Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace

In addition, we have the advantage of modern science, and the advances made in the study of the cerebral diseases and mental disorders — advances which must surely tell in favour of Grace Marks. Several years ago our Committee engaged a specialist in nervous ailments, Dr. Simon Jordan, who came very highly recommended. He passed a number of months in this city in making a detailed examination of Grace Marks, with particular attention to her gaps in recollection concerning the murders. In an attempt to recover her memory, he subjected her to Neuro-hypnosis, at the hands of a skilled practitioner of that science — a science which, after a long eclipse, appears to be coming back into favour, both as a diagnostic and as a curative method, although it has thus far gained more favour in France than in this hemisphere. As a result of this session and the astonishing revelations it produced, Dr. Jordan gave it as his opinion that Grace Marks’ loss of memory was genuine, not feigned — that on the fatal day she was suffering from the effects of an hysterical seizure brought on by fright, which resulted in a form of auto-hypnotic somnambulism, not much studied twenty-five years ago but well documented since; and that this fact explains her subsequent amnesia. In the course of the neuro-hypnotic trance, which several of our own Committee members witnessed, Grace Marks displayed not only a fully recovered memory of these past events, but also pronounced evidence of a somnambulistic double consciousness, with a distinct secondary personality, capable of acting without the knowledge of the first. It was Dr. Jordan’s conclusion, in view of the evidence, that the woman known to us as “Grace Marks” was neither conscious at the time of the murder of Nancy Montgomery, nor responsible for her actions therein — the memories of these actions being retained only by her secondary and hidden self. Dr. Jordan was of the added opinion that this other self gave strong manifestations of its continued existence during her period of mental derangement in 1852, if the eyewitness reports of Mrs. Moodie and others are any indication.

I had hoped to have a written report to set before you, and our Committee has delayed the submission of its Petition from year to year, in expectation of it. Dr. Jordan had indeed fully intended to prepare such a report; but he was called away suddenly by a family illness, followed by urgent business on the Continent; after which the outbreak of the Civil War, in which he served in the capacity of a military surgeon, was a serious impediment to his efforts. I understand he was wounded in the course of the hostilities, and although providentially now making a recovery, has not yet regained sufficient strength to be able to complete his task. Otherwise I have no doubt that he would have added his earnest and heartfelt entreaties, to ours. I myself was present at the neuro-hypnotic session referred to, as was the lady who has since consented to become my dear wife; and both of us were most profoundly affected by what we saw and heard. It moves me to tears to think how this poor woman has been wronged through lack of scientific understanding. The human soul is a profound and awe-inspiring mystery, the depths of which are only now beginning to be sounded. Well may St. Paul have said, “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.” One can only guess at the purposes of our Creator, in fashioning of Humanity such a complex and Gordian knot.

But whatever you may think of Dr. Jordan’s professional opinion — and I am well aware that his conclusions may be difficult to credit, for one not familiar with the practice of Neuro-hypnosis, and who was not present at the events to which I allude — surely Grace Marks has been incarcerated for a great many years, more than sufficient to atone for her misdeeds. She has suffered untold mental agony, and agony of body as well; and she has bitterly repented whatever part she may have taken in this great crime, whether conscious of having taken it or not. She is by no means any longer a young woman, and is in but indifferent health. If she were at liberty, something might surely be done for her temporal, as well as her spiritual weal, and she might have an opportunity of meditating on the past, and of preparing for a future life. Will you — can you, in the name of charity — still persist in refusing to join your name to the Petition for her release, and thereby perchance close the gates of Paradise to a repentant sinner?

Surely not!

I invite you — I beg you once again — to aid us in this most praiseworthy endeavour. Yours very truly,

Enoch Verringer, M.A., D. Div.

From Dr. Samuel Bannerling, M.D., The Maples, Front Street, Toronto; to the Reverend Enoch Verringer, Sydenham Street Methodist Church, Kingston, Ontario.

November 1st, 1867.

Dear Sir:

I acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 10th of October, and its account of your puerile antics in regards to Grace Marks. I am disappointed in Dr. Jordan; I had some previous correspondence with him, in which I warned him explicitly against this cunning woman. They say there is no fool like an old fool, but I say there is no fool like a young one; and I am astonished that anyone with a medical degree would allow himself to be imposed upon by such a blatant piece of charlatanism and preposterous tomfoolery as a “Neuro-hypnotic trance,” which is second in imbecility only to Spiritism, Universal Suffrage, and similar drivel. This rubbishy “Neuro-hypnotism,” however beribboned with new terminologies, is only Mesmerism, or Animal Magnetism, re-writ; and that sickly nonsense was discredited long ago, as being merely a solemn-sounding blind, behind which men of questionable antecedents and salacious natures might obtain power over young women of the same, asking them impertinent and offensive questions and ordering them to perform immodest acts, without the latter appearing to consent to it.

So I fear that your Dr. Jordan is either credulous to an infantile degree, or himself a great scoundrel; and that, should he have composed his self-styled “report,” it would not have been worth the paper it was written on. I suspect that the wound of which you speak, was incurred, not during the war, but before it; and that it consisted of a sharp blow to the head, which is the only thing that would account for such idiocy. If Dr. Jordan keeps on with this disorderly course of thought, he will soon belong in the private asylum for lunatics, which, if I recall aright, he was once so set upon establishing.

I have read the so-called “testimony” of Mrs. Moodie, as well as some of her other scribblings, which I consigned to the fire where they belong — and where they for once cast a little light, which they certainly would not have done otherwise. Like the rest of her ilk, Mrs. Moodie is prone to overwrought effusions, and to the concoction of convenient fairy tales; and for the purposes of truth, one might as well rely on the “eye-witness reports” of a goose. As for the gates of Paradise to which you refer, I have no control whatever over them, and if Grace Marks is worthy to enter there she will doubtless be admitted without any interference on my part. But certainly the gates of the Penitentiary will never be opened to her through any act of mine. I have studied her carefully, and know her character and disposition better than you can possibly do. She is a creature devoid of moral faculties, and with the propensity to murder strongly developed. She is not safe to be entrusted with the ordinary privileges of society, and if her liberty were restored to her the chances are that sooner or later other lives would be sacrificed.