The crystal ball, in the proper hands, merely illustrates the possibility of artificially reviving memory, while the fanciful visions, akin to illusions hypnagogiques, have, in all ages, been interpreted by superstition as revelations of the distant or the future. Of course, if there is such a thing as occasional transference of thought, so that the idea in the inquirer’s mind is reflected in the crystal-gazer’s vision, the hypothesis of the superstitious will fix on this as a miracle, still more will that hypothesis be strengthened, if future or distant events, not consciously known, are beheld. Such things must occasionally occur, by chance, in the myriad confusions of dreams, and, to the same extent, in crystal visions. Miss X.’s three cases of possible telepathy in her own experience are trivial, and do not seem to rise beyond the possibility of fortuitous coincidence: and her possible clairvoyant visions she leaves to the judgment of the reader, ‘to interpret as clairvoyance, or coincidence, or prevision, or whatever else he will’. The crystal-gazer known to the author once managed to see the person (unknown to her) who was in the mind of the other party in the experiment. But she has made scarcely any experiments of this description.
The inferences to be drawn from crystal-gazing are not unimportant. First, we note that the practice is very ancient and widely diffused, among civilised and uncivilised people. In this diffusion it answers to the other practices, the magical rites of Australian blacks, Greeks, Eskimo; to the stories of ‘death-bed wraiths,’ of rappings, and so forth. Now this uniformity, as far as regards the latter phenomena, may be explained by transmission of ideas, or by the uniformity of human nature, while the phenomena themselves may be mere inventions like other myths. In the case of crystal-gazing, however, we can scarcely push scepticism so far as to deny that the facts exist, that hallucinations are actually provoked. The inference is that a presumption is raised in favour of the actuality of the other phenomena universally reported. They, too, may conceivably be hallucinatory; the rappings and haunting noises may be auditory, as the crystal visions are ocular hallucinations. The sounds so widely attested may not cause vibrations in the air, just as the visions are not really in the crystal ball. As the unconscious self suggests the pictures in the ball, so it may suggest the unexplained noises. But while, as a rule, only one gazer sees the visions, the sounds (usually but not invariably) are heard by all present. On the whole, the one case wherein we find facts, if only facts of hallucination, at the bottom of the belief in a world-wide and world-old practice, rather tends in the direction of belief in the other facts, not less universally alleged. We know too much about mythology to agree with Dr. Johnson, in holding that ‘a belief, which prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth,’ that ‘those who never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience could make credible’. But, on the other hand, a belief is not necessarily untrue, because it is universally diffused.
In the second place, crystal-gazing shows how a substratum of fact may be so overlaid with mystic mummeries, incantations, fumigations, pentacles: and so overwhelmed in superstitious interpretations, introducing fairies and spirits, that the facts run the risk of being swept away in the litter and dust of nonsense. Science has hardly thought crystal-gazing worthy even of contempt, yet it appears to deserve the notice of psychologists. To persons who can ‘scry,’ and who do not see hideous illusions, or become hypnotised, or superstitious, or incur headaches, scrying is a harmless gateway into Les Paradis Artificiels. ‘And the rest, they may live and learn.’ [{223}]
A very few experiments will show people whether they are scryers, or not. The phenomena, it seems, are usually preceded by a mistiness, or milkiness, of the glass: this clears off, and pictures appear. Even the best scryers often fail to see anything in the crystal which maintains its natural ‘diaphaneity,’ as Dr. Dee says. Thus the conditions under which the scryer can scry, are, as yet, unascertained.
The phenomena of scrying were not unknown to Dr. Gregory, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Gregory believed in ‘odylic fluid’ on the evidence of Reichenbach’s experiments, which nobody seems to have repeated successfully under strict tests. Clairvoyance also was part of Dr. Gregory’s faith, and, to be fair, phenomena were exhibited at his house, in the presence of a learned and distinguished witness known to the writer, which could only be accounted for either by thought transference, or by an almost, or quite incredible combination of astuteness, and imposture on the side of Dr. Gregory himself. In presence of the clairvoyants the nobleman of whom we speak thought not of his own house, but of a room in the house of a friend. It possessed a very singular feature which it is needless to describe here, but which was entirely out of the experience of the clairvoyante. She described it, however, expressing astonishment at what she ‘saw’. This, unless Dr. Gregory guessed what was likely to be thought of, and was guilty of collusion, can only be explained by thought transference. In other cases the doctor was convinced that he had evidence of actual clairvoyance, and it is difficult to estimate the amount of evidence which will clear such a belief of the charge of credulity. As to ‘scrying’ the doctor thought it could be done in ‘mesmerised water,’ water bewitched. There is no reason to imagine that ‘mesmerised’ is different from ordinary water. [{224}] He knew that folklore retained the belief in scrying in crystal balls, and added some superfluous magical incantations. The doctor himself was lucky enough to buy an old magical crystal in which some boys, after long staring, saw persons unknown to themselves, but known to the professor, and also persons known to neither. A little girl, casually picking up a crystal ball, cried, ‘There’s a ship in it, with its cloth all in rags. Now it tumbles down, and a woman is working at it, and holds her head in her hand.’ This is a very fair example of a crystal fancy picture. The child’s mother, not having heard what the child said, saw the same vision (p. 165). But this is a story at third hand. The doctor has a number of cases, and held that crystal possesses an ‘odylic’ quality. But a ball of glass serves just as well as a ball of crystal, and is much less expensive.
Children are naturally visionaries, and, as such, are good subjects for experiment. But it may be a cruel, and is a most injudicious thing, to set children a-scrying. Superstition may be excited, or the half-conscious tendency to deceive may be put in motion.
Socrates and Joan of Arc were visionaries as children. Had Joan’s ears been soundly boxed, as Robert de Baudricourt advised, France might now be an English province. But they were not boxed, happily for mankind. Certainly much that is curious may be learned by any one who, having the confidence of a child, will listen to his, or her, accounts of spontaneous visions. The writer, as a boy, knew a child who used to lie prone on the grass watching fairies at play in the miniature forest of blades and leaves. This child had a favourite familiar whom he described freely, but as his remarks were received with good-humoured scepticism, no harm came to him. He would have made a splendid scryer, still, ‘I speak of him but brotherly,’ his revelations would have been taken with the largest allowances. If scrying, on examination, proves to be of real psychological interest, science will owe another debt to folklore, to the folk who kept alive a practice which common-sense would not deign even to examine.
THE SECOND SIGHT
The Gillie and the fire-raising. Survival of belief in second sight. Belief in ancient Greece and elsewhere. Examples in Lapland. Early evidence as to Scotch second sight. Witches burned for this gift. Examples among the Covenanting Ministers. Early investigations by English authors: Pepys, Aubrey, Boyle, Dicky Steele, De Foe, Martin, Kirk, Frazer, Dr. Johnson. Theory of visions as caused by Fairies. Modern example of Miss H. Theory of Frazer of Tiree (1700). ‘Revived impressions of sense.’ Examples. Agency of Angels. Martin. Modern cases. Bodily condition of the seer. Not epileptic. The second-sighted Minister. The visionary Beadle. Transference of vision by touch. Conclusion.
Some years ago, the author was fishing in a river of Inverness-shire. He drove to the stream, picked up an old gillie named Campbell, and then went on towards the spot where he meant to begin angling. A sheep that lay on the road jumped up suddenly, almost under the horse’s feet, the horse shied, and knocked the dogcart against a wall. On the homeward way we observed a house burning, opposite the place where the horse shied, and found that a farmer had been evicted, and his cottage set on fire. This unhappy person, it seems, was in debt to all his tradesmen, not to his landlord only. The fire-raising, however, was an excessively barbaric method of getting him to leave the parish, and the view justified the indignation of the gillie. The old gillie, much excited, declared that the horse had foreseen this event in the morning, and had, consequently, shied. In a more sceptical spirit the author reminded Campbell of the sheep which started up. ‘That sheep was the devil,’ Campbell explained, nor could this rational belief of his be shaken. The affair led to a conversation on the second sight, and Campbell said, ‘he had it not,’ ‘but his sister (or sister-in-law) had it’.