One night, while lying awake observing these phenomena, they fancied they heard their horse come out of his stable, which was under their room. In the morning, he was found standing outside, with his halter on; it was not broken, and it was evident that the horse had not got loose by any violence. Moreover, the door of the stable was closed behind him, as it had been at night when he was shut up.
Dr. Kerner’s sister, who came from a distance to visit them, had heard very little about this affair, yet she was awakened by a sound that seemed like some one trying to speak into her ear; and, looking up, she saw two stars, like those described by Margaret Laibesberg. She observed that they emitted no rays. She also felt the cool air, and perceived the corpse-like odor. This odor accompanied the ghost even when it appeared at Heilbronn.
It is remarkable that some of these persons, both men and women, felt themselves unable to move or call out while the spectre was there, and that they were relieved the moment he went away. They appeared to be magnetized; but this feeling was by no means universal. Many were perfectly composed and self-possessed the whole time, and made their observations to each other. All agreed that the speaking of the apparition seemed like that of a person making efforts to speak. Now, as we are to presume that he did not speak by means of organs, as we do, but that he imitated the sounds of words as he imitated other sounds, by some means with which we are unacquainted—for since the noises were heard by everybody within hearing, we must suppose that they actually existed—we, who know the extreme difficulty of imitating human speech, may conceive how this imitation should be very defective.
Dutthenhofer and others remarked that there was no echo from the sounds, as well as that the phosphorescence shed no light around; and though the spectre could touch them, or produce the sensation that he did, they could not feel him: but, as in all similar cases, could thrust their hands through what appeared to be his body. The sensation of his falling tears, and the marks they left, seem most unaccountable; and yet, in the records of a ghost that haunted the countess of Eberstein, in 1685, we find the same thing asserted. This account was made public by the authority of the consistorial court, and with the consent of the family.
At length, on the 11th of February, the ghost took his departure from Eslinger; at least, after that day he was no more seen or heard by her or anybody else. He had always entreated her to go to Wimmenthal, where he had formerly lived, to pray for him; and, after she was released from the jail, by the advice of her friends, she did it. Some of them accompanied her, and they saw the apparition near her while she was kneeling in the open air, though not all with equal distinctness. A very respectable woman, called Wörner—a stranger to Eslinger, whom she says she never saw or spoke to till that day—offered to make oath that she had accompanied her to Wimmenthal, and that, with the other friends, she had stood about thirty paces off, quite silent and still, while the woman knelt and prayed; and that she had seen the apparition of a man, accompanied by two smaller spectres, hovering near her. “When the prayer was ended, he went close to her, and there was a light like a falling star; then I saw something like a white cloud, that seemed to float away: and after that, we saw no more.”
Eslinger had been very unwilling to undertake this expedition: she took leave of her children before she started, and evidently expected mischief would befall her; and now, on approaching her, they found her lying cold and insensible. When they had revived her, she told them that, on bidding her farewell, before he ascended—which he did, accompanied by two bright infantine forms—the ghost had asked her to give him her hand; and that, after wrapping it in her handkerchief, she had complied. “A small flame had arisen from the handkerchief when he touched it; and we found the marks of his fingers like burns, but without any smell.” This, however, was not the cause of her fainting; but she had been terrified by a troop of frightful animals that she saw rush past her, when the spirit floated away.
From this time, nobody, either in the prison or out of it, was troubled with this apparition.
This is certainly a very extraordinary story; and what is more extraordinary, such cases do not seem to be very uncommon in Germany. I meet with many recorded: and an eminent German scholar of my acquaintance tells me that he has also heard of several, and was surprised that we have no similar instances here. If these things occurred merely among the Roman catholics, we might be inclined to suppose that they had some connection with their notion of purgatory: but, on the contrary, it appears to be among the Lutheran population they chiefly occur—insomuch that it has even been suggested that the omission of prayers for the dead, in the Lutheran church, is the cause of the phenomenon. But, on the other hand, as in the present case, and in several others, the person that revisits the earth was of the catholic persuasion when alive, we are bound to suppose that he had the benefit of his own church’s prayers.
I am here assuming that all the above strange phenomena were really produced by the agency of an apparition. If they were not, what were they? The three physicians, who were among the visiters, must have been perfectly aware of the contagious nature of some forms of nervous disorder, and from the previous incredulity of two of them, they must have been quite prepared to regard these phenomena from that point of view; yet they seem unable to bring them under the category of sensuous illusions.
The apparently electrical nature of the lights, and of several of the sounds, is very remarkable, as are also the swellings produced on some of the persons by the touch of the ghost, which remind us of Professor Hofer’s case, mentioned in a former chapter. The apparition of the dog and the lambs also, strange as they are, are by no means isolated cases. These appearances seem to be symbolical: the father had been evil, and had led his son to do evil, and he appeared in the degraded form of a dog; and the innocence of the children, who had been, probably, in some way wronged, was symbolized by their appearing as lambs. “If I had lived as a beast,” said an apparition to the Seeress of Provorst, “I should appear as a beast.” These symbolical transfigurations can not appear very extravagant to those who accept the belief of many theologians, that the serpent of the garden of Eden was an evil spirit incarnated in that degraded form.