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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
how completely a strong will could so influence the mind of another, 
as to cause confusion of ideas almost amounting to imbecility. 
This meddling with mesmerism brought the Professor into some 
disrepute ; and he was severely attacked in the Medical Journals, 
for his supposed credulity. At first, he took no notice of these 
attacks ; hut in consequence of the solicitation of his friends he 
in September 1851, published a letter in the “Lancet ” explaining 
the object of his miscalled “ mesmeric soirees.” In that letter he 
says—- 
“ During the last ten or fifteen years, I have repeatedly seen experiments, 
and also made them myself. In the course of them I have witnessed very 
interesting physiological and psychological results, such as the production of 
deep sleep, fixture and rigidity of muscles, &c. But I have no belief what¬ 
ever, that these phenomena are the effects of any power, force, or agency 
such as is understood by the term ‘ animal magnetism ,’—passing from the so- 
called ‘ mesmeriser ’ to the so-called ‘ mesmerised.’ They are merely the 
effects produced by the mind of the ‘ mesmerised 5 upon his or her own eco¬ 
nomy ;—self-mental acts so to speak. These may no doubt be produced by 
the influence of the will of one individual acting on another. But they 
are no proof of any magnetic, mesmeric, or other supposed agency. In proof 
of my utter disbelief in clairvoyance , I may state that having sometime ago 
been present at a lecture on the subject, I offered to place L.100 in the 
1 lands of the President of the Medico-Chirurgical Society which he was to 
give to the lecturer, if the latter would bring any clairvoyant, who could read 
a line of Shakespeare, or two or three words out of a dictionary, which he 
(Professor Simpson) would shut up in a box.” 
Professor Simpson had no patience for the quackery and credulity 
of spirit rapping; and as Faraday condescended to expose “ table 
turning ” by a written opinion which he sent to the “ Times ” 
newspaper, so in like manner Professor Simpson took occasion, in 
the course of his address to the Society of Antiquaries, to remark— 
“ In our own days many sane persons profess to believe in the possibility of 
summoning the spirits of the departed from the other world back to this sub¬ 
lunary sphere. When they do so they have always hitherto, as far as I have 
heard, encouraged these spirits to perform such silly, juggling tricks, or re¬ 
quested them to answer such trivial and frivolous questions as would, to my 
humble apprehension, seem to be almost insulting to the grim dignity and 
solemn character of any respectable ghost. If, like Mr Home, I had the 
power to call spirits from the vasty deep, and if the spirits answered the call. 
I, being a practical man, would fain make a practical use of their presence. 
Methinks, I should next ask them hosts of questions regarding the state 
of society, religion, the arts, &c., at the time when they themselves were 
