_Note_ (_a_), p. xvi.—“The Psychical Society.”
The Psychical Society, as far as the writer is aware has not
examined officially the old accounts of the phenomena which it
investigates at present. The Catalogue of the Society’s Library,
however, proves that it does not lack the materials.
_Note_ (_b_), p. xxx.—“Their speech is a kind of whistling.”
That the voice of spirits is a kind of whistling, twittering,
or chirping, is a very widely diffused and ancient belief. The
ghosts in Homer twitter like bats; in New Caledonia an English
settler found that he could scare the natives from a piece of
ground by whistling there at night. Mr. Samuel Wesley says, “I
followed the noise into almost every room in the house, both by
day and by night, with lights and without, and have sat alone for
some time, and, when I heard the noise, spoke to it to tell me
what it was, but never heard any articulate voice, and only once
or twice two or three feeble squeaks, a little louder than the
chirping of a bird, and not like the noise of rats, which I have
often heard” (_Memoirs of the Wesley Family_, p. 164). Professor
Alexander mentions the “pecular whistling sound” at some
manifestations in Rio Janeiro as “rather frequent” (_Proc. S. P.
R._, xix. 180). Here children were the mediums; how did they get
the idea of the traditional whistle? See also the following note.
_Note_ (_c_), p. xl.—“Not long after the Spanish conquest of Peru.”
The phenomena alluded to here are said to have occurred in
1549. The evidence is a mere report by Cieza de Leon, who does
not pretend to have been an eye-witness. But, as Mr. Clements
Markham, Cieza’s editor, remarks, the phenomena are analogous to
those of spiritualism. At the very least, we find a belief in
this kind of manifestation at a remote date, and in an outlandish
place. Cieza says:[38]
“When the Adelantado Belalcazar was governor of the province of
Popyan, and when Gomez Hernandez was his lieutenant in the town
of Auzerma, there was a chief in a village called Pirsa, almost
four leagues from the town, whose brother, a good-looking youth
named Tamaraqunga, inspired by God, wished to go to the town of
the Christians to receive baptism. But the devils did not wish
that he should attain his desire, fearing to lose what seemed
secure, so they frightened this Tamaraqunga in such sort that
he was unable to do anything. God permitting it, the devils
stationed themselves in a place where the chief alone could see
them, in the shape of birds called _auras_. Finding himself so
persecuted by the devils, he sent in great haste to a Christian
living near, who came at once, and hearing what he wanted, signed
him with the sign of the cross. But the devils then frightened
him more than ever, appearing in hideous forms, which only were
visible to him. _The Christian only saw stones falling from the
air and heard whistling._ A brother of one Juan Pacheco, citizen
of the same town, then holding office in the place of Gomez
Hernandez, who had gone to Caramanta, came from Auzerma with
another man to visit the Indian chief. They say that Tamaraqunga
was much frightened and ill-treated by the devils, who carried
him through the air from one place to another in presence of the
Christians, he complaining and the devils whistling and shouting.
Sometimes when the chief was sitting with a glass of liquor
before him, the Christians saw the glass raised up in the air and
put down empty, and a short time afterwards the wine was again
poured into the cup from the air.” Compare what Ibn Batuta, the
old Arab traveller, saw at the court of the King of Delhi. The
matter is discussed in Colonel Yule’s _Marco Polo_.
This may suffice as a specimen of the manifestations. They
continued while the chief was on his way to church; he was lifted
into the air, and the Christians had to hold him down. In church
the ghostly whistling was heard, and stones fell around, while
the chief said that he saw devils standing upside down, and
himself was thrown into that unusual posture. The combination of
convulsive movements with the other phenomena is that which we
have already remarked in the cases of “Mr. H.” and the grandson
of William Morse. Cieza de Leon says that the chief was not
troubled after his baptism. The illusions of the newly-converted,
so like those of the early Christian hermits, are described by
Callaway in his _Zulu Tales_.
_Note_ (_d_), p. l.
Priestley’s explanation of the Epworth disturbances is imposture
by the servants, by way of a practical joke. Coleridge, on the
other hand, says that “all these stories, and I could produce
fifty cases at least equally well authenticated, and, as far
as the veracity of the narrators, and the single fact of their
having seen and heard such and such sights or sounds, above all
rational scepticism, are as much like one another as the symptoms
of the same disease in different patients.”
It is a pity that Coleridge did not produce his fifty
well-authenticated examples. The similarity of the narratives
everywhere, all the world over, is exactly what makes them
interesting. Coleridge goes on: “This indeed I take to be the
true and only solution—a contagious nervous disease, the acme,
or intensest form of which is catalepsy” (Southey’s _Wesley_,
vol. i. p. 14, Coleridge’s note). If there be such a contagious
nervous disease, it is a very remarkable malady, and well worth
examining. The Wesleys were not alarmed; they bantered the
spirit; they wished they could set him to work; and beyond the
trembling of the children when Jeffrey was knocking during their
sleep, there is no sign of morbid conditions. A neighbouring
clergyman, who was asked to pass a night in the house, saw and
heard just what the others heard and saw.[39] The hypothesis of a
contagious nervous disease, in which every witness exhibits the
same symptoms of illusion in all parts of the world, is a theory
which needs a good deal of verification. Where material traces
of the disturbances remain, it is absurd to speak of contagious
hallucinations. We must fall back on the hypothesis of trickery,
or must say with Southey, “Such things may be preternatural,
yet not miraculous; they may not be in the ordinary course of
nature, yet imply no alteration of its laws.” Any theory is more
plausible than the idea that Mr. Wesley and Mr. Hoole were in a
state bordering on catalepsy. Believers in hypnotism may think
it possible that this, that, and the other persons, if they
submitted themselves to hypnotic influences, might have the same
hallucinations suggested to them. But there is no evidence, in
the Epworth case nor in the Rerrick case, of any such matter.
“So far as we yet know, sensory hallucination of several
persons together, _who are not in a hypnotic state_, is a rare
phenomenon, and therefore not a probable explanation” (_Proc. S.
P. R._, iv. 62). There is some evidence that epileptic patients
suffer from the same illusions—for example, the presence of a
woman in a red cloak; and in _delirium tremens_ the “horrors” are
usually similar. But that all the persons who enter a given house
should be impressed by the same material illusions, as of chairs
and tables, and even beds (like Nancy Wesley’s) flying about, is
a theory more incredible than the hypothesis either of trickery
or of abnormal occurrences. When the disturbances always cease on
the arrival of a competent witness, then it is not hard to say
which theory we ought to choose. For imposture see next note.
_Note_ (_e_), p. lvii.—“Children at _séances_.”
The phenomena discussed are most frequently connected with
children, who may be regarded either as mediums or impostors,
conscious or unconscious. In _Proc. S. P. R._, iv. 25-42,
Professor Barrett gives the case of a little girl whom he
knew. She had raps wherever she went, even when alone with the
Professor, who made her stand with her hands against the wall,
at the greatest stretch of her arms, “with the muscles of the
legs and arms all in tension.” “A brisk pattering of raps”
followed Professor Barrett’s request. But he also mentions
a boy “of juvenile piety,” who “for twelve months deceived
his father, a distinguished surgeon, and all his family, by
pretended spiritualistic manifestations, which appeared at first
sight inexplicable, until the cunning trickery of the lad was
discovered.” The only difference between these cases is that an
“outsider” discovered trickery in one instance and not in the
other. This is a very ticklish kind of certainty, and it is plain
that children can do a great deal in the way of mere imposture.
The state of any young Wesley who might have been caught out
is unenviable. Verily Mr. Wesley would not have spared for his
crying.
_Note_ (_f_), p. lxii.—“The pricking of witches.”
It is pretty certain that some of there unlucky old women were
pricked “in anæsthetic areas.”
* * * * *
_Note_ (_a_), p. 8.—“These Arrows that fly in the Dark.”
The arrows are the ancient flint arrow-heads, which Mr. Kirk
later asserts to be too delicate for human artificers. On this
matter Isabel Gowdie, the witch, confessed, “As for Elf arrows,
the Divell sharpes them with his ain hand, and deliveris them to
Elf boys, wha whyttlis and dightis them with a sharp thing lyk a
paking needle; bot whan I was in Elfland, I saw them whyttling
and dighting them.” Isabel described the manner in which witches
use this artillery: “We spang them from the naillis of our
thoombs,” and with these she and her friends shot and slew many
men and women. The confessions of Isabel Gowdie are in the third
volume of Pitcairn’s _Scottish Criminal Trials_. They contain
little or nothing of the “psychical;” all is mere folk-lore,
fairy tales, and charms derived from the old Catholic liturgy.
The poor woman, having begun to fable, fabled with manifest
enjoyment and considerable power. It seems from her account that
each “Covin,” or assembly of witches, had a maiden in it, and
“without our maiden we could do no great thing.” On the other
hand, an extraordinary case of an epileptic boy, who was hurled
about, and beheld distant occurrences in trance, may be read in
Chambers’s _Domestic Annals of Scotland_, iii. 449. Candles used
to go out when this boy, a third son of Lord Torpichen, was in
the room. The date (1720) and the place (Mid-Lothian) prevented
any one from being burned for bewitching him. A fast was
proclaimed. The boy recovered, and did good service in the navy.
He is said to have been “levitated” frequently.
_Note_ (_b_), p. 11.—“Milk thorow a hair-tedder.”
Isabel Gowdie confessed to stealing milk from the cow by magic.
“We plait the rope the wrong way, in the Devil’s name, and we
draw the tether between the cow’s hind feet, and out betwixt her
forward feet, in the Devil’s name, and thereby take with us the
cow’s milk.”
Mr. Kirk, it will be observed, does not connect the Fairy kingdom
with that of Satan, as some of his contemporaries were inclined
to do.
_Note_ (_c_), p. 19.—“The Wreath (wraith) ... is only exuvious
fumes of the Man, ... exhaled and congealed into a various
likeness.”
What is this theory of “Men illiterate and unwary in their
Observations,” but Von Hartmann’s doctrine of “the nerve force
which issues from the body of the medium, and then proceeds
to set up fresh centres of force in all neighbouring objects
... while it still remains under the control of the medium’s
unconscious will”? See Mr. Walter Leaf on Hartmann’s _Der
Geisterhypothese des Spiritismus_, _Proc. S. P. R._, xix. 293.
It is amusing to find a learned German coinciding in scientific
theory with “ignorant and unwary” Highland seers. Both regard the
phantasms as manifestations of “nerve-force,” “exuvious fumes,”
and as “neither souls nor counterfeiting spirits.”
_Note_ (_d_), p. 23.—“Fairy hills.”
The hypothesis that the Fairy belief may be a tradition of an
ancient race dwelling in subterranean homes, is older than Mr.
McRitchie or Sir Walter Scott. In his _Scottish Scenery_ (1803),
Dr. Cririe suggests that the germ of the Fairy myth is the
existence of dispossessed aboriginals dwelling in subterranean
houses, in some places called Picts’ houses, covered with
artificial mounds. The lights seen near the mounds are lights
actually carried by the mound-dwellers. Dr. Cririe works out
in some detail “this marvellously absurd supposition,” as the
_Quarterly Review_ calls it (vol. lix., p. 280).
_Note_ (_e_), p. 30.—“Master Great-rake, the Irish Stroaker.”
Glanvill, in _Essays on Several Important Subjects_ (1675),
prints a letter from an Irish Bishop on Greatrex, the “stroker.”
He cured diseases “by a sanative contagion.” According to
the Bishop, Greatrex had an impression that he could do
“faith-healing,” and found that he could, but whether by virtue
of some special power or by “the people’s fancy,” he knew not.
He frequently failed, and his patients had relapses. See his own
_Account of Strange Cures: in a Letter to Robert Boyle_. London,
1666.