Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/713

 20, 1863.] tumultuous sounds, now dying away till only the tremor of it was felt rather than heard.

Mauleverer began to describe, nervously and incoherently at first, afterwards with much animation, the symptoms which I was so eagerly desirous to witness.

I will say here, once for all, that I do not attempt to defend my conduct. It was reckless, cruel, unnatural,—I agree to all that my readers can think about it. My curiosity overmastered all other feelings. I was terribly punished, as will be seen in the end.

Mauleverer’s account agreed with the outline which Wyatt had given us in Allen’s rooms. It was a perfectly voluntary act. Body and soul did become actually separated from each other, though some kind of connection was retained. The thing being willed to be done, the first sensation was of a collecting of all the vital forces about the region of the heart. From the heart these forces passed off into the spinal column, and, streaming upwards, exhaled from the body through an aperture which apparently opened in the cerebellum. To cause this aperture to form, and afterwards to retain it unclosed, required a strong effort, painful through the fatigue it occasioned.

I mentioned that this particular of the aperture in the head seemed familiar to me.

“It is one of the symptoms related by Cardan,” said Mauleverer. “He—if he is to be believed—could exercise precisely the same power that I can. By his own confession, he was neither an honest nor a trustworthy man; but he certainly speaks truth in this account of his own experience. His diagnosis is singularly correct and complete. No one, however learned in physiology, could have hit precisely on these symptoms. Cardan’s case is a noted one, and probably you have seen it referred to in some book. Such cases, however, are not so rare as is generally supposed. That they are rare at all is, I believe, simply owing to people’s ignorance of the extent of the natural powers they possess. I am quite sure that this gift is not preternatural, but natural, possessed dormantly by everybody, and capable of being used by everybody, if they knew of it, and were disposed to use it. Sleep is a much more incomprehensible affair. Sleep is clearly a disease of tired nature, while this species of trance, or semi-separation of soul and body, is a legitimate exertion of the forces of nature in their highest strength. If it is half-way on the road to death, it nevertheless puts death in a new light, taking away from it all that mystery which ordinarily surrounds it. All that is required is an exercise of the will—a powerful exercise; but not more powerful than is used daily by many men upon trivial matters.”

“And you really think that anybody—that I, for instance,—could do the same if I chose to do it?”

“I feel certain of it. As I said before, instances are not so rare as they are supposed to be. From the very earliest times, and in all nations, cases are handed down to us. If you look into Montfaucon and Denon, you will find this power represented as clearly as it can be in the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The figure on the couch with the attendant priests and the symbol of the soul hovering above—this most common of their pictures—what else does it mean? Then, among the Greeks, the mysteries of the oracles, the sacred sleeps,—a thousand matters point the same way. The philosophers often, when they are interpreted as speaking metaphorically of abstract contemplation, are referring literally to this physical power; and from whence do they derive their analogy, when they are speaking metaphorically, unless from this well-known fact? The very teaching of the antagonism of soul and senses comes from this. The legends of Pythagoras, of Hermotimus, and of many more of the early philosophers, claim for them the power of leaving the body and returning to it. And when we come down to Alexandria and the Neo-Platonists, the exercise of the power is ordinary and common. The sages of that city, heathen or Christian, possessed it alike. The religious books of the Jews, again, teem with allusions and more certain illustrations; and we Christians have surely instances enough in our own writings.”

“But,” I objected, “these old stories are so vague (are they not? I speak ignorantly), and so mixed up with manifest superstitions and lies, as to afford little acceptable evidence. Besides, in almost all cases these stories claim to be miraculous and supernatural.”

“Any power,” he answered, smiling, “not yet accepted as natural and ordinary, is sure to be looked on as a miracle, and to be surrounded by superstitious additions and interpretations. All that I argue for is for the existence of some natural cause lying beneath. Although we have ceased to believe that thunder is a divine voice, yet none the less do we believe in the thunder. The books of the middle ages are full of instances. Cardan, as you know, affirms that he himself possessed the gift, and his account has in it the surest evidences of truth. The mediæval saints afford cases as numerous as the Alexandrian mystics. Whole communities of nuns and monks knew and practised the secret, and often turned it artfully as an instrument to their own ends.”

“Surely,” I said, “those middle-age legends were cases of disease or of imposture.”

“Hardly of disease,” he said; “though of course unhealthy people might discover this latent power as well as healthy. Because whole communities exhibited the same symptoms it is said that it was an epidemic. The simpler explanation is that one learned of the latent power from another. Of imposture, no doubt. They deceived others, and often deceived themselves, mixing the physical fact with a thousand superstitious fancies and lies.”

“They described the most wonderful visions as having occurred in these trances, did they not? I have some dim general notion of that class of stories. But, if I remember right, their trances were often of long continuance—many days. You said just now that you could not continue yours for more than two or three minutes. Tell me, too, pray, about these visions. Do you experience anything of the kind? What difference is there between your ordinary consciousness and your consciousness while in that state of trance?”

Mauleverer paused.