Autobiography of Dr. D.B. Kellogg (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1869 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF MAGNETISM, AND ITS RELATION TO ORDINARY SLEEP, AND THE SCIENCEOP SPIRITUALISM. N ORDER to arrive at au intelligent understandY ing of clairvoyance, or even spirit manifestations, JP it becomes absolutely necessary that the principles of mesmerism should be understood, for mesmerism is the foundation of every phase of psychological phenomena. In Chapter IV I have given an acconnt of my first mesmeric experience, and I now propose to give a condensed explanation of the natural principles involved in the phenomena. Webster defines the term mesmerism "to be the art of communicating a species of sleep to the body, while the mind remains active." The pertinent question which here naturally arises is "what species of sleep is it that is by the power of mesmerism communicated?" I take the ground that there is no difference between sleep induced by mesmerism and natural slumber, so far as principles are concerned. This ground, I shall, in this chapter, aim to illustrate by a comparison of the two phenomena. In order to do this it becomes necessary for me to consider the philosophy of ordinary sleep; and to do this I must take into consideration the nervous organization of the human body, and from thence deduce inferences in regard to the elementary principles of ordinary slumber. The nervous system of the human organism is divided into two grand parts: being the brain and spinal cord, and these combined are known as the cerebrospinal centres. From this axis or centre, there are numerous nerves which run to all parts of the system. A portion of these nerves start from the base of the brain and terminate in the eye, the ear, the tongue, the lips, etc. This set of nerves are the first developed in the infantile organism. Another and ...