"Mesmeric Revelation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

1850
MESMERIC REVELATION
by Edgar Allan Poe

WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its
startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these
latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession- an
unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute
waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present day, that man,
by mere exercise of will can so impress his fellow as to cast him into
an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very closely
those of death, or at least resemble them more nearly than they do the
phenomena of any other normal condition within our cognizance; that,
while in this state, the person so impressed employs only with effort,
and then feebly, the external organs of sense, yet perceives, with
keenly refined perception, and through channels supposed unknown,
matters beyond the scope of the physical organs; that, moreover, his
intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and invigorated; that
his sympathies with the person so impressing him are profound, and,
finally, that his susceptibility to the impression increases with
its frequency, while in the same proportion, the peculiar phenomena
elicited are more extended and more pronounced.
I say that these- which are the laws of mesmerism in its general
features- it would be supererogation to demonstrate; nor shall I
inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration to-day. My purpose
at present is a very different one indeed. I am impelled, even in
the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail without comment, the very
remarkable substance of a colloquy occurring between a sleep-waker and
myself.
I had long been in the habit of mesmerizing the person in question
(Mr. Vankirk), and the usual acute susceptibility and exaltation of
the mesmeric perception had supervened. For many months he had been
laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more distressing effects of
which had been relieved by my manipulations; and on the night of
Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his bedside.
The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the
heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary
symptoms of asthma. In spasms such as these he had usually found
relief from the application of mustard to the nervous centres, but
to-night this had been attempted in vain.
As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and
although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally,
quite at ease.
"I sent for you to-night," he said, "not so much to administer to my
bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain physical
impressions which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety and
surprise. I need not tell you how skeptical I have hitherto been on
the topic of the soul's immortality. I cannot deny that there has
always existed, as if in that very soul which I have been denying, a
vague half-sentiment of its own existence. But this half-sentiment