In Edgar Allan Poe's "Mesmeric Revelation," a mesmerist engages in a philosophical dialogue with his dying patient, Mr. Vankirk, while the latter is under hypnosis. Seeking clarity on the soul's immortality before his death, Vankirk explains a complex cosmology revealed through the mesmeric trance: he posits that God is not spirit but an "unparticled matter," the fundamental substance of existence, and that thought is this matter in motion. Humans possess a temporary "rudimental" body for earthly experience, where pain and imperfection are necessary contrasts for eventual bliss; death is merely a metamorphosis into an "ultimate," immortal, and unorganized body capable of vast, direct perception. The story culminates dramatically as Vankirk, upon being awakened, smiles and immediately expires, leaving the narrator to ponder if the profound revelations were delivered from the threshold of the afterlife itself.

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