Another phenomenon followed shortly afterwards. One day Mme. X. felt herself lifted with force from her arm-chair and compelled to stand upright. Her feet and her whole body then executed a systematic calisthenic exercise, in which all the movements were regulated and made rhythmic with finished art. This was renewed on following days, and towards the end of each performance - sometimes of an hour's or two hours' duration - the movements acquired extreme energy. Mme. X. has never had the smallest notion of chamber-gymnastics, Swedish or otherwise, and these movements would have been very painful and fatiguing had she attempted them of her own will. Yet at the end of each performance she was neither fatigued nor out of breath. All was going well, and Dr. Z. had announced that henceforth his attentions would not be needed, when next day a singular accident threw everything back. Mme. X. had mounted with great precaution upon a low chair with four legs and a large base of support to take an object from a wardrobe. Just as she was about to descend, the chair was violently snatched from under her feet and pushed to a distance.

Mme. X. fell on the diseased foot, and the cure had to begin again. [In a subsequent letter Dr. X. explains that by Mme. X.'s account this movement was distinctly due to an invisible force; no natural slipping of the chair].

Mme. X. was accustomed to bandage her own foot every morning. One day she was astonished to feel her hands seized and guided by an occult force. From that day onwards the bandaging was done according to all the rules of the art, and with a perfection which would have done credit to the most skilful surgeon of either hemisphere. Although very adroit with her hands, Mme. X. had never had occasion to practise nursing or to study minor surgery, yet the bandages thus automatically applied were irreproachable, and were admired by every one. When Mme. X. wished to renew the bandages, she placed the strips all rolled up upon a table within reach of her hand, and her hand then automatically took the bandage which best suited the occult operation.

Mme. X. is accustomed to arrange her own hair. One morning she said laughingly, "I wish that a Court hairdresser would do my hair for me; my arms are tired." At once she felt her hands acting automatically, and with no fatigue for her arms, which seemed to be held up; and the result was a complicated coiffure, which in no way resembled her usual simple mode of arrangement.

The oddest of all these automatic phenomena consisted in extremely graceful gestures which Mme. X. was caused to execute with her arms - gestures as though of evocation or adoration of some imaginary divinity, or gestures of benediction. When the occult agent placed her before the portrait of her son whom she lost five years ago the scene became really affecting, and moved Mme. X. herself to tears. The few persons who witnessed this spectacle are agreed that it was worthy of the powers of the greatest actress. Of such a gift Mme. X. has nothing; her nature is simple and frank, but cold rather than demonstrative.

At the Paris Exhibition of 1889 Mme. X. once saw the "Javanese dance," consisting of rhythmic motions of the body with contortions of the arms. The occult agents caused her to repeat this dance several times with perfect execution.

[Disliking these phenomena,] Mme. X. has tried very hard to free herself from this control, and has to a great extent succeeded, by the use of cold water, by strongly resisting all communications, and by "passes of disengagement" executed by a hypnotiser. [This has reduced the phenomena almost entirely to automatic writing, which, though vague or fantastic when dealing with ordinary topics, is precise and intelligent on medical questions].

Thus far the phenomena recorded have been purely subjective; in those which follow there is something objective also. When one has the honour to be treated by a physician of Dr. Z.'s celebrity (!) ordinary kindness bids one sometimes think of benefiting one's neighbour. One of the officials of my department had suffered for many years from pleurodynia, which occasionally laid him up altogether, and also from frequent attacks of sick headache. Dr. Z. was consulted and prescribed an internal treatment which, to my great surprise, consisted mainly of "dosimetric granules"; [which this great official surgeon had not in his lifetime employed]. He also caused Mme. X. to perform "passes of disengagement" for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. It was noticeable that while these passes were made with extreme violence, Mme. X.'s hands were arrested at the distance of a millimetre at most from the patient's face, without ever touching him in the least. Mme. X. could never of herself have given to her movements such a degree of precision.

For two years now the patient has felt no more of his pleurodynia, and his migraine is, if not altogether cured, at least greatly reduced.

One day - I suppose by way of a joke - Dr. Z., after one of these seances, pursued the patient with his influence as he walked home, and made him execute with his hands various gestures and contortions which drew the attention of passers-by.

Another time our servant A., whose husband was ill in hospital, came crying to Mme. X. and told her that she had lost all hope of ever seeing him cured, etc. Mme. X. asked Dr. Z. to take him in hand. He promised to do so, and said that he would make him feel his presence. Next morning A. went to the hospital and found her husband in despair. "Look here," he said, "besides what I had already, I am falling into a nervous malady. I have been shaken about all night - my arms and legs have executed movements which I could not control." A. began to laugh, and told her husband that Dr. Z. had taken him in hand, and that he would soon get well. The patient is going about as usual to-day, and is as well as an incurable pulmonary affection allows him to be.

Under other circumstances I have myself consulted Dr. Z. as to patients under my professional care. On each occasion he has given a precise diagnosis and has indicated a treatment, consisting mainly of dosimetric granules, sometimes associated with other treatment. These facts have been repeated many times, and I owe great gratitude to Dr. Z. for the advice which he has given me. His prescriptions were always rational; and when I showed fears as to certain doses which appeared to me too large, he took pains to reassure me, but stuck to his prescriptions. I have never had to repent having followed the advice of my eminent colleague in the other world; and I am bound to state distinctly that every time that a medical question has been submitted to him the replies and advice of Dr. Z. have been of an astonishing clearness and precision. I cannot say the same of communications obtained on other subjects, in which he seemed to take a malicious pleasure in leading us wrong. He - or some one else - has often announced to us, with minute and intimate detail, the deaths of persons known to us; who were found on inquiry to be alive and well. Lastly, I give a detail which tends to prove the reality of this occult magnetisation.

Mme. X. has often seen two luminous rays projected upon her feet during the seances of which I have spoken above. The rays were invisible in full light, and in complete darkness, but were seen in partial obscurity, and resembled rays of the sun passing through small openings into a dark room. If this was a hallucination, it was shared on two occasions by the hypnotiser of whom I have already spoken. I myself never saw the rays, which may be compared with those said to have been seen by somnambulists and other sensitives as emanating under certain circumstances from the human frame.

In reply to inquiries Dr. X..adds the following remarks:-

It is not impossible that Mme. X. should have at some time heard myself or others pronounce the names of the medicaments prescribed. But when she gave me an exact diagnosis, and formulated in detail a rational treatment, I am sure that this did not come from her own mind. She has never studied any branch of medicine - neither the therapeutic art itself, nor the minor art of composing formulae. Nor could I have been acting suggestively, since my own ideas were often quite different from those which the occult agent dictated; unless, indeed, my unconscious self acted upon Mme. X.'s consciousness, which seems to me a somewhat too elaborate view.