THE PHANTASMAL DOUBLE
According to Adolphe d'Assier, member of the Bordeaux Academy of
Sciences, there is no doubt that the existence of the personality in
animals as a separate appearance is established, and as it is a
replica of the external form of the animal, he regards it as a living
and phantasmal image.[168] He cites the following stories in support
of his theory.
"Towards the end of 1869, finding myself at Bordeaux, I met one
evening a friend who was going to a magnetic _séance_, and asked me to
accompany him. I accepted his invitation, desiring to see magnetism at
close quarters. The _séance_ presented nothing remarkable. I was,
however, struck with one unexpected circumstance. Towards the middle
of the evening one of the persons present, having noticed a spider on
the floor, crushed it with his foot.
"'Ah!' cried the medium at the same moment, 'I see the spirit of the
spider escaping.'
"In the language of mediums, as we know, the word _spirit_ designates
that which I have called the posthumous phantom.
"'What is the form of the spirit?' asked the hypnotiser.
"'It has the form of a spider,' answered the medium.'"
This little incident, which recalls the ghost of a flea pictured by
William Blake, the artist, and Dr. Reichenbach's dying mouse, led
d'Assier to study the question of the duplication of personality
among domestic animals. After some investigation he was sure that the
medium's vision of a spirit spider was the reality, and he quotes
other examples of phantasmal doubles.
On April 18th, 1705, M. Milanges de la Richardière, son of an advocate
to the Parliament of Paris, when riding through Noisy-le-Grand, was
surprised when his horse came to a dead stop in the middle of the
road. At the same moment he saw a shepherd, of sinister countenance,
carrying a crook, and accompanied by two black dogs with short ears.
The man said, "Go home, sir. Your horse will not go forward."
At first the rider laughed, and then finding he could not make his
horse advance an inch, he was forced to return, against his will. Some
days later he was taken ill, and doctors were called in, who finding
that his complaint did not yield to ordinary remedies, began to talk
of sorcery. Young Milanges then confessed to his meeting with the
strange shepherd and his dogs, and a few days later, to his surprise,
when entering his own room, he saw the shepherd sitting in an
arm-chair, dressed as he had seen him before, holding the crook still
in his hand, and with the two black dogs by his side. In his terror
the young man called for his servants, but they could not see the
phantom man and animals.
At about ten o'clock the same night, however, the ghostly shepherd
flung himself at the young man, who drew a knife from his pocket and
made five or six cuts at his adversary's face.
A few days later the shepherd came to the house and confessed that he
was a sorcerer and had persecuted M. Milanges. He had transported his
double into the young man's chamber, as well as the phantasmal doubles
of his black dogs.
The existence of the living phantom, thus being proved to M.
d'Assier's satisfaction, he conceives that a posthumous phantom is
merely the continuation, as it were, of the living double. A story of
such an animal apparition was given to him by an educated and
reliable farmer at St. Croix, Ariège.
"One of my comrades," said the farmer, "was returning home at a late
hour of the night. At some distance from his house, which was situated
on a lonely farm, he saw an ass browsing in an oat-field by the side
of the road. Moved by a feeling of neighbourly interest, natural among
farmers, he intended to take the unprofitable guest out of the field,
and advanced to seize the ass and lead it to his own stable so that
its owner might claim it. The animal allowed him to approach without
difficulty and to lead it away without resistance. But at the very
door of his stable the ass suddenly disappeared out of his grasp, like
a shadow vanishing. In a fright at this uncanny incident, the farmer
woke up his brother to tell him what had occurred, and in the morning
they went to the oat-field, anxious to see whether much havoc had been
done to the crops, but could find no trace of the oats having been
touched or trampled upon."
The night was clear and there was no cloud in the sky. The young man,
when closely questioned, asserted again and again that he had distinctly
seen the ass vanish before his eyes at the door of the stable.
D'Assier's explanation is that the animal's spectre, originating on
the same principle as the human spectre, exhibits posthumous
manifestations analogous to those observed in the latter cases. The
ass of St. Croix was met with at night because, like the posthumous
phantom of a human being, he shuns daylight. "He is in an oat-field,
pasturing according to the instinctive habit of his race, but in
reality browses (as one would naturally infer) but the phantom of
grass or grain. He follows his leader whilst they are upon the road,
but refuses to enter the stable, which is for him a prison, and
vanishes in order to escape it. Here we have the essential features of
posthumous manifestations: and if the young man had inquired among his
neighbours, he would have learned, in all probability, that some time
previously a beast of burden had died and been buried on a
neighbouring farm."[169]
A similar story was told by a Customs officer, and is equally authentic.
"One evening when I happened to be on guard, with one of my comrades,"
said the officer, "we perceived not far from the village where I lived,
a mule which grazed before us and seemed as though laden. Supposing that
he was carrying contraband goods, and that his master had fled on seeing
us, we ran after the animal. The mule dashed into a meadow and after
having made different bolts to escape us, he entered the village, and
here we separated. Whilst my companion continued to follow him, I took a
cross road so as to head him off. Seeing himself closely pressed, the
animal quickened his pace, and several of the inhabitants were awakened
by the noise of his hoofs clattering on the pavement. I got in front of
him to the crossing, at the end of the street, through which he was
fleeing, and at the moment when, seeing him close to me, I put out my
hand to seize his halter, he disappeared like a shade, and I saw nothing
but my comrade, who was as amazed as myself."
"Are you quite sure that he hadn't turned aside into another road?"
asked d'Assier of the Customs officer who told him the story.
"That would have been quite impossible: the place where we were had no
outlet, and the only way he could get away was by passing over my
body: and, besides, the night was clear enough for us to see all his
movements. Next morning the inhabitants of the village were
cross-questioning each other about the racket they had heard in the
night."
"Like the ass of St. Croix," continues d'Assier, "and like all
posthumous phantoms, our mule shows himself at night. He is met in a
pasture all absorbed in his favourite occupation, that is to say,
browsing imaginary grass. As soon as he finds himself tracked by the
Customs officers he takes flight, as though he were really carrying
contraband goods in his panniers, and he vanishes when he sees himself
about to be captured--all things which characterise the
post-sepulchral Spectre."
"In certain cases, not yet well defined," adds the same author,[170]
"our internal personality may, by reason of its fluidic nature, take on
animal forms. Hence, when one is in the presence of the spectre of an
animal, there is some reason to apprehend that this may be a
lycanthropic manifestation of the human phantom, unless certain
particularities identify its true origin. But I have said enough," he
concludes, "to establish the existence of the fluid form-personality in
animals and to demonstrate that the post-sepulchral humanity is but one
particular case of a more general law--that of posthumous animality."
Another story of animal transformation is regarded by d'Assier as
being a case of lycanthropia.
Two brothers occupied a house at St. Lizier, one of whom tells the
story as follows:--
"I lived at that time in one of those little houses that you can see
at the upper end of the town. I was about twelve years old and my
brother was about seventeen. We slept together in a room to which we
ascended by a small staircase. One evening we had just gone to bed
when we heard someone ascending the steps. Then an animal about the
size of a calf appeared. As the window had no blinds and the night was
clear, it was easy for us to make out the animal's shape. Frightened
at the sight of it, I clung to my brother, who at the first moment
seemed as frightened as myself. But, recovering from his terror, he
leaped out of bed, ran and caught up a pitchfork which was in the
corner of the room, and, placing himself before the animal, said to it
in a firm and resolute voice:
"'If thou comest by permission of God, speak: if from the devil, thou
wilt have to deal with me.'
"Thus encountered, the animal wheeled swiftly round, and in turning it
struck the framework of my bed with its tail. I then heard it descend
the staircase precipitately, but as soon as it arrived at the bottom
it disappeared and my brother, who was close behind it, was unable to
see where it went. It is unnecessary to add that the door of the house
was fast shut. As soon as I heard it descend the stairs I took courage
and as the window of our room was over the street door I opened it to
watch the strange visitor go out, but I saw nothing. My brother and I
thought we had seen a wer-wolf and we accused an inhabitant of the
vicinity, to whom were charged other adventures of this kind."
A more explicit case of lycanthropy occurred at Serisols, in the
Canton of St. Croix, about sixty years ago.
A miller called Bigot had a reputation for sorcery. One day when his
wife rose very early to go and wash some linen not very far from the
house, he tried to dissuade her, repeating to her several times, "Do
not go there: you will be frightened."
"Why should I be frightened?" she asked.
"I tell you you will be frightened," repeated her husband.
She did not take his threats seriously and went out in spite of them.
Hardly had she taken her place at the washing-tub, however, before she
saw an animal moving here and there in front of her. It was not yet
daylight, and she could not clearly make out its shape, but she
thought it was a kind of a dog. Annoyed by its restless movements and
not being able to scare it away, she threw her wooden clothes-beater
at it, and the tool hit the animal in the eye. Immediately the
creature disappeared and at the same moment Bigot's children heard him
utter a cry of pain from his bed and shout out, "Ah! the wretch! She
has destroyed my eye." From that day he was blind in one eye, so that
undoubtedly this animal was not an animal double, but the miller's
double in animal form.
D'Assier describes an epidemic of "obsession," or possession by demons,
which occurred in 1857 at Morzine, in Savoy, and lasted until 1863, many
young women and animals being attacked by a peculiar affliction. The
atmosphere of Morzine, he says, "was impregnated with a foreign fluid
(aura) since all that was required was to give change of air to ensure
escape from the clutches of the disease. In certain families the
domestic animals ate nothing, or satisfied themselves by gnawing the
wood of their mangers; at other times it was the cows, goats, or sheep
which gave no more milk, and what little some yielded was unfit for
making into butter. These phenomena especially showed themselves in
families where there were patients. Occasionally the sickness was
transferred from persons to animals, and vice versa. If a young girl was
relieved, a beast in the stable fell sick; and if the latter was cured
the young girl relapsed into her former state. In face of such facts it
was no longer possible to talk about obsession. The pest bursting forth
simultaneously in houses and cattle-sheds, could only be ascribed to a
physical cause, and the disorders that it provoked in persons attacked
showed clearly that these phenomena were due to an excess or a
degeneration of the mesmeric fluid...."[171] As a remedy, d'Assier
suggests that "Obsession being an abnormal afflux of magnetic fluid upon
the nervous system of the patient, the direct remedy is naturally the
neutralisation of this fluid by a current of cerebral ether turned in
the opposite direction and emanating from an energetic will."
Paracelsus, meaning probably much the same thing, declared that the
astral currents produced by the imagination and will of man produced
certain states in external Nature. The vehicle through which the will
acts for effectuating good or evil he calls the living Mumia. The Mumia
of a thing is its life-principle, a vehicle containing the essence of
life. Exerting great power, it can be used in witchcraft and sorcery.
"Witches," he says in "De Pestilitate," "may make a bargain with evil
spirits, and cause them to carry the Mumia to certain places where it
will come into contact with other people, without the knowledge of the
latter, and cause them harm." Thus diseases are spread, milk spoilt and
cattle infected, the injured people not knowing the cause of the evils
with which they are afflicted.
A curious story of bewitched cattle and "blue milk" is told by Franz
Hartmann in his "Life of Paracelsus,"[172] in which a kind of animal
demon appears to have "possessed" the cattle.
At a farmhouse not far from Munich the milk turned blue. It had been
deposited in the usual place and darkened gradually, appearing first a
light blue, and becoming of inky hue, while the layer of cream
exhibited zigzag lines and shortly the whole mass began to putrefy and
to emit a horrible smell. This occurred for many days running, and the
farmer began to despair, for he could not discover the cause of the
trouble. The stable was thoroughly cleansed, the place where the milk
was kept was changed, a different food was given to the cattle, and
samples of the milk were sent to Munich to be examined by chemists;
the old milk-pots were replaced by new ones, and so on, but nothing
produced an improvement in the existing state of affairs.
At last a Countess who resided in the neighbourhood hearing about the
matter, went to the farmhouse. She took with her a clean new bottle,
and filled it with the milk as it came from the bewitched cows. She
placed the bottle in her own pantry, and from that day the trouble at
the farm ceased, but all the milk at her own house turned blue.
This went on for three months, during which time everything that could
possibly be done was done to discover the cause of the milk being in
this condition. Then an old lady who lived hundreds of miles off,
having been appealed to, laid a spell by her own occult powers,
writing certain incantations on slips of paper which effected a cure
of the trouble. But before it ceased, a strange thing happened. As one
of the milkmaids was about to enter the stable before daybreak, a huge
black demon, in animal form, rushed out of the half-opened door,
knocked the milk-pail and lantern out of her hands, and disappeared
before she could awaken the household. After this all went well again.
An apparition of this character may be regarded as belonging to the
familiars or elementals rather than to the animal-ghosts.
FOOTNOTES:
[168] "Posthumous Humanity," 1887.
[169] _Ibid._, pp. 74-6.
[170] _Op. cit._, p. 80.
[171] "Posthumous Humanity," 1887, pp. 247-8.
[172] 1896, p. 154.