new element enters into play. Whereas hitherto we have seen things
revealed in the magic mirror which were demonstrably or presumably
already present in the brain of the operator, or, where this was not
the case, in any event possessed no external significance, we now
hear of experiments in which unknown events are said to have been
presented. I should take no notice whatever of this class of reports
regarding clairvoyance in space and time, if our informant did not
give the impression of being thoroughly conscientious and scientific.
The English lady possesses, as I believe I have discerned from our
correspondence, a highly critical mind, and is well acquainted with
the common sources of error in this department of investigation, and
her testimony is in my opinion more valuable than that of all the
early authors together. It were indeed more acceptable if the results
of recent investigations had been to show that all the phenomena of
crystallomancy were referable to the hitherto misunderstood dominance
of the soul of the individual gazing; but since a number of cases
remain that will not fit into this explanation, we must as honest
people openly acknowledge the fact. Accordingly, without attempting
any detailed explanation, I shall select a few cases as illustrations,
leaving it to the reader to discard them as "accidental" or to retain
them as worthy of consideration:
"On Saturday, March 9th, I had written a somewhat impatient
note to a friend, accusing her of having, on her return
from a two months' absence on the Continent, spent ten days
in London without paying me a visit. I was not, therefore,
surprised, when on Sunday evening she appeared before me
in the Crystal, but could not understand why she should
hold up, with an air of deprecation, what appeared to be a
music portfolio. On Monday I received an answer, written the
previous day, pleading guilty to my charge, but urging, in
excuse, that she was attending the Royal Academy of Music,
and was engaged there during the greater part of every day.
This intelligence was to the last degree unexpected, for my
friend is a married woman, who has never studied music in any
but amateur style, and who, according to the standard of most
ladies of fashion, had "finished her education" some years
ago. I have since ascertained that she, in fact, carries a
portfolio corresponding with the sketch I made of that seen in
the vision." (No. 64.)
The simplest explanation of this case would be the assumption that
our informant had at some time or other cursorily heard of her friend
having again taken up music. The whole thing would then be a revived
memory; and the agreement in appearance of the portfolio seen with the
real portfolio, an accidental coincidence. But this presumption being
excluded, psychologists who believe in the possibility of telepathic
communication might propose a different explanation. In this way. The
lady's friend, in writing her note of excuse, is vividly thinking
of her work, which is to her to a certain extent represented by her
portfolio, and conveys this picture to the receptive sub-consciousness
of the other lady. There the image lies latent until it is translated
into sensory life through the agency of the magic mirror—the very
process with which we have at a previous place become acquainted,
and will more exactly explain further on. The question, therefore,
is reduced simply to the truth of the premise first assumed—namely,
telepathic communication; and all that we can at present say, is,
that it is considered as an actual fact, upon the basis of personal
experience, by many prominent investigators, but is rejected by the
majority as undemonstrated. For our part, we admit that an hypothesis
of this kind would prove to be very useful, since reports similar to
the last mentioned one, have recently been published in great numbers.
We select as an illustration the following note by Mrs. L. M., from the
Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research:
"I was anxious to see a Mr. H., but was uncertain on what day
he would call. On the 19th [July, 1887] I was called out of
the office, and, before going out, I put on the door a card
having these words on it, 'Will return soon.' I was absent
about an hour. On my return I came upstairs, but did not ask
the elevator boy if any one had called; nor did he tell me
any one had done so. As I came within a short distance of the
door, I saw some characters written upon the card I had left,
and just below the printed words 'Will return soon,' I stooped
down and read, 'Mr. H. has been here, and will return.' As
I looked the words faded away. I entered the office, and in
a very short time Mr. H. came in. He had left no name or
message. He had impressed my face upon his mind very strongly,
with the intention of seeing if I would be in any way affected
by it, or conscious of his approach."
If the fact of accident, intensified by the strained expectation of
Mrs. M., cannot be accepted as a satisfactory explanation, it is to
be considered that the white surface of the card in this case acted
in the same externalising manner as the crystal in the instance
given just above. The remotely-operative excitation penetrated the
soul unobserved, and was first translated into a conscious image
at the moment when the glance at the card favored the formation of
hallucinations.
Finally a number of other cases are to be mentioned, in which even
these suppositions seem insufficient; and for the reason that the
events seen were not to happen until some future time. But that which
has not yet happened, and which is not to be foreseen in detail,
can neither originate in the repositories of memory, nor from the
telepathic influence exercised by another person. We should in
that case be obliged to accept some hypothesis of clairvoyance in
time—_granting of course that all sources of error are excluded_. The
reader may judge for himself:
"In January last I saw in the Crystal the figure of a man
crouching at a small window, and looking into the room from
the outside. I could not see his features, which appeared
to be muffled, but the Crystal was particularly dark that
evening, and the picture being an unpleasant one, I did
not persevere. I concluded the vision to be a result of a
discussion in my presence of the many stories of burglary with
which the newspapers had lately abounded, and reflected with
a passing satisfaction, that the only windows in the house
divided into four panes as were those of the Crystal-picture,
were in the front attic and almost inaccessible. Three days
later a fire broke out in that very room, which had to be
entered from outside through the window, the face of the
fireman being covered with a wet cloth, as a protection from
the smoke which rendered access through the door impossible."
(No. 36.)
Is this a case of prevision? Granting that the agreement of the facts
with the vision is not due to mere accident, the possibility yet
remains of a falsification of memory; that is, the possibility that
a vision originally _similar_ to the event afterwards observed, was
subsequently taken to be the _same_ as that event. Such obscurations
and falsifications of memory are very frequent. Indeed they get to
be epidemic, the moment a second factor, that of _expectation_, is
added. We need only have a foreboding that something will eventually
happen, and we shall inevitably form certain indefinite notions of its
particular character. If now the event actually happens, our obliging
memory is at once at hand with the lie, '_Exactly_ as I knew before.'
'I told you so,' is the assertion. And it is therefore no accident
that in the literature of clairvoyance, the arrival of letters of
this or that tenor plays so great a part; for expectation has a broad
and acceptable arena in this very connection. The extent to which
the falsification of memory and intense expectation take part in the
observation which we shall now cite, it would be hardly possible to
determine accurately:
"On the evening of March 11th, being tired, I was about to go
early to my room, when it occurred to me to wait for the last
post, already late, that I might not be again disturbed by
having the letters brought to my room. I took up the Crystal
rather to pass the time than with much expectation of seeing
anything; for as a rule, when one is tired, the concentration
of attention necessary to Crystal-vision is somewhat difficult
to attain. However, I perceived a white object on a dark
ground, soon becoming more clearly defined as a letter in a
very large envelope torn at the edges, as if not sufficiently
strong to hold its contents. Another envelope, of ordinary
size, lying at the top, concealed the address, and the writing
on the smaller one was too much blurred to decipher. The
vision was momentary only, or I might have applied the test of
the magnifying glass, which is sometimes, though not always,
of use in such cases. I thought it possible that the vision
might be merely the result of expectation, but it seemed
at least worth while, after making a note of the fact,—my
invariable rule whenever possible,—to test its significance.
As a matter of fact, the letters were lying on a seat in the
hall, showing white against the dark polished wood—placed
there possibly by some one leaving the house who had met the
postman before he had time to ring. The letters were two,—the
lower one, which had burst the envelope, was the size of a
sheet of letter-paper not folded, and was for myself, the
upper one, the usual size of a note, and not for me, which may
have accounted for my inability to read the address." (No. 66.)
I repeat it—with accounts of this character, though in the highest
degree acceptable, science cannot at present deal; and in proceeding
now to attempt an explanation of the phenomena illustrated by the
experiments of the English communication mentioned, I shall entirely
leave out of consideration the cases that point to telepathic causes or
clairvoyance in time and space.
We have already made the acquaintance of some few theories which have
arisen historically. Formerly, and even at the present day in fact,
certain objects and qualities of objects were made accountable for the
occurrence of striking hallucinations. The great cycle of legends that
adhere to the magic mirror, has thus arisen. Often a pentahedronal
quartz-crystal, often the fusion of the seven ancient metals into
polished surfaces was supposed to possess especial virtue. Gregory, of
Edinburgh, asserted that the phenomena were most easily produced by
looking into a double-convex plate of zinc into the centre of which
a small polished copper disk had been set. We now know that in the
importance attached to these and similar directions the salient point
was missed and an incidental factor pushed into the foreground. But
in any event it is worthy of remark, that through belief in notions
of this kind the seer gained a greater confidence in the success of
his experiments. Even incorrect theories prove to be useful. When any
one finally came into the possession of a famous magic stone, his firm
belief in its powers induced a disposition to visions that perhaps
never before existed in his organism to the same degree.
A second hypothesis regards the phenomena as manifestations of the
Devil or the work of spirits. Dr. Dee gives a very minute description
of his regular spirit visitors. He tells of an old woman in a red
petticoat, and of a pretty little girl with her hair rolled up in
front and hanging down very long behind. This constant personification
is very significant, since it indicates the approach of recognised
forms of mental alienation; however, the "Daimon" of Socrates proves
that it does not in every case necessarily lead to this. We are come,
here, into a border-land, from which some roads lead into the dark
regions of insanity and others up to the luminous heights of inspired
genius: but in every case we are concerned with a region in _our own_
mind, and no natural propensity to externalisation must be allowed to
deceive us with regard to it. The intrusion of foreign "spirits" into
our psycho-physical organism, the assumption that incorporeal beings
influence our nervous system so as to produce external effects,
violently contradicts all human experience. If the spiritist doctrine
could be mathematically proved it would be the most interesting
solution imaginable of all these problems; and I must confess, the
establishment of the existence of intelligent incorporeal beings would
in my opinion eclipse all other events of our time. But the probability
of this is at present _very_ small.
A third theory, of modern origin, seeks the explanation of the question
in a species of magic power inherent in man, as yet unfathomed, which
is manifested especially in ecstatic conditions. The vehicles of the
_magic gaze_ are shining mirrors or reflecting surfaces, which forming
a means of attraction for individuals of the proper constitution induce
that peculiar state of alienation from every other subject, that
concentration in the innermost self, which often rises to insensibility
and unconsciousness, or even to cataleptic torpidity, wherein the
consciousness of All-existence is liberated. Future events and distant
occurrences are seen in pictures which appear to be reflected in the
mirror or the fluid employed, but which in reality exist in the person
gazing and are represented by projection outwards. Thus Perty.
Other philosophers speak of the "transcendental" capacities and powers
of the human soul, or of the liberation of a metaphysical essentiality
within us.
But these theories and suppositions are plainly the outcome of a
premature simplification of our difficult problem. People are always
too ready to thrust forward a new "power" or "force" to unify with
dispatch and celerity uncomfortable phenomena of the present sort,
and overlook the fact that every single phenomenon demands an exact
investigation and explanation. Nothing is accomplished by calling
phenomena "magical" or "transcendental." The work demanded is, to
ascertain the connection and relation of the phenomena in question
with the province of soul-life as a whole. To put an _x_ in the place
of a _y_ contributes nothing to the solution of a problem. We cannot
be too closely upon our guard against comprehensive syntheses of this
character; for their splendid appearance dazzles woefully the eye of
research.
Much nearer the truth is the position that hypnosis merely is concerned
here. A well-known author, Louis Maury, who wrote in the middle part of
this century, says:
"Among the principal methods of divination a great number aim
at producing a sort of vertigo by acting upon the eyes and
consequently upon the brain, in a manner something like that
in which shining bodies act in hypnotism."
Mrs. De Morgan speaks in a similar strain:
"Crystal-vision is a well attested fact, having its laws and
conditions like other phenomena in this world of known and
hidden causes, and a little careful observation may clear away
some of that obscurity which has kept it as the property of
witches and sorcerers. The Crystal ... seems to produce on the
eye of the seer an effect exactly like what would ensue under
the fingers of a powerful mesmeriser. The person who looks at
it often becomes sleepy. Sometimes the eyes close. At other
times tears flow."
Mrs. De Morgan's very description renders it doubtful whether we have
to deal here with true, developed hypnotism. Other accounts are also
calculated to shake this assumption. Cahagnet, for example, required
only a moment of mental concentration for his eyes to become fixed; he
lost all sight of the objects he had a moment before gazed upon, and
those which he wished to call up appeared between him and the former.
All spontaneous visions were fulfilled. When voluntarily evoked, but
seven out of ten were true. When he wanted to produce the visions he
fixed his eyes upon the first fit object, and he often saw hundreds
and thousands of persons running hither and thither in one little
shining point. Or he beheld a great city distinctly drawn in a mirror
but one inch in diameter. This is not very easily reconciled with
our conceptions of the character of hypnotism. Nor less so—to close
our list of examples—the observations of an experimenter mentioned
by Mrs. De Morgan, that the perceptions of crystal-vision are not
interfered with by those of normal vision, but that the percipient
could discontinue her observation at will, and returning would find the
scene as she left it.
There is evidently involved here the condition of mind called
"temporary" or "momentary" hypnosis, or what Eduard Von Hartmann more
aptly calls "masked somnambulism." It is not fully developed hypnosis,
but simply its incipient forms—hypnoid states of manifold variations.
Now the question arises, Of what do these states consist? What are
their essential characteristics? And how are they to be psychologically
explained? For even our appeal to hypnotism simply puts a new empty
name into the place of an old one. If we do not understand hypnosis,
its production for the explanation of the magic mirror profits us
very little. The task, accordingly, presents itself of referring,
in connection with some psychological theory of hypnotism, the
well-established facts at our disposal to one and the same cause.
The theory from which I shall proceed in attempting an explanation, has
already been frequently touched upon in the course of this article;
for certain observations indicated it so clearly that mention of it
was not to be avoided. It is the doctrine of the double consciousness
of the human soul.[30] Acts are done in the course even of our
every-day life, which presuppose for their origin and execution all the
faculties of the soul, yet nevertheless occur without the knowledge of
the individual; they require a sort of consciousness and a separate
memory beyond the _cognisance_ of the normal person. One of the most
frequent cases in practical experience is where the thoughts of a
person reading aloud wander and become occupied with an entirely
different subject; and where despite this aberration the person in
question reads correctly with the proper emphasis and expression,
turns the leaves, and in short performs acts which without intelligent
control are hardly conceivable. An English psychologist, Mr. Barkworth,
has acquired such expertness in the practice of this, that during
an animated debate he can rapidly and correctly add long columns of
figures without having his attention diverted in the least. This points
not only to an unconscious intelligence, but—which is of still greater
consequence—to an unconscious memory. Mr. Barkworth must keep two
series of figures in his mind in order to obtain from them a third;
this latter sum he is again obliged to retain in order to add to it
a newly acquired fourth; and so on. The latter chain of memories,
let it be remarked, performs its office entirely independently of
that upon which the recollection of the debate is constructed; and it
may therefore be reasonably maintained that there exists beyond the
cognisance of the individual, both consciousness and memory; and if the
essential components of the ego are found in these two last-mentioned
factors, then every person conceals within himself the germs of a
second personality. I designate the two halves of consciousness that
thus operate in greater or less independence of each other,—in a
figurative sense of course,—as super-and sub-consciousness, and
comprehend the whole as the doctrine of double consciousness or the
double ego.
[30] Compare my treatise _Das Doppel-Ich_, the first number of
the "Publications of the Society of Experimental Psychology
of Berlin," Leipsic 1890, Ernst Günther. I must refer
here, moreover, to an acute criticism of my views by Adolf
Bentivegni, published as No. 4 of the above-named series, and
entitled _Die Hypnose und ihre civilrechtliche Bedeutung_,
Leipsic, 1890. The views set forth in the present article will
be found in the German magazine _Vom Fels zum Meer_.
The division very clearly appears in the opposition between waking and
dreaming. Even when we very accurately remember a dream which we have
just had,—which happens very seldom,—we feel the difference of the
two states of consciousness with unmistakable distinctness. We have no
power over the tricks that phantasy plays with us in our sleep, and in
spite of the often present belief that it is all but a dream, yet every
power fails us of penetrating into its independent activity. Moreover
the images are generally of a very definite signification, since they
are merely reproduced from the store-house of impressions that have
sunk into the unfathomable depths of our soul. In this way many a dream
reveals to us the true character of our Self; in this manner sub-basal
dream-images exhibit the thoughts and emotions that principally occupy
us in our innermost heart. Closer investigation teaches further, that
in dreams, states of intoxication, in somnambulistic and epileptic
attacks, not only does a consciousness different from the normal
consciousness rule, but that also between separate successive periods
memory-links of greater or lesser stability are wont to form. But this
is most strikingly exhibited in the case of hypnosis. The hypnotic
state is nothing more than an artificially produced ascendancy
of the secondary or subordinate ego. All its peculiarities are
explainable from this; for psychology endows the dream-consciousness
prevailing in this state, with sensibility and suggestibility, the
waking consciousness on the other hand with the inhibitory ideas
that represent reality. It has established, moreover, that our fully
conscious soul-life rests upon an automatically operating substratum
of hallucinatory character, in which images, long since forgotten,
have their abode. By virtue of these properties the subconsciousness
becomes the source of bold and fantastic creations, while the
superconsciousness is made the vehicle of our psychic life-work,
laboriously sustaining and regulating itself in its relations with the
outside world.
To this conception, which explains crystal-visions as a _form of the
activity of the subconsciousness_, it will be variously objected, that
such a simultaneous coexistence of two divisions of consciousness does
not possess the same degree of probability as an alternation of states
of consciousness. But how, upon this latter supposition, could the
"Hibbs House" case be explained? In this instance, two psychical groups
do not alternate, but one operates during the existence of the other.
Further, the propriety in general is questioned of speaking of
half-conscious or unconscious ideas and mental processes. It is the
opinion of the Göttingen philosopher G. E. Müller, that just as every
excitation of the brain immediately occasioned by a sensory stimulus
is not competent to produce a sensation, so also all reproduced
nervous excitations are not necessarily accompanied by perceptual
images. In the cases mentioned, and in many others, there is no reason
why groups of true _psychical_ states should be admitted, which, in
contradistinction to other psychical states, only lack consciousness;
on the contrary, we have to deal with simply a series of nervous
excitations, which, as distinguished from other excitations, are not
accompanied by corresponding states of our consciousness.
This conception of soul-life, which has been of late very favorably
received, Hugo Münsterberg has formulated thus—that the psychical
phenomenon is to a certain extent the subjective internal aspect of
a thus and thus constituted objective physical phenomenon. We are
to bear in mind that the succession of the physical processes is
nowhere interrupted, and that in addition certain of these physical
processes, those namely which are carried on with a certain intensity
in particular apparatuses of the brain, possess a psychical internal
aspect; so that this excitation of the nervous cells is, without losing
thereby anything in physical effect, the condition of the appearance of
certain sensations in consciousness.