_beliefs_ as to man's occasional power of opening the gates of distance
have been entertained in a great variety of lands and ages, and by races
in every condition of culture.[23] The alleged experiences are still
said to occur, and have been investigated by physiologists of the eminence
of M. Richet. The question cannot but arise as to the residuum of fact in
these narrations, and it keeps on arising.
In the following chapter we discuss a mode of inducing hallucinations
which has for anthropologists the interest of universal diffusion. The
width of its range in savage races has not, we believe, been previously
observed. We then add facts of modern experience, about the authenticity
of which we, personally, entertain no doubt; and the provisional
conclusion appears to be that savages have observed a psychological
circumstance which has been ignored by professed psychologists, and which,
certainly, does not fit into the ordinary materialistic hypothesis.
[Footnote 1: Callaway, _Religion of the Zulus_, p. 232.]
[Footnote 2: Graham Dalzell, _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 481.]
[Footnote 3: See good evidence in _Ker of Kersland's Memoirs_.]
[Footnote 4: Autus Gellius, xv. 18, Dio Cassius, lxvii., Crespet, _De la
Haine du Diable, Procès de Jeanne d'Arc_.]
[Footnote 5: See 'Shamanism in Siberia,' _J.A.I._, November 1894,
pp. 147-149, and compare Scheffer. The article is very learned and
interesting.]
[Footnote 6: Williams mentions second sight in Fiji, but gives no
examples.]
[Footnote 7: _Primitive Culture,_ i. 447. Mr. Tylor cites Dr. Brinton's
_Myths of the New World,_ p. 269. The reference in the recent edition is
p. 289. Carver's case is given under the head 'Possession' later.]
[Footnote 8: _Journal Historique_ p. 362; _Atlantic Monthly_, July 1866.]
[Footnote 9: Probably _impepo_, eaten by seers, according to Callaway.]
[Footnote 10: Callaway's _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 358.]
[Footnote 11: Oxford, 1674.]
[Footnote 12: _Voyages_.]
[Footnote 13: From Charlevoix, _Journal Historique_, p. 362.]
[Footnote 14: Bastian, _Ueber psych. Beobacht_. p.21.]
[Footnote 14: Op. cit. p.26.]
[Footnote 15: Miss Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, p. 460.]
[Footnote 16: _Primitive Culture_, ii, 181; Mason's _Burmah_, p. 107.]
[Footnote 17: Schoolcraft, i. 394.]
[Footnote 18: Brinton's _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, p. 57.]
[Footnote 19: Purchas, p. 629.]
[Footnote 20: S.P.R. _Proceedings_, vol. vi. 69.]
[Footnote 21: Binet and Féré, _Animal Magnetism_, p. 64.]
[Footnote 22: Vol. vii. Mrs. Sidgwick, pp. 30, 356; vol. vi. p. 66,
Professor Richet, p. 407, Drs. Dufay and Azam.]
[Footnote 23: The examples in the Old Testament, and in the _Life of St.
Columba_ by Adamnan, need only be alluded to as too familiar for
quotation.]
V
CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED
Among savage methods of provoking hallucinations whence knowledge may be
supernormally obtained, various forms of 'crystal-gazing' are the most
curious. We find the habit of looking into water, usually in a vessel,
preferably a glass vessel, among Red Indians (Lejeune), Romans (Varro,
cited in _Civitas Dei_, iii. 457), Africans of Fez (Leo Africanus); while
Maoris use a drop of blood (Taylor), Egyptians use ink (Lane), and
Australian savages employ a ball of polished stone, into which the seer
'puts himself' to descry the results of an expedition.[1]
I have already given, in the Introduction, Ellis's record of the
Polynesian case. A hole being dug in the door of his house, and filled
with water, the priest looks for a vision of the thief who has carried off
stolen goods. The Polynesian theory is that the god carries the spirit of
the thief over the water, in which it is reflected. Lejeune's Red Indians
make their patients gaze into the water, in which they will see the
pictures of the things in the way of food or medicine that will do them
good. In modern language, the instinctive knowledge existing implicitly
in the patient's subconsciousness is thus brought into the range of his
ordinary consciousness.
In 1887 the late Captain J. T. Bourke, of the U.S. Cavalry, an original
and careful observer, visited the Apaches in the interests of the
Ethnological Bureau. He learned that one of the chief duties of the
medicine-men was to find out the whereabouts of lost or stolen property.
Na-a-cha, one of these _jossakeeds_, possessed a magic quartz crystal,
which he greatly valued. Captain Bourke presented him with a still finer
crystal. 'He could not give me an explanation of its magical use, except
that by looking into it he could see everything he wanted to see,'
Captain Bourke appears never to have heard of the modern experiments in
crystal-gazing. Captain Bourke also discovered that the Apaches, like the
Greeks, Australians, Africans, Maoris, and many other, races, use the
bull-roarer, turndun, or _rhombos_--a piece of wood which, being whirled
round, causes a strange windy roar--in their mystic ceremonies. The wide
use of the rhombos was known to Captain Bourke; that of the crystal was
not.
For the Iroquois, Mrs. Erminie Smith supplies information about the
crystal. 'Placed in a gourd of water, it could render visible the
apparition of a person who has bewitched another.' She gives a case in
European times of a medicine-man who found the witch's habitat, but
got only an indistinct view of her face. On a second trial he was
successful.[2] One may add that treasure-seekers among the Huille-che
'look earnestly' for what they want to find 'into a smooth slab of black
stone, which I suppose to be basalt.'[3]
The kindness of Monsieur Lefébure enables me to give another example from
Madagascar.[4] Flacourt, describing the Malagasies, says that they
_squillent_ (a word not in Littré), that is, divine by crystals, which
'fall from heaven when it thunders,' Of course the rain reveals the
crystals, as it does the flint instruments called 'thunderbolts' in many
countries. 'Lorsqu'ils squillent, ils ont une de ces pierres au coing de
leurs tablettes, disans qu'elle à la vertu de faire faire operation à leur
figure de geomance.' Probably they used the crystals as do the Apaches. On
July 15 a Malagasy woman viewed, whether in her crystal or otherwise, two
French vessels which, like the Spanish fleet, were 'not in sight,' also
officers, and doctors, and others aboard, whom she had seen, before their
return to France, in Madagascar. The earliest of the ships did not arrive
till August 11.
Dr. Callaway gives the Zulu practice, where the chief 'sees what will
happen by looking into the vessel.'[5] The Shamans of Siberia and Eastern
Russia employ the same method.[6] The case of the Inca, Yupanqui, is very
curious. 'As he came up to a fountain he saw a piece of crystal fall into
it, within which he beheld a figure of an Indian in the following
shape ... The apparition then vanished, while the crystal remained. The
Inca took care of it, and they say that he afterwards saw everything he
wanted in it.'[7]
Here, then, we find the belief that hallucinations can be induced by one
or other form of crystal-gazing, in ancient Peru, on the other side of the
continent among the Huille-che, in Fez, in Madagascar, in Siberia, among
Apaches, Hurons, Iroquois, Australian black fellows, Maoris, and in
Polynesia. This is assuredly a wide range of geographical distribution. We
also find the practice in Greece (Pausanias, VII. xxi. 12), in Rome
(Varro), in Egypt, and in India.
Though anthropologists have paid no attention to the subject, it was of
course familiar to later Europe. 'Miss X' has traced it among early
Christians, in early Councils, in episcopal condemnations of _specularii_,
and so to Dr. Dee, under James VI.; Aubrey; the Regent d'Orléans
in St. Simon's Memoirs; the modern mesmerists (Gregory, Mayo) and the
mid-Victorian spiritualists, who, as usual, explained the phenomena, in
their prehistoric way, by 'spirits[8].' Till this lady examined the
subject, nobody had thought of remarking that a belief so universal had
probably some basis of facts, or nobody if we except two professors of
chemistry and physiology, Drs. Gregory and Mayo. Miss X made experiments,
beginning by accident, like George Sand, when a child.
The hallucinations which appear to her eyes in ink, or crystal, are:
1. Revived memories 'arising thus, and thus only, from the subconscious
strata;'
'2. Objectivation of ideas or images--(a) consciously or (b)
unconsciously--in the mind of the percipient;
'3. Visions, possibly telepathic or clairvoyant, implying acquirement of
knowledge by supernormal means.'[9]
The examples given of the last class, the class which would be so useful
to a priest or medicine-man asked to discover things lost, are of very
slight interest.[10]
Since Miss X drew attention to this subject, experiments have proved
beyond doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and healthy, can see
vivid landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, in glass balls and
other vehicles. This faculty Dr. Parish attributes to 'dissociation,'
practically to drowsiness. But he speaks by conjecture, and without
having witnessed experiments, as will be shown later. I now offer a series
of experiments with a glass ball, coming under my own observation, in
which knowledge was apparently acquired in no ordinary way. Of the absence
of fraud I am personally convinced, not only by the characters of all
concerned, but by the nature of the circumstances. That adaptive memory
did not later alter the narratives, as originally told, I feel certain,
because they were reported to me, when I was not present, within less than
a week, precisely as they are now given, except in cases specially noted.
Early in the present year (1897) I met a young lady who told me of three
or four curious hallucinatory experiences of her own, which were
sufficiently corroborated. She was innocent of psychical studies, and
personally was, and is, in perfect health; the pale cast of thought being
remote from her. I got a glass ball, and was present when she first looked
into it. She saw, I remember, the interior of a house, with a full-length
portrait of a person unknown. There were, I think, one or two other fancy
pictures of the familiar kind. But she presently (living as she was, among
strangers) developed a power of 'seeing' persons and places unknown to
her, but familiar to them. These experiences do seem to me to be good
examples of what is called 'thought transference;' indeed, I never before
could get out of a level balance of doubt on that subject, a balance which
now leans considerably to the affirmative side. There may be abundance of
better evidence, but, knowing the persons and circumstances, and being
present once at what seemed to me a crucial example, I was more inclined
to be convinced. This attitude appears, to myself, illogical, but it is
natural and usual.
We cannot tell what indications may be accidentally given in experiments
in thought transference. But, in these cases of crystal-gazing, the detail
was too copious to be conveyed, by a looker-on, in a wink or a cough. I do
not mean to say that success was invariable. I thought of Dr. W.G. Grace,
and the scryer saw an old man crawling along with a stick. But I doubt if
Dr. Grace is very deeply seated in that mystic entity, my subconscious
self. The 'scries' which came right were sometimes, but not always, those
of which the 'agent' (or person scried for) was consciously thinking. But
the examples will illustrate the various kinds of occurrences.
Here one should first consider the arguments against accepting recognition
of objects merely described by another person. The crystal-gazer may know
the inquirer so intimately as to have a very good guess at the subject of
his meditation. Again, a man is likely to be thinking of a woman, and a
woman of a man, so the field of conjecture is limited. In answer to the
first objection I may say that the crystal-gazer was among strangers, all
of whom, myself included, she now saw for the first time. Nor could she
have studied their histories beforehand, for she could not know (normally)
when she left home, that she was about to be shown a glass ball, or whom
she would meet. The second objection is met by the circumstance that
ladies were _not_ usually picked out for men, nor men for women. Indeed,
these choices were the exceptions, and in each case were marked by
minutely particular details. A third objection is that credulity, or the
love of strange novelties, or desire to oblige, biases the inquirers, and
makes them anxious to recognise something familiar in the scryer's
descriptions. In the same way we know how people recognise faces
in the most blurred and vague of spiritist photographs, or see family
resemblances in the most rudimentary doughfaced babies. Take descriptions
of persons in a passport, or in a proclamation sketching the personal
appearance of a criminal. These fit the men or women intended, but they
also fit a crowd of other people. The description given by the scryer then
may come right by a fortuitous coincidence, or may be too credulously
recognised.
The complex of coincidences, however, could not be attributed to chance
selection out of the whole possible field of conjecture. We must remember,
too, that a series of such hits increases, at an enormous rate, the odds
against accidental conjecture. Of such mere luck I may give an example. I
was writing a story of which the hero was George Kelly, one of the 'Seven
Men of Moidart.' A year after composing my tale, I found the Government
description of Mr. Kelly (1736). It exactly tallied with my purely
fanciful sketch, down to eyes, and teeth, and face, except that I made my
hero 'about six feet,' whereas the Government gave him five feet ten. But
I knew beforehand that Mr. Kelly was a clergyman; his curious career
proved him to be a person of great activity and geniality--and he was of
Irish birth. Even a dozen such guesses, equally correct, could not
suggest any powers of 'vision,' when so much was known beforehand about
the person guessed at. I now give cases in the experience of Miss Angus,
as one may call the crystal-gazer. The first occurred the day after she
got the glass ball for the first time. She writes:
'I.--A lady one day asked me to scry out a friend of whom she would
think. Almost immediately I exclaimed "Here is an old, old lady looking
at me with a triumphant smile on her face. She has a prominent nose and
nut-cracker chin. Her face is very much wrinkled, especially at the
sides of her eyes, as if she were always smiling. She is wearing a
little white shawl with a black edge. _But!_ ... she _can't_ be old as
her hair is quite brown! although her face looks so very very old." The
picture then vanished, and the lady said that I had accurately described
her friend's _mother_ instead of himself; that it was a family joke that
the mother must dye her hair, it was so brown and she was eighty-two
years old. The lady asked me if the vision were distinct enough for me
to recognise a likeness in the son's photograph; next day she laid
several photographs before me, and in a moment, without the slightest
hesitation I picked him out from his wonderful likeness to my vision!'
The inquirer verbally corroborated all the facts to me, within a week, but
leaned to a theory of 'electricity.' She has read and confirms this
account.
'II.--One afternoon I was sitting beside a young lady whom I had never
seen or heard of before. She asked if she might look into my crystal,
and while she did so I happened to look over her shoulder and saw a ship
tossing on a very heavy choppy sea, although land was still visible in
the dim distance. That vanished, and, as suddenly, a little house
appeared with five or six (I forget now the exact number I then counted)
steps leading up to the door. On the second step stood an old man
reading a newspaper. In front of the house was a field of thick
stubbly grass where some _lambs_, I was going to say, but they were more
like very small sheep.. were grazing.
'When the scene vanished, the young lady told me I had vividly described
a spot in Shetland where she and her mother were soon going to spend a
few weeks.'
I heard of this case from Miss Angus within a day or two of its
occurrence, and it was then confirmed to me, verbally, by the other lady.
She again confirms it (December 21, 1897). Both ladies had hitherto been
perfect strangers to each other. The old man was the schoolmaster,
apparently. In her MS., Miss Angus writes 'Skye,' but at the time both she
and the other lady said Shetland (which I have restored). In Shetland the
sheep, like the ponies, are small. Fortuitous coincidence, of course, may
be invoked. The next account is by another lady, say Miss Rose.
'III.--Writes Miss Rose--My first experience of crystal gazing was not
a pleasant one, as will be seen from the following which I now relate as
exactly as I can remember. I asked my friend, Miss Angus, to allow me to
look in her crystal, and, after doing so for a short time, gave up,
saying it was very unsatisfactory, as, although I saw a room with a
bright fire in it and a bed all curtained and people coming and going,
I could not make out who they were, so I returned the crystal to Miss
Angus, with the request that she might look for me. She said at once,
"I see a bed with a man in it looking very ill and a lady in black
beside it." Without saying any more Miss Angus still kept looking, and,
after some time, I asked to have one more look, and on her passing the
ball back to me, I received quite a shock, for there, perfectly clearly
in a bright light, I saw stretched out in bed an old man apparently
dead; for a few minutes I could not look, and on doing so once more
there appeared a lady in black and out of dense darkness a long black
object was being carried and it stopped before a dark opening overhung
with rocks. At the time I saw this I was staying with cousins,
and it was a Friday evening. On Sunday we heard of the death of the
father-in-law of one of my cousins; of course I knew the old gentleman
was very ill, but my thoughts were not in the least about him when
looking in the crystal. I may also say I did not recognise in the
features of the dead man those of the old gentleman whose death I
mention. On looking again on Sunday, I once more saw the curtained bed
and some people.'
I now give Miss Angus's version of this case, as originally received from
her (December 1897). I had previously received an oral version, from a
person present at the scrying. It differed, in one respect, from what Miss
Angus writes. Her version is offered because it is made independently,
without consultation, or attempt to reconcile recollections.
'At a recent experience of gazing, for the first time I was able to make
another see what _I_ saw in the crystal. Miss Rose called one afternoon,
and begged me to look in the ball for her. I did so, and immediately
exclaimed, "Oh! here is a bed, with a man in it looking very ill [I saw
he was dead, but refrained from saying so], and there is a lady dressed
in black sitting beside the bed." I did not recognise the man to be
anyone I knew, so I told her to look. In a very short time she called
out, "Oh! I see the bed too! But, oh! take it away, the man is _dead_!"
She got quite a shock, and said she would never look in it again. Soon,
however, curiosity prompted her to have one more look, and the scene at
once came back again, and slowly, from a misty object at the side of the
bed, the lady in black became quite distinct. Then she described
several people in the room, and said they were carrying something all
draped in black. When she saw this, she put the ball down and would not
look at it again. She called again on Sunday (this had been on Friday)
with her cousin, and we teased her about being _afraid_ of the crystal,
so she said she would just look in it once more. She took the ball, but
immediately laid it down again, saying, "No, I won't look, as the bed
with the awful man in it is there again!"
'When they went home, they heard that the cousin's father-in-law had
died that afternoon,[11] but to show he had never been in our thoughts,
although we _all_ knew he had not been well, _no one_ suggested him; his
name was never mentioned in connection with the vision.'
'Clairvoyance,' of course, is not illustrated here, the corpse being
unrecognised, and the coincidence, doubtless, accidental.
The next case is attested by a civilian, a slight acquaintance of Miss
Angus's, who now saw him for the second time only, but better known to her
family.
'IV.--On Thursday, March --? 1897, I was lunching with my friends the
Anguses, and during luncheon the conversation turned upon crystal balls
and the visions that, by some people, can be seen in them. The subject
arose owing to Miss Angus having just been presented with a crystal ball
by Mr. Andrew Lang. I asked her to let me see it, and then to try and
see if she could conjure up a vision of any person of whom I might
think.... I fixed my mind upon a friend, a young trooper in the
[regiment named], as I thought his would be a striking and peculiar
personality, owing to his uniform, and also because I felt sure that
Miss Angus could not possibly know of his existence. I fixed my mind
steadily upon my friend, and presently Miss Angus, who had already seen
two cloudy visions of faces and people, called out, "Now I see a man on
a horse most distinctly; he is dressed most queerly, and glitters all
over--why, it's a soldier! a soldier in uniform, but it's not an
officer." My excitement on hearing this was so great that I ceased to
concentrate my attention upon the thought of my friend, and the vision
faded away and could not afterwards be recalled.--December 2, 1897.'
The witness gives the name of the trooper, whom he had befriended in a
severe illness. Miss Angus's own account follows: she had told me the
story in June 1897.
'Shortly after I became the happy possessor of a "crystal" I managed to
convert several very decided "sceptics," and I will here give a short
account of my experiences with two or three of them.
'One was with a Mr. ----, who was so determined to baffle me, he said he
would think of a friend it would not be _possible_ for me to describe!
'I had only met Mr. ---- the day before, and knew utmost nothing about
him or his personal friends.
'I took up the ball, which immediately became misty, and out of this
mist gradually a crowd of people appeared, but too indistinctly for me
to recognise anyone, until suddenly a man on horseback came galloping
along. I remember saying, "I can't describe what he is like, but he is
dressed in a very queer way--in something so bright that the sun shining
on him quite dazzles me, and I cannot make him out!" As he came nearer I
exclaimed. "Why, it's a _soldier_ in shining armour, but it's not an
_officer_, only a soldier!" Two friends who were in the room said
Mr. ----'s excitement was intense, and my attention was drawn from the
ball by hearing him call out, "It's wonderful! it's perfectly true! I
was thinking of a young boy, a son of a crofter, in whom I am deeply
interested, and who is a trooper in the ---- in London, which would
account for the crowd of people round him in the street!"'
The next case is given, first in the version of the lady who was
unconsciously scried for, and next in that of Miss Angus. The other lady
writes: