Trance

“ There is often, in waking trance, a great vivacity and disposition to be communicative from the first. Those, again, who have frequently been thrown into trance, and have become familiar with their new condition, are generally anxious to shine in it, and make a display. This disposition is further heightened when the entranced person expects to be rewarded for his performance. ”

“ The difference between union and trance is this, that the latter lasts longer and is more visible outwardly, because the breathing gradually diminishes, so that it becomes impossible to speak or to open the eyes; and though this very thing occurs when the soul is in union, there is more violence in a trance for the natural warmth vanishes, I know not how, when the rapture is deep; and in all these kinds of prayer there is more or less of this. When it is deep, as I was saying, the hands become cold, and sometimes stiff and straight as pieces of wood ”

“ If you looked long enough, you saw that a youth and a maiden were lying in a trance that was half sleep, half death; while their souls, diaphanous forms with indefinite legs, hovered above them in mid-air, each leaning towards the other's body. ”

“ You are now far advanced in the hypnotic trance, and very fond of it as far as you've got. Her every posture is a living picture, her slightest movement a sensuous symphony, her breath upon your cheek a perfumed air to waft you to the dreamy but dangerous land of the lotus-eaters. ”

“ Precisely how the lot falls is not very apparent, but presently one girl starts forward from the rest and seems, from the curious motionless attitude which she assumes, to fall into a cataleptic trance. ”

“ On looking at the sensitive now, we see that he is rapidly passing into a state of trance—his head is drooping on one side, his arms and hands hang downwards loosely, his body being in a limp real trance condition, and just in the right state for use by any entity desiring to work through him, we are told. ”

“ Inspirational speaking, playing on musical instruments, etc., also belong to the relatively lower phases of possession, in which the normal self is not excluded from conscious participation in the performance, though their initiative seems to come from elsewhere. In the highest phase the trance is complete, the voice, language, and [Pg 394] everything are changed, and there is no after-memory whatever until the next trance comes. One curious thing about trance-utterances is their generic similarity in different individuals. ”

“ VI. Trance-Identification of persons at a distance by means of material objects.—A very lucid clairvoyante, her eyes being bandaged, recognises not the less, without preparation or effort, every acquaintance present in the room; describes their dress, the contents of their purses, or of letters in their pockets, and reads their innermost thoughts. An ordinary clairvoyante usually requires the contact of the party’s hand with whom it is proposed to bring her into trance-relation; then only does she first know any thing about her new patient. ”

“ Green was in full trance, and Swedenborg controlled her and blessed the contracting parties, after which Mr. Green made a very appropriate and beautiful address. A private clairvoyant fell in a trance and described not only the clothing of the bride and bridegroom, but many other spirits present. ”

“ The waking from a trance, like the recovery from the asphyxia of drowning, is painful. It is attended with a struggle, and the hand is almost invariably placed firmly over the heart, as if its actions were a painful effort to overcome congestion. ”

“ There is no limit to the number of these songs, as every trance at every dance produces a new one, the trance subject after regaining consciousness embodying his experience in the spirit world in the form of a song, which is sung at the next dance and succeeding performances until superseded by other songs originating in the same way. ”

“ In the mean while she has grown from a child to a woman, though her countenance retains all the appearance of her former age. She is little else than skin and bone, except her cheeks, which are puffy. She is as pale as a corpse, and her eyes are sunk deep in the sockets.”
III. Simple or Initiatory Trance.—In the lightest form of trance-sleep, the patient, though perfectly insensible to ordinary impressions, is not necessarily recumbent. ”

“ Then, as our ordinary being presents an alternation of sleeping and waking, so does trance-existence. There is a trance-sleep and a trance-waking to correspond with ordinary sleep and ordinary waking.
As natural sleep has different degrees of profoundness, so has trance sleep. They present a latitude so extensive, that it is convenient and allowable to lay down three different degrees or states of trance-sleep. ”

“ When it occurs in the daytime, the attack of trance is still ordinarily preceded by a short period of common sleep.
The somnambulist then, half waking in trance, is disposed to rise and move about. Sometimes his object seems a mere excursion, and then it is remarked that he shows a disposition to ascend heights. So he climbs, perhaps, to the roof of the house, and makes his way along it with agility and certainty: sometimes he is observed, where the tiles are loose, to try if they are secure before he advances. Generally these feats are performed in safety. ”

“ In this case the medium passes into a trance state apparently at will, and during the trance the organs of speech or the hand usually express what purport to be messages from the spirits of deceased relatives or friends of those who are present. A number of competent and highly critical observers have arrived at the conviction that these messages often comprise statements of facts that could not have come to the knowledge of the medium in any normal fashion ”

“ In my agitation of mind, I handled my tools so blindly, that I succeeded in lodging my mattock, which was aimed furiously at a root, among the toes of my right foot; and the pain was so horribly acute, that I leaped howling out of the pit, and sinking down upon the grass, fell straightway into a trance.
CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE FINDS HIMSELF IN A QUANDARY WHICH THE READER WILL ALLOW TO BE THE MOST WONDERFUL AND LAMENTABLE EVER KNOWN TO A HUMAN BEING.
When I awoke from this trance, it was almost daybreak. ”

“ What Rapture Is. The Blessing It Is to the Soul. The Effects of It.
1. I wish I could explain, with the help of God, wherein union differs from rapture, or from transport, or from flight of the spirit, as they speak, or from a trance, which are all one. [1] I mean, that all these are only different names for that one and the same thing, which is also called ecstasy. [2] It is more excellent than union, the fruits of it are much greater, and its other operations more manifold; for union is uniform in the beginning, the middle, and the end, and is so also interiorly. ”

“ And from a Dance to a Trance, from a Trance they fell to a falling
Either in others armes, and either in armes of another.
Pastime ouer-past, and Banquet duely prepared,
Deuoutly pared: Each one hies home to his owne home,
Saue Lord and Ladie ”

“ At intervals between the songs, more especially after the trances have begun, the dancers unclasp hands and sit down to smoke or talk for a few minutes. ”

“ The contrast between the fathers is much more striking, when we see the complexion of the full-fed gouty peer, and compare it with that of the penurious citizen; and the death-scene of the lady is far more impressive. The darned and dirty table-cloth, the squalor of the furniture and apartment, her ghastly paleness, and the stained complexion of the withered and weeping nurse, add a force to this picture I never dreamt of from the engraving. ”

“ And the [Pg 175] night itself passed away as a dream that men dream, and its hours seemed to them but as a few minutes—and then across the music and the dance cut the shrill harsh scream of a peacock as he greeted the day. The children saw the King rise from his throne and stretch his sceptre out over the ring; and the ring and the dancers were shrouded in a white mist which rose from the ground and wreathed its arms about them; and the beryl throne dissolved in mist, and the figure of the King above them, pointing, grew dim and huge, and spread and grew, a purple shadow that hung over them, . ”

“ Lay on the ground, as blinded by their sight.
And as in spring relents the frozen ground,
Even so it seemed as though his heart unbound,
Streamed from his eyes like loosened floods the tears:
“Woe’s me,” he cried; “for thirty guilty years—
My life’s best treasure have I spent in vain,
And death and hell are now my only gain. ”

“ Forth filing from that vault, a weeping train
Who had beheld him now, and should not see again. XXIII.
Now seemed they desolate—for he, although
Helpless his dearest to defend with power
From the least insult of the meanest foe,
Had seemed to them a shelter and a tower
Of refuge in affliction’s fiercest hour,
From his lone dungeon spreading broad above
Their heads the buckler of his faith and love. ”

“ In the terrible music and menace of its warning, the voice cleft the air like a great sword. The people in the theatre cowered like a field of corn when the wind blows over it. Every face grew pale, and in the slight pause and breathless silence which followed Joseph's words, quick ears could distinguish a curious sound—or, rather, the intimation of a sound. ”

“ These mad apostles and their mad disciples made even demons like myself, even the horned devils, look back longingly on the time when the Son with his Virgin Mother reigned over the nations dazzled with splendours: cathedrals with their stone tracery delicate as lace, flaming roses of stained glass, frescoes painted in vivid colours telling countless wondrous tales, rich orfrays, glittering enamel of shrines and reliquaries, gold of crosses and of monstrances, waxen tapers gleaming like starry galaxies amid the gloom of vaulted arches, organs with their deep-toned harmonies. ”

“ There in a certain branch was a piece of paper, which she took from its hiding-place as if she had expected to find it. The message it contained she read by the light of the lantern that hung above the door, and then, thrusting it into the bosom of her rough dress, she went on toward the vicarage gate. ”

“ They walked and climbed upwards, upwards and for ever up, in a white world of ghostly vapor, until at last, without a sound, and with profound expectation and reverence in every heart, they knew by the change in the contour of the ground that they were near upon the mountain-top, and close to the cairn of stones where their old leader, Lluellyn Lys, lay in his long sleep, and where their living guide and Master, Joseph, was awaiting them. ”

“ The light of the next day's sun, beaming with all the heat and effulgence of full morning, bathed moor and upland in a wide shower of gold, when Miss Tranter, standing on the threshold of her dwelling, and shading her eyes with one hand from the dazzling radiance of the skies, watched a man's tall figure disappear down the rough and precipitous road which led from the higher hills to the seashore. ”

“ Each cloud, that stained it once, away is driven:
Come, mother, come, and with thee many bring;
Cry, ‘Here is spread the banquet of the King;’
Come, all ye faithful—come, and dare to prove
The bitter-sweet, the pain and bliss of love.”
So cried the child unto that crowd of men ”

“ All is sombre in the general state of England; the poor dying of hunger; and the death of our Princess and her infant, though no longer the subject of conversation to the exclusion of every other, has left a cloud that will not pass away. ”

“ Every second, with a long groan, some sturdy fellow would catch at an oar end, the water pouring from his mouth and dripping from his cap. The thin pole would tip up with a jerk, and he would sink gurgling and coughing to his death. ”

“ How strange it must be to such to read of the trumpet and the clouds, of the tribunal and the choirs of the saints, as literal realities, expected like the next morning's sunrise, and awaited as undoubtedly as the stroke of death, while they are sending their thoughts abroad meekly, anxiously, imploringly, through the universe, and diving into the deepest abysses of their own spirits to find a resting-place for their timid hopes! ”

“ Behind the footlights the perfectly dressed men and women went through their parts. All appeared as if they had put on for the first time the clothes they wore; both men and women had the complexion of young children—peaches and cream—unless the light fell on the face at an awkward angle. ”

“ A crowd of frightened and angry men hastily retreating towards this death-trap were suddenly confronted by a woman, who like an heavenly messenger, stood with uplifted hand, her hair streaming in the wind. ”

“ The Trunk is as the Father, because both the Branches and Fruit are produc'd from it; the Branches are as the Son, in that they are produc'd from the Trunk as so many Arms or Conveyance for distributing to Mankind, all that proceeds from the Trunk. ”

“ Then the god turn’d and struck the boor a fierce and crushing blow,—
A buffet that would split an oak. Into the rolling flow
Headlong he fell, and headlong sank; then, with swift strides the god
Forded the whirling torrent, and once more dry land trod. ”

“ He clasped her close, seeming to rock her with his strong panting. She felt his body lifting into her, and sinking away. It seemed to force a rhythm, a new pulse, in her. Gradually, with a fine, keen thrilling, she melted down on him, like metal sinking on a mould. ”