B574 <=> B576 [BTG XXXII Hypnotism, p. 575]

“Well, when the abbot Pedrini told everything in detail to the doctor Bambini, the latter also became very much interested, and from then on they both began to occupy themselves with the elucidation of it all.

“They first made various elucidating experiments upon the nun Ephrosinia herself, and after several what are there called ‘seances’ they noticed that this nun invariably fell into such a peculiar state of hers only when her gaze rested rather a long time on one of the brilliant colored stones, on what is called a ‘Persian turquoise,’ which was among the adornments of the frame of this portrait.

“But later when with this same Persian turquoise they continued to make their elucidating experiments upon others, they then soon became categorically convinced, firstly, that in almost any one of the three-brained beings without distinction of sex who gazes for a long time at shining and brilliant objects of a certain kind, there begins to proceed a state similar to the one which proceeded with the first subject of their experiments; and secondly, they noticed further that the form of manifestation of the subject during the state varies and is found to be dependent on the former being-experiences which chanced to be predominant and on the shining objects with which a connection was accidentally established during such experiences of theirs.

“Well, my boy . . .

“When the information concerning such observations, deductions and experiments of these two beings belonging to the community Italy were spread among the contemporary learned beings of ‘new formation’ and many of these latter also began wiseacring about it, and finally when by chance, as it usually happens among them, they learned that it is possible in beings similar to them when in this state, to change in an accelerated way the impressions formerly fixed in them to new ones, then certain of them began to use this particular psychic property, inherent in them for the purpose of curing.