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Black Republic of Letters

Note - The Davenport brothers

Ira Erastus Davenport (1839-1911) and William Henry Davenport (1841-1877), known as the Davenport brothers, were American magicians from Buffalo, New York. Learn more about the Davenport brothers.

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Variety: Spiritism & Hypnotism The spectacle offered by this end of the century to any impartial observer is truly fascinating: perhaps never before
has the positive spirit been displayed with such confidence in all aspects of social life; and never before have the occult sciences had more followers than they do now: mysticism rubs shoulders with skepticism. Everything related to the supernatural, all phenomena for which it is difficult to provide a scientific or rational explanation, which appeal only to the imagination and not to reason, charm us, seduce us. It seems that, tired of the ardent and continuous struggle of our constant efforts to achieve the best materiality of our existence, we need to seek rest in the study of psychological problems. We temporarily abandon our material concerns to live an ideal, imaginative life.

It was as a result of this tendency toward supernatural beliefs that spiritualism developed in the past, with its lofty doctrines, its comforting gospel, and the genius of its founder, Allan Kardec, spiritualism attracted all those who sought happiness in mysterious realms beyond, unable to find it here on earth. Later, encouraged by the mystical spirit that reigned at the court of Napoleon III, Home enjoyed rapid and enormous success; but this could not last long, however skillful and powerful this illustrious mystifier may have been. The disillusionment that followed the craze sparked by this ingenious conjurer dealt a blow to spiritualism from which it suffered for a long time. Before him, moreover, the sad misadventures of the Davenport brothers and Professor Robin's entirely physical explanation of their famous experiments had also made skeptics of many spiritualist neophytes.

Despite this, despite these disappointments and numerous disillusions, spiritualism seems to be rising from the ashes, stronger and more powerful than ever—so great is our fascination with and love for the incomprehensible! Similarly, in hypnotism, what is appealing is not the physical phenomena described by the Salpêtrière School: it is the psychic phenomena and the supernatural that one senses in these manifestations. Everyone is talking about hypnotism; many people are doing it. But the fact that, in this new science, has resonated most in the popular imagination, has most seduced it, is suggestion, which is to say the psychic possession of one being by another, the surrender of will, of the free will, from the subject to their hypnotist. This splitting of personality, in which only the physical body remains, while the soul, merged with that of another person, is powerless to control it and unaware of its actions, is certainly a frightening fact, well suited to striking the impressionable imagination of the masses.

But for the physiologist, for the scrupulous analyst, the psychopathic state of the suggested subject is no less interesting to observe. In the suggestible state, the nervous system exhibits remarkable tension, acuity, and hyperesthesia: A sleepwalker perceives sounds that are inaccessible to his ear while awake; his eyes, although closed, are sensitive to light rays to which he is not normally susceptible; his impressionability is excessive; he recalls past facts that had only left an ephemeral impression upon him and which he is able to remember in active life. His intelligence reaches an abnormal degree of perfection and allows him to accomplish intellectual feats that he would be incapable of if he were not in a state of hypnosis.

However, alongside this condition of suggestion imposed by a hypnotist on his subject, i.e., passive suggestion, certain subjects experience similar phenomena of self-suggestion through their own will alone, without any outside intervention. Such a person can, on their own and through their own mental functions, put themselves directly into a hypnotic state and then give themselves whatever suggestions they want: they can achieve a split personality, annihilate bodily sensations, become insensitive to pain, or produce sensory hyperesthesia. Such is the case, for example, with the often-cited martyrs, fakirs, and all fanatics who, under the influence of absolute willpower and self-suggestion, endure torture without actually feeling pain. When the will focuses on developing a particular function, that function can reach extraordinary levels of accidental perfection. The complete, absolute focus of sight and hearing on a particular point or sound will enable us to distinguish an object or perceive a noise that would otherwise be inaccessible to our senses in everyday life. And while, in order to achieve this nervous hyperacuity, our entire will is focused on the goal to be attained, material life seems to fall asleep within us; our state of self-suggestion is such that, in this case, we no longer notice any external phenomena. Courage and stoicism are also merely effects of self-suggestion.

A person's mental state is the same when they are in a state of passive suggestion or self-suggestion. In both cases, there is always nervous hyperesthesia, intellectual or sensory hyperacuity, depending on the purpose of the suggestion.

However, all the extraordinary phenomena attributed to spiritualism are nothing more than self-suggestion. When a medium, convinced of the communication between the souls of the dead and the living, sits down at a table with a pencil in hand and invokes a spirit, asking it to guide his hand and write down its wishes or thoughts, he concentrates his will so intensely on this single goal, he is so “absorbed,” as the common expression goes, that he becomes oblivious to the outside world; he sees nothing, he hears nothing; he is no longer anything but a will detached from his body. From then on, he practiced self-hypnosis on himself, giving himself an imperative autosuggestion; his intellectual functions are abnormally acute, as in a state of induced somnambulism, enabling him to recall certain facts that he cannot remember when awake, or to perform tasks that he would otherwise be incapable of doing. In both cases of suggestion or self-suggestion, there is also the same phenomenon of amnesia upon waking up, of the events that took place in this particular state.

Here is an example that proves this particular psychological state of self-suggestion: at a spiritualist meeting, a young woman evokes the soul of one of our great poets and, under the influence of this evocation, writes a piece of verse that is very well crafted and completely unknown; The followers even recognized the style of the late great man. However, some time later, by chance, a copy of this poem was found, which was simply the work of one of our modern poets, who is still happily enjoying life. The young woman then confessed, in all honesty, that she did indeed remember reading this play several years earlier. She had only read it, without ever trying to commit it to memory, and she was unable to quote a single fragment, but in a state of self-hypnosis, her memory, much more active, had recalled these verses to her; the impression produced by a single reading was not strong enough to trigger a memory in the waking state, but it was sufficient during hypnosis.

The same applies to all the facts observed during séances, which indicate extraordinary intelligence in subjects who do not normally demonstrate particularly strong psychic abilities. These subjects are temporarily in a hypnotic state during which their brains experience abnormal acuity and overexcitement, resulting in intellectual or moral manifestations that are equally abnormal and exceptional, but which are in no way supernatural or superhuman.

Dr. Pr. Vernial

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Davenport Brothers