The power of the mind over the body : an experimental inquiry into the nature and cause of the phenomena attributed by Baron Reichenbach and others to a "new imponderable" / by James Braid.

  • Braid, James, 1795?-1860.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The power of the mind over the body : an experimental inquiry into the nature and cause of the phenomena attributed by Baron Reichenbach and others to a "new imponderable" / by James Braid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sun’s rays, by the moon’s rays, by starlight, by heat, by chemical or mechanical action, and finally, that this luminous or phos¬ phorescent appearance, and certain other peculiar properties, might be discovered by the highly sensitive in almost every place, and from nearly every object or form of matter, solid or fluid, animate or inanimate. Also, that it could be conducted through all other matter, and that all substances, not naturally actively 'Charged with it, could be so temporarily, by proximity and con¬ tact of those which Were actively charged. I have already stated the wonderful power of the human mind, when inward consciousness is strongly directed to any part of a sensitive person, in changing physical action, and leading the^ subject to attribute to an external cause what may have arisen entirely from an internal or mental cause. It has also been stated that, when I resorted to a mode of operating which ren¬ dered the subjects more highly sensitive to external influences, and at the same time was calculated to obviate any source of fallacy, as to mental emotion or expectation being directed to the pint from their seeing what was being done, the results were in direct opposition to what was represented as having been realized by the Baron. I have particularly adverted to this in respect to the alleged attraction of the magnet for the human frame; I have proved it to be equally so in respect to the human hand, and crystals, &c., where all sources of fallacy are guarded against. In my experience, moreover, with such cases, no light or flames have been perceived by patients either from the poles of a mag¬ net, crystals, the points of the fingers, or other substance, unless the patients have been previously penetrated with some idea of the sort, or have been plied with such questions as were calculated to excite notions, when various answers were given accordingly, and when in the sleep, there appeared an equal aptitude to see something when neither magnet nor fingers were in the direction indicated, as when they were—a clear proof that the impressions were entirely imaginary, or mental in their origin. I shall now proceed to detail the results of experiments with patients when wide awake, and when they had an opportunity of seeing what was being done, and expected something to