Preface

does not reach full clarity, though I shall assist him completely in this: he intends to say, with the aforementioned deficient phrasing, that in sensitivity there lies only an increased, but not a specific nerve excitability The author is debating whether "sensitivity" is just "extra" nervousness or a unique, distinct type of physical reaction.. This intention, in his unclearly expressed sense, shines through in the example of the pregnant woman which he provides to illustrate his thoughts. However, that is precisely what I state on every occasion: that sensitivity contains not merely an increased excitability, but beyond that, specifically a specific nerve excitability. I do not wish to remain in his debt regarding the refutation of his opinion and the proof of my assertion through facts.

Let us take the excitability of the optic nerves. There are people of extraordinary sharpness of vision both near and far; and there are others who are nearsighted to a regrettable degree. According to Mr. Vogt, those with far-sight and high visual excitability should all be susceptible to Odic phenomena Odic phenomena: manifestations of "Od," a hypothetical vital energy or life force proposed by the author, Baron von Reichenbach, while the nearsighted, in the dullness of their optic nerves, should remain without excitability for it. Experience, however, diametrically contradicts this. People with excellent eyes who are not specifically sensitive can remain with me in the darkroom for days and will never catch sight of a trace of Od-light; others are myopic original: "miob" (myopic/nearsighted), such as Professor Endlicher, Mr. Superintendent Paur, Madame von Bivenot, Miss Sophie Pauer, and others; they must constantly make use of eyeglasses, yet in the dark, they see all Od-light emanations perfectly.

— It is the same with feeling. If there are numerous people who cannot endure someone sitting to their right, yet find it quite pleasant when someone sits, stands, or lies beside them to their left; then this is a phenomenon that is entirely inexplicable by means of a merely increased nerve excitability, and which consequently is based upon a specific excitability in sensation alongside the general one. — Why do certain people absolutely not endure the gaze of a left eye into a left eye, while a gaze into a right eye is quite pleasant to them? — Why may one bring the fingers of one hand near the eye of a Sensitive Sensitive: a person capable of perceiving the Odic force and not those of the other? Why one pole of a crystal, but not the other? — Why do some people fall into an insurmountable sleep, into catalepsy, or into tetanus In this context, "tetanus" refers to a state of muscle rigidity or tonic spasm associated with mesmerism/hypnosis, rather than the infection., if I perform downward or upward hand-passes over them from a distance of several rooms? May