" Any one who has
watched or made experiments in animal magnetism knows how easy it is to
persuade young women of nervous temperaments that they are doing that by
the will of another which they really do by an obscure volition of their
own, under the influence of an imagination adroitly guided by the
magnetizer. The marvellous is so fascinating, that nine persons in ten,
if once persuaded that a thing is possible, are eager to believe it
probable, and at last cunning in convincing themselves that it is proven.
But it is impossible to believe that the possessed girls in this case did
not know how the pins they vomited got into their mouths. Mr. Upham has
shown, in the case of Anne Putnam, Jr., an hereditary tendency to
hallucination, if not insanity. One of her uncles had seen the Devil by
broad daylight in the novel disguise of a blue boar, in which shape, as a
tavern sign, he had doubtless proved more seductive than in his more
ordinary transfigurations. A great deal of light is let in upon the
question of whether there was deliberate imposture or no, by the
narrative of Rev. Mr. Turell of Medford, written in 1728, which gives us
all the particulars of a case of pretended possession in Littleton, eight
years before.
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