Though spiritualists discredit them ever so much, these nature-spirits

are realities. If the gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines

of the Rosicrucians existed in their days, they must exist now.

Bulwer-Lytton’s _Dweller of the Threshold_, is a modern conception,

modelled on the ancient type of the _Sulanuth_[525] of the Hebrews and

Egyptians, which is mentioned in the _Book of Jasher_.[526]

The Christians call them “devils,” “imps of Satan,” and like

characteristic names. They are nothing of the kind, but simply

creatures of ethereal matter, irresponsible, and neither good nor bad,

unless influenced by a superior intelligence. It is very extraordinary {326}

to hear devout Catholics abuse and misrepresent the nature-spirits,

when one of their greatest authorities, Clement the Alexandrinian,

disposed of them, by describing these creatures as they really are.

Clement, who perhaps had been a theurgist as well as a Neo-platonist,

thus arguing upon good authority, remarks, that it is absurd to call

them devils,[527] for they are only _inferior_ angels, “the powers

which inhabit elements, move the winds and distribute showers, and

as such are agents and subject to God.”[528] Origen, who before he

became a Christian also belonged to the Platonic school, is of the same

opinion. Porphyry describes these dæmons more carefully than any one

else.

When the possible nature of the manifesting intelligences, which

science believes to be a “psychic force,” and spiritualists the

identical spirits of the dead, is better known, then will academicians

and believers turn to the old philosophers for information.

Let us for a moment imagine an intelligent orang-outang or some African

anthropoid ape disembodied, _i. e._, deprived of its physical and in

possession of an astral, if not an immortal body. We have found in

spiritual journals many instances where apparitions of departed pet

dogs and other animals have been seen. Therefore, upon spiritualistic

testimony, we must think that such animal “spirits” do appear although

we reserve the right of concurring with the ancients that the forms

are but tricks of the elementals. Once open the door of communication

between the terrestrial and the spiritual world, what prevents the

ape from producing physical phenomena such as he sees human spirits

produce. And why may not these excel in cleverness of ingenuity many of

those which have been witnessed in spiritual circles? Let spiritualists

answer. The orang-outang of Borneo is little, if any, inferior to the

savage man in intelligence. Mr. Wallace and other great naturalists

give instances of its wonderful acuteness, although its brains are

inferior in cubic capacity to the most undeveloped of savages. These

apes lack but speech to be men of low grade. The sentinels placed by

monkeys; the sleeping chambers selected and built by orang-outangs;

their prevision of danger and calculations, which show more than

instinct; their choice of leaders whom they obey; and the exercise of

many of their faculties, certainly entitle them to a place at least

on a level with many a flat-headed Australian. Says Mr. Wallace, “The

mental requirements of savages, and the faculties actually exercised by

them, are very little above those of the animals.”

Now, people assume that there can be no apes in the other world,

because apes have no “souls.” But apes have as much intelligence, it {327}

appears, as some men; why, then, should these men, in no way superior

to the apes, have immortal spirits, and the apes none? The materialists

will answer that neither the one nor the other has a spirit, but that

annihilation overtakes each at physical death. But the spiritual

philosophers of all times have agreed that man occupies a step one

degree higher than the animal, and is possessed of that something

which it lacks, be he the most untutored of savages or the wisest of

philosophers. The ancients, as we have seen, taught that while man is a

trinity of body, astral spirit, and immortal soul, the animal is but a

duality—a being having a physical body and an astral spirit animating

it. Scientists can distinguish no difference in the elements composing

the bodies of men and brutes; and the kabalists agree with them so

far as to say that the astral bodies (or, as the physicists would

call it, “the life-principle”) of animals and men are _identical_ in

essence. Physical man is but the highest development of animal life.

If, as the scientists tell us, even _thought_ is matter, and every

sensation of pain or pleasure, every transient desire is accompanied

by a disturbance of ether; and those bold speculators, the authors of

the _Unseen Universe_ believe that thought is conceived “to affect the

matter of another universe simultaneously with this;” why, then, should

not the gross, brutish thought of an orang-outang, or a dog, impressing

itself on the ethereal waves of the astral light, as well as that of

man, assure the animal a continuity of life after death, or “a future

state?”

The kabalists held, and now hold, that it is unphilosophical to admit

that the astral body of man can survive corporeal death, and at the

same time assert that the astral body of the ape is resolved into

independent molecules. That which survives as an _individuality_

after the death of the body is the _astral soul_, which Plato, in the

_Timæus_ and _Gorgias_, calls the _mortal_ soul, for, according to

the Hermetic doctrine, it throws off its more material particles at

every progressive change into a higher sphere. Socrates narrates to

Callicles[529] that this _mortal_ soul retains all the characteristics

of the body after the death of the latter; so much so, indeed, that a

man marked with the whip will have his astral body “full of the prints

and scars.” The astral spirit is a faithful duplicate of the body,

both in a physical and spiritual sense. The Divine, the highest and

_immortal_ spirit, can be neither punished nor rewarded. To maintain

such a doctrine would be at the same time absurd and blasphemous, for

it is not merely a flame lit at the central and inexhaustible fountain

of light, but actually a portion of it, and of identical essence. It

assures immortality to the individual astral being in proportion to the

willingness of the latter to receive it. So long as the _double_ man, {328}

_i. e._, the man of flesh and spirit, keeps within the limits of the

law of spiritual continuity; so long as the divine spark lingers in

him, however faintly, he is on the road to an immortality in the future

state. But those who resign themselves to a materialistic existence,

shutting out the divine radiance shed by their spirit, at the beginning

of the earthly pilgrimage, and stifling the warning voice of that

faithful sentry, the conscience, which serves as a focus for the light

in the soul—such beings as these, having left behind conscience and

spirit, and crossed the boundaries of matter, will of necessity have to

follow its laws.

Matter is as indestructible and eternal as the immortal spirit itself,

but only in its particles, and not as organized forms. The body of

so grossly materialistic a person as above described, having been

deserted by its spirit before physical death, when that event occurs,

the plastic material, astral soul, following the laws of blind matter,

shapes itself thoroughly into the mould which vice has been gradually

preparing for it through the earth-life of the individual. Then, as

Plato says, it assumes the form of that “animal to which it resembled

in its evil ways”[530] during life. “It is an ancient saying,” he tells

us, “that the souls departing hence exist in Hades and return hither

again and _are produced from the dead_[531].... But those who are found

to have lived an eminently holy life, these are they who arrive at the

pure abode ABOVE and DWELL ON THE UPPER PARTS of the earth”[532] (the

ethereal region). In _Phædrus_, again, he says that when man has ended

his _first_ life (on earth), some go to places of punishment _beneath_

the earth.[533] This region _below_ the earth, the kabalists do not

understand as a place inside the earth, but maintain it to be a sphere,

far inferior in perfection to the earth, and far more material.

Of all the modern speculators upon the seeming incongruities of the

_New Testament_, alone the authors of the _Unseen Universe_ seem to

have caught a glimpse of its kabalistic truths, respecting the gehenna

of the universe.[534] This gehenna, termed by the occultists the

_eighth_ sphere (numbering inversely), is merely a planet like our

own, _attached to the latter and following it in its penumbra_; a kind

of dust-hole, a “place where all its garbage and filth is consumed,”

to borrow an expression of the above-mentioned authors, and on which

all the dross and scorification of the cosmic matter pertaining to our

planet is in a continual state of remodelling.

The secret doctrine teaches that man, if he wins immortality, will

remain forever the trinity that he is in life, and will continue so {329}

throughout all the spheres. The astral body, which in this life is

covered by a gross physical envelope, becomes—when relieved of that

covering by the process of corporeal death—in its turn the shell of

another and more ethereal body. This begins developing from the moment

of death, and becomes perfected when the astral body of the earthly

form finally separates from it. This process, they say, is repeated

at every new transition from sphere to sphere. But the immortal

soul, “the silvery spark,” observed by _Dr. Fenwick_ in _Margrave’s_

brain,[535] and not found by him in the animals, never changes, but

remains indestructible “by aught that shatters its tabernacle.” The

descriptions by Porphyry and Iamblichus and others, of the spirits of

animals, which inhabit the astral light, are corroborated by those of

many of the most trustworthy and intelligent clairvoyants. Sometimes

the animal forms are even made visible to every person present at a

spiritual circle, by being materialized. In his _People from the Other

World_, Colonel H. S. Olcott describes a materialized squirrel which

followed a spirit-woman into the view of the spectators, disappeared

and reappeared before their eyes several times, and finally followed

the spirit into the cabinet.

Let us advance another step in our argument. If there is such a thing

as existence in the spiritual world after corporeal death, then it

must occur in accordance with the law of evolution. It takes man from

his place at the apex of the pyramid of matter, and lifts him into a

sphere of existence where the same inexorable law follows him. And if

it follows him, why not everything else in nature? Why not animals and

plants, which have all a life-principle, and whose gross forms decay

like his, when that life-principle leaves them? If his astral body

becomes more ethereal upon attaining the other sphere, why not theirs?

They, as well as he, have been evolved out of condensed cosmic matter,

and our physicists cannot see the slightest difference between the

molecules of the four kingdoms of nature, which are thus specified by

Professor Le Conte:

4. _Animal Kingdom._

3. Vegetable Kingdom.

2. Mineral Kingdom.

1. Elements.

The progress of matter from each of these planes to the plane above is

continuous; and, according to Le Conte, there is no force in nature {330}

capable of raising matter at once from No. 1 to No. 3, or from No. 2

to No. 4, without stopping and receiving an accession of force of a

different kind on the intermediate plane.

Now, will any one presume to say that out of a given number of

molecules, _originally and constantly homogeneous, and all energized

by the same principle of evolution_, a certain number can be carried

through those four kingdoms to the final result of evolving immortal

man, and the others not be allowed to progress beyond planes 1, 2, and

3? Why should not _all_ these molecules have an equal future before

them; the mineral becoming plant, the plant, animal, and the animal,

man—if not upon _this_ earth, at least somewhere in the boundless

realms of space? The harmony which geometry and mathematics—the only

exact sciences—demonstrate to be the law of the universe, would be

destroyed if evolution were perfectly exemplified in man alone and

limited in the subordinate kingdoms. What logic suggests, psychometry

proves; and, as we said before, it is not unlikely that a monument will

one day be erected by men of science to Joseph R. Buchanan, its modern

discoverer. If a fragment of mineral, fossilized plant, or animal form

gives the psychometer as vivid and accurate pictures of their previous

conditions, as a fragment of human bone does of those of the individual

to which it belonged, it would seem as if the same subtile spirit

pervaded all nature, and was inseparable from organic or inorganic

substances. If anthropologists, physiologists, and psychologists are

equally perplexed by primal and final causes, and by finding in matter

so much similarity in all its forms, but in spirit such abysses of

difference, it is, perhaps, because their inquiries are limited to our

visible globe, and that they cannot, or dare not, go beyond. The spirit

of a mineral, plant, or animal, may begin to form here, and reach its

final development millions of ages hereafter, on other planets, known

or unknown, visible or invisible to astronomers. For, who is able to

controvert the theory previously suggested, that the earth itself will,

like the living creatures to which it has given birth, ultimately, and

after passing through its own stage of death and dissolution, become an

etherealized astral planet? “As above, so below;” harmony is the great

law of nature.

Harmony in the physical and mathematical world of sense, is _justice_

in the spiritual one. Justice produces harmony, and injustice, discord;

and discord, on a cosmical scale, means chaos—annihilation.

If there is a developed immortal spirit in man, it must be in every

thing else, at least in a latent or germinal state, and it can only be

a question of time for each of these germs to become fully developed.

What gross injustice it would be for an impenitent criminal man, the

perpetrator of a brutal murder when in the exercise of his free will, {331}

to have an immortal spirit which in time may be washed clean of

sin, and enjoying perfect happiness, while a poor horse, innocent of

all crime, should toil and suffer under the merciless torture of his

master’s whip during a whole life, and then be annihilated at death?

Such a belief implies a brutal injustice, and is only possible among

people taught in the dogma that everything is created for man, and he

alone is the sovereign of the universe;—a sovereign so mighty that to

save him from the consequences of his own misdeeds, it was not too much

that the God of the universe should die to placate his own just wrath.

If the most abject savage, with a brain “very little inferior to that

of a philosopher”[536] (the latter developed physically by ages of

civilization), is still, as regards the actual exercise of his mental

faculties, very little superior to an animal, is it just to infer

that both he and the ape will not have the opportunity to become

philosophers; the ape in this world, the man on some other planet

peopled equally with beings created in _some other image_ of God?

Says Professor Denton, when speaking of the future of psychometry:

“Astronomy will not disdain the assistance of this power. As new forms

of organic being are revealed, when we go back to the earlier geologic

periods, so new groupings of the stars, new constellations, will be

displayed, when the heavens of those early periods are examined by the

piercing gaze of future psychometers. An accurate map of the starry

heavens during the Silurian period may reveal to us many secrets that

we have been unable to discover.... Why may we not indeed be able to

read the history of the various heavenly bodies ... their geological,

their natural, and, perchance, their human history?... I have good

reason to believe that trained psychometers will be able to travel from

planet to planet, and read their present condition minutely, and their

past history.”[537]

Herodotus tells us that in the eighth of the towers of Belus, in

Babylon, used by the sacerdotal astrologers, there was an uppermost

room, a sanctuary, where the prophesying priestesses slept to receive

communications from the god. Beside the couch stood a table of gold,

upon which were laid various stones, which Manetho informs us were all

aërolites. The priestesses developed the prophetic vision in themselves

by pressing one of these sacred stones against their heads and bosoms.

The same took place at Thebes, and at Patara, in Lycia.[538]

This would seem to indicate that psychometry was known and extensively

practiced by the ancients. We have somewhere seen it stated that the {332}

profound knowledge possessed, according to Draper, by the ancient

Chaldean astrologers, of the planets and their relations, was obtained

more by the divination of the betylos, or the meteoric stone, than

by astronomical instruments. Strabo, Pliny, Helancius—all speak of

the electrical, or electro-magnetic power of the betyli. They were

worshipped in the remotest antiquity in Egypt and Samothrace, as

magnetic stones, “containing souls which had fallen from heaven;” and

the priests of Cybelè wore a small betylos on their bodies. How curious

the coincidence between the practice of the priests of Belus and the

experiments of Professor Denton!

As Professor Buchanan truthfully remarks of psychometry, it will enable

us “ ... to detect vice and crime. No criminal act ... can escape the

detection of psychometry, when its powers are properly brought forth

... the sure detection of guilt by psychometry (no matter how secret

the act) will nullify all concealment.”[539]

Speaking of the elementary, Porphyry says: “These invisible beings

have been receiving from men honors as gods ... a universal belief

makes them capable of becoming very malevolent: it proves that their

wrath is kindled against those who neglect to offer them a legitimate

worship.”[540]

Homer describes them in the following terms: “Our _gods_ appear to us

when we offer them sacrifice ... _sitting themselves at our tables,

they partake of our festival meals_. Whenever they meet on his travels

a solitary Phœnician, they _serve to him as guides_, and otherwise

manifest their presence. We can say that _our piety_ approaches us

to them as much as crime and bloodshed unite the Cyclopes and the

ferocious race of giants.”[541] The latter proving that these gods were

kind and beneficent _dæmons_, and that, whether they were _disembodied_

spirits or elementary beings, they were no _devils_.

The language of Porphyry, who was himself a direct disciple of

Plotinus, is still more explicit as to the nature of these spirits.

“Demons,” he says, “are invisible; but they know _how to clothe

themselves_ with forms and configurations subjected to numerous

variations, which can be explained by their nature _having much of the

corporeal in itself_. Their abode is in the neighborhood of the earth

... and _when they can escape the vigilance of the good dæmons, there

is no mischief they will not dare commit_. One day they will employ

brute force; another, cunning.”[542] Further, he says: “It is a child’s {333}

play for them to arouse in us vile passions, to impart to societies

and nations turbulent doctrines, provoking wars, seditions, and other

public calamities, and then tell you ‘that all of these is the work of

the gods.’ ... These spirits pass their time in cheating and deceiving

mortals, creating around them illusions and prodigies; _their greatest

ambition_ is to pass as _gods_ and _souls_ (disembodied spirits).”[543]

Iamblichus, the great theurgist of the Neo-platonic school, a man

skilled in sacred magic, teaches that “good dæmons appear to us _in

reality_, while the bad ones can manifest themselves but under the

_shadowy forms of phantoms_.” Further, he corroborates Porphyry, and

tells that “ ... the _good ones fear not the light_, while the wicked

_ones require darkness_.... The sensations they excite in us make us

believe in the presence and reality of things they show, though these

things be absent.”[544]

Even the most practiced theurgists found danger sometimes in their

dealings with certain elementaries, and we have Iamblichus stating

that, “The gods, the angels, and the dæmons, as well as the _souls_,

may be summoned through evocation and prayer.... But when, during

theurgic operations, a mistake is made, beware! Do not imagine that

you are communicating with beneficent divinities, who have answered

your earnest prayer; no, for they are bad dæmons, only under the guise

of good ones! For the elementaries often clothe themselves with the

similitude of the good, and assume a rank very much superior to that

they really occupy. Their boasting betrays them.”[545]

Some twenty years since, Baron Du Potet, disgusted with the

indifference of the scientists, who persisted in seeing in the greatest

psychological phenomena only the result of clever trickery, gave vent

to his indignation in the following terms:

“Here am I, on my way, I may truly say, to the land of marvels! I am

preparing to shock every opinion, and provoke laughter in our most

illustrious scientists ... for I am convinced that _agents of an

immense potency_ exist _outside of us_; that they can _enter in us_;

move our limbs and organs; and use us as they please. It was, after

all, the belief of our fathers and of the whole of antiquity. Every

religion admitted the reality of _spiritual agents_.... Recalling

innumerable phenomena which I have produced in the sight of thousands

of persons, seeing the _beastly indifference_ of _official_ science, in

presence of a discovery which transports the mind into the regions of

the unknown [sic]; an old man, at the very _moment when I ought to be {334}

just being born_.... I am not sure if it would not have been better

for me to have shared the common ignorance.

“I have suffered calumnies to be written without refuting them....

At one time it is simple ignorance which speaks, and I am silent; at

another still, superficiality, raising its voice, makes a bluster, and

I find myself hesitating whether or not to speak. Is this indifference

or laziness? Has fear the power to paralyze my spirit? No; none of

these causes affect me; I know simply that it is necessary to prove

what one asserts, and this restrains me. For, in justifying my

assertions, in showing the living FACT, which proves my sincerity and

the truth, I translate OUTSIDE THE PRECINCTS OF THE TEMPLE the sacred

inscription, WHICH NO PROFANE EYE SHOULD EVER READ.

“You doubt sorcery and magic? O, truth! thy possession is a heavy

burden!”[546]

With a bigotry which one might search for in vain outside the church in

whose interest he writes, des Mousseaux quotes the above language, as

proof positive that this devoted savant, and all who share his belief,

have given themselves over to the dominion of the _Evil One_!

Self-complacency is the most serious obstacle to the enlightenment

of the modern spiritualist. His thirty years’ experience with the

phenomena seem to him sufficient to have established intermundane

intercourse upon an unassailable basis. His thirty years have not only

brought to him the conviction that the dead communicate and thus prove

the spirit’s immortality, but also settled in his mind an idea that

little or nothing can be learned of the other world, except through

mediums.

For the spiritualists, the records of the past either do not exist,

or if they are familiar with its gathered treasures, they regard

them as having no bearing upon their own experiences. And yet, the

problems which so vex them, were solved thousands of years ago by the

theurgists, who have left the keys to those who will search for them

in the proper spirit and with knowledge. Is it possible that nature

has changed her work, and that we are encountering different spirits

and different laws from those of old? Or can any spiritualist imagine

that he knows more, or even as much about mediumistic phenomena or

the nature of various spirits, as a priest-caste who spent their

lives in theurgical practice, which had been known and studied for

countless centuries? If the narratives of Owen and Hare, of Edmonds,

and Crookes, and Wallace are credible, why not those of Herodotus,

the “Father of History,” of Iamblichus, and Porphyry, and hundreds of {335}

other ancient authors? If the spiritualists have their phenomena under

test-conditions, so had the old theurgists, whose records, moreover,

show that they could produce and vary them at will. The day when

this fact shall be recognized, and profitless speculations of modern

investigators shall give place to patient study of the works of the

theurgists, will mark the dawn of new and important discoveries in the

field of psychology.

CHAPTER X. {336}

Τῆς δὲ γὰρ ἐκ τριάδος πᾶν πνεῦμα πατὴρ—ἐκέρασε.

—TAY.: _Lyd. de Mens._, 20.

“The more powerful souls perceive truth through themselves, and

are of a more inventive nature. Such souls are saved through

their own strength, according to the oracle.”—PROCLUS in 1 Alc.

“Since the soul perpetually runs and _passes through all

things_ in a certain space of time, which being performed, it

is presently compelled to run back again through all things,

and unfold the same web of generation in the world ... for

as often as the same causes return, the same effects will in

like manner be returned.”—FICIN. _de Im. An._, 129, _Chaldean

Oracles_.

“If not to some peculiar end assign’d,

Study’s the specious trifling of the mind.”—YOUNG.

From the moment when the fœtal embryo is formed until the old man,

gasping his last, drops into the grave, neither the beginning nor the

end is understood by scholastic science; all before us is a blank,

all after us chaos. For it there is no evidence as to the relations

between spirit, soul, and body, either before or after death. The mere

life-principle itself presents an unsolvable enigma, upon the study

of which materialism has vainly exhausted its intellectual powers.

In the presence of a corpse the skeptical physiologist stands dumb

when asked by his pupil whence came the former tenant of that empty

box, and whither it has gone. The pupil must either, like his master,

rest satisfied with the explanation that protoplasm made the man, and

force vitalized and will now consume his body, or he must go outside

the walls of his college and the books of its library to find an

explanation of the mystery.

It is sometimes as interesting as instructive to follow the two great

rivals, science and theology, in their frequent skirmishes. Not all

of the sons of the Church are as unsuccessful in their attempts at

advocacy as the poor Abbé Moigno, of Paris. This respectable, and no

doubt well-meaning divine, in his fruitless attempt to refute the

free-thinking arguments of Huxley, Tyndall, Du Bois-Raymond, and many

others, has met with a sad failure. In his antidotal arguments his

success was more than doubtful, and, as a reward for his trouble, the

“Congregation of the Index” forbids the circulation of his book among

the faithful.

It is a dangerous experiment to engage in a single-handed duel with

scientists on topics which are well demonstrated by experimental

research. In what they do _know_ they are unassailable, and until the

old formula is destroyed by their own hands and replaced by a more

newly-discovered one, there is no use fighting against Achilles—unless, {337}

indeed, one is fortunate enough to catch the swift-footed god by his

vulnerable heel. This heel is—what they confess they do not know!

That was a cunning device to which a certain well-known preacher

resorted to reach this mortal part. Before we proceed to narrate the

extraordinary though well authenticated facts with which we intend

to fill this chapter, it will be good policy to show once more how

fallible is modern science as to every fact in nature which can

be tested neither by retort nor crucible. The following are a few

fragments from a series of sermons by F. Felix, of Notre Dame, entitled

_Mystery and Science_. They are worthy to be translated for and quoted

in a work which is undertaken in precisely the same spirit as that

exhibited by the preacher. For once the Church silenced for a time

the arrogance of her traditional enemy, in the face of the learned

academicians.

It was known that the great preacher, in response to the general

desire of the faithful, and perhaps to the orders of ecclesiastical

superiors, had been preparing himself for a great oratorical effort,

and the historic cathedral was filled with a monster congregation.

Amid a profound silence he began his discourse, of which the following

paragraphs are sufficient for our purpose:

“A portentous word has been pronounced against us to confront progress

with Christianity—SCIENCE. Such is the formidable evocation with

which they try to appall us. To all that we can say to base progress

upon Christianity, they have always a ready response: that is not

_scientific_. We say revelation; revelation is not scientific. We say

miracle; a miracle is not scientific.

“Thus antichristianism, faithful to its tradition, and now more than

ever, pretends to kill us by science. Principle _of darkness_, it

threatens us with light. It proclaims itself the light....

“A hundred times I asked myself, What is, then, that terrible science

which is making ready to devour us?... Is it mathematical science?...

but we also have our mathematicians. Is it physics? Astronomy?

Physiology? Geology? But we number in Catholicism astronomers,

physicists, geologists,[547] and physiologists, who make somewhat of

a figure in the scientific world, who have their place in the Academy

and their name in history. It would appear that what is to crush us is

neither this nor that science, but science in general.

“And why do they prophesy the overthrow of Christianity by science?

Listen: ... we must perish by science because we teach mysteries, and

because the Christian mysteries are in radical antagonism with modern {338}

science.... Mystery is the negation of common sense; science repels it;

science condemns it; she has spoken—Anathema!

“Ah! you are right; if Christian mystery is what you proclaim it, then

in the name of science hurl the anathema at it. Nothing is antipathetic

to science like the absurd and contradictory. But, glory be to the

truth! such is not the mystery of Christianity. If it were so, it

would remain for you to explain the most inexplicable of mysteries:

how comes it that, during nearly 2,000 years, so many superior minds

and rare geniuses have embraced our mysteries, without thinking to

repudiate science or abdicate reason?[548] Talk as much as you like

of your modern science, modern thought, and modern genius, there were

scientists before 1789.

“If our mysteries are so manifestly absurd and contradictory, how is it

that such mighty geniuses should have accepted them without a single

doubt?... But God preserve me from insisting upon demonstrating that

mystery implies no contradiction with science!... Of what use to prove,

by metaphysical abstractions, that science can reconcile itself with

mystery, when all the realities of creation show unanswerably that

mystery everywhere baffles science? You ask that we should show you,

beyond doubt, that exact science cannot admit mystery; I answer you

decidedly that she cannot escape it. Mystery is the FATALITY of science.

“Shall we choose our proofs? First, then, look around at the purely

material world, from the smallest atom to the most majestic sun. There,

if you try to embrace in the unity of a single law all these bodies

and their movements, if you seek the word which explains, in this vast

panorama of the universe, this prodigious harmony, where all seems to

obey the empire of a single force, you pronounce a word to express it,

and say _Attraction_!... Yes, attraction, this is the sublime epitome

of the science of the heavenly bodies. You say that throughout space

these bodies recognize and attract each other; you say that they

attract in proportion to their mass, and in inverse ratio with the

squares of their distances. And, in fact, until the present moment,

nothing has happened to give the lie to this assertion, but everything

has confirmed a formula which now reigns sovereign in the EMPIRE OF

HYPOTHESIS, and therefore it must henceforth enjoy the glory of being

an invincible truism.

“Gentlemen, with all my heart I make my scientific obeisances to the

sovereignty of attraction. It is not I who would desire to obscure a

light in the world of matter which reflects upon the world of spirits. {339}

The empire of attraction, then, is palpable; it is sovereign; it

stares us in the face!

“But, what is this attraction? who has seen attraction? who has met

attraction? who has touched attraction? How do these mute bodies,

_intelligent_, insensible, exercise upon each other unconsciously

this reciprocity of action and reaction which holds them in a common

equilibrium and unanimous harmony? _Is this force_ which draws sun

to sun, and atom to atom, an invisible mediator which goes from one

to another? And, in such case what is this mediator? whence comes to

itself this force which mediates, and this power which embraces, from

which the sun can no more escape than the atom. But is this force

nothing different from the elements themselves which attract each

other?... Mystery! Mystery!

“Yes, gentlemen, this attraction which shines with such brightness

throughout the material world, remains to you at bottom an impenetrable

mystery.... Well! because of its mystery, will you deny its reality,

which touches you, and its domination, which subjugates you?... And

again, remark if you please, mystery is so much at the foundation of

all science that if you should desire to exclude mystery, you would

be compelled to suppress science itself. _Imagine whatever science

you will_, follow the magnificent sweep of its deductions ... when

you arrive at its parent source, you come face to face with the

_unknown_.[549]

“Who has been able to penetrate the secret of the formation of a body,

the generation of a single atom? What is there I will not say at the

centre of a sun, but at the centre of an atom? who has sounded to the

bottom the abyss in a grain of sand? The grain of sand, gentlemen,

has been studied four thousand years by science, she has turned and

returned it; she divides it and subdivides it; she torments it with

her experiments; she vexes it with her questions to snatch from it

the final word as to its secret constitution; she asks it, with an

insatiable curiosity: ‘Shall I divide thee infinitesimally?’ Then,

suspended over this abyss, science hesitates, she stumbles, she feels

dazzled, she becomes dizzy, and, in despair says: I DO NOT KNOW!

“But if you are so fatally ignorant of the genesis and hidden nature of

a grain of sand, how should you have an intuition as to the generation

of a single living being? Whence in the living being does life come?

Where does it commence? What is the life-principle?”[550]

Can the scientists answer the eloquent monk? Can they escape from his {340}

pitiless logic? Mystery certainly does bound them on every side; and

the _Ultima Thule_, whether of Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, or Huxley, has

written upon the closed portals the words INCOMPREHENSIBLE, UNKNOWABLE.

For the lover of metaphor, science may be likened to a twinkling

star shining with resplendent brightness through rifts in a bank of

densely-black clouds. If her votaries cannot define that mysterious

attraction which draws into concrete masses the material particles

which form the smallest pebble on the ocean-beach, how can they define

the limits at which the possible stops and the impossible begins?

Why should there be an attraction between the molecules of matter, and

none between those of spirit? If, out of the material portion of the

ether, by virtue of the inherent restlessness of its particles, the

forms of worlds and their species of plants and animals can be evolved,

why, out of the spiritual part of the ether, should not successive

races of beings, from the stage of monad to that of man, be developed;

each lower form unfolding a higher one until the work of evolution is

completed on our earth, in the production of immortal man? It will be

seen that, for the moment, we entirely put aside the accumulated facts

which prove the case, and submit it to the arbitrament of logic.

By whatsoever name the physicists may call the energizing principle

in matter is of no account; it is a subtile something apart from the

matter itself, and, as it escapes their detection, it must be something

besides matter. If the law of attraction is admitted as governing the

one, why should it be excluded from influencing the other? Leaving

logic to answer, we turn to the common experience of mankind, and there

find a mass of testimony corroborative of the immortality of the soul,

if we judge but from analogies. But we have more than that—we have

the unimpeachable testimony of thousands upon thousands, that there

is a regular science of the soul, which, notwithstanding that it is

now denied the right of a place among other sciences, _is_ a science.

This science, by penetrating the arcana of nature far deeper than our

modern philosophy ever dreamed possible, teaches us how to force the

_invisible_ to become visible; the existence of elementary spirits; the

nature and magical properties of the astral light; the power of living

men to bring themselves into communication with the former through

the latter. Let them examine the proofs with the lamp of experience,

and neither the Academy nor the Church, for which Father Felix so

persuasively spoke, can deny them.

Modern science is in a dilemma; it must concede our hypothesis to be

correct, or admit the possibility of miracle. To do so, is to say

that there can be an infraction of natural law. If this can happen {341}

in one case, what assurance have we that it may not be repeated

indefinitely, and so destroy that fixity of law, that perfect balance

of forces by which the universe is governed. This is a very ancient

and an unanswerable argument. To deny the appearance, in our midst,

of supersensual beings, when they have been seen, at various times

and in various countries, by not merely thousands, but millions of

persons, is unpardonable obstinacy; to say that, in any one instance,

the apparition has been produced by a miracle, fatal to the fundamental

principle of science. What will they do? What can they do, when they

shall have awakened from the benumbing stupor of their pride, but

collect the facts, and try to enlarge the boundaries of their field of

investigations?

The existence of spirit in the common mediator, the ether, is denied

by materialism; while theology makes of it a personal god, the

kabalist holds that both are wrong, saying that in ether, the elements

represent but matter—the blind cosmic forces of nature; and Spirit, the

intelligence which directs them. The Hermetic, Orphic, and Pythagorean

cosmogonical doctrines, as well as those of Sanchoniathon and Berosus,

are all based upon one irrefutable formula, viz.: that the ether and

chaos, or, in the Platonic language, mind and matter, were the two

primeval and eternal principles of the universe, utterly independent of

anything else. The former was the all-vivifying intellectual principle;

the chaos, a shapeless, liquid principle, without “form or sense,” from

the union of which two, sprung into existence the universe, or rather,

the universal world, the first androgenous deity—the chaotic matter

becoming its body, and ether the soul. According to the phraseology of

a _Fragment of Hermias_, “chaos, from this union with spirit, obtaining

_sense_, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced the _Protogonos_

(the first-born) light.”[551] This is the universal trinity, based

on the metaphysical conceptions of the ancients, who, reasoning by

analogy, made of man, who is a compound of intellect and matter, the

microcosm of the macrocosm, or great universe.

If we now compare this doctrine with the speculations of science, which

comes to a full stop at the Borderland of the unknown, and, while

incompetent to solve the mystery, will allow no one else to speculate

upon the subject; or, with the great theological dogma, that the world

was called into existence by a heavenly trick of prestidigitation; we

do not hesitate to believe that, in the absence of better proof, the

Hermetic doctrine is by far the more reasonable, highly metaphysical

as it may appear. The universe is there, and we know that we exist;

but how did it come, and how did we appear in it? Denied an answer {342}

by the rpresentatives of physical learning, and excommunicated and

anathematized for our blasphemous curiosity by the spiritual usurpers,

what can we do, but turn for information to the sages who meditated

upon the subject ages before the molecules of our philosophers

aggregated in ethereal space?

This visible universe of spirit and matter, they say, is but the

concrete image of the ideal abstraction; it was built on the model

of the first divine IDEA. Thus our universe existed from eternity in

a latent state. The soul animating this purely spiritual universe is

the central sun, the highest deity itself. It was not himself who

built the concrete form of his idea, but his first-begotten; and as it

was constructed on the geometrical figure of the dodecahedron,[552]

the first-begotten “was pleased to employ twelve thousand years in

its creation.” The latter number is expressed in the Tyrrhenian

cosmogony,[553] which shows man created in the sixth millennium. This

agrees with the Egyptian theory of 6,000 “years,”[554] and with the

Hebrew computation. Sanchoniathon,[555] in his _Cosmogony_, declares

that when the wind (spirit) became enamored of its own principles (the

chaos), an intimate union took place, which connection was called

_pothos_, and from this sprang the seed of all. And the chaos knew not

its own production, for it was _senseless_; but from its embrace with

the wind was generated môt, or the ilus (mud).[556] From this proceeded

the spores of creation and the generation of the universe.

The ancients, who named but four elements, made of æther a fifth one.

On account of its essence being made divine by the unseen presence

it was considered as a medium between this world and the next. They

held that when the directing intelligences retired from any portion of

ether, one of the four kingdoms which they are bound to superintend,

the space was left in possession of _evil_. An adept who prepared to

converse with the “invisibles,” had to know well his ritual, and be

perfectly acquainted with the conditions required for the perfect

equilibrium of the four elements in the astral light. First of all, he

must purify the essence, and within the circle in which he sought to

attract the pure spirits, equilibrize the elements, so as to prevent

the ingress of the elementaries into their respective spheres. But woe

to the imprudent inquirer who ignorantly trespasses upon forbidden

ground; danger will beset him at every step. He evokes powers that he

cannot control; he arouses sentries which allow only their masters to

pass. For, in the words of the immortal Rosicrucian, “Once that thou

hast resolved to become a coöperator with the spirit of the _living_ {343}

God, take care not to hinder Him in His work; for, if thy heat exceeds

the natural proportion thou hast stirr’d the wrath of the _moyst[557]

natures_, and they will stand up against the _central fire_, and the

central fire against them, and there will be a terrible division in

the _chaos_.”[558] The spirit of harmony and union will depart from

the elements, disturbed by the imprudent hand; and the currents of

blind forces will become immediately infested by numberless creatures

of matter and instinct—the bad dæmons of the theurgists, the devils

of theology; the gnomes, salamanders, sylphs, and undines will assail

the rash performer under multifarious aërial forms. Unable to invent

anything, they will search your memory to its very depths; hence the

nervous exhaustion and mental oppression of certain sensitive natures

at spiritual circles. The elementals will bring to light long-forgotten

remembrances of the past; forms, images, sweet mementos, and familiar

sentences, long since faded from our own remembrance, but vividly

preserved in the inscrutable depths of our memory and on the astral

tablets of the imperishable “BOOK OF LIFE.”

Every organized thing in this world, visible as well as invisible,

has an element appropriate to itself. The fish lives and breathes in

the water; the plant consumes carbonic acid, which for animals and

men produces death; some beings are fitted for rarefied strata of

air, others exist only in the densest. Life, to some, is dependent on

sunlight, to others, upon darkness; and so the wise economy of nature

adapts to each existing condition some living form. These analogies

warrant the conclusion that, not only is there no unoccupied portion of

universal nature, but also that for each thing that has life, special

conditions are furnished, and, being furnished, they are necessary.

Now, assuming that there is an invisible side to the universe, the {344}

fixed habit of nature warrants the conclusion that this half is

occupied, like the other half; and that each group of its occupants

is supplied with the indispensable conditions of existence. It is as

illogical to imagine that identical conditions are furnished to all,

as it would be to maintain such a theory respecting the inhabitants of

the domain of visible nature. That there are spirits implies that there

is a diversity of spirits; for men differ, and human spirits are but

disembodied men.

To say that all spirits are alike, or fitted to the same atmosphere, or

possessed of like powers, or governed by the same attractions—electric,

magnetic, odic, astral, it matters not which—is as absurd as though

one should say that all planets have the same nature, or that all

animals are amphibious, or all men can be nourished on the same food.

It accords with reason to suppose that the grossest natures among the

spirits will sink to the lowest depths of the spiritual atmosphere—in

other words, be found nearest to the earth. Inversely, the purest would

be farthest away. In what, were we to coin a word, we should call the

_Psychomatics_ of Occultism, it is as unwarrantable to assume that

either of these grades of spirits can occupy the place, or subsist in

the conditions, of the other, as in hydraulics it would be to expect

that two liquids of different densities could exchange their markings

on the scale of Beaume’s hydrometer.

Görres, describing a conversation he had with some Hindus of the

Malabar coast, reports that upon asking them whether they had ghosts

among them, they replied, “Yes, but we know them to be _bad spirits_

... good ones can hardly ever appear at all. They are principally

the spirits of _suicides_ and _murderers_, or of those who die

violent deaths. They constantly flutter about and appear as phantoms.

Night-time is favorable to them, they seduce the feeble-minded and

tempt others in a thousand different ways.”[559]

Porphyry presents to us some hideous facts whose verity is

substantiated in the experience of every student of magic. “The

_soul_,”[560] says he, “having even after death a certain affection for

its body, an affinity proportioned to the violence with which their

union was broken, we see many spirits hovering in despair about their

earthly remains; we even see them eagerly seeking the putrid remains

of other bodies, but above all freshly-spilled blood, which seems to

impart to them for the moment some of the faculties of life.”[561]

Let spiritualists who doubt the theurgist, try the effect of about half {345}

a pound of freshly-drawn human blood at their next materializing seance!

“The gods and the angels,” says Iamblichus, “appear to us among peace

and harmony; the bad demons, in tossing everything in confusion.... As

to the _ordinary souls_, we can perceive them more rarely, etc.”[562]

“The human soul (the astral body) is a demon that our language may

name genius,” says Apuleius.[563] “She is an _immortal god_, though in

a certain sense she is born at the same time as the man in whom she

is. Consequently, we may say that she dies in the same way that she is

born.”

“The soul is born in this world upon leaving _another world_ (_anima

mundi_), in which her existence precedes the one we all know (on

earth). Thus, the gods who consider her proceedings in all the phases

of various existences and as a whole, punish her sometimes for sins

committed during an anterior life. She dies when she separates herself

from a body in which she crossed this life as in a frail bark. And this

is, if I mistake not, the secret meaning of the tumulary inscription,

so simple for the initiate: “_To the gods manes who lived._” But this

kind of death does not annihilate the soul, it only transforms it

into a _lemure_. Lemures are the manes or ghosts, which we know under

the name of lares. When they keep away and _show us a beneficient

protection_, we honor in them the protecting divinities of the family

hearth; but, if their crimes sentence them to err, we call them

_larvæ_. They become a plague for the wicked, and the _vain terror_ of

the good.”

This language can hardly be called ambiguous, and yet, the

Reïncarnationists quote Apuleius in corroboration of their theory that

man passes through a succession of physical human births upon this

planet, until he is finally purged from the dross of his nature. But

Apuleius distinctly says that we come upon this earth from another one,

where we had an existence, the recollection of which has faded away. As

the watch passes from hand to hand and room to room in a factory, one

part being added here, and another there, until the delicate machine is

perfected, according to the design conceived in the mind of the master

before the work was begun; so, according to ancient philosophy, the

first divine conception of man takes shape little by little, in the

several departments of the universal workshop, and the perfect human

being finally appears on our scene.

This philosophy teaches that nature never leaves her work {346}

unfinished; if baffled at the first attempt, she tries again. When

she evolves a human embryo, the intention is that a man shall be

perfected—physically, intellectually, and spiritually. His body is

to grow mature, wear out, and die; his mind unfold, ripen, and be

harmoniously balanced; his divine spirit illuminate and blend easily

with the _inner_ man. No human being completes its grand cycle, or

the “circle of necessity,” until all these are accomplished. As the

laggards in a race struggle and plod in their first quarter while the

victor darts past the goal, so, in the race of immortality, some souls

outspeed all the rest and reach the end, while their myriad competitors

are toiling under the load of matter, close to the starting-point. Some

unfortunates fall out entirely, and lose all chance of the prize; some

retrace their steps and begin again. This is what the Hindu dreads

above all things—_transmigration_ and _reïncarnation_; only on other

and inferior planets, never on this one. But there is a way to avoid

it, and Buddha taught it in his doctrine of poverty, restriction of

the senses, perfect indifference to the objects of this earthly vale

of tears, freedom from passion, and frequent intercommunication with

the Atma—soul-contemplation. The cause of reïncarnation is ignorance

of our senses, and the idea that there is any reality in the world,

anything except abstract existence. From the organs of sense comes the

“hallucination” we call contact; “from contact, desire; from desire,

sensation (which also is a deception of our body); from sensation, the

cleaving to existing bodies; from this cleaving, reproduction; and from

reproduction, disease, decay, and death.”

Thus, like the revolutions of a wheel, there is a regular succession of

death and birth, the moral cause of which is the cleaving to existing

objects, while the instrumental cause is _karma_ (the power which

controls the universe, prompting it to activity), merit and demerit.

“It is, therefore, the great desire of all beings who would be released

_from the sorrows of successive birth_, to seek the destruction of the

moral cause, the cleaving to existing objects, or evil desire.” They,

in whom evil desire is entirely destroyed, are called _Arhats_.[564]

Freedom from evil desire insures the possession of a _miraculous_

power. At his death, the Arhat is never reïncarnated; he invariably

attains Nirvana—a word, by the bye, falsely interpreted by the

Christian scholars and skeptical commentators. Nirvana is the world

of _cause_, in which all deceptive effects or delusions of our senses

disappear. Nirvana is the highest attainable sphere. The _pitris_ (the

pre-Adamic spirits) are considered as _reïncarnated_, by the Buddhistic

philosopher, though in a degree far superior to that of the man of

earth. Do they not die in their turn? Do not their astral bodies {347}

suffer and rejoice, and feel the same curse of illusionary feelings as

when embodied?

What Buddha taught in the sixth century, B.C., in India, Pythagoras

taught in the fifth, in Greece and Italy. Gibbon shows how deeply the

Pharisees were impressed with this belief in the transmigration of

souls.[565] The Egyptian circle of necessity is ineffaceably stamped

on the hoary monuments of old. And Jesus, when healing the sick,

invariably used the following expression: “Thy sins are forgiven thee.”

This is a pure Buddhistical doctrine. “The Jews said to the blind

man: Thou wast _altogether born in sins_, and dost thou teach us? The

doctrine of the disciples (of Christ) is analogous to the ‘Merit and

Demerit’ of the Buddhists; for the sick recovered, _if their sins were

forgiven_.”[566] But, this _former life_ believed in by the Buddhists,

is not a life _on this_ planet, for, more than any other people, the

Buddhistical philosopher appreciated the great doctrine of cycles.

The speculations of Dupuis, Volney, and Godfrey Higgins on the secret

meaning of the cycles, or the _kalpas_ and the yogs of the Brahmans

and Buddhists, amounted to little, as they did not have the key to the

esoteric, spiritual doctrine therein contained. No philosophy ever

speculated on God as an _abstraction_, but considered Him under His

various manifestations. The “First Cause” of the Hebrew Bible, the

Pythagorean “Monad,” the “One Existence” of the Hindu philosopher,

and the kabalistic “En-Soph” the _Boundless_—are identical. The Hindu

Bhagavant does not create; he enters the egg of the world, and

emanates from it as Brahm, in the same manner as the Pythagorean

Duad evolves from the highest and solitary Monas.[567] The Monas of {348}

the Samian philosopher is the Hindu Monas (mind), “who has no first

cause (apûrva, or material cause), nor is liable to destruction.”[568]

Brahma, as Prajâpati, manifests himself first of all as “twelve

bodies,” or attributes, which are represented by the twelve gods,

symbolizing 1, Fire; 2, the Sun; 3, Soma, which gives omniscience; 4,

all living Beings; 5, Vayn, or material Ether; 6, Death, or breath of

destruction—Siva; 7, Earth; 8, Heaven; 9, Agni, the Immaterial Fire;

10, Aditya, the immaterial and female invisible Sun; 11, Mind; 12, the

great Infinite Cycle, “which is not to be stopped.”[569] After that,

Brahma dissolves himself into the Visible Universe, every atom of which

is himself. When this is done, the not-manifested, indivisible, and

indefinite Monas retires into the undisturbed and majestic solitude

of its unity. _The_ manifested deity, a duad at first, now becomes a

triad; its triune quality emanates incessantly spiritual powers, who

become immortal gods (souls). Each of these souls must be united in

its turn with a human being, and from the moment of its consciousness

it commences a series of births and deaths. An Eastern artist has

attempted to give pictorial expression to the kabalistic doctrine of

the cycles. The picture covers a whole inner wall of a subterranean

temple in the neighborhood of a great Buddhistic pagoda, and is

strikingly suggestive. Let us attempt to convey some idea of the

design, as we recall it.

Imagine a given point in space as the primordial one; then with

compasses draw a circle around this point; where the beginning and

the end unite together, emanation and reabsorption meet. The circle

itself is composed of innumerable smaller circles, like the rings

of a bracelet, and each of these minor rings forms the belt of

the goddess which represents that sphere. As the curve of the arc

approaches the ultimate point of the semi-circle—the nadir of the

grand cycle—at which is placed our planet by the mystical painter, the

face of each successive goddess becomes more dark and hideous than

European imagination is able to conceive. Every belt is covered with

the representations of plants, animals, and human beings, belonging

to the fauna, flora, and anthropology of that particular sphere.

There is a certain distance between each of the spheres, purposely

marked; for, after the accomplishment of the circles through various {349}

transmigrations, the soul is allowed a time of temporary nirvana,

during which space of time the atma loses all remembrance of past

sorrows. The intermediate ethereal space is filled with strange beings.

Those between the highest ether and the earth below are the creatures

of a “middle nature;” nature-spirits, or, as the kabalists term it

sometimes, the elementary.

This picture is either a copy of the one described to posterity

by Berosus, the priest of the temple of Belus, at Babylon, or the

original. We leave it to the shrewdness of the modern archæologist

to decide. But the wall is covered with precisely such creatures

as described by the semi-demon, or half-god, Oannes, the Chaldean

man-fish,[570] “ ... hideous beings, which were produced of a two-fold

principle” the astral light and the grosser matter.

Even remains of architectural relics of the earliest races have been

sadly neglected by antiquarians, until now. The caverns of Ajunta,

which are but 200 miles from Bombay, in the Chandor range, and the

ruins of the ancient city of Aurungabad, whose crumbling palaces and

curious tombs have lain in desolate solitude for many centuries,

have attracted attention but very recently. Mementos of long bygone

civilization, they were allowed to become the shelter of wild beasts

for ages before they were found worthy of a scientific exploration,

and it is only recently that the _Observer_ gave an enthusiastic

description of these archaic ancestors of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

After justly blaming the local government which “has provided a

bungalow where the traveller may find shelter and safety, but that is

all,” it proceeds to narrate the wonders to be seen in this retired

spot, in the following words:

“In a deep glen away up the mountain there is a group of cave-temples

which are the most wonderful caverns on the earth. It is not known at

the present age how many of these exist in the deep recesses of the

mountains; but twenty-seven have been explored, surveyed, and, to some

extent, cleared of rubbish. There are, doubtless, many others. It is

hard to realize with what indefatigable toil these wonderful caves have

been hewn from the solid rock of amygdaloid. They are said to have been

wholly Buddhist in their origin, and were used for purposes of worship

and asceticism. They rank very high as works of art. They extend over

500 feet along a high cliff, and are carved in the most curious manner,

exhibiting, in a wonderful degree, the taste, talent, and persevering

industry of the Hindu sculptors.

“These cave-temples are beautifully cut and carved on the outside; but {350}

inside they were finished most elaborately, and decorated with a vast

profusion of sculptures and paintings. These long-deserted temples have

suffered from dampness and neglect, and the paintings and frescoes are

not what they were hundreds of years ago. But the colors are still

brilliant, and scenes gay and festive still appear upon the walls.

Some of the figures cut in the rock are taken for marriage-processions

and scenes in domestic life that are represented as joyful. The female

figures are beautiful, delicate, and fair as Europeans. Every one of

these representations is artistic, and all of them are unpolluted

by any grossness or obscenity generally so prominent in Brahmanical

representations of a similar character.

“These caves are visited by a great number of antiquarians, who are

striving to decipher the hieroglyphics inscribed on the walls and

determine the age of these curious temples.

“The ruins of the ancient city of Aurungabad are not very far from

these caves. It was a walled city of great repute, but is now deserted.

There are not only broken walls, but crumbling palaces. They were built

of immense strength, and some of the walls appear as solid as the

everlasting hills.

“There are a great many places in this vicinity where there are Hindu

remains, consisting of deep caves and rock-cut temples. Many of

these temples are surrounded by a circular enclosure, which is often

adorned with statues and columns. The figure of an elephant is very

common, placed before or beside the opening of a temple, as a sort of

sentinel. Hundreds and thousands of niches are beautifully cut in the

solid rock, and when these temples were thronged with worshippers,

each niche had a statue or image, usually in the florid style of these

Oriental sculptures. It is a sad truth that almost every image here

is shamefully defaced and mutilated. It is often said that no Hindu

will bow down to an imperfect image, and that the Mahometans, knowing

this, purposely mutilated all these images to prevent the Hindus from

worshipping them. This is regarded by the Hindus as sacrilegious and

blasphemous, awakening the keenest animosities, which every Hindu

inherits from his father, and which centuries have not been able to

efface.

“Here also are the remains of buried cities—sad ruins—generally

without a single inhabitant. In the grand palaces where royalty once

gathered and held festivals, wild beasts find their hiding-places. In

several places the track of the railway has been constructed over or

through these ruins, and the material has been used for the bed of the

road.... Enormous stones have remained in their places for thousands of

years, and probably will for thousands of years to come. These rock {351}

cut temples, as well as these mutilated statues, show a workmanship

that no work now being done by the natives can equal.[571] It is very

evident that hundreds of years since these hills were alive with a vast

multitude, where now it is all utter desolation, without cultivation or

inhabitants, and given over to wild beasts.

“It is good hunting ground, and, as the English are mighty hunters,

they may prefer to have these mountains and ruins remain without

change.”

We fervently hope they will. Enough vandalism was perpetrated in

earlier ages to permit us the hope that at least in this century of

exploration and learning, science, in its branches of archæology and

philology, will not be deprived of these most precious records, wrought

on imperishable tablets of granite and rock.

We will now present a few fragments of this mysterious doctrine of

reïncarnation—as distinct from metempsychosis—which we have from

an authority. Reïncarnation, _i.e._, the appearance of the same

individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on the same planet,

is not a rule in nature; it is an exception, like the teratological

phenomenon of a two-headed infant. It is preceded by a violation of

the laws of harmony of nature, and happens only when the latter,

seeking to restore its disturbed equilibrium, violently throws back

into earth-life the astral monad which had been tossed out of the

circle of necessity by crime or accident. Thus, in cases of abortion,

of infants dying before a certain age, and of congenital and incurable

idiocy, nature’s original design to produce a perfect human being has

been interrupted. Therefore, while the gross matter of each of these

several entities is suffered to disperse itself at death, through

the vast realm of being, the immortal spirit and astral monad of the

individual—the latter having been set apart to animate a frame and the

former to shed its divine light on the corporeal organization—must try

a second time to carry out the purpose of the creative intelligence.

If reason has been so far developed as to become active and

discriminative, there is no reïncarnation on this earth, for the three

parts of the triune man have been united together, and he is capable

of running the race. But when the new being has not passed beyond the

condition of monad, or when, as in the idiot, the trinity has not been

completed, the immortal spark which illuminates it, has to reënter on

the earthly plane as it was frustrated in its first attempt. Otherwise, {352}

the mortal or astral, and the immortal or divine, souls, could not

progress in unison and pass onward to the sphere above. Spirit follows

a line parallel with that of matter; and the spiritual evolution goes

hand in hand with the physical. As in the case exemplified by Professor

Le Conte (vide chap, ix.), “there is no force in nature” and the rule

applies to the spiritual as well as to the physical evolution—“which

is capable of raising at once spirit or matter from No. 1 to No. 3, or

from 2 to 4, without stopping and receiving an accession of force of a

different kind _on the intermediate plane_.” That is to say, the monad

which was imprisoned in the elementary being—the rudimentary or lowest

astral form of the future man—after having passed through and quitted

the _highest_ physical shape of a dumb animal—say an orang-outang,

or again an elephant, one of the most intellectual of brutes—that

monad, we say, cannot skip over the physical and intellectual sphere

of the terrestrial man, and be suddenly ushered into the spiritual

sphere above. What reward or punishment can there be in that sphere

of disembodied human entities for a fœtus or a human embryo which had

not even time to breathe on this earth, still less an opportunity to

exercise the divine faculties of the spirit? Or, for an irresponsible

infant, whose senseless monad remaining dormant within the astral and

physical casket, could as little prevent him from burning himself as

another person to death? Or for one idiotic from birth, the number of

whose cerebral circumvolutions is only from twenty to thirty per cent.

of those of sane persons;[572] and who therefore is irresponsible for

either his disposition, acts, or the imperfections of his vagrant,

half-developed intellect?

No need to remark that if even hypothetical, this theory is no more

ridiculous than many others considered as strictly orthodox. We must

not forget that either through the inaptness of the specialists or some

other reason, physiology itself is the least advanced or understood of

sciences, and that some French physicians, with Dr. Fournié, positively

despair of ever progressing in it beyond pure hypotheses.

Further, the same occult doctrine recognizes another possibility;

albeit so rare and so vague that it is really useless to mention it.

Even the modern Occidental occultists deny it, though it is universally

accepted in Eastern countries. When, through vice, fearful crimes

and animal passions, a disembodied spirit has fallen to the eighth

sphere—the allegorical Hades, and the _gehenna_ of the Bible—the

nearest to our earth—he can, with the help of that glimpse of reason

and consciousness left to him, repent; that is to say, he can, by

exercising the remnants of his will-power, strive upward, and like a {353}

drowning man, struggle once more to the surface. In the _Magical and

Philosophical Precepts_ of Psellus, we find one which, warning mankind,

says:

“Stoop not down, for a precipice lies below the earth,

Drawing _under a descent of_ SEVEN _steps_, beneath which

Is the throne of dire necessity.”[573]

A strong aspiration to retrieve his calamities, a pronounced desire,

will draw him once more into the earth’s atmosphere. Here he will

wander and suffer more or less in dreary solitude. His instincts will

make him seek with avidity contact with living persons.... These

spirits are the invisible but too tangible magnetic vampires; the

_subjective_ dæmons so well known to mediæval ecstatics, nuns, and

monks, to the “witches” made so famous in the _Witch-Hammer_; and to

certain sensitive clairvoyants, according to their own confessions.

They are the blood-dæmons of Porphyry, the _larvæ_, and _lemures_ of

the ancients; the fiendish instruments which sent so many unfortunate

and weak victims to the rack and stake. Origen held all the dæmons

which possessed the demoniacs mentioned in the _New Testament_ to be

_human_ “spirits.” It is because Moses knew so well what they were,

and how terrible were the consequences to weak persons who yielded

to their influence, that he enacted the cruel, murderous law against

such would-be “witches;” but Jesus, full of justice and divine love to

humanity, _healed_ instead of _killing_ them. Subsequently our clergy,

the pretended exemplars of Christian principles, followed the law of

Moses, and quietly ignored the law of Him whom they call their “one

living God,” by burning dozens of thousands of such pretended “witches.”

Witch! mighty name, which in the past contained the promise of

ignominious death; and in the present has but to be pronounced to

raise a whirlwind of ridicule, a tornado of sarcasms! How is it then

that there have always been men of intellect and learning, who never

thought that it would disgrace their reputation for learning, or lower

their dignity, to publicly affirm the possibility of such a thing as

a “witch,” in the correct acceptation of the word. One such fearless

champion was Henry More, the learned scholar of Cambridge, of the

seventeenth century. It is well worth our while to see how cleverly he

handled the question.

It appears that about the year 1678, a certain divine, named John

Webster, wrote _Criticisms and Interpretations of Scripture_, against

the existence of witches, and other “superstitions.” Finding the work

“a weak and impertinent piece,” Dr. More criticised it in a letter to

Glanvil, the author of _Sadducismus Triumphatus_, and as an appendix {354}

sent a treatise on witchcraft and explanations of the word witch,

itself. This document is very rare, but we possess it in a fragmentary

form in an old manuscript, having seen it mentioned besides only in an

insignificant work of 1820, on _Apparitions_, for it appears that the

document itself was long since out of print.

The words _witch_ and _wizard_, according to Dr. More, signify no more

than a wise man or a wise woman. In the word _wizard_, it is plain at

the very sight; and “the most plain and least operose deduction of the

name witch, is from _wit_, whose derived adjective might be _wittigh_

or _wittich_, and by contraction, afterwards witch; as the noun wit is

from the verb to _weet_, which is, to know. So that a witch, thus far,

is no more than a knowing woman; which answers exactly to the Latin

word _saga_, according to that of Festus, _sagæ dictæ anus quæ multa

sciunt_!”

This definition of the word appears to us the more plausible, as it

exactly answers the evident meaning of the Slavonian-Russian names for

witches and wizards. The former is called _vyèdma_, and the latter

_vyèdmak_, both from the verb to _know_, _védat_ or _vyedât_; the root,

moreover, being positively Sanscrit. “Veda,” says Max Müller, in his

_Lecture on the Vedas_, “means originally knowing, or knowledge. Veda

is the same word which appears in Greek οἶδα, I know [the digamma,

_vau_ being omitted], and in the English wise, wisdom, to wit.”[574]

Furthermore, the Sanscrit word _vidma_, answering to the German _wir

wissen_, means literally “_we know_.” It is a great pity that the

eminent philologist, while giving in his lecture the Sanscrit, Greek,

Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and German comparative roots of this word, has

neglected the Slavonian.

Another Russian appellation for _witch_ and _wizard_, the former being

purely Slavonian, is _znâhâr_ and _znâharka_ (feminine) from the same

verb _znât_ to know. Thus Dr. More’s definition of the word, given in

1678, is perfectly correct, and coincides in every particular with

modern philology.

“Use,” says this scholar, “questionless had appropriated the word to

such a kind of skill and knowledge as was out of the common road or

extraordinary. _Nor did this peculiarity imply any unlawfulness._ But

there was after a further restriction, in which alone now-a-days the

words _witch_ and _wizard_ are used. And that is, for one that has the

knowledge and skill of doing or telling things in an extraordinary

way, and that in virtue of either an express or implicit sociation or

confederacy with some _bad spirits_.” In the clause of the severe law

of Moses, so many names are reckoned up with that of witch, that it

is difficult as well as useless to give here the definition of every

one of them as found in Dr. More’s able treatise. “There shall not be {355}

found among you any one that useth divination, or an observer of time,

or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar

spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer,” says the text. We will show,

further on, the real object of such severity. For the present, we will

remark that Dr. More, after giving a learned definition of every one

of such appellations, and showing the value of their real meaning in

the days of Moses, proves that there is a vast difference between the

“enchanters,” “observers of time,” etc., and a witch. “So many names

are reckoned up in this prohibition of Moses, that, as in our common

law, the sense may be more sure, and leave no room to evasion. And that

the name of ‘witch’ is not from any tricks of legerdemain as in common

jugglers, that delude the sight of the people at a market or fair, but

that it is the name of such as raise magical spectres to deceive men’s

sight, and so are most certainly witches—women and men who have a _bad

spirit_ in them. ‘Thou shalt not suffer’ מכשפה _mecassephah_, that is,

‘a witch, to live.’ Which would be a law of extreme severity, or rather

cruelty, against a poor hocus-pocus for his tricks of legerdemain.”

Thus, it is but the sixth appellation, that of a consulter with

familiar spirits or a witch, that had to incur the greatest penalty

of the law of Moses, for it is only a _witch_ which must _not_ be

suffered to live, while all the others are simply enumerated as such

with whom the people of Israel were forbidden to communicate on account

of their idolatry or rather religious views and learning chiefly. This

sixth word is שאיל אוב, _shoel aub_, which our English translation

renders, “a consulter with familiar spirits;” but which the Septuagint

translates, Εγγαστριμυθος, one that has a familiar spirit _inside_ him,

one possessed with the spirit of divination, which was considered to

be Python by the Greeks, and _obh_ by the Hebrews, the old serpent; in

its esoteric meaning the spirit of concupiscence and _matter_; which,

according to the kabalists, is always an elementary _human_ spirit of

the eighth sphere.

“_Shoel obh_, I conceive,” says Henry More, “is to be understood of

the witch herself who asks counsel of her or his familiar. The reason

of the name _obh_, was taken first from that spirit that was in the

body of the party, and swelled it to a protuberancy, the voice always

seeming to come out as from a bottle, for which reason they were named

_ventriloquists_. _Ob_ signifies as much as _Pytho_, which at first

took its name from the _pythii vates_, a spirit that tells hidden

things, or things to come. In _Acts_ XVI. 16, πνεύμα πὺθωνος, when

“Paul being grieved, turned and said to that spirit, I command thee, in

the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her, and he came out at the

same hour.” Therefore, the words obsessed or _possessed_ are synonyms

of the word _witch_; nor could this _pytho_ of the eighth sphere come {356}

out of her, unless it was a spirit distinct from her. And so it is that

we see in _Leviticus_ XX. 27: “A man also or woman that hath a familiar

spirit, or that is a wizard (an irresponsible _jidegnoni_) shall surely

be put _to death_, they shall stone them with stones, _their blood

shall be_ upon them.”

A cruel and unjust law beyond doubt, and one which gives the lie to

a recent utterance of “Spirits,” by the mouth of one of the most

popular _inspirational_ mediums of the day, to the effect that modern

philological research proves that the Mosaic law never contemplated

the killing of the poor “mediums” or _witches_ of the _Old Testament_,

but that the words, “thou shalt not suffer a witch _to live_,” meant

to live by their mediumship, that is, to gain their livelihood! An

interpretation no less ingenius than novel. Certainly, nowhere short

of the source of such _inspiration_ could we find such philological

profundity![575]

“Shut the door in the face of the dæmon,” says the _Kabala_, “and he

will keep running away from you, as if you pursued him,” which means,

that you must not give a hold on you to such spirits of obsession by

attracting them into an atmosphere of congenial sin.

These dæmons seek to introduce themselves into the bodies of the

simple-minded and idiots, and remain there until dislodged therefrom

by a powerful and _pure_ will. Jesus, Apollonius, and some of the

apostles, had the power to cast out _devils_, by purifying the

atmosphere _within_ and _without_ the patient, so as to force the

unwelcome tenant to flight. Certain volatile salts are particularly

obnoxious to them; and the effect of the chemicals used in a saucer,

and placed under the bed by Mr. Varley, of London,[576] for the purpose {357}

of keeping away some disagreeable physical phenomena at night, are

corroborative of this great truth. Pure or even simply inoffensive

human spirits fear nothing, for having rid themselves of _terrestrial_

matter, terrestrial compounds can affect them in no wise; such spirits

are like a _breath_. Not so with the earth-bound souls and the

nature-spirits.

It is for these carnal terrestrial _larvæ_, degraded human spirits,

that the ancient kabalists entertained a hope of _reïncarnation_. But

when, or how? At a fitting moment, and if helped by a sincere desire

for his amendment and repentance by some strong, sympathizing person,

or the will of an adept, or even a desire emanating from the erring

spirit himself, provided it is powerful enough to make him throw off

the burden of sinful matter. Losing all consciousness, the once bright

monad is caught once more into the vortex of our terrestrial evolution,

and it repasses the subordinate kingdoms, and again breathes as a

living child. To compute the time necessary for the completion of this

process would be impossible. Since there is no perception of time in

eternity, the attempt would be a mere waste of labor.

As we have said, but few kabalists believe in it, and this doctrine

originated with certain astrologers. While casting up the nativities

of certain historical personages renowned for some peculiarities of

disposition, they found the conjunction of the planets answering

perfectly to remarkable oracles and prophesies about other persons

born ages later. Observation, and what would now be termed “remarkable

coincidences,” added to revelation during the “sacred sleep” of the

neophyte, disclosed the dreadful truth. So horrible is the thought that

even those who ought to be convinced of it prefer ignoring it, or at

least avoid speaking on the subject.

This way of obtaining oracles was practiced in the highest antiquity.

In India, this sublime lethargy is called “the sacred sleep of * * *.”

It is an oblivion into which the subject is thrown by certain magical

processes, supplemented by draughts of the juice of the soma. The body

of the sleeper remains for several days in a condition resembling

death, and by the power of the adept is purified of its earthliness and {358}

made fit to become the temporary receptacle of the brightness of the

immortal Augoeides. In this state the torpid body is made to reflect

the glory of the upper spheres, as a burnished mirror does the rays

of the sun. The sleeper takes no note of the lapse of time, but upon

awakening, after four or five days of trance, imagines he has slept

but a few moments. What his lips utter he will never know; but as it

is the spirit which directs them they can pronounce nothing but divine

truth. For the time being the poor helpless clod is made the shrine

of the sacred presence, and converted into an oracle a thousand times

more infallible than the asphyxiated Pythoness of Delphi; and, unlike

her mantic frenzy, which was exhibited before the multitude, this holy

sleep is witnessed only within the sacred precinct by those few of the

adepts who are worthy to stand in the presence of the ADONAI.

The description which Isaiah gives of the purification necessary for a

prophet to undergo before he is worthy to be the mouthpiece of heaven,

applies to the case in point. In customary metaphor he says: “Then flew

one of the seraphim unto me having a live coal in his hand, which he

had taken with the tongs from off the altar ... and he laid it upon my

mouth and said, Lo! this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is

taken away.”

The invocation of his own Augoeides, by the purified adept, is

described in words of unparalleled beauty by Bulwer-Lytton in _Zanoni_,

and there he gives us to understand that the slightest touch of mortal

passion unfits the hierophant to hold communion with his spotless soul.

Not only are there few who can successfully perform the ceremony, but

even these rarely resort to it except for the instruction of some

neophytes, and to obtain knowledge of the most solemn importance.

And yet how little is the knowledge treasured up by these hierophants

understood or appreciated by the general public! “There is another

collection of writings and traditions bearing the title of _Kabala_,

attributed to Oriental scholars,” says the author of _Art-Magic_; “but

as this remarkable work is of little or no value without a key, which

_can only be furnished by Oriental fraternities_, its transcript would

be of no value to the general reader.”[577] And how they are ridiculed

by every Houndsditch commercial traveller who wanders through India in

pursuit of “orders” and writes to the _Times_, and misrepresented by

every nimble-fingered trickster who pretends to show by legerdemain, to

the gaping crowd, the feats of true Oriental magicians!

But, notwithstanding his unfairness in the Algerian affair, Robert

Houdin, an authority on the art of prestidigitation, and Moreau-Cinti, {359}

another, gave honest testimony in behalf of the French mediums. They

both testified, when cross-examined by the Academicians, that none but

the “mediums” could possibly produce the phenomena of table-rapping and

levitation without a suitable preparation and furniture adapted for

the purpose. They also showed that the so-called “levitations without

contact” were feats utterly beyond the power of the _professional_

juggler; that for them, such levitations, unless produced in a room

supplied with secret machinery and concave mirrors, was _impossible_.

They added moreover, that the simple apparition of a diaphanous hand,

in a place in which confederacy would be rendered impossible, the

medium having been previously searched, would be a demonstration that

it was the work _of no human agency_, whatever else that agency might

be. The _Siècle_, and other Parisian newspapers immediately published

their suspicions that these two professional and very clever gentlemen

had become the confederates of the spiritists!

Professor Pepper, director of the Polytechnic Institute of London,

invented a clever apparatus to produce spiritual appearances on the

stage, and sold his patent in 1863, in Paris, for the sum of 20,000

francs. The phantoms looked real and were evanescent, being but an

effect produced by the reflection of a highly-illuminated object upon

the surface of plate-glass. They seemed to appear and disappear, to

walk about the stage and play their parts to perfection. Sometimes one

of the phantoms placed himself on a bench; after which, one of the

living actors would begin quarrelling with him, and, seizing a heavy

hatchet, would part the head and body of the ghost in two. But, joining

his two parts again, the spectre would reappear, a few steps off,

to the amazement of the public. The contrivance worked marvellously

well, and nightly attracted large crowds. But to produce these ghosts

required a stage-apparatus, and more than one confederate. There were

nevertheless some reporters who made this exhibition the pretext for

ridiculing the _spiritists_—as though the two classes of phenomena had

the slightest connection!

What the Pepper ghosts pretended to do, genuine disembodied human

spirits, when their reflection is materialized by the elementals, can

actually perform. They will permit themselves to be perforated with

bullets or the sword, or to be dismembered, and then instantly form

themselves anew. But the case is different with both cosmic and human

elementary spirits, for a sword or dagger, or even a pointed stick,

will cause them to vanish in terror. This will seem unaccountable to

those who do not understand of what a material substance the elementary

are composed; but the kabalists understand perfectly. The records of

antiquity and of the middle ages, to say nothing of the modern wonders

at Cideville, which have been judicially attested for us, corroborate

these facts.

Skeptics, and even skeptical spiritualists, have often unjustly accused {360}

mediums of fraud, when denied what they considered their inalienable

right to test the spirits. But where there is one such case, there

are fifty in which spiritualists have permitted themselves to be

practiced upon by tricksters, while they neglected to appreciate

genuine manifestations procured for them by their mediums. Ignorant of

the laws of mediumship, such do not know that when an honest medium is

once taken possession of by spirits, whether disembodied or elemental,

he is no longer his own master. He cannot control the actions of the

spirits, nor even his own. They make him a puppet to dance at their

pleasure while they pull the wires behind the scenes. The false medium

may seem entranced, and yet be playing tricks all the while; while the

real medium may appear to be in full possession of his senses, when in

fact he is far away, and his body is animated by his “Indian guide,”

or “control.” Or, he may be entranced in his cabinet, while his astral

body (double) or _doppelganger_, is walking about the room moved by

another intelligence.

Among all the phenomena, that of _re-percussion_, closely allied with

those of bi-location and aërial “travelling,” is the most astounding.

In the middle ages it was included under the head of sorcery. De

Gasparin, in his refutations of the miraculous character of the marvels

of Cideville, treats of the subject at length; but these pretended

explanations were all in their turn exploded by de Mirville and des

Mousseaux, who, while failing in their attempt to trace the phenomena

back to the Devil, did, nevertheless, prove their spiritual origin.

“The prodigy of re-percussion,” says des Mousseaux, “occurs when a

blow aimed at the spirit, visible or otherwise, of an absent _living_

person, or at the phantom which represents him, strikes this person

himself, at the same time, and in the very place at which the spectre

or his double is touched! We must suppose, therefore, that the blow is

re-percussed, and that it reaches, as if rebounding, from the image of

the living person—his phantasmal[578] duplicate—the original, wherever

he may be, in flesh and blood.

“Thus, for instance, an individual appears before me, or, remaining

invisible, declares war, threatens, and causes me to be threatened with

obsession. I strike at the place where I perceive his phantom, where I

hear him moving, where I feel _somebody_, something which molests and

resists me. I strike; the blood will appear sometimes on this place,

and occasionally a scream may be heard; _he_ is wounded—perhaps, dead!

It is done, and I have explained the fact.”[579]

“Notwithstanding that, at the moment I struck him, his presence in {361}

another place is authentically proved; ... I saw—yes, I saw plainly

the phantom hurt upon the cheek or shoulder, and this same wound is

found precisely on the living person, re-percussed upon his cheek or

shoulder. Thus, it becomes evident that the facts of re-percussion have

an intimate connection with those of bi-location or _duplication_,

either spiritual or corporeal.”

The history of the Salem witchcraft, as we find it recorded in the

works of Cotton Mather, Calef, Upham, and others, furnishes a curious

corroboration of the fact of the double, as it also does of the

effects of allowing elementary spirits to have their own way. This

tragical chapter of American history has never yet been written in

accordance with the truth. A party of four or five young girls had

become “developed” as mediums, by sitting with a West Indian negro

woman, a practitioner of _Obeah_. They began to suffer all kinds of

physical torture, such as pinching, having pins stuck in them, and the

marks of bruises and teeth on different parts of their bodies. They

would declare that they were hurt by the spectres of various persons,

and we learn from the celebrated _Narrative of Deodat Lawson_ (London,

1704), that “some of them confessed that they did afflict the sufferers

(_i. e._, these young girls), according to the time and manner they

were accused thereof; and, being asked what they did to afflict them,

some said that they pricked pins into poppets, made with rags, wax,

and other materials. One that confessed after the signing of her

death-warrant, said she used to afflict them by clutching and pinching

her hands together, and _wishing_ in what part and after what manner

she would have them afflicted, and _it was done_.”[580]

Mr. Upham tells us that Abigail Hobbs, one of these girls, acknowledged

that she had confederated with the Devil, who “came to her in the shape

of a man,” and commanded her to afflict the girls, bringing images

made of wood in their likeness, with thorns for her to prick into the

images, which she did; whereupon, the girls cried out that they were

hurt by her.”

How perfectly these facts, the validity of which was proven by {362}

unimpeachable testimony in court, go to corroborate the doctrine of

Paracelsus. It is surpassingly strange that so ripe a scholar as Mr.

Upham should have accumulated into the 1,000 pages of his two volumes

such a mass of legal evidence, going to show the agency of earth-bound

souls and tricksy nature-spirits in these tragedies, without suspecting

the truth.

Ages ago, the old Ennius was made by Lucretius to say:

“Bis duo sunt hominis, manes, caro, _spiritus_ umbra;

Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipirent;

Terra tegit carnem;—tumulum circumvolat umbra,

Orcus habet manes.”

In this present case, as in every similar one, the scientists, being

unable to explain the fact, assert that _it cannot exist_.

But we will now give a few historical instances going to show that

some daimons, or elementary spirits, are afraid of sword, knife, or

any thing sharp. We do not pretend to explain the reason. That is the

province of physiology and psychology. Unfortunately, physiologists

have not yet been able to even establish the relations between speech

and thought, and so, have handed it over to the metaphysicians, who,

in their turn, according to Fournié, have done nothing. Done nothing,

we say, but claimed everything. No fact could be presented to some of

them, that was too large for these learned gentlemen to at least try

to stuff into their pigeon-holes, labelled with some fancy Greek name,

expressive of everything else but the true nature of the phenomenon.

“Alas, alas! my son!” exclaims the wise Muphti, of Aleppo, to his

son Ibrahim, who choked himself with the head of a huge fish. “When

will you realize that your stomach is smaller than the ocean?” Or,

as Mrs. Catherine Crowe remarks in her _Night-Side of Nature_, when

will our scientists admit that “their intellects are no measure of God

Almighty’s designs?”

We will not ask which of the ancient writers mention facts of

seemingly-_supernatural_ nature; but rather which of them does not?

In Homer, we find Ulysses evoking the spirit of his friend, the

soothsayer Tiresias. Preparing for the ceremony of the “festival of

blood,” Ulysses draws his sword, and thus frightens away the thousands

of phantoms attracted by the sacrifice. The friend himself, the

so-long-expected Tiresias, dares not approach him so long as Ulysses

holds the dreaded weapon in his hand.[581] Æneas prepares to descend to

the kingdom of the shadows, and as soon as they approach its entrance, {363}

the Sibyl who guides him utters her warning to the Trojan hero, and

orders him to draw his sword and clear himself a passage through the

dense crowd of flitting forms:

“_Tuque invade viam, vaginâque eripe ferrum._”[582]

Glanvil gives a wonderful narrative of the apparition of the “Drummer

of Tedworth,” which happened in 1661; in which the _scin-lecca_,

or double, of the drummer-sorcerer was evidently very much afraid

of the sword. Psellus, in his work,[583] gives a long story of his

sister-in-law being thrown into a most fearful state by an elementary

_daimon_ taking possession of her. She was finally cured by a conjurer,

a foreigner named Anaphalangis, who began by threatening the invisible

occupant of her body with a _naked sword_, until he finally dislodged

him. Psellus introduces a whole catechism of demonology, which he gives

in the following terms, as far as we remember:

“You want to know,” asked the conjurer, “whether the bodies of the

spirits can be hurt by sword or any other weapon?[584] Yes, they can.

Any hard substance striking them can make them sensible to pain; and

though their bodies be made neither of solid nor firm substance, they

feel it the same, for in beings endowed with sensibility it is not

their nerves only which possess the faculty of feeling, but likewise

also the spirit which resides in them ... the body of a spirit can be

sensible in its _whole_, as well as in each one of its parts. Without

the help of any physical organism the spirit sees, hears, and if you

touch him feels your touch. If you divide him in two, he will feel

the pain as would any living man, for he is _matter_ still, though so

refined as to be generally invisible to our eye.... One thing, however,

distinguishes him from the living man, viz.: that when a man’s limbs

are once divided, their parts cannot be reunited very easily. But,

cut a _demon_ in two, and you will see him immediately join himself

together. As water or air closes in behind a solid body[585] passing

through it, and no trace is left, so does the body of a demon condense

itself again, when the penetrative weapon is withdrawn from the wound.

But every rent made in it causes him pain nevertheless. _That is why

daimons_ dread the point of a sword or any sharp weapon. Let those who

want to see them flee try the experiment.”

One of the most learned scholars of his century, Bodin, the {364}

Demonologian, held the same opinion, that both the human and cosmical

elementaries “were sorely afraid of swords and daggers.” It is also

the opinion of Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Plato. Plutarch mentions

it several times. The practicing theurgists knew it well and acted

accordingly; and many of the latter assert that “the demons suffer from

any rent made in their bodies.” Bodin tells us a wonderful story to

this effect, in his work _On the Dæmons_, p. 292.

“I remember,” says the author, “that in 1557 an elemental demon, one

of those who are called _thundering_, fell down _with the lightning_,

into the house of Poudot, the shoemaker, and immediately began

flinging stones all about the room. We picked up so many of them that

the landlady filled a large chest full, after having securely closed

the windows and doors and locked the chest itself. But it did not

prevent the demon in the least from introducing other stones into the

room, but without injuring any one for all that. Latomi, who was then

_Quarter-President_,[586] came to see what was the matter. Immediately

upon his entrance, the spirit knocked the cap off his head and made

him run away. It had lasted for over six days, when M. Jean Morgnes,

Counsellor at the _Presidial_, came to fetch me to see the mystery.

When I entered the house, some one advised the master of it to pray to

God with all his heart and to wheel round a sword in the air about the

room; he did so. On that following day the landlady told us, that from

that very moment they did not hear the least noise in the house; but

that during the seven previous days that it lasted they could not get a

moment’s rest.”

The books on the witchcraft of the middle ages are full of such

narratives. The very rare and interesting work of Glanvil, called

_Sadducismus Triumphatus_, ranks with that of Bodin, above mentioned,

as one of the best. But we must give space now to certain narratives of

the more ancient philosophers, who explain at the same time that they

describe.

And first in rank for wonders comes Proclus. His list of facts, most

of which he supports by the citation of witnesses—sometimes well-known

philosophers—is staggering. He records many instances in his time of

dead persons who were found to have changed their recumbent positions

in the sepulchre, for one of either sitting or standing, which he

attributes to their being _larvæ_, and which he says “is related by

the ancients of Aristius, Epimenides, and Hermodorus.” He gives five

such cases from the history of Clearchus, the disciple of Aristotle.

1. Cleonymus, the Athenian. 2. Polykritus, an illustrious man among

the Æolians. It is related by the historian Nomachius, that Polykritus

died, and returned in the ninth month after his death. “Hiero, the {365}

Ephesian, and other historians,” says his translator, Taylor, “testify

to the truth of this.” 3. In Nicopolis, the same happened to one

Eurinus. The latter revived on the fifteenth day after his burial, and

lived for some time after that, leading an exemplary life. 4. Rufus, a

priest of Thessalonica, restored to life the third day after his death,

for the purpose of performing certain sacred ceremonies according to

promise; he fulfilled his engagement, and died again to return no more.

5. This is the case of one Philonæa, who lived under the reign of

Philip. She was the daughter of Demostratus and Charito of Amphipolos.

Married against her wish to one Kroterus, she died soon after. But

in the sixth month after her death, she revived, as Proclus says:

“through her love of a youth named Machates, who came to her father

Demostratus, from Pella.” She visited him for many nights successively,

but when this was finally discovered, she, or rather the vampire that

represented her, died of rage. Previous to this she declared that she

acted in this manner according to the will of _terrestrial demons_.

Her dead body was seen at this second death by every one in the town,

lying in her father’s house. On opening the vault, where her body had

been deposited, it was found empty by those of her relatives, who being

incredulous upon that point, went to ascertain the truth. The narrative

is corroborated by the _Epistles of Hipparchus_ and those of Arridæus

to Philip.[587]

Says Proclus: “Many other of the ancients have collected a history of

those that have apparently died, and afterward revived. Among these is

the natural philosopher Demokritus. In his writings concerning Hades,

he affirms that [in a certain case under discussion] death was not,

as it seemed, an entire desertion of the whole life of the body, but

a cessation caused by some blow, or perhaps a wound; but the bonds of

the soul yet remained rooted about the marrow, and the heart contained

in its profundity the empyreuma of life; and this remaining, it again

acquired the life, which had been extinguished, in consequence of being

adapted to animation.”

He says again, “That it is possible for the soul to depart from and

enter into the body, is evident from him, who, according to Clearchus,

used a _soul-attracting wand_ on a sleeping boy; and who persuaded

Aristotle, as Clearchus relates in his _Treatise on Sleep_, that the

soul may be separated from the body, and that it enters into a body and

uses it as a lodging. For, striking the boy with the wand, he drew out,

and, as it were, led his soul, for the purpose of evincing that the {366}

body was immovable when the soul (astral body) was at a distance from

it, and that it was preserved uninjured; but the soul being again led

into the body by means of the wand, after its entrance, narrated every

particular. From this circumstance, therefore, both the spectators and

Aristotle were persuaded that the soul is separate from the body.”

It may be considered quite absurd to recall so often the facts of

witchcraft, in the full light of the nineteenth century. But the

century itself is getting old; and as it gradually approaches the fatal

end, it seems as if it were falling into dotage; not only does it

refuse to recollect how abundantly the facts of witchcraft were proven,

but it refuses to realize what has been going on for the last thirty

years, all over the wide world. After a lapse of several thousand

years we may doubt the magic powers of the Thessalonian priests and

their “sorceries,” as mentioned by Pliny;[588] we may throw discredit

upon the information given us by Suidas, who narrates Medea’s journey

through the air, and thus forget that magic was the highest knowledge

of natural philosophy; but how are we to dispose of the frequent

occurrence of precisely such journeys “through the air” when they

happen before our own eyes, and are corroborated by the testimony of

hundreds of apparently sane persons? If the universality of a belief

be a proof of its truth, few facts have been better established than

that of sorcery. “Every people, from the rudest to the most refined, we

may also add in every age, have believed in the kind of supernatural

agency, which we understand by this term,” says Thomas Wright, the

author of _Sorcery and Magic_, and a skeptical member of the National

Institute of France. “It was founded on the equally extensive creed,

that, besides our own visible existence, we live in an invisible world

of spiritual beings, by which our actions _and even our thoughts_

are often guided, and which have a certain degree of power over the

elements and over the ordinary course of organic life.” Further,

marvelling how this mysterious science flourished everywhere, and

noticing several famous schools of magic in different parts of Europe,

he explains the time-honored belief, and shows the difference between

sorcery and magic as follows: “The magician differed from the witch in

this, that, _while the latter was an ignorant instrument in the hands

of the demons, the former had become their master by the powerful

intermediation of Science_, which was only within reach of the few,

and which these beings were unable to disobey.”[589] This delineation,

established and known since the days of Moses, the author gives as

derived from “the most authentic sources.”

If from this unbeliever we pass to the authority of an adept in that {367}

mysterious science, the anonymous author of _Art-Magic_, we find him

stating the following: “The reader may inquire wherein consists the

difference between a medium and a magician?... The medium is one

through whose astral spirit other spirits can manifest, making their

presence known by various kinds of phenomena. Whatever these consist

in, the medium is only a passive agent in their hands. He can _neither

command_ their presence, nor _will_ their absence; can never compel the

performance of any special act, nor direct its nature. The magician,

on the contrary, _can summon and dismiss spirits at will_; can perform

many feats of occult power through his own spirit; can compel the

presence and assistance of spirits of lower grades of being than

himself, and effect transformations in the realm of nature upon animate

and inanimate bodies.”[590]

This learned author forgot to point out a marked distinction in

mediumship, with which he must have been entirely familiar. Physical

phenomena are the result of the manipulation of forces through the

physical system of the medium, by the unseen intelligences, of

whatever class. In a word, physical mediumship depends on a peculiar

organization of the _physical_ system; spiritual mediumship, which

is accompanied by a display of subjective, intellectual phenomena,

depends upon a like peculiar organization of the _spiritual_ nature

of the medium. As the potter from one lump of clay fashions a vessel

of dishonor, and from another a vessel of honor, so, among physical

mediums, the plastic astral spirit of one may be prepared for a certain

class of objective phenomena, and that of another for a different

one. Once so prepared, it appears difficult to alter the phase of

mediumship, as when a bar of steel is forged into a certain shape,

it cannot be used for any other than its original purpose without

difficulty. As a rule, mediums who have been developed for one class of

phenomena rarely change to another, but repeat the same performance _ad

infinitum_.

Psychography, or the direct writing of messages by spirits, partakes of

both forms of mediumship. The writing itself is an objective physical

fact, while the sentiments it contains may be of the very noblest

character. The latter depend entirely on the moral state of the medium.

It does not require that he should be educated, to write philosophical

treatises worthy of Aristotle, nor a poet, to write verses that would

reflect honor upon a Byron or a Lamartine; but it does require that

the soul of the medium shall be pure enough to serve as a channel for

spirits who are capable of giving utterance to such lofty sentiments.

In _Art-Magic_, one of the most delightful pictures presented to us {368}

is that of an innocent little child-medium, in whose presence, during

the past three years, four volumes of MSS., in the ancient Sanscrit,

have been written by the spirits, without pens, pencils, or ink. “It

is enough,” says the author, “to lay the blank sheets on a tripod,

carefully screened from the direct rays of light, but still dimly

visible to the eyes of attentive observers. The child sits on the

ground and lays her head on the tripod, embracing its supports with her

little arms. In this attitude she most commonly sleeps for an hour,

during which time the sheets lying on the tripod are filled up with

exquisitely formed characters in the ancient Sanscrit.” This is so

remarkable an instance of psychographic mediumship, and so thoroughly

illustrates the principle we have above stated, that we cannot refrain

from quoting a few lines from one of the Sanscrit writings, the more so

as it embodies that portion of the Hermetic philosophy relating to the

antecedent state of man, which elsewhere we have less satisfactorily

described.

“Man lives on many earths before he reaches this. Myriads of

worlds swarm in space where the soul in rudimental states performs

its pilgrimages, ere he reaches the large and shining planet

named the Earth, the glorious function of which is to confer

_self-consciousness_. At this point only is he man; at every other

stage of his vast, wild journey he is but an embryonic being—a

fleeting, temporary shape of matter—a creature in which a _part_, but

only a part, of the high, imprisoned soul shines forth; a rudimental

shape, with rudimental functions, ever living, dying, sustaining a

flitting spiritual existence as rudimental as the material shape from

whence it emerged; a butterfly, springing up from the chrysalitic

shell, but ever, as it onward rushes, in new births, new deaths, new

incarnations, anon to die and live again, but still stretch upward,

still strive onward, still rush on the giddy, dreadful, toilsome,

rugged path, until it awakens once more—once more to live and be a

material shape, a thing of dust, a creature of flesh and blood, but

now—_a man_.”[591]

We witnessed once in India a trial of psychical skill between a

holy _gossein_[592] and a sorcerer,[593] which recurs to us in this

connection. We had been discussing the relative powers of the fakir’s

Pitris,—pre-Adamite spirits, and the juggler’s invisible allies. A

trial of skill was agreed upon, and the writer was chosen as a referee.

We were taking our noon-day rest, beside a small lake in Northern

India. Upon the surface of the glassy water floated innumerable aquatic

flowers, and large shining leaves. Each of the contestants plucked a

leaf. The fakir, laying his against his breast, folded his hands across {369}

it, and fell into a momentary trance. He then laid the leaf, with its

surface downward, upon the water. The juggler pretended to control the

“water-master,” the spirit dwelling in the water; and boasted that

he would compel the _power_ to prevent the Pitris from manifesting

any phenomena upon the fakir’s leaf in _their_ element. He took his

own leaf and tossed it upon the water, after going through a form

of barbarous incantation. It at once exhibited a violent agitation,

while the other leaf remained perfectly motionless. After the lapse

of a few seconds, both leaves were recovered. Upon that of the fakir

were found—much to the indignation of the juggler—something that

looked like a symmetrical design traced in milk-white characters, as

though the juices of the plant had been used as a corrosive writing

fluid. When it became dry, and an opportunity was afforded to examine

the lines with care, it proved to be a series of exquisitely-formed

Sanscrit characters; the whole composed a sentence embodying a high

moral precept. The fakir, let us add, could neither read nor write.

Upon the juggler’s leaf, instead of writing, was found the tracing of

a most hideous, impish face. Each leaf, therefore, bore an impression

or allegorical reflection of the character of the contestant, and

indicated the quality of spiritual beings with which he was surrounded.

But, with deep regret, we must once more leave India, with its blue sky

and mysterious past, its religious devotees and its weird sorcerers,

and on the enchanted carpet of the historian, transport ourselves back

to the musty atmosphere of the French Academy.

To appreciate the timidity, prejudice, and superficiality which

have marked the treatment of psychological subjects in the past, we

propose to review a book which lies before us. It is the _Histoire du

Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes_. The work is published by its

author, the learned Dr. Figuier, and teems with quotations from the

most conspicuous authorities in physiology, psychology, and medicine.

Dr. Calmeil, the well-known director-in-chief of Charenton, the

famous lunatic asylum of France, is the robust Atlas on whose mighty

shoulders rests this world of erudition. As the ripe fruit of the

thought of 1860 it must forever keep a place among the most curious of

works of _art_. Moved by the restless demon of science, determined to

kill superstition—and, as a consequence, spiritism—at one blow, the

author affords us a summary view of the most remarkable instances of

mediumistic phenomena during the last two centuries.

The discussion embraces the Prophets of Cevennes, the Camisards, the

Jansenists, the Abbé Paris, and other historical epidemics, which,

as they have been described during the last twenty years by nearly

every writer upon the modern phenomena, we will mention as briefly

as possible. It is not _facts_ that we desire to bring again under {370}

discussion, but merely the way in which such facts were regarded and

treated by those who, as physicians and recognized authorities, had the

greater responsibility in such questions. If this prejudiced author is

introduced to our readers at this time, it is only because his work

enables us to show what occult facts and manifestations may expect from

orthodox science. When the most world-renowned psychological epidemics

are so treated, what will induce a materialist to seriously study

other phenomena as well authenticated and as interesting, but still

less popular? Let it be remembered that the reports made by various

committees to their respective academies at that time, as well as the

records of the judicial tribunals, are still in existence, and may be

consulted for purposes of verification. It is from such unimpeachable

sources that Dr. Figuier compiled his extraordinary work. We must give,

at least, in substance, the unparalleled arguments with which the

author seeks to demolish every form of supernaturalism, together with

the commentaries of the demonological des Mousseaux, who, in one of his

works,[594] pounces upon his skeptical victim like a tiger upon his

prey.

Between the two champions—the materialist and the bigot—the unbiassed

student may glean a good harvest.

We will begin with the Convulsionaires of Cevennes, the epidemic of

whose astounding phenomena occurred during the latter part of 1700. The

merciless measures adopted by the French Catholics to extirpate the

spirit of prophecy from an entire population, is historical, and needs

no repetition here. The fact alone that a mere handful of men, women,

and children, not exceeding 2,000 persons in number, could withstand

for years king’s troops, which, with the militia, amounted to 60,000

men, is a miracle in itself. The marvels are all recorded, and the

_procès verbaux_ of the time preserved in the Archives of France until

this day. There is in existence an official report among others, which

was sent to Rome by the ferocious Abbé Chayla, the prior of Laval, in

which he complains that the _Evil One_ is so powerful, that no torture,

no amount of inquisitory exorcism, is able to dislodge him from the

Cevennois. He adds, that he closed their hands upon burning coals, and

they were not even singed; that he had wrapped their whole persons in

_cotton soaked with oil, and had set them on fire_, and in many cases

did not find one blister on their skins; that balls were shot at them,

and found flattened between the skin and clothes, without injuring

them, etc., etc.

Accepting the whole of the above as a solid groundwork for his

learned arguments, this is what Dr. Figuier says: “Toward the close

of the seventeenth century, an old maid imports into Cevennes the {371}

spirit of prophecy. She communicates it (?) to young boys and girls,

who transpire it in their turn, and spread it in the surrounding

atmosphere.... Women and children become the most sensitive to the

infection” (vol. ii., p. 261). “Men, women, and _babies_ speak under

inspiration, not in ordinary _patois_, but in the purest French—a

language at that time utterly unknown in the country. Children of

twelve months, and even less, as we learn from the _procès verbaux_,

who previously could hardly utter a few short syllables, spoke

fluently, and prophesied.” “Eight thousand prophets,” says Figuier,

“were scattered over the country; doctors and eminent physicians were

sent for.” Half of the medical schools of France, among others, the

Faculty of Montpellier, hastened to the spot. Consultations were held,

and the physicians declared themselves “delighted, lost in wonder and

admiration, upon hearing young girls and boys, ignorant and illiterate,

deliver discourses on things _they had never learned_.”[595] The

sentence pronounced by Figuier against these treacherous professional

brethren, for being so delighted with the young prophets, is that they

“did not understand, themselves, what they saw.”[596] Many of the

prophets forcibly communicated their spirit to those who tried to break

the spell.[597] A great number of them were _between three and twelve

years_ of age; still others _were at the breast_, and spoke French

distinctly and correctly.[598] These discourses, which often lasted for

several hours, would have been impossible to the little orators, were

the latter in their natural or normal state.[599]

“Now,” asks the reviewer, “what was the meaning of such a series of

prodigies, all of them freely admitted in Figuier’s book? No meaning

at all! It was nothing,” he says, “except the effect of a ‘momentary

exaltation of the intellectual faculties.’”[600] “These phenomena,” he

adds, “are observable in many of the cerebral affections.”

“_Momentary exaltation_, lasting for many hours _in the brains of

babies under one year old_, not weaned yet, speaking good French before

they had learned to say one word in their own _patois_! Oh, miracle of

physiology! _Prodigy_ ought to be thy name!” exclaims des Mousseaux.

“Dr. Calmeil, in his work on insanity,” remarks Figuier, “when

reporting on the ecstatic _theomania_ of the Calvinists, concludes

that the disease must be attributed “in the simpler cases to HYSTERIA,

and in those of more serious character to _epilepsy_.... We rather

incline to the opinion,” says Figuier, “that it was a disease _sui {372}

generis_, and in order to have an appropriate name for such a disease,

we must be satisfied with the one of the Trembling Convulsionaires of

Cevennes.”[601]

_Theomania_ and _hysteria_, again! The medical corporations must

themselves be possessed with an incurable _atomomania_; otherwise why

should they give out such absurdities for science, and hope for their

acceptance?

“Such was the fury for exorcising and _roasting_,” continues Figuier,

“that monks saw possessions by demons everywhere when they felt in need

of miracles to either throw more light on the omnipotency of the Devil,

or keep their dinner-pot boiling at the convent.”[602]

For this sarcasm the pious des Mousseaux expresses a heartfelt

gratitude to Figuier; for, as he remarks, “he is _in France_ one of

the first writers whom we find, to our surprise, _not denying_ the

phenomena which have been made long since _undeniable_. Moved by a

sense of lofty superiority and even disdain for the method used by his

predecessors. Dr. Figuier desires his readers to know that he does

_not_ follow the same path as they. ‘We will not reject,’ says he, ‘as

being unworthy of credit, _facts_ only because they are embarrassing

for our system. On the contrary, we will collect all of the facts that

the same historical evidence has transmitted to us ... and which,

consequently, are entitled to the same credence, and it is upon the

whole mass of such facts that we will base the _natural explanation_,

which we have to offer, in our turn, as a sequel to those of the

savants who have preceded us on this subject.’”[603]

Thereupon, Dr. Figuier proceeds.[604] He takes a few steps, and,

placing himself right in the midst of the Convulsionaires of St.

Medard, he invites his readers to scrutinize, under his direction,

_prodigies_ which are for him but simple effects of nature.

But before we proceed, in our turn, to show Dr. Figuier’s opinion, we

must refresh the reader’s memory as to what the Jansenist miracles

comprised, according to historical evidence.

Abbé Paris was a Jansenist, who died in 1727. Immediately after his

decease the most surprising phenomena began to occur at his tomb. The

churchyard was crowded from morning till night. Jesuits, exasperated at

seeing heretics perform wonders in healing, and other works, got from

the magistrates an order to close all access to the tomb of the Abbé.

But, notwithstanding every opposition, the wonders lasted for over

twenty years. Bishop Douglas, who went to Paris for that sole purpose

in 1749, visited the place, and he reports that the miracles were

still going on among the Convulsionaires. When every endeavor to stop

them failed, the Catholic clergy were forced to admit their reality, {373}

but screened themselves, as usual, behind the Devil. Hume, in his

_Philosophical Essays_, says: “There surely never was so great a number

of miracles ascribed to one person as those which were lately said to

have been wrought in France upon the tomb of the Abbé Paris. The curing

of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind, were

everywhere talked of as the effects of the holy sepulchre. But, what

is more extraordinary, many of the miracles were immediately proved

_upon the spot_, before judges of unquestioned credit and distinction,

in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the

world ... nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, supported by the

civil magistrates, and determined enemies to those opinions in whose

favor the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able distinctly

to refute or detect them ... such is historic evidence.”[605] Dr.

Middleton, in his _Free Enquiry_, a book which he wrote at a period

when the manifestations were already decreasing, _i. e._, about

nineteen years after they had first begun, declares that the evidence

of these miracles is fully as strong as that of the wonders recorded of

the Apostles.

The phenomena so well authenticated by thousands of witnesses before

magistrates, and in spite of the Catholic clergy, are among the most

wonderful in history. Carré de Montgeron, a member of parliament

and a man who became famous for his connection with the Jansenists,

enumerates them carefully in his work. It comprises four thick quarto

volumes, of which the first is dedicated to the king, under the title:

“_La Verité des Miracles operés par l’Intercession de M. de Paris,

demontrée contre l’Archeveque de Sens. Ouvrage dedié au Roi, par M.

de Montgeron, Conseiller au Parlement._” The author presents a vast

amount of personal and official evidence to the truthfulness of every

case. For speaking _disrespectfully_ of the Roman clergy, Montgeron was

thrown into the Bastile, but his work was accepted.

And now for the views of Dr. Figuier upon these remarkable and

unquestionably historical phenomena. “A Convulsionary bends back into

an arc, her loins supported by the sharp point of a peg,” quotes the

learned author, from the _procès verbaux_. “The pleasure that she begs

for is to be pounded by a stone weighing fifty pounds, and suspended

by a rope passing over a pulley fixed to the ceiling. The stone, being

hoisted to its extreme height, falls with all its weight upon the

patient’s stomach, her back resting all the while on the sharp point of

the peg. Montgeron and numerous other witnesses testified to the fact

that neither the flesh nor the skin of the back were ever marked in the

least, and that the girl, to show she suffered no pain whatever, kept

crying out, ‘Strike harder—harder!’

“Jeanne Maulet, a girl of twenty, leaning with her back against a wall, {374}

received upon her stomach one hundred blows of a hammer weighing thirty

pounds; the blows, administered by a very strong man, were so terrible

that they shook the wall. To test the force of the blows, Montgeron

tried them on the stone wall against which the girl was leaning.... He

gets one of the instruments of the Jansenist healing, called the ‘GRAND

SECOURS.’ At the twenty-fifth blow,” he writes, “the stone upon which I

struck, which had been shaken by the preceding efforts, suddenly became

loose and fell on the other side of the wall, making an aperture more

than half a foot in size.” When the blows are struck with violence

upon an iron drill held against the stomach of a Convulsionaire (who,

sometimes, is but a weak woman), “it seems,” says Montgeron, “as if

it would penetrate through to the spine and rupture all the entrails

under the force of the blows” (vol. i., p. 380). “But, so far from that

occurring, the Convulsionaire cries out, with an expression of perfect

rapture in her face, ‘Oh, how delightful! Oh, that does me good!

Courage, brother; strike twice as hard, if you can!’ It now remains,”

continues Dr. Figuier, “to try to explain the strange phenomena which

we have described.”

“We have said, in the introduction to this work, that at the middle of

the nineteenth century one of the most famous epidemics of possession

broke out in Germany: that of the _Nonnains_, who performed all the

miracles most admired since the days of St. Medard, and even some

greater ones; who turned summersaults, who CLIMBED DEAD WALLS, and

spoke FOREIGN LANGUAGES.”[606]

The official report of the wonders, which is more full than that of

Figuier, adds such further particulars as that “the affected persons

would stand on their heads for hours together, and correctly describe

distant events, even such as were happening in the homes of the

committee-men; as it was subsequently verified. Men and women were held

suspended in the air, by an invisible force, and the combined efforts

of the committee were insufficient to pull them down. Old women climbed

perpendicular walls thirty feet in height with the agility of wild

cats, etc., etc.”

Now, one should expect that the learned critic, the eminent physician

and psychologist, who not only credits such incredible phenomena but

himself describes them minutely, and _con amore_, so to say, would

necessarily startle the reading public with some explanation so

extraordinary that his scientific views would cause a real hegira to

the unexplored fields of psychology. Well, he does startle us, for to {375}

all this he quietly observes: “Recourse _was had to marriage_ to bring

to a stop these disorders of the Convulsionaires!”[607]

For once des Mousseaux had the best of his enemy: “Marriage, do you

understand this?” he remarks. “Marriage cures them of this faculty

of climbing dead-walls like so many flies, and of speaking foreign

languages. Oh! the curious properties of marriage in those remarkable

days!”

“It should be added,” continues Figuier, “that with the fanatics of St.

Medard, the blows were never administered except during the convulsive

crisis; and that, therefore, as Dr. Calmeil suggests, meteorism of

the abdomen, the _state of spasm_ of the uterus of women, of the

alimentary canal in all cases, the state of _contraction, of erethism,

of turgescence of the carneous envelopes of the muscular coats_ which

protect and cover the abdomen, chest, and principal vascular masses and

the osseous surfaces, _may have singularly contributed toward reducing,

and even destroying_, the force of the blows!”

“The astounding resistance that the skin, the areolar tissue, the

surface of the bodies and limbs of the Convulsionaires offered to

things which seem as if they ought to have torn or crushed them, is of

a nature to excite more surprise. Nevertheless, it can be explained.

This resisting force, this insensibility, seems to partake of the

extreme changes in sensibility which can occur in the animal economy

during a time of great exaltation. Anger, fear, in a word, every

passion, provided that it be carried to a paroxysmal point, can produce

this insensibility.”[608]

“Let us remark, besides,” rejoins Dr. Calmeil, quoted by Figuier, “that

for striking upon the bodies of the Convulsionaires use was made either

of massive objects with flat or rounded surfaces, or of cylindrical

and blunt shapes.[609] The action of such physical agents is not to be

compared, in respect to the danger which attaches to it, with that of

cords, supple or flexible instruments, and those having a sharp edge.

In fine, the contact and the shock of the blows produced upon the

Convulsionaires _the effect of a salutary shampooing_, and reduced the

violence of the tortures of HYSTERIA.”

The reader will please observe that this is not intended as a joke, but

is the sober theory of one of the most eminent of French physicians,

hoary with age and experience, the Director-in-Chief of the Government

Insane Asylum at Charenton. Really, the above explanation might lead

the reader to a strange suspicion. We might imagine, perhaps, that Dr. {376}

Calmeil has kept company with the patients under his care a few more

years than was good for the healthy action of his own brain.

Besides, when Figuier talks of massive objects, of cylindrical and

blunt shapes, he surely forgets the sharp swords, pointed iron pegs,

and the hatchets, of which he himself gave a graphic description on

page 409 of his first volume. The brother of Elie Marion is shown by

him striking his stomach and abdomen with the sharp point of a knife,

with tremendous force, “his body all the while resisting as if it were

made of iron.”

Arrived at this point, des Mousseaux loses all patience, and

indignantly exclaims:

“Was the learned physician quite awake when writing the above

sentences?... If, perchance, the Drs. Calmeil and Figuier should

seriously maintain their assertions and insist on their theory, we are

ready to answer them as follows: ‘We are perfectly willing to believe

you. But before such a superhuman effort of condescension, will you not

demonstrate to us the truth of your theory in a more practical manner?

Let us, for example, develop in you a violent and terrible passion;

anger—rage if you choose. You shall permit us for a single moment to be

in your sight irritating, rude, and insulting. Of course, we will be so

only at _your request_ and in the interest of science and your cause.

Our duty under the contract will consist in humiliating and provoking

you to the last extremity. Before a public audience, who shall know

nothing of our agreement, but whom you must satisfy as to your

assertions, we will insult you; ... we will tell you that your writings

are an ambuscade to truth, an insult to common sense, a disgrace which

paper only can bear; but which the public should chastise. We will add

that _you lie to science_, you lie to the ears of the ignorant and

stupid fools gathered around you, open-mouthed, like the crowd around

a peddling quack.... And when, transported beyond yourself, your face

ablaze, and anger _tumefying_, you shall have _displaced your fluids_;

when your fury has reached the point of bursting, we will cause your

_turgescent_ muscles to be struck with powerful blows; your friends

shall show us the most insensible places; we will let a perfect shower,

an avalanche of stones fall upon them ... for so was treated the flesh

of the convulsed women whose appetite for such blows could never be

satisfied. But, in order to procure for you the gratification of a

_salutary shampooing_—as you deliciously express it—your limbs shall

only be pounded with objects having _blunt surfaces and cylindrical

shapes_, with clubs and sticks devoid of suppleness, and, if you prefer

it, neatly turned in a lathe.”

So liberal is des Mousseaux, so determined to accommodate his

antagonists with every possible chance to prove their theory, that he {377}

offers them the choice to substitute for themselves in the experiment

their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters, “since,” he says, “you

have remarked that the weaker sex is the strong and resistant sex in

these disconcerting trials.”

Useless to remark that des Mousseaux’s challenge remained unanswered.

CHAPTER XI. {378}

“Strange condition of the human mind, which seems to require

that it should long exercise itself in Error, before it dare

approach the Truth.”—MAGENDIE.

“La verité que je defends est empreinte sur tous les monuments

du passé. Pour comprendre l’histoire, il faut etudier les

symboles anciens, les signes sacrés du sacerdoce, et l’art de

guerir dans les temps primitifs, art oublié aujourd’hui.”

—BARON DU POTET.

“It is a truth perpetually, that accumulated facts, lying in

disorder, begin to assume some order if an hypothesis is thrown

among them.”—HERBERT SPENCER.

And now we must search Magical History for cases similar to those

given in the preceding chapter. This insensibility of the human body

to the impact of heavy blows, and resistance to penetration by sharp

points and musket-bullets, is a phenomenon sufficiently familiar in the

experience of all times and all countries. While science is entirely

unable to give any reasonable explanation of the mystery, the question

appears to offer no difficulty to mesmerists, who have well studied

the properties of the fluid. The man, who by a few passes over a limb

can produce a local paralysis so as to render it utterly insensible

to burns, cuts, and the prickings of needles, need be but very little

astonished at the phenomena of the Jansenists. As to the adepts of

magic, especially in Siam and the East Indies, they are too familiar

with the properties of the _akasa_, the mysterious life-fluid, to

even regard the insensibility of the Convulsionaires as a very great

phenomenon. The astral fluid can be compressed about a person so as

to form an elastic shell, absolutely non-penetrable by any physical

object, however great the velocity with which it travels. In a word,

this fluid can be made to equal and even excel in resisting-power,

water and air.

In India, Malabar, and some places of Central Africa, the conjurers

will freely permit any traveller to fire his musket or revolver at

them, without touching the weapon themselves or selecting the balls.

In Laing’s _Travels among Timanni, the Kourankos, and the Soulimas_,

occurs a description by an English traveller, the first white man to

visit the tribe of the Soulimas, near the sources of the Dialliba, of

a very curious scene. A body of picked soldiers fired upon a chief who

had nothing to defend himself with but certain talismans. Although

their muskets were properly loaded and aimed, not a ball could strike

him. Salverte gives a similar case in his _Philosophy of Occult

Sciences_: “In 1568, the Prince of Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner

to be shot at Juliers; the soldiers tied him to a tree and fired, but {379}

he was invulnerable. They at last stripped him to see what armor he

wore, but found only an _amulet_. When this was taken from him, _he

fell dead at the first shot_.”