Quantum Entangled Escargot: Sympathy for the Snail Telegraph
Posted by EsoterX
Original article: https://esoterx.com/2017/03/16/quantum-entangled-escargot-sympathy-for-the-snail-telegraph/
Wikipedia, Pasilalinic Sympathetic Compass
Jules Allix after a long preamble in La Presse, in an article signed by himself, announced that a French inventor, M. Jacques Toussaint Benott (de I’Herault), and a fellow worker of Gallic origin, living in America, M. Biat-Chretien, had hit on “a new system of universal intercommunication of thought, which operates instantaneously.” After a long introduction in true French rhodomontade, tracing the progress of humanity from the publication of the Gospel to the 19th century, M. Allix continued, “The discovery of M. Benoit and Biat depends on galvanism, terrestrial and animal magnetism, also on natural sympathy, that is to say, the base of communication is a sort of special sympathetic fluid which is composed of the union or blending of the galvanic, magnetic and sympathetic currents, by a process to be described shortly. And as the various fluids vary according to the organic or inorganic bodies whence they are derived, it is necessary further to state that the forces or fluids here married are: (a) The terrestrial-galvanic current, (b) the animal-sympathetic current, in this case derived from snails, (c) the adamic or human current, or animal-magnetic current in man. Consequently, to describe concisely the basis of the new system of intercommunication, we shall have to call the force, ‘The galvano-terrestrial-magnetic-animal and Adamic force!’” Is not this something like a piece of Jules Verne’s delicious scientific hocus-pocus? Will the reader believe that it was written in good faith? It was, there can be no question, written in perfect good faith. The character of La Presse, of the journalist, M. Jules Allix, would not allow of a hoax willfully perpetrated on the public. We are quoting from the number for October 27th, 1850, of the paper. “According to the experiments made by M. Benoit and Biat, it seems that snails which have once been put in contact are always in sympathetic communication. When separated, there disengages itself from them a species of fluid of which the earth is the conductor, which develops and unrolls, so to speak, like the almost invisible thread of the spider, or that of the silk worm, which can be uncoiled and prolonged almost indefinitely in space without its breaking, but with this vital difference that the thread of the escargotic fluid is invisible as completely and the pulsation along it is as rapid as the electric fluid (Baring-Gould, 1890, p189-190)
All that remained was to construct an apparatus to capitalize on this snail telepathy, but Benoit was lacking in capital, and the mysterious M. Biat-Chretien was a shadowy figure who nobody had ever actually seen and may not have existed at all. Benoit convinced a Paris gymnasium manager named Monsieur Triat to provide room, board, and a lab space in which to construct a working prototype of his pasilalinic-sympathetic compass and harness the power of snail magnetism. Benoit experimented for a year without showing any results, and Triat started to get suspicious. At long last, Benoit offered a demonstration to Triat and the reporter Jules Allix. Allix described the mechanism that emerged.
This apparatus consists of a square box, in which is a Voltaic pile, of which the metallic plates, instead of being superposed, as in the pile of Volta, are disposed in order, attached in holes formed in a wheel or circular disc, that revolves about a steel axis. To these metallic plates used by Volta, M. Benoit and Biat have substituted others in the shape of cups or circular basins, composed of zinc lined with cloth steeped in a solution of sulphate of copper maintained in place by a blade of copper riveted to the cup. At the bottom of each of these bowls, is fixed, by aid of a composition that shall be given presently, a living snail, whose sympathetic influence may unite and be woven with the galvanic current, when the wheel of the pile is set in motion and with it the snails that are adhering to it. Each galvanic basin rests on a delicate spring, so that it may respond to every escargotic commotion. Now, it is obvious that such an apparatus requires a corresponding apparatus, disposed as has been described, and containing in it snails in sympathy with those in the other apparatus, so that the escargotic vibration may pass from one precise point in one of the piles to a precise point in the other and complementary pile. When these dispositions have been grasped the rest follows as a matter of course. M. Benoit and Biat have fixed letters to the wheels, corresponding the one with the other, and at each sympathetic touch on one, the other is touched; consequently it is easy by this means, naturally and instantaneously, to communicate ideas at vast distances, by the indication of the letters touched by the snails. The apparatus described is in shape like a mariner’s compass, and to distinguish it from that, it is termed the pasilalinic-sympathetic compass (Baring-Gould, 1890, p192).
The demonstration was a little questionable. Jules Allix and Triat poked snails on one side to spell “gymnase”, and the snails on the other end spelled “gymoate”, “lumiere divine” came through as “lumhere divine”. Snails are not known for their spelling abilities. A test was then conducted with the elusive Mr. Biat in America (who supposedly had yet another test apparatus in sympathy with Benoit’s snails). Benoit sent “Biat?” shortly receiving the reply C’est Bien. Allix were astounded, but Triat was less impressed, since he noticed Benoit spent the whole time running back and forth checking on the snails (ample time to poke a snail here and there). Triat told Benoit that he would happily continue his participation if Benoit could set up an experiment that transmitted a single word between separated snails without Benoit himself moving between them. Benoit happily agreed. And the day before the proposed test was set to take place, disappeared. There were occasional rumors that he was later spotted in Paris, wandering about in a starving and deranged state and that he died in 1852, his Snail Telegraph unrealized.
References
Baring-Gould, S. 1834-1924. Historic Oddities and Strange Events. 2d ed. London: Methuen, 1890.
“Animal Magnetism and the Snail Telegraph”. Buchanan, Joseph R. (Joseph Rodes), 1814-1899, and Harry Houdini Collection (Library of Congress). Buchanan’s Journal of Man v3. Cincinnati, Ohio: J.R. Buchanan, 1851.
Carpenter, William Benjamin, 1813-1885. Mesmerism, Spiritualism: Historically & Scientifically Considered, Being Two Lectures Delivered At the London Institution, With Preface And Appendix. New York: D. Appleton and company, 1877.
Dickens, Charles ed., 1837-1896. “Early Telegraphy”. All the Year Round 3:3. London: Charles Dickens , 1890.
Gregory, William, 1803-1858. Letters to a Candid Inquirer, On Animal Magnetism. Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1851.
The Year-book of Facts In Science And Art. London, 1852.
Original article: https://esoterx.com/2017/03/16/quantum-entangled-escargot-sympathy-for-the-snail-telegraph/
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