Modern Witchcraft. 127 



doing, he was in reality pressing it with all his 

 might towards the floor.&quot; But as soon as Dr. 

 Hammond had waved his hand over the table 

 and declared that it might now be lifted, the 

 young man lifted it with ease. Scientifically 

 viewed, such phenomena are very interesting; 

 they seem closely akin to the phenomena of hyp 

 notism in men and animals, so strikingly illus 

 trated in the experiments of Kircher and Czer- 

 mak. Hens and pigeons can easily be put into 

 a cataleptic state by holding a cork or a bit of 

 chalk before their eyes so as to attract their at 

 tention ; and in a similar way a frog s attention 

 may be so absorbed that his belly may be cut 

 open without his seeming to notice it. Mr. Braid 

 has similarly hypnotized men ; and Dr. Hammond 

 produced complete anaesthesia in a lady by caus 

 ing her to look for a few moments at a cork 

 fastened upon her forehead while her back was 

 cauterized with a red-hot iron. 



As for Mr. Home s tricks of putting live coals 

 into his waistcoat pocket and on other people s 

 bald heads with impunity, such things have so 

 long been commonplaces with second-rate con 

 jurers that it is astonishing to find intelligent 

 men like Mr. Wallace quoting them as instances 

 of ghostly agency. Nothing could be easier for a 



