The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-01-01

| IfiiI, tHdtJ oll tbc pIctttiliS LAY,
dinner, although in company with ty
or three old friends, he was strong
haunted by a estate of pre-existenct
a confused idea that nothing that passt
was said for the first time; that ii
SAME topics had been discussed, an
that the same persons had expresse
the same opinions before. "Thel
was" he writes, "a vile sense of a wal
of reality in all that | did or said
Goethe relates that, as he was once
an uneasy and unhealthy state of mine
riding along Il foot-path toward DR.
senheim, he saw himself on horsebac
coming toward himself; and simila
stories arc told of other highly imagill;
tive persons whose mental balance Ii,
been disturbed by Over-anxiety or il
cipient illness.
The states of physical prostratio
known us conia sOmnotent,m and com
cigH exhibit, in their largest extent, tn
poetic capacities of the mind. Tn
impressions, dreams, and illusions, il
these conditions, are suchas no health,
mind could possibly conceive. Th'
patient seems to live in charmed
world, amid spectral beings and air,
people, changing lights, luminous
heights, and appalling shadows; il
short, no glowing epic or work of thu
painters art seems so much as to toucl
upon such richness of imagery. Mrs
Hemans on her death-bed said that NJ
pen could describe or imagination con
ceive the visions that passed bfeore hel
mind, and made her waking hours more
delightful than those spent in repose.
Rev. William Tennent, of Free
hold, New Jersey, was an overworked
student, and was supposed to be fan
gone in consumption. In pro-
tracted illness he apparently died,
and the preparations were made for
his funeral. Not only were his friends
deceived in his case, which was one of
coma, but he himself was doubly iIlu-
stoned, for he both thought that he was
dead and that his spirit had entered
paradise. His soul, as he thought, was
borne aloft to celestial attitudes, and
was enraptured with visions of the
Deity and angelic hosts. He seemed
to dwell in an enchanted region of
imitless light and inconceivable SPLEEN
lor. AT last an angel came to him and
old him that he must 60 back. Dark
hess, like an overawing shadow, shut out
he celestial glories, and, full of sud-
len horror, he uttered a deep groan.
This dismal utterance was heard by
hose around him and prevented him
rom being buried alive, after all the
had been made for the re-
noval of the body.
In certain forms of physical pros
ration, the mind seems to the patient
o he capable of unusual freedom; to
Ne in and out of the body at the same
ime, to be able to make impressions
t distance, and to have knowledge
f itself and of events transporting
round it quite beyond the usual range
ten ling ip15j11ttfs, It IS impossible 10
eparate the imaginary from what may
Ne real, and to determine the exact
init of mental action. Plutarch re-
ates that certain profiigate and pro-
ane man, named Thespesius, fell from
great height and was taken up APP
'arently dead. He remained in. a
tate of seeming inscnsibility for three
ays, but on the day appointed for the
uneral Unexpectedly revived, and from
his time a remarkable change was
bserved in his moral conduct and
haracter. On inquiry being made as
0 the cause of the sudden reformation,
C said that in hisstate ofapparentinsen-
ibility, he had been made so clearly to
ee the relation of mind to matter as
D be convinced of the future existence
f the soul. After his injury he had
opposed himself to be dead, and his
pirit to be separated from the body.
lie had seemed to float in an abysm of
ght, and to be surrounded by spirits
bright and glorious.
me of the latter at last announced to
i'm that he must return to the flesh
gain, when he suddenly seemed to
eappear on earth, us a being from an
Their world. In 1888, Johann Schwer-
eyer, after long illness, fell into a
pmatosc state, from which he recov-
red. He said that he had seen as in
vision hisachoIe life pass before him, even
vents which, before his sickness, he
eemed to have quite forgotten. He
lrther stated that he thought he was
bout to enter Il state Of rest and hap
mess, when he was recalled to the
Torld; that he was sorry to have come
ack, but that he should remain here
wo days. His death fulfilled the pre-
lotion.
But perhaps the most remarkable of
II phenomena of this nature is a GER
lin power Il few patients have seemed
, possess of Withdrawing from sensa-
on" of becoming at will insensible to
ain, and of producing Il resemblance
death. Colonel Townsend, an Eng
shman, who died ut the end of the
,st century, had i'll his last sickness
ne extraordinary power of apparently
wing and returning to life again. 81
,und his pulse sink gradually" wrote
Dr. Cheyne, his medical attendant, $50
nat ] could not feel it by the most ex-
ct or nice touch. DIR. Raymond could |
OF detect the least motion of the heart,
or DIR. Shrine the least soil of the |
reath upon the bright mirror held to
is mouth. We began to fear that he
as actually dead. He then began to
reathe softly" The colonel tried this
experiment. a number of times during
is illness, and was able to render HIM
If insensible at will
DIR. Brown-Sequard, in course
lectures before the Boston-Lowell
,stitutc, last winter, illustrated many
Ike remarkable powers of mind in
ental and physical disease, by eases
hich had come under his own OBJ
rvation. From such cases it would
em that the mind is largely depend
1t on physical conditions for the eXer-
Sc ofits faculties, and that its strength
I'd most remarkable powers, as wellas
5 apparent weakness, are often most
early shown and recognized by some
o,,,,I.t., Of .,.tinn in ppri,1. of dis