Fiends, Ghosts, and Sprites Part 12

Feuchtersleben states the case of a lady who was long haunted with the effluvia as of a charnel-house. The taste is subjected to hallucinations of exquisitely flavoured viands and wines; or the reverse, no food being taken; or everything taken presents one undeviating flavour, which may be pleasant or unpleasant, or it has no taste at all. A sensation of _flying_ is not uncommon. Boismont has a friend who frequently experiences this sensation, and it often occurs in dreams. A friend of ours is in the habit of dreaming that he is suspended about a foot above the surface of the earth, and is carried along by simple volition, without movement of the limbs; and St. Jerome states, that often in dreams he flew from the earth over mountains and seas. Our ideas of depth and s.p.a.ce are sometimes increased in dreams to an extent that is inexpressible and almost bewildering; and the sensation of falling into an abyss is common to the dreamer. The idea of time is often extended indefinitely; in the s.p.a.ce of a single night, days, weeks, years, and even ages, have appeared to elapse. Transformation of the figure is occasionally met with among the hallucinations of insanity; and in the state induced by haschish, the singular and fantastic forms which those under its influence, and the parties surrounding them, have appeared to undergo, are of great interest. "The eyelashes," writes one gentleman, "lengthened themselves indefinitely, and rolled themselves as threads of gold on little ivory bobbins, which turned una.s.sisted, with frightful rapidity.... I still saw my comrades at certain moments, but _deformed_, half men, half plants, with the pensive airs of an ibis standing on one foot, of ostriches flapping their wings, &c."--"I imagined that I was the parroquet of the Queen of Sheba, and I imitated as well as I was able the cries of this praiseworthy bird."

In the state caused by haschish it occasionally also happens that the person under its influence may be caused to speak or act in any manner that is suggested to him. This phenomenon is also seen in dreams; in both conditions the half-awakened mind automatically pursues the train of thought which has been suggested to it either by the voice or by certain sensations.

Lastly, in certain disordered conditions of the system, the person has the power of looking, as it were, into himself, and ascertaining what is going on there, or of extending his sensual powers beyond the bounds of their ordinary sphere, and ascertaining what transpires in other places, or at a distance of many miles (_clairvoyance_). The gentleman from whose experience of the effects of haschish we have already quoted, thought he could look at will into his stomach, and that he saw there, in the form of an emerald, from which escaped millions of sparkles, the drug he had swallowed.

By a careful consideration of the illusions and hallucinations to which we are liable, we obtain a clue to unravel the wild fantasies which const.i.tute the greater part of the most prominent superst.i.tions.

If we reflect on the superst.i.tious ideas which filled the minds of our forefathers, and follow them back, in their deepening intensity, into the middle ages, we can easily imagine how the irregular and fantastic figures which an indistinct and disordered vision gave rise to in the gloom of the night, were transformed into fiends and demons; how spectres, clothed in their horrid white and blue panoply, were seen stalking over the earth, and haunting the murder-stained castle, glade, and forest; how the dimly illuminated mists of the evening and morning shadowed forth the forms of the dead, and the spirits of the waters and the air; how in the mist of Killarney, an O'Donoghue, mounted on his milk-white steed, and attended by a host of fairy forms, swept over the beautiful lake; and a spectral array arose night after night from the bed of the rushing Moldau, and besieged the walls of Prague; how the moonbeams chequering the deep recesses of the woods, and the banks and meadows overhung with foliage, were metamorphised into fairies; how the wind howling among the rocks and mountains, sweeping through the valleys, or whispering amid the trees and about the nooks and corners of the turretted castle and ruinous mansion, bore on its bosom the sounds of spectre-hors.e.m.e.n, demon-hunters, and fiend-like hounds, or the wail and lamentations of wandering and lost spirits, and the shrieks of the infernals; and how the billows, rushing into the caverns and deep fissures in the cliffs of a rock-bound coast, filled the air with the mysterious and incomprehensible language of the spirits of the deep.

A clue also is obtained to other forms of superst.i.tion.

The power which the witch was supposed to possess of transporting herself from place to place, and which those self-deluded wretches themselves believed; and the orgies of the witch-sabbath, which were again and again deposed to, were hallucinations due to a form of insanity--for we may so call it--prevailing at the period, which was determined by the nature of the superst.i.tious beliefs entertained. The real character of this superst.i.tion is well shown by an incident which is recorded by Jung-Stilling.

He writes:--"I am acquainted with a tale, for the truth of which I can vouch, because it is taken from the official doc.u.ments of an old witch-process. An old woman was imprisoned, put to the torture, and confessed all that witches are generally charged with. Amongst others, she also denounced a neighbour of hers, who had been with her on the Blocksberg, the preceding Walpurgis night. This woman was called, and asked if it were true what the prisoner said of her? On which she stated that, on Walpurgis eve she had called upon this woman, because she had something to say to her. On entering her kitchen, she found the prisoner busy in preparing a decoction of herbs. On asking her what she was boiling, she said, with a smiling and mysterious mien, "Wilt thou go with me to the Brocken?" From curiosity, and in order to ascertain what there was in the matter, she answered, "Yes: I should like to go well enough." On which the prisoner chattered some time about the feast, and the dance, and the enormous goat. She then drank of the decoction, and offered it to her, saying: "There, take a hearty drink of it, that thou mayest be able to ride through the air:" she likewise put the pot to her mouth, and made as if she drank of it, but did not taste a drop. During this, the prisoner had put a pitchfork between her legs, and placed herself upon the hearth; that she soon sunk down, and began to sleep and snore: after having looked on for some time, she was at length tired of it, and went home.

The next morning, the prisoner came to her, and said, "Well, how dost thou like being at the Brocken? Sith, there were glorious doings." On which she had laughed heartily, and told her that she had not drunk of the potion, and that she, the prisoner, had not been at the Brocken, but had slept with her pitchfork upon the hearth. That the woman, on this, became angry, and said to her, that she ought not to deny having been at the Brocken, and having danced and kissed the goat."[66]

Ga.s.sendi relates an experiment to the same effect. He anointed some peasants with a pomade made of belladonna or opium, persuading them that the operation would convey them to the witch-sabbath. After a profound sleep, they awoke, and told how they had been present at the sabbath, and the pleasures they had enjoyed.

Stupifying and intoxicating drugs were, in all probability, freely used by sorcerers, and in the ancient mysteries, and to their use is to be attributed many of the illusions and hallucinations which are familiar in the details of the practice of the occult sciences.

Jung-Stilling quotes a singularly interesting example of a method of practising one of the most important processes of magic; and an examination of it satisfactory shows the manner in which some of the most striking of the deceptions of that art were brought about, and how it happened that the professor, as well as the student, was equally deluded.

In Eckhartshausen's "Key to Magic" there is an account of a young Scotsman "who, though he meddled not with the conjuration of spirits, and such like charlatanry, had learned, however, a remarkable piece of art from a Jew, which he communicated also to Eckhartshausen, and made the experiment with him,--which is surprising, and worthy of perusal. He that wishes to raise and see any particular spirit, _must prepare himself for it, for some days together, both spiritually and physically_. There are also particular and remarkable requisites and relations necessary betwixt such a spirit and the person who wishes to see it--relations which cannot otherwise be explained, than on the ground of the intervention of some secret influence from the invisible world. After all these precautions, a vapour is produced in a room, from certain materials which Eckhartshausen, with propriety, does not divulge, on account of the dangerous abuse which might be made of it, which visibly forms itself into a figure which bears a resemblance to that which the person wishes to see. In this there is no question of any magic-lantern or optical artifice; but the vapour really forms a human figure, similar to that which the individual desires to behold. I will now insert the conclusion of the story in Eckhartshausen's own words:--

"Some time after the departure of the stranger, that is, the Scotsman, I made the experiment for one of my friends. He saw as I did, and had the same sensations.

"The observations that we made were these. As soon as the ingredients were thrown into the chafing-dish, a whitish body forms itself, that seems to hover above the chafing-dish, as large as life.

"It possesses the likeness of the person whom we wished to see, only the visage is of an ashy paleness.

"On approaching the figure, one is conscious of a resistance, similar to that which is felt when going against a strong wind, which drives one back.

"If one speaks with it, one remembers no more distinctly what is spoken; and when the appearance vanishes, one feels as if awakening from a dream. The head is stupified, and a contraction is felt about the abdomen. It is also very singular that the same appearance presents itself when one is in the dark, or when looking upon dark objects.

"The unpleasantness of this sensation was the reason why I was unwilling to repeat the experiment, although often urged to do so by many individuals."[67]

It would be difficult to conceive any more powerful method of inducing hallucinations than that detailed in this instructive and interesting recital. The previous schooling of the imagination, in order thoroughly to imbue it with the train of ideas requisite for the full development of the phenomenon, and the subsequent intoxication induced by the inhalation of powerful narcotic vapours--an intoxication which, as we have already seen in the example of haschish, is peculiarly apt to the development of hallucinations--will sufficiently account for the illusion of the smoke of the chafing-dish presenting any figure which the mind desires to see. The difficulty which the experimenter experienced in approaching the phantom, and which he compares to the resistance which is felt when contending against a strong wind, was evidently due to the powerful emotion which he experienced depriving him of that control of the voluntary muscles, such as we find in a person paralyzed by fear or astonishment; or perhaps it was rather a feeling similar to that experienced in nightmare, when, whatever effort we may make, we feel almost incapable of motion.

The action of the narcotic vapour alone was sufficient to induce hallucinations; for, persuaded by a very experienced physician, who "maintained that the narcotic ingredients which formed the vapour must of necessity violently affect the imagination, and might be very injurious, according to circ.u.mstances," Eckhartshausen made the experiment on himself without previous preparation; "but," he writes, "scarcely had I cast the quantum of ingredients into the chafing-dish, when a figure presented itself. I was, however, seized with such a horror, that I was obliged to leave the room. I was very ill during three hours, and thought I saw the figure always before me. Towards evening, after inhaling the fumes of vinegar, and drinking it with water, I was better again; but for three weeks afterwards I felt a debility: and the strangest part of the matter is, that when I remember the circ.u.mstance, and look for some time upon any dark object, this ashy pale figure still presents itself very vividly to my sight. After this I no longer dared to make any experiments with it."

The use of intoxicating and stupifying drugs doubtless contributed also to the development of those ideas of strange and wonderful transformations and anomalies of form with which the legends and romances of Oriental and European nations teem. In the examples of hallucinations we have already given from this source, we find the key to the explanation of several of these transformations; and the elaborated supernatural framework of fairy tales, in which men are changed without compunction into inferior animals, trees, or vegetables, has probably had a similar origin.

The state of "clairvoyance," and that condition of the nervous system which is found in certain diseases, dreams, and under the influence of narcotic poisons, in which, by suggestions, in whatever manner given, certain actions and trains of thought may be excited at the will of the suggestor, is seen also, and may be induced at will in those conditions of the system which are summed up under the terms "mesmerism," "animal magnetism," "electro-biology," &c.; and the theories which have been invented to explain them, and which are expressed in the above names, are not only needless, but inconsistent with the facts observed. The so-called mesmeric and electro-biological trance is strictly allied to certain forms of dreaming; and the whole of the results witnessed may be explained by certain admitted physiological and physical laws of action, and are due to leading trains of thought which are excited by suggestions direct or indirect. As to the higher faculty of prevision claimed in this state, we are not aware that, as yet, a single trustworthy instance has been established.

There is a cla.s.s of spectral apparitions which differ from those which we have already dwelt upon, inasmuch as they have appeared to foreshadow, or have occurred coincidently with, the death of an individual; or they have made known events occurring at a distance, or have brought to light things else hidden by the grave.

In the deepening gloom of twilight the seer of Scotland often witnessed the _wraiths_ of those who were about to die, wreathed in the ascending mists of the night, troop in ghostly silence before his horror-stricken vision; and the _Bodach Glas_ crossed the path of the death-laden Mac Ivor; the _Bodac au Dun_, or Ghost of the Hill, warned the Rothmurchan of approaching calamity; the spectre of the b.l.o.o.d.y Hand scared the Kincardines; the _Bodach Gartin_ glided in significant horror through the gloomy pa.s.sages of Gartnibeg House; and the Girl with the Hairy Left Hand--_Manch Monlach_--pointed to the death-bolt about to carry weeping and wailing into the halls of Tulloch Gorus.

The spectral _fetch_ shadowed forth in the sister isle the dark course of death; while the Banshee mourned with the frightful accents of the dead over the dying scions of the ancient families. Hovering near the sorrow-laden mansion, her robe flowing wide in the night air, and her tangled tresses borne upon the wind, she cried the keen of another world adown the vaulted pa.s.sages, and sobbed in ghastly agony her bitter lamentations.

The _Gwrach y Rhibyn_--Hag of the Dribble--when the night had covered the earth, spread out her leathern-like wings, and flitting before the house of the death-stricken Cambrians, shrieked in harsh, broken, and prolonged tones their names.

In our own land the spectres of all those who would die in the parish during the year might be seen walking in ghostly procession to the church, or entering its portals, by him who would watch, three years consecutively, during the last hour of the night and the first hour of the morning, in the porch, on the Eve of St. Mark, or would kneel and look through the keyhole of the door of the sanctuary at midnight on the Eve of St. John the Baptist.

The _White Lady_, who haunts the ancient castle of the celebrated Bohemian family of Rosenberg-Neuhaus, and who also appears from time to time in the castles of the allied families of Brandenburg, Baden, and Darmstadt,--Trzebon, Islubocka, Bechin, and Tretzen, and even has been seen in Berlin, Bayreuth, and at Carlsrhue is of historical notoriety.

Tall of stature, attired in white, and wearing a white widow's veil adorned with ribbons, through the folds of which, and from within her, a faint light has been seen to glimmer, she glides with a modest air through the corridors and apartments of those castles and palaces in which the death of one of her family is about to occur; and she has been seen at other times, and oft, with the aspect and air as though the spirit had a melancholy pleasure in visiting and hovering about her descendants. It is said to be the ghost of one Perchta Von Rosenberg, who was born between A.D. 1420 and 1430, and subsequently married to John Von Lichtenstein, a rich and profligate baron, who so embittered her life that she was obliged to seek relief from her relatives, and she died borne down with the insults and indescribable distress she endured.

Among the old paintings of the family of Rosenberg was found a portrait of this lady, attired after the fashion of the times, and bearing an exact resemblance to the "_White Lady_." In December, 1628, she appeared in Berlin, and was heard to exclaim, "Veni, judica vivos et mortuos: judicium mihi adhuc superest!"--"Come, judge the living and the dead; my fate is not yet decided."

The _Klage-weib_ (Mourning Woman) when the storm is driving the rift before it, and the moon shines fitfully and faintly on the earth, may be seen stalking along, her gigantic and shadowy form enveloped in dark flowing grave-clothes, her deathlike countenance and deep cavernous eyes freezing the unhappy spectator with horror, while, extending her vast arm, she sweeps it above the cottage marked out by death.

In the Tyrol also, the phantom of a white woman looks in at the window of a house where a person must die.

These are examples of spectral apparitions foreboding death and misfortune, which the lapse of ages and the influence of superst.i.tion have invested with a semblance of reality, approximating them in apparent truthfulness to historical facts.

It is a needless, and would be a thankless task, to show how these notions were the legitimate result of the ideas of the supernatural entertained at the period when they were developed; and how when the superst.i.tions once a.s.sumed a definite form, the slightest illusion during the period of sickness or calamity, whether observed in the castellated mansion, pregnant generally with deeds of darkness or blood, or in the twilight or the storm of a moon-lit night, were converted into these phantoms;[68] or the imperfectly remembered dream, or its vivid depiction of the superst.i.tion, shadowed forth the same.

Scant of romance, and that wild and thrilling medium through which many of our old legends are seen, we have handed to us numerous business-like stories, some of very recent date, in which the same principles are involved as in the legends we have detailed, and which demand grave attention, from the honest truthfulness with which they are evidently detailed, and the events which they appear to have foreshadowed.

Let us examine some of these instances, and endeavour to ascertain whether they come under the character of illusions or hallucinations; or whether they are to be placed in another category, and to be regarded as the results of supernatural agency, as is most frequently done.

In "Blackwood's Magazine" for 1840, there is a letter which contains the following statement:--

"The 'Hawk' being on her pa.s.sage from the Cape of Good Hope towards the island of Java, and myself having the charge of the middle watch, between one and two in the morning I was taken suddenly ill, which obliged me to send for the officer next in turn; I then went down on the gun-deck, and sent my boy for a light. In the meanwhile, I sat down on a chest in the steerage, under the after-grating, when I felt a gentle squeeze by a very cold hand; I started, and saw a figure in white; stepping back, I said, 'G.o.d's my life! who is that?' It stood and gazed at me a short time, stooped its head to get a more perfect view, sighed aloud, repeated the exclamation 'Oh!' three times, and instantly vanished. The night was fine, though the moon afforded through the gratings but a weak light, so that little of feature could be seen, only a figure rather tall than otherwise, and white-clad. My boy returning now with a light, I sent him to the cabins of all the officers, when he brought me word that not one of them had been stirring. Coming afterwards to St. Helena, homeward-bound, hearing of my sister's death, and finding the time so nearly coinciding, it added much to my painful concern; and I have only to thank G.o.d, that when I saw what I now verily believe to have been her apparition (my sister Ann), I did not then know the melancholy occasion of it."

The superst.i.tious feelings which we find pervading the mind of the gentleman relating this incident, and which is evinced by its termination; the circ.u.mstances under which the apparition took place, namely, a dim uncertain light, that most favourable to illusion; an attack of indisposition leading to alteration of the natural sensations; and lastly, and most important of all, the after-conclusion arrived at on hearing of the sister's death, and under the influence of which the account was written, and which, it is evident from the nature of the details, gave rise to that definite statement which has been recorded,--all tend to the conclusion that the spectre was an illusion, and that its significance was a phase imparted to it by superst.i.tious feelings alone.

The influence of subsequent conclusions in warping the real history of an event, and giving a definite and precise character to what would otherwise have been vague and inconclusive, as is witnessed in the above story, is one of the most important fallacies pervading ghost-stories.

There is no source of self-deception to which we are exposed, more insidious; and it is requisite to keep it constantly in view, not only in relations of this nature, but in the examination of events of any kind whatever. The colouring which facts receive from this source, too often hides their real character; and the reciter is perfectly unconscious of the erroneous light which he casts upon them. Hence the importance of ascertaining the peculiar bias and tendencies of thought which appertain to one who records occurrences upon which important conclusions or theories may be based.

The vicious habit which has been common among the advocates of supernatural visitations, of supporting their opinions upon the a.s.sertions of men of known probity and honour, to the complete exclusion of an examination of the sources of delusion and error to which these men were liable from the character of their previous education, habits of thought, a.s.sociations, &c., and from their imperfect acquaintance with the fallacies to which they may have been exposed, has been a fertile source of error.

A so-called fact is not an abstract truth; it is simply a fact so far as it relates to the a.s.sertor, and the credence given to it by others depends upon the extent to which it agrees with their experience, or upon the knowledge that the a.s.sertor has by previous study or experience so far diminished the probability of error on the subject to which it relates, that the statement may be received without hesitation.

Another form of ghost-story is that in which the spirit of the dead has been compelled to wander in misery on the earth, for some crime or error, small or great, committed during life, and which, unless it be atoned for or rectified, prevents its eternal repose.

A story of this kind is given by Jung-Stilling, and however absurd it may be in some parts, it is interesting from the precision of its details enabling us to lay hold of a clue to the explanation of the majority of these tales.

In 1756, M. Doerien, one of the proctors of Caroline College, Brunswick, was taken ill and died, shortly after "St. John's Day" (June 24th).

Immediately before his death, he requested to see another of the proctors, M. Hoefer, having some communication of importance to make to him; but before that gentleman arrived, death had taken place. After some time a report became prevalent in the college that the ghost of the deceased proctor had been seen; but as this proceeded merely from the young, little attention had been given to it. At length, in October, upwards of three months after the death of M. Doerien, as M. Hoefer was proceeding on his accustomed nightly round, between the hours of eleven and twelve, in one of the corridors he saw the spectre of that professor, clothed in a common night-gown and white night-cap. This unexpected sight terrified M. Hoefer somewhat, but recollecting that he was in the path of duty, he recovered himself, and advancing to the spectre, endeavoured to examine it by the light of the candle he held in his hand; but such a horror came over him, that he could scarcely withdraw the hand in which he extended the light, and from that moment it was so swollen, "that some months elapsed before it was healed." The following night he was accompanied in his rounds by a philosopher, Professor Oeder, who was rather sceptical on the subject of apparitions; but on approaching the spot in which the spectre had been seen on the previous evening, there they beheld it again in the same position.

Others attempted to gain a sight of the ghost, but it would not manifest itself, not even to MM. Oeder and Hoefer, until the former gentleman, wearied with his useless watching during a somewhat prolonged period, exclaimed, "I have gone after the spirit long enough to please him; if he now wants anything, let him come to me." But what followed? About fourteen days after, when he was thinking about anything else than of ghosts, he was suddenly and rudely awakened, between three and four o'clock in the morning, by some external motion. On opening his eyes, he saw an apparition opposite to the bed, standing by the clothes-press, which was only two paces from it, that presented itself in the same attire as the spirit. He raised himself up, and could then clearly discern the whole face. He fixed his eyes steadfastly upon the phantom, until, after a period of eight minutes, it became invisible.

The next morning he was again awakened about the same time, and saw the same apparition, only with this difference, that the door of the press made a cracking noise, just as if some one leaned upon it. This time the spirit remained longer, so that Professor Oeder spoke to it as follows: "Get thee hence, thou evil spirit; what hast thou to do here?" At these words the phantom made all kinds of dreadful motions, waved its head, its hands, and its feet in such a manner, that the terrified Professor began to pray, "Who trusts in G.o.d, &c.," and "G.o.d the Father dwell with us, &c.," on which the spirit vanished.

After eight days the spirit again appeared, "but with this difference, that it came from the press directly towards him, and inclined its head over him," whereupon the terrified Professor struck out at it, and the spirit retired; but no sooner had he laid down, than it again advanced, and he, noticing that its aspect was "more in sorrow than in anger,"

observed it attentively, and saw that the ghost had a short tobacco-pipe in its mouth. This circ.u.mstance and the spirit's mild mien induced him to address the ghost, and ask, "Are you still owing anything." He knew beforehand that the deceased had left some debts, and the amount of a few dollars, _which occasioned the inquiry_. The spirit looked attentively at this query; and at length, guided by the tobacco-pipe, when the Professor asked, "Are you perhaps owing something for tobacco?"

the spirit retreated and suddenly disappeared. Measures were immediately taken to liquidate the debt which was found to be owing for tobacco.