The phenomena of Mesmerism, or, more properly, Magnetism, are of a nature we might anticipate from the close union of the soul with the source of all its powers, the Higher Ego. They are prophetic, intuitional, universal. As on the higher planes of the psychic states the soul seems to contact and sense material things without the intervention of the physical senses, so upon this it arrives directly at intellectual truths, without the aids of reasoning or ratiocinative processes. Prophecies of the death of their body, as well as future events on the material plane, are common to somnambulists who have reached this condition, although these are of the very lowest of Mesmeric powers. Prophetic dreams fall under this head, as they are simply the Higher Ego functioning upon its own proper plane, and a glimpse of whose knowledge has been impressed upon the brain cells of the personality. Indeed, one great and deep distinction between the hypnotic and mes meric states is that the former requires that the Ego should be made unconscious on the material plane before its phenomena can fully and freely issue, while mesmeric effects can be produced quite independently of the unconsciousness and destruction of the Will by any of the hypnotic adjuncts.

The mesmeric phenomena proceed from the higher, inner planes; and can and do cause an influx of life, strength, and vigor into the physical system of the mesmerized subject while he is in the full possession of all his ordinary mental powers, and quite unconscious that any such process is taking place. Indeed, this unconsciousness is often mutual, neither the giver nor receiver being aware of what is taking place; or, in the case of Mental and Christian Science, not knowing how or why they cure disease when this follows upon their "treatments." It is simply the transfer of their own vital, electric, atomic magnetism, taking place under the passive aspect of the Will, or Desire. Its principal agent is the eye, usually assisted by "passes," in contradistinction to the crystal-gazing, or other physical methods, of hypnotism. The actual modus operandi of the two processes necessary in the production of Mesmerism and hypnotism have been nicely distinguished by Madame Blavatsky. She writes: *

* The Ocean of Theosophy.

"When the first method (Braid's) is used, no electro - psychic, or even electro - physical currents are at work, but simply the mechanical, molecular vibrations of the metal or crystal gazed at by the subject. It is the eye - the most occult organ of all on the superficies of our body - which, by serving as a medium between that bit of metal or crystal and the brain, attunes the molecular vibrations of the nervous centers of the latter into unison (i. e., equality in the number of their respective oscillations) with the vibrations of the bright object held. And it is this unison which produces the hypnotic state. But, in the second case, the right name for hypnotism would certainly be 'animal magnetism,' or that so much derided term, Mesmerism. For, in the hypno- tization by preliminary passes, it is the human will - whether conscious or otherwise - of the operator himself that acts upon the nervous system of the patient. And it is again through the vibrations - only atomic, not molecular - produced by that act of energy called WILL in the ether of space (therefore on quite a different plane) that the super-hypnotic (i.e., 'suggestion,' etc.,) is induced.

For those which we call will-vibrations and their aura are absolutely distinct from the vibrations produced by the simple mechanical molecular motion, the two acting on separate degrees of the cosmo-terrestrial planes."

* Lucifer, Vol. VII, No. 40.

These statements, again, will be derided by so-called "science." With them "suggestion" - by which is meant, according to Dr. Bjornstrom *, "every operation which in a living being causes some involuntary effect, the impulse to which passes through the intellect" - covers the whole of this terra incognita. How the idea that she is hypnotized and unable to move is "impulsed" through the intellect of a hen, from the point of whose bill a chalk line is drawn upon the ground in front of her, we leave for some learned "psychical Research Society" to investigate; the subject may be upon its intellectual level. In fact, "suggestion," as accounting for hypnotism upon the theory of ideas set up in the subject, entirely breaks down before the facts of the hypnosis of animals. Let a man stand in front of a hungry lion and "suggest" to him that he is not hungry, and he will presently find himself within the stomach of the beast; while, if he can catch the eye, and has the courage and knowledge to attune its vibrations to his own, he need not fear the most ferocious denizen of the forest.

This is the secret of the Rareys and lion-tamers, which they unconsciously exercise; and, indeed, it is the secret of that "dominion over every beast of the earth" which has enabled man to make them his unwilling subjects from the day that he first appreciated the strength of his human will.

From all of the preceding, it will be gathered that Theosophists look with no friendly eye upon the practice of hypnotism, except under the most strict legal and moral supervision. The dangers are many, and self-evident. If the very walls and stones preserve a record of shadows cast across them, which even science admits, how much more lasting the impression produced upon the sensitive brain structure by the deliberate and forcible impress of the will of another. It is a matter of grave doubt whether the hypnotized, after a thorough hypnosis, ever regain perfectly free will and entirely normal consciousness. Certain well-verified phenomena would indicate the reverse. For example: It is related of a well-known hypnotizer - then classed as a "miracle" worker, or magnetic healer - that he once removed a neuralgia, of long standing, from the arm of a certain sufferer, who thereupon returned to his own country. After some years of perfect freedom, the pain suddenly returned one day, with all its former intensity.

* Hypnotism, p. 41.