Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1883 — DICKENS AND SPIRITUALISM. [ARTICLE]

DICKENS AND SPIRITUALISM.

Few people know that Dickens was a Spiritualist. Yet he was. And it is my own remembrance of his experience in these two things that I now wish to relate. One of his great friends m the quiet circle of his acquaintance was the wife of a leading London physician. She was a mesmerist and a Spiritualist, and it was from her teaching that an interest was aroused in his mind upon these two subjects. He came in one night with a nervous headache, and said to his friend: “Now, Mary, try your mesmeric hand bn me, and see if you can do my head good.” Seating himself on the carpet at her feet, she gently passed her hands through his hair, from his forehead backward, for about five minutes, at the same time breathing upon the crown of bis bead, and then, with a look of satisfaction to me, called my attention to the fact that he was sound asleep. Continuing her manipulations for a few minutes more, she finally shook him rudely in an endeavor to awaken him; but be was too far gone. Calling a servant she had him conveyed to the room he often used when there. He was undressed and put in bed. I remained by his side for six hours, and during the whole of that time be slept as soundly as a new-born babe. When he

awoke be was completely surprised to find himself there, and it took him some minutes to recall to his mind the fact that for the,first. time in his life he hod allowed his friend to mesmerize him, and willingly let himself succumb to the influence. He never afterward doubted the power of mesmerism or magnetism, or whatever it may be tertned. But it was some two years before he could ever be prevailed upon to believe that he contained a large amount of magnetio power.— Argonaut.