“The wish to strike a fatal blow at the monster superstition, which, at no distant period, poured out upon European society from a similar source, such inexpressible misery, when, in trials for witchcraft, not hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings perished miserably, either on the scaffold, at the stake, or by the effects of torture—this desire induced the author to try the experiment of bringing, if possible, a highly-sensitive patient by night to a churchyard. It appeared possible that such a person might see, over graves in which mouldering bodies lie, something similar to that which Billing had seen. Mdlle. Reichel had the courage, rare in her sex, to gratify this wish of the author. On two very dark nights she allowed herself to be taken from the castle of Reisenberg, where she was living with the author’s family, to the neighboring churchyard of Grunzing. The result justified his anticipation in the most beautiful manner. She very soon saw a light, and observed on one of the graves, along its length, a delicate, breathing flame: she also saw the same thing, only weaker on the second grave. But she saw neither witches nor ghosts; she described the fiery appearances as a shining vapor, one to two spans high, extending as far as the grave, and floating near its surface. Some time afterward she was taken to two large cemeteries near Vienna, where several burials occur daily, and graves lie about by thousands. Here she saw numerous graves provided with similar lights. Wherever she looked, she saw luminous masses scattered about. But this appearance was most vivid over the newest graves, while in the oldest it could not be perceived. She described the appearance less as a clear flame than as a dense, vaporous mass of fire, intermediate between fog and flame. On many graves the flames were four feet high, so that when she stood on them, it surrounded her up to the neck. If she thrust her hand into it, it was like putting it into a dense, fiery cloud. She betrayed no uneasiness, because she had all her life been accustomed to such emanations, and had seen the same, in the author’s experiments, often produced by natural causes.
“Many ghost-stories will now find their natural explanation. We can also see that it was not altogether erroneous, when old women declared that all had not the gift to see the departed wandering about their graves; for it must have always been the sensitive alone who were able to perceive the light given out by the chemical action going on in the corpse. The author has thus, he hopes, succeeded in tearing down one of the most impenetrable barriers erected by dark ignorance and superstitious folly against the progress of natural truth.”
“(The reader will at once apply the above most remarkable experiments to the explanation of corpse-lights in churchyards, which were often visible to the gifted alone—to those who had the second-sight, for example. Many nervous or hysterical females must often have been alarmed by white, faintly-luminous objects in dark churchyards, to which objects fear has given a defined form. In this, as well as in numerous other points, which will force themselves on the attention of the careful reader of both works, Baron Reichenbach’s experiments illustrate the experiences of the Seeress of Prevorst.—W. G.)”[[1]]
That the flames here described may have originated in chemical action, is an opinion I have no intention of disputing; the fact may possibly be so; such a phenomenon has frequently been observed hovering over coffins and decomposing flesh: but I confess I can not perceive the slightest grounds for the assertion that it was the ignorance, fear, and superstition, of Billing, who was an evangelical clergyman, that caused him to dress up this vaporous light in a human form and supply it with members, &c. In the first place, I see no proof adduced that Billing was either ignorant or superstitious, or even afraid—the feelings he complained of appearing to be rather physical than moral; and it must be a weak person indeed, who, in company with another, could be excited to such a freak of the imagination. It is easily comprehensible that that which appeared only a luminous vapor by day, might, when reflected on a darker atmosphere, present a defined form; and the suggestion of this possibility might lead to some curious speculations with regard to a mystery called the palinganesia, said to have been practised by some of the chemists and alchemists of the sixteenth century.
Gaffarillus, in his book, entitled “Curiosités Inouies,” published in 1650, when speaking on the subject of talismans, signatures, &c., observes that, since in many instances the plants used for these purposes were reduced to ashes, and no longer retained their form, their efficacy, which depended on their figure, should inevitably be destroyed; but this, he says, is not the case, since, by an admirable potency existing in nature, the form, though invisible, is still retained in the ashes. This, he observes, may appear strange to those who have never attended to the subject; but he asserts that an account of the experiment will be found in the works of Mr. Du Chesne, one of the best chemists of the period, who had been shown, by a Polish physician at Cracow, certain vials containing ashes, which, when duly heated, exhibited the forms of various plants. A small obscure cloud was first observed, which gradually took on a defined form, and presented to the eye a rose, or whatever plant or flower the ashes consisted of. Mr. Du Chesne, however, had never been able to repeat the experiment, though he had made several unsuccessful attempts to do so; but at length he succeeded, by accident, in the following manner: Having for some purpose extracted the salts from some burnt nettles, and having left the ley outside the house all night, to cool, in the morning he found it frozen; and, to his surprise, the form and figure of the nettles were so exactly represented on the ice, that the living plant could not be more perfect. Delighted at this discovery, he summoned Mr. De Luynes, parliamentary councillor, to behold this curiosity; whence, he says, they both concluded that, when a body dies, its form or figure still resides in its ashes.
Kircher, Vallemont, Digby, and others, are said to have practised this art of resuscitating the forms of plants from their ashes and at the meeting of naturalists at Stuttgard, in 1834, a Swiss savant seems to have revived the subject, and given a receipt for the experiment, extracted from a work by Oetinger, called “Thoughts on the Birth and Generation of Things.”—“The earthly husk,” says Oetinger, “remains in the retort, while the volatile essence ascends, like a spirit, perfect in form, but void of substance.”
But Oetinger also records another discovery of this description, which, he says, he fell upon unawares. A woman having brought him a large bunch of balm, he laid it under the tiles, which were yet warm with the summer’s heat, where it dried in the shade. But, it being in the month of September, the cold soon came, and contracted the leaves, without expelling the volatile salts. They lay there till the following June, when he chopped up the balm, put it into a glass retort, poured rain-water upon it, and placed a receiver above. He afterward heated it till the water boiled, and then increased the heat—whereupon there appeared on the water a coat of yellow oil, about the thickness of the back of a knife, and this oil shaped itself into the forms of innumerable balm-leaves, which did not run one into another, but remained perfectly distinct and defined, and exhibited all the marks that are seen in the leaves of the plant. Oetinger says he kept the fluid some time, and showed it to a number of people. At length, wishing to throw it away, he shook it, and the leaves ran into one another with the disturbance of the oil, but resumed their distinct shape again as soon as it was at rest, the fluid form retaining the perfect signature.
Now, how far these experiments are really practicable, I can not say; their not being repeated, or not being repeated successfully, is no very decided argument against their possibility, as all persons acquainted with the annals of chemistry well know; but there is certainly a curious coincidence between these details and the experience of Billing, where it is to be observed that, according to his account—and what right have we to dispute it?—the figure, after being disturbed by Pfeffel, always resumed its original form. The same peculiarity has been observed with respect to some apparitions, where the spectator has been bold enough to try the experiment. In a letter to Dr. Bentley, from the Rev. Thomas Wilkins, curate of Warblington, in Hampshire, written in the year 1695, wherein he gives an account of an apparition which haunted the parsonage-house, and which he himself and several other persons had seen, he particularly mentions that, thinking it might be some fellow hid in the room, he put his arm out to feel it, and his hand seemingly went through the body of it, and felt no manner of substance, until it reached the wall. “Then I drew back my hand, but still the apparition was in the same place.”
Yet this spectre did not appear above or near a grave, but moved from place to place, and gave considerable annoyance to the inhabitants of the rectory.
With respect to the lights over the graves, sufficing to account for the persuasion regarding what are called corpse-candles, they certainly, up to a certain point, afford a very satisfactory explanation, but that explanation does not comprehend the whole of the mystery; for most of those persons who have professed to see corpse-candles, have also asserted that they were not always stationary over the graves, but sometimes moved from place to place, as in the following instance, related to me by a gentleman who assured me that he received the account from the person who witnessed the phenomenon. Now, this last fact—I mean the locomotion of the lights—will, of course, be disputed; but so was their existence: yet they exist, for all that, and may travel from place to place, for anything we know to the contrary.