668 G. Experiments Of H. M. Wesermann

The following account of Wesermann's experiments is quoted from the Journal S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 217, being there taken from a book called Mesmerism and the Universal Language1 published in 1822, by H. M. Wesermann, Government Assessor and Chief Inspector of Roads at Düsseldorf, etc. By "the universal language" Wesermann means thought-transference and clairvoyance, and his book is a review of the German literature on "Animal Magnetism," mainly of the second decade of this century, from a psychical point of view, with some experiments and observations of his own. The book is fully discussed in the Journal, but I have space only to refer to an experiment of which an account was quoted in Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 101, and about which we here find some valuable additional evidence. Mesmer's opinion that all might know what was happening to a friend who was thinking of them, were it not for the stronger impressions received through the senses, suggested to Wesermann to try to transfer mental images to sleeping friends at a distance; and accounts of four experiments in which he was successful in thus imposing dreams on his friends are given in Phantasms. His fifth experiment, at a distance of nine miles, is the one about which his book gives additional evidence - in fact, a first-hand account from one of the percipients, of which the existence was not known to Gurney. The following is the account in full, translated from his book (p. 28).

1 Der Magnetismus und die allgemeine Weltsprache.

A lady, who had been dead five years, was to appear to Lieutenant------n in a dream at 10.30 p.m. and incite him to good deeds. At half-past ten, contrary to expectation, Herr------n had not gone to bed, but was discussing the French campaign with his friend Lieutenant S------ in the ante-room. Suddenly the door of the room opened, the lady entered dressed in white, with a black kerchief and uncovered head, greeted S------with her hand three times in a friendly manner; then turned to------n, nodded to him, and returned again through the doorway.

As this story, related to me by Lieutenant------n, seemed to be too remarkable from a psychological point of view for the truth of it not to be duly established, I wrote to Lieutenant S------, who was living six miles away, and asked him to give me his account of it. He sent me the following reply: -

... On the 13th of March 1817, Herr-----n came to pay me a visit at my lodgings about a league from A------. He stayed the night with me. After supper, and when we were both undressed, I was sitting on my bed and Herr------n was standing by the door of the next room on the point also of going to bed. This was about half-past ten. We were speaking partly about indifferent subjects and partly about the events of the French campaign. Suddenly the door out of the kitchen opened without a sound, and a lady entered, very pale, taller than Herr-----n, about five feet four inches in height, strong and broad of figure, dressed in white, but with a large black kerchief which reached to below the waist. She entered with bare head, greeted me with the hand three times in complimentary fashion, turned round to the left towards Herr ------n, and waved her hand to him three times; after which the figure quietly, and again without any creaking of the door, went out. We followed at once in order to discover whether there were any deception, but found nothing.

The strangest thing was this, that our night-watch of two men whom I had shortly before found on the watch were now asleep, though at my first call they were on the alert, and that the door of the room, which always opens with a good deal of noise, did not make the slightest sound when opened by the figure.

S.

D------N, January I 1th, 1818.

From this story (Wesermann continues) the following conclusions may be drawn: -

1. That waking persons, as well as sleeping, are capable of perceiving the mental pictures of distant friends through the inner sense as dream images. For not only the opening and shutting of the door, but the figure itself - which, moreover, exactly resembled that of the dead lady - was incontestably only a dream in the waking state, since the door would have creaked as usual had the figure really opened and shut it.

2. That many apparitions and supposed effects of witchcraft were very probably produced in the same way....

For other cases of experimental apparitions, see Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 103, and vol. ii. p. 675; also the Journal S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 307.