"I had occasion, in 1828, to converse with Göethe upon this subject,
which had an equal interest for both of us. Knowing that when I was
tranquilly extended in bed, the eyes closed, but not asleep, I
frequently perceived figures that I could observe distinctly, he was
curious to know what I experienced then: I told him that my will had not
any influence either upon the production or the metamorphoses of these
figures, and that I never distinguished anything symmetrical, anything
that had the character of vegetation. Göethe, on the contrary, was able
to appoint at will a theme, which afterwards transformed itself, after a
fashion apparently involuntary, but always in obedience to the laws of
harmony and symmetry: a difference between two men, of which one
possessed the poetical imagination in the highest degree of development,
whilst the other devoted his life to the study of reality and of nature.
"Göethe says, 'When I close the eyes, on lowering the head, I imagine
that I see a flower in the middle of my visual organ; this flower does
not for a moment preserve its form: it is quickly decomposed, and from
its interior are born other flowers with coloured or sometimes green
petals; these are not natural flowers, but fantastic, nevertheless
regular, figures, such as the roses of sculptors. It was impossible for
me to regard this creation fixedly, but it continued as long as I
wished, without increasing or diminishing. Even when I figured to me a
disc charged with various colours, I saw continually borne from the
centre towards the circumference, new forms comparable to those that I
could perceive in a kaleidoscope."[59]
Illusions arising from the production of the sensation of light, whether
by pressure, mental emotion, or a disordered state of the health, have
been a most prolific source of ghosts.
Imagine a person suffering from severe grief occasioned by the loss of a
friend or relative; or one subject to superstitious terrors. On retiring
to rest in a darkened apartment, the attention is attracted and wonder
raised by the appearance of a cloud of pale white, or blueish coloured
light (the colours which ghosts love to deck themselves in, and which
are most readily excited) floating before the eyes. Unacquainted with
its nature and source, he is naturally startled, and his superstitious
fears are awakened. The imagination next coming into play, the luminous
cloud is moulded into the form of the person recently dead, or of the
superstitious ideas most prominent in the mind of the individual at the
time.
Or suppose a superstitious person passing, in the obscurity of the
night, a place where some foul crime had been perpetrated. Terror gives
rise to the production of a vivid sensation of light in the field of
vision, and the imagination, as in the previous case, works out the
rest.
The following cases are examples of the influence which the spontaneous
appearance of light in the field of vision exercises in the development
of spectral apparitions.
A gentleman who had lost his wife from a painful and protracted disease,
for some time subsequently was troubled by her phantom, which remained
before his eyes so long as he was in obscurity. On a light being
brought, or during the day, this spectre vanished, but no sooner was he
placed in darkness than it appeared vividly limned before him, and was a
source of constant terror.[60]
This phantom was evidently due to the production of the sensation of
light in the field of vision, and the subsequent effects of the
imagination.
A gentleman with whom we are acquainted happened, when young, to have a
severe fall on the head. After this accident and until he attained the
age of eleven years, he was subject to visions of brilliant and
variously coloured light, when he retired to bed at night, and all light
in his room had been extinguished. Occasionally these visions were so
gorgeous and resplendent that he is accustomed to compare them to the
jewelled decorations of the palaces of the genii in the Arabian Nights'
Entertainment. When about eleven years of age he got possession of a
volume of legends and romances, which were pregnant with supernatural
events and personages; and a friend injudiciously gave him a work full
of ghost-stories, and entitled, "News from the Invisible World." These
works he read with avidity, and the effect upon the mind was such that
henceforth his nightly visions were transformed into foul, horrid, and
often variously coloured spectres, rendering the period of time
intervening between retiring to rest and sleep, one of unmitigated
terror, and it became necessary to have a light constantly burning in
the room until sleep occurred. After the twelfth year the intensity of
the visions rapidly diminished, and at length only occurred when he
turned himself upon his face in bed. In this position a sensation as if
the bed had passed from under him occurred, and his eye formed the
centre of a circle of imps which whirled rapidly round it. The number of
these spectres next began to diminish, and by the time he was fifteen
years of age, but one remained, and this appeared only occasionally.
This solitary spectre gradually lost its fiend-like form, and assumed
that of a respectable-looking old Roman, clothed in a toga; and it at
length vanished to re-appear no more.
This gentleman has for many years been free from any spectral
apparition; but hard study, mental emotion, a disordered state of the
health, or pressure with the finger on the eyeball, is apt to occasion a
brilliant evolution of coloured light in the field of vision.
The spontaneous appearance of light in the visual field, in this case,
formed the substratum upon which the mind moulded the spectres; and it
is interesting to remark the influence which the perusal of a volume of
legends and ghost-stories, and subsequent classical studies, had in
determining the form of the phantasma.
To the same cause--the subjective phenomena of vision--are due the
various coloured lights or luminous appearances which, in the
experiments of Reichenbach, the believers in animal magnetism,
mesmerism, and electro-biology, are supposed to have been seen issue, by
the "susceptible," from the poles of magnets placed in darkened
apartments, from so-called magnetised bodies, or from bodies placed in
the conditions which the respective theories demand.
All the sensations of light that are experienced under these
circumstances, and which have been sought to be explained by the
assumption of the "od" force, or by the influence of magnetism, &c., are
dependent on that excitation of a sensation of light in the eye when
plunged into darkness, or when under certain mental emotions which we
have fully explained.
This has been demonstrated by positive experiment; for if we take any of
the "susceptibles," and, indeed, others, and place them in a darkened
apartment, we may by simple suggestions excite all the luminous
sensations attributed to the supposititious "od" force, or to "animal
magnetism."
The luminous appearances which certain "sensitives" have averred that
they witnessed over graves, were due also to the subjective phenomena of
vision, excited by an expectant idea.
A young clergyman named Billing, who acted as an amanuensis to Pfeffer,
the blind poet, asserted that he constantly saw, at night, a luminous
cloud resting in one position in the poet's garden; and on search being
made beneath the surface of the ground, at the spot occupied by this
phantasm, the remains of a skeleton were found.
Reichenbach concluded from this that the process of decomposition of a
corpse going on in the grave, probably like what is observed in other
forms of chemical action, gave rise to luminous appearances which were
visible to highly "sensitive" persons.
"It appeared possible," he writes, "that such a person might see over
graves in which mouldering bodies lie, something similar to that which
Billing had seen. Mademoiselle Reichel had the courage, rare in her sex,
to gratify this wish of the author. On two very dark nights she allowed
herself to be taken from the Castle of Reisenberg, where she was living
with the author's family, to the neighbouring churchyard of Grunzing.
The result justified his anticipation in the most beautiful manner. She
very soon saw a light, and observed on one of the graves, along its
length, a delicate breathing flame; she also saw the same thing, only
weaker, on a second grave. But she saw neither witches nor ghosts. She
described the fiery appearance as a shining vapour, one to two spans
high, extending as far as the grave, and floating near its surface.
Sometime afterwards she was taken to two large cemeteries near Vienna,
where several burials occur daily, and graves lie about by thousands.
Here she saw numerous graves provided with similar lights. Wherever she
looked she saw luminous masses scattered about. But this appearance was
most vivid over the newest graves, while on the oldest it could not be
perceived. She described the appearance less as a clear flame than as a
dense vaporous mass of fire, intermediate between fog and flame. On many
graves the flame was four feet high, so that when she stood on them it
surrounded her up to the neck. If she thrust her hand into it, it was
like putting it into a dense fiery cloud. She betrayed no uneasiness,
because she had all her life been accustomed to such emanations, and had
seen the same, in the author's experiments, often produced by natural
causes."[61]
The total neglect of those precautions which are requisite to obviate
the influence of expectant ideas and the subjective phenomena of vision
in this experiment is most strange, and it is painful to witness men
like Reichenbach, Gregory, and others, thus stumbling over some of the
simplest facts of physiology and psychology, and utterly prostituting
the name and calling of science.
Singular and fallacious as are the pseudo-scientific doctrines just
mentioned, they are exceeded by the extraordinary speculations of other
writers, who also appear to hold in utter contempt the ordinary laws of
action of the senses. For example, Mrs. Crowe writes of the sensation of
light perceived by somnambules and dreamers, and of the still more
simple phenomenon of the sensation of light induced by the inhalation of
ether, in the following manner:--
"All somnambules of the highest order,--and when I make use of this
expression, I repeat that I do not allude to the subjects of mesmeric
experiments, but to those extraordinary cases of disease, the
particulars of which have been recorded by various continental
physicians of eminence,--all persons in that condition describe
themselves as hearing and seeing, not by the ordinary organs, but by
some means the idea of which they cannot convey further than that they
are pervaded by light; and that this is not the _ordinary_ physical
light is evident, inasmuch as they generally see best in the dark,--a
remarkable instance of which I myself witnessed.
"I never had the slightest idea of this internal light till, in the way
of experiment, I inhaled the sulphuric ether; but I am now very well
able to conceive it; for, after first feeling an agreeable warmth
pervading my limbs, my next sensation was to find myself--I cannot say
in this heavenly light, for the light was in _me_--I was pervaded by it;
it was not perceived by my eyes, which were closed, but perceived
internally, I cannot tell how. Of what nature this heavenly light was--I
cannot forbear calling it _heavenly_, for it was like nothing on
earth--I know not,"[62] &c.
The sense of _hearing_, like that of sight, in whatever manner it may be
excited, only gives rise to the sensation of sound; _e.g._, when an
electric current is passed through it, or a severe blow is struck upon
it, and causes it "to ring," as it is expressed in common parlance. The
rushing and other sounds--as of the ringing of bells, rustling of
leaves, &c.--caused by a disordered state of the circulation in the
head, are other examples; and there are perhaps few persons who have not
at some time or other, started, and responded to their name, or to calls
which they suppose they have heard, in the voice of persons who were at
a distance, or who had not spoken.
A similar excitation of the nerves of _taste_ and _smell_ will also give
rise to their special sensations; but disorder of these nerves and their
centres will rarely excite hallucinations, except in connection with a
disturbed condition of the senses of sight and hearing.
Such are the simplest forms of hallucination of the senses of sight,
hearing, taste, and smell; and we have seen that all the phenomena of
light, colour, sound, taste, and smell, can occur in man without the
presence of natural or artificial light, sonorous undulations of the
air, sapid or odorous substances.
We are now in a position to comprehend more fully that, by the action of
the imagination and emotions alone, the changes going on in the nervous
centres may be so far disturbed that the whole of those sensations which
are generally excited by agents external to the body may be called into
play, and the mental idea assume, in light, colour and shade, sound,
taste and touch, all the distinctness and definitiveness which
appertains to an actual object within the sphere of the respective
senses, and be considered as such.
If the mind revert to any of the varied sensations which are stored up
in the memory, and are within the power of the will to recall, an image
is conjured up before the "mind's eye," such that we can describe it as
though a real object stood before us; and if it be that of a person--a
parent, a friend, or one bound by even still stronger ties--every
lineament, every peculiarity, is depicted with a fidelity but little
less than that we should be capable of were the individual actually
present before us; or should it be a scene which has been treasured up
for its grandeur, its loveliness, or for its being endeared to us by
still stronger feelings, every characteristic feature, every object, is
minutely and truly described; and did we possess the power of limning,
not unfrequently we should find little difficulty in transferring the
mental image to the canvass. "I think I see him now"--"She might be
before me"--"I can call to mind every tree and stone, so vivid is the
memory"--are forms of expression in constant use, and they contain the
germ of the simplest form of ideal hallucination to which we are
subject.
Under the influence of love, grief, remorse, or other powerful and
protracted emotion, the ideas upon which the mind is concentrated assume
a vividness, in many persons little short of the reality; and when
Victorian, addressing Preciosa in the "Spanish Student" (Act I, Scene
3), is represented as saying:--
"Thou comest between me and those books too often;
I see thy face in everything I see;
The paintings on the chapel wear thy looks,
The canticles are changed to sarabands;
And with the learned doctors of the schools,
I see thee dance cachucas;"
he makes use of no exaggerated poetical tropes or figures, but speaks
the simple fact.[63]
A painful illustration of the vividness of the mental image under
powerful emotion is afforded by a passage in "The Dream" of Lord Byron,
in which he describes the images of the object and scenes of his
youthful and only love, that occupied his mind, and rendered him
insensible to the ceremony of his marriage until he was aroused from his
abstraction by the congratulations of the bystanders.
"He spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel'd around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been,--
But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back,
And thrust themselves between him and the light."
The protracted devotion of the thoughts to the memory of those whom the
grave has severed from us, or from whom we are separated by distance,
and which is induced by grief, gives also to the mental image great
vividness. Exquisitely beautiful and true is the sentence placed in the
mouth of Constance, when blamed for the grief she entertained on being
separated from Prince Arthur:--
"Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form:
Then have I reason to be fond of grief."
In direct proportion to the concentration of the mind in the
contemplation of its own actions, is the brilliancy and distinctness of
the ideas which pass athwart it; and in the state of abstraction or of
reverie, when from intense meditation, or from mere inactivity, the
sensations derived from surrounding objects are not attended to, the
ideas are so defined that they differ but little from actual objects in
the sensations they excite. So also in sleep, if, from any cause,
physical or mental, we are roused into a state of semi-consciousness, as
in dreaming, the phantasms of former events, stored up in the memory,
and by certain sensations or trains of thought thrown to the surface,
differ in no respect--light, colour, shade, or sound--from the
sensations derived from the objects represented.
Should, therefore, the concentration of the mind upon any subject be
such as to disturb the natural functions of the brain, the mental image
is liable to excite sensations, and to be pourtrayed with a distinctness
and "outness" which approximates to, or equals, that of a real object,
and it is regarded as such.
In the majority of individuals the concentration and intensity of
feeling necessary for the production of hallucinations is of rare
occurrence, and it is found only under such conditions as profound grief
caused by death under painful or peculiar circumstances; from terror,
excited by causes bringing powerful superstitious feelings into
play--under which circumstances the hallucinations induced are generally
transitory--or by emotions inordinately protracted; hence it is that we
find visions of the dead among the most common of the temporary
hallucinations. In the studious, and men of powerful thought, the mind
being habituated to absorption in its own ideas, it not unfrequently
happens that hallucinations occur from a disordered state of the brain
induced by continued mental labour. These hallucinations are generally
very vivid, and may arise either voluntarily or involuntarily, and may
become habitual without the health being seriously disturbed.
It will be seen, therefore, that the action of the mental powers alone
is sufficient to give rise to sensations which are regarded as resulting
from actual objects; and that from the simple vividness of the mental
image, which is common to most persons, we may trace their effects, in a
gradually ascending scale, in inducing mental conditions in which the
brilliancy of the image is such that, for the time, it completely
occupies the attention, and shuts out, as it were, the sensations
derived from objects before the field of vision,--and in the formation
of ideas so vivid and defined, that they take their position among
surrounding, and excite the sensations proper to external, objects.
We have thus far spoken of the effects of the imagination on the healthy
frame, but in certain disordered conditions of the nervous system,
occurring either alone, or in connection with other and more general
morbid alterations in the economy, hallucinations are more apt to occur
than in health. The system in this state is more susceptible of the
effects of emotion, and the images arising in the mind are more vivid
than would happen from the same degree of excitement in health, and are
readily converted into hallucinations. This is witnessed in certain
forms of hysteria, febrile diseases, &c.; hence, in these disordered
conditions of the system, the hallucinations are not to be attributed to
the action of the mind, so much as to a morbid susceptibility to undergo
those changes requisite to the production of hallucinations; and these
are, consequently, induced by grades of emotion and by influences which
would not have caused that in ordinary health.
On the other hand, the action of the mind in the development of
hallucinations equally induces certain diseased states, either special
or general. Even simple and temporary hallucination, in whatever manner
caused, must be regarded as an indication that the changes going on in
the nervous centres have passed the bounds of health; and according as
the causes inducing hallucinations are more or less protracted, or the
hallucinations are more or less persistent or frequent, so we may mark a
greater or less deterioration in the mental powers, the nervous or the
general system, or indications of more acute disease, to progress along
with them, until the acme is reached in insanity, idiocy, or some more
rapidly progressive and equally formidable disease.
To illustrate these remarks: Blake, the artist, who, after the death of
Sir Joshua Reynolds, enjoyed great fame as a portrait-painter, owed his
celebrity, in great part, to the singular fact that he required but one
or, at the most, two sittings, from those whose portraits he painted. He
was accustomed to regard the person who sat to him attentively for about
half an hour, sketching from time to time on the canvas, and he would
then pass on to another subject. When he wished to continue the first
portrait, on placing the canvas before him, he had the power of calling
up so vivid a mental image of the personage, the outline of whose face
was depicted upon it, that it assumed all the appearance of reality, and
he perceived it in the position in which he required it to be. From this
phantasm he painted, turning from the canvas and regarding it as he
would have done had the representative of the phantom been there in
person. By degrees he began to lose the distinction between the real and
the imaginary objects, and at length a complete confusion of the mind
occurred, rendering it necessary for him to be confined in an asylum.
During his residence there, his insanity was marked by an exaggeration
of that vivid power of imagination he had possessed previously; for he
at will could summon before him the phantoms of any of the personages of
history, and he held long and sensible conversations with Michael
Angelo, Moses, Semiramis, Richard III, &c., all of whom appeared to him,
when he desired, in the vivid hues and distinct outlines of reality.
Talma, the great French tragedian, had the power, when upon the stage,
of causing the vestments of his audience to disappear, and of depicting
them as skeletons. When the hallucination was complete, and he had
filled the theatre with these ghastly auditors, he was enabled to give
the fullest and most surprising force to his performance.
Examples of the influence of powerful and protracted emotions in
inducing hallucinations are numerous. Dr. Conolly relates the case of a
gentleman who, when at one time in great danger of being wrecked in a
small boat on the Eddystone rocks, in the moment of greatest peril saw
his family before him.
M. Boismont quotes the case of a world-known general who, when in a
combat one day, was surrounded by the enemy, and in so great danger that
escape seemed impossible. He, nevertheless, contrived to escape; but the
impression made upon him was such, that afterwards, until a late period
of life, he occasionally suffered from an hallucination in which the
scene of danger was again presented before him and re-enacted; and when
subsequently on a throne, sometimes the silence of the palace would be
disturbed by his cries, as he struggled and fought with his phantom
foes. The hallucination was momentary.
The intense emotion which Sir Richard Croft experienced on being
summoned to attend the Princess Charlotte of Wales on her death-bed was
such, that he saw her form, habited in white, glide along before his
carriage.
A case is related by Boismont of a lady who, while suffering from the
depression occasioned by receiving information that her daughter was
seriously ill, heard a voice which addressed to her the words, "Lovest
thou me?" The lady responded immediately, "Lord, thou knowest that I
have placed all my confidence in thee, and that I love thee with all my
soul." The voice then said, "Dost thou give her to me?" The lady
trembled with fear, but summoning courage, she replied, "However painful
the sacrifice may be, let Thy will be accomplished." This lady was
deeply pious, and the hallucination arose from the powerful and painful
emotion caused by the sudden news of her daughter's illness, inducing
that disordered state of the nervous system, in which the thoughts
naturally engendered in one who submitted everything to the Almighty,
became audible.
The combined influence of love and sorrow has been a powerful source of
hallucinations, and many of those wild and beautiful legends and tales
which are scattered throughout the kingdom, recording the apparition of
a deceased or distant lover to his betrothed, have been due to this
cause.