other circle once more by running across from the south to the north, and then turning again like watch hands.

I perceive there are two great aura forces, and that they act at right angles to each other. One of them, I am convinced, comes from the north. I am not determined whether the other comes to us from the west, or falls vertically. When they act equally, they produce circles; and circles are formed when anything is created-be it a thought, a substance, or an animal. I find I can apply this (I believe) truth very successfully to the better prosecution of my household duties, especially culinary ones. The more healthy food is a combination of the two forces, and the test over it, therefore, gives a circle. I am more than ever convinced that men and women should unite in all action whose aim is the advance of our race.

When the solitary man receives a high thought, it is, I think, reasonable to conclude that the necessary positive or negative he received in order to produce this circle, came to him from a higher sphere.

But let me restrain my pen, for it was not speculation, but the results of experiments merely I intended to communicate.

Dec. 22.-Went to-day to see my cousin, in order to ascertain the reality of my experiments. She always receives the Journal at G. some days before we do here. The aura-test plays well in her hands also: and I was deeply gratified to perceive the results of her trials of it were the same as when I held it. I tried her with manuscripts, daguerreotypes, the points of the compass, sedatives and stimulants. All was very satisfactory. After all this, I told her she could will the steel. She did so to her great delight-then informed me she had thought several times before that she could give it any movement she pleased. I found L., in her experiments previous to my visiting her, had also discovered the test played better when she faced the north. She had also discovered that one of another sex could change the movement, by merely touching her person with a long wooden rod, and that distance made no perceptible difference. She had never thought of trying manuscripts; but when her experiments had been the same as mine, she had arrived at like results. When one of opposite sex touches the person holding the aura-test, if the holder wills, the contact will not change the motion as usual.

Dec. 23-I make no further discoveries with the odometer-feel a strange desire to give you some of my speculations, but forbear. My mind is still occupied with circles, and the earnest desire to know from whence these two forces come to us which form them. I have long thought the Deity was a Universal Spirit, rather than an individualized being; and I find myself wondering if these two forces may not be his attributes-Himself. But since I have given what I consider the most important of my experiments, I break away from the subject, for I ought not to intrude upon you anything which I am unable to prove.

But one thing I think these experiments satisfactorily make evident, viz: that in every individual, male or female, both stimulant and sedative forces act—that when one is well, their action produces that circle in the bodily atoms we call 'health'-that disease is a disturbance or inactivity of one of these forces; and the action of judiciously applied stimulants and sedatives may restore the circle again.

P. S.-I thought I discovered that colors affected the aura-test; but I was not satisfied, because I came to this conclusion after I found I could will the test; and therefore I was not always sure but my will affected its motion. I have proceeded all along through these experiments with great caution. I have endeavored that my enthusiasm and my imagination should be restrained, so as to keep me within the bounds, not merely of fact, but of evident fact.

SECOND LETTER FROM THE SAME, JAN. 17, 1852.

You have doubtless received my letter mailed Christmas-also one from L., forwarded since, containing statements of some of our experiments on the Odic Force.

I thought from the natural point to which all who were stimulated by your article on Od Force would send the result of their investigations-that receiving such, you would have them so tested that the true would be sifted from the false; for many of your readers beside L. and myself have but limited opportunities of testing our experiments, by trying them in the hands of a great number of different individuals, and have thus, I doubt not, in some cases received for truth what if further tried might prove ill grounded.

I hoped you would be the first to present the public with the discoveries on this new force, and that, therefore, it would be done in a careful and scientific manner. I be lieve L. shared with me in this earnest wish.

But yesterday, the St. Louis Daily Republican, of Jan. 5th, fell into my hands; and lo! an article headed "Spiritual Communications-Odic Force," which was forwarded to that sheet by W., her father.

"The Odic Force can be readily tested by any one. Almost any substance will answer the purpose; but a pair of gold ear-rings, or a piece of steel two or three inches long, suspended by a string from the first joint of the forefinger, with the elbow resting on a chair or table, will show the power. Let the person face to the north, and the instrument will begin to vibrate. The motion that it takes is usually north or south, but not always so. In some hands it vibrates strongly, making an angle of nearly forty-five degrees with the horizon, but in most cases it is less. Placing mineral or vegetable poisons beneath it, paralyzes the motion. A single Homopathic pellet of nux arrests the motion-so of sepia, the two hundredth potency. Tobacco in the mouth of the operator, or snuff in the nose, arrests the motion. Over some substances it takes a transverse motion-over others a rotary motion. Manuscript affects it, and in some instances very actively. The manuscript of a deceased friend giving it vitality that was perceptibly diminished in the hand of a stranger. Touching different organs of the brain changed the motion. The intellectual organs giving increased activity and diversity to the motion, whilst over the organs of crime it becomes paralyzed and motionless.

"But the most astonishing discovery relative to this power, and which is original here, and so far as I know, before undiscovered, is, that it can be controlled by the will. The mental command that it shall abandon a state of rest, and take a forward, transverse or rotary motion, or that it shall return from any motion to a state of rest, is promptly obeyed; and as soon as the effort of the will ceases, the odometer returns to a state of rest, or to its natural and spontaneous action. This fact need not be doubted, for it is in the power of any one to prove it.

66

Many of us have seen, or have imagined that we saw an astonishing influence exerted upon the animal frame by mesmerism; but here we have an immediate and in

You have probably, ere this, learned from my cousin the interest which the article on the newly discovered Od force, in your last Journal, has excited in our minds. We, or at least I, have been so deeply absorbed in the subject that I have thought of little else for the last two or three weeks. It opens so illimitable a field for thought and imagination that the mind is lost in the effort to comprehend its immensity. Even were there no more discoveries to be made in it, it would still be productive of great good, for these are experiments which any or every one can prove. Many who cannot be made to understand and believe anything that is not made evident to their senses, will, in making these experiments, see and feel the dark cloud of doubt which has shut out from them the invisible world, suddenly dissipate, and forever. Upon the minds of several in our immediate neighborhood, to whom the subject has been broached, and who are naturally very skeptical upon such subjects, a beneficial effect has already been produced.

But the rapid development of the laws which govern this force, and the nature of the discoveries made, seem to indicate that science, and especially human science, is to receive from it new light, and that it may be applied at a future day to some practical use. It is in the full belief that this will be the case that my cousin and myself are prosecuting our investigations. It is quite probable that you or some of your correspondents may have made the same discoveries, but as there is a possibility that they may be new to you, I beg leave to submit the results of my experiments.

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My cousin tells me that she has given you an account of our observations up to the date of her last letter. Since comparing notes with her, my experiments have been based principally upon the following ascertained facts: First, the odometer when suspended over stimulants takes the longitudinal vibration, over sedatives the transverse motion, and over deadly poisons is entirely paralyzed. Second, when suspended over the manuscript of a male, the vibrations are longitudinal, and over that of a female transverse. Manuscript expressive of affection or of benevolent feelings produces a circular motion. In my experiments I am generally careful to face one of the cardinal points. If the intervening points are faced, the result will be a circular motion, where a longitudinal vibration was obtained in the former position, and vice versa. Whilst experimenting with manuscripts, it struck me that the different regions of the brain, the intellectual and the region of affection, might produce an effect upon the odometer corresponding to that of manuscript. You can imagine my delight when I found the correspondence perfect. When the odometer is held above the head of a person of my own sex, the regions of the intellect and of energy produce the longitudinal vibration, the region at the side of the head, comprehending reverence, modesty, &c., gives the transverse, and the moral region produces a perfect circle, whilst the region of hatred and fear paralyzes the odometer completely. I wished exceedingly to try a manuscript expressive of violent anger or of some of the baser passions, but unfortunately (for my experiment) possessing none such, could not ascertain whether the correspondence would be complete in this particular. There is no reasonable doubt, however, that it would be so. You, perhaps, will be able to ascertain. When suspended above the head of a person of the opposite sex, the odometer takes the circular motion at the regions of energy and the intellect, the moral region gives the longitudinal vibration, and the region of crime paralyzes as before. This fact seemed at first to set aside the idea of a correspondence between the effects of the brain and of manuscript, and troubled me not a little, till I found that if the odometer be suspended by the left hand over manuscript, the result is the same as that obtained when it is suspended from the right above the head of a male, and that if the left hand be used as the odometer hand in experimenting with the head of

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