Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1875 — Hallucinations. [ARTICLE]

Hallucinations.

Mental hallucination is a morbid condition of the brain, which, while in a. very active state, is yet quite false to itself, rendering impressions which really have no basis of fact. Thus Earl Grey, during the latter days of his Ilf*-, was haunted by a gory head, yet the Earl could banish it by the power of his will, knowing that it was really an hallucination. Swedenborg.saw members of the heavenly hierarchy seated among the ministers at the council board and bowed "reverentially to them. Bernadotte, whenever be went forth on horseback, always met a woman : in a red cloak; and a patient. of a London hospital is mentioned, who was constantly followed by a ckt, then bv a skeleton which never left him, walkcd by his side, joined Ids family circle and nta re.l thmugh tains at night. Yet Swedenborg knew that it was not 11 esh-and-blood realities he acknowledged, and the King, while he Shrank from, it, did not Imlicve that there was really any red-cloaked woman at all, nor did the patient believe In the skeleton, knowing, in fact, that it was only a wild fabrication, an niter delusion. A recent eveiit in Paris has recalled this imbject at the present time.:~ritonsscau once wrote: “It it were' only necessary for you to hold out votir thumb in order to cause, thede.ath of an immensely wealthy mandarin in China, w hose hc.iiyou wouiu be, are you sure that you would not extend your thumb? - ’ <>ncday happened to attract the attention of Henri de Lacrois, a gentleman of high birth and liberal education, belonging to an excellent French family. His brain w: s thought by his friends to'he slightly affected from the loss of his large and very handsome property. This man said to himself: “If I could stretch out, my thumb, and that would be enough to kill my uncle and cotirin. I -should then become very rich." He was recalling the singular hint from Rousseau. Bechanced to be in a -room at the moment where large penned photographs of the family were hanging. • ■. ■■ ( - In a' sort of hallucination he‘extended his thumb toward the photographs of his uncle and cewrifo and raid: “Let them die, so that 1 mr.y inherit’” Strange to. say, within tifta:; day- both uncle and cousin were carried oil' by typhoid fever. Within the last few ‘months remorse preyed upon the mind of Lacrois, and he imagined that hi- spell had actually caused the death of his relatives: He heard their voices calling to him: “Thou hast killed me! Thou hast killed us!” He delivered himself up to the police* and asked to be executed. We sic by ourJParis journals tliat Henri de Lacrois lias jiist died in’ah insane tßylum.—AL F. liriWy.- 7-— — - '