THE NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE
Or,
Ghosts and Ghost-Seers.
by
CATHERINE CROWE
Authoress of “Susan Hopley,” “Lilly Dawson,” “Aristodemus,” etc.
"Thou com’st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee.”
New York:
J. S. Redfield, Clinton Hall.
Boston:—B. B. Mussey & Co.
1850.
P R E F A C E .
* * * * *
IN my late novel of “Lilly Dawson,” I announced my intention of
publishing a work to be called “The Night-Side of Nature;" this is it.
The term “Night-Side of Nature” I borrow from the Germans, who derive it
from the astronomers, the latter denominating that side of a planet
which is turned from the sun, its _night-side_. We are in this condition
for a certain number of hours out of every twenty-four; and as, during
this interval, external objects loom upon us but strangely and
imperfectly, the Germans draw a parallel between these vague and misty
perceptions, and the similar obscure and uncertain glimpses we get of
that veiled department of nature, of which, while comprising as it does,
the solution of questions concerning us more nearly than any other, we
are yet in a state of entire and wilful ignorance. For science, at least
science in this country, has put it aside as beneath her notice, because
new facts that do not fit into old theories are troublesome, and not to
be countenanced.
We are encompassed on all sides by wonders, and we can scarcely set our
foot upon the ground, without trampling upon some marvellous production
that our whole life and all our faculties would not suffice to
comprehend. Familiarity, however, renders us insensible to the ordinary
works of nature; we are apt to forget the miracles they comprise, and
even, sometimes, mistaking words for conceptions, commit the error of
thinking we understand their mystery. But there is one class of these
wonders with which, from their comparatively rare occurrence, we do not
become familiar; and these, according to the character of the mind to
which they are presented, are frequently either denied as ridiculous and
impossible, or received as evidences of supernatural
interference—interruptions of those general laws by which God governs
the universe; which latter mistake arises from our only seeing these
facts without the links that connect them with the rest of nature, just
as in the faint light of a starlit night we might distinguish the tall
mountains that lift their crests high into the sky, though we could not
discern the low chain of hills that united them with each other.
There are two or three books by German authors, entitled “The
Night-Side,” or “The Night-Dominion of Nature,” which are on subjects,
more or less analogous to mine. Heinrick Schubert’s is the most
celebrated among them; it is a sort of cosmogony of the world, written
in a spirit of philosophical mysticism—too much so for English readers
in general.
In undertaking to write a book on these subjects myself, I wholly
disclaim the pretension of _teaching_ or of enforcing opinions. My
object is to suggest inquiry and stimulate observation, in order that we
may endeavor, if possible, to discover something regarding our psychical
nature, as it exists here in the flesh; and as it is to exist hereafter,
out of it.
If I could only induce a few capable persons, instead of laughing at
these things, to look at them, my object would be attained, and I should
consider my time well spent.
C O N T E N T S .
* * * * *
CHAPTER PAGE
I. — Introduction 7
II. — The Dwellers in the Temple 19
III. — Waking and Sleeping, and how the Dweller in the Temple
sometimes looks abroad 29
IV. — Allegorical Dreams, Presentiments, &c. 48
V. — Warnings 66
VI. — Double Dreaming and Trance, Wraiths, &c. 98
VII. — Wraiths 130
VIII. — Doppelgängers, or Doubles 149
IX. — Apparitions 171
X. — The Future that awaits us 204
XI. — The Power of Will 238
XII. — Troubled Spirits 252
XIII. — Haunted Houses 273
XIV. — Spectral Lights, and Apparitions attached to Certain
Families 319
XV. — Apparitions seeking the Prayers of the Living 345
XVI. — The Poltergeist of the Germans, and Possession 376
XVII. — Miscellaneous Phenomena 411
XVIII. — Conclusion 434
THE
N I G H T - S I D E O F N A T U R E .
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CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
“Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit
of God dwelleth in you?”
—1 CORINTHIANS, iii. 16.
MOST persons are aware that the Greeks and Romans entertained certain
notions regarding the state of the soul, or the immortal part of man,
after the death of the body, which have been generally held to be purely
mythological. Many of them doubtless are so, and of these I am not about
to treat; but among their conceptions, there are some which, as they
coincide with the opinions of many of the most enlightened persons of
the present age, it may be desirable to consider more closely. I allude
here particularly to their belief in the tripartite kingdom of the dead.
According to this system, there were the Elysian fields, a region in
which a certain sort of happiness was enjoyed; and Tartarus, the place
of punishment for the wicked; each of which was, comparatively, but
thinly inhabited. But there was also a mid-region, peopled with
innumerable hosts of wandering and mournful spirits, who, although
undergoing no torments, are represented as incessantly bewailing their
condition, pining for the life they once enjoyed in the body, longing
after the things of the earth, and occupying themselves with the same
pursuits and objects as had formerly constituted their business or their
pleasure. Old habits are still dear to them, and they can not snap the
link that binds them to the earth.
Now, although we can not believe in the existence of Charon, the
three-headed dog, or Alecto, the serpent-haired fury, it may be worth
while to consider whether the persuasion of the ancients with regard to
that which concerns us all so nearly—namely, the destiny that awaits us
when we have shaken off this mortal coil—may not have some foundation
in truth: whether it might not be a remnant of a tradition transmitted
from the earliest inhabitants of the earth, wrested by observation from
nature, if not communicated from a higher source: and also whether
circumstances of constant recurrence in all ages and in all nations,
frequently observed and recorded by persons utterly ignorant of
classical lore, and unacquainted, indeed, with the dogmas of any creed
but their own, do not, as well as various passages in the Scriptures,
afford a striking confirmation of this theory of a future life; while
it, on the other hand, offers a natural and convenient explanation of
their mystery.
To minds which can admit nothing but what can be explained and
demonstrated, an investigation of this sort must appear perfectly idle:
for while, on the one hand, the most acute intellect or the most
powerful logic can throw little light on the subject, it is, at the same
time—though I have a confident hope that this will not always be the
case—equally irreducible within the present bounds of science;
meanwhile, experience, observation, and intuition, must be our principal
if not our only guides. Because, in the seventeenth century, credulity
outran reason and discretion; the eighteenth century, by a natural
reaction, threw itself into an opposite extreme. Whoever closely
observes the signs of the times, will be aware that another change is
approaching. The contemptuous skepticism of the last age is yielding to
a more humble spirit of inquiry; and there is a large class of persons
among the most enlightened of the present, who are beginning to believe
that much which they had been taught to reject as fable, has been, in
reality, ill-understood truth. Somewhat of the mystery of our own being,
and of the mysteries that compass us about, are beginning to loom upon
us—as yet, it is true, but obscurely; and, in the endeavor to follow
out the clew they offer, we have but a feeble light to guide us. We must
grope our way through the dim path before us, ever in danger of being
led into error, while we may confidently reckon on being pursued by the
shafts of ridicule—that weapon so easy to wield, so potent to the weak,
so weak to the wise—which has delayed the births of so many truths, but
never stifled one. The pharisaical skepticism which denies without
investigation, is quite as perilous, and much more contemptible, than
the blind credulity which accepts all that it is taught without inquiry;
it is, indeed, but another form of ignorance assuming to be knowledge.
And by _investigation_, I do not mean the hasty, captious, angry notice
of an unwelcome fact, that too frequently claims the right of
pronouncing on a question; but the slow, modest, pains-taking
examination, that is content to wait upon Nature, and humbly follow out
her disclosures, however opposed to preconceived theories or mortifying
to human pride. If scientific men could but comprehend how they
discredit the science they really profess, by their despotic arrogance
and exclusive skepticism, they would surely, for the sake of that very
science they love, affect more liberality and candor. This reflection,
however, naturally suggests another, namely, do they really love
science, or is it not too frequently with them but the means to an end?
Were the love of science genuine, I suspect it would produce very
different fruits to that which we see borne by the tree of knowledge, as
it flourishes at present; and this suspicion is exceedingly strengthened
by the recollection that, among the numerous students and professors of
science I have at different times encountered, the real worshippers and
genuine lovers of it, for its own sake, have all been men of the most
single, candid, unprejudiced, and inquiring minds, willing to listen to
all new suggestions, and investigate all new facts; not bold and
self-sufficient, but humble and reverent suitors, aware of their own
ignorance and unworthiness, and that they are yet but in the primer of
Nature’s works, they do not permit themselves to pronounce upon her
disclosures, or set limits to her decrees. They are content to admit
that things new and unsuspected may yet be true; that their own
knowledge of facts being extremely circumscribed, the systems attempted
to be established on such uncertain data, must needs be very imperfect,
and frequently altogether erroneous; and that it is therefore their
duty, as it ought to be their pleasure, to welcome as a stranger every
gleam of light that appears in the horizon, let it loom from whatever
quarter it may.
But, alas! poor Science has few such lovers! _Les beaux yeux de sa
cassette_, I fear, are much more frequently the objects of attraction
than her own fair face.
The belief in a God, and in the immortality of what we call the soul, is
common to all nations; but our own intellect does not enable us to form
any conception of either one or the other. All the information we have
on these subjects is comprised in such hints as the Scripture here and
there give us: whatever other conclusions we draw, must be the result of
observation and experience. Unless founded upon these, the opinion of
the most learned theologian or the most profound student of science that
ever lived, is worth no more than that of any other person. They know
nothing whatever about these mysteries; and all _a priori_ reasoning on
them is utterly valueless. The only way, therefore, of attaining any
glimpses of the truth in an inquiry of this nature, where our intellect
can serve us so little, is to enter on it with the conviction that,
knowing nothing, we are not entitled to reject any evidence that may be
offered to us, till it has been thoroughly sifted, and proved to be
fallacious. That the facts presented to our notice appear to us absurd,
and altogether inconsistent with the notions our intellects would have
enabled us to form, should have no weight whatever in the investigation.
Our intellects are no measure of God Almighty’s designs; and, I must
say, that I do think one of the most irreverent, dangerous, and sinful
things man or woman can be guilty of, is to reject with scorn and
laughter any intimation which, however strangely it may strike upon our
minds, and however adverse it may be to our opinions, may possibly be
showing us the way to one of God’s truths. Not knowing all the
conditions, and wanting so many links of the chain, it is impossible for
us to pronounce on what is probable and consistent, and what is not;
and, this being the case, I think the time is ripe for drawing attention
to certain phenomena, which, under whatever aspect we may consider them,
are, beyond doubt, exceedingly interesting and curious; while, if the
view many persons are disposed to take of them be the correct one, they
are much more than this. I wish, also, to make the English public
acquainted with the ideas entertained on these subjects by a large
proportion of German minds of the highest order. It is a distinctive
characteristic of the thinkers of that country, that, in the first
place, they do think independently and courageously; and, in the second,
that they never shrink from promulgating the opinions they have been led
to form, however new, strange, heterodox, or even absurd, they may
appear to others. They do not succumb, as people do in this country, to
the fear of ridicule; nor are they in danger of the odium that here
pursues those who deviate from established notions; and the consequence
is, that, though many fallacious theories and untenable propositions may
be advanced, a great deal of new truth is struck out from the collision;
and in the result, as must always be the case, what is true lives and is
established, and what is false dies and is forgotten. But here, in
Britain, our critics and colleges are in such haste to strangle and put
down every new discovery that does not emanate from themselves, or which
is not a fulfilling of the ideas of the day, but which, being somewhat
opposed to them, promises to be troublesome from requiring new thought
to render it intelligible, that one might be induced to suppose them
divested of all confidence in this inviolable law; while the more
important and the higher the results involved may be, the more angry
they are with those who advocate them. They do not quarrel with a new
metal or a new plant, and even a new comet or a new island stands a fair
chance of being well received; the introduction of a planet appears,
from late events, to be more difficult; while phrenology and mesmerism
testify that any discovery tending to throw light on what most deeply
concerns us, namely, our own being, must be prepared to encounter a
storm of angry persecution. And one of the evils of this hasty and
precipitate opposition is, that the passions and interests of the
opposers become involved in the dispute: instead of investigators, they
become partisans; having declared against it in the outset, it is
important to their petty interests that the thing shall not be true; and
they determine that it _shall_ not, if they can help it. Hence, these
hasty, angry investigations of new facts, and the triumph with which
failures are recorded; and hence the wilful overlooking of the axiom
that a thousand negatives can not overthrow the evidence of one
affirmative experiment. I always distrust those who have declared
themselves strongly in the beginning of a controversy. Opinions which,
however rashly avowed, may have been honest at first, may have been
changed for many a long day before they are retracted. In the meantime,
the march of truth is obstructed, and its triumph is delayed; timid
minds are alarmed; those who dare not or can not think for themselves,
are subdued; there is much needless suffering incurred, and much good
lost; but the truth goes quietly on its way, and reaches the goal at
last.
With respect to the subjects I am here going to treat of, it is not
simply the result of my own reflections and convictions that I am about
to offer. On the contrary, I intend to fortify my position by the
opinions of many other writers; the chief of whom will, for the reasons
above given, namely, that it is they who have principally attended to
the question, be Germans. I am fully aware that in this country a very
considerable number of persons lean to some of these opinions, and I
think I might venture to assert that I have the majority on my side, as
far as regards ghosts—for it is beyond a doubt that many more are
disposed to believe than to confess—and those who do confess, are not
few. The deep interest with which any narration of spiritual appearances
bearing the stamp, or apparent stamp, of authenticity is listened to in
every society, is one proof that, though the fear of ridicule may
suppress, it can not extinguish that intuitive persuasion, of which
almost every one is more or less conscious.
I avow, that in writing this book, I have a higher aim than merely to
afford amusement. I wish to engage the earnest attention of my readers;
because I am satisfied that the opinions I am about to advocate,
seriously entertained, would produce very beneficial results. We are all
educated in the belief of a future state, but how vague and ineffective
this belief is with the majority of persons, we too well know; for
although, as I have said above, the number of those who are what is
called believers in ghosts and similar phenomena is very large, it is a
belief that they allow to sit extremely lightly on their minds. Although
they feel that the evidence from within and from without is too strong
to be altogether set aside, they have never permitted themselves to
weigh the significance of the facts. They are afraid of that bugbear,
Superstition—a title of opprobrium which it is very convenient to
attach to whatever we do not believe ourselves. They forget that nobody
has a right to call any belief superstitious, till he can prove that it
is unfounded. Now, no one that lives can assert that the reappearance of
the dead is impossible; all he has a right to say is, that he does not
believe it; and the interrogation that should immediately follow this
declaration is, “Have you devoted your life to sifting all the evidence
that has been adduced on the other side, from the earliest periods of
history and tradition?” and even though the answer were in the
affirmative, and that the investigation had been conscientiously
pursued, it would be still a bold inquirer that would think himself
entitled to say, the question was no longer open. But the rashness and
levity with which mankind make professions of believing and
disbelieving, are, all things considered, phenomena much more
extraordinary than the most extraordinary ghost-story that ever was
related. The truth is, that not one person in a thousand, in the proper
sense of the word, believes anything; they only fancy they believe,
because they have never seriously considered the meaning of the word and
all that it involves. That which the human mind can not conceive of, is
apt to slip from its grasp like water from the hand; and life out of the
flesh falls under this category. The observation of any phenomena,
therefore, which enabled us to master the idea, must necessarily be
extremely beneficial; and it must be remembered, that one single
thoroughly well-established instance of the reappearance of a deceased
person, would not only have this effect, but that it would afford a
demonstrative proof of the deepest of all our intuitions, namely, that a
future life awaits us.
Not to mention the modern Germans of eminence, who have devoted
themselves to this investigation, there have been men remarkable for
intellect in all countries, who have considered the subject worthy of
inquiry. Among the rest, Plato, Pliny, and Lucien; and in our own
country, that good old divine, Dr. Henry Moore, Dr. Johnson, Addison,
Isaac Taylor, and many others. It may be objected that the
eternally-quoted case of Nicolai, the bookseller at Berlin, and Dr.
Ferriar’s “Theory of Apparitions,” had not then settled the question;
but nobody doubts that Nicolai’s was a case of disease; and he was well
aware of it himself, as it appears to me, everybody so afflicted, is. I
was acquainted with a poor woman, in Edinburgh, who suffered from this
malady, brought on, I believe, by drinking; but she was perfectly
conscious of the nature of the illusions; and that temperance and a
doctor were the proper exorcists to lay the spirits. With respect to Dr.
Ferriar’s book, a more shallow one was assuredly never allowed to settle
any question; and his own theory can not, without the most violent
straining, and the assistance of what he calls _coincidences_, meet even
half the cases he himself adduces. That such a disease, as he describes,
exists, nobody doubts; but I maintain that there are hundreds of cases
on record, for which the explanation does not suffice; and if they have
been instances of spectral illusion, all that remains to be said, is,
that a fundamental reconstruction of the theory on that subject is
demanded.
La Place says, in his “Essay on Probabilities,” that “any case, however
apparently incredible, if it be a recurrent case, is as much entitled,
under the laws of induction, to a fair valuation, as if it had been more
probable beforehand.” Now, no one will deny that the case in question
possesses this claim to investigation. Determined skeptics may, indeed,
deny that there exists any well-authenticated instance of an apparition;
but that, at present, can only be a mere matter of opinion; since many
persons, as competent to judge as themselves, maintain the contrary; and
in the meantime, I arraign their right to make this objection till they
have qualified themselves to do so, by a long course of patient and
honest inquiry; always remembering that every instance of error or
imposition discovered and adduced, has no positive value whatever in the
argument, but as regards that single instance; though it may enforce
upon us the necessity of strong evidence and careful investigation. With
respect to the evidence, past and present, I must be allowed here to
remark on the extreme difficulty of producing it. Not to mention the
acknowledged carelessness of observers and the alleged incapacity of
persons to distinguish between reality and illusion, there is an
exceeding shyness in most people, who, either have seen, or fancied they
have seen, an apparition, to speak of it at all, except to some intimate
friend; so that one gets most of the stories second-hand; while even
those who are less chary of their communications, are imperative against
their name and authority being given to the public. Besides this, there
is a great tendency in most people, after the impression is over, to
think they may have been deceived; and where there is no communication
or other circumstance rendering this conviction impossible, it is not
difficult to acquire it, or at least so much of it as leaves the case
valueless. The seer is glad to find this refuge from the unpleasant
feelings engendered; while surrounding friends, sometimes from genuine
skepticism, and sometimes from good-nature, almost invariably lean to
this explanation of the mystery. In consequence of these difficulties
and those attending the very nature of the phenomena, I freely admit
that the facts I shall adduce, as they now stand, can have no scientific
value; they can not in short, enter into the region of science at all,
still less into that of philosophy. Whatever conclusions we may be led
to form, can not be founded on pure induction. We must confine ourselves
wholly within the region of opinion; if we venture beyond which, we
shall assuredly founder. In the beginning, all sciences have been but a
collection of facts, afterward to be examined, compared, and weighed, by
intelligent minds. To the vulgar, who do not see the universal law which
governs the universe, everything out of the ordinary course of events,
is a prodigy; but to the enlightened mind there are no prodigies; for it
perceives that in both the moral and the physical world, there is a
chain of uninterrupted connection; and that the most strange and even
apparently contradictory or supernatural fact or event will be found, on
due investigation, to be strictly dependent on its antecedents. It is
possible, that there may be a link wanting, and that our investigations
may, consequently, be fruitless; but the link is assuredly there,
although our imperfect knowledge and limited vision can not find it.
And it is here the proper place to observe, that, in undertaking to
treat of the phenomena in question, I do not propose to consider them as
supernatural; on the contrary, I am persuaded that the time will come,
when they will be reduced strictly within the bounds of science. It was
the tendency of the last age to reject and _deny_ everything they did
not understand; I hope it is the growing tendency of the present one to
_examine_ what we do not understand. Equally disposed with our
predecessors of the eighteenth century to reject the supernatural, and
to believe the order of nature inviolable, we are disposed to extend the
bounds of nature and science, till they comprise within their limits all
the phenomena, ordinary and extraordinary, by which we are surrounded.
Scarcely a month passes that we do not hear of some new and important
discovery in science. It is a domain in which nothing is stable, and
every year overthrows some of the hasty and premature theories of the
preceding ones; and this will continue to be the case as long as
scientific men occupy themselves each with his own subject, without
studying the great and primal truths—what the French call _les vérités
mères_—which link the whole together. Meantime, there is a continual
unsettling. Truth, if it do not emanate from an acknowledged authority,
is generally rejected; and error, if it do, is as often accepted; while,
whoever disputes the received theory, whatever it be—we mean especially
that adopted by the professors of colleges—does it at his peril. But
there is a day yet brooding in the bosom of time, when the sciences will
be no longer isolated; when we shall no longer deny, but be able to
account for, phenomena apparently prodigious, or have the modesty, if we
can not explain them, to admit that the difficulty arises solely from
our own incapacity. The system of centralization in statistics seems to
be of doubtful advantage; but a greater degree of centralization appears
to be very much needed in the domain of science. Some improvement in
this respect might do wonders, particularly if reinforced with a slight
infusion of patience and humility into the minds of scientific men;
together with the recollection that facts and phenomena, which do not
depend on our will, must be waited for—that we must be at their
command, for they will not be at ours.
But to return once more to our own subject. If we do believe that a
future life awaits us, there can be nothing more natural than the desire
to obtain some information as to what manner of life that is to be for
which any one of us may, before this time to-morrow, have exchanged his
present mode of being. That there does not exist a greater interest with
regard to this question in the mind of man, arises partly from the
vague, intangible kind of belief he entertains of the fact; partly from
his absorption in worldly affairs, and the hard and indigestible food
upon which his clerical shepherds pasture him—for, under dogmatic
theology, religion seems to have withered away to the mere husk of
spiritualism; and partly, also, from the apparent impossibility of
pursuing the inquiry to any purpose. As I said before, observation and
experience can alone guide us in such an inquiry; for, though most
people have a more or less intuitive sense of their own immortality,
intuition is silent as to the mode of it; and the question I am anxious
here to discuss with my readers is, whether we have any facts to
observe, or any experience from which, on this most interesting of all
subjects, a conclusion may be drawn. Great as the difficulty is of
producing evidence, it will, I think, be pretty generally admitted that,
although each individual case, as it stands alone, may be comparatively
valueless, the amount of recurrent cases forms a body of evidence that,
on any other subject, would scarcely be rejected; and since, if the
facts are accepted, they imperatively demand an explanation—for,
assuredly, the present theory of spectral illusions can not comprise
them—our inquiry, let it terminate in whatever conclusion it may, can
not be useless or uninteresting. Various views of the phenomena in
question may be taken; and although I shall offer my own opinions and
the theories and opinions of others, I insist upon none. I do not write
to dogmatise, but to suggest reflection and inquiry. The books of Dr.
Ferriar, Dr. Hibbert, and Dr. Thatcher, the American, are all written to
support one exclusive theory; and they only give such cases as serve to
sustain it. They maintain that the whole phenomena are referrible to
nervous or sanguineous derangement, and are mere subjective illusions;
and whatever instance can not be covered by this theory, they reject as
false, or treat as a case of extraordinary coincidence. In short, they
arrange the facts to their theory, not their theory to the facts. Their
books can not, therefore, claim to be considered as anything more than
essays on a special disease; they have no pretence whatever to the
character of investigations. The question, consequently, remains as much
an open one as before they treated it; while we have the advantage of
their experience and information, with regard to the peculiar malady
that forms the subject of their works. On that subject it is not my
intention to enter; it is a strictly medical one, and every information
may be obtained respecting it in the above-named treatises, and others
emanating from the faculty.
The subjects I do intend to treat of are the various kinds of prophetic
dreams, presentiments, second-sight, and apparitions; and, in short, all
that class of phenomena which appears to throw some light on our
physical nature, and on the probable state of the soul after death. In
this discussion, I shall make free use of my German authorities, Doctors
Kerner, Stilling, Werner, Eschenmayer, Ennemoser, Passavent, Schubert,
Von Meyer, &c., &c.; and I here make a general acknowledgment to that
effect, because it would embarrass my book too much to be constantly
giving names and references, although, when I quote their words
literally, I shall make a point of doing so; and because, also, that, as
I have been both thinking and reading much on these subjects for a
considerable time past, I am, in fact, no longer in a condition to
appropriate, either to them or to myself, each his own. This, however,
is a matter of very little consequence, as I am not desirous of claiming
any idea as mine that can be found elsewhere. It is enough for me, if I
succeed in making a tolerably clear exposition of the subject, and can
induce other people to reflect upon it.