Now, in these cases we are almost compelled to believe that the phenomenon is purely subjective, and there is no veritable outstanding object seen; yet, when we have taken refuge in this hypothesis, the difficulty remains as great as ever; and is to me much more incomprehensible than ghost-seeing, because in the latter we suppose an external agency acting in some way or other on the seer.
I have already mentioned that Oberlin, the good pastor of Ban de la Roche, himself a ghost-seer, asserted that everything earthly had its counterpart, or antitype, in the other world, not only organized, but unorganized matter. If so, do we sometimes see these antitypes?
Dr. Ennemoser, in treating of second-sight—which, by the way, is quite as well known in Germany, and especially in Denmark, as in the highlands of Scotland—says, that as in natural somnambulism there is a partial internal vigilance, so does the seer fall, while awake, into a dream-state. He suddenly becomes motionless and stiff: his eyes are open, and his senses are, while the vision lasts, unperceptive of all external objects; the vision may be communicated by the touch, and sometimes persons at a distance from each other, but connected by blood or sympathy, have the vision simultaneously. He remarks, also, that, as we have seen in the above case of Mr. C——, any attempt to frustrate the fulfilment of the vision never succeeds, inasmuch as the attempt appears to be taken into the account.
The seeing in glass and in crystals is equally inexplicable; as is the magical seeing of the Egyptians. Every now and then we hear it said that this last is discovered to be an imposition, because some traveller has either actually fallen into the hands of an impostor—and there are impostors in all trades—or because the phenomenon was imperfectly exhibited; a circumstance which, as in the exhibitions of clairvoyants and somnambulists, where all the conditions are not under command, or even recognised, must necessarily happen. But not to mention the accounts published by Mr. Lane and Lord Prudhoe, whoever has read that of Monsieur Léon Laborde must be satisfied that the thing is an indisputable fact. It is, in fact, only another form of the seeing in crystals, which has been known in all ages, and of which many modern instances have occurred among somnambulic patients.
We see by the forty-fourth chapter of Genesis that it was by his cup that Joseph prophesied: “Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth?” But, as Dr. Passavent observes, and as we shall presently see, in the anecdote of the boy and the gipsy, the virtue does not lie in the glass nor in the water, but in the seer himself, who may possess a more or less developed faculty. The external objects and ceremonies being only the means of concentrating the attention and intensifying the power.
Monsieur Léon Laborde witnessed the exhibition, at Cairo, before Lord P——’s visit; the exhibitor, named Achmed, appeared to him a respectable man, who spoke simply of his science, and had nothing of the charlatan about him. The first child employed was a boy eleven years old, the son of a European; and Achmed having traced some figures on the palm of his hand, and poured ink over them, bade him look for the reflection of his own face. The child said he saw it; the magician then burnt some powders in a brazier, and bade him tell him when he saw a soldier sweeping a place; and while the fumes from the brazier diffused themselves, he pronounced a sort of litany. Presently the child threw back his head, and screaming with terror, sobbed out, while bathed in tears, that he had seen a dreadful face. Fearing the boy might be injured, Monsieur Laborde now called up a little Arab servant, who had never seen or heard of the magician. He was gay and laughing, and not at all frightened; and the ceremony being repeated, he said he saw the soldier sweeping in the front of a tent. He was then desired to bid the soldier bring Shakspere, Colonel Cradock, and several other persons; and he described every person and thing so exactly as to be entirely satisfactory. During the operations the boy looked as if intoxicated, with his eyes fixed and the perspiration dripping from his brow. Achmed disenchanted him by placing his thumbs on his eyes. He gradually recovered, and gayly related all he had seen, which he perfectly remembered.
Now this is merely another form of what the Laplanders, the African magicians, and the Schaamans of Siberia, do by taking narcotics and turning round till they fall down in a state of insensibility, in which condition they are clear-seers, and besides vaticinating, describe scenes, places, and persons, they have never seen. In Barbary they anoint their hands with a black ointment, and then holding them up in the sun, they see whatever they desire, like the Egyptians.
Lady S—— possesses somewhat of a singular faculty, naturally. By walking rapidly round a room several times, till a certain degree of vertigo is produced, she will name to you any person you have privately thought of or agreed upon with others. Her phrase is: “I see” so and so.
Monsieur Laborde purchased the secret of Achmed, who said he had learned it from two celebrated scheicks of his own country, which was Algiers. Monsieur L. found it connected with both physics and magnetism, and practised it himself afterward with perfect success; and he affirms, positively, that under the influence of a particular organization and certain ceremonies, among which he can not distinguish which are indispensable and which are not, that a child, without fraud or collusion, can see, as through a window or peep-hole, people moving, who appear and disappear at their command, and with whom they hold communication—and they remember everything after the operation. He says: “I narrate, but explain nothing; I produced those effects, but can not comprehend them; I only affirm in the most positive manner that what I relate is true. I performed the experiment in various places, with various subjects, before numerous witnesses, in my own room or other rooms, in the open air, and even in a boat on the Nile. The exactitude and detailed descriptions of persons, places, and scenes, could by no possibility be feigned.”
Moreover, Baron Dupotet has very lately succeeded in obtaining these phenomena in Paris, from persons not somnambulic selected from his audience,—the chief difference being that they did not recollect what they had seen when the crisis was over.