The story related to me, or a similar instance, is, I think, mentioned by Mrs. Grant; but it was to the effect that a minister, newly inducted in his curé, was standing one evening leaning over the wall of the churchyard which adjoined the manse, when he observed a light hovering over a particular spot. Supposing it to be somebody with a lantern, he opened the wicket and went forward to ascertain who it might be; but before he reached the spot, the light moved onward; and he followed, but could see nobody. It did not rise far from the ground, but advanced rapidly across the road, entered a wood, and ascended a hill, till it at length disappeared at the door of a farmhouse. Unable to comprehend of what nature this light could be, the minister was deliberating whether to make inquiries at the house or return, when it appeared again, seeming to come out of the house, accompanied by another, passed him, and, going over the same ground, they both disappeared on the spot where he had first observed the phenomenon. He left a mark on the grave by which he might recognise it, and the next day inquired of the sexton whose it was. The man said it belonged to a family that lived up the hill (indicating the house the light had stopped at), named M’D——, but that it was a considerable time since any one had been buried there. The minister was extremely surprised to learn, in the course of the day, that a child of that family had died of scarlet fever on the preceding evening.
With respect to the class of phenomena accompanied by this phosphorescent light, I shall have more to say by-and-by. The above will appear a very incredible story to many people, and there was a time that it would have appeared equally so to myself; but I have met with so much strange corroborative evidence, that I no longer feel myself entitled to reject it. I asked the gentleman who told me the story, whether he believed it; he said that he could not believe in anything of the sort. I then inquired if he would accept the testimony of that minister on any other question, and he answered, “Most assuredly.” As, however, I shall have occasion to recur to this subject in a subsequent chapter, I will leave it aside for the present, and relate some of the facts which led me to the consideration of the above theories and experiments.
Dr. S—— relates that a Madame T——, in Prussia, dreamed, on the 16th of March, 1832, that the door opened, and her god-father, Mr. D——, who was much attached to her, entered the room, dressed as he usually was when prepared for church on Sundays; and that, knowing him to be in bad health, she asked him what he was doing abroad at such an early hour, and whether he was quite well again. Whereupon, he answered that he was; and, being about to undertake a very long journey, he had come to bid her farewell, and to intrust her with a commission, which was, that she would deliver a letter he had written to his wife; but accompanying it with an injunction that she (the wife) was not to open it till that day four years, when he would return himself, precisely at five o’clock in the morning, to fetch the answer, till which period he charged her not to break the seal. He then handed her a letter, sealed with black, the writing on which shone through the paper, so that she (the dreamer) was able to perceive that it contained an announcement to Mrs. D——, the wife, with whom, on account of the levity of her character, he had long lived unhappily, that she would die at that time four years.
At this moment, the sleeper was awakened by what appeared to her a pressure of the hand; and, feeling an entire conviction that this was something more than an ordinary dream, she was not surprised to learn that her god-father was dead. She related the dream to Madame D——, omitting, however, to mention the announcement contained in the letter, which she thought the dream plainly indicated was not to be communicated. The widow laughed at the story, soon resumed her gay life, and married again. In the winter of 1835-’6, however, she was attacked by an intermittent fever, on which occasion Dr. S—— was summoned to attend her. After various vicissitudes, she finally sunk; and, on the 16th of March, 1836, exactly at five o’clock in the morning, she suddenly started up in her bed, and, fixing her eyes apparently on some one she saw standing at the foot, she exclaimed: “What are you come for? God be gracious to me! I never believed it!” She then sank back, closed her eyes, which she never opened again, and, in a quarter of an hour afterward, expired very calmly.
A friend of mine, Mrs. M——, a native of the West Indies, was at Blair Logie at the period of the death of Dr. Abercrombie, in Edinburgh, with whom she was extremely intimate. Dr. A. died quite suddenly, without any previous indisposition, just as he was about to go out in his carriage, at 11 o’clock on a Thursday morning. On the night between the Thursday and Friday, Mrs. M—— dreamed that she saw the family of Dr. A. all dressed in white, dancing a solemn funereal dance; upon which she awoke, wondering that she should have dreamed a thing so incongruous, since it was contrary to their custom to dance on any occasion. Immediately afterward, while speaking to her maid who had come to call her, she saw Dr. Abercrombie against the wall, with his jaw fallen, and a livid countenance, mournfully shaking his head as he looked at her. She passed the day in great uneasiness, and wrote to inquire for the doctor, relating what had happened, and expressing her certainty that he was dead; the letter was seen by several persons in Edinburgh on the day of its arrival.
The two following cases seem rather to belong to what is called, in the east, second hearing,—although sympathy was probably the exciting cause of the phenomena. A lady and gentleman in Berwickshire were awakened one night by a loud cry, which they both immediately recognised to proceed from the voice of their son, who was then absent and at a considerable distance. Tidings subsequently reached them, that exactly at that period their son had fallen overboard and was drowned. On another occasion, in Perthshire, a person aroused her husband one night, saying that their son was drowned, for she had been awakened by the splash. Her presentiment also proved too well founded, the young man having fallen from the mast-head of the ship. In both cases, we may naturally conclude that the thoughts of the young men, at the moment of the accident, would rush homeward; and, admitting Dr. Ennemoser’s theory of polarity, the passive sleepers became the recipients of the force. I confess, however, that the opinions of another section of philosophers appear to me to be more germain to the matter; although, to many persons, they will doubtless be difficult of acceptance, from their appertaining to those views commonly called mystical.
These psychologists then believe, as did Socrates and Plato, and others of the ancients, that in certain conditions of the body, which conditions may arise naturally, or be produced artificially, the links which unite it with the spirit may be more or less loosened; and that the latter may thus be temporarily disjoined from the former, and so enjoy a foretaste of its future destiny. In the lowest or first degree of this disunion, we are awake, though scarcely conscious, while the imagination is vivified to an extraordinary amount, and our fancy supplies images almost as lively as the realities. This probably is the temporary condition of inspired poets and eminent discoverers.
Sleep is considered another stage of this disjunction; and the question has ever been raised whether, when the body is in profound sleep, the spirit is not altogether free and living in another world, while the organic life proceeds as usual, and sustains the temple till the return of its inhabitant. Without at present attempting to support or refute this doctrine, I will only observe, that once admitting the possibility of the disunion, all consideration of time must be set aside as irrelevant to the question; for spirit, freed from matter, must move with the rapidity of thought;—in short, a spirit must be where its thoughts and affections are.
It is the opinion of these psychologists, however, that in the normal and healthy condition of man, the union of body, soul, and spirit, is most complete, and that all the degrees of disunion in the waking state are degrees of morbid derangement. Hence it is that somnambulists and clairvoyants are chiefly to be found among sickly women. There have been persons who have appeared to possess a power which they could exert at will, whereby they withdrew from their bodies, these remaining during the absence of the spirit in a state of catalepsy, scarcely if at all to be distinguished from death.
I say withdrew from their bodies, assuming that to be the explanation of the mystery; for, of course, it is but an assumption. Epimenides is recorded to have possessed this faculty; and Hermotinus, of Clazomenes, is said to have wandered, in spirit, over the world, while his body lay apparently dead. At length his wife, taking advantage of this absence of his soul, burned his body and thus intercepted its return: so say Lucien and Pliny the elder;—and Varro relates, that the eldest of two brothers, named Corfidius, being supposed to die, his will was opened and preparations were made for his funeral by the other brother, who was declared his heir. In the meantime, however, Corfidius revived, and told the astonished attendants, whom he summoned by clapping his hands, that he had just come from his younger brother, who had committed his daughter to his care, and informed him where he had buried some gold, requesting that the funeral preparations he had made might be converted to his own use. Immediately afterward, the news arrived that the younger brother was unexpectedly deceased, and the gold was found at the place indicated. The last appears to have been a case of natural trance; but the two most remarkable instances of voluntary trance I have met with in modern times is that of Colonel Townshend, and the dervish who allowed himself to be buried. With regard to the former, he could, to all appearance, die whenever he pleased; his heart ceased to beat; there was no perceptible respiration; and his whole frame became cold and rigid as death itself; the features being shrunk and colorless, and the eyes glazed and ghastly. He would continue in this state for several hours and then gradually revive; but the revival does not appear to have been an effort of will—or rather, we are not informed whether it was so or not. Neither are we told whether he brought any recollections back with him, nor how this strange faculty was first developed or discovered—all very important points, and well worthy of investigation.[[2]]