The Gaston Danville MEGAPACK®: Weird Tales and Contes Cruels by Gaston Danville & Brian Stableford

Author:Gaston Danville & Brian Stableford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, mystery, supernatural, contes cruels, weird tales
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2016-10-26T16:00:00+00:00

IN ANIMA VILI

The name of Dr. Hirnberg, professor in the Faculty of Medicine at X***, a corresponding member of the Académie de Médecine de Paris and numerous other European scientific societies was not unknown to many. The professor’s work on hypnotic suggestion and psychotherapy had, in fact, produced a considerable sensation at one time, which extended beyond purely medical limits, and that notoriety further increased the immense surge of curiosity provoked, shortly after his death, by the clause in his will that a newspaper less discreet than well-informed rendered public.

“I have,” he said therein, “deposed on 25 June 18**, in the bureau of the Académie de Médecine de Paris, a sealed envelope containing a note relative to a significant experiment in suggestion; I desire that it be opened during the session of the week following my death.”

The delay having expired, in conformity with the wishes of the deceased, the seals enclosing the manuscript were broken before a numerous audience by the secretary of the illustrious assembly, who then read the posthumous communication.

* * * *

I did not think, the late professor wrote, that I ought to publish during my lifetime the observation that I have the honor of submitting to the enlightened judgment of the Académie. That reluctance was not dictated to me, I hasten to say, either by the desire to avoid free discussion—my conduct will, in any case, suffice to exculpate me from that suspicion—nor a desire to escape a grave responsibility—I was resolved from the outset to submit it—but solely by the dread of probably seeing regrettable arguments surge forth regarding the scientific legitimacy of the fact, and especially the fear that the publication in question might lend an undoubtedly false interpretation that would be capable nevertheless of causing a scandal, the dishonor of which, rebounding on the institution, risked tarnishing it reputation.

Have I the right to hope that the appreciation of the facts here reported will be governed by a better impartiality if they remain, as it were, impersonal, their observer having abandoned the land of the living? The respect that surrounds the memory of those who are to more appears to me to be a sure guarantee of that impartiality, for it preserves from a hasty temerity the judgments brought against them.

The experiment that will be described in these notes offers an interest that you will appreciate; it is the first that clarifies precisely, in a new light, and uncontestably fixes the reality of a phenomenon thus far disputed by the majority and only admitted with reservations by others. Furthermore, it required all the force of my desire to establish the objective basis of this exceedingly controversial scientific fact for me to dare to think of undertaking the experiment.

I shall not be telling my scientific colleagues anything new in reminding them of the famous dispute that arose between two major schools shortly after the introduction of hypnotism in the medical domain, even though, for the younger ones among them, the memory is of little more than purely historical interest.

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