164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it, if assured in a detei-mined tone that he could not do so. When his 

 gaze had been steadily directed for a short time to the poles of a mag- 

 net, he could be brought to see flames issuing from them of any form 

 or color that Mr. Braid chose to name. And when desired to place 

 his hand upon one of the poles, and to fix his attention for a brief 

 period upon it, the peremptory assurance that he could not detach it 

 was sufficient to hold it there with such tenacity that I saw Mr. Braid 

 drag him round the room in a way that reminded me of George 

 Cruikshank's amusing illustration of the German fairy-story of "The 

 Golden Goose." The attraction was dissolved by Mr. Braid's loud, 

 cheery " All right, man," which brought the subject back to his nor- 

 mal condition, as suddenly as the attraction of a powerful electro- 

 magnet for a heavy mass of iron ceases when the circuit is broken. 



Similar experiments to these (which I first witnessed about thirty 

 years ago) have been since repeated over and over again upon great 

 numbers of persons, in whom a corresponding state can be induced 

 by prolonged fixation of the vision on a small object held in the hand. 

 It was in the year 1850 that a new manifestation of the supposed 

 " occult " power first attracted public attention, through the exhibi- 

 tion of it by a couple of itinerant Americans, who styled themselves 

 "professors," of a new art which they termed Electro-Biology ; 

 asserting that by an influence of which the secret was only known to 

 themselves, but which was partly derived from a little disk of zinc or 

 copper held in the hand of the " subject " and steadily gazed on by 

 him, they could subjugate the most determined will, paralyze the 

 strongest muscles, pervert the evidence of the senses, destroy the 

 memory of even the most familiar things or of the most recent occur- 

 rences, induce obedience to any command, or make the individual 

 believe himself transformed into any one else ; all this, and much more, 

 being done while he was still wide awake. They soon attracted large 

 assemblages to witness their performances, and seldom failed to elicit 

 some of the most remarkable phenomena from entire strangers to 

 them, whose honesty could not be reasonably called in question. In 

 place of a few peculiarly susceptible " subjects" not always to be met 

 with, and open to suspicion on various grounds, those who took up 

 this practice found in almost every circle some individuals in whom 

 the "biological" state could be self-induced by the steady direction 

 of their eyes to one point, at the ordinary reading-distance, for a 

 period usually varying from about five to twenty minutes; a much 

 shorter time generally sufficing in cases in which the practice had 

 been frequently repeated. In this condition, the whole course of 

 thought is directed by external suggestions, the subject's own control 

 over it being altogether suspended. Yet he differs from the somnam- 

 bulist, in being av;ake ; that is, he has generally the use of all* his 

 senses, and usually, though not always, preserves a distinct recol- 

 lection of all that has taken place. There is, in fact, a gradational 



