About a year after the birth of her child, being laughed at for her superstition, she was thrown into a state of rigid spasm, and became as cold and stiff as a corpse. For a long time no respiration was visible. She lay as in a dream. In this peculiar condition she spoke for three days entirely in verse and at another, she saw, for the same period, nothing but a ball of fire, that ran through her whole body as if on thin bright threads. And then, for three days, she felt as if water was falling upon her head, drop by drop; and it was at this time that she saw her own image. She saw it clad in white, seated on a stool, whilst she was lying in bed. She contemplated the vision for some time, and would have cried out, but could not; at length she made herself heard, and her husband entering, it disappeared. Her susceptibility was now so great that she _heard and felt what happened at a distance_, and was so sensible to external agencies, _that the nails in the walls affected her_, which obliged her friends to remove them. The least light had a powerful influence upon her nervous system, and could not be endured.
She was now induced to take a medicine which made her more calm, but threw her into a deeper trance. Still she could not endure the sunlight. She was taken in a darkened carriage to her home on the mountains. "Here she existed," says her physician, "only through the nervous emanation of others, and it became necessary that some one should always hold her hand; and if the person was weak, it increased her debility. The physician prescribed magnetic passes and medicines, but she fell into a magnetic sleep, _and then prescribed for herself_. Her greatest suffering arose from the sensation of having a stone in her head. It seemed as if her brain was compressed, and at every breath she drew, the motion pained her. At this time a large magnet was applied to her forehead; immediately her head and face were turned round, and her mouth distorted as by a stroke of palsy. On the 28th of December she gave birth to her second child, which was followed, as before, by a long and severe illness. She continued constantly in a magnetic state. Persons of various tempers now became her magnetizers. The effects of these different nervous temperaments upon hers were very serious. It brought her into special relation to so many persons, that, even _at a distance, they affected her, visions of whom would appear to her like visions of spirits_. This, moveover, brought her into a deeper magnetic condition, and rendered her more _dependent on the nervous energy of others_. Another physician was employed from a distance. He gave her an amulet to wear, composed of certain substances, and a small magnet, all arranged together. Occasionally this amulet, untouched by any one, would run about her head, breast, and bed covering, like a live thing."