in the days of Mazarin, and created a great sensation in the highest
circles at Paris. A marquis of Rambouillet and a marquis of Preci,
intimate friends, had agreed to inform each other of their fate after
death. The former was ordered to the army in Flanders, while the other
remained in the capital. Here he was taken ill with a fever, several
weeks after parting with his friend, and as he was one morning towards 6
o'clock lying in bed awake, the curtains were suddenly drawn aside, and
his friend dressed as usual, booted and spurred, was standing before
him. Overjoyed, he was about to embrace him, but his friend drew back
and said that he had come only to keep his promise after having been
killed in a skirmish the day before, and that Preci also would share his
fate in the first combat in which he should be engaged. The latter
thinks his friend is joking, jumps up and tries to seize him--but he
feels nothing. The vision, however, is still there; Rambouillet even
shows him the fatal wound in his thigh from which the blood seems still
to be flowing. Then only he disappears and Preci remains utterly
overcome; at last he summons his valet, rouses the whole house, and
causes every room and every passage to be searched. No trace, however,
is found, and the whole vision is attributed to his fever. But a few
days later the mail arrives from Flanders, bringing the news that
Rambouillet had really fallen in such a skirmish and died from a wound
in the thigh; the prediction also was fulfilled, for Preci fell
afterwards in his first fight near St. Antoine (Petaval, _Causes
Celebres_, xii. 269).
The parents of the well-known writer Schubert were exceptionally endowed
with magic powers of this kind. The father once heard, as he thought in
a dream, the voice of his aged mother, who called upon him to come and
visit her in the distant town in which she lived, if he desired to see
her once more before she died. He rejected the idea that this was more
than a common dream; but soon he heard the voice repeating the warning.
Now he jumped up and saw his mother standing before him, extending her
hand and saying: "Christian Gottlob, farewell, and may God bless you;
you will not see me again upon earth," and with these words she
disappeared. Although no one had apprehended such a calamity, she had
actually died at that hour, after expressing in her last moments a most
anxious desire to see her son once more.
Tangible perceptions of persons dying at a distance are, of course, very
rare. Still, more than one such case is authoritatively stated; among
these, the following: A lawyer in Paris had returned home and walked, in
order to reach his own bedroom, through that of his brother. To his
great astonishment he saw the latter lying in his bed; received,
however, no answer to his questions. Thereupon he walked up to the bed,
touched his brother and found the body icy cold. Of a sudden the form
vanished and the bed was empty. At that instant it flashed through his
mind that he and his brother had promised each other that the one dying
first should, if possible, give a sign to the survivor. When he
recovered from the deep emotion caused by these thoughts, he left the
room and as he opened the door he came across a number of men who bore
the body of his brother, who had been killed by a fall from his horse
(_La Patrie_, Sept. 22, 1857). The Count of Neuilly, also, was warned in
a somewhat similar manner. He was at college and on the point of paying
a visit to his paternal home, when a letter came telling him that his
father was not quite well and that he had better postpone his visit a
few days. Later letters from his mother mentioned nothing to cause him
any uneasiness. But several days afterward, at one o'clock in the
morning, he thought, apparently in a dream, that he saw a pale ghastly
figure rise slowly at the lower end of his bed, extend both arms,
embrace him and then sink slowly down again out of sight. He uttered
heart-rending cries, and fell out of his bed, upsetting a chair and a
table. When his tutor and a man-servant rushed into the room, they found
him lying unconscious on the floor, covered with cold, clammy
perspiration and strangely disfigured. As soon as he was restored to
consciousness, he burst out into tears and assured them that his father
had died and come to take leave of him. In vain did his friends try to
calm his mind, he remained in a state of utter dejection. Three days
later a letter came from his mother, bringing him the sad news, that
his father had died on that night and at the hour in which he had
appeared by his bedside. The unfortunate Count could never entirely get
rid of the overwhelming impression which this occurrence had made on his
mind, and was, to the day of his death, firmly convinced of the reality
of this meeting (_Dix Annees d' emigration._ Paris, 1865).
We learn from such accounts that there prevails among all men, at all
ages, a carefully repressed, but almost irresistible belief in
supernatural occurrences, and in the close proximity of the spirit
world. This belief is neither to be treated with ridicule nor to be
objected to as unchristian, since it is an abiding witness that men
entertain an ineradicable conviction of the immortality of the soul. No
arguments can ever destroy in the minds of the vast majority of men this
innate and intuitive faith. We may decline to believe with them the
existence of supernatural agencies, as long as no experimental basis is
offered; but we ought, at the same time, to be willing to modify our
incredulity as soon as an accumulation of facts appear to justify us in
so doing. Our age is so completely given up to materialism with its
ceaseless hurry and worry, that we ought to hail with a sense of relief
new powers which require examination, and which offer to our
intellectual faculties an untrodden field of investigation, full of
incidents refreshing to our weary mind, and promising rich additions to
our store of knowledge.
It can hardly be denied that there is at least a possibility of the
existence of a higher spiritual power within us, which, often slumbering
and altogether unknown, or certainly unobserved during life, becomes
suddenly free to act in the hour of death. This may be brought about by
the fact that at that time the strength of the body is exhausted, and
earthly wants no longer press upon us, while the spiritual part of our
being, largely relieved of its bondage, becomes active in its own
peculiar way, and thus acquires a power which we are disposed to call a
magic power. This power is, of course, not used consciously, for
consciousness presupposes the control over our senses, but it acts by
intuitive impulse. Hence the wide difference existing between the
so-called magic of charmers, enchanters, and conjurors, justly abhorred
and strictly prohibited by divine laws, and the effects of such supreme
efforts made by the soul, which depend upon involuntary action, and are
never made subservient to wicked purposes.
The results of such exertions are generally impressions made apparently
upon the eye or the ear; but it need not be said that what is seen or
heard in such cases, is merely the effect of a deeply felt sensation in
our soul which seeks an outward expression. If our innermost being is
thus suddenly appealed to, as it were, by the spirit of a dying friend
or companion, his image arises instantaneously before our mind's eye,
and we fancy we see him in bodily form, or our memory recalls the
familiar sounds by which his appearance was wont to be accompanied.
Dying musicians remind distant friends of their former relations by
sweet sounds, and a sailor, wounded to death, appears in his uniform to
relatives at home. The series of sights and sounds by which such
intercourse is established, varies from the simplest and faintest vision
to an apparently clear and distinct perception of well-known forms, and
constitute feeble, hardly perceptible, sighs or sobs to words uttered
aloud, or whole melodies clearly recited. If a living person, by such an
unconscious but all-powerful effort of will, makes himself seen by
others, we call the vision a "double," in German, a "Doppelgaenger;" if
he produces a state of dualism, such as has been mentioned before, and
sees his own self in space before him, we speak of second sight.
Such efforts are, however, by no means strictly limited to the moment of
dissolution, when soul and body are already in the act of parting. They
occur also in living persons, but almost invariably only in diseased
persons. The exceptions belong to the small number of men in whom great
excitement from without, or a mysterious power of will, cause a state of
ecstasy; they are, in common parlance, "beside themselves." In this
condition, their soul is for the moment freed from the bondage in which
it is held by its earthy companion, and such men become clairvoyants and
prophets, or they are enabled actually to affect other men at a
distance, in various ways. Thus it may very well be, that strange
visions, the hearing of mysterious voices, and especially the most
familiar phenomenon, second sight, are in reality nothing more than
symptoms of a thoroughly diseased system, and this explains very simply
the frequency with which death follows such mysterious occurrences.
Men have claimed--and proved to the satisfaction of more or less
considerable numbers of friends--that they could at will cause a partial
and momentary parting between their souls and their bodies. Here also
antiquity is our first teacher, if we believe Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ vii.
c. 52), Hermotimus could at his pleasure fall into a trance and then let
his soul proceed from his body to distant places. Upon being aroused, he
reported what he had seen and heard abroad, and his statements were, in
every case, fully confirmed. Cardanus, also, could voluntarily throw
himself into a state of apparent syncope, as he tells us in most graphic
words (_De Res. Var._ v. iii. l. viii. c. 43). The first sensation of
which he was always fully conscious, was a peculiar pain in the head,
which gradually extended downward along the spine, and at last spread
over the extremities--evidently a purely nervous process. Then he felt
as if a "door was opened, and he himself was leaving his body,"
whereupon he not only saw persons at a distance, but noticed all that
befell them, and recalled it after he had recovered from the trance. An
old German Abbe Freitheim, of whose remarkable work on _Steganographie_
(1621), unfortunately only a few sheets have been preserved, claims the
power to commune with absent friends by the mere energy of his will. "I
can," says he, "make known my thoughts to the initiated, at a distance
of many hundred miles, without word, writing or cypher, by any
messenger. The latter cannot betray me, for he knows nothing. If needs
be, I can even dispense with the messenger. If my correspondent should
be buried in the deepest dungeon I could still convey to him my thoughts
as clearly, as fully, and as frequently as might be desirable, and all
this, quite simply, without superstition, without the aid of spirits."
The famous Agrippa (_De occulta philos., Lugduni_, III. p. 13) quotes
the former writer, and asserts that he also could, by mere effort of
will, in a perfectly simple and natural manner convey his thoughts not
to the initiated only, but to any one, even when his correspondent's
present place of residence should be unknown. The most remarkable, and,
at the same time, the best authenticated case of this kind, is that of a
high German official mentioned in a scientific paper (_Nasse.
Zeitschrift fuer psychische Aerzte_, 1820), and frequently copied into
others. A Counsellor Wesermann claimed to be able to cause distant
friends to dream of any subject he might choose. Whenever he awoke at
night and made a determined effort to produce such an effect, he never
failed, provided the nature of the desired dream was calculated to
startle or deeply excite his friends. His power was tested in this
manner. He engaged to cause a young officer, who was stationed at
Aix-la-Chapelle, nearly fifty miles from his own home, to dream of a
young lady who had died not long ago. It was eleven o'clock at night,
but by some accident the lieutenant was not at home in bed, but at a
friend's country-seat, discussing the French campaign. Suddenly the
colonel, his host, and he himself see at the same time the door open, a
lady enter, salute them sadly, and beckon them to follow her. The two
officers rise and leave the room after her, but once out of doors, the
figure disappears, and when they inquire of the sentinels standing guard
outside, they are told that no one has entered. What made the matter
more striking yet, was the fact that although both men had seen the door
open, this could not really have been so, for the wood had sprung and
the door creaked badly whenever it was opened. The same Wesermann could,
in like manner, cause his friends to see his own person and to hear
secrets which he seemed to whisper into their ears whenever he chose;
but he admitted upon it that his will was not at all times equally
strong, and that, hence, his efforts were not always equally successful.
Cases of similar powers are very numerous. A very curious example was
published in 1852, in a work on "Psychologic Studies" (Schlemmer, p.
59). The author, who was a police agent in the Prussian service,
asserted that persons who apprehended being conducted to gaol with
special anxiety, often made themselves known there in advance,
announcing their arrival by knocks at the gates, opening of doors, or
footsteps heard in the room set aside for examining new comers. One day,
not the writer only, but all the prisoners in the same building, and
even the sentinel at the gate heard distinctly a great disturbance and
the rattling of chains in a cell exclusively appropriated to murderers.
The next day a criminal was brought who had expressed such horror of
this gaol, and made such resistance to the officials who were to carry
him there, that it had become necessary, after a great uproar, to chain
him hands and feet. It is well known that the mother of the great
statesman Canning at one time of her life suffered under most mysterious
though harmless nightly visitations. Her circumstances were such that
she readily accepted the offer of a dwelling which stood unoccupied,
with the exception of the basement, in which a carpenter had his
workshop. At nightfall he and his workmen left the house, carefully
locking the door, but night after night, at twelve o'clock precisely,
work began once more in the abandoned part of the house, as far as the
ear could judge, and the noise made by planing and sawing, cutting and
carving increased, till the fearless old lady slipt down in her stocking
feet and opened the door. Instantly the noise was hushed, and she looked
into the dark deserted room. But as soon as she returned to her chamber
the work began anew, and continued for some time; nor was she the only
one who heard it, but others, the owner of the house included, heard
everything distinctly.
The following well-authenticated account of a posthumous appearance, is
not without its ludicrous element. A court-preacher in one of the
little Saxon Duchies, appeared once in bands and gowns before his
sovereign, bowing most humbly and reverently. The duke asked what he
desired, but received no answer except another deep reverence. A second
question meets with the same reply, whereupon the divine leaves the
room, descends the stairs and crosses the court-yard, while the prince,
much surprised at his strange conduct, stands at a window and watches
him till he reaches the gates. Then he sends a page after him to try and
ascertain what was the matter with the old gentleman, but the page comes
running back almost beside himself, and reports that the minister had
died a short while before. The prince refuses to believe his report, and
sends a high official, but the latter returns with the same report and
this additional information: The dying man had asked for writing
materials, in order to recommend his widow to his sovereign, but had
hardly commenced writing the letter when death surprised him. The
fragment was brought to the duke and convinced him that his faithful
servant, unable to reach him by letter, and yet nervously anxious to
approach him, had spiritually appeared to him in his most familiar
costume (Daumer, _Mystagog._ I. p. 224).
Before we regret such statements or treat them with ridicule, it will be
well to remember, that men endowed with an extraordinary power of
controlling certain faculties of body and soul, are by no means rare,
and that the difference between them and those last mentioned, consists
only in the degree. We speak of the power of sight and limit it
ordinarily to a certain distance--and yet a Hottentot, we are told, can
perceive the head of a gazelle in the dry, uniform grass of an African
plain, at the distance of a thousand yards! Many men cannot hear sounds
in nature which are perfectly audible to others, while some persons hear
even certain notes uttered by tiny insects, which escape altogether the
average hearing of man. Patients under treatment by Baron Reichenbach,
saw luminous objects and the appearance of lights hovering above ground,
where neither he nor any of his friends could perceive anything but
utter darkness, and the special gift with which some persons are endowed
to feel, as it were, the presence of water and of metals below the
surface, is well authenticated. Poor Caspar Hauser, bred in darkness and
solitude, felt various and deep impressions upon his whole being during
the first months of his free life, whenever he came in contact with
plants, stones or metals. The latter sent a current through all his
limbs; tobacco fields made him deadly sick, and the vicinity of a
graveyard gave him violent pains in his chest. Persons who were
introduced to him for the first time, sent a cold current through him;
and when they possessed a specially powerful physique, they caused him
abundant perspiration, and often even convulsions. The waves of sound he
felt so much more acutely than others, that he always continued to hear
them with delight, long after the last sound had passed away from the
ears of others. It may be fairly presumed that this extreme
sensitiveness to outward impressions is originally possessed by all men,
but becomes gradually dulled and dimmed by constant repetition; at the
same time it may certainly be preserved in rare privileged cases, or it
may come back again to the body in a diseased or disordered condition,
and at the moment of dissolution.
Nor is the power occasionally granted to men to control their senses
limited to these; even the spontaneous functions of the body are at
times subject to the will of man. An Englishman, for instance, could at
will modify the beating of his heart (Cheyne, "New Dis.," p. 307), and a
German produced, like a veritable ruminant, the antiperistaltic motions
of the stomach, whenever he chose (Blumenbach, _Phys._ Sec. 294). Other men
have been known who could at any moment cause the familiar "goose-skin,"
or perspiration, to appear in any part of the body, and many persons can
move not only the ears--a lost faculty according to Darwin--but even
enlarge or contract the pupil of the eye, after the manner of cats and
parrots. Even the circulation of the blood has been known, in a few rare
cases, to have been subject to the will of men, and the great
philosopher Kant did not hesitate to affirm, supported as he was by his
own experience, that men could, if they were but resolute enough,
master, by a mere effort of the will, not a few of their diseases.
A striking evidence of the comparative facility with which men thus
exceptionally gifted, may be able to imitate certain magic phenomena,
was once given by an excellent mimic, whom _Richard_ describes in his
_Theorie des Songes_. He could change his features so completely that
they assumed a deathlike appearance; his senses lost gradually their
power of perception, and the vital spirit was seen to withdraw from the
outer world. A slow, quivering motion passed through his whole system
from the feet upward, as if he wished to rise from the ground. After a
while all efforts of the body to remain upright proved fruitless; it
looked as if life had actually begun to leave it already. At this moment
he abandoned his deception and was so utterly exhausted that he heard
and saw but with extreme difficulty.
In the face of these facts the possibility at least cannot be denied
that certain specially endowed individuals may possess, in health or in
disease, the power to perceive phenomena which appear all the more
marvelous because they are beyond the reach of ordinary powers of
perception.
In our own day superstition and wanton, or cunningly devised, imposture
have been so largely mixed up with the subject, that a strong and very
natural prejudice has gradually grown up against the belief in ghosts.
Every strange appearance, every mysterious coincidence, that escaped the
most superficial investigation, was forthwith called a ghost. History
records, besides, numerous cases in which the credulity of great men has
been played upon for purposes of policy and statecraft. When the German
Emperor Joseph showed his great fondness of Augustus of
Saxony--afterwards king of Poland--his Austrian counsellors became
alarmed at the possible influence of such intimacy of their sovereign
with a Protestant prince, and determined to break it off. Night after
night, therefore, a fearful vision arose before the German emperor,
rattling its chains and accusing the young prince of grievous heresy.
Augustus, however, known already at that time for his gigantic strength,
asked Joseph's permission to sleep in his room; when the ghost appeared
as usual, the young prince sprang upon him, and feeling his flesh and
blood, threw him bodily out of a window of the second story into a deep
fosse. The unfortunate king of Prussia, Frederick William II., fell soon
after his ascension of the throne into the hands of designing men, who
determined to profit by his great kindness of heart and his tendency to
mysticism, and began to work upon him by supernatural apparitions. One
of the most cunningly devised impostures of the kind was practised upon
King Gustavus III. of Sweden by ambitious noblemen of his court.