Transition from Dreams to Waking Hallucinations. Popular Scepticism
about the Existence of Hallucinations in the Sane. Evidence of Mr.
Francis Galton, F.R.S. Scientific Disbelief in ordinary Mental
Imagery. Scientific Men who do not see in "the Mind's Eye". Ordinary
People who do. Frequency of Waking Hallucinations among Mr. Gallon's
friends. Kept Private till asked for by Science. Causes of such
Hallucinations unknown. Story of the Diplomatist. Voluntary or
Induced Hallucinations. Crystal Gazing. Its Universality.
Experience of George Sand. Nature of such Visions. Examples.
Novelists. Crystal Visions only "Ghostly" when Veracious. Modern
Examples. Under the Lamp. The Cow with the Bell Historical Example.
Prophetic Crystal Vision. St. Simon The Regent d'Orleans. The
Deathbed of Louis XIV. References for other Cases of Crystal Visions.
From dreams, in sleep or swoon, of a character difficult to believe in
we pass by way of "hallucinations" to ghosts. Everybody is ready to
admit that dreams do really occur, because almost everybody has
dreamed. But everybody is not so ready to admit that sane and
sensible men and women can have hallucinations, just because everybody
has not been hallucinated.
On this point Mr. Francis Galton, in his Inquiries into Human Faculty
(1833), is very instructive. Mr. Galton drew up a short catechism,
asking people how clearly or how dimly they saw things "in their
mind's eye".
"Think of your breakfast-table," he said; "is your mental picture of
it as clearly illuminated and as complete as your actual view of the
scene?" Mr. Galton began by questioning friends in the scientific
world, F.R.S.'s and other savants. "The earliest results of my
inquiry amazed me. . . . The great majority of the men of science to
whom I first applied, protested that _mental imagery was unknown to
them_, and they looked on me as fanciful and fantastic in supposing
that the words 'mental imagery' really expressed what I believed
everybody supposed them to mean." One gentleman wrote: "It is only
by a figure of speech that I can describe my recollection of a scene
as a 'mental image' which I can 'see' with 'my mind's eye'. I do not
see it," so he seems to have supposed that nobody else did.
When he made inquiries in general society, Mr. Galton found plenty of
people who "saw" mental imagery with every degree of brilliance or
dimness, from "quite comparable to the real object" to "I recollect
the table, but do not see it"--my own position.
Mr. Galton was next "greatly struck by the frequency of the replies in
which my correspondents" (sane and healthy) "described themselves as
subject to 'visions'". These varied in degree, "some were so vivid as
actually to deceive the judgment". Finally, "a notable proportion of
sane persons have had not only visions, but actual hallucinations of
sight at one or more periods of their life. I have a considerable
packet of instances contributed by my personal friends." Thus one
"distinguished authoress" saw "the principal character of one of her
novels glide through the door straight up to her. It was about the
size of a large doll." Another heard unreal music, and opened the
door to hear it better. Another was plagued by voices, which said
"Pray," and so forth.
Thus, on scientific evidence, sane and healthy people may, and "in a
notable proportion _do_, experience hallucinations". That is to say,
they see persons, or hear them, or believe they are touched by them,
or all their senses are equally affected at once, when no such persons
are really present. This kind of thing is always going on, but "when
popular opinion is of a matter-of-fact kind, the seers of visions keep
quiet; they do not like to be thought fanciful or mad, and they hide
their experiences, which only come to light through inquiries such as
those that I have been making".
We may now proceed to the waking hallucinations of sane and healthy
people, which Mr. Galton declares to be so far from uncommon. Into
the _causes_ of these hallucinations which may actually deceive the
judgment, Mr. Galton does not enter.
STORY OF THE DIPLOMATIST {56a}
For example, there is a living diplomatist who knows men and cities,
and has, moreover, a fine sense of humour. "My Lord," said a famous
Russian statesman to him, "you have all the qualities of a
diplomatist, but you cannot control your smile." This gentleman,
walking alone in a certain cloister at Cambridge, met a casual
acquaintance, a well-known London clergyman, and was just about
shaking hands with him, when the clergyman vanished. Nothing in
particular happened to either of them; the clergyman was not in the
seer's mind at the moment.
This is a good example of a solitary hallucination in the experience
of a very cool-headed observer. The _causes_ of such experiences are
still a mystery to science. Even people who believe in "mental
telegraphy," say when a distant person, at death or in any other
crisis, impresses himself as present on the senses of a friend, cannot
account for an experience like that of the diplomatist, an experience
not very uncommon, and little noticed except when it happens to
coincide with some remarkable event. {56b} Nor are such
hallucinations of an origin easily detected, like those of delirium,
insanity, intoxication, grief, anxiety, or remorse. We can only
suppose that a past impression of the aspect of a friend is recalled
by some association of ideas so vividly that (though we are not
_consciously_ thinking of him) we conceive the friend to be actually
present in the body when he is absent.
These hallucinations are casual and unsought. But between these and
the dreams of sleep there is a kind of waking hallucinations which
some people can purposely evoke. Such are the visions of _crystal
gazing_.
Among the superstitions of almost all ages and countries is the belief
that "spirits" will show themselves, usually after magical ceremonies,
to certain persons, commonly children, who stare into a crystal ball,
a cup, a mirror, a blob of ink (in Egypt and India), a drop of blood
(among the Maoris of New Zealand), a bowl of water (Red Indian), a
pond (Roman and African), water in a glass bowl (in Fez), or almost
any polished surface. The magical ceremonies, which have probably
nothing to do with the matter, have succeeded in making this old and
nearly universal belief seem a mere fantastic superstition. But
occasionally a person not superstitious has recorded this experience.
Thus George Sand in her Histoire de ma Vie mentions that, as a little
girl, she used to see wonderful moving landscapes in the polished back
of a screen. These were so vivid that she thought they must be
visible to others.
Recent experiments have proved that an unexpected number of people
have this faculty. Gazing into a ball of crystal or glass, a crystal
or other smooth ring stone, such as a sapphire or ruby, or even into a
common ink-pot, they will see visions very brilliant. These are often
mere reminiscences of faces or places, occasionally of faces or places
sunk deep below the ordinary memory. Still more frequently they
represent fantastic landscapes and romantic scenes, as in an
historical novel, with people in odd costumes coming, going and
acting. Thus I have been present when a lady saw in a glass ball a
man in white Oriental costume kneeling beside a leaping fountain of
fire. Presently a hand appeared pointing downwards through the flame.
The _first_ vision seen pretty often represents an invalid in bed.
Printed words are occasionally read in the glass, as also happens in
the visions beheld with shut eyes before sleeping.
All these kinds of things, in fact, are common in our visions between
sleeping and waking (illusions hypnagogiques). The singularity is
that they are seen by people wide awake in glass balls and so forth.
Usually the seer is a person whose ordinary "mental imagery" is
particularly vivid. But every "visualiser" is not a crystal seer. A
novelist of my acquaintance can "visualise" so well that, having
forgotten an address and lost the letter on which it was written, he
called up a mental picture of the letter, and so discovered the
address. But this very popular writer can see no visions in a crystal
ball. Another very popular novelist can see them; little dramas are
acted out in the ball for his edification. {58}
These things are as unfamiliar to men of science as Mr. Galton found
ordinary mental imagery, pictures in memory, to be. Psychology may or
may not include them in her province; they may or may not come to be
studied as ordinary dreams are studied. But, like dreams, these
crystal visions enter the domain of the ghostly only when they are
_veracious_, and contribute information previously unknown as to past,
present or future. There are plenty of stories to this effect. To
begin with an easy, or comparatively easy, exercise in belief.
UNDER THE LAMP
I had given a glass ball to a young lady, who believed that she could
play the "willing game" successfully without touching the person
"willed," and when the person did not even know that "willing" was
going on. This lady, Miss Baillie, had scarcely any success with the
ball. She lent it to Miss Leslie, who saw a large, square, old-
fashioned red sofa covered with muslin, which she found in the next
country house she visited. Miss Baillie's brother, a young athlete
(at short odds for the amateur golf championship), laughed at these
experiments, took the ball into the study, and came back looking "gey
gash". He admitted that he had seen a vision, somebody he knew "under
a lamp". He would discover during the week whether he saw right or
not. This was at 5.30 on a Sunday afternoon. On Tuesday, Mr. Baillie
was at a dance in a town some forty miles from his home, and met a
Miss Preston. "On Sunday," he said, "about half-past five you were
sitting under a standard lamp in a dress I never saw you wear, a blue
blouse with lace over the shoulders, pouring out tea for a man in blue
serge, whose back was towards me, so that I only saw the tip of his
moustache."
"Why, the blinds must have been up," said Miss Preston.
"I was at Dulby," said Mr. Baillie, as he undeniably was. {60a}
This is not a difficult exercise in belief. Miss Preston was not
unlikely to be at tea at tea-time.
Nor is the following very hard.
THE COW WITH THE BELL
I had given a glass ball to the wife of a friend, whose visions proved
so startling and on one occasion so unholy that she ceased to make
experiments. One day my friend's secretary, a young student and
golfer, took up the ball.
"I see a field I know very well," he said, "but there is a cow in it
that I never saw; brown, with white markings, and, this is odd in
Scotland, she has a bell hanging from her neck. I'll go and look at
the field."
He went and found the cow as described, bell and all. {60b}
In the spring of 1897 I gave a glass ball to a young lady, previously
a stranger to me, who was entirely unacquainted with crystal gazing,
even by report. She had, however, not infrequent experience of
spontaneous visions, which were fulfilled, including a vision of the
Derby (Persimmon's year), which enriched her friends. In using the
ball she, time after time, succeeded in seeing and correctly
describing persons and places familiar to people for whom she
"scried," but totally strange to herself. In one case she added a
detail quite unknown to the person who consulted her, but which was
verified on inquiry. These experiments will probably be published
elsewhere. Four people, out of the very small number who tried on
these occasions, saw fancy pictures in the ball: two were young
ladies, one a man, and one a schoolboy. I must confess that, for the
first time, I was impressed by the belief that the lady's veracious
visions, however they are to be explained, could not possibly be
accounted for by chance coincidence. They were too many (I was aware
of five in a few days), too minute, and too remote from the range of
ingenious guessing. But "thought transference," tapping the mental
wires of another person, would have accounted for every case, with,
perhaps, the exception of that in which an unknown detail was added.
This confession will, undoubtedly, seem weakly credulous, but not to
make it would be unfair and unsportsmanlike. My statement, of course,
especially without the details, is not evidence for other people.
The following case is a much harder exercise in belief. It is
narrated by the Duc de Saint Simon. {62} The events were described to
Saint Simon on the day after their occurrence by the Duc d'Orleans,
then starting for Italy, in May, 1706. Saint Simon was very intimate
with the duke, and they corresponded by private cypher without
secretaries. Owing to the death of the king's son and grandson (not
seen in the vision), Orleans became Regent when Louis XIV. died in
1714. Saint Simon is a reluctant witness, and therefore all the
better.
THE DEATHBED OF LOUIS XIV.
"Here is a strange story that the Duc d'Orleans told me one day in a
tete-a-tete at Marly, he having just run down from Paris before he
started for Italy; and it may be observed that all the events
predicted came to pass, though none of them could have been foreseen
at the time. His interest in every kind of art and science was very
great, and in spite of his keen intellect, he was all his life subject
to a weakness which had been introduced (with other things) from Italy
by Catherine de Medici, and had reigned supreme over the courts of her
children. He had exercised every known method of inducing the devil
to appear to him in person, though, as he has himself told me, without
the smallest success. He had spent much time in investigating matters
that touched on the supernatural, and dealt with the future.
"Now La Sery (his mistress) had in her house a little girl of eight or
nine years of age, who had never resided elsewhere since her birth.
She was to all appearance a very ordinary child, and from the way in
which she had been brought up, was more than commonly ignorant and
simple. One day, during the visit of M. d'Orleans, La Sery produced
for his edification one of the charlatans with whom the duke had long
been familiar, who pretended that by means of a glass of water he
could see the answer to any question that might be put. For this
purpose it was necessary to have as a go-between some one both young
and innocent, to gaze into the water, and this little girl was at once
sent for. They amused themselves by asking what was happening in
certain distant places; and after the man had murmured some words over
the water, the child looked in and always managed to see the vision
required of her.
"M. le duc d'Orleans had so often been duped in matters of this kind
that he determined to put the water-gazer to a severe test. He
whispered to one of his attendants to go round to Madame de Nancre's,
who lived close by, and ascertain who was there, what they were all
doing, the position of the room and the way it was furnished, and
then, without exchanging a word with any one, to return and let him
know the result. This was done speedily and without the slightest
suspicion on the part of any person, the child remaining in the room
all the time. When M. le duc d'Orleans had learned all he wanted to
know, he bade the child look in the water and tell him who was at
Madame de Nancre's and what they were all doing. She repeated word
for word the story that had been told by the duke's messenger;
described minutely the faces, dresses and positions of the assembled
company, those that were playing cards at the various tables, those
that were sitting, those that were standing, even the very furniture!
But to leave nothing in doubt, the Duke of Orleans despatched Nancre
back to the house to verify a second time the child's account, and
like the valet, he found she had been right in every particular.
"As a rule he said very little to me about these subjects, as he knew
I did not approve of them, and on this occasion I did not fail to
scold him, and to point out the folly of being amused by such things,
especially at a time when his attention should be occupied with more
serious matters. 'Oh, but I have only told you half,' he replied;
'that was just the beginning,' and then he went on to say that,
encouraged by the exactitude of the little girl's description of
Madame de Nancre's room, he resolved to put to her a more important
question, namely, as to the scene that would occur at the death of the
king. The child had never seen any one who was about the court, and
had never even heard of Versailles, but she described exactly and at
great length the king's bedroom at Versailles and all the furniture
which was in fact there at the date of his death. She gave every
detail as to the bed, and cried out on recognising, in the arms of
Madame de Ventadour, a little child decorated with an order whom she
had seen at the house of Mademoiselle la Sery; and again at the sight
of M. le duc d'Orleans. From her account, Madame de Maintenon, Fagon
with his odd face, Madame la duchesse d'Orleans, Madame la duchesse,
Madame la princesse de Conti, besides other princes and nobles, and
even the valets and servants were all present at the king's deathbed.
Then she paused, and M. le duc d'Orleans, surprised that she had never
mentioned Monseigneur, Monsieur le duc de Bourgogne, Madame la
duchesse de Bourgogne, nor M. le duc de Berri, inquired if she did not
see such and such people answering to their description. She
persisted that she did not, and went over the others for the second
time. This astonished M. le duc d'Orleans deeply, as well as myself,
and we were at a loss to explain it, but the event proved that the
child was perfectly right. This seance took place in 1706. These
four members of the royal family were then full of health and
strength; and they all died before the king. It was the same thing
with M. le prince, M. le duc, and M. le prince de Conti, whom she
likewise did not see, though she beheld the children of the two last
named; M. du Maine, his own (Orleans), and M. le comte de Toulouse.
But of course this fact was unknown till eight years after."
Science may conceivably come to study crystal visions, but veracious
crystal visions will be treated like veracious dreams. That is to
say, they will be explained as the results of a chance coincidence
between the unknown fact and the vision, or of imposture, conscious or
unconscious, or of confusion of memory, or the fact of the crystal
vision will be simply denied. Thus a vast number of well-
authenticated cases of veracious visions will be required before
science could admit that it might be well to investigate hitherto
unacknowledged faculties of the human mind. The evidence can never be
other than the word of the seer, with whatever value may attach to the
testimony of those for whom he "sees," and describes, persons and
places unknown to himself. The evidence of individuals as to their
own subjective experiences is accepted by psychologists in other
departments of the study. {66}