears in innumerable forms in the odic phenomena, and belongs to its in- nermost essence. The Od-Chemical Order. Let us begin with the chemically simple elements. Place a little bottle of potassium in the left hand of your sensitive, and afterwards another containing flow- ers of sulphur. You will soon hear the declaration that the former gave him a lukewarm disagreeable sensation, and the latter a cool and pleasant one. Do the same with sodium, gold, platina, quick-silver, and copper on one side, and selenium, iodine, phosphorus, 68 ODIC- MAGNETIC LETTERS. tellurium, and arsenic on the other ; and of the for- mer class you will hear that they are lukewarm, and of the latter that they are cool, some stronger, some weaker. And you can use this gradual difference in odic power to put these substances in a row, with potassium at one end as the most lukewarm disagree- able, and oxygen at the other end as the coolest ; and if you examine this row critically, you will find with astonishment that with slight deviations, it is the same gradation discovered by chemists as showing the strength of affinity which various substances have for oxygen, and which is called the electro-chemical order. By an entirely different road we have arrived at the same result, to one which we must call the od- chemical order. It is not in the highest degree sur- prising that an ignorant, simple minded girl, by the mere touch with her fingers, should be able, within an hour to arrange all the simple elements, in an order, which cost the greatest minds, and the most learned men of our time more than half a century of untiring industry and the exertion of all their perspicacity to discover ? The great Berzelius, the creator of the electro-chemical system felt this keenly when I laid proof of the fact before him in Carlsbad ; but since his death the surviving chemists have not thought this trifle worthy of notice. One physiologist (Du Bois Iieymond in Karstens " FovUcHritte der Physik" Jahrgang, III p. 40) has even had the courage to assert that because Berzelius publicly and emphatically defended my investigations, he must be in his dotage; as a support to the error of his own opinion, he needed only to make the modest assertion that Berzelius had lost his wits. ODIC DUALISM. 69 Odic Polarity of Various Substances. In this odic order, the amorphous bodies taken alone, show no dual qualities, and each one must be consi- dered as unipolar, about as electricians consider soap as unipolar ; but all taken together and as such considered as the collective unity of all matter, the dual opposition appears strongly marked. Lukewarm, disagreeable sensations will be felt at one end of the row, and cool sensations at the other. There is an odic polarity in the material world ; and since the substances which are lukewarm in the left hand are the electro-positive, and the cool ones electro-negative, so in like manner, and as a natural consequence I style the former od-positive and the latter od-negative. Among compound substances, I found alkalies and alkaloids and everything which partakes of their cha- racter od-positive ; on the other side the haloid salts, most of the oxydes and acids od-negative ; organic substances, such as gum, starch, many fattyoils, and also p'araffine, were about in the middle between the two poles. Among crystals I have always found that the butt end gave oat a yellowish red light, and a lukewarm sensation to the left hand, while the point gave out a cool sensation and a blue light. This rule raav be followed even to the fibrous crystallizations, and to indurations where the crystalline forms are scarcely recognizable. The base of the crystal is therefore od-positive and the point od-negative. The Odic Polarity of Magnetism, Light Friction, etc., etc. Magnets are lukewarm and red-luminous, and od- positive at the pole which turns to the South ; cool, blue and od-negative at the north pole. (Some phy- sicists [see Liebigs Handworterbuch der C/ie?nie, vol. v., p. 34] state that the north pole of the magne- 70 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. tic needle is magneto-positive, without giving their reasons ; in consequence of oclic discoveries I must doubt the correction of this statement ; od-positive and electro-positive go together as we have seen ; magneto-positive must keep company with them ; and consequently the north pole of the needle which has a blue odic light must be magneto-negative.) Heat, chemical action and sound have, in the experiments hitherto made with them, shown only od-negative effects, friction only od-positive. The experiments in regard to the odic oppositions must be extended. Those rays of polarized sunlight which pass through, are od-positive ; those which are thrown back, od-ne- gative. In the spectrum, the red flame-yellow and yellow rays and those underlined with red are all od- positive ; the blue, violet and the chemical rays are od-negative. The same remarks are true of the moon- spectrum, and it even applies to the weak spectrum of the Argand lamps. The Odic Polarity of the Animal Frame. Animals, particularly men, are od-positive on the left side from top to toe ; and negative on the right side. The odic poles show themselves most strongly in the fingers and toes ; and in these again most strongly at the roots of the nails, the spots of the most lively organic activity in the whole hand. We may then say that man is polarized sidewise ; but he also has other but less strongly marked polar axes, lengthwise and dcpthwisc, the explanation of which, however, in these brief letters I must deny myself. Strengthen your conviction of the polarity of the human frame by some further easy experiments. Lay a sheet of clean blue paper before a sensitive and let him look at first witli one eye and then with the other, and so alternating three or four times. He will ODIC DUALISM. 71 find the sight with the left eye agreeable, with the right disagreeable. The left eye is od-positive ; the blue color as you know is od-negative ; consequently the unlike poles met and had a pleasant influence ; in the other case, where the right eye looked upon the blue, the like poles met and an unpleasant sensation followed. Prove this experiment by trying a similar one with orange colored paper ; in every case you get the same results, but with the eyes reversed. But you see too from these delicate experiments that the dislike for yellow colors and the preference for blue ones among sensitive persons is caused chiefly by taking the impression with the left eye, and that the influence on this side predominates in the conscious- ness over the sensations received through the right eye. Having covered your left eye, look with your right at a short distance into the left of a sensitive, his right being also covered, and he will find it not unpleasant. Now look with your left into his left ; he will imme- diately become restless, and cannot keep still for half a minute ; and if you attempt to compel him he will turn away. If he is a high sensitive, a fixed look, at you in this position for a short time will affect him so strongly, that for some seconds he will not be able to see out of that eye : yes, if you compel him to persist, it will often happen that he must vomit. The look of the left eye at the left is the pairing of like poles, and it is intolerable to the sensitive. The Od-polar Opposition of the two Sexes. May there not be also an odic dualism in the oppo- sition of the two sexes ? I put this question to na- ture in the following simple experiment. I put a man and woman bofore a sensitive lady, and placed a glass of water in the hand of each, at the end of six minutes, 72 ODIC-MAGXETIC LETTERS. when the water had been changed with negative od, I allowed the sensitive to taste the water of both glasses. She found both cool, but the water from the hand of the man was cooler and more agreeable than that from the hand of the woman. I then tried the same experiment with a sensitive man. He found the wa- ter from the woman's hand the cooler. You see clearly that man and woman stand in an od-polar opposition You have noticed that in all the experiments of feeling I have used the left hand of jour sensitive, never the right one. I must now explain the cause of this. Coolness and luke-warmness are not abso- lute effects of outward irritations but only relative, and relating only to one side of the body ; on the other side the sensation is reversed. To prevent con- fusion in my representations. 1 made all my experi- ments refer to one side only, and that the left one, because the effects there are stronger and more distinct. I might have used the right hand, and the results would have been the same only with the opposed lights and sensations. LETTER XIV. ODIC LIGHT AND ITS SPECTRUM. An Odic Rainbow. YOUB heart has often warmed with admiration of the splendor of the rainbow in the brilliancy of day. 1 will undertake to lead you to a rainbow in the dark- ness of night. ( )ur low sensitive perceives at the two ends of a crystal in the dark nothing save a gray undefined va- por, something dimly visible amidst rayless night. ODIC LIGHT AND ITS SPECTRUM. 73 A demi-sensitive distinguishes that the light of one pole is bluish gray and blue, of the other yellow and orange, just like the light of the two hands. A high sensitive, finally, sees that these blue and yellow colors are not simple, but that other colors, such as green, red, orange, violet, shoot through them ; and that both the polar flames, carefully examined, have a variegated appearance ; though blue is the predo- minating; color of one flame and red of the other. A sensitive invalid sailor, Frederic Weidlich first drew my attention in February 1846 to the fact that these colors do not always play restlessly through each other, but that they lay in regular layers one over another when they are not disturbed by the mo- tions of the air. When I inquired for the order of their positions, I learned that the lowermost color was red darkened by smoke ; above this was flame-yellow, then bright yellow, then pale yellow, green-finch co- lored yellow, next green changing above into light blue, losing itself in smoky vapor, the whole spangled with bright little sparks or stars. The statements of this man have since then been confirmed to me by many other sensitives in a thousand experiments. But what is this save the prismatic order of colors ? The appearance of an iris in absolute darkness — what a wonderful sight ! All the high sensitives described it as the most splendid sight, that they had ever seen. Experiments with the Light from a Magnet. I set a magnetic bar upright, with its south pole up ; a reddish tinge pervaded all the rainbow-colors which settled over it. I turned the north end up- wards, and the vapor-bedimmed iris had a bluish cast. The bar was a quarter of an inch in diameter at the ends. To reduce the breadth of the ends, I covered it with a sharp iron cap ; the emanations of light 74 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. were thinner, more luminous, and larger, but the order of the colors remained the same. Instead of the single-pointed iron cap, I used one with two points ; flames burst now from both, one flame being blue and the other yellowish red. Finally, I used a cap with four points ; and each point showed a different color ; the first had a blue flame, the second a yellow one, the third a red one, and the fourth a whitish-gray one, all rising vertically upwards, side by side, from the four corners of the magnetic bar. In this man- ner I succeeded in separating some colors of this enig- matic iris from each other, and showing each inde- pendent of the rest. I turned the bar round on its vertical axis, and found that the flames did not turn with it, but kept their places, so that the point which at first bore the yellow flame, soon had the blue one over it, and so with the others. Thus it appeared that the colors were not dependent upon the bar, but on something else. This significance was soon found out; the points of the compass determined the position of the colors. The blue light always stood over the northern point; the yellow over the western, the red over the southern, and the grayish-white over the eastern. I might turn the bar with its four points as much as I would, the colors still remained stationary, preserving the position in regard to the points of the compass. Instead of the upright points, I fastened, horizon- tally upon the standing magnetic bar, a square plate of iron, a foot in diameter. Scarcely had it been placed on the bar, when the four corners of the plate began to send out horizontal flames, having the same colors and positions with those which came from the points. When I turned the plate round 45 degrees the mixed colors appeared, in the north-west green ; in the south-west orange ; in the south-east gray-red ; in the north-east violet. ODIC LIGHT AND ITS SPECTRUM. 15 I now took a circular plate of iron, and placed that on the bar. The beaut if ul phenomenon of a circular rainbow appeared. The lights streamed out on all sides of the plate. In the north all the shades of blue were visible, turning into green and all its varie- ties in the north-west, yellowish-green near the west, yellow, and orange, and red in the south, and gray- red, and gray in the east, changing again gradually to the blue of the north, except a clearly defined red stripe in the north-east. Experiments with a Terrel. Hereupon I had a hollow iron globe made, so long that I could not quite reach round it with both arms, and hung it, by a silk string, in the middle of my dark chamber. In the inside of it was an upright iron bar, wound round with six turns of copper wire, which I could connect with a voltaic pile of zinc and silver plates, made according to the method of Smee and Young. On the outside of the globe nothing of this bar was visible. At the moment when I changed the bar into an electro-magnet, my sensitives saw the swinging ball become luminous with variegated colors. Its whole surface glowed with the colors of the rain- bow. The globe was blue from pole to pole on the nothern side ; green in the north-west ; yellow in the west ; orange in the south-west ; red in the south ; gray-red in the south-est ; gray in the east, and return- ing blue, with red stripes, in the north-east. The colors formed perceptible lines side by side, separated always by darker lines. The whole ball was sur- rounded by a luminous vapor. The upper od-nega- tive half had a blueish tinge over its colors ; the lower od-positive hemisphere had a predominating reddish tinge. At the upper pole, over the north pole of the electro-magnet, a blue flame arose, four inches above the ball, and then, spreading out like an umbrella, 70 ODIC-MAGrNETIC LETTERS. streamed down over the sides of the globe, at a dis- tance of two or three inches from it. From the lower pole, where the south pole of the magnet was, a simi- lar flame ascended in red light around the ball. Both were divided and lost before reaching the equator. It is plain that I had made a terrel, after the man- ner of Barlow, a swinging globe, with a north and a south pole, provided with the proper magnetic pow- ers, and tried by the test of the odic lights. In fact, every one must see that the results are, to a surpris- ing extent, similar to those of the Aurora Borealis, and Aurora Australis, of our planet. They show still greater resemblances, on further investigation, than there is here room to explain, and they make it very probable that the "Northern-Lights" are positive od-lights. Thus we see, that all odic-lights are not of a single color, but on close examination, dissolve themselves in a regular iris. LETTER XV. TERRESTRIAL OD. Od and the Cardinal Points. If the position of the colors of the odic lights is governed by the points of the compass, as you saw in my last letter, these must have some further rela- tion to od. If a pocket-magnet, by means of its odic power, has already influence on these things, it is clear that magnetism, which proceeds from such an immense generator as the earth, and therefore called terrestrial magnetism, must have the greatest influence on all the odic phenomena of our sphere. This in- fluence is nothing more than the od which appears everywhere associated with magnetism, collects about TEICRESTEIAL OD. 77 the earth's poles, and from them operates upon the whole planet. It may be called terrestrial od. You saw that that pole of the magnet, which causes an odic sensation of coolness in the hand, as electro- negative bodies do, turns to the north, when allowed to move freely on the compass-box ; we must there- fore recognize it as negative, also the odic pole asso- ciated with it. And, since the pole of the earth which attracts it, must be of an unlike pole, so it follows that the north pole of the earth must be od- positive, and consequently the south-pole od-negative. Hence, we may farther infer that the whole northern hemisphere is od-positive, and the entire southern hemisphere od-negative. Why People Sleep on their Eight Sides. We will now make a very plain application of this principle to common life. Already in my first letter I drew your attention to the fact that all sensitives sleep, not on their left, but only on their right sides. I venture, with full confidence, to assert that this is not the rule in New Holland, Chile, and Buenos Ayres, but that in those places the sensitives sleep on their left sides. In the vicinity of the equator, it will be a matter of indifference to them whether they lie on the right or left side. It must be so. The northern half of the earth is od-positive, and when your sensitive turns his left od-positive side to it, the two like poles coming together, an uneasy feeling en- sues. When he lies on his right side, the unlike poles are presented to each other, and the uneasy feeling is followed by a cool and pleasant one. In the latter position he can go to sleep forthwith ; in the former he cannot go to sleep at all. The reverse must be the case in the southern hemisphere. There you have deep cause of an apparently very superficial matter ; and pathology may take note of it. 78 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. The Odic Polarity of Man Lengthwise. In passing I shall refer to a similar and extensive subject. For the sake of brevity, I have said nothing of the odic nature of the long axis of the human body. I have found that man is od-negative about the brain, and od-positive about the abdomen. Ad- mitting this, for I here omit the proofs of its truth, put four chairs in the middle of a room, with the back of one to the north, another to the west, a third to the south, and the fourth to the east ; and now ask a good sensitive if it is a matter of indifference to him as to which chair he shall sit upon. After he has tried all the chairs, he will tell you that he finds the one with its back to the north the most pleasant seat, and that with its back to the west the most unplea- sant. I shall hasten past the peculiarities of the other seats, to invite you to extend your experiment with the sensitive to his bed. Let him lie down, and then turn his bed successively with the head towards the four main points of the compass. He will soon tell you that he feels comfortable only when he has his head to the north and his feet to ths south. The explanation is easy. The upper half of the body, as related to the longitudinal axis, is od-negative, while the north-pole of the earth is od-positive. When the head is turned to the north, the two unlike poles are brought together, and there is an agreeable pairing. The lower half of the body is od-positive, and makes an unlike and agreeable pairing with the south-pole of the earth. Every other position in sitting or lying is less suitable and causes more or less unpleasant, luke- warm, and restless feelings. There are some of my sensitives, who, since receiving this teaching from me, always take a compass along when travelling, and turn the head of their bed to the north, wherever they may sleep. I have found high-sensitives entirely TERRESTRIAL OD. 79 unable to sleep in any other than the north and south position. But also demi-sensitives and even low- sensitives — for instance, Herr Delhez, the teacher of French in Vienna — are so affected by their position in bed that it not only determines their rest at night, but their general health. A healthy sensitive should always observe that his bed is turned with its head towards the north ; and a sick sensitive must, first of all things, be brought into this position; without it, every other attention and medicine will be almost useless. The Cause of Swooning in Church. I can now return with you to the church, where I left you in my first letter, with those who had swoon- ed. In Christian architecture (not in the United States) the custom of the heathen nations to erect the altar of the eastern side of the church has been gene- rally followed, so that tiie nave must come on the opposite side. The congregation sit with their faces towards the altar and their backs to the west. That is, however, as you have seen, the most disagreeable position for a sensitive. His od-positive left side is then turned to the od-positive north pole of the earth, and his od-negative right side to the od-negative south pole. Accordingly, he sits under the influence of several like pairings, and this he cannot endure. If it continues long — through the hours of a church ser- vice — and if the sensitiveness is acute, the sensitive feels one sensation of discomfort following another, he feels warm, restless, stifled, and ill-humored, is at- tacked by pain in the stomach, and if he cannot escape he finally falls down in a swoon. We see this every day in large churches, and the only cause is in the unsuitable style of architecture. This extends to daily home-life. No chair, no sofa 80 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. should be so placed that the person who sits in it, if a sensitive, must turn his back to the west. Yes, even in standing, it is intolerable for him to have his back to the west. Herr Philippi, Major of the Engi- neers Corps, a good demi-sensitive, and an experienced sailor, needs no compass when at sea, to tell him where the points of the compass lie ; by turning himself slowly around he can soon tell by his feelings the directions of north and west. Every sensitive seeman will readily learn this, and determine the position of the pole by the same rule which enables the sensitive water-hunter to find streams running underground. The Position of Furniture. These things reach so far in common life that they determine the position of a common article of furni- ture, such, for instance, as a piano. A sensitive lady often played the piano in my house. But it was un- pleasant to her, and she did not understand why she always felt unwell while sitting at my piano, which was a good instrument. After a little consideration it occurred to me that the cause of her discomfort was, the piano was so placed that she faced the southern ends of the wire with her back to the south. Thus she sat before the od-positive pole of so many long magnets as there were steel strings stretched towards her. She could not bear this ; she would have fainted had she remained long in the seat. I turned the piano about, so that the lady could sit with her back to the north, and with the north poles of the strings turned towards her ; and now her position was agree- able, and she played with delight. A grand piano should always be placed so that the player may sit on the eastern or northern side. I know a sensitive weaver, who was a steady indus- trious man till he changed his dwelling, after which he could not confine himself to his seat at the weav- TEREESTEIAL OD. 81 ing frame, became dissipated, abandoned his work and went to ruin. In his first home, he sat with his back to the north ; in the last, with his back to the west ; the latter position was unendurable tor him j the odic pain, whose cause was unknown to him, but whose influence he could noth withstand proved his destruc- tion. Thousands of persons who have to earn their living by sedentary labor — such as seamstresses, copyists, clerks, and painters, — are driven from their work by the disagreeable sensations of improper odic positions, and become the innocent victims of igno- rance of physical laws heretofore unknown. LETTER XVI. CONDUCTION, RADIATION, AND CON- CLUSION. The Speed of Odic Conduction. You know that od is conducted through bodies but you do not know the speed with which it moves. The speed of electricity is, as is well known, exceedingly great, while that of heat is very slow ; od holds a me- dium position between them. I stretched out an iron wire one hundred feet long and presented at one end successively various generators of od such as hands, crystals and magnets. A high sensitive whose hand was at the other end of the wire felt the arrival of the respective odic emanations after an interval of about half a minute. From this you may infer that the motion of the od was not more rapid than that of a man walking briskly. You have seen that discharge and conduction took place without any immediate contact with the genera- tor of the od but by mere proximity. Whether this is by the absorption of the luminous emanations of 82 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTEES. the od-generator or by radiation, we do not yet know. We may infer that od spreads itself about in the form of rays from the facts that it comes with the sun's rays, passes with them through glass prisms, can be broken in them and polarized by plates of glass, but the inference is not an entirely reliable deduction ; for the od found in these experiments may be created by the falling of the light rays on the solid bodies. But stand in front of a sensitive and make a pass with both your hands down over him at a distance of a foot and a half; he will feel it very plainly, as though a cold breath were breathing over him. Step back one pace, and repeat the pass ; he will again feel it but weaker than the first one. Step back, two, three, four paces further. Your sensitive will feel the passes plainly but always more faintly as your distance from him increases ; yes, he will even feel them when you are at the opposite end of the room. If you go into the next room he will still feel your passes from there. A demi-sensitive will lose the sensation when you are somewhere between forty or sixty feet from him. An upward pass will be felt at a greater distance than a downward one. But I have had high sensitives who felt the influence of my passes at a distance of one hundred and fifty feet, which was as far as I could go in the direct line of my rooms. They also felt poles of crystals and magnets at the same distance, and at the moment when those od-generators were pointed at them. You perceive from this that the odic force has a very wide radiation, whose bounds extend, like those of light, to the infinite, consequent- ly we always drag about with us at the ends of our fingers, toes and other parts of our frames immeasur- able sheaves of invisible rays, and besides as natural and living beings we are surrounded with a luminous atmosphere, which follows us wherever we go. I have often heard in the dark chamber that my head was CONDUCTION, RADIATION AND CONCLUSION. 83 surrounded by a crown of rays, that I was clothed in a saint's halo. And little is wanting to prove that the myth of those haloes was derived directly from the odic light, which was seen thousands of years ago in the East as it is now seen here. This odic atmos- phere which continually generates from, and always surrounds every man is not the same with all persons, but is different, about as the smells or the choice in matters of taste vary, as light may be divided into color and sound into the notes of the gamut. The odic atmosphere of woman differs from that of a man ; that of a child differs from that of an adult ; that of a sanguine person differs from that of the bilious ; that of a well person from that of a sick man ; yes it dif- fers between a man sick with a cold and another sick with scarlet fever, and between a typhus and a color mordax* and all these differences are recognized and decided by high sensitives and sometimes by demi- sensitives. In this fact you find the first explanation of such possibilities as that sick persons, in a condi- tion of extreme sensitiveness may perceive the ap- proach of their physician when well persons cannot perceive anything to indicate the approach of any per- son : that such sick persons have at the first meeting with certain individuals an aversion as unconquerable, as for others they have a groundless preference ; that carnivorous animals recognize a mark on a lily where their prey has placed a foot while fleeing ; and other similar facts which appear wonderful, but appear so only so long as man is ignorant of the physical thread which connects them simply and regularly with the world of matter. But an exposition of these higher odic relations would require me to overstep the bounds prefixed for the extent of these letters. I therefore take leave of you here. 84 ODIOMAGNETIC LETTERS. Etymology of Od. You know the main phenomena of that which I have called od. It is a force analogous and nearly related to the other forces already known to science. It includes a group of natural events ( Vorgaenge) im- probable but perceptible to the senses, for which we have no measure or agent save the human senses, and even these only under peculiar circumstances of the sensitive impressibility. The reason why it has hitherto escaped scientific investigation, and has even been directly and stubbornly repelled and excluded by science lies in the want of a universal odoscope or odo- meter, which might be placed within the reach of every one and whereby its existence might easily be denomi- nated before the eyes of all the world. And again the reason why no odoscope has yet been discoverable springs from the nature of od itself, because of its power to pervade all things and all space, without ac- cumulating in any place sufficiently to become percep- tible to mankind generally. There are insulators for heat, electricity and light, but I have been unable to rind any for od. This want of confinability, I have thought proper to use as a hint for a name which might be suitable for the varied combinations of scientific nomen- clature. Va in sanserif means to blow. In Latin Vado, in old norse Vada means I go quickly, I hasten away, I flow. From that Wodan in old German means the all pervading; it changes in various dialects to Wuo- dan, Odin, signifying the all-pervading power which is finally personified in a German deity. " Od " is consequently the name for a force which with irresist- ible power rushes through and pervades universal nature. Had Nature but given us Sense for Od- If nature had given us a sense for od as clear and distinct as for light and sound, we should have stood CONDUCTION, RADIATION, AND CONCLUSION. So on a higher level of knowledge ; we should distin- guish truth and deception by means of its all-pervad- ingness with incomparably greater care and quickness and certainty ; we should read each others hearts. Talleyrand could not have used speech to conceal his thoughts ; and as a remote consequence we should have been beings of a higher and nobler kind. It might easily be shown that with a sense to perceive od we should be a species of angel, and that our endowment with sucli a capability would be sufficient to elevate us at once to a higher state of morality even if our understandings were not enlarged Omniscience, which intended that we should be only erring men had there- fore to deny us a faculty which would have made us the peers of the demi-gods. SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS BY THE TRANSLATOR. We have thus gone through the O die- Magnetic Letters, a brief, popular exposition of a theory, the full record of whose evidences in the Sensitive Man and his Relation to Od (Der Sensitive Mensch und sein Yerhalten zum Ode) occupies twenty times as much space. Though we have not heard all that can be said in favor of od, we have heard enough to satisfy us that there is a strong probability in favor of the correctness of Reichenbach's theory; and we may spec- ulate a little about its place in nature alongside of the other great physical forces. Force is that which causes or resists action or mo- tion. Some of the great forces of nature, exclusive of Reichenbach's discovery, are electricity, heat, che- mical action, light, and magnetism. These forces, once called "imponderable substances," are now generally looked upon, by scientific men, as peculiar 86 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. movements or agitations of matter, and not as them- selves material. They are all supposed to be capable of reciprocally producing each ether, and to be but different manifestations of one universal force which pervades the universe and is inherent in every particle of matter. Science knows only matter and force. Each is indestructible, though capable of taking many different forms? There is no more nor no less matter now than there was five thousand years ago ; there is no more and no less force. "Wave your hand," says Grove; the motion has, apparently, ceased, but it is taken up by the air, from the air by the walls of the room, and so by direct and re-acting waves continually com- municated, but never destroyed." Let us suppose that two balls rolling towards each other strike ; the motion appears to be lost, but it changes to heat and electricity ; to heat if the balls be homogeneous and electricity if heterogeneous. If the balls be greased so that they will glance from each other, they will lose little motion and create little heat, precisely in pro- portion to the loss of one force is the development of others. And the motion or friction of the electrical machine develops electricity, electricity produces magnetism, light, heat, and motion, and influences chemical affinity as is seen in the composition and decomposition of compound substances. Heat pro- duces motion, and our thermometres are constructed to measure heat by the expansion or motion which it causes in certain substances. Heat also develops electricity. An evidence of this may be obtained by heating bars of bismuth and antimony, the ends of which are in contact. Unite the other ends by an iron wire, and an electric current will pass over it and heat the wire. The relationship of light to heat is very near, and they closely resemble each other in their phenomena. Both are radiated in direct lines, SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS OF THE TRANSLATOR. 87 reflected, refracted, doubly refracted and polarized. Heat also influences chemical affinity. Light influences chemical action, which latter de- velops electricity, and that, magnetism, heat, and motion. A coil of wire attached to a daguerreotype plate, becomes electric when the plate is exposed to the light. Pieces of cloth, of different colors, sink with different speed into snow, showing that the light, when absorbed by black cloths, changes into heat, and therefore these cloths sink more rapidly into the snow. As electricity, moving round an iron bar, develops magnetism, so revolving magnets develop electricity, and we have magneto-electricity as well as electro- magnetism. Since electricity causes light, heat, mo- tion, and chemical affinity, magnetism may be consid- ered to cause them. Magnets directly cause and re- sist motion ; and whenever iron is magnetised or de- magnetised, heat is developed. Chemism, the power which causes chemical action by means of chemical affinity, causes motion, electri- city, heat and light. All these effects are seen in the chemical process of burning ; one of our strongest sources of electricity is in chemical action ; and in the Voltaic-pile and galvanic battery, the amount of elec- tricity evolved is in exact proportion to the amount of chemical action ; in the same way as the heat and electricity caused by friction are in exact proportion to the amount of the friction and to the loss of me- chanical force.* It is supposed that the vital forces are also connect- ed with the physical forces of inanimate nature. All the substances found in the animal are also found in the mineral kingdom. Light and heat are necessary conditions to animation. The animal frame is formed * See the Correlation of Physical Forces by W. R. Grove. 88 ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS. by chemical action, and is kept alive by it. Life is a species of combustion, and it needs fresh air just as fire does, and would die as soon as a flame, if con* fined in its own smoke. Chemical affinities are con- stantly at work in our stomachs. Vitality implies motion. Electricity is constantly in action in our nerves and muscles. Animal life may therefore be classed among the great correlated forces of nature. It is among these forces that od comes now and claims its place. Reichenbach has placed it before us. He has described many of its conditions and qualities, and shows some of its relations to the other forces. He has found it developed by the chemical life of crystallization ; by the sunlight, by magnetism, animal and vegetable life, chemical action, friction and electricity. If his theory be true, we have not only the key to some of the most wonderful and hitherto inexplicable phenomena of our existence, but we have also a new and probably the most important form of the universal force, a discovery from which we may hope results of the utmost benefit to the moral, intel- lectual, and physical welfare and progress of our race in coming years. ROUSSEAU'S CONFESSIONS COMPLETE. THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUS- SEAU. Newly Translated, without Omissions or • Expurgations. Period First relates to Rousseau's youthful adventures to the thirtieth year of his age. Period Second embraces his literary and public career. Both Periods make two large, elegant 12mo Volumes, sold separately, at $1 25 each, or $2 50 the set. Mailed free. " There hardly exists such another example of the miracles which com- position can perform." — Lord Brougham. " There have been what purported to be translations of the world famous Confessions of Rousseau before ; but Mr. Calvin Blanchard's, just issued, is the first that we know of which is unmutilated and accurate." — Putnam's Monthly. " It has been translated into every language of Europe ; the librarian of Napoleon devoted a large volume to the classification of the different editions of it.- Evening Post. " Blessed be the early days when I sat at the feet of Rousseau, prophet sad and stately as any of Jewry. Every onward movement of the age, every downward step into the dephts of my own soul, recalls thy oracles, Jean Jacques!" — Margaret Fuller. The Confessions incidentally portray the remarkable times immediately preceding the French Revolution. The squalid wretchedness of the peasantry; the gross licen- tiousness of the clergy ; the gallantries of the nobility. It introduces us to those famous philosophers, Voltaire. d'Holbach, Diderot, d'Alembert, Hume; to Mesdames de Warens, d'Epinay, and the enchanting d'Houdetot. But the heart revealings of Jean Jacques are its crowning glory. Just published by CALVIN BLANCHARD. 76 Nassau Street. N. Y. MOMEHTOUS WORK. THE DOCTRINE OE INSPIRATION, BEING AN INaUIRY CONCERNING THE IN- FALLIBILITY, INSPIRATION AND AU- THORITY OF HOLY WRIT. By the Kev. John Macnaught, M. A. Oxon, Incumbent of St. Chrysostoms Church, Evert on, Liverpool. 12mo. $1.37. Mailed free. This work is more significant than any which has appeared since the advent of Strauss's Life of Jesus. The vulgar idea of the supernatural inspiration of the Bible is here abandoned ; and what is more, it is shown that many of the chief dignitaries, including four Bishops of the Church of England, have held, on the sly, similar opinions. The citadel of bigotry, super- stition and intolerance, may now be considered as authoritatively surrendered. " It is the first book written by an Orthodox cler- gyman which decidedly denies the doctrine of Scriptu- ral Infallibility. It is well written and manly." Christian Inquirer. \Unitarian~\. From the Westminster Review. " Distinguished by a fearless investigation of truth, an uncompromising hostility to deception and make- believe. Distinguished likewise by clearness of con- ception, closeness of argument, purity of expression, and completeness of arrangement. And unless intol- erance and superstition shall succeed in smothering the work, it is one which will exercise a wide influence — one which will give form and substance to thoughts which have been floating vaguely in many mens minds — one which will supply a rallying point, and become in lieu of a creed to those who are dissatistied with tra- ditional and untenable theories respecting inspiration."' Published by CALVIN BLANCHARD, 76 Nassau St. New York. LIBERAL BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CALVIN BLAWCHARD, 76 Nassau St., TX. Y (sent by mail postage free.) COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY, 8vo. pp. 838 $B 00 COMTE'S SOCIAL PHYSICS 25 STRAUSS' CPJTICAL EXAMINATION OF THE LIFE OF JESUS, 2 vols. 8vo 4 50 FEUERBACH'S ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, 12 mo. 1 50 GREG'S CREED OF CHRISTENDOM, 12mo 1 25 HO WITT'S HISTORY OF PRIESTCRAFT, 12mo 75 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT'S RIGHTS OF WOMAN, 75 VOLNEY'S NEW RESEARCHES ON ANCIENT HIS- TORY, 12mo 1 25 VOLNEY'S RUINS, paper cover and bound 30 and 50 TAYLOR'S DEVIL'S PULPIT, 12mo 1 25 TAYLOR'S ASTRO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES, being the second series of The Devil's Pulpit, 12mo 1 37 TAYLOR'S BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE, 10 TAYLOR'S LECTURES ON FREE MASONRY 25 WHO IS THE LORD GOD? By TAYLOR 30 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 10 WHO IS THE HOLY GHOST? By TAYLOR 10 WHO IS THE DEVIL ? By TAYLOR 15 THE NEW CRISIS, or Our Deliverance from Priestly Fraud, Political Charlatanry and Popular Despotism 13 THE ESSENCE OF SCIENCE, or The Catechism of Posi- tive Sociology and Physical Mentality. 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Many a learned and wise (?) man has become in- sane, and (pity 't is) nearly all become, especially with the beautiful half of humanity, dull company, in con- sequence of not properly alternating the grave and weighty with the gay and light. To indulge in fun, frolic and merriment, is beneath their dignity. And so their dignity mopes through the world, disgusting it with wisdom, and sometimes horrifying it with the any thing but dignified maniac's yell. To correct this evil, I publish, along with works which exercise the intellect to its utmost, books, the tendency of which, is effectually to relieve the intel- lectual, by bringing into corresponding active ex- ercise the humourous, gay and mirthful faculties. If the mystic claims that — " Religion never was designed To make our pleasures less " — the positivist cannot rationally claim less for deep, independent thinking. As to the pious libel, that licentiousness is an ac- companiment of free thinking, it is beneath my dig- nity to pay any regard to it ; and to be frightened by it, out of the least particle of fun, or natural, and therefore rightful enjoyment, exceeds my cow- ardice CALVIN BLANCIIARD. ODIC-MAGNETIC LETTERS,, BY BARON REICHENBACH, TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY JOHN S.HITTELL 3frto g0tk: PUBLISHED BY CALVIN BLANCHARD, 76 NASSAU STREET. 1860. RD 1 04 3 In Press and will soon be published: SOMNAMBULISM AND CRAMP, BY BARON REICHENBACH, TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY JOHN S. HITTELL. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 A-&&S A-%£ % "" V way ei-^ -y- » --■ ST,NE FLA.: ^ V* .V*" 1