of a number of systematic experiments, and to the development of the
theory underlying them, I shall briefly consider the part that the
magic mirror has played in poetry and fiction. For we often find
here, especially in popular poetry, fairy tales, and traditions,
an artistic anticipation of ideas that only the advanced knowledge
of later centuries is able scientifically to verify. The illumined
eye of genius prematurely seizes upon what in the distant future
becomes the conscious property of all humanity. And this is true of
the half-unconscious art of the individual poet. The imagination
of the poet, borne aloft by the immediate sense of truth and the
self-consciousness of typical humanity, casts flashes of illumination
very frequently into the dark regions of our inner world. In the facts
inherent in popular instinct it discovers intuitively a multitude of
combinations, long before they possess for the average perception
creditable possibility, or even possible reality. The minute analysis,
however, of symbolic art belongs to the most difficult problems of
comparative psychology.
To present at once from the multitude of examples a singularly striking
one, "The History of the Youthful King Zein Alasnam and the Prince
of Spirits" may be chosen. Zein Alasnam, who possesses eight statues
of great value, is in quest of a ninth of marvellous beauty, which
the Prince of Spirits promises him as soon as "thou shalt bring me a
young maiden who shall be at least fifteen years of age and of perfect
beauty; the maiden shall not be vain of her beauty and shall have never
spoken an untruth." With the help of his magic mirror, Zein, after many
vain attempts,—for the mirror was always murky when he looked into it
in the presence of a girl,—finally found a maiden in whose presence a
brilliant image shone forth from the mirror. By strategy Zein brought
the noble girl, with whom in the mean time he had fallen passionately
in love, to the Prince of Spirits—but it must be confessed that it was
only at the earnest entreaty of his faithful servant, for he would have
very much liked to possess the maiden himself. The Prince of Spirits
thanked him and told him to return to his home where he would find
the ninth statue that was promised him upon a golden pedestal in the
centre of the others. Zein hastened to his palace and flew into his
treasure-chamber. Upon the ninth pedestal there stood attired in silk
of roseate hue, with modest blushing countenance, an immovable statue.
Zein Alasnam, dazzled by the brilliancy of the other forms, stepped
into the glittering circle to behold his treasure close at hand, when
behold! the statue suddenly descended from its pedestal and fell into
his arms. It was the same beautiful and virtuous maiden that he had
conducted into the presence of the Prince of Spirits. She wept tears of
joy and Zein Alasnam wept with her.
The factor here emphasised—namely, a mirror that only exhibits a clear
surface to its possessor when a chaste maiden is in its presence—is
not at all as fabulous as at first sight appears. It depends of course
upon the person gazing whether the reflecting surface will appear murky
or not; for it is a question here merely of subjective perception,
and not of an objective blurring of the glass. In the case in which
the girl made no impression upon the youth,—that is where the soul
unconsciously passed an unfavorable judgment,—the picture will have
been dimly perceived and will thus have expressed in a strangely
roundabout way, that which lay slumbering in the depths of his heart.
The mirror furnishes no other information than that which we put into
it; but it communicates it to our every-day consciousness which knows
little or nothing of the recondite processes of our inner life. The
fabulous performances of other magic mirrors may be similarly explained
if we discard the unnecessary adornment in which they are generally
set forth. The "buch aller verbotenen kunst" (published in 1455), a
mediæval collection of stories of this character, is supplied with
marginal annotations of moral purport that possess some historical
value. We shall therefore transcribe a passage illustrative of its
character.
"Die maister und iregleichen die treiben die kunst pyromancia
auch in ainem schlechten spiegel und lassen kinder darein
sehen die sie dan auch vast beswern und in auch verporgne
wort einraunen und mainent vast vil darin zu erfragen. das
ist alles ein ungelaub und des boesen tewfels gespenst und
verfuerung. huet dich du christen, ich warn dich gar treulich.
auch treibt man die sach in ainem schönen glanzen pulierten
swert ... In der kunst pyromancia sind auch gar vil ander
ungelauben, und nemlich ainer der sol des gewiss sein, der ist
der allerschnoedest und boesest, wann so man ie vester gelaubt
an soelich zauberey so si ie mer is sünd. das stueck gat zu,
das die knaben kuenftige und alle ding suellen sehen in ainem
cristallen. das stueck treiben die valschen verzweifelten und
verzagten cristen, den dann lieber ist des tiuefels gespenst
und trugnuss, dan die warheit gottes in maniger hand weis.
ettlich haben gar ain lautern schoenen gepulierten cristallen
oder parillen, den lassen sie waihen und halten in gar rain
und lesen dazu weirrauch, mirren und desgleichen, und wann sie
die kunst treiben woellen, so warten si uf gar ainen schoen
tag oder haben ain rain gemach und darin gar vil geweichter
kerzen; die maister gan den gen bad und nemen dann das rain
chind mit in und beclaiden sich dan in raines weiss gewand,
und sitzen nider und sprechen in zauber bact, und prennen den
ir zauberopfer und lassen dan den knaben in den stain sehen
und raunen im in seine oren verporgen wort die suellen vast
hailig sein, warlich, die wort sind tewflisch."[27]
[27] "The Masters and their like also practice the art
Pyromancia in a wretched mirror, and make children look into
it, whom they then do conjure and also whisper secret words
in their ears, and fancy they get much information thereby.
But it is all a heresy, the work and allurement of the wicked
devil. Christian, have a care! I give thee honest warning.
They practise the thing, too, in a beautiful, shining,
polished sword.... In the art Pyromancia there is also much
other heresy, and especially there is one that is so, the
worst and wickedest of all: and the firmer one's belief in
it is, the greater is his sinfulness. Here, young boys are
said to behold future things and all things in a crystal.
Base, desperate, and faint-hearted Christians practise it, to
whom the shadow and the phantom of the devil are dearer than
the truth of God. Some take a clear and beautifully polished
crystal or beryl, which they consecrate and keep clean, and
treat with incense, myrrh, and the like. And when they propose
to practise their art, they wait for a clear day, or select
some clean chamber in which are many candles burning; the
masters then bathe, and take the pure child into the room with
them, and clothe themselves in pure white garments, and sit
down and speak in magic sentences, and then burn their magic
offering, and make the boy look into the stone, and whisper
in his ears secret words, which have, as they ween, some holy
import: verily, those words are of the Devil."
Exactly one hundred years after this, a similar _pot-pourri_ appeared,
intermingled with references to modern affairs and Christian
Ethics, entitled the "Neupolierte Geschicht-Kunst- und Sittenspiegel
ausländischer Völker." Wherein we may read this:
"Es ist bekannt | dass | in manchen Staedten | bey uns |
unterweilen alte Weiber | auch wol zu zeiten Männer | den
Leuten | welchen Gott eine Straffe schuldig ist | in Spiegeln
und Krystallen weisen | was sie zu wissen begehren. Also hat
| fuer einigen Jahren | zu Elbingen in Preussen | einer sich
aufgehalten | welcher | aus einem solchen Wahrsager-Spiegel
| die Verborgenheiten verkuendiget | und den Fuerwitzigen
angedeutet hat. Mit dem Krystall-Gucken | wird zwar mancher
| von den alten Sagen-Sprecherinnen | getaeuscht und falsche
Mutmassungen | oder behende Augenblendungen | ihm fuer eine
Gewissheit verkauft: weil solche Vetteln vielmals | unter dem
Schein der Wahrsager-Kunst | ihren Betrug spielen | und weder
Gutes noch Boeses wissen. Nichts destoweniger stehen dennoch
auch viel solcher alten Sibyllen mit dem schwarzen Kaspar in
guter Vertraulichkeit und koennen | in den Spiegeln | oder
Krystallen | durch Huelfe und Vermittelung dieses boesen
Geistes | den Erfolg kuenfftiger Begebenheiten fuerbilden. Wie
dessen Herr Johannes Rist ein merkliches Exempel erzaehlet
welches er | in seiner Jugend | mit seinen leiblichen Augen
| gesehen | in einer grossen Stadt: darin er sich damals
| bei fuernehmen Leuten | aufgehalten | die einen feinen
wohlgearteten Sohn gehabt | welcher nachgehends zu hohen
Ehren-Aemtern gestiegen."[28]
[28] "It is known that in many of our towns old women,
possibly at times men, sojourn, who show to people to whom
God owes punishment that which they want to know, by means
of mirrors and crystals. Some years ago one such person was
staying in Elbingen, in Prussia, who predicted hidden truths
by the help of a divining mirror of this kind, and announced
them to his curious customers. Many indeed are deceived in
crystal-seeing by the old fortune-tellers that practice it,
and baseless guesses and cunning deceptions of the eye are
often sold them for certainties: for these hags frequently
practise their impostures only under the cover and semblance
of the art of divination, knowing neither good nor bad.
Nevertheless, many of these old Sibyls stand upon terms of
intimacy with Black Kaspar, and are able with the assistance
and intermediation of this evil spirit to foreshow in their
mirrors and crystals the issue and outcome of future events.
Such was the remarkable case that Herr Johannes Rist tells of,
which he saw in his youth with his own corporeal eyes; it was
in a great city wherein at the time he was staying with very
distinguished people who had a handsome and well-mannered son
who afterwards rose to high offices of honor."
Again, we have a "Denckwuerdige Geschichte von der Krystall-Guckery,"
which makes skilful use of all the fabulous elements of the magic
mirror legends. It tells of a mirror that always reveals to its
possessor the truth, and by means of which the future may be divined.
A prominent feature of the nursery tales of to-day is discoverable in
it—that if children look at night into a mirror an ugly, forbidding
face will gaze out upon them. The book, however, presents few
interesting details, and we may therefore pass it and others of the
same period by in order to hasten on to the present.
And to whom would not the name of Hoffmann at once occur! He who
delighted to employ, and weave in the magic web of his fiction, all
that was marvellous and mysterious, will undoubtedly have dealt with
the subject we now have in hand. In fact the magic mirror has three
times figured in his works: once in "Der Goldene Topf," again in the
"Lebensansichten des Kater Murr," and finally in the novel "Das öde
Haus." A few passages may be taken from the last-mentioned novel as
illustrations of the point we are considering.
A small forsaken cottage bears an evil name; it hides a secret from the
world.
"This was what people said in the town, and I who tell this
story could get no rest with thinking of it; daily I walked by
the house with the curtained windows. Once, as I was passing,
I saw the curtain move and a beautifully-shaped hand adorned
with a brilliant diamond ring place a crystal carafe upon the
window-sill. The memory of this picture aroused in my mind a
visionary dream, and on the following day when I looked up to
the window at which the hand had appeared, the countenance
of the vision I had seen was regarding me with a look of
sorrowful entreaty. I seated myself upon a bench opposite,
the back of which was turned to the house, so that by leaning
over the arm I could gaze without disturbance at the fatal
window and the lovely maiden. Absorbed in contemplation, I
failed to observe an Italian pedlar who was offering me his
wares. But being seized by the arm I at last gave attention
to the importunities of the pedlar, who, with the words 'I
have other beautiful things here,' pulled out the lower drawer
of his box, and held at a short distance before me, at an
angle, a little round pocket-mirror that lay in the drawer
among a number of other trinkets. I beheld the desolate
house behind me, the window, and, marked in the distinctest
outlines, the lovely angelic form of my vision. I quickly
purchased the little glass, which now made it possible for
me, in easy posture and without attracting the attention of
the neighbors, to look towards the window of my hopes.... The
little mirror that so deceptively reflected the lovely form,
I had now devoted to domestic purposes. I was in the habit
of tying my cravat before it. And so it happened once, while
I was in the act of performing this important duty, that it
appeared tarnished to me. With a view to brightly polishing
it, I breathed upon it in the usual manner. My pulse ceased
its beating, my heart trembled with delight and dismay.
Delight and dismay! Yes, thus I must describe the emotion
that overpowered me, as, when my breath fell upon the mirror,
I beheld in a bluish mist the lovely face that had looked
upon me with that sorrowful, heart-penetrating glance!—You
laugh?—Denounce me, believe me an incurable dreamer! But say
and think what you will—it is enough—the fair one gazed upon
me from the mirror, and as soon as the breath disappeared her
face vanished in the darkness of the glass.
"But I will not weary you, I will not tell all that came
of this. Only this much will I say, that I again and again
renewed my experiments with the mirror, that I was often
successful in calling forth by my breath the picture I so
loved, but that oftentimes my most strenuous efforts were in
vain.... I lived only in the thought of her; all else was
dead to me; I neglected my friends and my studies.... Often
when that picture grew pale and wan, a physical indisposition
seized me, the figure came forth as never before with such
life-like reality and brilliancy that I almost fancied I
could seize it. And then it seemed to my horror that I myself
was the figure, veiled and encompassed by the mists of the
glass. A sharp pain in my breast and then total apathy
terminated this torturing condition, which invariably left
me exhausted, and shaken to my inmost core. In these moments
every attempt with the mirror miscarried; but when I had
become strengthened, and the picture appeared again from the
mirror in life-like form, I cannot indeed deny that a peculiar
physical charm otherwise foreign to me was united with it...."
We see what brilliantly colored creations tradition and fiction have
woven about the magic mirror. It is now the duty of science to cull
from these shining husks, by sober investigation, the kernels of
truth; and that, it will be seen, can be done only by experiment.
Unfortunately I myself am unable to report any successful experiments;
for, despite repeated attempts, I have been unsuccessful in obtaining
any images whatever from mirrors, or crystals, or reflecting surfaces
of any kind. Similarly several members of the Berlin Society of
Experimental Psychology have only had exclusively negative results
to recount. But on the other hand, a member of the English Society
for Psychical Research has been enabled to report a great number of
pertinent observations. And although to my regret I am not permitted to
publish the name of the lady[29] in question, yet every doubt as to the
truth of her utterances is excluded, and the material she has furnished
forms a valuable enrichment of psychological literature. I shall,
accordingly, collect from the communications of this lady, who is a
friend of Professor and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, several cases which appear
to me especially adapted to throw light upon the nature of the strange
phenomena we are examining.
[29] I afterwards received permission to publish her name: it
is Miss A. Goodrich of London.
The lady made more than seventy experiments of her own, of which—a
fact of the greatest value for passing upon their exactness—she always
made notes at once, or at the most never more than an hour afterwards.
She employed various means for the production of the hallucinations. At
first she used the colored balls that are hung upon Christmas trees,
or the back of a gold watch; but it turned out that both these objects
tried the eyes by their strong brilliancy and grotesquely distorted
the visions that were evoked. A glass filled with water proved to be
inconvenient to handle, especially in the dark; while mirrors also
possessed many disturbing peculiarities. A magnifying glass set on a
dark background proved to be very effective, especially by daylight;
as did also a black-framed photograph placed upon the wall of the
room opposite the light. The gaze and the attention, however, were
best concentrated upon a well-polished rock-crystal. The method of
procedure—since happily all the appurtenances of mysticism were
discarded—was very simple. The lady draped the crystal in black,
placed it where none of the surrounding objects could be reflected in
it, and waited for whatever might happen.
What occurred? The simplest instance is perhaps No. 7, which we here
introduce:
"I find in the Crystal a bit of dark wall, covered with white
jessamine, and I ask myself, 'Where have I walked to-day?'
I have no recollection of such a sight, not a common one
in the London streets, but to-morrow I will repeat my walk
of this morning, with a careful regard for creeper-covered
walls. To-morrow solves the mystery. I find the very spot,
and the sight brings with it the further recollection that
at the moment we passed this spot I was engaged in absorbing
conversation with my companion, and my voluntary attention was
preoccupied."
This is a very simple case. A visual image, recently yet unconsciously
received, springs up from the subterranean strata of the soul into
which it had sunk. No. 68 affords a similar instance:
"I had carelessly destroyed a letter without preserving the
address of my correspondent. I knew the county, and searching
in a map, recognised the name of the town, one unfamiliar
to me, but which I was sure I should know when I saw it. But
I had no clue to the name of the house or street, till at
last it struck me to test the value of the crystal as a means
of recalling forgotten knowledge. A very short inspection
supplied me with 'Hibbs House' in grey letters on a white
ground, and having nothing better to suggest from any other
source, I risked posting my letter to the address so strangely
supplied.
"A day or two brought me an answer, headed 'Hibbs House' in
grey letters on a white ground."
Tricks of the memory like these appear still more strange when they
are due merely to an indirect excitation. It may happen that one is
suddenly reminded of a friend who is long since dead, by the accidental
sight of his favorite dish. No direct excitation is here presented,
but the image of the friend remembered is indirectly revived through a
certain concatenation of ideas. This we find in the eleventh experiment:
"One of my earliest experiences was of a picture, perplexing
and wholly unexpected—a quaint oak chair, an old hand, a worn
black coat-sleeve resting on the arm of the chair,—slowly
recognised as a recollection of a room in a country vicarage,
which I had not entered and but seldom recalled since I was a
child of ten. But whence came this vision, what association
has conjured up this picture? What have I done to-day?... At
length the clue is found. I have to-day been reading Dante,
first enjoyed with the help of our dear old vicar many a year
ago."
The process here carried on, which takes place for the most part
outside of the sphere of consciousness, is therefore the following: The
reading of Dante revives the image 'Vicar'; the image 'Vicar' produces
the image of the room; the latter image is externalised.
But we can penetrate _consciously_ into these processes. There
are any number of people who, with their eyes closed, can produce
phantasy-pictures surprisingly realistic; and geniuses especially have
command of rich powers in this direction. George Sand's biographer
tells us, that sitting at the feet of her mother before the chimney
fire, she would often watch the old green-colored fire-guard in order
to form from the reflections of the flames figures and scenes. And this
is the case of our English lady. Just as an imaginative child tells
itself stories, so she, to while away the time, builds in the twilight
hours groups of figures, and projects them into her crystals; and so
strange is the unconscious "I" to the conscious "I," that oftentimes
the miniature drama that is unfolded is the source of the greatest
surprises to its own creator. This independence of our consciousness in
two spheres, is exhibited with surprising distinctness where especial
aids and expedients must be employed to decipher the visions. Thus:
"On March 20th, I happened to want the date of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, which I could not recall, though feeling sure
that I knew it, and that I associated it with some event of
importance. When looking in the Crystal some hours later, I
found a picture of an old man with long white hair and beard,
dressed like a Lyceum Shylock, and busy writing in a large
book with tarnished massive clasps. I wondered much who he
was, and what he could possibly be doing, and thought it
a good opportunity of carrying out a suggestion which had
been made to me, of examining objects in the Crystal with
a magnifying glass. The glass revealed to me that my old
gentleman was writing in Greek, though the lines faded away
as I looked, all but the characters he had last traced, the
Latin numerals LXX. Then it flashed into my mind, that he was
one of the Jewish Elders at work on the Septuagint, and that
its date, 277 B. C., would serve equally well for Ptolemy
Philadelphus! It may be worth while to add, though the fact
was not in my conscious memory at the moment, that I had once
learnt a chronology on a mnemonic system which substituted
letters for figures, and that the memoria technica for this
date was 'Now Jewish Elders indite a Greek copy.'" (No. 74.)
The employment of a magnifying glass, which by reason of external
difficulties is seldom possible, is a convincing proof of the degree
of independence of the two personalities within us. Anything more
marvellous than the fact before us can hardly be imagined. We create
something which is immediately wrested from our control and which leads
a totally independent life; we produce something which becomes for our
own selves a mute enigma, and which can only be aroused by artificial
means out of its ghost-like silence.
"The rent that gapes throughout creation,
Goes also through the human heart."
And thus it may happen that our second "I" actually mystifies at times
our first and principal "I."
Once a number of letters appeared to her in the crystal, each letter
seen separately, of a bright red color. At first they seemed to be
absolutely meaningless, but it was at length discovered that they
composed words, spelt backwards, in the following fashion:—
d e t n a w a e n o e m o s o t n i o j a e t a v i r p e l c
r i c t s u m e b g n i l l i w o t e v i g s e v l e s m e h
t p u o t e h t t c e j b u s
and the message at length became intelligible as follows:—
"Wanted a someone to join a private circle, must be willing to give
themselves up to the subject."