Visions of the Entranced "Spirit Seers"

What the average person knows about hypnotic phenomena and trance phenomena is only a small fraction of the astonishing phenomena that have been observed in hypnotized and entranced subjects. Nowadays the average person may have merely heard about these things:

• Some people who are hypnotized may recall details of some past experience they could not recall when not hypnotized. 
• Some people who are hypnotized and asked about a past life they had before their birth may describe some events that may be a description of a past life (or possibly just imaginative narratives arising from a power of suggestive). 
• Some people under hypnosis may believe suggestions of their hypnotist. For example, if told by his hypnotist that a cool stick of wood is very hot, a hypnotized person may report feeling burned if the stick of wood is placed on his hand. 
• Some people may be hypnotized and given a post-hypnotic suggestion that will cause them to act in some particular way when they come out of their hypnotic state. For example, under hypnosis, someone may be told to cough whenever hearing his name. After being awoken from hypnosis, the person may then cough when his name is spoken. 

But such phenomena are by no means the most remarkable things reported in hypnotized or entranced subjects.  What you read about hypnosis in recent psychology books or science web sites is only a small fraction of hypnotic phenomena and trance phenomena.  The diagram below illustrates the situation. What you read about hypnosis in places like psychology textbooks or Scientific American or the New York Times is only a small fraction of hypnotic phenomena and trance phenomena, almost always the least interesting cases.  Our mainstream news sources don't want you to learn about the harder-to-explain things that have occurred under hypnosis and trances, things that tend to be inconsistent with the dogmatic claims of many materialist professors. 

Some of the more remarkable hypnotic phenomena (but not by any means the most remarkable) include things like these reported by Ian Stevenson MD in a chapter of one of his books:

• When a hypnotized man was told his heart rate was increasing, it increased from 78 beats a minute to 135 beats a minute. 
• "LeCron (1969) obtained breast growth in all but 3 of 20 women to whom he gave hypnotic suggestions that this would happen."
• "Since the last quarter of the 19th century hypnotists have reported the production of blisters on the skin through hypnotic suggestions."
• 14 patients with warts on both sides of the body were given hypnotic suggestions the warts would disappear on one side, and in 9 out of the 10 deeply hypnotized patients the warts disppeared on only the suggested side. 
• "Beilis (1966) inadvertently produced a sunbumlike reaction in the skin of a woman to whom he gave the suggestion, during a procedure for hypnotic induction, that she imagine herself at a beach on a sunny day."
• After recalling under hypnosis a severe belt whipping his father inflicted on his buttocks, a patient inexplicably developed blue marks on his buttocks. 
• "Smirnoff (1912) produced blisters with hypnotic suggestions in an unusually short time. In one experiment a blister developed within 30 minutes, and in a second one it developed after about 2 hours. Smirnoff was particularly pleased with his second experiment, when, he stated, the 'whole process took place under our eyes.'  He had two other persons present as witnesses."

As remarkable as such phenomena are, they are still not at all the most astonishing things reported in hypnotized subjects. Other astonishing phenomena include  the following (which can be read about here):

• The astonishing effect of complete insensitivity to pain under hypnosis, so that major surgery could be performed while a subject was under hypnosis, with him reporting no pain even though no anesthestic had been used. 
• Astonishing subconscious time-keeping abilities,  so that a post-hypnotic suggestion could come into effect exactly after the elapsing of a specified time such as 30 hours or 100 hours.
• Exaltation of speaking abilities, so that a subject under hypnosis might speak with an intellectual brilliance he would never display under normal consciousness.

Even more remarkable phenomena have very many times been reported after hypnotized subjects were guided to achieve a kind of rapport with some other person.  The phrase that appears in the literature again and again is the French phrase en rapport. Many times  the nineteenth century literature would refer to some strange process by which a hypnotized subject would be guided to have a kind of temporary psychic closeness with some person, a state that would be referred to as being en rapport with the other person. We repeatedly read in the literature accounts of the following:

• Once a hypnotized person had been "placed en rapport" with some other person, a stranger to him, the hypnotized person might describe in great detail accuracy the pains and symptoms of that person. 
• Once a hypnotized person had been "placed en rapport" with some other person, a stranger to him,  the hypnotized person might describe in detail internal medical problems of that person, just as if the hypnotized person could see inside the body with something rather like X-ray vision. 
• Once a hypnotized person had been "placed en rapport" with some other person, there could occur a kind of "traveling clairvoyance" in which the other person might vaguely describe walking to his home and inside his home, and the hypnotized person might very accurately describe all kinds of physical details of the home and the road leading to it that the person had never mentioned. 
• Hypnotized subjects could countless times tell what was inside sealed containers, and display other feats of clairvoyance such as tell what someone was doing behind a closed door. 

You can read many accounts of such cases by reading the posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. 

It is important for any careful student of this topic to be aware of the shifting terminology that has been used regarding hypnotism. Hypnotism is more than two hundred years old (many people think it has existed for thousands of years).  The first major known use of something like hypnotism occurred in late eighteenth century Europe.  Franz Mesmer began a medical treatment program that was called animal magnetism or simply magnetism or Mesmerism.  His program consisted mainly of a form of hypnotism along with various superfluous theoretical claims about a "magnetic fluid" in bodies. One of Mesmer's disciples (Armand-Marc-Jacques Chastanet, the Marquis de Puységur) experimented and discovered that it was possible to induce in subjects a hypnotic state between sleep and normal consciousness, a state he called "artificial somnambulism."

In the first half of the nineteenth century very dramatic results were produced in hypnotized subjects.  But to research the very extensive literature on this topic (much of it written by doctors) on sites such as www.archive.org, you must use search phrases more than just "hypnotism."  The word "hypnotism" only came into existence in 1843. Before then there were many books written about hypnotic phenomena, but instead of using the word "hypnotism" they use terms such as Mesmerism, animal magnetism, "magnetic sleep," and somnambulism.  In some cases the word "magnetism" is used to mean "animal magnetism," which is basically "early hypnotism." The modern word "hypnotism" was introduced in 1843 by James Braid, who tried to present a stripped-down description of hypnotic phenomena that would be acceptable to those not wishing to ponder the more astonishing things being reported when people were hypnotized. 

The items in my previous bullet lists are very remarkable, but they are not the most remarkable phenomena reported under hypnosis or  trances.  The most remarkable phenomena reported are the following:

• It was reported by multiple authors that under hypnosis or in a trance some subjects would be able to obtain in a clairvoyant manner details about a spirit world and life after death. 
• It was reported by multiple authors that under hypnosis or in a trance some subjects would be able to obtain in a clairvoyant manner details about the appearance and characteristics of deceased people, details that could be verified by the spouses or relatives of such people.  

Below is a quote from a nineteenth century work, in which the writer describes a very high state of mentality under hypnosis (the writer uses the word  "magnetic" to mean "hypnotic"):

"In the clearest and highest magnetic condition, there is neither seeing, hearing, nor feeling; they are superseded by something more than all three together — an unerring perception, and the truest penetration into our own life and nature. And the more simple and the nearer nature the man is in his waking state, who falls into this condition, the more entirely does his spirit liberate itself from soul and body, and the deeper and truer is his self-seeing.

But this state has also its various degrees and differences, as will be hereafter shewn; and it is in the highest condition of the inner life that no deception is possible — especially in that moment when the spirit, finding itself released from the soul, the very innermost centre is illuminated as by a flash of lightning. ' From that moment' says a clear-seer, ' everything resolves itself into an unbounded sea of light, in which from infinite bliss I seem to be dissolved myself. Every form presents itself to me in this light — which far exceeds that of the sun— in the most defined and accurate point of view. I comprehend everything much more easily and clearly, the depths of nature are opened to me, and my view of the past and the future, both as regards tim6 and space, is like viewing the present ; and is more per- fect and defined in proportion to the degree of development the condition has reached.' "

The quote above is from an 1845 work by the physician Justinus Kerner, a work describing the case of Frederica Hauffe, a visionary born in 1801.  When a young girl, she apparently saw an apparition. After marrying as a young woman, she began to experience odd symptoms.  We read the following very strange account:

"At one time, she spoke for three days only in verse; and at another, she saw for the same period nothing but a ball of fire, that ran through her whole body as if on thin bright threads. Then for three days she felt as if water was falling on her head, drop by drop ; and it was at this time that she first saw her own image. She saw it clad in white, seated on a stool, whilst she was lying in bed. She contemplated the vision for some time, and would have cried out, but could not. At length she made herself heard, and on the entrance of her husband it disappeared."

After reading the equally strange account here, and after reading about her starting hypnotic therapy with a doctor, we are told that Frederica began to see spirits. We read this: 

"It was about this period that, for the first time, she began to see another person behind the one she was looking at. Thus, behind her youngest sister she saw her deceased brother, Henry ; and behind a female friend, she saw the ghostly form of an old woman, whom she had known in her childhood at Lowenstein."

On the same page and the next page we read this interesting account of visionary prowess:

"For long intervals she was only in a half-waking state ; though she would walk out in the snow and rain, and preferred being in the cold. She was extremely susceptible to all sorts of spiritual influences : prophetic dreams, divinations, and prophetic visions in glass and mirrors, gave evidence of her inner-life. Thus, in a glass of water that stood upon the table, she saw some persons, who, half an hour afterwards, entered the room. She also saw, in the same manner, a carriage travelling on the road to B--- , which was not visible from where she was. She described the vehicle, the persons that were in it, the horses, &c. ; and in half an hour afterwards this equipage arrived at the house. At this time she seemed also endued with the second sight. One morning, on leaving the room during the visit of her physician, she saw a coffin standing in the hall, which impeded her way ; in it lay the body of her paternal grandfather. She returned, and bade her parents and physician come out and see it ; but they could see nothing, nor, at that time, she either. On the following morning the coffin, with the body in it, was standing by her bedside. Six weeks afterwards the grandfather died, having been in perfect health until a few days of his death."

Frederica then began to suffer increasingly severe medical problems, losing an unhealthy amount of weight.  She improved after some treatment, but was at one point was in a state rather between life and death. We read this:

"From her eyes there shone a really spiritual light, of which every one who saw her became immediately sensible ; and, whilst in this state, she was more a spirit than a being of mortal mould. Should we compare her to a human being, we should rather say that she was in the state of one who, hovering between life and death, belonged rather to the world he was about to visit, than the one he was going to leave."

On the same page and the next one we read that she had out-of-body experiences (like many others):

"She was frequently in that state in which persons, who, like her, have had the faculty of ghost-seeing, perceive their own spirit out of their body, which only enfolds it as a thin gauze. She often saw herself out of her body, and sometimes double. She said, ' It often appears to me that I am out of my body, and then I hover over it, and think of it ; but this is not a pleasant feeling, because I recognize my body.' "

We later read of Frederica exhibiting a phenomenon well-documented by numerous other writers, the phenomenon of "transposition of the senses," in which someone under hypnosis or someone in a trance may seem to read with some body part other than the eyes, or hear with some part other than the ears.  We read this:

"Many curious experiments, of the same sort, all tended to the conviction, that writings or drawings, placed on the pit of her sto- mach, produced sensible effects, according to their nature. Good news of her child made her laugh — ill news made her sad ; the name of a person who was her enemy awakened anger ; and the name of Napoleon excited martial ideas, and she sang a march. Strange as these results are, repeated experiments confirmed them ; and, however difficult to believe, they are absolute facts."

On page 77 we read the following interesting passage, that may be important in explaining the phenomenon of "phantom pain," under which someone can still seem to feel pain from an amputated limb:

"When she saw people who had lost a limb, she still saw the limb attached to the body...From this interesting phenomenon, we may, perhaps, explain the sensations of persons, who still have feeling in a limb that has been amputated."

On page 80 we read more about Frederica's "spirit seeing" capability:

"At such times as the faculty of ghost-seeing was active in her, she believed herself to be awake ; but she was then in that peculiar state we have denominated as the inner-life. Her grandmother always appeared to her in the form she bore when alive, but in different attire."

Later we read this very spooky account:

"Behind a servant girl, who lived with me, she often saw the form of a boy about twelve years old. I asked the girl if she had any relation of that age, but she said she had not. But she. told me afterwards that, on thinking of my inquiry, she remembered that her brother, who had died when he was three years old, would have been just twelve."

On pages 156-157 Frederica gives us this equally spooky account in her own words:

"Whilst the ghosts are with me, I see and hear every thing around me as usual, and can think of other subjects ; and though I can avert my eyes from them, it is difficult for me to do it — I feel in a sort of magnetic rapport with them. They appear to me like a thin cloud, that one could see through — which, however, I cannot do. I never observed that they threw any shadow. I see them more clearly by sun or moonlight than in the dark ; but whether I could see them in absolute darkness, I do not know....he appearance of the ghosts is the same as when they were alive, but colourless — rather greyish; so is their attire — like a cloud."

On page 174 the author (the physician Justinus Kerner) describes a case in which the apparition-sighting of Frederica was corroborated by others:

"I myself once saw a spectre, at the moment that 

Mrs. H 's eyes were fixed on it. To me the 

outlines were not distinct ; it looked like a pillar of 

vapour, or cloud, of the size of a man ; it stood by 

her bed-side, and she was speaking to it in a low 

voice. She told me afterwards, that it was the 

spectre of a tall, old man, who had visited her twice 

before. It is remarkable, that on his first appear- 

ance, her sister had seen it ; and also another per- 

son, who discerned it as distinctly as Mrs. H 

herself." 

Kerner states on page 175 that he visited Frederica Hauffe "at least 3000 times" and "gave myself inexpressable pains to investigate all reports, but I never could discover deception." Frederica died in 1829, still in her twenties. She reported seeing her deceased father in her last days, like many people who report seeing apparitions of relatives in their last days. Reportedly various spooky things happened at the time of her death, as reported here and here. 

The case of Frederica Hauffe bears significant resemblance to the much later (and equally interesting) case of Mollie Fancher, discussed in detail here.  Both Frederica and Mollie suffered very severe medical symptoms, both often fell into trances, and both claimed to see spirits. In the Fancher case there is abundance of good evidence for her clairvoyant abilities.  But except for the passage previously quoted, there seemed to be relatively little evidence in either the Hauffe case or the Fancher case corroborating the claims of an ability to see spirits. 

But in another case involving hypnosis, an entranced seer claimed to see the spirits of many dead people, and her descriptions were well corroborated by people who knew such dead people when they were alive.  The case I refer to is the case of Adele Magnot, described in detail in the 1851 book The Celestial Telegraph by Louis Alphonse Cahagnet. 

After discussing experiences with several entranced visionaries, on pages 51-52 Cahagnet introduces us to Adele, telling us that he would hypnotize her, and that she would not remember what occurred when she was hypnotized.  He introduces her as follows (using the word "magnetic sleep" for a hypnotic trance):

"We are now come to our best and most powerful ecstatic ; the one whose light has opened our eyes ; the one who refuses no spiritual experiment. Theology, metaphysics, psychology, she answers all in a sense tinctured with neither pride nor error. Should the materialist not obtain from her the proofs he desires, he can not accuse her of entangling the question, or of bad faith. For several years past, in her magnetic sleep, she lives with the beings of the other world ; give her but the Christian and surname of the deceased persons, no matter at what period we desire her to perceive or consult, and she sees and converses with them at will. Hitherto, she has never failed in one experiment, and we shall be astonished at her clairvoyance, and the exact details she gives of persons who have departed this life."

It is not until Volume II of The Celestial Telegraph that Cahagnet gives examples that seem to corroborate such claims.  Cahagnet discusses very many cases in which Adele was asked by some visitor to describe a deceased person Adele had never known, given only the deceased person's name.  Again and again, she immediately describes the person mentioned, to the satisfaction of the visitor who knew the deceased person.

Below are some quotes that  give an impression of this ability. All of the quotes are comments about the accuracy of a description Adele gave of a dead person she did not know, after given only the person's name by a stranger.  In many of these cases, both the name and the address of the visitor are given. 

• "Madame Lorme declares herself highly satisfied with the exactitude of these details."
• M. A____ acknowledged the exactitude of all these details." 
• J. Vermale "acknowledged as perfectly exact all the above details."
• A M. Duteil said "I acknowledge the above details as exact, excepting the age."
• "Madame D acknowledges all the details of the apparition of her husband as quite exact."
• A J. J. Rostan said, "This is true as regards the stature, age, dress, deportment, malady, and the deformity."
• General De Wagner said the description was "very exact."
• Gilot L' Etang said that "the whole is conformable to the truth."
• A Viscount D'Orsay said, "I certify that the above details are perfectly correct, and that I was greatly astonished, as well as delighted, to find once more in this description all the reminiscences left me of my mother who died thirty-three years ago."
• C. Witt said, "I certify that all the particulars given by the somnambulist [Adele] are very exact, and conformable to the truth."
• Blesson said, "Acknowledged the above details as strictly true in every respect," and later "acknowledged the above details as perfectly exact."
• A C.C. said, "Acknowledged all the above details as very exact."
• E. Osborne "acknowledged all as correct, apart the age and prediction, which time only can prove."
• Roustan stated, "This is exact."
• Fandar stated, "The indications given by our somnambulist [Adele] are very exact." 
•  Dejean de la Bastie "acknowledged the details as exact."
• Mesdames De Longueville, I. D'Heuicourt, and Ve. Bimont "signed the whole as quite exact."

Following the links above, you can read the conversations that preceded these testimonies of accuracy. They are almost all cases in which some visitor asked for Adele to see some deceased person unknown to Adele. The accurate descriptions that followed (as recorded by the author) did not involve Adele asking questions of the visitors to any appreciable degree, so the impressive results cannot be explained by any hypothesis of "cold reading."  Some of the original readers of Cahagnet's book may have explained such high accuracy as telepathy between Adele and the visitors rather than clairvoyant perceptions of souls surviving death. 

A typical example of such apparent prowess is reported on page 120 of Volume II of the book.  A Pauline Vedeaux arrives, and asks if Adele can see Pauline's deceased father. Adele gives this description of the person she had never met or heard about:

"I see a man, with gray hair not quite so tall as madame, pretty corpulent, neck short, fine open forehead ; lively eyes, expressive and mild ; countenance fresh ; nose rather large at the bottom, middling-size ; smiling mouth ; chin round : altogether a good-looking old man. His death must have been caused by the state of his blood, as I perceive it is black, thick, and circulating with difficulty. He was subject to stoppages ; he was treated for an aneurism, but it was not one; his medical adviser ought rather to have diverted the course of the blood. He must have experienced a sort of weight in the lower part of the body, and lassitude in the limbs ; also a pain in his left leg. I see him in a dark-colored riding-coat, light-colored waistcoat, coarse blue pantaloons; he wore shoes, and not boots ; for his size as a man, his hand was not large. He had a look commanding respect, was good and just. In his last moments, he was easily provoked. He was not fond of showing off' his kind feelings, preferring to keep them pent up within himself; this caused him to be looked upon as very cold, though. he was not so. His domestic happiness was often disturbed, his wife's character not being in sympathy with his own. He tells me that your son is intended for the bar, that he will be an advocate. He often comes to inspire you with good thoughts. He has appeared to you in dreams; your position will be changed in two years' time, and you will reside in Paris."

We are told that "This lady is greatly surprised at the minuteness and truth of these details, especially those concerning her son ; from the earliest age of the latter, the grandfather used to say, 'My little grandson shall be a little advocate.' "  We are given a quote in which Pauline states, "Recognised as very exact, all these details."

On pages 161-164 of Volume 1 the author gives a series of questions and answers regarding life after death. He neglects to tell from which of his hypnotized visionaries the answers have come, but we may guess that they come from the centerpiece of his book, Adele (as they match her description of life-after-death beginning on page 52).  The depiction of life after death is a pleasant one.  We are told there is no hell, but merely "places of purification" for "great criminals." We are told that after death people typically go to a heaven, where they live in a human form. We are told that in this heaven there is "all that can be desired." When asked whether souls surviving death "after a certain time, inhabit again the earth," the answer is "No." The questions and answers below are interesting:

C 31. "On entering the heavens does the soul see God ?" " Yes." 

C 32. "In what form?" "That of a dazzling sun."

What is interesting about this answer is that it conforms with the accounts given in near-death experiences reported since 1970. In such accounts, again and again people will report encountering some transcendent or numinous reality or mind, which appears not in a human form, but as a kind of amorphous "Being of light" comparable to a "dazzling sun."  Encountering "an unusually bright light" or a "light clearly of mystical or other-worldly origin" is one of the "Greyson Scale" characteristics of a near-death experience. 

The case of Adele Magnot described above resembles that of the case of Leonora Piper, another person who in a trance state seemed to have uncanny accuracy in describing deceased persons she could not have learned about, when asked about such persons by strangers.  A complete description of the inexplicable phenomena reported under hypnosis or trances would require a very long volume.  Whenever you hold in your hands something like an 800-page psychology textbook, you should say to yourself something like, "What they discuss is merely the tip of the iceberg." If we can compare the human mind to an ocean, what you learn about such a reality in college is merely like a bay of that ocean.