THE SENSATIONALISM OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2687, 27 September 1871, Page 3

THE SENSATIONALISM OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

(From tne Melbourne, Age.) The ex-coroner of Chiltern, Dr Rohncr, is an eccentric. Madame Sibley, it seems, is on a professional visit to that district just now, and the doctor feels bound, as “the health officer of the district of Chiltern, appointed by her tyrannical majesty Queen Conscience,” to rush to the rescue. He warns all with forcible language, but particularly those who “ have a natural ineliuation to idiotcy, or daftness, and such temperaments as in common life are called silly or foolish to beware of Madame Sibley lest she might mature you for the lunatic asylum.” He then gives the following story, written with all the picturesqueness of Dumas, and founded doubtless on as much truth as his Monte Christo, as an example of the dangers of the art of which the Sibley woman is a professor : Some young gentlemen (their names, &c , are my secret), equally sceptical in matters of religion and animal magnetism, belonging to that class qf incredulous persons who are open to every superstition and fanaticism, bad, for money, bought over a poor and abandoned girl to submit to their experiments. She was of an impressionable and nervous temperament, being moreover worn out by the excesses of a more than irregular life, and already tired of hi r existence. She is put to sleep ; she is ordered to see ; she cries, and refuses to comply. They speak to her of God .•. . ; all her limbs tremble. “No,” says she; “no; lam afraid. I will not see Him.” “Look at Him ; I will it.” She then opens her e\ es ; her pupils become dilated ; her appearante is frightful. “ What do you se ?” “ 1 could not tell ifc . . , , Oh ! for heaven’s sake wake me up !” “ No, look, and tell me what you see.” “ I see a dark night, in twirl about sparks of divers colours ; they turn round two large rolling eyes. From these eyes stream rays of light, which twist themselves into widening spirals and fill all space. Oh, how bad I feel, do wake me up !” “No, look.” “What else do you want me to see ?” “ Look into paradise.” “ No, 1 cannot rise up there, the dark night pushes me back, I am always falling down again,” “ Vevy well, then, look into hell.” At this moment the somnambule is violently convulsed. “No, no,” she cries, sobbing, “ I will not; I should get giddy. 1 should fall. Oh loh ! keep me back, hold me !” “No, go down.” “Where do you want me to go to?” “ Intahell.” “Bpt this is horrible ! No, no, I shall not go there !” “ Go.” “ Mercy.” “ Go, I will it.” The features of the somnambule become terrible to look at; the hairs of her head stand on cud ; her eyes, wide open, only show the white; her bosom heaves violently, and a certain rattle escapes from her throat. “Go there, I will it,” repeats the magnetiser. “I am there,” murmurs the unfortunate girl between her teeth, falling back exhausted. Then she answers no more. Her heavy head falls upon her right shoulder, her arms hang dead by the side of her body. The bold experimenters come to her assistance ; they touch her. 'J hey try to wake her up ; it is too late, the crime has been committed The poor girl was dead, and the authors of this tragical and sacrilegious experiment had to thank public incredulity in matters of animal magnetism for not being prosecuted. The authority of the law had to find a cause of death, and a verdict of an aneurism of the heart was readily—but falsely—returned. The body presented no external marks of ■ violence. The girl was buried, and that was the end of it.”