Justinus Andreas Christian Kerner
(9/28/1786-2/21/1862)
Justinus Kerner was a German doctor who also wrote many poems and ballads.
In 1829, he became well known all over Europe and America
when he published Die Seherin von Prevorst ("The Seeress of Prevorst"),about
his patient, Friederike
Hauffe, the sleepwalker and clairvoyant "Seeress."
"The Seeress" or "Sleepwalker"
(1855) by French artist, Gustave Courbet
Catharine Crowe translated Kerners book and it was published in English in 1845 under the title
The Seeress of Prevorst; or, Openings-up into the Inner Life of Man, and Mergings of a Spirit World into the World of Matter.
This is an excerpt from that book:
OF THE MAGNETIC MAN, IN HIS
APPROXIMATION TO THE WORLD OF SPIRITS
However superficially we observe the course of nature, we cannot help remarking that she always advances by minute
steps that her progress is a chain, of which no link is wanting and that she makes no abrupt transitions. Thus,
in the stone we see the plant in the plant, the animal in the animal, man and in man, the immortal spirit. And
as the wings of the butterfly are folded in the caterpillar, so in man especially in certain conditions the wings
of a higher Psyche are revealed, ready, after his short earthly life, to be unfolded; and, by the magnetic man, before
whom time and space are unveiled, we learn that there is a super-terrestrial world. The magnetic man is an imperfect spirit.
In the polypus, which is the link between plants and the brute creation, we see both an imperfect animal and an imperfect plant;
whilst fixed to the earth like a plant, it stretches its arms into the animal world, and thus bears witness to it. And,
in like manner, we see the magnetic man, whilst yet in the body, and enchained to the earth, putting forth feelers into
the world of spirits, and bearing witness to that also. Such a striving after, and upward flight into, the world of spirits,
we observe in all magnetic subjects ; but never yet in so great a degree as in the case now before us. We have seen, in the
former part of this volume, how this nerve-spirit
arrested, as it were, in the act of dying became sensible of the spiritual
properties of all things properties, to our more closely imprisoned nerve-spirits, altogether imperceptible.
We have seen how this being almost a spirit releasing itself from its earthly husk, ranged through time and space;
and is it much more strange, that through the same faculties which enabled it to perceive properties in earthly things,
of which we are altogether unconscious, it should also be sensible of supernatural appearances, which are to us imperceptible?
Man is apparently a link between blest and unblest spirits or, in other words, between angels and demons and, though an
independent and self-existing being, is yet. subject to the influences of both. Doubtless, the laws of nature, as far as we yet know them, are more especially fitted to this middle-sphere, in which we think, feel, and will; and are in less relation with those higher and lower powers, whose existence is denied by those independent spirits, who feel no innate presentiment of it.
We are not here going to offer a theory of
apparitions whether our readers may look upon them as mere illusions of the brain, or be willing to accept the facts we shall offer as competent
proof but only to examine whether, in the disclosures of the Seeress, any reasonable foundation for belief can be found.
According to her, the nerve-spirit is the remnant of the body, and, after death, surrounds the soul with an aerial form. Being the highest organic power, it cannot by any other, physical or chemical, be destroyed ; and, when the body is cast off, it follows the soul; and as, during life, it forms the only bond that unites the soul with the body and the
world, so is it also the means whereby the soul, whilst in the mid-region, can make itself manifest to
man of which power the atmosphere is the instrument. In our ordinary condition, our senses are incapable of discerning these phenomena, just as we are incapable of perceiving the principle which produces seeing and hearing; because the subject cannot, at the same time, be the
object. But in the abnormal magnetic state, such conditions are possible. The nerve-spirit
which, in our waking life, acts through the senses on the objective world
in the magnetic life is more concentrated and self-reflecting, whereby the sensorium attains an unwonted energy. It creates internal senses for itself out of the nervous plexuses, whilst the external senses are more and more shut up. And thus, the sensitive life of the soul is augmented and strengthened, by the reinforcement of the knowing and willing powers, which unite with it.
In the same manner, the soul takes its direction towards its original centre, and knowledge is elevated into clear-seeing; and, under these circumstances, not only may the spirit be able to place itself in the centre of its orbit, but also those things which are hidden to ordinary eyes as the inhabitants of the mid-region may be visible to the excited senses of a magnetic subject.
Unless we look upon these supernatural appearances as mere chimeras, we must grant, that the preternatural lustre that shone from the eyes of the Seeress, when she beheld them, affords at least some confirmation of what she related to us regarding their frequent visits, and of how the dark forms gradually became brighter whilst she prayed. Her eyes shone like a flame, in which the dark spirits sought to sun themselves; and where, it is probable, they found a gleam of that sun of grace, from them wholly hidden. It is remarkable, that the Seeress placed the dwelling of the blest, and the sun of grace, in the centre of the sun's orbit, and the appearance of the unhappy spirits in its middle-region. The first belongs to the
supernatural the last, to the subter-natural. Betwixt these lies the nature of man, which, in the high magnetic state
attained by our Seherin placed in contact with both.
Kerner was a singular being. He was well-built and good-looking, but careless of his appearance, stooping in his gait. His eyes had in them something unearthly. He could voluntarily quicken- the pulsation of his heart, but not check it again. He would sit and dream in a strange, half somnambulistic condition for hours, and then suddenly start up and laugh at his friends for being alarmed. He had an unconquerable bent towards the humorous and absurd, and unerringly seized on the ridiculous aspect of a subject. His favourite literature was the wild legends in prose and verse which circulated amongst the lowest peasantry. He could only speak his broad Swabian dialect.
