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Hack Tuke, Daniel – Healing - Anaesthesia induced by powerful emotions
Identifier
026058
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
As described in Illustrations Of The Influence Of The Mind Upon The Body In Health And Disease, Designed To Elucidate The Action Of The Imagination - Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., M.R.C.P.,
PART II. THE EMOTIONS.
CHAPTER VII. INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON SENSATION.
The distraction of the attention from impressions made upon the sensory nerves, whether painful or pleasurable, when the mind is under the influence of powerful Emotions, notoriously interferes with or entirely prevents the mind's perception of them ; this principle forms the foundation of a large class of cases of psychical anaesthesia. Rapt in ecstasy, the devotee feels neither cold nor wounds. …..
The battle-field constantly affords examples of the influence of an engrossing emotion in blunting sensation. In reporting the battle of Monte Kotundo (1867) a spectator writes in the "Cornhill Magazine :"
" All day long the battle raged ; the troops were fainting with hunger and fatigue. Certainly they were the liveliest, most patient set of sufferers I ever saw ; the certainty of victory chloroformed their pain."