Note 41 — V.—CHARMS, SPELLS, AMULETS AND DIVINATIONS.

Mesmerism also has its Chinese votaries. A practice somewhat similar to our mesmerism and used to gain money by exhibitions on the 5th of the 8th moon, is very common in Canton. The performer reads with the person operated on certain incantations, chou,41 whereupon the patient falls into a mesmeric sleep. During this sleep, he is able, though never taught the exercise, to go through all sorts of tricks of fence—the native explanation being that the patients’ soul having departed from the body, the spirit of a deceased fencing-master occupies the empty tenement.