Part 18

Another class of phenomena of this kind relates to the great battles that have at times decided the fate of the world. Thus Pausanias already tells us ("Attica," 32), and so do other historians of Greece, how the Plain of Marathon resounded for nearly four centuries every year with the clash of arms and the cries of soldiers. It was evidently the deep and lasting impression made upon a highly sensitive nation, which here was bequeathed from generation to generation, and on the day of the battle, when all was excitement, resulted in the perception of sounds which had no real existence. Events of such colossal proportions, which determine in a few hours the fate of great nations, leave naturally a powerful impress upon contemporaries not only, but also upon the children of that race. Such was, among others, the fearful battle on the Catalaunian Fields, in which the Visi-Goths and Aetius conquered Attila, and one hundred and sixty-two thousand warriors were slain. It was at the time reported that the intense bitterness and exasperation of the armies continued even after the battle, and that for three days the spirits of the fallen were contending with each other with unabated fury. The report grew into a legend, till a firm belief was established that the battle was fought year after year on the memorable day, and that any visitor might behold the passionate spirits as they rose from their graves, armed with their ancient weapons and filled with undiminished fury. One by one the soldiers of the two armies, it was said, leave their lowly graves, rise high into the air, and engage in deadly but silent strife, till they vanish in the clouds. It is well known how successfully the great German painter, Kaulbach, has reproduced the vision in his magnificent fresco of the "Hunnenschlacht." In other countries these ghostly visions assume different forms. Thus the neighborhood of Kerope, in Livonia, is in like manner renowned for a long series of fearful butcheries during the wars between the German knights and the Muscovites. There also, night after night, the shadowy battle is fought over again; but the clashing of arms and the hoarse war-cries are distinctly heard, and the pious traveler hastens away from the blood-soaked plains, uttering his prayers for the souls of the slain. In the Highlands of Scotland also, and on the adjoining islands, most weird and gruesome sights have been watched by young and old in every generation. The dark, dismal atmosphere of those regions, the dense fogs and impenetrable mists, now rising from the sea, and now descending from the mountains, and the fierce, inclement climate, have all combined for ages to predispose the mind for the perception of such strange and mysterious phenomena. Nearly every clan and every family has its own particular ghost, and besides these the whole nation claims a number of common visions and prophetic spirits, whose harps and wild songs are heard faintly and fearfully sounding on high. A friend of Mr. Martin, the author of a work on "Second Sight," used to recite several stanzas belonging to such a prophetic song, which he had heard himself on a sad November day, as it came to him through the drooping clouds and sweeping mists from the summit of a lonely mountain. At funerals also, wonderful voices were heard high in the air, as they accompanied the chanting of the people below, with a music not born upon earth, and filling the heart with strange but sweet sadness. Nearly the same visions are seen and the same songs are heard in Sweden and Norway, proving conclusively that like climatic influences produce also a similar magic life, in individuals not only, but in whole nations. For even if we are disposed to look upon these phenomena as merely strange appearances of clouds and mists, accompanied by the howling and whistling of the wind and the tumbling down of rocks and gravel, there remains the uniformity with which thousands of every generation interpret these sights and sounds into weird visions and solemn chantings.

It is, however, not quite so evident why the peculiar class of visions which is often erroneously called second sight--the beholding of a "double"--should be almost entirely confined to these same northern regions. It is, of course, not unknown to other lands also, and even Holy Writ seems to justify the presumption that the idea of a "double" was familiar to the people of Palestine. For the poor damsel Rhoda, who "for gladness" did not open the door at which Peter knocked, after he had been miraculously liberated, but ran to announce his presence to the friends who were assembled at the house of Mark's brother, was first called mad, and then told: "It is his angel" (Acts xii. 13). They evidently meant, not that it was the spirit of their deceased friend, since they would have been made aware of his death, but a phantom representing his living body. But the number of authentic cases of persons who have seen their own form, is vastly greater at the North than anywhere else. The Celtic superstition of the "fetch," as the appearance of a person's "double" is there called, is too well known to require explanation. But the vision itself is one of the most interesting in the study of magic, since it exhibits most strikingly the great power which the human soul may, under peculiar circumstances, gain and exercise over its own self, leading to complete self-delusion.

A case in which this strange abdication of all self-control led to most desirable consequences, is mentioned by Dr. Mayo. A young man recently from Oxford once saw a friend of his enter the room in which he was dining with some companions. The new comer, just returning from hunting, seemed to them to look unusually pale and was evidently in a state of great excitement. After much urging he at last confessed that he had been seriously disturbed in mind by a man who had kept him close company all the way home. This stranger, on horseback like himself, had been his exact image, down to a new bridle, his own invention, which he had tried that day for the first time. He fancied that this "double" was his own ghost and an omen of his impending death. His friends advised him to confer with the head of his college; this was done, and the latter gave him much good advice, adding the hope that the warning would not be allowed to pass unimproved. It is certain that the apparition made so strong an impression upon the young man as to lead to his entire reformation, at least for a time.

It is claimed by many writers that there are persons who continually have visions, because they live in constant communication with spirits, although in all cases they have to pay a fearful penalty for this sad privilege. They are invariably diseased people, mostly women, who fall into trances, have cataleptic attacks, or suffer of even more painful maladies, and during the time of their affliction behold and converse with the inmates of another world. The most renowned of these seers was a Mrs. Hauffe, who has become well known to the reading world through Dr. J. Kerner's famous work, "The Seeress of Prevorst." A peculiar feature in her case was the fact that the visions she had were invariably announced to bystanders by peculiar sounds, heard by all who were present. The forms assumed by her mysterious visitors varied almost infinitely; now it was a man in a brown gown, and now a woman in white. Often, when the spirits appeared in the open air, and she tried to escape from them by running, she was bodily lifted up and hurried along so fast that her companions could not keep pace with her. It was only later in life that she fell as a patient into the hands of Dr. Kerner, who was quite distinguished as a poet, and had a great renown as a physician for insane people of a special class. His house at Weinsberg in Würtemberg, was filled to overflowing with persons of all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest, and all had visions. Nor was the doctor himself excluded; he also was a seer, and has given in the above-mentioned book a full and most interesting account of the diseases in connection with which magic phenomena are most frequently observed. By the aid of careful observation of actual facts, and using such revelations vouchsafed to him and others as he believed fully trustworthy, he formed a regular theory of visions. First of all he admits that the privilege of communing with spirits is a grievous affliction, and that all of his more thoughtful patients continually prayed to be delivered of the burden. It is evident from all he states that not only the body, but the mind also suffers--and in many cases suffers unto destruction--under the effects of such exceptional powers; that in fact the lines of separation between this life and another life can never be crossed with impunity. His most interesting patient, Mrs. Hauffe, presents the usual mixture of mere fanciful imagery with occasional flashes of truth; her genuine revelations were marvelous, and can only be explained upon the ground of real magic; but with them are mixed up the most absurd theories and the most startling contradictions. She insisted, however, upon the fact that only those spirits could commune with mortal man who were detained in the middle realm--between heaven and hell--the spirits of men who were in this life unable, though not unwilling, to believe that "God could forgive their sins for the sake of Christ's death." She was often tried by Dr. Kerner and others; she was told that certain still living persons had died, and asked to summon their spirits, but she was never misled. There can be no doubt that the poor woman was sincere in her statements; but she was apparently unable to distinguish between real visions in a trance and the mere offspring of her imagination. That her peculiarities were closely connected with her bodily condition is, moreover, proved by the fact that her whole family suffered in similar manner and enjoyed similar powers; a brother and a sister, as well as her young son, all had visions and heard mysterious noises. The latter were, in fact, perceptible to all the inmates of the strange house; even the great skeptic, Dr. Strausz, who once visited it, heard "long, fearful groanings" close to his amiable hostess, who had fallen asleep on her sofa. Nor were the ghosts content with disturbing the patients and their excellent physician; they made themselves known to their friends and neighbors, also, and even the good minister in the little town had much to suffer from nightly knockings and strange utterances.

Dr. Kerner himself heard many spirits, but saw only one, and that only as "a grayish pillar;" on the other hand he witnessed countless mysterious phenomena which occurred in his patients' bedrooms. Now he beheld Mrs. Hauffe's boots pulled off by invisible hands, while she herself was lying almost inanimate, in a trance, on her bed, and now he heard her reveal secrets which, upon writing to utterly unknown persons at a great distance, proved to be correctly stated. What makes a thorough investigation of all these phenomena peculiarly difficult, is the fact that Dr. Kerner's house became an asylum for somnambulists as well as for real patients, and that by this mixture the scientific value of his observations, as regards their psychological interest, is seriously impaired. He himself was a sincere believer in magic phenomena; almost all of his friends and neighbors, from the humblest peasant to the most cultivated men of science, believed in him and his statements, and there can be no doubt that astonishing revelations were made and extraordinary powers became manifest in his house. But here, also, the difficulty of separating the few grains of truth from the great mass of willful, as well as of unconscious delusion, is almost overwhelming, and our final judgment must be held in suspense, till more light has been thrown on the subject. Dr. Kerner's son, who succeeded his father at his death in 1862, still keeps up the remarkable establishment at Weinsberg; but exclusively for the cure of certain diseases by magnetism.

VI.

DIVINATION.

"There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination."

--DEUT. xviii. 9.

The usual activity of our mind is limited to the perception of the world around us, and its life, as far as the power of our senses reaches; it must, therefore, necessarily be confined within the limits of space and time. There are, however, specially favored men among us who profess an additional power, or even ordinary men may be thus endowed under peculiar circumstances, as when they are under the influence of nervous affections, trances, or even merely in an unusual state of excitement. Then they are no longer subject to the usual laws of distance in space, or remoteness in time; they perceive as immediately present what lies beyond the reach of others, and the magic power by which this is accomplished is called Divination. This vision is never quite clear, nor always complete or correct, for even such exceptionable powers are in all cases more or less subject to the imperfections of our nature; habitual notions, an ill-executed imagination, and often a disordered state of the system, all interfere with its perfect success. These imperfections, moreover, not only affect the value of such magic perceptions, but obscure the genuine features by a number of false statements and of erroneous impressions, which quite legitimately excite a strong prejudice against the whole subject. Hence, especially, the rigor of the Church against divination in every form; it has ever ascribed the errors mixed up with the true parts of such revelations to the direct influence of the Evil One. The difficulty, however, arises that such magic powers have nothing at all to do with the question of morality; the saint and the criminal may possess them alike, since they are elements of our common nature, hidden in the vast majority of cases, and coming into view and into life only in rare exceptional instances.

Divination, as freed from the ordinary limits of our perceptions, appears either as clairvoyance, when things are seen which are beyond the range of natural vision, or as prophecy, when the boundary lines of time are overstepped. The latter appears again in its weakest form as a mere anticipation of things to come, or rises to perfection in the actual foretelling of future events. It is sad enough to learn from the experience of all nations that the occurrences thus foreseen are almost invariably great misfortunes, yet our surprise will cease if we remember that the tragic in life exercises by far the greatest influence on our mind, and excites it far beyond all other events. Nor must we overlook the marvelous unanimity with which such magic powers are admitted to exist in Man by all nations on earth. The explanation, also, is invariably the same, namely, that Man possessed originally the command over space and time as well as God himself, but that when sin came into the world and affected his earth-born body, this power was lost, and preserved only to appear in exceptional and invariably most painful cases. So thought the ancients even long before revelation had spoken. They believed that Man had had a previous god-like existence before appearing upon earth, where he was condemned to expiate the sins of his former life, while his immortal and divine soul was chained to a perishing earthy body. Plato, Plutarch, and Pythagoras, Cicero (in his book _De Divinatione_), and even Porphyrius, all admit without hesitation the power of divination, and speak of its special vigor in the moments preceding death. Melanchthon ascribed warning dreams to the prophetic power of the human soul. Brierre de Boismont also is forced to admit that not all cases of clairvoyance and prophesying are the results of hallucination by diseased persons; he speaks, on the contrary, and in spite of his bitter skepticism, of instances in which the increased powers of perception are the effect of "supernatural intuition."

One of the most prolific sources of error in Divination has ever been the variety of means employed for the purpose of causing the preparatory state of trance. It is well known in our day that the mind may be most strangely affected by innumerable agencies which are apparently purely mechanical, and often utterly absurd. Such are an intent gazing at highly-polished surfaces of metal, or into the bright inside of a gold cup, at the shining sides of a crystal, or the varying hues of a glass globe; now vessels filled with pure water, and now ink poured into the hand of a child, answer the same purpose. Fortune-telling from the lines of the hand or the chance combinations of playing-cards are, in this aspect, on a par with the prophecies of astrologers drawn from the constellations in the heavens. It need hardly be added that this almost infinite variety of more or less absurd measures has nothing at all to do with the awaking of magic power, and continues in use only from the prestige which some of the means, like the cup of Joseph and the mirror of Varro, derive from their antiquity. Their sole purpose is uniformly to withdraw the seer's attention from all outward objects, and to make him, by steadily gazing at one and the same object, concentrate his thoughts and feelings exclusively upon his own self. Experience has taught that such efforts, long continued, result finally in utter loss of feeling, in unconsciousness, and frequently even in catalepsy. It is generally only under such peculiarly painful circumstances that the unusual powers of our being can become visible and begin to operate. While these results may be obtained, as recent experiments have proved, even by mere continued squinting, barbarous nations employ the most violent means for the same purpose--the whirling of dervishes, the drumming and dancing of northern shamans, the deafening music of the Moors, are all means of the same kind to excite the rude and fierce nature of savages to a state of excessive excitement. In all cases, however, we must notice the comparative sterility of such divination, and the penalty which has to be paid for most meagre results by injuries inflicted upon the body, and by troubles caused in the mind, which, if they do not become fatal to life, are invariably so to happiness and peace. That the sad privilege may have to be paid for with life itself, we learn already from Plutarch's account of a priestess who became so furious while prophesying, that not only the strangers but the priests themselves fled in dismay, while she herself expired a few hours later (II. p. 438).

The state in which all forms of divination are most apt to show themselves is by theologians called _ecstasis_, when it is caused by means specially employed for the purpose and appears as a literally "being beside one's self"; by its side they speak of _raptus_, when the abnormal state suddenly begins during an act of ordinary life, such as walking, working, or even praying. The distinction is of no value as to the nature of the magic powers themselves, which are in all cases the same; it refers exclusively to the outer form.

One of the simplest methods is the Deasil-walking of the Scotch Highlanders: the seer walks rapidly three times, with the sun, around the person whose future is to be foretold, and thus produces a trance, in which his magic powers become available. Walter Scott's "Chronicles of the Canongate" gives a full account of this ceremony. Robin Oig's aunt performs the ceremony, and then warns him in great terror, that she has seen a bloody dagger in his hand, stained with English blood, and beseeches him to stay at home. He disregards the omen, kills the same night an Englishman, a cattle-dealer, and pays for the crime with his life.

In the East, on the contrary, the usual form is to employ a young boy, taken at haphazard from the street, and to force him to gaze intently at Indian ink poured into the hollow of the hand, at molten lead, wax poured into cold water, the paten of a priest or a shining sword, with which several men have been killed. General readers will recall the famous boy of Cairo, who saw thus, in the dark, glittering surface of ink, the great Nelson--curiously enough as in a mirror, for he reported the image to be without the left arm and to wear the left sleeve across the breast, while the great admiral had lost his right arm and wore the right sleeve suspended. Burke, in his amusing "Anecdotes of the Aristocracy," etc. (I. p. 124), relates how the "magician" Magraubin in Alexandria appeared with a ten-year-old Coptic boy before the officers of H. M's. ship _Vanguard_. After burning much incense and uttering many unintelligible formulas he rolled a paper in the shape of a cornucopia, filled it with ink, and bade the boy tell them what he saw. As usual, he saw first a broom sweeping, and was thoroughly frightened. When a young midshipman asked him to inquire what would be his fate, he described instantly a sailor with gold on the shoulders, fighting against Indians till he fell dead; then came friends and buried him under a tree on a hill. The midshipman, Croker, returned home, abandoned the sea, and became a landowner in one of the midland counties of England, where he often laughed at the absurd prediction. Long years afterwards, however, when there was a sudden want of seamen, he was recalled into service and sent on a long cruise. He rose to become a captain, and while in command of a frigate fell, upon the island of Tongataboo, in a skirmish with the natives, whereupon he was interred there under a lofty palm-tree which stood on a commanding eminence. The same author repeats (I. p. 357) the well-known story of Lady Eleanor Campbell, which is in substance as follows: