Not very many years ago, Mr. C——, a staid citizen of Edinburgh—whose son told me the story—was one day riding gently up Corstorphine hill, in the neighborhood of the city, when he observed an intimate friend of his own, on horseback also, immediately behind him; so he slackened his pace to give him an opportunity of joining company. Finding he did not come up so quickly as he should, he looked round again, and was astonished at no longer seeing him, since there was no side road into which he could have disappeared. He returned home, perplexed at the oddness of the circumstance, when the first thing he learned was that during his absence this friend had been killed, by his horse falling, in Candlemaker’s row.
I have heard of another circumstance, which occurred some years ago in Yorkshire, where, I think, a farmer’s wife was seen to ride into a farm-yard on horseback, but could not be afterward found, or the thing accounted for, till it was ascertained that she had died at that period.
There are very extraordinary stories extant in all countries, of persons being annoyed by appearances in the shape of different animals, which one would certainly be much disposed to give over altogether to the illusionists; though, at the same time, it is very difficult to reduce some of the circumstances under that theory—especially one mentioned page 307 of my “Translation of the Seeress of Prevorst.” If they are not illusions, they are phenomena, to be attributed either to this plastic power, or to that magico-magnetic influence in which the belief in lycanthropy and other strange transformations have originated. The multitudes of unaccountable stories of this description recorded in the witch-trials, have long furnished a subject of perplexity to everybody who was sufficiently just to human nature to conclude, that there must have been some strange mystery at the bottom of an infatuation that prevailed so universally, and in which so many sensible, honest, and well-meaning persons were involved. Till of late years, when some of the arcana of animal or vital magnetism have been disclosed to us, it was impossible for us to conceive by what means such strange conceptions could prevail; but since we now know, and many of us have witnessed, that all the senses of a patient are frequently in such subjection to his magnetiser, that they may be made to convey any impressions to the brain that magnetiser wills, we can without much difficulty conceive how this belief in the power of transformation took its rise; and we also know how a magician could render himself visible or invisible at pleasure. I have seen the sight or hearing of a patient taken away, and restored by Mr. Spencer Hall in a manner that could leave no doubt on the mind of the beholder—the evident paralysis of the eye of the patient testifying to the fact. Monsieur Eusèbe Salverte, the most determined of rationalistic skeptics, admits that we have numerous testimonies to the existence of an art, which he confesses himself at some loss to explain, although the opposite quarters from which the accounts of it reach us, render it difficult to imagine that the historians have copied each other. The various transformations of the gods into eagles, bulls, &c., have been set down as mere mythological fables; but they appear to have been founded on an art, known in all quarters of the world, which enabled the magician to take on a form that was not his own, so as to deceive his nearest and dearest friends. In the history of Gengis Khan, there is mention of a city which he conquered—“in which dwelt,” says Suidas, “certain men, who possessed the secret of surrounding themselves with deceptive appearances, insomuch that they were able to represent themselves to the eyes of people quite different to what they really were.” Saxo Grammaticus, in speaking of the traditions connected with the religion of Odin, says that “the magi were very expert in the art of deceiving the eyes, being able to assume, and even to enable others to assume, the forms of various objects, and to conceal their real aspects under the most attractive appearances.”
John of Salisbury, who seems to have drawn his information from sources now lost, says that Mercury, the most expert of magicians, had the art of fascinating the eyes of men to such a degree as to render people invisible, or make them appear in forms quite different to what they really bore. We also learn from an eye-witness that Simon, the magician, possessed the secret of making another person resemble him so perfectly that every eye was deceived. Pomponius Mela affirms that the druidesses of the island of Sena could transform themselves into any animal they chose, and Proteus has become a proverb by his numerous metamorphoses.
Then, to turn to another age and another hemisphere, we find Joseph Acosta, who resided a long time in Peru, assuring us that there existed at that period magicians who had the power of assuming any form they chose. He relates that the predecessor of Montezuma, having sent to arrest a certain chief, the latter successively transformed himself into an eagle, a tiger, and an immense serpent; and so eluded the envoys, till, having consented to obey the king’s mandate, he was carried to court and instantly executed.
The same perplexing exploits are confidently attributed to the magicians of the West Indies; and there were two men eminent among the natives, the one called Gomez and the other Gonzalez, who possessed this art in an eminent degree; but both fell victims to the practice of it, being shot during the period of their apparent transformations.
It is also recorded that Nanuk, the founder of the Sikhs—who are not properly a nation, but a religious sect—was violently opposed by the Hindoo zealots; and at one period of his career, when he visited Vatala, the Yogiswaras—who were recluses, that, by means of corporeal mortifications, were supposed to have acquired command over the powers of nature—were so enraged against him, that they strove to terrify him by their enchantments, assuming the shapes of tigers and serpents. But they could not succeed, for Nanuk appears to have been a real philosopher, who taught a pure theism, and inculcated universal peace and toleration. His tenets, like the tenets of the founders of all religions, have been since corrupted by his followers. We can scarcely avoid concluding that the power by which these feats were performed is of the same nature as that by which a magnetiser persuades his patient that the water he drinks is beer, or the beer wine; and the analogy between it and that by which I have supposed a spirit to present himself, with such accompaniments as he desires, to the eye of a spectator, is evident. In those instances where female figures are seen with children in their arm, the appearance of the child we must suppose to be produced in this manner.
Spirits of darkness, however, can not, as I have before observed, appear as spirits of light; the moral nature can not be disguised. On one occasion, when Frederica Hauffe asked a spirit if he could appear in what form he pleased, he answered “No”—that if he had lived as a brute, he should appear as a brute: “as our dispositions are, so we appear to you.”
This plastic power is exhibited in those instances I have related, where the figure appeared dripping with water, indicating the kind of death that had been suffered; and also in such cases as that of Sir Robert H. E——, where the apparition showed a wound in his breast. There are a vast number of similar ones on record in all countries;—but I will here mention one which I received from the lips of a member of the family concerned, wherein one of the trivial actions of life was curiously represented.
Miss L—— lived in the country with her three brothers, to whom she was much attached, as they were to her. These young men, who amused themselves all the morning with their out-door pursuits, were in the habit of coming to her apartment most days before dinner, and conversing with her till they were summoned to the dining-room. One day, when two of them had joined her as usual, and they were chatting cheerfully over the fire, the door opened, and the third came in, crossed the room, entered an adjoining one, took off his boots, and then, instead of sitting down beside them as usual, passed again through the room, went out, leaving the door open, and they saw him ascend the stairs toward his own chamber, whither they concluded he was gone to change his dress. These proceedings had been observed by the whole party: they saw him enter—saw him take off his boots—saw him ascend the stairs,—continuing the conversation, without the slightest suspicion of anything extraordinary. Presently afterward the dinner was announced; and as this young man did not make his appearance, the servant was desired to let him know they were waiting for him. The servant answered that he had not come in yet; but, being told that he would find him in his bed-room, he went up stairs to call him. He was, however, not there nor in the house; nor were his boots to be found where he had been seen to take them off. While they were yet wondering what could have become of him, a neighbor arrived to break the news to the family that their beloved brother had been killed while hunting, and that the only wish he expressed was that he could live to see his sister once more.