Category: Isis Unveiled: H. P. Blavatsky (1877)

"In 1864, in the French province of Le Var, near the little village of Brignoles, lived a peasant named Jaques Pelissier, who made a living by killing birds by simple will-power. His case is reported by the well-known Dr. d'Alger, at whose request the singular hunter gave exhibitions to several scientific men, of his method [...]

"In our own time several well-known mediums have frequently, in the presence of the most respectable witnesses, not only handled blazing coals and actually placed their face upon a fire without singing a hair, but even laid flaming coals upon the heads and hands of bystanders, as in the case of Lord Lindsay and Lord [...]

"The simple-minded natives, knowing nothing but real magic, which they had inherited from their ancestors, and which consists in each case of some one thing that they can do without knowing why or how, and seeing Houdin, as they thought, accomplish the same results in a more impressive manner, fancied that he was a greater [...]

"Strange condition of the human mind, which seems to require that it should long exercise itself in ERROR, before it dare approach the TRUTH." - MAGENDIE "La verite que je defends est empreinte sur tous les monuments du passe Pour comprendre l'histoire, il faut etudier les symboles anciens, les signes sacres du sacerdoce, et l'art [...]

"Arrived at this point, des Mousseaux loses all patience, and indignantly exclaims: "Was the learned physician quite awake when writing the above sentences?...If, perchance, the Drs. Calmeil and Figuier should seriously maintain their assertions and insist on their theory, we are ready to answer them as follows: 'We are perfectly willing to believe you. But [...]

""Let us remark, besides", rejoins Dr. Calmeil, quoted by Figuier, "that for striking upon the bodies of the Convulsionnaires use was made either of massive objects with flat or rounded surfaces, or of cylindrical and blunt shapes. The action of such physical agents is not to be compared, in respect to the danger which attaches [...]

""We have said, in the introduction to this work, that at the middle of the nineteenth century one of the most famous epidemics of possession broke out in Germany: that of the Nonnains, who performed all the miracles most admired since the days of St. Medard, and even some greater ones; who turned summersaults, who [...]

"And now for the views of Dr. Figuier upon these remarkable and unquestionably historical phenomena. "A Convulsionary bends back into an arc, her loins supported by the sharp point of a peg", quotes the learned author, from the proces verbaux. "The pleasure that she begs for is to be pounded by a stone weighing fifty [...]

"Abbe Paris was a Jansenist, who died in 1727. Immediately after his decease the most surprising phenomena began to occur at his tomb. The churchyard was crowded from morning till night. Jesuits, exasperated at seeing heretics perform wonders in healing, and other works, got from the magistrates an order to close all access to the [...]

""Dr. Calmeil, in his work on insanity", remarks Figuier, "when reporting on the ecstatic theomania of the Calvinists, concludes that the disease must be attributed in the simpler cases to HYSTERIA, and in those of more serious character to epilepsy....We rather incline to the opinion", says Figuier, "that it was a disease sui generis, and [...]