o
catalepsy, or to such affections, and also some healthy persons who are
of a peculiar nervous temperament, are more sensitive to magnetism than
their neighbors. They are peculiarly acted upon by the magnet, and are,
moreover, very much under the influence of the great magnetic currents
of the earth. Such people sleep tranquilly when they are reposing with
their bodies in the earth's magnetic line, and are restless, in some
cases seriously affected, if they lie across that line, on beds with the
head and foot turned east and west, matters of complete indifference to
the healthy animal. These "sensitives" are not only affected by the
magnet, but they are able to detect, by their sharpened sense, what we
may reasonably suppose to exist, a faint magnetic light: they see it
streaming from the poles of a magnet shown to them in a room absolutely
dark; and if the sensibility be great, and the darkness perfect, they
see it streaming also from the points of fingers, and bathing in a faint
halo the whole magnet or the whole hand. Furthermore, it would appear
that the affection by the magnet of these sensitives does not depend
upon that quality by which iron filings are attracted; that, perfectly
independent of the attractive force, there streams from magnets, from
the poles of crystals, from the sun and moon, another influence, to
which the discoverer assigns the name of Odyle. The manifestation of
Odyle is accompanied by a light too faint for healthy vision, but
perceptible at night by "sensitives." Odyle is generated, among other
things, by heat and by chemical action. It is generated, therefore, in
the decomposition of the human body. I may now quote from Reichenbach,
who, having given a scientific explanation, upon his own principles, of
the phenomena perceived by Billing, thus continues:--

"The desire to inflict a mortal wound on the monster, Superstition,
which, from a similar origin, a few centuries ago, inflicted on European
society so vast an amount of misery, and by whose influence, not
hundreds, but thousands of innocent persons died in tortures, on the
rack and at the stake;--this desire made me wish to make the experiment,
if possible, of bringing a highly sensitive person, by night, to a
churchyard. I thought it possible that they might see, over graves where
mouldering bodies lay, something like that which Billing had seen.
Mademoiselle Reichel had the courage, unusual in her sex, to agree to my
request. She all