Mental magic : a rationale of thought reading, and its attendant phenomena and their application to the discovery of new medicines ... and all hidden and secret things.
Mental Magic is an 1884 London treatise by Thomas Welton and Robert H. Fryar on thought reading, hypnosis and mesmerism, written for an educated reading public and held by Glasgow University Library. Its first picture shows four numbered panels of a man in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat performing gestures against a flat landscape, rendered in fine black line engraving; a designer might borrow the sequential panel layout for instructional diagrams. The second is a heraldic shield bearing a tree, a staff with an open book, a bell and a fish, under the motto Via Veritas Vita, suggesting a compact emblem system for a scholarly or esoteric imprint.
