Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Maitland 1896

Subjects:

Supernaturalism, Psychical Research, Periodicals, Medical Practitioners, Gender, Vivisection, Soul, Mesmerism

    Notes that the more mystical elements of the book are dealt with 'at considerable length in the new number of Borderland', to which 'all readers who wish to know about' such matters are referred, and promises that into 'those lofty and mystic, not to say misty regions, I do not take the readers of this Review' (75). Describes how, when she was a young medical student in Paris, Anna Kingsford's 'antipathy to vivisection became a consuming passion' (80). After various experiments with hypnotism, she also became convinced that one 'can kill with the will', and she came to believe that, in this way, she 'had slain Claude Bernard and Paul Bert. She did her worst to slay Louis Pasteur. He became very ill; but he recovered, and she died' (83). Also records that Kingsford 'proposed to Madame Blavatsky a scheme for uniting a number of occultists in a band for the purpose of exercising their will-power on the vivisectors with a view to [their] destruction'. Concludes that this is 'one of the weirdest and most bewildering books that I have read for many a long day'. (84)