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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN NEW RELIGIONS
AND ALTERNATIVE SPIRITUALITIES
The Occult
Nineteenth Century
Roots, Developments,
and Impact on the Modern World
Edited by
Lukas Pokorny
Franz Winter
Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative
Spiritualities
Series Editors
James R. Lewis
School of Philosophy
Wuhan University
Wuhan, China
Henrik Bogdan
University of Gothenburg
Gothenburg, Sweden
Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities is an
interdisciplinary monograph and edited collection series sponsored by the
International Society for the Study of New Religions. The series is devoted
to research on New Religious Movements. In addition to the usual groups
studied under the New Religions label, the series publishes books on such
phenomena as the New Age, communal & utopian groups, Spiritualism,
New Thought, Holistic Medicine, Western esotericism, Contemporary
Paganism, astrology, UFO groups, and new movements within traditional
religions. The Society considers submissions from researchers in any
discipline.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14608
Lukas Pokorny • Franz Winter
Editors
The Occult
Nineteenth Century
Roots, Developments, and Impact
on the Modern World
Editors
Lukas Pokorny Franz Winter
Department of Religious Studies Department of Religious Studies
University of Vienna University of Graz
Vienna, Austria Graz, Austria
Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities

ISBN 978-3-030-55317-3 ISBN 978-3-030-55318-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55318-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: The cataleptic state, 19th century. Credit: Wellcome Collection.
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Karl Baier
Contents
1 Introductory Remarks 1
Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter
Part I Mesmerism 13
2 Carl August von Eschenmayer and the Somnambulic Soul 15

Wouter J. Hanegraaff
3 Priest-Doctors and Magnetisers: Mesmerism, Romantic

Medicine, and Catholic Thought in the First Half of the
Nineteenth Century 37
Maren Sziede
4 Animal Magnetism and Its Psychological Implications in

Hungary 59
Júlia Gyimesi
5 From Fluidum to Prāṇa: Reading Mesmerism Through

Orientalist Lenses 85
Dominic S. Zoehrer
vii
viii Contents
Part II Occultism in America and Europe 111
6 Total Recall: The “Panoramic Life Review” Near Death as

Proof of the Soul’s Timeless Self-Presence in Western
Esotericism of the Nineteenth Century113
Jens Schlieter
7 Stages in the Development of an Occult Linguistics139

Olav Hammer
8 The Art of Esoteric Posthumousness159

Marco Pasi
9 Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie and Sexual Regeneration177

John Patrick Deveney
10 The Theosophical Maitreya: On Benjamin Creme’s

Millenarianism195
Lukas Pokorny
11 Martial Arts Spirituality in Sweden: The Occult

Connection221
Per Faxneld
Part III Occultism in Global Perspective 245
12 A Study into a Transreligious Quest for the Ultimate

Truth: Indian, Muslim, and European Interpretations of
the Upanishads247
Franz Winter
13 Occult’s First Foot Soldier in Bengal: Peary Chand

Mittra and the Early Theosophical Movement269
Mriganka Mukhopadhyay
Contents ix
14 Re-Imagining an Ancient Greek Philosopher: The

Pythagorean Musings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho)287
Almut-Barbara Renger
15 African and Amerindian Spirits: A Note on the Influence

of Nineteenth-Century Spiritism and Spiritualism on
Afro- and African-American Religions319
Hans Gerald Hödl
Part IV Occultism and Modern Yoga 345
16 Sri Sabhapati Swami: The Forgotten Yogi of Western

Esotericism347
Keith Edward Cantú
̄ ś a: The
17 Tracing Vivekananda’s Prāṇa and A kā
Yogavāsiṣṭha and Rama Prasad’s Occult Science of Breath373
Magdalena Kraler
18 Guru and Messiah: On the First Yoga Handbook in

Polish Language: Wincenty Lutosławski’s The Development
of the Power of Will by Means of Psychophysical Exercises
(1909)399
Marlis Lami
Index425
List of Contributors
Keith Edward Cantú Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies, University

of California, Santa Barbara, USA
John Patrick Deveney Independent Scholar, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Per Faxneld Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, Södertörn
University, Sweden
Júlia Gyimesi Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Pázmány Péter Catholic
University, Hungary
Olav Hammer Professor of the Study of Religions, University of
Southern Denmark, Denmark
Wouter J. Hanegraaff Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and
Related Currents, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Hans Gerald Hödl Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University
of Vienna, Austria
Magdalena Kraler Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies, University of
Vienna, Austria
Marlis Lami Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies, Jagiellonian
University, Poland
xi
xii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Mriganka Mukhopadhyay Ph.D. candidate in History of Hermetic

Philosophy and Related Currents, University of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
Marco Pasi Associate Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and
Related Currents, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Lukas Pokorny Department of Religious Studies, University of Vienna,
Vienna, Austria
Almut-Barbara Renger Professor of Ancient Religion and Culture and
their Reception History, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Jens Schlieter Associate Professor for the Systematic Study of Religions,
University of Bern, Switzerland
Maren Sziede Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies, University of
Fribourg, Switzerland
Franz Winter Department of Religious Studies, University of Graz,
Graz, Austria
Dominic S. Zoehrer Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies, University of
Vienna, Austria
CHAPTER 1
Introductory Remarks
Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter
Contrary to past practices, scholars no longer see the nineteenth-century

“occult” as a marginal phenomenon. In recent years, many studies have
demonstrated that it had important repercussions, be they cultural, histori-
cal, political, religious, or aesthetic. This volume contributes to this growing
recognition by bringing together 17 contributions dealing with a variety
of topics and with American, European, Indian, and East Asian “occult”
currents and their intersections with diverse facets of nineteenth-century
culture, religion, and politics. Among other things, the volume treats
Naturphilosophie, Romanticism, spiritualism, mesmerism, Theosophy, and
occultism, alongside elements of Hindu, Buddhist, and Afro- and African-
American thought. In particular, many of the contributions introduce hith-
erto barely known figures whose importance is highlighted and it includes
case studies from a mix of countries that are often not well represented in
the existing literature (Hungary, Poland, and Sweden).
L. Pokorny (*)
Department of Religious Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
e-mail: lukas.pokorny@univie.ac.at
F. Winter
Department of Religious Studies, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
e-mail: franz.winter@uni-graz.at
© The Author(s) 2021 1

L. Pokorny, F. Winter (eds.), The Occult Nineteenth Century,
Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55318-0_1
2 L. POKORNY AND F. WINTER
Consequently, the importance of this volume lies in the individual con-

tributions that stand on their own. Yet, there is also an important general
framework, which is the basis for the book’s structure. This will be eluci-
dated below alongside a succinct presentation of the contributions. The
point of departure and one of the most significant aspects of this volume
is the importance of mesmerism as a highly influential but overall fre-
quently neglected tradition, especially with a view to the formation of
modern occultism (but even beyond that, thereby clearly following the
scholarship of Karl Baier; see, e.g., Baier 2009, 2015, 2020). Initially
developed by the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815)
in the eighteenth century, this very special system of “healing” influenced
occultism and continued to be popular throughout the nineteenth cen-
tury across the world, eventually contributing, among others, to the evo-
lution of hypnotism (Baier 2019; Gripentrop 2015; Méheust 2006:
78–79). The impact of mesmerism should not be underestimated, for
even key notions of the later occult tradition were coined, developed, or at
least expanded within this particular strand for the first time (e.g., the
notion of fluidum; see Baier 2016).
In addition to the close entanglement of mesmerism with occult con-
cepts, contributions on the occult tradition itself are at the centre of this
collection comprising two sections. These sections strikingly show how
influential occult concepts were in the nineteenth century and also exam-
ine their interpretation in the subsequent centuries. Therefore, a key
theme of this volume is the reverberations viz. the impact of the nineteenth-
century occult in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and its influence
on the culture of modernity. As major traits of the history and importance
of occultism have been already examined on various levels, including the
influence of occultism on literature, the arts, and politics (for specific
examples and an overview, see, e.g., Bauduin and Johnsson 2018; Bauduin
et al. 2018; Partridge 2015; Hanegraaff 2013: 146–156; Pasi 2013; Owen
2004), these contributions might serve as additional material enhancing
our knowledge of particular areas and introducing new figures within this
important strand.
The volume concludes with a section on modern yoga introducing
important nineteenth-century exponents and their engagement with the
occult. To a certain extent, this last section links directly to the first (i.e.,
on mesmerism) as the examples show the particular importance of pat-
terns and tropes that emerged within the mesmerism-occultism cluster.
What is commonly known as “yoga” today has become almost a
1 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 3
ubiquitous phenomenon, generally assumed to be an ancient Indian

spiritual-physical practice. Although it has been documented by important
recent studies (e.g., Baier 2013a, 2013b, 2016, 2018; Bogdan and
Djurdjevic 2015; Djurdjevic 2014; de Michelis 2004), the close links
between the mesmeric-occult traditions and modern yoga are not widely
recognised.
Hence, the guiding theme of the volume is the triad of mesmerism,
occultism, and yoga. It might be interpreted as a dense and closely inter-
woven system of patterns, references, and even practices that should not
solely be studied on their own. Their globalised dimension will become
more than evident in the subsequent description of the individual contri-
butions. Indeed, this might be viewed as one major outcome of this col-
lection as well as one of its key themes: taken together, the contributions
show that it is impossible to talk of a “Western” occultism that is entirely
distinct from “Eastern” or other forms. Hence, the close interrelation
between the various strands and developments will also become rather
apparent by the volume’s strong emphasis on examples from not only
South Asia but also Latin America and East Asia. Accordingly, the four
sections of the volume contribute to a more detailed understanding of the
historical development and interweaving of these currents in modern
times and in diverse international contexts. In addition to the value for a
better historical understanding of the close entanglement of “East” and
“West,” the contributions are also related to a rather recent trend in the
study of occult and esoteric traditions: namely questioning the overall
focus on the “Western” and seeking a new approach towards the relevant
terms in a comparative perspective (e.g. Baier 2021; Asprem 2014 for
general methodological considerations; Granholm 2014; also see the
remarks in Hanegraaff 2015 on the recent discussion; Roukema and
Kilner-Johnson 2018).
The contributions brought together in this volume are chiefly works of
history, although some interdisciplinarity is easily discernible. There are
contributions to the history of science and medicine, cultural history,
South Asian studies, sociology, religious studies, theology, and philosophy.
Regarding the order of the contributions in the four sections of the vol-
ume, we tried to follow, as far as this was possible, a chronological struc-
ture. In some cases, this is easier than in others as some of the contributions
are dealing with individual protagonists, whereas others try to find larger
trajectories within a much wider temporal frame.
The volume begins with the contributions on mesmerism in Part One.
Notwithstanding its indubitable importance, this is a vastly understudied
area that requires a lot of scholarship that will have to deal with the various
actors and their approaches. The contributions in this section can be inter-
preted as a starting point for precisely such an endeavour.
In the first contribution, Wouter J. Hanegraaff portrays Carl August
von Eschenmayer (1768–1852), the important Souabian Naturphilosoph,
pioneer of Romantic psychology, and advocate of magnetic somnambu-
lism. The contribution, which is the first academic study on von
Eschenmayer in English, gives a general overview of his life and oeuvre. In
addition, a special focus is put upon von Eschenmayer’s psychological
theory, which he built on German idealist foundations and around the
role of animal magnetism—and particularly somnambulic trance. The
high importance of mesmeric tropes is evident throughout this
contribution.
In the following contribution, Maren Sziede draws on two significant
but lesser-known German figures whose works espouse mesmerist ideas:
Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann (1775–1839) and Johann
Nepomuk Ringseis (1785–1880). Both perceived themselves as Roman
Catholic authors who tried to devise an all-encompassing, conservative
Catholic anthropology, thereby placing their efforts within the broader
scope of the nineteenth-century Naturphilosophical and Romantic
approaches. Their ideas did not only encompass mesmerism; they also
aimed at providing a religious foundation of medicine in an environment
where medical theories competed and were superseded in the course of a
few decades. The result was a fascinating mix of concepts that sought to
offer theoretical grounds for what they perceived as the ideal physician,
described in terms of a priest—the “priest-doctor.”
Júlia Gyimesi continues with a portrait of the Hungarian magnetiser
János Gárdos (1813–1893), who was greatly influential in his days. Gárdos
identified magnetic phenomena as the result of the hitherto unknown
capacities of the human psyche and promoted a systematic research in the
field. However, his contemporary representatives of early hypnosis research
rejected his theory and identified it as part of a magico-mystical, “supersti-
tious” worldview. Gyimesi’s contribution outlines Gárdos’ life and work,
illuminating his significance within and beyond the context of animal
magnetism. It is a fine example of the vital presence and significance of
mesmerist concepts in Central Europe.
In the concluding contribution of this section, Dominic S. Zoehrer
addresses the close interrelation between specific mesmerist-derived
European currents and the growing importance of Asian concepts at the
end of the nineteenth century, with the Theosophical current as the cru-
cial mediator. He traces how the originally mesmerist idea of the so-called
fluidum qua main transmitter of power between bodies became related to
the Indian concept of prāṇa. Seminal interpreters include early
Theosophical thinkers such as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891),
William Walker Atkinson (a.k.a. Ramacharaka; 1862–1932), and Annie
Besant (1847–1933). Additionally, Zoehrer draws on the subsequent
developments by referring to important figures of the twentieth century,
such as the Chinese-Filipino spiritual entrepreneur Choa Kok Sui (Samson
Lim Choachuy; 1952–2007) and his internationally successful Pranic
Healing programme, which was clearly inspired by concepts purported by
the aforementioned writers and deeply rooted in nineteenth-century
occultism. Zoehrer’s study is a bridge to both the subsequent and the
concluding sections of the volume, where many contributions follow the
same pattern, namely searching for major trajectories within a larger tem-
poral frame.
Selected specimens of occultism and the significance of occult currents
and concepts in America and Europe make up Part Two of the volume,
whereas Part Three addresses occultism in a larger global context.
The fascinating subject of the “near death experience” is the focus of
the contribution by Jens Schlieter. An important aspect of the popular clas-
sic “near death experience” narrative was developed largely among various
esoteric thinkers in the nineteenth century, namely the “panoramic life
review”: that is, to recall or re-experience scenes, acts, and thoughts of
one’s life in a highly condensed and accelerated form. For various dis-
courses of the nineteenth century—including those of spiritualists, occult-
ists, mesmerists, and transcendentalists—this aspect became extremely
important. Purportedly it was a kind of key evidence of the soul’s ability to
enter into a state of timeless self-presence and full awareness of everything
following its separation from the body, including the current life and for-
mer ones. In this contribution, the development of this specific trope is
placed within a larger framework of other crucial concepts, such as drug
experience, “magnetic sleep,” new technologies of panoramic images and
photography, and practices of autobiographical writing.
Olav Hammer follows with a perceptive contribution on a development
referred to as “occult linguistics” that became important particularly
within the Theosophical Society, starting already with Blavatsky herself.
Hammer shows the close relation of these early endeavours with impor-
tant developments in the academia of that time, which eventually led to
the birth of the discipline of linguistics. The so-called “young
grammarians” devised basic rules for a comparative approach towards lan-

guages that were closely entangled with theories on the origin and the
history of humankind. Although drawing on these early endeavours,
Theosophical thinkers rejected major results and developed their own
approach vis-à-vis this issue.
In a very innovative way, Marco Pasi is dealing with a far-ranging topic,
that is not only relevant for the study of esotericism but also for literature
and art history, namely “posthumousness” viz. “esoteric posthumous-
ness.” This specific concept, defined as “the inability or unwillingness to
have one’s work promoted and recognised during one’s life, which proj-
ects the work into a temporal limbo that may last decades or even forever,”
is applied to the work of three women artists of the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries who were deeply inspired by esoteric ideas and practices.
From various perspectives, the paintings of Georgiana Houghton
(1814–1884), Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), and Emma Kunz (1892–1963)
are characterised by an approach to “posthumousness” and its various
ramifications within the history of esotericism.
Next, John Patrick Deveney draws on a delicate topic, which was never-
theless at the centre of attention for many occult writers in the nineteenth
century: sexual energy as a vital force that helps humankind to unfold its
hidden potential and transform the individual that might even survive
death with the various techniques taught therein. The major figure por-
trayed is Kenneth Sylvan Launfal Guthrie (1871–1940), a classicist and
known for his translation of the writings of Plotinus. Guthrie, however,
was also a prolific occult thinker and writer who developed his own theory
of “regeneration” through various sexual techniques that should bring
humanity to the primordial state of Adam before the Fall.
Lukas Pokorny adds another crucial figure to this array of occult and
esoteric writers who is highly understudied so far: the Scottish esotericist
Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) who made a reputation as the most sedu-
lous proclaimer of Maitreya’s imminent messianic coming. Creme averred
to be the heir of Blavatsky and, in her succession, Helena Roerich
(1879–1955) and Alice Ann Bailey (1880–1949), heralding the soon-to-
unfold Age of the Group. Following a brief introduction to Creme’s bio-/
hagiography, Pokorny traces the Maitreya(-cum-World Teacher) narrative
from its Buddhist inception across the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries Theosophical appropriations, culminating in Creme’s most vocal
millenarian account. His millenarian programme is eventually assessed
through a theoretical lens, adding important insights to the wider field of
Millennial Studies.
In the concluding contribution, which also nicely leads to the following

section, Per Faxneld provides intriguing insights into the close relation-
ship between (mainly) East Asian martial arts and important occult cur-
rents in Sweden, both in regard to their history of Western reception and
also their origin. He points out that some of the popular styles, such as
Aikidō and Kyūdō , are heavily influenced by Western esoteric concepts,
which made it easy to present them to the interested Western public after
their invention in Asia. The “martial modernity” was closely linked to the
notion of a “mystic east” as demonstrated by Faxneld who mainly exam-
ines the situation in twentieth-century Sweden.
Part Three places occultism in a wider international spectrum with a
focus on the Indian as well as the Afro- and African-American contexts. It
is thus in direct continuation with contributions of the preceding section
and shows the various transformations taking place in new locations. So far
scholarship in this particular field has mainly dealt with South Asia, but
there are a couple of examples outside this cultural horizon.
The first contribution by Franz Winter is primarily concerned with the
history of the first interpretation of the Indian Upanishads as proposed by
the influential Oupnek’hat (published 1801–1802). It was composed by
the French philologist and historian of religion Abraham H. Anquetil-
Duperron (1731–1805) in regard to his predecessors to place its main
patterns and interpretative frames in a transreligious context by expanding
the models applied for the elaboration on “Western” esoteric concepts. As
is shown by Winter, both Indian Advaita Vedānta traditions and the first
Muslim interpretation of the Upanishads by the Mughal prince Dārā
Shukūh (1615–1659) used parallel interpretative trajectories that became
important for the nineteenth-century European reception. Consequently,
the question whether the notion of “esotericism” has a transcultural and
transreligious validity is addressed.
With the Upanishads and their first translation in the European con-
text, we are already concerned with South Asia, an area of interest in the
following contribution by Mriganka Mukhopadhyay, who introduces
Peary Chand Mittra (1814–1833), considered to be one of the most emi-
nent intellectuals of nineteenth-century Bengal. Mitra was celebrated for
his social activism and his writings, both deeply influenced by several reli-
gious transformation processes throughout his life. Born and raised in an
upper-caste Hindu Bengali family of Calcutta, he was an atheist in his early
youth. He later joined the Brahmo Samaj and became interested in spiri-
tualist circles after his wife’s death in 1860. In 1877, he received the
diploma of the Theosophical Society making him the third Indian and the
first Bengali to become a Theosophist. Mukhopadhyay sheds light on the
close spiritualist and occult network that enabled this specific transforma-
tion process in nineteenth-century Calcutta, providing an example of the
transcultural dimension of occultism at the time.
India remains vital in the next contribution as well. Almut-Barbara
Renger expounds on the “Pythagorean” dimension of the well-known
twentieth-century global “guru” Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (a.k.a. Osho;
1931–1990), and its early traces in the works of the French esoteric author
Antoine Fabre d’Olivet (1768–1825). By styling himself as the “new”
Pythagoras, Bhagwan clearly drew on concepts of a perennial philosophy,
of which the Greek philosopher became one of its major representatives in
the course of early modern European intellectual history. Bhagwan’s
Philosophia Perennis (1978/1979) is basically a commentary on the Golden
Verses published by d’Olivet with a specific interpretation. Once again, the
transcultural context of esoteric currents is brought to the fore.
The last contribution in this section broadens the geographical and
historical horizon by introducing aspects of the history of esotericism—
particularly in the nineteenth century—in the context of African- and
Afro-American religions. Hans Gerald Hödl walks hitherto untrodden
paths when likening the impact of Kardecian spiritism on the religious
landscapes of Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico as well as of spiritualism in
New Orleans based spiritual churches. He does so through the unified lens
of Brazilian, Caribbean, and Americana (Louisiana) Studies. This is yet
another instance which demonstrates the immense importance and the
influence of nineteenth-century occult traditions on a global scale.
The volume is concluded with Part Four, which provides a transcultural
bridge towards India and its rich religious tradition, thereby focusing on
the history of modern yoga whose reception is clearly shaped by specific
occult tropes. Keith Edward Cantú introduces the Tamil Śaivayogi Sri
Sabhapati Swami (c. 1828–1923/4) who was highly influential in nine-
teenth- and twentieth-century South Asian and Western esoteric move-
ments. As his work has not been studied thoroughly thus far, Cantú’s
contribution introduces Sabhapati’s life with special reference to his spe-
cific fusion of yoga and Theosophy that resulted in a rather unique system.
By identifying the various impacts on this concept, the global validity of
specific esoteric tropes and trajectories carried by certain networks once
again become clearly evident.
Another perspective on the importance of the prāṇa topic is provided

in the contribution by Magdalena Kraler by focusing on the highly influ-
ential work of Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902). As it is clearly shown,
the way prāṇa and the closely intertwined term ākāśa are conceptualised
in Vivekananda’s work is deeply shaped both by his specific reading of
important Indian philosophical works as well as by Theosophical patterns
of thought and interpretations of Indian philosophy and religion. Hence,
the interconnectedness of Asian and Western esoteric concepts is
demonstrated.
Marlis Lami calls attention to another (internationally) hardly known
figure: the Polish philosopher, author, and socio-political activist Wincenty
Lutosławski (1863–1954). Among his various works on different subjects,
Lutosławski published the first handbook on yoga in the Polish language
in 1909, entitled Rozwój potęgi woli przez psychofizyczne ćwiczenia (The
Development of Will Power by Means of Psychophysical Exercises). It was
meant as a therapeutic instruction book but clearly draws on several tropes
of the early reception of yoga in the West. These tropes are notably min-
gled with a specific religious and nationalist agenda as initiated by the
philosopher and religious activist Andrzej Towiański (1799–1882), who is
considered to be one of the leading founders of Polish messianism and was
himself seminal to Polish Romanticism.
With its diverse contributions, the volume provides glimpses of the
multi-faceted gamut of the occult nineteenth century, its roots, and its
echoing into the realms of religion, philosophy, culture, and politics.
“Occultism” here serves as an umbrella term encompassing religious
strands and their exponents, which were placed by the mainstream at the
fringe of or even outwith the religious or spiritual panorama of its days.
Notwithstanding this general perception and the concomitant negligence
in academe, the occult tradition clearly shows a certain vigour and strength,
which renders it an elementary component of modern religious history,
both in Europe and worldwide. As the contributions in this volume dem-
onstrate, the impressive global occurrence of major occult themes and
tropes has a flexibility, which made and still make them easily applicable in
non-European contexts, that is, South Asian, East Asian, Afro- and
African-American. The whole process more often than not has a reciprocal
effect on the reception of specifically Asian religious and cultural traditions
that were perceived as directly compatible especially with European devel-
opments. This close and mutual relation of Asia and the West (to use
highly generic terms) is also a vital sign for major trends and changes that
constitute the phenomenon often referred to as “globalisation.” One of

the many implications of this term is the growing interconnectedness of
former long-distant cultural, social, and religious contexts that literally
“grew together” and consequently crave for a common ground of expla-
nation. Taken from this angle, “occultism” for some of its proponents
served as a kind of common bond and master interpretational key that
inspired an impressive network of thinkers, activists, and authors.
In addition to this specific result of the contributions in this volume,
there is another feature of the occult tradition that is being emphasised:
mesmerism appears as a more or less integrating and foundational aspect
of occultism in the nineteenth century. It will always be the invaluable
legacy of Karl Baier—to whom this volume is dedicated—who has shown
how crucial this vastly ignored strand (which was, if at all, ordinarily per-
ceived as one of the many aberrations within the seemingly linear develop-
ment to “modern” science and technology) is for understanding major
developments within the religious history of not only Europe but also the
world at large. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (viz. his librettist Lorenzo Da
Ponte) mentions the pietra mesmerica (the “mesmeric stone”) in his
famous opera Così fan tutte of 1790 in an obviously comical and ironic
way, likely indicating its already then disputed reputation in society. Had
he known the further development and the impact of the mesmeric tradi-
tion, he might have reconsidered this somewhat snide remark.
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of Esotericism. Correspondences 2 (1): 3–33.
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erner Spiritualität in der Wechselwirkung zwischen Westeuropa, Nordamerika
und Asien. Vol. 2. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
———. 2013a. Der Magnetismus der Versenkung: Mesmeristisches Denken in
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and Markus Meumann, 407–440. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
———. 2013b. Mesmeric Yoga and the Development of Meditation within the
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———. 2015. Mesmer versus Gaßner: Eine Kontroverse der 1770er Jahre und
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———. 2016. Theosophical Orientalism and the Structures of Intercultural

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Gurion University of the Negev Press.
———. 2018. Yoga within Viennese Occultism: Carl Kellner and Co. In Yoga in
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———. 2020. Romantischer Mesmerismus und Religion. In Finden und Erfinden.
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“Western”. Correspondences 6 (2): 109–115.
PART I
Mesmerism
CHAPTER 2
Carl August von Eschenmayer

and the Somnambulic Soul
Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Bei weitem leichtgläubiger und kritikloser als Justinus Kerner war sein
Freund und Landsmann Eschenmayer, der Arzt und Philosoph, als
welchen ihn zwar die wissenschaftlich gebildeten Philosophen nicht
gerne wollten gelten lassen, da er überwiegend aus dem Gefühl heraus
grübelte. Mit seinem guten, versonnenen Gesicht ist er doch eine
bemerkenswerte Erscheinung unter den schwäbischen
Naturphilosophen. Im hohen Alter ließ er sich von einem Scheider, der
in den Augen auch der nachsichtigen Beurteiler ein Trunkenbold und
frecher Gaukler war, mit vorgespiegelten Ekstasen hinters Licht führen,
so daß selbst Kerner nicht umhin konnte, den Kopf zu schütteln.
Indessen sind seine Werke über Naturphilosophie und Magnetismus
reich an feinen und tiefsinnigen Anschauungen.
Huch 1951: 608
Nobody has done more than Karl Baier to restore the study of conscious-
ness to a central place in the modern study of Western esotericism. Among
W. J. Hanegraaff (*)
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: W.J.Hanegraaff@uva.nl
© The Author(s) 2021 15

L. Pokorny, F. Winter (eds.), The Occult Nineteenth Century,
Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55318-0_2
16 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
the many highly relevant, fascinating, but sadly forgotten key figures dis-
cussed in the first volume of Baier’s magnum opus Meditation und
Moderne (2009), we encounter the Souabian Naturphilosoph, pioneer of
Romantic psychology, and advocate of magnetic somnambulism Carl
August von Eschenmayer (1768–1852).1 When Ricarda Huch described
him in her classic book on Romanticism, she was clearly echoing Karl
Immermann’s (1796–1840) popular satirical novel Münchhausen (1841),
where Eschenmayer and his buddy Justinus Kerner (1786–1862) are lam-
pooned as a comical duo of superstitious fools named “Eschenmichel” and
“Kernbeisser.”2 And yet, Huch admits that Eschenmayer’s writings about
Naturphilosophie and animal magnetism were full of “delicate and pro-
found” observations. So who was Eschenmayer, and how do we explain
these conflicting assessments? While a few good discussions are available in
German and French,3 it seems typical of the near-total oblivion into which
Eschenmayer has fallen that this chapter happens to be the very first one
about him in English. I will provide a general overview of Eschenmayer’s
life and development, with special attention to the psychology he built on
German Idealist foundations and to the role of animal magnetism and
Somnambulic trance in that context.
From Philosophical Idealism to Animal Magnetism

Born in Neuenbürg on July 4, 1768, young Eschenmayer was destined by
his father for a commercial career, but finally managed to get himself
accepted as a student of medicine at the Carlsakademie in Stuttgart. After
his father’s death in 1793, he transferred to the University of Tübingen
where he continued his medical studies but devoted himself to philosophy
as well. A decisive influence on his later career came from reading the
works of Ernst Platner (1744–1818), a follower of Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz (1646–1716) whose writings were important also to Johann
Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805). In
his Anthropologie (1772), Platner presented man as a unity of body and
soul who, therefore, could only be understood in terms of a philosophical
1
Baier 2009, vol. 1: 207–209. Eschenmayer’s first name “Adolph” was never used, and
there is no basis for the name “Adam” that has been often attributed to him (Malkani 1994a,
vol. 2: 229 n. 1).
2
Immermann 1841, vol. 2: 129–189 (Book 4: “Poltergeister in und um Weinsberg”).
3
For Eschenmayer’s biography I rely mainly on Malkani 1994a, b. See also Kerner 1853;
Erdmann 1982 [1853]; Holstein 1979; Maier 2009; Schulze 1958; Wuttke 1966.
2 CARL AUGUST VON ESCHENMAYER AND THE SOMNAMBULIC SOUL 17
synthesis comprising the sciences of physiology and psychology (Platner

1772; see also Platner 1793). Another major influence was Kant, whose
philosophy Eschenmayer studied in private sessions with his professor
Jakob Friedrich von Abel (1751–1829), whom he would later succeed. Of
major importance for Eschenmayer’s thinking were von Abel’s Einleitung
in die Seelenlehre (Introduction to the Doctrine of Souls, 1786) and his
Philosophische Untersuchungen über die Verbindung der Menschen mit
höhern Geistern (Philosophical Investigations about Humanity’s
Connection with Higher Spirits, 1791). From these titles alone, in combi-
nation with Platner’s work (not to mention Kant’s Träume eines
Geistersehers, 1766), it is evident that Eschenmayer’s interest in the human
soul and its relation to the Geisterwelt (spirit world) began early and was
anything but idiosyncratic.
Eschenmayer’s medical dissertation of 17964 caught Schelling’s atten-
tion, which led to an intense correspondence and collaboration between
the two philosophers (Gilson 1988; Durner 2001; Roux 2005). Today,
Eschenmayer is generally seen as one of Schelling’s most significant spar-
ring partners during the latter’s decisive years around 1800: Schelling
developed his early Natur- and Identitätsphilosophie in a context of intense
discussions with Eschenmayer, even claiming ownership for several crucial
insights that he had actually taken from the latter. Particularly important
in this regard is Eschenmayer’s article “Spontaneität = Weltseele”
(“Spontaneity = World Soul,” published in Schelling’s Zeitschrift für spe-
kulative Philosophie in 1801) and Die Philosophie in ihrem Übergang zur
Nichtphilosophie (Philosophy in its Transition to Non-Philosophy, 1803).
Schelling responded to it with his Philosophie und Religion (Philosophy
and Religion, 1804), but it finally caused a break between the two phi-
losophers. The essential difference between them was that Schelling
believed philosophy to be capable of understanding the Absolute through
intellectual analysis, whereas Eschenmayer held that the Absolute (God)
transcended the capacities of the human intellect altogether and could
only be grasped by faith. Put very briefly and simply, Schelling insisted on
the primacy of philosophy whereas for Eschenmayer ultimate fulfilment
could only be achieved in Christian belief. This should not lead us to think
that Eschenmayer responded to Schelling with expressions of Christian
piety—on the contrary, we are dealing with an extremely technical debate
4
Eschenmayer 1796. Significantly, the dissertation was followed immediately by an appli-
cation of its theoretical framework to the phenomena of magnetism (Eschenmayer 1798).
18 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
at the highest level of philosophical sophistication as practised during this

period. In addition, Eschenmayer tried reaching out to a wider audience
by means of a philosophical dialogue “about the Sacred and History”
titled Der Eremit und der Fremdling (The Hermit and the Stranger,
1805), in which he argued that philosophy needed to accept the concept
of the Fall.5
Eschenmayer wrote these works while making his living as a physician
in Kirchheim unter Teck, but went on to pursue an academic career. He
became an extraordinary professor of medicine and philosophy at the
University of Tübingen in 1811 and was offered an ordinary professorship
in philosophy one year later. His first major book written while occupying
this academic position appeared in 1816: Versuch, die scheinbare Magie des
thierischen Magnetismus aus physiologischen und psychischen Gesezen tu erk-
lären (An Attempt to Explain the Apparent Magic of Animal Magnetism
from Physiological and Psychical Laws). One might be surprised that
Eschenmayer chose to launch his official academic career with this particu-
lar topic, but in fact it makes perfect sense. Whereas his first Versuch about
magnetism (published in 1789, immediately after his dissertation) had
been focused on the strictly physical manifestations of magnetism, this
second Versuch now addressed its strange “spiritual” counterpart.
This twofold approach followed logically from the principles of a
broadly Schellingian Naturphilosophie, grounded in a dialectical polarisa-
tion of the Subject of knowledge (Man) and its Object (Nature). In this
framework, the human subject is defined as the principle of absolute
Freedom (Spirit) and objective nature as that of absolute Necessity
(Matter). Caught in this polar dynamic, the soul has an inborn tendency
pulling it up towards Spirit/Freedom while the bodily organism has the
contrary tendency of pulling it down towards Matter/Necessity. From
these principles, it follows that speculative philosophy must be particularly
interested in the ambiguous point of “mediation” (or Indifferenzpunkt,
indicated as o) between the positive spiritual principle (+) and its negative
material counterpart (−). It is in the living organism (whether that of the
macrocosmic world or that of man as its microcosmic parallel, both under-
stood as embodied soul = animated body) that this paradoxical encounter
takes place. The Indifferenz (o) is the very principle of life, “the unifying
bond of nature” (Eschenmayer 1817: 20), and its central manifestation is
5
As explained by Faivre (2008: 209–210), the basic understanding of Fall and reintegra-
tion in the milieu around Kerner and Eschenmayer was grounded in Christian Theosophy.
what we refer to as consciousness or, more precisely, self-consciousness

(Selbstbewußtsein). Eschenmayer believed that it could be studied empiri-
cally and even experimentally in the phenomena of animal magnetism—an
assumption that might seem like a stretch to us but was in fact quite logi-
cal. Mesmer’s theory, after all, had emerged from his own observations of
a polar magnetism active in the human organism (reflecting the polarity of
the earth), and this made it a natural match for Schelling’s polar dialectics.
Moreover, from the same Natur-philosophical perspective, it made per-
fect sense that animal magnetism seemed to demonstrate the enormous,
“seemingly magical” feats that the soul should be expected to possess
under conditions of relative liberation from the habitual constraints of
natural law.
What we find here is a conceptual framework that would become cen-
tral to the Romantic doctrine of the “nightside of nature”: a perfect rever-
sal of common Enlightenment assumptions about the “light of reason”
and its relation to the “darkness of the irrational” (Hanegraaff 2012:
260–266). While the spirit and the body are active and awake, the laws of
necessity are predominant over the spiritual principle of freedom, and
hence the soul is rendered passive. However, as the body is in a condition
of sleep or trance, this allows the spiritual principle of freedom to liberate
itself from the constraints of necessity, and its mysterious powers can
become manifest. The internal logic is compelling indeed.
Eschenmayer’s Psychology
Eschenmayer’s work must be seen in the wider context of a tradition
known as Erfahrungsseelenkunde (literally, “psychology of experience”).
At its origin stood Karl-Philipp Moritz (1756–1793), the famous author
of the first German psychological novel Anton Reiser (1785–1790).
Moritz’s Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde, published from 1783 to
1793 with the motto Gnothi seautón, is considered the first psychological
journal in Germany (Geyer 2014: 21–23; cf. Béguin 1939: 21–45; Bell
2005: 89–105, esp. 94–97), and it is this field that Eschenmayer was
teaching at the University of Tübingen since 1811, as the first professor in
Württemberg for psychische Heilkunde. In Schellingian terms, the laws of
Nature were modifications of spiritual laws that were to be found in the
thinking Subject; and because Nature and the Subject had to be ultimately
identical on the level of the Absolute, one had to assume profound analo-
gies (rather than causal connections) between the two realms. Thus one
20 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
could arrive at not just the possibility, but the necessity of a foundational
science that would unify the Natural Sciences and the Humanities. As Carl
Gustav Jung (1875–1961) would do much later (Shamdasani 2003: 15
and 18–22; Hanegraaff 2012: 285–286), Eschenmayer argued that this
science could be nothing else than psychology, the study of the soul
(Wuttke 1966: 263).
Eschenmayer’s hefty book about that topic was first published in 1817,
followed by a second revised edition in 1822. It was divided into three
parts devoted to “empirical,” “pure,” and “practical” or “applied” psy-
chology. Eschenmayer was the first to admit that the final part remained
sketchy and insufficient (Eschenmayer 1982 [1822]: xiii), and I will not
go into a detailed discussion of it here. His “pure” psychology amounted
to a speculative philosophy of consciousness that seeks to analyse the logi-
cal essence of its three basic functions (thinking, feeling, and willing) from
an a priori point of view (for a short analysis, see Erdman 1982 [1853]:
267–269). The “empirical” part of psychology was based upon the same
triad, but now approached from an a posteriori perspective, and it is this
part that most closely resembles what we would describe as psychol-
ogy today.
True to the basic dialectical principles of Eschenmayer’s Schellingian
Naturphilosophie, the soul should be seen neither as an object nor as a
subject. Its true essence had to transcend the very domain of philosophy
as such, because its ultimate foundation was in the mysterious realm of the
Absolute to which only faith gives access. All this is clear from the very first
lines of Eschenmayer’s book, which deal with the object of psychology:
The soul is the singular primal force from which emanates our entire spiri-
tual existence. All our spiritual capacities and functions are just manifesta-
tions, directions, externalizations of the one undivided primal force. But
these capacities and functions are ordered along a scale of dignity. The closer
they are to the primal source, the more excellent, the more free, and the
more universal they are. To the extent that they distance themselves from it,
and become subject to reflexes, they become murkier, less free, and more
empirical.
Right from the outset, we can consider the soul from two main directions:
(1) According to her urbildliches Leben in which, according to Plato, she is

pure and untroubled by the connections of a planetary life in time, and
beholds the ideas of Truth, Beauty, and Virtue.
(2) According to her abbildliches Leben, where she is bound to a body,

chained to a world of phenomena, and subject to multiple reflexes and
troubling forces.6
The Platonic foundations of Eschenmayer’s Psychology are evident. Its

entire structure is based upon what is traditionally known as the “three
transcendentals” (also, of course, the objects of Kant’s three Kritiken, as
Eschenmayer must have known very well): the Good, the Beautiful, and
the True. However, the manifestations of this triad are ordered according
to the polar opposition of “Freedom” (the essence of Spirit) versus
“Necessity” (Natural law) at the heart of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. The
soul has descended from the ideal realm of freedom into the material
realm of necessity, but its inherent drive is to move upwards from necessity
to freedom, from matter to spirit, from the real to the ideal. It is on this
basis that Eschenmayer builds his structure of a developmental psychology
(an Entwicklungspsychologie) in five stages: from baby to child to adoles-
cent to maturity to old age (see Fig. 2.1).
As man7 develops physically through five stages between birth and
death, psychologically he develops through the five analogous stages of
Sinnen, Intellekt, Gemüt, Sittlichkeit, and Religion: a baby responds only
to sensual stimuli; the intellect begins to develop in childhood; the emo-
tions of the heart begin to flourish in adolescence; to be adult means to
develop moral consciousness; and as the old man gets close to death, it is
time for him to cultivate religion.
Within this framework, Eschenmayer then proceeds to discuss 15 psy-
chological capacities (Seelenvermögen), resulting in a psychological table of
correspondences reminiscent of modern and contemporary “cartogra-
phies of consciousness” (Hanegraaff 1998: 246–255):
• Our inherent drive towards knowledge of the Truth, which puts us

in the direction of ever-increasing freedom, leads us to successively
develop our capacities for: empirical sensation (Empfindung); imagi-
nation (in the specific German sense of Vorstellungsvermögen, the
6
Eschenmayer 1982 [1822]: § 1, 18–19. In Eschenmayer’s Platonising perspective, Urbild
means the original or primordial image or archetype, while Abbild refers to a secondary copy
(cf. ibid.: § 2–3, 19–20).
7
In Eschenmayer’s discussions, Mensch always means Mann, and women play no part in
the narrative, resulting occasionally in amusing statements such as “so steht endlich der
Mensch frei als Mann in der Welt” (Eschenmayer 1982 [1822]: § 22, 32).
22 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
Fig. 2.1 Developmental psychology in five stages according to Eschenmayer
capacity that allows us to synthesise the multiplicity of sense impres-

sions into a unity; Eschenmayer 1982 [1822]: §59, 60); mental or
intellectual understanding (Verstand); reason (Vernunft); and finally
conscience (Gewissen).
• In analogy with this, our inherent drive towards Beauty (which,
again, leads from necessity towards ever greater freedom) causes us
to successively develop: the basic sense of perception (Anschauung);
the productive and reproductive imagination (Einbildungskraft:
“the [reproductive] capacity to reproduce earlier representations
even if we do not presently perceive them, and the [productive]
capacity to create new forms and images and make them present to
the soul”; Eschenmayer 1982 [1822]: §62, 61, slightly adapted for
better comprehension); feeling capacity (Gefühlsvermögen); fantasy
(Phantasie; Eschenmayer 1982 [1822]: §127–129, 108–109)8; and
higher vision (Schauen).
8
Not to be confused with the two forms of “imagination” (Vorstellungsvermögen and
Einbildungskraft): “Fantasy is the capacity for the Ideal[s] … The Ideals carry the imprint of
the universal, whereas the forms and images of the Einbildungskraft are rooted in the soil of
• Finally, our drive towards the Good (which, once again, means ulti-
mate freedom), leads us to successively develop: our natural instinct
or drive (Naturinstinct or Trieb); our capacity for lower desires
(Niederes Begehrungsvermögen); our heart (Gemüth, obviously
understood here in a psychological sense; Eschenmayer 1982 [1822]:
§99–100, 88–89)9; our will (Wille); and finally our capacity for
faith (Glaube).
If we compare the three columns in the Table above, we see how every-
thing culminates in an ideal vision of religious morality.
All of this concerns the structure of our “spiritual organism” (+).
Eschenmayer also discussed its physical counterpart, our “bodily organ-
ism” (−), which I need not discuss here in further detail; and finally, as
required by the very nature of his dialectical Naturphilosophie, he came to
speak about the “middle part,” representing the Indifferenz (o) where
these two organisms met in what he called a “mixed organism.” It is here
that he discusses the three basic “states of consciousness” known as wake-
fulness, sleep, and dream. But in addition to these well-known states, som-
nambulic trance is highlighted here as the example par excellence of how
the Indifferenzpunkt of Spirit versus Matter (our spiritual and our bodily
organism) manifests itself in our world. This point was made most clearly
in the new journal Archiv für den Thierischen Magnetismus (Archive for
Animal Magnetism) that Eschenmayer launched (also in 1817) together
with two other university professors, Dietrich Georg von Kieser
(1779–1862, Jena) and Christian Friedrich Nasse (1778–1851, Halle).
Here we find the same core conviction about the central importance of
Somnambulic trance to a scientific study of nature (including human
nature) grounded in Naturphilosophie:
the singular. The form or image is just the finite reflection of the ideal, and relates to it as
finite relates to infinite. If the Idea of reason is Truth, the Idea of fantasy is Beauty. …
Common as it may be to give primacy to reason, I am not ashamed to place fantasy above it,
just as the feeling stands above the concept, the ideal above the principle, and altogether the
beautiful above the true, as well as art above experience.”
9
Clearly Eschenmayer refers to what in English we might call capacities of the heart in a
metaphorical sense: “What we call gratitude, respect, love, benevolence, magnanimity etc.
emerges and forms itself only in the heart … [It] is among the most important human capaci-
ties, because everything great and sublime, beautiful and noble that must occur in the world
must pass through it. He who wins someone’s heart can be sure of the entire person. An
appeal to the intellect or the feeling capacity is either cold or transient. Only the impressions
of the heart are deep and permanent, such as for instance true friendship and love.”
24 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
[I]f the general perspective on Nature that philosophy gives us is true, then
it follows that everything which lies within the sphere of Nature must be
susceptible to being explained from this perspective. Since animal magne-
tism presents us with that which no mortal eye has seen and no waking
mouth reveals; since its phenomena appear ever more strange and surpris-
ing, and, while making a mockery of all merely material explanations, open
up for us a spiritual world in which the spatial and temporal limitations of
the earthly world almost vanish, and since it is in animal magnetism that
Nature opens up to us its most secret depths and speaks like the oracles of
ancient times restored; therefore if we follow its phenomena with an open
mind and without prejudice, we may hope to attain results in psychology,
physiology, and pathology that illuminate for us the still so dark field of
knowledge of man’s soul, and thereby open a sure road to perfection in the
highest knowledge concerning man (Eschenmayer et al. 1817: 2).
According to Eschenmayer, somnambulic trance should not be seen as just

“sleep” but as a kind of higher wakefulness; hence somnambulic visions
could not be dismissed as mere delusionary dreams but had to be recog-
nised as ideal visions of a higher world: they clearly pertained to the high-
est levels in his cartography of consciousness. More than anywhere else, it
was in somnambulic trance that the visual material world and the invisible
spiritual world could be seen to interconnect in an extremely delicate
organic balance between the opposing principles of matter and spirit.
The World of Spirits

Halfway between the two editions of his Psychologie, Eschenmayer made
an accidental discovery that, for better or worse, would prove crucial to his
later career. In a two-part article published in his Archiv (Eschenmayer
1820) he discussed a collection of protocols containing first-hand descrip-
tions of the healing practice of Johann Joseph Gaßner (1727–1779), the
famous Roman-Catholic exorcist who had already been investigated by
Mesmer himself. Karl Baier has published an excellent study of the contro-
versies around Gaßner, and summarises Eschenmayer’s perspective with
perfect clarity:
For Eschenmayer, all healing is based on a liberation of the non-material

healing power that is inherent in man. This power is a bodily expression of
the soul, and identical with the spiritual power that builds and maintains the
organism as a whole. Eschenmayer defines it as a plastic power that comes
from the feeling of self, which is the innermost core of the feeling capacity.
As regards the activation of this power, Eschenmayer distinguishes between
three levels. The lowest level of healing is occupied by the “art of the scien-
tifically educated physician,” which works on the material systems, func-
tions, and organs of the body and uses medicaments to remove the material
obstacles that stand in the way of healing. This involves no change of every-
day consciousness in the patient. The procedure is dominated by reason and
the will.
The second level is that of mesmerism. It works directly on the feeling
capacity and the nerve system that is subject to it. Rational thinking and will
are incapacitated, the habitual state of consciousness is abandoned, and the
plastic power of the soul is activated. “That which during the waking state
remains hidden in the ground of one’s feelings, and remains obscure, is now
illuminated and reveals its inner nature”. This procedure heightens the effi-
cience of the therapy, for in this manner, the healing power hidden in the
unconscious is liberated more rapidly ….
However, the highest stage of healing is exorcism: the method of healing
based on faith in the name of Jesus as practiced by Gaßner. “The patients fell
into a state without will and consciousness …” Where the active faith of the
exorcist meets with an attitude of trustful surrender, “a divine breath perme-
ates the soul, and in a most profound experience of awe, man feels the mir-
acle of a heavenly power.”10
Eschenmayer’s discovery of Gaßner’s exorcism is extremely important for

understanding the direction that his career was about to take. It should
not be seen as a radical departure from his earlier work but as its natural
conclusion, because it completed the overall picture: above and beyond
the realm of experience, which could be understood scientifically in terms
of a Naturphilosophie with mesmerism at its heart, it now included an even
higher “non-philosophical” dimension, at the centre of which was not
reason but Christian faith. This was exactly the “transition from philoso-
phy to non-philosophy” that had been central to his controversy with
Schelling. Because faith was the highest level in Eschenmayer’s system,11
10
Baier 2015: 73–76. On Gaßner and his importance to the Romantic reaction against the
“false Enlightenment,” see also Grassl 1968: 131–171 (Gaßner) and 424–428 (Eschenmayer).
Cf. Midelfort 2005
11
Or more precisely, faith in Eschenmayer’s system provides access to a transcendent “real-
ity” that is above our capacity for understanding, including its thinking in terms of higher or
lower “levels.” In fact, the Absolute is not a “higher level” of reality, but the only true reality
from a divine perspective incomprehensible to the human mind.
26 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
he began to emphasise it ever more strongly as the “worldly” opposition

of unbelievers against his philosophy grew. From around this time, it is
clear that Eschenmayer began distancing himself ever more clearly from
the rationalist “coldness” of Enlightenment rationality while moving
towards the emotional “warmth” of an Evangelical Christianity typical of
Württemberg Pietism.
The pivotal moment came in the spring of 1827, when he travelled to
Weinsberg to meet with his medical colleague Justinus Kerner and his
somnambulic patient Friederike Hauffe (1801–1829). Kerner is remem-
bered today as one of the minor poets of Württemberg Romanticism, and
had been working as town physician of Weinsberg since January 1819.
Eschenmayer must have read his book about two somnambulist patients,
published three years earlier (Kerner 1824). He may have reached out to
his colleague because, while “sitting in the midst of an unbelieving
Faculty,” he too had been treating two somnambulic girls.12 At meeting
Friederike Hauffe, however, he discovered that she represented a whole
new level of somnambulic virtuosity. She had been ill for five years, suffer-
ing from a complicated combination of symptoms that seem to have had
their origin in some severe psychological trauma, probably including sex-
ual abuse during childhood.13 She was in a terrible condition, her body
tormented by recurring high fevers and extreme cramps while her con-
sciousness kept shifting uncontrollably in and out of trance states. Her
desperate family finally brought her to Weinsberg—since Kerner claimed
to have been successful with his previous somnambules, perhaps he would
be able to cure Friederike too. During the two and a half years that fol-
lowed, she stayed in Kerner’s house (which served as a kind of small hos-
pital), where eventually she reached some degree of stability while
developing from a very sick patient into a somnambulic trance visionary.
By the time Eschenmayer came to Weinsberg, Friederike was already
well known for her spectacular supranormal abilities,14 and Kerner was
busy preparing a book about her. Understandably impressed by
12
Eschenmayer letter to Kerner, 1 February 1827, in Gruber 2000: 256–257.
13
See Hanegraaff 2001: 223–225; for the much more detailed version of this article in
German, see Hanegraaff 1999/2000 and Hanegraaff 2004 (here: 240–242). The essential
clues are a sentence on p. 30 in the first edition of Kerner’s Seherin that was deleted from all
later editions, almost certainly at the request of her family, as well as an elusive passage in a
contemporary publication by the psychiatrist Ernst Albert Zeller (1830: 90–92), who must
have been privy to information not accessible in print.
14
See e.g. Eschenmayer to Kerner, 29 April 1827, in Gruber 2000: 257–258 (here 258).
Eschenmayer’s credentials, he must have been happy to leave the task of

theoretical explanation to this university professor trained in philosophy
and psychology. Thus, when Die Seherin von Prevorst was published in
1829 (around the time of Friederike’s death on 5 August 1829, but with
her blessing), it contained an extensive section by Eschenmayer about her
famous “solar circles” and “circles of life,” connected to an “inner lan-
guage” and an “inner arithmatic.”15 To the considerable irritation of
Kerner’s brother and his friend Uhland,16 this chapter could also be read
as a short overview of Eschenmayer’s own Naturphilosophie. Eschenmayer
saw Friederike’s circles and his own theoretical framework as a perfect
match, and rejected the idea that he was imposing his own ideas on her:
he had always sent his manuscripts to be checked by her, he protested, and
had accepted any corrections she made.17 For him, it was rather the other
way around: Friederike had opened his eyes to the truth. Eventually, he
came to think of her as the very embodiment of his own philosophy, as he
explains in a letter to Kerner:
As in my psychological lectures I moved closer to the chapter of Magnetism,

I made the sudden decision to present a newly designed theory. With help
of the Seherin [here E. seems to mean Kerner’s book], I succeeded in a way
that surprised even myself, so that one phenomenon always explains another
one, up to the highest level. I am giving these lectures right at this moment,
in a lecture hall that is filled to capacity. A crowd of listeners is copying them.
What I used to propose as theory has now become little more than a mere
introduction. And yet there is space for a larger work, namely the theory of
the circles. Every day I must have more admiration for this woman, but I
must also regret all that we neglected to ask her. She should come back! But
I believe that she is with me—for it is only now that everything becomes
clearer to me, and in the end my whole philosophy slips over into this
woman and looks back at me through her seeress-eyes [am Ende schlüpft
meine ganze Philosophie in dieses Weib hinüber und guckt aus ihrer Seheraugen
wieder hervor] (Eschenmayer to Kerner, 18 February 1832, in Kerner 1897,
vol. 2: 28; cf. 18 May 1828, in Gruber 2000: 266).
15
Kerner 1846, vol. 1: 241–266. For the inner circles, language, and arithmetic see
Hanegraaff 1999/2000: 31–35; Hanegraaff 2010: 262–263.
16
Ludwig Uhland to Kerner, 29 June 1829, in Kerner 1897, vol. 1: 573.
17
Eschenmayer to Kerner, 4 November 1828, in Gruber 2000: 269–270. This is indeed
borne out by the correspondence published in Gruber’s study.
28 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
As Eschenmayer had predicted (Eschenmayer to Kerner, 4 November,

1828, in Gruber 2000: 269–270), Die Seherin von Prevorst found a large
audience. However, neither he nor Kerner may have expected or have
been prepared for the degree of hostility and ridicule it evoked. The book
created a huge controversy in the popular press,18 resulting in a swift
polarisation between rationalist opponents on one side and Christian-
Pietist Romantics on the other. While Kerner’s defenders never created
the “occult academy” that Christian von Hesse-Darmstadt (1763–1830)
was longing for in 1830 (Fabry 1989, vol. 1: 309; von Hesse-Darmstadt
to Meyer, 24 February 1830), they did create a close network of friends
and sympathisers. Central participants included Johann Friedrich von
Meyer (1772–1849), Johann Franz Ehrmann (1757–1839), Gotthilf
Heinrich Schubert (1780–1860), Johann Karl Passavant (1790–1857),
and to a lesser extent Franz von Baader (1765–1841) and Joseph Görres
(1776–1848) (Fabry 1989: 209, 361, 363–364). They thought of them-
selves as Wahrheitsfreunde (Friends of Truth) or Freunde des inneren
Lebens (Friends of the Inner Life) and formed the nucleus of authors writ-
ing for a journal edited by Kerner from 1831 to 1839, the Blätter aus
Prevorst, and its successor, Magikon (1840 to 1854). The hostile camp of
critics included Hegelian theologians, most notably Heinrich Eberhard
Gottlob Paulus (1761–1851) and Eschenmayer’s former student David
Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874), literary figures such as the editor of the
Stuttgart Morgenblatt and Literaturblatt Wolfgang Menzel (1798–1873),
and philosophers such as Friedrich Wilhelm Carové (1789–1852) and
Kant’s successor Wilhelm Traugott Krug (1770–1842). Many opponents
did not even bother to take the matter seriously at all: when Eschenmayer
asked Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) what he thought of Kerner’s
book, he was told that “he had leafed through it, but such books he left to
his wife” (Eschenmayer to Kerner, 13 October 1830, in Kerner 1897, vol.
2: 9–10).
Decline
As a professor of philosophy at the University of Tübingen and the chief
theoretician among Kerner’s friends, Eschenmayer was particularly vulner-
able to the scorn of rationalist critics who were content to ridicule the
18
On the controversy, see Fabry 1989, vol. 1: 360–364, and 597 n. 1771 for the journals
involved; Malkani 1994a, vol. 1: 95–101.
whole endeavour as an obvious case of irrational superstition. The oft-

repeated, quite reasonable, but never successful response by Eschenmayer
and his friends was that these critics simply refused to even examine the
empirical evidence out of rationalist prejudice: Mesmeric somnambulism
was dismissed a priori on theoretical grounds. How quickly the contro-
versy exploded can be seen from the fact that Eschenmayer published his
chief defence of the Seeress as early as 1830. Under the title Mysterien des
innern Lebens (Mysteries of the Inner Life), it contained chapters respond-
ing to Carové, Görres, Hegel, Strauss, and the psychiatrist Ernst Albert
Zeller (1804–1877).
The battle lines were drawn, and what could have been a serious discus-
sion about strange and unexplained phenomena degenerated quickly into
vicious ad hominem polemics fought from entrenched positions.
Eschenmayer, for his part, got ever more deeply alarmed by the rising tide
of Hegelian philosophy (Eschenmayer 1831, 1834), and more specifically
by the notorious Life of Jesus (1835–1836) of his former pupil David
Friedrich Strauss. Strauss had observed the Seeress at first hand (Strauss
1839) but had become fiercely critical of Eschenmayer, who responded by
denouncing his work as the theological parallel to Judas’ betrayal.19
Eschenmayer’s growing obsession with demonic possession and exorcism,
which he shared with Kerner, is evident from his long chapter about
“Possession and Magic” published in the latter’s Geschichten Besessener
neuerer Zeit (Eschenmayer 1835b). But whereas Kerner always kept a
good measure of soberness and common sense, not to mention a sense of
humour, while emphasising empirical research rather than philosophical
speculation, Eschenmayer became ever more credulous and paranoid. His
all-embracing theoretical framework led him to see the controversies in
terms of a metaphysical battle that was ravaging European culture as a
whole: the satanic forces of modernisation and extreme rationalism were
destroying the soul of the Christian religion. Kerner tried in vain to keep
the ageing Eschenmayer from publishing a book about his own experiences
with possession and exorcism entitled Conflict zwischen Himmel und Hölle
(Conflict between Heaven and Hell, 1837, with yet another attack on
Strauss; Fabry 1989, vol. 1: 377–381). Its contents made it embarrass-
ingly clear that the author had been duped by a con man posing as an
19
Eschenmayer 1835a; and cf. the interesting contrast with Strauss’s earlier and remark-
ably positive article (Strauss 1839).
30 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
exorcist; none other than the “drunkenbold and stage magician” men-
tioned in Ricarda Huch’s quotation at the beginning of this chapter.
This ill-advised publication sealed Eschenmayer’s fate. Ever since his
appointment as professor at the University of Tübingen, whose Medical
Faculty was otherwise “remarkably immune against Romantic speculation
in a Schellingian vein” (Grüsser 1987: 2), his high flights of metaphysical
speculation had often annoyed colleagues and students with a more sober
attitude.20 It was easy now to frame his writings about mesmeric somnam-
bulism and demonic possession as the predictable outcome of an irrational
philosophy that had been misguided from the very beginning. Eschenmayer
kept publishing books until his death, but his reputation was in shatters.
His final years—like Kerner’s—were marked by disappointment and
depression:
Next year I turn eighty years old. A long experience lies behind me, which
contains better times at least than those that now threaten us from all sides.
I am gripped by pain and indignation as I watch the general deterioration
breaking loose like a great flood, and see those on the side as mere onlookers
who do nothing to stop the hole in the dam (Eschenmayer to Kerner, 11
June 1847, in Kerner 1897, vol. 2: 297).
The revolutions of 1848–1849 inspired Eschenmayer to issue dire proph-

ecies of the coming apocalypse, which would be preceded by general reli-
gious confusion: “human beings will put on religions and put them off
again the way one changes clothes, and nobody will be happy with the
change, and so they will just keep searching for something different but
never find it” (Eschenmayer to Kerner, 13 January 1852, in Kerner 1897,
vol. 2: 363–365). Finally, at some moment in the 1860s, the Antichrist
would appear. And then? “Ask the book of Revelation” (ibid.). It is in this
mood of despair that Eschenmayer died of a throat illness, on November
17, 1852.
20
Robert von Mohl (1902, vol. 1: 92, referring to his experiences as a student in Tübingen
around 1817) found Eschenmayer deeply disagreeable (ungenießbar). Wilhelm Hauff’s satir-
ical description of an unnamed professor in Tübingen around 1820, who is building a
“Jacob’s Ladder” of airy speculation (Hauff 1826/1827, vol. 1: ch. 1) is undoubtedly about
Eschenmayer. Eduard Zeller (1875: 581–582) writes that his philosophy had always been a
meaningless play with analogies and mathematical formulas.
Eschenmayer’s Relevance
From the perspective of the study of Western esotericism, Eschenmayer’s
oeuvre is a prime example of “rejected knowledge” (Hanegraaff 2012). It
deserves to be recovered for several reasons: as a significant and intellectu-
ally impressive product of the speculative imagination; as one of the earli-
est attempts at a comprehensive theory of psychology; and as a crucial
manifestation of the German Romantic theory of “nocturnal
consciousness.”21 One of the most poetic descriptions of its internal logic
comes from Eschenmayer himself:
In the extraordinary state [of magnetic trance], it is as if we gaze into

another world. And isn’t our nocturnal side worthy of greater attention? Do
we not see millions of suns pass by at night, while during the day we see just
a single one? More infinite and far nobler is this spectacle, which leads us far
beyond the limited sphere of just one solar system. This is how it is with
animal magnetism. That which is written on the darkest ground of the soul
now shines out with the brightest splendour, while the common daylight
sun is being extinguished. Only in such states does the gate of fantasy open,
and we see her Ideals pass by like the fixed stars.22
Eschenmayer’s Naturphilosophie looked like a dead end to nineteenth- and

twentieth-century academic philosophers and psychologists who were
unable to see more in it than a hodge-podge of irrational superstitions.
This judgement is in need of revision. Historians of cognitive research
focused on alterations of consciousness might be able to see Eschenmayer’s
oeuvre in its true light: as an impressive theoretical system of remarkable
internal consistency, produced by an obviously brilliant and original mind
whose treasures deserve to be rediscovered and assessed.
21
See discussion in Hanegraaff 2012: 260–277.
22
Eschenmayer 1816: 64. Cf. Eschenmayer to Kerner, 18 May 1828, in Gruber 2000:
264–266, where he continues the logic of his argument by distinguishing between two suns:
the physical sun illuminates our daylight world, whereas the spiritual Zentralsonne illuminates
the inner world of the soul. The latter should be understood here not in a metaphorical sense,
but in an ultimately Platonic one (with evidently Swedenborgian overtones). That is, as refer-
ring to the larger and deeper all-encompassing metaphysical reality of which Eschenmayer
believed our world to be merely a secondary reflection or Abbild.
32 W. J. HANEGRAAFF
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(1801–1829). In Women and Miracle Stories: A Multidisciplinary Exploration,
ed. Anne-Marie Korte, 211–247. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
———. 2004. Versuch über Friederike Hauffe: Zum Verhältnis zwischen
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Beiträge zur Schwäbischen Literatur- und Geistesgeschichte 9: 233–276.
———. 2010. Magnetic Gnosis: Somnambulism and the Quest for Absolute
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salwissenschaftliche Modelle in der Esoterik der Neuzeit, ed. Andreas Kilcher and
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Toisetkin nauroivat. Siihen loppui minun rohkeuteni; kiipesin
sänkyyn sisarieni viereen ja itkin.
"Otetaanko roskat vai kakaratko ensin, esimies?" kysyi Jussilan

isäntä, hän, jolla silloin oli sonninpitovuoro, kun alotin paimenessa
käyntini.
Puheenjohtaja yskäsi ja kävi tärkeän näköiseksi.
"Niin nähkääs, hyvät ystävät, minä en antanut kuuluttaa tästä

huutokaupasta kirkossa, levitin vaan sanaa kylässä, sillä jos jokainen
huutaa itselleen yhden kapineen ja joka viides yhden kakaran, niin
on kaikki loppuun myyty, sanoi Korkeelan Matti myydessään
paloviinaa Vehkalahden markkinoilla. Ja nyt se alkaa, sanoi
nimismies antaessaan eukolleen selkään joulu-aattona. Huudot on
suoritettava kolmen kuukauden perästä ja ne menevät
vaivaiskassaan, ja täällä ei tarjotakaan äyrittäin vaan viisi äyriä on
vähin huuto. Aletaan padanjalasta, sen sanotaan tuovan onnea
mukanaan."
Niin otettiin esille toinen toisensa perästä nuo vanhat kehnot

kapineet, jotka yhdessä olivat muodostaneet meidän kotimme.
Kaikessa viheliäisyydessäänkin olivat ne meille rakkaat, nuo
rikkoutuneet tuolit, tuo musta paistinpannu ja tuo horjuva pöytä. Kun
äidin virsikirja, jota hän oli lukenut niin ahkeraan kärsimisensä viime
aikoina, meni kahdestakymmenestäviidestä äyristä, painauduin minä
lujemmin kiinni sisariini, mutta vaikenin; mitäpä olisinkaan sille
voinut? Mutta hetki sen jälkeen tuli Koukkulan Martta, joka oli sen
ostanut, vanha vaimo, joka itse kuului kaikkein köyhimpiin, Hanna
sisareni luokse ja kuiskasi:
"Tuon saat sinä, tyttö. Äitisi sai sen ripille päästessään, kun
yhdessä seisoimme alttarin edessä."
Kun kaikki oli myyty, suuntautuivat katseet meihin raukkoihin, jotka

kyyristyneinä istuimme sängyssä.
"Pojan nalkki on jo iso ja vilkas, ja on jo oppinut tekemään jotakin

hyötyä. Hänet voi ottaa neljästäkymmenestä kruunusta vuodessa.
Hei, ukot, nyt saatte rahoja, eikä tarvitse antaa. Neljäkymmentä
kruunua pojasta! Sillä tavalla sitä huutokauppaa nyt pidetään sanoi
Kalajoen kirkkoväärtti kun juovuspäissä huusi oman turkkinsa."
"Minä otan sen viidestäkymmenestä", kuului ääni joukosta.
"Tiedä huutia, Länsikylän Lassi! Sinä et ymmärrä mitään

huutokaupasta, sanoi nimismies Levämäen Jannelle myydessään
hänen talonsa ryöstöhuutokaupalla. Poika on siivo ja nokkela, tekee
jo hyötyä, ei valehtele eikä varasta. Neljästäkymmenestä kruunusta
otan sen itsekin."
Kun kirjotan paperille nämät ensimäiset julkisen kiitoksen sanat,

mitä minusta on lausuttu, niin hymyily karkottaa sen usvapilven, mikä
vielä neljänkymmenen yhdeksän vuoden perästä tahtoo laskeutua
silmieni yli tuota päivää muistellessa. Tiedättekö miksi? Sentähden
kun vertaan niitä niihin julkisiin kiitossanoihin, mitkä sitä lähinnä
minusta lausuttiin. Se tapahtui valtuusmiesvaalissa kaksikymmentä
vuotta sitte. "Mies, jolla on monipuoliset tiedot, suuri työkyky ja vilkas
harrastus yleisiin asioihin", silloin sanottiin.
Molemmilla kerroilla teki reklaami vaikutuksensa. Valtuusmieheksi

minä tulin ja Pohjosen Jaska osti minut kolmestakymmenestä
kahdesta kruunusta kuudestakymmenestä äyristä.
Sitte huudettiin Hanna esiin. Häntäkin huutokaupan pitäjä kehui
kaikin tavoin. Kartata villoja ja tehdä puolia kankaan kutojalle hän jo
osasi. Luku oli hänelle käsittämättömän helppoa, niin että hän
piankin kävisi läpi tuon viheliäisen kansakoulun, herrojen keksinnön,
jonka kansa syntiensä tähden oli saanut niskoilleen.
"Nouseppas pystyyn, tyttö, jotta miehet saavat nähdä, kuinka

tukevaruumiinen sinä olet. Pientä karjaa hoitamaan ja porsaita
paimentamaan hän jo ensi kesänä kelpaa. Hänet sinä voit ottaa
viidestäkymmenestä, Länsikylän Lassi; sillä kalliimmaksi hän joka
tapauksessa tulee kuin poika."
"Kuusikymmentä viisi kruunua on tarjottu", kuului ääni ovensuusta.
"Niin kalliita ryökkinöitä ei täällä maalla ruukata, Penttilä. Se voi

olla sopiva hinta teaatteritytöistä ja tanssimamselleista, joita sanoit
nähneesi Tukholmassa. Mökkiläisen tyttö saa toki mennä
halvemmasta. Sanoitko sinä viiskymmentäviisi, Antti? Hitto vieköön,
jos annamme enemmän kuin viisikymmentä. Tuo saakelin Hakalan
Juha aivan vie meidät vararikkoon kakarajoukollansa. Lyödäänkö
tasan viisikymmentä, Antti?"
"Lyö jos uskallat", sanoi vuohi akalle.
"No onneksi olkoon, Antti! Kuluta terveydellä. Nyt sinä ensin voit
pitää häntä aputyttönä kuusi vuotta, kunnes hän on lukenut edes, ja
ansaita hyvät rahat hänestä, ja sitte saat siitä oikein kotona
kasvaneen palkkapiian. Niin, niin, Antti, sinä olet aina osannut oikein
pelata naisväen kanssa."
Joka meidän rahvastamme tuntee, hän tietää, ettei tuossa

haavoittavassa ja sydämettömässä puheessa, tuossa
säälimättömässä orpojen myymisessä ollenkaan ole sitä julmuutta ja
halpamaisuutta, mitä kansan elämään ja ajatuskantaan
perehtymätön helposti voisi luulla siinä olevan. Joku tuolla tavoin
"myyty" lapsi joutui huonon kohtelun alaiseksi, mutta hänen tilansa
olisi voinut tulla yhtä huonoksi, vaikkapa "majoittamisen" muoto
olisikin ollut vähemmän loukkaava. En tahdo puolustaa sitä, mitä ei
puolustaa voi, mutta en tahdo tehdä asiaa pahemmaksi kuin se oli,
ja ketään meistä sisaruksista ainakaan ei tahallisella julmuudella
piinattu. Saimme tietystikin huonoimman palan vadista,
repaleisimmat vaateryysyt, ja meidän oli heikoin voimin tekeminen
raskasta työtä, mutta talonpojan omat lapset eivät olleet paljoakaan
paremmassa asemassa.
Hanna veti pääliinan silmilleen ja meni istumaan oven pieleen; oli

kuin olisi hän vaistomaisesti tuntenut, että sänky ja kotoinen lämpö
vanhempien kodissa ei enää kuulunut hänelle.
Jos otetaan vanha Martta pois luvusta, olen varma, ettei yksikään
näistä isistä ja äideistä vielä tähän asti ollut tuntenut sydämessään
mitään ahdistusta tämän surullisen toimituksen kestäessä. Mutta kun
naapurinvaimo nosti pikku Emman lattialle ja sanoi. "Nyt on sinun
vuorosi", syntyi yhtäkkiä merkillinen hiljaisuus tuvassa.
Hän oli tuskin kolmea vuotta täyttänyt ja tavattoman kaunis lapsi.

Kullankeltaiset runsaat kiharat reunustivat kasvoja, jotka kaiken
köyhyydenkin keskellä olivat tulleet täyteläisiksi ja ruusuisiksi, ja
suuret sinisilmät loistivat kysyvinä ja ihmettelevinä, kauniina,
jollaisiksi kuvittelemme enkelien silmiä.
Jussilan isäntä rykäsi, sylkiisi uunin nurkkaan ja huomautti hiljaa:
"Koreapa on, pikku raukka."

Ja esimies pani huomaamattansa pois vasaran, jota hän tähän
asti oli käyttänyt huutokauppanuijana ja sanoi tavallisella keskustelu-
äänellä:
"Hän on nuorin ja vaivaloisin hoitaa, ja seitsemänkymmentä viisi

kruunua olisi sopuhinta, mutta eihän sitä tiedä, mihin omatkin lapset
vielä joutuvat, ja minä otan tytön kuudestakymmenestä. Tahtooko
joku mennä vielä alemmas?"
Sitä ei kukaan tahtonut.
Pikku Emma! Kyllä oli leipä karkeaa ja vuode kova ja hame ohut
"esimiehen" luona, mutta sinä viihdyit siellä hyvin, kasvoit solakaksi
ja vahvaksi, kuin nuori, valkonen solkikoivu haassa, ja sinä tulit
iloiseksi kuin leivonen ja kauniiksi kuin aurinkoinen toukokuun päivä.
Seuraavan kerran kun sinut myytiin, kävi huonommin, sillä ostajan
hienon takin alla sykki huonompi sydän kuin "esimiehen" karkean
sarkatakin alla. Ja kun sinua ajattelen, en tahdo muistaa tuoreessa,
täyteläisessä kukoistuksessasi, joka tuli turmioksesi, enkä kalpeassa
kurjuudessasi kun tulit Nils veljen luo kuolemaan. En, tahdon
muistaa sinua kolmivuotiaana, suloisena palleroisena, joka
katseellasi voit pehmentää satoja sydämiä, juuri sellaisena kuin olit,
kun sinut myytiin kuudestakymmenestä kruunusta…
Oli kuin olisi väkijoukko tuntenut helpotuksen ja vapautuksen

tunteen sydämessään. Esimies muutti paikkaa ja sanoi:
"Ja nyt, hyvät ystävät, on pidot lopussa, sanoi Jokelan Taneli

tanssiessaan polkkaa navetan lattialla."
"Oletko hullu, esimies? Täällähän on yksi poika vielä", sanoi

Pohjosen
Jaska.
"Kas perhanaa! Missä se on sitte?"
Ruvettiin etsimään Johannesta. Lopulta hän itkevänä ja

vastustelevana vedettiin esiin puuliiteristä. Hän teki mitä kiukkuisinta
vastarintaa ja hänen ilmeinen "ällipäisyytensä" teki hänet kylläkin
muutaman kruunun kalliimmaksi kuin mitä olisi tarvittu, jos hän olisi
pysynyt tyynenä kuten me muut. Nyt hän, huolimatta seitsemästä
ikävuodestaan tuli yhtä kalliiksi kuin Emma. Ruotusotilas Tapper tuli
hänen omistajaksensa.
"Sanokaa nyt hyvästi toisillenne!" kehotti esimies.
Minä menin lieden luo, missä siskot seisoivat, ja ojensin käteni

ensin Hannalle, sitte Johannekselle. Kun Emman vuoro tuli,
puhkesivat kyynelet taas esiin.
Ukot kääntyivät poispäin ja tuli taas niin ihmeellisen hiljaista

tuvassa. "Vapauttavan sanan" tarpeen tunsi kyllä kukin. Viimein
sanoi Länsikylän Lassi:
"Mäkitupalaisilla ei pitäisi koskaan olla oikeutta saattaa maailmaan

tuollaista hemmetin suurta lapsijoukkoa."
Tämä tervejärkinen kansantaloudellinen mietelmä ei miellyttänyt

vanhaa Marttaa, häntä, joka antoi Hannalle äidin virsikirjan. Jo
ovella, kotiinlähdössä, kääntyi hän ympäri ja sanoi:
"Pidä suusi kiinni, Lassi, äläkä sekaannu meidän Herramme

tehtäviin!"
Pohjosen Jaska oli, paitsi minua, ostanut padanjalat, vasaran ja
ämpärin. Vasaran pisti hän taskuunsa, pani padanjalat ämpäriin ja
antoi sen minun kannettavakseni. "Tule nyt, poika!"
Kun olimme tulleet mäen alle, käännyin katsomaan taakseni.

Useimmat ihmiset olivat jo kadonneet mökin pihalta; ovella seisoi
"esimies" ja pani par'aikaa esilukkoa oveen.
Kuinka näyttikään tupa vanhalta ja harmaalta ja matalalta ja

rumalta ja pieneltä!
Mutta niin pieni kuin se olikin, oli se kuitenkin antanut suojaa ja

kodin kuudelle sydämelle, jotka rakastivat toisiaan, vaikka huulet
eivät sitä koskaan sanoneet; oli nähnyt sisällään suuren kärsimisen
ja surun, kokonaisen pikkumaailman, jolla kaikessa halpuudessaan
ja köyhyydessään kuitenkin oli oma erityinen leimansa.
Oliko siinä kerran myöskin ilo ja elämän toivo asunut?
Ehkä. Mäkitupalainenkaan tuskin ajattelee, nuoren vaimonsa

kanssa muuttaessaan matalan katon alle, kuolla puutteeseen, ja että
hänen lapsensa joutuvat huutokaupalla myytäviksi.
Kun Pohjosen Jaska tuli kotiin, piti hän seuraavan puheen:
"Tässä on vasara sen sijaan, jonka tyttö pudotti kaivoon, ja

pannunjalat ja ämpäri, jossa sopii kantaa sikaruokaa. Ja sitte sain
minä sieltä pojan, joka yöt voi maata tuvan laskettavassa
likavesisaavin vieressä."
Niin että nyt virkaveljeni terveydenhoitolautakunnassa, jonka

varapuheenjohtaja olen, voivat mahdollisesti ymmärtää, miksi minä
kesäiseen aikaan niin erityisen tarkasti pidän silmällä talojen
likavesisaaveja.
III.
Kuinka minusta neljätoistavuotiaana tuli "kauppamatkustaja."
Kykyni mukaan, joka hyvin nopeasti kasvoi alituisessa

harjotuksessa ja kovassa karaistuksessa, sain minä nyt ottaa osaa
melkein kaikkiin maanviljelystöihin. Aura ja viikate jätettiin käsiini
tosin vasta viimeisenä vuotena niistä kolmesta, mitkä vietin Jaska
Pohjosen luona; mutta heti minä hyvin tarkkaan tutustuin lataan,
äkeeseen, kirveeseen, haravaan, vesuriin, lapioon, tadikkoon,
turvenuijaan y.m. työkaluihin.
Kuulin varsin hyvin kun Jaska talvi-aamuisin puoli kahden aikaan

alkoi käydä tassutella tuvan lattialla, yskien ja syljeskellen vaatteita
ylle heittäessään mennäkseen riihelle puimaan. Mutta minun heikot
jäseneni olivat arat ja särkivät vielä edellisen päivän työstä, ja kun
ojensin käteni saavia, ensimäistä lämpömittariani päin, oli siinä usein
jääkuori. Tiesin hyvin välttämättömin kohtaloni, mutta en koskaan
noussut, ennenkuin isäntä oli raottanut ovea ja lausunut
peruuttamattoman käskynsä:
"Pystyyn, poika!"
Tämä varstalla puinti kello kahdesta yöllä aina hämäriin asti
iltapäivällä oli yleinen tapa talonpoikaisoloissa 1840-luvulla ja
jälkeenkin. Ne puimakoneet, mitä silloin löytyi, olivat liian kalliita
talonpojille ja liian suuriakin heidän pienissä tiloissaan. Puhdepuinti
oli niin muodoin välttämätön, jos mieli saada kaikki vilja puiduksi
ennen joulua, mikä oli kunnian-asia.
Siellä seisoimme nyt Jaska ja minä 14 tunnin ajan, aamiais- ja

päivällisajaksi vain hiukan keskeyttäen. Kova pakkanen ei minulle
mitään tehnyt, sillä kyllä minä lämpimänä aina pysyin. Kun pienet
kädet alkoivat puutua tai kun olin kaatumaisillani ja nukkumaisillani
siinä seisoissani, tai kun käsivarret särkivät niin että olin vähällä
huutaa, silloin osasi isäntäni jollakin ytimekkäällä sanalla minua
virkistää: "Lyö niin että kuuluu, poika!" — "Elä pelkää, että siellä
olkien joukossa on mitään silmälaseja, lyö vaan niin että rätisee!" —
— "Seisot juuri kun leikkisit jonkun kissanpojan kanssa!" — "Elä
nuku, poika!" Iltasin, kun tulimme tupaan, kiipesi Jaska piankin
sänkyynsä, josta äänekäs kuorsaaminen pian ilmoitti hänen tekevän
parastaan kootakseen voimia huomispäivän ponnistuksiin. Mutta
minä sain vielä toimittaa askareita navetassa, kuoria perunoita,
kartata villoja, olla lapsenpiikana y.m., mitä emäntä vaan voi keksiä,
kunnes kello tuli kahdeksan, jolloin syötiin ja mentiin levolle.
Hauskempaa oli metsässä, missä Jaska kaasi puita ja minä kuorin

ne. Parempi oli keväisin pelloilla äkeen perässä, ja kesäisin niityillä,
missä joki juoksi aivan talon maiden läpi, linnut lauloivat ja suorsat -
leikkivät vedessä. Mutta kovaa oli työ, lepo riittämätön silloinkin ja
ravinto mahdollisimman huono.
Siten kului kolme vuotta, kunnes olin "lukenut itseni edes", mikä
tapahtui jo samana keväänä kun täytin neljätoista vuotta. Seisoin
alinna käytävällä, ylläni liinatakki, jota Pohjosen emäntä parhaansa
mukaan oli koettanut värjätä mustaksi, yritys, joka menestyi vain
osittain; siitä tuli mustanruskea, mustempia ja vaaleampia täpliä
vierekkäin aivan kuin pantterin nahkassa. Heillä ei ollut varaa antaa
minulle parempaa; viimeiseksi vuodeksi oli Jaska huutanut minut
vain viidestätoista kruunusta. Arveltiin, että minä jo aloin ansaita
elatukseni, ja sen minä todella uskon itsekin.
Mutta Vapahtajan katse alttaritaululta oli yhtä lempeä pienelle

ruotulaiselle kuin lautamiehen Kustaallekin, joka seisoi ensimäisenä.
Jos taas salaa heitimme katseen penkkiriveihin, oli siellä suuri ero.
Melkein kaikilla lapsilla oli siellä vanhemmat tai sukulaisia, jotka
rakkain katsein seurasivat jokaista heidän liikettään ja hymyilivät
tyytyväisyydestä kun vastaukset sattuivat jotakuinkin oikein.
Minulla ei ollut ketään.
Niin ainakin luulin. Mutta kun lupaukset oli annettu, ja kukin

nuorista kirkonmäellä haki omaistensa seuran, saaden osansa
kirkkoeväistä, ja kun minä seisoin yksinäni ja alakuloisena vilkasta
elämää ympärilläni katsellen, sukelsi äkkiä pieni käsi käteeni ja kaino
ääni kuiskasi:
"Pyysin emännältä lupaa saada tulla sinua katsomaan tänään, ja

hän antoi minulle nämä tuliaisiksi."
"Tule, pikku Nisse!"
Ja niin vei Hanna sisko minut lukkarin puuliiterin taakse ja otti

pienestä likaisesta nenäliinasta esille harmahtavan sokuripalasen ja
sangen kovan vesirinkelin.
Ylpeys loisti pikku sisaren silmistä hänen näin sanoessaan, ja
hänellä oli syytäkin siihen, niin iloiseksi oli hän tehnyt minut. Ei jäänyt
pieni ruotulais Nissekään aivan osattomaksi rakkaudesta ja
rinkeleistä tänä tärkeänä päivänä.
Hanna katseli minua vakavasti ja viisaan näköisenä minun

herkutellessani hänen tuomisillaan. Hänellä nähtävästi oli jotakin
mielessä. Lopulta se tuli esiin:
"Nisse, tiedätkö, missä äiti ja isä lepäävät?"
Tunsin piston sydämessäni. Tuota en ollut koskaan ajatellut.

Avuttomana harhaili katseeni hoitamattoman ruohopeitteisen
hautausmaan osan yli, mihin köyhät haudattiin.
"Jospa uskaltaisin kysyä joltakin", arveli Hanna.
Tunsin itseni niin pieneksi, köyhäksi ja huonoksi, että vaikka

suuresti kaipasinkin hetkeksi saada painaa pienet kasvoni ruohoon
isän ja äidin haudalla, ei kuitenkaan tehnyt mieleni kääntyä
kysymyksellä kenenkään puoleen. Otin kuitenkin pari askelta talleja
päin.
"Ei, anna olla, voisivat vaan tiuskaista meille", sanoi Hanna ja

pidätti minua takin liepeestä.
Tämän päivän, Helatuorstain, jälkeen alkoi elämä Pohjoistalossa

taas kulkea entistä yksitoikkoista rataansa; tähän asti olivat
pappilassa käynnit sitä hiukan vilkastuttaneet.
En tuntenut mitään kaunaa Jaskaa ja hänen vaimoansa kohtaan,

en kovan työn, enkä huonon ruuankaan takia, en siitä, että toisinaan
antoivat minulle selkään enkä siitä, että panivat minun nukkumaan
likavesisaavin viereen. Mutta eräänä päivänä kesällä kun meillä
päivälliseksi oli ollut pieni sillinpala ja hyvin huonoa perunakeittoa,
lähetettiin minut hakaan hakemaan hevosta heinänkorjuuseen.
Jaskan piti sill'aikaa "laittaa heinähäkit kuntoon". Pläsi sattui
olemaan aivan veräjän suulla, ja kymmenen minuutin perästä minä
taas jo avasin tuvan oven ja ilmoitin:
"Pläsi on jo pihalla, ja…"
Sanat tarttuivat kurkkuuni. Siellä istuivat Jaska ja emäntä ja kaikki

lapset ja ajoivat sisäänsä vehnäpuuroa ja maitoa. Niiden muutamien
vaivasten lusikallisten vuoksi, mitkä olisivat tulleet huutopojan
osaksi, piti nämä pienet kemut pidettämän salassa häneltä!
Änkyttäen ja pelästyen omaa rohkeuttani sanoin:
"Herra Jumala, onko jo illallisaika?"
Emäntä veti huivin silmilleen ja katseli alas maitovatiin.
"Satuin löytämään tämän pienen maitotilkan kaapista. Ota

lusikkasi, poika!"
Vähäpätöisimmätkin tapahtumat tulivat suuriksi käännekohdiksi

Pohjoistalon yksitoikkoisessa elämässä. Maantie kulki aivan talon
vieritse, ja herrasvaunujen ohi ajaminen antoi keskustelun aihetta
koko päiväksi. Ja kun oli markkinat kauppalassa puolentoista
penikulman päässä, laitti Jaska aina niin, että olimme työssä tien
vieressä niin että hän sai nähdä kaikki ohi vietävät elukat ja jutella
jonkun sanan niiden omistajien kanssa. Viinaa ei ollut markkinoilla
saatavissa, lukuunottamatta sitä vähää, minkä pari kahvieukkoa
kahvikupeissaan saattoivat tarjota siltavoudin selän takana, ja sen
vuoksi oli useimmilla lekkerit itsellä mukana. Jos joku oikein vanha
hyvä tuttu sattui ohi kulkemaan, niin otti hän pienen naukun yhdessä
Jaskan kanssa. Väliin ei yksi naukku riittänytkään, ja silloin isäntäni
maailmankatsomus muuttui paljon valoisammaksi. Sellaisessa
juhlallisessa tilaisuudessa kertoi hän kerran, että isäni jossakin
huutokaupassa oli pelastanut hänet selkäsaunasta, alkoi itkeä kauan
pidätetyn kiitollisuuden kyyneleitä ja antoi minulle kaksikymmentä
äyriä puhdasta rahaa, ainoat kolmen vuoden aikana.
Mutta kaikkein juhlallisinta oli niinä kolmena neljänä kertana

vuodessa kun matkakauppias tuli. Maakauppa oli silloin vielä
kapalossaan, meidän pitäjässämme ei ollut ainoatakaan avointa
kauppapuotia; kaikki, mitä emäntä ja piiat tiesivät maailman
komeudesta ja ylellisyydestä, supistui siihen, mitä he olivat nähneet
Lassi Anderssonin käynneillä. Ja Lassi Andersson oli juuri sama
kiertävä liikemies, joka kerran oli saanut osakseen minun ikuisen
kiitollisuuteni runsaasti palkitsemalla minun vaivani
viisikymmenäyrisellä.
Harvoin tuli kysymykseen, että emäntä olisi ostanut jotakin; piika

sitä ei tehnyt koskaan. Mutta Pohjoistalossa sopi kauppa-Lassin
hyvin levätä yö, väliinpä päiväkin, ja silloin tehtiin vuode
porstuanperäkamariin ja parasta, mitä talo voi tarjota, tuotiin esiin
hänen kestitsemisekseen. Eikä Poltekaan tallissa voinut huonommin.
Ottaa maksua sellaisesta vieraanvaraisuudesta pidettiin siihen
aikaan talonpoikaistalossa häpeänä, mutta palkitsemattakaan se ei
saanut jäädä, ja niin sai emäntä joka kerta pieniä lahjoja, nenäliinoja,
kampoja, saippuoita, sormustimia, rintasokeria ja muuta sellaista,
väliin loistavan korean päähuivinkin, puhumattakaan siitä että
kauppa-Lassi toimitti taloon niin paljon "rotansokeria" (arsenikkia)
kuin vuoden mittaan tarvittiin hiiriä, kipeitä lehmiä y.m. varten. Tätä
kiellettyä tavaraa siihen aikaan jokainen kiertävä kauppamies kuletti
mukanaan suuret määrät.
Ja sitte saimme me kaupantekijäisiksi nähdä laatikkojen kaiken

ihanuuden, kun Lassi jolloinkin levätessään tarkasteli ja järjesteli
varastojaan. Jaska ja emäntä muistivat Lassin jo niiltä ajoilta kun hän
kulki ympäri laukku selässä. Silloinkin jo myi hän monenlaista
tavaraa; nyt kun hänellä oli hevonen ja vankkurit, oli hänen
varastonsa oikein suuremmoinen.
Jos emäntä parhaansa mukaan hoiteli Lassia, tuhlasin minä yhtä

itsekkäästä syystä hellimmän huolenpitoni Pollelle. Minä su'in ja
harjasin sitä, sekotin täysin kourin jauhoja sen silppuun ja varastin
sille emännän parhaimpia vasikanheiniä. Kaksikymmentäviisi äyriä
oli vähin määrä, minkä Lassi minulle antoi juomarahaksi ja
viimeisenä jouluna kun olin Pohjoistalossa sain pienen, korean
pumpulikaulaliinan, joka oli vähintäin kuutta loistavaa väriä.
Vakuutan, ettei mikään korukalu koko elämässäni, ei edes
vaasantähti, ole tuottanut minulle niin suurta iloa kuin tämä huivi.
Mutta vielä suurempi palkinto odotti minua.
Huolenpitoni Pollesta tuli yhä enemmän huomatuksi. Sain myöskin

auttaa tavaroiden sisälle kantamisessa ja pakkaamisessa, enkä kait
osoittautunut aivan tyhmäksi siinä toimessa.
Kesällä sen jälkeen kun olin päässyt ripille, tuli kauppa-Lassi

meille heinäkuussa. Hän näytti väsyneeltä.
"No, mitäs kuuluu?" kysyi Jaska.

"Kiitos vaan, hiljalleenhan menee, mutta alkaa käydä hiukan
rasittavaksi kantaa retuuttaa noita laatikoita ja hypellä veräjiä
aukasemassa ja hoitaa hevosta. Täytän kuuskymmentä Mikon
päivänä."
Tuli hiljaisuus hetkeksi, ja sitte jatkoi Lassi:
"Otan silloin tällöin itselleni pojan apulaiseksi pariksi päiväksi,

missä on paljo veräjiä ja portteja tiellä; mutta tarvitsisinpa melkein
alituisen apulaisen."
Sinä rakas, rakas ukko! Sydän lensi kurkkuuni. Jospa tietäisit…

mutta enhän minä uskaltanut…
Seuraavana aamuna kysyi Lassi äkkiä:
"Ettekö te tahdo antaa minulle tuota huutopoikaanne apulaiseksi,

Jaska?"
Pistin neljä sormea suuhuni, jotten kirkasisi ilosta.
"Hm….minulla on.. .meneppäs ulos, poika!"
Minä menin, mutt'en tietystikään kauemmaksi kuin toiselle puolelle

tuvan ovea, jonka avainreikään sovitin korvani. Soimatkoon minua
tästä joka haluaa.
Ja nyt minä oikein sain kuulla, kuinka suuren arvoinen nuori mies
minä olin talossa. En ihmettele, ett'ei Jaska tahtonut tehdä nuorta
mieltäni itserakkaaksi kaikella tuolla ylistyksellä.
Olin melkein suuren rengin veroinen. Osasin tehdä kaikkea, olin

tottelevainen ja järjestystä harrastava. Ja sitte sai hän minusta
kolmekymmentä kruunua vaivaishoitohallitukselta.
"Vieläkö nytkin, kun hän on päässyt edes?" kysyi Lassi.
"Totta tosiaan, vielä vuoden ajan."
Siinä Pohjosen Jaska rohkeasti pani omiaan, sillä viime vuodelta

ei hän enää saanut kuin viisitoista kruunua, ja sekin vuosi loppui jo
kahden viikon perästä. Olin vähällä syöstä sisään ja huutaa: "Sinä
valehtelet!" Mutta hiljaa, nyt puhui Lassi taas.
"Minä pidän pojasta. Paljonko tahdotte välirahoja, että hän saisi

seurata minua jo tänään?"
"Kellekään muulle en minä häntä antaisi mistään hinnasta

maailmassa, mutta tehdäkseni Anderssonille palveluksen, annan
pojan hänelle viidestäkymmenestä kruunusta."
"Oletteko te aivan rutihullu, Jaska? Komean hamekankaan Liisa

muorille annan, enkä mitään muuta."
"Hiis vieköön, jos annan alle neljänkymmenen viiden", arveli

Jaska.
Kauppa-Lassi nousi ja napitti kiinni päällystakkinsa. Hän oli aivan

valmis lähtemään. Tarttuessaan ovenripaan sanoi hän:
"Hyvä hamekangas, kuusi nenäliinaa, saippuaa ja puoli luotia

rotansokuria, niin on kauppa valmis, mutt'ei nuppineulaakaan
enempää; on niitä poikia maailmassa, muuallakin."
Jollei Jaska nyt olisi myöntynyt, olisin minä, niin paljo kuin häntä
pelkäsinkin, syössyt sisään ja itse sekaantunut leikkiin. Mutta Jaska
hellitti purjeitaan ja sanoi:
"Ei niin kiivaasti, Andersson. Saakoon hän Jumalan nimessä pojan

siitä kuin on tarjonnut, vaikka se on minulle suuri vahinko, ja vaikka
pidän pojasta kuin olisi hän omia lapsiani."
Niin olin minä siis "myyty" toisen kerran elämässäni! Mutta olin
kuitenkin oikein iloinen. Herra Jumala, nythän minusta maksettiin.
Tunnin kuluttua istuin minä perimmäisellä tavaralaatikolla kauppa-

Lassin vankkureissa. Aurinko paistoi, koko luonto hymyili ja minun
sisässäni soi ja helisi riemu. Minulla oli suuri työ pitää itseäni
tyynenä. Mutta mäissä, kun Pollen kuormaa keventääksemme
kävelimme, hyppelin minä korkealle ilmaan rajussa ilossani. Päästä
ulos maailmaan, matkustaa seudusta seutuun, nähdä uusia ihmisiä
joka päivä, hoitaa ystävääni Pollea, olla kaukana likavesisaavista,
syödä Lassin hyvästä eväsvakasta eikä milloinkaan enää tarvita
mennä puhteella riihtä puimaan!
IV.
Kauppa-Lassi ja minä.
Minun täytyy esittää teille uudet ystäväni, isäntäni ja toverini,

kauppa-Lassi ja Polle. Vielä näin monen vuoden perästä voin nähdä
heidät edessäni, milloin tahdon, esim. sellaisina kun he olivat
kolmisin kiivetessämme jotakin vastamäkeä ylöspäin. Kauppa-Lassi
oli nyt vanhoilla päivillään hieman köyryselkäinen, pari tuumaa
keskimittaa lyhyempi, mutta lujatekoinen ja tukeva varreltaan.
Tasaisen lihavaa ruumista peitti huonosti istuva, karkeasta
harmaasta verasta tehty päällysnuttu, ja suuret jalat upposivat vielä
paljo suurempiin karkeisiin rasvanahkasaappaisiin, joiden varret
ulottuivat hyvän matkaa polvien yläpuolelle. Sai olla ainakin 25
astetta lämmintä varjossa, ennenkuin Lassin päähän pisti matkalla
heittää päällystakki pois, ja kevyempiä jalkineita hän ei käyttänyt
koskaan. Talvisin oli hänellä sudennahkaturkit, karva ulospäin.
Karkean takin kauluksen yli kohosivat pyöreät, hyväntahtoisen ja
hyvinvoivan näköiset kasvot, ja suuri pää, jonka runsas, vaalea
tukkapeite leikattiin vanhanaikaisella tavalla tasaiseksi yltympäri, niin
että tukan alareuna suuresti muistutti olkikaton räystästä. Parta ja
viikset olivat punaiset, hiukan harmaita karvoja joukossa, ja nenä oli
karkeatekoinen ja paksu. Mutta siniset silmät, suuret, älyä ja
hyvyyttä loistavat silmät loivat valonsa yli kasvojen, yli koko
ruumiinkin, kuten kesä-aurinko kultaa karua maisemaa, ja kauvaa ei
ollut kauppa-Lassin kanssa puhunut ja kuunnellut hänen pehmeätä
ja ystävällistä ääntänsä, ennenkuin jo piti hänestä. Hän voi olla
iloinenkin iloisten joukossa, laskea leikkiä ja jutella, kaikella
varovaisuudella ottaa lasin silloin tällöin; mutta minä, joka paremmin
tunsin hänet, tiesin kuitenkin hyvin, että jokin painoi hänen
mieltänsä, jokin, joka ei koskaan kokonaan väistynyt, ja kyllä hän
tätä jotakin, ei vaan kauppa-asioitansa, tuumiskeli, kun hän väliin
hiljaa ja liikkumatta istui tuntikausia kuormalla, imeskellen
piippunysäänsä ja katsella tuijottaen eteensä, mäkiä ja metsiä,
peltoja ja järvenrantoja, näkemättä kuitenkaan kaikesta juuri mitään.
Paljo hänestä pidettiin joka paikassa minne vaan tulimme hänen

parikymmentä neliöpenikulmaa käsittävällä liike-alallaan. Etenkin oli
hän naisväen suosikki. Kun hänen mehevä "Hyvää päivää!" kuultiin
pihalla, seisahtui rukki, ja navettapiika kääntyi takasin navetantieltä,
ja pikkutytöt nauroivat ja koputtelivat puukenkiään porstuassa ja
pistivät kaikki sormet suuhun ja katselivat pörröisen tukan alta
kauppa-Lassia noiden "karamöllien" suloisessa esimaussa, joilla
kauppa-Lassi aina kestitsi tuvan pikkuväkeä. Ennenkuin isäntä itse
ehti heittää kirveen kädestään ja marssia puuliiteristä sisään ja
sanoa: "Katsohan vaan, Andersson ulkona matkoilla! Tervetuloa
meidän taloon!" olivat sekä kahvipannu että vohvelirauta tulella.
Sellaisissa kelpopaikoissa kului hyvä aika, ennenkuin Lassi alkoi

puhua kaupoista. Ensin täytyi hänen tietää, kuinka vanhaemäntä
jaksoi, ja oliko lehmä, joka hänen viimeksi täällä käydessään oli
saanut perunan kurkkuunsa, jo parantunut, ja kuinka hevoskaupat
olivat luonnistaneet. Sitten hän hetken oltuaan vaiti saattoi sanoa:

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The Occult Nineteenth Century: Roots,

Developments, and Impact on the

The Impact of the First World War on British

The Rule of Law and Emergency in Colonial India:

The Transnational Activist: Transformations and

Nineteenth-Century Poetry and the Physical Sciences:

China's Expansion in International Business: The

Fictions of the Press in Nineteenth-Century France 1st

Hungarian Psychiatry, Society and Politics in the Long

Agonistic Memory and the Legacy of 20th Century Wars in

More information about this series at

Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities

2 Carl August von Eschenmayer and the Somnambulic Soul 15

3 Priest-Doctors and Magnetisers: Mesmerism, Romantic

4 Animal Magnetism and Its Psychological Implications in

5 From Fluidum to Prāṇa: Reading Mesmerism Through

Part II Occultism in America and Europe 111

6 Total Recall: The “Panoramic Life Review” Near Death as

7 Stages in the Development of an Occult Linguistics139

8 The Art of Esoteric Posthumousness159

9 Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie and Sexual Regeneration177

10 The Theosophical Maitreya: On Benjamin Creme’s

11 Martial Arts Spirituality in Sweden: The Occult

Part III Occultism in Global Perspective 245

12 A Study into a Transreligious Quest for the Ultimate

13 Occult’s First Foot Soldier in Bengal: Peary Chand

14 Re-Imagining an Ancient Greek Philosopher: The

15 African and Amerindian Spirits: A Note on the Influence

Part IV Occultism and Modern Yoga 345

16 Sri Sabhapati Swami: The Forgotten Yogi of Western

18 Guru and Messiah: On the First Yoga Handbook in

Keith Edward Cantú Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies, University

Mriganka Mukhopadhyay Ph.D. candidate in History of Hermetic

Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter

Contrary to past practices, scholars no longer see the nineteenth-century

© The Author(s) 2021 1

Consequently, the importance of this volume lies in the individual con-

ubiquitous phenomenon, generally assumed to be an ancient Indian

grammarians” devised basic rules for a comparative approach towards lan-

In the concluding contribution, which also nicely leads to the following

Another perspective on the importance of the prāṇa topic is provided

constitute the phenomenon often referred to as “globalisation.” One of

———. 2016. Theosophical Orientalism and the Structures of Intercultural

Carl August von Eschenmayer

© The Author(s) 2021 15

From Philosophical Idealism to Animal Magnetism

synthesis comprising the sciences of physiology and psychology (Platner

at the highest level of philosophical sophistication as practised during this

what we refer to as consciousness or, more precisely, self-consciousness

(1) According to her urbildliches Leben in which, according to Plato, she is

(2) According to her abbildliches Leben, where she is bound to a body,

The Platonic foundations of Eschenmayer’s Psychology are evident. Its

• Our inherent drive towards knowledge of the Truth, which puts us

Fig. 2.1 Developmental psychology in five stages according to Eschenmayer

capacity that allows us to synthesise the multiplicity of sense impres-

According to Eschenmayer, somnambulic trance should not be seen as just

The World of Spirits

For Eschenmayer, all healing is based on a liberation of the non-material

Eschenmayer’s discovery of Gaßner’s exorcism is extremely important for

he began to emphasise it ever more strongly as the “worldly” opposition

Eschenmayer’s credentials, he must have been happy to leave the task of

As in my psychological lectures I moved closer to the chapter of Magnetism,

As Eschenmayer had predicted (Eschenmayer to Kerner, 4 November,

2 Carl August von Eschenmayer and the Somnambulic Soul 15

3 Priest-Doctors and Magnetisers: Mesmerism, Romantic

4 Animal Magnetism and Its Psychological Implications in

5 From Fluidum to Prāṇa: Reading Mesmerism Through

Part II Occultism in America and Europe 111

6 Total Recall: The “Panoramic Life Review” Near Death as

7 Stages in the Development of an Occult Linguistics139

8 The Art of Esoteric Posthumousness159

9 Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie and Sexual Regeneration177

10 The Theosophical Maitreya: On Benjamin Creme’s

11 Martial Arts Spirituality in Sweden: The Occult

Part III Occultism in Global Perspective 245

12 A Study into a Transreligious Quest for the Ultimate

13 Occult’s First Foot Soldier in Bengal: Peary Chand

14 Re-Imagining an Ancient Greek Philosopher: The

15 African and Amerindian Spirits: A Note on the Influence

Part IV Occultism and Modern Yoga 345

16 Sri Sabhapati Swami: The Forgotten Yogi of Western

18 Guru and Messiah: On the First Yoga Handbook in

whole endeavour as an obvious case of irrational superstition. The oft-