sympathize more readily with Robinson Crusoe's apprehensions when he
witnesses the print of the savage's foot in the sand, than in those
which arise from his being waked from sleep by some one calling his name
in the solitary island, where there existed no man but the shipwrecked
mariner himself. Amidst the train of superstitions deduced from the
imperfections of the ear, we may quote that visionary summons which the
natives of the Hebrides acknowledged as one sure sign of approaching
fate. The voice of some absent, or probably some deceased, relative was,
in such cases, heard as repeating the party's name. Sometimes the aerial
summoner intimated his own death, and at others it was no uncommon
circumstance that the person who fancied himself so called, died in
consequence;--for the same reason that the negro pines to death who is
laid under the ban of an Obi woman, or the Cambro-Briton, whose name is
put into the famous cursing well, with the usual ceremonies, devoting
him to the infernal gods, wastes away and dies, as one doomed to do so.
It may be remarked also, that Dr. Johnson retained a deep impression
that, while he was opening the door of his college chambers, he heard
the voice of his mother, then at many miles' distance, call him by his
name; and it appears he was rather disappointed that no event of
consequence followed a summons sounding so decidedly supernatural. It is
unnecessary to dwell on this sort of auricular deception, of which most
men's recollection will supply instances. The following may he stated as
one serving to show by what slender accidents the human ear may be
imposed upon. The author was walking, about two years since, in a wild
and solitary scene with a young friend, who laboured under the infirmity
of a severe deafness, when he heard what he conceived to be the cry of a
distant pack of hounds, sounding intermittedly. As the season was
summer, this, on a moment's reflection, satisfied the hearer that it
could not be the clamour of an actual chase, and yet his ears repeatedly
brought back the supposed cry. He called upon his own dogs, of which two
or three were with the walking party. They came in quietly, and
obviously had no accession to the sounds which had caught the author's
attention, so that he could not help saying to his companion, "I am
doubly sorry for your infirmity at this moment, for I could otherwise
have let you hear the cry of the Wild Huntsman." As the young gentleman
used a hearing tube, he turned when spoken to, and, in doing so, the
cause of the phenomenon became apparent. The supposed distant sound was
in fact a nigh one, being the singing of the wind in the instrument
which the young gentleman was obliged to use, but which, from various
circumstances, had never occurred to his elder friend as likely to
produce the sounds he had heard.
It is scarce necessary to add, that the highly imaginative superstition
of the Wild Huntsman in Germany seems to have had its origin in strong
fancy, operating upon the auricular deceptions, respecting the numerous
sounds likely to occur in the dark recesses of pathless forests. The
same clew may be found to the kindred Scottish belief, so finely
embodied by the nameless author of "Albania:"--
"There, since of old the haughty Thanes of Ross
Were wont, with clans and ready vassals thronged,
To wake the bounding stag, or guilty wolf;
There oft is heard at midnight or at noon,
Beginning faint, but rising still more loud,
And louder, voice of hunters, and of hounds,
And horns hoarse-winded, blowing far and keen.
Forthwith the hubbub multiplies, the air
Labours with louder shouts and rifer din
Of close pursuit, the broken cry of deer
Mangled by throttling dogs, the shouts of men,
And hoofs, thick-beating on the hollow hill:
Sudden the grazing heifer in the vale
Starts at the tumult, and the herdsman's ears
Tingle with inward dread. Aghast he eyes
The upland ridge, and every mountain round,
But not one trace of living wight discerns,
Nor knows, o'erawed and trembling as he stands,
To what or whom he owes his idle fear--
To ghost, to witch, to fairy, or to fiend,
But wonders, and no end of wondering finds."[3]
It must also be remembered, that to the auricular deceptions practised
by the means of ventriloquism or otherwise, may be traced many of the
most successful impostures which credulity has received as supernatural
communications.
[Footnote 3: The poem of "Albania" is, in its original folio edition, so
extremely scarce that I have only seen a copy belonging to the amiable
and ingenious Dr. Beattie, besides the one which I myself possess,
printed in the earlier part of last century. It was reprinted by my late
friend Dr. Leyden in a small volume entitled "Scottish Descriptive
Poems." "Albania" contains the above, and many other poetical passages
of the highest merit.]
The sense of touch seems less liable to perversion than either that of
sight or smell, nor are there many cases in which it can become
accessary to such false intelligence as the eye and ear, collecting
their objects from a greater distance and by less accurate enquiry, are
but too ready to convey. Yet there is one circumstance in which the
sense of touch as well as others is very apt to betray its possessor
into inaccuracy, in respect to the circumstances which it impresses on
its owner. The case occurs during sleep, when the dreamer touches with
his hand some other part of his own person. He is clearly, in this case,
both the actor and patient, both the proprietor of the member touching,
and of that which is touched; while, to increase the complication, the
hand is both toucher of the limb on which it rests, and receives an
impression of touch from it; and the same is the case with the limb,
which at one and the same time receives an impression from the hand, and
conveys to the mind a report respecting the size, substance, and the
like, of the member touching. Now, as during sleep the patient is
unconscious that both limbs are his own identical property, his mind is
apt to be much disturbed by the complication of sensations arising from
two parts of his person being at once acted upon, and from their
reciprocal action; and false impressions are thus received, which,
accurately enquired into, would afford a clew to many puzzling phenomena
in the theory of dreams. This peculiarity of the organ of touch, as also
that it is confined to no particular organ, but is diffused over the
whole person of the man, is noticed by Lucretius:--
"Ut si forte manu, quam vis jam corporis, ipse
Tute tibi partem ferias, reque experiare."
A remarkable instance of such an illusion was told me by a late
nobleman. He had fallen asleep, with some uneasy feelings arising from
indigestion. They operated in their usual course of visionary terrors.
At length they were all summed up in the apprehension that the phantom
of a dead man held the sleeper by the wrist, and endeavoured to drag him
out of bed. He awaked in horror, and still felt the cold dead grasp of a
corpse's hand on his right wrist. It was a minute before he discovered
that his own left hand was in a state of numbness, and with it he had
accidentally encircled his right arm.
The taste and the smell, like the touch, convey more direct intelligence
than the eye and the ear, and are less likely than those senses to aid
in misleading the imagination. We have seen the palate, in the case of
the porridge-fed lunatic, enter its protest against the acquiescence of
eyes, ears, and touch, in the gay visions which gilded the patient's
confinement. The palate, however, is subject to imposition as well as
the other senses. The best and most acute _bon vivant_ loses his power
of discriminating betwixt different kinds of wine, if he is prevented
from assisting his palate by the aid of his eyes,--that is, if the
glasses of each are administered indiscriminately while he is
blindfolded. Nay, we are authorized to believe that individuals have
died in consequence of having supposed themselves to have taken poison,
when, in reality, the draught they had swallowed as such was of an
innoxious or restorative quality. The delusions of the stomach can
seldom bear upon our present subject, and are not otherwise connected
with supernatural appearances, than as a good dinner and its
accompaniments are essential in fitting out a daring Tam of Shanter, who
is fittest to encounter them when the poet's observation is not unlikely
to apply--
"Inspiring bauld John Barleycorn,
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil,
Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil.
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he caredna deils a bodle!"
Neither has the sense of smell, in its ordinary state, much connexion
with our present subject. Mr. Aubrey tells us, indeed, of an apparition
which disappeared with a curious perfume as well as a most melodious
twang; and popular belief ascribes to the presence of infernal spirits a
strong relish of the sulphureous element of which they are inhabitants.
Such accompaniments, therefore, are usually united with other materials
for imposture. If, as a general opinion assures us, which is not
positively discountenanced by Dr. Hibbert, by the inhalation of certain
gases or poisonous herbs, necromancers can dispose a person to believe
he sees phantoms, it is likely that the nostrils are made to inhale such
suffumigation as well as the mouth.[4]
[Footnote 4: Most ancient authors, who pretend to treat of the wonders
of natural magic, give receipts for calling up phantoms. The lighting
lamps fed by peculiar kinds of medicated oil, and the use of
suffumigations of strong and deleterious herbs, are the means
recommended. From these authorities, perhaps, a professor of legerdemain
assured Dr. Alderson of Hull, that he could compose a preparation of
antimony, sulphur, and other drugs, which, when burnt in a confined
room, would have the effect of causing the patient to suppose he saw
phantoms.--See "Hibbert on Apparitions," p. 120.]
I have now arrived, by a devious path, at the conclusion of this letter,
the object of which is to show from what attributes of our nature,
whether mental or corporeal, arises that predisposition to believe in
supernatural occurrences. It is, I think, conclusive that mankind, from
a very early period, have their minds prepared for such events by the
consciousness of the existence of a spiritual world, inferring in the
general proposition the undeniable truth that each man, from the monarch
to the beggar, who has once acted his part on the stage, continues to
exist, and may again, even in a disembodied state, if such is the
pleasure of Heaven, for aught that we know to the contrary, be permitted
or ordained to mingle amongst those who yet remain in the body. The
abstract possibility of apparitions must be admitted by every one who
believes in a Deity, and His superintending omnipotence. But imagination
is apt to intrude its explanations and inferences founded on inadequate
evidence. Sometimes our violent and inordinate passions, originating in
sorrow for our friends, remorse for our crimes, our eagerness of
patriotism, or our deep sense of devotion--these or other violent
excitements of a moral character, in the visions of night, or the rapt
ecstasy of the day, persuade us that we witness, with our eyes and ears,
an actual instance of that supernatural communication, the possibility
of which cannot be denied. At other times the corporeal organs impose
upon the mind, while the eye and the ear, diseased, deranged, or misled,
convey false impressions to the patient. Very often both the mental
delusion and the physical deception exist at the same time, and men's
belief of the phenomena presented to them, however erroneously, by the
senses, is the firmer and more readily granted, that the physical
impression corresponded with the mental excitement.
So many causes acting thus upon each other in various degrees, or
sometimes separately, it must happen early in the infancy of every
society that there should occur many apparently well-authenticated
instances of supernatural intercourse, satisfactory enough to
authenticate peculiar examples of the general proposition which is
impressed upon us by belief of the immortality of the soul. These
examples of undeniable apparitions (for they are apprehended to be
incontrovertible), fall like the seed of the husbandman into fertile and
prepared soil, and are usually followed by a plentiful crop of
superstitious figments, which derive their sources from circumstances
and enactments in sacred and profane history, hastily adopted, and
perverted from their genuine reading. This shall be the subject of my
next letter.
LETTER II.
Consequences of the Fall on the Communication between Man and the
Spiritual World--Effects of the Flood--Wizards of Pharaoh--Text in
Exodus against Witches--The word _Witch_ is by some said to mean
merely Poisoner--Or if in the Holy Text it also means a Divineress,
she must, at any rate, have been a Character very different to be
identified with it--The original, _Chasaph_, said to mean a person
who dealt in Poisons, often a Traffic of those who dealt with
familiar Spirits--But different from the European Witch of the
Middle Ages--Thus a Witch is not accessary to the Temptation of
Job--The Witch of the Hebrews probably did not rank higher than a
Divining Woman--Yet it was a Crime deserving the Doom of Death,
since it inferred the disowning of Jehovah's Supremacy--Other Texts
of Scripture, in like manner, refer to something corresponding more
with a Fortune-teller or Divining Woman than what is now called a
Witch--Example of the Witch of Endor--Account of her Meeting with
Saul--Supposed by some a mere Impostor--By others, a Sorceress
powerful enough to raise the Spirit of the Prophet by her own
Art--Difficulties attending both Positions--A middle Course adopted,
supposing that, as in the Case of Balak, the Almighty had, by
Exertion of His Will, substituted Samuel, or a good Spirit in his
Character, for the Deception which the Witch intended to
produce--Resumption of the Argument, showing that the Witch of Endor
signified something very different from the modern Ideas of
Witchcraft--The Witches mentioned in the New Testament are not less
different from modern Ideas than those of the Books of Moses, nor do
they appear to have possessed the Power ascribed to
Magicians--Articles of Faith which we may gather from Scripture on
this point--That there might be certain Powers permitted by the
Almighty to Inferior, and even Evil Spirits, is possible; and in
some sense the Gods of the Heathens might be accounted Demons--More
frequently, and in a general sense, they were but logs of wood,
without sense or power of any kind, and their worship founded on
imposture--Opinion that the Oracles were silenced at the Nativity
adopted by Milton--Cases of Demoniacs--The Incarnate Possessions
probably ceased at the same time as the intervention of
Miracles--Opinion of the Catholics--Result, that witchcraft, as the
Word is interpreted in the Middle Ages, neither occurs under the
Mosaic or Gospel Dispensation--It arose in the Ignorant Period, when
the Christians considered the Gods of the Mahommedan or Heathen
Nations as Fiends, and their Priests as Conjurers or
Wizards--Instance as to the Saracens, and among the Northern
Europeans yet unconverted--The Gods of Mexico and Peru explained on
the same system--Also the Powahs of North America--Opinion of
Mather--Gibb, a supposed Warlock, persecuted by the other
Dissenters--Conclusion.
What degree of communication might have existed between the human race
and the inhabitants of the other world had our first parents kept the
commands of the Creator, can only be subject of unavailing speculation.
We do not, perhaps, presume too much when we suppose, with Milton, that
one necessary consequence of eating the "fruit of that forbidden tree"
was removing to a wider distance from celestial essences the beings who,
although originally but a little lower than the angels, had, by their
own crime, forfeited the gift of immortality, and degraded themselves
into an inferior rank of creation.
Some communication between the spiritual world, by the union of those
termed in Scripture "sons of God" and the daughters of Adam, still
continued after the Fall, though their inter-alliance was not approved
of by the Ruler of mankind. We are given to understand--darkly, indeed,
but with as much certainty as we can be entitled to require--that the
mixture between the two species of created beings was sinful on the part
of both, and displeasing to the Almighty. It is probable, also, that the
extreme longevity of the antediluvian mortals prevented their feeling
sufficiently that they had brought themselves under the banner of
Azrael, the angel of death, and removed to too great a distance the
period between their crime and its punishment. The date of the avenging
Flood gave birth to a race whose life was gradually shortened, and who,
being admitted to slighter and rarer intimacy with beings who possessed
a higher rank in creation, assumed, as of course, a lower position in
the scale. Accordingly, after this period we hear no more of those
unnatural alliances which preceded the Flood, and are given to
understand that mankind, dispersing into different parts of the world,
separated from each other, and began, in various places, and under
separate auspices, to pursue the work of replenishing the world, which
had been imposed upon them as an end of their creation. In the meantime,
while the Deity was pleased to continue his manifestations to those who
were destined to be the fathers of his elect people, we are made to
understand that wicked men--it may be by the assistance of fallen
angels--were enabled to assert rank with, and attempt to match, the
prophets of the God of Israel. The matter must remain uncertain whether
it was by sorcery or legerdemain that the wizards of Pharaoh, King of
Egypt, contended with Moses, in the face of the prince and people,
changed their rods into serpents, and imitated several of the plagues
denounced against the devoted kingdom. Those powers of the Magi,
however, whether obtained by supernatural communications, or arising
from knowledge of legerdemain and its kindred accomplishments, were
openly exhibited; and who can doubt that--though we may be left in some
darkness both respecting the extent of their skill and the source from
which it was drawn--we are told all which it can be important for us to
know? We arrive here at the period when the Almighty chose to take upon
himself directly to legislate for his chosen people, without having
obtained any accurate knowledge whether the crime of witchcraft, or the
intercourse between the spiritual world and embodied beings, for evil
purposes, either existed after the Flood, or was visited with any open
marks of Divine displeasure.
But in the law of Moses, dictated by the Divinity himself, was announced
a text, which, as interpreted literally, having been inserted into the
criminal code of all Christian nations, has occasioned much cruelty and
bloodshed, either from its tenor being misunderstood, or that, being
exclusively calculated for the Israelites, it made part of the judicial
Mosaic dispensation, and was abrogated, like the greater part of that
law, by the more benign and clement dispensation of the Gospel.
The text alluded to is that verse of the twenty-second chapter of Exodus
bearing, "men shall not suffer a witch to live." Many learned men have
affirmed that in this remarkable passage the Hebrew word CHASAPH means
nothing more than poisoner, although, like the word _veneficus_, by
which it is rendered in the Latin version of the Septuagint, other
learned men contend that it hath the meaning of a witch also, and may be
understood as denoting a person who pretended to hurt his or her
neighbours in life, limb, or goods, either by noxious potions, by
charms, or similar mystical means. In this particular the witches of
Scripture had probably some resemblance to those of ancient Europe, who,
although their skill and power might be safely despised, as long as they
confined themselves to their charms and spells, were very apt to eke out
their capacity of mischief by the use of actual poison, so that the
epithet of sorceress and poisoner were almost synonymous. This is known
to have been the case in many of those darker iniquities which bear as
their characteristic something connected with hidden and prohibited
arts. Such was the statement in the indictment of those concerned in the
famous murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, when the arts of Forman and other
sorcerers having been found insufficient to touch the victim's life,
practice by poison was at length successfully resorted to; and numerous
similar instances might be quoted. But supposing that the Hebrew witch
proceeded only by charms, invocations, or such means as might be
innoxious, save for the assistance of demons or familiars, the connexion
between the conjurer and the demon must have been of a very different
character under the law of Moses, from that which was conceived in
latter days to constitute witchcraft. There was no contract of
subjection to a diabolic power, no infernal stamp or sign of such a
fatal league, no revellings of Satan and his hags, and no infliction of
disease or misfortune upon good men. At least there is not a word in
Scripture authorizing us to believe that such a system existed. On the
contrary, we are told (how far literally, how far metaphorically, it is
not for us to determine) that, when the Enemy of mankind desired to
probe the virtue of Job to the bottom, he applied for permission to the
Supreme Governor of the world, who granted him liberty to try his
faithful servant with a storm of disasters, for the more brilliant
exhibition of the faith which he reposed in his Maker. In all this, had
the scene occurred after the manner of the like events in latter days,
witchcraft, sorceries, and charms would have been introduced, and the
Devil, instead of his own permitted agency, would have employed his
servant the witch as the necessary instrument of the Man of Uzz's
afflictions. In like manner, Satan desired to have Peter, that he might
sift him like wheat. But neither is there here the agency of any
sorcerer or witch. Luke xxii. 31.
Supposing the powers of the witch to be limited, in the time of Moses,
to enquiries at some pretended deity or real evil spirit concerning
future events, in what respect, may it be said, did such a crime deserve
the severe punishment of death? To answer this question, we must reflect
that the object of the Mosaic dispensation being to preserve the
knowledge of the True Deity within the breasts of a selected and
separated people, the God of Jacob necessarily showed himself a jealous
God to all who, straying from the path of direct worship of Jehovah, had
recourse to other deities, whether idols or evil spirits, the gods of
the neighbouring heathen. The swerving from their allegiance to the true
Divinity, to the extent of praying to senseless stocks and stones which
could return them no answer, was, by the Jewish law, an act of rebellion
to their own Lord God, and as such most fit to be punished capitally.
Thus the prophets of Baal were deservedly put to death, not on account
of any success which they might obtain by their intercessions and
invocations (which, though enhanced with all their vehemence, to the
extent of cutting and wounding themselves, proved so utterly unavailing
as to incur the ridicule of the prophet), but because they were guilty
of apostasy from the real Deity, while they worshipped, and encouraged
others to worship, the false divinity Baal. The Hebrew witch, therefore,
or she who communicated, or attempted to communicate, with an evil
spirit, was justly punished with death, though her communication with
the spiritual world might either not exist at all, or be of a nature
much less intimate than has been ascribed to the witches of later days;
nor does the existence of this law, against the witches of the Old
Testament sanction, in any respect, the severity of similar enactments
subsequent to the Christian revelation, against a different class of
persons, accused of a very different species of crime.