Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/359

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exception of the coarse, unintelligent condemnation without inquiry, which till very lately, prevailed in England) is quite excusable. The fact I allude to is, that this agent is nothing but the will of the magnetiser. To-day not a doubt exists on this point, I believe, among those who combine practice with insight; therefore I think it superfluous to quote the numerous assertions of magnetisers in corroboration of it. 1 Time has thus not only verified [Marie Jacques de Chastenet de] Puységur's watchword and that of the older French magnetisers: "Veuillez et croyez!" [will and believe] i.e. " Will with belief!" but this very watchword has even developed into a correct insight of the process itself. 2 From Kieser's Tellurismus, still probably the most thorough and detailed text book of Animal Magnetism we have, it clearly results, that no act of Magnetism can take effect without the will; on the other hand the bare will, with out any outward action, is able to produce every magnetic effect. Manipulation seems to be only a means of fixing, and so to say incorporating, the will and its direction. In this sense Kieser says: "Inasmuch as the human hand, being the organ by which Man's outward activity is most visibly expressed, is the efficient organ in magnetising, manipulation arises." De Lausanne, a French magnetiser, pronounces himself with still greater precision on this point in the Fourth Book of his Annales du Magnetisme Animal (1814-1816), where he says: "L'action du magnétisme dépend de la seule volonté, il est vrai; mais l'homme ayant une forme extérieure et sensible, tout ce qui est à son usage, tout ce qui doit agir sur lui, doit nécessairement en avoir une

1 I only mention one work which has recently appeared, the explicit object of which is to show that the magnetiser's will is the real agent: Qu' est ce que le Magnétisme? par E. Gromier. (Lyon, 1850.)

2 Puységur himself says in the year 1784: "Lorsque vous avez magnétisé le malade, votre but était de l'endormir, et vous y avez réussi par le seul acte de votre volonté; c'est de même par un autre acte de volonté que vous le réveillez." [When you magnetized the patient, your object was to send him to sleep, and you succeeded simply through the act of your will; and it is likewise by another act of will that you wake him up.] (Puységur, Magnétisme Animal, 2me edit. 1820. Catéchisme Magnétique, p. 150-171) [Add. to 3rd ed.]


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