MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

To relate the history of hypnosis we have to go back to 1760, when a German doctor settled in Paris observed that the power of attraction of the magnets could be used on the sick without being arrested by the police and put behind bars. The doctor in question was called Mesmer and his discovery was baptized, in a display of inventiveness, with the name of "mesmerism." Mesmer soon saw that magnets could be dispensed with and even the sick, so he began to practice mesmerism on healthy people through the supposed magnetic power of his hands. Practicing wild gesticulations before a mirror to find those that were more spectacular (at that time he exhibited his discovery in theatres full of people who had paid a ticket), one day Mesmer hypnotized himself, staying in a catatonic state for several years until someone casually mentioned in his presence the word "gherkins". This gave him cause for thought and he decided to retire and pass the baton to a French doctor named Ch...

At the turn of the century, New York was the destination of a large number of European immigrants. On February 12, 1897, a steamship of the company White-Star landed among its passengers a native of Transylvania. William Barret, who was among the crowd of onlookers who crowded on the dock, immediately identified this exotic origin because the man wore the typical costume of the region and Barret collected paper figures to cut out with regional costumes from around the world. In fact, since he was a child, he had been interested in that region of Eastern Europe in which so many horror stories were set. His father was very fond of this literary genre and used to read passages to his son before going to bed. No wonder then that little Barret fell asleep in Maths class. Unlike his own bedroom, where he couldn’t sleep a wink, Maths were safe, Maths weren’t scary. From that time, he suffered from a nervous tic consisting in looking continuously at all sides in view of a possible danger. Para...

“The Order of the Temple of the Rose and the Cross", founded by Josephin Peladan by inspiration of the Green Fairy, was just one of the numerous occultist Orders that proliferated at the end of the 19th century. Its members practiced Occultism, which mean that they had to be hidden for many hours, crouched behind a door, waiting for some unwary chap to come out, then jumping on him and tattooing on his chest the symbol of the Order (in this case, a rose and a cross). From that moment, he was "ordered", which implied seeming circumspect, stop eating meat and stop participating in mundane entertainments such as sack races, boules, dances and backflips. Nor could he wear garments of flashy colors that would draw attention to him, since the whole thing consisted of going unnoticed, which the occultists also achieved by walking stooped, on tiptoe and with their faces covered by a mask. When Josephin Peladan captured Eric Satie for his Order, the young pianist had begun to de...

We could define Bernard Puy de Cabannes as a paranormal poet. In the sense that his verses were the result of automatic writing. You know how it works? It consists of placing the pen gently on the paper and let a disembodied spirit guide your hand. Some people affirm that Shakespeare wrote his immortal works in this way: limiting himself to holding the pen. Well, Puy de Cabannes belonged to this class of poets. Only that in his case there was an insoluble problem. The spirit that guided his hand wrote in a strange language, unknown not only to Cabannes but to all the linguists he consulted. In fact, these linguists pointed out that his writings lacked grammatical and orthographic rules. To which Cabannes replied angrily that there resided precisely the difficulty and the beauty of such language. To a linguist who dared to contradict him affirming that this was not a language but a string of meaningless words, Cabannes gave him such a slap that made him reconsider his opinion and desc...

When summer came, the bohemians loved to go swimming at La Grenouillère, on the banks of the Seine. They went every Sunday, but when they arrived and saw the calm waters, they remembered that were not able to swim and returned running to Montmartre. Then, normally they would go dancing, arguing and hanging out at the Moulin de la Galette. Or they went to the Chat Noir to listen to the hypnotic music of Eric Satie, who limited himself to playing a single key from time to time. Sometimes they dated girls, but they were too shy to say or do anything, so girls stopped dating them. That is why they got keen on voyeurism: they spent whole Sunday afternoons squatted, peeking through the keyhole of their own rooms in the hope of seeing a girl pass by the stairwell. That is also the reason why they drank so much absinthe. After a few liters of this drink, the Green Fairy used to appear, all naked from the neck up. Although, sometimes, an imp of the same color appeared instead of the Fairy. This...

Eric Satie, the pianist of the cabaret "Le Chat Noir" (The Black Cat), would eventually become one of the most exquisite composers of the French “Fin de Siècle”. But at the beginning, his piano technique was so scanty, and his shyness so great, that he restricted himself to pressing the same key for an entire evening. This exasperated the bourgeois clients, but delighted the artists because, combined with the ingestion of absinthe, it made them enter a kind of hypnotic trance. During an evening at Le Chat Noir, the painter and artists' model Suzanne Valadon fell into a deep hypnotic trance triggered by Satie's music. When at dawn Satie returned home, he received the unexpected visit of Suzanne who, to his amazement, fell into his arms. It’s thought that this was the first and last love affair of Satie, who maintained his whole life an almost supernatural love for Suzanne. This was the most pleasing incident that his minimalist music caused to the shy pianist and comp...

The bohemian Green Fairy was very playful and she loved to create confusion among the artists who were under her influence. In his memoirs, Marcel Rochechouart recounts several curious episodes in this regard. It seems that the Green Fairy drove Manet and Monet nuts taking advantage of the similarity of their names. When the two painters were present in any of the places where the bohème met, there was often a psychophony consisting of the suggestive pronunciation of one of their names. I say “one of their names” because the psychophony was ambiguous enough for both to feel alluded to, and as a result they both rushed to meet the owner of that sexy female voice that called them. Of course, the voice lacked an owner or at least it was an invisible one. However, they never stopped falling into the trap, which motivated the funny comments of their colleagues, all of whom had a very strong sense of humor and did not mind laughing even at themselves. This enviable sense of humor was also sh...

Vincent van Gogh's relationships with the other Impressionist painters were very unstable. In all cases, his tragic death was a turning point that marked a before and an after. For example, his relationship with Rochechouart, which from the beginning was one of frank enmity, softened a lot after van Gogh’s decease. On the contrary, his friendship with Toulouse-Lautrec, which had been extremely close during his lifetime, became turbulent after his passing. On the other hand, Gauguin's love-hate relationship with van Gogh was abruptly interrupted as a result of his death and they never spoke to each other again. It is speculated that Gauguin felt a sense of guilt when he learned of van Gogh's suicide, as he had already felt when he learned that his friend had cut off his ear, and even earlier, when one day both were walking through the countryside and van Gogh stumbled upon a stone and got scratched on his knee. Maybe Gauguin had placed the stone there expressly so that his f...

While, in Britain, paranormal phenomena were subject to rigorous scientific study by some of the greatest minds of the English turn of the 19th century, at the French “Fin de siècle” (there is only a time difference of a few minutes between the entry into the English turn of the 19th century and that of the French “Fin de siècle”), this kind of phenomena was left to people who not only lacked rigorous scientific studies but often had got rigorous anti-scientific studies. Naturally, I mean the bohemian artists: that which, as a whole, has been called “la bohème”. “La bohème” wasn’t an institution endowed with a good provision of funds and a perfectly organized structure such as the London Society for Psychical Research. Its members wore no fock coat, suit, vest, bowtie and top hat, but were often practically naked or, if cold, dressed in garments that would have blushed the distinguished members of the SPR. The headquarters of the Parisian “bohème” were located in the hill of Montmartr...

Don’t get the wrong idea that communication with the dead is an easy thing. Communication with the living ones is already quite complicated, so imagine with the dead! Because we don’t talk about the dead who have followed the advise of any self-respecting death manual (the Tibetan Book of the Dead, for example), which warn you about the necessity of heading for the Light-at-the-End-of-the-Tunnel. No. The dead we are talking about are like the one who is invited to a party and, instead of knocking on his host's door, remains wandering the stairs without knowing whether to go up or down. To put it bluntly: they are a little weird. The minutes of the séances that we find in the archives of the Society for Psychical Research, either in London or in New York, prove it. The following example corresponds to a séance that took place on the night of November 24 in a luxurious apartment on New York's Fifth Avenue. Eight months earlier, a wealthy stockbroker whom we will call Mister Smith...

God does not exist, how many times have I got to tell you? There is no God as there are no goblins or dragons or fairies or caviar cans at reasonable prices. Simply, they don't exist. You’ll say I am a skeptic. But I’m not, I am a fervent believer. I believe in Science firmly. I have blind faith. If suddenly Heaven were to open and the smiling face of Divinity appeared, even then I would opt for Science, which says that Divinity does not exist. I don’t betray my beliefs at the first sign of trouble! My beliefs are sacred. I don’t need proofs of the truth. I already know the truth, and the truth has a name: it is called Science, blessed be It. Science is not only truer than God, but also has an infinitely more beautiful name: "Science", "Science", "Science"… One would be all day pronouncing that name. It seems that honey comes to your lips: "Sciennnnce". Oh, how much I love It! Science is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of En...

Did you know that, in the last decade of the 19th century, the Madison Square Garden concert hall remained closed for almost a year for reasons still unexplained? Well, that's right. But those reasons stopped being unexplained not long ago, when the archives of the American Society for Psychical Research were made available to the public. The story is one of the most surprising that is documented on those files, and was as follows. It all started on May 7, 1891, just one year after the original Madison Square Garden was demolished and a new one erected in its place. That evening, Frederic Chopin's Piano Concert No. 1 was being performed by the Russian pianist Igor Ostrgovinski accompanied by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Suddenly, the pianist is mistaken in a note: a major Re instead of an E-flat. It is an insignificant mistake, nobody notices it except Ostrgovinski himself. Two minutes later, a Do sounds instead of a Fa. This time not only Ostrgovinski notices it but a...

Maybe there is not a profession more useful and at the same time more ungrateful than that of inventor. And I'm going to mention a case that exemplifies it. George W. Newton had patented more than a hundred inventions without any of them having brought him the slightest profit. I will enumerate some. A “gender recogniser”: a self-service machine that at the touch of a button informs you whether you are a man or a woman or a mixture of both (this information can be very useful to obtain a passport or any other identification document). A “direction marker” (a kind of compass that tells you where it is below, above, right and left). The "Governor of the State of Texas", a robot designed specifically to perform this task. Or the “pin dispenser”, an extremely versatile device which could also serve to govern Texas if necessary. All of them, inventions with an advanced technology for its time, but that did not find any investor interested in its commercialization. Ah, but th...

Spending a whole year gawking at the most amazing paranormal phenomena for a Harry Houdini to demonstrate that you have been sold a bill of goods, does not happen without your mental stability being affected to a greater or lesser degree. That is why after the unmasking of a false medium, four of the most prominent members of the Society for Psychical Research -Gurney, Barret, Lodge and Myers- were forced by the SPR Governing Board to attend the consultation of Ernest Jones, one of Sigmund Freud's English outstanding disciples. (Freud refused to treat them personally because he still resented the breakage of a guitar in his head during a séance). Ernest Jones was skeptical not only in relation to paranormal phenomena but also to phenomena as normal as birth (he was convinced that babies were found in a cabbage patch) or death (according to him, only fools died). He resolved to try group therapy with the four members of the SPR. They had to pass a ball made of rags to one another, ...

Phil Oldcorne had just taken possession of the house that his Aunt Maggie had left him in inheritance in her will. Aunt Maggie was a sullen woman who disliked people, especially when they were awake. While they slept she could still tolerate them, but awake they became unbearable for her. Hence she had lived isolated in an isolated house in an isolated village in an isolated county of an isolated island. Phil never knew her, even though when he was a child she came home weekly to visit them. But her visits were nocturnal, when everyone in the house was asleep. Maggie's sister (Phil's mother, may she rest in peace) left a key hidden in the garden so that her sister could enter the house. Phil's mother had a kind of sixth sense to know when Aunt Maggie was visiting them, but she always feigned to be asleep. According to her, the aunt lit a candle with which she moved through the various rooms where the family members slept. She stayed with each of them for a while watching th...

Alphonse Capone, the famous Chicago mafia boss, never left home without a wheel of parmesan cheese under his arm. When graphic reporters waited for him at the entrance, the cheese was held by one of his bodyguards. That's why you will not find any picture of him with a cheese. His gangsters were in charge of the dirty work: the shootings, the contraband of liquors, the salmon fishing out of season... He merely transported a parmesan cheese through the streets and avenues of Chicago. That's why a serious crime against him could never be proven. Transporting a cheese on the street is not punishable by law, unless it is for illicit purposes. But the purposes of Al Capone did not seem illicit at first sight. The most famous gangster in history did the work of a cheese delivery man! At first, he was distributing Swiss cheeses, but the holes did not convince him, so he went over to Parmesan. A cheesemaker from Parma made them especially for him. Each week he received a supply of twel...

Mrs. Cassel made the daily morning tour of the thermal springs of Marienbad when she suddenly heard a voice calling her by her name. Clearly the voice said: "Abraham Moskovitzi! Abraham Moskovitzi!” When she realized that her name was not Abraham Moskovitzi, it was too late: a group of Orthodox Jews in their black caftans had met with her and, while they were parsimoniously walking beside her, they asked her questions about the kabbalistic Sefirot. Interestingly, she knew all the answers despite never having read the Kabbalah and having only vague knowledge about its existence. Allowing herself to be accompanied by these men with long beards and curled sideburns, Mrs. Cassel unwittingly entered the old synagogue where the Jewish community of the spa town was congregated. With obvious embarrassment, she headed towards the Bimah, where she began to read aloud the Torah, despite not knowing how to read in Hebrew. While reading, she pulled her beard’s hair. "For God's sake (s...

Today this distinction is hereditary but, in the 19th century, becoming a famous miracle-worker rabbi with a court of followers who treated you like a king, was not an easy task. Particularly, if you were incapable of working the most insignificant miracle. And even more if you were not even circumcised because you were a goy, a non-Jew. But when Lech Ludica proposed something, there was no insurmountable obstacle. He started by letting his beard grow as well as his sideburns, which he wrapped around his ears. He also bought a black caftan and a shtreimel (a fur hat worn by Hasidim). He then adopted the name of Jakob Eiger and infiltrated the court of Rabbi Elijah Guttmacher of Grätz, the famous miracle-worker. Since he didn’t speak a single word of Yiddish, at first he pretended to be mute. But with the passing of time and long hours of study, he picked up an acceptable Yiddish. Then he started speaking. Naturally, people were amazed: «Look at Jakob, he was mute and now he chats like...

Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum had some peculiar ideas. He was a fervent supporter of miracles, but vigorously disapproved paranormal phenomena. When in the shtetl some inexplicable phenomenon took place, he organized endless discussions in the Bet Hamidrash with the purpose of ruling if that inexplicable phenomenon was kosher or treif; in other words, if it was a blessed miracle or a damn paranormal phenomenon. It was not easy to discern. Frequently, it was not even easy to discern whether it was an inexplicable phenomenon or a simple narishkayt (a foolishness). Hence, when in the shtetl some inexplicable phenomenon occurred, his disciples tried by all means to prevent Rabbi Teitelbaum from finding out. On one occasion, however, this was inevitable since the inexplicable phenomenon had the rabbi himself as its protagonist. The following happened: the rabbi's wife had started making matzos, and she asked her husband to find a tray to put them on. Rabbi Teitelbaum was able to decipher the ...

I am asked if I know that, among the devotees of the Jewish movement known as Hasidism, there were rabbis who performed supernatural feats. And I say: Yes, not only do I know it well, but I'm going to tell you about it a story that I have just invented and that consequently has not been related until now. The scene is Liadi, a small Russian town with a large jewish population, namely a shtetl. And its protagonists are Eleazar of Liadi and Elior of Vilna. Eleazar of Liadi was a Hasidic Rabbi (a “pious” rabbi), while Elior of Vilna was a Misnagdim Rabbi (an “opponent” rabbi), that is to say, a staunch opponent of the pious rabbis. The Hasidic rabbis worked miracles. The Misnagdim rabbis not only do not worked miracles, but they were often unable to find the bathroom when they go visit people. In the second half of the 19th century, Rabbi Elior of Vilna had become the scourge of the miracle-workers rabbis. He had imposed on himself the task of unmasking the frauds that, according to...