n the broad,
abominable, unintelligible jargon which the country people speak in her
part of the world. The director had selected as her mesmerizer a young,
robust medical student whose face expressed ingenuousness and
kindliness, and to whom he had ascertained that the girl had no
dislike. The process began. There was no question in this case of
visits by the curious, astonishing feats, or the like. Besides the
mesmerizer, no one was present except the director (who watched the
process with the minutest attention, and carefully observed the most
trifling incidents) and me. At first the girl seemed but very slightly
susceptible, but ere long she progressed rapidly from grade to grade,
until in three weeks' time she reached the stage of true clairvoyance.
Let me pass over the various wonderful phenomena which presented
themselves in her several stages. It is sufficient if I assure you that
here, where there was no possibility whatever of the smallest
deception, I was convinced to the depths of my soul of the real
occurrence of that state which mesmerists describe as the highest form
of clairvoyance. In this stage, as Kluge says, the union with the
mesmerizer is so absolute and complete that the subject not only knows
instantly when the mesmerizer's thoughts are withdrawn from him (or
her), but reads the thoughts which are in the mesmerizer's mind with
the utmost minuteness. On the other hand, the clairvoyant is completely
under the control of the mesmerizer's will, and can only think, speak,
and act by means of, and through, the mesmerizer's psychical principle.
This is exactly the condition in which this peasant girl was.

"I am unwilling to weary you with all that happened as between the
mesmerizer and patient in this condition; I shall merely mention one
circumstance--to my mind the most convincing of all. While she was in
this condition, the girl spoke the pure, educated dialect of her
mesmerizer, and in her answers to his questions--often given with a
most charming smile--she expressed herself in the choice and refined
language of a person of intelligence and education; in fact, exactly as
her mesmerizer was in the habit of expressing himself; and as she did
so, her lips and cheeks bloomed into rosy colours, and her features and
expression were ennobled in the most striking manner.

"I could not but be amazed. But this complete absence of individual
will in the patient, this absolute surrender of her personality, t