Observations placeholder
Seeress of Prevorst, the - The effect of minerals
Identifier
022756
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Seeress of Prevorst [translated by Catherine Crowe]
It is remarkable that coloured stones produced much more effect upon Mrs. H. (Kerner usually refers to the Seeress as Mrs. H., i.e., Mrs. Hauffe] than those that were colourless. . . . Mrs. H., however, never looked at the minerals. The experiments were made by placing them in her hand, without telling her what they were. She was very sensible of the effects of glass and crystal; they awakened her from her somnambulic state; and if allowed to lie long on the pit of her stomach, produced catalepsy. She was affected in the same manner by sand, or even standing for some time near a glass window. The odour of sand and glass was very perceptible and very agreeable to her; but if she chanced to seat herself on a sandstone bench, she was apt to become cataleptic; and once, having been for some time missed, she was at length found at the top of the house, seated on a heap of sand, so rigid, that she had been unable to move away from it.
Our experiments with respect to the effects of minerals on Mrs. H.were confirmed in other forms-namely, by placing a divining rod, or pendulum of hazel, in her left hand, which she held over the different substances; and we then found that those which produced no effects on her had no attraction for the wand, and vice versa. These experiments might have been carried much farther-as by placing the various substances on the pit of her stomach, for example-had I not apprehended the effects on her excitable constitution.