One of the most curious beliefs prevalent at the time was the belief in lycanthropy, that is, that certain individuals can, under certain conditions, change their bodily shape, and appear as animals to persons at a distance! Frequently this animal would be injured, in which case the person whom the animal represented would be found to be injured in the same way, and in exactly the same place. The witch in such cases would frequently be lying at home in bed in a trance state, while her "fluidic double," in the shape of the animal, would be roaming about "seeking whom he might devour." The following is a typical case, which I quote from Adolphe D'Assier's Posthumous Humanity, p. 261:
"A miller, named Bigot, had some reputation for sorcery. One day, when his wife rose very early to go and wash some linen not very far from the house, he tried to dissuade her, repeating to her several times, 'Do not go there; you will be frightened.' 'Why should I be frightened?' answered she. 'I tell you you will be frightened.' She made nothing of these threats, and departed. Hardly had she taken her place at the wash-tub before she saw an animal moving here and there about her. As it was not yet daylight she could not clearly make out its form, but she thought it was a kind of dog. Annoyed by these goings and comings, and not being able to scare it away, she threw at it her wooden clothes-beater, which struck it in the eye. The animal immediately disappeared. At the same moment the children of Bigot heard the latter utter a cry of pain from the bed, and add: 'Ah! the wretch! she has destroyed my eye.' From that day, in fact, he became one-eyed. Several persons told me this fact, and I have heard it from Bigot's children themselves."
How does our author attempt to account for such a fact as this? He says:
"It was certainly the double of the miller which projected itself while he was in bed and wandered about under an animal form. The wound which the animal received at once repercussed upon the eye of Bigot, just as we have seen the same thing happen in analogous cases of the projection of the double by sorcerers."
Without endorsing such a view of the case, it may be said that recent experiments have shown it to be less incredible than might at first appear. Thus: We read further:
"Innumerable facts, observed from antiquity to our own day, demonstrate in our being the existence of an internal reality—the internal man. Analysis of these different manifestations has permitted us to penetrate its nature. Externally it is the exact image of the person of whom it is the complement. Internally it reproduces the mould of all the organs which constitute the framework of the human body. We see it, in short, move, speak, take nourishment; perform, in a word, all the great functions of animal life. The extreme tenuity of these constituent molecules, which represent the last term of inorganic matter, allows it to pass through the walls and partitions of apartments. Hence the name of phantom, by which it is generally designated. Nevertheless, as it is united with the body from which it emanates by an invisible vascular plexus, it can, at will, draw to itself, by a sort of aspiration, the greater part of the living forces which animate the latter. One sees, then, by a singular inversion, life withdrawn from the body, which then exhibits a cadaverous rigidity, and transfers itself entirely to the phantom, which acquires consistency—sometimes even to the point of struggling with persons before whom it materializes. It is but exceptionally that it shows itself in connection with a living person. But as soon as death has snapped the bonds which attach it to our organism, it definitely separates itself from the human body and constitutes the posthumous phantom."
This interpretation of the facts, it will be seen, forms a sort of connecting link between apparitions, ghosts, materializations, vampirism, and witchcraft; it is also in accord with the statements of the theosophists as to the astral body, conforms with certain statements made through Mrs. Piper and others as to the fluidic or ethereal body, and accounts for many of the phenomena of "collective hallucination" and haunted houses. I am far from saying that I think such a theory proved, but it is at least consistent and plausible; it is also in accord with many facts, and explains them as no other theory can or does.
Colonel A. de Rochas, in his article on "Regression of Memory" (Annals of Psychical Science, July 1905), claimed that he had experimentally produced one of these doubles in a mesmerised subject. After several séances, and while the subject was in a deep trance, the following occurred:
"The astral body is now complete. M. de R. tries to make it rise, to send it into another room. The body is stopped in its journey by the ceiling and the walls. M. de R. tells Mayo to stretch towards him the astral right hand, and he pinches it; Mayo feels the pinch."