apparently acquired in no normal way, by a person of the sort usually
chosen to be a prophet, or wizard, by savages.

Professor Richet writes:[20]

'On Monday, July 2, 1888, after having passed all the day in my
laboratory, I hypnotised Léonie at 8 P.M., and while she tried to make
out a diagram concealed in an envelope I said to her quite suddenly:
"What has happened to M. Langlois?" Léonie knows M. Langlois from
having seen him two or three times some time ago in my physiological
laboratory, where he acts as my assistant.--"He has burnt himself,"
Léonie replied,--"Good," I said, "and where has he burnt himself?"--"On
the left hand. It is not fire: it is--I don't know its name. Why does he
not take care when he pours it out?"--"Of what colour," I asked, "is the
stuff which he pours out?"--"It is not red, it is brown; he has hurt
himself very much--the skin puffed up directly."

'Now, this description is admirably exact. At 4 P.M. that day M.
Langlois had wished to pour some bromine into a bottle. He had done this
clumsily, so that some of the bromine flowed on to his left hand, which
held the funnel, and at once burnt him severely. Although he at once put
his hand into water, wherever the bromine had touched it a blister was
formed in a few seconds--a blister which one could not better describe
than by saying, "the skin puffed up." I need not say that Léonie had not
left my house, nor seen anyone from my laboratory. Of this I am
_absolutely certain,_ and I am certain that I had not mentioned the
incident of the burn to anyone. Moreover, this was the first time for
nearly a year that M. Langlois had handled bromine, and when Léonie saw
him six months before at the laboratory he was engaged in experiments
of quite another kind.'