Preface

In the thirteenth of his physiological letters (second edition), Professor Vogt of Geneva shares with us his opinion on sensitivity and Od Od or Odic force: a hypothetical vital energy or life force proposed by Baron Carl von Reichenbach in the mid-19th century, which I must not neglect to provide for my readers' benefit. On page 322, in his well-known elegant style of speech, he expresses himself as follows:

"The entire series of nonsense that has been puffed out into the
"world under the title of 'Odic phenomena' rests
"solely on a heightened nervous excitability, through which
"sensations and impressions, which pass by without a trace
"in ordinary life, are communicated to the consciousness. I have
"observed a woman who was brought to the brink of the grave by
"days of violent vomiting, where a stomach disease was
"suspected, while only an incipient pregnancy was the cause
"of the abnormal gastric irritability. With the total
"exhaustion of the body, the nervous system was in
"such a state of heightened excitability that the patient not
"only heard the footsteps of the villagers when I could
"scarcely see them, but also distinguished the individual
"persons walking across the street by their footsteps.
"As one can see, this susceptibility only needed to increase
"by a small amount to bring about phenomena that,
"especially if one had been dealing with deceitful persons,
"would have been designated as magnetic clairvoyance."

This is the same philosopher who then, on the very next page original: "Pagina", indulges in the following further outpouring: