I observed in a former chapter, while speaking of wraiths, now very desirable it would be to ascertain whether the phenomenon takes place before or after the dissolution of the bond between soul and body: I have since received the most entire satisfaction on that head, so far as the establishing the fact that it does sometimes occur after the dissolution. Three cases have been presented to me, from the most undoubted authority, in which the wraith was seen at intervals varying from one to three days after the decease of the person whose image it was; very much complicating the difficulty of that theory which considers these phenomena the result of an interaction, wherein the vital principle of one person is able to influence another within its sphere, and thus make the organs of that other the subjects of its will—a magical power, by the way, which far exceeds that which we possess over our own organs. There is here, however, where death has taken place, no living organism to produce the effect, and the phenomenon becomes, therefore, purely subjective—a mere spectral illusion, attended by a coincidence, or else the influence is that of the disembodied spirit; and those who will take the trouble of investigating this subject will find that the number of these coincidences would violate any theory of probabilities, to a degree that precludes the acceptance of that explanation. I do not see, therefore, on what we are to fall back, except it be the willing agency of the released spirit, unless we suppose that the operation of the will of the dying person travelled so slowly, that it did not take effect till a day or two after it was exerted—an hypothesis too extravagant to be admitted.
Dr. Passavent, whose very philosophical work on this occult department of nature is well worth attention, considers the fact of these appearances far too well established to be disputed; and he enters into some curious disquisitions with regard to what the Germans call far-working, or the power of acting on bodies at a distance without any sensible conductor, instancing the case of a gymnotus, which was kept alive for four months in Stockholm, and which, when urged by hunger, could kill fish at a distance without contact, adding that it rarely miscalculated the amount of the shock necessary to its purpose. These and all such effects are attributed by this school of physiologists to the supposed imponderable—the nervous ether I have elsewhere mentioned—which Dr. Passavent conceives, in cases of somnambulism, certain sicknesses, and the approach of death, to be less closely united to its material conductors, the nerves, and therefore capable of being more or less detached, and acting at a distance, especially on those with whom relationship, friendship, or love, establishes a rapport, or polarity; and he observes that intervening substances or distance can no more impede this agency than they do the agency of mineral magnetism. And he considers that we must here seek for the explanation of those curious so-called coincidences of pictures falling, and clocks and watches stopping, at the moment of a death, which we frequently find recorded.
With respect to the wraiths, he observes that the more the ether is freed, as by trance or the immediate approach of death, the more easily the soul sets itself in rapport with distant persons; and that thus it either acts magically, so that the seer perceives the real actual body of the person that is acting upon him, or else that he sees the ethereal body, which presents the perfect form of the fleshly one, and which, while the organic life proceeds, can be momentarily detached and appear elsewhere; and this ethereal body he holds to be the fundamental form, of which the external body is only the copy, or husk.
I confess, I much prefer this theory of Dr. Passavent’s, which seems to me to go very much to the root of the matter. We have here the “spiritual body” of St. Paul, and the “nerve-spirit” of the somnambulists, and their magical effects are scarcely more extraordinary, if properly considered, than their agency on our own material bodies. It is this ethereal body which obeys the intelligent spirit within, and which is the intermediate agent between the spirit and the fleshly body. We here find the explanation of wraiths, while persons are in trance, or deep sleep, or comatose, this ethereal body can be detached and appear elsewhere; and I think there can be no great difficulty for those who can follow us so far, to go a little further, and admit that this ethereal body must be indestructible, and survive the death of the material one; and that it may, therefore, not only become visible to us under given circumstances, but that it may, also, produce effects bearing some similarity to those it was formerly capable of, since, in acting on our bodies during life, it is already acting on a material substance in a manner so incomprehensible to us, that we might well apply the word magical when speaking of it, were it not that custom has familiarized us to the marvel.
It is to be observed, that this idea of a spiritual body is one that pervaded all Christendom in the earlier and purer ages of Christianity, before priestcraft—and by priestcraft I mean the priestcraft of all denominations—had overshadowed and obscured, by its various sectarian heresies, the pure teaching of Jesus Christ.
Dr. Ennemoser mentions a curious instance of this actio in distans, or far-working. It appears that Van Helmont having asserted that it was possible for a man to extinguish the life of an animal by the eye alone (oculis intentis), Rousseau, the naturalist, repeated the experiment, when in the East, and in this manner killed several toads; but on a subsequent occasion, while trying the same experiment at Lyons, the animal, on finding it could not escape, fixed its eyes immovably on him, so that he fell into a fainting fit, and was thought to be dead. He was restored by means of theriacum and viper powder—a truly homeopathic remedy! However, we here probably see the origin of the universal popular persuasion, that there is some mysterious property in the eye of a toad; and also of the so called, superstition of the evil eye.
A very remarkable circumstance occurred some years ago, at Kirkaldy, when a person, for whose truth and respectability I can vouch, was living in the family of a Colonel M——, at that place. The house they inhabited was at one extremity of the town, and stood in a sort of paddock. One evening when Colonel M—— had dined out, and there was nobody at home but Mrs. M——, her son (a boy about twelve years old), and Ann the maid (my informant), Mrs. M—— called the latter, and directed her attention to a soldier, who was walking backward and forward in the drying ground, behind the house, where some linen was hanging on the lines. She said she wondered what he could be doing there, and bade Ann fetch in the linen, lest he should purloin any of it. The girl, fearing he might be some ill-disposed person, felt afraid; Mrs. M——, however, promising to watch from the window, that nothing happened to her, she went; but still apprehensive of the man’s intentions, she turned her back toward him, and hastily pulling down the linen, she carried it into the house; he continuing his walk the while, as before, taking no notice of her whatever. Ere long the colonel returned, and Mrs. M—— lost no time in taking him to the window to look at the man, saying she could not conceive what he could mean by walking backward and forward there all that time; whereupon Ann added, jestingly, “I think it’s a ghost, for my part!” Colonel M—— said “he would soon see that,” and calling a large dog that was lying in the room, and accompanied by the little boy, who begged to be permitted to go also, he stepped out and approached the stranger; when, to his surprise, the dog, which was an animal of high courage, instantly flew back, and sprung through the glass-door, which the colonel had closed behind him, shivering the panes all around.
The colonel, meantime, advanced and challenged the man, repeatedly, without obtaining any answer or notice whatever, till, at length, getting irritated, he raised a weapon with which he had armed himself, telling him he “must speak or take the consequences,” when, just as he was preparing to strike, lo! there was nobody there! The soldier had disappeared, and the child sunk senseless to the ground. Colonel M—— lifted the boy in his arms, and as he brought him into the house, he said to the girl, “You are right, Ann; it was a ghost!” He was exceedingly impressed with this circumstance, and much regretted his own behavior, and also the having taken the child with him, which he thought had probably prevented some communication that was intended. In order to repair, if possible, these errors, he went out every night, and walked on that spot for some time, in hopes the apparition would return. At length he said that he had seen and conversed with it; but the purport of the conversation he would never communicate to any human being, not even to his wife. The effect of this occurrence on his own character was perceptible to everybody that knew him. He became grave and thoughtful, and appeared like one who had passed through some strange experience. The above-named Ann H——, from whom I have the account, is now a middle-aged woman. When the circumstance occurred, she was about twenty years of age. She belongs to a highly-respectable family, and is, and always has been, a person of unimpeachable character and veracity.
In this instance, as in several others I meet with, the animal had a consciousness of the nature of the appearance, while the persons around him had no suspicion of anything unusual. In the following singular case we must conclude that attachment counteracted this instinctive apprehension. A farmer in Argyleshire lost his wife, and a few weeks after her decease, as he and his son were crossing a moor, they saw her sitting on a stone, with their house-dog lying at her feet, exactly as he used to do when she was alive. As they approached the spot the woman vanished, and supposing the dog must be equally visionary, they expected to see him vanish, also; when, to their surprise, he rose and joined them, and they found it was actually the very animal of flesh and blood. As the place was at least three miles from any house, they could not conceive what could have taken him there. It was, probably, the influence of her will.
The power of will is a phenomenon that has been observed in all ages of the world, though of late years much less than at an earlier period; and, as it was then more frequently exerted for evil than good, it was looked upon as a branch of the art of black magic, while the philosophy of it being unknown, the devil was supposed to be the real agent, and the witch, or wizard, only his instrument. The profound belief in the existence of this art is testified by the twelve tables of Rome, as well as by the books of Moses, and those of Plato, &c. It is extremely absurd to suppose that all these statutes were enacted to suppress a crime which never existed: and, with regard to these witches and wizards, we must remember, as Dr. Ennemoser justly remarks, that the force of will has no relation to the strength or weakness of the body: witness the extraordinary feats occasionally performed by feeble persons under excitement, &c.; and, although these witches and wizards were frequently weak, decrepit people, they either believed in their own arts, or else that they had a friend or coadjutor in the devil, who was able and willing to aid them. They, therefore, did not doubt their own power, and they had the one great requisite, faith. To will and to believe, was the explanation given by the Marquis de Puységur of the cures he performed; and this unconsciously becomes the recipe of all such men as Greatrix, the Shepherd of Dresden, and many other wonder-workers, and hence we see why it is usually the humble, the simple and the child-like, the solitary, the recluse, nay, the ignorant, who exhibit traces of these occult faculties; for he who can not believe can not will, and the skepticism of the intellect disables the magician; and hence we say, also, wherefore, in certain parts of the world and in certain periods of its history, these powers and practices have prevailed. They were believed in because they existed; and they existed because they were believed in. There was a continued interaction of cause and effect—of faith and works. People who look superficially at these things, delight in saying that the more the witches were persecuted the more they abounded; and that when the persecution ceased we heard no more of them. Naturally, the more they were persecuted the more they believed in witchcraft and in themselves; when persecution ceased, and men in authority declared that there was no such thing as witchcraft or witches, they lost their faith, and with it that little sovereignty over nature that that faith had conquered.