M. Littre on 'demoniac affections,' a subject, in his opinion,
worthy of closer study. Outbreak of Modern Spiritualism. Its
relations to Greek and Egyptian Spiritualism recognised. Popular
and literary sources of Modern Spiritualism. Neoplatonic
thaumaturgy not among these. Porphyry and Iamblichus. The
discerning of Spirits. The ancient attempts to prove 'spirit
identity'. The test of 'spirit lights' in the ancient world.
Perplexities of Porphyry. Dreams. The Assynt Murder. Eusebius on
Ancient Spiritualism. The evidence of Texts from the Papyri.
Evocations. Lights, levitation, airy music, anaesthesia of Mediums,
ancient and modern. Alternative hypotheses: conjuring,
'suggestion' and collective hallucination, actual fact. Strange
case of the Rev. Stainton Moses. Tabular statement showing
historical continuity of alleged phenomena.
In the Revue des Deux Mondes, for 1856, tome i., M. Littre published
an article on table-turning and 'rapping spirits'. M. Littre was a
savant whom nobody accused of superstition, and France possessed no
clearer intellect. Yet his attitude towards the popular marvels of
the day, an attitude at once singular and natural, shows how easily
the greatest minds can pay themselves with words. A curious reader,
in that period of excitement about 'spiritualism,' would turn to the
Revue, attracted by M. Littre's name. He would ask: 'Does M.
Littre accept the alleged facts; if so, how does he explain them?'
And he would find that this guide of human thought did not, at
least, _reject_ the facts; that he did not (as he well might have
done) offer imposture as the general explanation; that he regarded
the topic as very obscure, and eminently worthy of study,--and that
he pooh-poohed the whole affair!
This is not very consistent or helpful counsel. Like the rest of
us, who are so far beneath M. Littre in grasp and in weight of
authority, he was subject to the idola fori, the illusions of the
market-place. It would never do for a great scientific sceptic to
say, 'Here are strange and important facts of human nature, let us
examine them as we do all other natural phenomena,' it would never
do for such a man to say that without qualification. So he
concluded his essay in the pooh-pooh tone of voice. He first gives
a sketch of abnormalities in mortal experience, as in the case of
mental epidemics, of witchcraft, of the so-called prophets in the
Cevennes, of the Jansenist marvels. He mentions a nunnery where,
'in the sixteenth century,' there occurred, among other phenomena,
movements of inanimate objects, pottery specially distinguishing
itself, as in the famous 'Stockwell mystery'. Unluckily he supplies
no references for these adventures.' {57} The Revue, being written
for men and women of the world, may discuss such topics, but need
not offer exact citations. M. Littre, on the strength of his
historical sketch, decides, most correctly, that there is rien de
nouveau, nothing new, in the spirit-rapping epidemic. 'These
maladies never desert our race.' But this fact hardly explains
_why_ 'vessels were dragged from the hands' of his nuns in the
sixteenth century.
In search of a cause, he turns to hallucinations. In certain or
uncertain physical conditions, the mind can project and objectify,
its own creations. Thus Gleditch saw the dead Maupertuis, with
perfect distinctness, in the salle of the Academy at Berlin. Had he
not known that Maupertuis was dead, he could have sworn to his
presence (p. 866). Yes: but how does that explain volatile pots
and pans? Well, there are _collective_ hallucinations, as when the
persecuted in the Cevennes, like the Covenanters, heard non-existent
psalmody. And all witches told much the same tale; apparently
because they were collectively hallucinated. Then were the
spectators of the agile crockery collectively hallucinated? M.
Littre does not say so explicitly, though this is a conceivable
theory. He alleges after all his scientific statements about
sensory troubles, that 'the whole chapter, a chapter most deserving
of study, which contains the series of demoniac affections
(affections demoniaques), has hardly been sketched out'.
Among accounts of 'demoniac affections,' descriptions of objects
moved without contact are of frequent occurrence. As M. Littre
says, it is always the same old story. But why is it always the
same old story? There were two theories before the world in 1856.
First there was the 'animistic-hypothesis,' 'spirits' move the
objects, spirits raise the medium in the air, spirits are the
performers of the airy music. Then there was the hypothesis of a
force or fluid, or faculty, inherent in mankind, and notable in some
rare examples of humanity. This force, fluid, agency, or what you
will, counteracts the laws of gravitation, and compels tables, or
pots, to move untouched.
To the spiritualists M. Littre says, 'Bah!' to the partisans of a
force or fluid, he says, 'Pooh!' 'If your spirits are spirits, why
do they let the world wag on in its old way, why do they confine
themselves to trivial effects?'
The spiritualist would probably answer that he did not understand
the nature and limits of spiritual powers.
To the friends of a force or faculty in our nature, M. Littre
remarks, in effect, 'Why don't you _use_ your force? why don't you
supply a new motor for locomotives? _Pooh_!' The answer would be
that it was not the volume and market value of the force, but the
_existence_ of the force, which interested the inquirer. When
amber, being rubbed, attracted straws, the force was as much a
force, as worthy of scientific study, as when electricity is
employed to bring bad news more rapidly from the ends of the earth.
These answers are obvious: M. Littre's satire was not the weapon of
science, but the familiar test of the bourgeois and the Philistine.
Still, he admitted, nay, asserted strongly, that the whole series of
'demoniac affections' was 'most worthy of investigation,' and was
'hardly sketched out'. In a similar manner, Brierre de Boismont, in
his work on hallucinations, explains a number of 'clairvoyant'
dreams, by ordinary causes. But, coming to a vision which he knew
at first hand, he breaks down: 'We must confess that these
explanations do not satisfy us, and that these events seem rather to
belong to some of the deepest mysteries of our being'. {60} There
is a point at which the explanations of common-sense arouse
scepticism.
Much has been done, since 1856, towards producing a finished
picture, in place of an ebauche. The accepted belief in the
phenomena of hypnotism, and of unconscious mental and bodily
actions--'automatisms'--has expelled the old belief in spirits from
many a dusty nook. But we still ask: '_Do_ objects move untouched?
_why_ do they move, or if they move not at all (as is most probable)
_why_ is it always the same story, from the Arctic circle to the
tales of witches, and of mediums?'
There is little said about this particular phenomena (though
something is said), but there is much about other marvels, equally
widely rumoured of, in the brief and dim Greek records of
thaumaturgy. To examine these historically is to put a touch or two
on the picture of 'demoniac affections,' which M. Littre desired to
see executed. The Greek mystics, at least, believed that the airy
music, the movements of untouched objects, the triumph over
gravitation, and other natural laws, for which they vouch, were
caused by 'demons,' were 'demoniac affections'. To compare the
statements of Eusebius and Iamblichus with those of modern men of
science and other modern witnesses, can, therefore, only be called
superfluous and superstitious by those who think M. Littre
superstitious, and his desired investigation 'superfluous'.
When the epidemic of 'spiritualism' broke out in the United States
(1848-1852) students of classical literature perceived that
spiritualism was no new thing, but a recrudescence of practices
familiar to the ancient world. Even readers who had confined their
attention to the central masterpieces of Greek literature recognised
some of the revived 'phenomena'. The 'Trance Medium,' the
'Inspirational Speaker' was a reproduction of the maiden with a
spirit of divination, of the Delphic Pythia. In the old belief, the
god dominated her, and spoke from her lips, just as the 'control,'
or directing spirit, dominates the medium. But there were still
more striking resemblances between ancient and modern thaumaturgy,
which were only to be recognised by readers of the late
Neoplatonists, such as Porphyry, and of the Christian Fathers, such
as Eusebius, who argued against the apologists of heathenism. The
central classical writers, from Homer to Tacitus, are not
superstitious; they accept the orthodox state magic of omens, of
augurs, of prodigies, of oracles, but anything like private
necromancy is alien and distasteful to them. We need not doubt that
sorcery and the consultation of the dead were being practised all
through the classical period, indeed we know that it was so. Plato
legislates against sorcery in a practical manner; whether it does
harm or not, men are persuaded that it does harm; it is vain to
argue with them, therefore the wizard and witch are to be punished
for their bad intentions. {62}
There were regular, and, so to speak, orthodox oracles of the dead.
They might be consulted by such as chose to sleep on tombs, or to
visit the cavern of Trophonius, or other chasms which were thought
to communicate with the under world. But the idea of bringing a
shade, or a hero, a demon, or a god into a private room, as in
modern spiritualism, meets us late in such works as the Letter of
Porphyry, and the Reply of Iamblichus, written in the fourth century
of our era. If we may judge by the usual fortune of folklore, these
private spiritualistic rites, without temple, or state-supported
priestly order, were no new things in the early centuries of
Christianity, but they had not till then occupied the attention of
philosophers and men of letters. The dawn of our faith was the late
twilight of the ancient creeds, the classic gods were departing,
belief was waning, ghosts were walking, even philosophers were
seeking for a sign. The mysteries of the East had invaded Hellas.
The Egyptian theory and practice were of special importance. By
certain sacramental formulas, often found written on papyrus, the
gods could be constrained, and made, like mediaeval devils, the
slaves of the magician. Examples will occur later. This idea was
alien to the Greek mind, at least to the philosophic Greek mind.
The Egyptians, like Michael Scott, had books of dread, and an old
Egyptian romance turns on the evils which arose, as to William of
Deloraine, from the possession of such a volume. {63} Half-
understood strings of Hebrew, Syriac, and other 'barbarous' words
and incantations occur in Greek spells of the early Christian age.
Again, old Hellenic magic rose from the lower strata of folklore
into that of speculation. The people, the folk, is the unconscious
self, as it were, of the educated and literary classes, who, in a
twilight of creeds, are wont to listen to its promptings, and return
to the old ancestral superstitions long forgotten.
The epoch of the rise of modern spiritualism was analogous to that
when the classical and oriental spiritualism rose into the sphere of
the educated consciousness In both periods the marvellous
'phenomena' were practically the same, and so were the perplexities,
the doubts, the explanatory hypotheses of philosophical observers.
This aspect of the modern spiritualistic epidemic did not escape
attention. Dr. Leonard Marsh, of the University of Vermont,
published, in 1854, a treatise called The Apocatastasis, or Progress
Backwards. He proved that the marvels of the Foxes, of Home, and
the other mediums, were the old marvels of Neoplatonism. But he
draws no conclusion except that spiritualism is retrogressive. His
book is wonderfully ill-printed, and, though he had some curious
reading, his style was cumbrous, jocular, and verbose. It may,
therefore, be worth while, in the light of anthropological research,
to show how very closely human nature has repeated its past
performances.
The new marvels were certainly not stimulated by literary knowledge
of the ancient thaumaturgy. Modern spiritualism is an effort to
organise and 'exploit' the traditional and popular phenomena of
rapping spirits, and of ghosts. Belief in these had always lived an
underground life in rural legend, quite unharmed by enlightenment
and education. So far, it resembled the ordinary creeds of
folklore. It is probable that, in addition to oral legend, there
was another and more literary source of modern thaumaturgy. Books
like Glanvil's, Baxter's, those of the Mathers and of Sinclair, were
thumbed by the people after the literary class had forgotten them.
Moreover, the Foxes, who started spiritualism, were Methodists, and
may well have been familiar with 'old Jeffrey,' who haunted the
Wesleys' house, and with some of the stories of apparitions in
Wesley's Arminian Magazine.
If there were literary as well as legendary sources of nascent
spiritualism, the sources were these. Porphyry, Iamblichus,
Eusebius, and the life of Apollonius of Tyana, cannot have
influenced the illiterate parents of the new thaumaturgy. This fact
makes the repetition, in modern spiritualism, of Neoplatonic
theories and Neoplatonic marvels all the more interesting and
curious.
The shortest cut to knowledge of ancient spiritualism is through the
letter of Porphyry to Anebo, and the reply attributed to Iamblichus.
Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, was a seeker for truth in divine
things. Prejudice, literary sentiment, and other considerations,
prevented him from acquiescing in the Christian verity. The
ordinary paganism shocked him, both by its obscene and undignified
myths, and by many features of its ritual. He devised non-natural
interpretations of its sacred legends, he looked for a visible or
tangible 'sign,' and he did not shrink from investigating the
thaumaturgy of his age. His letter of inquiry is preserved in
fragments by Eusebius, and St. Augustine: Gale edited it, and, as
he says, offers us an Absyrtus (the brother of Medea, who scattered
his mutilated remains) rather than a Porphyry. {65a} Not all of
Porphyry's questions interest us for our present purpose. He asks,
among other things: How can gods, as in the evocations of gods, be
made subject to necessity, and _compelled_ to manifest themselves?
{65b}
How do you discriminate between demons, and gods, that are manifest,
or not manifest? How does a demon differ from a hero, or from a
mere soul of a dead man?
By what sign can we be sure that the manifesting agency present is
that of a god, an angel, an archon, or a soul? For to boast, and to
display phantasms, is common to all these varieties. {65c}
In these perplexities, Porphyry resembles the anxious spiritualistic
inquirer. A 'materialised spirit' alleges himself to be Washington,
or Franklin, or the lost wife, or friend, or child of him who seeks
the mediums. How is the inquirer, how was Porphyry to know that the
assertion is correct, that it is not the mere 'boasting' of some
vulgar spirit? In the same way, when messages are given through a
medium's mouth, or by raps, or movements of a table, or a
planchette, or by automatic writing, how (even discounting
imposture) is the source to be verified? How is the identity of the
spirit to be established? This question of discerning spirits, of
identifying them, of not taking an angel for a devil, or vice versa,
was most important in the Middle Ages. On this turned the fate of
Joan of Arc: Were her voices and visions of God or of Satan? They
came, as in the cases mentioned by Iamblichus, with a light, a
hallucination of brilliance. When Jean Brehal, Grand Inquisitor of
France, in 1450-1456, held the process for rehabilitating Joan,
condemned as a witch in 1431, he entered learnedly into the tests of
'spirit-identity'. {66a} St. Theresa was bidden to try to exorcise
her visions, by the sign of the Cross. Saint or sorcerer? it was
always a delicate inquiry.
Iamblichus, in his reply to Porphyry's doubts, first enters into
theology pretty deeply, but, in book ii. chap. iii. he comes, as it
were, to business. The nature of the spiritual agency present on
any occasion may be ascertained from his manifestations or
epiphanies. All these agencies show _in a light_, we are reminded
inevitably of the light which accompanied the visions of Colonel
Gardiner and of Pascal. Joan of Arc, too, in reply to her judges,
averred that a light (claritas) usually accompanied the voices which
came to her. {66b} These things, if we call them hallucinations,
were, at least, hallucinations of the good and great, and must be
regarded not without reverence. But modern spiritualistic and
ghostly literature is full of lights which accompany
'manifestations,' or attend the nocturnal invasions of apparitions.
Examples are so common that they can readily be found by any one who
studies Mrs. Crowe's Night Side of Nature, or Home's Life, or
Phantasms of the Living, or the Proceedings of the Psychical
Society. Meantime Homer, and Theocritus in familiar passages,
attest this belief in light attendant on the coming of the divine,
while the Norse Sagas, and the well-known tale of Sir Charles Lee's
daughter and the ghost of her mother (1662), speak for the same
belief in the pre-Christian north, and in the society of the
Restoration. {67a} A light always comes among the Eskimo, when the
tornak, or familiar spirit, visits the Angekok or sorcerer. Here,
then, is harmony enough in the psychical beliefs of all time, as
when we learn that lights were flashed by the spirits who beset the
late Rev. Stainton Moses. {67b} Unluckily, while we have this cloud
of witnesses to the belief in a spiritual light, we are still
uncertain as to whether the seeing of such a light is a physical
symptom of hallucination. This is the opinion of M. Lelut, as given
in his Amulette de Pascal (p. 301): 'This globe of fire . . . is a
common constituent of hallucinations of sight, and may be regarded
at once as their most elementary form, and their highest degree of
intensity'. M. Lelut knew the phenomenon among mystics whom he had
observed in his practice as an 'alienist'. He also quotes a story
told of himself by Benvenuto Cellini. If we can admit that this
hallucination of brilliant light may be produced in the conditions
of a seance, whether modern, savage, or classical, we obtain a
partial solution of the problem presented by the world-wide
diffusion of this belief. Of course, once accepted as an element in
spiritualism, a little phosphorus supplies the modern medium with a
requisite of his trade. {68a}
Returning to Iamblichus, he classifies his phantasmogenetic agencies
by the _kind_ of light they show; greater or less, more or less
divided, more or less pure, steady or agitated (ii. 4). The arrival
of demons is attended by disturbances. {68b} Heroes are usually
very noisy in their manifestations: a hero is a polter-geist,
'sounds echo around' (ii. 8). There are also subjective moods
diversely generated by diverse apparitions; souls of the dead, for
example, prompt to lust (ii. 9). On the whole, a great deal of
experience is needed by the thaumaturgist, if he is to distinguish
between one kind of manifestation and another. Even Inquisitors
have differed in opinion.
Iamblichus next tackles the difficult question of imposition and
personation by spirits. Thus a soul, or a spirit, may give itself
out for a god, and exhibit the appropriate phantasmagoria: may
boast and deceive (ii. 10). This is the result of some error or
blunder in the ceremony of evocation. {69} A bad or low spirit may
thus enter, disguised as a demon or god, and may utter deceitful
words. But all arts, says our guide, are liable to errors, and the
'sacred art' must not be judged by its occasional imperfections. We
know the same kind of excuses in modern times.
Porphyry went on to ask questions about divination and clairvoyance.
We often ascertain the future, he says, in dreams, when our bodies
are lying still and peaceful: when we are in no convulsive ecstasy
such as diviners use. Many persons prophesy 'in enthusiastic and
divinely seized moments, awake, in a sense, yet not in their
habitual state of consciousness'. Music of certain kinds, the water
of certain holy wells, the vapours of Branchidae, produce such
ecstatic effects. Some 'take darkness for an ally' (dark seances),
some see visions in water, others on a wall, others in sun or moon.
As an example of ancient visions in water, we may take one from the
life of Isidorus, by Damascius. Isidorus, and his biographer, were
acquainted with women who beheld in pure water in a glass vessel the
phantasms of future events. {70a} This form of divination is still
practised, though crystal balls are more commonly used than
decanters of water. Ancient and modern superstition as in the
familiar case of Dr. Dee, attributes the phantasms to spiritual
agency
Is a divine being _compelled_, Porphyry asks, to aid in these
efforts, or is it only the soul of the seer, as some believe, which
hallucinates itself, by the aid of points de repere? {70b} Or is
there a blending of the soul's operations with the divine
inspiration? Or are demons in some way evolved out of something
abstracted from living bodies? He seems to hint at some such theory
of 'exuvious fumes' from the 'circle,' as more recent inquirers have
imagined. The young appear to be peculiarly sensitive to vapours,
invocations, and other magical methods, which affect the human
constitution, and the young are usually engaged as seers. Hence
visions are probably subjective. Ecstasy, madness, fasts and vigils
seem particularly favourable to divination. Or are there certain
mystic correspondences in the nature of things, which may be
detected? Thus stones and herbs are used in evocations; 'sacred
bonds' are tied (as in the Eskimo hypnotism and in Australia);
closed doors are opened, the heavenly bodies are observed. Some
suppose that there is a race of false and counterfeiting spirits,
which, indeed, Iamblichus admits. These act the parts of gods,
demons, and souls of the dead. Again, the conjurer plays on our
expectant attention. Omitting some remarks no longer appropriate,
Porphyry asks what use there is in chanting barbarous and
meaningless words. He is inclined to think that the demon, or
guardian spirit of each man is only part of his soul,--in fact his
'subliminal self'. And generally, he suspects that the whole affair
is 'a mere imaginative deceit, played off on itself by the soul'.
Replying as to divination, Iamblichus says that the right kind of
dreams are between sleeping and waking when we hear a voice giving
directions. A modern example occurred in the trial of the Assynt
murderer in 1831. One Kenneth Fraser, called 'the dreamer,' said in
the trial: 'I was at home when I had the dream. It was said to me
in my sleep by a voice like a man's voice, that the pack (of the
murdered pedlar) was lying in sight of the place. I got a sight of
the place just as if I had been awake. I never saw the place
before, but the voice said in Gaelic, "the pack of the merchant is
lying in a cairn of stones, in a hollow near to their house". The
voice did not name Macleod's house.' The pack was, however, not
found there, but in a place hard by, which Kenneth had _not_ seen in
his dream. Oddly enough, the murderer had originally hidden the
pack, or some of its contents, in a cairn of stones, but later
removed it. In the 'willing game,' as played by Mr. Stuart
Cumberland, the seeker usually goes first to the place where the
hider had thought of concealing the object, though later he changed
his mind. Macleod was hanged, he confessed his guilt. {71}
Iamblichus believed in dreams of this kind, and in voices heard by
men wide awake, as in the case of Joan of Arc. When an invisible
spirit is present, he makes a whirring noise, like the Cock Lane
Ghost! {72} Lights also are exhibited; the medium then by some
mystic sense knows what the spirit means. The soul has two lives,
one animal, one intellectual; in sleep the latter is more free, and
more clairvoyant. In trance, or somnambulism, many cannot feel pain
even if they are burned, the god within does not let fire harm them
(iii. 4). This, of course, suggests Home's experiments in handling
live coals, as Mr. Crookes and Lord Crawford describe them. Compare
the Berserk 'coal-biters' in the saga of Egil, and the Huron coal-
biter in the preceding essay. 'They do not then live an animal
life.' Sword points do not hurt them. Their actions are no longer
human. 'Inaccessible places are accessible to them, when thus borne
by the gods; and they tread on fire unharmed; they walk across
rivers. . . . They are not themselves, they live a diviner life,
with which they are inspired, and by which they are possessed.'
Some are convulsed in one way, some in another, some are still.
Harmonies are heard (as in Home's case and that of Mr. Stainton
Moses). Their bodies are elongated (like Home's), or broadened, or
float in mid-air, as in a hundred tales of mediums and saints.
Sometimes the medium sees a light when the spirit takes possession
of him, sometimes all present see it (iii. 6). Thus Wodrow says (as
we have already shown), that Mrs. Carlyle's ancestor, Mr. Welsh,
shone in a light as he meditated; and Patrick Walker tells the same
tale about two of the fanatics called 'Sweet Singers'.
From all this it follows, Iamblichus holds, that spiritual
possession is a genuine objective fact and that the mediums act
under real spiritual control. Omitting local oracles, and practices
apparently analogous to the use of planchette, Iamblichus regards
the heavenly _light_ as the great source of and evidence for the
_external_ and spiritual character and cause of divination (iii.
14). Iamblichus entirely rejects all Porphyry's psychological
theories of hallucinations, of the demon or 'genius' as 'subliminal
self,' and asserts the actual, objective, sensible action of
spirits, divine or daemonic. What effect Iamblichus produced on the
inquiring Porphyry is uncertain. In his De Abstinentia (ii. 39) he
gives in to the notion of deceitful spirits.
In addition to the evidence of Porphyry, Iamblichus, Eusebius and
other authors of the fourth century, some recently published papyri
of the same period throw a little light on the late Greek
thaumaturgy. {73} Thus Papyrus cxxv. verso (about the fifth
century) 'contains elaborate instructions for a magical process, the
effect of which is to evoke a goddess, to transform her into the
appearance of an old woman, and to bind to her the service of the
person using the spell. . . .'
Obviously we would much prefer a spell for turning an old woman into
a goddess. The document is headed, [Greek], 'the old serving woman
of Apollonius of Tyana,' and it ends, [Grrek], 'it is proved by
practice'.
You take the head of an ibis, and write certain characters on it in
the blood of a black ram, and go to a cross-road, or the sea-shore,
or a river-bank at midnight: there you recite gibberish and then
see a pretty lady riding a donkey, and she will put off her beauty
like a mask and assume the appearance of old age, and will promise
to obey you: and so forth.
Here is a 'constraint put on a god' as Porphyry complains. Reginald
Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft (1584), has a very similar
spell for alluring an airy sylph, and making her serve and be the
mistress of the wizard! There is another papyrus (xlvi.), of the
fourth century, with directions for divination by aid of a boy
looking into a bowl, says the editor (p. 64). There is a long
invocation full of 'barbarous words,' like the mediaeval nonsense
rhymes used in magic. There is a dubious reading, [Grrek] or
[Greek]; it is suggested that the boy is put into a pit, as it seems
was occasionally done. {74} It is clear that a spirit is supposed
to show the boy his visions. A spell follows for summoning a
visible deity. Then we have a recipe for making a ring which will
enable the owner to know the thoughts of men. The god is threatened
if he does not serve the magicians. All manner of fumigations,
plants, and stones are used in these idiotic ceremonies, and to
these Porphyry refers. The papyri do not illustrate the phenomena
described by Iamblichus, such as the 'light,' levitation, music of
unknown origin, the resistance of the medium to fire and sword
points, and all the rest of his list of prodigies. Iamblichus
probably looked down on the believers in these spells written on
papyri with extreme disdain. They are only interesting as folklore,
like the rhymes of incantation preserved in Reginald Scot's
Discovery of Witchcraft.
There were other analogies between modern, ancient, and savage
spiritualism. The medium was swathed, or tied up, like the
Davenport Brothers, like Eskimo and Australian conjurers, like the
Highland seer in the bull's hide. {75a} The medium was understood
to be a mere instrument like a flute, through which the 'control,'
the god or spirit, spoke. {75b} This is still the spiritualistic
explanation of automatic speech. Eusebius goes so far as to believe
that 'earthbound spirits' do speak through the medium, but a much
simpler theory is obvious. {75c} Indeed where automatic
performances of any sort--by writing, by the kind of 'Ouija' or
table pointing to letters, as described by Ammianus Marcellinus
(xxix. 29)--or by speaking, are concerned, we have the aid of
psychology, and the theory of 'unconscious cerebration' to help us.
But when we are told the old tales of whirring noises, of
'bilocation,' of 'levitation,' of a mystic light, we are in contact
with more difficult questions.
In brief, the problem of spiritualism in general presents itself to
us thus: in ancient, modern, and savage thaumaturgy there are
certain automatic phenomena. The conjurer, priest, or medium acts,
or pretends to act, in various ways beyond his normal consciousness.
Savages, ancient mystics, and spiritualists ascribe his automatic
behaviour to the control of spirits, gods or demons. No such
hypothesis is needed.
On the other side, however, are phenomena not automatic, 'spiritual'
lights, and sounds; interferences with natural laws, as when bodies
are lifted in the air, or are elongated, when fire does not fasten
on them, and so on. These phenomena, in ancient times, followed on
the performance of certain mystic rites. They are now said to occur
without the aid of any such rites. Gods and spirits are said to
cause them, but they are only attained in the presence of certain
exceptional persons, mediums, saints, priests, conjurers. Clearly
then, not the rites, but the peculiar constitution of these
individuals is the cause (setting imposture aside) of the phenomena,
of the hallucinations, of the impressions, or whatever they are to
be styled. That is to say, witnesses, in other matters credible,
aver that they receive these peculiar impressions in the society of
certain persons and not in that of people in general. Now these
impressions are, everywhere, in every age and stage of civilisation,
essentially identical. Is it stretching probability almost beyond
what it will bear, to allege that all the phenomena, in the Arctic
circle as in Australia, in ancient Alexandria as in modern London,
are, always, the result of an imposture modelled on savage ideas of
the supernatural?
If so we are reduced to the choice between actual objective facts of
unknown origin (frequently counterfeited of course), and the
theory,--which really comes to much the same thing,--of identical
and collective hallucinations in given conditions. On either
hypothesis the topic is certainly not without interest for the
student of human nature. Even if we could, at most, establish the
fact that people like Iamblichus, Mr. Crookes, Lord Crawford,
Jesuits in Canada, professional conjurers in Zululand, Spaniards in
early Peru, Australian blacks, Maoris, Eskimo, cardinals,
ambassadors, are similarly hallucinated, as they declare, in the
presence of priests, diviners, Home, Zulu magicians, Biraarks,
Jossakeeds, angakut, tohungas, and saints, and Mr. Stainton Moses,
still the identity of the false impressions is a topic for
psychological study. Or, if we disbelieve this cloud of witnesses,
if they voluntarily fabled, we ask, why do they all fable in exactly
the same fashion? Even setting aside the animistic hypothesis, the
subject is full of curious neglected problems.
Once more, if we admit the theory of intentional imposture by
saints, angakut, Zulu medicine-men, mediums, and the rest, we must
grant that a trick which takes in a professional conjurer, like Mr.
Kellar, is a trick well worthy of examination. How did his Zulu
learn the method of Home, of the Egyptian diviners, of St. Joseph of
Cupertino? {78a} Each solution has its difficulties, while
practical investigation is rarely possible. We have no Home with
us, at present, and the opportunity of studying his effects
carefully was neglected. It was equally desirable to study them
whether he caused collective hallucinations, or whether his effects
were merely those of ordinary, though skilful, conjuring. For Home,
whatever his moral character may have been, was a remarkable
survival of a class of men familiar to the mystic Iamblichus, to the
savage races of the past and present, and (as far as his marvels
went) to the biographers of the saints. 'I am one of those,' says
the Zulu medicine-man, in Mr. Rider Haggard's Allan's Wife, 'who can
make men see what they do not see.' The class of persons who are
said to have possessed this power appear, now and then, in all human
history, and have at least bequeathed to us a puzzle in
anthropology. This problem has recently been presented, in what may
be called an acute form, by the publication of the 'Experiences of
Mr. Stainton Moses'. {78b} Mr. Moses was a clergyman and
schoolmaster; in both capacities he appears to have been
industrious, conscientious, and honourable. He was not devoid of
literature, and had contributed, it is said, to periodicals as
remote from mysticism as Punch, and the Saturday Review. He was a
sportsman, at least he was a disciple of our father, Izaak Walton.
'Most anglers are quiet men, and followers of peace, so simply wise
as not to sell their consciences to buy riches, and with them
vexation, and a fear to die,' says Izaak.
In early middle age, about 1874, Mr. Moses began to read such books
as Dale Owen's, and to sit 'attentive of his trembling' table, by
way of experiment. He soon found that tables bounded in his
presence, untouched. Then he developed into a regular 'medium'.
Inanimate objects came to him through stone walls. Scent of all
sorts, and, as in the case of St. Joseph of Cupertino, of an unknown
sort, was scattered on people in his company. He floated in the
air. He wrote 'automatically'. Knocks resounded in his
neighbourhood, in the open air. 'Lights' of all varieties hovered
in his vicinity. He spoke 'automatically,' being the mouth-piece of
a 'spirit,' and very dull were the spirit's sermons. After a
struggle he believed in 'spirits,' who twanged musical notes out in
his presence. He became editor of a journal named Light; he joined
the Psychical Society, but left it when the society pushed
materialism so far as to demonstrate that certain professional
mediums were convicted swindlers.
The evidence for his marvels is the testimony of a family, perfectly
respectable, named Speer, and of a few other witnesses whom nobody
can suspect of conscious inaccuracy. There remain, as documents,
his books, his MS. notes, and other corroborative notes kept by his
friend Dr. Speer, a sceptic, and other observers.
It is admitted that Mr. Moses was not a cautious logician, his
inferences are problematic, his generalisations hasty. As to the
facts, it is equally difficult to believe in them, and to believe
that Mr. Moses was a conscious impostor, and his friends easy dupes.
He cannot have been an impostor _unconsciously_ in a hypnotic state,
in a 'trance,' because his effects could not have been improvised.
If they were done by jugglery, they required elaborate preparations
of all sorts, which must have been made in full ordinary
consciousness. If we fall back on collective hallucination, then
that hallucination is something of world-wide diffusion, ancient and
continuous, for the effects are those attributed by Iamblichus to
his mystics, by the Church to her saints, by witnesses to the
'possessed,' by savages to medicine-men, and by Mr. Crookes and Lord
Crawford to D. D. Home. Of course we may be told that all lookers-
on, from Eskimo to Neoplatonists and men of science, know what to
expect, and are hallucinated by their own expectant attention. But,
when they expect nothing, and are disappointed by having to witness
prodigies, the same old prodigies, what is the explanation?
The following tabular statement, altered from that given by Mr.
Myers in his publication of Mr. Moses and Dr. Speer's MS. notes,
will show the historical identity of the phenomena. Mr. Moses was
the agent in all; those exhibited by other ancient and modern agents
are marked with a cross.
Rev. D. D. Iamblichus St. Eskimo Australian
'Spontaneous
Stainton Home Joseph of
(Glanvil,
Moses Cupertino
Bovet,
Telfair,