Exeter May 4, 1847
My dear Sir,
As a stranger I need apologise for intruding on your notice - but in search of Truth I trust you will pardon the liberty I have taken. On perusing the 21st Series of the Philosophical Transactions containing your Experimental Researches on Electricity2, I am delighted to think that you are approaching to a solution of the true Theory of Mesmerism - and that your Experiments confirm the opinion of a most extraordinary Clairvoyant Patient under my care. See Zoist Jany 18473.
Whilst investigating mesmerism as a remedial agent my Patient has made the most extraordinary Revelations. She discovered the Animal Magnetic Polarity Jany 2nd, 1846 - and invariably places herself with her Head to the North as soon as she is mesmerised and pulls out her Steel Hair Pins and throws them away - the contact of Steel distresses her very much whilst in the mesmeric state. She sees the Electric spark, if passes are made with the points of the Fingers. The base of a Quartz Crystal produces a sensation of cold, the apex a sensation of warmth. In her waking state at night she has been alarmed by a luminous appearance of the Crystal.
She exhibits all the higher Mesmeric Phenomena and her own explanation of the Polarity is "as man is made of the materials of the Earth, he possesses the same property."
I should be most happy to receive any suggestion from you in elucidating the most extraordinary subject that was ever contemplated by the human mind.
I remain, My Dear Sir, | Yours faithfully | John B. Parker | Surgeon
Dr. Faraday
FARADAY, Michael (1846d): “Experimental Researches in Electricity. - Twenty-first Series. On new magnetic actions, and on the magnetic condition of all matter - continued”, Phil. Trans., 136: 41-62.
LUXMOORE, J.C. (1847): “Case of Epileptic and other Fits, Delirium, Neuralgia, Vomiting, and the discharge of Arsenic taken long previously, successfully treated with Mesmerism, which produced intuitive knowledge of the internal state, the future course of the Disease, and the proper treatment”, Zoist, 4: 517-62.
Please cite as “Faraday1984,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday1984