It is worthy of observation, that idiots often possess some gleams of this faculty of second-sight or presentiment; and it is probably on this account that they are in some countries held sacred. Presentiment, which I think may very probably be merely the vague and imperfect recollection of what we knew in our sleep, is often observed in drunken people.
In the great plague at Basle, which occurred toward the end of the sixteenth century, almost everybody who died called out in their last moments the name of the person that was to follow them next.
Not long ago, a servant girl on the estate of D——, of S——, saw with amazement five figures ascending a perpendicular cliff, quite inaccessible to human feet; one was a boy wearing a cap with red binding. She watched them with great curiosity till they reached the top, where they all stretched themselves on the earth, with countenances expressive of great dejection. While she was looking at them they disappeared, and she immediately related her vision. Shortly afterward, a foreign ship, in distress, was seen to put off a boat with four men and a boy: the boat was dashed to pieces in the surf, and the five bodies, exactly answering the description she had given, were thrown on shore at the foot of the cliff, which they had perhaps climbed in the spirit!
How well what we call clairvoyance was known, though how little understood, at the period of the witch persecution, is proved by what Dr. Henry More says in his “Antidote against Atheism”:—
“We will now pass to those supernatural effects which are observed in them that are bewitched or possessed; and such as foretelling things to come, telling what such and such persons speak or do, as exactly as if they were by them, when the party possessed is at one end of the town, and sitting in a house within doors, and those parties that act and confer together are without, at the other end of the town; to be able to see some and not others; to play at cards with one certain person, and not to discern anybody else at the table beside him; to act and talk, and go up and down, and tell what will become of things, and what happens in those fits of possession; and then, as soon as the possessed or bewitched party is out of them, to remember nothing at all, but to inquire concerning the welfare of those whose faces they seemed to look upon just before, when they were in their fits;”—a state which he believes to arise from the devil’s having taken possession of the body of the magnetic person, which is precisely the theory supported by many fanatical persons in our own day. Dr. More was not a fanatic: but these phenomena, though very well understood by the ancient philosophers, as well as by Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Cornelius Agrippa, Jacob Behmen, a Scotch physician (called Maxwell) who published on the subject in the seventeenth century, and many others, were still, when observed, looked upon as the effects of diabolical influence by mankind in general.
When Monsieur Six Deniers, the artist, was drowned in the Seine in 1846, after his body had been vainly sought, a somnambule was applied to, in whose hands they placed a portfolio belonging to him; and being asked where the owner was, she evinced great terror, held up her dress as if walking in the water, and said that he was between two boats, under the Pont des Arts, with nothing on but a flannel waistcoat: and there he was found.
A friend of mine knows a lady who, early one morning—being in a natural state of clairvoyance without magnetism—saw the porter of the house where her son lodged ascend to his room with a carving-knife, go to his bed where he lay asleep, lean over him, then open a chest, take out a fifty-pound note, and retire. On the following day, she went to her son and asked him if he had any money in the house; he said, “Yes, I have fifty pounds:” whereupon she bade him seek it, but it was gone. They stopped payment of the note; but did not prosecute, thinking the evidence insufficient. Subsequently, the porter being taken up for other crimes, the note was found crumpled up at the bottom of an old purse belonging to him.
Dr. Ennemoser says that there is no doubt of the ancient Sibyls having been clairvoyant women, and that it is impossible so much value could have been attached to their books, had not their revelations been verified.
A maid-servant residing in a family in Northumberland, one day last winter was heard to utter a violent scream immediately after she had left the kitchen. On following her to inquire what had happened, she said that she had just seen her father in his night-clothes, with a most horrible countenance, and she was sure something dreadful had happened to him. Two days afterward there arrived a letter, saying he had been seized with delirium tremens, and was at the point of death; which accordingly ensued.
There are innumerable cases of this sort recorded in various collections, not to mention the much more numerous ones that meet with no recorder; and I could myself mention many more, but these will suffice—one, however, I will not omit, for, though historical, it is not generally known. A year before the rebellion broke out, in consequence of which Lord Kilmarnock lost his head, the family were one day startled by a scream, and on rushing out to inquire what had occurred, they found the servants all assembled, in amazement, with the exception of one maid, who they said had gone up to the garrets to hang some linen on the lines to dry. On ascending thither, they found the girl on the floor, in a state of insensibility; and they had no sooner revived her than, on seeing Lord Kilmarnock bending over her, she screamed and fainted again. When ultimately recovered, she told them that while hanging up her linen, and singing, the door had burst open and his lordship’s bloody head had rolled in. I think it came twice. This event was so well known at the time, that on the first rumors of the rebellion, Lord Saltoun said, “Kilmarnock will lose his head.” It was answered, “that Kilmarnock had not joined the rebels.” “He will, and will be beheaded,” returned Lord Saltoun.