Observations placeholder

Flammarion, C., Carroll, L, - Death and its mystery: before death

195 Death and its mystery

[This is] a very curious case reported in one of his works' by Dr.Gibier, a former interne of the Paris hospitals. It took place in April, 1885, and he has often repeated it before witnesses, whom he names.  This reading, independently of the organs of sight, was done in a state of hypnotism (the modern name for magnetism and. mesmerism). Here is the account of the experiment :

The subject was a young woman of about twenty, of Jewish descent.  Once she was asleep, and in an intermediate state of amaterialization, which was not lethargy nor somnambulism, nor even a talking trance, but rather what the professional hypnotists call “lucid somnambulism" I put a pad of cotton over each eye; then over them a large, thick napkin or silk handkerchief that was tied behind the nape of the neck. The first time I attempted the test of which I am speaking, I was very much astonished at its success: I must say that at the time I did not have the experience which a long series of investigations have since given me, and, I must add long and continuous studies of the question as well.

I took from my Iibrary the first book that I laid my hand on:  I opened it by chance. When I had held it a moment, the cover upper-most, without looking at it, about two centimeters above the hair of the hypno-magnetized young woman, I asked her to read the last line of the page on the left. After a moment of waiting she answered:

'Ah, yes, I see – wait." Then she continued: “Identity leads to unity, for if the soul…”  She stopped and added : “I can’t do more; that is enough; it tires me.”  I yielded to her and turned over the volume, it was a book on philosophy, and the first line, Iess two words, had been perfectly seen and read by the amaterialized invisible spirit of my sleeper.