  Title: The Night-Side of Nature Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers Author: Catherine Crowe Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Cindy Beyer, THE
NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE
OR,
GHOSTS AND GHOST-SEERS.
BY
CATHERINE CROWE
AUTHORESS OF “SUSAN HOPLEY,” “LILLY DAWSON,” “ARISTODEMUS,” ETC. "Thou com’st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee.” NEW YORK: J. S. REDFIELD, CLINTON HALL. BOSTON:—B. B. MUSSEY & CO. 1850. PREFACE. In my late novel of “Lilly Dawson,” I announced my intention of publishing a work to be called “The Night-Side of Nature;" this is it. The term “Night-Side of Nature” I borrow from the Germans, who derive it from the astronomers, the latter denominating that side of a planet which is turned from the sun, its night-side. We are in this condition for a certain number of hours out of every twenty-four; and as, during this interval, external objects loom upon us but strangely and imperfectly, the Germans draw a parallel between these vague and misty perceptions, and the similar obscure and uncertain glimpses we get of that veiled department of nature, of which, while comprising as it does, the solution of questions concerning us more nearly than any other, we are yet in a state of entire and wilful ignorance. For science, at least science in this country, has put it aside as beneath her notice, because new facts that do not fit into old theories are troublesome, and not to be countenanced. We are encompassed on all sides by wonders, and we can scarcely set our foot upon the ground, without trampling upon some marvellous production that our whole life and all our faculties would not suffice to comprehend. Familiarity, however, renders us insensible to the ordinary works of nature; we are apt to forget the miracles they comprise, and even, sometimes, mistaking words for conceptions, commit the error of thinking we understand their mystery. But there is one class of these wonders with which, from their comparatively rare occurrence, we do not become familiar; and these, according to the character of the mind to which they are presented, are frequently either denied as ridiculous and impossible, or received as evidences of supernatural interference—interruptions of those general laws by which God governs the universe; which latter mistake arises from our only seeing these facts without the links that connect them with the rest of nature, just as in the faint light of a starlit night we might distinguish the tall mountains that lift their crests high into the sky, though we could not discern the low chain of hills that united them with each other. There are two or three books by German authors, entitled “The Night-Side,” or “The Night-Dominion of Nature,” which are on subjects, more or less analogous to mine. Heinrick Schubert’s is the most celebrated among them; it is a sort of cosmogony of the world, written in a spirit of philosophical mysticism—too much so for English readers in general. In undertaking to write a book on these subjects myself, I wholly disclaim the pretension of teaching or of enforcing opinions. My object is to suggest inquiry and stimulate observation, in order that we may endeavor, if possible, to discover something regarding our psychical nature, as it exists here in the flesh; and as it is to exist hereafter, out of it. If I could only induce a few capable persons, instead of laughing at these things, to look at them, my object would be attained, and I should consider my time well spent. CONTENTS.
THE NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE. INTRODUCTION.“Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” —1 Corinthians, iii. 16. Most persons are aware that the Greeks and Romans entertained certain notions regarding the state of the soul, or the immortal part of man, after the death of the body, which have been generally held to be purely mythological. Many of them doubtless are so, and of these I am not about to treat; but among their conceptions, there are some which, as they coincide with the opinions of many of the most enlightened persons of the present age, it may be desirable to consider more closely. I allude here particularly to their belief in the tripartite kingdom of the dead. According to this system, there were the Elysian fields, a region in which a certain sort of happiness was enjoyed; and Tartarus, the place of punishment for the wicked; each of which was, comparatively, but thinly inhabited. But there was also a mid-region, peopled with innumerable hosts of wandering and mournful spirits, who, although undergoing no torments, are represented as incessantly bewailing their condition, pining for the life they once enjoyed in the body, longing after the things of the earth, and occupying themselves with the same pursuits and objects as had formerly constituted their business or their pleasure. Old habits are still dear to them, and they can not snap the link that binds them to the earth. Now, although we can not believe in the existence of Charon, the three-headed dog, or Alecto, the serpent-haired fury, it may be worth while to consider whether the persuasion of the ancients with regard to that which concerns us all so nearly—namely, the destiny that awaits us when we have shaken off this mortal coil—may not have some foundation in truth: whether it might not be a remnant of a tradition transmitted from the earliest inhabitants of the earth, wrested by observation from nature, if not communicated from a higher source: and also whether circumstances of constant recurrence in all ages and in all nations, frequently observed and recorded by persons utterly ignorant of classical lore, and unacquainted, indeed, with the dogmas of any creed but their own, do not, as well as various passages in the Scriptures, afford a striking confirmation of this theory of a future life; while it, on the other hand, offers a natural and convenient explanation of their mystery. To minds which can admit nothing but what can be explained and demonstrated, an investigation of this sort must appear perfectly idle: for while, on the one hand, the most acute intellect or the most powerful logic can throw little light on the subject, it is, at the same time—though I have a confident hope that this will not always be the case—equally irreducible within the present bounds of science; meanwhile, experience, observation, and intuition, must be our principal if not our only guides. Because, in the seventeenth century, credulity outran reason and discretion; the eighteenth century, by a natural reaction, threw itself into an opposite extreme. Whoever closely observes the signs of the times, will be aware that another change is approaching. The contemptuous skepticism of the last age is yielding to a more humble spirit of inquiry; and there is a large class of persons among the most enlightened of the present, who are beginning to believe that much which they had been taught to reject as fable, has been, in reality, ill-understood truth. Somewhat of the mystery of our own being, and of the mysteries that compass us about, are beginning to loom upon us—as yet, it is true, but obscurely; and, in the endeavor to follow out the clew they offer, we have but a feeble light to guide us. We must grope our way through the dim path before us, ever in danger of being led into error, while we may confidently reckon on being pursued by the shafts of ridicule—that weapon so easy to wield, so potent to the weak, so weak to the wise—which has delayed the births of so many truths, but never stifled one. The pharisaical skepticism which denies without investigation, is quite as perilous, and much more contemptible, than the blind credulity which accepts all that it is taught without inquiry; it is, indeed, but another form of ignorance assuming to be knowledge. And by investigation, I do not mean the hasty, captious, angry notice of an unwelcome fact, that too frequently claims the right of pronouncing on a question; but the slow, modest, pains-taking examination, that is content to wait upon Nature, and humbly follow out her disclosures, however opposed to preconceived theories or mortifying to human pride. If scientific men could but comprehend how they discredit the science they really profess, by their despotic arrogance and exclusive skepticism, they would surely, for the sake of that very science they love, affect more liberality and candor. This reflection, however, naturally suggests another, namely, do they really love science, or is it not too frequently with them but the means to an end? Were the love of science genuine, I suspect it would produce very different fruits to that which we see borne by the tree of knowledge, as it flourishes at present; and this suspicion is exceedingly strengthened by the recollection that, among the numerous students and professors of science I have at different times encountered, the real worshippers and genuine lovers of it, for its own sake, have all been men of the most single, candid, unprejudiced, and inquiring minds, willing to listen to all new suggestions, and investigate all new facts; not bold and self-sufficient, but humble and reverent suitors, aware of their own ignorance and unworthiness, and that they are yet but in the primer of Nature’s works, they do not permit themselves to pronounce upon her disclosures, or set limits to her decrees. They are content to admit that things new and unsuspected may yet be true; that their own knowledge of facts being extremely circumscribed, the systems attempted to be established on such uncertain data, must needs be very imperfect, and frequently altogether erroneous; and that it is therefore their duty, as it ought to be their pleasure, to welcome as a stranger every gleam of light that appears in the horizon, let it loom from whatever quarter it may. But, alas! poor Science has few such lovers! Les beaux yeux de sa cassette, I fear, are much more frequently the objects of attraction than her own fair face. The belief in a God, and in the immortality of what we call the soul, is common to all nations; but our own intellect does not enable us to form any conception of either one or the other. All the information we have on these subjects is comprised in such hints as the Scripture here and there give us: whatever other conclusions we draw, must be the result of observation and experience. Unless founded upon these, the opinion of the most learned theologian or the most profound student of science that ever lived, is worth no more than that of any other person. They know nothing whatever about these mysteries; and all a priori reasoning on them is utterly valueless. The only way, therefore, of attaining any glimpses of the truth in an inquiry of this nature, where our intellect can serve us so little, is to enter on it with the conviction that, knowing nothing, we are not entitled to reject any evidence that may be offered to us, till it has been thoroughly sifted, and proved to be fallacious. That the facts presented to our notice appear to us absurd, and altogether inconsistent with the notions our intellects would have enabled us to form, should have no weight whatever in the investigation. Our intellects are no measure of God Almighty’s designs; and, I must say, that I do think one of the most irreverent, dangerous, and sinful things man or woman can be guilty of, is to reject with scorn and laughter any intimation which, however strangely it may strike upon our minds, and however adverse it may be to our opinions, may possibly be showing us the way to one of God’s truths. Not knowing all the conditions, and wanting so many links of the chain, it is impossible for us to pronounce on what is probable and consistent, and what is not; and, this being the case, I think the time is ripe for drawing attention to certain phenomena, which, under whatever aspect we may consider them, are, beyond doubt, exceedingly interesting and curious; while, if the view many persons are disposed to take of them be the correct one, they are much more than this. I wish, also, to make the English public acquainted with the ideas entertained on these subjects by a large proportion of German minds of the highest order. It is a distinctive characteristic of the thinkers of that country, that, in the first place, they do think independently and courageously; and, in the second, that they never shrink from promulgating the opinions they have been led to form, however new, strange, heterodox, or even absurd, they may appear to others. They do not succumb, as people do in this country, to the fear of ridicule; nor are they in danger of the odium that here pursues those who deviate from established notions; and the consequence is, that, though many fallacious theories and untenable propositions may be advanced, a great deal of new truth is struck out from the collision; and in the result, as must always be the case, what is true lives and is established, and what is false dies and is forgotten. But here, in Britain, our critics and colleges are in such haste to strangle and put down every new discovery that does not emanate from themselves, or which is not a fulfilling of the ideas of the day, but which, being somewhat opposed to them, promises to be troublesome from requiring new thought to render it intelligible, that one might be induced to suppose them divested of all confidence in this inviolable law; while the more important and the higher the results involved may be, the more angry they are with those who advocate them. They do not quarrel with a new metal or a new plant, and even a new comet or a new island stands a fair chance of being well received; the introduction of a planet appears, from late events, to be more difficult; while phrenology and mesmerism testify that any discovery tending to throw light on what most deeply concerns us, namely, our own being, must be prepared to encounter a storm of angry persecution. And one of the evils of this hasty and precipitate opposition is, that the passions and interests of the opposers become involved in the dispute: instead of investigators, they become partisans; having declared against it in the outset, it is important to their petty interests that the thing shall not be true; and they determine that it shall not, if they can help it. Hence, these hasty, angry investigations of new facts, and the triumph with which failures are recorded; and hence the wilful overlooking of the axiom that a thousand negatives can not overthrow the evidence of one affirmative experiment. I always distrust those who have declared themselves strongly in the beginning of a controversy. Opinions which, however rashly avowed, may have been honest at first, may have been changed for many a long day before they are retracted. In the meantime, the march of truth is obstructed, and its triumph is delayed; timid minds are alarmed; those who dare not or can not think for themselves, are subdued; there is much needless suffering incurred, and much good lost; but the truth goes quietly on its way, and reaches the goal at last. With respect to the subjects I am here going to treat of, it is not simply the result of my own reflections and convictions that I am about to offer. On the contrary, I intend to fortify my position by the opinions of many other writers; the chief of whom will, for the reasons above given, namely, that it is they who have principally attended to the question, be Germans. I am fully aware that in this country a very considerable number of persons lean to some of these opinions, and I think I might venture to assert that I have the majority on my side, as far as regards ghosts—for it is beyond a doubt that many more are disposed to believe than to confess—and those who do confess, are not few. The deep interest with which any narration of spiritual appearances bearing the stamp, or apparent stamp, of authenticity is listened to in every society, is one proof that, though the fear of ridicule may suppress, it can not extinguish that intuitive persuasion, of which almost every one is more or less conscious. I avow, that in writing this book, I have a higher aim than merely to afford amusement. I wish to engage the earnest attention of my readers; because I am satisfied that the opinions I am about to advocate, seriously entertained, would produce very beneficial results. We are all educated in the belief of a future state, but how vague and ineffective this belief is with the majority of persons, we too well know; for although, as I have said above, the number of those who are what is called believers in ghosts and similar phenomena is very large, it is a belief that they allow to sit extremely lightly on their minds. Although they feel that the evidence from within and from without is too strong to be altogether set aside, they have never permitted themselves to weigh the significance of the facts. They are afraid of that bugbear, Superstition—a title of opprobrium which it is very convenient to attach to whatever we do not believe ourselves. They forget that nobody has a right to call any belief superstitious, till he can prove that it is unfounded. Now, no one that lives can assert that the reappearance of the dead is impossible; all he has a right to say is, that he does not believe it; and the interrogation that should immediately follow this declaration is, “Have you devoted your life to sifting all the evidence that has been adduced on the other side, from the earliest periods of history and tradition?” and even though the answer were in the affirmative, and that the investigation had been conscientiously pursued, it would be still a bold inquirer that would think himself entitled to say, the question was no longer open. But the rashness and levity with which mankind make professions of believing and disbelieving, are, all things considered, phenomena much more extraordinary than the most extraordinary ghost-story that ever was related. The truth is, that not one person in a thousand, in the proper sense of the word, believes anything; they only fancy they believe, because they have never seriously considered the meaning of the word and all that it involves. That which the human mind can not conceive of, is apt to slip from its grasp like water from the hand; and life out of the flesh falls under this category. The observation of any phenomena, therefore, which enabled us to master the idea, must necessarily be extremely beneficial; and it must be remembered, that one single thoroughly well-established instance of the reappearance of a deceased person, would not only have this effect, but that it would afford a demonstrative proof of the deepest of all our intuitions, namely, that a future life awaits us. Not to mention the modern Germans of eminence, who have devoted themselves to this investigation, there have been men remarkable for intellect in all countries, who have considered the subject worthy of inquiry. Among the rest, Plato, Pliny, and Lucien; and in our own country, that good old divine, Dr. Henry Moore, Dr. Johnson, Addison, Isaac Taylor, and many others. It may be objected that the eternally-quoted case of Nicolai, the bookseller at Berlin, and Dr. Ferriar’s “Theory of Apparitions,” had not then settled the question; but nobody doubts that Nicolai’s was a case of disease; and he was well aware of it himself, as it appears to me, everybody so afflicted, is. I was acquainted with a poor woman, in Edinburgh, who suffered from this malady, brought on, I believe, by drinking; but she was perfectly conscious of the nature of the illusions; and that temperance and a doctor were the proper exorcists to lay the spirits. With respect to Dr. Ferriar’s book, a more shallow one was assuredly never allowed to settle any question; and his own theory can not, without the most violent straining, and the assistance of what he calls coincidences, meet even half the cases he himself adduces. That such a disease, as he describes, exists, nobody doubts; but I maintain that there are hundreds of cases on record, for which the explanation does not suffice; and if they have been instances of spectral illusion, all that remains to be said, is, that a fundamental reconstruction of the theory on that subject is demanded. La Place says, in his “Essay on Probabilities,” that “any case, however apparently incredible, if it be a recurrent case, is as much entitled, under the laws of induction, to a fair valuation, as if it had been more probable beforehand.” Now, no one will deny that the case in question possesses this claim to investigation. Determined skeptics may, indeed, deny that there exists any well-authenticated instance of an apparition; but that, at present, can only be a mere matter of opinion; since many persons, as competent to judge as themselves, maintain the contrary; and in the meantime, I arraign their right to make this objection till they have qualified themselves to do so, by a long course of patient and honest inquiry; always remembering that every instance of error or imposition discovered and adduced, has no positive value whatever in the argument, but as regards that single instance; though it may enforce upon us the necessity of strong evidence and careful investigation. With respect to the evidence, past and present, I must be allowed here to remark on the extreme difficulty of producing it. Not to mention the acknowledged carelessness of observers and the alleged incapacity of persons to distinguish between reality and illusion, there is an exceeding shyness in most people, who, either have seen, or fancied they have seen, an apparition, to speak of it at all, except to some intimate friend; so that one gets most of the stories second-hand; while even those who are less chary of their communications, are imperative against their name and authority being given to the public. Besides this, there is a great tendency in most people, after the impression is over, to think they may have been deceived; and where there is no communication or other circumstance rendering this conviction impossible, it is not difficult to acquire it, or at least so much of it as leaves the case valueless. The seer is glad to find this refuge from the unpleasant feelings engendered; while surrounding friends, sometimes from genuine skepticism, and sometimes from good-nature, almost invariably lean to this explanation of the mystery. In consequence of these difficulties and those attending the very nature of the phenomena, I freely admit that the facts I shall adduce, as they now stand, can have no scientific value; they can not in short, enter into the region of science at all, still less into that of philosophy. Whatever conclusions we may be led to form, can not be founded on pure induction. We must confine ourselves wholly within the region of opinion; if we venture beyond which, we shall assuredly founder. In the beginning, all sciences have been but a collection of facts, afterward to be examined, compared, and weighed, by intelligent minds. To the vulgar, who do not see the universal law which governs the universe, everything out of the ordinary course of events, is a prodigy; but to the enlightened mind there are no prodigies; for it perceives that in both the moral and the physical world, there is a chain of uninterrupted connection; and that the most strange and even apparently contradictory or supernatural fact or event will be found, on due investigation, to be strictly dependent on its antecedents. It is possible, that there may be a link wanting, and that our investigations may, consequently, be fruitless; but the link is assuredly there, although our imperfect knowledge and limited vision can not find it. And it is here the proper place to observe, that, in undertaking to treat of the phenomena in question, I do not propose to consider them as supernatural; on the contrary, I am persuaded that the time will come, when they will be reduced strictly within the bounds of science. It was the tendency of the last age to reject and deny everything they did not understand; I hope it is the growing tendency of the present one to examine what we do not understand. Equally disposed with our predecessors of the eighteenth century to reject the supernatural, and to believe the order of nature inviolable, we are disposed to extend the bounds of nature and science, till they comprise within their limits all the phenomena, ordinary and extraordinary, by which we are surrounded. Scarcely a month passes that we do not hear of some new and important discovery in science. It is a domain in which nothing is stable, and every year overthrows some of the hasty and premature theories of the preceding ones; and this will continue to be the case as long as scientific men occupy themselves each with his own subject, without studying the great and primal truths—what the French call les vÉritÉs mÈres—which link the whole together. Meantime, there is a continual unsettling. Truth, if it do not emanate from an acknowledged authority, is generally rejected; and error, if it do, is as often accepted; while, whoever disputes the received theory, whatever it be—we mean especially that adopted by the professors of colleges—does it at his peril. But there is a day yet brooding in the bosom of time, when the sciences will be no longer isolated; when we shall no longer deny, but be able to account for, phenomena apparently prodigious, or have the modesty, if we can not explain them, to admit that the difficulty arises solely from our own incapacity. The system of centralization in statistics seems to be of doubtful advantage; but a greater degree of centralization appears to be very much needed in the domain of science. Some improvement in this respect might do wonders, particularly if reinforced with a slight infusion of patience and humility into the minds of scientific men; together with the recollection that facts and phenomena, which do not depend on our will, must be waited for—that we must be at their command, for they will not be at ours. But to return once more to our own subject. If we do believe that a future life awaits us, there can be nothing more natural than the desire to obtain some information as to what manner of life that is to be for which any one of us may, before this time to-morrow, have exchanged his present mode of being. That there does not exist a greater interest with regard to this question in the mind of man, arises partly from the vague, intangible kind of belief he entertains of the fact; partly from his absorption in worldly affairs, and the hard and indigestible food upon which his clerical shepherds pasture him—for, under dogmatic theology, religion seems to have withered away to the mere husk of spiritualism; and partly, also, from the apparent impossibility of pursuing the inquiry to any purpose. As I said before, observation and experience can alone guide us in such an inquiry; for, though most people have a more or less intuitive sense of their own immortality, intuition is silent as to the mode of it; and the question I am anxious here to discuss with my readers is, whether we have any facts to observe, or any experience from which, on this most interesting of all subjects, a conclusion may be drawn. Great as the difficulty is of producing evidence, it will, I think, be pretty generally admitted that, although each individual case, as it stands alone, may be comparatively valueless, the amount of recurrent cases forms a body of evidence that, on any other subject, would scarcely be rejected; and since, if the facts are accepted, they imperatively demand an explanation—for, assuredly, the present theory of spectral illusions can not comprise them—our inquiry, let it terminate in whatever conclusion it may, can not be useless or uninteresting. Various views of the phenomena in question may be taken; and although I shall offer my own opinions and the theories and opinions of others, I insist upon none. I do not write to dogmatise, but to suggest reflection and inquiry. The books of Dr. Ferriar, Dr. Hibbert, and Dr. Thatcher, the American, are all written to support one exclusive theory; and they only give such cases as serve to sustain it. They maintain that the whole phenomena are referrible to nervous or sanguineous derangement, and are mere subjective illusions; and whatever instance can not be covered by this theory, they reject as false, or treat as a case of extraordinary coincidence. In short, they arrange the facts to their theory, not their theory to the facts. Their books can not, therefore, claim to be considered as anything more than essays on a special disease; they have no pretence whatever to the character of investigations. The question, consequently, remains as much an open one as before they treated it; while we have the advantage of their experience and information, with regard to the peculiar malady that forms the subject of their works. On that subject it is not my intention to enter; it is a strictly medical one, and every information may be obtained respecting it in the above-named treatises, and others emanating from the faculty. The subjects I do intend to treat of are the various kinds of prophetic dreams, presentiments, second-sight, and apparitions; and, in short, all that class of phenomena which appears to throw some light on our physical nature, and on the probable state of the soul after death. In this discussion, I shall make free use of my German authorities, Doctors Kerner, Stilling, Werner, Eschenmayer, Ennemoser, Passavent, Schubert, Von Meyer, &c., &c.; and I here make a general acknowledgment to that effect, because it would embarrass my book too much to be constantly giving names and references, although, when I quote their words literally, I shall make a point of doing so; and because, also, that, as I have been both thinking and reading much on these subjects for a considerable time past, I am, in fact, no longer in a condition to appropriate, either to them or to myself, each his own. This, however, is a matter of very little consequence, as I am not desirous of claiming any idea as mine that can be found elsewhere. It is enough for me, if I succeed in making a tolerably clear exposition of the subject, and can induce other people to reflect upon it. THE DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE.It is almost needless to observe, that the Scriptures repeatedly speak of man as a tripartite being, consisting of spirit, soul, and body: and that, according to St. Paul, we have two bodies—a natural body and a spiritual body; the former being designed as our means of communication with the external world—an instrument to be used and controlled by our nobler parts. It is this view of it, carried to a fanaticism, which has led to the various and extraordinary mortifications recorded of ascetics. As is remarked by the Rev. Hare Townshend, in a late edition of his book on mesmerism, in this fleshly body consists our organic life; in the body which we are to retain through eternity, consists our fundamental life. May not the first, he says, “be a temporary development of the last, just as leaves, flowers, and fruits, are the temporary developments of a tree? And in the same manner that these pass and drop away, yet leave the principle of reproduction behind, so may our present organs be detached from us by death, and yet the ground of our existence be spared to us continuously.” Without entering into the subtle disputes of philosophers, with regard to the spirit, a subject on which there is a standing controversy between the disciples of Hegel and those of other teachers, I need only observe that the Scriptures seem to indicate what some of the heathen sages taught, that the spirit that dwells within us is the spirit of God, incorporated in us for a period, for certain ends of his own, to be thereby wrought out. What those ends are, it does not belong to my present subject to consider. In this spirit so imparted to us, dwells, says Eschenmayer, the conscience, which keeps watch over the body and the soul, saying, “Thus shalt thou do!” And it is to this Christ addresses himself when he bids his disciples become perfect, like their Father in heaven. The soul is subject to the spirit; and its functions are, to will, or choose, to think, and to feel, and to become thereby cognizant of the true, the beautiful, and the good; comprehending the highest principle, the highest ideal, and the most perfect happiness. The Ego, or I, is the resultant of the three forces, Pneuma, Psyche, Soma—spirit, soul, and body. In the spirit or soul, or rather in both conjoined, dwells, also, the power of spiritual seeing, or intuitive knowing; for, as there is a spiritual body, there is a spiritual eye, and a spiritual ear, and so forth; or, to speak more correctly, all these sensuous functions are comprised in one universal sense, which does not need the aid of the bodily organs; but, on the contrary, is most efficient when most freed from them. It remains to be seen whether, or in what degree, such separation can take place during life; complete it can not be till death; but whoever believes sincerely that the divine spirit dwells within him, can, I should think, find no difficulty in conceiving that, although from the temporary conditions to which that spirit is subjected, this universal faculty is limited and obscured, it must still retain its indefeasible attribute. We may naturally conclude that the most perfect state of man on earth consists in the most perfect unity of the spirit and the soul; and to those who in this life have attained the nearest to that unity will the entire assimilation of the two, after they are separated from the body, be the easiest; while to those who have lived only their intellectual and external life, this union must be extremely difficult, the soul having chosen its part with the body, and divorced itself, as much as in it lay, from the spirit. The voice of conscience is then scarcely heard; and the soul, degraded and debased, can no longer perform its functions of discerning the true, the beautiful, and the good. On these distinct functions of the soul and spirit, however, it is not my intention to insist, since it appears to me a subject on which we are not yet in a condition to dogmatize. We know rather more about our bodies, by means of which the soul and spirit are united and brought into contact with the material world, and which are constructed wholly with a view to the conditions of that world; such as time, space, solidity, extension, &c., &c. But we must conceive of God as necessarily independent of these conditions. To Him, all times and all places must be for ever present; and it is thus that he is omniscient and omnipresent; and since we are placed by the spirit in immediate relation with God and the spiritual world, just as we are placed by the body in immediate relation with the material world, we may, in the first place, form a notion of the possibility that some faint gleams of these inherent attributes may, at times, shoot up through the clay in which the spirit has taken up its temporary abode; and we may also admit, that through the connection which exists between us and the spiritual world, it is not impossible but that we may, at times, and under certain conditions, become cognizant of, and enter into more immediate relation with it. This is the only postulate I ask; for, as I said before, I do not wish to enforce opinions, but to suggest probabilities, or at least possibilities, and thus arouse reflection and inquiry. With respect to the term invisible world, I beg to remind my readers, that what we call seeing is merely the function of an organ constructed for that purpose in relation to the external world; and so limited are its powers, that we are surrounded by many things in that world which we can not see without the aid of artificial appliances and many other things which we can not see even with them; the atmosphere in which we live, for example, although its weight and mechanical forces are the subjects of accurate calculation, is entirely imperceptible to our visual organs. Thus, the fact that we do not commonly see them, forms no legitimate objection to the hypothesis of our being surrounded by a world of spirits, or of that world being inter-diffused among us. Supposing the question to be decided that we do sometimes become cognizant of them, which, however, I admit it is not, since, whether the apparitions are subjective, or objective, that is, whether they are the mere phenomena of disease, or real out-standing appearances, is the inquiry I desire to promote—but, I say, supposing that question were decided in the affirmative, the next that arises is, how, or by what means do we see them; or, if they address us, hear them? If that universal sense which appears to me to be inseparable from the idea of spirit, be once admitted, I think there can be no difficulty in answering this question; and if it be objected that we are conscious of no such sense, I answer, that both in dreams and in certain abnormal states of the body, it is frequently manifested. In order to render this more clear, and, at the same time, to give an interesting instance of this sort of phenomenon, I will transcribe a passage from a letter of St. Augustine to his friend Evadius (Epistola 159. Antwerp edition). “I will relate to you a circumstance,” he writes, “which will furnish you matter for reflection. Our brother Sennadius, well known to us all as an eminent physician, and whom we especially love, who is now at Carthage, after having distinguished himself at Rome, and with whose piety and active benevolence you are well acquainted, could yet, nevertheless, as he has lately narrated to us, by no means bring himself to believe in a life after death. Now, God, doubtless, not willing that his soul should perish, there appeared to him one night, in a dream, a radiant youth of noble aspect, who bade him follow him; and as Sennadius obeyed, they came to a city where, on the right side, he heard a chorus of the most heavenly voices. As he desired to know whence this divine harmony proceeded, the youth told him that what he heard were the songs of the blessed; whereupon he awoke, and thought no more of his dream than people usually do. On another night, however, behold! the youth appears to him again, and asks him if he knows him; and Sennadius related to him all the particulars of his former dream, which he well remembered. ‘Then,’ said the youth, ‘was it while sleeping or waking that you saw these things?’—‘I was sleeping,’ answered Sennadius. ‘You are right,’ returned the youth, ‘it was in your sleep that you saw these things; and know, O Sennadius, that what you see now is also in your sleep. But if this be so, tell me where then is your body?’—‘In my bed-chamber,’ answered Sennadius. ‘But know you not,’ continued the stranger, ‘that your eyes, which form a part of your body, are closed and inactive?’—‘I know it,’ answered he. ‘Then,’ said the youth, ‘with what eyes see you these things?’ And Sennadius could not answer him; and as he hesitated, the youth spoke again, and explained to him the motive of his questions. ‘As the eyes of your body,’ said he, ‘which lies now on your bed and sleeps, are inactive and useless, and yet you have eyes wherewith you see me and these things I have shown unto you; so after death, when these bodily organs fail you, you will have a vital power, whereby you will live, and a sensitive faculty, whereby you will perceive. Doubt, therefore, no longer that there is a life after death.’ And thus,” said this excellent man, “was I convinced, and all doubts removed.” I confess there appears to me a beauty and a logical truth in this dream that I think might convince more than the dreamer. It is by the hypothesis of this universal sense, latent within us—an hypothesis which, whoever believes that we are immortal spirits, incorporated for a season in a material body, can scarcely reject—that I seek to explain those perceptions which are not comprised within the functions of our bodily organs. It seems to me to be the key to all or nearly all of them, as far as our own part in the phenomena extends. But, supposing this admitted, there would then remain the difficulty of accounting for the partial and capricious glimpses we get of it; while in that department of the mystery which regards apparitions, except such as are the pure result of disease, we must grope our way, with very little light to guide us, as to the conditions and motives which might possibly bring them into any immediate relation with us. To any one who has been fortunate enough to witness one genuine case of clairvoyance, I think the conception of this universal sense will not be difficult, however the mode of its exercise may remain utterly incomprehensible. As I have said above—to the great Spirit and Fountain of life, all things, in both space and time, must be present. However impossible it is to our finite minds to conceive this, we must believe it. It may, in some slight degree, facilitate the conception to remember that action, once begun, never ceases—an impulse given is transmitted on for ever; a sound breathed reverberates in eternity; and thus the past is always present, although, for the purpose of fitting us for this mortal life, our ordinary senses are so constituted as to be unperceptive of these phenomena. With respect to what we call the future, it is more difficult still for us to conceive it as present; nor, as far as I know, can we borrow from the sciences the same assistance as mechanical discoveries have just furnished me with in regard to the past. How a spirit sees that which has not yet, to our senses, taken place, seems certainly inexplicable. Foreseeing it is not inexplicable: we foresee many things by arguing on given premises, although, from our own finite views, we are always liable to be mistaken. Louis Lambert says: “Such events as are the product of humanity, and the result of its intelligence, have their own causes, in which they lie latent, just as our actions are accomplished in our thoughts previous to any outward demonstration of them; presentiments and prophecies consist in the intuitive perception of these causes.” This explanation, which is quite conformable with that of Cicero, may aid us in some degree as regards a certain small class of phenomena; but there is something involved in the question much more subtle than this. Our dreams can give us the only idea of it; for there we do actually see and hear, not only that which never was, but that which never will be. Actions and events, words and sounds, persons and places, are as clearly and vividly present to us as if they were actually what they seem; and I should think that most people must be somewhat puzzled to decide in regard to certain scenes and circumstances that live in their memory, whether the images are the result of their waking or sleeping experience. Although by no means a dreamer, and without the most remote approximation to any faculty of presentiment, I know this is the case with myself. I remember also a very curious effect being produced upon me, when I was abroad, some years ago, from eating the unwholesome bread to which we were reduced, in consequence of a scarcity. Some five or six times a day I was seized with a sort of vertigo, during which I seemed to pass through certain scenes, and was conscious of certain words, which appeared to me to have a strange connection, with either some former period of my life, or else some previous state of existence. The words and the scenes were on each occasion precisely the same: I was always aware of that, and I always made the strongest efforts to grasp and retain them in my memory, but I could not. I only knew that the thing had been; the words and the scenes were gone. I seemed to pass momentarily into another sphere and back again. This was purely the result of disorder; but, like a dream, it shows how we may be perceptive of that which is not, and which never may be; rendering it, therefore, possible to conceive that a spirit may be equally perceptive of that which shall be. I am very far from meaning to imply that these examples remove the difficulty: they do not explain the thing; they only show somewhat the mode of it. But it must be remembered that when physiologists pretend to settle the whole question of apparitions by the theory of spectral illusions, they are exactly in the same predicament. They can supply examples of similar phenomena; but how a person, perfectly in his senses, should receive the spectral visits of, not only friends, but strangers, when he is thinking of no such matter—or by what process, mental or optical, the figures are conjured up—remains as much a mystery as before a line was written on the subject. All people and all ages have believed, more or less, in prophetic dreams, presentiments, and apparitions; and all historians have furnished examples of them. That the truths may be frequently distorted and mingled with fable, is no argument against those traditions; if it were, all history must be rejected on the same plea. Both the Old and New Testaments furnish numerous examples of these phenomena; and although Christ and the apostles reproved all the superstitions of the age, these persuasions are not included in their reprehensions. Neither is the comparative rarity of these phenomena any argument against their possibility. There are many strange things which occur still more rarely, but which we do not look upon as supernatural or miraculous. Of nature’s ordinary laws, we yet know but little; of their aberrations and perturbations, still less. How should we, when the world is a miracle and life a dream, of which we know neither the beginning nor the end! We do not even know that we see anything as it is, or rather, we know that we do not. We see things but as our visual organs represent them to us; and were those organs differently constructed, the aspect of the world would to us be changed. How, then, can we pretend to decide upon what is and what is not? Nothing could be more perplexing to any one who read them with attention, than the trials for witchcraft of the seventeenth century. Many of the feats of the ancient thaumaturgists and wonder-workers of the temples might have been nearly as much so, but these were got rid of by the easy expedient of pronouncing them fables and impostures; but, during the witch-mania, so many persons proved their faith in their own miraculous powers by the sacrifice of their lives, that it was scarcely possible to doubt their having some foundation for their own persuasion, though what that foundation could be, till the late discoveries in animal magnetism, it was difficult to conceive; but here we have a new page opened to us which concerns both the history of the world and the history of man, as an individual; and we begin to see that that which the ignorant thought supernatural, and the wise impossible, has been both natural and true. While the scientific men of Great Britain, and several of our journalists, have been denying and ridiculing the reports of these phenomena, the most eminent physicians of Germany have been quietly studying and investigating them, and giving to the world, in their works, the results of their experience. Among the rest, Dr. Joseph Ennemoser, of Berlin, has presented to us in his two books on “Magic,” and on “The Connection of Magnetism with Nature and Religion,” the fruits of his thirty years’ study of this subject—during the course of which he has had repeated opportunities of investigating all the phenomena, and of making himself perfectly familiar with even the most rare and perplexing. To any one who has studied these works, the mysteries of the temples and of the witch-trials are mysteries no longer; and he writes with the professed design, not to make science mystical, but to bring the mysterious within the bounds of science. The phenomena, as he justly says, are as old as the human race. Animal magnetism is no new development, no new discovery. Inseparable from life, although, like many other vital phenomena, so subtle in its influences, that only in abnormal cases it attracts attention, it has exhibited itself more or less in all ages and in all countries. But its value as a medical agent is only now beginning to dawn on the civilized world, while its importance in a higher point of view is yet perceived by but few. Every human being who has ever withdrawn himself from the strife, and the turmoil, and the distraction, of the world without, in order to look within, must have found himself perplexed by a thousand questions with regard to his own being, which he would find no one able to solve. In the study of animal magnetism, he will first obtain some gleams of a light which will show him that he is indeed the child of God! and that, though a dweller on the earth, and fallen, some traces of his divine descent, and of his unbroken connection with a higher order of being, still remain to comfort and encourage him. He will find that there exists in his species the germs of faculties that are never fully unfolded here on earth, and which have no reference to this state of being. They exist in all men, but in most cases are so faintly elicited as not to be observable; and when they do shoot up here and there, they are denied, disowned, misinterpreted, and maligned. It is true that their development is often the symptom and effect of disease, which seems to change the relations of our material and immaterial parts; it is true that some of the phenomena resulting from these faculties are stimulated by disease, as in the case of spectral illusions; and it is true that imposture and folly intrude their unhallowed footsteps into this domain of science, as into that of all others; but there is a deep and holy well of truth to be discovered in this neglected by-path of nature, by those who seek it, from which they may draw the purest consolations for the present, the most ennobling hopes for the future, and the most valuable aid in penetrating through the letter into the spirit of the Scriptures. I confess it makes me sorrowful when I hear men laughing, scorning, and denying this their birthright; and I can not but grieve to think how closely and heavily their clay must be wrapped about them, and how the external and sensuous life must have prevailed over the internal, when no gleam from within breaks through to show them that these things are true. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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