hat is to say,
transcending in scope or power anything within the range of ordinary
conscious mental capacity. Such for example is the Dream, in which
there occurs such a mingling of madness with mysterious intuitions or
memories that it is no wonder it has always been regarded as allied to
supernatural intelligence. And almost as general as the faith in
dreams as being _weird_ (in the true sense of the much-abused word) or
"strangely prophetic," is that in _fascination_, or that one human
being can exercise over another by a mystic will and power a strong
influence, even to the making the patient do whatever the actor or
superior requires.

However interesting it may be, it is quite needless for the purpose
which I have in view to sketch the history of occultism, magic or
sorcery from the earliest times to the present day. Fascination was,
however, its principal power, and this was closely allied to, or the
parent of, what is now known as Suggestion in Hypnotism. But ancient
magic in its later days certainly became very much mixed with
magnetism in many phases, and it is as an off-shoot of Animal
Magnetism that Hypnotism is now regarded, which is to be regretted,
since it is in reality radically different from it, as several of the
later writers of the subject are beginning to protest. The definition
and differences of the two are as follows: Animal Magnetism, first
formulized by ANTON MESMER from a mass of more or less confused
observations by earlier writers, was the doctrine that there is a
magnetic fluid circulating in all created forms, capable of flux and
reflux, which is specially active or potent in the human body. Its
action may be concentrated or increased by the human will, so as to
work wonders, one of which is to cause a person who is magnetized by
another to obey the operator, this obedience being manifested in many
very strange ways.

Still there were thousands of physiologists or men of science who
doubted the theory of the action or existence of Animal Magnetism, and
the vital fluid, as declared by the Mesmerists, and they especially
distrusted the marvels narrated of clairvoyance, which was too like
the thaumaturgy or wonder-working attributed to the earlier magicians.
Finally, the English scientist, BRAID, determined that it was not a
magnetic fluid which produced the recognized results, "but that they
were of purely subjective origin, depending on the nervous system of
the one acted on." That is