Queenwood College, | November 26th. 1854.
My Dear Dr. Tyndall,
Since you left us I have heard of a very extraordinary case of Electro-Biology2 practised by a relation of one of my school fellows.3 It was at a party near Fareham4 and about 12 o’clock at night when the visitors were departing that a lady, one of the company, (who had never been in his house which was some 8 or 9 miles distant) asked him to mesmerize5 her; he did so, and whilst she was sitting in a chair he did the following experiments. He placed a watch on her head and asked her what time it was; she said she could not tell him because there was only one hand to the watch (it happened to be exactly 12 o’clock so that the two hands coincided) He asked her again afterwards and she said ‘Oh! I see; it is a little past twelve.’
He then asked her to go through his house in her imagination (his house was some 8 or 9 miles off in which she had never been) he told her to go up the stairs, she went up a little way and then gave a sudden start saying that she saw a man at the top of the stairs; he told her to look again and see what it was and she recognised it to be a picture; she then went through all the upper rooms, stating what they each contained, and every thing she said was quite true. He then told her to go down into the kitchen and tell him what there was there; she said that there was a cook, a house-maid and a man with a striped waistcoat who looked like a groom;6 he asked her what they were doing, she said ‘drinking brandy and water.’
The gentleman went home that night and calling the servants up the next morning, he asked them what they meant by staying up so late drinking brandy and water with Charles the groom;7 they were greatly frightened and declared with tears in their eyes that they would leave the house, directly, if they had everything they did, pryed into in that manner.
At another time this gentleman mesmerized a man, who cried out with pain if anyone touched this gentleman.
Please to accept this letter from | Your old pupil | Walter Flight.
RI MS JT/5/15
Walter Flight: see letter 0818, n. 6.
extraordinary case of Electro-Biology: for definition of electrobiology see letter 0898, n. 6. Not otherwise identified.
one of my school fellows: not identified, but it would refer to another student at Queenwood where Flight also attended (see n. 1).
Fareham: Fareham, Hampshire, England, a town in Portsmouth Harbour.
mesmerize: ‘to hypnotize’ (OED).
Groom: ‘a man of inferior position; a man-servant’ (OED).
Charles the groom: not identified (see n. 6).
Please cite as “Tyndall1010,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on