MESMERISM ON THE STAGE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3620, 17 February 1883, Page 4

MESMERISM ON THE STAGE.

Mr George Darrell author of the mystic drama, "Back from the Grave," relates the following:—"Whilst enacting the mesmeric scene during an engagement I played recently in California, I became impressed with the belief that the actor before mo was gradually but surely succumbing under the influences of my passes and concentrated gaze. By mere will-power I forced him backwards to a reclining position in a chair on tho right of the stage, and commanding him to sleep, awaited the result. Proceeding- with, the scene I placed myself presumably in a clairvoyant state, and on awakening therefrom I crossed to the sleepactor to proceed with the usual business, purposely omitting the voice cue ' awake, awake I ' I seized the man bodily to perform our customary struggle. He fell like a log to the stage, and to my consternation lay as though dead. He wa-> meainerisert with a vengeance, and so potently that I found it necessary to drop my assumed character and proceed to de-mesmerise him, a work of more than ordinary difficulty, dining which the curtain was lowered with the act unfinished and the audience left to ponder on the unrehearsed effect. After the performance, several members of the company expressed their doubts as to the genuineness of the situation, and challenged me to give further proof of my mesmeric power. After several refusal?, lat length consented to the trial, and strangely enough tho'juvenile lady,'tho 'heavy man,' the stage manager, and an old Australian friend of mine who changed to be present, were soon placed under the influence of the occult power. Questioning the Australian as to bis parentage and his home, I elicited replies painful to a degree. The serious illness of a near relative was announced, together with other matters of vital importance to himself. Time passed on, and long- ere I returned to the Australian I had verified the truth of the clairvoyant messages. The sad news so mysteriously conveyed across the sea was verified in every particular. Pain and misery had fallen upon my poor friend's family, and the member thereof most loved and most needed tad passed through the mists into eternity."