| [2] | Since the above was penned, I find from the account of Dr. Cheyne, who attended him, that Colonel Townshend’s own way of describing the phenomenon to which he was subject, was, that he “could die, or expire, when he pleased; and yet, by an effort or somehow, he could come to life again.” He performed the experiment in the presence of three medical men, one of whom kept his hand on his heart, another held his wrist, and the third placed a looking-glass before his lips; and they found that all traces of respiration and pulsation gradually ceased, insomuch that, after consulting about his condition for some time, they were leaving the room, persuaded that he was really dead, when signs of life appeared and he slowly revived. He did not die while repeating this experiment, as has been sometimes stated. This reviving “by an effort or somehow,” seems to be better explained by the hypothesis I have suggested, than by any other—namely, that, as in the case of Mr. Holloway (mentioned on page 120), his spirit, or soul, was released from his body, but a sufficient rapport was maintained to reunite them. |
CHAPTER VII.
WRAITHS.
Such instances as that of Lady Fanshawe, and other similar ones, certainly seem to favor the hypothesis that the spirit is freed from the body when the latter becomes no longer a fit habitation for it. It does so when actual death supervenes, and the reason of its departure we may naturally conclude to be, that the body has ceased to be available for its manifestations; and in these cases, which seem so nearly allied to death, that frequently there would actually be no revival but for the exertions used, it does not seem very difficult to conceive that this separation may take place. When we are standing by a death-bed, all we see is the death of the body—of the going forth of the spirit we see nothing: so, in cases of apparent death, it may depart and return, while we are aware of nothing but the reanimation of the organism. Certain it is, that the Scriptures countenance this view of the case in several instances; thus, Luke says, viii. 34: “And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, ‘Maid, arise!’ And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway,” &c., &c.
Dr. Wigan observes, when speaking of the effects of temporary pressure on the brain, that the mind is not annihilated, because, if the pressure is timely removed, it is restored, though, if continued too long, the body will be resolved into its primary elements: and he compares the human organism to a watch, which we can either stop or set going at will—which watch, he says, will also be gradually resolved into its original elements by chemical action; and he adds that, to ask where the mind is, during the interruption, is like asking where the motion of the watch is. I think a wind-instrument would be a better simile, for the motion of the watch is purely mechanical. It requires no informing, intelligent spirit to breathe into its apertures, and make it the vehicle of the harshest discords, or of the most eloquent discourses. “The divinely mysterious essence, which we call the soul,” he adds, “is not, then, the mind, from which it must be carefully distinguished, if we would hope to make any progress in mental philosophy. Where the soul resides during the suspension of the mental powers by asphyxia, I know not, any more than I know where it resided before it was united with that specific compound of bones, muscles, and nerve.”
By a temporary pressure on the brain, the mind is certainly not annihilated, but its manifestations by means of the brain are suspended—the source of these manifestations being the soul, or anima, in which dwells the life, fitting the temple for its divine inhabitant, the spirit. The connection of the soul and the body is probably a much more intimate one than that of the latter with the spirit,—though the soul, as well as the spirit, is immortal, and survives when the body dies. Somnambulic persons seem to intimate that the soul of the fleshly body becomes hereafter the body of the spirit, as if the imago or idolon were the soul.
Dr. Wigan and indeed psychologists in general do not appear to recognise the old distinction between the pneuma, or anima, and the psyches—the soul and the spirit; and, indeed, the Scriptures occasionally seem to use the terms indifferently. But still there are passages enough which mark the distinction; as where St. Paul speaks of a “living soul and a quickening spirit:” 1 Cor. xv. 45;—again, 1 Thess. v. 23: “I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body,” &c.;—and also Heb. iv. 12, where he speaks of the sword of God “dividing asunder the soul and spirit.” In Genesis, chap. ii., we are told that “man became a living soul;” but it is distinctly said, 1 Cor. xii., that the gifts of prophecy, the discerning of spirits, &c., &c., belong to the spirit. Then, with regard to the possibility of the spirit absenting itself from the body, St. Paul says, in referring to his own vision—2 Cor. xii.—“I knew a man in Christ, about fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I can not tell; or out of the body, I can not tell: God knoweth); such a one caught up to the third heaven:” and we are told, also, that to be “absent from the body is to be present with the Lord;” and that when we are “at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.” We are told, also, “the spirit returns to God, who gave it;” but it depends on ourselves whether or not our souls shall perish. We must suppose, however, that even in the worst cases, some remnant of this divine spirit remains with the soul as long as the latter is not utterly perverted and rendered incapable of salvation.
St. John also says, that when he prophesied, he was in the spirit; but it was the “souls of the slain” that he saw, and that “cried with a loud voice,” &c., &c.; souls, here, being probably used in the sense of individuals,—as we say, so many “souls perished by shipwreck,” &c.
In the Revue de Paris, 29th July, 1838, it is related that a child saw the soul of a woman, who was lying insensible in a magnetic crisis in which death nearly ensued, depart out of her; and I find recorded in another work that a somnambule, who was brought to give advice to a patient, said: “It is too late—her soul is leaving her: I see the vital flame quitting her brain.”