definite psychological facts. When during sleep our sensory organs are
exposed to external irritants the impressions physically produced are
transmitted to the brain by the nervous system and react in dreams as
they would in the waking state, except that the reactions in the two
states of consciousness--the dream state and the waking state--differ in
proportion as the two states differ; but in both the Ego is the real
percipient.[572] Such stimuli as arise from after-theatre dinners,
wine-parties, and so forth, produce a well-known type of dreams; and the
same stimuli at the same period of time would produce an equal effect,
though an altered one, to suit the altered psycho-physical conditions,
if the waking state were active rather than the dream state, just as
would all dreams which arise from pathological disturbances in disease,
or abnormal physiological functions. This is evident from dreams of a
morbid and sensual type, which directly affect the physical organism and
its functions as parallel waking-states would. In all such dreams of the
lower order, animal and purely physical tendencies, which are directly
due to the state of the body, act very freely: an imperfectly balanced,
temporarily deranged, or diseased organism must correspondingly respond
to its driving forces. And it is clear from comparative study of
phenomena that these lower kinds of dream states express only the lower
or animal consciousness, which in most individuals is the predominant or
only consciousness even in the waking life; and not the higher
consciousness of the Ego or subconsciousness which may be expressed in
somnambulism, for 'in somnambulism there awakes an inner, second
Ego',[573] which is the Subliminal Self of Myers. Dr. G. F. Stout urges
against Myers's theory of the Subliminal Self that 'the usual
incoherence of dreams is an objection to regarding them as
manifestations of a stream of thought equal or superior in systematic
complexity and continuity to that of the waking self',[574] which
objection Myers also observed. But if we regard all dreams which are of
the lower order as being due to the imperfect response of the body to
its driving forces because of various bad physical conditions in the
body, and recognize that these driving forces depend ultimately on the
subconsciousness, the difficulty seems to be met by observing that under
such conditions there is no real mergence of the normal consciousness
into the subconsciousness. Hence ordinary dreams are within the ordinary
spectrum of consciousness; but extra-ordinary dreams pass beyond the
ordinary spectrum into the truly supernormal state of consciousness.
As all this indicates, dreams are of many classes: those of the lowest
type, which we have explained as due to bad physiological conditions in
the animal-man; those which are readily explainable as distorted
reflections of waking actions, often based on some stray thought or
suggestion of the day and then comparable to post-hypnotic suggestions.
Other dreams are demonstrably entirely outside the range of ordinary
mental or physical disturbances, actions, reflections, or suggestions of
the waking life, and seem thus 'to have a wider purview, and to indicate
that the record of external events which is kept within us is far fuller
than we know'.[575] In some dreams there is reasoning as well as memory,
and mathematicians have been known to solve problems in sleep: an
American inventor known to the writer's mother asserted that he had
dreamt out the details of a certain ice-manufacturing process which
proved successful when tested; through self-suggestion set up in the
waking state, R. L. Stevenson, upon entering the dream state, secured
details for his imaginary romances.[576] Dr. Stout himself, in
criticizing Myers's 'Subliminal Self', admits that 'in some very rare
instances, a man has achieved, while dreaming, intellectual performances
equalling or perhaps surpassing the best of which he was capable in
waking life';[577] and there are many authentic cases of dream
experiences which cannot possibly be explained as revivals of facts
fallen out of the range of the ordinary memory or consciousness. We seem
to be led to some hypothesis like this: in dreaming there is mental
activity which in the waking state is either functionless or else below
the psycho-physical threshold of sensibility; because much that is
subconscious in the non-dream state is in the dream state fully
conscious. And we probably do not remember one quarter of our dreams:
they belong to a mainly different order of consciousness.
Professor Freud's view of dreams coincides pretty generally with this
view. He holds that the subconsciousness is the storehouse out of which
dream contents are drawn and acted upon by the dream mind. Very much
distortion of the subconscious material takes place in the process, due
to what he calls the 'endopsychic censor'. In the waking state this
censor is always on the alert to keep out of consciousness all
subconscious processes or deposits, but in sleep the censor is less
alert, and allows some subconscious content to escape over into the
ordinary consciousness. The result is a dream distorted out of all
recognition of its origin. Such a dream seems to occupy a position
midway between what we have classed as the lowest or animal-mind dream
and the highest or subliminal dream. It possibly shows an harmonious
psycho-physical condition of the dream life, whereas the lowest type of
dream shows the preponderance of the physical or animal, and the highest
type of dream shows the preponderance of the psychical elements in man.
Further, it may be designated as the normal dream, and the other two
types respectively as the physically abnormal and the psychically
abnormal.
Professor Freud detects other marked processes in the dream state, all
of which help to illustrate the part of the Fairy-Faith dependent upon
dreaming experiences. (1) There is condensation of details frequently in
a proportion so great as one for ten and one for twenty; (2)
displacement of details, or 'a transvaluation of all values'; (3) much
dramatization; (4) regression, a retrograde movement of abstract mental
processes toward their primary conceptions; and (5) secondary
elaboration, an attempt to rationalize all dream-material.[578] Also,
Professor Freud discovered from his analysis of thousands of dreams that
the subconsciousness makes use of a sort of symbolism:--'This symbolism
in part varies with the individual, but in part is of a typical nature,
and seems to be identical with the symbolism which we suppose to lie
behind our myths and legends. It is not impossible that these latter
creations of the people may find their explanation from the study of
dreams.'[579] Such processes, taken as a whole, show that man possesses
a twofold consciousness, the ordinary consciousness and the
subconsciousness. And we have every reason to believe that subconscious
activities go on continually, in waking and in sleeping.
By experiments on his own perfectly healthy children, Wienholt proved
that there are natural forces existing whose stimulations are never
perceived in waking life: he made passes over the face and neck of his
son with an iron key at the distance of half an inch without touching
him, whereupon the boy began to rub those parts and manifested
uneasiness. Wienholt likewise experimented on his other children with
lead, zinc, gold, and other metals, and in most cases the children
'averted the parts so treated, rubbed them, or drew the clothes over
them'.[580] Therefore, in sleep the consciousness perceives objects
without physical contact; and this not inconceivably might suggest,
inversely, that in sleep the human consciousness can affect objects
without physical contact, as it is said fairies and the dead can, and in
the way psychical researchers know that objects can be affected.
We have on record an account of a most remarkable dream quite the same
in character as dreams wherein certain Celts believe they have met the
dead or fairies. Professor Hilprecht had a broken Assyrian cylinder in
cuneiform which he could not decipher; but in a dream an Assyrian priest
in ancient garb appeared to him and deciphered the inscription. Of this
dream Myers observed:--'We seem to have reached the utmost intensity of
sleep faculty within the limits of our ordinary spectrum.'[581]
We may sum up the results of our examination of dreams by saying that
scientific analysis of the dream life _in its higher ranges_ proves that
our Ego is not wholly embraced in self-consciousness, that the Ego
exceeds the self-consciousness. Instead of a continuity of
consciousness which constitutes self-consciousness we have parallel
states of consciousness for the one subject, the Ego. Our study of the
Celtic theory of re-birth, in the following chapter, will further
explain this subtle aspect of the dream psychology.
When such a conclusion is applied to the Fairy-Faith, the various
dream-like or trance-like states during which ancient and contemporary
Celts testify to having been in Fairyland are seen to be scientifically
plausible. In this aspect then, Fairyland, stripped of all its literary
and imaginative glamour and of its social psychology, in the eyes of
science resolves itself into a reality, because it is one of the states
of consciousness co-ordinate with the ordinary consciousness. This
statement will be confirmed by a brief examination of what is called
'supernatural lapse of time', and which is invariably connected with
Fairyland.
_'Supernatural' Lapse of Time_
It has already been made clear that in the dream or somnambulic state
there are invariably modifications of time and space relations; and
these give rise to what has been termed the 'supernatural lapse of
time'. Two conditions are possible: either a few minutes of waking-state
time equal long periods in the non-waking state; or else, as is usually
the case in the Fairy-Faith, the reverse is true.
The first condition, which we shall examine first, occasionally appears
in the Fairy-Faith through such a statement as this:--'Sometimes one may
thus go to Faerie for an hour or two' (p. 39). Similarly, as physicians
well know, patients under narcotics will experience events extending
over long periods of time within a few minutes of normal time. De
Quincey, the famous opium-eater, records dreams of ten to sixty years'
supernatural duration, and some quite beyond all limits of the waking
experience. Fechner records a case of a woman who was nearly drowned and
then resuscitated after two minutes of unconsciousness, and who in that
time lived over again all her past life.[582] Another even more
remarkable case than this last concerns Admiral Beaufort, who, having
fallen into the water, was unconscious also for two minutes, and yet he
says that not only during that short space of time did he travel over
every incident of his life with the details of 'every minute and
collateral feature', but that there crowded into his imagination 'many
trifling events which had long been forgotten'.[583]
We shall now present examples to illustrate the second condition. Höhne
was in an unbroken magnetic sleep from the first of January to the tenth
of May, and when he came out of it he was overcome with surprise to see
that spring had arrived, he having lain down--as he believed--only the
day before.[584] Had Höhne been an Irishman, he might very reasonably
have explained the situation by saying that he had been with the fairies
for what seemed only a night. The Seeress of Prevorst, in a similar
sleep, passed through a period of six years and five months, and then
awoke as from a one-night sleep with no memory of what she did during
that time; but some time afterwards memory of the period came to her so
completely that she recalled all its details.[585] Old people, and some
young people too, among the Celts, who go to Fairyland for varying
periods of time, sometimes extending over weeks (as in a case I knew in
West Ireland), have just such dreams or trance-states as this. Another
example follows:--Chardel, in fleeing from the Revolution, took ship
from Brittany and was obliged to induce somnambulism on his wife in
order to overcome her horror of the sea. When the couple landed in
America and Chardel awakened his wife, she had no recollection whatever
of the Atlantic voyage, and believed herself still in Brittany.[586]
Both Helmholtz and Fechner show[587] that the functions of the nervous
system are associated with a definite time-measure, so it follows that
consciousness in an organic body like man's depends upon the nervous
system; but, as these examples and similar ones in the Fairy-Faith
show, certain conscious states exist independently of the human nerves,
and they therefore set up a strong presumption that complete
consciousness can exist independently of the physical nerve-apparatus.
And in proceeding to submit this presumption of a supersensuous
consciousness to the further test of science we shall at the same time
be testing the statements made by wholly reliable seer-witnesses, like
the Irish mystic and seer (p. 65), that not only can men and women enter
Fairyland during trance-states for a brief period, but that at death
they can enter it for an unlimited period. Further, what is for our
study the most important of all statements will likewise be tested,
namely, that in Fairyland there are conscious non-human entities like
the _Sidhe_ races.
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND FAIRIES
Our present task, then, is to extend the examination beyond incarnate
consciousness into the realm of the new psychology or physical research,
where, as a working hypothesis, it is assumed that there is discarnate
consciousness, which by the Celtic peoples is believed to exist and to
exhibit itself in various individual aspects as fairies.
As to what science demands as proof of the survival of human
consciousness after death, there has been no clear consensus of opinion.
To prove merely the existence of 'ghosts' would not do; it is necessary
to show by a series of proofs (1) that discarnate intelligences exist,
(2) that they possess complete and persistent personal energy wholly
within themselves, (3) that they are the actual unit of consciousness
and memory known to have manifested itself on this plane of existence
through particular incarnate personalities now deceased. Various
psychical researchers assert that they have already reached these proofs
and are convinced, often in spite of their initial scientific attitude
of antagonism toward all psychic phenomena, of the survival of the human
consciousness after the death of the human body; and we shall proceed to
present the testimony of some of them.
In chapter vii, concerning _Phantasms of the Dead_, forming part of
Frederick W. H. Myers's _Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily
Death_, and in the two chapters which follow, on _Motor Automatism_, and
on _Trance, Possession, and Ecstasy_, all the necessary proofs above
noted have been adduced; and the author was thereby one of the very
first psychical researchers to have recorded before the world his
conversion from the non-animistic hypothesis to the ancient belief that
Man is immortal; for he admits his conviction that the human
consciousness does incontestably survive the decay of the physical body.
Types of some of these well-attested and proved cases offered as
evidence by Myers may be briefly summarized as follows:--Repeated
apparitions indicating intimate acquaintance with some post-mortem fact
like the place of burial; single apparitions with knowledge of the
affairs of surviving friends, or of the impending death of a survivor,
or of spirits of persons dead after the apparition's decease; cases
where professed spirits manifest knowledge of their earth-life, as of
some secret compact made with survivors; cases of apparitional
appearances near a corpse or a grave; occasional cases of the appearance
of the dead to several persons collectively.[588] Under motor
automatism, some of the most striking phenomena tending toward proof are
cases where automatic writing has announced a death unknown to the
persons present; knowledge communicated in a _séance_, not known to any
person present, but afterwards proved to have been possessed by the
deceased; automatic writing by a child in language unknown to her.
In chapter ix trance or possession is defined by Myers, in the same list
of proofs, as 'a development of Motor Automatism resulting at last in a
substitution of personality'; and this harmonizes with the theory of the
control of a living organism by discarnate spirits, and is supported by
an overwhelming mass of scientific experiment. Telepathy suggests the
possibility of communication between the living and the living and
between the living and the dead, and, we may add, between the dead and
the dead--as in Fairyland--without the consideration of space or time as
known in the lower ranges of mental action; and that the communication
does not depend upon vibrations from a material brain-mass. Telepathy in
these first two aspects has been likewise accepted as a scientific fact
by workers in psychical research like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver
Lodge, William James, and by many others. All such phenomena as these,
now being so carefully investigated and weighed by men thoroughly
trained in science, are, so to speak, the protoplasmic background of all
religions, philosophies, or systems of mystical thought yet evolved on
this planet; and in all essentials they confirm the x-quantity presented
in the evidence of the Fairy-Faith.
Dr. G. F. Stout, an able representative of the school of non-converts to
the theories in psychology propounded by Myers and by psychical
research, states his position thus:--'But, at least, my doubt is not
dogmatic denial, and I agree with Mr. Myers that there is no sufficient
reason for being peculiarly sceptical concerning communications from
departed spirits. I also agree with him that the alleged cases of such
communication cannot be with any approach to probability explained away
as mere instances of telepathy.'[589] In addition, Dr. Stout says:--'The
conception which has been really useful to him is that of telepathy.
Given that communication takes place between individual minds unmediated
by ordinary physical conditions, we may regard intercourse with departed
spirits as a special case of the same kind of process. And clairvoyance,
precognition, &c., may perhaps be referred to telepathic communication
either with departed spirits or with other intelligences superior to the
human.'[589] In this last phrase, 'intelligences superior to the human',
Dr. Stout assumes our own position, that hypothetically there is good
reason for thinking that discarnate non-human intelligences--such as the
Irish call the _Sidhe_--may exist and communicate with, or influence in
some unknown way, the living, as during 'mediumship' and in 'seership'.
Mr. Andrew Lang points out, in his reply to Dr. Stout's criticism, that
the only legitimate scientific resource for overthrowing Myers's
position, since the evidence is 'mathematically incapable of explanation
by chance coincidence', is to say that several people are deliberate
forgers and liars. And he adds:--'To myself (but only to myself and a
small circle) the evidence is irrefragable, from our lifetime knowledge
of the percipient.'[590] But the animistic position does not by any
means depend upon the evidence presented by Myers, no matter how
incontestably reliable it is. We have only to examine the voluminous
publications of the _Society for Psychical Research_ (London) to realize
this, and especially the _Report on the Census of Hallucinations of
Modern Spiritualism_, by Professor Sidgwick's Committee (_P. S. P. R._,
London).
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE FAIRY-FAITH
_According to a special contribution from Mr. Andrew Lang._
Mr. Andrew Lang, who has done a special service to science by showing
that psychical research is inseparably related to anthropology, has
favoured us with a statement of his own position toward this
relationship and has made it directly applicable to the Fairy-Faith. In
a general way, but not in some important details (as indicated in our
annotations) we agree with Mr. Lang's position, which he states as
follows:--
Mr. Evans Wentz has asked me to define my position towards
psychical research in relation to anthropology. I have done so in
my book, _The Making of Religion_. The alleged abnormal or
supernormal occurrences which psychical research examines are, for
the most part, 'universally human,' and, whether they happen or do
not happen, whether they are the results of malobservation, or of
fraud, or are merely mythical, as _human_ they cannot be wisely
neglected by anthropology.
The fairy-folk, under many names, in many tongues, are everywhere
objects of human belief, in Central Australia, in New Zealand, in
the isles of the Pacific, as in the British Isles, Lowland or
Highland, Celtic in the main, or English in the main, I conceive
the various beings, fairies, brownies, _Iruntarinia_, _Djinns_, or
what you will, _to be purely mythical_. I am incapable of believing
that they are actual entities, who carry off men and women; steal
and hide objects (especially as the _Iruntarinia_ do); love or
hate, persecute or kiss human beings; practise music, vocal and
instrumental; and in short 'play the pliskies' with which they are
universally credited by the identical workings of the human fancy.
They tend to shade away, on one side, into the denizens of the
House of Hades--phantasms of the dead. The belief in such phantasms
may be partially based on experience, whether hallucinatory or
otherwise and inexplicably produced.[591]
As far as psychical research studies report of these phantasms it
approaches the realm of 'the Fairy Queen Proserpine'. As far as
such research examines the historical or contemporary stories of
the _Poltergeist_, it touches on fairies: because the Irish, for
example, attribute to the agency of fairies the modern
_Poltergeist_ phenomena, whether these, in each case, be fraudulent
or, up to now, be unexplained.
There are not more than two or three alleged visions of the
traditional fairies in the annals of psychical research; and I have
met with but few sane and educated persons who profess to have seen
phantoms at all resembling the traditional fairy; while phantasms
supposed to be of the dead, the dying, and the absent are
frequently reported. On the whole, psychical research has very
little concern with the fairy-belief in its typical forms, and if
the researcher did find modern cases of fairy visions alleged by
sane and educated percipients, he would be apt to explain them by
suggestion acting on the subconscious self.[592]
1 MARLOES ROAD, LONDON, W.
_September_ 26, 1910.
Concerning phantasms of the dead into which, as above pointed out, the
fairy-folk tend to shade away, Mr. Lang has elsewhere said:--'On the
whole, if the evidence is worth anything, there are real objective
ghosts, and there are also telepathic hallucinations: so that the
scientific attitude is to believe in both, if in either.'[593] And he
shows that while anthropologists have explained all animistic beliefs as
the results of primitive men's philosophizing 'on life, death, sleep,
dreams, trances, shadows, the phenomena of epilepsy, and the illusions
of starvation', 'normal phenomena, psychological and psychical, might
suggest most of the animistic beliefs.'[593] In _The Making of
Religion_, Mr. Lang has expanded this anthropological argument so as to
make it even more fully embrace psychical research.
If we apply the brilliant results of Mr. Lang's investigations to our
own, it is apparent that the background of the Fairy-Faith, like that of
all religions, is animistic, as we have argued in chapter iii; that it
must have grown up in ancient times into its traditional form out of a
pre-Celtic followed by a pre-Christian Celtic religion; these latter
due, in turn, to actual psychical experiences, such as hallucinations,
visions of different sorts, clairvoyance, 'mediumship', and magical
knowledge on the part of Druid priests and, probably, to some extent, on
the part of the common people as well; and, finally, that the living
Fairy-Faith depends not so much upon ancient traditions, oral and
recorded, as upon recent and contemporary psychical experiences, vouched
for by many 'seers' and other percipients among our witnesses, and now
placed on record by us in chapter ii and elsewhere throughout this
study.
THE PRESENT POSITION OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Sir William Crookes, the well-known English authority in physical
science, was almost the first scientist to become seriously interested
in psychics, and in Part III of _Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena
called Spiritual, during the Years 1870-1873_ (London), boldly
affirms:--'It will be seen that the facts are of the most astounding
character, and seem utterly irreconcilable with all known theories of
modern science. Having satisfied myself of their _truth_, it would be
moral cowardice to withhold my testimony because my previous
publications were ridiculed by critics and others.' And this conclusion
reached forty years ago has not been reversed, but has been confirmed by
one after another of learned scientists on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1908, Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of the University of Birmingham,
and at present one of the best known of scientists concerned with the
study of spiritual phenomena, stated his position thus:--'On the whole,
I am of those who, though they would like to see further and still
stronger and more continued proofs, are of opinion that a good case has
been made out, and that as the best working hypothesis at the present
time it is legitimate to grant that lucid moments of intercourse with
deceased persons may in the best cases supervene.... The boundary
between the two states--the known and the unknown--is still substantial,
but it is wearing thin in places; and like excavators engaged in boring
a tunnel from opposite ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we
are beginning to hear now and again the strokes of the pickaxes of our
comrades on the other side.'[594] In 1909, Sir Oliver Lodge published
_The Survival of Man_, in which, after a careful exposition, covering
over three hundred pages, of the definite results of much scientific
experimentation by the best scientists of Europe and America, in such
psychical phenomena as Telepathy or Thought Transference, Telepathy and
Clairvoyance, Automatism and Lucidity, the following tentative
conclusion is reached:--'The first thing we learn, perhaps the only
thing we clearly learn in the first instance, is _continuity_. There is
no such sudden break in the conditions of existence as may have been
anticipated; and no break at all in the continuous and conscious
identity of genuine character and personality.'[594] And his personal
conviction is that 'Intelligent co-operation between other than
embodied human minds than our own ... has become possible'.[595]
William James, who was one of the chief psychical researchers in the
United States, published his conclusions in October 1909; and of
psychical phenomena he wrote:--'As to there being such real natural
types of phenomena ignored by orthodox science, I am not baffled at all,
for I am fully convinced of it.' Of 'mediumship', he postulated the very
interesting theory of a universally diffused 'soul-stuff', which
elsewhere (p. 254) we have referred to as the scientific equivalent to
the Polynesian _Mana_: 'My own dramatic sense tends instinctively to
picture the situation as an interaction between slumbering faculties in
the automatist's mind and a cosmic environment of _other consciousness_
of some sort which is able to work upon them. If there were in the
universe a lot of diffuse soul-stuff, unable of itself to get into
consistent personal form, or to take permanent possession of an
organism, yet always craving to do so, it might get its head into the
air, parasitically, so to speak, by profiting by weak spots in the
armour of human minds, and slipping in and stirring up there the
sleeping tendencies to personate.' Expanding this theory into a
'pan-psychic' view of the universe and assuming a 'mother-sea' of
consciousness, a bank upon which we all draw, James asked these
questions about it, which educated Celtic seers ask themselves about the
_Sidhe_ or Fairy-World and its also collective consciousness or life:
'What is its own structure? What is its inner topography?... What are
the conditions of individuation or insulation in this mother-sea? To
what tracts, to what active systems functioning separately in it, do
personalities correspond? Are individual "spirits" constituted there?
How numerous, and of how many hierarchic orders may these then be? How
permanent? How transient? And how confluent with one another may they
become?'[596] We should ask the reader to compare this scientific
attitude with the almost identical attitude taken up with respect to the
_Sidhe_ Races and the constitution of their world and life by the Irish
mystic and seer (pp. 60 ff.).
M. Camille Flammarion, the well-known French astronomer, is another of
the pioneer psychical researchers; and in his psychic studies, entitled,
as translated in an English edition, _The Unknown_, recently announced
these definite conclusions:--'(1) _The soul exists as a real entity
independent of the body._ (2) _It is endowed with faculties still
unknown to science._ (3) _It is able to act at a distance, without the
intervention of the senses._' And in his _Mysterious Psychic Forces_
(Boston, 1907, pp. 452-3), he says:--'The conclusions of the present
work concord with those of the former (_The Unknown_).... I may sum up
the whole matter with the single statement that there exists in nature,
in myriad activity, a _psychic element_ the essential nature of which is
still hidden from us.'
THE FINAL TESTING OF THE X-QUANTITY
This chapter can now be brought to its logical conclusion by directly
applying the results so far attained to our still vigorous x-quantity or
residuum gathered out of the Fairy-Faith. We have, although hurriedly,
blazed a rough pathway through the necessary parts of the jungle of
scientific theories, and have arrived at a very considerable clearing
made by the pioneers, the psychical researchers. We seem, in fact, to
have arrived at a point in our long investigations where we can
postulate scientifically, on the showing of the data of psychical
research, the existence of such invisible intelligences as gods, genii,
daemons, all kinds of true fairies, and disembodied men. It is not
necessary to produce here, in addition to what already has been set
forth, the very voluminous detailed evidence of psychical research as to
the existence of such intelligences. The general statement may be made
that there are hundreds of carefully proven cases of phenomena or
apparitions precisely like many of those which the Celtic peoples
attribute to fairies.[597]
Various explanations or theories are offered by our men of science as to
what these invisible intelligences are, for none of our scientists would
say that the dead alone are responsible, even in a majority of cases,
for the observed phenomena and apparitions, but rather such beings as we
call daemons, fairies, and elementals. M. Camille Flammarion says:--'The
greater part of the phenomena observed--noises, movement of tables,
confusions, disturbances, raps, replies to questions asked--are really
childish, puerile, vulgar, often ridiculous, and rather resemble the
pranks of mischievous boys than serious bona-fide actions. It is
impossible not to notice this. Why should the souls of the dead amuse
themselves in this way? The supposition seems almost absurd.'[598] There
could be no better description of the pranks which house-haunting
fairies like brownies and Robin Goodfellows and elementals enjoy than
this; and to suppose that the dead perform such mischievous and playful
acts is, in truth, absurd. M. Flammarion also says:--'Two inescapable
hypotheses present themselves. Either it is we who produce these
phenomena' (and this is not reasonable) 'or it is spirits. But mark this
well: these spirits are not necessarily the souls of the dead; for other
kinds of spiritual beings may exist, and space may be full of them
without our ever knowing anything about it, except under unusual
circumstances. _Do we not find in the different ancient literatures,
demons, angels, gnomes, goblins, sprites, spectres, elementals, &c.?
Perhaps these legends are not without some foundation in fact._'[598]
On 'the phenomena of percussive and allied sound'--such as fairies and
the dead are said to produce--Sir William Crookes made this
report:--'The intelligence governing the phenomena is sometimes
manifestly below that of the medium. It is frequently in direct
opposition to the wishes of the medium.... The intelligence is
sometimes of such a character as to lead to the belief that it does not
emanate from any person present.'[599] In the case of the 'medium' Mr.
Home, Sir William Crookes used mechanical tests and proved to his own
satisfaction that physical objects moved without Mr. Home or any other
person being in contact with them,[600] in the way that fairies are
believed to move objects. These phenomena parallel remarkable ancient
and modern examples of the same nature: e. g. in the affair at
Cideville, France, brought before a magistrate, there is sworn evidence
by reputable witnesses that pillows and coverlets floated away from a
bed in which two children were asleep, and that furniture in the house
moved without contact.[601] Mrs. Margaret Quinn, originally of
Mullingar, but now of Howth, gave this remarkable testimony:--'When I
was a little girl, I lived with my mother in West Meath, near Mullingar.
A _fort_ was at the back of our house, and mother used to hear music
playing round our house all night, and she has seen _them_ (the _good
people_). It often happened there at home that we would have clothes out
on the line and they would float off like a balloon at a time when there
would not be a bit of wind and in daylight. My mother would come out and
say, "God bless _them_ (the _good people_). _They_ will bring them
back." And then the clothes would slowly come floating back to the
line.' And in our chapter ii there is other testimony concerning objects
moved without contact with human beings, either through the agency of
fairies or of the dead. After due investigation of such and various
other phenomena, Sir William Crookes, among other theories to explain
them, gives this theory:--'_The actions of a separate order of beings,
living on this earth, but invisible and immaterial to us. Able, however,
occasionally to manifest their presence. Known in almost all countries
and ages as demons (not necessarily bad), gnomes, fairies, kobolds,
elves, goblins, Puck, &c._'[602] Here we seem to have what ought to be,
by this stage of our study, proof of the Psychological Theory of the
nature and origin of the Fairy-Faith.
Let us now draw a few of the direct parallels thus suggested. Consider
first how a fairy is said to appear, how it is described, and how it
vanishes, and then compare the facts stated in the following case of a
phantom reported by Sir William Crookes[603]:--'In the dusk of the
evening' (just the time when fairies are most easily seen) 'during a
_séance_ with Mr. Home at my house, the curtains of a window about eight
feet from Mr. Home were seen to move. A dark, shadowy, semi-transparent
form, like that of a man, was then seen by all present standing near the
window, waving the curtain with his hand. As we looked, the form faded
away and the curtain ceased to move.' The following--Mr. Home as in the
former case being the 'medium'--is a still more striking instance:--'A
phantom form came from a corner of the room, took an accordion in its
hand, and then glided about the room playing the instrument. The form
was visible to all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being seen at
the same time. On its coming rather close to a lady who was sitting
apart from the rest of the company, she gave a slight cry, upon which it
vanished.' Compare the following types of observed phenomena by the same
authority with what our Welsh witness from the Pentre Evan country said
about death-candles (p. 155):--'I have seen a luminous cloud floating
upwards to a picture.' Or, 'I have more than once had a solid
self-luminous body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to
any person in the room. In the light I have seen a luminous cloud hover
over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a sprig off, and carry the
sprig to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous
cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects
about.' Similar lights, parallel to the death lights or death tokens
observed by Celtic percipients in Wales and in Brittany, and to what in
Ireland are called the 'lights' of the 'good people' or 'gentry'--all of
which phenomena are traceable to no material causes as yet
discovered--are reported by Iamblichus and others of his school.[604]
And such lights are among phenomena best attested by modern psychical
researchers. Supernormally produced music, said to have been produced by
daemons, which is parallel to that called by several of our own
percipients 'fairy' music, was also known to the Neo-Platonists;[604]
and in the scientific investigations to which Mr. Home was subjected,
musical sounds were heard which could not be attributed to any known
agency. In haunted houses, as psychical research discovers, the rustling
of dresses, movements of objects, and sounds, often occur spontaneously
without and with the occurrence of apparitions;[604] and these phenomena
are parallel to certain ones which we have had cited by Celtic
percipients as due to fairies. Mr. Lang, too, has set forth clearly the
probability of real 'haunts' or spirits possessing particular
places--just as fairies are said to possess particular localities or
buildings in Celtic lands.
_The Report on the Census of Hallucination_ by Professor Sidgwick's
Committee has furnished data sufficiently good to convince many
scientists that phantoms (comparable in a way with Irish banshees and
the Breton _Ankou_) do appear to the living directly before a death as
though announcing it.[605] According to other equally reliable data,
sometimes a phantasmal voice--like certain 'fairy' voices--has given
news of a death.[606] Myers and others have studied and recorded many
cases of the dead appearing, as the Celtic dead appear when they have
been _taken_ to Fairyland.[606]
In _Phantasms of the Living_, by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore, the
explanation of apparitions which are coincident with a death as being
generated by a telepathic influence exerted upon the percipient by the
dying friend, suggests the most rational interpretation of certain
parallel kinds of apparitions, of the dead or of fairies, who, as in
these last examples, appear dressed in garments. It is that all such
apparitional appearances, coincident with a death or not, are equally
due to a telepathic force exerted by an agency independent of the
percipient. This outside force acts as a stimulus upon the nervous
apparatus of the person to whom it is thus transmitted, and causes him
to project out of some part of his own consciousness (which part may
have passed over into the subconsciousness) a visualized image already
impressed there. The image has natural affinity or correspondence with
the outside stimulus which arouses it.
Such an hypothesis curiously agrees in part with the one put forth by
our seer-witness, the Irish mystic (p. 60 ff.). He would probably agree
as to the visualization process in most types of ordinary apparitions.
In addition, he holds that Nature herself has a memory: there is some
indefinable psychic element in the earth's atmosphere upon which all
human and physical actions or phenomena are photographed or impressed.
These records in Nature's mind correspond to mental impressions in us.
Under certain inexplicable conditions, normal persons who are not seers
may observe Nature's mental records like pictures cast upon a
screen--often like moving pictures. Seers can always see them if they
wish; and uncritical seers frequently mistake these phantom records or
pictures existing on the psychical envelope of the planet for actual
events now occurring, and for actual beings--fairies of various kinds
and the dead. A recent book entitled _An Adventure_, by Elizabeth
Morison and Frances Lamont (pseudonyms), adequately illustrates what we
mean by such phantom pictures. During the year 1901 these two cultured
ladies saw at _le petit Trianon_ of Marie Antoinette records in the mind
of Nature of past historical events dating from about 1789. Of this
there seems not to be the slightest doubt. The fairy boat-race on Lough
Gur, as described by Count John de Salis (p. 80), and the procession
seen on Tara Hill of fairies 'like soldiers of ancient Ireland in
review' (p. 33), probably illustrate the same kind of phenomena (cf. pp.
55-7, 68, 74, 123, 126, &c.).
But in visions by natural seers, following again the theory of our Irish
seer-witness, there is present not only an outside force (as seems to be
the case when ordinary apparitions are seen) but also a veridical being
with a form and life of its own in a world of its own. Such a real
entity is as distinct from a picture in the memory of Nature as a living
person is distinct from the mental picture which his friend holds and
projects as a visualized image when responding to a telepathic stimulus
sent by him. The natural seer, not being obliged to see with his normal
sense of vision, need not use the normal method (namely, visualization)
of responding to the outside telepathic stimulus, and so does not see
the ordinary apparitional ghost or fairy. He exercises 'second-sight' or
ecstatic vision, and while so doing is in the same plane of
consciousness and under the same conditions of perception as the
intelligence which projects upon him the stimulus inducing automatically
such 'second-sight' or ecstatic vision. Therefore, if the intelligence
has a form and nature of its own, the seer and not the non-seer will
perceive them in their own world while his consciousness is temporarily
functioning there and out of the normal plane of mental action. In other
words, in the normal plane the non-seer reacts normally upon the same
stimulus upon which the seer reacts abnormally. The former percipient
sees a non-real apparition, a visualized image out of his own
experience; the latter claims to see a real being. The real being exists
normally under conditions which are abnormal to the non-seer, but which
to the seer become normal. The visualization of the non-seer is a
makeshift, a psycho-physical reaction to a purely psychical stimulus.
It is mathematically possible to conceive fourth-dimensional beings, and
if they exist it would be impossible in a third-dimensional plane to see
them as they really are. Hence the ordinary apparition is non-real as a
form, whereas the beings, which wholly sane and reliable seers claim to
see when exercising seership of the highest kind, may be as real to
themselves and to the seers as human beings are to us here in this
third-dimensional world when we exercise normal vision.
Concerning actual demon-possession, which among spiritualists and
psychical researchers would be called spirit phenomena through
'mediums', and which, as we have elsewhere pointed out (pp. 249 ff.),
offers the most rational explanation for the changeling belief and
related Celtic beliefs about fairies, Dr. J. L. Nevius, in his _Demon
Possession_, offers very important scientific data relating to China.
Dr. F. F. Ellinwood, who like that authority studied strange psychical
phenomena in the interior districts of the Shantung Province (China) for
many years, says in an introductory note to that work:--'Antecedently to
any knowledge of the New Testament' (so full of cases of
demon-possession) 'the people of North China believed fully in the
possession of the minds and bodies of men by evil spirits.... It has
always been understood that the personality of the evil spirit usurped,
or for the time being supplanted, that of the unwilling victim, and
acted through his organs and faculties. Physical suffering and sometimes
violent paroxysms attended the presence and active influence of the
spirit.' In the face of so many cases of such phenomena observed in
China by the same authorities, Dr. Ellinwood adds, as Dr. Nevius's
conclusion, that 'no theory has been advanced which so well accords with
the facts as the simple and unquestioning conclusion so universally held
by the Christians of Shantung, viz. that evil spirits do in many
instances possess or control the mind and will of human beings'.
Hypnotism shows how one strong and magnetic human will can control the
mind and will of its subject; the scientific results attained by the
Society for Psychical Research in its study of spiritualism show a
disembodied will or intelligence controlling and using the body of a
living human being; and Dr. Nevius writes:--'Now may not
demon-possession be only a different, a more advanced form of
hypnotism?' Criminal records of Europe and America show many examples of
condemned criminals who confessed in all sincerity that some invisible
or outside influence led them against their better judgement to commit
crime; and very often in such examples the past lives of the condemned
are so good as to set up a strong probability in favour of their belief
in possession. And altogether in accord with the evidence of modern
mediumship, as well as that of mediumship among the ancients, Dr. Nevius
says of Chinese demon-possession:--'When normal consciousness is
restored after one of these attacks, the subject is entirely ignorant of
everything which has passed during that state. The most striking
characteristic of those cases is that the subject evidences another
personality, and the normal personality for the time being is partially
or wholly dormant. The new personality presents traits of character
utterly different from those which really belong to the subject in his
normal state, and this change of character is, with rare exceptions, in
the direction of moral obliquity and impurity. Many persons while
"demon-possessed" give evidence of knowledge which cannot be accounted
for in ordinary ways.... They sometimes converse in foreign languages of
which in their normal states they are entirely ignorant. There are often
heard, in connexion with "demon possessions", rappings and noises in
places where no physical cause for them can be found; and tables,
chairs, crockery, and the like are moved about without, so far as can be
discerned, any application of physical force, exactly as we are told is
the case among spiritualists.'[607]
CONCLUSION
Our investigations (and far more exhaustive ones than ours touching
similar psychical phenomena) show, when applied to the residuum or
x-quantity, these chief results: (1) The Materialistic and the Delusion
and Imposture Theories can be dismissed as not affecting it. (2)
Authorities do not agree in their opinions as to the pathological and
psychological processes with which we are directly concerned; they are
quite uncertain how to explain the human brain in all its more subtle
functions, or the sympathetic nervous system and nervous states
generally, in relation especially to human consciousness under various
abnormal but not diseased conditions of the organism; and they do not
propose any conclusions as final, but only as very weakly tentative,
though some of these are in favour of a psycho-physical view of man in
which there is a close approach to the present more advanced position of
psychical research. (3) Psychical research has furnished proof
sufficient to convince such first-class scientists as Sir William
Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, William James, M. Camille Flammarion, and
others, that states of consciousness exist in nature outside of, though
probably connected with, the consciousness of incarnate human beings,
and that these intelligences can produce effects on matter and on the
psychical constitution of man; and some of these scientists consider
certain of such intelligences to be discarnate men and women. (4)
Scientific proof has been adduced that there are genuine
hallucinations--like those relating to fairies--of human-like forms,
seen by single percipients, or collectively; and such collective
hallucinations are incapable of being explained away, which is equally
true of apparitions seen by a single percipient to move physical
objects. (5) Many of the foremost psychical researchers, including those
named above, accept 'mediumship' or spirit-possession as the best
working hypothesis to explain automatism. (6) In the accepted theory of
telepathy we have support for assuming that, like hypnosis, it is a
psychical process, and can be carried on either by two embodied spirits
or human beings, or by a disembodied spirit and one still incarnate.
Myers's theories, including that of the Subliminal Self, embody all the
preceding ones and agree in details with them. (7) The results taken
together harmonize with those attained in our study of psychical
phenomena attributed by the Celtic peoples to fairies; and, if they be
accepted, older psychological and pathological theories must be
thoroughly revised in many cases, or else cast aside as worthless.
Finally, since we have demonstrated that the background of the
Fairy-Faith, and hence the residuum or x-quantity of it, is like the
background of all religious and mystical beliefs, being animistic, and
like them has grown up in ancient times out of definite psychical
phenomena identical in character with those now studied by science, and
is kept alive by an unbroken succession of 'seers' and percipients, we
have a clear right to set up under scientific authority these tentative
conclusions: (1) Fairyland exists as a supernormal state of
consciousness into which men and women may enter temporarily in dreams,
trances, or in various ecstatic conditions; or for an indefinite period
at death. (2) Fairies exist, because in all essentials they appear to be
the same as the intelligent forces now recognized by psychical
researchers, be they thus collective units of consciousness like what
William James has called 'soul-stuff', or more individual units, like
veridical apparitions. (3) Our examination of living children said to
have been changed by fairies shows (see pp. 250-1) (_a_) that many
changelings are so called merely because of some bodily deformity or
because of some abnormal mental or pathological characteristics capable
of an ordinary rational explanation, (_b_) but that other changelings
who exhibit a change of personality, such as is recognized by
psychologists, are in many cases best explained on the Demon-Possession
Theory, which is a well-established scientific hypothesis.
Therefore, since the residuum or x-quantity of the Fairy-Faith, the
folk-religion of the Celtic peoples, cannot be explained away by any
known scientific laws, it must for the present stand, and the
Psychological Theory of the Nature and Origin of the Belief in Fairies
in Celtic Countries is to be considered as hypothetically established in
the eyes of Science. Hence we must cease to look upon the term _fairy_
as being always a synonym for something fanciful, non-real, absurd. We
must also cease to think of the Fairy-Faith as being no more than a
fabric of groundless beliefs. In short, the ordinary non-Celtic mind
must readjust itself to a new set of phenomena which through ignorance
on its part it has been content to disregard, and to treat with ridicule
and contempt as so much outworn 'superstition'.
SECTION IV
MODERN SCIENCE AND THE FAIRY-FAITH; AND CONCLUSIONS
CHAPTER XII
THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH AND OTHERWORLD SCIENTIFICALLY EXAMINED
'If all things which partook of life were to die, and after they
were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life
again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive--what
other result could there be?'--SOCRATES, as reported by Plato.
'The soul, if immortal, existed before our birth. What is
incorruptible must be ungenerable.'--HUME.
'If there be no reasons to suppose that we have existed before that
period at which our existence apparently commences, then there are
no grounds for supposing that we shall continue to exist after our
existence has apparently ceased.'--SHELLEY.
The extension of the terms Fairy and Fairyland--The real man as an
invisible force acting through a body-conductor--A psychical organ
essential for memory--Pre-existence a scientific necessity--The
vitalistic view of evolution--Old theory of heredity
disproved--Embryology supports re-birth doctrine--Psycho-physical
evolution--Memory of previous existences in
subconsciousness--Examples--Dream psychology furnishes clearest
illustrations--No post-existence without
pre-existence--Resurrection as re-birth--The Circle of Life--The
mystical corollary--Conclusion: the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth and
Otherworld is essentially scientific.
In the esoteric Fairy-Faith, the terms Fairy and Fairyland attain their
broadest meaning. To the Celtic mystic, the universe is divisible into
two interpenetrating parts or aspects: the visible in which we are now,
and the invisible which is Fairyland or the Otherworld; and a fairy is
an intelligent being, either embodied as a member of the human race or
else resident in the Otherworld. The latter class includes many distinct
hierarchies and lower orders. Some, like the highest of the Tuatha De
Danann, who are the same in character as the gods of the Greeks and
Hindoos, are superhuman; others are the souls of the dead; while many
are subhuman and have never been embodied in gross physical bodies.
These last include daemons (incorrectly regarded by Christian and other
theologies as being in all cases evil, and called demons); and other
like spirits, such as those which Dr. Tylor, in _Primitive Culture_, has
designated nature spirits (leprechauns, pixies, knockers, _corrigans_,
_lutins_, _little folk_, elves generally, and their counterparts in all
non-Celtic Fairy-Faiths), which are the elementals of mediaeval mystics.
In the preceding chapter chiefly the lower species of fairies were under
consideration, but now the higher orders (including human souls embodied
and disembodied), in their relation toward one another, are to be
considered independently. It becomes necessary, then, to present here a
view of life and death not yet scientifically orthodox.
The Celt in all ages of his long history, like the ancient Greek
thinkers with whom his ancestors were contemporary, has always been
inclined, unlike modern scientists, to seek an explanation for the
phenomena of evolutionary life by postulating a noumenal world of causes
as the background of the phenomenal world of effects. To-day, the rapid
march of scientific pioneers, chiefly those in psychical research, is
bringing our own cold and exact science very close to that indefinable
boundary which separates the two worlds; and for that reason alone a
presentation of the Celtic theory of the causes operating to produce
death and birth will be, at least by way of suggestion, of some value.
Facts of common everyday knowledge are apt to lose their significance
through too great familiarity. A fact of this character is that when
each child is born it must awaken into life. Often it is not known
whether the newly-born babe is dead or alive until it stretches forth
its arms and breathes or cries. And this phenomenon of our first
awakening and entry upon the visible plane of life and conscious action
seems to corroborate what the early Celt who thoughtfully observed it
held to be true, and what the Celt of to-day holds to be true: that the
material substance composing the body of man is merely a means of
expression for life, a conductor for an unknown force which exhibits
volition and individual consciousness; just as material substance in a
condition called inanimate is a conductor for another unknown force
called electricity, which does not exhibit any volition or
consciousness. Destroy the human body, and there is no manifestation of
its life force; destroy a wire, and there is no manifestation of
electric light: the human body seems to be merely incidental in the
history of the individual consciousness, as a wire is incidental to
electric light.
But is this consciousness of man which we call life simply a phenomenon
of matter non-existent without a physical means of expression, or does
it--like electricity after the wire is destroyed--continue to exist in
an unmanifested state when the human body is cold and motionless in
death? And in the case of a child born dead has this consciousness found
some organic imperfection in the newly-constructed infant body which
made its manifestation impossible? A few thoughts to aid in answering
these questions will probably suggest themselves if we briefly consider
the great difference between a human body in life and a human body in
death. In life, there is the highly organized, delicately adjusted,
perfectly balanced human body responding to the will of an invisible
power; and it is admitted by all schools of philosophers, moralists, and
scientists that this invisible power--whatever it may be--is the real
man.
This invisible power, beginning its manifestation through a microscopic
bit of germ-plasm, gradually builds for itself a more and more complex
physical habitation, until, after the short space of nine months, it
claims membership among the ranks of men. During the many years of its
sojourn on our planet, it renews its habitation many times. Every atom
it began with in childhood is discarded and replaced by a new one long
before the age of manhood is reached, and yet upon reaching manhood the
invisible power remembers what it did in a child's frame. This indicates
that memory or consciousness as a psychical process does not depend
essentially upon a material brain nor upon a certain grouping of
ever-changing brain-substance; for if it did, apparently it would slowly
and imperceptibly undergo change as completely as the whole physical
body and brain. This physiological process furnishes sufficient data to
allow us to postulate that there is a psychical organ of memory behind
the physical sense-consciousness, and that such an organ in itself is,
at least during a human-life period, unchanging in its composition.
Without such an organ, the process of memory when more fully analysed
(in a way we cannot here attempt) is inexplicable.[608]
The simplest hypothesis is to conceive that organ as the one connected
with the subconsciousness or super-sense-consciousness, by means of
which the invisible power or rememberer is able to remember and to
impress its memory upon the temporary and continually unstable physical
brain. In the process of memory there must be first of all a thing to be
remembered; second, a record of that thing to be remembered; and third,
something to remember that thing. The thing remembered is the result of
a conscious experience, the record of it the result of its impress at
the time it was experienced, but the rememberer is neither.
That invisible power, which we have called the real man, animates the
body, it places food in it as fuel to produce animal heat, animal
vitality and force, and tries to keep it in good working order as long
as possible. If the body is imperfect at birth or becomes so later, that
invisible power is forced to act through it imperfectly; if the brain is
diseased, there is insanity, if undeveloped, idiocy; and when the body
ceases to respond either perfectly or imperfectly, the invisible power
must surrender it entirely, and there is what we call death.
Now what is this invisible power or force which has entirely vanished,
leaving the physical body and brain cold and motionless? Let us see if
there is an answer. Chemical analysis proves that the visible parts of
the body of man are merely transformed gases; but in a complete analysis
of a living body such as man's there are certain elements to be
considered which are always invisible.[609] Thus at death there is
instantly a cessation of all bodily consciousness--of all willing,
thinking, movement. The power which has made the body conscious, and
which cannot be compared to any known form of matter, is entirely gone.
But there is left in the body a moment after its departure everything
which we know to be material--the animal heat, the animal magnetism, the
animal vitality. When these are gone, the body is cold and stiff, and in
no essential way unlike any other mass of inert matter. If heat be
applied to the body, or magnetism, or vital forces, there is nothing in
it to retain them any more than there would be in a stone. The real man
is gone. Then the body begins to disintegrate. The law of the
conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter makes it
certain that in the process of death nothing has been lost, certainly
nothing material. The animal heat has gone off somewhere in the
atmosphere or in some other matter; the animal magnetism and vitality
are momentarily lost sight of, but soon they will be attached to other
organic beings such as plants or animals to begin a new cycle of
embodiment. The physical constituents of the body will go to their
appropriate places, into the air as gases, into the water as fluids,
into the earth as salts and minerals, and in a short time may form the
parts of a flower, or fruit, or animal. But where or what is the
willing, the thinking, the remembering, the directing force which once
controlled all these and held them together in unity? Ultra-violet rays
are invisible, but they show their existence through their chemical
action; similarly a soul or Ego may exist invisibly and show its
existence through the vital and physical unity manifested by a living
human being. As we have already seen in the preceding chapter, there are
a number of the first men of science who feel that when all the data of
the latest scientific discoveries in the realm of psychology and of
psychical research are impartially examined there is no escape from some
such hypothesis as the ancient hypothesis of a soul.
If we accept the soul hypothesis, as it seems we must, and regard a soul
as an indestructible unit of invisible power possessing consciousness
and volition, and normally able to exist independently of a human body,
then it becomes a logical and a scientific necessity to postulate its
pre-existence, because as such a unit it is indestructible, in
accordance with the law of the conservation of energy and
indestructibility of matter. We speak here not of the ordinary soul or
human personal consciousness, but of that Ego which Celtic mystics
conceive as the permanent principle (though probably itself relative to
some still higher power) behind the personality--which, in turn, they
believe is a temporary combination wholly dependent upon the Ego.
Accordingly, it is scientifically possible for such a soul as a
homogeneous unit of force or conscious energy to pass from one mass of
matter or physical body to another without disintegration, diminution,
or loss of its own identity. It is scientifically certain, also, from
experiments performed to test the power of resistance to decomposition
exhibited by the force which we call life in an organic body, that such
a force is capable of outwearing many physical embodiments.[610] Recent
demonstrations tend to show that the heredity hypothesis cannot be held
to account fully for such widely varied character or soul individuality
as may be exhibited by members of one family. We must therefore account
for mental, moral, and certainly psychical inequalities among our race
by some other hypothesis; and no hypothesis is more scientific, more in
line with known physiological and psychical processes, or more in accord
with the law of evolution, than that of re-birth.
The theory of the mechanical transmission of acquired characteristics
in a purely physical manner through the germ-plasm is no longer tenable
when all the data of physiology and psychology are admitted. A
vitalistic view of evolution is rapidly developing in the scientific
world, and the weight of evidence is decidedly in favour of regarding
all evolutionary processes, reaching from the lowest to the highest
organisms, as illustrating a gradual unfolding in the sensuous world of
a pre-existing psychical power through an ever-increasing complexity of
specialized structures, this complexity being brought about by natural
selection. Such a view is also strongly supported if not confirmed by
the general scientific belief that spontaneous generation of life is and
always has been impossible on our planet or on any planet: there must
have been life before its physical manifestation or its physical
evolution began.
We may regard this psychical power as like a vast reservoir of
consciousness ever trying to force itself through matter, the walls of
the reservoir. Through the microscopic body of an amoeba there has
percolated a very minute drop from the reservoir. As evolution advances,
the walls of the reservoir become more and more porous, and little by
little the drop increases to a tiny rivulet. Through the higher animals,
the tiny rivulet flows as a brook. Through man as he is, the brook flows
as a deep and broad river. Throughout the completely evolved man of the
far distant future, the deep and broad river will have overflowed all
its banks, it will have inundated and completely overwhelmed the
animal-human nature of the individual through whom it flows, as the
whole volume of the vast reservoir pours itself out. The ordinary
consciousness of man will then have been transmuted into the
subconsciousness, of which it had always been a pale reflection. In
other words, if the theory of the mechanical transmission of acquired
characteristics has failed, as seems to be the case, then we must assume
that there is, as the bearer of all gains made from generation to
generation, some sort of psychical or vitalistic principle. This, making
use of the germ-plasm merely as a physical basis for its manifestation,
begins to build up a body suited to its further evolutionary needs.
The brilliant discoveries of Dr. Jacques Loeb and of M. Yves Delage have
demolished absolutely the old idea that each organ and each tissue
contained in embryo in the normal egg-germ must develop in a particular
and co-ordinate way into a normal organism and after the parental type:
it is possible to make a head grow where there ought to be feet; and at
Zürich, Standfuss, solely through changing the temperature of his
laboratory, was able to obtain from the same species of butterfly forms
which were tropical and forms which were arctic.[611] All this helps to
establish the hypothesis, which amounts to certainty, that the
conformation of a physical body, or even the kind of species to be born,
is directly determined by physical environment and not by heredity, and
that the chief factor to consider in organisms is the life animating the
body. Physical environment affects only the physical organism; it does
not affect the invisible and unknown life-principle resident within the
physical organism.
The process of fertilization is a physical process. As such it is simply
initiatory to embryonic evolution which also is physical. Once the
proper physical conditions are set up by the parents, life pursues its
marvellous progress in the womb of the human mother, from the
amoeba-like initial embryo to man. That is to say, parents set in motion
the laws governing the reproduction of physical bodies. They create such
conditions as enable the invisible life-force to begin its physical
manifestation.[612] In the two fused germs from the parents resides the
physical inheritance of the offspring, to be outwardly shaped by
environment; but the physical inheritance is a thing distinct from the
psychical part of the living being, just as much as the dead human body
is a thing apart from the life which has left it. Though the old
heredity theory is overthrown by late discoveries, the question as to
what life is in human bodies under all possible environmental conditions
remains unsolved; and so do the questions why there should be sports in
nature, which among man are called geniuses, and why every human being
has a distinct and highly developed individual character, essentially
unlike that of his immediate ancestors.
Embryology proves conclusively that the human embryo retraces in its
growth the evolution of lower life-forms. At first consisting of two
single cells fused into one, it is like the amoeba. By cell-division it
grows and progresses step by step through each lower realm of being
until it comes to be a water-creature with gills; and science teaches
that all organic life on this planet once dwelt in the seas. It grows
progressively out of the water-world stage of organic life into the
world of air-breathing creatures. Nature at last achieves her highest
product, and a human being is born out of the Womb of Time. The initial
microscopic bit of germ-plasm is endowed with power of motion, thought,
and human consciousness, with dominion over all the lower kingdoms
through which by right of ancient conquests it passed in the brief
period of nine months. On every side the problem of life is full of
poetry and wonder; it is the greatest mystery.
Not only can we thus study the age-long evolution of the physical man,
but we have recently acquired sufficient scientific data to lay
foundations for a study of the evolution of the psychical man. Thus, for
example, instincts seem to be nothing more than habits which through
unknown periods of time have become so ingrained in the constitution of
man, and of all animals, that now they have become second nature and
usually are exercised without the need of reasoning processes. The
influence from innate sensuous experiences rises into consciousness as
the life of every normal child and youth unfolds itself; and these
experiences in their full expansion, when the age of maturity has been
reached, constitute in their unity what we call character, which, in one
sense, may be defined as the sum total of instincts of every kind. From
such a point of view, the psychical or invisible power in man is merely
a bundle of acquired habits which make use of the bodily organism in
order to express themselves--in the same way, as we have pointed out,
that electrical forces manifest their presence through a conductor. If
these habits be good, we call their possessor a good man; if evil, we
call him an evil man.
The theory of Charles Darwin suggests that all evolutionary progress is
directed to the acquirement of newer and ever higher instincts. And if
this process be the true one, that is to say, if all instincts, which in
their finer distinctions mark off species from species in all animal
kingdoms, be as Darwin thought--and as is to-day more clearly
evident--the result of a long and gradual evolution through experience
in a sensuous realm of existence, then it would seem to follow that
there must be some kind of a monad (probably a non-sensuous one) to
which such acquired instincts can attach themselves. Such a monad, too,
must have been a percipient and hence a recorder of such
ever-accumulating experiences throughout an inconceivably long chain of
lives, and it of itself must, while so perceiving and recording, not be
subject to the transitoriness of the sensuous realm wherein it gathers
together these instincts, which in their unified expression form its
personality or human character.
In harmony with the vitalistic view of evolution, which implies a
pre-existent psychical power continually striving to express itself
completely through matter, yet normally able to exist independently of a
physical means of expression, we should regard such high mental
processes as judgement, reasoning, analysis and synthesis, and spatial
perception, along with memory, as resultants of very great experience in
a sensuous world, on which in our present psycho-physical constitution
such processes appear to have direct bearing. In other words, for man to
be able to exercise such high mental processes there is need to
postulate incalculable ages of specialization in the nervous apparatus,
and in psycho-physical adjustment, of a kind which has thus enabled the
psychical power to express itself to such a supreme degree in the realm
of mind and matter. The same vitalistic argument is applicable to the
lower mental processes and to the instinctual powers in man, because we
cannot at any time, in viewing the complete evolution of man as a
twofold being composed of a physical and a psychical part, force aside
Fechner's conviction that the problem is a psycho-physical one. A study
of sexual instincts in children seems to confirm this.[613]
Such a psychical and vitalistic hypothesis is, as we have seen, strongly
supported by embryology; and embryology proves conclusively the need of
long ages of physical evolution for the development of each tissue and
highly specialized organ in the human body. Certain French and German
and other scientists of the vitalistic school have demonstrated
physiologically the need of a pre-existent power as the unifying
principle which attracts and compels material atoms to group themselves
into the pattern of the human body[614]--or, as we may add, of any
organic body. Psychical researchers at the outset of their science seem
apparently to have demonstrated psychologically the post-existence of
the personal consciousness-unity; and it is very likely when further
progress has been made in psychics that there will arise a logical need
to postulate, in addition to the personal consciousness-unity, a
hypothetical pre-existent soul-monad as the unifying principle which
attracts and compels psychical atoms of experience (if such an
expression may be used) to group themselves into the personal
consciousness-unity which appears to survive the death of the gross
physical body--for a long or short time, as future research may
show.[615] Such a soul-monad, to follow the view held by Celtic mystics,
led by acquired instincts which were transmitted to it through the
personality (held by the Celtic esoteric doctrine to be a temporary
combination), apparently weaves out of matter the body-unit adapted to
its further evolution, in a way analogous to that in which a silkworm is
led by acquired instincts to weave a cocoon. This body-unit is twofold:
(1) the visible body derived from the visible elements of matter; and
(2) the invisible or ghost-body derived from the invisible or ethereal
elements of matter.
Strictly speaking, for the Celtic mystic this soul-monad is something
upon which the personal consciousness depends for its psychical unity in
precisely the same way as the physical body depends upon the personal
consciousness for its physical unity. The Celtic mystic holds that just
as the body-unity falls back again into its primal elements of matter,
so the personal consciousness-unity (apparently able to survive in the
ghost-body for a long period after its separation from the grosser
physical envelope or human body) also in due time is discarded by the
soul-monad or individuality, and then falls back into its primal
psychical constituents. In other words, the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of
Re-birth correctly interpreted does not conceive personal immortality,
but it conceives a greater kind of immortality--the immortality of the
unknown principle which gives unity to each temporary personality it
makes use of, and which we prefer to designate as the individuality, the
impersonator. And this individuality is the bearer of all evolutionary
gains made in each temporary personality through which it reflects
itself: it is the permanent evolving principle.
Perhaps an analogy drawn from nature will make the Celtic position
clearer: we may say that the personality occupies a position between the
human body and the soul-monad, just as the moon occupies a position
between the earth and the sun. Personal consciousness is to the human
body what the moonlight is to the earth, merely a pale reflection from a
third thing, the soul-monad or individuality, which is the ultimate
source of both sets of unities, the material or body-unity in its
twofold aspect and the psychical or personal consciousness-unity. Each
personality is temporary, while the individuality, like the sun in
relation to the earth and moon, is capable of at least a relative
immortality: the sun's light, as science holds, existed before there was
any moon to reflect it on to the earth, and may continue to exist when
both the moon and earth are disintegrated. The essential nature of the
sun's energy or life remains unknown to science; so does the essential
nature of the energy or life manifesting itself as the individuality.
Though all such analogies are more or less weak, this one adequately
fits in with the theories concerning the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of
Re-birth which the most learned of contemporary Celts, chiefly mystics,
have favoured us with; and it is our rare privilege to put these
theories on record for whatever they may be worth. The best hypothesis
is always the one which best explains all available data, and, to our
mind, when very minutely examined, in a way which (chiefly for reasons
of space) cannot be attempted here, this Celtic hypothesis concerning
the nature and destiny of man is the best hitherto adduced.[616]
Objectors to the Re-birth Doctrine as held by the Celts and other
peoples anciently and now, naturally ask why, if we have lived before
here on earth in physical bodies, we do not remember it. But the
shallowness and unscientific nature of this question is at once apparent
to psychologists who know that there exists in man a subconscious mind
which in the great mass of people is almost totally dormant. 'The
subconscious self,' wrote William James, 'is nowadays a well-accredited
psychological entity.... Apart from all religious considerations, there
is actually and literally more life in our total soul than we are at any
time aware of.' And he added:--'It thus is "scientific" to interpret all
otherwise unaccountable invasive alternations of consciousness as
results of the tension of subliminal memories reaching a bursting
point.'[617] Intuition, which all men have experienced, would seem to be
the result of a momentary contact by the physical brain with its
psychical counterpart--the subconscious self, the individuality as
distinguished from the personality.
Certain observed psychological processes in ordinary men and women, who
never really know that they have a subconsciousness or Transcendental
Self, prove that it exists even for them, and any part of man which
exists and functions of itself can be developed so as to be consciously
perceived. This is incontestable. Let us point out a few of these
observed and recorded psychological processes. There may be an unsolved
problem in the mind, or inability to recall a certain name or fact, and
then a sudden, unexpected intuitional solving of the problem and an
instantaneous recollecting of the desired facts, at a time when the
ordinary mind may be entirely absorbed in altogether foreign thoughts.
Again, many persons through accident or disease have lost their memory
to such an extent as to require complete re-education, and then in time,
gradually or instantaneously, as the case may be, have completely
recovered it.[618] And we noticed in our study of supernatural lapse of
time (p. 469) that at the moment of accidental loss of consciousness, as
in drowning for example, all forgotten details of life are
instantaneously reproduced in a complete panorama. These psychological
processes support what we have said above with respect to a psychical
organ being behind the sense-consciousness, and seem thus to prove that
the subconscious mind is the place for recording permanently all
experiences.[619] Under hypnosis, a subject may be requested to perform
a certain act, let us say 11,999 minutes after the moment of making the
request. When the hypnotic condition is removed, the subject has no
personal consciousness of the suggestion, but, as different experiments
have proved conclusively, he invariably performs the act exactly at the
expiration of the 11,999 minutes without knowing why he does so. This
proves that there is a subconsciousness in man which can take full
cognizance of such a suggestion, which can keep count of the passing of
time and then cause the unconscious personality to act in response to
its will.[620] Again, in extreme old age people who have come to have an
imperfect memory or none at all in their normal consciousness, under
abnormal conditions (which seemingly are due to a temporary influx of a
latent psychical power into the physical body and brain, or else to an
awakening of a dormant force within the physical body and brain
themselves) often regain, for a time, complete and clear memory of their
childhood. This proves that the memory is somewhere still perfect, and
that it does not reside in the consciousness of the age-exhausted
physical brain and memory. Albert Moll, in his treatise on hypnotism,
says that events in the normal life which have dropped out of memory can
be remembered in hypnosis:--'An English officer in Africa was hypnotized
by Hansen, and suddenly began to speak a strange language. This turned
out to be Welsh, which he had learnt as a child, but had
forgotten.'[621] And even memory of acts done in hypnotic somnambulism
can be awakened in the normal state.[622] Furthermore, through
psycho-analysis, as Professor Freud has shown, forgotten dreams and
dreams which were never complete in the ordinary consciousness can be
recovered in their entirety out of the subconsciousness.[623] How many
of us can recall without some mental stimulus certain acts performed ten
years ago? A good deal of our present life is no longer vivid, much of
it is forgotten, and in old age many of the memories of youth and of
mature life will be subconscious. If this brain, whose total existence
is comprised between birth and death, cannot remember in a normal way
all its own experiences, how could it be expected to know anything at
all of hypothetical past lives where there were various physical brains
long ago disintegrated--unless the hypothetically ever-existing
transcendental individuality, whose consciousness is the
subconsciousness, be made by some unusual psychical stimuli to transmit
its memory of the past lives to each new brain it creates? In other
words, to have memory of pre-existent conditions there must be
continuity of association with present conditions. If such continuity
exists, it exists in the subconsciousness. And if it exists therein,
then in order to recall in the present personal or ordinary
consciousness, which began at birth, memory of an anterior state of
consciousness, it would be necessary to hold impressed upon the present
physical brain and body a clear and unremittent consciousness of the
subconsciousness. In relation to our personal consciousness, apparently
our greatest powers lie in the subconsciousness which is sleeping and in
embryo, awaiting to be born into the consciousness of this world through
the slow process of evolutionary gestation. In the case of a Buddha, who
on good historical authority is said to have been able to recall all
past existences from the lowest to the highest, this evolutionary
process seems to have reached completion.[624]
Under ordinary conditions, individuals have been known to see a place
which they have never seen before, or to do a thing which they have
never done before in this life nor in any conscious dream-state, and yet
feel that they have seen the place before and done the thing before. M.
Th. Ribot, in his _Diseases of Memory_ (chapter iv), has brought
together many cases of this kind. Some are undoubtedly explicable as
forgotten experiences of the present life. Others, to our mind, strongly
support the theory of pre-existent experiences preserved in memory in
the subconsciousness.
Under chloroform, or other anaesthetics, patients often recover for the
time being forgotten facts of experience, and sometimes appear to make
momentary contact with their subconsciousness and to exhibit therein
another personality. In certain well-defined types of double
personality, which are not the kind due to demon-possession nor to
spirit-possession as in 'mediumship', there are two memories, 'each
complete and absolutely independent of the other.'[625] And in similar
cases, where the subject exhibits alternately numerous personalities, we
see the individuality, that is to say the subconscious man, exhibiting,
as a dramatist might, various characters or personalities of probable
past existences according as each is most active at the moment.
Similarly, crystal-gazing sometimes seems not only to revive lost
memories of this life, but also to call up subconscious memories of some
unknown state of consciousness which may be from a previous life.[626]
M. Ribot has made it clear from his careful study of numerous cases of
amnesia (loss of memory) that 'recollections return in an inverse order
to that in which they disappear'. For example, a celebrated Russian
astronomer lost all memory save that of his childhood, and in recovering
it there appeared first the recollections of youth, then those of middle
age, then the experiences of later years, and, finally, the most recent
events. Many even more marked examples of the law of regression in
amnesia are given by M. Ribot. We conclude from them that all strange
and apparently long-forgotten facts of experience arising in
consciousness out of the subconsciousness, as in the different cases
which have been cited above, would necessarily be those which have been
the longest lost to memory; and hence if they cannot be attached to this
present life then they can only be derived from a former life, because
every primary detail of memory must always originate from an experience
at some past period of time. M. Ribot himself, in his conclusion to
_The Diseases of Memory_, makes this significant observation with
respect to the law of regression in amnesia:--'This law of regression
provides us with an explanation for extraordinary revivification of
certain recollections when the mind turns backward to conditions of
existence that had apparently disappeared for ever.'
In dreams there is a great wealth of latent memory; sometimes memory of
the present waking life, but often not capable, apparently, of being
attached to it, nor explicable as due to the soul wandering from the
body during sleep: the hypothesis of re-birth seems to be the only
adequate one here. Certain dreams suggest that man possesses innate
memories extending backwards to prehistoric times (cf. p. 5 above). This
fits in with Professor Freud's theory in his _Die Traumdeutung_, that
'the dream is nothing else than the concealed fulfilment of a repressed
wish.' Some dreams are 'in the form of frightful, cruel, horrible
scenes, which seem frightful to us, but in a certain depth of the
unconscious satisfy wishes which, in the "prehistoric" ages of our own
mental development, were actually recognized as desires.'[627] This also
supports our vitalistic view of the evolution of human instincts. Again,
in somnambulism there is a much more exalted memory, and clear cases are
on record of facts being then consciously present which cannot be
accounted for save through the same hypothesis.[628]
If we keep in mind the psychology of the dream state, we shall probably
get the clearest intellectual theory as to why, if pre-existence be
true, we do not remember various previous states of existence. In our
present state of consciousness we may enter a dream state, in that dream
state by dreaming we enter a second dream state, and theoretically,
though not by common experience, there may be no limit to superimposed
dream states, each one in itself a state of consciousness distinct from
the waking consciousness. Accordingly, if, as Wordsworth put it, 'our
birth is but a sleep and a forgetting' of another state of
consciousness, and death the abrupt ending of that sleep of dreams and a
waking up, or if the direct opposite be true, and death is the entrance
to a sleep and dream state of consciousness, it becomes very clear how
difficult it would be for us here now either to recall what we may have
dreamt or have actually done in another state of conscious existence
corresponding to our present one. The subtle thinkers of modern India,
who completely accept the doctrine of re-birth as a universal law, have
summed up this abstruse aspect of the dream psychology as follows:--'The
first or spiritual state was ecstasy; from ecstasy it (the Ego) forgot
itself into deep sleep; from deep sleep it awoke out of unconsciousness,
but still within itself, into the internal world of dreams; from
dreaming it passed finally into the thoroughly waking state, and the
outer world of sense.'[629] But our own psychologists are not yet far
enough advanced to accept this; much more work in psychical research
must first be done before it will be possible for them to announce to
the West that pre-existence is a necessary condition for post-existence
which they now hypothetically accept. If for the present our standpoint
be that of our own psychologists, we may then think of the human
consciousness as a spectrum whose central parts alone are visible to us.
Beyond at either end lies an unseen and to us unknown region, awaiting
its explorer from the West. 'Each one of us is in reality an abiding
psychical entity far more extensive than he knows--an individuality
which can never express itself completely through any corporeal
manifestation. The Self manifests through the organism; but there is
always some part of the Self unmanifested; and always, as it seems, some
power of organic expression in abeyance or reserve.'[630] William James
stated the position thus:--'The B. region' (another name for the region
of subconsciousness), 'then, is obviously the larger part of each of us,
for it is the abode of everything that is latent, and the reservoir of
everything that passes unrecorded and unobserved.'[631]
Men of science see no way of accepting the doctrine of the resurrection
of the physical body as at present interpreted by Christian theology;
but the late Professor Th. Henri Martin, Dean of the Faculty of Letters
of the University of Rennes, has suggested in his _La Vie future_ that
the doctrine may be the exoteric interpretation of a long-forgotten
esoteric truth; namely, that the soul may be resurrected in a new
physical body, and this is scientifically possible.[632]
The ancient scientists called Life a Circle. In the upper half of this
Circle, or here on the visible plane, we know that in the physiological
history of man and of all living things there is first the embryonic or
prenatal state, then birth; and as life, like a sun, rises in its
new-born power toward the zenith, there is childhood, youth, and
maturity; and then, as it passes the zenith on its way to the horizon,
there is decline, old age, and, finally, death; and as a scientific
possibility we have in the lower half of the Circle, in Hades or the
Otherworld of the Celts and of all peoples, corresponding processes
between death and a hypothetical but logically necessary re-birth.[633]
The logical corollary to the re-birth doctrine, and an integral part of
the Celtic esoteric theory of evolution, is that there have been human
races like the present human race who in past aeons of time have evolved
completely out of the human plane of conscious existence into the divine
plane of conscious existence. Hence the gods are beings which once were
men, and the actual race of men will in time become gods. Man now stands
related to the divine and invisible world in precisely the same manner
that the brute stands related to the human race. To the gods, man is a
being in a lower kingdom of evolution. According to the complete Celtic
belief, the gods can and do enter the human world for the specific
purposes of teaching men how to advance most rapidly toward the higher
kingdom. In other words, all the Great Teachers, e. g. Jesus, Buddha,
Zoroaster, and many others, in different ages and among various races,
whose teachings are extant, are, according to a belief yet held by
educated and mystical Celts, divine beings who in inconceivably past
ages were men but who are now gods, able at will to incarnate into our
world, in order to emphasize the need which exists in nature, by virtue
of the working of evolutionary laws (to which they themselves are still
subject), for man to look forward, and so strive to reach divinity
rather than to look backward in evolution and thereby fall into mere
animalism. The stating of this mystical corollary makes the exposition
of the Fairy-Faith complete, at least in outline.
As shown by the Barddas MSS. in our chapter vii, the Celtic Doctrine of
Re-birth is the scientific extension of Darwin's law as corrected,[634]
that alone through traversing the Circle of Life man reaches that
destined perfection which natural analogies, life's processes as
exhibited by living things, and evolution, suggest, and from which at
present man is so far removed. There seems to emerge this postulate: the
world is the object of normal consciousness, the Ego or Soul-Monad the
object of subconsciousness; and the subconsciousness cannot be realized
in the world until through the normal consciousness of man the Ego is
able to function completely, and so endow man with full
self-consciousness in matter, which endowment seems to be the goal of
all planetary evolution.
We conclude that the Otherworld of the Celts and their Doctrine of
Re-birth accord thoroughly in their essentials with modern science; and,
accordingly, with other essential elements in the complete Celtic
Fairy-Faith which we have in the preceding chapter found to be equally
scientific, establish our Psychological Theory of the Nature and Origin
of that Fairy-Faith upon a logical and solid foundation; and we now
submit this study to the judgement of our readers. With more complete
evidence in the future, both from folk-lore and from science, there will
be, we trust, a better vindication of the Theory, and perhaps finally
there will come about its transformation into what it but seems to us to
be now--a Fact.
Some beliefs which a century ago were regarded as absurdities are now
regarded as fundamentally scientific. In the same way, what in this
generation is heretical alike to the Christian theologian and to the man
of science may in coming generations be accepted as orthodox.
INDEX
_Adamnan's Vision_, 356.
Aeneas, Journey of, 336-7, 343, 382, 445.
Aengus, 62, 292, 301, 376, 397, 413-4.
---- Cult of, 415 ff., 450.
---- Dun, 2, 41, 416-8.
_Agallamh_, 28, 283 n., 286, 290, 292, 295, 402, 412.
---- _an dá Shuadh_, 344.
Ailill, 288-9, 301, 374-5, 440.
Aine, 79, 80 n., 83, 301.
Alchemists, 240, 244, 261, 276, 296 n.
Alignements, xv, 199 n., 393, 399, 419 ff.:
_see_ Archaeology.
All Saints (_La Toussaint_), 439, 453:
_see_ _Samain_, and November Day.
Angel, 7, 12, 85, 238, 240-1, 263-4, 267, 272, 374:
_see_ Fallen Angels, and St. Michael.
Angels and Science, 481.
Anglesey, 10, 138-9, 141-2.
Animism, 55, 226 ff., 282, 457 ff.:
_see_ Dead, and Death.
---- Pre-, 253, 401.
---- Science and, 459 ff.
_Ankou_, 16, 29, 218, 220.
---- Science and, 484.
_Annwn_, 319, 353.
Anthropology, 226-82.
Antrim, 73, 371.
Apollo, 403, 405-6, 421.
Apparitions, Science and, 480, 484 ff.
Aranmore, 2, 4, 40, 416.
Archaeology, xv, 2, 9, 10, 12-5, 31, 52, 78, 81, 118-9, 137 n., 148,
154, 157 n., 163, 165 ff., 172, 179, 210, 221, 234 n., 393,
397-426, 450 n.
Armagh, 74-5, 443.
---- _Book of_, 283 n., 291.
_Art, Voyage of_, 351-2.
Arthur, 9, 10, 12-3, 82 n., 163, 183, 238, 304, 308 ff., 333-4, 353,
381, 429, 437, 441, 447:
_see_ Re-birth.
Arthur, Bird, as, 183, 185.
Arthurian Legend, 9, 260, 308 ff.:
_see_ Arthur.
Astral Body, 29.
---- Light, 133.
---- Milk, 164.
---- Plane, 167, 171.
---- Spirits, 167, 171.
Avalon, 252, 311, 314-5, 321-4, 330, 347-8, 379, 386.
Bacchus, 28, 80 n.
_Badb_, 302-7, 309 n.
_Ballymote, Book of_, 340 n., 410.
Banshee, 25-6, 81, 99, 220, 304-5, 437-8.
---- Science and, 484.
Baranton, Fountain of, 429.
Bard, 11, 98, 138, 163, 283, 317 n., 365-6, 378.
---- Irish, 344.
_Barddas_, 365-7, 378-9, 515.
Barra, 85, 100 ff.
_Beltene_ (Baaltine), 100 n., 439:
_see_ May Day.
Ben Bulbin, 3, 44, 56, 58, 237, 242, 284, 293, 300.
Béroul, 325.
Boron, Robt. de, 325.
Boyne, 2, 34, 292, 410, 412, 415.
Bran, 259, 334.
---- _Voyage of_, 329, 338-40, 373.
Brocéliande, 15, 188, 327, 435.
Brownie, 164-5, 207, 220, 229.
_Bucca_, 164, 175:
_see_ Puck.
Cædmon, 240, 243.
Cambrensis, Giraldus, 149 n., 324.
Cardigan, 146, 155, 334, 389.
Ca(e)ridwen, 157 n., 378.
Carmarthen, 147, 149 ff., 390.
---- _Black Book of_, 329.
---- Fall of, 435.
Carnac, xiii, 199 n., 271, 398-9, 407, 418-9, 428.
---- Etymology of, xv.
---- Mystic Centre, as, 13-5, 221.
Carnarvon, 143-4.
_Ceilidh_, Description of, 6.
Changelings, 34, 78, 87, 91, 96, 98, 101, 104, 110, 128, 132, 136-7,
143, 146, 148, 150, 154, 156, 170-1, 177, 179, 182, 198, 204,
210-2, 230, 265, 280-1:
_see_ Charms, Fairy.
---- Anthropology and, 244-53.
---- Explanation of, 491.
---- Science and, 487.
Channel Islands, 403, 406-7.
Charms, 42, 49, 171, 176, 258-9:
_see_ Exorcism.
---- Fairy, against, 37-8, 49, 58, 87, 91, 95, 97, 112, 124-5, 132,
146, 177, 179, 199, 204, 210, 212, 250, 253, 265, 268, 314.
---- Witchcraft, against, 122.
Chaucer, 326.
Chrétien, 311, 325, 430.
Christabel, 202.
Christian Science and Witchcraft, 261-2.
Christianity, Esoteric, 360 n., 361-2.
---- Fairies and, xvi, 42, 70, 91, 115, 152 n., 153, 168-9, 201, 216,
245, 253, 257, 259, 266-74, 268, 284-5, 293, 296 n., 320, 349-50,
354-7, 370, 373, 407, 410 n., 427 ff., 434 ff., 439, 441, 444 ff.,
452 ff.:
_see_ Changelings, Cult, Exorcism, Fairy-Faith, and Purgatory.
Clairvoyance, 55, 73, 140 n., 175, 182, 205, 285, 311:
_see_ Second-sight, Seers, and Vision.
---- Science and, 473, 478.
Clontarf, 305 ff.
_Cóir Anmann_, 286, 291, 369.
_Colloquy_: _see_ _Agallamh_.
Connaught, 42, 289, 295, 300.
Connemara, xxi, 2.
Connla, 259, 335, 349-50.
Coracle (_currach_), 350, 352.
_Cormac's Voyage_, 340-3.
_Corrigan_, 15, 92, 159 n., 195, 198, 206 ff., 215, 223-4, 229, 238,
241, 250-1, 398, 404-6, 493.
---- Etymology of, 206 n.
Cromlech: _see_ Archaeology.
---- Etymology of, 402 n.
Cruachan, 286, 288-9, 431, 440, 451.
Crystal-gazing, 510.
Cuchulainn, 2, 3-4, 70, 74-5, 96 n., 238, 277-8, 302-3, 307, 309, 316,
334, 353, 441:
_see_ Re-birth.
---- _Sick-Bed of_, 286, 345-6.
---- Sun-god, as, 310.
Cult, 100 n., 163, 281, 442:
_see_ Arthur, Cuchulainn, _Sidhe_, and Tuatha De Danann.
---- Agricultural, 80 n., 279, 291, 351, 408, 435.
---- Cattle, of, 199 n., 273.
---- Dead, of, 281, 299, 408-9 ff., 436 ff.;
Christian, 452-5.
---- Fairies, of, 190, 436 ff.
---- Gods, of, 118, 164, 175 n., 200, 239, 246, 279, 281, 283, 291, 299,
342, 399 ff., 407 ff., 433 ff., 440, 448.
---- Saints, of, 83, 190, 193, 284.
---- Spirits, of, 124 n., 164, 175, 227, 229, 281, 284, 411 ff., 428-9,
436 ff.
---- Stones, of, 399 ff., 427-8:
_see_ Archaeology.
---- Sun, of, 12, 100 n., 127, 132 n., 173, 176 n., 179 n., 309, 321,
369, 380, 389-90, 402-3, 405-6, 408, 416 ff., 450-1;
Christianity and, 452 ff.;
Significance of, 420 ff., 439.
---- Trees, of, 176, 229, 427-8, 433 ff.
---- Waters, of, 78, 163, 179, 223-4, 284, 427 ff., 450 n.
Culture Hero, 238, 309, 320-1, 380-2, 417.
_Da Derga's Hostel_, 287.
Daemons (Demons), 7, 15, 158, 197, 202, 204, 212, 237-8, 241, 249-52,
256-9, 263-71, 279-80, 286, 287 n., 288, 303, 306, 310, 314, 360,
430, 436, 446.
---- Nature of, 493.
---- Science and, 480-1, 483.
Dagda, 286, 291-2, 294, 298, 300-1, 318, 320, 410, 416.
_Daoine Maithe_, 53, 69.
Dead, Legend of, 280.
---- Breton, 14, 29, 169, 194-5, 212 ff., 392, 404.
---- Cornish, 169-70, 178, 180-1, 183.
---- Irish, 33, 48, 53, 55, 68, 71-2, 74-7.
---- Scotch, 95.
---- Welsh, 142 n., 152.
Death-candle (or Corpse-candle), 10, 145, 153, 155, 207, 220-1.
Death-coach, 71, 221.
Death-warning, 10, 169, 180, 213, 220, 304-5.
Demon-Possession, 228:
_see_ Exorcism and Possession.
---- Science and, 487 ff.
---- Theory of, 249 ff.
Dermot, 41, 44, 57 n., 354.
---- Pre-existence of, 376.
Devil, 123, 157, 180, 201, 241, 263, 271, 319, 446.
---- Worship, 258 n., 421.
Devonshire Pixies, 179.
Diana, as Moon-Goddess, 80 n.
_Dinnshenchas_, 78 n., 81 n., 260, 301.
Divination, 150, 176 n., 258, 264, 278, 343, 405, 428, 432.
Dolmen: _see_ Archaeology.
---- Etymology of, 402 n.
Donegal, 61, 72, 442.
Dowth, 2, 61.
Dream, 41, 50, 55, 58, 68, 159, 180-1, 281.
---- Fairyland and, 490.
---- Re-birth and, 383, 511 ff.
---- Science and, 459, 464 ff., 508, 511 ff.
Druids, 10, 12, 14, 31, 52, 82 n., 85, 138, 147, 152, 157 n., 216,
256-7, 259, 265-7, 278, 292, 299, 345-6, 351, 356, 441, 444, 457:
_see_ Exorcism, Magic, and Magicians.
Druids, Irish, 343.
---- Magic and, 489 n.
---- Oak and, 433 ff.
---- Re-birth and, 359, 364, 367, 369, 378 n., 387-91, 394.
---- Well-worship and, 432.
_Dun Cow, Book of_: _see_ _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_.
Dwarfs, 81 n., 192, 195, 203-4, 206 ff., 235, 237-8, 405:
_see_ Pygmy.
_Dynion Hysbys_, 146, 151, 253, 264, 436:
_see_ Magicians.
_Echtra Nerai_, 287, 290, 413.
Ecstasy, 61, 91, 512.
---- Fairyland and, 490.
---- Science and, 472, 486.
Ego, Existence of, 496.
---- Idea of, 497.
---- Nature of, 504 n., 515.
_Eisteddfod_, 11, 405 n.
Elementals, 65, 167, 241-2, 256-7.
---- Science and, 481.
_Ellyllon_ (Elves) and Fairies, 233 ff., 432, 493.
---- Science and, 483.
---- Worship of, 436.
Elysian Fields, 338, 358, 416.
Enchantment, 35-6, 52, 113:
_see_ Magic.
---- Fairy, 35, 75, 78, 113, 199, 301, 386.
Environment, xvii, xx, xxii, 1 ff., 107, 115, 123, 173, 209, 221, 226,
282.
---- Science and, 499.
Erisgey, 91 n., 100.
Etain, 369.
---- Birth of, 374-6, 395.
Exorcism, 228, 253, 265-74, 277, 281:
_see_ Changelings, and Magic.
---- Baptism, as, 269-70.
---- Dead, of, 178.
---- defined, 266.
---- Spirits, of, 42, 67, 123, 125, 172, 179, 250, 287 n., 402.
---- Welsh, 272.
Exorcists, 264, 269:
_see_ Magicians.
Faerie Queen, 318.
Fairy: _see_ Apparitions, Angel, Astral Spirits, Banshee, Brownie,
_Bucca_, Changelings, _Corrigan_, Cult, Dead, Death, Devil,
Dwarfs, Elementals, _Ellyllon_ (_Elves_), Fates, _Fées_,
_Fenodyree_, Fir Bolgs, Fomors, Ghost, Gnomes, Goblin, Goddesses,
_Grac'hed coz_, Kelpy, Lapps, Lares, Lemures, Leprechaun,
_Lutins_, Manes, Mermaid, _Morgan_, Nereids, Penates, Phantom,
Pict, Pixies, Proserpine, Puck, Salamanders, Satyrs,
Shape-shifting, _Siabra_, _Sidhe_, Soul, Spirits, Succubi,
Swan-Maidens, Sylph, Troll, Tuatha De Danann, Undines, Vivian,
White Lady, Witch.
Fairy Abduction of animals, 93 n., 95, 106, 109.
---- Abduction of People, 7, 33, 37, 40, 45-8, 51, 53, 56, 68-9, 72, 75,
82 n., 89, 98, 101-2, 104, 109, 113, 120-1, 125, 130, 135, 145,
166 n., 174, 181, 219, 245, 248, 251-2, 289-90, 294 ff., 316, 326,
342, 347, 353, 356, 431:
_see_ Changeling, Otherworld, and Re-birth.
---- Army, 33, 50, 55, 57, 68, 74, 133.
---- Arrow, 88, 119.
---- Astrology, 327.
---- Baking, 127.
---- Bathing, 136, 155, 182, 326, 342.
---- Beating, 41, 72.
---- Belt, 106.
---- Birds, 200, 220, 267, 302-7, 329, 334, 345, 355, 376:
_see_ _Badb_.
---- Blinding, 54, 131, 136, 140, 182, 205, 209.
---- Boat-Race, 80.
---- Borrowing, 136.
---- Bush: _see_ Fairy Tree, and Cult of Trees.
---- Cattle, 143, 147, 203.
---- Churning and, 43, 97, 132, 253.
---- Cock-crow and, 220, 327.
---- Colour, Green, 10, 103, 106, 110-1, 207, 294, 298, 312-4, 345, 349,
352;
Red, 32, 72, 131, 133, 142, 152-60, 181, 289-90, 345.
---- Crops and, 38, 43, 291:
_see_ Cult of Agriculture.
---- Curse, 82, 97, 178, 376 n.
---- Dance, 41, 56, 72, 86, 88, 92, 111, 116, 124-5, 131, 135, 139,
142-3, 146, 148, 155, 159-60, 171, 173, 175, 181-2, 207-9, 211;
explanation of, 281;
origin of, 405-6.
---- Deceit, 127.
---- Description of, 46, 60, 68, 77, 116, 122, 133, 141, 177, 187, 200,
205, 211, 242-3, 297, 349-50, 352:
_see_ Fairy Dress.
---- Dog, 40, 120, 122, 129, 134, 259.
---- Dress, 45, 55, 67, 74, 95, 103, 116, 123, 131, 133, 143, 155, 160,
181, 192, 204-5, 208, 289, 294, 297-8, 339, 345, 349-50, 352.
---- Drops, 44.
---- Dwelling, 32, 37, 41, 46, 73, 76-8, 86-8, 93, 95, 97, 99 n., 104,
108, 110, 112-3, 126, 131, 136, 142, 144, 147-9, 151, 172, 188,
200, 203-4, 206, 209, 211, 220, 235, 289, 294, 306, 316-7, 327,
416:
_see_ Otherworld.
---- Festivals, 39.
---- Fights, 43, 91.
---- Flies, 39.
---- Food, 44, 47, 68, 219, 275, 279, 292-3, 349, 353, 356, 447:
_see_ Sacrifice, Food.
---- Fort (Dún), 2, 24, 31-2, 36, 38, 55, 72, 349-50, 413:
_see_ Fairy Dwelling.
---- Fountain and, 101, 210, 223, 264, 341-3, 353:
_see_ Cult of Waters.
---- Fulling, 98.
---- Games, 41, 51, 76, 149.
---- Guardian, 46, 76, 78, 179, 189-90, 192-3, 197, 207, 211, 219, 273,
327, 415, 438.
---- Herb, 53, 87, 175.
---- Hill (Knoll, and Mound), 79-80, 89, 97, 220, 237, 243, 288, 290,
293, 296, 299, 301, 306, 349, 374, 431, 437.
---- Hosts (_Sluagh_), xxi, 91, 104, 106, 108.
---- Hunchback and, 92, 143, 198-9, 208.
---- Hunting, 41, 56, 94, 134.
---- Iron and, 34, 87-8, 95, 98 n., 124 n., 138, 144, 147:
_see_ Taboo, Iron.
---- Island, 49, 147, 220, 316, 334, 339:
_see_ Avalon, and Otherworld.
---- Kings and Queens, 28, 34, 44, 63, 92, 149-51, 200, 202, 218, 292,
300-1, 336, 354.
---- Mr. Lang and, 475.
---- Love, 112.
---- Mid-wife (or Nurse) and, 54, 127, 136, 140, 175, 205.
---- Mine and, 165, 182, 241.
---- Money (Riches, &c.), 71, 82, 142, 146, 156, 158, 160, 162, 200,
289, 297.
---- Music, 24, 31, 40, 47, 56-7, 61, 69, 71-2, 74, 81 n., 86, 95, 103,
111, 118, 124, 131, 141, 159, 162, 181, 211, 297 ff., 336, 339,
340-2, 355-6, 482;
Mr. Lang and, 475;
Science and, 484.
---- Names, 22, 30, 52, 72, 82, 117, 153, 164, 182, 203, 207, 231, 274,
293, 307;
objects and, 86.
---- Natural Phenomena and, xxii, 41, 92, 204, 219, 227, 256, 265, 279,
307:
_see_ Fairy, Crops; and Sacrifice, Food.
---- Nature of, 24, 32, 36, 41, 46, 63 ff., 73, 76-7, 80, 94, 99, 102,
104-5, 109, 113-4, 117, 120, 123, 125-6, 133-4, 137-9, 142, 143
n., 144-5, 147-8, 150, 152, 171-3, 176-7, 180, 182, 207, 211, 218
ff., 235 ff., 243, 254, 279, 307, 327, 409, 496.
---- Path (or Pass), 33, 38, 67, 77, 150, 218, 231, 277.
---- Pig, as, 126.
---- Power, 47, 67, 72, 82, 88, 95, 113, 121, 150, 183, 219, 253, 262,
265.
---- Prayer, 118, 129.
---- Preserves, 38, 78, 277, 293.
---- Procession, 33, 57, 67, 74, 79 n., 80 n., 126, 134, 218, 277, 288.
---- Prophet, 47, 94, 139, 160, 197, 211, 290, 302 n., 305.
---- Reality of, 490, 492 ff.
---- Revenge, 92, 95, 97, 125, 142, 146, 177, 180, 191, 196, 199, 205,
208-10, 220, 293:
_see_ Fairy, Hunchback.
---- Ring, 2, 91, 142-3, 148-9, 151, 161, 181-2, 184, 208.
---- Science and, 240, 281-2, 307, 456-515.
---- Smallness of, 32, 41, 47, 72, 99, 102, 104, 123, 125, 133, 140,
143, 146, 148, 151, 155, 159, 171, 173, 176-7, 179-81, 184, 207,
211, 219, 233-44, 281.
---- Song, 40, 71, 86, 92, 98-9, 101, 104, 112, 114, 118, 139, 143, 148,
201-2, 208-9, 301, 339, 342, 345, 375.
---- Spell (and Stroke), 53, 91, 126, 136, 159, 164, 173, 218, 219,
230-1, 252-3, 265, 268, 286, 297, 326, 330, 345, 356, 431:
_see_ Exorcism; Fairy, Hunchback; Magic; and Magicians.
---- Spinning, 88, 110.
---- Stations, 46.
---- Stature, 47, 62, 67-8, 77, 96, 114, 123, 141, 148, 233 ff., 242:
_see_ Fairy, Smallness of.
---- Tree (or Bush), 33, 70, 78, 126, 277, 292, 435:
_see_ Cult of Trees.
---- Tribes, 32, 52.
---- Tricks, 127, 143, 177, 183-4, 191, 205, 207, 211, 320.
---- Visits, 122, 136, 138, 146, 155, 160:
_see_ Otherworld.
---- Voice (or Talking), 47, 68, 134, 139, 155, 162, 187-9, 203;
Science and, 485.
---- Wand: _see_ Wands.
---- War, 44, 46, 50, 207, 211:
_see_ _Sidhe_.
---- Water, and, 38, 270, 311-2, 318, 446:
_see_ Cult of Waters.
---- Weaving, 74.
---- Whistle, 46, 208.
---- Wife, 135, 138, 146, 148, 162, 200, 289, 297, 318 n., 325, 328,
346-7, 412.
---- Woman, xxiv, 2, 4, 54, 76-8, 99, 103-4, 110-1, 121, 135, 138, 143,
186, 189, 200-2, 286-7, 293, 296-7, 305, 311, 314, 326, 333, 335,
337-9, 342, 345-7, 351-2:
_see_ _Sidhe_ and Tuatha De Danann.
Fairy-Faith, African, 228, 281.
---- Albanian, 230.
---- American, 228, 237, 246, 281.
---- Animism of, 282, 458, 477.
---- Antiquity of, 99, 163, 178, 194, 213, 216, 221, 231, 244, 256, 266,
269, 278, 307, 321, 325, 331, 354, 357, 395, 408, 427, 432, 439,
441, 457, 477.
---- Arabian, 229.
---- Australian, 227, 281.
---- Breton, 185, 225.
---- Chinese, 228, 250.
---- Collecting Evidence of, xix.
---- Comparative, 226 ff., 281, 307, 457, 475.
---- Cornish, 163-85.
---- Degeneration of, 458.
---- Egyptian, 229.
---- Esoteric, 457-8, 492 ff.
---- Etruscan, 231.
---- Exoteric, 457-8.
---- German, 231.
---- Greek, 230, 246.
---- Importance of Studying, xxv, 22.
---- Indian, 228, 238.
---- Interpretation of, xvi, 18, 25, 28-30, 59, 171, 225, 277, 281, 383,
471, 489, 515.
---- Irish, 23-84.
---- Italian, 231.
---- Japanese, 228, 440.
---- Malay, 228, 238.
---- Manx, 117-35.