Faith-healing, Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena/Presentiments, Visions, and Apparitions
PRESENTIMENTS, VISIONS, AND
APPARITIONS
One question more than others all
Of thoughtful minds implores reply:
It is, as breathed from star and pall,
"What fate awaits us when we die?"
IF these words are true, certainly next in importunate demand is whether men shall direct their conduct by practical wisdom and right motives, or look for and follow occult intimations which may either confirm or contradict the judgment.
Exclusive of the sphere of true religion,—which does not claim to be an infallible guide except to repentance, purity of motive, and the life beyond,—omens, premonitions, presentiments, visions, and apparitions have exerted the greatest influence over the decisions and actions of mankind.
Omens are extraordinary events which, on account of the opinions held of them, are thought to presage disaster. They are not true presentiments, but generalizations from imperfect data. Astrology and divination exhibit on a large scale the fallacies underlying such conclusions, belief in them being sustained by the observation of occasional coincidences between events and preceding actions or conditions that could have had no causal connection with them. Dreams often afford similar materials for erroneous reasonings, and, as they originate in the mind, they are sometimes so similar to presentiments that it is impossible to decide whether a presentiment caused the dream, or a dream the presentiment.
WHAT IS A PRESENTIMENT?
A PRESENTIMENT in the strictly etymological sense is a previous conception, sentiment, opinion, or apprehension; but its secondary meaning, which has almost supplanted the primary, in both the French and the English use of the word, is an antecedent impression or conviction of something about to happen. Though presentiments of good are common and often fulfilled, as their results are not tragical they are seldom remembered or attributed to supernatural causes; and for this reason the word presentiment is confined almost exclusively to inward premonitions of evil, and is practically the equivalent of "foreboding" in such passages as Dryden's, "My heart forebodes I ne'er shall see you more."
Few would consider general forebodings of evil worthy of special investigation. To some temperaments they are peculiar, and prosperity, however great, cannot dissipate them. They may arise from overwork, old age, or from prolonged sickness of any kind except consumption; and as evil overtakes the majority of mankind, such general forebodings are certain of general fulfilment. It is only when time and events concur with the presentiment that it becomes a phenomenon requiring scientific treatment; and being a product of the mind allied to many other experiences, it is a philosophical problem of the first magnitude.
A writer in the "Cornhill Magazine" for October, 1886, attempts to lay down the essence of a true presentiment. He says that "it must be spontaneous; it must come at a time when you have no reason to look for it." He explains these conditions by saying that you must not be ill and think you have a presentiment that you will not recover; you must not be away from home and think that some calamity has happened there; you must not know that a friend is in danger and have a presentiment of his death; you must not have reason to suspect a man and have a presentiment that he will cheat you.
In laying down these conditions he justifies himself by saying that they are necessary, "because in all these instances there is a simple natural cause for fear or uneasiness." I cannot admit that all these conditions are exact. The person may indeed be sick, yet the illness may be slight, and its seat removed from any fatal possibility; and if in opposition to every indication he have a foreboding that he will not recover, which persists in defiance of reason, and does or does not end in death, it has the mental and emotional characteristics of a presentiment. Of course if a person have yellow fever, and a presentiment of his death, it is in harmony with popular belief; though, according to the statistics of the last epidemic in Jacksonville, the proportion of deaths is but one to ten cases, and the rational expectation would be that an ordinary person attacked had nine chances in ten for recovery. Again, if a person leaves his family in perfect health, knowing no cause of danger either to them or to his property, and has a presentiment impelling him to go back, and on arriving finds his worst fears realized, although his peculiar state of mind arose during an absence from home, it has the characteristics of a presentiment, both in its origin and the relation of time and events.
Couclusious drawn from reasoning and generalizations from data may produce convictions so strong that men would die for them. Under their influence they may risk their lives and fortunes in the pursuit of objects which cannot be attained, if at all, until after many years. These are not presentiments, for the sum of the reasonings and experiences of the man becomes the unconscious test which he applies to everything submitted to his judgment.
But if there be genuine presentiments which foretell future events, they must have an external source, human or extrahuman. That God could produce such impressions none who admit his existence can doubt. Whether other beings, in or out of human bodies, could do so is an uuproven theory. Clairvoyance and telepathy do not apply to the subject of presentiments in the sense now under consideration. The clairvoyant theory of perception is the power to read the past, discern the present, and forecast the future; that of telepathy, a transfer of ideas and feelings spontaneously or intentionally from a living person called the agent to another called the percipient.
Most persons holding that God could at any time create a presentiment will incline to the comfortable belief that he sometimes does so, and that this is one of the means whereby he cares for those who put their trust in him. But the fact that God can produce presentiments is not in itself an evidence, nor does it even rise to the dignity of a presumption, that he will produce them. He could preserve all his servants from destruction by sea or by land; he could impart to all his people a knowledge of future events; but he does not. The righteous often die in the pestilence and in calamities at sea; the wicked may escape, while those who pray sink.
While it would be presumptuous to affirm that no such presentiment as we are considering is ever imparted by the Spirit of God to human beings, two propositions may be supported without irreverence: first, that the human mind without special influence from God or other beings may originate presentiments; second, that the probability is that this is their true explanation.
UNSUSPECTED MENTAL RESOURCES
Self-esteem is common and self-conceit general, yet few persons have an adequate idea of the resources of their own minds. Most fancy that what they recollect is the measure of what they know; whereas, in addition to every fact or idea that any person remembers, there are countless others which have entered his mind, and are liable at any moment to cross the plane of his consciousness. He who, when a thought arises, will ask, "How came I to think of this?" in the effort to trace the successive steps by which the mind traveled from the last conscious thought or experience to that which is the subject of retrospection, will be compelled to conclude that these lightning-like movements of the mind have as often been directed by associations of which we are unconscious as by those whose significance and relations are perceived. Experiments to determine the rapidity of thought, by uttering a sentence or command and noting the time before the rational perception of it is manifest, are deceptive, because they involve the rate of motion of the senses, which is slow compared with the movement of ideas in the mind.
Revery frequently affects the emotions powerfully, and produces an influence which is felt for days, and even months, after the mind, calmly reflecting, rejects the idea that there is any cause for the depression. A common experience of foreign travelers is that the mind runs over the whole field of personal interest, illuminating it as with flashes, bringing before him who pursues his way "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," vivid thoughts of home and friends. Such pensive states are often accompanied by intense concern, which crystallizes into conviction, that death or some other calamity has already taken place. Thousands of letters and many telegraphic despatches inspired by such feelings cross the sea every summer, to elicit responses indicating that there is no occasion for anxiety. Many business men will also acknowledge that at different times in the course of their careers, for reasons which they have not been able to fathom, an impression of impending calamity has possessed them, which was so strong as to make them ready to dispute the truth of the trial balance showing them solvent and prosperous.
The observation of the reader will doubtless furnish instances of persons whose forebodings of calamity—sometimes confirmed by the event, but oftener otherwise—are recognized by their business partners and friends, and call for the exercise of patience and the use of every means to dissipate the mysterious, unwelcome, and paralyzing impression. A manufacturer whose name is known in every city in the Union, and in most foreign countries, whose riches are estimated at many millions, employees numbered by thousands, charities munificent, piety undoubted, and sanity unquestioned, has had presentiments of disaster a score of times within the last twenty-five years, not one of which has been fulfilled; but all, while they lasted, were as intense and over-powering as any could be.
Two other mental phenomena must be observed. No discipline, however protracted and rigid, can exclude thoughts which start mysteriously concerning life, business, home, friends, investments, etc. The mathematician may be engaged in solving the most intricate problems, the theologian in preparing discourses, the essayist in the flow of composition, the accountant in adding a column of figures, but none of these can be certain of fifteen consecutive minutes undisturbed by ideas or impressions almost as vivid as a living personality. The superiority of the disciplined to the undisciplined mind consists chiefly in ability to expel the intruder, and not in exemption from such visits.
The other phenomenon is, that the mind, in a voluntary or an involuntary review of the situation, will frequently pause upon one phase of it, which will predominate over others without any apparent reason. A parent absent from home may be particularly anxious about one of three children, and be for weeks under the shadow of a causeless fear. As every mental state must have a cause, in the labyrinth of associated ideas and feelings, some occasion must exist; but introspection may never reveal it. To demonstrate that the mind cannot originate presentiments is, therefore, impossible; and we are brought to the question whether, in the number or character of such presentiments, there be convincing evidence that they have a supernatural origin.
Many experiences called presentiments are not of that nature. Dr. Forbes Winslow's "Psychological Journal" gives a tragic account of a presentiment to the great master of kings, Talleyrand. Dr. Sigmond received it from the widow of the private secretary and friend of Talleyrand, M. Comache. It shows signs of having been written afterward and embellished. Talleyrand said, "Upon one occasion I was gifted for a single moment with an unknown and mysterious power." He had fled from France with an intimate friend named Beaumetz. They had arrived in New-York together, and considering that they could not return to France, decided to improve the little money that was left by speculation, and freighted a small vessel for India. Bills were all paid and farewells taken; but there was a delay of some days for a fair wind, during which the time of the departure was uucertain. Beaumetz was irritated to an extraordinary degree, and unable to remain quietly at home. He hurried back and forth from the city with an eager, restless activity. He had ever been remarkable for great calmness and placidity of temper. One day he entered, evidently laboring under great excitement, though trying to seem calm. Talleyrand was writing letters to Europe. Beaumetz, with forced gaiety, said: "What need to waste time penning those letters? They will not reach their destination. Let us take a turn on the Battery. The wind may be chopping round; we may be nearer our departure than we imagine." The language in which the denouement is described is graphic:
What there is in this narrative to imply anything extraordinary, in view of the extraordinary circumstances, I am unable to perceive. Beaumetz had been unusually calm; he became greatly excited. Every action he performed and every word he said, for several days, was sufficient to excite alarm as to his mental condition. He was on the verge of an attack of acute mania. That Talleyrand had recognized his condition to some extent is apparent; that his mind perceived the danger, and that he took the only natural course to escape, is also clear; and the history of lunatic asylums abounds in accounts by friends or attendants of their discerning at the right moment that the maniac meant to perpetrate a tragic deed. In some instances it has been foreseen, and the wife, after predicting her own death at his hands, has succumbed to the maniacal fury of the once loving husband rather than allow him to be placed under restraint. A case of this kind, originating in the highest circles of American society, and culminating in Europe, has startled the world within a few years.
IMPRESSIONS AND "IMPERATIVE CONCEPTIONS"
Impressions are closely allied to presentiments, and many persons, both devout and undevout, yield to their influence. Baseball pitchers, prize-fighters, soldiers, and politicians are subject to them. The celebrated Dr. Nathan Bangs, a minister of great influence and strength of character, early in life was accustomed to believe in and follow impressions. The manner in which he was delivered from the fear of them is described in Stevens's "Life of Bangs," page 101:
His friend and successor in Canada. Dr. Fitch Reed, who communicated these facts to Dr. Stevens, says, "From that time he resolved never to confide in mere impressions."
A ludicrous instance of an impression connected with a supposed answer to prayer was notorious in the city of New York forty years ago. A gentleman of excellent character prayed that he might receive an impression from God when he should come into the presence of the person who would make him a suitable wife. He received assurance that his prayer would be answered, and tried to maintain a devout and expectant frame of mind. The months passed without a sign, but one day, while walking up Broadway, he saw a lady walking before him whose motions were exceedingly graceful, and instantly came the impression, "This is the woman whom God hath chosen for thee." For a long time he followed her in silence. At last the object of his anxiety turned into a side street. He turned also, and at that moment she dropped her handkerchief. He hastened forward to take it from the ground, and as she lifted her veil to thank him he perceived that she was of African descent! In an instant his faith in impressions was forever destroyed, and it was his custom in speaking of the occurrence to say that he had learned that prayer could not be substituted for common sense.
The number of impressions of which nothing comes is so much greater than those which appear to be fulfilled as to satisfy rational minds that they are not to be relied upon; and this requires on moral grounds the further conclusion that they are not of supernatural origin.
"Imperative conceptions," known among the insane, often have parallels among the sane. It is common for lunatics who have committed some atrocious act to assign, and often with absolute truth, that "it had to be done," or that they "had to do it." Certain crimes committed by the sane under a powerful influence have also been excused upon that ground, when a just view would show that, though strongly impelled, they were not incapable of resisting the impression, and were therefore responsible. I venture to affirm that there are few who have not at some time in their lives felt almost irresistibly drawn to perform an act, make a decision, or utter a word which they knew was not expedient; but the conviction that "it had to be done" predominated, and in many instances they have yielded. Where the consequences are not serious the effects may still be evil, for when the "ego" yields contrary to the judgment its power of resistance is lessened. These imperative impressions, which in the purely insane absolve from guilt, are often seen in their germs in the conduct of children who are dominated by their imaginations and sensibilities.
These are all akin to the state of mind in which presentiments arise.[1]
ANALYSIS OF TYPICAL PRESENTIMENTS
Presentiments concerning hours of death have sometimes been defeated by deceiving their subjects. Well-authenticated instances exist of chloroforming those who had made preparation for death, but whose gloomy apprehension was dispelled when they found that the time had passed and they were still living.
The case of the dissipated Lord Lyttleton, who was subject to "suffocating fits," and who claimed that his death had been predicted to occur in three days, at twelve o'clock, midnight, is easily explained. On the evening of that night some of his friends to whom he told the story said, when he was absent from the room, "Lyttleton will frighten himself into another fit with this foolish ghost story"; and thinking to prevent it they set forward the clock which stood in the room. When he returned they called out, "Hurrah, Lyttleton! Twelve o'clock is past, you 've jockeyed the ghost; now the best thing to do is to go quietly to bed, and in the morning you will be all right." But they had forgotten about the clock in the parish church tower, and when it began slowly tolling the hour of midnight he was seized with a paroxysm and died in great agony. The opinion of those who knew the circumstances was that the sudden revulsion of feeling caused such a reaction as to bring on the fit which carried him off. This is a rational view, for when one nearly dead believes that he is about to die, the incubus of such an impression is as effective as a dirk-thrust or poison.
Many extraordinary tales are told of presentiments on the eve of battle, and the particulars are given; but this is not wonderful. Soldiers and sailors are
proverbially superstitious. The leisure they frequently have favors the recital of marvelous experiences; and battles depend upon so many contingencies, and are liable to be controlled by such inexplicable circumstances, as to give to even the bravest of men a tinge of superstition. It has been observed that most unrighteous battles, fought against an oppressed people, have been attended by victories turning upon circumstances that may have been accidental; and that the most heroic patriotism has been defeated in the same way. That soldiers should have presentiments is not strange; and that those who have been exceedingly fortunate through a score of battles should sometimes in moments of depression conclude that they would die in the next battle is not extraordinary. In these voluminous narratives we find little or nothing of presentiments of certain escape, though they too are often fulfilled and as often disappointed.
A correspondent of "Notes and Queries," second series, thirty-fourth volume, having spent several months in the Crimea during the severest period of the bombardment, says: "I can state that many cases of presentiment were fulfilled; as also that some were falsified. There were also many deaths without any accompanying presentiment having been made known." The great Turenne exclaimed, "I do not mean to be killed to-day"; but a few moments afterward he was struck down in battle by a cannon-ball.
The possibilities of chance in the fulfilment of presentiments are incomputable, as a fact which occurred in this country during the civil war, and which is known by thousands yet living to be true, may serve to show. Joseph C. Baldwin, a young gentleman residing in Newark, N. J., was a journalist of more than local fame. He wrote under several pseudonyms, one of which was "Ned Carrol," and another "Frank Greenwood." The articles written under the latter name were unlike any of his other productions, being personal and censorious in character; and Frank Greenwood was in consequence most unpopular in Newark and vicinity, while Ned Carrol was a general favorite. Early in the war Mr. Baldwin enlisted in the 11th regiment of New Jersey Volunteers, and after arriving at the seat of war wrote several letters for publication, in one of which, sent to the Newark "Courier," he described the death of the mythical Greenwood in these words:
Mr. Editor:
I only fulfill the dying request of a beloved comrade in apprising you of his sad fate. Two months ago Frank Greenwood joined our company (C, 5th regiment), and soon became a general favorite, owing to his great sociability and undaunted courage. He received his death-wound from a shell, which was thrown from the Cockpit Point rebel battery, and burst within twenty feet of him, while holding the signal halyards at a review on the 3d inst. We mourn him as a brother.
On the 15th of May, 1864, Lieutenant Baldwin, who had been in the battles of Bull Run, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Antietam, and the Wilderness, and a score or more of skirmishes, who had had many narrow escapes and many wounds in the active service, sat in camp knowing of no danger near, when a piece of iron from a shell "thrown from a rebel battery," which "burst within twenty feet of him," struck him in the back of the head, killing him instantly.
Let those who propose to prove supernatural portents by mathematics determine what the " probability" was that in a mere spirit of jest be should describe in detail the manner of his own death months afterward.[2]
Soon after the civil war I concluded to go South by steamer, and took passage from St. Louis on the steam-ship Luminary for New Orleans. Navigation on the Mississippi River at that time was uncertain. Many old vessels were employed, the condition of the river was dangerous, and during the preceding twelve or fifteen months nine steamers had been blown up, or otherwise destroyed, resulting in great loss of life. Nearly all the accidents had been caused by the explosion of what are known as tubular boilers, and strong prejudice arose against vessels having boilers of that kind. The Luminary was of the old-fashioned sort, and a number of passengers had taken it solely on that account.
I was accompanied to the vessel by my brother, who up to that time had traveled with me, and was about to return by rail to the coast. As he was upon the point of bidding me farewell, I was seized without a moment's thought or preparation with an appalling impression that the vessel would be lost, and that I was looking upon my brother for the last time. For some time I seemed to behold with almost the vividness of an actual perception the explosion, to hear the shrieks of the passengers, and to feel myself swallowed up in the general destruction. Composing myself as much as possible, I said to my brother: "If ever a man had a presentiment of death, I have it now; but you know I have for years held that presentiments spring from physical weakness, superstition, or cowardice. Would you yield to these terrible feelings?" He replied, "No! If you do, you will always be a slave to them." After some further conversation he went ashore, and the boat started.
For several hours the dread of disaster overhung me, but gradually wore off, and late at night I fell asleep. The distance from St. Louis to New Orleans is about twelve hundred miles. The time taken by the Luminary was seven days. It was in all respects, after the first day, a delightful voyage. After remaining in New Orleans a few days, I reëmbarked on the same vessel, continuing up the river eight hundred miles, making in all more than two thousand miles without accident.
Since that experience, in many voyages I have made it an object to inquire of travelers and others concerning presentiments, and have found that they are very common, occasionally fulfilled, generally not so; and that it is the tendency with practically all persons who have had one presentiment come true to force themselves into all conversations, and to become tyrants over those dependent upon them or traveling with them. It is to be frankly admitted that no matter how vivid a supposed presentiment might be, its nonfulfilment would not demonstrate that there are no presentiments which must have originated external to
the mind of the subject; but having been led by my experience to induce many persons to defy such feelings without a single instance of reported evil results, it confirms strongly the hypothesis of their subjective origin.
That presentiments are governed by no moral principle in the characters of the subjects to which they are applied, or of those who receive them, the occasions upon which they are given, and their effects, is apparent. The most immoral have claimed to have them, have communicated them to others, and they have sometimes been fulfilled by events from which those having them have derived great advantages. A few of the best of men have had presentiments that seemed to correspond with subsequent events, but the great majority of good people have not; and the calamities which have befallen most have come without any warning, except such as could be inferred from existing situations. Experience, foresight, and guidance by ordinary sagacity have been all that mankind have had to rely upon; and to be governed only by these, combating or disregarding presentiments, impressions, and powerful impulses for which no foundation can be found in the nature of things, is the only safe and stable rule.
VISIONS
Visions are appearances to the mind's eye without a corresponding reality. Of the hallucinations of the insane it is necessary to say but little, as there is no doubt as to their nature and source. Generally the insane think them to be true perceptions, and endeavor to conform their conduct to them. Yet in some instances, and very often in the beginning of insanity, they admit them to be morbid and contend against them.
A question of deeper interest, and of closer relation to the subjects treated in this volume, is whether subjective visions are possible to the sane; and, if so, whether they are at all common, and liable to occur as isolated circumstances. On a full survey of the subject, both these questions must be answered in the affirmative. To say nothing of the visions produced by alcohol, opium, hashish, fever, blows upon the head, prolonged abstinence, deep anxiety, or those which precede attacks of epilepsy or of apoplexy, it is certain that hallucinations often arise without assignable cause or subsequent effect; and the subjects of them demonstrate their sanity by recognizing the unreal character of their perceptions.
Griesinger, one of the most eminent and discriminating writers on mental diseases, says: "Nothing would be more erroneous than to consider a man to be mentally diseased because he had hallucinations. The most extended experience shows rather that such phenomena occur in the lives of very distinguished and highly intellectual men, of the most different dispositions and various casts of mind, but especially in those of warm and powerful imagination." In illustration he speaks of Tasso, who, in the presence of Manco, carried on a long conversation with his protecting spirit; and of Goethe's well-known blue-gray vision, and his ideal flowers with their curious buds. He speaks briefly also of the hallucinations of Sir Walter Scott, Jean Paul, Benvenuto Cellini, Spinoza, Pascal; of Van Helmont, who saw his own soul in the form of a light with a human countenance; of Andral, the great physician, who experienced an hallucination of sight; and of Leuret, an investigator, thinker, and writer whose testimony may be implicitly trusted, who, in his "Fragments of Psychology," gives an account of a phantasm of hearing which he experienced.
A. Brierre de Boismont divided hallucinations that are compatible with sanity into two kinds—those which are corrected by the understanding, and those which, on account of superstition, sluggishness of thought, love of the marvelous, inability to interpret them correctly, or because the emotions which they excite make calm consideration impossible, are not corrected. The cases which he adduces are numerous and striking. One is that of Talma, who, when he trod the stage, could by the force of his will make all the brilliant dresses of his numerous audience disappear and substitute skeletons for the living characters. When he had thus filled the theater with these singular spectators, his emotions were such as to give to his playing a force which produced the most striking effects. The case of an intelligent lady who would see a robber enter her chamber and conceal himself under her bed is in point. Though the spectacle produced violent palpitation of the heart and universal trembling, she was aware of its falsity, and after some moments her judgment and reason would triumph so that she could approach the bed and examine it without fear.
Another case was communicated by a physician of acknowledged reputation to Sir Walter Scott. The first hallucination was that of the presence of a great cat. After a few months the cat disappeared, and a phantom of a higher grade took its place—that of a gentleman usher dressed as though he was in the service of a lord lieutenant, or of some great functionary of the Church. But after some months he disappeared, and a phantom horrible and distressing—a skeleton—appeared. The fact of these visions was concealed by the subject of them, who was an important officer in a department of justice, for several years. Though he knew that they were of subjective origin, they wore him out, and he died a victim to the agony in which his life was passed.
Dr. Abercrombie gives a case of a man who had been all his life beset by hallucinations: when he met a friend in the street, he was uncertain whether he was a real person or a phantom, but by paying close attention he could distinguish between them. Dr. Abercrombie declares that he was at the time of writing in good health, of a clear intellect, and occupied in business.
Many forcible instances, the most valuable of which are those personally attested by Boismont, or by the authorities whom he quotes, are given where the mind was sane, though the hallucinations were not corrected by it. It must not be supposed that these hallucinations of the sane are confined to persons of distinction, sedentary habits, or poetic temperaments. Many have had once or twice in their lives spectral illusions, or instances of hallucination; and among plain men, mechanics, laborers, and the peasantry of all nations, they are very common. Griesinger, after giving a list of distinguished men who, though sane, had hallucinations, says: "Judging from what we have heard and observed on this subject, hallucinations doubtless occur also in men of very average minds, not as rare but as frequently overlooked phenomena."
I suggested, more than twenty years ago, the importance of a census upon a large scale of hallucinations of the sane. Within the last four or five years a somewhat systematic attempt has been made on both sides of the Atlantic. The results so far as tabulated show meager returns, though recently the Society of Psychical Research has given increased attention to the matter. Some of the most fruitful fields for such a census appear to have been neglected.
Down to within a few years a large proportion, if not a majority, of the converts in revivals in evangelical denominations, in the course of their religious exercises, experienced transient hallucinations, some of which were grotesque, some coherent, and others sublime. Thus, a business man who had fasted, prayed, and lost sleep for several days, was in his barn attending to his horses, when he saw before him in broad daylight a wheel revolving rapidly. It was about the size of a cart-wheel, and emitted radiant sparks and streams of light of various colors. He said to himself, "Am I dreaming, or have I lost my senses?" Recognizing the different objects around him, he concluded that he was in his right mind, and fixed his eyes upon the wheel, which still whirled with inconceivable speed. Suddenly he discerned standing upright and immovable in the midst of it, unaffected by the motion of the rim, the form of the Saviour, who pronounced his sins forgiven. The hallucination continued some minutes. He believed it a divine evidence of conversion; its origin was undoubtedly subjective.
Another person, now a minister in New England, was so wrought upon at the moment he felt the sense of guilt and perplexity removed that he mistook the long stove-pipe in the country church for Jacob's ladder, and essayed to climb it. Not until restrained for some minutes by bystanders did he recognize the situation.
Such hallucinations occur still; among the negroes they are almost the rule. Yet these persons are not insane, and resume their ordinary vocations as before.
Spectral illusions are very common in children, and are most frequently, though not always, perceived in the night between waking and sleeping.
The persistence of dreams after one is fully awake is also a suggestive occasional experience. After the appearance of an article on "Dreams, Nightmare, and Somnambulism," in "The Century," the editor of that magazine received a letter written by a gentleman of the city of New York describing a dream which he had had a few weeks before, in which he dreamed that he was lying on his back in his own room and saw a frightful black hobgoblin, well defined in shape, which stood by the side of his bed and acted as if about to attack him. In the midst of the horror produced by the specter, he awoke, found himself lying on his back just as he had dreamed, looked around the room, and recognized the furniture and other things in the room, but continued to see the hobgoblin as plainly as he saw anything else, heard him growl, and distinctly saw him going on with his hostile demonstrations. Reasoning upon what he should do, he struggled to move, was unable to stir hand or foot for some time, but finally did move, and that instant the uncanny specter vanished. He says: "I had my eyes on the hobgoblin at the moment when I made the movement, and at once tried to see whether there was any object in the room which I could have mistaken for it, but could find none."
Books of marvels contain narratives which sometimes afford the evidence of their explanation, but frequently omit details which a person not disposed to the marvelous would be sure to examine if he had the opportunity. In Stilling's "Pneumatology," translated from the German and edited by Dr. George Hush, there are many of these. Stilling endeavors to show that people who see themselves are generally likely to die soon afterward. He says: "When a person sees himself out of himself, while others who are present observe nothing, the apparition may be real, or it may be merely imaginary; but when it is also perceived by others it is no fantasy, but something real." He then gravely adds, "I myself know of persons having seen themselves and dying shortly afterward."
He tells of one of the Government secretaries who went, as he was wont to do, to the archives to look for a paper which was very important. On arriving there, he saw himself sitting on a chair. Much terrified, he went home and sent a woman servant to fetch the documents. It is asserted that the woman found him there also. Dr. Stilling does not say that this man died "shortly afterward"; but that he did die some time after is probable, as the book is nearly a hundred years old.
Another case is that of a professor who was having a theological dispute with a number of his friends. Having occasion to go to the library for a book, he saw himself sitting on a chair at the table where he usually sat. Going nearer, he looked over the shoulder of the person and saw that this figure of himself pointed with one finger of the right hand to a passage in the Bible. He looked at the passage indicated, and saw that it was, "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die." Full of astonishment and fear, he went back to the company and related the occurrence; and in spite of all they could say he was firm in the opinion that this apparition betokened his death, and accordingly took leave of his friends. "The day after, at six o'clock in the evening, he expired, being advanced in years." Many not advanced in years would be killed by such an experience as this.
The origin of such visions is readily traced. To imagine one's self in a familiar place with almost the vividness of life is not uncommon. Whether the vision shall be that of one's self or of another, when the mind is in such a state as to develop visions, depends much on the general belief at the time. The same principle is illustrated where it seems impossible not to see, in his accustomed seat at the table, a person who has died; and when worn with anxiety and long watching, even strong-minded men have been for a moment almost certain that they saw the familiar figure pass through the room. They have felt "the touch of a vanished hand" and heard "the sound of a voice that is still." Add a belief in the marvelous to such impressions, and the vision is complete.
Sudden flashes of the imagination may develop the phenomenon instantaneously. Thus a sea captain engaged in his duty saw in the mist the figure of a boyhood companion beckoning to him. He was certain that it portended his death or that of the friend whose figure he saw, but nothing came of it. A gentleman passing along the street suddenly saw his brother whom he had not seen for twenty-five years. The figure was plain, and he was about to speak to him when he disappeared. Some time afterward the news came of his death at about the time of the vision. Taken alone, it might seem as if there was some connection between the two circumstances; but so many have such occasional experiences which seem remarkably real, and yet are not followed by any noteworthy event, that the natural explanation is adequate to cover the cases.
The visions and hallucinations of hypnotism and animal magnetism require special examination.
HABITUAL VISIONS
Hallucinations may become frequent, and to a certain extent systematic, especially if a belief in their supernatural origin exists; in which case a person may be for a long period of sound and discriminating understanding, except when in a trance, or beholding a vision.
The visions of St. Theresa have, for three hundred years, formed an important chapter in religious literature, and another in pathology. At twelve she was devoutly pious, becoming so after the death of her mother. About the age of fifteen she fell off into a very worldly state, and against her will was placed by her father in a convent. She was frequently ill, and finally, after a year and a half, owing to a dangerous sickness, returned home. Some time afterward she was seized with a violent fever, and upon recovery determined to devote herself to a religious life, and in opposition to her father's wishes entered a Carmelite convent and took the veil. This was in her twentieth year. Her biographer, as translated by Dr. Madden, says that she was attacked "with frequent fits of fainting and swooning, and a violent pain at her heart, which sometimes deprived her of her senses." Her first trance was in 1537, in her twenty-third year; it lasted for four days, and during it through excess of pain she bit her tongue in many places—a phenomenon common to fits of various kinds. At last she was reduced almost to a skeleton, had a paralytic affection of her limbs, and remained a cripple for three years. Her first vision was three years later, when she had allowed herself some dissipation of mind. "The apparition of our Lord was suddenly presented to the eyes of her soul, with a rigorous aspect testifying to the displeasure occasioned by her conduct."
There were great differences of opinion as to the source of her visions. Several very learned priests and confessors judged her to be deluded by the devil. One of them instructed her to make the sign of the cross, and to insult the vision as that of a fiend. In one of her visions, according to her statement, the Lord appeared angry at her instructions, and bade her tell them it was tyranny. She acknowledged that she frequently saw devils in hideous figures, but she drove them away by the cross or by holy water. She also claimed to see St. Joseph, the blessed Virgin, and other saints; had visions of purgatory, and saw a great number of souls in heaven who had been there.
There is no difficulty in explaining her visions on natural principles. She was a religious woman, in such a state of health as to be subject to trances, and they took their character from her conventual and other religious instruction. Visions of this kind have been common in the excitable of all sects. The early Methodists had many of them, which Mr. Wesley could not understand; and he expelled some persons from the society because they persisted against his commands in narrating visions which even he could not accept as of divine origin.
Luther suffered from hallucinations of a religious character for a considerable period of his life. The opposition he encountered and his sedentary life, taken in connection with the extraordinary powers attributed to Satan in the middle ages, fully explain his visions. Luther thought that the devil removed a bag of nuts, transformed himself into a fly, hung on his neck, and lay with him in bed. His visions would sometimes come on after nightmare. Here is his own account: "I awoke in the middle of the night. Satan appeared to me. I was seized with horror. I sweated and trembled. My heart beat in a frightful manner. The devil conversed with me. His logic was accompanied by a voice so alarming that the blood froze in my veins."
Zuinglius had a similar experience when he was half asleep. A phantom, black or white, he could not say which, appeared before him, called him a coward, and stirred him up to fight. This is explained by Forbes Winslow as a case of overheated sensorium, "during the transient continuance of which the retina became so disturbed as to conjure up a phantom which the patient not only mistook for a reality, but, what is still worse, acted upon his mistaken or diseased imagination."
Swedenborg's visions were of the same class. He was educated, devoted himself for many years to science, and up to his fifty-fourth year had the reputation of a scientific and philosophic student; was a professor in the mineralogical school, and believed to be a simple-minded man of the world. About 1743 he had a violent fever, in which for a little time he was mad, and rushed from the house stark naked, proclaiming himself the Messiah. After that period a change took place in him, and he lived twenty-nine years in the firm conviction that he held continual intercourse with angels and also with deceased human beings. He says that he conversed with St. Paul during the whole year, particularly in reference to the text Romans iii. 28. He asserted that he had conversed three times with St. John, once with Moses, a hundred times with Luther, and with angels daily "for twenty years."
Swedenborg had an elevated style of thought, and when reasoning upon the fundamental principle which underlies his theological views, he is acute and profound. Attention has frequently been called to his shrewdness in explaining why, when he claimed to hear the voices of angels, those who stood by could not, by his declaring that he was accustomed to see and hear angels when perfectly wide awake, and adding: "The speech of an angel or of a spirit sounds like and as loud as that of a man, but it is not heard by the bystanders. The reason is that the speech of an angel, or of a spirit, finds entrance first into a man's thoughts, and reaches his organs of hearing from within." It is necessary only to read his literal statements to perceive the subjective character of the visions. He gives detailed accounts of the habits, form, and dress of the angels. He sends his opponents mostly to Gehenna and sees them there. The chief representatives of the reformed churches go to heaven, but Catholics and some of his Protestant opponents he sees in vision elsewhere.
Visions and hallucinations of men of this class are quoted against each other in the ecclesiastical conflicts of the middle ages, and more lately, as proofs of the doctrines held by them. But as proofs they are mutually destructive, exist in all religions, true or false, and are liable to occur apart from religion. In the revivals which occurred in the early part of this century in the United States, and which sometimes take place now, visions are not infrequently connected with religious experience. When men pray without attending to the necessary cares of the body days and weeks together, the result is faintings and trances accompanied by visions. Where they are believed to be of divine origin they produce profound impressions, but there is no reason to think their cause different from those already discussed, nor have unbelievers in Christianity always escaped them.
The autobiography of Lord Herbert of Cherbury relates a remarkable vision, which is a noteworthy illustration of inconsistency. Lord Herbert did not believe in the divine origin of Christianity, and wrote a book against the credibility of the accounts of miracles in the Bible. When the manuscript was completed he exhibited it to Grotius and Tilenus, whom he met in France. They praised it much and exhorted him to publish it; but he foresaw that it would encounter opposition, and hesitated for some time. The history of what followed is given in his own words:
This circumstance is of great importance. No doubt has ever been thrown upon the truth of the recital, which shows how a person not subject to hallucinations, under circumstances of deep meditation, or under the influence of strong desire and expectation, may generate an hallucination, which may be the only one that he will experience in the course of a lifetime, and leave no evil effects except the false inferences which, supposing it to be of supernatural origin, he will draw from it. It demonstrates also that the absence or the presence of any particular form of faith is not essential; and it is obvious that Lord Herbert might easily have passed into a state of habitual visions in all respects analogous to those of Swedenborg or St. Theresa.
VISIONS OF THE DYING
The visions which the dying are supposed to see are regarded by many with reverence bordering upon awe. The explanation given by Dr. Edward H. Clarke, a devout physician of Boston, in his "Visions: a Study of False Sight," is strictly physiological. After a long and suggestive philosophical exposition, he says:
Dr. Clarke is not willing to say that it is impossible that there should be to the dying a revelation of the future into which they are about to enter. He says: "Probably all such visions as these are automatic. But yet, who, believing in God and personal immortality, as the writer rejoices in doing, will dare to say absolutely all?—will dare to assert there is no possible exception?" The single case given by Dr. Clarke appears insufficient to raise a presumption, much less to support a conclusion.
During the past thirty years I have seen many die, and many who thought themselves to be dying who afterward recovered, but I have no ground to suppose any of the visions supernatural, nor have I seen any indication of the development of a faculty of cognizing another world.
Some years ago I was visiting at the house of a citizen of Brooklyn, now one of the editors of a leading scientific publication. The father of his wife was very ill, the disease being consumption complicated with extreme age. It was thought that he could not survive the day. For several days he had been in a state of stupor bordering upon coma, and had not spoken for some hours. During the absence of his daughter from the room I sat by his bedside watching his painful breathing and anticipating the end, which could not be long delayed. Suddenly the dying man opened his eyes and said, "Old Virginia! old Virginia! old Virginia!" I immediately summoned his daughter, but he neither uttered another syllable nor showed any sign of consciousness, and died in a few hours. On asking members of the family if he had been connected in any way with Virginia, they said he had not, but was a native of Kentucky. Three months afterward his son-in-law informed me that inquiry suggested by the circumstance revealed the fact that he was born in Virginia and lived there until he was ten years old. The sufficient explanation was that the vital force was so nearly exhausted as to be incapable of stimulating any of the brain cells, except those early impressed: a vision of the lovely scenes of his childhood rose in his mind, and his intelligence was sufficient only to recognize it as in a dream.
The following facts cannot be disregarded in elucidating the subject:
First. Such visions occur in all parts of the world, under every form of civilization and religion; and when the dying appear to see anything, it is in harmony with the traditions which they have received.
Second. Such visions are often experienced by those whose lives have not been marked by religious consistency, while many of the most devout are permitted to die without such aid, sometimes experiencing the severest mental conflicts as they approach the crisis.
Third. Where persons appear to see angels and disembodied spirits, the visions accord with the traditional views of their shape and expression; and where wicked persons see fiends and evil spirits, they harmonize with the descriptions which have been given in the sermons, poems, and supernatural narratives with which they have been familiar.
Fourth. Many of the most remarkable visions have been seen by persons who supposed themselves to be dying, but were not; and who when they recovered had not the slightest recollection of what had occurred. When a student I was called with others to witness the death-bed scene of the most popular young man in the institution. He had professed during his illness a religious conversion, and was supposed to be dying of typhoid fever. Never have I heard more vivid descriptions or more eloquent words. It seemed as though he must see another state of being. After the scene he sank into a lethargic state, in which he remained for some days, afterward gradually recovering. Both his conversion and visions were utterly forgotten, and not until many years later did he enter upon a religious life.
Fifth. A consideration of great weight is this: the Catholic Church confers great honor upon the Holy Virgin; Protestants seldom make any reference to her. Trained as the former are to supplicate the sympathy and prayers of the mother of our Lord, I am informed by devout priests and by physicians that when they have visions of any kind she generally appears in the foreground. Among the visions which dying Protestants have been supposed to see I have heard of only two in which the Virgin figured, and these were seen by persons trained in their youth as Catholics.
APPARITIONS
The passage most frequently quoted on the subject of apparitions is that which Dr. Johnson, in "Rasselas," puts into the mouth of the sage Imlac:
All authorities agree that Dr. Johnson was superstitious and credulous, and this passage when critically examined does not seem to be entitled to the weight which its clearness of statement and his great name have gained for it. The concurrent testimony of all ages and nations can hardly create a presumption, unless it be assumed that there have been no universal errors. The assertion that the opinion could become universal only by its truth compels the assumption that all universal opinions are true. To prove that the dead are seen no more, or cannot appear to living beings, is of course impossible. But that a thing cannot be proven impossible is not a reason for believing it actual. No one can demonstrate that the spirit of Mahomet is not now embodied in the present Sultan of Turkey, but no one believes it.
Belief in apparitions, common in all ages, generally dying out in the middle of the last century, was revived in the antagonisms created by the excesses of materialistic and infidel opinions, which denied the truth of the miracles recorded in the Christian Scriptures. John Wesley says, "It is true that the English in general, and indeed most of the men in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wife's fables." He expresses great sorrow at this, and adds, "If but one account of the intercourse of men with superior spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air (deism, atheism, materialism) falls to the ground."
The discussion of Mr. Wesley's views of the relation of witchcraft to true Christianity is not in place here. His testimony as to the opinions of men of his time is the best of which the case admits, and the assertion quoted concerning the value of proof of that kind in the then pending conflicts with the free-thinkers justifies the use made of it by Dr. Hibbert in his "Philosophy of Apparitions," published not more than forty years after Wesley's death.
Two subjects which have a bearing upon any theory of apparitions, telepathy and modern spiritualism, are also postponed. Telepathy does not bear directly upon apparitions in the sense of the direct manifestations of the dead only so far as it is connected with alleged perceptions by living persons of others who have just died or are in the very article of death at the time when it is alleged that they are perceived by the said living persons remote from them. At the close of the second part of "A Theory of Apparitions," published by the Society of Psychical Research, the writer says, "Of apparitions after death we say nothing here," and makes use of telepathy merely for the purpose of analogy. Modern spiritualism has so many phases, and its alleged and real phenomena are many of them so dissimilar in matter and manner to the spontaneous apparitions referred to by Lord Byron in
I merely mean to say what Johnson said,
That in the course of some six thousand years,
All nations have believed that from the dead
A visitant at intervals appears,
as to make it necessary to consider it separately.
What I design is to show that when the evidence is rigorously though fairly examined, the Scotch verdict "Not proven" must be rendered concerning the reality of apparitions; and that the presumptions of their natural origin are so strong as to leave little doubt in minds not intoxicated by a love of the marvelous, or who do not desire to find by sensuous evidence an "Elysian road which will conduct man undoubtingly to such beliefs as his heart most craves."
Before the development of the scientific spirit belief in apparitions was universal. Scarce an instance can be given from antiquity of a tale of supernatural events carefully investigated, because to be told of the appearance of a ghost excited no more surprise than to be informed of a storm at sea, or of an extraordinary flash of lightning. In Greece and Rome such narratives furnish the materials of poetry, and for ages after the hold of the marvelous upon ordinary writers was broken the impression of primeval superstitions was so strong that the questions which science now asks—nay, more, the questions which practical men now ask—were not propounded.
To believe merely because antiquity believed is but to tighten the swaddling-clothes of the infant about the grown man and force him once more into the cradle.
The testimony of a single witness to an apparition can be of little value, because whatever he thinks he sees may be a spectral illusion or a hallucination. The state of mind of one who thinks that he sees an apparition is unfavorable to calm observation; and after he has seen it he has nothing but his recollection of what he saw, unsupported by analogies or memoranda taken during the vision. To say that immediately after he witnessed such a thing he made a note of it, is at best to say only that he wrote down what he could remember at that time.
Identification of the dead by a living person must be a matter of great difficulty, particularly as in many of the ghost stories the deceased had not been seen for twenty or twenty-five years, or perhaps was never seen by the individual to whom he is alleged to appear. In view of the mental excitement, not to say trepidation, induced by the belief that he sees a spontaneous and unexpected apparition, one who fancies that he sees the dead can hardly be competent to determine whether it be a subjective vision or an actual object.
It has frequently been laid down as indisputable that if two see a vision at the same time its objective and authentic character is conclusively demonstrated. This by no means follows; on the contrary, a hundred may be confident that they see an apparition, and the proof that they do not may be conclusive. In the middle ages thousands believed in Vampyrism. Less than two hundred years ago in Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Lorraine it was prevalent. "Some dreamed that these malicious specters took them by the throat, and, having strangled them, sucked their blood." Others believed that they actually saw them. At times when the imagination is greatly excited, and a belief in ghosts exists, they can be manufactured by the thousand, and thousands can see them. The colored people in the South have no trouble on this point. It is not an unusual occurrence for the ghosts of men hanged to appear to the prisoners in the jail, and though the officers may look at midnight, or whenever the ghost is said to appear, and can perceive nothing, scores of the prisoners are certain that they see the dreadful vision. An instance of this kind within a few years led to the permanent reformation of several persons.
Sailors, naturally superstitious, have great powers as ghost-seers. A vessel that sailed from Newcastle-upon-Tyne had on board a cook one of whose legs was shorter than the other, so that he walked in that way which in the vulgar idiom is called "with an up and a down." He died on the trip and was buried at sea. A few nights afterward the captain was told by the mate that the cook was walking before the ship, and that all hands were on deck to see him. Angry at being awakened, the captain told the mate to let the cook alone and race with him to see whether the ship or he would get first to Newcastle. But being further importuned the captain finally turned out. I will now quote the words of Mr. Ellis (who published them in "Brand's Populair Antiquities") as they were received from the captain:
If he had really caught the contagion the evidence would have been complete; the Society for Psychical Research might make much of it, and it would be declared to be convincing proof of a future state.
Dr. Tuke gives an instance of a general misapprehension of vision. At the conflagration in the Crystal Palace, in the winter of 1866-67, when the animals were destroyed by fire, it was supposed that the chimpanzee had succeeded in escaping from his cage. Men saw the unhappy animal holding to the roof and writhing in agony while trying to grasp one of the iron ribs. They watched its struggles with sickening dread—but there was no animal there. "It was a tattered piece of blind, so torn as to resemble, to the eye of fancy, the body, arms, and legs of an ape!"
When Brigham Young asserted that he saw the angel of the Lord from Ensign Point, making signs that this was the place where the great city and tabernacle of the Latter Day Saints should be established, Mormons surrounding him thought they beheld the angel, and nothing could shake their conviction of its reality.
Mistakes of identity account for many apparitions. Resemblances between persons in no way related are much more numerous and striking than is generally supposed. Lord Byron, who was superstitious, in speaking of ghosts wrote:
And what is strangest upon this strange head
Is that, whatever bar the reason rears
'Gainst such belief, there 's something stronger still
In its behalf, let those deny who will.
Yet he occasionally laughed at apparitions. In 1811, writing to Mr. Murray, he says, "My old school and form fellow Peel, the Irish Secretary, told me he saw me in St. James street; I was then in Turkey. A day or two afterward looking across the way, he said to his brother, 'There is the man I took for Byron.' His brother answered, 'Why, it is Byron, and no one else.' I was at this time seen to write my name in the Palace book. I was then ill of a malaria fever. If I had died, here would have been a ghost story." According to the telepathic theory, Byron's self might have left his body in Turkey, where he was sick, and made an excursion to London. It would be interesting to have an account of the state of his body on that day; whether much agitated, or enjoying a calm and refreshing sleep in the absence of the perturbed spirit of the poet, who must have been an uneasy tenant at the best of times. But these details were omitted, and the natural explanation would be "mistaken identity."
A whole city was excited by the appearance of a person known to be dead—a silent man, who entered a hotel, registered his name, and looked wistfully about, speaking to no one, and not willing to explain his business. Terror seized upon the people. Every one who looked at him affirmed that he was the dead man. He was compelled after a few days to account for himself, and had no difficulty in proving, not only that he was a living man, but that he had never seen the man whom he so strongly resembled. A remarkable fact about this case was, that both the dead man and his double had three moles on the left cheek.
Jugglery and intentional deception, subsequently confessed, have explained many cases of apparition which within a short period previous to the exposure had been generally believed real in the communities where they were reported. One of the most common sources of supposed supernatural interference with ordinary laws is unexplained noises, especially those that appear to respond to questions. Many of these have been afterward explained by chemical conditions; others by the wind shrieking through bottles, down chimneys, and occasionally by pendulum motions caused by gravitation, shakings, or motions by the movements of distant bodies; one famous case by changes that had taken place, the result of mining operations beneath the ground upon which the house stood. The ringing of bells when it was obvious no one was pulling the wires—occasionally the result of electricity, at other times of the actions of cats—has terrified some ordinarily intelligent persons almost out of their senses. Disturbances produced by dogs, cats, and even rats, magnified by large rooms, immense fire-places, the transformation of innocent objects on nights when the moon is at the full, and deep shadows produced by movements of the limbs of trees reflected in mirrors, have all contributed to the production of awful impressions.
In a certain rectory within forty miles of the city of New York stood an old-fashioned candlestick surrounded by prisms of glass which were pendent from the top. On several occasions the family were awakened by the ringing of these in the night, the effect of which was to terrify the servants and all the inmates of the house, except the wife of the rector, who determined to solve the mystery. For a long time the sounds were not produced except in total darkness, but by gradually introducing the practice of burning a light at night the ringing was finally heard one night when there was a light in the room. The lady of the house then went quietly down to the dining-room and saw a large rat with every expression of pleasure leaping forward and with his fore legs striking the prisms so as to make them ring, evidently taking the keenest delight in the sound thus produced. My informants were the rector and his wife.
In an article on Apparitions written by Andrew Lang, in the second volume of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," ninth edition, he says:
To determine whether or not it was a case of mistaken identity is very important, but no opportunity is given in the passage quoted. If it was a subjective impression, the coincidence would be curious and nothing else; though not more so, as I have shown abundantly, than many coincidences in trifles, and other circumstances absolutely disconnected, and many subjective impressions without coincidences. Mr. Lang, in the article referred to, has written like one who has crammed with the literature of the subject without being at the pains to reason closely upon the alleged facts. He refers to the superstitious horror shown by a dog at the moment of a supposed apparition to his master. That the dog exhibited horror when his owner thought he saw an apparition may be readily believed. All familiar with dogs know that nothing will terrify them more than an appearance of alarm on the part of their masters without visible cause. Of the same nature is the remark concerning the mysterious disturbances at the house of the Wesleys: "The mastiff was more afraid than any of the children." The volatile imaginations of children have never shown great horror of mysteries; they were sustained, too, by confidence in their parents. But the dog heard mysterious noises which naturally greatly agitated him.
Mr. Lang closes his remarks on this part of the subject by naïvely saying, "The case of Balaam's ass is sufficiently well known." This is not pertinent. Balaam's ass, according to the record, not only saw a supernatural appearance, but engaged in a process of reasoning in which he called up his past life to vindicate himself from abuse, and further engaged in a conversation with his master in the latter's vernacular. Indeed, he exhibited a cogency of reasoning which, applied to most of the tales adduced to prove the reality of apparitions, would effectually "lay" the ghosts.
Many persons fancy that mysterious noises which will appear to respond to questions, to make raps or answer raps, conclusively prove that they are directed by intelligence. Sometimes they may, and the intelligence is quite likely to be of human origin; but noises of atmospheric, chemical, or electrical origin may furnish astonishing coincidences, as fissures in the rocks are extremely difficult to be distinguished from hieroglyphics. Some years ago an alphabet based on the spiritualistic alphabet was applied to successive gusts of wind of a stormy autumn day, and the coincidences were astonishing. Short sentences of a very significant character at times appeared to respond to the arbitrary standard. In any case the conclusion that a noise the cause of which is not yet understood must be supernatural is a process of reasoning ab ignorantia.
That ghosts do not come to those most interested in them, and seldom or never to any who long for them, has been a matter of note from the earliest times. Wordsworth's words, often quoted, state the conclusion drawn from this in language natural and almost convincing:
'T is falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
Betwixt the living and the dead,
For surely then I should have sight
Of him I wait for day and night
With love and longings infinite.
The ceremonies practised by the Christian Church in the middle ages in the successful exorcising of ghosts are not less striking than the sort of evidence on which the ghosts were accepted. Two or three clergymen are necessary and the ceremony must be performed in Latin, "the language which strikes the most audacious ghost with terror." According to history and tradition the ghost may be laid for any term less than a hundred years, "in any place or body, filled or empty." But what a ghost hates most is the Red Sea. It is related on the most indisputable authority that the ghosts have earnestly besought exorcists not to confine them in that place; nor is any instance given of their escaping before the time!
When we consider the injustice frequently inflicted upon orphans whose estates are squandered by trustees; the concealment or destruction of wills; the ingratitude to destitute benefactors; the diverting of trust funds for benevolent purposes to objects abhorrent to those who with painful toil accumulated them and with confidence in the stability of human laws bequeathed them; the loneliness and despair that fill human hearts; and the gloomy doubts of the reality of a future existence,—all of which would be rendered impossible if actual apparitions took place,—the conclusion gathers almost irresistible force that neither in the manner of the alleged comings nor in the objects for which they come is there any evidence to be found of their reality.
If it be assumed that the testimony of one or of one hundred to a supernatural event is not sufficient to prove that it occurred, the question, "What becomes of the testimony of the Apostles and the five hundred brethren to the resurrection of Christ, and of Stephen to his seeing the heavens open," arises again. It admits of but one answer. If they had nothing to communicate but the assertion that they saw a human being alive who had been dead, it would be necessary to reject it on the ground that it is far more probable that they were deceived than that such a thing occurred.
But this is not the whole case. They present to us the whole body of Christian doctrine, declaring that it was received from that person who predicted that he would rise from the dead, whom they believed they saw, and with whom on various occasions they conversed after his resurrection. If Christianity in its relation to, and effect upon, the moral nature of the thinker does not convince him of the divine origin and consequent truth of the record, I know of no means of doing so.
- ↑ Dr. Henry M. Hurd, long the justly distinguished superintendent of the Eastern Michigan Asylum for the Insane at Pontiac, and now superintendent of Johns Hopkins General Hospital, Baltimore, Md., in speaking of imperative conceptions says: "By this term is understood a mental concept or impression, arising in the mind without external cause, or an emotional basis, or logical connection with any previous train of thought, which dominates the will and often compels to actions which are known to be ludicrous or improper, or contrary to the judgment of the individual. The imperative conception differs from the delusion in the fact that it is not elaborated by any process of reasoning, and does not commend itself to the reasoning or to the judgment.... It is not necessarily an evidence of insanity, unless it persists and dominates the conduct habitually. All persons have imperative conceptions arising spontaneously in the mind, which momentarily influence action and compel attention." He gives as illustrations the common experience of an overpowering impression that a watch has not been wound, or a window fastened, or that some other regular duty has not been performed, which is enough to destroy a person's peace of mind after he has retired, and compels him to leave his bed only to find that there is no foundation for the impression.
- ↑ Dreams without any proper authentication of detail, are published and republished. "The night that President Lincoln was murdered, a neighbor of mine," writes a physician, "declared that the President was killed, and by an assassin. It was several hours before the news reached the town." The wife of a New York clergyman made a similar statement just before the news arrived of the assassination of President Garfield, and said that she saw him in a railway station, surrounded by ladies and others. But we hear nothing of the seventeen persons who communicated to Andrew Johnson, in the course of the three years that he was President, dreams describing his death by assassination; nor of similar communications made to the late President Arthur.