82 
A New Theory of Trance . 
[January, 
faculties, and muscles, according to the region of the brain 
in which the concentration of activity takes place. There 
is therefore no mystery in the frequently observed, though 
sometimes disputed, fadt that entranced subjects can raise 
with ease weights which in their normal state they are 
unable to move. Mesmerised subjects sometimes exhibit 
this power. Persons entranced through fear, as by an alarm 
of fire, have been known to take up a stove and carry it out 
of the house ; the next day they cannot, to save their lives, 
carry back that stove. The co-ordinating or balancing 
power may be so much exalted in somnambulists that they 
can climb without harm in most dangerous places. The 
exaltation of the time-telling power — which sometimes 
passes for second sight — has the same explanation as the 
exaltation of other faculties. Likewise the nerves of general 
and special sense are all liable to be greatly exalted in this 
state ; the feeblest whisper in a distant room may be readily 
heard, and one can read by a dimmer light than is usually 
needed. The sense of touch may be so delicate that, when 
the sense of sight is sealed, the subjedt can find his way 
from room to room without injury; and it is claimed may, 
in some cases, recognise the presence of another person 
near at hand, by the temperature alone, even where there is 
no physical contadt. 
We are told these exaltations of the normal senses are the 
bases of many of the popular and professional delusions relating 
to ‘ £ second sight , 55 “ clairvoyance,” “ thought reading,” and 
the like. By this hypothesis, also, any of the mental facul- 
ties should be liable to be exalted. Observation shows that 
not only the imagination, but the reasoning faculty and 
command of language are oftentimes greatly enlivened in 
their adtivity in this state, as the performances of trance 
preachers illustrate. Weak-minded men and women, who 
in the normal state think little and say less, are sometimes 
able, when entranced, to speak continuously, and almost if 
not quite eloquently, and with slight apparent effort. While 
there has been much exaggeration of the originality and 
value of these trance speeches, yet it cannot be denied that 
they are — with all their wildness of fancy and repetition, 
and frequent senselessness — far beyond the capacity of the 
same persons when not entranced. On returning to the 
normal state they may be utterly stupid or commonplace ; 
their cerebral force, when diffused through the whole brain, 
is unequal to even rapid and sustained small talk. 
The converse of exaltation, depression of some of the 
senses and faculties of the mind, diredtly follows from this 
