MISCELLANEOUS PHENOMENA.
IN a former chapter, I alluded to the forms seen floating over graves,
by Billing, Pfeffel’s amanuensis. By some persons, this luminous form is
seen only as a light, just as occurs in many of the apparition cases I
have related. How far Baron Reichenbach is correct in his conclusion,
that these figures are merely the result of the chemical process going
on below, it is impossible for any one at present to say. The fact that
these lights do not always hover over the graves, but sometimes move
from them, militates against this opinion, as I have before observed;
and the insubstantial nature of the form which reconstructed itself
after Pfeffel had passed his stick through it proves nothing, since the
same thing is asserted of all apparitions I meet with, let them be seen
where they may, except in such very extraordinary cases as that of the
Bride of Corinth, supposing that story to be true.
At the same time, although these cases are not made out to be chemical
phenomena, neither are we entitled to class them under the head of what
is commonly understood by the word _ghost_; whereby we comprehend a
shadowy shape, informed by an intelligent spirit. But there are some
cases, a few of which I will mention, that it seems extremely difficult
to include under one category or the other.
The late Lieutenant-General Robertson, of Lawers, who served during the
whole of the American war, brought home with him, at its termination, a
negro, who went by the name of Black Tom, and who continued in his
service. The room appropriated to the use of this man, in the general’s
town residence (I speak of Edinburgh), was on the ground floor; and he
was heard frequently to complain that he could not rest in it, for that
every night the figure of a headless lady, with a child in her arms,
rose out of the hearth and frightened him dreadfully. Of course nobody
believed this story, and it was supposed to be the dream of
intoxication, as Tom was not remarkable for sobriety; but, strange to
say, when the old mansion was pulled down to build Gillespie’s hospital,
which stands on its site, there was found, under the hearth-stone in
that apartment, a box containing the body of a female, from which the
head had been severed; and beside her lay the remains of an infant,
wrapped in a pillow-case trimmed with lace. She appeared, poor lady, to
have been cut off in the “blossom of her sins;” for she was dressed, and
her scissors were yet hanging by a riband to her side, and her thimble
was also in the box, having, apparently, fallen from the shrivelled
finger.
Now, whether we are to consider this a ghost, or a phenomenon of the
same nature as that seen by Billing, it is difficult to decide. Somewhat
similar is the following case, which I have borrowed from a little work
entitled “Supernaturalism in New England.” Not only does this little
extract prove that the same phenomena, be they interpreted as they may,
exist in all parts of the world, but I think it will be granted me that,
although we have not here the confirmation that time furnished in the
former instance, yet it is difficult to suppose that this unexcitable
person should have been the subject of so extraordinary a spectral
illusion.
“Whoever has seen Great pond, in the east parish of Haverhill, has seen
one of the very loveliest of the thousand little lakes or ponds of New
England. With its soft slopes of greenest verdure—its white and
sparkling sand-rim—its southern hem of pine and maple, mirrored, with
spray and leaf, in the glassy water—its graceful hill-sentinels round
about, white with the orchard-bloom of spring, or tasselled with the
corn of autumn—its long sweep of blue waters, broken here and there by
picturesque headlands—it would seem a spot, of all others, where
spirits of evil must shrink, rebuked and abashed, from the presence of
the beautiful. Yet here, too, has the shadow of the supernatural fallen.
A lady of my acquaintance, a staid, unimaginative church-member, states
that, a few years ago, she was standing in the angle formed by two
roads, one of which traverses the pond-shore, the other leading over the
hill which rises abruptly from the water. It was a warm summer evening,
just at sunset. She was startled by the appearance of a horse and cart,
of the kind used a century ago in New England, driving rapidly down the
steep hill-side, and crossing the wall a few yards before her, without
noise or displacing of a stone. The driver sat sternly erect, with a
fierce countenance, grasping the reins tightly, and looking neither to
the right nor the left. Behind the cart, and apparently lashed to it,
was a woman of gigantic size, her countenance convulsed with a blended
expression of rage and agony, writhing and struggling, like Laocoon in
the folds of the serpent. Her head, neck, feet, and arms, were naked;
wild locks of gray hair streamed back from temples corrugated and
darkened. The horrible cavalcade swept by across the street, and
disappeared at the margin of the pond.”
Many persons will have heard of the “Wild Troop of Rodenstein,” but few
are aware of the curious amount of evidence there is in favor of the
strange belief which prevails among the inhabitants of that region. The
story goes, that the former possessors of the castles of Rodenstein and
Schnellert were robbers and pirates, who committed, in conjunction, all
manner of enormities; and that, to this day, the troop, with their
horses and carriages, and dogs, are heard, every now and then, wildly
rushing along the road between the two castles. This sounds like a fairy
tale; yet so much was it believed, that, up to the middle of the last
century, regular reports were made to the authorities in the
neighborhood of the periods when the troop had passed. Since that, the
landgericht, or court leet, has been removed to Furth, and they trouble
themselves no longer about the Rodenstein troop; but a traveller, named
Wirth, who a few years ago undertook to examine into the affair,
declares the people assert that the passage of the visionary cavalcade
still continues; and they assured him that certain houses, that he saw
lying in ruins, were in that state because, as they lay directly in the
way of the troop, they were uninhabitable. There is seldom anything
seen; but the noise of carriage-wheels, horses’ feet, smacking of whips,
blowing of horns, and the voice of these fierce hunters of men urging
them on, are the sounds by which they recognise that the troop is
passing from one castle to the other; and at a spot which was formerly a
blacksmith’s, but is now a carpenter’s, the invisible lord of Rodenstein
still stops to have his horse shod. Mr. Wirth copied several of the
depositions out of the court records, and they are brought down to June,
1764. This is certainly a strange story; but it is not much more so than
that of the black man, which I know to be true.
During the seven years’ war in Germany, a drover lost his life in a
drunken squabble on the high road. For some time there was a sort of
rude tombstone, with a cross on it, to mark the spot where his body was
interred; but this has long fallen, and a milestone now fills its place.
Nevertheless, it continues commonly asserted by the country people, and
also by various travellers, that they have been deluded in that spot by
seeing, as they imagine, herds of beasts, which, on investigation, prove
to be merely visionary. Of course, many people look upon this as a
superstition; but a very singular confirmation of the story occurred in
the year 1826, when two gentlemen and two ladies were passing the spot
in a post-carriage. One of these was a clergyman, and none of them had
ever heard of the phenomenon said to be attached to the place. They had
been discussing the prospects of the minister, who was on his way to a
vicarage, to which he had just been appointed, when they saw a large
flock of sheep, which stretched quite across the road, and was
accompanied by a shepherd and a long-haired black dog. As to meet cattle
on that road was nothing uncommon, and indeed they had met several
droves in the course of the day, no remark was made at the moment, till,
suddenly, each looked at the other and said, “What is become of the
sheep?” Quite perplexed at their sudden disappearance, they called to
the postillion to stop, and all got out in order to mount a little
elevation and look around; but still unable to discover them, they now
bethought themselves of asking the postillion where they were, when, to
their infinite surprise, they learned that he had not seen them. Upon
this, they bade him quicken his pace, that they might overtake a
carriage that had passed them shortly before, and inquire if that party
had seen the sheep; but they had not.
Four years later, a postmaster, named J——, was on the same road,
driving a carriage, in which were a clergyman and his wife, when he saw
a large flock of sheep near the same spot. Seeing they were very fine
wethers, and supposing them to have been bought at a sheep-fair that was
then taking place a few miles off, J—— drew up his reins and stopped
his horse, turning at the same time to the clergyman to say, that he
wanted to inquire the price of the sheep, as he intended going next day
to the fair himself. While the minister was asking him what sheep he
meant, J—— got down and found himself in the midst of the animals, the
size and beauty of which astonished him. They passed him at an unusual
rate, while he made his way through them to find the shepherd, when, on
getting to the end of the flock, they suddenly disappeared. He then
first learned that his fellow-travellers had not seen them at all.
Now, if such cases as these are not pure illusions, which I confess I
find it difficult to believe, we must suppose that the animals and all
the extraneous circumstances are produced by the magical will of the
spirit, either acting on the constructive imagination of the seers, or
else actually constructing the ethereal forms out of the elements at its
command, just as we have supposed an apparition able to present himself
with whatever dress or appliances he conceives; or else we must conclude
these forms to have some relation to the mystery called PALINGNESIA,
which I have previously alluded to, although the motion and change of
place render it difficult to bring them under this category. As for the
animals, although the drover was slain, they were not; and therefore,
even granting them to have souls, we can not look upon them as the
apparitions of the flock. Neither can we consider the numerous instances
of armies seen in the air to be apparitions; and yet these phenomena are
so well established that they have been accounted for by supposing them
to be atmospherical reflections of armies elsewhere, in actual motion.
But how are we to account for the visionary troops which are not seen in
the air, but on the very ground on which the seers themselves stand,
which was the case especially with those seen in Havarah park, near
Ripley, in the year 1812? These soldiers wore a white uniform, and in
the centre was a personage in a scarlet one.
After performing several evolutions, the body began to march in perfect
order to the summit of a hill, passing the spectators at the distance of
about one hundred yards. They amounted to several hundreds, and marched
in a column, four deep, across about thirty acres; and no sooner were
they passed, than another body, far more numerous, but dressed in dark
clothes, arose and marched after them, without any apparent hostility.
Both parties having reached the top of the hill, and there formed what
the spectators called an L, they disappeared down the other side, and
were seen no more; but at that moment a volume of smoke arose like the
discharge of a park of artillery, which was so thick that the men could
not, for two or three minutes, discover their own cattle. They then
hurried home to relate what they had seen, and the impression made on
them is described as so great, that they could never allude to the
subject without emotion.
One of them was a farmer of the name of Jackson, aged forty-five; the
other was a lad of fifteen, called Turner: and they were at the time
herding cattle in the park. The scene seems to have lasted nearly a
quarter of an hour, during which time they were quite in possession of
themselves, and able to make remarks to each other on what they saw.
They were both men of excellent character and unimpeachable veracity,
insomuch that nobody who knew them doubted that they actually saw what
they described, or, at all events, believed that they did. It is to be
observed, also, that the ground is not swampy, nor subject to any
exhalations.
About the year 1750, a visionary army of the same description was seen
in the neighborhood of Inverness, by a respectable farmer, of Glenary,
and his son. The number of troops was very great, and they had not the
slightest doubt that they were otherwise than substantial forms of flesh
and blood. They counted at least sixteen pairs of columns, and had
abundance of time to observe every particular. The front ranks marched
seven abreast, and were accompanied by a good many women and children,
who were carrying tin cans and other implements of cookery. The men were
clothed in red, and their arms shone brightly in the sun. In the midst
of them was an animal—a deer or a horse, they could not distinguish
which—that they were driving furiously forward with their bayonets. The
younger of the two men observed to the other that every now and then the
rear ranks were obliged to run to overtake the van; and the elder one,
who had been a soldier, remarked that that was always the case, and
recommended him, if he ever served, to try and march in the front. There
was only one mounted officer: he rode a gray dragoon horse, and wore a
gold-laced hat and blue hussar cloak, with wide, open sleeves, lined
with red. The two spectators observed him so particularly, that they
said afterward they should recognise him anywhere. They were, however,
afraid of being ill-treated, or forced to go along with the troops, whom
they concluded had come from Ireland, and landed at Kyntyre; and while
they were climbing over a dike to get out of their way, the whole thing
vanished.
Some years since, a phenomenon of the same sort was observed at
Paderborn, in Westphalia, and seen by at least thirty persons, as well
as by horses and dogs, as was discovered by the demeanor of these
animals. In October, 1836, on the very same spot, there was a review of
twenty thousand men; and the people then concluded that the former
vision was a second-sight.
A similar circumstance occurred in Stockton forest, some years ago; and
there are many recorded elsewhere—one especially, in the year 1686,
near Lanark, where, for several afternoons, in the months of June and
July, there were seen, by numerous spectators, companies of men in arms,
marching in order by the banks of the Clyde, and other companies meeting
them, &c., &c.; added to which there were showers of bonnets, hats,
guns, swords, &c., which the seers described with the greatest
exactness. All who were present could not see these things, and Walker
relates that one gentleman, particularly, was turning the thing into
ridicule, calling the seers “damned witches and warlocks, with the
second-sight!”—boasting that “the devil a thing he could see!”—when he
suddenly exclaimed, with fear and trembling, that he now saw it all; and
entreated those who did not see, to say nothing—a change that may be
easily accounted for, be the phenomenon of what nature it may, by
supposing him to have touched one of the seers, when the faculty would
be communicated like a shock of electricity.
With regard to the palinganesia, it would be necessary to establish that
these objects had previously existed, and that, as Oetinger says, the
earthly husk having fallen off, “the volatile essence had ascended
perfect in form, but void of substance.”
The notion supported by Baron Reichenbach, that the lights seen in
churchyards and over graves are the result of a process going on below,
is by no means new, for Gaffarillus suggested the same opinion in 1650;
only he speaks of the appearances over graves and in churchyards as
shadows, _ombres_, as they appeared to Billing; and he mentions,
casually, as a thing frequently observed, that the same visionary forms
are remarked on ground where battles have been fought, which he thinks
arise out of a process between the earth and the sun. When a limb has
been cut off, some somnambules still discern the form of the member as
if actually attached.
But this magical process is said to be not only the work of the
elements, but also possible to man; and that as the forms of plants can
be preserved after the substance is destroyed, so can that of man be
either preserved or reproduced from the elements of his body. In the
reign of Louis XIV., three alchemists, having distilled some earth taken
from the cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris, were forced to desist, by
seeing the forms of men appearing in their vials, instead of the
philosopher’s stone, which they were seeking; and a physician, who,
after dissecting a body, and pulverizing the cranium (which was then an
article admitted into the materia medica), had left the powder on the
table of his laboratory, in charge of his assistant, the latter, who
slept in an adjoining room, was awakened in the night by hearing a
noise, which, after some search, he ultimately traced to the powder—in
the midst of which he beheld, gradually constructing itself, a human
form! First appeared the head, with two open eyes, then the arms and
hands, and, by degrees, the rest of the person, which subsequently
assumed the clothes it had worn when alive! The man was, of course,
frightened out of his wits—the rather, as the apparition planted itself
before the door, and would not let him go away till it had made its own
exit, which it speedily did. Similar results have been said to arise
from experiments performed on blood. I confess I should be disposed to
consider these apparitions, if ever they appeared, cases of genuine
ghosts, brought into rapport by the operation, rather than forms
residing in the bones or blood. At all events, these things are very
hard to believe; but seeing we were not there, I do not think we have
any right to say they did not happen; or at least that some phenomena
did not occur, that were open to this interpretation.
It is highly probable that the seeing of those visionary armies and
similar prodigies is a sort of second-sight; but having admitted this,
we are very little nearer an explanation. Granting that, as in the above
experiments, the essence of things may retain the forms of the
substance, this does not explain the seeing that which has not yet taken
place, or which is taking place at so great a distance, that neither
Oetinger’s essence nor the superficial films of Lucretius can remove the
difficulty.
It is the fashion to say that second-sight was a mere superstition of
the highlanders, and that no such thing is ever heard of now; but those
who talk in this way know very little of the matter. No doubt, if they
set out to look for seers, they may not find them; such phenomena,
though known in all countries and in all ages, are _comparatively_ rare,
as well as uncertain and capricious, and not to be exercised at will:
but I know of too many instances of the existence of this faculty in
families, as well as of isolated cases occurring to individuals above
all suspicion, to entertain the smallest doubt of its reality. But the
difficulty of furnishing evidence is considerable: because, when the
seers are of the humbler classes, they are called impostors and not
believed; and when they are of the higher, they do not make the subject
a matter of conversation, nor choose to expose themselves to the
ridicule of the foolish; and consequently the thing is not known beyond
their own immediate friends. When the young duke of Orleans was killed,
a lady, residing here, saw the accident, and described it to her husband
at the time it was occurring in France. She had frequently seen the
duke, when on the continent.
Captain N—— went to stay two days at the house of Lady T——. After
dinner, however, he announced that he was under the necessity of going
away that night, nor could he be induced to remain. On being much
pressed for an explanation, he confided to some of the party that,
during the dinner, he had seen a female figure with her throat cut,
standing behind Lady T——’s chair. Of course, it was thought an
illusion, but Lady T—— was not told of it, lest she should be alarmed.
That night the household was called up for the purpose of summoning a
surgeon—Lady T—— had cut her own throat!
Mr. C——, who, though a Scotchman, was an entire skeptic with regard to
the second-sight, was told by a seer whom he had been jeering on the
subject, that, within a month, he (Mr. C——) would be a pall-bearer at
a funeral; that he would go by a certain road, but that, before they had
crossed the brook, a man in a drab coat would come down the hill and
take the pall from him. The funeral occurred, Mr. C—— was a bearer,
and they went by the road described; but he firmly resolved that he
would disappoint the seer by keeping the pall while they crossed the
brook; but shortly before they reached it, the postman overtook them,
with letters, which in that part of the country arrived but twice a
week, and Mr. C——, who was engaged in some speculations of importance,
turned to received them—at which moment the pall was taken from him,
and on looking round, he saw it was by a man in a drab coat!
A medical friend of mine, who practised some time at Deptford, was once
sent for to a girl who had been taken suddenly ill. He found her with
inflammation of the brain, and the only account the mother could give of
it was, that shortly before, she had run into the room, crying, “Oh,
mother, I have seen Uncle John drowned in his boat under the fifth arch
of Rochester bridge!” The girl died a few hours afterward; and, on the
following night, the uncle’s boat ran foul of the bridge, and he was
drowned, exactly as she had foretold.
Mrs. A——, an English lady, and the wife of a clergyman, relates that,
previous to her marriage, she with her father and mother being at the
seaside, had arranged to make a few days’ excursion to some races that
were about to take place; and that the night before they started, the
father having been left alone, while the ladies were engaged in their
preparations, they found him, on descending to the drawing-room, in a
state of considerable agitation—which, he said, had arisen from his
having seen a dreadful face at one corner of the room. He described it
as a bruised, battered, crushed, discolored face, with the two eyes
protruding frightfully from their sockets; but the features were too
disfigured to ascertain if it were the face of any one he knew. On the
following day, on their way to the races, an accident occurred; and he
was brought home with his own face exactly in the condition he had
described. He had never exhibited any other instance of this
extraordinary faculty, and the impression made by the circumstance
lasted the remainder of his life, which was unhappily shortened by the
injuries he had received.
The late Mrs. V——, a lady of fortune and family, who resides near Loch
Lomond, possessed this faculty in an extraordinary degree, and displayed
it on many remarkable occasions. When her brother was shipwrecked in the
channel, she was heard to exclaim, “Thank God, he is saved!” and
described the scene with all its circumstances.
Colonel David Steward, a determined believer in what he calls the
supernatural, in his book on the highlanders, relates the following fact
as one so remarkable, that “credulous minds” may be excused for
believing it to have been prophetic. He says that, late in an autumnal
evening of the year 1773, the son of a neighbor came to his father’s
house, and soon after his arrival inquired for a little boy of the
family, then about three years old. He was shown up to the nursery, and
found the nurse putting a pair of new shoes on the child, which she
complained did not fit. “Never mind,” said the young man, “they will fit
him before he wants them”—a prediction which not only offended the
nurse, but seemed at the moment absurd, since the child was apparently
in perfect health. When he joined the party in the drawing-room, he
being much jeered upon this new gift of second-sight, explained that the
impression he had received originated in his having just seen a funeral
passing the wooden bridge which crossed a stream at a short distance
from the house. He first observed a crowd of people, and on coming
nearer he saw a person carrying a small coffin, followed by about twenty
gentlemen, all of his acquaintance, his own father and a Mr. Stewart
being among the number. He did not attempt to join the procession, which
he saw turn off into the churchyard: but knowing his own father could
not be actually there, and that Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were then at Blair,
he felt a conviction that the phenomenon portended the death of the
child: a persuasion which was verified by its suddenly expiring on the
following night;—and Colonel Stewart adds that the circumstances and
attendants at the funeral were precisely such as the young man had
described. He mentions, also, that this gentleman was not a seer; that
he was a man of education and general knowledge; and that this was the
first and only vision of the sort he ever had.
I know of a young lady who has three times seen funerals in this way.
The old persuasion that fasting was a means of developing the spirit of
prophecy, is undoubtedly well founded, and the annals of medicine
furnish numerous facts which establish it. A man condemned to death at
Viterbo, having abstained from food in the hope of escaping execution,
became so clairvoyant, that he could tell what was doing in any part of
the prison; the expression used in the report is that he “saw through
the walls:” this, however, could not be with his natural organs of
sight.
It is worthy of observation, that idiots often possess some gleams of
this faculty of second-sight or presentiment; and it is probably on this
account that they are in some countries held sacred. Presentiment, which
I think may very probably be merely the vague and imperfect recollection
of what we _knew_ in our sleep, is often observed in drunken people.
In the great plague at Basle, which occurred toward the end of the
sixteenth century, almost everybody who died called out in their last
moments the name of the person that was to follow them next.
Not long ago, a servant girl on the estate of D——, of S——, saw with
amazement five figures ascending a perpendicular cliff, quite
inaccessible to human feet; one was a boy wearing a cap with red
binding. She watched them with great curiosity till they reached the
top, where they all stretched themselves on the earth, with countenances
expressive of great dejection. While she was looking at them they
disappeared, and she immediately related her vision. Shortly afterward,
a foreign ship, in distress, was seen to put off a boat with four men
and a boy: the boat was dashed to pieces in the surf, and the five
bodies, exactly answering the description she had given, were thrown on
shore at the foot of the cliff, which they had perhaps climbed in the
spirit!
How well what we call clairvoyance was known, though how little
understood, at the period of the witch persecution, is proved by what
Dr. Henry More says in his “Antidote against Atheism”:—
“We will now pass to those supernatural effects which are observed in
them that are bewitched or possessed; and such as foretelling things to
come, telling what such and such persons speak or do, as exactly as if
they were by them, when the party possessed is at one end of the town,
and sitting in a house within doors, and those parties that act and
confer together are without, at the other end of the town; to be able to
see some and not others; to play at cards with one certain person, and
not to discern anybody else at the table beside him; to act and talk,
and go up and down, and tell what will become of things, and what
happens in those fits of possession; and then, as soon as the possessed
or bewitched party is out of them, to remember nothing at all, but to
inquire concerning the welfare of those whose faces they seemed to look
upon just before, when they were in their fits;”—a state which he
believes to arise from the devil’s having taken possession of the body
of the magnetic person, which is precisely the theory supported by many
fanatical persons in our own day. Dr. More was not a fanatic: but these
phenomena, though very well understood by the ancient philosophers, as
well as by Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Cornelius Agrippa, Jacob Behmen, a
Scotch physician (called Maxwell) who published on the subject in the
seventeenth century, and many others, were still, when observed, looked
upon as the effects of diabolical influence by mankind in general.
When Monsieur Six Deniers, the artist, was drowned in the Seine in 1846,
after his body had been vainly sought, a somnambule was applied to, in
whose hands they placed a portfolio belonging to him; and being asked
where the owner was, she evinced great terror, held up her dress as if
walking in the water, and said that he was between two boats, under the
Pont des Arts, with nothing on but a flannel waistcoat: and there he was
found.
A friend of mine knows a lady who, early one morning—being in a natural
state of clairvoyance without magnetism—saw the porter of the house
where her son lodged ascend to his room with a carving-knife, go to his
bed where he lay asleep, lean over him, then open a chest, take out a
fifty-pound note, and retire. On the following day, she went to her son
and asked him if he had any money in the house; he said, “Yes, I have
fifty pounds:” whereupon she bade him seek it, but it was gone. They
stopped payment of the note; but did not prosecute, thinking the
evidence insufficient. Subsequently, the porter being taken up for other
crimes, the note was found crumpled up at the bottom of an old purse
belonging to him.
Dr. Ennemoser says that there is no doubt of the ancient Sibyls having
been _clairvoyant_ women, and that it is impossible so much value could
have been attached to their books, had not their revelations been
verified.
A maid-servant residing in a family in Northumberland, one day last
winter was heard to utter a violent scream immediately after she had
left the kitchen. On following her to inquire what had happened, she
said that she had just seen her father in his night-clothes, with a most
horrible countenance, and she was sure something dreadful had happened
to him. Two days afterward there arrived a letter, saying he had been
seized with _delirium tremens_, and was at the point of death; which
accordingly ensued.
There are innumerable cases of this sort recorded in various
collections, not to mention the much more numerous ones that meet with
no recorder; and I could myself mention many more, but these will
suffice—one, however, I will not omit, for, though historical, it is
not generally known. A year before the rebellion broke out, in
consequence of which Lord Kilmarnock lost his head, the family were one
day startled by a scream, and on rushing out to inquire what had
occurred, they found the servants all assembled, in amazement, with the
exception of one maid, who they said had gone up to the garrets to hang
some linen on the lines to dry. On ascending thither, they found the
girl on the floor, in a state of insensibility; and they had no sooner
revived her than, on seeing Lord Kilmarnock bending over her, she
screamed and fainted again. When ultimately recovered, she told them
that while hanging up her linen, and singing, the door had burst open
and his lordship’s bloody head had rolled in. I think it came twice.
This event was so well known at the time, that on the first rumors of
the rebellion, Lord Saltoun said, “Kilmarnock will lose his head.” It
was answered, “that Kilmarnock had not joined the rebels.” “He will, and
will be beheaded,” returned Lord Saltoun.
Now, in these cases we are almost compelled to believe that the
phenomenon is purely subjective, and there is no veritable outstanding
object seen; yet, when we have taken refuge in this hypothesis, the
difficulty remains as great as ever; and is to me much more
incomprehensible than ghost-seeing, because in the latter we suppose an
external agency acting in some way or other on the seer.
I have already mentioned that Oberlin, the good pastor of Ban de la
Roche, himself a ghost-seer, asserted that everything earthly had its
counterpart, or antitype, in the other world, not only organized, but
unorganized matter. If so, do we sometimes see these antitypes?
Dr. Ennemoser, in treating of second-sight—which, by the way, is quite
as well known in Germany, and especially in Denmark, as in the highlands
of Scotland—says, that as in natural somnambulism there is a partial
internal vigilance, so does the seer fall, while awake, into a
dream-state. He suddenly becomes motionless and stiff: his eyes are
open, and his senses are, while the vision lasts, unperceptive of all
external objects; the vision may be communicated by the touch, and
sometimes persons at a distance from each other, but connected by blood
or sympathy, have the vision simultaneously. He remarks, also, that, as
we have seen in the above case of Mr. C——, any attempt to frustrate
the fulfilment of the vision never succeeds, inasmuch as the attempt
appears to be taken into the account.
The seeing in glass and in crystals is equally inexplicable; as is the
magical seeing of the Egyptians. Every now and then we hear it said that
this last is discovered to be an imposition, because some traveller has
either actually fallen into the hands of an impostor—and there are
impostors in all trades—or because the phenomenon was imperfectly
exhibited; a circumstance which, as in the exhibitions of clairvoyants
and somnambulists, where all the conditions are not under command, or
even recognised, must necessarily happen. But not to mention the
accounts published by Mr. Lane and Lord Prudhoe, whoever has read that
of Monsieur Léon Laborde must be satisfied that the thing is an
indisputable fact. It is, in fact, only another form of the seeing in
crystals, which has been known in all ages, and of which many modern
instances have occurred among somnambulic patients.
We see by the forty-fourth chapter of Genesis that it was by his cup
that Joseph prophesied: “Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and
whereby indeed he divineth?” But, as Dr. Passavent observes, and as we
shall presently see, in the anecdote of the boy and the gipsy, the
virtue does not lie in the glass nor in the water, but in the seer
himself, who may possess a more or less developed faculty. The external
objects and ceremonies being only the means of concentrating the
attention and intensifying the power.
Monsieur Léon Laborde witnessed the exhibition, at Cairo, before Lord
P——’s visit; the exhibitor, named Achmed, appeared to him a
respectable man, who spoke simply of his science, and had nothing of the
charlatan about him. The first child employed was a boy eleven years
old, the son of a European; and Achmed having traced some figures on the
palm of his hand, and poured ink over them, bade him look for the
reflection of his own face. The child said he saw it; the magician then
burnt some powders in a brazier, and bade him tell him when he saw a
soldier sweeping a place; and while the fumes from the brazier diffused
themselves, he pronounced a sort of litany. Presently the child threw
back his head, and screaming with terror, sobbed out, while bathed in
tears, that he had seen a dreadful face. Fearing the boy might be
injured, Monsieur Laborde now called up a little Arab servant, who had
never seen or heard of the magician. He was gay and laughing, and not at
all frightened; and the ceremony being repeated, he said he saw the
soldier sweeping in the front of a tent. He was then desired to bid the
soldier bring Shakspere, Colonel Cradock, and several other persons; and
he described every person and thing so exactly as to be entirely
satisfactory. During the operations the boy looked as if intoxicated,
with his eyes fixed and the perspiration dripping from his brow. Achmed
disenchanted him by placing his thumbs on his eyes. He gradually
recovered, and gayly related all he had seen, which he perfectly
remembered.
Now this is merely another form of what the Laplanders, the African
magicians, and the Schaamans of Siberia, do by taking narcotics and
turning round till they fall down in a state of insensibility, in which
condition they are clear-seers, and besides vaticinating, describe
scenes, places, and persons, they have never seen. In Barbary they
anoint their hands with a black ointment, and then holding them up in
the sun, they see whatever they desire, like the Egyptians.
Lady S—— possesses somewhat of a singular faculty, naturally. By
walking rapidly round a room several times, till a certain degree of
vertigo is produced, she will name to you any person you have privately
thought of or agreed upon with others. Her phrase is: “I _see_” so and
so.
Monsieur Laborde purchased the secret of Achmed, who said he had learned
it from two celebrated scheicks of his own country, which was Algiers.
Monsieur L. found it connected with both physics and magnetism, and
practised it himself afterward with perfect success; and he affirms,
positively, that under the influence of a particular organization and
certain ceremonies, among which he can not distinguish which are
indispensable and which are not, that a child, without fraud or
collusion, can see, as through a window or peep-hole, people moving, who
appear and disappear at their command, and with whom they hold
communication—and they remember everything after the operation. He
says: “I narrate, but explain nothing; I produced those effects, but can
not comprehend them; I only affirm in the most positive manner that what
I relate is true. I performed the experiment in various places, with
various subjects, before numerous witnesses, in my own room or other
rooms, in the open air, and even in a boat on the Nile. The exactitude
and detailed descriptions of persons, places, and scenes, could by no
possibility be feigned.”
Moreover, Baron Dupotet has very lately succeeded in obtaining these
phenomena in Paris, from persons not somnambulic selected from his
audience,—the chief difference being that they did not recollect what
they had seen when the crisis was over.
Cagliostro, though a charlatan, was possessed of this secret, and it was
his great success in it that chiefly sustained his reputation; the
spectators, convinced he could make children see distant places and
persons in glass, were persuaded he could do other things, which
appeared to them no more mysterious. Dr. Dee was perfectly honest with
regard to his mirror, in which he could _see_ by concentrating his mind
on it; but, as he could not remember what he saw, he employed Kelly to
_see_ for him, while he himself wrote down the revelations: and Kelly
was a rogue, and deceived and ruined him.
A friend of Pfeffel’s knew a boy, apprenticed to an apothecary at
Schoppenweyer, who, having been observed to amuse himself by looking
into vials filled with water, was asked what he saw; when it was
discovered that he possessed this faculty of _seeing_ in glass, which
was afterward very frequently exhibited for the satisfaction of the
curious. Pfeffel also mentions another boy who had this faculty, and who
went about the country with a small mirror, answering questions,
recovering stolen goods, &c. He said that he one day fell in with some
gipsies, one of whom was sitting apart and staring into this glass. The
boy, from curiosity, looked over his shoulder and exclaimed that he saw
“a fine man who was moving about;” whereupon the gipsy, having
interrogated him, gave him the glass; “for,” said he, “I have been
staring in it long enough, and can see nothing but my own face.”
It is almost unnecessary to observe that the sacred books of the Jews
and of the Indians testify to their acquaintance with this mode of
divination, as well as many others.
Many persons will have heard or read an account of Mr. Canning and Mr.
Huskisson having seen, while in Paris, the visionary representation of
their own deaths in water, as exhibited to them by a Russian or Polish
lady there: as I do not, however, know what authority there is for this
story, I will not insist on it here. But St. Simon relates a very
curious circumstance of this nature, which occurred at Paris, and was
related to him by the duke of Orleans, afterward regent. The latter said
that he had sent on the preceding evening for a man, then in Paris, who
pretended to exhibit whatever was desired in a glass of water. He came,
and a child of seven years old, belonging to the house, being called up,
they bade her tell what she saw doing in certain places. She did; and as
they sent to these places and found her report correct, they bade her
next describe under what circumstances the king would die, without,
however, asking when the death would take place.
The child knew none of the court, and had never been at Versailles; yet
she described everything exactly—the room, bed, furniture, and the king
himself, Madame de Maintenon, Fagon, the physician, the princes and
princesses—everybody, in short, including a child, wearing an order, in
the arms of a lady whom she recognised as having seen; this was Madame
de Ventadour.
It was remarkable that she omitted the dukes de Bourgogne and Berry, and
Monseigneur, and also the duchess de Bourgogne. Orleans insisted they
must be there, describing them; but she always said “_No._” These
persons were then all well, but they died before the king. She also saw
the children of the prince and princess of Conti, but not
themselves—which was correct, as they also died shortly after this
occurrence.
Orleans then wished to see his own destiny; and the man said, if he
would not be frightened he could show it to him, as if painted on the
wall; and after fifteen minutes of conjuration, the duke appeared, of
the natural size, dressed as usual, but with a _couronne fermée_ or
closed crown on his head, which they could not comprehend, as it was not
that of any country they knew of. It covered his head, had only four
circles, and nothing at the top. They had never seen such a one. When he
became regent, they understood that that was the interpretation of the
prediction.
In connection with this subject, the aversion to glass frequently
manifested by dogs is well worthy of observation.
When facts of this kind are found to be recorded or believed in, in all
parts of the world, from the beginning of it up to the present time, it
is surely vain for the so-called _savants_ to deny them; and, as Cicero
justly says in describing the different kinds of magic, “What we have to
do with is the facts, since of the cause we know little. Neither,” he
adds, “are we to repudiate these phenomena, because we sometimes find
them imperfect, or even false, any more than we are to distrust that the
human eye sees, although some do this very imperfectly, or not at all.”
We are part spirit and part matter: by the former we are allied to the
spiritual world and to the absolute spirit; and as nobody doubts that
the latter can work magically, that is, by the mere act of will—for by
the mere act of will all things were created, and by its constant
exertion all things are sustained—why should we be astonished that we,
who partake of the Divine nature and were created after God’s own image,
should also, within certain limits, partake of this magical power? That
this power has been frequently abused, is the fault of those who, being
capable, refuse to investigate, and deny the existence of these and
similar phenomena; and, by thus casting them out of the region of
legitimate science, leave them to become the prey of the ignorant and
designing.
Dr. Ennemoser, in his very learned work on magic, shows us that all the
phenomena of magnetism and somnambulism, and all the various kinds of
divination, have been known and practised in every country under the
sun; and have been intimately connected with, and indeed may be traced
up to the fountain-head of every religion.
What are the limits of these powers possessed by us while in the
flesh—how far they may be developed—and whether, at the extreme verge
of what we can effect, we begin to be aided by God or by spirits of
other spheres of existence bordering on ours—we know not; but, with
respect to the morality of these practices, it suffices that what is
good in act or intention, must come of good; and what is evil in act or
intention, must come of evil: which is true now, as it was in the time
of Moses and the prophets, when miracles and magic were used for
purposes holy and unholy, and were to be judged accordingly. God works
by natural laws, of which we yet know very little, and, in some
departments of his kingdom, nothing; and whatever appears to us
supernatural, only appears so from our ignorance; and whatever faculties
or powers he has endowed us with, it must have been designed we should
exercise and cultivate for the benefit and advancement of our race: nor
can I for one moment suppose that, though like everything else, liable
to abuse, the legitimate exercise of these powers, if we knew their
range, would be useless, much less pernicious or sinful.
Of the magical power of WILL, as I have said before, we know nothing;
and it does not belong to a purely rationalistic age to acknowledge what
it can not understand. In all countries men have arisen, here and there,
who _have_ known it, and some traces of it have survived both in
language and in popular superstitions. “If ye have faith as a grain of
mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, ‘Remove hence,’ and it
shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you. Howbeit, this kind
goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” And, _veuillez et
croyez_—will and believe—was the solution Puységur gave of his magical
cures; and no doubt the explanation of those affected by royal hands is
to be found in the fact that they believed in _themselves_; and having
_faith_, they could exercise _will_. But, with the belief in the divine
right of kings, the faith and the power would naturally expire together.
With respect to what Christ says, in the above-quoted passage, of
_fasting_, numerous instances are extant, proving that clear-seeing and
other magical or spiritual powers are sometimes developed by it.
Wilhelm Krause, a doctor of philosophy and a lecturer at Jena, who died
during the prevalence of the cholera, cultivated these powers and
preached them. I have not been able to obtain his works, they being
suppressed as far as is practicable by the Prussian government. Krause
could leave his body, and, to all appearance, die whenever he pleased.
One of his disciples, yet living, Count von Eberstein, possesses the
same faculty.
Many writers of the sixteenth century were well acquainted with the
power of will, and to this was attributed the good or evil influence of
blessings and curses. They believed it to be of great effect in curing
diseases, and that by it alone life might be extinguished. That,
_subjectively_, life may be extinguished, we have seen by the cases of
Colonel Townshend, the dervish that was buried, Hermotinus, and others:
for doubtless the power that could perform so much, could, under an
adequate motive, have performed more: and since all things in nature,
spiritual and material, are connected, and that there is an unceasing
interaction between them, we being members of one great whole, only
individualized by our organisms, it is possible to conceive that the
power which can be exerted on our own organism might be extended to
others: and since we can not conceive man to be an isolated being—the
only intelligence besides God—none above us and none below—but must,
on the contrary, believe that there are numerous grades of
intelligences, it seems to follow, of course, that we must stand in some
kind of relation to them, more or less intimate; nor is it at all
surprising that with some individuals this relation should be more
intimate than with others. Finally, we are not entitled to deny the
existence of this magical or spiritual power, as exerted by either
incorporated or unincorporated spirits, because we do not comprehend how
it can be exerted; since, in spite of all the words that have been
expended on the subject, we are equally ignorant of the mode in which
our own will acts upon our own muscles. We know the fact, but not the
mode of it.