This circumstance occurred in the year 1662, and is, as Dr. Hibbert observes, “one of the most interesting ghost-stories on record;” yet he insists on placing it under the category of spectral illusions, upon the plea that, let the physician (whose skill he arraigns) say what he would, her death within so short a period proves that she must have been indisposed at the time she saw the vision, and that probably “the languishing female herself might have unintentionally contributed to the more strict verification of the ghost’s prediction,” concluding with these words: “All that can be said of it is, that the coincidence was a fortunate one; for, without it, the story would probably never have met with a recorder,” &c., &c.
Now, I ask if this is a fair way of treating any fact, transmitted to us on authority which the objector himself admits to be perfectly satisfactory—more especially as the assistants on the occasion appear to have been quite as unwilling to believe in the supernatural interpretation of it as Dr. Hibbert could have been himself, had he been present; for what more could he have done than conclude the young lady to be mad, and bled her?—a line of practice which is precisely what would be followed at the present time, and which proves that they were very well aware of the sensuous illusions produced by a disordered state of the nervous system; and with respect to his conclusion that the “languishing female” contributed to the verification of the prediction, we are entitled to ask, where is the proof that she was languishing? A very clever watchmaker once told me that a watch may go perfectly well for years, and at length stop suddenly, in consequence of an organic defect in its construction, which only becomes perceptible, even to the eye of a watchmaker, when this effect takes place; and we do know that many persons have suddenly fallen dead immediately after declaring themselves in the best possible health: and we have therefore no right to dispute what the narrator implies, namely, that there were no sensible indications of the impending catastrophe.
There was either some organic defect or derangement in this lady’s physical economy, which rendered her death inevitable at the hour of noon, on that particular Thursday, or there was not. If there was, and her certain death was impending at that hour, how came she acquainted with the fact? Surely it is a monstrous assumption to say that it was “a fortunate coincidence,” when no reason whatever is given us for concluding that she felt otherwise than perfectly well! If, on the contrary, we are to take refuge in the supposition that there was no death impending, and that she only died of the fright, how came she—feeling perfectly well, and, in this case, we have a right to conclude being perfectly well—to be the subject of such an extraordinary spectral illusion? And if such spectral illusions can occur to people in a good normal state of health, does it not become very desirable to give us some clearer theory of them than we have at present?
But there is a third presumption to which the skeptical may have recourse, in order to get rid of this well-established, and therefore very troublesome fact, namely, that Miss Lee was ill, although unconscious of it herself, and indicating no symptoms that could guide her physician to an enlightened diagnosis; and that the proof of this is to be found in the occurrence of the spectral illusion; and that this spectral illusion so impressed her that it occasioned the precise fulfilment of the imaginary prediction—an hypothesis which appears to me to be pressing very hard on the spectral illusion; for it is first called upon to establish the fact of an existing indisposition of no slight character, of which neither patient nor physician was aware, and it is next required to kill the lady with unerring certainty, at the hour appointed, she being, according to the only authority we have for the story, in a perfectly calm and composed state of mind! for there is nothing to be discerned in the description of her demeanor but an entire and willing submission to the announced decree, accompanied by that pleasing exaltation, which appears to me perfectly natural under the circumstances; and I do not think that anything we know of human vitality can justify us in believing that life can be so easily extinguished. But to such straits people are reduced, who write with a predetermination to place their facts on a Procrustean bed till they have fitted them into their own cherished theory.
In the above-recorded case of Miss Lee, the motive for the visit is a sufficient one; but one of the commonest objections to such narrations, is the insignificance of the motive when any communication is made, or there being apparently no motive at all, when none is made. Where any previous attachment has subsisted, we need seek no further for an impelling cause; but in other cases this impelling cause must probably be sought in the earthly rapport still subsisting and the urgent desire of the spirit to manifest itself and establish a communication where its thoughts and affections still reside; and we must consider that, provided there be no law of God prohibiting its revisiting the earth, which law would of course supersede all other laws, then, as I have before observed, where its thoughts and affections are it must be also. What is it but our heavy material bodies that prevents us from being where our thoughts are? But the being near us, and the manifesting itself to us, are two very different things, the latter evidently depending on conditions we do not yet understand.
As I am not writing a book on vital magnetism, and there are so many already accessible to everybody who chooses to be informed on it, I shall not here enter into the subject of magnetic rapport, it being, I believe, now generally admitted, except by the most obstinate skeptics, that such a relation can be established between two human beings. In what this relation consists, is a more difficult question, but the most rational view appears to be that of a magnetic polarity, which is attempted to be explained by two theories—the dynamical and the ethereal, the one viewing the phenomena as simply the result of the transmission of forces, the other hypothetizing an ether which pervades all space and penetrates all substance, maintaining the connection between body and soul, and between matter and spirit. To most minds this latter hypothesis will be the most comprehensible; on which account, since the result would be the same in either case, we may adopt for the moment; and there will then be less difficulty in conceiving that the influence or ether of every being or thing, animate or inanimate, must extend beyond the periphery of its own terminations: and that this must be eminently the case where there is animal life, the nerves forming the readiest conductors for this supposed imponderable. The proofs of the existence of this ether are said to be manifold, and more especially to be found in the circumstances that every created thing sheds an atmosphere around it, after its kind; this atmosphere becoming, under certain conditions, perceptible or even visible, as in the instances of electric fish, &c., the fascinations of serpents, the influence of human beings upon plants, and vice versa; and finally, the phenomena of animal magnetism, and the undoubted fact, to which I myself can bear witness, that the most ignorant girls, when in a state of somnambulism, have been known to declare that they saw their magnetiser surrounded by a halo of light; and it is doubtless this halo of light, that, from their being strongly magnetic men, has frequently been observed to surround the heads of saints and eminently holy persons: the temperament that produced the internal fervor, causing the visible manifestation of it. By means of this ether, or force, a never-ceasing motion and an inter-communication are sustained between all created things, and between created things and their Creator, who sustains them and creates them ever anew, by the constant exertion of his Divine will, of which this is the messenger and the agent as it is between our will and our own bodies; and without this sustaining will, so exerted, the whole would fall away, dissolve, and die; for it is the life of the universe. That all inanimate objects emit an influence, greater or less, extending beyond their own peripheries, is established by their effects on various susceptible individuals, as well as on somnambules; and thus there exist a universal polarity and rapport, which are however stronger between certain organisms; and every being stands in a varying relation of positive and negative to every other.
With regard to these theories, however, where there is so much obscurity even in the language, I do not wish to insist; more especially as I am fully aware that this subject may be discussed in a manner much more congruous with the dynamical spirit of the philosophy of this century: but, in the meanwhile, as either of the causes alluded to is capable of producing the effects, we adopt the hypothesis of an all-pervading ether as the one most easily conceived.
Admitting this, then, to be the case, we begin to have some notion of the modus operandi by which a spirit may manifest itself to us, whether to our internal universal sense, or even to our sensuous organs; and we also find one stumbling-block removed out of our way, namely, that it shall be visible or even audible to one person and not to another, or at one time and not at another; for by means of this ether, or force, we are in communication with all spirit, as well as with all matter; and since it is the vehicle of will, a strong exertion of will may reinforce its influence to a degree far beyond our ordinary conceptions: but man is not acquainted with his own power, and has, consequently, no faith in his own will: nor is it probably the design of Providence, in ordinary cases, that he should. He can not therefore exert it; if he could, he “might remove mountains.” Even as it is, we know something of the power of will in its effect on other organisms, as exhibited by certain strong-willed individuals; also in popular movements; and more manifestly in the influence and far-working of the magnetizer on his patient. The power of will, like the seeing of the spirit, is latent in our nature, to be developed in God’s own time; but meanwhile, slight examples are found, shooting up here and there, to keep alive in man the consciousness that he is a spirit, and give evidence of his Divine origin.
What especial laws may appertain to this supersensuous domain of nature, of course we can not know, and it is therefore impossible for us to pronounce how far a spirit is free, or not free, at all times to manifest itself; and we can, therefore, at present, advance no reason for these manifestations not being the rule instead of the exception. The law which restrains more frequent intercourse may, for anything we know to the contrary, have its relaxations and its limitations, founded in nature; and a rapport with, or the power of acting on, particular individuals, may arise from causes of which we are equally ignorant. Undoubtedly, the receptivity of the corporeal being is one of the necessary conditions, while, on the part of the incorporeal, the will is at once the cause and the agent that produces the effect; while attachment, whether to individuals or to the lost joys of this world, is the motive. The happy spirits in whom this latter impulse is weak, and who would float away into the glorious light of the pure moral law, would have little temptation to return, and at least would only be brought back by their holy affections, or desire to serve mankind. The less happy, clinging to their dear corporeal life, would hover nearer to the earth; and I do question much whether the often-ridiculed idea of the mystics, that there is a moral weight, as well as a moral darkness, be not founded in truth. We know very well that even these substantial bodies of ours are, to our own sensations (and, very possibly, if the thing could be tested, would prove to be in fact), lighter or heavier, according to the lightness or heaviness of the spirit—terms used figuratively, but perhaps capable of a literal interpretation; and thus the common idea of up and down, as applied to heaven or hell, is founded in truth, though not mathematically correct, we familiarly using the words up and down to express farther or nearer, as regards the planet on which we live.
Experience seems to justify this view of the case; for, supposing the phenomena I am treating of to be facts, and not spectral illusions, all tradition shows that the spirits most frequently manifested to man have been evidently not in a state of bliss; while, when bright ones appeared it has been to serve him; and hence the old persuasion, that they were chiefly the wicked that haunted the earth, and hence, also, the foundation for the belief that not only the murderer but the murdered returned to vex the living, and the just view, that in taking away life the injury is not confined to the body, but extends to the surprised and angry soul, which is—