APPARITIONS SEEKING THE PRAYERS OF THE LIVING.
With regard to the appearance of ghosts, the frequency of haunted houses, presentiments, prognostics, and dreams, if we come to inquire closely, it appears to me that all parts of the world are much on an equality—only, that where people are most engaged in business or pleasure, these things are, in the first place, less thought of and less believed in, consequently less observed; and when they are observed, they are readily explained away: and in the second place—where the external life, the life of the brain, wholly prevails—either they do not happen, or they are not perceived—the rapport not existing, or the receptive faculty being obscured.
But, although the above phenomena seem to be equally well known in all countries, there is one peculiar class of apparitions of which I meet with no records but in Germany. I allude to ghosts, who, like those described in the “Seeress of Prevorst,” seek the prayers of the living. In spite of the positive assertions of Kerner, Eschenmayer, and others, that after neglecting no means to investigate the affair, they had been forced into the conviction that the spectres that frequented Frederica Hauffe were not subjective illusions, but real outstanding forms, still, as she was in the somnambulic state, many persons remain persuaded that the whole thing was delusion. It is true, that as those parties were not there, and as all those who did go to the spot came to a different conclusion, this opinion being only the result of preconceived notions or prejudices, and not of calm investigation, is of no value whatever; nevertheless, it is not to be denied that these narrations are very extraordinary; but, perplexing as they are, they by no means stand alone. I find many similar ones noticed in various works, where there has been no somnambule in question. In all cases, these unfortunate spirits appear to have been waiting for some one with whom they could establish a rapport, so as to be able to communicate with them; and this waiting has sometimes endured a century or more. Sometimes they are seen by only one person, at other times by several, with varying degrees of distinctness, appearing to one as a light, to another as a shadowy figure, and to a third as a defined human form. Other testimonies of their presence—as sounds, footsteps, lights, visible removing of solid articles without a visible agent, odors, &c.—are generally perceived by many; in short, the sounds seem audible to all who come to the spot, with the exception of the voice, which in most instances is only heard by the person with whom the rapport is chiefly established. Some cases are related, where a mark like burning is left on the articles seen to be lifted. This is an old persuasion, and has given rise to many a joke. But, upon the hypothesis I have offered, the thing is simple enough: the mark will probably be of the same nature as that left by the electrical fluid;—and it is this particular, and the lights that often accompany spirits, that have caused the notion of material flames, sulphur, brimstone, &c., to be connected with the idea of a future state. According to our views, there can be no difficulty in conceiving that a happy and blessed spirit would emit a mild radiance; while anger or malignity would necessarily alter the character of the effulgence.
As whoever wishes to see a number of these cases may have recourse to my translation of the “Seeress of Prevorst,” I will here only relate one, of a very remarkable nature, that occurred in the prison of Weinsberg, in the year 1835.
Dr. Kerner, who has published a little volume containing a report of the circumstances, describes the place where the thing happened to be such a one as negatives at once all possibility of trick or imposture. It was in a sort of block-house or fortress—a prison within a prison—with no windows but what looked into a narrow passage, closed with several doors. It was on the second floor; the windows were high up, heavily barred with iron, and immovable without considerable mechanical force. The external prison is surrounded by a high wall, and the gates are kept closed day and night. The prisoners in different apartments are of course never allowed to communicate with each other, and the deputy-governor of the prison and his family, consisting of a wife, niece, and one maid-servant, are described as people of unimpeachable respectability and veracity. As depositions regarding this affair were laid before the magistrates, it is on them I found my narration.
On the 12th September, 1835, the deputy-governor or keeper of the jail, named Mayer, sent in a report to the magistrates that a woman called Elizabeth Eslinger was every night visited by a ghost, which generally came about eleven o’clock, and which left her no rest, as it said she was destined to release it, and it always invited her to follow it; and as she would not, it pressed heavily on her neck and side till it gave her pain. The persons confined with her pretended also to have seen this apparition.
| Signed | “Mayer.” |
A woman named Rosina Schahl, condemned to eight days’ confinement for abusive language, deposed, that about eleven o’clock, Eslinger began to breathe hard as if she was suffocating; she said a ghost was with her, seeking his salvation. “I did not trouble myself about it, but told her to wake me when it came again. Last night I saw a shadowy form, between four and five feet high, standing near the bed; I did not see it move. Eslinger breathed very hard, and complained of a pressure on the side. For several days she has neither ate nor drank anything.
| Signed | “Schahl.” |
“COURT RESOLVES,