The physician was distressed to perceive, from these details, how strongly this visionary apparition was fixed…
- Date of account
- Published 1830
- Source
- Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft
- Reference
- Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft · selected passage 24
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The physician was distressed to perceive, from these details, how strongly this visionary apparition was fixed in the imagination of his patient
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe physician was distressed to perceive, from these details, how strongly this visionary apparition was fixed in the imagination of his patient. He ingeniously urged the sick man, who was then in bed, with questions concerning the circumstances of the phantom's appearance, trusting he might lead him, as a sensible man, into such contradictions and inconsistencies as might bring his common-sense, which seemed to be unimpaired, so strongly into the field as might combat successfully the fantastic disorder which produced such fatal effects. "This skeleton, then," said the doctor, "seems to you to be always present to your eyes?" "It is my fate, unhappily," answered the invalid, "always to see it." "Then I understand," continued the physician, "it is now present to your imagination?" "To my imagination it certainly is so," replied the sick man. "And in what part of the chamber do you now conceive the apparition to appear?" the physician inquired. "Immediately at the foot of my bed.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
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