My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

;CHAPTER XXIMESMERISM TO SPIRITUALISMI HAVE already described my first introduction tomesmerism at Leicester, how I found that I hadconsiderable mesmeric power myself, and could produceall the chief phenomena on some of my patientswhile I also satisfied myself that the almost universalopposition and misrepresentations of the medical professionwere founded upon a combination of ignoranceand prejudice.During my eight years' travel in the East I heardoccasionally, through the newspapers, of the strangedoings of the spiritualists in America and England,some of which seemed to me too wild and outre to beanything but the ravings of madmen. Others, however,appeared to be so well authenticated that Icould not at all understand them, but concluded, asmost people do at first, that such things must beeither imposture or delusion. How I became firstacquainted with the phenomena and the effect theyproduced upon me are fully described in the " Notesof Personal Evidence," in my book on " Miracles andModern Spiritualism," to which I refer my readers.I will only state here that I was so fortunate as towitness the simpler phenomena, such as rapping andtapping sounds and slight movements of a table in afriend's house, with no one present but his family and