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Hector DURVILLE Psychic Actions at a distance - Four personal observations (Written around 1915)

It was in 1880, almost at the beginning of my magnetic career. My reputation as a magnetizer was beginning to spread far and wide; and, a young man in his thirties, working as a baker in Lérouville (Meuse), who had been almost completely blind for 15 to 18 months due to a detachment of the retina, had come to me in the vain hope that I would restore his sight. He shared my modest bachelor apartment, and I magnetized him every day several times.

Not very sensitive, he experienced under my action very little of the sensations usual to the greatest number of patients; but, on the other hand, an irresistible blink of the eyelids was felt from the beginning to the end of each session. A slight momentary improvement in vision was the consequence of this "massage" of the eyes.

This blink of the eye was independent of his mind, because apart from regular sessions, he always experienced it when, in the apartment, I fixed my thoughts on him; and it often happened, even without me knowing where he was and what he was doing. With each test I made, he warned me in these terms: "you magnetize me". As soon as I turned my mind away from him, the blinking stopped.

At that time, I was already very busy with many patients. I went to Versailles 3 times a week to treat 3 of them who were asking for my care at home. Leaving in the evening, around 5:00 am, I magnetized 2 the same day; I went to my house; the third one the next morning; and, taking the train from Paris around 9:30 am, I returned home about 1 hour later.

When I returned from one of these trips, the idea came to me to focus my thoughts on my blind friend for 10 to 12 minutes, but without hoping that I could influence him. When he comes home, he tells me right away about what follows:

"Mr. Durville. You magnetized me. I felt your action very well for at least 10 minutes. I even wanted to stop the blinking of my eyelids, but it was impossible for me. “

Knowing that he was as gullible as he was trustworthy, and wanting at all costs to avoid the suggestion, I replied that I had perhaps thought of him, but that I did not believe that he could perceive my action at this distance, especially from a moving train, and that his imagination was certainly the cause of the phenomenon.

On my return from the next trip, I concentrated my attention very strongly on him when I got on the train, without abandoning him until I arrived home. He was standing, walking up and down, tired, even irritated by the intensity of the blinking that had been going on for an hour, and immediately said to me,

 "Oh, Mr. Durville, this time I am sure you have been magnetizing me very hard, for at least an hour. The blinkings are more violent than usual; I can't stay in place, it irritates me, I even have palpitations.”

Like the first time, I told him that these feelings, if they were real, must have been exaggerated; and that if I had thought of him, I had put no energy into it.

A third time, being very tired of having spent part of the night without sleep, towards one of my patients who was suffering from a painful crisis, I got on the train with the good will to act, but after a few moments, overcome by sleep, I fell asleep to wake up only when the train arrived. I thought again, of the patient, while regretting that I had forgotten him in this way; but I only thought about it for a few moments. When he arrived, he said to me:

"This time, you didn't magnetize me very hard; at this time, I felt your action for 2 or 3 minutes, and, half an hour later, I felt it again for a few moments".

 However, the hours when he had experienced the usual sensations, were precisely those when my thoughts were fixed on him.

I repeated this experiment about ten times and the results were always the same. The patient needed to return home for urgent business that required him to be held for 15 to 20 days. He asked me to continue my action when he was at home.

As this phenomenon interested me most, I consented to it, despite the distance of about 300 kilometres between Paris and Lérouville, but without expecting any results in advance, because I thought that the distance of the patient would break the bond that existed between us at the time. Before his departure, we were told that he would stay in bed in the morning until 5:30 a.m., that he would write to me every day to inform me of the result obtained in the morning, and that I would think of him regularly from 5 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.

For 4 to 5 days, I actually acted as in the Versailles train, and every morning I received a detailed letter of everything the patient had experienced the day before. In general, the effects were as intense as when I was magnetizing him at home.

Despite this, I was still inclined to admit that his imagination, put at stake by the desire to heal and the trust he had in me, had to play some role in producing the effects he was experiencing. As with the Versailles train experiments, it was easy to see this. For this reason, one fine morning, at the agreed time, I became absorbed in the study of a geometry theorem that I had long forgotten; and, after half an hour, I got up without having thought of it.

The next morning, he told me in his letter that he had not felt anything. I didn't answer, and stayed two more days without acting. Every morning, I had a letter more sorry than the one the day before: he thought I was sick, or that the relationship had been broken. Finally, on the fourth day, I concentrated my thoughts again on the patient. The next morning his letter told me that at the agreed time, he had experienced the usual effects.

I varied the hours of my action, and always the blinking of my eyelids took place at that moment; I even exercised it once at 2 a.m.; and the next day his letter informed me that: "this morning at 2 a.m., he told me, I was suddenly awakened by the blinking of my eyelids produced under your action."

This series of experiences, sufficiently complete, showed me that the patient's imagination had nothing to do with the production of the phenomenon, because each time my thought was fixed on him, his eyelids blinking all the more strongly as I thought more energetically about him; and, what seems to me to be extraordinary, is that not even one time did it occur outside my actions. This is certainly enough to give me the certainty that TELESYCHIE is possible, at least between certain individuals.